RECENT DISCOVERIES IN THE REALM OP ASSYRTOLOGY, ETC. 139 



Babylonian women took in bearing; their share of the burthens 

 of life, as shown by the late Babylonian contract-tablets. 

 The so-called "tablet of Akkadian laws" and other texts 

 also testify to this being- the case. Upon this question, how- 

 ever, I shall speak elsewhere.* 



Of course, the Akkadians Avere slave-holders, but they 

 seem to have been of a kindly disposition, and to have 

 treated their slaves well. In this case seven days' holiday 

 are said to have been given them, and this is the only record 

 known of such a thing. In later times masters showed their 

 appreciation of the service rendered to them by their slaves 

 by conferring on them certain privileges, and it is probable 

 that, at least in the majority of cases, the lot of a slave was 

 not one of hardship. 



The question of religion touched upon by this text of 

 Gudea would carry me much farther than I intend to go at 

 present, but there is one important fact, in view of the anti- 

 Akkadian theoiy, to be noted, and that is, that the names of 

 all the gods mentioned in this text are non-Semitic. Some 

 of their more noteworthy titles I have mentioned, the most 

 striking being that referring to the moongod Sin, of whom 

 it is said that no man repeats his name (>^ j^. ^^ *f- 

 ^^ £^^y mu-ni In nu-tagade, "name + his + man + not + 

 repeating"). The pronunciation of Sin for »->f- ((<( (the 

 moongod) is given by a Babylonian syllabary, but we have 

 no indication as to how the characters »->f- »-^ 3TT (* ne 

 form of his name used in the text now under examination) 

 were pronounced. Their usual value is >~>f- En-zu, and they 

 probably mean "lord of knowledge," but whether this is the 

 true pronunciation or not is uncertain. It has been thought 

 that they should be pronounced backwards, thus : Zu-en, 

 later corrupted to Sin, but of this theie is no confirmation 

 except that there is sometimes found a phonetic complement 

 na, showing that the word, whatever it was, had n as its 

 final consonant. It is also worthy of note that the goddess 

 Bau, besides being the goddess of healing, seems also to 

 have been goddess of eloquence. This is implied by a 

 passage in this text, in which Gudea is described as " Bail's 

 eloquent one"f ($fc» £fcf ■£[ <«? ^ ^ gf *ftft ^ 

 lu enima sega D.P. Bau-gi), though this may simply mean 

 that Gudea was eloquent in singing her praises. From the 



* It is to be noted that it was only in Akkadia,n times that queens 

 really reigned. 

 t See p. 131. 



M 



