Preface.
In this volume is published for the first time the texts from a group of tablets, inscribed in the NeoBabylonian character, and containing new portions of the great series of Creation Legends, to which the Assyrians and Babylonians gave the title Enuma elish. The group includes:—1. Portions of four copies of the First Tablet of the series, together with two extracts from the text, inscribed upon rough " practice-tablets " by the pupils of Babylonian scribes; 2. Portions of two copies of the Second Tablet of the series; 3. Part of a copy of the Third Tablet, and fragments of three "practice-tablets " inscribed with portions of the text, which I have joined to other similar fragments already published in Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum, Part XIII (1901); 4. Part of a copy of the Sixth Tablet, which is of peculiar interest inasmuch as it refers to the Creation of Man, and settles the disputed question as to the number of Tablets, or sections, of which the Creation Series was composed; and 5. Portions of two copies of the Seventh Tablet of the series.
