Discoveries among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert- being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British museum (1859) (17978551550)

Title: Discoveries among the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon; with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert: being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British museum
Identifier: amongtheruins00laya (find matches)
Year: 1859 (1850s)
Authors: Layard, Austen Henry, 1817-1894
Subjects: Scientific expeditions
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute



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538 NINEVEH AND BABYLON (Chap XXVI Although no mention appears to be made in the Assyrian inscriptions of kings who reigned before the twelfth century b c , this is by no means a proof that the empire, and its capital Nineveh, did not exist long before that time I cannot agree with those who would limit the foundation of both to that period. The supposition seems to me quite at variance with the testimony of sacred and profane history The existence of the name of Nineveh on monuments of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty is still con- sidered almost certain by Egyptian scholars. I have in my former work quoted an instance of it on a tablet of the time of Thothmes III, or of the beginning of the fourteenth century b. c* Mr. Birch has since pointed out
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Captives fromPadan Aram, Assyria, and Carchemish, of the Time of Amenophis III to me three interesting cartouches copied by Dr Lepsius in Egypt, and published in his great work,f which completely remove any doubt as to the name of Assyria having been also known as early as the eighteenth dynasty, They occur at the foot of one of the columns of Soleb, and are of the age of Amenophis III , or about the middle of the fourteenth century before Christ The three figures, with their arms bound behind, represent Asiatic captives, as is proved by their peculiar features and headdress, a knotted fillet round the temples, corresponding with that seen in the Nineveh sculp- tures. Each cartouche contains the name of the country from which the prisoner was brought. The first is Patana, or Padan-Aram ; the second is written A-su-ru, or Assyria; and the third, Ka-ru-ka-mishi, Carchemish, On another column are Saenkar(? Shinar or Sinjar); Naharaina, or Meso- * Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii p 224. A second mention of Nineveh has been recently found by Mr. Birch on a monument of Thothmes III., engraved in Lepsius' Auswahl. Taf xii. 1. 21 Unfortunately the line before the name is wanting, and the event connected with the mention of Nineveh cannot be determined. Following it, however, is a sentence stating that Thothmes "erected his tablet in Naharaina (Mesopotamia), for the extension of the frontiers of Kami (Egypt)," showing that the campaign described was actually carried on near the borders of the Tigris. t Denkmaler, Abth. III. Bl 88