Legends Of Babylon And Egypt

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


(1) While the evidence of Herodotus is extraordinarily
valuable for the details he gives of the civilizations of
both Egypt and Babylonia, and is especially full in the case
of the former, it is of little practical use for the
chronology. In Egypt his report of the early history is
confused, and he hardly attempts one for Babylonia. It is
probable that on such subjects he sometimes misunderstood
his informants, the priests, whose traditions were more
accurately reproduced by the later native writers Manetho
and Berossus. For a detailed comparison of classical
authorities in relation to both countries, see Griffith in
Hogarth's _Authority and Archaeology_, pp. 161 ff.

(2) See _Comptes rendus_, 1911 (Oct.), pp. 606 ff., and
_Rev. d'Assyr._, IX (1912), p. 69.

The newly published Nippur documents will cause us to modify that view.
The lists of early kings were themselves drawn up under the Dynasty
of Nisin in the twenty-second century B.C., and they give us traces of
possibly ten and at least eight other "kingdoms" before the earliest
dynasty of the known lists.(1) One of their novel features is that they
include summaries at the end, in which it is stated how often a city or
district enjoyed the privilege of being the seat of supreme authority
in Babylonia. The earliest of their sections lie within the legendary
period, and though in the third dynasty preserved we begin to note signs
of a firmer historical tradition, the great break that then occurs in
the text is at present only bridged by titles of various "kingdoms"
which the summaries give; a few even of these are missing and the
relative order of the rest is not assured. But in spite of their
imperfect state of preservation, these documents are of great historical
value and will furnish a framework for future chronological schemes.
Meanwhile we may attribute to some of the later dynasties titles in
complete agreement with Sumerian tradition. The dynasty of Ur-Engur, for
example, which preceded that of Nisin, becomes, if we like, the Third
Dynasty of Ur. Another important fact which strikes us after a scrutiny
of the early royal names recovered is that, while two or three are
Semitic,(2) the great majority of those borne by the earliest rulers of
Kish, Erech, and Ur are as obviously Sumerian.

(1) See Poebel, _Historical Texts_, pp. 73 ff. and
_Historical and Grammatical Texts_, pl. ii-iv, Nos. 2-5. The
best preserved of the lists is No. 2; Nos. 3 and 4 are
comparatively small fragments; and of No. 5 the obverse only
is here published for the first time, the contents of the
reverse having been made known some years ago by Hilprecht
(cf. _Mathematical, Metrological, and Chronological
Tablets_, p. 46 f., pl. 30, No. 47). The fragments belong to
separate copies of the Sumerian dynastic record, and it
happens that the extant portions of their text in some
places cover the same period and are duplicates of one
another.

(2) Cf., e.g., two of the earliest kings of Kish, Galumum
and Zugagib. The former is probably the Semitic-Babylonian
word _kalumum_, "young animal, lamb," the latter
_zukakibum_, "scorpion"; cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 111.
The occurrence of these names points to Semitic infiltration
into Northern Babylonia since the dawn of history, a state
of things we should naturally expect. It is improbable that
on this point Sumerian tradition should have merely
reflected the conditions of a later period.

It is clear that in native tradition, current among the Sumerians
themselves before the close of the third millennium, their race was
regarded as in possession of Babylonia since the dawn of history. This
at any rate proves that their advent was not sudden nor comparatively
recent, and it further suggests that Babylonia itself was the cradle
of their civilization. It will be the province of future archaeological
research to fill out the missing dynasties and to determine at what
points in the list their strictly historical basis disappears. Some,
which are fortunately preserved near the beginning, bear on their face
their legendary character. But for our purpose they are none the worse
for that.

In the first two dynasties, which had their seats at the cities of Kish
and Erech, we see gods mingling with men upon the earth. Tammuz, the god
of vegetation, for whose annual death Ezekiel saw women weeping beside
the Temple at Jerusalem, is here an earthly monarch. He appears to be
described as "a hunter", a phrase which recalls the death of Adonis in
Greek mythology. According to our Sumerian text he reigned in Erech for
a hundred years.

Another attractive Babylonian legend is that of Etana, the prototype of
Icarus and hero of the earliest dream of human flight.(1) Clinging
to the pinions of his friend the Eagle he beheld the world and its
encircling stream recede beneath him; and he flew through the gate of
heaven, only to fall headlong back to earth. He is here duly entered
in the list, where we read that "Etana, the shepherd who ascended to
heaven, who subdued all lands", ruled in the city of Kish for 635 years.

