eem to have been sufficiently considered. On the one side, while
the annals of Sargon are given in full, those of his son Naram-Sin break
off abruptly in the early part of his reign. I see no explanation of
this, except that they were composed while Naram-Sin was still on the
throne. On the other side, the campaigns of the two monarchs are coupled
with the astrological phenomena on which the success of the campaigns
was supposed to depend. We know that the Babylonians were given to the
practice and study of astrology from the earliest days of their history;
we know also that even in the time of the later Assyrian monarchy it was
still customary for the general in the field to be accompanied by
the _asipu_, or "prophet," the ashshaph of Dan. ii. 10, on whose
interpretation of the signs of heaven the movements of the army
depended; and in the infancy of Chaldaen history we should accordingly
expect to find the astrological sign recorded along with the event with
which it was bound up. At a subsequent period the sign and the event
were separated from one another in literature, and had the annals of
Sargon been a later compilation, in their case also the separation would
assuredly have been made. That, on the contrary, the annals have the
form which they could have assumed and ought to have assumed only at
the beginning of contemporaneous Babylonian history, is to me a strong
testimony in favour of their genuineness.

It may be added that Babylonian seal-cylinders have been found in
Cyprus, one of which is of the age of Sargon of Accad, its style and
workmanship being the same as that of the cylinder figured in vol. iii.
p. 96, while the other, though of later date, belonged to a person
who describes himself as "the servant of the deified Naram-Sin." Such
cylinders may, of course, have been brought to the island in later
times; but when we remember that a characteristic object of prehistoric
Cypriote art is an imitation of the seal-cylinder of Chaldsea, their
discovery cannot be wholly an accident.

Professor Maspero has brought his facts up to so recent a date that
there is very little to add to what he has written. Since his
manuscript was in type, however, a few additions have been made to our
Assyriological knowledge. A fresh examination of the Babylonian dynastic
tablet has led Professor Delitzsch to make some alterations in the
published account of what Professor Maspero calls the ninth dynasty.
According to Professo