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

46 THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND THE 0. T.
napalus-Asurbanipal may be supposed to have sat on the
throne till 626 (inclusive), that the decisive struggle must
have been limited to a duration of hardly one year. This
taken by itself is scarcely probable, when we consider that
Sardanapalus was able to maintain himself in possession of
Babylon till the day of his death. Moreover, it is hardly
compatible with this hypothesis, that at least two rulers
sat on the throne of Niniveh after Asurbanipal, We have
monuments of both these kings, and both were still in a
position to erect buildings of greater or less size *. Again,
Herodotus I. 103, 106 speaks of a twice repeated siege
of Niniveh by Cyaxares, and of a Scythian domination
lasting 28 years. Both these statements are far from
favourable to the above theory, as writers have long
noticed. Besides this, in the oracles** of Jeremiah, belong-
ing to the fourth year of Jojakira = 606 B. C. (assu-
ming 609 as the first year of the Jewish king), we find
mention of the races from Aegypt, in the West, to Media
and Elam, in the East; also of the sovereigns of the Nile-
country as well as the kings of Media, Elam and Babel,
including also the rulers of Philistia and the sheiks of
Arabia; but not a syllable is said about Assur. Yse cannot
therefore place the date of the capture of Niniveh later
than the year 606. If Assyria still existed as an empire
in the fourth year of Jojakim's reign, it could not have been
* On Agur-itil-ili-ukinni see the inscription of the king I Rawl.
8, no. 3, as well as that of his daughter III Eawl. 16, no. 2. Respect-
ing X-sum-iskun, see Geo. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries p. 383 and also
the portion of this king's inscription puhlished hy me in the original
text in the Reports of the Koniglich-Sachsische Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften 1880, p. 38 under no. K. 1662; compare likewise ibid.
pp. 33 foil.
** Jerem. XXV. 19—26.