NAMMU

---

FROM:  www.jstor.org/pss/3297042

---

In Sumerian mythology, Nammu (more properly Namma) was a primeval goddess, corresponding to Tiamat in Babylonian mythology. Taimat was a primordial goddess who rose from the void and created the  collective unconsciousness.

Nammu was the  primeval sea (Engur) that gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth) and the first gods, representing the Apsu, the fresh water ocean that the Sumerians believed lay beneath the earth, the source of life-giving water and fertility in a country with almost no rainfall.

Nammu is not well attested in Sumerian mythology. She may have been of greater importance prehistorically, before Enki took over most of her functions. An indication of her continued relevance may be found in the theophoric name of Ur-Nammu, the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur. According to the Neo-Sumerian mythological text Enki and Ninmah, Enki is the son of An and Nammu. Nammu is the goddess who "has given birth to the great gods". It is she who has the idea of creating mankind, and she goes to wake up Enki, who is asleep in the Apsu, so that he may set the process going.

Sumerian God Genealogy

---

---

Sumer, Akkad and Elam

Goddess from  Eridu. She is known as the mother of the god  Enki/Ea as well as the mother goddess who gave birth to the cosmos and all the gods. Like her son  Enki/Ea she is also associated with magic. In later times, her role is taken on by  Tiamat.

Functions

Very little is known about Namma, who belongs to the oldest generation of Mesopotamian deities and is associated with the pantheon of Eridu. She is mainly known for her role in the cosmogony of early Mesopotamia and her importance in magic, which is restricted to texts written in Sumerian ( Wiggermann 1998-2001c: 137-8). According to the god list An-Anum, tablet I line 28 ( Litke 1998: 24;  Wiggermann 1998-2001c: 137), Namma bears the title "mother who gave birth to the heavens and the earth."

Because this goddess's name is written with sign for "(cosmic) subterranean waters" (Sumerian: engur) Wiggermann ( 1998-2001c: 136-7) has called her the "Cosmic Ocean" (also see  Lambert 2008: 31). No husband or male god is attested in connection with Namma, thus leading to the belief that "the first cosmic production is asexual" ( Wiggermann 1998-2001c: 137). In later tradition, namely in Enūma eliš  TT,  Tiamat takes over the role of Namma as primeval ocean. However, there are significant differences in the way the goddesses are portrayed in the literature (see the entry on  Tiamat).

In the Sumerian poem of Enki and Ninmah ( ETCSL 1.1.2, line 17) Namma is called the "original mother who gave birth to the gods of the universe", again according her primary status among all the gods and describing her role in Mesopotamian cosmogony. Later on, in particular in Akkadian texts, Namma loses importance and is only rarely mentioned.

Aside from the few mentions of Namma in other mythological and literary texts about other gods, no mythology of this ancient goddess has survived the ages.

Divine Genealogy and Syncretisms

In the god list An-Anum ( Litke 1998: 24) Namma is identified as the "mother of the god Enki," which clearly accords her, at least originally, a higher or more ancient status than that of her son. In an inscription dating to the Early Dynastic III (?) period, king Lugal-KISAL-si, a king of Uruk, ( Frayne 2008: 422-3, no. 2) dedicated a temple to the goddess, who is described as the "spouse of  An," the god of heavens, although Wiggermann ( 1998-2001c: 138) has interpreted this as a secondary development.

Cult Place(s)

There is very little evidence attesting to a cult of Namma. Because the Early Dynastic III foundation inscription mentioned above ( Frayne 2008: 422-3, no. 2) is of unknown provenance, it is unclear where her temple may have been built.

The Early Dynastic zà-mì-hymns (lines 140-41) ( Biggs 1974: 50, 55) also mention a temple for her, yet the passage is difficult to read. For more information on evidence of her cult, dating even to the Neo-Babylonian period, see  Wiggermann 1998-2001c: 139.

Time Periods Attested

The earliest attestations of Namma date to the Early Dynastic IIIa period, where she is mentioned in one of the "Fara god lists" ( Krebernik 1986: 175 column VIII l. 10). Her latest reference dates to the Neo-Babylonian period, when king Nabonidus mentions her shrine, the ki-ús-dnamma ("foundation(?) of Namma") as part of the Esagil, Marduk's temple at Babylon ( George 1993: 113).

