at the first
sign in the line is not that for "seed", but is the sign for "name", as
correctly read by Dr. Poebel. In that passage the _niggilma_ appears to
be given by Ziusudu the name "Preserver of the Seed of Mankind", which
we have already compared to the title bestowed on Uta-napishtim's ship,
"Preserver of Life". Like the ship, it must have played an important
part in man's preservation, which would account not only for the
honorific title but for the special record of its creation.

(1) See _American Journal of Semitic Languages_, Vol. XXXI,
April 1915, p. 226.

(2) It is written _nig-gil_ in the First Column.

(3) See Winckler, _El-Amarna_, pl. 35 f., No. 28, Obv., Col.
II, l. 45, Rev., Col. I, l. 63, and Knudtzon, _El-Am. Taf._,
pp. 112, 122; the vessels were presents from Amenophis IV to
Burnaburiash.

It we may connect the word with the magical colouring of the myth, we
might perhaps retain its known meaning, "jar" or "bowl", and regard it
as employed in the magical ceremony which must have formed part of
the invocation "by the Soul of Heaven, by the Soul of Earth". But
the accompanying references to the ground, to its production from the
ground, and to its springing up, if the phrases may be so rendered,
suggest rather some kind of plant;(1) and this, from its employment in
magical rites, may also have given its name to a bowl or vessel which
held it. A very similar plant was that found and lost by Gilgamesh,
after his sojourn with Ut-napishtim; it too had potent magical power and
bore a title descriptive of its peculiar virtue of transforming old age
to youth. Should this suggestion prove to be correct, the three passages
mentioning the _niggilma_ must be classed with those in which the
invocation is referred to, as ensuring the sanction of the myth to
further elements in the magic. In accordance with this view, the fifth
line in the Sixth Column is probably to be included in the divine
speech, where a reference to the object employed in the ritual would not
be out of place. But it is to be hoped that light will be thrown on
this puzzling word by further study, and perhaps by new fragments of
the text; meanwhile it would be hazardous to suggest a more definite
rendering.

(1) The references to "the ground", or "the earth", also
tend to connect it peculiarly with Enlil. Enlil's close
association with the earth, which is, of course,
independently a