Read Online Ancient Iraq by Georges Roux - Free Book Online

reason the patron-god of Nippur, Enlil, was raised to what was in fact the supreme rank and became in a certain sense the national god of Sumer. Much later he himself was in turn wrested of his authority by the hitherto obscure god of Babylon, Marduk; but Enlil was certainly less of an usurper than Marduk. His name means ‘Lord Air’, which, among other things, evokes immensity, movement and life (breath), and Enlil could rightly claim to be ‘the force in heaven’ which had separated the earth from the sky and had thereby created the world. The theologians of Nippur, however, also made him the master of humanity, the king of kings. If An still retained the insignia of kingship it was Enlil who chose the rulers of Sumer and Akkad and ‘put on their heads the holy crown’. And as a good monarch by his command keeps his kingdom in order, so did the air-god uphold the world by a mere word of his mouth:
    Without Enlil, the Great Mountain,
No city would be built, no settlement founded,
No stalls would be built, no sheepfolds established,
No king would be raised, no high priest born…
The rivers – their floodwaters would not bring over flow,
The fish in the sea would not lay eggs in the canebrake,
The birds of heaven would not build nests on the wild earth,
In heaven the drifting clouds would not yield their moisture,
Plants and herbs, the glory of the plain, would fail to grow,
In fields and meadows the rich grain would fail to flower,
The trees planted in the mountain-forest would not yield their fruit… 8
     
    The personality of the god Enki is better known but much more complex. Despite the appearances, it is not certain that his Sumerian name means ‘lord earth’ (
en.ki
), and linguists are still arguing about the exact meaning of his Semitic name Ea. However, there is no doubt that Enki/Ea was the god of the fresh waters that flow in rivers and lakes, rise in springs and wells and bring life to Mesopotamia. His main quality was his intelligence, his ‘broad ears’ as the Sumerians said, and this is why he was revered as the inventor of all techniques, sciences and arts and as patron of the magicians. Moreover, Enki was the god who held the
me's
, a word used, it seems, to designate the key-words of the Sumerian civilization, and which also played a part in the ‘attribution of destinies’. 9 After the world was created, Enki applied his unrivalled intelligence to the laws devised by Enlil. A long, almost surrealist poem 10 shows him putting the world in order; extending his blessings not only to Sumer, its cattle sheds, fields and cities, but also to Dilmun and Meluhha and to the nomads of the Syro-Mesopotamian desert; transformed into a bull and filling the Tigris with the ‘sparkling water’ of his semen; entrusting a score of minor deities with specific tasks and finally handing over the entire universe to the sun-god Utu. This master architect and engineer who said that he was ‘the ear and the mind of all the land’ was also the god who was closest and most favourable to man. It was he who had the brilliant idea to create mankind to carry out the gods’ work, but also, as we shall see, who saved mankind from the Flood.
    Side by side with the male pantheon there was a female

     
    Mural painting from the second millennium palace at Mari. Above, the goddess Ishtar appoints Zimri-Lim king of Mari. by giving him the sceptre and the ring of kingship. Below, two unnamed goddesses holding vases spurting out water, as a symbol of fertility.
After A. Parrot
, Mission Archéologique de Mari,
II, 2, 1958
.
     
    pantheon composed of goddesses of all ranks. Many of them were merely gods’ wives whilst others fulfilled specific functions. Prominent among the latter stood the mother-goddess Ninhursag (also known as Ninmah or Nintu), and Inanna (Ishtar for the Semites) who played a major role in Mesopotamian mythology.
    Inanna was the goddess of carnal love and as such had neither husband nor children, but she