chapter 2 Enūma eliš and Anzû

1 Introduction

Enūma eliš is often dubbed ‘The Babylonian Creation Epic,’ since it relates the creation of the world, of mankind, and the city of . However, most of the narrative is concerned with ’s battle against Ti’āmtu,1 a mon- ster whose name literally means ‘sea’ but who also seems to be some kind of animal.2 It is this conflict which results in Marduk being awarded king- ship of all the gods, and establishes him not only as supreme warrior god, but supreme creator god and head of the whole pantheon. Since Marduk is the god of Babylon, the poem justifying his supremacy justifies the rise of his city as a major power and was therefore central to Babylonian identity. Enūma eliš was extensively copied and well known, attested by no less than 181 manuscripts.3 That so many copies of the same text were found in one place attests to the poem’s importance. The earliest manuscripts are seven tablets from which may date to the first half of the ninth century,4 but the poem must be earlier, since Marduk had risen to prominence long before. The date of composition of Enūma eliš has not been precisely determined, but it is cer- tainly later than Anzû and earlier than Erra and Išum. Lambert’s suggestion of the reign of in the late twelfth century is still the most con- vincing proposition (1964, 2013: 439–444). As Lambert argues, the poem clearly connects the rise of Marduk to the glory of Babylon, and so is likely to have been composed at a time of ‘national’ pride.5 The reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (1126–1105BC) fits these circumstances well, since this was a time of revival for Babylon coinciding with the return of Marduk’s statue from . Although Dalley argues that there are four reigns when a statue of Marduk was stolen

1 I read ti-GEME₂ as ti-amtu, -amta, -amti following Borger (2008: 272–273), since there are writ- ings of the word ti-GEME₂-am-ma (e.g. II.157 in mss. a and b), where the logogram must be read as amta to make grammatical sense. 2 Probably a she-goat—see Reynolds (2000). 3 The most recent edition is by Lambert (2013). About half the manuscripts (95) are in Babylo- nian script, the earliest being Neo-Babylonian and the latest perhaps even Parthian. About a quarter (46) are from Kuyunjik. Other Neo-Assyrian findspots include Assur, Sultantepe, and . 4 According to palaeographic analysis by Köcher, apud Lambert (2013: 4). 5 See now Lambert (2013: 439–465) on the composition of Enūma eliš.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004412972_004 enūma eliš and anzû 67 and returned, and that the frequency of the theft (and indeed, the number of statues, since there was more than one) undermines it as a criterion for a spe- cific date of composition (1997), if Enūma eliš does not date specifically to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, it probably dates somewhere near it. A Kassite origin was proposed by Sommerfeld (1982: 174–181), though Lam- bert countered that Marduk was a second-ranking god in this period according to evidence from boundary stones (1984: 3ff.). Cooley has recently argued that the astronomical terminology in Enūma eliš shows that it could have been com- posed around this time, as it fits well with the terms used in another text that developed in the Kassite period, Enūma Anu Enlil (2013: 159). Linguistic forms cannot be used to date poetry precisely since it often incorporates archaizing features, but the terminology does provide a terminus ante quem: the poem could not have been composed before the Kassite period.6 Kämmerer and Met- zler do not take a stand on this debate, but do point out that there is no reason why Enūma eliš could not have been composed by the priests of Marduk during the Kassite period with purely theological and not political motives, thus anti- cipating the later political triumph of Marduk that the poem would be used to justify (2012: 20–21). A Kassite date is possible given the cultural respect the Kassite rulers gave to native Babylonian traditions, and particularly since new evidence suggests that Marduk’s elevation to supreme god took place earlier than previously thought, as an akītu festival was held for him in Nippur in the 13th century BC (Tenney, 2016). Either way, the Standard Babylonian version of Anzû was almost certainly complete and in circulation by the time of the com- position of Enūma eliš, and Enūma eliš in turn must be earlier than Erra and Išum. Enūma eliš draws on an extraordinary breadth of sources. Lambert notes its highly composite nature, calling it ‘a sectarian and aberrant combination of mythological threads woven into an unparalleled compositum’ and remarks that ‘the various traditions it draws upon are often perverted to such an extent that conclusions based on this text alone are suspect. It can only be used safely in the whole context of Mesopotamian mythology’ (1965: 291). This alerts us to the necessity of analysing the intertextuality of Enūma eliš for understanding the poem’s true nature as well as being wary of taking it as a representative of

6 An Old Babylonian date, as suggested by Dalley (1997: 171), and implied by von Soden on linguistic grounds (1933: 122–130), is too early for other reasons also: in the prologue to Ham- murapi’s Laws, Anu and Enlil promote Marduk to rule over all the people but not over all the gods (Lambert, 1964: 5–6), and there are no Old Babylonian personal names that call Marduk king of the gods, although these are attested for many other deities (Lambert, 1984: 2).