Enki: Who Was the Sumerian God Who Saved Humanity?

The clever god of fresh water and wisdom who made humans, gave away civilization while drunk, and leaked the plan for the Flood.

Enki, called Ea in Akkadian, was the Mesopotamian god of fresh water, wisdom, magic and crafts, based at Eridu. In the flood stories he warns a human hero by speaking to the wall of his house.

Enki, called Ea in Akkadian, was the Mesopotamian god of the fresh water under the earth (the abzu), of wisdom, magic, and crafts. His home city was Eridu, which the Sumerians believed was the first city on earth, and his temple there was the E-abzu, the 'house of the deep'. Art shows him as a bearded god with streams of water, sometimes full of fish, pouring from his shoulders.

Enki is the gods' problem-solver and humanity's friend. In Atrahasis he designs the first humans to relieve the working gods. When Enlil later sends the Flood, Enki is bound by an oath not to tell, so he speaks to the reed wall of Atrahasis' house instead, and the man overhears. In the Gilgamesh flood story he does the same for Utnapishtim.

He is also a trickster who gets tricked. In Inana and Enki, he drinks beer with Inanna and hands her more than a hundred me, the powers of civilization, from kingship to the scribal art. Sobered up, he sends monsters after her boat, but she reaches Uruk with the treasures. In the Adapa myth, his advice to refuse the food of heaven costs his servant eternal life.

Ancient-astronaut writers cast Enki as a scientist who engineered humans. The texts do show him as a maker and keeper of knowledge, and as the god who most often takes humanity's side, though the reasons are usually practical: the gods need their workers. His knowledge is not always shared freely, and in several myths his gifts come with conditions, tricks, or unintended results.