The conjecture may be hazarded that she personifies originally the waters of the upper realm--the clouds.

Since Ea, who is her son, represents the waters of the lower realm, the relation of mother and son reflects perhaps a primitive conception of the origin of the deep, through the descent of the upper waters.

When we come to the cosmogony of the Babylonians, it will be seen that this conception of a distinction between the two realms of waters is a fundamental one.

This character as a spirit of the watery elements is shared by others of the goddesses appearing in the old Babylonian inscriptions.[40] En-ki or Ea.
This god, who, as we shall see, becomes most prominent in the developed form of Babylonian theology, does not occupy the place one should expect in the early Babylonian inscriptions.

Ur-Bau erects a sanctuary to Ea, at Girsu.