Mesopotamian Pantheonrelic
Tablet of Destinies
- Cosmic Authority
- Divine Decree
- Fate Binding
A clay tablet that confers supreme authority over the cosmos. Whoever holds it commands the decrees of heaven and earth, stolen and reclaimed in the battles of Mesopotamian myth.
About Tablet of Destinies
Dupšimati, stolen and worn
In the Anzu poem, the bird Anzu steals the Tablet of Destinies from Enlil; Ninurta fights to recover it. Enuma Elish has Tiamat give the tablet to Kingu; Marduk wins it and fastens it to his breast. Possession is the right to decree fates, the offices of heaven and earth. These are second-millennium Akkadian compositions, copied in first-millennium libraries. No museum tablet is "the" original. It is a mythic document of sovereignty, clay in the story, authority in the plot.
Origin
Associated with Enlil and later Marduk; contested in myths of Anzu and the Enuma Elish tradition.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Anzu epic
- Enuma Elish
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
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