Babylon 'Apsu' Akkadian: Aka abzu or engur, the name for the mythological underground freshwater ocean in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. from underground aquifers that was given a religious quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology.
Later Babylonian and Assyrian temple courtyards also maintained these pools, they called apsû. Ananaki, a group of Sumerian and Akkadian deities related to, and in some cases overlapping with, the Annuna (the 'Fifty Great Gods') and the Igigi (minor gods). Washing pools were developed for religious washing that drew from the local abzu. 1-16 Grandiloquent lord of heaven and earth, self-reliant, father Enki, engendered by a bull, begotten by a wild bull, cherished by Enlil the Great Mountain, beloved by holy An, king, mes tree planted in the Abzu, rising over all lands great dragon who stands in Eridug, whose shadow covers heaven and earth, a grove of vines extending over the Land, Enki. In Eridu, Enki's temple was known as E 2-abzu (house of the cosmic waters) and was located at the edge of a swamp, an abzu. In this respect, in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology it referred to the primeval sea below the void space of. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu. Abzu also known as Apsu and Absu initially represented a vast underground freshwater ocean that, according to Mesopotamian belief, existed beneath the underworld. In this story, he was a primal being made of fresh water and the lover to Tiamat, a primeval deity of salt water. The Abzu or Apsu, also called engur, is the name for fresh water from underground aquifers which was given a religious fertilising quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Abzu god was an ancient Mesopotamian water deity worshiped in Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria. 630 BCE (but which is about 500 years older). it depicts the dire punishment meted out by Enki in his realm the Abzu. Enki (E.A) was believed to have lived in the abzu since before human beings were created, along with 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.Ībzu ( apsû) was later depicted as a deity only known from the Babylonian creation epic, the Enûma Elish, taken from the library of Assurbanipal c. Or take the Dilmun myth known as Enki and Ninhursag: A Sumerian Paradise Myth. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the abzu-the primeval sea below the void space of the underworld ( Kur) and the earth ( Ma) above. ab='water' zu='deep', the etymology of “abyss” was the name for fresh water from underground aquifers.Ībzu was given a religious fertilising quality in Sumerian mythology. The third considers whether the abzu might have been a feature of temple architecture and what form it might then take.