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

766 EXPLORATIONS IN BIBLE LANDS
inscriptions with engraved characters, it will apply to these
too and others like them. These inscriptions, therefore,
written in the engraved character may be safely referred to
Sargon's time or later (perhaps even later than 606 b. c.) —
a conclusion at which we had already arrived for another
reason discussed above. Finally, certain Hittite seal inscriptions
found in the ruins of Nineveh cannot be of later
origin than 606 b. c, because in this year Nineveh was
destroyed.
From arguments of this nature it is plain that at all
events the great mass of the inscriptions belongs to a period
between 1000 and 600 b. c, allowing perhaps a little on
either side. The approximate chronologv thus arrived at
for the series tallies well enough with that reached by the
other methods indicated above, also with that fixed by Puchstein
for the accompanving sculptures. Our results mav
therefore be held to be approximately correct. These results
will
make, e.g., the Hamath inscriptions, the character
of which is of an earlier type than that of any inscription
from Jerabis, date from about 1000 b. c, or earlier, while
according to them the inscription on the bowl from Babvlon
will date from about 600 b. c. An analysis of the inscriptions
corroborates this view.
Thus, an inscription from
Ordasu (accompanying a lion hunt), where the characters
exhibit a relativelv late form but still are cut out in relief,
must date from between 712-708 b. c, because it belongs
to
Mud(t)allu of Kommagene, who according to the cuneiform
inscriptions during this period held Melitene. On
the other side two inscriptions in engraved characters, including
that on the bowl, seem to have been composed after
606 b. c. or not much earlier, because according to their
contents Karkemish is apparentlv held no longer by an
Assvrian king but bv a king of Cilicia.
At this point the further question mav be put, how old
this hieroglyphic system of ours reallv is. We mav point