96 MR. BOSCAWEN ON THE HISTORICAL 



place at a very early period, for as early as B.C. 3750, the kings 

 of North Chaldea wrote their inscriptions in Semitic Babylonian, 

 thus affording proof of the existence of a Semitic population 

 in the land. In the British Museum there is a small ovoid of 

 pink and white marble, bearing an inscription of Sargon I., 

 King of Agadhe, or Akkad, one of the quarters of the city of 

 Sippara, the Sepharvaim of the Bible, in North Chaldea; and 

 an inscribed vase belonging to Naram-Sin, the son of this ruler, 

 was found by M. Fresnel, but unfortunately lost in the Tigris ; 

 also a third inscription of this period is the seal of ibni sar, 

 the tablet-writer of Sargon I. This inscription, of which 

 I give a facsimile, is one of particular interest, as showing the 

 importance of the scribe caste even at this early period. All 

 of these inscriptions are written in very archaic characters, 

 quite in agreement with their great antiquity.^ The inscription 

 upon the seal of Ibni-Sar reads, when transcribed into 

 modern Babylonian characters, 



1- -H^ ::n :ff^ ^. 2. ^^^yil<. 



AN - SAR - GA NI SAR LUKH 



To Sargon the good King ? 



A- GA - DHE IB - NI - 



King of Agadhe (akkad) Ihni - 



DUP - SAR ARAB - SU 



the scribe his servant. 



This word dupsar or tupsarru, literally " Tablet- writer," 

 was of Akkadian origin, being composed of dup tablet and 



served in the names of the cardinal points. From a small astrbnomical 

 tablet we learn that the North-East was the land which the Akkadians placed 

 behind them, the land which they left in their journey from the East ; while 

 the Semites called the West Akharri — the " Hinterland " of the Germans — 

 pointing to Arabia as their home. 



* The date of these inscriptions rests upon the statement, twice repeated 

 in cylinder incriptions, of Nabonidus, King of Babylon (B.C. 555-538), that 

 in his restoration of the temple of the Sun-god he found in the foundations 

 the memorial record of Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, which for 3,200 

 (III KT"^ IT T"" 3x 10 X 100 + 2 X lOO) years none of the kings his prede- 

 cessors had seen (W.A.T. v. 64, ii. 61). In a second cylinder (W.A.I, v. 65, 

 i. 38) the king also speaks of this discovery. In the former of these records 

 the king speaks of the Kassite king Sagarakteyas, son of Kndur-Bel, or 

 more probably Kudur-Kharbi, whose reign, he says, was 800 (77 I*-) years 



