BABLON AND ELAM 8

An unpublished chronicle in the British Museum gives us further details
of Hammurabi's victory over the Elamites, and at the same time makes it
clear that the defeat and overthrow of Rim-Sin was not so crushing
as has hitherto been supposed. This chronicle relates that Hammurabi
attacked Rim-Sin, and, after capturing the cities of Ur and Larsam,
carried their spoil to Babylon. Up to the present it has been supposed
that Hammurabi's victory marked the end of Elamite influence in
Babylonia, and that thenceforward the supremacy of Babylon was
established throughout the whole of the country. But from the
new chronicle we gather that Hammurabi did not succeed in finally
suppressing the attempts of Elam to regain her former position. It is
true that the cities of Ur and Larsam were finally incorporated in the
Babylonian empire, and the letters of Hammurabi to Sin-idinnam, the
governor whom he placed in authority over Larsam, afford abundant
evidence of the stringency of the administrative control which he
established over Southern Babylonia. But R?m-Sin was only crippled for
the time, and, on being driven from Ur and Larsam, he retired beyond
the Elamite frontier and devoted his energies to the recuperation of his
forces against the time when he should feel himself strong enough again
to make a bid for victory in his struggle against the growing power of
Babylon. It is probable that he made no further attempt to renew the
contest during the life of Hammurabi, but after Samsu-iluna, the son
of Hammurabi, had succeeded to the Babylonian throne, he appeared in
Babylonia at the head of the forces he had collected, and attempted to
regain the cities and territory he had lost.
Inscribed in the reign of Hammurabi with a deed recording
the division of property. The actual tablet is on the right; that which appears to be another and larger tablet on theleft is the hollow clay case in which the tablet on the
right was originally enclosed. Photograph by Messrs. Mansell& Co.
The portion of the text of the chronicle relating to the war between
R?m-Sin and Samsu-iluna is broken so that it is not possible to follow
the campaign in detail, but it appears that Samsu-iluna defeated
Rim-Sin, and possibly captured him or burnt him alive in a palace in
which he had taken refuge.

With the final defeat of R?m-Sin by Samsu-iluna it is probable that Elam
ceased to be a thorn in the side of the kings of Babylon and that
she made no further attempts to extend her authority beyond her own
frontiers. But no sooner had Samsu-iluna freed his country from all
danger from this quarter than he found himself faced by a new foe,
before whom the dynasty eventually succumbed. This fact we learn from
the unpublished chronicle to which reference has already been made, and
the name of this new foe, as supplied by the chronicle, will render
it necessary to revise all current schemes of Babylonian chronology.
Samsu-iluna's new foe was no other than Iluma-ilu, the first king of the
Second Dynasty, and, so far from having been regarded as Samsu-iluna's
contemporary, hitherto it has been imagined that he ascended the throne
of Babylon one hundred and eighteen years after Samsu-iluna's death.
The new information supplied by the chronicle thus proves two important
facts: first, that the Second Dynasty, instead of immediately succeeding
the First Dynasty, was partly contemporary with it; second, that during
the period in which the two dynasties were contemporary they were at
war with one another, the Second Dynasty gradually encroaching on
the territory of the First Dynasty, until it eventually succeeded in
capturing Babylon and in getting the whole of the country under its
control. We also learn from the new chronicle that this Second Dynasty
at first established itself in "the Country of the Sea," that is to say,
the districts in the extreme south of Babylonia bordering on the Persian
Gulf, and afterwards extended its borders northward until it gradually
absorbed the whole of Babylonia. Before discussing the other facts
supplied by the new chronicle, with regard to the rise and growth of the
Country of the Sea, whose kings formed the so-called "Second Dynasty,"
it will be well to refer briefly to the sources from which the
information on the period to be found in the current histories is
derived.
All the schemes of Babylonian chronology that have been suggested during
the last twenty years have been based mainly on the great list of kings
which is preserved in the British Museum. This document was drawn up in
the Neo-Babylonian or Persian period, and when complete it gave a list
of the names of all the Babylonian kings from the First Dynasty of
Babylon down to the time in which it was written. The names of the kings
are arranged in dynasties, and details are given as to the length of
their reigns and the total number of years each dynasty lasted. The
beginning of the list which gave the names of the First Dynasty is
wanting, but the missing portion has been restored from a smaller
document which gives a list of the kings of the First and Second
Dynasties only. In the great list of kings the dynasties are arranged
one after the other, and it was obvious that its compiler imagined that
they succeeded one another in the order in which he arranged them.
But when the total number of years the dynasties lasted is learned, we
obtain dates for the first dynasties in the list which are too early to
agree with other chronological information supplied by the historical
inscriptions. The majority of writers have accepted the figures of the
list of kings and have been content to ignore the discrepancies; others
have sought to reconcile the available data by ingenious emendations of
the figures given by the list and the historical inscriptions, or have
omitted the Second Dynasty entirely from their calculations. The new
chronicle, by showing that the First and Second Dynasties were partly
contemporaneous, explains the discrepancies that have hitherto proved so
puzzling.

