The Babylonian Mythology

The word mythology is derived from the Greek words mythos, which means story, and logos, which means speech. Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Some of the oldest narratives in world history come from Babylon mythology. The Babylonian Mythology Collection includes:

Book 1: Myths of Babylonia and Assyria by Donald A. Mackenzie takes a look at the ancient history and mythology of Mesopotamia, that are the foundation of all later Western myths. The book examines the myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria and how these ancient tales reflect the beliefs and development of early civilization. The book begins with the early Sumerian Age and concludes 30 centuries later with the Greek Empire.

Book 2: Enuma Elish is the Mesopotamian epic of creation, translated by Leonard William King. The Enuma Elish is the earliest written creation myth, in which the God Marduk battles the goddess of chaos and her evil minions. is the Babylonian creation myth, named after its opening words. It was recovered by English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq). The words "Enuma Elish" mean "When on high".

Book 3: The Dynastic Tablets and Babylonian Chronicle records events in ancient Babylon dating from about 750 BC to 280 BC, including Nebuchadnezzar II's campaigns in the west, the defeat of the Assyrians, the fall of the Assyrian Empire, and the rising threat of Egypt. It records the Battle of Carchemish, where Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon defeated Pharaoh Necho of Egypt in 605 BC, Nebuchadnezzar's rise to power, the removal of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and the insertion of Zedekiah as king in his place as recorded in Scripture.

Book 4: The Babylonian Story of the Creation According to the Tradition by A.H. Sayce contains the story of the creation in a series of successive acts, and the fragments of two tablets containing another legend of the Creation which varied considerably. The tablets belonged to the library of Assur-bani-pal at Nineveh, but the colophon informs us that they had been copied from older documents which came from the library of Cutha in Babylonia. The Cuthæan legend, it will be observed, knows nothing of a creation in successive acts. Chaos is a period when as yet writing was unknown. The earth existed, and was inhabited by the chaotic brood of Tiamat. They were destroyed by Nergal, the patron-deity of Cutha, who is identified with Nerra, the god of pestilence, and Ner, the mythical monarch of Babylonia who reigned before the Deluge. The words of the poem are put into the mouth of Nergal, and the poem itself was written for his great temple at Cutha.

Book 5: Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East. He made numerous trips to Egypt and the Sudan on behalf of the British Museum to buy antiquities, and helped it build its collection of cuneiform tablets, manuscripts, and papyri. In this creation legend, it was the goddess Aruru who created Enkidu (Eabani) from a piece of clay moistened with spittle. And in the bilingual version of the legend, this goddess assisted Marduk as an equal in the work of creating the seed of mankind.