The story of the Flood, as known to the Babylonians and Assyrians, is one chapter or book of a legend consisting of twelve similar divisions, the first line of the series beginning with the words _Sa naqba imûru_, "He who saw everything," and to this is added in the colophons, "the legend of Gilgames." The number of fragments extant is large, but the individual tablets are very imperfect, that giving the account of the Flood being by far the most complete, though even that has very regrettable lacunæ. Incomplete as the legend is as a whole, an attempt will nevertheless be made here to give some sort of a connected story, which may be regarded as accurate in all its main details.
The first tablet begins with the words that have been quoted above, "He who saw everything, [who] ... the land." This is followed, it would seem, by a description of the hero, who, apparently, knew "the wisdom of the whole (of the lands?)," and "saw secret and hidden things.... He brought news of before the flood, went a distant road, and (suffered) dire fatigue (?)." All his journeyings and toils were, apparently, inscribed on tablets of stone, and records thus left for future ages.
Gilgames, as we learn in the course of the narrative, was lord or king of _Uruk supuri_, or "Erech the walled," and at the time when the story begins, the fortifications were in a ruinous state, and the treasury (?) of the sanctuary Ê-anna, the temple of the goddess Istar, which is mentioned in the legend immediately after, was, we may suppose, empty. Other details of the desolation of the temple are given, and the ruinous state of the walls of the city are spoken of, together with the decay of their foundations.
No other fragment of Col. I. of the first tablet of the Legend of Gilgames seems to have been recognized, so that the further references to the city are lost. An interesting piece that Mr. G. Smith thought to be part of the third column of this text refers to some misfortune that came upon the city when the people moaned like calves, and the maidens grieved like doves.
"The gods of Erech the walled Turned to flies, and hummed in the streets; The winged bulls of Erech the walled Turned to mice, and went out through the holes."