Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters Part 2

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 _Decouvertes en Chaldee_.(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 ?ammurabi, Samsuiluna, and Ammiditana; while the Kh. collection has tablets of ?ammurabi, Samsuiluna, Ammiditana, and Ammizaduga. He announced the discovery of the name of Abeshu on contemporary doc.u.ments,(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. Stra.s.smaier 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 t.i.tle of _Die altbabylonischen Vertrage 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 commercant 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 _Beitrage 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 a.s.syrian 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 doc.u.ments are like than can be obtained without actually handling the originals. Dr. Pinches in his introduction a.s.signs 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 a.s.sistance in his studies of this cla.s.s of tablet.

In 1893 Dr. B. Meissner published his invaluable _Beitrage __ zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht_, Vol. XI. of Delitzsch and Haupt's _a.s.syriologische 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 inst.i.tutions of Babylonia.

By arranging the texts in cla.s.ses according to their purport and contents he was able to elucidate each text by comparison with similar doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments 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 Stra.s.smaier 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 a.s.syrian Antiquities_ with thirty-four plates, photographic reproductions of the originals, 1900. On pages 104-13 will be found a most useful account of the cla.s.s of tablet and short descriptions of ninety-four exhibited case tablets. Most of these tablets have been published by Stra.s.smaier 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 doc.u.ments fill in details.

(M31) The years were given names. Thus the second year of ?ammurabi is called "the year in which ?ammurabi 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 pa.s.sed 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 ca.n.a.l of Samsuiluna named ?egallu 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.surance 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 ?ammurabi_ 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 _Beitrage 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 ?ammurabi 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments.

(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 Nur-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 Nur-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 Nur-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 va.s.sal of ?ammurabi, from the seventeenth year of Sin-mubalit until the thirty-first of ?ammurabi. Whether Sin-idinnam was then restored to his throne as va.s.sal of ?ammurabi, 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-la-ilu;(40) where the form of the oath, "by Shamash and Immerum, by Marduk and Sumu-la-ilu," suggests that while Sumu-la-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 G.o.d, and whence the collections, B1, B2, and V. A. Th., seem, on other grounds, to have come. That it was needful to name Sumu-la-ilu also points to that king being overlord of Sippara at the time.

The king Ilu-ma-ilu, named(41) in the oaths, a.s.sociated with Shamash, may well be a va.s.sal 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 va.s.sal king, but may have preceded them by some short period.

The king Bungunu-ilu, mentioned by King,(43) was a.s.sociated with Sumu-la-ilu. Probably he was va.s.sal king of Sippara before Immeru.

(M37) A number of extracts from the legal doc.u.ments of the third period have been given by Father V. Scheil in the _Receuil __ de Travaux_.(44) The full text is rarely given and there is consequently nothing for use here. They come from Nippur and are at Constantinople. The Semitic language is used largely, but a few Sumerian phrases remain. All the names of persons except those of the kings are pure Babylonian. The determinative of personality before proper names is common, but not before a king's name. The tablets are dated by regnal years, no longer by year-names. The kings have a determinative of divinity before their names.

The money in use is either gold or bronze, silver is hardly named, while in other epochs it is almost always used. Gold was now legal tender, as silver was afterwards.

The many extremely fine charters of this period are of great value for the questions concerning land tenure. Descriptions and figures of some of them will be found in the Guide.(45) The text of several was published by Dr.

C. W. Belser,(46) under the t.i.tle _Babylonische Kudurru-inschriften_. Some of these are transliterated and translated in Schrader's _Keilschriftliche Bibliothek_,(47) where references to the literature will be found. In many cases these charters or boundary-stones are the only monumental evidence for their period. They therefore figure largely in the histories.

Some of the best examples are found in the second volume of the _Memoires de la Delegation en Perse_, beautifully reproduced by photogravure, admirably transliterated and translated by Professor V. Scheil. Some fine examples are also to be found in _Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum_.(48)

Of the time of Marduk-shum-iddin, B.C. 853-833, we have a black boundary-stone, published by Dr. F. E. Peiser, in _Keilschriftliche Acten-stucke_, No. 1. It is dated in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Nabu-aplu-iddina, _circa_ B.C. 858, and the eleventh year of Marduk-shum-iddina, _circa_ B.C. 842. It rehea.r.s.es the contents of two or more deeds by which a certain Kidinu came into possession of property in the city of Dilbat.

(M38) The Cappadocian tablets are still somewhat of a problem. The first notice of them was given by Dr. T. G. Pinches.(49) According to the dealer's account one acquired by the British Museum had come from Cappadocia. The script was then quite unfamiliar and it was thought that they were written in a language neither Semitic nor Akkadian. Various attempts, which are best forgotten, were made to transcribe and translate them under complete misapprehension of the readings of the characters. But in 1891 Golenischeff published twenty-four tablets of the same stamp, which he had acquired at Kaisarieh. His copies were splendidly done for one who could make out very little meaning. But he showed that many words were a.s.syrian and read many names. Professor Delitzsch(50) made a most valuable study of them, and laid the foundation for their thorough understanding. Professor P. Jensen(51) added greatly to our knowledge of their reading and interpretation. Dr. F. E. Peiser then(52) gave a transcription and translation of nine texts of contracts.

