Eridu Genesis, also called the Sumerian Creation Myth, Sumerian Flood Story and the Sumerian Deluge Myth,[1][2] offers a description of the story surrounding how humanity was created by the gods, how the office of kingship entered human civilization, the circumstances leading to the origins of the first cities, and the global flood.[3]
Other Sumerian creation myths include the Barton Cylinder, the Debate between sheep and grain and the Debate between Winter and Summer, also found at Nippur.[4] Other flood myths appear in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Genesis creation narrative.
Eridu Genesis is also – most famously – told as the story of Noah and his ark from the biblical Book of Genesis.[5]
The story is known from three fragments representing different versions of the narrative. One is a tablet excavated from the ancient Sumerian city known as Nippur. This tablet was discovered during the Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania in 1893, and the creation story was recognized by Arno Poebel in 1912. It is written in the Sumerian language and is dated to around 1600 BC.[1] The second fragment is from Ur, also written in Sumerian and from the same time period. The third is a bilingual Sumerian-Akkadian fragment from the Library of Ashurbanipal ca. 600 [6]
In 2018, a new fragment of the Eridu Genesis story was published.[7]
The first 36 lines of the primary tablet from Nippur are lost, although they can be inferred to have discussed the creation of man and animals, and likely spoke about the dissolute existence of mankind prior to civilization (as is indicated by the fragment from Ur). The surviving portion begins with a monologue from Nintur, the goddess who birthed mankind, where she calls humans from a vagrant existence as nomads to build cities, temples, and become both sedentary and civilized.[8] After the monologue, there is another missing section that only resumes after another 36 lines, and at this point humans are still in a nomadic state; the missing section may have spoken of an initial unsuccessful attempt by humans to establish civilization.[9] When the text resumes, Nintur is still planning on providing kingship and organization to humans. Then, the first cities are named (beginning with Eridu, whose leadership Nintur placed under Nudimmud), then Badtibira, Larak, Sippar, and finally Shuruppak. The cities were established as distributional (not monetary) economies. Another lacuna (missing section) of 34 lines proceeds. The fragment from the library of Ashurbanipal, as well as independent evidence from the Sumerian King List, suggests this section included the naming of more cities and their rulers.[10] What occurs next is a statement that humans began to make noises that annoyed the gods: Enlil in particular was entirely unable to sleep due to humanity and made the radical decision to deal with this by destroying humanity with a flood. The god Enki informs one human, Ziusudra (likely a priest), of this decision and advises him to build a boat to save both himself and one couple of every living creature. Ziusudra builds the boat, boards it with his family and the animals, and the gods unleash the flood, although the exact phrasing is unclear as another lacuna appears in this section. Mankind and the rest of life survives, and again, the text breaks off.[11]
Before the missing section, the gods have decided to send a flood to destroy humanity. Enki, god of the underworld sea of fresh water and equivalent of Babylonian Ea, warns Ziusudra, the ruler of Shuruppak, to build a large boat, though the directions for the boat are also lost.
When the tablet resumes, it describes the flood. A terrible storm rages for seven days and nights. "The huge boat had been tossed about on the great waters." Then Utu (Sun) appears and Ziusudra opens a window, prostrates himself, and sacrifices an ox and a sheep.
After another break, the text resumes with the flood apparently over, and Ziusudra prostrating himself before An (Sky) and Enlil (Lordbreath), who give him "breath eternal" for "preserving the animals and the seed of mankind". The remainder is lost.[12]
The Epic of Ziusudra adds an element at lines 258–261 not found in other versions, that after the river flood[13] "king Ziusudra ... they caused to dwell in the land of the country of Dilmun, the place where the sun rises". In this version of the story, Ziusudra's boat floats down the Euphrates river into the Persian Gulf (rather than up onto a mountain, or up-stream to Kish).[14] The Sumerian word KUR in line 140 of the Gilgamesh flood myth was interpreted to mean "mountain" in Akkadian, although in Sumerian, KUR means "mountain" but also "land", especially a foreign country, as well as "the Underworld".
Some modern scholars believe the Sumerian deluge story corresponds to localized river flooding at Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq) and various other cities as far north as Kish, as revealed by a layer of riverine sediments, radiocarbon dated to c. 2900 BCE, which interrupt the continuity of settlement. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period (c. 3000–2900 BCE) was discovered immediately below this Shuruppak flood stratum. None of the predynastic antediluvian rulers have been verified as historical by archaeological excavations, epigraphical inscriptions or otherwise, but the Sumerians purported them to have lived in the mythical era before the great deluge.[15]
