The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamish
by E.A. Wallis Budge
[1929]
THIS brochure, The Babylonian Story of the Deluge and the Epic of Gilgamish, was originally written by the late Keeper of the Department, SIR ERNEST WALLIS BUDGE, LITT.D., F.S.A. It is now re-issued in a revised form, rendered necessary by the march of discovery in Babylonian matters during the last few years. The work of revision has been carried out by Mr. C. J. GADD, M.A., F.S.A., Assistant-Keeper in the Department.
H. R. HALL.
DEPARTMENT OF EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN ANTIQUITIES, BRITISH MUSEUM,
15th October, 1929.
THE BABYLONIAN STORY OF THE DELUGE AS TOLD BY ASSYRIAN TABLETS FROM NINEVEH.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE TABLETS AT NINEVEH BY LAYARD, RASSAM AND SMITH.
IN 1845-47, and again in 1849-51, Mr. (later Sir) A. H. Layard carried out a series of excavations among the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh, "that great city, wherein are more than sixteen thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left; and also much cattle" (Jonah iv, ii). Its ruins lie on the left or east bank of the Tigris, exactly opposite the town of At-Mawsil, or Môsul, which was founded by the Sassanians and marks the site of Western Nineveh. At first Layard thought that these ruins were not those of Nineveh, which he placed at Nimrûd, about 20 miles downstream, but of one of the other cities that were builded by Asshur (see Gen. X, 11, 12). Thanks, however, to Christian, Roman and Muhammadan tradition, there is no room for doubt about it, and the site of Nineveh has always been known. The fortress which the Arabs built there in the seventh century was known as "Kal'at Ninawï," i.e., "Nineveh Castle," for many centuries, and all the Arab geographers agree in saying that the mounds opposite Môsul contain the ruins of the palaces and walls of Nineveh. And few of them fail to mention that close by them is "Tall Nabi Yûnis," i.e., the Hill from which the Prophet Jonah preached repentance to the inhabitants of Nineveh, that "exceeding great city of three days' journey" (Jonah iii, 3). Local tradition also declares that the prophet was buried in the Hill, and his supposed tomb is shown there to this day.
THE WALLS AND PALACES OF NINEVEH.
The situation of the ruins of the palaces of Nineveh is well shown by the accompanying reproduction of the plan of
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the city made by Commander Felix Jones, I.N. The remains of the older palaces built by Sargon II (B.C. 722-705), Sennacherib (B.C. 705-681), and Esarhaddon (B.C. 681-669) lie under the hill called Nabi Yûnis, and those of the palaces and other buildings of Asshur-bani-pal (B.C. 681-626) under the mound which is known locally as "Tall al-'Armûshîyah," i.e., "The "Hill of 'Armûsh," and "Kuyûnjik." The latter name is said to be derived from two Turkish words meaning "many sheep," in allusion to the large flocks of sheep that find their pasture on and about the mound in the early spring. These two great mounds lie close to the remains of the great west wall of Nineveh, which in the time of the last Assyrian Empire may have been washed by the waters of the river Tigris.[1] The river Khausur, or Khoser, divides the area of Nineveh into two parts, and passing close to the southern end of Kuyûnjik empties itself into the Tigris. The ruins of the walls of Nineveh show that the east wall was 16,000 feet long, the north wall 7,000 feet long, the west wall 13,600 feet, and the south wall 3,000 feet; its circuit was about 13,200 yards or 71 miles.
FIRST DISCOVERY OF THE ROYAL LIBRARY AT NINEVEH.
In the spring of 1850 Layard, assisted by Mr. H. Rassam, continued the excavation of the "South West Palace" at Kuyûnjik. In one part of the building he found two small chambers, opening into each other, which be called the "chamber of records," or "the house of the rolls." He gave them this name because "to the height of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with inscribed baked clay tablets and fragments of tablets. Some tablets were complete, but by far the larger number of them had been broken up into many fragments, probably by the falling in of the roof and upper parts of the walls of the buildings when the city was pillaged and set on fire by the Medes and Babylonians. The tablets that were kept in these chambers numbered many thousands. Besides those that were found in them by Layard, large numbers have been dug out all along
[1. It has recently been suggested, as a result of careful examination of the site, that the Tigris never actually flowed under the city wall. (R. C. Thompson, A Century of Exploration at Nineveh, p. 122 ff.)]
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the corridor which passed the chambers and led to the river, and a considerable number were kicked on to the river front by the feet of the terrified fugitives from the palace when it was set on fire. The tablets found by Layard were of different sizes; the largest were rectangular, flat on one side and convex on the other, and measured about 9 ins. by 6½ ins., and the smallest were about an inch square. The importance of this "find" was not sufficiently recognized at the time, for the tablets, which were thought to be decorated pottery, were thrown into baskets and sent down the river loose on rafts to Basrah, whence they were despatched to England on a British
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man-of-war. During their transport from Nineveh to England they suffered more damage from want of packing than they had suffered from the wrath of the Medes. Among the complete tablets that were found in the two chambers several had colophons inscribed or scratched upon them, and when these were deciphered by Rawlinson, Hincks and Oppert a few years later, it became evident that they had formed part of the Library of the TEMPLE OF NEBO AT NINEVEH.
