* In Chaldæa, as in Egypt, nothing was supposed to have a
real existence until it had received its name: the sentence
quoted in the text means practically, that at that time
there was neither heaven nor earth.

** Apsu has been transliterated kiracruv [in Greek], by the
author an extract from whose works has been preserved by
Damascius. He gives a different version of the tradition,
according to which the amorphous goddess Mummu-Tiâmat
consisted of two persons. The first, Tauthé, was the wife of
Apasôn; the second, Moymis, was the son of Apasôn and of
Tauthé. The last part of the sentence is very obscure in the
Assyrian text, and has been translated in a variety of
different ways. It seems to contain a comparison between
Apsû and Mummu-Tiâmat on the one hand, and the reeds and
clumps of rushes so common in Chaldæa on the other; the two
divinities remain inert and unfruitful, like water-plants
which have not yet manifested their exuberant growth.

*** The first fragments of the Chaldæan account of the
Creation were discovered by G. Smith, who described them in
the _Daily Telegraph_ (of March 4, 1875), and published them
in the _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_,
and translated in his Chaldæan account of Genesis all the
fragments with which he was acquainted; other fragments have
since been collected, but unfortunately not enough to enable
us to entirely reconstitute the legend. It covered at least
six tablets, possibly more. Portions of it have been
translated after Smith, by Talbot, by Oppert, by Lenormant,
by Schrader, by Sayce, by Jensen, by Winckler, by Zimmern,