THE BRITISH ACADEMY
 
 
 
                      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
 
 
 
                         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 [. . .] like     Ishtar cried aloud like a woman
     a [. . .],                          in travail,
   The holy Innanna lament[ed] on      Bêlit-ili lamented with a loud
     account of her people.              voice.
 
 [1] Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 117 f.
 
 The expression Bêlit-ili, "the Lady of the Gods", is attested as a
 title borne both by the Semitic goddess Ishtar and by the Sumerian
 goddess Nintu or Ninkharsagga. In the passage in the Babylonian
 Version, "the Lady of the Gods" has always been treated as a synonym
 of Ishtar, the second half of the couplet being regarded as a
 restatement of the first, according to a recognized law of Babylonian
 poetry. We may probably assume that this interpretation is correct,
 and we may conclude by analogy that "the holy Innanna" in the second
 half of the Sumerian couplet is there merely employed as a synonym of
 Nintu.[1] When the Sumerian myth was recast in accordance with Semitic
 ideas, the /rôle/ of creatress of mankind, which had been played by
 the old Sumerian goddess Ninkharsagga or Nintu, was naturally
 transferred to the Semitic Ishtar. And as Innanna was one of Ishtar's
 designations, it was possible to make the change by a simple
 transcription of the lines, the name Nintu being replaced by the
 synonymous title Bêlit-ili, which was also shared by Ishtar.
 Difficulties are at once introduced if we assume with Dr. Poebel that
 in each version two separate goddesses are represented as lamenting,
 Nintu or Bêlit-ili and Innanna or Ishtar. For Innanna as a separate
 goddess had no share in the Sumerian Creation, and the reference to
 "her people" is there only applicable to Nintu. Dr. Poebel has to
 assume that the Sumerian names should be reversed in order to restore
 them to their original order, which he suggests the Babylonian Version
 has preserved. But no such textual emendation is necessary. In the
 Semitic Version Ishtar definitely displaces Nintu as the mother of
 men, as is proved by a later passage in her speech where she refers to
 her own bearing of mankind.[2] The necessity for the substitution of
 her name in the later version is thus obvious, and we have already
 noted how simply this was effected.
 
 [1] Cf. also Jastrow, /Hebr. and Bab. Trad./, p. 336.
 
 [2] Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 123.
 
 Another feature in which the two versions differ is that in the
 Sumerian text the lamentation of the goddess precedes the sending of
 the Deluge, while in the Gilgamesh Epic it is occasioned by the actual
 advent of the storm. Since our text is not completely preserved, it is
 just possible that the couplet was repeated at the end of the Fourth
 Column after mankind's destruction had taken place. But a further
 apparent difference has been noted. While in the Sumerian Version the
 goddess at once deplores the divine decision, it is clear from
 Ishtar's words in the Gilgamesh Epic that in the assembly of the gods
 she had at any rate concurred in it.[1] On the other hand, in Bêlit-
 ili's later speech in the Epic, after Ut-napishtim's sacrifice upon
 the mountain, she appears to subscribe the decision to Enlil alone.[2]
 The passages in the Gilgamesh Epic are not really contradictory, for
 they can be interpreted as implying that, while Enlil forced his will
 upon the other gods against Bêlit-ili's protest, the goddess at first
 reproached herself with her concurrence, and later stigmatized Enlil
 as the real author of the catastrophe. The Semitic narrative thus does
 not appear, as has been suggested, to betray traces of two variant
 traditions which have been skilfully combined, though it may perhaps
 exhibit an expansion of the Sumerian story. On the other hand, most of
 the apparent discrepancies between the Sumerian and Babylonian
 Versions disappear, on the recognition that our text gives in many
 passages only an epitome of the original Sumerian Version.
 
 [1] Cf. l. 121 f., "Since I commanded evil in the assembly of the
     gods, (and) commanded battle for the destruction of my people".
 
 [2] Cf. ll. 165 ff., "Ye gods that are here! So long as I forget not
     the (jewels of) lapis lazuli upon my neck, I will keep these days
     in my memory, never will I forget them! Let the gods come to the
     offering, but let not Enlil come to the offering, since he took
     not counsel but sent the deluge and surrendered my people to
     destruction."
 
 The lament of the goddess is followed by a brief account of the action
 taken by the other chief figures in the drama. Enki holds counsel with
 his own heart, evidently devising the project, which he afterwards
 carried into effect, of preserving the seed of mankind from
 destruction. Since the verb in the following line is wanting, we do
 not know what action is there recorded of the four creating deities;
 but the fact that the gods of heaven and earth invoked the name of Anu
 and Enlil suggests that it was their will which had been forced upon
 the other gods. We shall see that throughout the text Anu and Enlil
 are the ultimate rulers of both gods and men.
 
 The narrative then introduces the human hero of the Deluge story:
 
   At that time Ziusudu, the king, . . . priest of the god [. . .],
   Made a very great . . ., [. . .].
   In humility he prostrates himself, in reverence [. . .],
   Daily he stands in attendance [. . .].
   A dream,[1] such as had not been before, comes forth[2] . . . [. . .],
   By the Name of Heaven and Earth he conjures [. . .].
 
 [1] The word may also be rendered "dreams".
 
 [2] For this rendering of the verb /e-de/, for which Dr. Poebel does
     not hazard a translation, see Rawlinson, /W.A.I./, IV, pl. 26, l.
     24 f.(a), /nu-e-de/ = Sem. /la us-su-u/ (Pres.); and cf. Brünnow,
     /Classified List/, p. 327. An alternative rendering "is created"
     is also possible, and would give equally good sense; cf. /nu-e-de/
     = Sem. /la šu-pu-u/, /W.A.I./, IV, pl. 2, l. 5 (a), and Brünnow,
     op. cit., p. 328.
 
 The name of the hero, Ziusudu, is the fuller Sumerian equivalent of
 Ut-napishtim (or Uta-napishtim), the abbreviated Semitic form which we
 find in the Gilgamesh Epic. For not only are the first two elements of
 the Sumerian name identical with those of the Semitic Ut-napishtim,
 but the names themselves are equated in a later Babylonian syllabary
 or explanatory list of words.[1] We there find "Ut-napishte" given as
 the equivalent of the Sumerian "Zisuda", evidently an abbreviated form
 of the name Ziusudu;[2] and it is significant that the names occur in
 the syllabary between those of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, evidently in
 consequence of the association of the Deluge story by the Babylonians
 with their national epic of Gilgamesh. The name Ziusudu may be
 rendered "He who lengthened the day of life" or "He who made life long
 of days",[3] which in the Semitic form is abbreviated by the omission
 of the verb. The reference is probably to the immortality bestowed
 upon Ziusudu at the close of the story, and not to the prolongation of
 mankind's existence in which he was instrumental. It is scarcely
 necessary to add that the name has no linguistic connexion with the
 Hebrew name Noah, to which it also presents no parallel in meaning.
 
 [1] Cf. /Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus./, Pt. XVIII, pl. 30, l. 9 (a).
 
 [2] The name in the Sumerian Version is read by Dr. Poebel as
     Ziugiddu, but there is much in favour of Prof. Zimmern's
     suggestion, based on the form Zisuda, that the third syllable of
     the name should be read as /su/. On a fragment of another Nippur
     text, No. 4611, Dr. Langdon reads the name as /Zi-u-sud-du/ (cf.
     Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sec., Vol. X, No. 1, p. 90, pl.
     iv a); the presence of the phonetic complement /du/ may be cited
     in favour of this reading, but it does not appear to be supported
     by the photographic reproductions of the name in the Sumerian
     Deluge Version given by Dr. Poebel (/Hist. and Gramm. Texts/, pl.
     lxxxviii f.). It may be added that, on either alternative, the
     meaning of the name is the same.
 
 [3] The meaning of the Sumerian element /u/ in the name, rendered as
     /utu/ in the Semitic form, is rather obscure, and Dr. Poebel left
     it unexplained. It is very probable, as suggested by Dr. Langdon
     (cf. /Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch./, XXXVI, 1914, p. 190), that we
     should connect it with the Semitic /uddu/; in that case, in place
     of "breath", the rending he suggests, I should be inclined to
     render it here as "day", for /uddu/ as the meaning "dawn" and the
     sign UD is employed both for /urru/, "day-light", and /ûmu/,
     "day".
 
 It is an interesting fact that Ziusudu should be described simply as
 "the king", without any indication of the city or area he ruled; and
 in three of the five other passages in the text in which his name is
 mentioned it is followed by the same title without qualification. In
 most cases Berossus tells us the cities from which his Antediluvian
 rulers came; and if the end of the line had been preserved it might
 have been possible to determine definitely Ziusudu's city, and
 incidentally the scene of the Deluge in the Sumerian Version, by the
 name of the deity in whose service he acted as priest. We have already
 noted some grounds for believing that his city may have been
 Shuruppak, as in the Babylonian Version; and if that were so, the
 divine name reads as "the God of Shurrupak" should probably be
 restored at the end of the line.[1]
 
 [1] The remains that are preserved of the determinative, which is not
     combined with the sign EN, proves that Enki's name is not to be
     restored. Hence Ziusudu was not priest of Enki, and his city was
     probably not Eridu, the seat of his divine friend and counsellor,
     and the first of the Antediluvian cities. Sufficient reason for
     Enki's intervention on Ziusudu's behalf is furnished by the fact
     that, as God of the Deep, he was concerned in the proposed method
     of man's destruction. His rivalry of Enlil, the God of the Earth,
     is implied in the Babylonian Version (cf. Gilg. Epic. XI, ll. 39-
     42), and in the Sumerian Version this would naturally extend to
     Anu, the God of Heaven.
 
 The employment of the royal title by itself accords with the tradition
 from Berossus that before the Deluge, as in later periods, the land
 was governed by a succession of supreme rulers, and that the hero of
 the Deluge was the last of them. In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other
 hand, Ut-napishtim is given no royal nor any other title. He is merely
 referred to as a "man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu", and he appears
 in the guise of an ancient hero or patriarch not invested with royal
 power. On this point Berossus evidently preserves the original
 Sumerian traditions, while the Hebrew Versions resemble the Semitic-
 Babylonian narrative. The Sumerian conception of a series of supreme
 Antediluvian rulers is of course merely a reflection from the
 historical period, when the hegemony in Babylonia was contested among
 the city-states. The growth of the tradition may have been encouraged
 by the early use of /lugal/, "king", which, though always a term of
 secular character, was not very sharply distinguished from that of
 /patesi/ and other religious titles, until, in accordance with
 political development, it was required to connote a wider dominion. In
 Sumer, at the time of the composition of our text, Ziusudu was still
 only one in a long line of Babylonian rulers, mainly historical but
 gradually receding into the realms of legend and myth. At the time of
 the later Semites there had been more than one complete break in the
 tradition and the historical setting of the old story had become dim.
 The fact that Hebrew tradition should range itself in this matter with
 Babylon rather than with Sumer is important as a clue in tracing the
 literary history of our texts.
 
 The rest of the column may be taken as descriptive of Ziusudu's
 activities. One line records his making of some very great object or
 the erection of a huge building;[1] and since the following lines are
 concerned solely with religious activities, the reference is possibly
 to a temple or some other structure of a sacred character. Its
 foundation may have been recorded as striking evidence of his devotion
 to his god; or, since the verb in this sentence depends on the words
 "at that time" in the preceding line, we may perhaps regard his action
 as directly connected with the revelation to be made to him. His
 personal piety is then described: daily he occupied himself in his
 god's service, prostrating himself in humility and constant in his
 attendance at the shrine. A dream (or possibly dreams), "such as had
 not been before", appears to him and he seems to be further described
 as conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth"; but as the ends of all
 these lines are broken, the exact connexion of the phrases is not
 quite certain.
 
 [1] The element /gur-gur/, "very large" or "huge", which occurs in the
     name of this great object or building, /an-sag-gur-gur/, is
     employed later in the term for the "huge boat", /(gish)ma-gur-
     gur/, in which Ziusudu rode out the storm. There was, of course,
     even at this early period a natural tendency to picture on a
     superhuman scale the lives and deeds of remote predecessors, a
     tendency which increased in later times and led, as we shall see,
     to the elaboration of extravagant detail.
 
 It is difficult not to associate the reference to a dream, or possibly
 to dream-divination, with the warning in which Enki reveals the
 purpose of the gods. For the later versions prepare us for a reference
 to a dream. If we take the line as describing Ziusudu's practice of
 dream-divination in general, "such as had not been before", he may
 have been represented as the first diviner of dreams, as Enmeduranki
 was held to be the first practitioner of divination in general. But it
 seems to me more probable that the reference is to a particular dream,
 by means of which he obtained knowledge of the gods' intentions. On
 the rendering of this passage depends our interpretation of the whole
 of the Fourth Column, where the point will be further discussed.
 Meanwhile it may be noted that the conjuring "by the Name of Heaven
 and Earth", which we may assume is ascribed to Ziusudu, gains in
 significance if we may regard the setting of the myth as a magical
 incantation, an inference in support of which we shall note further
 evidence. For we are furnished at once with the grounds for its
 magical employment. If Ziusudu, through conjuring by the Name of
 Heaven and earth, could profit by the warning sent him and so escape
 the impending fate of mankind, the application of such a myth to the
 special needs of a Sumerian in peril or distress will be obvious. For
 should he, too, conjure by the Name of Heaven and Earth, he might look
 for a similar deliverance; and his recital of the myth itself would
 tend to clinch the magical effect of his own incantation.
 
 The description of Ziusudu has also great interest in furnishing us
 with a close parallel to the piety of Noah in the Hebrew Versions. For
 in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus this feature of the story is
 completely absent. We are there given no reason why Ut-napishtim was
 selected by Ea, nor Xisuthros by Kronos. For all that those versions
 tell us, the favour of each deity might have been conferred
 arbitrarily, and not in recognition of, or in response to, any
 particular quality or action on the part of its recipient. The
 Sumerian Version now restores the original setting of the story and
 incidentally proves that, in this particular, the Hebrew Versions have
 not embroidered a simpler narrative for the purpose of edification,
 but have faithfully reproduced an original strand of the tradition.
 
 
                         IV. THE DREAM-WARNING
 
 The top of the Fourth Column of the text follows immediately on the
 close of the Third Column, so that at this one point we have no great
 gap between the columns. But unfortunately the ends of all the lines
 in both columns are wanting, and the exact content of some phrases
 preserved and their relation to each other are consequently doubtful.
 This materially affects the interpretation of the passage as a whole,
 but the main thread of the narrative may be readily followed. Ziusudu
 is here warned that a flood is to be sent "to destroy the seed of
 mankind"; the doubt that exists concerns the manner in which the
 warning is conveyed. In the first line of the column, after a
 reference to "the gods", a building seems to be mentioned, and
 Ziusudu, standing beside it, apparently hears a voice, which bids him
 take his stand beside a wall and then conveys to him the warning of
 the coming flood. The destruction of mankind had been decreed in "the
 assembly [of the gods]" and would be carried out by the commands of
 Anu and Enlil. Before the text breaks off we again have a reference to
 the "kingdom" and "its rule", a further trace of the close association
 of the Deluge with the dynastic succession in the early traditions of
 Sumer.
 
 In the opening words of the warning to Ziusudu, with its prominent
 repetition of the word "wall", we must evidently trace some connexion
 with the puzzling words of Ea in the Gilgamesh Epic, when he begins
 his warning to Ut-napishtim. The warnings, as given in the two
 versions, are printed below in parallel columns for comparison.[1] The
 Gilgamesh Epic, after relating how the great gods in Shuruppak had
 decided to send a deluge, continues as follows in the right-hand
 column:
 
         SUMERIAN VERSION                    SEMITIC VERSION
 
   For [. . .] . . . the gods a        Nin-igi-azag,[2] the god Ea,
     . . . [. . .];                      sat with them,
   Ziusudu standing at its side        And he repeated their word to
     heard [. . .]:                      the house of reeds:
   "At the wall on my left side take   "Reed-hut, reed-hut! Wall,
     thy stand and [. . .],               wall!
   At the wall I will speak a word     O reed-hut, hear! O wall,
     to thee [. . .].                    understand!
   O my devout one . . . [. . .],      Thou man of Shuruppak, son of
                                         Ubar-Tutu,
   By our hand(?) a flood[3] . . .     Pull down thy house, build a
     [. . .] will be [sent].             ship,
   To destroy the seed of mankind      Leave thy possessions, take
     [. . .]                             heed for thy life,
   Is the decision, the word of the    Abandon thy property, and save
     assembly[4] [of the gods]           thy life.
   The commands of Anu (and)           And bring living seed of every
     En[lil . . .]                       kind into the ship.
   Its kingdom, its rule [. . .]       As for the ship, which thou
                                         shalt build,
   To his [. . .]"                     Of which the measurements
                                         shall be carefully measured,
   [. . .]                             Its breadth and length shall
                                         correspond.
   [. . .]                             In the deep shalt thou immerse
                                         it."
 
 [1] Col. IV, ll. 1 ff. are there compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll.
     19-31.
 
 [2] Nin-igi-azag, "The Lord of Clear Vision", a title borne by Enki,
     or Ea, as God of Wisdom.
 
 [3] The Sumerian term /amaru/, here used for the flood and rendered as
     "rain-storm" by Dr. Poebel, is explained in a later syllabary as
     the equivalent of the Semitic-Babylonian word /abûbu/ (cf.
     Meissner, /S.A.I./, No. 8909), the term employed for the flood
     both in the early Semitic version of the Atrakhasis story dated in
     Ammizaduga's reign and in the Gilgamesh Epic. The word /abûbu/ is
     often conventionally rendered "deluge", but should be more
     accurately translated "flood". It is true that the tempests of the
     Sumerian Version probably imply rain; and in the Gilgamesh Epic
     heavy rain in the evening begins the flood and is followed at dawn
     by a thunderstorm and hurricane. But in itself the term /abûbu/
     implies flood, which could take place through a rise of the rivers
     unaccompanied by heavy local rain. The annual rainfall in
     Babylonia to-day is on an average only about 8 in., and there have
     been years in succession when the total rainfall has not exceeded
     4 in.; and yet the /abûbu/ is not a thing of the past.
 
 [4] The word here rendered "assembly" is the Semitic loan-word
     /buhrum/, in Babylonian /puhrum/, the term employed for the
     "assembly" of the gods both in the Babylonian Creation Series and
     in the Gilgamesh Epic. Its employment in the Sumerian Version, in
     place of its Sumerian equivalent /ukkin/, is an interesting
     example of Semitic influence. Its occurrence does not necessarily
     imply the existence of a recognized Semitic Version at the period
     our text was inscribed. The substitution of /buhrum/ for /ukkin/
     in the text may well date from the period of Hammurabi, when we
     may assume that the increased importance of the city-council was
     reflected in the general adoption of the Semitic term (cf. Poebel,
     /Hist. Texts/, p. 53).
 
 In the Semitic Version Ut-napishtim, who tells the story in the first
 person, then says that he "understood", and that, after assuring Ea
 that he would carry out his commands, he asked how he was to explain
 his action to "the city, the people, and the elders"; and the god told
 him what to say. Then follows an account of the building of the ship,
 introduced by the words "As soon as the dawn began to break". In the
 Sumerian Version the close of the warning, in which the ship was
 probably referred to, and the lines prescribing how Ziusudu carried
 out the divine instructions are not preserved.
 
 It will be seen that in the passage quoted from the Semitic Version
 there is no direct mention of a dream; the god is represented at first
 as addressing his words to a "house of reeds" and a "wall", and then
 as speaking to Ut-napishtim himself. But in a later passage in the
 Epic, when Ea seeks to excuse his action to Enlil, he says that the
 gods' decision was revealed to Atrakhasis through a dream.[1] Dr.
 Poebel rightly compares the direct warning of Ut-napishtim by Ea in
 the passage quoted above with the equally direct warning Ziusudu
 receives in the Sumerian Version. But he would have us divorce the
 direct warning from the dream-warning, and he concludes that no less
 than three different versions of the story have been worked together
 in the Gilgamesh Epic. In the first, corresponding to that in our
 text, Ea communicates the gods' decision directly to Ut-napishtim; in
 the second he sends a dream from which Atrakhasis, "the Very Wise
 one", guesses the impending peril; while in the third he relates the
 plan to a wall, taking care that Ut-napishtim overhears him.[2] The
 version of Berossus, that Kronos himself appears to Xisuthros in a
 dream and warns him, is rejected by Dr. Poebel, who remarks that here
 the "original significance of the dream has already been obliterated".
 Consequently there seems to him to be "no logical connexion" between
 the dreams or dream mentioned at the close of the Third Column and the
 communication of the plan of the gods at the beginning of the Fourth
 Column of our text.[3]
 
 [1] Cf. l. 195 f.; "I did not divulge the decision of the great gods.
     I caused Atrakhasis to behold a dream and thus he heard the
     decision of the gods."
 
 [2] Cf. Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, p. 51 f. With the god's apparent
     subterfuge in the third of these supposed versions Sir James
     Frazer (/Ancient Stories of a Great Flood/, p. 15) not inaptly
     compares the well-known story of King Midas's servant, who, unable
     to keep the secret of the king's deformity to himself, whispered
     it into a hole in the ground, with the result that the reeds which
     grew up there by their rustling in the wind proclaimed it to the
     world (Ovid, /Metamorphoses/, xi, 174 ff.).
 
 [3] Op. cit., p. 51; cf. also Jastrow, /Heb. and Bab. Trad./, p. 346.
 
 So far from Berossus having missed the original significance of the
 narrative he relates, I think it can be shown that he reproduces very
 accurately the sense of our Sumerian text; and that the apparent
 discrepancies in the Semitic Version, and the puzzling references to a
 wall in both it and the Sumerian Version, are capable of a simple
 explanation. There appears to me no justification for splitting the
 Semitic narrative into the several versions suggested, since the
 assumption that the direct warning and the dream-warning must be
 distinguished is really based on a misunderstanding of the character
 of Sumerian dreams by which important decisions of the gods in council
 were communicated to mankind. We fortunately possess an instructive
 Sumerian parallel to our passage. In it the will of the gods is
 revealed in a dream, which is not only described in full but is
 furnished with a detailed interpretation; and as it seems to clear up
 our difficulties, it may be well to summarize its main features.
 
 The occasion of the dream in this case was not a coming deluge but a
 great dearth of water in the rivers, in consequence of which the crops
 had suffered and the country was threatened with famine. This occurred
 in the reign of Gudea, patesi of Lagash, who lived some centuries
 before our Sumerian document was inscribed. In his own inscription[1]
 he tells us that he was at a loss to know by what means he might
 restore prosperity to his country, when one night he had a dream; and
 it was in consequence of the dream that he eventually erected one of
 the most sumptuously appointed of Sumerian temples and thereby
 restored his land to prosperity. Before recounting his dream he
 describes how the gods themselves took counsel. On the day in which
 destinies were fixed in heaven and earth, Enlil, the chief of the
 gods, and Ningirsu, the city-god of Lagash, held converse; and Enlil,
 turning to Ningirsu, described the sad condition of Southern
 Babylonia, and remarked that "the decrees of the temple Eninnû should
 be made glorious in heaven and upon earth", or, in other words, that
 Ningirsu's city-temple must be rebuilt. Thereupon Ningirsu did not
 communicate his orders directly to Gudea, but conveyed the will of the
 gods to him by means of a dream.
 
 [1] See Thureau-Dangin, /Les inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad/, Cyl.
     A, pp. 134 ff., Germ. ed., pp. 88 ff.; and cf. King and Hall, /Eg.
     and West. Asia/, pp. 196 ff.
 
 It will be noticed that we here have a very similar situation to that
 in the Deluge story. A conference of the gods has been held; a
 decision has been taken by the greatest god, Enlil; and, in
 consequence, another deity is anxious to inform a Sumerian ruler of
 that decision. The only difference is that here Enlil desires the
 communication to be made, while in the Deluge story it is made without
 his knowledge, and obviously against his wishes. So the fact that
 Ningirsu does not communicate directly with the patesi, but conveys
 his message by means of a dream, is particularly instructive. For here
 there can be no question of any subterfuge in the method employed,
 since Enlil was a consenting party.
 
