Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition

by L. W. King

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 sa-ka-a ri-(sa-a-su). Dr.
Ebeling renders ri-sa-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
rîsâ 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-
su). 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-su at the end
of the line, but the sign is broken; perhaps the traces may
prove to be those of uznâ su, "his ears", in which case
li-bit uz(nâ-su) 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:

DAMASCUS "SEVEN TABLETS" I
{'Apason—-Tauthe} Apsû—-Tiamat
|
{Moumis} Mummu
{Lakhos—-Lakhe}(2) Lakhmu—-Lakhamu
{'Assoros—-Kissare} Anshar—-Kishar
{'Anos, 'Illinos, 'Aos} Anu, ( ), Nudimmud (= Ea)
{'Aos—-Dauke}
|
{Belos}
(1) Quaestiones de primis principiis, cap. 125; ed. Kopp,
p. 384.
(2) Emended from the reading {Dakhen kai Dakhon} of the
text.

In the passage of the poem which describes the birth of the great gods after the last pair of primaeval deities, mention is duly made of Anu and Nudimmud (the latter a title of Ea), corresponding to the {'Anos} and {'Aos} of Damascius; and there appears to be no reference to Enlil, the original of {'Illinos}. It is just possible that his name occurred at the end of one of the broken lines, and, if so, we should have a complete parallel to Damascius. But the traces are not in favour of the restoration;(1) and the omission of Enlil's name from this part of the poem may be readily explained as a further tribute to Marduk, who definitely usurps his place throughout the subsequent narrative. Anu and Ea had both to be mentioned because of the parts they play in the Epic, but Enlil's only recorded appearance is in the final assembly of the gods, where he bestows his own name "the Lord of the World"(2) upon Marduk. The evidence of Damascius suggests that Enlil's name was here retained, between those of Anu and Ea, in other versions of the poem. But the occurrence of the name in any version is in itself evidence of the antiquity of this strand of the narrative. It is a legitimate inference that the myth of the Birth of the Gods goes back to a time at least before the rise of Babylon, and is presumably of Sumerian origin.

(1) Anu and Nudimmud are each mentioned for the first time
at the beginning of a line, and the three lines following
the reference to Nudimmud are entirely occupied with
descriptions of his wisdom and power. It is also probable
that the three preceding lines (ll. 14-16), all of which
refer to Anu by name, were entirely occupied with his
description. But it is only in ll. 13-16 that any reference
to Enlil can have occurred, and the traces preserved of
their second halves do not suggestion the restoration.
(2) Cf. Tabl. VII, . 116.

Further evidence of this may be seen in the fact that Anu, Enlil, and Ea (i.e. Enki), who are here created together, are the three great gods of the Sumerian Version of Creation; it is they who create mankind with the help of the goddess Ninkharsagga, and in the fuller version of that myth we should naturally expect to find some account of their own origin. The reference in Damascius to Marduk ({Belos}) as the son of Ea and Damkina ({Dauke}) is also of interest in this connexion, as it exhibits a goddess in close connexion with one of the three great gods, much as we find Ninkharsagga associated with them in the Sumerian Version.(1) Before leaving the names, it may be added that, of the primaeval deities, Anshar and Kishar are obviously Sumerian in form.