Apsu

The Primordial Fresh Waters

Domain: Waters, Origin & Chaos
Alignment: True Neutral
Element: Water
Relics of Power: Abyss of Fresh Waters

Speak with Apsu

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5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

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The People

People

Sumerians, Akkadians & Babylonians

Region

Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)

Period

c. 3500 – 500 BC

The Mesopotamian gods were worshipped by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of writing and cities. Each city raised a ziggurat to its patron god, served by a powerful priestly caste. Their myths, such as the Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh, are among the oldest in the world.

The Akitu festival opened the new year with processions along Babylon's Sacred Way, and the sacred marriage rite symbolically united Inanna and Dumuzi to ensure fertility. Lamentations, hymns, and divination by animal livers marked daily religious life.

At a glance

Apsu (Akkadian apsû, Sumerian abzu) is the subterranean ocean of fresh water, personified in the Enuma Elish as the primordial god who, united with Tiamat, the salt water, gives rise to the first gods. Disturbed by the noise of the younger gods, he resolves to destroy them; Ea (Enki) discovers the plan, puts him to sleep with a spell and kills him, building his own dwelling upon him.

3 min read · Reviewed on October 15, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The fresh waters, the underground abyss, the origin and the silence

Family

Apsu

Unions

Tiamat

Children

Lahmu and LahamuAnshar and Kishar

Genealogy according to Enuma Elish (Tabuinha I)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Lambert, W. G., Babylonian Creation Myths, Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake (edição e tradução do Enuma Elish).
Jacyntho Lins Brandão, Nuntius Antiquus. read

Studies

Jeremy Black; Anthony Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary, British Museum Press. 1992.

Name and epithets

Apsû is the Akkadian form of Sumerian abzu, the name of the subterranean fresh waters on which, in Mesopotamian cosmology, the earth rests and which are the dwelling of Ea (Enki).

In the ancient sources

Enuma Elish (The Babylonian Epic of Creation), late 2nd millennium BCE (traditional dating; critical edition in Lambert 2013).

The myths

The mingling of the waters in the beginning. According to the Enuma Elish, when heaven and earth were yet unnamed, only Apsu, the fresh waters, and Tiamat, the salt waters, existed, and their waters mingled as one body.…

Worship and archaeology

In the works cited, Apsu appears as a figure of myth, not as a god receiving a cult of his own. What survives in cult is the name: apsû designated the basin of sacred water in Mesopotamian temples, a ritual reminder of…

How the god was depicted

We do not assert here any image securely identified as Apsu the character. The reference works treat the abzu mainly as the watery domain of Ea/Enki; for art, see Black & Green 1992.

What scholars debate

Character of the myth or cosmic place?. The Enuma Elish treats Apsu as a person (he has a consort, a counsellor and plans), yet the same name designates the real subterranean waters of cosmology and the basin of temples…

After antiquity

Apsu survives chiefly through the Enuma Elish, studied as the principal source of Babylonian cosmogony: the image of two primordial waters that mingle before creation, and of the death of the oldest god founding the hou…

Did you know?

At the opening of Enūma eliš, Apsû represents fresh water and Tiāmat salt water; their waters mingle before heaven and earth are named and before the gods have determined destinies.

Codex relic

Abyss of Fresh Waters. The underground ocean of fresh water that existed before the world and from which the first generation of gods sprang.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

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