| “ | Tiamat ain't just the mother of the Mesopotamian gods...she's the mother of monsters. Well, 'least the monsters in the Mesopotamian line. It's said that before she died she gave birth to monsters, demons, and all sorts of abominable bastards that run 'round and fuck shit up. Includin', mind ya, the first dragons. Long story short, she's the reason why there's so much supernatural phenomena 'round modern Iraq. | „ |
| ~ John Constantine |
| “ | The primordial goddess of Babylonian lore. She governs the sea and gave birth to many deities with her consort Apsu, the god of freshwater. When war broke out between her and those gods, she created 11 monsters to fight with her, but they were defeated by Marduk. Her body was ripped apart and used to make the world. | „ |
| ~ The Demonic Compendium. |
Tiamat, also known as Tehom, is the Primordial goddess of the ocean, and the salt water which roared as it flowed in the original Chaos of creation. She is also known as the Queen of Chaos and the Mother of Dragons, though she was also once known as a Mother Goddess, but this title has been long forgotten.
Overview[]
In the beginning, Tiamat and her partner Abzu filled the cosmic abyss with the primeval waters of Chaos. She is "Ummu-Hubur who formed all things". In time, she mated with her lover Abzu, the Primordial god of freshwater, and produced the younger deities of the Mesopotamian pantheon. The darkness that would be the space between the material is viewed by the ancient Babylonians being beneath the primordial oceans represent the chaotic blackness that would be mentioned several times in biblical lore.
It is suggested that there are two parts to the mythos, the first in which Tiamat is a creator goddess, through a "Sacred marriage" between salt and freshwater, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second, Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos.
Description[]
Tiamat has been commonly portrayed as either a sea serpent or a dragon. Her physical description includes a tail, a thigh, "lower parts" (which shake together), a belly, an udder, ribs, a neck, a neck, and several eyes, nostrils, and mouths, as well as insides (possibly "entrails") such as a heart, arteries, and blood.
Her other form is unique, she had one head for each primary color of the most common species of Chromatic Dragons (black, blue, green, red, white). Each head was able to operate entirely independently of each other and had the powers of a member of the respective race of dragonkind. Her body also had traits in common with a Wyvern, including a long tail tipped with a poisonous stinger.
However, there are those who disagree with this depiction of Tiamat, and believe her to have manifested in the form of a radiant and divine woman.
History[]
Genesis[]
The Babylonian cosmogony, as outlined in the Enuma Elish and elsewhere, begins in the formless primordial chaos that predated the phenomenal world. In this void, two primeval principles met and intermingled: Tiamat, the "shining" personification of salt water, and Apsu, the male deity of fresh water.
When the Earth was newly born, and the virgin universe was still in its early stages of forming around chaos, Tiamat came into formation when the elements of Chaos fell and mixed with the void water to create the primordial goddess. Tiamat and Apsu encircled the mighty Leviathan and maintained a balanced equilibrium around the beast in order to keep it in check so as not to drown the Earth.
Tiamat and Apsu came together in a perfect union of duality between chaos and order as saltwater and freshwater were opposites of one another in the spectrum. The offspring of the union between these two beings included the earliest generation of deities, such as the primordial sea god Pontus who in turn knew Tiamat and from their union came forth all sea life. The gods, in turn, were the parents of the axis of the heavens (Anshar (from An ("heaven") and Shar ("axle or pivot")) and the earth (Kishar), who eventually sired Ea (Enki) and Anu—the two most important deities of their generation.
Contention with the Gods[]
The Enuma Elish then describes the younger generation of gods, in their zeal to celebrate their material existence, throwing an elaborate party, replete with dancing, laughter, and music. This racket aggravated Apsu, who decided that he could not abide by the noise and chaos of these youthful deities and decided to kill them. Hearing about this villainous plan, Enki (the crafty god) ensorceled the divine patriarch and slew him in his sleep.
When Tiamat was informed of her consort's murder, she flew into a rage and decided to exterminate younger gods once and for all. In her rage, the elder goddess decided to use her generative power for ill, where she would go on to mate with the Leviathan to create powerful beasts, and made war upon her treacherous children. Tiamat also coerced her grandchildren Phorcys and Ceto to spawn monsters of their own such s the Drakaina, female serpents or dragons that would play a role in the war against the Olympian gods who would also then go on to spawn great monsters. Two of the gods, Enki and Anu, initially attempted to stand against her wrath, but were repelled by her ferocious forces.
