One of the most interesting discoveries in the early strata was a vaulted drain (cf. Fig. 15 and p. 170) which purports to be the earliest Babylonian arch known, while a large number of terra-cotta pipes as well as a terracotta drain were also brought to light. The smaller objects include votive stelae (cf. Fig. 25), tablets, cylinder-seals and terra-cotta vases (cf. Figs. 92, 93). But a large number of relics contained in the strata above the level of Naram-Sin were found to be pre-Sargonic in spite of their position in the mound. They included door-sockets, fragments of vases, slabs, statues, and more than fifty brick-stamps, bearing an inscription of Sargon or Naram-Sin.
But the discovery and partial excavation of the Temple “ Library or “archive ” at Nippur have produced the most far-reaching and epoch-making results, for thereby literally thousands of tablets have been unearthed, affording an amount of new material for Assyri-ological study seldom paralleled in the history of Babylonian exploration.
1 Cf. however, Jastrow, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. XXVII, pp. 147 ff.
® Clay, Records of the Past, Vol. II, Part II, pp. 47 ff.
The greater part of the excavated material* is scientific or literary in character. The majority of the tablets are unbaked, and have consequently suffered from the detrimental effects of time, climate and other influences, among which may be particularly mentioned the havoc wrought by the invading Elamites during the third millennium B. c. In consequence of this, the decipherer’s task is much more arduous than it would otherwise have been, but in spite of the vandalism of the Elamites and the work of destruction which they sought to, and to some extent did accomplish, the archaeologist probably owes the preservation of these tablets to their burial in the ruined debris of which they formed a part. These unbaked clay tablets seem to have been generally arranged
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