They are now recognized to be purely Semitic. They must have been written in some place where a.s.syrian influence was all-powerful. There are many names compounded of Ashur. They are dated by eponyms as in a.s.syria. The discovery of many more of them at Boghaz Keui, Kara Eyuk, and elsewhere published by Professor V. Scheil in the _Memoires de la Mission en Cappadoce par Ernest Chantre_, and commented on by M. Boissier,(53) make it certain that they are from this region.

If subject to a.s.syria, their date may be before the earliest eponyms whose date is known from the Canon lists. They may be contemporary with the very earliest kings of a.s.syria. But it is not impossible that the eponyms referred to were local only and not a.s.syrian in origin. Dr. Peiser put them after the First Dynasty of Babylon, but before the Third Dynasty.

They are full of unusual forms of words and have a phraseology of their own. They cannot as yet be translated with any confidence. In general they are very similar to the contracts, money-loans, and letters of the First Dynasty of Babylon. As far as they can be understood, they offer no new features of interest. The obscure phrases and words give rise to many speculations which will be found in the above-mentioned works. These are of great interest, but need further data for elucidation. They are too questionable to be profitably embodied here.

(M39) The Elamite contract-tablets were found at Susa and are published by Professor V. Scheil in Tome IV. of the _Memoires de la Delegation en Perse_.(54)

In external form they closely resemble the Babylonian doc.u.ments of a similar nature. They are drawn up in practically the same way. But there is a blunt directness about them which recalls the usages of the First Dynasty of Babylon, rather than a.s.syria, or the Second Babylonian Empire.

Hence we have little to indicate date. Until we are better acquainted with the Elamite script at various periods we cannot hope to date them.

They have many peculiar words and phrases. Some may be Elamite, or that form of Semitic which obtained in Elam, but the rest of the language is ordinary Babylonian. It is possible that some characters had a value in Elam not known in Babylonia, or ideographic values not yet recognized.

But, as a rule, the general sense is fairly clear.

(M40) The legal doc.u.ments of a.s.syria are in many respects a separate group. They are sometimes said to have come from the library of Ashurbanipal, which Mr. H. Ra.s.sam claims to have discovered at Kouyunjik in 1852-54. But it seems far more probable that, as large numbers were already found by Layard in 1849-51, we have rather to do with the contents of some archives. The absence of any large number of temple-accounts seems to exclude the probability that they were connected with a temple; but the fact that nearly every tablet has for one princ.i.p.al party some officer of the king, lends great probability to the view that the transactions were really made on behalf of the king; or-to be more exact-of the palace in Nineveh. The exceptions may be accounted for as really deeds concerned with former sales; or mortgages of property, finally bought in for the king. The conjecture is raised to a moral certainty by the contents of such a collection as Knudtzon's _Gebete an den Sonnengott_, found together with them; which consisted of copies of the requests and inquiries made of the Sun-G.o.d oracle regarding the troubles and difficulties of the king and royal family, domestic as well as public, in the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. The letters too, found in the same collection, are the letters received by the king from his officers in all parts of his realm.

The lists are connected with expenses of his household. Such votive tablets as are preserved are concerned with offerings of the royal family, or such high officers as probably were permanent inmates of the palace. We have, in fact, the contents of the muniment chests of the Sargonid kings of a.s.syria. That the royal library was mixed up with these doc.u.ments may be due to the contents of an upper chamber falling, when its floor was burnt out; but the mixing may have been done by the discoverers.

In a very real sense these come from a record office, but are confined to royal rather than state doc.u.ments; though a few duplicates of charters occur. Hence we look in vain for many cla.s.ses of doc.u.ments, such as are common in the archives of temples or private families. We have no marriage settlements, no adoptions, no partnerships.

Can we believe that such transactions were less common in Nineveh than fifteen centuries before in Sippara, or Larsa, or Babylon; or later in Babylon, Sippara, or Nippur? There cannot be a shadow of doubt that such doc.u.ments exist in shoals somewhere in the ruins of Nineveh and will one day be found. Hence we must regard it as extremely improbable that the ordinary citizens of Nineveh contributed the records of their transactions to the Kouyunjik Collections now in the British Museum. They either kept them in their own houses or in some temple archives. As will be seen later, a few have already been found; but it is extremely difficult to locate them exactly. It is quite certain that a few of the tablets in the British Museum were found at other localities, such as Sherif Khan, Ashur, Kalah, Erech, Larsa, and Babylon.

For the most part these appear to have been placed in one collection by the discoverers, and only internal evidence can now decide where they were found. But the great bulk of the Kouyunjik Collections, as far as contracts, legal doc.u.ments, and kindred tablets are concerned, are the result of explorations conducted on the site of the ancient Nineveh, by Layard and Ra.s.sam. They probably came from palace archives, and as a result possess a special character of their own.

(M41) Aramaic dockets very early attracted the attention of a.s.syriologists. The presence of short inscriptions in Aramaic on a few contract-tablets naturally raised hopes, in the early days of decipherment, of finding some check upon the reading of cuneiform. So far as these went they were by no means inconsistent with the readings of the cuneiform. But they were too few, too disconnected, and in themselves too uncertain, to be of great value. Indeed, for many of them, it is the cuneiform that now gives the key to their possible sense. The whole of these Aramaic inscriptions have now been published by Dr. J. H. Stevenson in his _a.s.syrian and Babylonian Contracts with Aramaic Reference Notes_, where references to the literature will be found.