ORIGIN: Mesopotamian (Babylonian-Akkadian)
TYPE: Creator God
INFORMATION: Consort of Antu(m). Derived from the older Sumerian god An. Anu features strongly in the akitu festival in Babylon, Uruk, and other cities until the Hellenic period and possibly as late as 200 BCE. Some of his later preeminence may be attibutable to indentification with the Greek god of heaven, Zeus, and with Ouranos.
Anu (Akkadian: ANU, from an “Sky”, “Heaven”) or Anum, originally An (Sumerian: An), was the divine personification of the sky, king of the gods, and ancestor of many of the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. He was regarded as a source of both divine and human kingship, and opens the enumerations of deities in many Mesopotamian texts. At the same time, his role was largely passive, and he was not commonly worshiped. It is sometimes proposed that the Eanna temple located in Uruk originally belonged to him, rather than Inanna, but while he is well attested as one of its divine inhabitants, there is no evidence that the main deity of the temple ever changed, and Inanna was already associated with it in the earliest sources. After it declined, a new theological system developed in the same city under Seleucid rule, resulting in Anu being redefined as an active deity. As a result was actively worshiped by inhabitants of the city in the final centuries of history of ancient Mesopotamia.
Multiple traditions regarding the identity of Anu's spouse existed, though three of them—Ki, Urash, and Antu—were at various points in time equated with each other, and all three represented earth, similar to how he represented heaven. In a fourth tradition, more sparsely attested, his wife was the goddess Nammu instead. In addition to listing his spouses and children, god lists also often enumerated his various ancestors, such as Anshar or Alala. A variant of one such family tree formed the basis of the Enuma Eliš.
Anu briefly appears in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, in which his daughter Ishtar (the Akkadian counterpart of Inanna) persuades him to give her the Bull of Heaven so that she may send it to attack Gilgamesh. The incident results in the death of Enkidu. In another myth, Anu summons the mortal hero Adapa before him for breaking the wing of the south wind. Anu orders for Adapa to be given the food and water of immortality, which Adapa refuses, having been warned beforehand by Enki that Anu will offer him the food and water of death. In the Hurrian myths about Kumarbi, known chiefly from their Hittite translations, Anu is a former ruler of the gods, who was overthrown by Kumarbi, who bit off his genitals and gave birth to the weather god Teshub. It is possible that this narrative was later the inspiration for the castration of Ouranos in Hesiod's Theogony. It has also been proposed that in the Hellenistic period Anu might have been identified with Zeus, though this remains uncertain.
ABODE: Heaven
SYMBOL: Horned crown on a pedestal
NUMBER: 60
PARENTS: Anshar and Kishar; Alala and Belili
CONSORT: Antu, Ki or Urash (equated with each other); Nammu (in a single inscription)
CHILDREN: Enki, Ishkur, Bau, Ninisina, Ninkarrak, Amurru, Gibil, Urash, Nisaba (sometimes), Enlil (sometimes), Inanna (sometimes)
EQUIVALENTS: