The Instructions of Enki

Enki is the Sumerian god of water, knowledge (gestú), mischief, crafts (gašam), and creation (nudimmud), and one of the Anunnaki. He was later known as Ea in Akkadian (Assyrian and Babylonian) mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians.

Enki was associated with the southern band of constellations called stars of Ea, but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, the Field (Square of Pegasus). Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for "40", occasionally referred to as his "sacred number". The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu (the son of Marduk) was, in Sumerian times, identified with Enki.

Many myths about Enki have been collected from various sites, stretching from Southern Iraq to the Levantine coast. He is mentioned in the earliest extant cuneiform inscriptions throughout the region and was prominent from the third millennium down to Hellenistic times.

The exact meaning of his name is uncertain: the common translation is "Lord of the Earth". The Sumerian En is translated as a title equivalent to "lord" and was originally a title given to the High Priest. Ki means "earth", but there are theories that ki in this name has another origin, possibly kig of unknown meaning, or kur meaning "mound".

Lord of the abzu

The god Ea (whose Sumerian equivalent was Enki) is one of the three most powerful gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon, along with Anu and Enlil. He resides in the ocean underneath the earth called the abzu (Akkadian apsû), which was an important place in Mesopotamian cosmic geography. For example, the city of Babylon was said to have been built on top of the abzu.

Sumerian texts about Enki often include overtly sexual portrayals of his virile masculinity. In particular, there is a metaphorical link between the life-giving properties of the god's semen and the animating nature of fresh water from the abzu.

Divine Genealogy and Syncretisms

Enki was the son of the god An, or of the goddess Nammu and a twin brother of Adad. It is unclear when he was merged with the god Ea, whose name first appears in the 24th century BCE. His wife was Damgalnunna/ Damkina and their offspring were the gods Marduk, Asarluhi and Enbilulu, the goddess Nanše and the sage Adapa.

Enki also had sexual encounters with other goddesses, particularly in the Sumerian myth Enki and Ninhursanga. Ninhursanga gives birth to the goddess Ninmu after sexual relations with Enki. Later in the myth Enki becomes gravely ill and Ninhursanga then gives birth to eight healing deities in order to cure him. Enki then fathered the goddess Ninkurra with his daughter Ninmu, and the goddess Uttu with his granddaughter Ninkurra.

The making of man

After six generations of gods, in the Babylonian Enûma Eliš, in the seventh generation, (Akkadian "shapattu" or sabath), the younger Igigi gods, the sons and daughters of Enlil and Ninlil, go on strike and refuse their duties of keeping creation working.

Abzu, god of fresh water, co-creator of the cosmos, threatens to destroy the world with his waters, and the gods gather in terror. Enki promises to help and puts Abzu to sleep, confining him in irrigation canals and places him in the Kur, beneath his city of Eridu. But the universe is still threatened, as Tiamat, angry at the imprisonment of Abzu and at the prompting of her son and vizier Kingu, decides to take back creation herself.

The gods gather again in terror and turn to Enki for help, but Enki – who harnessed Abzu, Tiamat's consort, for irrigation – refuses to get involved. The gods then seek help elsewhere, and the patriarchal Enlil, their father, god of Nippur, promises to solve the problem if they make him King of the Gods. In the Babylonian tale, Enlil's role is taken by Marduk, Enki's son, and in the Assyrian version it is Asshur.