Eridu, Enki’s Patron City “Home of the Faraway”
(Texts: All Artifacts, Color Coding, & Writings in Bold Type With Italics Inside Parenthesis, are Added by Editor R. Brown, not the Authors, Translators, or Publishers!)
(gods in blue …mixed-breed demigods in teal…)
Eridu – . 1st city on Earth, Enki’s city
. Eridu, “Place of the Waters”, “Home of the Faraway”
. Enki’s temple was built there; it was re-built many times in history.
. It was approximately 3,800 B.C. when man’s first civilization, after the flood, began in Eridu.
Kingship in Eridu
“When kingship was first handed down from Heaven (the concept of kingship),
the city of Eridu was chosen as the seat of kingship.
In Eridu, Alulim (mixed-breed) ruled for 28,800 years as king and Alalgar ruled for 36,000 years.
The two kings ruled a total of 64,800 years and then kingship was removed to Bad-tibira. …”
“My son had for himself a House built;
The lord Enki Eridu like the mountain on Earth he raised;
His House, in a beautiful place he built.
To the place, Eridu, no one uninvited can enter…
In it’s sanctuary, from the Abzu the Divine Formulas (disc knowledge on all things) Enki has deposited …”
Ninki, we learn from “The Eridu Lament”, flew away from her city to a safe haven in Africa:
“Ninki, its great lady, flying like a bird, left her city …”
But Enki left Eridu only far enough to get out of the Evil Wind’s way, yet near enough to see its fate:
“Its lord stayed outside the city…
Father Enki stayed outside the city…
for the fate of his harmed city he wept with bitter tears …”
They watched the storm “put its hand” on Eridu. After the
“evil-bearing storm went out of the city, sweeping across the countryside ,…”
Enki surveyed Eridu; he found the city
“smothered with silence…its residents stacked up in heaps …”
Those who were saved addressed to him a lament:
“O Enki, thy city has been cursed, made like an alien territory! …”
…and Enki
“stayed out of his city as though it were an alien city …”
“Forsaking the House of Eridu, …”
Enki then led
“those who have been displaced from Eridu …”
to the desert, “towards an inimical land”; there he used his scientific powers to make the “foul tree” edible.