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ENUMA ELISH - Babylonian Creation Myth

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« Reply #30 on: November 19, 2007, 09:50:00 am »








The above forty-nine tablets and fragments, inscribed with portions of the text of the Creation Series, belong to two distinct periods. The older class of tablets were made for the library of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh, and they are beautifully written in the Assyrian character upon tablets of fine clay. 1 The


p. CXII

Neo-Babylonian tablets, on the other hand, are, as a rule, less carefully written; they vary considerably in size and shape, and were made at different periods for private individuals, either for their own use, 1 or that they might be deposited in the temples as votive offerings. 2 Some of these Babylonian copies



p. CXIII

are fine specimens of their class, e.g. Nos. 3, 13, 21, 29, and 42, 1and the characters and words upon them are carefully written and spaced; others, however, consist of small, carelessly made tablets, on to which the poem is crowded. 2On all the tablets, whether Assyrian or Babylonian, which possess colophons, the number of the Tablet in the Series is carefully given. 3 The extracts from the text, which were written out by students upon "practice-tablets," no doubt in order to give them practice in writing and at the same time to enable them to learn the text by heart, are naturally rather rough productions. 4 One characteristic which applies to all the tablets,





p. CXIV

whether Assyrian or Neo-Babylonian, is that the text is never written in columns, but each line of the poem is written across the tablet from edge to edge. 1 As a result, the tablets are long and narrow in shape, and are handled far more conveniently than broader tablets inscribed with two or more columns of writing on each side.

The forms of the text of the poem, which were in use in the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, are identical, and it is incorrect to speak of an Assyrian and a Babylonian "recension." At the time of Ashur-bani-pal the text had already been definitely fixed, and, with the exception of one or two phrases, the words of each line remained unchanged from that time forward. It is true that on the Babylonian tablets the words are, as a rule, written more syllabically, but this is a general characteristic of Babylonian copies of historical and literary texts. Moreover, upon several of the more carefully written tablets, the metre is indicated by the division of the


p. CXV

halves of each verse, 1 an arrangement which is not met with on any of the Assyrian tablets. But both the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian copies represent the same "recension" of the text, and, as has already been indicated, 2 are probably the descendants of a common Babylonian original. The following table will serve to show the number of Assyrian and Neo- Babylonian copies of each of the Seven Tablets under which the forty-nine separate fragments of the text may be arranged:--
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« Reply #31 on: November 19, 2007, 09:52:14 am »








TABLET.

 ASSYRIAN TEXT.

 NEO-BAB. TEXT.

 NEO-BAB. EXTRACTS.
 



I
 Four copies (Nos. 1, 6, 7, 8, 11).
Nos. 8 and 11 are probably parts of the same tablet.
 Four copies (Nos. 2, 3, 4, 10, 12).
Nos. 2 and 10 are probably parts of the same tablet.
 Two "practice-tablets"(Nos. 5, 9).
 
II
 Four copies (Nos. 16, 17, 18, 19)
Nos. 18 and 19 are probably not parts of the same tablet.
 Three copies (Nos. 13, 14, 15).
 
 
III.
 Four copies (Nos. 20, 23, 25, 28).
Nos. 23 and 25 are probably not parts of the same tablet; it is possible, however, that No. 23 is part of a copy of Tabl. II, its text corresponding to ll. 13-24.
 Two copies (Nos. 21, 26).
 Three "practice-tablets" (Nos. 22,24, 27).
 
p. CXVI
 
 
 
 
IV
 Three copies (Nos. 30, 31, 33, 34).
Nos. 31 and 34 are probably parts of the same tablet.
 One copy (No. 29).
 One "practice-tablet" (No. 32).
 
V
 Four, or five, copies (Nos. 35, 36, 37, 38, 39).
Nos. 35 and 39 are possibly parts of the same tablet.
 
 
 
VI
 
 One copy (No. 40).
 
 
VII
 Four, or five, copies (Nos. 41, 43, 451 46, 47, 48, 49).
Nos. 41 and 46 are probably parts of the same tablet, and Nos. 47 and 49 are probably parts of another tablet; it is possible that No. 45 is a part of the same tablet as Nos. 41 and 46.
 Two copies (Nos. 42, 44).
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« Reply #32 on: November 19, 2007, 09:53:19 am »








In the arrangement and interpretation of the text of the Seventh Tablet we receive considerable assistance from some fragments of Assyrian commentaries which have come down to us. These were compiled by the Assyrian scribes in order to explain that composition, and they are of the greatest value for the study of the text. The contents of these documents, and their relation to the text of the Seventh

p. CXVII

[paragraph continues] Tablet, are described in detail in Appendix I, 1 but the following facts with regard to the size of the tablets inscribed with the commentaries, and to previous publications of portions of them, may here be conveniently given.

The most important class of commentary takes the form of a bilingual list, and, as has been pointed out elsewhere, 2 presupposes the existence of a Sumerian version of part of the text of the Seventh Tablet of the Creation Series. The text of the commentary is inscribed in a series of double columns; in the left half of each column it gives a list of the Sumerian words, or ideograms, and, in the right half, opposite each word is added its Assyrian equivalent. It is noteworthy that the list is generally arranged in the order in which the words occur in the Assyrian text of the Seventh Tablet. The columns of the commentary are divided into a number of compartments, or sections, by horizontal lines impressed upon the clay, and the words within each compartment refer either to separate couplets, or to separate lines, of the Seventh Tablet. Of this class of commentary we possess six fragments of two large tablets which were inscribed with five or six double columns of writing on each side; the two tablets are duplicates of one another, having been inscribed with the same



p. .CXVIII

version of the commentary. The following is a description of the six separate fragments, the two large tablets, to which they belong, being headed respectively A and B:--

A. (1) S. II + S. 980+ S. 1,416. For the text, see Vol. II, pls. li-liii and lv; cf. also App. I, pp. 158 ff., 167f.

The fragment is the top left hand portion of the tablet; it measures 4 in. by 7 in. The text of S. II + S. 980 was published in V R., pl. 21, No. 4. The fragment S. 1,416, which I have joined to the other two, has not been previously published.

