Note 63 — Chapter III

That Berossus depended on native lists of rulers in compiling his first dynasty of semi-mythical kings has been strikingly confirmed by documents discovered recently in the Niffer Collection of tablets preserved in the Pennsylvania Museum. These have been published by Poebel, "Univ. of Pennsyl. Mus. Publications," Vol. IV., No. I, and Vol. V., and the new information they furnish is of great interest for the earlier history. It may be noted that the figure 34,090 is that given for the duration of the dynasty in Syncellus (ed. Dindorf, p. 147); in the equivalent in sars, etc., which is added (i.e. 9 sars, 2 ners, and 8 soss = 34,080 years), it is probable that the units are intentionally ignored, though some would regard 34,080 as the correct figure (see below, p. 115). In Eusebius ("Chron. lib. I.," ed. Schoene, Col. 25) the figure is 33,091 (probably a mistake for 34,091); this figure at any rate confirms the reading of ninety (against eighty) in Syncellus, cf. Meyer, "Beiträge zur alten Geschichte (Klio)," III., p. 133; and see further, p. 116 f., n. 5.