(3) See Cernik's maps in
Petermanns Mittheilungen,Erganzungashefte 44 and 45, 1875-76.
(4) I have not cited the dimensions given to the ships in most
translations of the story, because there appears to be a doubt
about them. Haupt (
Keilinschriftliche Sindfluth-Bericht, p. 13) says that the figures are illegible.
(5) It is probable that a slow movement of elevation of the land
at one time contributed to the result--perhaps does so still.
(6) At a comparatively recent period, the littoral margin of the
Persian Gulf extended certainly 250 miles farther to the
northwest than the present embouchure of the Shatt-el Arab.
(Loftus,
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,1853, p. 251.) The actual extent of the marine deposit inland
cannot be defined, as it is covered by later
fluviatile deposits.
(7) Tiele (
Babylonisch-Assyrische Geschicthe, pp. 572-3)
has some very just remarks on this aspect of the epos.
(8) In the second volume of the
History of the Euphrates,p. 637 Col. Chesney gives a very interesting account of the
simple and rapid manner in which the people about Tekrit and in
the marshes of Lemlum construct large barges, and make them
water-tight with bitumen. Doubtless the practice is extremely
ancient and as Colonel Chesney suggests, may possibly have
furnished the conception of Noah's ark.
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