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198 other's speech." Then the Lord "scattered them from there all over the face of the Earth, and they ceased to build the city." That there was initially a time when mankind "spoke in unison" is a tenet of Sumerian historical recollections. These also assert that the confusion of languages, accompanying the dispersion of mankind, was a deliberate act of the gods. Like the Old Testament, the writings of Berossus reported that "the gods introduced a diver- sity of tongues among men, who until that time had all spoken the same language." Like the biblical tale, the histories of Berossus connect the diversification of languages and the dispersion of man- kind to the incident of the Tower of Babel: "When all men for- merly spoke the same language, some among them undertook to erect a large and lofty tower, that they might climb up to heaven. But the Lord, sending forth a whirlwind, confounded their design, and gave to each tribe a particular language of its own." The conformity of the tales suggests the existence of a common, older source from which both the compilers of the Old Testament and Berossus had obtained their information. Although it is gener- ally assumed that such an original text has not yet been found, the fact is that George Smith, in his very first publication in 1876, re- ported discovering at Ashurbanipal's library in Nineveh "a muti- lated account of part of the story of the Tower." The tale, he con- cluded, was originally written on two tablets; on the one he had found (K-3657), there had been six columns of cuneiform text; but he could piece together only fragments of four columns. It is un- doubtedly an Akkadian version of the Sumerian tale of the Tower of Babel; and it is clear from it that the incident was brought about not by mankind but by the gods themselves. Mankind was only a pawn in the struggle. As pieced together by George Smith, and retranslated by W. S. C. Boscawen in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archae- ology (vol. V), the tale began with the identification of the instiga- tor; damage to the lines, however, obliterated the name. "The thoughts" of this god's heart "were evil; against the Father of the Gods [Enlil] he was wicked." To achieve his evil purpose "the people of Babylon he corrupted to sin," inducing "small and great to mingle on the mound." As the sinful work came to the attention of "the lord of the Pure Mound"—already identified as Enlil in the Cattle and Grain tale— Enlil "to Heaven and on Earth spoke. ... He lifted his heart to the Lord of the Gods, Anu, his father; to receive a command his heart requested. At that time he also lifted up [his heart? voice?] to THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN