View source for Tiamat

{{Short description|Primordial goddess of ancient Babylon religion}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Infobox deity
| type     = Mesopotamian
| image    = 
| caption  = 
| consort  = [[Abzu]]; [[Kingu]] (after Abzu's death)
| children = [[Kingu]], [[Lahamu]], [[Lahmu]]
}}
{{Mesopotamian myth|expanded=1}}
<!-- Before placing an image on this article, please see the talk page. Most of the images labelled as Tiamat found on the Internet (including, sadly, those on Wikimedia Commons) and in old or popular non-academic books are considered by modern scholars to not actually depict Tiamat. -->

In [[Mesopotamian religion]], '''Tiamat''' ({{langx|akk|{{cuneiform|𒀭𒋾𒀀𒆳}}}} {{transliteration|akk|<sup>[[dingir|D]]</sup><small>TI.AMAT</small>}} or {{Script/Cuneiform|𒀭𒌓𒌈}} {{transliteration|akk|<sup>[[dingir|D]]</sup><small>TAM.TUM</small>}}, {{langx|grc|Θαλάττη|Thaláttē}})<ref name="oracc">{{Cite web |title=Tiamat (goddess) |url=http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/tiamat/index.html |access-date=2023-06-30 |website=Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses |publisher=Penn State University}}</ref> is the primordial [[water god|sea]], mating with [[Abzu|Abzû]] (Apsu), the [[groundwater]], to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic ''[[Enûma Elish]]'', which translates as "when on high". She is referred to as a woman, and has - at various points in the epic - a number of [[anthropomorphic]] features (such as breasts) and [[theriomorphic]] features (such as a tail). 

In the ''Enûma Elish'', the Babylonian [[Creation myth|epic of creation]], Tiamat bears the first generation of deities after mingling her waters with those of Apsu, her consort. The gods continue to reproduce, forming a noisy new mass of divine children. Apsu, driven to violence by the noise they make, seeks to destroy them and is killed. Enraged, Tiamat also wars upon those of her own and Apsu's children who killed her consort, bringing forth a series of monsters as weapons. She also takes a new consort, [[Kingu|Qingu]], and bestows on him the [[Tablet of Destinies (mythic item)|Tablet of Destinies]], which represents legitimate divine rulership.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=George |first=Andrew |date=1986 |title=Sennacherib and the Tablet of Destinies |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/4200258 |journal=Iraq |volume=48 |pages=133–146|doi=10.2307/4200258 |jstor=4200258 |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite conference |last=Sonik |first=Karen |date=2012 |title=The Tablet of Destinies and the Transmission of Power in Enūma eliš |book-title=Organization, Representation, and Symbols of Power in the Ancient Near East |conference=Proceedings of the 54th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale at Würzburg, 20–25 July 2008 |pages=387–395 |doi=10.5325/j.ctv1bxgx80.34 |jstor=10.5325/j.ctv1bxgx80.34}}</ref> She is ultimately defeated and slain by [[Enki]]'s son, the storm-god [[Marduk]], but not before she conjures forth monsters whose bodies she fills with "poison instead of blood". Marduk dismembers her, and then constructs and structures elements of the cosmos from Tiamat's body.

==Etymology==
[[Thorkild Jacobsen]] and [[Walter Burkert]] both argue for a connection with the [[Akkadian language|Akkadian]] word for sea, ''[[wikt:𒀀𒀊𒁀#Akkadian|tâmtu]]'' ({{cuneiform|𒀀𒀊𒁀}}), following an early form, ''ti'amtum''.{{sfn|Jacobsen|1968|p=105}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Burkert |first=Walter |title=The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influences on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=1992 |pages=92f |isbn=0-674-64363-1 }}</ref> Burkert continues by making a linguistic connection to [[Tethys (mythology)|Tethys]]. The later form {{langx|grc|Θαλάττη|translit=thaláttē|label=none}}, which appears in the Hellenistic [[Babylonia|Babylonian]] writer [[Berossus]]' first volume of universal history, is clearly related to Greek {{Langx|grc|Θάλαττα|thálatta|label=none}}, an Eastern variant of {{Langx|grc|Θάλασσα|[[thalassa]]|label=none|lit=sea}}. It is thought that the proper name ''ti'amat'', which is the [[vocative]] or [[Construct state|construct]] form, was dropped in secondary translations of the original texts, because some Akkadian copyists of ''[[Enûma Elish|Enuma Elish]]'' substituted the ordinary word ''tāmtu'' ('sea') for Tiamat, the two names having become essentially the same due to association.{{sfn|Jacobsen|1968|p=105}} ''Tiamat'' also has been claimed to be [[cognate]] with the [[Northwest Semitic]] word ''[[tehom]]'' (תְּהוֹם; 'the deeps, abyss'), in the [[Book of Genesis]] 1:2.<ref>{{cite book |last=Yahuda |first=A. |title=The Language of the Pentateuch in its Relation to Egyptian |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1933 }}</ref>

