Sumerian (Sumerian: 𒅴𒂠 , romanized: eme-gir 15 , lit. '' native language '' ) was the language of ancient Sumer . It is one of the oldest attested languages , dating back to at least 2900 BC. It is a local language isolate that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia , in the area that is modern-day Iraq .
140-697: Enki ( Sumerian : 𒀭𒂗𒆠 EN-KI ) is the Sumerian god of water , knowledge ( gestú ), crafts ( gašam ), and creation ( nudimmud ), and one of the Anunnaki . He was later known as Ea ( Akkadian : 𒀭𒂍𒀀 ) or Ae in Akkadian ( Assyrian - Babylonian ) religion , and is identified by some scholars with Ia in Canaanite religion . The name was rendered Aos in Greek sources (e.g. Damascius ). He
280-491: A logosyllabic script comprising several hundred signs. Rosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre- Sargonian ) Lagash . The cuneiform script was adapted to Akkadian writing beginning in the mid-third millennium. Over the long period of bi-lingual overlap of active Sumerian and Akkadian usage the two languages influenced each other, as reflected in numerous loanwords and even word order changes. Depending on
420-802: A nationalistic flavour. Attempts have been made without success to link Sumerian with a range of widely disparate groups such as Indo-European languages , the Austroasiatic languages , Dravidian languages , Uralic languages such as Hungarian and Finnish , Sino-Tibetan languages and Turkic languages (the last being promoted by Turkish nationalists as part of the Sun language theory ). Additionally, long-range proposals have attempted to include Sumerian in broad macrofamilies . Such proposals enjoy virtually no support among modern linguists, Sumerologists and Assyriologists and are typically seen as fringe theories . It has also been suggested that
560-400: A boat in order to rescue his family and other living creatures from the coming deluge. After the seven-day deluge, the flood hero frees a swallow, a raven and a dove in an effort to find if the flood waters have receded. Upon landing, a sacrifice is made to the gods. Enlil is angry his will has been thwarted yet again, and Enki is named as the culprit. Enki explains that Enlil is unfair to punish
700-494: A deep sleep", thereby confining him deep underground. Enki subsequently sets up his home " in the depths of the Abzu ." Enki thus takes on all of the functions of the Abzu, including his fertilising powers as lord of the waters and lord of semen . Early royal inscriptions from the third millennium BCE mention "the reeds of Enki". Reeds were an important local building material, used for baskets and containers, and collected outside
840-430: A detailed and readable summary of the decipherment of Sumerian in his Sumerian Mythology . Friedrich Delitzsch published a learned Sumerian dictionary and grammar in the form of his Sumerisches Glossar and Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik , both appearing in 1914. Delitzsch's student, Arno Poebel , published a grammar with the same title, Grundzüge der sumerischen Grammatik , in 1923, and for 50 years it would be
980-435: A detour in understanding the language – a Paris -based orientalist , Joseph Halévy , argued from 1874 onward that Sumerian was not a natural language, but rather a secret code (a cryptolect ), and for over a decade the leading Assyriologists battled over this issue. For a dozen years, starting in 1885, Friedrich Delitzsch accepted Halévy's arguments, not renouncing Halévy until 1897. François Thureau-Dangin working at
1120-403: A few common graphic forms out of many that may occur. Spelling practices have also changed significantly in the course of the history of Sumerian: the examples in the article will use the most phonetically explicit spellings attested, which usually means Old Babylonian or Ur III period spellings. except where an authentic example from another period is used. Modern knowledge of Sumerian phonology
1260-486: A loss to know what to do; chagrined they "sit in the dust". As Enki lacks a birth canal through which to give birth, he seems to be dying with swellings. The fox then asks Enlil , King of the Gods , "If I bring Ninhursag before thee, what shall be my reward?" Ninhursag's sacred fox then fetches the goddess. Ninhursag relents and takes Enki's Ab (water, or semen) into her body, and gives birth to gods of healing of each part of
1400-528: A non-Semitic language had preceded Akkadian in Mesopotamia, and that speakers of this language had developed the cuneiform script. In 1855 Rawlinson announced the discovery of non-Semitic inscriptions at the southern Babylonian sites of Nippur , Larsa , and Uruk . In 1856, Hincks argued that the untranslated language was agglutinative in character. The language was called "Scythic" by some, and, confusingly, "Akkadian" by others. In 1869, Oppert proposed
1540-453: A number of suffixes and enclitics consisting of /e/ or beginning in /e/ are also assimilated and reduced. In earlier scholarship, somewhat different views were expressed and attempts were made to formulate detailed rules for the effect of grammatical morphemes and compounding on stress, but with inconclusive results. Based predominantly on patterns of vowel elision, Adam Falkenstein argued that stress in monomorphemic words tended to be on
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#17327945690211680-502: A part merely in association with her lord. Generally, however, Enki seems to be a reflection of pre-patriarchal times, in which relations between the sexes were characterised by a situation of greater gender equality . In his character, he prefers persuasion to conflict, which he seeks to avoid if possible. In 1964, a team of Italian archaeologists under the direction of Paolo Matthiae of the University of Rome La Sapienza performed
1820-672: A place where "the raven uttered no cries" and "the lion killed not, the wolf snatched not the lamb, unknown was the kid-killing dog, unknown was the grain devouring boar", Dilmun had no water and Enki heard the cries of its goddess, Ninsikil, and orders the sun-god Utu to bring fresh water from the Earth for Dilmun. As a result, Her City Drinks the Water of Abundance, Dilmun Drinks the Water of Abundance, Her wells of bitter water, behold they are become wells of good water, Her fields and farms produced crops and grain, Her city, behold it has become
1960-489: A relation to the Sumerian language. Around 2600 BC, cuneiform symbols were developed using a wedge-shaped stylus to impress the shapes into wet clay. This cuneiform ("wedge-shaped") mode of writing co-existed with the proto-cuneiform archaic mode. Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century). In the same period the large set of logographic signs had been simplified into
2100-520: A richer vowel inventory by some researchers. For example, we find forms like 𒂵𒁽 g a -kaš 4 "let me run", but, from the Neo-Sumerian period onwards, occasional spellings like 𒄘𒈬𒊏𒀊𒋧 g u 2 -mu-ra-ab-šum 2 "let me give it to you". According to Jagersma, these assimilations are limited to open syllables and, as with vowel harmony, Jagersma interprets their absence as the result of vowel length or of stress in at least some cases. There
2240-408: A second vowel harmony rule. There also appear to be many cases of partial or complete assimilation of the vowel of certain prefixes and suffixes to one in the adjacent syllable reflected in writing in some of the later periods, and there is a noticeable, albeit not absolute, tendency for disyllabic stems to have the same vowel in both syllables. These patterns, too, are interpreted as evidence for
