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Tell Haddad, Nippur, Amarna and Nineveh; tablets in Baghdad, Berlin and New York, Iraq

The Myth of Adapa

Sumerian copies about 1900 to 1600 BC (literary copies, not the oldest writing)

Fragment of the Myth of Adapa, Morgan Library MLC 1296, from Ashurbanipal's library, 7th century BC. This is a late copy of a story whose older Sumerian tablets are not this object, and none of them is the oldest writing. Daderot, CC0. Shown unedited.

A sage of the first city is offered life and turns it down, on tablets that are old and are not the oldest.

Why this is extraordinary

Adapa, sage and priest of Ea at Eridu, is out in a boat when the South Wind swamps him. He breaks the wind's wing. The sky god Anu summons him. You follow the story from that boat up to a hearing in heaven. Ea tells him what to say, and tells him to refuse the food and drink of heaven. Adapa obeys. The food and drink were the food and drink of life. He goes back to earth mortal. Later tradition calls him the first of the sages from before the flood, the kind of figure the apkallu reliefs still show in the palaces.

The copies do not match a claim that this is the oldest text. Two Sumerian tablets from Tell Haddad, ancient Me-Turan, and fragments from Nippur, are Old Babylonian, about 1900 to 1600 BC. The long Akkadian copy was found at Amarna in Egypt, in the 14th-century archive, and is now in Berlin. The fragment in the photograph is from Nineveh, seven centuries after Amarna. Older literature is already on clay: the Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh Temple Hymn, from copies of about 2600 BC, and the account tablets of Uruk, about 3200 BC.

If Adapa is a memory of a teacher, the memory is attached to Eridu and to a refusal of immortality, not to a date before writing. If the story is school literature, it still says what the scribes thought a sage was. Both readings can sit on the same tablets. The city under the story is the Eridu room. The flood he is not in is weighed with the flood tablets.

The Adapa copies sit late on the line. Uruk's accounts, and the Instructions of Shuruppak, are already written. Diagram: Our Deep History.

Why it matters

The story is the clearest Mesopotamian account of a teacher at Eridu. The date of the copies decides whether "oldest text" is a description or a slogan.

Adapa serves Ea, the god of Eridu, called Enki in Sumerian. The apkallu are the sages those palaces still carved. This story is not the Eridu Genesis, and it is not Gilgamesh Tablet XI. A catalogue that files every ancient tablet under a flood heading has mixed a sage who never builds a boat with a king who does. The Sumerian copies come from Tell Haddad and from Nippur. The Akkadian copies come from Amarna and from Nineveh.

Photo tour

4 photographs, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.

Fragment of the Myth of Adapa, Morgan Library MLC 1296, from Ashurbanipal's library, 7th century BC. This is a late copy of a story whose older Sumerian tablets are not this object, and none of them is the oldest writing. Daderot, CC0
Comparison: fragments exhibited as the Instructions of Shuruppak. The case label is cut out of this frame. The signs sit in boxes, the early kind of writing. This literature is centuries older than any Adapa copy, so the sage's story is not the start of writing.Daderot, CC0
Comparison: Ea between two fish-cloaked sages on a basin from Assur, reign of Sennacherib. People are visible behind the stone. The palaces still carved the teacher who comes from the water, long after Adapa's story was first copied. The basin is not the Adapa tablet.Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0
Comparison: Ea, the Sumerian Enki, with streams and fish, on the Adda seal. This is the god who advises Adapa, shown as lord of the fresh water. The seal is not a page of the story.Unknown author, Public domain

See the evidence at the source

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What is still unexplained

These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.

Observed in the Akkadian copies The food he refused Ea coaches Adapa for the hearing before Anu, and tells him not to eat or drink what is offered. Adapa refuses. Anu asks why he would not take the life that was in the food. The advice and the offer do not match. The tablet does not explain Ea's motive in a line a second reader can check. Mortality, in this story, is the result of obedience.
Observed — the dates are the copies' dates Copies, and the oldest writing The Sumerian telling is Old Babylonian, from Tell Haddad and from Nippur fragments, about 1900 to 1600 BC. The Amarna tablet, found in 1887 and kept in Berlin, is the longest Akkadian piece and belongs to the 14th century BC. Nineveh adds further fragments in the 7th century, including the Morgan piece in the photograph. The Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh Temple Hymn are known from copies of about 2600 BC. Uruk's account tablets are older still. "Oldest text" does not name any of these Adapa objects.
Open — the lists and the story are not one tablet Sage, priest, and the seven The story presents a sage of Eridu, a priest of Ea, whose word has power enough to break the wind. Lists of the seven apkallu, the sages from before the flood, and the later fish-cloaked figures in the palaces, are a wider tradition. Joining Adapa to that list of seven is a reading across texts. It is not a sentence on the Amarna tablet. Berossus, writing in Greek about 280 BC, tells of Oannes, a fish-man who taught writing, building and law and returned to the sea each night. The reliefs show that figure. They do not show Adapa's name.
Observed Not a flood story Adapa is on the water when the wind strikes him. He is not warned to build a boat, he does not load animals, and he does not land on a mountain. The Sumerian flood story and Atrahasis do those things. A display that puts Adapa in a flood case is a choice of the case, not of the plot.

