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Records of the Past, 2nd series, Vol. II

By A. H. Sayce

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No. IV

1. To Dûdu 2 my lord, my father,
2. I speak, even Aziru 3 thy son, thy servant;
3. at the feet of my father I prostrate myself;
4. unto the feet of my father may there be peace!
5. O Dûdu, now [the daughter (?)]
6. [of the king (?)] my lord, Gama …
7. …… the foundation
8. of the palace of my lord the king has been laid
9. and for a temple I have founded (it).

_________

10. This I have done: as for thee there is none (else)
11. my father; and now the plantations,
12. O Dûdu, my father, set in the ground,
13. and I will look after the girl.

_________

14. [And] thou (art) my father and my lord.
15. [Verily] I will look after the girl; the kings of the Amorites (?) 4
16. [are] thy … and my house (is) from
17. … and the planting
18. I have directed and …
19. the planting I have accomplished.

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20. [And] thou to the presence
21. of my [lord], in the companionship
22 the foundation-stones of the palace I laid.

The next nine lines are too mutilated for translation.

32. [And] I (am) the servant of the king my lord,
33. [who comes] from (fulfilling) the orders of the king my lord
34. [and] from (fulfilling) the orders of Dûdu my father.
35. I observe [all of them] until his return.
36 he sends [a messenger],
37. he sends a soldier;
38. but let me come to thee.

Footnotes
66:1 No. IX in my forthcoming Paper.

66:2 The Biblical Dodo (Judg. x. 1, 2 Sam. xxiii. 24, 1 Chr. xi. 12, 26) or Dod. The name punctuated David is also written Dod. Hitherto the name has not been found outside the Bible and the Moabite Stone (where king Mesha states that he carried away the arels or "heroes" of Yahveh and Dodah), though the name of the Carthaginian goddess Dido shows that it also existed in Phœnician. According to an Assyrian list of deities Dadu was the name given to Hadad or Rimmon in Phœnicia and Palestine, thus explaining the name of Bedad or Ben-Dad, "the son of Dad," the name of an Edomite king (Gen. xxxvi. 35). In Assyrian Dadu, "the beloved one," was an epithet applied to Tammuz the Sun-god.

66:3 The Biblical Ezer.

66:4 The word is Amuri, which denotes the Amorites of northern Syria in other tablets of the collection, where, however, it is preceded by the determinative of country or people. It is therefore possible that here it is the first person of an Assyrian verb "I have seen."