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| Enki 𒀭𒂗𒆠 | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Detail of Enki from the Adda Seal, an ancient Akkadian cylinder seal dating to circa 2,300 BC[1] | |
| Symbol | Goat, fish, goat-fish, chimera |
| Genealogy | |
| Parents | An and Nammu[2] |
| Siblings | Enlil |
| Consort | Ninhursag, Damkina |
| Children | Marduk, Dumuzid, Ninsar, Ninkurra, Uttu, Ninti |
| Equivalents | |
| Greek | Poseidon,[3] Prometheus[4] |
| Egyptian | Ptah |
| Part of a series on |
| Ancient Mesopotamian religion |
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Enki (Sumerian: 𒀭𒂗𒆠 DEN-KI) is the Sumerian god of water, knowledge (gestú), crafts (gašam), and creation (nudimmud), and one of the Anunnaki. He was later known as Ea (Akkadian: 𒀭𒂍𒀀) or Ae[5] in Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) religion, and is identified by some scholars with Ia in Abrahamic religions. The name was rendered Aos in Greek sources (e.g. Damascius).[6]
He was originally the patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians. He was associated with the southern band of constellations called stars of Ea, but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, the Field (Square of Pegasus).[7] Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for "40", occasionally referred to as his "sacred number".[8][9] The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu (the son of Marduk) was, in Sumerian times, identified with Enki,[10] as was the star Canopus.[11]
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.
- ^ "The Adda Seal". British Museum.
- ^ Leick, Dr Gwendolyn (11 September 2002). A Dictionary of Ancient Near Eastern Mythology. Routledge. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-134-64103-1.
- ^ Duke, T. T. (1971). "Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe". The Classical Journal. 66 (4). Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS): 320–327. ISSN 0009-8353. 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)
- ^ Duke, T. T. (1971). "Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe". The Classical Journal. 66 (4). Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS): 320–327. ISSN 0009-8353. JSTOR 3296569. p. 324, note 27.
- ^ Langdon, S. (1918). "The Babylonian Conception of the Logos". The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press: 433–449. ISSN 0009-8353. JSTOR 25209408. p. 434.
- ^ Origins of the ancient constellations: I. The Mesopotamian traditions by J.H. Rogers
- ^ Black, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (1992). Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary. University of Texas Press. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-292-70794-8.
- ^ Foster, Benjamin R. (2007). "4 Mesopotamia". In Hinnells, John R. (ed.). A Handbook of Ancient Religions. Cambridge University Press. p. 174. ISBN 978-1-139-46198-6.
- ^ Black, Jeremy; Green, Anthony (1992), Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary, The British Museum Press, p. 133, ISBN 978-0-7141-1705-8
- ^ Nugent, Tony (1 January 1993). "Star-god: Enki/Ea and the biblical god as expressions of a common ancient Near Eastern astral-theological symbol system". Religion - Dissertations.