Abstract The traditions and beliefs about the Mesopotamian deity Enki/Ea – the god of water, wisdom, magic, and creation – formed a major part of the Sumerian and Babylonian religious text material. They cover a period from the 3rd to the 1st millennium BCE. This paper traces the history of these traditions focussing on the later periods, reviews the mythological texts representing the ‘Eridu tradition’, and outlines Enki/Ea's change of roles especially during the 1st millennium BCE. It deals in detail with the story of the Great Flood and considers the conditions for a possible influence of the Enki/Ea mythologies on neighboring literatures.