WARNING THIS BLOG POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!
During Keira and Dominic’s wedding, We learn that our King of Kings also goes by Enki -a Sumerian deity- which Stephanie refers to as Lord of The Earth. But who is this mysterious god and how does this relate to how Dominic is portrayed in the books.
An Ancient Civilisation
The Sumerians are the people of the Southern Mesopotamia (an area that encompasses parts Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Kuwait) As the oldest known civilisation, most historians agree that their land (known as Sumer) was settled between 5500 and 3300 BC. However the discovery of Sumerians in modern history only came to be in 1869, with archaeological excavations to Sumer in 1877. What historians would later find would be a collection of over 30 city states that spoke (and wrote) the Sumerian language, with a temple in the centre dedicated to a particular patron god or goddess.
The Persians- which as a civilisation habited a lot later than the Sumerians- would later often take previously Sumerian land (like Babylon) as they conquered Mesopotamia. A lot of southern Iraq, where Dominic would rule as Arsaces, was previously occupied by the Sumerians.
In Uruk, one of Sumer’s largest cities, it was estimated to have a population of 50,000 to 80,000 at its height. There is evidence of Sumerians adopting an agricultural lifestyle, with large-scale cultivation of land, domesticated livestock and even as one of the first civilisations to drink beer. They were mathmaticians, paving the way for modern arithmetic, geometry and algebra, writing multiplication tables on clay tablets. They also invented the wheel!
A lot of information we have about Sumerian life came from Sumerian cuneform writing, which was either imprinted in tablets or carved into stone. A really great source to understand Sumeria would be The Epic of Gilgamesh, dating back to 2100 BC, which is a collection of 5 poems supposedly as one of the first ever written epics, predating Homer by over 1000 years.
Perhaps, indulging on how the Sumerians lived, may give us further insight into Dominic’s story, as a deity over the civilisations people. Whether he was a god on earth or elsewhere, Enki alludes to the ancient origins that Dominic would have undertaken.
Enki, Lord of the Earth
Sumerian religion celebrated an entire pantheon of gods, often associated with natural elements of human life. The Sumerians would built temples, that later became Ziggurats pyramid-like structures with sanctuaries at the top and for the Sumerian people the religion emphasized humans working with the gods for harmony and stability.
Enki was the keeper of divine powers called ‘Me’, the gifts of civilisation. This is because he is assigned the god of water, life and replenishment. He is often shown with a horned crown of divinity. He often has an eagle with him. (Surely this all sounds very familiar- horned god with bird friend!) He is considered the master shaper of the world, god of all wisdom and magic. Because of his relation to water, he was known for his aid during agriculture and fertilisation and even -I’m not making this up- as ‘lord of semen’. However, unlike Dominic, sometimes Enki was depicted as a man covered in fish skin.
Here, a lot of what we know about Enki comes from archaeological remains. For Enki, the most common translation of his name was ‘lord of the earth’. The main temple to Enki is the Abzu temple, meaning ‘house of the subterranean waters’ a ziggurat built in the marshlands of southern Iraq. (Feels very Dune to me!) In the water’s of these temple near the entrance carp bones were found, suggesting collective feasts.
Clip from Dune: Part 2
Sumerian afterlife consisted of an underworld ruled by the Goddess Ereshkigal. Spirits of the dead were believed to go to Kur, where the only food available is dry dust. Because reeds, grown near the rivers were an important building material, collected outside the city walls where the dead were buried, Enki has a connection to the underworld.
Enki is associated with the creation of man, and also the uniter of languages. Enki married Ninhursag,the goddess to earth animals and fertility. Between them they had many children including Uttu (The Goddess of Weaving) Ninti (The Goddess of Healing and Medicine) Dumuzid (The God of Shepherds) and Ninkasi (The Goddess of Beer).
Whilst Enki is only a name in the Afterlife Saga, it carries with it a lot of weight. Whether Stephanie will divulge on this story is yet to be fated, but we all know it will be a story of epic proportions.
Read more about Ancient Civilisations in the Afterlife Saga- get your copy here!
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Just to help visualize this- a brief reminder of how the landscape in modern day Iraq changed in time with history. Iraq being where Ctesiphon is locatied, south of Baghdad- with Ctesiphon suprisingly close to the remains of Babylon.
Sumerians, 6000 BC - 539 BC
Sumeria was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 539 BC, with several attempts to conquer this landin the centuries after by the Greeks, Parthians and Romans
200 AD the Persian empire fell to the Sassanian Empire, a pre-islamic persian empire
Islamic successors to Muhammad took over Iraq in 750 AD, with Baghdad founded in 762
The Buyids, then the Seljuks occupied Baghdad in the 10th and 11th centuries respectfully. Then, the Mongols invaded Baghdad in 1258, the city fell marking the end of the ‘Islamic Golden Age’
In 1534, Baghdad was occupied by the Ottoman Empire (the Turkish Empire)
Southern Iraq was captured by the British during WW1 in 1917
Gaining independence from British rule Iraq became a state in 1932
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