Enuma elish

Enūma Eliš (Akkadian Cuneiform: 𒂊𒉡𒈠𒂊𒇺, also spelled "Enuma Elish"), meaning "When on High", is a Babylonian creation myth (named after its opening words) from the late 2nd millennium BCE and the only complete surviving account of ancient near eastern cosmology. It was recovered by English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in 1849 (in fragmentary form) in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (Mosul, Iraq). A form of the myth was first published by English Assyriologist George Smith in 1876; active research and further excavations led to near completion of the texts and improved translation. Enūma Eliš has about a thousand lines and is recorded in Akkadian on seven clay tablets, each holding between 115 and 170 lines of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform script. Most of Tablet V has never been recovered, but, aside from this lacuna, the text is almost complete. Over the seven tablets, it describes the creation of the world, a battle between gods focused on the offering to Marduk, the creation of man destined for the service of the Mesopotamian deities, and it ends with a long passage praising Marduk. The rise of Marduk is generally viewed to have started from the Second Dynasty of Isin, triggered by the return of the statue of Marduk from Elam by Nebuchadnezzar I, although a late Kassite date is also sometimes proposed. It may have been recited during the Akitu festival. Some late Assyrian versions replace Marduk with Ashur.