THE   GILGAMESH   NARRATIVE

USUALLY   CALLED

THE   BABYLONIAN   NIMROD   EPIC
 

INTRODUCTORY.—The chief fragments of the Nim¬
rod epic were discovered in 1854 by Hormuzd Rassam
in the ruins of Nineveh. The tablets, twelve in number,
belonged originally to the famous library of King Ashur¬
banipal (668-626 B. c), as the colophons to the several
tablets clearly state. The text has not yet been completely
restored. The contents of these tablets were first brought
to light and translated by the late George Smith (f 1876),
of the British Museum, in his " Chaldean Account of Gene¬
sis " (1872).^ The standard edition of the text, as far as
it is accessible at present, is that of Professor Paul Haupt,
" Das Babylonische NImrodepos." ^ Additions to Part I
were published by the same author in an article on " Ergeb-
nisse einer erneuten Collation der Izdubar -Legenden." *
The only good recent translations of the whole epic are
by Dr. Alfred Jeremlas, " Izdubar-NImrod, EIne alt-
babylonlsche Heldensage. Nach den Kellschrlftfragmen-
ten dargestellt," ^ and by Professor Jensen, pp. 116-273 <^f
his " Assyrisch-babylonische Mythen und Epen."

' Second edition, in 1880, by A. H. Sayce ; translated into German by
Friedrich Delltzsch (1876).

' Heft i, 1884; Heft ii, 1890; vol. iii of the Assyriological Library,
edited by Friedrich Delitzsch and Paul Haupt.

'Published in vol. i of the "Contributions to Assyriology," pp.
94-152.

* Teubner, Leipsic, 1891, pp. viii-73, and four autograph plates of text.

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