iHEBABYLONUNEmiTION , C OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 3 o SERIES D: RESEARCHES m TREATISES EDITED BV H. V. HILPKECHT ^VOl_. V, FASCfCULUS 1 THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE BABYLONIAN DELUGE STORY ANO THE TEMPLE LIBRARY OF NIPPUR BY H. V. HILPRECHT “ ECKLEY BRINTON COXE, JUNIOR, FUND " PHILADELPHIA JPabltelied by the CDlversity of Pennsylvaniii WO CORRECTIONS. p. 11, li. 17: Read Artaxerxes instead of Xerxes, p. 68, U 4: Read Vol. XXVIII instead of Vol. XXIII (the on p. 3 of cover). ' TABLET HILL,” THE SITE OF THE OLDER TEMPLE LIBRARY OF NIPPUR. THE BiBUONUn EXPEDITION OF THE UNIX ERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SERIES D; RESEARCHES AND TREATISES EDITED BY H. HILPRECHT VOL. V, Fasciculus i BY H. V. HILPRECHT “ Eckley bhinton Coxe, Junior, fund” PHI LADELPH I A Fiiblislied by the University of Pennsylvania 1910 THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE BABYLONIAN DELUGE STORY AND ©Ptnpk XJifararH of Qw^r BY II. V. HILPEECHT With 1 hree Halftone Illustrations and One Autographed Plate. PHILADELPHIA Published by the University of Pennsylvahia 1910 MacCalla & Co. IN'C., Printers. C. II. James, Lithographer. Weeks Piioto-Engravixg Co., Halftones. To All the Distinguished Gentlemen IMcmbcrs of the Committee and Contributing Scholars WHO THROUGH THEIR KINDLY REMEMBRANCE, GENEROUS SPIRIT AND MAGNIFICENT GIFT UPON THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF MY DOCTORATE AND MY FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY HONORED AND ENCOURAGED ME AS A SMALL TOKEN OF WARM APPRECIATION AND HEARTFELT GRATITUDE. PREFACE. The cuneiform fragment submitted in the following pages in connection with a general survey of the character and contents of the Temple Library as based upon more recent investigations, con- tains the oldest account of the Babylonian Deluge Story extant. This alone would have justified its immediate publication by the University of Pennsylvania, which through the excavations of its fourth expedition discovered it in Nippur, and through the gener- osity of the Sultan of Turkey counts it now among its most valued archfeological treasures. But its significance is further enhanced by the fact that in most important details it agrees with the Bib- lical ^Trsion of the Deluge in a very remarkable manner, — much more so than any other cuneiform version previously known. This result is of fundamental importance for a correct determination and our corresponding valuation of the age of Israel’s earliest tra- ditions; for we must realize that the Nippur tablet was written and broken before Abraham had left his Babylonian home in Ur of the Chaldees. As soon as the writer had recognized the unique value of this fragment, he reported to the Publication Committee of “The Baby- lonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania” on this and other equally interesting finds recently made among the remains of the Teni{)lc Library of Nippur. Upon his recommendation that all these discoveries be made accessible to the scientific world as quick as possible, it was unanimously decided that the new frag- ment of the Deluge Story should appear as the first fasciculus of [vii] PREFACE viii Volume of Series D (“Researches and Treatises”) of our expeditioa work, to be followed in rapid succession by other fasciculi, contain- ing important contributions from the pens of m}" two friends and co- laborers, Drs. Radau and Myhrman. This Volume V will bear the title “Fragments of Epical Literature from the Temple Library of Nippur.’’ In the very fatiguing work of cleaning, examining and cata- loguing the numerous fragments from the Temple Library, which constitute the unrivalled collection and principal attraction of the Babylonian Section of our Museum, it is my almost daily experi- ence that a box of tablets from the fourth expedition will yield fragments which can be joined to material previously catalogued and sometimes excavated several years before by an entirely different expedition. In this way we have restored hundreds of tablets from intentionally broken and scattered fragments, some of them containing no less than 15-20 pieces. The hope, therefore, is well founded that other fragments of the same tablet or of dupli- cate copies of this ancient Deluge Story may yet be ‘ discovered among the uncatalogued material of the Museum. But even if our hopes should not be realized, I feel quite sure that the characteristic’ devotion of the American nation to Biblical problems, its enthusi- astic interest in scientific research and progress, and the public- minded spirit of Philadelphia citizens, to which we already owe four successful Babylonian expeditions, will speedily find means and ways to despatch a fifth one to search for the missing fragments at Nippur. May the esteemed President of our Department of Archaeology, the liberal founder and maintainer of the “Eckley Brinton Coxe, Jr., Fund”; may the honored Chairman and all the other distinguished members of the International Committee of the “Hilprecht Anniver- sary Volume ” ; may my generous colleagues in Europe and America, who have recently honored me by their valuable scientific contribu- PREFACE ix tions, and all those unknown friends who made the publication of their work possible, do me the kindness of accepting these unpre- tending studies on the little fragment from Nippur in the same spirit which prompted their magnificent gift to the writer. H. V. Hilprecht. Philadelphia, Pa., March 2, 1910. CONTENTS PAGE I. Condition, Languages and AVriting of Tablets recently Examined 1-4 II. Different Strata in “Tablet Hill’’ 5-13 III. Contents of the Older Temple Library 14-19 IV. An Ancient King of Guti, Ruler of Babylonia 20-32 Time of Erridu-pizir, King of Guti 20-24 Deiflcalion of Babylonian Kings 24-29 The mountain of the ark in the land of Guti 29-32 V. The Earliest Fragment of the Deluge Story 33-65 Description and age of the fragment 35-39 The three Deluge Versions in cuneiform writing previously known 89-45 The divine announcement of the Deluge according to the difierent cuneiform versions 45-49 Notes on the Nippur Version 49-58 Results 59-63 The Nippur and the Biblical Versions 64-65 Illustrations and Autographed Plate : “Tablet Hill,’’ the site of the Older Temple Library Frontispiece Plan of the ruins of Nuffar 5 Fragment C.B.M. 13532 (c. 2100 B.C.) End of Book Cuneiform text of the Nippur Version End of Book [x] I. CONDITION, LANGUAGES AND WRITING OF TABLETS RECENTLY EXAMINED. Toward the end of October, 1909, while unpacking and examining two boxes of cuneiform tablets from our fourth expe- dition to Nippur, my attention was suddenly attracted by some fragments which presented certain peculiarities. Unlike the rest of the tablets contained in these boxes, they were not witten in Sumerian, the ancient sacred language of Babylonia, but in the Semitic dialect of the cormtry. For the first time the latter appears in the cuneiform inscriptions of the period of Sargon I of Akkad,‘ the first known Semitic conqueror of Babylonia and one of the greatest heroes of the ancient world, taking the place of the older Sumerian, which it gradually supplanted. It is, therefore, prop- erly also styled the Akkadian language of Babylonia.^ The cuneiform material contained in these two boxes numbered ’With our present incomplete knowledge of the earliest chapters of Baby- lonian history, no accurate date can as yet be assigned to this period, as to which Assyriologists differ radically. Those scholars who accept the age ascribed to Sargon I by King Nabonidos (555-538 B.C.), place him at about 3800 B.C., while Eduard Meyer (“Geschichte des AUertums,” 2d edition, Berlin, 1909, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 345) puts him as low as about 2500 B.C. This latter date, in accord with Meyer’s erroneoiis conception of the age of the earliest Baby- lonian monuments known to us, is too low, as wdll be shown in another place. According to my own view set forth in “Mathematical, Metrological and Chron- ological Tablets from the Temple Library of Nippur’’ ( = “The Babylonian Expe- dition of the University of Pennsylvania,” Series A, Vol. XX), Part 1, p. 45, Sargon I lived betw’een 3000 and 2700 B.C. ’ Cf. Ungn.ad in “ Orienlalistisc.he Lilteratur-Zeilung’’ 1908, coll. 62f., and Messerschmidt in the same journal, 1905, coll. 271f. [ 1 ] 2 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE 433 specimens nil in ail, including about 10% tablets entirely •or nearly complete, about 70% fragments of fairly good size, and ■about 20% small or even very small fragments ranging from 1 to 4 cm. in length and from h to 3 cm. in width.^ With but few ex- ceptions, all the tablets and fragments were made of rmbaked clay. As a rule, they are more or less covered with a sediment of hardened clay from the disintegrated adobe walls under which they were buried, and in numerous cases even with incrustations of nitre, originall}^ contained in the clay and later drawn to the surface of the inscribed tablets, where it crystallized. These crystals, to a large extent filling the incised cuneiform characters, cannot always be removed without endangering the vuiting below, espec- ially when the clay is in a state of decomposition. Besides, in consequence of the perishable nature of the material employed, the humidity of the ground in which the tablets lay for over 4,000 years, and the intentional destruction of that entire collec- tion of tablets to which the specimens imder consideration belong, by some imknown enemy at a very remote period, the inscribed surface is often pmtly chipped off or half effaced. These are some of the difficulties which the cataloguer and first decipherer of these precious relics has to overcome through the mere state of their preservation.^ Others are offered by their language and writing. As briefly indicated above, all the 433 specimens are written in Sumerian, with the exception of three complete or nearly com- plete tablets and 27 fragments which have an Akkadian inscrip- ’ For American and English readers, more famiiiar with inches than centi- meters, I give the corresponding measures; “ranging from f to 1% inch in length and from , j to inch in width.” * Cf. my previous descriptions in “Explorations in Bibie Lands during the 19th Century” (Pliiladelphia, A. J. Holman & Co. •= B. E., Series D, Vol. I), pp. 513ff.; “In the Temple of BH at Nippur” (Reprint from the “Transac- tions of the Department of Archaeology of the University of Penns 5 dvania,” Vol. I, 1904), p. 49; also B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. viiiff. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 3 tion. After consideiable labor I determined the contents of most of these specimens, finding that a few of the Sumerian frag- ments (certain hynms and prayers) are written in the so-called EM E-SAL dialect, while the great mass of the Sumerian texts show the EME-KU dialect,^ at the same time succeeding in joining many fragments. By this process I reduced the 30 Akkadian specimens before me to five documents, namely, the three complete or nearly complete tablets mentioned and one fragmentary case restored from six fragments, which belongs to one of these three tablets;^ one large fragmentary text restored from twenty pieces including thirteen of the smallest size described; and a single frag- ment, representing an entirely different class of literature, which could not be joined to any other specimen contained in these two boxes, nor, in fact, to any other fragment previously catalogued by me in the Archaeological Museum of the University of Penn- sylvania. The wniting employed in all these documents is the script of the early Babylonian period in its numerous varieties,® beginning with that of the most ancient monuments of Nippur and Tello and ending with the writing of the first dynasty of Babylon, when the cu- neifor m characters on the clay tablets present a mixture of early forms and of those generally called Neo-Babylonian, which are best known to us from the later contract literature. This period of transition begins as earty as the second dynasty of Ur ‘ Cf. now also Radau, “ Miscellaneous Sumerian Texts from the Temple Library ot Nippur” in ‘‘Hilprecht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 381f. ^ These three tablets belong to the second stratum described in Chapter II, below. They are one case tablet from the reign of Samsu-iluna and two con- tract tablets dated in the 31st year of Hammurabi. One of the latter (C. B. M. 13562) bears the interesting date formula wu ffa-am-mu-ra-bi lugal IGI-DUB-TI ^En-lil-bi-la ma-da E-niu-ut-ba-lum^^ Ki-en-gi Ki-uri-ri dug-ga-ni ni-KU. Cf. p. 59, note 2, below. ® Cf. now also Radau, l.c., p. 383. 4 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE (c. 2346-2230 B.C.), as can be proved from seA-eral documents in our possession, and is fairly advanced in the inscriptions from the second half of the first dynasty of Isin (c. 2229-2005 B.C.),' as becomes very evident from the dated tablets in our museum and in the Nippur collections of the Imperial Ottoman Museums in Constantinople. If the last mentioned class of documents did not bear the name of the king at the end of the inscriptions or could be distinguished otherwise from later tablets, we no doubt would be inclined to ascribe some of them to a period nearly a thousand years later than when they actually were written. ' As to the reasons for my low dates assigned to these dynasties, of. B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1 (1906), pp. 41ff. The literature since published on this subject is conveniently placed together by Eduard Meyer, l.c., § 323-329, 412-418. Meyer’s own dates are even 42 years lower than those given above. THE EARLIEST VERSIOX OF THE DELUGE STORY 5 II. DIFFERENT STRATA IN “TABLET HILL.” All the tablets and fragments of the two boxes described above, together with many other similar cuneiform inscriptions, were ex- cavated by our fourth expedition in the ruins of Nippur. More par- ticularly they came from the northeastern section of the large trian- Plan of TitB Ruins of Nuffau I. Zi(j(/urrai and Temple of Enlil, buried under a huge Parthian fortress. II. Northeast city wall. III. Great Northeast {preSargonic) city gate. IV. Temple Library, covered by exten~ 9ive ruins of a later period. V. Dry bed of an ancient canal {Shatt en-Nil). VI. Pre-Sargonic wall, buried under sixty feet of rubbish u'ith archives of later periods. VII. Small Parthian palace, resting on ('assite archives. VIII. liasiness house of Murashu Sons, with more ancient ruins below. 6 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE gular mound (I^') to the southwest of the Temple of Enlil (I) and separated from the latter by a narrow strip of land, which is prac- tically on a level with the surrounding desert. Like the now' dry bed of the Shatt en-Nil (V), which divides the ruins into two nearlj^ equal halves and presents the same general aspect, it doubt- less indicates the course of an ancient canal, a branch of the Shaft, once protecting the southern side of the Temple area, but at present entirely filled up with sand, clay and rubbish washed down from the adjoining ruinsd This mound (IV) was called “Tablet Hill” bj" the members of our first expedition, because in 1889, wLen we commenced its exploration at the northwestern edge, it W'as the only place wdiere inscribed antiquities Avere found in a considerable number. It yielded more than 2,000 tablets and fragments during our first campaign,^ almost the same number during the second,^ and a few tablets during the third, wdien only for about a fortnight a few trenches w'ere run into its northern slope. ^ It w'as subjected to a renewed vigorous examination during the latter part of our ‘The very pronounced “chemin ires large” or “very wide road,” which, according to Scheil {“Une Saison de Fouilles d Sippar,” pp. 33 and 6, cf. also the place marked “L” on tlie general plan of the ruins at the end of his book), surrounded the temple of the Sungod at Sippar at its northeast and southeast sides, and “which must have existed at all times,” is evidently likewise the bed of an ancient canal, which separated the sacred ground of the temple com- plex from the territory of the city proper, where the school and temple library were situated. Cf. Hilprecht, “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” pp. 283, footnote, and 297. ® Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Scries A, Vol. I, Part 2 (1896), p. 8; Peters, “Nippur” (1899), Vol. I, pp. 245ff., 256, 259f., 275f.; II, pp. 118, 197ff.; Hilprecht, B. E„ Series D, Vol. I (1904), pp. 309ff„ 326, 341; “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.” (1908), pp. 200f., 279f., 285, 287ff. * Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2 (1896), p. 8; Peters, “Nippur” (1899), Vol. II, pp. 199-204; Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I (1904), pp. 341f., 511f,; “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.” (1908), pp. 2S8f. ‘ Cf. Hilprecht, “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” p. 287, footnote. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 7 fourth expedition, when nearly 17,500 tablets and fragments were excavated, chiefly from a number of rooms situated in its northeastern section, while an additional number was taken from trenches near the Shatt en-Nil} The 433 specimens under dis- cussion belong to the collection of c. 17,500 tablets gathered by the fourth expedition from the northeastern rooms just mentioned. According to my theory set forth in a number of publications, and, as I hope, definitely proved in my forthcoming volume, “Model Texts and Exercises from the Temple School of Nippur,”^ this large mound covers the ruins of the Temple Library, School and part of the Archives of the older period. The mass of the cuneiform tablets and fragments thus far rescued from these earlier ruins — in a round sum about 22,000 — belong to the time of the first dynasty of Isin, wEile a considerable number date from the second dynasty of Ur, and not a few go back to the age of Sargon I of Akkad, and even to the period preceding it. As I have stated repeatedly before,^ the entire complex of the Temple of Enlil and the large collection of tablets stored in rooms to the south of it were destroyed by some foreign conquering power, possibly the Elamites, who overthrew the dynasty of. Ur, carrying its last representative, King Ibi-Sin, into captivity,^ ‘ Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 429ff., 44.5, 508-532 ; “Die Ausgrabungen im Bel-Tempel zu Nippur,” pp. 14, 17, 52ff. ( = “In the Temple of B^l,” pp. 15, 18, 4.5ff.) ; B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. viiff.; “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” pp. 191f., 196f., 224, 251, 254f., 2S3ff., 293, 338f. 2 Forming Vol. XIX, Part 1, of Series A of “The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania,” which has been in press for some time. In consequence of repeated illness and pressure of other work, chiefly cataloguing, its printing had to be interrupted several times. ^Cf. Hilprecht, B. E„ Series D, Vol. I, pp. 378ff., 512ff.; Series A, Vol. XX, Part ], p. 54, and the reasons given in the passages quoted. * Cf. Boissier, “Choix de textes relatifs d la divination A ssyro-Bahylonienne,” Vol. II, Part 1, p. 64; Meissner in Orienlalistische Litteraturzeitung, March, 1907, p. 114, note 1; Eduard Meyer, “Geschichte des AUeriums,” 2d edition, Vol. I, Part 2, pp. 500 ff. 8 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE and ill connection with their freciuent raids upon the fertile plain of Shinar devastated and looted the Babjdonian sanctuaries. The stratum in which the earlier tablets and fragments just described occur varies in thicleness from one foot to four feet.* The ruins which cover it are twenty to twenty-four feet high.‘ As far as examined, this enormous mass yielded only a few hundred tablets of the reigns of UammurabP {i.e., Amraphel, Gen. 14 : 1), his contemporary Rim-Sin^ of Larsa, and Samsu-iluna,^ the son of the former, a tolerably well preserved clay tablet with a bilin- ' For the measurements here given cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, p. .515. “From one foot to four feet” equal to “from 31 cm. to 1 m. 24 cm.”; and “twenty to twenty-four feet” equal to “6 m. 24 cm. to 7 m. 44 cm.” ^ Ten of these tablets dated in the reign of Hammurabi and forty-eight in that of Samsu-iluna were published by Dr. Amo Poebel in B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part 2, Nos. 10-67. An inscribed terra-cotta cone of Samsu-iluna, relating this monarch’s building operations at Nippur, was found near the eastern court of the ziggurrat by the fourth expedition, and described and translated by Hilprecht in B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 480ff. The “large quan- tities of tablets of the Hammurabi period” reported by Peters to have been found in “rooms destroyed by fire” in “Tablet Hill” (cf. "Nippur,” Vol. II, p. 200) belong more exactly to the first dynasty of Isin, and for the greater part are tablets of a literary character, not contract tablets. Cf. Hilprecht, "Th. S.-C. P.-H. C„” pp. 288f. ^ Seven tablets dated in the reigns of Rim-Sin and Wardi-Sin, his brother (? cf. Thureau-Dangin, “Die Sumerischen und Akkadischen Konigsinschrifien,” p. 210, note k), were published by Poebel in B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part 2, Nos. 1-7, but not all of them came from “Tablet Hill.” Tablets dated in the reigns of kings of the first dynasty of Babylon and the dynasty of Larsa were also found in the long ridge on the west side of the Sitatt en-Nil, opposite" Tab- let Hill” (cf. the map, p. 5, above), where Peters excavated the terra-cotta cone dedicated with some kind of a building by a citizen of Nippur to Nergal for the life of Rim-Sin. Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2, No. 128; Price, “Literary Remains of Rim-Sin,” p. 15; Thureau-Dangin, l.c., pp. 216ff., No. 7c. The more than 2.50 dated documents of Wardi-Sin and Rim-Sin thus far catalogued by me will be published by Dr. Myhnnan as Vol. V of B. E., Series A. Rim-Sin is proliably to be read Rim-Aku and identical with Arioch, Genesis 14 : 1. THE EARLIEST VERSIOX OF THE DELUGE STORY 9 gual building inscription of Animi-ditana/ and a few tablets dated in the I'eign of his government and that of Ammi-zaduga.^ The four rulers of the first dynasty of Babylon represented by inscrip- tions from Nippur'* belong to the second half of their dynasty. ' To be published by me in B. E., Series A, Vol. XXII (“Early Historical Inscriptions from the Temple Library of Nippur”). The tablet is important also because it enumerates all the titles of Ammi-ditana. ■ To be published rvith the remaining inscriptions dated according to mem- bers of the first dynasty of Babylon in B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part 3. A very fragmentary but most valuable bilingual historical inscription of Ammi- zaduga from Nippur was published by me in B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2, No. 129. According to information from Peters, it came from the ridge opposite “Tablet Hill,” on the west side of the Shatt en-Xil. The left (Sumer- ian) columns of this interesting fragment are inscribed in the hieratic writing of that period (cf. my remarks in B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, p. 12, note 8), generally used in inscriptions of a more monumental character (therefore also employed in the “Code of Hammuralri”), while the two (cf. traces of a third on the Reveree) Akkadian columns are written in the “demotic” or cursive writing of the ordinary documents of Ammi-zaduga’s- time, which sometimes (cf. p. 4, above) resembles the Neo-Babylonian characters to such a degree that it is difficult to determine the exact age of the tablet without other assist- ance. No wonder, therefore, that in 1893 I regarded this fragment as a late copy of an ancient Sumerian tablet accompanied by a Neo-Babylonian Semitic translation (cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 64). Dr. Poebel’s statement (in B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part 2, p. 119) with regard to the absence of tablets of rulers of the first dynasty from Nippur dated later than the 29th year of Samsu-iluna lias to be corrected according to the facts set forth above . ^ We notice the absence of dated documents of King Aheshu’ among the Nippur tablets. My statement in B. E., Series D, Vol. I, p. 311, that such had been found during our first expedition, has turned out to be erroneous after my renewed examination of the Nippur tablets in Constantinople last year. We can readily understand, why such tablets have not come to light in Nippur. From King, “Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings,” A ol. II, pp. 19ff. (cf. also Vol. I, pp. 70ff., 9.311.), we learn that Samsu-iluna tried- in vain to check the ailvance of a South Babylonian army under Ilima-ilu, the founder of the second d}'iiasty in the “ List of Kings,” while according to Poebel, B. E., Scries A, Vol. VI, Part 2, p. 119, the latest document of Samsu- 10 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE Their tablets, as far as excavated in “Tablet Hill,” were not found in precisely the same stratum as those of the kings of Isin, but slightly above it,‘ a thin layer of rubbish separating them from the tablet-filled rooms of the preceding d^masty below. This is in entire accord with certain historical facts recently ascer- tained by me from other evidence,^ namely, that the first five rulers of the first dynasty of Babylon were contemporaneous with the last ten kings of the first dynasty of Isin. As the latter were in possession of Nippur, the former could not well have left dated documents there. On the other hand, quite a number of documents dated in the reign of Rim-Sin of Larsa were foimd intermingled with those of JJammurabi and Samsu-iluna. As most of them are dated according to the fii’st 30 years “ after Rim- Sin’s conquest of Isin,” while Sin-muballit, in whose seventeenth year Isin was conquered, is not represented by a single inscrip- iluna’a reign from Nippur is dated in his 29th year. It is, therefore, safe to infer witli Poebel, that Ilima-ilu then or soon afterwards must have taken possession of Nippur. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that the only tablet dated after a ruler of the second dynasty thus far known was excavated in Nippur and bears Ilima-ilu’ s name (of. Poebel, he., No. 68). As among the more than 50,000 tablets imcarthed at Nippur by the four Babylonian expeditions of the University of Pennsylvania not one with the name of Ab^shu’ has as yet been found, the only inference to be drawn is that Ilima-ilu, in accord- ance with the statement of the chronicles published by King (J.c., Vol. II, p. 21), held the territory conquered by him, and including Nippur, even against Samsu-iluna’ s successor, Abeshu’ , so tliat naturally no document could be dated in this city according with the latter’s reign. 'Cf. Hilprecht, B. E„ Series D, Vol. I, p. 513, and “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” p. 195. ^ Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, p. 49, note 5; Ranke in “ Orientalistische Lilleraturzeitung,” Vol. X, coll. llOf., 233f.; Ungnad in “ BeilrOge zur Assyriologie,” Vol. VI, p. 29, and in “ Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gescllschaft,” Yo\. LXl, p. 714; Eduard Meyer, “Gcschichle des Ahertums,” 2d edition, Vol. I, Part 2, §§ 329 and 443. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 11 tioii from Nippur/ it follows almost with mathematical certainty that the conquest of Isin in the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit's reign must be identical with the conquest of Isin by Rim-Sin/ and that the former acted as the latter’s ally and vassal. This alliance, inferred by me exclusively from cuneiform evidence,^ throws an entirely new light on the alliance between Amraphel and Arioch referred to by the Old Testament writer in Genesis 14. The over- thj'ow by Rim-Sin and his ally of the political metropolis (Isin), situated not very far from Nippur, of necessity included the occu- pation of the great religious centre of the worship of Enlil by this first mentioned ruler. The stratum represented by dated documents of Rim-Sin of Larsa and four members of the second half of the first d 3 masty of Babylon is separated by a considerable mass of rubbish from the next above it. This latter is the stratum of the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and Persian kings, from Ashurbanapal (668- 626 B.C.) to Xerxes (465-424 B.C.), in round figures covering about 200 years of Babylonian history and reaching almost to the surface of “Tablet Hill.”^ According to their contents, the inscriptions rescued from this upper layer are either business documents (about two-thirds of them)^ or tablets of a more literary . .‘According to Samsu-iluna’ s teiTSi-cottsL ■ cone from Nippur (cf. p. 8, note 2, above), Sin-muballit built at the wall of Nippur, an operation possiblj^ originally also mentioned in the broken date formula of his 18th year (cf. King, “The Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi,” Vol. Ill, pp. 228f.), and apparently executed by him as the ally and vassal of Rim-Sin. * Cf. also Kanke, l.c., col. Ill, note 1, and Eduard Meyer, l.c., p. 556 (end of the note). ^ Cf. my examination of certain facts bearing upon this question in B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, p. 49, note 5. * Cf. Peters, “Nippur,” Vol. II, pp. 197ff. ® Representative dated tablets of this period were published by Clay in B, E„ Series A, Vol. VIII, Part 1. The remaining documents of this class will appear later as Part 2 of the same volume, while the letters will be pub- 12 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE character (about one-third of them)/ including syllabaries, exor- cisms, hymns, etc., which sometimes are accompanied by the statement that they arc “copies of old Nippur tablets.” The total number of tablets and fragments obtained by the four expeditions from the three different strata of “Tablet Hill” just characterized is more than 23,000. By far the overwhelming mass of them — ^namely, about 22,000 (of. p. 7, above) — belong to the lowest stratum and, with the exception of a few hundred tablets, deal with scientific, historical, literary or religious sub- jects, generally VTitten in Sumerian. The remaining 1000 odd tablets and fragments are about equally divided between the two upper strata. By a'mere comparison of the numbers and facts presented every student will readily understand what an insignificant role in the history of the Temple of Enlil this section of the city played during the last 1500 years of its existence,^ and at the same time compre- hend the reasons which influenced me in designating these ruins as the site of the older Temple Library of Nippur. For a further discussion of the technical features’ of representative tablets of this enormous collection, which enabled me to recognize its character as a real library, and more especially as a temple library, I refer my readers to the volume from my pen quoted above, “Model Texts and Exercises from the Temple School of Nippur,” in which the Temple School connected with the Temple Library has received a first treatment. llshed by Radau, who recently communicated one important specimen in the “Hilprecht Anniversary Volume,” p. 424. ‘ For the present cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 310f., 341f., 51 If., 517ff.; “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” pp. 2S7-297. ^ It will, however, be shown in B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX, that a temple library, however insignificant when compared with the older one, actually still existed here in the Xeo-Babylonian period, as asserted by me in B. E., Series D, Vol, I, pp. 511f. “ Cf. also Kadau, l.c., pp. 384ff., and B. E., Series D, Vol. V, Fasc. 2 (in press). THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 13 It is a remarkable fact, to which Peters has already called at- tention, that practically no tablet of the Cassite period, though represented by more than 18,000 tablets from Nippur, was exca- vated by us in “Tablet Hill.”