DISCOVERIES IN BABYLONIA AND THE NEIGHBOURING LANDS. 117 



one of the former resembling a dachshund, and inscribed with 

 the following words : — 



" To the lady Gula (or Ban) I have made and presented a dog of 

 clay." 



To all appearance the dog was sacred to Gula, hence this 

 inscription. 



We have already seen, from the excavations at Bismya, that 

 the Babylonians burned their dead in early times, and that, 

 after the cremation, the ashes were collected and placed in urns. 

 Ordinary burial, however, was also practised, but instead of 

 coffins, the custom seems to have heen to enclose the body in 

 a large jar before interment. Professor Scheil gives repro- 

 ductions of some of the gigantic specimens of pottery which he 

 found, in which the body was apparently inserted entire. 



We know that, in later days, the influence of Assyria 

 extended as far as the Mediterranean, but w-e cannot say for 

 certain at what date that influence began to make itself felt. 

 Babylon was the pioneer country in that part of the world, 

 however, and the Assyrians, who spoke the same language, 

 would naturally inherit the influence when the power of 

 Babylonia began to wane. In all probability a certain amount 

 of light is thrown on this point by the tablets found of late 

 years in Cappadocia, and written in cuneiform characters. These 

 documents consist of contracts and letters, and though the 

 script is Babylonian in style, and the envelopes of the contracts, 

 when they have them, are covered with impressions of cylinder- 

 seals similar to those found in Babylonia, they are also, strange 

 to say, dated by means of eponymes — that is, by inserting the 

 name of some official chosen for a year to date by — an exclusively 

 Assyrian custom. These documents cannot be said to be 

 written wholly either in the Babylonian or the Assyrian style, as 

 far as the wording of the contracts is concerned, but with a 

 legal phraseology which seems to antedate them both. The 

 style of the writing is that of about 2000 B.C. or earlier, and 

 notwithstanding possible arguments to the contrary, this may be 

 regarded as their probable date. That Assyria could have had 

 influence as far north-west as Kaisarieh, at that early period, 

 seems to be impossible, but perhaps, notwithstanding its seeming 

 dependence on Babylonia, the northern kingdom may have had 

 more power than is at present generally imagined. The great 

 deity of the place seems to have been Asur or Asir, the well- 

 known head of the Assyrian pantheon, so that the influence of 

 Assyria, and not of Babylonia, at that early date, seems to be set 



