THE WESTERN SEMITES AND THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON
The rise of Babylon to a position of pre-eminence among the warring
dynasties of Sumer and Akkad may be regarded as sealing the final
triumph of the Semite over the Sumerian. His survival in the long
racial contest was due to the reinforcements he received from men of
his own stock, whereas the Sumerian population, when once settled in
the country, was never afterwards renewed. The great Semitic wave,
under which the Sumerian sank and finally disappeared, reached the
Euphrates from the coast-lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. But
the Amurru, or Western Semites, like their predecessors in Northern
Babylonia, had come originally from Arabia. For it is now generally
recognized that the Arabian peninsula was the first home and cradle of
the Semitic peoples. Arabia, like the plains of Central Asia, was, in
fact, one of the main breeding-grounds of the human race, and during
the historic period we may trace four great migrations of Semitic nomad
tribes, which successively broke away from the northern margin of the
Arabian pasture-lands and spread over the neighbouring countries like
a flood. The first great racial movement of the kind is that of which
the effects were chiefly apparent in Akkad, or Northern Babylonia,
where the Semites first obtained a footing when overrunning the valley
of the Tigris and Euphrates. The second is distinguished from the
first, as the Canaanite or Amorite, since it gave to Canaan its Semitic
inhabitants; but how long an interval separated the one movement from
the other it is impossible to say. The process may well have been
a continuous one, with merely a change in the direction of advance;
but it is convenient to distinguish them by their effects as separate
movements, the sensitization of Canaan following that of Babylonia, but
at the same time contributing to its complete success. Of the later
migrations we are not for the moment concerned, and in any case only
one of them falls within the period of this history. That was the third
great movement, which began in the fourteenth century and has been
termed the Aramean from the kingdom it established in Syria with its
capital at Damascus. The fourth, and last, took place in the seventh
century of our own era, when the armies of Islam, after conquering
Western Asia and Northern Africa, penetrated even to South-Western
Europe. It was by far the most extensive of the four in the area it
covered, and, in spite of being the last of the series, it illustrates
the character and methods of the earlier movements in their initial
stages, when the desert nomad, issuing in force from his own borders,
came within the area of settled civilization.
It is true that great tracts of Central Arabia are to-day quite
uninhabitable, but there is reason to believe that its present
condition of aridity was not so marked in earlier periods. We have
definite proof of this in the interior of Southern Arabia, where
there is still a belt of comparatively fertile country between the
flat coastal regions and the steep mountain range, that forms the
southern boundary of the central plateau.[1] On the coast itself
there is practically no rainfall, and even on the higher slopes away
from the coast it is very scanty. Here the herds of goats frequently
go without water for many weeks, and they have learnt to pull up and
chew the fleshy roots of a species of cactus to quench their thirst.
But further still inland there is a broad belt of country, which is
marvellously fertile and in a high state of cultivation. The rainfall
there is regular during a portion of the year, the country is timbered,
and the main mountain range, though possessing no towns of any size,
is thickly dotted with strong fighting towers, which dominate the
well-farmed and flourishing villages. To the north of the range, beyond
the cultivation, is a belt roamed over by the desert-nomads with their
typical black tents of woven goat-hair, and then comes the central
desert, a region of rolling sand. But here and there the ruins of
palaces and temples may still be seen rising from the sand or built on
some slight eminence above its level.
At the time of the Sabæan kingdom, as early as the sixth century
B.C., this region of Southern Arabia must have been far more fertile
than it is at the present day. The shifting sand, under the driving
pressure of the simoom, doubtless played its part in overwhelming
tracts of cultivated country; but that alone cannot account for the
changed conditions. The researches of Stein, Pumpelly, Huntington and
others have shown the results of desiccation in Central Asia,[2]and
it is certain that a similar diminution of the rainfall has taken
place in the interior of Southern Arabia.[3] To such climatic changes,
which seem, according to the latest theories, to occur in recurrent
cycles,[4] we may probably trace the great racial migrations from
Central Arabia, which have given their inhabitants to so many countries
of Western Asia and North Africa.
It is possible to form a very clear picture of the Semite who issued
from this region, for the life of the pastoral nomad, all the world
over, is the same.[5] And even at the present day, in the hollows of
the Arabian desert, there is enough deposit of moisture to allow of a
sufficient growth of grass for pasture-lands, capable of supporting
nomadic tribes, who move with their flocks of sheep and goats from
one more favoured area to another. The life of such a nomad is
forced into one mould by the conditions imposed by the desert; for
the grass-land cannot support him and he must live on the milk and
young of his flocks. He is purely a shepherd, carrying with him the
simplest and lightest tents, tools, and weapons for his needs. The type
of society is that of the patriarchal family, for each nomad tribe
consists of a group of relatives; and, under the direction of their
chief, not only the men of the clan, but the women and children, all
take an active part in tending the flocks and in practising the simple
arts of skin-curing and the weaving of hair and wool. So long as the
pasture-lands can support his flocks, the nomad is content to leave
the settled agriculturist beyond the desert edge in peace. Some of the
semi-nomad tribes upon the margin of the cultivation may engage in
barter with their more civilised neighbours, and even at times demand
subsidies for leaving their crops in peace. But the bulk of the tribes
would normally remain within their own area, while conditions existed
which were capable of supplying the needs of their simple life. It is
when the pasture lands dry up that the nomad must leave his own area
or perish, and it is then that he descends upon the cultivation and
proceeds to adapt himself to new conditions, should he conquer the
settled races whose higher culture he himself absorbs.
While still held within the grip of the desert, there was never any
prospect of his development or advance in civilization. The only great
changes that have taken place in the life of the Arabian nomad have
been due to the introduction of the horse and the camel. But these
have merely increased his mobility, while leaving the man himself
unchanged. The Arabs of the seventh century b.c., depicted in the
reliefs from Nineveh as fleeing on their camels before the advance of
the Assyrians, can have differed in no essential feature from their
earliest predecessors, who made their way to the Euphrates valley
on foot or with only the ass as a beast of burden. For, having once
succeeded in domesticating his flocks and in living by their means
upon the rolling steppes of pasture-land, the nomad's needs are fully
satisfied, and his ways of life survive through succeeding generations.
He cannot accumulate possessions, as he must be able to carry all his
goods continually with him, and his knowledge of the uneventful past
is derived entirely from oral tradition. The earliest inscriptions
recovered in Arabia are probably not anterior to the sixth century
b.c., and they were naturally not the work of nomads, but of Semitic
tribes who had forsaken their wanderings for the settled life of
village and township in the more hospitable regions of the south.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.
ARABS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY B.C.
From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery
of the British Museum.]
The Amurru, or Western Semites, to whose incursion into Babylonia the
rise of Babylon itself was directly due, had long abandoned a nomadic
existence, and in addition to the higher standards of the agriculturist
had acquired a civilization which had been largely influenced by that
of Babylonia. Thanks to the active policy of excavation, carried out
during the last twenty-five years in Palestine, we are enabled to
reconstruct the conditions of life which prevailed in that country
from a very early period. It is, in fact, now possible to trace the
successive stages of Canaanite civilization back to neolithic times.
Rude flint implements of the palaeolithic or Older Stone Age have also
been found on the surface of the plains of Palestine, where they had
lain since the close of the glacial epoch. But at that time the climate
and character of the Mediterranean lands were very different to their
present condition; and a great break of unknown length then occurs in
the cultural sequence, which separates that primæval period from the
neolithic or Later Stone Age. It is to this second era that we may
trace the real beginnings of Canaanite civilization. For, from that
time onwards, there is no break in the continuity of culture, and each
age was the direct heir of that which preceded it.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.
ARABS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY B.C.
From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery
of the British Museum.]
The neolithic inhabitants of Canaan, whose implements of worked and
polished stone mark a great advance upon the rough flints of their
remote predecessors, belonged to the short, dark-skinned race which
spread itself over the shores of the Mediterranean. Dwelling in rude
huts, they employed for household use rough vessels of kneaded clay
which they fashioned by hand and baked in the fire. They lived chiefly
by the cattle and flocks they had domesticated, and, to judge by
their clay spindle-whorls, they practised a simple form of weaving,
and began to clothe themselves with cloth in place of skins. Over
these primitive inhabitants a fresh tide of migration swept, probably
in the early part of the third millennium B.C. The new-comers were
Semites from Arabia, of the same stock as those nomadic hordes who had
already overrun Babylonia and had established themselves in a great
part of that country. After they had settled in Canaan and Syria they
were known to the Babylonians as the Amurru or Amorites. They were
taller and more vigorous than the neolithic Canaanites, and they seem
to have brought with them a knowledge of the use of metal, acquired
probably by traffic with southern Babylonia.[6] The flint arrows and
knives of their enemies would have had little chance against weapons
of copper and bronze. But, whether helped by their superior armament
or not, they became the dominant race in Canaan. By intermarrying with
their predecessors they produced the Canaanites of history, a people
of Semitic speech, but with a varying admixture in their blood of the
dark-skinned Mediterranean race of lower type.
Such in origin was the Canaanite branch of the Western Semites, and
it may be worth while to glance for a moment at the main features of
their culture as revealed by excavation in Palestine.[7] One thing
stands out clearly: they revolutionized conditions of life in Canaan.
The rude huts of the first settlers were superseded by houses of
brick and stone, and, in place of villages, cities rose surrounded
by massive walls. The city-wall of Gezer was more than thirteen feet
thick and was defended by strong towers. That of Megiddo was twenty-six
feet in thickness, and its foot was further protected by a slope, or
_glacis,_ of beaten earth. To secure their water-supply in time of
siege, the arrangements were equally thorough. At Gezer, for example,
a huge tunnel was found, hewn in the solid rock, which gave access to
an abundant spring of water over ninety feet below the surface of the
ground. Not only had the earlier nomad adopted the agricultural life,
but he soon evolved a system of defence for his settlements, suggested
by the hilly character of his new country and its ample supply of
stone.[8] Not less remarkable is the light thrown by the excavations
on details of Canaanite worship. The centre of each town was the high
place, where huge monoliths were erected, some of them, when unearthed,
still worn and polished by the kisses of their worshippers. At Gezer
ten such monoliths were discovered in a row, and it is worth noting
that they were erected over a sacred cave of the neolithic inhabitants,
proving that the ancient sanctuary was taken over by the Semitic
invaders. The religious centres inherited by the Ba'alîm, or local
"Lords" of Canaanite worship, had evidently been sanctified by long
tradition. In the soil beneath the high places both at Gezer and at
Megiddo numbers of jars were found containing the bodies of children,
and we may probably see in this fact evidence of infant-sacrifice,
the survival of which into later periods is attested by Hebrew
tradition. In the cultural remains of these Semitic invaders a distinct
development is discernible. During the earlier period there is scarcely
a trace of foreign influence, but later on we find importations from
both Babylonia and Egypt.
