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

510 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
" Jan. /8, igoo : 33 sound tablets from a low level on
'Tablet Hill.' A multitude of imperfect tablets on 'Tablet
Hill.' Three most beautiful days ! And the nights with
full moon are days in shadow, the air soft and balmy.
" Jan. ig, /poo : 49 sound tablets all from low level
'Tablet Hill.' Many fine fragments of tablets."
After an inspection of all the unearthed buildings and an
examination of a sufficient number of representative tablets
and fragments, I could declare positively at the beginning
of March that we had discovered the temple library of
ancient Nippur, and the most important of all the earlier
Babylonian schools, where about the time of Abraham the
younger generations were instructed in the art of tablet writing
and in the wisdom of the god Nabu. Upon the basis of
Haynes' scanty notes; Geere's drawings and reports on the
buildings ; my own investigations and brief excavations, and
an examination of the more intelligent Arab foremen who
previously supervised the laborers in the trenches, I
present
the following general picture.
The mound containing the remains of the educational
quarter of the city rises to an average height of twenty to
twenty-six feet above the level of the present plain, and
covers an area of about thirteen acres. In other words, it
occupies about the sixth part of the entire site included in
the vast temple complex of Bel on the northeast side of the
Chebar. Only about the twelfth part of this library mound
has thus far been satisfactorilv examined with
regard to the
ruins lying above the plain level. The upper layer is easily
distinguished from those below by the extensive remains of
Parthian buildings constructed of the same kind of large unbaked
brick which characterizes the two excavated palaces on
the temple ruins and on the west bank of the Shatt en-Nil.
No important traces of Jewish and early Arabic settlements
were disclosed in this particular mound. Parthian and Sassanian
graves abound in the slopes of the entire hill. They