NEBO AND HIS LIBRARY AT NINEVEH.
Nothing is known of the early history of the Library[1] of the Temple of Nebo at Nineveh, but there is little doubt that it was in existence in the reign of Sargon II. Authorities differ in their estimate of the attributes that were assigned to Nebo (Nabu) in Pre-Babylonian times, and "cannot decide whether he was a water-god, or a fire-god, or a corn-god, but he was undoubtedly associated with Marduk, either as his son or as a fellow-god. It is certain that as early as B.C. 2000 he was regarded as one of the "Great Gods" of Babylonia, and in the fourteenth century B.C. his cult was already established in Assyria. He had a temple at Nimrûd in the ninth century B.C., and King Adad-nirari (B.C. 811-783) set up six statues in it to the honour of the god; two of these statues are now in the British Museum. The same Adad-nirari also repaired the Nebo temple at Nineveh. Under the last Assyrian Empire Nebo was believed to possess the wisdom of all the gods, and to be the "All-wise " and "All-knowing." He was the inventor of all the arts and sciences, and the source of inspiration in wise and learned men, and he was the divine scribe and past master of all the mysteries connected with literature and the art of writing (dup-sharrute). Ashur-bani-pal addresses him as "Nebo, the mighty son, the director of the whole of heaven and of earth, holder of the tablet, bearer of the writing-reed of the tablet of destiny, lengthener of days, vivifier of the dead, stablisher of light for the men who are troubled" (see Tablet, RM. 132).
[1. A group of Sumerian signs for "library" is ### (girginakku), and these seem to mean "collection of tablets."]
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In the reign of Sargon II the Temple of Nebo at Kuyûnjik[1] was repaired, and probably at that time a library was housed in it. Layard found some of the remains of Nebo's Library in the South West Palace, but it must have been transferred thither, for the temple of Nebo lay farther north, near the south comer of Ashur-bani-pal's palace. Nebo's temple at Nineveh bore the same name as his very ancient temple at Borsippa (the modem Birs-i-Nimrûd), viz., "E-ZIDA."
DISCOVERY OF THE PALACE LIBRARY OF ASHUR-BANI-PAL.
In the spring of 1851 Layard was obliged to close his excavations for want of funds, and he returned to England with Rassam, leaving all the northern half of the great mound of Kuyûnjik unexcavated. He resigned his position as Director of Excavations to the Trustees of the British Museum, and Colonel (later Sir) H. C. Rawlinson, Consul-General at Baghdâd, undertook to direct any further excavations that it might be possible to carry out later on. During the summer the Trustees received a further grant from Parliament for excavations in Assyria, and they dispatched Rassam to finish the exploration of Kuyûnjik, knowing that the lease of the mound of Kuyûnjik for excavation purposes which he had obtained from its owner had several years to run. When Rassam arrived at Môsul in 1852, and was collecting his men for work, he discovered that Rawlinson, who knew nothing about the lease of the mound which Rassam held, had given the French Consul, M. Place, permission to excavate the northern half of the mound, i.e., that part of it which he was most anxious to excavate for the British Museum. He protested, but in vain, and, finding that M. Place intended to hold Rawlinson to his word, devoted himself to clearing out part of the South West Palace which Layard had attacked in 1850. Meanwhile M. Place was busily occupied with the French excavations at Khorsabad, a mound which contained the ruins of the great palace of Sargon II, and had no time to open up excavations at Kuyûnjik. In this way a year passed, and as M. Place made no sign that he was going to excavate at Kuyûnjik, and Rassam's time for
[1. For a description of the ruins of this temple, see R. C. Thompson, A Century of Exploration at Nineveh, pp. 67-79.]
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returning to England was drawing near, the owner of the mound, who was anxious to get the excavations finished so that he might again graze his flocks on the mound, urged Rassam to get to work in spite of Rawlinson's agreement with M. Place. He and Rassam made arrangements to excavate the northern part of the mound clandestinely and by night, and on 20th December, 1853, the work began. On the first night nothing of importance was found; on the second night the men uncovered a portion of a large bas-relief; and on the third night a huge mass of earth collapsed revealing a very fine bas-relief, sculptured with a scene representing Ashur-bani-pal standing in his chariot. The news of the discovery was quickly carried to all parts of the neighbourhood, and as it was impossible to keep the diggings secret any longer, the work was continued openly and by day. The last-mentioned bas-relief was one of the series that lined the chamber, which was 50 feet long and 15 feet wide, and illustrated a royal lion hunt. This series, that is to say, all of it that the fire which destroyed the palace had spared, is now in the British Museum (see the Gallery of the Assyrian Saloon).
