stomary law and order restored by
the conservative reactionaries who succeeded him. Henceforth Egyptian
civilization runs an uninspired and undeveloping course till the days
of the Saites and the Ptolemies. This point in the history of Egypt,
therefore, forms a convenient stopping-place at which to pause, while
we turn once more to Western Asia, and ascertain to what extent recent
excavations and research have thrown new light upon the problems
connected with the rise and history of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian
Empires.

[Illustration: 387.jpg]

CHAPTER VIII--THE ASSYRIAN AND NEO-BABYLONIAN EMPIRES IN THE LIGHT OF
RECENT RESEARCH

The early history of Assyria has long been a subject on which historians
were obliged to trust largely to conjecture, in their attempts to
reconstruct the stages by which its early rulers obtained their
independence and laid the foundations of the mighty empire over which
their successors ruled. That the land was colonized from Babylonia and
was at first ruled as a dependency of the southern kingdom have long
been regarded as established facts, but until recently little was known
of its early rulers and governors, and still less of the condition of
the country and its capital during the early periods of their existence.
Since the excavations carried out by the British Museum at Kala
Sherghat, on the western bank of the Tigris, it has been known that
the mounds at that spot mark the site of the city of Ashur, the first
capital of the Assyrians, and the monuments and records recovered
during those excavations have hitherto formed our principal source of
information for the early history of the country.* Some of the oldest
records found in the course of these excavations were short votive texts
inscribed by rulers who bore the title of _ishshakku_, corresponding to
the Sumerian and early Babylonian title of patesi, and with some such
meaning as "viceroy." It was rightly conjectured from the title which
they bore that these early rulers owed allegiance to the kings of
Babylon and were their nominees, or at any rate their tributaries. The
names of a few of these early viceroys were recovered from their votive
inscriptions and from notices in later historical texts, but it was
obvious that our knowledge of early Assyrian history would remain very
fragmentary until systematic excavations in Assyria were resumed. Three
years ago (1902) the British Museum resumed excavations at Kuyunjik,