|lſ
CORRECTIONS.
p. 11, li. 17: Read Artaxerxes instead of Xerxes.
p. 68, li. 4: Read Vol. XXVIII instead of Vol. XXIII (the same
on p. 3 of cover).








IHE BABY||N|AN EXPE|)|I||N
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SERIES I). ESEARCHES AND IREMIISES
EDITED BY
H. W. H. I LP REC HT
VC L. V. F Asc 1 cu Lus 1
H. V. H | L R REC HT
“ EcKLEY BRINTo N Cox E, JUNIo R, FUND ''
* R HILADELPHIA
Published by the University of Pennsylv ania
1910


U3OC-5, \
1barvaro College Library
FROM


___----


d'HC.
4, T
IHE BABYLONIAN EXPEDITION
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SERIES ): RESEARCHES lu IREAIISES
EDITED BY
H. V. H IIL PR EC HT
VOL. V. F Asc 1 cu Lus 1
THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE BABYLONIAN DELUGE STORY
THE TEMPLE LIBRARY OF NIPPUR
H. V. H | L R REC HT
“ EcKLEY BRINTo N CoxE, JUNIo R, FUND ''
F H | LA DE L R H | A
Published by the University of Pennsylvania
1910


* * *^*，…）， ſae…”
|×


CORRECTIONS.
p. 11, li. 17: Read Artaxerxes instead of Xerxes.
p. 68, li. 4: Read Vol. XXVIII instead of Vol. XXIII (the same
on p. 3 of cover).


. '&nddIN JO AMW88 IT BT.d.w3.1 83010 BHI JO BLIS 3H1 „“TTIH 1318wI ,,


IHE BIBMININ EXPEDITION
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SERIES ]: ESEARCHES AND IREMIISES
EDITED BY
H. V. H II, P R EC HT
VC L. V. F Asci cu Lus 1
H. V. H | L P R EC HT
“ EckLEY BRINTo N Cox E, Junio R, Fu ND ''
* R H LADELPHIA
Published by the University of Pennsylv ania
1910





THE EARLIEST VERSION
BABYLONIAN DELUGE STORY
AN
Clip Gjemple I(iiirary uf ſlippur
BY
H. V. HILPRECHT
With Three Halftone Illustrations and
One Autographed Plate.
R H | LA DEL PH | A
Published by the University of Pennsylvania
1910


Q & e s \
HARWARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
GIFT OF
JAMES HARDY ROPES
Jon E 17, 72 (-
MACCALLA & Co. INC., Printers.
C. H. JAMES, Lithographer.
WEEKs PHOTO-ENGRAVING Co., Halftones.





PREFACE ix
tions, and all those unknown friends who made the publication of
their work possible, do me the kindness of accepting these unpre-
tending studies on the little fragment from Nippur in the same
spirit which prompted their magnificent gift to the writer.
H. W. HILPRECHT.
PHILADELPHIA, PA., March 2, 1910.


CONTENTS.
I. CoNDITION, LANGUAGES AND WRITING OF TABLETs RECENTLY PAGE
EXAMINED. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-4
II. DIFFERENT STRATA IN “TABLET HILL '' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5–13
III. ContFNTs OF THE OLDER TEMPLE LIBRARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14–19
IV. AN ANCIENT KING OF GUTI, RULER OF BABYLONIA. . . . . . . . . . . . 20–32
Time of Erridu-pizir, King of Guti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20–24
Deification of Babylonian Kings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24–29
The mountain of the ark in the land of Guti. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29–32
W. THE EARLIEST FRAGMENT OF THE DELUGE STORY... . . . . . . . . . . . 33–65
Description and age of the fragment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35–39
The three Deluge Versions in cuneiform writing previously known 39–45
The divine announcement of the Deluge according to the different
cuneiform versions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45–49
Notes on the Nippur Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49-58
Results ................…................ 59–63
The Nippur and the Biblical Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64–65
ILLUSTRATIONS AND AUTOGRAPHED PLATE :
“Tablet Hill,” the site of the Older Temple Library ...... Frontispiece
Plan of the ruins of Nuffar... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Fragment C.B.M. 13532 (c. 2100 B.C.). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . End of Book
Cuneiform text of the Nippur Version. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . End of Book
[ x )


I.
CONDITION, LANGUAGES AND WRITING OF
TABLETS RECENTLY EXAMINED. .
TowARD the end of October, 1909, while unpacking and
examining two boxes of cuneiform tablets from our fourth expe-
dition to Nippur, my attention was suddenly attracted by some
fragments which presented certain peculiarities. Unlike the rest
of the tablets contained in these boxes, they were not written in
Sumerian, the ancient sacred language of Babylonia, but in the
Semitic dialect of the country. For the first time the latter appears
in the cuneiform inscriptions of the period of Sargon I of Akkad,'
the first known Semitic conqueror of Babylonia and one of the
greatest heroes of the ancient world, taking the place of the older
Sumerian, which it gradually supplanted. It is, therefore, prop-
erly also styled the Akkadian language of Babylonia.”
The cuneiform material contained in these two boxes numbered
* With our present incomplete knowledge of the earliest chapters of Baby-
lonian history, no accurate date can as yet be assigned to this period, as to
which Assyriologists differ radically. Those scholars who accept the age ascribed
to Sargon I by King Nabonidos (555–538 B.C.), place him at about 3800 B.C.,
while Eduard Meyer (“Geschichte des Altertums,” 2d edition, Berlin, 1909,
Vol. I, Part 2, p. 345) puts him as low as about 2500 B.C. This latter date,
in accord with Meyer's erroneous conception of the age of the earliest Baby-
lonian monuments known to us, is too low, as will be shown in another place.
According to my own view set forth in “Mathematical, Metrological and Chron-
ological Tablets from the Temple Library of Nippur” (= “The Babylonian Expe-
dition of the University of Pennsylvania,” Series A, Vol. XX), Part 1, p. 45,
Sargon I lived between 3000 and 2700 B.C.
* Cf. Ungnad in “Orientalistische Litteratur-Zeitung,” 1908, coll. 62ſ., and
Messerschmidt in the same journal, 1905, coll. 271 f.
[1]


2 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
433 specimens all in all, including about 10% tablets entirely
or nearly complete, about 70% fragments of fairly good size, and
about 20% small or even very small fragments ranging from 1 to
4 cm. in length and from # to 3 cm. in width." With but few ex-
ceptions, all the tablets and fragments were made of unbaked clay.
As a rule, they are more or less covered with a sediment of hardened
clay from the disintegrated adobe walls under which they were
buried, and in numerous cases even with incrustations of nitre,
originally contained in the clay and later drawn to the surface
of the inscribed tablets, where it crystallized. These crystals,
to a large extent filling the incised cuneiform characters, cannot
always be removed without endangering the writing below, espec-
ially when the clay is in a state of decomposition. Besides, in
consequence of the perishable nature of the material employed,
the humidity of the ground in which the tablets lay for over
4,000 years, and the intentional destruction of that entire collec-
tion of tablets to which the specimens under consideration belong,
by some unknown enemy at a very remote period, the inscribed
surface is often partly chipped off or half effaced. These are some
of the difficulties which the cataloguer and first decipherer of these
precious relics has to overcome through the mere state of their
preservation.” Others are offered by their language and writing.
As briefly indicated above, all the 433 specimens are written
in Sumerian, with the exception of three complete or nearly com-
plete tablets and 27 fragments which have an Akkadian inscrip-
* For American and English readers, more familiar with inches than centi-
meters, I give the corresponding measures: “ranging from 3 to 11% inch in
length and from ſº to 11% inch in width.”
* Cf. my previous descriptions in “Explorations in Bible Lands during the
19th Century” (Philadelphia, A. J. Holman & Co. = B. E., Series D, Vol. I),
pp. 513ff.; “In the Temple of Bél at Nippur” (Reprint from the “Transac-
tions of the Department of Archaeology of the University of Pennsylvania,”
Vol. I, 1904), p. 49; also B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. viiiff.


6 FRAGMENT'S OF EPICAL LITERATURE
gular mound (IV) to the southwest of the Temple of Enlil (I) and
separated from the latter by a narrow strip of land, which is prac-
tically on a level with the surrounding desert. Like the now dry
bed of the Shatt en-Nil (V), which divides the ruins into two
nearly equal halves and presents the same general aspect, it doubt-
less indicates the course of an ancient canal, a branch of the Shatt,
once protecting the southern side of the Temple area, but at present
entirely filled up with sand, clay and rubbish washed down from
the adjoining ruins.
This mound (IV) was called “Tablet Hill” by the members
of our first expedition, because in 1889, when we commenced its
exploration at the northwestern edge, it was the only place where
inscribed antiquities were found in a considerable number. It
yielded more than 2,000 tablets and fragments during our first
campaign,” almost the same number during the second,” and a
few tablets during the third, when only for about a fortnight a
few trenches were run into its northern slope." It was subjected
to a renewed vigorous examination during the latter part of our
* The very pronounced “chemin très large” or “very wide road,” which,
according to Scheil (“Une Saison de Fouilles à Sippar,” pp. 33 and 6, cf. also
the place marked “L” on the general plan of the ruins at the end of his book),
surrounded the temple of the Sungod at Sippar at its northeast and southeast
sides, and “which must have existed at all times,” is evidently likewise the
bed of an ancient canal, which separated the sacred ground of the temple com-
plex from the territory of the city proper, where the school and temple library
were situated. Cf. Hilprecht, “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” pp. 283, footnote, and 297.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2 (1896), p. 8; Peters, “Nippur.”
(1899), Vol. I, pp. 245ff., 256, 259f., 275f.; II, pp. 118, 197ff.; Hilprecht, B. E.,
Series D, Vol. I (1904), pp. 309ff., 326, 341; “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.” (1908), pp.
200f., 279f., 285, 2S7ff.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2 (1896), p. 8; Peters, “Nippur.”
(1899), Vol. II, pp. 199–204; Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I (1904), pp. 341ſ.,
511 f.; “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.” (1908), pp. 288f.
• Cf. Hilprecht, “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” p. 287, footnote.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 7
fourth expedition, when nearly 17,500 tablets and fragments
were excavated, chiefly from a number of rooms situated in its
northeastern section, while an additional number was taken from
trenches near the Shatt en-Nil." The 433 specimens under dis-
cussion belong to the collection of c. 17,500 tablets gathered by the
fourth expedition from the northeastern rooms just mentioned.
According to my theory set forth in a number of publications,
and, as I hope, definitely proved in my forthcoming volume,
“Model Texts and Exercises from the Temple School of Nippur,”
this large mound covers the ruins of the Temple Library, School
and part of the Archives of the older period. The mass of the
cuneiform tablets and fragments thus far rescued from these
earlier ruins—in a round sum about 22,000—belong to the time
of the first dynasty of Isin, while a considerable number date
from the second dynasty of Ur, and not a few go back to the age
of Sargon I of Akkad, and even to the period preceding it.
As I have stated repeatedly before,” the entire complex of the
Temple of Enlil and the large collection of tablets stored in rooms
to the south of it were destroyed by some foreign conquering
power, possibly the Elamites, who overthrew the dynasty of
Ur, carrying its last representative, King Ibi-Sin, into captivity,"
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 429ff., 445, 508–532; “Die
Ausgrabungen im Bél-Tempel zu Nippur,” pp. 14, 17, 52ff. ( = “In the Temple
of Bél,” pp. 15, 18, 45ff.); B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. viiff.; “Th.
S.-C. P.-H. C.,” pp. 191f., 196f., 224, 251, 254f., 283ff., 293, 338f.
* Forming Vol. XIX, Part 1, of Series A of “The Babylonian Expedition
of the University of Pennsylvania,” which has been in press for some time.
In consequence of repeated illness and pressure of other work, chiefly cataloguing,
its printing had to be interrupted several times.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 378ff., 512ff.; Series A, Vol.
XX, Part 1, p. 54, and the reasons given in the passages quoted.
“Cf. Boissier, “Choix de textes relatifs à la divination Assyro-Babylonienne,”
Vol. II, Part 1, p. 64; Meissner in Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung, March, 1907,
p. 114, note 1; Eduard Meyer, “Geschichte des Altertums,” 2d edition, Vol. I,
Part 2, pp. 500ff.