Whilst the workmen were clearing out the Chamber of the Lion Hunt they came across several heaps of inscribed baked clay tablets of "all shapes and sizes," which resembled in general appearance the tablets that Layard had found in the South West Palace the year before. There were no remains with them, or near them, that suggested they had been arranged systematically and stored in the Chamber of the Lion Hunt, and it seems as if they had been brought there from another place and thrown down hastily, for nearly all of them were broken into small pieces. As some of them bore traces of having been exposed to great heat they must have been in that chamber during the burning of the palace. When the tablets were brought to England and were examined by Rawlinson, it was found from the information supplied by the colophons that they formed a part of the great PRIVATE LIBRARY OF
[1. These bas-reliefs show that lions were kept in cages in Nineveh and let out to be killed by the King with his own hand. There seems to be an allusion to the caged lions by Nahum (ii, 11), who says, "Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid?"]
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ASHUR-BANI-PAL, which that king kept in his palace. The tablets found by Layard in 1850 and by Rassam in 1853 form the unique and magnificent collection of cuneiform tablets in the British Museum, which is now commonly known as the "Kuyûnjik Collection." The approximate number of the inscribed baked clay tablets and fragments that have come from Kuyûnjik and are now in the British Museum is 25,073. It is impossible to over-estimate their importance and value from religious, historical and literary points of view; besides this, they have supplied the material for the decipherment of cuneiform inscriptions in the Assyrian, Babylonian and Sumerian languages, and form the foundation of the science of Assyriology which has been built up with such conspicuous success during the last 70 years.
ASHUR-BANI-PAL, BOOK-COLLECTOR AND PATRON OF LEARNING.
Ashur-bani-pal (the Asnapper of Ezra iv, 10) succeeded his father Esarhaddon B.C. 669, and at a comparatively early period of his reign he seems to have devoted himself to the study of the history of his country, and to the making of a great Private Library. The tablets that have come down to us prove not only that he was as great a benefactor of the Library of the Temple of Nebo as any of his predecessors, but that he was himself an educated man, a lover of learning, and a patron of the literary folk of his day. In the introduction to his Annals, as found inscribed on his great ten-sided prism in the British Museum, he tells us how he took up his abode in the Crown Prince's dwelling from which Sermacherib and Esarhaddon had ruled the Assyrian Empire, and in describing his own education he says:
"I, Ashur-bani-pal, within it (i.e., the palace) understood the wisdom of Nebo, all the art of writing of every craftsman, of every kind, I made myself master of them all (i.e., of the various kinds of writing)."
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These words suggest that Ashur-bani-pal could not only read cuneiform texts, but could write like a skilled scribe, and that he also understood all the details connected with the
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craft of making and baking tablets. Having determined to form a Library in his palace he set to work in a systematic manner to collect literary works. He sent scribes to ancient seats of learning, e.g., Ashur, Babylon, Cuthah, Nippur, Akkad, Erech, to make copies of the ancient works that were preserved there, and when the copies came to Nineveh he either made transcripts of them himself, or caused his scribes to do so for the Palace Library. In any case he collated the texts himself and revised them before placing them in his Library. The appearance of the tablets from his Library suggests that he established a factory in which the clay was cleaned and kneaded and made into homogeneous, well-shaped tablets, and a kiln in which they were baked, after they had been inscribed. The uniformity of the script upon them is very remarkable, and texts with mistakes in them are rarely found. How the tablets were arranged in the Library is not known, but certainly groups were catalogued, and some tablets were labelled.[1] Groups of tablets were arranged in numbered series, with "catch lines," the first tablet of the series giving the first line of the second tablet, the second tablet giving the first line of the third tablet, and so on.
Ashur-bani-pal was greatly interested in the literature of the Sumerians, i.e., the non-Semitic people who occupied Lower Babylonia about B.C. 3500 and later. He and his scribes made bilingual lists of signs and words and objects of all classes and kinds, all of which are of priceless value to the modem student of the Sumerian and Assyrian languages. Annexed is an extract from a List of
[1. K. 1352 is a, good specimen of a catalogue (see p. 10); K. 1400 and K. 1539 are labels (see p. 12).]
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Signs with Sumerian and Assyrian values. The signs of which the meanings are given are in the middle column; the Sumerian values are given in the column to the left, and their meanings in Assyrian in the column to the right. To many of his copies of Sumerian hymns, incantations, magical formulas, etc., Ashur-bani-pal caused interlinear translations to be added in Assyrian, and of such bilingual documents the following extract from a text relating to the Seven Evil Spirits will serve as a specimen. The 1st, 3rd, 5th, etc., lines are written in Sumerian, and the 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc., lines in Assyrian.
