Legends Of Babylon And Egypt

L >> Leonard W. King >> Legends Of Babylon And Egypt


(1) Cf. Ezek. xviii, passim, esp. xviii. 20.




VI. THE PROPITIATION OF THE ANGRY GODS, AND ZIUSUDU'S IMMORTALITY

The presence of the puzzling lines, with which the Sixth Column of
our text opens, was not explained by Dr. Poebel; indeed, they would be
difficult to reconcile with his assumption that our text is an epic pure
and simple. But if, as is suggested above, we are dealing with a myth in
magical employment, they are quite capable of explanation. The problem
these lines present will best be stated by giving a translation of
the extant portion of the column, where they will be seen with their
immediate context in relation to what follows them:

"By the Soul of Heaven, by the soul of Earth, shall ye conjure him,
That with you he may . . . !
Anu and Enlil by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth, shall ye
conjure,
And with you will he . . . !

"The _niggilma_ of the ground springs forth in abundance(?)!"
Ziusudu, the king,
Before Anu and Enlil bows himself down.
Life like (that of) a god he gives to him,
An eternal soul like (that of) a god he creates for him.
At that time Ziusudu, the king,
The name of the _niggilma_ (named) "Preserver of the Seed of
Mankind".

In a . . . land,(1) the land(1) of Dilmun(?), they caused him to
dwell.

(1) Possibly to be translated "mountain". The rendering of
the proper name as that of Dilmun is very uncertain. For the
probable identification of Dilmun with the island of Bahrein
in the Persian Gulf, cf. Rawlinson, _Journ. Roy. As. Soc._,
1880, pp. 20 ff.; and see further, Meissner, _Orient. Lit-
Zeit._, XX. No. 7, col. 201 ff.

The first two lines of the column are probably part of the speech of
some deity, who urges the necessity of invoking or conjuring Anu and
Enlil "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth", in order to secure
their support or approval. Now Anu and Enlil are the two great gods
who had determined on mankind's destruction, and whose wrath at his own
escape from death Ziusudu must placate. It is an obvious inference that
conjuring "by the Soul of Heaven" and "by the Soul of Earth" is either
the method by which Ziusudu has already succeeded in appeasing their
anger, or the means by which he is here enjoined to attain that end.
Against the latter alternative it is to be noted that the god is
addressing more than one person; and, further, at Ziusudu is evidently
already pardoned, for, so far from following the deity's advice,
he immediately prostrates himself before Anu and Enlil and receives
immortality. We may conjecture that at the close of the Fifth Column
Ziusudu had already performed the invocation and thereby had appeased
the divine wrath; and that the lines at the beginning of the Sixth
Column point the moral of the story by enjoining on Ziusudu and his
descendants, in other words on mankind, the advisability of employing
this powerful incantation at their need. The speaker may perhaps
have been one of Ziusudu's divine helpers--the Sun-god to whom he had
sacrificed, or Enki who had saved him from the Flood. But it seems to me
more probable that the words are uttered by Anu and Enlil themselves.(1)
For thereby they would be represented as giving their own sanction
to the formula, and as guaranteeing its magical efficacy. That the
incantation, as addressed to Anu and Enlil, would be appropriate is
obvious, since each would be magically approached through his own sphere
of control.

(1) One of them may have been the speaker on behalf of both.

It is significant that at another critical point of the story we have
already met with a reference to conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and
Earth", the phrase occurring at the close of the Third Column after the
reference to the dream or dreams. There, as we saw, we might possibly
explain the passage as illustrating one aspect of Ziusudu's piety:
he may have been represented as continually practising this class of
divination, and in that case it would be natural enough that in the
final crisis of the story he should have propitiated the gods he
conjured by the same means. Or, as a more probable alternative, it was
suggested that we might connect the line with Enki's warning, and assume
that Ziusudu interpreted the dream-revelation of Anu and Enlil's purpose
by means of the magical incantation which was peculiarly associated with
them. On either alternative the phrase fits into the story itself, and
there is no need to suppose that the narrative is interrupted, either
in the Third or in the Sixth Column, by an address to the hearers of the
myth, urging them to make the invocation on their own behalf.

