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95-515: Depending on the reading of the first character in the antagonist's name (always written as KAL and may be read as: Lab , Kal , Rib or Tan ), the text might also be called The Slaying of Labbu or Kalbu Myth . This polyvalence of cuneiform readings allows a possible connection to the biblical monster Rahab – more on this below. The following translation of the Labbu Myth comes from Ayali-Darshan 2020. The cities became dilapidated,

190-454: A Chaoskampf : a cosmic battle between a sea monster representing the forces of chaos and a creator god or culture hero who imposes order by force. The Babylonian creation myth describes Marduk 's defeat of the serpent goddess Tiamat , whose body was used to create the heavens and the earth . The Leviathan specifically is mentioned six times in the Tanakh . Job 41:1–34

285-464: A comet (Forsyth 1989) is not clear. The gods are terrified by the apparition of this monstrous creature and appeal to the moon god Sin or the goddess Aruru who addresses Tišpak/Nergal to counter the threat and "exercise kingship", presumably over Eshnunna, as a reward. Tišpak/Nergal raises objections to tangling with the serpent but – after a gap in the narrative, a god whose name is not preserved provides guidance on military strategy. A storm erupts and

380-401: A completely unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology . It was successfully deciphered by 1857. The cuneiform script changed considerably over more than 2,000 years. The image below shows the development of the sign SAĜ "head" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295 𒊕 ). Stages: The cuneiform script was developed from pictographic proto-writing in the late 4th millennium BC, stemming from

475-559: A given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological . Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. Cuneiform writing proper thus arises from the more primitive system of pictographs at about that time, labeled the Early Bronze Age II epoch by historians. The earliest known Sumerian king, whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets,

570-560: A kosher fish, not an inedible snake or crocodile), and it will be served as a sumptuous banquet for all the righteous in Heaven. In the Zohar , the Leviathan is a metaphor for enlightenment. The Zohar remarks that the legend of the righteous eating the skin of the leviathan at the end of the days is not literal, and merely a metaphor for enlightenment. The Zohar also specifies in detail that

665-582: A language structure typical of the non-Indo-European agglutinative Sumerian language . The first tablets using syllabic elements date to the Early Dynastic I–II periods c.  2800 BC , and they are agreed to be clearly in Sumerian. This is the time when some pictographic element started to be used for their phonetic value, permitting the recording of abstract ideas or personal names. Many pictographs began to lose their original function, and

760-659: A phonetic complement. Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of logographic and phonemic writing. Elamite cuneiform was a simplified form of the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform, used to write the Elamite language in the area that corresponds to modern Iran from the 3rd millennium BC to the 4th century BC. Elamite cuneiform at times competed with other local scripts, Proto-Elamite and Linear Elamite . The earliest known Elamite cuneiform text

855-432: A pointed stylus, sometimes called "linear cuneiform". Many of the early dynastic inscriptions, particularly those made on stone, continued to use the linear style as late as circa 2000 BC. In the mid-3rd millennium BC, a new wedge-tipped stylus was introduced which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped cuneiform. This development made writing quicker and easier, especially when writing on soft clay. By adjusting

950-484: A precursor of a later adversary; the dragon of Revelation 12:4, whose tail swept a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them down to earth. In the later version, Labbu is created by the god Enlil who "drew [a picture of] the dragon in the sky" to wipe out humanity whose raucous noise has been disturbing his sleep, a recurring motif in Babylonian creation epics. Whether this refers to the Milky Way (Heidel 1963) or

1045-483: A resemblance to Old Japanese , written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms and others as phonetic characters. This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with

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1140-548: A sharpened reed stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes. Most Proto-Cuneiform records from this period were of an accounting nature. The proto-cuneiform sign list has grown, as new texts are discovered, and shrunk, as variant signs are combined. The current sign list is 705 elements long with 42 being numeric and four considered pre-proto-Elamite. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinatives and were

1235-576: A slightly different way. From the 6th century, the Akkadian language was marginalized by Aramaic , written in the Aramaic alphabet , but Akkadian cuneiform remained in use in the literary tradition well into the times of the Parthian Empire (250 BC–226 AD). The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in 75 AD. The ability to read cuneiform may have persisted until