(2) K. 4,406. For the text, see Vol. II, pls. liv-lv; cf. also App. I, pp. 163 ff.

The fragment is the top right hand portion of the tablet; it measures 4 1/4 in. by 4 7/8 in. The text has been previously published in II R., pl. 31, No. 2.

(3) 82-3-23, 151. For the text, see Vol. II, pl. liv; cf. also App. I, p. 162.

The fragment measures 1 3/8 in. by 2 1/8 in.; it has not been previously published.
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« Reply #33 on: November 19, 2007, 09:54:32 am »








B. (1) R. 366+80-7-19, 288t-293. For the text, see Vol. II, pls. lvi-lviii; cf. also App. I, pp. 160, 168 f.

The fragment is from the left side of the tablet; it measures 2 1/8 in. by 5 1/8 in. The fragment R. 366 was published in V R., pl. 21, No. 3; 80-7-19, 293, was joined to it by Bezold, Catalogue, p. 1,608. The third fragment, 80-7-19, 288, was identified by Zimmern and published in the Zeits. für Assyr., xii, p. 401 f.

 

p. CXIX

(2) K. 2,053. For the text, see Vol. II, pls. lix-lx; cf. also App. I, pp. 161, 167 f.

This fragment measures 2 3/8 in. by 2½ in.; it has long been known to be a duplicate of S. I I + S. 980 (see Bezold, Catalogue, p. 396), but its text has not been previously published.

(3) E(. 8,299. For the text, see Vol. II, pl. lx; cf. also App. I, p. 162 f.

This fragment measures 3 in. by 1½ in.; it has not been previously published.

In addition to the above commentary in the form of a bilingual list, we possess single specimens of a second and a third class of explanatory text. The second class contains a running commentary to passages selected from other Tablets of the Creation Series in addition to the Seventh, and is represented by the tablet S. 747. 1 The third class, represented by the obverse of the tablet K. 2,1.07 + K. 6,086, 2 gives explanations of a number of titles of Marduk, several of which occur in the recovered portions of the text of the Seventh Tablet. Each of these two commentaries furnishes information on various points with regard to



p. CXX

the interpretation of the Seventh Tablet, but, as may be supposed, they do not approach in interest the six fragments of the commentary of the first class.
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« Reply #34 on: November 19, 2007, 09:55:47 am »








The transliteration of the text of the Creation Series, which is given in the following pages, has been made up from the tablets, fragments, and extracts enumerated on pp. xcvii ff.; while several passages in the Seventh Tablet have been conjecturally restored from the Assyrian Commentaries just described. In the reconstruction of the text preference has usually been given to the readings found upon the Assyrian tablets, and the variant readings of all duplicates, both Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian, are given in the notes at the foot of the page. The lines upon each tablet of the Series have been numbered, and, where the numbering of a line is conjectural, it is placed within parentheses. Great assistance in the numbering of the lines of detached fragments of the text has been afforded by the fact that upon many of the, Neo-Babylonian copies every tenth line is marked with a figure "10" in the left-hand margin; in but few instances can the position of a detached fragment be accurately ascertained by its shape. The lines upon the Second and Fifth Tablets have been conjecturally numbered up to one hundred and forty. Upon the Sixth Tablet the total number of lines was one hundred and thirty-six or one hundred and forty-six; and, in view of the fact that the scribe of No. 92,629 has continued the text to the bottom of

p. CXXI

the reverse of the tablet, the larger number is the more probable of the two. The following is a list of the total number of lines inscribed upon each of the Seven Tablets of the Series:--

Tablet
 I, 142
 lines.
 
"
 II, (140)
 "
 
"
 III, 138
 "
 
"
 IV, 146
 "
 
"
 V, (140)
 "
 
"
 VI, 146
 "
 
"
 VII, 142
 "
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« Reply #35 on: November 19, 2007, 09:57:15 am »








Although it is now possible to accurately estimate the number of lines contained by the Creation Series, there are still considerable gaps in the text of several of the Tablets. The only Tablets in which the whole or portions of every line are preserved are the Third and Fourth of the Series. Gaps, where the text is completely wanting, occur in Tablet I, ll. 68-82, and in Tablet II, ll. 59-(68). 1 The greater part of the text of Tablet V is wanting, but by roughly estimating the position of the fragment K. 3,449a, which occurs about in the centre of the text, we obtain two gaps, between ll. 26 and (66) and between ll. (87) and (128). Of Tablet VI we possess only the opening and closing lines, the rest of the text, from l. 22 to l. 137, being wanting. Finally, the gap in the text of


p. CXXII

[paragraph continues] Tablet VII, between ll. 47 and 105, is partly filled up by the fragments KK. 12,830, 13,761, 8,519, 13,337, which together give portions of thirty-nine lines.

