
After the god Marduk killed his grandmother, the primordial goddess Tiamat, he decided to create the universe from her body. He split her dead body in two halves. From the top half, he created the sky and made arrangements for sun, moon, and seasons. From the bottom half of the goddess' body, he created earth: streams flowing from her eyes became the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, her head became the mountains, and her "udder" formed the foothills, all geographical features familiar to the ancient Mesopotamians.
When the plot is stripped of all its convoluted detail, the story told in the Akkadian (Sumerian) Creation Epic is basically about a rebellion in the divine world against the primordial mother goddess, Tiamat. In the beginning, Tiamat is portrayed in a position of authority over all the divine population, including her consort. It is noticeable that she is represented as having a monstrous aspect to her character, giving birth to dragons and vipers, only after she has declared her intentions to take retaliatory action against the young rebel gods: before that point in the narrative, she appears as a compassionate and tolerant ruler, commanding the love and loyalty of her subjects. When a faction of the gods rose in revolt against her, others flocked to her side in support of her cause. The prospect of a new, alternative power-structure under the rebel gods was not, it would seem, welcomed by all, and there were many who were prepared to fight for the status quo...
The Akkadian Epic clearly makes use of traditional Sumerian stories, since so many of the characters who take an active part in the anti-Tiamat revolt are Sumerian gods. Which of the Sumerian gods had been the first to challenge the authority of the old goddess cannot be determined... It is probable that the author of the Akkadian poem drew on a number of original Sumerian sources, each featuring a different god in the role of rebel, hero, and creator god, all of which were almalgamated in the poem as we know it.
What can be said, however, is that, on the basis of the evidence of the Babylonian and Assyrian version of The Creation Epic, Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians alike visualized the pre-creative state as originally comprising a divine population living under the matriarchal rule of the primordial goddess, Tiamat. (The Creation Epic, from Iris Furlong's "The Mythology of the Ancient Near East" in The Feminist Companion to Mythology, ed. Carolyne Larrington)
The mythology of ancient Mesopotamia, revealed through hymns, songs, and literary compositions recorded on clay tablets and deciphered in the 20th century, reveals "a system of cosmological belief that was formulated in the preliterate period by the peoples of Sumer and which survived, with adaptations and modifications, for well over two thousand years."
(Carolyne Larrington's "Introduction," ibid.)Tiamat, digital collage © 2005 Sage Starwalker
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Hi Athana. I've put the Flood book on my reading roster, and added you to my blogroll. I discovered your blog a few weeks ago and have had you on my list for requesting reciprocal links. You just found your way here before I got to that spot on my to-do list. Thanks!