BULLETIN 



of the 



Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences 



VOLUME XI. No. 2 



INTRODUCTION. 



The exhibit recently installed in the Museum of the Buf- 

 falo Society of Xatural Sciences to show the early development 

 of the Art of Writing includes twenty-one inscribed clay tablets 

 from lower Mesopotamia. Of these five have come from 

 Drehem, a ruin-mound about three miles south of Nippur where 

 were stock pens of the cattle market which supplied animals for 

 sacrifice at the temples of Nippur, especially the great temple of 

 Enlil and his consort Ninlil, in the latter part of the prosperous 

 Dynasty of Ur. Eleven are from Jokha, the modern name of the 

 ancient city of Umma, while four are from Senkereh, which was 

 the Biblical city Ellaser of Genesis 14.1, and one is a votive 

 tablet from Warka, that being the modern name of the Biblical 

 city of Erech (Uruk) of Genesis 10.10. 



These have been deemed of such interest that their transla- 

 tion seemed desirable and for that purpose they were placed in 

 the hands of Dr. Mary Inda Hussey, Associate Professor of 

 Biblical Literature at Mount Holyoke College. Their transla- 

 tion follows with such an account of them from her pen as can- 

 not fail to interest its readers. 



The dynasty of Ur founded about 2300 B. C. by Ur-Engur, 

 represents Sumerian supremacy, the Semitic dynasty of Akkad 

 having been then overthrown. 



