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107-460: Enūma Eliš ( Akkadian Cuneiform : 𒂊𒉡𒈠𒂊𒇺 , also spelled "Enuma Elish"), meaning "When on High", is a Babylonian creation myth ( named after its opening words ) from the late 2nd millennium BCE and the only complete surviving account of ancient near eastern cosmology . It was recovered by English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh ( Mosul , Iraq ). A form of

214-475: A colophon . Smith's reconstruction and translation of this states: "When Above" Palace of Assurbanipal king of nations, king of Assyria to whom Nebo and Tasmit attentive ears have given: he sought with diligent eyes the wisdom of the inscribed tablets, which among the kings who went before me, none those writings had sought. The wisdom of Nebo; † the impressions? of the god instructor? all delightful, on tablets I wrote, I studied, I observed, and for

321-672: A lingua franca of the empire, rather than it being eclipsed by Akkadian. Texts written 'exclusively' in Neo-Assyrian disappear within 10 years of Nineveh 's destruction in 612 BC. Under the Achaemenids , Aramaic continued to prosper, but Assyrian continued its decline. The language's final demise came about during the Hellenistic period when it was further marginalized by Koine Greek , even though Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times. Similarly,

428-635: A voiced alveolar trill /r/ but its pattern of alternation with ⟨ ḫ ⟩ suggests it was a fricative (either uvular /ʁ/ or velar /ɣ/ ). In the Hellenistic period, Akkadian ⟨ r ⟩ was transcribed using the Greek ρ, indicating it was pronounced similarly as an alveolar sound (though Greeks may also have perceived a uvular trill as ρ). Several Proto-Semitic phonemes are lost in Akkadian. The Proto-Semitic glottal stop *ʔ , as well as

535-516: A comparison with other Semitic languages, and the resulting picture was gradually amended using internal linguistic evidence from Akkadian sources, especially deriving from so-called plene spellings (spellings with an extra vowel). According to this widely accepted system, the place of stress in Akkadian is completely predictable and sensitive to syllable weight . There are three syllable weights: light (ending in -V); heavy (ending in -V̄ or -VC), and superheavy (ending in -V̂, -V̄C or -V̂C). If

642-643: A family native to Middle East , Arabian Peninsula , parts of Anatolia , parts of the Horn of Africa , North Africa , Malta , Canary Islands and parts of West Africa ( Hausa ). Akkadian is only ever attested in Mesopotamia and neighboring regions in the Near East. Within the Near Eastern Semitic languages, Akkadian forms an East Semitic subgroup (with Eblaite and perhaps Dilmunite ). This group differs from

749-427: A heavily damaged fragment of an eponym list (pictured). Of the twelve limmu officials listed, only the names of the first two have been substantially preserved, that of Shalmaneser himself, who took the eponymy in his first year, and MU.ŠID -mu-šab- [ ši ]. The twelfth entry ša ar [ ki si ...] indicates that the limmu "which is after" (the previous name) either suggesting that the original from which this list

856-560: A late Kassite date is also sometimes proposed. It may have been recited during the Akitu festival. Some late Assyrian versions replace Marduk with Ashur . Before the tablets were discovered, substantial elements of the myth had survived via the writings of Berossus , primarily his Babyloniaca , a 3rd-century BCE Babylonian writer and priest of Bel ( Marduk ). These were preserved in Alexander Polyhistor 's book on Chaldean History, which

963-461: A locative ending in -um in the singular and the resulting forms serve as adverbials . These forms are generally not productive, but in the Neo-Babylonian the um -locative replaces several constructions with the preposition ina . In the later stages of Akkadian, the mimation (word-final -m ) and nunation (dual final -n ) that occurred at the end of most case endings disappeared, except in

1070-451: A net, a gift from Anu, to entangle Tiamat; Tiamat attempted to swallow Marduk, but 'the Evil Wind' filled her mouth. With the winds swirling within her she became distended. Marduk then shot his arrow, hitting her heart – she was slain. The other gods attempted to flee but Marduk captured them, broke their weapons, and netted them. Her eleven monsters were also captured and chained, whilst Kingu

1177-829: A position. The myth of a god (usually a storm god) fighting the sea is well known in the Ancient Near East, including myths such as the Song of Hedammu , the Baal cycle , the Illuyanka myth, and the Astarte papyrus. In the Song of Hedammu and the Illuyanka Myth the sea acts as a sort of breeding ground for the god's enemies, as both Hedammu and Illuyanka were sea monsters. The Song of the Sea, suggested to belong to

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1284-403: A separate East Semitic language. Because Akkadian as a spoken language is extinct and no contemporary descriptions of the pronunciation are known, little can be said with certainty about the phonetics and phonology of Akkadian. Some conclusions can be made, however, due to the relationship to the other Semitic languages and variant spellings of Akkadian words. The following table presents

1391-635: A translation by Friedrich Delitzsch , as well as contributions by several other authors. In 1898, the trustees of the British Museum ordered publication of a collection of all the Assyrian and Babylonian creation texts held by them, a work which was undertaken by L. W. King . King concluded that the creation myth as known in Nineveh was originally contained on seven tablets. This collection was published 1901 as Part XIII of Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in

