The following translations are from the texts in my Assyrian Medical Textsfor sick men suffering from ear-trouble.

No. 80. AM. 34, 4 (K. 2422) + 37, 2 (K. 7096 + 9059 + 11916 + 16434) + 35, 4 (K. 10787) + 4, 7 (81–7–27, 61, already translated as a fragment, No. 14, PRSM. 1924, 15); AM. 33, 1, and 34, 1 (K. 3215 + 3666 + 8109 + 10453) + 36, 1 (K. 3696 + 7221 + 10767 + 11788) + 12, 2 (K. 10019) + 34, 5 (S. 379); AM. 97, 6 (K. 3486); AM. 38, 4 (K. 6661) + 37, 10 (K. 10498) + 38, 1 (K. 13492). From an examination of these four pieces of tablets it seems reasonably certain that they form parts of the same original whole. At the same time it should be observed that AM. 37, 2, rev., has three air holes in the body of the text, and that these occur in the others only in the vertical lines whch divide the columns. Three of the above are in KMI. 18, K. 6661, K. 10498, and 19, S. 379.

The Kurdish language resembles the Persian in that it belongs to the Western Iranian group, but is distinguished from it by striking differences of sound, form, vocabulary, and syntax. Before the year 1919 Kurdish was not ordinarily written: only poetry had been to any extent committed to writing, although a newspaper in the Bohtan dialect is recorded to have been published in Cairo and England between 1892 and 1902, and there was a certain amount of journalistic activity in Constantinople about 1912, following the Turkish revolution.

SINCE, during the last few years, Si-Hia texts with transliterations into Tibetan character have been brought to light, it seems that a new aspect may be put upon the morphology of this language.

Previously the texts studied provided us only with transcriptions into Chinese characters, and it is on their evidence that reconstructions of Si-Hia words were first based. Writing in 1916 with this class of material before him, Laufer consequently stated that “consonantal prefixes can be pointed out only in four cases: k-ṅü or k-ṅu(‘five’), k-ṅum (‘heaven‘), r-ni (‘ear’), and possibly m-ru, m-lu (‘worm’)”.

The manner in which Mānī presented to the Sāsānian court his new doctrine seems to demonstrate that the mazdayasnian theology of that period conceived time, zrvan-, as the highest principle. Zarathuštra's own doctrine had been distinctively monotheistic and spiritual. But it had fallen into oblivion and had been superseded by a polytheistic system such as was the official creed of the Achaemenian empire and such as it is recorded in the later Avesta. At a certain moment religious reaction appears to have made itself felt against the alteration of the true spirit of Zarathuštra's teaching. In trying to reconstruct this doctrine the mazdaïst theologians had hit upon speculations considering time as the supreme essence. The question, when this system may have been first evolved, will be treated later on. For the present, it may suffice to state that the Zervanite theology was officially recognized during the beginning of the Sāsānian epoch, but without leaving traces in the Avesta or in the bulk of the Pahlavī literature.

The texts which narrated the episodes of the death, burial in a tomb, the sojourn in Hades, and the resurrection of Marduk, have not been recovered. The contents of this remarkable myth, which transferred the Tammuz legends to Bel-Marduk, must be reconstructed from the rituals and commentaries. On it the Babylonians based a ritual or mystery play in which the entire myth was represented. The rubrics which contained full directions of the details of this play also remain unknown. If they are ever recovered they will correspond to the directions for the zagmuk or New Year's festival at Babylon and Erech. The only sources for reconstructing this mystery play are the commentaries of the scribes on the mythical meaning of each act in this play, corresponding to one fragment of a commentary on the ritual of the zagmuk at Babylon. Two large fragments of the commentary on the Death and Resurrection of Bêl as celebrated at Assur, are published by E. Ebeling, Keilschrifttexte aus Assur Religiösen Inhalts, Nos. 143 and duplicate, No. 219, both of which were used for an edition by Professor Zimmern. The writer gave an edition in his Babylonian Epic of Creation, pp. 34–49, together with two fragments from the library of Asurbanipal, Rm. 275 and K. 9138. Soon after the appearance of my book, Mr. C. J. Gadd found two more fragments of the same collection in the British Museum, K. 6330, which joins K. 9138, and K. 6359. Both fragments are published here, by permission of the Trustees of the Museum. As with the previously published fragments no connected text can be extracted from them. In my notes to the transcription, the passages in the large Assur texts which seem to be parallels have been noted; any new information on this remarkable myth and ceremony which can be gleaned from them has been indicated in the notes. At Assur the national of god Assyria replaced BS1- Marduk in the ceremony, but the texts of the commentaries were undoubtedly copied from the original tablets at Babylon. The contents leave no doubt at all but that the mystery play refers to Bel-Marduk.

It is very improbable that the Mahmal, which formed such a prominent object in the procession of the “Kiswat en Nebi” at Cairo and the pilgrim caravans from Egypt and Syria, will be seen in the Hejaz again.

There are very strong political and religious reasons against its introduction into the ceremonies at Mecca. As the practice of sending a Mahmal to Mecca was adopted by an Indian Prince and the late Sultan of Darfur, it might be of use to trace the origin and purport of this very curious custom in Islam.

The preceding article of this series will be found in the Journal for 1930, page 761. Mr. Elsberg has kindly supplied photographs and descriptions of the following Abbasid and Fatimid pieces in his collection, and Mr. S. Flury has to be thanked for assistance with the readings of the inscriptions:—

No. 1. Collection No. 1749.

Fragment of a garment of glazed linen, counting about fifty warp threads to the inch. The inscription is embroidered in red silk, in a cross stitch. 14½ × 22¼ inches. The inscription is ⅜ inch wide. From the excavations at Fustât.