In both a flood is sent to destroy mankind, but in the first the intention of the gods is revealed in time to a pious Sumerian, possibly a priest king, Ziudsuddu, the Sumerian equivalent of the abbreviated Semitic name Utnapishti. He escapes from the flood in a great boat, which floats away on the waters. When the storm after seven days[942] has abated and the sun at last struggled out, Ziudsuddu makes a thanksgiving sacrifice of an ox and a sheep. We find him in the end reconciled with the great gods, who, as in the Babylonian version, give him immortality.
From the incompleteness of the text it is impossible to determine whether in the Sumerian version the episode of the birds occurs; the probability is that it did not. As is but natural, the earlier story is simpler and more primitive in style than the Babylonian.[943]
In the Gilgamesh account of the Flood, which in general resembles the story as given by Berosus, the absence of the raven, in the Bible the return of the dove with an olive leaf in her mouth, proclaims the abating of the waters, while the Algonkins allot the rôle, on the failure of the raven, to the muskrat. But, in the Indian legend it is a fish, not a god, which not only conveys to Manu the beneficent warning of the coming deluge but also saves him eventually by drawing his ship to a northern mountain.[944]
CHAPTER XXXV
FISH—VIVARIA—THE FIRST INSTANCE OF POACHING
We find in two important sources of our knowledge of Assyria (proper) references to beasts or fishes of the sea and of the river.
The first occurs in The Broken Column of Tiglath-Pileser I., in whose reign Assyria attained to high prosperity. This king, the first of that country to leave behind a detailed record of his achievements, was, as we have seen, a mighty hunter. After recounting his many military campaigns he adds in Column IV. a list of the beasts and fish which he had taken in his hunting expeditions. The text runs:—
1. The gods Ninurta and Nergal, who loved his priesthood, (the task) of hunting in the field,
2. Entrusted unto him, and in ships of the land of Arvad