After fathering three more underworld-deities ( substitutes for Sin ), Enlil was allowed to return to Dilmun.

After six generations of Gods, in the Babylonian " Enuma Elish ", in the seventh generation, ( Akkadian " shapattu " or sabath ), the younger Igigi Gods, the sons and daughters of Enlil and Ninlil, go on strike and refuse their duties of keeping the creation working.

She tells her servant Ninshubur ( Lady Evening ), a reference to Inanna's role as the evening star, that if she does not return in three days, to get help from her father Anu, Enlil, king of the gods, or Enki.

Of his cult at Eridu, which goes back to the oldest period of Mesopotamian history, nothing definite is known except that his temple was also associated with Ninhursag's temple which was called Esaggila, " the lofty head house " ( E, house, sag, head, ila, high ; or Akkadian goddess = Ila ), a name shared with Marduk's temple in Babylon, pointing to a staged tower or ziggurat ( as with the temple of Enlil at Nippur, which was known as E-kur ( kur, hill )), and that incantations, involving ceremonial rites in which water as a sacred element played a prominent part, formed a feature of his worship.

The most notable architectural remains from early Mesopotamia are the temple complexes at Uruk from the 4th millennium BC, temples and palaces from the Early Dynastic period sites in the Diyala River valley such as Khafajah and Tell Asmar, the Third Dynasty of Ur remains at Nippur ( Sanctuary of Enlil ) and Ur ( Sanctuary of Nanna ), Middle Bronze Age remains at Syrian-Turkish sites of Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, Aleppo and Kultepe, Late Bronze Age palaces at Bogazkoy ( Hattusha ), Ugarit, Ashur and Nuzi, Iron Age palaces and temples at Assyrian ( Kalhu / Nimrud, Khorsabad, Nineveh ), Babylonian ( Babylon ), Urartian ( Tushpa / Van Kalesi, Cavustepe, Ayanis, Armavir, Erebuni, Bastam ) and Neo-Hittite sites ( Karkamis, Tell Halaf, Karatepe ).

Some of the most significant of these deities were Anu, Ea, Enlil, Ishtar ( Astarte ), Ashur, Shamash, Tammuz, Adad / Hadad, Sin ( Nanna ), Dagan, Ninurta, Nisroch, Nergal, Tiamat, Bel and Marduk.

2700 – 2600 BC ), said to have conquered Elam and built the temple of Enlil in Nippur.

In a long inscription that he made engraved on hundreds of stone vases dedicated to Enlil of Nippur, he boasts that his kingdom extended " from the Lower Sea ( Persian Gulf ), along the Tigris and Euphrates, to the Upper Sea " or Mediterranean.

The most notable architectural remains from early Mesopotamia are the temple complexes at Uruk from the 4th millennium BC, temples and palaces from the Early Dynastic period sites in the Diyala River valley such as Khafajah and Tell Asmar, the Third Dynasty of Ur remains at Nippur ( Sanctuary of Enlil ) and Ur ( Sanctuary of Nanna ), Middle Bronze Age remains at Syrian-Turkish sites of Ebla, Mari, Alalakh, Aleppo and Kultepe, Late Bronze Age palaces at Bogazkoy ( Hattusha ), Ugarit, Ashur and Nuzi, Iron Age palaces and temples at Assyrian ( Kalhu / Nimrud, Khorsabad, Nineveh ), Babylonian ( Babylon ), Urartian ( Tushpa / Van Kalesi, Cavustepe, Ayanis, Armavir, Erebuni, Bastam ) and Neo-Hittite sites ( Karkamis, Tell Halaf, Karatepe ).

Notable amongst these is the Enuma Anu Enlil ( astrological omens ), Šumma ālu ( terrestrial omens ), Šumma izbu ( anomalous births ), Alamdimmû ( physiognomic omens ), and Iškar Zaqīqu ( dream omens ).

After the days of Hammurabi, the cult of Marduk eclipsed that of Enlil ; although Nippur and the cult of Enlil enjoyed a period of renaissance during the four centuries of Kassite control in Babylonia ( c. 1570 BCE – 1157 BCE ), the definite and permanent triumph of Marduk over Enlil became felt within the Babylonian empire.

After another break, the text resumes, the flood is apparently over, and Ziusudra is prostrating himself before An ( Sky ) and Enlil ( Lordbreath ), who give him " breath eternal " and take him to dwell in Dilmun.

In Sumerian religion, Ninlil ( < sup > D </ sup > NIN. LÍL " lady of the open field " or " Lady of the Air "), also called Sud, in Assyrian called Mullitu, is the consort goddess of Enlil.

Nippur ( Sumerian: Nibru, often logographically recorded as, EN. LÍL < sup > KI </ sup >, " Enlil City ;" Akkadian: Nibbur ) was one of the most ancient of all the Sumerian cities.

It was the special seat of the worship of the Sumerian god Enlil, the " Lord Wind ," ruler of the cosmos subject to An alone.

Aplu, it is suggested, comes from the Akkadian Aplu Enlil, meaning " the son of Enlil ", a title that was given to the god Nergal, who was linked to Shamash, Babylonian god of the sun.

He called himself " The anointed priest of Anu " and " the great ensi of Enlil " and his daughter, Enheduanna, was installed as priestess to Nanna at the temple in Ur.

