The Anunnaki are a class of Mesopotamian deities, and their exact composition and function vary based on context and time period. In Sumerian texts the term Anunnaki can be used to describe the highest gods in the Mesopotamian pantheon as a whole or to describe the high gods of a particular city. In the Ur III through Old Babylonian periods (corresponding with roughly the late third through mid-second millennium bce), the term was at times associated with gods in both the heavens and the netherworld. After the Old Babylonian period, the Anunnaki were more firmly thought to be a group of netherworld gods and were contrasted with another group of gods, the Igigi.
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