Babylonian pantheon came into being, e.g., ANU, EA, who is here called
NUDIMMUD, and others.

[Illustration: Bronze figure of a Babylonian Demon. [No. 93,078.]]

As soon as the gods appeared in the universe "order" came into being.
When APSU, the personification of confusion and disorder of every kind,
saw this "order," he took counsel with his female associate TIAMAT with
the object of finding some means of destroying the "way" (_al-ka-at_) or
"order" of the gods. Fortunately the Babylonians and Assyrians have
supplied us with representations of Tiamat, and these show us what form
ancient tradition assigned to her. She is depicted as a ferocious
monster with wings and scales and terrible claws, and her body is
sometimes that of a huge serpent, and sometimes that of an animal. In
the popular imagination she represented all that was physically
terrifying, and foul, and abominable; she was nevertheless the mother of
everything, [1] and was the possessor of the DUP SHIMATI or "TABLET OF
DESTINIES". No description of this Tablet or its contents is available,
but from its name we may assume that it was a sort of Babylonian Book of
Fate.[2] Theologically, Tiamat represented to the Babylonians the same
state in the development of the universe as did _tohu wa-bhohu_ (Genesis
i. 2), i.e., formlessness and voidness, of primeval matter, to the
Hebrews She is depicted both on bas-reliefs and on cylinder seals in a
form which associates her with LABARTU, [3] a female devil that prowled
about the desert at night suckling wild animals but killing men. And it
is tolerably certain that she was the type, and symbol, and head of the
whole community of fiends, demons and devils.

[Footnote 1: _Muallidat gimrishun_.]