Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/56

34 gods, psalms, songs, prayers, and hymns, down to mere allusions and lists of names. Many of these texts take the form of charms to be used in sickness and for the expulsion of evil spirits; some of them are of great antiquity, being at least as old as the creation and Izdubar legends. One fine series concerns the cure of witchcraft, a superstition fully believed in in those days. Izdubar is mentioned in one of these tablets as lord of the oaths or pledges of the world.

Some of the prayers were for use on special occasions, such as on starting on a campaign, on the occurrence of an eclipse, &c. Astronomy and Astrology were represented by various detached inscriptions and reports, but principally by the great work on these subjects covering over seventy tablets which was borrowed from the early Chaldeans, and many copies of which were in the Library of Assurbanipal. This work on Astrology and Astronomy was, as I have already stated, one of the most ancient texts in the Euphrates valley.

There were also numerous copies of a long work on Terrestrial omens, which appears to date from the time of Sargon, king of Akkad, about 1600. In this work everything in nature is supposed to portend some coming event.

There is a fragment of one Astrological tablet which professes to be copied from an original of the time of Izdubar.

Historical texts formed another section of the