LEGENDS OF BABYLON AND EGYPTPart 3 out of 4seems to me more probable that the words are uttered by Anu and Enlil themselves.[1] For thereby they would be represented as giving their own sanction to the formula, and as guaranteeing its magical efficacy. That the incantation, as addressed to Anu and Enlil, would be appropriate is obvious, since each would be magically approached through his own sphere of control. [1] One of them may have been the speaker on behalf of both. It is significant that at another critical point of the story we have already met with a reference to conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and Earth", the phrase occurring at the close of the Third Column after the reference to the dream or dreams. There, as we saw, we might possibly explain the passage as illustrating one aspect of Ziusudu's piety: he may have been represented as continually practising this class of divination, and in that case it would be natural enough that in the final crisis of the story he should have propitiated the gods he conjured by the same means. Or, as a more probable alternative, it was suggested that we might connect the line with Enki's warning, and assume that Ziusudu interpreted the dream-revelation of Anu and Enlil's purpose by means of the magical incantation which was peculiarly associated with them. On either alternative the phrase fits into the story itself, and there is no need to suppose that the narrative is interrupted, either in the Third or in the Sixth Column, by an address to the hearers of the myth, urging them to make the invocation on their own behalf. On the other hand, it seems improbable that the lines in question formed part of the original myth; they may have been inserted to weld the myth more closely to the magic. Both incantation and epic may have originally existed independently, and, if so, their combination would have been suggested by their contents. For while the former is addressed to Anu and Enlil, in the latter these same gods play the dominant parts: they are the two chief creators, it is they who send the Flood, and it is their anger that must be appeased. If once combined, the further step of making the incantation the actual means by which Ziusudu achieved his own rescue and immortality would be a natural development. It may be added that the words would have been an equally appropriate addition if the incantation had not existed independently, but had been suggested by, and developed from, the myth. In the third and eleventh lines of the column we have further references to the mysterious object, the creation of which appears to have been recorded in the First Column of the text between man's creation and that of animals. The second sign of the group composing its name was not recognized by Dr. Poebel, but it is quite clearly written in two of the passages, and has been correctly identified by Professor Barton.[1] The Sumerian word is, in fact, to be read /nig- gil-ma/,[2] which, when preceded by the determinative for "pot", "jar", or "bowl", is given in a later syllabary as the equivalent of the Semitic word /mashkhalu/. Evidence that the word /mashkhalu/ was actually employed to denote a jar or vessel of some sort is furnished by one of the Tel el-Amarna letters which refers to "one silver /mashkhalu/" and "one (or two) stone /mashkhalu/".[3] In our text the determinative is absent, and it is possible that the word is used in another sense. Professor Barton, in both passages in the Sixth Column, gives it the meaning "curse"; he interprets the lines as referring to the removal of a curse from the earth after the Flood, and he compares Gen. viii. 21, where Yahweh declares he will not again "curse the ground for man's sake". But this translation ignores the occurrence of the word in the First Column, where the creation of the /niggilma/ is apparently recorded; and his rendering "the seed that was cursed" in l. 11 is not supported by the photographic reproduction of the text, which suggests that the first sign in the line is not that for "seed", but is the sign for "name", as correctly read by Dr. Poebel. In that passage the /niggilma/ appears to be given by Ziusudu the name "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind", which we have already compared to the title bestowed on Uta-napishtim's ship, "Preserver of Life". Like the ship, it must have played an important part in man's preservation, which would account not only for the honorific title but for the special record of its creation. [1] See /American Journal of Semitic Languages/, Vol. XXXI, April 1915, p. 226. [2] It is written /nig-gil/ in the First Column. [3] See Winckler, /El-Amarna/, pl. 35 f., No. 28, Obv., Col. II, l. 45, Rev., Col. I, l. 63, and Knudtzon, /El-Am. Taf./, pp. 112, 122; the vessels were presents from Amenophis IV to Burnaburiash. It we may connect the word with the magical colouring of the myth, we might perhaps retain its known meaning, "jar" or "bowl", and regard it as employed in the magical ceremony which must have formed part of the invocation "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth". But the accompanying references to the ground, to its production from the ground, and to its springing up, if the phrases may be so rendered, suggest rather some kind of plant;[1] and this, from its employment in magical rites, may also have given its name to a bowl or vessel which held it. A very similar plant was that found and lost by Gilgamesh, after his sojourn with Ut-napishtim; it too had potent magical power and bore a title descriptive of its peculiar virtue of transforming old age to youth. Should this suggestion prove to be correct, the three passages mentioning the /niggilma/ must be classed with those in which the invocation is referred to, as ensuring the sanction of the myth to further elements in the magic. In accordance with this view, the fifth line in the Sixth Column is probably to be included in the divine speech, where a reference to the object employed in the ritual would not be out of place. But it is to be hoped that light will be thrown on this puzzling word by further study, and perhaps by new fragments of the text; meanwhile it would be hazardous to suggest a more definite rendering. [1] The references to "the ground", or "the earth", also tend to connect it peculiarly with Enlil. Enlil's close association with the earth, which is, of course, independently attested, is explicitly referred to in the Babylonian Version (cf. Gilg. Epic. XI, ll. 39-42). Suggested reflections of this idea have long been traced in the Hebrew Versions; cf. Gen. viii. 21 (J), where Yahweh says he will not again curse the ground, and Gen. ix. 13 (P), where Elohim speaks of his covenant "between me and the earth". With the sixth line of the column it is clear that the original narrative of the myth is resumed.[1] Ziusudu, the king, prostrates himself before Anu and Enlil, who bestow immortality upon him and cause him to dwell in a land, or mountain, the name of which may perhaps be read as Dilmun. The close parallelism between this portion of the text and the end of the myth in the Gilgamesh Epic will be seen from the following extracts,[2] the magical portions being omitted from the Sumerian Version: [1] It will also be noted that with this line the text again falls naturally into couplets. [2] Col. VI, ll. 6-9 and 12 are there compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 198-205. SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION Then Enlil went up into the ship; Ziusudu, the king, He took me by the hand and led me forth. Before Anu and Enlil bows himself He brought out my wife and down. caused her to bow down at my side; He touched our brows, standing between us and blessing us: Life like (that of) a god he "Formerly was Ut-napishtim of gives to him. mankind, An eternal soul like (that of) a But now let Ut-napishtim be like god he creates for him. the gods, even us! And let Ut-napishtim dwell afar off at the mouth of the rivers!" In a . . . land, the land of[1] Then they took me and afar off, Dilmun(?), they caused him to at the mouth of the rivers, dwell. they caused me to dwell. [1] Or, "On a mountain, the mountain of", &c. The Sumerian Version thus apparently concludes with the familiar ending of the legend which we find in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus, though it here occurs in an abbreviated form and with some variations in detail. In all three versions the prostration of the Deluge hero before the god is followed by the bestowal of immortality upon him, a fate which, according to Berossus, he shared with his wife, his daughter, and the steersman. The Gilgamesh Epic perhaps implies that Ut-napishtim's wife shared in his immortality, but the Sumerian Version mentions Ziusudu alone. In the Gilgamesh Epic Ut-napishtim is settled by the gods at the mouth of the rivers, that is to say at the head of the Persian Gulf, while according to a possible rendering of the Sumerian Version he is made to dwell on Dilmun, an island in the Gulf itself. The fact that Gilgamesh in the Epic has to cross the sea to reach Ut-napishtim may be cited in favour of the reading "Dilmun"; and the description of the sea as "the Waters of Death", if it implies more than the great danger of their passage, was probably a later development associated with Ut-napishtim's immortality. It may be added that in neither Hebrew version do we find any parallel to the concluding details of the original story, the Hebrew narratives being brought to an end with the blessing of Noah and the divine promise to, or covenant with, mankind. Such then are the contents of our Sumerian document, and from the details which have been given it will have been seen that its story, so far as concerns the Deluge, is in essentials the same as that we already find in the Gilgamesh Epic. It is true that this earlier version has reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in an abbreviated form. In the next lecture I shall have occasion to refer to another early mythological text from Nippur, which was thought by its first interpreter to include a second Sumerian Version of the Deluge legend. That suggestion has not been substantiated, though we shall see that the contents of the document are of a very interesting character. But in view of the discussion that has taken place in the United States over the interpretation of the second text, and of the doubts that have subsequently been expressed in some quarters as to the recent discovery of any new form of the Deluge legend, it may be well to formulate briefly the proof that in the inscription published by Dr. Poebel an early Sumerian Version of the Deluge story has actually been recovered. Any one who has followed the detailed analysis of the new text which has been attempted in the preceding paragraphs will, I venture to think, agree that the following conclusions may be drawn: (i) The points of general resemblance presented by the narrative to that in the Gilgamesh Epic are sufficiently close in themselves to show that we are dealing with a Sumerian Version of that story. And this conclusion is further supported (a) by the occurrence throughout the text of the attested Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic word, employed in the Babylonian Versions, for the "Flood" or "Deluge", and (b) by the use of precisely the same term for the hero's "great boat", which is already familiar to us from an early Babylonian Version. (ii) The close correspondence in language between portions of the Sumerian legend and the Gilgamesh Epic suggest that the one version was ultimately derived from the other. And this conclusion in its turn is confirmed (a) by the identity in meaning of the Sumerian and Babylonian names for the Deluge hero, which are actually found equated in a late explanatory text, and (b) by small points of difference in the Babylonian form of the story which correspond to later political and religious developments and suggest the work of Semitic redactors. The cumulative effect of such general and detailed evidence is overwhelming, and we may dismiss all doubts as to the validity of Dr. Poebel's claim. We have indeed recovered a very early, and in some of its features a very primitive, form of the Deluge narrative which till now has reached us only in Semitic and Greek renderings; and the stream of tradition has been tapped at a point far above any at which we have hitherto approached it. What evidence, we may ask, does this early Sumerian Version offer with regard to the origin and literary history of the Hebrew Versions? The general dependence of the biblical Versions upon the Babylonian legend as a whole has long been recognized, and needs no further demonstration; and it has already been observed that the parallelisms with the version in the Gilgamesh Epic are on the whole more detailed and striking in the earlier than in the later Hebrew Version.