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THE BABYLONIAN LEGENDS OF THE CREATION
AND THE
FIGHT BETWEEN BEL AND THE DRAGON
TOLD BY ASSYRIAN TABLETS FROM NINEVEH
DISCOVERY OF THE TABLETS.
The baked clay tablets and portions of tablets which describe the
views and beliefs of the Babylonians and Assyrians about the Creation
were discovered by Mr. (later Sir) A.H. Layard, Mormuzd Rassam and
George Smith, Assistant in the Department of Oriental Antiquities in
the British Museum. They were found among the ruins of the Palace and
Library of Ashur-bani-pal (B.C. 668-626) at Kuyunjik (Nineveh),
between the years 1848 and 1876. Between 1866 and 1870, the great
"find" of tablets and fragments, some 20,000 in number, which Rassam
made in 1852, was worked through by George Smith, who identified many
of the historical inscriptions of Shalmaneser II, Tiglath-Pileser III,
Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and other kings mentioned in the
Bible, and several literary compositions of a legendary character,
fables, etc. In the course of this work he discovered fragments of
various versions of the Babylonian Legend of the Deluge, and portions
of several texts belonging to a work which treated of the beginning of
things, and of the Creation. In 1870, Rawlinson and Smith noted
allusions to the Creation in the important tablet K.63, but the texts
of portions of tablets of the Creation Series at that time available
for study were so fragmentary that it was impossible for these
scholars to find their correct sequence. During the excavations which
Smith carried out at Kuyunjik in 1873 and 1874 for the proprietors of
the _Daily Telegraph_ and the Trustees of the British Museum, he
was, he tells us, fortunate enough to discover "several fragments of
the Genesis Legends." In January, 1875, he made an exhaustive search
among the tablets in the British Museum, and in the following March he
published, in the _Daily Telegraph_ (March 4th), a summary of the
contents of about twenty fragments of the series of tablets describing
the creation of the heavens and the earth. In November of the same
year he communicated to the Society of Biblical Archaeology [1]
copies of:--(1) the texts on fragments of the First and Fifth Tablets
of Creation; (2) a text describing the fight between the "Gods and
Chaos"; and (3) a fragmentary text which, he believed, described the
Fall of Man. In the following year he published translations of all
the known fragments of the Babylonian Creation Legends in his
"Chaldean Account of Genesis" (London, 1876, 8vo, with photographs).
In this volume were included translations of the Exploits of Gizdubar
(Gilgamish), and some early Babylonian fables and legends of the gods.
[Footnote 1: See the _Transactions_, Vol. IV, Plates I-VI, London,
1876.]
PUBLICATION OF THE CREATION TABLETS.
The publication of the above-mentioned texts and translations proved
beyond all doubt the correctness of Rawlinson's assertion made in
1865, that "certain portions of the Babylonian and Assyrian Legends of
the Creation resembled passages in the early chapters of the Book of
Genesis." During the next twenty years, the Creation texts were
copied and recopied by many Assyriologists, but no publication
appeared in which all the material available for reconstructing the
Legend was given in a collected form. In 1898, the Trustees of the
British Museum ordered the publication of all the Creation texts
contained in the Babylonian and Assyrian Collections, and the late
Mr. L. W. King, Assistant in the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian
Antiquities, was directed to prepare an edition. The exhaustive
preparatory search which he made through the collections of tablets in
the British Museum resulted in the discovery of many unpublished
fragments of the Creation Legends, and in the identification of a
fragment which, although used by George Smith, had been lost sight of
for about twenty-five years. He ascertained also that, according to
the Ninevite scribes, the Tablets of the Creation Series were seven in
number, and what several versions of the Legend of the Creation, the
works of Babylonian and Assyrian editors of different periods, must
have existed in early Mesopotamian Libraries. King's edition of the
Creation Texts appeared in "Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in
the British Museum," Part XIII, London, 1901. As the scope of this
work did not permit the inclusion of his translations, and commentary
and notes, he published these in a private work entitled, "The Seven
Tablets of Creation, or the Babylonian and Assyrian Legends concerning
the creation of the world and of mankind," London, 1902, 8vo. A
supplementary volume contained much new material which had been found
by him since the appearance of the official edition of the texts, and
in fact doubled the number of Creation Texts known hitherto.
[Illustration: Babylonian map of the world, showing the ocean
surrounding the world and making the position of Babylon on the
Euphrates as its centre. It shows also the mountains as the source of
the river, the land of Assyria, Bit-Iakinu, and the swamps at the
mouth of the Euphrates. [No. 92,687.]]
THE OBJECT OF THE BABYLONIAN LEGEND OF THE CREATION.
