By the Gods!
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Enlil “Lord of the storm.” was the name of the cheif deity of the Sumerians. He was the god of breath, wind, loft, and breadth (height and distance). He is said to have been created by an exhaled breath of An and Ki (God of heavens and goddess of earth) after sexual union. The myth of Enlil and Ninlil states that when Enlil was a young god he was banished from the home of the gods, Dilmun, after raping a godess named Ninlil. After his crime he was banished to the underworld, Kur, which is where Ninlil followed him and bore his first child Nergal, and/or the moon god Sin. Only after Enlil had fathered 3 more children (Underworld deities, replacements for Sin) he was allowed to return to Dilmun. Enlil was known as the inventor of the mattock (a key agricultural pick, hoe, ax or digging tool of the Sumerians) and caused plants to grow.
Alright, mythfans. New blog over here examining warfare in the most ancient of ancient worlds. Above is a recent post on Enlil, the Sumerian sky-god (notice the familiar fork-like things he holds: commanding lightning in the same style as Baal, and later Zeus).
Give the blog a look! It’s called A World at War. A lot of informative stuff there, already! I’ll be paying attention to the posts!
El
The supreme deity of the ancient Canaanites, El was big man on the Levant-campus back in the day. El was the father of Ba’al, who would eventually become more popular than his dad throughout the Middle-East, and husband of Asherah (a semitic mother goddess).
In many depictions, El wore the same bull horns as did Ba’al, though we often see him portrayed in the fancy hats of an ancient Mesopotamian king. The power of fancy hats was one worth flaunting, after all. Though his main priority was sitting in a throne, enjoying being the boss, he was accredited with being a patron deity of fertility, thunder, mountains, deserts, oceans, and war. A real Renaissance-god.
Now, even though Ba’al was the god of storm and sky (a position usually held by a chief deity) his papa was #1, at least in the inception of the Pantheon. El’s full title was El Shaddai, which loosely translates (we’re pretty sure, anyway) to God of the Mountain. The Mesopotamian Holy Mountain was a big deal, and a fitting place for a king of the Gods to dwell, one might think. El was too popular for his own good, though. Or, for our good, at least; he’s brought up in so many places in so many different forms, it’s difficult to pin down what exactly he was to whom.
The most popular reference to El would be in the Hebrew Torah, where El Shaddai is the God of Abraham, and is synonymous with Yahweh. Does this mean that Abraham was originally a practitioner of the Canaanite faith? Quite possible! But either way, it seems the Hebrews adopted the title of the supreme deity in Canaan and used it as a feather in Yahweh’s cap. Ol’ El has also drawn comparisons to the Babylonian Ea (Enki) and Poseidon, if you can believe it.
Whoever you are, El, you’re almost definitely a badass.
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