resents the Flood as rising for no less than a hundred and
fifty days.

The close parallel between the Sumerian and Babylonian Versions is not,
however, confined to subject-matter, but here, even extends to some
of the words and phrases employed. It has already been noted that
the Sumerian term employed for "flood" or "deluge" is the attested
equivalent of the Semitic word; and it may now be added that the word
which may be rendered "great boat" or "great ship" in the Sumerian text
is the same word, though partly expressed by variant characters, which
occurs in the early Semitic fragment of the Deluge story from Nippur.(1)
In the Gilgamesh Epic, on the other hand, the ordinary ideogram for
"vessel" or "ship"(2) is employed, though the great size of the vessel
is there indicated, as in Berossus and the later Hebrew Version, by
detailed measurements. Moreover, the Sumerian and Semitic verbs,
which are employed in the parallel passages quoted above for the
"overwhelming" of the land, are given as synonyms in a late syllabary,
while in another explanatory text the Sumerian verb is explained as
applying to the destructive action of a flood.(3) Such close linguistic
parallels are instructive as furnishing additional proof, if it were
needed, of the dependence of the Semitic-Babylonian and Assyrian
Versions upon Sumerian originals.

(1) The Sumerian word is _(gish)ma-gur-gur_, corresponding
to the term written in the early Semitic fragment, l. 8, as
_(isu)ma-gur-gur_, which is probably to be read under its
Semitized form _magurgurru_. In l. 6 of that fragment the
vessel is referred to under the synonymous expression
_(isu)elippu ra-be-tu_, "a great ship".

(2) i.e. (GISH)MA, the first element in the Sumerian word,
read in Semitic Babylonian as _elippu_, "ship"; when
employed in the early Semitic fragment it is qualified by
the adj. _ra-be-tu_, "great". There is no justification for
assuming, with Prof. Hilbrecht, that a measurement of the
vessel was given in l. 7 of the early Semitic fragment.

(3) The Sumerian verb _ur_, which is employed in l. 2 of the
Fifth Column in the expression _ba-an-da-ab-ur-ur_,
translated as "raged", occurs again in l. 4 in the phrase
_kalam-ma ba-ur-ra_, "had overwhelmed the land". That we are
justified in regarding the latter phrase as the original of
the Semitic _i-sap-pan mata_ (Gilg. Epic, XI, l. 129)