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The Igigi, the gods named as a body in Akkadian and Babylonian texts who, in the poem Atrahasis, burn their tools in protest at the labour of digging the watercourses and are relieved of the work by the creation of humanity, carry three contested facts. Each names different scholars taking different positions on a genuinely different question, not one debate at three grains.

A Fixed Class, or a Shifting Term

disputed-point asks whether Anunna and Igigi ever named two fixed, separate ranks at all, or "two overlapping terms whose senses shifted and in places exchanged places between periods." Its own description notes that "the same claim is recorded on the Anunnaki, in the same words, so the two pages cannot drift apart."

How Many, and Where the Name Came From

membership is a separate, countable question: "von Soden argued for seven, Kienast for eight, and Black and Green give ten, each on different evidence," with only Marduk secure as a member, since "the prologue to the Code of Hammurabi says the Anunnaki raised him high among the Igigi." name-origin is a third question again, pure etymology: "Kienast argued for an Old Akkadian origin, von Soden for Amorite, and von Soden later for a possible Arabic connection." Whether the classes were ever fixed, how many gods belonged, and where the word itself came from: three different questions, three different sets of scholars.

Where To Read More

• IgigiSpiritsThree separate open questions with three separate sets of named scholars: classification, membership count, and etymology