The execution of the laws being in the hands of priests in ancient Mesopotamia, the temples were the natural depositories for the official documents of the law courts.

Similar collections to those of Sippar have been found in almost every mound of Southern Mesopotamia that has been opened since the days of Rassam.

So at Djumdjuma, situated near the site of the ancient city of Babylon, some three thousand were unearthed that were added to the fast growing collections of the British Museum.

At Borsippa, likewise, Rawlinson and Rassam recovered a large number of clay tablets, most of them legal but some of them of a literary character, which proved to be in part duplicates of those in the royal library of Ashurbanabal.

In this way, the latter's statement, that he sent his scribes to the large cities of the south for the purpose of collecting and copying the literature that had its rise there, met with a striking confirmation.