Upon some of the Babylonian copies the metre is indicated in writing by the division of the halves of each verse, 1 and, wherever this occurs upon any tablet or duplicate, the division has, as far as possible, been retained in the transliteration of the text. In accordance with the rules of Babylonian poetry, the text generally falls into couplets, the second verse frequently echoing or supplementing the first; each of the two verses of a couplet is divided into halves, and each half-verse may be further subdivided by an accented syllable. 2 This four-fold division of each



p. CXXIII

verse will be apparent from the following connected The metre of transliteration of the first half-dozen lines of the poem, in which the subdivisions of the verses are marked in accordance with the system of the Babylonian scribes as found upon the tablet Sp. ii, 265a  1:--


1. f. enuma
 | elish
 || lâ nabû
 | shamamu
 
     shaplish
 | ammatum
 || shuma
 | lâ zakrat
 
3. f. Apsûma
 | rîshtû
 || zaru-
   shun
 
     mummu
 | Tiamat
 || muallidat
 | gimrishun
 
5. f. mê-
   shunu
 || ishtenish
 | ihîkûma
 
       gipâra
 | lâ kissura
 || susâ
 | lâ she'i
 


 

It will be seen that the second verse of each couplet balances the first, and the caesura, or division, in the centre of each verse is well marked. The second half of verse 3 and the first half of verse 5, each of which contains only one word, may appear rather short for scansion, but the rhythm is retained by dwelling on the first part of the word and treating the suffix almost as an independent word. It is unnecessary to transliterate more of the text of the poem in this manner, as the simple metre, or rather rhythm, can be detected without difficulty from the syllabic transliteration which is given in the following pages.
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« Reply #36 on: November 19, 2007, 09:59:01 am »








                                                            Footnotes





XXVI:1 Mr. Smith described the legends in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, published on March 4th, 1875, No. 6,158, p. 5, col. 4. He there gave a summary of the contents of the fragments, and on November and in the same year he read a paper on them before the p. XXVII Society of Biblical Archæology. In noting the resemblance between the Babylonian and the Hebrew legends it was not unnatural that he should have seen a closer resemblance between them than was really the case. For instance, he traced allusions to "the Fall of Man" in what is the Seventh Tablet of the Creation Series; one tablet he interpreted as containing the instructions given by "the Deity" to man after his creation, and another he believed to represent a version of the story of the Tower of Babel. Although these identifications were not justified, the outline which he gave of the contents of the legends was remarkably accurate. It is declared by some scholars that the general character of the larger of the Creation fragments was correctly identified by Sir H. C. Rawlinson several years before.

XXVII:1 The Chaldean Account of Genesis, London, 1876; German edition, edited by Delitzsch, Leipzig, I 876. New English edition, edited by Sayce, London, 1880.

XXVII:2 By November, 1875, Smith had prepared a series of six plates containing copies of portions of the First and Fifth Tablets, and also of the Fourth Tablet which he entitled "War between the Gods and Chaos)" and of the Seventh Tablet which he styled "Tablet describing the Fall." These plates were published in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, vol. iv (1876), and appeared after his death.

XXVII:3 See the papers by H. Fox Talbot in T.S.B.A., vol. iv, pp. 349 ff., and vol. v, pp. I ff., 426 ff., and Records of the Past, vol. ix (1877), pp. 115 ff., 135 ff.; and the translations made by Oppert in an appendix to Ledrain's Histoire d'Israel, première partie (1879), pp. 411 ff., and by Lenormant in Les origines de p. XXVIII l'histoire (1880), app. i, pp. 494ff. The best discussion of the relations of the legends to the early chapters of Genesis was given by Schrader in the second edition (1883) of his Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, English translation, 1885-1888; I hear from Professor Zimmern that the new edition of this work, a portion of which he is editing, will shortly make its appearance.

XXVIII:1 The tablet was numbered 82-9-18, 3,737; see below, p. cvi, No. 29. Budge gave a description of the tablet in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology for Nov. 6th, 1883, and published the text in P.S.B.A., vol. x (1887 ), p. 86, pls. 1-6.

XXVIII:2 See Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians (Hibbert Lectures for 1887), pp. 379. ff.

XXVIII:3 In Records of the Past, new series, vol. i (1888), pp. 122 ff.

XXVIII:4 See Die Kosmologie der Babylonier (Strassburg, 1890), pp. 263 ff.

XXIX:1 Zimmern published his translation as an appendix to Gunkel's Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Gottingen, 1895), pp. 401 ff.
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« Reply #37 on: November 19, 2007, 10:00:06 am »








XXIX:2 Bas Babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos, published in the Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Classe der Königl. Süchsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaffen, xvii, No. ii.

XXIX:3 Assyrisch-Babylonische Mythen und Epen, published as the sixth volume of Schrader's Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek; part I, containing transliterations and translations (1900); part 2, containing commentary (1901).

XXIX:4 In addition to the translations of the legends mentioned in the text, a number of papers and works containing descriptions and discussions of the Creation legends have from time to time been published. Among those which have appeared during the last few years may be mentioned the translations of portions of the legends by Winckler in his Keilinschriftliches Textbuch zum Alten Testament, ii (1892), pp. 88 ff.; Barton's article on Tiamat, published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xv (1893), pp. 1 ff.; and the translations and discussions of the p. XXX legends given in Jastrow's Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (1898), pp. 407 ff., in my own Babylonian Religion and Mythology (1899), pp. 5 3 ff., by Muss-Arnolt in Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, edited by R. F. Harper (1901), pp. 282 ff., and by Loisy, Les mythes babyloniens et les premiers chapitres de la Genèse (1901). Discussions of the Babylonian Creation legends and their connection with the similar narratives in Genesis have been given by Lukas in Die Grundbegriffe in den Kosmogonien der alten Völker (1893), pp. 1-46, by Gunkel in Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (1895), pp. 16 ff., by Driver in Authority and Archeology, edited by Hogarth (1899), pp. 9 ff., and by Zimmern in Biblische und babylonische Urgeschichte (Der alte Orient, 1901); an exhaustive article on "Creation" has also been contributed by Zimmern and Cheyne to the Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. i (1899), cols. 938 ff.

