Anu

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[1] Wikipedia Editors. Anu. Wikipedia. <> Accessed 03 Mar 2026.

Anu (Akkadian: 𒀭𒀀𒉡 ANU, from 𒀭 an “Sky”, “Heaven”) or Anum, originally An (Sumerian: 𒀭 An),^[10] was the divine personification of the sky, king of the gods, and ancestor of many of the deities in ancient Mesopotamian religion. He was regarded as a source of both divine and human kingship, and opens the enumerations of deities in many Mesopotamian texts. At the same time, his role was largely passive, and he was not commonly worshipped. It is sometimes proposed that the Eanna temple located in Uruk originally belonged to him, rather than Inanna. While he is well attested as one of its divine inhabitants, there is no evidence that the main deity of the temple ever changed; Inanna was already associated with it in the earliest sources. After it declined, a new theological system developed in the same city under Seleucid rule, resulting in Anu being redefined as an active deity. As a result he was actively worshipped by inhabitants of the city in the final centuries of the history of ancient Mesopotamia.

Multiple traditions regarding the identity of Anu’s spouse existed, though three of them—Ki, Urash, and Antu—were at various points in time equated with each other, and all three represented earth, similar to how he represented heaven. In a fourth tradition, more sparsely attested, his wife was the goddess Nammu instead. In addition to listing his spouses and children, god lists also often enumerated his various ancestors, such as Anshar or Alala. A variant of one such family tree formed the basis of the Enūma Eliš.

Anu briefly appears in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh, in which his daughter Ishtar (the Akkadian counterpart of Inanna) persuades him to give her the Bull of Heaven so that she may send it to attack Gilgamesh. The incident results in the death of the Bull of Heaven and a leg being thrown at Ishtar’s head. In another myth, Anu summons the mortal hero Adapa before him for breaking the wing of the south wind. Anu orders for Adapa to be given the food and water of immortality, which Adapa refuses, having been warned beforehand by Enki that Anu will offer him the food and water of death. In the Hurrian myths about Kumarbi, known chiefly from their Hittite translations, Anu is a former ruler of the gods, who was overthrown by Kumarbi, who bit off his genitals and gave birth to the weather god Teshub. It is possible that this narrative was later the inspiration for the castration of Ouranos in Hesiod’s Theogony. It has also been proposed that in the Hellenistic period Anu might have been identified with Zeus, though this remains uncertain.

Character

Anu was a divine representation of the sky,^[11] as indicated by his name, which simply means “sky” in Sumerian.^[12] In Akkadian, it was spelled as Anu, and was written either logographically (^dAN) or syllabically (^da-nu(m)).^[10] In Sumerian texts, unlike the names of other deities, his was never prefaced by the dingir sign, referred to as the “divine determinative” in modern literature, since it would result in unnecessary repetition, as the same sign was also read as an.^[13] In addition to referring to sky and heaven and to Anu, the same sign could also be read as dingir or ilu, the generic term “god” in, respectively, Sumerian and Akkadian.^[10] As the number 60 was associated with him,^[14] the corresponding numeral could represent his name,^[10] and in esoteric texts by extension also the other readings of the sign DINGIR.^[15]

Anu was regarded as the supreme god,^[10][16] and the major god lists, such as An = Anum, place him on top of the pantheon.^[9] He could be described as the king of the gods,^[17] and was believed to be the source of all legitimate power, who bestowed the right to rule upon gods and kings alike.^[16][10] The highest god in the pantheon was said to possess the anûtu or anuti (^da-nu-ti), which means “heavenly power”^[10] or more literally Anuship.^[18] In the Babylonian Enûma Eliš, the gods praise Marduk, shouting “Your word is Anu!”^[10]

Although Anu was a very important deity, his nature was often ambiguous and ill-defined.^[16] The number of myths focusing on him is small^[19] and he was only rarely actively worshiped.^[20] His position has therefore been described as that of a “figurehead” and “otiose deity” by Assyriologist Paul-Alain Beaulieu.^[21] Wilfred G. Lambert characterized his position as head of the pantheon as “always somewhat nominal” and noted that “Enlil in practice wielded greater power” according to the Mesopotamians.^[22] Beaulieu similarly states that functionally the active head god was Enlil and later Marduk in Babylonia and Ashur in Assyria, not Anu.^[23] Evidence from Lagash indicates that at least in the Early Dynastic period, during the reign of Eannatum and Entemena, it was Enlil, rather than Anu, who was the head of the pantheon of this city, though later offering lists provide evidence on the contrary, possibly indicating a change occurred during the reign of either the Sargonic dynasty or Gudea.^[24] Xianhua Wang points out that in the Early Dynastic period, the rulers who mention Anu in the inscriptions and refer to him as lugal kur-kur, “king of the lands,” seem to be connected with either Ur or Uruk, while elsewhere the same epithet designates Enlil instead.^[25] A text known from copies from Shuruppak and Ebla only refers to Anu as the divine “king of Uruk.”^[26] In later inscriptions from the period of the Old Babylonian Empire, Enlil could be mentioned both alongside Anu or on his own as the head of the pantheon.^[27] A trinity consisting of both of them and Ea is also attested.^[28] Only in Uruk in the final centuries of the first millennium BCE a change occurred, and Anu was reinvented by theologians as an active god.^[23]

