The Seven Tablets of Creation

The Seven Tablets of Creation is a translation and study by Leonard William King, first published in 1902. It presents the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish through a landmark early English translation.

King worked from tablets and fragments in the British Museum, including material that had recently restored missing portions of the poem. His introduction explains how newly identified cuneiform fragments established the order of the seven tablets and clarified the creation of humankind.

The epic begins with the primeval waters and a conflict among generations of gods. Ea overcomes Apsu; Tiamat raises an army; and Marduk accepts the decisive combat, with Marduk's victory over Tiamat leading to the ordering of heaven, earth, and human life.

The volume combines the translated poem with notes and related Babylonian creation texts, so it is both mythology and a record of early Assyriology. Some conclusions have been revised by later scholarship, but the book preserves translation joined to archaeology.

"The great Assyrian poem, or series of legends, which narrates the story of the Creation of the world and man, was termed by the Assyrians and Babylonians Enuma elish, "When in the height," from the two opening words of the text. The poem consisted of some nine hundred and ninety-four lines, and was divided into seven sections, each of which was inscribed upon a separate Tablet."