A perusal of the texts of the Seven Tablets of Creation, which King
was enabled, through the information contained in them, to arrange for
the first time in their proper sequence, shows that the main object of
the Legend was the glorification of the god Marduk, the son of Ea
(Enki), as the conqueror of the dragon Tiamat, and not the narration
of the story of the creation of the heavens, and earth and man. The
Creation properly speaking, is only mentioned as an exploit of Marduk
in the Sixth Tablet, and the Seventh Tablet is devoted wholly to the
enumeration of the honorific titles of Marduk. It is probable that
every great city in Babylonia, whilst accepting the general form of
the Creation Legend, made the greatest of its local gods the hero of
it. It has long been surmised that the prominence of Marduk in the
Legend was due to the political importance of the city of Babylon. And
we now know from the fragments of tablets which have been excavated in
recent years by German Assyriologists at Kal'at Sharkat (or Shargat,
or Shar'at), that in the city of Ashur, the god Ashur, the national
god of Assyria, actually occupied in texts[1] of the Legend in use
there the position which Marduk held in four of the Legends current in
Babylonia. There is reason for thinking that the original hero of the
Legend was Enlil (Bel), the great god of Nippur (the Nafar, or Nufar
of the Arab writers), and that when Babylon rose into power under the
First Dynasty (about B.C. 2300), his position in the Legend was
usurped at Babylon by Marduk.
[Footnote 1: See the duplicate fragments described in the Index to
Ebeling, _Keilschrifttexte aus Assur_, Leipzig, 1919 fol.]
[Illustration: Excavations in Babylonia and Assyria.]
VARIANT FORMS OF THE BABYLONIAN LEGEND OF THE CREATION.
The views about the Creation which are described in the Seven Tablets
mentioned above were not the only ones current in Mesopotamia, and
certainly they were not necessarily the most orthodox. Though in the
version of the Legend already referred to the great god of creation
was Enlil, or Marduk, or Ashur, we know that in the Legend of
Gilgamish (Second Tablet) it was the goddess Aruru who created Enkidu
(Eabani) from a piece of clay moistened with her own spittle. And in
the so-called "bilingual" version[1] of the Legend, we find that this
goddess assisted Marduk as an equal in the work of creating the seed
of mankind. This version, although Marduk holds the position of
pre-eminence, differs in many particulars from that given by the Seven
Tablets, and as it is the most important of all the texts which deal
directly with the creation of the heavens and the earth, a rendering
of it is here given.
[Footnote 1: The text is found on a tablet from Abu Habbah, Brit.
Mus., No. 93,014 (82-5-22, 1048).]
THE "BILINGUAL" VERSION OF THE CREATION LEGEND.
1. "The holy house, the house of the gods in the holy place had not
yet been made.
2. "No reed had sprung up, no tree had been made.
3. "No brick had been laid, no structure of brick had been erected.
4. "No house had been made, no city had been built.
[Illustration: The Bilingual Version of the Creation Legend. [No. 93,014.]]
5. "No city had been made, no creature had been constituted.
6. "Enlil's city, (i.e., Nippur) had not been made, E-kur had not been
built,
7. "Erech had not been made, E-Aena had not been built,
8. The Deep[1] (or Abyss) had not been made, Eridu had not been built.
[Footnote 1: APSU. It is doubtful if APSU here really means the great
abyss of waters from out of which the world was called. It was, more
probably, a ceremonial object used in the cult of the god, something
like the great basin, or "sea," in the court of the temple of King
Solomon, mentioned in I Kings, vii, 23; 2 Kings, xxv, 13, etc.]
9. "Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the dwelling-place had
not been made.
10. "All the lands were sea
11. "At the time that the mid-most sea was [shaped like] a trough,
12. "At that time Eridu was made, and E-sagil was built,
13. "The E-sagil where in the midst of the Deep the god
Lugal-dul-azaga [1] dwelleth,
[Footnote 1: This is a name under which Marduk was worshipped at
Eridu.]
14. "Babylon was made, E-sagil was completed.
15. "The gods the Anunnaki he created at one time.
16. "They proclaimed supreme the holy city, the dwelling of their
heart's happiness.
17. "Marduk laid a rush mat upon the face of the waters,
18. "He mixed up earth and moulded it upon the rush mat,
19. "To enable the gods to dwell in the place where they fain would
be.
20. "He fashioned man.
21. "The goddess Aruru with him created the seed of mankind.
22. "He created the beasts of the field and [all] the living things in
the field.
23. "He created the river Idiglat (Tigris) and the river Purattu
(Euphrates), and he set them in their places,
24. "He proclaimed their names rightly.
