Enki- Mesopotamian GodDeity"Lord of Wisdom"

The Cleverest of the Gods

Eridu stood at the edge of the southern marshes where the Euphrates met the sea. Beneath it lay the Apsu, the underground freshwater ocean from which every spring and river rose. Enki ruled the Apsu from his temple, the E-abzu. In cylinder seals and temple reliefs, he appears with streams flowing from his shoulders, fish swimming in the currents. His sacred animal was the goatfish: the forequarters of a goat joined to the tail of a fish.

In "Enki and the World Order," he traveled the known world and organized it. He filled the Tigris with flowing water and gave the plow and yoke to the farmer-god Enkimdu. For each domain of civilization he appointed a patron deity, then moved on to the next. The poem lists dozens of crafts and offices, and each time the pattern is the same: Enki decides how it works, hands it to another god, and moves on.

The Creation of Humanity

In "Enki and Ninmah," the gods grow weary of digging canals and tending crops. They appeal to Nammu, the primordial sea goddess, who wakes her son Enki to find a solution.

Enki devises the answer: creatures made from clay, mixed with the blood of a slain god, will bear the gods' labor. He instructs Nammu and the birth goddess Ninmah in the process. The clay takes form. Humanity comes into being, mortal but carrying a slain god's blood.

The myth continues with a drinking contest. Ninmah, drunk at the celebration feast, challenges Enki by fashioning deformed humans and daring him to assign each one a place in society. She makes a blind man; Enki makes him a musician. She makes a paralyzed man; Enki makes him a silversmith who works sitting down. When Enki's turn comes, he creates a being so helpless that Ninmah cannot find any role for it at all.

Enki and Ninhursag

In "Enki and Ninhursag," the action unfolds in Dilmun, a pristine land where no sickness exists and no predator hunts. Enki fills Dilmun with fresh water from the earth, transforming it into a garden paradise. Then his appetites take over. He lies with Ninhursag, who bears the goddess Ninsar after nine days. He pursues Ninsar, who bears Ninkurra, and then Ninkurra, who bears Uttu, the goddess of weaving. When Enki approaches Uttu, Ninhursag warns the young goddess to demand gifts first. Enki brings cucumbers and apples, lies with Uttu, but Ninhursag removes his seed from Uttu's womb and plants it in the earth. Eight plants spring up.

Enki eats every plant before Ninhursag can name them or assign their properties. She curses him: eight organs sicken, one for each stolen plant. Then she vanishes, and Enki begins to die. None of the gods can soothe her wrath. At last a fox negotiates her return. For each ailing organ she creates a healing deity: Ninti for his rib, Abu for his jaw, and six others. The name Ninti carries a double meaning in Sumerian: "Lady of the Rib" and "Lady of Life."

Enki and the Flood

In the "Eridu Genesis," the oldest surviving flood narrative, Enki instructs the pious king Ziusudra to build a vessel and survive the deluge decreed by the divine assembly. The Akkadian Atrahasis Epic retells the story. Enlil, king of the gods, decides to destroy humanity because their noise disturbs his sleep. He binds all deities to an oath of secrecy.

Enki speaks not to Atrahasis directly but to the reed wall of his hut: "Reed hut, reed hut! Wall, wall! O reed hut, hear; O wall, understand! Man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu, tear down the house, build a boat, abandon wealth, seek life!" He spoke to a wall, not a man. The oath held. Humanity survived.

Atrahasis built the boat and weathered the flood. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the same figure, now called Utnapishtim, tells the story to Gilgamesh on the far shore of the world. When Enlil discovered survivors, he was furious. Enki defended what he had done. Enlil relented but imposed new constraints: barren women and a demon to snatch infants, so humanity would never again grow numerous enough to trouble the gods.

Inanna and the Me

In "Inanna and Enki," the young goddess travels from Uruk to Eridu, where Enki holds the me (pronounced "may"), the divine powers that make civilized life possible. The poem counts over a hundred of them.

Enki welcomes her with a feast. As he drinks, he grows generous. Cup after cup of beer, and with each toast he gives Inanna another me: "In the name of my power, in the name of my Abzu, I will give her the high priesthood! I will give her godship! I will give her the throne of kingship!" By the time the feast ends, he has given away over a hundred.

When Enki sobers, he sends his messenger Isimud to retrieve them. But Inanna has already loaded the me on her Boat of Heaven and departed. Isimud pursues her and fails. She reaches Uruk with her cargo intact, and Enki accepts the loss.

The Rescue of Inanna

When Inanna descended to the underworld and was killed there, it was Enki who devised the rescue. Her minister Ninshubur appealed to the gods for help. Only Enki responded. He scraped the dirt from under his fingernails and fashioned two tiny beings, creatures so small and insignificant that the underworld's guardians would not notice them.

They slipped past every gate and into Ereshkigal's throne room. The queen of the dead was in labor, groaning with pain. The two beings echoed her cries. They groaned when she groaned. Moved by their empathy, Ereshkigal offered them a gift. They asked for Inanna's corpse. They sprinkled the food and water of life on her body, and the goddess rose.

The Seven Sages

Before the Flood, Enki sent seven sages from the Apsu to teach humanity the foundations of civilization. These apkallu appear in Assyrian palace reliefs as fish-cloaked figures. The first among them was Adapa of Eridu, whom the third-century BCE Babylonian priest Berossus recorded as Oannes, a being who emerged from the sea each day to instruct the people and returned to the water each night.

In the "Myth of Adapa," Enki's sage breaks the South Wind's wing while fishing and is summoned to heaven to answer before Anu. Enki coaches him: refuse any food or drink the gods offer. But Anu, impressed by Adapa's knowledge, offers the bread and water of eternal life. Adapa, following Enki's counsel, refuses. He returned to earth wise but mortal, as all humans after him would be.

The Wise Counselor

In the Enūma Eliš, Enki (under his Akkadian name Ea) acts as the cleverest of the older generation. When Apsu plots to destroy the younger deities, Ea devises the counter-spell that puts Apsu to sleep and allows his slaying. When Tiamat raises her army of monsters, Ea cannot defeat her but proposes his son Marduk as champion. Twice the crisis escalates beyond what force alone can solve. Twice Ea finds another way.

Mesopotamian exorcists and healers invoked Ea as the source of their arts. In the Marduk-Ea dialogue, found in hundreds of incantation tablets, a fixed pattern plays out: Marduk observes a patient's affliction, goes to Ea's house, and reports it. Ea replies that Marduk already knows what to do, then provides the ritual instructions. Every exorcist who recited an incantation did so with Ea's voice behind the words.