Vessel decorated with a passage from Enuma eliš, the Babylonian myth of creation

A ceramic vessel decorated with a passage from Enuma eliš, the famous Babylonian myth of ceration of the world. In this passage (lines 133-146 of the myth) the primordial deity Tiamat creates various monsters for the battle with the enemy group of gods (the group was eventually represented by Marduk alone in the battle). Enuma eliš is a mythic and esoteric text of high significance depicting the creation of the world. It's origin probably dates back to the 12th century BC and the text is preserved on many fragments including those from the famous library of Aššurbanipal in Ninive. On the surface, the text is a Babylonian designation of Marduk as a main deity and a creator of the world, however it has a very important esoteric dimension as well, as was demonstrated by Prof. Simo Parpola in the 1990's. This dimension may have been the reason for it's vast spread throughout the whole Mesopotamia, not just Babylonia. On the vessel, the text is written in a manner that two lines of the original text are written on one line, so the original 14 lines are written on 7 lines. The vessel is marked with my sign on the bottom (also in the cuneiform script). Hand-written in Standard Babylonian in Neo-Assyrian cuneiform script. The vessel is hand-made by a hand-building technique and is fired in a kiln with wood, it is not glazed.

Size: height - 6 cm, diameter - 5 cm

I will enclose paper with transliteration, transcription, translation to English and with some basic information about the text, the language, the script etc.

MORE PICTURES


Back to Pottery   Back to Products   Home