 The story goes on to relate that, while the patesi slept, a vision of
 the night came to him, and he beheld a man whose stature was so great
 that it equalled the heavens and the earth. By the diadem he wore upon
 his head Gudea knew that the figure must be a god. Beside the god was
 the divine eagle, the emblem of Lagash; his feet rested upon the
 whirlwind, and a lion crouched upon his right hand and upon his left.
 The figure spoke to the patesi, but he did not understand the meaning
 of the words. Then it seemed to Gudea that the Sun rose from the
 earth; and he beheld a woman holding in her hand a pure reed, and she
 carried also a tablet on which was a star of the heavens, and she
 seemed to take counsel with herself. While Gudea was gazing, he seemed
 to see a second man, who was like a warrior; and he carried a slab of
 lapis lazuli, on which he drew out the plan of a temple. Before the
 patesi himself it seemed that a fair cushion was placed, and upon the
 cushion was set a mould, and within the mould was a brick. And on the
 right hand the patesi beheld an ass that lay upon the ground. Such was
 the dream of Gudea, and he was troubled because he could not interpret
 it.[1]
 
 [1] The resemblance its imagery bears to that of apocalyptic visions
     of a later period is interesting, as evidence of the latter's
     remote ancestry, and of the development in the use of primitive
     material to suit a completely changed political outlook. But those
     are points which do not concern our problem.
 
 To cut the long story short, Gudea decided to seek the help of Ninâ,
 "the child of Eridu", who, as daughter of Enki, the God of Wisdom,
 could divine all the mysteries of the gods. But first of all by
 sacrifices and libations he secured the mediation of his own city-god
 and goddess, Ningirsu and Gatumdug; and then, repairing to Ninâ's
 temple, he recounted to her the details of his vision. When the patesi
 had finished, the goddess addressed him and said she would explain to
 him the meaning of his dream. Here, no doubt, we are to understand
 that she spoke through the mouth of her chief priest. And this was the
 interpretation of the dream. The man whose stature was so great, and
 whose head was that of a god, was the god Ningirsu, and the words
 which he uttered were an order to the patesi to rebuild the temple
 Eninnû. The Sun which rose from the earth was the god Ningishzida, for
 like the Sun he goes forth from the earth. The maiden who held the
 pure reed and carried the tablet with the star was the goddess Nisaba;
 the star was the pure star of the temple's construction, which she
 proclaimed. The second man, who was like a warrior, was the god Nibub;
 and the plan of the temple which he drew was the plan of Eninnû; and
 the ass that lay upon the ground was the patesi himself.[1]
 
 [1] The symbolism of the ass, as a beast of burden, was applicable to
     the patesi in his task of carrying out the building of the temple.
 
 The essential feature of the vision is that the god himself appeared
 to the sleeper and delivered his message in words. That is precisely
 the manner in which Kronos warned Xisuthros of the coming Deluge in
 the version of Berossus; while in the Gilgamesh Epic the apparent
 contradiction between the direct warning and the dream-warning at once
 disappears. It is true that Gudea states that he did not understand
 the meaning of the god's message, and so required an interpretation;
 but he was equally at a loss as to the identity of the god who gave
 it, although Ningirsu was his own city-god and was accompanied by his
 own familiar city-emblem. We may thus assume that the god's words, as
 words, were equally intelligible to Gudea. But as they were uttered in
 a dream, it was necessary that the patesi, in view of his country's
 peril, should have divine assurance that they implied no other
 meaning. And in his case such assurance was the more essential, in
 view of the symbolism attaching to the other features of his vision.
 That this is sound reasoning is proved by a second vision vouchsafed
 to Gudea by Ningirsu. For the patesi, though he began to prepare for
 the building of the temple, was not content even with Ninâ's
 assurance. He offered a prayer to Ningirsu himself, saying that he
 wished to build the temple, but had received no sign that this was the
 will of the god; and he prayed for a sign. Then, as the patesi lay
 stretched upon the ground, the god again appeared to him and gave him
 detailed instructions, adding that he would grant the sign for which
 he asked. The sign was that he should feel his side touched as by a
 flame,[1] and thereby he should know that he was the man chosen by
 Ningirsu to carry out his commands. Here it is the sign which confirms
 the apparent meaning of the god's words. And Gudea was at last content
 and built the temple.[2]
 
 [1] Cyl. A., col. xii, l. 10 f.; cf. Thureau-Dangin, op. cit., p. 150
     f., Germ. ed., p. 102 f. The word translated "side" may also be
     rendered as "hand"; but "side" is the more probable rendering of
     the two. The touching of Gudea's side (or hand) presents an
     interesting resemblance to the touching of Jacob's thigh by the
     divine wrestler at Peniel in Gen. xxxii. 24 ff. (J or JE). Given a
     belief in the constant presence of the unseen and its frequent
     manifestation, such a story as that of Peniel might well arise
     from an unexplained injury to the sciatic muscle, while more than
     one ailment of the heart or liver might perhaps suggest the touch
     of a beckoning god. There is of course no connexion between the
     Sumerian and Hebrew stories beyond their common background. It may
     be added that those critics who would reverse the /rôles/ of Jacob
     and the wrestler miss the point of the Hebrew story.
 
 [2] Even so, before starting on the work, he took the further
     precautions of ascertaining that the omens were favourable and of
     purifying his city from all malign influence.
 
 We may conclude, then, that in the new Sumerian Version of the Deluge
 we have traced a logical connexion between the direct warning to
 Ziusudu in the Fourth Column of the text and the reference to a dream
 in the broken lines at the close of the Third Column. As in the
 Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus, here too the god's warning is conveyed
 in a dream; and the accompanying reference to conjuring by the Name of
 Heaven and Earth probably represents the means by which Ziusudu was
 enabled to verify its apparent meaning. The assurance which Gudea
 obtained through the priest of Ninâ and the sign, the priest-king
 Ziusudu secured by his own act, in virtue of his piety and practice of
 divination. And his employment of the particular class of incantation
 referred to, that which conjures by the Name of Heaven and Earth, is
 singularly appropriate to the context. For by its use he was enabled
 to test the meaning of Enki's words, which related to the intentions
 of Anu and Enlil, the gods respectively of Heaven and of Earth. The
 symbolical setting of Gudea's vision also finds a parallel in the
 reed-house and wall of the Deluge story, though in the latter case we
 have not the benefit of interpretation by a goddess. In the Sumerian
 Version the wall is merely part of the vision and does not receive a
 direct address from the god. That appears as a later development in
 the Semitic Version, and it may perhaps have suggested the excuse, put
 in that version into the mouth of Ea, that he had not directly
 revealed the decision of the gods.[1]
 
 [1] In that case the parallel suggested by Sir James Frazer between
     the reed-house and wall of the Gilgamesh Epic, now regarded as a
     medium of communication, and the whispering reeds of the Midas
     story would still hold good.
 
 The omission of any reference to a dream before the warning in the
 Gilgamesh Epic may be accounted for on the assumption that readers of
 the poem would naturally suppose that the usual method of divine
 warning was implied; and the text does indicate that the warning took
 place at night, for Gilgamesh proceeds to carry out the divine
 instructions at the break of day. The direct warning of the Hebrew
 Versions, on the other hand, does not carry this implication, since
 according to Hebrew ideas direct speech, as well as vision, was
 included among the methods by which the divine will could be conveyed
 to man.
 
 
              V. THE FLOOD, THE ESCAPE OF THE GREAT BOAT,
                    AND THE SACRIFICE TO THE SUN-GOD
 
 The missing portion of the Fourth Column must have described Ziusudu's
 building of his great boat in order to escape the Deluge, for at the
 beginning of the Fifth Column we are in the middle of the Deluge
 itself. The column begins:
 
   All the mighty wind-storms together blew,
   The flood . . . raged.
   When for seven days, for seven nights,
   The flood had overwhelmed the land
   When the wind-storm had driven the great boat over the mighty
     waters,
   The Sun-god came forth, shedding light over heaven and earth.
   Ziusudu opened the opening of the great boat;
   The light of the hero, the Sun-god, (he) causes to enter into the
     interior(?) of the great boat.
   Ziusudu, the king,
   Bows himself down before the Sun-god;
   The king sacrifices an ox, a sheep he slaughters(?).
 
 The connected text of the column then breaks off, only a sign or two
 remaining of the following half-dozen lines. It will be seen that in
 the eleven lines that are preserved we have several close parallels to
 the Babylonian Version and some equally striking differences. While
 attempting to define the latter, it will be well to point out how
 close the resemblances are, and at the same time to draw a comparison
 between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions of this part of the story
 and the corresponding Hebrew accounts.
 
 Here, as in the Babylonian Version, the Flood is accompanied by
 hurricanes of wind, though in the latter the description is worked up
 in considerable detail. We there read[1] that at the appointed time
 the ruler of the darkness at eventide sent a heavy rain. Ut-napishtim
 saw its beginning, but fearing to watch the storm, he entered the
 interior of the ship by Ea's instructions, closed the door, and handed
 over the direction of the vessel to the pilot Puzur-Amurri. Later a
 thunder-storm and hurricane added their terrors to the deluge. For at
 early dawn a black cloud came up from the horizon, Adad the Storm-god
 thundering in its midst, and his heralds, Nabû and Sharru, flying over
 mountain and plain. Nergal tore away the ship's anchor, while Ninib
 directed the storm; the Anunnaki carried their lightning-torches and
 lit up the land with their brightness; the whirlwind of the Storm-god
 reached the heavens, and all light was turned into darkness. The storm
 raged the whole day, covering mountain and people with water.[2] No
 man beheld his fellow; the gods themselves were afraid, so that they
 retreated into the highest heaven, where they crouched down, cowering
 like dogs. Then follows the lamentation of Ishtar, to which reference
 has already been made, the goddess reproaching herself for the part
 she had taken in the destruction of her people. This section of the
 Semitic narrative closes with the picture of the gods weeping with
 her, sitting bowed down with their lips pressed together.
 
 [1] Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 90 ff.
 
 [2] In the Atrakhasis version, dated in the reign of Ammizaduga, Col.
     I, l. 5, contains a reference to the "cry" of men when Adad the
     Storm-god, slays them with his flood.
 
 It is probable that the Sumerian Version, in the missing portion of
 its Fourth Column, contained some account of Ziusudu's entry into his
 boat; and this may have been preceded, as in the Gilgamesh Epic, by a
 reference to "the living seed of every kind", or at any rate to "the
 four-legged creatures of the field", and to his personal possessions,
 with which we may assume he had previously loaded it. But in the Fifth
 Column we have no mention of the pilot or of any other companions who
 may have accompanied the king; and we shall see that the Sixth Column
 contains no reference to Ziusudu's wife. The description of the storm
 may have begun with the closing lines of the Fourth Column, though it
 is also quite possible that the first line of the Fifth Column
 actually begins the account. However that may be, and in spite of the
 poetic imagery of the Semitic Babylonian narrative, the general
 character of the catastrophe is the same in both versions.
 
 We find an equally close parallel, between the Sumerian and Babylonian
 accounts, in the duration of the storm which accompanied the Flood, as
 will be seen by printing the two versions together:[3]
 
         SUMERIAN VERSION                    SEMITIC VERSION
 
   When for seven days, for seven      For six days and nights
     nights, 
   The flood had overwhelmed the       The wind blew, the flood, the
     land,                               tempest overwhelmed the land.
   When the wind-storm had driven      When the seventh day drew near,
     the great boat over the             the tempest, the flood, ceased
     mighty waters,                      from the battle
                                       In which it had fought like a
                                         host.
   The Sun-god came forth shedding     Then the sea rested and was
     light over heaven and earth.        still, and the wind-storm, the
                                         flood, ceased.
 
 [3] Col. V, ll. 3-6 are here compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 128-32.
 
 The two narratives do not precisely agree as to the duration of the
 storm, for while in the Sumerian account the storm lasts seven days
 and seven nights, in the Semitic-Babylonian Version it lasts only six
 days and nights, ceasing at dawn on the seventh day. The difference,
 however, is immaterial when we compare these estimates with those of
 the Hebrew Versions, the older of which speaks of forty days' rain,
 while the later version represents the Flood as rising for no less
 than a hundred and fifty days.
 
 The close parallel between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions is
 not, however, confined to subject-matter, but here, even extends to
 some of the words and phrases employed. It has already been noted that
 the Sumerian term employed for "flood" or "deluge" is the attested
 equivalent of the Semitic word; and it may now be added that the word
 which may be rendered "great boat" or "great ship" in the Sumerian
 text is the same word, though partly expressed by variant characters,
 which occurs in the early Semitic fragment of the Deluge story from
 Nippur.[1] In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other hand, the ordinary
 ideogram for "vessel" or "ship"[2] is employed, though the great size
 of the vessel is there indicated, as in Berossus and the later Hebrew
 Version, by detailed measurements. Moreover, the Sumerian and Semitic
 verbs, which are employed in the parallel passages quoted above for
 the "overwhelming" of the land, are given as synonyms in a late
 syllabary, while in another explanatory text the Sumerian verb is
 explained as applying to the destructive action of a flood.[3] Such
 close linguistic parallels are instructive as furnishing additional
 proof, if it were needed, of the dependence of the Semitic-Babylonian
 and Assyrian Versions upon Sumerian originals.
 
 [1] The Sumerian word is /(gish)ma-gur-gur/, corresponding to the term
     written in the early Semitic fragment, l. 8, as /(isu)ma-gur-gur/,
     which is probably to be read under its Semitized form
     /magurgurru/. In l. 6 of that fragment the vessel is referred to
     under the synonymous expression /(isu)elippu ra-be-tu/, "a great
     ship".
 
 [2] i.e. (GISH)MA, the first element in the Sumerian word, read in
     Semitic Babylonian as /elippu/, "ship"; when employed in the early
     Semitic fragment it is qualified by the adj. /ra-be-tu/, "great".
     There is no justification for assuming, with Prof. Hilbrecht, that
     a measurement of the vessel was given in l. 7 of the early Semitic
     fragment.
 
 [3] The Sumerian verb /ur/, which is employed in l. 2 of the Fifth
     Column in the expression /ba-an-da-ab-ur-ur/, translated as
     "raged", occurs again in l. 4 in the phrase /kalam-ma ba-ur-ra/,
     "had overwhelmed the land". That we are justified in regarding the
     latter phrase as the original of the Semitic /i-sap-pan mâta/
     (Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 129) is proved by the equation Sum. /ur-ur/ =
     Sem. /sa-pa-nu/ (Rawlinson, /W.A.I./, Vol. V, pl. 42, l. 54 c) and
     by the explanation Sum. /ur-ur/ = Sem. /ša-ba-tu ša a-bu-bi/, i.e.
     "/ur-ur/ = to smite, of a flood" (/Cun. Texts, Pt. XII, pl. 50,
     Obv., l. 23); cf. Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, p. 54, n. 1.
 
 It may be worth while to pause for a moment in our study of the text,
 in order to inquire what kind of boat it was in which Ziusudu escaped
 the Flood. It is only called "a great boat" or "a great ship" in the
 text, and this term, as we have noted, was taken over, semitized, and
 literally translated in an early Semitic-Babylonian Version. But the
 Gilgamesh Epic, representing the later Semitic-Babylonian Version,
 supplies fuller details, which have not, however, been satisfactorily
 explained. Either the obvious meaning of the description and figures
 there given has been ignored, or the measurements have been applied to
 a central structure placed upon a hull, much on the lines of a modern
 "house-boat" or the conventional Noah's ark.[1] For the latter
 interpretation the text itself affords no justification. The statement
 is definitely made that the length and breadth of the vessel itself
 are to be the same;[2] and a later passage gives ten /gar/ for the
 height of its sides and ten /gar/ for the breadth of its deck.[3] This
 description has been taken to imply a square box-like structure,
 which, in order to be seaworthy, must be placed on a conjectured hull.
 
 [1] Cf., e.g., Jastrow, /Hebr. and Bab. Trad./, p. 329.
 
 [2] Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 28-30.
 
 [3] L. 58 f. The /gar/ contained twelve cubits, so that the vessel
     would have measured 120 cubits each way; taking the Babylonian
     cubit, on the basis of Gudea's scale, at 495 mm. (cf. Thureau-
     Dangin, /Journal Asiatique/, Dix. Sér., t. XIII, 1909, pp. 79 ff.,
     97), this would give a length, breadth, and height of nearly 195
     ft.
 
 I do not think it has been noted in this connexion that a vessel,
 approximately with the relative proportions of that described in the
 Gilgamesh Epic, is in constant use to-day on the lower Tigris and
 Euphrates. A /kuffah/,[1] the familiar pitched coracle of Baghdad,
 would provide an admirable model for the gigantic vessel in which
 Ut-napishtim rode out the Deluge. "Without either stem or stern, quite
 round like a shield"--so Herodotus described the /kuffah/ of his
 day;2[] so, too, is it represented on Assyrian slabs from Nineveh,
 where we see it employed for the transport of heavy building
 material;[3] its form and structure indeed suggest a prehistoric
 origin. The /kuffah/ is one of those examples of perfect adjustment to
 conditions of use which cannot be improved. Any one who has travelled
 in one of these craft will agree that their storage capacity is
 immense, for their circular form and steeply curved side allow every
 inch of space to be utilized. It is almost impossible to upset them,
 and their only disadvantage is lack of speed. For their guidance all
 that is required is a steersman with a paddle, as indicated in the
 Epic. It is true that the larger kuffah of to-day tends to increase in
 diameter as compared to height, but that detail might well be ignored
 in picturing the monster vessel of Ut-napishtim. Its seven horizontal
 stages and their nine lateral divisions would have been structurally
 sound in supporting the vessel's sides; and the selection of the
 latter uneven number, though prompted doubtless by its sacred
 character, is only suitable to a circular craft in which the interior
 walls would radiate from the centre. The use of pitch and bitumen for
 smearing the vessel inside and out, though unusual even in
 Mesopotamian shipbuilding, is precisely the method employed in the
 /kuffah's/ construction.
 
 [1] Arab. /kuffah/, pl. /kufaf/; in addition to its common use for the
     Baghdad coracle, the word is also employed for a large basket.
 
 [2] Herodotus, I, 194.
 
 [3] The /kuffah/ is formed of wicker-work coated with bitumen. Some of
 those represented on the Nineveh sculptures appear to be covered with
 skins; and Herodotus (I, 94) states that "the boats which come down
 the river to Babylon are circular and made of skins." But his further
 description shows that he is here referred to the /kelek/ or
 skin-raft, with which he has combined a description of the /kuffah/.
 The late Sir Henry Rawlinson has never seen or heard of a skin-covered
 /kuffah/ on either the Tigris or Euphrates, and there can be little
 doubt that bitumen was employed for their construction in antiquity,
 as it is to-day. These craft are often large enough to carry five or
 six horses and a dozen men.
 
 We have no detailed description of Ziusudu's "great boat", beyond the
 fact that it was covered in and had an opening, or light-hole, which
 could be closed. But the form of Ut-napishtim's vessel was no doubt
 traditional, and we may picture that of Ziusudu as also of the
 /kuffah/ type, though smaller and without its successor's elaborate
 internal structure. The gradual development of the huge coracle into a
 ship would have been encouraged by the Semitic use of the term "ship"
 to describe it; and the attempt to retain something of its original
 proportions resulted in producing the unwieldy ark of later
 tradition.[1]
 
 [1] The description of the ark is not preserved from the earlier
     Hebrew Version (J), but the latter Hebrew Version (P), while
     increasing the length of the vessel, has considerably reduced its
     height and breadth. Its measurements are there given (Gen. vi. 15)
     as 300 cubits in length, 50 cubits in breadth, and 30 cubits in
     height; taking the ordinary Hebrew cubit at about 18 in., this
     would give a length of about 450 ft., a breadth of about 75 ft.,
     and a height of about 45 ft. The interior stories are necessarily
     reduced to three. The vessel in Berossus measures five stadia by
     two, and thus had a length of over three thousand feet and a
     breadth of more than twelve hundred.
 
 We will now return to the text and resume the comparison we were
 making between it and the Gilgamesh Epic. In the latter no direct
 reference is made to the appearance of the Sun-god after the storm,
 nor is Ut-napishtim represented as praying to him. But the sequence of
 events in the Sumerian Version is very natural, and on that account
 alone, apart from other reasons, it may be held to represent the
 original form of the story. For the Sun-god would naturally reappear
 after the darkness of the storm had passed, and it would be equally
 natural that Ziusudu should address himself to the great light-god.
 Moreover, the Gilgamesh Epic still retains traces of the Sumerian
 Version, as will be seen from a comparison of their narratives,[1] the
 Semitic Version being quoted from the point where the hurricane ceased
 and the sea became still.
 
 [1] Col. V, ll. 7-11 are here compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 133-9.
 
         SUMERIAN VERSION                    SEMITIC VERSION
 
                                       When I looked at the storm, the
                                         uproar had ceased,
                                       And all mankind was turned into
                                         clay;
                                       In place of fields there was a
                                         swamp.
   Ziusudu opened the opening of       I opened the opening (lit.
     the great boat;                     "hole"), and daylight fell
                                         upon my countenance.
   The light of the hero, the Sun-
     god, (he) causes to enter into
     the interior(?) of the great
     boat.
   Ziusudu, the king,
   Bows himself down before the        I bowed myself down and sat down
     Sun-god;                            weeping;
   The king sacrifices an ox, a        Over my countenance flowed my
     sheep he slaughters(?).             tears.
                                       I gazed upon the quarters (of
                                         the world)--all(?) was sea.
 
 It will be seen that in the Semitic Version the beams of the Sun-god
 have been reduced to "daylight", and Ziusudu's act of worship has
 become merely prostration in token of grief.
 
 Both in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus the sacrifice offered by
 the Deluge hero to the gods follows the episode of the birds, and it
 takes place on the top of the mountain after the landing from the
 vessel. It is hardly probable that two sacrifices were recounted in
 the Sumerian Version, one to the Sun-god in the boat and another on
 the mountain after landing; and if we are right in identifying
 Ziusudu's recorded sacrifice with that of Ut-napishtim and Xisuthros,
 it would seem that, according to the Sumerian Version, no birds were
 sent out to test the abatement of the waters. This conclusion cannot
 be regarded as quite certain, inasmuch as the greater part of the
 Fifth Column is waning. We have, moreover, already seen reason to
 believe that the account on our tablet is epitomized, and that
 consequently the omission of any episode from our text does not
 necessarily imply its absence from the original Sumerian Version which
 it follows. But here at least it is clear that nothing can have been
 omitted between the opening of the light-hole and the sacrifice, for
 the one act is the natural sequence of the other. On the whole it
 seems preferable to assume that we have recovered a simpler form of
 the story.
 
 As the storm itself is described in a few phrases, so the cessation of
 the flood may have been dismissed with equal brevity; the gradual
 abatement of the waters, as attested by the dove, the swallow, and the
 raven, may well be due to later elaboration or to combination with
 some variant account. Under its amended form the narrative leads
 naturally up to the landing on the mountain and the sacrifice of
 thanksgiving to the gods. In the Sumerian Version, on the other hand,
 Ziusudu regards himself as saved when he sees the Sun shining; he
 needs no further tests to assure himself that the danger is over, and
 his sacrifice too is one of gratitude for his escape. The
 disappearance of the Sun-god from the Semitic Version was thus a
 necessity, to avoid an anti-climax; and the hero's attitude of worship
 had obviously to be translated into one of grief. An indication that
 the sacrifice was originally represented as having taken place on
 board the boat may be seen in the lines of the Gilgamesh Epic which
 recount how Enlil, after acquiescing in Ut-napishtim's survival of the
 Flood, went up into the ship and led him forth by the hand, although,
 in the preceding lines, he had already landed and had sacrificed upon
 the mountain. The two passages are hardly consistent as they stand,
 but they find a simple explanation of we regard the second of them as
 an unaltered survival from an earlier form of the story.
 