It would be out of place here to enter into a detailed discussion of
Babylonian chronology, and therefore we will confine ourselves to a
brief description of the sequence of events as revealed by the new
chronicle. According to the list of kings, Iluma-ilu's reign was a long
one, lasting for sixty years, and the new chronicle gives no indication
as to the period of his reign at which active hostilities with Babylon
broke out. If the war occurred in the latter portion of his reign, it
would follow that he had been for many years organizing the forces of
the new state he had founded in the south of Babylonia before making
serious encroachments in the north; and in that case the incessant
campaigns carried on by Babylon against Blam in the reigns of Hammurabi
and Samsu-iluna would have afforded him the opportunity of establishing
a firm foothold in the Country of the Sea without the risk of Babylonian
interference. If, on the other hand, it was in the earlier part of his
reign that hostilities with Babylon broke out, we may suppose that,
while Samsu-iluna was devoting all his energies to crush Bim-Sin, the
Country of the Sea declared her independence of Babylonian control. In
this case we may imagine Samsu-iluna hurrying south, on the conclusion
of his Elamite campaign, to crush the newly formed state before it had
had time to organize its forces for prolonged resistance.

Bablon and Elam 6

The invading Semites brought with them fresh blood and unexhausted
energy, and, finding many of their own race in scattered cities and
settlements throughout the country, they succeeded in establishing a
purely Semitic dynasty, with its capital at Babylon, and set about the
task of freeing the country from any vestiges of foreign control. Many
centuries earlier Semitic kings had ruled in Babylonian cities, and
Semitic empires had been formed there. Sargon and Nar?m-Sin,
having their capital at Agade, had established their control over a
considerable area of Western Asia and had held Elam as a province. But
so far as Elam was concerned Kutir-Nakhkhunte had reversed the balance
and had raised Elam to the position of the predominant power.

Of the struggles and campaigns of the earlier kings of the First Dynasty
of Babylon we know little, for, although we possess a considerable
number of legal and commercial documents of the period, we have
recovered no strictly historical inscriptions. Our main source of
information is the dates upon these documents, which are not dated by
the years of the reigning king, but on a system adopted by the early
Babylonian kings from their Sumerian predecessors. In the later periods
of Babylonian history tablets were dated in the year of the king who was
reigning at the time the document was drawn up, but this simple system
had not been adopted at this early period. In place of this we find that
each year was cited by the event of greatest importance which occurred
in that year. This event might be the cutting of a canal, when the year
in which this took place might be referred to as "the year in which
the canal named Ai-khegallu was cut;" or it might be the building of a
temple, as in the date-formula, "the year in which the great temple of
the Moon-god was built;" or it might be "the conquest of a city, such
as the year in which the city of Kish was destroyed." Now it will be
obvious that this system of dating had many disadvantages. An event
might be of great importance for one city, while it might never have
been heard of in another district; thus it sometimes happened that the
same event was not adopted throughout the whole country for designating
a particular year, and the result was that different systems of
dating were employed in different parts of Babylonia. Moreover, when a
particular system had been in use for a considerable time, it required
a very good memory to retain the order and period of the various events
referred to in the date-formulae, so as to fix in a moment the date of a
document by its mention of one of them. In order to assist themselves
in their task of fixing dates in this manner, the scribes of the First
Dynasty of Babylon drew up lists of the titles of the years, arranged
in chronological order under the reigns of the kings to which they
referred. Some of these lists have been recovered, and they are of the
greatest assistance in fixing the chronology, while at the same time
they furnish us with considerable information concerning the history of
the period of which we should otherwise have been in ignorance.

