Epic of Creation

Author: * Diantha Livius - 2 Posts on this thread out of 1,864 Posts sitewide.
Date: Apr 17, 2003 - 13:35

"When the skies above were not yet named
Nor the earth below pronounced by name,
Apsu the first, the begetter
And maker Tiamat who bore them all,"

By "bore them all" the text means she was the mother/grandmother/great grandmother etc. of all the gods. Tiamat and Apsu "mixed their waters" *Ahem...you go girl!* and she bore two gods. Anyway, after she and Apsu had offspring, their offspring had children and so on...until the heavens were filled with the little ones and the parents of them all couldn't sleep. Apsu, the begetter, decided he wanted to kill them all, so he could get some rest and went to Tiamat with the plan. Tiamat refused, but Apsu's vizier, Mummu, counseled him to do so anyway. Well, the gods, his sons, caught wind of his evil plan and Ea, the wisest of them all, slew Apsu and Mummu. Tiamat heard of this and decided to avenge her lover. BIG mistake in Ancient Babylon, honey! She was slaughtered by Marduk (The main man, as we saw from the Akitu festivals):

"Face to face they came, Tiamat and Marduk, sage of the gods.
They engaged in combat, they closed for battle.
The Lord spread his net and made it encircle her,
To her face he dispatched the imhullu-wind, which had been behind:
Tiamat opened her mouth to swallow it,
And he forced in the imhullu-wind so that she could not close her lips.
Fierce winds distended her belly;
Her insides were constipated and she stretched her mouth wide.
He shot an arrow which pierced her belly,
Split her down the middle and slit her heart,
Vanquished her and extinguished her life.
He threw down her corpse and stood on top of her.

As if that weren't enough, he did more to her corpse...

"The Lord rested, and inspected her corpse.
He divided the monstrous shape and created marvels (from it).
He sliced her in half like a fish for drying:
Half of her he put up to roof the sky,
Drew a bolt across and made a guard hold it.
Her waters he arranged so that they could not escape."

This is taken from the "Epic of Creation", a Babylonian text that has yet to be dated: "The date of the epic cannot be fixed precisely. Tablets on which the work was written date mainly to the first millennium, and the epic continued well into the Seleucid period when it was used by Berossus in his Babylonica, and was still known in the fifth to sixth centuries AD, when the writer Damascius quoted from Berossus. But the tradition must be earlier. No date can be given to the hymnic-epic dialect in which it was written, for such dialectic features are not found in any groups of non-literary or more easily datable inscriptions." (Comment about the "Epic of Creation" by Stephanie Dalley, "Myths from Mesopotamia" page 228, copyright Stephanie Dalley 1989.)

It could be a revised tale of the old "Epic of Creation", or it could be something the priests loyal to Marduk stirred up to show his greatness. I think it more the latter than the former. First of all, Marduk did not exist in Sumer or early Akkadia, Assyria, etc. In other words, Marduk is more recent than the older gods we see in Ancient Mesopotamia. If Tiamat and Apsu were that old, then logically we would have heard of them - in other names or forms - in Sumerian, early Akkadian, Assyrian, etc texts.

Also, the fact that the old gods were killed to make room for the newer and better ones speaks volumes to me. Other than Anu being sent up to the heavens (Compare this to the manner in which the Assir and Vanir were treated in Teutonic mythology), I do not recall this happening in more ancient times. Even when Anu was “banished” perse, he still had a temple on earth - which Inanna used - and was seen to come and go on occasion. He was not killed off to make room for Enlil and Ea.

The Epic of Creation, and it’s violence toward older gods - and goddesses - gives us a glimpse into the change in society from Sumer to Babylon. Certainly there was fighting amongst the gods/goddesses in the period of Sumer, but I cannot recall ever reading something so violent. Nor can I recall reading before this, of a major god and/or goddess who has been killed and not brought back to life. I also find it disturbing that Apsu and his vizier Mummu had easy deaths, but Tiamat was butchered. I feel that this is indicative in a change in attitude toward women from earlier periods. I’m not saying that women were hated, but I do think that they were no longer able to hold any real power. Or a loss of the power of the Mother Goddess, if you will.

So, in conclusion, I think this epic is exclusively Babylonian. There may have been a tale or two from more ancient times they loosely based their tale upon, but as I stated before, I don’t know of any. I’m not saying I’m any kind of expert, so if you have other information on the contrary, please let me know.