urging them to make the invocation on their own behalf.

On the other hand, it seems improbable that the lines in question formed
part of the original myth; they may have been inserted to weld the myth
more closely to the magic. Both incantation and epic may have originally
existed independently, and, if so, their combination would have been
suggested by their contents. For while the former is addressed to Anu
and Enlil, in the latter these same gods play the dominant parts: they
are the two chief creators, it is they who send the Flood, and it is
their anger that must be appeased. If once combined, the further step
of making the incantation the actual means by which Ziusudu achieved
his own rescue and immortality would be a natural development. It may be
added that the words would have been an equally appropriate addition if
the incantation had not existed independently, but had been suggested
by, and developed from, the myth.

In the third and eleventh lines of the column we have further references
to the mysterious object, the creation of which appears to have been
recorded in the First Column of the text between man's creation and
that of animals. The second sign of the group composing its name was not
recognized by Dr. Poebel, but it is quite clearly written in two of the
passages, and has been correctly identified by Professor Barton.(1)
The Sumerian word is, in fact, to be read _nig-gil-ma_,(2) which, when
preceded by the determinative for "pot", "jar", or "bowl", is given in
a later syllabary as the equivalent of the Semitic word _mashkhalu_.
Evidence that the word _mashkhalu_ was actually employed to denote a jar
or vessel of some sort is furnished by one of the Tel el-Amarna letters
which refers to "one silver _mashkhalu_" and "one (or two) stone
_mashkhalu_".(3) In our text the determinative is absent, and it is
possible that the word is used in another sense. Professor Barton, in
both passages in the Sixth Column, gives it the meaning "curse"; he
interprets the lines as referring to the removal of a curse from the
earth after the Flood, and he compares Gen. viii. 21, where Yahweh
declares he will not again "curse the ground for man's sake". But this
translation ignores the occurrence of the word in the First Column,
where the creation of the _niggilma_ is apparently recorded; and his
rendering "the seed that was cursed" in l. 11 is not supported by the
photographic reproduction of the text, which suggests th