SECTION 9. MESOPOTAMIA

No annals of Assyria have survived for nearly a century before 1000
B.C., and very few for the century after that date. Nor do Babylonian
records make good our deficiency. Though we cannot be certain, we are
probably safe in saying that during these two centuries Assyrian and
Babylonian princes had few or no achievements to record of the kind
which they held, almost alone, worthy to be immortalized on stone or
clay--that is to say, raids, conquests, sacking of cities, blackmailing
of princes. Since Tiglath Pileser's time no "Kings of the World" (by
which title was signified an overlord of Mesopotamia merely) had been
seated on either of the twin rivers. What exactly had happened in the
broad tract between the rivers and to the south of Taurus since the
departure of the Mushki hordes (if, indeed, they did all depart), we do
not know. The Mitanni, who may have been congeners of the latter, seem
still to have been holding the north-west; probably all the north-east
was Assyrian territory. No doubt the Kurds and Armenians of Urartu were
raiding the plains impartially from autumn to spring, as they always did
when Assyria was weak. We shall learn a good deal more about Mesopotamia
proper when the results of the German excavations at Tell Halaf, near
Ras el-Ain, are complete and published. The most primitive monuments
found there are perhaps relics of that power of Khani (Harran), which
was stretched even to include Nineveh before the Semitic _patesis_ of
Asshur grew to royal estate and moved northward to make imperial
Assyria. But there are later strata of remains as well which should
contain evidence of the course of events in mid-Mesopotamia during
subsequent periods both of Assyrian domination and of local
independence.