2380-504: A series of excavations of material from the third-millennium BCE city of Ebla . Much of the written material found in these digs was later translated by Giovanni Pettinato . Among other conclusions, he found a tendency among the inhabitants of Ebla, after the reign of Sargon of Akkad , to replace the name of El , king of the gods of the Canaanite pantheon (found in names such as Mikael and Ishmael), with Ia (Mikaia, Ishmaia). Jean Bottéro (1952) and others suggested that Ia in this case
2520-460: A spoken language in nearly all of its original territory, whereas Sumerian continued its existence as a liturgical and classical language for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes. In addition, it has been argued that Sumerian persisted as a spoken language at least in a small part of Southern Mesopotamia ( Nippur and its surroundings) at least until about 1900 BC and possibly until as late as 1700 BC. Nonetheless, it seems clear that by far
2660-604: A survey of the field could not be considered complete. The primary institutional lexical effort in Sumerian is the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary project, begun in 1974. In 2004, the PSD was released on the Web as the ePSD. The project is currently supervised by Steve Tinney. It has not been updated online since 2006, but Tinney and colleagues are working on a new edition of the ePSD, a working draft of which
2800-611: A team of divinities to help him, creating a host of "good and princely fashioners". He tells his mother: Oh my mother, the creature whose name thou has uttered, it exists, Bind upon it the (will?) of the Gods; Mix the heart of clay that is over the Abyss, The good and princely fashioners will thicken the clay Thou, do thou bring the limbs into existence; Ninmah (Ninhursag, his wife and consort) will work above thee ( Nintu ?) (goddess of birth) will stand by thy fashioning; Oh my mother, decree thou its (the new born's) fate. Adapa,
2940-407: A text may not even have been meant to be read in Sumerian; instead, it may have functioned as a prestigious way of "encoding" Akkadian via Sumerograms (cf. Japanese kanbun ). Nonetheless, the study of Sumerian and copying of Sumerian texts remained an integral part of scribal education and literary culture of Mesopotamia and surrounding societies influenced by it and it retained that role until
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#17327945690213080-528: A very long period. These features were found at all subsequent Sumerian temples, suggesting that this temple established the pattern for all subsequent Sumerian temples. "All rules laid down at Eridu were faithfully observed". Enki was the keeper of the divine powers called Me , the gifts of civilization . He is often shown with the horned crown of divinity. On the Adda Seal, Enki is depicted with two streams of water flowing into each of his shoulders: one
3220-454: A vowel quality opposite to the one that would have been expected according to this rule, which has been variously interpreted as an indication either of the existence of additional vowel phonemes in Sumerian or simply of incorrectly reconstructed readings of individual lexemes. The 3rd person plural dimensional prefix 𒉈 -ne- is also unaffected, which Jagersma believes to be caused by the length of its vowel. In addition, some have argued for
3360-515: Is a West Semitic (Canaanite) way of pronouncing the Akkadian name Ea . Scholars largely reject the theory identifying this Ia with the Israelite theonym YHWH , while explaining how it might have been misinterpreted. Ia has also been compared by William Hallo with the Ugaritic god Yamm ("Sea"), (also called Judge Nahar, or Judge River) whose earlier name in at least one ancient source
3500-509: Is allegedly Hurrian in origin while others claim that his name 'Ea' is possibly of Semitic origin and may be a derivation from the West-Semitic root *hyy meaning "life" in this case used for "spring", "running water". In Sumerian E-A means "the house of water", and it has been suggested that this was originally the name for the shrine to the god at Eridu . It has also been suggested that the original non-anthropomorphic divinity at Eridu
3640-472: Is also relevant in this context that, as explained above , many morpheme-final consonants seem to have been elided unless followed by a vowel at various stages in the history of Sumerian. These are traditionally termed Auslauts in Sumerology and may or may not be expressed in transliteration: e.g. the logogram 𒊮 for /šag/ > /ša(g)/ "heart" may be transliterated as šag 4 or as ša 3 . Thus, when
3780-600: Is also the Old Akkadian period (c. 2350 BC – c. 2200 BC), during which Mesopotamia, including Sumer, was united under the rule of the Akkadian Empire . At this time Akkadian functioned as the primary official language, but texts in Sumerian (primarily administrative) did continue to be produced as well. The first phase of the Neo-Sumerian period corresponds to the time of Gutian rule in Mesopotamia ;
3920-496: Is an interesting change of gender symbolism, the fertilising agent is also water, Sumerian "a" or "Ab" which also means "semen". In one evocative passage in a Sumerian hymn, Enki stands at the empty riverbeds and fills them with his 'water'". The cosmogenic myth common in Sumer was that of the hieros gamos , a sacred marriage where divine principles in the form of dualistic opposites came together as male and female to give birth to
4060-459: Is available online. Assumed phonological and morphological forms will be between slashes // and curly brackets {}, respectively, with plain text used for the standard Assyriological transcription of Sumerian. Most of the following examples are unattested. Note also that, not unlike most other pre-modern orthographies, Sumerian cuneiform spelling is highly variable, so the transcriptions and the cuneiform examples will generally show only one or at most
4200-434: Is evidence of various cases of elision of vowels, apparently in unstressed syllables; in particular an initial vowel in a word of more than two syllables seems to have been elided in many cases. What appears to be vowel contraction in hiatus (*/aa/, */ia/, */ua/ > a , */ae/ > a , */ie/ > i or e , */ue/ > u or e , etc.) is also very common. There is some uncertainty and variance of opinion as to whether
4340-475: Is flawed and incomplete because of the lack of speakers, the transmission through the filter of Akkadian phonology and the difficulties posed by the cuneiform script. As I. M. Diakonoff observes, "when we try to find out the morphophonological structure of the Sumerian language, we must constantly bear in mind that we are not dealing with a language directly but are reconstructing it from a very imperfect mnemonic writing system which had not been basically aimed at
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4480-462: Is generally termed the son of Ea, who derives his powers from the voluntary abdication of the father in favour of his son. Accordingly, the incantations originally composed for the Ea cult were re-edited by the priests of Babylon and adapted to the worship of Marduk , and, similarly, the hymns to Marduk betray traces of the transfer to Marduk of attributes which originally belonged to Ea. It is, however, as
4620-473: Is little speculation as to the affinities of this hypothetical substratum language, or these languages, and it is thus best treated as unclassified . Other researchers disagree with the assumption of a single substratum language and argue that several languages are involved. A related proposal by Gordon Whittaker is that the language of the proto-literary texts from the Late Uruk period ( c. 3350–3100 BC)
4760-532: Is no direct connection implied in the mythological cycle between this poem and that which is our main source of information on the me s, "Inanna and Enki: The Transfer of the Arts of Civilization from Eridu to Uruk ", but once again Inanna's discontent is a theme. She is the tutelary deity of Uruk and desires to increase its influence and glory by bringing the me s to it from Eridu. She travels to Enki's Eridu shrine,
