A very slight inspection of the Epic is sufficient to show that it has been pieced together out of a number of previously existing and independent materials. Thus the history of the Deluge, which is itself but an episode somewhat violently foisted into the legend of Izdubar in order to preserve the astronomical arrangement of the Epic, may be shown to have consisted of at least two older poems on the subject; and a careful examination of other portions of the Epic brings the same fact to light elsewhere.
As, however, there is clear proof that the Epic was originally composed in Accadian, our present text being merely the Semitic translation of the Accadian original, it must have existed in the form in which we now have it before the age of Sargon and the extinction of the Accadian language in Chaldea. We shall not be far wrong, therefore, in ascribing its composition to about B.C. 2000, or a little earlier. The older lays or poems out of which it was formed must therefore date before this period. There seems to have been a considerable number of them, each incident in the cycle of ancient Accadian mythology having been the subject of various poems. Many of these originated in different parts of the country, so that a long period of time must be allowed for their growth and subsequent reduction to a literary form. But as the legends they celebrated were traditions in the country before they were embodied in poems and committed to writing, we must go back to quite a remote epoch for their first starting-point.
The earliest evidence we have of them is in the carvings on early Babylonian cylindrical seals. Among the earliest known devices on these seals we have scenes from the legends of Izdubar, and from the story of the Creation. The seals mostly belong to the age of the kings of Ur, and some of them are a good deal older than B.C. 2000. The principal incidents represented on them are the struggles of Izdubar and his companion Hea-bani with the lion and the bull, the journey of Izdubar in search of Xisuthrus, Noah or Xisuthrus in his ark, and the war between Tiamtu the sea-dragon and the god Merodach. There is a fragment of a document in the British Museum which claims to be copied from an omen tablet belonging to the time of Izdubar himself, but it is probably not earlier than B.C. 1600, when many similar tablets were written.
There is an incidental notice of the ship or ark of “the god Izdubar” in a tablet printed in “Cuneiform Inscriptions,” vol. ii. p. 46. He is here called “the king who bears the sceptre.” This tablet, which contains lists of wooden objects, was written in the time of Assur-bani-pal, but is copied from an original, which must have been written at least eighteen hundred years before the Christian era. The geographical notices on this tablet suit the period before the rise of Babylon. Surippak is called in it the ship or ark city, this name forming another reference to the Flood legends. Izdubar is also mentioned in a series of tablets relating to witchcraft, and on a tablet containing prayers to him as a god; this last showing that he was deified, which, however, was an honour also given to several Babylonian kings.
As already stated, the legends of Izdubar are inscribed on twelve tablets, of which there are remains of at least four editions. All the tablets are in fragments, and none of them are complete; but it is a fortunate circumstance that the most perfect tablet is the eleventh, which describes the Deluge, this being the most important of the series. In the first chapter the successive steps in the discovery of these legends have been already described, and we may now therefore pass on to the description and translation of the various fragments. All the fragments of our present copies belong to the reign of Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, in the seventh century B.C. From the mutilated condition of many of them it is impossible at present to gain an accurate idea of the whole scope of the legends, and many parts which are lost have to be supplied by conjecture; the order even of some of the tablets cannot be determined, and it is uncertain if we have fragments of the whole twelve in what follows. Mr. Smith has, however, conjecturally divided the fragments into groups corresponding roughly with the subjects of the tablets. Each tablet when complete contained six columns of writing, and each column had generally from forty to fifty lines of writing, there being in all about 3,000 lines of cuneiform text. The divisions adopted by Mr. Smith will be seen by the following summary, which exhibits our present knowledge of the fragments.
Part I.—Introduction.
Tablet I.—Number of lines uncertain, probably about 240. First column initial line preserved, second column lost, third column twenty-six lines preserved, fourth column doubtful fragment inserted, fifth and sixth columns lost.
Probable subjects: conquest of Babylonia by the Elamites, birth and parentage of Izdubar.
Part II.—Meeting of Hea-bani and Izdubar.
Tablet II.—Number of lines uncertain, probably about 240. First and second columns lost, third and fourth columns about half-preserved, fifth and sixth columns lost.