It is but natural that southern and central Canaan should have long
remained inaccessible to outside influence, and that the effects of
Babylonian civilization should have been confined at first to eastern
Syria and to the frontier districts scattered along the middle course
of the Euphrates. Recent digging by natives so far to the north as the
neighbourhood of Carchemish, for example, have revealed some remarkable
traces of connexion with Babylonia at a very early period.[9] In graves
at Hammam, a village on the Euphrates near the mouth of the Sajûr,
cylinder-seals were found which exhibit unmistakable analogies to
very early Babylonian work;[10] and the use of this form of seal at a
period anterior to the First Dynasty of Babylon is in itself proof that
Babylonian influence had reached the frontier of Syria by the great
trade-route up the course of the Euphrates, along which the armies of
Sargon of Akkad had already marched in their raid to the Mediterranean
coast.[11] It is not improbable, too, that Carchemish herself sent
her own products at this time to Babylon, for one class of her local
pottery at any rate appears to have been valued by other races and
to have formed an article of export. At the time of the later kings
of the First Dynasty a special kind of large clay vessel, in use in
Northern Babylonia, was known as "a Carchemisian," and was evidently
manufactured at Carchemish and exported.[12] The trade was no doubt
encouraged by the close relations established under Hammurabi and his
successors with the West, but its existence points to the possibility
of still earlier commercial intercourse, such as would explain the
occurrence of archaic Babylonian cylinder-seals in early graves in the
neighbourhood.
But, apart from such trade relations, there is nothing to suggest that
the early culture of Carchemish and its adjacent districts had been
effected to any great extent by that of Babylon, nor is there any
indication that the inhabitants of the early city were Semites. Indeed,
the archæological evidence is entirely in favour of the opposite view.
The bronze age at Carchemish and its neighbourhood is distinguished
from the preceding period by the use of metal, by different burial
customs, and by new types of pottery, and must be regarded as marking
the advent of a foreign people. But throughout the bronze age itself at
Carchemish, from its beginning in the third millennium to its close in
the eleventh century B.C., there is a uniform development.[13] There is
no sudden outcrop of new types such as had marked its own beginning,
and, since in its later periods it was essentially Hittite, we may
assume that it was neither inaugurated nor interrupted by the Semites.
Its earlier representatives, before the great Hittite migration from
Anatolia, may well have been a branch of that proto-Mitannian stock,
itself possibly of Anatolian origin, evidence of whose presence we
shall note at Ashur before the rise of Babylon's First Dynasty.[14]
[Illustration: X. The Citadel Mound of Carchemish from the north-west.
After Hogarth, Carchemish, Pl. 1A]
Carchemish lies out of the direct road from Babylon to Northern Syria,
and it is remarkable that any trace of early Babylonian influence
should have been found so far to the north as the mouth of the Sajûr.
It is farther down stream, after the Euphrates has turned eastward
towards its junction with the Khâbûr, that we should expect to find
evidence of a more striking character; and it is precisely there, along
the river route from Syria to Akkad, that we have recovered definite
proof, at the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon, of the existence of
Amorite or West-Semitic settlements with a culture that was Babylonian
in its essential features. The evidence is drawn mainly from one
district, the kingdom of Khana, which lay not far from the mouth of
the Khâbûr. One of the chief towns, and probably the capital of the
kingdom, was Tirka, the site of which probably lay near Tell 'Ashar or
Tell 'Ishar, a place situated between Dêr ez-Zôr and Sâlihîya and about
four hours from the latter. The identification is certain, since an
Assyrian inscription of the ninth century was found there, recording
the rebuilding of the local temple which is stated in the text to
have been "in Tirka."[15] From about this region three tablets have
also been recovered, all dating from the period of the First Dynasty
of Babylon and throwing considerable light on the character of West
Semitic culture in a district within the reach of Babylonian influence.
One of these documents records a deed of gift by which Isharlim, a king
of Khana, conveys to one of his subjects a house in a village within
the district of Tirka.[16] On a second document is inscribed a similar
deed of gift by which another king of the same district, Ammi-baïl,
the son of Shunu'-rammu, bestows two plots of land on a certain
Pagirum, described as "his servant," evidently in return for faithful
service;[17] and, as one of the plots was in Tirka, it is probable that
the deed was drawn up in that city. The third document is perhaps the
most interesting of the three, since it contains a marriage-contract
and is dated in the reign of a king who bears the name of Hammurabih.
This last ruler has by some been confidently regarded as identical with
Hammurabi of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and it has been assumed that
it was drawn up at a time when Khana had been conquered and annexed by
that monarch, of whose advance into that region we have independent
evidence.[18] But since the tablet appears to be the latest of the
three, it is clear that Khana had been subject to Babylonian influence
long before Hammurabi's conquest. And, even if we regard Hammurabih
as no more than a local king of Khana, the document has furnished us
with a West-Semitic variant of Hammurabi's name, or one that is closely
parallel to it.
The remarkable fact about all these texts is that they are drawn up
in the style of legal documents of the period of the First Dynasty
of Babylon. But, while the terminology is much the same, it has been
adapted to local conditions. The early Babylonian method of dating by
events[19] has been taken over, but the formulas are not those in use
at this period in Babylonia, but are peculiar to the kingdom of Khana.
Thus the first deed of gift is dated in the year when Isharlim, the
king, built the great gate of the palace in the city of Kash-dakh;
the second was drawn up in the year in which Ammi-baïl, the king,
ascended the throne in his father's house; while the marriage-contract
is dated in the year that Hammurabih, the king, opened the canal
Khabur-ibal-bugash from the city of Zakku-Isharlim to the city of
Zakku-Igitlim.[20] The names of the months, too, are not those of
Babylon,[21] and we find evidence that local laws and customs were
in force. Each of the deeds of gift, for example, provides that any
infringement of the rights bestowed by the king is to be punished by a
money-fine of ten manehs of silver, and in addition the delinquent is
to undergo the quaint but doubtless very painful process of having his
head tarred with hot tar. From the list of witnesses we gather that
the community was already organized much on the lines of a provincial
district of Babylonia. For, though we find a cultivator or farmer
occupying an important position, we meet also a superintendent of the
merchants, another of the bakers, a chief judge, a chief seer, and
members of the priesthood. It is interesting, too, to note that the
kings of Khana were still great landowners, to judge from the fact that
the lands conveyed in the deeds of gift were surrounded on almost every
side by palace-property. At the same time the chief gods of Khana are
associated with the king in the oath-formulæ, since the royal property
was also regarded as the property of the Ba'al, or divine "Lord" of the
soil.
The two chief Baalim or "Lords" of Khana were the Sun-god and the
West-Semitic deity, Dagon. The latter is constantly referred to in
the documents under the Babylonian form of his name, Dagan. He stood
beside Shamash on the royal seal and in the local oath-formulæ, and
is associated in the latter with Iturmer, who may well have been the
old local god of Tirka, deposed after the invasion of the Semites. His
temple in Tirka, which we know survived until the ninth century,[22]
was probably the chief shrine of the city, and the great part he
played in the national life is attested by the constant occurrence of
his title as a component part of personal names.[23] Later evidence
proves that Dagon was peculiarly the god of Ashdod, and the princely
writer of two of the letters from Tell el-Amarna, who bore the name
Dagan-takala, must have ruled some district of northern or central
Canaan. The Khana documents prove that already at the time of the First
Dynasty his cult was established on the Euphrates, and, in view of
this fact, the occurrence of two early kings of the Babylonian Dynasty
of Nîsin with the names of Idin-Dagan and Ishme-Dagan is certainly
significant. We know, too, that the original home of Ishbi-Ura, the
founder of the Dynasty of Nîsin, was Mari, a city and district on
the middle Euphrates.[24] We may conclude, then, that the Dynasties
of Nîsin and Babylon, and probably that of Larsa, were products of
the same great racial movement, and that, more than a century before
Sumu-abum established his throne at Babylon, Western Semites had
descended the Euphrates and had penetrated into the southern districts
of the country.
The new-comers probably owed their speedy success in Babylonia in great
part to the fact that many of the immigrant tribes had already acquired
the elements of Babylonian culture. During their previous residence
within the sphere of settled civilization they had adopted a way of
life and a social organization which differed but little from that of
the country into which they came. That they should have immigrated at
all in a south-easterly direction, in preference to remaining within
their own borders, was doubtless due to racial pressure to which they
themselves had been subjected. Canaan was still in a ferment of unrest
in consequence of the arrival of fresh nomad tribes within her settled
districts, and, while many were doubtless diverted southwards towards
the Egyptian border, others pressed northwards into Syria, exerting
an outward pressure in their advance. That the West-Semitic invasion
of Babylonia differed so essentially from that of Egypt by the Hyksos
is to be explained by this fringe of civilized settlements and petty
kingdoms, which formed a check upon the nomad hordes behind them and
dominated such of them as succeeded in breaking through. In Egypt the
damage wrought by the Semitic barbarians was remembered for generations
after their expulsion,[25] whereas in Babylonia the invaders succeeded
in establishing a dynasty which gave its permanent form to Babylonian
civilization.
Nîsin, the city in which, as we have seen, we first obtain an
indication of the presence of West-Semitic rulers, probably lay in
Southern Babylonia, and we may picture the earlier immigrants as
descending the course of the Euphrates until they found an opportunity
of establishing themselves in the Babylonian plain. The Elamite
conquest, which put an end to the dynasty of Ur, and stripped Babylonia
of her eastern provinces,[26] afforded Nîsin the opportunity of
claiming the hegemony. Ishbi-Ura, the founder of the new dynasty of
kings, established his own family upon the throne for nearly a century,
and we may probably regard his success in bringing his city to the
front as due to the Semitic elements in Southern Babylonia, recently
reinforced by fresh accretions from the north-west. The centralization
of authority under the later kings of Ur had led to abuses in the
administration, and to the revolt of the Elamite provinces; and when an
invading army appeared before the capital and carried the king, whom
his courtiers had deified, to captivity in Elam,[27] Sumerian prestige
received a blow from which it never recovered.
Shortly after Ishbi-Ura had established himself in Nîsin, we find
another noble, who bore the Semitic name Naplanum, following his
example, and founding an independent line of rulers in the neighbouring
city of Larsa. But, in spite of the Semitic names borne by these two
leaders and by the kings who succeeded them in their respective cities,
it is clear that no great change took place in the character of the
population. The commercial and administrative documents of the Nîsin
period closely resemble those of the Dynasty of Ur, and evidently
reflect an unbroken sequence in the course of the national life.[28]
The great bulk of the southern Babylonians were still Sumerian, and we
may regard the new dynasties both at Nîsin and Larsa as representing
a comparatively small racial aristocracy, which by organizing the
national forces in resistance to the Elamites, had succeeded in
imposing their own rule upon the native population. At Nîsin the
unbroken succession of five rulers is evidence of a settled state of
affairs, and though Gimil-ilishu reigned for no more than ten years,
his son and grandson, as well as his father, Ishbi-Ura, all had long
reigns. At Larsa, too, we find Emisu and Samum, who succeeded Naplanum,
the founder of the dynasty, each retaining the throne for more than
a generation. It is probable that the Sumerians accepted their new
rulers without question, and that the latter attempted to introduce no
startling innovations into their system of administrative control.
Of the two contemporaneous dynasties in Southern Babylonia, there is no
doubt that Nîsin was the more important. Not only have we the direct
evidence of the Nippur Kings' List that it was to Nîsin the hegemony
passed from Ur,[29] but what votive texts and building-records have
been recovered prove that its rulers extended their sway over other of
the great cities of Sumer and Akkad. A fragmentary text of Idin-Dagan,
the son and successor of Gimil-ilishu, found at Abû Habba, proves that
Sippar acknowledged his authority,[30] and inscribed bricks of his own
son Ishme-Dagan have been found in the south at Ur.[31]
In all their inscriptions, too, the kings of Nîsin lay claim to the
rule of Sumer and Akkad, while Ishme-Dagan and his son Libit-Ishtar[32]
adopt further descriptive titles implying beneficent activities on
their part in the cities of Nippur, Ur, Erech and Eridu. The recently
published inscriptions of Libit-Ishtar, which were recovered during the
American excavations at Nippur, prove that in his reign the central
city and shrine of Babylonia were under Nîsin's active control. But he
was the last king in the direct line from Ishbi-Ura, and it is probable
that the break in the succession may be connected with a temporary
depression in the fortunes of the city; for we shortly have evidence
of an increase in the power of Larsa, in consequence of which the city
of Ur acknowledged her suserainty in place of that of Nîsin. At the
time of Libit-Ishtar's death Zabâia was reigning at Larsa, but after
three years the latter was succeeded by Gungunum, who not only bore the
titles of king of Larsa and of Ur, but laid claim to the rule of Sumer
and Akkad.