8 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
and in connection with their frequent raids upon the fertile plain
of Shinar devastated and looted the Babylonian sanctuaries.
The stratum in which the earlier tablets and fragments just
described occur varies in thickness from one foot to four feet."
The ruins which cover it are twenty to twenty-four feet high."
As far as examined, this enormous mass yielded only a few hundred
tablets of the reigns of Hammurabi” (i.e., Amraphel, Gen. 14: 1),
his contemporary Rim-Sin' of Larsa, and Samsu-iluna,” the son
of the former, a tolerably well preserved clay tablet with a bilin-
4. * For the measurements here given cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I,
p. 515. “From one foot to four feet” equal to “from 31 cm. to 1 m. 24 cm.”;
and “twenty to twenty-four feet” equal to “6 m. 24 cm. to 7 m. 44 cm.”
* Ten of these tablets dated in the reign of Hammurabi and forty-eight
in that of Samsu-iluna were published by Dr. Arno Poebel in B. E., Series A,
Vol. VI, Part 2, Nos. 10-67. An inscribed terra-cotta cone of Samsu-iluna,
relating this monarch's building operations at Nippur, was found near the
eastern court of the ziggurrat by the fourth expedition, and described and
translated by Hilprecht in B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 480ff. The “large quan-
tities of tablets of the Hammurabi period” reported by Peters to have been
found in “rooms destroyed by fire” in “Tablet Hill” (cf. “Nippur,” Vol. II,
p. 200) belong more exactly to the first dynasty of Isin, and for the greater part
are tablets of a literary character, not contract tablets. Cf. Hilprecht, “Th.
S.–C. P.-H. C.,” pp. 288f.
* Seven tablets dated in the reigns of Rim-Sin and Wardi-Sin, his brother
(? cf. Thureau-Dangin, “Die Sumerischen und Akkadischen Königsinschriften,”
p. 210, note k), were published by Poebel in B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part 2,
Nos. 1–7, but not all of them came from “Tablet Hill.” Tablets dated in the
reigns of kings of the first dynasty of Babylon and the dynasty of Larsa were
also found in the long ridge on the west side of the Shatt en-Nil, opposite" Tab-
let Hill” (cf. the map, p. 5, above), where Peters excavated the terra-cotta
cone dedicated with some kind of a building by a citizen of Nippur to Nergal
for the life of Rim-Sin. Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2, No. 128;
Price, “Literary Remains of Rim-Sin,” p. 15; Thureau-Dangin, l.c., pp. 216ff.,
No. 7c. The more than 250 dated documents of Wardi-Sin and Rim-Sin thus
far catalogued by me will be published by Dr. Myhrman as Vol. V of B. E.,
Series A. Rim-Sin is probably to be read Rim-Aku and identical with Arioch,
Genesis 14 : 1. .


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 9
gual building inscription of Ammi-ditana,' and a few tablets dated
in the reign of his government and that of Ammi-zaduga.” The
four rulers of the first dynasty of Babylon represented by inscrip-
tions from Nippur’ belong to the second half of their dynasty.
*To be published by me in B. E., Series A, Vol. XXII (“Early Historical
Inscriptions from the Temple Library of Nippur”). The tablet is important
also because it enumerates all the titles of Ammi-ditana.
*To be published with the remaining inscriptions dated according to mem-
bers of the first dynasty of Babylon in B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part .3. A
very fragmentary but most valuable bilingual historical inscription of Ammi-
zaduga from Nippur was published by me in B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2,
No. 129. According to information from Peters, it came from the ridge
opposite “Tablet Hill,” on the west side of the Shatt en-Nil. The left (Sumer-
ian) columns of this interesting fragment are inscribed in the hieratic writing
of that period (cf. my remarks in B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, p. 12, note 8),
generally used in inscriptions of a more monumental character (therefore also
employed in the “Code of Hammurabi”), while the two (cf. traces of a third
on the Reverse) Akkadian columns are written in the “demotic” or cursive
writing of the ordinary documents of Ammi-zaduga's time, which sometimes
(cf. p. 4, above) resembles the Neo-Babylonian characters to such a degree
that it is difficult to determine the exact age of the tablet without other assist-
ance. No wonder, therefore, that in 1893 I regarded this fragment as a
late copy of an ancient Sumerian tablet accompanied by a Neo-Babylonian
Semitic translation (cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 64). Dr. Poebel's
statement (in B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part 2, p. 119) with regard to the absence
of tablets of rulers of the first dynasty from Nippur dated later than the 29th
year of Samsu-iluna has to be corrected according to the facts set forth
above.
* We notice the absence of dated documents of King Abéshu' among the
Nippur tablets. My statement in B. E., Series D, Vol. I, p. 311, that such
had been found during our first expedition, has turned out to be erroneous
after my renewed examination of the Nippur tablets in Constantinople last
year. We can readily understand, why such tablets have not come to light
in Nippur. From King, “Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings,”
Vol. II, pp. 19ff. (cf. also Vol. I, pp. 70ff., 93ff.), we learn that Samsu-iluna
tried in vain to check the advance of a South Babylonian army under Ilima-ilu,
the founder of the second dynasty in the “List of Kings,” while according to
Poebel, B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part 2, p. 119, the latest document of Samsu-


10 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
Their tablets, as far as excavated in “Tablet Hill,” were not
found in precisely the same stratum as those of the kings of Isin,
but slightly above it," a thin layer of rubbish separating them
from the tablet-filled rooms of the preceding dynasty below.
This is in entire accord with certain historical facts recently ascer-
tained by me from other evidence,” namely, that the first five
rulers of the first dynasty of Babylon were contemporaneous
with the last ten kings of the first dynasty of Isin. As the latter
were in possession of Nippur, the former could not well have left
dated documents there. On the other hand, quite a number of
documents dated in the reign of Rim-Sin of Larsa were found
intermingled with those of Hammurabi and Samsu-iluna. As
most of them are dated according to the first 30 years “after Rim-
Sin's conquest of Isin,” while Sin-muballit, in whose seventeenth
year Isin was conquered, is not represented by a single inscrip-
iluna's reign from Nippur is dated in his 29th year. It is, therefore, safe to
infer with Poebel, that Ilima-ilu then or soon afterwards must have taken
possession of Nippur. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that the only
tablet dated after a ruler of the second dynasty thus far known was excavated
in Nippur and bears Ilima-ilu's name (cf. Poebel, l.c., No. 68). As among
the more than 50,000 tablets unearthed at Nippur by the four Babylonian
expeditions of the University of Pennsylvania not one with the name of Abéshu'
has as yet been found, the only inference to be drawn is that Ilima-ilu, in accord-
ance with the statement of the chronicles published by King (l.c., Vol. II,
p. 21), held the territory conquered by him, and including Nippur, even against
Samsu-iluna's successor, Abéshu', so that naturally no document could be dated
in this city according with the latter's reign.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, p. 513, and “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,”
p. 195.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, p. 49, note 5; Ranke in
“Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung,” Vol. X, coll. 110f., 233f.; Ungnad in
“Beiträge zur Assyriologie,” Vol. VI, p. 29, and in “Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenländischen Gesellschaft,” Vol. LXI, p. 714; Eduard Meyer, “Geschichte
des Altertums,” 2d edition, Vol. I, Part 2, §§ 329 and 443.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 11
tion from Nippur," it follows almost with mathematical certainty
that the conquest of Isin in the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit's
reign must be identical with the conquest of Isin by Rim-Sin,”
and that the former acted as the latter's ally and vassal. This
alliance, inferred by me exclusively from cuneiform evidence,” throws
an entirely new light on the alliance between Amraphel and Arioch
referred to by the Old Testament writer in Genesis 14. The over-
throw by Rim-Sin and his ally of the political metropolis (Isin),
situated not very far from Nippur, of necessity included the occu-
pation of the great religious centre of the worship of Enlil by this
first mentioned ruler.
The stratum represented by dated documents of Rim-Sin of
Larsa and four members of the second half of the first dynasty of
Babylon is separated by a considerable mass of rubbish from the
next above it. This latter is the stratum of the Neo-Assyrian,
Neo-Babylonian and Persian kings, from Ashurbánapal (668–
626 B.C.) to Xerxes (465-424 B.C.), in round figures covering
about 200 years of Babylonian history and reaching almost to
the surface of “Tablet Hill.” According to their contents, the
inscriptions rescued from this upper layer are either business
documents (about two-thirds of them)" or tablets of a more literary
* According to Samsu-iluna's terra-cotta cone from Nippur. (cf. p. 8, note
2, above), Sin-muballit built at the wall of Nippur, an operation possibly
originally also mentioned in the broken date formula of his 18th year (cf. King,
“The Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi,” Vol. III, pp. 228f.), and
apparently executed by him as the ally and vassal of Rim-Sin.
* Cf. also Ranke, l.c., col. 111, note 1, and Eduard Meyer, l.c., p. 556
(end of the note).
* Cf. my examination of certain facts bearing upon this question in B. E.,
Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, p. 49, note 5.
* Cf. Peters, “Nippur,” Vol. II, pp. 197ff.
* Representative dated tablets of this, period were published by Clay in
B. E., Series A, Vol. VIII, Part 1. The remaining documents of this class
will appear later as Part 2 of the same volume, while the letters will be pub-


12 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
character (about one-third of them), including syllabaries, exor-
cisms, hymns, etc., which sometimes are accompanied by the
statement that they are “copies of old Nippur tablets.”
The total number of tablets and fragments obtained by the
four expeditions from the three different strata of “Tablet Hill”
just characterized is more than 23,000. By far the overwhelming
mass of them—namely, about 22,000 (cf. p. 7, above)– belong
to the lowest stratum and, with the exception of a few hundred
tablets, deal with scientific, historical, literary or religious sub-
jects, generally written in Sumerian. The remaining 1000 odd
tablets and fragments are about equally divided between the two
upper strata. -
By a mere comparison of the numbers and facts presented every
student will readily understand what an insignificant rôle in the
history of the Temple of Enlil this section of the city played during
the last 1500 years of its existence,” and at the same time compre-
hend the reasons which influenced me in designating these ruins
as the site of the older Temple Library of Nippur. For a further
discussion of the technical features" of representative tablets of
this enormous collection, which enabled me to recognize its character
as a real library, and more especially as a temple library, I refer
my readers to the volume from my pen quoted above, “Model
Texts and Exercises from the Temple School of Nippur,” in which
the Temple School connected with the Temple Library has received
a first treatment.
lished by Radau, who recently communicated one important specimen in the
“Hilprecht Anniversary Volume,” p. 424.
* For the present cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 310f., 341 f.,
511ſ., 517ff.; “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” pp. 287–297.
* It will, however, be shown in B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX, that a temple
library, however insignificant when compared with the older one, actually
still existed here in the Neo-Babylonian period, as asserted by me in B. E.,
Series D, Vol. I, pp. 511f.
* Cf. also Radau, l.c., pp. 384ff., and B. E., Series D, Vol. V, Fasc. 2 (in press).


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 13
It is a remarkable fact, to which Peters has already called at-
tention, that practically no tablet of the Cassite period, though
represented by more than 18,000 tablets from Nippur, was exca-
vated by us in “Tablet Hill.” The Temple Library seems to
have been in complete ruins or situated at some other still unknown
site of the city during the long interval of about 600 years which
elapsed between Rim-Sin of Larsa (about 2000 B.C.) and Burma-
buriash, the first Cassite king represented by inscriptions from
Nippur (about 1400 B.C.). At all events, when this institution
appears again in the history of the city under the Cassite rulers,
who restored the temple and revived the cult of Enlil" and at
times even resided at Nippur,” the site of the Temple Library
has entirely changed. It has been transferred to the western
side of the present Shatt en-Nil, where with but few exceptions
all the clay tablets of the Cassite period were discovered in the
long narrow ridge extending from the business house of Murashtā
Sons (VIII) and the Parthian Palace (VII) in the north to the
place marked VI on the plan of the ruins (p. 5, above).
* Cf. Peters, “Nippur,” Vol. II, p. 203. But his statement: “on this hill
[*Tablet Hill' ) we found none whatsoever from that [Cossaean or Cassite]
dynasty” is a little too emphatic; for as a matter of fact about half a dozen
fragments of the Cassite period were excavated by the first two expeditions
along the western edge of “Tablet Hill,” where very evidently, however, they
were not in their original position, probably having been carried there at some
later time from the opposite mound on the western embankment of the Shatt
en-Nil. -
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, pp. 30ff.
* Cf. Winckler, “Das alte Westasien,” p. 20; Radau, B. E., Series A, Vol.
XVII, Part 1, pp. 72ff.


14 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
III.
CONTENTS OF THE OLDER TEMPLE
LIBRARY.
A word remains to be said about the contents of the tablets
and fragments from the lowest of the three strata described above.
As the actual percentage of the different classes of literature
represented by the remains of the older Temple Library is given
at another place on the basis of several thousand specimens care-
fully examined and studied by me during the last five years, both
in the Archæological Museum of the University of Pennsylvania
and in the Imperial Ottoman Museums at Constantinople, I confine
myself here to a brief statement of the results of my renewed
examination, with ample footnotes and references to the single
volumes of the University's great expedition work.
These tablets include lists of cuneiform signs arranged accord-
ing to a certain method;" lists of signs accompanied by their pro-
nunciation and meaning, either in Sumerian alone” or in Sumerian
and Akkadian" (so-called syllabaries); lists of ideograms," often
* For representative specimens of this class see B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX,
Part 1, now in press.
* For the present compare the specimen published as No. 37, Obverse, and
p. xii in my B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1.
* For the present cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, No. 24,
Obverse, and p. xii. Since I published this text, I found another large fragment
of the first expedition (C. B. M. 2142) belonging to the same tablet, which I
could join to its upper lines. An entire volume dealing exclusively with sylla-
baries is in course of preparation by the writer.
* For the present cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 2, No. 146,
which I assigned erroneously to the Cassite period. In all probability it belongs
to the first dynasty of Isin and came from “Tablet Hill.”


