Enuma Elish
Also known as: Enūma Eliš, When on High, Babylonian Creation Epic, Seven Tablets of Creation
A Babylonian creation epic in seven tablets recounting Marduk’s rise to divine kingship after defeating the chaos-sea Tiamat, fashioning heaven and earth from her body, fixing celestial order, founding Babylon and Esagil, and creating humankind from Kingu’s blood to serve the gods.
Description
Opening with the mingling of the primeval waters Apsu and Tiamat, the poem traces the birth of the gods and their conflict with the older powers. After Ea subdues Apsu, Tiamat arms a host led by Kingu and the Tablet of Destinies. The young storm-god Marduk, empowered by the divine assembly, defeats Tiamat with wind, net, and arrow, splits her carcass to structure the cosmos, and organizes time by setting constellations and calendars. He founds Babylon and Esagil as the axis of divine rule, then fashions humanity from Kingu’s blood to relieve the gods of ritual labor. The epic culminates in the bestowal and recitation of Marduk’s fifty names, hymning his cosmic sovereignty and legal authority.
Historiography
Preserved in Akkadian (Standard Babylonian) across seven tablets, the best witnesses derive from the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, with parallel fragments from Babylon and Uruk. The work was recited at the Akītu (New Year) festival, embedding it in royal ideology. Modern scholarship debates its date and political theology, often reading it as elevating Marduk and Babylon over older cults. W. G. Lambert’s critical edition remains the standard reference.
Date Notes
Title from incipit. The poem likely coalesced in the late second millennium BCE; extant tablets come chiefly from Neo-Assyrian Nineveh (7th c. BCE) and Neo-Babylonian contexts.
Major Characters
- Marduk
- Tiamat
- Apsu
- Ea
- Kingu
- Anu
Myths
- The Birth of the Gods from Apsu and Tiamat
- The Rise of Marduk
- The Slaying of Tiamat
- The Creation of Humankind
- The Building of Babylon and Esagila
Facts
- Composed in Akkadian (Standard Babylonian dialect) and inscribed on seven tablets.
- The incipit “Enūma eliš” (“When on high…”) provides the modern title.
- Central myth justifies Marduk’s supreme kingship and Babylon’s cultic primacy.
- Recited during the Akītu (New Year) festival, likely with ritual performance elements.
- Key motif: recovery of the Tablet of Destinies, symbol of lawful cosmic authority.
- Cosmology maps the heavens with constellations and establishes a lunisolar calendar.
- Humans are created from Kingu’s blood to take over divine labor and ritual service.
- Principal manuscripts come from Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh (7th century BCE).
- The poem integrates theogony and cosmogony with temple-foundation theology (Esagil).
- W. G. Lambert’s ‘Babylonian Creation Myths’ is the definitive modern edition and study.