Lernaean Hydra but no literary accounts have this feature. The Hydra had many parallels in ancient Near Eastern religions. In particular, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian mythology celebrated the deeds of the war and hunting god Ninurta, whom the "Angim" credited with slaying 11 monsters on an expedition to the mountains, including a seven-headed serpent (possibly identical with the Mushmahhu) and Bashmu, whose constellation (despite having a single Head) was later associated by the Greeks with the Hydra. The constellation is also sometimes associated in Babylonian contexts with Marduk's dragon, the Mushhushshu. Eurystheus sent Heracles to slay the Hydra, which Hera had raised
Lerna vanished sacred Lake Lerna, which was a freshwater lagoon, separated by barrier dunes from the Aegean. In the Early Bronze Age Lake Lerna had an estimated diameter of 4.7 km. Deforestation increased the rate of silt deposits and the lake became a malarial marsh, of which the last remnants were drained in the nineteenth century. The name Lerna is suggested to be connected with the Hattic plural prefix le- plus arinna, arna 'spring', 'pool', 'well', 'source'. Lerna In classical Greece, Lerna () was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, south of