Chapter V

., substantially agrees, as far as it is preserved, with the Biblical account. According to it, there was a chaos of watery matter before the Creation, and from this all things were generated.

We have then a considerable blank, the contents of which we can only conjecture, and after this we come to the creation of the heavenly orbs.

The fifth tablet in the series relates how God created the constellations of the stars, the signs of the zodiac, the planets and other stars, the moon and the sun. After another blank we have a fragment which relates to the creation of wild and domestic animals; it is curious here that the original taming of domestic animals was even then so far back in the history of the race that all knowledge of it was lost, and the “animals of the city,” or domestic animals, were considered different creations from the “animals of the desert,” or “field,” or wild animals.

We next come to the war between the dragon and powers of evil, or chaos, on one side and the gods on the other. The gods have weapons forged for them, and Merodach undertakes to lead the heavenly host against the dragon. The war, which is described with spirit, ends of course in the triumph of the principle of good, and the overthrow of primeval anarchy.

In