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 15
arranged according to their first signs;" lists of personal proper
names grouped according to the different elements of which they
are composed; grammatical paradigms and phrases, either in
Sumerian alone or in Sumerian and Akkadian, and in the latter
case sometimes provided with the actual pronunciation of the
entire Sumerian column.” Furthermore, there are geographical
lists of mountains and countries, lists of gods and temples, lists
of plants, stones and animals, lists of objects made of wood, leather
(with the determinative SU-mashku, “skin”) and the like,' pro-
fessional names grouped together, synonym lists of various kinds
of words (often determined by LU =amelu, “man”)"—all of the
utmost importance for our ultimate knowledge of the ancient
Sumerian language.
We also possess long lists of weights and of the measures of
length, surface and capacity, frequently accompanied by their
corresponding values of the lower denominations;" lists of months,”
fragments of chronological lists giving the names of the different
rulers of dynasties in their successive order, and the number of
* For examples see my B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX. Probably there will be
enough material to permit the publication of one volume of each kind.
* For examples see my B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX. There will be ultimately
enough material to publish at least one volume. The material thus far gathered
has been entrusted to Prof. Clay and for the present announced as B. E., Series
A, Vol. XXIV.
* For specimens see my B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX.
*As far as I can judge at present, there will be at least four volumes pre-
senting this material.
* There will be at least one volume. For the present cf. B. E., Series A,
Vol. XX, Part 1, No. 23, pl. VI, No. 8, Obverse, pl. VIII, No. 9, Obverse.
"Cf. the material published in B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, Nos. 17–
43, and my remarks on pp. 35–38 of the same volume. There is now much
more material of the same kind at my disposal.
7 Cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, No. 46 (also No. 45).


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 17
and harvest songs."
But the enumeration of the various classes of scientific and
literary texts already identified among the remains of the older
Temple Library of Nippur is by no means yet complete. Suffice
it to add that we also possess purely historical inscriptions (see
pp. 20ff., below), a number of drawings,” mathematical tablets, such
as multiplication and division tables and geometrical progressions
based upon the famous Platonic number 12,960,000 = 60°, tables
of squares and square-roots, and other mathematical texts" which
I have not yet succeeded in deciphering; astronomical and astro-
logical tablets," proverbs," mythological and epical texts, such as
fragments of the story of the Deluge, of the legend concerning
god NIN-IB assigning certain meanings to various stones, and of
other literary works of decided merit," the exact contents and
titles of which it is sometimes extremely difficult to determine.
We naturally expected to find among the tablets excavated
numerous poetical compositions in honor of the principal deities
worshiped at Nippur, but we were not prepared to meet with
practically the entire Babylonian pantheon of the earlier period.
I quote from the list of gods to whom hymns and prayers are
addressed such names as Enlil or Mullil, NIN-IB, Tamūz, Nergal,
* For the present cf. Radau, l.c., pp. 384 and 391ff., and Nos. 5–7 and 16.
also ple. II-IV.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XIX.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, pp. 531f., and Series A, Vol. XX,
Part 1, Nos. 1–28, pls. II-V, VII-X, and pp. 11–38. Of this class of material
there is enough material catalogued even now to allow of the publication of
another part.
*To be published later as Vol. XXI of Series A. For the present cf. Hil-
precht, “Th. S.-C. P.-H. C.,” p. 183.
* For the present cf. Scheil in Recueil de travaur, Vol. XIX, p. 19.
* Representative specimens to be published in B. E., Series D, Vol. V,
by Myhrman, Radau and the writer. For the present cf. also Scheil in Recueil
de travaux, Vol. XIX, pp. 24f.
2


18 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
Nusku, Sin, Shamash, Marduk, Dagān, Galulal, Lugalbanda,
Amanki, Ninlil, Ishtar, Ninansiana, Nină, Ningal, Gashan-Isina
(“the mistress of the city of Isin.”), and Nin-Mar (“the lady of
the city of Mar”)."
In conclusion it should be stated that the stratum of the older
Temple Library yielded a number of model texts from the time
of Sargon I of Akkad to the kings of the first dynasty of Isin,
evidently used exclusively for instruction, also exercise tablets
and other scraps from the schoolrooms of Nippur—all in all about
5% of the entire collection. Specimens of this kind of tablets
will be submitted in Vol. XIX of Series A of our expedition work,
“Model Texts and Exercise Tablets from the Temple School of
Nippur.” A small percentage (scarcely 3%) of the tablets taken
from the same stratum are legal documents and lists of various
kinds, chiefly referring to the registry of tithes, free-will offerings
and the administration of certain temple property.
If one compares my present survey of the principal contents
of the earlier Temple Library of Nippur, based upon a detailed
study of about 5,000 specimens, with my first announcement
in 1900,” and with that general sketch of 1903 which rested
upon a first and very cursory examination of practically the
entire inscribed material of over 50,000 cuneiform inscrip-
tions excavated by our four expeditions,” it will be recog-
* There are a number of interesting specimens given by Radau in “Hil-
precht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 374ff. Cf. also Huber in the same volume,
p. 220. Besides, there are in press at present three volumes of “Sumerian Hymns
and Prayers” by Radau, addressed to the gods Enlil, NIN-IB and Tamaz
respectively. Three other volumes of “Sumerian Hymns and Prayers,” addressed
to Sin, Shamash and Ishtar respectively, are in course of preparation by Myhrman.
* Cf. Rittel in Literarisches Centralblatt, 1900, Nos. 19 and 20; Hilprecht
in “The Sunday School Times,” May 5, 1900, pp. 275f. Compare also “Th.
S.-C. P.-H. C.,” pp. 22-28, 108, 111ſ., 191f., 196ff., 224, 251, 254f., 261f., 270f.,
2S2–297.
* Cf. B. E., Series T), Vol. I, pp. 311, 341, 526, 528ff.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 19
nized at once that I surely did not overestimate the value of our
greatest discovery made at Nippur. If anything, I did not speak
positively and enthusiastically enough about the fundamental
importance of that great storehouse of human knowledge, relig-
ious conceptions and spiritual emotion, and its far-reaching influ-
ence upon the science of Assyriology and the entire history of
civilization -


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 21
two (or even three) words, as a rule closely connected; or in so-
called sections containing only one word too long to be written in
one short line” or several words which grammatically or logically be-
long together"—characteristic features of the inscriptions of Sargon I
and Narām-Sin of Akkad, Urumush or Rimush" and Manishtusu
of Kish. Moreover, we meet with other palaeographical peculiarities
in this new text which are familiar to us from the inscriptions of
the four ancient kings mentioned, e.g., the almost constant use of
$= (lum) for mum in da-num, “powerful”; the use of
O = <( = u in such characteristic verbal forms as u-sa-2a-ku,
etc.; the use of = sā in the demonstrative pronoun sū-a
= $ti-a, “this, that.” In fact the same peculiar treatment of the
sibilants, the same verbal forms, the same phraseology, the same
combination of gods, etc., as are found in their inscriptions occur
1 CF. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, No. 1, 11 or No. 2, 12 (in Nippur” =“in
Nippur”); Part 2, No. 120, col. II, 2 (in ki-ib-ra-tim = “in the quarters of the
world”); King, “Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets,” XXI, pl. 1,
No. 91146, 6 (in Sippar” – “in Sippar"); Scheil, “Terles Elamites-Semitiques,”
III, pl. 1, No. 1, col. I, 8 (in §attim 1 = “in one year”); B. E., Series A, Vol.
I, Part 1, No. 2, 11; No. 4, 3 (bit *En-lil = “the Temple of Enlil”); No. 1, 20;
No. 2, 19, etc. (išdé-su = “his foundation”); No. 1, 23; No. 2; 22; Part 2,
No. 120, col. IV, 3, etc. (zéra-su = “his seed”); Scheil, l.c., III, pl. 1, No. 1,
col. 1, 7 (9 r = “9 armies(?)”), but also the frequent Ša duppam = “who
[changes this] tablet” (cf. B. E., Series A, Part 1, No. 1, 12; No. 2, 13; Part 2,
No. 120, col. III, 5, etc.).
• Cf. the names of ")Sar-ga-ni-Šar-ri, "Na-ra-am-"Sin and Ma-an-is-tu-su
in practically all their inscriptions known (but cf., e.g., Scheil, l.c., III, No.
2, 5, where the name of "Narām "Sin is written in one line), and the frequent
verbal form li-il-gu-tu (da) = “they may exterminate.”
3 Cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, No. 2, 2 (már Da-ti-"En-lil = “the son
of Dati-Enlil”); No. 5, 11 (in Kallati = “out of the booty”); Scheil, l.c., III,
pl. 1, No. 1, col. II, 8 (in sa-tu-su-nu = “in their mountains”); col. II, 9 (abné
e-siq-qa = “he broke stones”).
* Cf. Hrozny in “Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes,” Vol.
23, p. 191.


22 - FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
likewise in the long Nippur text under discussion. I quote only
one example: śā duppam st-a u-sa-2a-ku "Enlil iſ "Samaš isdé-su
li-zu-ha, “Whosoever changes this tablet, his foundation may
Enlil and Shamash tear up!”
There cannot be the slightest doubt that this new Nippur
tablet belongs to the most ancient Semitic inscriptions known
to us, in other words, to the period generally designated as the
period of Sargon of Akkad. We learn from it the surprising news
that “Erridu-pizir, king of (the) Guti,” i.e., a mountainous tribe
to the east of the lower Zāb, inhabiting the upper section of the
region watered by the Adhaim and the Diyälä rivers,” was in the
possession of Nippur and sat on the throne of Babylonia; for he
calls himself several times in this inscription: E-ir-ri-du-pi-zi-ir
(once writen En-ri-da-pi-zi-ir), da-num, śar Gu-ti-im iſ ki-ib-ra-
tim ar-ba-im, “En(r)ridu(a)pizir, the powerful one, king of (the)
Guti and of the four quarters of the world.” We at once recall
the facts that Sargon of Akkad repeatedly marched against the
country of Gu-ti-um” or Ku-ti-um”, even capturing King Sár-
la-ak,” and that “La-si-ra-ab the powerful one, king of (the)
Guti,” whom for various reasons, as early as 1893, I assigned to
the period of Sargon I," left an inscribed mace-head at Sippara."
In all probability these three kings of Gutiéum) are to be arranged
in the following chronological order: Sarlak, Lasirab, Erridupizir.
1. Cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, No. 2, 13–20.
- * Cf. Delitzsch, “Wo lag das Paradies?” pp. 233f.; Hommel, “Grundriss der
Geographie und Geschichte des Alten Orients,” pp. 252f. The Guti lived in this
region at the time of Erridu-pizir; later, at the time of the Assyrian king
Ashurnāsirapal (9th century), they had moved farther northward. Cf. p. 30,
note 4, below.
* Cf. Thureau-Dangin, “Die Sumerischen und Akkadischen Königsinschriften,”
pp. 225, c, 226, e. • * ,
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, pp. 12ff.
* Winckler in “Zeitschrift für Assyriologie,” Vol. IV, p. 406.


