The History of the Ancient Civilizations. Duncker Max

antiquity ascribed by the Babylonian priests to the existence of the world before and after the flood.

Accounts of the great flood are also to be seen on tablets, copied from old Babylonian originals, which have been discovered in the ruins of the palace of Assurbanipal, king of Assyria. Disregarding the strange beginning, and still stranger close, we find on these tablets that the god Hea had commanded Sisit (Xisuthrus) of Surippak to build a ship, so many cubits in length, breadth, and height, and to launch it on the deep, for it was his intention to destroy sinners. "When the flood comes, which I will send, thou shalt enter into the ship, and into the midst of it thou shalt bring thy corn, thy goods, thy gods, thy gold and silver, thy slaves male and female, the sons of the army, the wild and tame animals, and all that thou hearest thou shalt do." Sisit found it difficult to carry out this command, but at last he yielded, and gathered together all his possessions of silver and gold, all that he had of the seeds of life, and caused all his slaves, male and female, to go into the ship. The wild and tame beasts of the field also he caused to enter, and all the sons of the army. "And Samas (the god of the sun) made a flood, and said: I will cause rain to fall heavily from heaven; go into the ship, and shut to the door. Overcome with fear, Sisit entered into the ship, and on the morning of the day fixed by Samas the storm began to blow from the ends of heaven, and Bin thundered in the midst of heaven, and Nebo came forth, and over the mountains and plains came the gods, and Nergal, the destroyer, overthrew, and Adar came forth and dashed down: the gods made ruin; in their brightness they swept over the earth. The storm went over the nations; the flood of Bin reached up to heaven; brother did not see brother; the lightsome earth became a desert, and the flood destroyed all living things from the face of the earth. Even the gods were afraid of the storm, and sought refuge in the heaven of Anu; like hounds drawing in their tails, the gods seated themselves on their thrones, and Istar the great goddess spake. The world has turned to sin, and therefore I have proclaimed destruction, but I have begotten men, and now they fill the sea, like the children of fishes. And the gods upon their seats wept with her. On the seventh day the storm abated, which had destroyed like an earthquake, and the sea began to be dry. Sisit perceived the movement of the sea. Like reeds floated the corpses of the evil-doers and all who had turned to sin. Then Sisit opened the window, and the light fell upon his face, and the ship was stayed upon Mount Nizir, and could not pass over it. Then on the seventh day Sisit sent forth a dove, but she found no place of rest, and returned. Then he sent a swallow, which also returned, and again a raven, which saw the corpses in the water, and ate them, and returned no more. Then Sisit released the beasts to the four winds of heaven, and poured a libation and built an altar on the top of the mountain, and cut seven herbs, and the sweet savour of the sacrifice caused the gods to assemble, and Sisit prayed that Bel (El) might not come to the altar. For Bel (El) had made the storm and sunk the people in the deep, and wished in his anger to destroy the ship and allow no man to escape. Adar opened his mouth and spoke to the warrior Bel (El): Who would then be left? And Hea spoke to him: Captain of the gods, instead of the storm, let lions and leopards increase, and diminish mankind; let famine and pestilence desolate the land and destroy mankind. When the sentence of the gods was passed, Bel (El) came into the midst of the ship and took Sisit by the hand and conducted him forth, and caused his wife to be brought to his side, and purified the earth, and made a covenant, and Sisit and his wife and his people were carried away like gods, and Sisit dwelt in a distant land at the mouth of the rivers."[322]

