74 
JOURNAL OP THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
dedicated to one of the planetary bodies. On the cylinders of 
Nebuchadnezzar this temple is spoken of as " the temple of the 
seven lights of heaven and earth." In course of time it lost its 
pinnacle, which Nebuchadnezzar restored. Ezida means ' the 
eternal house.' 
Ablu=' son ; ' asaridu = ' the eldest.' This word asaridu, written 
on both our tablets syllabically, is sometimes written ideographi- 
cally, and represented by two characters whose syllabic value are 
res and dan respectively. This ideograph explains to us that the 
asaridu is ' the mighty head or chief,' ' the first or foremost.' In 
combination with ablu it means ' the eldest son.' 
Nabu-abal-usur = ' Nabopolassar.' The name means, 1 god Nebo, 
protect the son.' The text tells us that the Nebuchadnezzar here 
spoken of is the eldest son of Nabopolassar. This was the third 
king of that name, and reigned from 604 to 561 B.C., a period of 
forty- three years. His father reigned twenty-one years, from 625 
to 604 B.C. It was in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar that the Jews 
were carried to Babylonish captivity, in the year 586 B.C. 
I should mention that the fame of Nebuchadnezzar rests more 
upon his buildings than upon his conquests. There are a large 
number of inscriptions which belong to his reign \ some on bricks, 
such as those in this Museum, some on clay cylinders, and one on 
cameo. The majority of the inscriptions refer to the buildings of 
the king at Babylon and Borsippa. There is in the Museum at 
Zurich a six-lined inscription on brick, which is almost literally the 
same as our text. (See Schrader's above-mentioned work, p. 363 ; 
and see further the new work published by the Religious Tract 
Society, and written by Mr. Ernest Budge, of the British Museum, 
p. 69.) This latter work should be in the hands of all who take 
an interest in these studies. We are told by Professor Sayce, in 
his work on Babylonian Literature^ p. 5, that a few cuneiform in- 
scriptions from Babylonia being in England, " Dr. Hincks found 
himself able to read the name of Nebuchadnezzar and the record 
of his buildings." It is possible that this first decipherer of our 
inscriptions worked in his early attempts at a tablet like the one 
we have been considering in this paper. 
