vom 29. October 1866. 651 



Before, however, I proceed to treat of tliis sentence, I must 

 say something more in Support of the date which has been found 

 for the set of eclipses. I will not dwell on the circumstance that 

 the eclipses of — 701 and — 699 are in the months in which 

 they ought to be according to my published table; but I wish 

 to notice the fact that an Assyrian tablet exists, which was 

 certainly written within a few years of the date which I have 

 found for the eclipse tablet, and which bears so much resem- 

 blance to it that we may naturally suppose it to be the work 

 ot the same author. It is copied in Plate 69 of the new volume 

 of Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia; and will be found 

 in the lower part of the plate on the right hand, having over 

 it the words "Fragment giving the names of four successive 

 Eponymes." It gives in fact the names and offices of the epony- 

 mes of the years — 706 ... — 703; that of — 707 is begun 

 but the tablet is there unförtunately mutilated. Below what re- 

 lates to the year — 703, the tablet is broken; but there can 

 be little doubt that it contained similar Statements respecting the 

 following years. Several dates are given in this tablet, expressed 

 in months and days, and relating to political and religious events. 

 The most important is the death of Sargon and the accession 

 of Sennacherib which is Said to have occurred on the 12 th of 

 Ab, answering, according to my table, to the 5 4h Jury — 704. 

 Now the view that I take of the matter is this. I believe that 

 the two tablets, of which the fragments copied in Plates 39 and 

 69 are portions, were designed by Sennacherib to record the 

 memorable events in the latter part of bis father's reign and the 

 beginning of his own; the latter tablet recording political and 

 religious occurrences, and giving the names and offices of the 

 Eponymes; the former recording any remarkable phenomena, 

 astronomical or meteoric, which were observed at Nineveh. It 

 may occur to some persons, as it did to me, that it is stränge 

 that no eclipse of the sun is recorded on the tablet; but this 

 is easily accounted for. Of the three eclipses of the sun that 

 occurred —701 Aug. 29, —700 Febr. 23 and Aug. 17, not one 

 could by any possibility have been visible at Nineveh. The 

 tablet is a record of observations, and could not have indicated 

 astronomical events which could only have been witnessed in 



