Enki and Ninhursag
Also known as: Enki and Ninhursaga, Enki and the Goddess Ninhursag, Enki and Nintu, Enki and Ninmah (Dilmun Episode), The Paradise of Dilmun
A Sumerian narrative set in Dilmun where Enki fertilizes the land, engages in taboo unions that generate lineages, and consumes divine plants, falling ill until Ninhursag heals him by creating deities for his afflicted organs.
Description
Set in the pristine land of Dilmun, the poem recounts how the water-god Enki brings fertility to a once-dry paradise and, through successive unions with Ninhursag and their descendants, engenders a chain of goddesses. After Enki eats sacred plants that sprang from his own seed, he becomes mortally ill in multiple organs. Ninhursag, angered yet indispensable, returns to heal him by fashioning deities personifying each afflicted part, including Ninti, whose name and role relate to the rib and life. The tale entwines themes of creation, transgression, and restoration, presenting Enki as both trickster and culture hero and Dilmun as an archetypal garden whose bounty depends on right relation between gods and land.
Historiography
The text survives in multiple Old Babylonian Sumerian manuscripts, with variant passages and lacunae supplemented by later first-millennium copies. Modern editions rely on collations from Nippur and other sites, with the ETCSL establishing a normalized Sumerian text and English translation. Scholarly discussion often notes the poem’s Dilmun setting, sequence of incest episodes typical of divine genealogies, and the etiological creation of healing deities. Comparative readings have highlighted, cautiously, the Ninti ‘rib/life’ wordplay without positing direct dependence on later traditions.
Date Notes
Sumerian composition likely in the Ur III period; preserved mainly in Old Babylonian tablets with later first-millennium copies.
Archetypes
Symbols
Major Characters
- Enki
- Ninhursag
- Uttu
- Ninsar
- Ninkurra
- Ninti
Myths
- Dilmun’s Fertility and the Sweet Waters
- Enki’s Illnesses and the Birth of Healing Deities
Facts
- The poem situates its action in Dilmun, a liminal paradise associated with purity and abundance.
- Utu’s sunlight and Enki’s waters together transform Dilmun from dry to fertile.
- Enki’s successive unions with Ninhursag’s descendants generate a genealogical chain central to the plot.
- Sacred plants sprout from semen planted in the earth, linking sexuality, agriculture, and divinity.
- After eating the plants, Enki becomes ill in multiple organs, prompting a divine medical crisis.
- Ninhursag heals Enki by creating deities for each afflicted organ, notably Ninti (‘Lady of Life/Rib’).
- Isimud acts as Enki’s attendant and intermediary throughout key episodes.
- The work is preserved in Sumerian on Old Babylonian tablets with variant readings and gaps.
- Scholars note etiologies for specific deities and plants embedded in the narrative structure.
- The poem presents Enki as both a benefactor of civilization and a boundary-testing trickster.