Note 244.2 — Chapter III · NOTES

Vide K.A.T.3, pp. 434, 599, where Zimmern refers to the monuments published by Ménant, Pierres gravées, i. figs. 94, 95, 97, as possibly showing a scene of human sacrifice. But Ménant’s interpretation of them is wrong; vide Langdon, Babyloniaca, Tome iii. p. 236, “two Babylonian seals”; the kneeling figure is the owner of the seal; the personage behind him is no executioner, but Ramman or Teschub holding, not a knife, but his usual club. The inscriptions published by Prof. Sayce (Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch., iv. pp. 25-29) are translated differently by Dr. Langdon, so that the first one (iv. R2, pl. 26, No. 6) refers to the sacrifice of a kid, not of an infant. The misinterpretation of the inscription has misled Trumbull (Blood Covenant, p. 166). The statement in 2 Kings xvii. 31 about the Sepharvites in Samaria does not necessarily point to a genuine Babylonian ritual, even if we are sure that the Sepharvites were Babylonians.