1330-449: A sphere and incorporates the souls of those who are too attached to material things, so they cannot reach the realm of God's fullness beyond, from which all good emanates. In Hobbes , who draws on Job 41:24, the Leviathan becomes a metaphor for the omnipotence of the state, which maintains itself by educating all children in its favour, generation after generation. This idea of an eternal power that 'feeds' on its constantly growing citizens

1425-620: A stylus. Writing is first recorded in Uruk , at the end of the 4th millennium BC, and soon after in various parts of the Near-East . An ancient Mesopotamian poem gives the first known story of the invention of writing : Because the messenger's mouth was heavy and he couldn't repeat [the message], the Lord of Kulaba patted some clay and put words on it, like a tablet. Until then, there had been no putting words on clay. The cuneiform writing system

1520-428: Is Enmebaragesi of Kish (fl. c.  2600 BC ). Surviving records became less fragmentary for following reigns and by the arrival of Sargon, it had become standard practice for each major city-state to date documents by year-names, commemorating the exploits of its king. Geoffrey Sampson stated that Egyptian hieroglyphs "came into existence a little after Sumerian script , and, probably, [were] invented under

1615-561: Is a treaty between Akkadians and the Elamites that dates back to 2200 BC. Some believe it might have been in use since 2500 BC. The tablets are poorly preserved, so only limited parts can be read, but it is understood that the text is a treaty between the Akkad king Nāramsîn and Elamite ruler Hita , as indicated by frequent references like "Nāramsîn's friend is my friend, Nāramsîn's enemy is my enemy". The most famous Elamite scriptures and

1710-597: Is an adaptation of the Old Assyrian cuneiform of c. 1800 BC to the Hittite language and was used from the 17th until approximately the 13th century BC. More or less the same system was used by the scribes of the Hittite Empire for two other Anatolian languages , namely Luwian (alongside the native Anatolian hieroglyphics ) and Palaic , as well as for the isolate Hattic language . When the cuneiform script

1805-468: Is based on a concept of education that mechanically shapes memory. It too is based on a good–evil dualism: a hypothetical natural law according to which man is a wolf to man , and the pedagogically mediated laws of the state as Leviathan for the purpose of containing such frightening conditions. The Leviathan of the Book of Job is a reflection of the older Canaanite Lotan , a primeval monster defeated by

1900-429: Is called gunû or "gunification"; if signs are cross-hatched with additional Winkelhaken , they are called šešig ; if signs are modified by the removal of a wedge or wedges, they are called nutillu . "Typical" signs have about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated, but distinct signs);

1995-687: Is called the "tortuous serpent" who will be killed at the end of time. The mention of the Tannins in the Genesis creation narrative (translated as "great whales" in the King James Version ), in Job, and in the Psalm do not describe them as harmful but as ocean creatures who are part of God's creation. The element of competition between God and the sea monster and the use of Leviathan to describe

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2090-562: Is dedicated to describing him in detail: "Behold, the hope of him is in vain; shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?" Included in God's lengthy description of his indomitable creation is Leviathan's fire-breathing ability , his impenetrable scales, and his overall indomitability in Job 41 .In Psalm 104 , God is praised for having made all things, including Leviathan, and in Isaiah 27:1 , he

2185-559: Is hungry, reports Rabbi Dimi in the name of Rabbi Johanan, he sends forth from his mouth a heat so great as to make all the waters of the deep boil, and if he would put his head into Paradise no living creature could endure the odor of him. His abode is the Mediterranean Sea . In a legend recorded in the Midrash called Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer it is stated that the fish which swallowed Jonah narrowly avoided being eaten by

2280-447: Is placed in its mouth" ( Zohar ) "twisting around and encompassing the entire world" ( Rashi on Baba Batra 74b) – projects a vivid metaphor for the universe's underlying unity. This unity will only be revealed in the future, when the righteous will feast on the Leviathan. Leviathan can also be used as an image of the devil , endangering both God's creatures—by attempting to eat them—and God's creation—by threatening it with upheaval in

2375-404: Is told that the Leviathan will be slain and its flesh served as a feast to the righteous in [the] Time to Come and its skin used to cover the tent where the banquet will take place. Those who do not deserve to consume its flesh beneath the tent may receive various vestments of the Leviathan varying from coverings (for the somewhat deserving) to amulets (for the least deserving). The remaining skin of

