Chapter 3

(M22) The documents of each group have marked characteristics in form of script, in orthography, in language. So great are the differences that a slight acquaintance with these characteristics will suffice to fix the epoch of a given document. For the most part, however, these characteristics are not such as can appear in translation. They will be pointed out as far as possible in the opening sections dealing with each group. The aim will be to select characteristic specimens of each group for translation and to append a summary of what can be obtained by a study of the group.

The thousands of documents dealt with under these groups would, if translated, require a library of volumes. In the case of the contracts the repetition of scores of examples of the same sort would be wearisome. In the case of the letters, the translation alone would be almost as obscure as the original, without copious comment on the relationships, customs, and events referred to. In both cases it must be noted that many of the most interesting examples are incomplete and unavailable as specimens. The object of this work is to show what are the most important laws or legal documents of each period and to point out the chief subjects of information to be gained from them. For the letters no such summary of information can be given, partly because they are so many and varied, partly because so few are yet available.

(M23) The first epoch is to be considered as one period only because its contribution to the subject is as yet small and chronologically precedes the first great group. It ranges from the earliest beginnings of history to somewhere about B.C. 2300. The dates are largely conjectural, but for the most part the sequence of the events is known. It is the period covered by Dr. H. Radau’s _Early Babylonian History_.

Some very ancient documents fall under this period. The early tablets which show the nearest approach to the original picture-writing(16) are transfers of property. As a rule, however, such votive inscriptions do not come under the head of contracts. One of the earliest of our monuments, the Stele of Manistusu, King of Kish, records the sale of land. Another very early monument of similar style(17) deals with the sale of plots of land. Others will be found in the _Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse_.

But by far the greatest number of inscriptions belong to the finds of Telloh, made by De Sarzec in his explorations for the French Government. His greatest find, some thirty thousand tablets which were in the archives there, was dispersed by the Arabs, and has found its way into various museums. They have been sold in Europe, as coming from different localities. It is certain that other finds of the same period and same general character have been made elsewhere, so that it is often difficult now to determine their place of discovery.

A very large number of these tablets, from the collection of T. Simon, now in the Berlin museums, were copied and edited by G. Reisner, as _Tempelurkunden aus Telloh_.(18) The admirable abstracts of the contents there given(19) will furnish all the information that anyone but a specialist will need. They consist of lists of all sorts of natural products, harvests from fields, seed and other expenses allowed for cultivating fields, lists of the fields with their cultivators, numerous receipts for loans or grants, accounts of sheep and cattle, stipends or allowances for certain people; but only one, number 125, is doubtfully said to concern a sale of some slaves.

Dr. H. Radau, in his _Early Babylonian History_, gives the texts of a large number of similar tablets.(20) He also classified, transliterated, and tentatively translated most of them. The kind of information to be obtained is well brought out in his notes and comments.(21) They contain receipts, accounts of all sorts, lists of animals, skins, wool, oil, wine, grain, pitch, and honey; but none relate to the usual subjects treated in contract-tablets.

M. Thureau-Dangin edited and discussed a number of tablets of the same character in the _Revue d’Assyriologie_.(22) Especially valuable is his memoir, _L’accomptabilité agricole en Chaldée_,(23) where many interesting facts are collected and published.

(M24) A very large number of texts of this period were published by Mr. L. W. King, in _Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum_.(24) These have been discussed in a few instances by various writers in scientific journals. In the short descriptions prefixed to these editions mention is made of “contracts,” but it is difficult to see to which the term could be properly applied.

A number of extracts from early “contracts” are given by Professor V. Scheil in the recent files of the _Receuil de Travaux_. According to the descriptions given, many of them are legal instruments. Besides advances of grain and receipts for the same,(25) or sales of land,(26) we have a legal decision concerning a marriage.(27) Of several of these only a few lines are given and the description of others is misleading. They are mostly preserved at Constantinople. Some are purely Sumerian, others Semitic. The same remarks apply to this author’s publications in his _Une Saison de fouilles à Sippar_. Valuable as are the portions available, they chiefly make us long for more.

A very large number of tablets belonging to the second period are now in Europe and America. They seem to have been purchased from dealers, either in the East or West; and may be presumed to have been discovered by the natives. No reliable information can therefore be had as to their origin. Various places are mentioned: Sippara, Abu Habba, Senkereh, Telloh, Warka, have all been stated to be the place of discovery. There seems no good reason why tablets of this period should not be found anywhere in Babylonia. But on examination it is found that collections said to be from widely different places contain duplicates; while the same collection contains tablets dated at different cities and with dates a thousand years apart. It is conceivable that the records of important transactions, especially the transfers of land, were deposited by order in the archives at the capital, wherever that was for the time being. We may imagine that the archives at Sippara or Larsa were afterwards transferred to Babylon, for safety, or in pursuance of a policy of centralization. Certain it is that a large number of the texts imply a devotion to Shamash as chief deity, while others ascribe the pre-eminence to Marduk or Sin. But this fact is quite consistent with the archives having been discovered in either Babylon or Sippara.