^ The Temple Library seems to have been in complete ruins or situated at some other still unknown site of the city durmg the long interval of about 600 years which elapsed between Rim-Sin of Larsa (about 2000 B.C.) and Burna- buriash, the first Cassite king represented by inscriptions from Nippur (about 1400 B.C.). At all events, when this institution appears again in the history of the city ruider the Cassite rulers, who restored the temple and revived the cult of EnliP and at times even resided at Nippur,^ the site of the Temple Library has entirely changed. It has been transferred to the western side of the present *S/ia(Len-iVfZ, where with but few exceptions all the clay tablets of the Cassite period were discovered in the long narrow ridge extending from the business house of Murashu Sons (VIII) and the Parthian Palace (VII) in the north to the place marked VI on the plan of the ruins (p. 5, above). ‘ Cf. Peters, “Nippur,” Vol. II, p. 203. But his statement: “on this hill [‘Tablet Hill’ ] we found none whatsoever from that [Cossaean or Cassite] dynasty” is a little too emphatic; for as a matter of fact about half a dozen fragments of the Cassite period were excavated by the first two expeditions along the western edge of “Tablet Hill,” where very evidently, hownver, they were not in their original position, probably having been carried there at some later time from the opposite mound on the western embankment of the Shaft en-Nil. * Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, pp. 30ff. ® Cf. AVinckler, “Das aUe Weslusien,’’ p. 20; Radau, R. /?., Series A, Vol. XVII, Part 1, pp. 72ff. 14 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE III. COOTENTS OF THE OLDER TEMPLE LIBRARY. A WORD remains to be said about the contents of the tablets and fragments from the lowest of the three strata described above. As the actual percentage of the different classes of literature represented by the remains of the older Temple Library is given at another place on the basis of several thousand specimens care- fully examined and studied by me during the last five years, both in the Archseological Museum of the University of Pennsylvania and in the Imperial Ottoman Museums at Constantinople, I confine myself here to a brief statement of the results of my renewed examination, with ample footnotes and references to the single volumes of the University’s great expedition work. These tablets include lists of cuneiform signs arranged accord- ing to a certain method;^ lists of signs accompanied by their pro- nunciation and meaning, either in Sumerian alone^ or in Sumerian and Akkadian^ (so-called syllabaries); lists of ideograms,^ often ’ For representative specimens of this class see B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX, Part 1, now in press. ^ For the present compare the specimen published as No. 37, Obverse, and p. xii in my B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, ® For the present cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, No. 24^ Obverse, and p. xii. Since I published this text, I found another large fragment of the first expedition (C. B. M. 2142) belonging to the same tablet, which I could join to its upper lines. An entire volume dealing exclusively with sylla- baries is in course of preparation by the writer. ' For the present cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2, No. 146, which I assigned erroneously to the Cassite period. In all probability it belongs to the first dynasty of Isin and came from “Tablet Hill.” THE EARLIEST VEBSIOH OF THE DELUGE STORY 15 arranged according to their first signs;* lists of personal proper names grouped according to the different elements of which they are composed;^ grammatical paradigms and plirases, either in Sumerian alone or in Sumerian and Akkadian, and in the latter case sometimes provided with the actual prommciation of the entire Sumerian colunm.^ Furthermore, there are geographical lists of moimtains and countries, lists of gods and temples, lists of plants, stones and animals, lists of objects made of wood, leather (with the determinative = “skin”) and the like,* pro- fessional names grouped together, synonym lists of various kinds of words. (often determined by LU=amelu, “man”)® — all of the utmost importance for our ultimate knowledge of the ancient Sumerian language. We also possess long lists of weights and of the measures of length, surface and capacity, frequently accompanied by their corresponding values of the lower denominations;® lists of months,^ fragments of chronological lists giving the names of the different rulers of dynasties in their successive order, and the number of ' For examples see my B. E„ Series A, Voi. XIX. Probably there will be enough material to permit the publication of one volume of each kind. ^ For examples see my B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX. There will be ultimately enough material to publish at least one volume. The material thus far gathered has been entrusted to Prof. Clay and for the present announced as B. E., Series A, Vol. XXIV. ® For specimens see my B. E„ Series A, Vol. XIX. * As far as I can judge at present, there will be at least four volumes pre- sen tmg this material. ‘There will be at least one vohmie. For the present cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, No. 23, pi. VI, No. 8, Obverse, pi. VIII, No. 9, Obverse. • Cf. the material published in B, E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, Nos. 17- 43, and my remarks on pp. 3.5-38 of the same volume. There is now much more material of the same kind at my disposal. ^ Cf. B. E„ Scries A, Vol. XX, Part 1, No. 40 (also No. 45). 16 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE years or months each menrber reigned/ and likewise lists of date formulas after which the single years of every king were named.^ There are medical prescriptions dealing with the treat- ment of scabies and other diseases/ incantations and exorcisms against evil demons causing headache, paralysis and other afflic- tions of the human body, divination texts and long lists of omina,^ building inscriptions interwoven with references to important historical events, and historico-religious inscriptions, such as elegies, hymns, prayers and other songs written in either of the two Sumerian dialects,® and containing frequent allusions to certain kings, hostile invasions and tyrannical oppression by foreign potentates," or liturgical compositions such as New Year * Cf. the same volume, No. 47, pi. XV, and my discussion of this tablet on pp. .39-566. Two much earlier fragments will be published by the writer in a volume on “Early Historical Inscriptions from the Temple Library of Nippur,” now in course of preparation. Cf. p. 9, note 1, above, and p. 29, below. ^ Small fragments of date lists of the kings of the first dynasty of Isin have been recently discovered by me. For date lists of Dungi, Bur-Sin I and Ciimil-Sin of the second d3Tiasty of Ur, excavated in another mound of Nippur, cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2, Nos. 125 and 127. ’ For some reason or other this class of tablets is in exceptionally poor preservation. I have classified about a dozen, mostly large fragments, very closely inscribed but badly effaced. For the present cf. Scheil in Recueil de travaux, Vol. XXII, p. 159, note LIV, and Vol. XXIII, note LX; Von Oefele, Keilschriftmedinn (= “Der alte Orient,” Vol. IV, Part 2), pp. 14 and 26, and Hilprecht, “Th. S.-C. P.-II. C„” p. 289. * For the present cf. Huber in “Hilprecht Anniversary^ Volume,” pp. 219ff., and Radau, ibidem, p. 384, No. 1. See also Myhrman, B. E., Scries A, Vol. Ill, Part 1, p. 17 (in press). A volume on these three classes of texts by the writer is in course of preparation. ® For the present cf. Radau, Le., pp. 381f., and texts Nos. 3, 13, 14, 15; also Scheil in Recueil de travaux, Vol. XIX, p. 23. 'There is enough material together even now to form at least one volume. For the present cf. Radau, “Hilprecht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 375, 386, pis. Nos. 1 and 2, pi. IV, No. 7. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 17 and harvest songsd But the enumeration of the various classes of scientific and literary texts already identified among the remains of the older Temple Library of Nippur is by no means yet complete. Suffice it to add that we also possess purely historical inscriptions (see pp. 20ff., below), a number of drawings,^ mathematical tablets, such as multiplication and division tables and geometrical progressions based upon the famous Platonic number 12,960,000 = 60^, tables of squares and square-roots, and other mathematical texts^ which I have not yet succeeded in deciphering; astronomical and astro- logical tablets,^ proverbs, “ mythological and epical texts, such as fragments of the story of the Deluge, of the legend concerning god N^IN-IB assigning certain meanings to various stones, and of other literary works of decided merit,*’ the exact contents and titles of which it is sometimes extremely difficult to determine. We naturally expected to find among the tablets excavated numerous poetical compositions in honor of the principal deities worshiped at Nippur, but we were not prepared to meet with practically the entire Babylonian pantheon of the earlier period. I quote from the list of gods to whom hymns and prayers are addressed such names as Enlil or Mullil, NIN-IB, Tamuz, Nergal, ' For the present cf. Radau, l.c., pp. 384 and 391ff., and Xos. 5-7 and 16., also pis. II-IV. ^ Cf. Ililprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX. 3 Cf. Ililprecht, B. E„ Series D, Vol. I, pp. 531f., and Series A. Vol. XX, Part i, Vos. 1-2S, pis. II— V, \'II— X, and pp. 11—38. Of this class of material there is enough material catalogued even now to allow of the publication of another part. * To be published later as Vol. XXI of Series A. For the present cf. Hil- precht, “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C„” p. 183. ® lor the present cf. Scheil in Recueil de travaux, Vol. XIX, p. 19. “ Representative specimens to be published in B. E., Series D, IT)]. V, by Myhrman, Radau and the writer. For the present cf. also Scheil in Recueil de travaux, Vol. XIX, pp. 24f. 3 18 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE Nusku, Sin, Sliamash, Marduk, Dagan, Galulal, Lugalbanda, Amanki, Niiilil, Islitar, Niiiaiisiana, Nina, Ningal, Gashan-Isina (“the mistress of the city of Isiii”), and A"in-Mar (“the lady of the city of Mar”)d 111 conclusion it should be stated that the stratum of the older Temple Library yielded a number of model texts from the time of Sargon I of Akkad to the kings of the first dynasty of Isin, evidently used exclusively for instruction, also exercise tablets and other scraps from the schoolrooms of Nippur — all in all about 5% of the entire collection. Specimens of this kind of tablets will be submitted in Vol. XIX of Series A of our expedition work, “Model Texts and Exercise Tablets from the Temple School of Nippur.” A small percentage (scarcely 3%) of the tablets taken from the same stratum are legal documents and lists of various kinds, chiefly referring to the registry of tithes, free-will offerings and the administration of certain temple property. If one compares my present surve}^ of the principal contents ef the earlier Temple Library of Nippur, based upon a detailed study of about 5,000 specimens, with my first announcement in 1900,^ and with that general sketch of 1903 which rested upon a first and very cursory examination of practically the entire inscribed material of over 50,000 cuneiform inscrip- tions excavated by our four expeditions,^ it will be recog- 1 There are a number of interesting specimens given by Radau in “Hil- precht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 374ff. Cf. also Huber in the same volume, p. 220. Besides, there are in press at present three volumes of “Sumerian Hymns and Prayers” by Radau, addressed to the gods Enlil, NIN-IB and TamAz respectively. Three other volumes of “Sumerian Hymns and Prayers,” addressed to Sin, Shamash and Ishtar respectively, are in course of preparation by Myhrman. * Cf. Kittel in Literarisches Centralblatt, 1900, Nos. 19 and 20; Hilpreclit in “The Sunday School Times,” May 5, 1900, pp. 275f. Compare also “Th. S.-C. P.-II. C.,” pp. 22-28, 108, lllf., 191f„ 19Gff., 224, 251, 254f., 2Glf., 270f., 282-297. ^Cf. B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 311, 341, 52G, ,52Sff. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 19 nized at once that I surely did not overestimate the value of our greatest discovery made at Nippur. If anythmg, I did not speak positivel}" and enthusiastically enough about the fundamental importance of that great storehouse of human knowledge, relig- ious conceptions and spiritual emotion, and its far-reaching influ- ence upon the science of Assyriology and the entire history of civilization 20 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE IV. AN ANCIENT KING OF GUTI, RULER OF BABYLONIA. Having briefly examined the different periods represented by the accumulations of “Tablet Hill,” and at the same time set forth the general condition and the characteristic features of the contents of the cuneiform tablets from the lowest of the three strata, we now direct our attention to the only two Akkadian inscriptions found among the Sumerian tablets of this stratum in the two boxes recently opened (cf. p. 3, above). After they had been sufficiently cleaned and deciphered, it w’as easy to recog- nize that they are of more than usual interest and importance. Time of Erridu-pizir, King of Guti. The first is a large tablet, restored from twenty^ fragments. It measures 20 cm. (= 7| inches) in length and 13.6 cm. (= 5| inches) in width, and contains twelve columns of closely written cuneiform text (six on the Obverse and six on the Reverse) of together about 500 lines or sections. Fortunately by far the greater part (about nine-tenths) of this long inscription is preserved. The writing is exceptionally sharp and beautiful, and arranged either in short lines generally containing only one,^ sometimes * In all probability I shall be able to add a few more fragments of the smallest kind not yet identified to the number given above. * Compare, e.g., B. E„ Series A, Vol. I, Part I, Nos. 1, 1-2, 4-10, 13-19; No. 3, 2-6; No. 5, 1-10, 11-12; Nos. 6-10; Part 2, No. 118, 2-5; No. 119; No. 120 col. II, 1, 3-5: col. II, 1-4, 6-7, etc. Seheil, “Textes ^lamites-Semitiques,’’ III, pi. 1, No. 1, col. I, 2-6, 9-11, etc. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 21 two (or even three) words, as a rule closely connected;' or in so- called sections containing only one word too long to be written in one short line^ or several words which grammatically or logically be- long together^ — characteristic features of the inscriptions of Sargon I and Naram-Sin of Akkad, Urumush or Rimush' and Manishtusu of Kish. Moreover, we meet with other palseographical peculiarities in this new text which are familiar to us from the inscriptions of the four ancient kings mentioned, e.g., the almost constant use of (lum) for nmn in da-num, “powerful”; the use of o = = u in such characteristic verbal forms as u-sa-za-hv. , etc.; fhe use of = sit in the demonstrative pronoun su-a = M-a, “this, that.” In fact the same peculiar treatment of the sibilants, the same verbal forms, the same phraseology, the same combination of gods, etc., as are found in their inscriptions occur ' Cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, No. 1, 11 or No.'2, 12_(m Nippur^'' = “in Nippur”); Part 2, No. 120, col. II, 2 (in ki-ib-ra-tini = “in the quarters of the world”); King, “Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets,” XXI, pi. 1, No. 91146, 6 (in Sippar^^ = “in Sippar”); Scheil, “Textes Elamites-Semitigues," III, pi. 1, No. 1, col. I, 8 (in sattim 1 = “in one year”); B. E., Series A, Vol. 1, Part 1, No. 2, 11; No. 4, 3 (bW^En-lil = “the Temple of Enlil”); No. 1, 20; No. 2, 19, etc. (isde-su = “his foundation”); No. 1, 23; No. 2, 22; Part 2, No. 120, col. IV, 3, etc. (zera-su = “his seed”); Scheil, l.c., Ill, pi. 1, No. 1, col. 1, 7 (9 X — “9 armics(?)”), but also the frequent sa dupparn = “who [changes this] tablet” (cf. B. E., Series A, Part 1, No. 1, 12; No. 2, 13; Part 2> No. 120, col. Ill, 5, etc,). ^ Cf. the names of Cf. B. E„ Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, No. 2, 13-20. * Cf. Delitzseh, “Wo lag das Parodies?’’ pp. 233f.; Hommcl, “ Grundriss der Geographic und Geschichte des Alien Orients,” pp. 252f. The Guti lived in this region at the time of Erridu-pizir; later, at the time of the Assyrian king Ashumasirapal (9th century), they had moved farther northward. Cf. p. 30, note 4, below. ^ Cf. Thureau-Dangin, “Die Sumerischen und Akkadischen Konigsinschriften,” pp. 225, c, 226, e. ' Cf. Ililprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, pp. 12ff. ‘ Win elder in “ Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie,” Vol. lA^, p. 406. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 23 Comparatively small as our knowledge of this remarkable people at present still is, we can pierce the veil in which they are wapped sufficiently, to venture the following deductions from their earliest inscriptions. Under Sargon I of Akkad the Guti became so troublesome that the Babylonian king had to fight against them in several campaigns. He evidently defeated them so thoroughly that for some time they ceased their raids upon his provinces. But soon they rallied, attacked the country anew and apparently imme- diately after Naram-Sin’s death, or even towards the end of his government, they carried their arms victoriously into Babylonia itself, first establishing themselves in the north, where under Lasirab, who calls himself only “king of (the) Guti,” they con- quered Sippar. Under Erridu-pizir they took possession of Nippur and subdued the whole of Babylonia, at the same time sacking many of her famous cities and temples. This period of utter ruin and devastation is depicted in a number of beautiful Sumerian hymns, prayers and lamentation songs from the second dynasty of Ur in the Temple Library of Nippur. It doubtless also was during this first invasion of the Guti that the statue of the goddess Ishtar, referred to in a late text of the British Museum, was carried off by these ruthless barbarians, whose hand lay heavily upon the con- quered nation.^ After his successful overthrow of the ruling ’ Cf. Pinches in the “ Proceedings of the Societ}^ of Biblical Archfeology,” May, 1901; also Langdon, “Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms,” No. XXV, and in Z. A., Vol. XXIII, pp. 219f, tVhile this text is a late copy of the year 287 B.C., it becomes certain from a comparison of the conditions described, the names referred to and the language and phraseology employed in this lamenta- tion song, with similar early Sumerian texts from our Temple Librarj', that the original of Pinches’ text cannot have been written later than the second dynasty of Ur. The groat calamity bewailed by Ishtar is not “ identical with that of Nabuna’id's stele” (Langdon), but with the first invasion of the Guti at the time of Sargon I, as previously assumed by this scholar. This ancient 24: FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE dynasty, Erridu-pizir, following in the footsteps of Naram-Siii, assumed the additional and much more significant title, “ king of the four quarters of the world.” Deific.\tion of B.\byloxian Kings. Through Sargoii's great conquests in the four cardinal points^ (counted from Akkad, his capital, as center), this title had been closely connected with Nippur, more especially with Ekur, the sanctuary of Enlil, as “father of the gods,” whose empire the invasion of the Guti was followed later by severe attacks and raids on the part of their neighbors, the Lulubi, who were defeated in several battles by Dungi ; for the so-called inscription of a “ king of Kutha ” (cf. Jensen in K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, pp. 29011.) reflects similar ancient historical events as those depicted in the ancient Sumerian hrunns, etc., mentioned. Hommel, therefore, identified cor- rectly the An{n)banini of that inscription with the well-known ancient king of Lulubi of tlie same name. The principal question to be settled is the precise time when An{u)banini lived. We would be able to fix tliis period more posi- tively if the reading “a-na-ku Kat-ili ” (Jensen, l.c., p. 300, li. 10) of a second version of the inscription of the “ king of Kuti ” was sure. I then would pro- pose to read “ Gimil-ili ” and identify this name with Gim.il-ilisu, the second king of the first djmasty of Isin, hitherto not yet represented by any inscription of his own (cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. 46 and 50). — In his forthcoming volumes on Sumerian h}unns and in Fasciculus 2 of the present volume Radau will submit ample examples from our Temple Library, to prove that quite a number of the literary compositions published by Reisner and Hrozny are copies of old Nippur originals of the second dynasty of Ur. For the present cf. the poetical lamentation song of the goddess Xin-Mar, published and transl.ated b\^ Radau in “ Hilprecht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 434ff., especially p. 439, lis. 17-3;). ‘ Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series .4, Vol. 1, Part I, pp. 24f. ; Series D, Vol. I, pp. 4Slf. Sec also Ungnad’s very pleasing view in “Die Deuhmg der Zukunft bei den Babijloniern und Aesyrern’’ (= “Der alte Orient," X, Part 3), pp. 6, 10, 22f., according to which at the time of Sargon of Akkad “the four quarters of the civilized world” are represented by the four great political powers, Akkad (including Simmer which had been incorporated in this state) in the south, Elam in the east, Subartu (the later Assyria) in the north, Amurru in the west. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 25 king admiiiistered, and whose religious and political influence formerly more or less confined to Babylonia, Sargon, as the god’s representative on earth, had extended on all sides to a quasi-worldwitle dominion, namely, to the- natural boundaries established by the high mountain ranges in the east and north and by the desert and sea in the south and west. It is true, Sargon himself does not use the title “king of the four quarters of the world” in any of his inscriptions thus far known. But in the so- called Omen tablet^ it is expressly stated that this great hero’s “hand conquered the four quarters of the world,” and in one of his Nippur inscriptions^ Sargon adds the words: u suh^-u-la-ti ‘^En-Ul, “and of the subjects of Enlil,” to his usual title, “king of Akkad.” The “subjects of Enlil” being the inhabitants of all the countries over which Sargon ruled — in other words “the four quarters of the world” — his title, “king of the subjects of Enlil,” is practically identical with the title of his successors, “king of the four quarters of the world.” In the Neo-AssjTian inscriptions of Sargon II and Sennacherib, therefore, the phrase “to rule the subjects of Enlil” stands parallel with the phrase “to take possession of all the lands from east to west,”‘ and the ’ Cf. IV R. 34, Xo. 1, compared with King, “Chronicles concerning early Babylonian king.s,” Vol. II, p. 27, § II, 6, and p. 29, § IV, 14. ^ Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, pi. 2, 4-8, and also p. 1.5. *I was former]}^ inclined to assign the value “ba” to the sign KA A SU (cf. “ Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie,” Vol. VIII, pp. ,387ff.) in view of the frequent ba‘uliU Enlil in the Assyrian inscriptions, but I prefer now to read it in Akkadian with tlve same value “sub” which Thureau-Dangin correctly assigns to it in Sumerian (“Die Sumerischen und Akkadischen Kbnigsinschriften,” Gudea, Cyl. A, VIII, 13, and XXVIII, 18). According to the treatment of the sibi- lants at the period of Sargon I, sub-u-la-ti stands for hih-u-laAi = suUiddii (plur. fem. of adj.-inf. Ill' sub‘ulu = “subdued,” “conquered”), meaning the same as ba'uh’tti, “subjects.” 'Cf. e.g., Nitnrud Inscription, li. 5 (Winckler, “ Keilschrifttexie Sargons,” Vol. I, pp. l()8f. : [Sharru-ukin] ki mltiti k lli-H-na iku .k-it ASamh’(-sj) a-di e-reb ‘^SamM(-H) i-hi-lu-ma ul-lnkpi-ru ba-’u-lat ‘^En-lil. 26 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE M or ds “ha‘ Mat ’^Enlil” = “i\\Q subjects of Enlil,” are used as a synonymous expression for “ba‘Mdt arba‘i” = “the subjects of the four (quarters of the world). Out of gratitude for this phenomenal success, which Sargon of Akkad had gained for the Temple of Enlil and its priesthood, the latter declared the king to be a true incarnation of the deity which he so well represented on earth, and raised him to the rank of a god by placing the sign for “deity” in front of his named Henceforth the same honor was granted to practically all Baby- lonian kings who were in possession of Nippur, as long as its religious and political importance lasted. As representatives of Enlil, they either assumed the political title, “king of the four quarters of the world,” without regard to the real extent of their power,^ or they claimed and enjoyed divine rank, or they insisted on both. The following earlier Babylonian kings have thus far been found with the determinative for “god” before their names; Sargon I and Naram-Sin of Akkad; Dungi, Biir-Sin I, Gimil-Sin and Ibi-Sin of Ur;^ Ishbi-Ura, Idin-Dagan, Ishme- * For passages cf. Delltzscli, “ Assyrisches Handworterbuch,” p. 162; on arha’u = ‘ world,” cf. Jensen in K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 520. ^ Cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, PI. 2, li. 1, the only inscription in which ilu is found to be attached to Sargon’s name. It came from Nippur, and is the one in which Sargon has the additional title “king of the subjects of Enlil.” ^ While in a number of cases the question must be left open, whether the king ruled over an empire as large as Sargon’s, we know positively that, e.g., Bur-Sin I of Ur, who claimed both divinity and the title “king of the four quar- ters of the world” (cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, pis. 12 and 13, 11. 4 and 12), did not rule over the west, as no expedition to Amurru is mentioned in his date list. As a rule, however, only those princes call themselves “kings of tlie four quarters of tlie w'orld” who actually carried on successive cam- paigns of some kind outside of Babylonia proper. ‘ Cf. the inscriptions translated by Thureau-Dangin, “Die Samerischen und Akkadischen Kdniyaimrhriflen,’’ pp. 190-203. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 27 Dagan, Libit-Ishtar, Ur-NIX-IB, Bur-Sin II, Iter-pisha, I-ra- iniitti, Sin-ikisam, Enlil-bani, Zambiia, Sin-magir and Damiq- ilishu of Isin;* Nur-Immcr, Wardi-Sin and Rim-Sin of Larsaf IJannnu-rabi and Sainsu-iluna of Babylon;* Kurigalzu, Nazi- Maruttash, Kadashman-Turgu, Kadashman-Enlil, Kudur-Enlil and Shagarakti-Shui'iash of the Cassite dynasty' — for the greater part represented by votive inscriptions or dated documcaits from Xippur. ’ Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. 49ff., especially p. 51, and Thureau-Dangin, l.c., pp. 204ff. Also Hilprecht in Orienfalis/ische Literaturzeitung, 1907, col. 386. For further details see p. 38, below. lAe may safely assume that all the kings of the dynasty of Isin used the sign for god “before their names.” The onh^ three omitted above are not y'et known from their owm inscriptions. Sin-ihiiam, Ellil-bdni and Sin-mdgir, though beginning with a divine name and, therefore, naturall}^ with ilu, “god,” are included, because I do not see any reason to exclude them on this account from the rest who claimed divine honor. ^ Cf. Thureau-Dangin, Lc., pp. 208f. and 216ff., and Poebel, B. E., Series A, A^ol. VI, Part 2, pi. 1, No. 2, Rev. 12 (f^Wardil^Sin) and Nos. 4-9 ‘^Sin). ® Though Hammu-rahi, also written Ammu-rabi, like Ammi-ditana and Ammi-zaduga, as a rule appears without the determinath’e ilu, the elements Qammu and Samsu (in Samsu-ditana and Samsu-iluna) not being felt as deities in personal proper names of Babylonian inscriptions, yet it is notew^orthy that Qammu-rabi and Samsu-iluna, the only tw'o kings of the first djmasty of Baby- lon represented by numerous dated documents from Nippur, are found twice each with the sign for ilu before their names. Cf. Poebel, B. E., Series A, V'ol. VI, Part 2, No. 10, 4, and Ranke, B. E., Series D, Vol. Ill, p. So, Hammu- rabi’, and Poebel, l.c., Nos. 31, 24, and 32, 33, for ‘^Samsu-iluna, ‘ Cf. Hilpreclit, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, p. 52, and the literature quoted there. Eduard Meyer’s statement {“Geschichte des .Alt cHums,” 2d edi- tion, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 5G2), that the entire Hammurabi djmasty declined to acknowledge the divine origin of their kingdom, and furthermore that “all later rulers of Babylonja, in contrast to the Pharaohs” of Egypt, were “no longer gods themselves,” is contrary to all the facts known from the inscriptions quoted in this and the previous note. This ancient sacred custom disappears only with the downfall of the Cassite dynasty, wlien Nippur ceases to play an impor- tant role in the political life of Babylonia. 28 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE Erridu-pizir, “king of (the) Guti, king of the four quarters of the world,” does not call himself a god. This may be acci- dental, as in the case of Sargon I, who uses it only once on a door- socket from Nippur; or for some unknown reason the king may have declined to attach the divine attribute to his name, as seems to have been the case with a few other rulers who held Nippur, e.g., Ur-Engur, the founder of the second dynasty of Ur, Ilima-ilu, the only member of the so-callcd second dynasty thus far repre- sented by a dated tablet from Nippur,* and Burnaburiash, the first Cassite king who left inscriptions in the same place. At all events Erridu-pizir regarded himself as the legitimate heir to the “ kingdom of the four quarters of the world” established by Sargon and main- tained by Nararn-Sin, and did not hesitate to assume the latter’s proud title as soon as he had taken Nippur.^ ’ Cf. Poebel, l.c., No. 68. ^ Eduard Meyer, l.c., p. 478, wliile agreeing with the original meaning of the title sar kibrdt arha’im as given above (and seventeen years ago in B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, p. 25), and while believing that the deification of Babylonian kings was closely associated with their claim of the kingdom of the world as understood bj^ them, denounces Wunckler’s theory, according to which this title was connected with the possession of a certain city — Nippur, according to my own view — as “vdllig verfehlt.” But notwithstanding this emphatic statement, I must insist that Winckler’s theory is the only one which is entirely in accord with the facts as presented by the cuneiform inscriptions themselves. Unless the deification of a king was conditioned by his possessing Nippur, it would be hard to furnish a satisfactory explanation for the strange phenomenon that all the kings of the dynasty of Isin call themselves “gods,” even those who, like Iterpisa and Zambiia, ruled only a few years and outside of the few dated documents left by them in Nippur are entire!