Iraq and Syria
In the religion of ancient Babylon, Tiamat was a primordial goddess of the salt sea, who mated with Abzû, the god of fresh water, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation, and some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon. In one version, Tiamat is a creator goddess who, through a sacred marriage between salt and fresh water, peacefully created the cosmos through successive generations. In another version, Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. In the Babylonian epic of creation, the Enûma Elish, Tiamat gave birth to the first generation of gods; her husband, Apsu, correctly assuming they planned to kill him and usurp his throne, later made war upon them and was killed. Enraged, Tiamat atook vengeance upon her husband’s murderers, taking the form of a massive sea dragon. She was slain by the storm-god Marduk, but not before she had brought forth the monsters of the Mesopotamian pantheon, including the first dragons, whose bodies she filled with “poison instead of blood”. Marduk then formed the heavens and the Earth from Tiamat’s divided body.