(M729) Fairly frequent also are accounts of the quantities of corn expended for the keep of flocks and herds. The amounts allowed _per diem_ are the chief items of interest. Sheep were allowed from one to one and a half _ḲA_ a day, lambs half a _ḲA_, oxen six to eight _ḲA_.(789) In the Code we find allowances for the keep of animals. There are very frequent lists in Assyrian times of amounts of corn given to various animals. These also occur at later times. The amounts allowed per day are various and by no means uniform. A very good example gives as the allowance of corn for a full-grown sheep two _ḲA per diem_, for a young sheep, one _ḲA_, for a lamb one-half _ḲA_.(790) (M730) Acknowledgments of advances, or loans, occur in the first epoch. As a rule, we are not told what was the ground of the loan. The fact that these loans were to be repaid is not stated, and we may take the tablets to be merely receipts for things given out to officials who had a right to them. The substances were corn of different kinds, wine, beer, sesame-wine, butter, flour and other food-stuffs, wool, and other supplies. We sometimes learn prices from these tablets. Thus a _GUR_ of corn cost one shekel.(791) (M731) Long lists of accounts are very common at all epochs. They relate what sums or amounts were paid out to various officials for certain goods or for wages, keep, and the like. In fact, they are stewards’ accounts. Unfortunately, the way in which most collections have been formed, and even more the way in which they have since been preserved, renders it impossible for us to make the use of them which has often been made of mediæval accounts. Otherwise we could obtain from them many interesting items. They are, however, most valuable for prices and names. (M732) Thus, in such lists we find mention of articles which would otherwise remain unsuspected. The first reference to iron is in the Ḥammurabi period,(792) whence we learn that a shekel of silver would buy eight times its weight of iron. Sometimes we get an important contribution to chronology. It is well known that there is no certainty as to the order of the Eponyms after B.C. 648, but we know their names for at least forty years later. Any contribution to the order of these names would be welcomed with avidity. Thus, one scribe writes: “Income from the Eponymy of Sagab to the Eponymy of Nabû-shar-aḫêshu, for six years, which was paid in as maintenance, eleven talents ... besides twenty-seven plates of silver.” We cannot say whose income it was, but the previous section dealt with the income of the crown prince, and this may be only a _résumé_ of the last. But we now know that from Sagab to Nabû-shar-aḫêshu was six years in all. Thus, from the most varied and often most unpromising sources are derived those important details which make it possible to attain an exact and realistic conception of Babylonian and Assyrian history and life. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LETTERS