Esarhaddon, Sennacherib’s son and successor, has likewise left us a number of hexagonal prisms of historic importance. One of the principal events narrated on Esarhaddon’s cylinders is the siege and capture of Sidon and the subjugation of the surrounding country. Ashur-bani-pal, Esarhaddon’s famous son and successor, has left us a number of cylinders and prisms, but by far the most important is that upon which an account of the principal events of the early part of his reign is inscribed (Brit. Mus., No. 91,026). We have here a record of his first and second Egyptian campaigns, of the defeat he inflicted upon Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, and the sack of Thebes, the capital of the country. The capture of Tyre is also narrated and the campaign against Te-Umman, king of Elam, whom Ashur-bani-pal slew and whose severed head is seen hanging from a tree in the bas-relief in which Ashur-bani-pal and his wife are reclining at meat in their garden. There is also an account of the siege and capture of Babylon, whose king Shamash-shum-ukîn had thrown off the suzerainty of Assyria; the conquest of Arabia is recorded as well as the final triumph of the Assyrian arms over Elam, and the text concludes with an account of Ashur-bani-pal’s building operations. We have already alluded to a clay cylinder belonging to the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus, while another cylinder of the same king, which has been discussed elsewhere (cf. p. 7), is equally notable, as a complete system of chronology has been based upon its contents. Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon 604-561 B.C., and belonging to the same dynasty has likewise left us a number of barrel-shaped cylinders, the inscriptions upon which are chiefly concerned with a recital of his building achievements, while to the cylinder of Cyrus the Persian conqueror of Babylonia (538 B.C.) reference has been made elsewhere (cf. p. 74). But the practice of writing cuneiform inscriptions on baked clay cylinders did not even come to an end with the Persian kings of Babylonia, for we have a cylinder (Brit. Mus. 36277) bearing an inscription in archaic Babylonian characters, of Antiochus Soter, king of Babylonia about 280 B.C.; it records the restoration of the temples E-Sagil, and E-zida in Babylon and Borsippa in the year 270 B.C., and concludes with a prayer to the god Nebo on behalf of Antiochus, his son Seleucus and his wife. But besides rectangular, round, barrel-shaped, cylindrical and cone-shaped clay inscriptions, yet other varieties exist. Among these a four-sided block of clay forming an elongated kind of cube, the height of which is 9-1/2 inches and the breadth of each of its four sides 3-3/4 inches (Brit. Mus. No. 92611), deserves a mention; its date is about 2100 B.C., and it is inscribed with lists of the names of fish, birds, plants, stones and garments.