(M25) On the other hand, it is not unlikely that the apparent centralization is of purely modern production. The dealers put together tablets from all sources and ascribe the collection to the place of origin which best suits their fancy. As a consequence, scarcely any collection contains a homogeneous series belonging either to one period or source. This is the more deplorable because so few are competent to date a tablet by the style of writing upon it, and internal indications are often lacking.

In the British Museum we have the following collections:

I. A number of “case” tablets brought from Tell Sifr by Loftus in 1850. Owing to a misleading statement in Layard’s _Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 496, these have generally been taken to be from Warka, the ancient Erech. But the account given on pages 270-72 of Loftus, _Travels and Researches __ in Chaldea and Susiana_, leaves no doubt of the place and date of their discovery. These are usually denoted by B.

II. A number of tablets now in the Kouyunjik Collections. It is certain that these do not come from Nineveh, and in the British Museum Catalogue they are usually ascribed to Warka, but with an implied doubt. One or two are dated at Erech. The D. T. Collection also contains many tablets, said to be “not from Kouyunjik.”

III. The collection 81-7-1 contains some forty at least, comprising the accounts of the temple of Ninib, from the time of Ammiditana and Ammizaduga.

IV. The collection 82-7-14 also has a few tablets of this period.

V. The collection 82-9-18 has at least one contract.

VI. The collection Bu. 88-5-18, purchased by Dr. E. A. W. Budge in the East, consists of some seven hundred tablets. They are said to come from Sippara; and date from _b.c._ 2300 to the time of Darius. These will be denoted by B1.

VII. The collection Bu. 91-5-9, also purchased by Dr. E. A. W. Budge in the East, consists of some three thousand tablets. These will be denoted by B2.

The purchases for the British Museum also include a large number of other tablets of this period. They are now numbered consecutively, thus Bu. 91-5-9, 606 is known as Brit. Mus. No. 92,679. This renders it difficult to further particularize the contents of the collections; or to know whether a given tablet belongs to one of the above collections.

(M26) In the Museum of the Louvre at Paris are a few tablets belonging to this epoch. Seven of them are published in M. Heuzey’s _Découvertes en Chaldée_.(28)

(M27) At the Berlin Museum is a collection known by the name of Homsy.

The tablets are marked V. A. Th., but this mark includes other tablets widely separated in date and found at different sites.

(M28) At the University of Pennsylvania collections known as J. S., Kh., and H. contain tablets of this period. Professor E. F. Harper, writing in _Hebraica_,(29) gives some account of these collections; from which it appears that the J. S. collection contains tablets of Ḥammurabi, Samsuiluna, and Ammiditana; while the Kh. collection has tablets of Ḥammurabi, Samsuiluna, Ammiditana, and Ammizaduga. He announced the discovery of the name of Abêshu on contemporary documents,(30) belonging to that reign. The two collections contain over a thousand tablets. The H collection has six hundred and thirty-two tablets, many of this epoch.

(M29) In the Imperial Ottoman Museum at Constantinople are a large number of tablets of this period. They are denoted by N, the Nippur collection found by the American explorers there; S, the Sippar collection from the explorations conducted by Pater V. Scheil at Abu Habba; the T or Telloh collection from the explorations of De Sarzec.

A few tablets are owned by Sir Henry Peek, Bart.

A few tablets exist in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, the gift of Mr. Bosanquet.

The Rev. J. G. Ward possesses a tablet, published by Dr. T. G. Pinches in _P. S. B. A._, XXI., pp. 158-63, of the time of Mana-balte-el, which seems to be of this period.

A number of other tablets of the period are known to be in different museums or in the hands of private individuals.

(M30) The historical value of the events used in dating these tablets was recognized by G. Smith, who published the dates of a number of the Loftus tablets, in the fourth volume of the _Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_, p. 36.

The earliest publication of the texts was by Pater J. N. Strassmaier in the _Verhandlungen des V Internationalen Orientalistischen Congresses zu Berlin_, 1881. In the _Beilage_ he gave the lithographed text of one hundred and nine tablets under the title of _Die altbabylonischen Verträge aus Warka_. He made many important observations upon their character and style, and gave a valuable list of words and names. As was to be expected from a first attempt, both his readings of the texts and his transcriptions from them leave room for some improvement. He arranged his texts according to the reigns of the kings mentioned.

This edition formed the subject of M. V. Revillout’s article, _Une Famille commerçant de Warka_, and of numerous articles by other scholars in the journals. Dr. B. Meissner seems to have collated a number of these texts for his _Beiträge zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht_.

