ORIGIN Mesopotamian (Sumerian) [Iraq]. Supreme creator god.
KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP circa 3500 BC to 2000 BC but continuing as Babylonian creator god (see Anu) until 100 BC or later.
SYNONYMS ANU (Akkadian).
CENTER(S) OF CULT Unug [modern Warka].
ART REFERENCES none known but probably represented symbolically on seals and seal impressions from third millennium onward.
LITERARY SOURCES cuneiform texts including Sumerian creation accounts, and the Babylonian epic Enuma Elisˇ.
In Sumerian creation mythology An is the supreme being and, with his chthonic female principle, KI, is the founder of the cosmos. Also, in some texts, identified as the son of ANSˇAR and KISˇAR. The head of the older generation of gods.
He is believed to have formed the basis for the calendar and is arguably first represented in bovine form having been derived from the old herders’ pantheon. He is identified in some texts as the “bull of heaven.” According to legends, heaven and earth were once inseparable until An and Ki bore a son, ENLIL, god of the air, who cleaved heaven and earth in two. An carried away heaven. Ki, in company with Enlil, took the earth.
An is also paired with the goddess NAMMU by whom he fathered ENKI. Patron god of Unug (Erech in the Vetus Testamentum), An is always a remote shadowy figure who occasionally lends a hand to tilt the balance of fate but otherwise tends to be out of touch with the day-to-day affairs of heaven and earth.
His main sanctuary is the Eanna temple. After the Semitic takeover of Sumer by Sargon the Great circa 2500 BC, Enlil supersedes him as supreme national god of the Sumerian city states.
Possibly a female principle of the creator god AN.
Mesopotamian (Sumerian). Early iconography suggests a celestial sky goddess in the form of a cow whose udders produce rain and who becomes ANTU(m) in the Akkadian pantheon.
Witch's Well 