THE LATEST DISCOVERIES IN BABYLONIA. 



173* 



III. — Early Kings. 



From the colour of the clay, the shape, and the script,. 

 Dr. Poebel thinks that another tablet from the same place,, 

 Niffer, belongs to the series. This portion, however, is inscribed 

 with a list of kings — in fact, there seem to have been three tablets,, 

 each measuring about 5^ by 7 inches, upon which some primitive 

 Babylonian historian had written an outline of the world's, 

 history, as he understood it. The first tablet probably contained 

 an account of the Babylonian theogony, including tlie conflict 

 between the gods — the younger and more advanced generation 

 — and " the deity of Primeval Chaos," typified by Tiawath, the 

 sea, and " ultimately resulted in the creation of heaven and 

 earth out of the two parts of Chaos." If this be correct, the 

 story agrees with the account in the fight between Bel and the 

 Dragon.* It would be at this point that the tablet just 

 described comes in, with the history of the world down to the 

 time of the Flood. 



For those who prefer something of a less speculative character 

 than the Creation and Flood-legends, however, the third 

 tablet is of greater importance. This portion, when complete, 

 gave a history of the world from the time of the Flood to the 

 reign of the king under whom the tablet was written. The 

 reverse — about an eighth of the whole text — was published in 

 1906 by Prof. Hilprecht, and gives two of the last dynasties on 

 the list. Dr. Poebel, however, has succeeded in copying the 

 much-effaced obverse, which contains the names of the kings 

 immediately after the Flood, and he states that he has also 

 found " larger and smaller fragments of three other and older 

 lists of kings." All Assyriologists and specialists in Semitic 

 history will await this additional material with eagerness. Not 

 only are the names of the kings given, with the lengths of their 

 reigns, but also in some few cases there are historical details. 

 As might be expected, the list takes us back into the true 

 legendary period, for we find there Gilgames, the traveller-king 

 of Erech ; Dumu-zi(da) or Tammuz, the luckless spouse of the 

 goddess Istar ; Etanna, who, clinging to the body of an eagle, 

 made a daring ascent to heaven, etc. Etanna is said to have 

 reigned 625 years — short when compared with the thousands of 

 years that his predecessors ruled, but a wonderfully long period 



Otherwise Merodach and Tiawatli, the Dragon of the Sea or waste 

 of waters, to whom the Babylonians attributed the creation of the 

 earliest living things. 



