l water-god and originally Nut's male
counterpart, is paralleled by the _puhur ilani_, or
"assembly of the gods", in the Babylonian Version (see Gilg.
Epic. XI. l. 120 f., and cf. ll. 10 ff.); and they meet in
"the Great House", or Sun-temple at Heliopolis, as the
Babylonian gods deliberate in Shuruppak. Egyptian,
Babylonian, and Hebrew narratives all agree in the divine
determination to destroy mankind and in man's ultimate
survival. But the close of the Egyptian story diverges into
another sphere. The slaughter of men by the Eye of Ra in the
form of the goddess Hathor, who during the night wades in
their blood, is suggestive of Africa; and so too is her
drinking of men's blood mixed with the narcotic mandrake and
with seven thousand vessels of beer, with the result that
through drunkenness she ceased from slaughter. The latter
part of the narrative is directly connected with the cult-
ritual and beer-drinking at the Festivals of Hathor and Ra;
but the destruction of men by slaughter in place of drowning
appears to belong to the original myth. Indeed, the only
suggestion of a Deluge story is suggested by the presence of
Nu, the primaeval water-god, at Ra's council, and that is
explicable on other grounds. In any case the points of
resemblance presented by the earlier part of the Egyptian
myth to Semitic Deluge stories are general, not detailed;
and though they may possibly be due to reflection from Asia,
they are not such as to suggest an Egyptian origin for
Deluge myths.

The tablet on which our new version of the Deluge is inscribed was
excavated at Nippur during the third Babylonian expedition sent out by
the University of Pennsylvania; but it was not until the summer of 1912
that its contents were identified, when the several fragments of which
it was composed were assembled and put together. It is a large document,
containing six columns of writing, three on each side; but unfortunately
only the lower half has been recovered, so that considerable gaps occur
in the text.(1) The sharp edges of the broken surface, however, suggest
that it was damaged after removal from the soil, and the possibility
remains that some of the missing fragments may yet be recovered either
at Pennsylvania or in the Museum at Constantinople. As it is not dated,
its age must be determined mainly by the characte