The serpent-god, Enki was his Sumerian name, Ea his Akkadian. The son of An and Nammu, he was the god of the fresh waters that give life, En-Lil's younger brother (Adad's twin brother in some later versions), and number two immediately behind him among the Babyonian deities.
The name (click here) is understood as a title, equivalent to "Lord of the Earth" (in Yehudit Adon Olam), though he was actually the god of the fresh waters that give life, and Ea in Akkadian means "House of the Water". Ea may have been an early version of Yah-Io; it was taken to mean "exalted", in the way that we might describe something or someone as "divine" or "godly". "House of the Water" should be understood in the same way as the Yisra-Eli "god of the firmament"; in both cases the "waters" in question are the primoridal elements rather than any specific rivers or oceans.
In Sumerian En-Ki meant "Lord-Love", and was a syncretisation of two much earlier deities, En (a variant of An or Anu) and Ki. At the origins of all origins An and Ki were definitely one, An being Heaven and Ki Earth, An male and Ki female; as one they were a mountain whose lower part was on Earth and upper in the heavens, just like Ya'akov's Ladder (Genesis 28:11 ff) - i.e the World Mountain reflected in the ziggurat, and the Ladder really the Milky Way. As Adam and Chavah (Eve) were divided by YHVH (Genesis 2:21), so An-Ki by En-Lil, bringing the temporal world into existence (as Marduk did by bifurcating Tahamat, or Ophion in the Greek version).
Some scholars reckon the name, in Sumerian, meant "Lord-Love", though that was probably just an epithet too, like Yedid-Yah ("the beloved of the moon-goddess"), which is the full name of David. He was regarded as the "Friend and Protector of Man (Humankind)"; he was also the god of wisdom, magic and medicine, regularly invoked in incantations, the patron deity of the Bārû (diviners) and the Ashipū (exorcist priests). The arts and crafts, and all other achievements of civilisation, were attributed to him, and because his waters were fresh and purifying, he also became the patron deity of launderers and cleaners.
The illustration (above) is from "The Seal of Adda" in the British Museum, whose catalogue describes the picture as follows:
As to the goat and the fish, Capricorn was also Io's symbol, and logically so, because it is the zodiacal section that the sun enters at the winter solstice for rebirth. As Babylonian Pisces, so to speak, Enki was identified with baptism and washing rituals. Berossus (the Babylonian priest Bēl-rēʾûshunu) in 280 BCE called him Oannes, whence the Greek Johannes, and the John the Baptist/rebirth-through-water segment of the Jesus story; the Book of Jonah owes its origins here as well (Oannes was the principal deity of Nineveh); and once again that depiction as a serpent. Enki lived with his wife Nin-Hursag in the island paradise known as Dilmun (Nin-Hursag was the "nurse" of all the early Sumerian kings (cf Rivkah and Devorah in Genesis 35:8).
When En-Lil decreed the Flood, it was En-Ki who enabled Utnapishtim - the Babylonian No'ach - to survive; in the Sumerian version, anyway; in the later Akkadian versions he advised the "good man Atra-Hasis" to build an ark before the waters came. It was also En-Ki who, in "The Descent of Inanna", provided her means of rescue from the Underworld, by allowing himself to become drunk and giving away the Meh, the gifts of civilization and property which were the sole possessions of the gods, to Inanna, knowing that she would disperse them to Humankind. The word for "soul" or "spirit" in Yehudit is Nephesh, and probably derives, in the Hit'pael form, from Utnapishtim (explanations of the Binyanim can be found here: simple; complex)
In that same mythical tale (allegorical fable), Ea is the creator of Humankind, and also its and protector in the Babylonian flood myths - indeed, both this one of Atra-Hasis and "The Epic of Gilgamesh", where he hatches a plan to create humans out of clay, so that they could provide slaves and servants for the gods. But the supreme god En-Lil attempted to destroy them, and sent a flood to do so, because their never-ending noise (moaning probably, it's what we do best) prevented him from sleeping. Clever Ea foresaw En-Lil's plan; he instructed Atra-Hasis to build an ark so that sufficient of humanity could escape the destruction that a restart was viable.
