The names of two Kings of Adab.

By GEORGE A. BARTON, Professor in Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.

In the winter of 1903/4 Dr. Edgar J. Banks discovered at Bismya the statue of an ancient king. The statue bears on its right upper arm the inscription: E-SAR 2LUGAL-DAUDU LUGAL UDNUNki. In an article in AJSL, XXI, 59, Banks in 1904 interpreted the inscription as follows: "(Temple) Eshar. King Daddu. King of Udnun." Dr. Banks suggested that Daddu was equivalent to David! This interpretation was written in Babylonia without the use of Brünnow's Ideographs, so that Banks did not then know the Semitic name of the city. In 1905 Thureau-Dangin in his Les inscriptions de Sumer et d'Akkad, 216, 217, rendered the inscription as Semitic, thus: é-sar šarrum da-lu šar adab ki, "Esar, roi fort, roi d'Adab". The same scholar in his Sumerischen und Akkadischen Königinschriften, 1907, 152, 153, transliterates as in his earlier work, rendering: "E-sar, der mächtige König, König von Adab (Udab, Usab)." Through the authority of Thureau-Dangin the name of the king was generally accepted as Esar.

We have now before us Dr. Banks long delayed Bismya, or the Lost City of Adab, in which he takes up again (p. 198 ff.) the discussion of the translation of this little inscription. He maintains that from an examination of the many inscriptions from Adab, which are as yet unpublished, but which were accessible to him at Bismya, it is clear that E-SAR is the name of the temple and not of the king. He also points out that the Code of Hammurapi (col. iii, 67-69) shows that the real name of the temple was E-MAH, and hence in the earlier writing the signs were read E-MAH. The first of these contentions of Banks is borne out by material published in his book. The vase inscription (p. 201) of a king of Kish, whom

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George A. Barton, The names of two Kings &c. [1913. he calls Barki, but which should be read Maški (or more probably Mêki) is in front proof of it. The inscription reads: 1ME-KI 2LUGAL KIŠ 3E-SAR 4IL-IL BIR-IS-Si GAR PA-TE-SI UD-NUki, “Mêki, king of kish, to E-sar brought, Birissi being Patesi of Adab." Here E-SAR is clearly the name of the temple to which the king of Kish brought the

vase.

The copper inscription (Banks, p. 200) proves either that the temple was really named E-MAH or that there was a temple named E-MAḤ in Adab, or that the sign MAḤ had also the value SAR. It runs: (I) 1a MAḤ 2E-ŠI-NIM-PAUD-DU 3GAR PA-TE-SI 4UD-NUNki E-MAH MU-NARU (II) 1UR-BI KI KU 2ITU BASI, "(For) the god Makh Eshinimpauddu, being Patesi of Adab, Emakh built; its foundations (were laid) in the earth, month Basi." 2 Dr. Poebel has shown me a list of temple-names, which is to appear in his forthcoming volume, in which the temple at Adab is spelled out E-SAR-Ra. This proves that the sign SAR was read sar and not mah. Either, then, the sign MAH had also the value sar, or there were two temples in Adab. In the present state of our knowledge we do not know which horn of this dilemma to accept. But whether there was one or two temples in Adab, it is now certain that one of them was called E-sar. Esar is not, then, the name of the king, but of the temple and is to be read Emah. Banks is, however, wrong in his reading of the name of the king. He still contends (Bismya, 202) that the king's name is to be read Da-udu and that it explains the name David. The inscription must be read "Esar: Lugaldaudu, king of Adab". Lugal-da-udu is the king's name. It is parallel to Lugal-ušum-gal, Lugal-pad-da, Lugal-šag-ga, Lugal-temen-na, and other well known Sumerian

names.

The name of another king of Adab is given us in a vase inscription pictured by Banks, Bismya. 264. It reads: 1E-SAR 2ME-SI-TUG LUGAL 4UD-NUN, "Esar: Mêshitug, king of Adab".

1 The reading BAR would require, not. The sign seems to be Y; cf. the writer's Babylonian Writing, 478.

2 This given us the name of one of the mouthes in the calendar of Adab. Each of the early Babylonian cities had a different calendar.

Kugler's Criterion for Determining the Order of the Months in the Earliest Babylonian Calendar. By GEORGE A. BARTON, Professor in Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.1

In a paper read before the Oriental Society a year ago, the difficulties which confront the students of the early Babylonian calendar were pointed out, and some of the consequent diversity of opinion concerning it among scholars was noted. During the year that has passed Father Kugler has proposed in his Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, Buch II, II. Teil, 1. Heft, p. 213 ff., a new criterion for determining the order of the months. Many of the tablets have at the end of the account the words BA-AN or GAR-AN preceded by a numeral. Kugler holds that these numerals refer to monthly payments, and that the number refers to the payment of the month previous to that in which the tablet is dated. It is known from a passage in Gudea 2 that EZEN-BAU was the first month. Kugler finds a tablet dated in EZEN-"BAU which concludes with XII BA-AN, which he takes to mean 12 payments, and to refer to the distribution made in the preceding months. He holds that the accounts were not written up until the month following that in which payments were made. This accounts for the number 12 on a tablet in the month EZEN-BAU. From this one fixed example he makes a general rule. A tablet that ends with III BA-AN or III GAR-AN belongs to the fourth month; one that has at its close VIII BA-AN belongs to the ninth month; if the months are named, their position in the calendar is, he holds, fixed.

