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LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT

IN RELATION TO HEBREW TRADITION

BY

LEONARD W. KING, M.A., LITT.D., F.S.A.

THE SCHWEICH LECTURES 1916
Lecture I Traditional Origins Of Civilization	Lecture 2 Deluge Stories and the New Sumerian Version	Lecture 3 Creation and the Dragon Myth

LECTURE II

DELUGE STORIES AND THE NEW SUMERIAN VERSION

In the first lecture we saw how, both in Babylonia and Egypt, recent discoveries had thrown light upon periods regarded as prehistoric, and how we had lately recovered traditions concerning very early rulers both in the Nile Valley and along the lower Euphrates. On the strength of the latter discovery we noted the possibility that future excavation in Babylonia would lay bare stages of primitive culture similar to those we have already recovered in Egyptian soil. Meanwhile the documents from Nippur had shown us what the early Sumerians themselves believed about their own origin, and we traced in their tradition the gradual blending of history with legend and myth. We saw that the new Dynastic List took us back in the legendary sequence at least to the beginning of the Post-diluvian period. Now one of the newly published literary texts fills in the gap beyond, for it gives us a Sumerian account of the history of the world from the Creation to the Deluge, at about which point, as we saw, the extant portions of the Dynastic List take up the story. I propose to devote my lecture to-day to this early version of the Flood and to the effect of its discovery upon some current theories.

The Babylonian account of the Deluge, which was discovered by George Smith in 1872 on tablets from the Royal Library at Nineveh, is, as you know, embedded in a long epic of twelve Books recounting the adventures of the Old Babylonian hero Gilgamesh. Towards the end of this composite tale, Gilgamesh, desiring immortality, crosses the Waters of Death in order to beg the secret from his ancestor Ut-napishtim, who in the past had escaped the Deluge and had been granted immortality by the gods. The Eleventh Tablet, or Book, of the epic contains the account of the Deluge which Ut-napishtim related to his kinsman Gilgamesh. The close correspondence of this Babylonian story with that contained in Genesis is recognized by every one and need not detain us. You will remember that in some passages the accounts tally even in minute details, such, for example, as the device of sending out birds to test the abatement of the waters. It is true that in the Babylonian version a dove, a swallow, and a raven are sent forth in that order, instead of a raven and the dove three times. But such slight discrepancies only emphasize the general resemblance of the narratives.

In any comparison it is usually admitted that two accounts have been combined in the Hebrew narrative. I should like to point out that this assumption may be made by any one, whatever his views may be with regard to the textual problems of the Hebrew Bible and the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch. And for our purpose at the moment it is immaterial whether we identify the compiler of these Hebrew narratives with Moses himself, or with some later Jewish historian whose name has not come down to us. Whoever he was, he has scrupulously preserved his two texts and, even when they differ, he has given each as he found it. Thanks to this fact, any one by a careful examination of the narrative can disentangle the two versions for himself. He will find each gives a consistent story. One of them appears to be simpler and more primitive than the other, and I will refer to them as the earlier and the later Hebrew Versions.[1] The Babylonian text in the Epic of Gilgamesh contains several peculiarities of each of the Hebrew versions, though the points of resemblance are more detailed in the earlier of the two.

[1] In the combined account in Gen. vi. 5-ix. 17, if the following passages be marked in the margin or underlined, and then read consecutively, it will be seen that they give a consistent and almost complete account of the Deluge: Gen. vi. 9-22; vii. 6, 11, 13-16 (down to "as God commanded him"), 17 (to "upon the earth"), 18-21, 24; viii. 1, 2 (to "were stopped"), 3 (from "and after")-5, 13 (to "from off the earth"), 14-19; and ix. 1-17. The marked passages represent the "later Hebrew Version." If the remaining passages be then read consecutively, they will be seen to give a different version of the same events, though not so completely preserved as the other; these passages substantially represent the "earlier Hebrew Version". In commentaries on the Hebrew text they are, of course, usually referred to under the convenient symbols J and P, representing respectively the earlier and the later versions. For further details, see any of the modern commentaries on Genesis, e.g. Driver, /Book of Genesis/, pp. 85 ff.; Skinner, /Genesis/, pp. 147 ff.; Ryle, /Genesis/, p. 96 f.

Now the tablets from the Royal Library at Nineveh inscribed with the Gilgamesh Epic do not date from an earlier period than the seventh century B.C. But archaeological evidence has long shown that the traditions themselves were current during all periods of Babylonian history; for Gilgamesh and his half-human friend Enkidu were favourite subjects for the seal-engraver, whether he lived in Sumerian times or under the Achaemenian kings of Persia. We have also, for some years now, possessed two early fragments of the Deluge narrative, proving that the story was known to the Semitic inhabitants of the country at the time of Hammurabi's dynasty.[1] Our newly discovered text from Nippur was also written at about that period, probably before 2100 B.C. But the composition itself, apart from the tablet on which it is inscribed, must go back very much earlier than that. For instead of being composed in Semitic Babylonian, the text is in Sumerian, the language of the earliest known inhabitants of Babylonia, whom the Semites eventually displaced. This people, it is now recognized, were the originators of the Babylonian civilization, and we saw in the first lecture that, according to their own traditions, they had occupied that country since the dawn of history.

[1] The earlier of the two fragments is dated in the eleventh year of Ammizaduga, the tenth king of Hammurabi's dynasty, i.e. in 1967 B.C.; it was published by Scheil, /Recueil de travaux/, Vol. XX, pp. 55 ff. Here the Deluge story does not form part of the Gilgamesh Epic, but is recounted in the second tablet of a different work; its hero bears the name Atrakhasis, as in the variant version of the Deluge from the Nineveh library. The other and smaller fragment, which must be dated by its script, was published by Hilprecht (/Babylonian Expedition/, series D, Vol. V, Fasc. 1, pp. 33 ff.), who assigned it to about the same period; but it is probably of a considerably later date. The most convenient translations of the legends that were known before the publication of the Nippur texts are those given by Rogers, /Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament/ (Oxford, 1912), and Dhorme, /Choix de textes religieux Assyro-Babyloniens/ (Paris, 1907).

The Semites as a ruling race came later, though the occurrence of Semitic names in the Sumerian Dynastic List suggests very early infiltration from Arabia. After a long struggle the immigrants succeeded in dominating the settled race; and in the process they in turn became civilized. They learnt and adopted the cuneiform writing, they took over the Sumerian literature. Towards the close of the third millennium, when our tablet was written, the Sumerians as a race had almost ceased to exist. They had been absorbed in the Semitic population and their language was no longer the general language of the country. But their ancient literature and sacred texts were carefully preserved and continued to be studied by the Semitic priests and scribes. So the fact that the tablet is written in the old Sumerian tongue proves that the story it tells had come down from a very much earlier period. This inference is not affected by certain small differences in idiom which its language presents when compared with that of Sumerian building-inscriptions. Such would naturally occur in the course of transmission, especially in a text which, as we shall see, had been employed for a practical purpose after being subjected to a process of reduction to suit it to its new setting.

When we turn to the text itself, it will be obvious that the story also is very primitive. But before doing so we will inquire whether this very early version is likely to cast any light on the origin of Deluge stories such as are often met with in other parts of the world. Our inquiry will have an interest apart from the question itself, as it will illustrate the views of two divergent schools among students of primitive literature and tradition. According to one of these views, in its most extreme form, the tales which early or primitive man tells about his gods and the origin of the world he sees around him are never to be regarded as simple stories, but are to be consistently interpreted as symbolizing natural phenomena. It is, of course, quite certain that, both in Egypt and Babylonia, mythology in later periods received a strong astrological colouring; and it is equally clear that some legends derive their origin from nature myths. But the theory in the hands of its more enthusiastic adherents goes further than that. For them a complete absence of astrological colouring is no deterrent from an astrological interpretation; and, where such colouring does occur, the possibility of later embellishment is discounted, and it is treated without further proof as the base on which the original story rests. One such interpretation of the Deluge narrative in Babylonia, particularly favoured by recent German writers, would regard it as reflecting the passage of the Sun through a portion of the ecliptic. It is assumed that the primitive Babylonians were aware that in the course of ages the spring equinox must traverse the southern or watery region of the zodiac. This, on their system, signified a submergence of the whole universe in water, and the Deluge myth would symbolize the safe passage of the vernal Sun-god through that part of the ecliptic. But we need not spend time over that view, as its underlying conception is undoubtedly quite a late development of Babylonian astrology.

More attractive is the simpler astrological theory that the voyage of any Deluge hero in his boat or ark represents the daily journey of the Sun-god across the heavenly ocean, a conception which is so often represented in Egyptian sculpture and painting. It used to be assumed by holders of the theory that this idea of the Sun as "the god in the boat" was common among primitive races, and that that would account for the widespread occurrence of Deluge-stories among scattered races of the world. But this view has recently undergone some modification in accordance with the general trend of other lines of research. In recent years there has been an increased readiness among archaeologists to recognize evidence of contact between the great civilizations of antiquity. This has been particularly the case in the area of the Eastern Mediterranean; but the possibility has also been mooted of the early use of land-routes running from the Near East to Central and Southern Asia. The discovery in Chinese Turkestan, to the east of the Caspian, of a prehistoric culture resembling that of Elam has now been followed by the finding of similar remains by Sir Aurel Stein in the course of the journey from which he has lately returned.[1] They were discovered in an old basin of the Helmand River in Persian Seistan, where they had been laid bare by wind-erosion. But more interesting still, and an incentive to further exploration in that region, is another of his discoveries last year, also made near the Afghan border. At two sites in the Helmand Delta, well above the level of inundation, he came across fragments of pottery inscribed in early Aramaic characters,[2] though, for obvious reasons, he has left them with all his other collections in India. This unexpected find, by the way, suggests for our problem possibilities of wide transmission in comparatively early times.

[1] See his "Expedition in Central Asia", in /The Geographical Journal/, Vol. XLVII (Jan.-June, 1916), pp. 358 ff.

[2] Op. cit., p. 363.

The synthetic tendency among archaeologists has been reflected in anthropological research, which has begun to question the separate and independent origin, not only of the more useful arts and crafts, but also of many primitive customs and beliefs. It is suggested that too much stress has been laid on environment; and, though it is readily admitted that similar needs and experiences may in some cases have given rise to similar expedients and explanations, it is urged that man is an imitative animal and that inventive genius is far from common.[1] Consequently the wide dispersion of many beliefs and practices, which used generally to be explained as due to the similar and independent working of the human mind under like conditions, is now often provisionally registered as evidence of migratory movement or of cultural drift. Much good work has recently been done in tabulating the occurrence of many customs and beliefs, in order to ascertain their lines of distribution. Workers are as yet in the collecting stage, and it is hardly necessary to say that explanatory theories are still to be regarded as purely tentative and provisional. At the meetings of the British Association during the last few years, the most breezy discussions in the Anthropological Section have undoubtedly centred around this subject. There are several works in the field, but the most comprehensive theory as yet put forward is one that concerns us, as it has given a new lease of life to the old solar interpretation of the Deluge story.

[1] See, e.g. Marett, /Anthropology/ (2nd ed., 1914), Chap. iv, "Environment," pp. 122 ff.; and for earlier tendencies, particularly in the sphere of mythological exegesis, see S. Reinach, /Cultes, Mythes et Religions/, t. IV (1912), pp. 1 ff.

In a land such as Egypt, where there is little rain and the sky is always clear, the sun in its splendour tended from the earliest period to dominate the national consciousness. As intercourse increased along the Nile Valley, centres of Sun-worship ceased to be merely local, and the political rise of a city determined the fortunes of its cult. From the proto-dynastic period onward, the "King of the two Lands" had borne the title of "Horus" as the lineal descendant of the great Sun- god of Edfu, and the rise of Ra in the Vth Dynasty, through the priesthood of Heliopolis, was confirmed in the solar theology of the Middle Kingdom. Thus it was that other deities assumed a solar character as forms of Ra. Amen, the local god of Thebes, becomes Amen-Ra with the political rise of his city, and even the old Crocodile-god, Sebek, soars into the sky as Sebek-Ra. The only other movement in the religion of ancient Egypt, comparable in importance to this solar development, was the popular cult of Osiris as God of the Dead, and with it the official religion had to come to terms. Horus is reborn as the posthumous son of Osiris, and Ra gladdens his abode during his nightly journey through the Underworld. The theory with which we are concerned suggests that this dominant trait in Egyptian religion passed, with other elements of culture, beyond the bounds of the Nile Valley and influenced the practice and beliefs of distant races.

