Myths about myths: the case of Enuma Elish

WLW, esteemed history enthusiast, pseudohistory debunker, haniwa purveyor, biggest Ninshubur fan not counting Rim-Sin of Larsa

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Myths about myths: the case of Enuma Elish

Enuma Elish (or Babylonian Epic of Creation; alternatively, if you’re into laughably antiquated terms, Chaldean Genesis) is undeniably among the most famous Mesopotamian myths, second only to Epic of Gilgamesh in terms of modern recognition. Marduk and Tiamat might not have the same degree of popculture presence as Greek gods and monsters, or even as some Egyptian ones, but they are undeniably far ahead of most other beings from Mesopotamian mythology in that department, perhaps with Ishtar as the sole equally famous example.

However, there’s one huge difference between Epic of Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish: while the general perception of Gilgamesh is pretty accurate (eg. two dudes go on wacky adventures, then one deals with the realization humans are mortal), I’d hazard a guess that solid 90% of what forms the general opinion about Enuma Elish is wrong.

And I don’t mean just stuff like Fate associating Enuma Elish with Gilgamesh (this is far from the worst thing Fate did to Mesopotamian mythology) or obscure blog posts from teenagers playing games of pretend. I mean “interpretations” comparable to, say, claiming Polyphemus represents a vanquished older religion, often pushed by highly influential writers with large audiences (such as Jordan Peterson).

Read on to find out what Enuma Elish definitely isn’t - and what it might have been in the eyes of ancient Babylonians.

I won’t describe the plot of the myth here in detail separately but in case you have never read it, a pretty decent translation can be found here of all places.

Without further ado, here are some of the myths about the discussed myth which need to be dispelled:

Myth #1: Enuma Elish is the most ancient account of creation in Mesopotamian mythology, as well as the standard one.

Enuma Elish is neither the oldest nor the only known theogonic (eg. dealing with the origin of gods) text from ancient Mesopotamia. While there is some disagreement between experts regarding the specific date of its composition, it is now agreed it is no older than 12^th century BCE and no newer than c. 1060 BCE based on the fact that it elevates Marduk to the position of the head of the pantheon, but completely omits his servant Nabu, whose role grew in the first millennium. It’s therefore possible that it was composed during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I, who brought back the statue of Marduk from Elam (it was taken as booty after the Elamites overthrew the Kassite dynasty of Babylon), possibly to further increase the prestige of this victory by asserting he saved the representation of not just the national symbol, but the very center of the universe as the Mesopotamians understood it.

As for acceptance of Enuma Elish – it undeniably enjoyed a degree of popularity, however it was not a single defining scripture in the way holy texts of Abrahamic faiths are. It wasn’t even the only account of creation involving Marduk!

The oldest Mesopotamian theogony was instead most likely the so-called “Enlil theogony” also known as “Enki-Ninki deities” or even “the Enkis and the Ninkis” (no relation to the water god), known from sites dated to the middle of the third millennium BCE already. For the most part it was simply a long list deities, starting with Enki and Ninki (“lord earth” and “lady earth” - a representation of the primordial element in this model; the “ki” in the name of the unrelated water god remains unexplained) and ending with Enlil, the original head of the Mesopotamian pantheon, and his wife Ninlil. The number of generations (max. 22, min. 3) and the names of “in between” ones differ from list to list though there are recurring patterns.

Its popularity is evident in the fact that names of Enlil’s ancestors appear frequently in god lists, in exorcisms, and even in some mythical texts. Enki and Ninki even made their way into Hurro-Hittite mythology, where under names Minki and Ammunki they appear among the gods inhabiting the Dark Earth (eg. the underworld), who were invoked as audience for recitation of epic poems or as witnesses of pacts and oaths.

In addition to ancestors, some texts also provide Enlil with an evil paternal uncle, Enmesharra, who presumably tried to usurp his power or had to be vanquished for Enlil to take the stage (either by Enlil himself or one of his sons – fragmentary texts hint as battles between Enmeshara and Ninurta or Nergal). There were also alternative accounts presenting Enlil as the son of a god named Lugaldukuga, or simply as the firstborn son of Anu, his fellow head god.

Anu himself was also provided with a theogony, likely modeled after Enlil’s: instead of earth it starts with a pair called Duri-Dari – a hyposthasis of time or eternity. Here too the number of generations and the names differ, and there isn’t even a unifying motif like the En-Nin names present. One of Anu’s ancestors, Alala, deserves a special note – in Hurrian texts, under the name Alalu, he appears as the father of Kumarbi (the antagonist of the Hurrians’ very own theogony), deposed by Anu and seemingly not related to him by blood.

