(2) The Assyrian kings kept lists of years and of principal events, to which scholars have given the name “Eponym Lists,” because each year was named after the king or some officer. Tablets containing these lists have been recovered on which we can still read the chronology from 893 to 666 B. C. This list accordingly overlaps the list or “canon” of Ptolemy. Some of these Assyrian kings were also kings of Babylon, and where the lists overlap they agree. One of these lists mentions an eclipse which occurred at Nineveh in the month Sivan (May-June), 763 B. C. This eclipse has been calculated and verified by modern astronomers, so that the chronology covered by these lists rests upon a secure scientific basis.
(3) For dates in Assyrian history anterior to 893 B. C. we have to depend upon incidental notices in the inscriptions. Thus Sennacherib, whose date is fixed by the Eponym Lists as 705-681 B. C., relates that during his reign he recovered from Babylon the images of two gods that had been taken as booty by Marduknadinakhi, King of Babylon, from Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, 418 years before Sennacherib brought them back. It follows from this that Tiglath-pileser I of Assyria and Marduknadinakhi of Babylon were ruling from about 1120 to 1100 B. C.
We also have a long inscription from the Tiglath-pileser mentioned here, who relates that in his reign he restored a temple, which had been built by Shamshi-Adad, ruler of Assyria, son of Ishmi-Dagan, ruler of Assyria, 641 years before the time of Ashur-dan, King of Assyria. Ashur-dan had, he tells us, pulled the temple down and it had lain in ruins 60 years until he (Tiglath-pileser) rebuilt it. By adding these numbers we reach 1819 or 1820 B. C. as the accession of Shamshi-Adad.
Again Sennacherib found at Babylon a seal which bore the following inscription:
“Tukulti-Ninib, king of the world, son of Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, conqueror of the land of Chaldæa. Whoever changes the writing of my name, may Ashur and Adad destroy his name. This seal was presented by the land of Assyria to the land of Akkad” (Babylonia).
To this Sennacherib added the following inscription:
“I, Sennacherib, after 600 years conquered Babylon, and from its treasures brought it out and took it.”
We learn from this that Tukulti-Ninib was ruling in Assyria from about 1300 to 1290 B. C.
Andrae has recently (1914) published an inscription of Tukulti-Ninib in which he states that he repaired a temple which had been built by his ancestor, Ilu-shumma, King of Assyria, 720 years before. Ilu-shumma was, accordingly, ruling in Assyria about 2020 to 2010 B. C.
(4) Among the tablets in the British Museum are two so-called “dynastic tablets” which contain lists of the kings of Babylon from the time that Babylon became the leading city of the country to its capture by the Persians. The kings are divided into eight dynasties, the length of the reign of each king was originally given, and at the end of each dynasty a statement was given of the number of kings in that dynasty and the total length of their reigns. These tablets are unfortunately much broken, so that they afford us little help after the year 1000 B. C. We learn from them, however, that Marduknadinakhi, the king mentioned by Sennacherib as ruling about 1100 B. C., belonged to the fourth Babylonian dynasty, and, if we add together the years given for the previous dynasties, we are taken back nearly to the year 2400 B. C. for the accession of the first dynasty of Babylon. Evidence has, however, come to light in recent years which proves that the first and second of these dynasties overlapped, one ruling in the north while the other ruled in the south. A reliable chronology cannot, therefore, be obtained by adding these numbers together. In order to correct them recourse must be had to other evidence.