History
Tablet XI
The Gilgamesh flood tablet XI was discovered in Nineveh. It contains additional story material besides the flood. The flood story was included because in it, the flood hero Utnapishtim is grantedFlood myth section
Lines 1-203, Tablet XI (note: with ''supplemental sub-titles and line numbers added for clarity'')Ea leaks the secret plan
#Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh a secret story that begins in the old city of Shuruppak on the banks of the Euphrates River. #The "great gods" Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, and Ea were sworn to secrecy about their plan to cause the flood. #But the god Ea (Sumerian god Enki) repeated the plan to Utnapishtim through a reed wall in a reed house. #Ea commanded Utnapishtim to demolish his house and build a boat, regardless of the cost, to keep living beings alive. #The boat must have equal dimensions with corresponding width and length and be covered over like Apsu boats. #Utnapishtim promised to do what Ea commanded. #He asked Ea what he should say to the city elders and the population. #Ea tells him to say that Enlil has rejected him and he can no longer reside in the city or set foot in Enlil's territory. #He should also say that he will go down to the Apsu "to live with my lord Ea".Building and launching the boat
#Carpenters, reed workers, and other people assembled one morning. # issing lines#Five days later, Utnapishtim laid out the exterior walls of the boat of 120The storm
#Early in the morning at dawn a black cloud arose from the horizon. #The weather was frightful. #Utnapishtim boarded the boat and entrusted the boat and its contents to his boat master Puzurammurri who sealed the entry. #The thunder god Adad rumbled in the cloud and storm gods Shullar and Hanish went over mountains and land. #Erragal pulled out the mooring poles and the dikes overflowed. #The Anunnaki gods lit up the land with their lightning. #There was stunned shock at Adad's deeds which turned everything to blackness. The land was shattered like a pot. #All day long the south wind blew rapidly and the water overwhelmed the people like an attack. #No one could see his fellows. They could not recognize each other in the torrent. #The gods were frightened by the flood and retreated up to the Anu heaven. They cowered like dogs lying by the outer wall. #Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth. #The Mistress of the gods wailed that the old days had turned to clay because "I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods, ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people who fill the sea like fish." #The other gods were weeping with her and sat sobbing with grief, their lips burning, parched with thirst. #The flood and wind lasted six days and six nights, flattening the land. #On the seventh day, the storm was pounding ntermittently?like a woman in labour.Calm after the storm
#The sea calmed and the whirlwind and flood stopped. All-day long there was quiet. All humans had turned to clay. #The terrain was as flat as a rooftop. Utnapishtim opened a window and felt fresh air on his face. #He fell to his knees and sat weeping, tears streaming down his face. He looked for coastlines on the horizon and saw a region of land. #The boat lodged firmly on mount Nimush which held the boat for several days, allowing no swaying. #On the seventh day he released a dove that flew away but came back to him. He released a swallow, but it also came back to him. #He released a raven that was able to eat and scratch, and did not circle back to the boat. #He then sent his livestock out in various directions.The sacrifice
#He sacrificed a sheep and offered incense at a mountainous ziggurat where he placed 14 sacrificial vessels and poured reeds, cedar, and myrtle into the fire. #The gods smelled the sweet odour of the sacrificial animal and gathered like flies over the sacrifice. #Then the great goddess arrived, lifted up her flies (beads), and said #"Ye gods, as surely as I shall not forget this lapis lazuli muletaround my neck, I shall be mindful of these days and never forget them! The gods may come to the sacrificial offering. But Enlil may not come, because he brought about the flood and annihilated my people without considering he consequences" #When Enlil arrived, he saw the boat and became furious at the Igigi gods. He said "Where did a living being escape? No man was to survive the annihilation!" #Ninurta spoke to Enlil saying "Who else but Ea could do such a thing? It is Ea who knew all of our plans." #Ea spoke to Enlil saying "It was you, the Sage of the Gods. How could ''you'' bring about a flood without consideration?" #Ea then accuses Enlil of sending a disproportionate punishment and reminds him of the need for compassion. #Ea denies leaking the god's secret plan to Atrahasis (= Utnapishtim), admitting only sending him a dream and deflecting Enlil's attention to the flood hero.The flood hero and his wife are granted immortality and transported far away
#Enlil then boards a boat and grasping Utnapishtim's hand, helps him and his wife aboard where they kneel. Standing between Utnapishtim and his wife, he touches their foreheads and blesses them. "Formerly Utnapishtim was a human being, but now he and his wife have become gods like us. Let Utnapishtim reside far away, at the mouth of the rivers." #Utnapishtim and his wife are transported and settled at the "mouth of the rivers".Last third of Tablet XI-Outline
In addition to the flood story material, (lines 1–203), tablet XI contains the following flood story elements: List of titled subparts, Tablet XI-(by Kovacs): :''The Story of the Flood''–(1-203) :''A Chance at Immortality''–(204-240) :''Home Empty-Handed''–(241-265) :''A Second Chance at Life''–(266-309)Comparison between Atrahasis and Gilgamesh
These are some of the sentences copied more or less directly from the ''Atrahasis'' version to the ''Gilgamesh'' epic:Material altered or omitted
