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Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition

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Title: Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition

Author: L. W. King


        
Release date: March 28, 2006 [eBook #2030]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT IN RELATION TO HEBREW TRADITION ***




Produced by John Bickers; Dagny





LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT IN RELATION TO HEBREW TRADITION

By Leonard W. King, M.A., Litt.D., F.S.A.


Assistant Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British
Museum

Professor in the University of London King's College


First Published 1918 by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press.


THE BRITISH ACADEMY

THE SCHWEICH LECTURES 1916


     PREPARER'S NOTE

     This text was prepared from a 1920 edition of the book,
     hence the references to dates after 1916 in some places.

     Greek text has been transliterated within brackets "{}"
     using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table.
     Diacritical marks have been lost.




PREFACE

In these lectures an attempt is made, not so much to restate familiar
facts, as to accommodate them to new and supplementary evidence which
has been published in America since the outbreak of the war. But even
without the excuse of recent discovery, no apology would be needed for
any comparison or contrast of Hebrew tradition with the mythological
and legendary beliefs of Babylon and Egypt. Hebrew achievements in the
sphere of religion and ethics are only thrown into stronger relief when
studied against their contemporary background.

The bulk of our new material is furnished by some early texts, written
towards the close of the third millennium B.C. They incorporate
traditions which extend in unbroken outline from their own period into
the remote ages of the past, and claim to trace the history of man back
to his creation. They represent the early national traditions of
the Sumerian people, who preceded the Semites as the ruling race in
Babylonia; and incidentally they necessitate a revision of current
views with regard to the cradle of Babylonian civilization. The most
remarkable of the new documents is one which relates in poetical
narrative an account of the Creation, of Antediluvian history, and of
the Deluge. It thus exhibits a close resemblance in structure to the
corresponding Hebrew traditions, a resemblance that is not shared by the
Semitic-Babylonian Versions at present known. But in matter the Sumerian
tradition is more primitive than any of the Semitic versions. In spite
of the fact that the text appears to have reached us in a magical
setting, and to some extent in epitomized form, this early document
enables us to tap the stream of tradition at a point far above any at
which approach has hitherto been possible.

Though the resemblance of early Sumerian tradition to that of the
Hebrews is striking, it furnishes a still closer parallel to the
summaries preserved from the history of Berossus. The huge figures
incorporated in the latter's chronological scheme are no longer to be
treated as a product of Neo-Babylonian speculation; they reappear in
their original surroundings in another of these early documents, the
Sumerian Dynastic List. The sources of Berossus had inevitably been
semitized by Babylon; but two of his three Antediluvian cities find
their place among the five of primitive Sumerian belief, and two of his
ten Antediluvian kings rejoin their Sumerian prototypes. Moreover, the
recorded ages of Sumerian and Hebrew patriarchs are strangely alike.
It may be added that in Egypt a new fragment of the Palermo Stele has
enabled us to verify, by a very similar comparison, the accuracy of
Manetho's sources for his prehistoric period, while at the same time
it demonstrates the way in which possible inaccuracies in his system,
deduced from independent evidence, may have arisen in remote antiquity.
It is clear that both Hebrew and Hellenistic traditions were modelled on
very early lines.

Thus our new material enables us to check the age, and in some measure
the accuracy, of the traditions concerning the dawn of history which
the Greeks reproduced from native sources, both in Babylonia and Egypt,
after the conquests of Alexander had brought the Near East within the
range of their intimate acquaintance. The third body of tradition, that
of the Hebrews, though unbacked by the prestige of secular achievement,
has, through incorporation in the canons of two great religious systems,
acquired an authority which the others have not enjoyed. In re-examining
the sources of all three accounts, so far as they are affected by the
new discoveries, it will be of interest to observe how the same problems
were solved in antiquity by very different races, living under widely
divergent conditions, but within easy reach of one another. Their
periods of contact, ascertained in history or suggested by geographical
considerations, will prompt the further question to what extent each
body of belief was evolved in independence of the others. The close
correspondence that has long been recognized and is now confirmed
between the Hebrew and the Semitic-Babylonian systems, as compared with
that of Egypt, naturally falls within the scope of our enquiry.

Excavation has provided an extraordinarily full archaeological
commentary to the legends of Egypt and Babylon; and when I received the
invitation to deliver the Schweich Lectures for 1916, I was reminded of
the terms of the Bequest and was asked to emphasize the archaeological
side of the subject. Such material illustration was also calculated to
bring out, in a more vivid manner than was possible with purely literary
evidence, the contrasts and parallels presented by Hebrew tradition.
Thanks to a special grant for photographs from the British Academy,
I was enabled to illustrate by means of lantern slides many of the
problems discussed in the lectures; and it was originally intended that
the photographs then shown should appear as plates in this volume.
But in view of the continued and increasing shortage of paper, it
was afterwards felt to be only right that all illustrations should
be omitted. This very necessary decision has involved a recasting of
certain sections of the lectures as delivered, which in its turn has
rendered possible a fuller treatment of the new literary evidence. To
the consequent shifting of interest is also due a transposition of names
in the title. On their literary side, and in virtue of the intimacy of
their relation to Hebrew tradition, the legends of Babylon must be given
precedence over those of Egypt.

For the delay in the appearance of the volume I must plead the pressure
of other work, on subjects far removed from archaeological study
and affording little time and few facilities for a continuance of
archaeological and textual research. It is hoped that the insertion
of references throughout, and the more detailed discussion of problems
suggested by our new literary material, may incline the reader to add
his indulgence to that already extended to me by the British Academy.

L. W. KING.





LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT

IN RELATION TO HEBREW TRADITION




LECTURE I--EGYPT, BABYLON, AND PALESTINE, AND SOME TRADITIONAL ORIGINS
OF CIVILIZATION

At the present moment most of us have little time or thought to spare
for subjects not connected directly or indirectly with the war. We have
put aside our own interests and studies; and after the war we shall all
have a certain amount of leeway to make up in acquainting ourselves
with what has been going on in countries not yet involved in the great
struggle. Meanwhile the most we can do is to glance for a moment at any
discovery of exceptional interest that may come to light.

The main object of these lectures will be to examine certain Hebrew
traditions in the light of new evidence which has been published in
America since the outbreak of the war. The evidence is furnished by some
literary texts, inscribed on tablets from Nippur, one of the oldest
and most sacred cities of Babylonia. They are written in Sumerian, the
language spoken by the non-Semitic people whom the Semitic Babylonians
conquered and displaced; and they include a very primitive version of
the Deluge story and Creation myth, and some texts which throw new light
on the age of Babylonian civilization and on the area within which it
had its rise. In them we have recovered some of the material from which
Berossus derived his dynasty of Antediluvian kings, and we are thus
enabled to test the accuracy of the Greek tradition by that of the
Sumerians themselves. So far then as Babylonia is concerned, these
documents will necessitate a re-examination of more than one problem.

The myths and legends of ancient Egypt are also to some extent involved.
The trend of much recent anthropological research has been in the
direction of seeking a single place of origin for similar beliefs and
practices, at least among races which were bound to one another by
political or commercial ties. And we shall have occasion to test, by
means of our new data, a recent theory of Egyptian influence. The Nile
Valley was, of course, one the great centres from which civilization
radiated throughout the ancient East; and, even when direct contact
is unproved, Egyptian literature may furnish instructive parallels and
contrasts in any study of Western Asiatic mythology. Moreover, by a
strange coincidence, there has also been published in Egypt since the
beginning of the war a record referring to the reigns of predynastic
rulers in the Nile Valley. This, like some of the Nippur texts, takes us
back to that dim period before the dawn of actual history, and, though
the information it affords is not detailed like theirs, it provides
fresh confirmation of the general accuracy of Manetho's sources, and
suggests some interesting points for comparison.

But the people with whose traditions we are ultimately concerned are the
Hebrews. In the first series of Schweich Lectures, delivered in the year
1908, the late Canon Driver showed how the literature of Assyria and
Babylon had thrown light upon Hebrew traditions concerning the origin
and early history of the world. The majority of the cuneiform documents,
on which he based his comparison, date from a period no earlier than the
seventh century B.C., and yet it was clear that the texts themselves,
in some form or other, must have descended from a remote antiquity. He
concluded his brief reference to the Creation and Deluge Tablets with
these words: "The Babylonian narratives are both polytheistic, while
the corresponding biblical narratives (Gen. i and vi-xi) are made
the vehicle of a pure and exalted monotheism; but in spite of this
fundamental difference, and also variations in detail, the resemblances
are such as to leave no doubt that the Hebrew cosmogony and the Hebrew
story of the Deluge are both derived ultimately from the same original
as the Babylonian narratives, only transformed by the magic touch of
Israel's religion, and infused by it with a new spirit."(1) Among the
recently published documents from Nippur we have at last recovered one
at least of those primitive originals from which the Babylonian accounts
were derived, while others prove the existence of variant stories of the
world's origin and early history which have not survived in the later
cuneiform texts. In some of these early Sumerian records we may trace
a faint but remarkable parallel with the Hebrew traditions of man's
history between his Creation and the Flood. It will be our task, then,
to examine the relations which the Hebrew narratives bear both to the
early Sumerian and to the later Babylonian Versions, and to ascertain
how far the new discoveries support or modify current views with regard
to the contents of those early chapters of Genesis.

     (1) Driver, _Modern Research as illustrating the Bible_ (The
     Schweich Lectures, 1908), p. 23.

I need not remind you that Genesis is the book of Hebrew origins, and
that its contents mark it off to some extent from the other books of the
Hebrew Bible. The object of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua is to
describe in their origin the fundamental institutions of the national
faith and to trace from the earliest times the course of events which
led to the Hebrew settlement in Palestine. Of this national history
the Book of Genesis forms the introductory section. Four centuries of
complete silence lie between its close and the beginning of Exodus,
where we enter on the history of a nation as contrasted with that of
a family.(1) While Exodus and the succeeding books contain national
traditions, Genesis is largely made up of individual biography. Chapters
xii-l are concerned with the immediate ancestors of the Hebrew race,
beginning with Abram's migration into Canaan and closing with Joseph's
death in Egypt. But the aim of the book is not confined to recounting
the ancestry of Israel. It seeks also to show her relation to other
peoples in the world, and probing still deeper into the past it
describes how the earth itself was prepared for man's habitation.
Thus the patriarchal biographies are preceded, in chapters i-xi, by an
account of the original of the world, the beginnings of civilization,
and the distribution of the various races of mankind. It is, of course,
with certain parts of this first group of chapters that such striking
parallels have long been recognized in the cuneiform texts.

     (1) Cf., e.g., Skinner, _A Critical and Exegetical
     Commentary on Genesis_ (1912), p. ii f.; Driver, _The Book
     of Genesis_, 10th ed. (1916), pp. 1 ff.; Ryle, _The Book of
     Genesis_ (1914), pp. x ff.

In approaching this particular body of Hebrew traditions, the necessity
for some caution will be apparent. It is not as though we were dealing
with the reported beliefs of a Malayan or Central Australian tribe. In
such a case there would be no difficulty in applying a purely objective
criticism, without regard to ulterior consequences. But here our own
feelings are involved, having their roots deep in early associations.
The ground too is well trodden; and, had there been no new material to
discuss, I think I should have preferred a less contentious theme. The
new material is my justification for the choice of subject, and also the
fact that, whatever views we may hold, it will be necessary for us to
assimilate it to them. I shall have no hesitation in giving you my own
reading of the evidence; but at the same time it will be possible to
indicate solutions which will probably appeal to those who view the
subject from more conservative standpoints. That side of the discussion
may well be postponed until after the examination of the new evidence in
detail. And first of all it will be advisable to clear up some general
aspects of the problem, and to define the limits within which our
criticism may be applied.

