FOOTNOTES:
[31] The date of the termination of the works undertaken by Yu, in order to repair the damage done by this flood, lies between 2278 and 2062 B.C. according to the chronological system adopted.
[32] This work of Berosus was already out of existence in the fourth century of our era, when Eusebius of Cesarea, to whom we owe such fragments as we possess, wrote. Only two abridgments remained, due to later polygraphers, Abydenus and Alexander Polybistor. Eusebius gives the version of each editor, the one I quote is that of Alexander.
[33] Abydenus says, "all that composed the scriptures."
[34] He is provisionally called Izdhubar or Ghirdhubar, transcribing for want of a more certain method, according to their phonetic value, the characters composing the ideographic spelling of his name.
[35] The text is published in "Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia," vol. iv. pp. 50 and 51. The two principal translations hitherto given are those of George Smith and M. Oppert. The one we now offer contains a large share of personal work. We avail ourselves of the labours of our illustrious precursors, but believe that we have also added some important steps towards a precise understanding of the text.
[36] Here several verses are wanting.
[37] "The water of the twilight at break of day," one of the personifications of rain.
[38] The god of thunder.
[39] The god of war and death.
[40] The Chaldeo-Assyrian Hercules.
[41] The superior heaven of the fixed stars.
[42] Vases of the measure called in Hebrew Seäh. This relates to a detail of the ritualistic prescriptions for sacrifice.
[43] These metaphorical expressions appear to designate the rainbow.
[44] The god of epidemics.
[45] Studien zur Kritik und Erklarung der Biblischen Urgeschichte, p. 150.
[46] Oannès and Euahanès belong to an Accadian form: Êa-Khan, "Êa the fish;" Oès to the simple Êa, as the Aos of Damascus.
[47] Vendidâd, ii. 46.
[48] Chapter vii.
[49] See especially Yesht viii., 13 Vendidâd, xix. 135.
[50] It is in virtue of this assimilation that Plutarch (De Solert anim. 13) speaks of the dove sent out by Deucalion to see if the Deluge had ceased, a circumstance mentioned by no other Greek mythographer.
[51] "Myvyrian Archæology of Wales," vol. ii. p. 50, triad 13.
[52] Ibid. p. 71, triad 97.
[53] Vafthrudnismal, st. 29.
[54] Hanwsch, Slawischer Mythus, p. 234.
[55] "Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology," vol. iv. pp. 1-19.
[56] Personification of the primordial abyss.
[57] Nevertheless, the Deluge holds an important place among the cosmogonic traditions—decidedly original in character—which Reguly has found among the Voguls. We also hear of a diluvian story among the Eulets or Kalmuks, where it seems to have come in with Buddhism.
[58] We must, however, observe that Buddhist missionaries appear to have introduced the diluvian tradition of Judea into China. Gutzlaff, "On Buddhism in China," in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1st series, vol. xii. p. 78), affirms that he saw its principal episode represented in a very fine painting of a temple to the goddess Kivan-yin.
[59] Recently published, not recently collected. The date of Pedro de los Rios shows this.
[60] "The Native Races of the Pacific States," vol. iii. p. 68.
[61] By a singular alteration of the text it is said that the jaguars "were devoured," instead of "they devoured."
[62] From the day of the year when the final cataclysm was supposed to have occurred.
[63] This designation of the year accords with the system of Mexican cycles, containing four groups of years, each named after some object or animal.
[64] "Essai de commentaire des fragments de Berose," p. 283.
[65] This name looks like a corruption of that of the Indian Manu Vaivasvata.
[66] Except in the Fiji Islands, where the Polynesians have been for some time settled among the Melanians, and have only been destroyed by these after having infused into the population an element sufficiently marked to render the Fijis a mixed rather than a purely black race.
[67] Gaussin: "Du Dialecte de Tahiti et de la Langue polynésienne," p. 235. See also Ellis's "Polynesian Researches."
[68] We may, however, observe that in the Iranian myth of Yima, which we have reported above, a square enclosure (vara) miraculously preserved from the deluge, holds the place of the Biblical Ark and of the vessel of Chaldean tradition.
[69] The date of the first establishment of Indian Brahmanists in Java remains uncertain, but from the end of the second century B.C. the Greek Iambulos (Diod. Sicul. ii. 57) very exactly described as the way of writing in this island the syllabic system Kavi, borrowed from India.