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

( Samsu-iluna,
156 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
and 60, being rendered by the same perpendicular wedge,
i
thus confirming the statement of Berosus that the Babylonians
employed a sexagesimal system of calculation.
Among the stray clay reliefs taken from the upper layers
of Senkere, but doubtless belonging to a much earlier period
of Babylonian civilization, are some tablets with a religious
representation, others showing persons employed in their
every-day life. One of the latter, for example, exhibits two
persons boxing, while two others are occupied over a large
vase ; another reproduces a lion roaring and furiously lashing
his tail because of being disturbed in
his feast of a bullock
bv a man armed with a hatchet and a club.
Larsam is one of those mounds easily excavated and
sure to repay the labors of the systematic explorer quickly.
Representing one of the earliest and most famous Babylonian
cities, with a sanctuary in which the kings of all ages
down to Nabonidos were prominently interested, it will
furnish literary and artistic monuments of importance lor
the earlv history and civilization of Babylonia.
While engaged in his work at Senkere, Loltus sent a
few gangs of workmen to the ruins of Tell Sifr and Tell
Medina, on the east of the Shatt el-Kar. The trenches cut
into the desolate mound of Medina, situated on the border
of extensive marshes and inhabited by lions
and other wild
animals, yielded no results beyond a single stray clay tablet,
a number of tombs, and the common types of pottery. But
the excavations carried on for a few days at Tell Sifr
(" Copper") were most encouraging, bringing to light about
one hundred mostly well-preserved case tablets, dated in
the reigns of the kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon
previously unknown, being among them),
and a large collection of caldrons, vases, dishes, hammers,
hatchets, knives, daggers, fetters, mirrors, and other instruments
and utensils, all in copper, and evidently likewise
belonging to the second half of the third pre-Christian
millennium.