god, wears on his head.

The heavens having been put in order,* he set about peopling the earth,
and the gods, who had so far passively and perhaps powerlessly watched
him at his work, at length made up their minds to assist him. They
covered the soil with verdure, and all collectively "made living beings
of many kinds. The cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the fields,
the reptiles of the fields, they fashioned them and made of them
creatures of life."** According to one legend, these first animals
had hardly left the hands of their creators, when, not being able to
withstand the glare of the light, they fell dead one after the other.
Then Merodach, seeing that the earth was again becoming desolate, and
that its fertility was of no use to any one, begged his father Ea to cut
off his head and mix clay with the blood which welled from the trunk,
then from this clay to fashion new beasts and men, to whom the virtues
of this divine blood would give the necessary strength to enable them
to resist the air and light. At first they led a somewhat wretched
existence, and "lived without rule after the manner of beasts. But,
in the first year, appeared a monster endowed with human reason named
Oannes, who rose from out of the Erythraean sea, at the point where it
borders Babylonia. He had the whole body of a fish, but above his fish's
head he had another head which was that of a man, and human feet emerged
from beneath his fish's tail; he had a human voice, and his image is
preserved to this day. He passed the day in the midst of men without
taking any food; he taught them the use of letters, sciences and arts of
all kinds, the rules for the founding of cities, and the construction of
temples, the principles of law and of surveying; he showed them how to
sow and reap; he gave them all that contributes to the comforts of life.
Since that time nothing excellent has been invented. At sunset this
monster Oannes plunged back into the sea, and remained all night beneath