LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT

[Stacey Janson]

In the passage of the poem which describes the birth of the great gods
after the last pair of primaeval deities, mention is duly made of Anu
and Nudimmud (the latter a title of Ea), corresponding to the {'Anos}
and {'Aos} of Damascius; and there appears to be no reference to
Enlil, the original of {'Illinos}. It is just possible that his name
occurred at the end of one of the broken lines, and, if so, we should
have a complete parallel to Damascius. But the traces are not in
favour of the restoration;[1] and the omission of Enlil's name from
this part of the poem may be readily explained as a further tribute to
Marduk, who definitely usurps his place throughout the subsequent
narrative. Anu and Ea had both to be mentioned because of the parts
they play in the Epic, but Enlil's only recorded appearance is in the
final assembly of the gods, where he bestows his own name "the Lord of
the World"[2] upon Marduk. The evidence of Damascius suggests that
Enlil's name was here retained, between those of Anu and Ea, in other
versions of the poem. But the occurrence of the name in any version is
in itself evidence of the antiquity of this strand of the narrative.
It is a legitimate inference that the myth of the Birth of the Gods
goes back to a time at least before the rise of Babylon, and is
presumably of Sumerian origin.

[Stacey Janson]

[1] Anu and Nudimmud are each mentioned for the first time at the
    beginning of a line, and the three lines following the reference
    to Nudimmud are entirely occupied with descriptions of his wisdom
    and power. It is also probable that the three preceding lines (ll.
    14-16), all of which refer to Anu by name, were entirely occupied
    with his description. But it is only in ll. 13-16 that any
    reference to Enlil can have occurred, and the traces preserved of
    their second halves do not suggestion the restoration.

[2] Cf. Tabl. VII, . 116.

[Stacey Janson]

Further evidence of this may be seen in the fact that Anu, Enlil, and
Ea (i.e. Enki), who are here created together, are the three great
gods of the Sumerian Version of Creation; it is they who create
mankind with the help of the goddess Ninkharsagga, and in the fuller
version of that myth we should naturally expect to find some account
of their own origin. The reference in Damascius to Marduk ({Belos}) as
the son of Ea and Damkina ({Dauke}) is also of interest in this
connexion, as it exhibits a goddess in close connexion with one of the
three great gods, much as we find Ninkharsagga associated with them in
the Sumerian Version.[1] Before leaving the names, it may be added
that, of the primaeval deities, Anshar and Kishar are obviously
Sumerian in form.

[1] Damkina was the later wife of Ea or Enki; and Ninkharsagga is
    associated with Enki, as his consort, in another Sumerian myth.

[Stacey Janson]

It may be noted that the character of Apsû and Tiamat in this portion
of the poem[1] is quite at variance with their later actions. Their
revolt at the ordered "way" of the gods was a necessary preliminary to
the incorporation of the Dragon myths, in which Ea and Marduk are the
heroes. Here they appear as entirely beneficent gods of the primaeval
water, undisturbed by storms, in whose quiet depths the equally
beneficent deities Lakhmu and Lakhamu, Anshar and Kishar, were
generated.[2] This interpretation, by the way, suggests a more
satisfactory restoration for the close of the ninth line of the poem
than any that has yet been proposed. That line is usually taken to
imply that the gods were created "in the midst of [heaven]", but I
think the following rendering, in connexion with ll. 1-5, gives better
sense:

[Stacey Janson]

When in the height heaven was not named,
  And the earth beneath did not bear a name,
  And the primaeval Apsû who begat them,[3]
  And Mummu, and Tiamat who bore them[3] all,--
  Their waters were mingled together,
  . . .
  . . .
  . . .
  Then were created the gods in the midst of [their waters],[4]
  Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called into being . . .

[1] Tabl. I, ll. 1-21.

[Stacey Janson]

[2] We may perhaps see a survival of Tiamat's original character in
    her control of the Tablets of Fate. The poem does not represent
    her as seizing them in any successful fight; they appear to be
    already hers to bestow on Kingu, though in the later mythology
    they are "not his by right" (cf. Tabl. I, ll. 137 ff., and Tabl.
    IV, l. 121).

[3] i.e. the gods.

[4] The ninth line is preserved only on a Neo-Babylonian duplicate
    (/Seven Tablets/, Vol. II, pl. i). I suggested the restoration
    /ki-rib š[a-ma-mi]/, "in the midst of heaven", as possible, since
    the traces of the first sign in the last word of the line seemed

[Stacey Janson]

to be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of /ša/. The restoration
    appeared at the time not altogether satisfactory in view of the
    first line of the poem, and it could only be justified by
    supposing that /šamâmu/, or "heaven", was already vaguely
    conceived as in existence (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 3, n. 14). But the
    traces of the sign, as I have given them (op. cit., Vol. II, pl.
    i), may also possibly be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of the
    sign /me/; and I would now restore the end of the line in the Neo-
    Babylonian tablet as /ki-rib m[e-e-šu-nu]/, "in the midst of
    [their waters]", corresponding to the form /mu-u-šu-nu/ in l. 5 of
    this duplicate. In the Assyrian Version /mé(pl)-šu-nu/ would be
    read in both lines. It will be possible to verify the new reading,
    by a re-examination of the traces on the tablet, when the British
    Museum collections again become available for study after the war.

