THE BABYLONIAN CYLINDERS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 52, 1 March 1879, Page 4

THE BABYLONIAN CYLINDERS.

Mr Cooway, in & recent- lettrr from London lo the Cincinnati Commercial, discourses rg follows on one of the recent discoveries made from the Babylonian Cylinders : — "lt is now a pretty genera! African version of the fail of man that Adam and Eva were negroes, and only when they had Binned and heard the Creator callins were their feces stricken with that pale lioe which has continued among the more sinful race. It now Bppenrs from the earliest tables on the subject (hat Ihere is more ground for this tradition than it has hitherto been credited with — at least so far as the colour of the fir«t pair is concerned. The tablet is in the British Museum, brought by the late George Smith. An inscription marked •• K 3464," cousins iv it en account of the crfation of man by (he god Mir-ku (noble crown). "To fffir them (the gods) he made man; the breath of life was in him. May l.c (tho good Mir-ko) be establishes find may his will fall in the mouth of the dark race 3 which his band has made." This is the earliest allusion in existence to the Biblical Bccount of creation, and it distinctly points to the first race being dork. This confirms what Sir Henry RawJicgson said Jone ago, thkt Adam meant " dp.ik race," in diatinctioo from " Sarku," light race ; and George Smith thought that the account (Gen. vi.) of the Bons of God marrying the daughters of men, meant the Sarku intermarrying with Adam. It appears therefore, tbat when this Adtun (not a proper name, but meaning "daik mau") bad sinned (the tablet does not say in what way) the good Hea's liver wag angry, the father Elu pronounced man's curses, which the said history of the African race lenders curious. "Wisdom and knowledge hottiloly may then injure him . . . ma y he be conquered ... his land, may it bring forth and he not touch it . . his desire shall be cut off and his will unanswered ... the opei - ing of his mouth no good shall thka notice of ... his back shall be brok«n and not healed ... at his urgent trouble no god shall receive lam,"