the
site of Nineveh. The work was begun and carried out under the direction
of Mr. L. W. King, but since last summer has been continued by Mr. R. C.
Thompson. Last year, too, excavations were reopened at Sherghat by
the Deutsch-Orient Ge-sellschaft, at first under the direction of Dr.
Koldewey, and afterwards under that of Dr. Andrae, by whom they are
at present being carried on. This renewed activity on the sites of the
ancient cities of Assyria is already producing results of considerable
interest, and the veil which has so long concealed the earlier periods
in the history of that country is being lifted.

* For the texts and translations of these documents, see
Budge and King, Annals of the Kings of Assyria, pp. iff.

Shortly before these excavations in Assyria were set on foot an
indication was obtained from an early Babylonian text that the history
of Assyria as a dependent state or province of Babylon must be pushed
back to a far more remote period than had hitherto been supposed. In one
of Hammurabi's letters to Sin-idinnam, governor of the city of Larsam,
to which reference has already been made, directions are given for
the despatch to the king of "two hundred and forty men of 'the King's
Company' under the command of Nannar-iddina... who have left the country
of Ashur and the district of Shitullum." From this most interesting
reference it followed that the country to the north of Babylonia was
known as Assyria at the time of the kings of the First Dynasty of
Babylon, and the fact that Babylonian troops were stationed there
by Hammurabi proved that the country formed an integral part of the
Babylonian empire.

These conclusions were soon after strikingly confirmed by two passages
in the introductory sections of Hammurabi's code of laws which was
discovered at Susa. Here Hammurabi records that he "restored his (i.e.
the god Ashur's) protecting image unto the city of Ashur," and a few
lines farther on he describes himself as the king "who hath made
the names of Ishtar glorious in the city of Nineveh in the temple of
E-mish-mish." That Ashur should be referred to at this period is what we
might expect, inasmuch as it was known to have been the earliest capital
of Assyria; more striking is the reference to Nineveh, proving as it
does that it was a flourishing city in Hammurabi's time and that the
temple of Ishtar there had already been long established. It is true
that Gudea, the Sumerian patesi of Shi