and trees; how Babylon was built
and Marduk created man, and the Tigris and the Euphrates, and the beasts
and cities and temples. This also must be looked on as a comparatively
late form of the myth, since its hero is Marduk, god of Babylon. As in
the Bible account, men are created before beasts, and the region of
their first abode seems to be the same as the Eden of Genesis.

Let us now turn to the poem in which the combat between Tiamat and
Marduk forms the principal feature. For some unexplained reason Tiamat
rebels against the gods. Collecting her hosts, among them frightful
demon shapes of all imaginable forms, she advances for the purpose of
expelling the gods from their seats. The affrighted deities turn for
protection to the high gods, Anu and Ea, who, however, recoil in terror
from the hosts of the dragon Tiamat. Anshar then applies to Marduk. The
gods are invited to a feast, the situation is described, and Marduk is
invited to lead the heavenly hosts against the foe. He agrees on
condition that he shall be clothed with absolute power, so that he shall
only have to say "Let it be," and it shall be. To this the gods assent:
a garment is placed before him, to which he says "Vanish," and it
vanishes, and when he commands it to appear, it is present. The hero
then dons his armor and advances against the enemy. He takes Tiamat and
slays her, routs her host, kills her consort Kingu, and utterly destroys
the rebellion. Tiamat he cuts in twain. Out of one half of her he forms
the heavens, out of the other half the earth, and for the gods Anu and
Bel and Ea he makes a heavenly palace, like the abyss itself in extent.
To the great gods also he assigns positions, forms the stars,
establishes the year and month and the day. At this point the history is
interrupted, the tablet being broken. The creation of the heavenly
bodies is to be compared with the similar account in Gen. i.; whether
this poem narrates the creation of the rest of the world it is
impossible to say.

In this history of the rebellion of Tiamat against the gods we have a
mythical picture of some natural phenomenon, perhaps of the conflict
between the winter and the enlivening sun of summer. The poem appears to
contain elements of different dates. The rude character of some of the
procedures suggests an early time: Marduk slays Tiamat by driving the
wind into her body; the warriors who accompany her have those composite
forms familiar to us from Babylonian