er on.

** Shupria or Shupri, a name which has been read Ruri, had
been brought into submission from the time of Shalmaneser I.
We gather from the passages in which it is mentioned that it
was a hilly country, producing wine, rich in flocks, and
lying at a short distance from Tushkhan; perhaps Mariru,
mentioned on p. 28, was one of its towns. I think we may
safely place it on the north-western slopes of the Kashiari,
in the modern caza of Tchernik, which possesses several
vineyards held in high estimation. Knudtzon, to whom we are
indebted for the reading of this name, places the country
rather further north, within the fork formed by the two
upper branches of the Tigris.

He constructed a palace there, built storehouses for the reception of
the grain of the province; and, in short, transformed the town into
a stronghold of the first order, capable of serving as a base of
operations for his armies. The surrounding princes, in the meanwhile,
rallied round him, including Ammibaal of Bit-Zamani, and the rulers
of Shupria, Nairi, and Urumi;* the chiefs of Eastern Nirbu alone held
aloof, emboldened by the rugged nature of their mountains and the
density of their forests. Assur-nazir-pal attacked them on his return
journey, dislodged them from the fortress of Ishpilibria where they were
entrenched, gained the pass of Buliani, and emerged into the valley of
Luqia.**

* The position of Bit-Zamani on the banks of the Euphrates
was determined by Delattre. Urumi was situated on the right
bank of the same river in the neighbourhood of Sumeisat, and
the name has survived in that of Urima, a town in the
vicinity so called even as late as Roman times. Nirdun, with
Madara as its capital, occupied part of the eastern slopes
of the Kashiari towards Ortaveran.

** Hommel identifies the Luqia with the northern affluent of
the Euphrates called on the ancient monuments Lykos, and he
places the scene of the war in Armenia. The context obliges
us to look for this river to the south of the Tigris, to the
north-east and to the east of the Kashiari. The king coming
from Nirbu, the pass of Buliani, in which he finds the towns
of Kirkhi, must be the valley of Khaneki, in which the road
winds from Mardin to Diarbekir, and the Luqia is probably
the most important stream in this region, the Sheikhan-Su,