Reconstructing the Pantheon
In The Beginning, There Was Sea
Samuel Noah Kramer explained the Sumerian origin of the universe in
his 1961 treatise on Sumerian mythology. His interpretation of the
Sumerian origin of the universe remains widely accepted today:
In a tablet which gives a list of the Sumerian gods, the goddess Nammu, written with the ideogram for "sea," is described as "the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth." Heaven and earth were therefore conceived by the Sumerians as the created products of the primeval sea.
If Kramer's interpretation is accurate, then Nammu's pregnancy is the world's first documented case of immaculate conception. Although it was a common occurrence in ancient mythology. Based on later cosmogonies (including Judeo-Christian cosmology), there seem to be two originators of the universe. One is the divine word. At a point before time, a magnificently omniscient deity (usually conceived as male but often asexual) spoke the words for heaven, earth, day, night, etc., and they were brought into being. The other common cosmological origin story is that of a great mother goddess who gives birth to heaven, earth, day, night, etc. This is the scenario Kramer envisions for Sumerian mythology, and it is a feasible one. Outside of the evidence that tablets have been unearthed linking the primeval goddess Nammu as the originator of all existence, her conceptualization as a primordial sea fits the socio-economic climate of ancient Sumer.
Sumer was dominated by the alluvial plains between the Tigris and Euphrates river. At one time, it's southernmost boundaries also consisted of marshland where the two great rivers merged. But outside of the yearly inundation of the land, the otherwise fertile alluvial plain was arid and unsuitable for cultivation. With the advent of irrigation, however, the previously uncultivated plains became a wealth of surplus food and resources for the Sumerians. In this case, it is easy to see why Sumerians would view water as such an invaluable resource and, in the case of Nammu, the originator of all things. For it is the water which makes the land fertile, just as Nammu, the sea goddess, becomes fertile and gives birth to the universe: heaven and earth. The importance of water will be discussed in detail later to show why Enki played such a prominent role in Sumerian mythology and why he faded away in the mythologies of later cultures.
But there are some minor discrepancies with this origin from the sea. Nammu, in later mythology, is depicted only as the primordial sea and loses the humanlike characteristics she may once have had. Jean Bottéro paints this picture for us in a general cosmology of the Sumero-Akkadian culture:
Traditionally the ancient Mesopotamians had made a conception of the universe that was, so to speak, vertical and bipolar; they saw it as an immense globe composed of two symmetrical hemispheres horizontally separated in the middle, i.e. the On-High (an/šamû) or, if you want, Heaven, and Below (ki/ersetu) or the Netherworld. In its center, encircled like an island by the bitter waters of the sea (tâmtu), and lying on a sheet of sweet water of the Apsû, was what we call the earth: the earth of living humans.
(Bottéro 1992)
In this conceptualization, Nammu (the primordial sea) is "the bitter waters." Notice how she provides the groundwork for the "sweet water of the Apsû," upon which the "earth of living humans" is supported that, in turn, rests beneath the sky (atmosphere) with "an/šamû" (heaven) above. In this organizational structure, it is Nammu, the primordial sea, who is responsible for supporting all life atop her waters; though she herself would seem to be lifeless, as is suggested by her "bitter waters."
It is precisely these bitter waters which contradict the idea of Nammu as the originating mother goddess. However, a closer analysis will show that these bitter waters are not the contradiction they outwardly appear to be. Before heaven and earth, Nammu was always envisioned as chaotic and/or beyond the scope of mortal comprehension. This conception of a 'time before time' is similar to the Judeo-Christian conception. For this to be so, Nammu must be an outwardly rough 'character.' Her exterior must be as rough and bitter as her world was in order that she may thrive in it. It was the ultimate Darwinian fantasy: survival of the fittest. Additionally, Nammu was ancient, even among the eldest of gods such as An, Ki, Enlil, and Enki. She was analogous to Enlil's grandmother. Very few grandmothers are ever depicted as beds of fertility. The same can be speculated for Nammu, thus explaining her "bitter waters." It is also important that Nammu's waters be bitter because her progeny had given rise to a new water god, the prominent Enki. If Enki is to be the preeminent water god of the pantheon, then something must be done about his grandmother who is, literally, the water of life. This, in combination with her association as a grandmother to the contemporary Sumerian gods and goddesses, necessitates that Nammu's waters be "bitter." She has passed on her sweetness through the birth of An and Ki, who likewise dilute their sweetness in creating their own progeny and so on.
The Divine Triad:
-
An
- Enlil
- Enki
The Sumero-Akkadian pantheon "very soon became dominated, and in some way systematized, by the analogy with [the] political system of the country, and it thus became organized on the model of a monarchy that undoubtedly existed already on a modest scale in every village, before history" (Bottéro). Atop this hierarchy sat the divine triad of An, Enlil, and Enki. But the term triad, in this instance, is misleading "insofar as it makes us believe that the supreme power was divided equally among its three members" (Bottéro). This was not the case.
An
An, along with Ki (aka: Ninhursag, Ninmah, Nintu), was the progenitor
of the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon. "An, god of heaven, may have
been the main god of the pantheon prior to 2500 BC., although his
importance gradually waned. In the early days he carried off heaven,
while Enlil carried away earth" (Siren 2000). The Sumerian word
for earth, interestingly enough, is "ki." His children and
followers were often called the Anunnaki, and his primary temple of
worship was located in Uruk (Akkadian Erech). In the feast
celebrating his newly built home in Eridu, Enki seats An at the head
of the table (Siren 2000). His Akkadian name is Anu.