Astral role
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In Mesopotamian astronomy, the sky was divided into three zones, with the stars closest to the pole belonging to Enlil and those close to the equator to Ea.[28] The stars located between these two zones were the domain of Anu.[28] All three were referred to as the “Ways” of the respective deities.[29] Astronomer John G. Rogers assumes that the boundaries of each Way were at 17°N and 17°S.[30] The division is best attested in the astronomical treatise MUL.APIN.[28] The date of its composition is unknown, though it is known that it is more recent than the Old Babylonian period, and the oldest reference to the tripartite division of the sky comes from a document from the thirteenth century BCE, a version of the so-called Prayer to the Gods of the Night, whose oldest copies do not mention this concept yet.[28]

In Seleucid Uruk, Anu’s astral role was extended further, and in a text composed in year 71 of the Seleucid era (216/215 BCE) he is described as responsible for the entire firmament.[31] Furthermore, two circumpolar stars started to be called the “Great Anu and Antu of Heaven,” and received offerings as if they were deities.[31] They typically appear alongside the other seven major celestial bodies which were known to Mesopotamian astronomers in the late first millennium BCE: the sun, the moon, and the planets Nebēru (Jupiter), Dilbat (Venus), Šiḫṭu (Mercury), Kayamānu (Saturn), and Ṣalbatānu (Mars).

Iconography
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Anu almost never appears in Mesopotamian artwork and has no known recognizable anthropomorphic iconography.[16] References to him holding typical symbols of divine kingship, such as a scepter and a ring-shaped object, are known from textual sources.[33]

A text from the Kassite period explains that Anu’s symbol was a horned crown on a pedestal.[34] It is attested on some kudurru (boundary stones),[34] where it is typically present in the upper half of the decoration, below the symbols of Ishtar, Shamash and Sin, who were depicted on the very top of such monuments due to representing celestial bodies.[35] Anu was also depicted in the form of a horned crown in Neo-Assyrian reliefs.[36] According to Andrew R. George, references to the “seat” of a deity known from various topographical texts from both Babylonia and Assyria likely also refer to a representation in the form of an emblem placed on a pedestal.[37] It has been pointed out that Anu’s symbolic depictions were identical to Enlil’s.[38] A similar symbol could also represent Assur in the Neo-Assyrian period.[36] All three of these gods could be depicted in this form in the same reliefs.[36]

Associations with other deities
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Spouses
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A foundation figurine of king Lugal-kisalsi. The inscription mentions Nammu and Anu as wife and husband.[39]
Ki, “earth,” is well attested as Anu’s spouse.[13] Her name was commonly written without a divine determinative, and she was usually not regarded as a personified goddess.[40][13] Another of Anu’s spouses was Urash.[41] According to Frans Wiggermann, she is his most commonly attested wife.[4] She is well attested starting with the Sargonic period and continues to appear as a wife of Anu often until the Old Babylonian period.[42] A different, male, deity named Urash served as the tutelary god of Dilbat.[43] Wiggermann proposes that while Ki, as generally agreed, represented earth as a cosmogonic element,[40] Urash was a divine representation of arable land.[44] He suggests translating her name as “tilth,”[4] though its etymology and meaning continue to be a matter of debate.[42] A single Neo-Assyrian god list known from three copies appears to combine Ki and Urash into a single deity, dki-uraš.[45][46] An early incorrect reading of this entry was dki-ib, which early Assyriologist Daniel David Luckenbill assumed to be a reference to the Egyptian god Geb, an identification now regarded as impossible.[47][46]

The goddess Antu is also attested as a wife of Anu.[48] Her name is etymologically an Akkadian feminine form of Anu.[46] The god list An = Anum equates her with Ki,[49] while a lexical text from the Old Babylonian period – with Urash.[46] There is evidence that like the latter, she could be considered a goddess associated with the earth.[40] She is already attested in the third millennium BCE, possibly as early as in the Early Dynastic period in a god list from Abu Salabikh,[46] though no references to her are known from Uruk from before the first millennium BCE, and even in the Neo-Babylonian period she only appears in a single letter.[50] However, she is attested as Anu’s wife in documents from the Seleucid period from this city,[31] and at that point in time became its lead goddess alongside her husband.[51]