From these lists of date-formul?, and from the dates themselves which
are found upon the legal and commercial tablets of the period, we learn
that Kish, Ka-sallu, and Isin all gave trouble to the earlier kings of
the First Dynasty, and had in turn to be subdued. Elam did not watch the
diminution of her influence in Babylonia without a struggle to retain
it. Under Kudur-mabug, who was prince or governor of the districts lying
along the frontier of Elam, the Elamites struggled hard to maintain
their position in Babylonia, making the city of Ur the centre from which
they sought to check the growing power of Babylon. From bricks that have
been recovered from Mukayyer, the site of the city of Ur, we learn that
Kudur-mabug rebuilt the temple in that city dedicated to the Moon-god,
which is an indication of the firm hold he had obtained upon the city.
It was obvious to the new Semitic dynasty in Babylon that, until Ur and
the neighbouring city of Larsam had been captured, they could entertain
no hope of removing the Elamite yoke from Southern Babylonia. It is
probable that the earlier kings of the dynasty made many attempts to
capture them, with varying success. An echo of one of their struggles in
which they claimed the victory may be seen in the date-formula for the
fourteenth year of the reign of Sin-muballit, Hammurabi's father and
predecessor on the throne of Babylon. This year was referred to in the
documents of the period as "the year in which the people of Ur were
slain with the sword." It will be noted that the capture of the city
is not commemorated, so that we may infer that the slaughter of the
Elamites which is recorded did not materially reduce their influence,
as they were left in possession of their principal stronghold. In fact,
Elam was not signally defeated in the reign of Kudur-mabug, but in that
of his son Rim-Sin. From the date-formul? of Hammurabi's reign we learn
that the struggle between Elam and Babylon was brought to a climax in
the thirtieth year of his reign, when it is recorded in the formulas
that he defeated the Elamite army and overthrew Rim-Sin, while in the
following year we gather that he added the land of E'mutbal, that is,
the western district of Elam, to his dominions.

