8th April 1876
Dear Sir
You would see by my last letter <1> that I was altogether ignorant of any translation of the Creation tablets. Indeed I must have received the notion of your translation <2> from Mr Cooper, <3> at a time when I was very much occupied with other work, (as I have been since the beginning of the year), and taken no notice of it; for only to day I found it to my surprize in a pile of papers long undisturbed. It had never been read So I find great differences between your translations, and mine (made since I received the text of the tablets).
Can we take the adverbs elis & saplis for nouns? Is nabû passive aorist, or active permansive? If irbitim be supplied it is governed by ina. I followed Mr Boscawen <4> in translating suma la zikrat, but with misgiving; suma la zukkuru seemed quite satisfactory. I supplied (il) patu [Hebrew text] “im braud”; and zaru sun “their seed” seemed to mean the material out of which heaven and earth were raised. ihiku, [Hebrew text] “bosom” “within” “contained”, istenis “ one-ly”. Gipara I got from Ar. [Arabic text Hebr [Hebrew text] “lamb,” “kid”, “roe”, apparently any young beast originally, but with limited sense afterwards, like our deor. Suzâ [Hebrew text] “feather”, “wing”. Se’ [Hebrew text] “lifting up”, comp: “loft” & Germ lüften luft, (well contrasted with ki) Subû passive [Hebrew text] Ar. & Syr “seated” or “placed”. I give you these as the motives of my translation.
In what follows I differ as much, but I will give my reasons also.
In II. 54 & III. 69 we have duplicates of a list of names of a list [cuneiform text] and we are told that [cuneiform text] is equivalent to each group, so that here I conceive they are synonymes [sic] though the later [sic] is elsewhere regarded as the wife of Anu. Amongst these are the pairs, Lahma, Lahoma, [cuneiform text] & [cuneiform text] Hi & Kiki (or San & Kisan). I prefer Hi because as a divine name it helps to account for the name [Hebrew text]. Lahama is, of course, as I have stated elsewhere, the divine [illegible] in Bethlehem. Under these four names Anu, (or Anu and his consort) is the subject of the rest of the tablet, or should be for the tablet to be consistent with the tablet I have referred to. This tablet, however, is so fragmentary that we cannot be sure of the sense.
“were begotten the gods (names lost)
“Lahmu Lahamu, made to appear [Hebrew text] (but are L & L the nominatives to this verb?)
“and were great –
“Hi & Kiki, were born [who?]
“and rested [Arabic text] many long days –
“Anu –
“Hi (Kiki).
Between this tablet and the next a long interval.
Work of the fourth day of Genesis.
“He made joyful the preeminence of the (seven) great gods.
“The stars he directed a(bove –for) guardians [illegible] I correct conjecturally lumasi with lomasi
“He fixed name, heaven, in constellations groups he collected
“Of xii months stars by theirs he set up
“From the day when name of heaven went forth to the depth
“He decreed the elevation of the bright gods to the going forth of their shining
“To not do wickedness now disagreed [Arabic text]
“The preeminence of Elu & Ea he established with him
“And he opened great gates in the circuit of all
“The lying spirit mightily, left and right,
“In her wrath established perversity [Hebrew text].
Apparently to counteract this in some measure
“Sin the moon made to shine, the night abridged,
“He fixed the name, balance of night to dawn of day,
“the months, and they do not transgress, in cycles he enclosed
“In the head of the month and the breeze of evening cf “the breeze of the day” Gen: III. 8.
“horns projecting (new moon [illustration]) to the going forth of heaven
“In the 7th day half ? aga – [Hebrew text] “separate”
“In the 14th [cuneiform text] ([Hau?] wanting) exalted above resting places – (of the sun)
“– and Sun in foundation of heaven in ([Hebrew text]) [illustration] (in opposition) – ka
“– stillness, and the host of the children –
“– to the path of the sun –
“– the god to the resting place of the sun returns
“(in day thir)tieth ([ma?] ymi sil) sita is void the path of (the god) viz: to conjunction) Thus you see I have taken the latter part of this tablet as describing the phases of the moon Take my suggestions for what they may be worth. – They may at least amuse you as an example of the differences to which we are liable.
Yours very truly
D H Haigh
Notes:
1. See Doc. No: 06256, and Doc. No: 06237.
2. See Doc. No: 00192.
3. William Ricketts Cooper (1843–1878) Secretary, Society of Biblical Archaeology, London.
4. William St Chad Boscawen (1854–1913), Assyriologist & author.