Lastly, it is to be noted that the list of Babylonian kings found in the famous astronomical work of Claudius Ptolemaeus, valuable as it is for historical purposes, has no connection with the religion of the Babylonians.
II.
The sum total of the information thus to be gleaned from ancient sources for an elucidation of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion is exceedingly meagre, sufficing scarcely for determining its most general traits.
Moreover, what there is, requires for the most part a control through confirmatory evidence which we seek for in vain, in biblical or classical literature.
This control has now been furnished by the remarkable discoveries made beneath the soil of Mesopotamia since the year 1842.

In that year the French consul at Mosul, P.E.Botta, aided by a government grant, began a series of excavations in the mounds that line the banks of the Tigris opposite Mosul.

The artificial character of these mounds had for some time been recognized.

Botta's first finds of a pronounced character were made at a village known as Khorsabad, which stood on one of the mounds in question.

Here, at a short distance below the surface, he came across the remains of what proved to be a palace of enormous extent.