Shara (god)

Shara
Tutelary god of Umma
Stele depicting a man named Ushumgal, described as a priest of Shara, dated to the first stage of the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2900-2700 BCE).[1] Presently in the collection of Metropolitan Museum of Art.[1]
Major cult center	Umma, KI.ANki, Anzu-babbar
Symbol	barbed arrow and possibly a lion
Parents	Inanna of Zabalam and an unknown father
Consort	Ninura (in the third millennium BCE) Usaḫara or Kumulmul (in the Old Babylonian period)

Shara (Sumerian: 𒀭𒁈, ^dšara₂) was a Mesopotamian god associated with the city of Umma and other nearby settlements. He was chiefly regarded as the tutelary deity of this area, responsible for agriculture, animal husbandry, and irrigation, but he could also be characterized as a divine warrior. In the third millennium BCE, his wife was Ninura, associated with the same area, but later, in the Old Babylonian period, her cult faded into obscurity, and Shara was instead associated with Usaḫara or Kumulmul. An association between him and Inanna is well attested. In Umma, he was regarded as the son of Inanna of Zabalam and an unknown father, while in the myth Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, he is one of the servants mourning her temporary death. He also appears in the myth of Anzû, in which he is one of the three gods who refuse to fight the eponymous monster.