Elsewhere in the mythologies, Ea makes a significant appearance in "Adapa and the South Wind", helping Humankind to keep the gift of magic and incantations, by preventing Adapa from becoming immortal.
Ea was served by his minister, the two-faced god - Isimu in Sumerian, Usmû in Akkadian. The seven mythical sages known as the Apkallū also lived in the Abzu, which was his domain.
Ea's wife was named Damgalnunna, or Enki's Damkina, depending on whether you were in Sumer or in Akkad, but either way their offspring were the gods Marduk, Asarluhi and Enbilulu, the goddess Nanshe, and the sage Adapa. Being a god, and male, we have to expect other close encounters of a sexual kind, of which the Sumerian myth "Enki and Ninhursanga" is probably the best known today; it tells how Nin-Hursanga gave birth to the goddess Nin-Mu after spending some quiet and relaxing time with Enki. Later Enki becomes gravely ill, and Nin-Hursanga then gives birth to eight healing deities in order to cure him. Enki then fathered the goddess Nin-Kurra with his daughter Nin-Mu, and the goddess Uttu with his granddaughter Nin-Kurra. The same tale speaks of the transformation of the land around the salty marshes land of Tilmun into fertile, economically productive ground, through the use of the sweet water from the Abzu - clearly a mythological account of that extraordinary moment in human history, when the Bread Wheat and the Emmer Wheat first evolved - for which, see my pieceon Dagon, above, and the link there. Tilmun there is surely the same as Dilmun elsewhere, and this the first account of a "Garden of Eden".
Elsewhere, "Enki and Inanna" recounts a power-struggle between Enki and Inanna, and given that she was the goddess of both sex and war, the outcome was entirely predictable; Inanna's oal however was not really power at all; she got him drunk so that she could steal the capacity to make human beings civilised from him. It didn't last though, and in the much later "Enki and the World Order" it is he alone who rules.
The illustration (above) is from "The Seal of Adda" in the British Museum, whose catalogue describes the picture as follows:
A hunting god (full-face) has a bow and an arrow (?) over his shoulder; a quiver with tassel attached hangs on his back. On the left hand mountain stands a small tree and Ishtar (full-face) who is winged and armed with weapons including an axe and a mace rising from her shoulders. She is holding a bush-like object, probably a bunch of dates, above the sun-god's head. The sun-god Shamash with rays, holding a serrated blade, is just begining to emerge from between two square topped mountains. The water god Ea stands to the right with one foot placed on the right hand mountain. He stretches out his right hand towards an eagle, probably the Zu bird who stole the tablets of destiny. A couchant bull lies between his legs and streams of water and fish flow from his shoulders. Behind him stands his two-faced attendant god Usimu with his right hand raised. All wear the multiple-horned head-dresses of deities. The male figures are bearded and Usimu has a double beard and wears a flounced skirt. Ea and Ishtar both wear flounced robes and the fourth complete figure wears a striped skirt which either has a cod-piece or is hitched up in front. This god wears his hair in a long curl down the left side, reminiscent of those worn by bull-men and Ishtar has two similar curls hanging down, one on either side, while Ea and Shamash wear their hair in a triple bun. The scales of the mountain are continued in a horizontal band all round the lower part of the seal and it is on this band that the figures are standing. There is a two line inscription in a frame and below it a lion is pacing towards the right and roaring.
He was depicted as a serpent, but all gods and goddesses connected with rivers and oceans appear to have been depicted as serpents, the freshwater and saltwater usually distinguished by size and type; he resided in the ocean underneath the Earth.
In Akkad he was known as Ea, which may have been an early, masculine version of Yah/Io. Ea was taken to mean "exalted" (in the way that we might describe something or someone as "divine" or "godly"), though actually this name too meant "House of the Water" in Akkadian, so the syncretisation of Ea with Enki makes linguistic sense - Gott in Germany and Dieu across the border in France being the obvious comparables.
In Akkad he was known as Ea, which may have been an early, masculine version of Yah/Io. Ea was taken to mean "exalted" (in the way that we might describe something or someone as "divine" or "godly"), though actually this name too meant "House of the Water" in Akkadian, so the syncretisation of Ea with Enki makes linguistic sense - Gott in Germany and Dieu across the border in France being the obvious comparables.