XXX:1 Delitzsch's list of fragments, enumerated on pp. 7 ff. of his work, gave the total number as twenty-two. As No. 21 he included the tablet K. 3,364, but in Appendix II (pp. 201 ff.) I have proved, by means of the Neo-Babylonian duplicate No. 33,851, that this tablet is part of a long composition containing moral precepts, and has no connection with the Creation Series. H e also included K. 3,445 + R. 396 (as No. 20) but there are strong reasons for believing that this tablet does not belong to the series Enuma elish, but is part of a variant account of the story of Creation; see further, Appendix II, pp. 197 ff. On the other hand he necessarily omitted from his list an unnumbered fragment of the Seventh Tablet, which had been used by George Smith, but had been lost sight of after his death; this fragment I identified two years ago as K. 9,267. It may be added that the total number of fragments correctly identified up to that time was twenty-five, but, as four of these had been joined to others, the number of separate tablets and fragments was reduced to twenty-one.

XXXI:1 On pp. xcvii ff. brief descriptions are given of these forty- nine separate fragments of the Creation Series, together with references to previous publications in which the text of any of them have appeared. The whole of the old material, together with part of the new, was published in Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum, part xiii. The texts of the new tablets and fragments which I have since identified are published in the lithographed plates of Vol. II, and by means of outline blocks in Appendices I and II (see pp. 159 ff.). For the circumstances under which the new fragments were identified, see the Preface to this volume.

XXXI:2 See below, p. xcviii f., Nos. 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

XXXI:3 See below, p. ci, Nos. 13, 14, 15, and 18.

XXXI:4 See below, p. ciii f., Nos. 22, 24, 25, 26, and 27.

XXXII:1 See below, p. cvi, No. 32.

XXXII:2 See below, p. cviii, Nos. 37 and 38.

XXXII:3 See below, p. cix, No. 40.

XXXII:4 See below, p. cix f., Nos. 41, 42, 44, 46, 47, 48, and 49.

XXXII:5 See below, p. xcvii f., No. 1.
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« Reply #38 on: November 19, 2007, 10:01:14 am »








XXXIII:1 The following is the text of the passage in which Damascius summarizes the Babylonian beliefs:-- ### --Quaestiones de primis principiis, cap 125 (ed. Kopp, p. 384). The Δαχην and Δαχον of the text should be emended to Λαχην and Λαχον, which correspond to Lahamu and Lahmu. Of the other deities, Ταυθέ corresponds to Tiamat, Ἀπασών to Apsû, Κισσαρή to Kishar, Ἀσσωρόσ to Anshar, and Ἀνόσ to Anu; Μωϋμῖσ corresponds to Mummu (see below, p. xxxviii, note 1).

XXXIV:1 See below, p. xcviii, No. 2.

XXXIV:2 It is interesting to note that Ea is referred to under his own name and not by his title Nudimmud upon new fragments of the poem in Tabl. I, l.60 (p. 12 f.), Tabl. II, l. 5 (p. 22 f.), and Tabl. VI, l. 3 (p. 86 f.) and l. 11 (p. 88 f.).

XXXVII:1 See further, pp. lxvi ff.

XXXVIII:1 The Μωϋμῖσ of Damascius; see above, p. xxxiii, n. I. The title Mummu was not only borne by Apsû's minister, who, according to Damascius, was the son of Apsû and Tiamat, but in Tabl. I, 1.4, it is employed as a prefix to the name of Tiamat herself. In this passage I have conjecturally rendered it as "chaos" (see p. 2 f.), since the explanatory text S. 747, Rev., l. 10 (see below, pp. 162, 170), gives the equation Mu-um-mu = rig-mu. There is, however, much to be said for Jensen's suggestion of the existence of a word mummu meaning "form," or ''mould," or "pattern" (cf. Mythen und Epen, p. 302 f.). Jensen points out that Ea is termed mu-um-mu ba-an ka-la, "the mummu (possibly, pattern) who created all" (cf. Beiträge zur Assyriologie, ii, p. 261), and he adds that the title might have been applied in this sense to Tiamat, since in Tabl. I, l. 113, and the parallel passages, she is described as pa-ti-sha-ad ka-la-ma, and from her body heaven and earth were created; the explanation, given by Damascius, of Mummu, the son of Apsû and Tiamat, as νοητὸς κόσμος is also in favour of this suggestion. Moreover, from one of the new fragments of the Seventh Tablet, K. 13,761 (see p. 102 f.), we now know that one of Marduk's fifty titles was Mummu, which is there explained as ba-a[n . . . . ], i.e., probably, ba-a[n ha-la], "Creator [of all]" (cf. Ea's title, cited above). In view of the equation Mu-urn-mu = rig-mu (Jensen's suggested alternatives shim-mu and bi-ish-mu are not probable), we may perhaps conclude that, in addition to the word mummu, "form, pattern," there existed a word mummu, ''chaos, confusion," and that consequently the title Mummu was capable of two separate interpretations. If such be the case, it is possible that the application of the title to Tiamat and her son was suggested by its ambiguity of meaning; while Marduk (and also Ea) might have borne the name as the "form" or "idea" of order and system, Tiamat and her son might have been conceived as representing the opposing "form" or ''idea" of chaos and confusion.

