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The Hymn to Enlil, Enlil and the Ekur (Enlil A), Hymn to the Ekur, Hymn and incantation to Enlil, Hymn to Enlil the all beneficent or Excerpt from an exorcism is a Sumerian myth, written on clay tablets in the late third millennium BC. [1]
Fragments of the text were discovered in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology catalogue of the Babylonian section (CBS) from their excavations at the temple library at Nippur. The myth was first published using tablet CBS 8317, translated by George Aaron Barton in 1918 as "Sumerian religious texts" in "Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions", number ten, entitled "An excerpt from an exorcism". [2] The tablet is 3.4 by 2.75 by 1.2 inches (8.6 by 7.0 by 3.0 cm) at its thickest point. A larger fragment of the text was found on CBS tablet number 14152 and first published by Henry Frederick Lutz as "A hymn and incantation to Enlil" in "Selected Sumerian and Babylonian Texts", number 114 in 1919. [3] Barton's tablet had only containted lines five to twenty four of the reverse of Lutz's, which had already been translated in 1918 and was used to complete several of his damaged lines. [2]
Edward Chiera published tablet CBS 7924B from the hymn in "Sumerian Epics and Myths". [4] He also worked with Samuel Noah Kramer to publish three other tablets CBS 8473, 10226, 13869 in "Sumerian texts of varied contents" in 1934. The name given this time was "Hymn to the Ekur", suggesting the tablets were "parts of a composition which extols the ekur of Enlil at Nippur, it may, however be only an extract from a longer text". [5] Further tablets were found to be part of the myth in the Hilprecht collection at the University of Jena, Germany, numbers 1530, 1531, 1532, 1749b, 2610, 2648a and b, 2665, 2685, 1576 and 1577. [6] Further tablets containing the text were excavated at Isin, modern Ishan al-Bahriyat, tablet 923. [7] Another was found amongst the texts in the Iraq Museum, tablet 44351a. [8] Others are held in the collections of the Abbey of Montserrat in Barcelona and the Ashmolean in Oxford. [7] [9]
Other translations were made from tablets in the Nippur collection of the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul (Ni). Samuel Noah Kramer amongst others worked to translate several others from the Istanbul collection including Ni 1039, 1180, 4005, 4044, 4150, 4339, 4377, 4584, 9563 and 9698. [10] [11] More were found at Henri de Genouillac's excavations at Kish (C 53). [12] Another tablet of the myth (Si 231) was excavated at Sippar in the collections of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. [13] Sir Charles Leonard Woolley unearthed more tablets at Ur contained in the "Ur excavations texts" from 1928. [14] Other tablets and versions were used to bring the myth to its present form with the latest translations presented by Thorkild Jacobsen, Miguel Civil and Joachim Krecher. [7] [13] [15]
The hymn, noted by Kramer as one of the most important of its type, [16] starts with praise for Enlil in his awe-inspiring dais:
Enlil's commands are by far the loftiest, his words are holy, his utterances are immutable! The fate he decides is everlasting, his glance makes the mountains anxious, his ... reaches into the interior of the mountains. All the gods of the earth bow down to father Enlil, who sits comfortably on the holy dais, the lofty engur, to Nunamnir, whose lordship and princeship are most perfect. The Annanuki enter before him and obey his instructions faithfully. [7]
The hymn develops by relating Enlil founding and creating the origin of the city of Nippur and his organization of the earth. [17] In contrast to the myth of Enlil and Ninlil where the city exists before creation, here Enlil is shown to be responsible for its planning and construction, suggesting he surveyed and drew the plans before its creation:
When you mapped out the holy settlement on the earth, You built the city Nippur by yourself, Enlil. The Kiur, your pure place. In the Duranki, in the middle of the four quarters of the earth, you founded it. Its soil is the life of the land (Sumer) [1]
The hymn moves on from the physical construction of the city and gives a description and veneration of its ethics and moral code:
The powerful lord, who is exceedingly great in heaven and earth, who knows judgement, who is wise. He of great wisdom takes his seat in the Duranki. In princeship he makes the Kiur, the great place, come forth radiantly. In Nippur, the 'bond' of heaven and earth, he establishes his place of residence. The City - its panorama is a terrifying radiance. To him who speaks mightily it does not grant life. It permits no inimical word to be spoken in judgement, no improper speech, hostile words, hostility, and unseemingliness, no evil, oppression, looking askance, acting without regard, slandering, arrogance, the breaking of promises. These abominations the city does not permit. The evil and wicked man do not escape its hand. The city, which is bestowed with steadfastness. For which righteousness and justice have been made a lasting possession. [1]