Most of the tablets from Kuyûnjik end with colophons, which can be divided broadly into two classes. One of these is the short note, frequently impressed by a stamp, which reads simply "Palace of Ashur-bani-pal, king of all, king of Assyria" (see the tablet illustrated on p. 22). The longer forms of colophon were added by the scribes who had written the whole tablet. Of these longer colophons there are several versions, each of which seems to have been appropriated to a particular class of texts. Two of the most interesting are here appended; they reveal a distinction between tablets belonging to the Palace Library and those preserved in the Temple of Nebo.
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1. Palace of Ashur-bani-pal, king of all, king of the country of Assyria,
2. who trusteth in the god Ashur and the goddess Ninlil,
3. on whom the god Nebo (Nabû) and the goddess Tashmetu
4. have bestowed all-hearing ears
5. and who has eyes that are clearsighted.
6. The finest results of the art of writing
7. which, among the kings who have gone before,
8. no one ever acquired that craft,
9. the wisdom of Nebo [expressed in] rows (?) of writing, of every form,
10. on tablets I wrote, collated and revised,
11. [and] for examination and reading
12. in my palace I placed--
13. the prince who knoweth the light of the king of the gods, Ashur.'
14. Whosoever shall carry [them] off, or his name side by side with mine
15. shall write, may Ashur and Ninlil, wrathfully, furiously
16. sweep away, and his name and his seed destroy in the land.
2. COLOPHON OF THE TABLETS OF THE LIBRARY OF NEBO. (Rm. 132.)
1. To Nebo, the mighty son, director of the whole of heaven and of earth,
2. holder of the tablet, bearer of the writing reed of the tablet of destinies,
3. lengthener of days, vivifier of the dead, stablisher of light for the men who are troubled,
4. the great lord, his lord; Ashur-bani-pal, the prince, the favourite of the gods Ashur, Bê1 and Nebo,
5. the shepherd, the maintainer of the holy places of the great gods, stablisher of their revenues,
6. son of Esarhaddon, king of all, king of Assyria,
7. grandson of Sennacherib, king of all, king of Assyria,
[1. Or, probably better. "Thy lordship is beyond compare, O king the gods, Ashur."]
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8. for the life of his soul, length of his days, [and] well-being of his posterity,
9. to make permanent the foundation of his royal throne, to hear his supplications,
10. to receive his petitions, to deliver into his hands the rebellious.
11. The wisdom of Ea, the chanter's art, the secrets of the sages,
12. what is composed for the contentment of the heart of the great gods,
13. I wrote upon tablets, I collated, I revised
14. according to originals of the lands of Ashur and Akkad,
15. and I placed in the Library of E-zida, the temple of Nebo my lord, which is in Nineveh.
16. O Nebo, lord of the whole of heaven and of earth, look upon that Library joyfully for years (i.e., for ever).
17. On Ashur-bani-pal, the chief, the worshipper of thy divinity, daily bestow grace,
18. his life decree, so that he may exalt thy great godhead.
The tablets from both Libraries when unbroken vary in size from 15 inches by 85/8 inches to 1 inch by 7/8 inch, and they are usually about 1 inch thick. In shape they are rectangular, the obverse being flat and the reverse slightly convex. Contract tablets, letter tablets and "case" tablets are very much smaller, and resemble small pillows in shape. The principal subjects dealt with in the tablets are history, annalistic or summaries, letters, despatches, reports, oracles, prayers, contracts, deeds of sale of land, produce, cattle, slaves, agreements, dowries, bonds for interest (with impressions of seals, and fingernails, or nail marks), chronography, chronology, canons of eponyms, divination (by astrology, the entrails of victims, oil, casual events, dreams, and symptoms), charms, spells, incantations, mythology, legends, grammar, law, geography, etc.[1]
[1. For a full description of the general contents of the two great Libraries of Nineveh. see Bezold, Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets of the Kouyûnjik Collection, Vol. V, London, 1899, p. xviii ff.; and King, Supplement, London, 1914, p. xviii ff.]
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GEORGE SMITH'S DISCOVERY OF THE EPIC OF GILGAMISH AND THE STORY OF THE DELUGE.
