From B.1-. 900 to (i(17 (that is. to the time of Assurbanipal) these incomparable and invaluable lists give year by year the chief officers of state, and always make a special point of noting the accession of every new king to the throne. After the time of Sanisi-Hainnian IV. (B.C. 824-812) this list is further supplemented by the contents of the so-called 'List of Expeditiims' (extending to B.C. 700), in which, opposite to every name, there is a .short notice of the different campaigns carried out in each year. But it was by the lielp of the Canon of Ptolemy that we were first able to bind the Eponym Canon together in chronological order from beginning to end, and thus establish the fact that the first officer mentioned in it. Assur- dan, belongs to the year B.C. 902, the l.i.st, Gabbaru, to B.C. 007. It is therefore possible to fix the exact dates of the reigns of all the As.syr. kings who fall within this period, from Uammfm-nirari II. to the accession of Assurbanipal.
The earlier epochs, also, can be dated from these fixed points, at any rate partially and ajiproxi- mately. The rulers of As.syria have left us some special chronological notes in their inscrijitions which refer to kings who lived long before Ihein.
(a) Sennacherib relates that the Bab. king Marduk-nailin-aklii carried off to Babylon, at the time when Tiglath-pileser I. wtis king of Assyria, two images of gods, which he him.self, 418 years later, liad brought back. It is clear, therefore, since this statement belongs to the year of the destruction of B.ibylon by Sinnacheiib, viz. B.C. (i80, that the year" B.C. 1107 may be definitely fixed as a certain date in the reign of Tiglath-pileacr I. (r. B.C. 112n-IliM)?).
(fc) The same Sennacherib remarks, on another occasion, that he recognised amongst the Bab. trea.sures a seal of Tuklat- Nindar, the son of Sh.ilmane.ser I., which had been taken to Babylon OIH) years before. This fixes the reign of Tuklal- Xindar .somewhere about B.C. KlOO (more exactly 1289). We must take into consideraticui, how-
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ever, the fact that the round number 600 may, if necessary, stand for 560, or even 550 ; in this latter case, we should have the average date of B.C. 1250.
(c) Finally, Tiglath - pileser I., whose date is approximately fi.\ed by consideration (a), says that, CO years before, his great-grandfallier, the long-lived Assur-dan, pulled down a temple which had fallen into ruins, and evidently had not finished rebuilding it when death overtook him. Thus Assur-dan died somewhere about B.C. 1175.
(d) The same Tiglath - pileser, in the same passage, had previously remarked that the temple in question was built by the old high - priest Samsi-Raniman, son of Ismi-Dagan, 641 years before. The date of Samsi-Ramman is therefore fixed about B.C. 1815.
A series of specially important dates for Bab. chronology is to be found in the inscriptions of the Bab. king Nabonidus (B.C. 555-539). (See B.vBTLONiA.) We possess also a list of the kings of Babylon, which unfortunately is not quite complete, beginning c. 2000 B.C., as well as the so-called 'Synchronistic History' (see above), which gives side by side a complete enumeration of the kings of Babylon and their Assyr. con- temporaries. From these sources we secure, although indirectly, some fresh basal points for Assyr. chronology.
Finally, we conclude, from some astronomical notices in Egyp. inscriptions, that Tahutmes HI. reigned from 1503-1449, and further obtain B.C. 1400 as the date of the death of Amenhotep III. and the accession of Amenhotep IV. Thus tlie date of both these kings, with their Bab. and Assyr. contemporaries, is approximately fixed (see above, on tbe discoveries at Tel el-Amarna).
The fii-st beginnings of Assyrian History will probably always remain veiled in darkne.ss. That the Assyrian state was originally an offshoot from Babylonia may be regarded as certain from its writing, language, and religion, as well as from the witness, by no means to be despised, of Heb. tradition (Gn 10"), which confirms this inference, and which is itself of Bah. origin. It is certain, too, that the oldest rulers of Assyria known to us styled themselves 'priest (Sumerian, pa-te-.ii; Assyr. issaku) of the god Assur.' Besides the two priest-kings mentioned in the chronology, viz. Samsi-RamniS.n * and his father Ismi-Dagan, t we know of others whose tablets have come down to us, viz. a certain Irisu and liIs father KhaUu, as well as of a second Samsi-Ramman and his father Igur- (or Bel-) kapliapu.X
It is noticeable that the title ' Patesi ' is not bestowed on the last-named, so that it looks as if he or his son Samsi-Ramman was the first founder of the A.ssyr. state. In that case we must, of course, place this Samsi-Ramman before B.C. 1810, probably about 1!.C. 18-50 or even B.C. 1900. On the other hand, the later king, Ramm!in-nir4ri III. (c. B.C. 800) calls himself ' the descendant of the old king Jielkapkapu, who ruled even before the primitive period of the reign of the Sulili.' Finally, Esarhaddon, grandson of the usurper Sargon, claims to be ' the perpetual descendant of Bii-liani, son of Adasi, king of A.ssyria.' By this Bel-bani is probably meant one of the kings who sat on the Assyr. throne during the period between B.C. 1800 and 1500. It was during this period that tlie rulers of Assyria assumed the official title ' King of Assur,' instead of the old title 'Patesi.' About B.C. 1800 we find in Assyria