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Updated: May 20, 2025
The description of Mashu is dependent upon this conception. The mountain seems to be coextensive with the earth. The dam of heaven is the point near which the sun rises, and if the scorpion-men guard the sun at sunrise and sunset, the mountain must extend across to the gate through which the sun passes at night to dip into the great Apsu.
No city had been created, no creature had been made, Nippur had not been created, Ekur had not been built, Erech had not been created, Eanna had not been built, Apsû had not been created, Eridu had not been built, Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the habitation had not been created. All lands were sea. Here we have the definite statement that before Creation all the world was sea.
The nether world reaches down to the Apsu, the 'deep' that flows underneath the earth. This is indicated in the design by placing the horse, on which the goddess rests, in a bark. The bark, again, is of fantastic shape, the one end terminating in the head of a serpent, the other in that of some other animal, perhaps a bull.
The ends of the earth span the great Apsu. The following line specifies the shape given to Esharra: The great structure Esharra, which he made as a heavenly vault. The earth is not a sphere according to Babylonian ideas, but a hollow hemisphere having an appearance exactly like the vault of heaven, but placed in position beneath the heavenly canopy.
The schools of theology, seizing hold of this popular tradition, add again to Lakhmu a female mate and convert the tradition into a symbol of the first step in the evolution of order out of the original chaos. Lakhmu and Lakhamu are made to stand for an entire class of beings that are the offspring of Apsu and Tiâmat.
Alexander Polyhistor quotes Berosus as saying in his book on Babylonia that the first result of the mixture of water and chaos i.e., of Apsu and Tiâmat was the production of monsters partly human, partly bestial. The winged bulls and lions that guarded the approaches to temples and palaces are illustrations of this old notion, and it is to this class of mythical beings that Lakhmu belongs.
Ea is frequently called "the lord of Apsu," but the creation epic, in assigning to Marduk the privilege of preparing the dwelling of Ea, reverses the true order of things, which may still be seen in the common belief that made Marduk the son of Ea.
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.
Its inclusion in the story is again simply a tribute to Marduk; for though Ea, now become Marduk's father, could conquer Apsû, he was afraid of Tiamat, "and turned back". The original Eridu myth no doubt represented Enki as conquering the watery Abyss, which became his home; but there is nothing to connect this tradition with his early creative activities.
First published by Pinches, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1891, pp. 393-408. Clay, it will be recalled, was the building material in Babylonia. The word in the text is generally applied to "a mass" of animals, but also to human productions. See Delitzsch, Assyr. Handwörterbuch, p. 467. Bel's temple at Nippur. Temple of Ishtar at Erech or Uruk. I.e., Apsu.
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