The connected text of the column then breaks off, only a sign or two remaining of the following half-dozen lines. It will be seen that in the eleven lines that are preserved we have several close parallels to the Babylonian Version and some equally striking differences. While attempting to define the latter, it will be well to point out how close the resemblances are, and at the same time to draw a comparison between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions of this part of the story and the corresponding Hebrew accounts.
Here, as in the Babylonian Version, the Flood is accompanied by hurricanes of wind, though in the latter the description is worked up in considerable detail. We there read(1) that at the appointed time the ruler of the darkness at eventide sent a heavy rain. Ut-napishtim saw its beginning, but fearing to watch the storm, he entered the interior of the ship by Ea's instructions, closed the door, and handed over the direction of the vessel to the pilot Puzur-Amurri. Later a thunder-storm and hurricane added their terrors to the deluge. For at early dawn a black cloud came up from the horizon, Adad the Storm-god thundering in its midst, and his heralds, Nabû and Sharru, flying over mountain and plain. Nergal tore away the ship's anchor, while Ninib directed the storm; the Anunnaki carried their lightning-torches and lit up the land with their brightness; the whirlwind of the Storm-god reached the heavens, and all light was turned into darkness. The storm raged the whole day, covering mountain and people with water.(2) No man beheld his fellow; the gods themselves were afraid, so that they retreated into the highest heaven, where they crouched down, cowering like dogs. Then follows the lamentation of Ishtar, to which reference has already been made, the goddess reproaching herself for the part she had taken in the destruction of her people. This section of the Semitic narrative closes with the picture of the gods weeping with her, sitting bowed down with their lips pressed together.
(1) Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 90 ff.
(2) In the Atrakhasis version, dated in the reign of
Ammizaduga, Col. I, l. 5, contains a reference to the "cry"
of men when Adad the Storm-god, slays them with his flood.
It is probable that the Sumerian Version, in the missing portion of its Fourth Column, contained some account of Ziusudu's entry into his boat; and this may have been preceded, as in the Gilgamesh Epic, by a reference to "the living seed of every kind", or at any rate to "the four-legged creatures of the field", and to his personal possessions, with which we may assume he had previously loaded it. But in the Fifth Column we have no mention of the pilot or of any other companions who may have accompanied the king; and we shall see that the Sixth Column contains no reference to Ziusudu's wife. The description of the storm may have begun with the closing lines of the Fourth Column, though it is also quite possible that the first line of the Fifth Column actually begins the account. However that may be, and in spite of the poetic imagery of the Semitic Babylonian narrative, the general character of the catastrophe is the same in both versions.
We find an equally close parallel, between the Sumerian and Babylonian accounts, in the duration of the storm which accompanied the Flood, as will be seen by printing the two versions together:(3)
SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION
When for seven days, for seven For six days and nights
nights,
The flood had overwhelmed the The wind blew, the flood, the
land, tempest overwhelmed the land.
When the wind-storm had driven When the seventh day drew near,
the great boat over the the tempest, the flood, ceased
mighty waters, from the battle
In which it had fought like a
host.
The Sun-god came forth shedding Then the sea rested and was
light over heaven and earth. still, and the wind-storm, the
flood, ceased.
(3) Col. V, ll. 3-6 are here compared with Gilg. Epic, XI,
ll. 128-32.
The two narratives do not precisely agree as to the duration of the storm, for while in the Sumerian account the storm lasts seven days and seven nights, in the Semitic-Babylonian Version it lasts only six days and nights, ceasing at dawn on the seventh day. The difference, however, is immaterial when we compare these estimates with those of the Hebrew Versions, the older of which speaks of forty days' rain, while the later version represents the Flood as rising for no less than a hundred and fifty days.
The close parallel between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions is not, however, confined to subject-matter, but here, even extends to some of the words and phrases employed. It has already been noted that the Sumerian term employed for "flood" or "deluge" is the attested equivalent of the Semitic word; and it may now be added that the word which may be rendered "great boat" or "great ship" in the Sumerian text is the same word, though partly expressed by variant characters, which occurs in the early Semitic fragment of the Deluge story from Nippur.(1) In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other hand, the ordinary ideogram for "vessel" or "ship"(2) is employed, though the great size of the vessel is there indicated, as in Berossus and the later Hebrew Version, by detailed measurements. Moreover, the Sumerian and Semitic verbs, which are employed in the parallel passages quoted above for the "overwhelming" of the land, are given as synonyms in a late syllabary, while in another explanatory text the Sumerian verb is explained as applying to the destructive action of a flood.(3) Such close linguistic parallels are instructive as furnishing additional proof, if it were needed, of the dependence of the Semitic-Babylonian and Assyrian Versions upon Sumerian originals.
(1) The Sumerian word is (gish)ma-gur-gur, corresponding
to the term written in the early Semitic fragment, l. 8, as
(isu)ma-gur-gur, which is probably to be read under its
Semitized form magurgurru. In l. 6 of that fragment the
vessel is referred to under the synonymous expression
(isu)elippu ra-be-tu, "a great ship".
(2) i.e. (GISH)MA, the first element in the Sumerian word,
read in Semitic Babylonian as elippu, "ship"; when
employed in the early Semitic fragment it is qualified by
the adj. ra-be-tu, "great". There is no justification for
assuming, with Prof. Hilbrecht, that a measurement of the
vessel was given in l. 7 of the early Semitic fragment.
(3) The Sumerian verb ur, which is employed in l. 2 of the
Fifth Column in the expression ba-an-da-ab-ur-ur,
translated as "raged", occurs again in l. 4 in the phrase
kalam-ma ba-ur-ra, "had overwhelmed the land". That we are
justified in regarding the latter phrase as the original of
the Semitic i-sap-pan mâta (Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 129) is
proved by the equation Sum. ur-ur = Sem. sa-pa-nu (Rawlinson, W.A.I., Vol. V, pl. 42, l. 54 c) and by the
explanation Sum. ur-ur = Sem. sa-ba-tu sa a-bu-bi, i.e.
"ur-ur = to smite, of a flood" (Cun. Texts, Pt. XII, pl.
50, Obv., l. 23); cf. Poebel, Hist. Texts, p. 54, n. 1.
It may be worth while to pause for a moment in our study of the text, in order to inquire what kind of boat it was in which Ziusudu escaped the Flood. It is only called "a great boat" or "a great ship" in the text, and this term, as we have noted, was taken over, semitized, and literally translated in an early Semitic-Babylonian Version. But the Gilgamesh Epic, representing the later Semitic-Babylonian Version, supplies fuller details, which have not, however, been satisfactorily explained. Either the obvious meaning of the description and figures there given has been ignored, or the measurements have been applied to a central structure placed upon a hull, much on the lines of a modern "house-boat" or the conventional Noah's ark.(1) For the latter interpretation the text itself affords no justification. The statement is definitely made that the length and breadth of the vessel itself are to be the same;(2) and a later passage gives ten gar for the height of its sides and ten gar for the breadth of its deck.(3) This description has been taken to imply a square box-like structure, which, in order to be seaworthy, must be placed on a conjectured hull.