The Philological Riddle of Enki(g)

[us4-he2-gal2]

A Layman's struggle with the g in brackets, with help from
espakpeeter.pdf

PG.19:

We're probably all familiar with the translation of Enki [^den-ki] as "Lord Earth". Some texts give it with a gentival construction [en+ki+ak] and it becomes "Lord of the Earth".

Espak touchs on the mysterious [En-ki(g)] which I have seen professionals use sometimes often, but have not been able to find explanation for, when he says "[since] the name Enki does not seem to refer to a genitival construction in many textual examples, the form en-ki(g) with an amissible -g seems to be a well based possibility for an original form."


pg. 23:

"..two possible forms of the name seem probable - [^den-ki] or then [^den-ki(g/k)]"


pg. 27:


Since Espak gives the amissible g as equivalent to the genitive ak (k), or seems by saying "en-ki(g/k)", I would have thought the addition of the (g) serves again a genitive purpose. The is would mean En-ki(g) means again "Lord of the Earth".
However, Espak on pg.27 relays that W.G. Lambert has stated ki in the name of Enki does *not* mean earth, Lambert states "-ki is not 'earth,' since it ends with an omissible -g. It is properly -kig of unknown meaning."



so Its not ki+g - its kig?

The Hypothetical ki(g)

E Solleberger:
"In the name En-ki, god of the (underground, sweet)waters, -ki cannot be 'earth' (...); in view of the frequent ending -g (...), and the well attested role of the god as man's friend, I assume a translation "Lord Love.""

Espak explains that Solleberger understood the ki of den-ki as the Sumerian root ki(g) meaning "favour," "benevolence," "love." However adds that the construction ki.aga "to love, beloved" in the hypothetical ki(g) of Enki is hard to defend in lack of parallels for such an occurrence.

Unfortunately, it seems therefore that much is up in air about the Divine name Enki.


Further reading:

- I am still unclear about what it is that necessitates the inclusion of the a/omissible g, - an ak is clear enough. What frequent indentation into multitudinous ancient clay tablets - what wedge what cuneiform sign - is inspiring this irksome (though fascinating) reading of "g"

[us4-he2-gal2]

Notes on the Sumerian Genitive

---

Its not rocket science! - Its much worse 0_0

I below take random notes on the Sumerian Genitive element in the hopes that reading over this later, suddenly the riddle of Enki(g) will click in my brain. And thread complete.

I have inserted quaint layman's digestion aids in square brackets to thin the Grammer speak out

---

From: The Sumerian Genitive Element, by A. Poebel
The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 1935pg. 147:


Poebel:
"As already mentioned, I content that the genitive in Sumerian is expressed by means of the postpositive element - a k, which is added to the noun or noun complex to be placed in the genitive."

[edit - here Poebel simply says the a k is added to the noun. I.e if the noun was dog, it becomes dog-ak]

"I may repeat from my grammar that both the a and the k of this element are amissible. As a rule, an amissable consonant is dropped whenever it stands at the end of a word or syllable"

[in other words the if its at the end of the construct and is not a vowel it's dropped - dog-ak become dog-a(k)]

"the k of our genitive element will, therefore, appear only when the genitive element is followed by another formative element beginning with a vowel. "

[dog-ak-a]

On the other hand, the element - a k will drop the amissible vowel a, and therefore appear as - k only, whenever it is added to a word ending with a vowel.

[mouse-(a)k]


"..Thus we shall have:

é-lugal-a(k) - "the house of the king"

é-lugal-ak-a - "in the house of the king"

é-lugal-a(k)-šè "to the house of the king"

lugul-uru(-(a)-k) "the king of the city"

lugal-uru-9a)k-e "the king of the city" (as grammatical subject)

dumu-lugal-uru-(a)k-a(k) "the son of the king of the city"

dumu-lugal-uru(a)k-ak-e "the son of the king of the city" (as grammatical subject)

é-dumu-lugal-ak-ak-a "in the house of the son of the king"

---

From "Notes on the Sumerian Genitive, by Thorkild Jacobsen, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1973 "


"What we know about the Sumerian genitive element, both its form and construction, we owe almost exclusively to the brilliant analytic mind of th elater Arno Poebel.
In a series of carefully documented studies he showed that the form of this element is - a k - but its a and k are admissible. The a does not appear when the element directly follows a vowel. The k does not appear unless followed immediately by a suffix beginning with a vowel. "

[Dear lord, whose idea was it bring the word "rectum" into Sumerologistic lingo?]