24 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
dynasty, Erridu-pizir, following in the footsteps of Narām-Sin,
assumed the additional and much more significant title, “king of
the four quarters of the world.”
DEIFICATION OF BABYLONIAN KINGs.
Through Sargon's great conquests in the four cardinal points'
(counted from Akkad, his capital, as center), this title had been
closely connected with Nippur, more especially with Ekur, the
sanctuary of Enlil, as “father of the gods,” whose empire the
invasion of the Guti was followed later by severe attacks and raids on the part
of their neighbors, the Lulubi, who were defeated in several battles by Dungi;
for the so-called inscription of a “ king of Kutha" (cf. Jensen in K. B., Vol. VI,
Part 1, pp. 290ff.) reflects similar ancient historical events as those depicted in the
ancient Sumerian hymns, etc., mentioned. Hommel, therefore, identified cor-
rectly the An(u)banini of that inscription with the well-known ancient king of
Lulubi of the same name. The principal question to be settled is the precise
time when An(u)banini lived. We would be able to fix this period more posi-
tively if the reading “a-ma-ku Kāt-ilī '' (Jensen, l.c., p. 300, li. 10) of a second
version of the inscription of the “king of Kuti" was sure. I then would pro-
pose to read “Gimil-ili " and identify this name with Gimil-ilīšu, the second
king of the first dynasty of Isin, hitherto not yet represented by any inscription of
his own (cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. 46 and 50).-In
his forthcoming volumes on Sumerian hymns and in Fasciculus 2 of the present
volume Radau will submit ample examples from our Temple Library, to prove
that quite a number of the literary compositions published by Reisner and
Hrozny are copies of old Nippur originals of the second dynasty of Ur. For the
present cf. the poetical lamentation song of the goddess Nin-Mar, published
and translated by Radau in “Hilprecht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 434ff.,
especially p. 439, lis. 17–30.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, pp. 24f.; Series D, Vol. I,
pp. 481 f. See also Ungnad's very pleasing view in “Die Deutung der Zukunft
bei den Babyloniern und Assyrern” (= “Der alte Orient,” X, Part 3), pp. 6,
10, 22f., according to which at the time of Sargon of Akkad “the four quarters
of the civilized world” are represented by the four great political powers,
Akkad (including Shumer which had been incorporated in this state) in the
south, Elam in the east, Subartu (the later Assyria) in the north, Amurru in
the west.


26 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
words “ba’ illāt "Enlil" = “the subjects of Enlil,” are used as a
synonymous expression for “ba' illāt arba'i" = “the subjects of
the four (quarters of the world).”
Out of gratitude for this phenomenal success, which Sargon
of Akkad had gained for the Temple of Enlil and its priesthood,
the latter declared the king to be a true incarnation of the deity
which he so well represented on earth, and raised him to the rank
of a god by placing the sign for “deity” in front of his name.”
Henceforth the same honor was granted to practically all Baby-
lonian kings who were in possession of Nippur, as long as its
religious and political importance lasted. As representatives
of Enlil, they either assumed the political title, “king of the
four quarters of the world,” without regard to the real extent of
their power,” or they claimed and enjoyed divine rank, or they
insisted on both. The following earlier Babylonian kings have
thus far been found with the determinative for “god” before their
names: Sargon I and Narām-Sin of Akkad; Dungi, Būr-Sin I,
Gimil-Sin and Ibi-Sin of Ur; Ishbi-Ura, Idin-Dagān, Ishme-
* For passages cf. Delitzsch, “Assyrisches Handwórterbuch,” p. 162; on
arba'u = 'world,” cf. Jensen in K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 520.
* Cf. B. E., Series A, VQl. I, Part 1, Pl. 2, li. 1, the only inscription in which
ilu is found to be attached to Sargon's name. It came from Nippur, and is
the one in which Sargon has the additional title “king of the subjects of
Enlil.”
* While in a number of cases the question must be left open, whether the
king ruled over an empire as large as Sargon's, we know positively that, e.g.,
Būr-Sin I of Ur, who claimed both divinity and the title “king of the four quar-
ters of the world” (cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, pls. 12 and 13, ll. 4 and
12), did not rule over the west, as no expedition to Amurru is mentioned in
his date list. As a rule, however, only those princes call themselves “kings
of the four quarters of the world” who actually carried on successive cam-
paigns of some kind outside of Babylonia proper.
* Cf. the inscriptions translated by Thureau-Dangin, “Die Sumerischen
und Akkadischen Königsinschriften,” pp. 190–203. -


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 27
Dagân, Libit-Ishtar, Ur-NIN-IB, Būr-Sin II, Itér-pisha, Ura-
imitti, Sin-ikišam, Enlil-bäni, Zambia, Sin-mägir and Dámid-
ilishu of Isin; Nūr-Immer, Wardi-Sin and Rim-Sin of Larsa;”
Hammu-rabi and Samsu-iluna of Babylon;” Kurigalzu, Nazi-
Maruttash, Kadashman-Turgu, Kadashman-Enlil, Kudur-Enlil
and Shagarakti-Shuriash of the Cassite dynasty"—for the greater
part represented by votive inscriptions or dated documents from
Nippur.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. 49ff., especially p. 51,
and Thureau-Dangin, l.c., pp. 204ff. Also Hilprecht in Orientalistische
Literaturzeitung, 1907, col. 386. For further details see p. 38, below. We
may safely assume that all the kings of the dynasty of Isin used the sign for
god “before their names.” The only three omitted above are not yet known
from their own inscriptions. Sin-ikišam, Ellil-báni and Sin-magir, though
beginning with a divine name and, therefore, naturally with ilu, “god,” are
included, because I do not see any reason to exclude them on this account from
the rest who claimed divine honor. -
* Cf. Thureau-Dangin, l.c., pp. 208ſ. and 216ff., and Poebel, B. E., Series
A, Vol. VI, Part 2, pl. 1, No. 2, Rev. 12 ("Wardi "Sin) and Nos. 4–9 ("Ri-im-
*Sin).
* Though Hammu-rabi, also written Ammu-rabi, like Ammi-ditana and
Ammi-zaduga, as a rule appears without the determinative ilu, the elements
Hammu and Samsu (in Samsu-ditana and Samsu-iluna) not being felt as deities
in personal proper names of Babylonian inscriptions, yet it is noteworthy that
Hammu-rabi and Samsu-iluna, the only two kings of the first dynasty of Baby-
lon represented by numerous dated documents from Nippur, are found twice
each with the sign for ilu before their names. Cf. Poebel, B. E., Series A, Vol.
VI, Part 2, No. 10, 4, and Ranke, B. E., Series D, Vol. III, p. 85, for "Hammu-
rabi; and Poebel, l.c., Nos. 31, 24, and 32, 33, for "Samsu-iluna.
* Cf. Hilprecht, B. E., Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, p. 52, and the literature
quoted there. Eduard Meyer's statement (“Geschichte des Altertums,” 2d edi-
tion, Vol. I, Part 2, p. 562), that the entire Hammurabi dynasty declined to
acknowledge the divine origin of their kingdom, and furthermore that “all
later rulers of Babylonia, in contrast to the Pharaohs” of Egypt, were “no longer
gods themselves,” is contrary to all the facts known from the inscriptions quoted
in this and the previous note. This ancient sacred custom disappears only
with the downfall of the Cassite dynasty, when Nippur ceases to play an impor-
tant rôle in the political life of Babylonia.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 29
The names of the three ancient Guti kings, Sharlak, Lasirab and
Erridu-pizir, whatever they may have been otherwise, are surely
not Semitic. If the latter two use the Akkadian language and
peculiar form of writing in their inscriptions, even worshiping
the same gods as the Babylonians, it only proves that the earliest
inhabitants of Guti, like the Lullubi and other non-Semitic moun-
tain tribes to the east of the Tigris, in very ancient times accepted
the civilization of the plain of Shinar"—a process which in the second
millennium we can better follow in connection with their immediate
neighbors in the mountains, the Kashshū or Cassites, who after
their gradual conquest of Babylonia amalgamated completely
with the Semitic race, though for a long time their kings and
other persons continued to wear names peculiar to the Cassite
language.
The complete cuneiform text of this new Guti king will soon
be published by the writer in Vol. XXII of Series A of our expedi-
tion work. It will deal with “Early Historical Inscriptions from
the Temple Library of Nippur,” including fragmentary chronicles
of Narām-Sin and other ancient rulers and two good-sized though
much mutilated fragments (joined) of a still earlier Sumerian
chronicle entitled “Nam-lugal,” literally “royalty, kingship,”
which we may render more intelligently in English by translating
“Book of the Kings.” -
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE ARK IN THE LAND OF GUTI.
We cannot close these brief remarks on the long inscription of
King Erridu-pizir of Guti without recalling the fact that, according
to a copy of an evidently much older geographical list” from the
library of Ashurbănapal, it was a mountain of the country Guti, Mt.
* Cf. Eduard Meyer, l.c., pp. 312, 408, 464, 536f., 581.
* K. 4415, published in II R. 51, No. 1 (see li. 21). Cf. Delitzsch, “Wo lag
das Paradies?” pp. 101 ff.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 31
access (marsu), and that it was named Kinipa or Kiniba in the
language of the natives, the people of Lul(l)u, i.e., the Lulu-bi"
of other inscriptions, who since ancient times lived in close prox-
imity with the Guti. The exact situation of this peak or moun-
tain range has not yet been fixed. Scholars differ on this point. In
accordance with the various theories formulated as to the original
site and extent of the country of Guti, the one place Mt. Nisir
in the mountains of the upper course of the Euphrates, others,
following the Syriac tradition among Jews and Christians, identify
it with Jebel Júdi,” in which Sayce recognizes a later form for
Guti. Belck regards one of the peaks to the northeast of Erbil
(Arbela) as the probable landing place of the ark; Streck finds
the Nisir in one of the numerous mountain chains to the northeast
of Kerkūk, the Khalkhalān-Dagh, Tokma-Dagh, Pir ‘Omar
Gudrún, etc., while Billerbeck fixes upon the last mentioned
range as the Nisir proper.” My own view in a nutshell is the
following: Mt. Nisir originally was a mountain in the district of
the upper courses of the “Adhaim and Diyälä rivers, somewhere
between the 35th and 36th degrees latitude, where Delitzsch,
Streck, Billerbeck and others place it. In connection with a
subsequent northern emigration of the Guti," the name of this
"Cf. Hommel, “Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des Alten Orients,”
p. 58, note 5, and Streck in “Zeitschrift für Assyriologie,” Vol. XV, pp. 289ff.
*In the district of Bohtán, on the eastern side of the upper Tigris, to the
northwest of Mosul.
* For the literature on this subject and an objective discussion of the entire
question cf. Streck in “Zeitschrift für Assyriologie,” Vol. XV, pp. 272ff.
“As stated above, Sayce associated Jebel Júdi with the ancient name of the
Guti. Should the later Semitic designation of this people, Kuta (?, () (cf. De-
litzsch, “Wo lag das Paradies?” p. 233), be preserved in the name of the city
of *Ku-t(d)a, mentioned by Tiglath-Pileser III (as to the passages cf. Streck,
l.c., XIV, p. 116), as situated in Urartu ? If so, we would have an important
indication as to the way which the Guti took in their later wanderings.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 33
* V.
THE EARLIEST FRAGMENT OF THE
DELUGE STORY.
OUR examination into the probable site of Mt. Nisir in the land
of (the) Guti forms the natural link between the tablet of Erridu-
pizir of Guti and the Akkadian fragment found together with
it among the Sumerian contents of the two boxes of antiquities
opened. For upon closer examination it turned out to contain
a portion of the Babylonian Deluge Story.
This fragment, here published for the first time in a photo-
graphic reproduction and an autograph copy, was so completely
covered with crystals of nitre and other sediments when I took
it out of its paper wrapper, that at first only a few cuneiform signs
could be recognized.' Three characters in particular, standing
together in the upper section of the fragment, were fortunately
entirely free from incrustations. I read without difficulty, a-bu-bi,
“deluge.” My interest was naturally aroused, and I tried at once
to clean the tablet with a brush sufficiently to recognize what
followed. But my efforts proved in vain, the crystals and dirt
being too firmly attached to the incised characters. Next I turned
my attention to the other contents of the boxes, to see whether
perchance I could find another fragment of the same tablet.
Again I met with no success. Unable to restrain my curiosity
and impatience any longer, I left, for the time being, all the unpacked
This was the reason why I did not examine it more carefully in Constan-
tinople in 1901. Possibly we have another exceedingly small fragment of the
Deluge Story from the second expedition, too small to be determined accurately.


