Abzu

The abzu ( , Akkadian: apsû also engur, , Akkadian: engurru) from the Sumerian ab 'ocean' and zu 'wisdom'Lennart Warring, Taina Kantola, Gilgamesheposet: p. 300, Natur och Kultur, 2001, ISBN 91-27-08293-8. or 'deep' was the name for fresh water from underground aquifers that was given a religious quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu.
== In Sumerian cosmology ==
The Sumerian god Enki (Ea in the Akkadian language) was believed to have lived in the abzu 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 abzu. In the city Eridu, Enki's temple was known as E2-abzu (house of the cosmic waters) and was located at the edge of a swamp, an abzu.Eridu in Sumerian Literature, Margaret Whitney Green, pages 180-182, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1975. Certain tanks of holy water in Babylonian and Assyrian temple courtyards were also called abzu (apsû).Black and Green 1992 Typical in religious washing, these tanks were similar to the washing pools of Islamic mosques, or the baptismal font in Christian churches.
==As a deity==
Abzu (apsû) is depicted as a deity only in the Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Elish, 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, who was a creature of salt water. The Enuma Elish begins:When above the heavens did not yet exist nor the earth below, Apsu 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...
==See also==
*Ancient Mesopotamia
== Notes ==
==References==
*Jeremy Black and Anthony Green, 1992. Gods, Demons, and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: an illustrated dictionary, s.v. "abzu, apsû". ISBN 0-292-70794-0
Category:Mesopotamian mythology
Category:Sea and river gods
Category:Sumer