A shared feature of the Enuma Elish and the Enlil and Anu theogonies is that the individual stages do not appear to have much of a symbolic significance on their own – this is taken to the logical extreme with figures such as Engiriš and Ningiriš from the Enlil lists, literally “Lord and Lady Butterfly.”

Renowned assyriologist Wilfred G. Lambert who dedicated much of his career to the study of Enuma Elish and other theogonies noted that these texts likely had an important purpose: establishing that, to put it colloquially, the gods aren’t engaging in incest by making them descendants of primordial entities who arose spontaneously. While it might sound unusual due to Greek mythology shaping our expectations, in ancient Mesopotamia, sibling and parent-child incest were a taboo which generally extended to the world of gods, and commentaries indicate that avoiding the implications of such relationships in the world of actively worshiped gods was often a pressing issue for theologians working on the Enlil and Anu ancestor lists (bear in this mind when you see the dubious family trees floating online).

According to Lambert this phenomenon can be found in Enuma Elish too to a degree: Marduk’s mother, Damkina, isn’t listed in the earlier sections of the theogony, nor is the origin of Anu’s spouse stated; Mummu, Apsu’s vizier defeated alongside him, isn’t actually referred to as anyone’s son either. Enlil appears in a small role without his origin being explained, too.

An exception from this rule is the exotic text Theogony of Dunnu, known from only one copy and evidently very late. Here the anonymous author uses a completely random selection of figures, ranging from Tiamat (here by no means primordial) to an obscure Hurrian word for heaven and even Dumuzi’s sister Geshtianna (sic), to tell a tale of incest, murder and debauchery, which seemingly ends with the birth of Enlil who presumably abandons the customs of his ancestors, as evidenced by the fact no myth depicts one of his many children murdering him. Note that unlike many Greek gods Enlil generally sticks to having legitimate children in known texts and myths often deal with their visits in his palace.

Fragments of various cosmogonies were freely recombined into new ones, sometimes with elements of other myths incorporated as well: Enuma Elish is simply one example of this. What’s unique about it is that it’s relatively well preserved, not its age or popularity in the ancient world. As summed up by W. G. Lambert, while it’s hard to dispute that Enuma Elish had a large impact but “the traditional tolerance and mutual respect of the various cities did not completely disappear, and even in Babylon itself there were those who preferred forms of the myth other than those which (…) [Enuma Elish] tried to canonize.” It’s also worth pointing out that Enuma Elish was itself treated as a source of mythical “puzzle pieces” by Assyrian rulers: there are a few scattered references to Ashur battling Tiamat, and even a few copies of the epic itself which appear to replace Marduk with Ashur.

Myth #2: Enuma Elish dates back to the reign of Hammurabi, who wanted to rewrite religion

Hammurabi, who reigned in the 18^th century BCE, formed a rather short lived empire which united a number of city-states and petty kingdoms. He did elevate the status of Babylon, formerly an insignificant town, and made it an important player in the next 1200 years or so of the region’s history. However, little of what he did had much of a lasting impact on religion – as a matter of fact some researchers go as far as saying that religion was the only aspect of Mesopotamian culture unifying all individual ethnic and linguistic groups and states of this region through ancient times. Wilfred G. Lambert described the situation during the reign of Hammurabi and his successors in similar terms: “The old established Sumerian pantheon is still going strong”

What is undeniable Hammurabi was indeed the first historically notable ruler to mention Marduk, formerly equally insignificant as his city, frequently. However, he didn’t place Marduk in a particularly high place, nor were his actions unique. What he actually did was present Marduk as a god who intervenes on his behalf to secure support of the upper echelons of the Mesopotamian pantheon, namely the sky gods Anu and Enlil. He attributed his victories and reign in particular to Marduk’s help. However he acknowledged that ultimately Marduk wasn’t the source of them: “Anu and Enlil nominated me, Hammurabi, to improve the lot of the peoples.”

This has a number of close parallels in Mesopotamian history – Sargon presented Inanna/Ishtar as his divine benefactor in almost the same terms, while Gudea of Lagash was rather enthusiastic about the snake/vegetation god Ningishzida. While there was a political dimension to it – royal inscriptions could increase the status of a not necessarily major deity, and as a matter of fact did just that for both Ishtar and Marduk (though not for Ningishzida, whose importance only decreased with time) – it was ultimately first and foremost a manifestation of personal piety. Everyone had a family god they revered particularly strongly and asked to act as intermediary between them and the distant kings of gods, some just had more ways to show it.

