All these works have contributed comments of more or less value, and the whole point to a close connexion with Babylonia and Assyria, and the extended use of cuneiform in Cappadocia from very early times, whence it was doubtless taken over by the later Hittites. BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN LETTERS. A very large number of letters have been preserved to us from all periods of Babylonian and Assyrian history. Many of them are addressed to private correspondents, and concern matters of everyday life. They are often most obscure, as they assume so much knowledge on the part of the recipient which is withheld from us. Where we can grasp their reference they furnish considerable light upon social conditions. A large number, however, are royal letters or dispatches from the king and his officers to subordinates, or _vice versa_. These more often concern public affairs. As yet few letters have come down to us which we can date before the First Dynasty of Babylon, but some will be found in the _Inventaire des tablettes de Tello_ (see p. 80), and among the various publications of Temple accounts and contracts, as early as the times of Sargon of Akkad. In the _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_, vol. ii, pp. 557-64, 572-9, MEISSNER published _Altbabylonische Briefe_ (1893), with discussions. In the times of Hammurabi, or the First Dynasty of Babylon, our sources for epistolary correspondence become very ample. L. W. KING in his magnificent work, _The Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi, King of Babylon, about B. C. 2200; to which is added a series of letters of other Kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon_ (vol. i, _Introduction and Babylonian Texts_; vol. ii, _Babylonian Texts_, continued; vol. iii, _English Translation, Commentary, Vocabularies, Introduction, etc._, London, Luzac & Co., 1898), gave a complete edition of these letters. The materials for history and social life were epoch-making. In the _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_ G. NAGEL translated a number of these texts, _Briefe Hammurabi’s an Sin-iddinam_, vol. iv, pp. 434-83, to which FR. DELITZSCH added _Zusatzbemerkungen_, pp. 483-500. He, with J. A. KNUDTZON, wrote on the same subject, vol. iv, pp. 88-100. M. W. MONTGOMERY took _Briefe aus der Zeit des babylonischen Königs Hammurabi_ as subject for her doctor’s dissertation (Leipzig, Pries, 1901). A. KLOSTERMANN published _Ein diplomatischer Briefwechsel aus dem 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr._ (Leipzig, Deichert, 1903). C. V. GELDEREN contributed _Ausgewählte babylonisch-assyrische Briefe_ to the _Beiträge zur Assyriologie_, iv, 1902, pp. 501-45. Another great collection was published by THUREAU-DANGIN in _Lettres et contrats de l’époque de la première dynastie babylonienne_ (Paris, P. Geuthner, 1910). The author transliterated, translated, and commented upon three of these texts as _Lettres de l’époque de la première dynastie babylonienne_ in _The Hilprecht Anniversary Volume_, pp. 156-63.