"As to construction, the genitive is a group genitive. Reges, rectum, and genitive element form a unit (Poebel: "a chain") which serves as a substantival, a phrase capable of being construed grammatically as if it were a substantive. It can thus, e.g., have a case-mark such as - t a "from or - š è "to" suffixed at the end following the genitive element. It can also serve as rectum in a further genitive construction. The regent of this further construction with then precede it and the new genitive element will directly follow it, suffixed to its genitive element. In this manner, with double and triple genitives, a heaping of genitive elements at the end of the resulting complex phrases comes about."


Dammit! I still can't figure it out. Or an explanation of (g) as opposed to (ak) as genitive.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Im so close - I can taste it!

Yoshikawa notes:

"Kutaxhwe, -A-AB-BA, P. 103

About the prolongatin -ga in Enki's name, see Sollberger's suggestion, TCS I, GloaaRY, 393.""

[amarsin]

OK, so first things first: in Sollberger's TCS I entry no. 393 in his glossary, he simply repeats some arguments you've already stated-- that ki(g) wr. KI can mean "benevolence" and argues that since there is in some lexical lists an ending /-g/ that Enki can't be "lord earth" (or "lord of earth") and should be "lord love" as you noted above.

Second: the /-g/ is never the genitive marker. It is, as you noted, /-ak/. However, it is never written with the AK sign. Most commonly, the final /-k/ is dropped, so that "servant of the king" is rendered arad₂ lugal-la₂ > /lugal-ak/, or "servant king-of".

I don't know if this answers your questions. I'll look more into this Enki(g) thing in a bit...

[us4-he2-gal2]

enenuru/Amarsin


Thanks very much for your continuing input here Amarsin! At your urging I should very much like to retract my earlier musing about the (g) as a possible genitive marker. I believe I came to this impression almost entirely because of Peeter Eskpak's sentance:

""..two possible forms of the name seem probable - [^den-ki] or then [^den-ki(g/k)]"


The grouping out g/k in this setence gave me the impression they were equivolent. However, lets stop thinking of this as a genitive marker - and we maybe now consider it as the "prolongation" of Enki's name, sometimes considered the original form of the name (as in Espak), and our sole interpretation of this apepars to be with Solleberger.. ?

By reading through Yoshikawa's notes on god names, in particular his entries for ^dEn-ki and ^den-ki (both apparently refer to En-ki and not the ancester), I found multiple occurences of the "prolonged" version of the name. In Yoshikawa's notes, at least the instances he chooses to note, the extra "ga" appears as often as not - and is often underlined by the scholar.

I assume in some way, the ga in En-ki-ga endures the transformative magic of Sumerological science and gets spit out En-ki(g) somehow...0_0

Entry: "(d)En-ki"


-FALK SRT. 6 p.115

6) gá-nun-maḫ-(d)En-ki-ga-kam
>>ist der grosse Speicher Enkis.>>


-Edzard,22B. passim. eg p.158f.

Rimsin 25: mu-á-maḫ0an-(d)en-líl (d)en-ki-ga

-ta -
29: mu du4-ga-an-(d)En-líl (d)en-ki-ga-ta -
30: mu ^^giš^^tukul maḫ-am-(d)Enlíl (d)En-ki-

ga-ta ~ etc.


-Kramer, BASOR SS. 1

76) a šà-ga šu ba-ni-in-ti a (d)en-ki-ga-ka

<< She took the semen into the womb, the semen of

E.>>


-YOS XI. P.40, NO. 56

abgal-abgal-(d)en-ki-ga-ke4-ne


- Kutscher, A-ab-ba, p.103

About the prolongation of -ga in Enki's name see

Sollbebrger's suggestion, TCS 1, Glossary 393.


