Alongside the ordinary daily meal service that Mesopotamian temples provided their resident gods, documented on this religion's page as the ritual Naptanu, animal sacrifice, niqu, marked a more occasional and more intense form of offering. A sheep was the most common victim, though other animals appear in the record as well, ritually slaughtered near the altar with portions of the meat burned as smoke rising toward the god, other portions cooked and set out as food, and the remainder often distributed to temple personnel or, on festival occasions, to a wider public.
Because it involved real bloodshed and a real, valuable domestic animal rather than the routine grain, bread and beer of the daily meal offering, niqu was reserved for occasions carrying particular weight, building dedications, treaty oaths sworn before the gods, royal ceremonies and specific festival days, when a more forceful demonstration of piety and expenditure was called for than the ordinary offering table provided.