History of Various Areas (13)(as of 1900)

From any building of his predecessors which he razed to the ground, an
invader would therefore remove the gate-sockets and blocks of stone for
his own use, supposing he contemplated building on the site. If he left
the city in ruins and returned to his own country, some subsequent king,
when clearing the ruined site for building operations, might come across
the stones, and he would not leave them buried, but would use them for
his own construction. And this is what actually did happen in the case
of some of the building materials of one of these early kings, from the
lower strata of Nippur. Certain of the blocks which bore the name of
Lugalkigubnidudu had been used again by Sargon, King of Agade, who
engraved his own name upon them without obliterating the name of the
former king.
It followed that Lugalkigubnidudu belonged to the pre-Sargonic period,
and, although the same conclusive evidence was not forthcoming in the
case of Lugalzag-gisi, he also without much hesitation was set in
this early period, mainly on the strength of the archaic forms of the
characters employed in his inscriptions. In fact, they were held to be
so archaic that, not only was he said to have reigned before Sargon of
Agade, but he was set in the very earliest period of Chald?an history,
and his empire was supposed to have been contemporaneous with the very
earliest rulers of Shirpurla. The new inscription found by Captain
Cros will cause this opinion to be considerably modified. While it
corroborates the view that Lugalzaggisi is to be set in the pre-Sargonic
period, it proves that he lived and reigned very shortly before him. As
we have already seen, he was the contemporary of Urukagina, who belongs
to the middle period of the history of Shirpurla. Lugalzaggisi's capture
and sack of the city of Shirpurla was only one of a number of conquests
which he achieved. His father Ukush had been merely patesi of the city
of Gish-khu, but he himself was not content with the restricted sphere
of authority which such a position implied, and he eventually succeeded
in enforcing his authority over the greater part of Babylonia. From
the fact that he styles himself King of Erech, we may conclude that
he removed his capital from Ukush to that city, after having probably
secured its submission by force of arms. In fact, his title of "king of
the world" can only have been won as the result of many victories, and
Captain Cros's tablet gives us a glimpse of the methods by which he
managed to secure himself against the competition of any rival. The
capture of Shirpurla must have been one of his earliest achievements,
for its proximity to Gish-khu rendered its reduction a necessary
prelude to any more extensive plan of conquest. But the kingdom which
Lugalzaggisi founded cannot have endured long.

Under Sargon of Agade, the Semites gained the upper hand in Babylonia,
and Erech, Grishkhu, and Shirpurla, as well as the other ancient cities
in the land, fell in turn under his domination and formed part of the
extensive empire which he ruled.

Concerning the later rulers of city-states of Babylonia which succeeded
the disruption of the empire founded by Sargon of Agade and consolidated
by Nar?m-Sin, his son, the excavations have little to tell us which has
not already been made use of by Prof. Maspero in his history of this
period.
The tablets found at Telloh by the late M. de Sarzec, and
published during his lifetime, fall into two main classes,
which date from different periods in early Chald?an
history. The great majority belong to the period when the
city of Ur held pre-eminence among the cities of Southern
Babylonia, and they are dated in the reigns of Dungi, Bur-
Sin, Gamil-Sin, and Ine-Sin. The other and smaller
collection belongs to the earlier period of Sargon and
Nar?m-Sin; while many of the tablets found in M. de Sarzec's
last diggings, which were published after his death, are to
be set in the great gap between these two periods. Some of
those recently discovered, which belong to the period of
Dungi, contain memoranda concerning the supply of food for
the maintenance of officials stopping at Shirpurla in the
course of journeys in Babylonia and Elam, and they throw an
interesting light on the close and constant communication
which took place at this time between the great cities of
Mesopotamia and the neighbouring countries.