1498-491: A written language, adapting Sumerian cuneiform orthography for the purpose. During the Middle Bronze Age (Old Assyrian and Old Babylonian period), the language virtually displaced Sumerian, which is assumed to have been extinct as a living language by the 18th century BC. Old Akkadian, which was used until the end of the 3rd millennium BC, differed from both Babylonian and Assyrian, and was displaced by these dialects. By

1605-609: Is PaRiStum (< *PaRiS-at-um ). Additionally there is a general tendency of syncope of short vowels in the later stages of Akkadian. Most roots of the Akkadian language consist of three consonants, called the radicals, but some roots are composed of four consonants, so-called quadriradicals. The radicals are occasionally represented in transcription in upper-case letters, for example PRS (to decide). Between and around these radicals various infixes , suffixes and prefixes , having word generating or grammatical functions, are inserted. The resulting consonant-vowel pattern differentiates

1712-570: Is a fusional language with grammatical case . Like all Semitic languages, Akkadian uses the system of consonantal roots . The Kültepe texts , which were written in Old Assyrian , include Hittite loanwords and names, which constitute the oldest record of any Indo-European language . Akkadian belongs with the other Semitic languages in the Near Eastern branch of the Afroasiatic languages ,

1819-442: Is divided into several varieties based on geography and historical period : One of the earliest known Akkadian inscriptions was found on a bowl at Ur , addressed to the very early pre-Sargonic king Meskiagnunna of Ur ( c.  2485 –2450 BC) by his queen Gan-saman, who is thought to have been from Akkad. The Akkadian Empire , established by Sargon of Akkad , introduced the Akkadian language (the "language of Akkad ") as

1926-458: Is marked by the Kassite invasion of Babylonia around 1550 BC. The Kassites, who reigned for 300 years, gave up their own language in favor of Akkadian, but they had little influence on the language. At its apogee, Middle Babylonian was the written language of diplomacy of the entire Ancient Near East , including Egypt ( Amarna Period ). During this period, a large number of loan words were included in

2033-489: Is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman', for she was taken out of man") where the creation of woman required the use of a man's bone. New material contributing to the fourth and sixth tablets also further corroborated other elements of Berossus' account. The seventh tablet added by King was a praise of Marduk, using around fifty titles over more than one hundred lines of cuneiform. Thus King's composition of Enūma Eliš consisted of five parts:

2140-502: Is preserved on clay tablets dating back to c.  2500 BC . It was written using cuneiform , a script adopted from the Sumerians using wedge-shaped symbols pressed in wet clay. As employed by Akkadian scribes, the adapted cuneiform script could represent either (a) Sumerian logograms ( i.e. , picture-based characters representing entire words), (b) Sumerian syllables, (c) Akkadian syllables, or (d) phonetic complements . In Akkadian

2247-496: Is then [awat+su] > /awatt͡su/ . In this vein, an alternative transcription of ⟨ š ⟩ is ⟨ s̱ ⟩, with the macron below indicating a soft (lenis) articulation in Semitic transcription. Other interpretations are possible. /ʃ/ could have been assimilated to the preceding /t/ , yielding /ts/ , which would later have been simplified to /ss/ . The rhotic ⟨ r ⟩ has traditionally been interpreted as

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2354-497: The Esagila (Temple to Marduk) to a great height, making it a place for Marduk, Ea, and Enlil . A banquet was then held, with fifty of the great gods taking seats, Anu praising Enlil's bow and then Marduk. The first nine names or titles of Marduk were given. The remainder of Marduk's fifty names or titles were read. Tablets Smith examined also contained attributions on the rear of the tablet. The first tablet contained eight lines of

2461-534: The Northwest Semitic languages and South Semitic languages in its subject–object–verb word order, while the other Semitic languages usually have either a verb–subject–object or subject–verb–object order. Additionally Akkadian is the only Semitic language to use the prepositions ina and ana ( locative case , English in / on / with , and dative -locative case, for / to , respectively). Other Semitic languages like Arabic , Hebrew and Aramaic have

2568-458: The Old Babylonian period . The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Akkadian, Modern Standard Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew : The existence of a back mid-vowel /o/ has been proposed, but the cuneiform writing gives no good proof for this. There is limited contrast between different u-signs in lexical texts, but this scribal differentiation may reflect

2675-641: The Persian conquest of the Mesopotamian kingdoms contributed to the decline of Babylonian, from that point on known as Late Babylonian, as a popular language. However, the language was still used in its written form. Even after the Greek invasion under Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, Akkadian was still a contender as a written language, but spoken Akkadian was likely extinct by this time, or at least rarely used. The last positively identified Akkadian text comes from

2782-595: The consonants of the Akkadian language, as distinguished in Akkadian cuneiform. The reconstructed phonetic value of a phoneme is given in IPA transcription, alongside its standard ( DMG-Umschrift ) transliteration in angle brackets ⟨ ⟩ . Evidence from borrowings from and to Sumerian has been interpreted as indicating that the Akkadian voiceless non-emphatic stops were originally unaspirated, but became aspirated around 2000 BCE. Akkadian emphatic consonants are typically reconstructed as ejectives , which are thought to be

2889-400: The status absolutus (the absolute state ) and the status constructus ( construct state ). The latter is found in all other Semitic languages, while the former appears only in Akkadian and some dialects of Aramaic. The status absolutus is characterised by the loss of a noun's case ending (e.g. awīl < awīlum , šar < šarrum ). It is relatively uncommon, and is used chiefly to mark

