Running Head: Ancient Mesopotamian Cosmology 1

Ancient Mesopotamian Cosmology: The Search for a Single Theory

Peter. H. Boyajian

University of Chicago
Ancient Mesopotamian Cosmology 2

Ancient Mesopotamian Cosmology: The Search for a Single Theory

There is a common belief held in our present society that cosmology and the origins of

the universe have occupied the minds of mankind for millennia. Evidence in favor of this belief

comes from studying the preserved writings of ancient civilizations. In particular, some of the

oldest writings that we know to exist stem from ancient Mesopotamia, and, whats more, many

of these writings concern the origin of mankind, the earth, and even the universe. Indeed, there

exist several creation myths such as Enma Eli (EE), The Bilingual Creation of the World by

Marduk (BCWM), and The Babyloniaca of Berossus (BB). which present explanations for how

mankind, the heavens, and the earth came into being. A priori, it is natural to wonder whether

these ancient stories fit together into a single coherent cosmological model and, if so, how

widely accepted said model might have been within ancient Mesopotamian society. In order to

answer this question, however, one must first define what exactly they mean by the term

cosmological.

While, nowadays, cosmology is mainly considered as the branch of physics and

philosophy which deals with understanding the universe as a single system, an alternate,

although no less natural, definition will be employed in this paper. This is necessary for two

primary reasons: 1) as a science, cosmology did not come into being until after the 16th century,

and 2) what we now consider to be the observable universe was almost entirely unknown to us

until recent years. Accordingly, models which, nowadays, would be considered astrophysical as

opposed to cosmological because of their focus on a small subset of the universe, would, in the

past, have certainly been classified as cosmological. To further illustrate this point, note that,

prior to the development of telescopes, there was not much evidence that space extended
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outside of the Milky Way; we had reason to believe that our galaxy was the entire universe, so

there is a very natural sense in which theories on the origin of our galaxy and, even models of

its dynamics, would have been considered cosmological, and not just astrophysical. Likewise, in

ancient Mesopotamia, there was not yet even a concept of the solar system, let alone, the

galaxy, so general discussions of the creation of the heavens and the earth as the main parts

of the universe can be considered cosmological in nature. Thus, we have every reason to

consider the stories involving the creation of the earth to be cosmological. By examining these

stories, we will show that there were certain cosmological ideas which were probably very

widely known throughout ancient Mesopotamia, but there was not a single, coherent, highly

developed theory. That is to say, there was not an ancient Mesopotamian equivalent of the Big

Bang. My goal in this paper will be to illustrate this claim.

While many different theories concerning the origin of the universe currently exist, the

Big Bang is certainly the most widely accepted one (at least in the scientific community). This

claim is evidenced by the currently existing literature, specifically the hundreds of books and

scientific papers which have been written on the topic, but it is also discussed on television and

in schools all over the world. Indeed, even people who have not bothered to read a single book

or paper on the Big Bang will likely be at least slightly familiar with it. Accordingly, If, thousands

of years from now, people were interested to know what views humanity held on the origin of

the universe in the late 20th and early 21st century, simply reading the scientific papers

mentioning the Big Bang would not convey just how widely known and accepted it really is as a

single coherent cosmological theory in our present society. Accordingly, in order to have any

hope of accurately assessing how popular a cosmological model was in ancient Mesopotamian
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society, we will have to consider works other than EE, BCWM, and BB. Specifically, there are

several Sumerian stories which would by no means be considered creation myths, but,

nevertheless, offer us profound insights into just how widely accepted certain cosmological

ideas were in ancient Mesopotamia: Bilgames and the Netherworld, The Creation of the

Pickaxe, Enki and Ninmah, KAR 4, and SpTU 3 67.

One of the key factors to keep in mind throughout this discussion, is how vast the time

period under consideration is. In discussing ancient Mesopotamia, we are really talking about a

period of over three thousand years: from the end of the fourth millennium BC to the beginning

of the common Era. This fact alone makes it doubtful that any single cosmological theory could

have remained dominant, especially because some of the texts which we have to consider were

originally written in entirely different languages: Sumerian and Akkadian. In his recently

published article, Mesopotamian Cosmogony and Cosmology (2015), Wayne Horowitz discusses

the various cosmology related texts which were written in both of these languages. In

examining these works, two main categories are seen to emerge: those having to do with the

separation of a primordial solid, and those having to do with the separation of a primordial

body of water.

