SES.KI, or Nanna (Sumerian: ๐ญ๐๐ Template:Lang) was the god of the moon in the Mesopotamian mythology of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia. Nanna is a Sumerian deity, the son of Enlil and Ninlil. The two chief seats of Nanna's/Sin's worship were Ur in the south of Mesopotamia and Harran in the north.
Enlil and Ninlil[]
The Sumerian โEnlil and Ninlilโ[1] tells of the descent of Enlil and Ninlil, pregnant with Nanna/Sin, into the underworld. There, three "substitutions" are given to allow the ascent of Nanna/Sin. The story shows some similarities to the text known as "The Descent of Inanna".
The earliest spelling found in Ur and Uruk is DLAK-32.NA (where NA is to be understood as a phonetic complement). The name of Ur, spelled (cuneiform: ๐๐๐ ) LAK-32.UNUGKI=URIM2KI, is itself derived from the theonym, and means "the abode (UNUG) of Nanna (LAK-32)". He was also the father of Ishkur.
The pre-classical sign LAK-32 later collapses with ล Eล (the ideogram for "brother"), and the classical Sumerian spelling is Dล Eล .KI, with the phonetic reading na-an-na. The technical term for the crescent moon could also refer to the deity, (cuneiform: ๐ญ๐๐ฌ DU4.SAKAR). Later, the name is spelled logographically as DNANNA.
Sin[]
Sin had a beard made of lapis lazuli and rode on a winged bull. The bull was one of his symbols, through his father, Enlil, "Bull of Heaven", along with the crescent and the tripod (which may be a lamp-stand). On cylinder seals, he is represented as an old man with a flowing beard and the crescent symbol. In the astral-theological system he is represented by the number 30 and the moon. This number probably refers to the average number of days (correctly around 29.53) in a lunar month, as measured between successive new moons.