SUMERIAN GENESIS TABLET / ENUMA ELISH - ($40.00 US)
study replica
Stone cast terracotta tablet, 90 x 60 mm (3.5 x 2.25 inch)
detailed six point cuneiform inscription on both sides
with parchment description.
Tablet Three of the Enuma Elish Sumerian Epic Of Creation, 1500 BC, from the ancient Ashurbanipal Library of Nineveh in northern Iraq. The most well known of seven cuneiform tablets relating the epic battle between the solar deity Marduk and the celestial dragoness Tiamat, discovered within the ruins of Nineveh in the late 19th century. Giving accounts remarkably similar to biblical stories, they were first published in 1876 as the "The Chaldean Genesis."
During his 7th century BC reign, the Ashurai king Ashurbanipal sent emissaries far afield in search of ancient texts and recovered many invaluable records, including the oldest stories of Adam and Eve and the Flood. He copied them from cuneiform originals three thousand years older and preserved them in a vast underground library. Archeologists Sir Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam found the library intact and discovered a huge cache of 50,000 tablets. Although many have yet to be translated, the Creation Tablets are the pride of the British Museum.
In ancient Babylon, the highlight of the New Year celebration was the public reading of the Enuma Elish, the mythic story of the war amongst the celestial gods, a disastrous event which haunted their tradition. The complete Enuma Elish is written on seven tablets, each between 115 and 170 lines long. Stark Biblical parallels have been found in the texts, in some cases verbatim accounts. Today, both Judaism and the Christian fraternity recognize the Ashurai tablets as a major source of early Biblical texts and ideas, pre-dating the original Hebrew Bible.
(A complete translation is available on the internet.)
Postage:
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