* The position of the mountains of Turat is indicated by the
nature of their products: "We know of _a silver mine_ at
Marash and an iron mine not worked, and _two fine quarries_,
one of pink and the other of black marble." Turat,
therefore, must be the Marash mountain, the Aghir-Uagh and
its spurs; hence the two sorts of stone mentioned in the
Assyrian text would be, the one the pink, the other the
black marble.

In 837 he seized the stronghold of Uetash in Melitene, and laid Tabal
under a fresh contribution; this constituted a sort of advance post
for-Assyria in the sight of those warlike and continually fluctuating
races situated between the sources of the Halys and the desert border
of Asia Minor.* Secure on this side, he was about to bring matters to
a close in Cilicia, when the defection of Ianzu recalled him to the
opposite extremity of the empire. He penetrated into Namri by the
defiles of Khashmur,** made a hasty march through Sik-hisatakh,
Bit-Tamul, Bit-Shakki, and Bit-Shedi, surprised the rebels and drove
them into the forests; he then bore down on Parsua*** and plundered
twenty-seven petty kings consecutively.

* A fragment of an anonymous list, discovered by Delitzsch,
puts the expedition against the Tabal in 837 B.C. instead of
in 838, and consequently makes the entire series of ensuing
expeditions one year later, up to the revolt of Assur-dain-
pal. This is evidently a mistake of the scribe who compiled
this edition of the Canon, and the chronology of a
contemporary monument, such as the Black Obelisk, ought to
obtain until further light can be thrown on the subject.

** For the site of Khashmur or Khashmar, cf. _supra_, p. 35,
note 3. The other localities cannot as yet be identified
with any modern site; we may conjecture that they were
scattered about the basin of the upper Diyalah.

*** Parsua, or with the native termination Parsuash, has
been identified first with Persia and then with Parthia, and
Rost still persists in its identification, if not with the
Parthia of classical geographers, at least with the Parthian
people. Schrader has shown that it ought to be sought
between Namri on the south and the Mannai on the north; in
one of the valleys of the Gordysean mountains, and his
demonstration has been accepted with a few modifications of
detail by most