Editing Enki (section)

==Mythology==
[[File:Impression of an Akkadian cylinder seal with inscription The Divine Sharkalisharri Prince of Akkad Ibni-Sharrum the Scribe his servant.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Impression of a cylinder seal of the time of Akkadian King [[Sharkalisharri]] (c.2200 BC), with central inscription: "The Divine Sharkalisharri Prince of Akkad, Ibni-Sharrum the Scribe his servant". Depiction of Ea with [[Indian Buffalo|long-horned water buffalo]]. Circa 2217–2193 BC. [[Louvre Museum]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Cylinder Seal of Ibni-Sharrum |url=https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/cylinder-seal-ibni-sharrum |website=Louvre Museum}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Site officiel du musée du Louvre |url=http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=12067 |website=cartelfr.louvre.fr}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Brian A. |last2=Feldman |first2=Marian H. |title=Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art |date=2013 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-1-61451-035-2 |page=187 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F4DoBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA187 }}</ref>]]

===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, is living with his wife in the paradise of [[Dilmun]] where

{{poemquote|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,

{{poemquote|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.<ref>{{cite web| title=Enki and Ninhursaja| at=Line 50–87| accessdate=2022-11-05| url=https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.1.1&display=Crit&charenc=j&lineid=t111.p13#t111.p13}}</ref> Enki, the Water-Lord then "caused to flow the 'water of the heart" and having fertilised his consort [[Ninhursag]], also known as [[Ki (goddess)|Ki]] or Earth, after "Nine days being her nine months, the months of 'womanhood'... like good butter, Nintu, the mother of the land, ...like good butter, gave birth to [[Ninsar]], (Lady Greenery)". When Ninhursag left him, as Water-Lord he came upon Ninsar (Lady Greenery). Not knowing her to be his daughter, and because she reminds him of his absent consort, Enki then seduces and has intercourse with her. Ninsar then gave birth to [[Ninkurra]] (Lady Fruitfulness or Lady Pasture), and leaves Enki alone again. A second time, Enki, in his loneliness finds and seduces Ninkurra, and from the union Ninkurra gave birth to [[Uttu]] (weaver or spider, the weaver of the web of life).

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 [[Isimud]], "Enki, in the swampland, in the swampland lies stretched out, 'What is this (plant), what is this (plant).' His messenger Isimud, answers him; 'My king, this is the tree-plant', he says to him. He cuts it off for him and he (Enki) eats it". And so, despite warnings, Enki consumes the other seven fruit. Consuming his own semen, he falls pregnant (ill with swellings) in his jaw, his teeth, his mouth, his hip, his throat, his limbs, his side and his rib. The gods are at a loss to know what to do; chagrined they "sit in the dust". As Enki lacks a birth canal through which to give birth, he seems to be dying with swellings. The fox then asks [[Enlil]], [[King of the Gods]], "If I bring Ninhursag before thee, what shall be my reward?" Ninhursag's sacred fox then fetches the goddess.

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: [[Abu (god)|Abu]] for the jaw, [[Nanshe]] for the throat, [[Nintul]] for the hip, [[Ninsutu]] for the tooth, [[Ninkasi]] for the mouth, [[Dazimua]] for the side, [[Enshagag]] for the limbs. The last one, [[Ninti]] (Lady Rib), is also a pun on Lady Life, a title of Ninhursag herself. The story thus 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, the title of Ninhursag, also means "the mother of all living", and was a title later given to the [[Hurrian]] [[goddess]] [[Hebat|Kheba]]. This is also the title given in the Bible to [[Eve]], the Hebrew and Aramaic ''Ḥawwah'' (חוה), who was made from the rib of Adam, in a strange reflection of the Sumerian myth, in which Adam – not Enki – walks in the Garden of Paradise.<ref name="Kramer 1961">{{cite book |last1=Kramer |first1=Samuel Noah |title=Sumerian Mythology: A Study of Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C. |date=1961 |publisher=Harper & Brothers |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/sumerianmytholog00kram |url-access=registration |isbn=0-8122-1047-6}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=March 2021}}

===Making of man===
After six generations of gods, in the Babylonian ''[[Enûma Eliš]]'', in the seventh generation, (Akkadian ''"shapattu"'' or sabath), the younger [[Igigi]] gods, the sons and daughters of Enlil and Ninlil, go on strike and refuse their duties of keeping creation working. [[Abzu]], god of fresh water, co-creator of the cosmos, threatens to destroy the world with his waters, and the gods gather in terror. Enki promises to help and puts Abzu to sleep, confining him in irrigation canals and places him in the Kur, beneath his city of [[Eridu]]. But the universe is still threatened, as [[Tiamat]], angry at the imprisonment of Abzu and at the prompting of her son and vizier [[Kingu]], decides to take back creation herself. The gods gather again in terror and turn to Enki for help, but Enki – who harnessed [[Abzu]], Tiamat's consort, for irrigation – refuses to get involved. The gods then seek help elsewhere, and the patriarchal [[Enlil]], their father, god of [[Nippur]], promises to solve the problem if they make him King of the Gods. In the Babylonian tale, Enlil's role is taken by [[Marduk]], Enki's son, and in the Assyrian version it is [[Ashur (god)|Ashur]]. After dispatching Tiamat with the "arrows of his winds" down her throat and constructing the heavens with the arch of her ribs, Enlil places her tail in the sky as the Milky Way, and her crying eyes become the source of the Tigris and Euphrates. But there is still the problem of "who will keep the cosmos working". Enki, who might have otherwise come to their aid, is lying in a deep sleep and fails to hear their cries. His mother [[Nammu]] (creatrix also of Abzu and Tiamat) "brings the tears of the gods" before Enki and says