This suggestion has been gradually elaborated by its author, Professor Elliot Smith, who has devoted much attention to the anatomical study of Egyptian mummification. Beginning with a scrutiny of megalithic building and sun-worship,[1] he has subsequently deduced, from evidence of common distribution, the existence of a culture-complex, including in addition to these two elements the varied practices of tattooing, circumcision, ear-piercing, that quaint custom known as couvade, head-deformation, and the prevalence of serpent-cults, myths of petrifaction and the Deluge, and finally of mummification. The last ingredient was added after an examination of Papuan mummies had disclosed their apparent resemblance in points of detail to Egyptian mummies of the XXIst Dynasty. As a result he assumes the existence of an early cultural movement, for which the descriptive title "heliolithic" has been coined.[2] Starting with Egypt as its centre, one of the principal lines of its advance is said to have lain through Syria and Mesopotamia and thence along the coastlands of Asia to the Far East. The method of distribution and the suggested part played by the Phoenicians have been already criticized sufficiently. But in a modified form the theory has found considerable support, especially among ethnologists interested in Indonesia. I do not propose to examine in detail the evidence for or against it. It will suffice to note that the Deluge story and its alleged Egyptian origin in solar worship form one of the prominent strands in its composition.

[1] Cf. Elliot Smith, /The Ancient Egyptians/, 1911.

[2] See in particular his monograph "On the significance of the Geographical Distribution of the Practice of Mummification" in the /Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society/, 1915.

One weakness of this particular strand is that the Egyptians themselves possessed no tradition of the Deluge. Indeed the annual inundation of the Nile is not such as would give rise to a legend of world-destruction; and in this respect it presents a striking contrast to the Tigris and Euphrates. The ancient Egyptian's conception of his own gentle river is reflected in the form he gave the Nile-god, for Hapi is represented as no fierce warrior or monster. He is given a woman's breasts as a sign of his fecundity. The nearest Egyptian parallel to the Deluge story is the "Legend of the Destruction of Mankind", which is engraved on the walls of a chamber in the tomb of Seti I.[1] The late Sir Gaston Maspero indeed called it "a dry deluge myth", but his paradox was intended to emphasize the difference as much as the parallelism presented. It is true that in the Egyptian myth the Sun-god causes mankind to be slain because of their impiety, and he eventually pardons the survivors. The narrative thus betrays undoubted parallelism to the Babylonian and Hebrew stories, so far as concerns the attempted annihilation of mankind by the offended god, but there the resemblance ends. For water has no part in man's destruction, and the essential element of a Deluge story is thus absent.[2] Our new Sumerian document, on the other hand, contains what is by far the earliest example yet recovered of a genuine Deluge tale; and we may thus use it incidentally to test this theory of Egyptian influence, and also to ascertain whether it furnishes any positive evidence on the origin of Deluge stories in general.

[1] It was first published by Monsieur Naville, /Tranc. Soc. Bibl. Arch./, IV (1874), pp. 1 ff. The myth may be most conveniently studied in Dr. Budge's edition in /Egyptian Literature/, Vol. I, "Legends of the Gods" (1912), pp. 14 ff., where the hieroglyphic text and translation are printed on opposite pages; cf. the summary, op. cit., pp. xxiii ff., where the principal literature is also cited. See also his /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. I, chap. xii, pp. 388 ff.

[2] The undoubted points of resemblance, as well as the equally striking points of divergence, presented by the Egyptian myth when compared with the Babylonian and Hebrew stories of a Deluge may be briefly indicated. The impiety of men in complaining of the age of Ra finds a parallel in the wickedness of man upon the earth (J) and the corruption of all flesh (P) of the Hebrew Versions. The summoning by Ra of the great Heliopolitan cosmic gods in council, including his personified Eye, the primaeval pair Shu and Tefnut, Keb the god of the earth and his consort Nut the sky-goddess, and Nu the primaeval water-god and originally Nut's male counterpart, is paralleled by the /puhur ilâni/, or "assembly of the gods", in the Babylonian Version (see Gilg. Epic. XI. l. 120 f., and cf. ll. 10 ff.); and they meet in "the Great House", or Sun-temple at Heliopolis, as the Babylonian gods deliberate in Shuruppak. Egyptian, Babylonian, and Hebrew narratives all agree in the divine determination to destroy mankind and in man's ultimate survival. But the close of the Egyptian story diverges into another sphere. The slaughter of men by the Eye of Ra in the form of the goddess Hathor, who during the night wades in their blood, is suggestive of Africa; and so too is her drinking of men's blood mixed with the narcotic mandrake and with seven thousand vessels of beer, with the result that through drunkenness she ceased from slaughter. The latter part of the narrative is directly connected with the cult-ritual and beer-drinking at the Festivals of Hathor and Ra; but the destruction of men by slaughter in place of drowning appears to belong to the original myth. Indeed, the only suggestion of a Deluge story is suggested by the presence of Nu, the primaeval water-god, at Ra's council, and that is explicable on other grounds. In any case the points of resemblance presented by the earlier part of the Egyptian myth to Semitic Deluge stories are general, not detailed; and though they may possibly be due to reflection from Asia, they are not such as to suggest an Egyptian origin for Deluge myths.

The tablet on which our new version of the Deluge is inscribed was excavated at Nippur during the third Babylonian expedition sent out by the University of Pennsylvania; but it was not until the summer of 1912 that its contents were identified, when the several fragments of which it was composed were assembled and put together. It is a large document, containing six columns of writing, three on each side; but unfortunately only the lower half has been recovered, so that considerable gaps occur in the text.[1] The sharp edges of the broken surface, however, suggest that it was damaged after removal from the soil, and the possibility remains that some of the missing fragments may yet be recovered either at Pennsylvania or in the Museum at Constantinople. As it is not dated, its age must be determined mainly by the character of its script. A close examination of the writing suggests that it can hardly have been inscribed as late as the Kassite Dynasty, since two or three signs exhibit more archaic forms than occur on any tablets of that period;[2] and such linguistic corruptions as have been noted in its text may well be accounted for by the process of decay which must have already affected the Sumerian language at the time of the later kings of Nisin. Moreover, the tablet bears a close resemblance to one of the newly published copies of the Sumerian Dynastic List from Nippur;[3] for both are of the same shape and composed of the same reddish-brown clay, and both show the same peculiarities of writing. The two tablets in fact appear to have been written by the same hand, and as that copy of the Dynastic List was probably drawn up before the latter half of the First Dynasty of Babylon, we may assign the same approximate date for the writing of our text. This of course only fixes a lower limit for the age of the myth which it enshrines.

[1] The breadth of the tablet is 5 5/8 in., and it originally measured about 7 in. in length from top to bottom; but only about one-third of its inscribed surface is preserved.

[2] Cf. Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, pp. 66 ff.

[3] No. 5.

That the composition is in the form of a poem may be seen at a glance from the external appearance of the tablet, the division of many of the lines and the blank spaces frequently left between the sign-groups being due to the rhythmical character of the text. The style of the poetry may be simple and abrupt, but it exhibits a familiar feature of both Semitic-Babylonian and Hebrew poetry, in its constant employment of partial repetition or paraphrase in parallel lines. The story it tells is very primitive and in many respects unlike the Babylonian Versions of the Deluge which we already possess. Perhaps its most striking peculiarity is the setting of the story, which opens with a record of the creation of man and animals, goes on to tell how the first cities were built, and ends with a version of the Deluge, which is thus recounted in its relation to the Sumerian history of the world. This literary connexion between the Creation and Deluge narratives is of unusual interest, in view of the age of our text. In the Babylonian Versions hitherto known they are included in separate epics with quite different contexts. Here they are recounted together in a single document, much as they probably were in the history of Berossus and as we find them in the present form of the Book of Genesis. This fact will open up some interesting problems when we attempt to trace the literary descent of the tradition.

But one important point about the text should be emphasized at once, since it will affect our understanding of some very obscure passages, of which no satisfactory explanation has yet been given. The assumption has hitherto been made that the text is an epic pure and simple. It is quite true that the greater part of it is a myth, recounted as a narrative in poetical form. but there appear to me to be clear indications that the myth was really embedded in an incantation. If this was so, the mythological portion was recited for a magical purpose, with the object of invoking the aid of the chief deities whose actions in the past are there described, and of increasing by that means the potency of the spell.[1] In the third lecture I propose to treat in more detail the employment and significance of myth in magic, and we shall have occasion to refer to other instances, Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian, in which a myth has reached us in a magical setting.

[1] It will be seen that the subject-matter of any myth treated in this way has a close connexion with the object for which the incantation was performed.

In the present case the inference of magical use is drawn from certain passages in the text itself, which appear to be explicable only on that hypothesis. In magical compositions of the later period intended for recitation, the sign for "Incantation" is usually prefixed. Unfortunately the beginning of our text is wanting; but its opening words are given in the colophon, or title, which is engraved on the left-hand edge of the tablet, and it is possible that the traces of the first sign there are to be read as EN, "Incantation".[1] Should a re-examination of the tablet establish this reading of the word, we should have definite proof of the suggested magical setting of the narrative. But even if we assume its absence, that would not invalidate the arguments that can be adduced in favour of recognizing the existence of a magical element, for they are based on internal evidence and enable us to explain certain features which are inexplicable on Dr. Poebel's hypothesis. Moreover, we shall later on examine another of the newly published Sumerian compositions from Nippur, which is not only semi-epical in character, but is of precisely the same shape, script, and period as our text, and is very probably a tablet of the same series. There also the opening signs of the text are wanting, but far more of its contents are preserved and they present unmistakable traces of magical use. Its evidence, as that of a parallel text, may therefore be cited in support of the present contention. It may be added that in Sumerian magical compositions of this early period, of which we have not yet recovered many quite obvious examples, it is possible that the prefix "Incantation" was not so invariable as in the later magical literature.

[1] Cf. Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, p. 63, and /Hist. and Gram. Texts/, pl. i. In the photographic reproduction of the edges of the tablet given in the latter volume, pl. lxxxix, the traces of the sign suggest the reading EN (= Sem. /šiptu/, "incantation"). But the sign may very possibly be read AN. In the latter case we may read, in the traces of the two sign-groups at the beginning of the text, the names of both Anu and Enlil, who appear so frequently as the two presiding deities in the myth.

It has already been remarked that only the lower half of our tablet has been recovered, and that consequently a number of gaps occur in the text. On the obverse the upper portion of each of the first three columns is missing, while of the remaining three columns, which are inscribed upon the reverse, the upper portions only are preserved. This difference in the relative positions of the textual fragments recovered is due to the fact that Sumerian scribes, like their later Babylonian and Assyrian imitators, when they had finished writing the obverse of a tablet, turned it over from bottom to top--not, as we should turn a sheet of paper, from right to left. But in spite of the lacunae, the sequence of events related in the mythological narrative may be followed without difficulty, since the main outline of the story is already familiar enough from the versions of the Semitic- Babylonian scribes and of Berossus. Some uncertainties naturally remain as to what exactly was included in the missing portions of the tablet; but the more important episodes are fortunately recounted in the extant fragments, and these suffice for a definition of the distinctive character of the Sumerian Version. In view of its literary importance it may be advisable to attempt a somewhat detailed discussion of its contents, column by column;[1] and the analysis may be most conveniently divided into numbered sections, each of which refers to one of the six columns of the tablet. The description of the First Column will serve to establish the general character of the text. Through the analysis of the tablet parallels and contrasts will be noted with the Babylonian and Hebrew Versions. It will then be possible to summarise, on a surer foundation, the literary history of the traditions, and finally to estimate the effect of our new evidence upon current theories as to the origin and wide dispersion of Deluge stories.

[1] In the lecture as delivered the contents of each column were necessarily summarized rather briefly, and conclusions were given without discussion of the evidence.

The following headings, under which the six numbered sections may be arranged, indicate the contents of each column and show at a glance the main features of the Sumerian Version:

I. Introduction to the Myth, and account of Creation.
II. The Antediluvian Cities.
III. The Council of the Gods, and Ziusudu's piety.
IV. The Dream-Warning.
V. The Deluge, the Escape of the Great Boat, and the Sacrifice to the Sun-god.
VI. The Propitiation of the Angry Gods, and Ziusudu's Immortality.

