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Assyrian Historiography by A. T. (Albert Ten Eyck) Olmstead
page 52 of 82 (63%)
Assn._, 1909, 94 ff.] the chief is the Annals, added to at
intervals of a few years, and so existing in several editions. As
usual, the latest of these, the Taylor inscription, has been accorded
the place of honor, so that the earliest edition, the so called
Bellino Cylinder, can be called by a well known historian "a sort of
duplicate of" the Taylor inscription. [Footnote: Maspero,
_Histoire_, III. 273 _n. 1._] As we have seen repeatedly,
the exact reverse should be our procedure, though here, as in the case
of Ashur nasir apal, the evil results in the writing of history are
less serious than in the case of most reigns. This is due to the
unusual circumstances that, with comparatively few exceptions, there
was little omission or addition of the earlier data. Regularly, the
new edition simply added to the old, and, as a result, the form of the
mass of clay on which these Annals were written changes with the
increased length of the document, the earlier being true cylinders,
while the latter are prisms. [Footnote: King, _Cuneiform Texts_,
XXVI. 7 f.] At the same time that the narrative of military events was
lengthened, the account of the building operations followed suit. A
serious defect is the fact that these documents are dated, not by
years, but by campaigns, with the result that there are serious
questions in chronology. The increase in the number of our editions,
however, has solved many of these, as the date of the campaign can now
usually be fixed by observing in which dated document it last occurs.

Of the more than twenty five more or less complete documents, the
first is the so called Bellino Cylinder which dates from October,
702. The fact that it has been studied separately has tended to
prevent the realization that it is actually only a recension. As a
first edition, it is a trifle fuller, but surprisingly
little. [Footnote: K. 1680. Grotefend, _Abh. Goettingen,
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