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Key Details
Type
CityMythology
Mesopotamian Pantheon
Coordinates
30.82°N, 45.99°E
About This Location
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.
Primary Sources
“When kingship was lowered from heaven, kingship was in Eridu.”
More from Mesopotamian Pantheon
Babylon
CityThe great city of Marduk, center of the Babylonian Empire and home to the Esagila temple and the ziggurat Etemenanki. The name means 'Gate of the Gods' and the city was considered the axis mundi of the Mesopotamian cosmos.
Uruk
CityThe city of Gilgamesh and Inanna, one of the first true cities in human history. Its mighty walls, said to be built by Gilgamesh himself, enclosed the great E-anna temple complex sacred to both Anu and Inanna.
The Cedar Forest
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Nippur
CitySacred city of Enlil, where kingship was authorized and the cosmic order of the land was ratified.