At any rate, one member of the old dynastic family of Nîsin
acknowledged these new claims. Enannatum, Libit-Ishtar's brother,
was at this time chief priest of the Moon-temple in Ur, and on cones
discovered at Mukayyar he commemorates the rebuilding of the Sun-temple
at Larsa for the preservation of his own life and that of Gungunum.[33]
It is possible that when Ur-Ninib secured the throne of Nîsin, the
surviving members of Ishbi-Ura's family fled from the city to its
rival, and that Enannatum, one of the most powerful of their number,
and possibly the direct heir to his brother's throne, was installed
by Gungunum in the high-priestly office at Ur. It would be tempting
to connect Libit-Ishtar's fall with a fresh incursion of West-Semitic
tribes, who, recking little of any racial connexion with themselves
on the part of the reigning family at Nîsin may have attacked the
city with some success until defeated and driven off by Ur-Ninib. We
now know that Ur-Ninib conducted a successful campaign against the Su
tribes on the west of Babylonia,[34] and in support of the suggestion
it would be possible to cite the much discussed date-formula upon a
tablet in the British Museum, which was drawn up in "the year in which
the Amurru drove out Libit-Ishtar."[35] But since the Libit-Ishtar
of the formula has no title, it is also possible to identify him
with a provincial governor, probably of Sippar, who bore the name of
Libit-Ishtar, and seems to be referred to on other documents inscribed
in the reign of Apil-Sin, the grandfather of Hammurabi.[36] The date
assigned to the invasion on the second alternative would correspond to
another period of unrest at Nîsin, which followed the long reign of
Enlil-bani, so that on either alternative we may conjecture that the
city of Nîsin was affected for a time by a new incursion of Amorites.
Whether the fall of Libit-Ishtar may be traced to such a cause or not,
we now know that it was during the reigns of Ur-Ninib and Gungunum,
at Nîsin and at Larsa respectively, that a West-Semitic Dynasty was
established at Babylon. Northern Babylonia now fell under the political
control of the invaders, and it is significant of the new direction
of their advance that the only conflict connected in later tradition
with the name of Sumu-abum, the founder of Babylon's independent line
of rulers, was not with either of the dominant cities in Sumer, but
with Assyria in the far north. On a late chronicle it is recorded that
Ilu-shûma, King of Assyria, marched against Su-abu, or Sumu-abum,[37]
and though the result of the encounter is not related, we may assume
that his motive in making the attack was to check encroachments of the
invaders towards the north and drive them southward into Babylonia.
Ilu-shûma's own name is purely Semitic, and since the Amorite god
Dagan enters into the composition of a name borne by more than one
early Assyrian ruler, we may assume that Assyria received her Semitic
population at about this period as another offshoot of the Amorite
migration.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.
HEAD OF AN ARCHAIC LIMESTONE FIGURE FROM ASHUR.
The primitive character of the sculpture is apparent, and the inlaying
of the eyes with shell is characteristic of early work in Babylonia.
The figure is possibly that of a female.
(After _Mitt. der Deutsch. Orient-Gesellschaft,_ No. 54, p. 9.)]
This assumption does not rest entirely on evidence supplied by the
royal names, but finds indirect confirmation in recent archæological
research. The excavations on the site of Ashur, the earliest Assyrian
capital, tend to show that the first settlements in that country, of
which we have recovered traces, were made by a people closely akin to
the Sumerians of Southern Babylonia.[38] It was in the course of work
upon a temple dedicated to Ishtar, the national goddess of Assyria,
that remains were found of very early periods of occupation. Below the
foundation of the later building a still older temple was found, also
dedicated to that goddess. Incidentally this building has an interest
of its own, for it proved to be the earliest temple yet discovered
in Assyria, dating, as it probably does, from the close of the third
millennium B.C. Still deeper excavation, below the level of this
primitive Assyrian shrine, revealed a stratum in which were several
examples of rude sculpture, apparently representing, not Semites, but
the early non-Semitic inhabitants of Southern Babylonia.
The extremely archaic character of the work is well illustrated by a
head, possibly that of a female figure,[39] in which the inlaying of
the eyes recalls a familiar practice in early work from Babylonia. But
the most striking evidence was furnished by heads of male figures,
which, if offered for sale without a knowledge of their _provenance,_
would undoubtedly have been accepted as coming from Tello or Bismâya,
the sites of the early Sumerian cities of Lagash and Adab. The racial
type presented by the heads appears to be purely Sumerian, and, though
one figure at least is bearded, the Sumerian practice of shaving the
head was evidently in vogue.[40]
[Illustration: FIG. 35. FIG. 36.
HEADS OF ARCHAIC MALE FIGURES FROM ASHUR AND TELLO.
A marked feature of both heads is the shaven scalp, exhibiting a
characteristic Sumerian practice. Fig. 35 is from Ashur, Fig. 36 from
Tello. (After _M.D.O.G.,_ No. 54, p. 12, and De Sarzec, _Découvertes en
Chaldée,_ pl. 6, No. 1.)]
In other limestone figures, of which the bodies have been preserved,
the treatment of the garments corresponds precisely to that in archaic
Sumerian sculpture. The figures wear the same rough woollen garments,
and the conventionalized treatment of the separate flocks of wool
is identical in both sets of examples.[41] The evidence is not yet
fully published, but, so far as it is available, it suggests that the
Sumerians, whose presence has hitherto been traced only upon sites in
Southern Babylonia, were also at a very early period in occupation of
Assyria.
The violent termination of their settlement at Ashur is attested by
an abundance of charred remains, which separate the Sumerian stratum
from that immediately above it. Had we no evidence to the contrary, it
might have been assumed that their successors were of the same stock
as those early Semitic invaders who dominated Northern Babylonia early
in the third millennium B.C., and pushed eastward across the Tigris
into Gutium. But it is recognized that the founders of the historic
city of Ashur, records of whose achievements have been recovered in
the early building-inscriptions, bear names which are quite un-Semitic
in character. There is a good deal to be said for regarding Ushpia,
or Aushpia, the traditional founder of the great temple of the god
Ashir,[42] and Kikia, the earliest builder of the city's wall,[43] as
representing the first arrival of the Mitannian race, which in the
fourteenth century played, under new leadership, so dominant a part in
the politics of Western Asia.[44] Not only have their names a Mitannian
sound, but we have undoubted evidence of the worship of the Mitannian
and Hittite god Teshub as early as the period of the First Dynasty of
Babylon; and the fact that the Mitannian name, which incorporates that
of the deity, is borne by a witness on a Babylonian contract, suggests
that he came of a civilized and settled race.[45]
It is true that the name Mitanni is not met with at this period, but
the geographical term Subartu is,[46] and in later tradition was
regarded as having ranked with Akkad, Elam and Amurru as one of the
four quarters of the ancient civilized world.
[Illustration: FIG. 37. FIG. 38. FIG. 39.
EXAMPLES OF ARCHAIC SCULPTURE FROM ASHUR AND TELLO, EXHIBITING THE SAME
CONVENTION IN THE TREATMENT OF WOOLLEN GARMENTS.
The seated statuette (Fig. 37) is from Ashur, and the treatment of the
garment is precisely similar to that in early Tello work (Figs. 38 and
39). (After _M.D.O.G.,_ No. 54, p. 18, and _Déc._ pl. 2 (_bis,_) No.
1, and pl. 21 (_ter,_) No. 3.)] In the astrological and omen texts,
which incorporate very early traditions, the references to Shubartu
are interpreted as applying to Assyria,[47] but the term evidently had
an earlier connotation before the rise of Assyria to power. It may
well have included the North-Mesopotamian region known afterwards as
the land of Mitanni, whose rulers are found in temporary occupation
of Nineveh, as their predecessors may have established themselves at
Ashur. But, however that may be, it is clear that the historic city of
Ashur was not in its origin either a Sumerian or a Semitic foundation.
Its later racial character must date from the period of the Western
Semites, whose amalgamation with an alien and probably Anatolian
strain, which they found there, may account in part for the warlike and
brutal character of the Assyrians of history, so striking a contrast to
that of the milder and more commercial Semites who settled in the lower
Euphrates valley. As in Babylonia, the language and to a great extent
the features of the Semite eventually predominated; and the other
element in the composition of the race survived only in an increased
ferocity of temperament.
This was the people of whose attack on Sumu-abum, the founder of
Babylon's greatness, later ages preserved the tradition. No conflict
with Assyria is commemorated in Sumu-abum's date-formulæ, and it is
possible that it took place before he secured his throne in Babylon,
and built the great fortification-wall of the city with which he
inaugurated his reign. When once he was settled there and had placed
the town in a state of defence, he began to extend his influence
over neighbouring cities in Akkad. Kibalbarru, which he fortified
with a city-wall in his third year, was probably in the immediate
neighbourhood of Babylon, and we know that Dilbat, the fortification
of which was completed in his ninth year, lay only about seventeen
miles south of the capital.[48] The five years which separated these
two efforts at expansion were uneventful from the point of view of
political achievement, for the only noteworthy episodes recorded
were the building of a temple to the goddess Nin-Sinna and another
to Nannar, the Moon-god, in which he afterwards set up a great cedar
door. It may be that the conflict with Assyria should be set in this
interval; but we should then have expected some sort of reference to
the successful repulse of the enemy, and it is preferable to place it
before his first year of rule.
His success in the encounter with Assyria may well have afforded this
West-Semitic chieftain the opportunity of fortifying one of the great
towns of Akkad, and of establishing himself there as its protector
against the danger of aggression from the north; and there is no doubt
that Babylon had long had some sort of local governor, the traditions
of whose office he inherited. Since we have references to E-sagila in
the time of the Dynasties of Akkad and of Ur,[49] the former rulers
of Babylon were probably no more than the chief priests of Marduk's
sanctuary. That Sumu-abum should have changed the office to that of
king, and that his successor should have succeeded in establishing a
dynasty that endured for nearly three centuries, is evidence of the
unabated energy of the new settlers. Even the later members of the
dynasty retained their original West-Semitic character,[50] and this
fact, coupled with the speedy control of other cities than Babylon,
suggests that the Western Semites had now arrived in far greater
numbers than during their earlier migration farther down the Euphrates.
It is possible to trace the gradual growth of Babylon's influence in
Akkad under her new rulers, and the stages by which she threw out her
control over an increasing area of territory. At Dilbat, for example,
she had no difficulties from the very first, and during almost the
whole period of the First Dynasty the government of the city was
scarcely distinguishable from that of Babylon. The god Urash and
the goddess Lagamal were the patron deities of Dilbat, around whose
cult the life of the city centred; and there was a local secular
administration. But the latter was completely subordinate to the
capital, and no effort was made, nor apparently was one required, to
retain a semblance of local independence. The treatment of Sippar, on
the other hand, was rather different. Here Sumu-abum appears to have
recognized the local ruler as his vassal; and, as a further concession
to its semi-independent state, he allowed the town the privilege of
continuing to use its own date-formulæ, derived from local events.[51]
Oaths, it is true, had to be taken in the king of Babylon's name and
in that of the great Sun-god of Sippar; but the city could arrange and
use its own system of time-reckoning without reference to the capital's
affairs. Perhaps the most interesting example of Babylon's early system
of provincial government is that presented by the city of Kish, for we
can there trace the gradual extension of her control from a limited
suzerainty to complete annexation.