I. INTRODUCTION TO THE MYTH, AND ACCOUNT OF CREATION

The beginning of the text is wanting, and the earliest lines preserved of the First Column open with the closing sentences of a speech, probably by the chief of the four creating deities, who are later on referred to by name. In it there is a reference to a future destruction of mankind, but the context is broken; the lines in question begin:

"As for my human race, from (/or/ in) its destruction will I cause it to be [. . .], For Nintu my creatures [. . .] will I [. . .]."

From the reference to "my human race" it is clear that the speaker is a creating deity; and since the expression is exactly parallel to the term "my people" used by Ishtar, or Bêlit-ili, "the Lady of the gods", in the Babylonian Version of the Deluge story when she bewails the destruction of mankind, Dr. Poebel assigns the speech to Ninkharsagga, or Nintu,[1] the goddess who later in the column is associated with Anu, Enlil, and Enki in man's creation. But the mention of Nintu in her own speech is hardly consistent with that supposition,[2] if we assume with Dr. Poebel, as we are probably justified in doing, that the title Nintu is employed here and elsewhere in the narrative merely as a synonym of Ninkharsagga.[3] It appears to me far more probable that one of the two supreme gods, Anu or Enlil, is the speaker,[4] and additional grounds will be cited later in support of this view. It is indeed possible, in spite of the verbs and suffixes in the singular, that the speech is to be assigned to both Anu and Enlil, for in the last column, as we shall see, we find verb in the singular following references to both these deities. In any case one of the two chief gods may be regarded as speaking and acting on behalf of both, though it may be that the inclusion of the second name in the narrative was not original but simply due to a combination of variant traditions. Such a conflate use of Anu-Enlil would present a striking parallel to the Hebrew combination Yahweh-Elohim, though of course in the case of the former pair the subsequent stage of identification was never attained. But the evidence furnished by the text is not conclusive, and it is preferable here and elsewhere in the narrative to regard either Anu or Enlil as speaking and acting both on his own behalf and as the other's representative.

[1] Op. cit., p. 21 f.; and cf. Jastrow, /Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions/, p. 336.

[2] It necessitates the taking of (/dingir/) /Nin-tu-ra/ as a genitive, not a dative, and the very awkward rendering "my, Nintu's, creations".

[3] Another of the recently published Sumerian mythological compositions from Nippur includes a number of myths in which Enki is associated first with Ninella, referred to also as Nintu, "the Goddess of Birth", then with Ninshar, referred to also as Ninkurra, and finally with Ninkharsagga. This text exhibits the process by which separate traditions with regard to goddesses originally distinct were combined together, with the result that their heroines were subsequently often identified with one another. There the myths that have not been subjected to a very severe process of editing, and in consequence the welding is not so complete as in the Sumerian Version of the Deluge.

[4] If Enlil's name should prove to be the first word of the composition, we should naturally regard him as the speaker here and as the protagonist of the gods throughout the text, a /rôle/ he also plays in the Semitic-Babylonian Version.

This reference to the Deluge, which occurs so early in the text, suggests the probability that the account of the Creation and of the founding of Antediluvian cities, included in the first two columns, is to be taken merely as summarizing the events that led up to the Deluge. And an almost certain proof of this may be seen in the opening words of the composition, which are preserved in its colophon or title on the left-hand edge of the tablet. We have already noted that the first two words are there to be read, either as the prefix "Incantation" followed by the name "Enlil", or as the two divine names "Anu (and) Enlil". Now the signs which follow the traces of Enlil's name are quite certain; they represent "Ziusudu", which, as we shall see in the Third Column, is the name of the Deluge hero in our Sumerian Version. He is thus mentioned in the opening words of the text, in some relation to one or both of the two chief gods of the subsequent narrative. But the natural place for his first introduction into the story is in the Third Column, where it is related that "at that time Ziusudu, the king" did so-and-so. The prominence given him at the beginning of the text, at nearly a column's interval before the lines which record the creation of man, is sufficient proof that the Deluge story is the writer's main interest, and that preceding episodes are merely introductory to it.

What subject then may we conjecture was treated in the missing lines of this column, which precede the account of Creation and close with the speech of the chief creating deity? Now the Deluge narrative practically ends with the last lines of the tablet that are preserved, and the lower half of the Sixth Column is entirely wanting. We shall see reason to believe that the missing end of the tablet was not left blank and uninscribed, but contained an incantation, the magical efficacy of which was ensured by the preceding recitation of the Deluge myth. If that were so, it would be natural enough that the text should open with its main subject. The cause of the catastrophe and the reason for man's rescue from it might well be referred to by one of the creating deities in virtue of the analogy these aspects of the myth would present to the circumstances for which the incantation was designed. A brief account of the Creation and of Antediluvian history would then form a natural transition to the narrative of the Deluge itself. And even if the text contained no incantation, the narrative may well have been introduced in the manner suggested, since this explanation in any case fits in with what is still preserved of the First Column. For after his reference to the destruction of mankind, the deity proceeds to fix the chief duty of man, either as a preliminary to his creation, or as a reassertion of that duty after his rescue from destruction by the Flood. It is noteworthy that this duty consists in the building of temples to the gods "in a clean spot", that is to say "in hallowed places". The passage may be given in full, including the two opening lines already discussed:

"As for my human race, from (/or/ in) its destruction will I cause it to be [. . .], For Nintu my creatures [. . .] will I [. . .]. The people will I cause to . . . in their settlements, Cities . . . shall (man) build, in there protection will I cause him to rest, That he may lay the brick of our houses in a clean spot, That in a clean spot he may establish our . . . !"

In the reason here given for man's creation, or for his rescue from the Flood, we have an interesting parallel to the Sixth Tablet of the Semitic-Babylonian Creation Series. At the opening of that tablet Marduk, in response to "the word of the gods", is urged by his heart to devise a cunning plan which he imparts to Ea, namely the creation of man from his own divine blood and from bone which he will fashion. And the reason he gives for his proposal is precisely that which, as we have seen, prompted the Sumerian deity to create or preserve the human race. For Marduk continues:

"I will create man who shall inhabit [. . .], That the service of the gods may be established and that their shrines may be built."[1]

[1] See /The Seven Tablets of Creation/, Vol. I, pp. 86 ff.

We shall see later, from the remainder of Marduk's speech, that the Semitic Version has been elaborated at this point in order to reconcile it with other ingredients in its narrative, which were entirely absent from the simpler Sumerian tradition. It will suffice here to note that, in both, the reason given for man's existence is the same, namely, that the gods themselves may have worshippers.[1] The conception is in full agreement with early Sumerian thought, and reflects the theocratic constitution of the earliest Sumerian communities. The idea was naturally not repugnant to the Semites, and it need not surprise us to find the very words of the principal Sumerian Creator put into the mouth of Marduk, the city-god of Babylon.

[1] It may be added that this is also the reason given for man's creation in the introduction to a text which celebrates the founding or rebuilding of a temple.

The deity's speech perhaps comes to an end with the declaration of his purpose in creating mankind or in sanctioning their survival of the Deluge; and the following three lines appear to relate his establishment of the divine laws in accordance with which his intention was carried out. The passage includes a refrain, which is repeated in the Second Column:

The sublime decrees he made perfect for it.

It may probably be assumed that the refrain is employed in relation to the same deity in both passages. In the Second Column it precedes the foundation of the Babylonian kingdom and the building of the Antediluvian cities. In that passage there can be little doubt that the subject of the verb is the chief Sumerian deity, and we are therefore the more inclined to assign to him also the opening speech of the First Column, rather than to regard it as spoken by the Sumerian goddess whose share in the creation would justify her in claiming mankind as her own. In the last four lines of the column we have a brief record of the Creation itself. It was carried out by the three greatest gods of the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, Enlil and Enki, with the help of the goddess Ninkharsagga; the passage reads:

When Anu, Enlil, Enki and Ninkharsagga Created the blackheaded (i.e. mankind), The /niggil(ma)/ of the earth they caused the earth to produce(?), The animals, the four-legged creatures of the field, they artfully called into existence.

The interpretation of the third line is obscure, but there is no doubt that it records the creation of something which is represented as having taken place between the creation of mankind and that of animals. This object, which is written as /nig-gil/ or /nig-gil-ma/, is referred to again in the Sixth Column, where the Sumerian hero of the Deluge assigns to it the honorific title, "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind". It must therefore have played an important part in man's preservation from the Flood; and the subsequent bestowal of the title may be paralleled in the early Semitic Deluge fragment from Nippur, where the boat in which Ut-napishtim escapes is assigned the very similar title "Preserver of Life".[1] But /niggilma/ is not the word used in the Sumerian Version of Ziusudu's boat, and I am inclined to suggest a meaning for it in connexion with the magical element in the text, of the existence of which there is other evidence. On that assumption, the prominence given to its creation may be paralleled in the introduction to a later magical text, which described, probably in connexion with an incantation, the creation of two small creatures, one white and one black, by Nin-igi-azag, "The Lord of Clear Vision", one of the titles borne by Enki or Ea. The time of their creation is indicated as after that of "cattle, beasts of the field and creatures of the city", and the composition opens in a way which is very like the opening of the present passage in our text.[2] In neither text is there any idea of giving a complete account of the creation of the world, only so much of the original myth being included in each case as suffices for the writer's purpose. Here we may assume that the creation of mankind and of animals is recorded because they were to be saved from the Flood, and that of the /niggilma/ because of the part it played in ensuring their survival.

[1] See Hilprecht, /Babylonian Expedition/, Series D, Vol. V, Fasc. 1, plate, Rev., l. 8; the photographic reproduction clearly shows, as Dr. Poebel suggests (/Hist. Texts/, p. 61 n 3), that the line should read: /[(isu)elippu] ši-i lu (isu)ma-gur-gur-ma šum-ša lu na-si-rat na-piš-tim/, "That ship shall be a /magurgurru/ (giant boat), and its name shall be 'Preserver of Life' (lit. 'She that preserves life')."

[2] See /Seven Tablets of Creation/, Vol. I, pp. 122 ff. The text opens with the words "When the gods in their assembly had made [the world], and had created the heavens, and had formed the earth, and had brought living creatures into being . . .", the lines forming an introduction to the special act of creation with which the composition was concerned.

The discussion of the meaning of /niggilma/ may best be postponed till the Sixth Column, where we find other references to the word. Meanwhile it may be noted that in the present passage the creation of man precedes that of animals, as it did in the earlier Hebrew Version of Creation, and probably also in the Babylonian version, though not in the later Hebrew Version. It may be added that in another Sumerian account of the Creation[1] the same order, of man before animals, is followed.

[1] Cf. /Sev. Tabl./, Vol. I, p. 134 f.; but the text has been subjected to editing, and some of its episodes are obviously displaced.

II. THE ANTEDILUVIAN CITIES

As we saw was the case with the First Column of the text, the earliest part preserved of the Second Column contains the close of a speech by a deity, in which he proclaims an act he is about to perform. Here we may assume with some confidence that the speaker is Anu or Enlil, preferably the latter, since it would be natural to ascribe the political constitution of Babylonia, the foundation of which is foreshadowed, to the head of the Sumerian pantheon. It would appear that a beginning had already been made in the establishment of "the kingdom", and, before proceeding to his further work of founding the Antediluvian cities, he follows the example of the speaker in the First Column of the text and lays down the divine enactments by which his purpose was accomplished. The same refrain is repeated:

The sub[lime decrees] he made perfect for it.

The text then relates the founding by the god of five cities, probably "in clean places", that is to say on hallowed ground. He calls each by its name and assigns it to its own divine patron or city-god:

[In clean place]s he founded [five] cit[ies]. And after he had called their names and they had been allotted to divine rulers(?),-- The . . . of these cities, Eridu, he gave to the leader, Nu-dimmud, Secondly, to Nugira(?) he gave Bad-. . .,[1] Thirdly, Larak he gave to Pabilkharsag, Fourthly, Sippar he gave to the hero, the Sun-god, Fifthly, Shuruppak he gave to "the God of Shuruppak",-- After he had called the names of these cities, and they had been allotted to divine rulers(?).

[1] In Semitic-Babylonian the first component of this city-name would read "Dûr".