XXXIX:1 Jensen's translation of what is l. 50 of the First Tablet represents Mummu as urging Apsû to make the way of the gods "like night," and implies that it was the creation of light which caused the rebellion. L. 5 0, however, is parallel to l. 38, and it is certain that the adv. mu-shish is to be rendered "by night," and not "like night." In l. 38 Apsû complains that "by day" he cannot rest, and "by night" he cannot lie down in peace; Mummu then counsels him to destroy the way of the gods, adding in l. 50, "Then by day shalt thou have rest, by night shalt thou lie down (in peace)"; see pp. 8 ff. Jensen's suggested rendering of im-ma as-ru-nim-ma, in place of im-ma-as-ru-nim-ma, in Tabl. I, l. 109 and the parallel passages, is therefore also improbable.

XXXIX:2 This fact does not preclude the interpretation of the fight between Marduk and Tiamat as based upon a nature-myth, representing the disappearance of mist and darkness before the rays of the sun. For Marduk was originally a solar deity, and Berossus himself mentions this interpretation of the legend (see further, p. lxxxii, and the quotation on p. liv f., notes 2 and 1).

XL:1 Cf. Tabl. I, l. 97.

XL:2 Cf. Tabl. I, l. 62.

XL:3 Cf. Tabl. IV, l. 142.

XL:4 Cf. Tabl. I, l. 98.

XL:5 Cf. Tabl. II, ll. 75 ff.
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« Reply #39 on: November 19, 2007, 10:02:35 am »








XL:1 Cf. Tabl. I, l. 97.

XL:2 Cf. Tabl. I, l. 62.

XL:3 Cf. Tabl. IV, l. 142.

XL:4 Cf. Tabl. I, l. 98.

XL:5 Cf. Tabl. II, ll. 75 ff.

XLI:1 It is possible that the fragments of l. 88 f. of Tabl. I are not to be taken as part of a speech, but as a description of Tiamat's state of confusion and restlessness after learning of Apsû's fate.

XLI:2 See also p. 14, n. 1.

XLI:3 On the probable order of the attempts made by Ea and Anu respectively to oppose Tiamat, see Appendix II, p. I 88, n. 1.

XLV:1 The account of the Creation given by Berossus in his history of Babylonia was summarized by Alexander Polyhistor, from whom Eusebius quotes in the first book of his Chronicon; the following is his description of the mythical monsters which existed before the creation of the world:-- ### Eusebi chronicorum liber prior, ed. Schoene, col. 14 f.

XLV:2 The reading Ὀμόρκα is an emendation for ομορωκα, cf. op. cit., col. 16, n. 6; while for Θαλατθ we should probably read Θαμτέ, i.e., the Babylonian Tâmtu, "sea, ocean" = Tiamat, cf. Robertson-Smith, Zeits. für Assyr., vi, p. 339. The name Ὀμόρκα may probably be identified with Ummu-Hubur, ''the Mother-Hubur," a title of Tiamat which occurs in Tabl. I, l. 113 and the parallel passages. The first part of the name gives the equation Ομ =Ummu, but how Hubur has given rise to the transcription ορκα is not clear. Jensen has attempted to explain the difficulty p. XLVI by suggesting that Ὀμόρκα = Ummu-urki, and urki he takes as an Assyrian translation of Hubur. For Hubur he suggests the meaning "that which is above, the North" (mainly from the occurrence of Hu-bu-ur KI = Su-bar-tum, the Upper or Northern part of Mesopotamia, in II R, pl. 50, l. 51, cf. also V R, pl. 16, l. 19); and, since what is in the North would have been regarded by the Babylonians as "behind," the title Hubur might have been rendered in Babylonian as urku. This explanation is ingenious, but that the title Hubur, as applied to Tiamat, had the meaning "that which is above, the North," cannot be regarded as proved (cf. also Mythen, p. 564). Gunkel and Zimmern, on the other hand, see in Ὀμόρκα the equivalent of the Aramaic words 'Om 'orqa, "Mother of the Deep," the existence of which they trace to the prevalence of the Aramaic dialect in Babylonia at the time of Berossus (see Schöpfung und Chaos, p. 18 f., n. 1); according to this explanation the title Ὀμόρκα would be the Aramaic equivalent of Ummu-Hubur, for Hubur may well have had the meaning "deep, depth." Thus, on the fragment S. 2,013 (see below, p. 196 f.) the meaning "depth," rather than "the North," is suggested by the word; in l. 9 of this fragment the phrase Hu-bur pal-ka-ti, "the broad Hubur," is employed in antithesis to shamê(e) ru-ku-u-ti, "the distant heavens," precisely as in the following couplet Ti-amat shap-li-ti, "the Lower Ocean (Tiamat)," is opposed to Ti-amat e-zi-ti, "the Upper Ocean (Tiamat)." For a possible connection between the lower waters of Tiamat and Hubur, the River of the Underworld, see below, p. lxxxiii, n. 2, and p. xciv f., n. 3.

XLVI:1 According to the poem, Tiamat is definitely stated to have created eleven kinds of monsters. The summary from Berossus bears only a general resemblance to the description of the monsters in the poem.
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« Reply #40 on: November 19, 2007, 10:03:36 am »








XLIX:1 See below, p. liv f., note 1.

XLIX:2 cf. ll. 135 ff.

XLIX:3 For instance, the fragment K. 13,774 (see below, pp. 190 ff.) in l. 8, in place of "He set the stations of Bel and Ea along with him," reads "He set the stations of Bel and Anu along with him." According to the text Marduk appoints Nibir (Jupiter), Bêl (the p. L north pole of the equator), and Ea (probably a star in the extreme south of the heavens) as guides to the stars, proving that they were already thus employed in astronomical calculations. In place of Ea, K. 13,774 substitutes Anu, who, as the pole star of the ecliptic, would be of equal, if not greater, importance in an astronomical sense. Another variant reading on K. 13,754 is the substitution of kakkaba-shu, "his star," in place of ilu Nannar-ru, the Moon-god, in l. 12; the context is broken, but we cannot doubt that shuk-nat mu-shi, "a being of the night," in l. 13 refers to the Moon-god, and that Marduk entrusted the night to the Moon-god according to this version also. Further variants occur in l. 17 f. in the days enumerated in the course of Marduk's address to the Moon-god; see below, p. 191 f.