Kish lay far nearer to Babylon than Dilbat,[52] but it had a more
illustrious past to inspire it than the other city. It had played a
great part in the earlier history of Sumer and Akkad, and at the time
of the West-Semitic occupation of Babylon it was still governed by
independent kings. We have recovered an inscription of one such ruler,
Ashduni-erim, who may well have been Sumu-abum's contemporary, for the
record reflects a state of affairs such as would have been caused by
a hostile invasion and gradual conquest of the country.[53] Although
Ashduni-erim lays claim only to the kingdom of Kish, he speaks in
grandiloquent terms of the invasion, relating how the four quarters of
the world revolted against him. For eight years he fought against the
enemy, so that in the eighth year his army was reduced to three hundred
men. But the city-god Zamama and Ishtar, his consort, then came to
his succour and brought him supplies of food. With this encouragement
he marched out for a whole day, and then for forty days he placed the
enemy's land under contribution; and he closes his inscription rather
abruptly by recording that he rebuilt the wall of Kish. The clay cone
was probably a foundation-record, which he buried within the structure
of the city-wall.
Ashduni-erim does not refer to his enemy by name, but it is to be
noted that the hostile territory lay within a day's march of Kish, a
description that surely points to Babylon. The eight years of conflict
fit in admirably with the suggestion, for we know that it was in
Sumu-abum's tenth year, exactly eight years after his occupation of
Kibalbarru, that his suzerainty was acknowledged in Kish. Sumu-abum
named that year of his reign after his dedication of a crown to the
god Anu of Kish,[54] and we may conjecture that Ashduni-erim, weakened
by the long conflict which he describes, came to terms with his
stronger neighbour and accepted the position of a vassal. Having given
guarantees for his fidelity, he would have received Sumu-abum in Kish,
where the latter as the suzerain of the city performed the dedication
he commemorated in his date-formula for that year. This would fully
explain the guarded terms in which Ashduni-erim refers to the enemy
in his inscription, the rebuilding of the city-wall having, on this
supposition, been undertaken with Babylon's consent.[55]
[Illustration: HAMMURABI RECEIVING HIS LAWS FROM THE SUN GOD. After
Délég. en Perse, Mém. IV, pl. 3]
That Kish was accorded the position of a vassal state is certain, for,
among contract-tablets recovered from the city, several were drawn up
in the reign of Mananâ, who was Sumu-abum's vassal. In these documents
the oath is taken in Mananâ's name, but they are dated by the formula
for Sumu-abum's thirteenth year, commemorating his capture of Kazallu.
The importance of the latter event may be held to explain the use of
the suzerain's own formula, for other documents in Mananâ's reign are
dated by local events, proving that at Kish, as at Sippar, a vassal
city of Babylon was allowed the privilege of retaining its own system
of time-reckoning. If we are right in regarding Ashduni-erim as
Sumu-abum's contemporary, it is clear that he must have been succeeded
by Mananâ within three years of his capitulation to Babylon. During the
next few years the throne of Kish was occupied by at least three rulers
in quick succession, Sumu-ditana, Iawium, and Khalium,[56] for we know
that by the thirteenth year of Sumu-la-ilum, who succeeded Sumu-abum
on the throne of Babylon, the city of Kish had revolted and had been
finally annexed.
The conquest of Kazallu, winch Sumu-abum carried out in the last
year but one of his reign, was the most important of Babylon's early
victories, for it marked an extension of her influence beyond the
limits of Akkad. The city appears to have lain to the east of the
Tigris, and the two most powerful empires in the past history of
Babylonia had each come into active conflict with it during the early
years of their existence. Its conquest by Akkad was regarded in
Babylonian tradition as the most notable achievement of Sargon's reign;
and at a later period Dungi of Ur, after capturing the Elamite border
city of Dêr, had extended his empire to the north or east by including
Kazallu within its borders.[57] Sumu-abum's conquest was probably
little more than a successful raid, for in the reign of Sumu-la-ilum
Kazallu in its turn attacked Babylon, and, by fully occupying her
energies, delayed her southward expansion for some years.
In the earlier part of his reign Sumu-la-ilum appears to have
devoted himself to consolidating the position his predecessor had
secured and to improving the internal resources of his kingdom. The
Shamash-khegallum Canal, which he cut immediately on his accession,
lay probably in the neighbourhood of Sippar; and later on he further
improved the country's system of irrigation by a second canal to
which he gave his own name.[58] The policy he thus inaugurated was
energetically maintained by his successors, and much of Babylon's
wealth and prosperity under her early kings may be traced to the
care they lavished on increasing the area of land under cultivation.
Sumu-la-ilum also rebuilt the great fortification-wall of his capital,
but during his first twelve years he records only one military
expedition.[59] It was in his thirteenth year that the revolt and
reconquest of Kish put an end to this period of peaceful development.
The importance attached by Babylon to the suppression of this revolt
is attested by the fact that for five years it formed an era for the
dating of documents, which was only discontinued when the city of
Kazallu, under the leadership of Iakhzir-ilum, administered a fresh
shock to the growing kingdom by an invasion of Babylonian territory.
Iakhzir-ilum appears to have secured the co-operation of Kish by
inciting it once more to rebellion, for in the following year Babylon
destroyed the wall of Anu in that city; and, after re-establishing her
authority there, she devoted her next campaign to carrying the war
into the enemy's country. That the subsequent conquest of Kazallu and
the defeat of its army failed to afford a fresh subject for a nascent
era in the chronology is to be explained by the incompleteness of the
victory; for Iakhzir-ilum escaped the fate which overtook his city,
and it was only after five years of continued resistance that he was
finally defeated and slain.[60]
After disposing of this source of danger from beyond the Tigris,
Sumu-la-ilum continued his predecessor's policy of annexation within
the limits of Akkad. In his twenty-seventh year he commemorates the
destruction and rebuilding of the wall of Cuthah, suggesting that
the city had up to that time maintained its independence and now only
yielded it to force of arms. It is significant that in the same year he
records that he treated the wall of the god Zakar in a similar fashion,
for Dûr-Zakar was one of the defences of Nippur,[61] and lay either
within the city-area or in its immediate neighbourhood. That year thus
appears to mark Babylon's first bid for the rule of Sumer as well
as of Akkad, for the possession of the central city was regarded as
carrying with it the right of suzerainty over the whole country. It is
noteworthy, too, that this success appears to correspond to a period of
great unrest at Nîsin in Southern Babylonia.
During the preceding period of forty years the southern cities had
continued to rule within their home territory without interference
from Babylon. In spite of Sumu-abum's increasing influence in Northern
Babylonia, Ur-Ninib of Nîsin had claimed the control of Akkad in virtue
of his possession of Nippur, though his authority cannot have been
recognized much farther to the north. Like the earlier king of Nîsin,
Ishme-Dagan, he styled himself in addition Lord of Erech and patron of
Nippur, Ur and Eridu, and so did his son Bûr-Sin II., who succeeded
his father after the latter's long reign of twenty-eight years. Of
the group of southern cities Larsa alone continued to boast a line of
independent rulers, the throne having passed from Gungunum successively
to Abi-sarê[62] and Sumu-ilum; and in the latter's reign it would seem
that Larsa for a time even ousted Nîsin from the hegemony in Sinner.
For we have recovered at Tello the votive figure of a dog, which a
certain priest of Lagash named Abba-dugga dedicated to a goddess on his
behalf,[63] and in the inscription he refers to Sumu-ilum as King of
Ur, proving that the city had passed from the control of Nîsin to that
of Larsa. The goddess, to whom the dedication was made, was Nin-Nîsin,
"the Lady of Nîsin," a fact suggestive of the further possibility
that Nîsin itself may have acknowledged Sumu-ilum for a time. It may
be noted that in the list of Nîsin kings one name is missing after
those of Itêr-pîsha and Ura-imitti, who followed Bûr-Sin on the throne
in quick succession.[64] According to later tradition Ura-imitti had
named his gardener, Enlil-bani, to succeed him,[65] and in the list
the missing ruler is recorded to have reigned in Nîsin for six months
before Enlil-bani's accession. It is perhaps just possible that we
should restore his name as that of Sumu-ilum of Larsa,[66] who may have
taken advantage of the internal troubles of Nîsin, not only to annex
Ur, but to place himself for a few months upon the rival throne, until
driven out by Enlil-bani. However that may be, it is certain that Larsa
profited by the unrest at Nîsin, and we may perhaps also connect with
it Babylon's successful incursion in the south.[67]
There is no doubt that Sumu-la-ilum was the real founder of Babylon's
greatness as a military power. We have the testimony of his later
descendant Samsu-iluna to the strategic importance of the fortresses
he built to protect his country's extended frontier;[68] and, though
Dûr-Zakar of Nippur is the only one the position of which can be
approximately identified, we may assume that the majority of these lay
along the east and the south sides of Akkad, where the greatest danger
of invasion was to be anticipated. It does not seem that Nippur itself
passed at this time under more than a temporary control by Babylon, and
we may assume that, after his successful raid, Sumu-la-ilum was content
to remain within the limits of Akkad, which he strengthened with his
line of forts. In his later years he occupied the city of Barzi, and
conducted some further military operations, details of which we have
not recovered; but those were the last efforts on Babylon's part for
more than a generation.
The pause in expansion gave Babylon the opportunity of husbanding
her resources, after the first effort of conquest had been rendered
permanent in its effect by Sumu-la-ilum. His two immediate
successors, Zabum and Apil-Sin, occupied themselves with the internal
administration of their kingdom and confined their military activities
to keeping the frontier intact. Zabum indeed records a successful
attack on Kazallu, no doubt necessitated by renewed aggression on
that city's part; but his other most notable achievements were the
fortification of Kâr-Shamash, and the construction of a canal or
reservoir.[69] Equally uneventful was the reign of Apil-Sin, for though
Dûr-muti, the wall of which he rebuilt, may have been acquired as the
result of conquest, he too was mainly occupied with the consolidation
and improvement of the territory already won. He strengthened the walls
of Barzi and Babylon, cut two canals,[70] and rebuilt some of the great
temples.[71] As a result of her peaceful development during this period
the country was rendered capable of a still greater struggle, which was
to free Sumer and Akkad from a foreign domination, and, by over-coming
the invader, was to place Babylon for a time at the head of a more
powerful and united empire than had yet been seen on the banks of the
Euphrates.
The country's new foe was her old rival Elam, who more than once before
had by successful invasion affected the course of Babylonian affairs.
But on this occasion she did more than raid, harry, and return: she
annexed the city of Larsa, and by using it as a centre of control,
attempted to extend her influence over the whole of Sumer and Akkad.
It was at the close of Apil-Sin's reign at Babylon that Kudur-Mabuk,
the ruler of Western Elam, known at this period as the land of Emutbal,
invaded Southern Babylonia and, after deposing Sili-Adad[72] of Larsa,
installed his own son Warad-Sin upon the throne. It is a testimony
to the greatness of this achievement, that Larsa had for some time
enjoyed over Nîsin the position of leading city in Sumer. Nûr-Adad, the
successor of Sumu-ilum, had retained control of the neighbouring city
of Ur, and, though Enlil-bani of Nîsin had continued to lay claim to be
King of Sumer and Akkad, this proud title was wrested from Zambia or
his successor by Sin-idinnam, Nur-Adad's son.[73] Sin-idinnam, indeed,
on bricks from Muḳayyar in the British Museum makes a reference to the
military achievements by which he had won the position for his city.
