The Babylonian Sage Ut-Napisti m Ruqu

THE BABYLONIAN FLOOD-HERO possessed two alternative names, Atrahasis 'the very wise,' which he shared with other primeval sages, and Ut-napistim, the reading of which was a bone of contention among scholars for three decades. A decade after Meissner's discovery of the variant Utanaistim (MVAG 1902, p. 13, n. 1) had established the correct reading, Arno Poebel found its Sumerian prototype, Zi-ud-BU-du, which he pronounced Ziugiddu. Other scholars (Sayce, Zimmern, Langdon) suggested Ziusuddu, in the light of CT 18. 30. 9: Zi-sud-da = Ut-na-pa(!)-as,(!)-te. Zisuidu, (for Ziusuidu), furthermore, was identified with the UKVO6jS of Lucian, flep' Trs Evpls moreover, the writing BU in the Poebel text is far from disproving this testimony. Both in form and in origin the characters bu and sud are closely related; sud is bu-gunu (Delitzsch, Entstehung, p. 67; cf. Barton, BA 9. 172), and they share the values ard'ku (sir), and ru'qu (sud). Decisive evidence for the reading Ziusuidu is furnished by the Semitic translation Ut-napiStim ruaqu 'Ut-napistim the remote.' The Sumerian equivalent of ruzqu is sud, not gid, which means 'long.' In the light of such names as Uta-zi-mu 'Uta is my life' (Thureau-Dangin, Lettres et contrats, p. 68), the Semites took Ut-zi to be the name and sud-du as a participial appellative, an epithet like (Siduri) Sabitu, (Ur-ianabi) malahu, (Uruk) supuri, etc., and gave it the usual value, ri'qu 'distant.' This disposes of the over-ingenious suggestions made by some scholars; e. g., Langdon (PSBA 36. 190) regards U1tnapistim as an abbreviation for Ut-napistim-arik. The original meaning of the name may have been 'The submerged light of life' (cf. the ma sud-a = elippum tebitum of

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