(1) The Egyptian conception of the deceased Pharaoh
ascending to heaven as a falcon and becoming merged into the
sun, which first occurs in the Pyramid texts (see Gardiner
in Cumont's _Etudes Syriennes_, pp. 109 ff.), belongs to a
different range of ideas. But it may well have been combined
with the Etana tradition to produce the funerary eagle
employed so commonly in Roman Syria in representations of
the emperor's apotheosis (cf. Cumont, op. cit., pp. 37 ff.,
115).

The god Lugal-banda is another hero of legend. When the hearts of the
other gods failed them, he alone recovered the Tablets of Fate, stolen
by the bird-god Zu from Enlil's palace. He is here recorded to have
reigned in Erech for 1,200 years.

Tradition already told us that Erech was the native city of Gilgamesh,
the hero of the national epic, to whom his ancestor Ut-napishtim related
the story of the Flood. Gilgamesh too is in our list, as king of Erech
for 126 years.

We have here in fact recovered traditions of Post-diluvian kings.
Unfortunately our list goes no farther back than that, but it is
probable that in its original form it presented a general correspondence
to the system preserved from Berossus, which enumerates ten Antediluvian
kings, the last of them Xisuthros, the hero of the Deluge. Indeed, for
the dynastic period, the agreement of these old Sumerian lists with the
chronological system of Berossus is striking. The latter, according to
Syncellus, gives 34,090 or 34,080 years as the total duration of the
historical period, apart from his preceding mythical ages, while the
figure as preserved by Eusebius is 33,091 years.(1) The compiler of one
of our new lists,(2) writing some 1,900 years earlier, reckons that the
dynastic period in his day had lasted for 32,243 years. Of course all
these figures are mythical, and even at the time of the Sumerian Dynasty
of Nisin variant traditions were current with regard to the number of
historical and semi-mythical kings of Babylonia and the duration of
their rule. For the earlier writer of another of our lists,(3) separated
from the one already quoted by an interval of only sixty-seven years,
gives 28,876(4) years as the total duration of the dynasties at his
time. But in spite of these discrepancies, the general resemblance
presented by the huge totals in the variant copies of the list to the
alternative figures of Berossus, if we ignore his mythical period,
is remarkable. They indicate a far closer correspondence of the Greek
tradition with that of the early Sumerians themselves than was formerly
suspected.

(1) The figure 34,090 is that given by Syncellus (ed.
Dindorf, p. 147); but it is 34,080 in the equivalent which
is added in "sars", &c. The discrepancy is explained by some
as due to an intentional omission of the units in the second
reckoning; others would regard 34,080 as the correct figure
(cf. _Hist. of Bab._, p. 114 f.). The reading of ninety
against eighty is supported by the 33,091 of Eusebius
(_Chron. lib. pri._, ed. Schoene, col. 25).

(2) No. 4.

(3) No. 2.

(4) The figures are broken, but the reading given may be
accepted with some confidence; see Poebel, _Hist. Inscr._,
p. 103.

Further proof of this correspondence may be seen in the fact that the
new Sumerian Version of the Deluge Story, which I propose to discuss in
the second lecture, gives us a connected account of the world's history
down to that point. The Deluge hero is there a Sumerian king named
Ziusudu, ruling in one of the newly created cities of Babylonia and
ministering at the shrine of his city-god. He is continually given the
royal title, and the foundation of the Babylonian "kingdom" is treated
as an essential part of Creation. We may therefore assume that an
Antediluvian period existed in Sumerian tradition as in Berossus.(1) And
I think Dr. Poebel is right in assuming that the Nippur copies of the
Dynastic List begin with the Post-diluvian period.(2)

(1) Of course it does not necessarily follow that the figure
assigned to the duration of the Antediluvian or mythical
period by the Sumerians would show so close a resemblance to
that of Berossus as we have already noted in their estimates
of the dynastic or historical period. But there is no need
to assume that Berossus' huge total of a hundred and twenty
"sars" (432,000 years) is entirely a product of Neo-
Babylonian speculation; the total 432,000 is explained as
representing ten months of a cosmic year, each month
consisting of twelve "sars", i.e. 12 x 3600 = 43,200 years.
The Sumerians themselves had no difficulty in picturing two
of their dynastic rulers as each reigning for two "ners"
(1,200 years), and it would not be unlikely that "sars" were
distributed among still earlier rulers; the numbers were
easily written. For the unequal distribution of his hundred
and twenty "sars" by Berossus among his ten Antediluvian
kings, see Appendix II.

