![]() Inana gets Enki drunk in order to steal the powers of civilization from him ( Black and Green 1998: 76 Kramer and Maier 1989: 15-16 57-68). Enki and Inana ( ETCSL 1.3.1) tells of a fight for power between Enki and Inana, the goddess of sex and war. Enki and Ninhursanga ( ETCSL 1.1.1) describes Enki's role in transformed the land around the salty marshes land of Tilmun (near to Southern Mesopotamia) into fertile, economically productive ground using sweet water from the abzu ( Bottéro 2002: 235-6). As late as the third century BCE he appears as the god Kronos in a Greek text attributed to the Babylonian priest Berossus (Bēl-rēʾûšunu) ( Kramer and Maier 1989: 10).Įnki's role in making Mesopotamian lands fertile and in civilizing its cities is recounted in important Sumerian literary texts from the second millennium BCE. ![]() The first attestations of the god Enki date to the Early Dynastic IIIa period, where he is mentioned in the texts from Fara. Enki's temple was E-abzu (house of the abzu), which was also known as E-engur-ra (house of the subterranean water) or E-unir ( Foster 2005: 643-644). Cult Place(s)Įnki is associated with the city of Eridu on the southern Mesopotamia. Enki then fathered the goddess Ninkurra with his daughter Ninmu, and the goddess Uttu with his granddaughter Ninkurra ( Kramer and Maier 1989: 22-30). Later in the myth Enki becomes gravely ill and Ninhursanga then gives birth to eight healing deities in order to cure him. ![]() Ninhursanga gives birth to the goddess Ninmu after sexual relations with Enki. His wife was Damgalnunna/ Damkina and their offspring were the gods Marduk, Asarluhi and Enbilulu, the goddess Nanše and the sage Adapa ( Bottéro 2002: 234 Black and Green 1998: 75).Įnki also had sexual encounters with other goddesses, particularly in the Sumerian myth Enki and Ninhursanga ( ETCSL 1.1.1). It is unclear when he was merged with the god Ea, whose name first appears in the 24th century BCE ( Edzard 1965: 56). Divine Genealogy and SyncretismsĮnki was the son of the god An, or of the goddess Nammu ( Kramer 1979: 28-29, 43) and a twin brother of Adad. Other mythical creatures also dwelt in the abzu with Ea, including the seven mythical sages TT ( apkallū) who were created for the purpose of teaching wisdom to humanity. In the myth Adapa and the South Wind, Ea helps humanity keep the gift of magic and incantations by preventing Adapa from becoming immortal ( Foster 2005: 525-530 Izre'el 2001 Michalowski 1980).Įa was served by his minister, the two-faced god Isimu/Akkadian Usmû (pictured to Enki's right in Image 1). But clever Ea foresaw Enlil's plan he instructed a sage TT named Atrahasis to build an ark so that humanity could escape the destruction. But the supreme god Enlil attempted to destroy Ea's newly created humans with a devastating flood, because their never-ending noise prevented him from sleeping. He hatched a plan to create humans out of clay so that they could perform work for the gods. His connection with water meant that Ea was also the patron deity of cleaners ( Foster 2005: 151-152).Įa is the creator and protector of humanity in the Babylonian flood myth Atra-hasīs and the Epic of Gilgameš. Ea was patron of the arts and crafts, and all other achievements of civilization. He was a favourite god amongst diviners TT ( bārû) and exorcist priests TT ( ašipū) as he is the ultimate source of all ritual knowledge used by exorcists to avert and expel evil. Until recently, however, many of the more explicit details have been suppressed in modern translations (see Cooper 1989 Dickson 2007).Įa has associations with wisdom, magic and incantations. In particular, there is a metaphorical link between the life-giving properties of the god's semen and the animating nature of fresh water from the abzu. Sumerian texts about Enki often include overtly sexual portrayals of his virile masculinity. ![]() For example, the city of Babylon was said to have been built on top of the abzu. He resides in the ocean underneath the earth called the abzu (Akkadian apsû), which was an important place in Mesopotamian cosmic geography. The god Ea (whose Sumerian equivalent was Enki) is one of the three most powerful gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon, along with Anu and Enlil. View large image on the British Museum's website. ![]() Babylonian limestone kudurru TT depicting a turtle, which was a symbol of Enki 1125BC-1100 BCE (BM 102485). ![]()
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