The only real myth that Berossus has to offer is that Xisuthros, the Chaldean Noah, is said to have buried records of the antediluvian world at
Sippar.
I'm going to tell you something now that normally you'd only hear from a trained sumerologist
Berossus who you mentioned wrote a book called the Babyloniaca (History of Babylonia) for the king Antiochus I.
The History of Babylonia as a complete text is now lost in antiquity, and what remains comes from secondary sources of classical writers. The reasons
why Berossus wrote the History have not survived
but
it is known that Berossus being a babylonian did not like Antiochus who wasn't a babylonian but was a conquerer from Macedonia
so when he was ordered to write the book he filled it with a lot of crap that modern sumerologists can tell you is completely untenable
). Berossus claimed that he had aquired the information contained in it from reading the ancient tablets left behind from past Millenia. But it is now
quite clear that this is not the case and he invented or made it up as he went along. One very famous Babylonian character known by everyone was Uan
(craftsman) who was reputebly the first of the seven sages who bought civilisation to mankind after the flood, known locally as the Apkallu
Uan was based on an earlier Sumerian character named Adapa the fisherman. The text that we can now read easily and which Berossus couldn’t read at
all is widely available. It begins :-
“A wise man whose command none should oppose,
The prudent, the most wise among the Anunnaki was he,
Blameless, of clean hands, anointed, observer of the divine statutes,
With the bakers he made bread
With the bakers of Eridu, he made bread,
The food and the water for Eridu he made daily,
With his clean hands he prepared the table,
And without him the table was not cleared.
The ship he steered, fishing and hunting for Eridu he did.”
Whereas the description of him by Berossus says :-
“At Babylon there was these times) a great resort of people of various nations, who inhabited Chaldæa, and lived in a lawless manner like the
beasts of the field. In the first year there appeared, from that part of the Erythræan sea which borders upon Babylonia, an animal destitute1 of
reason, by name Oannes, whose whole body was that of a fish; that under the fish's head he had another head, with feet also below, similar to those
of a man, subjoined to the fish's tail. His voice too, and language, was articulate and human; and a representation of him is preserved even to this
day.”
So Adapa the wise fisherman who became Uan the wise fisherman became Oannes the fishman. There is nothing unusual in the way that these first two
characters are depicted in fish costume. It’s a very blatant way of saying in a piece of ancient artwork what the person portrayed does for a
living
Now here is the funny thing. Seeing as Berossus would have been fully aware of Uan the wise fisherman even if he wasn’t aware of Adapa then his
description of Oannes is clearly a parody of a truth he was well aware of.
This version of Uan was immediately adopted by Assyria and from there adopted by the Greeks who started to worship him as a brother of Poseidon.
He’s also been adopted by a whole host of Psuedoscientists and Alternative historians as proof that in ancient times amphibious creatures visited
mankind from different planets. I can hear Berossus laughing all the way from here can’t you
