Mesopotamian

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Mesopotamian

Gula

The Goddess of Healing

Domain: Healing & Medicine
Alignment: Neutral Good
Element: Light
Relics of Power: Scalpel and Sacred Herbs

Speak with Gula

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Sumerians, Akkadians & Babylonians

Region

Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)

Period

c. 3500 – 500 BC

The Mesopotamian gods were worshipped by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of writing and cities. Each city raised a ziggurat to its patron god, served by a powerful priestly caste. Their myths, such as the Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh, are among the oldest in the world.

The Akitu festival opened the new year with processions along Babylon's Sacred Way, and the sacred marriage rite symbolically united Inanna and Dumuzi to ensure fertility. Lamentations, hymns, and divination by animal livers marked daily religious life.

At a glance

Gula, 'the Great', was the main healing goddess of Mesopotamia: divine physician, midwife and protector of newborns, accompanied by dogs. She appears first at Umma, in the Ur III period, without a husband, and in the following centuries partly absorbs other healing goddesses (Ninisina of Isin, Ninkarrak of Sippar, Nintinugga and Bau) until she is seen as the second goddess of the pantheon after Ishtar. The most useful open texts are the Hymn to Ninisina (ETCSL 4.22.1), in which the goddess heals, teaches her son Damu and makes war, and the closing curse of the Code of Hammurabi, which hands the incurable wound to Ninkarrak. A long mythic narrative about Gula herself is rare; what survives is mostly hymns, incantations, god lists and inscriptions.

10 min read · Reviewed on October 14, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The dog, the scalpel, the medicinal herbs and the healing star

Family

Parents

Anu

Gula

Unions

Ninurta

Children

DamuGunura

Genealogy according to ETCSL 4.22.1 (filiação de Ninisina: filha de An e Uraš); Wikipedia EN, 'Gula (goddess)' e 'Ninisina' (citam Böck 2014, Sibbing-Plantholt 2022, Asher-Greve & Westenholz 2013).

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Anonymous, A šir-gida to Ninisina (Ninisina A), ETCSL. read
Hammurabi (king of Babylon), The Code of Hammurabi, trans. L. W. King (Avalon Project). read
Bulluṭsa-rabi, Hymn to Gula (ed. W. G. Lambert, Orientalia 36, 1967). read

Studies

Wikipedia contributors, Gula (goddess). 2026. open
Wikipedia contributors, Ninisina. 2026. open
Julia M. Asher-Greve; Joan G. Westenholz, Goddesses in Context (Academic Press Fribourg). 2013. open
Zsombor J. Földi, Bullussa-rabi, Author of the Gula Hymn (KASKAL 16). 2019. open

Name and epithets

Gula is a Sumerian word understood as 'the great'; depending on context the adjective gula can also mean 'greater', 'main' or 'capital'.

In the ancient sources

Hymn to Ninisina (Ninisina A, a šir-gida), Sumerian literature of the Old Babylonian period. Direct open source on the healing goddess of Isin, who later blended with Gula.

The myths

Ninisina teaches medicine to her son Damu. The Hymn to Ninisina opens with the goddess seated on an exalted dais, gathering up the divine powers.

Worship and archaeology

Gula's cult is known from offering documents, theophoric names and royal inscriptions. In the Ur III period, high-ranking physicians such as Nawir-ilum, Šu-kabta and Ubartum made offerings to her, which suggests that at…

How the god was depicted

On Kassite and later kudurrus (boundary stones), Gula is the goddess who appears in human form seated on a throne, instead of a symbol, as most gods do; only Nanaya and Lamma get similar treatment, and Gula is more freq…

What scholars debate

Was Gula first an epithet?. Because 'gula' was used as an adjective-epithet on several Ur III deities, it has been proposed that the goddess was born from an epithet of Ninisina or of another goddess.

After antiquity

From the second to the first millennium BC, Gula grows until she is one of the main goddesses of the pantheon, beside Ishtar, surpassing Ninhursag and eclipsing the other healing goddesses.

Did you know?

In the hymn of Bulluṭsa-rabi, Gula says: 'I bring up the dead from the netherworld'. The Hymn to Ninisina says that before the land of Dilmun existed, the goddess's house in Isin was created from a date palm.

Codex relic

Scalpel and Sacred Herbs. The instruments of divine medicine with which she heals ailments or sends them as punishment.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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