Enki and Ninmah

Anonymous / tradition · c. 18th century BC (Old Babylonian copies of an older Sumerian composition) · Nippur (Iraq) · epic

Enki and the birth goddess Ninmah compete to shape humans from clay, and when Ninmah's creations include the blind, the lame, and the infertile, Enki insists on finding each one a place in society, arguing that a functioning order has room even for the bodies it did not intend.