reign of Asshur-bani-pal (Sardanapalus), the son and successor of
Esarhaddon, which commenced B.C. 668, is carried down to B.C. 626 on the
combined authority of Berosus, Ptolemy, and the monuments. The monuments
show that Asshur-bani-pal proclaimed himself king of Babylon after the
death of Saul-mugina whose last year was (according to Ptolemy) B.C.
647: and that from the date of this proclamation he reigned over Babylon
at least twenty years. Polyhistor, who reports Berosus, has left us
statements which are in close accordance, and from which we gather that
the exact length of the reign of Asshur-bani-pal over Babylon was
twenty-one years. Hence, B.C. 626 is obtained as the year of his death.
As Nineveh appears to have been destroyed B.C. 625 or 624, two
years only are left for Asshur-bani-pal's son and successor,
Asshur-emid-illin, the Saracus of Abydenus.

The framework of Assyrian chronology being thus approximately, and, to
some extent, provisionally settled, we may proceed to arrange upon it
the facts so far as they have come down to us, of Assyrian history.

In the first place, then, if we ask ourselves where the Assyrians came
from, and at what time they settled in the country which thenceforth
bore their name, we seem to have an answer,at any rate to the former of
these two questions, in Scripture. "Out of that land"--the land of
Shinar--"went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh." The Assyrians,
previously to their settlement on the middle Tigris, had dwelt in the
lower part of the great valley--the flat alluvial plain towards the
mouths of the two streams. It was here, in this productive region, where
nature does so much for man, and so little needs to be supplied by
himself, that they had grown from a family into a people; that they had
learnt or developed a religion, and that they had acquired a knowledge
of the most useful and necessary of the arts. It has been observed in a
former chapter that the whole character of the Assyrian architecture is
such as to indicate that their style was formed in the low flat
alluvium, where there were no natural elevations, and stone was not to
be had. It has also been remarked that their writing is manifestly
derived from the Chaldaean; and that their religion is almost identical
with that which prevailed in the lower country from a very early time.
The evidence of the monuments accords thus, in the most striking way,
with the statement of the Bible, exhibiting to us the Ass