It must be admitted that both Egypt and Babylon bear a bad name in
Hebrew tradition. Both are synonymous with captivity, the symbols of
suffering endured at the beginning and at the close of the national
life. And during the struggle against Assyrian aggression, the
disappointment at the failure of expected help is reflected in
prophecies of the period. These great crises in Hebrew history have
tended to obscure in the national memory the part which both Babylon
and Egypt may have played in moulding the civilization of the smaller
nations with whom they came in contact. To such influence the races of
Syria were, by geographical position, peculiarly subject. The country
has often been compared to a bridge between the two great continents of
Asia and Africa, flanked by the sea on one side and the desert on the
other, a narrow causeway of highland and coastal plain connecting the
valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates.(1) For, except on the frontier of
Egypt, desert and sea do not meet. Farther north the Arabian plateau is
separated from the Mediterranean by a double mountain chain, which runs
south from the Taurus at varying elevations, and encloses in its lower
course the remarkable depression of the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, and
the 'Arabah. The Judaean hills and the mountains of Moab are merely
the southward prolongation of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and their
neighbourhood to the sea endows this narrow tract of habitable country
with its moisture and fertility. It thus formed the natural channel of
intercourse between the two earliest centres of civilization, and was
later the battle-ground of their opposing empires.

     (1) See G. A. Smith, _Historical Geography of the Holy
     Land_, pp. 5 ff., 45 ff., and Myres, _Dawn of History_, pp.
     137 ff.; and cf. Hogarth, _The Nearer East_, pp. 65 ff., and
     Reclus, _Nouvelle Géographie universelle_, t. IX, pp. 685 ff.

The great trunk-roads of through communication run north and south,
across the eastern plateaus of the Haurân and Moab, and along the
coastal plains. The old highway from Egypt, which left the Delta at
Pelusium, at first follows the coast, then trends eastward across the
plain of Esdraelon, which breaks the coastal range, and passing under
Hermon runs northward through Damascus and reaches the Euphrates at its
most westerly point. Other through tracks in Palestine ran then as they
do to-day, by Beesheba and Hebron, or along the 'Arabah and west of the
Dead Sea, or through Edom and east of Jordan by the present Hajj route
to Damascus. But the great highway from Egypt, the most westerly of
the trunk-roads through Palestine, was that mainly followed, with some
variant sections, by both caravans and armies, and was known by the
Hebrews in its southern course as the "Way of the Philistines" and
farther north as the "Way of the East".

The plain of Esraelon, where the road first trends eastward, has been
the battle-ground for most invaders of Palestine from the north, and
though Egyptian armies often fought in the southern coastal plain, they
too have battled there when they held the southern country. Megiddo,
which commands the main pass into the plain through the low Samaritan
hills to the southeast of Carmel, was the site of Thothmes III's famous
battle against a Syrian confederation, and it inspired the writer of the
Apocalypse with his vision of an Armageddon of the future. But invading
armies always followed the beaten track of caravans, and movements
represented by the great campaigns were reflected in the daily passage
of international commerce.

With so much through traffic continually passing within her borders,
it may be matter for surprise that far more striking evidence of its
cultural effect should not have been revealed by archaeological research
in Palestine. Here again the explanation is mainly of a geographical
character. For though the plains and plateaus could be crossed by the
trunk-roads, the rest of the country is so broken up by mountain and
valley that it presented few facilities either to foreign penetration
or to external control. The physical barriers to local intercourse,
reinforced by striking differences in soil, altitude, and climate,
while they precluded Syria herself from attaining national unity, always
tended to protect her separate provinces, or "kingdoms," from the
full effects of foreign aggression. One city-state could be traversed,
devastated, or annexed, without in the least degree affecting
neighbouring areas. It is true that the population of Syria has always
been predominantly Semitic, for she was on the fringe of the great
breeding-ground of the Semitic race and her landward boundary was open
to the Arabian nomad. Indeed, in the whole course of her history the
only race that bade fair at one time to oust the Semite in Syria was the
Greek. But the Greeks remained within the cities which they founded or
rebuilt, and, as Robertson Smith pointed out, the death-rate in Eastern
cities habitually exceeds the birth-rate; the urban population must be
reinforced from the country if it is to be maintained, so that the type
of population is ultimately determined by the blood of the peasantry.(1)
Hence after the Arab conquest the Greek elements in Syria and Palestine
tended rapidly to disappear. The Moslem invasion was only the last of a
series of similar great inroads, which have followed one another since
the dawn of history, and during all that time absorption was continually
taking place from desert tribes that ranged the Syrian border. As we
have seen, the country of his adoption was such as to encourage
the Semitic nomad's particularism, which was inherent in his tribal
organization. Thus the predominance of a single racial element in the
population of Palestine and Syria did little to break down or overstep
the natural barriers and lines of cleavage.

     (1) See Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_, p. 12
     f.; and cf. Smith, _Hist. Geogr._, p. 10 f.

These facts suffice to show why the influence of both Egypt and Babylon
upon the various peoples and kingdoms of Palestine was only intensified
at certain periods, when ambition for extended empire dictated the
reduction of her provinces in detail. But in the long intervals,
during which there was no attempt to enforce political control, regular
relations were maintained along the lines of trade and barter. And in
any estimate of the possible effect of foreign influence upon Hebrew
thought, it is important to realize that some of the channels through
which in later periods it may have acted had been flowing since the dawn
of history, and even perhaps in prehistoric times. It is probable that
Syria formed one of the links by which we may explain the Babylonian
elements that are attested in prehistoric Egyptian culture.(1) But
another possible line of advance may have been by way of Arabia and
across the Red Sea into Upper Egypt.

     (1) Cf. _Sumer and Akkad_, pp. 322 ff.; and for a full
     discussion of the points of resemblance between the early
     Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, see Sayce, _The
     Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions_, chap. iv, pp.
     101 ff.

The latter line of contact is suggested by an interesting piece of
evidence that has recently been obtained. A prehistoric flint knife,
with a handle carved from the tooth of a hippopotamus, has been
purchased lately by the Louvre,(1) and is said to have been found at
Gebel el-'Arak near Naga' Hamâdi, which lies on the Nile not far below
Koptos, where an ancient caravan-track leads by Wâdi Hammâmât to the
Red Sea. On one side of the handle is a battle-scene including some
remarkable representations of ancient boats. All the warriors are nude
with the exception of a loin girdle, but, while one set of combatants
have shaven heads or short hair, the others have abundant locks falling
in a thick mass upon the shoulder. On the other face of the handle is
carved a hunting scene, two hunters with dogs and desert animals
being arranged around a central boss. But in the upper field is a very
remarkable group, consisting of a personage struggling with two lions
arranged symmetrically. The rest of the composition is not very unlike
other examples of prehistoric Egyptian carving in low relief, but here
attitude, figure, and clothing are quite un-Egyptian. The hero wears
a sort of turban on his abundant hair, and a full and rounded beard
descends upon his breast. A long garment clothes him from the waist and
falls below the knees, his muscular calves ending in the claws of a bird
of prey. There is nothing like this in prehistoric Egyptian art.

     (1) See Bénédite, "Le couteau de Gebel al-'Arak", in
     _Foundation Eugène Piot, Mon. et. Mém._, XXII. i. (1916).

Perhaps Monsieur Bénédite is pressing his theme too far when he compares
the close-cropped warriors on the handle with the shaven Sumerians and
Elamites upon steles from Telloh and Susa, for their loin-girdles are
African and quite foreign to the Euphrates Valley. And his suggestion
that two of the boats, flat-bottomed and with high curved ends, seem
only to have navigated the Tigris and Euphrates,(1) will hardly command
acceptance. But there is no doubt that the heroic personage upon the
other face is represented in the familiar attitude of the Babylonian
hero Gilgamesh struggling with lions, which formed so favourite a
subject upon early Sumerian and Babylonian seals. His garment is
Sumerian or Semitic rather than Egyptian, and the mixture of human and
bird elements in the figure, though not precisely paralleled at
this early period, is not out of harmony with Mesopotamian or Susan
tradition. His beard, too, is quite different from that of the Libyan
desert tribes which the early Egyptian kings adopted. Though the
treatment of the lions is suggestive of proto-Elamite rather than
of early Babylonian models, the design itself is unmistakably of
Mesopotamian origin. This discovery intensifies the significance of
other early parallels that have been noted between the civilizations of
the Euphrates and the Nile, but its evidence, so far as it goes, does
not point to Syria as the medium of prehistoric intercourse. Yet then,
as later, there can have been no physical barrier to the use of the
river-route from Mesopotamia into Syria and of the tracks thence
southward along the land-bridge to the Nile's delta.

     (1) Op. cit., p. 32.

In the early historic periods we have definite evidence that the eastern
coast of the Levant exercised a strong fascination upon the rulers of
both Egypt and Babylonia. It may be admitted that Syria had little to
give in comparison to what she could borrow, but her local trade in wine
and oil must have benefited by an increase in the through traffic which
followed the working of copper in Cyprus and Sinai and of silver in
the Taurus. Moreover, in the cedar forests of Lebanon and the north
she possessed a product which was highly valued both in Egypt and
the treeless plains of Babylonia. The cedars procured by Sneferu from
Lebanon at the close of the IIIrd Dynasty were doubtless floated as
rafts down the coast, and we may see in them evidence of a regular
traffic in timber. It has long been known that the early Babylonian
king Sharru-kin, or Sargon of Akkad, had pressed up the Euphrates to the
Mediterranean, and we now have information that he too was fired by a
desire for precious wood and metal. One of the recently published Nippur
inscriptions contains copies of a number of his texts, collected by
an ancient scribe from his statues at Nippur, and from these we gather
additional details of his campaigns. We learn that after his complete
subjugation of Southern Babylonia he turned his attention to the west,
and that Enlil gave him the lands "from the Upper Sea to the Lower Sea",
i.e. from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Fortunately this rather
vague phrase, which survived in later tradition, is restated in greater
detail in one of the contemporary versions, which records that Enlil
"gave him the upper land, Mari, Iarmuti, and Ibla, as far as the Cedar
Forest and the Silver Mountains".(1)

     (1) See Poebel, _Historical Texts_ (Univ. of Penns. Mus.
     Publ., Bab. Sect., Vol. IV, No. 1, 1914), pp. 177 f., 222
     ff.

Mari was a city on the middle Euphrates, but the name may here signify
the district of Mari which lay in the upper course of Sargon's march.
Now we know that the later Sumerian monarch Gudea obtained his cedar
beams from the Amanus range, which he names _Amanum_ and describes as
the "cedar mountains".(1) Doubtless he felled his trees on the eastern
slopes of the mountain. But we may infer from his texts that Sargon
actually reached the coast, and his "Cedar Forest" may have lain
farther to the south, perhaps as far south as the Lebanon. The "Silver
Mountains" can only be identified with the Taurus, where silver mines
were worked in antiquity. The reference to Iarmuti is interesting, for
it is clearly the same place as Iarimuta or Iarimmuta, of which we
find mention in the Tell el-Amarna letters. From the references to this
district in the letters of Rib-Adda, governor of Byblos, we may infer
that it was a level district on the coast, capable of producing a
considerable quantity of grain for export, and that it was under
Egyptian control at the time of Amenophis IV. Hitherto its position has
been conjecturally placed in the Nile Delta, but from Sargon's reference
we must probably seek it on the North Syrian or possibly the Cilician
coast. Perhaps, as Dr. Poebel suggests, it was the plain of Antioch,
along the lower course and at the mouth of the Orontes. But his further
suggestion that the term is used by Sargon for the whole stretch of
country between the sea and the Euphrates is hardly probable. For
the geographical references need not be treated as exhaustive, but as
confined to the more important districts through which the expedition
passed. The district of Ibla which is also mentioned by Narâm-Sin and
Gudea, lay probably to the north of Iarmuti, perhaps on the southern
slopes of Taurus. It, too, we may regard as a district of restricted
extent rather than as a general geographical term for the extreme north
of Syria.

     (1) Thureau-Dangin, _Les inscriptions de Sumer de d'Akkad_,
     p. 108 f., Statue B, col. v. 1. 28; Germ. ed., p. 68 f.