[1] In the course of our analysis of the Sumerian text its more striking points of agreement or divergence, in relation to the Hebrew Versions, were noted under the different sections of its narrative. It was also obvious that, in many features in which the Hebrew Versions differ from the Gilgamesh Epic, the latter finds Sumerian support. These facts confirm the conclusion, which we should naturally base on grounds of historical probability, that while the Semitic-Babylonian Versions were derived from Sumer, the Hebrew accounts were equally clearly derived from Babylon. But there are one or two pieces of evidence which are apparently at variance with this conclusion, and these call for some explanation. [1] For details see especially Skinner, /Genesis/, pp. 177 ff. Not too much significance should be attached to the apparent omission of the episode of the birds from the Sumerian narrative, in which it would agree with the later as against the earlier Hebrew Version; for, apart from its epitomized character, there is so much missing from the text that the absence of this episode cannot be regarded as established with certainty. And in any case it could be balanced by the Sumerian order of Creation of men before animals, which agrees with the earlier Hebrew Version against the later. But there is one very striking point in which our new Sumerian text agrees with both the Hebrew Versions as against the Gilgamesh Epic and Berossus; and that is in the character of Ziusudu, which presents so close a parallel to the piety of Noah. As we have already seen, the latter is due to no Hebrew idealization of the story, but represents a genuine strand of the original tradition, which is completely absent from the Babylonian Versions. But the Babylonian Versions are the media through which it has generally been assumed that the tradition of the Deluge reached the Hebrews. What explanation have we of this fact? This grouping of Sumerian and Hebrew authorities, against the extant sources from Babylon, is emphasized by the general framework of the Sumerian story. For the literary connexion which we have in Genesis between the Creation and the Deluge narratives has hitherto found no parallel in the cuneiform texts. In Babylon and Assyria the myth of Creation and the Deluge legend have been divorced. From the one a complete epic has been evolved in accordance with the tenets of Babylonian theology, the Creation myth being combined in the process with other myths of a somewhat analogous character. The Deluge legend has survived as an isolated story in more than one setting, the principal Semitic Version being recounted to the national hero Gilgamesh, towards the close of the composite epic of his adventures which grew up around the nucleus of his name. It is one of the chief surprises of the newly discovered Sumerian Version that the Hebrew connexion of the narratives is seen to be on the lines of very primitive tradition. Noah's reputation for piety does not stand alone. His line of descent from Adam, and the thread of narrative connecting the creation of the world with its partial destruction by the Deluge, already appear in Sumerian form at a time when the city of Babylon itself had not secured its later power. How then are we to account for this correspondence of Sumerian and Hebrew traditions, on points completely wanting in our intermediate authorities, from which, however, other evidence suggests that the Hebrew narratives were derived? At the risk of anticipating some of the conclusions to be drawn in the next lecture, it may be well to define an answer now. It is possible that those who still accept the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch may be inclined to see in this correspondence of Hebrew and Sumerian ideas a confirmation of their own hypothesis. But it should be pointed out at once that this is not an inevitable deduction from the evidence. Indeed, it is directly contradicted by the rest of the evidence we have summarized, while it would leave completely unexplained some significant features of the problem. It is true that certain important details of the Sumerian tradition, while not affecting Babylon and Assyria, have left their stamp upon the Hebrew narratives; but that is not an exhaustive statement of the case. For we have also seen that a more complete survival of Sumerian tradition has taken place in the history of Berossus. There we traced the same general framework of the narratives, with a far closer correspondence in detail. The kingly rank of Ziusudu is in complete harmony with the Berossian conception of a series of supreme Antediluvian rulers, and the names of two of the Antediluvian cites are among those of their newly recovered Sumerian prototypes. There can thus be no suggestion that the Greek reproductions of the Sumerian tradition were in their turn due to Hebrew influence. On the contrary we have in them a parallel case of survival in a far more complete form. The inference we may obviously draw is that the Sumerian narrative continued in existence, in a literary form that closely resembled the original version, into the later historical periods. In this there would be nothing to surprise us, when we recall the careful preservation and study of ancient Sumerian religious texts by the later Semitic priesthood of the country. Each ancient cult-centre in Babylonia continued to cling to its own local traditions, and the Sumerian desire for their preservation, which was inherited by their Semitic guardians, was in great measure unaffected by political occurrences elsewhere. Hence it was that Ashur-bani-pal, when forming his library at Nineveh, was able to draw upon so rich a store of the more ancient literary texts of Babylonia. The Sumerian Version of the Deluge and of Antediluvian history may well have survived in a less epitomized form than that in which we have recovered it; and, like other ancient texts, it was probably provided with a Semitic translation. Indeed its literary study and reproduction may have continued without interruption in Babylon itself. But even if Sumerian tradition died out in the capital under the influence of the Babylonian priesthood, its re-introduction may well have taken place in Neo-Babylonian times. Perhaps the antiquarian researches of Nabonidus were characteristic of his period; and in any case the collection of his country's gods into the capital must have been accompanied by a renewed interest in the more ancient versions of the past with which their cults were peculiarly associated. In the extant summary from Berossus we may possibly see evidence of a subsequent attempt to combine with these more ancient traditions the continued religious dominance of Marduk and of Babylon. Our conclusion, that the Sumerian form of the tradition did not die out, leaves the question as to the periods during which Babylonian influence may have acted upon Hebrew tradition in great measure unaffected; and we may therefore postpone its further consideration to the next lecture. To-day the only question that remains to be considered concerns the effect of our new evidence upon the wider problem of Deluge stories as a whole. What light does it throw on the general character of Deluge stories and their suggested Egyptian origin? One thing that strikes me forcibly in reading this early text is the complete absence of any trace or indication of astrological /motif/. It is true that Ziusudu sacrifices to the Sun-god; but the episode is inherent in the story, the appearance of the Sun after the storm following the natural sequence of events and furnishing assurance to the king of his eventual survival. To identify the worshipper with his god and to transfer Ziusudu's material craft to the heavens is surely without justification from the simple narrative. We have here no prototype of Ra sailing the heavenly ocean. And the destructive flood itself is not only of an equally material and mundane character, but is in complete harmony with its Babylonian setting. In the matter of floods the Tigris and Euphrates present a striking contrast to the Nile. It is true that the life-blood of each country is its river-water, but the conditions of its use are very different, and in Mesopotamia it becomes a curse when out of control. In both countries the river-water must be used for maturing the crops. But while the rains of Abyssinia cause the Nile to rise between August and October, thus securing both summer and winter crops, the melting snows of Armenia and the Taurus flood the Mesopotamian rivers between March and May. In Egypt the Nile flood is gentle; it is never abrupt, and the river gives ample warning of its rise and fall. It contains just enough sediment to enrich the land without choking the canals; and the water, after filling its historic basins, may when necessary be discharged into the falling river in November. Thus Egypt receives a full and regular supply of water, and there is no difficulty in disposing of any surplus. The growth in such a country of a legend of world-wide destruction by flood is inconceivable. In Mesopotamia, on the other hand, the floods, which come too late for the winter crops, are followed by the rainless summer months; and not only must the flood-water be controlled, but some portion of it must be detained artificially, if it is to be of use during the burning months of July, August, and September, when the rivers are at their lowest. Moreover, heavy rain in April and a warm south wind melting the snow in the hills may bring down such floods that the channels cannot contain them; the dams are then breached and the country is laid waste. Here there is first too much water and then too little. The great danger from flood in Babylonia, both in its range of action and in its destructive effect, is due to the strangely flat character of the Tigris and Euphrates delta.[1] Hence after a severe breach in the Tigris or Euphrates, the river after inundating the country may make itself a new channel miles away from the old one. To mitigate the danger, the floods may be dealt with in two ways--by a multiplication of canals to spread the water, and by providing escapes for it into depressions in the surrounding desert, which in their turn become centres of fertility. Both methods were employed in antiquity; and it may be added that in any scheme for the future prosperity of the country they must be employed again, of course with the increased efficiency of modern apparatus.[2] But while the Babylonians succeeded in controlling the Euphrates, the Tigris was never really tamed,[3] and whenever it burst its right bank the southern plains were devastated. We could not have more suitable soil for the growth of a Deluge story. [1] Baghdad, though 300 miles by crow-fly from the sea and 500 by river, is only 120 ft. above sea-level. [2] The Babylonians controlled the Euphrates, and at the same time provided against its time of "low supply", by escapes into two depressions in the western desert to the NW. of Babylon, known to-day as the Habbânîyah and Abu Dîs depressions, which lie S. of the modern town of Ramâdi and N. of Kerbela. That these depressions were actually used as reservoirs in antiquity is proved by the presence along their edges of thick beds of Euphrates shells. In addition to canals and escapes, the Babylonian system included well-constructed dikes protected by brushwood. By cutting an eight-mile channel through a low hill between the Habbânîyah and Abu Dîs depressions and by building a short dam 50 ft. high across the latter's narrow outlet, Sir William Willcocks estimates that a reservoir could be obtained holding eighteen milliards of tons of water. See his work /The Irrigations of Mesopotamia/ (E. and F. N. Spon, 1911), /Geographical Journal/, Vol. XL, No. 2 (Aug., 1912), pp. 129 ff., and the articles in /The Near East/ cited on p. 97, n. 1, and p. 98, n. 2. Sir William Willcocks's volume and subsequent papers form the best introduction to the study of Babylonian Deluge tradition on its material side. [3] Their works carried out on the Tigris were effective for irrigation; but the Babylonians never succeeded in controlling its floods as they did those of the Euphrates. A massive earthen dam, the remains of which are still known as "Nimrod's Dam", was thrown across the Tigris above the point where it entered its delta; this served to turn the river over hard conglomerate rock and kept it at a high level so that it could irrigate the country on both banks. Above the dam were the heads of the later Nahrwân Canal, a great stream 400 ft. wide and 17 ft. deep, which supplied the country east of the river. The Nâr Sharri or "King's Canal", the Nahar Malkha of the Greeks and the Nahr el-Malik of the Arabs, protected the right bank of the Tigris by its own high artificial banks, which can still be traced for hundreds of miles; but it took its supply from the Euphrates at Sippar, where the ground is some 25 ft. higher than on the Tigris. The Tigris usually flooded its left bank; it was the right bank which was protected, and a breach here meant disaster. Cf. Willcocks, op. cit., and /The Near East/, Sept. 29, 1916 (Vol. XI, No. 282), p. 522. It was only by constant and unremitting attention that disaster from flood could be averted; and the difficulties of the problem were and are increased by the fact that the flood-water of the Mesopotamian rivers contains five times as much sediment as the Nile. In fact, one of the most pressing of the problems the Sumerian and early Babylonian engineers had to solve was the keeping of the canals free from silt.[1] What the floods, if left unchecked, may do in Mesopotamia, is well illustrated by the decay of the ancient canal-system, which has been the immediate cause of the country's present state of sordid desolation. That the decay was gradual was not the fault of the rivers, but was due to the sound principles on which the old system of control had been evolved through many centuries of labour. At the time of the Moslem conquest the system had already begun to fail. In the fifth century there had been bad floods; but worse came in A.D. 629, when both rivers burst their banks and played havoc with the dikes and embankments. It is related that the Sassanian king Parwiz, the contemporary of Mohammed, crucified in one day forty canal-workers at a certain breach, and yet was unable to master the flood.[2] All repairs were suspended during the anarchy of the Moslem invasion. As a consequence the Tigris left its old bed for the Shatt el-Hai at Kût, and pouring its own and its tributaries' waters into the Euphrates formed the Great Euphrates Swamp, two hundred miles long and fifty broad. But even then what was left of the old system was sufficient to support the splendour of the Eastern Caliphate. [1] Cf. /Letters of Hammurabi/, Vol. III, pp. xxxvi ff.; it was the duty of every village or town upon the banks of the main canals in Babylonia to keep its own section clear of silt, and of course it was also responsible for its own smaller irrigation-channels. While the invention of the system of basin-irrigation was practically forced on Egypt, the extraordinary fertility of Babylonia was won in the teeth of nature by the system of perennial irrigation, or irrigation all the year round. In Babylonia the water was led into small fields of two or three acres, while the Nile valley was irrigated in great basins each containing some thirty to forty thousand acres. The Babylonian method gives far more profitable results, and Sir William Willcocks points out that Egypt to-day is gradually abandoning its own system and adopting that of its ancient rival; see /The Near East/, Sept. 29, 1916, p. 521. [2] See Le Strange, /The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate/, p. 27. The second great blow to the system followed the Mongol conquest, when the Nahrwân Canal, to the east of the Tigris, had its head swept away by flood and the area it had irrigated became desert. Then, in about the fifteenth century, the Tigris returned to its old course; the Shatt el-Hai shrank, and much of the Great Swamp dried up into the desert it is to-day.