555th ordinary GENERAL MEETING, 



HELD (BY KIND PERMISSION) IN THE ROOMS OF THE 

 ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS, ON MONDAY, APRIL 20th, 1914, 



AT 4.30 P.M. 



Mr. a. W. Oke took the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting were read and confirmed. 



The Secretary announced that Mr. Alfred Haigh had been elected 

 an Associate of the Institute. 



The Secretary also announced that the Very Rev. the Dean of 

 Canterbury had been elected a Vice-President, and Mr. Joseph Graham 

 a Member of Council. 



The Chairman then called upon Dr. T. G. Pinches to read his paper, 

 which was illustrated by numerous lantern slides. 



THE LATEST DISCOVERIES IN BABYLONIA, By 

 Theophilus G. Pinches, LL.D., M.JJ.A.S. 



I. — Creatiox-Stories. 



As in the past, since its foundation in the tirst half of the 

 last century, the science of Assyriology continues its 

 forward march ; and as it progresses, it heaps up a fund of 

 knowledge — small in this country, but greater in volume 

 abroad ; for it is the one domain of Oriental research in which 

 discoveries of importance and real interest, in its various 

 branches, can be made. Every day brings Assyriology's votaries 

 nearer to more precise interpretation of the inscriptions, and 

 every year many new texts, some of them of considerable 

 importance, are brought from the ruin-mounds of P)abyloiiia and 

 Assyria. Now and again finds take place in the museums 

 where documents harvested in former years lie, awaiting the 

 time when they can be studied at ease and their contents made 

 known. 



Earliest in the order of time — if their contents were really 

 historical — are the legends, headed by those dealing with the 

 Creation. Of these, three versions are known — that detailing 

 the fight between Bel and the Dragon, which was first 

 translated by George Smith ; the creation-legend of Cuthah ; 

 and the bilingual version, wdiich is simply an introduction to an 



