THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND. - SUNDAY MORNING; JULY 19, 1914.
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j REMARKABLE:;
Notable
Tablets
Discoveries
at University
Already Made
of Pennsylvania,
from . Nippur
Thought Few
Have Been Examined Out of a Total of
formation Expected on Moot Historical
1 7,000 In-Questions.
W. HAT world secrets lie hidden
i In the vaults df the Univer
sity of Pennsylvania museum?
What matters of, great im
port to history are concealed In the
characters marked on cuy tablets,
probably written about 2500 B. C, ex
cavated fronvthe resting place of cen
turies and now In the possession of
the museum?
These questions are agitating the
scientific world of America and Eu
rope since the anouncement of Dr.
Stephen' Langdon, professor of As
syriology at Jesus college, Oxford.
England, that he has succeeded in de-
cinherlna.one of these rare tablets ana
that he finds it gives a totally differ
ent version of the fall of man than
that related In Genesis, which has it
that Adam was tempted and fell. The
tablet whose characters have been
translated by Dr. Langdon sets fort
that It was Noah, the patriarch, who
first sinned by eating of the Tree of
Knowledge ' and whose sin led to the
shortening of the days of man and to
his condemnation to a life of labor.
If, ask students, this revolutionary
story which upsets all accepted theo
ries is to be found ln one small frag
ment of the Babylonian tablets, what
might not all those many others reveal
when they are deciphered? And If
the messages they bear from the dead
ages are to be accepted as truth and
the Biblical versions disregarded, will
It be necessary to rewrite the Bible rn
accordance with the stories told by
the tablets, or are these translations
to be regarded merely as myths and
folklore, entertaining tales handed
down from generation to generation,
and finally embalmed , in clay by a
chronicler of facts embellished witn
imagination?
The scientific world, with the ex
cepton of a few radical dissenters, in
clines the latter theory, but that
has not abated the great interests witn
which it awaits announcement of
translations of other" tablets In the
university museum by Dr. Langdon
and by Dr. Arno Poebel of Johns Hop
kins university, two of the few men
in the world who can translate Sume
rlan, the language used on tne tablet
and the oldest tongue of tne non-Semitic
race. The translation, However,
agrees with other tablet translations
made from the Semitlo Babylonian
language by Dr. Poebel. .This one
fact, say dissenters, proves that If the
tale is a myth, it is a myth which
avread over many races and nations
away back to the very beginnings of
history.
There are more than 17.000 Baby
lonian tablets ln the university mu
euiiins collection, and It is the expec
tation that some of these will reveal
Information about matters ( which are
now moot questions among historians
And 'Biblical students.
Dr. Langdon's discovery ha8 been
' Kiven to the world. But the story of
the labors of Dr. Poebel, wno arrived
et a similar result while at work in
Haltimore, while Dr. Langdon pursued
his labors at Oxford, have not hereto
iore been told. Dr. Poebel has written
for the university museum some of
the most Interesting results of his
work.
'During the summer of 1915, lie
states. "I examined the collections of
Cuneiform Inscriptions In the univer
sity museum. I was especially inter
ested in historical and grammatical
texts, and of both I found quite re
' markable specimens.
"One of the tablets or historical con
tents takes us, at least In the belief
of the Babylonians, back to the very
beginnings of history, namely, to the
time of the deluge, and even further
back, to the time of the creation of
mankind. Only the lower part of this
tablet has been found; what haa been
recovered Is, however, a priceless pos
session to the museum.
Three Creators Mentioned -
"The preserved portion of; the first -column
begins with instructions con
cerning the building of cities, which.1t
seems, were given by the gods to the
first men, whose creation must have
been related' in the now missing pre
ceding lines.;, SUIT, we are fortunate
to read at the end of the first column
at least the following reference to
their creation: ' 'After Enlil, Enki, and .