The mass of tablets which had been discovered by Layard and Rassam at Nineveh came to the British Museum in 1854-5, and their examination by Rawlinson and Norris began very soon after. Mr. Bowler, a skilful draughtsman and copyist of tablets, whom Rawlinson employed in making transfers of copies of cuneiform texts for publication by lithography, rejoined a considerable number of fragments of bilingual lists, syllabaries, etc., which were published in the second volume of the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, in 1866. In that year the Trustees of the British Museum employed George Smith to assist Rawlinson in sorting, classifying and rejoining fragments, and a comprehensive examination of the collection by him began. His personal interest in Assyriology was centred upon historical texts, especially those which threw any light on the Bible Narrative. But in the course of his search for stories of the campaigns of Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashur-bani-pal, he discovered among other important documents (1) a series of portions of tablets which give the adventures of Gilgamish, an ancient king of Erech; (2) an account of the Deluge, which is supplied by the Eleventh Tablet of the Legend of Gilgamish (in more than one version); (3) a detailed description of the Creation; (4) the Legend of the Descent of Ishtar into Hades in quest of Tammuz. The general meaning of the texts was quite clear, but there were many gaps in them, and it was not until December, 1872, that George Smith published his description of the Legend of Gilgamish, and a translation of the "Chaldean Account of the Deluge." The interest which his paper evoked was universal, and the proprietors of The Daily Telegraph advocated that Smith should be at once dispatched to Nineveh to search for the missing fragments of tablets which would fill up the gaps in his texts, and generously offered to contribute 1,000 guineas towards the cost of the excavations. The Trustees accepted the offer and gave six months' leave of absence to Smith, who left London in January, and arrived in Môsul in March, 1873. In the following May he recovered from Kuyûnjik a fragment that contained "the greater portion of seventeen
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lines of inscription belonging to the first column of the Chaldean account of the Deluge, and fitting into the only place where there was a serious blank in the story."[1] During the excavations which Smith carried out at Kuyûnjik in 1873 and 1874 he recovered many fragments of tablets, the texts of which enabled him to complete his description of the contents of the Twelve Tablets of the Legend of Gilgamish which included his translation of the story of the Deluge. Unfortunately Smith died of hunger and sickness near Aleppo in 1876, and he was unable to revise his early work, and to supplement it with the information which he had acquired during his latest travels in Assyria and Babylonia. Thanks to the excavations which were carried on at Kuyûnjik by the Trustees of the British Museum after his untimely death, several hundreds of tablets and fragments have been recovered, and many of these have been rejoined to the tablets of the older collection. By the careful study and investigation of the old and new material Assyriologists have, during the last forty years, been enabled to restore and complete many passages in the Legends of Gilgamish and the Flood. It now seems that the Legend of the Flood had not originally any connection with the Legend of Gilgamish, and that it was introduced into it by a late editor or redactor of the Legend, probably in order to complete the number of the Twelve Tablets on which it was written in the time of Ashur-bani-pal.
THE LEGEND OF THE DELUGE IN BABYLONIA.
In the introduction to his paper on the "Chaldean Account of the Deluge," which Smith read in December, 1872, and published in 1873, he stated that the Assyrian text which he had found on Ashur-bani-pal's tablets was copied from an archetype at Erech in Lower Babylonia. This archetype was, he thought, "either written in, or translated into Semitic Babylonian, to at a very early period," and although he could not assign a date to it, he adduced a number of convincing proofs in support of his opinion. The language in which he assumed the Legend to have been originally composed was known to
[1. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, London, 1875, p. 97.]
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him under the name of "Accadian," or "Akkadian," but is now called "Sumerian." Recent research has shown that his view on this point was correct on the whole. But there is satisfactory proof available to show that versions or recensions of the Legend of the Deluge and of the Epic of Gilgamish existed both in Sumerian and Babylonian, as early as B.C. 2000. The discovery has been made of a fragment of a tablet with a small portion of the Babylonian version of the Legend of the Deluge inscribed upon it, and dated in a year which is the equivalent of the 11th year of Ammisaduga, i.e., about B.C. 1800.[1] And in the Museum at Philadelphia[2] is preserved half of a tablet which when whole contained a complete copy of a Sumerian version of the Legend, and must have been written about the same date. The fragment of the tablet written in the reign of Ammisaduga is of special importance because the colophon shows that the tablet to which it belonged was the second of a series, and that this series was not that of the Epic of Gilgamish, and from this we learn that in B.C. 2000 the Legend of the Deluge did not form the XIth Tablet of the Epic of Gilgamish, as it did in the reign of Ashur-bani-pal, or earlier. The Sumerian version is equally important, though from another point of view, for the contents and position of the portion of it that remains on the half of the tablet mentioned above make it certain that already at this early period there were several versions of the Legend of the Deluge current in the Sumerian language. The fact is that the Legend of the Deluge was then already so old in Mesopotamia that the scribes added to or abbreviated the text at will, and treated the incidents recorded in it according to local or popular taste, tradition and prejudice. There seems to be no evidence that proves conclusively that the Sumerian version is older than the Semitic, or that the latter was translated direct from the former version. It is probable that both the Sumerians and the Semites, each in their own way, attempted to commemorate an appalling disaster of unparalleled magnitude, the knowledge of which, through tradition, was common to
[1. Published by Scheil in Maspero's Recueil, Vol. XX, p. 5.5 ff., and again by Clay, A Hebrew Deluge Story in Cuneiform, Plates I, II.
2. The text is published by A. Poebel with transcription, commentary, etc., in Historical Texts, Philadelphia, 1914, and Historical and Grammatical Texts, Philadelphia, 1914.]
