Enki

Son of Nammu, the primeval sea; he is the lord of the abzu (the watery abyss), of semen, and of wisdom. He is god of water, creation, and fertility and also holds dominion over the land. Enki is the keeper of me, the divine laws. "Enki is the god of wisdom--but this is a bad translation. His wisdom is not of the old wisdom of an old man, but rather of knowledge of how to do things, especially occult thing. 'He astonishes even the other gods with shocking solutions to apparently impossible problems.' He is a sympathetic god for the most part, who assists humankind." (238)

"Enki somehow understood the connection between language and the brain, knew how to manipulate it." (259)

"Enki has the ability to ascend into the universe of language and see it before his eyes. That gave him power to create nam-shubs. And nam-shubs had the power to alter the functioning of the brain and body." (259)

"Enki's most important role is as the creator and guardian of the me and the gis-hur, the 'key words' and 'patterns' that rule the universe." (240)

"Enki's water--his semen, his data, his me--flow throughout the country of Sumer and cause it to flourish." (241)

• me
• nam-shub
• Nam-shub of Enki

Daughter of Nanna and Ningal and is the goddess of love and war. There are many stories of Inanna one in particular has her compared to the Greek goddess Persephone and the changing of the seasons. Then there is the story of Inanna and Enki which she gets Enki drunk and tricks him into giving her more me so that she can spread them to members of her cult at Erech. Enki sobers and tries to retrieve the me but is unsuccessful Stephenson takes a creative license and has Inanna stealing the me from Enki. She then releases the me into civilization. "Inanna was known as the queen of all the great me." (295) "Inanna went to the Abzu--the watery fortress in the city of Eridu where Enki stored up the me--and got Enki to give her all the me. This is how the me was released into civilization." (295-296)

Asherah was a Sumerian goddess, she is mentioned as Ashratum, bride of Anu, an Akkadian god. Asherah is associated with the sea, as protector of sea travellers and guide to ships as the 'Turqoise Lady'; the 'Lion Lady' and was represented as a lion with a human female head; the 'Serpent Lady' represented by bronze serpent forms and the caduceus. "She (Asherah) was the consort of El, who is also known as Yahweh." (212) Stephenson associates Asherah as the originator of a virus that has been passed throughout history. First as a religion then as a biological component:

"He (Lagos) considered the Asherah virus to be more malignant, capable of being spread through exchange of bodily fluids."
"...you may wish to examine herpes simplex, a virus that takes up residence in the nervous system and never leaves. It is capable of carrying new genes into existing neurons and genetically reengineering them. Modern gene therapists us it for this purpose. Lagos thought that herpes simplex might be a modern, benign descendant of Asherah."
"It seems that Asherah was a carrier of a viral infection. The deuteronomists somehow realized this and extermined her by blocking all the vectors by which she infected new victims." (215)

"So did Lagos think that the Asherah virus actually altered the DNA of brain cells."
"Yes. This is the backbone of his (Lagos) hypothesis that the virus was able to transmute itself from a biologically transmitted string of DNA into a set of behaviors." (216)

"She (Asherah) is a goddes of the erotic and of fertility. She also has a destructive, vindictive side.
El and Asherah often adopt human babies and let them nurse on Asherah--in one text, she is wet nurse to seventy divine sons." (235)