[1] Things became worse during the centuries of Turkish misrule. But the silting up of the Hillah, or main, branch of the Euphrates about 1865, and the transference of a great part of its stream into the Hindîyah Canal, caused even the Turks to take action. They constructed the old Hindîyah Barrage in 1890, but it gave way in 1903 and the state of things was even worse than before; for the Hillah branch then dried entirely.[2] [1] This illustrates the damage the Tigris itself is capable of inflicting on the country. It may be added that Sir William Willcocks proposes to control the Tigris floods by an escape into the Tharthâr depression, a great salt pan at the tail of Wadi Tharthâr, which lies 14 ft. below sea level and is 200 ft. lower than the flood-level of the Tigris some thirty-two miles away. The escape would leave the Tigris to the S. of Sâmarra, the proposed Beled Barrage being built below it and up-stream of "Nimrod's Dam". The Tharthâr escape would drain into the Euphrates, and the latter's Habbânîyah escape would receive any surplus water from the Tigris, a second barrage being thrown across the Euphrates up- stream of Fallûjah, where there is an outcrop of limestone near the head of the Sakhlawîyah Canal. The Tharthâr depression, besides disposing of the Tigris flood-water, would thus probably feed the Euphrates; and a second barrage on the Tigris, to be built at Kût, would supply water to the Shatt el-Hai. When the country is freed from danger of flood, the Baghdad Railway could be run through the cultivated land instead of through the eastern desert; see Willcocks, /The Near East/, Oct. 6, 1916 (Vol. XI, No. 283), p. 545 f. [2] It was then that Sir William Willcocks designed the new Hindîyah Barrage, which was completed in 1913. The Hindîyah branch, to-day the main stream of the Euphrates, is the old low-lying Pallacopas Canal, which branched westward above Babylon and discharged its waters into the western marshes. In antiquity the head of this branch had to be opened in high floods and then closed again immediately after the flood to keep the main stream full past Babylon, which entailed the employment of an enormous number of men. Alexander the Great's first work in Babylonia was cutting a new head for the Pallacopas in solid ground, for hitherto it had been in sandy soil; and it was while reclaiming the marshes farther down-stream that he contracted the fever that killed him. From this brief sketch of progressive disaster during the later historical period, the inevitable effect of neglected silt and flood, it will be gathered that the two great rivers of Mesopotamia present a very strong contrast to the Nile. For during the same period of misgovernment and neglect in Egypt the Nile did not turn its valley and delta into a desert. On the Tigris and Euphrates, during ages when the earliest dwellers on their banks were struggling to make effective their first efforts at control, the waters must often have regained the upper hand. Under such conditions the story of a great flood in the past would not be likely to die out in the future; the tradition would tend to gather illustrative detail suggested by later experience. Our new text reveals the Deluge tradition in Mesopotamia at an early stage of its development, and incidentally shows us that there is no need to postulate for its origin any convulsion of nature or even a series of seismic shocks accompanied by cyclone in the Persian Gulf. If this had been the only version of the story that had come down to us, we should hardly have regarded it as a record of world-wide catastrophe. It is true the gods' intention is to destroy mankind, but the scene throughout is laid in Southern Babylonia. After seven days' storm, the Sun comes out, and the vessel with the pious priest-king and his domestic animals on board grounds, apparently still in Babylonia, and not on any distant mountain, such as Mt. Nisir or the great mass of Ararat in Armenia. These are obviously details which tellers of the story have added as it passed down to later generations. When it was carried still farther afield, into the area of the Eastern Mediterranean, it was again adapted to local conditions. Thus Apollodorus makes Deucalion land upon Parnassus,[1] and the pseudo-Lucian relates how he founded the temple of Derketo at Hierapolis in Syria beside the hole in the earth which swallowed up the Flood.[2] To the Sumerians who first told the story, the great Flood appeared to have destroyed mankind, for Southern Babylonia was for them the world. Later peoples who heard it have fitted the story to their own geographical horizon, and in all good faith and by a purely logical process the mountain-tops are represented as submerged, and the ship, or ark, or chest, is made to come to ground on the highest peak known to the story-teller and his hearers. But in its early Sumerian form it is just a simple tradition of some great inundation, which overwhelmed the plain of Southern Babylonia and was peculiarly disastrous in its effects. And so its memory survived in the picture of Ziusudu's solitary coracle upon the face of the waters, which, seen through the mists of the Deluge tradition, has given us the Noah's ark of our nursery days. [1] Hesiod is our earliest authority for the Deucalion Flood story. For its probable Babylonian origin, cf. Farnell, /Greece and Babylon/ (1911), p. 184. [2] /De Syria dea/, 12 f. Thus the Babylonian, Hebrew, and Greek Deluge stories resolve themselves, not into a nature myth, but into an early legend, which has the basis of historical fact in the Euphrates Valley. And it is probable that we may explain after a similar fashion the occurrence of tales of a like character at least in some other parts of the world. Among races dwelling in low-lying or well-watered districts it would be surprising if we did not find independent stories of past floods from which few inhabitants of the land escaped. It is only in hilly countries such as Palestine, where for the great part of the year water is scarce and precious, that we are forced to deduce borrowing; and there is no doubt that both the Babylonian and the biblical stories have been responsible for some at any rate of the scattered tales. But there is no need to adopt the theory of a single source for all of them, whether in Babylonia or, still less, in Egypt.[1] [1] This argument is taken from an article I published in Professor Headlam's /Church Quarterly Review/, Jan., 1916, pp. 280 ff., containing an account of Dr. Poebel's discovery. I should like to add, with regard to this reading of our new evidence, that I am very glad to know Sir James Frazer holds a very similar opinion. For, as you are doubtless all aware, Sir James is at present collecting Flood stories from all over the world, and is supplementing from a wider range the collections already made by Lenormant, Andree, Winternitz, and Gerland. When his work is complete it will be possible to conjecture with far greater confidence how particular traditions or groups of tradition arose, and to what extent transmission has taken place. Meanwhile, in his recent Huxley Memorial Lecture,[1] he has suggested a third possibility as to the way Deluge stories may have arisen. [1] Sir J. G. Frazer, /Ancient Stories of a Great Flood/ (the Huxley Memorial Lecture, 1916), Roy. Anthrop. Inst., 1916. Stated briefly, it is that a Deluge story may arise as a popular explanation of some striking natural feature in a country, although to the scientific eye the feature in question is due to causes other than catastrophic flood. And he worked out the suggestion in the case of the Greek traditions of a great deluge, associated with the names of Deucalion and Dardanus. Deucalion's deluge, in its later forms at any rate, is obviously coloured by Semitic tradition; but both Greek stories, in their origin, Sir James Frazer would trace to local conditions--the one suggested by the Gorge of Tempe in Thessaly, the other explaining the existence of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. As he pointed out, they would be instances, not of genuine historical traditions, but of what Sir James Tyler calls "observation myths". A third story of a great flood, regarded in Greek tradition as the earliest of the three, he would explain by an extraordinary inundation of the Copaic Lake in Boeotia, which to this day is liable to great fluctuations of level. His new theory applies only to the other two traditions. For in them no historical kernel is presupposed, though gradual erosion by water is not excluded as a cause of the surface features which may have suggested the myths. This valuable theory thus opens up a third possibility for our analysis. It may also, of course, be used in combination, if in any particular instance we have reason to believe that transmission, in some vague form, may already have taken place. And it would with all deference suggest the possibility that, in view of other evidence, this may have occurred in the case of the Greek traditions. With regard to the theory itself we may confidently expect that further examples will be found in its illustration and support. Meanwhile in the new Sumerian Version I think we may conclude that we have recovered beyond any doubt the origin of the Babylonian and Hebrew traditions and of the large group of stories to which they in their turn have given rise. LECTURE III CREATION AND THE DRAGON MYTH; AND THE PROBLEM OF BABYLONIAN PARALLELS IN HEBREW TRADITION In our discussion of the new Sumerian version of the Deluge story we came to the conclusion that it gave no support to any theory which would trace all such tales to a single origin, whether in Egypt or in Babylonia. In spite of strong astrological elements in both the Egyptian and Babylonian religious systems, we saw grounds for regarding the astrological tinge of much ancient mythology as a later embellishment and not as primitive material. And so far as our new version of the Deluge story was concerned, it resolved itself into a legend, which had a basis of historical fact in the Euphrates Valley. It will be obvious that the same class of explanation cannot be applied to narratives of the Creation of the World. For there we are dealing, not with legends, but with myths, that is, stories exclusively about the gods. But where an examination of their earlier forms is possible, it would seem to show that many of these tales also, in their origin, are not to be interpreted as nature myths, and that none arose as mere reflections of the solar system. In their more primitive and simpler aspects they seem in many cases to have been suggested by very human and terrestrial experience. To-day we will examine the Egyptian, Sumerian, and Babylonian myths of Creation, and, after we have noted the more striking features of our new material, we will consider the problem of foreign influences upon Hebrew traditions concerning the origin and early history of the world. In Egypt, as until recently in Babylonia, we have to depend for our knowledge of Creation myths on documents of a comparatively late period. Moreover, Egyptian religious literature as a whole is textually corrupt, and in consequence it is often difficult to determine the original significance of its allusions. Thanks to the funerary inscriptions and that great body of magical formulae and ritual known as "The Chapters of Coming forth by Day", we are very fully informed on the Egyptian doctrines as to the future state of the dead. The Egyptian's intense interest in his own remote future, amounting almost to an obsession, may perhaps in part account for the comparatively meagre space in the extant literature which is occupied by myths relating solely to the past. And it is significant that the one cycle of myth, of which we are fully informed in its latest stage of development, should be that which gave its sanction to the hope of a future existence for man. The fact that Herodotus, though he claims a knowledge of the sufferings or "Mysteries" of Osiris, should deliberately refrain from describing them or from even uttering the name,[1] suggests that in his time at any rate some sections of the mythology had begun to acquire an esoteric character. There is no doubt that at all periods myth played an important part in the ritual of feast-days. But mythological references in the earlier texts are often obscure; and the late form in which a few of the stories have come to us is obviously artificial. The tradition, for example, which relates how mankind came from the tears which issued from Ra's eye undoubtedly arose from a play upon words. [1] Herodotus, II, 171. On the other hand, traces of myth, scattered in the religious literature of Egypt, may perhaps in some measure betray their relative age by the conceptions of the universe which underlie them. The Egyptian idea that the sky was a heavenly ocean, which is not unlike conceptions current among the Semitic Babylonians and Hebrews, presupposes some thought and reflection. In Egypt it may well have been evolved from the probably earlier but analogous idea of the river in heaven, which the Sun traversed daily in his boats. Such a river was clearly suggested by the Nile; and its world-embracing character is reminiscent of a time when through communication was regularly established, at least as far south as Elephantine. Possibly in an earlier period the long narrow valley, or even a section of it, may have suggested the figure of a man lying prone upon his back. Such was Keb, the Earth-god, whose counterpart in the sky was the goddess Nut, her feet and hands resting at the limits of the world and her curved body forming the vault of heaven. Perhaps still more primitive, and dating from a pastoral age, may be the notion that the sky was a great cow, her body, speckled with stars, alone visible from the earth beneath. Reference has already been made to the dominant influence of the Sun in Egyptian religion, and it is not surprising that he should so often appear as the first of created beings. His orb itself, or later the god in youthful human form, might be pictured as emerging from a lotus on the primaeval waters, or from a marsh-bird's egg, a conception which influenced the later Phoenician cosmogeny. The Scarabaeus, or great dung-feeding beetle of Egypt, rolling the ball before it in which it lays its eggs, is an obvious theme for the early myth-maker. And it was natural that the Beetle of Khepera should have been identified with the Sun at his rising, as the Hawk of Ra represented his noonday flight, and the aged form of Attun his setting in the west. But in all these varied conceptions and explanations of the universe it is difficult to determine how far the poetical imagery of later periods has transformed the original myths which may lie behind them. As the Egyptian Creator the claims of Ra, the Sun-god of Heliopolis, early superseded those of other deities. On the other hand, Ptah of Memphis, who for long ages had been merely the god of architects and craftsmen, became under the Empire the architect of the universe and is pictured as a potter moulding the world-egg. A short poem by a priest of Ptah, which has come down to us from that period, exhibits an attempt to develop this idea on philosophical lines.