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

524 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
architects, traces of the last-mentioned material seem to
have been disclosed on the ledge of the large hall
(No. i).
To judge from the contents of more than twenty-four
thousand tablets hurriedly examined, it is almost certain
that the vast complex of houses buried under the triangular
mound was used by the Babylonians for at least two distinct
purposes. Though literary tablets in small numbers
occurred almost everywhere in the hill, the large mass of
them was found within a comparatively small radius in and
around the central rooms of the northeast portion. On the
other hand, there was not a single business document
unearthed in that general neighborhood, while more than
one thousand dated contracts, account lists, and letters came
from the southwest rooms of the mound. It would therefore
seem natural to conclude that in view of the doubtless
large traffic
carried on by boats on the Chebar, the business
and administrative department of the temple was established
on the bank of " the great canal," and the educational department
— the school and the technical library — in the rooms
nearest to the temple. Tablets were doubtless frequently
taken out of the one section and placed temporarily in the
other, while certain works of reference seem to have been
deposited in both.
The character of the northeast wing as a combined library
and school was determined immediately after an examination
of the contents of the unearthed tablets and fragments.
There is a large number of rudely fashioned specimens
inscribed in such a naive and clumsy manner with
old-Babylonian characters, that it seems impossible to regard
them as anything else but the first awkward attempts at
writing by unskilled hands, — so-called school exercises.
Those who attended a class evidently had to bring their
writing material with them, receiving instruction
not only in
inscribing and reading cuneiform tablets, but also in shaping
them properlv, for not a few of the round and rectangular