Creator makes no distinctions; he refers to “our houses”, or temples, that shall be established.  But in the later version divine conflict has been introduced, and the future head of the pantheon has conquered and humiliated the revolting deities.  Their “ways” must therefore be altered before they are fit to receive the worship which was accorded them by right in the simpler Sumerian tradition.  In spite of the epitomized character of the Sumerian Version, a comparison of these passages suggests very forcibly that the Semitic-Babylonian myth of Creation is based upon a simpler Sumerian story, which has been elaborated to reconcile it with the Dragon myth.

The Semitic poem itself also supplies evidence of the independent existence of the Dragon myth apart from the process of Creation, for the story of Ea and Apsu, which it incorporates, is merely the local Dragon myth of Eridu.  Its inclusion in the story is again simply a tribute to Marduk; for though Ea, now become Marduk’s father, could conquer Apsu, he was afraid of Tiamat, “and turned back".(1) The original Eridu myth no doubt represented Enki as conquering the watery Abyss, which became his home; but there is nothing to connect this tradition with his early creative activities.  We have long possessed part of another local version of the Dragon myth, which describes the conquest of a dragon by some deity other than Marduk; and the fight is there described as taking place, not before Creation, but at a time when men existed and cities had been built.(2) Men and gods were equally terrified at the monster’s appearance, and it was to deliver the land from his clutches that one of the gods went out and slew him.  Tradition delighted to dwell on the dragon’s enormous size and terrible appearance.  In this version he is described as fifty beru(3) in length and one in height; his mouth measured six cubits and the circuit of his ears twelve; he dragged himself along in the water, which he lashed with his tail; and, when slain, his blood flowed for three years, three months, a day and a night.  From this description we can see he was given the body of an enormous serpent.(4)

(1) Tabl.  III, l. 53, &c.  In the story of Bel and the Dragon, the third of the apocryphal additions to Daniel, we have direct evidence of the late survival of the Dragon motif apart from any trace of the Creation myth; in this connexion see Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha, Vol.  I (1913), p. 653 f.

     (2) See Seven Tablets, Vol.  I, pp. 116 ff., lxviii f.  The
     text is preserved on an Assyrian tablet made for the library
     of Ashur-bani-pal.

     (3) The beru was the space that could be covered in two
     hours’ travelling.