4900-488: Is not clarified in the poem how such things can be stored, handled, or displayed. Not all of the me s are admirable or desirable traits. Alongside functions like "heroship" and "victory" are "the destruction of cities", "falsehood", and "enmity". The Sumerians apparently considered such evils and sins an inevitable part of humanity's experience in life, divinely and inscrutably decreed, and not to be questioned. Although more than one hundred me s appear to be mentioned in
5040-490: Is really an early extinct branch of Indo-European language which he terms "Euphratic" which somehow emerged long prior to the accepted timeline for the spread of Indo-European into West Asia, though this is rejected by mainstream opinion which accepts Sumerian as a language isolate . Pictographic proto-writing was used starting in c. 3300 BC. It is unclear what underlying language it encoded, if any. By c. 2800 BC, some tablets began using syllabic elements that clearly indicated
5180-604: Is required to bring plants to fruit. It also counsels balance and responsibility, nothing to excess. Ninti, the title of Ninhursag, also means "the mother of all living", and was a title later given to the Hurrian goddess Kheba . This is also the title given in the Bible to Eve , the Hebrew and Aramaic Ḥawwah (חוה), who was made from the rib of Adam, in a strange reflection of the Sumerian myth, in which Adam – not Enki – walks in
5320-511: Is the Sumerian short form for "Lord of Water", as Enki is a god of water. Ab in Abzu also means water. The main temple to Enki was called E-abzu , meaning " abzu temple" (also E-en-gur-a , meaning "house of the subterranean waters"), a ziggurat temple surrounded by Euphratean marshlands near the ancient Persian Gulf coastline at Eridu . It was the first temple known to have been built in Southern Iraq. Four separate excavations at
5460-601: Is the first one from which well-understood texts survive. It corresponds mostly to the last part of the Early Dynastic period (ED IIIb) and specifically to the First Dynasty of Lagash , from where the overwhelming majority of surviving texts come. The sources include important royal inscriptions with historical content as well as extensive administrative records. Sometimes included in the Old Sumerian stage
5600-485: Is the king's house" (compare liaison in French). Jagersma believes that the lack of expression of word-final consonants was originally mostly a graphic convention, but that in the late 3rd millennium voiceless aspirated stops and affricates ( /pʰ/ , /tʰ/ , /kʰ/ and /tsʰ/ were, indeed, gradually lost in syllable-final position, as were the unaspirated stops /d/ and /ɡ/ . The vowels that are clearly distinguished by
5740-414: Is widely accepted to be a local language isolate . Sumerian was at one time widely held to be an Indo-European language , but that view has been universally rejected. Since its decipherment in the early 20th century, scholars have tried to relate Sumerian to a wide variety of languages. Because Sumerian has prestige as the first attested written language, proposals for linguistic affinity sometimes have
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5880-464: The E-abzu , in her "boat of heaven", and asks the me s from him after he is drunk, whereupon he complies. After she departs with them, he comes to his senses and notices they are missing from their usual place, and on being informed what he did with them attempts to retrieve them. The attempt fails and Inanna triumphantly delivers them to Uruk. The Sumerian tablets never actually describe what any of
6020-526: The mes . The next morning, when Enki awakes with a hangover, he asks his servant Isimud for the mes , only to be informed that he has given them to Inanna. Upset, he sends Galla to recover them. Inanna sails away in the boat of heaven and arrives safely back at the quay of Uruk. Eventually, Enki admits his defeat and accepts a peace treaty with Uruk. Politically, this myth would seem to indicate events of an early period when political authority passed from Enki's city of Eridu to Inanna's city of Uruk. In
6160-590: The Behistun inscription , a trilingual cuneiform inscription written in Old Persian , Elamite and Akkadian . (In a similar manner, the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs was the bilingual [Greek and Egyptian with the Egyptian text in two scripts] Rosetta stone and Jean-François Champollion's transcription in 1822.) In 1838 Henry Rawlinson , building on the 1802 work of Georg Friedrich Grotefend ,
6300-409: The Canaanite 'ilhm pantheon . He is also found in Hurrian and Hittite mythology as a god of contracts, and is particularly favourable to humankind. It has been suggested that etymologically the name Ea comes from the term *hyy (life), referring to Enki's waters as life-giving. Enki/Ea is essentially a god of civilization, wisdom, and culture. He was also the creator and protector of man, and of
6440-554: The Old Persian alphabet which was used to write the eponymous language . The impact was perhaps the greatest on Akkadian, whose grammar and vocabulary were significantly influenced by Sumerian. The history of written Sumerian can be divided into several periods: The pictographic writing system used during the Proto-literate period (3200 BC – 3000 BC), corresponding to the Uruk III and Uruk IV periods in archeology,
6580-528: The Semitic Akkadian language , which were duly deciphered. By 1850, however, Edward Hincks came to suspect a non-Semitic origin for cuneiform. Semitic languages are structured according to consonantal forms , whereas cuneiform, when functioning phonetically, was a syllabary , binding consonants to particular vowels. Furthermore, no Semitic words could be found to explain the syllabic values given to particular signs. Julius Oppert suggested that
6720-550: The Sumerian understanding of the relationship between humanity and the gods . The me s were originally collected by Enlil and then handed over to the guardianship of Enki , who was to broker them out to the various Sumerian centers, beginning with his own city of Eridu and continuing with Ur , Meluhha , and Dilmun . This is described in the poem, "Enki and the World Order" which also details how he parcels out responsibility for various crafts and natural phenomena to
6860-460: The mes look like, but they are clearly represented by physical objects of some sort. Not only are they stored in a prominent location in the E-abzu , but Inanna is able to display them to the people of Uruk after she arrives with them in her boat. Some of them are indeed physical objects such as musical instruments , but many are technologies like " basket weaving " or abstractions like "victory". It
7000-538: The 1st century AD. Thereafter, it seems to have fallen into obscurity until the 19th century, when Assyriologists began deciphering the cuneiform inscriptions and excavated tablets that had been left by its speakers. In spite of its extinction, Sumerian exerted a significant impact on the languages of the area. The cuneiform script , originally used for Sumerian, was widely adopted by numerous regional languages such as Akkadian , Elamite , Eblaite , Hittite , Hurrian , Luwian and Urartian ; it similarly inspired
7140-514: The 2004 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World's Ancient Languages has also been recognized as a good modern grammatical sketch. There is relatively little consensus, even among reasonable Sumerologists, in comparison to the state of most modern or classical languages. Verbal morphology, in particular, is hotly disputed. In addition to the general grammars, there are many monographs and articles about particular areas of Sumerian grammar, without which
