Part 26 (2/2)

The seal was evidently rolled on the moist clay, at the same time as the letters were impressed[247] The tablet was then placed in the furnace and baked All these cylinders have been pierced, and one specimen, found by my workmen in a mound in the desert near the Sinjar, still retained its copper setting They revolved upon a -stone

Such then were the objects of sculpture and the smaller relics found at Nimroud and Kouyunjik I will now endeavour to convey to the reader, in conclusion, a general idea of the results of the excavations, as far as they may tend to increase our acquaintance with the history of assyria, and to illustrate the religion, the arts, and the manners of her inhabitants

CHAPTER XXVI

RESULTS OF THE DISCOVERIES TO CHRONOLOGY AND HISTORY--NAMES OF assYRIAN KINGS IN THE INSCRIPTIONS--A DATE FIXED--THE NAME OF JEHU--THE OBELISK KING--THE EARLIER KINGS--SARDANAPALUS--HIS SUCCESSORS--PUL, OR TIGLATH PILESER--SARGON--SENNACHERIR--ESSARHADDON--THE LAST assYRIAN KINGS--TABLES OF PROPER NAMES IN THE assYRIAN INSCRIPTIONS--ANTIQUITY OF NINEVEH--OF THE NAME OF assYRIA--ILlustRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE--STATE OF JUDaeA AND assYRIA COMPARED--POLITICAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE--assYRIAN COLONIES--PROSPERITY OF THE COUNTRY--RELIGION--EXTENT OF NINEVEH--assYRIAN ARCHITECTURE--COMPARED WITH JEWISH--PALACE OF KOUYUNJIK RESTORED--PLATFORM AT NIMROUD RESTORED--THE assYRIAN FORTIFIED INCLOSURES--DESCRIPTION OF KOUYUNJIK--CONCLUSION

Although ten years have barely elapsed since the first discovery of ruins on the site of the great city of Nineveh, a mass of information, scarcely to be overrated for its importance and interest, has already been added to our previous knowledge of the early history and coraphy of the East When in 1849 I published the narrative of my first researches in assyria, the numerous inscriptions recovered from the remains of the buried palaces were still alh an interpretation of some had been hazarded, it was rather upon ical basis I then, however, expressedtheir contents would be knoith almost certainty, and that they would be found to furnish a history, previously almost unknown, of one of the earliest and most powerful elish scholars, and especially of Col Rawlinson and Dr Hincks, and of M de Saulcy, and other eators on the Continent, have nearly led to the fulfilment of those anticipations; and eneral sketch of the results of their investigations, as well as of my own researches

I will not detain the reader by any account of the various processes adopted in deciphering, and of the steps gradually ation; nor will I recapitulate the curious corroborative evidence which has led in many instances to the verification of the interpretations Such details, philologically of the highest interest, and very creditable to the sagacity and learning of those pursuing this difficult inquiry, will be found in the several treatises published by the investigators themselves The results, however, are still very incomplete

It is, indeed, athe time which has elapsed since the discovery of the ress has been already , to ascertain the general contents of almost every assyrian record

The Babylonian column of the Bisutun inscription, that invaluable key to the various branches of cuneiforth been published by Col Rawlinson, and will enable others to carry on the investigation upon sure grounds

I will proceed, therefore, to give a slight sketch of the contents of the inscriptions as far as they have been exan we have any detailed account was the builder of the north-west palace at Nimroud, the most ancient edifice hitherto discovered in assyria His records, however, with other inscriptions, furnish the names of five, if not seven, of his predecessors, some of whom, there is reason to believe, erected palaces at Nineveh, and originally founded those which were only rebuilt by subsequent monarchs It is consequently important to ascertain the period of the accession of this early assyrian king, and we apparently have theit with sufficient accuracy His son, we know, built the centre palace at Nimroud, and raised the obelisk, now in the British Museun He was a great conqueror, and subdued s who paid him tribute are duly recorded on the obelisk, in some instances with sculptured representations of the various objects sent As was one whose name reads ”Jehu, the son of Khumri (Omri),” and who has been identified by Dr Hincks and Col

