h are
thought to be of Assyrian construction. We may conjecture that this
place was the Resen, or Dase, of Holy Scripture, which is said to have
been a large city, interposed between Nineveh and Calah. In the same
latitude, but considerably further to the east, was the famous city of
Arabil or Arbil, known to the Greeks as Arbela, and to this day
retaining its ancient appellation. These were the principal towns, whose
positions can be fixed, belonging to Assyria Proper, or the tract in the
immediate vicinity of Nineveh.

Besides these places, the inscriptions mention a large number of cities
which we cannot definitely connect with any particular site. Such are
Zaban and Zadu, beyond the Lower Zab, probably somewhere in the vicinity
of Kerkuk; Kurban, Tidu (?), Napulu, Kapa, in Adiabene; Arapkha and
Khaparkhu, the former of which names recalls the Arrapachitis of
Ptolemy, in the district about Arbela; Hurakha, Sallat (?), Dur-Tila,
Dariga, Lupdu, and many others, concerning whose situations it is not
even possible to make any reasonable conjecture. The whole country
between the Tigris and the mountains was evidently studded thickly with
towns, as it is at the present day with ruins; but until a minute and
searching examination of the entire region has taken place, it is idle
to attempt an assignment to particular localities of these comparatively
obscure names.

In Western Assyria, or the tract on the right bank of the Tigris, while
there is reason to believe that population was as dense, and that cities
were as numerous, as on the opposite side of the river, even fewer sites
can be determinately fixed, owing to the early decay of population in
those parts, which seem to have fallen into their present desert
condition shortly after the destruction of the Assyrian empire by the
conquering Medes. Besides Asshur, which is fixed to the ruins at
Kileh-Sherghat, we can only locate with certainty some half-dozen
places. These are Nazibina, which is the modern Nisibin, the Nisibis of
the Greeks; Amidi, which is Amida or Diarbekr; Haran, which retains its
name unchanged; Sirki, which is the Greek Circesium, now Kerkesiyeh;
Anat, now Anah, on an island in the Euphrates; and Sidikan, now Arban,
on the Lower Khabour. The other known towns of this region, whose exact
position is more or less uncertain, are the following:--Tavnusir, which
is perhaps Dunisir, near Mardin; Guzana, or Gozan, in the vicinity of
Nisibin; Razappa, or Reze