Gods, Demons & Immortals
whose Names Start with 'T'
The immortals of ancient Sumer.
by James W. Bell © 2002-3
Tammuz (see Dumuzi)
Biblical Connection ................
(Ezekiel 8:14, KJV)
"Then he brought me to the door of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz."
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Tammuz was the Akkadian (Semitic) name for the Sumerian god, Dumuzi. Tammuz is still remembered in the Jewish Calendar of today. The month of Tammuz is the 30-day month, starting in mid June, that marks the beginning of summer.
Tiamat
Tiamat was the primordial saltwater goddess, also known as 'Mother Hubur.' Her husband was the primordial freshwater god, Abzu. According to legend, when her husband, Abzu, decided to do away with the young gods because they made too much noise, Tiamat unsuccessfully tried to dissuade him. One of the young gods named Enki overcame both Abzu and his sukkal, Mummu, bringing them down from Heaven to the Earth where he imprisoned them forever Under his temple at Eridu, called the E.abuz.
Tiamat was left alone. In the Sumerian version of 'When on High,' she too became upset at the noise made by the young gods and went to war with them. The young gods begged Enki to defend them from her but he was afraid. Enki's younger brother, Enlil, took up the challenge after the other gods agreed his word and his decisions would henceforth be supreme.
Enlil fought Tiamat and overcame her, killing her with an arrow. He took her body from Heaven and halved it with an axe to create land on the Earth, her breasts forming its mountains.
(In a later, Babylonian version of 'When on High,' written in a time when Marduk was the supreme god, it was Marduk who overcame Tiamat, instead of Enlil.)
To read a modern reinterpretation of Tiamat in the Babylonian 'When on High' (where Abzu is spelled Apsu and Marduk replaces Enlil), click here.
"[ In my stories, it was Enlil who overcame Tiamat and supplanted Enki, making himself chief deity on the Earth. ]*
Tiamat, being a dead goddess, had no temple of her own but was ritually memorialized by Akkadians in the Kiurkuga, 'The Pure Leveled Place,' a shrine in Marduk's E.sagil temple at Babil.
Tishpak
The mountain god, Tishpak, 'Lord of Armies,' replaced Ninazu as the tutelary deity of Eshnunna, the principal city of Warum, a land populated by Amurru, immediately northeast of Sumer.
When Tishpak took control of the city, he also took over Ninazu's temple in Eshnunna which was called the E.sikilla, 'The Pure House.'
According to legend, Tishpak defeated and enslaved the mushhushshu snake dragon. Later, when Eshnunna was conquered by Babylonia, Marduk, the chief god of Babylonia, took charge of the snake dragon and adopted it as his symbol. Mushhushshu snake dragons were one of the three animal species that later decorated the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, the other two species being lions and aurochs.
Tradition has it that the dragon Daniel in 'Bel and the Dragon' was a mushhushshu snake dragon. To read 'Bel and the Dragon,' a book in the Apocrypha (also called the fourteenth chapter of the Greek Book of Daniel), click here.
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