Eridu

Also Known As: Sumerian Eridug; the modern mound is Tell Abu Shahrain in southern Iraq; its temple of Enki is the E-abzu, later E-engur
Region/Culture: Mesopotamia and Ancient Near East
Mythos: Mesopotamian Mythology, Sumerian Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Mythological Places
Mythical Attributes: Eridu is the first city in Sumerian tradition, the place where kingship first came down from heaven and where the god Enki kept his house above the fresh waters of the abzu.
Role in Mythos: It is the seat of Enki and the storehouse of the me, the divine powers of civilised life, which the goddess Inanna carries away from it to Uruk.
Relation to Humans: People reached Eridu as a real city at the edge of the southern marshes, and kings of other cities rebuilt its temple for some two thousand years. Its priest Adapa, who baked the temple bread and fished for the god’s table, is the man who came closest to immortality and missed it.

Before there were kings anywhere, the list says, kingship had to come down from heaven, and the place it landed was Eridu. The Sumerian King List opens with that sentence and then gives the reigns. Alulim ruled in Eridu for 28,800 years. Alalgar followed him for 36,000. Two kings, 64,800 years. Then, the scribe writes without any fuss, Eridu fell and the kingship was carried off to Bad-tibira, the second of five cities that held it before the flood swept over everything.

So Eridu was where the Sumerians began counting. It was also a real town, and it stood in an odd place for a capital of anything. It lay at the far southern edge of the settled land, about fifteen miles past Ur, where the river plain broke up into marsh and lagoon. Fresh water rose there out of the ground. To the people who lived beside it, that water came from the abzu, the sweet ocean under the earth, and the abzu belonged to Enki, the clever god, lord of water, craft and good advice. Eridu was his city and nobody else’s.

His house there has one of the finest descriptions in Sumerian writing. A hymn about Enki’s journey to Nippur says he built the temple of silver and lapis lazuli on the edge of the abzu and covered it in gold, so that it shone like daylight. The brickwork talked and gave advice. The eaves bellowed like a bull. At night the building sang praise to its owner. Its bolt was a lion, its inner room was closed to every eye, and its lyres and drums played by themselves. Around it the hymn sets the reed beds, the orchards heavy with fruit, birds brooding on their nests, and carp flicking their tails among the young reeds. When Enki rose, the fish rose with him like a wave. The whole place is called a mountain built to float on the water.

The same hymn shows the god on an ordinary good day. Pleased with his new house, Enki steps into his boat, which casts off without being told, and the river lows behind him like a cow. He goes upriver to Nippur, brews beer sweetened with date syrup, and seats the great gods at his table, with An at the head and Enlil beside him. They drink from bronze cups until they are competing with each other. Enlil, cheerful by the end, stands and tells the company that his son has raised Eridu out of the ground like a mountain.

Eridu held more than a temple. Enki kept the me there, the long list of powers that make human life what it is: kingship and priesthood, the crafts of the carpenter and the smith, music, writing, truth, quarrelling, the kiss, the weary arm. In the myth of Inanna and Enki the young goddess of Uruk comes down to Eridu to visit. Enki receives her with butter cake, cold water, beer and wine, and the two sit drinking in the abzu until he is generous beyond all sense. He hands her the powers, group after group. She accepts every one, loads them into the Boat of Heaven and leaves.

Then he sobers up. He looks round his house, asks his minister Isimud where the kingship has gone, and the priesthood, and the rest, and is told each time that he gave it to his daughter. Six times he sends Isimud after the boat with water monsters to bring it back. Six times Inanna keeps her cargo. She docks at Uruk to drums and a festival, and Eridu is a little emptier ever after. Uruk had become the great city of the south, and this story is the explanation it gave for that.

Eridu’s own man is Adapa. He was a sage and a priest of Enki, and his duties were plain ones. He baked the bread for the temple, set the offering table, and took the boat out on the lagoon to catch fish for his god. One day the south wind turned his boat over and he broke its wing with a curse. Called up to heaven to answer for it, he refused the food and water he was offered there, on Enki’s advice, and so refused eternal life. The first king’s name stayed attached to him too. Later tradition made Adapa the adviser of Alulim.

No tablet says who built Eridu the first time. The Sumerian flood story says only that when kingship came down, the first of the cities was Eridu and it was given to Enki. The hymn says Enki raised it himself.

The ground agrees with the texts more closely than anyone had a right to expect. The site is Tell Abu Shahrain, a group of low mounds in what is now dry desert in southern Iraq. Iraqi and British archaeologists led by Fuad Safar and Seton Lloyd dug there from 1946 to 1949. Under the corner of an unfinished ziggurat they found a temple, and under that another, and another, eighteen levels in all. The lowest was a single small room of mud brick from before 5000 BC. Each new shrine had been built on the levelled walls of the last, on the same spot, for thousands of years. In some of them the offering tables were deep in fish bones.

Eridu’s strength was its water and what came with it: wisdom, incantations, the right way to do things. A spell was stronger for being called a spell of Eridu, and Babylon later named its own temple quarter after the old city. Its weakness was the same water. The channels shifted and the soil turned to salt. The Lament for Eridu describes a storm roaring over the city, the temple smashed, and Enki sitting outside his own walls like a stranger, in tears. Kings still patched the temple now and then. By about 600 BC nobody lived there.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Eridu in Mesopotamian mythology?

Eridu is the first city in Sumerian tradition and the home of the god Enki. The Sumerian King List says kingship first came down from heaven to Eridu, before the flood. It was also a real city in southern Iraq, known today as Tell Abu Shahrain.

Which god lived in Eridu?

Enki, the Sumerian god of fresh water, wisdom and craft, lived in Eridu. His temple there was called the E-abzu and stood over the abzu, the sweet water under the earth. A Sumerian hymn describes the temple as built of silver and lapis lazuli and covered in gold.

Who were the first kings of Eridu?

The Sumerian King List names Alulim and Alalgar as the first two kings, both ruling in Eridu. Alulim is given a reign of 28,800 years and Alalgar 36,000 years. After them Eridu fell and the kingship moved to the city of Bad-tibira.

How did Inanna take the me from Eridu?

Inanna visited Enki in Eridu, and during a drinking feast he gave her the me, the divine powers of civilisation. She loaded them into the Boat of Heaven and sailed for Uruk. Enki sent his minister Isimud and water monsters after her six times, but Inanna kept the me and brought them to Uruk.

Is Eridu a real place?

Eridu is a real archaeological site at Tell Abu Shahrain in southern Iraq, about fifteen miles from Ur. Excavations from 1946 to 1949 found eighteen temples built one on top of another, the oldest from before 5000 BC. Eridu was abandoned by about 600 BC.