(M746) The subsequent periods in Babylonia are represented by few letters. It is not until we come down to the end of the eighth century and the Sargonide times that we meet with many letters. The archives of Nineveh contained immense numbers. A great many of these are now in the Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum. There they early attracted attention. Being written by the imperial officials to the kings of Assyria, they contain most valuable material (M747) for history. George Smith in 1871 gave extracts from several of them in his _History of Ashurbanipal_. A number were published in Rawlinson’s _Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_. Mr. S. A. Smith, in the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, 1887-89,(806) and in the second and third volumes of his _Keilschrifttexte Asurbanipals_ gave some seventy more. Professor Delitzsch also published a number in his _Zur assyrisch-babylonischen Briefliteratur_,(807) and in his translations and comments laid the real foundation for their interpretation. In 1892 Professor R. F. Harper began the colossal task of publishing the text of all the letters from Nineveh, in his _Assyrian and Babylonian Letters belonging to the K Collections of the British Museum_, of which eight volumes are already published.(808) (M748) A considerable number of scholars have busied themselves with the translation and elucidation of these texts. Professor C. Johnston in his work, _The Epistolary Literature of the Assyrians and Babylonians_;(809) C. van Gelderen, _Ausgewählte babylonisch-assyrische Briefe_;(810) A. J. Delattre, _Quelques Lettres Assyriennes_;(811) G. R. Berry, _The Letters of the Rm. 2 Collection_, in _American Journal of Semitic Literature_, xi., pp. 174-202; F. Martin, _Lettres assyriennes et babyloniennes_—besides the many articles by other scholars on particular words or subjects—have contributed to the understanding of these difficult texts. Professor R. F. Harper has published a few preliminary studies on these texts.(812) Dr. H. Winckler not only gave several important texts in his _Texte verschiedenen Inhalts_,(813) but translations and comments on them in his _Altorientalische Forschungen_.(814) (M749) The letter-texts of the latter Babylonian period at present published are extremely few. Some may be found in Strassmaier’s great collection of _Babylonische Texte_, among the contracts. A list of those for the reigns of Nabonidus and Nebuchadrezzar is given in Dr. K. L. Tallqvist’s _Die Sprache der Contracte Nabû-nâ’ids_, p. xviii.