"The people will I cause to . . . "I will make man, that man may
in their settlements, (. . .).
Cities . . . shall (man) build, I will create man who shall
in their protection will I cause inhabit (. . .),
him to rest,
That he may lay the brick of our That the service of the gods may
house in a clean spot, be established, and that
(their) shrines (may be
built).
That in a clean spot he may But I will alter the ways of the
establish our . . . !" gods, and I will change (their
paths);
Together shall they be
oppressed, and unto evil shall
(they . . .)!"
The welding of incongruous elements is very apparent in the Semitic
Version. For the statement that man will be created in order that the
gods may have worshippers is at once followed by the announcement that
the gods themselves must be punished and their "ways" changed. In the
Sumerian Version the gods are united and all are naturally regarded as
worthy of man's worship. The Sumerian Creator makes no distinctions; he
refers to "our houses", or temples, that shall be established. But in
the later version divine conflict has been introduced, and the future
head of the pantheon has conquered and humiliated the revolting deities.
Their "ways" must therefore be altered before they are fit to receive
the worship which was accorded them by right in the simpler Sumerian
tradition. In spite of the epitomized character of the Sumerian
Version, a comparison of these passages suggests very forcibly that the
Semitic-Babylonian myth of Creation is based upon a simpler Sumerian
story, which has been elaborated to reconcile it with the Dragon myth.
The Semitic poem itself also supplies evidence of the independent
existence of the Dragon myth apart from the process of Creation, for the
story of Ea and Apsû, which it incorporates, is merely the local Dragon
myth of Eridu. Its inclusion in the story is again simply a tribute to
Marduk; for though Ea, now become Marduk's father, could conquer Apsû,
he was afraid of Tiamat, "and turned back".(1) The original Eridu myth
no doubt represented Enki as conquering the watery Abyss, which became
his home; but there is nothing to connect this tradition with his
early creative activities. We have long possessed part of another local
version of the Dragon myth, which describes the conquest of a dragon by
some deity other than Marduk; and the fight is there described as taking
place, not before Creation, but at a time when men existed and cities
had been built.(2) Men and gods were equally terrified at the monster's
appearance, and it was to deliver the land from his clutches that one
of the gods went out and slew him. Tradition delighted to dwell on the
dragon's enormous size and terrible appearance. In this version he is
described as fifty _bêru_(3) in length and one in height; his mouth
measured six cubits and the circuit of his ears twelve; he dragged
himself along in the water, which he lashed with his tail; and, when
slain, his blood flowed for three years, three months, a day and a
night. From this description we can see he was given the body of an
enormous serpent.(4)
(1) Tabl. III, l. 53, &c. In the story of Bel and the
Dragon, the third of the apocryphal additions to Daniel, we
have direct evidence of the late survival of the Dragon
_motif_ apart from any trace of the Creation myth; in this
connexion see Charles, _Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha_, Vol.
I (1913), p. 653 f.
(2) See _Seven Tablets_, Vol. I, pp. 116 ff., lxviii f. The
text is preserved on an Assyrian tablet made for the library
of Ashur-bani-pal.
(3) The _bêru_ was the space that could be covered in two
hours' travelling.
(4) The Babylonian Dragon has progeny in the later
apocalyptic literature, where we find very similar
descriptions of the creatures' size. Among them we may
perhaps include the dragon in the Apocalypse of Baruch, who,
according to the Slavonic Version, apparently every day
drinks a cubit's depth from the sea, and yet the sea does
not sink because of the three hundred and sixty rivers that
flow into it (cf. James, "Apocrypha Anecdota", Second
Series, in Armitage Robinson's _Texts and Studies_, V, No.
1, pp. lix ff.). But Egypt's Dragon _motif_ was even more
prolific, and the _Pistis Sophia_ undoubtedly suggested
descriptions of the Serpent, especially in connexion with
Hades.
A further version of the Dragon myth has now been identified on one of
the tablets recovered during the recent excavations at Ashur,(1) and in
it the dragon is not entirely of serpent form, but is a true dragon with
legs. Like the one just described, he is a male monster. The description
occurs as part of a myth, of which the text is so badly preserved that
only the contents of one column can be made out with any certainty. In
it a god, whose name is wanting, announces the presence of the dragon:
"In the water he lies and I (. . .)!" Thereupon a second god cries
successively to Aruru, the mother-goddess, and to Pallil, another deity,
for help in his predicament. And then follows the description of the
dragon:
In the sea was the Serpent cre(ated).
Sixty _bêru_ is his length;
Thirty _bêru_ high is his he(ad).(2)
For half (a _bêru_) each stretches the surface of his ey(es);(3)
For twenty _bêru_ go (his feet).(4)
He devours fish, the creatures (of the sea),
He devours birds, the creatures (of the heaven),
He devours wild asses, the creatures (of the field),
He devours men,(5) to the peoples (he . . .).
(1) For the text, see Ebeling, _Assurtexte_ I, No. 6; it is
translated by him in _Orient. Lit.-Zeit._, Vol. XIX, No. 4
(April, 1916).
(2) The line reads: _30 bêru a-ka-a ri-(a-a-u)_. Dr.
Ebeling renders _ri-a-a_ as "heads" (Köpfe), implying that
the dragon had more than one head. It may be pointed out
that, if we could accept this translation, we should have an
interesting parallel to the description of some of the
primaeval monsters, preserved from Berossus, as {soma men
ekhontas en, kephalas de duo}. But the common word for
"head" is _kakkadu_, and there can be little doubt that
_rîâ_ is here used in its ordinary sense of "head, summit,
top" when applied to a high building.