Nlnharsagga' had created the black
headed' Uhua the Babylonians desig
nated humankind) taeys. called into
feeing in a fine fashion the animals,
e four legged of the field.
to the present tltne ther-has
eeen among Assyrlologlsts as well as
among Biblical student considerable
speculation as to whom the Babyloni- .
ans, in the older times,-credited with
having created the first of the human
race. Here we are told tha,t it was the
two gods, Enlil and Enki. and the god-,
desa Ntnharsagga. From Greek writ
ers we know of a'vtry queer late .
. Babylonian account of the creation of
man. which was transmitted to them
by the Babylonian priest Berosus, a
younger cmtemporary of Alexander,
the Great. According to him, the god
. Bel, meaning Marduk of Babylon, cut
oft Ms head, and the other gods mixed
the blood that flowed from his head
. . with the earth, and fashioned man.
who thug became a rational being. '
"This story haa not com to ua dl-
rectly from Berosus; It first passed
Into a book by the Greek scholar Alex
ander Polyhlstor, and from there has
been quoted by Euseblus, the writer
of the history of the Christian church,
and it may therefore have reached us
somewhat disfigured. But, assuming
its general correctness and . consider
ing It In the light of our new text, aa
well as what we know from - other
cunelfdrm sources, we may perhaps
reconstruct the older Babylonian story
of the creation of man In this way:
"When Enlil, the creator of heaven
and earth, wished to people the earth
with living beings, the god Enkl, the
god of wisdom and knowledge, devised
the Image of man after the image of
the gods, and the goddess Ntnharsagga
molded It In clay, while the blood of
x.niu gave it lire and intellect. From
the .-Old Testament we know
-oiooa was considered to be the seat of
life, but whether or not the idea that
Enlil cut off his head to obtain this
life-giving blood will be corroborated
from cuneiform sources we cannot tell
at the present time. -
'Turning now to the second column
ntr,blet' .V Ma5 ' som of the
?&m lUVln c,Ue80f Babylonia, which
Enl l bestows npon certain gods. Here
again our tablet settles a disputed '
question ; it mentions the city of La
rak, and it is therefore this citv that
identified with the cftyoJ
Laranche. which, according to Bero-
tha seat of Several of the
Predlluvian kings of Babylonia.
Story of the Deluge
"The third, fourth, fifth and sixth
columns then contain the story of the
Deluge. -At that time,' ,w, read in
column 3. -Ziugiddu was king, a
pashlsh-prieet of Enkl; dally and con
stantly he was In the service of his
od.' in order to requite him for his
Piety. Enkl. ln column 4, the first of
the reverse. Informs him that at the
requeet of Enlil it has been resolved
in the council of the gods, to destroy
Li8ee?f mMkind.' whereupon Ziu
fH h,UrthIS partof tne tor. however,
is broken away builds a big boat and
loads it with all kinds of animals For
seven days and seven nights a rain
storm, as we read ln column 6. rages
through the land, and the flood of
waters carries the boat away, but then
the sun appears again, and when Its
light shines Into the boat Ziugiddu sac
rifices an ox and a sheep. Lastly l
column 6, we find Ziugiddu worship
ping before Enlil, whose anger against
men now has abated, for he says:
'Life like that of a god I give to him
and 'an eternal soul like that of a
god I create for him, which , means
that Ziugiddu, the hero of the deluge
story, shall beoome a god.
"A Babylonian story of the deluge
has been known to us for a long time
from a poem that is imbedded ln the
famous Oilgamesh epic. There exist,
Oldest Schoolbook in
also, several fragments of other ver
sions of the story, and the museum
possesses a small fragment of 13 par
tially preserved lines,, which was pub
lished by Professor Hilprecht some
years ago. Our new text, however, in
an entirely different account, as will
be seen from the fact that the hero
bears a name different from that foun.l
ln the other deluge stories.
