116 THK BABYLONIAN TABLETS 



the expenditure of bread, calculated on the basis of provision for 

 4232 men for one day. No. 18 is a list of names of men followed 

 by that of their overseer. 



No. 6 is a record of sesame oil which is being sent to the 

 city of Ur. No. 8 is concerning two boats whose tonnage is 20 

 gur, rented for six days. No. 13 is an account of various kinds 

 of produce (dates, seed-corn, etc.) brought in for various pur- 

 poses. No. 14 is a receipt for grain. No. 15 is a receipt for 

 three bronze axes from one Akalla, presumably the smith who 

 made them. No. 1(3 records the expenditure of grain for four- 

 teen men for the new house. No. IT is a list of quantities of 

 butter, cheese, wool, goat's wool, sheep skins, and ox hides that 

 have been brought into the palace. No. 20 is a receipt which 

 incidentally gives the ratio of bronze, gold and lead to silver at 

 the time of the first dynasty of Babylon. The line that gives 

 the ratio of lead to silver is not quite perfect, but the ratio of 

 bronze to silver is approximately 93^ :1, and of gold to silver 

 1.6(3:1. 



Taken singly and out of relation to the life which they 

 record, it is of little moment to us today whether offerings were 

 made regularly at a temple more than four thousand years ago, 

 or whether a man with a heathen name paid his debts. We do 

 not care how large the flocks were, whether the sesame oil was 

 ever delivered at Ur or not, whether the rent of a boat was ex- 

 orbitant or cheap, whether the ratio of gold to silver was 16 :1 or 

 1.66 :1, but taken collectively they are of great value. Hundreds 

 of tablets of just this character have been published, thousands 

 are awaiting publication in the museums of Europe and America, 

 and tens of thousands lie buried in the mounds of Babylonia. 

 Nor are these the only class of texts that are to be found. They 

 are naturally the most numerous, just as in our day records of 

 commercial transactions are more numerous than epic poems. The 

 literature contains such works as the Gilgamesh and Creation 

 Epics, many hymns and prayers to the gods, myths about the 

 gods, historical texts, incantation, medical and mathematical texts 

 and even Semitic-Sumerian dictionaries. Various studies have 

 been made of Babylonian religion, but so far no systematic at- 

 tempt has been made to reconstruct the history of the economic 

 and social relations of the Tigris-Euphrates valley. With the 

 awakened interest in these subjects today their importance need 

 not be pointed out. When the social and economic history of 

 2300 B. C. is written, it will have to be based upon facts recorded 

 in such tablets as these published in the following pages. 



