Babylonian Story of the Deluge | Page 5

land.
2. Colophon of the Tablets of the Library of Nebo. (RM. 132.)
1. To Nebo, beneficent son, director of the hosts of heaven and of earth,
2. holder of the tablet of knowledge, he who hath grasped the writing
reed of destinies, 3. lengthener of days, vivifier of the dead, stablisher
of light for the men who are perplexed, 4. [from] the great lord, the
noble Ashur-bani-pal, the lord, the approved of the gods Ashur, Bêl and
Nebo, 5. the shepherd, the maintainer of the holy places of the great
gods, stablisher of their revenues, 6. son of Esarhaddon, king of hosts,
king of Assyria, 7. grandson of Sennacherib, king of hosts, king of
Assyria, 8. for the life of his souls, length of his days, [and] well-being
of his posterity, 9. to make permanent the foundation of his royal
throne, to hear his supplications, 10. to receive his petitions, to deliver
into his hands the rebellious. 11. The wisdom of Ea, the precious
priesthood, the leadership, 12. what is composed for the contentment of
the heart of the great gods, 13. I wrote upon tablets, I collated, I revised
14. literally according to all the tablets of the lands of Ashur and Akkad,
15. and I placed in the Library of E-Zida, the temple of Nebo my lord,
which is in Nineveh. 16. O Nebo, lord of the hosts of heaven and of
earth, look upon that Library joyfully for years (i.e., for ever). 17. Of
Ashur-bani-pal, the chief, the worshipper of thy divinity, daily the
reward of the offering-- 18. his life decree, so that he may exalt thy
great godhead.
The tablets from both Libraries when unbroken vary in size from 15
inches by 8 5/8 inches to 1 inch by 7/8 inch, and they are usually about
1 inch thick. In shape they are rectangular, the obverse being flat and
tile reverse slightly convex. Contract tablets, letter tablets and "case"
tablets are very much smaller, and resemble small pillows in shape.
The principal subjects dealt with in the tablets are history, annalistic or

summaries, letters, despatches, reports, oracles, prayers, contracts,
deeds of sale of land, produce, cattle, slaves, agreements, dowries,
bonds for interest (with impressions of seals, and fingernails, or nail
marks), chronography, chronology, Canons of Eponyms, astrology
(forecasts, omens, divinations, charms, spells, incantations), mythology,
legends, grammar, law, geography, etc. [5]
George Smith's Discovery of the Epic of Gilgamish and the Story of the
Deluge.
The mass of tablets which had been discovered by Layard and Rassam
at Nineveh came to the British Museum in 1854-5, and their
examination by Rawlinson and Norris began very soon after. Mr.
Bowler, a skilful draughtsman and copyist of tablets, whom Rawlinson
employed in making transfers of copies of cuneiform texts for
publication by lithography, rejoined a considerable number of
fragments of bilingual lists, syllabaries, etc., which were published in
the second volume of the Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, in
1866. In that year the Trustees of the British Museum employed
George Smith to assist Rawlinson in sorting, classifying and rejoining
fragments, and a comprehensive examination of the collection by him
began. His personal interest in Assyriology was centred upon historical
texts, especially those which threw any light on the Bible Narrative.
But in the course of his search for stories of the campaigns of Sargon II,
Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashur-bani-pal, he discovered among
other important documents (1) a series of portions of tablets which give
the adventures of Gilgamish, an ancient king of Erech; (2) An account
of the Deluge, which is supplied by the Eleventh Tablet of the Legend
of Gilgamish (in more than one version); (3) A detailed description of
the Creation; (4) the Legend of the Descent of Ishtar into Hades in
quest of Tammuz. The general meaning of the texts was quite clear, but
there were many gaps in them, and it was not until December, 1872,
that George Smith published his description of the Legend of
Gilgamish, and a translation of the "Chaldean Account of the Deluge."
The interest which his paper evoked was universal, and the proprietors
of the "Daily Telegraph" advocated that Smith should be at once
dispatched to Nineveh to search for the missing fragments of tablets
which would fill up the gaps in his texts, and generously offered to
contribute 1,000 guineas towards the cost of the excavations. The

Trustees accepted the offer and gave six months' leave of absence to
Smith, who left London in January, and arrived in Môsul in March,
1873. In the following May he recovered from Kuyûnjik a fragment
that contained "the greater portion of seventeen lines of inscription
belonging to the first column of the Chaldean account of the Deluge,
and fitting into the only place where there was a serious blank in the