"But what makes the new account
especially important is that it is not.
like other versions, written In the
Semitic Babylonian language, but ln
Sumerian-tthat is, the old togue of
the non-Semitic race which, in the
earliest days of history, ' held : sway
over Babylonia. As will be seen from
some of the quotations, the text is a
kind of poetical composition, and as
such was originally not intended to be
merely a historical record, but served
some practical, ritualistic. . or other
purpose. For various'reasons. it seems
to be that our tablet was written about
the time of King Hammurabi (2117
2075), thus being the oldest Babylo
nian record we have at the present
time , of the creation as well as the
deluge. The text, however,, may go
back to even a much earlier time. ,
"Judging by . the color of the clay,
the shape of the tablet, and the script,
our text belongs with .another tablet
that contains a list of kings. It even
seems to roe that there were threet
tablets of about equal size, measuring
about 6H by 7 - inches, on which a
historically Interested scribe wrote the
world's history, or at least . Its 'out
lines. The first of these tablets. I be
lieve, contained the Babylonian theogo
ny, and then relatea the famous fight
between the younger generation of the
gods and the deity of the primeval
chaos, which ultimately resulted ln the
creation of heaven and earth out of
the two parts of chaos. ; " ; :
"Here the tablet I "have Just de
scribed comes in and gives the his
tory of the world as far as the deluge.
Then a third tablet gave a complete
list , of the kings of Babylonia, front,
ja-" 4 JJII lf''" " - W HI
W-" 4. 5 I II
iliIlIlfliHflllllilllW Sii I ' Sii1;-;-
i
Tablet Telling of the
the time of the deluge to the king un
der whom the tablets were written. A
portion of this thlrcT tablet, or, to be
more acurate, the reverse of this por
tion, which contains about an 'eighth
of the whole text, was published six
years ago by Professor Hilprecht. It
contained two of the last dynasties of
this list of kings. I succeeded ln copy
ing also the much-effaced obverse,
whjch contains the names of kings of
the period immediately after the del
uge, and In addition to this I also
found larger and smaller fragments
of three other and older lists of kings.
I need hardly emphasize the great his
torical and chronological - value of
these new lists, since they give us not
only the names of the kings, but the
length of their respective reigns, and
ln some few Instances even add some
short historical references relating to
these kings.
Long-Lived Kings
"The first part of these lists leads
us, it is true, into quite legendary
times. We find there kings who are
familiar to us from myths and legends
and heroic epics, as Gilganaesh, the
the World., A. B. C Chart. About 4.300 Years
hero of the famous Gilgamesh epic;
Dumuzi, the unfortunate lover . of the
goddess Ishtar; Etana, who. under the
wings of an eagle, made a daring
ascent to heaven, etc. ' Moreover, re
markably long reigns are -assigned to
the first kings of the lists. Etana is
said to have ruled 625 years, another
king, called the 'Scorpion, 840 years,
and Lugalbanda of Erelc 1200 years.
TT. . - . .1 1 1
But very soon the list becomes entirely-
historical; the kings rule only
86, 20 or 7. years, etc -
"The long reigns assigned to the
rny ;ubB ". vu.,
very long duration must" be assumed
for. the whole period from the deluge
to the time when the tablets were
written; and. indeed, one of the tablets
that was written under the. one .hun
dred awl thirty-fourth king, the elev-,
enth king of Isln. counts 32,175 y ears,
while .another list .reckons from the
deluge to the. one hundred and thirty
ninth king, the last king of Isin, 32,
'..234 years., fc,; :'-rv''-q. r-.-..
"This is, by the way, a new corrobo
ration, at least to some extent, of the
Greek tradition, which, as' we saw,
goes back to the priest Berosus. For
we are told by Greek - writers', that
from the Deluge to the first invasion
of Babylonia bythe Medes this inva
sion is, or course, not . identical with
that of the later Medes and Persians
eighty-six kings ruled over Babylonia
for 33,091 years. Thers must - of
course, be some slight mistake In
these numbers. On the whole, the.
great similarity of the two traditions
Is striking. . "
"In order fully to apprjeciate the
bearing of the new chronological data
It may be -well to say a little more
on the chronological system of - the
Babylonians as it has . been transmit
ted to us by the Greeks and as we can
now partially confirm it from cunei
form sources.
