Enūma Eliš

An ancient Babylonian creation epic recounting Marduk’s rise to supremacy and his creation of the world from the body of Tiamat.

Tiamat: A primordial sea goddess in Mesopotamian mythology, portrayed as the adversary Marduk defeats. Her defeat supplies the body from which Marduk fashions the ordered world.
Babylon: An ancient Mesopotamian city that became the political and religious center of Babylonia. The epic elevates Babylon by making its patron god supreme.
Mesopotamian religion: The religious traditions and practices of ancient societies in Mesopotamia. The epic’s gods and rituals belong to this broader religious world.
Marduk: The chief god of Babylon, associated with kingship, protection, and the creation of the ordered cosmos. This duplicate link is not allowed. Avoid.
Apsu: The primordial freshwater deep in Mesopotamian mythology and the male counterpart of Tiamat. The story begins with Apsu and Tiamat before the younger gods emerge.
Akkadian language: An extinct Semitic language used in ancient Mesopotamia and preserved in cuneiform texts. The surviving epic is composed in literary Akkadian.
Babylonian mythology: The body of divine stories and traditions associated with ancient Babylonia. Its gods and mythic motifs provide the epic’s shared narrative framework.
Babylonian kingship: The institution and ideology of royal rule in ancient Babylonia. The epic’s divine hierarchy offers a cosmic model for Babylonian political supremacy.
Tablet of Destinies: A mythical object that confers authority over the gods and the ordering of the cosmos. Its possession marks the contest for supreme divine authority in the epic.
Cuneiform: A writing system used across the ancient Near East, formed from wedge-shaped marks impressed into clay. Clay tablets written in cuneiform preserve the epic’s text.

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