Lawrence Chaplin/Tiamat. 60"X36" Oil on Masonite, $6000 Previous | Home | Next

Tiamat was the lady of primeval chaos and the great mother of the gods of Babylon, featuring in the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian epic of creation.

Written on seven tablets at the time of the Sumerians it ws first published in English translation in 1876.

Below are the first lines of Tablet I

When the height of heaven was not named,

And the earth beneath did not bear a name,

And the primeval Apsu, who begat them

And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both

Their waters were mingled together...

Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven.