The metamorphosis of Enlil in early Mesopotamia

Xianhua Wang has written a history of the Mesopotamian deity Enlil as it was before and during the time of Narām-Sîn. In handling primary sources such as personal names and geographical names, offering lists, royal inscriptions, year formulae, and cultic or mythic texts, the result of the work as presented here is thus a study on the attestations of the deity and of the central question how Enlil was relevant to the early Mesopotamian world. Special attention is paid to the history of the names of Enlil and his city, Nippur. The fusing of regional cultural traditions concerning Enlil became realized in the deity being the patron of nam-lugal-kalam-ma, “kingship of the Land”, at the rise of the Sargonids. The idea of Enlil as the patron deity of nam-lugal-kalam-ma was perhaps the innovation of Lugalzagesi who was defeated by Sargon. It seems the Sargonids had also their own interpretation of Enlil the patron of nam-lugal-kalam-ma. But when the Sargonids succeeded in their military conquests even beyond the Land, kalam, so as to create a large territorial state, the Babylonian nam-lugal-kalam-ma became insufficient and finally king Narām-Sîn was deified alive to accommodate the new situation. The deified king as the highest authority in his kingdom domesticcated Enlil by his cultic administration. The characteristics of Enlil as the one who grants ruling power remained in theory and he was still taken care of in a luxurious style but importantly the ideological system is no longer evolving around him and the focus of royal power is now the deified human king.