Fearing for their lives, they beseeched Marduk, Enki's powerful son, to stand against the vicious goddess. Once they promised to revere him as "king of the Gods" after his success, the divine hero sallied forth, battled the chaotic goddess (and her minions) and eventually overcame her. After Tiamat was destroyed, Marduk dissected her enormous body and used her remains to construct the cosmos. But even after her supposed death, her legacy would pose a threat to the gods, for from her blood came forth some of the first dragons to emerge in the world, whose bodies she filled with "venom instead of blood", and with said dragons being a blight upon the inner workings of creation and its principles; Níðhöggr, Cipactli, and Vritra who together are referred to as the Würms of Destruction.
Cosmic Corpse of the World[]
Níðhöggr was subdued by Marduk and later imprisoned within the roots of the World Tree by Ananke's webs, forever forced to gnaw at the tree's roots and the Weaver's webs in a feeble attempt to escape his confines. Cipactli who devoured anything the gods made when they threw it into the ocean only to be captured and slain by Tezcatlipoca and his brothers before using his body to create their terrestrial kingdom that being the land of Mesoamerica. Vritra was perhaps the most troublesome as he intended to swallow the Earth's oceans to enhance his strength and weaken the gods' resources to properly defeat him until he was defeated by Indra.
Slicing Tiamat in half, he made from her ribs the vault of heaven and earth. Her weeping eyes became the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates, her tail became the Milky Way, all of which were in the spiritual and metaphysical sense. With the approval of the elder deities, he took from Kingu the Tablet of Destinies, installing himself as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Kingu, the servant of the saltwater goddess, was captured and was later slain, so that his red blood could be mixed with the red clay of the Earth to make the bodies of the first humans.
The roof of the Babylonian cosmos would be the upper half of Tiamat, just as the Norse sky consists simply of Ymir's unmodified skull. This could mean that quite literally the kingdoms that lay beyond the veil of normalcy and ones that normal humans could not perceive are constructed out of the mutilated bodies of ancient primordial beings who were the preceding rulers of the cosmos. Hereafter, Tiamat's essence was left waiting, lingering between the confines of the Alterworld and Earth until she finally has the chance to return. According to an ancient mystic in Iraq, the longer the veil is thinned before mortal eyes, allowing Tiamat's monsters to be further exposed, the more chance it heralds the return of Tiamat.
Personality[]
Tiamat was originally arrogant, greedy, hateful, spiteful and vain. She never forgave the slight her children committed against her and their father, though she did in time come to hold a dark sense of adoration and proudness for her children as they managed to repeatedly thwart her attempts to eradicate them.
Although at some point she raised and loved her children, which she viewed as her only meaning in life, she later set out to fight against the humans and other living creations of the gods. As a result, they have declared “you are not needed.” Tiamat has explained that her ideology when becoming a this destructive beast is extremely simple; she runs under the extremely primitive system of “If I do not kill humanity, I will be killed.”
Power and Abilities[]
Tiamat, as the Mother of Dragons and a Primordial being of chaos, is among the most powerful entities in existence. She was so powerful that she was able to bring the entire Mesopotamian pantheon of gods to their knees. She is considered to be the dark counterpart of Gaia, the Greek mother goddess, as the latter birthed the first generation of deities and monsters in the Greek pantheon, just as Tiamat birthed the first generation of gods and monsters of the Mesopotamian pantheon, which included the dragons. The monsters born from Tiamat were also quite powerful in their own right, so much so they actively terrorized the gods' attempts to bring order to the world.
Derous, a powerful dragon in his own right, believes that no dragon, no matter their age and experience with their power, could ever hope to match Tiamat, much less even defeat her. He also goes as far as to say that should Tiamat somehow return, she would pose as a near impossible challenge comparable to that of when they faced Lucifer and Satan during the Apocalypse. John Constantine himself was visibly apprehensive over the thought of Tiamat's return after discovering that the supernatural events occurring around modern Iraq were but small signs of her supposed resurrection. In the beginning, Tiamat's very presence distorted and warped the weather and the fabric of nature itself, with an aura so heavy and so dense that it could crush mountains and make oceans boil.