In the text his object is to record the rebuilding of the Moon-god's
temple in Ur, but he relates that he carried out this work after he had
made the foundation of the throne of Larsa secure and had smitten the
whole of his enemies with the sword.[74] It is probable that his three
successors on the throne, who reigned for less than ten years between
them, failed to maintain his level of achievement, and that Sin-magir
recovered the hegemony for Nîsin.[75] But Ur, no doubt, remained under
Larsa's administration, and it was no mean nor inferior city that
Kudur-Mabuk seized and occupied.
The Elamite had seen his opportunity in the continual conflicts which
were taking place between the two rival cities of Sumer. In their
contest for the hegemony Larsa had proved herself successful for a
time, but she was still the weaker city and doubtless more exposed to
attack from across the Tigris. Hence her selection by Kudur-Mabuk as a
basis for his attempt on the country as a whole. He himself retained
his position in Elam as the _Adda_ of Emutbal; but he installed
his two sons, Warad-Sin and Rîm-Sin, successively upon the throne
of Larsa, and encouraged them to attack Nîsin and to lay claim to
the rule of Sumer and Akkad. But the success which attended their
efforts soon brought Babylon upon the scene, and we have the curious
spectacle of a three-cornered contest, in which Nîsin is at war with
Elam, while Babylon is at war in turn with both. That Sin-muballit,
the son of Apil-Sin, did not combine with Nîsin to expel the invader
from Babylonian soil, may have played at first into the hands of the
Elamites. But it is not to be forgotten that the Western Semites of
Babylon were still a conquering aristocracy, and their sympathies
were far from being involved in the fate of any part of Sumer. Both
Elam and Babylon must have foreseen that the capture of Nîsin would
prove a decisive advantage to the victor, and each was content to see
her weakened in the hope of ultimate success. When Rîm-Sin actually
proved the victor in the long struggle, and Larsa under his regis
inherited the traditions as well as the material resources of the
Nîsin Dynasty, the three-cornered contest was reduced to a duel
between Babylon and a more powerful Larsa. Then for a generation there
ensued a fierce struggle between the two invading races, Elam and the
Western Semites, for the possession of the country; and the fact that
Hammurabi, Sin-muballit's son, should have emerged victorious, was a
justification in full of his father's policy of avoiding any alliance
with the south. The Western Semites proved themselves in the end strong
enough to overcome the conqueror of Nîsin, and thereby they were left
in undisputed possession of the whole of Babylonia.
It is possible, with the help of the date-formulæ and votive
inscriptions of the period, to follow in outline the main features
of this remarkable struggle. At first Kudur-Mabuk's footing in Sumer
was confined to the city of Larsa, though even then he laid claim
to the title _Adda_ of Amurru, a reference to be explained perhaps
by the suggested Amorite origin of the Larsa and Nîsin dynasties,
and reflecting a claim to the suzerainty of the land from which his
northern foes at any rate boasted their origin.[76] Warad-Sin, on
ascending the throne, assumed merely the title King of Larsa, but
we soon find him becoming the patron of Ur, and building a great
fortification-wall in that city.[77] He then extended his authority to
the south and east, Eridu, Lagash, and Girsu all falling before his
arms or submitting to his suzerainty.[78] During this period Babylon
remained aloof in the north, and Sin-muballit is occupied with cutting
canals and fortifying cities, some of which he perhaps occupied for the
first time.[79] It was only in his fourteenth year, after Warad-Sin had
been succeeded at Larsa by his brother Rîm-Sin, that we have evidence
of Babylon taking an active part in opposing Elamite pretensions.
[Illustration: BRONZE CONE AND VOTIVE FIGURE. _Brit. Mus., Nos._ 90951
_and_ 91016.]
[Illustration: STONE CYLINDER WITH A VOTIVE INSCRIPTION _Brit. Mus.,
No._ 91085.]
In that year Sin-muballit records that he slew the army of Ur with the
sword, and, since we know that Ur was at this time a vassal-city of
Larsa, it is clear that the army referred to was one of those under
Rîm-Sin's command. Three years later he transferred his attention from
Larsa to Nîsin, then under the control of Damiḳ-ilishu, the son and
successor of Sin-magir. On that occasion Sin-muballit commemorates his
conquest of Nîsin, but it must have been little more than a victory in
the field, for Damiḳ-ilishu lost neither his city nor his independence.
In the last year of his reign we find Sin-muballit fighting on the
other front, and claiming to have slain the army of Larsa with the
sword. It is clear that in these last seven years of his reign Babylon
proved herself capable of cheeking any encroachments to the north
on the part of Larsa and the Elamites, and, by a continuance of the
policy of fortifying her vassal-cities,[80] she paved the way for a
more vigorous offensive on the part of Hammurabi, Sin-muballit's son
and successor. Meanwhile the unfortunate city of Nîsin was between two
fires, though for a few years longer Damiḳ-ilishu succeeded in beating
off both his opponents.
The military successes of Hammurabi fall within two clearly defined
periods, the first during the five years which followed his sixth year
of rule at Babylon, and a second period, of ten years' duration,
beginning with the thirteenth of his reign. On his accession he appears
to have inaugurated the reforms in the internal administration of
the country, which culminated towards the close of his life in the
promulgation of his famous Code of Laws; for he commemorated his
second year as that in which he established righteousness in the
land. The following years were uneventful, the most important royal
acts being the installation of the chief-priest in Kashbaran,[81] the
building of a wall for the Gagûm, or great Cloister of Sippar, and
of a temple to Nannar in Babylon. But with his seventh year we find
his first reference to a military campaign in a claim to the capture
of Erech and Nîsin. This temporary success against Damik-ilishu of
Nîsin was doubtless a menace to the plans of Rîm-Sin at Larsa, and it
would appear that Kudur-Mabuk came to the assistance of his son by
threatening Babylon's eastern border. At any rate Hammurabi records
a conflict with the land of Emutbal in his eighth year, and, though
the attack appears to have been successfully repulsed with a gain
of territory to Babylon,[82] the diversion was successful. Rîm-Sin
took advantage of the respite thus secured to renew his attack with
increased vigour upon Nîsin, and in the following year, the seventeenth
of his own reign, the famous city fell, and Larsa under her Elamite
ruler secured the hegemony in the whole of Central and Southern
Babylonia.
Rîm-Sin's victory must have been a severe blow to Babylon, and it would
seem that she made no attempt at first to recover her position in the
south, since Hammurabi occupied himself with a raid on Malgûm[83] in
the west and with the capture of the cities of Rabikum and Shalibi.
But these were the last successes during his first military period,
and for nineteen years afterwards Babylon achieved nothing of a
similar nature to commemorate in her date-formulæ. For the most part
the years are named after the dedication of statues and the building
and enrichment of temples. One canal was cut,[84] and the process of
fortification went on, Sippar especially being put in a thorough state
of defence.[85] But the negative evidence supplied by the formulæ for
this period suggests that it was one in which Babylon completely failed
in any attempt she may have made to hinder the growth of Larsa's power
in the south.
In addition to his capital, Rîm-Sin had inherited from his brother
the control of the southern group of cities, Ur, Erech, Girsu and
Lagash, all of which lay to the east of Larsa and nearer to the coast;
and it was probably before his conquest of Nîsin that he took Erech
from Damiḳ-ilishu, who had been attacked there by Hammurabi two years
before. For in more than one of his inscriptions Rîm-Sin refers to
the time when Anu, Enlil and Enki, the great gods, had given the fair
city of Erech into his hands.[86] We also know that he took Kisurra,
rebuilt the wall of Zabilum, and extended his authority over Kesh,
whose goddess Ninmakh, he relates, gave him the kingship over the whole
country.[87] The most notable result of his conquest of Nîsin was the
possession of Nippur, which now passed to him and regularized his
earlier claim to the rule of Sumer and Akkad. Thereafter he describes
himself as the exalted Prince of Nippur, or as the shepherd of the
whole land of Nippur; and we possess an interesting confirmation of
his recognition there in a clay cone inscribed with a dedication
for the prolongation of his life by a private citizen, a certain
Ninib-gamil.[88]
That Rîm-Sin's rule in Sumer was attended by great prosperity
throughout the country as a whole, is attested by the numerous
commercial documents which have been recovered both at Nippur and
Larsa and are dated in the era of his capture of Nîsin. There is also
evidence that he devoted himself to improving the system of irrigation
and of transport by water. He canalized a section in the lower course
of the Euphrates, and dug the Tigris to the sea, no doubt removing
from its main channel an accumulation of silt, which not only hindered
traffic but increased the danger of flood and the growth of the
swamp-area. He also cut the Mashtabba Canal, and others at Nippur and
on the Khabilu river.[89] It would seem that, in spite of his Elamite
extraction and the intimate relations he continued to maintain with his
father Kudur-Mabuk, he completely identified himself with the country
of his adoption; for in the course of his long life he married twice,
and both his wives, to judge from their fathers' names, were of Semitic
descent.[90]
It was not until nearly a generation had passed, after Rîm-Sin's
capture of Nîsin, that Hammurabi made any headway against the Elamite
domination, which for so long had arrested any increase in the power of
Babylon.[91] But his success, when it came, was complete and enduring.
In his thirtieth year he records that he defeated the army of Elam,
and in the next campaign he followed up this victory by invading
the land of Emutbal, inflicting a final defeat on the Elamites, and
capturing and annexing Larsa. Rîm-Sin himself appears to have survived
for many years, and to have given further trouble to Babylon in the
reign of Hammurabi's son, Samsu-iluna.--And the evidence seems to show
that for a few years at least he was accorded the position of vassal
ruler at Larsa.[92] On this supposition Hammurabi, after his conquest
of Sumer, would have treated the old capital in the same way that
Sumu-abum treated Kish.[93] But it would seem that after a time Larsa
must have been deprived of many of its privileges, including that of
continuing its own era of time-reckoning; and Hammurabi's letters to
Sin-idinnam, his local representative, give no hint of any divided
rule. We may perhaps assume that Rîm-Sin's subsequent revolt was due to
resentment at this treatment, and that in Samsu-iluna's reign he seized
a favourable opportunity to make one more bid for independent rule in
Babylonia.
The defeat of Rîm-Sin, and the annexation of Sumer to Babylon, freed
Hammurabi for the task of extending his empire on its other three
sides. During these later years he twice made successful raids in the
Elamite country of Tupliash or Ashnunnak, and on the west he destroyed
the walls of Mari and Malgûm, defeated the armies of Turukkum, Kagmum
and Subartu, and in his thirty-ninth year he records that he destroyed
all his enemies that dwelt beside Subartu. It is probable that he
includes Assyria under the geographical term Subartu, for both Ashur
and Nineveh were subject to his rule; and one of his letters proves
that his occupation of Assyria was of a permanent character, and
that his authority was maintained by garrisons of Babylonian troops.