It is significant that Sargon does not allude to any battle when
describing this expedition, nor does he claim to have devastated the
western countries.(1) Indeed, most of these early expeditions to the
west appear to have been inspired by motives of commercial enterprise
rather than of conquest. But increase of wealth was naturally followed
by political expansion, and Egypt's dream of an Asiatic empire was
realized by Pharaohs of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The fact that Babylonian
should then have been adopted as the medium of official intercourse in
Syria points to the closeness of the commercial ties which had already
united the Euphrates Valley with the west. Egyptian control had passed
from Canaan at the time of the Hebrew settlement, which was indeed a
comparatively late episode in the early history of Syria. Whether or not
we identify the Khabiri with the Hebrews, the character of the latter's
incursion is strikingly illustrated by some of the Tell el-Amarna
letters. We see a nomad folk pressing in upon settled peoples and
gaining a foothold here and there.(2)

     (1) In some versions of his new records Sargon states that
     "5,400 men daily eat bread before him" (see Poebel, op.
     cit., p. 178); though the figure may be intended to convey
     an idea of the size of Sargon's court, we may perhaps see in
     it a not inaccurate estimate of the total strength of his
     armed forces.

     (2) See especially Professor Burney's forthcoming commentary
     on Judges (passim), and his forthcoming Schweich Lectures
     (now delivered, in 1917).

The great change from desert life consists in the adoption of
agriculture, and when once that was made by the Hebrews any further
advance in economic development was dictated by their new surroundings.
The same process had been going on, as we have seen, in Syria since the
dawn of history, the Semitic nomad passing gradually through the stages
of agricultural and village life into that of the city. The country
favoured the retention of tribal exclusiveness, but ultimate survival
could only be purchased at the cost of some amalgamation with their new
neighbours. Below the surface of Hebrew history these two tendencies
may be traced in varying action and reaction. Some sections of the
race engaged readily in the social and commercial life of Canaanite
civilization with its rich inheritance from the past. Others, especially
in the highlands of Judah and the south, at first succeeded in keeping
themselves remote from foreign influence. During the later periods of
the national life the country was again subjected, and in an intensified
degree, to those forces of political aggression from Mesopotamia and
Egypt which we have already noted as operating in Canaan. But throughout
the settled Hebrew community as a whole the spark of desert fire was
not extinguished, and by kindling the zeal of the Prophets it eventually
affected nearly all the white races of mankind.

In his Presidential Address before the British Association at
Newcastle,(1) Sir Arthur Evans emphasized the part which recent
archaeology has played in proving the continuity of human culture from
the most remote periods. He showed how gaps in our knowledge had been
bridged, and he traced the part which each great race had taken in
increasing its inheritance. We have, in fact, ample grounds for assuming
an interchange, not only of commercial products, but, in a minor degree,
of ideas within areas geographically connected; and it is surely not
derogatory to any Hebrew writer to suggest that he may have adopted, and
used for his own purposes, conceptions current among his contemporaries.
In other words, the vehicle of religious ideas may well be of composite
origin; and, in the course of our study of early Hebrew tradition, I
suggest that we hold ourselves justified in applying the comparative
method to some at any rate of the ingredients which went to form the
finished product. The process is purely literary, but it finds an
analogy in the study of Semitic art, especially in the later periods.
And I think it will make my meaning clearer if we consider for a moment
a few examples of sculpture produced by races of Semitic origin. I do
not suggest that we should regard the one process as in any way proving
the existence of the other. We should rather treat the comparison as
illustrating in another medium the effect of forces which, it is clear,
were operative at various periods upon races of the same stock from
which the Hebrews themselves were descended. In such material products
the eye at once detects the Semite's readiness to avail himself of
foreign models. In some cases direct borrowing is obvious; in others, to
adapt a metaphor from music, it is possible to trace extraneous _motifs_
in the design.(2)

     (1) "New Archaeological Lights on the Origins of
     Civilization in Europe," British Association, Newcastle-on-
     Tyne, 1916.

     (2) The necessary omission of plates, representing the
     slides shown in the lectures, has involved a recasting of
     most passages in which points of archaeological detail were
     discussed; see Preface. But the following paragraphs have
     been retained as the majority of the monuments referred to
     are well known.

Some of the most famous monuments of Semitic art date from the Persian
and Hellenistic periods, and if we glance at them in this connexion it
is in order to illustrate during its most obvious phase a tendency of
which the earlier effects are less pronounced. In the sarcophagus of the
Sidonian king Eshmu-'azar II, which is preserved in the Louvre,(1)
we have indeed a monument to which no Semitic sculptor can lay claim.
Workmanship and material are Egyptian, and there is no doubt that it was
sculptured in Egypt and transported to Sidon by sea. But the king's own
engravers added the long Phoenician inscription, in which he adjures
princes and men not to open his resting-place since there are no jewels
therein, concluding with some potent curses against any violation of his
tomb. One of the latter implores the holy gods to deliver such violators
up "to a mighty prince who shall rule over them", and was probably
suggested by Alexander's recent occupation of Sidon in 332 B.C. after
his reduction and drastic punishment of Tyre. King Eshmun-'zar was not
unique in his choice of burial in an Egyptian coffin, for he merely
followed the example of his royal father, Tabnîth, "priest of
'Ashtart and king of the Sidonians", whose sarcophagus, preserved at
Constantinople, still bears in addition to his own epitaph that of
its former occupant, a certain Egyptian general Penptah. But more
instructive than these borrowed memorials is a genuine example of
Phoenician work, the stele set up by Yehaw-milk, king of Byblos, and
dating from the fourth or fifth century B.C.(2) In the sculptured panel
at the head of the stele the king is represented in the Persian dress of
the period standing in the presence of 'Ashtart or Astarte, his "Lady,
Mistress of Byblos". There is no doubt that the stele is of native
workmanship, but the influence of Egypt may be seen in the technique of
the carving, in the winged disk above the figures, and still more in the
representation of the goddess in her character as the Egyptian Hathor,
with disk and horns, vulture head-dress and papyrus-sceptre. The
inscription records the dedication of an altar and shrine to the
goddess, and these too we may conjecture were fashioned on Egyptian
lines.

     (1) _Corp. Inscr. Semit._, I. i, tab. II.

     (2) _C.I.S._, I. i, tab. I.

The representation of Semitic deities under Egyptian forms and with
Egyptian attributes was encouraged by the introduction of their cults
into Egypt itself. In addition to Astarte of Byblos, Ba'al, Anath, and
Reshef were all borrowed from Syria in comparatively early times and
given Egyptian characters. The conical Syrian helmet of Reshef, a god
of war and thunder, gradually gave place to the white Egyptian crown,
so that as Reshpu he was represented as a royal warrior; and Qadesh,
another form of Astarte, becoming popular with Egyptian women as
a patroness of love and fecundity, was also sometimes modelled on
Hathor.(1)

     (1) See W. Max Müller, _Egyptological Researches_, I, p. 32
     f., pl. 41, and S. A. Cook, _Religion of Ancient Palestine_,
     pp. 83 ff.

Semitic colonists on the Egyptian border were ever ready to adopt
Egyptian symbolism in delineating the native gods to whom they owed
allegiance, and a particularly striking example of this may be seen on
a stele of the Persian period preserved in the Cairo Museum.(1) It was
found at Tell Defenneh, on the right bank of the Pelusiac branch of the
Nile, close to the old Egyptian highway into Syria, a site which may be
identified with that of the biblical Tahpanhes and the Daphnae of the
Greeks. Here it was that the Jewish fugitives, fleeing with Jeremiah
after the fall of Jerusalem, founded a Jewish colony beside a
flourishing Phoenician and Aramaean settlement. One of the local gods of
Tahpanhes is represented on the Cairo monument, an Egyptian stele in the
form of a naos with the winged solar disk upon its frieze. He stands
on the back of a lion and is clothed in Asiatic costume with the high
Syrian tiara crowning his abundant hair. The Syrian workmanship is
obvious, and the Syrian character of the cult may be recognized in such
details as the small brazen fire-altar before the god, and the sacred
pillar which is being anointed by the officiating priest. But the god
holds in his left hand a purely Egyptian sceptre and in his right an
emblem as purely Babylonian, the weapon of Marduk and Gilgamesh which
was also wielded by early Sumerian kings.

     (1) Müller, op. cit., p. 30 f., pl. 40. Numismatic evidence
     exhibits a similar readiness on the part of local Syrian
     cults to adopt the veneer of Hellenistic civilization while
     retaining in great measure their own individuality; see
     Hill, "Some Palestinian Cults in the Graeco-Roman Age", in
     _Proceedings of the British Academy_, Vol. V (1912).

The Elephantine papyri have shown that the early Jews of the Diaspora,
though untrammeled by the orthodoxy of Jerusalem, maintained the purity
of their local cult in the face of considerable difficulties. Hence the
gravestones of their Aramaean contemporaries, which have been found in
Egypt, can only be cited to illustrate the temptations to which they
were exposed.(1) Such was the memorial erected by Abseli to the memory
of his parents, Abbâ and Ahatbû, in the fourth year of Xerxes, 481
B.C.(2) They had evidently adopted the religion of Osiris, and were
buried at Saqqârah in accordance with the Egyptian rites. The upper
scene engraved upon the stele represents Abbâ and his wife in the
presence of Osiris, who is attended by Isis and Nephthys; and in the
lower panel is the funeral scene, in which all the mourners with
one exception are Asiatics. Certain details of the rites that are
represented, and mistakes in the hieroglyphic version of the text, prove
that the work is Aramaean throughout.(3)

     (1) It may be admitted that the Greek platonized cult of
     Isis and Osiris had its origin in the fusion of Greeks and
     Egyptians which took place in Ptolemaic times (cf. Scott-
     Moncrieff, _Paganism and Christianity in Egypt_, p. 33 f.).
     But we may assume that already in the Persian period the
     Osiris cult had begun to acquire a tinge of mysticism,
     which, though it did not affect the mechanical reproduction
     of the native texts, appealed to the Oriental mind as well
     as to certain elements in Greek religion. Persian influence
     probably prepared the way for the Platonic exegesis of the
     Osiris and Isis legends which we find in Plutarch; and the
     latter may have been in great measure a development, and
     not, as is often assumed, a complete misunderstanding of the
     later Egyptian cult.

     (2) _C.I.S._, II. i, tab. XI, No. 122.

     (3) A very similar monument is the Carpentras Stele
     (_C.I.S._, II., i, tab. XIII, No. 141), commemorating Taba,
     daughter of Tahapi, an Aramaean lady who was also a convert
     to Osiris. It is rather later than that of Abbâ and his
     wife, since the Aramaic characters are transitional from the
     archaic to the square alphabet; see Driver, _Notes on the
     Hebrew Text of the Books of Samuel_, pp. xviii ff., and
     Cooke, _North Semitic Inscriptions_, p. 205 f. The Vatican
     Stele (op. cit. tab. XIV. No. 142), which dates from the
     fourth century, represents inferior work.

If our examples of Semitic art were confined to the Persian and later
periods, they could only be employed to throw light on their own
epoch, when through communication had been organized, and there was
consequently a certain pooling of commercial and artistic products
throughout the empire.(1) It is true that under the Great King the
various petty states and provinces were encouraged to manage their own
affairs so long as they paid the required tribute, but their horizon
naturally expanded with increase of commerce and the necessity for
service in the king's armies. At this time Aramaic was the speech of
Syria, and the population, especially in the cities, was still
largely Aramaean. As early as the thirteenth century sections of this
interesting Semitic race had begun to press into Northern Syria from
the middle Euphrates, and they absorbed not only the old Canaanite
population but also the Hittite immigrants from Cappadocia. The latter
indeed may for a time have furnished rulers to the vigorous North Syrian
principalities which resulted from this racial combination, but the
Aramaean element, thanks to continual reinforcement, was numerically
dominant, and their art may legitimately be regarded as in great measure
a Semitic product. Fortunately we have recovered examples of sculpture
which prove that tendencies already noted in the Persian period were
at work, though in a minor degree, under the later Assyrian empire.
The discoveries made at Zenjirli, for example, illustrate the gradually
increasing effect of Assyrian influence upon the artistic output of a
small North Syrian state.

