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In Sumer she was known as "the Mother of the Gods", and she was credited with the power of transferring the kingdom and royal insignia from one king to his successor. See especially, Poebel, op. cit., pp. 24 ff.
At the same time the help of several Assyriologists was welcomed in the further task of running over and sorting the collections as they were prepared for study. Professor Clay, Professor Barton, Dr. Langdon, Dr. Edward Chiera, and Dr. Arno Poebel have all participated in the work.
The fragments belong to separate copies of the Sumerian dynastic record, and it happens that the extant portions of their text in some places cover the same period and are duplicates of one another. Cf., e.g., two of the earliest kings of Kish, Galumum and Zugagib. The former is probably the Semitic-Babylonian word kalumum, "young animal, lamb," the latter zukakîbum, "scorpion"; cf. Poebel, Hist.
On a fragment of another Nippur text, No. 4611, Dr. Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sec., Vol. It may be added that, on either alternative, the meaning of the name is the same. The meaning of the Sumerian element u in the name, rendered as utu in the Semitic form, is rather obscure, and Dr. Poebel left it unexplained. It is very probable, as suggested by Dr. Proc. Soc. Bibl.
But in a later passage in the Epic, when Ea seeks to excuse his action to Enlil, he says that the gods' decision was revealed to Atrakhasis through a dream. Dr. Poebel rightly compares the direct warning of Ut-napishtim by Ea in the passage quoted above with the equally direct warning Ziusudu receives in the Sumerian Version.
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.
And I think Dr. Poebel is right in assuming that the Nippur copies of the Dynastic List begin with the Post-diluvian period. Of course it does not necessarily follow that the figure assigned to the duration of the Antediluvian or mythical period by the Sumerians would show so close a resemblance to that of Berossus as we have already noted in their estimates of the dynastic or historical period.
Poebel, as we are probably justified in doing, that the title Nintu is employed here and elsewhere in the narrative merely as a synonym of Ninkharsagga. It appears to me far more probable that one of the two supreme gods, Anu or Enlil, is the speaker, and additional grounds will be cited later in support of this view.
At this point a great gap occurs in the text, and when the detailed dynastic succession in Babylonia is again assured, we have passed definitely from the realm of myth and legend into that of history. Poebel, Hist. Inscr., p. 128. What new light, then, do these old Sumerian records throw on Hebrew traditions concerning the early ages of mankind?
For she was known as "The Builder of that which has Breath", "The Carpenter of Mankind", "The Carpenter of the Heart", "The Coppersmith of the Gods", "The Coppersmith of the Land", and "The Lady Potter". Op. cit., p. 134 f. Cf. Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus., Pt. XXIV, pl. 12, ll. 32, 26, 27, 25, 24, 23, and Poebel, Hist. Texts, p. 34.
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