This reference to the Deluge, which occurs so early in the text, suggests the probability that the account of the Creation and of the founding of Antediluvian cities, included in the first two columns, is to be taken merely as summarizing the events that led up to the Deluge.  And an almost certain proof of this may be seen in the opening words of the composition, which are preserved in its colophon or title on the left-hand edge of the tablet.  We have already noted that the first two words are there to be read, either as the prefix “Incantation” followed by the name “Enlil”, or as the two divine names “Anu (and) Enlil”.  Now the signs which follow the traces of Enlil’s name are quite certain; they represent “Ziusudu”, which, as we shall see in the Third Column, is the name of the Deluge hero in our Sumerian Version.  He is thus mentioned in the opening words of the text, in some relation to one or both of the two chief gods of the subsequent narrative.  But the natural place for his first introduction into the story is in the Third Column, where it is related that “at that time Ziusudu, the king” did so-and-so.  The prominence given him at the beginning of the text, at nearly a column’s interval before the lines which record the creation of man, is sufficient proof that the Deluge story is the writer’s main interest, and that preceding episodes are merely introductory to it.

What subject then may we conjecture was treated in the missing lines of this column, which precede the account of Creation and close with the speech of the chief creating deity?  Now the Deluge narrative practically ends with the last lines of the tablet that are preserved, and the lower half of the Sixth Column is entirely wanting.  We shall see reason to believe that the missing end of the tablet was not left blank and uninscribed, but contained an incantation, the magical efficacy of which was ensured by the preceding recitation of the Deluge myth.  If that were so, it would be natural enough that the text should open with its main subject.  The cause of the catastrophe and the reason for man’s rescue from it might well be referred to by one of the creating deities in virtue of the analogy these aspects of the myth would present to the circumstances for which the incantation was designed.  A brief account of the Creation and of Antediluvian history would then form a natural transition to the narrative of the Deluge itself.  And even if the text contained no incantation, the narrative may well have been introduced in the manner suggested, since this explanation in any case fits in with what is still preserved of the First Column.  For after his reference to the destruction of mankind, the deity proceeds to fix the chief duty of man, either as a preliminary to his creation, or as a reassertion of that duty after his rescue from destruction by the Flood.  It is noteworthy that this duty consists in the building of temples to the gods “in a clean spot”, that is to say “in hallowed places”.  The passage may be given in full, including the two opening lines already discussed: