This is evidently one of the documents obtained by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam at Sippar (Abu-habbah), as the reference to Bunene, one of the deities of the city, shows. Unfortunately, it is very defective, there being only eight lines (five of them incomplete) on the obverse, and the remains of the last three lines of the communication on the reverse. What makes it probable that the Belshazzar who sent the letter is the son of Nabonidus, and the hero of the fall of Babylon, is, that no honorific expressions are used with reference to the person to whom it is addressed—he does not call Mušêzib-Marduk his lord, or father, or brother, as was the custom in private correspondence. As far as it is preserved, the following is a rendering of this document, which is of interest mainly on account of the personality of its assumed writer—
“Letter of Bêl-šarra-uṣur to Mušêzib-Marduk. May the gods grant thee prosperity. Behold, I have sent Bêl-šunu and ... the (two) mašmašē, to.... Send the requirements for the robes (?) of the deity Bunene....
(Several lines are wanting here.)
... I have caused ... to be ... the threshold ... may all....”
The documents referring to Belshazzar's residence at Sippar, are mentioned on pp. [414], [449], [450].
The Aramaic Papyri From Elephantine.
These noteworthy documents, which have attracted considerable attention, were found in the ruins of the city which lie at the southern point of the island. Almost all the brick-built private houses of Elephantine are in a ruinous state, partly due to the ravages of time, but principally to the Fellahin, who have for many years dug there for garden-mould. To the south of the place where Mr. Mond's Aramaic papyri[317] are said to have been found, Greek papyri were discovered, but proceeding north of that point, the German explorers soon came upon the Aramaic fragments. Those first found are said to have been in earthen vessels, but the most important of them (the texts translated below) were buried, without any protective covering, close to the eastern and southern walls of the room in which they lay. To all appearance these last had escaped the notice of the earlier excavators, who had thrown them away with the rubbish cast aside as containing nothing more worth carrying off.
The text of the most perfect of them reads as follows—
“To our lord Bagohi, governor of Judea, thy servants Yedoniah and his companions, the priests in the fortress of Yeb, salutation! May our Lord, the God of heaven, grant (thee) prosperity at all times, and set thee in favour before Darius the king, and the sons of the (royal) house a thousandfold more than now, and may He give thee long life. Be at all times joyful and firm. Now speak thy servants Yedoniah and his companions as follows—
“In the month Tammuz in the 14th year of Darius the king, when Arsâm (Asames) had marched forth and gone to the king, the priests of the god Khnub, who are in Yeb, the fortress, [made] with Waidrang, who is the governor here, a secret union of the following nature—