102 



THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.R.A.S., ON 



the photographic reproduction with the aid of M. E. Lampre's 

 copy. Prof. Scheil's translation, somewhat modified, reads as 

 follows : — 



" Tablet of TU-KAK, 17 DA-NUN-SI, 1 AD- , . . 2 ME, 4 BAD, 

 1003 and a half DUG (Q-BAD, 9 measures of grain, 9| measures of 

 grain, 2 DUG-GAL." 



The last is probably a kind of large fish. 



With reference to the inscriptions of this nature, however, it 

 is needful to say, that one has an uneasy feeling that the 

 characters may not have been pronounced as the Babylonians 

 read tliem, and that often, when we can translate the words, we 

 do not know their phonetic values, and when we can transcribe 

 them, we do not know their meaning. When this happens, 

 there is no escape from leaving blanks in the renderings, or 

 giving the apparent pronunciations of the somewhat barbarous 

 combinations which the Babylonian syllabaries indicate. With 

 regard to the numerals, their renderings may be looked upon as 

 fairly certain. 



Besides this small text in four columns, the other inscriptions 

 of the series also give numerous forms comparable with those of 

 the script of Babylonia and Assyria, — which, however, seems to 

 have been less rich in signs — due, probably, to the abandonment 

 of some of the original forms, for fashion existed in the domain 

 of Babylonian letters as in other things. I give here, as 

 examples, a few comparisons which may be made between 

 proto-Elamite and the Babylonian styles of writing. The first 

 is a group of doubtful meaning ; the second is the character for 

 " husband " or " wife " ; the third stands for " lady " or " sister " ; 

 the fourth is a compound group showing the character Item, " to 

 be luxuriant," within aJc, "to make" — ? "garden-produce," 

 perhaps, of some special kind ; the fifth is a cliaracter for 

 " sheep," — apparently the picture of a sheepfold with four 

 divisions ; the sixth is the character for " grass " or "herb " ; the 

 seventh gives three forms of the character for " great " ; and the 

 eighth is a measure called the qa. It is needless to say that 

 this list could be greatly increased, but were I to continue the 

 comparisons, we should not reach the more interesting things to 

 which I shall refer in this paper. 



But even at Babylon itself at least one linguistic mystery 

 came to light. In .1881 Mr. Eassam ibund there a contract- 

 tablet referring to the sale, by merchants or tradesmen of that 

 city, of a slave-woman named Istar-Babili-siminni, to a man 

 named Urmanu. This text I published in 1883 on account of 