Hammurabi tells us too, in the Prologue to his Code of Laws, that he
subjugated "the settlements on the Euphrates," implying the conquest of
such local West-Semitic kingdoms as that of Khana.[94] On the west we
may therefore regard the area of his military activities as extending
to the borders of Syria. Up to the close of his reign he continued to
improve the defences of his country, for he devoted his last two years
to rebuilding the great fortification of Kâr-Shamash on the Tigris and
the wall of Rabikum on the Euphrates, and he once again strengthened
the city-wall of Sippar. His building-inscriptions also bear witness
to his increased activity in the reconstruction of temples during his
closing years.[95]
An estimate of the extent of Hammurabi's empire may be formed from
the very exhaustive record of his activities which he himself drew up
as the Prologue to his Code. He there enumerates the great cities of
his kingdom and the benefits he has conferred upon each one of them.
The list of cities is not drawn up with any administrative object,
but from a purely religious standpoint, a recital of his treatment
of each city being followed by a reference to what he has done for
its temple and its city-god. Hence the majority of the cities are
not arranged on a geographical basis, but in accordance with their
relative rank as centres of religious cult. Nippur naturally heads
the list, and its possession at this time by Babylon had, as we shall
see,[96] far-reaching effects upon the development of the mythology
and religious system of the country. Next in order comes Eridu, in
virtue of the great age and sanctity of its local oracle. Babylon,
as the capital, comes third, and then the great centres of Moon-and
Sun-worship, followed by the other great cities and shrines of Sumer
and Akkad, the king characterizing the benefits he has bestowed on
each. The list includes some of his western conquests and ends with
Ashur and Nineveh.[97] It is significant of the racial character of
his dynasty that Hammurabi should here ascribe his victories on the
middle Euphrates to "the strength of Dagan, his creator," proving
that, like his ancestors before him, he continued to be proud of his
West-Semitic descent.
In view of the closer relations which had now been established between
Babylonia and the West, it may be interesting to recall that an echo
from these troubled times found its way into the early traditions
of the Hebrews, and has been preserved in the Book of Genesis. It
is there related[98] that Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of
Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim or the
"nations," acting as members of a confederation, invaded Eastern
Palestine to subdue the revolted tribes of that district. Chedorlaomer
is represented as the head of the confederation, and though we know
of no Elamite ruler of that name, we have seen that Elam at about
this period had exercised control over a great part of Southern and
Central Babylonia, and that its Babylonian capital was the city of
Larsa, with which the Ellasar of the Hebrew tradition is certainly to
be identified.[99] Moreover, Kudur-Mabuk, the historical founder of the
Elamite domination in Babylonia, did lay claim to the title of _Adda_
or ruler of the Amorites.[100] Amraphel of Shinar may well be Hammurabi
of Babylon himself, though, so far from acknowledging the suzerainty
of the Elamites, he was their principal antagonist and brought their
domination to an end. Tidal is a purely Hittite name,[101] and it is
significant that the close of Hammurabi's powerful dynasty was, as we
shall see presently, hastened by an invasion of Hittite tribes. Thus
all the great nations which are mentioned in this passage in Genesis
were actually on the stage of history at this time, and, though we have
as yet found no trace in secular sources of such a confederation under
the leadership of Elam, the Hebrew record represents a state of affairs
in Western Asia which was not impossible during the earlier half of
Hammurabi's reign.[102]
While Sumu-la-ilum may have laid the foundations of Babylon's military
power, Hammurabi was the real founder of her greatness. To his military
achievements he added a genius for administrative detail, and his
letters and despatches, which have been recovered, reveal him as in
active control of even subordinate officials stationed in distant
cities of his empire. That he should have superintended matters of
public importance is what might be naturally expected; but we also
see him investigating quite trivial complaints and disputes among the
humbler classes of his subjects, and often sending back a case for
retrial or for further report. In fact, Hammurabi's fame will always
rest on his achievements as a law-giver, and on the great legal code
which he drew up for use throughout his empire. It is true that this
elaborate system of laws, which deal in detail with every class of
the population from the noble to the slave, was not the creative
work of Hammurabi himself. Like all other ancient legal codes it was
governed strictly by precedent, and where it did not incorporate
earlier collections of laws, it was based on careful consideration of
established custom. Hammurabi's great achievement was the codification
of this mass of legal enactments and the rigid enforcement of the
provisions of the resulting code throughout the whole territory of
Babylonia. Its provisions reflect the king's own enthusiasm, of which
his letters give independent proof, in the cause of the humbler and the
more oppressed classes of his subjects. Numerous legal and commercial
documents also attest the manner in which its provisions were carried
out, and we have evidence that the legislative system so established
remained in practical force during subsequent periods. It may be well,
then, to pause at the age of Hammurabi, in order to ascertain the
main features of early Babylonian civilization, and to estimate its
influence on the country's later development.
[Footnote 1: Cf. Hogarth, "The Penetration of Arabia," pp. 206 ff.]
[Footnote 2: Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," pp. 352 ff.]
[Footnote 3: An interesting confirmation of this view has been made
by General P.J. Maitland. He points out that the great tanks at Aden,
which were hewn out of the solid rock in early Himyarite if not in
Sabajan times, are at the present day absolutely dry for four years out
of five, and that the heaviest rainfalls since they were discovered and
cleared out have not filled them to an eighth part of their capacity;
cf. his preface to G. W. Bury's "Land of Uz," p. xii. f.]
[Footnote 4: It has been established that these pulsations of climatic
change apply to all the great inland steppes upon the earth's surface,
periods of maximum moisture being followed by long intervals of
comparative aridity; see especially, Huntington, "The Pulse of Asia"
(1907).]
[Footnote 5: On this subject, see especially Myres, "The Dawn of
History," pp. 16 ff., 104 ff.]
[Footnote 6: This view seems to be more probable than the assumption
that the Semitic inhabitants of Canaan learnt the use of metal after
their first period of settlement.]
[Footnote 7: For the more important monographs on the subject, see
Macalister, "The Excavation of Gezer" (1912), and Bliss and Macalister,
"Excavations in Palestine during the years 1898-1900" (1902), both
issued by the Palestine Exploration Fund; Sellin, "Tell Ta'annek,"
published by the Vienna Academy in its "Denkschriften," Phil.-Hist.
Kl., Bd. 60, No. 4 (1904), and "Eine Nachlese auf dem Tell Ta'annek
in Palästina," ibid., Bd. 52, No. 3 (1906); Schumacher, "Tell
el-Mutesellim," published by the "Deutscher Palästina Verein" in 1908;
and Sellin and Watzinger, "Jericho," a volume issued by the "Deutsche
Orient-Gesellschaft" in its "Wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichungen,"
Hft. 22 (1913). For further references and a useful summary of the
archæological results, see Driver, "Modern Research as illustrating the
Bible" (Schweich Lectures, 1908), pp. 40 ff.; for later summaries, see
especially Sayce, "Patriarchal Palestine," new ed. (1912), pp. 233 ff.,
and Handcock, "Latest Light on Bible Lands," 1913; and for an estimate
of artistic achievement, cf. Hall, "Ancient History of the Near East"
(1913), pp. 440 ff. On the racial character of the earliest inhabitants
of Canaan, see especially Sergi, "The Mediterranean Race" (1901).]
[Footnote 8: There are few data for estimating the period at which
these centres of population were first fortified. There is no doubt
that the city-walls are long anterior to the Egyptian conquest, and
from the accumulation of _débris_ in the lower strata they have been
provisionally placed at an early period in the third millennium b.c.;
in any case they preceded the age of the First Babylonian Dynasty.]
[Footnote 9: The evidence has been recovered in connexion with
the excavations at Carchemish, conducted by Mr. Hogarth for the
British Museum. For discussions of the problems presented by the
main excavation, see his volume on "Carchemish" (1914), and "Hittite
Problems and the excavation of Carchemish," in the "Proceedings of
the British Academy," Vol. V. The results of recent native digging in
neighbouring mounds have been recovered on the spot by his assistants
Messrs. Woolley and Lawrence, and Mr. Woolley has published an account
of them in a paper ou "Hittite Burial Customs," in the Liverpool
"Annals of Archæology," VI., No. 4 (1914), pp. 87 ff.]
[Footnote 10: In view of the haphazard nature of the native diggings,
the absence of cylinder-seals on some neighbouring sites is not to
be taken as necessarily dis-proving Babylonian influence there. At
Amarna, for example, some eight miles to the south of Jerablus, no
seals nor cylinders are reported to have been found, but at Kara Kuzal,
on the Mesopotamian side of the Euphrates opposite Hammam, where the
pottery is of the Amarna type, two cylinder-seals of a later period and
probably of local manufacture were recovered; they are engraved in the
style classified by Mr. Woolley as "the Syrian Geometric" (_op. cit.,_
p. 92). The find is also of interest as proving the assimilation of the
cylindrical form of seal, which had then ceased to be merely a foreign
import.]
[Footnote 11: Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 233 f.]
[Footnote 12: One of these large vessels is mentioned in an inventory
among the belongings of a votary of the Sun-god, of which we possess
two copies dating from the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon; see
"Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," II., pl. 1, Obv., 1. 8, and pl. 6, 1.
11; and cf. Hogarth, "Carchemish," p. 17. The vessel was of large size,
as it is stated to have been of two-thirds of a _gur,_ the greatest
Babylonian measure of capacity; it may have been used for grain.]
[Footnote 13: Cf. Woolley, _op. cit.,_ pp. 88 f., 92 ff.]
[Footnote 14: See below, pp. 137 ff.]
[Footnote 15: Cf. Condamin, "Zeits. für Assyr.," XXI. (1908), pp. 247
ff. The votive inscription was drawn up by Shamshi-Adad IV.]
[Footnote 16: See Thureau-Dangin, "Rev. d'Assyr.," IV. (1898), p. 85
f., and pl. xxxii., No. 85, and Schorr, "Urkunden des altbabylonischen
Zivil- und Prozessrechts," p. 302 f. Both Thureau-Dangin and Ungnad
("Beitr. z. Assyr.," VI., No. 5, p. 26) had regarded it as a deed of
sale, but the ten manehs mentioned in the text is not a sale-price but
a fine to be imposed for any infringement of the deed.]
[Footnote 17: See Ungnad, "Vorderasiat. Schriftdenkmäler," VII., No.
204, and "Beitr. z. Assyr.," VI., No. 5 (1909), pp. 26 ff. The tablet
was purchased by Prof. Sarre at Dêr ez-Zôr, and is said to have been
found at Rahaba some hours to the south-east of the mouth of the
Khâbûr.]
[Footnote 18: See below, pp. 157, 159; Hammurabi also bore the title
"King of Amurru" (cf. "Letters," III., p. 195).]
[Footnote 19: See below, p. 190 f.]
[Footnote 20: The city of Zakku-Isharlim may have derived the second
part of its name from the king referred to in the first deed of gift;
in that case Igitlim may perhaps have been the name of another king
of Khana. The canal evidently supplied one of the cities with water
from the Khâbûr. The last element in its name is suggestive of Kassite
influence, and the script of this document points to a period rather
later than that of Hammurabi; for its publication, see Johns, "Proc.
Soc. Bibl. Arch.," XXIX. (1907), pp. 177 ff.]
[Footnote 21: They are the months Teritum, Kinunu, and Birizzarru. For
other West-Semitic month-names, cf. "Letters of Hammurabi," p. xxxvi.
f., n.; the majority of the "seltenere Monatsnamen," referred to by
Schorr, "Urkunden," p. 577, are to be included in this category.]
[Footnote 22: The votive inscription of Shamshi-Adad IV. (see above, p.
129, n. 1) records its restoration.]
[Footnote 23: We find at Khana such personal names as Amursha-Dagan,
Iazi-Dagan, Turi-Dagan, Bitti-Dagan and Iashma(?)-Dagan, in addition to
the city-name Ia'mu-Dagan; cf. Unguad, _op. cit.,_ p. 27 f.]
