The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

162 THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND THE 0. T.
459 would be a matter for congratulation if the two systems
coincided. But this is not the case. There is a single
year of Sennacherib's reign, 693 B. C. at the earliest. If we add to
this 418 years, we are led back to about the year 1110 B. C. as that
in which Tiglath-Pileser I was deprived of those statues of divinities
by the Babylonian king. Now on the cylinder , on which Tiglath-
Pileser describes the events of the first five years of his reign, not a
word is said about this war with Babylon. Hence we cannot with
propriety assume that it occurred at any other period than the latter
part of his reign. Therefore he may have ascended the throne of
Assyria as early as in 1130 B. C. and even before that.
For the time immediately preceding Tiglath-Pileser I some evi-
dence is furnished by the names, preserved in his cylinder-inscription,
of his father Asur-ri'i-isi, of his grandfather Mu takkil-Nabu
(Nusku), of his great-grandfather A§ur-d&n, and lastly of his great-
great-grandfather Adar-abal-isarra. Moreover in the synchronistic
table in reference to Assyrio-Babylonian history (Hi Rawl. IV. No. 3
lines 20. 21) we find mention of a Bi'l-kudur-usur as the predecessor
(father ?) of the last mentioned monarch. We have thus five successive
reigns, and, by assuming that each amounted in round numbers to
20 years, we in this way reach the second half of the \^^^ century
viz. about 1250— 1230 B. C. (Geo. Rawlinson, History of the Five Great
Monarchies II ed. Vol. U p. 49). For the period that immediately
precedes this we have no data from the monuments. The tradition
respecting the succession of sovereigns is here interrupted. On the
other hand, we have once more a datum for the reign of Tuklat-Adar
the son of Salmanassar I— the latter being the founder of the city
Kalah (see Vol. I, p. 80). This piece of evidence consists in a very
remarkable tablet of Sennacherib, in which that king tells us that in
one of his conquests of Babylon—it may be the first in the year 703
B. C. or else the later one (693? see above)— he recovered the seal of an
old Assyrian king, no other than Tuklat-Adar, in the treasure-house of
Babylon and brought it back to Assyria, from which it had been taken
600 years before to Babylon. Moreover he takes the opportunity of
quoting the inscription borne by the seal. The whole passage reads
as follows (HI Rawl. 4 No. 2 lines 1 foil.) : 1. . . . Tuklat-Adar
§ar Aggur abal Sulm&-nu-a§^rid sar m&t AsSur, 2. k&gid-ti
va.ki Kar-du. Mu-kak-kir sitra-ja §uma-ja, 3. ASur, RammSn
sum-su mat-su lu-hal-li-ku. 4. Kunukku an-nu-u istu m&t
A§sur ana m. Ak-kadi §a-ri (?) ik-ta-din. 5. Ana-ku Sin-ahiirib
§ar mat Aisur 6. ina VI. C. sanati Bab-ilu aksu-ud-ma