An inscription on a votive figurine of king Lugal-kisalsi (or Lugal-giparesi), who ruled over Uruk and Ur in the twenty-fourth century BCE, refers to Nammu as the wife of Anu.[39] Julia Krul proposes that this was a traditional pairing in Early Dynastic Uruk,[52] but according to Frans Wiggermann no other direct references to Nammu as Anu’s wife are known.[4] A possible exception is an Old Babylonian incantation which might refer to her as “pure one of An,” but this attestation is uncertain.[4]

regarded as their daughter.[78] However, as noted by Olga Drewnowska-Rymarz, direct references to Nanaya as the daughter of Inanna are not common, and it is possible this epithet was not treated literally, but rather as an indication of closeness between them.[76] Furthermore, Nanaya could also be regarded as a daughter of the male Urash, and was sometimes specifically called his firstborn daughter.[79]

In late sources, Nisaba could be called a daughter of Anu.[1] However, as noted by Wilfred G. Lambert at least one text “seems to imply a desire not to have Anu as Nisaba’s father,”[80] and instead makes her the daughter of Irḫan, in this context identified with Ea and understood as a cosmic river, “father of the gods of the universe.”[81]

While Inanna (Ishtar) could be regarded as the daughter of Anu and Antu, the view that she was a daughter of Nanna[82] and Ningal is agreed to be the most commonly attested tradition regarding her parentage.[83] While the “Standard Babylonian” version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an astronomical text and the Hymn to the Queen of Nippur refer to her directly as Anu’s daughter, according to Paul-Alain Beaulieu it is not impossible that these statements do not reflect parentage but merely indirect descent, with an implied genealogy in which Anu was the father of Enlil, grandfather of Nanna and great-grandfather of Inanna.[82] Furthermore, the hymn in mention also addresses her as a daughter of the moon god.[84]

Ishtaran was at least sometimes described as a son of Anu and Urash, and as a result the Old Babylonian Nippur god list associates him with Uruk.[85] He also could be referred to as Anu Rabu (AN.GAL), “the great Anu,”[1] but Wouter Henkelman proposes this epithet is instead a sign that a connection existed between him and the Elamite god Napirisha, whose name was written with the same combination of cuneiform signs.[86] It is possible that in the late first millennium BCE attempts at syncretizing Ishtaran and Anu were made during a period of cooperation between the theologians from Uruk, Nippur and Der, but direct evidence is presently lacking.[87]

Further deities attested as children of Anu include the medicine goddesses Ninisina and Ninkarrak (also directly identified as daughters of his wife Urash),[88] Bau (who could be called his firstborn daughter),[89] the weaver goddess Uttu (in a single source),[90] the messenger god Papsukkal,[91] Geshtinanna (in a hymn of Shulgi, which also mentions Urash as her mother),[42] the fire god Gibil (and through association with him also Nuska),[92] Šiḫṭu, the divine representation of the planet Mercury (in Seleucid Uruk),[93] and possibly the male Urash.[94] Whether Anu was the father of Shara in the tradition of his cult center, Umma, cannot be determined with a certainty, as the most direct reference, the phrase aia DINGIR ù-TU-zu in a hymn, has two possible translations: “your father An who engendered you,” or “your divine father who engendered you.”[95] Additionally, some references to Anu as the father of a specific deity might be metaphorical or indirect, as in the case of Nanna (typically a son of Enlil and Ninlil)[96] or Nungal.[97]

Anu could also be regarded as the father of various demons.[98] Lamashtu was viewed his daughter.[99] A group of seven, eight or nine Asakku demons called “the sons of Anu” is also known.[100] In a text referred to as the Nippur Compendium by modern researchers, Latarak is identified both as an Asakku and as a son of Anu.[101] The Epic of Erra describes the Sebitti as his creations, subsequently given to the eponymous god as weapons.[102

it has also been argued that two separate lineages of gods appear in the prologue of the Kumarbi myth, and therefore that Alalu and Anu should not be regarded as father and son in Hurrian sources.[118] Kumarbi is directly referred to as Alalu’s “seed” in the Song of Kummarbi.[119] He also addresses himself as “Alalu’s son” in another myth belonging to the same cycle, Song of Ḫedammu.[120] The order of deities in international treaties also supports the notion that Alalu and Kumarbi belong to the same line, but Anu does not.[121] Hittitologist Gary Beckman notes that the two lines were seemingly only united with the birth of the new generation of gods (Teshub, Tashmishu and others), a result of Kumarbi’s castration of Anu,[122] which resulted in a “burden,” Anu’s seed, being placed inside him.[119] The process is poetically compared to production of bronze from tin and copper.[119]

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1. Wikipedia Editors. “Anu”. Wikipedia. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anu> Accessed 16 Feb 2026. Accessed 03 Mar 2026.