Enki
Enki 𒀭𒂗𒆠 | |
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Equivalents | |
Greek equivalent | Poseidon,[3] Prometheus[4] |
Egyptian equivalent | Set, Ptah |
Part of a series on |
Ancient Mesopotamian religion |
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Enki (
He was originally the
Many myths about Enki have been collected from various sites, stretching from Southern Iraq to the Levantine coast. He is mentioned in the earliest extant cuneiform inscriptions throughout the region and was prominent from the third millennium down to the Hellenistic period.
Etymology
The exact meaning of Enki's name is uncertain: the common translation is "Lord of the Earth". The Sumerian En is translated as a title equivalent to "lord" and was originally a title given to the High Priest. Ki means "earth", but there are theories that ki in this name has another origin, possibly kig of unknown meaning, or kur meaning "mound". The name Ea is allegedly
It has also been suggested that the original non-anthropomorphic divinity at Eridu was not Enki but Abzu. The emergence of Enki as the divine lover of Ninhursag, and the divine battle between the younger Igigi divinities and Abzu, saw the Abzu, the underground waters of the Aquifer, becoming the place in which the foundations of the temple were built.[14]: 20 With some Sumerian deity names as Enlil there are variations like Elil. En means "Lord" and E means "temple". It is likely that E-A is the Sumerian short form for "Lord of Water", as Enki is a god of water. Ab in Abzu also means water.
Worship
The main temple to Enki was called E-abzu, meaning "abzu temple" (also E-en-gur-a, meaning "house of the subterranean waters"), a ziggurat temple surrounded by Euphratean marshlands near the ancient Persian Gulf coastline at Eridu. It was the first temple known to have been built in Southern Iraq. Four separate excavations at the site of Eridu have demonstrated the existence of a shrine dating back to the earliest Ubaid period, more than 6,500 years ago. Over the following 4,500 years, the temple was expanded 18 times, until it was abandoned during the Persian period.[14][page needed] On this basis Thorkild Jacobsen[15] has hypothesized that the original deity of the temple was Abzu, with his attributes later being taken by Enki over time. P. Steinkeller believes that, during the earliest period, Enki had a subordinate position to a goddess (possibly Ninhursag), taking the role of divine consort or high priest,[16] later taking priority. The Enki temple had at its entrance a pool of fresh water, and excavation has found numerous carp bones, suggesting collective feasts. Carp are shown in the twin water flows running into the later God Enki, suggesting continuity of these features over a very long period. These features were found at all subsequent Sumerian temples, suggesting that this temple established the pattern for all subsequent Sumerian temples. "All rules laid down at Eridu were faithfully observed".[17]
Iconography
Enki was the keeper of the divine powers called Me, the gifts of civilization. He is often shown with the horned crown of divinity.
On the Adda Seal, Enki is depicted with two streams of water flowing into each of his shoulders: one the Tigris, the other the Euphrates.[18] Alongside him are two trees, symbolizing the male and female aspects of nature. He is shown wearing a flounced skirt and a cone-shaped hat. An eagle descends from above to land upon his outstretched right arm. This portrayal reflects Enki's role as the god of water, life, and replenishment.[19]
Considered the master shaper of the world, god of
Early royal inscriptions from the
Mythology
Creation of life and sickness
The cosmogenic myth common in Sumer was that of the hieros gamos, a sacred marriage where divine principles in the form of dualistic opposites came together as male and female to give birth to the cosmos. In the epic Enki and Ninhursag, Enki, as lord of Ab or fresh water (also the Sumerian word for semen), is living with his wife in the paradise of Dilmun where
The land of Dilmun is a pure place, the land of Dilmun is a clean place,
The land of Dilmun is a clean place, the land of Dilmun is a bright place;
He who is alone laid himself down in Dilmun,
The place, after Enki is clean, that place is bright.
