Anunnaki

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Adad · Ashnan Asaruludu · Enbilulu Enkimdu · Ereshkigal Inanna · Lahar Nanshe · Nergal Nibiru · Nidaba Ningal · Ninisinna Ninkasi · Ninlil Ninurta · Nusku Uttu · Annunaki

The Anunnaki (also transcribed as: Anunnaku, Ananaki and other variations) are a group of Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian deities. The name is variously written "^da-nuna", "^da-nuna-ke₄-ne", or "^da-nun-na", meaning something to the effect of 'those of royal blood'^[1] or 'princely offspring'.^[2]

Anunnaki was a collective term for deities in general, especially those who were not otherwise named. Dr. Jeremy Black and Dr. Anthony Green write that the word eventually suggested the deities of earth and the underworld after the term Igigi was used more to refer to the heavenly deities.^[2]

The Anunnaki appear in the Babylonian creation myth, Enuma Elish. In the late version magnifying Marduk, after the creation of mankind, Marduk divides the Anunnaki and assigns them to their proper stations, three hundred in heaven, three hundred on the earth. In gratitude, the Anunnaki, the "Great Gods", built Esagila, the splendid: "They raised high the head of Esagila equaling Apsu. Having built a stage-tower as high as Apsu, they set up in it an abode for Marduk, Enlil, Ea." Then they built their own shrines.

According to later Babylonian myth, the Anunnaki were the children of Anu and Ki, brother and sister gods, themselves the children of Anshar and Kishar (Skypivot and Earthpivot, the Celestial poles), who in turn were the children of Lahamu and Lahmu ("the muddy ones"), names given to the gatekeepers of the Abzu temple at Eridu, the site at which the creation was thought to have occurred. Finally, Lahamu and Lahmu were the children of Tiamat and Abzu.

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