Babylon and Elam 5

It is possible that the sukkalu who ruled in Elam during the reign of
Kutir-Nakhkhunte was named Temti-agun, for a short inscription of
this ruler has been recovered, in which he records that he built and
dedicated a certain temple with the object of ensuring the preservation
of the life of Kutir-Na'khundi. If we may identify the Kutir-Va'khundi
of this text with the great Elamite conqueror, Kutir-Nakhkhunte, it
follows that Temti-agun, the sukkal of Susa, was his subordinate. The
inscription mentions other names which are possibly those of rulers of
this period, and reads as follows: "Temti-agun, sukkal of Susa, the son
of the sister of Sirukdu', hath built a temple of bricks at Ishme-karab
for the preservation of the life of Kutir-Na'khundi, and for the
preservation of the life of Lila-irtash, and for the preservation of his
own life, and for the preservation of the life of Temti-khisha-khanesh
and of Pil-kishamma-khashduk." As Lila-irtash is mentioned immediately
after Kutir-Na'khundi, he was possibly his son, and he may have
succeeded him as ruler of the empire of Elam and Babylonia, though no
confirmation of this view has yet been discovered. Temti-khisha-khanesh
is mentioned immediately after the reference to the preservation of the
life of Temti-agun himself, and it may be conjectured that the name was
that of Temti-agun's son, or possibly that of his wife, in which event
the last two personages mentioned in the text may have been the sons of
Temti-agun.
This short text affords a good example of one class of votive
inscriptions from which it is possible to recover the names of Elamite
rulers of this period, and it illustrates the uncertainty which at
present attaches to the identification of the names themselves and the
order in which they are to be arranged. Such uncertainty necessarily
exists when only a few texts have been recovered, and it will disappear
with the discovery of additional monuments by which the results already
arrived at may be checked. We need not here enumerate all the names of
the later Elamite rulers which have been found in the numerous votive
inscriptions recovered during the recent excavations at Susa. The order
in which they should be arranged is still a matter of considerable
uncertainty, and the facts recorded by them in such inscriptions as we
possess mainly concern the building and restoration of Elamite temples
and the decoration of shrines, and they are thus of no great historical
interest. These votive texts are well illustrated by a remarkable find
of foundation deposits made last year by M. de Morgan in the temple of
Shushinak at Susa, consisting of figures and jewelry of gold and silver,
and objects of lead, bronze, iron, stone, and ivory, cylinder-seals,
mace-heads, vases, etc. This is the richest foundation deposit that has
been recovered on any ancient site, and its archaeological interest in
connection with the development of Elamite art is great. But in no other
way does the find affect our conception of the history of the country,
and we may therefore pass on to a consideration of such recent
discoveries as throw new light upon the course of history in Western
Asia.
With the advent of the First Dynasty in Babylon Elam found herself
face to face with a power prepared to dispute her claims to exercise a
suzerainty over the plains of Mesopotamia. It is held by many writers
that the First Dynasty of Babylon was of Arab origin, and there is much
to be said for this view. M. Pognon was the first to start the theory
that its kings were not purely Babylonian, but were of either Arab or
Aramaean extraction, and he based his theory on a study of the forms of
the names which some of them bore. The name of Samsu-imna, for instance,
means "the sun is our god," but the form of the words of which the name
is composed betray foreign influence. Thus in Babylonian the name for
"sun" or the Sun-god would be _Shamash_ or _Shamshu_, not _Samsu_; in
the second half of the name, while _ilu_ ("god") is good Babylonian, the
ending _na_, which is the pronominal suffix of the first person plural,
is not Babylonian, but Arabic. We need not here enter into a long
philological discussion, and the instance already cited may suffice to
show in what way many of the names met in the Babylonian inscriptions
of this period betray a foreign, and possibly an Arabic, origin. But
whether we assign the forms of these names to Arabic influence or not,
it may be regarded as certain that, the First Dynasty of Babylon had
its origin in the incursion into Babylonia of a new wave of Semitic
immigration.

