K.3364

Discovery

The tablet (now considered to be a copy of an older Babylonian source) was discovered alongside the seven creation tablets of the Enûma Eliš in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh and was by George Smith (1876) originally considered to have been a fragment of the "Tablet VI" detailing the Babylonian creation myth, specifically the creation of man by Marduk (or Merodach, Mirku) and his instructions to mankind. The Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch (1896) also considered the tablet to be a fragment of the Enûma Eliš. The archaeologist Leonard William King however discovered in 1902 that the tablet was not a fragment of the Enûma Eliš, but a separate tablet source listing a brief creation story, but mostly moral precepts assigned to the Babylonian God Marduk. The tablet was later donated to the British Museum, from which the tablet derived its name.

A replica tablet of K. 3364 but belonging to the Neo-Babylonian period was also discovered in the late 19th century and also belongs to the British Museum (No. 33851).

Translation and Controversy

The first translation of the tablet (both reverse and obverse) appeared in George Smith's Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876). Smith erroneously assumed that the tablet list of moral laws or instructions were meant for the "newly created pair (man and woman) instructing them in their duties". Theophilus Pinches and Leonard William King however corrected Smith's misinterpretation, since the instructions or moral laws on the tablet are in fact assigned to Marduk, but the tablet does briefly describe the creation of man.

Controversy arose specifically over line 18 on the obverse of the tablet since (in Smith's translation) it refers to the creation of a "dark race" (zalmat-qaqadi) by Marduk:

Theories

Various different theories have been proposed about the meaning of the "dark race" (line 18) since Smith's translation:

Symbolic

Gerald Massey argued the "dark race" (zalmat-qaqadi) of K.3364 is purely symbolic and not ethnological.

Dark "red" skinned

George Smith proposed that the "dark race" (zalmat-qaqadi) were the original inhabitants of Babylon (and the surrounding area of Mesopotamia) connecting them to the same race as the "Adamites", or descendants of (Biblical) Adam, writing: "in various other fragments of these legends they are called Admi or Adami, which is exactly the name given to the first man in Genesis". The "dark race" connection to Adam was further popularised by Archibald Sayce who noted that the Akkadian word Adamatu, meaning "dark red" (earth), appears closely connected to the etymology of Adam and that it relates to dark red skin. Adam in Hebrew translates as "ruddy" according to Gesenius, "red, of the colour of blood" according to Calmet, or "ruddiness of flesh" ("ruddy") according to James Strong. The root of the word Adam is dam, meaning blood and some scholars have shown the parallels between this and the creation of man as described in the Enûma Eliš (Tablet VI). In Hebrew also, adom translates as "ruddy" or "red", while adamah as "red soil". Furthermore according to Josephus (c. 94 AD): "This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies one that is red, because he was formed out of the red earth".

Sayce, acknowledging the aforementioned links believed that the "dark race" described in K. 3364 (line 18) was a dark reddish skinned aboriginal race of "primitive Babylonia" that were invaded by a white skinned Semitic race. According to Sayce, the original "dark race" were Sumerians of the Turanid race, who "belonged to the dark-skinned division, though it is not necessary to suppose them to have been black as the Negro". Henry Rawlinson supported Sayce's views and further asserted that the ancient Babylonians knew of two principle races, as found in their inscriptions: "the Adamu, or dark race and the Sarku, or light race". The Sarku (or Sarcu) Sayce and Rawlinson maintained were the Semitic colonists who were white skinned. Rawlinson believed that both the aboriginal "dark race" and light skinned Semitic colonists are found preserved in Genesis. 6:1–7 as the "sons of God" and the "daughters of man". Sayce concluded by asserting that the Sarku modified Adam to denote their own "white Semitic population" after the dark red skinned Sumerian aborigines were conquered. Rawlinson equated the original "dark race" of Babylon to a "dark Caucasoid race", which in terms of later definition became defined as the Ethiopid race (Cushites).

Alexander Winchell, a Professor of Paleontology and history author discussed the racial identity of the "dark race" of K.3364 in his work Pre-adamites (1880) from which he maintained the "dark race" were sunburnt Hamites of the Mediterranean race. Similar conclusions were also drawn by Herbert Spencer in his The Principles of Sociology (1885).

Black haired

Some scholars have argued that the "dark race" (zalmat-qaqadi) in line 18 of K.3364 refers to the "black-headed" Sumerians, as their name suggests they derived it from the fact they were black haired. An array of earlier prominent Assyriologists have supported this position, noting that the aborigines of ancient Mesopotamia would only have employed such a name for themselves if they had encountered another people who possessed a different physiognomy, specifically fairer (blonde) hair: "this implies that there was also a blond race in the country from which their black hair and eyes distinguished them". Laurence Waddell was also a notable proponent of this theory, but maintained that the Sumerian royal dynasty was blonde (Aryan) while the lower masses (or 'subject' people) dark black haired primitives. The "dark race" (zalmat-qaqadi) has then been suggested to only refer to the black hair of the Sumerian aborigines of Mesopotamia (Fertile Crescent) and not their skin complexion. Although some argue the "dark race" refers to both a dark skinned and black haired population.

Negroid

Afrocentrics argue that the "dark race" (zalmat-qaqadi) refers to a Black African (Negroid) race, although anthropological and DNA studies undertaken on Sumerian remains do not support this assertion, nor do linguistics connect the Sumerians to any known Negroid language.