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Anenwv@Gmail.Com En 1 ENKI and NINHURSAG: a REHABILITATION Nico W. Visser, 2018 [email protected] en www.enki-and-ninhursag.com ENKI and NINHURSAG: a REHABILITATION Abstract The interpretation of the ancient Sumerian myth ‘Enki and Ninhursag’ is undertaken in the framework of previous research. In addition I refer to other ancient texts to provide an alternative image of the way priests in certain parts of Sumer envisaged how the universe came into being and human civilization developed. The vast majority of researchers based their interpretation of the myth on one or two incorrect assumptions. Especially the enigmatic first and last scenes furnish proof the story has to be taken in its entirety. Keywords Enki and Ninhursag – Ninsikila – creation – Dilmun – Eridu – paradise – humanization of the gods – origin of social and cultural institutions – Enki’s disease – Isimud – end- determination This article represents the main issues raised in a Dutch volume called ‘Enki’s Omzwervingen’ (2017) © N.W.Visser 2 Inhoud ENKI and NINHURSAG: a REHABILITATION ...................................................................................... 4 Abstract ................................................................................................................................... 4 Keywords ................................................................................................................................. 4 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 4 First of all ................................................................................................................................. 5 1. THE FIRST SECTION ...................................................................................................... 6 1.1 The prologue ............................................................................................................... 7 1.2 The protagonists of the story ...................................................................................... 8 1.3 A crucial moment ...................................................................................................... 10 1.4 Structure and time .................................................................................................... 12 1.5 The prologue and the second section ....................................................................... 12 2 THE SECOND SECTION ............................................................................................... 13 2.1 The metaphor ............................................................................................................ 14 2.2 Nintud, Damgalnuna and Ninhursag (H) ................................................................... 14 2.3 Sexual intercourse and pregnancy ............................................................................ 18 2.4 Uttu, the exalted woman .......................................................................................... 18 2.5 The gardener ............................................................................................................. 19 2.6 Enki, the courteous one ............................................................................................ 20 2.7 Making love ............................................................................................................... 21 2.8 The realms of common decency ............................................................................... 22 2.9 Power relations between the sexes .......................................................................... 24 2.10 Water, semen and seed ............................................................................................ 26 2.11 Naming, determinating and nominating ................................................................... 26 2.12 Isimud or Enki’s split personality ............................................................................... 27 2.13 The cursing ................................................................................................................ 28 2.14 Separate ways ........................................................................................................... 29 2.15 Enki’s disease ............................................................................................................ 30 2.16 The fox ....................................................................................................................... 30 2.17 The temple ................................................................................................................ 31 2.18 Back to earth ............................................................................................................. 32 3. THE THIRD SECTION .................................................................................................. 33 3 3.1 Metaphysics and humanization ................................................................................ 33 3.2 Engur and Abzu ......................................................................................................... 35 3.3 Namma and Enki - Tiāmat and Apsû ......................................................................... 37 3.4 The ‘metaphor of noise’ ............................................................................................ 38 3.5 Chthonic and cosmic motif ........................................................................................ 41 3.6 Born at last ................................................................................................................ 42 3.7 A real daughter .......................................................................................................... 44 3.8 Ninsikila and Meskilak ............................................................................................... 46 3.9 The end-determination ............................................................................................. 47 4.0 Summary ................................................................................................................... 47 LITERATURE ............................................................................................................................ 48 4 ENKI and NINHURSAG: a REHABILITATION Abstract The interpretation of the ancient Sumerian myth ‘Enki and Ninhursag’ is undertaken in the framework of previous research. In addition I refer to other ancient texts to provide an alternative image of the way priests in certain parts of Sumer envisaged how the universe came into being and human civilization developed. The vast majority of researchers based their interpretation of the myth on one or two incorrect assumptions. Especially the enigmatic first and last scenes furnish proof the story has to be taken in its entirety. Keywords Enki and Ninhursag – Ninsikila – creation – Dilmun – Eridu – paradise – humanization of the gods – origin of social and cultural institutions – Enki’s disease – Isimud – end- determination Introduction The first almost comprehensive transliteration and translation of one of the oldest stories of world literature was published in 1945. The peerless author Samuel Noah Kramer called his monograph ‘Enki and Ninhursag: A Sumerian ‘Paradise’ Myth’1, because the text contains some obvious parallels with the Biblical paradise story in Genesis. There are too many differences, however, to call ‘Enki and Ninhursag’ a paradise myth in the Biblical sense of the word. The more I have been reading about the Sumerian myth ‘Enki and Ninhursag’, the less I’m convinced all has already been said. In this paper I offer an alternative interpretation primarily based on the firm conviction that we are dealing with a coherent story, contrary to the widely held belief that the story is a more or less accidental combination of two or more different stories, a proposition resulting from a misinterpretation of two or three crucial passages often passed over without comment. Secondly I will argue that the for many so contradictory facts in the first part of the myth are both a consequence of the cyclic way of thinking and an archaic view on cosmology. Even more so considering the fact that the written version we know is a late echo of a much older orally transmitted story. This does not mean, however, that the author had no sense of historical time whatsoever. In some studies scant attention has been paid to the developments that took place in the course of time, nor to the possibility that different cultures or ideologies could have existed in Sumer at the same time. Similarly, there is little discussion of the possibility that the names of gods or goddesses could be related to other names with either more concrete or more abstract connotations. Thirdly I will show how important it is to interpret the story by comparing it’s details to the geographic and agricultural development of the region over several millennia. Therefore I propose to view the second section of the myth as a meticulously planned 1 Kramer (1945), ‘Enki and Ninhursag: A Sumerian “Paradise” Myth’, in American Schools of Oriental Research (Supplementary Studiea No. 1), New Haven, p. 1-40. 5 allegory that explains in a poetical way the at first natural and then manmade development of the soil the Sumerians were living on and the culture they made for themselves. Although it is often said that Dilmun is positioned on the isle of Bahrain, I’m convinced that in ‘Enki and Ninhursag’ Dilmun or Dilmun-land
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