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

DURING Win CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 461
cones from Babylonian tombs. The curious form of the
document attracted my immediate attention. On closer
examination, it proved to be a building record of twentyfive
lines of neo-Babvlonian
cuneiform characters inscribed
Truncated Cone containing Ashurbanapal's Account of his Restoration of the Stage-Tower
of Nippur.
lengthwise by " Ashurbanapal, king of Assyria." Only lines
i
5-1 9 of the mutilated legend are of importance for the sub-
Nabopolassar's fine cylinder, now in Philadelphia, and containing his building
record of Etemenanki, "the tower of Babel" (comp. Hilprecht, "The
Bab. Exp. of the U. of Pa.," series A, vol. i, part 1, pi. xiii). A "cylinder
" from NufFar containing Samsu-iluna's account of his restoration of the
duru (inner wall) of the temple of Bel, and a cone in the Louvre of Paris,
containing Hammurabi's record of his construction " of the wall and canal
of Sippara " (according to information received by letter from Thureau-Dangin),
also show the same form. It doubtless represents the prototype of the
later barrel-cylinder. Nevertheless, it remains a most remarkable fact that
cylinders of this peculiar form were deposited both in the ziggurrats and their
enclosing walls, and also in the ancient tombs which, as we now know, originally
surrounded the former.