The favourable reception accorded to the first series of Records of the Past, and the hope more than once expressed since its discontinuance that a similar series would be again started, have led to this second attempt to lay before the public some of the most important documents left us by the civilised nations of the ancient Oriental world. During the ten years that have elapsed since the first series was concluded, Assyrian research may be said to have entered upon a new phase. Expeditions have returned from Babylonia, bringing with them the spoils of ancient libraries, the clay tablets preserved in the British Museum and elsewhere have been copied and examined with increased industry and exactness, and students have been flocking to the new study in Germany and America.