Rawlinson with Jehu, king of Israel This h one of the successors of Ohout the East in those days, as it still is, to denote connection generally, either by descent or by succession Thus we find in Scripture the same person called ”the son of Nimshi+,” and ”the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi+”[248] An identification connected with this word Khu instances of corroborative evidence that can be adduced of the accuracy of the interpretations of the cuneiform character It was observed that the na Sa very different texts, with one reading Beth Khumri or Omri[249] This fact was unexplained until Col Rawlinson perceived that the names were, in fact, applied to the same place, or one to the district, and the other to the town Sa is more probable than that--in accordance with a common Eastern custom--it should have been called, after its founder, Beth Khumri, or the house of Omri As a further proof of the identity of the Jehuof Israel, Dr Hincks, to e this important discovery, has found on the same monuhty to anoint king of Syria[250]

Supposing, therefore, these nay for this period rests as yet, it must be admitted, almost entirely upon this supposition,--we can fix an approxi Jehu ascended the throne about 885 B C; the accession of the assyrian monarch must, consequently, be placed somewhere between that time and the commencement of the ninth century B

C, and that of his father in the latter part of the tenth[251]

In his records the builder of the north-west palacewhose na to the inscriptions at Bavian, were taken certain idols of assyria 418 years before the first or second year of the reign of Sennacherib According to Dr Hincks, Sennacherib ascended the throne in 703 B C We have, therefore, 1121 B C for the date of the reign of this early king

There are still two kings mentioned by name in the inscriptions from the north-west palace at Nimroud, as ancestors of its builder, who have not yet been satisfactorily placed It is probable that the earliest reigned somewhere about the middle of the twelfth century B C Colonel Rawlinson calls him _the founder_ of Nineveh; but there is no proof whatever, as far as I am aware, in support of this conjecture It is possible, however, that he may have been the first of a dynasty which _extended_ the bounds of the assyrian e to Herodotus, about five centuries before the Median invasion, or in the twelfth century B

C; but there appears to be evidence to show that a city bearing the na before that period[252]

The second king, whose name is unplaced, appears to be inal _founder_ of the north-west palace at Ni to the views just expressed, he ned about the end of the twelfth century B C

The father and grandfather of the _builder_ of the north-west palace are mentioned in nearly every inscription fro to Colonel Rawlinson, are Adraned in the middle of the tenth century B C We have no records of either of the of e have any connected historical chronicle was the builder of the well-known edifice at Nimroud fro bas-reliefs brought to this country In my former work I stated that Colonel Rawlinson believed his na, according to Greek history, the founder of the assyrian eested that of assardanbal, agreeing with the historic Sardanapalus Dr Hincks, however, assigning a different value to theusually written with three), reads Ashurakhbal It is certain that the first ram stands both for the na deity We , that it should be read assur or Ashur

I have elsewhere given a description of the various great , with extracts from their contents He appears to have carried his arms to the west of Nineveh across Syria to the Mediterranean Sea, to the south into Chaldaea, probably beyond Babylon (the name of this city does not, however, as far as I am aware, occur in the inscriptions), and to the north into Asia Minor and Armenia

Of his son, whose name Colonel Rawlinson reads Temenbar and Divanubara, and Dr Hincks Divanubar, we have full and i the principal events of thirty-one years of his reign They are engraved upon the black obelisk, and upon the backs of the bulls in the centre of the reat conqueror He waged war, either in person or by his generals, in Syria, Armenia, Babylonia, Chaldaea, Media, and Persia

The two royal names next in order occur on the pavement slabs of the upper chambers, on the west face of the randson, and i

The two names, however, have not been satisfactorily deciphered Colonel Rawlinson reads them Shaest Shamsiyav for the first