Research source

E Seven Tablets of Creation, which King was enabled, through the information contained in them, to arrange for…

Date of account: Ancient material presented in a work published 1921
Source: The Babylonian Legends of the Creation
Reference: The Babylonian Legends of the Creation · selected passage 1
Rights: public_domain
Language: English translation and study of Akkadian and Sumerian source material
Translation: E. A. Wallis Budge
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Published source text

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Source passage

Source text · mention only

e Seven Tablets of Creation, which King was enabled, through the information contained in them, to arrange for the first time in their proper sequence, shows that the main object of the Legend was the glorification of the god Marduk, the son of Ea (Enki), as the conqueror of the dragon Tiamat, and not the narration of the story of the creation of the heavens, and earth and man. The Creation properly speaking, is only mentioned as an exploit of Marduk in the Sixth Tablet, and the Seventh Tablet is devoted wholly to the enumeration of the honorific titles of Marduk. It is probable that every great city in Babylonia, whilst accepting the general form of the Creation Legend, made the greatest of its local gods the hero of it. It has long been surmised that the prominence of Marduk in the Legend was due to the political importance of the city of Babylon. And we now know from the fragments of tablets which have been excavated in recent years by German Assyriologists at Kal'at Sharkat (or Shargat, or Shar'at), that in the city of Ashur, the god Ashur, the national god of Assyria, actually occupied in texts[1] of the Legend in use there the position which Marduk held in four of the Legends current in Babylonia.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

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