Euedorachos has also been thought to be the Sumerian Enmeduranki, whom we have recognized as another name for Etana. Four of the names of Berossos are thus easily connected with names in the new list of kings.
The fifth one, Megalaros, might be a corruption either of Mutu-shalal or of Mutu-ša-elu, and so go back ultimately either to Enmeirgan or to Meskingashir. Xisouthros is clearly the same person as Ziugiddu. He had no connection with this list of kings, but is, like Noah in Genesis 5, attached to it on account of the flood. Hommel long ago saw that Otiartes is the same as Ubara-tutu, who is said in the account of the deluge which was found at Nineveh to have been the father of Utnapishtim, the hero of the deluge.[392] Berossos has, accordingly, not only added the hero of the deluge, but has displaced one of the names from the king list in order to find a place for the father of Xisouthros.
The other names are puzzling. Poebel has suggested[393] that Alorus may be a Greek corruption of the Sumerian name Laluralim, who is said to have been a king of Nippur. An old text which contains this name[394] is accompanied by a gloss zugagib, “scorpion,”[395] and the first king in the list translated above is Zugagib. If, therefore, this suggestion is true, the name may go back to the same source as the others, after all.
Amempsinos has been thought by some to be a corruption of the well known Babylonian name Amil-Sin. There was an Amil-Sin in the first dynasty of Babylon, but why the name should be inserted here cannot at present be explained; nor has a satisfactory explanation been suggested for Alaparos.
The above discussion may be summed up in a few words. The Babylonian list of kings with which this chapter begins makes no reference to the flood, neither does the fourth chapter of Genesis. All the names in Genesis 4 may be found in the Babylonian list, though Etana seems to have been inserted twice under different names. As Genesis 5 omits Abel, it has Etana only once. All the other names of Genesis 5, except Noah, are found in the Babylonian list. Noah has been added to connect the list with the flood. The ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 correspond approximately to the general lengths of the reigns assigned to the kings in the tablet. Berossos seems to have exercised much greater freedom, inserting several names, the origin of some of which cannot now be made out. He also greatly exaggerated the lengths of the kings’ reigns.
These correspondences are simply noted. It is but a few months since the writer discovered them, and he was the first to do so. It is too early to correctly estimate their ultimate significance. It should, however, be observed that the Biblical numbers (Gen. 5) lack the gross exaggerations of Berossos, and that, if the correspondences here pointed out are real, the tradition embodied in Genesis is carried back to a time from 800 to 1000 years earlier than Moses.
CHAPTER VI
A BABYLONIAN ACCOUNT OF THE FLOOD, FROM A TABLET WRITTEN AT NINEVEH IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY B. C.[396]