The works which have to do with the separation of the primordial solid date to the late

third millennium BC, and hint briefly at how the heavens and the earth came into being, but do

not assume that the universe emerged from nothingness. On the contrary, it was believed that

there were eternal gods and that the heaven and the earth were separated from some sort of

primordial substance. Several Sumerian sources provide evidence for this claim. Indeed, we

read in Bilgames and the Netherworld, that In those days, in those far-off days... after heaven
Ancient Mesopotamian Cosmology 5

had been parted from earth, after earth had been separated from heaven, after the name of

mankind had been established- then An had taken the heavens for himself and the god Enlil

had taken the earth for himself andpresented the Netherworld to the goddess Ereshkigal as a

dowry gift (George 1999). From this, it clearly follows that An and Enlil predated, and

contributed to the formation of, the heavens and the earth and, furthermore, that the universe

was supposedly split into three parts, the heaven, the earth, and the netherworld ever since

those far-off days. According to Horowitz, similar beliefs are found in The Creation of the

Pickaxe, Enki and Ninmah, and two other Sumerian works (2011). More specifically, the

similarity lies in the fact that all of these works mention the separation of heaven and earth

from the mysterious primordial substance; not all works explicitly state that An and Enlil were

directly involved in the separation process, nor do they mention the creation of the

netherworld. This repeated theme of the heaven and earth being pulled apart hints at a

common origin, a shared cosmology, if you will.

This claim is furthered by the fact that the final two texts are actually bilingual. One of

them, KAR 4, is a Middle Assyrian tablet which has both Sumerian and Akkadian writing on it,

although the relevant lines are only legible in Sumerian (Horowitz 2011). The other text, SpTU 3

67, is an old Uruk tablet which also contains Akkadian. Hence, the shared aspects of this

cosmology appear to have crossed the language barrier. The fact that this common theme has

been written over and over again on multiple tablets in multiple languages greatly increases the

probability that it is evidence of some sort of shared underlying cosmology. Interestingly, all of

these passages detailing the separation of heaven from the earth occur in the beginning

prologues of their respective texts. That is to say, the texts with which they were associated
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were not focused on describing the origin of the universe, but, rather, simply mentioned it in

passing in their opening prologues as if it was something which should be familiar to the

readers. Whats more, presuming that Georges 1999 translation of Bilgames and the

Netherworld is accurate, the repeated use of the words those and after, in the previously

quoted passage above, can be interpreted as indicating an expectation (of the author with

regards to the reader) of familiarity with what is being written. In other words, the author is

essentially saying something on the order of Hey, remember that one day many years ago, that

really remote day after we finished our finals, after we went home for break, after we received

our grades, etc; they are trying to remind the reader of something with which they are

expected to already be familiar. The fact that so many Sumerian stories casually mention the

same process for the separation of the earth from the heaven, and that one does so in this

manner, nonetheless, indicates that it was a widely known story. It follows immediately that it

is very probable that there existed at least a few widely accepted cosmological views in ancient

Mesopotamia, and we have yet to even consider Enma Eli or any of the other popular

Akkadian creation myths.

The second category of ancient Mesopotamian creation myths are slightly different in

that they involve the separation of the waters as opposed to the separation of the solid seen in

the Sumerian texts. Interestingly, all of the texts in this category happen to be written in

Akkadian, and the most significant one is certainly EE, which was composed no later than the

2nd millenium BC, according to Horowitz (1998). Right from the beginning, EE comments on the

origin of the universe by claiming that, consistent with the recently mentioned Sumerian

tradition, the heavens and earth were emphatically not eternal. Instead, and this is where EE
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differs from the previous works, we are told in tablet 1 lines 1-4 that When the heavens above

did not exist, And the earth beneath had not come into being-There was Aps, the first in order,

their begetter, and demiurge Timat, who gave birth to them all (Lambert 2013). Aps is

personified as a god but it is also one of the four regions of the universe, that which

corresponds to fresh water, while Timat, who is also personified as a goddess in this myth, is

also another name for the sea (Horowitz 2015). Hence, this tradition holds that water existed

before the heaven and the earth. These gods are then seen to give rise to the remainder of

the gods and, in particular, the god Marduk, who eventually goes on to kill Timat (following a

conflict which is not relevant for this discussion). Up until this point, most scholars agree on the

interpretation of the story, but there is some debate over the remainder. Specifically, the

debate centers around what exactly Marduk can be said to have created and, hence, how

exactly it is that the heaven and earth came into existence.

In Tab 4:137-138, we read that, after killing Timat and surveying the corpse in line

135, [Marduk] split her into two like a dried fish: One half of her he set up and stretched out as

the heavens (Lambert 2013). Now, based off this translation, it seems evident that Marduk is

being said to have created the heavens from the dead body of Timat (i.e. the sea), and,

indeed, Horowitz interprets this as saying that Marduk fashions heaven and earth from the

body of Tiamat (1998). While Marduk does create the Earra, a region of the universe between

the heaven and the earth, in line 144, there is no mention of him creating the earth (Horowitz

1998). However, in addition to there being no mention of the creation of earth in these lines,

other scholars argue that, if different translations are used, then there is not even any evidence

for the creation of heaven! Indeed, in pages 25-31 of his 1979 book, The Babylonian Poem
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Enuma Elish and Genesis Chapter One, Rapaport writes that scholars are deeply divided on

the actual significance of this line (referring to l. 138) and argues at length, after considering

many possible alternate translations, that Marduk could not possibly have created the heavens

here. Similar debates exist with regards to Marduks proposed creation of the moon in Tab.

