86. REPORT—1852. 
have been cognizant of the reality of what they recorded, Facts of this nature may 
be isolated, or reduced to a system by those who recorded them. Of such a system 
we have a good example in the Germania of Tacitus, Dr. Latham’s recent edition of 
which was warmly commended. Other collections of facts of a somewhat similar 
character were alluded to; but all had the disadvantage of recording much as to 
which the collectors had only imperfect information, indiscriminately mixed up 
with what they knew; and again, all such collections have come down to us 
through many copyists, ia passing through whose hands they have been much 
depraved. 
In these respects they must yield to the collection of facts deducible from Egyptian 
or Assyrio-Babylonian records, of which we possess autographs, or at any rate 
copies made under the superintendence of the authors, while the facts were yet 
recent. Nor is danger to be apprehended from intentional misrepresenting. Facts 
connected with history, would, doubtless, be presented in a manner more favourable 
to the royal authors of the inscriptions than truth would warrant. But, in facts 
which most concern the ethnologist, there is in general no room for misrepre- 
sentation ; they being facts which come out as it were accidentally, and as to which 
national vanity has no place. 
The facts recorded in the Assyrian inscriptions are of more importance than those 
in the Egyptian, because they are not clouded as the latter are by ignorance in 
respect to their chronology or geography. The chronology of the period to which 
the most important Egyptian inscriptions and papyri belong is still a subject of 
controversy ; while it was stated that the commencements of the reigns of Sargon 
and Sennacherib were as certain as those of any of the Lagide or of the Cesars. 
Dr. Hincks had announced in a paper recently read before the Royal Irish Academy, 
that the twelve first years of Sargon corresponded with the twelve years assigned in 
the Canon of Ptolemy to Mardokempad, which name is a corruption of that of 
Marduk Baladan. In the course of July, he had identified the three years of the 
Belibus of the Canon (Belib) with the second, third, and fourth of Sennacherib. It 
followed from this that the reign of Sargon lasted eighteen years, and that the first 
interregnum of the Canon, which occupied two years, is to be referred to the last 
year of Sargon, and the first of Sennacherib. Sargon’s reign began in 721 B.c.; 
Sennacherib’s in 703 B.c. Marduk Baladan was three times conquered; first by 
Sargon, in 710; secondly, by Sennacherib, in 703; and thirdly, by the same king, 
in 700. On the first occasion, Sargon added Mesopotamia to his kingdom; on the 
second, Sennacherib gave it to Belibus ; and on the third, he made his son Assurnadin 
king of Mesopotamia and Chaldea, which last country had been left to Marduk 
Baladan on the two former occasions. Dr. Hincks identified this name with the 
Aparanadius, which is the name of the successor of Belibus in the best MS. of the 
Canon of Ptolemy, which is, however, not an ancient one ;. the Greek p being a mis- 
take for ss, which might easily have been occasioned by the similarity of these letters. 
Before Sargon we have Shalmaneser, Tiglath Pileser, and Pul. Col. Rawlinson, 
who had first recognised the name of Marduk Baladan, has recently discovered a 
series of annals of Tiglath Pileser. In a fragment of the annals of Pul, Dr. Hineks 
discovered the name of Menahem as a tributary, in the eighth year of his reign. 
This being fixed by 2 Kings vi. to about 770, his reign must have commenced about 
777. Divanubar, the obelisk king, must have begun to reign about 900 B.c., as 
Hazael, the commencement of whose reign is known to be about 885, was king in 
his eighteenth year, but not in his fourteenth. Col, Rawlinson has found a series of 
annals of the father of this king, in which Ithobal, king of Tyre, is mentioned. It 
appears from the Tyrian annals, extracted by Menander, and preserved by Josephus, 
that he reigned from 936 to 904, which is in perfect harmony with the date of his 
son’s reign, 
Reasons were then given why the geography of the Assyrian inscriptions was 
capable of being better determined than of the hieroglyphic ones; namely, that the 
Egyptian could only go in one direction to Asiatic countries, whereas the Assyrians 
made expeditions in all directions; and the direction in which an unknown country 
lay could generally be determined by that of other countries noticed along with it, 
if, indeed, it was not expressly pointed out by the king’s saying that he went to it 
over the Euphrates or the Zab. 
