Atra-hasīs’s Animals
To get a handle on Atra-hasīs’s animal carnival we find ourselves remarkably well served, thanks to our indispensable ancient cuneiform dictionaries, one of which has chapters actually listing the words for all living things. The dreary-sounding ancient name by which cuneiform librarians referred to this Super Dictionary is ‘Urra = hubullu’, the Sumerian and Babylonian respectively for ‘interest-bearing loan’, because the first line of the first chapter deals with bilingual legal and business terminology. There are chapters for all known domestic creatures (Urra Tablet XIII), birds and fish (Urra Tablet XIV), and wild animals (Urra Tablet XVIII). Impressively large, heavy tablets can contain a complete chapter, but many school exercise tablets – of the kind familiar to the Ark Tablet scribe as a schoolboy – show that a few excerpted lines of natural history could be scribbled as a daily chore. Old lists, going back at least to the period of our Ark Tablet, provided first of all the words in Sumerian. One thousand years later King Ashurbanipal’s librarians at Nineveh had bilingual versions of all the Urra = hubullu chapters in near-perfect calligraphy, with everything translated into Akkadian. The result is that today we know the names of all the birds, animals and creeping things of ancient Mesopotamia, in two dead languages. If our venerable Babylonian Noah ever had to tick off names on a register, in other words, we have an idea of what the entries would have been.
Urra Tablet XIII lists basic domestic animals, sheep, goats and so forth, of which particular twos or sevens could easily be selected. The Old Babylonian sheep section, for example, contains eighty-four entries, and is the last word on the subject:
Fattened sheep; good quality, fattened sheep; knife-shorn, fattened sheep; male sheep; male breeder sheep; grass-fed sheep … sheep with a collapsed lung; sheep with mange; sheep with arthritic hips; sheep with diarrhoea; sheep given to butting …
Urra Tablet XIV lists all the other animals, big and small. The structure is consistent: a head section word, on the basis of Sumerian, acts like a dictionary hyperlink. Sumerian UR = Akkadian, kalbu, ‘dog,’ for example, meaning dog, heads up a long run of words that are dog or dog-like that all begin with ur-.
I think, for fun, we should list them. That these entries can be translated today reflects selfless decades and mountains of philology by many valiant cuneiformists, in the forefront of whom was the Chicago Assyriologist Benno Landsberger, who pulled all the ancient dictionaries into shape for incorporation within the modern Chicago Assyrian Dictionary. Some identifications are more or less certain, others are conventional, but viewed as a whole we have a reliable impression of what the ancient list of animals was intended to achieve.
ATRA-HASĪS’S ANIMALS
The animal names given below are more or less in the order in which they occur in Urra Chapter XIV, except that, with Atra-hasīs’s responsibilities in mind, I have in each case put male and female together and collated scattered entries for the same name. ‘Types’ include Sumerian names, habitats, colours and even temperament; mythological animals find their way in, too, but in and among the lexical distinctions are what we call distinct species.
