Note 20 — Chapter III

Professor Clay has written to inform me that on the two tablets Y.b.c., Nos. 4229 and 4270, the usual formula for the second year of the Nîsin era is followed by the words shag mu ki XVIII-kam, which may be rendered "within the eighteenth year," i.e. corresponding to the eighteenth year. On one tablet the addition to the usual date takes the form shag mu ki XVIII-kam in-ag (?), but Prof. Clay is not quite certain of the reading of the sign ag, which, he writes, "because the tablet was cased, is badly twisted." If the reading is correct it is important, for the addition may then be rendered "within (i.e. corresponding to) the eighteenth year that he reigned," the word in-ag being the verb usually employed in Sumerian dynastic lists in sentences stating the number of years a king reigned. Two other long date-formulæ for the same year (on tablets Y.b.c., Nos. 4307 and 4481) begin as follows: mu ki II dim(?) mu ki XIX giš-ku-makh Ana (dingir) En-lil (dingir) En-ki, etc. Here the reading of the sign dim is not absolutely certain, but, assuming its correctness, the formula may be rendered: "The second year (corresponding to the nineteenth year) in which with the exalted weapon of Anu, Enlil and Ea, Rîm-Sin the king took the city of Nîsin," etc. It will be seen that the readings, which are suggested by Prof. Clay for the two uncertain signs in the formulæ, give excellent sense, and, if correct, they definitely prove that the second figures in the equations were derived from Rîm-Sin's regnal years. Hut, even if we regard the two signs as quite uncertain, the general interpretation of the double-dates is not affected; it would be difficult to explain them on any other hypothesis than that adopted in the text.