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

DURING 19th CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 575
in accordance with my own personal knowledge of the
collections
of the Imperial Museum.
Among the objects of mere archaeological interest a number
of rude clay animals sitting on their hind legs, and on an
average about one foot high, attract our attention. There
is, e. g.j one which represents a monkey, another a dog, a
third a bear, wmile others are modelled so poorly that it is
difficult to say what animals are intended by them. Apparently
they belong to the earlier period of Babylonian
historv and must be regarded as votive offerings, like a
neo-Babvlonian dog in the same material and from the same
ruins, which bears a dedication of two lines of cuneiform inscription
to the goddess Gula. Small terra-cotta figurines
and bas-reliefs, including images of Shamash and his consort,
and the mask of an ugly demon, several utensils and
weapons in
bronze, the common beads, seal cylinders, stone
weights, and other minor antiquities as they are generally
found in Babylonian ruins, complete the collection. There
are also a few bricks of King Bur-Sin II., Kurigalzu, Shamash-shum-ukin
and Nebuchadrezzar II. But the most
important part of the recovered antiquities are nearly seven
hundred clay tablets, complete or fragmentary, most of them
letters and contracts dated in
the reigns of rulers of the first
Babvlonian dynasty, especially Samsu-iluna, the son and successor
of Hammurabi. Some of the inscriptions are of a
literary character and belonged originally to the famous
temple library of Sippara. We notice several syllabaries
and lists of cuneiform signs, school exercises on round
tablets, proverbs, incantations, hymns and two fragments
of historical interest. The one reveals to us the name of a
new member of the third dynasty of Ur, Idin-Dagan (about
2500 b. a), the other contains in chronological order a
de fouilles a Sippar (with plates, numerous vignettes and a plan of the ruins),
and forming vol. 1 of Memoires de V Institut frangais d' Archeologie orientale
du Caire.