Nabu

The Scribe of Divine Wisdom

Domain: Writing, Wisdom & Destiny
Alignment: Lawful Good
Element: Air
Relics of Power: Scribe's Stylus and Tablet

Speak with Nabu

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

Nabu (Akkadian Nabû) is the Babylonian god of writing, scribes and wisdom. In the first millennium BCE he is treated as the son of Marduk and lives at Borsippa, in the Ezida temple, the sister city of Babylon. His wife is Tashmetum, «she who hears». He took over from Nisaba the role of divinity of writing, appears in the inscriptions of Assyrian and Babylonian kings, gives his name to King Nabonidus («may Nabu be exalted»), was associated with the planet Mercury and reaches the Hebrew Bible in Isaiah 46:1. This study rests on open encyclopedia articles, which cite the ancient sources, and on the English Bible text on Wikisource. The tablets, hymns and treaties themselves (Hymn to Nabu, Esarhaddon's Succession Treaty, Enūma Eliš) could not be opened in this environment, so no sentence from them is reproduced here.

The ancient sources on this deity are scarce. This study gathers only what is on record.

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

Sacred symbols

The scribe's stylus, the clay tablet, the scepter and Marduk's dragon

Family

Parents

MardukSarpanitum

Nabu

Unions

Tashmetum (she who hears)

Genealogy according to Wikipedia (en), verbetes «Nabu» (infobox: pais Marduk e Sarpanitum, consorte Tashmet) e «Tashmetum» (consulta em 14/10/2026); não se conhece nenhum filho do casal.

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Bible (King James), Book of Isaiah. read
George Smith (trans.), cited in Wikipedia, Colophon of Assurbanipal on the creation tablets (The Chaldean Account of Genesis, 1876), pp. 63–64. read

Studies

Wikipedia, Nabu. Wikipedia (en). open
Wikipedia, Tashmetum. Wikipedia (en). open
Wikipedia, Nisaba. Wikipedia (en). open
Wikipedia, Borsippa. Wikipedia (en). open
Wikipedia, Akitu. Wikipedia (en). open
Wikipedia, Nabonidus. Wikipedia (en). open
Wikipedia, Nimrud. Wikipedia (en). open
Wikipedia, Enūma Eliš. Wikipedia (en). open

Name and epithets

In Akkadian, nabû means «announcer» or «authorised person» and comes from the Semitic root n-b-y or nbʾ, the same root behind words meaning «prophet» in Syriac, Arabic and Hebrew (nabiyy, nāvi).

In the ancient sources

Book of Isaiah (King James version), Hebrew prophetic tradition; dating debated. Open text read: «Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle».

The myths

Nabu takes the place of Nisaba. Before Nabu, the divinity of writing was Nisaba, goddess of grain and writing, one of the oldest deities attested in writing. Many Sumerian texts end with the formula «praise to Nisaba».

Worship and archaeology

The centre of the cult was Borsippa, about 17.7 km southwest of Babylon, where the Ezida temple stands. The entry on Borsippa gives the sequence.

How the god was depicted

Nabu's symbols are the stylus resting on a tablet and a simple wedge. King Nabonidus had a sceptre topped with Nabu's wedge (Bertman 2005; Green 1992).

What scholars debate

Was Nabu always part of the Akitu?. The visit of Nabu to Babylon at the New Year is given as fact in the entries, but the day-by-day summary of the Akitu cites a single modern work.

After antiquity

After cuneiform disappeared, Nabu's name continued in different uses. In the Hebrew Bible he is Nebo in Isaiah 46:1 (read here) and, according to the entry, in Jeremiah 48:1; in Mandaean cosmology ʻNbu is the name of Me…

Did you know?

The last king of Babylon carried the god's name in his own: Nabû-naʾid, «may Nabu be exalted». King Ashurbanipal's name and Nabu's coexist in a colophon translated by George Smith: the king says he sought «the wisdom of…

Codex relic

Scribe's Stylus and Tablet. The stylus with which he records destinies and the tablet on which the knowledge of the universe is inscribed.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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