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It may be added that we cannot yet read the name of the deity to whom Shuruppak was allotted, but as it is expressed by the city's name preceded by the divine determinative, the rendering "the God of Shuruppak" will meanwhile serve. See Hist. of Sum. and Akk., pp. 24 ff.
At the same time it is not excluded that Larak was also the scene of the Deluge in our text, though, as we have noted, the position of Shuruppak at the close of the Sumerian list points to it as the more probable of the two.
He is merely referred to as a "man of Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu", and he appears in the guise of an ancient hero or patriarch not invested with royal power. On this point Berossus evidently preserves the original Sumerian traditions, while the Hebrew Versions resemble the Semitic-Babylonian narrative.
We have already noted some grounds for believing that his city may have been Shuruppak, as in the Babylonian Version; and if that were so, the divine name reads as "the God of Shurrupak" should probably be restored at the end of the line. The remains that are preserved of the determinative, which is not combined with the sign EN, proves that Enki's name is not to be restored.
The site of the city should perhaps be sought on the upper course of the stream, where it tends to approach Nippur. It would thus have lain in the neighbourhood of Bismâya, the site of Adab. Like Adab, Lagash, Shuruppak, and other early Sumerian cities, it was probably destroyed and deserted at a very early period, though it was reoccupied under its old name in Neo-Babylonian or Persian times.
The text then relates the founding by the god of five cities, probably "in clean places", that is to say on hallowed ground. The . . . of these cities, Eridu, he gave to the leader, Nu- dimmud, Thirdly, Larak he gave to Pabilkharsag, Fourthly, Sippar he gave to the hero, the Sun-god, Fifthly, Shuruppak he gave to "the God of Shuruppak",
Ebabbar, the great Sun-temple, was at Sippar, and it is to the Sun-god that the city is naturally allotted in the new Sumerian Version. Cf. Zimmern, Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Bab. Relig., pp. 116 ff. The last of the five Antediluvian cities in our list is Shuruppak, in which dwelt Ut-napishtim, the hero of the Babylonian version of the Deluge.
The Gilgamesh Epic, after relating how the great gods in Shuruppak had decided to send a deluge, continues as follows in the right-hand column: SUMERIAN VERSION SEMITIC VERSION At the wall I will speak a word O reed-hut, hear! Col. IV, ll. 1 ff. are there compared with Gilg. Epic, XI, ll. 19-31. Nin-igi-azag, "The Lord of Clear Vision", a title borne by Enki, or Ea, as God of Wisdom.
In the Gilgamesh Epic Shuruppak is the only Antediluvian city referred to, while in the Hebrew accounts no city at all is mentioned in connexion with Noah. The city of Xisuthros, too, is not recorded, but as his father came from Larankha or Larak, we may regard that city as his in the Greek Version.
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