2470-421: Is unknown; the ת would also require explanation, as Nechushtan is formed from neḥšoeṯ and Leviathan from liveyah ; the normal-pattern f.s. adjective would be לויון, liveyon . Other philologists, including Leskien , thought it a foreign loanword. A third school considers it a proper noun. Bauer proposed לוית+תן, for "wreath of serpent." Both the name and the mythological figure are a direct continuation of

2565-574: The Common Era . Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions ( Latin : cuneus ) which form their signs . Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq ). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian. Akkadian texts are attested from

2660-563: The Garden of Eden . Therefore, he calls them Ophites , naming after the serpent they are supposed to worship. In this belief system, the Leviathan appears as an Ouroboros , separating the divine realm from humanity by enveloping or permeating the material world. It is unknown whether or not the Ophites actually identified the serpent of the Garden of Eden with the Leviathan. However, since

2755-458: The Iron Age (c. 10th to 6th centuries BC), Assyrian cuneiform was further simplified. The characters remained the same as those of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiforms, but the graphic design of each character relied more heavily on wedges and square angles, making them significantly more abstract: Babylonian cuneiform was simplified along similar lines during that period, albeit to a lesser extent and in

2850-649: The Ugaritic sea monster Lôtān , one of the servants of the sea god Yammu defeated by Hadad in the Baal Cycle . The Ugaritic account has gaps , making it unclear whether some phrases describe him or other monsters at Yammu's disposal such as Tunannu (the biblical Tannin ). Most scholars agree on describing Lôtān as "the fugitive serpent" ( bṯn brḥ ) but he may or may not be "the wriggling serpent" ( bṯn ʿqltn ) or "the mighty one with seven heads" ( šlyṭ d.šbʿt rašm ). His role seems to have been prefigured by

2945-776: The Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin , the Louvre , the Istanbul Archaeology Museums , the National Museum of Iraq , the Yale Babylonian Collection (approx. 40,000), and Penn Museum . Most of these have "lain in these collections for a century without being translated, studied or published", as there are only a few hundred qualified cuneiformists in the world. The decipherment of cuneiform began with

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3040-531: The Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are: Except for the Winkelhaken , which has no tail, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition. Signs tilted by about 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one. If a sign is modified with additional wedges, this

3135-510: The crocodile . The word later came to be used as a term for great whale and for sea monsters in general. Gesenius (among others) argued the name לִוְיָתָן was derived from the root לוה lwh "to twine; to join", with an adjectival suffix ן- , for a literal meaning of "wreathed, twisted in folds". If it exists, the adjectival suffix ן- (as opposed to -ון) is otherwise unattested except perhaps in Nehushtan , whose etymology

3230-400: The pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch . The Leviathan is often an embodiment of chaos, threatening to eat the damned when their lives are over. In the end, it is annihilated. Christian theologians identified Leviathan with the demon of the deadly sin envy . According to Ophite diagrams , the Leviathan encapsulates the space of the material world. In Gnosis , it encompasses the world like

3325-401: The 23rd century BC ( short chronology ). The Akkadian language being East Semitic , its structure was completely different from Sumerian. The Akkadians found a practical solution in writing their language phonetically, using the corresponding Sumerian phonetic signs. Still, many of the Sumerian characters were retained for their logographic value as well: for example the character for "sheep"

3420-408: The 24th century BC onward and make up the bulk of the cuneiform record. Akkadian cuneiform was itself adapted to write the Hittite language in the early second millennium BC . The other languages with significant cuneiform corpora are Eblaite , Elamite , Hurrian , Luwian , and Urartian . The Old Persian and Ugaritic alphabets feature cuneiform-style signs; however, they are unrelated to

3515-454: The 3rd millennium Sumerian script. Ugaritic was written using the Ugaritic alphabet , a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad ) written using the cuneiform method. Between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000 –100,000 have been read or published. The British Museum holds the largest collection (approx. 130,000 tablets), followed by

3610-480: The Akkadian period, at the time of the Uruk ruler Lugalzagesi (r. c. 2294–2270 BC). The vertical style remained for monumental purposes on stone stelas until the middle of the 2nd millennium. Written Sumerian was used as a scribal language until the first century AD. The spoken language died out between about 2100 and 1700 BC. The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadian Empire from