2996-570: The temple of Bel in Babylon.) The text also describes a female being leading over them, named as Omoroca, called Thalatth in Babylonian (derived from Greek), and her slaying by Bel, who cut her in half, forming Heaven of one part and Earth of the other. This Berossus claims to have been an allegory. The text also describes the beheading of a god, and the mixing of the god's blood with the Earth's soil, leading to

3103-528: The third millennium BC until its gradual replacement in common use by Old Aramaic among Assyrians and Babylonians from the 8th century BC. Akkadian, which is the earliest documented Semitic language , is named after the city of Akkad , a major centre of Mesopotamian civilization during the Akkadian Empire ( c.  2334 –2154 BC). It was written using the cuneiform script , originally used for Sumerian , but also used to write multiple languages in

3210-522: The 10th century BC when the Assyrian kingdom became a major power with the Neo-Assyrian Empire . During the existence of that empire, however, Neo-Assyrian began to turn into a chancellery language, being marginalized by Old Aramaic . The dominance of the Neo-Assyrian Empire under Tiglath-Pileser III over Aram-Damascus in the middle of the 8th century led to the establishment of Aramaic as

3317-607: The 1st century AD. The latest known text in cuneiform Babylonian is an astronomical almanac dated to 79/80 AD. However, the latest cuneiform texts are almost entirely written in Sumerian logograms. The Akkadian language began to be rediscovered when Carsten Niebuhr in 1767 was able to make extensive copies of cuneiform texts and published them in Denmark. The deciphering of the texts started immediately, and bilinguals, in particular Old Persian -Akkadian bilinguals, were of great help. Since

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3424-687: The 20th century BC, two variant dialectic forms of the same language were in use in Assyria and Babylonia, known as Assyrian and Babylonian respectively. The bulk of preserved material is from this later period, corresponding to the Near Eastern Iron Age . In total, hundreds of thousands of texts and text fragments have been excavated, covering a vast textual tradition of religious and mythological narrative, legal texts, scientific works, personal correspondence, political, civil and military events, economic tracts and many other examples. Centuries after

3531-511: The 21st century BC Babylonian and Assyrian, which were to become the primary dialects, were easily distinguishable. Old Babylonian, along with the closely related dialect Mariotic , is clearly more innovative than the Old Assyrian dialect and the more distantly related Eblaite language . For this reason, forms like lu-prus ('I will decide') were first encountered in Old Babylonian instead of

3638-595: The Anzu myth and in Lugal-e, and usage of a net would make sense against Anzu. Other traditions related to Ninurta were also applied to Marduk in Enuma Elish, such as the name of one of Ninurta's weapons (long wood) being given to Marduk’s bow. While it would make sense to simply write this off as Marduk using Ninurta's model simply because it was the closest match, the traditions involving Ninurta were already used to allude to heroism in

3745-475: The Assyrian god Ashur ; additional important sources for tablets 1 and 6, and tablet 7 were discovered by expeditions in 1924–25 and 1928–29 respectively. The Ashur texts uncovered by the Germans necessitated some corrections: it was Kingu , not Marduk , who was killed and whose blood made men. These discoveries were further supplemented by purchases from antiquity dealers. As a result, by the mid 20th century most of

3852-492: The British Museum ( British Museum 1901 ). King published his own translations and notes in two volumes with additional material 1902 as The Seven Tablets of Creation, or the Babylonian and Assyrian Legends concerning the creation of the world and of mankind ( King 1902 ). By then additional fragments of tablet six had been found, concerning the creation of man; here Marduk was found to have made man from his blood combined with bone, which brought comparison with Genesis 2:23 ("This

3959-481: The Iron Age, during the Neo-Assyrian Empire when in the mid-eighth century BC Tiglath-Pileser III introduced Imperial Aramaic as a lingua franca of the Assyrian empire. By the Hellenistic period , the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia. The last known Akkadian cuneiform document dates from the 1st century AD. Mandaic spoken by Mandean Gnostics and

4066-684: The Kumarbi Cycle, likely narrates the story of the storm god Teshub fighting the sea god, although the text is damaged and fragmentary. The Astarte Papyrus also mentioned a struggle with the sea, and the Ugaritic Baal Cycle had Baal Hadad fight for his position from Yam. A ritual text from the Seleucid period states that Enūma Eliš was recited during the Akitu festival. There is scholarly debate as to whether this reading occurred, its purpose, and even

4173-665: The Oannes. The neo-Platonist Damascius also gave a short version of the Babylonian cosmological view, which closely matches Enūma Eliš . Clay tablets containing inscriptions relating to analogues of biblical stories were discovered by A. H. Layard , Hormuzd Rassam , and George Smith in the ruins of the Palace and Library of Ashurbanipal (668–626 BCE) during excavations at the mound of Kuyunjik, Nineveh (near Mosul ) between 1848 and 1876. Smith worked through Rassam's find of around 20,000 fragments from 1852, and identified references to

4280-497: The Old Testament ( Pritchard 1969 ). When on high the heaven had not been named, Firm ground below had not been called by name, Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter, (And) Mummu*–Tiamat, she who bore them all, Their waters commingling as a single body; No reed hut had been matted, no marsh land had appeared, When no gods whatever had been brought into being, Uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined— Then it

