Lotan

Lotan is Leviathan, a few centuries earlier and in a different language. He has seven heads, he belongs to Yam, and he is called the fugitive serpent and the coiled one — the same epithets, nearly word for word, that Isaiah uses of Leviathan when Yahweh kills him. The registry held the Hebrew serpent and not the Ugaritic one, which is the wrong way round: this is the text the other one is quoting. Whether Baal or Anat lands the blow depends on which passage you read, and the record says so.

Domains

• chaos

Relations

• subordinate to: YamYam's creature: the sea's own monster, which is why killing him and beating Yam are the same victory told twice.Reference treatment of Lotan as a servant of the sea god Yam. (secondary)
• enemy: BaalKilled by Baal. The reciprocal edge is added to Baal's own record in this pass, since `enemy` is symmetric and the registry would otherwise carry the fight from one side only.Reference treatment of Lotan's defeat by Baal in the Baal Cycle. (secondary)
• counterpart of: LeviathanThe registry already held Leviathan under Yahwism. Lotan is the older text's version of the same serpent, and the Hebrew descriptions track the Ugaritic closely enough that the relationship is a quotation rather than a resemblance.Reference treatment noting that the Hebrew Leviathan is described in words that shadow the Ugaritic Lotan almost syllable for syllable, and that the Baal Cycle's description is paralleled in the Apocalypse of Isaiah. (secondary)

Sources

• Lotan is the seven-headed Ugaritic sea serpent, a servant of Yam defeated by Baal, whose name means 'coiled' and who is the direct antecedent of the Hebrew Leviathan.: The Baal Cycle. (primary); Reference treatments of Lotan, his epithets, his defeat and his relation to Leviathan. (secondary)