Before discussing the other facts
supplied by the new chronicle, with regard to the rise and growth of the
Country of the Sea, whose kings formed the so-called "Second Dynasty,"
it will be well to refer briefly to the sources from which the
information on the period to be found in the current histories is
derived.
All the schemes of Babylonian chronology that have been suggested during
the last twenty years have been based mainly on the great list of kings
which is preserved in the British Museum. This document was drawn up in
the Neo-Babylonian or Persian period, and when complete it gave a list
of the names of all the Babylonian kings from the First Dynasty of
Babylon down to the time in which it was written. The names of the kings
are arranged in dynasties, and details are given as to the length of
their reigns and the total number of years each dynasty lasted. The
beginning of the list which gave the names of the First Dynasty is
wanting, but the missing portion has been restored from a smaller
document which gives a list of the kings of the First and Second
Dynasties only. In the great list of kings the dynasties are arranged
one after the other, and it was obvious that its compiler imagined that
they succeeded one another in the order in which he arranged them.
But when the total number of years the dynasties lasted is learned, we
obtain dates for the first dynasties in the list which are too early to
agree with other chronological information supplied by the historical
inscriptions.
Pages:
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272