4387-524: The Tablet of Destinies as a key object and the similarities between the weapons used by Ninurta and Marduk, and lines from the Anzu myth were adapted to fit the story of Enuma Elish, such as Anzu's feathers being blown off by the wind being adjusted to having Tiamat's blood being blown off by the wind. Marduk using floods and storms as a weapon and using a net to capture Tiamat (the personified sea) does not make logical sense, but they were weapons that Ninurta used in

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4494-404: The archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but the use both of cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence. Old Babylonian was the language of king Hammurabi and his code , which is one of the oldest collections of laws in the world. (see Code of Ur-Nammu .) Old Assyrian developed as well during the second millennium BC, but because it

4601-445: The birth of gods, legend of Ea and Apsu , Tiamat primeval serpent myth, account of creation, and finally a hymn to Marduk using his many titles. Importantly, tablets, both Assyrian and Babylonian, when possessing colophons had the number of the tablet inscribed. Further expeditions by German researchers uncovered further tablet fragments (specifically tablet 1, 6, and 7) during the period 1902–1914. These works replaced Marduk with

4708-468: The compact with Marduk. Marduk was given a throne, and sat over the other gods, who honored him. Lord, truly thy decree is first among gods. Say but to wreck or create; it shall be. Open thy mouth: the Images will vanish! Speak again, and the Images shall be whole! Marduk was also given a sceptre and vestments, as well as weapons to fight Tiamat – bow, quiver, mace, and bolts of lightning, together with

4815-662: The creation myth can be found described in King 1902 , pp. 116–55 and Heidel 1951 , pp. 61–81. The epic itself does not rhyme , and has no meter ; it is composed of couplets , usually written on the same line, occasionally forming quatrains . The title Enūma Eliš , meaning "when on high", is the incipit . The following per-tablet summary is based on the translation in Akkadian Myths and Epics (E. A. Speiser), in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to

4922-416: The creation of men (people). Finally, there is also reference to Bel's creation of the stars, Sun, Moon, and planets. Berossus also gave an account of the sage Oannes , a sort of fish-man hybrid, who appeared from the sea and taught people all manner of knowledge, including writing, lawmaking, construction, mathematics, and agriculture; Berossus presented the account of creation in the form of a speech given by

5029-555: The deluge as well as fragmentary accounts of creation, a text on a war between good and evil 'gods', and a fall of man myth. A second expedition by Smith brought back further creation legend fragments. By 1875 he had returned and began publishing accounts of these discoveries in the Daily Telegraph from 4 March 1875. Smith speculated that the creation myth, including a part describing the fall of man, might originally have spanned at least nine or ten tablets. He also identified tablets

5136-500: The description of Marduk's awe with the description in Marduk's Address to the Demons, and the creation of the universe at the beginning of Tablet X with Tablet XXII of the astronomical series Enuma Anu Enlil . In Enuma Anu Enlil, the creation of the universe was credited to Anu, Enlil and Ea, while in Enuma Elish the creation of the universe was credited to Marduk while Enlil and Ea were assigned

5243-479: The dialects of Akkadian identified with certainty so far. Some researchers (such as W. Sommerfeld 2003) believe that the Old Akkadian variant used in the older texts is not an ancestor of the later Assyrian and Babylonian dialects, but rather a separate dialect that was replaced by these two dialects and which died out early. Eblaite , formerly thought of as yet another Akkadian dialect, is now generally considered

5350-452: The dialects spoken by the extant Assyrians ( Suret ) are three extant Neo-Aramaic languages that retain Akkadian vocabulary and grammatical features, as well as personal and family names. These are spoken by Assyrians and Mandeans mainly in northern Iraq , southeast Turkey , northeast Syria , northwest Iran , the southern Caucasus and by communities in the Assyrian diaspora . Akkadian

5457-511: The earlier king by this name. It relates "I repossessed the cities of Sinabu (and) Tidu—fortresses which Salmānu-ašarēd, king of Assyria, a prince who preceded me, had garrisoned against the land of Nairi (and) which the Arameans had captured by force." There are few inscriptions which may be attributed for certainty to him as several may belong to the Shalmaneser I who preceded him, or to one of

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5564-401: The earlier stages of the language, the dual number is vestigial, and its use is largely confined to natural pairs (eyes, ears, etc.). Adjectives are never found in the dual. In the dual and plural, the accusative and genitive are merged into a single oblique case . Akkadian, unlike Arabic , has only "sound" plurals formed by means of a plural ending. Broken plurals are not formed by changing

5671-499: The epic of Gilgamesh, and imageries of Ninurta played an important part of Neo-Assyrian ideology. Outside of the Anzu myth, similarities between Enuma Elish and the Atrahasis epic were also pointed out. Both Apsu and Enlil wanted to destroy a source of noise which prevented them from falling asleep (for Enlil, this was humanity and for Apsu, this was his offspring). Both Nintu and Tiamat then lament their fate. Wisnom further suggests that

5778-571: The expense of the other gods. It was during the Second Dynasty of Isin that Marduk started to be referred to as the king of the gods, with the return of the statue of Marduk from Elam by Nebuchadnezzar I . Sommerfield's suggestion that Enuma Elish should be dated instead to the Kassite period, was countered by Lambert, but the god list An = Anum does give the number 50, which traditionally belongs to Enlil, to Marduk. Dalley still proposes that Enuma Elish