Entry: "(d)en-ki"

- Gregg, AfO 24.

5) [sug-k]a-kéš-da (d)en-ki-ga-ka mú-a-bi dùg-ga-

àm
6) [sug]-bàn-da sug-(d)en-ki-ga-ka mú-a-bi dùg-ga

-àm
7) gi-bar-ra (d)en-ki-ga-ka mú-a-bi dùg-ga-àm.

etc.


- Finkel, Aula Or. VI, p, 102

4) (d)en-ki-ga-ke4

[amarsin]

Odd, then. We can also find examples without the -g, like in "Enki and the World Order (EWO) 191, ^den-ki-ke₄. And in administrative documents, you almost never see the -g, e.g., the personal name ur-^den-ki-ka, "'hero' of Enki" etc.

What do we make of this? I don't know. Cooper is working on a new edition of EWO that may be out in the next year or so (though he's been saying this for awhile...) and I am certain (because I asked) that he'll at least try to address this question.

[us4-he2-gal2]

It is something isn't it! I only know of it because of a student I'd spoken to. However of course have never got an explanation of it and I think that their reference also goes back to Solleberger.. and his explanation does not satisfy at least we continue to be boggled even after reading him.

Wonderful! And so perhaps you are on the front lines with this Amarsin, and your approaching and admitting Cooper into this problem may bear fruit, may give us some understanding we never had before about Enki and his name. This is what is exciting about scientists, and about Sumerology ;]

For now the riddle continues and maintains my interest and attention. In fact, maybe I'm more determined then ever 0_0

[ninurta2008]

Maybe it's a remnant of a former name, maybe he originated as a nonsumerian deity somehow. Like is the possible case of Shara (cara at ETSCl), where the deities name looks sumerian (in shara's case like akkadian) but originated from a nonsumerian deity.

I personally doubt it's to mean "lord earth" because isn't earth seen as feminine in sumerian texts? and we also know from the texts that Enki(g) is described as in the Abzu (though also his temple, it is also a word for the sea isn't it?) and in the marshy areas. Or is it possible that its a reference to the marshy places of the earth?

also, maybe the "g" is a marker for a sound that is changed. Like in words like "come" in english, a following letter only modified the pronounciation. And maybe scribes started ommitting the "g"? Or also, maybe after certain sounds (g) is made unnecessary because the pronounciation would be the same?

Those are two possibilities i can think of.

[af]

Althouht I can't understand why somewhere Enki is written with "g", but I believe that his name means "lord of earth". For me it's rational, because he's mentioned in incantations along with Ninki ("lady earth"). Besides, it seems to me that "ki" doesn't mean only the surface of the earth but also inside of the earth, where there are groundwaters, where Enki lives in his abzu.

[ninurta2008]

Weren't the Ninki priestesses?

[adapa]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and this is my first post so be gentle. Also my Sumerian grammar is a bit rusty, but I'll try this anyway. Sumerian had many orthographic conventions. One of these is that on certain occasions with certain words the final consonant was not expressed unless a suffix was attached. For example, the word for shepherd, sipa, was actually sipad, zi meant "life, living" when the final consonant was /d/, zid, and it meant "true, faithful" when the final consonant was /g/, zig. This seems common in proper names, so Inana is Inanak (which is likely the genitive), Enki is Enkig (which is certainly not the genitive), the city Eridu is Eridug, and thd god Dumuzi is Dumuzid. Concerning Enki, I think Ninurta2008 is probably correct when he suggests that Enki is probably an old non-sumerian name. Nevertheless the Sumerian scribes loved to play word games with their language and writing system, so they were fully aware that Enki, when written in the short form could mean "lord earth."

