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PRIMORDIAL BEINGS

PRIMORDIAL BEINGS

Various civilizations over the course of Mesopotamian history had many different creation stories. The earliest accounts of creation are simple narratives written in Sumerian dating to the late third millennium BC. They are mostly preserved as brief prologues to longer mythographic compositions dealing with other subjects, such as Inanna and the Huluppu Tree, The Creation of the Pickax, and Enki and Ninmah. Later stories are far more elaborate, adding multiple generations of gods and primordial beings.

APSÛ OR ABZU
Primordial god of fresh water. Depicted as the a deity only in the Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Eliš. A primal being made of fresh water and a lover to, Tiamat. The Enûma Eliš begins with: "when above the heavens did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsû the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter, and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, she who bore them all; they were still mixing their waters, and no pasture land had yet been formed, nor even a reed marsh". Enûma Eliš resulted in the birth of the younger gods, who later murdered Apsû in order to usurp his lordship of the universe.

TIAMAT
The Primordial goddess of the salt sea, the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation. After the separation of heaven and earth, the goddess Tiamat and her consort Apsû are the only two deities in existence. A male-female pair, they mate and Tiamat gives birth to the first generation of Gods. When Enki slays Apsû, Tiamat gives birth to eleven monsters to seek venegence for her lover's death.

There are two parts to Tiamat's mythology, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a sacred marriage between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second Chaoskampf, Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. She is imaged to be a sea serpent or dragon.

When Enki killed Apsû, Tiamat was enraged she takes the form of a massive sea dragon an gives birth to eleven monsters, who began the first dragons, whose bodies were filled with poison instead of blood. She was slain by Enki's son, Marduk, but not before she had brought forth the monsters. Marduk then used her body to form the heavens and earth.

ANSHAR AND KISHAR
A primordial couple, who are male and female respectively. The twin horizons of sky and earth. Anshar's name means "whole heaven" while Kishar's means "whole earth". The first set of twins born to Apsû and Tiamat. They were the parents of An, the supreme heaven god.

KI
Sumerian goddess personifying the earth itself. In some Sumerian texts, she is a primordial being who copulates with An to produce a variety of plants. The mother of Enlil. The Sumerians believed the world began when Enlil separated her from An. In some legends Ki and An were brother and sister. Legends say that heaven and earth were once inseparable until Enlil was born; Enlil cleaved heaven and earth in two. An carried away the heavens, while Ki and Enlil took the earth. Some question is she is regarded as a deity because there is no evidence of a cult like many other gods and goddesses in Mesopotamia.

NAMMU OR NAMMA
Primordial goddess who is regarded as the mother of Enki and is revered as an important mother goddess. Conceived as the personification of subterranean primeval waters. She had a greater importance prehistorically, before Enki took over most of her functions. Known for giving birth to the great gods, it was she who had the idea of creating mankind. The Atrahasis-Epos has it that Enlil requested from Nammu to create the humans and Nammu told him she would with the help of Enki so she could create humans in the image of gods. In Sex of History by Reay Tannahill she singled out Nammu as the "only female prime mover" in the cosmogonic myths of antiquity.