“Apsu was killed by his son Ea. Then Tiamat by Ea’s son Marduk. The world continued to be made up of their measureless bodies, from the fresh subterranean waters to the vault of the heavens, Tiamat’s back, which Ea neatly flattened out and studded with stars.

“The measureless remains of the two primordial gods stretched out in every direction. Still whole, Apsu became Ea’s home. Tiamat was cut into pieces. One piece was attached to the heavens. Another was wrapped around the world’s axis. The lower part of her body formed the mountains and the springs of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

“Marduk stabilized the cosmos once and for all. He used Tiamat’s belly as a wedge to keep the earth, the heavens, and the Apsu separate and stable. Until then they had been indistinct from one another, something the Anunnaki found intolerable. So they let Marduk concentrate their powers in himself.”

“Babylon was Marduk’s invention. Obeying his orders, the Anunnaki worked at it till the Esagil was stark against the sky. They called it the palace of the pleasure of the gods of the heavens, the house that radiates splendor, the house with the high roof, the house that creates all the gods, the house that does all and loves the truth, bond of the heavens. Around the Esagil were built forty-three sanctuaries of the Great Gods. While the Anunnaki dwelled in the heavens and occasionally came down to their temples, Marduk wanted just one residence, in Babylon’s Esagil. And Marduk claimed to contain all the gods in himself. He had transformed them into so many epithets. Thus with Marduk the gods found themselves all living together on earth. It was a huge change, and one that was bound to have consequences.

“Babylon was often called Eridu. The last of the great cities clothed itself in the name of the first. It was a prophetic allusion to the fact that Babylon would put a seal on time. A New Babylon would never arise, because the Anunnaki had already melted away. The name Esagil was there in each phase of each epoch. In the beginning, Ea had built his temple in the Apsu. Then he had made a copy of it in his city, in Eridu, and called it the Esagil. Finally, Marduk founded a new city, Babylon, that had at its center an Esagil built on Tiamat’s body. One passed from father to son and from the Apsu to Tiamat. The epochs went by and the same names came around. Until the circle closed.”

“Like others Marduk would end up proposing the creation of men. The Anunnaki were stuck with the same old conundrum: how to be rid of all their burdens. And the only way to keep them happy was to make beings of flesh and blood who could do the hard work for them. And the blood had to be a god’s blood. But which god? Ea was ready with his advice: they should kill the god who had incited Tiamat to fight the Anunnaki: Kingu, her temporary lover. With Ea watching, Marduk and the other gods caught him, tied him up, and held him still. Then they cut open his chest, so that the blood needed to make men could gush out.”