 If the above line of reasoning be sound, it follows that, while the
 earlier Hebrew Version closely resembles the Gilgamesh Epic, the later
 Hebrew Version, by its omission of the birds, would offer a parallel
 to the Sumerian Version. But whether we may draw any conclusion from
 this apparent grouping of our authorities will be best dealt with when
 we have concluded our survey of the new evidence.
 
 As we have seen, the text of the Fifth Column breaks off with
 Ziusudu's sacrifice to the Sun-god, after he had opened a light-hole
 in the boat and had seen by the god's beams that the storm was over.
 The missing portion of the Fifth Column must have included at least
 some account of the abatement of the waters, the stranding of the
 boat, and the manner in which Anu and Enlil became apprised of
 Ziusudu's escape, and consequently of the failure of their intention
 to annihilate mankind. For in the Sixth Column of the text we find
 these two deities reconciled to Ziusudu and bestowing immortality upon
 him, as Enlil bestows immortality upon Ut-napishtim at the close of
 the Semitic Version. In the latter account, after the vessel had
 grounded on Mount Nisir and Ut-napishtim had tested the abatement of
 the waters by means of the birds, he brings all out from the ship and
 offers his libation and sacrifice upon the mountain, heaping up reed,
 cedar-wood, and myrtle beneath his seven sacrificial vessels. And it
 was by this act on his part that the gods first had knowledge of his
 escape. For they smelt the sweet savour of the sacrifice, and
 "gathered like flies over the sacrificer".[1]
 
 [1] Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 162.
 
 It is possible in our text that Ziusudu's sacrifice in the boat was
 also the means by which the gods became acquainted with his survival;
 and it seems obvious that the Sun-god, to whom it was offered, should
 have continued to play some part in the narrative, perhaps by assisting
 Ziusudu in propitiating Anu and Enlil. In the Semitic-Babylonian
 Version, the first deity to approach the sacrifice is Bêlit-ili or
 Ishtar, who is indignant with Enlil for what he has done. When Enlil
 himself approaches and sees the ship he is filled with anger against
 the gods, and, asking who has escaped, exclaims that no man must live
 in the destruction. Thereupon Ninib accuses Ea, who by his pleading
 succeeds in turning Enlil's purpose. He bids Enlil visit the sinner
 with his sin and lay his transgression on the transgressor; Enlil
 should not again send a deluge to destroy the whole of mankind, but
 should be content with less wholesale destruction, such as that
 wrought by wild beasts, famine, and plague. Finally he confesses that
 it was he who warned Ziusudu of the gods' decision by sending him a
 dream. Enlil thereupon changes his intention, and going up into the
 ship, leads Ut-napishtim forth. Though Ea's intervention finds, of
 course, no parallel in either Hebrew version, the subject-matter of
 his speech is reflected in both. In the earlier Hebrew Version Yahweh
 smells the sweet savour of Noah's burnt offering and says in his heart
 he will no more destroy every living creature as he had done; while in
 the later Hebrew Version Elohim, after remembering Noah and causing
 the waters to abate, establishes his covenant to the same effect, and,
 as a sign of the covenant, sets his bow in the clouds.
 
 In its treatment of the climax of the story we shall see that the
 Sumerian Version, at any rate in the form it has reached us, is on a
 lower ethical level than the Babylonian and Hebrew Versions. Ea's
 argument that the sinner should bear his own sin and the transgressor
 his own transgression in some measure forestalls that of Ezekiel;[1]
 and both the Hebrew Versions represent the saving of Noah as part of
 the divine intention from the beginning. But the Sumerian Version
 introduces the element of magic as the means by which man can bend the
 will of the gods to his own ends. How far the details of the Sumerian
 myth at this point resembled that of the Gilgamesh Epic it is
 impossible to say, but the general course of the story must have been
 the same. In the latter Enlil's anger is appeased, in the former that
 of Anu and Enlil; and it is legitimate to suppose that Enki, like Ea,
 was Ziusudu's principal supporter, in view of the part he had already
 taken in ensuring his escape.
 
 [1] Cf. Ezek. xviii, passim, esp. xviii. 20.
 
 
                VI. THE PROPITIATION OF THE ANGRY GODS,
                       AND ZIUSUDU'S IMMORTALITY
 
 The presence of the puzzling lines, with which the Sixth Column of our
 text opens, was not explained by Dr. Poebel; indeed, they would be
 difficult to reconcile with his assumption that our text is an epic
 pure and simple. But if, as is suggested above, we are dealing with a
 myth in magical employment, they are quite capable of explanation. The
 problem these lines present will best be stated by giving a
 translation of the extant portion of the column, where they will be
 seen with their immediate context in relation to what follows them:
 
   "By the Soul of Heaven, by the soul of Earth, shall ye conjure him,
     That with you he may . . . !
   Anu and Enlil by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth, shall ye
     conjure,
     And with you will he . . . !
   "The /niggilma/ of the ground springs forth in abundance(?)!"
   Ziusudu, the king,
   Before Anu and Enlil bows himself down.
   Life like (that of) a god he gives to him,
   An eternal soul like (that of) a god he creates for him.
   At that time Ziusudu, the king,
   The name of the /niggilma/ (named) "Preserver of the Seed of
     Mankind".
   In a . . . land,[1] the land[1] of Dilmun(?), they caused him to
     dwell.
 
 [1] Possibly to be translated "mountain". The rendering of the proper
     name as that of Dilmun is very uncertain. For the probable
     identification of Dilmun with the island of Bahrein in the Persian
     Gulf, cf. Rawlinson, /Journ. Roy. As. Soc./, 1880, pp. 20 ff.; and
     see further, Meissner, /Orient. Lit-Zeit./, XX. No. 7, col. 201
     ff.
 
 The first two lines of the column are probably part of the speech of
 some deity, who urges the necessity of invoking or conjuring Anu and
 Enlil "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth", in order to
 secure their support or approval. Now Anu and Enlil are the two great
 gods who had determined on mankind's destruction, and whose wrath at
 his own escape from death Ziusudu must placate. It is an obvious
 inference that conjuring "by the Soul of Heaven" and "by the Soul of
 Earth" is either the method by which Ziusudu has already succeeded in
 appeasing their anger, or the means by which he is here enjoined to
 attain that end. Against the latter alternative it is to be noted that
 the god is addressing more than one person; and, further, at Ziusudu
 is evidently already pardoned, for, so far from following the deity's
 advice, he immediately prostrates himself before Anu and Enlil and
 receives immortality. We may conjecture that at the close of the Fifth
 Column Ziusudu had already performed the invocation and thereby had
 appeased the divine wrath; and that the lines at the beginning of the
 Sixth Column point the moral of the story by enjoining on Ziusudu and
 his descendants, in other words on mankind, the advisability of
 employing this powerful incantation at their need. The speaker may
 perhaps have been one of Ziusudu's divine helpers--the Sun-god to whom
 he had sacrificed, or Enki who had saved him from the Flood. But it
 seems to me more probable that the words are uttered by Anu and Enlil
 themselves.[1] For thereby they would be represented as giving their
 own sanction to the formula, and as guaranteeing its magical efficacy.
 That the incantation, as addressed to Anu and Enlil, would be
 appropriate is obvious, since each would be magically approached
 through his own sphere of control.
 
 [1] One of them may have been the speaker on behalf of both.
 
 It is significant that at another critical point of the story we have
 already met with a reference to conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and
 Earth", the phrase occurring at the close of the Third Column after
 the reference to the dream or dreams. There, as we saw, we might
 possibly explain the passage as illustrating one aspect of Ziusudu's
 piety: he may have been represented as continually practising this
 class of divination, and in that case it would be natural enough that
 in the final crisis of the story he should have propitiated the gods
 he conjured by the same means. Or, as a more probable alternative, it
 was suggested that we might connect the line with Enki's warning, and
 assume that Ziusudu interpreted the dream-revelation of Anu and
 Enlil's purpose by means of the magical incantation which was
 peculiarly associated with them. On either alternative the phrase fits
 into the story itself, and there is no need to suppose that the
 narrative is interrupted, either in the Third or in the Sixth Column,
 by an address to the hearers of the myth, urging them to make the
 invocation on their own behalf.
 
 On the other hand, it seems improbable that the lines in question
 formed part of the original myth; they may have been inserted to weld
 the myth more closely to the magic. Both incantation and epic may have
 originally existed independently, and, if so, their combination would
 have been suggested by their contents. For while the former is
 addressed to Anu and Enlil, in the latter these same gods play the
 dominant parts: they are the two chief creators, it is they who send
 the Flood, and it is their anger that must be appeased. If once
 combined, the further step of making the incantation the actual means
 by which Ziusudu achieved his own rescue and immortality would be a
 natural development. It may be added that the words would have been an
 equally appropriate addition if the incantation had not existed
 independently, but had been suggested by, and developed from, the
 myth.
 
 In the third and eleventh lines of the column we have further
 references to the mysterious object, the creation of which appears to
 have been recorded in the First Column of the text between man's
 creation and that of animals. The second sign of the group composing
 its name was not recognized by Dr. Poebel, but it is quite clearly
 written in two of the passages, and has been correctly identified by
 Professor Barton.[1] The Sumerian word is, in fact, to be read /nig-
 gil-ma/,[2] which, when preceded by the determinative for "pot",
 "jar", or "bowl", is given in a later syllabary as the equivalent of
 the Semitic word /mashkhalu/. Evidence that the word /mashkhalu/ was
 actually employed to denote a jar or vessel of some sort is furnished
 by one of the Tel el-Amarna letters which refers to "one silver
 /mashkhalu/" and "one (or two) stone /mashkhalu/".[3] In our text the
 determinative is absent, and it is possible that the word is used in
 another sense. Professor Barton, in both passages in the Sixth Column,
 gives it the meaning "curse"; he interprets the lines as referring to
 the removal of a curse from the earth after the Flood, and he compares
 Gen. viii. 21, where Yahweh declares he will not again "curse the
 ground for man's sake". But this translation ignores the occurrence of
 the word in the First Column, where the creation of the /niggilma/ is
 apparently recorded; and his rendering "the seed that was cursed" in
 l. 11 is not supported by the photographic reproduction of the text,
 which suggests that the first sign in the line is not that for "seed",
 but is the sign for "name", as correctly read by Dr. Poebel. In that
 passage the /niggilma/ appears to be given by Ziusudu the name
 "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind", which we have already compared to
 the title bestowed on Uta-napishtim's ship, "Preserver of Life". Like
 the ship, it must have played an important part in man's preservation,
 which would account not only for the honorific title but for the
 special record of its creation.
 
 [1] See /American Journal of Semitic Languages/, Vol. XXXI, April
     1915, p. 226.
 
 [2] It is written /nig-gil/ in the First Column.
 
 [3] See Winckler, /El-Amarna/, pl. 35 f., No. 28, Obv., Col. II, l.
     45, Rev., Col. I, l. 63, and Knudtzon, /El-Am. Taf./, pp. 112,
     122; the vessels were presents from Amenophis IV to Burnaburiash.
 
 It we may connect the word with the magical colouring of the myth, we
 might perhaps retain its known meaning, "jar" or "bowl", and regard it
 as employed in the magical ceremony which must have formed part of the
 invocation "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth". But the
 accompanying references to the ground, to its production from the
 ground, and to its springing up, if the phrases may be so rendered,
 suggest rather some kind of plant;[1] and this, from its employment in
 magical rites, may also have given its name to a bowl or vessel which
 held it. A very similar plant was that found and lost by Gilgamesh,
 after his sojourn with Ut-napishtim; it too had potent magical power
 and bore a title descriptive of its peculiar virtue of transforming
 old age to youth. Should this suggestion prove to be correct, the
 three passages mentioning the /niggilma/ must be classed with those in
 which the invocation is referred to, as ensuring the sanction of the
 myth to further elements in the magic. In accordance with this view,
 the fifth line in the Sixth Column is probably to be included in the
 divine speech, where a reference to the object employed in the ritual
 would not be out of place. But it is to be hoped that light will be
 thrown on this puzzling word by further study, and perhaps by new
 fragments of the text; meanwhile it would be hazardous to suggest a
 more definite rendering.
 
 [1] The references to "the ground", or "the earth", also tend to
     connect it peculiarly with Enlil. Enlil's close association with
     the earth, which is, of course, independently attested, is
     explicitly referred to in the Babylonian Version (cf. Gilg. Epic.
     XI, ll. 39-42). Suggested reflections of this idea have long been
     traced in the Hebrew Versions; cf. Gen. viii. 21 (J), where Yahweh
     says he will not again curse the ground, and Gen. ix. 13 (P),
     where Elohim speaks of his covenant "between me and the earth".
 
 With the sixth line of the column it is clear that the original
 narrative of the myth is resumed.[1] Ziusudu, the king, prostrates
 himself before Anu and Enlil, who bestow immortality upon him and
 cause him to dwell in a land, or mountain, the name of which may
 perhaps be read as Dilmun. The close parallelism between this portion
 of the text and the end of the myth in the Gilgamesh Epic will be seen
 from the following extracts,[2] the magical portions being omitted
 from the Sumerian Version:
 
 [1] It will also be noted that with this line the text again falls
     naturally into couplets.
 
 [2] Col. VI, ll. 6-9 and 12 are there compared with Gilg. Epic, XI,
     ll. 198-205.
 
         SUMERIAN VERSION                    SEMITIC VERSION
 
                                       Then Enlil went up into the
                                         ship;
   Ziusudu, the king,                  He took me by the hand and led
                                         me forth.
   Before Anu and Enlil bows himself   He brought out my wife and
     down.                               caused her to bow down at my
                                         side;
                                       He touched our brows, standing
                                         between us and blessing us:
   Life like (that of) a god he        "Formerly was Ut-napishtim of
     gives to him.                       mankind,
   An eternal soul like (that of) a    But now let Ut-napishtim be like
     god he creates for him.             the gods, even us!
                                       And let Ut-napishtim dwell afar
                                         off at the mouth of the
                                         rivers!"
   In a . . . land, the land of[1]     Then they took me and afar off,
     Dilmun(?), they caused him to       at the mouth of the rivers,
     dwell.                              they caused me to dwell.
 
 [1] Or, "On a mountain, the mountain of", &c.
 
 The Sumerian Version thus apparently concludes with the familiar
 ending of the legend which we find in the Gilgamesh Epic and in
 Berossus, though it here occurs in an abbreviated form and with some
 variations in detail. In all three versions the prostration of the
 Deluge hero before the god is followed by the bestowal of immortality
 upon him, a fate which, according to Berossus, he shared with his
 wife, his daughter, and the steersman. The Gilgamesh Epic perhaps
 implies that Ut-napishtim's wife shared in his immortality, but the
 Sumerian Version mentions Ziusudu alone. In the Gilgamesh Epic
 Ut-napishtim is settled by the gods at the mouth of the rivers, that
 is to say at the head of the Persian Gulf, while according to a
 possible rendering of the Sumerian Version he is made to dwell on
 Dilmun, an island in the Gulf itself. The fact that Gilgamesh in the
 Epic has to cross the sea to reach Ut-napishtim may be cited in favour
 of the reading "Dilmun"; and the description of the sea as "the Waters
 of Death", if it implies more than the great danger of their passage,
 was probably a later development associated with Ut-napishtim's
 immortality. It may be added that in neither Hebrew version do we find
 any parallel to the concluding details of the original story, the
 Hebrew narratives being brought to an end with the blessing of Noah
 and the divine promise to, or covenant with, mankind.
 
 
 Such then are the contents of our Sumerian document, and from the
 details which have been given it will have been seen that its story,
 so far as concerns the Deluge, is in essentials the same as that we
 already find in the Gilgamesh Epic. It is true that this earlier
 version has reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in an
 abbreviated form. In the next lecture I shall have occasion to refer
 to another early mythological text from Nippur, which was thought by
 its first interpreter to include a second Sumerian Version of the
 Deluge legend. That suggestion has not been substantiated, though we
 shall see that the contents of the document are of a very interesting
 character. But in view of the discussion that has taken place in the
 United States over the interpretation of the second text, and of the
 doubts that have subsequently been expressed in some quarters as to
 the recent discovery of any new form of the Deluge legend, it may be
 well to formulate briefly the proof that in the inscription published
 by Dr. Poebel an early Sumerian Version of the Deluge story has
 actually been recovered. Any one who has followed the detailed
 analysis of the new text which has been attempted in the preceding
 paragraphs will, I venture to think, agree that the following
 conclusions may be drawn:
 
 (i) The points of general resemblance presented by the narrative to
 that in the Gilgamesh Epic are sufficiently close in themselves to
 show that we are dealing with a Sumerian Version of that story. And
 this conclusion is further supported (a) by the occurrence throughout
 the text of the attested Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic word,
 employed in the Babylonian Versions, for the "Flood" or "Deluge", and
 (b) by the use of precisely the same term for the hero's "great boat",
 which is already familiar to us from an early Babylonian Version.
 
 (ii) The close correspondence in language between portions of the
 Sumerian legend and the Gilgamesh Epic suggest that the one version
 was ultimately derived from the other. And this conclusion in its turn
 is confirmed (a) by the identity in meaning of the Sumerian and
 Babylonian names for the Deluge hero, which are actually found equated
 in a late explanatory text, and (b) by small points of difference in
 the Babylonian form of the story which correspond to later political
 and religious developments and suggest the work of Semitic redactors.
 
 The cumulative effect of such general and detailed evidence is
 overwhelming, and we may dismiss all doubts as to the validity of Dr.
 Poebel's claim. We have indeed recovered a very early, and in some of
 its features a very primitive, form of the Deluge narrative which till
 now has reached us only in Semitic and Greek renderings; and the
 stream of tradition has been tapped at a point far above any at which
 we have hitherto approached it. What evidence, we may ask, does this
 early Sumerian Version offer with regard to the origin and literary
 history of the Hebrew Versions?
 
 The general dependence of the biblical Versions upon the Babylonian
 legend as a whole has long been recognized, and needs no further
 demonstration; and it has already been observed that the parallelisms
 with the version in the Gilgamesh Epic are on the whole more detailed
 and striking in the earlier than in the later Hebrew Version.[1] In
 the course of our analysis of the Sumerian text its more striking
 points of agreement or divergence, in relation to the Hebrew Versions,
 were noted under the different sections of its narrative. It was also
 obvious that, in many features in which the Hebrew Versions differ
 from the Gilgamesh Epic, the latter finds Sumerian support. These
 facts confirm the conclusion, which we should naturally base on
 grounds of historical probability, that while the Semitic-Babylonian
 Versions were derived from Sumer, the Hebrew accounts were equally
 clearly derived from Babylon. But there are one or two pieces of
 evidence which are apparently at variance with this conclusion, and
 these call for some explanation.
 
 [1] For details see especially Skinner, /Genesis/, pp. 177 ff.
 
 Not too much significance should be attached to the apparent omission
 of the episode of the birds from the Sumerian narrative, in which it
 would agree with the later as against the earlier Hebrew Version; for,
 apart from its epitomized character, there is so much missing from the
 text that the absence of this episode cannot be regarded as
 established with certainty. And in any case it could be balanced by
 the Sumerian order of Creation of men before animals, which agrees
 with the earlier Hebrew Version against the later. But there is one
 very striking point in which our new Sumerian text agrees with both
 the Hebrew Versions as against the Gilgamesh Epic and Berossus; and
 that is in the character of Ziusudu, which presents so close a
 parallel to the piety of Noah. As we have already seen, the latter is
 due to no Hebrew idealization of the story, but represents a genuine
 strand of the original tradition, which is completely absent from the
 Babylonian Versions. But the Babylonian Versions are the media through
 which it has generally been assumed that the tradition of the Deluge
 reached the Hebrews. What explanation have we of this fact?
 
 This grouping of Sumerian and Hebrew authorities, against the extant
 sources from Babylon, is emphasized by the general framework of the
 Sumerian story. For the literary connexion which we have in Genesis
 between the Creation and the Deluge narratives has hitherto found no
 parallel in the cuneiform texts. In Babylon and Assyria the myth of
 Creation and the Deluge legend have been divorced. From the one a
 complete epic has been evolved in accordance with the tenets of
 Babylonian theology, the Creation myth being combined in the process
 with other myths of a somewhat analogous character. The Deluge legend
 has survived as an isolated story in more than one setting, the
 principal Semitic Version being recounted to the national hero
 Gilgamesh, towards the close of the composite epic of his adventures
 which grew up around the nucleus of his name. It is one of the chief
 surprises of the newly discovered Sumerian Version that the Hebrew
 connexion of the narratives is seen to be on the lines of very
 primitive tradition. Noah's reputation for piety does not stand alone.
 His line of descent from Adam, and the thread of narrative connecting
 the creation of the world with its partial destruction by the Deluge,
 already appear in Sumerian form at a time when the city of Babylon
 itself had not secured its later power. How then are we to account for
 this correspondence of Sumerian and Hebrew traditions, on points
 completely wanting in our intermediate authorities, from which,
 however, other evidence suggests that the Hebrew narratives were
 derived?
 
 At the risk of anticipating some of the conclusions to be drawn in the
 next lecture, it may be well to define an answer now. It is possible
 that those who still accept the traditional authorship of the
 Pentateuch may be inclined to see in this correspondence of Hebrew and
 Sumerian ideas a confirmation of their own hypothesis. But it should
 be pointed out at once that this is not an inevitable deduction from
 the evidence. Indeed, it is directly contradicted by the rest of the
 evidence we have summarized, while it would leave completely
 unexplained some significant features of the problem. It is true that
 certain important details of the Sumerian tradition, while not
 affecting Babylon and Assyria, have left their stamp upon the Hebrew
 narratives; but that is not an exhaustive statement of the case. For
 we have also seen that a more complete survival of Sumerian tradition
 has taken place in the history of Berossus. There we traced the same
 general framework of the narratives, with a far closer correspondence
 in detail. The kingly rank of Ziusudu is in complete harmony with the
 Berossian conception of a series of supreme Antediluvian rulers, and
 the names of two of the Antediluvian cites are among those of their
 newly recovered Sumerian prototypes. There can thus be no suggestion
 that the Greek reproductions of the Sumerian tradition were in their
 turn due to Hebrew influence. On the contrary we have in them a
 parallel case of survival in a far more complete form.
 
 The inference we may obviously draw is that the Sumerian narrative
 continued in existence, in a literary form that closely resembled the
 original version, into the later historical periods. In this there
 would be nothing to surprise us, when we recall the careful
 preservation and study of ancient Sumerian religious texts by the
 later Semitic priesthood of the country. Each ancient cult-centre in
 Babylonia continued to cling to its own local traditions, and the
 Sumerian desire for their preservation, which was inherited by their
 Semitic guardians, was in great measure unaffected by political
 occurrences elsewhere. Hence it was that Ashur-bani-pal, when forming
 his library at Nineveh, was able to draw upon so rich a store of the
 more ancient literary texts of Babylonia. The Sumerian Version of the
 Deluge and of Antediluvian history may well have survived in a less
 epitomized form than that in which we have recovered it; and, like
 other ancient texts, it was probably provided with a Semitic
 translation. Indeed its literary study and reproduction may have
 continued without interruption in Babylon itself. But even if Sumerian
 tradition died out in the capital under the influence of the
 Babylonian priesthood, its re-introduction may well have taken place
 in Neo-Babylonian times. Perhaps the antiquarian researches of
 Nabonidus were characteristic of his period; and in any case the
 collection of his country's gods into the capital must have been
 accompanied by a renewed interest in the more ancient versions of the
 past with which their cults were peculiarly associated. In the extant
 summary from Berossus we may possibly see evidence of a subsequent
 attempt to combine with these more ancient traditions the continued
 religious dominance of Marduk and of Babylon.
 
