How should we understand the high ages of the principal descendants of Adam through the line of Seth in the narrative of Genesis 5:3-32. Harrison reconsiders these ages in the light of the ancient Sumerian King List recovered from Kish.

A prism now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, popularly known as the Sumerian King List, is held to have been compiled from as many as fifteen different texts. This King List traces the rulers of certain Sumerian cities in succession. It is of great value because it contains some very old traditions and gives an important chronological framework for the antediluvian period of the ancient Near East.