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

DURING hint CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 155
finally was no more, later grave-diggers, frequently disturbing
the deserted mounds to a considerable depth, should
accidentally have struck hundreds of clay tablets and sealcvlinders,
which they moved out of their original resting
places to an upper stratum, thus filling the burial ground
with the literary and artistic remains of an older period,
and creating the impression upon the uninitiated or careless
observer that
the burials are contemporary with those antiquities,
and that the latter furnish us a real clue for determining
the age of the former. In the first years of our
own excavations at NufTar I was frequently misled by the
positive statements of those in the field, occasionally quoting
Loftus and Taylor as their authorities, until by personally
taking charge of the expedition, I
definitely determined
that with but few exceptions, which can easily be explained,
the large mass of tombs at NufTar is later than 400 b. c,
though often found thirty feet and more below the surface.
Many of the tablets discovered by Loftus were wrapped
in thin clay envelopes, similarly inscribed, and like the
enclosed document covered with
the impressions of seal cylinders.
Others, also bearing the impressions
of cylinders, were triangular
in shape. From the fact
that at their corners there are
holes through which cords must
have passed, it became evident,
even without deciphering their
inscriptions, that they were used
Somewhat like labels attached tO
an object. As a rule I have
Clay Tablet with Envelope, Nuffar
found Babylonian documents of this class to belong to the
second half of the third pre-Christian millennium. Of
especial value and interest was a certain tablet which proved
to be a table of squares from one to sixty, both numbers