The completion of the sentence, in the last two lines of the column, cannot be rendered with any certainty, but the passage appears to have related the creation of small rivers and pools. It will be noted that the lines which contain the names of the five cities and their patron gods[1] form a long explanatory parenthesis, the preceding line being repeated after their enumeration.

[1] The precise meaning of the sign-group here provisionally rendered "divine ruler" is not yet ascertained.

As the first of the series of five cities of Eridu, the seat of Nudimmud or Enki, who was the third of the creating deities, it has been urged that the upper part of the Second Column must have included an account of the founding of Erech, the city of Anu, and of Nippur, Enlil's city.[1] But the numbered sequence of the cities would be difficult to reconcile with the earlier creation of other cities in the text, and the mention of Eridu as the first city to be created would be quite in accord with its great age and peculiarly sacred character as a cult-centre. Moreover the evidence of the Sumerian Dynastic List is definitely against any claim of Erech to Antediluvian existence. For when the hegemony passed from the first Post-diluvian "kingdom" to the second, it went not to Erech but to the shrine Eanna, which gave its name to the second "kingdom"; and the city itself was apparently not founded before the reign of Enmerkar, the second occupant of the throne, who is the first to be given the title "King of Erech". This conclusion with regard to Erech incidentally disposes of the arguments for Nippur's Antediluvian rank in primitive Sumerian tradition, which have been founded on the order of the cities mentioned at the beginning of the later Sumerian myth of Creation.[2] The evidence we thus obtain that the early Sumerians themselves regarded Eridu as the first city in the world to be created, increases the hope that future excavation at Abu Shahrain may reveal Sumerian remains of periods which, from an archaeological standpoint, must still be regarded as prehistoric.

[1] Cf. Poebel, op. cit., p. 41.

[2] The city of Nippur does not occur among the first four "kingdoms" of the Sumerian Dynastic List; but we may probably assume that it was the seat of at least one early "kingdom", in consequence of which Enlil, its city-god, attained his later pre-eminent rank in the Sumerian pantheon.

It is noteworthy that no human rulers are mentioned in connexion with Eridu and the other four Antediluvian cities; and Ziusudu, the hero of the story, is apparently the only mortal whose name occurred in our text. But its author's principal subject is the Deluge, and the preceding history of the world is clearly not given in detail, but is merely summarized. In view of the obviously abbreviated form of the narrative, of which we have already noted striking evidence in its account of the Creation, we may conclude that in the fuller form of the tradition the cities were also assigned human rulers, each one the representative of his city-god. These would correspond to the Antediluvian dynasty of Berossus, the last member of which was Xisuthros, the later counterpart of Ziusudu.

In support of the exclusion of Nippur and Erech from the myth, it will be noted that the second city in the list is not Adab,[1] which was probably the principal seat of the goddess Ninkharsagga, the fourth of the creating deities. The names of both deity and city in that line are strange to us. Larak, the third city in the series, is of greater interest, for it is clearly Larankha, which according to Berossus was the seat of the eighth and ninth of his Antediluvian kings. In commercial documents of the Persian period, which have been found during the excavations at Nippur, Larak is described as lying "on the bank of the old Tigris", a phrase which must be taken as referring to the Shatt el-Hai, in view of the situation of Lagash and other early cities upon it or in its immediate neighbourhood. The site of the city should perhaps be sought on the upper course of the stream, where it tends to approach Nippur. It would thus have lain in the neighbourhood of Bismâya, the site of Adab. Like Adab, Lagash, Shuruppak, and other early Sumerian cities, it was probably destroyed and deserted at a very early period, though it was reoccupied under its old name in Neo- Babylonian or Persian times. Its early disappearance from Babylonian history perhaps in part accounts for our own unfamiliarity with Pabilkharsag, its city-god, unless we may regard the name as a variant from of Pabilsag; but it is hardly likely that the two should be identified.

[1] The site of Adab, now marked by the mounds of Bismâya, was partially excavated by an expedition sent out in 1903 by the University of Chicago, and has provided valuable material for the study of the earliest Sumerian period; see /Reports of the Expedition of the Oriental Exploration Fund/ (Babylonian Section of the University of Chicago), and Banks, /Bismya/ (1912). On grounds of antiquity alone we might perhaps have expected its inclusion in the myth.

In Sibbar, the fourth of the Antediluvian cities in our series, we again have a parallel to Berossus. it has long been recognized that Pantibiblon, or Pantibiblia, from which the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh of his Antediluvian kings all came, was the city of Sippar in Northern Babylonia. For the seventh of these rulers, {Euedorakhos}, is clearly Enmeduranki, the mythical king of Sippar, who in Babylonian tradition was regarded as the founder of divination. In a fragmentary composition that has come down to us he is described, not only as king of Sippar, but as "beloved of Anu, Enlil, and Enki", the three creating gods of our text; and it is there recounted how the patron deities of divination, Shamash and Adad, themselves taught him to practise their art.[1] Moreover, Berossus directly implies the existence of Sippar before the Deluge, for in the summary of his version that has been preserved Xisuthros, under divine instruction, buries the sacred writings concerning the origin of the world in "Sispara", the city of the Sun-god, so that after the Deluge they might be dug up and transmitted to mankind. Ebabbar, the great Sun-temple, was at Sippar, and it is to the Sun-god that the city is naturally allotted in the new Sumerian Version.

[1] Cf. Zimmern, /Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Bab. Relig./, pp. 116 ff.

The last of the five Antediluvian cities in our list is Shuruppak, in which dwelt Ut-napishtim, the hero of the Babylonian version of the Deluge. Its site has been identified with the mounds of Fâra, in the neighbourhood of the Shatt el-Kâr, the former bed of the Euphrates; and the excavations that were conducted there in 1902 have been most productive of remains dating from the prehistoric period of Sumerian culture.[1] Since our text is concerned mainly with the Deluge, it is natural to assume that the foundation of the city from which the Deluge-hero came would be recorded last, in order to lead up to the central episode of the text. The city of Ziusudu, the hero of the Sumerian story, is unfortunately not given in the Third Column, but, in view of Shuruppak's place in the list of Antediluvian cities, it is not improbable that on this point the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions agreed. In the Gilgamesh Epic Shuruppak is the only Antediluvian city referred to, while in the Hebrew accounts no city at all is mentioned in connexion with Noah. The city of Xisuthros, too, is not recorded, but as his father came from Larankha or Larak, we may regard that city as his in the Greek Version. Besides Larankha, the only Antediluvian cities according to Berossus were Babylon and Sippar, and the influence of Babylonian theology, of which we here have evidence, would be sufficient to account for a disturbance of the original traditions. At the same time it is not excluded that Larak was also the scene of the Deluge in our text, though, as we have noted, the position of Shuruppak at the close of the Sumerian list points to it as the more probable of the two. It may be added that we cannot yet read the name of the deity to whom Shuruppak was allotted, but as it is expressed by the city's name preceded by the divine determinative, the rendering "the God of Shuruppak" will meanwhile serve.

[1] See /Hist. of Sum. and Akk./, pp. 24 ff.

The creation of small rivers and pools, which seems to have followed the foundation of the five sacred cities, is best explained on the assumption that they were intended for the supply of water to the cities and to the temples of their five patron gods. The creation of the Euphrates and the Tigris, if recorded in our text at all, or in its logical order, must have occurred in the upper portion of the column. The fact that in the later Sumerian account their creation is related between that of mankind and the building of Nippur and Erech cannot be cited in support of this suggestion, in view of the absence of those cities from our text and of the process of editing to which the later version has been subjected, with a consequent disarrangement of its episodes.

III. THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS, AND ZIUSUDU'S PIETY

From the lower part of the Third Column, where its text is first preserved, it is clear that the gods had already decided to send a Deluge, for the goddess Nintu or Ninkharsagga, here referred to also as "the holy Innanna", wails aloud for the intended destruction of "her people". That this decision has been decreed by the gods in council is clear from a passage in the Fourth Column, where it is stated that the sending of a flood to destroy mankind was "the word of the assembly [of the gods]". The first lines preserved in the present column describe the effect of the decision on the various gods concerned and their action at the close of the council.

In the lines which described the Council of the Gods, broken references to "the people" and "a flood" are preserved, after which the text continues:

At that time Nintu [. . .] like a [. . .], The holy Innanna lament[ed] on account of her people. Enki in his own heart [held] counsel; Anu, Enlil, Enki and Ninkharsagga [. . .]. The gods of heaven and earth in[voked] the name of Anu and Enlil.

It is unfortunate that the ends of all the lines in this column are wanting, but enough remains to show a close correspondence of the first two lines quoted with a passage in the Gilgamesh Epic where Ishtar is described as lamenting the destruction of mankind.[1] This will be seen more clearly by printing the two couplets in parallel columns:

SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION

At that time Nintu [. . .] like Ishtar cried aloud like a woman a [. . .], in travail, The holy Innanna lament[ed] on Bêlit-ili lamented with a loud account of her people. voice.

[1] Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 117 f.

The expression Bêlit-ili, "the Lady of the Gods", is attested as a title borne both by the Semitic goddess Ishtar and by the Sumerian goddess Nintu or Ninkharsagga. In the passage in the Babylonian Version, "the Lady of the Gods" has always been treated as a synonym of Ishtar, the second half of the couplet being regarded as a restatement of the first, according to a recognized law of Babylonian poetry. We may probably assume that this interpretation is correct, and we may conclude by analogy that "the holy Innanna" in the second half of the Sumerian couplet is there merely employed as a synonym of Nintu.[1] When the Sumerian myth was recast in accordance with Semitic ideas, the /rôle/ of creatress of mankind, which had been played by the old Sumerian goddess Ninkharsagga or Nintu, was naturally transferred to the Semitic Ishtar. And as Innanna was one of Ishtar's designations, it was possible to make the change by a simple transcription of the lines, the name Nintu being replaced by the synonymous title Bêlit-ili, which was also shared by Ishtar. Difficulties are at once introduced if we assume with Dr. Poebel that in each version two separate goddesses are represented as lamenting, Nintu or Bêlit-ili and Innanna or Ishtar. For Innanna as a separate goddess had no share in the Sumerian Creation, and the reference to "her people" is there only applicable to Nintu. Dr. Poebel has to assume that the Sumerian names should be reversed in order to restore them to their original order, which he suggests the Babylonian Version has preserved. But no such textual emendation is necessary. In the Semitic Version Ishtar definitely displaces Nintu as the mother of men, as is proved by a later passage in her speech where she refers to her own bearing of mankind.[2] The necessity for the substitution of her name in the later version is thus obvious, and we have already noted how simply this was effected.

[1] Cf. also Jastrow, /Hebr. and Bab. Trad./, p. 336.

[2] Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 123.

Another feature in which the two versions differ is that in the Sumerian text the lamentation of the goddess precedes the sending of the Deluge, while in the Gilgamesh Epic it is occasioned by the actual advent of the storm. Since our text is not completely preserved, it is just possible that the couplet was repeated at the end of the Fourth Column after mankind's destruction had taken place. But a further apparent difference has been noted. While in the Sumerian Version the goddess at once deplores the divine decision, it is clear from Ishtar's words in the Gilgamesh Epic that in the assembly of the gods she had at any rate concurred in it.[1] On the other hand, in Bêlit- ili's later speech in the Epic, after Ut-napishtim's sacrifice upon the mountain, she appears to subscribe the decision to Enlil alone.[2] The passages in the Gilgamesh Epic are not really contradictory, for they can be interpreted as implying that, while Enlil forced his will upon the other gods against Bêlit-ili's protest, the goddess at first reproached herself with her concurrence, and later stigmatized Enlil as the real author of the catastrophe. The Semitic narrative thus does not appear, as has been suggested, to betray traces of two variant traditions which have been skilfully combined, though it may perhaps exhibit an expansion of the Sumerian story. On the other hand, most of the apparent discrepancies between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions disappear, on the recognition that our text gives in many passages only an epitome of the original Sumerian Version.

[1] Cf. l. 121 f., "Since I commanded evil in the assembly of the gods, (and) commanded battle for the destruction of my people".

[2] Cf. ll. 165 ff., "Ye gods that are here! So long as I forget not the (jewels of) lapis lazuli upon my neck, I will keep these days in my memory, never will I forget them! Let the gods come to the offering, but let not Enlil come to the offering, since he took not counsel but sent the deluge and surrendered my people to destruction."

