Weaponised Myth: Tiamat's Chaos versus Marduk's Blade
Since time immemorial, consciousness has turned toward beginnings. The wealth of data impressing on the senses provoked the first questions. The ground beneath our feet, the waters that moved with their own will, and the sky that stretched beyond our reach. The world presented itself as formed and functional, but mysterious — a structure not of our making, yet one we found ourselves inside.
Before man ever asked who am I, he must have asked: what is this? From this observation came awe. And from awe, inquiry. If all things seem to move toward an end, must they not also have had a beginning? And if there was a beginning… what began it? Only later did the questions turn inward. What is this breath within me? Who placed me here — and why? What is outside me gave way to what is within me, and finally to: why am I at all? And so, out of necessity and mystery, the stories began.
But man did not tell these stories with dispassionate precision — he painted them with the brushes he had. The world around him was not only the subject of his questions; it became the palette for his answers. The sea, with its terrible beauty and unpredictable power, became more than water — it became will, danger, deity. The storm, with its howling descent and blinding flash, spoke of wrath, of chaos, of forces beyond comprehension. The sun gave light and life — and so it was crowned king.
These were not arbitrary projections. They were honest attempts to name the nameless using what was near at hand.
Experience gave shape to myth, and myth gave shape to meaning, shaping how they lived — not abstractly, but with the belief that meaning and matter were one. The ancients did not separate symbol from reality — they saw in reality the first language of the divine. And so the story of beginnings was not clinical history, but symbolic cartography: a mapping of meaning onto the cosmos, using the fiercest and most faithful images they knew. Each culture shaped its cosmogony with the clay of its own landscape, giving voice to the mystery with symbols drawn from its world. As they pondered not only how the world came to be, but how it continued, they began to imagine the deeper patterns behind the powers. The forces that shaped their worlds gained motives, spirits, and structures — and from these, meaning. In this way, the ancient world wove cosmogony and cosmology into a narrative where they were inseparable. One must inevitably involve the other. Cosmogony, the story of how the material world began, was also the story of how it was structured and governed - cosmology.
Enuma Elish and the Machinations of the gods
The most well-known Babylonian creation account is preserved on seven clay tablets discovered in the ruins of the great library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh. These tablets, now housed in the British Museum, hold a myth known as the Enūma Eliš, which means "When on High," the opening words of the text. In this creation myth, the world is not born from communion, but from conquest. It is not called forth in peace, but carved into being by a war god. One of the oldest and most politically charged cosmologies ever composed, it opens not with presence, but with rivalry. In this beginning, the primeval waters were undivided. Two great beings, Apsu (the fresh water) and Tiamat (the salt sea), mingled together in a primordial union. From their union came the first gods, chaotic and numerous. Their noise disturbed Apsu, who sought to destroy them. But he was slain by one of his own descendants, Ea (also called Enki), the god of wisdom.
Tiamat, enraged and grief-stricken, responded not with sorrow but with wrath. She assembled a host of monstrous creatures, placed her new consort Kingu in command, and prepared to wage war against her children. This is the archetypal birth of cosmic conflict—order birthed from the murder of chaos. The primordial order resents its own progeny, and the solution to disorder is elimination. The cosmos is threatened not by nothingness, but by noise. Apsu, the father, seeks to destroy his children to preserve stillness. His plan is thwarted. But the pattern is set: chaos must be subdued by force.
When Tiamat rises in retaliation, she becomes the great monster — the feminine deep now framed as threat. In response, the gods turn to Marduk, a storm deity who emerges as the unlikely candidate to face her. But Marduk does not volunteer. He does not act from compassion or calling. He makes a deal.
“Place your utterance in the chamber of council, and let all the gods agree in the Assembly,
that you will reign supreme, your word above all others!”
— Enuma Elish, Tablet III
Marduk agrees to fight — but only if he is made king. The contract is sealed before the conflict. The cosmos, in this telling, is not a gift. It is a prize. Hierarchy precedes harmony. The gods hand him authority not because he speaks truth, but because he promises victory. Dominion is justified by destruction. And so Marduk goes to war. The battle is swift and merciless. He traps Tiamat in a net, drives the wind down her throat, and splits her in two with an arrow. Her corpse is not mourned. It is measured. Her ribs are stretched into the sky. Her eyes become rivers. Her skin becomes the dome above. Her remains are repurposed into reality. From Kingu’s blood he creates humankind, not as sovereigns, but as servants: creatures made to bear the burdens of the gods.
“He sliced her in half like a fish for drying: One half he set up and made as a cover, heaven.”
— Enuma Elish, Tablet IV
The message is clear: violence is creative, and power is legitimized by victory. The world itself becomes the evidence of conquest — order is forged in blood, and existence is quite literally built on the corpse of the defeated. Even Marduk’s speech participates in this logic. He speaks — and a garment is destroyed. He speaks again — and it is restored. Speech here is not relational. It is demonstrative. It proves command, not communion. Words in this cosmology are not invitations; they are instruments. They bind contracts, assert status, and reinforce rank.
The gods create by conquering — not calling. Creation, in the Babylonian vision, is a transaction: death traded for dominion and authority purchased through violence. This is myth as machine — a sacred scaffolding for empire. It is not just a story about gods. It is a story about how order works. The same gods who install Marduk as ruler declare Babylon as the divine center of the earth. Just as Tiamat was a problem to be solved, so too are her echoes — any chaos, any rebellion, any voice that threatens the throne. The act of creation is indistinguishable from the act of control.
And so the cosmos is stabilized — but not sanctified. It is ordered — but by obedience, not by love. Presence, in this cosmology, is not responsive. It is hierarchical. Speech does not open relationship; it enforces command.
Assyriologist Benjamin Foster interprets the Enuma Elish not merely as a creation myth but as a political narrative legitimizing Babylonian monarchy:
“The Enuma Elish explains the evolution from early government by elders to absolute monarchy. As the battle between Marduk and Tiamat illustrates, the catalyst for this change is portrayed as an outside threat calling for a war leader. The leader demanded, as his terms for leadership, absolute obedience, even when the threat of war was removed.”
— Foster, B. R., The Intent Behind the Enuma Elish (Creation Epic)
It is a myth of triumph through violence, of cosmos born from conquest. Marduk does not coax the world into being. He tears it from the carcass of the defeated. In doing so, he founds not only the heavens — but the very pattern of kingship. As Marduk rules the gods through overwhelming might, so too must kings rule the earth. Violence becomes the architecture of authority.
The myth becomes a theology of empire. The city of Babylon becomes not just a seat of power, but the mirror of their heavens.