160 THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.R.A.S., ON 
He asks that the future prince, when those temple-towers grew 
old and decayed, might treat his own inscriptions in the same 
way, and calls down a deadly curse, and all the displeasure of 
his gods, on any who should destroy his inscriptions. Tiglath- 
pileser’s own inscriptions, impressed on the bricks of temple, 
read as follows :— 
Tukulti-dpil-ésarra Tiglath-pileser, 
Sangu Assur mar Assur-rés-is8i priest of ASSur, son of ASSur- 
rés-isi, 
Sangu Assur bit Adad béli-su priest of ASSur, the house of 
Adad, his lord, 
épus-ma tkstr he has (re)built and paved. 
Time passed, and though the temple was in all probability 
repaired as occasion required by the successors of Tiglath- 
pileser [., it had reached such a state of decay by the time of 
Shalmaneser II. (859 B.c.) that that king thought himself 
justified in rebuilding it. It will be remembered that Shal- 
maneser II. was the king who came into conflict with the 
Syrian league, to which Ahab of Israel and Ben-Hadad of 
Damascus belonged. Inscriptions on what are called zigati, 
found on the site, record the work which he executed on the 
temple as follows :— 
‘“‘Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, son of A8Sur-nasir-Apli, king of 
Assyria.” 
[Here follow references to his conquests in Armenia, the 
West, Babylon, and the sacrifices which he offered in Borsippa, 
the renowned suburb-city of Babylon, of which he speaks also 
elsewhere. As the cradle of their religion, Babylonia, and 
especially the capital and the cities around, must have been a 
land of veritable romance to the pious Assyrian. ] 
‘In those days the temple of Anu and Adad, 
my lords, which earlier Tukulti-Apil-ésarra (Tiglath-pileser), 
son of As8ur-ré3-i8i, son of Mutakkil-Nusku (had rebuilt), had 
fallen into ruin, 
to its whole extent I built it anew. 
I brought beams of cedar, (and) set them for (its) roof. 
Let the future prince renew its ruin, 
restore my written name to its place— 
Assur, Anu, Adad, will hear his prayer. 
Let him restore myziqdtt to its place. 
Month Mahur-ilani,day 5th, first year of my reign (or possibly, 
of my twenty expeditions). 
From this we gather, that the restoration of the temple of 