3705-619: The Bible suggests in a footnote to Job 41:1 that Leviathan may be a name for the crocodile , and in a footnote to Job 40:15, that Behemoth may be a name for the hippopotamus . Anton LaVey in The Satanic Bible (1969) has Leviathan representing the element of Water and the direction of west, listing it as one of the Four Crown Princes of Hell . This association was inspired by the demonic hierarchy from The Book of

3800-471: The Book of Job, the leviathan is translated as sea-monster ( κῆτος , ketos ). In the following chapter, a seven-headed beast , described with the same features as the dragon before, rises from the waters endowing a Beast of the Earth with power. Dividing the beasts into monster of water and one of dry earth is probably a recalling of the monstrous pair Leviathan and Behemoth. In accordance with Isaiah 27:1 ,

3895-504: The Leviathan has a mate. The Zohar also associates the metaphor of the leviathan with the "tzaddik" or righteous in Zohar 2:11b and 3:58a. The Zohar associates it with the "briach" the pole in the middle of the boards of the tabernacle in Zohar 2:20a. Both, are associated with the Sefira of Yesod. According to Abraham Isaac Kook , the Leviathan – a singular creature with no mate, "its tail

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3990-409: The Leviathan is basically connoted negatively in this Gnostic cosmology, if they identified him with the serpent of the Book of Genesis, he was probably indeed considered evil and just its advice was good. According to the cosmology of this Gnostic sect, the world is encapsulated by the Leviathan, in form of a dragon-shaped archon, biting its own tail ( ouroboros ). Generating the intrinsic evil in

4085-399: The Leviathan is killed by the sons of the fallen angel Shemyaza . This act is not portrayed as heroic, but as foolish, symbolizing the greatest triumphs as transient, since both are killed by archangels in turn after boasting about their victory. This reflects Manichaean criticism on royal power and advocates asceticism . The word Leviathan has come to refer to any sea monster , and from

4180-399: The Leviathan will be spread onto the walls of Jerusalem, thereby illuminating the world with its brightness. The festival of Sukkot (Festival of Booths) therefore concludes with a prayer recited upon leaving the sukkah (booth): The enormous size of the Leviathan is described by Johanan bar Nappaha , from whom proceeded nearly all the aggadot concerning this monster: When the Leviathan

4275-409: The Leviathan, which eats one whale each day. The body of the Leviathan, especially his eyes, possesses great illuminating power. This was the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer, who, in the course of a voyage in company with Rabbi Joshua, explained to the latter, when frightened by the sudden appearance of a brilliant light, that it probably proceeded from the eyes of the Leviathan. He referred his companion to

4370-548: The Old Persian text. Because Elamite is unlike its neighboring Semitic languages , the script's decipherment was delayed until the 1840s. Elamite cuneiform appears to have used far fewer signs than its Akkadian prototype and initially relied primarily on syllabograms, but logograms became more common in later texts. Many signs soon acquired highly distinctive local shape variants that are often difficult to recognise as related to their Akkadian prototypes. Hittite cuneiform

4465-631: The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage . The Church of Satan uses the Hebrew letters at each of the points of the Sigil of Baphomet to represent Leviathan. Starting from the lowest point of the pentagram, and reading counter-clockwise, the word reads "לויתן": (Nun, Tav, Yod, Vav, Lamed) Hebrew for "Leviathan". The Church Father Origen accused a Gnostic sect of venerating the biblical serpent of

4560-471: The Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion. The first inscribed tablets were purely pictographic, which makes it technically difficult to know in which language they were written. Different languages have been proposed, though usually Sumerian is assumed. Later tablets dating after c.  2900 BC start to use syllabic elements, which clearly show

4655-523: The Sumerians was not intuitive to Semitic speakers. From the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (20th century BC), the script evolved to accommodate the various dialects of Akkadian: Old Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian. At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and

4750-414: The beginning, similar-sounding words such as "life" [til] and "arrow" [ti] were written with the same symbol (𒋾). As a result, many signs gradually changed from being logograms to also functioning as syllabograms , so that for example, the sign for the word "arrow" would become the sign for the sound "ti". Syllabograms were used in Sumerian writing especially to express grammatical elements, and their use

