** Assur-bani-pal, acting in the name of his father, Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, had consulted Shamash on the desirability of sending troops against Arvad:  the prince of this city is called Ikkalu, which is a variant of Yakinlu.  Winckler concluded that the campaign against Arvad took place before 668 B.C., in the reign of Esarhaddon.  It seems to me more natural to place it on the return from Egypt, when the people of Arvad were demoralised by the defeat of the Pharaoh whose alliance they had hoped for.

*** I had compared Karbaniti with the Qarbina mentioned in the Great Harris Papyrus, and this identification was accepted by most Egyptologists, even after Brugsch recognised in Qarbina the name of Canopus or a town near Canopus.  It has been contested by Steindorf, and, in fact, Karbaniti could not be identified with Canopus, any more than the Qarbina of the Harris Papyrus; its site must be looked for in the eastern or central part of the Delta.

He retreated upon Thebes, where he strongly fortified himself; but the Tartan had not suffered less than his adversary, and he would have been unable to pursue him, had not reinforcements promptly reached him.  The Bab-shakeh, who had been despatched from Nineveh with some Assyrian troops, had summoned to his aid the principal Syrian feudal chiefs, who, stimulated by the news of the victories achieved on the banks of the Nile, placed themselves unreservedly at his disposal.  He ordered their vessels to proceed along the coast as far as the Delta, where he purposed to collect a fleet to ascend the river, while their troops augmented the force already under his command.  The two Assyrian generals, the Tartan and the Rabshakeh, quitted Memphis, probably in the early part of 667 B.C., and, cautiously advancing southwards, covered the distance separating the two Egyptian capitals in a steady march of forty days.  When the Assyrians had advanced well up the valley, the princes of the Delta thought the opportunity had arrived to cut them off by a single bold stroke.  They therefore opened cautious negotiations with the Ethiopian king, and proposed an arrangement which should secure their independence:  “We will divide the country between us, and neither of us shall exercise authority over the other.”  However secretly these negotiations were conducted, they were certain to come to the knowledge of the Assyrian generals:  the couriers were intercepted; and discovering from the despatches the extent of the danger, the Assyrians seized as many of the leaders of the league as they could.  As a warning they sacked Sais, Mendes, and Tanis, demolishing the fortifications, and flaying or impaling the principal citizens before their city gates; they then sent two of the intriguing chiefs, Necho and Sharludari of Pelusium, bound hand and foot with chains, to Nineveh.  Pakruru, of the Arabian nome, managed, however, to escape them.  Taharqa, thus bereft of his allies, was no longer in a condition