Snake (ṣēru: forty-four types)
Turtle (šeleppû: three types) and young
Eel (kuppû)
Rodent (asqūdu)
Wild bull (rīmu: two types) and wild cow (rīmtu: two types)
Elephant (pīlu: two types)
Camel, dromedary (ibilu: two types)
Cow (littu: two types)
Dog (kalbu: nineteen types) and bitch (kalbatu)
Lion (nēšu, labbu, girru: twenty types) and lioness (nēštu: seven types)
Wolf (barbaru; parrisu)
Tiger or cheetah (mindinu)
Leopard (dumāmu)
Badger (kalab urṣi)
Hyena (būṣu: two types)
Fox (šēlebu)
Cat (šurānu)
Wild cat (murašû)
Caracal (zirqatu)
Lynx (azaru)
Zebu(?) (apsasû) and female zebu(?) (apsasītu)
Ape (pagû) and female ape (pagītu)
Bear (asu)
Bull (lī’û)
Leopard (nimru)
Eagle (erû: five types)
Jackal (zību: three types)
Wild sheep (bibbu; atūdu)
Wild ram (sappāru)
Bison (ditānu; kusarikku: two types)
Red deer (lulīmu)
Stag (ayyālu: two types)
Mountain goat (turāḫu)
Roe deer (nayyālu: two types)
Gazelle (ṣabītu: two types and kid ḫuzālu)
Buck (daššu)
Hare (arnabu) and female hare (arnabtu)
Bear (dabû) and female bear (dabītu)
Pig (šaḫû: twenty-three types)
sow (šaḫītu: five types) and piglet (kurkizannu)
Wild boar (šaḫ api)
burmāmu (unidentified: three types)
Doormouse (arrabu; ušummu)
piazu (small rodent: three types)
Mongoose (šikkû: two types; puṣuddu; kāṣiru)
Mouse (humṣīru; pērūrūtu)
Doormouse (arrabu) iškarissu (rodent)
kurusissu (rodent)
Vole (harriru) aštakissu (rodent)
Shrew (ḫulû: two types)
Jerboa (akbaru)
asqudu (rodent: three types)
Otter (tarpašu)
Marten (šakadirru)
Chameleon (ḫurbabillu; ayyar-ili: four types)
Lizard (anduḫallatu: two types; ṣurārû: five types)
Tortoise (raqqu, usābu)
Crab (kušû: two types; alluttu: two types)
Locust or grasshopper (erbu: three types; irgilum; irgizum; large: ṣinnarabu; medium: ḫilammu; small: zīru; tiny: zerzerru)
Cricket (ṣāṣiru: three types; ṣarṣaru)
Praying mantis (šā’ilu: two types; sikdu; adudillu)
lallartu (insect: three types) išid-bukannu (insect)
Head louse (uplu)
Louse (nābu)
kalmatu insect (thirteen types)
šīḫu (insect)
Flea (perša’u)
Weevil (tal’ašu)
Termite (bušṭītu: five types)
Moth (ašāšu; sāsu: seven types; miqqānu: three types; mēqiqānu)
Bug (ibḫu)
Worm (tūltu: four types; urbatu: four types)
Earthworm (išqippu)
Grub (mubattiru)
Caterpillar or larva (munu: eight types; nappilu: five types; ākilu: five types; upinzir: three types; nāpû)
šassūru (insect: three types)
Butterfly (kurṣiptu: three types; kurmittu: three types; turzu)
Nit (nēbu)
Fly (zumbu: nine types)
Horse fly (lamṣatu)
Small fly (baqqu: three types)
Mosquito (zaqqītu)
Gnat (ašturru: two types)
Wasp (kuzāzu ‘the buzzer’; hāmītu ‘the hummer’; nambubtu)
Water boatman (ēṣid pān mê)
Centipede (ḫallulāya: two types)
Spider (ettūtu: four types; anzūzu; lummû)
Jellyfish (ḫammu: four types)
mūr mê (insect)
ummi mê (water insect)
Dragonfly (kulilītu; kallat-Shamash: four types)
Ant (kulbabu: eight types)
Scorpion (zuqaqīpu: eleven types)
Gecko (pizalluru: three types)
Lizard (humbibittu)
Frog (muṣa’’irānu)
Toad or frog (kitturu: seven types)
Atra-hasīs would probably identify with the common insect, the water boatman, ēṣid pān mê (whose elegant name means ‘reaper-of-the-water-surface’). Perhaps, in his place, we might have thought twice about booking seats for the eight types of annoying flies who, according to the lexicographers, specialise in biting people, lionesses, wolves, oxen, water, stone, honey, butter and cucumber, while, if he
had any sense at all, he would have left out the zaqqītu, or mosquito, altogether.
Noah’s Animals
Today the question of Noah’s animals is no longer a preoccupation of scientific enquiry, but there was a time when serious scholars like Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) and especially the great polymath Athanasius Kircher (c.1601–80), thought a good deal about them, just when knowledge of natural history was on the increase. I fancy Kircher would have approved of the Ark Tablet and its implications, for his religious convictions in no way inhibited his burning scientific curiosity, and exposition of its content would have found a place in his wonderful Arca Noe, published in 1675. Kircher was renowned in his day as ‘master of a hundred arts’, and his great illustrated work on Noah’s Ark is stunning, with full plates to show the Ark under construction in Noah’s workshop and the animals, tidily accommodated in their quarters, in a cross-section view of the finished boat.
