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Oannes, in Mesopotamian mythology, an amphibious being who taught mankind wisdom. Oannes, as described by the Babylonian priest Berosus, had the form of a fish but with the head of a man under his fish’s head and under his fish’s tail the feet of a man. In the daytime he came up to the seashore of the Persian Gulf and instructed mankind in writing, the arts, and the sciences. Oannes was probably the emissary of Ea, god of the freshwater deep and of wisdom.
Oannes is the fish-man of Mesopotamian tradition who, in the account of the Babylonian priest Berossus, rose from the sea to teach humanity. In the cuneiform lists of the seven sages, the Apkallu, the first sage is called Uanna, and Oannes is a Greek form of that name. The figure belongs to the wider world of Sumer and later Babylon.
Description
Berossus describes Oannes as having the body of a fish, with a man’s head beneath the fish’s head. A man’s feet came out from under the fish’s tail. He spoke with a human voice, spent the day among people and went back into the sea at sunset.
The Account of Berossus
Berossus was a priest of Bel (Marduk) in Babylon. He wrote his Babyloniaca, a history of Babylonia in three books, in Greek around 290 to 278 BC for the Seleucid king Antiochus I. The original is lost. Parts survive in later writers such as Alexander Polyhistor, Apollodorus, Abydenus, Josephus and Eusebius, whose Chronicon preserves the passage on Oannes.
The best-known English version is the one in Isaac Preston Cory’s Ancient Fragments, translated from Polyhistor’s excerpt:
In the first year there appeared, from that part of the Erythræan sea which borders upon Babylonia, an animal destitute of reason, by name Oannes, whose whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish; that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice too, and language, was articulate and human; and a representation of him is preserved even to this day. This Being was accustomed to pass the day among men; but took no food at that season; and he gave them an insight into letters and sciences, and arts of every kind. He taught them to construct cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the earth, and shewed them how to collect the fruits; in short, he instructed them in every thing which could tend to soften manners and humanize their lives. From that time, nothing material has been added by way of improvement to his instructions.
Berossus, from Alexander Polyhistor, in I. P. Cory, Ancient Fragments, 1832 edition, sacred-texts.com (no page numbers)
Berossus says Oannes came from the sea and taught people writing, science, building, law and farming.
Cory’s footnote on “destitute of reason” records that Jacob Bryant read the phrase as “endowed with” reason. Many later retellings follow Bryant’s reading.
The passage goes on to say that other creatures like Oannes appeared later, and that Oannes wrote about the origin of mankind. According to Berossus, Oannes taught the creation story known as the Enūma Eliš.
The Apkallu
The Apkallu are seven sages, sometimes shown as part man and part fish or bird. Cuneiform texts link them to wisdom and to the kings before the Flood. The best known is Adapa. The word apkallu, “wise one”, is also used as an epithet of the god Ea. See Enki, Lord of Earth.
Assyrian palace reliefs and cylinder seals show Apkallu figures as fish-men or bird-men. One relief, probably of an Apkallu, comes from the temple of Ninurta at Nimrud. Collections such as the British Museum, the Louvre, the Pergamon Museum, the Iraq Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art hold Mesopotamian reliefs, seals and tablets of this kind.
For other fish-bodied teachers, see Dagon, The Nommos and Which Deities Are Linked to Fish and Water?.