5885-571: The fall of the Akkadian Empire, Akkadian, in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties, was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires ( Old Assyrian Empire , Babylonia , Middle Assyrian Empire ) throughout the later Bronze Age, and became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse c.  1150 BC . However, its gradual decline began in

5992-420: The first one bears stress. A rule of Akkadian phonology is that certain short (and probably unstressed) vowels are dropped. The rule is that the last vowel of a succession of syllables that end in a short vowel is dropped, for example the declinational root of the verbal adjective of a root PRS is PaRiS- . Thus the masculine singular nominative is PaRS-um (< *PaRiS-um ) but the feminine singular nominative

6099-432: The four winds. His body was aflame. Using the four winds Marduk trapped Tiamat. Adding a whirlwind, a cyclone, and Imhullu ("the Evil Wind"), together the seven winds stirred up Tiamat. In his war chariot drawn by four creatures he advanced. He challenged Tiamat, stating she had unrightfully made Kingu her consort, accusing her of being the source of the trouble. Enraged, Tiamat joined Marduk in single combat. Marduk used

6206-528: The fricatives *ʕ , *h , *ḥ are lost as consonants, either by sound change or orthographically, but they gave rise to the vowel quality e not exhibited in Proto-Semitic. The voiceless lateral fricatives ( *ś , *ṣ́ ) merged with the sibilants as in Canaanite , leaving 19 consonantal phonemes. Old Akkadian preserved the /*ś/ phoneme longest but it eventually merged with /*š/ , beginning in

6313-646: The geography of Babylonia . He suggested that biblical creation stories might have their origin in that area. A link was found on a tablet labelled K 63 at the British Museum 's collection by Smith, as well as similar text on other tablets. Smith then began searching the collection for textual similarities between the two myths, and found several references to a deluge myth with an 'Izdubar' (literal translation of cuneiform for Gilgamesh ). Smith's publication of his work led to an expedition to Assyria funded by The Daily Telegraph . There he found further tablets describing

6420-460: The heart of Apsu, Ea and Damkina created Marduk . The splendor of Marduk exceeded Ea and the other gods, and Ea called him "My son, the Sun!" Anu created the four winds. Other gods taunted Tiamat: "When your consort (Apsu) was slain you did nothing", and complained of the wearisome wind. Tiamat then made monsters to battle the other gods, eleven chimeric creatures with weapons, with the god Kingu chief of

6527-469: The identity of the text referred to. Most analysts consider that the festival concerned and included some form of re-enactment of Tiamat 's defeat by Marduk , representing a renewal cycle and triumph over chaos. However a more detailed analysis by Jonathan Z. Smith led him to argue that the ritual should be understood in terms of its post-Assyrian and post-Babylonian imperial context, and may include elements of psychological and political theater legitimizing

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6634-464: The inspection of my people within my palace I placed Due to the nature of Enuma Elish , it is generally advised to be wary of simply taking the text as a representative of Mesopotamian creation myths. Enuma Elish references multiple myths and other texts, and epithets usually attested in royal inscriptions were given to Marduk. Similarities with the Anzu myth are commonly observed, such as both myths using

6741-464: The king to the Assurtemple and its "temples" and includes the provision of a quantity of aromatics to Idiglat, the deified river Tigris . There is a long dedication inscription of Shalmaneser , II or III undetermined, to Ištar composed for the consecration of a temple. A gold and a silver disk are inscribed with the name "Salmānu-ašarēd" and could possibly represent this king or his predecessor. He

6848-510: The kings Shalmaneser II , Tiglath-Pileser III , Sargon II , Sennacherib , Esarhaddon , and other rulers mentioned in the Bible. Furthermore, he discovered versions of a Babylonian deluge myth (see Gilgamesh flood myth ), as well as creation myths. On examination it became clear that the Assyrian myths were drawn from or similar to the Babylonian ones. Additionally Sir Henry Rawlinson had noted similarities between Biblical accounts of creation and

6955-699: The language from Northwest Semitic languages and Hurrian . However, the use of these words was confined to the fringes of the Akkadian-speaking territory. From 1500 BC onwards, the Assyrian language is termed Middle Assyrian. It was the language of the Middle Assyrian Empire . However, the Babylonian cultural influence was strong and the Assyrians wrote royal inscriptions, religious and most scholarly texts in Middle Babylonian, whereas Middle Assyrian

7062-476: The languages as a Sprachbund . Akkadian proper names are first attested in Sumerian texts in the mid-3rd millennium BC, and inscriptions ostensibly written in Sumerian but whose character order reveals that they were intended to be read in East Semitic (presumably early Akkadian) date back to as early as c.  2600 BC . From about the 25th century BC, texts fully written in Akkadian begin to appear. By

7169-454: The last syllable is superheavy, it is stressed, otherwise the rightmost heavy non-final syllable is stressed. If a word contains only light syllables, the first syllable is stressed. It has also been argued that monosyllabic words generally are not stressed but rather function as clitics . The special behaviour of /V̂/ syllables is explained by their functioning, in accordance with their historical origin, as sequences of two syllables, of which

7276-404: The latter being used for long vowels arising from the contraction of vowels in hiatus. The distinction between long and short is phonemic , and is used in the grammar; for example, iprusu ('that he decided') versus iprusū ('they decided'). There is broad agreement among most Assyriologists about Akkadian stress patterns. The rules of Akkadian stress were originally reconstructed by means of

