The Monticellonian. [volume] (Monticello, Ark.) 1870-1920, 1916-12-28


ing without the shekels thou SO brazeny hast de-
manded. Ever thy devoted husband"
Or, to slave overseer who had Willingly or
unWitungly done him in some household deal, he
stylused in hot haste: 1T is with sorrow that thy
stupidity is borne upon my consciousness. Thou
hast cheated me in scales and in price. D
thee thou art not worth three bekas Il week -
which is probably what slaves food cost then.
This, according to May Bosnian, writing in the
New York Sum- She continues.
At all events, the great wealth of tablet records
dug up in MeSopotamia in recent years and
cleaned and deciphered shows so many little IA
miliar, intimate touches and such an abundance
OF letter writing on all subjects under the sun
that the possibility of the existence of epstolary
guides then must be borne upon our conscious
ness too.
An interesting lot of decpherlng of such tablets
Is being accomplished by Or. Stephen Langdon
who came in September frssm Oxford England 10
be curator of the Babyonian division of the Uni
Yersity of Pennsylvania museum in PHILADELPHIA
He is young Min still. but lie is the only man
living who has seen and handled all the thousands
of tablets unearthed by University of PennSyl-
Vanla museum expeditions above the city of Nip
pur both those retained by the authorities at Con-
stantnople and those sent to Philadelphia
There are only about Is men in the world who
can read Sumerian and BahYonian characters
and he Is one of them. Thanks to the war which
has LEFT Oxford dull. dead spot Amprica has Sc
cured him for one year lie will deeipher rs many
as possible of the thousands Of tablets that have
been cleaned at the University of PENNSYLVANIA
museum, will publish TRANSACTIONS of all important
ones now or later, and will classify and catalogue
the collection, a stupendous task.
In $500 Z. C. papyrus and paper for writing
were unknown Men scratched with pointed
steel instrument called stylus on unbaked red
clay tablets of various Sizes mostly about the
size, shape and thickness of a 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 a 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 scrbes We're busy copying old
pieces of literature to hand down to posterity.
just as later monks spent their days and their
nights copying laborlously and preserving old
books for the archives of the monastery. The
work of the amanuenses was placed on shelves in
a lbrary-neat little rows and piles of clay books
Men digging 5000 years Inter have found them,
and other men have spent their lives in studying
them, that they might tell us what the tablets say.
The books wide field and comprise odes,
epics, religious hymns, dictionaries. scientific
pamphlets. The old Babylonian and Sumeran
temples were, also great industrial commercial.
agricultural and stock-raising ccnters. 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 nnumerable things from ieweIry aud
woman's dresses to human chattels. There are
the timekeepers' 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 Ntppur In
Babylona. 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 ut a
primary stage and continued through elementary
and grammar grades to the regulation college
course rs Babylonfans conceived it. and 10 theo
logical classes. The textbooks show a high
der of intellectually. Indeed the reseublanees
of these people 10 of today bring home again
the unehangeableneSs Of the great antiquity OF
civilization, called.
Boys exercise books have been found repeat
edly in this and in other collections. They
like present-day school states but made of wet
clay and the little fellow marked on them with
a STYLUS aud when he made mistake blotted
1t out with his thumb.
The quality and range of the textbooks aston
ish one Books on mathematics abound; they
Taught the multiplication table up to 200 and
500 times number In their financial transae-
tons Sumerians had to do stupendous calculations
In their heads. Doctor Langdon has just found,
too a comprehensive volume used in the study of
law; and among the grammar books one dealing
particularly and completely with the use of the
proposition race that has arrived at the prepo-
so~~>c~o~~~~~~~~~~>~>