Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/100

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76
BABYLONIAN LEGEND

not enough to determine its subject. It is probable that this dealt with the creation of creatures of the water and fowls of the air, and that these were the creation of Bel, the companion deity to Anu.

The next tablet, the seventh in the series, is probably represented by a curious fragment, which I first found in one of the trenches at Kouyunjik, and recognized at once as a part of the description of the Creation.

This fragment is like some of the others, the upper portion of a tablet much broken, and only valuable from its generally clear meaning. The translation of this fragment is:

01. When the gods in their assembly had created . . . . .

02. were delightful the strong monsters . . . . .

03. they caused to be living creatures . . . . .

04. cattle of the field, beasts of the field, and creeping things of the field . . . . .

05. they fixed for the living creatures . . . . .

06. . . . . . cattle and creeping things of the city they fixed . . . . .

07. . . . . . the assembly of the creeping things the whole which were created . . . . .

08. . . . . . which in the assembly of my family . . . . .

09. . . . . . and the god Nin-si-ku (the lord of noble face) caused to be two . . . . .

10. . . . . . the assembly of the creeping things he caused to go . . . . .