Where Gods Dwell

Question: Where did you get your information on Shamu? The research I did brought up Dilmun as the supposed home of the Anunna.

Hey , it’s Dilmun! Let’s talk about it!

Basically, we don’t actually know very much about the Overworld of the Mesopotamian gods; they certainly had one, in that gods definitely didn’t live anywhere near humans and there were certain events and locations that were far beyond the reach of mortal mankind, but it is seldom described or alluded to as anything more than where the gods happen to be at the moment. We don’t get the convenient descriptions of otherworldly paradises we have with other mythologies’ loving details about places like Asgard, Mount Meru or Takamagahara, so we kind of have to wing it with what we’ve got. Incidentally, the other oldest civilization on Scion’s roster, the Egyptians, similarly do not describe an Overworld, which has led some scholars to theorize that either ancient civilizations didn’t think of the abodes of the gods the same way those that followed them did, or that such cosmological details must be the first to erode in the loss of ancient religions over time.

A lot of people turn to Dilmun as the possible Overworld stand-in for the Anunna, pretty much because it’s practically the only named place, apart from the mortal cities that worship the gods, in most of Mesopotamian myth. In at least one version of the myth of the creation of the world from the earth and water powers of Enki and Ninhursag, Dilmun is named as the site of the event, and at least one deity – Ninlil, later the wife of Enlil – is said to have come from there. So it’s not a bad guess for an Overworld, all in all, and often serves as a stand-in.

However, we’re pretty sure Dilmun’s not the Anunna Overworld, and we have plenty of reasons. Ninlil’s residence there actually argues against it, in our opinion; it’s there that Enlil first sees her and kicks off their giant and sordid courtship myth, but the fact that the myths make a point of saying she lives there suggests that most of the other gods don’t, which is backed up by the fact that Enlil is traveling when he happens to spy her. It seems more likely that Ninlil lives in Dilmun, but that the other gods live elsewhere; and Ninlil’s “home” being in Dilmun may simply refer to that city being dedicated to her worship, the same way Uruk might be said to be Ishtar’s “home”. And Dilmun probably was a city, or possibly a kingdom, that existed in the real world; we have records in various Mesopotamian sources of Dilmun being a trade partner, vassal state and provider of goods to the Sumerians, Assyrians and later Babylonians, suggesting that it was a real place that they had cultural contact with. Scholars usually place its probable location in the Arabian coastal countries of Kuwait and Bahrain, since Mesopotamian mentions of it indicate that they did most of their trade by sea; this is especially supported by the myth of the creation of the world occurring there, since that story stresses that it took place at the place where Tiamat (salt water) and Apsu (fresh water) were able to mingle, and Bahrain was famous at the time for its fresh-water rivers that were conveniently placed to flow up from the sea. And, since Kuwait and Bahrain are to the south of the Mesopotamian empires, saying that Ninlil lives there may just be a poetic way of reminding the audience that she is the goddess of the south wind, and therefore “comes from the south”.

Dilmun’s use in Mesopotamian mythology doesn’t have many hallmarks of an Overworld, but it does strongly resemble the Middle Eastern habit of setting stories of magical happenings in some “exotic” land – one that they knew existed, but that they seldom visited themselves. Saying that something occurred in Dilmun was likely a shorthand way of saying that it was far enough away to be mysterious and foreign, but still within the realm of the known territory of the world, much like Canaanite myths used Egypt as a faraway location for some myths or the Greeks referred to India as a semi-mythical, faraway place in their stories. No one has been able to find the site where Dilmun or its cities might have stood, but considering that the area has been alternately flooded and buried under desert countless times over the centuries and that it’s often very difficult to find ancient archaeological sites from Sumerian times even when that isn’t happening, that’s not particularly surprising.

So, we didn’t want to use Dilmun as an Overworld, since we’re pretty sure it wasn’t one. But in that case, where do the Anunna live? Like the Netjer, they have no described residence aside from occasional mentions of them going to one anothers’ “houses” and the like. So we were forced to invent something as appropriate as we could come up with. Shamu – the name of which means “heaven” in ancient Sumerian – is designed to mirror the probable palaces and luxuries of Mesopotamian royalty of the time, with the individual residences of the gods personalized to their ancient cities and devotees when we know about them, and their personal tastes based on their associations when we don’t. We know a few things from ancient texts – that Enki lives in Apsu, for example, is explicitly mentioned – but the rest was a blank slate, so we whipped up our best estimate of what kind of place Anunna Scions might eventually look forward to visiting.