Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/194

 present be phonetically rendered. He appears to me to be the monarch who bears the closest resemblance in his fame and actions to the Nimrod of the Bible.

Since the first discovery of his history, very little light has been thrown on the age and exploits of Izdubar. Among all the references and allusions there is nothing exact or satisfactory to fix his place in the scheme of Babylonian history. The age of the legends of Izdubar in their present form is unknown, but may fairly be placed about B.C. 2000. As these stories were traditions in the country before they were committed to writing, their antiquity as traditions is probably much greater than that.

The earliest evidence we have of these traditions is in the carvings on early Babylonian cylindrical seals. Among the earliest known devices on these seals we have scenes from the legends of Izdubar, and from the story of the Creation. These seals belong to the age of the kings of Akkad and of Ur, and some of them may be older than B.C. 2000. The principal incidents represented on these seals are the struggles of Izdubar and his companion Heabani with the lion and the bull, the journey of Izdubar ih search of Hasisadra, Noah or Hasisadra in his ark, and the war between Tiamat the sea-dragon and the god Merodach. There is a fragment of one document in the British Museum which claims to be copied from an omen tablet belonging to the time of Izdubar himself, but it is probably not earlier than B.C. 1600, when many similar tablets were written.