true, with a history of
Chaldaea such as it unfolded itself from age to age, but they teach us
what the later Chaldaeans knew, or thought they knew, of that history.
Still it is wise to treat them with some reserve, and not to forget that
if they agree with each other in the main, they differ frequently in
details. Thus the small dynasties, which are called the VIth and VIIth,
include the same number of kings on both the tablets which establish
their existence, but the number of years assigned to the names of
the kings and the total years of each dynasty vary a little from one
another:--

* The first document having claim to the title of Royal
Canon was found among the tablets of the British Museum, and
was published by G. Smith. The others were successively
discovered by Pinches; some erroneous readings in them have
been corrected by Fr. Delitzsch, and an exact edition has
been published by Knudtzon. Smith's list is the fragment of
a chronicle in which the VIth, VIIth, and VIIIth dynasties
only are almost complete. One of Pinches's lists consists
merely of a number of royal names not arranged in any
consistent order, and containing their non-Semitic as well
as their Semitic forms. The other two lists are actual
canons, giving the names of the kings and the years of their
reigns; unfortunately they are much mutilated, and the
lacunae in them cannot yet be filled up. All of them have
been translated by Sayce.

[Illustration: 080.jpg TABLE]

[Illustration: 081.jpg TABLE]

Is the difference in the calculations the fault of the scribes, who,
in mechanically copying and recopying, ended by fatally altering the
figures? Or is it to be explained by some circumstance of which we are
ignorant--an association on the throne, of which the duration is at one
time neglected with regard to one of the co-regents, and at another time
with regard to the other; or was it owing to a question of legitimacy,
by which, according to the decision arrived at, a reign was prolonged or
abbreviated? Cotemporaneous monuments will some day, perhaps, enable
us to solve the problem which the later Chaldaeans did not succeed in
clearing up. While awaiting the means to restore a rigorously exact
chronology, we must be content with the approximate information
furnished by the tablets as to the succession of the Babylonian kings.

Actual history occupied but a small space in