The early history of Assyria has long been a subject on which historians were obliged to trust largely to conjecture, in their attempts to reconstruct the stages by which its early rulers obtained their independence and laid the foundations of the mighty empire over which their successors ruled.  That the land was colonized from Babylonia and was at first ruled as a dependency of the southern kingdom have long been regarded as established facts, but until recently little was known of its early rulers and governors, and still less of the condition of the country and its capital during the early periods of their existence.  Since the excavations carried out by the British Museum at Kala Sherghat, on the western bank of the Tigris, it has been known that the mounds at that spot mark the site of the city of Ashur, the first capital of the Assyrians, and the monuments and records recovered during those excavations have hitherto formed our principal source of information for the early history of the country.* Some of the oldest records found in the course of these excavations were short votive texts inscribed by rulers who bore the title of ishshakku, corresponding to the Sumerian and early Babylonian title of patesi, and with some such meaning as “viceroy.”  It was rightly conjectured from the title which they bore that these early rulers owed allegiance to the kings of Babylon and were their nominees, or at any rate their tributaries.  The names of a few of these early viceroys were recovered from their votive inscriptions and from notices in later historical texts, but it was obvious that our knowledge of early Assyrian history would remain very fragmentary until systematic excavations in Assyria were resumed.  Three years ago (1902) the British Museum resumed excavations at Kuyunjik, the site of Nineveh.  The work was begun and carried out under the direction of Mr. L. W. King, but since last summer has been continued by Mr. R. C. Thompson.  Last year, too, excavations were reopened at Sherghat by the Deutsch-Orient Ge-sellschaft, at first under the direction of Dr. Koldewey, and afterwards under that of Dr. Andrae, by whom they are at present being carried on.  This renewed activity on the sites of the ancient cities of Assyria is already producing results of considerable interest, and the veil which has so long concealed the earlier periods in the history of that country is being lifted.

     * For the texts and translations of these documents, see
     Budge and King, Annals of the Kings of Assyria, pp. iff.

Shortly before these excavations in Assyria were set on foot an indication was obtained from an early Babylonian text that the history of Assyria as a dependent state or province of Babylon must be pushed back to a far more remote period than had hitherto been supposed.  In one of Hammurabi’s letters to Sin-idinnam, governor of the city of Larsam, to which reference has already been made, directions are given for the