Note 42 — Chapter IX

In contract-tablets from the site, dating from the third and second centuries b.c., the old temple E-anna is always referred to under the name Bît-rêsh, "Chief Temple," or "Chief Building" (cf. Clay, "Babylonian Records in the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan," Pt. II., 1913). Prof. Clay has recently sent me a transcript of a very interesting building-inscription from the same site, drawn up in the year 244 b.c., which will appear as No. 52 in his forthcoming "Miscellaneous Inscriptions." It records the rebuilding of Bît-rêsh by a certain Anu-uballit, the second prefect (shanû) of Erech, who also bore the Greek name Νίαρκος Nikiḳarḳusu, Nikarḳusu; it was clearly a privilege to bear a Greek name, as he tells us he was given his by "Antiochus, king of the lands." The text furnishes additional evidence of the survival of the literary language of Babylon for official records, and of the conservatism of the religious cult.