Anunnaki

The Anunnaki (also transcribed as Anunaki, Anunna, Ananaki, and other variations) are a group of deities that appear in the mythological traditions of the ancient Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.

The earliest known usages of the term Anunnaki come from inscriptions written during the reign of Gudea (c. 2144 - 2124 BC) and the Third Dynasty of Ur. In the earliest texts, the term is applied to the most powerful and important deities in the Sumerian pantheon: the descendants of the sky-god An. This group of deities probably included the "seven gods who decree": An, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu, and Inanna.

The name Anunnaki is derived from An, the Sumerian god of the sky. The name is variously written "da-nuna", "da-nuna-ke4-ne", or "da-nun-na", meaning "princely offspring" or "offspring of An".

Descriptions of how many Anunnaki there were and what role they fulfilled are inconsistent and often contradictory. In the earliest Sumerian writings about them, which come from the Post-Akkadian period, the Anunnaki are the most powerful deities in the pantheon, descendants of An, the god of the heavens, and their primary function is to decree the fates of humanity.

Akkadian texts of the second millennium BC follow similar portrayals of the Anunnaki from Inanna's Descent into the Netherworld, depicting them as chthonic Underworld deities. In an abbreviated Akkadian version of Inanna's Descent written in the early second millennium, Ereshkigal, the queen of the Underworld, comments that she "drink[s] water with the Anunnaki". Later in the same poem, Ereshkigal orders her servant Namtar to fetch the Anunnaki from Egalgina, to "decorate the threshold steps with coral", and to "seat them on golden thrones".