THE BABYLONIAN EXPEDITION

FROM THE TEMPLE ARCHIVES OF NIPPUR. 17
7. To this class have been added, after the plates and the MS. had been prepared
for the press, several fragments, of some of which it may be doubtful whether they
belong here or to the letters addressed "to my 1,ord."'
As only one. letter from this period has been published so far, it would seem
advisable to treat of this class of literature in its general aspects more fully here.
Each and every letter consisted originally-as it does at our present time--of
two integral parts: the ENVELOPE and the LETTER proper. None of the ENVELOPES
of this class of letters has been preserved to us-an unmistakable sign that all these
communications ha,d been received and read by the addressee. From the analogy
of other letters known to us and partly preserved in the collections of the University
of Pennsylvania, we may, however, conclude that the envelope originally exhibited
(a) an address, reading either (a) a-nu "Y., i.e., "To (here giving the name of
the addressee)? or (P) dup-pi "X. a-nu "Y., i.e., "Letter of "X. ( = writ-er) t,n "Y."
( = addre~see),~ and (b) the seal' impression of the writer. In no case, however,
wa,s a date or the place of the writer or addressee ever put on the envelope-an
omission which seriously hampers us in determining the time when or the place
where or to which each letter was written.
The fact that all of these letters have been found at Nippur does not yet justify
us in maintaining that they have been originally addressed to that; place; for it
can be shown that at least one of them, though found in Nippur, was yet sent to
Sippar, whence it was brought back to the city of Enlil and deposited there with
the rest of the Temple Archives. The purpose of the envelope, then, was to insure (1)
privacy, (2) safe delivery to the person named, (3) authenticity.
The contents of the LETTER PROPER divide themselves easily into three parts:
' Nos. 93ff.
ZTllis is to be found in F. E. Peiscr, U~kunder~ ous der Zeil der hilten bab2/lunische~~ Dynastie in Urscl~rifl,
Umschriff und Uabersctzung. Berlin, 190.5, under P. 114. Its iritroduction reads:
A-na "A-mur-ri-ia ki-bd-ma 1 [zcrn]-ma " i'uSin(= XXX)-IMU-[SE]~~ SHES>/-kc-mn 1 i'%Si~~ (= XXX) a-ub
AN"^^'' kul-laf 1 nnp-shd-ti-kn li-iz-zu-ru, whielr cannot be rendered witli Peiser by "Sin der Vatcr der Giitter moge ail
deine Seelen hewnhren," but rnust be translated by: "Sin and(!) t,lre fatller of gods rnay protcct all tlry souls"; this fallows
clearly frorrl li-iz-zu-ru = plural! Although this lctter is very fragmentary, yct this lnucil can be rrlade out wit11 certainty:
The boundary stone of n certain pice~ of property could not be found, and llenee its boundaries could not bc dstcrmined
exactly. A certain " iluSin(= XXX)-tab-ni-u~ur knew the position of that stonc; hc, therefore, was asked: al-ka-ma
mi-ip-ri-ti kul-li-im li ku-du-[~~r-m . . . .], i.e., "come, show the boundaries and tile boundary stone." The rest of the
lctter is too fragrnentsry to warrant any translation. .
Cf. the celebrated Luslitamar tablet wit11 the nddrcss n-na "lu-ush-la-mar or the letter from thc Sargonic
period whichis written a-na Lugal-ushumgal.
' Cf. per analogy tire address of No. 24, dzap-pi mIial-[bu] a-na be-li-shli.
Traces of n seal impression are still discernible on No. 24. On the Lushtamar and the Sargonic tablets the seal
is quite distinct and elcar.
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