ASSYRIOLOGY AND THE ASSYRIAN MUSEUM TABLETS. 381 
ASSYEIOLOGY AND THE ASSYKIAN MUSEUM 
TABLETS. 
ABSTRACT OF A LECTURE BY REV. GEORGE EVANS, M.A. 
(Read February 14th, 1884.) 
After a general description and history of Assyrian writings and 
the subjects upon which they treated, and referring fully to the 
Babylonian and Assyrian gods, the lecturer proceeded to speak of 
the two tablets in the Museum of the Institution. He said : 
It is to be regretted that these tablets have been made to look so 
nice and tidy, because in doing so I am under the impression that 
they have suffered at the ends of several lines; i.e. several char- 
acters are missing, which fortunately can easily be filled up. Still, 
it would have been well had the characters been allowed to remain 
on the tablet. Sometimes we find a bit of the character broken 
off, and I have no guarantee from your tablet whether I am to read 
su or ki, &c. The two tablets form one story, the plainer of the 
two coming first. I find that there is a duplicate of these inscrip- 
tions at the Cottonian Library, which I have compared with them, 
and I find that they are exactly alike, only that the Cottonian 
tablet is in some places plainer than these in your museum. Yours, 
to my mind, is the one of which the Cottonian is a copy. It is to 
be hoped that these tablets will not be handled by persons carelessly. 
I mean that the characters should be untouched except with the 
greatest care, so that we should lose no more of their contents. 
You will pardon my mentioning this. 
These two tablets are in the Assyrian cuneiform writing, and are 
from the palace of a king who reigned from 885 to 860 b.c. 
Whether the tablets belong to this date I cannot say, but I think 
it highly probable ; for the style of writing upon them is exactly 
like the writing on tablets belonging to this period. I venture to 
tell you that they are valuable tablets too, for a reason which I 
shall proceed to give. 
VOL. VIII. 2 B 
