CHAPTER IX.
THE GODS IN THE TEMPLE LISTS AND IN THE LEGAL AND COMMERCIAL DOCUMENTS.
Besides the historical texts in the proper sense, there is another source for the study of the Babylonian pantheon.
Both for the first and for the second periods we now have a large number of lists of offerings made to the temples of Babylonia and of thousands of miscellaneous legal documents.

De Sarzec found a number of such documents at Telloh some years ago, and quite recently some thirty thousand tablets of the temple archives have come to light.[183] At Tell-Sifr, Abu-Habba, and elsewhere, many thousands also have been found, belonging chiefly to the second period.

A feature of these documents is the invocation of the gods, introduced for various purposes, at times in connection with oaths, at times as a guarantee against the renewal of claims.

Again, certain gods are appealed to as witnesses to an act, and in the lists of temple offerings, gods are constantly introduced.

Since many of the commercial transactions recorded in these documents, moreover, concern the temples of Babylonia, further occasions were found for the mention of a god or gods.