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#17327945690217280-428: The 21st century have switched to using readings from them. There is also variation in the degree to which so-called "Auslauts" or "amissable consonants" (morpheme-final consonants that stopped being pronounced at one point or another in the history of Sumerian) are reflected in the transliterations. This article generally used the versions with expressed Auslauts. The key to reading logosyllabic cuneiform came from
7420-645: The Garden of Paradise. 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
7560-455: The Gods, may they produce their (bread?). Enki then advises that they create a servant of the gods, humankind, out of clay and blood. Against Enki's wish, the gods decide to slay Kingu, and Enki finally consents to use Kingu's blood to make the first human, with whom Enki always later has a close relationship, the first of the seven sages, seven wise men or "Abgallu" ( ab = water, gal = great, lu = man), also known as Adapa . Enki assembles
7700-453: 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
7840-722: The Louvre in Paris also made significant contributions to deciphering Sumerian with publications from 1898 to 1938, such as his 1905 publication of Les inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad . Charles Fossey at the Collège de France in Paris was another prolific and reliable scholar. His pioneering Contribution au Dictionnaire sumérien–assyrien , Paris 1905–1907, turns out to provide the foundation for P. Anton Deimel's 1934 Sumerisch-Akkadisches Glossar (vol. III of Deimel's 4-volume Sumerisches Lexikon ). In 1908, Stephen Herbert Langdon summarized
7980-606: The Neo-Sumerian and especially in the Old Babylonian period. Conversely, an intervocalic consonant, especially at the end of a morpheme followed by a vowel-initial morpheme, was usually "repeated" by the use of a CV sign for the same consonant; e.g. 𒊬 sar "write" - 𒊬𒊏 sar-ra "written". This results in orthographic gemination that is usually reflected in Sumerological transliteration, but does not actually designate any phonological phenomenon such as length. It
8120-522: The Sumerian language descended from a late prehistoric creole language (Høyrup 1992). However, no conclusive evidence, only some typological features, can be found to support Høyrup's view. A more widespread hypothesis posits a Proto-Euphratean language family that preceded Sumerian in Mesopotamia and exerted an areal influence on it, especially in the form of polysyllabic words that appear "un-Sumerian"—making them suspect of being loanwords —and are not traceable to any other known language family. There
8260-444: The Sumerian site of Tello (ancient Girsu, capital of the state of Lagash ) in 1877, and published the first part of Découvertes en Chaldée with transcriptions of Sumerian tablets in 1884. The University of Pennsylvania began excavating Sumerian Nippur in 1888. A Classified List of Sumerian Ideographs by R. Brünnow appeared in 1889. The bewildering number and variety of phonetic values that signs could have in Sumerian led to
8400-524: The Tigris, the other the Euphrates. Alongside him are two trees, symbolizing the male and female aspects of nature. He is shown wearing a flounced skirt and a cone-shaped hat. An eagle descends from above to land upon his outstretched right arm. This portrayal reflects Enki's role as the god of water, life, and replenishment. Considered the master shaper of the world, god of wisdom and of all magic , Enki
8540-459: The above cases, another stress often seemed to be present as well: on the stem to which the suffixes/enclitics were added, on the second compound member in compounds, and possibly on the verbal stem that prefixes were added to or on following syllables. He also did not agree that the stress of monomorphemic words was typically initial and believed to have found evidence of words with initial as well as with final stress; in fact, he did not even exclude
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#17327945690218680-399: The adaptation of Akkadian words of Sumerian origin seems to suggest that Sumerian stress tended to be on the last syllable of the word, at least in its citation form. The treatment of forms with grammatical morphemes is less clear. Many cases of apheresis in forms with enclitics have been interpreted as entailing that the same rule was true of the phonological word on many occasions, i.e. that
8820-411: The body: Abu for the jaw, Nanshe for the throat, Nintul for the hip, Ninsutu for the tooth, Ninkasi for the mouth, Dazimua for the side, Enshagag for the limbs. The last one, Ninti (Lady Rib), is also a pun on Lady Life, a title of Ninhursag herself. The story thus symbolically reflects the way in which life is brought forth through the addition of water to the land, and once it grows, water
8960-457: The city walls, where the dead or sick were often carried. This links Enki to the Kur or underworld of Sumerian mythology . In another even older tradition, Nammu , the goddess of the primeval creative matter and the mother-goddess portrayed as having "given birth to the great gods," was the mother of Enki, and as the watery creative force, was said to preexist Ea-Enki. Benito states "With Enki it
9100-632: The city where Inanna will not be able to find him. Enki, as the protector of whoever comes to seek his help, and as the empowerer of Inanna, here challenges the young impetuous goddess to control her anger so as to be better able to function as a great judge. Eventually, after cooling her anger, she too seeks the help of Enki, as spokesperson of the "assembly of the gods", the Igigi and the Anunnaki. After she presents her case, Enki sees that justice needs to be done and promises help, delivering knowledge of where
9240-404: The coming of irrigation water (from Sumerian a , ab , water or semen). The early inscriptions of Urukagina in fact go so far as to suggest that the divine pair, Enki and Ninki, were the progenitors of seven pairs of gods, including Enki as god of Eridu , Enlil of Nippur , and Su'en (or Sin ) of Ur , and were themselves the children of An (sky, heaven) and Ki (earth). The pool of the Abzu at
9380-437: The context, a cuneiform sign can be read either as one of several possible logograms , each of which corresponds to a word in the Sumerian spoken language, as a phonetic syllable (V, VC, CV, or CVC), or as a determinative (a marker of semantic category, such as occupation or place). (See the article Cuneiform .) Some Sumerian logograms were written with multiple cuneiform signs. These logograms are called diri -spellings, after
9520-465: The cosmos. In the epic Enki and Ninhursag , Enki, as lord of Ab or fresh water, is living with his wife in the paradise of Dilmun where The land of Dilmun is a pure place, the land of Dilmun is a clean place, The land of Dilmun is a clean place, the land of Dilmun is a bright place; He who is alone laid himself down in Dilmun, The place, after Enki is clean, that place is bright. Despite being
9660-537: The critiques put forward by Pascal Attinger in his 1993 Eléments de linguistique sumérienne: La construction de du 11 /e/di 'dire ' ) is the starting point of most recent academic discussions of Sumerian grammar. More recent monograph-length grammars of Sumerian include Dietz-Otto Edzard 's 2003 Sumerian Grammar and Bram Jagersma's 2010 A Descriptive Grammar of Sumerian (currently digital, but soon to be printed in revised form by Oxford University Press). Piotr Michalowski's essay (entitled, simply, "Sumerian") in
9800-401: The cuneiform script are /a/ , /e/ , /i/ , and /u/ . Various researchers have posited the existence of more vowel phonemes such as /o/ and even /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ , which would have been concealed by the transmission through Akkadian, as that language does not distinguish them. That would explain the seeming existence of numerous homophones in transliterated Sumerian, as well as some details of