 Our conclusion, that the Sumerian form of the tradition did not die
 out, leaves the question as to the periods during which Babylonian
 influence may have acted upon Hebrew tradition in great measure
 unaffected; and we may therefore postpone its further consideration to
 the next lecture. To-day the only question that remains to be
 considered concerns the effect of our new evidence upon the wider
 problem of Deluge stories as a whole. What light does it throw on the
 general character of Deluge stories and their suggested Egyptian
 origin?
 
 One thing that strikes me forcibly in reading this early text is the
 complete absence of any trace or indication of astrological /motif/.
 It is true that Ziusudu sacrifices to the Sun-god; but the episode is
 inherent in the story, the appearance of the Sun after the storm
 following the natural sequence of events and furnishing assurance to
 the king of his eventual survival. To identify the worshipper with his
 god and to transfer Ziusudu's material craft to the heavens is surely
 without justification from the simple narrative. We have here no
 prototype of Ra sailing the heavenly ocean. And the destructive flood
 itself is not only of an equally material and mundane character, but
 is in complete harmony with its Babylonian setting.
 
 In the matter of floods the Tigris and Euphrates present a striking
 contrast to the Nile. It is true that the life-blood of each country
 is its river-water, but the conditions of its use are very different,
 and in Mesopotamia it becomes a curse when out of control. In both
 countries the river-water must be used for maturing the crops. But
 while the rains of Abyssinia cause the Nile to rise between August and
 October, thus securing both summer and winter crops, the melting snows
 of Armenia and the Taurus flood the Mesopotamian rivers between March
 and May. In Egypt the Nile flood is gentle; it is never abrupt, and
 the river gives ample warning of its rise and fall. It contains just
 enough sediment to enrich the land without choking the canals; and the
 water, after filling its historic basins, may when necessary be
 discharged into the falling river in November. Thus Egypt receives a
 full and regular supply of water, and there is no difficulty in
 disposing of any surplus. The growth in such a country of a legend of
 world-wide destruction by flood is inconceivable.
 
 In Mesopotamia, on the other hand, the floods, which come too late for
 the winter crops, are followed by the rainless summer months; and not
 only must the flood-water be controlled, but some portion of it must
 be detained artificially, if it is to be of use during the burning
 months of July, August, and September, when the rivers are at their
 lowest. Moreover, heavy rain in April and a warm south wind melting
 the snow in the hills may bring down such floods that the channels
 cannot contain them; the dams are then breached and the country is
 laid waste. Here there is first too much water and then too little.
 
 The great danger from flood in Babylonia, both in its range of action
 and in its destructive effect, is due to the strangely flat character
 of the Tigris and Euphrates delta.[1] Hence after a severe breach in
 the Tigris or Euphrates, the river after inundating the country may
 make itself a new channel miles away from the old one. To mitigate the
 danger, the floods may be dealt with in two ways--by a multiplication
 of canals to spread the water, and by providing escapes for it into
 depressions in the surrounding desert, which in their turn become
 centres of fertility. Both methods were employed in antiquity; and it
 may be added that in any scheme for the future prosperity of the
 country they must be employed again, of course with the increased
 efficiency of modern apparatus.[2] But while the Babylonians succeeded
 in controlling the Euphrates, the Tigris was never really tamed,[3]
 and whenever it burst its right bank the southern plains were
 devastated. We could not have more suitable soil for the growth of a
 Deluge story.
 
 [1] Baghdad, though 300 miles by crow-fly from the sea and 500 by
     river, is only 120 ft. above sea-level.
 
 [2] The Babylonians controlled the Euphrates, and at the same time
     provided against its time of "low supply", by escapes into two
     depressions in the western desert to the NW. of Babylon, known
     to-day as the Habbânîyah and Abu Dîs depressions, which lie S. of
     the modern town of Ramâdi and N. of Kerbela. That these
     depressions were actually used as reservoirs in antiquity is
     proved by the presence along their edges of thick beds of
     Euphrates shells. In addition to canals and escapes, the
     Babylonian system included well-constructed dikes protected by
     brushwood. By cutting an eight-mile channel through a low hill
     between the Habbânîyah and Abu Dîs depressions and by building a
     short dam 50 ft. high across the latter's narrow outlet, Sir
     William Willcocks estimates that a reservoir could be obtained
     holding eighteen milliards of tons of water. See his work /The
     Irrigations of Mesopotamia/ (E. and F. N. Spon, 1911),
     /Geographical Journal/, Vol. XL, No. 2 (Aug., 1912), pp. 129 ff.,
     and the articles in /The Near East/ cited on p. 97, n. 1, and p.
     98, n. 2. Sir William Willcocks's volume and subsequent papers
     form the best introduction to the study of Babylonian Deluge
     tradition on its material side.
 
 [3] Their works carried out on the Tigris were effective for
     irrigation; but the Babylonians never succeeded in controlling its
     floods as they did those of the Euphrates. A massive earthen dam,
     the remains of which are still known as "Nimrod's Dam", was thrown
     across the Tigris above the point where it entered its delta; this
     served to turn the river over hard conglomerate rock and kept it
     at a high level so that it could irrigate the country on both
     banks. Above the dam were the heads of the later Nahrwân Canal, a
     great stream 400 ft. wide and 17 ft. deep, which supplied the
     country east of the river. The Nâr Sharri or "King's Canal", the
     Nahar Malkha of the Greeks and the Nahr el-Malik of the Arabs,
     protected the right bank of the Tigris by its own high artificial
     banks, which can still be traced for hundreds of miles; but it
     took its supply from the Euphrates at Sippar, where the ground is
     some 25 ft. higher than on the Tigris. The Tigris usually flooded
     its left bank; it was the right bank which was protected, and a
     breach here meant disaster. Cf. Willcocks, op. cit., and /The Near
     East/, Sept. 29, 1916 (Vol. XI, No. 282), p. 522.
 
 It was only by constant and unremitting attention that disaster from
 flood could be averted; and the difficulties of the problem were and
 are increased by the fact that the flood-water of the Mesopotamian
 rivers contains five times as much sediment as the Nile. In fact, one
 of the most pressing of the problems the Sumerian and early Babylonian
 engineers had to solve was the keeping of the canals free from
 silt.[1] What the floods, if left unchecked, may do in Mesopotamia, is
 well illustrated by the decay of the ancient canal-system, which has
 been the immediate cause of the country's present state of sordid
 desolation. That the decay was gradual was not the fault of the
 rivers, but was due to the sound principles on which the old system of
 control had been evolved through many centuries of labour. At the time
 of the Moslem conquest the system had already begun to fail. In the
 fifth century there had been bad floods; but worse came in A.D. 629,
 when both rivers burst their banks and played havoc with the dikes and
 embankments. It is related that the Sassanian king Parwiz, the
 contemporary of Mohammed, crucified in one day forty canal-workers at
 a certain breach, and yet was unable to master the flood.[2] All
 repairs were suspended during the anarchy of the Moslem invasion. As a
 consequence the Tigris left its old bed for the Shatt el-Hai at Kût,
 and pouring its own and its tributaries' waters into the Euphrates
 formed the Great Euphrates Swamp, two hundred miles long and fifty
 broad. But even then what was left of the old system was sufficient to
 support the splendour of the Eastern Caliphate.
 
 [1] Cf. /Letters of Hammurabi/, Vol. III, pp. xxxvi ff.; it was the
     duty of every village or town upon the banks of the main canals in
     Babylonia to keep its own section clear of silt, and of course it
     was also responsible for its own smaller irrigation-channels.
     While the invention of the system of basin-irrigation was
     practically forced on Egypt, the extraordinary fertility of
     Babylonia was won in the teeth of nature by the system of
     perennial irrigation, or irrigation all the year round. In
     Babylonia the water was led into small fields of two or three
     acres, while the Nile valley was irrigated in great basins each
     containing some thirty to forty thousand acres. The Babylonian
     method gives far more profitable results, and Sir William
     Willcocks points out that Egypt to-day is gradually abandoning its
     own system and adopting that of its ancient rival; see /The Near
     East/, Sept. 29, 1916, p. 521.
 
 [2] See Le Strange, /The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate/, p. 27.
 
 The second great blow to the system followed the Mongol conquest, when
 the Nahrwân Canal, to the east of the Tigris, had its head swept away
 by flood and the area it had irrigated became desert. Then, in about
 the fifteenth century, the Tigris returned to its old course; the
 Shatt el-Hai shrank, and much of the Great Swamp dried up into the
 desert it is to-day.[1] Things became worse during the centuries of
 Turkish misrule. But the silting up of the Hillah, or main, branch of
 the Euphrates about 1865, and the transference of a great part of its
 stream into the Hindîyah Canal, caused even the Turks to take action.
 They constructed the old Hindîyah Barrage in 1890, but it gave way in
 1903 and the state of things was even worse than before; for the
 Hillah branch then dried entirely.[2]
 
 [1] This illustrates the damage the Tigris itself is capable of
     inflicting on the country. It may be added that Sir William
     Willcocks proposes to control the Tigris floods by an escape into
     the Tharthâr depression, a great salt pan at the tail of Wadi
     Tharthâr, which lies 14 ft. below sea level and is 200 ft. lower
     than the flood-level of the Tigris some thirty-two miles away. The
     escape would leave the Tigris to the S. of Sâmarra, the proposed
     Beled Barrage being built below it and up-stream of "Nimrod's
     Dam". The Tharthâr escape would drain into the Euphrates, and the
     latter's Habbânîyah escape would receive any surplus water from
     the Tigris, a second barrage being thrown across the Euphrates up-
     stream of Fallûjah, where there is an outcrop of limestone near
     the head of the Sakhlawîyah Canal. The Tharthâr depression,
     besides disposing of the Tigris flood-water, would thus probably
     feed the Euphrates; and a second barrage on the Tigris, to be
     built at Kût, would supply water to the Shatt el-Hai. When the
     country is freed from danger of flood, the Baghdad Railway could
     be run through the cultivated land instead of through the eastern
     desert; see Willcocks, /The Near East/, Oct. 6, 1916 (Vol. XI, No.
     283), p. 545 f.
 
 [2] It was then that Sir William Willcocks designed the new Hindîyah
     Barrage, which was completed in 1913. The Hindîyah branch, to-day
     the main stream of the Euphrates, is the old low-lying Pallacopas
     Canal, which branched westward above Babylon and discharged its
     waters into the western marshes. In antiquity the head of this
     branch had to be opened in high floods and then closed again
     immediately after the flood to keep the main stream full past
     Babylon, which entailed the employment of an enormous number of
     men. Alexander the Great's first work in Babylonia was cutting a
     new head for the Pallacopas in solid ground, for hitherto it had
     been in sandy soil; and it was while reclaiming the marshes
     farther down-stream that he contracted the fever that killed him.
 
 From this brief sketch of progressive disaster during the later
 historical period, the inevitable effect of neglected silt and flood,
 it will be gathered that the two great rivers of Mesopotamia present a
 very strong contrast to the Nile. For during the same period of
 misgovernment and neglect in Egypt the Nile did not turn its valley
 and delta into a desert. On the Tigris and Euphrates, during ages when
 the earliest dwellers on their banks were struggling to make effective
 their first efforts at control, the waters must often have regained
 the upper hand. Under such conditions the story of a great flood in
 the past would not be likely to die out in the future; the tradition
 would tend to gather illustrative detail suggested by later
 experience. Our new text reveals the Deluge tradition in Mesopotamia
 at an early stage of its development, and incidentally shows us that
 there is no need to postulate for its origin any convulsion of nature
 or even a series of seismic shocks accompanied by cyclone in the
 Persian Gulf.
 
 If this had been the only version of the story that had come down to
 us, we should hardly have regarded it as a record of world-wide
 catastrophe. It is true the gods' intention is to destroy mankind, but
 the scene throughout is laid in Southern Babylonia. After seven days'
 storm, the Sun comes out, and the vessel with the pious priest-king
 and his domestic animals on board grounds, apparently still in
 Babylonia, and not on any distant mountain, such as Mt. Nisir or the
 great mass of Ararat in Armenia. These are obviously details which
 tellers of the story have added as it passed down to later
 generations. When it was carried still farther afield, into the area
 of the Eastern Mediterranean, it was again adapted to local
 conditions. Thus Apollodorus makes Deucalion land upon Parnassus,[1]
 and the pseudo-Lucian relates how he founded the temple of Derketo at
 Hierapolis in Syria beside the hole in the earth which swallowed up
 the Flood.[2] To the Sumerians who first told the story, the great
 Flood appeared to have destroyed mankind, for Southern Babylonia was
 for them the world. Later peoples who heard it have fitted the story
 to their own geographical horizon, and in all good faith and by a
 purely logical process the mountain-tops are represented as submerged,
 and the ship, or ark, or chest, is made to come to ground on the
 highest peak known to the story-teller and his hearers. But in its
 early Sumerian form it is just a simple tradition of some great
 inundation, which overwhelmed the plain of Southern Babylonia and was
 peculiarly disastrous in its effects. And so its memory survived in
 the picture of Ziusudu's solitary coracle upon the face of the waters,
 which, seen through the mists of the Deluge tradition, has given us
 the Noah's ark of our nursery days.
 
 [1] Hesiod is our earliest authority for the Deucalion Flood story.
     For its probable Babylonian origin, cf. Farnell, /Greece and
     Babylon/ (1911), p. 184.
 
 [2] /De Syria dea/, 12 f.
 
 Thus the Babylonian, Hebrew, and Greek Deluge stories resolve
 themselves, not into a nature myth, but into an early legend, which
 has the basis of historical fact in the Euphrates Valley. And it is
 probable that we may explain after a similar fashion the occurrence of
 tales of a like character at least in some other parts of the world.
 Among races dwelling in low-lying or well-watered districts it would
 be surprising if we did not find independent stories of past floods
 from which few inhabitants of the land escaped. It is only in hilly
 countries such as Palestine, where for the great part of the year
 water is scarce and precious, that we are forced to deduce borrowing;
 and there is no doubt that both the Babylonian and the biblical
 stories have been responsible for some at any rate of the scattered
 tales. But there is no need to adopt the theory of a single source for
 all of them, whether in Babylonia or, still less, in Egypt.[1]
 
 [1] This argument is taken from an article I published in Professor
     Headlam's /Church Quarterly Review/, Jan., 1916, pp. 280 ff.,
     containing an account of Dr. Poebel's discovery.
 
 I should like to add, with regard to this reading of our new evidence,
 that I am very glad to know Sir James Frazer holds a very similar
 opinion. For, as you are doubtless all aware, Sir James is at present
 collecting Flood stories from all over the world, and is supplementing
 from a wider range the collections already made by Lenormant, Andree,
 Winternitz, and Gerland. When his work is complete it will be possible
 to conjecture with far greater confidence how particular traditions or
 groups of tradition arose, and to what extent transmission has taken
 place. Meanwhile, in his recent Huxley Memorial Lecture,[1] he has
 suggested a third possibility as to the way Deluge stories may have
 arisen.
 
 [1] Sir J. G. Frazer, /Ancient Stories of a Great Flood/ (the Huxley
     Memorial Lecture, 1916), Roy. Anthrop. Inst., 1916.
 
 Stated briefly, it is that a Deluge story may arise as a popular
 explanation of some striking natural feature in a country, although to
 the scientific eye the feature in question is due to causes other than
 catastrophic flood. And he worked out the suggestion in the case of
 the Greek traditions of a great deluge, associated with the names of
 Deucalion and Dardanus. Deucalion's deluge, in its later forms at any
 rate, is obviously coloured by Semitic tradition; but both Greek
 stories, in their origin, Sir James Frazer would trace to local
 conditions--the one suggested by the Gorge of Tempe in Thessaly, the
 other explaining the existence of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. As he
 pointed out, they would be instances, not of genuine historical
 traditions, but of what Sir James Tyler calls "observation myths". A
 third story of a great flood, regarded in Greek tradition as the
 earliest of the three, he would explain by an extraordinary inundation
 of the Copaic Lake in Boeotia, which to this day is liable to great
 fluctuations of level. His new theory applies only to the other two
 traditions. For in them no historical kernel is presupposed, though
 gradual erosion by water is not excluded as a cause of the surface
 features which may have suggested the myths.
 
 This valuable theory thus opens up a third possibility for our
 analysis. It may also, of course, be used in combination, if in any
 particular instance we have reason to believe that transmission, in
 some vague form, may already have taken place. And it would with all
 deference suggest the possibility that, in view of other evidence,
 this may have occurred in the case of the Greek traditions. With
 regard to the theory itself we may confidently expect that further
 examples will be found in its illustration and support. Meanwhile in
 the new Sumerian Version I think we may conclude that we have
 recovered beyond any doubt the origin of the Babylonian and Hebrew
 traditions and of the large group of stories to which they in their
 turn have given rise.
 
 
 
                              LECTURE III
 
            CREATION AND THE DRAGON MYTH; AND THE PROBLEM OF
                BABYLONIAN PARALLELS IN HEBREW TRADITION
 
 In our discussion of the new Sumerian version of the Deluge story we
 came to the conclusion that it gave no support to any theory which
 would trace all such tales to a single origin, whether in Egypt or in
 Babylonia. In spite of strong astrological elements in both the
 Egyptian and Babylonian religious systems, we saw grounds for
 regarding the astrological tinge of much ancient mythology as a later
 embellishment and not as primitive material. And so far as our new
 version of the Deluge story was concerned, it resolved itself into a
 legend, which had a basis of historical fact in the Euphrates Valley.
 It will be obvious that the same class of explanation cannot be
 applied to narratives of the Creation of the World. For there we are
 dealing, not with legends, but with myths, that is, stories
 exclusively about the gods. But where an examination of their earlier
 forms is possible, it would seem to show that many of these tales
 also, in their origin, are not to be interpreted as nature myths, and
 that none arose as mere reflections of the solar system. In their more
 primitive and simpler aspects they seem in many cases to have been
 suggested by very human and terrestrial experience. To-day we will
 examine the Egyptian, Sumerian, and Babylonian myths of Creation, and,
 after we have noted the more striking features of our new material, we
 will consider the problem of foreign influences upon Hebrew traditions
 concerning the origin and early history of the world.
 
 In Egypt, as until recently in Babylonia, we have to depend for our
 knowledge of Creation myths on documents of a comparatively late
 period. Moreover, Egyptian religious literature as a whole is
 textually corrupt, and in consequence it is often difficult to
 determine the original significance of its allusions. Thanks to the
 funerary inscriptions and that great body of magical formulae and
 ritual known as "The Chapters of Coming forth by Day", we are very
 fully informed on the Egyptian doctrines as to the future state of the
 dead. The Egyptian's intense interest in his own remote future,
 amounting almost to an obsession, may perhaps in part account for the
 comparatively meagre space in the extant literature which is occupied
 by myths relating solely to the past. And it is significant that the
 one cycle of myth, of which we are fully informed in its latest stage
 of development, should be that which gave its sanction to the hope of
 a future existence for man. The fact that Herodotus, though he claims
 a knowledge of the sufferings or "Mysteries" of Osiris, should
 deliberately refrain from describing them or from even uttering the
 name,[1] suggests that in his time at any rate some sections of the
 mythology had begun to acquire an esoteric character. There is no
 doubt that at all periods myth played an important part in the ritual
 of feast-days. But mythological references in the earlier texts are
 often obscure; and the late form in which a few of the stories have
 come to us is obviously artificial. The tradition, for example, which
 relates how mankind came from the tears which issued from Ra's eye
 undoubtedly arose from a play upon words.
 
 [1] Herodotus, II, 171.
 
 On the other hand, traces of myth, scattered in the religious
 literature of Egypt, may perhaps in some measure betray their relative
 age by the conceptions of the universe which underlie them. The
 Egyptian idea that the sky was a heavenly ocean, which is not unlike
 conceptions current among the Semitic Babylonians and Hebrews,
 presupposes some thought and reflection. In Egypt it may well have
 been evolved from the probably earlier but analogous idea of the river
 in heaven, which the Sun traversed daily in his boats. Such a river
 was clearly suggested by the Nile; and its world-embracing character
 is reminiscent of a time when through communication was regularly
 established, at least as far south as Elephantine. Possibly in an
 earlier period the long narrow valley, or even a section of it, may
 have suggested the figure of a man lying prone upon his back. Such was
 Keb, the Earth-god, whose counterpart in the sky was the goddess Nut,
 her feet and hands resting at the limits of the world and her curved
 body forming the vault of heaven. Perhaps still more primitive, and
 dating from a pastoral age, may be the notion that the sky was a great
 cow, her body, speckled with stars, alone visible from the earth
 beneath. Reference has already been made to the dominant influence of
 the Sun in Egyptian religion, and it is not surprising that he should
 so often appear as the first of created beings. His orb itself, or
 later the god in youthful human form, might be pictured as emerging
 from a lotus on the primaeval waters, or from a marsh-bird's egg, a
 conception which influenced the later Phoenician cosmogeny. The
 Scarabaeus, or great dung-feeding beetle of Egypt, rolling the ball
 before it in which it lays its eggs, is an obvious theme for the early
 myth-maker. And it was natural that the Beetle of Khepera should have
 been identified with the Sun at his rising, as the Hawk of Ra
 represented his noonday flight, and the aged form of Attun his setting
 in the west. But in all these varied conceptions and explanations of
 the universe it is difficult to determine how far the poetical imagery
 of later periods has transformed the original myths which may lie
 behind them.
 
 As the Egyptian Creator the claims of Ra, the Sun-god of Heliopolis,
 early superseded those of other deities. On the other hand, Ptah of
 Memphis, who for long ages had been merely the god of architects and
 craftsmen, became under the Empire the architect of the universe and
 is pictured as a potter moulding the world-egg. A short poem by a
 priest of Ptah, which has come down to us from that period, exhibits
 an attempt to develop this idea on philosophical lines.[1] Its author
 represents all gods and living creatures as proceeding directly from
 the mind and thought of Ptah. But this movement, which was more
 notably reflected in Akhenaton's religious revolution, died out in
 political disaster, and the original materialistic interpretation of
 the myths was restored with the cult of Amen. How materialistic this
 could be is well illustrated by two earlier members of the XVIIIth
 Dynasty, who have left us vivid representations of the potter's wheel
 employed in the process of man's creation. When the famous Hatshepsut,
 after the return of her expedition to Punt in the ninth year of her
 young consort Thothmes III, decided to build her temple at Deir
 el-Bahari in the necropolis of Western Thebes, she sought to emphasize
 her claim to the throne of Egypt by recording her own divine origin
 upon its walls. We have already noted the Egyptians' belief in the
 solar parentage of their legitimate rulers, a myth that goes back at
 least to the Old Kingdom and may have had its origin in prehistoric
 times. With the rise of Thebes, Amen inherited the prerogatives of Ra;
 and so Hatshepsut seeks to show, on the north side of the retaining
 wall of her temple's Upper Platform, that she was the daughter of Amen
 himself, "the great God, Lord of the sky, Lord of the Thrones of the
 Two Lands, who resides at Thebes". The myth was no invention of her
 own, for obviously it must have followed traditional lines, and though
 it is only employed to exhibit the divine creation of a single
 personage, it as obviously reflects the procedure and methods of a
 general Creation myth.
 
 [1] See Breasted, /Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache/, XXXIX, pp. 39
     ff., and /History of Egypt/, pp. 356 ff.
 
