King of the Gods
After six generations of gods, in the Babylonian "Enûma Eliš", in the seventh generation, (Akkadian "shapattu" or sabath), the younger Igigi gods, the sons and daughters of Enlil and Ninlil, go on strike and refuse their duties of keeping creation working. Abzu, god of fresh water, co-creator of the cosmos, threatens to destroy the world with his waters, and the gods gather in terror. Enki promises to help and puts Abzu to sleep, confining him in irrigation canals and places him in the Kur, beneath his city of Eridu. But the universe is still threatened, as Tiamat, angry at the imprisonment of Abzu and at the prompting of her son and vizier Kingu, decides to take back creation herself. The gods gather again in terror and turn to Enki for help, but Enki – who harnessed Abzu, Tiamat's consort, for irrigation – refuses to get involved. The gods then seek help elsewhere, and the patriarchal Enlil, their father, god of Nippur, promises to solve the problem if they make him King of the Gods. In the Babylonian tale, Enlil's role is taken by Marduk, Enki's son, and in the Assyrian version it is Ashur. After dispatching Tiamat with the "arrows of his winds" down her throat and constructing the heavens with the arch of her ribs, Enlil places her tail in the sky as the Milky Way, and her crying eyes become the source of the Tigris and Euphrates. But there is still the problem of "who will keep the cosmos working". Enki, who might have otherwise come to their aid, is lying in a deep sleep and fails to hear their cries. His mother Nammu (creatrix also of Abzu and Tiamat) "brings the tears of the gods" before Enki and says