page_title: Garden of the gods (Sumerian paradise)
section_title: Eridu
hierarchical_section_title: Garden of the gods (Sumerian paradise) / Location / Eridu
caption_attribution_description: Rough map of the Eridu mound showing the main ziggurat, temple, and a few buildings
context_page_description: The concept of a Garden of the gods or a divine paradise might be of Sumerian origin, or so it is argued by Samuel Noah Kramer. The concept of this home of the immortals was later handed down to the Babylonians who conquered Sumer.
context_section_description: Theophilus Pinches suggested in 1908 that Eridu was the  Sumerian paradise calling it "not the earthly city of that name, but a city conceived as lying also "within the Abyss", containing a tree of life fed by the Euphrates river. Pinches noted "it was represented as a place to which access was forbidden, for 'no man entered its midst', as in the case of the garden of Eden after the fall." In a myth called the Incantation of Eridu, it is described as having a "glorious fountain of the abyss", a "house of wisdom", sacred grove and a kiskanu-tree with the appearance of lapis-lazuli. Fuʼād Safar also found the remains of a canal running through Eridu in archaeological excavations of 1948 to 1949. William Foxwell Albright noted that "Eridu is employed as a name of the Abzu, just as Kutu (Kutha), the city of Nergal, is a common name of Aralu" highlighting the problems in translation where several places were called the same name. Alfred Jeremias suggested that Aralu was the same as Ariel in the West Bank and signified both the mountain of the gods and a place of desolation. As with the word Ekur, this has suggested that ideas associated with the netherworld came from a mountainous country outside of Babylonia.
caption: Tell mound at Eridu with temple dedicated to the gods
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