 This series of sculptures shared the deliberate mutilation that all
 her records suffered at the hands of Thothmes III after her death, but
 enough of the scenes and their accompanying text has survived to
 render the detailed interpretation of the myth quite certain.[1] Here,
 as in a general Creation myth, Amen's first act is to summon the great
 gods in council, in order to announce to them the future birth of the
 great princess. Of the twelve gods who attend, the first is Menthu, a
 form of the Sun-god and closely associated with Amen.[2] But the
 second deity is Atum, the great god of Heliopolis, and he is followed
 by his cycle of deities--Shu, "the son of Ra"; Tefnut, "the Lady of
 the sky"; Keb, "the Father of the Gods"; Nut, "the Mother of the
 Gods"; Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set, Horus, and Hathor. We are here in
 the presence of cosmic deities, as befits a projected act of creation.
 The subsequent scenes exhibit the Egyptian's literal interpretation of
 the myth, which necessitates the god's bodily presence and personal
 participation. Thoth mentions to Amen the name of queen Aahmes as the
 future mother of Hatshepsut, and we later see Amen himself, in the
 form of her husband, Aa-kheperka-Ra (Thothmes I), sitting with Aahmes
 and giving her the Ankh, or sign of Life, which she receives in her
 hand and inhales through her nostrils.[3] God and queen are seated on
 thrones above a couch, and are supported by two goddesses. After
 leaving the queen, Amen calls on Khnum or Khnemu, the flat-horned ram-
 god, who in texts of all periods is referred to as the "builder" of
 gods and men;[4] and he instructs him to create the body of his future
 daughter and that of her /Ka/, or "double", which would be united to
 her from birth.
 
 [1] See Naville, /Deir el-Bahari/, Pt. II, pp. 12 ff., plates xlvi ff.
 
 [2] See Budge, /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. II, pp. 23 ff. His chief
     cult-centre was Hermonthis, but here as elsewhere he is given his
     usual title "Lord of Thebes".
 
 [3] Pl. xlvii. Similar scenes are presented in the "birth-temples" at
     Denderah, Edfu, Philae, Esneh, and Luxor; see Naville, op. cit.,
     p. 14.
 
 [4] Cf. Budge, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 50.
 
 The scene in the series, which is of greatest interest in the present
 connexion, is that representing Khnum at his work of creation. He is
 seated before a potter's wheel which he works with his foot,[1] and on
 the revolving table he is fashioning two children with his hands, the
 baby princess and her "double". It was always Hatshepsut's desire to
 be represented as a man, and so both the children are boys.[2] As yet
 they are lifeless, but the symbol of Life will be held to their
 nostrils by Heqet, the divine Potter's wife, whose frog-head typifies
 birth and fertility. When Amenophis III copied Hatshepsut's sculptures
 for his own series at Luxor, he assigned this duty to the greater
 goddess Hathor, perhaps the most powerful of the cosmic goddesses and
 the mother of the world. The subsequent scenes at Deir el-Bahari
 include the leading of queen Aahmes by Khnum and Heqet to the birth-
 chamber; the great birth scene where the queen is attended by the
 goddesses Nephthys and Isis, a number of divine nurses and midwives
 holding several of the "doubles" of the baby, and favourable genii, in
 human form or with the heads of crocodiles, jackals, and hawks,
 representing the four cardinal points and all bearing the gift of
 life; the presentation of the young child by the goddess Hathor to
 Amen, who is well pleased at the sight of his daughter; and the divine
 suckling of Hatshepsut and her "doubles". But these episodes do not
 concern us, as of course they merely reflect the procedure following a
 royal birth. But Khnum's part in the princess's origin stands on a
 different plane, for it illustrates the Egyptian myth of Creation by
 the divine Potter, who may take the form of either Khnum or Ptah.
 Monsieur Naville points out the extraordinary resemblance in detail
 which Hatshepsut's myth of divine paternity bears to the Greek legend
 of Zeus and Alkmene, where the god takes the form of Amphitryon,
 Alkmene's husband, exactly as Amen appears to the queen;[3] and it may
 be added that the Egyptian origin of the Greek story was traditionally
 recognized in the ancestry ascribed to the human couple.[4]
 
 [1] This detail is not clearly preserved at Deir el-Bahari; but it is
     quite clear in the scene on the west wall of the "Birth-room" in
     the Temple at Luxor, which Amenophis III evidently copied from
     that of Hatshepsut.
 
 [2] In the similar scene at Luxor, where the future Amenophis III is
     represented on the Creator's wheel, the sculptor has distinguished
     the human child from its spiritual "double" by the quaint device
     of putting its finger in its mouth.
 
 [3] See Naville, op. cit., p. 12.
 
 [4] Cf., e.g., Herodotus, II, 43.
 
 The only complete Egyptian Creation myth yet recovered is preserved in
 a late papyrus in the British Museum, which was published some years
 ago by Dr. Budge.[1] It occurs under two separate versions embedded in
 "The Book of the Overthrowing of Apep, the Enemy of Ra". Here Ra, who
 utters the myth under his late title of Neb-er-tcher, "Lord to the
 utmost limit", is self-created as Khepera from Nu, the primaeval
 water; and then follow successive generations of divine pairs, male
 and female, such as we find at the beginning of the Semitic-Babylonian
 Creation Series.[2] Though the papyrus was written as late as the year
 311 B.C., the myth is undoubtedly early. For the first two divine
 pairs Shu and Tefnut, Keb and Nut, and four of the latter pairs' five
 children, Osiris and Isis, Set and Nephthys, form with the Sun-god
 himself the Greater Ennead of Heliopolis, which exerted so wide an
 influence on Egyptian religious speculation. The Ennead combined the
 older solar elements with the cult of Osiris, and this is indicated in
 the myth by a break in the successive generations, Nut bringing forth
 at a single birth the five chief gods of the Osiris cycle, Osiris
 himself and his son Horus, with Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Thus we may
 see in the myth an early example of that religious syncretism which is
 so characteristic of later Egyptian belief.
 
 [1] See /Archaeologia/, Vol. LII (1891). Dr. Budge published a new
     edition of the whole papyrus in /Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the
     British Museum/ (1910), and the two versions of the Creation myth
     are given together in his /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. I (1904),
     Chap. VIII, pp. 308 ff., and more recently in his /Egyptian
     Literature/, Vol. I, "Legends of the Gods" (1912), pp. 2 ff. An
     account of the papyrus is included in the Introduction to "Legends
     of the Gods", pp. xiii ff.
 
 [2] In /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. I, Chap. VII, pp. 288 ff., Dr.
     Budge gives a detailed comparison of the Egyptian pairs of
     primaeval deities with the very similar couples of the Babylonian
     myth.
 
 The only parallel this Egyptian myth of Creation presents to the
 Hebrew cosmogony is in its picture of the primaeval water,
 corresponding to the watery chaos of Genesis i. But the resemblance is
 of a very general character, and includes no etymological equivalence
 such as we find when we compare the Hebrew account with the principal
 Semitic-Babylonian Creation narrative.[1] The application of the Ankh,
 the Egyptian sign for Life, to the nostrils of a newly-created being
 is no true parallel to the breathing into man's nostrils of the breath
 of life in the earlier Hebrew Version,[2] except in the sense that
 each process was suggested by our common human anatomy. We should
 naturally expect to find some Hebrew parallel to the Egyptian idea of
 Creation as the work of a potter with his clay, for that figure
 appears in most ancient mythologies. The Hebrews indeed used the
 conception as a metaphor or parable,[3] and it also underlies their
 earlier picture of man's creation. I have not touched on the grosser
 Egyptian conceptions concerning the origin of the universe, which we
 may probably connect with African ideas; but those I have referred to
 will serve to demonstrate the complete absence of any feature that
 presents a detailed resemblance of the Hebrew tradition.
 
 [1] For the wide diffusion, in the myths of remote peoples, of a vague
     theory that would trace all created things to a watery origin, see
     Farnell, /Greece and Babylon/, p. 180.
 
 [2] Gen. ii. 7 (J).
 
 [3] Cf., e.g., Isaiah xxix. 16, xlv. 9; and Jeremiah xviii. 2f.
 
 When we turn to Babylonia, we find there also evidence of conflicting
 ideas, the product of different and to some extent competing religious
 centres. But in contrast to the rather confused condition of Egyptian
 mythology, the Semitic Creation myth of the city of Babylon, thanks to
 the latter's continued political ascendancy, succeeded in winning a
 dominant place in the national literature. This is the version in
 which so many points of resemblance to the first chapter of Genesis
 have long been recognized, especially in the succession of creative
 acts and their relative order. In the Semitic-Babylonian Version the
 creation of the world is represented as the result of conflict, the
 emergence of order out of chaos, a result that is only attained by the
 personal triumph of the Creator. But this underlying dualism does not
 appear in the more primitive Sumerian Version we have now recovered.
 It will be remembered that in the second lecture I gave some account
 of the myth, which occurs in an epitomized form as an introduction to
 the Sumerian Version of the Deluge, the two narratives being recorded
 in the same document and connected with one another by a description
 of the Antediluvian cities. We there saw that Creation is ascribed to
 the three greatest gods of the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, Enlil, and
 Enki, assisted by the goddess Ninkharsagga.
 
 It is significant that in the Sumerian version no less than four
 deities are represented as taking part in the Creation. For in this we
 may see some indication of the period to which its composition must be
 assigned. Their association in the text suggests that the claims of
 local gods had already begun to compete with one another as a result
 of political combination between the cities of their cults. To the
 same general period we must also assign the compilation of the
 Sumerian Dynastic record, for that presupposes the existence of a
 supreme ruler among the Sumerian city-states. This form of political
 constitution must undoubtedly have been the result of a long process
 of development, and the fact that its existence should be regarded as
 dating from the Creation of the world indicates a comparatively
 developed stage of the tradition. But behind the combination of cities
 and their gods we may conjecturally trace anterior stages of
 development, when each local deity and his human representative seemed
 to their own adherents the sole objects for worship and allegiance.
 And even after the demands of other centres had been conceded, no
 deity ever quite gave up his local claims.
 
 Enlil, the second of the four Sumerian creating deities, eventually
 ousted his rivals. It has indeed long been recognized that the /rôle/
 played by Marduk in the Babylonian Version of Creation had been
 borrowed from Enlil of Nippur; and in the Atrakhasis legend Enlil
 himself appears as the ultimate ruler of the world and the other gods
 figure as "his sons". Anu, who heads the list and plays with Enlil the
 leading part in the Sumerian narrative, was clearly his chief rival.
 And though we possess no detailed account of Anu's creative work, the
 persistent ascription to him of the creation of heaven, and his
 familiar title, "the Father of the Gods", suggest that he once
 possessed a corresponding body of myth in Eanna, his temple at Erech.
 Enki, the third of the creating gods, was naturally credited, as God
 of Wisdom, with special creative activities, and fortunately in his
 case we have some independent evidence of the varied forms these could
 assume.
 
 According to one tradition that has come down to us,[1] after Anu had
 made the heavens, Enki created Apsû or the Deep, his own dwelling-
 place. Then taking from it a piece of clay[2] he proceeded to create
 the Brick-god, and reeds and forests for the supply of building
 material. From the same clay he continued to form other deities and
 materials, including the Carpenter-god; the Smith-god; Arazu, a patron
 deity of building; and mountains and seas for all that they produced;
 the Goldsmith-god, the Stone-cutter-god, and kindred deities, together
 with their rich products for offerings; the Grain-deities, Ashnan and
 Lakhar; Siris, a Wine-god; Ningishzida and Ninsar, a Garden-god, for
 the sake of the rich offerings they could make; and a deity described
 as "the High priest of the great gods," to lay down necessary
 ordinances and commands. Then he created "the King", for the equipment
 probably of a particular temple, and finally men, that they might
 practise the cult in the temple so elaborately prepared.
 
 [1] See Weissbach, /Babylonische Miscellen/, pp. 32 ff.
 
 [2] One of the titles of Enki was "the Potter"; cf. /Cun. Texts in the
     Brit. Mus., Pt. XXIV, pl. 14 f., ll. 41, 43.
 
 It will be seen from this summary of Enki's creative activities, that
 the text from which it is taken is not a general Creation myth, but in
 all probability the introductory paragraph of a composition which
 celebrated the building or restoration of a particular temple; and the
 latter's foundation is represented, on henotheistic lines, as the main
 object of creation. Composed with that special purpose, its narrative
 is not to be regarded as an exhaustive account of the creation of the
 world. The incidents are eclective, and only such gods and materials
 are mentioned as would have been required for the building and
 adornment of the temple and for the provision of its offerings and
 cult. But even so its mythological background is instructive. For
 while Anu's creation of heaven is postulated as the necessary
 precedent of Enki's activities, the latter creates the Deep,
 vegetation, mountains, seas, and mankind. Moreover, in his character
 as God of Wisdom, he is not only the teacher but the creator of those
 deities who were patrons of man's own constructive work. From such
 evidence we may infer that in his temple at Eridu, now covered by the
 mounds of Abu Shahrain in the extreme south of Babylonia, and regarded
 in early Sumerian tradition as the first city in the world, Enki
 himself was once celebrated as the sole creator of the universe.
 
 The combination of the three gods Anu, Enlil, and Enki, is persistent
 in the tradition; for not only were they the great gods of the
 universe, representing respectively heaven, earth, and the watery
 abyss, but they later shared the heavenly sphere between them. It is
 in their astrological character that we find them again in creative
 activity, though without the co-operation of any goddess, when they
 appear as creators of the great light-gods and as founders of time
 divisions, the day and the month. This Sumerian myth, though it
 reaches us only in an extract or summary in a Neo-Babylonian
 schoolboy's exercise,[1] may well date from a comparatively early
 period, but probably from a time when the "Ways" of Anu, Enlil, and
 Enki had already been fixed in heaven and their later astrological
 characters had crystallized.
 
 [1] See /The Seven Tablets of Creation/, Vol. I, pp. 124 ff. The
     tablet gives extracts from two very similar Sumerian and Semitic
     texts. In both of them Anu, Enlil, and Enki appear as creators
     "through their sure counsel". In the Sumerian extract they create
     the Moon and ordain its monthly course, while in the Semitic text,
     after establishing heaven and earth, they create in addition to
     the New Moon the bright Day, so that "men beheld the Sun-god in
     the Gate of his going forth".
 
 The idea that a goddess should take part with a god in man's creation
 is already a familiar feature of Babylonian mythology. Thus the
 goddess Aruru, in co-operation with Marduk, might be credited with the
 creation of the human race,[1] as she might also be pictured creating
 on her own initiative an individual hero such as Enkidu of the
 Gilgamesh Epic. The /rôle/ of mother of mankind was also shared, as we
 have seen, by the Semitic Ishtar. And though the old Sumerian goddess,
 Ninkharsagga, the "Lady of the Mountains", appears in our Sumerian
 text for the first time in the character of creatress, some of the
 titles we know she enjoyed, under her synonyms in the great God List
 of Babylonia, already reflected her cosmic activities.[2] For she was
 known as
 
   "The Builder of that which has Breath",
   "The Carpenter of Mankind",
   "The Carpenter of the Heart",
   "The Coppersmith of the Gods",
   "The Coppersmith of the Land", and
   "The Lady Potter".
 
 [1] Op. cit., p. 134 f.
 
 [2] Cf. /Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus./, Pt. XXIV, pl. 12, ll. 32, 26,
     27, 25, 24, 23, and Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, p. 34.
 
 In the myth we are not told her method of creation, but from the above
 titles it is clear that in her own cycle of tradition Ninkhasagga was
 conceived as fashioning men not only from clay but also from wood, and
 perhaps as employing metal for the manufacture of her other works of
 creation. Moreover, in the great God List, where she is referred to
 under her title Makh, Ninkhasagga is associated with Anu, Enlil, and
 Enki; she there appears, with her dependent deities, after Enlil and
 before Enki. We thus have definite proof that her association with the
 three chief Sumerian gods was widely recognized in the early Sumerian
 period and dictated her position in the classified pantheon of
 Babylonia. Apart from this evidence, the important rank assigned her
 in the historical and legal records and in votive inscriptions,[1]
 especially in the early period and in Southern Babylonia, accords
 fully with the part she here plays in the Sumerian Creation myth.
 Eannatum and Gudea of Lagash both place her immediately after Anu and
 Enlil, giving her precedence over Enki; and even in the Kassite
 Kudurru inscriptions of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, where
 she is referred to, she takes rank after Enki and before the other
 gods. In Sumer she was known as "the Mother of the Gods", and she was
 credited with the power of transferring the kingdom and royal insignia
 from one king to his successor.
 
 [1] See especially, Poebel, op. cit., pp. 24 ff.
 
 Her supreme position as a goddess is attested by the relative
 insignificance of her husband Dunpae, whom she completely overshadows,
 in which respect she presents a contrast to the goddess Ninlil,
 Enlil's female counterpart. The early clay figurines found at Nippur
 and on other sites, representing a goddess suckling a child and
 clasping one of her breasts, may well be regarded as representing
 Ninkharsagga and not Ninlil. Her sanctuaries were at Kesh and Adab,
 both in the south, and this fact sufficiently explains her comparative
 want of influence in Akkad, where the Semitic Ishtar took her place.
 She does indeed appear in the north during the Sargonic period under
 her own name, though later she survives in her synonyms of Ninmakh,
 "the Sublime Lady", and Nintu, "the Lady of Child-bearing". It is
 under the latter title that Hammurabi refers to her in his Code of
 Laws, where she is tenth in a series of eleven deities. But as Goddess
 of Birth she retained only a pale reflection of her original cosmic
 character, and her functions were gradually specialized.[1]
 
 [1] Cf. Poebel, op. cit., p. 33. It is possible that, under one of her
     later synonyms, we should identify her, as Dr. Poebel suggests,
     with the Mylitta of Herodotus.
 
 From a consideration of their characters, as revealed by independent
 sources of evidence, we thus obtain the reason for the co-operation of
 four deities in the Sumerian Creation. In fact the new text
 illustrates a well-known principle in the development of myth, the
 reconciliation of the rival claims of deities, whose cults, once
 isolated, had been brought from political causes into contact with
 each other. In this aspect myth is the medium through which a working
 pantheon is evolved. Naturally all the deities concerned cannot
 continue to play their original parts in detail. In the Babylonian
 Epic of Creation, where a single deity, and not a very prominent one,
 was to be raised to pre-eminent rank, the problem was simple enough.
 He could retain his own qualities and achievements while borrowing
 those of any former rival. In the Sumerian text we have the result of
 a far more delicate process of adjustment, and it is possible that the
 brevity of the text is here not entirely due to compression of a
 longer narrative, but may in part be regarded as evidence of early
 combination. As a result of the association of several competing
 deities in the work of creation, a tendency may be traced to avoid
 discrimination between rival claims. Thus it is that the assembled
 gods, the pantheon as a whole, are regarded as collectively
 responsible for the creation of the universe. It may be added that
 this use of /ilâni/, "the gods", forms an interesting linguistic
 parallel to the plural of the Hebrew divine title Elohim.
 
 It will be remembered that in the Sumerian Version the account of
 Creation is not given in full, only such episodes being included as
 were directly related to the Deluge story. No doubt the selection of
 men and animals was suggested by their subsequent rescue from the
 Flood; and emphasis was purposely laid on the creation of the
 /niggilma/ because of the part it played in securing mankind's
 survival. Even so, we noted one striking parallel between the Sumerian
 Version and that of the Semitic Babylonians, in the reason both give
 for man's creation. But in the former there is no attempt to explain
 how the universe itself had come into being, and the existence of the
 earth is presupposed at the moment when Anu, Enlil, Enki, and
 Ninkharsagga undertake the creation of man. The Semitic-Babylonian
 Version, on the other hand, is mainly occupied with events that led up
 to the acts of creation, and it concerns our problem to inquire how
 far those episodes were of Semitic and how far of Sumerian origin. A
 further question arises as to whether some strands of the narrative
 may not at one time have existed in Sumerian form independently of the
 Creation myth.
 
 The statement is sometimes made that there is no reason to assume a
 Sumerian original for the Semitic-Babylonian Version, as recorded on
 "the Seven Tablets of Creation";[1] and this remark, though true of
 that version as a whole, needs some qualification. The composite
 nature of the poem has long been recognized, and an analysis of the
 text has shown that no less than five principal strands have been
 combined for its formation. These consist of (i) The Birth of the
 Gods; (ii) The Legend of Ea and Apsû; (iii) The principal Dragon Myth;
 (iv) The actual account of Creation; and (v) the Hymn to Marduk under
 his fifty titles.[2] The Assyrian commentaries to the Hymn, from which
 considerable portions of its text are restored, quote throughout a
 Sumerian original, and explain it word for word by the phrases of the
 Semitic Version;[3] so that for one out of the Seven Tablets a Semitic
 origin is at once disproved. Moreover, the majority of the fifty
 titles, even in the forms in which they have reached us in the Semitic
 text, are demonstrably Sumerian, and since many of them celebrate
 details of their owner's creative work, a Sumerian original for other
 parts of the version is implied. Enlil and Ea are both represented as
 bestowing their own names upon Marduk,[4] and we may assume that many
 of the fifty titles were originally borne by Enlil as a Sumerian
 Creator.[5] Thus some portions of the actual account of Creation were
 probably derived from a Sumerian original in which "Father Enlil"
 figured as the hero.
 
 [1] Cf., e.g., Jastrow, /Journ. of the Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI
     (1916), p. 279.
 
 [2] See /The Seven Tablets of Creation/, Vol. I, pp. lxvi ff.; and cf.
     Skinner, /Genesis/, pp. 43 ff.
 
 [3] Cf. /Sev. Tabl./, Vol. I, pp. 157 ff.
 
 [4] Cf. Tabl. VII, ll. 116 ff.
 
 [5] The number fifty was suggested by an ideogram employed for Enlil's
     name.
 
 For what then were the Semitic Babylonians themselves responsible? It
 seems to me that, in the "Seven Tablets", we may credit them with
 considerable ingenuity in the combination of existing myths, but not
 with their invention. The whole poem in its present form is a
 glorification of Marduk, the god of Babylon, who is to be given
 pre-eminent rank among the gods to correspond with the political
 position recently attained by his city. It would have been quite out
 of keeping with the national thought to make a break in the tradition,
 and such a course would not have served the purpose of the Babylonian
 priesthood, which was to obtain recognition of their claims by the
 older cult-centres in the country. Hence they chose and combined the
 more important existing myths, only making such alterations as would
 fit them to their new hero. Babylon herself had won her position by
 her own exertions; and it would be a natural idea to give Marduk his
 opportunity of becoming Creator of the world as the result of
 successful conflict. A combination of the Dragon myth with the myth of
 Creation would have admirably served their purpose; and this is what
 we find in the Semitic poem. But even that combination may not have
 been their own invention; for, though, as we shall see, the idea of
 conflict had no part in the earlier forms of the Sumerian Creation
 myth, its combination with the Dragon /motif/ may have characterized
 the local Sumerian Version of Nippur. How mechanical was the
 Babylonian redactors' method of glorifying Marduk is seen in their use
 of the description of Tiamat and her monster brood, whom Marduk is
 made to conquer. To impress the hearers of the poem with his prowess,
 this is repeated at length no less than four times, one god carrying
 the news of her revolt to another.
 
 Direct proof of the manner in which the later redactors have been
 obliged to modify the original Sumerian Creation myth, in consequence
 of their incorporation of other elements, may be seen in the Sixth
 Tablet of the poem, where Marduk states the reason for man's creation.
 In the second lecture we noted how the very words of the principal
 Sumerian Creator were put into Marduk's mouth; but the rest of the
 Semitic god's speech finds no equivalent in the Sumerian Version and
 was evidently inserted in order to reconcile the narrative with its
 later ingredients. This will best be seen by printing the two passages
 in parallel columns:[1]
 
 [1] The extract from the Sumerian Version, which occurs in the lower
     part of the First Column, is here compared with the Semitic-
     Babylonian Creation Series, Tablet VI, ll. 6-10 (see /Seven
     Tablets/, Vol. I, pp. 86 ff.). The comparison is justified whether
     we regard the Sumerian speech as a direct preliminary to man's
     creation, or as a reassertion of his duty after his rescue from
     destruction by the Flood.
 
         SUMERIAN VERSION                    SEMITIC VERSION
 
   "The people will I cause to . . .   "I will make man, that man may
     in their settlements,               [. . .].
   Cities . . . shall (man) build,     I will create man who shall
     in their protection will I cause    inhabit [. . .],
     him to rest,
   That he may lay the brick of our    That the service of the gods may
     house in a clean spot,              be established, and that
                                         [their] shrines [may be
                                         built].
   That in a clean spot he may         But I will alter the ways of the
     establish our . . . !"              gods, and I will change [their
                                         paths];
                                       Together shall they be
                                         oppressed, and unto evil shall
                                         [they . . .]!"
 