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both peoples. It is, at all events, well known that the Sumerians regarded the Deluge as an historic event, which they were, practically, able to date, for some of their records contain lists of kings who reigned before the Deluge, though it must be confessed that the lengths assigned to their reigns are incredible. After their rule it is expressly noted that the Flood occurred, and that, when it passed away, kingship came down again from on high.
It is not too much to assume that the original event commemorated in the Legend of the Deluge was a serious and prolonged inundation or flood in Lower Babylonia, which was accompanied by great loss of life and destruction of property. The Babylonian versions state that this inundation or flood was caused by rain, but passages in some of them suggest that the effects of the rainstorm were intensified bv other physical happenings connected with the earth, of a most destructive character. The Hebrews also, as we may see from the Bible, had alternative views as to the cause of the Deluge. According to one, rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights (Gen. vii, 12), and according to the other the Deluge came because "all the fountains of the great deep" were broken up, and "the flood-gates of heaven were opened" (Gen. vii, ii). The latter view suggests that the rain flood was joined by the waters of the sea. Later tradition, derived partly from Babylonian and partly from Hebrew sources, asserts, e.g., in the Cave of Treasures, a Syriac treatise composed probably at Edessa about the fifth or sixth century A.D., that when Noah had entered the Ark and the door was shut "the floodgates of the heavens were opened it and the foundations of the earth were rent asunder," and that "the ocean, that great sea which surroundeth the whole world, poured forth its floods. And whilst the floodgates of heaven were open, and the foundations of the earth were rent asunder, the storehouses of the winds burst their bolts, and storms and whirlwinds swept forth, and ocean roared and hurled its floods upon the earth." The ark was steered over the waters by an angel who acted as pilot, and when that had come to rest on the mountains of Kardô (Ararat), "God commanded the waters and they became separated from each other. The celestial waters were taken up and ascended to their own place above the heavens whence they came.
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The waters which had risen up from the earth returned to the lowermost abyss, and those which belonged to the ocean returned to the innermost part thereof."[1] Many authorities seeking to find a foundation of fact for the Legend of the Deluge in Mesopotamia have assumed that the rain-flood was accompanied either by an earthquake or a tidal-wave, or by both. There is no doubt that the cities of Lower Babylonia were nearer the sea in the Sumerian Period than they are at present, and it is a generally accepted view that the head of the Persian Gulf lay farther to the north at that time. A cyclone coupled with a tidal wave is a sufficient base for any of the forms of the Legend now known.
A comparison of the contents of the various Sumerian and Babylonian versions of the Deluge that have come down to us shows us that they are incomplete. And as none of them tells so connected and full a narrative of the prehistoric shipbuilder as Berosus, a priest of Bêl, the great god of Babylon, it seems that the Mesopotamian scribes were content to copy the Legend in an abbreviated form. Berosus, it is true, is not a very ancient authority, for he was not born until the reign of Alexander the Great, but he was a learned man and was well acquainted with the Babylonian language, and with the ancient literature of his country, and he wrote a history of Babylonia, some fragments of which have been preserved to us in the works of Alexander Polyhistor, Eusebius, and others. The following is a version of the fragment which describes the flood that took place in the days of Xisuthras,[2] the tenth King of the Chaldeans, and is of importance for comparison with the rendering of the Legend of the Deluge, as found on the Ninevite tablets, which follows immediately after.
THE LEGEND OF THE DELUGE ACCORDING TO BEROSUS.
"After the death of Ardates, his son Xisuthrus reigned eighteen sari. In his time happened a great Deluge; the history of which is thus described. The Deity, Cronus, appeared to him in a vision, and warned him that upon the
[1. Budge, The Book of the Cave of Treasures, pp. i 12 ff.
2. This is a Greek form of Zisudra, the name of the last king before the Flood, according to the Sumerian tradition.]
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15th day of the month Daesius there would be a flood, by which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to write a history of the beginning, procedure and conclusion of all things; and to bury it in the city of the Sun at Sippara; and to build a vessel, and take with him into it his friends and relations; and to convey on board everything necessary to sustain life, together with all the different animals, both birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fearlessly to the deep. Having asked the Deity, whither he was to sail? he was answered, 'To the Gods ': upon which he offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine admonition; and built a vessel 5 stadia in length, and 2 in breadth. Into this he put everything which he had prepared; and last of all conveyed into it his wife, his children, and his friends. After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel; which, not finding any food nor any place whereupon they might rest their feet, returned to him again. After an interval of some days, he sent them forth a second time; and they now returned with their feet tinged with mud. He made a trial a third time with these birds; but they returned to him no more: from whence he judged that the surface of the earth had appeared above the waters. He therefore made an opening in the vessel, and upon looking out found that it was stranded upon the side of some mountain; upon which he immediately quitted it with his wife, his daughter, and the pilot. Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the earth, and, having constructed an altar, offered sacrifices to the gods, and, with those who had come out of the vessel with him, disappeared. They, who remained within, finding that their companions did not return, quitted the vessel with many lamentations, and called continually on the name of Xisuthrus. Him they saw no more; but they could distinguish his voice in the air, and could hear him admonish them to pay due regard to religion; and likewise informed them that it was upon account of his piety that be was translated to live with the gods; that his wife and daughter, and the pilot, had obtained the same honour. To this he added that they should return to Babylonia; and, it was ordained, search for the writings at Sippara, which they
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were to make known to mankind: moreover that the place, wherein they then were, was the land of Armenia. The rest having beard these words, offered sacrifices to the gods; and taking a circuit journeyed towards Babylonia." (Cory, Ancient Fragments, London, 1832, p. 26 ff.)
THE BABYLONIAN LEGEND OF THE DELUGE AS TOLD TO THE HERO GILGAMISH BY HIS ANCESTOR UTA-NAPISHTIM, WHO HAD BEEN MADE IMMORTAL BY THE GODS.
The form of the Legend of the Deluge given below is that which is found on the Eleventh of the Series of Twelve Tablets in the Royal Library at Nineveh, which described the life and exploits of Gilgamish, an early king of the city of Erech. As we have seen above, the Legend of the Deluge has probably no original connection with the Epic of Gilgamish, but was introduced into it by the editors of the Epic at a comparatively late period, perhaps even during the reign of Ashur-bani-pal (B.C. 669-626). A summary of the contents of the other Tablets of the Gilgamish Series is given in the following section of this short monograph. It is therefore only necessary to state here that Gilgamish, who was horrified and almost beside himself when his bosom friend and companion Enkidu died, meditated deeply how he could escape death himself. He knew that his ancestor Uta-Napishtim a had become immortal, therefore he determined to set out for the place where Uta-Napishtim lived so that he might obtain from him the secret of immortality. Guided by a dream, Gilgamish set out for the Mountain of the Sunset, and, after great toil and many difficulties, came to the shore of a vast sea. Here he met Ur-Shanabi, the boatman of Uta-Napishtim, who was persuaded to carry him in his boat over the "waters of death", and at length he landed on the shore of the country of Uta-Napishtim. The immortal came down to the shore and asked the newcomer the object of his visit, and Gilgamish told him of the death of his great friend Enkidu, and of his desire to escape from death and to find immortality. Uta-Napishtim having made to
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Gilgamish some remarks which seem to indicate that in his opinion death was inevitable,
1. Gilgamish[1] said unto him, to Uta-Napishtim the remote:
2. "I am looking at thee, Uta-Napishtim.
3. Thy person is not altered; even as am I so art thou.
4. Verily, nothing about thee is changed; even as am I so art thou.
5. A heart to do battle doth make thee complete,
6. Yet at rest (?) thou dost lie upon thy back.
7. How then hast thou stood the company of the gods and sought life?"
Thereupon Uta-Napishtim related to Gilgamish the Story of the Deluge, and the Eleventh Tablet continues thus
8. Uta-Napishtim said unto him, to Gilgamish:
9. "I will reveal unto thee, O Gilgamish, a hidden mystery,
10. And a secret matter of the gods I will declare unto thee.
11. Shurippak,[2] a city which thou thyself knowest,
12. On [the bank] of the river Puratti (Euphrates) is situated,
13. That city is old; and the gods [dwelling] within it
14. Their hearts induced the great gods to make a windstorm (a-bu-bi),[3]
15. There was their father Anu,
16. Their counsellor, the warrior Enlil,
17. Their messenger En-urta [and]
18. Their prince Ennugi.
19. Nin-igi-ku, Ea, was with them [in council] and
20. reported their word to a house of reeds."
[1. A transcript of the cuneiform text by George Smith, who was the first to translate it, will be found in Rawlinson, Cuneiform inscriptions of Western Asia, Vol. IV, Plates 50 and 51: and a transcript, with transliteration and translation by the late Prof. L. W. King, is given in his First Steps in Assyrian, London, 1898, p. x61 ff. The latest translation of the whole poem is by R. C. Thompson, The Epic of Gilgamish, whose arrangement of the text is adopted in the following pages.
2. The site of this very ancient city is marked by the mounds of Fârah, near the Shatt al-Kâr, which is probably the old bed of the river Euphrates; many antiquities belonging to the earliest period of the rule of the Sumerians have been found there.
3. Like the habûb of modern times, a sort of cyclone.]
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[FIRST SPEECH OF EA TO UTA-NAPISHTIM WHO IS SLEEPING IN A REED HUT.]
21. O House of reeds, O House of reeds! O Wall. O Wall!
22. O House of reeds, hear! O Wall, understand!
23. O man of Shurippak, son of Ubar-Tutu,
24. Throw down the house, build a ship,
25. Forsake wealth, seek after life,
26. Hate possessions, save thy life,
27. Bring all seed of life into the ship.
28. The ship which thou shalt build,
29. The dimensions thereof shall be measured,
30. The breadth and the length thereof shall be the same.
31. Then launch it upon the ocean.
[UTA-NAPISHTIM'S ANSWER TO EA.]