The lament of the goddess is followed by a brief account of the action taken by the other chief figures in the drama. Enki holds counsel with his own heart, evidently devising the project, which he afterwards carried into effect, of preserving the seed of mankind from destruction. Since the verb in the following line is wanting, we do not know what action is there recorded of the four creating deities; but the fact that the gods of heaven and earth invoked the name of Anu and Enlil suggests that it was their will which had been forced upon the other gods. We shall see that throughout the text Anu and Enlil are the ultimate rulers of both gods and men.

The narrative then introduces the human hero of the Deluge story:

At that time Ziusudu, the king, . . . priest of the god [. . .], Made a very great . . ., [. . .]. In humility he prostrates himself, in reverence [. . .], Daily he stands in attendance [. . .]. A dream,[1] such as had not been before, comes forth[2] . . . [. . .], By the Name of Heaven and Earth he conjures [. . .].

[1] The word may also be rendered "dreams".

[2] For this rendering of the verb /e-de/, for which Dr. Poebel does not hazard a translation, see Rawlinson, /W.A.I./, IV, pl. 26, l. 24 f.(a), /nu-e-de/ = Sem. /la us-su-u/ (Pres.); and cf. Brünnow, /Classified List/, p. 327. An alternative rendering "is created" is also possible, and would give equally good sense; cf. /nu-e-de/ = Sem. /la šu-pu-u/, /W.A.I./, IV, pl. 2, l. 5 (a), and Brünnow, op. cit., p. 328.

The name of the hero, Ziusudu, is the fuller Sumerian equivalent of Ut-napishtim (or Uta-napishtim), the abbreviated Semitic form which we find in the Gilgamesh Epic. For not only are the first two elements of the Sumerian name identical with those of the Semitic Ut-napishtim, but the names themselves are equated in a later Babylonian syllabary or explanatory list of words.[1] We there find "Ut-napishte" given as the equivalent of the Sumerian "Zisuda", evidently an abbreviated form of the name Ziusudu;[2] and it is significant that the names occur in the syllabary between those of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, evidently in consequence of the association of the Deluge story by the Babylonians with their national epic of Gilgamesh. The name Ziusudu may be rendered "He who lengthened the day of life" or "He who made life long of days",[3] which in the Semitic form is abbreviated by the omission of the verb. The reference is probably to the immortality bestowed upon Ziusudu at the close of the story, and not to the prolongation of mankind's existence in which he was instrumental. It is scarcely necessary to add that the name has no linguistic connexion with the Hebrew name Noah, to which it also presents no parallel in meaning.

[1] Cf. /Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus./, Pt. XVIII, pl. 30, l. 9 (a).

[2] The name in the Sumerian Version is read by Dr. Poebel as Ziugiddu, but there is much in favour of Prof. Zimmern's suggestion, based on the form Zisuda, that the third syllable of the name should be read as /su/. On a fragment of another Nippur text, No. 4611, Dr. Langdon reads the name as /Zi-u-sud-du/ (cf. Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sec., Vol. X, No. 1, p. 90, pl. iv a); the presence of the phonetic complement /du/ may be cited in favour of this reading, but it does not appear to be supported by the photographic reproductions of the name in the Sumerian Deluge Version given by Dr. Poebel (/Hist. and Gramm. Texts/, pl. lxxxviii f.). It may be added that, on either alternative, the meaning of the name is the same.

[3] The meaning of the Sumerian element /u/ in the name, rendered as /utu/ in the Semitic form, is rather obscure, and Dr. Poebel left it unexplained. It is very probable, as suggested by Dr. Langdon (cf. /Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch./, XXXVI, 1914, p. 190), that we should connect it with the Semitic /uddu/; in that case, in place of "breath", the rending he suggests, I should be inclined to render it here as "day", for /uddu/ as the meaning "dawn" and the sign UD is employed both for /urru/, "day-light", and /ûmu/, "day".

It is an interesting fact that Ziusudu should be described simply as "the king", without any indication of the city or area he ruled; and in three of the five other passages in the text in which his name is mentioned it is followed by the same title without qualification. In most cases Berossus tells us the cities from which his Antediluvian rulers came; and if the end of the line had been preserved it might have been possible to determine definitely Ziusudu's city, and incidentally the scene of the Deluge in the Sumerian Version, by the name of the deity in whose service he acted as priest. We have already noted some grounds for believing that his city may have been Shuruppak, as in the Babylonian Version; and if that were so, the divine name reads as "the God of Shurrupak" should probably be restored at the end of the line.[1]

[1] The remains that are preserved of the determinative, which is not combined with the sign EN, proves that Enki's name is not to be restored. Hence Ziusudu was not priest of Enki, and his city was probably not Eridu, the seat of his divine friend and counsellor, and the first of the Antediluvian cities. Sufficient reason for Enki's intervention on Ziusudu's behalf is furnished by the fact that, as God of the Deep, he was concerned in the proposed method of man's destruction. His rivalry of Enlil, the God of the Earth, is implied in the Babylonian Version (cf. Gilg. Epic. XI, ll. 39- 42), and in the Sumerian Version this would naturally extend to Anu, the God of Heaven.

The employment of the royal title by itself accords with the tradition from Berossus that before the Deluge, as in later periods, the land was governed by a succession of supreme rulers, and that the hero of the Deluge was the last of them. In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other hand, Ut-napishtim is given no royal nor any other title. He is merely referred to as a "man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu", and he appears in the guise of an ancient hero or patriarch not invested with royal power. On this point Berossus evidently preserves the original Sumerian traditions, while the Hebrew Versions resemble the Semitic- Babylonian narrative. The Sumerian conception of a series of supreme Antediluvian rulers is of course merely a reflection from the historical period, when the hegemony in Babylonia was contested among the city-states. The growth of the tradition may have been encouraged by the early use of /lugal/, "king", which, though always a term of secular character, was not very sharply distinguished from that of /patesi/ and other religious titles, until, in accordance with political development, it was required to connote a wider dominion. In Sumer, at the time of the composition of our text, Ziusudu was still only one in a long line of Babylonian rulers, mainly historical but gradually receding into the realms of legend and myth. At the time of the later Semites there had been more than one complete break in the tradition and the historical setting of the old story had become dim. The fact that Hebrew tradition should range itself in this matter with Babylon rather than with Sumer is important as a clue in tracing the literary history of our texts.

The rest of the column may be taken as descriptive of Ziusudu's activities. One line records his making of some very great object or the erection of a huge building;[1] and since the following lines are concerned solely with religious activities, the reference is possibly to a temple or some other structure of a sacred character. Its foundation may have been recorded as striking evidence of his devotion to his god; or, since the verb in this sentence depends on the words "at that time" in the preceding line, we may perhaps regard his action as directly connected with the revelation to be made to him. His personal piety is then described: daily he occupied himself in his god's service, prostrating himself in humility and constant in his attendance at the shrine. A dream (or possibly dreams), "such as had not been before", appears to him and he seems to be further described as conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth"; but as the ends of all these lines are broken, the exact connexion of the phrases is not quite certain.

[1] The element /gur-gur/, "very large" or "huge", which occurs in the name of this great object or building, /an-sag-gur-gur/, is employed later in the term for the "huge boat", /(gish)ma-gur- gur/, in which Ziusudu rode out the storm. There was, of course, even at this early period a natural tendency to picture on a superhuman scale the lives and deeds of remote predecessors, a tendency which increased in later times and led, as we shall see, to the elaboration of extravagant detail.

It is difficult not to associate the reference to a dream, or possibly to dream-divination, with the warning in which Enki reveals the purpose of the gods. For the later versions prepare us for a reference to a dream. If we take the line as describing Ziusudu's practice of dream-divination in general, "such as had not been before", he may have been represented as the first diviner of dreams, as Enmeduranki was held to be the first practitioner of divination in general. But it seems to me more probable that the reference is to a particular dream, by means of which he obtained knowledge of the gods' intentions. On the rendering of this passage depends our interpretation of the whole of the Fourth Column, where the point will be further discussed. Meanwhile it may be noted that the conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth", which we may assume is ascribed to Ziusudu, gains in significance if we may regard the setting of the myth as a magical incantation, an inference in support of which we shall note further evidence. For we are furnished at once with the grounds for its magical employment. If Ziusudu, through conjuring by the Name of Heaven and earth, could profit by the warning sent him and so escape the impending fate of mankind, the application of such a myth to the special needs of a Sumerian in peril or distress will be obvious. For should he, too, conjure by the Name of Heaven and Earth, he might look for a similar deliverance; and his recital of the myth itself would tend to clinch the magical effect of his own incantation.

The description of Ziusudu has also great interest in furnishing us with a close parallel to the piety of Noah in the Hebrew Versions. For in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus this feature of the story is completely absent. We are there given no reason why Ut-napishtim was selected by Ea, nor Xisuthros by Kronos. For all that those versions tell us, the favour of each deity might have been conferred arbitrarily, and not in recognition of, or in response to, any particular quality or action on the part of its recipient. The Sumerian Version now restores the original setting of the story and incidentally proves that, in this particular, the Hebrew Versions have not embroidered a simpler narrative for the purpose of edification, but have faithfully reproduced an original strand of the tradition.

IV. THE DREAM-WARNING

The top of the Fourth Column of the text follows immediately on the close of the Third Column, so that at this one point we have no great gap between the columns. But unfortunately the ends of all the lines in both columns are wanting, and the exact content of some phrases preserved and their relation to each other are consequently doubtful. This materially affects the interpretation of the passage as a whole, but the main thread of the narrative may be readily followed. Ziusudu is here warned that a flood is to be sent "to destroy the seed of mankind"; the doubt that exists concerns the manner in which the warning is conveyed. In the first line of the column, after a reference to "the gods", a building seems to be mentioned, and Ziusudu, standing beside it, apparently hears a voice, which bids him take his stand beside a wall and then conveys to him the warning of the coming flood. The destruction of mankind had been decreed in "the assembly [of the gods]" and would be carried out by the commands of Anu and Enlil. Before the text breaks off we again have a reference to the "kingdom" and "its rule", a further trace of the close association of the Deluge with the dynastic succession in the early traditions of Sumer.

In the opening words of the warning to Ziusudu, with its prominent repetition of the word "wall", we must evidently trace some connexion with the puzzling words of Ea in the Gilgamesh Epic, when he begins his warning to Ut-napishtim. The warnings, as given in the two versions, are printed below in parallel columns for comparison.[1] The Gilgamesh Epic, after relating how the great gods in Shuruppak had decided to send a deluge, continues as follows in the right-hand column:

SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION

For [. . .] . . . the gods a Nin-igi-azag,[2] the god Ea, . . . [. . .]; sat with them, Ziusudu standing at its side And he repeated their word to heard [. . .]: the house of reeds: "At the wall on my left side take "Reed-hut, reed-hut! Wall, thy stand and [. . .], wall! At the wall I will speak a word O reed-hut, hear! O wall, to thee [. . .]. understand! O my devout one . . . [. . .], Thou man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu, By our hand(?) a flood[3] . . . Pull down thy house, build a [. . .] will be [sent]. ship, To destroy the seed of mankind Leave thy possessions, take [. . .] heed for thy life, Is the decision, the word of the Abandon thy property, and save assembly[4] [of the gods] thy life. The commands of Anu (and) And bring living seed of every En[lil . . .] kind into the ship. Its kingdom, its rule [. . .] As for the ship, which thou shalt build, To his [. . .]" Of which the measurements shall be carefully measured, [. . .] Its breadth and length shall correspond. [. . .] In the deep shalt thou immerse it."

[1] Col. IV, ll. 1 ff. are there compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 19-31.

[2] Nin-igi-azag, "The Lord of Clear Vision", a title borne by Enki, or Ea, as God of Wisdom.

[3] The Sumerian term /amaru/, here used for the flood and rendered as "rain-storm" by Dr. Poebel, is explained in a later syllabary as the equivalent of the Semitic-Babylonian word /abûbu/ (cf. Meissner, /S.A.I./, No. 8909), the term employed for the flood both in the early Semitic version of the Atrakhasis story dated in Ammizaduga's reign and in the Gilgamesh Epic. The word /abûbu/ is often conventionally rendered "deluge", but should be more accurately translated "flood". It is true that the tempests of the Sumerian Version probably imply rain; and in the Gilgamesh Epic heavy rain in the evening begins the flood and is followed at dawn by a thunderstorm and hurricane. But in itself the term /abûbu/ implies flood, which could take place through a rise of the rivers unaccompanied by heavy local rain. The annual rainfall in Babylonia to-day is on an average only about 8 in., and there have been years in succession when the total rainfall has not exceeded 4 in.; and yet the /abûbu/ is not a thing of the past.

