it deals with Ashur constructions.] Only the upper portion, probably
less than half to judge by the proportions, is preserved, and even
this is terribly mutilated. Fortunately, the parts best preserved are
those relating to the years not dealt with in the Annals. The first
half of the document is devoted to the campaigns of Tiglath Pileser,
then come his hunting exploits, and only a bit at the end is reserved
for the building operations of the unknown ruler under whom it was
erected. Its source seems to have had the same relation to the
earliest form of the Annals that the Obelisk of Shalmaneser III had to
the Monolith, that is, it gave the data for the earlier part of the
reign, that covered by the other source, very briefly, only expanding
as it reached a period where the facts were not represented by any
other document. That our earlier Annals, or perhaps rather, one of its
sources, was a main source of our second type, is proved by the
coincidences in language in the two, in one case no less than twenty
signs the same, [Footnote: In year V we have _ishtu...adi alu
Kargamish sha matu Hatte...isu elippe pl mashku tahshe_.] not to
speak of the hunting expeditions. But this earlier Annals was not the
only, or at least not the direct source for the Obelisk, nor was that
source merely a fuller recension of it. Data for the first six years,
not found in the earlier Annals, are given in the Obelisk, [Footnote:
Obl. I. 17, reference to Marduk nadin ahe, King of Akkad; II. 1, one
thousand men of land of...; II. 2, four thousand of them carried
prisoner to Assyria, the position of which shows that it cannot, with
Budge-King, 132 n., be referred to Ann. III. 2, the Kashi; II. 12, the
Mushki (?); II. 13, temple of Ami and Adad. These all precede the
Carchemish episode.] while our document also, for the first time in
Assyrian historical inscriptions, dates the events by the name of the
eponym for the year, and, still more unusual, by the month as
well. That the Obelisk may be considered merely a resume of this