4845-471: The blood of Labbu flowed [...]. Extant in two very fragmentary copies; an Old Babylonian one and a later Assyrian from the Library of Ashurbanipal , which have no complete surviving lines – the Labbu Myth relates the tale of a possibly leonine but certainly serpentine monster: a fifty-league long Bašmu ( ba-aš-ma ) or sixty-league long Mušḫuššu ( MUŠ-ḪUŠ ), depending on the version and reconstruction of

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4940-431: The compound IGI.A (𒅆𒀀) – "eye" + "water" – has the reading imhur , meaning "foam"). Several symbols had too many meanings to permit clarity. Therefore, symbols were put together to indicate both the sound and the meaning of a symbol. For instance, the word 'raven' (UGA) had the same logogram (𒉀) as the word 'soap' (NAGA), the name of a city (EREŠ), and the patron goddess of Eresh (NISABA). To disambiguate and identify

5035-665: The creatures of God live at His bidding." Peter Binsfeld classified Leviathan as the demon of envy, as one of the seven Princes of Hell corresponding to the seven deadly sins. Leviathan became associated with, and may originally have been referred to by, the visual motif of the Hellmouth , a monstrous animal into whose mouth the damned disappear at the Last Judgment , found in Anglo-Saxon art from about 800, and later all over Europe. The Revised Standard Version of

5130-447: The cuneiform logo-syllabary proper. The latest known cuneiform tablet dates to 75 AD. Cuneiform was rediscovered in modern times in the early 17th century with the publication of the trilingual Achaemenid royal inscriptions at Persepolis ; these were first deciphered in the early 19th century. The modern study of cuneiform belongs to the ambiguously named field of Assyriology , as the earliest excavations of cuneiform libraries – in

5225-514: The decipherment of Old Persian cuneiform in 1836. The first cuneiform inscriptions published in modern times were copied from the Achaemenid royal inscriptions in the ruins of Persepolis , with the first complete and accurate copy being published in 1778 by Carsten Niebuhr . Niebuhr's publication was used by Grotefend in 1802 to make the first breakthrough – the realization that Niebuhr had published three different languages side by side and

5320-549: The development of Egyptian hieroglyphs, with the suggestion the former influenced the latter. But given the lack of direct evidence for the transfer of writing, "no definitive determination has been made as to the origin of hieroglyphics in ancient Egypt". Others have held that "the evidence for such direct influence remains flimsy" and that "a very credible argument can also be made for the independent development of writing in Egypt..." Early cuneiform inscriptions were made by using

5415-449: The dragon will be slain by God on the last day and cast into the abyss. The annihilation of the chaos-monster results in a new world of peace, without any trace of evil. Jerome comments on Psalm 104:26 that "this is the dragon that was cast out of Paradise, that beguiled Eve, and is permitted in this world to make sport of us. How many monks and clerics has it dashed headlong! "They all look to you to give them food in due time," for all

5510-454: The earlier serpent Têmtum whose death at the hands of Hadad is depicted in Syrian seals of the 18th–16th century BC. Sea serpents feature prominently in the mythology of the ancient Near East . They are attested by the 3rd millennium BC in Sumerian iconography depicting the god Ninurta overcoming a seven-headed serpent . It was common for Near Eastern religions to include

5605-687: The early 17th century has also been used to refer to overwhelmingly powerful people or things, comparable to Behemoth, also a biblical term as noted by Hobbes' book (1651) . As a term for sea monster, it has also been used of great whales in particular, e.g. in Herman Melville 's Moby-Dick - Although in the first Hebrew translation of the novel, translator Elyahu Burtinker chose to translate "Whale" to " Tanin " (intending to refer to another sea monster although in Modern Hebrew usage Tanin more commonly translates to "crocodile"), and leave

5700-446: The early Achaemenid rulers from the 6th century BC down to the 4th century BC. Because of its simplicity and logical structure, the Old Persian cuneiform script was the first to be deciphered by modern scholars, starting with the accomplishments of Georg Friedrich Grotefend in 1802. Various ancient bilingual or trilingual inscriptions then permitted to decipher the other, much more complicated and more ancient scripts, as far back as to

