Nanaya (Sumerian 𒀭𒈾𒈾𒀀, DNA.NA.A; also transcribed as "Nanāy", "Nanaja", "Nanāja", '"Nanāya", or "Nanai"; antiquated transcription: "Nanâ"; in Greek: Ναναια or Νανα; Imperial Aramaic: נני,[1] Classical Syriac: ܢܢܝ) was a Mesopotamian goddess of love closely associated with Inanna.

[8] Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz considers it a possibility that Nanaya was initially a hypostasis of "Inanna as quintessence of womanhood," similar to how Annunitum represented her as a warrior.

[10] A characteristic frequently attributed to Nanaya as a goddess of love, present in the majority of royal inscriptions pertaining to her and in many other documents, was described with the Sumerian word ḫili[17] and its Akkadian equivalent kubzu, which can be translated as charm, luxuriance, voluptuousness or sensuality.

[29] According to Joan Goodnick Westenholz it is possible that a further aspect of Nanaya which presently cannot be determined is alluded to in an incantation from Isin, according to which she was the denizen of a location usually regarded as profane rather than sacred, the šutummu, understood as treasury, storehouse or granary.

[14] Neo-Babylonian archives from Uruk contain extensive lists of cultic paraphernalia dedicated to Nanaya, including a feathered tiara (presumably similar to that depicted on the kudurru of Meli-Shipak II), a crown, multiple breast ornaments (including breastplates decorated with depictions of snakes and fantastic animals), assorted jewelry and other small valuables like mirrors and cosmetic jars, and a large variety of garments, some of them decorated with golden rosette-shaped sequins).

Many early Assyriologists assumed that Nanaya was fully interchangeable with Inanna and likewise a Venus goddess, but in the 1990s Joan Goodnick Westenholz challenged this view,[32] and her conclusions were accepted by most subsequent studies.

[34] Michael P. Streck and Nathan Wassermann in an article from 2013 also follow the conclusions of Westenholz and do not suggest an association with Venus in discussion of Nanaya as a luminous deity.

[35] Piotr Steinkeller nonetheless asserted as recently as 2013 that Nanaya was simply a Venus goddess fully analogous to Inanna, and interchangeable both with her and with Ninsianna, without discussing the current state of research.

[44] Above them the symbols of Ishtar, Shamash and Sin are placed, most likely in order to make these deities serve as a guarantee of the land grant described in the accompanying text.

[47] A number of Hellenized depictions of Nanaya are known from the Parthian period, one possible example being the figure of a naked goddess discovered as a tomb deposit,[47] wearing a crescent-shaped diadem.

[52][53] Many sources present Nanaya as a protégée of Inanna, but only three known texts (a song, a votive formula and an oath) also describe them as mother and daughter, and they might only be epithets implying a close connection between the functions of the two rather than an account of a theological speculation.

"[65] One example comes from inscriptions of Kudur-Mabuk and Rim-Sîn I, who apparently regarded Nanaya as capable of mediating on their behalf with An and Inanna, and of assigning lamma deities to them.

[74] Paul-Alain Bealieu notes that association with Nanaya is the best attested characteristic of the otherwise enigmatic Kanisurra, and that her name might therefore simply be an Akkadian or otherwise non-standard pronunciation of ganzer, a Sumerian term for the underworld or its entrance.

[83] Most groups of such "divine daughters" are known from northern Mesopotamia: Ezida in Borsippa, Esagil in Babylon, Emeslam in Kutha, Edubba in Kish, Ebabbar in Sippar, Eibbi-Anum in Dilbat, and from an unidentified temple of Ningublaga,[84] though examples are also known from Uruk, Nippur, Eridu and even Arbela in Assyria.

[99] However, as noted by Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz, direct references to Nanaya being regarded as the daughter of Inanna are not common, and it is possible that an epithet indicating closeness between the deities rather than a statement about actual parentage is meant.

[98] References to Nanaya as a daughter of Sin, likely a result of syncretism between her and Ishtar are also known, for example from a hymn from the reign of the neo-Assyrian king Sargon II.

[100] It is possible that the goddess Ninḫilisu (Sumerian: "graceful lady"), who was worshipped in Ur III Umma where she was served by a gudu4 priest, was related to Nanaya, as elsewhere nin-ḫi-li-sù is attested as her epithet.

[4] Records also show that queen Shulgi-simti, one of the wives of Shulgi, made offerings to many foreign or minor deities, among them Nanaya, as well as "Allatum" (the Hurrian goddess Allani), Išḫara, Belet Nagar, Belet-Šuḫnir and Belet-Terraban.

[100] Paul-Alain Bealieu considers them to be the main pair among the city's quintet of major local goddesses, the other three being Bēltu-ša-Rēš (later replaced by Sharrahitu, a goddess identified with Ashratum, the spouse of Amurru[111]), Uṣur-amāssu and Urkayītu (a theos eponymos of Uruk,[53]) As early as in the Middle Babylonian period, Nanaya was called the "queen of Uruk and Eanna," as attested on a kudurru from Larsa.

[114] If it refers to a historical event, it is possible that it occurred during the reign of Ebi-Eshuh, during which Elamites raided Sippar and perhaps Kish, though due to lack of any sources other than the aforementioned late annals this cannot be conclusively proven.

[115] Offerings made to Nanaya in neo-Babylonian Uruk included dates, barley, emmer, flour, beer, sweets, cakes, fish and meat of oxen, sheep, lambs, ducks, geese and turtle doves.

[127] In the late Old Babylonian period the cult of Nanaya was also introduced to Kish, where the clergy of Uruk found refuge after abandoning the temporarily destroyed city.

[137] Another was Iddin-Nanaya, a sanga priest of this goddess active during the reign of king Irdanene of Uruk,[138] apparently responsible for various misdeeds, including the removal of a star symbol from the doors of the Nanaya temple.

[142] The only known reference to worship of Nanaya among the Hittites comes from a single document mentioning her as the goddess of the town Malidaskuriya in the district of Durmitta, located in the proximity of the middle of the river Kızılırmak.

[147] A bilingual Sumero-Akkadian[148] hymn to Nanaya from the first millennium BCE, written in the first person as a self-laudation, describes many other goddesses as manifestations of her, in line with the syncretic tendencies typical for the literature of this time period.

[151] In a mythical explanation of the rites of Egashankalamma (the temple of the Assyrian Ishtar of Arbela[152]) pertaining to the mourning of Ishtaran's death, Nanaya is described as a goddess who provides Bel with an iron arrows.

[31] In the Hurrian tale of Appu six deities are listed alongside the cities where they were worshipped, among them Marduk, Shaushka and Nanaya, whose cult center in this text is Kiššina.

[156] In the following Hellenic period, her cult spread to various distant locations, including Armenia, Sogdia and Bactria,[48] though it has been pointed out that the goddess in mention was the result of a process of Hellenistic syncretism and it is difficult to tell which of her features had their origin in the Mesopotamian image of Nanaya.

[156] She also appears in Acts of Mar Mu'ain, according to which Sasanian king Shapur II ordered the eponymous Syriac saint to make offerings to various deities, including her.

[167] Syriac scholar Bar Bahlul, active around the year 1000, in his Syriac-Arabic dictionary defined Nanaya as a name which Arabs purportedly applied to the planet Venus.