II. The Actual Code
was first published by V. Scheil in the Fourth Volume of the Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, pp. 11-162, with transcriptions, translation, and some notes (Paris, E. Leroux, 1902). Fragments of a second example of the Stele were also given by V. Scheil in the Tenth Volume of the Mémoires, pp. 81-84 (1908).
All subsequent editions of the text are based upon this edition. The original monument being now in the Louvre at Paris and a superb cast of it in the Babylonian Room of the British Museum, it is open to any competent scholar to appreciate the extraordinary accuracy of V. Scheil’s work. The transcription and translation have naturally been somewhat improved by the intensive study devoted to them by the many scholars who have worked upon the text, especially as the result of comparison with the contemporary legal documents. But the highest praise must be awarded to the genius which so successfully accomplished such a task as that of editing an entirely new text involving so many new words and expressions and such unexpected subjects.