the lists--barely twenty
centuries out of a whole of three hundred and sixty: beyond the historic
period the imagination was given a free rein, and the few facts which
were known disappeared almost completely under the accumulation of
mythical narratives and popular stories. It was not that the documents
were entirely wanting, for the Chaldaeans took a great interest in their
past history, and made a diligent search for any memorials of it. Each
time they succeeded in disinterring an inscription from the ruins of a
town, they were accustomed to make-several copies of it, and to deposit
them among the archives, where they would be open to the examination
of their archaeologists.* When a prince undertook the rebuilding of
a temple, he always made excavations under the first courses of the
ancient structure in order to recover the documents which preserved the
memory of its foundation: if he discovered them, he recorded on the new
cylinders, in which he boasted of his own work, the name of the first
builder, and sometimes the number of years which had elapsed since its
erection.**

* We have a considerable number of examples of copies of
ancient texts made in this manner. For instance, the
dedication of a temple at Uruk by King Singashid, copied by
the scribe Nabubalatsuikbi, son of Mizirai ("the Egyptian
"), for the temple of Ezida; the legendary history of King
Sargon of Agade, copied from the inscription on the base of
his statue, of which there will be further mention (pp. 91-
93 of this History); a dedication of the King Khammurabi;
the inscription of Agumkakrimi, which came from the library
of Assurbanipal.

** Nabonidos, for instance, the last king of Babylon before
the Persian conquest, has left us a memorial of his
excavations. He found in this manner the cylinders of
Shagashaltiburiash at Sippara, those of Khammurabi, and
those of Naramsin.

We act in a similar way to-day, and our excavations, like those of the
Chaldaeans, end in singularly disconnected results: the materials which
the earth yields for the reconstruction of the first centuries consist
almost entirely of mutilated records of local dynasties, isolated
names of sovereigns, dedications of temples to gods, on sites no longer
identifiable, of whose nature we know nothing, and too brief allusions
to conquests or victories over vaguely designated nations.* The
population was