On the other hand, it seems improbable that the lines in question formed
part of the original myth; they may have been inserted to weld the myth
more closely to the magic. Both incantation and epic may have originally
existed independently, and, if so, their combination would have been
suggested by their contents. For while the former is addressed to Anu
and Enlil, in the latter these same gods play the dominant parts: they
are the two chief creators, it is they who send the Flood, and it is
their anger that must be appeased. If once combined, the further step
of making the incantation the actual means by which Ziusudu achieved
his own rescue and immortality would be a natural development. It may be
added that the words would have been an equally appropriate addition if
the incantation had not existed independently, but had been suggested
by, and developed from, the myth.

In the third and eleventh lines of the column we have further references
to the mysterious object, the creation of which appears to have been
recorded in the First Column of the text between man's creation and
that of animals. The second sign of the group composing its name was not
recognized by Dr. Poebel, but it is quite clearly written in two of the
passages, and has been correctly identified by Professor Barton.(1)
The Sumerian word is, in fact, to be read _nig-gil-ma_,(2) which, when
preceded by the determinative for "pot", "jar", or "bowl", is given in
a later syllabary as the equivalent of the Semitic word _mashkhalu_.
Evidence that the word _mashkhalu_ was actually employed to denote a jar
or vessel of some sort is furnished by one of the Tel el-Amarna letters
which refers to "one silver _mashkhalu_" and "one (or two) stone
_mashkhalu_".(3) In our text the determinative is absent, and it is
possible that the word is used in another sense. Professor Barton, in
both passages in the Sixth Column, gives it the meaning "curse"; he
interprets the lines as referring to the removal of a curse from the
earth after the Flood, and he compares Gen. viii. 21, where Yahweh
declares he will not again "curse the ground for man's sake". But this
translation ignores the occurrence of the word in the First Column,
where the creation of the _niggilma_ is apparently recorded; and his
rendering "the seed that was cursed" in l. 11 is not supported by the
photographic reproduction of the text, which suggests that the first
sign in the line is not that for "seed", but is the sign for "name", as
correctly read by Dr. Poebel. In that passage the _niggilma_ appears to
be given by Ziusudu the name "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind", which
we have already compared to the title bestowed on Uta-napishtim's ship,
"Preserver of Life". Like the ship, it must have played an important
part in man's preservation, which would account not only for the
honorific title but for the special record of its creation.

(1) See _American Journal of Semitic Languages_, Vol. XXXI,
April 1915, p. 226.

(2) It is written _nig-gil_ in the First Column.

(3) See Winckler, _El-Amarna_, pl. 35 f., No. 28, Obv., Col.
II, l. 45, Rev., Col. I, l. 63, and Knudtzon, _El-Am. Taf._,
pp. 112, 122; the vessels were presents from Amenophis IV to
Burnaburiash.

It we may connect the word with the magical colouring of the myth, we
might perhaps retain its known meaning, "jar" or "bowl", and regard it
as employed in the magical ceremony which must have formed part of
the invocation "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth". But
the accompanying references to the ground, to its production from the
ground, and to its springing up, if the phrases may be so rendered,
suggest rather some kind of plant;(1) and this, from its employment in
magical rites, may also have given its name to a bowl or vessel which
held it. A very similar plant was that found and lost by Gilgamesh,
after his sojourn with Ut-napishtim; it too had potent magical power and
bore a title descriptive of its peculiar virtue of transforming old age
to youth. Should this suggestion prove to be correct, the three passages
mentioning the _niggilma_ must be classed with those in which the
invocation is referred to, as ensuring the sanction of the myth to
further elements in the magic. In accordance with this view, the fifth
line in the Sixth Column is probably to be included in the divine
speech, where a reference to the object employed in the ritual would not
be out of place. But it is to be hoped that light will be thrown on
this puzzling word by further study, and perhaps by new fragments of
the text; meanwhile it would be hazardous to suggest a more definite
rendering.

(1) The references to "the ground", or "the earth", also
tend to connect it peculiarly with Enlil. Enlil's close
association with the earth, which is, of course,
independently attested, is explicitly referred to in the
Babylonian Version (cf. Gilg. Epic. XI, ll. 39-42).
Suggested reflections of this idea have long been traced in
the Hebrew Versions; cf. Gen. viii. 21 (J), where Yahweh
says he will not again curse the ground, and Gen. ix. 13
(P), where Elohim speaks of his covenant "between me and the
earth".

