are inclined to accept the last, which is actually confirmed by the
later course of events.

But it is only when we compare the Annals with earlier documents that
we realize how low it ranks, even among official inscriptions. Already
we have learned the dubious character of its chronology. The Assyrian
Chronicle has "in the land" for 712, that is, there was no campaign in
that year. Yet for that very year, the Annals has an expedition
against Asia Minor! It is prism B which solves the puzzle. In the
earliest years, it seems to have had the same chronology as the
Annals. Later, it drops a year behind and, at the point where it ends,
it has given the Ashdod expedition as two years earlier than the
Annals. [Footnote: Cf. Ohmstead, _Sargon_, 11.] Even with the old
data, it was clear that the Prism was earlier and therefore probably
more trustworthy; and it was easy to explain the puzzle by assuming
that years "in the land" had been later padded out by the Annals, just
as we have seen was done for Dan Ashur under Shalmaneser III. Now the
discovery of the tablet of the year 714 has completely vindicated the
character of Prism B while it has even more completely condemned the
Annals as a particularly untrustworthy example of annalistic writing.

In the first place, it shows us how much we have lost. The tablet has
430 lines, of which a remarkably small portion consists of passages
which are mere glorifications or otherwise of no value. Out of this
mass of material, the Annals has utilized but 36 lines. That this is a
fair sample of what we have lost in other years is hardly too much to
suspect. Further, it would seem that the Annals used, not the tablet
itself, but, since it has a phrase common to the Annals and the Prism,
[Footnote: Ann. 125 f.; Prism B, Thureau-Dangin, _op. cit._, 76
f.] but not found in the tablet, either the Prism itself or a common