The Enûma Eliš is the Babylonian creation myth. It was recovered by Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq).
This version of the Enuma Elish presented here is primarily the translation of E. A. Speiser in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edition, edited by James Pritchard (Princeton, 1969), with modifications based on various other translations such as L. W. King’s, The Seven Tablets of Creation, London 1902. The translation of these texts is not exact. Badly damaged tablets, gaps, and reconstructions prevent 100% accuracy. Moreover, there are differing interpretations of the meaning of words or the reading of the cuneiform itself. In this version, many of the names of the gods are left untranslated.
