The Babylonian Epic of Creation is a mythological poem in the Babylonian language. According to its incipit, the Epic was known as Enūma eliš, “When on high,” in antiquity. It describes how the world came into being and how Marduk, the divine patron of Babylon, became the king of the gods after defeating the primaeval goddess Tiamat, the matriarch of the first gods and embodiment of the primordial sea. A substantial part of the Epic is dedicated to presenting Marduk’s fifty names in celebration of his divine supremacy.Most likely composed at the end of the 2nd millennium bce during Babylon’s revival under Nebuchadnezzar I, king of Babylon, 1125–1104 bce, the Babylonian Epic of Creation was the most important religious text in Mesopotamia for much of the 1st millennium bce. Besides the large number of preserved cuneiform manuscripts, the popularity of the Epic is attested to by its frequent references in letters and inscriptions, the ideological appropriation and rewriting of the text in its Assyrian recension, as well as the numerous scribal exercise tablets with extracts from the poem. The Enūma eliš was recited and partly reenacted during the Babylonian New Year festival and other cultic rituals in Babylon.
