Enki

Fertile Crescent myth series
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7 Gods who Decree
4 primary: Anu Enlil Ki Enki	3 sky: Ishtar Sin Sama

Enki was a major deity in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Babylonian mythology. He was originally the chief god of the city of Eridu.

Enki was the god of crafts, water, intelligence, and creation. He was generally beneficent toward mankind and is portrayed in several myths as intervening on behalf of humanity. In later Mesopotamian religion, Enki/Ea became part of the primary triad of deities consisting of Anu (deep heaven), Enlil (sky and earth), and himself (waters).

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." It was also a title given to the high priest. Ki means "earth," but there are theories that ki in this name has another origin.

The later name Ea is either Hurrian or Semitic in origin. In Sumerian "E-A" means "the house of water," and it has been suggested that this was originally the name for the shrine to Enki at Eridu. Some scholars believe that Ea may be associated to some degree with later western Semitic gods such as the Canaanite El and the Hebrew Yahweh.

Attributes

Babylonia in the early second millennium B.C.E. The early worship of Enki was centered in Eridu, to the far south.

Enki was the keeper of the holy powers called Me, the gifts of civilized living. The main temple of Enki was called é-engur-a, the "house of the lord of deep waters." It was located in Eridu, which was then in the wetlands of the Euphrates valley, not far from the Persian Gulf.

Enki was also the master shaper of the world and the god of wisdom and of all magic. He was the lord of the Apsu ("abyss"), the freshwater ocean of groundwater under the earth. In the later Babylonian Enuma Elish Apsu, the "begetter of the gods," finds his peace disturbed by the younger gods and sets out to destroy them. Enki is his grandson, chosen by the younger gods to put a spell on Apsu, "casting him into a deep sleep" and confining him deep underground. Enki subsequently sets up his home "in the depths of the Apzu. Enki thus takes on all of the earlier functions of Apsu, including his fertilizing powers as lord of the waters and lord of semen.

In another, even older, tradition Nammu, the goddess of the watery primeval creative matter said to have "given birth to the great gods", was the mother of Enki, and as the watery creative force, was said to pre-date Enki. In one evocative passage in a Sumerian hymn, Enki stands at the empty river beds and fills them with his 'water'". This may be a reference to Enki's hieros gamos or sacred marriage with Ki/Ninhursag (the Earth) (see below).

Enki's symbols included a goat and a fish, which later combined into a single beast, the goat Capricorn, which became one of the signs of the zodiac.

Enki in Sumerian astronomy also represented the planet Mercury, known for its ability to shift rapidly, and its proximity to the Sun, Sumerian Utu, Akkadian Shamash, the god of Justice.

Restorer of balance

Enki was not perfect, as god of water he had a penchant for beer and as god of semen he had a string of incestuous affairs, as did many of the gods. In the epic Enki and Ninhursag, he and his consort Ninhursag had a daughter Ninsar. When Ninhursag left him, he came upon and then had intercourse with Ninsar (Lady Greenery) who gave birth to Ninkurra (Lady Fruitfulness or Lady Pasture). A second time, he had intercourse with Ninkurra, who gave birth to Uttu (= Weaver or Spider). A third time Enki succumbs to temptation, and attempts seduction of Uttu. She consults Ninhursag, who, upset at the promiscuous nature of her spouse, advises Uttu to avoid the riverbanks. In another version of this myth, Ninhursag takes Enki's semen from Uttu's womb and plants it in the earth, where seven plants rapidly germinate. With his two-faced servant and steward Isimud, Enki finds the plants and immediately starts consuming their fruit. Consuming his own semen he falls pregnant (ill with swellings) in his jaw, his teeth, his mouth, his throat, his limbs and his rib. The gods are at a loss to know what to do, as Enki lacks a womb with which to give birth, until Ninhursag's sacred fox fetches the goddess.

Ninhursag relents and takes Enki's "water" into her body, and gives birth to gods of healing of each part of the body. The last one - Ninti, (Sumerian = Lady Rib), is also a pun on Lady Life, a title of Ninhursag herself. The story symbolically reflects the way in which life is brought forth through the addition of water to the land, and once it grows, water is required to bring plants to fruit. It also counsels balance and responsibility, nothing to excess.

Ninti, is given the title of the "mother of all living," and was a title given to the later Hurrian goddess Kheba. This is also the title given to Eve, who was supposedly made from the rib of Adam.

Confuser of languages

In the Sumerian epic entitled Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, in a speech of Enmerkar, an incantation is pronounced that has a mythical introduction. Kramer's translation is as follows:

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...

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.

