137 ff., and Tabl. IV, l. 121).

(3) i.e. the gods.

(4) The ninth line is preserved only on a Neo-Babylonian
duplicate (_Seven Tablets_, Vol. II, pl. i). I suggested the
restoration _ki-rib s(a-ma-mi)_, "in the midst of heaven",
as possible, since the traces of the first sign in the last
word of the line seemed to be those of the Neo-Babylonian
form of _sa_. The restoration appeared at the time not
altogether satisfactory in view of the first line of the
poem, and it could only be justified by supposing that
_samamu_, or "heaven", was already vaguely conceived as in
existence (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 3, n. 14). But the traces of
the sign, as I have given them (op. cit., Vol. II, pl. i),
may also possibly be those of the Neo-Babylonian form of the
sign _me_; and I would now restore the end of the line in
the Neo-Babylonian tablet as _ki-rib m(e-e-su-nu)_, "in the
midst of (their waters)", corresponding to the form _mu-u-
su-nu_ in l. 5 of this duplicate. In the Assyrian Version
_me(pl)-su-nu_ would be read in both lines. It will be
possible to verify the new reading, by a re-examination of
the traces on the tablet, when the British Museum
collections again become available for study after the war.

If the ninth line of the poem be restored as suggested, its account of
the Birth of the Gods will be found to correspond accurately with
the summary from Berossus, who, in explaining the myth, refers to the
Babylonian belief that the universe consisted at first of moisture
in which living creatures, such as he had already described, were
generated.(1) The primaeval waters are originally the source of life,
not of destruction, and it is in them that the gods are born, as in
Egyptian mythology; there Nu, the primaeval water-god from whom Ra was
self-created, never ceased to be the Sun-god's supporter. The change in
the Babylonian conception was obviously introduced by the combination of
the Dragon myth with that of Creation, a combination that in Egypt
would never have been justified by the gentle Nile. From a study of some
aspects of the names at the beginning of the Babylonian poem we have
already seen reason to suspect that its version of the Birth of the Gods
goes back to Sumerian times, and it is pertinent to ask whether we have
any further evidence that in Sumerian belief water was the origin of all
things.

(