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RINGS
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" Protarchus made it." When, on visiting London, he told this to Doctor
Murray, of the British Museum, the latter gave full expression to his
scepticism, saying, " There are plenty of those signed things." But
when the gem itself was shown him, he exclaimed, " This is jolly
genuine," and he had it photographed for his book.*
A
very interesting find was made in 1893, during the excavations
conducted under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania at
Nippur. In the northwestern part of the mound, as many as 730
inscribed tablets were unearthed, which had been carefully stored in a
chamber measuring eighteen by nine feet. These tablets, when
deciphered, proved that the chamber was the record room of the sons of
a certain Murashu, Bêl-hâtin and Bêl-nadin-shumu, whose activity seems
to have been analogous to that of our counsellors-at-law. Many of the
tablets bear records concerning the members of the family personally,
but in other cases their services appear to have been claimed in
various legal difficulties. One of the most curious of these ancient
documents is a contract dated the eighth of the month of Elul, in the
year 429 b.c. (thirty-fifth
year of Arta-xerxes I of Persia), in which Bêl-ah-iddina, Bêlshumu, and
Hatin give the following guarantee to Bêl-nadin-shumu, son of Murashu:
As
concerns the gold ring set with an emerald, we guarantee that in twenty
years the emerald will not fall out of the gold ring. If the emerald
should fall out of the gold ring before the end of twenty years,
Bêl-ah-iddina, Bêlshumu, and Hâtin shall pay unto Bêl-nadin-shumu an
indemnity of ten mana of silver.
The record bears the names of seven witnesses and
4 Communicated by the late Dr. William Hayes Ward.
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