The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1916-12-29


M might build the important commune
w. cation he had in hand.
II To his wife he made little hen
vi scratches and scrawls that great
scholars tell read Beloved light
OF mines eyes, Thy extravagances are beyond all
the patience of man. Behold thy slave is return
ing without the shekes thou so brazenly hast de-
handed Ever thy devoted husband"
Or, to slave overseer who had Willingly or
unWlttingly done him in some household deal he
styused in hot haste: ut is with sorrow that thy
stupidity is borne upon my consciousness Thou
mast cheated me in scales and in price. D
thee, thou art not worth three bekas a week ~
Which is probably what a slaves food cost then.
Ihis, according to May Bosnian, writing in the
New York Sun. She continues:
AT all events, the great wealth of tablet records
aug up In Mesopotamia in recent years and
cleaned and deciphered shows so many little IA
mlliar intimate touches and such an abundance
OF letter writing all subjects under the sun
that the possibility of the existence of epistoary
guides then must be borne upon our conscious
ness. too.
An interesting lot of deciphering of such tablets
Is being accomplished by Dr. Stephen Langdon.
who came in September fran Oxford England. to
be curator of the Babylonan division of the Uni
versity of Pennsylvania museum in PhiladeIphia
lie Is young man still, but he is the only man
living who has seen and handled all the thousands
or tablets unearthed by University of Pennsyl-
vania museum expeditions above the city of Nip
pur both those retained by the authorities at Con-
stantinople and those sent to Philadelphia.
There are only about 10 men in the world who
can read Sumerian and Babylonian characters
and he is one of them. Thanks to the war; which
has left Oxford dull, dead spot America has Sc
cured him for one year. He will decpher as many
as possible Of the thousands of tablets that have
been cleaned at the University of PENNSYLVANIA
museum will publish translations of all important
1otnr Il
the collection, stupendous task.
In $500 B. C. papyrus and paper for writing
were unknown. Men scratched with pointed
steel instrument called a stylus unbaked red
clay tablets of various sizes. mostly about the
size, shape and thickness of small book They
wrote on both sides, and then, if they were not
through, continued on another tablet. The analogy
of these tablets to sheets Of paper is not hard to
comprehend. Sometimes tale stops in the mid
die and the next tablet which it was continued
is never found, or is found years later.
In the temples scribes were busy copying old
pieces of literature to hand down to posterity,
just later monks spent their days and their
nights copying aboriously and preserving old
books for the archives of the monastery. The
work of the amanuenses was placed on shelves In
q library-neat little rows and piles of clay books.
Men digging 5000 years later have found them,
and other men have spent their lives in studying
them, that they might tell us what the tablets say.
The BOOKS cover q wide held ana comprise OdeS,
epics, religious hymns, dictionaries scientific
pamphlets The old Babylonlan and Sumeran
temples were, also great industrial commercial.
agricultural and stock-raising centers, and they
kept vast number of documents relating to these
various interests
Millions of tablets have been found recording
sales of cattle, slaves and staple goods; marriage
contracts and agreements; divorce DEGREES; wills;
receipts for innumerabe things from jewelry and
woInan's dresses TO human chattes. There are
the tlmekeepers slips of the temple workers, and
bookkeeping accounts. Doctor Langdon has found
that one big banking house did business in the
city of Babylon for 600 years.
The great bulk of the tablets have been found
on the site of the ancient temple of Nippur In
Rohvlonia This temple was both a religious
center and college designed primarily for the
education Of priests, but the range Of textbooks
unearthed there shows that instruction began at
urinary stage and continued through elementary
and grammar grades to the regulation college
course. as Babylonians conceived II, and to theo-
logical classes. The textbooks show q high or
der of intellectually. Indeed, the resemblances
of these people to Of today bring home again
tho unchangeabeness of the great antiquity or
civilization, so Called
Rows exercise books have been found repeat
adlv in this and In other collections. They were
I,ke uresent-day school states, but made OF wet
Glow and the little fellow marked on them with
stvlus and when he made q mistake blotted
Il out with his thumb.
Tho ouality and range of the textbooks aston
,sb one Books mathematics abound; they
taught the multiplication table up 20 I'4oo nnu
o 5oo times n number. In their hnancai transac-
,,ons sumerians had to do stupendous calculations
n their heads Doctor Langdon has just found.
~, - commemorative volume used in the study of
La, and among the grammar books one dealing
narticulariy and completely with the use OF tne
proposition. A race that has srnssso at inc prepo