REPORT OX THE CONGRESS OF ORIEXTALISTS. 



231 



fifth (General Semitic) Section, I was the first of those asked 

 who had his manuscript with liim, my paper upon " A Small 

 Collection of Babylonian Tablets from the Birs Ximroud," 

 being an account of a portion of the collection belonginp: to 

 Lord Amherst of Hackney, was the first read. The Bii-s Xim- 

 roud, as probably most of my audience know, is the ruin of the 

 great temple - tower at Borsippa (of this word Birs is 

 probably a corruption), which was a religious centre of con- 

 siderable importance at the time Babylonia existed as a nation, 

 and is regarded by many as the place where the Tower of Babel 

 stood. The documents described were mainly contract-tablets, 

 and covered a period dating from some interregnum, when 

 Assyrian influence was supreme, to the time of Artaxerxes. 

 This earliest tablet, of the time when there was no kmg of the 

 native line in Babylon, is dated in the reign of an eponym. a 

 kind of mayor in the city of Babylon, named Ubar. It is the 

 only instance of dating by eponyms in Babylonian history 

 known to me, and is of considerable importance on that 

 account. The names of the witnesses imply that the document 

 belongs to the reign of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, who, as 

 we know from the Old Testament and the inscriptions, some- 

 times held his court at Babylon. 



As is well known, after the rei^rn of Xabonidus, when Bel- 

 shazzar, his son, seems to have held a position equal to that of 

 king, the Babylonians never regained their political liberty. 

 This, however, does not mean that they never tried, as the 

 tablet dated in the reicjn of Samas-iriba, which was studied 

 many years ago by Professor Oppert, sufficiently shows. 

 Further confirmation of this I was able to bring forward, by 

 quoting two of Lord Amherst's collection, one dated in the 

 reign of a Babylonian named Bel-simanni, and the other in 

 that of a Persian which I read doubtfully as Sikusti. It will 

 therefore be seen that the Babylonians of the Persian period 

 were not particular as to the quarter whence the change which 

 they desired came — they would have preferred a Babylonian 

 ruler, in all probability, but failing that, they were willing to 

 acknowledge another foreigner. Doubtless their opinion was, 

 that under the new ruler things might be much better, and 

 could not very well be worse. 



An interesting paper read at the same sitting of the General 

 Semitic Section was that, of Professor Paul Haupt, of Baltimore, 

 L'.S.A., upon the name of Tarshish, which he regarded as 

 simply a place for crushing ore, and therefore applicable to 

 any district where there was a foundry, or smelting-furnaces. 



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