Note 29 — INTRODUCTION

After this was in print, there came to hand Mr Stephen Langdon’s translation of the Sumerian tablet from Nippur found by him at Philadelphia, which narrates in a new and modified form the earliest Babylonian legend of the Creation. From this it appears that the goddess Nin-harsag, either on her own account or as the agent of the god En-ki or Ea, “created two creatures with heads, feet, and face as a model for mankind.” See Mr Langdon’s Preliminary Note in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 1914, p. 196, n. 23. A full transliteration and translation is promised later in the P.S.B.A. If Mr Langdon’s reading of the tablet is accepted, this may well prove to be the origin of all the “First Man” legends mentioned on p. lxi, supra.