     (1) Cf. Bevan, _House of Seleucus_, Vol. I, pp. 5, 260 f.
     The artistic influence of Mesopotamia was even more widely
     spread than that of Egypt during the Persian period. This is
     suggested, for example, by the famous lion-weight discovered
     at Abydos in Mysia, the town on the Hellespont famed for the
     loves of Hero and Leander. The letters of its Aramaic
     inscription (_C.I.S._, II. i, tab. VII, No. 108) prove by
     their form that it dates from the Persian period, and its
     provenance is sufficiently attested. Its weight moreover
     suggests that it was not merely a Babylonian or Persian
     importation, but cast for local use, yet in design and
     technique it is scarcely distinguishable from the best
     Assyrian work of the seventh century.

This village in north-western Syria, on the road between Antioch and
Mar'ash, marks the site of a town which lay near the southern border or
just within the Syrian district of Sam'al. The latter is first mentioned
in the Assyrian inscriptions by Shalmaneser III, the son and successor
of the great conqueror, Ashur-nasir-pal; and in the first half of the
eighth century, though within the radius of Assyrian influence, it was
still an independent kingdom. It is to this period that we must assign
the earliest of the inscribed monuments discovered at Zenjirli and
its neighbourhood. At Gerjin, not far to the north-west, was found
the colossal statue of Hadad, chief god of the Aramaeans, which was
fashioned and set up in his honour by Panammu I, son of Qaral and king
of Ya'di.(1) In the long Aramaic inscription engraved upon the statue
Panammu records the prosperity of his reign, which he ascribes to the
support he has received from Hadad and his other gods, El, Reshef,
Rekub-el, and Shamash. He had evidently been left in peace by Assyria,
and the monument he erected to his god is of Aramaean workmanship and
design. But the influence of Assyria may be traced in Hadad's beard
and in his horned head-dress, modelled on that worn by Babylonian and
Assyrian gods as the symbol of divine power.

     (1) See F. von Luschan, _Sendschirli_, I. (1893), pp. 49
     ff., pl. vi; and cf. Cooke, _North Sem. Inscr._, pp. 159 ff.
     The characters of the inscription on the statue are of the
     same archaic type as those of the Moabite Stone, though
     unlike them they are engraved in relief; so too are the
     inscriptions of Panammu's later successor Bar-rekub (see
     below). Gerjin was certainly in Ya'di, and Winckler's
     suggestion that Zenjirli itself also lay in that district
     but near the border of Sam'al may be provisionally accepted;
     the occurrence of the names in the inscriptions can be
     explained in more than one way (see Cooke, op. cit., p.
     183).

The political changes introduced into Ya'di and Sam'al by
Tiglath-pileser IV are reflected in the inscriptions and monuments of
Bar-rekub, a later king of the district. Internal strife had brought
disaster upon Ya'di and the throne had been secured by Panammu II, son
of Bar-sur, whose claims received Assyrian support. In the words of
his son Bar-rekub, "he laid hold of the skirt of his lord, the king of
Assyria", who was gracious to him; and it was probably at this time, and
as a reward for his loyalty, that Ya'di was united with the neighbouring
district of Sam'al. But Panammu's devotion to his foreign master led to
his death, for he died at the siege of Damascus, in 733 or 732 B.C., "in
the camp, while following his lord, Tiglath-pileser, king of Assyria".
His kinsfolk and the whole camp bewailed him, and his body was sent
back to Ya'di, where it was interred by his son, who set up an inscribed
statue to his memory. Bar-rekub followed in his father's footsteps, as
he leads us to infer in his palace-inscription found at Zenjirli: "I
ran at the wheel of my lord, the king of Assyria, in the midst of mighty
kings, possessors of silver and possessors of gold." It is not strange
therefore that his art should reflect Assyrian influence far more
strikingly than that of Panammu I. The figure of himself which he caused
to be carved in relief on the left side of the palace-inscription is
in the Assyrian style,(1) and so too is another of his reliefs from
Zenjirli. On the latter Bar-rekub is represented seated upon his throne
with eunuch and scribe in attendance, while in the field is the emblem
of full moon and crescent, here ascribed to "Ba'al of Harran", the
famous centre of moon-worship in Northern Mesopotamia.(2)

     (1) _Sendschirli_, IV (1911), pl. lxvii. Attitude and
     treatment of robes are both Assyrian, and so is the
     arrangement of divine symbols in the upper field, though
     some of the latter are given under unfamiliar forms. The
     king's close-fitting peaked cap was evidently the royal
     headdress of Sam'al; see the royal figure on a smaller stele
     of inferior design, op. cit., pl. lxvi.

     (2) Op. cit. pp. 257, 346 ff., and pl. lx. The general style
     of the sculpture and much of the detail are obviously
     Assyrian. Assyrian influence is particularly noticeable in
     Bar-rekub's throne; the details of its decoration are
     precisely similar to those of an Assyrian bronze throne in
     the British Museum. The full moon and crescent are not of
     the familiar form, but are mounted on a standard with
     tassels.

The detailed history and artistic development of Sam'al and Ya'di convey
a very vivid impression of the social and material effects upon the
native population of Syria, which followed the westward advance of
Assyria in the eighth century. We realize not only the readiness of
one party in the state to defeat its rival with the help of Assyrian
support, but also the manner in which the life and activities of the
nation as a whole were unavoidably affected by their action. Other
Hittite-Aramaean and Phoenician monuments, as yet undocumented with
literary records, exhibit a strange but not unpleasing mixture of
foreign _motifs_, such as we see on the stele from Amrith(1) in the
inland district of Arvad. But perhaps the most remarkable example
of Syrian art we possess is the king's gate recently discovered at
Carchemish.(2) The presence of the hieroglyphic inscriptions points to
the survival of Hittite tradition, but the figures represented in
the reliefs are of Aramaean, not Hittite, type. Here the king is seen
leading his eldest son by the hand in some stately ceremonial, and
ranged in registers behind them are the younger members of the royal
family, whose ages are indicated by their occupations.(3) The employment
of basalt in place of limestone does not disguise the sculptor's debt
to Assyria. But the design is entirely his own, and the combined dignity
and homeliness of the composition are refreshingly superior to the
arrogant spirit and hard execution which mar so much Assyrian work. This
example is particularly instructive, as it shows how a borrowed art may
be developed in skilled hands and made to serve a purpose in complete
harmony with its new environment.

     (1) _Collection de Clercq_, t. II, pl. xxxvi. The stele is
     sculptured in relief with the figure of a North Syrian god.
     Here the winged disk is Egyptian, as well as the god's
     helmet with uraeus, and his loin-cloth; his attitude and his
     supporting lion are Hittite; and the lozenge-mountains, on
     which the lion stands, and the technique of the carving are
     Assyrian. But in spite of its composite character the design
     is quite successful and not in the least incongruous.

     (2) Hogarth, _Carchemish_, Pt. I (1914), pl. B. 7 f.

     (3) Two of the older boys play at knuckle-bones, others whip
     spinning-tops, and a little naked girl runs behind
     supporting herself with a stick, on the head of which is
     carved a bird. The procession is brought up by the queen-
     mother, who carries the youngest baby and leads a pet lamb.

Such monuments surely illustrate the adaptability of the Semitic
craftsman among men of Phoenician and Aramaean strain. Excavation in
Palestine has failed to furnish examples of Hebrew work. But Hebrew
tradition itself justifies us in regarding this _trait_ as of more
general application, or at any rate as not repugnant to Hebrew thought,
when it relates that Solomon employed Tyrian craftsmen for work upon the
Temple and its furniture; for Phoenician art was essentially Egyptian in
its origin and general character. Even Eshmun-'zar's desire for burial
in an Egyptian sarcophagus may be paralleled in Hebrew tradition of
a much earlier period, when, in the last verse of Genesis,(1) it is
recorded that Joseph died, "and they embalmed him, and he was put in a
coffin in Egypt". Since it formed the subject of prophetic denunciation,
I refrain for the moment from citing the notorious adoption of Assyrian
customs at certain periods of the later Judaean monarchy. The two
records I have referred to will suffice, for we have in them cherished
traditions, of which the Hebrews themselves were proud, concerning the
most famous example of Hebrew religious architecture and the burial of
one of the patriarchs of the race. A similar readiness to make use of
the best available resources, even of foreign origin, may on analogy be
regarded as at least possible in the composition of Hebrew literature.

     (1) Gen. l. 26, assigned by critics to E.

We shall see that the problems we have to face concern the possible
influence of Babylon, rather than of Egypt, upon Hebrew tradition. And
one last example, drawn from the later period, will serve to demonstrate
how Babylonian influence penetrated the ancient world and has even left
some trace upon modern civilization. It is a fact, though one perhaps
not generally realized, that the twelve divisions on the dials of
our clocks and watches have a Babylonian, and ultimately a Sumerian,
ancestry. For why is it we divide the day into twenty-four hours? We
have a decimal system of reckoning, we count by tens; why then should we
divide the day and night into twelve hours each, instead of into ten or
some multiple of ten? The reason is that the Babylonians divided the day
into twelve double-hours; and the Greeks took over their ancient system
of time-division along with their knowledge of astronomy and passed it
on to us. So if we ourselves, after more than two thousand years, are
making use of an old custom from Babylon, it would not be surprising if
the Hebrews, a contemporary race, should have fallen under her influence
even before they were carried away as captives and settled forcibly upon
her river-banks.

We may pass on, then, to the site from which our new material has been
obtained--the ancient city of Nippur, in central Babylonia. Though the
place has been deserted for at least nine hundred years, its ancient
name still lingers on in local tradition, and to this day _Niffer_ or
_Nuffar_ is the name the Arabs give the mounds which cover its extensive
ruins. No modern town or village has been built upon them or in their
immediate neighbourhood. The nearest considerable town is Dîwânîyah, on
the left bank of the Hillah branch of the Euphrates, twenty miles to the
south-west; but some four miles to the south of the ruins is the village
of Sûq el-'Afej, on the eastern edge of the 'Afej marshes, which begin
to the south of Nippur and stretch away westward. Protected by its
swamps, the region contains a few primitive settlements of the wild
'Afej tribesmen, each a group of reed-huts clustering around the mud
fort of its ruling sheikh. Their chief enemies are the Shammâr, who
dispute with them possession of the pastures. In summer the marshes near
the mounds are merely pools of water connected by channels through
the reed-beds, but in spring the flood-water converts them into a vast
lagoon, and all that meets the eye are a few small hamlets built on
rising knolls above the water-level. Thus Nippur may be almost isolated
during the floods, but the mounds are protected from the waters'
encroachment by an outer ring of former habitation which has slightly
raised the level of the encircling area. The ruins of the city stand
from thirty to seventy feet above the plain, and in the north-eastern
corner there rose, before the excavations, a conical mound, known by
the Arabs as _Bint el-Emîr_ or "The Princess". This prominent landmark
represents the temple-tower of Enlil's famous sanctuary, and even after
excavation it is still the first object that the approaching traveller
sees on the horizon. When he has climbed its summit he enjoys an
uninterrupted view over desert and swamp.

The cause of Nippur's present desolation is to be traced to the change
in the bed of the Euphrates, which now lies far to the west. But in
antiquity the stream flowed through the centre of the city, along the
dry bed of the Shatt en-Nîl, which divides the mounds into an eastern
and a western group. The latter covers the remains of the city proper
and was occupied in part by the great business-houses and bazaars. Here
more than thirty thousand contracts and accounts, dating from the fourth
millennium to the fifth century B.C., were found in houses along the
former river-bank. In the eastern half of the city was Enlil's great
temple Ekur, with its temple-tower Imkharsag rising in successive stages
beside it. The huge temple-enclosure contained not only the sacrificial
shrines, but also the priests' apartments, store-chambers, and
temple-magazines. Outside its enclosing wall, to the south-west, a large
triangular mound, christened "Tablet Hill" by the excavators, yielded
a further supply of records. In addition to business-documents of the
First Dynasty of Babylon and of the later Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian,
and Persian periods, between two and three thousand literary texts and
fragments were discovered here, many of them dating from the Sumerian
period. And it is possible that some of the early literary texts that
have been published were obtained in other parts of the city.