 The welding of incongruous elements is very apparent in the Semitic
 Version. For the statement that man will be created in order that the
 gods may have worshippers is at once followed by the announcement that
 the gods themselves must be punished and their "ways" changed. In the
 Sumerian Version the gods are united and all are naturally regarded as
 worthy of man's worship. The Sumerian Creator makes no distinctions;
 he refers to "our houses", or temples, that shall be established. But
 in the later version divine conflict has been introduced, and the
 future head of the pantheon has conquered and humiliated the revolting
 deities. Their "ways" must therefore be altered before they are fit to
 receive the worship which was accorded them by right in the simpler
 Sumerian tradition. In spite of the epitomized character of the
 Sumerian Version, a comparison of these passages suggests very
 forcibly that the Semitic-Babylonian myth of Creation is based upon a
 simpler Sumerian story, which has been elaborated to reconcile it with
 the Dragon myth.
 
 The Semitic poem itself also supplies evidence of the independent
 existence of the Dragon myth apart from the process of Creation, for
 the story of Ea and Apsû, which it incorporates, is merely the local
 Dragon myth of Eridu. Its inclusion in the story is again simply a
 tribute to Marduk; for though Ea, now become Marduk's father, could
 conquer Apsû, he was afraid of Tiamat, "and turned back".[1] The
 original Eridu myth no doubt represented Enki as conquering the watery
 Abyss, which became his home; but there is nothing to connect this
 tradition with his early creative activities. We have long possessed
 part of another local version of the Dragon myth, which describes the
 conquest of a dragon by some deity other than Marduk; and the fight is
 there described as taking place, not before Creation, but at a time
 when men existed and cities had been built.[2] Men and gods were
 equally terrified at the monster's appearance, and it was to deliver
 the land from his clutches that one of the gods went out and slew him.
 Tradition delighted to dwell on the dragon's enormous size and
 terrible appearance. In this version he is described as fifty
 /bêru/[3] in length and one in height; his mouth measured six cubits
 and the circuit of his ears twelve; he dragged himself along in the
 water, which he lashed with his tail; and, when slain, his blood
 flowed for three years, three months, a day and a night. From this
 description we can see he was given the body of an enormous
 serpent.[4]
 
 [1] Tabl. III, l. 53, &c. In the story of Bel and the Dragon, the
     third of the apocryphal additions to Daniel, we have direct
     evidence of the late survival of the Dragon /motif/ apart from any
     trace of the Creation myth; in this connexion see Charles,
     /Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha/, Vol. I (1913), p. 653 f.
 
 [2] See /Seven Tablets/, Vol. I, pp. 116 ff., lxviii f. The text is
     preserved on an Assyrian tablet made for the library of Ashur-
     bani-pal.
 
 [3] The /bêru/ was the space that could be covered in two hours'
     travelling.
 
 [4] The Babylonian Dragon has progeny in the later apocalyptic
     literature, where we find very similar descriptions of the
     creatures' size. Among them we may perhaps include the dragon in
     the Apocalypse of Baruch, who, according to the Slavonic Version,
     apparently every day drinks a cubit's depth from the sea, and yet
     the sea does not sink because of the three hundred and sixty
     rivers that flow into it (cf. James, "Apocrypha Anecdota", Second
     Series, in Armitage Robinson's /Texts and Studies/, V, No. 1, pp.
     lix ff.). But Egypt's Dragon /motif/ was even more prolific, and
     the /Pistis Sophia/ undoubtedly suggested descriptions of the
     Serpent, especially in connexion with Hades.
 
 A further version of the Dragon myth has now been identified on one of
 the tablets recovered during the recent excavations at Ashur,[1] and
 in it the dragon is not entirely of serpent form, but is a true dragon
 with legs. Like the one just described, he is a male monster. The
 description occurs as part of a myth, of which the text is so badly
 preserved that only the contents of one column can be made out with
 any certainty. In it a god, whose name is wanting, announces the
 presence of the dragon: "In the water he lies and I [. . .]!"
 Thereupon a second god cries successively to Aruru, the mother-
 goddess, and to Pallil, another deity, for help in his predicament.
 And then follows the description of the dragon:
 
   In the sea was the Serpent cre[ated].
   Sixty /bêru/ is his length;
   Thirty /bêru/ high is his he[ad].[2]
   For half (a /bêru/) each stretches the surface of his ey[es];[3]
   For twenty /bêru/ go [his feet].[4]
   He devours fish, the creatures [of the sea],
   He devours birds, the creatures [of the heaven],
   He devours wild asses, the creatures [of the field],
   He devours men,[5] to the peoples [he . . .].
 
 [1] For the text, see Ebeling, /Assurtexte/ I, No. 6; it is translated
     by him in /Orient. Lit.-Zeit./, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (April, 1916).
 
 [2] The line reads: /30 bêru ša-ka-a ri-[ša-a-šu]/. Dr. Ebeling
     renders /ri-ša-a/ as "heads" (Köpfe), implying that the dragon had
     more than one head. It may be pointed out that, if we could accept
     this translation, we should have an interesting parallel to the
     description of some of the primaeval monsters, preserved from
     Berossus, as {soma men ekhontas en, kephalas de duo}. But the
     common word for "head" is /kakkadu/, and there can be little doubt
     that /rîšâ/ is here used in its ordinary sense of "head, summit,
     top" when applied to a high building.
 
 [3] The line reads: /a-na 1/2 ta-am la-bu-na li-bit ên[a-šu]/. Dr.
     Ebeling translates, "auf je eine Hälfte ist ein Ziegel [ihrer]
     Auge[n] gelegt". But /libittu/ is clearly used here, not with its
     ordinary meaning of "brick", which yields a strange rendering, but
     in its special sense, when applied to large buildings, of
     "foundation, floor-space, area", i.e. "surface". Dr. Ebeling reads
     /ênâ-šu/ at the end of the line, but the sign is broken; perhaps
     the traces may prove to be those of /uznâ šu/, "his ears", in
     which case /li-bit uz[nâ-šu]/ might be rendered either as "surface
     of his ears", or as "base (lit. foundation) of his ears".
 
 [4] i.e. the length of his pace was twenty /bêru/.
 
 [5] Lit. "the black-headed".
 
 The text here breaks off, at the moment when Pallil, whose help
 against the dragon had been invoked, begins to speak. Let us hope we
 shall recover the continuation of the narrative and learn what became
 of this carnivorous monster.
 
 There are ample grounds, then, for assuming the independent existence
 of the Babylonian Dragon-myth, and though both the versions recovered
 have come to us in Semitic form, there is no doubt that the myth
 itself existed among the Sumerians. The dragon /motif/ is constantly
 recurring in descriptions of Sumerian temple-decoration, and the twin
 dragons of Ningishzida on Gudea's libation-vase, carved in green
 steatite and inlaid with shell, are a notable product of Sumerian
 art.[1] The very names borne by Tiamat's brood of monsters in the
 "Seven Tablets" are stamped in most cases with their Sumerian descent,
 and Kingu, whom she appointed as her champion in place of Apsû, is
 equally Sumerian. It would be strange indeed if the Sumerians had not
 evolved a Dragon myth,[2] for the Dragon combat is the most obvious of
 nature myths and is found in most mythologies of Europe and the Near
 East. The trailing storm-clouds suggest his serpent form, his fiery
 tongue is seen in the forked lightning, and, though he may darken the
 world for a time, the Sun-god will always be victorious. In Egypt the
 myth of "the Overthrowing of Apep, the enemy of Ra" presents a close
 parallel to that of Tiamat;[3] but of all Eastern mythologies that of
 the Chinese has inspired in art the most beautiful treatment of the
 Dragon, who, however, under his varied forms was for them essentially
 beneficent. Doubtless the Semites of Babylonia had their own versions
 of the Dragon combat, both before and after their arrival on the
 Euphrates, but the particular version which the priests of Babylon
 wove into their epic is not one of them.
 
 [1] See E. de Sarzec, /Découvertes en Chaldée/, pl. xliv, Fig. 2, and
     Heuzey, /Catalogue des antiquités chaldéennes/, p. 281.
 
 [2] In his very interesting study of "Sumerian and Akkadian Views of
     Beginnings", contributed to the /Journ. of the Amer. Or. Soc./,
     Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 274 ff., Professor Jastrow suggests that
     the Dragon combat in the Semitic-Babylonian Creation poem is of
     Semitic not Sumerian origin. He does not examine the evidence of
     the poem itself in detail, but bases the suggestion mainly on the
     two hypotheses, that the Dragon combat of the poem was suggested
     by the winter storms and floods of the Euphrates Valley, and that
     the Sumerians came from a mountain region where water was not
     plentiful. If we grant both assumptions, the suggested conclusion
     does not seem to me necessarily to follow, in view of the evidence
     we now possess as to the remote date of the Sumerian settlement in
     the Euphrates Valley. Some evidence may still be held to point to
     a mountain home for the proto-Sumerians, such as the name of their
     early goddess Ninkharsagga, "the Lady of the Mountains". But, as
     we must now regard Babylonia itself as the cradle of their
     civilization, other data tend to lose something of their apparent
     significance. It is true that the same Sumerian sign means "land"
     and "mountain"; but it may have been difficult to obtain an
     intelligible profile for "land" without adopting a mountain form.
     Such a name as Ekur, the "Mountain House" of Nippur, may perhaps
     indicate size, not origin; and Enki's association with metal-
     working may be merely due to his character as God of Wisdom, and
     is not appropriate solely "to a god whose home is in the mountains
     where metals are found" (op. cit., p. 295). It should be added
     that Professor Jastrow's theory of the Dragon combat is bound up
     with his view of the origin of an interesting Sumerian "myth of
     beginnings", to which reference is made later.
 
 [3] Cf. Budge, /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. I, pp. 324 ff. The
     inclusion of the two versions of the Egyptian Creation myth,
     recording the Birth of the Gods in the "Book of Overthrowing
     Apep", does not present a very close parallel to the combination
     of Creation and Dragon myths in the Semitic-Babylonian poem, for
     in the Egyptian work the two myths are not really combined, the
     Creation Versions being inserted in the middle of the spells
     against Apep, without any attempt at assimilation (see Budge,
     /Egyptian Literature/, Vol. I, p. xvi).
 
 We have thus traced four out of the five strands which form the
 Semitic-Babylonian poem of Creation to a Sumerian ancestry. And we now
 come back to the first of the strands, the Birth of the Gods, from
 which our discussion started. For if this too should prove to be
 Sumerian, it would help to fill in the gap in our Sumerian Creation
 myth, and might furnish us with some idea of the Sumerian view of
 "beginnings", which preceded the acts of creation by the great gods.
 It will be remembered that the poem opens with the description of a
 time when heaven and earth did not exist, no field or marsh even had
 been created, and the universe consisted only of the primaeval water-
 gods, Apsû, Mummu, and Tiamat, whose waters were mingled together.
 Then follows the successive generation of two pairs of deities, Lakhmu
 and Lakhamu, and Anshar and Kishar, long ages separating the two
 generations from each other and from the birth of the great gods which
 subsequently takes place. In the summary of the myth which is given by
 Damascius[1] the names of the various deities accurately correspond to
 those in the opening lines of the poem; but he makes some notable
 additions, as will be seen from the following table:
 
         DAMASCUS                            "SEVEN TABLETS" I
 
      {'Apason---Tauthe}                       Apsû---Tiamat
               |
           {Moumis}                               Mummu
       {Lakhos---Lakhe}[2]                   Lakhmu---Lakhamu
     {'Assoros---Kissare}                    Anshar---Kishar
    {'Anos, 'Illinos, 'Aos}              Anu, [ ], Nudimmud (= Ea)
         {'Aos---Dauke}
               |
            {Belos}
 
 [1] /Quaestiones de primis principiis/, cap. 125; ed. Kopp, p. 384.
 
 [2] Emended from the reading {Dakhen kai Dakhon} of the text.
 
 In the passage of the poem which describes the birth of the great gods
 after the last pair of primaeval deities, mention is duly made of Anu
 and Nudimmud (the latter a title of Ea), corresponding to the {'Anos}
 and {'Aos} of Damascius; and there appears to be no reference to
 Enlil, the original of {'Illinos}. It is just possible that his name
 occurred at the end of one of the broken lines, and, if so, we should
 have a complete parallel to Damascius. But the traces are not in
 favour of the restoration;[1] and the omission of Enlil's name from
 this part of the poem may be readily explained as a further tribute to
 Marduk, who definitely usurps his place throughout the subsequent
 narrative. Anu and Ea had both to be mentioned because of the parts
 they play in the Epic, but Enlil's only recorded appearance is in the
 final assembly of the gods, where he bestows his own name "the Lord of
 the World"[2] upon Marduk. The evidence of Damascius suggests that
 Enlil's name was here retained, between those of Anu and Ea, in other
 versions of the poem. But the occurrence of the name in any version is
 in itself evidence of the antiquity of this strand of the narrative.
 It is a legitimate inference that the myth of the Birth of the Gods
 goes back to a time at least before the rise of Babylon, and is
 presumably of Sumerian origin.
 
 [1] Anu and Nudimmud are each mentioned for the first time at the
     beginning of a line, and the three lines following the reference
     to Nudimmud are entirely occupied with descriptions of his wisdom
     and power. It is also probable that the three preceding lines (ll.
     14-16), all of which refer to Anu by name, were entirely occupied
     with his description. But it is only in ll. 13-16 that any
     reference to Enlil can have occurred, and the traces preserved of
     their second halves do not suggestion the restoration.
 
 [2] Cf. Tabl. VII, . 116.
 
 Further evidence of this may be seen in the fact that Anu, Enlil, and
 Ea (i.e. Enki), who are here created together, are the three great
 gods of the Sumerian Version of Creation; it is they who create
 mankind with the help of the goddess Ninkharsagga, and in the fuller
 version of that myth we should naturally expect to find some account
 of their own origin. The reference in Damascius to Marduk ({Belos}) as
 the son of Ea and Damkina ({Dauke}) is also of interest in this
 connexion, as it exhibits a goddess in close connexion with one of the
 three great gods, much as we find Ninkharsagga associated with them in
 the Sumerian Version.[1] Before leaving the names, it may be added
 that, of the primaeval deities, Anshar and Kishar are obviously
 Sumerian in form.
 
 [1] Damkina was the later wife of Ea or Enki; and Ninkharsagga is
     associated with Enki, as his consort, in another Sumerian myth.
 
 It may be noted that the character of Apsû and Tiamat in this portion
 of the poem[1] is quite at variance with their later actions. Their
 revolt at the ordered "way" of the gods was a necessary preliminary to
 the incorporation of the Dragon myths, in which Ea and Marduk are the
 heroes. Here they appear as entirely beneficent gods of the primaeval
 water, undisturbed by storms, in whose quiet depths the equally
 beneficent deities Lakhmu and Lakhamu, Anshar and Kishar, were
 generated.[2] This interpretation, by the way, suggests a more
 satisfactory restoration for the close of the ninth line of the poem
 than any that has yet been proposed. That line is usually taken to
 imply that the gods were created "in the midst of [heaven]", but I
 think the following rendering, in connexion with ll. 1-5, gives better
 sense:
 
   When in the height heaven was not named,
   And the earth beneath did not bear a name,
   And the primaeval Apsû who begat them,[3]
   And Mummu, and Tiamat who bore them[3] all,--
   Their waters were mingled together,
   . . .
   . . .
   . . .
   Then were created the gods in the midst of [their waters],[4]
   Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called into being . . .
 
 [1] Tabl. I, ll. 1-21.
 
 [2] We may perhaps see a survival of Tiamat's original character in
     her control of the Tablets of Fate. The poem does not represent
     her as seizing them in any successful fight; they appear to be
     already hers to bestow on Kingu, though in the later mythology
     they are "not his by right" (cf. Tabl. I, ll. 137 ff., and Tabl.
     IV, l. 121).
 
 [3] i.e. the gods.
 
 [4] The ninth line is preserved only on a Neo-Babylonian duplicate
     (/Seven Tablets/, Vol. II, pl. i). I suggested the restoration
     /ki-rib š[a-ma-mi]/, "in the midst of heaven", as possible, since
     the traces of the first sign in the last word of the line seemed
     to be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of /ša/. The restoration
     appeared at the time not altogether satisfactory in view of the
     first line of the poem, and it could only be justified by
     supposing that /šamâmu/, or "heaven", was already vaguely
     conceived as in existence (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 3, n. 14). But the
     traces of the sign, as I have given them (op. cit., Vol. II, pl.
     i), may also possibly be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of the
     sign /me/; and I would now restore the end of the line in the Neo-
     Babylonian tablet as /ki-rib m[e-e-šu-nu]/, "in the midst of
     [their waters]", corresponding to the form /mu-u-šu-nu/ in l. 5 of
     this duplicate. In the Assyrian Version /mé(pl)-šu-nu/ would be
     read in both lines. It will be possible to verify the new reading,
     by a re-examination of the traces on the tablet, when the British
     Museum collections again become available for study after the war.
 
 If the ninth line of the poem be restored as suggested, its account of
 the Birth of the Gods will be found to correspond accurately with the
 summary from Berossus, who, in explaining the myth, refers to the
 Babylonian belief that the universe consisted at first of moisture in
 which living creatures, such as he had already described, were
 generated.[1] The primaeval waters are originally the source of life,
 not of destruction, and it is in them that the gods are born, as in
 Egyptian mythology; there Nu, the primaeval water-god from whom Ra was
 self-created, never ceased to be the Sun-god's supporter. The change
 in the Babylonian conception was obviously introduced by the
 combination of the Dragon myth with that of Creation, a combination
 that in Egypt would never have been justified by the gentle Nile. From
 a study of some aspects of the names at the beginning of the
 Babylonian poem we have already seen reason to suspect that its
 version of the Birth of the Gods goes back to Sumerian times, and it
 is pertinent to ask whether we have any further evidence that in
 Sumerian belief water was the origin of all things.
 
 [1] {ugrou gar ontos tou pantos kai zoon en auto gegennemenon
     [toionde] ktl}. His creatures of the primaeval water were killed
     by the light; and terrestrial animals were then created which
     could bear (i.e. breathe and exist in) the air.
 
 For many years we have possessed a Sumerian myth of Creation, which
 has come to us on a late Babylonian tablet as the introductory section
 of an incantation. It is provided with a Semitic translation, and to
 judge from its record of the building of Babylon and Egasila, Marduk's
 temple, and its identification of Marduk himself with the Creator, it
 has clearly undergone some editing at the hands of the Babylonian
 priests. Moreover, the occurrence of various episodes out of their
 logical order, and the fact that the text records twice over the
 creation of swamps and marshes, reeds and trees or forests, animals
 and cities, indicate that two Sumerian myths have been combined. Thus
 we have no guarantee that the other cities referred to by name in the
 text, Nippur, Erech, and Eridu, are mentioned in any significant
 connexion with each other.[1] Of the actual cause of Creation the text
 appears to give two versions also, one in its present form impersonal,
 and the other carried out by a god. But these two accounts are quite
 unlike the authorized version of Babylon, and we may confidently
 regard them as representing genuine Sumerian myths. The text resembles
 other early accounts of Creation by introducing its narrative with a
 series of negative statements, which serve to indicate the preceding
 non-existence of the world, as will be seen from the following
 extract:[2]
 
   No city had been created, no creature had been made,
   Nippur had not been created, Ekur had not been built,
   Erech had not been created, Eanna had not been built,
   Apsû had not been created, Eridu had not been built,
   Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the habitation had not
     been created.
   All lands[3] were sea.
   At the time when a channel (was formed) in the midst of the sea,
   Then was Eridu created, Esagila built, etc.
 
 Here we have the definite statement that before Creation all the world
 was sea. And it is important to note that the primaeval water is not
 personified; the ordinary Sumerian word for "sea" is employed, which
 the Semitic translator has faithfully rendered in his version of the
 text.[4] The reference to a channel in the sea, as the cause of
 Creation, seems at first sight a little obscure; but the word implies
 a "drain" or "water-channel", not a current of the sea itself, and the
 reference may be explained as suggested by the drainage of a flood-
 area. No doubt the phrase was elaborated in the original myth, and it
 is possible that what appears to be a second version of Creation later
 on in the text is really part of the more detailed narrative of the
 first myth. There the Creator himself is named. He is the Sumerian god
 Gilimma, and in the Semitic translation Marduk's name is substituted.
 To the following couplet, which describes Gilimma's method of
 creation, is appended a further extract from a later portion of the
 text, there evidently displaced, giving additional details of the
 Creator's work:
 
   Gilimma bound reeds in the face of the waters,
   He formed soil and poured it out beside the reeds.[5]
   [He][6] filled in a dike by the side of the sea,
   [He . . .] a swamp, he formed a marsh.
   [. . .], he brought into existence,
   [Reeds he form]ed,[7] trees he created.
 
 [1] The composite nature of the text is discussed by Professor Jastrow
     in his /Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions/, pp. 89 ff.; and in his
     paper in the /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 279
     ff.; he has analysed it into two main versions, which he suggests
     originated in Eridu and Nippur respectively. The evidence of the
     text does not appear to me to support the view that any reference
     to a watery chaos preceding Creation must necessarily be of
     Semitic origin. For the literature of the text (first published by
     Pinches, /Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc./, Vol. XXIII, pp. 393 ff.), see
     /Sev. Tabl./, Vol. I, p. 130.
 
 [2] Obv., ll. 5-12.
 
 [3] Sum. /nigin-kur-kur-ra-ge/, Sem. /nap-har ma-ta-a-tu/, lit. "all
     lands", i.e. Sumerian and Babylonian expressions for "the world".
 
 [4] Sum. /a-ab-ba/, "sea", is here rendered by /tâmtum/, not by its
     personified equivalent Tiamat.
 
 [5] The suggestion has been made that /amu/, the word in the Semitic
     version here translated "reeds", should be connected with
     /ammatu/, the word used for "earth" or "dry land" in the
     Babylonian Creation Series, Tabl. I, l. 2, and given some such
     meaning as "expanse". The couplet is thus explained to mean that
     the god made an expanse on the face of the waters, and then poured
     out dust "on the expanse". But the Semitic version in l. 18 reads
     /itti ami/, "beside the /a./", not /ina ami/, "on the /a./"; and
     in any case there does not seem much significance in the act of
     pouring out specially created dust on or beside land already
     formed. The Sumerian word translated by /amu/ is written /gi-dir/,
     with the element /gi/, "reed", in l. 17, and though in the
     following line it is written under its variant form /a-dir/
     without /gi/, the equation /gi-a-dir/ = /amu/ is elsewhere
     attested (cf. Delitzsch, /Handwörterbuch/, p. 77). In favour of
     regarding /amu/ as some sort of reed, here used collectively, it
     may be pointed out that the Sumerian verb in l. 17 is /kešda/, "to
     bind", accurately rendered by /rakašu/ in the Semitic version.
     Assuming that l. 34 belongs to the same account, the creation of
     reeds in general beside trees, after dry land is formed, would not
     of course be at variance with the god's use of some sort of reed
     in his first act of creation. He creates the reed-bundles, as he
     creates the soil, both of which go to form the first dike; the
     reed-beds, like the other vegetation, spring up from the ground
     when it appears.
 
 [6] The Semitic version here reads "the lord Marduk"; the
     corresponding name in the Sumerian text is not preserved.
 
 [7] The line is restored from l. 2 o the obverse of the text.
 
 Here the Sumerian Creator is pictured as forming dry land from the
 primaeval water in much the same way as the early cultivator in the
 Euphrates Valley procured the rich fields for his crops. The existence
 of the earth is here not really presupposed. All the world was sea
 until the god created land out of the waters by the only practical
 method that was possible in Mesopotamia.
 