[Illustration: Terra-cotta figure of a god. From a foundation deposit
at Babylon. [No. 90,9961]]
25. "He created grass, the vegetation of the marsh, seed and shrub;
26. "He created the green plants of the plain,
27. "Lands, marshes, swamps,
28. "The wild cow and the calf she carried, the wild calf, the sheep
and the young she carried, the lamb of the fold,
29. "Plantations and shrub land,
30. "The he-goat and the mountain goat ...
31. "The lord Marduk piled up a dam in the region of the sea (i.e., he
reclaimed land)
32. "He ... a swamp, he founded a marsh.
33. "... he made to be
34. "Reeds he created, trees he created,
35. "... in place he created
36. "He laid bricks, he built a brick-work,
37. "He constructed houses, he formed cities.
38. "He constructed cities, creatures he set [therein].
39. "Nippur he made, E-Kur he built.
40. "[Erech he made, E-Anna] he built.
[The remainder of the text is fragmentary, and shows that the text
formed part of an incantation which was recited in the Temple of
E-Zida, possibly the great temple of Nabu at Borsippa.]
[Illustration: Bronze figure of a Babylonian god. [No. 91,147]]
THE LEGEND OF THE CREATION ACCORDING TO BEROSUS AND DAMASCIUS.
Versions in Greek of the Legends found by George Smith had long been
known to classical scholars, owing to the preservation of fragments of
them in the works of later Greek writers, e.g., Eusebius, Syncellus, and
others. The most important of these is derived from the History of
Babylonia, which was written in Greek by BEROSUS, a priest of
Bel-Marduk, i.e., the "Lord Marduk," at Babylon, about 250 B.C. In this
work Berosus reproduced all the known historical facts and traditions
derived from native sources which were current in his day. It is
therefore not surprising to find that his account of the Babylonian
beliefs about the origin of things corresponds very closely with that
given in the cuneiform texts, and that it is of the greatest use in
explaining and partly in expanding these texts. His account of the
primeval abyss, out of which everything came, and of its
inhabitants reads:--
[Illustration: Babylonian Monster. [No. 108,979.]]
"There was a time in which there existed nothing but darkness and an
abyss of waters, wherein resided most hideous beings, which were
produced on a two-fold principle. There appeared men, some of whom
were furnished with two wings, others with four, and with two
faces. They had one body but two heads; the one that of a man, the
other of a woman; and likewise in their several organs both male and
female. Other human figures were to be seen with the legs and horns of
goats; some had horses' feet; while others united the hind-quarters of
a horse with the body of a man, resembling in shape the hippo-centaurs.
Bulls likewise were bred there with the heads of men, and dogs with
four told bodies, terminated in their extremities with the tails of
fishes; horses also with the heads of dogs; men too and other animals,
with the heads and bodies of horses and the tails of fishes. In short,
there were creatures in which were combined the limbs of every species
of animals. In addition to these, fishes, reptiles, serpents, with
other monstrous animals, which assumed each other's shape and
countenance. Of all which were preserved delineations in the temple of
Belus at Babylon."
[Illustration: Babylonian Demon. [No. 93,089.]]
[THE SLAUGHTER OF THE QUEEN OF THE ABYSS.]
"The person, who presided over them, was a woman named OMUROCA; which
in the Chaldean language is THALATTH; in Greek THALASSA, the sea; but
which might equally be interpreted the Moon. All things being in this
situation, Belus came, and cut the woman asunder: and of one half of
her he formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens; and at the
same time destroyed the animals within her. All this (he says) was an
allegorical description of nature."
[THE CREATION OF MAN.]
"For, the whole universe consisting of moisture, and animals being
generated therein, the deity above-mentioned[1] took off his own head:
upon which the other gods mixed the blood, as it gushed out, with the
earth; and from whence were formed men. On this account it is that
they are rational and partake of divine knowledge."
[Footnote 1: The god whose head was taken off was not Belus, as is
commonly thought, but the god who the cuneiform texts tell us was
called "Kingu."]
[BELUS CREATES THE UNIVERSE.]
"This Belus, by whom they signify Jupiter, divided the darkness, and
separated the Heavens from the Earth, and reduced the universe to
order. But the animals not being able to bear the prevalence of light,
died. Belus upon this, seeing a vast space unoccupied, though by
nature fruitful, commanded one[1] of the gods to take off his head,
and to mix the blood with the earth; and from thence to form other men
and animals, which should be capable of bearing the air. Belus formed
also the stars, and the sun, and the moon, and the five planets. Such,
according to Polyhistor Alexander, is the account which Berosus gives
in his first book." (See Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, London, 1832,
pp. 24-26.)