9940-414: The earliest period, Enki had a subordinate position to a goddess (possibly Ninhursag ), taking the role of divine consort or high priest, later taking priority. The Enki temple had at its entrance a pool of fresh water, and excavation has found numerous carp bones, suggesting collective feasts. Carp are shown in the twin water flows running into the later God Enki, suggesting continuity of these features over
10080-568: The earth where eight plants rapidly germinate. With his two-faced servant and steward Isimud , "Enki, in the swampland, in the swampland lies stretched out, 'What is this (plant), what is this (plant).' His messenger Isimud, answers him; 'My king, this is the tree-plant', he says to him. He cuts it off for him and he (Enki) eats it". And so, despite warnings, Enki consumes the other seven fruit. Consuming his own semen, he falls pregnant (ill with swellings) in his jaw, his teeth, his mouth, his hip, his throat, his limbs, his side and his rib. The gods are at
10220-548: The eclipse of the tradition of cuneiform literacy itself in the beginning of the Common Era . The most popular genres for Sumerian texts after the Old Babylonian period were incantations, liturgical texts and proverbs; among longer texts, the classics Lugal-e and An-gim were most commonly copied. Of the 29 royal inscriptions of the late second millennium BC 2nd dynasty of Isin about half were in Sumerian, described as "hypersophisticated classroom Sumerian". Sumerian
10360-471: The extremely detailed and meticulous administrative records, there are numerous royal inscriptions, legal documents, letters and incantations. In spite of the dominant position of written Sumerian during the Ur III dynasty, it is controversial to what extent it was actually spoken or had already gone extinct in most parts of its empire. Some facts have been interpreted as suggesting that many scribes and even
10500-617: The first man fashioned, later goes and acts as the advisor to the King of Eridu, when in the Sumerian King-List, the me of "kingship descends on Eridu". Samuel Noah Kramer believes that behind this myth of Enki's confinement of Abzu lies an older one of the struggle between Enki and the Dragon Kur (the underworld). The Atrahasis-Epos has it that Enlil requested from Nammu the creation of humans. And Nammu told him that with
10640-426: The first syllable and that there was generally stress on the syllable preceding a (final) suffix/enclitic, on the penultimate syllable of a polysyllabic enclitic such as -/ani/, -/zunene/ etc., on the last syllable of the first member of a compound, and on the first syllable in a sequence of verbal prefixes. However, he found that single verbal prefixes received the stress just as prefix sequences did, and that in most of
10780-411: The first syllable, and that the same applied without exception to reduplicated stems, but that the stress shifted onto the last syllable in a first member of a compound or idiomatic phrase, onto the syllable preceding a (final) suffix/enclitic, and onto the first syllable of the possessive enclitic /-ani/. In his view, single verbal prefixes were unstressed, but longer sequences of verbal prefixes attracted
10920-461: The first to span a greater variety of genres, including not only administrative texts and sign lists, but also incantations , legal and literary texts (including proverbs and early versions of the famous works The Instructions of Shuruppak and The Kesh temple hymn ). However, the spelling of grammatical elements remains optional, making the interpretation and linguistic analysis of these texts difficult. The Old Sumerian period (2500-2350 BC)
11060-550: The following consonant appears in front of a vowel, it can be said to be expressed only by the next sign: for example, 𒊮𒂵 šag 4 -ga "in the heart" can also be interpreted as ša 3 -ga . Me (mythology) In Sumerian mythology , a me ( 𒈨 ; Sumerian : me ; Akkadian : paršu ) is one of the decrees of the divine that is foundational to Sumerian religious and social institutions , technologies , behaviors, mores , and human conditions that made Mesopotamian civilization possible. They are fundamental to
11200-591: The front of his temple was adopted also at the temple to Nanna ( Akkadian Sin ) the Moon, at Ur , and spread from there throughout the Middle East. It is believed to remain today as the sacred pool at Mosques , or as the holy water font in Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches. Whether Eridu at one time also played an important political role in Sumerian affairs is not certain, though not improbable. At all events
11340-502: The glottal stop even serving as the first-person pronominal prefix. However, these unwritten consonants had been lost by the Ur III period according to Jagersma. Very often, a word-final consonant was not expressed in writing—and was possibly omitted in pronunciation—so it surfaced only when followed by a vowel: for example the /k/ of the genitive case ending -ak does not appear in 𒂍𒈗𒆷 e 2 lugal-la "the king's house", but it becomes obvious in 𒂍𒈗𒆷𒄰 e 2 lugal-la-kam "(it)
11480-458: The god. Of his cult at Eridu, which goes back to the oldest period of Mesopotamian history, nothing definite is known except that his temple was also associated with Ninhursag's temple which was called Esaggila , "the lofty head house" ( E , house, sag , head, ila , high; or Akkadian goddess = Ila), a name shared with Marduk's temple in Babylon, pointing to a staged tower or ziggurat (as with
11620-539: The goddess's strength and her ability to take care of herself. While Enlil tells Ninshubur he is busy running the cosmos, Enki immediately expresses concern and dispatches his Galla (Galaturra or Kurgarra, sexless beings created from the dirt from beneath the god's finger-nails) to recover the young goddess. These beings may be the origin of the Greco-Roman Galli , androgynous beings of the third sex who played an important part in early religious ritual. In
11760-470: The gods, Endowed with wisdom, the lord of Eridu Changed the speech in their mouths, [brought] contention into it, Into the speech of man that (until then) had been one. In the Sumerian version of the flood myth , the causes of the flood and the reasons for the hero's survival are unknown due to the fact that the beginning of the tablet describing the story has been destroyed. Nonetheless, Kramer has stated that it can probably be reasonably inferred that
11900-432: The guiltless, and the gods institute measures to ensure that humanity does not become too populous in the future. This is one of the oldest of the surviving Middle Eastern deluge myths . The myth Enki and Inanna tells the story of how the young goddess of the É-anna temple of Uruk feasts with her father Enki. The two deities participate in a drinking competition; then, Enki, thoroughly inebriated, gives Inanna all of
12040-488: The help of Enki (her son) she can create humans in the image of gods. In the Sumerian epic entitled Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta , in a speech of Enmerkar , an introductory spell appears, recounting Enki having had mankind communicate in one language (following Jay Crisostomo 2019); or, in other accounts, it is a hymn imploring Enki to do so. In either case, Enki "facilitated the debates between [the two kings] by allowing
12180-462: The hero Ziusudra survives due to Enki's aid because that is what happens in the later Akkadian and Babylonian versions of the story. In the later Legend of Atrahasis , Enlil, the King of the Gods, sets out to eliminate humanity, whose noise is disturbing his rest. He successively sends drought, famine and plague to eliminate humanity, but Enki thwarts his half-brother's plans by teaching Atrahasis how to counter these threats. Each time, Atrahasis asks
