Enlil

In Sumerian and Babylonian mythology, the head of the heavenly court, and the god of storms and the air (later also the land). He sprang from the union of the god An (Heaven) and goddess Ki (Earth). With the deities Anu and Ea, Enlil formed the oldest and supreme triad of gods. His greatest weapon was the flood. According to a stone pillar in Ur, the town's destruction in a storm was his work.

Enlil's chief shrine was at Nippur (modern Niffer or Nuffar) where he was worshipped until the end of the pre-Christian era. In later Babylonian astronomy ‘the way of Enlil’ was identified with the constellation of Ursa Major (the Great Bear).