CONTENTS OF VOLUME I III.-TEXTS IN THE AKKADIAN, OR OLDEST SEMITIC A Fragmentary Temple Record (3200 B.c.?) THE GREAT AGE OF BABYLONIA (2100-1100 B.C.) IV. THE WRITINGS OF HAMMURAPI (2081 B.C.) The First Complete Law Code . 381 396 413 SACRED BOOKS AND EARLY LITERATURE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA INTRODUCTION THE REMARKABLE REDISCOVERY OF EARTH'S EARLY RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN MAN THE ancient Asiatic land of Babylonia, the fertile valley of the great Euphrates river, has a double interest, sufficient to arouse the eager attention of every modern reader. In the first place this valley was the home of the oldest civilization that has survived in any intelligible form, and in its literature we may study the earliest upward steps of the thought and intelligence of our human race. In the second place, the Hebrew people were Babylonians, who left the land some two thousand years before Christ, under the guidance of their patriarch Abraham. Hence much as the Hebrew religion was afterward uplifted by the teachings of Moses, of Jesus, and of many a lesser spiritual leader, yet the human beginnings of both Jewish and Christian faiths are founded on Babylonian thought and knowledge. Our religious be liefs of to-day are still interwoven with many a strand that can be traced back to its Babylonian source. Still a third, though lighter, cause for interest in the old Babylonian texts lies in the newness and oddity and curiosity of their recent rediscovery after they had lain buried for many ages, and were apparently lost to the world forever. The antiquity of Babylonia is so great, the destruction of its many powerful cities was so complete, that even in the |