Marduk
Marduk West AsiaLiteral meaning: ‘bull calf of the sun’. The son of Ea, Marduk seems to have been a god of magic and incantation from early times. This double-headed sun god was given the epithet Bel, ‘lord’, and identified with Enlil, especially after he had assumed leadership of the Babylonian pantheon during the cosmic struggle with Tiamat, the she-dragon of the salt-water ocean. Marduk, appointed as the celestial champion, slew Tiamat, fastened the tablets of destiny on his own breast, and created a new world order which included mankind. It is a paradoxical creation myth: for the chaos-monster, though slain and dismembered, remained the body of the universe and was manifest in her children, the gods and goddess from whom Bel-Marduk received homage.
Marduk told the assembly of gods that the centre of the universe was Babylon, where he had built himself a ‘luxurious house’. He owed his prominence in Mesopotamian religion and his wide...
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