COSMOGONY
406
COSMOGONY
scholarsliip seems to siigjiest the K\iplirates valley as
the cradle of all civilization, the npsiiiiit;(iiiies there in
vogue shall be treated lirst; althiiut;h l'^i;yptiaii ideas
on this subject can be traced to an antic(uity at least as
remote as that of the earliest Babylonian cosmogonies
known to us.
Babylonian. — Two different Assyro-Babylonian cosmogonies have come down to us. The longer one is known under the name of Creation Epos or " Enimia elish", the words with which it begins. The shorter one is commonly known as the Bilinguar Accovnit of Creation because, on the fragmentary tablet on which it is written, the iSemitic Babylonian is accompanied by a Simierian version.
(a) The Creation Epos — A good summary of this cosmogony had been known since the .sixth century of the Christian Era, through Damascius (the Athenian neo-Platonist who emigrated to Persia when Justinian suppressed the schools of Athens), as follows: "The Babylonians, passing over in silence the one-principle of the universe, constitute two, Tauthe and Apason, making Apason the husband of Tauthe and calling her the mother of the gods. And from these proceeds an only-begotten son, iVIoumis, who, I consider, is nought else but the intelligible world proceeding from the two principles. From them another progeny is likewise produced, Dache and Dachos, and also a third, Kis- sar6 and Assoros,from which last three others proceed, Anos, and Illinos, and Aos. And to Aos and Dauke a son is born called Belos of whom they say that he is the creator of the world [dcmiurgus]." The As- syrian original upon which this siniimary is Ijased was first discovered and pulilished by ('•. Smith, in 1S75, from seven fragmentary tablets in the British .Muse- um. It has been translatetl by a nmnber of scholars, and recently (London, 1903), with the addition of numerous fragments, by L. W. King of the same mu- seum. It opens as follows: —
When on high the heavens were not uttered, Below the earth bore not yet a name; The ocean primeval was their begetter, Minnrau Tiamtu the parent of all of them. Their waters were mixed together in one and Fields not yet marked, marshes not yet seen [?] When of the gods there existed still none None bore any name, the fates [not yet settled] Then came into being the gods [in order?] Lahmu and Lahamu went forth [as the first?] Great were the ages .... Ansar and Kisar were produced, and over them Long grew the days, there appeared The God .\nu, their son . .
The Greek copyist had evidently mistaken AAXOC for AAXOC, but otherwise the two accounts tally ex- actly: Apason is Apsu the Ocean; Tauthe is Tiamtu, as Assyrian labializes the nasals; Lache and Laehos are likewise Lahmu and Lahamu; Kissare, Assoras, Anos, Illinos, and Aos correspond to Kisar and Ansar, Anu, Enlil, and Ea or Ae. Damascius considered Moumis the son of Tiamtu. But in the Babylonian text Mumnui seems to have Tiamat in apposition, and the participle munlliilat is in the feminine, yet on a later fragment Mummu does figure as the son of Tia- mat, and Damascius' statement seems correct. In any case they began with a double, purely material, principle Apsu and Tiamat, male and female, probably personifying the mass of salt and sweet water " mixed together in one". Out of all these things even the gods arise, their birth is in reality the gradual differ- entiation of the as yet undifferentiated, undetermined, undivided, watery ALL. The meaning of Ansar and Kisar is plain; they are personified ideas: Above and Below. The meaning of Lahmu and Lahamu is not so clear. Popular mythology spoke of the Lahmu as monsters and demons, .spirits of evil, and their pro-
tliu
geny sides with Tiamat as the monster of rh.aos; yettto
on the other hand, they cannot he evil in themselves
for the good gods, Anu, Bel, and Ea, are their children
It has been suggested with great probability tha J*
Lahmu and Lahamu are the personifications of Dawi
and Twilight. — In the watery Chaos first the lighi t^
breaks; an above ami a below begin to be, and th« milf
result is Anu, Bel, and Ea — Sky, Earth,. and WaferJ!»ii
But this process of development is not to proceed un- H-
opposed, nor are the powers (gods) of order peacefully i ■
to conquer the power of Chaos. This war is mythologi- iniffls
cally described in the great Epos. Tiamat creates ai mJ
brood of monsters to fight on her side, puts Kingu, her imii
husband, at the head, gives him the tablets of fate in rtelb
his bosom, thereby giving him supreme power. Ea'tsl
hears of this plot, tells Ansar, his father, who asks Anu fcl'
to interfere, but m vain. Ea is likewise applied to, but lOiuil
without result. At la.st Ea's son Marduk, at the re-llrn"'
quest of the gods, becomes their champion and conquers fc™?'