No less than twenty-one different strata, representing separate periods
of occupation, have been noted by the American excavators at various
levels within the Nippur mounds,(1) the earliest descending to virgin
soil some twenty feet below the present level of the surrounding plain.
The remote date of Nippur's foundation as a city and cult-centre
is attested by the fact that the pavement laid by Narâm-Sin in the
south-eastern temple-court lies thirty feet above virgin soil, while
only thirty-six feet of superimposed _débris_ represent the succeeding
millennia of occupation down to Sassanian and early Arab times. In
the period of the Hebrew captivity the city still ranked as a great
commercial market and as one of the most sacred repositories of
Babylonian religious tradition. We know that not far off was Tel-abib,
the seat of one of the colonies of Jewish exiles, for that lay "by the
river of Chebar",(2) which we may identify with the Kabaru Canal in
Nippur's immediate neighbourhood. It was "among the captives by the
river Chebar" that Ezekiel lived and prophesied, and it was on Chebar's
banks that he saw his first vision of the Cherubim.(3) He and other of
the Jewish exiles may perhaps have mingled with the motley crowd that
once thronged the streets of Nippur, and they may often have gazed on
the huge temple-tower which rose above the city's flat roofs. We know
that the later population of Nippur itself included a considerable
Jewish element, for the upper strata of the mounds have yielded numerous
clay bowls with Hebrew, Mandaean, and Syriac magical inscriptions;(4)
and not the least interesting of the objects recovered was the wooden
box of a Jewish scribe, containing his pen and ink-vessel and a little
scrap of crumbling parchment inscribed with a few Hebrew characters.(5)

     (1) See Hilprecht, _Explorations in Bible Lands_, pp. 289
     ff., 540 ff.; and Fisher, _Excavations at Nippur_, Pt. I
     (1905), Pt. II (1906).

     (2) Ezek. iii. 15.

     (3) Ezek. i. 1, 3; iii. 23; and cf. x. 15, 20, 22, and
     xliii. 3.

     (4) See J. A. Montgomery, _Aramaic Incantation Texts from
     Nippur_, 1913

     (5) Hilprecht, _Explorations_, p. 555 f.

Of the many thousands of inscribed clay tablets which were found in
the course of the expeditions, some were kept at Constantinople, while
others were presented by the Sultan Abdul Hamid to the excavators, who
had them conveyed to America. Since that time a large number have been
published. The work was necessarily slow, for many of the texts were
found to be in an extremely bad state of preservation. So it happened
that a great number of the boxes containing tablets remained until
recently still packed up in the store-rooms of the Pennsylvania Museum.
But under the present energetic Director of the Museum, Dr. G. B.
Gordon, the process of arranging and publishing the mass of literary
material has been "speeded up". A staff of skilled workmen has been
employed on the laborious task of cleaning the broken tablets and
fitting the fragments together. At the same time the help of several
Assyriologists was welcomed in the further task of running over and
sorting the collections as they were prepared for study. Professor Clay,
Professor Barton, Dr. Langdon, Dr. Edward Chiera, and Dr. Arno Poebel
have all participated in the work. But the lion's share has fallen to
the last-named scholar, who was given leave of absence by John
Hopkins University in order to take up a temporary appointment at the
Pennsylvania Museum. The result of his labours was published by the
Museum at the end of 1914.(1) The texts thus made available for study
are of very varied interest. A great body of them are grammatical
and represent compilations made by Semitic scribes of the period
of Hammurabi's dynasty for their study of the old Sumerian tongue.
Containing, as most of them do, Semitic renderings of the Sumerian words
and expressions collected, they are as great a help to us in our study
of Sumerian language as they were to their compilers; in particular they
have thrown much new light on the paradigms of the demonstrative and
personal pronouns and on Sumerian verbal forms. But literary texts are
also included in the recent publications.

     (1) Poebel, _Historical Texts_ and _Historical and
     Grammatical Texts_ (Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sect.,
     Vol. IV, No. 1, and Vol. V), Philadelphia, 1914.

When the Pennsylvania Museum sent out its first expedition, lively hopes
were entertained that the site selected would yield material of interest
from the biblical standpoint. The city of Nippur, as we have seen,
was one of the most sacred and most ancient religious centres in
the country, and Enlil, its city-god, was the head of the Babylonian
pantheon. On such a site it seemed likely that we might find versions of
the Babylonian legends which were current at the dawn of history before
the city of Babylonia and its Semitic inhabitants came upon the scene.
This expectation has proved to be not unfounded, for the literary
texts include the Sumerian Deluge Version and Creation myth to which I
referred at the beginning of the lecture. Other texts of almost equal
interest consist of early though fragmentary lists of historical and
semi-mythical rulers. They prove that Berossus and the later Babylonians
depended on material of quite early origin in compiling their dynasties
of semi-mythical kings. In them we obtain a glimpse of ages more remote
than any on which excavation in Babylonia has yet thrown light, and for
the first time we have recovered genuine native tradition of early date
with regard to the cradle of Babylonian culture. Before we approach the
Sumerian legends themselves, it will be as well to-day to trace back
in this tradition the gradual merging of history into legend and myth,
comparing at the same time the ancient Egyptian's picture of his own
remote past. We will also ascertain whether any new light is thrown by
our inquiry upon Hebrew traditions concerning the earliest history of
the human race and the origins of civilization.

In the study of both Egyptian and Babylonian chronology there has been a
tendency of late years to reduce the very early dates that were formerly
in fashion. But in Egypt, while the dynasties of Manetho have been
telescoped in places, excavation has thrown light on predynastic
periods, and we can now trace the history of culture in the Nile Valley
back, through an unbroken sequence, to its neolithic stage. Quite
recently, too, as I mentioned just now, a fresh literary record of
these early predynastic periods has been recovered, on a fragment of
the famous Palermo Stele, our most valuable monument for early Egyptian
history and chronology. Egypt presents a striking contrast to Babylonia
in the comparatively small number of written records which have survived
for the reconstruction of her history. We might well spare much of
her religious literature, enshrined in endless temple-inscriptions and
papyri, if we could but exchange it for some of the royal annals of
Egyptian Pharaohs. That historical records of this character were
compiled by the Egyptian scribes, and that they were as detailed and
precise in their information as those we have recovered from Assyrian
sources, is clear from the few extracts from the annals of Thothmes
III's wars which are engraved on the walls of the temple at Karnak.(1)
As in Babylonia and Assyria, such records must have formed the
foundation on which summaries of chronicles of past Egyptian history
were based. In the Palermo Stele it is recognized that we possess a
primitive chronicle of this character.

     (1) See Breasted, _Ancient Records_, I, p. 4, II, pp. 163
     ff.

Drawn up as early as the Vth Dynasty, its historical summary proves that
from the beginning of the dynastic age onward a yearly record was kept
of the most important achievements of the reigning Pharaoh. In this
fragmentary but invaluable epitome, recording in outline much of the
history of the Old Kingdom,(1) some interesting parallels have long been
noted with Babylonian usage. The early system of time-reckoning, for
example, was the same in both countries, each year being given an
official title from the chief event that occurred in it. And although in
Babylonia we are still without material for tracing the process by which
this cumbrous method gave place to that of reckoning by regnal years,
the Palermo Stele demonstrates the way in which the latter system was
evolved in Egypt. For the events from which the year was named came
gradually to be confined to the fiscal "numberings" of cattle and land.
And when these, which at first had taken place at comparatively long
intervals, had become annual events, the numbered sequence of their
occurrence corresponded precisely to the years of the king's reign. On
the stele, during the dynastic period, each regnal year is allotted its
own space or rectangle,(2) arranged in horizontal sequence below the
name and titles of the ruling king.

(1) Op. cit., I, pp. 57 ff.

(2) The spaces are not strictly rectangles, as each is divided
vertically from the next by the Egyptian hieroglyph for "year".

The text, which is engraved on both sides of a great block of black
basalt, takes its name from the fact that the fragment hitherto known
has been preserved since 1877 at the Museum of Palermo. Five other
fragments of the text have now been published, of which one undoubtedly
belongs to the same monument as the Palermo fragment, while the others
may represent parts of one or more duplicate copies of that famous text.
One of the four Cairo fragments(1) was found by a digger for _sebakh_
at Mitrahîneh (Memphis); the other three, which were purchased from a
dealer, are said to have come from Minieh, while the fifth fragment,
at University College, is also said to have come from Upper Egypt,(2)
though it was purchased by Professor Petrie while at Memphis. These
reports suggest that a number of duplicate copies were engraved and set
up in different Egyptian towns, and it is possible that the whole of the
text may eventually be recovered. The choice of basalt for the records
was obviously dictated by a desire for their preservation, but it has
had the contrary effect; for the blocks of this hard and precious
stone have been cut up and reused in later times. The largest and
most interesting of the new fragments has evidently been employed as a
door-sill, with the result that its surface is much rubbed and parts of
its text are unfortunately almost undecipherable. We shall see that the
earliest section of its record has an important bearing on our knowledge
of Egyptian predynastic history and on the traditions of that remote
period which have come down to us from the history of Manetho.

(1) See Gautier, _Le Musée Égyptien_, III (1915), pp. 29 ff., pl.
xxiv ff., and Foucart, _Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie
Orientale_, XII, ii (1916), pp. 161 ff.; and cf. Gardiner, _Journ. of
Egypt. Arch._, III, pp. 143 ff., and Petrie, _Ancient Egypt_, 1916, Pt.
III, pp. 114 ff.

(2) Cf. Petrie, op. cit., pp. 115, 120.

From the fragment of the stele preserved at Palermo we already knew that
its record went back beyond the Ist Dynasty into predynastic times.
For part of the top band of the inscription, which is there preserved,
contains nine names borne by kings of Lower Egypt or the Delta, which,
it had been conjectured, must follow the gods of Manetho and precede
the "Worshippers of Horus", the immediate predecessors of the Egyptian
dynasties.(1) But of contemporary rulers of Upper Egypt we had hitherto
no knowledge, since the supposed royal names discovered at Abydos and
assigned to the time of the "Worshippers of Horus" are probably not
royal names at all.(2) With the possible exception of two very archaic
slate palettes, the first historical memorials recovered from the
south do not date from an earlier period than the beginning of the Ist
Dynasty. The largest of the Cairo fragments now helps us to fill in this
gap in our knowledge.

     (1) See Breasted, _Anc. Rec._, I, pp. 52, 57.

     (2) Cf. Hall, _Ancient History of the Near East_, p. 99 f.

On the top of the new fragment(1) we meet the same band of rectangles as
at Palermo,(2) but here their upper portions are broken away, and there
only remains at the base of each of them the outlined figure of a royal
personage, seated in the same attitude as those on the Palermo stone.
The remarkable fact about these figures is that, with the apparent
exception of the third figure from the right,(3) each wears, not the
Crown of the North, as at Palermo, but the Crown of the South. We have
then to do with kings of Upper Egypt, not the Delta, and it is no longer
possible to suppose that the predynastic rulers of the Palermo Stele
were confined to those of Lower Egypt, as reflecting northern tradition.
Rulers of both halves of the country are represented, and Monsieur
Gautier has shown,(4) from data on the reverse of the inscription, that
the kings of the Delta were arranged on the original stone before the
rulers of the south who are outlined upon our new fragment. Moreover, we
have now recovered definite proof that this band of the inscription is
concerned with predynastic Egyptian princes; for the cartouche of the
king, whose years are enumerated in the second band immediately below
the kings of the south, reads Athet, a name we may with certainty
identify with Athothes, the second successor of Menes, founder of the
Ist Dynasty, which is already given under the form Ateth in the Abydos
List of Kings.(5) It is thus quite certain that the first band of the
inscription relates to the earlier periods before the two halves of the
country were brought together under a single ruler.

     (1) Cairo No. 1; see Gautier, _Mus. Égypt._, III, pl. xxiv
     f.

     (2) In this upper band the spaces are true rectangles, being
     separated by vertical lines, not by the hieroglyph for
     "year" as in the lower bands; and each rectangle is assigned
     to a separate king, and not, as in the other bands, to a
     year of a king's reign.

     (3) The difference in the crown worn by this figure is
     probably only apparent and not intentional; M. Foucart,
     after a careful examination of the fragment, concludes that
     it is due to subsequent damage or to an original defect in
     the stone; cf. _Bulletin_, XII, ii, p. 162.

     (4) Op. cit., p. 32 f.

