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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient Near Eastern cosmology | 7/12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_Eastern_cosmology | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:33:43.951701+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Creation of the gods === The core Mesopotamian myth to explain the gods' origins begins with the primeval ocean, personified by Nammu, containing Father Sky and Mother Earth within her. In the god-list TCL XV 10, Nammu is called 'the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth'. The conception of Nammu as mother of Sky-Earth is first attested in the Ur III period (early 2nd millennium BC), though it may go back to an earlier Akkadian era. Earlier in the 3rd millennium BC, the starting point was not Nammu, but just Sky and Earth, with little apparent question about their own origins. The representation of Sky as male and Earth as female may come from the analogy between the generative power of the male sperm and the rain that comes from the sky, which respectively fertilize the female to give rise to newborn life or the Earth to give rise to vegetation. In the desert-dweller milieu, life depended on pastureland. Sky and Earth are in a union. Because they are the opposite sex, they inevitably reproduce. Every generation of their offspring includes a pair of gods, and altogether, this successive pairs or generations of gods is known as the Enki-Ninki deities. It has been named this way because in every version of the story, the first pair of offspring gods are Enki and Ninki ("Lord and Lady Earth"). The only other consistent feature between all versions of the story is that the last pair is made up of Enlil and Ninlil. In addition, in each pair, one member is male (indicated by the En- prefix) and the other is female (indicated by the Nin- prefix). The birth of Enlil results in the separation of heaven and earth as well as the division of the primordial ocean into the upper and lower waters. Sky, now known as Anu, can mate with other deities after being separated from Earth: he mates with his mother Nammu to give birth to Enki (different from the earlier Enki) who takes dominion over the lower waters. The siblings Enlil and Ninlil mate to give birth to Nanna (also known as Sin), the moon god, and Ninurta, the warrior god. Nanna fathers Utu (known as Shamash in Akkadian texts), the sun god, and Inanna (Venus). By this point, the main features of the cosmos had been created/born. A variation of this myth existed in Egyptian cosmology. Here, the primordial ocean is given by the god Nu. The creation act neither takes its materials from Nu, unlike in Mesopotamian cosmology, nor is Nu eliminated by the creation act.
=== Separation of heaven and earth ===
The cosmic union, or marriage, of heaven and earth is spoken of in ancient Near Eastern texts stretching back to the 3rd millennium BC. The first source that mentions their separation is from the late 3rd millennium BC, known as the Song of the hoe. During the 2nd millennium BC, these texts shift in their focus from the union to the separation of heaven and earth, as shown by Sumerian, Akkadian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Greek mythologies. The cause of the separation involves either the agency of Enlil or takes place as a spontaneous act. One recovered Hittite text states that there was a time when they "severed the heaven from the earth with a cleaver", and an Egyptian text refers to "when the sky was separated from the earth" (Pyramid Text 1208c). OIP 99 113 ii and 136 iii says Enlil separated Earth from Sky and separated Sky from Earth. Enkig and Ninmah 1–2 also says Sky and Earth were separated in the beginning. The introduction of Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld says that heaven is carried off from the earth by the sky god Anu to become the possession of the wind god Enlil. Several other sources also present this idea.
In the Akkadian Enuma Elish, written in the early 1st millennium BC, the god Marduk divides the corpse of the slain primordial goddess Tiamat into two parts, one stretched out to create heaven, the other to create the earth. As begins in lines 135–138:135 The Lord [Marduk] rested, examining her [Tiamat's] dead body, 136. To divide the abortion (and) to create ingenious things (therewith). 137. He split her open like a mussel (?) into two (parts); 138. Half of her he set in place and formed the sky (therewith) as a roof....The nature of the original mass is described in several ways. In older, Sumerian texts from the 3rd to early 2nd millennia BC, the original mass was a solid. In the younger Akkadian tradition, such as the Enuma Elish, the original mass was a water. In the Sumerian sources, heaven and earth are separated over the course of "long days and nights" (similar to the six-day timeline in the Genesis creation narrative), by two gods: Anu, the King of Heaven, and Enlil, the King of Earth.