The presence of the puzzling lines, with which the Sixth Column of
our text opens, was not explained by Dr. Poebel; indeed, they would be
difficult to reconcile with his assumption that our text is an epic pure
and simple. But if, as is suggested above, we are dealing with a myth in
magical employment, they are quite capable of explanation. The problem
these lines present will best be stated by giving a translation of
the extant portion of the column, where they will be seen with their
immediate context in relation to what follows them:
"By the Soul of Heaven, by the soul of Earth, shall ye conjure him,
That with you he may . . . !
Anu and Enlil by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth, shall ye
conjure,
And with you will he . . . !
"The _niggilma_ of the ground springs forth in abundance(?)!"
Ziusudu, the king,
Before Anu and Enlil bows himself down.
Life like (that of) a god he gives to him,
An eternal soul like (that of) a god he creates for him.
At that time Ziusudu, the king,
The name of the _niggilma_ (named) "Preserver of the Seed of
Mankind".
In a . . . land,(1) the land(1) of Dilmun(?), they caused him to
dwell.
(1) Possibly to be translated "mountain". The rendering of
the proper name as that of Dilmun is very uncertain. For the
probable identification of Dilmun with the island of Bahrein
in the Persian Gulf, cf. Rawlinson, _Journ. Roy. As. Soc._,
1880, pp. 20 ff.; and see further, Meissner, _Orient. Lit-
Zeit._, XX. No. 7, col. 201 ff.
The first two lines of the column are probably part of the speech of
some deity, who urges the necessity of invoking or conjuring Anu and
Enlil "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth", in order to secure
their support or approval. Now Anu and Enlil are the two great gods
who had determined on mankind's destruction, and whose wrath at his own
escape from death Ziusudu must placate. It is an obvious inference that
conjuring "by the Soul of Heaven" and "by the Soul of Earth" is either
the method by which Ziusudu has already succeeded in appeasing their
anger, or the means by which he is here enjoined to attain that end.
Against the latter alternative it is to be noted that the god is
addressing more than one person; and, further, at Ziusudu is evidently
already pardoned, for, so far from following the deity's advice,
he immediately prostrates himself before Anu and Enlil and receives
immortality. We may conjecture that at the close of the Fifth Column
Ziusudu had already performed the invocation and thereby had appeased
the divine wrath; and that the lines at the beginning of the Sixth
Column point the moral of the story by enjoining on Ziusudu and his
descendants, in other words on mankind, the advisability of employing
this powerful incantation at their need. The speaker may perhaps
have been one of Ziusudu's divine helpers--the Sun-god to whom he had
sacrificed, or Enki who had saved him from the Flood. But it seems to me
more probable that the words are uttered by Anu and Enlil themselves.(1)
For thereby they would be represented as giving their own sanction
to the formula, and as guaranteeing its magical efficacy. That the
incantation, as addressed to Anu and Enlil, would be appropriate is
obvious, since each would be magically approached through his own sphere
of control.
(1) One of them may have been the speaker on behalf of both.
It is significant that at another critical point of the story we have
already met with a reference to conjuring "by the Name of Heaven and
Earth", the phrase occurring at the close of the Third Column after the
reference to the dream or dreams. There, as we saw, we might possibly
explain the passage as illustrating one aspect of Ziusudu's piety:
he may have been represented as continually practising this class of
divination, and in that case it would be natural enough that in the
final crisis of the story he should have propitiated the gods he
conjured by the same means. Or, as a more probable alternative, it was
suggested that we might connect the line with Enki's warning, and assume
that Ziusudu interpreted the dream-revelation of Anu and Enlil's purpose
by means of the magical incantation which was peculiarly associated with
them. On either alternative the phrase fits into the story itself, and
there is no need to suppose that the narrative is interrupted, either
in the Third or in the Sixth Column, by an address to the hearers of the
myth, urging them to make the invocation on their own behalf.
On the other hand, it seems improbable that the lines in question formed
part of the original myth; they may have been inserted to weld the myth
more closely to the magic. Both incantation and epic may have originally
existed independently, and, if so, their combination would have been
suggested by their contents. For while the former is addressed to Anu
and Enlil, in the latter these same gods play the dominant parts: they
are the two chief creators, it is they who send the Flood, and it is
their anger that must be appeased. If once combined, the further step
of making the incantation the actual means by which Ziusudu achieved
his own rescue and immortality would be a natural development. It may be
added that the words would have been an equally appropriate addition if
the incantation had not existed independently, but had been suggested
by, and developed from, the myth.