The correspondence to the Hebrew tradition of the flood, the coincidence of certain points, and striking contrast of others, both in the narrative of Berosus and in this account of the great flood, need not be pointed out. In number, at any rate, the ten kings whom Berosus places before the flood correspond to the ten patriarchs from Adam to Noah.[323] In Berosus the boat of Xisuthrus lands in Armenia on the mountains of the Gordyæans; Noah's ark landed on the mountains of the land of Ararat. Like Sisit, Xisuthrus builds an altar and offers sacrifice; when he has left the boat he disappears, and bids his followers return to Chaldæa. They obey, and rebuild Babylon. Noah, after leaving the ark, builds an altar to the Lord and offers burnt sacrifice, and concludes the new covenant with Jehovah. Then Noah became a husbandman, and lived for three hundred and fifty years after the flood; but when the generations of his sons "journeyed from the East, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, i.e. in Babylonia, and there they dwelt and built the city called Babylon."[324] It is clear that these legends formed an ancient common possession of the Semitic tribes of the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris. In the Scriptures of the Hebrews we find this in a purified and deepened form. The reason for the legend of the flood is found in the nature of the land of Babylon. As has been remarked, it is inundated yearly; it is also occasionally desolated by fierce floods, which change the whole of the lower land as far as the sea into a broad sheet of water. Similar legends are found in all regions exposed to floods, in Armenia, Thessaly, Bœotia, and in India.

Let us now attempt to ascertain what may be gained historically from the fragments of Berosus. The seven Fish-men rise out of the sea of Babylonia, i.e., out of the Persian Gulf. They teach language, agriculture, the building of temples and cities, and writing; and what the first gave in general terms the others expound in detail. Hence it would appear that civilisation, culture, and writing came to the Chaldæans from the south, from the shore of the Persian Gulf. The sevenfold revelation points to the seven sacred books of the priesthood, of which the last six explained by special rules the doctrine contained in the first. The fragments lay especial weight on the fact that the sacred books were already in existence before the flood, were saved from it, and again dug up at Sippara. Pliny remarks that the mysteries of the Chaldæans were taught at Sippara.[325] Beside this city (the site is marked by the mounds at Sifeira, above Babylon, on the Euphrates) the fragments mention Larancha and Babylon. The first two kings before the flood were Chaldæans of Babylon, the next five, Chaldæans of Sippara, the last three, Chaldæans of Larancha. If we set aside the time before the flood, we find that the first dynasty of eighty-six kings after the flood reigned for 34,080 years; more than 5,000 years are allotted to the first two kings; and about 29,000 are left for the remaining eighty-four. Looking at these numbers, and remembering that the Babylonians reckoned by certain cycles of years, sosses of 60 years, neres of 600, and sares of 3,600, we may suppose that the priests brought the times before and after the flood into a certain number of sares. The 432,000 years before the flood make up 120 sares (the 720,000 years of Pliny would make 200 sares). The period after the flood may have been fixed at a tenth part of that sum, i.e., at 12 sares, or 43,200 years. The 34,080 years allotted to the first dynasty after the flood do not come out in any round number of sares. If we suppose that these cycles were first instituted after Babylon had succumbed to the attack of Cyrus, and that the fall of Babylon before his arms coincided with the end of the tenth sarus after the flood, then of the 36,000 years, which, according to the opinion we ascribe to the Babylonian priests, had elapsed from the flood to the conquest of Babylon in the year 538 B.C., 34,080 belong to the mythical dynasty after the flood, and 1,920 years are left for the historical times down to this date. The taking of Babylon is a known date, and if to it we add 1,920 years, we get the year 2458 B.C. as the first year of the historical period. The first ruler of the third dynasty of Berosus began to reign in the year 2458 B.C.[326] The same result and number of years comes out if we add up the separate items in the dynasties, given in the fragments, from the year 538 B.C. to the first king of the third dynasty, and leave out of sight the very striking fact that the fragments break off the Assyrian dynasty before Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Samuges, who certainly belong to it, and fill up the chasm thus made in the succession of dynasties by the 140 years which the canon of Ptolemy show to have preceded the accession of Nebuchadnezzar—a canon which has no historical object in view, no dynasties to tabulate, but is merely intended to fix the years from which observations made by the Chaldæans were in existence. If this is the right method[327] of ascertaining the first established starting-point for the history of the lower land upon the two streams, the beginnings of civilisation in these