Today we have pop culture references! We are going to look briefly at Tiamat, who shows up in some Dungeons and Dragons stuff, and then we are going to look at the god Nergal, who is a popular god in the Warhammer franchise under the name Nurgle, briefly comparing the Mesopotamian god with his fictional counterpart. Then, the meat of the episode will be one of the world’s oldest romantic comedies, the tale of how Nergal came to marry Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld. Honestly, the show is going to mostly be the ancient myth, the pop culture references are mostly just me seeing if I can boost my podcast numbers.
The spelling of Nergal’s full name in the various cuneiform languages is the matter of a bit of debate, which is not terribly interesting. In English we call him Nergal, which is a shortened form and has become the customary way of referencing him no matter how the technical debate plays out. I should note that the fictional warhammer god is spelled slightly differently, as Nurgle, though pronounced the same.
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