It is one of the most popular devices of wits and humorists of all nations to make use of various slang expressions, dialectical or rustic sentences, or local words in order to add to the “fun” in their narrative. Persians are no exception to this. Moreover, educated people regard all the numerous local dialects of Iran as unwritten languages and in their writings occasionally make use of them, but only for such facetious purposes. Peasants and the less educated people strive to use high-flown diction in their correspondence, and even in their songs an imitation of this appears instead of their native dialects.

The design on this seal confines its classification to the period of the Dungi and the Isin dynasty (2409–2075). The worshipper stands, with hands folded at the waist, before a seated deified king, and behind him stands the mother goddess with both hands raised (palms outward), imploring the aid of the divine king for her human protegé. This liturgical pose and design are characteristic of the Ur and Isin periods. See Delaporte, Catalogue des Cylindres Orientaux de la Bibliothèque Nationale, pp. 57–70, and Langdon, R.A., 16, 64–5. Compare, for example, Delaporte, ibid., 116. The deified king extends a small cup toward the worshipper with his right hand. In the field above are the lunar crescent and emblem of the stellar Ishtar (Venus).

Among the Tibetan MSS. recovered by Sir Aurel Stein from the now famous hidden library of Tun-huang (Ch'ien-fo-tung) is a roll of thin paper inscribed on one side with a part of a text of a Buddhist sūtra in Chinese. The reverse contains a Tibetan document, which, as we may infer from many similar instances, was inscribed later. The Tibetan text, which consists of 254 lines of writing (plus the lower half of a preceding line) is a chronicle, covering without interruption a period of seventy-six years. Each entry commences with the name of the year according to the twelve-year cycle, and then appends a brief resume of the leading events, usually ending with the phrase “[so] one year“. The text contains a large number of names, names of peoples, places, and persons, including royalties, generals, and ministers, Chinese envoys and Turkish khagans: and the whole conveys a lively impression of Tibetan activities during the period, especially of incessant campaigns against all co-terminous states, the Chinese, the Hbrog (nomads), and other tribes of Tibet. Of special interest for Indian history are the indications of Tibetan domination in Nepal.

Among the Hittite cuneiform documents discovered at Boghaz Keui is a considerable number of legendary texts relating to the gods and heroes, the creation of the world and the like. Unfortunately they are all in a very fragmentary condition, but as progress is made with the examination and copying of the collections in Berlin and Constantinople it may be hoped that in many cases a sufficient. number of fragments will be found to allow some of the texts to be more or less completed. I have already attempted a translation of the fragments of a legend of the Great Serpent (JRAS. April, 1922), and the Yuzghat tablet edited for this Society by Dr. Pinches and myself some years ago (1907) contains one of the mugauwas or circle of “stories” connected with the deified king Telibinus, the Telephus of Greek tradition.