research that the great cities of Babylonia arose around the still more ancient cult-centres of the land.  We shall have occasion to revert to the traditions here recorded concerning the parentage of Meskingasher, the founder of this line of kings, and that of its most famous member, Gilgamesh.  Meanwhile we may note that the closing rulers of the “Kingdom of Eanna” are wanting.  When the text is again preserved, we read of the hegemony passing from Erech to Ur and thence to Awan: 

     The k(ingdom of Erech(3) passed to) Ur. 
     In Ur Mesannipada became king and ruled for eighty years. 
     Meskiagunna, son of Mesannipada, ruled for thirty years. 
     Elu(. . .) ruled for twenty-five years. 
     Balu(. . .) ruled for thirty-six years. 
     Four kings (thus) ruled for a hundred and seventy-one years. 
     The kingdom of Ur passed to Awan. 
     In Awan . . .

     (1) Cf. Hist. of Bab., p. 159 f.

     (2) Gen. xiv. 18.

(3) The restoration of Erech here, in place of Eanna, is based on the absence of the latter name in the summary; after the building of Erech by Enmerkar, the kingdom was probably reckoned as that of Erech.

With the “Kingdom of Ur” we appear to be approaching a firmer historical tradition, for the reigns of its rulers are recorded in decades, not hundreds of years.  But we find in the summary, which concludes the main copy of our Dynastic List, that the kingdom of Awan, though it consisted of but three rulers, is credited with a total duration of three hundred and fifty-six years, implying that we are not yet out of the legendary stratum.  Since Awan is proved by newly published historical inscriptions from Nippur to have been an important deity of Elam at the time of the Dynasty of Akkad,(1) we gather that the “Kingdom of Awan” represented in Sumerian tradition the first occasion on which the country passed for a time under Elamite rule.  At this point a great gap occurs in the text, and when the detailed dynastic succession in Babylonia is again assured, we have passed definitely from the realm of myth and legend into that of history.(2)

     (1) Poebel, Hist.  Inscr., p. 128.

     (2) See further, Appendix II.

What new light, then, do these old Sumerian records throw on Hebrew traditions concerning the early ages of mankind?  I think it will be admitted that there is something strangely familiar about some of those Sumerian extracts I read just now.  We seem to hear in them the faint echo of another narrative, like them but not quite the same.

     And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and
     thirty years; and he died.

And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enosh:  and Seth lived after he begat Enosh eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters:  and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years:  and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five
     years:  and he died.