.

The recent excavations at Sherghat are already yielding the names
of other early Assyrian viceroys, and, although the texts of the
inscriptions in which their names occur have not yet been published, we
may briefly enumerate the more important of the discoveries that have
been made. Last year a small cone or cylinder was found which, though
it bears only a few lines of inscription, restores the names of no less
than seven early Assyrian viceroys whose existence was not previously
known. The cone was inscribed by Ashir-rim-nisheshu, who gives his own
genealogy and records the restoration of the wall of the city of Ashur,
which he states had been rebuilt by certain of his predecessors on
the throne. The principal portion of the inscription reads as
follows: "Ashir-rim-nisheshu, the viceroy of the god Ashir, the son of
Ashir-nirari, the viceroy of the god Ashir, the son of Ashir-rabi, the
viceroy. The city wall which Kikia, Ikunum, Shar-kenkate-Ashir, and
Ashir-nirari, the son of Ishme-Dagan, my forefathers, had built, was
fallen, and for the preservation of my life... I rebuilt it." Perhaps no
inscription has yet been recovered in either Assyria or Babylonia which
contained so much new information packed into so small a space. Of the
names of the early viceroys mentioned in it only one was previously
known, i.e. the name of Ikunum, the son of Erishum, is found in a late
copy of a votive text preserved in the British Museum. Thus from these
few lines the names of three rulers in direct succession have been
recovered, viz., Ashir-rabi, Ashir-nirari, and Ashur-rim-nisheshu, and
also those of four earlier rulers, viz., Kikia, Shar-kenkate-Ashir,
Ishme-Dagan, and his son Ashir-nirari. Another interesting point about
the inscription is the spelling of the name of the national god of the
Assyrians. In the later periods it is always written _Ashur_, but at
this early time we see that the second vowel is changed and that at
first the name was written _Ashir_, a form that was already known
from the Cappadocian cuneiform inscriptions. The form Ashir is a good
participial construction and signifies "the Beneficent," "the Merciful
One."

Another interesting find, which was also made last year, consists of
four stone tablets, each engraved with the same building-inscription
of Shalmaneser I, a king who reigned over Assyria about 1300 B.C. In
recording his rebuilding of E-kharsag-kurkura, the temple of the god
Ashur in the city of