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The Sign of the Flood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2014

A. R. Millard
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Extract

The Babylonian Flood Story contains a conundrum which has stimulated various solutions, none of them convincing. Recent advances in lexicography seem to dismiss them, but an entirely unrelated observation suggests a way to interpret the texts in keeping with Babylonian beliefs and practices.

After Ea had told Ut-napishtim how to prepare for his escape from the Flood, he gave him an explanation of his strange conduct for his fellow citizens. The gods had taken a dislike to Ut-napishtim, so he would go to dwell with his patron Ea in his home, the Apsu. Thereupon Ea would act, apparently to benefit the people, in fact, to indicate that the catastrophe was about to break. The manner and significance of Ea's action as described in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI, has long puzzled Assyriologists.

Type
Research Article
Information
IRAQ , Volume 49 , 1987 , pp. 63 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © The British Institute for the Study of Iraq 1987

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References

1 The composite text is most conveniently available in Borger, R., Babylonisch-Assyrische Lesestücke, 2nd ed., Rome (1979), pp. 105 ffGoogle Scholar.

2 Pritchard, J. B., ed. Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Testament, Princeton (1950), p. 93, 2nd ed. (1955), p. 93 f.Google Scholar; compare Heidel, Alexander, The Gilgamtsh Epic and Old Testament Parallels, Chicago, 2nd ed. (1949), pp. 81 ff.Google Scholar; Wilson, J. V. Kinnier in Thomas, D. Winton, ed., Documents from Old Testament Times, London (1958), pp. 21, 25 Google Scholar.

3 Dos Gilgamesch-Epos, Reclam, Leipzig (1934), pp. 66, 68 Google Scholar.

4 Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 36, p. 218 Google Scholar.

5 Die Religion der Babylonier und Assyrer, Jena (1921), p. 103 Google Scholar.

6 GIG: kib-tum, GIG.BA: ki-ba-a-tum, Nabnītu IV. 122 f.Google Scholar, also XXI. 135 f., see now Finkel, I., “The Series SIG,.ALAN: Nabnīlu , Materialen zum Sumerischen Lexikon XVI, Rome (1982), pp. 81, 195 Google Scholar.

7 The passage Frank used has been edited by Oppenheim, A. L., The interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East, Philadelphia (1956), p. 317, rev.i. y + 6, translated on p. 272Google Scholar.

8 Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 50 (1955), col. 516Google Scholar.

9 Das Gilgamesch Epos, Reclam 06, Stuttgart, pp. 87 ffGoogle Scholar.

10 Babylonisch-Assyrische Lesestücke, s.v.

11 Les religions du Proche-Orient asiatique, Paris (1970), p. 213 Google Scholar.

12 Lambert, W. G., Millard, A. R., Atra-hasis. The Babylonian Story of the Flood, Oxford (1969), pp. 88–91 Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., p. 159, and most recently, von Soden, W., Akkadisches Handwörterbuch Lief. 16 (1981), p. 1583b Google Scholar “puzru jb pu-zu-ur ~ aB b/pu-du?-ri nūnī Gilg. XI 44 ~ Atr. 88.35 unkl.” Note also that von Soden reads ba-a-aṣ in line 37, “the sand”, i.e. flowing through the timepiece, ibid., p. 1547b.

14 Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 111, p. 32 Google Scholar.

15 Journal of the Royal Asialic Society 1925, pp. 718–20Google Scholar.

16 Oxford (1930), p. 87.

17 London (1949), p. 99.

18 Virolleaud, C., L'astrologie chaldéenne, Paris (1907–1909), Adad 12.8–15Google Scholar. Line 12 is related to another omen text, Textes Cunéiformes du Louvre 6, Thureau-Dangin, F., Tablettes d'Uruk, Paris (1922) no. 10.6Google Scholar, “if it rains cardamon seeds instead of rain”.

18 C. Virolleaud, op. cit., Adad 35.47.

20 Cuneiform Texts … in the British Museum 38, Gadd, C. J., ed., London (1925), no. 8.37,38,39Google Scholar.

21 For other examples see Tigay, J. H., The Evolution of the Gilgamesh Epic, Philadelphia (1982), pp. 222 fGoogle Scholar.

22 So Schott, followed by von Soden, also Tigay, p. 231.

23 For the examples given, and others, see Halford, I., The Guinness Book of Weather Facts and Feats, Enfield (1977)Google Scholar; for Iraq see Iraq and the Persian Gulf, Geographical Handbook, Naval Intelligence Division, London (1944), p. 179 Google Scholar. I am indebted to Dr. Humphrey Greenwood of the British Museum, Natural History, for help with this material.

24 Information given by Adnan al-Weiss, who remembered the incident from about 1965.

25 Edited by Hunger, H., Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 66 (1976), pp. 234–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.