[4] The word here rendered "assembly" is the Semitic loan-word /buhrum/, in Babylonian /puhrum/, the term employed for the "assembly" of the gods both in the Babylonian Creation Series and in the Gilgamesh Epic. Its employment in the Sumerian Version, in place of its Sumerian equivalent /ukkin/, is an interesting example of Semitic influence. Its occurrence does not necessarily imply the existence of a recognized Semitic Version at the period our text was inscribed. The substitution of /buhrum/ for /ukkin/ in the text may well date from the period of Hammurabi, when we may assume that the increased importance of the city-council was reflected in the general adoption of the Semitic term (cf. Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, p. 53).

In the Semitic Version Ut-napishtim, who tells the story in the first person, then says that he "understood", and that, after assuring Ea that he would carry out his commands, he asked how he was to explain his action to "the city, the people, and the elders"; and the god told him what to say. Then follows an account of the building of the ship, introduced by the words "As soon as the dawn began to break". In the Sumerian Version the close of the warning, in which the ship was probably referred to, and the lines prescribing how Ziusudu carried out the divine instructions are not preserved.

It will be seen that in the passage quoted from the Semitic Version there is no direct mention of a dream; the god is represented at first as addressing his words to a "house of reeds" and a "wall", and then as speaking to Ut-napishtim himself. But in a later passage in the Epic, when Ea seeks to excuse his action to Enlil, he says that the gods' decision was revealed to Atrakhasis through a dream.[1] Dr. Poebel rightly compares the direct warning of Ut-napishtim by Ea in the passage quoted above with the equally direct warning Ziusudu receives in the Sumerian Version. But he would have us divorce the direct warning from the dream-warning, and he concludes that no less than three different versions of the story have been worked together in the Gilgamesh Epic. In the first, corresponding to that in our text, Ea communicates the gods' decision directly to Ut-napishtim; in the second he sends a dream from which Atrakhasis, "the Very Wise one", guesses the impending peril; while in the third he relates the plan to a wall, taking care that Ut-napishtim overhears him.[2] The version of Berossus, that Kronos himself appears to Xisuthros in a dream and warns him, is rejected by Dr. Poebel, who remarks that here the "original significance of the dream has already been obliterated". Consequently there seems to him to be "no logical connexion" between the dreams or dream mentioned at the close of the Third Column and the communication of the plan of the gods at the beginning of the Fourth Column of our text.[3]

[1] Cf. l. 195 f.; "I did not divulge the decision of the great gods. I caused Atrakhasis to behold a dream and thus he heard the decision of the gods."

[2] Cf. Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, p. 51 f. With the god's apparent subterfuge in the third of these supposed versions Sir James Frazer (/Ancient Stories of a Great Flood/, p. 15) not inaptly compares the well-known story of King Midas's servant, who, unable to keep the secret of the king's deformity to himself, whispered it into a hole in the ground, with the result that the reeds which grew up there by their rustling in the wind proclaimed it to the world (Ovid, /Metamorphoses/, xi, 174 ff.).

[3] Op. cit., p. 51; cf. also Jastrow, /Heb. and Bab. Trad./, p. 346.

So far from Berossus having missed the original significance of the narrative he relates, I think it can be shown that he reproduces very accurately the sense of our Sumerian text; and that the apparent discrepancies in the Semitic Version, and the puzzling references to a wall in both it and the Sumerian Version, are capable of a simple explanation. There appears to me no justification for splitting the Semitic narrative into the several versions suggested, since the assumption that the direct warning and the dream-warning must be distinguished is really based on a misunderstanding of the character of Sumerian dreams by which important decisions of the gods in council were communicated to mankind. We fortunately possess an instructive Sumerian parallel to our passage. In it the will of the gods is revealed in a dream, which is not only described in full but is furnished with a detailed interpretation; and as it seems to clear up our difficulties, it may be well to summarize its main features.

The occasion of the dream in this case was not a coming deluge but a great dearth of water in the rivers, in consequence of which the crops had suffered and the country was threatened with famine. This occurred in the reign of Gudea, patesi of Lagash, who lived some centuries before our Sumerian document was inscribed. In his own inscription[1] he tells us that he was at a loss to know by what means he might restore prosperity to his country, when one night he had a dream; and it was in consequence of the dream that he eventually erected one of the most sumptuously appointed of Sumerian temples and thereby restored his land to prosperity. Before recounting his dream he describes how the gods themselves took counsel. On the day in which destinies were fixed in heaven and earth, Enlil, the chief of the gods, and Ningirsu, the city-god of Lagash, held converse; and Enlil, turning to Ningirsu, described the sad condition of Southern Babylonia, and remarked that "the decrees of the temple Eninnû should be made glorious in heaven and upon earth", or, in other words, that Ningirsu's city-temple must be rebuilt. Thereupon Ningirsu did not communicate his orders directly to Gudea, but conveyed the will of the gods to him by means of a dream.

[1] See Thureau-Dangin, /Les inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad/, Cyl. A, pp. 134 ff., Germ. ed., pp. 88 ff.; and cf. King and Hall, /Eg. and West. Asia/, pp. 196 ff.

It will be noticed that we here have a very similar situation to that in the Deluge story. A conference of the gods has been held; a decision has been taken by the greatest god, Enlil; and, in consequence, another deity is anxious to inform a Sumerian ruler of that decision. The only difference is that here Enlil desires the communication to be made, while in the Deluge story it is made without his knowledge, and obviously against his wishes. So the fact that Ningirsu does not communicate directly with the patesi, but conveys his message by means of a dream, is particularly instructive. For here there can be no question of any subterfuge in the method employed, since Enlil was a consenting party.

The story goes on to relate that, while the patesi slept, a vision of the night came to him, and he beheld a man whose stature was so great that it equalled the heavens and the earth. By the diadem he wore upon his head Gudea knew that the figure must be a god. Beside the god was the divine eagle, the emblem of Lagash; his feet rested upon the whirlwind, and a lion crouched upon his right hand and upon his left. The figure spoke to the patesi, but he did not understand the meaning of the words. Then it seemed to Gudea that the Sun rose from the earth; and he beheld a woman holding in her hand a pure reed, and she carried also a tablet on which was a star of the heavens, and she seemed to take counsel with herself. While Gudea was gazing, he seemed to see a second man, who was like a warrior; and he carried a slab of lapis lazuli, on which he drew out the plan of a temple. Before the patesi himself it seemed that a fair cushion was placed, and upon the cushion was set a mould, and within the mould was a brick. And on the right hand the patesi beheld an ass that lay upon the ground. Such was the dream of Gudea, and he was troubled because he could not interpret it.[1]

[1] The resemblance its imagery bears to that of apocalyptic visions of a later period is interesting, as evidence of the latter's remote ancestry, and of the development in the use of primitive material to suit a completely changed political outlook. But those are points which do not concern our problem.

To cut the long story short, Gudea decided to seek the help of Ninâ, "the child of Eridu", who, as daughter of Enki, the God of Wisdom, could divine all the mysteries of the gods. But first of all by sacrifices and libations he secured the mediation of his own city-god and goddess, Ningirsu and Gatumdug; and then, repairing to Ninâ's temple, he recounted to her the details of his vision. When the patesi had finished, the goddess addressed him and said she would explain to him the meaning of his dream. Here, no doubt, we are to understand that she spoke through the mouth of her chief priest. And this was the interpretation of the dream. The man whose stature was so great, and whose head was that of a god, was the god Ningirsu, and the words which he uttered were an order to the patesi to rebuild the temple Eninnû. The Sun which rose from the earth was the god Ningishzida, for like the Sun he goes forth from the earth. The maiden who held the pure reed and carried the tablet with the star was the goddess Nisaba; the star was the pure star of the temple's construction, which she proclaimed. The second man, who was like a warrior, was the god Nibub; and the plan of the temple which he drew was the plan of Eninnû; and the ass that lay upon the ground was the patesi himself.[1]

[1] The symbolism of the ass, as a beast of burden, was applicable to the patesi in his task of carrying out the building of the temple.

The essential feature of the vision is that the god himself appeared to the sleeper and delivered his message in words. That is precisely the manner in which Kronos warned Xisuthros of the coming Deluge in the version of Berossus; while in the Gilgamesh Epic the apparent contradiction between the direct warning and the dream-warning at once disappears. It is true that Gudea states that he did not understand the meaning of the god's message, and so required an interpretation; but he was equally at a loss as to the identity of the god who gave it, although Ningirsu was his own city-god and was accompanied by his own familiar city-emblem. We may thus assume that the god's words, as words, were equally intelligible to Gudea. But as they were uttered in a dream, it was necessary that the patesi, in view of his country's peril, should have divine assurance that they implied no other meaning. And in his case such assurance was the more essential, in view of the symbolism attaching to the other features of his vision. That this is sound reasoning is proved by a second vision vouchsafed to Gudea by Ningirsu. For the patesi, though he began to prepare for the building of the temple, was not content even with Ninâ's assurance. He offered a prayer to Ningirsu himself, saying that he wished to build the temple, but had received no sign that this was the will of the god; and he prayed for a sign. Then, as the patesi lay stretched upon the ground, the god again appeared to him and gave him detailed instructions, adding that he would grant the sign for which he asked. The sign was that he should feel his side touched as by a flame,[1] and thereby he should know that he was the man chosen by Ningirsu to carry out his commands. Here it is the sign which confirms the apparent meaning of the god's words. And Gudea was at last content and built the temple.[2]

[1] Cyl. A., col. xii, l. 10 f.; cf. Thureau-Dangin, op. cit., p. 150 f., Germ. ed., p. 102 f. The word translated "side" may also be rendered as "hand"; but "side" is the more probable rendering of the two. The touching of Gudea's side (or hand) presents an interesting resemblance to the touching of Jacob's thigh by the divine wrestler at Peniel in Gen. xxxii. 24 ff. (J or JE). Given a belief in the constant presence of the unseen and its frequent manifestation, such a story as that of Peniel might well arise from an unexplained injury to the sciatic muscle, while more than one ailment of the heart or liver might perhaps suggest the touch of a beckoning god. There is of course no connexion between the Sumerian and Hebrew stories beyond their common background. It may be added that those critics who would reverse the /rôles/ of Jacob and the wrestler miss the point of the Hebrew story.

[2] Even so, before starting on the work, he took the further precautions of ascertaining that the omens were favourable and of purifying his city from all malign influence.

We may conclude, then, that in the new Sumerian Version of the Deluge we have traced a logical connexion between the direct warning to Ziusudu in the Fourth Column of the text and the reference to a dream in the broken lines at the close of the Third Column. As in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus, here too the god's warning is conveyed in a dream; and the accompanying reference to conjuring by the Name of Heaven and Earth probably represents the means by which Ziusudu was enabled to verify its apparent meaning. The assurance which Gudea obtained through the priest of Ninâ and the sign, the priest-king Ziusudu secured by his own act, in virtue of his piety and practice of divination. And his employment of the particular class of incantation referred to, that which conjures by the Name of Heaven and Earth, is singularly appropriate to the context. For by its use he was enabled to test the meaning of Enki's words, which related to the intentions of Anu and Enlil, the gods respectively of Heaven and of Earth. The symbolical setting of Gudea's vision also finds a parallel in the reed-house and wall of the Deluge story, though in the latter case we have not the benefit of interpretation by a goddess. In the Sumerian Version the wall is merely part of the vision and does not receive a direct address from the god. That appears as a later development in the Semitic Version, and it may perhaps have suggested the excuse, put in that version into the mouth of Ea, that he had not directly revealed the decision of the gods.[1]

[1] In that case the parallel suggested by Sir James Frazer between the reed-house and wall of the Gilgamesh Epic, now regarded as a medium of communication, and the whispering reeds of the Midas story would still hold good.

The omission of any reference to a dream before the warning in the Gilgamesh Epic may be accounted for on the assumption that readers of the poem would naturally suppose that the usual method of divine warning was implied; and the text does indicate that the warning took place at night, for Gilgamesh proceeds to carry out the divine instructions at the break of day. The direct warning of the Hebrew Versions, on the other hand, does not carry this implication, since according to Hebrew ideas direct speech, as well as vision, was included among the methods by which the divine will could be conveyed to man.