[1] Its author represents all gods and living creatures as proceeding directly from the mind and thought of Ptah. But this movement, which was more notably reflected in Akhenaton's religious revolution, died out in political disaster, and the original materialistic interpretation of the myths was restored with the cult of Amen. How materialistic this could be is well illustrated by two earlier members of the XVIIIth Dynasty, who have left us vivid representations of the potter's wheel employed in the process of man's creation. When the famous Hatshepsut, after the return of her expedition to Punt in the ninth year of her young consort Thothmes III, decided to build her temple at Deir el-Bahari in the necropolis of Western Thebes, she sought to emphasize her claim to the throne of Egypt by recording her own divine origin upon its walls. We have already noted the Egyptians' belief in the solar parentage of their legitimate rulers, a myth that goes back at least to the Old Kingdom and may have had its origin in prehistoric times. With the rise of Thebes, Amen inherited the prerogatives of Ra; and so Hatshepsut seeks to show, on the north side of the retaining wall of her temple's Upper Platform, that she was the daughter of Amen himself, "the great God, Lord of the sky, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, who resides at Thebes". The myth was no invention of her own, for obviously it must have followed traditional lines, and though it is only employed to exhibit the divine creation of a single personage, it as obviously reflects the procedure and methods of a general Creation myth. [1] See Breasted, /Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache/, XXXIX, pp. 39 ff., and /History of Egypt/, pp. 356 ff. This series of sculptures shared the deliberate mutilation that all her records suffered at the hands of Thothmes III after her death, but enough of the scenes and their accompanying text has survived to render the detailed interpretation of the myth quite certain.[1] Here, as in a general Creation myth, Amen's first act is to summon the great gods in council, in order to announce to them the future birth of the great princess. Of the twelve gods who attend, the first is Menthu, a form of the Sun-god and closely associated with Amen.[2] But the second deity is Atum, the great god of Heliopolis, and he is followed by his cycle of deities--Shu, "the son of Ra"; Tefnut, "the Lady of the sky"; Keb, "the Father of the Gods"; Nut, "the Mother of the Gods"; Osiris, Isis, Nephthys, Set, Horus, and Hathor. We are here in the presence of cosmic deities, as befits a projected act of creation. The subsequent scenes exhibit the Egyptian's literal interpretation of the myth, which necessitates the god's bodily presence and personal participation. Thoth mentions to Amen the name of queen Aahmes as the future mother of Hatshepsut, and we later see Amen himself, in the form of her husband, Aa-kheperka-Ra (Thothmes I), sitting with Aahmes and giving her the Ankh, or sign of Life, which she receives in her hand and inhales through her nostrils.[3] God and queen are seated on thrones above a couch, and are supported by two goddesses. After leaving the queen, Amen calls on Khnum or Khnemu, the flat-horned ram- god, who in texts of all periods is referred to as the "builder" of gods and men;[4] and he instructs him to create the body of his future daughter and that of her /Ka/, or "double", which would be united to her from birth. [1] See Naville, /Deir el-Bahari/, Pt. II, pp. 12 ff., plates xlvi ff. [2] See Budge, /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. II, pp. 23 ff. His chief cult-centre was Hermonthis, but here as elsewhere he is given his usual title "Lord of Thebes". [3] Pl. xlvii. Similar scenes are presented in the "birth-temples" at Denderah, Edfu, Philae, Esneh, and Luxor; see Naville, op. cit., p. 14. [4] Cf. Budge, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 50. The scene in the series, which is of greatest interest in the present connexion, is that representing Khnum at his work of creation. He is seated before a potter's wheel which he works with his foot,[1] and on the revolving table he is fashioning two children with his hands, the baby princess and her "double". It was always Hatshepsut's desire to be represented as a man, and so both the children are boys.[2] As yet they are lifeless, but the symbol of Life will be held to their nostrils by Heqet, the divine Potter's wife, whose frog-head typifies birth and fertility. When Amenophis III copied Hatshepsut's sculptures for his own series at Luxor, he assigned this duty to the greater goddess Hathor, perhaps the most powerful of the cosmic goddesses and the mother of the world. The subsequent scenes at Deir el-Bahari include the leading of queen Aahmes by Khnum and Heqet to the birth- chamber; the great birth scene where the queen is attended by the goddesses Nephthys and Isis, a number of divine nurses and midwives holding several of the "doubles" of the baby, and favourable genii, in human form or with the heads of crocodiles, jackals, and hawks, representing the four cardinal points and all bearing the gift of life; the presentation of the young child by the goddess Hathor to Amen, who is well pleased at the sight of his daughter; and the divine suckling of Hatshepsut and her "doubles". But these episodes do not concern us, as of course they merely reflect the procedure following a royal birth. But Khnum's part in the princess's origin stands on a different plane, for it illustrates the Egyptian myth of Creation by the divine Potter, who may take the form of either Khnum or Ptah. Monsieur Naville points out the extraordinary resemblance in detail which Hatshepsut's myth of divine paternity bears to the Greek legend of Zeus and Alkmene, where the god takes the form of Amphitryon, Alkmene's husband, exactly as Amen appears to the queen;[3] and it may be added that the Egyptian origin of the Greek story was traditionally recognized in the ancestry ascribed to the human couple.[4] [1] This detail is not clearly preserved at Deir el-Bahari; but it is quite clear in the scene on the west wall of the "Birth-room" in the Temple at Luxor, which Amenophis III evidently copied from that of Hatshepsut. [2] In the similar scene at Luxor, where the future Amenophis III is represented on the Creator's wheel, the sculptor has distinguished the human child from its spiritual "double" by the quaint device of putting its finger in its mouth. [3] See Naville, op. cit., p. 12. [4] Cf., e.g., Herodotus, II, 43. The only complete Egyptian Creation myth yet recovered is preserved in a late papyrus in the British Museum, which was published some years ago by Dr. Budge.[1] It occurs under two separate versions embedded in "The Book of the Overthrowing of Apep, the Enemy of Ra". Here Ra, who utters the myth under his late title of Neb-er-tcher, "Lord to the utmost limit", is self-created as Khepera from Nu, the primaeval water; and then follow successive generations of divine pairs, male and female, such as we find at the beginning of the Semitic-Babylonian Creation Series.[2] Though the papyrus was written as late as the year 311 B.C., the myth is undoubtedly early. For the first two divine pairs Shu and Tefnut, Keb and Nut, and four of the latter pairs' five children, Osiris and Isis, Set and Nephthys, form with the Sun-god himself the Greater Ennead of Heliopolis, which exerted so wide an influence on Egyptian religious speculation. The Ennead combined the older solar elements with the cult of Osiris, and this is indicated in the myth by a break in the successive generations, Nut bringing forth at a single birth the five chief gods of the Osiris cycle, Osiris himself and his son Horus, with Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Thus we may see in the myth an early example of that religious syncretism which is so characteristic of later Egyptian belief. [1] See /Archaeologia/, Vol. LII (1891). Dr. Budge published a new edition of the whole papyrus in /Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum/ (1910), and the two versions of the Creation myth are given together in his /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. I (1904), Chap. VIII, pp. 308 ff., and more recently in his /Egyptian Literature/, Vol. I, "Legends of the Gods" (1912), pp. 2 ff. An account of the papyrus is included in the Introduction to "Legends of the Gods", pp. xiii ff. [2] In /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. I, Chap. VII, pp. 288 ff., Dr. Budge gives a detailed comparison of the Egyptian pairs of primaeval deities with the very similar couples of the Babylonian myth. The only parallel this Egyptian myth of Creation presents to the Hebrew cosmogony is in its picture of the primaeval water, corresponding to the watery chaos of Genesis i. But the resemblance is of a very general character, and includes no etymological equivalence such as we find when we compare the Hebrew account with the principal Semitic-Babylonian Creation narrative.[1] The application of the Ankh, the Egyptian sign for Life, to the nostrils of a newly-created being is no true parallel to the breathing into man's nostrils of the breath of life in the earlier Hebrew Version,[2] except in the sense that each process was suggested by our common human anatomy. We should naturally expect to find some Hebrew parallel to the Egyptian idea of Creation as the work of a potter with his clay, for that figure appears in most ancient mythologies. The Hebrews indeed used the conception as a metaphor or parable,[3] and it also underlies their earlier picture of man's creation. I have not touched on the grosser Egyptian conceptions concerning the origin of the universe, which we may probably connect with African ideas; but those I have referred to will serve to demonstrate the complete absence of any feature that presents a detailed resemblance of the Hebrew tradition. [1] For the wide diffusion, in the myths of remote peoples, of a vague theory that would trace all created things to a watery origin, see Farnell, /Greece and Babylon/, p. 180. [2] Gen. ii. 7 (J). [3] Cf., e.g., Isaiah xxix. 16, xlv. 9; and Jeremiah xviii. 2f. When we turn to Babylonia, we find there also evidence of conflicting ideas, the product of different and to some extent competing religious centres. But in contrast to the rather confused condition of Egyptian mythology, the Semitic Creation myth of the city of Babylon, thanks to the latter's continued political ascendancy, succeeded in winning a dominant place in the national literature. This is the version in which so many points of resemblance to the first chapter of Genesis have long been recognized, especially in the succession of creative acts and their relative order. In the Semitic-Babylonian Version the creation of the world is represented as the result of conflict, the emergence of order out of chaos, a result that is only attained by the personal triumph of the Creator. But this underlying dualism does not appear in the more primitive Sumerian Version we have now recovered. It will be remembered that in the second lecture I gave some account of the myth, which occurs in an epitomized form as an introduction to the Sumerian Version of the Deluge, the two narratives being recorded in the same document and connected with one another by a description of the Antediluvian cities. We there saw that Creation is ascribed to the three greatest gods of the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, Enlil, and Enki, assisted by the goddess Ninkharsagga. It is significant that in the Sumerian version no less than four deities are represented as taking part in the Creation. For in this we may see some indication of the period to which its composition must be assigned. Their association in the text suggests that the claims of local gods had already begun to compete with one another as a result of political combination between the cities of their cults. To the same general period we must also assign the compilation of the Sumerian Dynastic record, for that presupposes the existence of a supreme ruler among the Sumerian city-states. This form of political constitution must undoubtedly have been the result of a long process of development, and the fact that its existence should be regarded as dating from the Creation of the world indicates a comparatively developed stage of the tradition. But behind the combination of cities and their gods we may conjecturally trace anterior stages of development, when each local deity and his human representative seemed to their own adherents the sole objects for worship and allegiance. And even after the demands of other centres had been conceded, no deity ever quite gave up his local claims. Enlil, the second of the four Sumerian creating deities, eventually ousted his rivals. It has indeed long been recognized that the /rôle/ played by Marduk in the Babylonian Version of Creation had been borrowed from Enlil of Nippur; and in the Atrakhasis legend Enlil himself appears as the ultimate ruler of the world and the other gods figure as "his sons". Anu, who heads the list and plays with Enlil the leading part in the Sumerian narrative, was clearly his chief rival. And though we possess no detailed account of Anu's creative work, the persistent