TRANSACTIONS 



OP THE 



AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 



AETICLE I. 



OLD BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS 

 CHIEFLY FROM NIPPUR. 



BY H. V. HILPEECHT, Ph.D., 



Professor of Assyrian and Curator of the Babylonian Museum in the University of Pennsylv. 



Bead before the American Philosophical Society, November 4, 1892. 



PREFACE. 



The old Babylonian Cuneiform Texts, which are published in the following 

 pages, are a part of the harvest gathered by the Expedition sent out in the summer 

 of 1888, under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, for the exploration 

 of Babylonia. The Eev. Dr. John P. Peters, Professor of Hebrew in the University 

 of Pennsylvania, was the Director of the Expedition, while the subscriber, as the 

 Assyriologist of the University, accompanied it during the first year of its labors. 

 As the history of the Expedition is to be published by its Director at an early date, 

 I here abstain from giving any account of its origin, members, undertakings and 

 results. In the meantime for the student I have appended to the Introduction a 

 Bibliography of those contributions of its members to various periodicals which 

 relate to its work. 



Towards the close of the year 1891 there arrived at the Museum of the Univer- 

 sity some eight thousand clay tablets, together with several hundred fragments of 

 vases and other inscribed objects in stone, which had been disinterred in Nippur or 

 NTuffar.* I was able at once to proceed with the work of cleaning and examining 



* This is the present designation of the extensive ruins by the Affek tribes, in whose territory they are situated. 

 Although I repeatedly had the Arabs of the neighborhood pronounce for me the name they give to the ancient 

 Nippur, I never heard from their lips the pronunciation Niffer, to which Layard and Loftus have given currency 

 among Assyriologisls. 



A. P. S. — VOL. XVIII. A. 



