She lived happily in the salt water below the mists of time, joined by Apsu, the wettest Water God ever.

Their peace was disturbed eventually by a bubbling of silt and up popped a couple of beings, who soon gave birth to a lot of noisy Gods. When Apsu objected, Ea kindly put him to sleep on a permanent basis.

Tiamat, left alone, became decidedly tetchy. She ripped up anything the Gods tried to create and had them hiding and huddling in fear. Something had to be done.

Ea eventually had a fine upstanding son called Marduk, who was egged on to become their champion. ‘You’re young, handsome, and such a brave guy... You do this and you’ll never have to buy another drink.’

Flattery got them everywhere — after practicing martial arts he was kitted out with the latest in advanced weaponry (a bow, a net and a mace) and set off in his storm chariot.

Meanwhile, Tiamat had met another dragon. His name was Kingu, and he was busy taking her mind off her woes with a little romance and as much monster production as he could get away with.

However, Kingu was all talk and no fangs — and when he saw Marduk with all his fighting paraphernalia he fled in panic, leaving Tiamat to go it alone. She rushed at Marduk jaws agape and he hurled his secret weapon into her mouth. This was a raging storm and she could not chomp. She was then transfixed by an arrow and enmeshed in a net before being whopped by a mace.

The junior dragons were all captured and Kingu surrendered the Tablets of Destiny, which Tiamat had given him for a wedding present in return for his life.

Marduk chopped up Tiamat’S corpse and used it to create all the bits of the World and Universe the Gods hadn’t managed to finish. Finally a God’s Court decided that Kingu would have to go — but as a special concession his blood was used to create mankind. ‘Don’t think of it as being sentenced to death — think of it as being sentenced to life everlasting on a massive scale.’

Marduk now took over and drew up plans for his very own kingdom of Babylon.

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Article last revised on September 26, 2018 by Rowan Allen.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

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