January 5, 1905J 



NA rURE 



223 



the fall of Babylon Tukulti-Ninib became master of 

 all Mesopotamia. The resistance offered by the 

 Babylonians was stubborn in the extreme, and the 

 Assyrian king slew large numbers of them and de- 

 stroyed their city wall. Tukulti-Ninib looted the city 

 and plundered the treasuries of E-sagil, the great 

 temple of Marduk, and he carried off to Assyria not 

 only Bibeashu himself, but the statue of his god 

 Marduk. No victory could have been more complete, 

 and even at this distance of time it is impossible not 

 to feel some sympathy with the vanquished Babylonian 

 king when we read that he, a prisoner and bound in 

 chains, was led, with his god Marduk, into the 

 presence of Ashur, the great god of Assyria, as 

 witnesses of 'the comprehensive manner in which 

 Tukulti-Ninib had performed .Ashur's commands. 



The account of the conquest of Bibeashu 

 and of the capture of Babylon by Tukulti- 

 Ninib is especially important from a chrono- 

 logical point of view, for it establishes beyond 

 a doubt the fact that these two kings were 

 contemporaneous. For some time past it 

 has been known from the " Babylonian 

 Chronicle " that Tukulti-Ninib conquered 

 Babylonia, but the name of the Babylonian 

 king, although it occurs on this document, 

 was not recognised. Both Mr. Pinches, who 

 published a translation of this "Chronicle," 

 and Dr. Winckler, who published a copy of 

 the te.xt, misread the passage in which the 

 name occurs. The identification of Bibeashu 

 and the correct reading of his name we owe 

 to Mr. King, who has succeeded in establish- 

 ing a new and very important synchronism 

 in Assyrian and Babylonian history. Thus 

 the system of chronology which made 

 Bibeashu to live sixty or seventy years after 

 Tukulti-Ninib I. is proved to be incorrect. 



In connection with the conquest of Babylon 

 by Tukulti-Ninib I., mention must here be 

 made of the copy of an inscription which is 

 found on a small clay tablet (K. 2673), now 

 in the British Museum. This copy was made 

 from a lapis-lazull seal, on which the original 

 inscription was engraved bv a scribe of 

 Sennacherib, who caused some lines to be 

 added to commemorate his conquest of 

 Babylon and the recovery of the seal by him- 

 self. The lapis-lazuli seal, as Mr. King tells 

 us, was not made for Tukulti-Ninib I., as *'~\ 



was once generally thought, but for 

 Shagarakti-.Shuriash, a Kassite king. When 

 Tukulti-Ninib captured Babylon he found the 

 seal there, and carried it off to Nineveh, and 

 he had his own inscription engraved upon it 

 without erasing that of Shagarakti-Shuriash. 

 The seal was subsequently, in circumstances 

 unknown to us, carried back to Babylon, 

 where Sennacherib found it about 600 years 

 later, and he, of course, restored it to I'k. 



Nineveh, and, having added his own in- 

 scription to it, had a copy of the in- 

 scription of the Kassite king, that of the King of 

 -Assyria, and of his own made on a tablet. The first 

 to translate the copy of Tukulti-Ninib's inscription on 

 the tablet was Mr. George Smith, but that of 

 Shagarakti-Shuriash baffled him, and he failed to reaa 

 the characters of which it was composed. Profs. 

 Hommel, Bezold, and Schrader were likewise unable 

 to translate it, and Mr. King has been the first to prove 

 that, in addition to the words added to the seal by the 

 order of Sennacherib, the copy cnnt.iins two distinct 

 inscriptions, namely, one of Shagarakti-Shuriash and 

 M\Q of Tukulti-Ninib I, The copy of Sennacherib's 

 NO 1836, VOL. 71] 



inscription is very important, for it enables us to assign 

 the date of Tukulti-Ninib's reign provisionally to about 

 B.C. 1275; its length cannot at present be stated with 

 exactness. 



In addition to the interesting text of Tukulti-Ninib, 

 of which a general summary has been given above, 

 Mr. King adds the inscriptions of Shalmaneser I. from 

 the fragments of inscribed bowls now in the British 

 Museum, a passage from the synchronous history, 

 the inscriptions from the lapis-lazuli seal of Shagarakti- 

 Shuriash, and Sennacherib's accounts of his capture 

 of Babylon both in 702 B.C. and 689 B.C. ; in fact, every 

 bit of evidence which relates to the period of which 

 his book treats, and is found in the cuneiform inscrip- 

 tions, is appended for the assistance of the reader, with 

 full translitc•rnlion^ and transLitions. Th.it Mr. King 





■i,T yrr^ryri/) ■ . 



rf >^r/r \ f-Tfx If AtT:- -' 



Assyri 



inscribed with the annals of Tukulti-NJi 

 • Records of the Reign of Tukulti-Ninib 



has published not only a new, but important historical 

 inscription is clear, and all who are in any way familiar 

 (vith the subject will find his sober and concise observ- 

 ations on its contents helpful and stimulating. Messrs. 

 Harrison's large cuneiform type has been used for 

 printing the te.xt, and paper and binding leave nothing 

 to be desired. We note that the volume is the first of 

 a series of "Studies in Eastern History " which 

 Luzac and Co. are about to publish, and we feel that 

 if the succeeding volumes are as valuable as the 

 " Records of the Reign of Tukulti-Ninib I." the success 

 of the undertaking is assured. 



