Note 38 — Chapter IX

For a list of documents dated in the brief reigns of Bel-simanni, Shamash-erba, and two other Babylonian usurpers of this period, see Weissbach, op. cit., p. 044. The extraordinary variants in writing the Babylonian form of Xerxes' name show the difficulty the Babylonians had in pronouncing it; but Akshimakshu can hardly be regarded as such a variant, and may well be that of a rebel who secured a brief period of power (cf. also Boissier, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1013, p. 300). On the evidence of the proper names occurring in the contracts, he and the others are all to be placed in the reign of Xerxes or in the last years of Darius.