Marduk: The Lord of Babylon Who Still Wants the Throne
Marduk began as a local god of Babylon, a storm and fertility power, marked on early monuments by a triangular spade. He did not stay local. In the Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, the younger gods are terrified of Tiamat, the salt-water chaos. Marduk steps forward with a condition. He will fight if they will make him king, if his word will fix fates, if no other decree will stand against his. They agree. He kills her, splits the carcass, and builds sky and earth from the body. Humanity is fashioned afterward from the blood of a slain rebel god, made so the gods can rest and men can do the labor. Then Marduk is handed fifty names, each one a title taken from some other deity. Babylon shortens the whole claim to one word. Bel. Lord. His temple was Esagila. Beside it rose Etemenanki, the ziggurat called the house of the foundation of heaven and earth. At the New Year festival, the Akitu, the creation story was recited in his court. The king was stripped of his regalia, struck, ...