the Dragon of Chaos. Cutting the lifeless body of the tain;
dragon in two he makes out of one half the expanse of Banlu
the heavens, thereby preventing the waters above onk
from coming down; out of the other the earth. He nil or
then firmly fixes the stars, arranging the constella- ms
tions of the zodiac, creates the moon, " .sets him as s te
creature of night, to make known the days monthlj
without failing". After this Marduk's " heart urged bit tha
him, and he made cunning plans, he opened his moutl jiolar
and said to Ae: " Let me gather my blood and let ra« Sslemi
[take my] bone, let me set up a man and let the mat uJ ih
... let me make then men dwelling ..." Th(
gods praise Mariluk's work and they applaud liim witl
fifty names; each god transferring to Manluk liis ow
function and ilignity. Marduk, then, is the real Demi
urgus or world-creator, a dignity, however, which wa
not originally his. The political success of Marduk'
city, Babylon, necessitated this god's rise in ran)
in the Pantheon; this was ingeniously contrived b; Jmstj
inventing the legend of all the gods voluntarily cedin;
their place to him because he conquered the Dragon o
Chaos, Tiamat. This part of the cosmogony, there
fore, probably does not date back before 2000 b. c. I
is quite likely, however, that some story of a stru]
with a monster of evil and disorder is of much greate
antiquity. In any case this cosmogony is sharp!
characterized because in it the cosmos arises out of
struggle between Chaos and Order, good and ey\\. 1
must, however, not be forgotten that both goml an
bad gods are alike the progeny of Apsu anti Tiunia
(b) The Bilingual Creation-Story was founil on aiioi tablet in Sippar by Rassam in 18S2. It consists < ifimin three columns, the central column being Semitic, th tedw first and third being Sinnerian, every line and sentent »pj)|j being cut in two by the intervening Semitic versioi inmiij It is really an incantation for jiurification; unforti Mule nately the tablet is mutilated, and the connexion c ■■raiK this temple ritual with an account of the origin of tl iJeg world is not quite clear. At the end of the. tablet: .^jj; second incantation begins, of which only the word saj; , "The star . . . long chariot of heaven", are left- tciiyf, sufficient to show that these tablets belonged to a fjliit] astronomical or scientific series. The cosmogony b' ^ir^jf gins, as is usual with cosmogonies, by thinking aw;? rij, all things in the w'orld. It is remarkalile that tli , ,[u]i(j empty void is expres.seil by first thinking away civil tiijijjj zation, tcrniiles, gardens, houses, cities; the anciei Sat| g cities are even given by name: "Nipinir h.ad m (.■ji >
Vjlleyc
fcyra
iite
been built, IvKura [itstom])le] not been constructC'
Erechhad not been built. Ivananot been constructed
— "The Abyss had not been made; Eridu[tli.- old
all cities, once on the Persian ( iulf], with its foundat io
in the deep [the abys.s], had not been construi-tcd, t'
foundation of the house of the gods not laid — tl
whole of the lands was .sea. When within the & 15
there was a stream, in that day Eridu was mac
Esagila [its tem])lc] constructed — Esagila, which t ifcjij t
god LugaUhiazaga foimded within the aliySs — Bab|
-;I1
