series of chambers, evidently offices of the temple. In one of these over 30,000 tablets were found stored. They were packed by Mr Rassam as he found them, and removed to England without any disturbance of their order; and when the cases came to be examined it was found that the majority of the tablets were arranged chronologically. Ranging as these tablets did from B.C. 625 to B.C. 200, they must have lain for nearly 2000 years quite undisturbed in the ruins.
A Babylonian temple was also the court of justice, and as the Jewish Sanhedrim met in the temple at Jerusalem, so did the council of the grey-haired ones meet in the courts of Chaldean temples to answer judgment. Dr Oppert has translated some contracts and legal decisions relating indubitably to captive Jews who had been carried to Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem. One of the most interesting of them is a law-suit commenced by a Jewish slave named Barachiel in order to recover his freedom. The case was as follows:—Barachiel—who bears the same name as the father of Elihu in the Book of Job (xxxii. 2-6),—had been the property of a wealthy person named Akhi-nuri, who had sold him to a widow of the name of Gaga, about 570 B.C. He remained in the house of this lady as a slave, with the power of liberating himself by paying a sum equal to his peculium or private property, which he had been allowed to acquire, like a slave in ancient Rome; but it seems that he was never fortunate enough to be able to afford the sum of money required. He remained with Gaga twenty-one years, and was considered the res or property of the house, and as such was handed over in pledge, was restored, and finally became the dowry of Nubti, the daughter of Gaga. Nubti gave him to her son and husband in exchange for a house and some slaves. After the death o the two ladies he was sold to the wealthy publican, Itti-Marduk-baladh,