With the sixth line of the column it is clear that the original
narrative of the myth is resumed.(1) Ziusudu, the king, prostrates
himself before Anu and Enlil, who bestow immortality upon him and cause
him to dwell in a land, or mountain, the name of which may perhaps be
read as Dilmun. The close parallelism between this portion of the text
and the end of the myth in the Gilgamesh Epic will be seen from the
following extracts,(2) the magical portions being omitted from the
Sumerian Version:

(1) It will also be noted that with this line the text again
falls naturally into couplets.

(2) Col. VI, ll. 6-9 and 12 are there compared with Gilg.
Epic, XI, ll. 198-205.

SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION

Then Enlil went up into the
ship;
Ziusudu, the king, He took me by the hand and led
me forth.
Before Anu and Enlil bows himself He brought out my wife and
down. caused her to bow down at my
side;
He touched our brows, standing
between us and blessing us:
Life like (that of) a god he "Formerly was Ut-napishtim of
gives to him. mankind,
An eternal soul like (that of) a But now let Ut-napishtim be
god he creates for him. like the gods, even us!
And let Ut-napishtim dwell afar
off at the mouth of the
rivers!"
In a . . . land, the land of(1) Then they took me and afar off,
Dilmun(?), they caused him to at the mouth of the rivers,
dwell. they caused me to dwell.

(1) Or, "On a mountain, the mountain of", &c.

The Sumerian Version thus apparently concludes with the familiar ending
of the legend which we find in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus,
though it here occurs in an abbreviated form and with some variations in
detail. In all three versions the prostration of the Deluge hero before
the god is followed by the bestowal of immortality upon him, a fate
which, according to Berossus, he shared with his wife, his daughter, and
the steersman. The Gilgamesh Epic perhaps implies that Ut-napishtim's
wife shared in his immortality, but the Sumerian Version mentions
Ziusudu alone. In the Gilgamesh Epic Ut-napishtim is settled by the gods
at the mouth of the rivers, that is to say at the head of the Persian
Gulf, while according to a possible rendering of the Sumerian Version he
is made to dwell on Dilmun, an island in the Gulf itself. The fact that
Gilgamesh in the Epic has to cross the sea to reach Ut-napishtim may be
cited in favour of the reading "Dilmun"; and the description of the sea
as "the Waters of Death", if it implies more than the great danger
of their passage, was probably a later development associated with
Ut-napishtim's immortality. It may be added that in neither Hebrew
version do we find any parallel to the concluding details of the
original story, the Hebrew narratives being brought to an end with the
blessing of Noah and the divine promise to, or covenant with, mankind.


Such then are the contents of our Sumerian document, and from the
details which have been given it will have been seen that its story, so
far as concerns the Deluge, is in essentials the same as that we already
find in the Gilgamesh Epic. It is true that this earlier version has
reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in an abbreviated
form. In the next lecture I shall have occasion to refer to another
early mythological text from Nippur, which was thought by its first
interpreter to include a second Sumerian Version of the Deluge legend.
That suggestion has not been substantiated, though we shall see that
the contents of the document are of a very interesting character. But
in view of the discussion that has taken place in the United States
over the interpretation of the second text, and of the doubts that have
subsequently been expressed in some quarters as to the recent discovery
of any new form of the Deluge legend, it may be well to formulate
briefly the proof that in the inscription published by Dr. Poebel an
early Sumerian Version of the Deluge story has actually been recovered.
Any one who has followed the detailed analysis of the new text which
has been attempted in the preceding paragraphs will, I venture to think,
agree that the following conclusions may be drawn:

(i) The points of general resemblance presented by the narrative to that
in the Gilgamesh Epic are sufficiently close in themselves to show
that we are dealing with a Sumerian Version of that story. And this
conclusion is further supported (a) by the occurrence throughout the
text of the attested Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic word, employed
in the Babylonian Versions, for the "Flood" or "Deluge", and (b) by the
use of precisely the same term for the hero's "great boat", which is
already familiar to us from an early Babylonian Version.