The great Athanasius Kircher himself.
Kircher’s view of Noah’s Ark under construction.
Kircher’s understanding of how the animals were accommodated.
(picture acknowledgement 9.5)
Kircher’s Ark taxonomy ran to only about fifty pairs of animals, leaving him to conclude that space inside was not such a difficulty. He developed the interesting explanation that Noah had rescued all the animals that then existed, and that the subsequent profusion of different species in the world resulted from post-diluvian adaptation, or interbreeding among the core Ark species; so that giraffes, for example, were produced after the Flood by camel and leopard parents. Kircher even had a serious try at deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs, and although no one relies on his voluminous three-tome work today he learned Coptic in 1633 and was the first to argue – correctly – that living Coptic was the last stage of the ancient Egyptian language. Kircher would have had fun with cuneiform, especially as another of his works, the wonderful Turris Babel, represents an early outbreak of Assyriology, and is a volume that is hard to put down.
For Noah all we can do is collect the Hebrew words for animals that appear in the Old Testament and see what sort of bulk they make. This procedure is little easier than with the ancient Akkadian tablets, for identifying many nouns depends either on old translations into different languages, or on etymology, for words certainly change their meaning over time, and lots of animal words are rare in the Hebrew text. Since we are only seeking a glimpse of Noah’s register, we need not dwell on such problems. The creatures we find are as follows:
Domestic: horse, ass, mule; swine; one-humped camel; cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep; dog, cat.
Wild: bat; hedgehog(?); jackal and fox; bear; hyena; lion; leopard; coney; onager; wild boar; red deer, fallow deer, roe deer; wild ox; gazelle; ibex; antelope; hare; mole rat; mouse; elephant (import!); apes; peacock or parrot.
Birds: eagle, vulture, hawk; various owls; ostrich (?); swallow or sparrow; heron, stork, cormorant, crane; rock pigeon, turtledove; goose; domestic fowl; partridge; quail.
Reptiles: various lizards; frog (and several irrelevant monsters and dragons).
Invertebrates: viper, adder, (and others); scorpion, leech.
Insects: lice; grasshopper and locust; ants; wasp; bee; moth; flea; fly; gnat; spiders.
For Noah, then, this is maybe not such a bad proposition: a few ropes, some strong nets, some honey perhaps and a lot of patience …
The Bible has accustomed us to think of the Flood lasting for forty days and nights although the Babylonian tradition is for seven days and nights, which would be sufficient time to annihilate life on earth very efficiently. Did the god Enki actually mention to Atra-hasīs how long the Deluge would last? There is no clue from the cuneiform.
As the work reaches completion and the Ark is ready for loading Atra-hasīs declares himself exhausted but, at first, joyful, according to the Ark Tablet:
I lay myself down (?) … […] … of rejoicing
My kith and kin [went into] the boat … ;
Joyful … [… … ] … … of my in-laws,
and the porter with … …
They ate and drank their fill.
Ark Tablet: 34–8
Who actually did go on board then? Kith and kin (in Babylonian kimtu and salātu), means the immediate family – the nuclear Mr and Mrs A. H., their unnamed sons and daughters-in-law – and kin by marriage (‘in-laws’), that is, the families of their daughters-in-law. We do not know in this case what this meant in terms of total numbers. In Old Babylonian Atrahasis there is a clear distinction between the workers who had built the boat and the family (kimtu) who were to go on board:
…] he invited his people
…] to a banquet.
…] … he sent his family on board, They ate and drank their fill.
Old Babylonian Atrahasis: 40–43
This phrase ‘They ate and drank their fill’, occurs word for word in both Old Babylonian accounts. Literally it translates, ‘The eater eats, the drinker drinks’, and it is difficult to capture the right nuance. There is a similar Babylonian expression used by diviners, ‘the seer sees, the hearer hears’; both have the ring of a folk proverb or saying.
