The Babylonian Legends of the Creation

The Babylonian Legends of the Creation and the Fight Between Bel and the Dragon is by E. A. Wallis Budge and is described as told by Assyrian tablets from Nineveh. The section headed Discovery of the Tablets says the baked clay tablets were found among the ruins of the Palace and Library of Ashur-bani-pal at Kuyunjik between 1848 and 1876, by Layard, Rassam and George Smith.

In one passage under the heading The Object of the Babylonian Legend of the Creation, the text says the main object of the Legend was the glorification of the god Marduk, and that the Seventh Tablet is devoted to his honorific titles. Another passage mentions a work entitled The Seven Tablets of Creation, published in London in 1902. A caption describes a Babylonian map of the world showing the ocean surrounding the world, with Babylon on the Euphrates as its centre. A footnote discusses whether the word Apsû means the abyss of waters or a ceremonial object like the basin in the court of the temple of King Solomon.