Impression of a Sumerian cylinder seal showing Enki (as the serpent god) revealing the secret of the deluge to Atra-Hasis
(the biblical Noa) giving him instructions for the building of a submersible boat that would withstand the avalanche
of water. Enki advised Atra-Hasis to lose no time for he had only seven days before the catastrophe happened.
To make sure that Atra-hasis wasted no time, Enki put into motion a clock like device:
-
He opened the water clock
and filled it;
the coming of the flood on the seventh night
he marked off for him
This little noticed bit of information reveals that time was kept in the temples and that time
keeping goes back to the earliest, even pre-diluvial times.
Sitchin, Z. "When Time Began", 1993.
It is also interesting to notice that Enki is represented as a
serpent with a distinctive spiral shape.