5795-543: The entire universe, the Leviathan separates the lower world , governed by the Archons , from the realm of God . After death, a soul must pass through the seven spheres of the heavens . If the soul does not succeed, it will be swallowed by the Leviathan, who holds the world captive and returns the soul into an animal body. In Mandaeism , Leviathan is regarded as being coessential with a demon called Ur . In Manichaeism , an ancient religion influenced by Gnostic ideas,

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5890-561: The god Baal Hadad . Parallels to the role of Mesopotamian Tiamat defeated by Marduk have long been drawn in comparative mythology , as have been wider comparisons to dragon and world serpent narratives, such as Indra slaying Vrtra or Thor slaying Jörmungandr . Leviathan also figures in the Hebrew Bible as a metaphor for a powerful enemy, notably Babylon ( Isaiah 27:1). Some 19th-century scholars pragmatically interpreted it as referring to large aquatic creatures, such as

5985-413: The influence of the latter", and that it is "probable that the general idea of expressing words of a language in writing was brought to Egypt from Sumerian Mesopotamia". There are many instances of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations at the time of the invention of writing, and standard reconstructions of the development of writing generally place the development of the Sumerian proto-cuneiform script before

6080-448: The lands [...] The people decreased in number [...] To their lamentation [... did] no[t ...] On their cry, he has no [pity]. 'Who [created] the serpent (MUŠ)?' 'Sea [created] the serpent, Enlil in heaven designed [his shape]: His length is 50 bēru (-measure), [his width] one bēru, Half a nindanu (-measure) his mouth, one ninandu [his ...], One nindanu the span of [his] e[ars]. For five nindanu he [...] birds, In

6175-407: The ligature KAxGUR 7 consists of 31 strokes. Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary , together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears

6270-443: The meaning and the other the pronunciation (e.g. 𒅗 ka 'mouth' was combined with the sign 𒉣 nun 'prince' to express the word 𒅻 nundum , meaning 'lip', formally KA×NUN; cf. Chinese phono-semantic compounds ). Another way of expressing words that had no sign of their own was by so-called 'Diri compounds' – sign sequences that have, in combination, a reading different from the sum of the individual constituent signs (for example,

6365-567: The mid-19th century – were in the area of ancient Assyria . An estimated half a million tablets are held in museums across the world, but comparatively few of these are published . The largest collections belong to the British Museum ( approx. 130,000 tablets), the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin , the Louvre , the Istanbul Archaeology Museums , the National Museum of Iraq , the Yale Babylonian Collection ( approx. 40,000 tablets), and Penn Museum . Writing began after pottery

6460-510: The nation, sanctioned by the decision of a divine council." Rahab is one of the various names for the primordial "chaos dragons" mentioned in the Bible (cf. Leviathan , Tiamat / Tehom , and Tannin ). As Cuneiform is a complex syllabary , with some signs functioning as logograms , some signs representing multiple phonetic values , and some representing sumerograms , multiple readings are possible. The first syllable of Rahab, written with

6555-468: The near eastern token system used for accounting. The meaning and usage of these tokens is still a matter of debate. These tokens were in use from the 9th millennium BC and remained in occasional use even late in the 2nd millennium BC. Early tokens with pictographic shapes of animals, associated with numbers, were discovered in Tell Brak , and date to the mid-4th millennium BC. It has been suggested that

6650-522: The offspring of the River (nāri), (But) I do not know Labbu's [countenance]. [...] He opened his mouth and [spoke] to [...]: 'Make the clouds (and) the terrible storm arise [...] [Hold] in front of you the seal (of) your neck, Shoot (it) and ki[ll] Labbu!' (Then) he made the clouds (and) the terrible storm [...] The seal (of) his neck (he held) in front of him, He shot (it) and [killed] Labbu. For three years, three months, day and ni[ght]

6745-477: The ones that ultimately led to its decipherment are the ones found in the trilingual Behistun inscriptions , commissioned by the Achaemenid kings. The inscriptions, similar to that of the Rosetta Stone 's, were written in three different writing systems. The first was Old Persian , which was deciphered in 1802 by Georg Friedrich Grotefend . The second, Babylonian cuneiform, was deciphered shortly after

