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The Fifty Names ofMarduk in
Enuma elis
ANDREA SERIHARVARD UNIVERSITY
Enuma elis
is one of the few Akkadian texts that are relatively well known beyond thecryptic domain of the Assyriologist. The "popularity" of
Enuma elis
seems to relate, atleast in part, to one of its most transparent themes, namely, the creation of the universe. Anemphasis on the etiological aspect of the composition appears already in George Smith'stranslation entitled
The Chaldean Account of Genesis
published in 1876, only some twentyyears after the official decipherment of cuneiform writing. In successive decades, otherscholars adopted Smith's title, if slightly modified, and variants such as
The BabylonianGenesis, The Poem of Creation,
or
The Epic of Creation
are still frequent.'Although early commentators concentrated on highlighting similarities and differencesbetween the Mesopotamian and the Biblical accounts of Genesis, it became apparent rela-tively soon that the text served not only mythological motives but that it also had other reli-gious,ideological, and political purposes (see Michalowski 1990: 383-84). The creationstory was thus the means to convey, proclaim, and justify the enthronement of Marduk asBabylonia's main deity. The glorification of Marduk is so forceful that the poet has himtake over Enlil's role as head of the pantheon. This was achieved progressively throughoutthe text, first by suggesting Marduk's righteous genealogy, then by presenting him as thehero who defeated Tiamat and fashioned the universe, and finally by granting Marduk fiftynames. In this paper, I wish to address the structure of the section dealing with the fiftynames and its function within the poem as a whole.
GOD LISTS ANDTHE FIFTY NAMES
The existence of certain affinities between Marduk's fifty names at the end of
EnQmaelis
and those attested in fragments of god lists was pointed out as early as 1902. Thus,when Leonard W. King published
The Seven Tablets of Creation,
he incorporated fragmentsof god lists that he considered pertinent for the reconstruction, comparison, and under-standing of Marduk's names.^ And in the description of the contents of CT 25 (1909),King suggested once again that certain god lists included in the volume might help torestore the related broken lines of
Enuma elis.
Similarly, in his study of the fifty namesof Marduk, Franz Bohl (1936) also referred to these connections, in particular to the list
I wish to express my gratitude to Gary Beckman, Peter Machinist, Piotr Steinkeller, Irene Winter, and NormanYoffee for reading this paper and offering valuable comments. Special thanks are due Piotr Michalowski with whomI had stimulating discussions about
Enuma elis
during a seminar that he offered at the University of Michigan in1998.1. See, for example, Bohl 1936: 191; Deimel 1912; Foster 1996: 350; Heidel 1942; Labat 1935 and 1959;Lambert and Parker 1966; Talon 2005.
2.
See in particular his Appendix One, "Assyrian Commentaries and Parallel Texts of the Seventh Tablet of theCreation Series" (vol. 1, 158-81).
Journal ofthe American Oriental Society
126.4 (2006) 507
 
508
Journal of the American Oriental Society
126.4 (2006)
An : Anum.
Years later, in his Yale doctoral thesis (1958), Richard Litke noticed that apassage of the big god-list
An : Anum
could be compared with the fifty names of
Enumaelis.
Litke rightly saw and briefly mentioned that Marduk's names in the second tablet of
An : Anum
resemble those of
Enuma elis,
although the arrangement is slightly different(Litke 1998: 89).The connections between
Enuma elis
and
An : Anum
were finally brought into thespotlight in the 1980s, when Walther Sommerfeld (1982: 175) resorted to this god list toargue for a Kassite date of composition for
Enuma elis.^
His claim, however, promptedthe response of Wilfred Lambert (1984: 3-4) in a review in which he defends the laterdate that he had proposed twenty years earlier, i.e., the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (seeLambert 1964). Lambert maintains that rather than being borrowed from
An : Anum,
the list of names in
Enuma elis
"is incorporated in toto (with a little rearrangement at thebeginning) from a triple-column god list" (Lambert 1984:
4).'*
Thus, Lambert writes, thereare two god lists, "neither of which is demonstrably based on the other." It should be notedthat both Sommerfeld and Lambert focused the discussion on dating
Enuma elis.
Otherimplications pertaining to the inclusion of a god list in a literary text have not been furtherexplored.^I shall leave the hypothetical date of composition aside and stress the fact that Marduk'smultiple names were not the result of the composer's creative genius, but were taken fromalready existing god Hst(s).^ In other words, the names were not conceived ad hoc to crownMarduk's heroic deeds in
Enuma elis.
This does not imply, however, that the last part of thesixth and the seventh tablets are a later addition missing from an alleged earlier version. Onthe contrary, the originality of this section resides precisely in the technique of ingeniouslyinterweaving a rather dry string of names into a literary text. This builds on intertextuality,a device consistently used throughout the poem, as will be discussed later. Naturally, thechoice of fifty names was not accidental, because fifty was Enlil's number. In the strictsense, the ancestors, in
Enuma elis,
actually grant Marduk fifty-two names. The last two,however, were not originally Marduk's: they are
bel matati,
Enlil's epithet, and Anu. Thesetwo extra names are simply final bonuses, and they do not follow the pattern of the pre-ceding list. It is worth remembering, after all, that at the beginning of the section, the godsmake clear their intention to bestow "fifty" names upon Marduk.^ Since in ancient Meso-potamia divine names were traditionally compiled in lists, an examination of certain godlists closely related to the names in
Enuma elis
is now necessary.
3.
Sommerfeld's suggestion is based on that of his teacher, Wolfram von Soden. The Kassite period is one ofthe three times of composition proposed for
Enuma elis.