5:12 and even his purported creation of mankind in Tab. 6:5-7. Overall, there does not seem to

be a consensus about the proper interpretation of any of the aforementioned lines; even if we

use the Lamberts most recent translation, several of Rapaports objections continue to hold

water. Furthermore, while some scholars classify EE as a creation myth Rapaport and others

claim that creation is not its main focus! In his 1942 translation of EE, Heidel, for example,

writes that [EE] is not primarily a creation story at all. Instead, it is first and foremost a hymn

in honor of Marduk. Its prime purpose is to offer cosmological reasons for Marduks

advancement from the position as chief god of Babylon to that of head of the entire Babylonian

pantheon. On the other hand, it has more recently been noted that EE used to be acted out

each New Year in ancient Mesopotamia as a sort of annual creation ritual (Eliade 2017).

In comparing with the other Akkadian creation myths mentioned above, BCWM and

BB, the main similarity which emerges is the initial state of the universe. Indeed, in BCWM, we

read that, at first, all the lands were sea and that it was only later that Marduk created land

by weaving a raft over the primeval waters and pouring soil on the raft (Horowitz 1998).

Note, however, that there is no explicit mention of the creation of the earth or the heavens or

even of the separation of the two, for that matter. This is not the case with BB. Instead, BB not

only starts out with a universe made entirely of water, but also details that Marduk separated

the heavens from the earth, both arising out of one half of Timat. Hence, we see in BB a
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continuation of the earlier Sumerian tradition that the heavens were separated from the earth,

but in a manner which is reminiscent of EE as well.

In studying a subset of the available ancient Mesopotamian literature which can be

considered, at least partially, cosmological in nature, we have seen that there appears to be

two sets of cosmological ideas that were, at some point, widely accepted. These two sets of

ideas are each closely associated with a single language, although there is occasional overlap.

More specifically, the first set of cosmological ideas are those which state that heaven and

earth were separated from a single primordial solid. These views are manifested primarily in

Sumerian writings, although there are also two bilingual tablets which expressed these views

and also contained Akkadian writing. We believe that these views were widely known for two

reasons: the rather high number of sources which mention them, and the fact that they are

presented in the prologues of said sources. We have argued that the latter of these two points

serves as possible evidence that the author thought that their readers ought to have been

familiar with the cosmological ideas about which they were writing. The second set of

cosmological ideas which we have highlighted are those in which the universe is said to have

begun with primordial waters which were eventually used to form the heavens and the earth.

These views are discussed in several creation myths, the most notable of which is Enma Eli,

although, various scholars have expressed doubts over the extent to which this work can be

classified as a creation myth in general, and an element of our second category, in particular.

What is not up for debate in EE, is the vital fact which places it in our second category: that the

universe began with the primordial waters. Ultimately, the fact that there is evidence that EE

was acted out annually as a sort of creation ritual shows that the views expressed therein must
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have been widely known. Further support for this claim comes from the existence of BCWM

and BB, two texts which, as we have shown clearly fit into our second category. Hence,

although there does not appear to have been an ancient Mesopotamian equivalent of the Big

Bang, there is certainly evidence of sets of widely accepted cosmological views in ancient

Mesopotamia. We can thus conclude with the well supported claim that: Indeed, cosmology

and the origins of the universe have occupied the minds of mankind for millennia.

References

Horowitz, Wayne. "Mesopotamian Cosmogony and Cosmology." Handbook of

Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy (2015): 1823-1827.

George, Andrew R. Bilgames and the Netherworld The Epic of Gilgamesh: The Babylonian Epic

Poem and Other Texts in Akkadian and Sumerian. New York: Penguin Books.

Horowitz, Wayne. Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1998.

PDF.

Lambert, Wilfred G. Babylonian Creation Myths. Mesopotamian Civilizations 16. Winona Lake:

Eisenbrauns, 2013.

Rapaport, I. The Babylonian Poem Enuma Elish and Genesis Chapter One. The Hawthorn Press,

1979

Heidel, Alexander. The Babylonian Genesis. The University of Chicago Press. 1942.
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Eliade, Mircea. Cosmogonic Myth and 'Sacred History'. Religious Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, 1967,

pp. 171183. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20004652.