As far as our knowledge goes, the doctrines incorporated in this legend would seem to show the final official development of the beliefs held by the Babylonians, due, in all probability, to the priests of Babylon after that city became the capital of the federated states. Modifications of their creed probably took place, but nothing seriously affecting it, until after the abandonment of Babylon in the time of Seleucus Nicator, 300 B.C. or thereabouts, when the deity at the head of the pantheon seems not to have been Merodach, but Anu-Bêl. This legend is therefore the most important document bearing upon the beliefs of the Babylonians from the end of the third millennium B.C. until that time, and the philosophical ideas which it contains seem to have been held, in a more or less modified form, among the remnants who still retained the old Babylonian faith, until the sixth century of the present era, as the record by Damascius implies. Properly speaking, it is not a record of the creation, but the story of the fight between Bel and the Dragon, to which the account of the creation is prefixed by way of introduction. Water the first creator. The legend begins by stating that, when the heavens were unnamed and the earth bore no name, the primæval ocean was the producer of all things, and Mummu Tiawath (the sea) she who brought forth everything existing. Their waters (that is, of the primæval ocean and of the sea) were all united in one, and neither plains nor marshes were to be seen; the gods likewise did not exist, even in name, and the fates were undetermined--nothing had been decided as to the future of things. Then arose the great gods. Lahmu and Lahame came first, followed, after a long period, by Anšar and Kišar, generally identified with the "host of heaven" and the "host of earth," these being the meanings of the component parts of their names. After a further long period of days, there came forth their son Anu, the god of the heavens. The gods. Here the narrative is defective, and is continued by Damascius in his /Doubts and Solutions of the First Principles/, in which he states that, after Anos (Anu), come Illinos (Ellila or Bel, "the lord" /par excellence/) and Aos (Aa, Ae, or Êa), the god of Eridu. Of Aos and Dauké (the Babylonian Aa and Damkina) is born, he says, a son called Belos (Bel-Merodach), who, they (apparently the Babylonians) say, is the fabricator of the world--the creator. The designs against them.