ANNALS OF THE KINGS OF ASSYRIA.
Annals of the Sings of Assyria. Edited by E. A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D., and L. W. King, M.A. (The British Museum.)— These Annals contain the records of about twelve centuries. The period B.C. 2000 to B.C. 1100 is scantily represented. Seven Monarchs appear in the records, but their inscriptions are little more than formal. Twenty-seven pages suffice to contain the whole,—it should be said that everything as yet discovered has been given. With Tiglath-Pileser I. (1100 B.C.) things are very different. Here we have narratives of five campaigns, carried on in the first five years of this Monarch's reign, summarised in the next column as relating the conquest of forty-two provinces between the Zab and the Euphrates. The King then records his hunting exploits, his building operations, and his agricultural improvements. He says:— "Unto the land of Assyria I have added lands, And unto her peoples, peoples ;
I have made good the condition of my people, And in peaceful habitations Have I caused them to dwell."
The chief source here is the great cylinder inscription from Kal'at Sperlat. Tiglath-Pileser's annals occupy about one hundred pages, not counting in an inscription made by one of his successors. The inscriptions and annals of Ashur-nasir-pal (885-860) are more copious, filling as much as two hundred and thirty-two pages. The plan of the work, of which this is the first volume, has been to give the Assyrian text, a transliteration of it into our characters, and a translation into English.
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