Igigi: Why Did the Junior Gods Go on Strike?
The junior gods of Babylonian myth who dug the rivers, went on strike, and forced the creation of humankind.
The Igigi are junior gods in Akkadian texts. In the Atrahasis epic they dig the canals for the Anunnaki, then go on strike, and Enki's solution is to create humans to carry the load.
The Igigi are a group of gods in Akkadian texts. Their exact membership is never clear, and in some texts the name seems to mean simply 'the gods of heaven' as a pair with the Anunnaki, 'the gods of earth and underworld'. In the most famous story about them, though, they are the workforce.
The Old Babylonian epic Atrahasis opens with the line usually translated 'When the gods, like men, bore the work'. The great Anunnaki set the Igigi to dig the canals and heap up the mountains. After thousands of years of toil they burn their tools, surround the house of Enlil at night, and refuse to go on. Enlil wants to punish their leader, but the other gods agree that the labor really is too hard.
The solution is Enki's: make a new creature to carry the load. A god is slain, and the birth goddess mixes his flesh and blood with clay to create the first humans, so that 'man shall bear the load of the gods'. The Igigi are thus the reason humans exist, at least in this tradition.
Modern ancient-astronaut writers treat the strike as a labor dispute among visiting engineers. Scholars read it as a charter myth that explains why humans must work: in Mesopotamian thought, people existed to serve the gods by farming, building, and feeding the temples. Either way, the story preserves an ancient idea that is still unsettling: human beings were created to take over a job the gods no longer wanted to do.
The oldest story of a strike in literature is a strike by gods, who burn their tools and besiege their boss's house at night.
Scholars see Atrahasis as a theological explanation of human labor and temple service, not a record of historical events; the Igigi and Anunnaki labels also vary from text to text.
