ASSUR AND NINEVEH. 155 
estimating this from such a vague statement, for, admitting that 
the words are correctly applied, the distance traversed must 
necessarily depend on the speed of the traveller. Perhaps a 
preaching-journey, such as that upon which the prophet Jonah 
was engaged, was slower than an ordinary one, but taking as a 
rough estimate 10 miles a day, this would make about 30 ‘miles 
as its greatest extent. Between Nineveh and Calah, however, 
there is nothing like this distance, so that another explanation 
will have to be found. 
But though I shall refer, later on, to the size of Nineveh, the 
primary object of this paper is to describe the recent discoveries 
there and in the old capital, ASSur—a site which, strangely 
enough, seems not to be referred to in the tenth chapter of 
Genesis at all. Assur, however, was a city of considerable 
extent, and, as the older capital, and the centre of an important 
branch of Assyrian religious life, a place of considerable impor- 
tance. Situated between 40 and 50 miles south of Kouyunjik, 
the ancient Nineveh, Assur, which is now called Qal’a Shergat, 
was first excavated by the late Sir Henry Layard, in 1852, when 
some fragments of the great historical cylinder of Tiglath-pileser 
I., with a few other objects, were found. Excavations were 
continued on the site in 1855, when other copies of the cylinder 
were discovered. One of the largest objects recovered at that 
time was the black basalt headless statue of Shalmaneser i 
the king of the Black Obelisk, who came into contact with the 
Syrian League and Ahab, and received tribute from Jehu, son 
of Omri. 
The date of the foundation of the city is naturally unknown 
to us, but it-was in existence as early as 2000 years B.c., as 
Hammurabi testifies. He speaks of having “restored to the 
city, Assur, its good genius,” suggesting that the place had 
passed through a period of depression—in any case, whatever 
the misfortune was, Hammurabi would seem to claim to have 
remedied it. 
The German excavations at ASSur, the city to which the eyes 
of English explorers had for long been turned, have added much 
to our knowledge of Assyrian history. About the time of the 
Babylonian kine Abesu, or Ebisu, ruled viceroy USpia, who 
seems to have been the founder of the temple of ASS8ur in the 
city of that name. This ruler was succeeded by Kikia, after 
whom came Iu-Suma and his son Erigum, both of whom were 
known, from bricks brought from the site by Sir Henry Layard, 
to have been viceroys of Assur (issak Assur). Erisum built 
anew the temple of A&8ur, which was called E-hursag-kurkura 
