542 ulscv)vp:ries in Mesopotamia. 



(Genesis, xiv) Avhieh were recently found, we derive a mass of the most 

 important information on the eommercial and judicial life as well as 

 the economic conditions in the Babylonian State for a period of nearly 

 two thousand years from the tirst Babylonian dynasty (2250 B. C.) 

 until lont^ after the time of the Acha'menian kings. The excavations 

 at S'ppar, Babylon, and elsewhere carried us back to the time of 

 Ilannuuiabi. that o-reatest king of the first Baltylonian dynasty, Avho 

 unit(>(l the north and the south in one great Babylonian State, with 

 Babylon iis the capital. But the soil of Balnlonia. inexhaustible in sur- 

 prises, was soon to afford us an outlook into a nuich higher antiquity 

 of the Babylonian people and to carry us to still more remote ages 

 in the history of humanity. From the same archives to which the 

 al)ove-mentioned >()tive taldet belonged, which was deposited by King 

 Neltobaladan {SS2 B. C.) i" the sun tem})le at Si})par, came also, among 

 other things, a remarkable clay cylinder of the last Chaldean king, 

 Nabonaid. In it th(^ king relates that he has decided to reestablish 

 the sun temple upon its oldest foundation; for. in consequence of the 

 repeated rebuildings in the course of many centuries, the temple was 

 obviously d(>tached from its original foundation site, from its oldest 

 "temen:"' and that he has succeeded, after contimious and la))orious 

 digging into the d(>pths o[" the earth, in tinding the '■'temen" of the 

 Hrst builder of the temple Nai'am-Sin, son of Sargon I, a^temen" 

 which for thirty-two hundred years had not been seen by the eye of 

 man. This established tlu' year HTaO before our era as the date of the 

 reign of Naram-Sin and al)out 3S(K) as that of Sargon I. and opened a 

 vista into the past of the human race on Babylonian soil which lies 

 fifteen hundred years beyond the time of Hammurabi -Amraphel, or, 

 to speak with the Old Testament, beyond the time of Abi-aham, a 

 vista never anticipated and at first hardly credil)le. And still, little 

 as was the inclination to accept so remote a date, there was as Uttle 

 reason to doubt it, and, in fact, the progress of the excavations was 

 soon to prove it more and more indubitable. 



The French consul at Bassora, Ernest de Sarzec, who has ))een direct- 

 ing the French excavations on the south Balnlonian site of the ruins 

 of Tell Loh (Telloh) since 1875, had not long l)egun his work when he 

 found those nine diorite statues, which represented partly in standing 

 position, partly seated, the old priest kings (patesi) of the city of 

 Lagash, named Ur-Bau and (judea (PI. X). These statues, although 

 the heads of all are missing, are valuable examples of the old Baby 

 Ionian art of sculpture, and this value is considerably increased by the 

 inscriptions which, on the breast, back, etc., are incised with the most 

 consummate artistic skill and neatness, exciting the admiration of our 

 modern stonecutters. While the archaism of the writing leads us back 

 to a time long before Hammurabi, the language in which they are com- 

 posed shows that those ancient priest kings belonged neither to the 