In the third and eleventh lines of the column we have further references
to the mysterious object, the creation of which appears to have been
recorded in the First Column of the text between man's creation and
that of animals. The second sign of the group composing its name was not
recognized by Dr. Poebel, but it is quite clearly written in two of the
passages, and has been correctly identified by Professor Barton.(1)
The Sumerian word is, in fact, to be read _nig-gil-ma_,(2) which, when
preceded by the determinative for "pot", "jar", or "bowl", is given in
a later syllabary as the equivalent of the Semitic word _mashkhalu_.
Evidence that the word _mashkhalu_ was actually employed to denote a jar
or vessel of some sort is furnished by one of the Tel el-Amarna letters
which refers to "one silver _mashkhalu_" and "one (or two) stone
_mashkhalu_".(3) In our text the determinative is absent, and it is
possible that the word is used in another sense. Professor Barton, in
both passages in the Sixth Column, gives it the meaning "curse"; he
interprets the lines as referring to the removal of a curse from the
earth after the Flood, and he compares Gen. viii. 21, where Yahweh
declares he will not again "curse the ground for man's sake". But this
translation ignores the occurrence of the word in the First Column,
where the creation of the _niggilma_ is apparently recorded; and his
rendering "the seed that was cursed" in l. 11 is not supported by the
photographic reproduction of the text, which suggests that the first
sign in the line is not that for "seed", but is the sign for "name", as
correctly read by Dr. Poebel. In that passage the _niggilma_ appears to
be given by Ziusudu the name "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind", which
we have already compared to the title bestowed on Uta-napishtim's ship,
"Preserver of Life". Like the ship, it must have played an important
part in man's preservation, which would account not only for the
honorific title but for the special record of its creation.
(1) See _American Journal of Semitic Languages_, Vol. XXXI,
April 1915, p. 226.
(2) It is written _nig-gil_ in the First Column.
(3) See Winckler, _El-Amarna_, pl. 35 f., No. 28, Obv., Col.
II, l. 45, Rev., Col. I, l. 63, and Knudtzon, _El-Am. Taf._,
pp. 112, 122; the vessels were presents from Amenophis IV to
Burnaburiash.
It we may connect the word with the magical colouring of the myth, we
might perhaps retain its known meaning, "jar" or "bowl", and regard it
as employed in the magical ceremony which must have formed part of
the invocation "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth". But
the accompanying references to the ground, to its production from the
ground, and to its springing up, if the phrases may be so rendered,
suggest rather some kind of plant;(1) and this, from its employment in
magical rites, may also have given its name to a bowl or vessel which
held it. A very similar plant was that found and lost by Gilgamesh,
after his sojourn with Ut-napishtim; it too had potent magical power and
bore a title descriptive of its peculiar virtue of transforming old age
to youth. Should this suggestion prove to be correct, the three passages
mentioning the _niggilma_ must be classed with those in which the
invocation is referred to, as ensuring the sanction of the myth to
further elements in the magic. In accordance with this view, the fifth
line in the Sixth Column is probably to be included in the divine
speech, where a reference to the object employed in the ritual would not
be out of place. But it is to be hoped that light will be thrown on
this puzzling word by further study, and perhaps by new fragments of
the text; meanwhile it would be hazardous to suggest a more definite
rendering.
(1) The references to "the ground", or "the earth", also
tend to connect it peculiarly with Enlil. Enlil's close
association with the earth, which is, of course,
independently attested, is explicitly referred to in the
Babylonian Version (cf. Gilg. Epic. XI, ll. 39-42).
Suggested reflections of this idea have long been traced in
the Hebrew Versions; cf. Gen. viii. 21 (J), where Yahweh
says he will not again curse the ground, and Gen. ix. 13
(P), where Elohim speaks of his covenant "between me and the
earth".
With the sixth line of the column it is clear that the original
narrative of the myth is resumed.(1) Ziusudu, the king, prostrates
himself before Anu and Enlil, who bestow immortality upon him and cause
him to dwell in a land, or mountain, the name of which may perhaps be
read as Dilmun. The close parallelism between this portion of the text
and the end of the myth in the Gilgamesh Epic will be seen from the
following extracts,(2) the magical portions being omitted from the
Sumerian Version:
(1) It will also be noted that with this line the text again
falls naturally into couplets.
(2) Col. VI, ll. 6-9 and 12 are there compared with Gilg.
Epic, XI, ll. 198-205.