Part 2 (1/2)

91-5-9, 606 is known as Brit. Mus. No. 92,679. This renders it difficult to further particularize the contents of the collections; or to know whether a given tablet belongs to one of the above collections.

(M26) In the Museum of the Louvre at Paris are a few tablets belonging to this epoch. Seven of them are published in M. Heuzey's _Decouvertes en Chaldee_.(28)

(M27) At the Berlin Museum is a collection known by the name of Homsy.

The tablets are marked V. A. Th., but this mark includes other tablets widely separated in date and found at different sites.

(M28) At the University of Pennsylvania collections known as J. S., Kh., and H. contain tablets of this period. Professor E. F. Harper, writing in _Hebraica_,(29) gives some account of these collections; from which it appears that the J. S. collection contains tablets of ?ammurabi, Samsuiluna, and Ammiditana; while the Kh. collection has tablets of ?ammurabi, Samsuiluna, Ammiditana, and Ammizaduga. He announced the discovery of the name of Abeshu on contemporary doc.u.ments,(30) belonging to that reign. The two collections contain over a thousand tablets. The H collection has six hundred and thirty-two tablets, many of this epoch.

(M29) In the Imperial Ottoman Museum at Constantinople are a large number of tablets of this period. They are denoted by N, the Nippur collection found by the American explorers there; S, the Sippar collection from the explorations conducted by Pater V. Scheil at Abu Habba; the T or Telloh collection from the explorations of De Sarzec.

A few tablets are owned by Sir Henry Peek, Bart.

A few tablets exist in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, the gift of Mr. Bosanquet.

The Rev. J. G. Ward possesses a tablet, published by Dr. T. G. Pinches in _P. S. B. A._, XXI., pp. 158-63, of the time of Mana-balte-el, which seems to be of this period.

A number of other tablets of the period are known to be in different museums or in the hands of private individuals.

(M30) The historical value of the events used in dating these tablets was recognized by G. Smith, who published the dates of a number of the Loftus tablets, in the fourth volume of the _Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_, p. 36.

The earliest publication of the texts was by Pater J. N. Stra.s.smaier in the _Verhandlungen des V Internationalen Orientalistischen Congresses zu Berlin_, 1881. In the _Beilage_ he gave the lithographed text of one hundred and nine tablets under the t.i.tle of _Die altbabylonischen Vertrage aus Warka_. He made many important observations upon their character and style, and gave a valuable list of words and names. As was to be expected from a first attempt, both his readings of the texts and his transcriptions from them leave room for some improvement. He arranged his texts according to the reigns of the kings mentioned.

This edition formed the subject of M. V. Revillout's article, _Une Famille commercant de Warka_, and of numerous articles by other scholars in the journals. Dr. B. Meissner seems to have collated a number of these texts for his _Beitrage zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht_.

In 1888, Dr. T. G. Pinches published _Inscribed Babylonian Tablets in the possession of Sir Henry Peek, Bart._ It was followed by other parts and by _Babylonian and a.s.syrian Cylinder-seals and Signets in the possession of Sir Henry Peek, Bart._, in 1890. These are most valuable for their full treatment-photographs of the originals, drawings, and descriptions of the seals, transliterations, translations, and comments, giving a better idea of what these doc.u.ments are like than can be obtained without actually handling the originals. Dr. Pinches in his introduction a.s.signs their discovery to the ruins of Sippara. The texts published by him only include three from our period, Nos. 1, 13, 14; but nowhere will a beginner find more a.s.sistance in his studies of this cla.s.s of tablet.

In 1893 Dr. B. Meissner published his invaluable _Beitrage __ zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht_, Vol. XI. of Delitzsch and Haupt's _a.s.syriologische Bibliothek_. This gave a full transliteration and translation of one hundred and eleven texts published in autography. Full notes and comments were added giving practically all that could then be said on the subject. His introduction summarized the information, to be extracted from his texts, bearing on the social inst.i.tutions of Babylonia.

By arranging the texts in cla.s.ses according to their purport and contents he was able to elucidate each text by comparison with similar doc.u.ments and so to gain a very clear idea of the meaning of separate clauses, even when the exact shade of meaning of individual words remained obscure. Any advance which the interpretation of these doc.u.ments may make must be based on his researches and follow his methods. He gave a useful glossary, but no list of proper names.

In the fourth volume of Schrader's _Keilinscriftliche Bibliothek_, 1896, Dr. F. E. Peiser adopted the plan of arranging the then known contract-texts in chronological order. He gave, in transliteration and translation, the texts of thirty-one tablets of this period. Of these many had been previously published by Stra.s.smaier and Meissner, but Dr.

Peiser's renderings and short notes are of great value.

