OANNES, The name of a nian god found in the fragments of Berosus (q.v.). It is said that in the first year of the foundation of Babylon he came out of the Persian Oulf. lle is deseribed as having the bead and body of a fish, to which were added a human head and feet under the fish's head and at the lie lived among men during the daytime. without, however, taking any food. and retired at sunset to the sea, from which he had emerged. ()alines instrneted men in the use of letters, and in all the principal arts and sciences of civiliza tion. which he communicated to them. The story has not yet been found among the remains of Babylonian literature, and we are dependent, therefore, largely upon conjeetore in attempts to identify Oannes with any of the Babylonian deities known. lie is evidently the deity sup posed to reside in the Persian Coif. and this hot points to his identilleation with Ea, the chief deity of Erbil', a city that Wirt' lay :1 t the Per sian Oulf. Ea is a prominent figure in the re
ligious literature and is distinetly a water-deity. lit' is also portrayed as the souree of wisdom t II whom Martha; I see MEttooActil. the head of the Babylonian pantheon, goes for advice. and the fact that Mardnk is represented as the son of Ea points to the great antiquity of the Ea cult and the reverence in which it Was 111411. 011 Assyrian sculptures and on seal cylinders we find frequently the body of a man. hut covered with fish scales, and it is likely that this is a representation of Ea. -' dilliculty, however, re in accounting for the curious on me, which yet must in some way lie eonneeted with Ea. Con sult ,list Re/igion of Babylonia and Assyria