NewThoughtLibrary.com / DivineLibrary.org

Chapter 23 - The Clay Tablets From Babylon - p.98

St. Swithin's College Nottingham University
Newark-on-Trent Nottingham
Professor Franklin Caldwell,
Care of British Scientific Expedition,
Hillah, Mesopotamia.

October 21, 1934.

My dear Professor:

The five clay tablets from your recent excavation in the ruins of Babylon arrived on the same boat with your letter. I have been fascinated no end, and have spent many pleasant hours translating their inscriptions. I should have answered your letter at once but delayed until I could complete the translations which are attached.

The tablets arrived without damage, thanks to your careful use of preservatives and excellent packing.

You will be as astonished as we in the laboratory at the story they relate. One expects the dim and distant past to speak of romance and adventure. "Arabian Nights" sort of things, you know. When instead it discloses the problem of a person named Dabasir to pay off his debts, one realizes that conditions upon this old world have not changed as much in five thousand years as one might expect.

It's odd, you know , but these old inscriptions rather "rage" me, as the students say. Being a college professor, I am supposed to be a thinking human being possessing a working knowledge of most subjects.

Yet, here comes this old chap out of the dust-covered ruins of Babylon to offer a way I had never heard of to pay off my debts and at the same time acquire gold to jingle in my wallet.

Pleasant thought, I say, and interesting to prove whether it will work as well nowadays as it did in old Babylon. Mrs. Shrewsbury and myself are planning to