A king Immeru is mentioned,[39] usually alone, but once with Sumu-lâ-ilu;[40] where the form of the oath, “by Shamash and Immerum, by Marduk and Sumu-lâ-ilu,” suggests that while Sumu-lâ-ilu was king of Babylon, the Marduk city, Immeru was king of a Shamash city. As he comes first, he was probably king of Sippara, where Shamash was the city god, and whence the collections, B1, B2, and V. A. Th., seem, on other grounds, to have come. That it was needful to name Sumu-lâ-ilu also points to that king being overlord of Sippara at the time.
The king Ilu-ma-ilu, named[41] in the oaths, associated with Shamash, may well be a vassal king of Sippara, though Professor Delitzsch[42] suggests that he may be the first king of the second dynasty of Babylon, whose name appears in the King list B as Ilu-ma(ilu).
The king Mana-balte-el, on the Rev. J. G. Ward's tablet, seems to belong to the First, or Second, Dynasty, perhaps as a vassal king, but may have preceded them by some short period.
The king Bungunu-ilu, mentioned by King,[43] was associated with Sumu-lâ-ilu. Probably he was vassal king of Sippara before Immeru.
The third epoch: the Kassite kings
A number of extracts from the legal documents of the third period have been given by Father V. Scheil in the Receuil [pg 028] de Travaux.[44] The full text is rarely given and there is consequently nothing for use here. They come from Nippur and are at Constantinople. The Semitic language is used largely, but a few Sumerian phrases remain. All the names of persons except those of the kings are pure Babylonian. The determinative of personality before proper names is common, but not before a king's name. The tablets are dated by regnal years, no longer by year-names. The kings have a determinative of divinity before their names. The money in use is either gold or bronze, silver is hardly named, while in other epochs it is almost always used. Gold was now legal tender, as silver was afterwards.
The many extremely fine charters of this period are of great value for the questions concerning land tenure. Descriptions and figures of some of them will be found in the Guide.[45] The text of several was published by Dr. C. W. Belser,[46] under the title Babylonische Kudurru-inschriften. Some of these are transliterated and translated in Schrader's Keilschriftliche Bibliothek,[47] where references to the literature will be found. In many cases these charters or boundary-stones are the only monumental evidence for their period. They therefore figure largely in the histories.
Some of the best examples are found in the second volume of the Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse, beautifully reproduced by photogravure, admirably transliterated and translated by Professor V. Scheil. Some fine examples are also to be found in Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, etc., in the British Museum.[48]
Of the time of Marduk-shum-iddin, b.c. 853-833, we have a black boundary-stone, published by Dr. F. E. Peiser, in Keilschriftliche Acten-stücke, No. 1. It is dated in the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Nabû-aplu-iddina, circa b.c. 858, and the eleventh year of Marduk-shum-iddina, circa b.c. 842. It rehearses the contents of two or more deeds by which a certain Kidinu came into possession of property in the city of Dilbat.
The Cappadocian tablets