| Tiamat | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Tiamat |
|
First Appearance |
Mesopotamian Mythology |
|
Created by |
Mesopotamian Mythology |
Origin[]
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat is the primordial sea, mating with Abzû (Apsu), the groundwater, to produce the gods in the Babylonian epic Enuma elish, which translates as "When on High." She is referred to as a woman, and has, at various points in the epic, both anthropomorphic and theriomorphic features including breasts and a tail.
In the Enûma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation, Tiamat bears the first generation of deities after mingling her waters with those of Apsu, her consort. The gods continue to reproduce, forming a noisy new mass of divine children. Apsu, driven to violence by the noise they make, seeks to destroy them and is killed.
Enraged, she also wars upon those of her own and Apsu's children who killed her consort, bringing forth a series of monsters as weapons. These were her own offspring: Bašmu ('Venomous Snake'), Ušumgallu ('Great Dragon'), Mušmaḫḫū ('Exalted Serpent'), Mušḫuššu ('Furious Snake'), Laḫmu (the 'Hairy One'), Ugallu (the 'Big Weather-Beast'), Uridimmu ('Mad Lion'), Girtablullû ('Scorpion-Man'), Umū dabrūtu ('Violent Storms'), Kulullû ('Fish-Man'), and Kusarikku ('Bull-Man').
She also takes a new consort, Qingu, and bestows on him the Tablet of Destinies, which represents legitimate divine rulership. She is ultimately defeated and slain by Enki's son, the storm-god Marduk, but not before she brings forth monsters whose bodies she fills with "poison instead of blood." Marduk dismembers her and then constructs and structures elements of the cosmos from her body.
In the Enuma Elish her physical description includes a tail, a thigh, "lower parts" (which shake together), a belly, an udder, ribs, a neck, a head, a skull, eyes, nostrils, a mouth, and lips. She has insides (possibly "entrails"), a heart, arteries, and blood.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Enûma Elish
Notes[]
- The depiction of Tiamat as a multi-headed dragon was popularized in the 1970s as a fixture of Dungeons & Dragons, a role-playing game inspired by earlier sources associating Tiamat with later mythological characters such as Lotan (Leviathan).