Enuma elish, the Babylonian Creation Myth
The *Enuma Elish* is an ancient Babylonian creation myth that narrates the origins of the universe and the rise of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon. Set in a primordial world of undifferentiated waters, the story begins with the gods Apsû (representing fresh water) and Tiāmat (representing the chaotic sea). As new gods emerge and create disorder, Apsû plots to eliminate them but is ultimately defeated and killed by Ea, the god of wisdom. Tiāmat, seeking vengeance for Apsû's death, battles the younger gods but is ultimately vanquished by Marduk, who captures and kills her, transforming her body into the heavens and the earth.
This myth is significant for understanding the cosmology of ancient Babylon, explaining the cyclical nature of time and the existence of order out of chaos, which was vital for the development of civilization. It also reflects the political landscape of its time, as Marduk's rise to supremacy corresponds with Babylon's ascendance as a major power in the region. The *Enuma Elish* thus serves both as a creation narrative and a vehicle for legitimizing the sociopolitical hierarchy, illustrating the connection between divine authority and human existence in Babylonian culture.
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Enuma elish, the Babylonian Creation Myth
Author: Traditional Babylonian
Time Period: 2499 BCE–1000 BCE
Country or Culture: Mesopotamia
Genre: Myth
SUMMARY
In the age when the sky and the earth are still nameless, the gods Apsû and Tiāmat live together as one mass of swirling water. Apsû is the god of fresh water and male fertility, and Tiāmat is the goddess of the sea and of chaos. Other gods, such as the gods of the earth and the sky, begin to form in this body of water.
The young gods inside the water are disorderly, and the commotion they make begins to upset Apsû and Tiāmat. Because of this, Apsû decides to destroy them. Ea, a god of wisdom and magic who is stronger than any of the other young gods, learns of Apsû’s plan. Ea uses his magic to put Apsû into a dark sleep and then kills him, claiming himself to have become the chief god in this conquest. He lives with his wife, Damkina, above Apsû’s corpse. Damkina then gives birth to Marduk, the god of storms and magic and the patron god of Babylon, who is even more powerful than his father.
Furious about her husband’s death, Tiāmat gathers an army and summons eleven monsters to help her take revenge on the new gods. She is a deity of great chaos, and as such, the other gods become fearful of her vengeance. Both Ea and Anu, the god of the sky, confront Tiāmat but are unable to stop her path of destruction. Hopeful word eventually comes from Anšar, the son of Tiāmat, who reports that Marduk is willing to confront the goddess himself. The gods at first doubt Marduk’s power, but when he makes a piece of clothing disappear and reappear, they agree to make him their ruler for all time if he succeeds in his quest. Marduk gathers the winds about him, charges Tiāmat in a chariot made of clouds, captures her in a net, and slays her by firing an arrow into her heart and smashing her head with a club. Taking her monsters captive, Marduk divides her body into the earth and the sky, imprisoning her chaotic waters and placing guards to ensure they will never escape.
Marduk then creates cities for the gods to dwell in and transforms Tiāmat’s saliva into rain to water the earth. Among the cities, he creates Babylon for himself. He and the other gods also take time to establish the seasons and the months of the year. While the gods at first need to serve Marduk, Ea eventually slays Tiāmat’s second husband and uses the dead god’s blood to make humans, who will serve all the gods. To praise Marduk further, the other gods build him a new home in Babylon, and he in turn throws a feast to thank them. Marduk, then, is the greatest of the gods, a deity known by fifty throne names, and it is the duty of humans to serve him for all time.
SIGNIFICANCE
The Enuma elish is a text from ancient Babylon that was read in ceremonies to celebrate the start of the new year. As the Babylonian city-state was one of the first civilizations to develop in the ancient world, the myths included in the text—dating between the twelfth and the eighteenth century BCE—are also some of the oldest myths to survive in written form.
The narrative of the Enuma elish served several important functions for Babylonians. It explains the basic nature of the universe and established the cyclical progression of the years and seasons. It was believed that life comes from water, which was once combined in a giant mass but then was split into salt water and fresh water in a cosmic conflict of the gods. Likewise, chaos (represented in Tiāmat and the danger of the open oceans) and order (represented in the life-giving fresh water of Apsû) were once mingled but were then confined apart from one another. The narrative of the feuding gods provides an explanation for how these splits came to be, and indeed it is the existence of fresh water and safety from the seas that allowed civilizations to develop. The myth also explains the cycle of the seasons, which are declared by the triumphant gods after the defeat of Tiāmat. This victorious order also explains why humans exist in obedient tribute to the deities, with their very birth owed to Marduk’s strength. In language, also, Marduk represents reason; the time before the gods is one in which even the universe has no name, while after the defeat of Tiāmat and her second husband, Qingu (Kingu), Marduk is known and celebrated by fifty different names. All of this folded together suggests a world that naturally progresses toward peace and order thanks to the might of Marduk, and by extension a world in which the obedience of humans within the religious and social order of Babylon ensures a future of similar security.
More than just a narrative of creation, however, this myth also served an additional political purpose. Marduk was the chief god of the city of Babylon, and the elevation of his worship above the worship of other deities coincided with the rise of Babylon to a center of regional power. Around the time the Enuma elish seems to have become popular, King Hammurabi of Babylonia engaged in a series of wars that won his city control over Mesopotamian agricultural lands and, along with that, military and economic power. Prior to this, the Sumerian god Enlil had been widely worshipped and was commonly considered the most powerful of all the Mesopotamian deities. His seat of power was rooted in the city of Nippur. The Enuma elish, then, shows the close interrelationship between political power and religion in the ancient world, the narrative weaving together and making interdependent the exaltation of Marduk, the origins of Babylon, and the natural order of the seasons.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bratcher, Dennis. “Enuma Elish: The Mesopotamian/Babylonian Creation Myth.” The Voice. CRI/Voice Inst., 25 Mar. 2013. Web. 30 May 2013.
Burkert, Walter. Babylon, Memphis, Persepolis: Eastern Contexts of Greek Culture. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2007. Print.
Dalley, Stephanie, trans. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989. Print.
López-Ruiz, Carolina. “How to Start a Cosmogony: On the Poetics of Beginnings in Greece and the Near East.” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 12.1 (2012): 30–48. Print.
Oates, Joan. Babylon. New York: Thames, 2008. Print.