Ilaba

Ilaba was a Mesopotamian god. He is best attested as the tutelary deity of the kings of the Akkadian Empire, and functioned both as their personal god and as the city god of Akkad. Textual sources indicate he was a warlike deity, frequently described as armed with a mace. Whether he was understood as a fully independent deity or as a deified ancestor, as well as his proposed connection to the similarly named Ugaritic ancestral deity Ilib, remain a matter of dispute among researchers. He is not mentioned in any sources predating the reign of Sargon of Akkad. After the end of the Akkadian Empire, he continued to be worshiped in various cities in Mesopotamia, for example Mari, and in the Old Babylonian period he became the tutelary deity of the rulers of the Kingdom of Ḫana. He also continued to appear in literary texts describing the feats of Akkadian rulers and in god lists.

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