Another interesting writing convention was that in Sumerian Abzu was almost always written backwards: zu-ab. The only other occasion of this known to me is the semitic name of the moon god Suen (aka Nanna), when written in a Sumerian context was almost always written d.en-zu. Why they did this is obscure. When writing god names, they always began the divine name with the determinative "dingir," to show to those that didn't know that the name was the name of a god or goddess. So many god names begin with /en/, like Enlil, Enki, Enmeshara, etc., that they would use a ligature, that is, they would combine the sign dingir and en together into one sign. Perhaps they wrote Suen backwards so they could use the ligature in a manner analogous to the writing of all the "d.en" names. It certainly would have been quicker to write. I don't know, and this doesn't explain zu-ab.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Adapa:



None to worry about any potentially sharp rebuttal on this forum. First of all, enenuru lacks the sort of competitive aggression or egotism of some academic circles - and all the layman/pagan circles for that matter. My best assessment is that as unusual as it is, people are just here to learn and there is no standing to be won. I am pleased by that Secondly, the most active members tend to be those able to carefully utilize the secondary literature but for the most part without philological training (with some exceptions.) Of course we are happy to see Mr. Halloran on the board recently


So far as your response goes I think it was nicely done, your input and Ninurta2008's suggestion both. I at one point was excited by this thread and found a student of Solleberger's on Facebook... my favor asking seemed to fail however - later I followed up with an email to Mr. Espak who was considerate and responsive, although a definite answer on the "riddle" still remains elusive. I think we will likly leave it with your responce for now (if not forever) as the best that can be surmised.

[darkl2030]

The difference between Dumzid and Dumuzi, or Eridu and Eridug, has nothing to do with written Sumerian (the only form of the language knowable), but is merely a matter of modern transliteration convention. The basic values of the signs used to spell dumuzi we transliterate as DUMU and ZI, but zi can also be "read" with a long value, zid. We only get to see for sure if the d is "there" if there is an ending like a genitive or locative at the end so they put a "da" sign after. Similarly the 'du' in Eridu is dug3 "good, sweet" but it also has a value du10. When the ancients read these signs, they were able to supply the "proper" value based on context, since they knew how their language worked, in just the same way that we pronounce the "d" in "felled" as /d/ but the same letter in "jumped" as /t/. If there was no ending were these final consonants actually pronounced? Probably not, but there's no way to know and its a pointless question anyway. In general its a better idea and less annoying to use the longer values for signs.

As for Suen and Abzu, the "backwards" spellings are fossilized writings from the most ancient period. When sumerian first started being written, the signs didn't even have to be in order in the box they were written in: the correct order would be known based on context. They also represent an attempt at folk etymologization. The Sumerians inherited the name "Suen" but didn't know exactly what it meant or where it came from (it almost certainly is not Semitic), but by writing it EN.ZU they could interpret it as "wise lord." But in one of the Gudea statues they confess to this artificiality when they call him "Sin, whose name none can unravel/understand." Another example of this frozen backwards writing is LUGAL, written GAL-LU2, probably for what were originally pictographic reasons, since the GAL was a little hat for the LU-man.

[darkl2030]

BTW, i'm not so sure about enki(g) but i will try to find out. Its almost always the case with these names that if there seems to be a transparent etymology, its most likely not actually what it seems to be, but I will look into it. Also in Sumerian however, the whole issue with voiced/unvoiced consonants is a tricky one and rarely one worth losing sleep over. It always seems to be reversed when loaned into akkadian, for example E.GAL = ekallum. The genetive is always written with a ke4, but it very well might have sounded like a g in certain environments. But I will ask about the name Enki.

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hey Dark -



Nice additions! I'm really glad I took intro to Linguistics last year so now at least I'm not put off by the basic terms such as "voiced" and "voiceless" although I'm still technically unschooled in Sumerian grammar. I'm hoping this thread will help to take the edge off should I ever be able to take on Sumerian in earnest.

The fossilized explanation for the backwards written names makes so much sense - the voiced/unvoiced reversal with Akkadian is also noteworthy. I love this bit about Suen and that it was admitted that the name was somewhat inscrutable even in antiquity - nice! I must thank you for insiders insights here and for looking into the name of Enki(g) - I can only see the stubborn or even excessive focus of this thread as conducive and complimentary to the linguistic gems that are generously shared along the way. I suppose its the situation leading to the problem rather than the problem itself thats informative.