     (5) In Manetho's list he corresponds to {Kenkenos}, the
     second successor of Menes according to both Africanus and
     Eusebius, who assign the name Athothis to the second ruler
     of the dynasty only, the Teta of the Abydos List. The form
     Athothes is preserved by Eratosthenes for both of Menes'
     immediate successors.

Though the tradition of these remote times is here recorded on a
monument of the Vth Dynasty, there is no reason to doubt its general
accuracy, or to suppose that we are dealing with purely mythological
personages. It is perhaps possible, as Monsieur Foucart suggests, that
missing portions of the text may have carried the record back through
purely mythical periods to Ptah and the Creation. In that case we should
have, as we shall see, a striking parallel to early Sumerian tradition.
But in the first extant portions of the Palermo text we are already in
the realm of genuine tradition. The names preserved appear to be those
of individuals, not of mythological creations, and we may assume that
their owners really existed. For though the invention of writing had
not at that time been achieved, its place was probably taken by oral
tradition. We know that with certain tribes of Africa at the present
day, who possess no knowledge of writing, there are functionaries
charged with the duty of preserving tribal traditions, who transmit
orally to their successors a remembrance of past chiefs and some details
of events that occurred centuries before.(1) The predynastic Egyptians
may well have adopted similar means for preserving a remembrance of
their past history.

     (1) M. Foucart illustrates this point by citing the case of
     the Bushongos, who have in this way preserved a list of no
     less than a hundred and twenty-one of their past kings; op.
     cit., p. 182, and cf. Tordey and Joyce, "Les Bushongos", in
     _Annales du Musée du Congo Belge_, sér. III, t. II, fasc. i
     (Brussels, 1911).

Moreover, the new text furnishes fresh proof of the general accuracy of
Manetho, even when dealing with traditions of this prehistoric age.
On the stele there is no definite indication that these two sets of
predynastic kings were contemporaneous rulers of Lower and Upper Egypt
respectively; and since elsewhere the lists assign a single sovereign
to each epoch, it has been suggested that we should regard them as
successive representatives of the legitimate kingdom.(1) Now Manetho,
after his dynasties of gods and demi-gods, states that thirty Memphite
kings reigned for 1,790 years, and were followed by ten Thinite kings
whose reigns covered a period of 350 years. Neglecting the figures as
obviously erroneous, we may well admit that the Greek historian here
alludes to our two pre-Menite dynasties. But the fact that he should
regard them as ruling consecutively does not preclude the other
alternative. The modern convention of arranging lines of contemporaneous
rulers in parallel columns had not been evolved in antiquity, and
without some such method of distinction contemporaneous rulers, when
enumerated in a list, can only be registered consecutively. It would be
natural to assume that, before the unification of Egypt by the founder
of the Ist Dynasty, the rulers of North and South were independent
princes, possessing no traditions of a united throne on which any claim
to hegemony could be based. On the assumption that this was so, their
arrangement in a consecutive series would not have deceived their
immediate successors. But it would undoubtedly tend in course of time to
obliterate the tradition of their true order, which even at the period
of the Vth Dynasty may have been completely forgotten. Manetho would
thus have introduced no strange or novel confusion; and this explanation
would of course apply to other sections of his system where the
dynasties he enumerates appear to be too many for their period. But his
reproduction of two lines of predynastic rulers, supported as it now is
by the early evidence of the Palermo text, only serves to increase our
confidence in the general accuracy of his sources, while at the
same time it illustrates very effectively the way in which possible
inaccuracies, deduced from independent data, may have arisen in quite
early times.

     (1) Foucart, loc. cit.

In contrast to the dynasties of Manetho, those of Berossus are
so imperfectly preserved that they have never formed the basis of
Babylonian chronology.(1) But here too, in the chronological scheme,
a similar process of reduction has taken place. Certain dynasties,
recovered from native sources and at one time regarded as consecutive,
were proved to have been contemporaneous; and archaeological evidence
suggested that some of the great gaps, so freely assumed in the royal
sequence, had no right to be there. As a result, the succession of known
rulers was thrown into truer perspective, and such gaps as remained were
being partially filled by later discoveries. Among the latter the most
important find was that of an early list of kings, recently published by
Père Scheil(2) and subsequently purchased by the British Museum shortly
before the war. This had helped us to fill in the gap between the famous
Sargon of Akkad and the later dynasties, but it did not carry us
far beyond Sargon's own time. Our archaeological evidence also comes
suddenly to an end. Thus the earliest picture we have hitherto obtained
of the Sumerians has been that of a race employing an advanced system of
writing and possessed of a knowledge of metal. We have found, in short,
abundant remains of a bronze-age culture, but no traces of preceding
ages of development such as meet us on early Egyptian sites. It was
a natural inference that the advent of the Sumerians in the Euphrates
Valley was sudden, and that they had brought their highly developed
culture with them from some region of Central or Southern Asia.

     (1) While the evidence of Herodotus is extraordinarily
     valuable for the details he gives of the civilizations of
     both Egypt and Babylonia, and is especially full in the case
     of the former, it is of little practical use for the
     chronology. In Egypt his report of the early history is
     confused, and he hardly attempts one for Babylonia. It is
     probable that on such subjects he sometimes misunderstood
     his informants, the priests, whose traditions were more
     accurately reproduced by the later native writers Manetho
     and Berossus. For a detailed comparison of classical
     authorities in relation to both countries, see Griffith in
     Hogarth's _Authority and Archaeology_, pp. 161 ff.

     (2) See _Comptes rendus_, 1911 (Oct.), pp. 606 ff., and
     _Rev. d'Assyr._, IX (1912), p. 69.

The newly published Nippur documents will cause us to modify that view.
The lists of early kings were themselves drawn up under the Dynasty
of Nîsin in the twenty-second century B.C., and they give us traces of
possibly ten and at least eight other "kingdoms" before the earliest
dynasty of the known lists.(1) One of their novel features is that they
include summaries at the end, in which it is stated how often a city or
district enjoyed the privilege of being the seat of supreme authority
in Babylonia. The earliest of their sections lie within the legendary
period, and though in the third dynasty preserved we begin to note signs
of a firmer historical tradition, the great break that then occurs in
the text is at present only bridged by titles of various "kingdoms"
which the summaries give; a few even of these are missing and the
relative order of the rest is not assured. But in spite of their
imperfect state of preservation, these documents are of great historical
value and will furnish a framework for future chronological schemes.
Meanwhile we may attribute to some of the later dynasties titles in
complete agreement with Sumerian tradition. The dynasty of Ur-Engur, for
example, which preceded that of Nîsin, becomes, if we like, the Third
Dynasty of Ur. Another important fact which strikes us after a scrutiny
of the early royal names recovered is that, while two or three are
Semitic,(2) the great majority of those borne by the earliest rulers of
Kish, Erech, and Ur are as obviously Sumerian.

     (1) See Poebel, _Historical Texts_, pp. 73 ff. and
     _Historical and Grammatical Texts_, pl. ii-iv, Nos. 2-5. The
     best preserved of the lists is No. 2; Nos. 3 and 4 are
     comparatively small fragments; and of No. 5 the obverse only
     is here published for the first time, the contents of the
     reverse having been made known some years ago by Hilprecht
     (cf. _Mathematical, Metrological, and Chronological
     Tablets_, p. 46 f., pl. 30, No. 47). The fragments belong to
     separate copies of the Sumerian dynastic record, and it
     happens that the extant portions of their text in some
     places cover the same period and are duplicates of one
     another.

     (2) Cf., e.g., two of the earliest kings of Kish, Galumum
     and Zugagib. The former is probably the Semitic-Babylonian
     word _kalumum_, "young animal, lamb," the latter
     _zukakîbum_, "scorpion"; cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 111.
     The occurrence of these names points to Semitic infiltration
     into Northern Babylonia since the dawn of history, a state
     of things we should naturally expect. It is improbable that
     on this point Sumerian tradition should have merely
     reflected the conditions of a later period.

It is clear that in native tradition, current among the Sumerians
themselves before the close of the third millennium, their race was
regarded as in possession of Babylonia since the dawn of history. This
at any rate proves that their advent was not sudden nor comparatively
recent, and it further suggests that Babylonia itself was the cradle
of their civilization. It will be the province of future archaeological
research to fill out the missing dynasties and to determine at what
points in the list their strictly historical basis disappears. Some,
which are fortunately preserved near the beginning, bear on their face
their legendary character. But for our purpose they are none the worse
for that.

In the first two dynasties, which had their seats at the cities of Kish
and Erech, we see gods mingling with men upon the earth. Tammuz, the god
of vegetation, for whose annual death Ezekiel saw women weeping beside
the Temple at Jerusalem, is here an earthly monarch. He appears to be
described as "a hunter", a phrase which recalls the death of Adonis in
Greek mythology. According to our Sumerian text he reigned in Erech for
a hundred years.

Another attractive Babylonian legend is that of Etana, the prototype of
Icarus and hero of the earliest dream of human flight.(1) Clinging
to the pinions of his friend the Eagle he beheld the world and its
encircling stream recede beneath him; and he flew through the gate of
heaven, only to fall headlong back to earth. He is here duly entered
in the list, where we read that "Etana, the shepherd who ascended to
heaven, who subdued all lands", ruled in the city of Kish for 635 years.

     (1) The Egyptian conception of the deceased Pharaoh
     ascending to heaven as a falcon and becoming merged into the
     sun, which first occurs in the Pyramid texts (see Gardiner
     in Cumont's _Études Syriennes_, pp. 109 ff.), belongs to a
     different range of ideas. But it may well have been combined
     with the Etana tradition to produce the funerary eagle
     employed so commonly in Roman Syria in representations of
     the emperor's apotheosis (cf. Cumont, op. cit., pp. 37 ff.,
     115).

The god Lugal-banda is another hero of legend. When the hearts of the
other gods failed them, he alone recovered the Tablets of Fate, stolen
by the bird-god Zû from Enlil's palace. He is here recorded to have
reigned in Erech for 1,200 years.

Tradition already told us that Erech was the native city of Gilgamesh,
the hero of the national epic, to whom his ancestor Ut-napishtim related
the story of the Flood. Gilgamesh too is in our list, as king of Erech
for 126 years.

We have here in fact recovered traditions of Post-diluvian kings.
Unfortunately our list goes no farther back than that, but it is
probable that in its original form it presented a general correspondence
to the system preserved from Berossus, which enumerates ten Antediluvian
kings, the last of them Xisuthros, the hero of the Deluge. Indeed, for
the dynastic period, the agreement of these old Sumerian lists with the
chronological system of Berossus is striking. The latter, according to
Syncellus, gives 34,090 or 34,080 years as the total duration of the
historical period, apart from his preceding mythical ages, while the
figure as preserved by Eusebius is 33,091 years.(1) The compiler of one
of our new lists,(2) writing some 1,900 years earlier, reckons that the
dynastic period in his day had lasted for 32,243 years. Of course all
these figures are mythical, and even at the time of the Sumerian Dynasty
of Nîsin variant traditions were current with regard to the number of
historical and semi-mythical kings of Babylonia and the duration of
their rule. For the earlier writer of another of our lists,(3) separated
from the one already quoted by an interval of only sixty-seven years,
gives 28,876(4) years as the total duration of the dynasties at his
time. But in spite of these discrepancies, the general resemblance
presented by the huge totals in the variant copies of the list to the
alternative figures of Berossus, if we ignore his mythical period,
is remarkable. They indicate a far closer correspondence of the Greek
tradition with that of the early Sumerians themselves than was formerly
suspected.

     (1) The figure 34,090 is that given by Syncellus (ed.
     Dindorf, p. 147); but it is 34,080 in the equivalent which
     is added in "sars", &c. The discrepancy is explained by some
     as due to an intentional omission of the units in the second
     reckoning; others would regard 34,080 as the correct figure
     (cf. _Hist. of Bab._, p. 114 f.). The reading of ninety
     against eighty is supported by the 33,091 of Eusebius
     (_Chron. lib. pri._, ed. Schoene, col. 25).

     (2) No. 4.

     (3) No. 2.

     (4) The figures are broken, but the reading given may be
     accepted with some confidence; see Poebel, _Hist. Inscr._,
     p. 103.

