Tiamat Rises Again

Tiamat is the Sumerian mother of the gods. Her name means sea. At some point she took over the role of Goddess of Creation from Namma.

As Babylon grew more powerful than Eridu (Namma and Tiamat's city), the Babylonian god Marduk was written into her story. According to his story, after Tiamat creates the gods, Marduk slays her in battle. He cuts her into pieces. Her rib cage becomes the heavens, with the sun at her sternum. Her lower parts become the earth. Her breasts, the mountains. Her weeping eyes the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates.

Tiamat original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through Fine Arts America or RedBubble.

But..take it with a grain of salt. His city is hundreds of years younger than Eridu, home of Namma and Tiamat, and his story also tries to obscure that fact. According to Wikipedia, "Babylonian texts talk of the creation of Eridu by the god Marduk as the first city, 'the holy city, the dwelling of their [the other gods'] delight'. However, Eridu was founded in the 5th millennium BC and Marduk's ascendancy only occurred in the second millennium BC, so this is clearly a revisionist back-dating to inflate the prestige of Marduk."

Today Tiamat is on the rise (thanks, D&D), and Marduk is barely remembered. She has not really been defeated. Few images of Tiamat survived, but a bas relief from a temple of Marduk in Palmyra, depicts her as having serpent legs. In D&D today, she has her own book, The Rise of Tiamat, and is a fearsome multi-headed dragon.

More information about Tiamat can be found at the Penn Museum website.

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