[ninurta2008]

I've read a book on historical linguistics which suggested that Prometheus didn't mean "forethought" but "fire stealer", but that "forethought" was a folk etymology. That's what made me wonder if ki(g) originally meant something other than "earth", at least in Enki's name.

As for the reversals in the name Suen, that's intriguing. I didn't know that it was related to the term EN.ZU via the sumerians chanching ZU.EN to EN.ZU.

[darkl2030]

I've read a lot of incantations involving Enki last semester. From this corpus is seems clear that the spelling En-ki-ga is restricted to later sources. Thus this spelling may be of little value for reconstructing the original etymology of the name. I don't think one will find it in the third millennium or OB periods, though if someone could prove me wrong I'd appreciate it. I'm also unaware if any scholars have commented elsewhere on such a chronological division in -g and -k genitives for Enki.

My teacher was unable to offer an explanation for the later spelling. He has mentioned that "En-ki" may in fact be one of the oldest "syllabic" spellings of a divine name (whereas Inanna, Utu, Nanna, EN.E2/Illilu, etc) are all logograms. I'm not sure whether this means "Enki" should actually mean "Lord Earth" or otherwise.

One more thing people might find interesting is that the original pronunciation of the name was probably something like "Ewenki." Part of the evidence of this comes from the Emesal spelling of his name, "A-ma-an-ki." This is discussed by Schretter in his Emesal Studien, and also an article by Edzard in Festschrift Fronzaroli (google books: books.google.com/books?id=kiWD_5PRQBUC&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=en+umun+ewen&source=bl&ots=N2ttMZe9bp&sig=J-3PUzFmfrSMyF5ZYGbn770sPLY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=W-nbUOqqJMS30QHh8YGoBA&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=en%20umun%20ewen&f=false).

[madness]

Great info, I always wondered if emesal would provide clues into pronunciation

[us4-he2-gal2]

Hello Darkl:



Thanks very much for the update - very insightful! Well even if your not making definitive conclusions with these observations, they certainly seem to be a step in the right direction. Reading over the above insights on this post which are taken from numerous scholarly works, no one seems to give the diachronic view of the name, explaining its usage and development from period to period. But of course this is very important.

So to really progress, a study would have to be made of when Enki-ga occurs and in which bodies of texts and so on. Obviously that would have certain demands.


I don't have anything useful to add at this exact moment, but you have inspired me to try and email a heavy hitter for some suggestions. So we'll see.

[goat]

A few questions to perhaps point you guys in an interesting direction:

1. abzu was already mentioned, but what's with the writing of abgal: ME.NUN? Note the similarity between the two words, and also the writing of ishib as ME, and Eridu as NUN{ki}.

2. Why is the old name for Enki's wife {d}dam-gal-nun-na and not something like nin-ki or dam-ki? Although those do show up : damkina as a later name for the same goddess, and ninki in these early god lists (sometimes in proper god lists, sometimes in these introductory passages in early dynastic literary texts: in these pairs of ens and nins) The enki in that enki/ninki pair is not the same as the god Enki. He will often show up elsewhere in such lists.)

[santakku]

I might be way too late wading in on this, but I may be able to draw together what others have said.

My understanding is that most final consonants, regardless of source are amissible:

Transcription - transliteration - morphology - translation:
sza - sza3 - szag - heart
szaga - sza3-ga - szag-ak - of the heart
lugal kalamake munadu - lugal kalam-ma-ke4 mu-na-du3 - lugal kalam-ak-e mu-na-du - the king of the Land built for him (genitive phrase in ergative keeps the k)

Vowels in grammatical affixes may assimilate when before the root or word-final:
lugal iri - lugal iri - lugal iri-ak - the king of the city (sometimes read uru, but same point stands). Think of it as iri-ak -> iri-a -> iri-i -> iri

