Adapa, the first of the
Mesopotamian seven sages, was a mythical figure who unknowingly refused the gift of
immortality. The story is first attested in the
Kassite period (14th century BC), in fragmentary tablets from
Tell el-Amarna, and from
Assur, of the late second millennium BC. Mesopotamian myth tells of seven
antediluvian sages, who were sent by
Ea, the wise god of
Eridu, to bring the arts of civilisation to humankind. The first of these, Adapa, also known as Uan, the name given as
Oannes by
Berossus, introduced the practice of the correct rites of religious observance as priest of the E'Apsu temple, at Eridu. The sages are described in
Mesopotamian literature as 'pure
paradu-fish, probably
carp, whose bones are found associated with the earliest shrine, and still kept as a holy duty in the precincts of Near Eastern
mosques and monasteries. Adapa as a fisherman was iconographically portrayed as a fish-man composite. The word Abgallu,
sage (Ab = water, Gal = great, Lu = man,
Sumerian) survived into
Nabatean times, around the 1st century, as
apkallum, used to describe the profession of a certain kind of
priest.