CHIEFLY FROM NIPPUR. 9 



at the outset the material of the whole volume. At the opening of each new box 

 I found myself compelled to withdraw some pages and substitute others, until 

 the commencement of the printing, in October of last year, made further alterations 

 and a more systematic arrangement impossible. The second part of this volume, 

 which will appear in about half a year, will furnish further inscriptions of kings 

 who are already represented in the first. ISTor will it be possible entirely to avoid 

 this defect of arrangement in other volumes, so long as the excavations at Nippur 

 continue to bring to light new inscriptions of the same rulers. If, however, we 

 were to delay the publication of the inscriptions until the complete results of the 

 systematic explorations of the ruin-heaps at [Nippur were at hand, it would have 

 been necessary, according to my careful calculation, to wait some twenty years, sup- 

 posing that the excavations were pushed forward with a force of some hundred Arab 

 workmen. 



On account of its importance and its close connection with the class of Cas- 

 site votive inscriptions here published, I have included the cuneiform text on the 

 lapis lazuli disc of King Kadashman-Turgu, which probably came from Nippur,* 

 and is now in the Museum of Harvard University,! Cambridge, Mass. Prof. D. G-. 

 Lyon kindly gave me leave to publish this, and placed at my disposal a cast of the 

 disc, for which he has my warmest thanks. 



The transcription of the names of kings in the Table of Contents is the usual 

 one. A new transliteration has been substituted only where there are sufficient 

 grounds for departing from that formerly used. The texts in the main have been 

 arranged chronologically, in the order of the Babylonian dynasties ; yet where the 

 better utilization of space seemed to justify this, and also, as already said, because 

 it was impossible to obtain at the outset all the material of the present volume, I 

 have departed from that order in a few instances, Nor have I attempted to distin- 

 guish between the inscriptions of Kurigalzu I and II, simply because, with the 

 material now at our disposal, it is not possible to do so with any certainty. 



Three other volumes of cuneiform texts are in preparation. The transcription and 

 translation of the inscriptions here given are as good as completed, and will appear 

 at an early date. Prom this translation I have excluded the Abu Habba slab and 

 the two Yokha tablets (Plates A r I-VIH). These latter are to be treated in connection 

 with other tablets of similar character and contents. A translation of the former I 



* Cf. Hiiprecht, "Die Votivlnschrift eines nicht erkannten Kassitenkonigs, " Z. A. VII, p. 318. 



t Cf. Lyon, "On a Lapis Lazuli Disc "in the Proceedings of the American Oriental Society, May, 1889, pp. 

 cxxxiv-vii. 



A. P. S. VOL. XVIII. B. 



