Pinikir

This was the name of the most important goddess in Elamite religion. It is uncertain what the meaning of her name was in the Elamite language. Pinikir started out as the mother-goddess (in which capacity she was also the goddess of love and fertility), making her rank above all Elamite gods - even the male ones. This indicates a reverence of that what is feminine, which is reflective of both Elamite religion and Elamite society: women were held in high regard and Elamite royal families' system of succession was always through the female line (although a ruler was always male and was called "the son of a sister"). The goddess Pinikir was mostly worshipped in Susa, the capital city of Elam, where there was a temple dedicated to her. She was married to the god Humban, and over time, her husband became the most important god in the Elamite religion, making her become second to him. The explanations as to why that happened differ: for example, some sources state that it was because she got married in the first place, others state that it was because Humban divorced her and remarried with the goddess Kiririsha. However, it should be noted that some sources state that Kiririsha may have been an epithet of Pinikir (thus making Pinikir and Kiririsha one and the same person), while other sources view them as separate goddesses whose cults eventually merged (by about 1800 BC). This Pinikir vs. Kiririsha matter is a bit of a murky area, in part caused by the fact that little is known about the Elamite religion as well as the fact that the Elamite language is not yet fully understood by modern linguists.