The Seven Sages (Apkallū)

The apkallū, the 'Seven Sages,' are legendary antediluvian wise men sent by the god Ea/Enki from the freshwater deep to bring humankind the arts of civilization — writing, law, temple-building, and the sciences — before the Flood. The first and greatest, Uanna (whom the Greek-writing priest Berossus calls Oannes), is pictured as part fish, part man, rising from the sea each day to teach and returning at night. In Mesopotamian thought the apkallū stand at the source of all learning, and later scholars and dynasties of scribes traced their authority back to them.