Curiously enough the first contracts to attract attention were of an early date. LOFTUS found at Senkereh a number of most interesting case-tablets, the principal document being invariably enclosed in a clay envelope which, as was subsequently discovered, was inscribed with an abstract or practical duplicate of the principal document. Many speculations arose as to their purpose. Some regarded them as a substitute for money, or cheques, banknotes in clay (so LAYARD in 1853), and other weird guesses. GEORGE SMITH first recognized their meaning and value for history by publishing their dates, the names which the Babylonians gave to the years, calling them after some prominent event. Discovered in 1854, they were first published in 1882 by J. N. STRASSMAIER. Owing to some misapprehension, as given in LAYARD’S _Nineveh and Babylon_, p. 496, despite the clear statement on pp. 270-72 of LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches in Chaldea and Susiana_, they were called _Die altbabylonischen Verträge aus Warka_ in the _Beilage_ to the _Verhandlungen des V. internationalen Orientalistischen Congresses zu Berlin_, 1881. They were accompanied by a list of words and names. E. and V. REVILLOUT discussed them most interestingly in _Une Famille de commerçants de Warka_. They proved to be of the time of Hammurabi and his son Samsu-iluna after these kings had expelled Rîm-Sin from the South of Babylonia. But there were several dated in the reign of Rîm-Sin, and in those of Sin-idinnam and Nûr-adad, kings who had preceded him. Thus they showed how, despite changes of dynasty, the civil life of the subject population went on undisturbed, and customs changed but little. They show how closely the Code pictures the daily life of the people. As most illustrative of the Code, constituting a contemporary commentary on its regulations and consisting chiefly of examples of the same cases as there considered, we may here group in order of publication the collections from the First Dynasty of Babylon. _Inscribed Babylonian Tablets in the possession of Sir Henry Peek, Bart._, 1888, contained a few texts of this period, copied, transcribed, and translated by T. G. PINCHES. This made considerable advances, but there was not yet enough material to solve many obscurities. These tablets came from Sippara. It was evident that the only hope of understanding such technical documents lay in the publication of further material, so that by comparison of similar passages some information could be obtained as to alternative readings and phrases.