6840-589: The powerful enemies of Israel may reflect the influence of the Mesopotamian and Canaanite legends or the contest in Egyptian mythology between the Apep snake and the sun god Ra . Alternatively, the removal of such competition may have reflected an attempt to naturalize Leviathan in a process that demoted it from deity to demon to monster. Later Jewish sources describe Leviathan as a dragon who lives over

6935-512: The recognition of the word "king". Leviathan The Leviathan ( / l ɪ ˈ v aɪ . ə θ ən / liv- EYE -ə-thən ; Hebrew : לִוְיָתָן , romanized :  Līvyāṯān ; Greek : Λεβιάθαν ) is a sea serpent demon noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible , including Psalms , the Book of Job , the Book of Isaiah , and

7030-449: The relative position of the stylus to the tablet, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. For numbers, a round-tipped stylus was initially used, until the wedge-tipped stylus was generalized. The direction of writing was from top-to-bottom and right-to-left. Cuneiform clay tablets could be fired in kilns to bake them hard, and so provide a permanent record, or they could be left moist and recycled if permanence

7125-519: The sign KAL , might also be read as /reb/. Thus, Labbu could have also been called Rebbu (<* reb-bu ), highly resembling the Hebrew monster mentioned in the BIble. Cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo - syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East . The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of

7220-571: The sources of the Deep and who, along with the male land-monster Behemoth , will be served up to the righteous at the end of time. The Book of Enoch (60:7–9) describes Leviathan as a female monster dwelling in the watery abyss (as Tiamat ), while Behemoth is a male monster living in the desert of Dunaydin ("east of Eden"). When the Jewish midrash (explanations of the Tanakh) were being composed, it

7315-415: The syllable [ɡu] had fourteen different symbols. The inventory of signs was expanded by the combination of existing signs into compound signs. They could either derive their meaning from a combination of the meanings of both original signs (e.g. 𒅗 ka 'mouth' and 𒀀 a 'water' were combined to form the sign for 𒅘 nag̃ 'drink', formally KA×A; cf. Chinese compound ideographs ), or one sign could suggest

7410-465: The text. The opening of the Old Babylonian version recalls that of The Epic of Gilgamesh : The cities sigh, the people... The people decreased in number,... For their lamentation there was none to... The vast dimensions of Labbu are described. The sea ( tāmtu ) has given birth to the dragon (line 6). The fragmentary line: "He raises his tail..." identifies him according to Neil Forsyth as

7505-476: The third century AD. The complexity of cuneiforms prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian cuneiform was developed with an independent and unrelated set of simple cuneiform characters, by Darius the Great in the 5th century BC. Most scholars consider this writing system to be an independent invention because it has no obvious connections with other writing systems at

7600-432: The time, such as Elamite , Akkadian, Hurrian , and Hittite cuneiforms. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" ( 𐏎 ), "king" ( 𐏋 ) or "country" ( 𐏌 ). This almost purely alphabetical form of the cuneiform script (36 phonetic characters and 8 logograms), was specially designed and used by

7695-669: The token shapes were the original basis for some of the Sumerian pictographs. Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries BC. The first unequivocal written documents start with the Uruk IV period, from circa 3,300 BC, followed by tablets found in Uruk III, Jemdet Nasr , Early Dynastic I Ur and Susa (in Proto-Elamite ) dating to the period until circa 2,900 BC. Originally, pictographs were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with

7790-528: The tradition: the ... sea monsters : The great fish in the sea, and in the words of the Aggadah (B.B. 74b), this refers to the Leviathan and its mate, for He created them male and female, and He slew the female and salted her away for the righteous in the future, for if they would propagate, the world could not exist because of them. הַתַּנִינִם is written. In the Talmud Baba Bathra 75 it

7885-601: The two languages are related, their writing systems seem to have been developed separately. For Hurrian, there were even different systems in different polities (in Mitanni , in Mari , in the Hittite Empire). The Hurrian orthographies were generally characterised by more extensive use of syllabograms and more limited use of logograms than Akkadian. Urartian, in comparison, retained a more significant role for logograms. In

7980-433: The victor, who may or may not be Tišpak or Nergal, in accordance with the advice given, fires an arrow to slay the beast. The fragments of the epic are not part of a cosmogony as noted by Forsyth; since the cities of men are already in existence when the narrative takes place. Frans Wiggerman interpreted the myth's function as a way of justifying Tishpak's ascension to status of king, "as a consequence of his 'liberation' of

