The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Sources and Bibliography
• Laws and Contracts
• I: The Earliest Babylonian Laws
• II: The Code of Ammurabi
• III: Later Babylonian Law
• IV: The Social Organization of the Ancient Babylonian State
• V: Judges, Law-courts, and Legal Processes
• VI: Legal Decisions
• VII: Public Rights
• VIII: Criminal Law
• IX: The Family Organization
• X: Courtship and Marriage
• XI: Divorce and Desertion
• XII: Rights of Widows
• XIII: Obligations and Rights of Children
• XIV: The Education and Early Life of Children
• XV: Adoption
• XVI: Rights of Inheritance
• XVII: Slavery
• XVIII: Land Tenure In Babylonia
• XIX: The Army, CorvÉe, and Other Claims For Personal Service
• XX: The Functions and Organization of the Temple
• XXI: Donations and Bequests
• XXII: Sales
• XXIII: Loans and Deposits
• XXIV: Pledges and Guarantees
• XXV: Wages of Hired Laborers
• XXVI: Lease of Property
• XXVII: The Laws of Trade
• XXVIII: Partnership and Power of Attorney
• XXIX: Accounts and Business Documents
• Babylonian and Assyrian Letters
• I: Letters and Letter-writing Among the Babylonians and Assyrians
• II: The Letters of Ammurabi
• III: The Letters of Samsu-iluna and His Immediate Successors
• IV: Private Letters of the First Dynasty of Babylon
• V: Sennacherib’s Letters to His Father, Sargon
• VI: Letters From the Last Year of Shamash-shum-ukÎn
• VII: Letters Regarding Affairs In Southern Babylonia
• VIII: Letters About Elam and Southern Babylonia
• IX: Miscellaneous Assyrian Letters
• X: Letters of the Second Babylonian Empire
• Appendix
• I: The Prologue and Epilogue to the Code of Ammurabi
• Prologue to the Code of Ammurabi
• The Epilogue
• II: Chronology
• III: Weights and Measures
• I.: Weights
• II.: Measures of Capacity
• III.: Measures of Length
• IV.: Measures of Surface
• V.: Measures of Time
• IV: Bibliography of the Later Periods
• The New Babylonian Empire
• Persian Period
• Macedonian Period
• Arsacide Period

II

CHRONOLOGY

The following tables make no pretence to finality. In Babylonian history no date before bc 747 can be considered absolutely fixed. In Assyrian history the Eponym Canon certainly goes back to about bc 893. Then scattered notices in later writers enable us to approximate to earlier dates and the varied synchronisms between Assyrian and Babylonian kings render the dates probable, as far back as the First Dynasty of Babylon. There is only one fixed date before that, the period of Sargon I., which depends on a statement of Nabonidus.

The sequence of monarchs is, however, very probably correct. As knowledge increases, more names will be added to fill up the gaps, and dated documents will give the lengths of the reigns. A discussion of the grounds for the dates cannot be given here. The reader may refer to Dr. P. Rost, in the Mittheilungen der Vorderasiatischen Gesellschaft, 1897, No. 2, and Orientalistische Litteratur-Zeitung, 1900, pp. 143, 175, 212. Radau’s Early Babylonian History may be consulted for the earliest dates.

In the early periods, a vertical line between two names denotes that the second was son of the former. This is often all we know, but it is useful to mark the fact, as we cannot then insert other rulers between them. Names printed in capitals are either Sumerian or their true pronunciation is unknown. When these capitals are in Roman type, we know that they were kings or Patesis; when they are printed in italic, we only know that they were the parents of those whose names follow. We do not then know whether they reigned or not.

For Assyrian chronology, see Annals of the Kings of Assyria, by Budge and King, 1902.

ASSYRIA

EARLY PATESIS, DATES CONJECTURAL, ORDER UNCERTAIN