| abstract | - Nikkal, Ugaritic ๐๐๐ nkl, full name Nikkal-wa-Ib, is a goddess of Ugarit/Canaan and later of Phoenicia. She is a goddess of orchards, whose name means "Great Lady and Fruitful" and derives from Akkadian / West Semitic "ยดIlat ยดInbi" meaning "Goddess of Fruit". De Moor translates Ugaritic ๐๐ "ib" as "blossom" which survives in biblical Hebrew as ืึตื (Strongs Concordance 3) and cites Canticles 6:11 as a survival of this usage She is daughter of Khirkhibi, the Summer's King, and is married to the moon god Yarikh, who gifted her with necklaces of lapis-lazuli. Their marriage is lyrically described in the Ugaritic text "Nikkal and the Kathirat". She may have been feted in late summer when tree fruits had been finally harvested. Her Sumerian equivalent is the goddess Ningal, the mother of Inanna and Ereshkigal. The oldest complete annotated piece of ancient music is a Hurrian song, a hymn in Ugaritic cuneiform syllabic writing which was dedicated to Nikkal. This was published upon its discovery in Ugarit by Emmanuel Laroche, first in 1955 and then more fully in 1968, and has been the focus of many subsequent studies in palaeomusicology by, amongst others, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer, who gave it the title of "The Hymn to Nikkal" l.
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