7383-434: The locative. Later, the nominative and accusative singular of masculine nouns collapsed to -u and in Neo-Babylonian most word-final short vowels were dropped. As a result, case differentiation disappeared from all forms except masculine plural nouns. However, many texts continued the practice of writing the case endings, although often sporadically and incorrectly. As the most important contact language throughout this period

7490-535: The moon also. He created clouds and rain, and their water made the Tigris and Euphrates . He gave the 'Tablet of Destinies' to Anu. Statues of the eleven monsters of Tiamat were made and installed at the gate of Apsu . Marduk then spoke to Ea, saying he would use his own blood to create man, and that man would serve the gods. Ea advised one of the gods be chosen as a sacrifice; the Igigi advised that Kingu be chosen. His blood

7597-465: The myth was excavated from Assur and dated to the 9th century BCE. While it used to be viewed that Enuma Elish was composed in the reign of Hammurabi , most scholars now believe it is unlikely and accept a dating to the Second Dynasty of Isin. During the Old Babylonian period, Marduk was not the pantheon head, appearing instead as the mediator between the great gods and Hammurabi, and there is no evidence that Hammurabi or his successors promoted Marduk at

7704-480: The myth was first published by English Assyriologist George Smith in 1876; active research and further excavations led to near completion of the texts and improved translation. Enūma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Akkadian on seven clay tablets , each holding between 115 and 170 lines of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script . Most of Tablet V has never been recovered, but, aside from this lacuna ,

7811-485: The neo-Babylonian period that correlates well with Enūma Eliš myth. A version of Enūma Eliš is also thought to have been read during the month of Kislimu. Akkadian language Akkadian ( / ə ˈ k eɪ d i ən / ə- KAY -dee-ən ; Akkadian: 𒀝𒅗𒁺𒌑(𒌝) , romanized:  Akkadû(m) ) is an extinct East Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia ( Akkad , Assyria , Isin , Larsa , Babylonia and perhaps Dilmun ) from

7918-418: The new gods, but Tiamat was reluctant to destroy what they had made. Mummu advised Apsu to destroy them, and he embraced Mummu. The new gods heard of this and were worried; Ea, however, crafted a spell to lull Apsu to sleep. Mummu sought to wake Apsu but could not. Ea took Apsu's halo and wore it himself, slew Apsu, and chained Mummu. Apsu became the dwelling place of Ea, together with his wife Damkina . Within

8025-420: The non-native Seleucid rulers; he also questions whether Enūma Eliš read during that period was the same as that known to the ancient Assyrians. Whether Enūma Eliš creation myth was created for the Akitu ritual, or vice versa , or neither, is unclear; nevertheless there are definite connections in subject matter between the myth and festival, and there is also evidence of the festival as celebrated during

8132-526: The older la-prus . While generally more archaic, Assyrian developed certain innovations as well, such as the "Assyrian vowel harmony ". Eblaite was even more so, retaining a productive dual and a relative pronoun declined in case, number and gender. Both of these had already disappeared in Old Akkadian. Over 20,000 cuneiform tablets in Old Assyrian have been recovered from the Kültepe site in Anatolia . Most of

8239-516: The oldest realization of emphatics across the Semitic languages. One piece of evidence for this is that Akkadian shows a development known as Geers's law , where one of two emphatic consonants dissimilates to the corresponding non-emphatic consonant. For the sibilants, traditionally ⟨ š ⟩ has been held to be postalveolar /ʃ/ , and ⟨ s ⟩, ⟨ z ⟩, ⟨ ṣ ⟩ analyzed as fricatives; but attested assimilations in Akkadian suggest otherwise. For example, when

8346-464: The original meaning of the root. The middle radical can be geminated, which is represented by a doubled consonant in transcription, and sometimes in the cuneiform writing itself. The consonants ʔ , w , j and n are termed "weak radicals" and roots containing these radicals give rise to irregular forms. Formally, Akkadian has three numbers (singular, dual and plural) and three cases ( nominative , accusative and genitive ). However, even in

8453-462: The possessive suffix -šu is added to the root awat ('word'), it is written awassu ('his word') even though šš would be expected. The most straightforward interpretation of this shift from tš to ss , is that ⟨ s, ṣ ⟩ form a pair of voiceless alveolar affricates /t͡s/ /t͡sʼ/ , ⟨ š ⟩ is a voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/ , and ⟨ z ⟩ is a voiced alveolar affricate or fricative /d͡z/~/z/ . The assimilation

8560-536: The predicate of a nominal sentence, in fixed adverbial expressions, and in expressions relating to measurements of length, weight, and the like. Shalmaneser II In recent years, there has been a trend towards reading the SILIM in his name as sal rather than šul on philological grounds. He succeeded his father, Aššur-nāṣir-apli I and ruled for 12 years according to the Assyrian Kingliest and confirmed by

8667-461: The prepositions bi/bə and li/lə (locative and dative, respectively). The origin of the Akkadian spatial prepositions is unknown. In contrast to most other Semitic languages, Akkadian has only one non-sibilant fricative : ḫ [x] . Akkadian lost both the glottal and pharyngeal fricatives, which are characteristic of the other Semitic languages. Until the Old Babylonian period, the Akkadian sibilants were exclusively affricated . Old Akkadian

