Part 27 (1/2)

On the assyrian tablet frooub[254], are apparently two royal names, which may be placed next in order They are merelywho caused the record to be engraved Dr Hincks reads them Baldasi and Ashurkish As the inscription is much mutilated, some doubt may exist as to the correctness of its interpretation

The next king of e have any actual records appears to have rebuilt or added to the palace in the centre of the mound of Nimroud The edifice was destroyed by a subsequent monarch, who carried away its sculptures to decorate a palace of his own All the rereat bulls and the obelisk, belong to a king whose name occurs on a pavement-slab discovered in the south-west palace

The walls and cha were, it will be reht fro the inscriptions upon them, and upon a pavement-slab of the same period, with the sculptures in the ruins of the centre palace, we find that they all belong to the sah a most important discovery, for which we are also indebted to Dr Hincks In an inscription on a bas-relief representing part of a line of war-chariots, he has detected the nast those of other hth year of his reign[255] This assyrian king, must, consequently, have been either the ilath Pileser, the na yet been deciphered[256]

The bas-reliefs adorning his palace, like those at Khorsabad, appear to have been accompanied by a con seen he carried his arms into the remotest parts of Armenia, and across the Euphrates into Syria as far as Tyre and Sidon

There is a passage in one of his inscriptions still unpublished, which reads, ”as far as the river Oukarish,” that ht lead us to believe that his conquests were even extended to the central provinces of Asia and to the Oxus His annals contain very ast the former are Harran and Ur He rebuilt many cities, and placed his subjects to dwell in them

The next monarch, whose name is found on assyrian monuments, was the builder of the palace of Khorsabad, noell known fros of its sculptures published by the French governht variations by different interpreters, is ad randfather are said to have been found on a clay tablet discovered at Kouyunjik, but they do not appear to have been monarchs of assyria The ruins of Khorsabad furnish us with the n Unfortunately an inscription, containing an account of a caainst Samaria in his first or second year, has been almost entirely destroyed But, in one still preserved, 27,280 Israelites are described as having been carried into captivity by him from Samaria and the several districts or provincial towns dependent upon that city Sargon, like his predecessors, was a great warrior He even extended his conquests beyond Syria to the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, and a tablet set up by him has been found in Cyprus He warred also in Babylonia, Susiana, Armenia, and Media, and apparently received tribute froypt

Colonel Rawlinson believed that the nalath Pileser” and ”Shalmaneser,” were found on the on, and that they were applied in the Old Testaed his opinion with regard to the first, and Dr Hincks contends that the second is not a na, but of his predecessor,--of whom, however, it must be observed, we have hitherto been unable to trace any ests, he is alluded to in an inscription of Sargon froon we have a cos to the fall of the empire, or to a period not far distant from that event He was succeeded by Sennacherib, whose annals have been given in a former part of this volume His name was identified, as I have before stated, by Dr

Hincks, and this great discovery furnished the first satisfactory starting-point, from which the various events recorded in the inscriptions have been linked with Scripture history Colonel Rawlinson places the accession of Sennacherib to the throne in 716, Dr Hincks in 703, which appears to be more in accordance with the canon of Ptolen, as recorded in the inscriptions on the walls of his palace, are mostly related or alluded to in sacred and profane history I have already described his wars in Judaea, and have compared his own account with that contained in Holy Writ His second caiven to Sennacherib's son, and the general history of the war appear to be nearly the sahly interesting as corroborating the accuracy of the interpretation of the inscriptions I was not aware of its existence when the translation given in the sixth chapter of this volun of the brother of Sennacherib, Acises reigned over the Babylonians, and when he had governed for the space of thirty days he was slain by Merodach Baladan, who held the e six months; and he was slain and succeeded by a person nan Sennacherib, king of the assyrians, levied an arainst the Babylonians; and in a battle, in which they were engaged, routed and took him prisoner with his adherents, and commanded the taken upon hiovernment of the Babylonians, he appointed his son, Asordanius, their king, and he hiain into assyria” This son, however, was not Essarhaddon, his successor on the throne of assyria The two naraphy in the cuneiform inscriptions

Sennacherib raisedhis victories to be carved in e and inscriptions at the mouth of the Nahr-el-Kelb in Syria are well known

During my journey to Europe I found one of his tablets near the village of Hasana (or Hasan Agha), chiefly re at the foot of Gebel Judi, theto a widespread Eastern tradition, the ark of Noah rested after the deluge[257]

Essarhaddon, his son, was his successor, as we know from the Bible He built the south-west palace at Nimroud, and an edifice whose ruins are now covered by the mound of the toreat warrior, and he styles hiypt, conqueror of aethiopia” It was probably this king who carried Manasseh, king of Jerusalem, captive to Babylon[258]

The name of the son and successor of Essarhaddon was the same as that of the builder of the north-west palace at Ni for him in the suburbs or on the outskirts of Nineveh His principal careat number of the inscribed tablets found in the ruins of the palace of Sennacherib, at Kouyunjik, are of his ti his name, we may hope to obtain son

His son built the south-east palace on the mound of Nimroud, probably over the reive his name, which has not yet been deciphered, and those of his father and grandfather We know nothing of his history from cotemporaneous records

He was one of the last, if not the last, king of the second dynasty; and ested, have been that monarch, Sardanapalus, or Saracus, as conquered by the combined armies of the Medes and Babylonians under Cyaxares in B C 606, and who reat funeral pile[259]

For convenience of reference I give a table of the royal na to the versions of Dr Hincks and Col Rawlinson, the principal monuments on which they are found, and the approxis In a second table will be found the raphical names in the assyrian inscriptions which have been identified with those in the Bible A third table contains the na to the version of Dr

Hincks

TABLE I--NAMES of assYRIAN KINGS in the Inscriptions from Nineveh

--------------------------+------------------------------+-------------- Conjectural reading | Where found |Approxin

--------------------------+------------------------------+-------------- 1 Derceto (R[260]) | Pavement Slab, (B M Series,| 1250 B C

| p 70, l 25) | | | 2 Divanukha (R)|Standard Inscription, Nimroud,| 1200 B C

Divanurish (H) | &c | | | 3 Anakbar-beth-hira (R) | Slabs from Temples in | 1130 B C

shi+mish-bal-Bithkhira | North of Mound of Nimroud; | (H) | Bavian tablets, | | &c | | | Mardokempad (?) (R) | A cylinder from Shereef-Khan | Mesessimordacus (?) (R)| | 4 Adrammelech I (R) | Standard Inscription, | 1000 B C

| Bricks, &c, from N W | | Palace, Nimroud | | | 5 Anaku Merodak (R) | | shi+) | | | | 6 Sardanapalus I (R) | Standard Inscription, | 930 B C

Ashurakhbal (H) | Bricks, &c, fro) | Palace, Nimroud, Abou | | Maria, &c, &c | | | 7 Divanubara (R) | Centre Palace, Nimroud; | 900 B C

Divanubar (H) | Obelisk; Bricks; Kalah- | (Son of preceding) | Sherghat; Baashi+ekha | | | 8 Shamas Adar (R) | Pavement Slab, Upper | 870 B C

Shamsiyav (H) | Chambers, Nimroud | | | 9 Adrammelech II (R) | Idem | 840 B C

| | 10 Baldasi (?) (H) | Slab frooub | | | 11 Ashurkish (?) (H) | Idelath- | Pavement Slab, and Slabs | 750 B C