32. I understood and I said unto Ea, my lord:
33. See, my lord, that which thou hast ordered,
34. I regard with reverence, and will perform it,
35. But what shall I say to the town, to the multitude, and to the elders?
[SECOND SPEECH OF EA.]
36. Ea opened his mouth and spake
37. And said unto his servant, myself,
38. Thus, man, shalt thou say unto them:
39. Ill-will hath the god Enlil formed against me,
40. Therefore I can no longer dwell. in your city,
41. And never more will I turn my countenance upon-the soil of Enlil.
42. I will descend into the ocean to dwell with my lord Ea.
43. But upon you he will rain riches
44. A catch of birds, a catch of fish
45. . . . an [abundant] harvest,
46. . . . the sender of . . .
47. . . . shall make hail [to fall upon you].
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[THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP.]
48. As soon as [something of dawn] broke . . .
[Lines 49-54 broken away.]
55. The child . . . brought bitumen,
56. The strong [man] . . . brought what was needed.
57. On the fifth day I laid down its shape.
58. According to the plan its walls were 10 gar, (i.e. 120 cubits) high,
59. And the width of its deck (?) was equally 10 gar.
60. I laid down the shape of its forepart and marked it out (?).
61. I covered (?) it six times.
62. . . . I divided into seven,
63. Its interior I divided into nine,
64. Caulking I drove into the middle of it.
65. I provided a steering pole, and cast in all that was needful.
66. Six sar of bitumen I poured over the hull (?),
67. Three sar of pitch I poured into the inside.
68. The men who bear loads brought three sar of oil,
69. Besides a sar of oil which the tackling (?) consumed,
70. And two sar of oil which the boatman hid.
71. I slaughtered oxen for the [work]people,
72. I slew sheep every day.
73. Beer, sesame wine, oil and wine
74. I made the people drink as if they were water from the river.
75. I celebrated a feast as if it had been New Year's Day.
76. I opened [a box of ointment], I laid my hands in unguent.
77. Before the sunset (?) the ship was finished.
78. [Since] . . . was difficult.
79. The shipbuilders brought the . . . of the ship, above and below,
80. . . . two-thirds of it.
[THE LOADING OF THE SHIP.]
81. With everything that I possessed I loaded it (i.e., the ship).
82. With everything that I possessed of silver I loaded it.
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83. With everything that I possessed of gold I loaded it.
84. With all that I possessed of all the seed of life I loaded it.
85. I made to go up into the ship all my family and kinsfolk,
86. The cattle of the field, the beasts of the field, all handicraftsmen I made them go up into it.
87. The god Shamash had appointed me a time (saying)
88. The sender of . . . . . will at eventide make a hail to fall;
89. Then enter into the ship and shut thy door.
90. The appointed time drew nigh;
91. The sender of . . . . . made a hail to fall at eventide.
92. I watched the aspect of the [approaching] storm,
93. Terror possessed me to look upon it,
94. I went into the ship and shut my door.
95. To the pilot of the ship, Puzur-Enlil the sailor
96. I committed the great house (i.e., ship), together with the contents thereof.
[THE ABUBU (CYCLONE) AND ITS EFFECTS DESCRIBED.]
97. As soon as something of dawn shone in the sky
98. A black cloud from the foundation of heaven came up.
99. Inside it the god Adad thundered,
100. The gods Nabû and Sharru (i.e., Marduk) went before,
101. Marching as messengers over high land and plain,
102. Irragal (Nergal) tore out the post of the ship,
103. En-urta went on, he made the storm to descend.
104. The Anunnaki[1] brandished their torches,
105. With their glare they lighted up the land.
106. The whirlwind (or, cyclone) of Adad swept up to heaven.
107. Every gleam of light was turned into darkness.
108. . . . . . the land . . . . . as if had laid it waste.
109. A whole day long [the flood descended] . . .
[1. The star-gods of the southern sky.]
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110. Swiftly it mounted up . . . . . [the water] reached to the mountains
111. [The water] attacked the people like a battle.
112. Brother saw not brother.
113. Men could not be known (or, recognized) in heaven.
114. The gods were terrified at the cyclone.
115. They shrank back and went up into the heaven of Anu.
116. The gods crouched like a dog and cowered by the wall.
117. The goddess Ishtar cried out like a woman in travail.
118. The Lady of the Gods lamented with a sweet voice [saying]:
[ISHTAR'S LAMENT.]
119. May that former day be turned into mud,
120. Because I commanded evil among the company of the gods.
121. How could I command evil among the company of the gods,
122. Command battle for the destruction of my people?
123. Did I of myself bring forth my people
124. That they might fill the sea like little fishes?