8774-423: The pressure from climate change. The later king, Aššur-dān II (935–912 BC), recalled Shalmaneser 's own losses to this tribal group: [...who] from the time of Shalmaneser , king of [Assyria, my forefather], had destroyed [people of Assyria by …] and murder, had sold [all] their [sons (and) daughters]. Another retrospective reference can probably be found in an inscription of Ashurnasirpal II unless it refers to

8881-413: The region including Eblaite , Hurrian , Elamite , Old Persian and Hittite . The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian went beyond just the cuneiform script; owing to their close proximity, a lengthy span of contact and the prestige held by the former, Sumerian significantly impacted Akkadian phonology, vocabulary and syntax. This mutual influence of Akkadian and Sumerian has also led scholars to describe

8988-483: The same syllable in the same text. Cuneiform was in many ways unsuited to Akkadian: among its flaws was its inability to represent important phonemes in Semitic, including a glottal stop , pharyngeals , and emphatic consonants . In addition, cuneiform was a syllabary writing system—i.e., a consonant plus vowel comprised one writing unit—frequently inappropriate for a Semitic language made up of triconsonantal roots (i.e., three consonants plus any vowels). Akkadian

9095-404: The script practically became a fully fledged syllabic script , and the original logographic nature of cuneiform became secondary , though logograms for frequent words such as 'god' and 'temple' continued to be used. For this reason, the sign AN can on the one hand be a logogram for the word ilum ('god') and on the other signify the god Anu or even the syllable -an- . Additionally, this sign

9202-418: The similarities between the beginning of Enuma Elish and Atrahasis was to have Apsu remind people of Enlil, thus the overthrowing of Apsu symbolically represents the dethronement of Enlil, the old head of the pantheon. Enlil is conspicuously missing in most of Enuma Elish, only appearing to offer his title to Marduk, and Marduk receives fifty names, the number of Enlil. Other comparisons were also drawn, such as

9309-407: The superimposition of the Sumerian phonological system (for which an /o/ phoneme has also been proposed), rather than a separate phoneme in Akkadian. All consonants and vowels appear in long and short forms. Long consonants are transliterated as double consonants, and inconsistently written as such in cuneiform. Long vowels are transliterated with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ū) or a circumflex (â, ê, î, û),

9416-428: The tablets, early translation work included that done by E. Schrader, A. H. Sayce , and Jules Oppert . In 1890 P. Jensen published a translation and commentary Die Kosmologie der Babylonier ( Jensen 1890 ), followed by an updated translation in his 1900 Mythen und Epen ( Jensen 1900 ); in 1895 Prof. Zimmern of Leipzig gave a translation of all known fragments, ( Gunkel & Zimmern 1895 ), shortly followed by

9523-421: The text in lines, not columns, and the form of the text was generally identical between both. A tablet at the British Museum (No 93014), known as the "bilingual" version of the creation legend, describes the creation of man and animals (by Marduk with the aid of Aruru ), as well as the creation of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates , of land and plants, as well as the first houses and cities. Other variants of

9630-570: The text is almost complete. Over the seven tablets, it describes the creation of the world, a battle between gods focused on the offering to Marduk , the creation of man destined for the service of the Mesopotamian deities , and it ends with a long passage praising Marduk. The rise of Marduk is generally viewed to have started from the Second Dynasty of Isin , triggered by the return of the statue of Marduk from Elam by Nebuchadnezzar I , although

9737-634: The text of the work was known, with the exception of tablet 5. These further discoveries were complemented by a stream of publications and translations in the early 20th century. In the 21st century, the text remains a subject of active research, analysis, and discussion. Significant publications include: The Standard Babylonian Creation Myth Enūma Eliš ( Talon 2005 ); Das Babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos Enuma Elis ( Kämmerer & Metzler 2012 ); Babylonian Creation Myths ( Lambert 2013 ); enūma eliš : Weg zu einer globalen Weltordnung ( Gabriel 2014 ); and other works still. The earliest manuscript of

9844-591: The texts contained several royal names, isolated signs could be identified, and were presented in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend . By this time it was already evident that Akkadian was a Semitic language, and the final breakthrough in deciphering the language came from Edward Hincks , Henry Rawlinson and Jules Oppert in the middle of the 19th century. In the early 21st century it was shown that automatic high-quality translation of Akkadian can be achieved using natural language processing methods such as convolutional neural networks . The following table summarises

9951-494: The themes of which were, in part, closer to the account given by Berossus. Some of Smith's early correspondences, such as references to the stories of the temptation of Eve, to the Tower of Babel , and to instructions given from God ( Yahweh ) to Adam and Eve , were later held to be erroneous. The connection with the Bible stories brought a great deal of additional attention to the tablets, in addition to Smith's early scholarship on

10058-531: The three who followed. Of those that can be reliably attributed, a monumental stele (number 14) from Aššur, from the Stelenreihe, "row of stelae," provides his genealogy thus permitting identification but nothing else. It reads: "Shalmaneser , great king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, son of Aššur-nāṣir-apli (I), king of Assyria, son of Šamši-adad (IV) , who was also king of Assyria". A temple endowment lists quantities of cedar balsam ( dam erêni ) donated by

10165-448: The war party and her new consort. She gave Kingu the 'Tablet of Destinies', making his command unchallengeable. Ea heard of Tiamat's plan to fight and avenge Apsu. He spoke to his grandfather Anshar, telling that many gods had gone to Tiamat's cause, and that she had created eleven monstrous creatures fit for war, and made Kingu their leader, wielding the 'Tablet of Destinies'. Anshar was troubled and told Anu to go to appease Tiamat, but he

