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The Myth of Adapa
Adapa and the South Wind tells how Adapa, in Mesopotamian tradition the first antediluvian sage who brought civilization to mankind, ascended to heaven to be held accountable for breaking the wing of the South Wind with a curse. Thanks to the instructions given to him by Ea, the god of wisdom, Adapa avoids conviction, yet wastes the opportunity to gain immortality. Because of the power bestowed on Adapa to alter reality with his speech, the composition can be read as an aetiology for the art of the “conjurer” (āšipu), whose practice it was to remove evil from patients by means of his – divinely-backed – words.

Manuscripts of the Text
The myth of Adapa’s ascent is known in several versions from the early 2ⁿᵈ millennium onward. The earlier written versions of the story, in Sumerian, are a well-preserved version from Meturan and two fragments from Nippur. The first known Akkadian version, a boiled down reading primer version, stems from 14ᵗʰ-century Amarna. In the 1ˢᵗ millennium, the text is only attested in a number of small fragments, most of which were found in the royal libraries of Nineveh (i.e. 7ᵗʰ century BCE), but which might have been written earlier.

The title “Adapa to the midst of heav[en],” which appears in an accession record from the same libraries (Rm.618), might refer to this composition. Furthermore, the Catalogue of Texts and Authors cites an incipit of an unknown work (“[…] … from before the Flood”) as the work of Adapa himself, perhaps another reference to this text.