(2) The exclusion of the Antediluvian period from the list
may perhaps be explained on the assumption that its compiler
confined his record to "kingdoms", and that the mythical
rulers who preceded them did not form a "kingdom" within his
definition of the term. In any case we have a clear
indication that an earlier period was included before the
true "kingdoms", or dynasties, in an Assyrian copy of the
list, a fragment of which is preserved in the British Museum
from the Library of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh; see _Chron.
conc. Early Bab. Kings_ (Studies in East. Hist., II f.),
Vol. I, pp. 182 ff., Vol. II, pp. 48 ff., 143 f. There we
find traces of an extra column of text preceding that in
which the first Kingdom of Kish was recorded. It would seem
almost certain that this extra column was devoted to
Antediluvian kings. The only alternative explanation would
be that it was inscribed with the summaries which conclude
the Sumerian copies of our list. But later scribes do not so
transpose their material, and the proper place for summaries
is at the close, not at the beginning, of a list. In the
Assyrian copy the Dynastic List is brought up to date, and
extends down to the later Assyrian period. Formerly its
compiler could only be credited with incorporating
traditions of earlier times. But the correspondence of the
small fragment preserved of its Second Column with part of
the First Column of the Nippur texts (including the name of
"Enmennunna") proves that the Assyrian scribe reproduced an
actual copy of the Sumerian document.

Though Professor Barton, on the other hand, holds that the Dynastic
List had no concern with the Deluge, his suggestion that the early
names preserved by it may have been the original source of Berossus'
Antediluvian rulers(1) may yet be accepted in a modified form. In coming
to his conclusion he may have been influenced by what seems to me an
undoubted correspondence between one of the rulers in our list and the
sixth Antediluvian king of Berossus. I think few will be disposed to
dispute the equation

{Daonos poimon} = Etana, a shepherd.

Each list preserves the hero's shepherd origin and the correspondence of
the names is very close, Daonos merely transposing the initial vowel
of Etana.(2) That Berossus should have translated a Post-diluvian ruler
into the Antediluvian dynasty would not be at all surprising in view of
the absence of detailed correspondence between his later dynasties and
those we know actually occupied the Babylonian throne. Moreover, the
inclusion of Babylon in his list of Antediluvian cities should make us
hesitate to regard all the rulers he assigns to his earliest dynasty
as necessarily retaining in his list their original order in Sumerian
tradition. Thus we may with a clear conscience seek equations between
the names of Berossus' Antediluvian rulers and those preserved in the
early part of our Dynastic List, although we may regard the latter as
equally Post-diluvian in Sumerian belief.

(1) See the brief statement he makes in the course of a
review of Dr. Poebel's volumes in the _American Journal of
Semitic Languages and Literature_, XXXI, April 1915, p. 225.
He does not compare any of the names, but he promises a
study of those preserved and a comparison of the list with
Berossus and with Gen. iv and v. It is possible that
Professor Barton has already fulfilled his promise of
further discussion, perhaps in his _Archaeology and the
Bible_, to the publication of which I have seen a reference
in another connexion (cf. _Journ. Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol.
XXXVI, p. 291); but I have not yet been able to obtain sight
of a copy.

(2) The variant form {Daos} is evidently a mere contraction,
and any claim it may have had to represent more closely the
original form of the name is to be disregarded in view of
our new equation.

This reflection, and the result already obtained, encourage us to accept
the following further equation, which is yielded by a renewed scrutiny
of the lists:

{'Ammenon} = Enmenunna.

Here Ammenon, the fourth of Berossus' Antediluvian kings, presents a
wonderfully close transcription of the Sumerian name. The _n_ of the
first syllable has been assimilated to the following consonant in
accordance with a recognized law of euphony, and the resultant doubling
of the _m_ is faithfully preserved in the Greek. Precisely the same
initial component, _Enme_, occurs in the name Enmeduranki, borne by a
mythical king of Sippar, who has long been recognized as the original
of Berossus' seventh Antediluvian king, {Euedorakhos}.(1) There too
the original _n_ has been assimilated, but the Greek form retains no
doubling of the _m_ and points to its further weakening.

(1) Var. {Euedoreskhos}; the second half of the original
name, Enmeduranki, is more closely preserved in
_Edoranchus_, the form given by the Armenian translator of
Eusebius.