The Babylonian [[Epic poetry|epic]] ''Enuma Elish'' is named for its [[incipit]]: "When on high [or: When above]", the heavens did not yet exist nor the earth below, [[Abzu]] the subterranean ocean was there, "the first, the begetter", and Tiamat, the overground sea, "she who bore them all"; they were "mixing their waters".  It is thought that female deities are older than male ones in [[Mesopotamia]], and Tiamat may have begun as part of the cult of [[Nammu]], a female principle of a watery creative force, with equally strong connections to the underworld, which predates the appearance of Ea-Enki.<ref>{{cite book |last=Steinkeller |first=Piotr |chapter=On Rulers, Priests and Sacred Marriage: Tracing the Evolution of Early Sumerian Kingship |editor-last=Wanatabe |editor-first=K. |title=Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East |location=Heidelberg |publisher=Winter |year=1999 |pages=103–38 |isbn=3-8253-0533-3 }}</ref>

[[Harriet Crawford]] finds this "mixing of the waters" to be a natural feature of the middle [[Persian Gulf]], where fresh waters from the Arabian [[aquifer]] mix and mingle with the salt waters of the sea.<ref>{{cite book |last=Crawford |first=Harriet E. W. |author-link=Harriet Crawford |year=1998 |title=Dilmun and Its Gulf Neighbours |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=0-521-58348-9 }}</ref> This characteristic is especially true of the region of [[Bahrain]], whose name in [[Arabic language|Arabic]] means "two seas", and which is thought to be the site of [[Dilmun]], the original site of the Sumerian creation beliefs.<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Crawford |editor1-first=Harriet |editor2-last=Killick |editor2-first=Robert |editor3-last=Moon |editor3-first=Jane |year=1997 |title=The Dilmun Temple at Saar: Bahrain and Its Archaeological Inheritance |publisher=Saar Excavation Reports / London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition: Kegan Paul |isbn=0-7103-0487-0 }}</ref> The difference in density of salt and fresh water drives a [[Halocline|perceptible separation]].

==Appearance and nature==
In the ''Enuma Elish'', Tiamat’s physical description includes a tail, a thigh, "lower parts" (which shake together), a belly, an [[udder]], ribs, a neck, a head, a skull, eyes, nostrils, a mouth, and lips. She has insides (possibly "entrails"), a heart, arteries, and blood.

Tiamat was once regarded as a [[sea serpent]] or [[dragon]], although Assyriologist [[Alexander Heidel]] has previously recognized that a "dragon form can not be imputed to Tiamat with certainty." She is still often referred to as a monster, though this identification has been credibly challenged.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sonik |first=Karen |date=2009 |chapter=Gender Matters in Enūma eliš |url=https://doi.org/10.31826/9781463219185-009 |title=In the Wake of Tikva Frymer-Kensky|pages=85–102 |doi=10.31826/9781463219185-009 |isbn=978-1-4632-1918-5 }}</ref> In ''Enuma Elish'', Tiamat is clearly portrayed as a mother of monsters but, before this, she is just as clearly portrayed as a mother to all the gods.

==Mythology==
With Tiamat, Abzu (or Apsû) fathered the elder deities [[Lahmu]] and [[Lahamu]] (masc. the 'hairy'), a title given to the gatekeepers at Enki's Abzu/E'engurra-temple in [[Eridu]]. Lahmu and Lahamu, in turn, were the parents of the 'ends' of the heavens ([[Anshar]], from ''an-šar'', 'heaven-totality/end') and the earth ([[Kishar]]); Anshar and Kishar were considered to meet at the horizon, becoming, thereby, the parents of [[Anu]] (Heaven) and [[Ki (goddess)|Ki]] (Earth).