Location and dating

Location
The Sumerian tablets are from Tell Haddad in the Diyala and from Nippur. The Amarna tablet was found at Akhetaten in Egypt and is in the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. The fragment photographed here is MLC 1296 in the Morgan Library, from the library at Nineveh.
Period label
Current consensus — open to revision Current consensus — open to revision. Sumerian copies about 1900 to 1600 BC. Amarna copy in the 14th century BC. Nineveh copies in the 7th century BC. The story's setting is Eridu. That setting is not the date of the clay.
How this dating was done
The copies are dated by typology of the script, by the cities and archives they were found in, and by the reigns those archives belong to. Typology means reading a date from the style of the writing. No colophon on the Amarna piece gives a year in the way the Atrahasis copy does. Eridu's temple sequence is a different clock, weighed in that room.
What could change it
An Adapa tablet sealed in a layer older than the Old Babylonian copies would move the start of this story. A line that named a tool, a measure, or a people from outside the poem would move the sage reading. Neither is on the copies catalogued here.
Published ranges, drawn as bars. A bar is a claim about a span, not a point.
Older literature
Sumerian Adapa
Amarna tablet
Nineveh fragment
2600 BCE1500 BCE631 BCE
  • Older literature. Instructions of Shuruppak and the Kesh hymn. Not Adapa.
  • Sumerian Adapa. Tell Haddad and Nippur. Old Babylonian script.
  • Amarna tablet. Found with the Amarna letters. Now in Berlin.
  • Nineveh fragment. Ashurbanipal. The Morgan piece in the photograph.

What is actually there

Open questions

Question Status
Why does Ea tell Adapa to refuse the food of life? Open in the text
Is Adapa one of the seven sages, or a priest the later lists absorbed? Debated
Does any copy deserve the name of oldest text? The dated tablets say no

The current narrative

Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.

The current narrative — open to revision

A tale of a sage who missed immortality

Adapa is school literature about a priest of Ea at Eridu. His obedience costs him the food of life. Later lists place a sage of that name among the teachers from before the flood.

What supports this

  • The Akkadian plot is a hearing in heaven, a refusal, and a return to earth.
  • The Sumerian copies from Tell Haddad tell the same sage's story, with differences, centuries earlier.
  • Eridu is the city the king list and the temple sequence both put first.

What pushes back

  • The texts do not say why Ea's advice and Anu's offer contradict each other.
  • Joining this priest to the list of seven sages uses more than one composition.

What would settle it

Best reading of the tablets as they stand. The motive of the god stays open. The date of the copies does not.

Emerging narratives

Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.

An emerging narrative

The oldest text

Adapa is the oldest written composition, a Sumerian original from the beginning of writing.

What supports this

  • The Sumerian copies are genuinely early literature, Old Babylonian, and the setting is the city tradition calls first.
  • Popular retellings have treated that earliness as a beginning of writing itself.

What pushes back

  • The oldest Adapa copies are about 1900 to 1600 BC. The Amarna tablet is the 14th century. The Morgan fragment is the 7th.
  • The Instructions of Shuruppak, the Kesh hymn, and the Uruk accounts are older, and they are different works.

What would settle it

The copies move this reading off the centre. A tablet older than those literary neighbours would put it back.

An emerging narrative

A memory of teachers from an older culture

The sage is a memory that civilisation was taught, by people or beings from outside, and Adapa is the name the texts kept.

What supports this

  • The story and the apkallu tradition both say that skills were given, not only invented on the spot.
  • Berossus's Oannes teaches writing, building and law and goes back into the sea.
  • Eridu's own tradition says kingship came down from heaven to that city.

What pushes back

  • The earliest shrine at Eridu is a small mud-brick room that grows by stages. The ground shows a local sequence.
  • Adapa's plot is a refusal of immortality, not a manual of arts. The arts are the subject of Enki and the World Order, a different poem.
  • No copy names a homeland, a tool, or a date before the Old Babylonian tablets.

What would settle it

The testimony that teaching came from the sage's god is real. An outside culture is a further claim. It needs a line or a layer the present copies do not supply.

Should the current view be reevaluated?

Consensus holds well

The story is well placed among Old Babylonian and later copies, and it is not the oldest writing. The open part is Ea's advice, and how far the sage lists and the palace reliefs are one tradition.

What drives this

  • Dated copies from Tell Haddad, Nippur, Amarna and Nineveh
  • Older literature that is not this story
  • A plot with no flood boat

This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.

Weigh it yourself

Anonymous. Nothing here is stored except on this browser. Your lean does not change the assessment beside it.

A tale of a sage who missed immortality Unsure The oldest text

If the contested reading is right

What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.

Adapa remembers teachers from outside the local sequence at Eridu

The sage lists would be testimony about a gift of the arts, and the small first shrine would have to be read beside that gift rather than instead of it.

Why it is still worth a test

A copy that names a craft, a measure, or a people in words a second crew can check against the ground at Eridu.

Sources

  1. Adapa Electronic Babylonian Library
  2. Une version sumérienne de la légende d'Adapa Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 2014
  3. VAT 348, the Amarna tablet Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative
  4. Adapa Wikipedia

Image credits

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