Abzu
Primeval sea in Mesopotamian mythology
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Through Islam, Mosque and Christianity
Abzû in Sumerian is also called engar (cuneiform: 𒇉, LAGAB×HAL); in Akkadian Engar (𒀊𒍪), and in Akkadian: engurru. In Greek Abzû is recorded as Ἀπασών Apasṓn.
In Sumerian culture
In the city of Eridu, Enki's temple was known as E2-abzû (house of the deep waters) and was located at the edge of a swamp – an abzû. Certain tanks of holy water in Babylonian and Assyrian temple courtyards were also called abzû (apsû). Typical in religious washing, these tanks were similar to Judaism's mikvot, the washing pools of Islamic mosques, or the baptismal font in Christian churches.
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In Sumerian cosmology
The Sumerian god Enki (Ea in the Akkadian language) was believed to have keen eyes and appeared out of the abzû since before human beings were created. His wife Damgalnuna, his mother Nammu, his advisor Isimud and a variety of subservient creatures, such as the gatekeeper Lahmu, also lived in the abzû.
As a deity
Abzû (apsû) is depicted as a deity only in the Babylonian creation epic, the Enūma Eliš, taken from the library of Assurbanipal (c. 630 BCE) but which is about 500 years older. In this story, he was a primal being made of fresh water and a lover to another primal deity, Tiamat, a creature of salt water. The Enūma Eliš begins:
- "When above the heavens (e-nu-ma e-liš) did not yet exist
- nor the earth below,
- Apsû the freshwater ocean was there, the first, the begetter,
- and Tiamat, the saltwater sea, she who bore them all;
- they were still mixing their waters,
- and no pasture land had yet been formed,
- nor even a reed marsh."
The act of procreation led to the birth of the younger gods: Enki, Enlil, and Anu. Anchored in the Tablet of Destinies, they founded an organisation to make Mesopotamia fertile through agriculture, but got into a dispute and consequently created the first humans as labour slaves, to peacefully resolve the conflict. The humans multiplied en masse and disturbed the gods around Enlil and Anu with their noise, so that they wanted to use the cosmic freshwater ocean to trigger the great flood and destroy the humans (cf. Athrahasis epic). Enraged by the devastation of earth, Tiamat gave birth to monsters whose bodies she filled with "poison instead of blood" and waged war against her traitorous children. Only Marduk, the founder of Babylon, was able to kill Tiamat and mould the final constitution of heaven and earth from her corpse.
In popular culture
Abzû is a 2016 adventure game that was influenced by Sumerian mythology of Abzû.