In 1888, Dr. T. G. Pinches published _Inscribed Babylonian Tablets in the possession of Sir Henry Peek, Bart._ It was followed by other parts and by _Babylonian and Assyrian Cylinder-seals and Signets in the possession of Sir Henry Peek, Bart._, in 1890. These are most valuable for their full treatment—photographs of the originals, drawings, and descriptions of the seals, transliterations, translations, and comments, giving a better idea of what these documents are like than can be obtained without actually handling the originals. Dr. Pinches in his introduction assigns their discovery to the ruins of Sippara. The texts published by him only include three from our period, Nos. 1, 13, 14; but nowhere will a beginner find more assistance in his studies of this class of tablet.

In 1893 Dr. B. Meissner published his invaluable _Beiträge __ zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht_, Vol. XI. of Delitzsch and Haupt’s _Assyriologische Bibliothek_. This gave a full transliteration and translation of one hundred and eleven texts published in autography. Full notes and comments were added giving practically all that could then be said on the subject. His introduction summarized the information, to be extracted from his texts, bearing on the social institutions of Babylonia. By arranging the texts in classes according to their purport and contents he was able to elucidate each text by comparison with similar documents and so to gain a very clear idea of the meaning of separate clauses, even when the exact shade of meaning of individual words remained obscure. Any advance which the interpretation of these documents may make must be based on his researches and follow his methods. He gave a useful glossary, but no list of proper names.

In the fourth volume of Schrader’s _Keilinscriftliche Bibliothek_, 1896, Dr. F. E. Peiser adopted the plan of arranging the then known contract-texts in chronological order. He gave, in transliteration and translation, the texts of thirty-one tablets of this period. Of these many had been previously published by Strassmaier and Meissner, but Dr. Peiser’s renderings and short notes are of great value.

In 1896 began the grand series of publications, _Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum, printed by order of the Trustees_, which has been continued to the present date. Volumes II., IV., VI., and VIII. contain copies by Dr. T. G. Pinches of no fewer than three hundred and ninety-five texts from the B1 and B2 Collections. They also contain a number of letters and other texts, some of a date as late as Xerxes, but from the same two collections.

In the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_,1897(31) and 1899,(32) Dr. T. G. Pinches gives transliterations, translations, and comments upon fifteen of these texts.

A word of notice must be given to the excellent Guides published by the trustees of the British Museum. The _Guide to the Kouyunjik Gallery_, with four autotype plates, 1885, and the _Guide to the Nimroud Central Saloon_ are now superseded by the _Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities_ with thirty-four plates, photographic reproductions of the originals, 1900. On pages 104-13 will be found a most useful account of the class of tablet and short descriptions of ninety-four exhibited case tablets. Most of these tablets have been published by Strassmaier or in _Cuneiform Texts_, but are now indicated by their new registration numbers.

It will be evident from the above remarks that only a small proportion of the material in our museums has yet been published. It is greatly to be desired that every existing tablet should be published, as in no other way can we hope to solve many important problems. Not only the chronology but much of the actual history can be recovered from these tablets, while the names of the witnesses and parties to the transactions will settle the order of the years which are still doubtful. It is from these deeds that the greater part of this work will be constructed. They form the groundwork, while later documents fill in details.

(M31) The years were given names. Thus the second year of Ḥammurabi is called “the year in which Ḥammurabi the king established the heart of the land in righteousness.” The year often received its name from the capture of some city. Are we to suppose that these events actually occurred on the first day of the year? If not, by what name was the year called up to the occurrence of the event in question? There is evidence that some years passed by two names, one of which was probably conferred after the year had begun. An examination of all dated tablets would doubtless result in fixing the time of the year at which the new year-name came into use. This can only be achieved by the custodians of our great collections. But, speaking generally, it seems obvious that names were often given to the years which attached to them a memory of the previous rather than a record for the current year. When in after years scribes drew up lists of the dates of a reign, they may well have made mistakes as to the exact year in which an event took place and have also credited a king with too long a reign, by counting as separate years two dates which were really the alternatives for one and the same year. In this way we may perhaps account for the discrepancies between the Chronicle and the King Lists.

