importance or of its duration. Then follow four expeditions, the first
two given very briefly, the last rather fully. As the years of the
reign are not indicated, there is considerable difficulty in obtaining
a satisfactory chronology. [Footnote: IR. 29 ff. Scheil, _Inscription
Assyr. Archaique de Samsi Ramman IV_, 1889. Abel, KB. I. 174
ff. Oppert, _Hist._, 122 ff.; Menant, 119 ff.; Sayce, RPi, I. 11
ff. Harper, 45 ff. For errors in writing cf. Scheil, VI; for use of
rare words, _ibid._ VII.] The other carries the record two years
further, but has not yet been published. [Footnote: MDOG. 28, 31
f. Through the courtesy of Dr. Andra, I was permitted to see this in
the excavation house at Ashur in 1908.--Cf. also the palace brick,
Scheil, RT. XXII. 37.]

The long list of expeditions which the Assyrian Chronicle attributes
to the reign of Adad nirari (812-783) indicates that he must have
composed Annals, but they have not as yet been discovered. Of extant
inscriptions, the earliest is probably that on the statue base of
Sammuramat (Semiramis), in which she is placed before her son and
emphasis is laid on the fact that she is the widow of Shamshi Adad
rather than that she is the mother of the reigning monarch. [Footnote:
MDOG. 40, 24 ff. 42, 34 ff.] Next in time comes the inscription on the
famous Nabu statue in which Adad nirari is placed first, but with
Sammuramat at his side, and which accordingly marks the decline of the
queen mother's power. [Footnote: Rawlinson, _Monarchies_, II. 118
n. 7; Photograph, Rogers, 511; _Religion_, op. 86; I. R. 35, 2;
Abel-Winckler, 14; Abel, KB. I. 192 f.; Rogers, 307 f.; Winckler,
_Textbuch_3, 27 f.; Meissner, _Chrestomathie_, 10; Menant,
127 f.] Near the end of his reign must be placed the two Kalhu
inscriptions in which Sammuramat is not mentioned. One refers to the
conquests from the sea of the rising sun to the sea of the setting