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

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 519
Babylonian colleague which I examined was the fragment
of a large tablet with the plan of houses, canals, roads,
gardens, etc. I could well realize the delight he must have
felt in acquiring this specimen. For even before having
cleaned it, I recognized that it represented a section of the
ground plan of the environments of Nippur, — a subjective
view soon afterwards confirmed by discovering that the
ideogram of " the city of Bel," En-lil-ki, i. e. y
Nippur, was
written in the middle of the fragment. The next piece I
picked up was a somewhat damaged brick
stamp of Bur-Sin
of Ur (about 2600 b. c), the only one of this ruler thus
far excavated at Nuffar. The third was a well preserved
black stone tablet (about 2700 b. c.) with the Sumerian inscription
"
: To Bel, the king of the lands, his king, Ur-Gur,
the powerful champion, king of Ur, king of Shumer and Akkad,
has built the wall of Nippur." The fourth was a tablet
containing most welcome information as to the number of
temples and shrines once existing at Nippur, and the names
of the gods and goddesses worshipped in them. The fifth
bore the name and titles of Sargon of Agade (3800 b. a),
at whose time it had been inscribed. The next two antiquities
represent the first
contract tablets dated according to the
reigns of members of the Pashe Dynasty, the one being a
tablet dated "in the fifth
year of Marduk-na-di-in-akh-khi,
king of the world {shar kishshati)" a contemporary of Tiglathpileser
I. (about noo b. a), the other being dated " in the
tenth year of Adad-apal-iddina, 1 the king" (about 1060 b. c),
father-in-law of the Assyrian king Ashurbelkala. The eighth
and ninth tablets are of chronological importance for the
final period of the Assyrian empire, as both of them mention
certain
years of " Ashuretililani, king of Assyria," and
Sinsharishkun in connection with loans and payments of
interest. The tenth contains an interesting astronomical
1
Written (without the determinative for man) '7 »IM-TUR-USH-SE-//rf.
It was previously known that this monarch built at Nippur.