Tiamat Tattoo Meaning
Creation from chaos, the primordial mother, and heaven and earth made from her body.
Tiamat is the primordial ocean from whose body the world was made — the salt-water chaos that existed before all things, the mother of the gods, slain in the great cosmic battle so that heaven and earth could be fashioned from her vast form. To carry Tiamat is to carry creation from chaos, the primordial mother, and heaven and earth made from her body — the salt-sea chaos that came before creation, the original from which all emerged, the primordial mother transformed into the world itself.
In Babylonian myth, Tiamat is the vast primordial chaos at the origin of all things: Tiamat is the salt water ocean, the primordial chaos from which all creation emerged — she is not evil but original, not destroyed but transformed into the world itself. In the Babylonian creation epic, the Enuma Elish, in the beginning there were only the primordial waters: Tiamat, the salt sea, and Apsu, the fresh water, mingling together — and from them the first gods were born. Tiamat is thus the primordial mother, the original chaos-ocean from which the gods and all things came.
But the younger gods came into conflict with the primordial powers, and Tiamat, roused to war, became a terrible adversary, bringing forth an army of monsters. The young god Marduk did battle with her, slew the great chaos-ocean, and then — and this is the crucial act — from her vast body he fashioned the world: splitting her in two, he made the dome of the heavens from one half and the earth from the other, and from her waters made the rivers, and so on. Tiamat was not merely destroyed but transformed into the very fabric of the world. The Babylonian Tiamat is thus the primordial ocean of chaos — the salt-sea mother from whose slain body Marduk fashioned heaven and earth. Tiamat is the primordial salt-water chaos and mother of the gods, slain by Marduk who made heaven and earth from her body. The Babylonian Tiamat is the primordial ocean of chaos — Tiamat is the salt water ocean, the primordial chaos from which all creation emerged, not evil but original, not destroyed but transformed into the world itself; in the Enuma Elish, in the beginning only the primordial waters (Tiamat the salt sea and Apsu the fresh water, mingling) from which the first gods were born, Tiamat the primordial mother, the original chaos-ocean from which the gods and all things came — but the younger gods coming into conflict with the primordial powers, and Tiamat, roused to war, becoming a terrible adversary who brought forth an army of monsters, until the young god Marduk did battle with her, slew the great chaos-ocean, and from her vast body fashioned the world (splitting her in two to make the dome of heaven from one half and the earth from the other, the rivers from her waters), Tiamat not merely destroyed but transformed into the very fabric of the world.
Tiamat is the Babylonian goddess of the primordial salt ocean — the chaos mother from whose body the god Marduk created heaven and earth after killing her in the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation epic. She is depicted as a colossal dragon, the original chaos from which all order was made. The word tehom (the deep) in Genesis 1:2 — 'darkness was upon the face of the deep' — is linguistically related to Tiamat. In tattoo symbolism, Tiamat represents the primal chaos that is also the source of all creation — the formless that becomes the foundation of everything, the destruction that was always also the making.
Tiamat across cultures
The Tattoo Concept Builder walks you from feeling to symbol to a concept you can take to your artist — built from your story, not a Pinterest board.
Build your concept →