Their antiquity is evidenced by the character of their buildings and of their inscriptions, which are unmistakably rude and archaic.

It is further indicated by the fact that they are the builders of certainly the most ancient edifices whereof the country contains any trace.

The probable connection of two of them with the only king known previously from good authority to have reigned in the country during the primitive ages confirms the conclusion drawn from the appearance of the remains themselves; which is further strengthened by the monumental dates assigned to two of them, which place them respectively in the twenty-third and the nineteenth century before our era.

That the kings belong to one series, and (speaking broadly) to one time, is evidenced by the similarity of the titles which they use, by their uninterrupted worship of the same gods, and by the general resemblance of the language and mode of writing which they employ.
That the time to which they belong is anterior to the rise of Assyria to greatness appears from the synchronism of the later monarchs of the Chaldaean with the earliest of the Assyrian list, as well as from the fact that the names borne by the Babylonian kings after Assyria became the leading power in the country are not only different, but of a different type.

If it be objected that the number of thirty kings is insufficient for the space over which they have in our scheme been spread, we may answer that it has never been, supposed by any one that the twenty-nine or thirty kings, of whom distinct mention has been made in the foregoing account, are a complete list of all the Chaldaean sovereigns.