Champion of humankind

According to Sumerian mythology, Enki also assisted humanity to survive the Deluge designed by the gods to kill them. In the Legend of Atrahasis—later adapted into the Epic of Gilgamesh—Enlil sets out to eliminate humanity, whose overpopulation and resultant mating noise is offensive to his ears. He successively sends drought, famine, and plague to do away with humankind, whose numbers are severely diminished by these catastrophes. However, Enki thwarts his half-brother's plans by teaching Atrahasis the secrets of irrigation, granaries, and medicine. The enraged Enlil, convenes a council of the gods and convinces them to promise not to tell humankind that he plans their total annihilation. Enki does not tell Atrahasis, but speaks of Enlil's plan to the walls of Atrahasis' reed hut, thus covertly rescuing the man Atrahasis (Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh) by either instructing him to build some kind of a boat for his family, or by bringing him into the heavens in a magic boat.

After the seven day deluge, the flood hero frees a swallow, a raven and a dove in an effort to find if the flood waters have receded. On the boat landing, a sacrifice is organized to the gods. Enlil is angry that his will has been thwarted yet again, and Enki is named as the culprit. Enki argues that Enlil is unfair to punish the guiltless Atrahasis for the sins of his fellows, and secures a promise that the gods will not eliminate humankind if they practice birth control and live within the means of the natural world. The threat is made, however, that if humans do not honor their side of the covenant, the gods will be free to wreak havoc once again. This is apparently the oldest surviving Middle Eastern Deluge myths.

Enki and Inanna

In his connections with Inanna (Ishtar) Enki, shows other aspects of his non-atriarchal attitude. The myth Enki and Inanna tells the story of Inanna, the young goddess of the É-anna temple of Uruk, who visits Enki, the senior god of Eridu, and is entertained by him in a feast. The seductive god plies her with beer, and the young goddess maintains her virtue, while Enki proceeds to get drunk. In generosity he gives her all the gifts of his Me. Next morning, with a hangover, he asks his servant Isimud for his Me, only to be informed that he has given them to Inanna. Upset at his actions, he sends demons to recover them. Inanna escapes her pursuers and arrives safely back at Uruk. Enki realizes that he has been tricked and accepts a peace treaty forever with Uruk. 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, Inanna sets out on a journey to the underword in order to console her grieving sister Ereshkigal, who is mourning the death of her husband Gugalana (Gu=Bull, Gal=Great, Ana=Heaven), slain by the heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu. She tells her servant Ninshubur (Nin=Lady, Shubur=Evening}, if she does not return in three days, to get help from either from her father Anu, Enlil, or Enki. When she does not return, Ninshubur approaches Anu only to be told that he understands that his daughter is strong and can take care of herself. Enlil tells Ninshubur he is much too busy running the cosmos. However, Enki immediately expresses concern and dispatches his demons, Galaturra or Kurgarra—sexless beings created from the dirt from beneath the god's finger-nails—to recover the young goddess.

In the story Inanna and Shukaletuda, Shukaletuda, the gardener, set by Enki to care for the date palm he had created, finds Inanna sleeping under the palm tree and rapes her in her sleep. Awaking, she discovers that she has been violated and seeks to punish the miscreant. Shukaletuda seeks protection from Enki. In classic Enkian fashion, he advises Shukaletuda to hide in the city, where Inanna will not be able to find him. Eventually, after cooling her anger, Inanna too seeks the help of Enki, as spokesperson of the "assembly of the gods." After she presents her case, Enki sees that justice needs to be done and promises help, delivering to her the knowledge of where the miscreant is hiding.

Portrayal

Enki was considered a god of life and replenishment, and was often depicted with two streams of water emanating from his shoulders, one the Tigris, the other the Euphrates. Alongside him were trees symbolizing the male and female aspects of nature, each holding the male and female aspects of the "Life Essence," which he, the alchemist of the gods, would masterfully mix to create several beings that would live upon the face of the earth.

In character Enki is not that of a simple trickster god, and he is never a cheat. Although sometimes fooled, he is not a fool. Enki uses his magic for the good of others when called upon to help either a god, a goddess, or a human. He is always true to his own essence as a masculine nurturer. He is a problem-solver who disarms those who bring conflict and death to the world. He is the mediator whose compassion and sense of humor breaks and disarms the wrath of his stern half-brother, Enlil. In the myth Enki and Inanna and the Me he graciously concedes his defeat by strengthening the bonds between his city of Eridu and her city of Uruk. Thus, after attempting to seduce her, he becomes the Empowerer of Inanna.

He is the lord of the Apsu, the fresh-water ocean of groundwater under the earth.

