Among the legends of the gods, companion stories to the accounts of the Creation and Deluge, one of the most curious is the legend of the sin committed by the god Zu.
This legend stands quite alone, its incidents and its principal actor being otherwise almost unknown from cuneiform sources. Only one copy of the story has at present been detected, and this is in so mutilated a condition that it cannot be connected with any other of the legends. It belongs to the same cycle of myths as the myth of the exploits of Dibbara, which will be given in the next chapter.
The principal actor in the legend is a god named Zu, the name being found in all the three cases of an Assyrian noun Zu, Za, and Zi. Analogy would lead us to infer that the name had been borrowed by the Assyrians from the Accadians, as well as the story with which it is connected.
Mr. Smith compared the legend with that of the mutilation of Uranus by his son Kronus, and with the history of the outrage of Ham on his father Noah; but its real analogue is the myth of Prometheus, the benefactor of men, who stole the fire of heaven for their sake, and brought upon himself the anger and punishment of Zeus. It contains two difficult words, partsi and tereti. The first is ambiguous, meaning either “oracles” or “shrines,” but since it is coupled with dup-simi, “tablets of destiny,” it is probably to be rendered “oracles.” Tereti is very obscure. The sun-god is called “the lord of tereti” and the word occurs in the hymn to the Creator, Rev. 17 (p. 79), where also it is united with partsi, “command” or “oracle.” It may signify “lots.” The tablets of destiny, stolen by Zu, for the benefit, apparently, of mankind, formed the vault of the palace of the under-world. We may compare the books which are to be opened on the day of judgment in Dan. vii. 10, and Rev. xx. 12.
The tablet containing the account of the sin of Zu, K 3454, in the Museum collection, originally contained four columns of text, each column having about sixty lines of writing. The first and fourth columns are almost entirely lost, there not being enough anywhere to translate from. The mutilation of the text seriously adds to the difficulties of translation.
The single fragment preserved, belonging to the first column, mentions some being who was the seed or firstborn of Bel, with a number of titles, such as “warrior, soldier of the temple of Bel,” and the name of the god Zu occurs, but not so as to prove these titles to be his.
The following is a partial translation of the remains of this tablet:—
K. 3454.
Column I. lost.