 In another Sumerian myth, which has been recovered on one of the early
 tablets from Nippur, we have a rather different picture of beginnings.
 For there, though water is the source of life, the existence of the
 land is presupposed. But it is bare and desolate, as in the
 Mesopotamian season of "low water". The underlying idea is suggestive
 of a period when some progress in systematic irrigation had already
 been made, and the filling of the dry canals and subsequent irrigation
 of the parched ground by the rising flood of Enki was not dreaded but
 eagerly desired. The myth is only one of several that have been
 combined to form the introductory sections of an incantation; but in
 all of them Enki, the god of the deep water, plays the leading part,
 though associated with different consorts.[1] The incantation is
 directed against various diseases, and the recitation of the closing
 mythical section was evidently intended to enlist the aid of special
 gods in combating them. The creation of these deities is recited under
 set formulae in a sort of refrain, and the divine name assigned to
 each bears a magical connexion with the sickness he or she is intended
 to dispel.[2]
 
 [1] See Langdon, Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sect., Vol. X, No. 1
     (1915), pl. i f., pp. 69 ff.; /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI
     (1916), pp. 140 ff.; cf. Prince, /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol.
     XXXVI, pp. 90 ff.; Jastrow, /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI,
     pp. 122 ff., and in particular his detailed study of the text in
     /Amer. Journ. Semit. Lang./, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 91 ff. Dr. Langdon's
     first description of the text, in /Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch./, Vol.
     XXXVI (1914), pp. 188 ff., was based on a comparatively small
     fragment only; and on his completion of the text from other
     fragments in Pennsylvania. Professor Sayce at once realized that
     the preliminary diagnosis of a Deluge myth could not be sustained
     (cf. /Expos. Times/, Nov., 1915, pp. 88 ff.). He, Professor
     Prince, and Professor Jastrow independently showed that the action
     of Enki in the myth in sending water on the land was not punitive
     but beneficent; and the preceding section, in which animals are
     described as not performing their usual activities, was shown
     independently by Professor Prince and Professor Jastrow to have
     reference, not to their different nature in an ideal existence in
     Paradise, but, on familiar lines, to their non-existence in a
     desolate land. It may be added that Professor Barton and Dr. Peters
     agree generally with Professor Prince and Professor Jastrow in
     their interpretation of the text, which excludes the suggested
     biblical parallels; and I understand from Dr. Langdon that he very
     rightly recognizes that the text is not a Deluge myth. It is a
     subject for congratulation that the discussion has materially
     increased our knowledge of this difficult composition.
 
 [2] Cf. Col. VI, ll. 24 ff.; thus /Ab/-u was created for the sickness
     of the cow (/ab/); Nin-/tul/ for that of the flock (u-/tul/); Nin-
     /ka/-u-tu and Nin-/ka/-si for that of the mouth (/ka/); Na-zi for
     that of the /na-zi/ (meaning uncertain); /Da zi/-ma for that of
     the /da-zi/ (meaning uncertain); Nin-/til/ for that of /til/
     (life); the name of the eighth and last deity is imperfectly
     preserved.
 
 We have already noted examples of a similar use of myth in magic,
 which was common to both Egypt and Babylonia; and to illustrate its
 employment against disease, as in the Nippur document, it will suffice
 to cite a well-known magical cure for the toothache which was adopted
 in Babylon.[1] There toothache was believed to be caused by the
 gnawing of a worm in the gum, and a myth was used in the incantation
 to relieve it. The worm's origin is traced from Anu, the god of
 heaven, through a descending scale of creation; Anu, the heavens, the
 earth, rivers, canals and marshes are represented as each giving rise
 to the next in order, until finally the marshes produce the worm. The
 myth then relates how the worm, on being offered tempting food by Ea
 in answer to her prayer, asked to be allowed to drink the blood of the
 teeth, and the incantation closes by invoking the curse of Ea because
 of the worm's misguided choice. It is clear that power over the worm
 was obtained by a recital of her creation and of her subsequent
 ingratitude, which led to her present occupation and the curse under
 which she laboured. When the myth and invocation had been recited
 three times over the proper mixture of beer, a plant, and oil, and the
 mixture had been applied to the offending tooth, the worm would fall
 under the spell of the curse and the patient would at once gain
 relief. The example is instructive, as the connexion of ideas is quite
 clear. In the Nippur document the recital of the creation of the eight
 deities evidently ensured their presence, and a demonstration of the
 mystic bond between their names and the corresponding diseases
 rendered the working of their powers effective. Our knowledge of a
 good many other myths is due solely to their magical employment.
 
 [1] See Thompson, /Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia/, Vol. II, pp.
     160 ff.; for a number of other examples, see Jastrow, /J.A.O.S./,
     Vol. XXXVI, p. 279, n. 7.
 
 Perhaps the most interesting section of the new text is one in which
 divine instructions are given in the use of plants, the fruit or roots
 of which may be eaten. Here Usmû, a messenger from Enki, God of the
 Deep, names eight such plants by Enki's orders, thereby determining
 the character of each. As Professor Jastrow has pointed out, the
 passage forcibly recalls the story from Berossus, concerning the
 mythical creature Oannes, who came up from the Erythraean Sea, where
 it borders upon Babylonia, to instruct mankind in all things,
 including "seeds and the gathering of fruits".[1] But the only part of
 the text that concerns us here is the introductory section, where the
 life-giving flood, by which the dry fields are irrigated, is pictured
 as following the union of the water-deities, Enki and Ninella.[2]
 Professor Jastrow is right in emphasizing the complete absence of any
 conflict in this Sumerian myth of beginnings; but, as with the other
 Sumerian Versions we have examined, it seems to me there is no need to
 seek its origin elsewhere than in the Euphrates Valley.
 
 [1] Cf. Jastrow, /J.A.O.S./, Vol. XXXVI, p. 127, and /A.J.S.L./, Vol.
     XXXIII, p. 134 f. It may be added that the divine naming of the
     plants also presents a faint parallel to the naming of the beasts
     and birds by man himself in Gen. ii. 19 f.
 
 [2] Professor Jastrow (/A.J.S.L./, Vol. XXXIII, p. 115) compares
     similar myths collected by Sir James Frazer (/Magic Art/, Vol. II,
     chap. xi and chap. xii, § 2). He also notes the parallel the
     irrigation myth presents to the mist (or flood) of the earlier
     Hebrew Version (Gen. ii. 5 f). But Enki, like Ea, was no rain-god;
     he had his dwellings in the Euphrates and the Deep.
 
 Even in later periods, when the Sumerian myths of Creation had been
 superseded by that of Babylon, the Euphrates never ceased to be
 regarded as the source of life and the creator of all things. And this
 is well brought out in the following introductory lines of a Semitic
 incantation, of which we possess two Neo-Babylonian copies:[1]
 
   O thou River, who didst create all things,
   When the great gods dug thee out,
   They set prosperity upon thy banks,
   Within thee Ea, King of the Deep, created his dwelling.
   The Flood they sent not before thou wert!
 
 Here the river as creator is sharply distinguished from the Flood; and
 we may conclude that the water of the Euphrates Valley impressed the
 early Sumerians, as later the Semites, with its creative as well as
 with its destructive power. The reappearance of the fertile soil,
 after the receding inundation, doubtless suggested the idea of
 creation out of water, and the stream's slow but automatic fall would
 furnish a model for the age-long evolution of primaeval deities. When
 a god's active and artificial creation of the earth must be portrayed,
 it would have been natural for the primitive Sumerian to picture the
 Creator working as he himself would work when he reclaimed a field
 from flood. We are thus shown the old Sumerian god Gilimma piling
 reed-bundles in the water and heaping up soil beside them, till the
 ground within his dikes dries off and produces luxuriant vegetation.
 But here there is a hint of struggle in the process, and we perceive
 in it the myth-redactor's opportunity to weave in the Dragon /motif/.
 No such excuse is afforded by the other Sumerian myth, which pictures
 the life-producing inundation as the gift of the two deities of the
 Deep and the product of their union.
 
 But in their other aspect the rivers of Mesopotamia could be terrible;
 and the Dragon /motif/ itself, on the Tigris and Euphrates, drew its
 imagery as much from flood as from storm. When therefore a single
 deity must be made to appear, not only as Creator, but also as the
 champion of his divine allies and the conqueror of other gods, it was
 inevitable that the myths attaching to the waters under their two
 aspects should be combined. This may already have taken place at
 Nippur, when Enlil became the head of the pantheon; but the existence
 of his myth is conjectural.[1] In a later age we can trace the process
 in the light of history and of existing texts. There Marduk,
 identified wholly as the Sun-god, conquers the once featureless
 primaeval water, which in the process of redaction has now become the
 Dragon of flood and storm.
 
 [1] The aspect of Enlil as the Creator of Vegetation is emphasized in
     Tablet VII of the Babylonian poem of Creation. It is significant
     that his first title, Asara, should be interpreted as "Bestower of
     planting", "Founder of sowing", "Creator of grain and plants", "He
     who caused the green herb to spring up" (cf. /Seven Tablets/, Vol.
     I, p. 92 f.). These opening phrases, by which the god is hailed,
     strike the key-note of the whole composition. It is true that, as
     Sukh-kur, he is "Destroyer of the foe"; but the great majority of
     the titles and their Semitic glosses refer to creative activities,
     not to the Dragon myth.
 
 Thus the dualism which is so characteristic a feature of the Semitic-
 Babylonian system, though absent from the earliest Sumerian ideas of
 Creation, was inherent in the nature of the local rivers, whose varied
 aspects gave rise to or coloured separate myths. Its presence in the
 later mythology may be traced as a reflection of political
 development, at first probably among the warring cities of Sumer, but
 certainly later in the Semitic triumph at Babylon. It was but to be
 expected that the conqueror, whether Sumerian or Semite, should
 represent his own god's victory as the establishment of order out of
 chaos. But this would be particularly in harmony with the character of
 the Semitic Babylonians of the First Dynasty, whose genius for method
 and organization produced alike Hammurabi's Code of Laws and the
 straight streets of the capital.
 
 We have thus been able to trace the various strands of the Semitic-
 Babylonian poem of Creation to Sumerian origins; and in the second
 lecture we arrived at a very similar conclusion with regard to the
 Semitic-Babylonian Version of the Deluge preserved in the Epic of
 Gilgamesh. We there saw that the literary structure of the Sumerian
 Version, in which Creation and Deluge are combined, must have survived
 under some form into the Neo-Babylonian period, since it was
 reproduced by Berossus. And we noted the fact that the same
 arrangement in Genesis did not therefore prove that the Hebrew
 accounts go back directly to early Sumerian originals. In fact, the
 structural resemblance presented by Genesis can only be regarded as an
 additional proof that the Sumerian originals continued to be studied
 and translated by the Semitic priesthood, although they had long been
 superseded officially by their later descendants, the Semitic epics. A
 detailed comparison of the Creation and Deluge narratives in the
 various versions at once discloses the fact that the connexion between
 those of the Semitic Babylonians and the Hebrews is far closer and
 more striking than that which can be traced when the latter are placed
 beside the Sumerian originals. We may therefore regard it as certain
 that the Hebrews derived their knowledge of Sumerian tradition, not
 directly from the Sumerians themselves, but through Semitic channels
 from Babylon.
 
 It will be unnecessary here to go in detail through the points of
 resemblance that are admitted to exist between the Hebrew account of
 Creation in the first chapter of Genesis and that preserved in the
 "Seven Tablets".[1] It will suffice to emphasize two of them, which
 gain in significance through our newly acquired knowledge of early
 Sumerian beliefs. It must be admitted that, on first reading the poem,
 one is struck more by the differences than by the parallels; but that
 is due to the polytheistic basis of the poem, which attracts attention
 when compared with the severe and dignified monotheism of the Hebrew
 writer. And if allowance be made for the change in theological
 standpoint, the material points of resemblance are seen to be very
 marked. The outline or general course of events is the same. In both
 we have an abyss of waters at the beginning denoted by almost the same
 Semitic word, the Hebrew /tehôm/, translated "the deep" in Gen. i. 2,
 being the equivalent of the Semitic-Babylonian /Tiamat/, the monster
 of storm and flood who presents so striking a contrast to the Sumerian
 primaeval water.[2] The second act of Creation in the Hebrew narrative
 is that of a "firmament", which divided the waters under it from those
 above.[3] But this, as we have seen, has no parallel in the early
 Sumerian conception until it was combined with the Dragon combat in
 the form in which we find it in the Babylonian poem. There the body of
 Tiamat is divided by Marduk, and from one half of her he constructs a
 covering or dome for heaven, that is to say a "firmament", to keep her
 upper waters in place. These will suffice as text passages, since they
 serve to point out quite clearly the Semitic source to which all the
 other detailed points of Hebrew resemblance may be traced.
 
 [1] See /Seven Tablets/, Vol. I, pp. lxxxi ff., and Skinner,
     /Genesis/, pp. 45 ff.
 
 [2] The invariable use of the Hebrew word /tehôm/ without the article,
     except in two passages in the plural, proves that it is a proper
     name (cf. Skinner, op. cit., p. 17); and its correspondence with
     /Tiamat/ makes the resemblance of the versions far more
     significant than if their parallelism were confined solely to
     ideas.
 
 [3] Gen. i. 6-8.
 
 In the case of the Deluge traditions, so conclusive a demonstration is
 not possible, since we have no similar criterion to apply. And on one
 point, as we saw, the Hebrew Versions preserve an original Sumerian
 strand of the narrative that was not woven into the Gilgamesh Epic,
 where there is no parallel to the piety of Noah. But from the detailed
 description that was given in the second lecture, it will have been
 noted that the Sumerian account is on the whole far simpler and more
 primitive than the other versions. It is only in the Babylonian Epic,
 for example, that the later Hebrew writer finds material from which to
 construct the ark, while the sweet savour of Ut-napishtim's sacrifice,
 and possibly his sending forth of the birds, though reproduced in the
 earlier Hebrew Version, find no parallels in the Sumerian account.[1]
 As to the general character of the Flood, there is no direct reference
 to rain in the Sumerian Version, though its presence is probably
 implied in the storm. The heavy rain of the Babylonian Epic has been
 increased to forty days of rain in the earlier Hebrew Version, which
 would be suitable to a country where local rain was the sole cause of
 flood. But the later Hebrew writer's addition of "the fountains of the
 deep" to "the windows of heaven" certainly suggests a more intimate
 knowledge of Mesopotamia, where some contributary cause other than
 local rain must be sought for the sudden and overwhelming catastrophes
 of which the rivers are capable.
 
 [1] For detailed lists of the points of agreement presented by the
     Hebrew Versions J and P to the account in the Gilgamesh Epic, see
     Skinner, op. cit., p. 177 f.; Driver, /Genesis/, p. 106 f.; and
     Gordon, /Early Traditions of Genesis/ (1907), pp. 38 ff.
 
 Thus, viewed from a purely literary standpoint, we are now enabled to
 trace back to a primitive age the ancestry of the traditions, which,
 under a very different aspect, eventually found their way into Hebrew
 literature. And in the process we may note the changes they underwent
 as they passed from one race to another. The result of such literary
 analysis and comparison, so far from discrediting the narratives in
 Genesis, throws into still stronger relief the moral grandeur of the
 Hebrew text.
 
 We come then to the question, at what periods and by what process did
 the Hebrews become acquainted with Babylonian ideas? The tendency of
 the purely literary school of critics has been to explain the process
 by the direct use of Babylonian documents wholly within exilic times.
 If the Creation and Deluge narratives stood alone, a case might
 perhaps be made out for confining Babylonian influence to this late
 period. It is true that during the Captivity the Jews were directly
 exposed to such influence. They had the life and civilization of their
 captors immediately before their eyes, and it would have been only
 natural for the more learned among the Hebrew scribes and priests to
 interest themselves in the ancient literature of their new home. And
 any previous familiarity with the myths of Babylonia would undoubtedly
 have been increased by actual residence in the country. We may perhaps
 see a result of such acquaintance with Babylonian literature, after
 Jehoiachin's deportation,, in an interesting literary parallel that
 has been pointed out between Ezek. xiv. 12-20 and a speech in the
 Babylonian account of the Deluge in the Gilgamesh Epic, XI, ll. 180-
 194.[1] The passage in Ezekiel occurs within chaps. i-xxiv, which
 correspond to the prophet's first period and consist in the main of
 his utterances in exile before the fall of Jerusalem. It forms, in
 fact, the introduction to the prophet's announcement of the coming of
 "four sore judgements upon Jerusalem", from which there "shall be left
 a remnant that shall be carried forth".[2] But in consequence, here
 and there, of traces of a later point of view, it is generally
 admitted that many of the chapters in this section may have been
 considerably amplified and altered by Ezekiel himself in the course of
 writing. And if we may regard the literary parallel that has been
 pointed out as anything more than fortuitous, it is open to us to
 assume that chap. xiv may have been worked up by Ezekiel many years
 after his prophetic call at Tel-abib.
 
 [1] See Daiches, "Ezekiel and the Babylonian Account of the Deluge",
     in the /Jewish Quarterly Review/, April 1905. It has of course
     long been recognized that Ezekiel, in announcing the punishment of
     the king of Egypt in xxxii. 2 ff., uses imagery which strongly
     recalls the Babylonian Creation myth. For he compares Pharaoh to a
     sea-monster over whom Yahweh will throw his net (as Marduk had
     thrown his over Tiamat); cf. Loisy, /Les mythes babyloniens et les
     premiers chaptires de la Genèse/ (1901), p. 87.
 
 [2] Ezek. xiv. 21 f.
 
 In the passage of the Babylonian Epic, Enlil had already sent the
 Flood and had destroyed the good with the wicked. Ea thereupon
 remonstrates with him, and he urges that in future the sinner only
 should be made to suffer for his sin; and, instead of again causing a
 flood, let there be discrimination in the divine punishments sent on
 men or lands. While the flood made the escape of the deserving
 impossible, other forms of punishment would affect the guilty only. In
 Ezekiel the subject is the same, but the point of view is different.
 The land the prophet has in his mind in verse 13 is evidently Judah,
 and his desire is to explain why it will suffer although not all its
 inhabitants deserved to share its fate. The discrimination, which Ea
 urges, Ezekiel asserts will be made; but the sinner must bear his own
 sin, and the righteous, however eminent, can only save themselves by
 their righteousness. The general principle propounded in the Epic is
 here applied to a special case. But the parallelism between the
 passages lies not only in the general principle but also in the
 literary setting. This will best be brought out by printing the
 passages in parallel columns.
 
         Gilg. Epic, XI, 180-194             Ezek. xiv. 12-20
 
   Ea opened his mouth and spake,      And the word of the Lord came
   He said to the warrior Enlil;         unto me, saying,
   Thou director of the gods! O        Son of man, when a land sinneth
     warrior!                            against me by committing a
   Why didst thou not take counsel       trespass, and I stretch out
     but didst cause a flood?            mine hand upon it, and break
   On the transgressor lay his           the staff of the bread
     transgression!                      thereof, and send /famine/
   Be merciful, so that (all) be not     upon it, and cut off from it
     destroyed! Have patience, so        man and beast; though these
     that (all) be not [cut off]!        three men, Noah, Daniel, and
   Instead of causing a flood,           Job, were in it, they should
   Let /lions/[1] come and diminish      deliver but their own souls by
     mankind!                            their righteousness, saith the
   Instead of causing a flood,           Lord God.
   Let /leopards/[1] come and          If I cause /noisome beasts/ to
     diminish mankind!                   pass through the land, and
   Instead of causing a flood,           they spoil it, so that it be
   Let /famine/ be caused and let it     desolate, that no man may pass
     smite the land!                     through because of the beasts;
   Instead of causing a flood,           though these three men were in
   Let the /Plague-god/ come and         it, as I live, saith the Lord
     [slay] mankind!                     God, they shall deliver
                                         neither sons nor daughters;
                                         they only shall be delivered,
                                         but the land shall be
                                         desolate.
                                       Or if I bring a /sword/ upon
                                         that land, and say, Sword, go
                                         through the land; so that I
                                         cut off from it man and beast;
                                         though these three men were in
                                         it, as I live, saith the Lord
                                         God, they shall deliver
                                         neither sons nor daughters,
                                         but they only shall be
                                         delivered themselves.
                                       Or if I send a /pestilence/ into
                                         that land, and pour out my
                                         fury upon it in blood, to cut
                                         off from it man and beast;
                                         though Noah, Daniel, and Job,
                                         were in it, as I live, saith
                                         the Lord God, they shall
                                         deliver neither son nor
                                         daughter; they shall but
                                         deliver their own souls by
                                         their righteousness.
 
 [1] Both Babylonian words are in the singular, but probably used
     collectively, as is the case with their Hebrew equivalent in Ezek.
     xiv. 15.
 
 It will be seen that, of the four kinds of divine punishment
 mentioned, three accurately correspond in both compositions. Famine
 and pestilence occur in both, while the lions and leopards of the Epic
 find an equivalent in "noisome beasts". The sword is not referred to
 in the Epic, but as this had already threatened Jerusalem at the time
 of the prophecy's utterance its inclusion by Ezekiel was inevitable.
 Moreover, the fact that Noah should be named in the refrain, as the
 first of the three proverbial examples of righteousness, shows that
 Ezekiel had the Deluge in his mind, and increases the significance of
 the underlying parallel between his argument and that of the
 Babylonian poet.[1] It may be added that Ezekiel has thrown his
 prophecy into poetical form, and the metre of the two passages in the
 Babylonian and Hebrew is, as Dr. Daiches points out, not dissimilar.
 
 [1] This suggestion is in some measure confirmed by the /Biblical
     Antiquities of Philo/, ascribed by Dr. James to the closing years
     of the first century A.D.; for its writer, in his account of the
     Flood, has actually used Ezek. xiv. 12 ff. in order to elaborate
     the divine speech in Gen. viii. 21 f. This will be seen from the
     following extract, in which the passage interpolated between 
     verses 21 and 22 of Gen. viii is enclosed within brackets: "And
     God said: I will not again curse the earth for man's sake, for the
     guise of man's heart hath left off (sic) from his youth. And
     therefore I will not again destroy together all living as I have
     done. [But it shall be, when the dwellers upon earth have sinned,
     I will judge them by /famine/ or by the /sword/ or by fire or by
     /pestilence/ (lit. death), and there shall be earthquakes, and
     they shall be scattered into places not inhabited (or, the places
     of their habitation shall be scattered). But I will not again
     spoil the earth with the water of a flood, and] in all the days of
     the earth seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and autumn,
     day and night shall not cease . . ."; see James, /The Biblical
     Antiquities of Philo/, p. 81, iii. 9. Here wild beasts are
     omitted, and fire, earthquakes, and exile are added; but famine,
     sword, and pestilence are prominent, and the whole passage is
     clearly suggested by Ezekiel. As a result of the combination, we
     have in the /Biblical Antiquities/ a complete parallel to the
     passage in the Gilgamesh Epic.
 
 It may of course be urged that wild beasts, famine, and pestilence are
 such obvious forms of divine punishment that their enumeration by both
 writers is merely due to chance. But the parallelism should be
 considered with the other possible points of connexion, namely, the
 fact that each writer is dealing with discrimination in divine
 punishments of a wholesale character, and that while the one is
 inspired by the Babylonian tradition of the Flood, the other takes the
 hero of the Hebrew Flood story as the first of his selected types of
 righteousness. It is possible that Ezekiel may have heard the
 Babylonian Version recited after his arrival on the Chebar. And
 assuming that some form of the story had long been a cherished
 tradition of the Hebrews themselves, we could understand his intense
 interest in finding it confirmed by the Babylonians, who would show
 him where their Flood had taken place. To a man of his temperament,
 the one passage in the Babylonian poem that would have made a special
 appeal would have been that quoted above, where the poet urges that
 divine vengeance should be combined with mercy, and that all,
 righteous and wicked alike, should not again be destroyed. A problem
 continually in Ezekiel's thoughts was this very question of wholesale
 divine punishment, as exemplified in the case of Judah; and it would
 not have been unlikely that the literary structure of the Babylonian
 extract may have influenced the form in which he embodied his own
 conclusions.
 