Whether or not An's power waned around 2500 BCE is uncertain, but it is likely that he was once the head of the pantheon in the distant past. Unfortunately, much of the evidence for this assertion is, again, evidence of omission. There is simply no extant Sumerian text which deals with An in any great detail. He is often only alluded to as one to whom Enlil turns to render a difficult decision. Or, as is the case at Enki's dinner, An's title served more as a figurehead -- only recognized in instances of formality. Jean Bottéro illustrates this distinction further:
An represented the founder of the divine dynasty, the father of the ruling king, Enlil. Such a coexistence could not be imagined among the people, as the crown prince would succeed his father only when the latter had died, but it was perfectly normal among the immortal gods. Thus An was the ancestor, the source, and the guarantee of power. One could rely on his experience in times of crisis, but he left the effective exercise of sovereign authority to his son Enlil.
(1992)
There is a hint that An once ruled alone in an introduction to one of
the Sumerian Gilgamesh poems:
After heaven had been moved away from earth,
After earth had been separated from heaven,
After the name of man had been fixed;
After An had carried off heaven,
After Enlil had carried off earth,
After Ereshkigal had been carried off into the Kur as its prize;
(Kramer 1961)
What, exactly, separated heaven from earth is questionable, but it is clear here that An was conceived as the ruler of heaven while Enlil took control of earth. Because mortals dwell on earth and Enlil was literally "lord of the air," it stands to reason that Enlil was thus conceived as the ruler of the Pantheon because everything humans know, from birth to air to sea to agriculture to death were all palpable on earth. The same cannot be said for An in heaven.
While the previous rationalization is certainly plausible, it does not supply a satisfactory explanation as to how or why it evolved. Certainly, the scribes and poets who invented this myth used it as an explanation for the cosmological make up of the universe. But why An? Why Enlil? All we know is that Enlil (air or atmosphere) separated An (heaven) from his consort Ki (earth). Is this the first dispute of the gods? It's difficult to gauge with Sumerian mythology precisely because An not only remains a figurehead of royal lineage, but he enjoys an amicable relationship with Enlil in later myths. In the even later Babylonian and Hittite literature, an animosity between gods is very clear, and, more often than not, the victorious god (Enlil, in this case), would slay, banish, or in some way, punish the god whom he has defeated. This is not the case with An. But it does seem fairly clear that in Enlil's virtual rape of Ki, he asserts his dominance over the earthly domain, taking it (her) away from An.
Enlil
"Lord of 'lil' [air/wind/atmosphere]," Enlil was a storm
god and ruler of the skies. He was the personification of the
atmosphere, the space between heaven and earth. His role between
heaven and earth is explained in the previous section. The separation
of heaven and earth may have been an amicable split, but there is
little question that Enlil was viewed as raping the goddess who would
eventually become his consort, Ninlil.
Enlil was, almost without exception, referred to as the supreme ruler of the gods. He was often called upon to render judgments in disputes between the gods. Enlil is also often attributed responsibility for human life, civilization, and the pick-ax. These distinctions, however, appear to be more of a deference to his power than any actual impetus of the god. As we will learn later, Enki was the god who pervaded Sumerian creation literature, not Enlil. And being the supreme ruler did not necessarily mean he could not be outsmarted.
Like Zeus, the head of the Greek pantheon and also a storm god, Enlil's temper was renowned for being as devastating as the storms he often personified. As his pseudo-rapes of Ki and Ninlil suggest, his better judgment was often overruled by his emotions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Sumerian flood story. In the story, Enlil is being driven mad by the constant noise humans make in the course of their daily toil. Enlil sets out to destroy the human race. After two failed attempts -- Enki intervenes each time -- Enlil concocts a fool proof plan: he will create a massive flood and drown humanity. Thanks to Enki's imaginative thinking, complete genocide is averted, and the Sumerian equivalent of the biblical Noah is born. But if Enlil's rage had gone unchecked, all of humanity would have been obliterated.
Enlil has also been compared to the God of Judeo-Christian myth: "In the book of Pslams God is often depicted as an angry, thundering, raging fire-hurling attacker of Isreal's enemies . . . . Enlil is a ragin storm that makes heaven tremble and earth quake [just as Yahweh/God does]; his word destroys the canebrake, splinters trees and drowns harvests" (Kramer & Maier 1989).
Enki
The great water god; god of craftiness and wisdom. Enki is the most
recognizable god in the Sumerian pantheon. In later cultures, his
importance as a water god waned while his renowned craftiness and
wisdom became associated with magic, an important aspect of late
Akkadian, Hittite, and Babylonian cultures. It was Enki whom the gods
turned to in order to devise solutions for their woes. He assisted
Enlil on judgments and was responsible for the idea of creating
humankind and how to go about creating them. It was also Enki, not
Enlil, who assigned positions, jobs, responsibilities, and status to
the lesser gods, on most occasions. Although Enki did act, he was
viewed increasingly as a god of thought, a wealth of knowledge; not a
god of action. His vizier, the two-faced Isimund, was often charged
with carrying out Enki's orders, as will be illustrated in the myths
involving Enki and Inanna. As is also the case with Enki and Inanna,
early Sumero-Akkadian accounts of mythological strife are much less
violent than later Babylonian and Hittite literature despite dealing
with virtually the same material.
Despite Enki's lauded reputation, the most compelling reason to count him as the third leading deity in the Sumero-Akkadian pantheon, and not Ninhursag, is that Enki was primarily responsible for the divine me's. The me's are discussed further in Section II, but suffice to say here that they are written words -- documents, kind of like the Constitution of the USA -- which bring order to the universe, and whomever holds them holds the power to shape the universe.
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Most
visual representations of the gods come to us in the form of