Ki (Sumerian: ) was the

earth goddess Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

Sumerian religion Sumerian religion was the religion practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization found in recorded history and based in ancient Mesopotamia, and what is modern day Iraq. The Sumerians widely regarded their divinities as res ...

, chief consort of the sky god An. In some legends, Ki and An were brother and sister, being the offspring of

Anshar Anshar ( , , ) was a Mesopotamian god regarded as a primordial king of the gods. He was not actively worshiped. He was regarded as the father of Anu. In the first millennium BCE his name came to be used as a logographic representation of the ...

("Sky Pivot") and

Kishar In the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish, Kishar () is the daughter of Abzu and Lahmu, the first children of Tiamat In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( or , ) is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the ...

("Earth Pivot"), earlier personifications of the heavens and earth. By her consort Anu (also known as Anunna), Ki gave birth to

Anunnaki The Anunnaki (Sumerian language, Sumerian: , also transcribed as Anunaki, Annunaki, Anunna, Ananaki and other variations) are a group of deity, deities of the ancient Sumerian religion, Sumerians, Akkadian Empire, Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylo ...

; the most prominent of these deities being

Enlil Enlil, later known as Elil and Ellil, is an List of Mesopotamian deities, ancient Mesopotamian god associated with wind, air, earth, and storms. He is first attested as the chief deity of the Sumerian pantheon, but he was later worshipped by t ...

, god of the air. According to legends, the heavens and earth were once inseparable until Enlil was born; Enlil cleaved the heavens and earth in two. An carried away the heavens. Ki, in company with Enlil, took the Earth. Ki marries her son, Enlil, and from this union all the plant and animal life on Earth is produced. Some authorities question whether Ki was regarded as a deity since there is no evidence of a

cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...

and the name appears only in a limited number of Sumerian creation texts. Samuel Noah Kramer identifies Ki with the Sumerian mother goddess

Ninhursag Ninḫursaĝ ( ''Ninḫarsang''; ), sometimes transcribed Ninursag, Ninḫarsag, or Ninḫursaĝa, also known as Damgalnuna or Ninmah, was the ancient Sumerian mother goddess of the mountains, and one of the seven great deities of Sumer. She ...

and claims that they were originally the same figure. She later developed into the Babylonian and Akkadian goddess Antu, consort of the god Anu (from Sumerian An).

Family

Ki was the wife and chief consort of Anu, the god of the Sky. They are thought to be brother and sister, who could both be offspring of the god named

(the sky pivot) and

(the earth pivot). This makes Anshar and Kishar her father and mother. Ki was a mother to one child, who was named Enlil. Her son Enlil, the god of Air, was part of the Anunnaki. Ki ends up marrying her son, Enlil, and according to the myth this was how the plants and animals were created on Earth.

Cuneiform sign

Cuneiform Ki (k) (I) (Borger 2003 nr. 737; U+121A0 ) is the sign for "earth". It is also read as GI₅, GUNNI (=KI.NE) "hearth", KARAŠ (=KI.KAL.BAD) "encampment, army", KISLAḪ (=KI.UD) "threshing floor", and SUR₇ (=KI.GAG). In Akkadian orthography, it functions as a determiner for toponyms and has the syllabic values ''gi'', ''ge'', ''qi'', and ''qe''.

References

* ''Encyclopedia of Gods'', Kyle Cathie Limited, 2002 *
Creation and Chaos : A Reconsideration of Hermann Gunkel's Chaoskampf Hypothesis
', edited by JoAnn Scurlock, and Richard H. Beal, Penn State University Press, 2013. ''ProQuest Ebook Central''. * Holland, Glenn S.
Gods in the Desert : Religions of the Ancient Near East
', Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. ''ProQuest Ebook Central''. * Leick, Gwendolyn, and Dr, Gwendo Leick.
A Dictionary of Ancient near Eastern Mythology
', Taylor & Francis Group, 1991. ''ProQuest Ebook Central''. *https://www.geni.com/people/Ki-Goddess-of-the-Earth/6000000003645882297 Mesopotamian goddesses Earth goddesses Underworld goddesses {{Semitic-lang-stub