Series
Series One: Creation Accounts
How the world begins, told tradition by tradition from each one's own primary sources.
- 1 of 15 entries published
How this series is ordered
In order of each tradition's earliest attestation — the earliest datable evidence that its account existed — with the basis of each date stated (manuscript, inscription, external reference or linguistic estimate). Not in order of the age a tradition claims for itself.
The series
- 01 · Mesopotamian
Mesopotamian Cosmogony: The Enūma eliš and the Sumerian–Akkadian Creation Traditions
How the peoples of ancient Iraq told the beginning of the world, from Sumerian fragments of the third millennium BCE to the Babylonian Epic of Creation.
Mesopotamia (Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian) · c. 2400 BCE (earliest manuscript)
- 02EgyptianIn preparation
- 03VedicIn preparation
- 04Hebrew BibleIn preparation
- 05GreekIn preparation
- 06IranianIn preparation
- 07ChineseIn preparation
- 08HermeticIn preparation
- 09GnosticIn preparation
- 10NeoplatonicIn preparation
- 11Jewish mysticalIn preparation
- 12NorseIn preparation
- 13MayaIn preparation
- 14HawaiianIn preparation
- 15Indigenous North AmericanIn preparation
An entry opens here once it has been written from its primary sources and checked by an independent reviewer. Planned entries are listed so the shape of the series is clear; their order can change as each tradition's evidence is examined.