THE ENŪMA ELIŠ ISN’T JUST A CREATION MYTH. IT WAS STATE THEOLOGY, RECITED DURING THE AKITU (NEW YEAR) FESTIVAL IN BABYLON. ITS PURPOSE WAS POLITICAL AND COSMIC: TO ENSHRINE MARDUK AS KING OF THE GODS, LEGITIMIZING BABYLON’S SUPREMACY IN THE MESOPOTAMIAN WORLD.
TIAMAT (PRIMORDIAL CHAOS) THREATENS DIVINE ORDER, AND MARDUK DEFEATS HER, SPLITTING HER BODY TO FORM THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH. FROM THE BLOOD OF HER GENERAL, KINGU, HE CREATES HUMANS, BUT NOT AS NOBLE BEINGS – AS LABORERS TO SERVE THE GODS.
THE ENŪMA ELIŠ IS NOT JUST ABOUT HOW THE WORLD BEGAN, BUT ABOUT WHO GETS TO RULE IT, AND WHY.
Title: ENŪMA ELIŠ (Akkadian for ‘When on high’)
Date: Likely composed between c. 1100–700 BC, though drawing on older Sumerian and Akkadian mythic material
Place: Babylon, in southern Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq)
Language: Akkadian, in cuneiform script, on seven clay tablets
Commissioned under: Probably under King Nebuchadnezzar I (r. c. 1126–1103 BC) or during the reign of Ashurbanipal (r. 669–631 BC, Assyria), whose library preserved the most complete version
Before Genesis, there was Tiamat. Split open, drained, renamed creation. Babylon called it divine order.
In our poessay we call it what it is:
myth as murder, theology as empire, and the world built on the body of a silenced god.
I. RECIPE FOR A WORLD
Take one Chaos Mother, freshly slain,
split along the sternum.
Bleed her into mountain veins.
Stir lightning in her hair.
Salt the void with memory.
Serve warm.
II. TIAMAT WHISPERS TO THE BLACK WATER
You know me.
I was the sky before it had a name.
I was the scream he stitched in rivers.
I was whole.
Then came the hand
.
Then came the knife.
Then came the silence wearing stars.
He carved worship from my guts.
He built your world from my no
,
and you – you float on what’s left of my yes.
Do not look up,
the sky remembers,
and so do I.
III. THE BLACK WATER REMEMBERS
I am not empty.
I am full of her.
She seeps through me in pieces – rib, tooth, dream.
You call me ruin.
I call myself the first mirror.
Drink deep.
And choke.
IV. THE GOD WITH A KNIFE
(voice like polished stone cutting flesh)
She begged for silence.
I gave her form.
I split her open to stop the singing.
Removed sorrow glands and excess void.
Kеpt the bones for future mountains.
Boiled her blood until the stars arose.
Chopped her liver finely – scattered it as beasts.
Ground the teeth into the seed for future men.
Stretched her lungs into twin horizons.
Salted her with ash.
Poured oceans down the her spinal curve.
Spoke a name over the mess.
Didn’t taste til cool.
When she screamed, I ignored it.
It was only old magic. Leaving.
Creation is only murder that got away with it.
V. THE SKULL (KINGU)
He named me after.
I was the last thought in her throat.
I blinked bone and woke alone.
This face? It’s not mine.
It’s yours.
VI.THE BLACK WATER’s Forgotten Lullaby
I am full of her.
She moves through me like roots through stone.
I am not dark.
I am a mother without a name.
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