V. THE FLOOD, THE ESCAPE OF THE GREAT BOAT, AND THE SACRIFICE TO THE SUN-GOD

The missing portion of the Fourth Column must have described Ziusudu's building of his great boat in order to escape the Deluge, for at the beginning of the Fifth Column we are in the middle of the Deluge itself. The column begins:

All the mighty wind-storms together blew, The flood . . . raged. When for seven days, for seven nights, The flood had overwhelmed the land When the wind-storm had driven the great boat over the mighty waters, The Sun-god came forth, shedding light over heaven and earth. Ziusudu opened the opening of the great boat; The light of the hero, the Sun-god, (he) causes to enter into the interior(?) of the great boat. Ziusudu, the king, Bows himself down before the Sun-god; The king sacrifices an ox, a sheep he slaughters(?).

The connected text of the column then breaks off, only a sign or two remaining of the following half-dozen lines. It will be seen that in the eleven lines that are preserved we have several close parallels to the Babylonian Version and some equally striking differences. While attempting to define the latter, it will be well to point out how close the resemblances are, and at the same time to draw a comparison between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions of this part of the story and the corresponding Hebrew accounts.

Here, as in the Babylonian Version, the Flood is accompanied by hurricanes of wind, though in the latter the description is worked up in considerable detail. We there read[1] that at the appointed time the ruler of the darkness at eventide sent a heavy rain. Ut-napishtim saw its beginning, but fearing to watch the storm, he entered the interior of the ship by Ea's instructions, closed the door, and handed over the direction of the vessel to the pilot Puzur-Amurri. Later a thunder-storm and hurricane added their terrors to the deluge. For at early dawn a black cloud came up from the horizon, Adad the Storm-god thundering in its midst, and his heralds, Nabû and Sharru, flying over mountain and plain. Nergal tore away the ship's anchor, while Ninib directed the storm; the Anunnaki carried their lightning-torches and lit up the land with their brightness; the whirlwind of the Storm-god reached the heavens, and all light was turned into darkness. The storm raged the whole day, covering mountain and people with water.[2] No man beheld his fellow; the gods themselves were afraid, so that they retreated into the highest heaven, where they crouched down, cowering like dogs. Then follows the lamentation of Ishtar, to which reference has already been made, the goddess reproaching herself for the part she had taken in the destruction of her people. This section of the Semitic narrative closes with the picture of the gods weeping with her, sitting bowed down with their lips pressed together.

[1] Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 90 ff.

[2] In the Atrakhasis version, dated in the reign of Ammizaduga, Col. I, l. 5, contains a reference to the "cry" of men when Adad the Storm-god, slays them with his flood.

It is probable that the Sumerian Version, in the missing portion of its Fourth Column, contained some account of Ziusudu's entry into his boat; and this may have been preceded, as in the Gilgamesh Epic, by a reference to "the living seed of every kind", or at any rate to "the four-legged creatures of the field", and to his personal possessions, with which we may assume he had previously loaded it. But in the Fifth Column we have no mention of the pilot or of any other companions who may have accompanied the king; and we shall see that the Sixth Column contains no reference to Ziusudu's wife. The description of the storm may have begun with the closing lines of the Fourth Column, though it is also quite possible that the first line of the Fifth Column actually begins the account. However that may be, and in spite of the poetic imagery of the Semitic Babylonian narrative, the general character of the catastrophe is the same in both versions.

We find an equally close parallel, between the Sumerian and Babylonian accounts, in the duration of the storm which accompanied the Flood, as will be seen by printing the two versions together:[3]

SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION

When for seven days, for seven For six days and nights nights, The flood had overwhelmed the The wind blew, the flood, the land, tempest overwhelmed the land. When the wind-storm had driven When the seventh day drew near, the great boat over the the tempest, the flood, ceased mighty waters, from the battle In which it had fought like a host. The Sun-god came forth shedding Then the sea rested and was light over heaven and earth. still, and the wind-storm, the flood, ceased.

[3] Col. V, ll. 3-6 are here compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 128-32.

The two narratives do not precisely agree as to the duration of the storm, for while in the Sumerian account the storm lasts seven days and seven nights, in the Semitic-Babylonian Version it lasts only six days and nights, ceasing at dawn on the seventh day. The difference, however, is immaterial when we compare these estimates with those of the Hebrew Versions, the older of which speaks of forty days' rain, while the later version represents the Flood as rising for no less than a hundred and fifty days.

The close parallel between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions is not, however, confined to subject-matter, but here, even extends to some of the words and phrases employed. It has already been noted that the Sumerian term employed for "flood" or "deluge" is the attested equivalent of the Semitic word; and it may now be added that the word which may be rendered "great boat" or "great ship" in the Sumerian text is the same word, though partly expressed by variant characters, which occurs in the early Semitic fragment of the Deluge story from Nippur.[1] In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other hand, the ordinary ideogram for "vessel" or "ship"[2] is employed, though the great size of the vessel is there indicated, as in Berossus and the later Hebrew Version, by detailed measurements. Moreover, the Sumerian and Semitic verbs, which are employed in the parallel passages quoted above for the "overwhelming" of the land, are given as synonyms in a late syllabary, while in another explanatory text the Sumerian verb is explained as applying to the destructive action of a flood.[3] Such close linguistic parallels are instructive as furnishing additional proof, if it were needed, of the dependence of the Semitic-Babylonian and Assyrian Versions upon Sumerian originals.

[1] The Sumerian word is /(gish)ma-gur-gur/, corresponding to the term written in the early Semitic fragment, l. 8, as /(isu)ma-gur-gur/, which is probably to be read under its Semitized form /magurgurru/. In l. 6 of that fragment the vessel is referred to under the synonymous expression /(isu)elippu ra-be-tu/, "a great ship".

[2] i.e. (GISH)MA, the first element in the Sumerian word, read in Semitic Babylonian as /elippu/, "ship"; when employed in the early Semitic fragment it is qualified by the adj. /ra-be-tu/, "great". There is no justification for assuming, with Prof. Hilbrecht, that a measurement of the vessel was given in l. 7 of the early Semitic fragment.

[3] The Sumerian verb /ur/, which is employed in l. 2 of the Fifth Column in the expression /ba-an-da-ab-ur-ur/, translated as "raged", occurs again in l. 4 in the phrase /kalam-ma ba-ur-ra/, "had overwhelmed the land". That we are justified in regarding the latter phrase as the original of the Semitic /i-sap-pan mâta/ (Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 129) is proved by the equation Sum. /ur-ur/ = Sem. /sa-pa-nu/ (Rawlinson, /W.A.I./, Vol. V, pl. 42, l. 54 c) and by the explanation Sum. /ur-ur/ = Sem. /ša-ba-tu ša a-bu-bi/, i.e. "/ur-ur/ = to smite, of a flood" (/Cun. Texts, Pt. XII, pl. 50, Obv., l. 23); cf. Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, p. 54, n. 1.

It may be worth while to pause for a moment in our study of the text, in order to inquire what kind of boat it was in which Ziusudu escaped the Flood. It is only called "a great boat" or "a great ship" in the text, and this term, as we have noted, was taken over, semitized, and literally translated in an early Semitic-Babylonian Version. But the Gilgamesh Epic, representing the later Semitic-Babylonian Version, supplies fuller details, which have not, however, been satisfactorily explained. Either the obvious meaning of the description and figures there given has been ignored, or the measurements have been applied to a central structure placed upon a hull, much on the lines of a modern "house-boat" or the conventional Noah's ark.[1] For the latter interpretation the text itself affords no justification. The statement is definitely made that the length and breadth of the vessel itself are to be the same;[2] and a later passage gives ten /gar/ for the height of its sides and ten /gar/ for the breadth of its deck.[3] This description has been taken to imply a square box-like structure, which, in order to be seaworthy, must be placed on a conjectured hull.

[1] Cf., e.g., Jastrow, /Hebr. and Bab. Trad./, p. 329.

[2] Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 28-30.

[3] L. 58 f. The /gar/ contained twelve cubits, so that the vessel would have measured 120 cubits each way; taking the Babylonian cubit, on the basis of Gudea's scale, at 495 mm. (cf. Thureau- Dangin, /Journal Asiatique/, Dix. Sér., t. XIII, 1909, pp. 79 ff., 97), this would give a length, breadth, and height of nearly 195 ft.

I do not think it has been noted in this connexion that a vessel, approximately with the relative proportions of that described in the Gilgamesh Epic, is in constant use to-day on the lower Tigris and Euphrates. A /kuffah/,[1] the familiar pitched coracle of Baghdad, would provide an admirable model for the gigantic vessel in which Ut-napishtim rode out the Deluge. "Without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield"--so Herodotus described the /kuffah/ of his day;2[] so, too, is it represented on Assyrian slabs from Nineveh, where we see it employed for the transport of heavy building material;[3] its form and structure indeed suggest a prehistoric origin. The /kuffah/ is one of those examples of perfect adjustment to conditions of use which cannot be improved. Any one who has travelled in one of these craft will agree that their storage capacity is immense, for their circular form and steeply curved side allow every inch of space to be utilized. It is almost impossible to upset them, and their only disadvantage is lack of speed. For their guidance all that is required is a steersman with a paddle, as indicated in the Epic. It is true that the larger kuffah of to-day tends to increase in diameter as compared to height, but that detail might well be ignored in picturing the monster vessel of Ut-napishtim. Its seven horizontal stages and their nine lateral divisions would have been structurally sound in supporting the vessel's sides; and the selection of the latter uneven number, though prompted doubtless by its sacred character, is only suitable to a circular craft in which the interior walls would radiate from the centre. The use of pitch and bitumen for smearing the vessel inside and out, though unusual even in Mesopotamian shipbuilding, is precisely the method employed in the /kuffah's/ construction.

[1] Arab. /kuffah/, pl. /kufaf/; in addition to its common use for the Baghdad coracle, the word is also employed for a large basket.

[2] Herodotus, I, 194.

[3] The /kuffah/ is formed of wicker-work coated with bitumen. Some of those represented on the Nineveh sculptures appear to be covered with skins; and Herodotus (I, 94) states that "the boats which come down the river to Babylon are circular and made of skins." But his further description shows that he is here referred to the /kelek/ or skin-raft, with which he has combined a description of the /kuffah/. The late Sir Henry Rawlinson has never seen or heard of a skin-covered /kuffah/ on either the Tigris or Euphrates, and there can be little doubt that bitumen was employed for their construction in antiquity, as it is to-day. These craft are often large enough to carry five or six horses and a dozen men.

We have no detailed description of Ziusudu's "great boat", beyond the fact that it was covered in and had an opening, or light-hole, which could be closed. But the form of Ut-napishtim's vessel was no doubt traditional, and we may picture that of Ziusudu as also of the /kuffah/ type, though smaller and without its successor's elaborate internal structure. The gradual development of the huge coracle into a ship would have been encouraged by the Semitic use of the term "ship" to describe it; and the attempt to retain something of its original proportions resulted in producing the unwieldy ark of later tradition.[1]

[1] The description of the ark is not preserved from the earlier Hebrew Version (J), but the latter Hebrew Version (P), while increasing the length of the vessel, has considerably reduced its height and breadth. Its measurements are there given (Gen. vi. 15) as 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in breadth, and 30 cubits in height; taking the ordinary Hebrew cubit at about 18 in., this would give a length of about 450 ft., a breadth of about 75 ft., and a height of about 45 ft. The interior stories are necessarily reduced to three. The vessel in Berossus measures five stadia by two, and thus had a length of over three thousand feet and a breadth of more than twelve hundred.

,p> We will now return to the text and resume the comparison we were making between it and the Gilgamesh Epic. In the latter no direct reference is made to the appearance of the Sun-god after the storm, nor is Ut-napishtim represented as praying to him. But the sequence of events in the Sumerian Version is very natural, and on that account alone, apart from other reasons, it may be held to represent the original form of the story. For the Sun-god would naturally reappear after the darkness of the storm had passed, and it would be equally natural that Ziusudu should address himself to the great light-god. Moreover, the Gilgamesh Epic still retains traces of the Sumerian Version, as will be seen from a comparison of their narratives,[1] the Semitic Version being quoted from the point where the hurricane ceased and the sea became still.