Some have suggested that this was Sargon's original employment for the king of Kish, giving him experience in effectively organising large groups of men ; a tablet reads, " Sargon, the king, to whom Enlil permitted no rival — 5, 400 warriors ate bread daily before him ".

In Mesopotamia, it was linked to the god Enlil, and also known as Shudun, " yoke ", or SHU-PA of unknown derivation in the Three Stars Each Babylonian star catalogues and later MUL. APIN around 1100 BC.

Enlil was the god of air in ancient Sumer.

The Etruscans coming from northern Anatolia also worshipped Apollo, and it may be that he was originally identical with Mesopotamian Aplu, an Akkadian title meaning " son ", originally given to the plague God Nergal, son of Enlil.

Enlil was considered to be the god of breath, wind, loft and breadth ( height and distance ).

The myth of Enlil and Ninlil discusses when Enlil was a young god, he was banished from Dilmun, home of the gods, to Kur, the underworld for raping a goddess named Ninlil.

Enlil was known as the inventor of the mattock ( a key agricultural pick, hoe, ax or digging tool of the Sumerians ) and caused plants to grow.

By his wife Ninlil or Sud, Enlil was father of the moon god Nanna / Suen ( in Akkadian, Sin ) and of Ninurta ( also called Ningirsu ).

By Ereshkigal Enlil was father of Namtar.

" Enlil was assimilated to the north " Pole of the Ecliptic ".

As Enlil was the only god who could reach the heaven god An he held sway over the other gods who were assigned tasks by his agent and would travel to Nippur to draw in his power.

Inscriptions found at Nippur, where extensive excavations were carried on during 1888 – 1900 by John P Peters and John Henry Haynes, under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, show that Enlil was the head of an extensive pantheon.

Enlil was also the God of weather.

A mortal known as Utnapishtim survived the flood through the help of another god, Ea, and he was made immortal by Enlil after Enlil's initial fury.

Amongst the Hurrians and later Hittites Nergal was known as Aplu, a name derived from the Akkadian Apal Enlil, ( Apal being the construct state of Aplu ) meaning " the son of Enlil ".

Anzu was a servant of the chief sky god Enlil, guard of the throne in Enlil's sanctuary, ( possibly previously a symbol of Anu ), from whom Anzu stole the Tablet of Destinies, so hoping to determine the fate of all things.

With the later rise to power of the Babylonians in the 18th century BCE, the king, Hammurabi, declared Marduk, a deity who before then had not been of significant importance, to a position of supremacy alongside Anu and Enlil.

He was vanquished by the heroic Akkadian deity Ninurta, using Sharur, his enchanted talking mace, after seeking the counsel of his father, the god Enlil.

Later Enlil disguised himself as the man of the boat, impregnating her with a fourth deity Enbilulu, god of rivers and canals.

Many Babylonian deities, myths and religious writings are singular to that culture ; for example, the uniquely Babylonian deity, Marduk, replaced Enlil as the head of the mythological pantheon.

These star catalogues, written on clay tablets, listed thirty-six stars: twelve for ' Anu ' along the celestial equator, twelve for ' Ea ' south of that, and twelve for ' Enlil ' to the north.

The oldest significant astronomical text that we possess is Tablet 63 of ' Enūma Anu Enlil ', the Venus tablet of Ammi-saduqa, which lists the first and last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years and is the earliest evidence that the phenomena of a planet were recognized as periodic.

Tablet I contains a creation myth about the Sumerian gods Anu, Enlil, and Enki, gods of sky, wind, and water, “ when gods were in the ways of men ” according to its incipit.

One of the most important of these early Mesopotamian deities was the god Enlil, who was originally a Sumerian divinity viewed as a king of the gods and a controller of the world, who was later adopted by the Akkadians.

Another was the Sumerian god Ea, who served a similar role to Enlil and became known as Anu amongst the Akkadians.

In the eleventh tablet of the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim " the faraway " is the wise king of the Sumerian city state of Shuruppak who, along with his unnamed wife, survived a flood sent by Enlil to drown every living thing on Earth.

Early translators of Akkadian believed that the ideogram for the god called in Sumerian Enlil was to be read as Bel in Akkadian.

Dagan is mentioned occasionally in early Sumerian texts but becomes prominent only in later Akkadian inscriptions as a powerful and warlike protector, sometimes equated with Enlil.

" Without corroboration in surviving texts, this surmise that the Babylonian version of the story is based upon a modified version of an older epic, in which Enlil, not Marduk, was the god who slew Tiamat, is more recently dismissed as " distinctly improbable ", in fact, Marduk has no precise Sumerian prototype.

The mes were originally collected by Enlil and then handed over to the guardianship of Enki who was to broker them out to the various Sumerian centers beginning with his own city of Eridu and continuing with Ur, Meluhha, and Dilmun.

He was identified by the Hurrians with Sumerian Enlil, and by the Ugaritians with El.

The aesthetics of this symmetrical position explains in part the birth of this religious figure: It originally dates from c. 3800 BC, and was the Sumerian symbol for the god of Lagash, Ninurta son of Enlil.

She first appears as a consort of Enlil in Sumerian mythology, and later becomes the Akkadian Damkina, consort of Enki / Ea and mother of the god Marduk.