Enūma Eliš

Enūma Eliš (also spelled "Enuma Elish") is a Babylonian creation myth from the late 2nd millennium BCE and the only complete account of ancient near eastern cosmology that remains. The name refers to the incipit "When on High". A lacunose version was first recovered by English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (near present day Mosul, Iraq). The story is recorded in Akkadian on seven clay tablets, in Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script. It tells the creation of the world, a battle between gods focused on the offering to Marduk (replaced by Ashur in late Assyrian versions), anthropogeny, and it ends with a long passage praising Marduk.

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Category:Creation myths
Category:Archaeology