Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/179

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Chapter X.

FRAGMENTS OF MISCELLANEOUS TEXTS.

Atarpi.—Sin of the world.—Mother and daughter quarrel.—Zamu.—Punishment of world.—Hea.—Calls his sons.—Orders drought.—Famine.—Building.—Nusku.—Riddle of wise man.—Nature and universal presence of air.—Gods.—Sinuri.—Divining by fracture of reed.—Incantation.—Dream.—Tower of Babel.—Obscurity of legend.—Not noticed by Berosus.—Fragmentary tablet.—Destruction of Tower.—Dispersion.—Locality Babylon.—Birs Nimrud.—Babil.—Assyrian representations.

HAVE included in this chapter a number of stories of a similar character to those of Genesis, but which are not directly connected, and a fragment relating to the tower of Babel. The first and principal text is the story of Atarpi, or Atarpi-nisi. This story is on a tablet in six columns, and there is only one copy. It is very mutilated, very little being preserved except Column III., and there are numerous repetitions throughout the text. The inscription has originally been a long one, probably extending to about 400 lines of writing, the text differs