Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/210

 cuneiform history, just as Nimrod is stated to have been in the later traditions.

I subsequently found that he agreed exactly in character with Nimrod; he was a giant hunter, according to the cuneiform legends, who contended with and destroyed the lion, tiger, leopard, and wild bull or buffalo, animals the most formidable in the chase in any country. He ruled first in Babylonia over the region which from other sources we know to have been the centre of Nimrod's kingdom. He extended his dominion to the Armenian mountains, the boundary of his late conquests according to tradition, and one principal scene of his exploits and triumphs was the city of Erech, which, according to Genesis, was the second capital of Nimrod.

There remains the fact that the cuneiform name of this hero is undeciphered, the name Izdubar, which I applied to him, being, as I have always stated, a makeshift, only adhered to because some scholars were reluctant to believe he was Nimrod, and I thought it better to continue the use of a name which did not prejudice the question of his identity, and could consequently be used by all irrespective of their opinions. My own conviction is, however, that when the phonetic reading of the characters is found it will turn out to correspond with the name Nimrod. I have already evidence for applying this reading to the characters, but it is impossible to give the proofs in a popular work like the present. I believe that the translations and notes