Adapa

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Adapa ( Old Babylonian a-da-ap-a ) is the main mythological character in an Old Babylonian tale that dates from around 2000 to 1600 BC. BC originated. The oldest copy comes from Amarna as a copy and is only partially preserved in several other clay tablets from the library of Aššurbanipal . Erich Ebeling equates Adapa with “ man ”, although there may be a mythological and etymological connection between the biblical Adam and Adapa .

Adapa is a mortal son of Enki from Eridu , his place of worship . His father Enki bequeathed the wisdom to him; Adapa was denied immortality. During a boat trip Adapa pronounces a curse against the south wind Zu after he capsized Adapa's boat and destroyed the fishing net. Due to the power of the curse, the south wind can no longer blow inland. The effect of the curse angered the supreme god to as mortals can not cause curses. An sees the fact that Adapa obviously has divine powers and asks him to come to him. On Enki's advice, Adapa arrives at Ans court by himself , passing the gatekeepers Ans, Dumuzi and Ningišzida in a mourning manner .

Dumuzi and Ningišzida offered him food and drinks on behalf of An . But Adapa, on advice from Enki, refused the food that was offered to him, as it could be food of death. However, An, who was so impressed by Adapa's honesty, wanted to give Adapa eternal life through food and to end the intolerable condition for the gods that a mortal had part of their powers. Thus Adapa missed the chance for humanity to achieve immortality . The god An was annoyed when he became aware of this, because so the “divine-human” combination of knowledge and death remained for Adapa and his descendants and thus for humanity.

Adapa is often referred to as an advisor to Alulim , the first king of Eridu on the Sumerian royal list . In pictures and drawings, Adapa is usually shown wearing clothes made from fish scales.

literature

  • Jan Assmann : Stone and Time: Man and Society in Ancient Egypt . Fink, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-7705-2681-3 , p. 59.
  • Giorgio Bucellati: Adapa, Genesis and the Notion of Faith . In: Ugarit research 5 . 1973, pp. 61-66.
  • Helmut Freydank u. a .: Lexicon of the Old Orient. Egypt * India * China * Western Asia , VMA-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1997 ISBN 3-928127-40-3
  • Brigitte Groneberg : The gods of the Mesopotamia. Cults, Myths, Epen , Artemis & Winkler, Stuttgart 2004 ISBN 3760823068
  • Sergio Angelo Picchioni: Il poemetto di Adapa - Assyriologia 6 - . Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, Budapest 1981

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. Erich Ebeling: Death and life according to the ideas of the Babylonians . de Gruyter, Berlin 1931, 27a.
  2. Jan Assmann: Stone and Time: Man and Society in Ancient Egypt . P. 59.
  3. For comparison, see also the motifs of the Greek Prometheus legend, in which Prometheus angered Zeus , father of the gods , because he brought fire to people.