Nammu- Mesopotamian PrimordialPrimordial"Primordial Mother"

The Primordial Sea

Before heaven and earth existed, there was Nammu: the boundless sea. From her waters came An and Ki, heaven and earth, still joined together. From her came Enki, the god of wisdom, whose freshwater Abzu lay within his mother's saltwater domain.

The later Babylonian tradition called the primordial ocean Tiamat and made her an enemy to be slain. In the Sumerian texts, Nammu was a mother and remained one.

The Creation of Humanity

In "Enki and Ninmah," the gods grow weary of labor and begin to weep. Enki sleeps in the Abzu and does not hear them. Nammu gathers their tears and carries them to her son. She urges him to make beings who can do the work.

Enki devises the plan. He instructs Nammu and the birth goddess Ninhursag to shape humans from clay taken from the Abzu, mixed with the blood of a slain god. Nammu's hands shaped the first humans alongside Ninhursag's. She had woken her son and put her hands in the clay. The gods and the mortals owed their existence to the same source: the primordial sea.