Mesopotamian

Tap or drag

Mesopotamian

Kingu

The General of Chaos

Domain: War, Chaos & Sacrifice
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Element: Darkness
Relics of Power: Tablets of Destiny

Speak with Kingu

The full Codex

5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.

See PRO Get the app

The People

People

Sumerians, Akkadians & Babylonians

Region

Mesopotamia (modern Iraq)

Period

c. 3500 – 500 BC

The Mesopotamian gods were worshipped by the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians in the land between the Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of writing and cities. Each city raised a ziggurat to its patron god, served by a powerful priestly caste. Their myths, such as the Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh, are among the oldest in the world.

The Akitu festival opened the new year with processions along Babylon's Sacred Way, and the sacred marriage rite symbolically united Inanna and Dumuzi to ensure fertility. Lamentations, hymns, and divination by animal livers marked daily religious life.

At a glance

Kingu (Akkadian Qingu) is the god whom, in the Enuma Elish, Tiamat exalts among the gods she calls her sons, makes her spouse and places at the head of the army of eleven monsters she has borne. She gives him the Tablet of Destinies, fastened to his breast. Marduk defeats him, counts him among the "Dead Gods" and takes the tablet from him. In Tablet VI the gods name him as the instigator of the war, and it is with his blood that Ea creates mankind to bear the gods' labor. What we know comes almost entirely from the poem and from late ritual commentaries; no myth, temple or cult of Kingu's own is attested in the sources I consulted.

11 min read · Reviewed on October 14, 2026 · How we research

Sacred symbols

The Tablets of Destiny, the army of monsters, the blood and the war

Family

Parents

Tiamat

Kingu

Unions

Tiamat

Children

Seven sons (KAR 307) or forty sons (LKA 73), in late ritual commentaries cited by Lambert

Genealogy according to Enuma Elish I 147-162, IV 66-68 e 119-122, V 69-70, VI 23-34, VII 103-108; comentários rituais KAR 307 e LKA 73 (Lambert)

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

Anonymous, Enuma Elish (translation by Alexander Heidel). translation: Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 2nd ed., University of Chicago Press, 1951. read
Anonymous, Enuma Elish (translation and critical edition by W. G. Lambert). translation: W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths, Eisenbrauns, 2013. read
Anonymous, Enuma Elish (translation by L. W. King). translation: L. W. King, The Seven Tablets of Creation, vol. I, Luzac, 1902. read

Studies

W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Creation Myths (section on Qingu and commentary on VII 103-108). 2013. open
Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis: The Story of the Creation (introduction and notes). 1951. open
L. W. King, The Seven Tablets of Creation, vol. I (Introduction). 1902. open

Name and epithets

According to W. G. Lambert, the name is of Sumerian origin, because q and g do not occur together in an Akkadian root; the -ng- would represent the Sumerian phoneme /ŋ/.

In the ancient sources

Enuma Elish, composition uncertain; Lambert proposes c. 1100 BCE. Tiamat exalts Kingu, gives him command of the army and the Tablet of Destinies; the passage is repeated by Ea in Tablet II and by messengers in Tablet II…

The myths

Tiamat's exaltation of Kingu. In Tablet I, Tiamat prepares war against the young gods after Apsu's death. The poem lists the monsters she brings forth: the Hydra, the Dragon, the Hairy Hero, the Great Demon, the Savage…

Worship and archaeology

In the open sources I consulted there is no temple, offering or festival devoted to Kingu. What exists is his use in the rituals of other gods.

How the god was depicted

In the sources I opened (King 1902, Heidel 1951, Lambert 2013) I found no image identified with Kingu. King uses sculpture and cylinder seals as an argument about Tiamat's appearance, not Kingu's, and states that the po…

What scholars debate

Whose blood: Marduk's or Kingu's. King (1902) translated the then-known fragment of Tablet VI as "My blood will I take", with Marduk declaring that he would use his own blood, and compared the passage with Berossus, acc…

After antiquity

The ancient reception that the open sources allow us to document is of three kinds. The poem was recited in Babylon and perhaps dramatized, according to Heidel.

Did you know?

Lambert cites a text on bird calls (KAR 125) in which the duck's cry is transcribed as "Qingu, Qingu, assemble"; he uses it as a rare example of Akkadian pronunciation and as confirmation of Kingu's role as leader of a…

Codex relic

Tablets of Destiny. The sacred tablets that conferred supreme authority, fastened to his breast by Tiamat.

The rest of this scroll is sealed

The legends, the myth, the cult and relics are part of the full Codex. You can open 1 full entry for free every day; to open all 500 deities with no limits and no ads, subscribe to Codex PRO.

See Codex PRO Get it on Google Play