History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 | Page 3

been
secured in the rear. But what chiefly led me to the belief that the annals are a document
contemporaneous with the events narrated in them, are two facts which do not seem to
have been sufficiently considered. On the one side, while the annals of Sargon are given
in full, those of his son Naram-Sin break off abruptly in the early part of his reign. I see
no explanation of this, except that they were composed while Naram-Sin was still on the
throne. On the other side, the campaigns of the two monarchs are coupled with the
astrological phenomena on which the success of the campaigns was supposed to depend.
We know that the Babylonians were given to the practice and study of astrology from the
earliest days of their history; we know also that even in the time of the later Assyrian
monarchy it was still customary for the general in the field to be accompanied by the
asipu, or "prophet," the ashshâph of Dan. ii. 10, on whose interpretation of the signs of
heaven the movements of the army depended; and in the infancy of Chaldæn history we
should accordingly expect to find the astrological sign recorded along with the event with
which it was bound up. At a subsequent period the sign and the event were separated

from one another in literature, and had the annals of Sargon been a later compilation, in
their case also the separation would assuredly have been made. That, on the contrary, the
annals have the form which they could have assumed and ought to have assumed only at
the beginning of contemporaneous Babylonian history, is to me a strong testimony in
favour of their genuineness.
It may be added that Babylonian seal-cylinders have been found in Cyprus, one of which
is of the age of Sargon of Accad, its style and workmanship being the same as that of the
cylinder figured in vol. iii. p. 96, while the other, though of later date, belonged to a
person who describes himself as "the servant of the deified Naram-Sin." Such cylinders
may, of course, have been brought to the island in later times; but when we remember
that a characteristic object of prehistoric Cypriote art is an imitation of the seal-cylinder
of Chaldsea, their discovery cannot be wholly an accident.
Professor Maspero has brought his facts up to so recent a date that there is very little to
add to what he has written. Since his manuscript was in type, however, a few additions
have been made to our Assyriological knowledge. A fresh examination of the Babylonian
dynastic tablet has led Professor Delitzsch to make some alterations in the published
account of what Professor Maspero calls the ninth dynasty. According to Professor
Delitzsch, the number of kings composing the dynasty is stated on the tablet to be
twenty-one, and not thirty-one as was formerly read, and the number of lost lines exactly
corresponds with this figure. The first of the kings reigned thirty-six years, and he had a
predecessor belonging to the previous dynasty whose name has been lost. There would
consequently have been two Elamite usurpers instead of one.
I would further draw attention to an interesting text, published by Mr. Strong in the
Babylonian and Oriental Record, which I believe to contain the name of a king who
belonged to the legendary dynasties of Chaldæa. This is Samas-natsir, who is coupled
with Sargon of Accad and other early monarchs in one of the lists. The legend, if I
interpret it rightly, states that "Elam shall be altogether given to Samas-natsir;" and the
same prince is further described as building Nippur and Dur-ilu, as King of Babylon and
as conqueror both of a certain Baldakha and of Khumba-sitir, "the king of the
cedar-forest." It will be remembered that in the Epic of Gil-games, Khumbaba also is
stated to have been the lord of the "cedar-forest."
But of new discoveries and facts there is a constant supply, and it is impossible for the
historian to keep pace with them. Even while the sheets of his work are passing through
the press, the excavator, the explorer, and the decipherer are adding to our previous stores
of knowledge. In Egypt, Mr. de Morgan's unwearied energy has raised as it were out of
the ground, at Kom Ombo, a vast and splendidly preserved temple, of whose existence
we had hardly dreamed; has discovered twelfth-dynasty jewellery at Dahshur of the most
exquisite workmanship, and at Meir and Assiut has found in tombs of the sixth dynasty
painted models of the trades and professions of the day, as well as fighting battalions of
soldiers, which, for freshness and lifelike reality, contrast favourably with the models
which come from India to-day. In Babylonia, the American Expedition, under Mr. Haines,