Abstract
The Babylonian Enūma eliš opens with the well-known motif of the primeval waters covering the world. Although this motif is very important in Enūma eliš itself and in other cosmogonies of the Ancient Near East, it is not attested in identified Mesopotamian creation accounts older than Enūma eliš and it can be found just in the old Babylonian divine name dama-tu-an-ki „Mother, creator of heaven and earth“, a byname of the goddess Namma, the personified ground waters. This paper provides a brief overview of the motifs of personified waters in Mesopotamian texts of the third and second millennia. The sources argue for the existence of a southern Mesopotamian tradition with the personified ground waters and a western tradition with the personified sea. These traditions were combined together in Enūma eliš, where the male god Apsû embodied the ground waters. Abzu/Apsû doesn’t appear to have been personified until the second half of the second millennium. The paper closes with a critique of Lambert’s etymology of the name Namma.
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© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Bemerkungen zu Namma und weiteren Wassergottheiten
- Parallel Hurrian and Hittite šumma izbu Omens from Hattuša and Corresponding Akkadian Omens
- A Travelling Lamaštu
- Remarks Concerning the Alleged Solar Eclipse of Muršili II
- The Shadows of a Distant Past
- Deux textes cunéiformes d’une petite collection privée belge
- Hartapu and the Land of Maša
- Eine mannshohe Leier im altbabylonischen Ištar-Ritual aus Mari (FM 3,no. 2)
- A New Join to the Hurro-Akkadian Version of the Weidner God List from Emar (Msk 74.108a + Msk 74.158k)
- Hittite Éḫalentuwa- Revisited
- The munus.meššu.gi and the kin Oracle
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Bemerkungen zu Namma und weiteren Wassergottheiten
- Parallel Hurrian and Hittite šumma izbu Omens from Hattuša and Corresponding Akkadian Omens
- A Travelling Lamaštu
- Remarks Concerning the Alleged Solar Eclipse of Muršili II
- The Shadows of a Distant Past
- Deux textes cunéiformes d’une petite collection privée belge
- Hartapu and the Land of Maša
- Eine mannshohe Leier im altbabylonischen Ištar-Ritual aus Mari (FM 3,no. 2)
- A New Join to the Hurro-Akkadian Version of the Weidner God List from Emar (Msk 74.108a + Msk 74.158k)
- Hittite Éḫalentuwa- Revisited
- The munus.meššu.gi and the kin Oracle