Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a reprint of the original 1910 publication. THE cuneiform fragment submitted in the following pages in connection with a general survey of the character and contents of the Temple Library as based upon more recent investigations, contains the oldest account of the Babylonian Deluge Story extant. This alone would have justified its immediate publication by the University of Pennsylvania, which through the excavations of its fourth expedition discovered it hi Nippur, and through the generosity of the Sultan of Turkey counts it now among its most valued archseological treasures. But ik significance is further enhanced by the fact that in most important details it agrees with the Biblical Version of the Deluge in a very remarkable manner, -much more so than any other cuneiform version previously known. This result is of fundamental importance for a correct determination and our corresponding valuation of the age of Israel's earliest traditions; for we must realize that the Nippur tablet was written and broken before Abraham had left his Babylonian home in Ur of the Chaldees