The last sentence has been compared by R. P. Gordon to the description of Jerusalem in the Book of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:21), "the city of justice, righteousness dwelled in her" and in the Book of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:23), "O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness." [18] The myth continues with the city's inhabitants building a temple dedicated to Enlil, referred to as the Ekur. The priestly positions and responsibilities of the Ekur are listed along with an appeal for Enlil's blessings on the city, where he is regarded as the source of all prosperity:
Without the Great Mountain, Enlil, no city would be built, no settlement would be founded; no cow-pen would be built, no sheepfold would be established; no king would be elevated, no lord would be given birth; no high priest or priestess would perform extispicy; soldiers would have no generals or captains; no carp-filled waters would ... the rivers at their peak; the carp would not ... come straight up from the sea, they would not dart about. The sea would not produce all its heavy treasure, no freshwater fish would lay eggs in the reedbeds, no bird of the sky would build nests in the spacious land; in the sky the thick clouds would not open their mouths; on the fields, dappled grain would not fill the arable lands, vegetation would not grow lushly on the plain; in the gardens, the spreading forests of the mountain would not yield fruits. Without the Great Mountain, Enlil, Nintud would not kill, she would not strike dead; no cow would drop its calf in the cattle-pen, no ewe would bring forth ... lamb in its sheepfold; the living creatures which multiply by themselves would not lie down in their ... ; the four-legged animals would not propagate, they would not mate. [7]
A similar passage to the last lines above has been noted in the Biblical Psalms (Psalms 29:9) "The voice of the Lord makes hinds to calve and makes goats to give birth (too) quickly". [19] The hymn concludes with further reference to Enlil as a farmer and praise for his wife, Ninlil:
When it relates to the earth, it brings prosperity: the earth will produce prosperity. Your word means flax, your word means grain. Your word means the early flooding, the life of the lands. It makes the living creatures, the animals (?) which copulate and breathe joyfully in the greenery. You, Enlil, the good shepherd, know their ways ... the sparkling stars. You married Ninlil, the holy consort, whose words are of the heart, her of noble countenance in a holy ma garment, her of beautiful shape and limbs, the trustworthy lady of your choice. Covered with allure, the lady who knows what is fitting for the E-kur, whose words of advice are perfect, whose words bring comfort like fine oil for the heart, who shares the holy throne, the pure throne with you, she takes counsel and discusses matters with you. You decide the fates together at the place facing the sunrise. Ninlil, the lady of heaven and earth, the lady of all the lands, is honoured in the praise of the Great Mountain. [7]
Andrew R. George suggested that the hymn to Enlil "can be incorporated into longer compositions" as with the Kesh temple hymn and "the hymn to temples in Ur that introduces a Shulgi hymn." [20]
The poetic form and laudatory content of the hymn have shown similarities to the Book of Psalms in the Bible, particularly Psalm 23 (Psalms 23:1–2) "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures." [21] Line eighty four mentions:
Enlil, if you look upon the shepherd favourably, if you elevate the one truly called in the Land, then the foreign countries are in his hands, the foreign countries are at his feet! Even the most distant foreign countries submit to him. [7]
and in line ninety one, Enlil is referred to as a shepherd:
Enlil, faithful shepherd of the teeming multitudes, herdsman, leader of all living creatures. [7]
The shepherd motif originating in this myth is also found describing Jesus in the Book of John (John 10:11–13). [22] Joan Westenholz noted that "The farmer image was even more popular than the shepherd in the earliest personal names, as might be expected in an agrarian society." She notes that both Falkenstein and Thorkild Jacobsen consider the farmer refers to the king of Nippur; Reisman has suggested that the farmer or 'engar' of the Ekur was likely to be Ninurta. [23] The term appears in line sixty
Its great farmer is the good shepherd of the Land, who was born vigorous on a propitious day. The farmer, suited for the broad fields, comes with rich offerings; he does not ...... into the shining E-kur. [7]
Wayne Horowitz discusses the use of the word abzu, normally used as a name for an abzu temple, god, cosmic place or cultic water basin. In the hymn to Enlil, its interior is described as a 'distant sea':
Its (Ekur's) me's (ordinances) are mes of the Abzu which no-one can understand. Its interior is a distant sea which 'Heaven's Edge' cannot comprehend. [24]
The foundations of Enlil's temple are made of lapis lazuli, which has been linked to the "soham" stone used in the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 28:13) describing the materials used in the building of "Eden, the Garden of god" perched on "the mountain of the lord", Zion, and in the Book of Job (Job 28:6–16) "The stones of it are the place of sapphires and it hath dust of gold". [25] Moses also saw God's feet standing on a "paved work of a sapphire stone" in (Exodus 24:10). Precious stones are also later repeated in a similar context describing decoration of the walls of New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse (Revelation 21:21). [26]
You founded it in the Dur-an-ki, in the middle of the four quarters of the earth. Its soil is the life of the Land, and the life of all the foreign countries. Its brickwork is red gold, its foundation is lapis lazuli. You made it glisten on high. [25]
Along with the Kesh Temple Hymn, Steve Tinney has identified the Hymn to Enlil as part of a standard sequence of scribal training scripts he refers to as the Decad. He suggested that "the Decad constituted a required program of literary learning, used almost without exception throughout Babylonia. The Decad thus included almost all literary types available in Sumerian." [27] [28]
Enlil, later known as Elil and Ellil, is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and Hurrians. Enlil's primary center of worship was the Ekur temple in the city of Nippur, which was believed to have been built by Enlil himself and was regarded as the "mooring-rope" of heaven and earth. He is also sometimes referred to in Sumerian texts as Nunamnir. According to one Sumerian hymn, Enlil himself was so holy that not even the other gods could look upon him. Enlil rose to prominence during the twenty-fourth century BC with the rise of Nippur. His cult fell into decline after Nippur was sacked by the Elamites in 1230 BC and he was eventually supplanted as the chief god of the Mesopotamian pantheon by the Babylonian national god Marduk.
Enki is the Sumerian god of water, knowledge (gestú), crafts (gašam), and creation (nudimmud), and one of the Anunnaki. He was later known as Ea 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.
Ninurta (Sumerian: 𒀭𒊩𒌆𒅁: DNIN.URTA, possible meaning "Lord [of] Barley"), also known as Ninĝirsu (Sumerian: 𒀭𒎏𒄈𒋢: DNIN.ĜIR2.SU, meaning "Lord [of] Girsu"), is an ancient Mesopotamian god associated with farming, healing, hunting, law, scribes, and war who was first worshipped in early Sumer. In the earliest records, he is a god of agriculture and healing, who cures humans of sicknesses and releases them from the power of demons. In later times, as Mesopotamia grew more militarized, he became a warrior deity, though he retained many of his earlier agricultural attributes. He was regarded as the son of the chief god Enlil and his main cult center in Sumer was the Eshumesha temple in Nippur. Ninĝirsu was honored by King Gudea of Lagash (ruled 2144–2124 BC), who rebuilt Ninĝirsu's temple in Lagash. Later, Ninurta became beloved by the Assyrians as a formidable warrior. The Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II (ruled 883–859 BC) built a massive temple for him at Kalhu, which became his most important cult center from then on.
Ninlil was a Mesopotamian goddess regarded as the wife of Enlil. She shared many of his functions, especially the responsibility for declaring destinies, and like him was regarded as a senior deity and head of the pantheon. She is also well attested as the mother of his children, such as the underworld god Nergal, the moon god Nanna or the warrior god Ninurta. She was chiefly worshiped in Nippur and nearby Tummal alongside Enlil, and multiple temples and shrines dedicated to her are attested in textual sources from these cities. In the first millennium BCE she was also introduced to Ḫursaĝkalamma near Kish, where she was worshiped alongside the goddess Bizilla, who was likely her sukkal.
The Lament for Ur, or Lamentation over the city of Ur is a Sumerian lament composed around the time of the fall of Ur to the Elamites and the end of the city's third dynasty.
Sumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization found in recorded history and based in ancient Mesopotamia, and what is modern day Iraq. The Sumerians widely regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders of their society.
