to have been tribal in origin.
Each city was presided over by a deity who was the nominal owner of
the surrounding arable land, farms were rented or purchased from the
priesthood, and pasture was held in common. As in Egypt, where we
find, for instance, the artisan god Ptah supreme at Memphis, the sun
god Ra at Heliopolis, and the cat goddess Bast at Bubastis, the
various local Sumerian and Akkadian deities had distinctive
characteristics, and similarly showed a tendency to absorb the
attributes of their rivals. The chief deity of a state was the central
figure in a pantheon, which had its political aspect and influenced
the growth of local theology. Cities, however, did not, as a rule,
bear the names of deities, which suggests that several were founded
when Sumerian religion was in its early animistic stages, and gods and
goddesses were not sharply defined from the various spirit groups.

A distinctive and characteristic Sumerian god was Ea, who was supreme
at the ancient sea-deserted port of Eridu. He is identified with the
Oannes of Berosus,[31] who referred to the deity as "a creature
endowed with reason, with a body like that of a fish, with feet below
like those of a man, with a fish's tail". This description recalls the
familiar figures of Egyptian gods and priests attired in the skins of
the sacred animals from whom their powers were derived, and the fairy
lore about swan maids and men, and the seals and other animals who
could divest themselves of their "skin coverings" and appear in human
shape. Originally Ea may have been a sacred fish. The Indian creative
gods Brahma and Vishnu had fish forms. In Sanskrit literature Manu,
the eponymous "first man", is instructed by the fish to build a ship
in which to save himself when the world would be purged by the rising
waters. Ea befriended in similar manner the Babylonian Noah, called
Pir-napishtim, advising him to build a vessel so as to be prepared for
the approaching Deluge. Indeed the Indian legend appears to throw
light on the original Sumerian conception of Ea. It relates that when
the fish was small and in danger of being swallowed by other fish in a
stream it appealed to Manu for protection. The sage at once lifted up
the fish and placed it in a jar of water. It gradually increased in
bulk, and he transferred it next to a tank and then to the river
Ganges. In time the fish complained to Manu that the river was too
small for it, so he carried it to the sea. Fo