Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology

Nov.6] SOCIETY OF BIBLICALARCHEOLOGY. [1S94.

NOTE ON A FRAGMENT OF THE ADAPA-LEGEND.

By S. Arthur Strong.

It may be within the recollection of members of the Society
that,in 1892*, ProfessorSaycewrotea letter to The Academy, stating
thatmanyyears beforehe had copied at the British Museum an
unnumberedtablet containinga fragment of the story of Adapa.
At the same time he communicated a translation, fromwhich it
appearedthat, in comparison with the larger andmoreimportant
fragmentat Berlin, our own text had preserved an earlier partof the
same legend. But without the number thereseemed to be no clue
to the rediscovery of the actual tablet.
However,a few days ago,whenexaminingsomeof the mytho
logicaltexts cataloguedin Dr. Bezold's third volume,my eye was
caught by the word Adapa, on a fragment which alsocontained
referencesto Anu andEa, and a closer studyof the document soon
convinced me that here wasthe text that Professor Sayce had
copied. Unfortunately, of the few lines that remain, most are
brokenoff at both endsandotherwisemutilated; but, suchas the
textis, I hasten to communicate it, as follows :—

K 82i4t

5 -f T^V «f Nl «&.& 11 fl **! l< «^<MI, ^ EWS.

* 23rd July. See also Transactionsof the Ninth InternationalCongress0/

Orientalists,vol. ii, pp. 183-4.

t Catalogue, p. 906, " Portionof a mythological text concerning variousgods."

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