BABYLON IN THE DAYS OF NEBUCHADREZZAR. 



193 



Very few could, like Neriglissar (see p. 17), boast of aristocratic 

 descent, but there were certain citizens wlio are stated to have 

 been descendants of Aku-ba-tila, who was also, in all probability, 

 the ancient king whose name occurs in the bilingual list of kings, 

 and is explained as meaning Sin-takUa-lihlut, " Sin, thou hast 

 presented (him), let him survive " {W. Asia Inscripions, Vol. V, 

 PI. 44, 1. 53). 



Babylon is now, as foretold by the Prophet Jeremiah, a ruin 

 and a desolation, but it was once the scene of all the activity 

 of a great commercial centre. Along its probably narrow 

 streets passed, every day, a multitude of its citizens, engaged 

 in buying and selling and getting gain. On one of the earliest 

 tablets in Strassmaier's Inschriften von N abuchodonosor (probably 

 later, however, than the date at which he fixed it, for reasons 

 to be stated later on) we have a record of the sale of some slaves, 

 returnable, in certain events, in which Pani-Nabu-lumur and 

 Iddia, servants of Neriglissar, are mentioned as witnesses. This 

 inscription is dated at Opis, where, in all probability, Neriglissar 

 had a residence. It belongs, however, to the great collection 

 regarded as having come from Babylon. 



As in all the great capitals — the modern Babylons, so to say 

 — the residents of foreign birth or origin were numerous. At 

 Babylon, it is noteworthy that they had long memories in the 

 matter of ancestry, and some traced, seemingly, their origin 

 back to the time of the first dynasty of Babylon, when not a 

 few settlers in Babylonia bear the descriptive title of Amorites 

 {Amurru or Awurru). These, naturally, worshipped their 

 national god (later their family god), Amurrii, " the Amorite 

 (deity)." In illustration of this, it is to be noted that, in the 

 5th year of Nebuchadrezzar, Babylon saw the offer of security 

 for money owing by Amurru-sama', who may have been a 

 descendant of those ancient Amorites of 2000 B.C., or a more 

 recent immigrant from Palestine, though the former seems to 

 be the more probable theory, as we have no record that " the 

 Amorite was in the land " of Palestine for many centuries 

 previous to the 5th year of Nebuchadrezzar, when Jehoiakim 

 was king of Judea. The security for the money was the house 

 of Amurru-sama' at Pahirtu, " the city of the Assemblage " or 

 " Gathering " — possibly a suburb of Babylon. For this name, 

 compare the French " Villa de da Reunion," an assemblage 

 of houses in rustic surroundings in the direction of Passy. The 

 " Foregathering " at Babylon, however, was an assemblage of 



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