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IV. Four Assyriological Notes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

1. The Identification of the Name D-Tagtug Sumero-Babylonian myths and legends were rich in tales of prehistoric rulers, heroes who became the subjects of epics, poems, and cults. Consecutive and intensive study of Cuneiform inscriptions has revealed a vast structure of ancient Sumerian hero-worship upon which was erected their extensive theological and ethical literature. Of the kings of the first legendary dynasty at Kish; Etana, a one-time shepherd, became the hero of a fine poem, preserved only in Semitic, known as The Legend of Etana, him who essayed to mount to heaven on the wings of an eagle in quest of the “plant of child- bearing”. Dumuzi, the hunter, king in a legendary dynasty of Erech, was deified and became the dying god of Sumerian religion. Gilgamish, a king of the same dynasty, became the national hero of Sumer and Akkad, about whom arose endless stories of the chase and the epic of “He that hath seen all things”, or the so-called Epic of Gilgamish. Ziudsuddu, last of the ten legendary kings before the flood, became the famous survivor of the Flood in both Sumerian and Accadian poems of the Deluge. About Adapa, a seafaring sage of Eridu, was told one of the versions of the fall of man.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1919

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References

page 38 note 1 The Sumerian Epic of Paradise, the Flood, and the fall of Man, Philadelphia, 1915. French edition and revised text in press.Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 See the Expository Times, 02, 1918, pp. 218–21.Google Scholar

page 38 note 3 The discovery was communicated to me privately in July, 1918, by Pere Scheil.

page 39 note 1 Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, vol. xii, pi. 24a, 65.Google Scholar

page 40 note 1 Rm. 2, 588, rev. col. ii, last section, published by Meissner, Supplement zu deu Assyrischen Wörterbüchern, pl. 25. A much better copy of this important section is given by Meek, T. J., American Journal of Semitic Languages, vol. xxxi, 287.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 The same title is applied to Enlil and explained by ša purussi, C.T. 24, 39, 5.