[Footnote 1: The god whose head was taken off was not Belus, as is
commonly thought, but the god who the cuneiform texts tell us was
called "Kingu."]
In the sixth century of our era DAMASCIUS the SYRIAN, the last of the
Neo-Platonic philosophers, wrote in Greek in a work on the Doubts and
Solutions of the first Principles, in which he says: "But the
Babylonians, like the rest of the Barbarians, pass over in silence the
One principle of the Universe, and they conceive Two, TAUTHE and
APASON; making APASON the husband of TAUTHE, and denominating her the
mother of the gods. And from these proceeds an only-begotten son,
MOYMIS, which I conceive is no other than the Intelligible World
proceeding from the two principles. From these, also, another progeny
is derived, DACHE and DACHUS; and again, a third, KISSARE and ASSORUS,
from which last three others proceed, ANUS, and ILLINUS, and AUS. And
of AUS and DAUCE is born a son called Belus, who, they say, is the
fabricator of the world, the Demiurgus." (See Cory, _Ancient
Fragments_, London, 1832, p. 318.)
THE SEVEN TABLETS OF CREATION. DESCRIPTION OF THEIR CONTENTS.
In the beginning nothing whatever existed except APSU, which may be
described as a boundless, confused and disordered mass of watery matter;
how it came into being is unknown. Out of this mass there were evolved
two orders of beings, namely, demons and gods. The demons had hideous
forms, even as Berosus said, which were part animal, part bird, part
reptile and part human. The gods had wholly human forms, and they
represented the three layers of the comprehensible world, that is to
say, heaven or the sky, the atmosphere, and the underworld. The
atmosphere and the underworld together formed the earth as opposed to
the sky or heaven. The texts say that the first two gods to be created
were LAKHMU and LAKHAMU. Their attributes cannot at present be
described, but they seem to represent two forms of primitive matter.
They appear to have had no existence in popular religion, and it has
been thought that they may be described as theological conceptions
containing the notions of matter and some of its attributes.
[Illustration: Terra-cotta figure of a Babylonian Demon. [No. 22,458.]]
After countless aeons had passed the gods ANSHAR and KISHAR came into
being; the former represents the "hosts of heaven," and the latter the
"hosts of earth."
After another long and indefinite period the independent gods of the
Babylonian pantheon came into being, e.g., ANU, EA, who is here called
NUDIMMUD, and others.
[Illustration: Bronze figure of a Babylonian Demon. [No. 93,078.]]
As soon as the gods appeared in the universe "order" came into being.
When APSU, the personification of confusion and disorder of every kind,
saw this "order," he took counsel with his female associate TIAMAT with
the object of finding some means of destroying the "way" (_al-ka-at_) or
"order" of the gods. Fortunately the Babylonians and Assyrians have
supplied us with representations of Tiamat, and these show us what form
ancient tradition assigned to her. She is depicted as a ferocious
monster with wings and scales and terrible claws, and her body is
sometimes that of a huge serpent, and sometimes that of an animal. In
the popular imagination she represented all that was physically
terrifying, and foul, and abominable; she was nevertheless the mother of
everything, [1] and was the possessor of the DUP SHIMATI or "TABLET OF
DESTINIES". No description of this Tablet or its contents is available,
but from its name we may assume that it was a sort of Babylonian Book of
Fate.[2] Theologically, Tiamat represented to the Babylonians the same
state in the development of the universe as did _tohu wa-bhohu_ (Genesis
i. 2), i.e., formlessness and voidness, of primeval matter, to the
Hebrews She is depicted both on bas-reliefs and on cylinder seals in a
form which associates her with LABARTU, [3] a female devil that prowled
about the desert at night suckling wild animals but killing men. And it
is tolerably certain that she was the type, and symbol, and head of the
whole community of fiends, demons and devils.
[Footnote 1: _Muallidat gimrishun_.]
[Footnote 2: It is probable that the idea of this Tablet is perpetuated
in the "Preserved Tablet" of the Kur'an (Surah x, 62), on which the
destiny of every man was written at or before the creation of the world.
Nothing that is written (_maktub_) there can be erased, or altered, or
fail to take effect.]
[Footnote 3: (_Cun. Texts_, Part XXIV, Plate 44, l. 142).]
[Illustration: Terra-cotta plaque with a Typhonic animal in
relief. [No. 103,381.]]