Tiamat was the "shining" personification of the sea who roared and smote in the chaos of original creation. She and Abzu filled the cosmic abyss with the primeval waters. She is "'''Ummu-Hubur''' [{{Literal translation|Mother-Watercourse}}] who formed all things".

In the myth recorded on [[Cuneiform|cuneiform tablets]], the deity [[Enki]] (later Ea) believed correctly that Abzu was planning to murder the younger deities as a consequence of his aggravation with the noisy tumult they created. This premonition led Enki to capture Abzu and hold him prisoner beneath Abzu’s own temple, the [[É (temple)|E-Abzu]] ('temple of Abzu'). This angered [[Kingu]], their son, who reported the event to Tiamat, whereupon she fashioned eleven monsters to battle the deities in order to avenge Abzu's death. These were her own offspring: [[Bašmu]] ('Venomous Snake'), [[Ušumgallu]] ('Great Dragon'), [[Mušmaḫḫū]] ('Exalted Serpent'), [[Mušḫuššu]] ('Furious Snake'), [[Lahmu|Laḫmu]] (the 'Hairy One'), [[Ugallu]] (the 'Big Weather-Beast'), [[Uridimmu]] ('Mad Lion'), [[Girtablilu|Girtablullû]] ('Scorpion-Man'), [[Umū dabrūtu]] ('Violent Storms'), [[Kulullû]] ('Fish-Man'), and [[Kusarikku]] ('Bull-Man').

Tiamat was in possession of the [[Tablet of Destinies (mythic item)|Tablet of Destinies]], and in the primordial battle, she gave the relic to Kingu, the deity she had chosen as her lover and the leader of her host, and who was also one of her children. The terrified deities were rescued by [[Anu]], who secured their promise to revere him as "[[king of the gods]]." He fought Tiamat with the arrows of the winds, a net, a club, and an invincible spear. Anu was later replaced first by [[Enlil]], and (in the late version that has survived after the [[First Babylonian dynasty|First Dynasty]] of [[Babylon]]) then subsequently by [[Marduk]], the son of Ea.

{{poemquote|And the lord stood upon Tiamat's hinder parts,
And with his merciless club he smashed her skull.
He cut through the channels of her blood,
And he made the North wind bear it away into secret places.}}

Slicing Tiamat in half, Marduk made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the sources of the [[Tigris]] and the [[Euphrates]], her tail became the [[Milky Way]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Barentine|first=John C.|title=The Lost Constellations |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-22795-5_27 |chapter=Tigris |year=2016|publisher=Springer Praxis |isbn=978-3-319-22795-5 |location=Springer, Cham |pages=425–438 |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-22795-5_27}}</ref> With the approval of the elder deities, he took the Tablet of Destinies from Kingu, and installed himself as the head of the Babylonian [[Pantheon (gods)|pantheon]]. Kingu was captured and later was slain: his red blood mixed with the red clay of the Earth would make the body of humankind, created to act as the servant of the younger [[Igigi]] deities.

The principal theme of the epic is the rightful elevation of Marduk to command over all the deities. American Assyriologist [[Ephraim Avigdor Speiser|E. A. Speiser]] remarked in 1942 that "It has long been realized that the Marduk epic, for all its local coloring and probable elaboration by the Babylonian theologians, reflects in substance older Sumerian material&nbsp;... The exact Sumerian prototype, however, has not turned up so far."{{check quotation|reason=Remove ellipsis if this is a continuous quotation|date=May 2025}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Speiser |first=E. A. |title=An Intrusive Hurro-Hittite Myth |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=62 |issue=2 |date=June 1942 |page=100 |jstor=594461 |doi=10.2307/594461}}</ref> However, this surmise that the Babylonian version of the story is based upon a modified version of an older epic, in which Enlil, not Marduk, was the god who slew Tiamat,<ref>Expressed, for example, in {{cite book |first=E. O. |last=James |title=The Worship of the Skygod: A Comparative Study in Semitic and Indo-European Religion |location=London |publisher=Athlone Press, University of London |series=Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion |year=1963 |pages=24, 27ff}}</ref> has been more recently dismissed as "distinctly improbable".<ref>As by {{cite journal |first=W. G. |last=Lambert |title=E. O. James: ''The worship of the Skygod: a comparative study in Semitic and Indo-European religion''. (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion, vi.) viii, 175 pp. London: University of London, the Athlone Press, 1963. 25s. |type=book review |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |publisher=Cambridge University Press |volume=27 |issue=1 |year=1964 |pages=157–158 |doi=10.1017/S0041977X00100345}}</ref>

