Tiamat
Also known as: Tamtu, Thalassa
Mythological Narrative
Tiamat is the primordial salt sea. When Enuma Elish opens, nothing has yet been named; only she and the freshwater Apsu mingle their waters, and within her the generations of gods are born. Through the poem's first half she is barely a figure at all, a fertile immensity of water; only when she goes to war does a body emerge — the text mentions a tail, a neck, jaws that cannot be approached. Later readers have imagined her as a dragon or sea serpent, though the tablets never draw a complete portrait.
The war begins as revenge. The young gods' clamor drives Apsu to plot their destruction, and Ea kills him first by a spell. When the gods disturb her again, Tiamat is persuaded to act: she spawns eleven monsters — the snake-dragon, the great lion, the scorpion-man, the fish-man, the bull-man and the rest — raises Qingu to command, and fastens the Tablet of Destinies on his breast. The elder gods flee before her; young Marduk exacts kingship as his fee, then catches her in a net, drives the four winds into her open mouth until her belly distends, and splits her heart with an arrow. He cleaves the corpse 'like a fish for drying': one half becomes the sky, the other the earth; her eyes are opened into the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, her udders heaped into mountains.
Every Babylonian new year the epic was recited entire, replaying the world's making from her body. The five-headed dragon queen of Dungeons and Dragons, introduced in 1975, borrows her name and little else.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## The Primordial Mother
Tiamat represents the salt water of the primeval ocean, complementing her consort Apsu who embodied fresh water. Their mingling produced the first generation of gods. She is both creative and destructive, nurturing mother and terrifying dragon, embodying the ambivalent power of the primordial chaos from which order emerged.
### Mother of Gods
From the union of Tiamat and Apsu came Lahmu and Lahamu, then Anshar and Kishar, and eventually the younger gods who would people the cosmos. Tiamat initially tolerated her noisy divine children, even when their clamor disturbed Apsu's rest. Only after Ea killed Apsu did Tiamat turn against her descendants.
### The Chaos Dragon
When Tiamat went to war against the younger gods, she transformed into a vast dragon and created eleven monster-types to serve as her army: the Viper, the Dragon, the Sphinx, the Great Lion, the Mad Dog, the Scorpion-man, Dragonflies, the Fish-man, the Bull-man, Kulullu, and the Centaur. Leading them was her new consort Kingu, to whom she gave the Tablet of Destinies.
### World-Body
Tiamat's greatest significance comes in death. When Marduk slew her, he split her body like a shellfish. Half became the sky, half the earth. Her eyes became the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates, her tail was bent up to form the heavens, her crotch supported the sky. The ordered cosmos exists within and upon her carcass.
### Legacy
Tiamat's image as the primordial chaos dragon influenced countless later traditions, from the Hebrew tehom (deep) in Genesis to the Greek Thalassa to the dragon combat myths found throughout the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. She represents the necessary chaos that must be conquered for creation to exist.
Cross-Pantheon Parallels & Archetypes
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Tiamat.
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Marduk
Patron god of Babylon who, in Enuma Elish, slew Tiamat, split her body into heaven and earth, and took kingship of the gods; his ziggurat Etemenanki likely inspired the Tower of Babel.
Enki
God of wisdom, fresh water, and crafts, Akkadian Ea, dwelling in the Abzu at Eridu. He proposed the creation of humankind and leaked the secret of the coming Flood through a reed wall.
Tablet of Destinies
A sealed clay tablet conferring supreme command: whoever wears it decrees fate. Anzu stole it from bathing Enlil; Tiamat pinned it on Qingu; Marduk finally sealed it as his own.
Gaia
Primordial goddess of the Earth, one of the first beings to emerge from Chaos. Gaia is the mother of the sky (Uranus), the sea (Pontus), the Titans, the Cyclopes, and, through the blood of Uranus, the Giants and the Furies.