Further proof of this correspondence may be seen in the fact that the
new Sumerian Version of the Deluge Story, which I propose to discuss in
the second lecture, gives us a connected account of the world's history
down to that point. The Deluge hero is there a Sumerian king named
Ziusudu, ruling in one of the newly created cities of Babylonia and
ministering at the shrine of his city-god. He is continually given the
royal title, and the foundation of the Babylonian "kingdom" is treated
as an essential part of Creation. We may therefore assume that an
Antediluvian period existed in Sumerian tradition as in Berossus.(1) And
I think Dr. Poebel is right in assuming that the Nippur copies of the
Dynastic List begin with the Post-diluvian period.(2)

     (1) Of course it does not necessarily follow that the figure
     assigned to the duration of the Antediluvian or mythical
     period by the Sumerians would show so close a resemblance to
     that of Berossus as we have already noted in their estimates
     of the dynastic or historical period. But there is no need
     to assume that Berossus' huge total of a hundred and twenty
     "sars" (432,000 years) is entirely a product of Neo-
     Babylonian speculation; the total 432,000 is explained as
     representing ten months of a cosmic year, each month
     consisting of twelve "sars", i.e. 12 x 3600 = 43,200 years.
     The Sumerians themselves had no difficulty in picturing two
     of their dynastic rulers as each reigning for two "ners"
     (1,200 years), and it would not be unlikely that "sars" were
     distributed among still earlier rulers; the numbers were
     easily written. For the unequal distribution of his hundred
     and twenty "sars" by Berossus among his ten Antediluvian
     kings, see Appendix II.

     (2) The exclusion of the Antediluvian period from the list
     may perhaps be explained on the assumption that its compiler
     confined his record to "kingdoms", and that the mythical
     rulers who preceded them did not form a "kingdom" within his
     definition of the term. In any case we have a clear
     indication that an earlier period was included before the
     true "kingdoms", or dynasties, in an Assyrian copy of the
     list, a fragment of which is preserved in the British Museum
     from the Library of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh; see _Chron.
     conc. Early Bab. Kings_ (Studies in East. Hist., II f.),
     Vol. I, pp. 182 ff., Vol. II, pp. 48 ff., 143 f. There we
     find traces of an extra column of text preceding that in
     which the first Kingdom of Kish was recorded. It would seem
     almost certain that this extra column was devoted to
     Antediluvian kings. The only alternative explanation would
     be that it was inscribed with the summaries which conclude
     the Sumerian copies of our list. But later scribes do not so
     transpose their material, and the proper place for summaries
     is at the close, not at the beginning, of a list. In the
     Assyrian copy the Dynastic List is brought up to date, and
     extends down to the later Assyrian period. Formerly its
     compiler could only be credited with incorporating
     traditions of earlier times. But the correspondence of the
     small fragment preserved of its Second Column with part of
     the First Column of the Nippur texts (including the name of
     "Enmennunna") proves that the Assyrian scribe reproduced an
     actual copy of the Sumerian document.

Though Professor Barton, on the other hand, holds that the Dynastic
List had no concern with the Deluge, his suggestion that the early
names preserved by it may have been the original source of Berossus'
Antediluvian rulers(1) may yet be accepted in a modified form. In coming
to his conclusion he may have been influenced by what seems to me an
undoubted correspondence between one of the rulers in our list and the
sixth Antediluvian king of Berossus. I think few will be disposed to
dispute the equation

{Daonos poimon} = Etana, a shepherd.

Each list preserves the hero's shepherd origin and the correspondence of
the names is very close, Daonos merely transposing the initial vowel
of Etana.(2) That Berossus should have translated a Post-diluvian ruler
into the Antediluvian dynasty would not be at all surprising in view of
the absence of detailed correspondence between his later dynasties and
those we know actually occupied the Babylonian throne. Moreover, the
inclusion of Babylon in his list of Antediluvian cities should make us
hesitate to regard all the rulers he assigns to his earliest dynasty
as necessarily retaining in his list their original order in Sumerian
tradition. Thus we may with a clear conscience seek equations between
the names of Berossus' Antediluvian rulers and those preserved in the
early part of our Dynastic List, although we may regard the latter as
equally Post-diluvian in Sumerian belief.

     (1) See the brief statement he makes in the course of a
     review of Dr. Poebel's volumes in the _American Journal of
     Semitic Languages and Literature_, XXXI, April 1915, p. 225.
     He does not compare any of the names, but he promises a
     study of those preserved and a comparison of the list with
     Berossus and with Gen. iv and v. It is possible that
     Professor Barton has already fulfilled his promise of
     further discussion, perhaps in his _Archaeology and the
     Bible_, to the publication of which I have seen a reference
     in another connexion (cf. _Journ. Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol.
     XXXVI, p. 291); but I have not yet been able to obtain sight
     of a copy.

     (2) The variant form {Daos} is evidently a mere contraction,
     and any claim it may have had to represent more closely the
     original form of the name is to be disregarded in view of
     our new equation.

This reflection, and the result already obtained, encourage us to accept
the following further equation, which is yielded by a renewed scrutiny
of the lists:

{'Ammenon} = Enmenunna.

Here Ammenon, the fourth of Berossus' Antediluvian kings, presents a
wonderfully close transcription of the Sumerian name. The _n_ of the
first syllable has been assimilated to the following consonant in
accordance with a recognized law of euphony, and the resultant doubling
of the _m_ is faithfully preserved in the Greek. Precisely the same
initial component, _Enme_, occurs in the name Enmeduranki, borne by a
mythical king of Sippar, who has long been recognized as the original
of Berossus' seventh Antediluvian king, {Euedorakhos}.(1) There too
the original _n_ has been assimilated, but the Greek form retains no
doubling of the _m_ and points to its further weakening.

     (1) Var. {Euedoreskhos}; the second half of the original
     name, Enmeduranki, is more closely preserved in
     _Edoranchus_, the form given by the Armenian translator of
     Eusebius.

I do not propose to detain you with a detailed discussion of Sumerian
royal names and their possible Greek equivalents. I will merely point
out that the two suggested equations, which I venture to think we
may regard as established, throw the study of Berossus' mythological
personages upon a new plane. No equivalent has hitherto been suggested
for {Daonos}; but {'Ammenon} has been confidently explained as the
equivalent of a conjectured Babylonian original, Ummânu, lit. "Workman".
The fact that we should now have recovered the Sumerian original of
the name, which proves to have no connexion in form or meaning with the
previously suggested Semitic equivalent, tends to cast doubt on other
Semitic equations proposed. Perhaps {'Amelon} or {'Amillaros} may after
all not prove to be the equivalent of Amêlu, "Man", nor {'Amempsinos}
that of Amêl-Sin. Both may find their true equivalents in some of the
missing royal names at the head of the Sumerian Dynastic List. There too
we may provisionally seek {'Aloros}, the "first king", whose equation
with Aruru, the Babylonian mother-goddess, never appeared a very happy
suggestion.(1) The ingenious proposal,(2) on the other hand, that his
successor, {'Alaparos}, represents a miscopied {'Adaparos}, a Greek
rendering of the name of Adapa, may still hold good in view of Etana's
presence in the Sumerian dynastic record. Ut-napishtim's title,
Khasisatra or Atrakhasis, "the Very Wise", still of course remains
the established equivalent of {Xisouthros}; but for {'Otiartes} (?
{'Opartes}), a rival to Ubar-Tutu, Ut-napishtim's father, may perhaps
appear. The new identifications do not of course dispose of the old
ones, except in the case of Ummânu; but they open up a new line of
approach and provide a fresh field for conjecture.(3) Semitic, and
possibly contracted, originals are still possible for unidentified
mythical kings of Berossus; but such equations will inspire greater
confidence, should we be able to establish Sumerian originals for the
Semitic renderings, from new material already in hand or to be obtained
in the future.

     (1) Dr. Poebel (_Hist Inscr._, p. 42, n. 1) makes the
     interesting suggestion that {'Aloros} may represent an
     abbreviated and corrupt form of the name Lal-ur-alimma,
     which has come down to us as that of an early and mythical
     king of Nippur; see Rawlinson, _W.A.I._, IV, 60 (67), V, 47
     and 44, and cf. _Sev. Tabl. of Creat._, Vol. I, p. 217, No.
     32574, Rev., l. 2 f. It may be added that the sufferings
     with which the latter is associated in the tradition are
     perhaps such as might have attached themselves to the first
     human ruler of the world; but the suggested equation, though
     tempting by reason of the remote parallel it would thus
     furnish to Adam's fate, can at present hardly be accepted in
     view of the possibility that a closer equation to {'Aloros}
     may be forthcoming.

     (2) Hommel, _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, Vol. XV (1893), p.
     243.

     (3) See further Appendix II.

But it is time I read you extracts from the earlier extant portions of
the Sumerian Dynastic List, in order to illustrate the class of document
with which we are dealing. From them it will be seen that the record
is not a tabular list of names like the well-known King's Lists of the
Neo-Babylonian period. It is cast in the form of an epitomized chronicle
and gives under set formulae the length of each king's reign, and his
father's name in cases of direct succession to father or brother. Short
phrases are also sometimes added, or inserted in the sentence referring
to a king, in order to indicate his humble origin or the achievement
which made his name famous in tradition. The head of the First Column
of the text is wanting, and the first royal name that is completely
preserved is that of Galumum, the ninth or tenth ruler of the earliest
"kingdom", or dynasty, of Kish. The text then runs on connectedly for
several lines:

     Galumum ruled for nine hundred years.
     Zugagib ruled for eight hundred and forty years.
     Arpi, son of a man of the people, ruled for seven hundred and
          twenty
     years.
     Etana, the shepherd who ascended to heaven, who subdued all lands,
     ruled for six hundred and thirty-five years.(1)
     Pili . . ., son of Etana, ruled for four hundred and ten years.
     Enmenunna ruled for six hundred and eleven years.
     Melamkish, son of Enmenunna, ruled for nine hundred years.
     Barsalnunna, son of Enmenunna, ruled for twelve hundred years.
     Mesza(. . .), son of Barsalnunna, ruled for (. . .) years.
     (. . .), son of Barsalnunna, ruled for (. . .) years.

     (1) Possibly 625 years.

A small gap then occurs in the text, but we know that the last two
representatives of this dynasty of twenty-three kings are related to
have ruled for nine hundred years and six hundred and twenty-five
years respectively. In the Second Column of the text the lines are also
fortunately preserved which record the passing of the first hegemony
of Kish to the "Kingdom of Eanna", the latter taking its name from
the famous temple of Anu and Ishtar in the old city of Erech. The text
continues:

     The kingdom of Kish passed to Eanna.

     In Eanna, Meskingasher, son of the Sun-god, ruled as high
     priest and king for three hundred and twenty-five years.
     Meskingasher entered into(1) (. . .) and ascended to (. .
     .).

     Enmerkar, son of Meskingasher, the king of Erech who built
     (. . .) with the people of Erech,(2) ruled as king for four
     hundred and twenty years.

     Lugalbanda, the shepherd, ruled for twelve hundred years.

     Dumuzi,(3), the hunter(?), whose city was . . ., ruled for a
     hundred years.

     Gishbilgames,(4) whose father was A,(5) the high priest of
     Kullab, ruled for one hundred and twenty-six(6) years.

     (. . .)lugal, son of Gishbilgames, ruled for (. . .) years.

     (1) The verb may also imply descent into.

     (2) The phrase appears to have been imperfectly copied by
     the scribe. As it stands the subordinate sentence reads "the
     king of Erech who built with the people of Erech". Either
     the object governed by the verb has been omitted, in which
     case we might restore some such phrase as "the city"; or,
     perhaps, by a slight transposition, we should read "the king
     who built Erech with the people of Erech". In any case the
     first building of the city of Erech, as distinguished from
     its ancient cult-centre Eanna, appears to be recorded here
     in the tradition. This is the first reference to Erech in
     the text; and Enmerkar's father was high priest as well as
     king.

     (3) i.e. Tammuz.

     (4) i.e. Gilgamesh.