"At the beginning of all- times there
were three immense periods. In the
first there existed only Chaos and her
Creation and Deluge,
husband, the Ocean, then, after a long
time, the primeval gods, Lakhrau and
Lakhamu, were born, and after simi
lar long Intervals Anshar, the upper
world, and Klshar, the lower world,
came Into existence. This primeval
period came into an end when the
younger generation of gods vanquished
Chaos and created heaven and earth. -Then
follows, from the Creation to the
Deluge, the period of the ten primeval
kings, which lasted 432,000 yars. Af
ter that the present still lasting period
begins, for which, till about 2400 B. C,
the Babylonians counted 32,234 years.
"From the Creation to the time of
B.eroBus (300 B. C.) we would there
fore have to count about 468,500 years,
but in the introduction to bis book on
Babylonia he states that the written
records of the Babylonians reached
back to about 2,150,000 . years before'
this time, 1. e., long before the crea
tion of the earth, to the time when
Chaos still. reigned over the universe.
"Some of the earlier kings we meet
again ln a number of fragments of
chronicles and poetical compositions,
which I have- copied. I mention here
only the epics referring to King Lugal
banda and King Dumuzi. If we com
bine all the facts that we are able to
Old.
gather from the new tablets as well
as from the older material the story of
the two kings is about the following:
.Strange, Legends
. "Lugalbanda began his career as a
shepherd; at this time the bird-god
Zu stole from Enlil. the king of the
. gods, the tablets of fate, which gave
to their owner supreme power over
the whole world, over men and gods
alike. . Enlil used to wear them on his
breast, but ona day while he was sit-
yting on his throne the bird-god Zu
ww iuv u"u w "u
snatched the tablets away and flew to
a distant mountain rock. None of the
gods dared to do anything to recover
the tablets, for all power now rested
with Zu; but the shepherd Lugalbanda,
thus we must conclude, succeeded in
recovering them by a trick which he
played on Zu, and Enlil. requited this
service by -making him king of Erek,
and, after a reign of 1.200 years, even
made him. a god. As such he was wor
shipped even , in the later tiroes of
Babylonian history, r .. .-.-
"King Dumuzi was originally a fish
erman, but the goddess Ishtar fell In
love with hlra and made him King of
Erek. Concluding - from certain allu-
sions In the Gilgamesh epic, it seems
that Ishtar after, some time killed her
lover, though afterward she seems to'
havo repented of her deed, for, ln or
der to bring him hack from the dead,
he herself descended into Hades, -
- Ishtar s Journey
"A table that I "found among the
collections of the museum depicts the
. famous scene when Ishtar . enters the
, realms of the dead. She passes through
the first gate, and the crown Is taken
from her head. Why do you take
. this away from me?" she asks, and the
Tablet Containing the
answer is given: Go on. O Ishtar.
such are the laws of the nether world.'
She passes through the second gate,
and the rings on her fingers are taken
from her. Again she asks, Why do
you take these away from meT and
again the answer: 'Go on. O Ishtar.
such are the laws of the nether world.'
"And so she walks through all the
other gates until finally she passes
naked through the seventh and last
gate. It would lead us too far from
our subject if I should here describe
how Ishtar herself now was kept a
prisoner in Hades, but was rescued by
the gods; and it seems her lover Tarn
muz was rescued, too, for later, at
the time of Adapa, we find him as a
god ln the heavenly palace of Anum,
the father of the goddess Ishtar.
"Another treasure of the museum
Is a copy of the famous code of laws
of King Hammurabi, (about 2100 B.
C.) To be precise I ought to say that
up to this time only one of probably
three very large and bulky clay tab
lets . that contained the full text of
the code has been found; it is very
much broken. But nevertheless It re
mains ' a great treasure, since the
better preserved obverse supplements
a part of the great lacuna on the stele
of the code- in the Louvre, supplying
some laws concerning the merchant
and his underraen.
