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Curnow: Boundaries of Legend and History

“In this chapter I shall be concerned with wise characters


from myth and legend. I would not wish to pretend that the
dividing line between myth, legend and history can be
established with any certainty, and it may be that some of the
characters who appear here have been unfairly removed from
the historical record.

On the other hand, some cases do appear to be clear cut. In


the end, if some characters find themselves in the wrong
places, no harm is done as everyone who needs to appear
somewhere will appear somewhere. Where it is appropriate
and available, I have used the distinction between
antediluvian and postdiluvian to mark the boundary between
legend and history.
Text:
“IN ERIDU: ALULIM RULED AS KING 28,800 YEARS. ELALGAR
RULED 43,200 YEARS. ERIDU WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP
WAS TAKEN TO BAD-TIBIRA. AMMILU’ANNA THE KING RULED
36,000 YEARS. ENMEGALANNA RULED 28,800 YEARS.
DUMUZI RULED 28,800 YEARS. BAD-TIBIRA WAS
ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO LARAK. EN-SIPA-ZI-
ANNA RULED 13,800 YEARS. LARAK WAS ABANDONED.
KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO SIPPAR. MEDURANKI RULED 7,200
YEARS. SIPPAR WAS ABANDONED. KINGSHIP WAS TAKEN TO
SHURUPPAK. UBUR-TUTU RULED 36,000 YEARS. TOTAL: 8
KINGS, THEIR YEARS: 222,600”
MS in Sumerian on clay, probably Larsa Babylonia, 2000-1800
BC, 1 tablet, 8,1×6,5×2,7 cm, single column, 26 lines in
cuneiform script.
5 other copies of the Antediluvian king list are known only:
MS 3175, 2 in Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, one is similar to
this list, containing 10 kings and 6 cities, the other is a big
clay cylinder of the Sumerian King List, on which the kings
before the flood form the first section, and has the same 8
kings in the same 5 cities as the present.
A 4th copy is in Berkeley: Museum of the University of
California, and is a school tablet. A 5th tablet, a small
fragment, is in Istanbul.
The list provides the beginnings of Sumerian and the world’s
history as the Sumerians knew it. The cities listed were all
very old sites, and the names of the kings are names of old
types within Sumerian name-giving. Thus it is possible that
correct traditions are contained, though the sequence given
need not be correct. The city dynasties may have overlapped.
It is generally held that the Antediluvian king list is reflected
in Genesis 5, which lists the 10 patriarchs from Adam to
Noah, all living from 365 years (Enoch) to 969 years
(Methuselah), altogether 8,575 years.
It is possible that the 222,600 years of the king list reflects a
more realistic understanding of the huge span of time from
Creation to the Flood, and the lengths of the dynasties
involved.
The first of the 5 cities mentioned, Eridu, is Uruk, in the area
where the myths place the Garden of Eden, while the last city,
Shuruppak, is the city of Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah.
Jöran Friberg: A Remarkable Collection of Babylonian
Mathematical Texts. Springer 2007.
Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and
Physical Sciences.
Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, vol. 6, Cuneiform
Texts I. pp. 237-241.
Andrew George, ed.: Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions and
Related Texts in the Schøyen Collection, Cornell University
Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology, vol. 17,
Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection, Cuneiform texts VI.
CDL Press, Bethesda, MD, 2011, text 96, pp. 199-200, pls.
LXXVIII-LXXIX.
Andrew E. Hill & John H. Walton: A Survey of the Old
Testament, 3rd ed., Grand Rapids, Mi., Zondervan Publ.
House, 2009, p. 206.
Zondervan Illustrated Bible, Backgrounds, Commentary. John
H. Walton, gen. ed. Grand Rapids, Mich., Zondervan, 2009,
vol 1, p. 482, vol. 5, p. 398.
Mesopotamia
I shall begin again in Mesopotamia with the enigmatic figures
known as the apkallu. As has been noted [2.2],
technically apkallu simply seems to mean “wisest” or “sage.”
However in Mesopotamian mythology, the term is also applied
to a strange and complex group of individuals.

Unfortunately, the legends about them survive in only a


fragmentary and not entirely coherent form, although the
fundamental core of the stories told about them is fairly clear.

In the days between the creation of mankind and the great


flood that destroyed nearly all of it, Ea sent seven sages,
the apkallu, for the instruction of mankind. There was a
tradition that each was a counsellor to an early king, but it is
unclear whether this was an original feature of the myth or a
later addition.
Central to the myth is the idea that they brought the skills
and knowledge necessary for civilization.
The god Ea at far left, wearing the horned headdress
indicative of divinity, with water coursing from his shoulders.

 
 A fish-apkallū is in the iconic posture with right hand
raised in blessing or exorcism, with the banduddu bucket in
his left hand. 
 
 The next apkallū wields an indistinct and as
yet undefined angular object in his right hand, with the typical
banduddu bucket in his left. 
 
 The entity at far right, which
appears to be wearing a horned tiara indicative of divinty,
remains unidentified and undefined.
The first of the apkallu was Adapa, a name that itself meant
wise (Bottéro 1992, p. 248). He was also known as Uan,
perhaps a pun on the word ummanu meaning “craftsman”
(Dalley 2000, p. 328). According to the principal source for
this, the ancient historian Berossus:
“… he gave them an insight into letters and sciences, and
every kind of art. He taught them to construct houses, to
found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the
principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them
distinguish the seeds of the earth, and showed them how to
collect fruits. In short he instructed them in everything which
could tend to soften manners and humanise mankind. From
that time, so universal were his instructions, nothing material
has been added by way of improvement.” (Hodges 1876, p.
57).

These gifts to mankind are sometimes referred to by the


Sumerian word “me,” and comprised all that was required for
civilization. They were perceived as much as rules for correct
living as knowledge, and behind these rules stood the gods as
enforcing agents.
In the complex concept of me can be seen, perhaps, a
fundamental principle of human social order backed up by
divine sanction. Soden (1994, p. 177) suggests that the order
associated with me extended far beyond the human and
encompassed the entire cosmos.
In any event, the story of Adapa clearly suggests that the
wise bring what is required for civilization to exist.”
Trevor Curnow, Wisdom in the Ancient World, Bloomsbury,
2010, pp. 39-40.
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https://therealsamizdat.com/tag/cuneiform/
Among the extant exemplars of the Sumerian King List,
the Weld-Blundell prism in the Ashmolean Museum
cuneiform collection represents the most extensive
version as well as the most complete copy of the King
List.
Listing rulers from the antediluvian dynasties to Suen-
magir, the fourteenth ruler of the Isin dynasty (ca.
1763–1753 B.C.), the prism has four sides with two
columns on each side.
The prism is perforated, and it originally stood on a wooden spindle going
through its centre so that it could be rotated and read on all four sides.
http://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=the_sumerian_king_list_sklid=the_s
umerian_king_list_skl

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