ARCHAEOLOGY. 



17 



preserve reminiscences of the vertical direc- 

 tion in which Chaldean writing, like that of 

 China, originally ran. It is true that in some 

 cases we can trace the lineaments of the primi- 

 tive hieroglyphs, and thus learn, for iustance, 

 that the inventors of the writing were a circum- 

 cised race who worshiped the stars, regarded 

 destiny as a flying bird, and symbolized the act 

 of walking by the human leg ; but, as a general 

 rule, the almost entire obliteration of the orig- 

 inal picture is complete. 



Minor Assyrian Documents. Mr. S. Alden Smith, 

 an American Assyriologist, studying in the 

 British Museum, has made a special work of 

 examining the collection of small tablets on 

 which are recorded the dispatches, letters, and 

 minor documents of the court and camp life of 

 the empire. The nature of the writings is 

 described by the compiler by saying that the 

 perusal of them is " as if some one, 2,500 years 

 hence, studying and deciphering the annals of 

 Great Britain, would find some short letters 

 from Yorkshire, Lancashire, Scotland, Wales, 

 and Ireland, written by the chief of police, or 

 some revenue or tax collector, whose grammar 

 would not be regular, or style faultless." Writ- 

 ten in the popular dialects, these tablets teach 

 much regarding the manners and customs of 

 the people, and the composition and etiquette 

 of the court, and give views of various classes 

 of Assyrian society. They are of both private 

 and official character, the official papers being 

 the most numerous. One series of the docu- 

 ments relate to the affairs of Babylonia after 

 its capture by Tiglath-Pileser II, and depict an 

 active agitation in favor of the restoration of 

 Babylonian autonomy, continuing under the 

 leadership of Merodach Baladan II, and those 

 who came after him, during the reign of Ti- 

 glath-Pileser II and Sennacherib. The agi- 

 tation was marked by rebellious disturbances 

 and intrigues, which are clearly revealed, and 

 illustrate how, in ancient as in modern timos, 

 apparently trivial circumstances may be the 

 beginning of great political movements. They 

 are also of much interest to the student of 

 Oriental literature and manners, in that they 

 show how many expressions and forms of ad- 

 dress still current in the East have come down 

 from extremely ancient times. 



Inscriptions from Abn-IInbba. A private col- 

 lector in England has obtained a large number 

 of inscribed tablets and cylinders that were 

 collected by Arab antiquity-hunters from the 

 mound of Abu-Hubba, which represents the 

 ancient city of Sippara, after Mr. Rassam had 

 discontinued his work there. The majority of 

 the tablets relate to the collection of the reve- 

 nues of the temple (the great Temple of the 

 Sun-god), which were derived from tithes and 

 dues on corn and dates, and from contribu- 

 tions from pious donors. In addition to these 

 sources of revenue, large grants of land had 

 been made from time to time by kings and 

 others, and were farmed like the Wnkouf estates 

 of the Turkish mosques or the glebe-lands of 

 VOL. xxvu. 2 A 



the English Church. Thus, in the twelfth cent- 

 ury B. c., the king gave to the temple "a farm 

 adjoining the city of Al-Essa (New Town), 

 which is within Babylon, and placed it in 

 charge of Ekur-sum-ibassi, a priest." Similar 

 grants were made by other kings. The collec- 

 tion affords very clear indications of the wealth 

 of the land of Chaldea in the seventh and 

 sixth centuries before the Christian era; such 

 as four thousand sheep given as sheep-dues in 

 one year; ten thousand measures as tithes of 

 corn in the third year of Nabonidus, B. c. 553; 

 in another year, five hundred measures from 

 one man. Receipts are also found for quanti- 

 ties of barley, dates, and other fruits, oils, and 

 honey all collected from farmers, boatmen, 

 scribes, weavers, the master of the camels, and 

 tax-paying women. The tablets further men- 

 tion the receipt of various material for the re- 

 pairs or adornment of the temple; of wood 

 and stone in the eighth year of Nabopalassar, 

 B.C. 616; of wood, furniture, and bricks, in 

 ths seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar II, B. o. 

 547; of straw and reeds for building; of five 

 mines worth of cedar and cypress-wood in the 

 first year of Cambyses, B. c. 529 ; and of fifty- 

 four shekels of gold in the rtign of Darius. 

 One of the most interesting features of the 

 tablets is the care with which the accounts are 

 kept. The names of the payers are entered iu 

 full, and sometimes the name of the father 

 and the trade are given. The amount is en- 

 tered in ruled columns, with total summed up 

 at the foot, and the whole sometimes counter- 

 signed by witnesses. Some of the tablets are 

 of great historical value as connecting links in 

 the chain of documents on which Babylonian 

 and Assyrian chronology are based. Every 

 one of the tablets is dated in the month, clay, 

 and regnal year of the king's reign in which 

 the transaction took place, and they are there- 

 fore a valuable aid in fixing the chronology of 

 the period. Among the new names is that of 

 Sui-sar-iskun, as one of the claimants to suc- 

 ceed Assurbanipal ; a name which, in the ab- 

 breviated form of Sariskun, bears a resemblance 

 to the Saracus, given in the list of Berosus as 

 the name of the last king of Assyria. Another 

 tablet is of the tenth year of Kindalanu, the 

 Uinladinus of the Canon of Ptolemy, B. o. 637. 

 Among the relics from the most ancient period 

 of the mounds of Tello, M. Berthelot has iden- 

 tified a vase as made of metallic antimony, a 

 substance which was supposed to have been 

 unknown till the fifteenth century. 



Cyprus. The Succession of Five Kings. Impor- 

 tance is attached to a Phoenician inscrption on 

 a marble slab, cons'sting of one hundred :tnd 

 thirty letters in one line, which has been dis- 

 covered by Herr Richter, near Dali, in Cyprus, 

 because it contains the name of Baalram, the 

 son of Azbaal, the son of Baalmelek ; Baalram 

 being known to have been the father of Meli- 

 keathon, this name establishes the line of suc- 

 cession of the Phoenician kings of Kition from 

 Baalmelek to Pamiathon (five lives in all ; from 



