50 THEO. G. PINCHES : ON CERTAIN INSCRIPTIONS AND RECORDS 



to the land of Habbatu"." AVhether, however, it was he 

 who made some district hke ruin-heaps (1. 2), and captured(?) 

 the fortresses of the land of Akkad and the whole of Bor- 

 sippa(?) (1. 2), is more than doubtful. This line refers with 

 more jjrobability to Kudar-la^'mal or Chedor-laomer, whose 

 name occurs in the next line {'6), with the addition that " his 

 son, pie[rcerl] his (? his father's) heart with the iron sword 

 of his girdle," probably stamping him (like Tud^'ula or Tidal, 

 obv. 1. 15) as a parricide. In line 4 of the rev. the person 

 who " took his enemy " was probably the legal ruler, referred 

 to lower down as " the king my (our) lord," the kings who 

 were " lords of si[n] " being apparently the seeming parricides, 

 Tud^ula, and Kudur-la^-mal, with whom Merodach, king of 

 the gods, was angry (1. 5), whose breasts were oppressed 

 with sickness, whose faces [were bowed down in the dust?] 

 (1. 6). and whose territory (?) was reduced (?) to ruins (1. 7). 

 All these to the king recognised by the people [were com- 

 pelled to submit?], by the power of him who "knows the 

 heart of the gods, the gracious Merodach, for the renown of 

 his name " (11. 7, 8). The inscription tinishes with a reference 

 to [the writing, the contents of which were then] proclaimed 

 in E-saggil, [and which the future prince who should restore 

 that temple] should, [when he found it], restore to its place 

 (1. 9) [after taking note of its contents], as was the custom 

 in those days. The sense of the 10th line is uncertain, but 

 the 11th and 12th seem to contain a pious hope that the 

 gods might [keep all] evil (?) from the heart [of the ruler?], 

 and that " a lord of sin (hitu) might no longer exist." 



The above is an attempt to form a connected narrative 

 from this mutilated text, the great importance of which is that 

 it gives the three names which so closely resemble those of 

 the two Babylonian kings and one Elamite king of the 

 14th chapter of Genesis. At present I will not speak of the 

 readings of these names, nor the variant characters in them — 

 that will be best done afterwards, and in the notes. 1 will 

 merely remark that the finding on one document of three 

 names that we should e.xpect to see mentioned in close 

 connection, is a thing which anyone bringing objections will 

 have to explain away. Unsatisfactory as the condition of 

 this text is, it would nevertheless be hard to exaggerate its 

 interest and importance. 



The next document is a rather thin fragment of a tablet 

 ill the same style of writing, but of baked clay, the obverse 

 being fairly well preserved, and therefore gi"^^ing a fairly con- 



