HAMILTON SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION. 03 



brief account of the results reached by the expedition sent out in 

 1888 from the University of Pennsylvania will illustrate the kind 

 of information that is now available from many different sources. 

 The expedition was made under the charge of Professors Hilprecht 

 and Peters and was thoroughly equipped in every way. The 

 ancient city of Nippur was the scene of its operations, near which 

 the soil is cut up by hundreds of old Babylonian canals. About 

 two thousand cuneiform documents were secured within a very 

 few months, but after two or three seasons' continuous work the 

 number of cuneiform tablets in the possession of the excavators 

 numbered something like 32,000. Besides these there were found 

 inscribed bricks, vases, door sockets, drain tiles, domestic utensils 

 in stone and metal, jewellery in gold, silver, copper and bronze, in 

 fact a great variety of things which shed light on the civilization 

 of the age to which they belonged. The cuneiform tablets referred 

 to contain letters, chronological tests, historical fragments, in- 

 ventories, contracts, accounts of law suits, astronomical and re- 

 ligious texts. The interesting thing to notice is the date to which 

 these things belong. As the excavations proceeded the Temple of 

 Ekur rose out of the mass of rubbish, and soon the platform of the 

 first king of Ur was reached. This platform was built about 2800 

 B. C. More wonderful still, numerous bricks were discovered 

 bearing the name of Sargon I., 3800 B. C. This Sargon was for a 

 long time supposed to be a purely mythical character, a creation of 

 the time of the Sargon whom we meet in the Old Testament. 

 There is not merely a solitary fragment or two, but a vast accumu- 

 lation of evidence from the cuneiform tablets to prove that this 

 supposedly mythical creation was a king of real flesh and blood 

 who ruled over a vast empire thirty-eight centuries B. C. From 

 two inscriptions found at Nippur it is clear that his son, Naram- 

 Sin, conquered North and South Babylonia, a large part of Arabia, 

 and the whole west country even as far as Cyprus. Hilprecht has 

 undertaken. the publication of documents found at Nippur and the 

 complete series will number about sixty large volumes. He claims 

 that the documents from Nippur are the oldest that have yet been 

 brought to light, and in the Sumerian legend of creation Nippur is 

 .spoken of as the oldest city in the world. It is interesting to note 