(ii) The close correspondence in language between portions of the
Sumerian legend and the Gilgamesh Epic suggest that the one version was
ultimately derived from the other. And this conclusion in its turn is
confirmed (a) by the identity in meaning of the Sumerian and Babylonian
names for the Deluge hero, which are actually found equated in a
late explanatory text, and (b) by small points of difference in the
Babylonian form of the story which correspond to later political and
religious developments and suggest the work of Semitic redactors.

The cumulative effect of such general and detailed evidence is
overwhelming, and we may dismiss all doubts as to the validity of Dr.
Poebel's claim. We have indeed recovered a very early, and in some of
its features a very primitive, form of the Deluge narrative which till
now has reached us only in Semitic and Greek renderings; and the stream
of tradition has been tapped at a point far above any at which we have
hitherto approached it. What evidence, we may ask, does this early
Sumerian Version offer with regard to the origin and literary history of
the Hebrew Versions?

The general dependence of the biblical Versions upon the Babylonian
legend as a whole has long been recognized, and needs no further
demonstration; and it has already been observed that the parallelisms
with the version in the Gilgamesh Epic are on the whole more detailed
and striking in the earlier than in the later Hebrew Version.(1) In the
course of our analysis of the Sumerian text its more striking points of
agreement or divergence, in relation to the Hebrew Versions, were noted
under the different sections of its narrative. It was also obvious that,
in many features in which the Hebrew Versions differ from the Gilgamesh
Epic, the latter finds Sumerian support. These facts confirm the
conclusion, which we should naturally base on grounds of historical
probability, that while the Semitic-Babylonian Versions were derived
from Sumer, the Hebrew accounts were equally clearly derived from
Babylon. But there are one or two pieces of evidence which are
apparently at variance with this conclusion, and these call for some
explanation.

(1) For details see especially Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 177
ff.

Not too much significance should be attached to the apparent omission of
the episode of the birds from the Sumerian narrative, in which it would
agree with the later as against the earlier Hebrew Version; for, apart
from its epitomized character, there is so much missing from the text
that the absence of this episode cannot be regarded as established with
certainty. And in any case it could be balanced by the Sumerian order
of Creation of men before animals, which agrees with the earlier Hebrew
Version against the later. But there is one very striking point in which
our new Sumerian text agrees with both the Hebrew Versions as against
the Gilgamesh Epic and Berossus; and that is in the character of
Ziusudu, which presents so close a parallel to the piety of Noah. As we
have already seen, the latter is due to no Hebrew idealization of the
story, but represents a genuine strand of the original tradition, which
is completely absent from the Babylonian Versions. But the Babylonian
Versions are the media through which it has generally been assumed that
the tradition of the Deluge reached the Hebrews. What explanation have
we of this fact?

This grouping of Sumerian and Hebrew authorities, against the extant
sources from Babylon, is emphasized by the general framework of the
Sumerian story. For the literary connexion which we have in Genesis
between the Creation and the Deluge narratives has hitherto found no
parallel in the cuneiform texts. In Babylon and Assyria the myth of
Creation and the Deluge legend have been divorced. From the one
a complete epic has been evolved in accordance with the tenets of
Babylonian theology, the Creation myth being combined in the process
with other myths of a somewhat analogous character. The Deluge legend
has survived as an isolated story in more than one setting, the
principal Semitic Version being recounted to the national hero
Gilgamesh, towards the close of the composite epic of his adventures
which grew up around the nucleus of his name. It is one of the chief
surprises of the newly discovered Sumerian Version that the Hebrew
connexion of the narratives is seen to be on the lines of very primitive
tradition. Noah's reputation for piety does not stand alone. His line of
descent from Adam, and the thread of narrative connecting the creation
of the world with its partial destruction by the Deluge, already appear
in Sumerian form at a time when the city of Babylon itself had
not secured its later power. How then are we to account for this
correspondence of Sumerian and Hebrew traditions, on points completely
wanting in our intermediate authorities, from which, however, other
evidence suggests that the Hebrew narratives were derived?