Despite being a place where "the raven uttered no cries" and "the lion killed not, the wolf snatched not the lamb, unknown was the kid-killing dog, unknown was the grain devouring boar", Dilmun had no water and Enki heard the cries of its goddess, Ninsikil, and orders the sun-god Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun. As a result,
Her City Drinks the Water of Abundance,
Dilmun Drinks the Water of Abundance,
Her wells of bitter water, behold they are become wells of good water,
Her fields and farms produced crops and grain,
Her city, behold it has become the house of the banks and quays of the land.
Dilmun was identified with Bahrain, whose name in Arabic means "two seas", where the fresh waters of the Arabian aquifer mingle with the salt waters of the Persian Gulf. This mingling of waters was known in Sumerian as Nammu, and was identified as the mother of Enki.
The subsequent tale, with similarities to the Biblical story of the forbidden fruit, repeats the story of how fresh water brings life to a barren land.
A third time Enki succumbs to temptation, and attempts seduction of Uttu. Upset about Enki's reputation, Uttu consults Ninhursag, who, upset at the promiscuous wayward nature of her spouse, advises Uttu to avoid the riverbanks, the places likely to be affected by flooding, the home of Enki. In another version of this myth, Ninhursag takes Enki's semen from Uttu's womb and plants it in the earth where eight plants rapidly germinate. With his two-faced servant and steward
Ninhursag relents and takes Enki's Ab (water, or semen) into her body, and gives birth to gods of healing of each part of the body:
Ninti, the title of Ninhursag, also means "the mother of all living", and was a title later given to the
Making of man
After six generations of gods, in the Babylonian
Oh my son, arise from thy bed, from thy (slumber), work what is wise,
Fashion servants for the Gods, may they produce their (bread?).
Enki then advises that they create a servant of the gods, humankind, out of clay and blood.[28] Against Enki's wish, the gods decide to slay Kingu, and Enki finally consents to use Kingu's blood to make the first human, with whom Enki always later has a close relationship, the first of the seven sages, seven wise men or "Abgallu" (ab = water, gal = great, lu = man), also known as Adapa. Enki assembles a team of divinities to help him, creating a host of "good and princely fashioners". He tells his mother:
Oh my mother, the creature whose name thou has uttered, it exists,
Bind upon it the (will?) of the Gods;
Mix the heart of clay that is over the Abyss,
The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay
Thou, do thou bring the limbs into existence;
Ninmah(Ninhursag, his wife and consort) will work above thee
(Nintu?) (goddess of birth) will stand by thy fashioning;
Oh my mother, decree thou its (the new born's) fate.
Adapa, the first man fashioned, later goes and acts as the advisor to the King of Eridu, when in the Sumerian King-List, the me of "kingship descends on Eridu".
Samuel Noah Kramer believes that behind this myth of Enki's confinement of Abzu lies an older one of the struggle between Enki and the Dragon Kur (the underworld).[27][page needed]
The Atrahasis-Epos has it that Enlil requested from Nammu the creation of humans. And Nammu told him that with the help of Enki (her son) she can create humans in the image of gods.
Uniter of languages
In the Sumerian epic entitled Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, in a speech of Enmerkar, an introductory spell appears, recounting Enki having had mankind communicate in one language (following Jay Crisostomo 2019); or, in other accounts, it is a hymn imploring Enki to do so. In either case, Enki "facilitated the debates between [the two kings] by allowing the world to speak one language," the presumed superior language of the tablet, i.e. Sumerian.[note 1]
Jay Crisostomo's 2019 translation, based on the recent work of C. Mittermayer is:
At that time, as there was no snake, as there was no scorpion,
as there was no hyena, as there was no lion,
as there was no dog or wolf, as there was no fear or trembling
— as humans had no rival.
It was then that the lands of Subur [and] Hamazi,
the distinctly-tongued, Sumer, the great mountain, the essence of nobility,
Akkad, the land possessing the befitting,
and the land of Martu, lying in safety
— the totality of heaven and earth, the well-guarded people, [all] proclaimed Enlil in a single language.
Enki, the lord of abundance and true word,
the lord chosen in wisdom who watches over the land,
the expert of all the gods, the chosen in wisdom,
the lord of Eridu, [Enki] placed an alteration of the language in their mouths.
The speech of humanity is one.