(M32) The tablets often mention the name of the reigning king as well as the year-name; thus we read as a date, “the year when Samsuiluna was king,” followed by “the year in which the canal of Samsuiluna named Ḥegallu was dug,” which was the year-name of Samsuiluna’s fourth year. Also the parties often swore an oath to observe their contract by the name of one or more gods and of the reigning king. Hence, very often, when the date is not preserved at all, we know what reign was concerned. On the other hand, in some reigns we have dated tablets from almost every year. If all the tablets were published, the witnesses and other parties would enable us to fix the sequence of the years. As these year-names each give a prominent event for the year we could thus reconstruct a skeleton history of the reign. Indeed, the present writer had already determined the order of several years, in more than one reign, from consideration of the persons named in each. Of course, no assurance could thus be had that some intermediate years were not omitted in such a scheme, since there is no certainty that we know the name-dates for each year of a reign. The order of the kings themselves and the lengths of their reigns were already known from the King List published by Dr. T. G. Pinches.(33)

(M33) It seemed probable that the scribes of those days would have made lists of the year-names, in order to know how much time had elapsed since a given event had occurred. Hence great was the excitement and delight when in _C. T. VI._ was published a tablet which once contained a list of year-names from Sumuabu to Ammizaduga. This was followed by the publication in Mr. L. H. King’s _Letters of Ḥammurabi_ of a duplicate, which served to restore and complete the list down to the tenth year of Ammizaduga’s reign. Mr. King further added the year-names actually used on the dated tablets then published; thus showing how the year-names of the list were quoted and either abbreviated or expanded. He very appropriately called this the _Chronicle of the Kings of Babylon_. In the meantime Professor A. H. Sayce had given a translation of the first published list.(34) In the fourth volume of the _Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft_,(35) Dr. E. Lindl has given a full discussion of the first published list. He further adds a small list of the same character giving the year-names in order for part of the reigns of Ḥammurabi and Samsuiluna.(36) Dr. Lindl used the published dates of the contracts to complete and restore the first list. Thus a great deal of excellent work has been done on these lists. None of them are complete for the whole dynasty, nor even for the part which they originally covered, and the known dated documents do not serve to fully restore them. But so far as they go, they must take the precedence of the King List, being almost contemporary documents.

(M34) Besides the kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon the collections above referred to designate several other persons as kings. Thus the B collection of the British Museum names Nûr-Adadi, Sin-idinnam, and Rim-Sin as kings. The texts enable us to fix all these as kings of Larsa. Hence evidently the Tell Sifr, where these tablets were found, was in the territory of Larsa. The whole question is well discussed by Dr. Lindl.(37) The date on the tablet B. 34a refers to the setting-up of a throne for Shamash by Nûr-Adadi. The date on B. 35 refers to the completion of a temple in Eridu by Sin-idinnam, King of Larsa. It is scarcely conceivable that these refer to other than the Nûr-Adadi, who set up the kingdom of Larsa in the south of Babylonia about the same time as Sumuabi founded the dynasty of Babylon. Sin-idinnam, his son, succeeded him as King of Larsa and claimed to be King of Shumer and Akkad. Elam, however, under Kudurnanhundi I., invaded the south, defeated Sin-idinnam and set up Rim-Sin as King of Larsa. It seems that Rim-Sin reigned thirty-seven years, partly as vassal of Ḥammurabi, from the seventeenth year of Sin-mubalit until the thirty-first of Ḥammurabi. Whether Sin-idinnam was then restored to his throne as vassal of Ḥammurabi, or whether Rim-Sin was succeeded by a second Sin-idinnam, or whether the restoration of Sin-idinnam, after a temporary expulsion of Rim-Sin, took place within the thirty-seven years of the latter’s reign, is not yet clear.

(M35) Of great interest is the fact of the use of an era in the south of Babylonia. A large number of tablets are dated by the years after the capture of Isin. Thus tablets are dated in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 18th, 22nd, 23rd, 26th, 27th, 28th, and 30th years after the capture of Isin. Most of them are related to the kingdom ruled by Rim-Sin, which clearly included Tell Sifr, Nippur, Eridu, as well as Larsa.(38) The first year of this era was probably the seventeenth year of Sin-mubalit.

(M36) A king Immeru is mentioned,(39) usually alone, but once with Sumu-lâ-ilu;(40) where the form of the oath, “by Shamash and Immerum, by Marduk and Sumu-lâ-ilu,” suggests that while Sumu-lâ-ilu was king of Babylon, the Marduk city, Immeru was king of a Shamash city. As he comes first, he was probably king of Sippara, where Shamash was the city god, and whence the collections, B1, B2, and V. A. Th., seem, on other grounds, to have come. That it was needful to name Sumu-lâ-ilu also points to that king being overlord of Sippara at the time.

The king Ilu-ma-ilu, named(41) in the oaths, associated with Shamash, may well be a vassal king of Sippara, though Professor Delitzsch(42) suggests that he may be the first king of the second dynasty of Babylon, whose name appears in the King list B as Ilu-ma(ilu).

The king Mana-balte-el, on the Rev. J. G. Ward’s tablet, seems to belong to the First, or Second, Dynasty, perhaps as a vassal king, but may have preceded them by some short period.

The king Bungunu-ilu, mentioned by King,(43) was associated with Sumu-lâ-ilu. Probably he was vassal king of Sippara before Immeru.