Compound phrases, including names, can either be treated as 'living' phrases or fossilised units, the latter being more common as time progresses. An English example would be the more proper "he stabbed her in the back" versus "he backstabbed her". In Sumerian:
ngesza szu munibala - ngesz-a szu mu-ni-bala - ngesz-a szu mu-ni-bala - on the trees she overturned the hand (she hand-turned(overturned) the trees)
ngesz szumunibala - ngesz szu-mu-ni-bala - ngesz szu-mu-ni-bala - she hand-turned the trees (she overturned the trees)
sza enlilaka - sza3 {dingir}en-lil2-ke4 - szag en-lil-ak-ak - the heart of the Lord of the Wind (Enlil)
sza enlila - sza3 {dingir}en-lil2-la2 - szag enlil-ak - the heart of Enlil (the Lord of the Wind)

Therefore, {dingir}en-ki-ke4 could represent en-ki(g)-ak-e (that is, with ki or kig), even if {dingir}en-ki-ga-ke4 is the form expected by the etymology. Maybe we should indeed pronounce {dingir}en-ki-ke4 as enkigake, but enki-e (assimilating to just enki) is an acceptable alternative in later Sumerian, so a 'false' halfway house of enkike is understandable. The fact that amissible consonants are missing so much could easy lead to them being forgotten permanently, so kig could become ki full stop. In such a case, enkiake assimilating to enkike is perfectly regular.

I therefore see no reason to posit the ki in enki(g) as something different to ki as we find it elsewhere. As far as I'm aware, it is ki as "place/earth" behind ki anga2 for "to love". That is "to measure a place for x", "reserve a spot for", "have a soft spot for", etc. Texts such as cdli.ucla.edu/search/search_results.php?SearchMode=Text&PrimaryPublication=&MuseumNumber=&Provenience=&Period=&TextSearch=&ObjectID=226706&requestFrom=Submit seem to suggest that the phrase implies the addition of "in the heart"; i.e. "I measure out a place in my heart for you". Rather cute! Further, Enki as fresh water, who dwells in the deep Abzu underground fits the "place/earth" reading, with of course plenty of room to bring in ki anga2 connotations in literature. So, even if the long form kig is correct, and I've not heard it but know that most CV words were CVC etymologically, I do not yet see any grammatical or semantic reason to distinguish kig from ki.

But these are exactly the kinds of assumptions I'm here to test, so would welcome further evidence and debate! Particularly if one could find evidence that ki(d) (or something like that) was "place", not ki(g) which was "love". This would mean the text cited above was a pun, not a longer form.

[us4-he2-gal2]

These are some great posts goat and santakku! Thanks very much Well, first of all, I want to point out that this thread was started many years ago, before I started studies even. So some of the initial posts may seem a bit amateur. But even as I have learned more, the name of Enki, and his early nature, remain an intriguing riddle. I will have to respond to these posts one at a time.


So first, concerning your suggestions goat:




I am puzzling over the occurrence of NUN in the writing of the word abgal. I notice on ePSD that there are two ways to write abgal, there is abgal which, as you say, is written NUN + ME, but there is also abgal2 which seems to occur more frequently in the archaic period. Abgal2 is written NUN + ME + KAxGAN2. So the sign KAxGAN2 can have several different values, pu5 (mouth), kana6 (dark), but I prefer the value puzur5 (secret) here. Perhaps this adds something again to the concept of the abgal - but what is NUN?



NUN is a concept which can be seen outside Eridu as well, if in limited context. For example, in the UD.GAL.NUN literature, the genre itself is named after this name for Enlil (UD.GAL.NUN = Enlil). Lisman 2013 pg. 122 points out that the UD.GAL.NUN texts tend to show bias for the northern cities of Kiš and to the northern gods like Enlil and Zababa, exalted them above others. While other scholars have seen NUN simply as a rendering of thr lil2 in Enlils name, Lisman suggests that it should be understood to express "exactly what the sign in 'normal' orthographic writing means, viz. : prince; foremost, best."


