196 



THE LATEST DISCOVERIES IN BABYLONIA. 



years ago, but this was naturally open to correction, and the 

 high dat6 of Nabonidus for Naram-Sin (3,200 years before his time) 

 is regarded by Assyriologists as being about 1,000 years too early. 

 Referring to Dr. Irving's suggestion that the " black-headed 

 people " had their origin in traditions of negroid (?) neolithic cave- 

 dwellers, the lecturer said that was a matter of opinion. "Men of 

 the black head " was a description of the Babylonians themselves — 

 in contradistinction thereto certain Gutian (Median) slaves were 

 described as being " fair." The word translated " denizens " (mm- 

 masse) — see p. 169 — occurs in the fifth line of the bilingual story 

 of the Creation, apparently as indicating dwellers in cities ; and it 

 is noteworthy that the Sumerian equivalent is written admi — see 

 the Journal of the Pioyal Asiatic Society for 1891, pp. 402 and 403. 

 In early lists of domestic animals asses were often referred to, but 

 never horses, which seem to have become fairly well known to the 

 Babylonians 2,000 years B.C. (The tablets referred to on p. 179 are 

 much later than this, but there is no mention of horses.) 



The Meeting adjourned at 6.30 p.m. 



Later Note by the Lecturer. 



Since the writing of the note on Ziugiddu (p. 191), Dr. S. Langdon 

 has published his reading of the name,* which he gives as Zid-ucl- 

 giddu, for Ud-zid-giddn, and translates " long is the breath of life." 

 This is a fuller transcription of the name as I have read it (following 

 Poebel). The rendering " being of everlasting day," however 

 (p. 191), seems to me to be worthy of consideration. 



Froceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, June, 1914, p. 190. 



