Ramman-nirari did not meet with such good fortune in the North; not only did he fail to obtain the brilliant successes which elsewhere attended his arms, but he ended by sustaining considerable reverses. The Ninevite historians reckoned the two expeditions of 808 and 807 B.C. against the Mannai as victories, doubtless because the king returned with a train of prisoners and loaded with spoil; but the Vannic inscriptions reveal that Urartu, which had been rising into prominence during the reign of Shalmaneser, had now grown still more powerful, and had begun to reconquer those provinces on the Tigris and Euphrates of which the Assyrians thought themselves the undoubted lords. Sharduris II. had been succeeded, about 828, by his son Ishpuinis, who had perhaps measured his strength against Samsi-raniman IV. Ishpuinis appears to have conquered and reduced to the condition of a province the neighbouring principality of Biainas, which up to that time had been governed by a semi-independent dynasty; at all events, he transferred thence his seat of govern-and made Dhuspas his favourite residence. Towards the end of his reign he associated with him on the throne his son Menuas, and made him commander-in-chief of the army. Menuas proved a bold and successful general, and in a few years had doubled the extent of his dominions. He first delivered from the Assyrian yoke, and plundered on his father's account, the tribes on the borders of Lake Urumiah, Muzazir, Gilzan, and Kirruri; then, crossing the Gordygean mountains, he burnt the towns in the valley of the Upper Zab, which bore the uncouth names of Terais, Ardis, Khanalis, Bikuras, Khatqanas, Inuas, and Nibur, laid waste the more fertile part of Khubushkia, and carved triumphal stelas in the Assyrian and Vannic scripts upon the rocks in the pass of Rowandiz. [Illustration: 156.jpg TRIUMPHAL STELE OF MENUAS AT KELISHIN] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by J. de Morgan. It was probably to recover this territory that Ramman-nirari waged war three times in Khubushkia, in 802, 792, and 785, in a district which had formerly been ruled by a prefect from Nineveh, but had now fallen into the hands of the enemy.* * It is probable that the stele of Kelishin, belonging to the joint reign of Ishpuinis and Menuas, was intended to commemorate the events which led Ramman-nirari to undertake his first expedition; the conquest by Menuas will fall then in 804 or 803 B.C. The inscription of Meher-Kapussi contains the names of the divinities belonging to several conquered towns, and may have been engraved on the return from this war.