Tiamat

Tiamat is the primordial dragon goddess of chaos and the sea in Babylonian mythology. She is most prominently depicted in the enuma elish. Unknown. (1972). "Tiamat", in Leach, M. (ed) Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend. 3rd ed. pp.1112-1113
== Origin ==
Tiamat is believed to have been the personification of the sea, chaos, or the Milky Way (making her the Babylonian parallel of the Egyptian Nut). 
== Myths ==
Tiamat and her husband Apsu had a number of children, the gods.
In some myths, the movement and dancing of the gods annoyed her, so she worked with her husband and her favoured son Mummu to kill them. 
In other versions, the gods plotted against Tiamat and her husband because, with their constant production of children threatening to fill up all of existence, order couldn't be brought to reality. 
Ea used a spell to kill Apsu, and later tried (and failed) to defeat Tiamat. Anu also tried to fight Tiamat using a greater spell created by all the gods, and also failed. Marduk (in other versions Enlil or Bel) fought against her with the power of all the gods. 
Marduk defeated Kingu, Tiamat's second husband to whom she had given the Tablets of Destiny, and then threw a net over Tiamat herself. When she opened her mouth to shout and devour him, he used the winds to hold her mouth open, before he shot his arrows through her open mouth and into her heart, killing her. Marduk then used his mace to smash her skull, shed her blood (which the wind carried to the other gods to show proof of his victory), and then he cut her in half, using one half to make the sky, and the other half to make the earth, whereupon the gods had their palaces built. 
== Analysis ==
The myth is thought to be a ritual statement about Mesopotamia's annual spring floods, whereupon the water is dispersed by the sun and winds, leaving fertile soil behind. It is thought that the myth contains a pattern of seasonal drama: combat, assumption of sovereignty, installation in palace, feast of the gods, and sacred marriage, though some of these elements are more prominent in some versions of the myth than others. 
It has been suggested that this myth is one of the earliest sources of the common dragon-slaying story, with Marduk killing Tiamat after she opens her mouth being considered a prototype of the idea of a dragon possessing a fatal weak spot. 
== References ==
Category:Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend
Category:Gods
Category:Dragons