ften as colloquial in style as the contracts
are formal. Hence they swarm with words and phrases for which no parallel
can be found. Unless the purpose of the letter is otherwise clear, these
words and phrases may be quite unintelligible. Any side issue may be
introduced, or even a totally irrelevant topic. While the point of these
disconnected sentences may have been perfectly clear to the recipient of
the message, we cannot possibly understand them, unless we have an
intimate acquaintance with the private life and personal relations of the
two correspondents.

Hence, quite apart from the difficulties of copying such ancient
inscriptions, often defaced, originally ill-written, and complicated by
the personal tastes of individual scribes for odd spellings, rare words,
or stock phrases; besides the difficulties of a grammar and vocabulary
only partly made out; the very nature of both contracts and letters
implies special obscurities. But the peculiarities of these obscurities
are such as to excite curiosity and stimulate research.

The wholesome character of the subject-matter, the absence of all
possibility of a revision in party interests, the probable straightforward
honesty of the purpose, act like a tonic to the ordinary student of
history. Nowhere can he find more reliable material for his purpose, if
only he can understand it. The history he may reconstruct will be that of
real men, whose character and circumstances have not yet been
misrepresented. He will find the human nature singularly like what he may
observe about him, once he has seen through superficial manners and
customs.

One important point cannot be too strongly insisted upon. Numerous as our
documents are, they do not form a continuous series. One collection is
chiefly composed of temple archives, another comes from a family
deed-chest, where only such documents were preserved as were of value to
the persons who collected them. At one period we may have a great number
of documents relating to one sort of transaction. In the next period we
may have hardly any reference to similar transactions, but very complete
evidence regarding other matters. We may assume that, in such a
conservative country as Assyria or Babylonia, things went on for ages in
much the same way. Conclusions rightly drawn for early times are probably
true for the later periods also. As far as we can test this assumption, it
holds good. We may even assume that the converse is true,