S.N. Kramer's 1940 translation is as follows:[note 2]
Once upon a time there was no snake, there was no scorpion,
There was no hyena, there was no lion,
There was no wild dog, no wolf,
There was no fear, no terror,
Man had no rival.
In those days, the lands of Subur (and) Hamazi,
Harmony-tongued Sumer, the great land of the decrees of princeship,
Uri, the land having all that is appropriate,
The land Martu, resting in security,
The whole universe, the people in unison
To Enlil in one tongue [spoke].
(Then) Enki, the lord of abundance (whose) commands are trustworthy,
The lord of wisdom, who understands the land,
The leader of the gods,
Endowed with wisdom, the lord of Eridu
Changed the speech in their mouths, [brought] contention into it,
Into the speech of man that (until then) had been one.
The deluge
In the Sumerian version of the flood myth, the causes of the flood and the reasons for the hero's survival are unknown due to the fact that the beginning of the tablet describing the story has been destroyed. Nonetheless, Kramer has stated that it can probably be reasonably inferred that the hero Ziusudra survives due to Enki's aid because that is what happens in the later Akkadian and Babylonian versions of the story.[27]: 97–99
In the later Legend of
Enki and Inanna
The myth Enki and Inanna
Politically, this myth would seem to indicate events of an early period when political authority passed from Enki's city of Eridu to Inanna's city of Uruk.
In the myth of Inanna's Descent,
In the story
Eventually, after cooling her anger, she too seeks the help of Enki, as spokesperson of the "assembly of the gods", the Igigi and the Anunnaki. After she presents her case, Enki sees that justice needs to be done and promises help, delivering knowledge of where the miscreant is hiding.
Influence
Enki and later Ea were apparently depicted, sometimes, as a man covered with the skin of a fish, and this representation, as likewise the name of his temple E-apsu, "house of the watery deep", points decidedly to his original character as a god of the waters (see
Whether Eridu at one time also played an important political role in Sumerian affairs is not certain, though not improbable. At all events the prominence of "Ea" led, as in the case of Nippur, to the survival of Eridu as a sacred city, long after it had ceased to have any significance as a political center. Myths in which Ea figures prominently have been found in
It is, however, as the third figure in the triad (the two other members of which were
Ea and West Semitic deities
In 1964, a team of Italian archaeologists under the direction of
Jean Bottéro (1952)
Ea was also known as Dagon and Uanna (Grecised Oannes), the first of the Seven Sages.[45]
See also
- Ancient Near East
- Azazel
- Barbar Temple, a Dilmun-era temple in Bahrain devoted to the worship of Enki
- Capricorn (astrology)
- Capricornus
- Iah
- Jah
- Me (mythology)
- Mesopotamian mythology
- Ahura Mazda
- El (deity)
References
Notes
- ^ In the larger narrative Enmerkar is the king of Uruk (Sumer) and Aratta is a mythical eastern land. This episode is one of the most-argued in Assyriological literature.[29][30][31]
- ^ Another translation describes 'Hamazi, the many-tongued' and instead calls on Enki to change the languages of mankind into one.[32]
Citations
- ^ a b "The Adda Seal". British Museum.
- ISBN 978-1-134-64103-1.
- JSTOR 3296569. p. 324, note 28: "... Leonard Palmer suggests in his Interpretation of Mycenaean Greek texts (1963), p. 255, that the name of Poseidon is a direct translation of "calque" of the Sumerian EN.KI, 'lord of the earth'".
- ^ Stephanie West. "Prometheus Orientalized" page 147 Museum Helveticum Vol. 51, No. 3 (1994), pp. 129–149 (21 pages)
- JSTOR 3296569. p. 324, note 27.
- JSTOR 25209408. p. 434.
- ^ Origins of the ancient constellations: I. The Mesopotamian traditions by J.H. Rogers
- ISBN 978-0-292-70794-8.
- ISBN 978-1-139-46198-6.
- ISBN 978-0-7141-1705-8
- ^ Huffmon, Herbert B. (1965), "Amorite Personal Names in the Mari Texts: A Structural and Lexical Study". (Baltimore, Maryland: The Johns Hopkins Press)
- ^ Kramer & Maier 1989
- ISBN 978-3-11-025158-6.
