When at the close of this long period of obscurity, Assyria once more comes into sight, we have at first only a dim and indistinct view of her through the mists which still enfold and shroud her form.  We observe that her capital is still fixed at Kileh-Sherghat, where a new series of kings, bearing names which, for the most part, resemble those of the earlier period, are found employing themselves in the repair and enlargement of public buildings, in connection with which they obtain honorable mention in an inscription of a later monarch.  Asshur-dayan, the first monarch of this group, probably ascended the throne about B.C. 930, shortly after the separation of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  He appears to have reigned from about B.C. 930 to B.C. 911.  He was succeeded in B.C. 911 by his son Vul-lush II., who held the throne from B.C. 911 to B.C. 889.  Nothing is known at present of the history of these two monarchs.  No historical inscriptions belonging to their reigns have been recovered; no exploits are recorded of them in the inscriptions of later sovereigns.  They stand up before us the mere “shadows of mighty names”—­proofs of the, uncertainty of posthumous fame, which is almost as often the award of chance as the deserved recompense of superior merit.

Of Tiglathi-Nin, the second monarch of the name, and the third king of the group which we are considering, one important historical notice, contained in an inscription of his son, has come down to us.  In the annals of the great Asshur-izirpal inscribed on the Nimrud monolith, that prince, while commemorating his war-like exploits, informs us that he set up his sculptures at the sources of the Tsupnat river alongside of sculptures previously set up by his ancestors Tiglath-Pileser and Tiglathi-Nin.  That Tiglathi-Nin should have made so distant an expedition is the more remarkable from the brevity of his reign, which only lasted for six years.  According to the Canon, he ascended the throne in the year B.C. 889; he was succeeded in B.C. 883 by his son Asshur-izir-pal.

With Asshur-izir-pal commences one of the most flourishing periods of the Empire.  During the twenty-five years of his active and laborious reign.  Assyria enlarged her bounds and increased her influence in almost every direction, while, at the same time, she advanced rapidly in wealth and in the arts; in the latter respect leaping suddenly to an eminence which (so far as we know) had not previously been reached by human genius.  The size and magnificence of Asshur-izir-pal’s buildings, the artistic excellence of their ornamentation, the pomp and splendor which they set before us as familiar to the king who raised them, the skill in various useful arts which they display or imply, have excited the admiration of Europe, which has seen with astonishment that many of its inventions were anticipated, and that its luxury was almost equalled, by an Asiatic people nine centuries before the Christian era.  It will be our pleasing task at this point of the history, after briefly sketching Asshur-izir-pal’s wars, to give such an account of the great works which he constructed as will convey to the reader at least a general idea of the civilization and refinement of the Assyrians at the period to which we are now come.