been erased and the stone repolished, doubtless by the Elamite conqueror,
who meant to inscribe his name and titles there. As we have lost those
five columns we may regret that he did not actually do this, but there is
now no trace of any hint as to who carried off the stone. On the reverse
side are twenty-eight columns with more than 2500 lines of inscription.

A great space, some 700 lines, is devoted by the king to setting out his
titles, his glory, his care for his subjects, his veneration of his gods,
and incidentally revealing the cities and districts under his rule, with
many interesting hints as to local cults. He also invokes blessing on
those who should preserve and respect his monument, and curses those who
should injure or remove it. A translation of this portion is not given,
as it is unintelligible without copious comment and is quite foreign to
the purpose of this book, which aims solely at making the Code
intelligible.

I desire to express my obligations to Dr. F. Carr for his many kind
suggestions as to the meaning of the Code.

The Index will, it is hoped, serve more or less as a digest of the Code.
One great difficulty of any translation of a law document must always be
that the technical expressions of one language cannot be rendered in
terms that are co-extensive. The rendering will have implications
foreign to the original. An attempt to minimise misconceptions is made
by suggesting alternative renderings in the Index. Further, by labelling
a certain section, as the law of incest, for example, one definitely
fixes the sense in which the translation is to be read. Hence it is
hoped that the Index will be no less helpful than the translation in
giving readers an idea of what the Code really meant.