Hailed as:  “Mother Who Gave Birth to the Heavens and The Earth”, “The First Mother Who Gave Birth to All The Gods”,

Also known as: Tiamat.

Pray to her for:  Regeneration, renewal, independence, strength, children and their well-being.

Invoke her with:  A piece of round or egg shaped clear quartz kept on a small round mirror placed flat, like a plate, so that the glass reflects the crystal kept on it.

(Hand crafted by Deepta. Inspired by the myth of Ninmah and Enki)

Namma was the first Creatrix. She was the one from whom all being arose. The Sumerians believed it was the primeval sea, vast and swirling, with unfathomable depth, from which arose all creation. And it was this vast ocean which was Namma.

Namma , was the earliest Sumerian deity and her title belonged to her as flowing from natural order. There was no one superior to her who bequeathed the title to her.

She was the creator who embodied the very essence of creation but she did not bear the bondage of a male god or a husband associated with her. Thus, the first creation in the cosmos was asexual. 

In Sumerian cosmology, the abzu was a sweet water ocean on top of which the earth floats. Engur was the fertile waters out of which Namma created life. In some versions, Nammu was Engur, the swirling pool of self creation.

Early depiction of Namma indicate her being shown as a serpent-goddess, or a goddess with a serpent head. The Babylonian goddess Tiamat may have been another name for Namma, since she was also “The First Mother”, “The Great Mother” and “The Great Deep”.

In later Akkadian literature, mention of Namma  receded and she is a figure who, like some of the first mother goddesses , disappeared from written records.

 

Namma and Enki

The myth, from the poem ‘Enki and Ninmah’ goes back to the time before the first man was created. It was at that time that the gods were doing their own work and manual labour. Amongst  the gods, there was a hierarchy, with the elders overseeing the work of the younger ones, or those lower down in the pantheon. And it was from this that dissent and dissatisfaction amongst them reared its head.  Then there was trouble when the gods are unable to get their bread. The gods gathered together and complained and looked to Enki, who was the god of wisdom, but he lay asleep in the deep waters. The gods then prevailed upon Namma, the mother of Enki, to raise him from the deep and awaken his slumber. Namma then awoke her son, and told him of the troubles which surrounded the Gods. She spoke to him,

“My son, wake up from your bed! Please apply the skill deriving from your wisdom and create a substitute for the gods so that they can be freed from their toil!”

Enki then awoke, and with the power of his wisdom and magical thought, said to Nammu,

“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.”

Thus came into being the first human.

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