“Waiting for the attack, the Anunnaki were terrified. The primordial Anshar accused Ea of having caused a disaster. But by this time Ea had found his voice again, and his skill in using it. He said he had done right by everyone in killing Apsu. They would never have got another chance. Anshar calmed down and ordered Ea to use his sorcery to stop Tiamat. In a show of obedience, Ea set off. But then stopped. From far away he could already hear the roar of Tiamat and her eleven monsters. He knew they would overwhelm him. He went back to Anshar and told him his sorcery wasn’t enough.

“In the end, it was Marduk who killed Tiamat. And only after listening, in a locked room, to his father’s advice. Ea would never kill with his own hands again. Even when, at his instigation, Kingu was killed, Ea didn’t touch him until the blood was already streaming down his torn breast. That was the blood he then used to make men. But right up to that moment, he had only watched.”

“This was the sequence of events. Ea carried out the first killing. He struck down his father, a creature without limits, but for a moment vulnerable. An act to abhor or to celebrate forever. Which in actual fact was only rarely remembered. While nothing would equal the noisy celebrations for Marduk, Ea’s son, when he killed Tiamat, bereft of Apsu. From that point on, everyone spoke of Apsu as if he had always been a place, not a god at all. A place that belonged entirely to Ea. The other gods would go down there only as visitors. This in itself suggested the difference and distance between them and Ea.”

“After killing his father, Apsu, Ea could have gone back to the heaven of the Anunnaki. Instead he stayed put. Apsu’s body became a boundless, liquid place where Ea reigned with his consort, Damkina. If the Anunnaki called a counsel, Ea had to set out from the Apsu to join them. Otherwise he kept away. He was a solitary, remote god. It’s a trait he somehow passed on to me.

“Ea had no need to call himself a king. But he was the only one who could legitimize or dethrone kings. At first the mes and the Tablet of Destinies were immersed in the Apsu together with Tiamat. And they would occasionally go back there. Without the mes and the Tablet of Destinies, no one could claim sovereignty.”

“Ea killed his father, Apsu, but he stepped back when the other gods asked him to kill his mother, Tiamat. Tiamat was vaster than any other being in the world. How could one even think of overcoming her? Only the youngest of his sons, Marduk, might do it. So Ea thought. And immediately set about persuading him, refusing to give up. He told Marduk: ‘I killed my father, Apsu. Now it’s up to you, my son, to kill Tiamat.’ He offered precious advice as to how Marduk should go about it. If he succeeded, great honors and privileges awaited him, his father added. In everyone’s mind, Ea was established as the first and wisest of counselors, but he was also the first to have killed.