statement that out of the other half the earth was fashioned is not
definitely stated in our version of the creation. The narrative proceeds
as follows:

He passed through the heavens, he inspected the expanse.[733]

To understand this phrase, we must consider the general character of the
"epic," which is, as we have already seen, a composite production,
formed of popular elements and of more advanced speculations. The
popular element is the interpretation of the storms and rains that
regularly visit the Euphrates Valley before the summer season sets in,
as a conflict between a monster and the solar deity Marduk. After a
struggle, winds at last drive the waters back; Tiamat is vanquished by
the entrance of the 'bad wind' into her body. The sun appears in the
heavens and runs across the expanse, passing in his course over the
entire vault. The conflict, which in the scholastic system of the
theologians is placed at the beginning of things, is in reality a
phenomenon of annual occurrence. The endeavor to make Marduk more than
what he originally was--a solar deity--leads to the introduction of a
variety of episodes that properly belong to a different class of
deities. For all that, the original role of Marduk is not obscured.
Marduk's passage across the heavens is a trace of the popular phases of
the nature myth, and while in one sense, it is appropriately introduced
after the fashioning of the expanse, it more properly follows
immediately upon the conflict with Tiamat. In short, we have reached a
point in the narrative where the nature myth symbolizing the annual
succession of the seasons blends with a cosmological system which is the
product of comparatively advanced schools of thought, in such a manner
as to render it difficult to draw the line where myth ends and
cosmological system begins. For the moment, the nature myth controls the
course of the narrative. The sun, upon running its course across the
heavens, appears to drop into the great ocean, which the Babylonians, in
common with many ancient nations, imagined to surround and to pass
underneath the earth.

Hence the next act undertaken by Marduk is the regulation of the course
of this subterranean sea. The name given to this sea was Apsu. Marduk
however does not create the Apsu. It is in existence at the beginning of
things, but he places it under the control of Ea.

In front of Apsu, he prepared the dwelling of Nu-dimmud.[734]

This Apsu, as we learn f