{{poemquote|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.<ref>{{harvnb|Kramer|1963|pp=149–151}}; {{harvnb|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''</ref> 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:

{{poemquote|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 (mythology)|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).<ref name="Kramer 1961" />{{Page needed|date=March 2021}}

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); 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.{{refn|group=note|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.<ref>Crisostomo, ''Translation as Scholarship: Language, Writing, and Bilingual Education in Ancient Babylonia'' (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2019), 36–39. {{ISBN|978-1-5015-0981-0}}</ref><ref>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</ref><ref>C. Mittermayer, ''Enmerkara und der Herr von Arata: ein ungleicher Wettstreit'' (Freiburg: Academic Press, 2009), 363.</ref>}}

Jay Crisostomo's 2019 translation, based on the recent work of C. Mittermayer is:
{{poemquote|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 [[Subartu|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:{{refn|group=note|Another translation describes 'Hamazi, the many-tongued' and instead calls on Enki to change the languages of mankind into one.<ref>{{cite web |title=Enmerkar and the lord of Aratta: translation |url=http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1823.htm |website=etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk |access-date=20 September 2020}}</ref>}}

{{poemquote|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 [[Amorites|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===
{{Main|Eridu Genesis}}
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.{{r|Kramer 1961}}{{rp|97–99}}

In the later Legend of [[Atrahasis]], Enlil, the King of the Gods, sets out to eliminate humanity, whose noise is disturbing his rest. He successively sends drought, famine and plague to eliminate humanity, but Enki thwarts his half-brother's plans by teaching Atrahasis how to counter these threats. Each time, Atrahasis asks the population to abandon worship of all gods except the one responsible for the calamity, and this seems to shame them into relenting. Humans, however, proliferate a fourth time. Enraged, [[Enlil]] convenes a Council of Deities and gets them to promise not to tell [[humankind]] that he plans their total annihilation. Enki does not tell Atrahasis directly, but speaks to him in secret via a reed wall. He instructs Atrahasis to build a boat in order to rescue his family and other living creatures from the coming deluge. 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. Upon landing, a sacrifice is made to the gods. Enlil is angry his will has been thwarted yet again, and Enki is named as the culprit. Enki explains that Enlil is unfair to punish the guiltless, and the gods institute measures to ensure that humanity does not become too populous in the future. This is one of the oldest of the surviving [[Middle East]]ern [[Flood (mythology)|deluge myths]].

===Enki and Inanna===

The myth ''Enki and Inanna''<ref>"Inanna: Lady of Love and War, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Morning and Evening Star", consulted 25 August 2007 [http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/gods/ladies/ladyinanna1.html]</ref><ref name="gfixkf">{{cite book |last1=Wolkstein |first1=Diane |last2=Kramer |first2=Samuel Noah |title=Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer |year=1983 |publisher=Harper & Row |isbn=978-0-06-090854-6 }}</ref> tells the story of how the young goddess of the [[E-anna|É-anna]] temple of [[Uruk]] feasts with her father Enki.<ref>{{cite book |first=Kim |last=Echlin |title=Inanna: A New English Version |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z3jJrQEACAAJ |date=2015 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-14-319458-3 |page=55}}</ref> The two deities participate in a drinking competition; then, Enki, thoroughly inebriated, gives Inanna all of the ''[[Me (mythology)|mes]]''. The next morning, when Enki awakes with a hangover, he asks his servant [[Isimud]] for the ''mes'', only to be informed that he has given them to Inanna. Upset, he sends [[Gallu|''Galla'']] to recover them. Inanna sails away in the boat of heaven and arrives safely back at the quay of Uruk. Eventually, Enki admits his defeat and accepts a peace treaty 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'',<ref name="gfixkf"/> Inanna, in order to console her grieving sister [[Ereshkigal]], who is mourning the death of her husband [[Gugalana]] (''gu'' 'bull', ''gal'' 'big', ''ana'' 'sky/heaven'), slain by [[Gilgamesh]] and [[Enkidu]], sets out to visit her sister. Inanna tells her servant Ninshubur ('Lady Evening', a reference to Inanna's role as the [[Venus|evening star]]) to get help from [[Anu]], [[Enlil]] or Enki if she does not return in three days. After Inanna has not come back, Ninshubur approaches Anu, only to be told that he knows the goddess's strength and her ability to take care of herself. While Enlil tells Ninshubur he is busy running the cosmos, Enki immediately expresses concern and dispatches his Galla (Galaturra or Kurgarra, sexless beings created from the dirt from beneath the god's finger-nails) to recover the young goddess.
These beings may be the origin of the Greco-Roman ''[[Galli]]'', androgynous beings of the [[Third gender|third sex]] who played an important part in early religious ritual.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Enheduanna |first2=Betty De Shong |last2=Meador |title=Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B45PvLlj3ogC |year=2000 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-0-292-75242-9}}</ref>

{{anchor|Inanna and Shukaletuda}}In the story ''[[Inanna and Shukaletuda]]'',<ref>Lishtar "The Avenging Maiden and the Predator Gardener: a study of Inanna and Shukaletuda" [http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/essays/shukaletuda.html]</ref> [[Shukaletuda]], the gardener, set by Enki to care for the date palm he had created, finds Inanna sleeping under the palm tree and rapes the goddess in her sleep. Awaking, she discovers that she has been violated and seeks to punish the miscreant. Shukaletuda seeks protection from Enki, whom Bottéro believes to be his father.{{sfn|Bottéro|1992}} In classic Enkian fashion, the father advises Shukaletuda to hide in the city where Inanna will not be able to find him. Enki, as the protector of whoever comes to seek his help, and as the empowerer of Inanna, here challenges the young impetuous goddess to control her anger so as to be better able to function as a great judge.

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.