er council is held, and
perfect men created. Then follows a remarkable series of stories
relating to the early history and migrations of men.

It is known that similar creation myths existed among the Mexicans
and other early civilized nations of America, and in ruder and more
grotesque forms even among the semi-barbarous and hunter tribes. Their
connection with the ancient Semitic and Turanian revelations of Asia
is unquestionable.

We have thus in the Assyrian Genesis a relic of early religious belief
belonging to a period when such widely separated stocks as the
Assyrian and American were still one: to a period, therefore,
presumably long anterior to that of Moses. Yet at this very early
period the central portions at least of the Turanian race had already
devised some means of recording their traditions in writing--probably
the arrow-head writing, afterwards used by the Assyrians, had already
been invented. Again, at this early period a complex polytheism had
already sprung up, and this was connected with cosmological ideas,
inasmuch as the primitive abyss, the firmament, the starry heavens,
the principle of life, were all subordinate gods; and so were also
some of the earliest of the patriarchs of the human race. It is
possible, however, that this was among the early Chaldeans an exoteric
representation for the vulgar, and that the priestly caste may have
understood it in a monotheistic sense. In any case, the idea of a
Supreme Creator remains behind the whole. Farther, in the early
Chaldean record we have a more detailed and expanded document than
that of the Hebrew Genesis, probably intended for the popular ear, and
to include as much as possible of the current mythology. As an
example, I quote the following in relation to the creation of the
moon, being apparently a part of the narrative of that creative period
corresponding with the fourth day of Genesis:

"In its mass [that is, of the lower chaos] he made a boiling,
The God Uru [the moon] he caused to rise out, the night he
overshadowed.
To fix it also for the light of the night until the shining of
the day,
That the month might not be broken and in its amount be regular.
At the beginning of the month at the rising of the night,
His horns are breaking through to shine in the heavens.
On the seventh day to a circle he begins to swell,
And stretches toward the dawn farther."

We now come to the historical connection of all this w