Professor Lyon gave the first of his Assyrian readings yesterday afternoon in the Fogg Art Museum. His subject was an alabaster tablet of the 14th century B. C. which has been lately presented to the Semitic Museum. Its size is 12x9 inches and there is writing on both sides.

Professor Lyon has not yet succeeded in finding out where this tablet was discovered, but it is very probable that it was in the Temple of Asshur, whose restoration by Ramman-nirari it records. This temple was located in Asshur, a city of great importance until it began to decline after 1300 B. C.

The tablet may be divided into four parts, the introduction, the temple restoration, the ending and the date. The introduction, occupying ten lines, relates the military and religious titles of BudIl, the father of Ramman-nirari his gradfather, Bel-nirari, and his greatgradfather, Bel-nirari, and his greatgrandfather, Asshur-uballit. The account of the restoration of the temple is eleven lines long. It is written over an erasure and is in a different handwriting from the rest of the tablet. The ending consists of a blessing (4 lines) on future princes who should preserve the tablet, and a curse (23 lines) on any who should destroy or remove it.

Professor Lyon closed the lecture with stereopticon views of Babylonian and Assyrian ruins and inscriptions.