12320-643: The house of the banks and quays of the land. Dilmun was identified with Bahrain , whose name in Arabic means "two seas", where the fresh waters of the Arabian aquifer mingle with the salt waters of the Persian Gulf . This mingling of waters was known in Sumerian as Nammu , and was identified as the mother of Enki. The subsequent tale, with similarities to the Biblical story of the forbidden fruit, repeats
12460-436: The land, the expert of all the gods, the chosen in wisdom, the lord of Eridu, [Enki] placed an alteration of the language in their mouths. The speech of humanity is one. S.N. Kramer's 1940 translation is as follows: Once upon a time there was no snake, there was no scorpion, There was no hyena, there was no lion, There was no wild dog, no wolf, There was no fear, no terror, Man had no rival. In those days,
12600-404: The lands of Subur [and] Hamazi , the distinctly-tongued, Sumer, the great mountain, the essence of nobility, Akkad, the land possessing the befitting, and the land of Martu, lying in safety — the totality of heaven and earth, the well-guarded people, [all] proclaimed Enlil in a single language. Enki, the lord of abundance and true word, the lord chosen in wisdom who watches over
12740-405: The lands of Subur (and) Hamazi, Harmony-tongued Sumer, the great land of the decrees of princeship, Uri, the land having all that is appropriate, The land Martu , resting in security, The whole universe, the people in unison To Enlil in one tongue [spoke]. (Then) Enki, the lord of abundance (whose) commands are trustworthy, The lord of wisdom, who understands the land, The leader of
12880-447: The late Middle Babylonian period) and there are also grammatical texts - essentially bilingual paradigms listing Sumerian grammatical forms and their postulated Akkadian equivalents. After the Old Babylonian period or, according to some, as early as 1700 BC, the active use of Sumerian declined. Scribes did continue to produce texts in Sumerian at a more modest scale, but generally with interlinear Akkadian translations and only part of
13020-667: The length of the vowels in most Sumerian words. During the Old Sumerian period, the southern dialects (those used in the cities of Lagash , Umma , Ur and Uruk ), which also provide the overwhelming majority of material from that stage, exhibited a vowel harmony rule based on vowel height or advanced tongue root . Essentially, prefixes containing /e/ or /i/ appear to alternate between /e/ in front of syllables containing open vowels and /i/ in front of syllables containing close vowels; e.g. 𒂊𒁽 e-kaš 4 "he runs", but 𒉌𒁺 i 3 -gub "he stands". Certain verbs with stem vowels spelt with /u/ and /e/, however, seem to take prefixes with
13160-557: The lesser gods. Here the me s of various places are extolled but are not themselves clearly specified, and they seem to be distinct from the individual responsibilities of each divinity as they are mentioned in conjunction with specific places rather than gods. After a considerable amount of self-glorification on the part of Enki, his daughter Inanna comes before him with a complaint that she has been given short shrift on her divine spheres of influence. Enki does his best to placate her by pointing out those she does in fact possess. There
13300-611: The literature known in the Old Babylonian period continued to be copied after its end around 1600 BC. During the Middle Babylonian period, approximately from 1600 to 1000 BC, the Kassite rulers continued to use Sumerian in many of their inscriptions, but Akkadian seems to have taken the place of Sumerian as the primary language of texts used for the training of scribes and their Sumerian itself acquires an increasingly artificial and Akkadian-influenced form. In some cases
13440-514: The logogram 𒋛𒀀 DIRI which is written with the signs 𒋛 SI and 𒀀 A . The text transliteration of a tablet will show just the logogram, such as the word dirig , not the separate component signs. Not all epigraphists are equally reliable, and before publication of an important treatment of a text, scholars will often arrange to collate the published transliteration against the actual tablet, to see if any signs, especially broken or damaged signs, should be represented differently. Our knowledge of
13580-401: The majority of scribes writing in Sumerian in this point were not native speakers and errors resulting from their Akkadian mother tongue become apparent. For this reason, this period as well as the remaining time during which Sumerian was written are sometimes referred to as the "Post-Sumerian" period. The written language of administration, law and royal inscriptions continued to be Sumerian in
13720-429: The miscreant is hiding. Enki and later Ea were apparently depicted, sometimes, as a man covered with the skin of a fish, and this representation, as likewise the name of his temple E-apsu, "house of the watery deep", points decidedly to his original character as a god of the waters (see Oannes ). Around the excavation of the 18 shrines found on the spot, thousands of carp bones were found, consumed possibly in feasts to
13860-520: The most important sources come from the autonomous Second Dynasty of Lagash, especially from the rule of Gudea , which has produced extensive royal inscriptions. The second phase corresponds to the unification of Mesopotamia under the Third Dynasty of Ur , which oversaw a "renaissance" in the use of Sumerian throughout Mesopotamia, using it as its sole official written language. There is a wealth of texts greater than from any preceding time – besides
14000-528: The myth of Inanna's Descent , Inanna, in order to console her grieving sister Ereshkigal , who is mourning the death of her husband Gugalana ( gu 'bull', gal 'big', ana 'sky/heaven'), slain by Gilgamesh and Enkidu , sets out to visit her sister. Inanna tells her servant Ninshubur ('Lady Evening', a reference to Inanna's role as the evening star ) to get help from Anu , Enlil or Enki if she does not return in three days. After Inanna has not come back, Ninshubur approaches Anu, only to be told that he knows
14140-477: The name "Sumerian", based on the known title "King of Sumer and Akkad", reasoning that if Akkad signified the Semitic portion of the kingdom, Sumer might describe the non-Semitic annex. Credit for being first to scientifically treat a bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian text belongs to Paul Haupt , who published Die sumerischen Familiengesetze (The Sumerian family laws) in 1879. Ernest de Sarzec began excavating
14280-483: 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, as was the star Canopus . 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
14420-616: The overwhelming majority of surviving manuscripts of Sumerian literary texts in general can be dated to that time, and it is often seen as the "classical age" of Sumerian literature. Conversely, far more literary texts on tablets surviving from the Old Babylonian period are in Sumerian than in Akkadian, even though that time is viewed as the classical period of Babylonian culture and language. However, it has sometimes been suggested that many or most of these "Old Babylonian Sumerian" texts may be copies of works that were originally composed in
14560-612: 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 Ashur . After dispatching Tiamat with the "arrows of his winds" down her throat and constructing the heavens with the arch of her ribs, Enlil places her tail in the sky as the Milky Way, and her crying eyes become
14700-444: The phenomena mentioned in the next paragraph. These hypotheses are not yet generally accepted. Phonemic vowel length has also been posited by many scholars based on vowel length in Sumerian loanwords in Akkadian, occasional so-called plene spellings with extra vowel signs, and some internal evidence from alternations. However, scholars who believe in the existence of phonemic vowel length do not consider it possible to reconstruct