In the consultation which took place between APSU and TIAMAT, their
messenger MU-UM-MU took part; of the history and attributes of this
last-named god nothing is known. The result of the consultation was that
a long struggle began between the demons and the gods, and it is clear
that the object of the powers of darkness was to destroy the light. The
whole story of this struggle is the subject of the Seven Tablets of
Creation. The gods are deifications of the sun, moon, planets and other
stars, and APSU, or CHAOS, and his companions the demons, are
personifications of darkness, night and evil. The story of the fight
between them is nothing more nor less than a picturesque allegory of
natural phenomena. Similar descriptions are found in the literatures of
other primitive nations, and the story of the great fight between
Her-ur, the great god of heaven, and Set, the great captain of the hosts
of darkness, may be quoted as an example. Set regarded the "order" which
Her-ur was bringing into the universe with the same dislike as that
with which APSU contemplated the beneficent work of Sin, the Moon-god,
Shamash, the Sun-god, and their brother gods. And the hostility of Set
and his allies to the gods, like that of Tiamat and her allies, was
everlasting.
[Illustration: between Marduk (Bel) and the Dragon. Drawn from a
bas-relief from the Palace of Ashur-nasir-pal, King of Assyria,
885-860 B.C., at Nimrud. [Nimrud Gallery, Nos. 28 and 29.]]
At this point a new Text fills a break in the First Tablet, and
describes the fight which took place between Nudimmud or Ea, (the
representative of the established "order" which the rule of the gods had
introduced into the domain of Apsu and Tiamat) and Apsu and his envoy
Mummu. Ea went forth to fight the powers of darkness and he conquered
Apsu and Mummu. The victory over Apsu, i.e., the confused and boundless
mass of primeval water, represents the setting of impassable boundaries
to the waters that are on and under the earth, i.e., the formation of
the Ocean. The exact details of the conquest cannot be given, but we
know that Ea was the possessor of the "pure (or white, or holy)
incantation" and that he overcame Apsu and his envoy by the utterance of
a powerful spell. In the Egyptian Legend of Ra and Aapep, the
monster is rendered spell-bound by the god Her-Tuati, who plays in it
exactly the same part as Ea in the Babylonian Legend.
When Tiamat heard of Ea's victory over Apsu and Mummu
she was filled with fury, and determined to avenge the death
of Apsu, her husband.
The first act of TIAMAT after the death of Apsu was to increase the
number of her allies. We know that a certain creature called
"UMMU-KHUBUR" at once spawned a brood of devilish monsters to help her
in her fight against the gods. Nothing is known of the origin or
attributes of UMMU-KHUBUR, but some think she was a form of TIAMAT. Her
brood probably consisted of personifications of mist, fog, cloud, storm,
whirlwinds and the blighting and destroying powers which primitive man
associated with the desert. An exact parallel of this brood of devils is
found in Egyptian mythology where the allies of Set and Aapep are
called "Mesu betshet" i.e., "spawn of impotent revolt." They are
depicted in the form of serpents, and some of them became the "Nine
Worms of Amenti" that are mentioned in the Book of the Dead
(Chap. Ia).
Not content with Ummu-Khubur's brood of devils, Tiamat called the
stars and powers of the air to her aid, for she "set up" (1) the
Viper, (2) the Snake, (3) the god Lakhamu, (4) the Whirlwind, (5) the
ravening Dog, (6) the Scorpion-man, (7) the mighty Storm-wind, (8) the
Fish-man, and (9) the Horned Beast. These bore (10) the "merciless,
invincible weapon," and were under the command of (11) Kingu, whom
Tiamat calls "her husband." Thus Tiamat had Eleven mighty Helpers
besides the devils spawned by Ummu-Khubur. We may note in passing
that some of the above-mentioned Helpers appear among the Twelve Signs
of the Zodiac which Marduk "set up" after his conquest of Tiamat,
e.g., the Scorpion-man, the Horned Beast, etc. This fact
suggests that the first Zodiac was "set up" by Tiamat, who with her
Eleven Helpers formed the Twelve Signs; the association of evil with
certain stars may date from that period. That the Babylonians regarded
the primitive gods as powers of evil is clear from the fact that
Lakhamu, one of them, is enumerated among the allies of Tiamat.
The helpers of Tiamat were placed by her under the command of a god
called KINGU who is TAMMUZ. He was the counterpart, or equivalent, of
ANU, the Sky-god, in the kingdom of darkness, for it is said in the text
"Kingu was exalted and received the power of Anu," i.e., he possessed
the same power and attributes as Anu. When Tiamat appointed Kingu to be
her captain, she recited over him a certain spell or incantation, and
then she gave him the TABLET OF DESTINIES and fastened it to his breast,
saying, "Whatsoever goeth forth from thy mouth shall be established."
Armed with all the magical powers conferred upon him by this Tablet, and
heartened by all the laudatory epithets which his wife Tiamat heaped
upon him, Kingu went forth at the head of his devils.