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90 to men, to befall the land.” It was an Evil Wind that “caused cities to be desolate, caused houses to be desolate, caused stalls to be desolate, the sheepfolds to be emptied.” There was desolation, but no destruction; emptiness, but no ruins: the cities were there, the houses were there, the stalls and sheepfolds were there—but nothing alive remained; even “Sumer’s rivers flow with water that is bitter, the once culti- vated fields grow weeds, in the meadows the plants have withered.” All life is gone. It was a calamity that had never happened before— On the Land Sumer a calamity fell, One unknown to men. One that had never been seen before, One which could not be withstood. Carried by the Evil Wind, it was a death from which there was no escape: it was a death “which roams the street, is let loose in the road... The highest wall, the thickest wall, it passes like a flood; no door can shut it out, no bolt can turn it back.” Those who hid behind doors were felled inside; those who ran to the rooftops died on the roofs. It was an unseen death: “It stands beside a man, yet no one can see it; when it enters a house, its appearance is unknown.” It was a gruse- some death: “Cough and phlegm weakened the chest, the mouth was filled with spittle, dumbness and daze have come upon them... an overwhelming dumbness . . . a headache.” As the Evil Wind clutched its victims, “their mouths were drenched with blood.” The dead and dying were every- where. The texts make clear that the Evil Wind, “bearing gloom from city to city,” was not a natural calamity; it resulted from a deliberate decision of the great gods. It was caused by “a great storm ordered by Anu, a [decision] from the heart of Enlil.” And it was the result of a single event—“spawned in a single spawning, in a lightning flash’—an event that oc- curred far away in the west: “From the midst of the moun- tains it had come, from the Plain of No-Pity it had THE END OF DAYS