[Stacey Janson]

If the ninth line of the poem be restored as suggested, its account of
the Birth of the Gods will be found to correspond accurately with the
summary from Berossus, who, in explaining the myth, refers to the
Babylonian belief that the universe consisted at first of moisture in
which living creatures, such as he had already described, were
generated.[1] The primaeval waters are originally the source of life,
not of destruction, and it is in them that the gods are born, as in
Egyptian mythology; there Nu, the primaeval water-god from whom Ra was
self-created, never ceased to be the Sun-god's supporter. The change
in the Babylonian conception was obviously introduced by the
combination of the Dragon myth with that of Creation, a combination
that in Egypt would never have been justified by the gentle Nile. From
a study of some aspects of the names at the beginning of the
Babylonian poem we have already seen reason to suspect that its
version of the Birth of the Gods goes back to Sumerian times, and it
is pertinent to ask whether we have any further evidence that in
Sumerian belief water was the origin of all things.

[Stacey Janson]

[1] {ugrou gar ontos tou pantos kai zoon en auto gegennemenon
    [toionde] ktl}. His creatures of the primaeval water were killed
    by the light; and terrestrial animals were then created which
    could bear (i.e. breathe and exist in) the air.

For many years we have possessed a Sumerian myth of Creation, which
has come to us on a late Babylonian tablet as the introductory section
of an incantation. It is provided with a Semitic translation, and to
judge from its record of the building of Babylon and Egasila, Marduk's

[Stacey Janson]

temple, and its identification of Marduk himself with the Creator, it
has clearly undergone some editing at the hands of the Babylonian
priests. Moreover, the occurrence of various episodes out of their
logical order, and the fact that the text records twice over the
creation of swamps and marshes, reeds and trees or forests, animals
and cities, indicate that two Sumerian myths have been combined. Thus
we have no guarantee that the other cities referred to by name in the
text, Nippur, Erech, and Eridu, are mentioned in any significant
connexion with each other.[1] Of the actual cause of Creation the text
appears to give two versions also, one in its present form impersonal,
and the other carried out by a god. But these two accounts are quite
unlike the authorized version of Babylon, and we may confidently
regard them as representing genuine Sumerian myths. The text resembles
other early accounts of Creation by introducing its narrative with a
series of negative statements, which serve to indicate the preceding
non-existence of the world, as will be seen from the following
extract:[2]

[Stacey Janson]

No city had been created, no creature had been made,
  Nippur had not been created, Ekur had not been built,
  Erech had not been created, Eanna had not been built,
  Apsû had not been created, Eridu had not been built,
  Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the habitation had not
    been created.
  All lands[3] were sea.
  At the time when a channel (was formed) in the midst of the sea,
  Then was Eridu created, Esagila built, etc.

[Stacey Janson]

Here we have the definite statement that before Creation all the world
was sea. And it is important to note that the primaeval water is not
personified; the ordinary Sumerian word for "sea" is employed, which
the Semitic translator has faithfully rendered in his version of the
text.[4] The reference to a channel in the sea, as the cause of
Creation, seems at first sight a little obscure; but the word implies
a "drain" or "water-channel", not a current of the sea itself, and the
reference may be explained as suggested by the drainage of a flood-
area. No doubt the phrase was elaborated in the original myth, and it
is possible that what appears to be a second version of Creation later
on in the text is really part of the more detailed narrative of the
first myth. There the Creator himself is named. He is the Sumerian god
Gilimma, and in the Semitic translation Marduk's name is substituted.
To the following couplet, which describes Gilimma's method of
creation, is appended a further extract from a later portion of the
text, there evidently displaced, giving additional details of the
Creator's work:

[Stacey Janson]

Gilimma bound reeds in the face of the waters,
  He formed soil and poured it out beside the reeds.[5]
  [He][6] filled in a dike by the side of the sea,
  [He . . .] a swamp, he formed a marsh.
  [. . .], he brought into existence,
  [Reeds he form]ed,[7] trees he created.

[Stacey Janson]

[1] The composite nature of the text is discussed by Professor Jastrow
    in his /Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions/, pp. 89 ff.; and in his
    paper in the /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 279
    ff.; he has analysed it into two main versions, which he suggests
    originated in Eridu and Nippur respectively. The evidence of the
    text does not appear to me to support the view that any reference
    to a watery chaos preceding Creation must necessarily be of
    Semitic origin. For the literature of the text (first published by
    Pinches, /Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc./, Vol. XXIII, pp. 393 ff.), see
    /Sev. Tabl./, Vol. I, p. 130.

[Stacey Janson]

[2] Obv., ll. 5-12.

[3] Sum. /nigin-kur-kur-ra-ge/, Sem. /nap-har ma-ta-a-tu/, lit. "all
    lands", i.e. Sumerian and Babylonian expressions for "the world".

[4] Sum. /a-ab-ba/, "sea", is here rendered by /tâmtum/, not by its
    personified equivalent Tiamat.

[5] The suggestion has been made that /amu/, the word in the Semitic
    version here translated "reeds", should be connected with
    /ammatu/, the word used for "earth" or "dry land" in the
    Babylonian Creation Series, Tabl. I, l. 2, and given some such
    meaning as "expanse". The couplet is thus explained to mean that