8075-461: The water, nine amma (-measure deep) he drags [...] He raises his tail [...]'. All the gods of heaven [were afraid] In heaven, the gods bowed down before [...] And the moon's [face] was darkened at its edges. 'Who will go and [kill] Labb[u]? (Who) will sa[ve ...] the broad land And exercis[e] kingship [...]?' 'Go, Tišpak, k[ill] Labbu! Save the broad land [...]! And exercise kingship [...]!' You have sent me, O lord, [to kill]

8170-529: The waters of Chaos. A "dragon" ( drakon ), being the usual translation for the leviathan in the Septuagint , appears in the Book of Revelation . Although the Old Testament nowhere identifies the leviathan with the devil, the seven-headed dragon in the Book of Revelation is. By this the battle between God and the primordial chaos monsters shifts to a battle between God and the devil. Only once, in

8265-565: The word more precisely, two phonetic complements were added – Ú (𒌑) for the syllable [u] in front of the symbol and GA (𒂵) for the syllable [ga] behind. Finally, the symbol for 'bird', MUŠEN (𒄷) was added to ensure proper interpretation. As a result, the whole word could be spelt 𒌑𒉀𒂵𒄷, i.e. Ú.NAGA.GA (among the many variant spellings that the word could have). For unknown reasons, cuneiform pictographs, until then written vertically, were rotated 90° counterclockwise, in effect putting them on their side. This change first occurred slightly before

8360-423: The words of Job 41:18: However, in spite of his supernatural strength, the leviathan is afraid of a small worm called "kilbit", which clings to the gills of large fish and kills them. In the eleventh-century piyyut (religious poem), Akdamut , recited on Shavuot (Pentecost), it is envisioned that, ultimately, God will slaughter the Leviathan, which is described as having "mighty fins" (and, therefore,

8455-561: Was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings, also known as Akkadograms, was added to the script, in addition to the Sumerian logograms, or Sumerograms, which were already inherent in the Akkadian writing system and which Hittite also kept. Thus the pronunciations of many Hittite words which were conventionally written by logograms are now unknown. The Hurrian language (attested 2300–1000 BC) and Urartian language (attested 9th–6th century BC) were also written in adapted versions of Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform. Although

8550-406: Was further developed and modified in the writing of the Akkadian language to express its sounds. Often, words that had a similar meaning but very different sounds were written with the same symbol. For instance the Sumerian words 'tooth' [zu], 'mouth' [ka] and 'voice' [gu] were all written with the original pictogram for mouth (𒅗). Words that sounded alike would have different signs; for instance,

8645-572: Was held that God originally produced a male and a female leviathan, but lest in multiplying the species should destroy the world, he slew the female, reserving her flesh for the banquet that will be given to the righteous on the advent of the Messiah . A similar description appears in Book of Enoch (60:24), which describes how the Behemoth and Leviathan will be prepared as part of an eschatological meal. Rashi 's commentary on Genesis 1:21 repeats

8740-452: Was in use for more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 31st century BC down to the second century AD. The latest firmly dateable tablet, from Uruk, dates to 79/80 AD. Ultimately, it was completely replaced by alphabetic writing , in the general sense, in the course of the Roman era , and there are no cuneiform systems in current use. It had to be deciphered as

8835-483: Was invented, during the Neolithic , when clay tokens were used to record specific amounts of livestock or commodities. In recent years a contrarian view has arisen on the tokens being the precursor of writing. These tokens were initially impressed on the surface of round clay envelopes ( clay bullae ) and then stored in them. The tokens were then progressively replaced by flat tablets, on which signs were recorded with

8930-451: Was not needed. Most surviving cuneiform tablets were of the latter kind, accidentally preserved when fires destroyed the tablets' storage place and effectively baked them, unintentionally ensuring their longevity. The script was widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honor the monument had been erected. The spoken language included many homophones and near-homophones, and in

9025-406: Was retained, but was now pronounced immerum , rather than the Sumerian udu . Such retained individual signs or, sometimes, entire sign combinations with logographic value are known as Sumerograms , a type of heterogram . The East Semitic languages employed equivalents for many signs that were distorted or abbreviated to represent new values because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by

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