LIII:1 See Tabl. IV, l. 136.

LIII:2 See Tabl. VI, l. 2

LIV:1 See below, p. lviii.

LIV:2 After the description of the monsters of the deep referred to above (see p. xlv), the summary from Berossus records the creation by Bel of the earth, and the heavens, and mankind, and animals, as follows:-- ### p. LV.--Euseb. chron. lib. pri., ed. Schoene, col. 16 f. For the probable transposition of the passage which occurs in the text after γεγεννημένων, see the following note.

LV:1 The transposition of the passage suggested by von Gutschmidt necessitates only one emendation of the text, viz. the reading of τοιωνδε in place of τον δε before Βῆλον. The context of this passage would then read ### and the summary by Eusebius, at the end of the extract, would read ### cf. Schoene, op. cit., col. 16 f., note 9. The emendation has been accepted by Budde, Die Biblische Urgeschichte, p. 477 f.:, by Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 292, and by Gunkel and Zimmern, Schöpfung und Chaos, p. 19 f.

LVI:1 Cf. Schöpfung und Chaos, p. 20 f.

LVI:2 For ἑαυτοῦ in both passages Stucken would read αὐτῆς cf. Astralmythen der Hebaeer, Babylonier und Aegypter, i, p. 55.

LVI:3 Cheyne, who adopts Stucken's suggestion, remarks: "It stands to reason that the severed head spoken of in connection with the creation of man must be Tiâmat's, not that of the Creator"; cf. Encyclopædia Biblica, i, col. 947, note.
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« Reply #41 on: November 19, 2007, 10:04:44 am »








LVII:1 In the Zeits. für Assyr., xiv, p. 282, Zimmern remarks: "Somit darf man wol doch nicht . . . . annehmen, dass ursprünglich das Blut der Tiâmat gemeint sei, allerdings auch nicht das Blut des Schöpfergottes selbst, sondern das irgend eines Gottes . . ., der zu diesem Zwecke geschlachtet wird." In making this suggestion Zimmern was influenced by the episode related in col. iii of the fragmentary and badly preserved legend Bu. 91-5-9, 269 (cf. Cuneiform Texts, pt. vi, and Mythen, p. 275, note), which he pointed out contained a speech by a deity in which he gives orders for another god to be slain that apparently a man may be formed from his blood mixed with clay (cf. Z.A., xiv, p. 281). The episode, however, has no connection with the first creation of man, but probably relates to the creation of a man or hero to perform some special exploit, in the same way as Uddushu-namir was created by Ea for the rescue of Ishtar from the Underworld, and as Ea-bani was created by the goddess Aruru in the First Tablet of the Gilgamesh-epic (cf. also Jensen's remarks in his Mythen und Epen, p. 275 f.). I learn from Professor Zimmern and Professor Bezold that it was the tablet Bu. 91-5-9, 269, and not an actual fragment of the Creation Series, to which Professor Zimmern refers on p. 14 of his Biblische una' babylonische Urgeschichte. Although, as already stated, this fragment is not, strictly speaking, part of a creation-legend, it illustrates the fact that the use of the blood of a god for the creation of man was fully in accordance with Babylonian beliefs.

LVII:2 See below, p. 86 f., n. 7.

LVIII:1 See Kosmologie, p. 293.

LVIII:2 The word is here met with for the first time, the reading of GIR-PAD-DU (var. DA), the ideogram for "bone," not having been known previously.

LIX:1 On p. 200 it is remarked that, until more of the text of the Fifth and Sixth Tablets is recovered, it would be rash to assert that the fragment K. 3,445 + R. 396 (cf. Cun. Texts, pt. xiii, pl. 24 f.) cannot belong to the Creation Series. The phrase is-'Runkakkada (Obv., l. 35 ) might perhaps refer to the head of Tiamat (cf. ru-pu-ush-tu sha Ti-a[mat], in l. 19), which would not be inconsistent with the fragment forming part of the Fifth Tablet as suggested on p. 198. If the fragment were part of the Sixth Tablet, the kakkadu in l. 35 might possibly be Marduk's head (compare also ik-sur-ma in l. 31 with lu-uk-sur in Tabl. VI, l. 5 ). In view, however, of the inconsistencies noted on p. 199 f., it is preferable to exclude the fragment at present from the Creation Series.

LX:1 See pp. 201 ff.

LXV:1 See pp. 171 ff.

LXV:2 See pp. 175 ff.

LXVI:1 In view of the fact that the Semitic name Bêl-mâtâti occurs as one of Marduk's titles, it is not impossible that the title Bêl-ilâni, which is applied to him in the Epilogue to the Seventh Tablet (l. 129, see p. 112), also occurred as one of his fifty titles in the body of the text. It is unlikely that the name Marduk itself was included as one of the fifty titles, and in support of this view it may be noted that the colophon to the commentary R. 366, etc. (see p. 169), makes mention of "fifty-one names" of Marduk, which may be most easily explained by supposing that the scribe reckoned in the name Marduk as an additional title.

LXVI:2 See below, p. 169.

LXVII:1 See above, p. xli f.

