2G0 OLD BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 



pages, I was still somewhat influenced by the current view of Assyriologists, that 

 later .kings occasionally imitated older patterns in their script. Since then I have 

 completely shaken off this old theory as utterly untenable when contrasted with all the 

 known facts of Babylonian paleography. The observation, however, which I made on 

 p. 29, note 2, that the characters represent the peculiarities of Ur-Nina's inscriptions 

 was entirely correct. Since then a large number of vase fragments have been exca- 

 vated, by which I was enabled to confirm and strengthen my previous judgment based 

 upon the study of a few squeezes of badly effaced inscriptions and to analyze the pal- 

 seographic peculiarities of this whole class of ancient texts completely. I arrived at 

 once at the result that the three legends published on PI. 14 were written by Lugal- 

 kigub-nidudu, "lord of Erech, king of Ur," who left us No. 86. Among other gifts, 

 such as vases, dishes, etc., 1 this sovereign presented a number of unhewn diorite,' 

 calcite, stalagmite and other blocks 2 to the temple as raw material for future use 3 At 

 the time of Bur-Sin II several of these blocks, of which one is published on PI. XVII, 

 were still unused. 4 They had been handed down from a hoary antiquity and scrupu- 

 lously preserved for c. 1500-2000 years in the temple archive. Bur-Sin II selected a 

 diorite block from among them, left the few words of its donor respectfully on its side, 5 

 turned it into a door-socket, wrote his own inscription on its polished surface and pre- 

 sented it in this new form to the temple. But something similar happened many hun- 

 dred years before. According to Part I, p. 29, section T, 6 the same rude inscription is 

 scratched upon the back side of a door-socket of Sargon I. From the analogous case 

 just treated it follows that Lugal kigub-nidudu must have lived even before Sargon J, 

 and consequently that all other inscriptions which have the same pakcographic peculi- 

 arities as his own can only be classified as pre-Sargonic. 



1 Cf. PI. XVIII, 40-48. 

 2 Cf. Part I, p. 29. 



3 These blocks received therefore only a kind of registering mark scratched merely upon their surface [Dingir En- 

 lil(-la) Lugal-hi-gub nidudu (ne) amu-na-shub, "To Inlil L. presented (this" —ne)). The inscription on the block, 

 PI. XVII, No. 39, had originally 8 li. according to the traces left. On the diorite blocks these inscriptions are well 

 preserved; on the calcite blocks however, whose surface corroded and crumbled in the course of six millenniums, they 

 have suffered considerably. Cf. on the whole question of presenting stones as raw material to the temple, Hilprecht 

 in Z. A. VIII, pp. 190 ff. 



4 As shown above. 



5 Cf. The curses on the statue B of Gudea, col. VII, 59 ff., on the door-sockets of Sargon, PI. 1, 12 ff., PI. 2, 13 ff., 

 on the lapis lazuli block of Kadashman-Turgu, PI. 24, pp. 14-20. In the latter case the lapis lazuli was likewise pre- 

 sented as raw material to be used in the interest of the temple. But the inscription — this was the intention of the 

 donor — was to be preserved (a thin piece of lapis lazuli being cutoff, cf. PI. XI, No. 25) in remembrance of the gift. 



6 Cf. Parti, "Table of Contents," p. 47. 



