The view taken there depended upon Professor Oppert's estimate of the nature of the documents and that again was often founded on imperfect copies of the text. A great advance has since been made in understanding the contents of the texts then published, and the number published has enormously increased.
The publications, where accompanied by translations, have generally given some classification. Dr. Peiser, in the fourth volume of Schrader's Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, gives most suggestive indexes.[57] Dr. Tallqvist, in his Sprache der Contrakte Nabunâ'id's gives a very valuable classification.[58] Dr. Meissner classified his texts in Altbabylonische Privatrecht.
A number of monographs have been written collecting the different texts from many sources bearing on one subject, thus acting as a kind of classification. A complete work on the subject is still needed.
Monographs
Of great importance are Dr. F. E. Peiser's Jurisprudentiæ Babylonicæ quæ supersunt, Cöthen, 1890 (Inaug. Diss.); Dr. B. Meissner's De Servitute babylonico-assyriaca, Leipzig, 1882 (Inaug. Diss.); and Dr. V. Marx, Die Stellung der Frauen in Babylonien (Nebuchadnezzar to Darius b.c. 604-485) published in the Beiträge zur Assyriologie, Vol. IV., pp. 1-77. These should certainly be read by any serious student of the times. To reproduce their contents would occupy too much space.
On the whole subject of social life, as illustrated by these contracts, there is a valuable study by Dr. F. E. Peiser, called Skizze der Babylonischen Gesellschaft.[59] Professor Sayce's Babylonians and Assyrians in the Semitic Series, 1900, is an excellent account, though in some respects not sufficiently critical. But in all such preliminary work it is easy to feel sure of conclusions which have to be revised with fuller knowledge. Time will doubtless show this to be true of what is said in the present work. But wherever doubt is felt by the writer, it will be indicated.