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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.
Marduk's declaration is then repeated. Upon hearing the message Lakhmu and Lakhamu and "all the Igigi" are distressed, but are powerless to avert the coming disaster. The formal declaration of war having been sent, the followers of Anshar assemble at a meal which is realistically described: They ate bread, they drank wine. The sweet wine took away their senses.
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. Quaestiones de primis principiis, cap. 125; ed. Kopp, p. 384.
But while Anshar-Ashur under this view is a figure surviving from an ancient period, he is transformed by association with a complementary deity Kishar into a symbol, just as we have found to be the case with Lakhmu.
Probably, Lakhmu and Lakhamu were also regarded, at least by the theologians, as part of Allatu's court, just as Alala and Belili were so regarded.
But their waters were gathered together in a mass. No field was marked off, no marsh was seen. When none of the gods was as yet produced, No name mentioned, no fate determined, Then were created the gods in their totality. Lakhmu and Lakhamu, were created. Days went by ... Anshar and Kishar were created. At this point the fragment breaks off.
The priority, again, of Lakhmu and Lakhamu, as well as of Anshar and Kishar, is expressed by making them 'ancestors' of Anu, Bel and Ea.
Anshar, Alala, Belili, Lakhmu, and Du'ar were such deities. To each of these an associate was given, in accord with the established doctrine of 'duality' that characterizes the more advanced of the ancient Semitic cults in general.
This class does not differ essentially from Apsu and Tiâmat, nor from the 'Leviathan, the 'Dragon, the winged serpents, and the winged bulls that are all emanations of the same order of ideas. Accordingly, we find Lakhmu and Lakhamu associated with Tiâmat when the conflict with the gods begins.
+722+. In Babylonia the earliest pair of deities, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, vague forms, were succeeded by a second pair, Anshar and Kishar, somewhat less vague, and these in their turn yielded to the more definite group represented by Ea, Bel, and Marduk deities who became the embodiments of the highest Babylonian culture; in Assyria Ashur and Ishtar occupied a similar position.
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