Enlil
Enlil West AsiaThe Sumerian god of the earth and the air. At the beginning the primeval waters generated a cosmic mountain, which consisted of heaven and earth. From this union of heaven, personified by the god An, and earth, as the goddess Ki, sprang Enlil, the air god, who separated his parents and united with his mother to beget mankind. His chief gift to men was the pickaxe, an implement designed to assist in the construction of cities including his own seat of Nippur. The primeval waters, Nammu, were called ‘the mother’ and may have been synonymous with Abzu, the sweet waters in the earth, or perhaps they represented the marshlands at the mouth of the Euphrates and of the Tigris, where new land was being constantly created by riverine deposits.
A myth concerned with the birth of the moon god tells how Enlil was banished to the nether world for raping the goddess Ninlil, but she decided to follow him in order to give birth in his presence. The...
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