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ENUMA ELISH
The Enûma Eliš is the Babylonian creation mythos (named after its opening words). It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq), and published by George Smith in 1876.

The Enûma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Old Babylonian on seven clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of text.

Most of Tablet V has never been recovered but, aside from this lacuna, the text is almost complete. A duplicate copy of Tablet V has been found in Sultantepe, ancient Huzirina, near the modern town of Şanlıurfa in Turkey.

This epic is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview, centered on the supremacy of Marduk and the creation of humankind for the service of the gods.

Its primary original purpose, however, is not an exposition of theology or theogony but the elevation of Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, above other Mesopotamian gods.

The Enûma Eliš exists in various copies from Babylon and Assyria. The version from Ashurbanipal's library dates to the 7th century BC. The composition of the text probably dates to the Bronze Age, to the time of Hammurabi or perhaps the early Kassite era (roughly 18th to 16th centuries BC), although some scholars favour a later date of c. 1100 BC.


SUMMARY
When the seven tablets that contain this were first discovered, evidence indicated that it was used as a "ritual", meaning it was recited during a ceremony or celebration. That celebration is now thought to be the Akitu festival, or Babylonian new year.

• This tells of the creation of the world, 
• and of Marduk's triumph over Tiamat, 
• and how it relates to him becoming king of the gods. 
• This is then followed by an invocation to Marduk by his fifty names.

The title, meaning "when on high", is the incipit. The first tablet begins:

e-nu-ma e-liš la na-bu-ú šá-ma-mu	When the sky above was not named,
šap-liš am-ma-tum šu-ma la zak-rat	And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
ZU.AB-ma reš-tu-ú za-ru-šu-un	And the primeval Apsû, who begat them,
mu-um-mu ti-amat mu-al-li-da-at gim-ri-šú-un	And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both,
A.MEŠ-šú-nu iš-te-niš i-ḫi-qu-ú-ma	Their waters were mingled together,
gi-pa-ra la ki-is-su-ru su-sa-a la she-'u-ú	And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
e-nu-ma dingir dingir la šu-pu-u ma-na-ma	When of the gods none had been called into being.

1. The epic names two primeval gods: Apsû (or Abzu) who represents fresh water and Tiamat representing oceanic waters.
2. Several other gods are created (Ea and his brothers) who reside in Tiamat's vast body. They make so much noise that the babel or noise annoys Tiamat and Apsû greatly.
3. Apsû wishes to kill the young gods, but Tiamat disagrees.
4. The vizier, Mummu, agrees with Apsû's plan to destroy them.
5. Tiamat, in order to stop this from occurring, warns Ea (Nudimmud), the most powerful of the gods. Ea uses magic to put Apsû into a coma, then kills him, and shuts Mummu out.
6. Ea then becomes the chief god. With his consort Damkina, he has a son, Marduk, greater still than himself.
7. Marduk is given wind to play with and he uses the wind to make dust storms and tornadoes. This disrupts Tiamat's great body and causes the gods still residing inside her to be unable to sleep.
8. They persuade Tiamat to take revenge for the death of her husband, Apsû. Her power grows, and some of the gods join her. She creates 11 monsters (Bašmu, Ušumgallu, Mušmaḫḫū, Ugallu, Umū dabrūtu, Kulullû, Kusarikku, Scorpion man, ?, ?, ?) to help her win the battle and elevates Kingu, her new husband, to "supreme dominion."
9. A lengthy description of the other gods' inability to deal with the threat follows.
10. Marduk offers to save the gods if he is appointed as their leader and allowed to remain so even after the threat passes. When the gods agree to Marduk's conditions he is selected as their champion against Tiamat, and becomes very powerful.
11. Marduk challenges Tiamat to combat and destroys her. He then rips her corpse into two halves with which he fashions the earth and the skies. Marduk then creates the calendar, organizes the planets and stars, and regulates the moon, the sun, and weather.
12. The gods who have pledged their allegiance to Tiamat are initially forced into labor in the service of the gods who sided with Marduk. But they are freed from these labors when Marduk then destroys Tiamat's husband, Kingu, and uses his blood to create humankind to do the work for the gods.
13. Most noteworthy is Marduk's symbolic elevation over Enlil, who was seen by earlier Mesopotamian civilizations as the king of the gods.

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