reek Version. Besides Larankha, the only Antediluvian cities
according to Berossus were Babylon and Sippar, and the influence of
Babylonian theology, of which we here have evidence, would be sufficient
to account for a disturbance of the original traditions. At the same
time it is not excluded that Larak was also the scene of the Deluge in
our text, though, as we have noted, the position of Shuruppak at the
close of the Sumerian list points to it as the more probable of the two.
It may be added that we cannot yet read the name of the deity to whom
Shuruppak was allotted, but as it is expressed by the city's name
preceded by the divine determinative, the rendering "the God of
Shuruppak" will meanwhile serve.

(1) See _Hist. of Sum. and Akk._, pp. 24 ff.

The creation of small rivers and pools, which seems to have followed
the foundation of the five sacred cities, is best explained on the
assumption that they were intended for the supply of water to the
cities and to the temples of their five patron gods. The creation of
the Euphrates and the Tigris, if recorded in our text at all, or in its
logical order, must have occurred in the upper portion of the column.
The fact that in the later Sumerian account their creation is related
between that of mankind and the building of Nippur and Erech cannot be
cited in support of this suggestion, in view of the absence of those
cities from our text and of the process of editing to which the later
version has been subjected, with a consequent disarrangement of its
episodes.

III. THE COUNCIL OF THE GODS, AND ZIUSUDU'S PIETY

From the lower part of the Third Column, where its text is first
preserved, it is clear that the gods had already decided to send a
Deluge, for the goddess Nintu or Ninkharsagga, here referred to also
as "the holy Innanna", wails aloud for the intended destruction of "her
people". That this decision has been decreed by the gods in council is
clear from a passage in the Fourth Column, where it is stated that the
sending of a flood to destroy mankind was "the word of the assembly (of
the gods)". The first lines preserved in the present column describe the
effect of the decision on the various gods concerned and their action at
the close of the council.

In the lines which described the Council of the Gods, broken references
to "the people" and "a flood" are preserved, after which the text
continues:

At that time Nintu (. . .) like a (. . .),