LXVIII:1 See below, pp. 1-16 ff.
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« Reply #42 on: November 19, 2007, 10:05:40 am »








LXVIII:2 Jensen makes Bel the slayer of the dragon in this legend (cf. Mythen und Epen, p. 46), from which it might be argued that Marduk is the hero in both versions of the story. But Jensen's identification of the deity as Bêl was due to a mistake of Delitzsch, who published an inaccurate copy of the traces of the deity's name upon the tablet; see below, p. 120, n. 1.

LXIX:1 The so-called "Cuthaean Legend of the Creation" (cf. pp. 140 ff.) was at one time believed to represent another local version of the Creation story, in which Nergal, the god of Cuthah, was supposed to take the place of Marduk. But it has been pointed out by Zimmern that the legend concerns the deeds of an Old-Babylonian king of Cuthah, and is not a Creation legend; see below, p. 140 f., note 1.

LXIX:2 See below, pp. 130 ff.

LXX:1 Elsewhere this goddess figures in the rôle of creatress, for from the First Tablet of the Gilgamesh-epic, col. ii, ll. 30 ff., we learn that she was credited with the creation of both Gilgamesh and Ea-bani. Her method of creating Ea-bani bears some resemblance to that employed in the creation of man according to the Sumerian and Babylonian version above referred to; she first washed her hands, and then, breaking off a piece of clay, she cast it upon the ground and thus created Ea-bani (cf. Jensen, Mythen und Epen, p. 120 f.).

LXX:2 See below, p. 122 f.

LXX:3 See below, pp. 124 ff.

LXX:4 In addition to the five principal strands which have been described above as forming the framework of the Creation Series, p. LXXI it is possible to find traces of other less important traditions which have been woven into the structure of the poem. Thus the association of the god Kingu with Tiamat is probably due to the incorporation of a separate legend with the Dragon-Myth.

LXXI:1 It may be here noted that the poem contains no direct description of Tiamat, and it has been suggested that in it she was conceived, not as a dragon, but as a woman. The evidence from sculpture and from cylinder-seals, however, may be cited against this suggestion, as well as several phrases in the poem itself (cf. e.g., Tabl. IV, ll. 97 ff.). It is true that in one of the new fragments of the poem Tiamat is referred to as sinnishatu, i.e. "woman" or "female" (cf. Tabl. II, l. 122), but the context of this passage proves that the phrase is employed with reference to her sex and not to her form.

LXXI:2 Tabl. VII, ll. 1-124.

LXXI:3 See below, p. 169.

LXXI:4 See below, pp. 175 ff.

LXXIII:1 The slabs are preserved in the British Museum, Nimroud Gallery, Nos. 28 and 29.

LXXIV:1 An Assyrian copy of this inscription, which was made for the library of Ashur-bani-pal, is preserved in the British Museum, and is numbered K. 4,149; the text is published in V R, pl. 33.

LXXIV:2 Cf. col. iii, l. 13.

LXXIV:3 Cf. col. iv, ll. 50 ff.

LXXIV:4 Cf. col. iii, l. 33.
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« Reply #43 on: November 19, 2007, 10:06:36 am »








LXXV:1 Such "deeps" were set up by Bur-Sin, King of Ur about B.C. 2500 (cf. I R, pl. 3, No. xii, 1), and by Ur-Ninâ, a still earlier king of Shirpurla (cf. De Sarzec, Découveries en Chaldée, pl. ii, No. I, col. iii, l. 5 f.).

LXXV:2 Two separate fragments of this legend were found, of which one is in the British Museum and the other, made up of four p. LXXVI smaller fragments, is in Berlin. Their texts are published by Budge and Bezold, The Tell el-Amarna Tablets, p. 140 f. and pl. 17 (Bu. 88-10-13, 69), and by Winckler and Abel, Beer Thonfafelfund von El-Amarna, p. 164f. (Nos. 2 3 4, 236, 237, and 239); cf. also Knudtzon, Beiträge Zur Assyr., iv, pp. 130 ff. For a translation of the fragments, see Jensen, Mythen und Epen, pp. 74 ff.

LXXVI:1 For the text, see Winckler and Abel, op. cit., p. 166 a and b, and cf. Knudtzon, B.A., iv, pp. 128 ff. For translations, see E. T. Harper, B.A., ii, pp. 420 ff., Zimmern in Gunkel's Schöpfung und Chaos, pp. 420 ff., and Jensen, Mythen und Epen, pp. 94 ff.

LXXVI:2 K. 8,214, published by Strong, P.S.B.A., xvi, p. 274f.; see Jensen, Mythen und Epen, pp. 98 ff.

LXXVI:3 See below, p. 146 f., n. 4.

LXXVII:1 The old Babylonian fragment Bu. 91-5-9,269 (cf. Cun. Texts, vi, and see above, p. lvii; n. 1), and the Deluge-fragment of the reign of Ammizaduga (published by Scheil, Receueil de travaux, xx, pp. 55 ff.) both contain phrases found upon the legend of Atar-basis, K. 3,399; cf. Zimmern, Zeits. fur Assyr., xiv, p. 278 f. The text of K. 3,399, which has not hitherto been published, is included as plate 49 in part xv of Cuneiform Texts; for translations, see Zimmern, op. cit., pp. 287 ff., and Jensen, Mythen, pp. 274 ff.

