# Abzu

Abzû or Apsû (Sumerian: 𒀊𒍪 abzû; Akkadian: 𒀊𒍪 apsû), also called Engar (Cuneiform:𒇉, LAGAB×HAL; Sumerian: engar; Akkadian: engurru – lit. ab = 'water' zû = 'deep', recorded in Greek as Ἀπασών Apasṓn), is the name for fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a religious fertilising quality in ancient near eastern cosmology, including Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. It was believed that all lakes, springs, rivers, fountains, rain, and even the Flood, as described in Atrahasis, originated from the Abzû. In Mesopotamian cosmogony, it is referred to as the freshwater primordial ocean below and above the earth; indeed the Earth itself was regarded as a goddess Ninhursag that was conceived from the mating of male Abzu with female saltwater ocean Tiamat. Thus the divine Mother Earth – on her surface equipped with a bubble of breathable air – was surrounded by Abzû, and her interior harbours the realm of the dead (Irkalla).

## In Sumerian culture

In the city of Eridu, Enki's temple was known as E$_2$-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.

## 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.