Influence

Enki and later Ea were sometimes depicted as a man covered with the skin of a fish, and this representation points decidedly to his original character as a god of the waters. Of his cult at Eridu, which goes back to the oldest period of Mesopotamian history, little definite is known except that his temple was also associated with Ninhursag's shrine, which was called Esaggila (the lofty sacred house), a name shared with Marduk's temple in Babylon, pointing to a staged tower or ziggurat. It is also known that incantations, involving ceremonial rites in which water as a sacred element played a prominent part, formed a feature of his worship. The early inscriptions of Urukagina suggest that the divine pair Enki and Ninki, were the progenators of seven pairs of gods. The pool of the Apsu at the front of his temple was adopted also at the temple to Nanna (Akkadian Sin) the Moon, at Ur, and spread throughout the Middle East. It may have been carried over into Israelite worship in the bronze "Sea" which stood before Solomon's Temple. Some believe it still remains as the sacred pool at Mosques, and as the Baptismal font in Christian Churches.

Myths in which Ea figures prominently have been found in Assurbanipal's library and in the Hattusas archive in Hittite Anatolia. As Ea, Enki had a wide influence outside of Sumeria, being associated by some with El (at Ugarit) and possibly Yah (at Ebla) in the Canaanite 'ilhm pantheon, he is also found in Hurrian and Hittite mythology, as a god of contracts, and is particularly favourable to humankind. Among the Western Semites it is thought that Ea was equated to the term *hyy (Life)[3], referring to Enki's waters as life giving.

Enki/Ea is essentially a god of civilization, wisdom and culture. He was also the creator and protector of man, and of the world in general. Traces of this view appear in the Marduk epic celebrating the achievements of this god and the close connection between the Ea cult at Eridu and that of Marduk. The correlation between the two rise from two other important connections: (1) that the name of Marduk's sanctuary at Babylon bears the same name, Esaggila, as that of a temple in Eridu, and (2) that Marduk is generally termed the son of Ea, who derives his powers from the voluntary abdication of the father in favor of his son. Accordingly, the incantations originally composed for the Ea cult were re-edited by the priests of Babylon and adapted to the worship of Marduk, and, similarly, the hymns to Marduk betray traces of the transfer of attributes to Marduk which originally belonged to Ea.

It is as the third figure in the heavenly triad—the two other members of which were Anu and Enlil)—that Ea acquires his permanent place in the pantheon. To him was assigned the control of the watery element, and in this capacity he becomes the 'shar apsi', i.e. king of the Apsu or "the deep." The cult of Ea extended throughout Babylonia and Assyria. We find temples and shrines erected in his honor, e.g. at Nippur, Girsu, Ur, Babylon, Sippar and Nineveh, and the numerous epithets given to him bear witness to the popularity which he enjoyed from the earliest to the latest period of Babylonian-Assyrian history.

The consort of Ea—known as Ninhursag, Ki, Uriash Damkina, "lady of that which is below," or Damgalnunna, "great lady of the waters"—originally was fully equal with him, but in more patriarchal Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times plays a part merely in association with her lord. Generally, however, Enki (as distinct from Ea) seems to be a reflection of pre-patriarchal times, in which relations between the sexes were characterized by a situation of greater gender equality. In his character, he prefers persuasion to conflict, which he seeks to avoid if possible.

Ea and West Semitic deities

In 1964, a team of Italian archaeologists under the direction of Paolo Matthiae of the University of Rome La Sapienza performed a series of excavations of material from the third-millennium B.C.E. city of Ebla. Among other conclusions, he found a tendency among the inhabitants of Ebla to replace the name of El, king of the gods of the Canaanite Pantheon, with "Ia."

Jean Bottero and others have suggested that Ia in this case is a West Semitic (Canaanite) way of saying Ea, Enki's Akkadian name "Ia" (two syllables) is declined with the Semitic ending as Iahu and may have developed into the later form of Yahweh. Ia has also been confused with the Ugaritic Yamm (=Sea), (also called Judge Nahar, or Judge River) whose earlier name in at least one ancient source was Yaw, or Ya'a. Although both Ea and Yamm were water gods, Ea was the creator and representative of the sweet beneficent waters from below the earth. Yamm, however, in addition to being the deity of salt waters, and of storms that sank ships, flooded cities—that is, had a more violent character than Ea, who generally avoided conflict. Yamm, although important to the maritime Canaanites, was comparatively a minor figure when compared to Ba'al Hadad, who in the West Semitic myths is always his foe.

See also

• Mesopotamian mythology
• Mesopotamia
• Ancient Near East
• Capricornus

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Jacobsen, Thorkild (1976) "Treasures of Darkness; A History of Mesopotamian Religion," (Yale University Press, London, New Heaven) ISBN 0-300-02291-3
• Bottero, Jean (2004) "Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia" (University Of Chicago Press) ISBN 0-226-06718-1
• Kramer, Samuel Noah (1998) "Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C.E." (University of Pennsylvania Press; Revised edition) ISBN 0-8122-1047-6
• Kramer, S.N. and Maier, J.R. (1989) "Myths of Enki, the Crafty God" (Oxford)
• Galter, H.D. (1981) "Der Gott Ea/Enki in der akkadischen Überlieferung" (Graz)
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

External links

• AncientNearEast.Net

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