Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/93

 This fragment is both mutilated and obscure; in the eighth line I have translated firmament with a query, the sound and meaning of the word being doubtful; and in line 10, I translate earth for a combination of two characters more obscure still, my translation being a conjecture grounded on some meanings of the individual monograms. Pal-bi-ki are the characters of one name of the city of Assur; but I do not understand the introduction of this name here.

The next recognizable portion of the Creation legends is the upper part of the fifth tablet, which gives the creation of the heavenly bodies, and runs parallel to the account of the fourth day of creation in Genesis.

This tablet opens as follows:—

1. It was delightful, all that was fixed by the great gods.

2. Stars, their appearance [in figures] of animals he arranged.

3. To fix the year through the observation of their constellations,

4. twelve months (or signs) of stars in three rows he arranged,

5. from the day when the year commences unto the close.