[Footnote 24: Cf. Poebel, "Historical Texts," p. 137.]
[Footnote 25: Cf. Breasted, "History of Egypt," pp. 215 ff.]
[Footnote 26: Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 304.]
[Footnote 27: The tradition to this effect, which was incorporated in
the later augural literature (cf. Boissier, "Choix de textes," II., p.
64; and Meissner, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1907, col. 114, n. 1) may be
accepted as historically accurate; cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 304.]
[Footnote 28: Cf. Huber, "Die Personennamen ... aus der Zeit der Könige
von Ur und Nîsin" (1907), _passim._ It was this fact that at one time
seemed to suggest the probability that the kings of Nîsin, like the
bulk of their subjects, may have been Sumerians (cf. "Sumer and Akkad,"
p. 303); but we may preferably regard them as representing the first
wave of the movement which was soon to flood Northern Babylonia.]
[Footnote 29: Cf. Hilprecht, "Math., Met., and Chron. Tablets," p. 46
f., pl. 30, No. 47.]
[Footnote 30: See Scheil, "Rec. de trav.," XVI., pp. 187 ff.]
[Footnote 31: Cf. "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," XXI., pl. 20 f.]
[Footnote 32: In the dynastic Kings' List published by Hilprecht,
"Math., Met., and Chron. Tablets," pl. 30, No. 47, Libit-Ishtar is
stated to have been Ishme-Dagan's son; but on another, recently
published by Poebel, he is stated to have been Idin-Dagan's son, and so
the brother of Ishme-Dagan (cf. "Historical Texts," pp. 94, 137).]
[Footnote 33: Cf. "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," XXI., pl. 22.]
[Footnote 34: Cf. Poebel, "Historical Texts," p. 138; he also notes the
fact that Ur-Ninib successfully raided the country of Zabshali on the
east of Babylonia.]
[Footnote 35: See "Cun. Texts," IV., pl. 22, No. 78, 395: and Ranke,
"Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1907, col. 109 ff.]
[Footnote 36: Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 315 f.]
[Footnote 37: Cf. "Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings," II.,
p. 14. The Ilu-shûma, the father of Irishum or Erishu, who is referred
to in building-inscriptions of Shalmaneser I. and Esarhaddon (_op.
cit.,_ I., pp. 118 ff.), is probably to be regarded as a later ruler
than Sumu-abum's contemporary.]
[Footnote 38: Since the year 1903 the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft
has been conducting excavations at Shergât, the site of Ashur, the
old capital of Assyria on the middle Tigris. Monographs on some of
the temples of the city and its system of fortification have already
been published, and during the summer of 1913 the excavations were
drawing to a close. The greater part of the palace and temple-area
had been uncovered, and detailed plans had been made of all existing
buildings; it only remained to trench still deeper to the virgin
rock, in order to complete the digging. This process bad naturally
been left till last, as it involved considerable destruction to the
buildings already uncovered. It was in the course of the deeper
trenching that the discoveries referred to in the text were made; for
brief reports of them by Andrae, see the "Mitteilungen der Deutschen
Orient-Gesellschaft," No. 54 (June, 1914).]
[Footnote 39: See Fig. 34.]
[Footnote 40: See Figs. 35 and 36.]
[Footnote 41: See p. 140, Figs. 37-39.]
[Footnote 42: The tradition has survived in the building-inscriptions
of Shalmaneser I. and Esarhaddon, found at Shergât; cf. "Chronicles,"
I., pp. 120 ff.]
[Footnote 43: He is referred to on a small cone or cylinder, found at
Shergât in 1904, and inscribed with a text of Ashir-rîm-nishêshu; _op.
cit.,_ p. 140 f.]
[Footnote 44: Their names have been compared with such Mitannian forms
as Pindiya, Zuliya, etc.; cf. Ungnad, "Beitr. z. Assyr.," VI., No. 5,
pp. 11 ff.]
[Footnote 45: The first witness to a loan, dated in the third year of
Ammi-zaduga, bears the name Teshshub-'ari, corresponding to the later
Mitannian name Ari-Teshub, meaning "Teshub has given"; cf. Ungnad,
"Vorderas. Schriftdenkmäler," VII., No. 72, 1. 10.]
[Footnote 46: A "man of Subartu" (_awîl Subarti_) is mentioned on a
document of the Hammurabi period (cf. Scheil, "Rec. de tray.," XX., p.
64); and a private letter of the time gives directions for the sale
into slavery of certain "Shubareans" (_Shubarî,_) who had probably been
captured in battle (cf. Meissner, "Beitr. z. Assyr.," II., p. 561 f.,
and Delitzsch, _op. cit._ IV., p. 95). On another text "a slave-girl
of Shubartu" (_amtum Shubaritum_) is referred to (cf. "Cun. Texts
in the Brit. Mus.," VIII., pl. 46. Bu. 91-5-9, 2179, Obv., 1. 20),
and "a Shubarean" (_Shubarâ_) is mentioned in an account-tablet among
recipients of daily rations (cf. Ungnad, "Vorderas. Schriftdenk.,"
VII., p. 68, No. 184, Col. III., 1. 3, and "Beitr. z. Assyr.," VI., No.
5, p. 19, n. 2).]
[Footnote 47: For the purpose of interpreting lunar observations,
for example, and particularly for eclipses, the face of the moon was
divided into four quarters, that on the right referring to Akkad, that
on the left to Elam, the upper quarter to Amurru and the lower to
Subartu; and one Assyrian astrologer, when reporting to his master an
observation which related to Subartu, explains that "We are Subartu";
cf. Thompson, "Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers," II., pp.
xviii., lxxxv.]
[Footnote 48: Dilbat is now marked by the mound of Dêlem, which lies
about seventeen miles to the south of the Ḳaṣr, the old citadel and
centre of Babylon, and less than ten miles to the south-east of
Birs Nimrûd. Many years ago Rassam procured a few tablets there by
excavation (cf. "Asshur and the Land of Nimrod," p. 265), and in recent
years large numbers have been obtained there, as the result of native
digging, and sold in Europe; they all date from the period of the First
Dynasty of Babylon.]
[Footnote 49: Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," pp. 226, 282.]
[Footnote 50: This is particularly apparent in the royal names, the
foreign character of which was first pointed out by Pognon, "Journal
Asiatique," 8me sér., Vol. XI., pp. 544 ff., who on this evidence alone
suggested that the dynasty might be Arab or Aramean; see further,
"Letters of Hammurabi," III., p. lxv., and Meyer, "Geschichte des
Altertums," I., ii., p. 545.]
[Footnote 51: From a local date-formula on one of the tablets from
Abû Habba we have recovered the name of Narâm-Sin, a governor or
vassal-ruler of Sippar in Sumu-abum's reign; cf. Ungnad, "Vorderas.
Schriftdenkmäler," VIII., No. 3. Another vassal-ruler of Sippar,
Bunutakhtun-ila, occupied the throne in Sumu-la-ilum's reign, and to
the same period are to be assigned Iluma-ila and Immerum, of whom the
latter cut the Ashukhi Canal; for references, see Schorr, "Urkunden des
altbabylonischen Zivil- und Processrechts," p. 611.]
[Footnote 52: Kish is now marked by the mounds of El-Ohêmir, or Aḥimer,
which lie to the east of Babylon; cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 88 f.]
[Footnote 53: The text is inscribed upon a clay cone from Aḥimer, and
has been published by Thureau-Dangin, "Rev. d'Assyr.," VIII. (1911),
pp. 65 ff.]
[Footnote 54: That Sumu-abum performed the dedication in his character
of suzerain is proved by a contract-tablet from Kish, which is dated by
the formula for his tenth year.]
[Footnote 55: It is also possible that the eight years of conflict
may date from Sumu-abum's accession, in which case the text would
commemorate a strengthening of the wall of Kish two years before the
capture of the city by Babylon; but the evidence of the date-formulæ is
in favour of the tenth year.]
[Footnote 56: On one of the tablets from Kish Iawium is associated with
Mananâ in the oath-formula, and from another we know that he survived
Sumu-ditana, whom he probably succeeded on the throne; Khalium may
probably be placed after the other three vassal-rulers whose names
have been recovered. There appears to have been a local custom at Kish
for each ruler to choose a different god with whom to be associated in
the oath-formulæ; thus, while Zamama, the city-god of Kish, appears in
those of Iawium's reign, his place is taken by Nannar and Sin under
Mananâ and Khalium respectively. For the tablets and their dates, see
Thureau-Dangin, "Rev. d'Assyr.," VIII., pp. 68 ff.; Johns, "Proc.
Soc. Bibl. Arch.," XXXII. (1910), p. 279 f.; and Langdon, _op. cit.,_
XXXIII. (1911), pp. 185 ff.]
[Footnote 57: Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," pp. 227, 285 f.]
[Footnote 58: The Sumu-la-ilum Canal was first constructed in his
twelfth year, and it was recut or extended twenty years afterwards.]
[Footnote 59: The third year of his reign was named as that in which he
slew the Khalambû with the sword.]
[Footnote 60: That in the interval Babylon had no marked success to
commemorate is suggested by the naming of years after the construction
of a throne for Marduk in his temple at Babylon, and of a statue for
his consort, Sarpanitum.]
[Footnote 61: That the two are to be identified is certain from
Samsu-iluna's reference to Dûr-Zakar of Nippur as among the six
fortresses built by Snmu-la-ilum and rebuilt by himself; see below, pp.
148, 204.]
[Footnote 62: Since Gungunum's death is recorded in a local
date-formula (cf. Scheil, "Rec. de tray.," XXI., p. 125) we may infer
that his end was violent; Abi-sarê's accession may thus mark a break in
the direct succession at Larsa.]
[Footnote 63: See Thureau-Dangin, "Rev. d'Assyr.," VI., p. 69 f.]
[Footnote 64: Ura-imitti was not the son of Itêr-pîsha, and since a
date-formula of his reign refers to his restoration of the city of
Nippur, we may regard its previous destruction or capture as further
evidence of political trouble at Nîsin; cf. Poebel. "Historical Texts,"
p. 138 f.]
[Footnote 65: Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 312.]
[Footnote 66: The name was conjecturally restored by Poebel, from a
date-formula in the Pennsylvania Museum, as Sin-ikisha (cf. "Orient.
Lit.-Zeit.," 1907, col. 461 ff.). But from Prof. Clay's new king-list
we now know that that ruler is to be identified with Sin-iḳîsham,
the eleventh king of the Dynasty of Larsa; there is no evidence to
connect him with Nîsin. On the other hand, the six months' rule of the
unknown king at Nîsin falls in the twentieth year of Sumu-ilum's reign
at Larsa, who at least for a time was recognized in Ur, the former
vassal-city of Nîsin.]
[Footnote 67: According to our scheme of chronology, Sumu-la-ilum's
capture of Dûr-Zakar at Nippur corresponds to the year of Ura-imitti's
death and to the subsequent struggle for the throne of Nîsin.]
[Footnote 68: In addition to Dûr-Zakar of Nippur, these were Dûr-Padda,
Dûr-Lagaba, Dûr-Iabugani, Dûr-Cula-dûru, and Dûr-uṣi-ana-Ura. On their
reconstruction Samsu-iluna dedicated the first four to Ninmakh, Adad,
Sin and Lugal-diri-tugab, and the last two to Nergal; cf. "Letters of
Hammurabi," pp. 199 ff.]