Kugler himself is, however, confronted with the difficulty that, when the month name is the same, the numbers sometimes vary. Thus in the fourth year of Urkagina a month is marked IV BA-AN and in his fifth year, III BA-AN. Kugler

1 Presented in March, 1913.

VOL. XXXIIL Part III.

2 Stat. E V. 1-2; G III. 5.

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concludes that an intercalary month had been inserted in Urkagina's fourth year, and had pushed the months forward one place. It seems strange that the intercalary month should be introduced early in the year and not at its end, but for the moment we pass that difficulty by.

Langdon has tentatively accepted Kugler's rule, declaring that "the principle introduced by the genius of Kugler can be employed in settling the position of a month, but that certainty can be obtained only by the consistent evidence of several tablets."1 Pinches accepts it also in theory,2 though he does not place much reliance on it.

If Kugler had really discovered a principle which would throw light on this difficult problem, no one would rejoice. more than I. Unfortunately his induction is contradicted by much evidence that was in his hands when he wrote, and since his work appeared Dr. Hussey's important publication of Harvard tablets has given us a much larger number of texts by which to test Kugler's principle. When tested by all the available material, the theory utterly breaks down. In the case of EZEN-BAU the month for which the most material exists, two tablets dated in this month bear the desired subscription XII BA-AN, viz: TSA 10; H3 27, but one has the subscription XI BA-AN (DP 112), another XI GAR-AN (Nik.4 64), while two have for their subscription, IV BA-AN, (TSA 20; H 10). If, then, Kugler's principle were correct, EZEN-BAU would occur three times in the year; it would be at once the first, the fifth, and the twelfth month! Each of these positions for it is supported by two texts, so that there is only Gudea's inscription to act as an arbiter among them. Still another tablet (Nik. 1), if this rule were followed, would make AMAR-A-A-SIG-GA also the first month!

Again the evidence is conflicting in the case of EZENBULUK-KU-NINA. Kugler's principle would make it the second month on the authority of Nik. 57 and H 6, but the tenth month on the authority of Nik. 6. Similarly the month SIG-BA-U-E-TA-GAR-RA would be the fourth month on

1 PSBA. XXXIV, 257.

2 PSBA. XXXV, 24.

3 Dr. Hussey's Sumerian Tablets in the Harvard Semitic Museum. Nikolski's publication of Likhat chef's collection.

the authority of H 9, but the twelfth month on the authority of Nik. 63. Were we to take into account month names which vary in their spelling, but which probably refer to the same month, further proof of the impossibility of deducing any rule from these subscriptions might be obtained, but such proof is not needed.

In reality the tablets on which these subscriptions are found are not all accounts of the same class. Those labeled GARAN with one exception record the distribution of grain for the wages or food of donkeys and the men in charge of the donkeys. The donkeys assume the most important place in these tablets because they are placed first and are most numerous. This statement is true of TSA 34, 35, RTC 51, Nik. 57, 64, 66, H 31, 34, 35, 36. The one exception occurs in RTC 55, which deals exclusively with, which Pinches thinks may have been some kind of wheat. This exception is, however, more apparent than real, for, whatever it was, figures in the donkey tablets also; see H 31 and Nik. 57. It is quite possible that the yearly accounts of ass-hire might, for economic reasons, begin with a different month from the yearly accounts of the wages of the employes. of the harem.

An examination of the BA-AN accounts reveals the fact that they are not all of one class. Thus TSA 20 and H 10, which are dated in EZEN-BAU and have the subscription IV BA-AN, record payments to herders of she-asses (SIBAMA-GAN-ŠA-ME), fresh-water fishermen (HA-A-DUG-GA), gardeners (NU-ŠAR), head farmers (SAG-APIN), cow-'punchers' (LID-RU-ME), carpenters (NAGAR), overseers (MUME), scribes (DUP-ŠAR), shepherd of the wool-bearing-sheep (SIB UDU-SIG-KA-ME), porters (PA-IL-ME), bird-catchers (RI-HU-ME), etc. There are some others whose functions are not certainly determined, but in general it is clear that these men had to do with out-door affairs.

Another group of tablets has to do with the royal harem. These also bear BA-AN after their numbers. The names contained in them are those of women, boys and girls, though three or four men are included. To this series belong TSA 10,

1 PSBA. XXXV, 31.