Marduk- Mesopotamian GodDeity"King of the Gods"

The Birth of a Champion

The Enuma Elish, recited each year at Babylon's New Year festival, begins before the beginning. Apsu and Tiamat, fresh water and salt sea, mingled to produce the first generations of gods. But the younger gods were loud, and their noise disturbed Apsu's rest. He plotted to destroy them. Ea struck first: he cast a spell of sleep over Apsu and killed him, then built a chamber upon the body of the defeated primordial.

In that chamber, Marduk was born. Four were his eyes, four were his ears, and fire blazed from his lips when he spoke. Anu fashioned the four winds as toys for the child, and their gusting disturbed Tiamat until she could bear it no longer.

Kingu, whom Tiamat took as consort and general, urged her to war. She raised eleven monsters and hung the Tablet of Destinies on Kingu's chest. Anu was sent to face her and turned back. Ea could not stand before her. The gods sat in silence until Ea's son stepped forward.

Marduk would fight, but he named his price: if he prevailed, his word would be supreme, his decree unalterable. The gods set a constellation before him and commanded him to destroy it with his word alone. He spoke, and it vanished. He spoke again, and it reappeared. The assembly cried out: "Marduk is king!"

The Slaying of Tiamat

He rode his storm chariot to meet her, armed with a net wide enough to hold the sea and the four winds at his back. He loosed seven terrible winds at once, whirlwind and tempest among them. Tiamat opened her mouth to swallow him. He drove the winds down her throat, distending her body until she could not close her jaws. He shot an arrow through her belly, split her heart, and stood upon her corpse.

Her army scattered. Marduk caught them in his net, bound them, and smashed their weapons. He took the Tablet of Destinies from Kingu's chest and sealed it with his own seal.

The Making of the World

Marduk split Tiamat's body in two. One half he raised to form the sky, setting bars and guards so her waters would not escape. The other half he spread beneath as the earth. From her eyes flowed the Tigris and Euphrates.

He stationed the great gods as constellations and fixed the calendar by the moon's course. Then he turned to the question the gods had fought over from the beginning: who would do the work of maintaining creation?

From Kingu's blood mixed with clay, Marduk fashioned humanity. The blood gave them a spark of the divine. The clay bound them to labor. They would build the temples and offer the sacrifices that sustained the gods.

In gratitude, the gods built Babylon and the Esagila with their own hands. They proclaimed Marduk's fifty names, each carrying the power of another deity. In the last tablets of the Enuma Elish, every god is Marduk under another name: Nergal is Marduk of war, Sin is Marduk of the night. The many gods did not vanish. Their temples stood, their rites continued. But all divine power flowed from one god's victory.

The Esagila and the New Year

The Esagila, the "House that Raises Its Head," stood at the center of Babylon. Marduk's cult statue sat on a golden throne inside, carved from wood and overlaid with precious metal, dressed in garments the priests changed with the seasons. Each morning they washed the statue's face and set food before it. Beside the Esagila rose Etemenanki, a ziggurat of seven stages that Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilt and recorded in foundation inscriptions.

The city came most alive during the Akitu, the New Year festival held over twelve days each spring. Priests recited the Enuma Elish from first tablet to last. Marduk's statue was carried in procession along the Processional Way, through the Ishtar Gate with its glazed-brick dragons, to the Akitu temple beyond the walls, and back in triumph.

On one of those days, the king knelt before the high priest, who stripped him of crown and scepter. The priest struck the king across the face. The king swore he had not sinned against Babylon, had not neglected Marduk's temple. Only then were his insignia returned. The god approved, and the king ruled for another year.

No conqueror who took Babylon could ignore its god. Cyrus of Persia claimed Marduk had chosen him; the Cyrus Cylinder declares that Marduk, angered by the impiety of Nabonidus, searched all lands and selected Cyrus to restore righteous rule. Two centuries later, Alexander the Great honored Marduk and ordered Etemenanki restored.

Healer and Exorcist

Marduk was also Asalluhi, the Sumerian god of exorcism, and under both names he held authority over healing magic throughout Mesopotamia. The incantation texts preserve a recurring exchange: a sufferer appeals to Marduk, who goes to his father Ea for the remedy. Ea replies that Marduk already knows what must be done, then instructs him anyway.

The Maqlû series, recited through a single night to burn away witchcraft, and the Šurpu series, which dissolved ritual impurity, both invoked him as the power behind purification. He had defeated Tiamat's eleven monsters. No demon could stand against him.

The poem Ludlul bēl nēmeqi tells of a nobleman stripped of rank, wracked by disease, abandoned by every god he had served. At his lowest, three figures appeared in dreams, each promising deliverance. When he passed through Marduk's gates in Babylon, his afflictions lifted one by one. The poem's title is his response: "I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom."

The Dragon at the Gate

The mushussu, Marduk's sacred beast, reared its horned serpent head from the glazed bricks of the Ishtar Gate. Row upon row of dragons in blue and gold lined the Processional Way. Marduk's statue passed between them each New Year.

Tiamat had created such creatures for war. Marduk defeated them, then set one at his threshold. The beast that chaos produced became the champion god's guardian, watching over the city he had built at the center of the world.