Babylonian Books.

Professor Lyon's lecture yesterday afternoon was based on a collection of tablets, sixty-five in number, presented by Mr. Stephen Salisbury to the Harvard Divinity School. Preliminary to the exhibition of the tablets the lecturer spoke of the general class of writing to which they belong, the civil, social, and translated several published documents from the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonida. These translations related to gifts to the temples, loans, sale of slaves and real estate, marriage, partnership and legal decisions. Such information makes it possible for us to have a very clear view of the social life of the times. This was just the period of the Jewish exile. The tablets also throw light on contemporary political history and on the method of reckoning time.

The Salisbury tablets are all or nearly all from Sippar, the most famous Babylonian seat of the worship of the sun god. Those tablets whose dates are presented are from the reigns of Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, Nergalsharezer and Nabonidas. All the others perhaps belong to the ame period. Among the subjects treated are records of the loan of money, tithes and taxes, and offerings to the gods. The great Sippar temple seems to have carried on a large system of lending. One of the tablets exhibited still has the finger prints of the writer. One was a list of families, perhaps slave families. One beautifully written large fragment was a list of the names of men, it may be tax payers.

The University now possesses three collections of these documents relating to Babylonian private and social life, one of purchase, one the gift of Mr. E. L. Mason and the Salisbnry collection. A new collection is on its way from London, It is to be hoped that the friends of the University may make it possible for us to secure many such. Harvard ought to be a prominent center for the remains of the mighty Semitic civilization.