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123 waters had nowhere to go; cultivation was impossible. We read this description in a Sumerian text: Famine was severe, nothing was produced. The small rivers were not cleaned, the mud was not carried off... In all the lands there were no crops, only weeds grew. The two great rivers of Mesopotamia, the Euphrates and Tigris, were also not functioning: "The Euphrates was not bound to- gether, there was misery; the Tigris was confounded, jolted and in- jured.". The one who rose to the task of building dams in the mountains, digging new channels for the rivers, and draining off the excess water was Ninurta: "Thereon the lord sets his lofty ANTE a ema wo woe a on To protect the land, a mighty wall he raised. With a mace he smote the rocks; The stones the hero heaped, made a settlement . . . The waters that had been scattered, he gathered; What by the mountains had been dispersed, he guided and sent down the Tigris. The high waters it pours off the farmed land. Now. behold— Everything on Earth rejoiced at Ninurta, the lord of the land. A long text, gradually pieced together by scholars, The Feats and Exploits of Ninurta, adds a tragic note to Ninurta's efforts to bring back order to the Earth on which he was superior. To cover all the problem spots at once, Ninurta rushed from place to place in the mountains in his airship; but "His Winged Bird on the summit was smashed; its pinions crashed down to the earth." (An unclear verse suggests that he was rescued by Adad.) We know from the Sumerian texts that first to be cultivated on the mountain slopes were fruit trees and bushes and most certainly grapes. The Anunnaki, the texts state, gave mankind "the excel- lent white grapes and the excellent white wine; the excellent black grapes and the excellent red wine." No wonder we read in the Bi- ble that when "Noah began as a husbandman, he planted a vine- yard; and he drank of the wine and became drunken." Mankind Emerges mind; Ninurta, the son of Enlil, brings great things into being":