It is probable that the Kassite kings of the Third Dynasty exercised authority not only over Babylonia but also over the greater part of Elam, for a number of inscriptions of Kassite kings of Babylonia have been found by M. de Morgan at Susa.  These inscriptions consist of grants of land written on roughly shaped stone stelae, a class which the Babylonians themselves called kudurru, while they have been frequently referred to by modern writers as “boundary-stones.”  This latter term is not very happily chosen, for it suggests that the actual monuments themselves were set up on the limits of a field or estate to mark its boundary.  It is true that the inscription on a kudurru enumerates the exact position and size of the estate with which it is concerned, but the kudurru was never actually used to mark the boundary.  It was preserved as a title-deed, in the house of the owner of the estate or possibly in the temple of his god, and formed his charter or title-deed to which he could appeal in case of any dispute arising as to his right of ownership.  One of the kudurrus found by M. de Morgan records the grant of a number of estates near Babylon by Nazimaruttash, a king of the Third or Kassite Dynasty, to the god Marduk, that is to say they were assigned by the king to the service of E-sagila, the great temple of Marduk at Babylon.

[Illustration:  256.jpg A KUDURRU OR “BOUNDARY-STONE.”]

Inscribed with a text of Nazimaruttash, a king of the Third or Kassite Dynasty, conferring certain estates near Babylon on the temple of Marduk and on a certain man named Kashakti- Shugab.  The photograph is reproduced from M. de Morgan’s Delegation en Perse, Mem., t. ii, pi, 18.

All the crops and produce from the land were granted for the supply of the temple, which was to enjoy the property without the payment of any tax or tribute.  The text also records the gift of considerable tracts of land in the same district to a private individual named Kashakti-Shugab, who was to enjoy a similar freedom from taxation so far as the lands bestowed upon him were concerned.

This freedom from taxation is specially enacted by the document in the words:  “Whensoever in the days that are to come the ruler of the country, or one of the governors, or directors, or wardens of these districts, shall make any claim with regard to these estates, or shall attempt to impose the payment of a tithe or tax upon them, may all the great gods whose names are commemorated, or whose arms are portrayed, or whose dwelling-places are represented, on this stone, curse him with an evil curse and blot out his name!”