36 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
surface of the Reverse, and from the evidently great gaps in the
inscription, which in certain lines, as, e.g., li. 7, where the measure-
ments of the ark were given, requires considerable supplementing,
we can, however, safely make the following deductions.
The original tablet was nearly three times as wide as the present
fragment, and in proportion correspondingly long. It is, therefore,
reasonable to assume that the complete tablet must have been
about 18 cm. (= 7 inches) wide, about 25.4 cm. (= 10 inches) long
and about 3.8 cm. (= 1% inches) thick, containing about 65–68 lines
on each side, or about 130–136 lines altogether. It was one of those
large tablets in which the older Temple Library, as we know posi-
tively from the material examined and restored, fairly abounded.
The fragment under consideration is not dated. The question,
therefore, arises: To which period can we assign it with any degree
of certainty from other evidence? As it was found intermingled
with the dated and undated tablets of the lowest of the three
strata of “Tablet Hill” above referred to, it follows & priori that it
must have been inscribed at the same general epoch as the rest
of the tablets, which lay together in large numbers exactly as they
had fallen at the time of their intentional destruction. On pp.
10f., above, I had stated that without exception the inscriptions
from this stratum were written before the reign of Rim-Sin of
Larsa (about 2000 B.C.), at the same time adding that they
cover practically all the periods of early Babylonian history known,
down to the time of the last king of the first dynasty of Isin. The
mass of these tablets, however, being inscribed during the first
half of this dynasty, and possibly even a little earlier, we naturally
would be inclined to assign our fragment to the same period.
But strong palaeographical reasons force me to place it a little lower,
and to classify it with several hundred other specimens from this
stratum together in one small group. This small collection of
tablets was inscribed during the second half of the reign of the


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 37
dynasty of Isin, beginning with Ur-NIN-IB and ending with
Dámiq-ilishu, under whom Isin was conquered by Rim-Sin. In
other words, according to my reduced chronology, which places
the dynasty of Isin about 300 years later than previously done
by Assyriologists and historians, our fragment was written some
time between 2137 and 2005 B.C., or, in round figures, about 2100
B.C. This is the very latest date to which this fragment possibly
can be assigned, both according to its place of discovery and the
palaeographical evidence presented by the tablet itself.
With the exception of but one contract tablet excavated by
Scheil at Abū Habba, all the tablets dated according to rulers
of the first dynasty of Isin have thus far come exclusively from
Nippur. The material known to me in 1906 was quoted in B. E.,
Series A, Vol. XX, Part 1, pp. 49ſf. A tablet bearing the name
of King Zambia was discovered and discussed by me since in
“Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung,” July 15, 1907, cols. 385ff.;
another” with the name of King Sin-iqisham by Poebel in the same
journal, September 15, 1907, cols. 461ff.; and a third one dated
in the reign of King Ura-imitti by the writer in “Zeitschrift für
Assyriologie,” Vol. XXI, pp. 26ff. In connection with my con-
tinued work of cataloguing the remaining Nippur collections, I
have recently met with a few more dated documents of the same
* Cf. “Recueil de travaux,” Vol. XXIII, pp. 93f., and “Une Saison de fouilles
à Sippar,” p. 140.
* More exactly two tablets. The one bears the catalogue number 11.191
(not 11107, given by Poebel). The other, No. 11560, is characterized by
Poebel as “belonging to about the same time,” but “with its date broken away.”
This statement, however, is inaccurate, for at the end of the tablet is clearly
to be seen: mſw “Sin-li-ki-Šá-am lugal. It is of interest to note that both of
these tablets bearing the name of King Sin-iqísham and one of the tablets dated
according to Dámiq-ilishu were excavated in “Tablet Hill” as early as Feb-
ruary, 1889, according to the registration marks of Prof. R. F. Harper written
in Chinese ink upon them.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 39
The conclusion reached with regard to the age of our Deluge
fragment is further confirmed by the use of the sign
for the syllable “wa" in li. 4 (wa-Si-e). This value “wa’ is
entirely unknown on the thousands of cuneiform tablets from
the Cassite period excavated in Nippur, where the sign always
has its ordinary value “pi,” with the exception of two tablets
on which it is to be read “we,” resp. “wi,” as Radau has shown.”
On the other hand, we know from numerous Nippur texts and other
Babylonian inscriptions that the sign in question commonly has
the value “wa” during the first dynasty of Babylon, and also during
the reign of the dynasties of Isin and Larsa, which in part were
contemporaneous with the former. Besides, we observe the fact
that the verbal form wa-si-e (i.e., the infinitive wasé from Nsh),
written with the sign PI = “wa” in the first syllable, shows a
characteristic grammatical peculiarity of the early Babylonian
period, according to which the half-vowel “w” as a rule is pre-
served at the beginning of verba primae “w,” while it has become “’”
in the later development of the language.” The treatment of the
sibilant in binuzza (li. 7) = bindssa points to the same age.
THE THREE DELUGE VERSIONS IN CUNEIFORM WRITING
PREVIOUSLY KNOWN.
The cuneiform text of the fragment under discussion contains
a portion of the divine command to the Babylonian Noah, Ct-
* For the present compare the three volumes of together 467 tablets from
the Cassite archives published by Clay (B. E., Series A, Vols. XIV, especially
“List of Signs,” No. 218, and XV) and Radau (ibidem, Vol. XVII).
* Cf. B. E., Series A, Vol. XVII, p. 151, under amelu, written a-mi-lu, a -me-lu
and a-PI(= wi or we)-lu.
3 Cf. Delitzsch, “Assyrische Grammatik,” $$ 24, 49 and 154; Ungnad,
“Babylonisch-Assyrische Grammatik,” $$ 6m and 48a; Meissner, “Kurzgefasste
Assyrische Grammatik,” $$ 8c and 68i.


40 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
napishtim,” to construct a ship and to save life from the all-
destroying flood. In order to fully understand the unique posi-
tion of our fragment among similar texts previously published,
we briefly examine the corresponding passages from the known
fragments of the cuneiform Deluge Story. As the text publica-
tions, translations, commentaries and numerous essays dealing
with them are generally accessible, we confine ourselves to a state-
ment of the following facts.”
Apart from the tradition of a great flood handed down by the
Babylonian priest Berosus (living between 330 and 250 B.C.),
but preserved to us only in extracts by other ancient writers,”
we have fragments of three distinct Deluge versions in cuneiform
writing. -
1. The version known from the library of King Ashurbănapal
* Meaning: “He saw (i.e., found, obtained) life.” Cf. Jensen, “Das Gil-
gamesch Epos in der Weltliteratur,” p. 24, note 6, and the references given
there.
* For those of my readers who are less familiar with Assyriological pub-
lications, I quote some of the principal works from the great mass of literature.
Cf. Haupt, “Das Babylonische Nimrodepos,” Part 2, 1891, pp. 95ff. (containing
the almost complete cuneiform text, with variants, of the Deluge Story as restored
from the different fragments known in 1891); Jensen, “Assyrisch-Babylonische
Mythen und Epen” (in Schrader's “Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek,” Vol. VI, Part
1, pp. 229ff. and 480ff. (a complete transliteration and translation, including
an excellent philological commentary, of all the Deluge fragments published
till 1900); Zimmern in Schrader's “Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament,”
3d edition, 1903, pp. 543ff. (a concise and very instructive discussion of the
different Babylonian Deluge versions and their relation to the Biblical story).
For good photographic reproductions of the principal Deluge fragments now
in the British Museum see Rogers, “The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria,”
figs. XVII-XX. As to the principal publications see also Weber, “Die
Literatur der Babylonier und Assyrier,” pp. 71–99. Much valuable information
likewise to be obtained from A. Jeremias, “Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten
Orients,” 2d edition, pp. 226–252, and Dhorme, “Choix de teactes religieur Assyro-
Babyloniennes,” pp. 100–125. * Cf. Zimmern, l.c., pp. 543f.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 41
(668–626 B.C.), which was restored from a number of fragments
found in the ruins of Nineveh. This version is an Assyrian copy
of a Babylonian original, constituting the eleventh tablet (among
twelve) of the great epic poem and sacred book of the Babylonians
describing the wanderings and adventures of the half-historical'
king Gilgamesh of Erech in search of eternal life. Driven by
fear of death,” the famous national hero does not shrink back
from the greatest perils and most extraordinary hardships in
order to find Ut-napishtim, the wise friend of the gods, who escaped
from the flood and received immortality. He wanders through
the desert and climbs over high mountains, wherever he comes
asking the eager question, as old as the human race: How can
I secure eternal life? But everywhere the answer given is the
same: “The life which thou seekest thou wilt not find.” For
“when the gods created man, they prepared death for man and ,
retained life in their hands.” Yet Gilgamesh pushes on until
he reaches the shore of the Mediterranean, where he finds the
boatman" of Ct-napishtim. With his aid he sails over the great
sea, crossed only by the powerful Sungod, and after passing through
“the waters of death,” he finally reaches the Land of the Blessed,
“at the mouth of the rivers” in the far west beyond the straits of
Gibraltar, where Üt-napishtim resides with his wife, enjoying
* Cf. the text published by me in B. E., Series A, Vol. I, Part 1, No. 26.
* Cf. e.g., Haupt, l.c., p. 59, li. 5: mu-ta ap-lah-ma a-rap-pu-ud sira, and
Meissner, “Ein altbabylonisches Fragment des Gilgamosepos” (= “Mittei-
lungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft,” 1902, Vol. 7, No. 1), cols. II, 12;
mu-tam ša at-ta-na-ad-da-ru a-ia-a-mur ( = ai (imur, to avoid the hiatus).
* Cf. Meissner, l.c., cols. I, 7; II, 2; ba-la-tam ša ta-sa-ah-hu-ru la tu-ut-ta.
“Cf. Meissner, l.c., col. III, 3–5: i-nu-ma ilani ib-nu-u a-więPI)-lu-tam
mu-tam iś-ku-nu a-ma a-wiGPI)-lu-tim ba-la-tam i-na ga-ti-Šu-mu is-sa-ab-tu.
* For his name cf. p. 47, note 3. The very name of this boatman, which
is Sumerian, demands a Sumerian original for the Akkadian versions thus
far only known to us.


42 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
eternal life and happiness like the gods. Hastening toward his
ancestor, Gilgamesh asks the all-important question: “How
didst thou gain admission to the assembly of the gods and obtain
life?” Whereupon Ut-napishtim relates to him the story of
the great flood and his own salvation, and how he was subse-
quently taken away into the realm of immortality in the land of
peace and rest."
There exists also a Neo-Babylonian fragment” in the British
Museum, known as “S. P., II, 960," which contains the same text
as the one just treated. Possibly, however, it is about 50 to 100
years later than the Assyrian fragments from Ashurbănapal's
library, belonging, therefore, to the period 600–550 B.C.
2. A somewhat different version of the Babylonian Deluge
Story is found on Fragment “D(aily) T(elegraph) 42,” which
likewise came from the royal library of Nineveh and was inscribed
about the same time (c. 650 B.C.). Like the Nippur fragment,
it has cuneiform signs preserved on but one side, but otherwise
is somewhat smaller in size than the former. Owing to its broken
condition, we learn from it little more than the last lines of the
divine command to build a ship and to fill it with human beings
and animals. The hero of the Deluge is here not called Üt-napish-
tim but Atra-hásis(u), i.e., with transposition of its two compo-
nents, Hasisu-atra, from which, after adding the Greek ending,
with syncope of the “a” vowels, we obtain Hsisutr + os = Xis-
outhros, the name of the hero known from Berosus. Possibly,
however, the last mentioned name goes back to the old Baby-
* Cf. Jensen's great work, “Das Gilgamesch Epos in der Weltliteratur,” Vol.
I, pp. 1–54.
* Cf. Haupt, l.c., pp. 121–123.
* Cf. Haupt, l.c., p. 131.
{
:


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 43
lonian form Hasisw-watra' = Hsisuwtra = Hsistſtr + os = X isow-
thros. This means “exceedingly wise” or “clever.”
3. Several years ago Professor Scheil, of Paris, acquired and
published” an early Babylonian fragment, which subsequently
came into the possession of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, forming No.
135 of the cuneiform collections preserved in his library at New
York.” It is dated in “the year when King Ammi-Zaduga built
Dūr-Ammi-Zaduga" at the mouth of the Euphrates,” i.e., the
eleventh year of his government; in other words, according to
our reduced chronology, about 1868 B.C. A statement at the
end of the tablet informs us that the tablet when complete had
439 lines, and constituted the second tablet of a poem entitled
(i.e., beginning with the words) “I-nu-ma sal-lu a-we-lum,”
“When a man laid down to sleep.” Unfortunately, however,
*Possibly written Wa-at-ra-am-ba-si-is on the early Babylonian “frag-
ment Scheil” (Recueil de travauz, Vol. XX, pp. 55ff.), unless the tablet, some-
what indistinct at the beginning of the corresponding line, offers “At-ra-am-
ba-si-is. Cf. Jensen in Schrader's Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, Vol. VI, p. 290,
note 1, and the frontispiece (left column, second line above the two parallel
lines) in Johns' description of Pierpont Morgan’s “Cuneiform Inscriptions,”
New York, 1908. -
* Cf. “Recueil de travaux,” Vol. XX, pp. 55ff.
* Cf. Johns, “Cuneiform Inscriptions, Chaldean, Babylonian and Assyrian
Collections contained in the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan,” New York, 1908,
pp. 21f.; also p. 11 and the frontispiece, containing two good photographic repro-
ductions of the two inscribed sides of the fragment. -
* Meaning “Wall” or “Fortified place of Ammizaduga.”
* Cf. Poebel, B. E., Series A, Vol. VI, Part 2, p. 102.
* Which Jensen (in Schrader's Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, Vol. VI, Part 1,
p. 290, note 3) connects with li. 196 of the first Nineveh Deluge Story (quoted
above as No. 1), where the god Ea repudiates the insinuations of God NIN-IB
that it was he who betrayed the secret decision of the gods to destroy all man-
kind by a deluge, with the words: “I, I did not reveal the secret of the great
gods, I (only) sent dreams to the very clever one (= A trabasis), and (in this
way) he learned the secret of the gods.” Cf. also p. 45, note 1, below.


