The second period: the First Dynasty of Babylon
A very large number of texts of this period were published by Mr. L. W. King, in Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum.[24] These have been discussed in a few instances by various writers in scientific journals. In the short descriptions prefixed to these editions mention is made of “contracts,” but it is difficult to see to which the term could be properly applied.
A number of extracts from early “contracts” are given by Professor V. Scheil in the recent files of the Receuil de Travaux. According to the descriptions given, many of them are legal instruments. Besides advances of grain and receipts for the same,[25] or sales of land,[26] we have a legal decision concerning a marriage.[27] Of several of these only a few lines are given and the description of others is misleading. They are mostly preserved at Constantinople. Some are purely Sumerian, others Semitic. The same remarks apply to this author's publications in his Une Saison de fouilles à Sippar. Valuable as are the portions available, they chiefly make us long for more.
A very large number of tablets belonging to the second period are now in Europe and America. They seem to have been purchased from dealers, either in the East or West; and may be presumed to have been discovered by the natives. No reliable information can therefore be had [pg 018] as to their origin. Various places are mentioned: Sippara, Abu Habba, Senkereh, Telloh, Warka, have all been stated to be the place of discovery. There seems no good reason why tablets of this period should not be found anywhere in Babylonia. But on examination it is found that collections said to be from widely different places contain duplicates; while the same collection contains tablets dated at different cities and with dates a thousand years apart. It is conceivable that the records of important transactions, especially the transfers of land, were deposited by order in the archives at the capital, wherever that was for the time being. We may imagine that the archives at Sippara or Larsa were afterwards transferred to Babylon, for safety, or in pursuance of a policy of centralization. Certain it is that a large number of the texts imply a devotion to Shamash as chief deity, while others ascribe the pre-eminence to Marduk or Sin. But this fact is quite consistent with the archives having been discovered in either Babylon or Sippara.
Present location of the tablets: London
On the other hand, it is not unlikely that the apparent centralization is of purely modern production. The dealers put together tablets from all sources and ascribe the collection to the place of origin which best suits their fancy. As a consequence, scarcely any collection contains a homogeneous series belonging either to one period or source. This is the more deplorable because so few are competent to date a tablet by the style of writing upon it, and internal indications are often lacking.
In the British Museum we have the following collections:
I. A number of “case” tablets brought from Tell Sifr by Loftus in 1850. Owing to a misleading statement in Layard's Nineveh and Babylon, p. 496, these have generally been taken to be from Warka, the ancient Erech. But the account given on pages 270-72 of Loftus, Travels and Researches [pg 019] in Chaldea and Susiana, leaves no doubt of the place and date of their discovery. These are usually denoted by B.
II. A number of tablets now in the Kouyunjik Collections. It is certain that these do not come from Nineveh, and in the British Museum Catalogue they are usually ascribed to Warka, but with an implied doubt. One or two are dated at Erech. The D. T. Collection also contains many tablets, said to be “not from Kouyunjik.”
III. The collection 81-7-1 contains some forty at least, comprising the accounts of the temple of Ninib, from the time of Ammiditana and Ammizaduga.