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L. W. King and R. C. Thompson on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum, and have resulted in the discovery of many early remains in the lower strata of the mound, in addition to the finding of new portions of the two palaces already known and partly excavated, the identification of a third palace, and the finding of an ancient temple dedicated to Nabû, whose existence had already been inferred from a study of the Assyrian inscriptions.* All these diggings at Babylon, at Ashur, and at Nineveh throw more light upon the history of the country during the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, and will be referred to later in the volume.
Arch., Vol. XV , p. 243. But it is time I read you extracts from the earlier extant portions of the Sumerian Dynastic List, in order to illustrate the class of document with which we are dealing. From them it will be seen that the record is not a tabular list of names like the well-known King's Lists of the Neo-Babylonian period.
In the Neo-Babylonian empire Marduk alone is used. The continued existence of a god Bel in the Babylonian pantheon, despite the amalgamation of Bel with Marduk, is a phenomenon that calls for some comment. The explanation is to be found in the influence of the theological system that must have been developed in part, at least, even before the union of the Babylonian states.
Meanwhile, the excavations at Babylon, although they have not added much to our knowledge of the later history of the country, have been of immense service in revealing the topography of the city during the Neo-Babylonian period, as well as the positions, plans, and characters of the principal buildings erected by the later Babylonian kings.
Again, in the historical inscriptions of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, prayers are introduced, and we are as a general thing expressly told on what occasion they were composed and in what sanctuary they were uttered.
In addition to business-documents of the First Dynasty of Babylon and of the later Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Persian periods, between two and three thousand literary texts and fragments were discovered here, many of them dating from the Sumerian period. And it is possible that some of the early literary texts that have been published were obtained in other parts of the city.
Some of them will occur again in the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian historical texts, others in the hymns and incantations; some are only found in the period we are considering, though with the material constantly increasing we must beware of drawing any conclusions from the fact of a single mention.
We there saw that the literary structure of the Sumerian Version, in which Creation and Deluge are combined, must have survived under some form into the Neo-Babylonian period, since it was reproduced by Berossus. And we noted the fact that the same arrangement in Genesis did not therefore prove that the Hebrew accounts go back directly to early Sumerian originals.
This Sumerian myth, though it reaches us only in an extract or summary in a Neo-Babylonian schoolboy's exercise, may well date from a comparatively early period, but probably from a time when the "Ways" of Anu, Enlil, and Enki had already been fixed in heaven and their later astrological characters had crystallized. I, pp. 124 ff.
In the course of this elaboration, many new ideas and new rites were introduced. The official cult passed in some important particulars far beyond popular practices. Gen. xi. 4. Or 'as high as mountains'; e.g., Nebuchadnezzar II., IR. 58, col. viii. ll. 61-63; and so frequently the Neo-Babylonian kings. Kosmologie, pp. 185-195. Or Kharsag-gal-kurkura; see p. 558. See p. 458.
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