(3) The line reads: _a-na 1/2 ta-am la-bu-na li-bit ên(a-
u)_. Dr. Ebeling translates, "auf je eine Hälfte ist ein
Ziegel (ihrer) Auge(n) gelegt". But _libittu_ is clearly
used here, not with its ordinary meaning of "brick", which
yields a strange rendering, but in its special sense, when
applied to large buildings, of "foundation, floor-space,
area", i.e. "surface". Dr. Ebeling reads _ênâ-u_ at the end
of the line, but the sign is broken; perhaps the traces may
prove to be those of _uznâ u_, "his ears", in which case
_li-bit uz(nâ-u)_ might be rendered either as "surface of
his ears", or as "base (lit. foundation) of his ears".
(4) i.e. the length of his pace was twenty _bêru_.
(5) Lit. "the black-headed".
The text here breaks off, at the moment when Pallil, whose help against
the dragon had been invoked, begins to speak. Let us hope we shall
recover the continuation of the narrative and learn what became of this
carnivorous monster.
There are ample grounds, then, for assuming the independent existence of
the Babylonian Dragon-myth, and though both the versions recovered
have come to us in Semitic form, there is no doubt that the myth itself
existed among the Sumerians. The dragon _motif_ is constantly recurring
in descriptions of Sumerian temple-decoration, and the twin dragons
of Ningishzida on Gudea's libation-vase, carved in green steatite and
inlaid with shell, are a notable product of Sumerian art.(1) The very
names borne by Tiamat's brood of monsters in the "Seven Tablets" are
stamped in most cases with their Sumerian descent, and Kingu, whom she
appointed as her champion in place of Apsû, is equally Sumerian. It
would be strange indeed if the Sumerians had not evolved a Dragon
myth,(2) for the Dragon combat is the most obvious of nature myths and
is found in most mythologies of Europe and the Near East. The trailing
storm-clouds suggest his serpent form, his fiery tongue is seen in the
forked lightning, and, though he may darken the world for a time,
the Sun-god will always be victorious. In Egypt the myth of "the
Overthrowing of Apep, the enemy of Ra" presents a close parallel to that
of Tiamat;(3) but of all Eastern mythologies that of the Chinese
has inspired in art the most beautiful treatment of the Dragon, who,
however, under his varied forms was for them essentially beneficent.
Doubtless the Semites of Babylonia had their own versions of the Dragon
combat, both before and after their arrival on the Euphrates, but the
particular version which the priests of Babylon wove into their epic is
not one of them.
(1) See E. de Sarzec, _Découvertes en Chaldée_, pl. xliv,
Fig. 2, and Heuzey, _Catalogue des antiquités chaldéennes_,
p. 281.
(2) In his very interesting study of "Sumerian and Akkadian
Views of Beginnings", contributed to the _Journ. of the
Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 274 ff., Professor
Jastrow suggests that the Dragon combat in the Semitic-
Babylonian Creation poem is of Semitic not Sumerian origin.
He does not examine the evidence of the poem itself in
detail, but bases the suggestion mainly on the two
hypotheses, that the Dragon combat of the poem was suggested
by the winter storms and floods of the Euphrates Valley, and
that the Sumerians came from a mountain region where water
was not plentiful. If we grant both assumptions, the
suggested conclusion does not seem to me necessarily to
follow, in view of the evidence we now possess as to the
remote date of the Sumerian settlement in the Euphrates
Valley. Some evidence may still be held to point to a
mountain home for the proto-Sumerians, such as the name of
their early goddess Ninkharsagga, "the Lady of the
Mountains". But, as we must now regard Babylonia itself as
the cradle of their civilization, other data tend to lose
something of their apparent significance. It is true that
the same Sumerian sign means "land" and "mountain"; but it
may have been difficult to obtain an intelligible profile
for "land" without adopting a mountain form. Such a name as
Ekur, the "Mountain House" of Nippur, may perhaps indicate
size, not origin; and Enki's association with metal-working
may be merely due to his character as God of Wisdom, and is
not appropriate solely "to a god whose home is in the
mountains where metals are found" (op. cit., p. 295). It
should be added that Professor Jastrow's theory of the
Dragon combat is bound up with his view of the origin of an
interesting Sumerian "myth of beginnings", to which
reference is made later.
(3) Cf. Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. I, pp. 324 ff.
The inclusion of the two versions of the Egyptian Creation
myth, recording the Birth of the Gods in the "Book of
Overthrowing Apep", does not present a very close parallel
to the combination of Creation and Dragon myths in the
Semitic-Babylonian poem, for in the Egyptian work the two
myths are not really combined, the Creation Versions being
inserted in the middle of the spells against Apep, without
any attempt at assimilation (see Budge, _Egyptian
Literature_, Vol. I, p. xvi).
We have thus traced four out of the five strands which form the
Semitic-Babylonian poem of Creation to a Sumerian ancestry. And we now
come back to the first of the strands, the Birth of the Gods, from which
our discussion started. For if this too should prove to be Sumerian, it
would help to fill in the gap in our Sumerian Creation myth, and might
furnish us with some idea of the Sumerian view of "beginnings", which
preceded the acts of creation by the great gods. It will be remembered
that the poem opens with the description of a time when heaven and earth
did not exist, no field or marsh even had been created, and the universe
consisted only of the primaeval water-gods, Apsû, Mummu, and Tiamat,
whose waters were mingled together. Then follows the successive
generation of two pairs of deities, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, and Anshar and
Kishar, long ages separating the two generations from each other and
from the birth of the great gods which subsequently takes place. In
the summary of the myth which is given by Damascius(1) the names of the
various deities accurately correspond to those in the opening lines of
the poem; but he makes some notable additions, as will be seen from the
following table: