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Tiamat
Jun 25, 2008 8:54:02 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Jun 25, 2008 8:54:02 GMT -5
Thread Orientation: Here we take opportunity to note what material and observations are available for the Babylonian Tiamat. This thread will tie in in places with the examination of Nammu found here
To begin this thread, I have copied over some notes Madness made which are also present on the Nammu , Abzu and Apsu thread: Is that the same Namma that equates to Tiamat?It might be convenient to equate these two watery primordial mother goddesses, but can this be proven? Tiamat, the absolute state of tâmtu, means "sea." Kramer in his Sumerian Mythology happens to equate Namma with the sea (p. 39): In a tablet which gives a list of the Sumerian gods, the goddess Nammu, written with the ideogram for "sea," is described as "the mother, who gave birth to heaven and earth." Heaven and earth were therefore conceived by the Sumerians as the created products of the primeval sea.Jacobsen in his 'Sumerian Mythology: A Review Article' in Toward the Image of Tammuz [originally published in JNES 5] rejects this (p. 116): Returning to Dr. Kramer's treatment of the speculations centering in the goddess Nammu, it must be pointed out that the sign with which her name is written does not - as Dr. Kramer avers - mean "sea." "Sea" is a-abba(k) in Sumerian; the sign with which Nammu's name is written denotes - if read engur - primarily the body of sweet water which the Mesopotamians believed lay below the earth, feeding rivers and wells but best observable in the watery deep of the marshes. Nammu is therefore the "watery deep" of the Mesopotamian marshes extending below the surface of the earth as the water-bearing strata. She is not the sea.Apart from both goddesses being the the primordial mothers, and both being closely associated with the Apsu, the fact that they represent different bodies of water might be a deal breaker.
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Tiamat
Jun 25, 2008 9:34:43 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Jun 25, 2008 9:34:43 GMT -5
About Some Names/ Mummu Tavthe For some small answers regarding Tavthe, I have looked over George Barton's article "Tiamat" printed in 1893 in the Journal of the American Oriental Society. Barton is an early legend in cuneiform studies, and due to the extreme antiquity of his scholarship, we would be interested in this article as a retrospective piece. It may provide some insight into the history of interpretation. An interesting source Barton mentions is that of Damascius, a "pagan philosopher" who was lived in the 6th century A.D. He was banished to Persia in 529 A.D. by Justinian, and therefore had direct exposure to local mythic traditions, some of which carry over from the Babylonians quite well it seems, making a very unusual source for the epic of creation (which Damascius seems to have carefully summed for posterity.) As he wrote in Greek, Damascius renders "Tavthe" which Barton states "is undoubtedly equivalent to the Babylonian-Assyrian Tiamat." [Below I have quoted the relevant passage from Damascius that Barton has given. Because Barton renders the Divine names in Greek letters (and doesn't explain them in Latin script anywhere) I have used Heidel's explanations to fill in the Akkadian equivalents where applicable, highlighting these case's in white; where equivalents are not apparent I have inserted a ? (See below for Heidel.)
Damascius: " But of the Barbarians the Babylonians seem to pass by in silence one origin of all things, and to hold that there were two,[ Ti-âmat] and [ Apsû], making [ Apsû] the husband of [ Ti-âmat], and calling her the mother of the gods, from whom an only-begotten son, [ Mammu] was born ; him I regard as the visible universe, generated from the two principles. From these same another generation came forth, [ Laḫmu] and [ Laḫâmu]. Then also from these same a third, viz. [ Anšar] and [ Kišar], from whom are born three, '[ ?] and [ ?] and [ Anu?]; and from [ Anu?] and [ ?] a son [ ?] was born, who they say was a demiurge. " Mummu Tiamat mu - um - mu (Referring to "The Meaning of Mummu in Akkadian Literature, by Alexander Heidel Journal of Near Eastern Studies 1948") In the third line of the first tablet of the Enûma Eliš, we read mu-um-mu ti-amat - various interpretations have been givens which Heidel briefly reviews, from Jensen, to Delitzsch to Bohl and so on - all of which are rejected by Heidel at length. He pauses at the ideas of A. Deimal however and gives them due consideration:
A. Deimel, who confines his discussion to Enûma Eliš, particularly to Tablet I:4. Deimel holds that in the opening lines of Enûma Eliš the word mummu is not the name of a deity but an appellative of Ti'âmat, on the contention that if mummu were a proper name denoting a deity in addition to Apsû and Ti'âmat, that would be a disturbing element in the parallelism between lines 3 and 4. Deimel believes the Sumerian account of creation, upon which the Babylonian version is founded, mummu was the regular name for the female principle; however, owing to the fact that this name was not so well known among the Semites, the Babylonian poet, in recasting the Sumerian material, here inserted the well-known Semitic name for the female principle, i.e., Ti-âmat, but retained the Sumerian name Apsû because it had found its way into Akkadian literature by the time the Babylonian version of the creation story was composed and because the Semities were already familiar with it. Not that the Semitic Ti-âmat had taken the place of the Sumerian Mummu, the poet might have dropped the former name; instead of that he retained it, out of religious reverence, employing it, however, no longer as a personal name but rather as an epithet of Ti-âmat.
Heidel considers Deimel further, relaying to us that mummu may be consider a re-duplicated Sumerian participial form derived from mud-mud (here mud takes the sense of "to give birth", as with Nu-dim- mud (The name of Enki as creative deity.) Deimel therefore renders mummu here as 'bearer' , Heidel remarks, "At first glance, this may appear to be an excellent solution of the vexing problem." The author at length overturns Deimel's proposal as well, raising issue's such as a lack of attestation for mummu (though he at the same time retains the Sumerian etymology). He states: "The most important considerations against the view which makes mummu a title of Ti'âmat are found in the brief summary which Damascius gives us of the Babylonian creation story. It will be noted that Mammu, according to Damascius, was an "only-begotten son" of Apsû and Ti'âmat , i.e., unlike Laḫmu and Anshar, he was born alone, without a sister. Furthermore, Damascius records the birth of Mummu before that of Laḫmu and Laḫamu and says of the two last-named deities that they formed " another generation" proceeding from Apsû and Ti'âmat. This can mean only that Laḫmu and Laḫamu constituted the second generation born of the two primeval deities, Apsû and Ti'âmat. From this it follows that Mummu was the first "generation." Thus before the birth of Laḫmu and Laḫamu there already was a god named Mammu, the son of Apsû and Ti'âmat. This can be only the Mummu spoken of in the opening lines of Enûma eliš. Tablet I:3-5 ought therefore to be rendered: (When) Apsû primeval, their begetter, Mummu, (and) Ti'âmat, who gave birth to them all, (Still) mingled their waters together.
Accordingly, Mummu is not an epithet of Ti'âmat but the name of a deity in addition to Apsû and Ti'âmat. There is no room for doubt that this Mummu is identical with Mummu the son and vizier of Apsû ([see] Tablet I:29-54)...Like his parents, Mummu was a water deity. Together, the three formed an immense watery mass. We thus have a triad representing father, mother and son...Mummu the son and vizier ( sukkallu] of Apsû was the counselor and adviser of Apsû; in other words, he was the creator of plans or ideas. This is in perfect harmony with the conception of Damascius that Mummu was the [ -], "the world of ideas." Mummu is, therefore, [as Langdon states] "in a measure related to the logos of Greek philosophy." "
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Tiamat
Jun 25, 2008 10:52:17 GMT -5
Post by sheshki on Jun 25, 2008 10:52:17 GMT -5
Here are the complete signs mu-um-mu ti-amat Interesting is that the sign amat/geme2 consists of the signs sal/munus, which stands somehow for woman / female and kur, which means mountain(s) / underworld / land, country / east / easterner / east wind Anyone an idea if this has a special meaning ?
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Tiamat
Jun 30, 2008 3:47:28 GMT -5
Post by madness on Jun 30, 2008 3:47:28 GMT -5
<Put where it belongs>
Kramer considers in his Sumerian Mythology that the Kur is a "monstrous creature which at least in a certain sense corresponds to the Babylonian goddess Tiamat, the Hebrew Leviathan, and perhaps the Greek Typhon."
The text Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld provides the image here, where Enki sets sail for the Kur, and comes up against a storm of hailstones and devouring waves.
[ Kramer also sees the Kur in the Exploits of Ninurta as a dragon, and believes that the text is a prototype of Enuma Elish; Jacobsen dismisses the dragon idea and states that Kur is to be rendered according to the Akkadian translation of the text: šadê "the mountains" ]
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Tiamat
Jun 30, 2008 21:11:22 GMT -5
Post by amarsin on Jun 30, 2008 21:11:22 GMT -5
Lots of things to address here. I know that the Reallexikon has an entry for Mummu which is quite recent. It's in German, of course, so it will take me a bit to get the thrust of what it's saying. But I'll try to do that this week and post the relevant data. Re the writing of amat with the geme 2-sign. The Sumerian word geme 2 means "slave girl" which, in Akkadian, is amtu, and so, in the construct form, amat. But the name Tiamat itself has to just go back to a basic Semitic root thm, which just means "sea". I think. So the use of the geme 2-sign was just a quick-and-easy way for scribes to write something that they'd otherwise have to do syllabically-- am-ma-at or something. But, much like if someone wrote the last name " Dollarhide" as "$-hide", there's no real relationship between the symbol and the meaning of the word itself. Tiamat has nothing to do with slave girls. The sign geme 2 is, as you rightly observed, sheshki, really two signs: SAL+KUR. The Sumerian word for "(male) slave" is arad 2 and was originally two signs, NITA+KUR (or really NITA×KUR). So both signs were originally gender+mountain, leading to much speculation about the idea that slaves were originally prisoners of war, taken from foreign lands (i.e., the mountain lands to the east). Gelb wrote about this in the Diakonoff Festschrift in 1982. I should re-read that (and see the reviews of the book) and see what the thoughts are on it. Finally, on the Sumerian KUR, it can mean mountains or foreign lands, but I think in GEN, it's talking about the Netherworld. That is, Enki sets sail for the Netherworld when his boat is attacked by... something. (Everyone says "hailstones" but to be honest, the Sumerian is less than clear.)
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Tiamat
Jul 8, 2008 16:17:07 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Jul 8, 2008 16:17:07 GMT -5
Thanks very much for that comment Amersin Yes that does clear it up! We know ti-amat know to be defintely a name read phonetically, and to relate back to a Semitic word for sea. So still ahead: I would like to find a scholarly treatment of Ti-amat in the Enuma Elish, a current one. And, in addition, to find a survey of her name in textual souces - at the moment I dont anticipate that being much beyond the Enuma Elish itself. cheers
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Tiamat
Jul 19, 2008 5:16:37 GMT -5
Post by madness on Jul 19, 2008 5:16:37 GMT -5
In Quaestiones de primis principiis, chap 125, Damascius explains Mummu as ton noeton kosmon "cosmic reason (or consciousness)" [referred by Parpola The Assyrian Tree of Life p. 191 n. 110]
Heidel mentions in his article an ancient commentary (CT 13 32 r. 10) to Enūma eliš, where mummu is equated with rigmu (= "noise"), though he does not give it much thought.
Piotr Michalowski ("Presence at the Creation" in Tzvi Abusch et al. (eds.), Lingering Over Words), however, considers this idea of noise to be fundamental to understanding the role of Mummu.
Looking at lines 4 and 133 of the first tablet of Enūma eliš:
mummu ti'āmat muallidat gimrīšun mummu Ti'amat, who bore them all
ummu hubur pātiqat kalama Mother hubur, who fashions all things
Two Babylonian words for noise are rigmu and hubūru - Michalowski proposes that hubur is an archaizing name formation from hubūru, in similar manner to Ti'amat and tâmtu. Thus line 133 can be translated: "Mother noise, who fashions all things."
Lines 4 and 133 are semantically parallel, "and the assonance of ummu and mummu can hardly escape our attention." The evidence for mummu as "noise" being the ancient commentary noted above (mummu = rigmu), but also the Sumerian word for noise mu7-mu7 appearing in late bilingual texts (Michalowski suspects that mu7-mu7 is a "learned pseudo-Sumerian lexeme, reconstructed on the basis of the esoteric meanings of mummu").
The relation of mummu and ummu is further underscored by the assonance with the participle muallidat in line 4 [and notes here the spelling mu-um-ma-al-li-da-a[t] in CT 13 1]. Looking at the last word of this line, gimru "all" is an anagram of rigmu "noise" - "it is thus a homonym for the synonym of mummu and must confirm the hypothesis!"
What this comes down to is: noise as activity and creation, and silence as absence and chaos. Apsu complains to Tiamat:
"Their behavior is noisome to me! By day I have no rest, at night I do not sleep! I wish to put an end to their behavior, to do away with it! Let silence reign that we may sleep."
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Tiamat
Jul 28, 2008 13:08:50 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Jul 28, 2008 13:08:50 GMT -5
Excellent contribution above Madness.. ;] Tiāmat From the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible Reviewing the above named resource, which is by Van der Toorn, Becking and Van der Horst, I found an entry concerning Tiāmat. This book is massive and I've been surprised at how useful it is - although centered on the Old Testament, it has contributions by some of the best ANE scholars around and the entries about Mesopotamian subjects are some of the best I've read. The entry about Tiāmat is by B. Alster, an expert on Mesopotamian myth. Old Testament/ Alster gives us an idea of how Tiamat features in the OT: "Tehôm, usually translated "the deep" , occurs in GEN 1:2 as a designation of the primeval sea, and is frequently used in the OT to denote the cosmic -> sea (Yam) on which the world rests, and from which all water comes, as well as any large body of water, including rivers, and the depth of the sea and the earth. "Some of you may remember in my periodical this month I included a small blurb from Meek 1927, who had stated that Tiāmat occurs in the bible as rahab - he had said: "The rahab, the sea-monster of Hebrew mythology (cf. Ps. 89:10 ; Isa. 51:9; Job 9:13; 26:12) , is obviously derive from Tiâmat of the Babylonian creation story, the great dragon, the personification of primeval chaos, who was slain by Marduk." Alster however overturns this in his continuing commentary on the subject: "Tehôm occurs 35 times in the OT, both in the singular and in the plural. Like Sheol, it is used as a semi-proper name without the definite article, except for the plural forms Ps 106:9 and Isa 63:13. In the OT tehôm never occurs as a personal deity. Although attempts have been made to find traces in the OT of a combat between God and an alleged like Tiamat (Rahab and Leviathan), there is no evidence that tehôm ever was such a persona mythological character. In relevant passages, tehôm refers to the waters of the Reed Sea, and the separation of the waters refers to the Exodus rather than to the creation of the world. The scene is Israel's crossing the sea after God had separated its waters (Isa 27:1; 51:9-10, Ps 74:12-17; 89:9-12, Job 9:13-14; 26:12-13). "Alster's explanation of the etymology confirms what Lance said above/ " Heb. Tehôm is etymologically related to the Akk. Tiāmat, which derives from an older Semitic root, thm, known in Ugaritic and other semitic languages as a designation of the sea. In Arabic Tihāmat denotes a coastal plain along the southwestern and southern shores of the Arabic peninsula. In Akkadian the root is known in the female for, tiāmtu, or tâmtu, 'sea.' The divine name Tiāmat, especially well-known from the Babylonian Creation Myth Enūma eliš, is the absolute state of the known. "Clarification on Tiāmat as salt or fresh water/ " In Assyriological literature Tiāmat is usually understood as the salt water ocean, in opposition to Apsu, which is supposed to represent the subterranean fresh water sources. However, the text itself [the Enūma eliš] makes no distinction between salt water and fresh water. Enūma eliš, V 52-66, considers Tiāmat to be the source of all fresh water, not only the Euphrates and the Tigris, but also other sources of water supply, as well as fog, mist, and snow. The place of these sources is clearly thought to be under the ground or a mountain, whereas older concept has it that Apsu represented the subterranean fresh water supply. Apsu, on the other hand, appears in Enūma eliš IV 144-145 to represent the lower part of the cosmos; the sky (here called Esharra) is established as a celestial counteract to Apsu or the lower world. The significant opposition between Tiāmat and Apsu is thus that of feminine and masculine principals, rather than salt water versus fresh water. "Dating the the Enūma eliš/ The gist of Alster's comments here amount to: "..it should not be forgotten hat, contrary to what is often assumed, there is no reason to believe that Enūma eliš goes back to Old Babylonian or Cassite period, but in all probability was composed during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (1124-1103 BCE; but cf -> Marduk). The concept of a battle between the primordial cosmic sea and a leading god of the pantheon was an innovation of Babylonian religion introduced with Enūma eliš. "Alster does not discuss/ Anything outside of the Enūma eliš that is from Mesopotamia and features the deified Tiāmat. He discusses the biblical context and some texts from Ugarit, and so seems to be taking a broad analytical approach - the fact he does not discuss any other Mesopotamian texts reinforces my impression that there are no other Mesopotamian texts extent, that deal with the deified Tiāmat.
