For the Second Empire of Babylonia, Professor J. Kohler and Dr. F. E. Peiser have given some fine examples of this method. Thus, for the bankruptcy of Nabû-aplu-iddin,(3) they show that the creditors distrained upon the bankrupt’s property and found a buyer for most of it in a great Neriglissar, afterwards King of Babylon. The first creditor was paid in full, another received about half of the amount due to him, a third about the same, while a fourth obtained less than a quarter of what was owed him. They also follow out the fortunes of the great banking firm of Egibi(4) for fully a century. The sketch, of course, is not complete, and can only be made so by a prolonged search through thousands of documents in different museums; but it is intensely interesting and written with wonderful insight and legal knowledge. Another example is the family, or guild, of the priests of Gula.(5) This is less fully made out but most valuable, as far as it goes. In both cases a genealogy is given extending over many generations. Later still, the Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, in the ninth volume of Cuneiform Texts, gives a collection of the business documents of one firm, “Murashu Sons, of Nippur,” in the reign of Artaxerxes I. Here we have to do with a family deed-chest, a collection of documents found together and fortunately kept together. But this method, attractive though it is, cannot be followed here. The reader is best led on from the known to the unknown. Those things must be taken first which must be understood in order to appreciate what is placed later. We consider first the law and the law-courts. The reader can thus follow the references to procedure which occur in the other sections. The rights of the State, the family, and the private individual come next. Then we learn of the classes of property and the various ways of disposing of it. After that is taken up a variety of disconnected topics, whose order is mainly indifferent. Some overlapping of divisions is sure to occur in any order. This system has been found, after many permutations, to present the least inconvenience. While it is hoped that this volume will give a fairly complete account of what is really known and also point out some things that are reasonably conjectured to be true, it is fully recognized that much remains to be done. Indeed, it may serve by its omissions to redirect attention to openings for future fruitful work. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A. B. R. _Aus dem babylonischen Rechtsleben._ Professor J. Kohler and Dr. F. E. Peiser. Leipzig, 1890-. A. D. B. _Assyrian Doomsday Book._ Vol. XVII of _Assyriologische Bibliothek_. Leipzig, 1901. A. D. D. _Assyrian Deeds and Documents._ In three vols. Cambridge, 1898-. A. J. S. L. _American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures._ Chicago. A. O. F. _Altorientalische Forschungen._ Dr. H. Winckler. Leipzig, 1893-.