I do not propose to detain you with a detailed discussion of Sumerian
royal names and their possible Greek equivalents. I will merely point
out that the two suggested equations, which I venture to think we
may regard as established, throw the study of Berossus' mythological
personages upon a new plane. No equivalent has hitherto been suggested
for {Daonos}; but {'Ammenon} has been confidently explained as the
equivalent of a conjectured Babylonian original, Ummanu, lit. "Workman".
The fact that we should now have recovered the Sumerian original of
the name, which proves to have no connexion in form or meaning with the
previously suggested Semitic equivalent, tends to cast doubt on other
Semitic equations proposed. Perhaps {'Amelon} or {'Amillaros} may after
all not prove to be the equivalent of Amelu, "Man", nor {'Amempsinos}
that of Amel-Sin. Both may find their true equivalents in some of the
missing royal names at the head of the Sumerian Dynastic List. There too
we may provisionally seek {'Aloros}, the "first king", whose equation
with Aruru, the Babylonian mother-goddess, never appeared a very happy
suggestion.(1) The ingenious proposal,(2) on the other hand, that his
successor, {'Alaparos}, represents a miscopied {'Adaparos}, a Greek
rendering of the name of Adapa, may still hold good in view of Etana's
presence in the Sumerian dynastic record. Ut-napishtim's title,
Khasisatra or Atrakhasis, "the Very Wise", still of course remains
the established equivalent of {Xisouthros}; but for {'Otiartes} (?
{'Opartes}), a rival to Ubar-Tutu, Ut-napishtim's father, may perhaps
appear. The new identifications do not of course dispose of the old
ones, except in the case of Ummanu; but they open up a new line of
approach and provide a fresh field for conjecture.(3) Semitic, and
possibly contracted, originals are still possible for unidentified
mythical kings of Berossus; but such equations will inspire greater
confidence, should we be able to establish Sumerian originals for the
Semitic renderings, from new material already in hand or to be obtained
in the future.

(1) Dr. Poebel (_Hist Inscr._, p. 42, n. 1) makes the
interesting suggestion that {'Aloros} may represent an
abbreviated and corrupt form of the name Lal-ur-alimma,
which has come down to us as that of an early and mythical
king of Nippur; see Rawlinson, _W.A.I._, IV, 60 (67), V, 47
and 44, and cf. _Sev. Tabl. of Creat._, Vol. I, p. 217, No.
32574, Rev., l. 2 f. It may be added that the sufferings
with which the latter is associated in the tradition are
perhaps such as might have attached themselves to the first
human ruler of the world; but the suggested equation, though
tempting by reason of the remote parallel it would thus
furnish to Adam's fate, can at present hardly be accepted in
view of the possibility that a closer equation to {'Aloros}
may be forthcoming.

(2) Hommel, _Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch._, Vol. XV (1893), p.
243.

(3) See further Appendix II.

But it is time I read you extracts from the earlier extant portions of
the Sumerian Dynastic List, in order to illustrate the class of document
with which we are dealing. From them it will be seen that the record
is not a tabular list of names like the well-known King's Lists of the
Neo-Babylonian period. It is cast in the form of an epitomized chronicle
and gives under set formulae the length of each king's reign, and his
father's name in cases of direct succession to father or brother. Short
phrases are also sometimes added, or inserted in the sentence referring
to a king, in order to indicate his humble origin or the achievement
which made his name famous in tradition. The head of the First Column
of the text is wanting, and the first royal name that is completely
preserved is that of Galumum, the ninth or tenth ruler of the earliest
"kingdom", or dynasty, of Kish. The text then runs on connectedly for
several lines:

Galumum ruled for nine hundred years.
Zugagib ruled for eight hundred and forty years.
Arpi, son of a man of the people, ruled for seven hundred and
twenty
years.
Etana, the shepherd who ascended to heaven, who subdued all lands,
ruled for six hundred and thirty-five years.(1)
Pili . . ., son of Etana, ruled for four hundred and ten years.
Enmenunna ruled for six hundred and eleven years.
Melamkish, son of Enmenunna, ruled for nine hundred years.
Barsalnunna, son of Enmenunna, ruled for twelve hundred years.
Mesza(. . .), son of Barsalnunna, ruled for (. . .) years.
(. . .), son of Barsalnunna, ruled for (. . .) years.

(1) Possibly 625 years.