14840-480: The place of stress. Sumerian writing expressed pronunciation only roughly. It was often morphophonemic , so much of the allomorphic variation could be ignored. Especially in earlier Sumerian, coda consonants were also often ignored in spelling; e.g. /mung̃areš/ 'they put it here' could be written 𒈬𒃻𒌷 mu-g̃ar-re 2 . The use of VC signs for that purpose, producing more elaborate spellings such as 𒈬𒌦𒃻𒌷𒌍 mu-un-g̃ar-re 2 -eš 3 , became more common only in
14980-431: The population to abandon worship of all gods except the one responsible for the calamity, and this seems to shame them into relenting. Humans, however, proliferate a fourth time. Enraged, Enlil convenes a Council of Deities and gets them to promise not to tell humankind that he plans their total annihilation. Enki does not tell Atrahasis directly, but speaks to him in secret via a reed wall. He instructs Atrahasis to build
15120-412: The possibility that stress was normally stem-final. Pascal Attinger has partly concurred with Krecher, but doubts that the stress was always on the syllable preceding a suffix/enclitic and argues that in a prefix sequence, the stressed syllable wasn't the first one, but rather the last one if heavy and the next-to-the-last one in other cases. Attinger has also remarked that the patterns observed may be
15260-399: The preceding Ur III period or earlier, and some copies or fragments of known compositions or literary genres have indeed been found in tablets of Neo-Sumerian and Old Sumerian provenance. In addition, some of the first bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian lexical lists are preserved from that time (although the lists were still usually monolingual and Akkadian translations did not become common until
15400-613: The prominence of "Ea" led, as in the case of Nippur, to the survival of Eridu as a sacred city, long after it had ceased to have any significance as a political center. Myths in which Ea figures prominently have been found in Assurbanipal 's library, and in the Hattusas archive in Hittite Anatolia . As Ea, Enki had a wide influence outside of Sumer, being equated with El (at Ugarit ) and possibly Yah (at Ebla ) in
15540-520: The rapid expansion in knowledge of Sumerian and Akkadian vocabulary in the pages of Babyloniaca , a journal edited by Charles Virolleaud , in an article "Sumerian-Assyrian Vocabularies", which reviewed a valuable new book on rare logograms by Bruno Meissner. Subsequent scholars have found Langdon's work, including his tablet transcriptions, to be not entirely reliable. In 1944, the Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer provided
15680-544: The readings of Sumerian signs is based, to a great extent, on lexical lists made for Akkadian speakers, where they are expressed by means of syllabic signs. The established readings were originally based on lexical lists from the Neo-Babylonian Period , which were found in the 19th century; in the 20th century, earlier lists from the Old Babylonian Period were published and some researchers in
15820-583: The region and was prominent from the third millennium down to the Hellenistic period . The exact meaning of Enki's 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". The name Ea
15960-586: The rendering of morphophonemics". Early Sumerian is conjectured to have had at least the consonants listed in the table below. The consonants in parentheses are reconstructed by some scholars based on indirect evidence; if they existed, they were lost around the Ur III period in the late 3rd millennium BC. The existence of various other consonants has been hypothesized based on graphic alternations and loans, though none have found wide acceptance. For example, Diakonoff lists evidence for two lateral phonemes, two rhotics, two back fricatives, and two g-sounds (excluding
16100-482: The result in each specific case is a long vowel or whether a vowel is simply replaced/deleted. Syllables could have any of the following structures: V, CV, VC, CVC. More complex syllables, if Sumerian had them, are not expressed as such by the cuneiform script. Sumerian stress is usually presumed to have been dynamic, since it seems to have caused vowel elisions on many occasions. Opinions vary on its placement. As argued by Bram Jagersma and confirmed by other scholars,
16240-400: The result of Akkadian influence - either due to linguistic convergence while Sumerian was still a living language or, since the data comes from the Old Babylonian period, a feature of Sumerian as pronounced by native speakers of Akkadian. The latter has also been pointed out by Jagersma, who is, in addition, sceptical about the very assumptions underlying the method used by Krecher to establish
16380-541: The royal court actually used Akkadian as their main spoken and native language. On the other hand, evidence has been adduced to the effect that Sumerian continued to be spoken natively and even remained dominant as an everyday language in Southern Babylonia, including Nippur and the area to its south By the Old Babylonian period (c. 2000 – c. 1600 BC), Akkadian had clearly supplanted Sumerian as
16520-497: The site of Eridu have demonstrated the existence of a shrine dating back to the earliest Ubaid period , more than 6,500 years ago. Over the following 4,500 years, the temple was expanded 18 times, until it was abandoned during the Persian period. On this basis Thorkild Jacobsen has hypothesized that the original deity of the temple was Abzu, with his attributes later being taken by Enki over time. P. Steinkeller believes that, during
16660-416: The source of the Tigris and Euphrates. But there is still the problem of "who will keep the cosmos working". Enki, who might have otherwise come to their aid, is lying in a deep sleep and fails to hear their cries. His mother Nammu (creatrix also of Abzu and Tiamat) "brings the tears of the gods" before Enki and says Oh my son, arise from thy bed, from thy (slumber), work what is wise, Fashion servants for
16800-564: The standard for students studying Sumerian. Another highly influential figure in Sumerology during much of the 20th century was Adam Falkenstein , who produced a grammar of the language of Gudea 's inscriptions. Poebel's grammar was finally superseded in 1984 on the publication of The Sumerian Language: An Introduction to its History and Grammatical Structure , by Marie-Louise Thomsen . While there are various points in Sumerian grammar on which Thomsen's views are not shared by most Sumerologists today, Thomsen's grammar (often with express mention of
16940-432: The story Inanna and Shukaletuda , Shukaletuda , the gardener, set by Enki to care for the date palm he had created, finds Inanna sleeping under the palm tree and rapes the goddess in her sleep. Awaking, she discovers that she has been violated and seeks to punish the miscreant. Shukaletuda seeks protection from Enki, whom Bottéro believes to be his father. In classic Enkian fashion, the father advises Shukaletuda to hide in
17080-831: The story of how fresh water brings life to a barren land. Enki, the Water-Lord then "caused to flow the 'water of the heart" and having fertilised his consort Ninhursag , also known as Ki or Earth, after "Nine days being her nine months, the months of 'womanhood'... like good butter, Nintu, the mother of the land, ...like good butter, gave birth to Ninsar , (Lady Greenery)". When Ninhursag left him, as Water-Lord he came upon Ninsar (Lady Greenery). Not knowing her to be his daughter, and because she reminds him of his absent consort, Enki then seduces and has intercourse with her. Ninsar then gave birth to Ninkurra (Lady Fruitfulness or Lady Pasture), and leaves Enki alone again. A second time, Enki, in his loneliness finds and seduces Ninkurra, and from
