ancient literature and sacred texts were carefully preserved and
continued to be studied by the Semitic priests and scribes. So the fact
that the tablet is written in the old Sumerian tongue proves that the
story it tells had come down from a very much earlier period. This
inference is not affected by certain small differences in idiom
which its language presents when compared with that of Sumerian
building-inscriptions. Such would naturally occur in the course of
transmission, especially in a text which, as we shall see, had been
employed for a practical purpose after being subjected to a process of
reduction to suit it to its new setting.

When we turn to the text itself, it will be obvious that the story also
is very primitive. But before doing so we will inquire whether this
very early version is likely to cast any light on the origin of Deluge
stories such as are often met with in other parts of the world. Our
inquiry will have an interest apart from the question itself, as it
will illustrate the views of two divergent schools among students of
primitive literature and tradition. According to one of these views,
in its most extreme form, the tales which early or primitive man tells
about his gods and the origin of the world he sees around him are never
to be regarded as simple stories, but are to be consistently interpreted
as symbolizing natural phenomena. It is, of course, quite certain that,
both in Egypt and Babylonia, mythology in later periods received a
strong astrological colouring; and it is equally clear that some legends
derive their origin from nature myths. But the theory in the hands
of its more enthusiastic adherents goes further than that. For them
a complete absence of astrological colouring is no deterrent from an
astrological interpretation; and, where such colouring does occur, the
possibility of later embellishment is discounted, and it is treated
without further proof as the base on which the original story rests. One