     (5) The name of the father of Gilgamesh is rather strangely
     expressed by the single sign for the vowel _a_ and must
     apparently be read as A. As there is a small break in the
     text at the end of this line, Dr. Poebel not unnaturally
     assumed that A was merely the first syllable of the name, of
     which the end was wanting. But it has now been shown that
     the complete name was A; see Förtsch, _Orient. Lit.-Zeit._,
     Vol. XVIII, No. 12 (Dec., 1915), col. 367 ff. The reading is
     deduced from the following entry in an Assyrian explanatory
     list of gods (_Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus._, Pt. XXIV, pl.
     25, ll. 29-31): "The god A, who is also equated to the god
     Dubbisaguri (i.e. 'Scribe of Ur'), is the priest of Kullab;
     his wife is the goddess Ninguesirka (i.e. 'Lady of the edge
     of the street')." A, the priest of Kullab and the husband of
     a goddess, is clearly to be identified with A, the priest of
     Kullab and father of Gilgamesh, for we know from the
     Gilgamesh Epic that the hero's mother was the goddess
     Ninsun. Whether Ninguesirka was a title of Ninsun, or
     represents a variant tradition with regard to the parentage
     of Gilgamesh on the mother's side, we have in any case
     confirmation of his descent from priest and goddess. It was
     natural that A should be subsequently deified. This was not
     the case at the time our text was inscribed, as the name is
     written without the divine determinative.

     (6) Possibly 186 years.

This group of early kings of Erech is of exceptional interest. Apart
from its inclusion of Gilgamesh and the gods Tammuz and Lugalbanda,
its record of Meskingasher's reign possibly refers to one of the lost
legends of Erech. Like him Melchizedek, who comes to us in a chapter of
Genesis reflecting the troubled times of Babylon's First Dynasty,(1)
was priest as well as king.(2) Tradition appears to have credited
Meskingasher's son and successor, Enmerkar, with the building of Erech
as a city around the first settlement Eanna, which had already given its
name to the "kingdom". If so, Sumerian tradition confirms the assumption
of modern research that the great cities of Babylonia arose around the
still more ancient cult-centres of the land. We shall have occasion
to revert to the traditions here recorded concerning the parentage of
Meskingasher, the founder of this line of kings, and that of its most
famous member, Gilgamesh. Meanwhile we may note that the closing rulers
of the "Kingdom of Eanna" are wanting. When the text is again preserved,
we read of the hegemony passing from Erech to Ur and thence to Awan:

     The k(ingdom of Erech(3) passed to) Ur.
     In Ur Mesannipada became king and ruled for eighty years.
     Meskiagunna, son of Mesannipada, ruled for thirty years.
     Elu(. . .) ruled for twenty-five years.
     Balu(. . .) ruled for thirty-six years.
     Four kings (thus) ruled for a hundred and seventy-one years.
     The kingdom of Ur passed to Awan.
     In Awan . . .

     (1) Cf. _Hist. of Bab._, p. 159 f.

     (2) Gen. xiv. 18.

     (3) The restoration of Erech here, in place of Eanna, is
     based on the absence of the latter name in the summary;
     after the building of Erech by Enmerkar, the kingdom was
     probably reckoned as that of Erech.

With the "Kingdom of Ur" we appear to be approaching a firmer historical
tradition, for the reigns of its rulers are recorded in decades, not
hundreds of years. But we find in the summary, which concludes the main
copy of our Dynastic List, that the kingdom of Awan, though it consisted
of but three rulers, is credited with a total duration of three hundred
and fifty-six years, implying that we are not yet out of the legendary
stratum. Since Awan is proved by newly published historical inscriptions
from Nippur to have been an important deity of Elam at the time of the
Dynasty of Akkad,(1) we gather that the "Kingdom of Awan" represented in
Sumerian tradition the first occasion on which the country passed for a
time under Elamite rule. At this point a great gap occurs in the text,
and when the detailed dynastic succession in Babylonia is again assured,
we have passed definitely from the realm of myth and legend into that of
history.(2)

     (1) Poebel, _Hist. Inscr._, p. 128.

     (2) See further, Appendix II.

What new light, then, do these old Sumerian records throw on Hebrew
traditions concerning the early ages of mankind? I think it will be
admitted that there is something strangely familiar about some of those
Sumerian extracts I read just now. We seem to hear in them the faint
echo of another narrative, like them but not quite the same.

     And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and
     thirty years; and he died.

     And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enosh:
     and Seth lived after he begat Enosh eight hundred and seven
     years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of
     Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five
     years: and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten
     years: and he died. . . . and all the days of Mahalalel were
     eight hundred ninety and five years: and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and
     two years: and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and
     five years: and Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for
     God took him.

     . . . and all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty
     and nine years: and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy
     and seven years: and he died.

     And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem,
     Ham, and Japheth.

Throughout these extracts from "the book of the generations of Adam",(1)
Galumum's nine hundred years(2) seem to run almost like a refrain; and
Methuselah's great age, the recognized symbol for longevity, is even
exceeded by two of the Sumerian patriarchs. The names in the two lists
are not the same,(3) but in both we are moving in the same atmosphere
and along similar lines of thought. Though each list adheres to its own
set formulae, it estimates the length of human life in the early ages
of the world on much the same gigantic scale as the other. Our Sumerian
records are not quite so formal in their structure as the Hebrew
narrative, but the short notes which here and there relieve their stiff
monotony may be paralleled in the Cainite genealogy of the preceding
chapter in Genesis.(4) There Cain's city-building, for example, may pair
with that of Enmerkar; and though our new records may afford no precise
equivalents to Jabal's patronage of nomad life, or to the invention of
music and metal-working ascribed to Jubal and Tubal-cain, these too
are quite in the spirit of Sumerian and Babylonian tradition, in their
attempt to picture the beginnings of civilization. Thus Enmeduranki,
the prototype of the seventh Antediluvian patriarch of Berossus, was
traditionally revered as the first exponent of divination.(5) It is in
the chronological and general setting, rather than in the Hebrew names
and details, that an echo seems here to reach us from Sumer through
Babylon.

     (1) Gen. v. 1 ff. (P).

     (2) The same length of reign is credited to Melamkish and to
     one and perhaps two other rulers of that first Sumerian
     "kingdom".

     (3) The possibility of the Babylonian origin of some of the
     Hebrew names in this geneaology and its Cainite parallel has
     long been canvassed; and considerable ingenuity has been
     expended in obtaining equations between Hebrew names and
     those of the Antediluvian kings of Berossus by tracing a
     common meaning for each suggested pair. It is unfortunate
     that our new identification of {'Ammenon} with the Sumerian
     _Enmenunna_ should dispose of one of the best parallels
     obtained, viz. {'Ammenon} = Bab. _ummânu_, "workman" ||
     Cain, Kenan = "smith". Another satisfactory pair suggested
     is {'Amelon} = Bab. _amêlu_, "man" || Enosh = "man"; but the
     resemblance of the former to _amêlu_ may prove to be
     fortuitous, in view of the possibility of descent from a
     quite different Sumerian original. The alternative may
     perhaps have to be faced that the Hebrew parallels to
     Sumerian and Babylonian traditions are here confined to
     chronological structure and general contents, and do not
     extend to Hebrew renderings of Babylonian names. It may be
     added that such correspondence between personal names in
     different languages is not very significant by itself. The
     name of Zugagib of Kish, for example, is paralleled by the
     title borne by one of the earliest kings of the Ist Dynasty
     of Egypt, Narmer, whose carved slate palettes have been
     found at Kierakonpolis; he too was known as "the Scorpion."

     (4) Gen. iv. 17 ff. (J).

     (5) It may be noted that an account of the origin of
     divination is included in his description of the descendents
     of Noah by the writer of the Biblical Antiquities of Philo,
     a product of the same school as the Fourth Book of Esdras
     and the Apocalypse of Baruch; see James, _The Biblical
     Antiquities of Philo_, p. 86.

I may add that a parallel is provided by the new Sumerian records to the
circumstances preceding the birth of the Nephilim at the beginning
of the sixth chapter of Genesis.(1) For in them also great prowess or
distinction is ascribed to the progeny of human and divine unions. We
have already noted that, according to the traditions the records embody,
the Sumerians looked back to a time when gods lived upon the earth with
men, and we have seen such deities as Tammuz and Lugalbanda figuring as
rulers of cities in the dynastic sequence. As in later periods, their
names are there preceded by the determinative for divinity. But more
significant still is the fact that we read of two Sumerian heroes, also
rulers of cities, who were divine on the father's or mother's side
but not on both. Meskingasher is entered in the list as "son of the
Sun-god",(2) and no divine parentage is recorded on the mother's side.
On the other hand, the human father of Gilgamesh is described as the
high priest of Kullab, and we know from other sources that his mother
was the goddess Ninsun.(3) That this is not a fanciful interpretation is
proved by a passage in the Gilgamesh Epic itself,(4) in which its
hero is described as two-thirds god and one-third man. We again find
ourselves back in the same stratum of tradition with which the Hebrew
narratives have made us so familiar.

     (1) Gen. vi. 1-4 (J).

     (2) The phrase recalls the familiar Egyptian royal
     designation "son of the Sun," and it is possible that we may
     connect with this same idea the Palermo Stele's inclusion of
     the mother's and omission of the father's name in its record
     of the early dynastic Pharaohs. This suggestion does not
     exclude the possibility of the prevalence of matrilineal
     (and perhaps originally also of matrilocal and
     matripotestal) conditions among the earliest inhabitants of
     Egypt. Indeed the early existence of some form of mother-
     right may have originated, and would certainly have
     encouraged, the growth of a tradition of solar parentage for
     the head of the state.

     (3) Poebel, _Hist. Inscr._, p. 124 f.

     (4) Tablet I, Col. ii, l. 1; and cf. Tablet IX, Col. ii. l.
     16.

What light then does our new material throw upon traditional origins of
civilization? We have seen that in Egypt a new fragment of the Palermo
Stele has confirmed in a remarkable way the tradition of the predynastic
period which was incorporated in his history by Manetho. It has long
been recognized that in Babylonia the sources of Berossus must have
been refracted by the political atmosphere of that country during
the preceding nineteen hundred years. This inference our new material
supports; but when due allowance has been made for a resulting
disturbance of vision, the Sumerian origin of the remainder of his
evidence is notably confirmed. Two of his ten Antediluvian kings rejoin
their Sumerian prototypes, and we shall see that two of his three
Antediluvian cities find their place among the five of primitive
Sumerian belief. It is clear that in Babylonia, as in Egypt, the local
traditions of the dawn of history, current in the Hellenistic period,
were modelled on very early lines. Both countries were the seats of
ancient civilizations, and it is natural that each should stage its
picture of beginnings upon its own soil and embellish it with local
colouring.

It is a tribute to the historical accuracy of Hebrew tradition to
recognize that it never represented Palestine as the cradle of the human
race. It looked to the East rather than to the South for evidence of
man's earliest history and first progress in the arts of life. And it
is in the East, in the soil of Babylonia, that we may legitimately seek
material in which to verify the sources of that traditional belief.

The new parallels I have to-day attempted to trace between some of
the Hebrew traditions, preserved in Gen. iv-vi, and those of the early
Sumerians, as presented by their great Dynastic List, are essentially
general in character and do not apply to details of narrative or to
proper names. If they stood alone, we should still have to consider
whether they are such as to suggest cultural influence or independent
origin. But fortunately they do not exhaust the evidence we have lately
recovered from the site of Nippur, and we will postpone formulating our
conclusions with regard to them until the whole field has been surveyed.
From the biblical standpoint by far the most valuable of our new
documents is one that incorporates a Sumerian version of the Deluge
story. We shall see that it presents a variant and more primitive
picture of that great catastrophe than those of the Babylonian and
Hebrew versions. And what is of even greater interest, it connects the
narrative of the Flood with that of Creation, and supplies a brief but
intermediate account of the Antediluvian period. How then are we to
explain this striking literary resemblance to the structure of the
narrative in Genesis, a resemblance that is completely wanting in the
Babylonian versions? But that is a problem we must reserve for the next
lecture.




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 (. . .)       Ishtar cried aloud like a woman
     like a (. . .),                     in travail,
     The holy Innanna lament(ed)      Bêlit-ili lamented with a loud
     on 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

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