New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-03-12
THE GREAT LIBRARY OF EIpPUR.

An unfortunate controversy about the work OF
DR.. Hilprecht the well known Assyrtologlst
has Just come to light in Philadelphia, and has
led to the resignation of four officials of the
University OF Pennsylvania, with which he Is
connected. 1t is asserted that some of the
statements made by him in his books and lect
ures about relics supposed to have come from
the ancient city of Nippur are erroneous. DIR.
J. P. Peters of this city, who had charge of the
explorations of the University of Pennsylvania
before DR. Hilprecht was in charge, has invited
attention to several of these alleged inaccuracies
1t is said that four tablets which have been
assigned to the great library under the temple
at Nippur were found either ten or twelve years
before the library was discovered or in a diff
ferent part of the city. The same statement
is made in regard TO a jar full Of tablets. Dr.
Peters is careful not 10 suggest intentional
fraud, and hints merely at confusion in DR.,
Hilprechts notes, but he has evidently enlisted
the sympathy Of some of the managers of the
department of archaeology in the University of
Pennsylvania. Four of them, feeling that the
trustees of that institution have not properly
backed them up in some policy whose nature
can only be surmised have rendered their resg
nations; from which fact it would appear that
at present DR.. Hiprecht is sustained by the
trustees.
The dispute is to some extent, of course q
charge of the later explorations of the univer-
sity, and has undertaken TO interpret the valu-
able records which are believed to have been
found at Nippur, it may turn out that he has
been careless in the bestowal of credit for the
work Of his predecessors Obviously this is
such delicate matter that outsiders will hest
tate about taking sides, especially as time will
probably correct any grave injustice that may
have been done The most serious phase of the
t. that
the reality Of the great temple library which
the world has been led to believe once existed
at Nippur. DR.. Hiprechts critics think that
uncertainty on this point is warranted by the
limited number OF tablets Of undisputed origin
that have yet been described in print whereas
it has been supposed that thousands of such
records had been secured.
a number of good reasons might be advanced
for delay in translation and reproduction and
perhaps these will be forthcoming in time
Moreover DIR. Hiprecht's friends think that he
materially helped his case a few evenings ago
by exhibiting at meeting of the Philosophical
Society in Philadelphia two tablets from Nip
pur that were apparently of n purely literary
character their inscriptions being hymns or in
carnations. These and other facts which have
not yet been Adduced may account for tho con6
dence which the trustees of the University of
Pennsylvania seem TO place in DR. Hilprecbt
AT present therefore, it would be premature 70
assume that the great library Of Nippur is
fiction.
This unhappy disagreement will lend fresh
interest to more recent excavations in NIesono
tamia than those of DR.. Peters and DR.. Hi
precht The site Of ancient city that had
never been studied at all was partially uneav
cred in 1903, under the auspices of the Uni
versity of Chicago. DR.. Robert f. Harper dj-
rector Of the work. was inclined to tbinl, tbot
the ruins in question Were older than those of
Nippur, from which t,ley were about thirty