Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

150 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
even Seleucide dynasties, the latter at the same time proving
that at least as late as the third pre-Christian century cuneiform
writing was in use in Babvlonia ; a few syllabaries and
two large mushroom-shaped cones of baked clav covered on
their flat tops and stems with cuneiform legends ; an interesting
small tablet in serpentine with pictures on the one
side and four lines of earlv cuneiform characters on the
other; a limestone slab with an imperfect inscription in
South-Arabian writing — the first
of the kind discovered in
Babylonian ruins ; a brick with stamp in relief of an elevated
altar surmounted by a seven-rayed sun;
several terracotta
figurines;
a thin silver plate embossed with a beautiful
temale figure ; fragments ot a bivalve shell [tridacna squamosa),
the exterior of which shows fine carvings of horses
and lotus flowers, etc.
The chief results of our explorer's rather superficial diggings
at Warka being for the greater part due to a fortunate
accident rather than to a clearlv defined method and logical
planning, were of real importance onlv for the history of
architecture and for a studv ot the burial customs prevailing
during the Persian, Parthian, and later occupations of
Babylonia. Loftus is therefore correct in summing up his
labors with the statement that " Warka may still be* considered
as unexplored." Within the three months at his
disposal he scratched a little here and there, like Layard at
Babylon and NufYar, filled with a nervous desire to find
important large museum pieces at the least possible outlav
of time and monev. Warka, however, is not the place to
vield them readily. Objects of art and business archives
and libraries with precious literarv documents are doubtless
contained in the enormous mounds. But in what condition
thev will be found is another quite different question. As
we know from cuneiform records, the Klamite hordes invading
Babvlonia towards the end of the third pre-Christian
millennium sacked and looted the temples and palaces of