Stewards' accounts
Long lists of accounts are very common at all epochs. They relate what sums or amounts were paid out to various officials for certain goods or for wages, keep, and the like. In fact, they are stewards' accounts. Unfortunately, the way in which most collections have been formed, and even more the way in which they have since been preserved, renders it impossible for us to make the use of them which has often been made of mediæval accounts. Otherwise we could obtain from them many interesting items. They are, however, most valuable for prices and names.
The earliest mention of iron
Thus, in such lists we find mention of articles which would otherwise remain unsuspected. The first reference to iron is in the Ḥammurabi period,[792] whence we learn that a shekel of silver would buy eight times its weight of iron. Sometimes we get an important contribution to chronology. It is well known that there is no certainty as to the order of the Eponyms after b.c. 648, but we know their names for at least forty years later. Any contribution to the order of these names would be welcomed with avidity. Thus, one scribe writes: “Income from the Eponymy of Sagab to the Eponymy of Nabû-shar-aḫêshu, for six years, which was paid [pg 303] in as maintenance, eleven talents ... besides twenty-seven plates of silver.” We cannot say whose income it was, but the previous section dealt with the income of the crown prince, and this may be only a résumé of the last. But we now know that from Sagab to Nabû-shar-aḫêshu was six years in all.
Thus, from the most varied and often most unpromising sources are derived those important details which make it possible to attain an exact and realistic conception of Babylonian and Assyrian history and life.