ly
suspected.

(1) The figure 34,090 is that given by Syncellus (ed.
Dindorf, p. 147); but it is 34,080 in the equivalent which
is added in "sars", &c. The discrepancy is explained by some
as due to an intentional omission of the units in the second
reckoning; others would regard 34,080 as the correct figure
(cf. _Hist. of Bab._, p. 114 f.). The reading of ninety
against eighty is supported by the 33,091 of Eusebius
(_Chron. lib. pri._, ed. Schoene, col. 25).

(2) No. 4.

(3) No. 2.

(4) The figures are broken, but the reading given may be
accepted with some confidence; see Poebel, _Hist. Inscr._,
p. 103.

Further proof of this correspondence may be seen in the fact that the
new Sumerian Version of the Deluge Story, which I propose to discuss in
the second lecture, gives us a connected account of the world's history
down to that point. The Deluge hero is there a Sumerian king named
Ziusudu, ruling in one of the newly created cities of Babylonia and
ministering at the shrine of his city-god. He is continually given the
royal title, and the foundation of the Babylonian "kingdom" is treated
as an essential part of Creation. We may therefore assume that an
Antediluvian period existed in Sumerian tradition as in Berossus.(1) And
I think Dr. Poebel is right in assuming that the Nippur copies of the
Dynastic List begin with the Post-diluvian period.(2)

(1) Of course it does not necessarily follow that the figure
assigned to the duration of the Antediluvian or mythical
period by the Sumerians would show so close a resemblance to
that of Berossus as we have already noted in their estimates
of the dynastic or historical period. But there is no need
to assume that Berossus' huge total of a hundred and twenty
"sars" (432,000 years) is entirely a product of Neo-
Babylonian speculation; the total 432,000 is explained as
representing ten months of a cosmic year, each month
consisting of twelve "sars", i.e. 12 x 3600 = 43,200 years.
The Sumerians themselves had no difficulty in picturing two
of their dynastic rulers as each reigning for two "ners"
(1,200 years), and it would not be unlikely that "sars" were
distributed among still earlier rulers; the numbers were
easily written. For the unequal distribution of his hundred
and twenty "sars" by Berossus among his ten Antediluvian