Eridu- Mesopotamian LocationLocation · Landmark"The First City"
Also known as: Eridug and Nun-ki
Description
The Sumerian King List begins here: "When kingship from heaven was lowered, the kingship was in Eridu." Sacred to Enki and site of the Abzu temple where the Me, the divine decrees of civilization, were kept, Eridu was the first city the gods made.
Mythology & Lore
The First City
The Sumerian King List opens with Eridu: "When kingship from heaven was lowered, the kingship was in Eridu. In Eridug, Alulim became king; he ruled for 28,800 years." Before Uruk, before Ur, before Babylon, there was Eridu. The Sumerians placed it at the beginning of everything.
In the Eridu Genesis, one of the oldest surviving creation narratives, the gods established Eridu as the first of five cities that existed before the Great Flood. They assigned it a patron deity, inaugurated the institutions of civilized life, and set the world in order. Then the deluge swept it all away.
Enki's Temple and the Me
Eridu was sacred to Enki, god of fresh water and wisdom. His temple, the E-Abzu ("House of the Deep Water"), sat above the Abzu, the subterranean freshwater ocean from which the Sumerians believed all springs and rivers originated. Within the temple Enki kept the Me, the divine decrees governing every aspect of civilized existence.
In "Inanna and Enki," the goddess Inanna traveled to Eridu and plied Enki with beer until he grew drunk. He gave her the Me freely. When he sobered and realized what he had done, he sent his vizier Isimud and a succession of monsters to intercept her boat. Inanna evaded them all and delivered the Me to Uruk in triumph. What Eridu had held from the beginning of the world now belonged to another city.