ade available for study
are of very varied interest. A great body of them are grammatical
and represent compilations made by Semitic scribes of the period
of Hammurabi's dynasty for their study of the old Sumerian tongue.
Containing, as most of them do, Semitic renderings of the Sumerian words
and expressions collected, they are as great a help to us in our study
of Sumerian language as they were to their compilers; in particular they
have thrown much new light on the paradigms of the demonstrative and
personal pronouns and on Sumerian verbal forms. But literary texts are
also included in the recent publications.

(1) Poebel, _Historical Texts_ and _Historical and
Grammatical Texts_ (Univ. of Penns. Mus. Publ., Bab. Sect.,
Vol. IV, No. 1, and Vol. V), Philadelphia, 1914.

When the Pennsylvania Museum sent out its first expedition, lively hopes
were entertained that the site selected would yield material of interest
from the biblical standpoint. The city of Nippur, as we have seen,
was one of the most sacred and most ancient religious centres in
the country, and Enlil, its city-god, was the head of the Babylonian
pantheon. On such a site it seemed likely that we might find versions of
the Babylonian legends which were current at the dawn of history before
the city of Babylonia and its Semitic inhabitants came upon the scene.
This expectation has proved to be not unfounded, for the literary
texts include the Sumerian Deluge Version and Creation myth to which I
referred at the beginning of the lecture. Other texts of almost equal
interest consist of early though fragmentary lists of historical and
semi-mythical rulers. They prove that Berossus and the later Babylonians
depended on material of quite early origin in compiling their dynasties
of semi-mythical kings. In them we obtain a glimpse of ages more remote
than any on which excavation in Babylonia has yet thrown light, and for
the first time we have recovered genuine native tradition of early date
with regard to the cradle of Babylonian culture. Before we approach the
Sumerian legends themselves, it will be as well to-day to trace back
in this tradition the gradual merging of history into legend and myth,
comparing at the same time the ancient Egyptian's picture of his own
remote past. We will also ascertain whether any new light is thrown by
our inquiry upon Hebrew traditions concerning the earliest history of
the human race and the origins of civiliza