Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/52

30 concerned, we cannot consider our present researches and discoveries as anything like sufficient to give a fair view of the literature of Assyria and Babylonia, and, however numerous and important are the Genesis legends, they form but a small portion of the whole literature of the country.

It is generally considered that the earliest inscriptions of any importance which we now possess belong to the time of Urukh, king of Ur, whose age may be placed with great probability about two thousand years before the Christian era.

The principal inscriptions of this period consist of texts on bricks and on signet cylinders, and some of the latter may be of much greater antiquity. Passing down to the period of the kingdoms of Karrak, Larsa, and Akkad, we find a great accession of literary material, almost every class of writing being represented by contemporary specimens. It is certain that even then the inscribed clay tablets were not isolated, but already they were arranged in collections or libraries, and these collections were placed at some of the principal cities. From Senkerch and its neighbourhood have come our earliest specimens of these literary tablets, the following being some of the contents of this earliest known library:—

1. Mythological tablets, including lists of the gods, and their manifestations and titles.

2. Grammatical works, lists of words, and explanations.

3. Mathematical works, calculations, tables, cube and square root, measures.