d what was
practically his theory of 1895.

Such are the principles underlying the various chronological schemes which
had, until recently, been propounded. The balance of opinion was in favour
of those of the first group of writers, who avoided emendations of the
figures and were content to follow the Kings' List and to ignore its
apparent discrepancies with other chronological data; but it is now
admitted that the general principle underlying the third group of theories
was actually nearer the truth. The publication of fresh chronological
material in 1906 and 1907 placed a new complexion on the problems at issue,
and enabled us to correct several preconceptions, and to reconcile or
explain the apparently conflicting data.

From a Babylonian chronicle in the British Museum[23] we now know that
Dynasty II. of the Kings' List never occupied the throne of Babylon, but
ruled only in the extreme south of Babylonia on the shores of the Persian
Gulf; that its kings were contemporaneous with the later kings of Dynasty
I. and with the earlier kings of Dynasty III. of the Kings' List; that in
the reign of Samsu-ditana, the last king of Dynasty I., Hittites from
Cappadocia raided and captured Babylon, which in her weakened state soon
fell a prey to the Kassites (Dynasty III.); and that later on southern
Babylonia, till then held by Dynasty II. of the Kings' List, was in its
turn captured by the Kassites, who from that time onward occupied the whole
of the Babylonian plain. The same chronicle informs us that Ilu-sh[=u]ma,
an early Assyrian patesi, was the contemporary of Su-abu, the founder of
Dynasty I. of the Kings' List, thus enabling us to trace the history of
Assyria back beyond the rise of Babylon.

Without going into details, the more important results of this new
information may be summarized: the elimination of Dynasty II. from the
throne of Babylon points to a date not much earlier than 2000 or 2050 B.C.
for the rise of Dynasty I., a date which harmonizes with the chronological
notices of Shalmaneser I.; Nabonidus's estimate of the period of
Khammurabi, so far from being centuries too low, is now seen to have been
exaggerated, as the context of the passage in his inscription suggests; and
finally the beginning of the historical period of Berossus is not to be
synchronized with Dynasty I. of the Kings' List, but, assuming that his
figures had an historical basis and that they have come down to us in their
original form,