He then discourses, apparently among other things, of death, and says—
“The Anunnaki, the great gods, are assembled (?).
Mammitum, maker of fate, sets with them the destinies.
They have made life and death,
(But) the death-days are not made known.”
With these words the tenth tablet of the Gilgameš series comes to an end.
The Eleventh Tablet Of The Gilgameš Series, Containing The Story Of The Flood.
As this tablet is the most complete of the series, it may not be considered out of place to give here a description of the outward appearance of the document—or, rather, of the documents, for there are many copies. This description will serve, to a certain extent, for all the other tablets of the series, when in their complete state.
The size of the document which best shows the form is about 8-½ inches wide, by 5-7/8 inches high. It is rectangular in form, and is inscribed on both sides with three columns of writing (six in all). The total number of lines, as given in the text published in the second edition of the fourth vol. of the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, is 293, including the catch-line and colophon, but as many of these lines are, in reality, double ones (the scribes frequently squeezed two lines into the space of one, so as to economize space), the original number [pg 101] of the lines was probably nearer 326, or, with the catch-line and colophon, 330. It is probable that the other tablets of the series were not so closely written as this, and in these cases the number of lines is fewer.
The tablet opens with the continuation of the conversation between Gilgameš and “Pir-napištim the remote”—