Iconography

Namma's iconography is uncertain.

Name and Spellings

The reading and spelling of Namma's name has been subject to some research. Originally, her name was read Nammu, but Civil ( 1985: 27 n. 1) suggested a reading of the name as Namma, which is now more commonly accepted. It has been suggested that her name is etymologically related to a word that means "creation" ( Wiggermann 1998-2001c: 135-36), although it is not clear whether this might be a folk etymology.

Written forms:

dnammu; dlammu; dnamma; na-am-na-am-mi; na-am-ma; dna-na-ma-ke (for more information see  Wiggermann 1998-2001c: 136)

Normalized forms:

Namma; Nammu

Namma in Online Corpora

• The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
• The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions
• The Corpus of Ancient Mesopotamian Scholarship

Further Reading

• Wiggermann 1998-2001c, "Nammu."

---

NAMMA, Primeval Mother Goddess

From: Wayne Bush on Adam Crabb's The Crazz Files (07-01-2017) — Archons and Entities

Namma - Seated Woman of Catalhoyuk. Seated Mother Goddess flanked by two lionesses from Çatalhöyük (Turkey), Neolithic age (about 6000-5500 BCE), today in Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara Doubts about accuracy of this description are presented in Wikipedia:Talk:Cybele #Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük.

In the Beginning, the Goddess Nammu (Namma) created the world and then was forgotten. Namma is the mother goddess. Namma/Sophia is WORLDWIDE. Before modern humans walked on the earth or were even thought of, the Mother of all, the Great Namma already existed. She created life on earth as we see it now and is known through time as the "Earth Mother," "Great Mother," and "Mother of All the Gods."

She then decided to create children. They were created as Gods to experience the Earth. The term Anunnaki matches them perfectly as it means "Gods of Earth," as they were created here and did not come from somewhere else. These Gods or the children of Namma grew up and started modifying the Earth. Namma upset with their behavior resolves to destroy them before it got worse. Her children heard this and decided to fight her. The hero varies through time but she is then killed by her children. They take her power and use it to create the heavens.

This Mother Goddess is known by many names throughout the World. In Paleolithic times back to 35,000 BCE, statues are found archaeologically of a very robust woman. They are often called "Venus" statues but are in fact the Mother Goddess or Namma . These figurines have been found in Turkey as recently as 7,000 years ago. At some time around this period she disappears except for occasional mentioning. This is about the time the path to civilization was started.

In these new civilizations, the Anunnaki declared themselves the Gods of the humans or the "black-headed people". In early human beliefs, they were told they were created by the Gods to be their slave and do their work. A human was expected to do whatever their God wanted them to and they were judged as to whether they made their God happy.

The Anunnaki did not CREATE anything. They modified what was here and made new species but they did not create the life on this planet. Life was seeded a long time ago on earth and the life evolved via the natural procesess that do exist but there were manipulations and creations throughout that time but not like the last 12,000 years.

"Namma told Enki: Please apply the skill deriving from your wisdom and create a substitute (?) for the gods so that they can be freed from their toil!" And after Enki, the fashioner of designs by himself, had pondered the matter, he said to his mother Namma: "My mother, the creature you planned will really come into existence. Impose on him the work of carrying baskets. You should knead clay from the top of the abzu; the birth-goddesses (?) will nip off the clay and you shall bring the form into existence."

So they hijacked the system for their desires. In Sumerian mythology, Nammu (also Namma) was a primeval mother goddess, corresponding to Tiamat in Babylonian mythology. Nammu was later connected to Isis and Venus because she was the only Goddess for 30,000 years. People have done this but Isis was a granddaughter of Namma. The onset of Anunnaki gods caused the almost erasure of her except in certain places. They erased her as much as they could because they killed her and enslaved her creation for their own purposes. If they allowed her cults to continue enmasse then it was potential for us to remember what happened. As long as we forgot we worshiped them and gave them her power. They tried propaganda against Namma, labeling her an evil dragon. They killed her and made the heavens with her.

Namma/Tiamat Ki are the same in my opinion.

By her consort Anu, Ki gave birth to the Anunnaki, the most prominent of these deities being Enlil, god of the air. According to legends, heaven and earth were once inseparable until Enlil was born; Enlil cleaved heaven and earth in two. An carried away heaven. Ki, in company with Enlil, took the earth.