126 THEO. G. PINCHES, ESQ., NOTES UPON SOME OP THE 



The renown of Ban of Girsu and Lagas was therefore so 

 great that she was invoked at Niffer, of which city her 

 consort Ninip (= E-girsu, " Lord of Girsu") was one of the 

 principal gode — indeed they were both held in great esteem, 

 as the deities of healing, all over Babylonia. Like most of 

 the Babylonian deities, they were known under several 

 different names, some of which occur in the following pages. 



The splendid discoveries, so splendidly published, of 

 M. de Sarzec, show us not only what ancient Babylonian 

 architecture, art, and sculpture were, but also reveal to us 

 somewhat of contemporaneous literature. And here a matter 

 of very great importance may be noticed, namely, the Akka- 

 dian question. It is all very well for the anti-Akkadists of the 

 continent to say that there was no such thing as an Akkadian 

 language — that the inscriptions said to be written in that 

 language are mere cryptographs — puzzles which the ancient 

 scribes set their successors and themselves. Facts — hard, 

 stony facts — do not bear them out. If there were Sumerians 

 and Akkadians — and this no one denies — it is only reasonable 

 to suppose that they had languages, and they certainly had 

 no use for a cryptography. What king wishing the renown of 

 his name to be spread abroad, and handed down to posterity 

 (and this was a great thing with those who ruled in Mesopo- 

 tamia of old), would write his records in a language or script 

 which was bound to become so troublesome to read as to 

 make them practically sealed books to the greater part of his 

 people, even though they might know the character in which 

 they were written ? The Babylonian kings wrote inscrip- 

 tions for their own glory, and they were not any more than 

 the Assyrians the people to hide their light under a bushel. 

 Now all the inscriptions from Tell-Loh are written in this 

 so-called cryptography, known among the more reasonable 

 Assyriologists as Akkadian, and the pictures which we now 

 exhibit show what they are like, and with what painstaking 



Transcription of the Akkadian Tentative restoration of the Assyrian 

 version : — version : — 



1. Zi nitalamani 1. Nis [hamirti-su] 



2. ni sa-zu maga 2. bel[ti §a libbi-ki stru] 



3. ene 3. mus[tesitu] 



4. saga lu-gisgal-lu 4. pu[h amelil 



5. unu kuba 5. sa [makana lubusti] 



6. nam-nuima ba-sul 6. [belilti suklulat] 



7. D.P. Ban, ni Gir-su D.S. 7. [Bau, bSlit Girsu] 



8. Lagasa D.S. sig-ea 8. sa [ina Lagas supatfj 



9. Ellil (D.S.)-gi gipa 9. [ina Nippuri lutamati]. 



