“There is a charm in finding ourselves, our common humanity, our puzzles, our cares, our joys, in the writings of men severed from us by race, religion, speech, and half the gulf of historical time, which no other literary pleasure can equal.”—Andrew Lang.
Foreword
The present work, being merely a record of things for the most part well known to students and others, cannot, on that account, contain much that is new. All that has been aimed at is, to bring together as many of the old discoveries as possible in a new dress.
It has been thought well to let the records tell their story as far as possible in their own way, by the introduction of translations, thus breaking the monotony of the narrative, and also infusing into it an element of local colour calculated to bring the reader into touch, as it were, with the thoughts and feelings of the nations with whom the records originated. Bearing, as it does, upon the life, history, and legends of the ancient nations of which it treats, controversial matter has been avoided, and the higher criticism left altogether aside.
Assyriology (as the study of the literature and antiquities of the Babylonians and Assyrians is called) being a study still in the course of development, improvements in the renderings of the inscriptions will doubtless from time to time be made, and before many months have passed, things now obscure may have new light thrown upon them, necessitating the revision of such portions as may be affected thereby. It is intended to utilize in future editions any new discoveries which may come to light, and every effort will be made to keep the book up to date.
For shortcomings, whether in the text or in the translations, the author craves the indulgence of the reader, merely pleading the difficult and exacting nature of the study, and the lengthy chronological period to which the book refers.
A little explanation is probably needful upon the question of pronunciation. The vowels in Assyro-Babylonian should [pg iv] be uttered as in Italian or German. Ḫ is a strong guttural like the Scotch ch in “loch”; m had sometimes the pronunciation of w, as in Tiamtu (= Tiawthu), so that the spelling of some of the words containing that letter may later have to be modified. The pronunciation of s and š is doubtful, but Assyriologists generally (and probably wrongly) give the sound of s to the former and sh to the latter. T was often pronounced as th, and probably always had that sound in the feminine endings -tu, -ti, -ta, or at, so that Tiamtu, for instance, may be pronounced Tiawthu, Tukulti-âpil-Êšarra (Tiglath-pileser), Tukulthi-âpil-Êšarra, etc., etc., and in such words as qâtâ, “the hands,” šumāti, “names,” and many others, this was probably always the case. In the names Âbil-Addu-nathanu and Nathanu-yâwa this transcription has been adopted, and may be regarded as correct. P was likewise often aspirated, assuming the sound of ph or f, and k assumed, at least in later times, a sound similar to ḫ (kh), whilst b seems sometimes to have been pronounced as v. G was, to all appearance, never soft, as in gem, but may sometimes have been aspirated. Each member of the group ph is pronounced separately. Ṭ is an emphatic t, stronger than in the word “time.” A terminal m represents the mimmation, which, in later times, though written, was not pronounced.
The second edition, issued in 1903, was revised and brought up to date, and a translation of the Laws of Ḫammurabi, with notes, and a summary of Delitzsch's Babel und Bibel, were appended. For the third edition the work has again been revised, with the help of the recently-issued works of King, Sayce, Scheil, Winckler, and others. At the time of going to press, the author was unable to consult Knudtzon's new edition of the Tel-el-Amarna tablets beyond his No. 228, but wherever it was available, improvements in the translations were made. In addition to revision, the Appendix has been supplemented by paragraphs upon the discoveries at Boghaz-Keui, a mutilated letter from a personage named Belshazzar, and translations of the papyri referring to the Jewish temple at Elephantine.