Marduk’s earlier history is shrouded in mystery due to relative lack of importance of Babylon in the 3^rd millennium BCE. What can be said with certainty is that for as long as Babylon existed, Marduk was its god. Worldhistory.org (formerly Ancient.eu) presents a completely made up theory that Ishtar was the goddess of Babylon before Marduk; this finds no support in any credible publications. “Ishtar of Babylon” was a popular hyposthasis of her in later times and even had some unique characteristics, but there is precisely 0 evidence that there was ever a time when Marduk was not the tutelary god of Babylon.

Save for this role, which tells us nothing about Marduk’s character since every settlement had a tutelary god, his early history is impossible to investigate. Various theories arose nonetheless, for example presenting him as an agriculture or vegetation god (on the account of his spade symbol), as a weather god (because the weather serves as a weapon in Enuma Elish) or as a figure from the circle of the sun god Utu/Shamash on account of a possible meaning of his name (“calf of Utu”).

Marduk possibly gained his character as a god of exorcisms and great sage due to syncretism with Asalluhi, the son of Enki of Eridu, the third most important god of ancient Mesopotamia; the exact circumstances of this equation are unknown, though it’s safe to say that Eridu’s role as a religious center played a role. Other theories assume both gods played a similar role in different parts of Mesopotamia, or that the equation took place because of factors not currently known and unrelated to exorcisms. Whatever the reason behind it was, it’s important to point out this equation actually predates Hammurabi’s reign and might have originated outside the city of Babylon – the first instance has been identified in the documents of king Sîn-iddinam of Larsa from 19^th century BCE.

As a side note it’s worth pointing out that while Enki was equally revered as Enlil and co., he was viewed as more approachable. As noted by W. G. Lambert: “In cuneiform literature generally, [he] is active, never discredited or hated, and an ever present source of help to the human race.” It’s not impossible that Marduk’s early perception was similar, even though later he basically fully turned into an Enlil figure.

Much of Marduk’s prestige cannot be attributed to Hammurabi, also. His rise happened largely under the long reign of the Kassite dynasty. Kassites didn’t rule the largest empire ever and weren’t exactly the greatest of conquerors, but they gave Babylon something very different: stability, secured with diplomacy and dynastic marriages with the foremost powers of the era: the Hittite empire, the Mitanni, Elam and so on. Attempts at pressuring the Egyptians for a similar pact failed (pharaohs very much enjoyed receiving foreign wives but weren’t enthusiastic about the prospect of sending own daughters or sisters abroad), but both states were evidently on reasonably good terms, as there is some evidence for Egyptian citizens in Babylonia, and many Egyptian diplomats were fluent in Akkadian.

The Kassite rulers also turned Babylon into a world-famous (bear in mind this was a much smaller world) center of arts and learning – a role it retained for the rest of its history. Their policies were generally popular, and in terms of the cult of Marduk in particular they gained renown for pressuring the Hittites to return Marduk’s statue (a symbol of the city) stolen a few decades prior.

Myth #3: Tiamat represents matriarchal religion suppressed by Hammurabi/Sumerians/whatever

Matriarchal prehistory filled with cult of “fertility” and “mother goddesses” is itself a myth, advanced first by Victorian aristocratic failsons whose “academic” interests boiled down to a quest for “savage” customs to contrast with the righteous Victorian way of life.

The author who connected these Victorian confabulations to Tiamat was Robert Graves, (in)famous for the creation of the “triple goddess” concept, cheating on his wife with teenage “muses” and misinterpreting any text he touched. I already wrote how I feel about Graves in the past so I will not repeat myself here – it will suffice to say he was wrong. The rule of Enlil and Anu over the Mesopotamian pantheon is attested in earliest times already and the most prominent female deities – Inanna/Ishtar, various mother goddesses, medicine goddesses like Gula, spouses of major deities etc. - maintained a similar degree of popularity through most of Mesopotamian history.

Tiamat wasn’t worshiped and occupied the same niche as other monsters: her role in cult boiled down to being vanquished by a popular god. She doesn’t really represent a demonization of anything specific. As I stated above, preexisting myths were often treated as puzzle pieces. In her case, the following well attested elements were combined to create a new antagonist:

the belief that water, rather than earth or time was the primordial element (not actually all that common in Mesopotamia!); however there’s also a motif from the more common type of cosmogonic myths where earth and heaven are created by splitting a lump of primordial matter
the Anatolian and Syrian type of myth about combat between an upstart leader of gods, ex. Baal (Hadad) or Teshub, and the sea, personified as an antagonistic god (the most famous and best defined example being the Ugaritic Yam)
the belief in a body of water where monsters are created or live, sometimes thought to be a river in the underworld called Hubur (note that Tiamat is called “mother Hubur” in the epic); an echo of this belief is particularly strong in passages which describe Tiamat’s monster army as swimming in her waters
Ninurta’s monster slaying escapades – the number of Tiamat’s minions is even equal to the number of enemies Ninurta traditionally vanquished, and both groups overlap
myths about combat between the current gods and their evil ancestors – Enlil is particularly strongly associated with these, his enemy being his uncle Enmesharra

