A REMARKABLE ANCIENT LIBRARY

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4319, 30 March 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

A REMARKABLE ANCIENT LIBRARY

The recent resets of the excavations in. the mounds oi ancient Nippur, in Asia Minor, carried on by Professor H. V. Hilpreoht, of the University of Pennsylvania, have been much discussed. For eleven years Professor Hillprecht has carried on his archaeological researches, but his last yscar's labours have been more fruitful than, those of the previous ten year*. They have been crowned by the discovery of the library of the temple of Nippur, which is regarded as probably the most important event in the history of archaiclogical research. Dr. Hilprecht has given an interviewer some interesting particulars of his work.

The chief point to bo remarked, he says, is the fact that they have found the first Babylonian temple library that has ever been discovered. Hitherto wo have possessed nothing more than the knowledge of the probable CONTENTS OF SUCH A LIBRARY from copies found in the Royal library of Ashurbanapal, in Nineveh, which was discovered 6U years ago. This Royal library, however, was a compilation of documents from all over Babylonia, so far as was at that time known. In the library v.hion was unearthed .this year at Nippur were got for the first time an insight into the arrangement of uhe libraries of that early oay, and the arrangement of the rooms, etc., and what is of major importance, a knowledge of the‘literature of the period. Of special importance is the fact that the excavators have not only discovered a Babylonian temple- library, but it proves to bo the most influential and important, as well as the oldest, in the whole country. No document discovered is younger than 2200 B.C.—that is, about the period when the first blossom of the Nippurian civilisation was cut off by an invasion of the Elamites, who descended on Nippur, sacked the city, and carried away many of its treasures. After that event Babylon superseded Nippur as the chief city or metropolis of Northern Babylonia.

So far only one wing of the library has been excavated. Nearly X3,UuU documents have been rescued from the ruins this year. - The size of these inscribed clay tablets varies from 1 by z inches to 1 by li- feet. Unfortunately for the decipherer, they were MADE OF UNBAKED CLAY, and therefore suffered considerably by the collapse of the building and by the humidity of the ground. But all the fragments have been secured. The library of the temple at Nippur was lost to human knowledge about the time that Abraham went out of Ur into Palestine, and it gives us a clear historical setting for that important event. Many other customs and religious notions which existed among the Hebrews will find their just interpretation. We have known all along too little of this period. Now competent critics will bo able to tell what is purely Babylonian, and what is purely Hebrew. The records from the library at Nippur are now on the. way from Bassora to Constantinople, where they will arrive in the course of six months.—“Publishers’ Circular.”