Also, it is known that in Archaic Uruk, offerings were made to 'triple Inanna' or to 3 variants of the goddess: Inanna ḫúd(UD), "morning Inanna," Inanna s i g, "evening Inanna," and Inanna NUN, "princely Inanna." (Mentioned, for example, by Steinkeller in "Riches Hidden in Secret Places." (**Although, Darkl2030 did reply on an enenuru thread to tell us: I'm replying to quite an old post here, but I thought I'd add some important information. Steinkeller himself told me the other day that he no longer interprets the above-mentioned archaic spelling as Inanna NUN "princely Inanna," but instead he is "quite sure" that it is to be interpreted as "Inanna KUR," Inanna of the Netherworld, i.e. when Inanna has set below the horizon and is in her invisible phase.

Read more: enenuru.proboards.com/thread/142/city-seals-early-political-alliances#ixzz43wQelZCD

Arahaic Reed Standards (See our Exploring Archaic Standards, Emblems, Cult Symbol thread




As Madness pointed out to us long ago, Steinkeller has likened the NUN sign to a tree (Steinkeller 1998 Inanna's Archaic Symbol p.99 fn.8). He states: "It appears likely that this symbol represents a tree. Note that in Enki and the World Order 166-167 the urin of Enki set-up in the Abzu is said to be a shade-giving umbrella. It is significant that, elsewhere in the same composition, Enki is likened to a shady mes-tree planted in the Abzu: "the master (Enki) is a mes-tree planted in the Abzu; it towers over the lands; it is a huge dragon standing in Eridu; its shade covers heaven and earth; it is (like) a forest of fruit (bearing) trees stretching over the country" (Enki and the World Order 4-7). A similar image of Enki is found in MDP 14, p. 125 lines 2-13 (a Sargonic incantation), where he is compared to a shady kiškanû-tree growing in the "pure place" (i.e., Abzu): "[the master] grew up in a pure place like a kiškanû-tree; Enki grew up in a pure place like a kiškanû-tree; his flood-waves fill the land(s) with abundance; the shade of his 'place of standing' stretches into the midst of the sea like a lapis diadem; the master is like a kiškanû-tree that the pure place made grow; Enki is like a kiškanû-tree that the pure place made grow"."



And of course, Eridu can be written NUN^ki, which indicates a strong connnection between the symbol / sign and Enki. Lisman 2013 p. 130 states: "NUN in its original meaning is palm, but later texts used it only in the metaphorical sense a) prince and b) foremost, best." The first statement makes sense to me, was the NUN a palm? It seems possible since the south was arable orchard bearing land and the date-palm was foremost among those trees. The second statement seems a bit at odds with the author's earlier argument that the NUN in UD.GAL.NUN should be taken as princely or foremost (and also with the possibility of Inanna NUN in the archaic period).



So it seems possible to define two possible values for NUN: A) as a noun, "palm tree " or maybe "mes tree" and B) as am adjective, "princely" or "foremost." Jan cites (p.131) a text which provides a fairly clear example of the nominal value, a passage from the ED zame hymns from Abu Salabikh:

30 abzu ki-kur-gal - - - abzu, area of the great mountain,

31 nun men an-ki - - - palm, crown of heaven and earth,

32 ^den-nu-te-mud zà-mì - - - lord Nudimmud be praised.

So we see nun on line 31 is more than likely a noun, palm, as opposed to an adjective which does not fit with the structure of the poem. It seems that this nominal value is the original or primary meaning of NUN, it is something physical, a tree, and early on, the secondary value of adjectival value "princely" developed and was applied also to other gods such as Enlil and Inanna. As for his wife, dam-gal-nun-na, Lisman says "the old name of Enki, ^dNUN became part of the name of his wife, ^ddam-gal-nun-na. This name is attested from the ED period onwards."



So if we were to take the signs at their pictographic value, we would have NUN.ME, possibly išib priest of the NUN (palm/mes tree), as your were saying. But it seems scholars have found lexical texts which indicate: [abgal] = = = NUN.ME = = = ap-kal-lum. These are listed at the ePSD for abgal. And so the phonetic reading of the signs, abgal, does have something in common with abzu, ab I suppose. But I don't know what that entails here ;]