[1] A group of Sumerian words for "library" are (girginakku), and
these seem to mean "collection of writings."
[2] These bas-reliefs show that lions were kept in cages in Nineveh and
let out to be killed by the King with his own hand. There seems to be
an allusion to the caged lions by Nahum (ii. 11) who says, "Where is
the dwelling of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions,
where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp,
and none made them afraid?"
[3] (Brit. Mus., No. 91,026, Col. 1, ll. 31-33).
[4] K. 1352 is a good specimen of a catalogue (see p. 10); K. 1400
and K. 1539 are labels (see p. 12).
[5] For a full description of the general contents of the two great
Libraries of Nineveh, see Bezold, Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets
of the Kouyûnjik. Collection, Vol. V., London, 1899, p. xviiiff.;
and King, Supplement, London, 1914, p. xviiiff.
[6] Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, London, 1875, p. 97.
[7] Published by Scheil in Maspero's Recueil, Vol. XX, p. 55ff.
[8] The text is published by A. Poebel with transcription, commentary,
etc., in Historical Texts, Philadelphia, 1914, and Historical and
Grammatical Texts, Philadelphia, 1914.
[9] A famous work composed by members of the College of Edessa in
the fifth or sixth century A.D.
[10] A transcript of the cuneiform text by George Smith, who was
the first to translate it, will be found in Rawlinson, Cuneiform
Inscriptions of Western Asia, Vol. IV., plates 43 and 44; and
a transcript, with transliteration and translation by the late
Prof. L. W. King, is given in his First Steps in Assyrian, London,
1898, p. 161ff.
[11] The site of this very ancient city is marked by the mounds of
Fârah, near the Shatt al-Kâr, which is probably the old bed of the
river Euphrates; many antiquities belonging to the earliest period
of the rule of the Sumerians have been found there.
[12] Like the habûb of modern times, a sort of cyclone.
[13] The star-gods of the southern sky.
[14] The star-gods of the northern heaven.
[15] The name of Gilgamish was formerly read "Izdubar," "Gizdubar," or
"Gishdubar." He is probably referred to as [GR: Gilgamos] in Aelian,
De Natura Animalium, XII, 21 (ed. Didot, Paris, 1858, p. 210).
[16] Langdon, Epic of Gilgamish, pp. 207, 208.
[17] The greater number of these have been collected, grouped and
published by Haupt, Das Babylonische Nimrodepos, Leipzig, 1884
and 1891; and see his work on the Twelfth Tablet in Beiträge zur
Assyriologie, Vol. I, p. 49ff.
[18] See Langdon, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Philadelphia, 1917.
[19] The city of Erech was the second of the four cities which,
according to Genesis x, 10, were founded by Nimrod, the son of
Cush, the "mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his
kingdom was Babel, and Erech and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of
Shinar." The Sumerians and Babylonians called the city "Uruk Ki" ;
the first sign means "dwelling" or "habitation," and the second "land,
country," etc., and we may regard it as the "inhabited country," par
excellence, of Lower Babylonia at a very early period. The site of
Erech is well-known, and is marked by the vast ruins which the Arabs
call "Warkah," or Al-Warkah. These lie in 31º 19' N. Lat. and 45º 40'
E. Long., and are about four miles from the Euphrates, on the left or
east bank of the river. Sir W. K. Loftus carried out excavations on the
site in 1849-52, and says that the external walls of sun-dried brick
enclosing the main portion of the ruins form an irregular circle five
and a half miles in circumference; in places they are from 40 to 50
feet in height, and they seem to have been about 20 feet thick. The
turrets on the wall were semi-oval in shape, and about 50 feet
apart. The principal ruin is that of the Ziggurat, or temple tower,
which in 1850 was 100 feet high and 200 feet square. Loftus calls it
"Buwáríya," i.e., "reed mats," because reed mats were used in its
construction, but bûrîyah, "rush mat," is a Persian not Arabic word,
and the name is more probably connected with the Arabic "Bawâr,"
i.e., "ruin" "place of death," etc. This tower stood in a courtyard
which was 350 feet long and 270 feet wide. The next large ruin is
that which is called "Waswas" (plur. "Wasâwis"), i.e., "large stone"
The "Waswas" referred to was probably the block of columnar basalt
which Loftus and Mr. T. K. Lynch found projecting through the soil;
on it was sculptured the figure of a warrior, and the stone itself
was regarded as a talisman by the natives. This ruin is 246 feet long,
174 feet wide and 80 feet high. On three sides of it are terraces of
different elevations, but the south-west side presents a perpendicular
façade, at one place 23 feet in height. For further details see Loftus,
Chaldea and Susiana, London, 1857, p. 159 ff. Portions of the ruins of
Warkah were excavated by the German archaeologists in 1914, and large
"finds" of tablets and other antiquities are said to have been made.