}' unknowm persons, who evidently had plenty of trouble at home and surely did not conquer “the world,” even in the Babylonian sense of the word; or again that all those Cassite kings known to us from more than 18,000 dated tablets and numerous votive inscrip- tions excavated in Nippur, and at times oven residing there (cf. Radau, B. E., Series A, Vol. XVII, pp. 73ff.), place the sign ilu, “god,” before their names, though, with but few exceptions, they could not boast of any great conquests outside of Babylonia, but, on the contrary, lost constantly in their fight with the rising power of Ashur. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 29 The names of the three ancient Guti kings, Sharlak, Lasirab and Erridu-pizir, whatever they may have been otherwise, are surely not Semitic. If the latter two use the Akkadian language and peculiar form of writing in their inscriptions, even worshiping the same gods as the Babylonians, it only proves that the earliest inhabitants of Guti, like the Lullubi and other non-Semitic moun- tain tribes to the east of the Tigris, in very ancient times accepted the civilization of the plain of Shinar* — a process which in the second millennium we can better follow in connection with their immediate neighbors in the mountains, the Kashshii or Cassites, who after their gradual conquest of Babylonia amalgamated completely with the Semitic race, though for a long time their kings and other persons continued to wear names peculiar to the Cassite language. The complete cuneiform text of this new Guti king will soon be published by the writer in Vol. XXII of Series A of our expedi- tion work. It will deal with “Early Historical Inscriptions from the Temple Library of Nippur,” including fragmentary chronicles of Naram-Sin and other ancient rulers and two good-sized though much mutilated fragments (joined) of a still earlier Sumerian chronicle entitled “ Nam-lugal,” literally “royalty, kingship,” which we may render more intelligently in English by translating “ Book of the Kings.” The Mountain of the Ark in the Land of Guti. We cannot close these brief remarks on the long inscription of King Erridu-pizir of Guti without recalling the fact that, according to a copy of an evidently much older geographical list^ from the library of Ashurbanapal, it was a mountain of the country Guti, Mt. ‘ Cf. Eduard Meyer, l.c., pp. 312, 408, 464, 536f., 581. * iv. 4415, published in II R. 51, No. 1 (see li. 21). Cf. Delitzsch, “Wo lag (las Paradies?’’ pp. lOlff. 30 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE Nisir/ on which the ship of the Babyionian Noah, Ut-napishtim, ianded. This word, as has been interpreted by some schoiars, may be of Semitic origin, meaning “saivation” — a reminiscence of the deiiverance which it afforded from the ail-destroying flood to a few survivors; but it also may well be, as I firmly believe, a Semitizodform of an ancient Guti word, nizir or nisir, with a mean- ing as unknown as the second clement, pizir or pisir,^ in the name of the Guti king just mentioned. King Ashurnasirapal III^ of Assyria (883-859 B.C.) informs us in his annals^ that Mt. Nisir was a steep mountain, difficult of * Repeatedly mentioned in the Assyrian Deluge stor\' from the library of Ashurbanapal. ^ In the earliest Akkadian inscriptions, including those of tlie two Guti kings, zi is also used for si. ^ Generally designated as Ashurnasirapal II, but cf. Lehmann-llaupt, " Materialien zur alteren Geschichte Armeniens und M esopotamiens pp. 19ff„ and more recently Schnabel’s discussion in “ OrientaKstische lAieraturzeitung Deo., 1909, col. 52S. ■* Col. II, 34ff. As according to II R, 51, No. 1, the Nisir was situated in the country of the Guti, it seems strange that if Nisir was tb- Semitic name for the famous mountain, Asliurnd-sirapal should give us its name in the language of the Lullu, instead of that of tlie Guti. In connection with this, we also notice the fact that the king does not once refer to the country and people of Guti, though on this campaign he should have been in the very midst of them. I infer from this (a) that at Ashurnasirapal’s time (ninth century) the Guti were no longer in possession of their original homes, but had moved farther northward to the mountainous districts to the west of Lake Urmia and to the south of Lake Van, where very properly they are placed by Colonel Billerbeck on the map accompanying Schrader’s “Die Keilinschrifien und das Alte Tes- tament” (tliird edition by Zimmern and Winckler), their abandoned scats being occupied by their southern neighbors, the Lullu(bi). (b) Nisir is not the Semitic name of the mountain on which the ark rested, but the old Guti designa- tion, by which the mountain was and continued to be known to all the neigh- boring people, including tlie Semites, while Kinipa was its later Lulu name, which it received at the time of Ashurnasirapal or previously, whenever the I.ulubi entered and occupied the old scats of the Guti. Cf. also Jensen’s result (in K.B., Vol. VI, Part 2, pp. 3S2L), that at the time of Sargon and Esarhaddon the country of the Guti “included Urartu (.Armenia) and neighboring states.’’ THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELOGE STORY 31 access (marsu), and that it was named Kinipa or Kiniba in the language of the natives, the people of Lul{l)u, i.e., the Lulu-bi^ of other inscriptions, who since ancient times lived in close prox- imity with the Guti. The exact situation of this peak or moim- tain range has not yet been fixed. Scholars differ on this point. In accordance with the various theories formulated as to the original site and extent of the country of Guti, the one place Mt. Nisir in the mountains of the upper course of the Euphrates, others, following the Syriac tradition among Jews and Christians, identify it with Jebel Judi,^ in which Sayce recognizes a later form for Guti. Belck regards one of the peaks to the northeast of Erbil (Arbela) as the probable landing place of the ark; Streck finds the Nisir in one of the numerous mountain chains to the northeast of Kerkuk, the Khalkhalan-Dagh, Tokma-Dagh, Pir ‘ Omar Gudrun, etc., while Billerbeck fixes upon the last mentioned range as the Nisir proper.^ My ovm view in a nutshell is the following: Mt. Nisir originally was a mountain in the district of the upper courses of the ‘Adhaim and Diyala rivers, somewhere between the 35th and 36th degrees latitude, wtieie Delitzsch, Streck, Billerbeck and others place it. In connection with a subsequent northern emigration of the Guti,"* the name of this ' Cf. Hommel, “Grundriss der Geographic und Geschichte des Alien Orients,” p. 58, note ,5, and Streck in ” Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie,” Vol. XV, pp. 289ff. ^ In the district of Bobtfln, on the eastern side of the upper Tijiris, to the northwest of Mosul. ® For the literature on this subject and an objective discussion of the entire question cf. Streck in ‘‘Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie,” Vol. XV, pp. 272ff. * As stated above, Sayce associated Jehel Judi with the ancient name of the Guti. Should the later Semitic designation of this people, Kulu(i, 6) (cf. De- litzsch, “IFo lag das Poradies?” p. 233), be preserved in the name of the citv of ‘^^^Ku-t{d)a, mentioned by Tiglath-Pileser III (as to the passages cf. Streck, I.C., XIV, p. 116), as situated in Urartu? If so, we would have an important indication as to the way which the Guti took in their later wanderings. 32 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE mountain also wandered northward, attaching itself to an unknown range in the neighborhood of Lake Van. In the Hebrew text of the Old Testament (Genesis 8 : 4, compared with Isaiah 37 : 38) this peak or range is referred to as “one of the mountains of (the land of) Ararat,”* the Urartu of the Assyiians, which since Ashui- nasirapal III (ninth century before Christ) appears as the cunei- form designation for the later Armenia,^ but at an earlier period may have been applied to a more southeastern district. It was possibly** the Armenians themselves who, pushing from the south- east toward Lake Van, forced the Guti out of their original home, driving them before them, until they disappear from history, probably to reappear again in southeastern Europe on the shore of the Black Sea under the name of the Goths'* (Latin Gutae or Gothi) with radically changed conditions, but the same scourge of civilized nations as which they appear in the earliest lamentation songs of Nippur. '■ Though only in this general way referred to by the Bible, the Jewish, Christian and Moslem traditions localized the mountain where the ark landed in the Jebd Judi. The later Babylonian tradition, as represented by Berosus (living some time between 330 and 250 B.C.), places this mountain in the same general region. Cf. Streck, l.c., Vol. XV, pp. 272f. * Cf. Streck, l.c., Vol. XV, pp, 103ff., especially 119f. ^ For a different view ci. Lehmann-Haupt, l.c., pp. 66ff. * If I remember correctly, it w'as the late Jules Oppert wdio first combined the Guti with the Goths, but 1 have been unable to find any passage in liis works where he sets forth this tlieory. If the Goths stand in that close relation to the Guti, as I claim, w-e should find the Guti proper names of great value. Is Sharlak, name of the first Guti king known in liistory, identical witli the English personal proper name Sherlock? The etymology proposed for this latter name by James McCann (“ Tlie names w'e bear,” p. 75) = “ sheared locks,” is unsatis- factory and nothing but a popular attempt to e.xplain an unintelligible name. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 33 V. THE EAELIEST FRAGMENT OF THE DELUGE STORY. Our examination into the probable site of Mt. Nisir in the land of (the) Guti forms the natural link between the tablet of Erridu- pizir of Guti and the Akkadian fragment found together with it among the Sumerian contents of the two boxes of antiquities opened. For upon closer examination it turned out to contain a portion of the Babylonian Deluge Story. This fragment, here published for the first time in a photo- graphic reproduction and an autograph copjq was so completely covered with crystals of nitre and other sediments when I took it out of its paper wrapper, that at first only a few cuneiform signs could be recognized.^ Three characters in particular, standing together in the upper section of the fragment, were fortimately entirely free from incrustations. I read without difficulty, a-bii-bi, “deluge.” My interest was naturally aroused, and I tried at once to clean the tablet with a brush sufficiently to recognize what followed. But my efforts proved in vain, the crystals and dirt being too firmly attached to the incised characters. Next I turned my attention to the other contents of the boxes, to see whether perchance I could find another fragment of the same tablet. Again I met with no success. Unable to restrain my curiosity and impatience any longer, I left, for the time being, all the impacked ‘ This was the reason why I did not examine it more carefully in Constan- tinople in 1901. Possibly we have another exceedingly small fragment of the Deluge Story Irom the second expedition, too small to be determined accurately. 3 34 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE fragments in the basement of the museum, with the exception of the supposed “deluge” story, which I took to my study. For tliree continuous weeks I personally spent from one to two hours every day in connection with this fragment, endeavoring to un- cover one cuneiform character after another by removing the incrustations and other deposits of hardened dirt, without damag- ing the wi-iting below, until I had completely deciphered every sign and by my own hand reproduced on paper as exact a copy of its inscription as was possible. The results of my labor are embodied in the autograph copy* which will be found at the end of this treatise. On December m- 1, 1909, I had sufficient proof in my hand to inform Provost Harri- son of the University of Pennsylvania, Chairman of the Publication Committee of the Babylonian Expedition, that among the results of the fourth expedition excavated at “Tablet Hill” in Nippur, together with other very important literary tablets recently unpacked, I had discovered a small fragment of the earliest version of the Babylonian Deluge Story thus far known, which was about 1500 years older than similar fragments known from the Library of Ashurbanapal (668-626 B.C.). Upon Provost Harrison's inquiry as to the possible relation of this new text to the Biblical story, both with regard to its age and contents, I answered imme- diately that it had been inscribed more than 600 years before the time generally assigned to Moses, and in fact even some time before the Patriarch Abraham rescued Lot from the hands of Amraphel of Shinar and Chedorlaomer of Elam (Genesis 14) ; and, furthermore, * By comparing the beginning of li. 11 in my autograph copy with the photographic reproduction of the fragment, it will be noticed that the former has part of an oblique wedge before the two perpendicular wedges of the first fragmentary cuneiform sign preserved, which is absent in the photographic reproduction. This is due to the fact that the small piece of clay containing this oblique wedge was so decomposed by the nitre covering it that it gradually crumbled aw.ay after it had been cleaned. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 35 that in its preserved portion it showed a much greater resemblance to the Biblical Deluge Story than any other fragment yet pub- lished. Description and Age of the Fragment. I now proceed to submit the proofs for my various assertions. Like most of the other tablets found in the same low stratum of “Tablet Hill,” the fragment is made of unbaked clay. It measures 6.9 cm. (= 2| inches) at its greatest width, 6 cm. ( = 2| inches) at its greatest length, and 2.2 cm. (= |- of an inch) at its greatest thickness. The color of the tablet is dark brown. Originally it was inscribed on two sides, the Obverse and the Reverse. Though the one side is now entirely broken away, there are a few characters preserved on the right edge of the fragment, forming the ends of three overlapping lines from the missing side. Moreover, from the few traces left, which at one place (li. 2 of what is preserved on the mutilated side) nm eA^en to the other side of the tablet, we can infer with absolute certainty that the side now broken away formed the Obverse of the tablet. For as the scribe, when inscribing the now preserved side, was forced to turn upward in his writing (li. 5) at the place where he met with the long over- lapping line of the other side, it follows that the side now broken away must have been inscribed before the other side. If any further proof was necessary, I would point to the fact that the preserved side is slightly convex — always a sure indication that it forms the Reverse of a tablet (cf. plates at end of book). We naturally would like to know how large the complete tablet was to which this little fragment belonged, and how many lines the Deluge Story from Nippur originally contained; but the preserved portion is too small to enable us to make any positive statement in this regard. From the comparatively thick though fragmentary right edge of the tablet, from the curve of the convex 36 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE surface of the Reverse, and from the evidently great gaps in the inscription, which in certain lines, as, e.g., li. 7, where the measure- ments of the ark were given, requires considerable supplementing, we can, however, safely make the following deductions. The original tablet was nearly three times as wide as the present fragment, and in proportion correspondingly long. