ere Usmu, a messenger from Enki, God of the
Deep, names eight such plants by Enki's orders, thereby determining the
character of each. As Professor Jastrow has pointed out, the passage
forcibly recalls the story from Berossus, concerning the mythical
creature Oannes, who came up from the Erythraean Sea, where it borders
upon Babylonia, to instruct mankind in all things, including "seeds and
the gathering of fruits".(1) But the only part of the text that concerns
us here is the introductory section, where the life-giving flood, by
which the dry fields are irrigated, is pictured as following the union
of the water-deities, Enki and Ninella.(2) Professor Jastrow is right in
emphasizing the complete absence of any conflict in this Sumerian
myth of beginnings; but, as with the other Sumerian Versions we have
examined, it seems to me there is no need to seek its origin elsewhere
than in the Euphrates Valley.

(1) Cf. Jastrow, _J.A.O.S._, Vol. XXXVI, p. 127, and
_A.J.S.L._, Vol. XXXIII, p. 134 f. It may be added that the
divine naming of the plants also presents a faint parallel
to the naming of the beasts and birds by man himself in Gen.
ii. 19 f.

(2) Professor Jastrow (_A.J.S.L._, Vol. XXXIII, p. 115)
compares similar myths collected by Sir James Frazer (_Magic
Art_, Vol. II, chap. xi and chap. xii, Sec. 2). He also notes
the parallel the irrigation myth presents to the mist (or
flood) of the earlier Hebrew Version (Gen. ii. 5 f). But
Enki, like Ea, was no rain-god; he had his dwellings in the
Euphrates and the Deep.

Even in later periods, when the Sumerian myths of Creation had been
superseded by that of Babylon, the Euphrates never ceased to be regarded
as the source of life and the creator of all things. And this is
well brought out in the following introductory lines of a Semitic
incantation, of which we possess two Neo-Babylonian copies:(1)

O thou River, who didst create all things,
When the great gods dug thee out,
They set prosperity upon thy banks,
Within thee Ea, King of the Deep, created his dwelling.
The Flood they sent not before thou wert!

Here the river as creator is sharply distinguished from the Flood; and
we may conclude that the water of the Euphrates Valley impressed the
early Sumerians, as later the Semites, with its creative as well as with
its destructive power. The reappearance of the fertile soil, after the