The Historians' History of the World 01

But to return to Layard’s excavations which he resumed in the middle of October, 1849, at the place where he had interrupted them two years before. It is simply impossible within a short space to give a clear idea of what Layard and his workmen, assisted by Hormuzd Rassam, brought to light before the middle of the year 1850 in that southwestern palace of Sennacherib which Asshurbanapal restored. Any one who would form a clear idea of it must peruse Layard’s magnificent descriptions of it for himself. Assyrian antiquity rose from the earth and grew more and more distinct, and so intelligible was the language of the hundreds of bas-reliefs, that, even without understanding the inscriptions, every one was in a position to construct for himself a tolerably clear picture of the manners and customs, the life and occupations, in short, the whole civilisation of the ancient Assyrians, and this merely from the illustrations in Layard’s two popular books. But the most important discovery made in this palace, indeed the most important in its results of all the Assyrian excavations, was the remains of a regular library of thousands of clay tablets, which were heaped up in two chambers, covering the floor a foot thick. These the restorer of the palace, the accomplished king Asshurbanapal (668 B.C., the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, and Asnapper of the Bible) had had collected, and had deposited them, partly here, partly (probably in duplicate) in other palaces, as in particular in the northern palace, which was also in Kuyunjik, and was discovered by Rassam. The tablets of gray and yellow clay found in the so-called Lion Room of Asshurbanapal’s northern palace, were in most cases broken into smaller or larger fragments, probably because in the general ruin they had fallen down from the upper story into the space in which they covered the ground; many, however, were still whole. Of course only later investigation could succeed in bringing the broken fragments together again, and then only partially; one of these tablets, restored by piecing together sixteen fragments, gives the Babylonian story of the Flood, which George Smith successfully recognised from amongst the thousands of scattered fragments; the reader will appreciate the condition in which most of these clay book-pages (to use a paradoxical expression) have come down to us. The size of the tablets seldom exceeds nine by six and a half inches; but many, especially tablets containing contracts, were considerably smaller. The greater number bore the inscription, “Series of tablets …, tablet number …; Palace of Asshurbanapal, king of the universe, king of Assyria …,” after which came a series of phrases, mostly stereotyped, which indicates the tablet in question as belonging to the library of Asshurbanapal, the great collector of ancient Babylonian literature in Assyrian character. In the restored tablet of the Flood, the place of the signature is clearly recognisable on the first of the columns; it is the last of the columns, for they are always to be counted from right to left (instead of from left to right). But especially clear to the eye of a layman is the addition to the signature, which represents a kind of library mark, unlike that of the specially prized Ishtar hymn in two languages (S. M. 954, British Museum); the latter differs somewhat from the ordinary tenor of these signatures, inasmuch as a whole genealogy is put, instead of the sentence usual elsewhere; translated literally it runs:

“(series:) ir shimma dimmir Ninna.”—Complaint to the goddess Ishtar.

(The usual number of the tablet is not placed here.)

He has written and engraved it like its original.

“Palace of Asshurbanapal, king of Assyria,

Son of Esarhaddon, king of the universe, king of Assyria, ruler of Babylon,

King of Sumer and Accad, king of the kings of Ethiopia and Egypt,

King of the four regions, son of Sennacherib,

King of the universe, king of Assyria, who puts his trust in the god Asshur and the goddess Ninlil, in Nabu and Tashmit.

May the god Nabu be thy guide!”

In general, however, these signatures ran as follows:

(The first word of the tablet following.)

“Xth tablet (of the series beginning thus:).…

“Palace of Asshurbanapal, the king of the universe, the king of Assyria, to whom Nabu and Tashmit had given ear, who took clear eyes for the preparation (?) of the writing of tablets, whilst under the kings my predecessors nothing of the kind (nin shipru shu’ atu) was attempted—the wisdom of Nabu, (tikip santakki), a fullness of beauty, did I write, arrange, and engrave on tablets; to see and read it I placed it in my palace.”

After which, in some examples, there follows:

“May the light of Asshur, the king of the gods, be thy guide!

Whosoever shall write his name by my name,

May Asshur and Ninlil (Beltis) destroy him and root his name and his seed out of the land!”