- ^ hdl:10062/958.
- ^ Jacobsen, Thorkild (1970) "Mesopotamian Gods and Pantheons", p. 22
- ^ Steinkeller P. (1999) "Priests and Officials", p. 129
- ^ van Buren, E.D. (1951) OsNs 21, p. 293[full citation needed]
- ^ Cartwright, Mark. "Adda Seal (Illustration)". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- ^ Busby, Jesse. "Enki". Ancient Art. University of Alabama. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
- ^ Leick, Gwendolyn (2001), "Mesopotamia: the invention of the city" (Penguin) p. 20
- ISBN 978-0-19-283589-5.
- ^ Benito, C.A. (1969) "Enki and Ninmah" and "Enki and the World Order" (dissertation, Uni of Philadelphia)
- ^ "Cylinder Seal of Ibni-Sharrum". Louvre Museum.
- ^ "Site officiel du musée du Louvre". cartelfr.louvre.fr.
- ISBN 978-1-61451-035-2.
- ^ "Enki and Ninhursaja". Line 50–87. Retrieved 5 November 2022.
- ^ ISBN 0-8122-1047-6.
- ^ Kramer 1963, pp. 149–151; Kramer 1961, pp. 69–72; Christopher B. Siren (1999) based on John C. Gibson's Canaanite Mythology and S. H. Hooke's Middle Eastern Mythology
- ISBN 978-1-5015-0981-0
- ^ Jacob Klein, "The So-called 'Spell of Nudimmud' (ELA 134–155): A Re-examination", in Simonetta Graziani, ed., Studi sul Vicino Oriente Antico dedicati alla memoria di Luigi Cagni (Naples: Instituto Universitario Orientale, 2000), 563–84
- ^ C. Mittermayer, Enmerkara und der Herr von Arata: ein ungleicher Wettstreit (Freiburg: Academic Press, 2009), 363.
- ^ "Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta: translation". etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 September 2020.
- ^ "Inanna: Lady of Love and War, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Morning and Evening Star", consulted 25 August 2007 [1]
- ^ ISBN 978-0-06-090854-6.
- ISBN 978-0-14-319458-3.
- ISBN 978-0-292-75242-9.
- ^ Lishtar "The Avenging Maiden and the Predator Gardener: a study of Inanna and Shukaletuda" [2]
- ^ a b Bottéro 1992.
- ISBN 978-90-04-18652-1. Retrieved 19 June 2014.
- ^ Freeman, Tzvi. "Is there evidence of Abraham's revolution? – The Big Picture". Chabad.org. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
- ISBN 0-226-06718-1
- ^ Boboula, Ida. "The Great Stag: A Sumerian Deity and Its Affiliations", Fifty-Third General Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (1951) in American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Jul. 1952) 171–178, All pertinent information is available online.
- ISBN 978-90-04-11119-6, p. 911: "his cult at Ebla is a chimera."
- JSTOR 605698.
- JSTOR 3296569. p. 324, note 27.
Works cited
- Bottéro, Jean (1992). Mesopotamia : writing, reasoning, and the gods (1st paperback ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-06727-8.
- Bottéro, Jean (2001). Religion in ancient Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-06718-1.
- Espak, Peeter (2010) The God Enki in Sumerian Royal Ideology and Mythology. Dissertationes Theologiae Universitatis Tartuensis 19. (Tartu University Press). ISBN 978-9949-19-522-0
- Kramer, Samuel Noah (1963). The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-45238-7.
Further reading
- Jacobsen, Thorkild (1976). Treasures of Darkness; A History of Mesopotamian Religion. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-02291-3.
- Kramer, S.N.; Maier, J.R. (1989). Myths of Enki, the Crafty God. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505502-0.
- Galter, H.D. (1983). Der Gott Ea/Enki in der akkadischen Überlieferung: eine Bestandsaufnahme des vorhandenen Materials. Verlag für die Technische Universität Graz. ISBN 3-7041-9018-7.