The neighbouring districts, Adaush, Gilzân, and Khubushkia, followed their example;* they sent the king considerable presents of gold, silver, lead, and copper, and their alacrity in buying off their conqueror saved them from the ruinous infliction of a garrison. The Assyrian army defiling through the pass of Khulun next fell upon the Kirkhi, dislodged the troops stationed in the fortress of Nishtun, and pillaged the cities of Khatu, Khatara, Irbidi, Arzania, Tela, and Khalua; ** Bubu, the Chief of Nishtun,*** was sent to Arbela, flayed alive, and his skin nailed to the city wall.
* Kirzâu, also transcribed Gilzân and Guzân, has been
relegated by the older Assyriologists to Eastern Armenia,
and the site further specified as being between the ancient
Araxes and Lake Urumiah, in the Persian provinces of Khoî
and Marand. The indications given in our text and the
passages brought together by Schrader, which place Gilzân in
direct connection with Kirruri on one side and with Kurkhi
on the other, oblige us to locate the country in the upper
basin of the Tigris, and I should place it near Bitlis-
tchaî, where different forms of the word occur many times on
the map, such as Ghalzan in Ghalzan-dagh; Kharzan, the name
of a caza of the sandjak of Sert; Khizan, the name of a caza
of the sandjak of Bitlis. Girzân-Kilzân would thus be the
Roman province of Arzanene, Ardzn in Armenian, in which the
initial g or h of the ancient name has been replaced in the
process of time by a soft aspirate. Khubushkia or Khutushkia
has been placed by Lenormant to the east of the Upper Zab,
and south of Arapkha, and this identification has been
approved by Schrader and also by Delitzsch; according to the
passages that Schrader himself has cited, it must, however,
have stretched northwards as far as Shatakh-su, meeting
Gilzân at one point of the sandjaks of Van and Hakkiari.
** Assur-nazir-pal, in going from Kirruri to Kirkhi in the
basin of the Tigris, could go either by the pass of Bitlis
or that of Sassun; that of Bitlis is excluded by the fact
that it lies in Kirruri, and Kirruri is not mentioned in
what follows. But if the route chosen was by the pass of
Sassun, Khulun necessarily must have occupied a position at
the entrance of the defiles, perhaps that of the present
town of Khorukh. The name Khatu recalls that of the Khoith
tribe which the Armenian historians mention as in this
locality. Khaturu is perhaps Hâtera in the caza of Lidjô, in
the sandjak of Diarbekîr, and Arzania the ancient Arzan,
Arzn, the ruins of which may be seen near Sheikh-Yunus.
Tila-Tela is not the same town as the Tela in Mesopotamia,
which we shall have occasion to speak of later, but is
probably to be identified with Til or Tilleh, at the
confluence of the Tigris and the Bohtan-tcha. Finally, it is
possible that the name Khalua may be preserved in that of
Halewi, which Layard gives as belonging to a village
situated almost halfway between Rundvan and Til.
*** Nishtun was probably the most important spot in this
region: from its position on the list, between Khulun and
Khataru on one side and Arzania on the other, it is evident
we must look for it somewhere in Sassun or in the direction
of Mayafarrikin.
In a small town near one of the sources of the Tigris, Assur-nazir-pal founded a colony on which he imposed his name; he left there a statue of himself, with an inscription celebrating his exploits carved on its base, and having done this, he returned to Nineveh laden with booty.
Drawn by Boudier, from a sketch taken by Layard.
A few weeks had sufficed for him to complete, on this side, the work bequeathed to him by his father, and to open up the neighbourhood of the northeast provinces; he was not long in setting out afresh, this time to the north-west, in the direction of the Taurus.*
* The text of the “Annals” declares that these events took
place “in this same limmu,” in what the king calls higher up
in the column “the beginning of my royalty, the first year
of my reign.” We must therefore suppose that he ascended the
throne almost at the beginning of the year, since he was
able to make two campaigns under the same eponym.