The beginning of the text is wanting, and the earliest lines preserved
of the First Column open with the closing sentences of a speech,
probably by the chief of the four creating deities, who are later on
referred to by name. In it there is a reference to a future destruction
of mankind, but the context is broken; the lines in question begin:
"As for my human race, from (_or_ in) its destruction will I
cause it to be (. . .),