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.
(M37) A number of extracts from the legal documents 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 title _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.