So far as known contemporary inscriptions are concerned, we cannot consider our present researches and discoveries as anything like sufficient to give a fair view of the literature of Assyria and Babylonia; and however numerous and important the Genesis legends may be, they form but a small portion of the whole literature of the country.
It is generally considered that the earliest inscriptions of any importance which we now possess belong to the time of Lig-Bagas, king of Ur, who first united under his sway the petty kingdoms into which Chaldea was previously split up, and whose age is generally assigned to about three thousand years before the Christian era.
The principal inscriptions of this period consist of texts on bricks and on signet cylinders, and some of the latter may be of much greater antiquity. Passing down to a time when the country was again divided into the kingdoms of Karrak, Larsa, and Agané, we find a great accession of literary material, almost every class of writing being represented by contemporary specimens. Each of the principal cities had its library, and education seems to have been widely diffused. From Senkereh, the ancient Larsa, and its neighbourhood have come our oldest specimens of these literary tablets, the following being some of the contents of this earliest known library:—
1. Mythological tablets, including lists of the gods, and their manifestations and titles.
2. Grammatical works, lists of words, and explanations.
3. Mathematical works, calculations, tables of cube and square roots, and tables of measures.
4. Works on astronomy, astrology, and omens.
5. Legends and short historical inscriptions.
6. Historical cylinders, one of Kudur-mabuk, B.C. 1800 (?) (the earliest known cylinder), being in the British Museum.
7. Geographical tablets, and lists of towns and countries.