The Sumerian texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh often refer to the Abzu. It seems to be underground or deep geological water. Sometimes it is philosophically or metaphysically associated with wisdom. It is also a place of refuge. It has supernatural connotations like the Greeks had about the River Styx: it has a ferryman, for example. Maybe it was known to the Sumerians such as Enoch (Enmenduranki) that deep down in the earth’s crust or deep under high mountains there are geodic holes in the surrounding rocks filled with water and salts and often superheated by magma with which they come into contact. These holes can become lined with huge crystals like massive versions of the geodes sold in geological specimen and semi-prescious stone shops and tourist shops. The Epic of Gilgamesh mentions Noah (Utnapishtim) being given refuge in the Abzu. Perhaps it is that supernatural power can be given people (even without the need of their death) to survive within such a massive water-filled chamber. Enoch’s description of several places has resemblance to such chambers after water is largely removed but leaving the crystals in some cases and sometimes with water running through like the River Styx. The dead reside in some such chambers and God in another. The philosphical nature of the Abzu on the other hand might be that it can be a parable for our inner wisdom and psyche. Take the saying ‘Still waters run deep’. This might explain in part why it is associated with wisdom and perhaps with EA or ENKI which might be personifications/deifications of wisdom like we see in the book of Proverbs. Enoch too associates wisdom with water from deep within: a saying alluded to by Jesus extending it to the Holy Spirit. Inverting the parable helps in understanding how a human might survive in the geological Abzu if placed there for refuge: just as wisdom within wells up like water inside a geode of the inner being so wisdom might well up within the literal Abzu to sustain the soul placed there. This comforts the soul constantly. For those dead souls or spirits in the special (Paradise?) place of the dead which unlike the others is refreshed with a river of water there might be this constant flow of comforting, sustaining wisdom.
