[OT] Sumerian Cosmogony

Sumer - People from N.E. began settling Mesopotamia (meaning between rivers - the Tigris and Euphrates; swamp land at the head of the Persian gulf where Eden is thought to exist) about 5000 BC.  They later invented the wheel & writing.  Each city was ruled by a goddess or god with an elaborate priesthood with high priests ("En") discerning the god's will from a ziggurat, a temple shrine atop stairs with a purification pond in front (early ziggurats were elevated {one step}, later developing into stairs).

Sumerian pantheon was called Anunnaki (Anu = Heaven, Na = And, Ki = Earth)

The cosmology dates from approximately 3100 BCE

• The primordial sea (abyss) is called Nammu (the mother of all)
• The mother goddess Nammu (or Ninhursag "exalted lady" or Nintu, "the lady who gave birth," later Tiamat) creates "An" or Akkadian "Anu" (heaven) and "Ki" (earth). (Compare Gen 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.")  An is a hard metalic shell lying on Ki.
• The union of Ki and An produced Enlil god of air, wind and storm (En=Lord or high priest, Lil = Air/wind.  Yahweh has also been depicted as a storm god at times. Compare "a mighty wind [ruah] swept over the waters." [Gen 1:2, NAB])  He is usually portrayed in human form but also appears as a snake to the humans eyes. 
  
• Enlil lifted An away from Ki providing a space for humans to live, and filled with it with Lil.
  
• The bright aspects of Lil form the sun, moon and stars
• Enlil creates living things in the Lil.
• Enki is the son of Enlil and god of the freshwater sea beneath the earth ("the abyss," later called "apsu"), source of the Tigris and Euphrates (presumed by the Sumerians to come from underground).  Sometimes he is considered the god of the fertile earth.
  
• Enki (later Akkadian Ea) creates man from clay in the image of the gods (compare to Adam) to relieve the lesser gods (igigi) of their labor.
  
• A related myth has Enlil and other powerful gods enslaving the lesser gods to work for them.  They rebel while Enlil sleeps and when he awakes they negotiate a solution.  Male-female pairs from clay mingled with the blood of Geshtu-e (or Kingu), "a god who had intelligence", who was sacrificed for this reason.  Mankind then become slaves instead of the lesser gods (note that Sumerians used slaves to support their hierarchical priestly structure).
• More info at Cosmology and Cosmogony of Ancient Civilizations; Wikipedia, Sumerian Religion; Wikipedia Mesopotamian Mythology