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Tiamat
Aug 15, 2008 9:54:21 GMT -5
Post by madness on Aug 15, 2008 9:54:21 GMT -5
> the fact he does not discuss any other Mesopotamian texts reinforces my impression that there are no other Mesopotamian texts extent, that deal with the deified Tiāmat. <
Well you might be in a bit of luck.
There are a few bits of text here and there that deal with Tiamat, but in particular there is a calendar text containing, in the section on the tenth month Tebetu, descriptions of Tiamat and Qingu as they appear in the night sky.
The text is examined by Frances Reynolds, "Stellar Representations of Tiamat and Qingu in a Learned Calendar Text" in K. Van Lerberghe and Gabriella Voet (eds.), Languages and Cultures in Contact. Fortunately this article is available on google books, with only 1 page stripped from the preview.
[erm if I try to post link here it doesn't seem to work, just go to Google Scholar and search "qingu" you should find it.]
What stands out the most to me is that Tiamat and Qingu are equated as one. It is "through homophonic word play" in lines 2-3 that they are equated, in line 5 they become one, and in line 12 it is made the most explicit, with the corpse constellation [belonging to Qingu and Asakku] as being equivalent to Tiamat, more homophonic word play with her name as tu-u16-am-tu4 "female twin," and concluding with "She has two faces. She is male and female."
Reynolds compares this behaviour to the revealing Assyrian mystical text KAR 307 (Alasdair Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea p. 99):
19 Ištar of Durna (= Nineveh) is Tiamat; she is the wet nurse of Bel. 20 She has [four eyes] and four ears. 21 Her upper parts are Bel, and her lower parts are Mullissu.
Now, did the authors of Enuma Elish see things the same way as the authors of this later learned calendar text? If so, it may well answer some questions. The concept of an androgynous Tiamat is not a foreign one to Enuma Elish, since that is how the text begins; and it may explain Qingu's sudden and otherwise unexplained appearance as Tiamat's lover and champion after the death of Apsu.
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Tiamat
Sept 17, 2008 20:15:54 GMT -5
Post by sheshki on Sept 17, 2008 20:15:54 GMT -5
Here is a short excerpt touching tiamat from the PDF file (see page 6) " Between Mesopotamia and India. Some Remarks about the Unicorn Cycle in Iran" by Antonio Panaino, found at the wonderful melammu projectIt is not at all necessary to discuss again here all the data coming from the archaeological and in a second period also literary sources, which show a direct connection between the Mesopotamian world and the Indian Subcontinent from the 4th millennium BC onwards. We may mention at least one example, not much known among Assyriologists, following in this choice Della Casa,33 who has rightly pointed out the presence in Atharvaveda, V, 13, 634 of an incantation pronounced against a black serpent, called Taimatá,35 which could represent an Indian echo of the Akkadian demoness Tiamat.36 On the other hand, Indra, as the enemy of V=tra, the mythical dragon who blocks the waters, is named, in the Bgveda, apsujit-,37 an epithet which can be plainly translated as “who wins in the waters” (with apsu as loc. pl. of ap-, f.), but which could also be interpreted as “conqueror of Apsu,” by assuming that here we have a distant reference to Apsu, the personification of the primordial watery abyss and also the husband of Tiamat.
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Tiamat
Oct 3, 2008 18:32:12 GMT -5
Post by madness on Oct 3, 2008 18:32:12 GMT -5
In considering Michalowski's theory discussed above, I am reminded of much earlier creation myths that also involve loud noise, thunder, and conversation.
Taking the Barton cylinder (2400 BC) for instance:
The storm roared, the lights flashed. Heaven talked with Earth. Earth talked with Heaven.
And another Early Dynastic myth, AsO 4153:
An-Heaven and Ki-Earth were "resounding" together. [ šeg12-gi4(-gi4), Akk. šagāmu "to roar," "to thunder," "to resound." ]
Creation begins with a thunderous noise. Note the ancient commentary (CT 13 32 r. 10) to Enuma Elish tablet VII line 121, where mummu is the roar of the thunderstorm. It seems then that Enuma Elish reflects the earlier stories in this respect.
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Tiamat
Jan 3, 2010 17:15:06 GMT -5
Post by Tiamat4Lilith on Jan 3, 2010 17:15:06 GMT -5
Sorry if this is somewhat a slight change in subject but i was wondering if there was any references or texts that mentioned Tiamat's children she had with K/Qingu in more detail, also is there any references to which gods choose to fight on the side of Tiamat in the war.
Any Pointers Would be of great help
Many Thanks
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