There are also Assyrian deeds of real estate,[34] bills of sale of Israelites for slaves, also a bill of sale of a woman to an Egyptian lady (Nitocris), who made the purchase in order to obtain a wife for her son, as well as the contract tablets of Belshazzar, and the “annals” of other kings. Hundreds of these historic tablets have been brought to light, for the soil ruled over by Persian kings was indeed rich in this imperishable literature. Manuscripts may fade beneath the touch of time, or be burned by barbarian invaders, but these clay tablets have safely kept their records beneath the dust of centuries, and the germs of their thought lived, and were developed among other races, after they had lain for ages in the valley of the Euphrates. THE INSCRIPTIONS OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR. These annals begin by declaring him to be “the King of Babylon, the exalted prince, the worshipper of the god Marduk, the prince supreme, the beloved of the god Nebo.” This mighty king was the patron of all forms of idolatry, and one of the principal objects of his reign appears to have been the restoration of the idol temples, and the reconstruction of their images. The first or “lofty-headed,” was the shrine of the god Bel. The celebrated golden image which Nebuchadnezzar set up represented this god.[35] There is but little genuine history[36] in his inscriptions, as he seemed to consider the account of the rebuilding of the city, and the restoration of the idol temples, of more importance than the record of his military triumphs. The work of rebuilding Babylon was surely a necessity, for the Babylonians having rebelled, Sennacherib had almost wholly destroyed it.[37] The vengeance of the Assyrian king must have been terrible, for in the Bavian inscription, he declares that he swept the city from end to end—that he destroyed the houses, threw down the wall and fortifications, and the ruins were, by his order, thrown into the river. It is true that he and Assur-bani-pal reconstructed many buildings, but Babylon[38] never regained her title of “the Glory of the East” until the time of Nebuchadnezzar, who was engaged throughout his long reign[39] in rebuilding the temples and cities of his kingdom. There are in the British Museum some thirty or forty inscriptions of this king, which record the structure of great buildings. There are also a few fragments pertaining to his historical career, but the account thus given is so incomplete, that while it agrees with the Biblical record of his campaigns, it is far less definite in detail. Nebuchadnezzar III, son of Nabupolasser, came to the throne in the latter part of the seventh century B. C, having taken command of the Babylonian army during the war between his father and Necho, the king of Egypt. He routed the Egyptian troops at Carchemish, “and took all that pertained to the king of Egypt, from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates.”[40]