[Uta-Napishtim Ends his Story of the Deluge.]
205. "And they took me away to a place afar off, and made me to dwell at the mouth of the rivers."
The contents of the remainder of the text on the Eleventh Tablet of the Gilgamish Series are described on [p. 54.]
[1] A transcript of the cuneiform text by George Smith, who was the first to translate it, will be found in Rawlinson, Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, Vol. IV., plates 43 and 44; and a transcript, with transliteration and translation by the late Prof. L. W. King, is given in his First Steps in Assyrian, London, 1898, p. 161ff.
[2] The site of this very ancient city is marked by the mounds of Fârah, near the Shaṭṭ al-Kâr, which is probably the old bed of the river Euphrates; many antiquities belonging to the earliest period of the rule of the Sumerians have been found there.
[3] Like the habûb of modern times, a sort of cyclone.
[4] The star-gods of the southern sky.
[5] The star-gods of the northern heaven.
The Epic of Gilgamish.[1]
The narrative of the life, exploits and travels of Gilgamish, king of Erech, filled Twelve Tablets which formed the Series called from the first three words of the First Tablet, Sha Nagbu Imuru, i.e., "He who hath seen all things." The exact period of the reign of this king is unknown, but there is page 41no doubt that he lived and ruled at Erech before the conquest of Mesopotamia by the Semites. According to a tablet from Niffar he was the fifth of a line of Sumerian rulers at Erech, and he reigned 126 years; his name is said to mean "The Fire-god is a commander."[2] The principal authorities for the Epic are the numerous fragments of the tablets that were found in the ruins of the Library of Nebo and the Royal Library of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh, and are now in the British Museum.[3] The contents of the Twelve Tablets may be briefly described thus: