fabricator of the world, the Demiurgus." (See Cory, _Ancient
Fragments_, London, 1832, p. 318.)



THE SEVEN TABLETS OF CREATION. DESCRIPTION OF THEIR CONTENTS.

In the beginning nothing whatever existed except APSU, which may be
described as a boundless, confused and disordered mass of watery matter;
how it came into being is unknown. Out of this mass there were evolved
two orders of beings, namely, demons and gods. The demons had hideous
forms, even as Berosus said, which were part animal, part bird, part
reptile and part human. The gods had wholly human forms, and they
represented the three layers of the comprehensible world, that is to
say, heaven or the sky, the atmosphere, and the underworld. The
atmosphere and the underworld together formed the earth as opposed to
the sky or heaven. The texts say that the first two gods to be created
were LAKHMU and LAKHAMU. Their attributes cannot at present be
described, but they seem to represent two forms of primitive matter.
They appear to have had no existence in popular religion, and it has
been thought that they may be described as theological conceptions
containing the notions of matter and some of its attributes.

[Illustration: Terra-cotta figure of a Babylonian Demon. [No. 22,458.]]

After countless aeons had passed the gods ANSHAR and KISHAR came into
being; the former represents the "hosts of heaven," and the latter the
"hosts of earth."

After another long and indefinite period the independent gods of the