On arriving at the other side, Izdubar was met by Mu-seri-ina-namari, “the waters of dawn at daybreak,” who engaged him in conversation about Hea-bani, and then Xisuthrus, taking up the conversation, described to him the Deluge. Izdubar was afterwards cured of his illness and returned with Nes-Hea to Erech, where he mourned anew for his friend Hea-bani, and on intercession with the gods the ghost of Hea-bani arose from the ground where the body had lain.
The details of this story, and especially the accounts of the regions inhabited by the dead, are very striking, and illustrate, in a wonderful manner, the religious views of the people.
It is worth while here to pause, and consider the evidence of the existence of the legends recounted in the preceding pages from the close of the mythical period down to the seventh century B.C.
We have first the seals: of these there are some hundreds in European museums, and among the earliest are many specimens carved with scenes from the Genesis legends; some of these are a good deal older than B.C. 2000, others may be ranged at various dates down to B.C. 1500.
With three exceptions, which are of Assyrian origin, all the seals engraved in the present volume are Babylonian. One very fine and early example is photographed as the frontispiece of the book. The character and style of the cuneiform legend which accompanies this shows it to be one of the most ancient specimens; it is engraved on a hard jasper cylinder in bold style, and is a remarkable example of early Babylonian art. Many other similar cylinders of the same period are known; the relief on them is bolder than on the later seals, on which from about B.C. 1600 or 1700, a change in the inscriptions becomes general.
The numerous illustrations to the present work, which have been collected from these early Babylonian seals, will serve to show that the legends were well known, and formed part of the literature of the country before the second millennium B.C.
After B.C. 1500, the literature of Babylonia is unknown, and we lose sight of all evidence of its legends for some centuries. In the meantime Egypt supplies a few notices bearing on the subject, which serve to show that knowledge of them was still kept up. Nearly thirteen hundred years before the Christian era one of the Egyptian poems likens a hero to the Assyrian chief, Kazartu, a great hunter. Kazartu probably means a “strong” or “powerful” one, and it has already been suggested that the reference is to the hero Nimrod. A little later, in the period extending from B.C. 1000 to 800, we have in Egypt several persons named Namurot, which seems to be an echo of the name of the mighty hunter.
On the revival of the Assyrian empire, about B.C. 990, we come again to numerous references to the Genesis legends, and these continue through almost every reign down to the close of the empire. The Assyrians carved the sacred tree and cherubim on their walls, they depicted in the temples the struggle between Merodach and the dragon, they decorated their portals with the figure of Izdubar strangling a lion, and carved the struggles of Izdubar and Hea-bani with the lion and the bull even on their stone vases.
Just as the sculptures of the Greek temples, the paintings on the vases and the carving on their gems were taken from their myths and legends, so the series of myths and legends belonging to the valley of the Euphrates furnished materials for the sculptor, the engraver, and the painter, among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians.
In this way we have continued evidence of the existence of these legends down to the time of Assur-bani-pal, B.C. 673 to 626, who caused the present known copies to be made for his library at Nineveh.