Anunnaki- Mesopotamian GroupCollective"Great Gods"

Children of Heaven and Earth

The Anunnaki emerged from the union of An, the sky, and Ki, the earth. The Song of the Hoe describes Enlil separating heaven from earth at the holy city of Nippur, and in the space that opened between them, the gods came into being. Their number was reckoned at six hundred. Their assembly at the Ubshu-ukkinna in Nippur was the highest authority in the cosmos: a collective decree that no individual god, however powerful, could overturn. When they spoke together, their word became fate.

The Rise of Marduk

In the Enuma Elish, the Anunnaki gathered in desperate council when Tiamat marshaled her monstrous forces against them. They first sent Ea to confront her, then Anu. Both turned back in failure. Only when young Marduk offered to champion the gods did the assembly take notice. They tested him: at his command, a constellation vanished from the sky. At his command, it reappeared. Satisfied, they armed him for battle and granted him authority no god had held before. "Your word shall be supreme, your command shall be unrivaled."

Marduk split Tiamat's body and shaped the cosmos from it. He assigned stations to all six hundred gods, placing three hundred in the heavens and three hundred on the earth. The grateful Anunnaki built Babylon and its great temple Esagila as his dwelling. They performed the construction labor themselves, willingly, out of gratitude to their champion. When the work was done, they feasted in the temple they had raised and confirmed Marduk's fifty names of power.

The Labor Rebellion

Before humans existed, the Igigi, the younger gods, performed the labor that sustained the cosmos. They dug canals and dredged waterways without rest. After 3,600 years of unrelenting toil, the Igigi rebelled. They burned their tools, surrounded Enlil's temple at dead of night, and refused to work.

The Anunnaki could not resolve the crisis by force, for the workers were gods themselves. Ea devised the solution: the birth goddess Mami would fashion a new race from clay mixed with the flesh and blood of a slain god, Geshtu-e, "who had intelligence." The divine element gave the new beings awareness and spirit. The clay gave them mortal bodies destined to return to dust. Humanity was created to bear the gods' labor: to build their temples and provide the offerings that sustained divine life.

The Flood

The same assembly that created humanity eventually decreed its destruction. When human populations multiplied and their noise prevented Enlil from sleeping, the Anunnaki deliberated and consented to a flood that would wipe out mortal life. The gods swore an oath of silence: no deity would warn the humans of what was coming.

But when the waters rose and the offerings ceased, the gods suffered the consequences of their own decree. They cowered in the highest heaven "like dogs," starved for the worship they had destroyed. Ishtar wailed for the people she had helped condemn. When Utnapishtim survived through Ea's secret counsel and offered sacrifice on the mountain, the Anunnaki gathered around the smoke "like flies." Desperate. Ashamed.

The aftermath produced a new arrangement: humanity would continue, but with natural limits on its numbers. Never again would the assembly decree total destruction.

The Eyes of Death

A group of seven Anunnaki served as judges in the underworld, seated before Ereshkigal to pass sentence on the dead. Their authority in this role was absolute. When Inanna descended to the realm of the dead, she was stripped of her divine powers at each of the seven gates and brought naked before them. They "fastened their eyes upon her, the eyes of death. They spoke against her, the word of wrath. They shouted against her, the shout of heavy guilt." The queen of heaven was turned into a corpse and hung on a hook.

Above, the Anunnaki decreed the destinies of the living through debate and consensus. Below, they judged the dead without appeal.