Is it possible in any other way to approach more closely to the beginning of the Assyrian kingdom, the date of its foundation, or the commencement of its conquests? We have already seen how the Pharaohs of Egypt, after driving out the shepherds in the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries B.C., reduced Syria to subjection; how the first and third Tuthmosis, the second and third Amenophis, forced their way beyond Syria to Naharina. The land of Naharina, in the inscriptions of these kings, was certainly not the Aram Naharaim, the high land between the Euphrates and Tigris, in the sense of the books of the Hebrews. It was not Mesopotamia, but simply "the land of the stream (Nahar)." For the Hebrews also Nahar, _i.e._ river, means simply the Euphrates. It has been already shown that the arms of the Egyptians hardly went beyond the Chaboras to the east; and if the inscriptions of Tuthmosis III. represent him as receiving on his sixth campaign against the Syrians, _i.e._ about the year 1584 B.C., the tribute of Urn Assuru, _i.e._ of the chieftain of Asshur, consisting of 50 minæ of lapis-lazuli; if these inscriptions in the year 1579 once more mention among the tribute of the Syrians the tribute of this prince in lapis-lazuli, cedar-trunks, and other wood, it is still uncertain whether the chief of the Assyrians is to be understood by this prince. Had Tuthmosis III. really reached and crossed the Tigris, were Assuru Assyria, then from the description of this prince, and the payment of tribute in lapis-lazuli and cedar-trunks, we could draw the conclusion that Assyria in the first half of the sixteenth century B.C. was still in the commencement of its civilisation, whereas we found above that as early as the beginning of the twentieth century B.C. Babylonia was united into a mighty kingdom, and had made considerable advance in the development of her civilisation.