“… The mother-goddess starts by blaming the other gods, especially Anu, the chief god of the universe, and Enlil, who directly was responsible for the flood in his cosmic domain. But this is only the introduction. The most important feature lies in her action that breaks her speech and her final declaration. She went up to the big flies, carried by Anu, and declared these flies to be her lapis lazuli necklace, so that she would always remember. As in the second creation scene, the symbolism is loaded with meaning. Anne Draffkorn Kilmer has devoted a study to this symbolism. Kilmer draws attention to the visual form of a fly necklace. There are two important characteristics. The most obvious is that a necklace forms a circle. The other is connected with the nature of the flies. The wings are shimmering; one can see the spectrum in a fly’s wings in sunlight. Kilmer makes the tempting suggestion that the form, the circle or curve, and the spectrum symbolise the rainbow, the very phenomenon that marks the end of the flood in Genesis. If so, the rainbow is the necklace of Nintu, born by her, in the remorse of the annihilation of her offspring in the flood. …”