Already more than 20,000 tablets have been received at the University of Pennsylvania, besides many specimens of pottery, bowls, jars, cones, and images, as well as gold, copper, and alabaster work.
From this survey of the work done in the last decades in exploring the long lost and almost forgotten cities of the Tigris and of the Euphrates Valley, it will be apparent that a large amount of material has been made accessible for tracing the course of civilization in this region.
Restricting ourselves to that portion of it that bears on the religion of ancient Mesopotamia, it may be grouped under two heads, (1) literary, and (2) archaeological.

The religious texts of Ashurbanabal's library occupy the first place in the literary group.

The incantations, the prayers and hymns, lists of temples, of gods and their attributes, traditions of the creation of the world, legends of the deities and of their relations to men, are sources of the most direct character; and it is fortunate that among the recovered portions of the library, such texts are largely represented.

Equally direct are the dedicatory inscriptions set up by the kings in the temples erected to the honor of some god, and of great importance are the references to the various gods, their attributes, their powers, and their deeds, which are found at every turn in the historical records which the kings left behind them.

Many of these records open or close with a long prayer to some deity; in others, prayers are found interspersed, according to the occasion on which they were offered up.