Edin (Sumerian term)

Edin (Eden in the Bible) is a sumerian term meaning "steppe" or "plain", written ideographically with the cuneiform sign EDIN . It is featured on the Gudea cylinders as the name of a watercourse from which plaster is taken to build a temple for Ningirsu. "Clay plaster, harmoniously blended clay taken from the Edin canal, has been chosen by Lord Ningirsu with his holy heart, and was painted by Gudea with the splendors of heaven, as if kohl were being poured all over it." Thorkild Jacobsen called it the "Idedin" canal, suggesting it was an as yet unidentified "Desert Canal", which he considered "probably refers to an abandoned canal bed that had filled with the characteristic purplish dune sand still seen in southern Iraq." Friedrich Delitzsch was the first amongst numerous scholars to suggest the Jewish and Christian term Eden traced back to this term. The later Babylonian term is "edinu".