LXXVII:2 The tablets are numbered 87,535, 93,828, and 87,521, and they are published in Cuneiform Texts, pt. xv (1092), plates 1-6. The opening addresses, especially that upon No. 87,535, are of considerable interest; in this tablet the poet states that he will sing the song of Mama, the Lady of the gods, which he declares to be better than honey and wine, etc. (col. i, (I ) [z]a-ma-ar ilu Bi-li-it-ili a-za-ma-ar (2) ib-ru us-si-ra ku-ra-du 5-me-a (3 ) Ilu Ma-ma za-ma-ra-la-ma e-li di-ish-pi-i-im u ka-ra-nim ta-bu (4) [a-du-u e-Zi di-ish-pi u ka-ra-ni-i-im, etc.). The goddess Mama is clearly to be identified with Mami, who also bore the title Bêlit-ili (cf. Jensen, Mythen, p. 286 f., n. 11); and with the description of her offspring in col. i, ll. 8 ff. (ilu Ma-ma ish-ti-na-am u-li-id-ma . . . . ilu Ma-ma shi-e-na u-Zi-id-ma . . . . ilu Ma-ma sha-la-ti u-l-i[d-ma]) we may compare Mami's creation of seven men and seven women in the legend of Atar-hasis (cf. Jensen, op. cit., p. 286 f.). The legend No. 93,828 also concerns a goddess referred to as Bêlit-ili, whom Bel summons into his presence (cf. col. i, ll. 10 ff.). The texts are written syllabically almost throughout, and simple syllables preponderate; and it is interesting to note that the ending ish with the force of a preposition, which occurs in the Creation legends, is here also employed, cf. No. 87,521, col. iii, l. 4, mu-ut-ti-is' um-mi-shu and possibly col. vi, l. 3, gi-ir-di-ish The texts are p. LXXVIII carefully written (it may be noted that a na has been omitted by the scribe in No. 93,828, col. i, l. 7), the lines vary considerably in length, and the metre is not indicated by the arrangement of the text. Though fragmentary the episodes described or referred to in the texts are of considerable interest, perhaps the most striking being the reference to the birth of Ishum in col. viii of No. 87,521, and the damming of the Tigris with which the text of No. 87,535 concludes. I intend elsewhere to publish translations of the fragments.
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« Reply #44 on: November 19, 2007, 10:07:29 am »








LXXVIII:1 Ein altbabylonisches Fragment des Gilgamosepos, in the Mitteilungen der Voderasiatischen Gesellschaft, 1902, I. The fragment here published refers to episodes in the Gilgamesh-epic, the name of Gilgamesh being written ilu GISH, i.e. ilu GISH-TU-BAR. From the photographic reproductions published by Dr. Meissner, it is clear that the Gilgamesh fragment, in the nature of the clay employed, and in the archaic forms of the characters, resembles the three fragments in the British Museum. Unlike them, however, the lines of its text do not appear to be separated by horizontal lines ruled upon the clay.

LXXVIII:2 Father Scheil has published the text in late Assyrian characters in the Recueil de travaux, xxiii, pp. 18 ff., and he does not give a photograph of the tablet. From his description ("C'était une belle grande tablette de terre cuite, avec, par face, trois ou quatre colonnes . . . L'écriture en est archaïque et, sans aucun doute possible, antérieure à Hammurabi"), we may conclude that it dates from the same period as the three tablets in the British Museum described above.

LXXIX:1 See above, p. lxxv. Cf. also the Sumerian influence exhibited by the names of the older pairs of deities Lahmu and Lahamu, Anshar and Kishar, as well as in the names of Kingu, Gaga, etc.; while the ending ish, employed as it constantly is in the Creation Series with the force of a preposition, may probably be traced to the Sumerian ku, later shu, shi (cf. Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 266). The Assyrian commentaries to the Seventh Tablet, moreover, prove the existence of a Sumerian version of this composition, and as the hymn refers to incidents in the Creation legends, the Sumerian origin of these, too, is implied. The Sumerian version of the story of the Creation by Marduk and Aruru (see below, pp. 130 ff.) cannot with certainty be cited as evidence of its Sumerian origin, as from internal evidence it may well be a later and artificial composition on Sumerian lines. That we may expect, however, one day to find the original Sumerian versions of the Creation legends is not unreasonable; with respect to the recovery of the ancient religious literature of the Sumerians, the remarkable series of early Sumerian religious texts published in Cun. Texts, pt. xv, plates 7-30, may be regarded as an earnest of what we may look for in the future.

LXXX:1 For the account of the Phoenician cosmogony according to Sanchuniathon, see Eusebius, Praep. ev., i, 9 f., who quotes from the Greek translation of Philo Byblius; the accounts of Eudemus and Mochus are described by Damascius, cap. 125 (ed. Kopp, p. LXXXI p. 385). For summaries and comparisons of these cosmogonies, see Lukas, Die Grundbegriffe in den Kosmogonien der alten Völker, pp. 139 ff.

LXXXI:1 Cf. Budge, History of Egypt, vol. i, pp. 39 ff.

LXXXI:2 Other Egyptian beliefs, according to which the god Shû separated heaven and earth and upheld the one above the other, may be compared to the Babylonian conception of the malting of heaven and earth by the separation of the two halves of Tiamat's body. For detailed descriptions of the Egyptian cosmogonies, see Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Aegypter, pp. 100 ff.; and for a convenient summary of the principal systems, see Lukas, op. cit., pp. 47 ff. Though the Babylonian and Egyptian cosmogonies, in some of their general features, resemble one another, the detailed comparisons of the names of deities, etc., which Hommel attempts in his Babylonische Ursprung der ägyptischen Kultur, are rather fanciful.

LXXXII:1 See above, p. xxvi f.

LXXXII:2 See above, p. xxxix, and below, p, 10, n. 1.

LXXXII:3 See above, p. xxxix, n. 2.

LXXXII:4 See above, p. xxxix.

LXXXIII:1 See below, p. 196 f.
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