 But even if we regard this suggestion as unproved or improbable,
 Ezekiel's reference to Noah surely presupposes that at least some
 version of the Flood story was familiar to the Hebrews before the
 Captivity. And this conclusion is confirmed by other Babylonian
 parallels in the early chapters of Genesis, in which oral tradition
 rather than documentary borrowing must have played the leading
 part.[1] Thus Babylonian parallels may be cited for many features in
 the story of Paradise,[2] though no equivalent of the story itself has
 been recovered. In the legend of Adapa, for example, wisdom and
 immortality are the prerogative of the gods, and the winning of
 immortality by man is bound up with eating the Food of Life and
 drinking the Water of Life; here too man is left with the gift of
 wisdom, but immortality is withheld. And the association of winged
 guardians with the Sacred Tree in Babylonian art is at least
 suggestive of the Cherubim and the Tree of Life. The very side of Eden
 has now been identified in Southern Babylonia by means of an old
 boundary-stone acquired by the British Museum a year or two ago.[3]
 
 [1] See Loisy, /Les mythes babyloniens/, pp. 10 ff., and cf. S.
     Reinach, /Cultes, Mythes et Religions/, t. II, pp. 386 ff.
 
 [2] Cf. especially Skinner, /Genesis/, pp. 90 ff. For the latest
     discussion of the Serpent and the Tree of Life, suggested by Dr.
     Skinner's summary of the evidence, see Frazer in /Essays and
     Studies presented to William Ridgeway/ (1913), pp. 413 ff.
 
 [3] See /Babylonian Boundary Stones in the British Museum/ (1912), pp.
     76 ff., and cf. /Geographical Journal/, Vol. XL, No. 2 (Aug.,
     1912), p. 147. For the latest review of the evidence relating to
     the site of Paradise, see Boissier, "La situation du paradis
     terrestre", in /Le Globe/, t. LV, Mémoires (Geneva, 1916).
 
 But I need not now detain you by going over this familiar ground. Such
 possible echoes from Babylon seem to suggest pre-exilic influence
 rather than late borrowing, and they surely justify us in inquiring to
 what periods of direct or indirect contact, earlier than the
 Captivity, the resemblances between Hebrew and Babylonian ideas may be
 traced. One point, which we may regard as definitely settled by our
 new material, is that these stories of the Creation and of the early
 history of the world were not of Semitic origin. It is no longer
 possible to regard the Hebrew and Babylonian Versions as descended
 from common Semitic originals. For we have now recovered some of those
 originals, and they are not Semitic but Sumerian. The question thus
 resolves itself into an inquiry as to periods during which the Hebrews
 may have come into direct or indirect contact with Babylonia.
 
 There are three pre-exilic periods at which it has been suggested the
 Hebrews, or the ancestors of the race, may have acquired a knowledge
 of Babylonian traditions. The earliest of these is the age of the
 patriarchs, the traditional ancestors of the Hebrew nation. The second
 period is that of the settlement in Canaan, which we may put from 1200
 B.C. to the establishment of David's kingdom at about 1000 B.C. The
 third period is that of the later Judaean monarch, from 734 B.C. to
 586 B.C., the date of the fall of Jerusalem; and in this last period
 there are two reigns of special importance in this connexion, those of
 Ahaz (734-720 B.C.) and Manasseh (693-638 B.C.).
 
 With regard to the earliest of these periods, those who support the
 Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch may quite consistently assume that
 Abraham heard the legends in Ur of the Chaldees. And a simple
 retention of the traditional view seems to me a far preferable
 attitude to any elaborate attempt at rationalizing it. It is admitted
 that Arabia was the cradle of the Semitic race; and the most natural
 line of advance from Arabia to Aram and thence to Palestine would be
 up the Euphrates Valley. Some writers therefore assume that nomad
 tribes, personified in the traditional figure of Abraham, may have
 camped for a time in the neighbourhood of Ur and Babylon; and that
 they may have carried the Babylonian stories with them in their
 wanderings, and continued to preserve them during their long
 subsequent history. But, even granting that such nomads would have
 taken any interest in traditions of settled folk, this view hardly
 commends itself. For stories received from foreign sources become more
 and more transformed in the course of centuries.[1] The vivid
 Babylonian colouring of the Genesis narratives cannot be reconciled
 with this explanation of their source.
 
 [1] This objection would not of course apply to M. Naville's suggested
     solution, that cuneiform tablets formed the medium of
     transmission. But its author himself adds that he does not deny
     its conjectural character; see /The Text of the Old Testament/
     (Schweich Lectures, 1915), p. 32.
 
 A far greater number of writers hold that it was after their arrival
 in Palestine that the Hebrew patriarchs came into contact with
 Babylonian culture. It is true that from an early period Syria was the
 scene of Babylonian invasions, and in the first lecture we noted some
 newly recovered evidence upon this point. Moreover, the dynasty to
 which Hammurabi belonged came originally from the north-eastern border
 of Canaan and Hammurabi himself exercised authority in the west. Thus
 a plausible case could be made out by exponents of this theory,
 especially as many parallels were noted between the Mosaic legislation
 and that contained in Hammurabi's Code. But it is now generally
 recognized that the features common to both the Hebrew and the
 Babylonian legal systems may be paralleled to-day in the Semitic East
 and elsewhere,[1] and cannot therefore be cited as evidence of
 cultural contact. Thus the hypothesis that the Hebrew patriarchs were
 subjects of Babylon in Palestine is not required as an explanation of
 the facts; and our first period still stands or falls by the question
 of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, which must be decided on
 quite other grounds. Those who do not accept the traditional view will
 probably be content to rule this first period out.
 
 [1] See Cook, /The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi/, p. 281
     f.; Driver, /Genesis/, p. xxxvi f.; and cf. Johns, "The Laws of
     Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples/ (Schweich Lectures,
     1912), pp. 50 ff.
 
 During the second period, that of the settlement in Canaan, the
 Hebrews came into contact with a people who had used the Babylonian
 language as the common medium of communication throughout the Near
 East. It is an interesting fact that among the numerous letters found
 at Tell el-Amarna were two texts of quite a different character. These
 were legends, both in the form of school exercises, which had been
 written out for practice in the Babylonian tongue. One of them was the
 legend of Adapa, in which we noted just now a distant resemblance to
 the Hebrew story of Paradise. It seems to me we are here standing on
 rather firmer ground; and provisionally we might place the beginning
 of our process after the time of Hebrew contact with the Canaanites.
 
 Under the earlier Hebrew monarchy there was no fresh influx of
 Babylonian culture into Palestine. That does not occur till our last
 main period, the later Judaean monarchy, when, in consequence of the
 westward advance of Assyria, the civilization of Babylon was once more
 carried among the petty Syrian states. Israel was first drawn into the
 circle of Assyrian influence, when Arab fought as the ally of Benhadad
 of Damascus at the battle of Karkar in 854 B.C.; and from that date
 onward the nation was menaced by the invading power. In 734 B.C., at
 the invitation of Ahaz of Judah, Tiglath-Pileser IV definitely
 intervened in the affairs of Israel. For Ahaz purchased his help
 against the allied armies of Israel and Syria in the Syro-Ephraimitish
 war. Tiglath-pileser threw his forces against Damascus and Israel, and
 Ahaz became his vassal.[1] To this period, when Ahaz, like Panammu II,
 "ran at the wheel of his lord, the king of Assyria", we may ascribe
 the first marked invasion of Assyrian influence over Judah. Traces of
 it may be seen in the altar which Ahaz caused to be erected in
 Jerusalem after the pattern of the Assyrian altar at Damascus.[2] We
 saw in the first lecture, in the monuments we have recovered of
 Panammu I and of Bar-rekub, how the life of another small Syrian state
 was inevitably changed and thrown into new channels by the presence of
 Tiglath-pileser and his armies in the West.
 
 [1] 2 Kings xvi. 7 ff.
 
 [2] 2 Kings xvi. 10 ff.
 
 Hezekiah's resistance checked the action of Assyrian influence on
 Judah for a time. But it was intensified under his son Manasseh, when
 Judah again became tributary to Assyria, and in the house of the Lord
 altars were built to all the host of heaven.[1] Towards the close of
 his long reign Manasseh himself was summoned by Ashur-bani-pal to
 Babylon.[2] So when in the year 586 B.C. the Jewish exiles came to
 Babylon they could not have found in its mythology an entirely new and
 unfamiliar subject. They must have recognized several of its stories
 as akin to those they had assimilated and now regarded as their own.
 And this would naturally have inclined them to further study and
 comparison.
 
 [1] 2 Kings xxi. 5.
 
 [2] Cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ff.
 
 The answer I have outlined to this problem is the one that appears to
 me most probable, but I do not suggest that it is the only possible
 one that can be given. What I do suggest is that the Hebrews must have
 gained some acquaintance with the legends of Babylon in pre-exilic
 times. And it depends on our reading of the evidence into which of the
 three main periods the beginning of the process may be traced.
 
 So much, then, for the influence of Babylon. We have seen that no
 similar problem arises with regard to the legends of Egypt. At first
 sight this may seem strange, for Egypt lay nearer than Babylon to
 Palestine, and political and commercial intercourse was at least as
 close. We have already noted how Egypt influenced Semitic art, and how
 she offered an ideal, on the material side of her existence, which was
 readily adopted by her smaller neighbours. Moreover, the Joseph
 traditions in Genesis give a remarkably accurate picture of ancient
 Egyptian life; and even the Egyptian proper names embedded in that
 narrative may be paralleled with native Egyptian names than that to
 which the traditions refer. Why then is it that the actual myths and
 legends of Egypt concerning the origin of the world and its
 civilization should have failed to impress the Hebrew mind, which, on
 the other hand, was so responsive to those of Babylon?
 
 One obvious answer would be, that it was Nebuchadnezzar II, and not
 Necho, who carried the Jews captive. And we may readily admit that the
 Captivity must have tended to perpetuate and intensify the effects of
 any Babylonian influence that may have previously been felt. But I
 think there is a wider and in that sense a better answer than that.
 
 I do not propose to embark at this late hour on what ethnologists know
 as the "Hamitic" problem. But it is a fact that many striking
 parallels to Egyptian religious belief and practice have been traced
 among races of the Sudan and East Africa. These are perhaps in part to
 be explained as the result of contact and cultural inheritance. But at
 the same time they are evidence of an African, but non-Negroid,
 substratum in the religion of ancient Egypt. In spite of his proto-
 Semitic strain, the ancient Egyptian himself never became a Semite.
 The Nile Valley, at any rate until the Moslem conquest, was stronger
 than its invaders; it received and moulded them to its own ideal. This
 quality was shared in some degree by the Euphrates Valley. But
 Babylonia was not endowed with Egypt's isolation; she was always open
 on the south and west to the Arabian nomad, who at a far earlier
 period sealed her Semitic type.
 
 To such racial division and affinity I think we may confidently trace
 the influence exerted by Egypt and Babylon respectively upon Hebrew
 tradition.
 
 
 
                               APPENDIX I
 
         COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE SUMERIAN, SEMITIC-BABYLONIAN,
             HELLENISTIC, AND HEBREW VERSIONS OF CREATION,
                  ANTEDILUVIAN HISTORY, AND THE DELUGE
 
    N.B.--Parallels with the new Sumerian Version are in upper-case.
 
 Sumerian Version.       Seven Tablets           Gilgamesh Epic, XI      Berossus['Damscius]     Earlier Heb. (J)        Later Heb. (P)
 [No heaven or earth     No heaven or earth                              Darkness and water      Creation of earth       Earth without form
 First Creation from     Primaeval water-                                  [Primaeval water-        and heaven              and void; darkness
  primaeval water         gods: Apsû-Tiamat,                              gods: {'Apason-        No plant or herb         on face of /tehôm/,
  without conflict;       Mummu                                           Tauthe}, {Moumis}      Ground watered by        the primaeval water
  cf. Later Sum. Ver.    Generation of:                                    Generation of:           mist (or flood)        Divine spirit moving
                          Lakhmu-Lakhamu                                  {Lakhos-Lakhe}          [cf. Sumerian           (hovering, brooding)
                          Anshar-Kishar                                   {'Assoros-Kissare}      irrigation myth of      upon face of waters
                                                                                                    Creation]
 
 The great gods:         Birth of great gods:                            Birth of great gods:
   ANU, ENLIL, ENKI,      ANU, Nudimmud (=EA)                             {'Anos, 'Illinos,
   and Ninkharsagga,     Apsû and Tiamat                                  'Aos, 'Aois-Lauke,
   creating deities       revolt                                          Belos]
                         Conquest of Tiamat                              Conquest of {'Omorka},                          Creation of light
                          by Marduk as Sun-                               or {Thamte}, by
                          god                                             {Belos}
                         Creation of covering                            Creation of heaven and                          Creation of firmament,
                          for heaven from                                 earth from two halves                           or heaven, to divide
                          half of Tiamat's                                of body of Thamte                               waters; followed by
                          body, to keep her                                                                               emergence of land
                          waters in place                                                                                Creation of vegetation
                         Creation of luminaries                          Creation of luminaries                          Creation of luminaries
                         [Creation of                                     (probable order)                               Creation of animals
                          vegetation]
 
 REASON FOR MAN'S        REASON FOR MAN'S
  CREATION: worship of    CREATION: worship of
  gods                    gods
 Creation of MAN         Creation of MAN from                            Creation of MAN from    Creation of MAN from    Creation of MAN in
                          Creator's blood and                             Creator's blood and     dust and Creator's      image of Creator, to
                          from bone                                       from earth              breath of life          have dominion
 Creation of ANIMALS     [Creation of animals]                           Creation of ANIMALS     Creation of vegetation
                         Hymn on Seventh Tablet                           able to bear the air    ANIMALS, and woman     Rest on Seventh Day
 
 Creation of KINGDOM                                                     10 Antediluvian KINGS   The line of Cain        Antediluvian
 5 ANTEDILUVIAN CITIES:                          Antediluvian city:      3 ANTEDILUVIAN CITIES:  The Nephilim [cf.        patriarchs [cf.
  Eridu, Bad.., LARAK,                            SHURUPPAK               Babylon, SIPPAR,        Sumerian Dynastic       Sumerian Dynastic
  SIPPAR, SHURUPPAK                                                       LARANKHA                List]                   List]
 
 Gods decree MANKIND'S                           Gods decree flood,                              Destruction of MAN      Destruction of all
  destruction by flood,                           goddess ISHTAR                                  decreed, because of     flesh decreed, because
  NINTU protesting                                protesting                                      his wickedness          of its corruption
 
 ZIUSUDU, hero of                                UT-NAPISHTIM, hero      {Xisouthros}            Noah, hero of Deluge    Noah, hero of Deluge
  Deluge, KING and                                of Deluge               (=Khasisatra), hero
  priest                                                                  of Deluge, KING
 
 Ziusudu's PIETY                                                                                 Noah's FAVOUR           Noah's RIGHTEOUSNESS
 
 WARNING of Ziusudu by                           WARNING of Ut-nap-      WARNING of Xisuthros                            WARNING of Noah, and
  Enki in DREAM                                   ishtim by Ea in DREAM   by Kronos in DREAM                              instructions for ark
 
 Ziusudu's vessel a                              SHIP: 120x120x120       Size of SHIP: 5x2       Instructions to enter   Size of ARK: 300x50x30
  HUGE SHIP                                       cubits; 7 stories; 9    stadia                  ark                     cubits; 3 stories
                                                  divisions
 
                                                 All kinds of animals    All kinds of animals    7(x2) clean, 2 unclean  2 of all animals
 
 Flood and STORM for 7                           FLOOD from heavy rain   FLOOD                   FLOOD from rain for 40  FLOOD; founts. of deep
  days                                            and STORM for 6 days                            days                    and rain, 150 days
 
                                                 Ship on Mt. Nisir                                                        Ark on Ararat
 
                                                 Abatement of waters     Abatement of waters     Abatement of waters     Abatement of waters
                                                  tested by birds         tested by birds         tested by birds         through drying wind
 
 SACRIFICE to Sun-god                            SACRIFICE with sweet    SACRIFICE to gods,      SACRIFICE with sweet    Landing from ark [after
   in ship                                        savour on mountain      after landing and       savour after landing    year (+10 days)]
                                                                          paying adoration to
                                                                          EARTH
 
 Anu and Enlil appeased                          Ea's protest to ENLIL   APOTHEOSIS of X.,       Divine promise to Noah  Divine covenant not
  [by "Heaven and Earth"]                         IMMORTALITY of Ut-nap-   wife, daughter, and     not again to curse      again to destroy EARTH
 IMMORTALITY of Ziusudu                           ishtim and his wife     pilot                   the GROUND              by flood; bow as sign
 
 
 
                              APPENDIX II
 
                 THE ANTEDILUVIAN KINGS OF BEROSSUS AND
                       THE SUMERIAN DYNASTIC LIST
 
 It may be of assistance to the reader to repeat in tabular form the
 equivalents to the mythical kings of Berossus which are briefly
 discussed in Lecture I. In the following table the two new equations,
 obtained from the earliest section of the Sumerian Dynastic List, are
 in upper-case.[1] The established equations to other names are in
 normal case, while those for which we should possibly seek other
 equivalents are enclosed within brackets.[2] Aruru has not been
 included as a possible equivalent for {'Aloros}.[3]
 
  1. {'Aloros}
  2. {'Alaparos [? 'Adaparos]}, /Alaporus/, /Alapaurus/      [Adapa]
  3. {'Amelon, 'Amillaros}, /Almelon/                        [Amêlu]
  4. {'Ammenon}                                              ENMENUNNA
  5. {Megalaros, Megalanos}, /Amegalarus/
  6. {Daonos, Daos}                                          ETANA
  7. {Euedorakhos, Euedoreskhos}, /Edoranchus/               Enmeduranki
  8. {'Amemphinos}, /Amemphsinus/                            [Amêl-Sin]
  9. {'Otiartes [? 'Opartes]}                                [Ubar-Tutu]
 10. {Xisouthros, Sisouthros, Sisithros}                     Khasisatra, Atrakhasis[4]
 
 [1] For the royal names of Berossus, see /Euseb. chron. lib. pri./,
     ed. Schoene, cols. 7 f., 31 ff. The latinized variants correspond
     to forms in the Armenian translation of Eusebius.
 
 [2] For the principal discussions of equivalents, see Hommel, /Proc.
     Soc. Bibl. Arch./, Vol. XV (1893), pp. 243 ff., and /Die
     altorientalischen Denkmäler und das Alte Testament/ (1902), pp. 23
     ff.; Zimmern, /Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament/, 3rd
     ed. (1902), pp. 531 ff.; and cf. Lenormant, /Les origines de
     l'histoire/, I (1880), pp. 214 ff. See also Driver, /Genesis/,
     10th ed. (1916), p. 80 f.; Skinner, /Genesis/, p. 137 f.; Ball,
     /Genesis/, p. 50; and Gordon, /Early Traditions of Genesis/, pp.
     46 ff.
 
 [3] There is a suggested equation of Lal-ur-alimma with {'Aloros}.
 
 [4] The hundred and twenty "sars", or 432,000 years assigned by
     Berossus for the duration of the Antediluvian dynasty, are
     distributed as follows among the ten kings; the numbers are given
     below first in "sars", followed by their equivalents in years
     within brackets: 1. Ten "sars" (36,000); 2. Three (10,800); 3.
     Thirteen (46,800); 4. Twelve (43,200); 5. Eighteen (64,800); 6.
     Ten (36,000); 7. Eighteen (64,800); 8. Ten (36,000); 9. Eight
     (28,800); 10. Eighteen (64,800).
 
 For comparison with Berossus it may be useful to abstract from the
 Sumerian Dynastic List the royal names occurring in the earliest
 extant dynasties. They are given below with variant forms from
 duplicate copies of the list, and against each is added the number of
 years its owner is recorded to have ruled. The figures giving the
 total duration of each dynasty, either in the summaries or under the
 separate reigns, are sometimes not completely preserved; in such cases
 an x is added to the total of the figures still legible. Except in
 those cases referred to in the foot-notes, all the names are written
 in the Sumerian lists without the determinative for "god".
 
                            KINGDOM OF KISH
             (23 kings; 18,000 + x years, 3 months, 3 days)
 
 . . .[1]
  8. [. . .]                             900(?) years
  9. Galumum, Kalumum                    900      "
 10. Zugagib, Zugakib                    830      "
 11. Arpi, Arpiu, Arbum                  720      "
 12. Etana[2]                            635 (or 625) years
 13. Pili . . .[3]                       410 years
 14. Enmenunna, Enmennunna[4]            611   "
 15. Melamkish                           900   "
 16. Barsalnunna                       1,200   "
 17. Mesza[. . .]                     [. . .]  "
 . . .[5]
 22. . . .                               900 years
 23. . . .                               625   "
 
                      KINGDOM OF EANNA (ERECH)[6]
                  (About 10-12 kings; 2,171 + x years)
 
  1. Meskingasher                        325 years
  2. Enmerkar                            420   "
  3. Lugalbanda[7]                     1,200   "
  4. Dumuzi[8] (i.e. Tammuz)             100   "
  5. Gishbilgames[9] (i.e. Gilgamesh)    126 (or 186) years
  6. [. . .]lugal                     [. . .] years
 . . .[10]
 
                             KINGDOM OF UR
                          (4 kings; 171 years)
 
  1. Mesannipada                          80 years
  2. Meskiagnunna                         30   "
  3. Elu[. . .]                           25   "
  4. Balu[. . .]                          36   "
 
                            KINGDOM OF AWAN
                          (3 kings; 356 years)
 . . .[11]
 
 
 [1] Gap of seven, or possibly eight, names.
 
 [2] The name Etana is written in the lists with and without the
     determinative for "god".
 
 [3] The reading of the last sign in the name is unknown. A variant
     form of the name possibly begins with Bali.
 
 [4] This form is given on a fragment of a late Assyrian copy of the
     list; cf. /Studies in Eastern History/, Vol. III, p. 143.
 
 [5] Gap of four, or possibly three, names.
 
 [6] Eanna was the great temple of Erech. In the Second Column of the
     list "the kingdom" is recorded to have passed from Kish to Eanna,
     but the latter name does not occur in the summary.
 
 [7] The name Lugalbanda is written in the lists with and without the
     determinative for "god".
 
 [8] The name Dumuzi is written in the list with the determinative for
     "god".
 
 [9] The name Gishbilgames is written in the list with the
     determinative for "god".
 
 [10] Gap of about four, five, or six kings.
 
 [11] Wanting.
 
 At this point a great gap occurs in our principal list. The names of
 some of the missing "kingdoms" may be inferred from the summaries, but
 their relative order is uncertain. Of two of them we know the
 duration, a second Kingdom of Ur containing four kings and lasting for
 a hundred and eight years, and another kingdom, the name of which is
 not preserved, consisting of only one king who ruled for seven years.
 The dynastic succession only again becomes assured with the opening of
 the Dynastic chronicle published by Père Scheil and recently acquired
 by the British Museum. It will be noted that with the Kingdom of Ur
 the separate reigns last for decades and not hundreds of years each,
 so that we here seem to approach genuine tradition, though the Kingdom
 of Awan makes a partial reversion to myth so far as its duration is
 concerned. The two suggested equations with Antediluvian kings of
 Berossus both occur in the earliest Kingdom of Kish and lie well
 within the Sumerian mythical period. The second of the rulers
 concerned, Enmenunna (Ammenon), is placed in Sumerian tradition
 several thousand years before the reputed succession of the gods
 Lugalbanda and Tammuz and of the national hero Gilgamesh to the throne
 of Erech. In the first lecture some remarkable points of general
 resemblance have already been pointed out between Hebrew and Sumerian
 traditions of these early ages of the world.
 End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPT