It was here, in this productive region, where nature does so much for man, and so little needs to be supplied by himself, that they had grown from a family into a people; that they had learnt or developed a religion, and that they had acquired a knowledge of the most useful and necessary of the arts.

It has been observed in a former chapter that the whole character of the Assyrian architecture is such as to indicate that their style was formed in the low flat alluvium, where there were no natural elevations, and stone was not to be had.

It has also been remarked that their writing is manifestly derived from the Chaldaean; and that their religion is almost identical with that which prevailed in the lower country from a very early time.
The evidence of the monuments accords thus, in the most striking way, with the statement of the Bible, exhibiting to us the Assyrians as a people who had once dwelt to the south, in close contact with the Chaldaeans, and had removed after awhile to a more northern position.
With regard to the date of their removal, we can only say that it was certainly anterior to the time of the Chaldaean kings, Purna-puriyas and Kurri-galzu, who seem to have reigned in the fifteenth century before our era.

If we could be sure that the city called in later times Asshur bore that name when Shamas-Vul, the son of Ismi-Dagon, erected a temple there to Anu and Vul, we might assign to the movement a still higher antiquity for Shamas-Vul belongs to the nineteenth century B.C.

As, however, we have no direct evidence that either the city or the country was known as Asshur until four centuries later, we must be content to lay it down that the Assyrians had moved to the north certainly as early as B.C.1440, and that their removal may not improbably have taken place several centuries earlier.
The motive of the removal is shrouded in complete obscurity.