The first to detect the nature of the series of tablets giving the story of the Flood was the late George Smith, who had unrivalled opportunities of making himself thoroughly acquainted with the treasures of the British Museum in the matter of Assyrian records. As the story runs, it was whilst searching for the fragments of the Creation-series that he came across a fragment of a tablet mentioning that “the ship rested on the mountain of Niṣir,” and this at once suggested to him that this was a reference to the Flood, as, in fact, it turned out to be. Continued and unremitting research among the treasures of the Department in which he was employed enabled him to bring together a large number of other fragments of the series, leaving, in fact, very little indeed for any future student to do in the way of collecting together texts from the fragments that he had an opportunity of examining. The Daily Telegraph expedition to Assyria, which was conducted by Mr. Smith himself, enabled him to add many other fragments to those which he had already recognized in the Oriental Department of the British Museum, and Mr. Rassam's very successful excavations in the same place have since very considerably increased the list of additions.
The story of the Flood, as known to the Babylonians and Assyrians, is one chapter or book of a legend consisting of twelve similar divisions, the first line of the series beginning with the words Ša naqba imûru, “He who saw everything,” and to this is added in the colophons, “the legend of Gilgameš.” The number of fragments extant is large, but the individual tablets are very imperfect, that giving the account of the Flood being by far the most complete, though even that has very regrettable lacunæ. Incomplete as the legend is as a whole, an attempt will nevertheless be made here to give some sort of a connected story, [pg 091] which may be regarded as accurate in all its main details.
The first tablet begins with the words that have been quoted above, “He who saw everything, [who] ... the land.” This is followed, it would seem, by a description of the hero, who, apparently, knew “the wisdom of the whole (of the lands?),” and “saw secret and hidden things.... He brought news of before the flood, went a distant road, and (suffered) dire fatigue (?).” All his journeyings and toils were, apparently, inscribed on tablets of stone, and records thus left for future ages.
Gilgameš, as we learn in the course of the narrative, was lord or king of Uruk supuri, or “Erech the walled,” and at the time when the story begins, the fortifications were in a ruinous state, and the treasury (?) of the sanctuary Ê-anna, the temple of the goddess Ištar, which is mentioned in the legend immediately after, was, we may suppose, empty. Other details of the desolation of the temple are given, and the ruinous state of the walls of the city are spoken of, together with the decay of their foundations.
No other fragment of Col. I. of the first tablet of the Legend of Gilgameš seems to have been recognized, so that the further references to the city are lost. An interesting piece that Mr. G. Smith thought to be part of the third column of this text refers to some misfortune that came upon the city when the people moaned like calves, and the maidens grieved like doves.
“The gods of Erech the walled
Turned to flies, and hummed in the streets;
The winged bulls of Erech the walled
Turned to mice, and went out through the holes.”
The city was, on this occasion, besieged for three years, until at last the god Bêl and the goddess Ištar interested themselves in the state of things. As to [pg 092] who the enemy was who brought the people into such distress, there is no means at present of finding out, but Mr. G. Smith suggested, with at least some show of probability, that they were the Elamites under Ḫumbaba, who appears later as the opponent of our hero. The indifference of the gods and the divine bulls that were supposed to protect the city is well expressed in the statement that they respectively turned into flies and mice, buzzing about and active, but doing no good whatever.