It is generally believed that the creation account in the first chapter of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible was inspired in part by the Enuma Elish. Ī depiction of the creation of birds and fish, including a sea serpent, by Gustave Doré for John Milton's Paradise Lost (c. the 30th day, stand in conjunction and rival Šamaš.Ģ3 I have (. Īfter defeating Tiamat, Marduk then divides her corpse, using the pieces of her body to form creation:ġ He fashioned heavenly stations for the great gods,Ģ And set up constellations, the patterns of the stars.ģ He appointed the year, marked off divisions,Ĥ And set up three stars each for the twelve months.Ħ He established the heavenly station of Ne-beru to fix the stars' intervals.ħ That none should transgress or be slothfulĨ He fixed the heavenly stations of Enlil and Ea with it.ġ0 And put strong bolts at the left and the right.ġ1 He placed the heights (of heaven) in her (Tia-mat's) belly,ġ2 He created Nannar, entrusting to him the night.ġ3 He appointed him as the jewel of the night to fix the days,ġ4 And month by month without ceasing he elevated him with a crown,ġ5 (Saying,) 'Shine over the land at the beginning of the month,ġ6 Resplendent with horns to fix six days.ġ7 On the seventh day the crown will be half size,ġ8 On the fifteenth day, halfway through each month, stand in opposition.Ģ0 Diminish in the proper stages and shine backwards.Ģ1 On the 29th day, draw near to the path of Šamaš,Ģ2. This leads to the storm god Marduk battling with Tiamat, where he eventually slays her with the help of this wind:ĩ3 Tia-mat and Marduk, the sage of the gods, came together,ĩ4 Joining in strife, drawing near to battle.ĩ5 Be-l spread out his net and enmeshed her ĩ6 He let loose the Evil Wind, the rear guard, in her face.ĩ7 Tia-mat opened her mouth to swallow it,ĩ8 She let the Evil Wind in so that she could not close her lips.ĩ9 The fierce winds weighed down her belly,ġ00 Her inwards were distended and she opened her mouth wide.ġ01 He let fly an arrow and pierced her belly,ġ02 He tore open her entrails and slit her inwards,ġ03 He bound her and extinguished her life,ġ04 He threw down her corpse and stood on it. In response, Tiamat gives birth to many demons in an attempt to destroy the gods. In the Enuma Elish Tiamat gives birth to the first generation of gods in the Babylonian pantheon after mingling with her partner Apsu, the god of fresh waters.Įventually, Apsu begins to argue with this first generation of gods over the loud noises they make, which escalates to an altercation that leads to Apsu being killed by the gods. Originally Tiamat is described as a monstrous griffin-like monster, but in later depictions Tiamat is shown in the form of a primeval serpent. The Babylonian creation myth, known as the Enuma Elish, tells of the goddess Tiamat, the personification of the primordial chaos prior to creation, represented by a churning sea of salt water.

This primordial sea god, which often takes the form of a serpent or dragon, is eventually defeated and killed by the storm god in order to create the world.Ī Neo-Assyrian cylindrical seal that depicts a serpentine creature that may be Tiamat (900-750 BCE)

Sea serpents are closely associated with the mythological trope of the Chaoskampf, where a storm god representing order battles a primordial sea god representing chaos.

1 Sea Serpents and the Chaoskampf Trope.

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