44 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
in its present state the fragment is so much broken and chipped
off that only 57 very defective lines of the original long inscrip-
tion remain. They contain little more than a few phrases and
words without any coherent connection. Consequently we learn
nothing whatsoever from it about the character of the great flood.
Its chief importance for our discussion lies in the following two
facts:
(a) From the mentioning of the name Waſor *)-at-ra-am-ba-
si-is," the hero of the Deluge, and from the words a-bu-bu şa ta-ga-
ab–bſu-il], “the Deluge concerning which thou speakest,” together
with a few other indications, it becomes evident that the inscrip-
tion contained a conversation between the Babylonian Noah and
“his lord” (doubtless the god Ea), at the end of which reference
is made to the great flood as a future event, and, furthermore,
that the Deluge was preceded by various plagues sent among men
as divine punishments for their lawlessness and sins.”
(b) From the date of the fragment we could infer that as early
as the nineteenth century before our era the Babylonian Deluge
Story must have existed in writing in some form or other; while
from the remark of the scribe, “hi-bi-is,” “broken,” occurring in
the midst of the text, it followed that the fragment was copied
from another tablet which was “broken” or “damaged” at the
passage in question, and that, therefore, the Deluge Story in all
probability was even considerably older.
During the period c. 1900–250 B.C., according to all evidence
before us, there were at least four different versions of the Deluge
Story current in Babylonia. Whether they existed already in
* Col. IV of the fragment, second line from the end of the story proper.
* Col. III of the fragment, li. 7.
* Cf. especially Zimmern in Schrader's “Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament,” 3d edition, pp. 552ff., and Jensen, “Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der
Weltliteratur,” pp. 55–74ff.
*


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 45
ancient Babylonia side by side, or whether, as seems more proba-
ble to me, there existed originally but one Story of the Deluge,
from which subsequently at different periods and places, in con-
nection with the different cults of the country, through the literary
activity of the priests, gradually developed several stories more
or less agreeing with each other in their principal features, but
differing in many details betraying local coloring and religious
sentiment, but also an apparent endeavor to bring the Deluge
Story into relation with other Babylonian legends—all these
are questions which we are eager to settle, but which with our
inadequate knowledge we are unable to answer with any degree
of certainty.
THE DIVINE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DELUGE ACCORDING TO
THE DIFFERENT CUNEIFORM VERSIONs.
For our present purpose it is of interest and importance to
know the precise text, however fragmentary, of the passage
referring to the divine announcement of the Deluge and the
command to construct a large ship, which is preserved
only in the two cuneiform versions treated as Nos. 1 and 2,
above, and to compare these two versions with the Nippur frag-
ment, which contains the same passage.
First Nineveh Version (c. 650 B.C.).
li. 21: “Reed house, reed house, wall, wall!
22: “Reed house listen, wall hear!"
* To save his protégé, the god Ea communicated the decision of the gods
to destroy all mankind by a great flood to the reed-house, behind the walls of
which the Babylonian Noah was sleeping. The words translated above are,
therefore, to be understood as spoken to the latter in a dream (Zimmern and
Jensen). Cf. also p. 43, above, note 6. . . . . .


46 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
23: “Man from Shurippak," son of Ubar-Tutu.”
24: “Construct a house,” build a ship!
25: “Part with riches, seek the life,
26: “Abandon property and save the life!
27: “Bring living creatures of all kind into the ship!
28: “The ship which thou shalt build—
29: “Its measures be in proportion,
30: “Its width and length shall correspond,
31: “Like the abyssos roof it over!”
* One of the most ancient cities in Southern Babylonia, on a former branch
course of the Euphrates, represented by the ruins of Fära, which were partly
excavated by the German Orient Society in 1902–03. The principal results
were cuneiform tablets, seal cylinders and vases of the earliest type, besides
many tombs.
* Preserved as Otiartes, or rather Opartes, by Berosus and evidently identical
with Upar-Tutu, through partial progressive assimilation of the b to the t, arisen
from Ubar-Tutu. -
* The other translation, “tear down the house,” generally offered by Assyri-
ologists as an alternative and preferred by Dhorme (Choix de textes religieuz
Assyro-Babyloniens, p. 103) to the one given above, is well possible grammati-
cally. Yet I regard it as impossible in the above connection, not so much
because in this case we would expect “thy house” (Jensen, K. B., Vol. VI,
Part 1, p. 231, note 10), for “thy” is not written either in connection with
“riches” (li. 25) and “property” (li. 26), but simply because the tearing down
of a Babylonian reed hut of little or no value, which moreover, the destructive
flood would have done most effectively afterwards, would seem to be a most
unnecessary work, in view of the much more important and pressing task of
building a boat to escape the imminent general calamity, and also in view of
the fact that tit-napishtim is not told to destroy his “riches” and his other
“property” either, but only to leave them in order to save his life. If any-
thing different, we could expect only “leave the house” (cf. Haupt in K.A.T., pp.
67f.), in parallelism with the first halves of the two following lines. “Construct a
house, build a ship,” means, as Jensen recognized correctly, “build a vessel
which is a house and a boat at the same time,” in other words, a house-boat
or an ark, which is protected on all sides against the water from below and
above. In line 96 of the first Nineveh version the ship, therefore, is also
t
*
-



THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 47
Second Nineveh Version (c. 650 B.C.)
li. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1. . . . . . “shall be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . “like the vaults of heav[en and earth]
3. . . . “shall be strong above and below].
4. . . . “close and . . . . . . . . . .
5. “[I have fixed]” a time which I will send thee.
6. “Then enter [into the ship] and close the door of the ship
again.
7. “[Bring in to it thy barley, thy possession and [thy]
property.
8. “Thy [wife(?)]," thy family, thy relatives, and the artisans!
called ekallu, “a great house.” Compare Jensen, “Das Gilgamesch-Epos,” p. 41,
note 1.
*I regard the first character of this line preserved only in traces as “[k]i,”
and not as “e,” as is generally done by Assyriologists. The reasons for this reading
and my translation, “roof it over,” instead of the usual “cause it to be immersed”
or “launch it,” are given below, p. 55, note 14.
*I supplement as-kun, in view of First Nineveh Version, li. 87. Cf. also
li. 89. Possibly we have to read A-sa-kan, “I shall fix.”
* I supplement as-Sat as the most probable reading, in view of First Nineveh
Version, li. 203. Possible, however, is also pi-hi-e, “boatman,” in view of lis.
95–96 of the version quoted; for this boatman plays a great rôle in the Gilgamesh
epos. His name was PU-2u-ur"KUR-GAL, also written Su-ur-Su-na-bu
(Meissner, “Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft,” Vol. 7, No. 1, pp.
8–11, col. IV, 3f., 6, 12, 14) or Ur-Sanabi (= NIMIN, cf Meissner, l.c., p. 6).
As evidently none of these three designations is an appellative used for the person:
understood by it, as Atrabasis is used for Ot-napishtim, it is clear that they must
represent the same name in three different writings. I, therefore, venture
the following interpretation as a mere attempt to solve the difficulty. PU also
having the value sir, the first mentioned name may be read Sirzur.” KUR-GAL.
But in view of the fact that in the lists of gods published by the British Museum
and in other cuneiform, inscriptions original glosses can be shown frequently to
have crept into the text itself (cf. on this whole question Radau, “Hilprecht
Anniversary Volume,” pp. 440f., note 3), and furthermore, that PU also has the
value sir, I believe that zu-ur after PU in the name of PU(zu-ur)-d'H UR-GAL is


48 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
9. “Domestic animals of the field (and) wild beasts of the
field, as many as eat grass -
10. “I shall send thee, and they shall guard [thy] door.”
The Nippur Version (c. 2100 B.C.)
Transliteration of C.B.M. 13532, Reverse.
1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?)-3a(?)-\i-il(?) i-(?)-...-(?)-ka
2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . - - - - a-pa-aš- Šar
3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ka-la mi-śi i}-te-niš i-2a-bat
4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -ti la-am a-bu-bi wa-si- e
5. . . . . . . (?)-a-mi ma-la i-ba-aš-šū-wlu-kin ub-bu-kulu-pu-ut-tu bu-ru-šū
6. . . . . . . . *elippura-be-tu bi- mi- ma
7. . . . . . ga-be- e gab-bi lu bi-nu-uz- 20,
8. . . . . . . ši-i lu "magurgurrum ba-bil-lu na-at- rat ma-piš-tim
9. .-ri(?)2u-lu-la dam-ma zu- ul- lil
10. . . . . . . . . te-ip- pu- $14
11. . . . . . . . -lam(?)11-ma-am si-rim is-sur Šd-me-e
12. . . . . . . . . . . . ku-um mi- " mi
13. . . . . . . . -(?) u kiſn]- ta ru(?)-. . . . . . .
14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . w]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
an original gloss, demanding the value zur (standing also for sur in Old Babylonian
inscriptions), instead of sir, for PU. The name, therefore, should be written
PU-4KUR-GAL and read Z(S)u-ur-4KUR-GAL, possibly meaning in Assyrian
Namir-Ea or Nammir (resp. Unammir or Munammir)-Ea, so that the first ele-
ment appears either as zur, resp. sur, or ur, of which I take the latter form as
an abbreviation, resp. mutilation, of the fuller first, or as an attempt on the part
of some scribe to explain the unintelligible sur by the more common ur of personal
proper names. The second element,...sunabu or Šamabi, is rendered ideographi-
cally by , which is the number “40” used as an ideogram for “Ea.” But
Ea may also be rendered by <
“50,” which was wrongly interpreted as “Enlil” by another copyist, who now
chose another ideogram for this god, namely, KUR-GAL. We accordingly
would be justified in restoring the old ideographic writing “40” = “Ea” =
Sanabi, and in rendering the name by Z(S)ur-Sanabi. h -
* With Jensen (K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 521) to be understood in the sense
“they shall not leave the door,” but “remain within the ship.”
A copyist wrote Ea with this number


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 49
Translation.
1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “thee",
2. . . . “[the confines of heaven and earth]? I will loosen,
3. ... “[a deluge I will make, and”) it shall sweep away" all men
together;
4. . . . “[but thou seek l]ife" before the deluge cometh forth;"
5. . . . “[For over all living beings"], as many as there are, I will
bring overthrow, destruction, annihilation.”
6. . . . . . . . . “Build a great ship” and
7. . . . . . . . . “total height" shall be its structure.”
8. . . . . . . . . . “it shall be a house-boat” carrying what has been
saved of life.”
9. . . . . . . . “with a strong deck cover (it)."
10. . . . “[The ship]” which thou shalt make,
11. . . . “[into it br]"ing the beasts of the field, the birds of heaven,”
12. . . . “[and the creeping things, two of everything”) instead of
a number,”
13. . . . . . “and the family”. . . .
NOTES ON THE NIPPUR VERSION.
1. The words enclosed in brackets, [], in the following lines are
not found in the cuneiform text, but have been supplemented by
the writer according to the context.
2. [Usurát samé u irsitim]. Cf. Delitzsch, “Assyrisches Hand-
wórterbuch,” pp. 122 and 549. Possible also [Kippát 3amé u
irsitim] (cf. Second Nineveh Version, li. 2, and Jensen in K. B.,
Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 520). Compare Genesis 7 : 11, “all the foun-
tains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven
were opened” (P.). As the version under discussion came from
Nippur, the principal seat of Enlil, who, according to the first
Nineveh Version, made the great flood; and as, moreover, “the
4


50 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
confines of heaven and earth” designate the two “firmaments”
(Gen. 1, 6–10, “heaven” and “earth”), which keep back the
waters of the upper and of the lower ocean, in other words mark
the two boundary lines of Enlil's empire (i.e., the world, cf. Hil-
precht, B. E., Series D, Vol. I, p. 463, and the literature quoted
there), Enlil himself seems to be the speaker in the Nippur Version,
unless Ea be regarded as quoting Enlil's words literally, which
seems most improbable to me. In the latter case we would sup-
plement Ští-ma-ta-ka (according to “Gilgamesh Epos,” tablet VI,
li. 210 (cf. K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 178), “thy dream I shall
loosen,” i.e., “interpret.”
3. I supplement [a-bu-ba a-ka-ka-an-ma], in view of First
Nineveh Version, 169 and 183. Cf. also li. 4 of the Nippur Version
(“before the deluge commences”), which presupposes a previous
mentioning of the flood. Compare the Biblical “And behold I
bring the deluge upon the earth” (Genesis 6, 17, P.).
4. Either = isabat, “it shall take” or “carry away,” or, as I prefer
(cf. e.g., izqup and isqup) = ikabat, “it shall sweep away”; for
§abátu = Sabàtu (Zimmern, K. A. T.", p. 556), “to beat, to strike,
y
to overthrow, to sweep away,” is the Babylonian technical term
used in connection with the Deluge (cf. Jensen, K. B., Vol. VI,
Part 1, p. 533). A similar expression is used in Genesis 6, 7,
“I will sweep away man from the face of the earth” (J.), while
Genesis 6, 17 has “to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of
life” (P.).
5. I supplement [il at-la-ma Śe-'-i (or bul-lit) na-piš-ti, in
accordance with First Nineveh Version, 25f.
6. “Before the deluge cometh forth” or “commenceth.”
Cf. p. 39, above, and the expression la-am "Samaš a-si-e, “before
sunrise” (Delitzsch, l.c., p. 378).
7. Supplemented according to the context. The word pre-
ceding mala ended in a-ni, ia-ni, hal-a-ni or mes(plur.)-a-ni, possibly


