Story of Sargon

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a NER. SE. GA, who is a palace guard, or the son of a devotee.

"188. If an artisan take a son for adoption and teach him his handicraft, one may not bring claim for him."

Coming down to a later period, we may see the influence of other peoples on the Babylonians in the Assyrian Doomsday Book or Liber Censualis, copied from the cuneiform tablets of the seventh century, B.C. Sixty-eight families are enumerated in these tablets, and to these sixty-eight husbands there are allotted ninety-four wives. Seventy-four sons are mentioned and only twenty-six daughters, a proportion that is extremely suspicious. That there was no such slaughter of the females as we find in other countries, is shown by the fact that in some of the families enumerated there were as many as three daughters to one son, but the majority of the families were without female children and had one or two sons, an evenness of distribution which would lead one to surmise that the people of the district of Harran, where this census was taken, were regulating the birthrate themselves.

Of this period too, is the story of Sargon the younger a legend that is interesting not alone because of its similarity to that of Moses, but because it shows that this section of the country

The Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon about 2250 B.C., trans. by Robt. F. Harper, p. 71.

C. H. W. Johns, Assyrian Doomsday Book, pp. 26, 27, 28.

had also fallen into the ways of the rest of the world. Here, at the time of the legend, it was a common thing for a child to run the risks of exposure and death.

As an indication of the conditions a thousand years later, we may take the certificate of adoption cited by Dr. Rogers, of the time of King Kurigalzu who reigned in Babylon from about 1390 B.C. to 1375.

"Ina-Uruk-rishat, daughter of (mu) shallim, had no daughter and therefore she adopted Etirtu, daughter of Ninib-mushallim, as her daughter. Seven shekels of gold she gave. She may give her to a husband, she may appoint her a temple slave, but she may not make her a servant. If she does make her a servant, Etirtu shall go to her father's house. As long as Ina-Uruk-rishat lives, Etirtu shall pay her reverence. When Ina-Uruk-rishat dies, Etirtu, as her daughter, shall offer the water libation. If Ina-Uruk-rishat should say, "Thou art not my daughter,' she shall lose the gold which she has paid. If Etirtu should say, 'Thou art not my mother,' she shall become a servant. There shall no claim be made. Before Ellil, Ninib, Nusku, and King Kurigalzu they have made oath together.

"Before Damkum, her uncle on the mother's side. Before Rabasha-Ninib. Before Ellil-ibni, son of Ellil-ishu. Before Etel-pi-Azagshug, son of Amel-Marduk; before Rish-Marduk, son of Ba'il-Nusku; before Arad-Belit, the scribe, son of

Babylonian Morality

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Ninib-mushallim. The fifth day of Shebat, the twenty-first year of Kurigalzu, king of the world."' From another point of view we may also understand the Babylonian morality. As a characteristic it is interesting to note "that the general modesty of the Babylonian art, in the matter of clothes, is very marked," says Ward, "we never see any display of Phallism. "2 That the influence and importance of the women had much to do with the character of these people is undoubtedly true. They were a truly remarkable people of whom we are yet to learn a great deal. Future excavations may reveal much, but up to now "the abundant literature of Babylon," says Dussaud, "does not offer a single example of human sacrifice and yet one has the right to suppose that it was common among them." 3

'Dr. Robt. Wm. Rogers, Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament, p. 393.

William Hays Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, p. 154. › René Dussaud, Les Sacrifices Humaines chez les Canaanéens.

CHAPTER VII

MOST ANCIENT NATION WAS KIND TO CHILDRENECONOMIC PRESSURE BROUGHT NO SPECIAL CRUELTY-PICTURE OF THE PROLETARIAT—ABJURATIONS OF THE OLDEST BOOK IN THE WORLD -EGYPTIANS AS SEEN BY DIODORUS SICULUSDEGENERATING EFFECT OF GREEK SUPREMACY.

LEISTOCENE man wandered from the Indo

P Malaysia region into the northern part of

Africa, and there, in the Nile valley, the Egyptian Hamites, as a truly autochthonous race, were evolved.

In a climate particularly favourable, great progress was made by these aboriginal people, especially in the New Stone Age, which was of unusually long duration, as can be seen from the beautiful flint knives plated with gold on which are carved animal figures. That the actual beginnings of Egyptian culture are twice as long as the historic period is the statement of Keane, and Oppert claims that there are indications of a thoroughly established social and political organization as far back as 11,500 years B.C.

It is therefore not surprising that we find among

A. H. Keane, Man, Past and Present, p. 479.