Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19TB. CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 235
the "stele of vultures " previously mentioned; 1 and the
first
fragment of an inscribed tablet of Ur-Nina, exhibiting
the lion-headed eagle with outspread wings victoriously
clutching two lions in its
coat of arms of the city
powerful talons, — the well-known
of Shir-pur-la?
The last-named monument enabled Heuzey to bring the
earliest remains of Chaldean art, so scrupulously gathered by
De Sarzec, into closer relation with the ancient kings of
Tello.
He ascertained that, contrary to what we know of
the first princes of Assyria, the rulers who style themselves
" kings of Shir-pur-la " are older 3 than those who bear the
title patesi, i. e., " priest-king," or more exactly " princepriest,"
in their inscriptions, — a result which allowed him
at once to establish an approximate chronology for the newly
discovered rulers of Southern Babylonia in
accordance with
the progress in style to be traced in their sculptures and basreliefs.
Furthermore, the French archaeologist determined
a number of general facts, 4
on the basis of which he successfully
defended the two following theses, — (i)
that the style
of the monuments of Tello is not a style of imitation, but
a real and genuine archaism ;
(a) that quite a number of the
monuments discovered antedate the remote epoch of King
Naram-Sin (about 3750 b. c. 5 ), and lead us back to the very
1
Comp. Decouvertes, pis. 3 and 4, B.
2
Comp. Decouvertes, pi. 1, no. 2. A very similar fragment is in the
Imperial Ottoman Museum at Constantinople (no. 420).
8
This statement has reference only to the two principal groups of rulers
of Lagash then known. In all probability there was still an earlier dynasty at
Tello, the members of which bear the title patesi. Comp. Thureau-Dangin
in Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie, vol. xv, p. 403.
4
Comp. Heuzey' s subtle observations on Chaldean art in Revue Archeologique,
new series, vol. xlii, 1881, p. 263, and in Decouvertes, pp. 77-86,
1 19-127, 186, seq.
6
The date of Naram-Sin' s government was obtained from a cylinder of
Nabonidos excavated by Rassam at Abu Habba about the same time.
p. 273, below.
Comp.