Assurbanipal, as we have seen, was associated on the throne with his father Esarhaddon in May, B.C. 668, in which year his father died.  He began, therefore, to reign alone in the year B.C. 667.
    The exact duration of his reign cannot be gathered from the Assyrian records.  But, by comparing these records with the Babylonian Canon and other sources of information, it may be inferred, with much probability, that he reigned forty-two years.  From the foregoing history it appears that, on the death of Esarhaddon, whose principal residence was at Babylon, his younger son Saulmugina (the Sammughes of Polyhistor) had been left as viceroy on the throne of Babylon; and, according to the Babylonian Canon, he reigned there twenty years, till the year B.C. 648, when, being found in rebellion against his elder brother Assurbanipal, he was conquered at Babylon, and immediately burnt to death (163).  Saulmugina is corruptly written in the Canon, Saosduchinus.  Again, from the Babylonian Canon we learn that Kineladanus, who, according to Polyhistor, was brother of Sammughes, and therefore brother of Assurbanipal, or Assurbanipal himself, succeeded him at Babylon, and reigned twenty-two years, till the year B.C. 626; after which Nabopalassar came to the throne.  The years of Nabopalassar we know are astronomically fixed, by an eclipse in his third year, as beginning in B.C. 625.  So that the two sons of Esarhaddon, who reigned in succession at Babylon, covered a period of exactly forty-two years, till the reign of Nabopalassar. (History of Assurbanipal, Smith, 1900)