ABSTRACT
The cosmic waters, surrounding the end of the world were ritually tapped and harnessed to human needs at the life-giving city-spring, which provided Jerusalem's water-supply. Noegel also mentioned Egyptian wg3, meaning 'a type of water or flood', and cited M. Bernal. The oceanic waters also came together in the heavens, where a further omphalos could be found, called 'the navel of heaven. Number of Greek authors had interesting things to say about the Ocean. While of course they were writing with a Greek readership in mind, it is increasingly recognized that many of their ideas stretched back into a pre-Greek antiquity, and Semitic antecedents are often cited for many of these ideas. Greek allusions to the world-surrounding ocean are evidently from the same conceptual background as the Mesopotamian material, perhaps with an admixture of Egyptian and West Semitic thought. The Egyptian Uroboros motif expressed much the same conception.
