a parallel to Berossus. It has long been recognized that
Pantibiblon, or Pantibiblia, from which the third, fourth, fifth, sixth,
and seventh of his Antediluvian kings all came, was the city of Sippar
in Northern Babylonia. For the seventh of these rulers, {Euedorakhos},
is clearly Enmeduranki, the mythical king of Sippar, who in Babylonian
tradition was regarded as the founder of divination. In a fragmentary
composition that has come down to us he is described, not only as king
of Sippar, but as "beloved of Anu, Enlil, and Enki", the three creating
gods of our text; and it is there recounted how the patron deities of
divination, Shamash and Adad, themselves taught him to practise their
art.(1) Moreover, Berossus directly implies the existence of Sippar
before the Deluge, for in the summary of his version that has been
preserved Xisuthros, under divine instruction, buries the sacred
writings concerning the origin of the world in "Sispara", the city
of the Sun-god, so that after the Deluge they might be dug up and
transmitted to mankind. Ebabbar, the great Sun-temple, was at Sippar,
and it is to the Sun-god that the city is naturally allotted in the new
Sumerian Version.

(1) Cf. Zimmern, _Beitraege zur Kenntniss der Bab. Relig._,
pp. 116 ff.

The last of the five Antediluvian cities in our list is Shuruppak, in
which dwelt Ut-napishtim, the hero of the Babylonian version of the
Deluge. Its site has been identified with the mounds of Fara, in the
neighbourhood of the Shatt el-Kar, the former bed of the Euphrates;
and the excavations that were conducted there in 1902 have been most
productive of remains dating from the prehistoric period of Sumerian
culture.(1) Since our text is concerned mainly with the Deluge, it
is natural to assume that the foundation of the city from which the
Deluge-hero came would be recorded last, in order to lead up to the
central episode of the text. The city of Ziusudu, the hero of the
Sumerian story, is unfortunately not given in the Third Column, but, in
view of Shuruppak's place in the list of Antediluvian cities, it is
not improbable that on this point the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions
agreed. In the Gilgamesh Epic Shuruppak is the only Antediluvian city
referred to, while in the Hebrew accounts no city at all is mentioned in
connexion with Noah. The city of Xisuthros, too, is not recorded, but as
his father came from Larankha or Larak, we may regard that city as his
in the G