Ninti is a character in a Sumerian creation story called Enki and Ninhursag. The story is about the creation of the city of Dilmun, an ancient city mentioned from the 3rd millennium BC onwards based on contextualized evidence and archaeological finds. And is said to be located near the Persian Gulf in the ancient past. The story is an allegory about the relationship between water and fertile soil, and the product of the two elements combined. This relationship between these two elements are personified and show up as the interactions between Ninhurshag, being the goddess of the land, and Enki being the god of water or the sea. Later in the story Ninhurshag and Enki ended up having a major disagreement which lead to Ninhurshag moving away from Dilmun. While away Enki ate a plant planted by Ninhurshag, he was instructed not to eat, and falls sick. In desperation to heal Enki, the party of Gods surrounding him reach out to Ninhurshag and beg her to come back to do something about Enki’s sickness. She agrees to comeback and heal Enki. To heal him she fashions mini worker gods or extentions of herself and assigns them to heal respective parts of Enki’s body in pain due to the aliment. Ninti was among eight gods that were created and she was tasked to heal Enki’s ribs. Ninti’s name has multiple meanings and translates to “Lady of the month”, “Lady who makes Live”, and “Lady of the rib.”

Above is the original cuneiform tablet that has the story of Enki and Ninhursag etched into it. The original tablet is also known as tablet CBS4561 and is display at Penn museum !