(1) Damkina was the later wife of Ea or Enki; and
     Ninkharsagga is associated with Enki, as his consort, in
     another Sumerian myth.

It may be noted that the character of Apsu and Tiamat in this portion of the poem(1) is quite at variance with their later actions.  Their revolt at the ordered “way” of the gods was a necessary preliminary to the incorporation of the Dragon myths, in which Ea and Marduk are the heroes.  Here they appear as entirely beneficent gods of the primaeval water, undisturbed by storms, in whose quiet depths the equally beneficent deities Lakhmu and Lakhamu, Anshar and Kishar, were generated.(2) This interpretation, by the way, suggests a more satisfactory restoration for the close of the ninth line of the poem than any that has yet been proposed.  That line is usually taken to imply that the gods were created “in the midst of (heaven)”, but I think the following rendering, in connexion with ll. 1-5, gives better sense: 

When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not bear a name, And the primaeval Apsu who begat them,(3) And Mummu, and Tiamat who bore them(3) all,—­ Their waters were mingled together, . . . . . . . . .  Then were created the gods in the midst of (their waters),(4) Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called into being . . .

     (1) Tabl.  I, ll. 1-21.

(2) We may perhaps see a survival of Tiamat’s original character in her control of the Tablets of Fate.  The poem does not represent her as seizing them in any successful fight; they appear to be already hers to bestow on Kingu, though in the later mythology they are “not his by right” (cf.  Tabl.  I, ll. 137 ff., and Tabl.  IV, l. 121).

     (3) i.e. the gods.

(4) The ninth line is preserved only on a Neo-Babylonian duplicate (Seven Tablets, Vol.  II, pl. i).  I suggested the restoration ki-rib s(a-ma-mi), “in the midst of heaven”, as possible, since the traces of the first sign in the last word of the line seemed to be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of sa.  The restoration appeared at the time not altogether satisfactory in view of the first line of the poem, and it could only be justified by supposing that samamu, or “heaven”, was already vaguely conceived as in existence (op. cit., Vol.  I, p. 3, n. 14).  But the traces of the sign, as I have given them (op. cit., Vol.  II, pl. i), may also possibly be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of the sign me; and I would now restore the end of the line in the Neo-Babylonian tablet as ki-rib m(e-e-su-nu), “in the midst of (their waters)”, corresponding to the form mu-u- su-nu in l. 5 of this duplicate.  In the Assyrian Version me(pl)-su-nu would be read in both lines.  It will be possible to verify the new reading, by a re-examination of the traces on the tablet, when the British Museum collections again become available for study after