a chessboard pattern, and with a tunic pleated in horizontal rows; his right elbow is supported by the left hand, while the right is raised to a level with his eyes, his fist is clenched, and the thumb inserted between the first and second fingers in the customary gesture of adoration. [Illustration: 320.jpg stele or bel-Harran-beluzur.] Drawn by Boudier, from the photograph published by Father Scheil. What the provost of the palace had done on his land, the other barons in all probability did on theirs; most of the departments which had fallen away and languished during the disturbances at the close of the previous dynasty, took a new lease of life under their protection. Private documents--which increase in number as the century draws to an end--contracts, official reports, and letters of scribes, all give us the impression of a wealthy and industrious country, stirred by the most intense activity, and in the enjoyment of unexampled prosperity. The excellent administration of Tiglath-pileser and his nobles had paved the way for this sudden improvement, and had helped to develop it, and when Shalmaneser V. succeeded his father on the throne it continued unchecked.* The new-comer made no changes in the system of government which had been so ably inaugurated. He still kept Assyria separate from Karduniash; his Babylonian subjects, faithful to ancient custom, soon devised a nickname for him, that of Ululai, as though seeking to persuade themselves that they had a king who belonged to them alone; and it is under this name that their annalists have inscribed him next to Pulu in the list of their dynasties.** His reign was, on the whole, a calm and peaceful one; the Kalda, the Medes, Urartu, and the races of Mount Taurus remained quiet, or, at any rate, such disorders as may have arisen among them were of too trifling a nature to be deemed worthy of notice in the records of the time. Syria alone was disturbed, and several of its independent states took advantage of the change of rulers to endeavour to shake off the authority of Assyria. * It was, for a long time, an open question with the earlier Assyriologists whether or not Shalmaneser and Sargon were different names for one and the same monarch. As for monuments, we possess only one attributed to Shalmaneser, a weight in the form of a lion, discovered by Layard at Nimroud, in the north-west palace. The length of his reign, and the scanty details we possess concerning it, have been learnt from the _Eponym Canon_ and _Pinches' Babylonian Chronicle_, and also from the Hebrew texts (2 Kings xvii. 3- 6; xviii. 9-12).