Mesopotamian · Akkadian · c. 1100 BCE
Enuma Elish
Anonymous Babylonian
The Babylonian creation epic, in which Marduk splits the sea-dragon Tiamat and builds the world from her body — the template for every later combat between a sky god and a chaos serpent.
Read Enuma Elish in full at the linked edition →Hierarchies from this text
What this text attests · 4
| Name here | Rank given | # | Powers described |
|---|---|---|---|
 Ea = Enki | Lord of wisdom | — | Defeats Apsu by incantation and fathers Marduk; the god of exorcists and of the incantation formula. |
| Lord of the lands | — | Among the great gods who yield primacy to Marduk after the defeat of Tiamat. | |
| King of the gods | — | Kills Tiamat, splits her 'like a flat fish' to make sky and earth, and is voted the fifty names. | |
| Mother of all | — | Bears the gods, then makes war on them with eleven monsters; is split by Marduk to form the world. |
What does it actually say?
The passages themselves, as this text gives them. Read them against what the other texts here say about the same figures — that comparison is the point.
“He split her up like a flat fish into two halves.”