In 1896 began the grand series of publications, _Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum, printed by order of the Trustees_, which has been continued to the present date. Volumes II., IV., VI., and VIII. contain copies by Dr. T. G. Pinches of no fewer than three hundred and ninety-five texts from the B1 and B2 Collections. They also contain a number of letters and other texts, some of a date as late as Xerxes, but from the same two collections.

In the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_,1897(31) and 1899,(32) Dr.

T. G. Pinches gives transliterations, translations, and comments upon fifteen of these texts.

A word of notice must be given to the excellent Guides published by the trustees of the British Museum. The _Guide to the Kouyunjik Gallery_, with four autotype plates, 1885, and the _Guide to the Nimroud Central Saloon_ are now superseded by the _Guide to the Babylonian and a.s.syrian Antiquities_ with thirty-four plates, photographic reproductions of the originals, 1900. On pages 104-13 will be found a most useful account of the cla.s.s of tablet and short descriptions of ninety-four exhibited case tablets. Most of these tablets have been published by Stra.s.smaier or in _Cuneiform Texts_, but are now indicated by their new registration numbers.

It will be evident from the above remarks that only a small proportion of the material in our museums has yet been published. It is greatly to be desired that every existing tablet should be published, as in no other way can we hope to solve many important problems. Not only the chronology but much of the actual history can be recovered from these tablets, while the names of the witnesses and parties to the transactions will settle the order of the years which are still doubtful. It is from these deeds that the greater part of this work will be constructed. They form the groundwork, while later doc.u.ments fill in details.

(M31) The years were given names. Thus the second year of ?ammurabi is called ”the year in which ?ammurabi the king established the heart of the land in righteousness.” The year often received its name from the capture of some city. Are we to suppose that these events actually occurred on the first day of the year? If not, by what name was the year called up to the occurrence of the event in question? There is evidence that some years pa.s.sed by two names, one of which was probably conferred after the year had begun. An examination of all dated tablets would doubtless result in fixing the time of the year at which the new year-name came into use. This can only be achieved by the custodians of our great collections. But, speaking generally, it seems obvious that names were often given to the years which attached to them a memory of the previous rather than a record for the current year. When in after years scribes drew up lists of the dates of a reign, they may well have made mistakes as to the exact year in which an event took place and have also credited a king with too long a reign, by counting as separate years two dates which were really the alternatives for one and the same year. In this way we may perhaps account for the discrepancies between the Chronicle and the King Lists.

(M32) The tablets often mention the name of the reigning king as well as the year-name; thus we read as a date, ”the year when Samsuiluna was king,” followed by ”the year in which the ca.n.a.l of Samsuiluna named ?egallu was dug,” which was the year-name of Samsuiluna's fourth year.

Also the parties often swore an oath to observe their contract by the name of one or more G.o.ds and of the reigning king. Hence, very often, when the date is not preserved at all, we know what reign was concerned. On the other hand, in some reigns we have dated tablets from almost every year.

If all the tablets were published, the witnesses and other parties would enable us to fix the sequence of the years. As these year-names each give a prominent event for the year we could thus reconstruct a skeleton history of the reign. Indeed, the present writer had already determined the order of several years, in more than one reign, from consideration of the persons named in each. Of course, no a.s.surance could thus be had that some intermediate years were not omitted in such a scheme, since there is no certainty that we know the name-dates for each year of a reign. The order of the kings themselves and the lengths of their reigns were already known from the King List published by Dr. T. G. Pinches.(33)

(M33) It seemed probable that the scribes of those days would have made lists of the year-names, in order to know how much time had elapsed since a given event had occurred. Hence great was the excitement and delight when in _C. T. VI._ was published a tablet which once contained a list of year-names from Sumuabu to Ammizaduga. This was followed by the publication in Mr. L. H. King's _Letters of ?ammurabi_ of a duplicate, which served to restore and complete the list down to the tenth year of Ammizaduga's reign. Mr. King further added the year-names actually used on the dated tablets then published; thus showing how the year-names of the list were quoted and either abbreviated or expanded. He very appropriately called this the _Chronicle of the Kings of Babylon_. In the meantime Professor A. H. Sayce had given a translation of the first published list.(34) In the fourth volume of the _Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft_,(35) Dr. E. Lindl has given a full discussion of the first published list. He further adds a small list of the same character giving the year-names in order for part of the reigns of ?ammurabi and Samsuiluna.(36) Dr. Lindl used the published dates of the contracts to complete and restore the first list. Thus a great deal of excellent work has been done on these lists. None of them are complete for the whole dynasty, nor even for the part which they originally covered, and the known dated doc.u.ments do not serve to fully restore them. But so far as they go, they must take the precedence of the King List, being almost contemporary doc.u.ments.