Chapter 1

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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.

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.]

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.

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.

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.]

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:--

"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."

[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.

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.

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).]

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.

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).