The mythologem deals with male gods from the first or second generation. In order to rise to their seats as heads of the pantheon, they have to struggle with a cosmic monster, usually a serpent or a dragon, or against the elder gods; a fight which usually ends in killing.
The different myths of the struggle tell of the transition between the first generation and the second generation of gods (or third generation, in certain cases). The myth gives validity to an authority of a god or a new dynasty. There is a cycle which speaks of the existing order and the danger which lies in returning to the state of chaos with the loss of the god, usually a storm god. The figures in the struggle may seem as representations of natural phenomena. The storm god is the fertility and the fertility season, and the monsters are extinction and death, or the dry season. The triumph of good and order over evil includes the understanding of a constant and unending struggle. In the cyclicality there is a need for a sacrifice, and this sacrifice is usually a man or as a substitute an animal.
There is also a possibility that the god who rose to power becomes a Deus Otiosus: a god that retires from managing the world, and in his place arrives an active god.
More gods, or even a mortal, may appear to assist the god in his struggle against the monster.
Enuma Elish, the Mesopotamian-Babylonian struggle myth
Enuma Elish relies first and foremost on a cycle of stories in Sumerian which deals with the god Ninurta who overcame the rocks. Ninurta is the rain and the rocks are eroded by the rain. The primary young god is fighting with an external element. Here lies the seed to the story of the Enuma Elish in which Marduk is fighting a demonic force.
Ninurta fights Anzu, a monster who stole the tablets of destiny from Enlil, and which Ninurta needs to return. The one who holds the tablets of destiny is the one who holds the world. Ninurta returns them and is declared the ruler of the world.
These motives are found in the Enuma Elish, where Tiamat is defeated by Marduk.
After the creation of the first gods, the young gods banded together and created ‘noise’ (rigmu). It’s not just any noise, but a type of speech which the gods use to talk among themselves. They create a state which is in opposition to the earlier state of the anti-world. The speech is a dynamic element and it begins to cause things to happen. Tiamat is disturbed by this noise. And does not appreciate the behavior of the young gods. Abzu wishes to calm Tiamat and decides to destroy the younger gods, but Ea, the son of Anu, kills Abzu, and inside Abzu he places his temple. In the waters he places a temple and calls it Absu – Life is the source.
Ea marries inside the Abzu with his mate Damkina, and they give birth to Marduk in there. There is no end to Marduk’s qualities, as the Enuma Elish tells us.
Marduk plays as a baby. He is still an infant, but the titanic gods are angered. He plays with four winds and creates noise. The titanic gods ask Tiamat to avenge her husband and to stop the noise. She marries a new husband and gives him the tablets of destiny and goes into battle. She stands at a head of an army of monsters which she creates.
None of the gods are willing to go against her except Marduk. He is prepared to go into battle against Tiamat under the condition that he would be chosen to be king over the gods and the king of the world (which did not exist at this point). In the gods’ council they choose him and rejoice that he is going into battle against Tiamat. They keep his condition and say, “Marduk is the king”. The gods create toxic and evil winds which Tiamat swallows, causing her to swell. Marduk then fires an arrow, entering her opened mouth and puncturing her innards. Then Marduk steps on Tiamat.
After Tiamat’s death he kills Qingu her new husband and the monsters.
Tiamat, the mother of all living things, has been killed. This creates a paradox. And this is the second part of the story. Outside the chaos, it’s not that order returns, but that the world is created – Tiamat’s defeat means the creation of the world. Tiamat becomes almost literally the mother of all living as she is the matter from which the world was created by Marduk. In the entire epos there is only one metaphor and it is what Marduk is doing with the body; he slices her in half as an oyster. From the body of Tiamat, Marduk creates the sky.
Marduk, above the Abzu, erects a rite to Ea, Anu and Enlil and distributes a territory to each of them, the first to Ea, the second to Anu and the third to Enlil. He divides the sky and in fact creates a calendar. He approaches to create time, and places the heavenly bodies to determine time.
From the eyes of Tiamat, Marduk pours out the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. From her breasts he creates the mountains, from her tail he creates the Dur-An-Ki – the axis of heaven and earth. In the Abzu he builds the center and constructs steps into the sky. Marduk takes the tablets of destiny and the gods recognize him as the head of the pantheon.
Abzu is identified with Babylon, where Dur-An-Ki is found, the center of the world. The meaning of the word Babylon (bab-ili) means “the gate of the gods”. Babylon is the Axis mundi.
The story ends with Marduk as the king of the world.
The Enuma Elish presents a thought which tries to deal with reality and present a simple explanation. It is not a philosophical composition, but there is an epos that comes close to presenting a world view.
The Enuma Elish ends with a hymn to Marduk who defeated Tiamat and became king of the universe. Some say that there are historical reasons behind the story which was written around the first millennium BCE. The statue of Marduk was stolen from Babylon by the Elamites, but was returned by Nebuchadnezzar. The epos was symbolic to the return of Marduk from exile and his rise into the head of the pantheon. The Elamites represent Tiamat, and the Babylonians represent Marduk. The event is explained through mythological and allegorical means. For the Babylonians this epos was their history; the explanation for their existence. Furthermore, it gave Babylon the justification to be the central city of the world.
One of the seven tablets that make up the Enuma Elish (7th century BCE)