17220-431: The stress could be shifted onto the enclitics; however, the fact that many of these same enclitics have allomorphs with apocopated final vowels (e.g. / ‑ še/ ~ /-š/) suggests that they were, on the contrary, unstressed when these allomorphs arose. It has also been conjectured that the frequent assimilation of the vowels of non-final syllables to the vowel of the final syllable of the word may be due to stress on it. However,
17360-531: The stress to their first syllable. Jagersma has objected that many of Falkenstein's examples of elision are medial and so, while the stress was obviously not on the medial syllable in question, the examples do not show where it was . Joachim Krecher attempted to find more clues in texts written phonetically by assuming that geminations, plene spellings and unexpected "stronger" consonant qualities were clues to stress placement. Using this method, he confirmed Falkenstein's views that reduplicated forms were stressed on
17500-411: The temple of Enlil at Nippur , which was known as E-kur ( kur , hill)), and that incantations, involving ceremonial rites in which water as a sacred element played a prominent part, formed a feature of his worship. This seems also implicated in the epic of the hieros gamos or sacred marriage of Enki and Ninhursag (above), which seems an etiological myth of the fertilisation of the dry ground by
17640-455: The third figure in the triad (the two other members of which were Anu and Enlil ) that Ea acquires his permanent place in the pantheon. To him was assigned the control of the watery element, and in this capacity he becomes the shar apsi ; i.e. king of the Apsu or "the abyss". The Apsu was figured as the abyss of water beneath the earth, and since the gathering place of the dead, known as Aralu,
17780-410: The training of scribes. The next period, Archaic Sumerian (3000 BC – 2500 BC), is the first stage of inscriptions that indicate grammatical elements, so the identification of the language is certain. It includes some administrative texts and sign lists from Ur (c. 2800 BC). Texts from Shuruppak and Abu Salabikh from 2600 to 2500 BC (the so-called Fara period or Early Dynastic Period IIIa) are
17920-503: The undoubtedly Semitic-speaking successor states of Ur III during the so-called Isin-Larsa period (c. 2000 BC – c. 1750 BC). The Old Babylonian Empire , however, mostly used Akkadian in inscriptions, sometimes adding Sumerian versions. The Old Babylonian period, especially its early part, has produced extremely numerous and varied Sumerian literary texts: myths, epics, hymns, prayers, wisdom literature and letters. In fact, nearly all preserved Sumerian religious and wisdom literature and
18060-480: The union Ninkurra gave birth to Uttu (weaver or spider, the weaver of the web of life). A third time Enki succumbs to temptation, and attempts seduction of Uttu. Upset about Enki's reputation, Uttu consults Ninhursag, who, upset at the promiscuous wayward nature of her spouse, advises Uttu to avoid the riverbanks, the places likely to be affected by flooding, the home of Enki. In another version of this myth, Ninhursag takes Enki's semen from Uttu's womb and plants it in
18200-411: The various forms under which the god appears, alike bear witness to the popularity which he enjoyed from the earliest to the latest period of Babylonian-Assyrian history. The consort of Ea, known as Ninhursag, Ki, Uriash Damkina , "lady of that which is below", or Damgalnunna , "big lady of the waters", originally was fully equal with Ea, but in more patriarchal Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian times plays
18340-597: The velar nasal), and assumes a phonemic difference between consonants that are dropped word-finally (such as the g in 𒍠 zag > za 3 ) and consonants that remain (such as the g in 𒆷𒀝 lag ). Other "hidden" consonant phonemes that have been suggested include semivowels such as /j/ and /w/ , and a glottal fricative /h/ or a glottal stop that could explain the absence of vowel contraction in some words —though objections have been raised against that as well. A recent descriptive grammar by Bram Jagersma includes /j/ , /h/ , and /ʔ/ as unwritten consonants, with
18480-506: The world in general. Traces of this version of Ea appear in the Marduk epic celebrating the achievements of this god and the close connection between the Ea cult at Eridu and that of Marduk. The correlation between the two rises from two other important connections: (1) that the name of Marduk's sanctuary at Babylon bears the same name, Esaggila , as that of a temple in Eridu, and (2) that Marduk
18620-412: The world to speak one language," the presumed superior language of the tablet, i.e. Sumerian. Jay Crisostomo's 2019 translation, based on the recent work of C. Mittermayer is: At that time, as there was no snake, as there was no scorpion, as there was no hyena, as there was no lion, as there was no dog or wolf, as there was no fear or trembling — as humans had no rival. It was then that
18760-630: Was Yaw or Ya'a . Ea was also known as Dagon and Uanna (Grecised Oannes ), the first of the Seven Sages. Sumerian language Akkadian , a Semitic language , gradually replaced Sumerian as the primary spoken language in the area c. 2000 BC (the exact date is debated), but Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary, and scientific language in Akkadian-speaking Mesopotamian states such as Assyria and Babylonia until
18900-591: Was able to decipher the Old Persian section of the Behistun inscriptions, using his knowledge of modern Persian. When he recovered the rest of the text in 1843, he and others were gradually able to translate the Elamite and Akkadian sections of it, starting with the 37 signs he had deciphered for the Old Persian. Meanwhile, many more cuneiform texts were coming to light from archaeological excavations, mostly in
19040-508: Was characterized as the lord of the Abzu (Apsu in Akkadian), the freshwater sea or groundwater located within the earth . In the later Babylonian epic Enûma Eliš , Abzu, the "begetter of the gods", is inert and sleepy but finds his peace disturbed by the younger gods, so sets out to destroy them. His grandson Enki, chosen to represent the younger gods, puts a spell on Abzu "casting him into
19180-461: Was not Enki but Abzu . The emergence of Enki as the divine lover of Ninhursag , and the divine battle between the younger Igigi divinities and Abzu, saw the Abzu, the underground waters of the Aquifer, becoming the place in which the foundations of the temple were built. With some Sumerian deity names as Enlil there are variations like Elil. En means "Lord" and E means "temple". It is likely that E-A
19320-532: Was originally the patron god of the city of Eridu , but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites , Hittites and Hurrians . He 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
19460-416: Was situated near the confines of the Apsu, he was also designated as En -Ki ; i.e. "lord of that which is below", in contrast to Anu, who was the lord of the "above" or the heavens. The cult of Ea extended throughout Babylonia and Assyria . We find temples and shrines erected in his honour, e.g. at Nippur , Girsu , Ur , Babylon , Sippar , and Nineveh , and the numerous epithets given to him, as well as
19600-405: Was still so rudimentary that there remains some scholarly disagreement about whether the language written with it is Sumerian at all, although it has been argued that there are some, albeit still very rare, cases of phonetic indicators and spelling that show this to be the case. The texts from this period are mostly administrative; there are also a number of sign lists, which were apparently used for
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