The Ancient Copper Cutter

A tool from the making of the world

In the Song of Ullikummi, when the storm-god Teššub has been beaten and the stone giant is still growing, the wise god Ea goes to the Former Gods, the primeval deities of the underworld, and asks them to open the old storehouses of their fathers and bring out the ancient copper cutting tool, the one with which heaven and earth were separated. With it he cuts Ullikummi's feet away from the shoulder of Upelluri, and the giant loses the strength that came from his footing.

What the story assumes

The episode assumes a cosmology in which heaven and earth were once joined and had to be cut apart, and in which the cutting tool still exists, stored away. Upelluri himself says that he felt nothing when heaven and earth were built on him and nothing when they were cut apart. The idea of a primeval separation of heaven and earth is widespread in Near Eastern and other traditions; the Hurrian song is distinctive in making the separating tool a physical object that can be brought out again.

Nothing more is known

The text does not describe the tool's shape beyond calling it a copper cutter, and it has no life outside this one scene. It is not an archaeological object, and this site does not attach it to any real find.