The original seat of Ea, whose worship continued through all times to enjoy great popularity at Babylon, was at Eridu, which, we know, once lay on the Persian Gulf, but does so no longer.

The similarity of the epithets bestowed in various texts upon Ea and Nabu point most decidedly to a similar starting-point for both; and since in a syllabary[127] we find the god actually identified with a deity of Dilmun,--probably one of the islands near Bahrein,--there are grounds for assuming that a tradition survived among the schoolmen, which brought Nabu into some connection with the Persian Gulf.

Sayce[128] has already suggested that Borsippa may have originally stood on an inlet of the Persian Gulf.

Nabu is inferior to Ea, and were it not for the priority of Marduk, he would have become in Babylonian theology, the son of Ea.

Since this distinction[129] is given to Marduk, no direct indication of an original relationship to Ea has survived.
But besides being the god of wisdom and intelligence, Nabu is a patron of agriculture, who causes the grain to sprout forth.