[1] Col. V, ll. 7-11 are here compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 133-9.

SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION

When I looked at the storm, the uproar had ceased, And all mankind was turned into clay; In place of fields there was a swamp. Ziusudu opened the opening of I opened the opening (lit. the great boat; "hole"), and daylight fell upon my countenance. The light of the hero, the Sun- god, (he) causes to enter into the interior(?) of the great boat. Ziusudu, the king, Bows himself down before the I bowed myself down and sat down Sun-god; weeping; The king sacrifices an ox, a Over my countenance flowed my sheep he slaughters(?). tears. I gazed upon the quarters (of the world)--all(?) was sea.

It will be seen that in the Semitic Version the beams of the Sun-god have been reduced to "daylight", and Ziusudu's act of worship has become merely prostration in token of grief.

Both in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus the sacrifice offered by the Deluge hero to the gods follows the episode of the birds, and it takes place on the top of the mountain after the landing from the vessel. It is hardly probable that two sacrifices were recounted in the Sumerian Version, one to the Sun-god in the boat and another on the mountain after landing; and if we are right in identifying Ziusudu's recorded sacrifice with that of Ut-napishtim and Xisuthros, it would seem that, according to the Sumerian Version, no birds were sent out to test the abatement of the waters. This conclusion cannot be regarded as quite certain, inasmuch as the greater part of the Fifth Column is waning. We have, moreover, already seen reason to believe that the account on our tablet is epitomized, and that consequently the omission of any episode from our text does not necessarily imply its absence from the original Sumerian Version which it follows. But here at least it is clear that nothing can have been omitted between the opening of the light-hole and the sacrifice, for the one act is the natural sequence of the other. On the whole it seems preferable to assume that we have recovered a simpler form of the story.

As the storm itself is described in a few phrases, so the cessation of the flood may have been dismissed with equal brevity; the gradual abatement of the waters, as attested by the dove, the swallow, and the raven, may well be due to later elaboration or to combination with some variant account. Under its amended form the narrative leads naturally up to the landing on the mountain and the sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods. In the Sumerian Version, on the other hand, Ziusudu regards himself as saved when he sees the Sun shining; he needs no further tests to assure himself that the danger is over, and his sacrifice too is one of gratitude for his escape. The disappearance of the Sun-god from the Semitic Version was thus a necessity, to avoid an anti-climax; and the hero's attitude of worship had obviously to be translated into one of grief. An indication that the sacrifice was originally represented as having taken place on board the boat may be seen in the lines of the Gilgamesh Epic which recount how Enlil, after acquiescing in Ut-napishtim's survival of the Flood, went up into the ship and led him forth by the hand, although, in the preceding lines, he had already landed and had sacrificed upon the mountain. The two passages are hardly consistent as they stand, but they find a simple explanation of we regard the second of them as an unaltered survival from an earlier form of the story.

If the above line of reasoning be sound, it follows that, while the earlier Hebrew Version closely resembles the Gilgamesh Epic, the later Hebrew Version, by its omission of the birds, would offer a parallel to the Sumerian Version. But whether we may draw any conclusion from this apparent grouping of our authorities will be best dealt with when we have concluded our survey of the new evidence.

As we have seen, the text of the Fifth Column breaks off with Ziusudu's sacrifice to the Sun-god, after he had opened a light-hole in the boat and had seen by the god's beams that the storm was over. The missing portion of the Fifth Column must have included at least some account of the abatement of the waters, the stranding of the boat, and the manner in which Anu and Enlil became apprised of Ziusudu's escape, and consequently of the failure of their intention to annihilate mankind. For in the Sixth Column of the text we find these two deities reconciled to Ziusudu and bestowing immortality upon him, as Enlil bestows immortality upon Ut-napishtim at the close of the Semitic Version. In the latter account, after the vessel had grounded on Mount Nisir and Ut-napishtim had tested the abatement of the waters by means of the birds, he brings all out from the ship and offers his libation and sacrifice upon the mountain, heaping up reed, cedar-wood, and myrtle beneath his seven sacrificial vessels. And it was by this act on his part that the gods first had knowledge of his escape. For they smelt the sweet savour of the sacrifice, and "gathered like flies over the sacrificer".[1]

[1] Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 162.

It is possible in our text that Ziusudu's sacrifice in the boat was also the means by which the gods became acquainted with his survival; and it seems obvious that the Sun-god, to whom it was offered, should have continued to play some part in the narrative, perhaps by assisting Ziusudu in propitiating Anu and Enlil. In the Semitic-Babylonian Version, the first deity to approach the sacrifice is Bêlit-ili or Ishtar, who is indignant with Enlil for what he has done. When Enlil himself approaches and sees the ship he is filled with anger against the gods, and, asking who has escaped, exclaims that no man must live in the destruction. Thereupon Ninib accuses Ea, who by his pleading succeeds in turning Enlil's purpose. He bids Enlil visit the sinner with his sin and lay his transgression on the transgressor; Enlil should not again send a deluge to destroy the whole of mankind, but should be content with less wholesale destruction, such as that wrought by wild beasts, famine, and plague. Finally he confesses that it was he who warned Ziusudu of the gods' decision by sending him a dream. Enlil thereupon changes his intention, and going up into the ship, leads Ut-napishtim forth. Though Ea's intervention finds, of course, no parallel in either Hebrew version, the subject-matter of his speech is reflected in both. In the earlier Hebrew Version Yahweh smells the sweet savour of Noah's burnt offering and says in his heart he will no more destroy every living creature as he had done; while in the later Hebrew Version Elohim, after remembering Noah and causing the waters to abate, establishes his covenant to the same effect, and, as a sign of the covenant, sets his bow in the clouds.

In its treatment of the climax of the story we shall see that the Sumerian Version, at any rate in the form it has reached us, is on a lower ethical level than the Babylonian and Hebrew Versions. Ea's argument that the sinner should bear his own sin and the transgressor his own transgression in some measure forestalls that of Ezekiel;[1] and both the Hebrew Versions represent the saving of Noah as part of the divine intention from the beginning. But the Sumerian Version introduces the element of magic as the means by which man can bend the will of the gods to his own ends. How far the details of the Sumerian myth at this point resembled that of the Gilgamesh Epic it is impossible to say, but the general course of the story must have been the same. In the latter Enlil's anger is appeased, in the former that of Anu and Enlil; and it is legitimate to suppose that Enki, like Ea, was Ziusudu's principal supporter, in view of the part he had already taken in ensuring his escape.

[1] Cf. Ezek. xviii, passim, esp. xviii. 20.

VI. THE PROPITIATION OF THE ANGRY GODS, AND ZIUSUDU'S IMMORTALITY

The presence of the puzzling lines, with which the Sixth Column of our text opens, was not explained by Dr. Poebel; indeed, they would be difficult to reconcile with his assumption that our text is an epic pure and simple. But if, as is suggested above, we are dealing with a myth in magical employment, they are quite capable of explanation. The problem these lines present will best be stated by giving a translation of the extant portion of the column, where they will be seen with their immediate context in relation to what follows them:

"By the Soul of Heaven, by the soul of Earth, shall ye conjure him, That with you he may . . . ! Anu and Enlil by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth, shall ye conjure, And with you will he . . . ! "The /niggilma/ of the ground springs forth in abundance(?)!" Ziusudu, the king, Before Anu and Enlil bows himself down. Life like (that of) a god he gives to him, An eternal soul like (that of) a god he creates for him. At that time Ziusudu, the king, The name of the /niggilma/ (named) "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind". In a . . . land,[1] the land[1] of Dilmun(?), they caused him to dwell.

[1] Possibly to be translated "mountain". The rendering of the proper name as that of Dilmun is very uncertain. For the probable identification of Dilmun with the island of Bahrein in the Persian Gulf, cf. Rawlinson, /Journ. Roy. As. Soc./, 1880, pp. 20 ff.; and see further, Meissner, /Orient. Lit-Zeit./, XX. No. 7, col. 201 ff.

The first two lines of the column are probably part of the speech of some deity, who urges the necessity of invoking or conjuring Anu and Enlil "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth", in order to secure their support or approval. Now Anu and Enlil are the two great gods who had determined on mankind's destruction, and whose wrath at his own escape from death Ziusudu must placate. It is an obvious inference that conjuring "by the Soul of Heaven" and "by the Soul of Earth" is either the method by which Ziusudu has already succeeded in appeasing their anger, or the means by which he is here enjoined to attain that end. Against the latter alternative it is to be noted that the god is addressing more than one person; and, further, at Ziusudu is evidently already pardoned, for, so far from following the deity's advice, he immediately prostrates himself before Anu and Enlil and receives immortality. We may conjecture that at the close of the Fifth Column Ziusudu had already performed the invocation and thereby had appeased the divine wrath; and that the lines at the beginning of the Sixth Column point the moral of the story by enjoining on Ziusudu and his descendants, in other words on mankind, the advisability of employing this powerful incantation at their need. The speaker may perhaps have been one of Ziusudu's divine helpers--the Sun-god to whom he had sacrificed, or Enki who had saved him from the Flood. But it seems to me more probable that the words are uttered by Anu and Enlil themselves.[1] For thereby they would be represented as giving their own sanction to the formula, and as guaranteeing its magical efficacy. That the incantation, as addressed to Anu and Enlil, would be appropriate is obvious, since each would be magically approached through his own sphere of control.

[1] One of them may have been the speaker on behalf of both.

It is significant that at another critical point of the story we have already met with a reference to conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth", the phrase occurring at the close of the Third Column after the reference to the dream or dreams. There, as we saw, we might possibly explain the passage as illustrating one aspect of Ziusudu's piety: he may have been represented as continually practising this class of divination, and in that case it would be natural enough that in the final crisis of the story he should have propitiated the gods he conjured by the same means. Or, as a more probable alternative, it was suggested that we might connect the line with Enki's warning, and assume that Ziusudu interpreted the dream-revelation of Anu and Enlil's purpose by means of the magical incantation which was peculiarly associated with them. On either alternative the phrase fits into the story itself, and there is no need to suppose that the narrative is interrupted, either in the Third or in the Sixth Column, by an address to the hearers of the myth, urging them to make the invocation on their own behalf.

On the other hand, it seems improbable that the lines in question formed part of the original myth; they may have been inserted to weld the myth more closely to the magic. Both incantation and epic may have originally existed independently, and, if so, their combination would have been suggested by their contents. For while the former is addressed to Anu and Enlil, in the latter these same gods play the dominant parts: they are the two chief creators, it is they who send the Flood, and it is their anger that must be appeased. If once combined, the further step of making the incantation the actual means by which Ziusudu achieved his own rescue and immortality would be a natural development. It may be added that the words would have been an equally appropriate addition if the incantation had not existed independently, but had been suggested by, and developed from, the myth.

In the third and eleventh lines of the column we have further references to the mysterious object, the creation of which appears to have been recorded in the First Column of the text between man's creation and that of animals. The second sign of the group composing its name was not recognized by Dr. Poebel, but it is quite clearly written in two of the passages, and has been correctly identified by Professor Barton.[1] The Sumerian word is, in fact, to be read /nig- gil-ma/,[2] which, when preceded by the determinative for "pot", "jar", or "bowl", is given in a later syllabary as the equivalent of the Semitic word /mashkhalu/. Evidence that the word /mashkhalu/ was actually employed to denote a jar or vessel of some sort is furnished by one of the Tel el-Amarna letters which refers to "one silver /mashkhalu/" and "one (or two) stone /mashkhalu/".[3] In our text the determinative is absent, and it is possible that the word is used in another sense. Professor Barton, in both passages in the Sixth Column, gives it the meaning "curse"; he interprets the lines as referring to the removal of a curse from the earth after the Flood, and he compares Gen. viii. 21, where Yahweh declares he will not again "curse the ground for man's sake". But this translation ignores the occurrence of the word in the First Column, where the creation of the /niggilma/ is apparently recorded; and his rendering "the seed that was cursed" in l. 11 is not supported by the photographic reproduction of the text, which suggests that the first sign in the line is not that for "seed", but is the sign for "name", as correctly read by Dr. Poebel. In that passage the /niggilma/ appears to be given by Ziusudu the name "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind", which we have already compared to the title bestowed on Uta-napishtim's ship, "Preserver of Life". Like the ship, it must have played a