==Interpretations==
It was once thought that the myth of Tiamat was one of the earliest recorded versions of a ''[[Chaoskampf]]'', a mythological motif that generally involves the battle between a culture hero and a [[chthonic]] or aquatic monster, serpent, or dragon.{{sfn|Jacobsen|1968|pp=104-108}} ''Chaoskampf'' motifs in other mythologies perhaps linked to the Tiamat myth include: the Hittite [[Illuyanka]] myth; the Greek lore of [[Apollo]]'s killing of the [[Python (mythology)|Python]] as a necessary action to take over the [[Delphic Oracle]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://martikheel.com/pdf/heroic-holistic-ethics.pdf|title=Martikheel}}</ref> and to [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] in the Hebrew Bible.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gunkel |first=Hermann |title=Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit. Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung über Gen 1 und Ap Joh 12 |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |location=Göttingen |publication-date=1895}}</ref>

A number of writers have put forth ideas about Tiamat: [[Robert Graves]],<ref>Graves, ''The Greek Myths'', rev. ed. 1960:§4.5.</ref> for example, considered Tiamat's death by Marduk as evidence for his hypothesis of an ancient shift in power from a [[matriarchy|matriarchal]] society to a [[patriarchy]]. The theory suggested that Tiamat and other ancient monster figures were depictions of former supreme deities of peaceful, woman-centered religions. Their defeat at the hands of a male hero corresponded to the overthrow of these matristic religions and societies by male-dominated ones.

==In popular culture==

The depiction of [[Tiamat (Dungeons & Dragons)|Tiamat as a multi-headed dragon]] was popularized in the 1970s as a fixture of ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', a [[role-playing game]] inspired by earlier sources which associate Tiamat with later mythological characters, such as [[Lotan]] (Leviathan).<ref>Four ways of Creation: "[http://www.tali-virtualmidrash.org.il/ArticleEng.aspx?art=3 Tiamat & Lotan] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206224718/http://www.tali-virtualmidrash.org.il/ArticleEng.aspx?art=3 |date=2015-02-06 }}." Retrieved on August 23, 2010</ref>

In the [[Monsterverse]], an unseen monster is designated as "[[Tiamat (Godzilla)|Titanus Tiamat]]" in ''[[Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019 film)|Godzilla: King of the Monsters]]''. Tiamat fully appears as an aquatic serpentine dragon in the ''[[Godzilla vs Kong]]'' prequel graphic novel ''[[Godzilla (comics) |Godzilla Dominion]]'' before making her live action debut in ''[[Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://nerdist.com/article/who-is-tiamat-godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire-serpentine-titan/|title=Who Is Tiamat, GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE'S Serpentine Titan?|website=Nerdist}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Nu (mythology)]]{{Snd}}an ancient Egyptian deity with a similar role
* [[Chaos (cosmogony)]]{{Snd}}Ancient Greek deity with a similar role
* [[Ymir]] (Norse)
* [[Pangu]] (Chinese)
* [[Sea of Suf]]{{Snd}}a primordial sea in the World of Darkness in Mandaean cosmology
* [[Tehom]]

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Bibliography==
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=King |first=Leonard William |author-link=Leonard William King |title=The Seven Tablets of Creation |volume=I: English Translations etc. |year=1902a |url=http://www.etana.org/sites/default/files/coretexts/14907.pdf}}
* {{cite book |last=King |first=Leonard William |title=The Seven Tablets of Creation |volume=II: Supplementary Texts |year=1902b |url=http://www.etana.org/sites/default/files/coretexts/14503.pdf}}
* {{cite journal |first=Thorkild |last=Jacobsen |title=The Battle between [[Marduk]] and Tiamat |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=88 |issue=1 |year=1968 |pages=104–108 |jstor=597902 |doi=10.2307/597902}}
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/enuma.htm Enuma Elish]
* [http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Enuma_Elish.html Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story]

[[Category:Chaos goddesses]]
[[Category:Creator deities]]
[[Category:Creator goddesses]]
[[Category:Characters in the Enūma Eliš]]
[[Category:Mesopotamian goddesses]]
[[Category:Sea and river goddesses]]
[[Category:Killed deities]]
[[Category:Sea serpents]]