It’s difficult to write about Tiamat because most of Her myths have been lost to time. The one myth featuring Her that we currently have is incomplete in places and ends with Her being ripped apart by the hero Marduk in order to create our current world. Most Sumerian Polytheists believe that Tiamat is a dead Goddess who shouldn’t receive worship; the few who worship Her are either “fluffy-bunnies” looking for someone “edgy” to worship or angry people looking to express their anger in a very specific, dark way.
But does that mean that Tiamat doesn’t deserve worship? No. Definitely not. And I’m going to explain why in a bulleted list. That’s how I roll, man.
- Tiamat isn’t truly dead because Gods don’t die.
That’s a common argument Neopagans use when they decide to worship Her. It’s often derided as a non-starter – one posed by “fluffy-bunnies” who don’t know what they’re talking about – but does the derision make this argument untrue?
I don’t think so. I have personal experience that tells me otherwise – swellings of erratic, chaotic energy, feelings that came out of nowhere and helped me know I wasn’t alone during particularly dark periods of the past year – but truthfully, I can’t transfer those experiences to other people. All I can do is tell you that I’ve had them.
If you’ve had them too – if you believe in what you’ve felt – then I don’t think anyone’s mockery can deter you. If you’re truly meant to become a Tiamat follower, then I have a feeling mockery isn’t enough to stop you.
- Tiamat is mentioned in various religious texts, including the Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible.
Tiamat is commonly referred to as the Goddess of the Primordial, Chaotic Sea.
When you view Her in that light – as the literal embodiment of ancient, pre-human life – then you see that the narrative surrounding Her isn’t quite as clear as we’d like it to be. She is mentioned in that guise through many forms of literature. Reverence and fear of the Sea is as universal as superstition within the context of human history.
From the New International Version of the Bible:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
The word used to mean “the deep” in Hebrew is “תְהֹ֑ום”, which if I recall my Hebrew school correctly is pronounced very similarly to “Tiamat” in Sumerian. (I may not remember it well enough, guys. It’s been about ten years or so since I had any Hebrew classes.) Other words that mean similar things in prehistoric languages have similar pronunciations.
Was Tiamat the root of that word, or a manifestation of the fear the word represents? Are those things one and the same? We can’t truly know. As I mentioned in a previous paragraph, most of the information about Tiamat died out with the Babylonian empire. We don’t have accurate information about Her, and it’s likely we never will.
Which brings me to my next point.
- There are other Gods and Goddesses that had cults in antiquity and might have reflected the way Tiamat was worshipped before everything was destroyed.
Here are a few Gods and Goddesses who were similar in function to Tiamat, existed in roughly the same area and context, and had verifiable cults.
-Yamm, a God who was worshipped alongside Baal in the Levantine area.
-Nammu, a primordial Sea Goddess who was the Mother of the Gods in Sumerian Mythology. Most believe Nammu directly corresponds to Tiamat, though others who are far more educated in this topic state otherwise.
-Gaea, the Greek Goddess of the Prehistoric Earth and the Ancestral Mother of Life. Though Gaea doesn’t directly correspond to Tiamat’s function as a Primordial Sea Goddess, Her other functions remain the same.
Plenty of others exist that I just don’t have the time or patience to actually list right now. You have Google, you can obviously use a computer (or you wouldn’t be reading this right now), and I’m not your mom.
Tiamat was killed off in Babylonian mythology, but the other Gods mentioned above survived long after their initial hayday (though they were plenty demonized in Judeo-Christian mythology, of course). My question is: Was Tiamat killed off because no one worshipped Her, or was She killed off because the Babylonians didn’t want anyone to worship her?
Which came first, the chicken, or the egg? That’s up to you to decide.
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