Babyloniaca, études de philologie assyro-babylonienne.

2

A. H. SAYCE

philological notes, in the Records of the Past, new series, VI,
pp. 115-131. Shortly afterwards (in 1893) Professor Friedrich
Delitzsch published a memoir in which he laid, once for all, the
foundations of what I would term Cappadocian philology. Upon it
were based the translations of some of the texts given by DO Peiser
in the fourth volume of the Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, as well as
those of the texts published by Dr Scheil in Chantre's Missions en
Cappadoce (1898). Peiser's translations, however, were invalidated
by his not recognising the signification of the key-word halnustim;
this was pointed out by myself in the Proceedings of the Society
of Biblical Archweology, November 1897, p. 288, where I showed
that it represented a " week " of five days, and was the sixth part
of a month. Prof. Winckler at a later date independently made the
same discovery.
The tablets come from the mound (or mounds) of Kara-Eyuk and
Gyul-Tp6e, 23 kilometers north-east of Kaisariyeh. The mound
obtains its name of ' Black Ruin " from the traces of fire which are
everywhere visible in it and bear witness to its fate. The construction of its walls, which are of brick, as well as the pottery found
in it, mark it off from the ruins of the Hittite cities in the vicinity.
The forms of the characters and the proper names found in the
tablets belong to the era of Hammurabi. Like the institution of
limmi, however, the proper names also make it clear that the city
was an Assyrian, not a Babylonian, colony, though it was probably
founded when Assyria was still a province of Babylonia. It was, in
fact, the last outpost of Assyria in the north-west, at the end of the
military road which led along the valleys of the Euphrates and
Tokhma-su to the metal-bearing districts of Asia Minor. From
this region copper was exported at an early period to Assyria and
Babylonia, and it is probable that it was through this channel that
the Assyrians derived their knowledge of bronze. The tablets show
that lead also formed an article of export.
For some years I have made the Cappadocian tablets an object of
study, but have refrained from giving the results of it in the hope