ascription to him of the creation of heaven, and his familiar title, "the Father of the Gods", suggest that he once possessed a corresponding body of myth in Eanna, his temple at Erech. Enki, the third of the creating gods, was naturally credited, as God of Wisdom, with special creative activities, and fortunately in his case we have some independent evidence of the varied forms these could assume. According to one tradition that has come down to us,[1] after Anu had made the heavens, Enki created Apsû or the Deep, his own dwelling- place. Then taking from it a piece of clay[2] he proceeded to create the Brick-god, and reeds and forests for the supply of building material. From the same clay he continued to form other deities and materials, including the Carpenter-god; the Smith-god; Arazu, a patron deity of building; and mountains and seas for all that they produced; the Goldsmith-god, the Stone-cutter-god, and kindred deities, together with their rich products for offerings; the Grain-deities, Ashnan and Lakhar; Siris, a Wine-god; Ningishzida and Ninsar, a Garden-god, for the sake of the rich offerings they could make; and a deity described as "the High priest of the great gods," to lay down necessary ordinances and commands. Then he created "the King", for the equipment probably of a particular temple, and finally men, that they might practise the cult in the temple so elaborately prepared. [1] See Weissbach, /Babylonische Miscellen/, pp. 32 ff. [2] One of the titles of Enki was "the Potter"; cf. /Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus., Pt. XXIV, pl. 14 f., ll. 41, 43. It will be seen from this summary of Enki's creative activities, that the text from which it is taken is not a general Creation myth, but in all probability the introductory paragraph of a composition which celebrated the building or restoration of a particular temple; and the latter's foundation is represented, on henotheistic lines, as the main object of creation. Composed with that special purpose, its narrative is not to be regarded as an exhaustive account of the creation of the world. The incidents are eclective, and only such gods and materials are mentioned as would have been required for the building and adornment of the temple and for the provision of its offerings and cult. But even so its mythological background is instructive. For while Anu's creation of heaven is postulated as the necessary precedent of Enki's activities, the latter creates the Deep, vegetation, mountains, seas, and mankind. Moreover, in his character as God of Wisdom, he is not only the teacher but the creator of those deities who were patrons of man's own constructive work. From such evidence we may infer that in his temple at Eridu, now covered by the mounds of Abu Shahrain in the extreme south of Babylonia, and regarded in early Sumerian tradition as the first city in the world, Enki himself was once celebrated as the sole creator of the universe. The combination of the three gods Anu, Enlil, and Enki, is persistent in the tradition; for not only were they the great gods of the universe, representing respectively heaven, earth, and the watery abyss, but they later shared the heavenly sphere between them. It is in their astrological character that we find them again in creative activity, though without the co-operation of any goddess, when they appear as creators of the great light-gods and as founders of time divisions, the day and the month. This Sumerian myth, though it reaches us only in an extract or summary in a Neo-Babylonian schoolboy's exercise,[1] may well date from a comparatively early period, but probably from a time when the "Ways" of Anu, Enlil, and Enki had already been fixed in heaven and their later astrological characters had crystallized. [1] See /The Seven Tablets of Creation/, Vol. I, pp. 124 ff. The tablet gives extracts from two very similar Sumerian and Semitic texts. In both of them Anu, Enlil, and Enki appear as creators "through their sure counsel". In the Sumerian extract they create the Moon and ordain its monthly course, while in the Semitic text, after establishing heaven and earth, they create in addition to the New Moon the bright Day, so that "men beheld the Sun-god in the Gate of his going forth". The idea that a goddess should take part with a god in man's creation is already a familiar feature of Babylonian mythology. Thus the goddess Aruru, in co-operation with Marduk, might be credited with the creation of the human race,[1] as she might also be pictured creating on her own initiative an individual hero such as Enkidu of the Gilgamesh Epic. The /rôle/ of mother of mankind was also shared, as we have seen, by the Semitic Ishtar. And though the old Sumerian goddess, Ninkharsagga, the "Lady of the Mountains", appears in our Sumerian text for the first time in the character of creatress, some of the titles we know she enjoyed, under her synonyms in the great God List of Babylonia, already reflected her cosmic activities.[2] For she was known as "The Builder of that which has Breath", "The Carpenter of Mankind", "The Carpenter of the Heart", "The Coppersmith of the Gods", "The Coppersmith of the Land", and "The Lady Potter". [1] Op. cit., p. 134 f. [2] Cf. /Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus./, Pt. XXIV, pl. 12, ll. 32, 26, 27, 25, 24, 23, and Poebel, /Hist. Texts/, p. 34. In the myth we are not told her method of creation, but from the above titles it is clear that in her own cycle of tradition Ninkhasagga was conceived as fashioning men not only from clay but also from wood, and perhaps as employing metal for the manufacture of her other works of creation. Moreover, in the great God List, where she is referred to under her title Makh, Ninkhasagga is associated with Anu, Enlil, and Enki; she there appears, with her dependent deities, after Enlil and before Enki. We thus have definite proof that her association with the three chief Sumerian gods was widely recognized in the early Sumerian period and dictated her position in the classified pantheon of Babylonia. Apart from this evidence, the important rank assigned her in the historical and legal records and in votive inscriptions,[1] especially in the early period and in Southern Babylonia, accords fully with the part she here plays in the Sumerian Creation myth. Eannatum and Gudea of Lagash both place her immediately after Anu and Enlil, giving her precedence over Enki; and even in the Kassite Kudurru inscriptions of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, where she is referred to, she takes rank after Enki and before the other gods. In Sumer she was known as "the Mother of the Gods", and she was credited with the power of transferring the kingdom and royal insignia from one king to his successor. [1] See especially, Poebel, op. cit., pp. 24 ff. Her supreme position as a goddess is attested by the relative insignificance of her husband Dunpae, whom she completely overshadows, in which respect she presents a contrast to the goddess Ninlil, Enlil's female counterpart. The early clay figurines found at Nippur and on other sites, representing a goddess suckling a child and clasping one of her breasts, may well be regarded as representing Ninkharsagga and not Ninlil. Her sanctuaries were at Kesh and Adab, both in the south, and this fact sufficiently explains her comparative want of influence in Akkad, where the Semitic Ishtar took her place. She does indeed appear in the north during the Sargonic period under her own name, though later she survives in her synonyms of Ninmakh, "the Sublime Lady", and Nintu, "the Lady of Child-bearing". It is under the latter title that Hammurabi refers to her in his Code of Laws, where she is tenth in a series of eleven deities. But as Goddess of Birth she retained only a pale reflection of her original cosmic character, and her functions were gradually specialized.[1] [1] Cf. Poebel, op. cit., p. 33. It is possible that, under one of her later synonyms, we should identify her, as Dr. Poebel suggests, with the Mylitta of Herodotus. From a consideration of their characters, as revealed by independent sources of evidence, we thus obtain the reason for the co-operation of four deities in the Sumerian Creation. In fact the new text illustrates a well-known principle in the development of myth, the reconciliation of the rival claims of deities, whose cults, once isolated, had been brought from political causes into contact with each other. In this aspect myth is the medium through which a working pantheon is evolved. Naturally all the deities concerned cannot continue to play their original parts in detail. In the Babylonian Epic of Creation, where a single deity, and not a very prominent one, was to be raised to pre-eminent rank, the problem was simple enough. He could retain his own qualities and achievements while borrowing those of any former rival. In the Sumerian text we have the result of a far more delicate process of adjustment, and it is possible that the brevity of the text is here not entirely due to compression of a longer narrative, but may in part be regarded as evidence of early combination. As a result of the association of several competing deities in the work of creation, a tendency may be traced to avoid discrimination between rival claims. Thus it is that the assembled gods, the pantheon as a whole, are regarded as collectively responsible for the creation of the universe. It may be added that this use of /ilâni/, "the gods", forms an interesting linguistic parallel to the plural of the Hebrew divine title Elohim. It will be remembered that in the Sumerian Version the account of Creation is not given in full, only such episodes being included as were directly related to the Deluge story. No doubt the selection of men and animals was suggested by their subsequent rescue from the Flood; and emphasis was purposely laid on the creation of the /niggilma/ because of the part it played in securing mankind's survival. Even so, we noted one striking parallel between the Sumerian Version and that of the Semitic Babylonians, in the reason both give for man's creation. But in the former there is no attempt to explain how the universe itself had come into being, and the existence of the earth is presupposed at the moment when Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninkharsagga undertake the creation of man. The Semitic-Babylonian Version, on the other hand, is mainly occupied with events that led up to the acts of creation, and it concerns our problem to inquire how far those episodes were of Semitic and how far of Sumerian origin. A further question arises as to whether some strands of the narrative may not at one time have existed in Sumerian form independently of the Creation myth. The statement is sometimes made that there is no reason to assume a Sumerian original for the Semitic-Babylonian Version, as recorded on "the Seven Tablets of Creation";[1] and this remark, though true of that version as a whole, needs some qualification. The composite nature of the poem has long been recognized, and an analysis of the text has shown that no less than five principal strands have been combined for its formation. These consist of (i) The Birth of the Gods; (ii) The Legend of Ea and Apsû; (iii) The principal Dragon Myth; (iv) The actual account of Creation; and (v) the Hymn to Marduk under his fifty titles.[2] The Assyrian commentaries to the Hymn, from which considerable portions of its text are restored, quote throughout a Sumerian original, and explain it word for word by the phrases of the Semitic Version;[3] so that for one out of the Seven Tablets a Semitic origin is at once disproved. Moreover, the majority of the fifty titles, even in the forms in which they have reached us in the Semitic text, are demonstrably Sumerian, and since many of them celebrate details of their owner's creative work, a Sumerian original for other parts of the version is implied. Enlil and Ea are both represented as bestowing their own names upon Marduk,[4] and we may assume that many of the fifty titles were originally borne by Enlil as a Sumerian Creator.[5] Thus some portions of the actual account of Creation were probably derived from a Sumerian original in which "Father Enlil" figured as the hero. [1] Cf., e.g., Jastrow, /Journ. of the Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI (1916), p. 279. [2] See /The Seven Tablets of Creation/, Vol. I, pp. lxvi ff.; and cf. Skinner, /Genesis/, pp. 43 ff. [3] Cf. /Sev. Tabl./, Vol. I, pp. 157 ff. [4] Cf. Tabl. VII, ll. 116 ff. [5] The number fifty was suggested by an ideogram employed for Enlil's name. For what then were the Semitic Babylonians themselves responsible? It seems to me that, in the "Seven Tablets", we may credit them with considerable ingenuity in the combination of existing myths, but not with their invention. The whole poem in its present form is a glorification of Marduk, the god of Babylon, who is to be given pre-eminent rank among the gods to correspond with the political position recently attained by his city. It would have been quite out of keeping with the national thought to make a break in the tradition, and such a course would not have served the purpose of the Babylonian priesthood, which was to obtain recognition of their claims by the older cult-centres in the country. Hence they chose and combined the more important existing myths, only making such alterations as would fit them to their new hero. Babylon herself had won her position by her own exertions; and it would be a natural idea to give Marduk his opportunity of becoming Creator of the world as the result of successful conflict. A combination of the Dragon myth with the myth of Creation would have admirably served their purpose; and this is what we find in the Semitic poem. But even that combination may not have been their own invention; for, though, as we shall see, the idea of conflict had no part in the earlier forms of the Sumerian Creation myth, its combination with the Dragon /motif/ may have characterized the local Sumerian Version of Nippur. How mechanical was the Babylonian redactors' method of glorifying Marduk is seen in their use of the description of Tiamat and her monster brood, whom Marduk is made to conquer. To impress the hearers of the poem with his prowess, this is repeated at length no less than four times, one god carrying the news of her revolt to another. Direct proof of the manner in which the later redactors have been obliged to modify the original Sumerian Creation myth, in consequence of their incorporation of other elements, may be seen in the Sixth Tablet of the poem, where Marduk states the reason for man's creation. In the second lecture we noted how the very words of the principal Sumerian Creator were put into Marduk's mouth; but the rest of the Semitic god's speech finds no equivalent in the Sumerian Version and was evidently inserted in order to reconcile the narrative with its later ingredients. This will best be seen by printing the two passages in parallel columns:[1] [1] The extract from the Sumerian Version, which occurs in the lower part of the First Column, is here compared with the Semitic- Babylonian Creation Series, Tablet VI, ll. 6-10 (see /Seven Tablets/, Vol. I, pp. 86 ff.). The comparison is justified whether we regard the Sumerian speech as a direct preliminary to man's creation, or as a reassertion of his duty after his rescue from destruction by the Flood. SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION "The people will I cause to . . . "I will make man, that man may in their settlements, [. . .]. Cities . . . shall (man) build, I will create man who shall in their protection will I cause inhabit [. . .], him to rest, That he may lay the brick of our That the service of the gods may house in a clean spot, be established, and that [their] shrines [may be built]. That in a clean spot he may But I will alter the ways of the establish our . . . !" gods, and I will change [their paths]; Together shall they be oppressed, and unto evil shall [they . . .]!" The welding of incongruous elements is very apparent in the Semitic Version. For the statement that man will be created in order that the gods may have worshippers is at once followed by the announcement that the gods themselves must be punished and their "ways" changed. In the Sumerian Version the gods are united and all are naturally regarded as worthy of man's worship. The Sumerian Creator makes no distinctions; he refers to "our houses", or temples, that shall be established. But in the later version divine conflict has been introduced, and the future head of the pantheon has conquered and humiliated the revolting deities. Their "ways" must therefore be altered before they are fit to receive the worship which was accorded them by right in the simpler Sumerian tradition. In spite of the epitomized character of the Sumerian Version, a comparison of these passages suggests very forcibly that the Semitic-Babylonian myth of Creation is based upon a simpler Sumerian story, which has been elaborated to reconcile it with the Dragon myth. The Semitic poem itself also supplies evidence of the independent existence of the Dragon myth apart from the process of Creation, for the story of Ea and Apsû, which it incorporates, is merely the local Dragon myth of Eridu. Its inclusion in the story is again simply a tribute to Marduk; for though Ea, now become Marduk's father, could conquer Apsû, he was afraid of Tiamat, "and turned back".[1] The original Eridu myth no doubt represented Enki as conquering the watery Abyss, which became his home; but there is nothing to connect this tradition with his early creative activities. We have long possessed part of another local version of the Dragon myth, which describes the conquest of a dragon by some deity other than Marduk; and the fight is there described as taking place, not before Creation, but at a time when men existed and cities had been built.[2] Men and gods were equally terrified at the monster's appearance, and it was to deliver the land from his clutches that one of the gods went out and slew him. Tradition delighted to dwell on the dragon's enormous size and terrible appearance. In this version he is described as fifty /bêru/[3] in length and one in height; his mouth measured six cubits and the circuit of his ears twelve; he dragged himself along in the water, which he lashed with his tail; and, when slain, his blood flowed for three years, three months, a day and a night. From this description we can see he was given the body of an enormous serpent.[4] [1] Tabl. III, l. 53, &c. In the story of Bel and the Dragon, the third of the apocryphal additions to Daniel, we have direct evidence of the late survival of the Dragon /motif/ apart from any trace of the Creation myth; in this connexion see Charles, /Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha/, Vol. I (1913), p. 653 f. [2] See /Seven Tablets/, Vol. I, pp. 116 ff., lxviii f. The text is preserved on an Assyrian tablet made for the library of Ashur- bani-pal. [3] The /bêru/ was the space that could be covered in two hours' travelling. [4] The Babylonian Dragon has progeny in the later apocalyptic literature, where we find very similar descriptions of the creatures' size. Among them we may perhaps include the dragon in the Apocalypse of Baruch, who, according to the Slavonic Version, apparently every day drinks a cubit's depth from the sea, and yet the sea does not sink because of the three hundred and sixty rivers that flow into it (cf. James, "Apocrypha Anecdota", Second Series, in Armitage Robinson's /Texts and Studies/, V, No. 1, pp. lix ff.). But Egypt's Dragon /motif/ was even more prolific, and the /Pistis Sophia/ undoubtedly suggested descriptions of the Serpent, especially in connexion with Hades. A further version of the Dragon myth has now been identified on one of the tablets recovered during the recent excavations at Ashur,[1] and in it the dragon is not entirely of serpent form, but is a true dragon with legs. Like the one just described, he is a male monster. The description occurs as part of a myth, of which the text is so badly preserved that only the contents of one column can be made out with any certainty. In it a god, whose name is wanting, announces the presence of the dragon: "In the water he lies and I [. . .]!" Thereupon a second god cries successively to Aruru, the mother- goddess, and to Pallil, another deity, for help in his predicament. And then follows the description of the dragon: In the sea was the Serpent cre[ated]. Sixty /bêru/ is his length; Thirty /bêru/ high is his he[ad].[2] For half (a /bêru/) each stretches the surface of his ey[es];[3] For twenty /bêru/ go [his feet].[4] He devours fish, the creatures [of the sea], He devours birds, the creatures [of the heaven], He devours wild asses, the creatures [of the field], He devours men,[5] to the peoples [he . . .]. [1] For the text, see Ebeling, /Assurtexte/ I, No. 6; it is translated by him in /Orient. Lit.-Zeit./, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (April, 1916). [2] The line reads: /30 bêru ša-ka-a ri-[ša-a-šu]/. Dr. Ebeling renders /ri-ša-a/ as "heads" (Köpfe), implying that the dragon had more than one head. It may be pointed out that, if we could accept this translation, we should have an interesting parallel to the description of some of the primaeval monsters, preserved from Berossus, as {soma men ekhontas en, kephalas de duo}. But the common word for "head" is /kakkadu/, and there can be little doubt that /rîšâ/ is here used in its ordinary sense of "head, summit, top" when applied to a high building. [3] The line reads: /a-na 1/2 ta-am la-bu-na li-bit ên[a-šu]/. Dr. Ebeling translates, "auf je eine Hälfte ist ein Ziegel [ihrer] Auge[n] gelegt". But /libittu/ is clearly used here, not with its ordinary meaning of "brick", which yields a strange rendering, but in its special sense, when applied to large buildings, of "foundation, floor-space, area", i.e. "surface". Dr. Ebeling reads /ênâ-šu/ at the end of the line, but the sign is broken; perhaps the traces may prove to be those of /uznâ šu/, "his ears", in which case /li-bit uz[nâ-šu]/ might be rendered either as "surface of his ears", or as "base (lit. foundation) of his ears". [4] i.e. the length of his pace was twenty /bêru/. [5] Lit. "the black-headed". The text here breaks off, at the moment when Pallil, whose help against the dragon had been invoked, begins to speak. Let us hope we shall recover the continuation of the narrative and learn what became of this carnivorous monster. There are ample grounds, then, for assuming the independent existence of the Babylonian Dragon-myth, and though both the versions recovered have come to us in Semitic form, there is no doubt that the myth itself existed among the Sumerians. The dragon /motif/ is constantly recurring in descriptions of Sumerian temple-decoration, and the twin dragons of Ningishzida on Gudea's libation-vase, carved in green steatite and inlaid with shell, are a notable product of Sumerian art.[1] The very names borne by Tiamat's brood of monsters in the "Seven Tablets" are stamped in most cases with their Sumerian descent, and Kingu, whom she appointed as her champion in place of Apsû, is equally Sumerian. It would be strange indeed if the Sumerians had not evolved a Dragon myth,[2] for the Dragon combat is the most obvious of nature myths and is found in most mythologies of Europe and the Near East. The trailing storm-clouds suggest his serpent form, his fiery tongue is seen in the forked lightning, and, though he may darken the world for a time, the Sun-god will always be victorious. In Egypt the myth of "the Overthrowing of Apep, the enemy of Ra" presents a close parallel to that of Tiamat;[3] but of all Eastern mythologies that of the Chinese has inspired in art the most beautiful treatment of the Dragon, who, however, under his varied forms was for them essentially beneficent. Doubtless the Semites of Babylonia had their own versions of the Dragon combat, both before and after their arrival on the Euphrates, but the particular version which the priests of Babylon wove into their epic is not one of them. [1] See E. de Sarzec, /Découvertes en Chaldée/, pl. xliv, Fig. 2, and Heuzey, /Catalogue des antiquités chaldéennes/, p. 281. [2] In his very interesting study of "Sumerian and Akkadian Views of Beginnings", contributed to the /Journ. of the Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 274 ff., Professor Jastrow suggests that the Dragon combat in the Semitic-Babylonian Creation poem is of Semitic not Sumerian origin. He does not examine the evidence of the poem itself in detail, but bases the suggestion mainly on the two hypotheses, that the Dragon combat of the poem was suggested by the winter storms and floods of the Euphrates Valley, and that the Sumerians came from a mountain region where water was not plentiful. If we grant both assumptions, the suggested conclusion does not seem to me necessarily to follow, in view of the evidence we now possess as to the remote date of the Sumerian settlement in the Euphrates Valley. Some evidence may still be held to point to a mountain home for the proto-Sumerians, such as the name of their early goddess Ninkharsagga, "the Lady of the Mountains". But, as we must now regard Babylonia itself as the cradle of their civilization, other data tend to lose something of their apparent significance. It is true that the same Sumerian sign means "land" and "mountain"; but it may have been difficult to obtain an intelligible profile for "land" without adopting a mountain form. Such a name as Ekur, the "Mountain House" of Nippur, may perhaps indicate size, not origin; and Enki's association with metal- working may be merely due to his character as God of Wisdom, and is not appropriate solely "to a god whose home is in the mountains where metals are found" (op. cit., p. 295). It should be added that Professor Jastrow's theory of the Dragon combat is bound up with his view of the origin of an interesting Sumerian "myth of beginnings", to which reference is made later. [3] Cf. Budge, /Gods of the Egyptians/, Vol. I, pp. 324 ff. The inclusion of the two versions of the Egyptian Creation myth, recording the Birth of the Gods in the "Book of Overthrowing Apep", does not present a very close parallel to the combination of Creation and Dragon myths in the Semitic-Babylonian poem, for in the Egyptian work the two myths are not really combined, the Creation Versions being inserted in the middle of the spells against Apep, without any attempt at assimilation (see Budge, /Egyptian Literature/, Vol. I, p. xvi). We have thus traced four out of the five strands which form the Semitic-Babylonian poem of Creation to a Sumerian ancestry. And we now come back to the first of the strands, the Birth of the Gods, from which our discussion started. For if this too should prove to be Sumerian, it would help to fill in the gap in our Sumerian Creation myth, and might furnish us with some idea of the Sumerian view of "beginnings", which preceded the acts of creation by the great gods. It will be remembered that the poem opens with the description of a time when heaven and earth did not exist, no field or marsh even had been created, and the universe consisted only of the primaeval water- gods, Apsû, Mummu, and Tiamat, whose waters were mingled together. Then follows the successive generation of two pairs of deities, Lakhmu and Lakhamu, and Anshar and Kishar, long ages separating the two generations from each other and from the birth of the great gods which subsequently takes place. In the summary of the myth which is given by Damascius[1] the names of the various deities accurately correspond to those in the opening lines of the poem; but he makes some notable additions, as will be seen from the following table: DAMASCUS "SEVEN TABLETS" I {'Apason---Tauthe} Apsû---Tiamat | {Moumis} Mummu {Lakhos---Lakhe}[2] Lakhmu---Lakhamu {'Assoros---Kissare} Anshar---Kishar {'Anos, 'Illinos, 'Aos} Anu, [ ], Nudimmud (= Ea) {'Aos---Dauke} | {Belos} [1] /Quaestiones de primis principiis/, cap. 125; ed. Kopp, p. 384. [2] Emended from the reading {Dakhen kai Dakhon} of the text. In the passage of the poem which describes the birth of the great gods after the last pair of primaeval deities, mention is duly made of Anu and Nudimmud (the latter a title of Ea), corresponding to the {'Anos} and {'Aos} of Damascius; and there appears to be no reference to Enlil, the original of {'Illinos}. It is just possible that his name occurred at the end of one of the broken lines, and, if so, we should have a complete parallel to Damascius. But the traces are not in favour of the restoration;[1] and the omission of Enlil's name from this part of the poem may be readily explained as a further tribute to Marduk, who definitely usurps his place throughout the subsequent narrative. Anu and Ea had both to be mentioned because of the parts they play in the Epic, but Enlil's only recorded appearance is in the final assembly of the gods, where he bestows his own name "the Lord of the World"[2] upon Marduk. The evidence of Damascius suggests that Enlil's name was here retained, between those of Anu and Ea, in other versions of the poem. But the occurrence of the name in any version is in itself evidence of the antiquity of this strand of the narrative. It is a legitimate inference that the myth of the Birth of the Gods goes back to a time at least before the rise of Babylon, and is presumably of Sumerian origin. [1] Anu and Nudimmud are each mentioned for the first time at the beginning of a line, and the three lines following the reference to Nudimmud are entirely occupied with descriptions of his wisdom and power. It is also probable that the three preceding lines (ll. 14-16), all of which refer to Anu by name, were entirely occupied with his description. But it is only in ll. 13-16 that any reference to Enlil can have occurred, and the traces preserved of their second halves do not suggestion the restoration. [2] Cf. Tabl. VII, . 