Shivini

Image of God Shivini, drawing from the Urartian iron bronze belt, Historical Museum of Armenia

Shivini ( Urartian. ^D UTU ) is the Urartian god of the Sun , the third most important god of the Urartian pantheon , followed by the supreme god Khaldi and the god of thunder and war Teisheba . The goddess Shivini was considered the goddess Tushpuea , as a rule his winged disk was his symbol. Another name of the god Shivini is Artinis. The latter option is preserved in the modern Armenian language in the meaning of the rising sun ^[1] .

Most of the elements of the Urartian religion were borrowed in Mesopotamia , and the god Shivini was a Urartian analogue of the Assyrian god Shamash and was even indicated in the Urartian cuneiform writing by the same ideogram ^[2] . According to a widespread assumption, the capital of the Urartian state, Tushpa , was probably the cult site of the god Shivini ^{[3] [4]} . According to the Urartian cuneiform texts, the sacrifice for the god Shivini was to be 4 bulls and 8 sheep ^[5] .