ENLIL (lord wind?)

ORIGIN Mesopotamian (Sumerian) [Iraq]. God of the air.

KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 3500 BC or earlier to circa 1750 BC.

SYNONYMS ELLIL; Illil; Ilu; Nunamnir.

CENTER(S) OF CULT Nippur, Dur Kurigalzu, but also at Eridu and Ur.

ART REFERENCES plaques, votive stelae and glyptics.

LITERARY SOURCES creation texts, particularly the Lament of Ur and Creation of the Hoe; temple hymns including the Hymn to Enlil, etc.

Enlil is the son of the primordial AN and KI. The tutelary deity of Nippur where, in his honor, the Ekur sanctuary was built (not re-discovered), he was the most important god of southern Mesopotamia during the third millennium BC.

His consort is NINLIL who was impregnated by the “waters of Enlil” to create the moon god NANNA. (In the Akkadian pantheon his consort becomes MULLILTU.) He is depicted in horned headdress and tiered skirt, or by a horned crown on a pedestal. According to the “Hymn to Enlil” he works alone and unaided. He is said to have made the pick-ax, “caused the good day to come forth” and “brought forth seed from the earth.”

He was invoked to bless his cities and ensure prosperity and abundance. His importance was such that the tutelary gods of other cities “traveled” to Nippur with offerings to Enlil. Enlil created several deities concerned with overseeing the natural world. In his more destructive aspect he allowed the birth goddess to kill at birth and was responsible for miscarriage in cows and ewes.

He was seen as manifesting himself in both benevolence and destructive violence. Because of his peculiarly national status he became downgraded in the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheons, being superseded respectively by MARDUK and ASSUR.