As a side note - Worldhistory.org/Ancient.eu presents a completely baffling theory that Tiamat was related to Ishtar (or to be precise that she was a demonization of the latter). This, too, is a product of that site’s contributors’ imagination: Ishtar’s status after her elevation by Sargon remained consistent. Antagonistic role in one myth (eg. the standard version of Epic of Gilgamesh; note it doesn’t even apply to other versions of Gilgamesh!) doesn’t mean a deity was viewed negatively, and trying to prove she was regarded as a marginal or outright demonic entity because of her other characteristics says more about the authors of such claims than it does about ancient Mesopotamians.

Marduk’s actual “rival” was Enlil and his cult center, Nippur – the reason why Marduk receives 50 names is because that was a holy number of Enlil; and to ancient readers the name-giving ceremony was the clear climax of the story and ultimate triumph of the hero. Having many epithets wasn’t unusual, and in fact Ishtar, Nergal and Ninurta all have more epithets attested than Marduk; however, it was the delivery of them in Enuma Elish that made them special. It sent a clear message: some people in Babylon aren’t fond of Nippur and can do all Nippur does better.

Nippur was never the center of an empire but it was originally the religious center of Mesopotamia, and played an important role in royal ideology. The priesthood of Nippur was as a result rather powerful, as expected from the servants of the single most significant god and father of many city gods.

However, there’s evidence that even Marduk and Enlil weren’t necessarily imagined as hostile towards each other, and the traditions concerning them as incompatible – in one myth Marduk’s wife Zarpanit is identified as daughter of Enlil (this is notably one of the only myths she appears in, and the one which gives her the most personality); in another, known only from second hand references currently, Enlil evidently plays a more active role in the history of Marduk.

Sub-myth: all myths of the “combat with the sea” variety feature a young storm god and a serpentine “mother sea”

Tiamat’s gender is actually an outlier. In all the 4 other most prominent myths of this variety the sea is male: the Ugaritic Yam, his Egyptian adaptation Pi-Yam and the Hurro-Hittite Aruna and Hedammu are all evidently men. As far as I am aware this is simply a matter of grammatical gender impacting the nature of personifications – the Akkadian tiamat/tamtum (sea) is a feminine noun, but the word for sea is masculine in the other cases.

It’s true that gods fighting the sea are usually depicted as young, but this has more to do with such myths generally serving as “backstory” praising the past deeds of a popular deity. Also, while ex. the Ugaritic Baal was depicted as youthful in most known sources, Marduk isn’t necessarily meant to be young in Babylonian imagination, and mythical descriptions of him vary. In the Epic of Erra, for example, he seems to be a passive old man easily tricked by Erra (Nergal).

Sub-myth: Tiamat in Nammu

Nammu is a rather obscure figure in Sumerian mythology. I noted before that certain entities existed only as part of elaborate theogonies and divine genealogies: Nammu fulfilled this function for Enki, and was seemingly rather obscure outside of a single city, Eridu, where Enki’s cult had its main center. As Enki was a god associated with water, his mother shared a similar character. However, neither of them was associated with the sea, but rather with springs, rivers and marshes.

Additionally, many references to Nammu don’t really highlight her possible watery character – she’s instead presented as a deity associated with exorcisms and related tools such as censers. In that capacity she continued to enjoy a limited relevance both before and after Enuma Elish were written.

The only text to possibly mention both Nammu and Tiamat is of little value for this discussion as it identifies Nammu as a male figure and the spouse of Nanše (a slightly less obscure goddess associated with fish, birds, orphans, widows and dream interpretation, sometimes viewed as Enki’s daughter or a member of the Eridu pantheon through other means); this was most likely a mistake. Very old documents sometimes used the signs for “Engur” (another term for Apsu understood as a place) to write Nammu’s name which might be the source of this confusion. Either way, while Nammu was never that big of a deal outside her hometown, she evidently didn’t morph into Tiamat as she kept her small role and some sanctuaries long after Enuma Elish was written.

