Last and least valuable of all is the Obelisk. [Footnote: Discovery at Kalhu, Layard, NR. II. 282. Layard, _Monuments of Nineve_, I. 53 ff.; L. 87 ff.; Abel-Winckler, 7f; Rasmussen, XXXIIIff.; 80 ff. Amiaud-Scheil, _passim_; Winckler, KB. I. 128 ff.Oppert, _Expèd._ I. 342; _Hist._ 108 ff.; Menant, 97 ff. Sayce, RP¹, V. 29 ff.; Scheil, RP², IV. 38; Jastrow, _Hebraica_, V. 230. Mengedoht, _Bab. Or. Rec._, VIII, lllff.; 141ff.; 169 ff. Photographs and drawings too frequent for notice. Casts are also common, e. g., in America, Metropolitan Museum, N. Y. City; University of Pennsylvania; Haskell Museum, University of Chicago; Boston Museum of Fine Arts.] Because of its most interesting sculptures and because it gives a summary of almost the entire reign, it has either been given the place of honor, or a place second to the Monolith alone. The current view is given by one of our most prominent Assyriologists as follows: "The first rank must be ascribed to the Black Obelisk, and for the reason that it covers a greater period of Shalmaneser's reign than any other.... It is clear then, that for a study of the reign of Shalmaneser II the black obelisk must form the starting point, and that, in direct connection with it, the other inscriptions may best be studied, grouping themselves around it as so many additional fragmentary manuscripts would around the more complete one which we hit upon, for a fundamental text." [Footnote: Jastrow, _l. c._] This view might be accepted were the problem one of the "lower criticism". Unfortunately, it is clearly one for the "higher" and accordingly we should quote the Black Obelisk only when an earlier edition has not been preserved. There is no single point where, in comparison with an earlier one, there is reason to believe that it has the correct text, in fact, it is, as might be expected in the case of a show inscription, filled with mistakes, many of which were later corrected, while in one case the engraver has been forced to erase entire lines. [Footnote: Cf. the textual commentary in Amiaud-Scheil, _passim_, and especially 65 n. 6.] Its date is 829, a whole generation later than the facts first related, and it can be shown that it is a formal apology for the turtanu (prime minister), Dan Ashur, glorifies him at the expense of his monarch, and attempts to conceal the palace revolution which marked his coming into power by changing the date of his eponomy from 854 to 856 and by filling in the year 855 with another event. Nor is it without bearing in this connection that it was prepared in 829, the very year in which the revolt of Ashur dan apal broke out as a protest against the control of his father by the too powerful turtanu. [Footnote: Cf. Olmstead, _Jour. Amer. Or. Soc., l. c._] As these last years of the reign were years of revolt, there is no reason for believing that there was another edition prepared, and the narrative of this revolt in the Annals of his son Shamshi Adad points in the same direction.