The Tablet of Destinies & the Fixing of Fates
Whoever holds the tablet on which fates are written holds the cosmos itself.
Also: Tablet of Destinies · tup shimati · fixing of fates · shimtu · destiny · decree of fate
The gods are imagined as decreeing 'destinies' — the allotted fate (Akkadian shimtu) of each person, city, and thing. This power is concentrated in a mythic 'Tablet of Destinies,' possession of which makes its holder supreme. In the Anzu epic the bird steals it from Enlil and must be defeated to restore order; in Enuma Elish Marduk seizes it. Fate here is not blind: it is a decree, written and sealed, that can in principle be appealed, reaffirmed at the New Year, or altered by the gods who issued it.
In short
The mythic tablet that confers cosmic supremacy on whoever holds it, emblem of the gods' power to decree the fates (šīmtu) of gods, kings, and the world.
Where it’s found
The Anzû epic (akkadian-pending; Foster); Enūma Eliš IV–V (akkadian-pending); the assembly's decreeing of fates, Sumerian corpus (in corpus)
How the idea developed across Sumer, Babylon & Assyria
The motif spans the Sumerian decreeing of fates by the assembly and the Akkadian Anzû and Enuma Elish, where the Tablet's possession is the literal token of kingship over the gods. The annual 'fixing of destinies' at the akītu festival ritualizes the idea.