Discoveries Among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon

by Austen Henry Layard

I will proceed, therefore, to give a slight sketch of the contents of the inscriptions as far as they have been examined. The earliest king of whose reign we have any detailed account was the builder of the north-west palace at Nimroud, the most ancient edifice hitherto discovered in Assyria. His records, however, with other inscriptions, furnish the names of five, if not seven, of his predecessors, some of whom, there is reason to believe, erected palaces at Nineveh, and originally founded those which were only rebuilt by subsequent monarchs. It is consequently important to ascertain the period of the accession of this early Assyrian king, and we apparently have the means of fixing it with sufficient accuracy. His son, we know, built the centre palace at Nimroud, and raised the obelisk, now in the British Museum, inscribing upon it the principal events of his reign. He was a great conqueror, and subdued many distant nations. The names of the subject kings who paid him tribute are duly recorded on the obelisk, in some instances with sculptured representations of the various objects sent. Amongst those kings was one whose name reads “Jehu, the son of Khumri (Omri),” and who has been identified by Dr. Hincks and Col. Rawlinson with Jehu, king of Israel. This monarch was certainly not the son, although one of the successors of Omri, but the term “son of” appears to have been used throughout the East in those days, as it still is, to denote connection generally, either by descent or by succession. Thus we find in Scripture the same person called “the son of Nimshi,” and “the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi.”[248] An identification connected with this word Khumri or Omri is one of the most interesting instances of corroborative evidence that can be adduced of the accuracy of the interpretations of the cuneiform character. It was observed that the name of a city resembling Samaria was connected, and that in inscriptions containing very different texts, with one reading Beth Khumri or Omri.[249] This fact was unexplained until Col. Rawlinson perceived that the names were, in fact, applied to the same place, or one to the district, and the other to the town. Samaria having been built by Omri, nothing is more probable than that—in accordance with a common Eastern custom—it should have been called, after its founder, Beth Khumri, or the house of Omri. As a further proof of the identity of the Jehu mentioned on the obelisk with the king of Israel, Dr. Hincks, to whom we owe this important discovery, has found on the same monument the name of Hazael, whom Elijah was ordered by the Almighty to anoint king of Syria.[250]

Supposing, therefore, these names to be correctly identified,—and our Assyrian chronology for this period rests as yet, it must be admitted, almost entirely upon this supposition,—we can fix an approximate date for the reign of the obelisk king. Jehu ascended the throne about 885 B. C.; the accession of the Assyrian monarch must, consequently, be placed somewhere between that time and the commencement of the ninth century B. C., and that of his father in the latter part of the tenth.[251]

In his records the builder of the north-west palace mentions, amongst his predecessors, a king whose name is identical with the one from whom, according to the inscriptions at Bavian, were taken certain idols of Assyria 418 years before the first or second year of the reign of Sennacherib. According to Dr. Hincks, Sennacherib ascended the throne in 703 B. C. We have, therefore, 1121 B. C. for the date of the reign of this early king.

There are still two kings mentioned by name in the inscriptions from the north-west palace at Nimroud, as ancestors of its builder, who have not yet been satisfactorily placed. It is probable that the earliest reigned somewhere about the middle of the twelfth century B. C. Colonel Rawlinson calls him the founder of Nineveh; but there is no proof whatever, as far as I am aware, in support of this conjecture. It is possible, however, that he may have been the first of a dynasty which extended the bounds of the Assyrian empire, and was founded, according to Herodotus, about five centuries before the Median invasion, or in the twelfth century B. C.; but there appears to be evidence to show that a city bearing the name of Nineveh stood on the banks of the Tigris long before that period.[252]

The second king, whose name is unplaced, appears to be mentioned in the inscriptions as the original founder of the north-west palace at Nimroud. According to the views just expressed, he must have reigned about the end of the twelfth century B. C.

The father and grandfather of the builder of the north-west palace are mentioned in nearly every inscription from that edifice. Their names, according to Colonel Rawlinson, are Adrammelech and Anáku-Merodach. They must have reigned in the middle of the tenth century B. C. We have no records of either of them.

The first king of whom we have any connected historical chronicle was the builder of the well-known edifice at Nimroud from which were obtained the most perfect and interesting bas-reliefs brought to this country. In my former work I stated that Colonel Rawlinson believed his name to be Ninus, and had identified him with that ancient king, according to Greek history, the founder of the Assyrian empire. He has since given up this reading, and has suggested that of Assardanbal, agreeing with the historic Sardanapalus. Dr. Hincks, however, assigning a different value to the middle character (the name being usually written with three), reads Ashurakhbal. It is certain that the first monogram stands both for the name of the country of Assyria and for that of its protecting deity. We might consequently assume, even were other proof wanting, that it should be read Assur or Ashur.

I have elsewhere given a description of the various great monumental records of this king, with extracts from their contents. He appears to have carried his arms to the west of Nineveh across Syria to the Mediterranean Sea, to the south into Chaldæa, probably beyond Babylon (the name of this city does not, however, as far as I am aware, occur in the inscriptions), and to the north into Asia Minor and Armenia.

Of his son, whose name Colonel Rawlinson reads Temenbar and Divanubara, and Dr. Hincks Divanubar, we have full and important historical annals, including the principal events of thirty-one years of his reign. They are engraved upon the black obelisk, and upon the backs of the bulls in the centre of the mound of Nimroud. This king, like his father, was a great conqueror. He waged war, either in person or by his generals, in Syria, Armenia, Babylonia, Chaldæa, Media, and Persia.

The two royal names next in order occur on the pavement slabs of the upper chambers, on the west face of the mound of Nimroud.[253] They may belong to the son and grandson, and immediate successors, of the obelisk king. The two names, however, have not been satisfactorily deciphered. Colonel Rawlinson reads them Shamas-Adar and Adrammelech II.; Dr. Hincks only ventures to suggest Shamsiyav for the first.