shared with his wife, his daughter, and
the steersman. The Gilgamesh Epic perhaps implies that Ut-napishtim's
wife shared in his immortality, but the Sumerian Version mentions
Ziusudu alone. In the Gilgamesh Epic Ut-napishtim is settled by the gods
at the mouth of the rivers, that is to say at the head of the Persian
Gulf, while according to a possible rendering of the Sumerian Version he
is made to dwell on Dilmun, an island in the Gulf itself. The fact that
Gilgamesh in the Epic has to cross the sea to reach Ut-napishtim may be
cited in favour of the reading "Dilmun"; and the description of the sea
as "the Waters of Death", if it implies more than the great danger
of their passage, was probably a later development associated with
Ut-napishtim's immortality. It may be added that in neither Hebrew
version do we find any parallel to the concluding details of the
original story, the Hebrew narratives being brought to an end with the
blessing of Noah and the divine promise to, or covenant with, mankind.

Such then are the contents of our Sumerian document, and from the
details which have been given it will have been seen that its story, so
far as concerns the Deluge, is in essentials the same as that we already
find in the Gilgamesh Epic. It is true that this earlier version has
reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in an abbreviated
form. In the next lecture I shall have occasion to refer to another
early mythological text from Nippur, which was thought by its first
interpreter to include a second Sumerian Version of the Deluge legend.
That suggestion has not been substantiated, though we shall see that
the contents of the document are of a very interesting character. But
in view of the discussion that has taken place in the United States
over the interpretation of the second text, and of the doubts that have
subsequently been expressed in some quarters as to the recent discovery
of any new form of the Deluge legend, it may be well to formulate
briefly the proof that in the inscription published by Dr. Poebel an
early Sumerian Version of the Deluge story has actually been recovered.
Any one who has followed the detailed analysis of the new text which
has been attempted in the preceding paragraphs will, I venture to think,
agree that the following conclusions may be drawn:

(i) The points of general resemblance presented by the narrative to that
in the Gilgamesh Epic are sufficiently close in themselves to