The others are the Old Babylonian period (e.g., Jacobsen
1968:
107; Dalley 1997) and the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I (Lambert 1964). Most scholars today tend to favorLambert's interpretation that the text was composed no earlier than the later second millennium (e.g., Bottero 1975-
76;
Michalowski 1990; Foster 1996; Machinist 2005).
4.
The fragments of this list that Lambert mentions are CT 25 46-47 (K.7658 + 8222) and
STC
1 165-66(K.8519 and
K.
13337).
5.
For instance, in his detailed study of the tablets containing the commentary on the fifty names in parallelwith
Enuma elis,
Jean Bottero (1977) did not refer to god lists; this absence is also to be seen in his analysis of therole of the fifty names in
EnUma
elis
(Bottdro 1975-76: 106-13).6. Although I am not entirely convinced by the explanation that
Enuma
eliS
was
composed to celebrate the returnof Marduk's statue, I acknowledge a later-second-millennium or even an early first-millennium date of composition.7.
i nim-be-e-ma ha-sd-a su-me-e-su
"Let us proclaim his
fifty
names" (VI: 121).
 
SERI:
The Eifty Names of Marduk in
Enuma elis 509
THE GOD LIST
AN :ANUM
The edition of
An: Anum
prepared by Litke ([1958] 1998) is a composite based onseveral manuscripts. It has the Yale text (YBC 2401) as a matrix because, unlike the othermanuscripts, this contains the entire series. Marduk's names are recorded on the secondtablet from lines 185 to 235; the current edition of Tablet II is based on eighteen copies.^ Inspite of the multiple extant sources, some of the names are completely missing; otherspreserve only certain signs and were restored from lists that do not seem to belong to thesame tradition.' Although the exact number of names in
An : Anum
is, therefore, not imme-diately apparent, it is likely that there were some fifty-three and not fifty as in
Enuma elis.
For example, the name Zi-"-ukkin appeared twice in
An : Anum.
'" It is first listed under''Tu-tu in line 196, and again under ''Sa-zu in line 204, but it is attested only once in
Enuma
ells.
It is also evident that the preserved entries of
An: Anum
include names that do notappear in the literary text, for instance, ''Mar-uruj-S'^tukul
(1.
193) and ''Mu-"-[ku]
(1.
201).
An:
Anum
is a two-column list that has the god's name on the left and either a briefcomment or the ditto sign on the right. Under Marduk's names the explanations in thesecond column are written in both Sumerian and Akkadian. In the preserved lines Asal-lii-hi is explained as dumu-sag Eridu-ga-ke4, "the first-bom child of Eridu"
(1.
185); Nam-ruis explained as Marduk .sa
meti,
"Marduk of the dead" (1. 187); Mer-sa-kus-ij has
eziz umustal,
"angry but deliberative"
(1.
192); and finally Mar-uruj-S'^tukul is followed by
abub
8'^tukul""=^, "Flood of weapons"
(1.
193)." The names in the left column are arranged accord-ing to meaningful groups, either classified by assonance or demarcated by the ditto sign,which is clear from the fully preserved lines. For instance, the first name for Marduk isAsallubi. The ditto signs indicate that Nam-ti-la and Nam-ru are related to the Asallufii group,and Asar-ri, Asar-alim, and Asar-alim-nun-na share the first sign (Asar = Asal). Under thesecond name, i.e., Marduk, the arrangement is by assonance: Marduk, Mer-sa-kus-su, Mar-uruj-S'^tukul, Ma-ru-uk-ka, and Ma-ru-tu-uk-ka. The same general principle seems to rule thearrangement of the names in
Enuma ells.
This shows that both
An: Anum
and
Enuma ells
share most of the deity's names andcertain organizational principles. Nevertheless, the arrangement of names at the beginningof the two lists is different. Thus:
8. These are A = YBC 2402; B = K.4349 (CT 24 20-50); C = K.4340+79-7-8, 294 (CT 24 1-2, 4-5, 9);D = K.4333 (CT 24 2-3, 6-8, 10-11); E = VAT 10812 (KAV 50); F = K.12786 (CT 25 46); G = 2NT 349;a = K.4338B (CT 24 19); aa = K.7662 (CT 25 7); ab = K.4339 (CT 25 9-14); ac = Bu.89-4-26, 77 (CT 25 28),AO.5376 (TCL 15 25-31); and eme = Emesal list (MSL IV).9. For example, the names from line 210 on are poorly preserved in the various duplicates of
An : Anum.
They were restored by Litke from other Marduk lists such as Sm 78 + Sm 1078: 13 (CT 25 46), Sm 115 (CT 25 38),and K 7558 (CT 25 46).
10.
For the transliteration of Zi-"-ukkin and other names, I use the conventional " to indicate ditto, which waswritten with the sign min.
11.
For the name Asallutji, one manuscript has dumu-sag ''En-ki-ga-ke4 instead of Eridu-ga-ke4 (CT 24 12-17 =K.4332, ii 64b). Marduk
Sa
meti
has to be understood as "the one who brings the dead back to life" (e.g., Surpu IV:
99,
Asatluhi sa ina tesu
lii.ugj
ibatlutu;
Ee VI: 153 [Marduk]
ina sit plka mitum iballut;
and VII: 26 [Marduk]
betSipti elleti mubatlit
miti).
Mersaku§u
eziz u mustal
appears verbatim in Ee VI: 137. Although the name ''Mar-uruj-S'^tukul is not in
Enuma elis,
a phrase that resembles part of the explanation appears in Ee VI:
125:
S'Hukul-iu
abubi,
"his Flood weapon."
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