NAMMU

THE SUMERIAN GREAT CREATRIX

Nammu is the Sumerian Creatrix Goddess. Her name is usually written with the sign engur , which is also used to
write Apsu. She personifies the Apsu, or the sweet fertile waters, as the source of water and hence fertility. God-lists
and other texts describe Her as "The Mother who gave birth to Heaven and Earth", "Mother, first One, who gave
birth to the gods of the universe", or "Mother of Everything". She is a goddess without a spouse, the self-procreating
womb of the universe, the primal matter, standing for the female Sex as the one apparently able to create
spontaneously, as expressed in a hymn to the temple of Eridu, "E-engurra, womb of Abundance".

Noun. cretrix f (genitive cretrcis); third declension. A female who brings forth or produces; a
mother. A female founder, authoress, creatrix.

In myth and religion, Nammu is the Mother of Enki, the god of the Sweet Waters, Magick, Crafts and Wisdom, and
Ereshkigal, the Goddess of the Underworld. More importantly, Nammu is the goddess who has the idea of creating
humankind as a help for the gods, and it si She who goes to wake up Enki, asleep in the Apsu, that he may set out
the process going. Also, Ur-Nammu, the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur, is named after Her.

Thorkild Jacobsen (Treasures of Darkness, 1976, Yale University Press, New

Haven, London) calls Nammu "the deification of the river bed" and fertile
marshlands of South Mesopotamia. All these views, on the whole, can be
summarized the following way for South Mesopotamia: Creation came from and
was accomplished by the Divine Feminine, the Goddess, from the Fertile
Waters, whose presence was so marked that She was conceived as ever existent.

Nammu is therefore the old the beginning of religious consciousness in

Mesopotamia and the timeless as life itself. This may be the reason why Her
appearance in the corpus of texts that have survived is not that significant:
as the Mother of All Creation and Created, Her presence underlies all there
is and does not necessarily need to be mentioned. A gifted creator / trix is
generally acknowledged by his / her successors and deeds.

In myth and religion, Nammu is the Mother of Enki, the god of the Sweet
Waters, Magick, Crafts and Wisdom, and Ereshkigal, the Goddess of the
Underworld. More importantly, Nammu is the goddess who has the idea of
creating humankind as a help for the gods, and it is She who goes to wake up
Enki, asleep in the Apsu, that he will set out the process going. Also, Ur-
Nammu, the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur, is named after Her.