At the risk of anticipating some of the conclusions to be drawn in the
next lecture, it may be well to define an answer now. It is possible
that those who still accept the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch
may be inclined to see in this correspondence of Hebrew and Sumerian
ideas a confirmation of their own hypothesis. But it should be pointed
out at once that this is not an inevitable deduction from the evidence.
Indeed, it is directly contradicted by the rest of the evidence we have
summarized, while it would leave completely unexplained some significant
features of the problem. It is true that certain important details of
the Sumerian tradition, while not affecting Babylon and Assyria,
have left their stamp upon the Hebrew narratives; but that is not an
exhaustive statement of the case. For we have also seen that a more
complete survival of Sumerian tradition has taken place in the
history of Berossus. There we traced the same general framework of the
narratives, with a far closer correspondence in detail. The kingly rank
of Ziusudu is in complete harmony with the Berossian conception of
a series of supreme Antediluvian rulers, and the names of two of the
Antediluvian cites are among those of their newly recovered Sumerian
prototypes. There can thus be no suggestion that the Greek reproductions
of the Sumerian tradition were in their turn due to Hebrew influence. On
the contrary we have in them a parallel case of survival in a far more
complete form.

The inference we may obviously draw is that the Sumerian narrative
continued in existence, in a literary form that closely resembled the
original version, into the later historical periods. In this there would
be nothing to surprise us, when we recall the careful preservation
and study of ancient Sumerian religious texts by the later Semitic
priesthood of the country. Each ancient cult-centre in Babylonia
continued to cling to its own local traditions, and the Sumerian desire
for their preservation, which was inherited by their Semitic guardians,
was in great measure unaffected by political occurrences elsewhere.
Hence it was that Ashur-bani-pal, when forming his library at Nineveh,
was able to draw upon so rich a store of the more ancient literary texts
of Babylonia. The Sumerian Version of the Deluge and of Antediluvian
history may well have survived in a less epitomized form than that
in which we have recovered it; and, like other ancient texts, it was
probably provided with a Semitic translation. Indeed its literary study
and reproduction may have continued without interruption in Babylon
itself. But even if Sumerian tradition died out in the capital under
the influence of the Babylonian priesthood, its re-introduction may
well have taken place in Neo-Babylonian times. Perhaps the antiquarian
researches of Nabonidus were characteristic of his period; and in any
case the collection of his country's gods into the capital must have
been accompanied by a renewed interest in the more ancient versions
of the past with which their cults were peculiarly associated. In
the extant summary from Berossus we may possibly see evidence of a
subsequent attempt to combine with these more ancient traditions the
continued religious dominance of Marduk and of Babylon.

Our conclusion, that the Sumerian form of the tradition did not die out,
leaves the question as to the periods during which Babylonian influence
may have acted upon Hebrew tradition in great measure unaffected; and
we may therefore postpone its further consideration to the next lecture.
To-day the only question that remains to be considered concerns the
effect of our new evidence upon the wider problem of Deluge stories as
a whole. What light does it throw on the general character of Deluge
stories and their suggested Egyptian origin?

One thing that strikes me forcibly in reading this early text is the
complete absence of any trace or indication of astrological _motif_.
It is true that Ziusudu sacrifices to the Sun-god; but the episode
is inherent in the story, the appearance of the Sun after the storm
following the natural sequence of events and furnishing assurance to the
king of his eventual survival. To identify the worshipper with his
god and to transfer Ziusudu's material craft to the heavens is surely
without justification from the simple narrative. We have here no
prototype of Ra sailing the heavenly ocean. And the destructive flood
itself is not only of an equally material and mundane character, but is
in complete harmony with its Babylonian setting.

In the matter of floods the Tigris and Euphrates present a striking
contrast to the Nile. It is true that the life-blood of each country is
its river-water, but the conditions of its use are very different, and
in Mesopotamia it becomes a curse when out of control. In both countries
the river-water must be used for maturing the crops. But while the rains
of Abyssinia cause the Nile to rise between August and October, thus
securing both summer and winter crops, the melting snows of Armenia and
the Taurus flood the Mesopotamian rivers between March and May. In Egypt
the Nile flood is gentle; it is never abrupt, and the river gives ample
warning of its rise and fall. It contains just enough sediment to enrich
the land without choking the canals; and the water, after filling its
historic basins, may when necessary be discharged into the falling river
in November. Thus Egypt receives a full and regular supply of water, and
there is no difficulty in disposing of any surplus. The growth in such a
country of a legend of world-wide destruction by flood is inconceivable.