s from Nippur, which is not only
semi-epical in character, but is of precisely the same shape, script,
and period as our text, and is very probably a tablet of the same
series. There also the opening signs of the text are wanting, but far
more of its contents are preserved and they present unmistakable traces
of magical use. Its evidence, as that of a parallel text, may therefore
be cited in support of the present contention. It may be added that in
Sumerian magical compositions of this early period, of which we have
not yet recovered many quite obvious examples, it is possible that
the prefix "Incantation" was not so invariable as in the later magical
literature.

(1) Cf. Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p. 63, and _Hist. and Gram.
Texts_, pl. i. In the photographic reproduction of the edges
of the tablet given in the latter volume, pl. lxxxix, the
traces of the sign suggest the reading EN (= Sem. _siptu_,
"incantation"). But the sign may very possibly be read AN.
In the latter case we may read, in the traces of the two
sign-groups at the beginning of the text, the names of both
Anu and Enlil, who appear so frequently as the two presiding
deities in the myth.

It has already been remarked that only the lower half of our tablet
has been recovered, and that consequently a number of gaps occur in
the text. On the obverse the upper portion of each of the first three
columns is missing, while of the remaining three columns, which are
inscribed upon the reverse, the upper portions only are preserved. This
difference in the relative positions of the textual fragments recovered
is due to the fact that Sumerian scribes, like their later Babylonian
and Assyrian imitators, when they had finished writing the obverse of
a tablet, turned it over from bottom to top--not, as we should turn a
sheet of paper, from right to left. But in spite of the lacunae, the
sequence of events related in the mythological narrative may be followed
without difficulty, since the main outline of the story is already
familiar enough from the versions of the Semitic-Babylonian scribes and
of Berossus. Some uncertainties naturally remain as to what exactly was
included in the missing portions of the tablet; but the more important
episodes are fortunately recounted in the extant fragments, and these
suffice for a definition of the distinctive character of the Sumerian
Version. In view of its literary importance it may be