Enki

• 1. Introduction

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  Enki was the Mesopotamian god of wisdom, crafts, fresh subterranean waters, magic, and incantations. In the city of Eridu, one of the oldest cities of Sumer, his temple the E-Abzu stood as his home. He ruled the Abzu, an under-earth fresh water region imagined as the source of springs. Worshippers knew him by two names that may once have belonged to two separate gods. In Sumerian he was Enki. In Akkadian he was Ea. The meaning of both names is uncertain to this day. How did a god of underground water come to be remembered as the cunning friend of mankind, the one who shaped people from clay and warned them before a flood? Why did scribes give him dozens of other names, picture him with streams pouring from his shoulders, and place him among the three gods who divided the sky?

• 2. Lord Of The Sweet Waters

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  The Abzu was an under-earth fresh water region where Enki was believed to reside, and the source of his power over springs and subterranean waters. He could ensure the prosperity of the land by allowing sufficient irrigation. He could also deny access to fresh water, and was invoked for that purpose in curses. One of his alternative names was Nagbu, meaning source or spring, written with the logogram dIDIM. In Sumerian the same sign was used to designate water and semen. The myth Enki and Ninhursag features sexual encounters between the god and several goddesses. In Enki and the World Order he creates the waters of the Tigris by filling the river with his semen. Groundwater was believed to have purifying and healing properties. Because of this it played a major role in incantations and magic. Enki was invoked for exorcism, purification, curing physical ailments, house building, and appeasing gods and demons. A common incantation narrative, the Asalluhi-Enki or Marduk-Ea formula, describes a dialogue between Enki and his son Asalluhi. Asalluhi comes across a problem he cannot solve and asks Enki for help. Enki tells him that he already knows everything his father knows, then instructs him in the course of action to take. This formula already existed in the Early Dynastic Period, attested by an incantation to counter snake bite.

• 3. The Crafty Counsellor

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  Enki frequently appears in Mesopotamian myths as a crafty counsellor who finds solutions to difficult problems. The nature of his wisdom has been described by modern scholars as practical skill, cunning or craftiness. He could be referred to as the one who knows the hearts of the great gods. In the Agushaya hymn, he devises a plan to calm the heart of the warlike Ishtar, crafting a double of her from clay to be her adversary. In Ninurta and the turtle, he outwits the warrior god who was plotting against him. In the Adapa myth, his instructions allow Adapa to ingratiate himself with three gods. Some scholars have described his behaviour as similar to that of a trickster figure. In one myth, Enki is bound by an oath not to reveal to humanity the gods' plan to wipe them out with a flood. He warns his human protege by pretending to speak to a reed wall, keeping his oath while saving humankind. Though he is the protagonist of only a few preserved myths, he is one of the deities that intervenes most often in them.

• 4. Shaper Of Mankind

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  Mesopotamian tradition regarded Enki as the creator of humans from clay. In the Surpu incantation series, he is referred to as the god whose hands created mankind. This process of creation has been compared to the work of a craftsman. In Enki and Ninmah, Enki creates mankind in collaboration with Nammu, Ninmah, and several helper goddesses, fashioning a substitute to take over the hard labour of the gods. The myth then turns to a drunken contest. Ninmah fashions six humans with physical disabilities, and each time Enki finds a place in society for them. When they exchange roles, Enki creates a being called Umul, in such bad shape that Ninmah cannot decree a good fate for it, and she loses the competition. In Atra-hasis, Enki works with Belet-ili to create man from clay and divine blood. His advice to his human protege later allows humanity to survive Enlil's attempts to wipe it out, which culminate in the flood. In the later Babylonian Epic of Creation, the making of man is instead a collaboration between Ea and his son Marduk. Comparisons have been made between Enki's eating of the eight plants in Enki and Ninhursag and Adam and Eve's eating of the apple in Genesis.