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 51
also in e-ni. The general words for “living creature” are şikin
napiști (Creation Story, K. B., Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 40, li. 22; p. 42,
lis. 3 and 5), gimir nabniti (ibidem, p. 42, 7) zér mapsáti (First
Nineveh Version, lis. 27 and 84) or mapiști (ibidem, li. 174); but
none of these expressions fits the traces on the fragment. Have we
to read ÓlániP'(a-ni), “over all the cities”? Cf. Reverse, lis. 2 and 3.
8. The three synonyms expressing the idea of utter destruc-
tion, though derived from well-known roots, occur only here, as
far as I see. There cannot be any doubt, however, as to their
meaning. Ubbuku, a pa'el formation (inf. subst.) of abáku, identi-
cal with Hebrew TBT (the p being due to partial progressive
assimilation to the following k), “to overturn, to overthrow,"
means “the overthrow.” Cf. Assyr. abkūtu, “overthrow,” abiktu,
“defeat,” and Hebrew ITPBIT and H2BT), used of the “over-
throw” of Sodom and Gomorrah. —Luputtu, feminine of the
“overthrow,
noun formation ju’l, fem. ju’ ultu, also meaning
destruction,” from lapátu, “to overthrow, destroy.” Cf. Sa(u)l-
puttu, “destruction.”—Hu-ru-šu, probably to be interpreted as
hurrušu, like ubbuku, an infinitive III, used as substantive, with
the meaning, “the crushing, annihilation,” from harášu, “to
grind, to crush,” on which cf. Delitzsch, “Assyrisches Hand-
wórterbuch,” p. 293. -
9. The different expressions for the vessel carrying the remainder
of liſe (cf. p. 46, note 3, above), which occur in the Babylonian
versions of the Deluge, are elippu, “ship,” bitu, “house,” ekallu,
“large house,” to which add from the Nippur Version elippu
rabitu, “large ship,” and magurru, “house-boat” (for which see
note 12, below). -
10. This line contained a blief statement concerning the
measures of the ark, as can be inferred with certainty from the
first word preserved in it, viz., gabé, which cannot be separated
from the root FDJ, “to be high.” As indicated by the appo-


52 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
sition gabbi, “totality, all,” gabé is the genitive of a substantive
gabú, “height” (abstract, subst. inf. = gabāhu). Cf. gab'áni
(form fal), “the heights” (concrete = “the high peaks” of a
tmountain range).
11. bi-nu-uz-za, Old Babylonian writing for Neo-Babylonian
bi-nu-us-sa (cf. Ungnad, “Babylonisch-Assyrische Grammatik,”
§§ 6, l, and 25, f.) = binatsa = binati-śa. Cf. pu-zu = pâtsu
(Schorr, Altbabylonische Rechtsurkunden, Heft 1, p. 11).
12. In the first half of li. 8 the description of the boat was
continued. In the preserved second half it is styled a *MA-
GUR-GUR, an ideogram also occurring in the vocabulary K.
4378, a, col. V, 15, where its Assyrian equivalent is given as ma-
qur-gur-rum (a Sumerian loanword). This designation for a cel-
tain kind of ship is doubtless connected with the other Sumerian
word ma-gūr (written "MA-TU), whence the Assyrian makurru.
(“Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British
Museum,” Vol. XII, pl. 11, li. 26), on which cf. Jensen in K. B.,
Vol. III, Part 1, p. 52, Vol. VI, Part 1, p. 533; Küchler, “Beiträge
zur Kenntnis der Assyrisch-Babylonischen Medizin,” pp. 69f.;
Perry, “Hymnen und Gebete an Sin,” p. 18; Langdon in Z. A.,
Vol. XX, pp. 450ff. The word occurs also in the date formula
for the 8th year of King Gimil-Sin of Ur (cf. Radau, “Early
Babylonian History,” p. 277; Myhrman, B. E., Series A, Vol. III,
Part 1, p. 25, and Thureau-Dangin, “Die Sumerischen und Akkad-
ischen Königsinschriftem,” pp. 234 and 260). While makurru is fem.
qeneris (Jensen, l.c., p. 533), magurgurrum is treated as a
tmasculine in the Nippur Version, for it is followed by bàbilu.
It is difficult to say, what the characteristic features of a
magur or magurgur boat were, by which it was distinguished
from other ships. Jensen explains "MA-TU as a “deluge boat,”
seeing in it “a boat driven by the wind,” “a sailing vessel,” and
adding, that when seen from the side it probably resembled the


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 55
other inclemencies of wind and weather. This class of boats,
according to the Nippur version, being in use before the Deluge,
the original ideogram must be *MA-GUR or *MA-GUR-GUR
(not *MA-TU ( = gir)). As GUR, resp. GUR-GUR (Brünnow,
“A Classified List,” No. 5367) means taru resp. turru, which is
employed as a regular term for “closing a door” (cf. Delitzsch,
4. Assyrisches Handwórterbuch,” p. 702; in this sense also occurring
in the Second Nineveh Version, li. 6: bāb elippi terma), magur,
resp. makurru or magurgurrum, seems to express about the same
idea as developed above from the use of the word in the different
cuneiform passages cited, and to designate “a boat which can be
closed by a door,” i.e., practically a “house-boat,” expressed in the
Hebrew story by an Egyptian loanword, Tºn, “ark” originally
meaning “box, chest, coffin,” an essential part of which is its
“cover” or “lid.” The vessel built by Ct-napishtim being such a
“house boat” or magur, this word could subsequently also be
rendered ideographically by *MA-TU, “a deluge boat,” which
likewise was pronounced ma-gūr. We notice that in the Biblical
as in the Babylonian Version great stress is laid on the preparation
of a proper “roof “ or “cover” for the ark. Cf. note 14, below.
13. nátrat mapištim, “what has been saved of life,” mátrat,
inf. fem. IV, (used as a substantive with abstract meaning), for
métrat or métrit = na' turat, from etéru, “to protect, to save.” Cf.
atru for etru, “protection, help,” from the same verb (Hilprecht,
“Assyriaca,” pp. 5f., note 3), and abartu alongside ebirtu, “the oppo-
site bank of a river.”
14. zultila danna zullil = Sulúla danna Sullil, “cover (the boat)
with a strong deck.” Our passage proves conclusively that the
general translation and interpretation of First Nineveh Version,
li. 31: “in the ocean launch it,” literally “cause it to be immersed,”
is wrong, and that salālu and Sulúlu are to be understood of the
roofing of the ship, i.e., are the same technical terms as are used


56 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
in the building operations of Sargon, Nebuchadrezzar II, etc.
This being the case, it goes without saying that the first sign in
li. 31 of the First Nineveh Version cannot be e (e-ma, “in”), but
must have been ki (ki-ma, “like”). For the interpretation of
the entire phrase cf. note 12, above. Compare the parallel Biblical
passage, Genesis 6: 16: “a roof (nºis, wrongly translated by
“window” in the English and German Versions) shalt thou make
to the ark” (P.). See also Genesis 8:13: “and Noah removed the
covering of the ark” (J.”).
15. I supplement elippu şa, as immediately preceding teppuku
(relative clause) in accordance with First Nineveh Version, li. 28:
elippu şa tabannúši atta. But in all probability there stood con-
siderably more in this line.
16. If the first partly preserved character of this line is lam,
the most natural restoration of the preceding words would be
[ana libbiša Šu-]lam, as given above. Cf. First Nineveh Version,
lis. 27, 85, 94.
17. “The birds of heaven” (an expression like Gen. 1:26, etc.),
while doubtless presupposed in all the cuneiform versions (cf.
First Nineveh Version, li. 27, 84, 2ér mapsáti kalāma, and the sending
out by Ct-napishtim of a dove (li. 147), a swallow (150) and a
raven (153)), are expressly mentioned only in the Nippur Version of
the Deluge. Compare the Biblical “from the birds after their kind”
(P., Gen. 6:20, and note 18, below). In the Biblical Version, how-
ever, the order of the animals mentioned is reversed: “From
the birds after their kind and from the beasts aſter their kind.”
(Gen. 6:20). (Cf. p. 57, note 19.)
18. As stated, p. 36, above, more than half (probably two-
thirds) of the text preserved in the longest lines (lis. 7 and 8) is
broken away. It is, therefore, certain that the missing part of
li. 12 must have contained more than the words is-tu ka-la-ma
$i-na, “from everything two,” or something similar required by


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 57
what follows. Moreover the two expressions in li. 11, “the beasts
of the field, the birds of heaven,” standing asyndetically together,
as the parallel groups in li. 86 of the First Nineveh Version, point
to an original third class of enumerated beings found in the version
just mentioned, and likewise in the Old Testament text. The
First Nineveh Version adds “(and) sons of artisans,” i.e., “artisans,”
while the Biblical, which in all essential details stands much closer
to our Nippur Version, offers “(and) things creeping on the ground.”
I followed the Biblical Version in restoring the text, as my trans-
lation above indicates, for it agrees most remarkably with the
Nippur Version even in the closing phrase, “ku-um mi-ni.” That
the broken part of our text cannot have had anything like Genesis
7:2 (J.), where Noah is told to take seven specimens each of all clean
animals and two each of all unclean animals, becomes evident
from the fact that mini, Hebrew "p, is one of the most chaiac-
teristic words of the Priestly Code ( = P., to which Gen. 6 : 20
belongs), while it is never used by J.; and furthermore, that the
Nippur Version in all points of agreement (except in the use of
zabátu = {abátu, “to sweep away,” cf. p. 50, note 4, above)
coincides with the former. - -
19. Minu, from mani, “to count, number,” in Babylonian and
Assyrian, without exception, means “number,” never “species,”
as the word is generally translated by Hebrew lexicographers and
Old Testament students. As long as the Babylonian word had
not been found in the cuneiform version of the Deluge in pre-
cisely the same connection in which it occurs in the Biblical Ver-
sion, doubts were justified as to its etymology in Hebrew, which
Wellhausen rightly pronounced a riddle. Through the discovery
of the Nippur fragment the situation has changed completely.
What Delitzsch proposed cautiously in 1883 (“The Hebrew Lan-
guage viewed in the Light of Assyrian Research,” pp. 70f., cf. also
his “Prolegomena eines neuen Hebräisch-Aramäischen Wörterbuchs


5S FR.1 GMENTS OF EPICA L LITERATURE
zum Alten Testament,” pp. 142ff.) allows of no further doubt: The
Hebrew "p is a loanword from the Babylonian and means simply
“number,” a “meaning which fits admirably wherever the word
occurs” in the Old Testament. In the Nippur Version nothing
is wanting after mini. Ct-napishtim is told that he shall take
from all living things only two or a pair “instead of a number,”
i.e., “instead of many,” while the Hebrew Version uses the prepo-
sition * adding the suffix, inyº, resp. Hypº. i.e., “two for its
number,” or “the number thereof,” used in the sense of “two as a
substitute or representative for a number,” or in a free translation,
“two from their number,” an expression practically identical with
the Babylonian “two instead of a number.” For the use of the
Hebrew * in this connection cf. such passages as Num. 1 : 4 (“a
man for every tribe”), 31 : 4 (“1000 for (of) every tribe”); Deut.
1, 23 (“and I took 12 men from you, one (as a representative) for
(= from) every tribe,” cf. also Josh. 3:12); Josh. 18 : 4 (“give”
or “select” for your interest 3 men for (= from) every tribe), cf. also
Judges 20 : 10 (“10 men for 100; 100 for 1000; 1000 for 10,000”).
20. There is very little left of lis. 13 or 14. Observe the
connecting u, “and,” continuing the specifications of the two
previous lines. Kin-fa seems to be certain, as far as the preserved
wedges indicate, I take it, for kimta, “family,” namely, of Ct-
napishtim, also referred to in the two Nineveh versions (First
Version, li. 85; Second Version, li. 8).
RESULTS.
An examination of the cuneiform text of the Nippur fragment
and a comparison of this new version of the Babylonian Deluge
story with the parallel passages of the two Nineveh versions and
the Biblical story have brought out the significant fact that, with
all due allowance for a general resemblance between the three cune-
iform versions, the Nippur version of the divine announcement of a
great flood and the command to build the ark differs fundamen-


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 59
tally from the two Nineveh versions, and agrees most remarkably
with the Biblical story in very essential details both as to contents
and language. Moreover, we observe in particular that this agree-
ment, doubtless existing between the Nippur and Biblical versions,
affects that part of the Pentateuch (Gen. 6 : 13–20, 7 : 11) which
Old Testament critics style P. ( = Priestly Code) and generally re-
gard as having been “compiled in Babylonia about 500 B.C.”
I must leave a full discussion of all the problems connected
with the treatment of this rew witness from the plain of Shinar
in behalf of the Old Testament text to theological students, sub-
mitting to my readers only the following brief remarks for their
consideration from an Assyriological standpoint.
The Nippur fragment, as shown, p. 37, above, was inscribed
during the latter part of the reign of the first dynasty of Isin,
i.e., about 2100 B.C., surely before 2000 B.C., even according to my
reduced chronology, which places certain earlier rulers about 300
years lower than previously done by Assyriologists and historians.
The new version, therefore, was written at a time when the sanc-
tuary of Enlil at Nippur was supreme among the Babylonian
temples and a leader in all literary pursuits," according to the
consensus of all Assyriologists. With the subsequent deſeat of
Rim-Sin of Larsa by Hammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis 14,
conditions changed rapidly. The various petty Babylonian
states constituting geographically the ancient kingdom of Shumer
and Akkad were now also united politically by this powerful ruler,”
* Cf. on this whole question Langdon in “Babyloniaca,” Vol. II, Fasciculus
4, pp. 275–281, and Radau in “Hilprecht Anniversary Volume,” pp. 410–413,
434ff., and Fasciculus 2 of the present volume (in press).
* Cf. also the explicit statement recently found on a dated Nippur tablet
referring to the 31st year of Hammurabi's government: “in the year when King
Hammurabi by the help of Enlil had established his command over the land
of Emutbal, Shumer and Akkad' (the latter two countries ( = Babylonia)
standing for the usual “ and Rim-Sin' of the date formula for this year). Cf.
p. 3, note 2, above.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 61
different branches of literature to the new cults of the gods and
the new requirements of the population. -
Unless we assume that in the earliest period of Babylonian
history there existed already different versions of the Deluge
Story in the plains of Shinar—a theory which for various reasons
I must decline—it is evident that the Nippur fragment, by 1500 years
earlier than the two Nineveh versions, represents the oldest version
of the Babylonian Deluge Story in a Semitic translation, which
was made from a doubtless much older Sumerian original acciden-
tally not yet discovered, and that the later cuneiform versions
are different editions of the same story with considerable changes,
abbreviations and additions. At any rate it is inconceivable to an
objective historian that the Biblical Deluge Story of the so-called
“Priestly Code,” agreeing with the oldest Babylonian Version, which
is characteristic of Nippur, in so many important details, should
have been received into the Old Testament at a time when Nippur's
glory was long passed and its Temple Library practically in ruins,
while other versions had sprung up superseding the Deluge Story
connected with the cult of Enlil, as Babylon had superseded Nippur.
This fact is so plainly depicted in the history of the city as repre-
sented by its ruins, that I would regard it as a waste of time to
lose any more words about it.
The Deluge Story of the so-called “Priestly Code” must form
part of the oldest traditions of Israel, as Kittel” and other Old Testa-
ment scholars have pointed out. Even the Amarna period (about
1400 B.C.), with its unsettled conditions in Palestine, when the
influence of Babylonia upon the shaping of the government and
the religious conceptions of Palestine was almost like nil, cannot
explain its presence in the Old Testament. The use of the Baby-
lonian writing and language in Syria and in large sections of Western
1. Cf. p. 41, note 5, above; also Haupt, “Der Keilinschriftliche Sintflutbericht,”
p. 30, note 34.
* Die Wissenschaft rom A.T. in ihren wichtigsten Ergebnissen, pp. 14f.


62' FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE
Asia in the days of Amenophis III and IV had come down from a
much earlier period, as is proved by the Kappadokian tablets of
the third millennium' and by the script employed in the Amárna
letters. Suffice it to call attention to the fact that the writing
of the latter resembles much more the cuneiform characters Cf
the first dynasties of Babylon and Isin than that of the Cassite
period; that, in accordance with the usage of that earlier period
referred to, the sign PI is rarely pronounced pi (its common
value in the Cassite archives of Nippur), while it regularly has
the value wa, wi, wu, exactly as in the time of Hammurabi; that
the sign TUM occasionally has the Sumerian value ip, never
found in the Cassite period, and that (to omit other similarities)
the dentals and sibilants of the Amarna tablets are treated in the
same loose manner as they appear in the inscriptions of the dynas-
ties of Babylon and Isin.” "
There remains no other period to be considered when the
oldest version of the Deluge Story could possibly have entered
Canaan than the time when Abraham, whom I regard as a truly
historical person,” left his home on the Euphrates and moved
westward," in other words the period of the first dynasties of
Isin and Babylon, of which Hammurabi or Amiaphel is the central
figure. This is the time when the Amorites knocked at the gates
of Babylonia, invaded the country and soon overthrew the old
order of things, at the same time getting themselves intimately
acquainted with Babylonian literatuie and civilization, which
* Ci. Hilprecht, “Assyriaca,” p. 124, note 1.
* Cf. Böhl, “Die Sprache der Amarnabriefe,” especially pp. 2 and 22.
* I state this emphatically, in order to express my own standpoint with
regard to Genesis 14, which differs radically from that of Eduard Meyer (Ge-
schichte des Altertums, 2d edition, Vol. I, Part 2, §§ 343 and 441), with whom in
so many other fundamental questions concerning the earliest history of Western
Asia I am in entire accord.
* Cº. already Lenormant, Les origines de l'histoire, p. 408.


64 FRAGMENTS OF EPICAL LITERATURE '
Nippur Version.
LINE
2:. . . . . . . . . . “I will loosen.”
3:... “it shall sweep (o. “take”)
away all men together”;
4:. . . . . “life(?) before the del-
uge cometh forth.”
5:. . . . . . over] “as many as
there are, I will bring
overthrow, destruction,
annihilation.”
6:. . . . . . . “build a great ship
and”
7:. . . . . “total height shall be
Biblical Version (Gen. 6: 13–20;
7:11).
7, 11: “all the fountains of the
great deep were broken
up, and the windows of
heaven were opened.”
6, 11:... “behold, I will destroy
them with the earth.”
18:. . . “but with thee I will
establish my covenant”
17: “and behold I do bring the
deluge upon the earth,
to destroy all flesh, where-
in is the breath of life,
from under heaven;
everything that is on
earth shall perish.”
14: “make thee an ark. . . . . y?
15: “and thus thou shalt make
it. . . . .” and thirty cubits
its height.”
16: “A roof shalt thou make to
the ark, in its (entire)
length thou shalt cover
it;" and the door of the
ark shalt thou set in the
its structure”;
8:. . . . “it shall be a house-boat
carrying what has been
saved of life.” 9:. . . .
“with a strong roof
cover it.”
1 Our English Version is evidently wrong here. Cf. Ball, “The Book of
Genesis”; “a Critical Edition of the Hebrew Text” in Haupt's “The Sacred
Books of the Old Testament,” pp. 5 and 52f.; also Gunkel’s “Genesis” in
Nowack’s “Handkommentar zum Alten Testament,” pp. 129ff.


THE EARLIEST VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY 65
the
th.
re-
fe,
JI)
...the boat] “which thou
10: . .
shalt make,”
. . . . . “into it [bring the
beasts of the field, the
birds of heaven,”
11:. . . . . “instead of a number”
12:. . . . “and family”. . . . .
side thereof; (with) lower,
second and third stories
shalt thou make it.”
19: And from every living thing,
from all flesh, two from
everything shalt thou
bring into the ark, to
keep them alive with
thee; they shall be male
and female,
20: (two) from the birds instead
of anumberthereof;(two)
from the beasts instead
of a number thereof;
(two) from everything
creeping on the ground
instead of a number
thereof;
18,b: “and thou shalt come into
the ark, thou and thy
sons, and thy wife, and
thy sons' wives with
thee.”





THE BABYLONIAN EXPEDITION
THE UNIVERSITY OF PEN NSYLVANIA
D. W. Dilprecht
The following volumes have been published or are in press:
$5crice H, Cumciform Cexte:
Vol. I: Old Babylonian Inscriptions, chiefly from Nippur, by H. V. Hilprecht.
Part 1, 1893, $5.00 (out of print).
Part 2, 1896, $5.00.
Vol. III: Sumerian Administrative Documents from the Time of the Second
Dynasty of Ur.
Part 1, from the Nippur Collections in Philadelphia, by David W.
Myhrman, 1910, $6.00. -
Part 2, from the Nippur Collections in Constantinople, by P. Engelbert
Huber (ready for press). -
Vol. VI: Babylonian Legal and Business Documents from the Time of the
First Dynasty of Babylon.
Part 1, chiefly from Sippar, by H. Ranke, 1906, $6.00.
Part 2, chiefly from Nippur, by Arno Poebel, 1909, $6.00.
Vol. VIII: Legal and Commercial Transactions, dated in the Assyrian, Neo-
Babylonian and Persian Periods.
Part 1, chiefly from Nippur, by A. T. Clay, 190S, $6.00.
Vol. IX: Business Documents of Murashū Sons of Nippur, dated in the Reign
of Artaxerxes I, by H. V. Hilprecht and A. T. Clay, 1898, $6.00.
Vol. X: Business Documents of Murashū Sons of Nippur, dated in the Reign
of Darius II, by A. T. Clay, 1904, $6.00.
Vol. XIV: Documents from the Temple Archives of Nippur, dated in the
Reigns of Cassite Rulers, with complete dates, by A. T. Clay, 1906,
$6.00. - -
Vol. XV: Documents from the Temple Archives of Nippur, dated in the
Reigns of Cassite Rulers, with incomplete dates, by A. T. Clay, 1906,
$6.00. -
Vol. XVII: Letters to Cassite Kings from the Temple Archives of Nippur.
Part 1, by Hugo Radau, 1908, $6.00.
Vol. XIX: Model Texts and Exercises from the Temple School of Nippur.
Part 1, by H. W. Hilprecht (in press). -


r
Vol. XX: Mathematical, Metrological and Chronological Texts from the
Temple Library of Nippur.
Part 1, by H. V. Hilprecht, 1906, $5.00.
Vol. XXIII: Sumerian Hymns and Prayers to Enlil from the Temple Library
of Nippur.
Part 1, by Hugo Radau (in press).
Vol. XXIX: Sumerian Hymns and Prayers to NIN-IB from the Temple
Library of Nippur.
Part 1, by Hugo Radau (in press).
Vol. XXX: Sumerian Hymns and Prayers to Tamūz from the Temple
Library of Nippur.
Part 1, by Hugo Radau (in press).
8crice D, Rescarches and Creatiece:
Vol. I: The Excavations in Assyria and Babylonia (with 120 illustrations and
2 maps), by H. V. Hilprecht, 7th edition, 1904, $2.50.
NoTE: Entirely revised German and French editions are in the course
of preparation. The first part of the German edition (bis zum
Auftreten De Sarzecs) appeared in December, 1904 (J. C. Hinrichs,
Leipzig; A. J. Holman & Co., Philadelphia, Pa., sole agents for
America). Price 4 Mark in paper covers, 5 Mark in cloth.
Vol. III: Early Babylonian Personal Names from the published Tablets of
the so-called Hammurabi Dynasty, by H. Ranke, 1905, $2.00.
Vol. IV: A New Boundary Stone of Nebuchadrezzar I from Nippur (with 16
halftone illustrations and 36 drawings), by William J. Hinke, 1907,
$3.50.
Vol. V: Fragments of Epical Literature from the Temple Library of Nippur.
Fasciculus 1, The Oldest Version of the Babylonian Deluge Story and
the Temple Library of Nippur, by H. V. Hilprecht, $0.75.
Fasciculus 2, NIN-IB, the Determiner of Fates, according to the great
Sumerian epic, “Lugale ug melambi mergal,” by Hugo Radau (in
press). -
(OTHER volumEs will BE ANNoUNCED LATER.)
All orders for these books to be addressed to
THE MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY,
University of Pennsylvania,
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
SOLE AGENT FOR EUROPE :
Rudolf Merkel, Erlangen, Germany.


RIGHT EDGE
THE NIPPUR VERSION OF THE DELUGE STORY, c. 2100 B.C.


… • • • •


B 3065-11
The earliest version of the *:::
Tillii
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