"The second class of tablets on
which I worked, the grammatical
texts, are very numerous; they mostly
came from the temple school, and the
BARGAINS FOR SMALL HANDS
w
OMEN with exceptionally small
hands may, if they keep their
eyes open, glove themselves
neatly the year round at an expense
scarcely worth considering. A few
days ago a woman who had just bought
a pair of No. 6 gloves in a shop de
voted -exclusively to the sale of kid'
gloves, and had paid 11.75 a pair for
them, stopped ln front of a box on
the counter on the way out The box
. was about half full of gloves of every
shade, and apparently of .fine make.
What attracted the woman's attention
"was a card announcing In large. letters
that, the gloves could be bought for
25 cents a pair! ; She, asked an ex
planation f a clerk and received this
. Illuminating reply: . .
' ' Thess gloves are In every way as
perfect and as well mads as those for
? which you Just paid seven times the
price. .There are absolutely no defects
In them and two months ago we were
offering tbem at 11.75 a pair. The rea-
son why, we now sell them for a quar
ter, is that new styles will soon come
. in, and as we cannot afford, for our
- reputation's sake, to retain; these un
sold gloves In stock, we might as well
get rid of tbem for a few cents a pair
- ss to throw them away.
v "Tou see, theyv; are i so small that
there Is almost no sale for them.'. They
are all size B. x Now, there are hosts
of women with IK hands and Infinitely
r more with t and 6 hands. But women
. with 54 hands are few, so we have
v bad a big stock of these little gloves
' left over. ,W offered them tor a cou-
First Bankru pt Act.
greater part . of , tbem contain gram
matical exercises of pupils. They all
deal with the Sumerlan language,
which the young scribes of those days
had to acquire as at the present time
boys of the higher schools are in
structed in Latin and Greek. These
linguistic tablets, which partly date
from 2500 and partly from 1300 B. C.
can, of course, claim a greater inter
est only from Sumerlan scholars; for
them, however, their value will' be
immense; for they give not only a
good many new readings of ounlform
signs, but a few of them contain par
adigms of the most difficult and so
far only imperfectly known parts of
the Sumerlan language, namely the
personal pronouns and the verbal
forms. These new tablets will form
the first sure basis for a Sumerlan
grammar."
The history of the tablets Is told by
Director G- B. Gordon of the museum.
In the Spring or 1910, he said. 115
boxes of inscribed tablets and frag
ments of tablets, excavated by the
University of . Pennsylvania Babylon
ian expedition at Nippur during the
years 1888-1900, were unpacked in the
workrooms of the museum, and since)
. that time trained assistants were en
gaged in the laborious task of clean
ing these tablets, assembling the frag
ments which belonged originally to the
same tablet, putting these together,
and securing the proper preservation
of the collection. Between 1888 and
1910 6970 tablets and fragments were
examined and catalogued. The esti
mated namber which came from the
boxes unpacked in 1910 is 10,000. The
collection of Babylonian tablets la the
museum therefore numbers about 17,
000. A large proportion are fa many
pie of weeks at half a dollar, and new
for a quarter."
"But why did you buy so many
gloves of an unsalable size ln the first
place?" asked the customer, curiously.
"We had to," the saleswoman replied.
"When we gave theorder ws knew
we would be badly stuck on this size,
but we had to do it Toa see, no mat
ter what a customer wants, ws must
be ready to supply ibs order. Of
course, we know that few women can
wear these small sizes, but when one
of them calls we have to te ready to
lay before her just , asv extensive an
assortment of gloves " of her ' size as
of any other size. ' It' does not do to
have two ladies come in together, say.
one with a No. hand and the' other
with a 5' band, and be able to sup-
, ply one with a, glove of a certain shads
; and refuse the other." . ' ' V
"The woman with the smallest hand
A Hard Lite ;
Experience 80 you want to buy, a
farm down here? Just take my advice
and don't do it !. ; . V...!--
Young city man Oh, I like the coun
try, the location is great, and It can't
be hard work. . . ' ' .
' 'Experience- Work! " Well. I bought a
-farm ten years ago, and I've never got
the 'work all done yet I sometimes
quit but I never get through.
Straight
Madge Tou shouldn't say' he's a
confirmed bachelor unless you know.
Marjorie But I do know; I con
firmed him. , -
TbJg Tablet Contains the Earliest
Known ' Account of the Flood
. and the Fall of Man.
pieces, different fragments of the
same tablet being often found in the
contents of different boxes. This and
the fact that the day from which the
tablets were excavated adheres to the
tablets, together with other matter
with which they were brought la con
tact ln the packing, made the clean
ing and mending very slow work. The
assistants engaged in this work, not
being versed ln the cuneiform writ
ing, relied on ' the correspondence of
fractures, general similarity of writ
ing or of color and texture in the clay
ln bringing fragments together which
belonged to one tablet In this way
many pieces were sometimes, brought
together, and a tablet more or less
complete built up from pieces of vary
ing sizes.
How Tablets Were Read
Since these fragments came aa often
as not from different parts of the box
and often from different boxes there
were only two ways of assembling the
fragments. One was the method
already described and the other was
by means of context In the inscrip
tion written on the surface of each
tablet This latter method can be
used only by those who read the cu
neiform text After the assistants
have exhausted the resources of the
first method It sometimes happens
that a Babylonian scholar discovers
ln reading the inscriptions that two
apparently distinct pieces actually
belong to the same tablet
After being cleaned by means of
soft brushes and other methods de
vised to avoid Injury to the tablets, a
lot of fragments, large and small,
are spread out on long tables, and
the work of discovering the- pieces
that belong together proceeds until
no mors joints can be made. Each
tablet" Is then packed separately In
cotton and placed in receptacles
which are kept ln rooms with dry
atmosphere and even temperature,
for these tablets are often of un
baked clay and. being Impregnated
with certain salts, are apt to disin
tegrate under unfavorable conditions.
The Important considerations which
have been- kept In mind, said Dr. Gor
don, are to secure the preservation of
the tablets with special reference to
their scientific and historical value,
and to make them accessible to Baby
lonian scholars, in order that such
facts of Importance for human history
as may be contained In these ancient
writings may find Interpretation and
become matters of general knowledge.
Babylonian scholars everywhere have
been Invited to avail themselves of the
opportunity which these tablets af
ford for the investigations in which
they are Interested and the collections
have been placed at their dlspoeal,
with proper facilities for their study.
well knows her point of vantage. She
demands as mnch, or even more, con
sideration than the ' others, and It
wouldn't pay us to give her the ehane
to tell her friends, as she undoubtedly
would do from vanity, if nothing else,
that such and such a famous glove
house cannot fit her with gloves of the
shade and make she wants, because her
hands are so small. Consequently, for
our own sake, we are compelled to lay
ln a stock of these small sizes, quite
as varied, if not as large, as other
sizes."., - . '
"Why, If I bad a hand as small as
that," said the customer, smilling, "I
should' wait until you reduced your
prices before X purchased."
That 1 Just what many of the 54
ladles do." said the clerk. "It is our
loss, but we can't help It When we put
- 1UIC. wwotm m v w
sell them rapidly; when we offer the
rest at a quarter the stock rarely lasts
more than two or three days.
you spoke to when you stopped ln front
of this counter. She bought two dozen
- pairs of these little gloves. 8he is a
'regular customer. at this tune of the
year. She just told me that she has
v been watching us for six weeks."- She
said that ' every time she- passed the
store lately she dropped in and took a
look at the bargain boxes. She was
tempted when she saw, tne half-dollar
sign on the boxy buV concluded to risk
at still further delay; She was rewarded
" by getting her two ' dozen1 assorted
pairs of gloves for $" v