Tablets of Destiny

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Shulgi 18:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Fertile Crescent myth series
Mesopotamia
Levantine myth
Arabian myth
Yazidic religion
Mesopotamian mythology Topics
Gods Anu & 7 who decree fate Ishtar & astrology Tiamat & Tablets of Destiny Annunaki & fiction Marduk & Babylon Heroes Utnapishtim & world-flood Tammuz & new life Gilgamesh & Cedar Forest Enkidu, the man-beast Monsters Zu, the winged lion Qingu, mankind's blood Resheph, plague and war Namtar, deadly illness Related Me, divine decrees Ma, primeval land Irkalla, the underworld Mesopotamian religion The Fertile Crescent

In Mesopotamian mythology, the Tablet of Destinies (not, as frequently misquoted in general works, the 'Tablets of Destiny') was envisaged as a clay tablet inscribed with cuneiform writing, also impressed with cylinder seals, which, as a permanent legal document, conferred upon the god Enlil his supreme authority as ruler of the universe.

In the Sumerian poem 'Ninurta and the Turtle' it is the god Enki, rather than Enlil, who holds the tablet. Both this poem and the Akkadian Anzû poem concern the theft of the tablet by the bird Imdugud (Sumerian) or Anzû (Akkadian) (cf.[1]; J. Black and A. Green, Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary, London: British Museum Press 1992, s.v. "Tablet of Destinies"). Supposedly, whoever possessed the tablets ruled the universe.[2]

The tablet can be compared with the concept of the Me, divine decrees.