{"collection":"Ancient Near East","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/ane/blc/blc17.htm","path":"ane/blc/blc17.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/ane/blc/blc17.htm","text":"The Babylonian Legends of Creation, by E. A. Wallis Budge, [1921]\n1 See the Transactions, Vol. IV, Plates I-VI, London, 1876.\n2 See the duplicate fragments described in the Index to Ebeling, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur, Leipzig, 1919 fol.\n3 The text is found on a tablet from Ab\u00fb Habbah, Brit. Mus., No. 93,014 (82-5-22, 1048).\n4 APS\u00db. It is doubtful if APS\u00db here really means the great abyss of waters from out of which the world was called. It was, more probably, a ceremonial object used in the cult of the god, something like the great basin, or \"sea,\" in the court of the temple of King Solomon, mentioned in I Kings, vii, 23; 2 Kings, xxv, 13, etc.\n5 This is a name under which Marduk was worshipped at Eridu.\n6 The god whose head was taken off was not Belus, as is commonly thought, but the god who the cuneiform texts tell us was called \"Kingu.\"\n7 The god whose head was taken off was not Belus, as is commonly thought, but the god who the cuneiform texts tell us was called \"Kingu.\"\n8 Muallidat gimrishun .\n9 It is probable that the idea of this Tablet is perpetuated in the \"Preserved Tablet\" of the \u1e32ur'\u00e2n (Surah x, 62), on which the destiny of every man was written at or before the creation of the world. Nothing that is written (makt\u00fbb) there can be erased, or altered, or fail to take effect.\n10 (Cun. Texts, Part XXIV, Plate 44, l. 142).\n12 This is the original of the Syriac word for the Signs of the Zodiac malw\u00e2sh\u00ea (plural of malw\u00e2sh\u00e2). The Syrians added to it an m, thus giving it a participial form.\n13 \u0394\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03af also called \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c9\u03c0\u03b1, \u1f61\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ba\u03cc\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9, \u03c6\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2 and \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9. They were well known to the Egyptians, who, as early as the fourteenth century B.C., possessed a full list of them. See Lepsius, Chronologie, Berlin, 1848, and Brugsch, Thesaurus (Astronomische und Astrologische Inschriften), Leipzig, 1883.\n14 Formerly known as Ninip.\n15 See Naville, La Litanie du Soleil, Paris, 1875, Plate ii ff.\n16 See Kur'\u00e2n, Surah vii, v. 179. That there were ninety-nine Beautiful Names of God rests on the authority of Ab\u00fb Hurairah, who repeats the statement as made by Muhammad the Prophet.\n17 Published by King, Cuneiform Texts, Part XXV, Plate 50.\n18 Thus he is equated with En-Urta, Nergal, En-lil, Nab\u00fb, Sin, Shamash, Adad, etc.\n19 See Poebel, Historical Texts, No. 1.\n20 See King, Cuneiform Texts, Part XIII, Plate 33; and Ebellog, Assurtexte, I, No. 6.\n21 The biru was the distance which a man would travel in two hours.\n22 This translation is made from transcripts of the British Museum fragments (Cuneiform Texts, Part XIII), and transcripts of the Berlin fragments (Ebeling, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur, Nos. 117, 118).\n23 The name of an object was the object itself, and it was believed that nothing could exist apart from its name.\n24 Ti\u00e2mat's wrath was roused by Apsu, who had proposed to slay the gods, her children. She took no part in the first struggle of Apsu and Mummu against the gods, and only engaged in active hostilities to avenge Apsu.\n25 Literally, \"they excited themselves to hostility.\"\n26 A title of Ti\u00e2mat.\n27 These nine monsters with the Weapon (Thunderbolt?) and Kingu form the Eleven Allies of Ti\u00e2mat, and it is clear that she and her Allies represent the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. When Marduk destroyed Ti\u00e2mat and her associates, he found it necessary to fix the stars, the images of the great gods, in their places, as the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. (See the Fifth Tablet of Creation, p. 55.)\n28 The god here alluded to is Mardak, who, in one aspect, is a fire-god; see Tablet IV, II. 39, 40.\n29 See above.\n30 Lines 83, 84, 88-101 are translated from the British Museum fragments and the Berlin fragments; lines 88-101 contain the equivalent to the whole gap in the British Museum tablet.\n31 i.e., \"let what thou sayest prevail.\"\n32 I.e., the destruction of Ti\u00e2mat.\n33 I.e., the establishing of a new creation to take the place of the old.\n34 The meaning of pal-a is unknown.\n35 This equipment of the charioteer is shown on the bas-reliefs.\n36 Compare Psalms xviii, 7-15; civ, i ff.\n37 I.e., the gods were impatient to begin the fight.\n38 By impressing his seal on the Tablet Marduk proved his ownership of the Tablet, and made his claim to it legal.\n39 This is an oblique way of saying that Marduk succeeded where Ea failed.\n40 The word is kupu, i.e., \"reed\" or \"sedge.\" It is possible that Marduk skinned Ti\u00e2mat.\n41 Reading, ishtenish lu kuppudu-ma ana shina lu uzizu.\n42 I.e., \"to cause the gods to be content,\"\n43 Literally \"they (indefinite) opposed me.\"\n44 See Cuneiform Texts, Part XXIV, Plate 50, where it is said that the god Sin is \"Marduk, who maketh bright the night.\"\n45 Lines 44 and 45 announce Marduk's determination to build Babylon.\n46 This is the word commonly used for \"temple-tower.\" The famous ziggurat of E-Sagila here mentioned was built in Seven Stages or Steps, each probably having its own distinctive colour. It was destroyed probably soon after the capture of Babylon by Cyrus (539 B.C.) and when Alexander the Great reached Babylon he found it ruins.\n47 This is the first known mention of the \"horns\" of a ziggurat, and the exact meaning of the word is doubtful.\n48 From this text it seems clear that Up-shukkinaku was the name of a chamber in the temple of E-Sagila. This name probably means the \"chamber of the shakkanaku,\" i.e., the chamber in which the governor of the city (shakkanaku) went annually to embrace the hands of the god Bel-Marduk, from whom he thereby received the right of sovereignty over the country.\n49 This line seems to imply that Marduk was regarded as the instructor of the \"old\" gods; the allusion is, probably, to the \"ways\" of Anu, Bel and Ea, which are treated as technical terms in astrology.\n50 Here the title \"Black-headed\" refers to all mankind, but it is sometimes used by the scribes to distinguish the population of the Euphrates Valley from foreign peoples of light complexions.\n51 Compare the language of the Kur'\u00e2n (Surah II, v. 256), \"He (Allah) knoweth what is before them and what is behind them.\"\n52 These lines suggest that the fight between Marduk and Ti\u00e2mat was recurrent; it is incorrect to translate the verbal forms as preterites.\n53 \"To open the ears\" -- to give understanding.\n54 The Egyptian Sheta","title":"the Babylonian Legends of Creation: Footnotes","type":"page"}