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that the complete tablet must have been about 18 cm. (=7 inches) wide, about 25.4 cm. (= 10 inches) long and about 3.8 cm. ( = 1^ inches) thick, containing about 65-68 lines on each side, or about 130-136 lines altogether. It was one of those large tablets in which the older Temple Librarjq as we know posi- tively from the material examined and restored, fairly abounded. The fragment under consideration is not dated. The question, therefore, arises : To which period can we assign it with any degree of certainty from other evidence? As it was found intermingled with the dated and undated tablets of the lowest of the three strata of “Tablet Hill” above referred to, it follows a 'priori that it must have been inscribed at the same general epoch as the rest of the tablets, which lay together in large numbers exactly as they had fallen at the time of their intentional de.struction. On pp. lOf., above, I had stated that without exception the inscriptions from this stratum were wiitten before the reign of Rim-Sin of Larsa (about 2000 B.C.), at the same time adding that they cover practically all the periods of early Babylonian history known, down to the time of the last king of the first dynasty of Isin. The mass of these tablets, however, being inscribed during the first half of this dynasty, and possibly even a little earlier, we naturally would be inclined to assign our fragment to the same period. But strong palteographical reasons force me to place it a little lower, and to classify it with several hundred other specimens from this stratum together in one small group. This small collection of tablets was inscribed during the second half of the reign of tire THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 37 dynast}’ of Isin, beginning with Ur-NIN-IB and ending with Dainiq-ilishu, mider whom Isin was conquered by Rim-Sin. In other Avords, according to my reduced chronology, which places the d 3 ’nasty of Isin about 300 years later than previously done by Assyriologists and historians, our fragment was written some time between 2137 and 2005 B.C., o*." in round figures, about 2100 B.C. This is the very latest date to w’hich this fragment possiblj^ can be assigned, both according to its place of discovery and the palseographical evidence presented by the tablet itself. With the exception of but one contract tablet excavated by Scheil at Abu Habba,^ all the tablets dated according to rulers of the first dynasty of Isin have thus far come exclusively from Nippur. The material known to me in 1906 was quoted in B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. 49ff. A tablet bearing the name of King Zambiia was discovered and discussed by me since in “ Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung,” July 15, 1907, cols. 385ff.; another^ with the name of King Sin-iqtsham by Poebel in the same journal, September 15, 1907, cols. 461ff.; and a third one dated in the reign of King Ura-imitti by the writer in “ Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie,” Vol. XXI, pp. 26ff. In connection with my con- tinued work of cataloguing the remaining Nippur collections, I have recently met with a few more dated documents of the same ' Cf. “ Recueil de travaux,” Vol. XXIII, pp. 93f., and “ Une Saison de jouilles a Sippar,” p. 140. ^More exactly two tablets. The one bears the catalogue number 11191 (not 11107, given by Poebel). The other. No. 11560, is characterized by Poebel as “belonging to about the same time,” but “with its date broken away.” This statement, however, is inaccurate, for at the end of tne tablet is clearly to be seen: m[u ^Sin-'\i-ki-ld-am lugal. It is of interest to note that both of these tablets bearing the name of King Sin-iqisham and one of the tablets dated according to DCtmiq-iUshu were excavated in “Tablet Hill” as early as Feb- ruary, 1889, according to the registration marks of Prof. E. F. Harper written in Chinese ink upon them. 38 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE dynasty. The entire material, therefore, at present at my dis- posal and serving as a natural basis for obtaining the characteristic cursive cuneiform signs in use during the second half of the dynasty of Isin is in chronological order as follows; Ur-NIN-IB, 2 dated documents. Bur-Sin II, 4 “ Iterpua,^ 3 “ “ Ura-imiiti, 1 “ Sin-iqisam, 2 “ “ En-lil-bani, 7 “ “ Zamhiia,^ 2 “ ‘‘ 3 _ a > 3 _ J Sin-mdgir, - “ “ Ddmiq-ilisu, 6 “ “ These 27 tablets are not yet published. With other similar ones they will constitute Vol. IV of Series A of our expedition work, , the preparation of which will commence as soon as suffi- cient material is at our disposal. * Written ^I-te-ir-KA-shd with the sign KA, discussed by Ranke in B. E., Series D, Vol. Ill, p. 235, note 9. This sign must have had the ideographic value 'pi, “mouth, word,” as becomes evident from the fact that the name of the same king is once written in a date formula -)-sd (without tlie determinative of ihi). ’ ^ On a dated document of his reign (No. 10026) the name of this king appears as Za-an-bi-ia. ^ On a badly preserved tablet of this period (No. 3678) I found part of the name of an otherwise unknown king, “mu x + y (the reading of Enlil or Sin is excluded) - 02017-30 lugal.” In this name, doubtless to be read Semitic (^x + y-ellu), like the other n.ames of the rulers of the first dynasty of Isin, I am inclined to recognize the thirteenth or fourteenth member of this djmasty (both broken away) in the chronological list published by me in B. 77., .Scries A. Vol. XX, Part 1, No. 47 (cf. pi. XV and 461. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 39 The conclusion reached with regard to the age of our Deluge fragment is further confirmed by the use of the sign for the syllable “wa” in li. 4 {wa-si-e). This value “wa” is entirely imknovm on the thousands of cuneiform tablets from the Cassite period excavated in Nippur, where the sign always has its ordinary value wdth the exception of two tablets on which it is to be read “we,” resp. “wi,” as Radau has shown.^ On the other hand, we know from numerous Nippur texts and other Babylonian inscriptions that the sign in question commonly has the value “wa” during the first dynasty of Babylon, and also during the reign of the dynasties of Isin and Larsa, which in part were contemporaneous with the former. Besides, we observe the fact that the verbal form wa-si-e (he., the infinitive wase from NV1), wnitten wdth the sign PI = “wa” in the first syllable, shows a characteristic grammatical peculiarity of the early Babylonian period, according to which the half-vow^el “w” as a rule is pre- served at the beginning of verba primce “ w,” while it has become “ ’ ” in the later development of the language.^ The treatment of the sibilant in hinuzza (li. 7) = btnussa points to the same age. The Theee Deluge Versions in Cuneiform Writing Previously Known. The cuneiform text of the fragment rmder discussion contains a portion of the divine command to the Babylonian Noah, Dt- ‘ For the present compare the three volumes of together 467 tablets from the Cassite archives published by Clay (5. E., Series A, Vols. XIV, especially “List of Signs,” No. 218, and XV) and Radau {ibidem, Vol. XVII). ^ Cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. XVII, p. 151, under amelu, written a-mi-lu, a-me-lu and a-PI { = wi or we)-lu. ® Cf. Delitzsoh, “ Assyrische Grammatik,”^ §§ 24, 49 and 154; Ungnad, “ Babylonisch-Assyrische Grammatik,” §§ 6n and 48a; Meissner, “ Kurzgejasst* Assyrische Grammatik,” §§ 8c and 68i. 40 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE napishtim/ to construct a ship and to save life from the all- destroying flood. In order to fully understand the unique posi- tion of our fragment among similar texts previously published, we briefly examine the corresponding passages from the k n own fragments of the cuneiform Deluge Story. As the text publica- tions, translations, commentaries and numerous essays dealing with them are generally accessible, we confine ourselves to a state- ment of the following facts.^ Apart from the tradition of a great flood handed down by the Babylonian priest Berosus (living between 330 and 250 B.C.), but preserved to us only in extracts by other ancient vuiters,^ we have fragments of three distinct Deluge versions in cmieiform writing. 1. The version knovn from the lilrrary of King Ashurbanapal Meaning: "He saw {i.e., found, obtained) life.” Cf. Jensen, “Das Gil- gamesch Epos in der Weltliteratur,’’ p. 24, note 6, and the references given there . ^ For those of my readers who are less familiar with Assyriological pub- lications, I quote some of the principal works from the great mass of literature. Cf. Haupt, “Das Babylonische Nimrodepos,’’ Part 2, 1891, pp. 95ff. (containing the almost complete cuneiform text, with variants, of the Deluge Story as restored from the different fragments known in 1891); Jensen, “ Assyrisch-Babylonische Mythen und Epen” (in Schrader’s “ Keilinschrijlliche Bibliothek,” Vol. VI, Part 1 , pp. 229ff. and 480ff. (a complete transliteration and translation, including an excellent philological commentary, of all the Deluge fragments published till 1900); Zimmern in Schrader’s “Die Keilinschriflen und das Alte Testament’’ 3d edition, 1903, pp. 543£f. (a concise and very instructive discussion of the different Babylonian Deluge versions and their relation to the Biblical story). For good photographic reproductions of the principal Deluge fragments now in the British Museum see Kogers, "The Religion of Babylonia and i\ssyria,” figs. XVII-XX. As to the principal publications see also Weber, “Die Literatur der Babylonier und Assyrier,” pp. 71-99. Much valuable information likewise to be obtained from A. Jerernias, “Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alien Orients,’’ 2d edition, pp. 22G-252, and Dhorme, “ Choix de texles religieux Assyro- Babyloniennes,’’ pp. 100-125. ’ Cf. Zimmern, Z.c., pp. 543f. THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 41 (668-626 B.C.), which was restored from a number of fragments foimd in the ruins of Nineveh. This version is an Assyrian copy of a Babylonian original, constituting the eleventh tablet (among twelve) of the great epic poem and sacred book of the Babylonians describing the vanderings and adventures of the half-histo:ical' king Gilgamesh of Erech in search of eternal life. Driven by fear of death, ^ the famous national hero does not slirink back from the greatest perils and most extraordinary hardships in order to find tit-napishtim, the wise friend of the gods, who escaped from the flood and received immortality. He wanders through the desert and climbs over high mountains, wherever he comes asking the eager question, as old as the human race: How can I secure eternal life? But everywhere the answer given is the same: “The life which thou seekest thou wilt not find.”^ For “when the gods created man, they prepared death for man and retained life in their hands.”^ Yet Gilgamesh pushes on until he reaches the shore of the Mediterranean, where he finds the boatman^ of Ut-napishtim. With his aid he sails over the great sea, crossed only by the powerful Sungod, and after passing througli “the waters of death,” he finally reaches the Land of the Blessed, “at the mouth of the rivers” in the far west beyond the straits of Gibraltar, where Ut-napishtim resides with his wife, enjoying ' Cf. the text published by me in B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, No. 26. ^ Cf. e.g., Haupt, l.c., p. 59, li. 5: mu~ta ap-luh-ma a-rap-pu-ud sira, and Meissner, “Ein althabylonisches Fragment des Gilgamosepos” ( = “Mittei- lungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft,” 1902, Vol, 7, No. 1), cols. II, 12; mu-lam ia at-ta-na-ad-da-ru a-ia-a-mur ( = ai dmur, to avoid the hiatus). ^ Cf. Meissner, l.c., cols. I, 7; II, 2; ba-la-tam sa ta-sa-afi-hu-ru la tu-ut-ta. ^Ct. Meissner, l.c., col. Ill, 3-5: i-nu-ma ildni ib-nu-u a-wi{PI)-lu-tam mu-lam is-ku-nu a-na a-wi{P I)-lu-lim ba-la-tam i-na ga-ti-Iu-nu is-sa-ab-tu. ‘For his name cf. p. 47, note 3. The very name of this boatman, which is Sumerian, demands a Sumerian original for the Akkadian versions thus far only known to us. 42 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE eternal life and happiness like the gods. Hastening toward his ancestor, Gilgamesh asks the all-important question : “ How didst thou gain admission to the assembly of the gods and obtain life?” Whereupon Ut-napishtim relates to him the story of the great flood and his own salvation, and how he was subse- To save his protege, tlie god Ea commimicated the decision of the gods to destroy all mankind by a great flood to the reed-house, behind the walls of which the Babylonian Noah was sleeping. The words translated above are, therefore, to be underetood as spoken to the latter in a dream (Zinnnern and Jensen). Cf. also p. 4.3, aljove, note G. 46 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE 23: “Man from Shurippak/ son of Ubar-Tutu.^ 24: “Construct a house,® build a ship! 25: “Part with riches, seek the life, 26: “Abandon property and save the life! 27 : “Bring living creatures of all kind into the ship! 28: “The ship which thou shalt build- 29 : “ Its measures be in proportion, 30 : “ Its width and length shall correspond, 31: “Like the abyssos roof it ovcr!”‘ ’ One of the most ancient cities in Southern Babylonia, on a former branch course of the Euphrates, represented by the ruins of Eara, which were partly excavated by the German Orient Society in 1902-03. The principal results were cuneiform tablets, seal cylinders and vases of the earliest type, besides many tombs. ^ Preserved as Otiartes, or rather Opartes, by Berosus and evidently identical with Upar-Tutu, through partial progressive assimilation of the 6 to the t, arisen from Ubar-Tutu. ’The other translation, “tear down the house,” generally offered by Assyri- ologists as an alternative and preferred by Dhorme {Choix de textes religieux As^yro-Babyloniens, p. 103) to the one given above, is well possible grammati- cally. Yet I regard it as impossible in the above connection, not so much because in this case we would expect “thy house” (Jensen, K. B„ Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 231, note 10), for “thy” is not written either in connection with “riches” (li. 25) and “property” (li. 26), but simply because the tearing down of a Babylonian reed hut of little or no value, which moreover, the destructive flood would have done most effectively' afterwards, w'ould seem to be a most unnecessary work, in view of the much more important and pressing task of building a boat to escape the imminent general calamity, and also in view of the fact that Ut-napishtim is not told to destroy his “riches” and his other “property” either, but only to leave them in order to save his life. If anj'- thing different, we could expect only “leave the house” (cf. Hauptin A.A.T’, pp. 67f .) , in parallelism with the first halves of the two following lines . “Construct a house, build a ship,” means, as Jensen recognized correctly, “build a vessel which is a house and a boat at the same time,” in other words, a house-boat or an ark, which is protected on all sides against the w'ater from below and above. In line 96 of the first Nineveh version the ship, therefore, is also THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 47 Second Nineveh Version (c. 650 B.C.) li 1 " shall be 2. ... “like the vaults of hcav[en and earth] 3. ... “shall be strong above and be[low], 4. . . close and 5. “ [I have fixed]^ a time which I will send thee. 6. “Then enter [into the ship] and close the door of the ship again. 7. “[Bring in]to it thy barlej", thy possession and [thy] property. 