A small gap then occurs in the text, but we know that the last two
representatives of this dynasty of twenty-three kings are related to
have ruled for nine hundred years and six hundred and twenty-five
years respectively. In the Second Column of the text the lines are also
fortunately preserved which record the passing of the first hegemony
of Kish to the "Kingdom of Eanna", the latter taking its name from
the famous temple of Anu and Ishtar in the old city of Erech. The text
continues:

The kingdom of Kish passed to Eanna.

In Eanna, Meskingasher, son of the Sun-god, ruled as high
priest and king for three hundred and twenty-five years.
Meskingasher entered into(1) (. . .) and ascended to (. .
.).

Enmerkar, son of Meskingasher, the king of Erech who built
(. . .) with the people of Erech,(2) ruled as king for four
hundred and twenty years.

Lugalbanda, the shepherd, ruled for twelve hundred years.

Dumuzi,(3), the hunter(?), whose city was . . ., ruled for a
hundred years.

Gishbilgames,(4) whose father was A,(5) the high priest of
Kullab, ruled for one hundred and twenty-six(6) years.

(. . .)lugal, son of Gishbilgames, ruled for (. . .) years.

(1) The verb may also imply descent into.

(2) The phrase appears to have been imperfectly copied by
the scribe. As it stands the subordinate sentence reads "the
king of Erech who built with the people of Erech". Either
the object governed by the verb has been omitted, in which
case we might restore some such phrase as "the city"; or,
perhaps, by a slight transposition, we should read "the king
who built Erech with the people of Erech". In any case the
first building of the city of Erech, as distinguished from
its ancient cult-centre Eanna, appears to be recorded here
in the tradition. This is the first reference to Erech in
the text; and Enmerkar's father was high priest as well as
king.

(3) i.e. Tammuz.

(4) i.e. Gilgamesh.

(5) The name of the father of Gilgamesh is rather strangely
expressed by the single sign for the vowel _a_ and must
apparently be read as A. As there is a small break in the
text at the end of this line, Dr. Poebel not unnaturally
assumed that A was merely the first syllable of the name, of
which the end was wanting. But it has now been shown that
the complete name was A; see Foertsch, _Orient. Lit.-Zeit._,
Vol. XVIII, No. 12 (Dec., 1915), col. 367 ff. The reading is
deduced from the following entry in an Assyrian explanatory
list of gods (_Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus._, Pt. XXIV, pl.
25, ll. 29-31): "The god A, who is also equated to the god
Dubbisaguri (i.e. 'Scribe of Ur'), is the priest of Kullab;
his wife is the goddess Ninguesirka (i.e. 'Lady of the edge
of the street')." A, the priest of Kullab and the husband of
a goddess, is clearly to be identified with A, the priest of
Kullab and father of Gilgamesh, for we know from the
Gilgamesh Epic that the hero's mother was the goddess
Ninsun. Whether Ninguesirka was a title of Ninsun, or
represents a variant tradition with regard to the parentage
of Gilgamesh on the mother's side, we have in any case
confirmation of his descent from priest and goddess. It was
natural that A should be subsequently deified. This was not
the case at the time our text was inscribed, as the name is
written without the divine determinative.

(6) Possibly 186 years.

This group of early kings of Erech is of exceptional interest. Apart
from its inclusion of Gilgamesh and the gods Tammuz and Lugalbanda,
its record of Meskingasher's reign possibly refers to one of the lost
legends of Erech. Like him Melchizedek, who comes to us in a chapter of
Genesis reflecting the troubled times of Babylon's First Dynasty,(1)
was priest as well as king.(2) Tradition appears to have credited
Meskingasher's son and successor, Enmerkar, with the building of Erech
as a city around the first settlement Eanna, which had already given its
name to the "kingdom". If so, Sumerian tradition confirms the assumption
of modern research that the great cities of Babylonia arose around the
still more ancient cult-centres of the land. We shall have occasion
to revert to the traditions here recorded concerning the parentage of
Meskingasher, the founder of this line of kings, and that of its most
famous member, Gilgamesh. Meanwhile we may note that the closing rulers
of the "Kingdom of Eanna" are wanting. When the text is again preserved,
we read of the hegemony passing from Erech to Ur and thence to Awan:

The k(ingdom of Erech(3) passed to) Ur.
In Ur Mesannipada became king and ruled for eighty years.
Meskiagunna, son of Mesannipada, ruled for thirty years.
Elu(. . .) ruled for twenty-five years.
Balu(. . .) ruled for thirty-six years.
Four kings (thus) ruled for a hundred and seventy-one years.
The kingdom of Ur passed to Awan.
In Awan . . .