Lotan- Canaanite DragonDragon"The Twisting Serpent"
Also known as: Litanu, Litan, and Ltn
Titles & Epithets
Domains
Symbols
Description
Seven heads coiling out of the chaos sea, each one a mouth that could swallow the world — this was Lotan, the twisting serpent, the fleeing serpent, the monster that served Yam until Baal and Anat broke every one of those heads and drove the sea back to its boundaries.
Mythology & Lore
The Twisting Serpent
Lotan was the seven-headed sea dragon who served Yam, the deified sea and Baal's chief adversary. The Ugaritic texts name him in terrifying epithets: bṯn ʿqltn, "the twisting serpent"; bṯn brḥ, "the fleeing serpent"; šlyṭ d.šbʿt rʾašm, "the mighty one with seven heads." Where Yam was the sea itself, Lotan was its weapon: scales, fangs, and seven gaping mouths in the deep.
The Defeat of Chaos
In KTU 1.3, Anat recounts her victories. She smote "the beloved of El, Yam" and "bound the twisting serpent, the mighty one with seven heads." Baal too claimed the kill. The fragmentary tablets do not settle which of them struck the final blow, but both stood over the corpse. Lotan's destruction was part of the same cosmic struggle that broke Yam's tyranny and secured Baal's kingship.
Centuries later, Isaiah used nearly identical language to describe Yahweh punishing "Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent." The Hebrew liwyatan derives from the same Semitic root. The monster kept its name, its coiling body, and its seven heads.
Relationships
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