8. “Thy [wife(?)],® thy family, thy relatives, and the artisans! called ekallu, “a great house.” Compare Jensen, “Das Gilgamesch-Epos,” p. 41, note 1. * I regard the first character of this line preserved only in traces as “[fc]h” and not as “e,” as is generally done by Assyriologists. The reasons for this reading and my translation, “roof it over,” instead of the usual “cause it to be immersed” or “launch it,” are given below, p.' 55, note 14. * I supplement as-kun, in view of First Nineveh Version, li. 87. Cf. also li. 89. Possibly we have to read A-sa-kan, “1 shall fix.” ° I supplement ai-Sat as the most probable reading, in view of First Nineveh Version, li. 203. Possible, however, is also pi-fii-e, “boatman,” in view of 11s. 95-96 of the version quoted ; for this boatman plays a great role in the Gilgamesh epos. His name was PU-zu-ur-^KUR-GAL, also written Su-ur-Su-na-hu (Meissner, “ Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschajt," Vol, 7, No. 1, pp. 8-11, col. IV, 3f., 6, 12, 14) or Ur-Sanahi (= NIMIN, cf Meissner, l.c., p. 6). As evidently none of these three designations is an appellative used for the person understood by it, as Atrafiasis is used for tjt-napishtim, it is clear that they must represent the same name in three different writings. I, therefore, venture the following interpretation as a mere attempt to solve the difficulty. PU also having the value sir, the first mentioned name may be read Sirzur-’^KUR-GAL. But in view of the fact that in the lists of gods published by the British Museum and in other cuneiform inscriptions original glosses can be shown frequently to have crept into the text itself (cf. on this whole question Radau, “Hilprecht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 440f., note 3), and furthermore, that PU also has the value sir, I believe that zu-ur after PU in the name of PU(zu-ur)-'^KUR-GAL is 48 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE 9. “Domestic animals of the field (and) wild beasts of the field, as many as cat grass 10. “I shall send thee, and they shall guard [thy] door.”‘ 1 . 2 . 3. 4. 5. 6 . 7. The Nippur Version (c. 3100 B.C.) Transliteration of C.B.M. 13532, Reverse. (?)-sa{f)-si-il{?) ..-{?)-ka a-pa-aS- sar ka-la ni-H is-te-niS i-za-hat -ti la-am a-hu-bi wa-si- e , )-a-ni ma-la i-ba-as-su-H lu-kin ub-bu-ku lu-pu-ut-tu hu-ru-M . '^f'^elippu ra-be-tu ga-be- e gab-bi bi- ni- lu bi-nu-uz- 8 ii-i lu '^f^magurgurrum ba-bil- lu na-at- . -ri{?)zu- lu-la dan-na zu- id- te-ip- pu- ■ . . . -lam{f)'u-ma-am si-rim is-sur ku-um mi- ■ ■ ■ ■-{?) ' u ki[n]- ta u\ 9. 10. 11 . 12. 13. 14. ma za rat na-pis-tim lil su sd-me-e ni ru(f)- an original gloss, demanding the value zur (standing also for sur in Old Babylonian inscriptions), instead of sir, for PU. The name, therefore, should be written PU-'^KUR-GAL and read Z{S)u-ur-'^KUR-OAL, possibly meaning in Assyrian Ndmir-Ea or Nammir{vc.sp. Unammir or Munammir)-Ea, so that the first ele- ment appears either as zur, resp. sur, or ur, of which I take the latter form as an abbreviation, resp. mutilation, of the fuller first, or as an attempt on the part of some scribe to explain the unintelligible sur by the more common ur of personal proper names. The second element, sunahu or sanabi, is rendered ideographi- cally by , which is the number “40” used as an ideogram for “Ea.” But A Ea may_ also be rendered by • A copyist wrote Ea with this number “.50,” which was wrongly interpreted as “Enlil” by another copjdst, who now chose another ideogram for this god, namely, KUR-GAL. We accordingly would be justified in restoring the old ideographic writing “40”= “Ea” = sanabi, and in rendering the name by Z{S)ur-Sanabi, ' With Jensen {K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 521) to be understood in the sense “they shall not leave the door,” but “remain within tlie ship.” THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 49 Translation. 1 “tlieeS 2. . . . “ [the confines of heaven and earthp I will loosen, 3. . . . “ [a deluge I will make, and^] it shall sweep away^ all men together ; 4. . . .“[but thou seek l]ife^ before the deluge cometh forth;® 5. . . . “ [For over all living beings^], as many as there are, I will bring overthrow, destruction, annihilation.® 6 “ Build a great ship® and 7 “total hcighB® shall be its structure. “ S “it shall be a house-boat^® carrying what has been saved of life.^® 9 “with a strong deck cover (it).‘^ 10. ... “ [The ship]'® which thou shalt make, 11. . . .“[into it br]'®ing the beasts of the field, the birds of heaven,'® 12. . . .“[and the creeping things, two of everything'®] instead of a number,'® 13 “and the family®®. . . . 14 “and” .Notes on the Nippur Version. 1. The words enclosed in brackets, [], in the following lines are not found in the cuneiform text, but have been supplemented by the writer according to the context. 2. [Usurdt mme u irsitim]. Cf. Dclitzsch, “ Assyrisches Hand- worterhuch,” pp. 122 and 549. Possible also [Kippdt samd u irsitim] (cf. Second Nineveh Version, li. 2, and Jensen in K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 520). Compare Genesis 7 : 11, “all the foun- tains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened” (P.). As the version under discussion came from Nippur, the principal seat of Enlil, who, according to the first Nineveh Version, made the great flood; and as, moreover, “the 4 50 .FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE confiiT.es of heaven and earth’' designate the two “firmaments” (Gen. 1, 6-10, “heaven” and “earth”), which keep back the waters of the upper and of the lower ocean, in other words mark the two bomidary lines of Enlil’s empire {i.e., the world, cf. Hil- precht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, p. 463, and the literature quoted there), Enlil himself seems to be the speaker in the Nippur ^^ersion, unless Ea be regarded as quoting Enlil’s words literally, which seems most improbable to me. In the latter case we would sup- plement su-na-ta-ka (according to “ Gilgamesh Epos,” tablet VI, li. 210 (cf. K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 178), “thy dream I shall loosen,” i.e., “interpret.” 3. I supplement [a-bu-ba a-sa-ka-an-ma], in view of First Nineveh Version, 169 and 183. Cf. also li. 4 of the Nippur Version (“before the deluge commences”), w'hich presupposes a previous mentioning of the flood. Compare the Biblical “And behold I bring the deluge upon the earth” (Genesis 6, 17, P.). 4. Either = fsa6a(, “it shall take” or “carry away,” or, as I prefer (cf. e.g., izqup wad isqup) = isabat, “it shall sweep away”; for sab&tu — sabdtu (Zimmern, K. A. T.®, p. 556), “to beat, to strike, to overthrow, to sweep away,” is the Babylonian technical term used in connection with the Deluge (cf. Jensen, K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 533). A similar expression is used in Genesis 6, 7, “I will sweep away man from the face of the earth” (J.), while Genesis 6, 17 has “to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life” (P.). 5. I supplement [u at-ta-via se-’-i (or bul-lit) na-piS]-ti, in accordance with First Nineveh Version, 25f. . 6. “Before the deluge cometh forth” or “commenceth.” Cf . p. 39, above, and the expression la-am '^Samas a-si-e, “ before sunrise” (Delitzsch, i.e., p. 378). . 7. Supplemented according to the context. The word pre- ceding mala ended in a-ni, ia-ni, hal-a-ni or mes{\A\iv.)-a-ni, possibly THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORJ 51 also ill e-ni. The general words for “living creature'' are HMn napisti (Creation Story, K. B., Yol. VI, Part 1, p. 40, li. 22; p. 42, lis. 3 and 5), (/imir nabniti {ibidem^ p. 42, 7) zer nnpMti (First Nineveh lYrsion, lis. 27 and 84) or napiUi {ibidem, li. 174); but none of these expressions fits the traces on the fragment. Have we to read dlani^Ha-ni) , “ over all the cities ” ? Cf. Reverse, lis. 2 and 3. 8. The three synonyms expressing the idea of utter destruc- tion, though derived from well-known roots, occur only here, as far as I see. There cannot be any doubt, however, as to their meaning. Ubbuku, a pa‘ el formation (inf. subst.) of abdku, identi- cal with Hebrew “]i3n (the p being due to partial progressive assimilation to the following k), “to overturn, to overthrow,” means “the overthrow.” Cf. Assyr. “overthrow,” abiktu, “defeat,” and Hebrew and used of the “over- throw” of Sodorn and Gomorrah. — Luputtu, feminine of the noun formation fu‘l, fern. fu‘ultu, also meaning “overthrow, destruction,” from lapdtu, “to overthrow, destroy.” Cf. Jfl(t()/- putlu, “destruction.” — Qu-m-su, probably to be interpreted as Jiurruiu, like ubbuku, an infinitive Hi, used as substantive, with the meaning, “the crushing, annihilation,”’ from harasu, “to grind, to crush,” on which cf. Delitzsch, “ Assyrisches Hand- worterbuch,” p. 293. 9. The different expressions for the vessel carrying the remainder of life (cf. p. 46, note 3, above), which occur in the Babylonian versions of the Deluge, are elippu, “ship,” bitu, “house,” ekaUu, “large house,” to which add from the Nippur Version elippu rabitu, “large ship,” and magurru, “house-boat” (for which see note 12, b('low). 10. This line contained a brief statement concerning the nreasuies of the ark, as can be inferred with certainty from the first word preserved in it, \iz., gabe, which cannot be separated from the root il5J, “to be high.” As indicated by the appe- 52 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE sition gahhi, “totality, all,” gabe is the genitive of a substantive gabu, “height” (abstract, subst. inf. = gabahu). Cf. gab’ani (form Ja‘l), “the heights” (concrete = “the high peaks” of a mountain range). 11. bi-nu-uz-za, Old Babylonian writing for Neo-Babylonian hi-nu-us-sa (cf. Ungnad, “ Babylonisch-Assyrische Grammatik,” '§§ 6, 1, and 25, i.) = binutsa = btnidi-sa. Cf. pu-zu = pHtsu ('Schorr, AUbabylonische Rechtsurkunden, Heft 1, p. 11). 12. In the first half of li. 8 the description of the boat was continued. In the preserved second half it is styled a GUR-GUR, ideogram also occurring hr the vocabulary K. 4378, a, col. V, 15, where its Assyrian equivalent is given as md- gur-gur-rum (a Sunreiian loanword). This designation for a cer- tain kirrd of ship is doubtless corrrrected with the other Sumerian word md-gur (written ^^^MA-TU), whence the Assyrian makurru (“Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., hr the British Museum,” Vol. XII, pi. 11, li. 26), on which cf. Jensen in K. B., Vol. Ill, Part 1, p. 52, Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 533; Kiichler, “ Beitrdge zur Keimtnis der Assyrisch-Babylonischen Aledizin,” pp. 69f.; Perry, “ Hymnen und Gebete an Sin,” p. 18; Langdon hr Z. A., Vol. XX, pp. 450ff. The word occurs also hr the date formula for the 8th year of King Gimil-Sin of Ur (cf. Radau, “Early Babylonian History,” p. 277; Myhrman, B. E., Series A, Vol. Ill, Part 1, p. 25, arrd Thureau-Dangin, “Die Sumerischen und Akkad- ischen Kmiigsinschriften,” pp. 234 and 260). While makurru is fern, generis (Jerrsen, l.c., p. 533), magurgurrum is treated as a masculine hr the Nippur Versiorr, for it is followed by bdbilu. It is difiicult to say, what the characteristic features of a magur or magurgur boat were, by which it was distinguished frortr other ships. Jerrserr explaiirs ^^MA-TU as a “deluge boat,” seeing in it “a boat driven by the wind,” “a sailing vessel,” and adding, that wlaar seen Irorn the side it probably resembled the THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 53 crescent of the moon, since the Moongod, according to Maqlu III, 128, ordered such a boat to be made. We may .add that, according to C. T., XV, pi. 17 (= Perry, l.c., pp. 16f.), the Moongod himself is represented as “sailing in a bright magur boat through the midst of heaven,” and in lis. 1 and 11 he is even identified Avith it. Moreover, the representations of the sea-going vessels of the Tyrians and Sidonians on Shalmaneser's bronze gates of Balarvat (cf. Billerbeck and Delitzsch in “ Beitrage zur Assyri- ologie,” Vol. ^T, Part 1, pi. II, Schiene C, I) show that a certain class of beats really had such a shape. But doubtless other boats, Avhich were no magur boats, were sailing vessels too. Besides, Ave obserA'C that the pictures of the Tyrian boats referred to have no sails, that the crescent of the moon has nothing in common AA'ith a boat in full sail, that nowhere in the complete First Deluge story of Nineveh a sail is mentioned, nor Avould it have been of much use in such a hruricane as described there in lines 97-130, and considering that the whole earth aa’us ultimately coA’ered with water. We also can infer from present conditions that the Baby- lonian canals, serAung as means of comrrrunication fra' the magur boats of the gods betAveen their various temples at certain festival days, as a rule, AA’ere narroAv and did not aatII alloAA’ of the display of sails. To judge from the methods employed in Babylonia to-day, these boats must haA-e been diiA^en by the current of the water or by means of punting poles, or they AA'ere toAA'ed by men Avalking alongside the canal. Hence it would seem to follow with great probability that a magur boat Avas AA'ritten ideographically literally “a deluge boat,” not becau.se it Avas a sailing boat driven by the wind or rather hurricane (abtibu, xubtu), but because it possessed certain qualities AAdrich rendererl its use espe- cially effective during the deluge, A\dien its exclusiA-e purpose Avas to carry the rcmaiirdt'r of life and to protect men and beasts against the Avaters frorrr below and the pouring rain from aboA'c. What M . FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE are these qualities? Of course a solid lower part, strong enough to cari'v a heav}' freight and to resist the force of the waves and the storm. But other freight boats had to be correspondingly strong. .This solidity of the lower part of the boat cannot, therefore, have been the principal distinguishing feature of a magvr beat. In all the three versions of the Deluge Story Utnapishtiin receives special instruction concerrriirg the constructiorr of the roof or deck of the boat. “Cover it with a strong deck” {snlula danna ,AuUiI, Nippur I’ersion, li. 9); “cover it like the subterranean waters ” {ktma apst MH sidlilH) i.e., with a deck as strong as the earth or the lower firnrament, which holds the sweet subterrar.earr waters iajuu) in their jrlace, thus preventirrg them frorrr mingling with the sweet upper waters (also called apsu), held back by the heaverr (First Nineveh ATrsion, li. 31); or “let [its deck] be strong like the vault of the heaverr above” {[suhdm] kima kippati Same lu dan eliS, Secoird Nineveh ATrsion, lis. 2f.). Furthernrore in the First Nineveh ATrsion the boat is called “a hou.se” (bitu, li. 24) or ''a great house” {ekallu, li. 96), which has a door to be shut during the storm flood (li. 89: pihi hdbka, “close thy door”; li. 94: aptehi bdbi, “I shut my door;” cf. Second Nineveh Version, li. 4 arrd especially lis. 6 and 10) arrd at least one “air-hole” or “window”' (nappaSu, li. 136). In a similar way in the hymn to the Moongod, published in C. T., Vol. NY, pi. 17, Sin’s magur boat is called “a bright house” (eS azag), in which at times he dwells, as otlrer Balrylonian gods, like Bau, Enlil, Ninlil, etc., do in their boats, when visiting each other in their temples dur ing certain festivals. According to Maqlu III, 130ff., the nragic viagiir boat pre[)ated by Sin is also inhabited (aSbii) by the sorcerer and the witch. A magtir Iroat then is a “hou.se boat,” in which gods, men and bea.sts can live comfortably, fully irrotected against the waves washing over board, the drenching rain from above and against THE EARLIEST VERSIOX OF THE DELUGE STORY 55 other inclemencies of rvind and weather. Ihis class of beats, according to the Xippur version, being in use before the Deluge, the original ideogiain must be '^■'^MA-GLR or ^^^Mx\-GLR-GLj R (not ^^^MA-TU ( - gur)). As GUR, resp. GUR-GUR (Briinnow, '‘A Classified List,” No. 5367) means tetru resp. iurru, which is employed as a regular term for “closing a door” (cf. Delitzsch, “ Assyrisches Handu'orterhuch ” p. 702; in this sense also occurring in the Second Nineveh ^’ersion, li. 6: Mh elippi terma), magur, resp. makurru or magur gurrum, seems to express about the sairre idea as developed above from the use of the word in the different cuneiform passages cited, arrd to designate “a boat which can be closed by a door,” i.e., practically a “ house-boat,” expressed hr the Hebrew story by an Egyptian loanword, HllJn, “ark” originally meaning “box, chest, coffin,” an essential part of which is its “cover” or “lid.” The vessel built by Ut-napishtim being such a “house boat” or magur, this word could subsequently also be rendered ideographlcally by '^■'^MA-TU, “a deluge beat,” which likewise was pronovrnced md-giir. We notice that in the Biblical as in the Babylonian Version great stress is laid on the preparation of a proper “roof “ or “cover” for the ark. Cf. note 14, below. 