Mesopotamian PantheonCity
Eridu
The ancient city in southern Iraq that the Sumerian King List names as the first seat of kingship, home of Enki's temple the E-abzu over the freshwater deep, and one of the oldest settlements in Mesopotamia.
About Eridu
First city, Enki's deep
Eridu in the Sumerian King List is the first city where kingship descended from heaven. Enki/Ea's temple E-abzu sits on the freshwater deep. Myths (Enki and the World Order, Inanna and Enki) make it a storehouse of me, the arts of civilization. Archaeology confirms an early sacred precinct on the southern alluvium. It is not Babylon and not Uruk. The claim is priority: water, wisdom, and the first brick platform.
On the map
Eridu among other places of the Mesopotamian Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Sumerian King List
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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