10272-434: The word stem. As in all Semitic languages, some masculine nouns take the prototypically feminine plural ending ( -āt ). The nouns šarrum (king) and šarratum (queen) and the adjective dannum (strong) will serve to illustrate the case system of Akkadian. As is clear from the above table, the adjective and noun endings differ only in the masculine plural. Certain nouns, primarily those referring to geography, can also form

10379-476: Was Aramaic , which itself lacks case distinctions, it is possible that Akkadian's loss of cases was an areal as well as phonological phenomenon. As is also the case in other Semitic languages, Akkadian nouns may appear in a variety of "states" depending on their grammatical function in a sentence. The basic form of the noun is the status rectus (the governed state), which is the form as described above, complete with case endings. In addition to this, Akkadian has

10486-454: Was a purely popular language — kings wrote in Babylonian — few long texts are preserved. It was, however, notably used in the correspondence of Assyrian traders in Anatolia in the 20th-18th centuries BC and that even led to its temporary adoption as a diplomatic language by various local Anatolian polities during that time. The Middle Babylonian period started in the 16th century BC. The division

10593-675: Was copied was defective in this place or the gap in the office coincides with a period of turbulence. In the Synchronistic Kingliest he is listed beside his Babylonian counterpart, Eulmash-shakin-shumi (1004–988 BC) of the Bῑt-Bazi dynasty, an unlikely pairing reflecting perhaps the isolation of the two kingdoms at the time. In all likelihood, he reigned concurrently with Nabu-shum-libur (1033–1026 BC) and Simbar-shipak (1025–1008 BC), whose reigns were characterized by droughts, crop failures and incursions by Arameans , migrating under

10700-469: Was imprisoned, and the 'Tablet of Destinies' taken from him. Marduk then smashed Tiamat's head with the mace, while her blood was carried off by the North Wind. Marduk then split Tiamat's remains in two. From one half he made the sky; in it he made places for Anu, Enlil, and Ea. Marduk made likenesses of the gods in the constellations, and defined the days of the year from them. He created night and day, and

10807-467: Was reproduced by Eusebius in Book 1 of his Chronicon . In it are described the primeval state of an abyssal darkness and water, the two primeval beings existing therein, said to be of a twofold principle. The description then relates the creation of further beings, partly human but with variants of wings, animal heads and bodies, and some with both sex organs. (Berossus states images of these are to be found at

10914-611: Was that the gods were formed within them. The tale begins before creation, when only the primordial entities Apsu and Tiamat existed, co-mingled together. There were no other things or gods, nor had any destinies been foretold. Then from the mixture of Apsu and Tiamat two gods issued – Lahmu and Lahamu ; next Anshar and Kishar were created. From Anshar came firstly the god Anu , and from Anu, came Nudimmud (also known as Ea ). The commotion of these new gods disturbed and disgusted Apsu, and Apsu could not calm them. Apsu called Mummu to speak with Tiamat, and he proposed to destroy

11021-415: Was then used to create man. Construct Babylon, whose building you have requested, Let its brickwork be fashioned. You shall name it 'The Sanctuary'. Marduk then divided the gods into "above" and "below" – three hundred in the heavens, six hundred on earth. The gods then proposed to build a throne or shrine for him; Marduk told them to construct Babylon. The gods then spent a year making bricks; they built

11128-726: Was too weak to face her and turned back. Anshar became more worried, thinking no god could resist Tiamat. Finally, Anshar proposed Marduk as their champion. Marduk was brought forth, and asked what god he must fight – to which Anshar replied that it was not a god but the goddess Tiamat. Marduk confidently predicted his victory, but exacted their promise to proclaim him supreme god, with authority over even Anshar. Anshar spoke to Gaga , who advised him to fetch Lahmu and Lahamu and tell them of Tiamat's war plans, and of Marduk's demand for overlordship if he defeats her. Lahmu and Lahamu and other Igigi (heavenly gods) were distressed, but drank together, becoming drowsy, and finally approving

11235-441: Was used as a determinative for divine names. Another peculiarity of Akkadian cuneiform is that many signs do not have a well defined phonetic value. Certain signs, such as AḪ , do not distinguish between the different vowel qualities. Nor is there any coordination in the other direction; the syllable -ša- , for example, is rendered by the sign ŠA , but also by the sign NĪĜ . Both of these are often used for

11342-504: Was used mostly in letters and administrative documents. During the first millennium BC, Akkadian progressively lost its status as a lingua franca . In the beginning, from around 1000 BC, Akkadian and Aramaic were of equal status, as can be seen in the number of copied texts: clay tablets were written in Akkadian, while scribes writing on papyrus and leather used Aramaic. From this period on, one speaks of Neo-Babylonian and Neo-Assyrian . Neo-Assyrian received an upswing in popularity in

11449-625: Was written during the Old Babylonian Period, but other scholars find her proposal unlikely. Numerous copies of the tablets exist. Even by 1902 fragments of four copies of the first tablet were known, as well as extracts, possibly examples of 'handwriting practice'. Tablets from the library of Ashur-bani-pal tended to be well written on fine clay, whereas the Neo-Babylonian tablets were often less well written and made, though fine examples existed. All tablets, both Assyrian and Babylonian had

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