E The fifth symbol in the English alphabet occupies also the same position in Phoenician and in the other alphabets descended from Phoenician. As the Semitic alphabet did not represent vowels, E was originally an aspirate. Its earliest form, while writing is still from right to left, is 
, the upright being continued some distance below the lowest of the cross-strokes. In some of the Greek alphabets it appears as 
with the upright prolonged at both top and bottom, but it soon took the form with which we are familiar, though in the earlier examples of this form the cross-strokes are not horizontal but drop at an angle, 
. In Corinth and places under its early influence like Megara, or colonized from it like Corcyra, the symbol for e takes the form 
or 
, while at Sicyon in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. it is represented by 
. In early Latin it was sometimes represented by two perpendicular strokes of equal length, 
.
In the earliest Greek inscriptions and always in Latin the symbol 
represented both the short and the long e-sound. In Greek also it was often used for the close long sound which arose either by contraction of two short e-sounds or by the loss of a consonant, after a short e-sound, as in φιλεῖτε, “you love,” for φιλέετε, and φαεινός, “bright,” out of an earlier φαεσνός. The Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor, who had altogether lost the aspirate, were the first to use the symbol 
for the long e-sound, and in official documents at Athens down to 403 B.C., when the Greek alphabet as still known was adopted by the state, represented ε, η and the sound arising by contraction or consonant loss as mentioned above which henceforth was written with two symbols, ει, and being really a single sound is known as the “spurious diphthong.” There were some minor distinctions in usage of the symbols and which need not here be given in detail. The ancient Greek name was εἶ, not Epsilon as popularly supposed; the names of the Greek letters are given from Kallias, an earlier contemporary of Euripides, in Athenaeus x. p. 453 d.
In Greek the short e-sound to which was ultimately limited was a close sound inclining more towards i than a; hence the representation of the contraction of εε by ει. Its value in Latin was exactly the opposite, the Latin short e being open, and the long close. In English there has been a gradual narrowing of the long vowels, ā becoming approximately ēi and ē becoming ī (Sweet, History of English Sounds, §§ 781, 817 ff. 2nd ed.). In languages where the diphthong ai has become a monophthong, the resulting sound is some variety of long e. Often the gradual assimilation can be traced through the intermediate stage of ae to ē, as in the Old Latin aidilis, which in classical Latin is aedilis, and in medieval MSS. edilis.
The variety of spelling in English for the long and short e-sounds is conveniently illustrated in Miss Soames’s Introduction to the Study of Phonetics, pp. 16 and 20. (P. Gi.)
EA (written by means of two signs signifying “house” and “water”), in the Babylonian religion, originally the patron deity of Eridu, situated in ancient times at the head of the Persian Gulf, but now, by reason of the constant accumulation of soil in the Euphrates valley, at some distance from the gulf. Eridu, meaning “the good city,” was one of the oldest settlements in the Euphrates valley, and is now represented by the mounds known as Abu Shahrein. In the absence of excavations on that site, we are dependent for our knowledge of Ea on material found elsewhere. This is, however, sufficient to enable us to state definitely that Ea was a water-deity, and there is every reason to believe that the Persian Gulf was the body of water more particularly sacred to him. Whether Ea (or A-e as some scholars prefer) represents the real pronunciation of his name we do not know. All attempts to connect Ea with Yah and Yahweh are idle conjectures without any substantial basis. He is figured as a man covered with the body of a fish, and this representation, as likewise the name of his temple E-apsu, “house of the watery deep,” points decidedly to his character as a god of the waters (see Oannes). Of his cult at Eridu, which reverts to the oldest period of Babylonian history, nothing definite is known beyond the fact that the name of his temple was E-saggila, “the lofty house”—pointing to a staged tower as in the case of the temple of Bel (q.v.) at Nippur, known as E-Kur, i.e. “mountain house”—and that incantations, involving ceremonial rites, in which water as a sacred element played a prominent part, formed a feature of his worship. Whether Eridu at one time also played an important political rôle is not certain, though not improbable. At all events, the prominence of the Ea cult led, as in the case of Nippur, to the survival of Eridu as a sacred city, long after it had ceased to have any significance as a political centre. Myths in which Ea figures prominently have been found in Assur-bani-pal’s library, indicating that Ea was regarded as the protector and teacher of mankind. He is essentially a god of civilization, and it was natural that he was also looked upon as the creator of man, and of the world in general. Traces of this view appear in the Marduk epic celebrating the achievements of this god, and the close connexion between the Ea cult at Eridu and that of Marduk also follows from two considerations: (1) that the name of Marduk’s sanctuary at Babylon bears the same name, E-saggila, as that of Ea in Eridu, and (2) that Marduk is generally termed the son of Ea, who derives his powers from the voluntary abdication of the father in favour of his son. Accordingly, the incantations originally composed for the Ea cult were re-edited by the priests of Babylon and adapted to the worship of Marduk, and, similarly, the hymns to Marduk betray traces of the transfer of attributes to Marduk which originally belonged to Ea.
It is, however, more particularly as the third figure in the triad, the two other members of which were Anu (q.v.) and Bel (q.v.), that Ea acquires his permanent place in the pantheon. To him was assigned the control of the watery element, and in this capacity he becomes the shar apsi, i.e. king of the Apsu or “the deep.” The Apsu was figured as an ocean encircling the earth, and since the gathering place of the dead, known as Arālu, was situated near the confines of the Apsu, he was also designated as En-Ki, i.e. “lord of that which is below,” in contrast to Anu, who was the lord of the “above” or the heavens. The cult of Ea extended throughout Babylonia and Assyria. We find temples and shrines erected in his honour, e.g. at Nippur, Girsu, Ur, Babylon, Sippar and Nineveh, and the numerous epithets given to him, as well as the various forms under which the god appears, alike bear witness to the popularity which he enjoyed from the earliest to the latest period of Babylonian-Assyrian history. The consort of Ea, known as Damkina, “lady of that which is below,” or Nin-Ki, having the same meaning, or Damgal-nunna, “great lady of the waters,” represents a pale reflection of Ea and plays a part merely in association with her lord. (M. Ja.)
EABANI, the name of the friend of Gilgamesh, the hero in the Babylonian epic (see Gilgamesh, Epic of). Eabani, whose name signifies “Ea creates,” pointing to the tradition which made the god Ea (q.v.) the creator of mankind, is represented in the epic as the type of the primeval man. He is a wild man who lives with the animals of the field until lured away from his surroundings by the charms of a woman. Created to become a rival to Gilgamesh, he strikes up a friendship with the hero, and together they proceed to a cedar forest guarded by Khumbaba, whom they kill. The goddess Irnina (a form of Ishtar, q.v.) in revenge kills Eabani, and the balance of the epic is taken up with Gilgamesh’s lament for his friend, his wanderings in quest of a remote ancestor, Ut-Napishtim, from whom he hopes to learn how he may escape the fate of Eabani, and his finally learning from his friend of the sad fate in store for all mortals except the favourites of the god, like