• 5. Many Names

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  Nudimmud was one of the most frequently attested alternative names of Enki, almost exclusively used in literary texts. It already appears in the Zame Hymns, and the verbal elements dim and mud mean to build, create, and to bring forth. Thorkild Jacobsen interpreted the name as Image fashioner, reflecting the god who creates figures from clay. The name Enki is usually translated as Lord of the Earth in Sumerian, but this is not universally accepted. Edmond Sollberger and Wilfred G. Lambert noticed an omissible g at the end of the second element of his name. Sollberger understood an element ki(g) meaning favour, benevolence, or love, and translated Enki(g) as Lord Love or Lord Benevolence, reflecting the god's role as a friend of mankind. The name Ea first occurs in personal names from the Old Akkadian period, and is most likely a Semitic name. It has been proposed that its etymology connects to the Semitic root hyy, to live. Akkadian epithets reflect his role as the god of wisdom, including bel nemeqi, Lord of wisdom, and apkal ili, Sage of the gods. A common literary epithet was Enlil-banda, the junior Enlil.

• 6. Streams And Goat Fish

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  Enki is considered one of the few Mesopotamian deities with a recognizable iconography. His most distinguishing features are water streams flowing from his body, often accompanied by fish swimming in the water, first attested in the Old Akkadian Period. He could be depicted with water sprouting vessels, carrying them on his shoulders, in his hand, or above his hand. His emblems include the goat-fish and the ram-headed staff, often depicted together on kudurrus. The kudurru of Nazi-Maruttash refers to them as the great emblems of Ea. The goat-fish is attested from the Neo Sumerian period until Hellenistic times, was later adopted into Roman art, and is at the origin of the zodiacal constellation Capricorn. Another symbol was the turtle, associated with him since the Old Akkadian period. On the seal of Adda, Ea stands with one foot on a mountain, water streams coming from his shoulders, and fish swimming in them, with his two-faced vizier behind him. That vizier was Isimud, his sukkal. The fish-man, with the upper body of a man and the lower body of a fish, was depicted next to his symbols and might have been the precursor of the merman in Greek and Medieval European art.

• 7. Family And Court

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  Damgalnuna, also known as Damkina, was Enki's spouse, believed to act as an intermediary between her husband and his supplicants. The sky god An is named as his father in multiple sources, while in the tradition of Eridu the creator goddess Nammu was regarded as his mother. Marduk, the tutelary god of Babylon, was regarded as the son of Enki and Damgalnuna, his first-born son and heir. With the rise of Babylon, Marduk took over certain characteristics of his father, such as his function as organizer of the earth. Nanshe was regarded as the daughter of Enki and Damgalnuna. Enbilulu could also be counted among his children. His attendant Isimud was depicted with two faces. The Lahmu were a class of supernatural beings regarded as his servants, associated with water, who acted as doorkeepers of his temple. The Seven Sages, or apkallu, were fish-men creatures of the Abzu regarded as responsible for teaching mankind various aspects of human culture. Mesopotamian traditions around the Seven Sages were the source for the later Babyloniaca of the priest Berossos, which relates that a hybrid fish-human creature named Oannes came out of the sea to teach the inhabitants of Babylonia writing, temple building, and sciences.

• 8. From Eridu Outward

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  Eridu was regarded as Enki's home already in the sources of the Early Dynastic Period, and the earliest evidence of occupation at the site dates to the early Ubaid period. His temple there, the E-Abzu, could be called Eengura, House of Sweet Waters. From the Ur III period, Enki came to be regarded as part of a triad at the top rank of the pantheon, consisting of himself, Anu, and Enlil. His cult was particularly influential in the Ur III and Old Babylonian periods, attested in most of the important cities of Babylonia. The worship of Ea spread to Mari, where he was one of the deities most frequently invoked in personal names, such as Ea-malik and Nabi-Ea. His cult was incorporated into Hurrian religion with identical character and functions, and spread into Anatolia, where his name was rendered Eyan in Hurrian, Aas in Hittite, and Iyas in Luwian. In a Hurrian ritual for the construction of buildings, Ea received ear-shaped bread, because the Akkadian word for ear was the same as the word for wisdom. With the rise of Babylon and Marduk, Ea's cult lost importance, though he remained a major god in first millennium BCE Babylonia and Assyria, worshipped in Assur, Nineveh, and Kalhu. Ea was identified with Kronos in the writings of Berossos, and comparisons have been made between him and the Greek Titan Prometheus, both culture heroes who save humanity from extinction by warning a human protege in a flood myth.