the valuable chapter in Peters' work on _Nippur_, ii.
214-234.

[1254] _Proceedings of the American Oriental Society_, 1896, p. 166. The
dead are often conveyed hundreds of miles to be interred in Nejef and
Kerbela.

[1255] Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 325, 326.

[1256] See below, p. 597.

[1257] Koldewey, _Zeitschrift fuer Assyriologie_, ii. 406 _seq._

[1258] _Ib._

[1259] _Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana_, chapter xviii.

[1260] Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 234. Other mounds examined by Peters
between Warka and Nippur bear out the conclusion.

[1261] De Sarzec, _Decouvertes en Chaldee_, pl. 3.

[1262] On the stele of vultures, the dead are naked.

[1263] Book I, Sec. 195.

[1264] See p. 512.

[1265] Such sacrifices are pictured on the stele of vultures.

[1266] IIIR. 43, col. iv. l. 20; Belser, _Beitraege zur Assyriologie_,
ll. 175, 18; Pinches, _Babylonian Texts_, p. 18.

[1267] For this custom see Trumbull, _The Threshold Covenant_, p. 25;
Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 202, 203.

[1268] Recently, Scheil has discovered some private dwellings at
Abu-Habba, which will be described in his forthcoming volume on his
explorations at that place. See also Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 200, 201.

[1269] Peters' _Nippur_, ii. 220.

[1270] See p. 597. The date of the monument is prior to Sargon; _i.e._,
earlier than 3800 B.C.

[1271] VR. 61, col. vi. ll. 54, 55.

[1272] Rassam Cylinder, col. iii. l. 40.

[1273] Rassam Cylinder, col. iv. ll. 74-76.

[1274] _Ib._ col. vi. ll. 70-76.

[1275] Rassam Cylinder, col. iii. l. 64. The favorite mutilation was the
cutting off of the head. On one of the sculptured slabs from the palace
of Ashurbanabal, a pyramid of heads is portrayed. The cutting off of the
hands, the lips, the nose, and the male organ, as well as the flaying of
the skin, were also practised. (See Sennacherib's account IR. 42, col.
vi. ll. 1-6; Rassam Cylinder (Ashurbanabal), ii. 4 and iv. 136.)

[1276] Rassam Cylinder, col. vii. ll. 46-48.

[1277] _ekimmu_. See p. 580.

[1278] See p. 578.

[1279] Heuzey offers another explanation of the scene which is less
plausible. (See De Sarzec, _Decouvertes en Chaldee_, p. 98.)

[1280] Hebrew word _Sak_. The other rite of mourning among the Hebrews,
the putting of earth on the head (_e.g._, I Sam. iv. 12; II Sam. i. 2
and xv. 32; Neh. ix. 1), is a survival of the method of burial as
portrayed in the 'stele of vultures.' The earth was originally placed in
a bask