[Footnote 69: To this he gave the name Tâmtum-khegallum, "the Ocean
(gives) abundance." He also rebuilt E-ibianu, E-sagila, and E-babbar in
Sippar, installing in the last-named temple a bronze image of himself,
possibly with the idea of claiming divine honours.]
[Footnote 70: The Sumu-dâri and Apil-Sin-khegallum Canals were both cut
in his reign.]
[Footnote 71: The costly throne for Shamash and Shunirda, or the
goddess Aia, which he dedicated in his third year, was probably for
E-babbar in Sippar. Apil-Sin devoted special attention to Cuthah, the
most recently acquired of Babylon's greater possessions, rebuilding on
two occasions E-meslam, the temple of Nergal, the city-god. He also
enriched Babylon on the material side, erecting a great city-gate in
its eastern wall, and building within the city the temple E-kiku for
the goddess Ishtar and another shrine for the Sun-god.]
[Footnote 72: For the reading of the weather-god's name as Adad, cf.
Budge and King, "Annals of the Kings of Assyria," p. lxxiv. f. The
name was probably of West Semitic origin, though the form Rammânu,
"the thunderer," has been noted by Prof. Sayce on a cylinder-seal
beside the goddess Ashratum (cf. "Zeits. f. Assyr.," VI., p. 161),
and she elsewhere appears as the spouse of the god Amurru (cf. Meyer,
"Geschichte," I., ii., p. 406). The Sumerian equivalent of Adad is
still uncertain; Hrozný suggests the reading Ishkur (cf. "Zeits. f.
Assyr.," XX., pp. 424 ff.), while Thureau-Dangin, Clay and others
prefer Immer, suggested in "Königsinschriften," p. 208. Meanwhile it is
preferable to employ the reading Adad, for periods at any rate after
the West-Semitic invasion.]
[Footnote 73: That Sin-idinnam's assumption of the title was justified
by the actual possession of Nippur is proved by a date-formula on a
contract in the British Museum, in which he records the dedication
of a statue of himself as an ornament for Nippur; cf. Rawlinson,
"Cun. Inscr. West. Asia," IV., pl. 36, No. 2, and Chiera, "Legal and
Administrative Documents," p. 72.]
[Footnote 74: Cf. Rawlinson, _op. cit.,_ I., pl. 5, No. xx. In addition
to his military prowess, he reconstructed E-babbar at Larsa, built the
great fortress of Dûr-gurgurri, and by canalizing the Tigris improved
his country's water-supply (cf. "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," XXL,
pl. 30, No. 30215; Delitzsch, "Beitr. zur Assyr.," I., pp. 301 ff.;
and Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften," p. 208 f.). He also built the
city-gate of Mashkan-shabri; cf. Chiera, _op. cit.,_ p. 72 f.]
[Footnote 75: On a broken clay cone from Babylon (cf. Weissbach,
"Babylonische Miscellen," p. 1, pl. 1) Sin-magir bears the title of
King of Sumer and Akkad.]
[Footnote 76: If we may identify Khallabu with Aleppo, we should find
a still firmer basis for Kudur-Mabuk's title. For we know that, while
Warad-Sin was still King of Larsa, he dedicated a chamber in Ishtar's
temple at Khallabu (cf. "Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus.," XXI., pl.
31, No. 91144; and Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften," p. 214 f.).
We should then have to assume that, before completing his conquest
of Sumer, he had already pushed up and across the Euphrates and had
captured large districts of Amurru. It is possible that this was so,
but it should be noted that both Khallabu and Bît-Karkara are mentioned
in the Prologue to Hammurabi's Code of Laws, not with "the settlements
on the Euphrates," but immediately after Lagash and Girsu, suggesting a
Babylonian origin (see below, p. 159).]
[Footnote 77: Cf. Rawlinson, "Cun. Inscr. West. Asia," I., pl. 5, No.
xvi.; the erection of the wall is also commemorated in a date-formula
of his reign (cf. Chiera. "Documents," p. 74).]
[Footnote 78: On a clay cone from Mukayyar, recording his building of a
temple to Nannar at Ur, Warad-Sin describes himself as "he who carries
out the decrees and decisions of Eridu (_i.e._ of its oracle), who
increased the offerings of E-ninnû (the temple of Ningirsu at Lagash),
who restored Lavish mid Girsu, and renewed the city and the land"; cf.
Rawlinson, _op. cit._ IV., pl. 35, No. 6.]
[Footnote 79: During the first thirteen years of his reign Sin-muballit
cut three canals, the first named after himself, the Sin-muballit
Canal, and two others which he termed the Aia-khegallum and the
Tutu-khegallum. He also built the walls of Rubatum, Zakar-dada,
Dûr-Sin-muballit, Bît-Karkara, and Marad. It is possible, of course,
that conflicts with the south took place at this time, but, if so, the
absence of any reference to them in the records is to be explained by
the want of success of Babylonian arms.]
[Footnote 80: In this period the city walls of Nanga and Baṣu were
rebuilt.]
[Footnote 81: From two recently published date-lists of Hammurabi's
reign we know that this event took place in his fifth year, while
the following year appears to have been dated by a similar priestly
installation of the shepherd of the goddess Ninaz; cf. Boissier, "Rev.
d'Assyr.," XI., No. iv. (1914), pp. 161 ff.]
[Footnote 82: The territory gained on the bank of the Shu-numum-dar
Canal (cf. Boissier, _op. cit._) may have lain in Emutbal. The
canal was possibly a portion of the famous Nâr-sharri, which in the
Achæmenian period was regarded as lying "in Elam."]
[Footnote 83: The town lay in the neighbourhood of Sukhi on the middle
Euphrates, below the mouth of the Khâbûr and probably to the south of
Khana.]
[Footnote 84: The Tishit-Enlil Canal, which we now know was cut
in Hammurabi's twenty-fourth year (cf. Boissier, _op. cit._); the
Hammurabi-khegallum Canal had been cut in his ninth year, at the time
of Rîm-Sin's capture of Nîsin.]
[Footnote 85: Two years were devoted to the fortification of Sippar;
and the walls of Igi-kharsagga, and probably of Baṣu, were built. In
the vassal-city of Kibalbarru Hammurabi dedicated an image to Ninni, or
Ishtar, while in Babylon he built E-namkhe, the temple of Adad, and a
shrine also for Enlil.]
[Footnote 86: Cf. "Déc. en Chaldée," pl. 41; Rawlinson, "Cun.
Inscr. West. Asia," I., pl. 3, No. X.; and Thureau-Dangin,
"Königsinschriften," p. 218 f.]
[Footnote 87: See the date-formulæ cited by Chiera, "Documents." p. 80
f.]
[Footnote 88: Cf. Hilprecht, "Old Babylonian Inscriptions," Pt. II.,
pl. 58, No. 128.]
[Footnote 89: Cf. Hilprecht, _loc. cit.,_ and Chiera, _op. cit.,_ p. 82
f.]
[Footnote 90: One of his wives, Si[...]-Ninni, the daughter of
Arad-Nannar, dedicated a temple, on his behalf and her own, to the
goddess Nin-egal (cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften," p. 218 f.).
The other wife, who bore the name Rîm-Sin-Shala-bashtashu, was the
daughter of a certain Sin-magir, and Rîm-Sin himself had a daughter
named Lirish-gamium; cf. Poebel, "Historical Texts," p. 140, who
quotes the information from an inscription of Rîm-Sin-Shala-bashtashu,
which Prof. Clay informs me is now in the Yale Collection. A sister of
Rîm-Sin, who was a priestess, is mentioned on a cylinder of Nabonidus
(cf. Scheil, "Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles
Lettres," 1912, p. 680 f.).]
[Footnote 91: The period would be forty-five years, instead of
twenty-three, if we place the whole sixty-one years of Rîm-Sin's
reign before Hammurabi's conquest of Larsa; in that case the fall of
Nîsin would have taken place in Sin-muballit's seventh year. But the
available evidence is strongly in favour of curtailing Rîm-Sin's period
of independent rule; see above, pp. 97 ff.]
[Footnote 92: This seems to follow from the continuation of the Nîsin
era in the south for a few years after the fall of Larsa; see above, p.
103.]
[Footnote 93: See above, p. 144.]
[Footnote 94: See above, pp. 129 ff.; it was probably after these
conquests that he adopted the title King of Amurru.]
[Footnote 95: Cf., _e.g.,_ "Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi,"
pp. 180 ff. It is clear from the titles in the majority of them that
they date from the latter part of his reign. It was also after his
annexation of Larsa that he cut the Hammurabi-nukhush-nishi Canal,
building a fortress at the head of the canal for its defence, which he
named after his father Dûr-Sin-muballit-abim-walidia. The erection of
the granary at Babylon (_op. cit.,_ p. 192 f.) was evidently one of his
earlier works.]
[Footnote 96: See below, p. 194 f.]
[Footnote 97: As the list of cities is practically a gazetteer of
Hammurabi's empire during his closing years, the names will repay
enumeration, together with their temples and city-gods; they are here
given in the order in which they occur in the Prologue, the names of
gods, when omitted in the text, being supplied within parentheses:
(1) Nippur, and Ekur, the temple of Enlil; (2) Eridu, and E-apsû
(the temple of Enki); (3) Babylon, and E-sagila, the temple of
Marduk; (4) Ur, and E-gishshirgal (the temple of Sin); (5) Sippar,
and E-babbar (the temple of Shamash); (6) Larsa, and E-babbar (the
temple of Shamash); (7) Erech, and E-anna, the temple of Anu and
Ninni, or Ishtar; (8) Nîsin, and the temple E-galmakh; (9) Kish, and
E-mete-ursag, the temple of Zamama; (10) Cuthah, and E-meslam (the
temple of Nergal); (11) Borsippa, and E-zida (the temple of Nabû);
(12) Dilbat, and its god Urash; (13) the city of Kesh; (14) Lagash and
Girsu, and E-ninnû (the temple of Ningirsu); (15) Khallabu, and the
goddess Ninni, or Ishtar; (16) Bît-Karkara, and E-ugalgal, the temple
of Adad; (17) Adab, and its temple E-makh; (18) Mashkan-shabri and the
temple Meslam; (19) Malgûm; (20) the dwellings, or settlements, on the
Euphrates, and the god Dagan; (21) Mera and Tutul; (22) Akkad (Agade),
and E-ulmash, the temple of Ishtar; (23) Ashur, and "its favourable
protecting deity"; and (24) Nineveh, and E-mishmish, the temple of
Ishtar.]
[Footnote 98: Gen. xiv.]
[Footnote 99: For the Elamite character of Chedorlaomer's name,
cf. "Letters of Hammurabi," I., p. iv. f.; but there are too many
difficulties in the way of accepting the suggested identification of
Arioch with Warad-Sin, the son of Kudur-Mabuk (_op. cit.,_ pp. xlix.
ff.).]
[Footnote 100: See above, p. 152.]
[Footnote 101: Prof. Sayce was the first to point out that Tidal is a
Hittite name, and was borne by one of the last kings of the Hittite
Empire, Dudkhalia; cf. "Patriarchal Palestine," p. 60.]
[Footnote 102: We are not here concerned with the textual character
of Gen. xiv. (on that subject, see especially Skinner, "Genesis," pp.
256 ff.), nor with the evolution of the Abrahamic traditions (see
Meyer, "Die Israeliten," p. 248, and cp. Hall, "Anc. Hist, of the Near
East," p. 401). It will suffice to note that, in view of the recovery
of Neo-Babylonian chronicles and poetical compositions, dealing with
early historical events, the employment of such a document among Hebrew
literary sources seems to offer a sufficient explanation of the facts.]