280 BARTON— ACCOUNT OF CREATION OF MAN. 



men multiplied. This secure life led to dominion on the part of 

 man, and to settled marriage. 



The text discovered by Dr. Langdon described, according to 

 my understanding of it, the beginnings of irrigation, agriculture, 

 and the knowledge of medicinal plants ; the new text has to do with 

 the origin of man, the beginnings of agriculture, of city life, and 

 of settled marriage. 



Some of the statements in this text remind us, sometimes by 

 their form, sometimes by their substance, of passages in the early 

 chapters of Genesis. Thus : " The lord caused them to be and they 

 came into existence " recalls Gen. 1:3:" And God said. Let there be 

 light and there was light." The statement : " He brought to the 

 hand of man the scepter of command," reminds the reader of the 

 way in Gen. i : 28 God is said to have given man dominion over all 

 other forms of animate life. " Companions calling them, a man 

 with his wife he made them dwell," brings to mind the statement of 

 Gen. 2 : 18 that it is not good for man to be alone, and of Gen. 2 : 24: 

 " Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall 

 cleave unto his wife." The last line of the new tablet: "At night 

 as fitting companions they are together" is the Babylonian equiva- 

 lent of the last clause of Gen. 2:24: "And they shall be one flesh." 



The text will be published with full grammatical commentary in 



a volume that the writer is preparing for the University Museum. 



which will be entitled " Miscellaneous Religious Texts." 



Bryn Mawr, Pa., 

 April, 1917. 



