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

414 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
and conceals
the large mercantile houses, the shops of handicraftsmen,
— the bazaars of the city, which occupied this
site at least from the time of Ur-Gur, and probably even
from the davs of Sargon I. The contents of the archives
of the firm of Murashu Sons ;
the strictly businesslike character
of all the neo-Babylonian tablets obtained from there ;
the eighteen thousand administrative lists and books of entry
of the Cassite period ; the thousands of case tablets of the
Triangular Label (" One Lamb,
the Shepherd Uzi-ilu "
duck-shaped
)
weights
third pre-Christian millennium; the large number of triangular
clav labels — and more especially
nftv-six of ellipsoidal form
found together in one room — all of
which bear a short legend or a seal
impression, or both at the same time,
and without exception are provided
with holes for the thread by which
they were tied to sacks, baskets,
boxes, merchandise of every description;
1 the many oblong 2 and
in stone, one
(fragmentary) even sculptured in the
form of a resting lamb inscribed with
seven lines of early Babylonian writing,
and the much more numerous ones
Label with Seal Impression
About 2200 B. C.
in clay, sometimes evidently belonging
to a series ; the exceptionally large number
of seal cylinders, as a rule cracked,
broken, badly effaced or otherwise damaged
by fire, which for the greater part were gathered in
the accumulated debris of the ravines or in the loose earth
2
Haynes regarded them as amulets or charms, a pardonable mistake, as he
could not read their inscriptions.
2
Among them the fine inscribed hematite weight with the inscription,
" ten shekels, gold standard, the damkar,'''' published in Hilprecht, " The
Bab. Exp. of the U. of Pa.," series A, vol. i, part 2, no. 132.