Edmond Sollberger (1920–1989)

A brief historical review of the earliest versions then available of the Flood legend. There are some interesting monochrome plates showing some of the relevant cuneiform tablets, together with cylinder seals of events and characters from the legend, and sundry other reliefs.

It is fascinating to have on some of the tablets, the name of the same person who inscribed them, together with the dates. The recorded passage of the months between one and the other gave me a sense of the flow of this man's life, separated from me by some four thousand years, and gave me a feeling of common humanity. It gives the stories, briefly summarised here, a freshness and immediacy that might otherwise be lacking.… (lisätietoja)

This booklet is an overview of the various forms of the Flood story found in cunieform tablets. There is a version of the story in Sumerian, in which the part of Noah is played by Zi-u-sudra. There is a version in Akkadian, in which he is known as Atram-hasis. In the version that appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh, he is called Uta-napishtim. The story itself has survived in various fragments, one of which was written by junior scribe Ellit-Aya, in the 11th year of the reign of King Ammisaduqa, which is to say, 1692 BCE. This small booklet provides an introduction to the players, both human and gods, in two languages, and an overview of the story preserved in each of the sources. The little things it talks about, such as that the cunieform tablets "turned" at the bottom of the tablet, rather than on the left, as our book pages do, were as interesting as the topic. There are also 18 B&W photos at the end of the book, with pictures of the original tablets with the story. The book took about 15 minutes to read, was interesting, and I learned the name of a man who lived nearly 4 millennia ago who was a scribe.… (lisätietoja)