Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/57

Rh library, and these included numerous copies of inscriptions of early Babylonian kings; there were beside, chronological tablets with lists of kings and annual officers, inscriptions of various Assyrian monarchs, histories of the relations between Assyria and Babylonia, Elam, and Arabia, treaties, despatches, proclamations, and reports on the state of the empire and military affairs.

Natural history was represented by tables of animals; mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, and plants, trees, grasses, reeds, and grains, earths, stones, &c. These lists are classified according to the supposed nature and affinities of the various species, and show considerable advance in the sciences. Mathematics had a place in the library, there being problems, figures, and calculations; but this branch of learning was not studied so fully as in Babylonia.

Grammar and Lexicography were better represented, there being many works on these subjects, including lists of the signs and explanations, declension of nouns, conjugation of verbs, examples of syntax, bihngual tables, explanatory lists, &c. All these tablets were copied from the Babylonians. In law and civil matters the library was also rich, and the tablets serve to show that the same laws and customs prevailed in Assyria as in Babylonia. There are codes of laws, law cases, sale, barter, loans, lists of property, hsts of titles and trades, tribute, and taxes, &c.

In Geography the Assyrians were not very forward;