Enūma Eliš (the Babylonian Epic of Creation)
A young god agrees to fight the monstrous sea — but only if they crown him king of the gods first.
Named from its opening words, 'When on high' (Enūma eliš), this is the great Babylonian epic of creation, written across seven clay tablets. It tells how, in the beginning, only the fresh waters (Apsû) and the salt sea (Tiamat) existed, mingled together; how successive generations of gods were born and their clamor provoked the elders; and how, when Tiamat raised an army of monsters to destroy the young gods, the warrior Marduk agreed to fight her on condition that he be made king. Marduk slays Tiamat, splits her body to form sky and earth, sets the stars and calendar in order, creates humankind from the blood of the rebel god Qingu to free the gods from labor, and is enthroned with fifty names by the grateful gods, who build him Babylon and its temple. It is at once a cosmogony and a political theology exalting Babylon's city-god.