The Epic of Atrahasis provides additional information on the flood and flood hero that is omitted in Gilgamesh XI and other versions of the Ancient Near East flood myth. According to Atrahasis III ii, lines 40–47 the flood hero was at a banquet when the storm and flood began: "He invited his people ... to a banquet ... He sent his family on board. They ate and they drank. But he (Atrahasis) was in and out. He could not sit, could not crouch, for his heart was broken and he was vomiting gall." According to Tigay, Atrahasis tablet III iv, lines 6–9 clearly identify the flood as a local river flood: "Like dragonflies they ead bodieshave filled the river. Like a raft they have moved in to the edge f the boat Like a raft they have moved in to the riverbank." The sentence "Like dragonflies they have filled the river." was changed in Gilgamesh XI line 123 to "Like the spawn of fishes, they fill the sea." Tigay holds that we can see the mythmaker's hand at work here, changing a local river flood into an ocean deluge. Most other authorities interpret the Atrahasis flood as universal. A. R. George, and Lambert and Millard make it clear that the gods' intention in Atrahasis is to "wipe out mankind". The flood destroys "all of the earth". The use of a comparable metaphor in the Gilgamesh epic suggests that the reference to "dragonflies illingthe river" is simply an evocative image of death rather than a literal description of the flood Other editorial changes were made to the Atrahasis text in Gilgamesh to lessen the suggestion that the gods may have experienced human needs. For example, Atrahasis OB III, 30–31 "The Anunnaki, the great gods ere sittng in thirst and hunger" was changed in Gilgamesh XI, line 113 to "The gods feared the deluge." Sentences in Atrahasis III iv were omitted in Gilgamesh, e.g. "She was surfeited with grief and thirsted for beer" and "From hunger they were suffering cramp." These and other editorial changes to Atrahasis are documented and described in the book by Prof. Tigay (see below) who is associate professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages and literature in the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Tigay comments: "The dropping of individual lines between others which are preserved, but are not synonymous with them, appears to be a more deliberate editorial act. These lines share a common theme, the hunger and thirst of the gods during the flood." Although the 18th century BC copy of the Atrahasis (Atra-Hasis) epic post-dates the early Gilgamesh epic, we do not know whether the Old-Akkadian Gilgamesh tablets included the flood story, because of the fragmentary nature of surviving tablets. Some scholars argue that they did not. Tigay, for example, maintains that three major additions to the Gilgamesh epic, namely the prologue, the flood story (tablet XI), and tablet XII, were added by an editor or editors, possibly by Sin-leqi-unninni, to whom the entire epic was later attributed. According to this view, the flood story in tablet XI was based on a late version of the Atrahasis story.Alternative translations
As with most translations, especially from an ancient, dead language, scholars differ on the meaning of ambiguous sentences. For example, line 57 in Gilgamesh XI is usually translated (with reference to the boat) "ten rods the height of her sides", or "its walls were each 10 times 12 cubits in height". A rod was a dozen cubits, and a Sumerian cubit was about 20 inches. Hence these translations imply that the boat was about 200 feet high, which would be impractical with the technology in Gilgamesh's time (about 2700 BC). There is no Akkadian word for "height" in line 57. The sentence literally reads "Ten dozen-cubits each I-raised its-walls." A similar example from an unrelated house building tablet reads: "he shall build the wall f the houseand raise it four ninda and two cubits." This measurement (about 83 feet) means wall length not height. Line 142 in Gilgamesh XI is usually translated "Mount Niṣir held the boat, allowing no motion." Niṣir is often spelled ''Nimush'', which is described as the newer reading. The Akkadian words translated "Mount Niṣir" are "KUR-ú KUR ni-ṣir". The word KUR could mean hill or country; it is capitalized because it is a Sumerian word. The first KUR is followed by a phonetic complement ''-ú'' which indicates that KUR-ú is to be read in Akkadian as ''šadú'' (hill) and not as ''mātu'' (country). Since ''šadú'' (hill) could also mean ''mountain'' in Akkadian, and scholars knew the Biblical expression ''Mount Ararat'', it has become customary to translate ''šadú'' as ''mountain'' or ''mount''. The flood hero was Sumerian, according to the WB-62 Sumerian King List,. In Sumerian the word KUR's primary meaning is "mountain" as attested by the sign used for it. From the word mountain, the meaning "foreign country" is developed due to mountainous countries bordering Sumer. KUR in Sumerian also means "land" in general. The second KUR lacks a phonetic complement and is therefore read in Akkadian as ''mātu'' (country). Hence, the entire clause reads "The hill/mound country niṣir held the boat". Lines 146-147 in Gilgamesh XI are usually translated "I ... made sacrifice, incense I placed on the peak of the mountain." Similarly "I poured out a libation on the peak of the mountain." But Kovacs provides this translation of line 156: "I offered incense in front of the mountain-ziggurat." Parpola provides the original Akkadian for this sentence: "áš-kun sur-qin-nu ina UGU ziq-qur-rat KUR-i" Áš-kun means I-placed; sur-qin-nu means offering; ina-(the preposition) means on-(upon); UGU means top-of; ziq-qur-rat means temple tower; and KUR-i means hilly. Parpola's glossary (page 145) defines ziq-qur-rat as "temple tower, ziggurat" and refers to line 157 so he translates ziq-qur-rat as temple tower in this context. The sentence literally reads "I placed an offering on top of a hilly ziggurat." A ziggurat was an elevated platform or temple tower where priests made offerings to the temple god. Most translators of line 157 disregard ziq-qur-rat as a redundant metaphor for peak. There is no authority for this other than previous translations of line 157. Kovacs' translation retains the word ziggurat on page 102. One of the Sumerian cities with a ziggurat was Eridu located on the southern branch of the Euphrates River next to a large swampy low-lying depression known as theSee also
*References
Bibliography
* * W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, ''Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood'', Eisenbrauns, 1999, . * * Glossary, Appendices, Appendix (Chapter XII=Tablet XII). A line-by-line translation (Chapters I-XI). * (Volume 1) in the original Akkadian cuneiform and transliteration. Commentary and glossary are in English * * *External links
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