116. Further evidence of this may be seen in the fact that Anu, Enlil, and Ea (i.e. Enki), who are here created together, are the three great gods of the Sumerian Version of Creation; it is they who create mankind with the help of the goddess Ninkharsagga, and in the fuller version of that myth we should naturally expect to find some account of their own origin. The reference in Damascius to Marduk ({Belos}) as the son of Ea and Damkina ({Dauke}) is also of interest in this connexion, as it exhibits a goddess in close connexion with one of the three great gods, much as we find Ninkharsagga associated with them in the Sumerian Version.[1] Before leaving the names, it may be added that, of the primaeval deities, Anshar and Kishar are obviously Sumerian in form. [1] Damkina was the later wife of Ea or Enki; and Ninkharsagga is associated with Enki, as his consort, in another Sumerian myth. It may be noted that the character of Apsû and Tiamat in this portion of the poem[1] is quite at variance with their later actions. Their revolt at the ordered "way" of the gods was a necessary preliminary to the incorporation of the Dragon myths, in which Ea and Marduk are the heroes. Here they appear as entirely beneficent gods of the primaeval water, undisturbed by storms, in whose quiet depths the equally beneficent deities Lakhmu and Lakhamu, Anshar and Kishar, were generated.[2] This interpretation, by the way, suggests a more satisfactory restoration for the close of the ninth line of the poem than any that has yet been proposed. That line is usually taken to imply that the gods were created "in the midst of [heaven]", but I think the following rendering, in connexion with ll. 1-5, gives better sense: When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not bear a name, And the primaeval Apsû who begat them,[3] And Mummu, and Tiamat who bore them[3] all,-- Their waters were mingled together, . . . . . . . . . Then were created the gods in the midst of [their waters],[4] Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called into being . . . [1] Tabl. I, ll. 1-21. [2] We may perhaps see a survival of Tiamat's original character in her control of the Tablets of Fate. The poem does not represent her as seizing them in any successful fight; they appear to be already hers to bestow on Kingu, though in the later mythology they are "not his by right" (cf. Tabl. I, ll. 137 ff., and Tabl. IV, l. 121). [3] i.e. the gods. [4] The ninth line is preserved only on a Neo-Babylonian duplicate (/Seven Tablets/, Vol. II, pl. i). I suggested the restoration /ki-rib š[a-ma-mi]/, "in the midst of heaven", as possible, since the traces of the first sign in the last word of the line seemed to be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of /ša/. The restoration appeared at the time not altogether satisfactory in view of the first line of the poem, and it could only be justified by supposing that /šamâmu/, or "heaven", was already vaguely conceived as in existence (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 3, n. 14). But the traces of the sign, as I have given them (op. cit., Vol. II, pl. i), may also possibly be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of the sign /me/; and I would now restore the end of the line in the Neo- Babylonian tablet as /ki-rib m[e-e-šu-nu]/, "in the midst of [their waters]", corresponding to the form /mu-u-šu-nu/ in l. 5 of this duplicate. In the Assyrian Version /mé(pl)-šu-nu/ would be read in both lines. It will be possible to verify the new reading, by a re-examination of the traces on the tablet, when the British Museum collections again become available for study after the war. If the ninth line of the poem be restored as suggested, its account of the Birth of the Gods will be found to correspond accurately with the summary from Berossus, who, in explaining the myth, refers to the Babylonian belief that the universe consisted at first of moisture in which living creatures, such as he had already described, were generated.[1] The primaeval waters are originally the source of life, not of destruction, and it is in them that the gods are born, as in Egyptian mythology; there Nu, the primaeval water-god from whom Ra was self-created, never ceased to be the Sun-god's supporter. The change in the Babylonian conception was obviously introduced by the combination of the Dragon myth with that of Creation, a combination that in Egypt would never have been justified by the gentle Nile. From a study of some aspects of the names at the beginning of the Babylonian poem we have already seen reason to suspect that its version of the Birth of the Gods goes back to Sumerian times, and it is pertinent to ask whether we have any further evidence that in Sumerian belief water was the origin of all things. [1] {ugrou gar ontos tou pantos kai zoon en auto gegennemenon [toionde] ktl}. His creatures of the primaeval water were killed by the light; and terrestrial animals were then created which could bear (i.e. breathe and exist in) the air. For many years we have possessed a Sumerian myth of Creation, which has come to us on a late Babylonian tablet as the introductory section of an incantation. It is provided with a Semitic translation, and to judge from its record of the building of Babylon and Egasila, Marduk's temple, and its identification of Marduk himself with the Creator, it has clearly undergone some editing at the hands of the Babylonian priests. Moreover, the occurrence of various episodes out of their logical order, and the fact that the text records twice over the creation of swamps and marshes, reeds and trees or forests, animals and cities, indicate that two Sumerian myths have been combined. Thus we have no guarantee that the other cities referred to by name in the text, Nippur, Erech, and Eridu, are mentioned in any significant connexion with each other.[1] Of the actual cause of Creation the text appears to give two versions also, one in its present form impersonal, and the other carried out by a god. But these two accounts are quite unlike the authorized version of Babylon, and we may confidently regard them as representing genuine Sumerian myths. The text resembles other early accounts of Creation by introducing its narrative with a series of negative statements, which serve to indicate the preceding non-existence of the world, as will be seen from the following extract:[2] No city had been created, no creature had been made, Nippur had not been created, Ekur had not been built, Erech had not been created, Eanna had not been built, Apsû had not been created, Eridu had not been built, Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the habitation had not been created. All lands[3] were sea. At the time when a channel (was formed) in the midst of the sea, Then was Eridu created, Esagila built, etc. Here we have the definite statement that before Creation all the world was sea. And it is important to note that the primaeval water is not personified; the ordinary Sumerian word for "sea" is employed, which the Semitic translator has faithfully rendered in his version of the text.[4] The reference to a channel in the sea, as the cause of Creation, seems at first sight a little obscure; but the word implies a "drain" or "water-channel", not a current of the sea itself, and the reference may be explained as suggested by the drainage of a flood- area. No doubt the phrase was elaborated in the original myth, and it is possible that what appears to be a second version of Creation later on in the text is really part of the more detailed narrative of the first myth. There the Creator himself is named. He is the Sumerian god Gilimma, and in the Semitic translation Marduk's name is substituted. To the following couplet, which describes Gilimma's method of creation, is appended a further extract from a later portion of the text, there evidently displaced, giving additional details of the Creator's work: Gilimma bound reeds in the face of the waters, He formed soil and poured it out beside the reeds.[5] [He][6] filled in a dike by the side of the sea, [He . . .] a swamp, he formed a marsh. [. . .], he brought into existence, [Reeds he form]ed,[7] trees he created. [1] The composite nature of the text is discussed by Professor Jastrow in his /Hebrew and Babylonian Traditions/, pp. 89 ff.; and in his paper in the /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 279 ff.; he has analysed it into two main versions, which he suggests originated in Eridu and Nippur respectively. The evidence of the text does not appear to me to support the view that any reference to a watery chaos preceding Creation must necessarily be of Semitic origin. For the literature of the text (first published by Pinches, /Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc./, Vol. XXIII, pp. 393 ff.), see /Sev. Tabl./, Vol. I, p. 130. [2] Obv., ll. 5-12. [3] Sum. /nigin-kur-kur-ra-ge/, Sem. /nap-har ma-ta-a-tu/, lit. "all lands", i.e. Sumerian and Babylonian expressions for "the world". [4] Sum. /a-ab-ba/, "sea", is here rendered by /tâmtum/, not by its personified equivalent Tiamat. [5] The suggestion has been made that /amu/, the word in the Semitic version here translated "reeds", should be connected with /ammatu/, the word used for "earth" or "dry land" in the Babylonian Creation Series, Tabl. I, l. 2, and given some such meaning as "expanse". The couplet is thus explained to mean that the god made an expanse on the face of the waters, and then poured out dust "on the expanse". But the Semitic version in l. 18 reads /itti ami/, "beside the /a./", not /ina ami/, "on the /a./"; and in any case there does not seem much significance in the act of pouring out specially created dust on or beside land already formed. The Sumerian word translated by /amu/ is written /gi-dir/, with the element /gi/, "reed", in l. 17, and though in the following line it is written under its variant form /a-dir/ without /gi/, the equation /gi-a-dir/ = /amu/ is elsewhere attested (cf. Delitzsch, /Handwörterbuch/, p. 77). In favour of regarding /amu/ as some sort of reed, here used collectively, it may be pointed out that the Sumerian verb in l. 17 is /kešda/, "to bind", accurately rendered by /rakašu/ in the Semitic version. Assuming that l. 34 belongs to the same account, the creation of reeds in general beside trees, after dry land is formed, would not of course be at variance with the god's use of some sort of reed in his first act of creation. He creates the reed-bundles, as he creates the soil, both of which go to form the first dike; the reed-beds, like the other vegetation, spring up from the ground when it appears. [6] The Semitic version here reads "the lord Marduk"; the corresponding name in the Sumerian text is not preserved. [7] The line is restored from l. 2 o the obverse of the text. Here the Sumerian Creator is pictured as forming dry land from the primaeval water in much the same way as the early cultivator in the Euphrates Valley procured the rich fields for his crops. The existence of the earth is here not really presupposed. All the world was sea until the god created land out of the waters by the only practical method that was possible in Mesopotamia. In another Sumerian myth, which has been recovered on one of the early tablets from Nippur, we have a rather different picture of beginnings. For there, though water is the source of life, the existence of the land is presupposed. But it is bare and desolate, as in the Mesopotamian season of "low water". The underlying idea is suggestive of a period when some progress in systematic irrigation had already been made, and the filling of the dry canals and subsequent irrigation of the parched ground by the rising flood of Enki was not dreaded but eagerly desired. The myth is only one of several that have been combined to form the introductory sections of an incantation; but in all of them Enki, the god of the deep water, plays the leading part, though associated with different consorts.[1] The incantation is directed against various diseases, and the recitation of the closing mythical section was evidently intended to enlist the aid of special gods in combating them. The creation of these deities is recited under set formulae in a sort of refrain, and the divine name assigned to each bears a magical connexion with the sickness he or she is intended to dispel.[2] [1] See Langdon, Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sect., Vol. X, No. 1 (1915), pl. i f., pp. 69 ff.; /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI (1916), pp. 140 ff.; cf. Prince, /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 90 ff.; Jastrow, /Journ. Amer. Or. Soc./, Vol. XXXVI, pp. 122 ff., and in particular his detailed study of the text in /Amer. Journ. Semit. Lang./, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 91 ff. Dr. Langdon's first description of the text, in /Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch./, Vol. XXXVI (1914), pp. 188 ff., was based on a comparatively small fragment only; and on his completion of the text from other fragments in Pennsylvania. Professor Sayce at once realized that the preliminary diagnosis of a Deluge myth could not be sustained (cf. /Expos. Times/, Nov., 1915, pp. 88 ff.). He, Professor Prince, and Professor Jastrow independently showed that the action of Enki in the myth in sending water on the land was not punitive but beneficent; and the preceding section, in which animals are described as not performing their usual activities, was shown independently by Professor Prince and Professor Jastrow to have reference, not to their different nature in an ideal existence in Paradise, but, on familiar lines, to their non-existence in a desolate land. It may be added that Professor Barton and Dr. Peters agree generally with Professor Prince and Professor Jastrow in their interpretation of the text, which excludes the suggested biblical parallels; and I understand from Dr. Langdon that he very rightly recognizes that the text is not a Deluge myth. It is a subject for congratulation that the discussion has materially increased our knowledge of this difficult composition. [2] Cf. Col. VI, ll. 24 ff.; thus /Ab/-u was created for the sickness of the cow (/ab/); Nin-/tul/ for that of the flock (u-/tul/); Nin- /ka/-u-tu and Nin-/ka/-si for that of the mouth (/ka/); Na-zi for that of the /na-zi/ (meaning uncertain); /Da zi/-ma for that of the /da-zi/ (meaning uncertain); Nin-/til/ for that of /til/ (life); the name of the eighth and last deity is imperfectly preserved. We have already noted examples of a similar use of myth in magic, which was common to both Egypt and Babylonia; and to illustrate its employment against disease, as in the Nippur document, it will suffice to cite a well-known magical cure for the toothache which was adopted in Babylon.[1] There toothache was believed to be caused by the gnawing of a worm in the gum, and a myth was used in the incantation to relieve it. The worm's origin is traced from Anu, the god of heaven, through a descending scale of creation; Anu, the heavens, the earth, rivers, canals and marshes are represented as each giving rise to the next in order, until finally the marshes produce the worm. The myth then relates how the worm, on being offered tempting food by Ea in answer to her prayer, asked to be allowed to drink the blood of the teeth, and the incantation closes by invoking the curse of Ea because of the worm's misguided choice. It is clear that power over the worm was obtained by a recital of her creation and of her subsequent ingratitude, which led to her present occupation and the curse under which she laboured. When the myth and invocation had been recited three times over the proper mixture of beer, a plant, and oil, and the mixture had been applied to the offending tooth, the worm would fall under the spell of the curse and the patient would at once gain relief. The example is instructive, as the connexion of ideas is quite clear. In the Nippur document the recital of the creation of the eight deities evidently ensured their presence, and a demonstration of the mystic bond between their names and the corresponding diseases rendered the working of their powers effective. Our knowledge of a good many other myths is due solely to their magical employment. [1] See Thompson, /Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia/, Vol. II, pp. 160 ff.; for a number of other examples, see Jastrow, /J.A.O.S./, Vol. XXXVI, p. 279, n. 7. Perhaps the most interesting section of the new text is one in which divine instructions are given in the use of plants, the fruit or roots of which may be eaten. Here Usmû, a messenger from Enki, God of the Deep, names eight such plants by Enki's orders, thereby determining the character of each. As Professor Jastrow has pointed out, the passage forcibly recalls the story from Berossus, concerning the mythical creature Oannes, who came up from the Erythraean Sea, where it borders upon Babylonia, to instruct mankind in all things, including "seeds and the gathering of fruits".[1] But the only part of the text that concerns us here is the introductory section, where the life-giving flood, by which the dry fields are irrigated, is pictured as following the union of the water-deities, Enki and Ninella.[2] Professor Jastrow is right in emphasizing the complete absence of any conflict in this Sumerian myth of beginnings; but, as with the other Sumerian Versions we have examined, it seems to me there is no need to seek its origin elsewhere than in the Euphrates Valley. [1] Cf. Jastrow, /J.A.O.S./, Vol. XXXVI, p. 127, and /A.J.S.L./, Vol. XXXIII, p. 134 f. It may be added that the divine naming of the plants also presents a faint parallel to the naming of the beasts and birds by man himself in Gen. ii. 19 f. [2] Professor Jastrow (/A.J.S.L./, Vol. XXXIII, p. 115) compares similar myths collected by Sir James Frazer (/Magic Art/, Vol. II, chap. xi and chap. xii, § 2). He also notes the parallel the irrigation myth presents to the mist (or flood) of the earlier Hebrew Version (Gen. ii. 5 f). But Enki, like Ea, was no rain-god; he had his dwellings in the Euphrates and the Deep. Even in later periods, when the Sumerian myths of Creation had been superseded by that of Babylon, the Euphrates never ceased to be regarded as the source of life and the creator of all things. And this is well brought out in the following introductory lines of a Semitic incantation, of which we possess two Neo-Babylonian copies:[1] O thou River, who didst create all things, When the great gods dug thee out, They set prosperity upon thy banks, Within thee Ea, King of the Deep, created his dwelling. The Flood they sent not before thou wert! Here the river as creator is sharply distinguished from the Flood; and we may conclude that the water of the Euphrates Valley impressed the early Sumerians, as later the Semites, with its creative as well as with its destructive power. The reappearance of the fertile soil, after the receding inundation, doubtless suggested the idea of creation out of water, and the stream's slow but automatic fall would furnish a model for the age-long evolution of primaeval deities. When a god's active and artificial creation of the earth must be portrayed, it would have been natural for the primitive Sumerian to picture the Creator working as he himself would work when he reclaimed a field from flood. We are thus shown the old Sumerian god Gilimma piling reed-bundles in the water and heaping up soil beside them, till the ground within his dikes dries off and produces luxuriant vegetation. But here there is a hint of struggle in the process, and we perceive in it the myth-redactor's opportunity to weave in the Dragon /motif/. No such excuse is afforded by the other Sumerian myth, which pictures the life-producing inundation as the gift of the two deities of the Deep and the product of their union. But in their other aspect the rivers of Mesopotamia could be terrible; and the Dragon /motif/ itself, on the Tigris and Euphrates, drew its imagery as much from flood as from storm. When therefore a single deity must be made to appear, not only as Creator, but also as the champion of his divine allies and the conqueror of other gods, it was inevitable that the myths attaching to the waters under their two aspects should be combined. This may already have taken place at Nippur, when Enlil became the head of the pantheon; but the existence of his myth is conjectural.[1] In a later age we can trace the process in the light of history and of existing texts. There Marduk, identified wholly as the Sun-god, conquers the once featureless primaeval water, which in the process of redaction has now become the Dragon of flood and storm. [1] The aspect of Enlil as the Creator of Vegetation is emphasized in Tablet VII of the Babylonian poem of Creation. It is significant that his first title, Asara, should be interpreted as "Bestower of planting", "Founder of sowing", "Creator of grain and plants", "He who caused the green herb to spring up" (cf. /Seven Tablets/, Vol. I, p. 92 f.). These opening phrases, by which the god is hailed, strike the key-note of the whole composition. It is true that, as Sukh-kur, he is "Destroyer of the foe"; but the great majority of the titles and their Semitic glosses refer to creative activities, not to the Dragon myth. Thus the dualism which is so characteristic a feature of the Semitic- Babylonian system, though absent from the earliest Sumerian ideas of Creation, was inherent in the nature of the local rivers, whose varied aspects gave rise to or coloured separate myths. Its presence in the later mythology may be traced as a reflection of political development, at first probably among the warring cities of Sumer, but certainly later in the Semitic triumph at Babylon. It was but to be expected that the conqueror, whether Sumerian or Semite, should represent his own god's victory as the establishment of order out of chaos. But this would be particularly in harmony with the character of the Semitic Babylonians of the First Dynasty, whose genius for method and organization produced alike Hammurabi's Code of Laws and the straight streets of the capital. We have thus been able to trace the various strands of the Semitic- Babylonian poem of Creation to Sumerian origins; and in the second lecture we arrived at a very similar conclusion with regard to the Semitic-Babylonian Version of the Deluge preserved in the Epic of Gilgamesh. We there saw that the literary structure of the Sumerian Version, in which Creation and Deluge are combined, must have survived under some form into the Neo-Babylonian period, since it was reproduced by Berossus. And we noted the fact that the same arrangement in Genesis did not therefore prove that the Hebrew accounts go back directly to early Sumerian originals. In fact, the structural resemblance presented by Genesis can only be regarded as an additional proof that the Sumerian originals continued to be studied and translated by the Semitic priesthood, although they had long been superseded officially by their later descendants, the Semitic epics. A detailed comparison of the Creation and Deluge narratives in the various versions at once discloses the fact that the connexion between those of the Semitic Babylonians and the Hebrews is far closer and more striking than that which can be traced when the latter are placed beside the Sumerian originals. We may therefore regard it as certain that the Hebrews derived their knowledge of Sumerian tradition, not directly from the Sumerians themselves, but through Semitic channels from Babylon. It will be unnecessary here to go in detail through the points of resemblance that are admitted to exist between the Hebrew account of Creation in the first chapter of Genesis and that preserved in the "Seven Tablets".[1] It will suffice to emphasize two of them, which gain in significance through our newly acquired knowledge of early Sumerian beliefs. It must be admitted that, on first reading the poem, one is struck more by the differences than by the parallels; but that is due to the polytheistic basis of the poem, which attracts attention when compared with the severe and dignified monotheism of the Hebrew writer. And if allowance be made for the change in theological standpoint, the material points of resemblance are seen to be very marked. The outline or general course of events is the same. In both we have an abyss of waters at the beginning denoted by almost the same Semitic word, the Hebrew /tehôm/, translated "the deep" in Gen. i. 2, being the equivalent of the Semitic-Babylonian /Tiamat/, the monster of storm and flood who presents so striking a contrast to the Sumerian primaeval water.[2] The second act of Creation in the Hebrew narrative is that of a "firmament", which divided the waters under it from those above.[3] But this, as we have seen, has no parallel in the early Sumerian conception until it was combined with the Dragon combat in the form in which we find it in the Babylonian poem. There the body of Tiamat is divided by Marduk, and from one half of her he constructs a covering or dome for heaven, that is to say a "firmament", to keep her upper waters in place. These will suffice as text passages, since they serve to point out quite clearly the Semitic source to which all the other detailed points of Hebrew resemblance may be traced. [1] See /Seven Tablets/, Vol. I, pp. lxxxi ff., and Skinner, /Genesis/, pp. 45 ff. [2] The invariable use of the Hebrew word /tehôm/ without the article, except in two passages in the plural, proves that it is a proper name (cf. Skinner, op. cit., p. 17); and its correspondence with /Tiamat/ makes the resemblance of the versions far more significant than if their parallelism were confined solely to ideas. [3] Gen. i. 6-8. In the case of the Deluge traditions, so conclusive a demonstration is not possible, since we have no similar criterion to apply. And on one point, as we saw, the Hebrew Versions preserve an original Sumerian strand of the narrative that was not woven into the Gilgamesh Epic, where there is no parallel to the piety of Noah. But from the detailed description that was given in the second lecture, it will have been noted that the Sumerian account is on the whole far simpler and more primitive than the other versions. It is only in the Babylonian Epic, for example, that the later Hebrew writer finds material from which to construct the ark, while the sweet savour of Ut-napishtim's sacrifice, and possibly his sending forth of the birds, though reproduced in the earlier Hebrew Version, find no parallels in the Sumerian account.[1] As to the general character of the Flood, there is no direct reference to rain in the Sumerian Version, though its presence is probably implied in the storm. The heavy rain of the Babylonian Epic has been increased to forty days of rain in the earlier Hebrew Version, which would be suitable to a country where local rain was the sole cause of flood. But the later Hebrew writer's addition of "the fountains of the deep" to "the windows of heaven" certainly suggests a more intimate knowledge of Mesopotamia, where some contributary cause other than local rain must be sought for the sudden and overwhelming catastrophes of which the rivers are capable. [1] For detailed lists of the points of agreement presented by the Hebrew Versions J and P to the account in the Gilgamesh Epic, see Skinner, op. cit., p. 177 f.; Driver, /Genesis/, p. 106 f.; and
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