13. natrat napiUini, “what has been saved of life,” ncitrat, inf. fern. IVi (used as a srrbstantive with abstract meaning), foi‘ netrat or netrit = na‘ hirat, from eteru, “to protect, to save.” Cf. atru for etru, “protection, help,” from the same verb (Hilprecht, “ Assyriaca,” pp. 5f., note 3), and abartu alongside ebirtu, “the oppo- site bank of a river.” 14. zulula danna zullil = sulCda danna sullil, “cover (the boat) with a strong deck.” Our passage proves conclusively that the general translatioir and interpretation of First Nineveh I’ersion, li. 31 : “ in the ocean launch it,” literally “ cause it to be immersed,” is wrong, and that saldlu and sululu are to be understood of the roofing of the ship, i.e., are the same technical terms as are used 56 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE in the building operations of Sargon, Nebuchadrezzar II, etc. This being the case, it goes without saying that the first sign in li. 31 of the First Nineveh Version cannot be e (e-ma, “in”), but must have been ki {ki-ma, “like”). For the interpretation of the entire phrase cf. note 12, above. Compare the parallel Biblical passage. Genesis 6 : 16; “a roof (“ini', wrongly translated by “window” in the English and German Versions) shalt thou make to the ark” (P.). See also Genesis 8 : 13: “and Noah removed the covering of the ark” (J.^). 15. I supplement elippu m, as immediate^ preceding teppusu (relative clause) in accordance with First Nineveh Version, li. 28: elippu sa tabannuH atta. But in all probability there stood con- siderably more in this line. 16. If the first partly preserved character of this line is lam, the most natural restoration of the preceding words would be \ana libbisa Sii-]lam, as given above. Cf. First Nineveh Versioir, lis. 27, 85, 94. 17. “The birds of heaven” (an expression like Gen. 1 ; 26, etc.), while doubtless presupposed in all the cuneiform versions (cf. First Nineveh Version, li. 27, 84, zernapmtikaldma, and the sending out by Ut-napishtim of a dove (li. 147), a swallow (150) and a raven (153)), are expressly mentioned only in the Nippur Version of the Deluge. Compare the Biblical “from the birds after their kind ” (P., Gen. 6 ; 20, and note 18, below). In the Biblical Version, how- ever, the order of the animals mentioned is reversed: “From the birds after their and from the beasts after their kind” (Gen. 6:20). (Cf. p. 57, note 19.) 18. As stated, p. 36, above, more than half (probably two- thirds) of the text preserved in the longest lines (lis. 7 and 8) is broken away. It is, therefore, certain that the missing part of li. 12 must have contained more than the words ii-iu ka-la-ma H-na, “from everything two,” or something similar required by THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 57 v.'hat follows. Moreover the two expressions in li. 11, “the beasts of the field, the birds of heaven,” standing asyndetically together, as the parallel groups in li. 86 of the First Nineveh Version, point to an original third class of enumerated beings found in the version just mentioned, and likewise in the Old Testament text. The First Nineveh Version adds “ (and) sons of artisans,” i.e., “artisans,” while the Biblical, which in all essential details stands much closer to our Nippur Version, offers “ (and) things creeping on the ground.” I followed the Biblical Version in restoring the text, as my trans- lation above indicates, for it agrees most remarkably Avith the Nippur Version even in the closing phrase, “ku-inn 7ni-ni.” That the broken part of our text cannot have had anything like Genesis 7 : 2 ( J.), where Noah is told to take seven specimens each of all clean animals and two each of all unclean animals, becomes evident from the fact that mini, Hebrew is one of the most charac- teristic words of the Priestly Code ( = P., to which Gen. 6 : 20 belongs), while it is never used by J.; and furthermore, that the Nippur Version in all points of agreement (except in the use of zabatu = sabdtu, “to sweep away,” cf. p. 50, rrote 4, above) coitreides with the former. 19. Minu, from mmiu, “to count, number,” in Babylonian and Assyrian, without exception, means “number,” ncA’er “species,” as the word is generally translated by HebreAv lexicographers and Old Testament students. As long as the Babjdonian word had not been found in the cuneiform version of the Deluge in pre- cisely the same connection in which it occurs in the Biblical Ver- sion, doubts were justified as to its etymology in Hebrew, which Wellhausen rightly pronounced a riddle. Through the discovery of the Nippur fragment the situation has changed completely. What Delitzsch proposed cautiously in 1883 (“The Hebrew Lan- guage viewed in the Light of Assyrian Research,” pp, 70f., cf. also his “Prolegomena eines neiien Ilebrdisch-Aramaischen Worterbuchs 58 FRAG.VEXTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE zum Alien TeAament,” pp. 142ff.) allows of no fmtlier doubt : The Hebrew is a loanword from the Babylonian and means simply “number,” a “ meaning which fits admirably wherever the word occurs ’ in the Old Testament. In the Nippur V ersion nothing is wanting after mini. Ut-napishtim is told that he shall take from all living things only two or a pair “instead of a number,'’ i.e., “instead of many," while the Hebrew Version uses the prepo- sition '7, adding the suffix, lesp. i.e., “two for its number,” or “the number thereof,” used in the sense of “two as a substitute or representative for a number,” or in a free translation, “two from their number,” an expression practically identical with the Babylonian “two instead of a number.” For the use of the Hebrew ‘p in this conr.eetion cf. such passages as Num. 1 :4 (“a man for every tribe”), 31 :4 (“1000 for (of) every tribe”); Dcut. 1, 23 (“and I took 12 men from you, one (as a representative) for (= from) every tribe,” cf. also Josh. 3 : 12); Josh. 18 : 4 (“give” or “select” for jmur interest 3 men for (= from) every tribe), cf. glso Judges 20 ; 10 (“10 men for 100; 100 for 1000; 1000 for 10,000”). 20. There is very little left of lis. 13 or 14. Observe the connecting u, “and,” continuing the specifications of the two previous lines. Kin-ta seems to be certain, as far as the preserved wedges indicate, I take it, for kimta, “famil}^,” namely, of Ut- napishtim, also referred to in the two Nineveh versions (First Version, li. 85; Second Version, li. 8). Result, s. An examination of the cuneiform text of the Nippur fragment and a comiraiison of this new version of the Babylonian Deluge story with the parallel jrassages of the two Nineveh versions and the Biblical story have brought out the significant fact that, with all due allowance for a graieial resemblance between the three cune- iform versions, the Nippur version of the divirre arirrouncrnnent of a great flood arrd the cortrmarid to brrild the ark differs furrdarrren- THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 59 tally from the two Nineveh versions, and agrees most lemaikably with the Biblical story in very essential details both as to contents and language. Moreover, we observe in particular that this agree- ment, doubtless existing between the Nippur and Biblical versions, affects that part of the Pentateuch (Gen. 6 : 13-20, 7:11) which Old Testamtmt critics style P. ( = Priestly Code) arid generally re- gard as having been “compiled in Babylonia about 5C0 B.C.” I rmrst leave a full discussion of all the problems connected with the treatment of this new witness from the plain of Shinar in behalf of the Old Testament text to theological students, sub- rrritting to irry readers only the following brief remarks for their consideration from an Assyr iological standpoirrt. The Nippur fragment, as shown, p. 37, above, was inscribed during the latter part of the reign of the first dynasty of Isin, i.e., about 2100 B.C., surely before 2CC0 B.C., even according to my reduced chronology, which places certain earlier rulers about 300 3 ' ears lower than previously done by Assjuiologists and historians. The new version, therefore, was written at a time when the sanc- tuary of Enlil at Nipprrr was supreme arnorig the Babylon iarr terrrples and a leader hr all literary pirrsuits,^ according to the consensus of all Assj-riolcgi.sts. 'With the subsequent defeat of Rim-Sin of Larsa by Hammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis 14, conditions changed rapidhn The various pett\' Babjdoniarr states constituting geographically the ancient kingdom of Shurn.er and Akkad were now also united politically by this powerful r uler,^ * Cl', on this wliole question Langdon in “Bahytoniaca,” Vol. II, Fasciculus 4, pp. 27.5-281, and Radau in "Hilprccht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 410-413, 434ff., and Fasciculus 2 of the present volume (in press). ^ Cf. also the explicit statement recently found on a dated Xippur tablet referring to the 31st year of Hammurabi’s government: “in tlie year ■rvlien King Hannnurabi by the help of Enlil had established his cemmand over the land of Emutbal, Sliumer and Akkad ” (the latter two countries ( = Balrylonia) standing for the usual “and Uiin-Sin ” of the date formula for this year). Cf. p. 3, note 2, above. 60 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE with whom a new chapter begins in Babylonian history. Babylon on the Euphrates became the metropolis of the united empire, both politically and religiously, and its principal god, Marduk or Merodach, soon assumed the place and attributes of Enlil of Nippur. After Amnii-ditana, the third ruler after gam- inurabi, Nippur disappears gradually from history. We hear almost nothing from or about Nippur for several centuries, until with the rise of the Cassite dynasty in Babylonia, evidently for political reasons, about 1400 B.C., the sanctuary of Nippur arises again from its ruins and ashes and holds a conspicuous place once more among the temples of the country for several hundred years. But compared with the glorious position occupied by Nippur and Errlil during the earlier or Sumerian period, the new revival of this ancient cult is like the last flickering of a fast dying flame. A comparison of the varied contents of the Temple Library of Nippur during the third, second and first pre-Christian mil- lenniums have revealed to me the plain but not unexpected facts that the library was a most msignificant institution after 1000 B.C., and that the great literary activity, to which it owed its former size and renown, lies before 2000 B.C., as our future publications, partly already in press, will speedily show. The priests of the Cassite and Neo-Babylonian periods produced few, if any, or iginal literary compositions of value at Nippur, more delighting in the statement at the end of their tablets that the text was “a faithful copy of an old Nippur original.” The editing and translating of the Sumerian literature, though traceable in its first beginnings also at Nippur towards the end of the third millennium, as shown by our Deluge fragrnerrt, on the whole, was the work of later schools. A’ith the neglect of the sanctuary and worship of Enlil, the literary activity of the priests e.stablishcd itself at other centres, like Babylon and Sippar, where, encouraged and inspired by congenial surrorrndings and an ujdifting religious atmosphere, they directed the ancic'ut saert'd traditions into new chamuds and adapted the THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 61 different branches of literature to the new cults of the gods and the new requirements of the population. Unless we assume that in the earliest period of Babylonian history there existed already different versions of the Deluge Story in the plains of Shinar — a theory which for various reasons I must decline — it is evident that the Nippur fragnrent, by 1500 years earlier than the two Nineveh versions, represents the oldest versioir of the Babylonian Deluge Story in a Semitic translation, which was made from a doubtless much older Sumerian or iginaff acciden- tally not yet discovered, and that the later cuneiform versions are different editions of the same story with considerable changes, abbreviations and additions. At any rate it is inconceivable to an objective historian that the Biblical Deluge Story of the so-called “ Priestly Code, " agreeing with the oldest Babylonian Version, which is characteristic of Nippur, in so many important details, should have been received into the Old Testament at a time when Nippur’s glory was long passed and its Temple Library practically in ruins, while other versions had sprung up superseding the Deluge Story connected with the cult of Enlil, as Babylon had superseded Nippur. This fact is so plainly depicted in the history of the city as repre- sented by its ruins, that I would regard it as a waste of time to lose any more words about it. The Deluge Story of the so-called “Priestly Code” must form ])art of the oldest traditions of Israel, as KitteP and other Old Testa- ment scholars have pointed out. Even the Amarna period (about 1400 B.C.), with its unsettled conditions in Palestine, when the influence of Babylonia upon the shaping of the government and the religious conceptions of Palestine was almost like nil, cannot explain its presence in the Old Testament. The use of the Baby- lonian writing and language in Syria and in large sections of Western ’ Of. p. 41, note 5, above; also H.aupt, “Der KeUinschrifiHche Sintfhitbericht,” p. 30, note 31. . , - ^ Die Wisftcmchajt roin A.T. in ihren wichligsten Ergebnissen, pp. 14f. 62 FKAGMEXTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE Asia ill the chn^s of Anienophis III and 1\' had come down from a much carli('r period, as is proved by the Kappadokian talilets of the tliird millennium^ and by the sciipt employed in the Amarna letters. Suffice it to call attention to the fact that the writing of the latter resembles much more the cuneiform characters of the first dynasties of Babylon and Isin than that of the Cassite period; that, in accordance with the usage of that earlier period referred to, the sign PI is rarely pronounced j)i (its common value in the Cassite archives of Nippur), while it regularly has the value rra, ivi, wu, exactly as in the time of JIamniurabi; that the sign TUM occasionally has the Sumerian value ip, never- found in the Cassite period, and that (to omit other similarities) the dentals and sibilants of the Amarna tablets are treated in the same loose manner as they appear in the inscriptions of the dynas- ties of Babylon and Lsin.^ There remains no othc'r period to be considered when the oldest version of the Dehrge Story could possibly have errtere'd Canaan than the tirrre when Abraham, whom I regard as a truly historical person,^ k>ft his home on the Euphrates and moved westward,^ in other words the period of the first dynasties of Isin and Babyloir, of which Harrrrnurabi or Amraphel is the central figure. This is the time when the Amorites knocked at the gati's of Babylonia, invaded the country and soon overthrew the old order of things, at the same time getting tlKunselves intimately acrpiaintc'd with Babylonian literature' and civilization, which ‘ Ci. Hilpreclit, At