In Gilgamesh XI the workmen had already been well treated throughout the work, right up until the day before the oiling, so there was no need for another celebration:
For the workmen I butchered oxen.
Every day I slaughtered sheep.
Beer, ale, oil and wine.
[I gave my] workforce [to drink], like the waters of a very river!
They were celebrating as on the feast-days of the New Year itself!
Gilgamesh XI: 71–5
The on-board humans get their mention later. There is no partying for them, and the on-deck quarters will need to accommodate more than just Utnapishti’s nearest and dearest:
All my kith and kin I sent aboard the boat,
I sent aboard … persons of every skill and craft.
Gilgamesh XI: 85–6
First-millennium Utnapishti is planning ahead with no wish to find himself and his family in a post-Deluge world uncomfortably devoid of expertise. The same point is made in Assyrian Smith:
[Send up into] it …
[Your wife], your kith, your kin, and the skilled workers.
It is interesting, considering what was afoot, that Puzur-Enlil the shipwright was not numbered among these indispensable on-board experts, to deal with leaks. All of them, one presumes, were accustomed to animals and at least one (it is to be hoped) was a vet.
In Hebrew tradition it was just the nucleus of the family taken on board:
But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.
This meant Mr and Mrs Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth and their respective wives, and that was that. Eight people, in other words.
In the Koran not even Nuh’s own son came aboard to join the few believers:
We said, ‘Place on board this Ark (…) your own family – except those against whom the sentence has already been passed – and those who have believed,’ though only a few believed with him. He said, ‘Board the Ark. In the name of God it shall sail and anchor. My God is most forgiving and merciful.’ It sailed with them on waves like mountains, and Noah called out to his son, who stayed behind, ‘Come aboard with us, my son, do not stay with the disbelievers.’ But he replied, ‘I will seek refuge on a mountain to save me from the water.’
Sura 11:40–43
In the Old Babylonian narrative, thanks to previously unknown lines from the Ark Tablet, we are confronted with Atra-hasīs the man, the Suffering Servant. The daily distraction of shipbuilding was over and he must face reality; he sees his family in innocent party mood, possibly even construing the imminent voyage as a treat or an adventure and oblivious to the imminent fate – known to him alone – that was to overwhelm all their friends and neighbours together with every other living thing. He gives a banquet for his ‘people’, those wh
o had worked on the project for him, knowing that each would soon be drowned. The burden on his mind became intolerable. Consider the picture in Old Babylonian Atrahasis once everyone was aboard; the moon had already disappeared, and Atra-hasīs knew what that meant. As for the hero himself,
he was in and out: he could not sit, could not crouch
For his heart was broken and he was vomiting gall.
Old Babylonian Atrahasis: 45–7
The Ark Tablet develops this image at greater length in a poetic but sadly damaged section of text. Atra-hasīs tries to avert the catastrophe and prays to the Moon God for intercession before it is too late.
As for me, there was no word in my heart, and
… my heart;
… my […]
… of my …
… of my lips
…, I slept with difficulty;
I went up on the roof and pr[ayed] to my lord Sin:
“Let my heartbreak (?) be extinguished! [Do you not disap]pear!”
… darkness
Into my …
Sin, from his thr[one, swo]re as to annihiliation
And desola[tion on (the)] darkened [day (to come)]
Ark Tablet: 39–50
The background to this is explicit in the Old Babylonian Schϕyen tablet where it is recorded that the Flood will begin at the new moon:
The gods commanded an annihilation,
A wicked thing that Enlil will do to the people.
In the assembly they commanded the Deluge, (saying): “By the day of the new moon we shall do the task.”
Old Babylonian Schϕyen: 21–2
Atra-hasīs’s reasoning was evidently that, if the Moon God proved sympathetic and just didn’t disappear as usual, there would be no new moon and the fateful day would never actually come.
In Old Babylonian Atrahasis Enki had been very clear about the timetable:
He opened the water-clock and filled it;
The Ark Before Noah Page 19