The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-21 00:00:00

ROYAL SOCIETY OP LITERATURE.

At the last meeting of this society, Sir John Doratt,
V.P., in the chair,
ieHntincks stated that he had Mr. Vaux communicated a paper from the Rev. Dr.
Cylinder in the British
Tim innscekusi n ::, Oi
nn
which a n
as-
certained this cylinder to contain a much more ancient
historical notice than any other document which had
as yet been published ; and that another cylinder had
lately been noticed by Colonel Rawlinson, which, in Dr.
HilLeks' opinion, was nearly the same as the one in the
Musem.in, but not so interesting, as much of the chrono-
logical rm,:tter appeared to be wanting on it, or, at all
events, bad not been noticed by Colonel Rawlinson.
Both decypNerers agree in referring the two cylinders to
the same mooarch—Tiglath Pileser. The date of the
Museum cylinder can be approximated very nearly.
The king who wrote it is the same who is mentioned on
the Bavian inscriptOn of Sennacherib as having been
conquered by the Babylonians 418 years before the first
year of Sennacherib. At this period Nineveh was
destroyed, and Kalah-She2:ghat became the seat of
Government, and certain imaos and gods were carried
to Babylon, which Sennacherib subsequently brought
back with him from that city. Now, as Sennacherib's
conquest of Babylon was in B.C. 702, the pre-
vious
fall of Nineveh must have been in B.C. 1120, and
the date of the cylinder may have been a few years
later, about B.C. 1110. In the inscription, Tiglath-
Pileser speaks of four of his ancestors, all of whom bear the
titles of the Kings of Assyria, and notices especially one
of them, " Shemsiyao' " the son of " Ishmi-Daltax," a
name which Dr. Hincks considers to be certain. He
states also, in the same inscription on the cylinder, that
he rebuilt a certain temple at Kalah-Shergat, wl rich his
great-grandfather had taken down, and which had been
originally built by Shemsiyao, 641 years before. These
years must have terminated with either the taking down
of the temple or its re-edification. In the former case,
Shemdiyao must have lived B.C. 1750 ; in the latter,
8.f.:. 1840. Tiglath-Pileser adds that he made tablets
and inscribed sculptures containing a record of his con-
quests, ai2d that he put them up in the temple ; and
that he at the same time found tablets and inscribed
sculptures of his ancestor " Shemsiyao"—which wens of
course in a character then legible, and similar to ti‘lat
which he used himself—and that he put these up in t he
temple, by the side of his own. Dr. Hincks suggel3ts
that they are probably there now, and may yet be
found, whenever the great mound at Kalah-Sherg at
shall be thoroughly explored. The accuracy of the dal ,e,
641 years, like that of 418 years on the Bavian, ia-
scription, is worthy of remark, as it is clearly not !in-
tended as a mere approximation, as in that case round
numbers would have been used. It is probably tak en
from some canon of the kings' reigns, fragments of
which have been found among the Assyrian collections
in the British Museum.
Mr. Birch read extracts from a letter he had just x e-
ceived from Colonel Rawlinson, in which he stated that
he had much difficulty with regard to the name of Egypt
in the inscriptions. Two words occur, one reading Mu.-
sufi, the other Musri ; the question is, whether the:),
have the same or different meanings. Colonel Rawliii-
son thinks the former is the case, and adds that, in h is
opinion, the only genuine notices of Egypt are, whgre