As noted above, the name is also remarkably similar to the Yisra-Eli "god of the firmament", in both cases the "waters" being the primordial elements rather than any specific rivers or oceans - in Ea's Akkadian tales those waters were specifically named Abzu or Apsu, the primordial "abyss", after his father. It was in his capacity of god of magic that he defeated his father Apsu and created the Earth - the Sumerian version of that tale reflects in many ways that of Chronos and his father Ouranos, the latter castrated by the former because he was spreading so much seed about the Cosmos there was a serious danger of overplanetisation and overstellarisation; in this case it was Enki whose virile masculinity was a matter of concern, tales about it not suitable for a television audience before 9pm, and the same metaphorical link between the life-giving properties of the god's semen and the animating nature of fresh water from the Abzu. And just as the primary water-source for Yeru-Shala'im was the serpent-pool Giychon, one of the four rivers that encircled the Garden of Eden (see my notes to Genesis 2:13), so Babylonian legend states that the city of Babylon was built on top of the Abzu.
I suggested above that he may originally have been a conjunction of En, from An/Anu, and Ki; and if so, can we assume that En-Lil is of the same order, a conjoining of An or Anu with either Lillu or Lullu?
I suggested above that he may originally have been a conjunction of En, from An/Anu, and Ki; and if so, can we assume that En-Lil is of the same order, a conjoining of An or Anu with either Lillu or Lullu?
As Adam and Chavah (Eve) were divided by YHVH (Genesis 2:21), so An-Ki by En-Lil, bringing the temporal world into existence (as Marduk did by bifurcating Tahamat, or Ophion in the Greek version). A sense of something decidedly androgynous-hermaphrodite, and of course the most elemental of all of Earth's creatures, the algae, and vast numbers of plants and flowers (click here for a list of the various forms of plant reproductive morphology), are likewise duo-sexual, or variably-sexual; so we can add that to the growing list of A level science facts which were already known five thousand years ago!
Another of Enki's epithets was "Lord of the Goddess of the Earth", which is really just a proprietorial description of the relationship between An and Ki, a reduction of its natural equality to one of malesuperiority-femaleinferiority; and in this it again equivalates with Adam's relationship with Chavah (Eve).
His animals are mostly the goat and the fish = Capricorn. But there is also the Sumerian poem "Nin-Urta and the Turtle", which describes how Enki created a turtle from the clay of the Abzu to help him recover the stolen Tablet of Destinies, which controls humanity's future; the tablet had been stolen by an evil bird-like demon named Anzu, and Nin-Urta won it back, but then decided to keep it for himself rather than returning it to Enki. Enki created a turtle which grabbed Nin-Urta by the heel - that mystical heel again! - dug a pit with its claws, and dragged the overambitious hero into it. Alas the story is incomplete, but we know from later tales that the tablet was safely returned to Enki.
Another of Enki's epithets was "Lord of the Goddess of the Earth", which is really just a proprietorial description of the relationship between An and Ki, a reduction of its natural equality to one of malesuperiority-femaleinferiority; and in this it again equivalates with Adam's relationship with Chavah (Eve).
His animals are mostly the goat and the fish = Capricorn. But there is also the Sumerian poem "Nin-Urta and the Turtle", which describes how Enki created a turtle from the clay of the Abzu to help him recover the stolen Tablet of Destinies, which controls humanity's future; the tablet had been stolen by an evil bird-like demon named Anzu, and Nin-Urta won it back, but then decided to keep it for himself rather than returning it to Enki. Enki created a turtle which grabbed Nin-Urta by the heel - that mystical heel again! - dug a pit with its claws, and dragged the overambitious hero into it. Alas the story is incomplete, but we know from later tales that the tablet was safely returned to Enki.
As to the goat and the fish, Capricorn was also Io's symbol, and logically so, because it is the zodiacal section that the sun enters at the winter solstice for rebirth. As Babylonian Pisces, so to speak, Enki was identified with baptism and washing rituals. Berossus (the Babylonian priest Bēl-rēʾûshunu) in 280 BCE called him Oannes, whence the Greek Johannes, and the John the Baptist/rebirth-through-water segment of the Jesus story; the Book of Jonah owes its origins here as well (Oannes was the principal deity of Nineveh); and once again that depiction as a serpent. Enki lived with his wife Nin-Hursag in the island paradise known as Dilmun (Nin-Hursag was the "nurse" of all the early Sumerian kings (cf Rivkah and Devorah in Genesis 35:8).
