Chapter II
, p. 257.
Since the first edition of this book went to press, the writer has had the good fortune to discover among the tablets from Nippur in the University Museum in Philadelphia a new Babylonian account of the creation of man. The text is written in the Sumerian language, and the script is of the mixed cursive variety that was employed during the time of the first dynasty of Babylon and the Kassite dynasty. The text is accordingly older than 1200 B. C., and may have been written before 2000 B. C. It reads as follows:
1. The mountain of heaven and earth
2. The assembly of heaven, the great gods, entered. Afterwards,
3. Because Ashnan had not come forth, they conversed together.
4. The land Tikku had not created;
5. For Tikku a temple-platform had not been filled in;
6. A lofty dwelling had not been built;
7. The arable land was without any seed;
8. A well and a canal (?) had not been dug;
9. Horses and cattle had not been brought forth,
10. So that Ashnan could shepherd herd and corral.
11. The Anunna, the great gods, had made no plan;
12. There was no _šes_-grain of thirty-fold;
13. There was no _šes_-grain of fifty-fold;
14. Small grain, mountain-grain, and great _sal_-grain there were not;
15. A possession and houses there were not;
16. Tikku had neither entered a gate nor gone out;
17. Together with the lady Nintu the lord had not brought forth men.
18. The god Ug came; as leader he came to plan;
19. Mankind he planned; many men were brought forth.
20. Food and sleep he planned for them;
21. Clothing and dwellings he did not plan for them.
22. The people with rushes and rope came,
23. By making a dwelling a kindred was formed.
24. To the gardens ...... they gave drink.
25. On that day their [gardens] sprouted (?) ....
26. Their lands covered (?) ............
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Reverse
1. ........................................
2. Father Enlil (?) .............................
3. ........ standing grain ....................
4. For mankind ............................
5. .................. creation of Entu ....................
6. Father Enlil ................................
7. Duazagga, the way of the gods ............
8. Duazagga, the brilliant, for my god I guard (?).
9. Entu and Enlil to Duazagga ............
10. A dwelling for Ashnan from out of Duazagga I will [make?] for thee.
11. Two-thirds of the fold perished (?);
12. His plants for food he created for them;
13. Ashnan rained on the field for them;
14. The moist (?) wind and the fiery storm-cloud he created for them.
15. Two-thirds of the fold stood.
16. For the shepherd of the fold joy was overthrown;
17. The house of rushes did not stand;
18. From Duazagga joy departed.
19. From his dwelling, a lofty height, his boat
20. Descended; from heaven he came
21. To the dwelling of Ashnan; the scepter he brought forth to them;
22. His brilliant city he raised up, he appointed for them;
23. The reed-country he planted, he appointed for them;
24. The falling rain the hollows caught for them;
25. A dwelling-place was their land; food made men multiply;
26. Prosperity entered the land; it caused them to become a multitude.
27. He brought to the hand of man the scepter of command.
28. The lord caused them to be, and they came into existence.
29. Companions calling them, a man with his wife he made them dwell.
30. At night as fitting companions they are together.
A colophon states that the tablet contained sixty lines. Only five lines are entirely broken away.
Ashnan was a god of vegetation. Tikku, who had not created the land, was a personified river-bank. The story begins, therefore, before the beginning of vegetation and before the creation of dykes in Babylonia. As in the text translated in