The Barton Cylinder, also known as CBS 8383, is a Sumerian creation myth, written on a clay cylinder in the mid to late 3rd millennium BCE, which is now in the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Joan Goodnick Westenholz suggests it dates to around 2400 BC.
The "Debate between sheep and grain" or "Myth of cattle and grain" is a Sumerian disputation and creation myth, written on clay tablets in the mid to late 3rd millennium BC.
The Debate between Winter and Summer or Myth of Emesh and Enten is a Sumerian creation myth belonging to the genre of Sumerian disputations, written on clay tablets in the mid to late 3rd millennium BC.
Enlil and Ninlil, the Myth of Enlil and Ninlil, or Enlil and Ninlil: The begetting of Nanna is a Sumerian creation myth, written on clay tablets in the mid to late 3rd millennium BC.
The Old Babylonian oracle is a Sumerian myth, written on clay tablets dated to between 2340 and 2200 BC.
Self-praise of Shulgi is a Sumerian hymn dedicated to the Third Dynasty of Ur ruler Shulgi, written on clay tablets dated to between 2100 and 2000 BC.
The Kesh temple hymn, Liturgy to Nintud, or Liturgy to Nintud on the creation of man and woman, is a Sumerian tablet, written on clay tablets as early as 2600 BCE. Along with the Instructions of Shuruppak, it is the oldest surviving literature in the world.
Ekur, also known as Duranki, is a Sumerian term meaning "mountain house". It is the assembly of the gods in the Garden of the gods, parallel in Greek mythology to Mount Olympus and was the most revered and sacred building of ancient Sumer.
Nuska or Nusku, possibly also known as Našuḫ, was a Mesopotamian god best attested as the sukkal of Enlil. He was also associated with fire and light, and could be invoked as a protective deity against various demons, such as Lamashtu or gallu. His symbols included a staff, a lamp and a rooster. Various traditions existed regarding his genealogy, with some of them restricted to texts from specific cities. His wife was the goddess Sadarnunna, whose character is poorly known. He could be associated with the fire god Gibil, as well as with various courtiers of Enlil, such as Shuzianna and Ninimma.
Enamtila is a Sumerian term meaning "house of life" or possibly "house of creation". It was a sanctuary dedicated to Enlil, likely to have been located within the Ekur at Nippur during the Akkadian Empire. It also referred to various other temples including those to later versions of Enlil; Marduk and Bel as well as one to Ea. It was likely another name for Ehursag, a temple dedicated to Shulgi in Ur. A hymn to Nanna suggests the link "To Ehursag, the house of the king, to the Enamtila of prince Shulgi we go!" Another reference in the Inanna - Dunmuzi text translated by Samuel Noah Kramer references the king's palace by this name and possibly makes references to the "sacred marriage": "In the Enamtila, the house of the king, his wife dwelt with him in joy, in the Enamtila, the house of the king, Inanna dwelt with him in joy. Inanna, rejoicing in his house ...". A fire is reported to have broken out next to the Enamtila in a Babylonian astronomical diary dated to the third century BC. The Enamtila is also referred to as a palace of Ibbi-Sin at Ur in the Lament for Sumer and Ur, "Its king sat immobilised in his own palace. Ibbi-Suen was sitting in anguish in his own palace. In E-namtila, his place of delight, he wept bitterly. The flood dashing a hoe on the ground was levelling everything."
The Song of the hoe, sometimes also known as the Creation of the pickaxe or the Praise of the pickaxe, is a Sumerian creation myth, written on clay tablets from the last century of the 3rd millennium BCE.
The concept of a garden of the gods or a divine paradise may have originated in Sumer. The concept of this home of the immortals was later handed down to the Babylonians, who conquered Sumer.
The work known by its incipit, Angim, "The Return of Ninurta to Nippur", is a 210-line mythological praise poem for the ancient Mesopotamian warrior-god Ninurta, describing his return to Nippur from an expedition to the mountains (KUR), where he boasts of his triumphs against "rebel lands" (KI.BAL), boasting to Enlil in the Ekur, before returning to the Ešumeša temple—to “manifest his authority and kingship.”
Meskiagnun, also Mesh-ki-ang-Nanna, was the fourth lugal or king of the First Dynasty of Ur, according to the Sumerian King List, which states he ruled for 36 years.