Myth #4: Enuma Elish is the origin of monotheism

This is another claim pushed by Canadian online talking head and pharmacological coma enthusiast Jordan Peterson in between claims about benefits of an all meat diet and garden variety intellectual dark web talking points. Like the entire “scholarship” of mr. Peterson they are worthless. I’m under the impression that many people see him as some sort of “logic & reason” figurehead akin to Neil deGrasse Tyson, but in reality he’s basically the male version of a crystal healer suburban mom. Peterson doesn’t even read the texts he talks about, he just forms opinions based on Jungian mysticism, a field whose only positive contribution to culture was inspiring Persona 1.

Enuma Elish isn’t any more “monotheist” than many other texts where a specific god is the protagonist, and as a matter of fact Marduk’s status in its context entirely depends on other gods, who raised him and bestowed his titles upon him – hardly a monotheist arrangement!

At best the “proto-monotheism” argument can be supported by a genre of syncretistic hymns in which specific deities are turned into epithets of other ones. Such a hymn to Marduk is known, but it’s later than Enuma Elish, and shows little, if any, connection to it. Additionally, given how there are similar texts about Ninurta, Ishtar, Gula (goddess of medicine) and even Nanaya, a courtier of Ishtar, some researchers doubt that it’s truly an example of monotheism: these texts might only be a way to exalt specific deities by showing them as equal in rank to many other gods. I guess making monotheism claims about Nanaya, notable for stuff like being invoked to deal with unrequited crushes and impotence just isn’t cool enough for authors of the sort discussed here.

Nanaya - not cool enough for monotheism theories? (wikimedia commons)

A further problem with this claim is the fact that the role of other gods in the cult of Marduk only grew with time. Nabu became Marduk’s son and heir after Enuma Elish was written, most references to Zarpanit are rather late, and a myth from Seleucid(!) times describes Nergal as Marduk’s valuable ally.

Myth #5: Enuma Elish represents the new year ritual from Babylon

Enuma Elish did play a role in the cult of Marduk – a few references in Assyrian and Seleucid texts confirm as much – but it was distinct from the Akitu festival celebrating New Year. Enuma Elish was most likely meant to serve as an “educational” text about Marduk rather than a cultic one.

It’s possible that the Akitu festival featured a ritual meant to memorize the battle between Marduk and Tiamat, but it’s doubtful that it represented the exact same tradition as Enuma Elish. It’s also worth noting that other cities had “akitu houses” dedicated to local gods too. Whatever entity was fought there was more likely to have an infernal than marine character. W. G. Lambert proposed Enmeshara or a separate version of Tiamat linked to the underworld rather than the sea.

Myth #6: the dragon depicted alongside Marduk is Tiamat.

Marduk and his pet (wikimedia commons)

Many depictions of Marduk do show a serpentine creature near him. However, these are unrelated to Tiamat. It’s instead the mushussu, a type of Mesopotamian dragon attested even before Marduk himself. It served as a symbol of other gods as well, and in art at times appears as a pet or mount. Frans Wiggermann, an expert in Mesopotamian demonology, proposes that Marduk obtained this symbol after Hammurabi’s conquest of the city-state Eshnunna, whose tutelary gods Ninazu and Tishpak were also depicted alongside this creature. Marduk’s pet was evidently benign: “Your symbol i s a monster from whose mouth poison does not drip,” states one text.

As for Tiamat, it’s far from certain if she was even imagined as dragon-like. She hardly appears outside Enuma Elish, but her descriptions aren’t really consistent even in the epic itself. She is both a body of water inside which other monsters can swim, and some sort of large beast. The notion of Tiamat as a dragon is based on parallels with other myths about gods battling the sea, but it’s hard to tell if that’s how Babylonians actually imagined her. Some descriptions indicate she was simply a body of water; some evidently describe her as at least partially anthropomorphic; finally some indicate she was a quadruped of some sort. Some researchers propose a goat or a cow, but it’s worth noting one ritual formula indicates that “The dromedary is the shade of Tiamat” - an equation which makes much more sense in Akkadian, as the dromedary was known as “donkey of the sea.”

It’s nonetheless possible to defend the possibility of serpentine Tiamat as long as you are willing to draw parallels between her and Irhan. Irhan was yet another primordial watery being, though associated with a (cosmic) river and male; he was seemingly described as snake-like due to confusion with similarly named mythical snake Nirah. Irhan is, if nothing else, a closer parallel with Tiamat than Nammu, arguably. A figure similar to Irhan was Lugal Abba (“king of the sea”), a poorly known underworld deity.

Closing remarks

This list is by no means comprehensive. It’s basically a sample of things I had to witness myself; there are doubtlessly many other dubious claims making rounds online. I nonetheless hope I can tilt the balance at least slightly, and I hope my points illustrate that the genuine article is more interesting than Peterson’s and other similar authors’ claims.