own. They cannot as yet be translated with any confidence. In general they
are very similar to the contracts, money-loans, and letters of the First
Dynasty of Babylon. As far as they can be understood, they offer no new
features of interest. The obscure phrases and words give rise to many
speculations which will be found in the above-mentioned works. These are
of great interest, but need further data for elucidation. They are too
questionable to be profitably embodied here.

(M39) The Elamite contract-tablets were found at Susa and are published by
Professor V. Scheil in Tome IV. of the _Memoires de la Delegation en
Perse_.(54)

In external form they closely resemble the Babylonian documents of a
similar nature. They are drawn up in practically the same way. But there
is a blunt directness about them which recalls the usages of the First
Dynasty of Babylon, rather than Assyria, or the Second Babylonian Empire.
Hence we have little to indicate date. Until we are better acquainted with
the Elamite script at various periods we cannot hope to date them.

They have many peculiar words and phrases. Some may be Elamite, or that
form of Semitic which obtained in Elam, but the rest of the language is
ordinary Babylonian. It is possible that some characters had a value in
Elam not known in Babylonia, or ideographic values not yet recognized.
But, as a rule, the general sense is fairly clear.

(M40) The legal documents of Assyria are in many respects a separate
group. They are sometimes said to have come from the library of
Ashurbanipal, which Mr. H. Rassam claims to have discovered at Kouyunjik
in 1852-54. But it seems far more probable that, as large numbers were
already found by Layard in 1849-51, we have rather to do with the contents
of some archives. The absence of any large number of temple-accounts seems
to exclude the probability that they were connected with a temple; but the
fact that nearly every tablet has for one principal party some officer of
the king, lends great probability to the view that the transactions were
really made on behalf of the king; or--to be more exact--of the palace in
Nineveh. The exceptions may be accounted for as really deeds concerned
with former sales; or mortgages of property, finally bought in for the
king. The conjecture is raised to a moral certainty by the contents of
such a collection as Knudtzon's _Gebete an den Sonnengott_, found together
with them; which consisted of copies of the