Sumerian Mythology

It is from the first half of this introduction that we obtain therefore the following cosmogonic concepts:

1. At one time heaven and earth were united.

2. Some of the gods existed before the separation of heaven and earth.

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3. Upon the separation of heaven and earth, it was, as might have been expected, the heaven-god An who carried off heaven, but it was the air-god Enlil who carried off the earth.

Among the crucial points not stated or implied in this passage are the following:

1. Were heaven and earth conceived as created, and if so, by whom?

2. What was the shape of heaven and earth as conceived by the Sumerians?

3. Who separated heaven from earth?

Fortunately, the answers to these three questions can be gleaned from several other Sumerian texts dating from our period. Thus:

1. In a tablet which gives a list of the Sumerian gods, 41 the goddess Nammu, written with the ideogram for "sea," is described as "the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth." Heaven and earth were therefore conceived by the Sumerians as the created products of the primeval sea.

2. The myth "Cattle and Grain" (see p. 53), which describes the birth in heaven of the spirits of cattle and grain, who were then sent down to earth to bring prosperity to mankind, begins with the following two lines:

After on the mountain of heaven and earth,
An had caused the Anunnaki (his followers) to be born. . . .

[paragraph continues] It is not unreasonable to assume, therefore, that heaven and earth united were conceived as a mountain whose base was the bottom of the earth and whose peak was the top of the heaven.

3. The myth "The Creation of the Pickax" (see p. 51), which describes the fashioning and dedication of this valuable agricultural implement, is introduced with the following passage:

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The lord, that which is appropriate verily he caused to appear,
The lord whose decisions are unalterable,
Enlil, who brings up the seed of the land from the earth,
Took care to move away heaven from earth,
Took care to move away earth from heaven.

[paragraph continues] And so we have the answer to our third question; it was the air-god Enlil, who separated and removed heaven from earth.

If now we sum up the cosmogonic or creation concepts of the Sumerians, evolved to explain the origin of the universe, they may be stated as follows:

1. First was the primeval sea. Nothing is said of its origin or birth, and it is not unlikely that the Sumerians conceived it as having existed eternally.

2. The primeval sea begot the cosmic mountain consisting of heaven and earth united.

3. Conceived as gods in human form, An (heaven) was the male and Ki (earth) was the female. From their union was begotten the air-god Enlil.

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