Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1881-10-13

Ruins and Records Found I'm n Baby.
lonfan Temple-Remains, Also, Of
the Hanging Gardens-Tablets and
Their Inscriptions.
The spade of the explorer has once
more been busy amid the mounds and
ruins OF Assyria and Babylonia, and
rich harvest of antiquities has resulted
from the work. The explorations car
ried ont during eighteen months by MIR.
Hormuzd Rassam, though atfording no
such grande trouvaille as the bronze
gates from Ballawat, have. neverthe-
less. been rich in discoveries which will
be welcomed by all students of history
and philology. The recovery of the
library of terra-cotta tablets from the
palaces of Sennacherib and Assurbani-
pal has restored to us a vast mass OF lit
erature, and supplied long-lost chap
tiers in the history, mythology and
science of the world. 1t has also
proved to us that, valuable as these
records are, we have in them but sec
.ond and third editions Of works first
compiled by the scribes in the library
cities of Babylonia. The discovery of
fragments led PSYCHOLOGISTS to hope
that the explorer would be able to re-
cover from the ruins of the cities of
Chaldea the older versions of the As
syrian texts, and the expedition OF 1890
81. which Mr.. Rassam has just con-
Guided. has so far met their wishes in
that from the rains CT the temples and
palaces of Babylon, Borsippa, Supra
and Cutha he brings records and copies
OF religious texts. some of which will, no
doubt, furnish the required Chaldean
versions.
From the earliest days of Mesopota-
milan travel the spade of the explorer
has been applied to the ruins of Baby
lon. Strange rs it may seem, although
for more than three centuries the ruins
have been known and visited, and for
centuries the Arab brick merchants
have been digging amid its ruins for
bricks, il is only within the last few
years that records of importance have
been recovered. With the exception of
thousands of bricks bearing the names
and titles of Nebuchadnezzar, and cyl
inders inscribed with the records OF
temples and palaces built or restored by
the builder-king and his successors, no
record of historical or scientific impor-
tanee has been recovered from amid the
ruins. But the year 1874 began new
era in Baby lonian explorations, for from
that time on there has been a continu-
Gus flow Of inscriptions ard records
from the TREASURED house of tire city; and
we now know much more Of the popu-
lar life of Babylon and its people than
after years of study we have been able
to ascertain regarding Nineveh from the
monuments and records. The tablets
found BY the Arabs in lS74-'76 were
purchased by the late George Smith for
the Trustees of the British Museum, and
the subsequent finds made by Mr.. Ras-
sam have added some hundreds to this
branch of the collection, so that of this
class of tablets there are now more
than 5000 examples in the British
Museum. These tablets show that for
a long period, probably several centur-
les. the family of the BENZ Egibi were
the leading commercial firm OF Baby
lon. and to them was confided all the
business of the Babylonian Ministry of
Finance. The building whose ruins are
marked by the mound of Jumjuma was
the chancellerie of the firm, and from
its ruins come the records of every
class of monetary transactions. The
documents, being all most carefully
: dated and conniled, are Of great value