When En-Lil decreed the Flood, it was En-Ki who enabled Utnapishtim - the Babylonian No'ach - to survive; in the Sumerian version, anyway; in the later Akkadian versions he advised the "good man Atra-Hasis" to build an ark before the waters came. It was also En-Ki who, in "The Descent of Inanna", provided her means of rescue from the Underworld, by allowing himself to become drunk and giving away the Meh, the gifts of civilization and property which were the sole possessions of the gods, to Inanna, knowing that she would disperse them to Humankind. The word for "soul" or "spirit" in Yehudit is Nephesh, and probably derives, in the Hit'pael form, from Utnapishtim (explanations of the Binyanim can be found here: simple; complex)
In that same mythical tale (allegorical fable), Ea is the creator of Humankind, and also its and protector in the Babylonian flood myths - indeed, both this one of Atra-Hasis and "The Epic of Gilgamesh", where he hatches a plan to create humans out of clay, so that they could provide slaves and servants for the gods. But the supreme god En-Lil attempted to destroy them, and sent a flood to do so, because their never-ending noise (moaning probably, it's what we do best) prevented him from sleeping. Clever Ea foresaw En-Lil's plan; he instructed Atra-Hasis to build an ark so that sufficient of humanity could escape the destruction that a restart was viable.
Elsewhere in the mythologies, Ea makes a significant appearance in "Adapa and the South Wind", helping Humankind to keep the gift of magic and incantations, by preventing Adapa from becoming immortal.
Ea was served by his minister, the two-faced god - Isimu in Sumerian, Usmû in Akkadian. The seven mythical sages known as the Apkallū also lived in the Abzu, which was his domain.
Ea's wife was named Damgalnunna, or Enki's Damkina, depending on whether you were in Sumer or in Akkad, but either way their offspring were the gods Marduk, Asarluhi and Enbilulu, the goddess Nanshe, and the sage Adapa. Being a god, and male, we have to expect other close encounters of a sexual kind, of which the Sumerian myth "Enki and Ninhursanga" is probably the best known today; it tells how Nin-Hursanga gave birth to the goddess Nin-Mu after spending some quiet and relaxing time with Enki. Later Enki becomes gravely ill, and Nin-Hursanga then gives birth to eight healing deities in order to cure him. Enki then fathered the goddess Nin-Kurra with his daughter Nin-Mu, and the goddess Uttu with his granddaughter Nin-Kurra. The same tale speaks of the transformation of the land around the salty marshes land of Tilmun into fertile, economically productive ground, through the use of the sweet water from the Abzu - clearly a mythological account of that extraordinary moment in human history, when the Bread Wheat and the Emmer Wheat first evolved - for which, see my pieceon Dagon, above, and the link there. Tilmun there is surely the same as Dilmun elsewhere, and this the first account of a "Garden of Eden".
In terms of their worship, Enki is most associated with the city of Eridu, where his temple was known as the E-abzu, or "House of the Abzu", and also as the E-engur-ra, "the house of the subterranean water"., and sometimes as the E-unir (Foster 2005: 643-644). No specific temple is identified with Ea, but in the latter years of the second millennium, most of the surviving rituals and prayers to prevent and remove evil, in any shrine anywhere in Mesopotamia, appear to have invoked Ea, Shamash and Marduk as a trinity, or even possibly a trimurti. Ea provided the spell, Marduk oversaw its implementation, and Shamash provided purification. Which is slightly odd, given Ea's patronage of the cleaners and launderers, and his status at the royal "bath house" - a ceremonial washing away of national sin after a war or a cataclysmic event in Nature.
Both Enki and Ea were depicted with beards, usually wearing a horned cap and long robes, surrounded by a flowing stream with fish swimming inside it, representing the subterranean waters of the Abzu.
Both Enki and Ea were depicted with beards, usually wearing a horned cap and long robes, surrounded by a flowing stream with fish swimming inside it, representing the subterranean waters of the Abzu.
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