the second millennium BCE due to loss of his cult sites. Wer's symbol was a lance. A single Old Babylonian text attests that not only Wer himself, but also a deification of his emblem, dŠu-ku-ru-um ("lance"), could be an object of worship. While god lists, starting with An = Anum, could consider Wer analogous to Ishkur/Adad, his own name was never represented by the logogramdIŠKUR, unlike these of other storm gods, such as Hurrian Teshub, Hattian Taru, Hittite Tarḫunna, or Luwian Tarḫunz. Other related theonyms The feminine form of the name, Wertum (or Mertum) likely designated the wife of Wer. She is attested in Assur in the Old Assyrian period (where one of the city gates was named after her) and in a theophoric name from Mari. A number of Assyriologists, including Dietz-Otto Edzard, Wilfred G. Lambert and Andrew R. George, assume that Wer was the same deity as Itūr-Mēr, the tutelary god of Mari, but this view is regarded as unsubstantiated by Daniel Schwemer and Ichiro Nakata, who point out that the latter deity's name is an ordinary theophoric name ("Mēr has turned [to me]") and that for this reason he is more likely to be a deified hero venerated as part of an ancestor cult tied to a specific location. Known texts additionally do not indicate that he was a weather deity like Wer. Other deities who are most likely deified heroes or kings in origin are attested from Mari, for example Yakrub-El. A second deity worshiped in Mari whose name is structured similarly and also includes Wer as the theophoric element is Tar’am-Mēr, "beloved of Mēr (Wer)". While known copies of a single passage from the incantation series Šurpu alternate between Wer and a deity named Immeriya, it cannot be established if the latter, who is otherwise best known from an inscribed statue possibly taken as bounty by Untash-Napirisha, was related to him in any way. Worship Worship of Wer is chiefly attested from the middle Euphrates area, northern Babylonia (though only before the Middle Babylonian period), the Diyala area, and Assyria. While confirmed attestations go back to the time of the Akkadian Empire, only from the Old Babylonian period onward the god is known from sources other than theophoric names. Wer appears in nine types of masculine theophoric names from Old Babylonian Mari, with eight using the spelling Mer and one - Wer. Furthermore, the names