The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-06-19

division of the conquered lands among
the city and completes the main body
of the record which is in the Louvre. |
From this and other inscriptions we
learn that after a victorious campaign |
a tribute OF corn was imposed upon the
conquered state and paid as rent TO
the god. In one of these campaigns
$4,000 measures of corn were stored in
the civic granary and were not per-
mitted to be Withdrawn except in case
of need. Corn was of great Importance
in those primitive days as is shown by
the fact that the ideogram for price
was corn and measure grain tariff
having preceded the silver. The dedi-
cation of spoil to the god after war
embraced all manner of objects, and
especially vases containing oil or other
materials, and we have here portions of
vases dedicated to Multi, the god of
Nippur, by Urmush, king of kish-a
Warlike stronghold--after his victory
over the lands Of Elan and Barase in
Luristan. These vases, many of which
are in the museums of Constantinople
and Philadelphia, are of large size and
have been carved out Of hard stones,
calcite. serpentine and granite-showinS
considerable skill. The Importance of
thus provisioning the house of the city
god is best shown by the second series
British museum possesses a large num-
Der, are really the rent and 1.-THE rolls
and the accounts of the stores of the
temples of Min Sugir and Bau, the chief
divinities of the city of Surpurra, the
ruins Of which are marked by the
mounds of Tel-lo on the river Shat-el-
Hio in southern Babylonia. The date
OF these documents can clearly be es-
tablished as $500 b. c., or about three
centuries before the migration of
Abraham, and an examination of their
contents affords as good an insight into
the life and history of the period as do
the registers and accounts of an Eng
lish church Of the chronicles of the age.
| The early Babylonians being race of
| accurate recorders, each of these clay
account books is carefully dated, and,
as the system then in use, is of special
| value to the student of history. The
| method OF regnal years was not in use,
| but tablets were dated according to the
practical event Of the year, such as
1.-THE year the city of khumuru was
| taken 'the year the city of Simuru,"
or simxra. in Phoenicia, was taken
| Other dates relate to public works, fes-
| rivals, ETC., such as 1.-The year the throne
| of Bel was made" "the year the lord
| of heaven gave his favorable juds
ment" the year the great STEELE was
| set up" In the museum at Constanti-
|
| in chronological order, SO that the his
tory can be reconstructed on an accu-
| rate basis. These tablets almost join
| the important canon of dates from 2300-
| 1000 before Christ which Mr.. Pinches
published last year. Among the tablets
are number which relate to the tithes
paid in kind to the temple, such as
oxen, sheep, asses, goats, etc. Thus we
have the following: Five female asses,
one male ass of years, four male
| asses aged, one male ass of years,
one female ass at milk he has given"
| The wool tablets also are valuable, as
showing the extensive sheep farming
there must have been in Chaldea. This
temple wool was afterward loaned out
to the weavers. Another tablet con-
tains list of palms, plants, corn, etc,
that was received by "a ship of Magyar
at the hand of the priest-governor of
the city of Sugir." Other tablets relate
to amounts of silver and copper
brought to the temple. The writing is
evidently the official hand and is a
modified form of the archais script,
many of the characters being very
complicated and containing as many as
20 wedges to one sign. So carefully are
these inscriptions drawn up that, TAX
ing a set for one year, it would be quite
possible to ascertain the agricultural
wealth of the land with perfect accu-
racy Most of these gifts were paid in
on the festival Of the earth goddess
Bau, which marked the termination of
the harvest and the beginning of the
agricultural new year. The calendar
was an agricultural one. the first
month being called "the month when
the corn raises its head the second
1.-The month when the fields are bright
the months of seed sowing and corn
cutting. such a calendar as that of the
pre- exile Hebrew times, whose year
commenced with the month of Abb
or green corn" 1t will be seen from
these tablets how important the temple
and it's richly filed stores were to the
primitive city and its people and how
great an institution it was. In time oi
famine and want it fed the hungry or
supplied seed corn to the farmers and
wool to the weavers and copper to The
smiths 1t was from the temple store
the workmen engaged on public works
were provisioned and the bricks anC
/ other materials supplied. In fact II
these ancient commune stores we have
the boards of agriculture, poor law ano
the county council of the period, neatly
, and effectively centralized.
: One extremely interesting fact tina
t these very early Inscriptions reveal is
{ the stages of the evolution of theil
! numerical system, from the finger sys'
tenn through the Quippoos, or string
/ country" as in Peru, to the use of the
I sexigesimal scale.