Babylon and Elam 4

The main part of the inscription is written in Semitic Babylonian,
and below there is an addition to the text written in proto-Elamite
characters, probably enumerating the offerings which the
Karibu-sha-Shushinak decreed should be made for the future in honour
of the god.* In course of time this proto-Elamite system of writing by
means of ideographs seems to have died out, and a modified form of the
Babylonian system was adopted by the Elamites for writing their own
language phonetically. It is in this phonetic character that the
so-called "Anzanite" texts of the later Elamite princes were composed.
We have assumed that both inscriptions were the work of
Karibu-sha-Shushinak. But it is also possible that the
second one in proto-Elamite characters was added at a later
period. From its position on the stone it is clear that it
was written after and not before Karibu-sha-Shushinak's
inscription in Semitic Babylonian. See the photographic
reproduction.
Karibu-sha-Shushinak, whose recently discovered bilingual inscription
has been referred to above, was one of the earlier of the subject
princes of Elam, and he probably reigned at Susa not later than B.C.
3000. He styles himself "patesi of Susa, governor of the land of Elam,"
but we do not know at present to what contemporary king in Babylonia
he owed allegiance. The longest of his inscriptions that have been
recovered is engraved upon a stele of limestone and records the building
of the Gate of Shushinak at Susa and the cutting of a canal; it also
recounts the offerings which Karibu-sha-Shushinak dedicated on the
completion of the work. It may here be quoted as an example of the
class of votive inscriptions from which the names of these early Elamite
rulers have been recovered. The inscription runs as follows: "For
the god Shushinak, his lord, Karibu-sha-Shushinak, the son of
Shimbi-ish-khuk, patesi of Susa, governor of the land of Elam,--when
he set the (door) of his Gate in place,... in the Gate of the god
Shushinak, his lord, and when he had opened the canal of Sidur, he set
up in face thereof his canopy, and he set planks of cedar-wood for its
gate. A sheep in the interior thereof, and sheep without, he appointed
(for sacrifice) to him each day. On days of festival he caused the
people to sing songs in the Gate of the god Shushinak. And twenty
measures of fine oil he dedicated to make his gate beautiful. Four
_magi_ of silver he dedicated; a censer of silver and gold he dedicated
for a sweet odour; a,sword he dedicated; an axe with four blades
he dedicated, and he dedicated silver in addition for the mounting
thereof.... A righteous judgment he judged in the city! As for the man
who shall transgress his judgment or shall remove his gift, may the
gods Shushinak and Shamash, Bel and Ea, Ninni and Sin, Mnkharsag and
Nati--may all the gods uproot his foundation, and his seed may they
destroy!"
It will be seen that Karibu-sha-Shushinak takes a delight in enumerating
the details of the offerings he has ordained in honour of his city-god
Shushinak, and this religious temper is peculiarly characteristic of the
princes of Elam throughout the whole course of their history. Another
interesting point to notice in the inscription is that, although the
writer invokes Shushinak, his own god, and puts his name at the head
of the list of deities whose vengeance he implores upon the impious, he
also calls upon the gods of the Babylonians. As he wrote the inscription
itself in Babylonian, in the belief that it might be recovered by
some future Semitic inhabitant of his country, so he included in his
imprecations those deities whose names he conceived would be most
reverenced by such a reader. In addition to Karibu-sha-Shushinak the
names of a number of other patesis, or viceroys, have recently
been recovered, such as Khutran-tepti, and Idadu I and his son
Kal-Rukhu-ratir, and his grandson Idadu II. All these probably ruled
after Karibu-sha-Shushinak, and may be set in the early period of
Babylonian supremacy in Elam.
It has been stated above that the allegiance which these early Elamite
princes owed to their overlords in Babylonia was probably reflected in
the titles which they bear upon their inscriptions recently found at
Susa. These titles are "_patesi_ of Susa, _shakkannak_ of Elam," which
may be rendered as "viceroy of Susa, governor of Elam." But inscriptions
have been found on the same site belonging to another series of rulers,
to whom a different title is applied. Instead of referring to themselves
as viceroys of Susa and governors of Elam, they bear the title of
_sukkal_ of Elam, of Siparki, and of Susa. Siparki, or Sipar, was
probably the name of an important section of Elamite territory, and
the title _sukkalu_, "ruler," probably carries with it an idea of
independence of foreign control which is absent from the title of
_patesi_. It is therefore legitimate to trace this change of title to
a corresponding change in the political condition of Elam; and there is
much to be said for the view that the rulers of Elam who bore the title
of _sukkalu_ reigned at a period when Elam herself was independent, and
may possibly have exercised a suzerainty over the neighbouring districts
of Babylonia.
The worker of this change in the political condition of Elam and
the author of her independence was a king named Kutir-Nakhkhunte or
Kutir-Na'khunde, whose name and deeds have been preserved in
later Assyrian records, where he is termed Kudur-Nankhundi and
Kudur-Nakhundu.* This ruler, according to the Assyrian king
Ashur-bani-pal, was not content with throwing off the yoke under which
his land had laboured for so long, but carried war into the country of
his suzerain and marched through Babylonia devastating and despoiling
the principal cities. This successful Elamite campaign took place,
according to the computation of the later Assyrian scribes, about the
year 2280 B. c, and it is probable that for many years afterwards the
authority of the King of Elam extended over the plains of Babylonia.
It has been suggested that Kutir-Nakh-khunte, after including Babylonia
within his empire, did not remain permanently in Elam, but may have
resided for a part of each year, at least, in Lower Mesopotamia.
His object, no doubt, would have been to superintend in person the
administration of his empire and to check any growing spirit of
independence among his local governors. He may thus have appointed in
Susa itself a local governor who would carry on the business of the
country during his absence, and, under the king himself, would wield
supreme authority. Such governors may have been the sukkali, who, unlike
the patesi, were independent of foreign control, but yet did not enjoy
the full title of "king."

Babylon and Elam 3

On these tablets, in fact, we have a new class of cuneiform writing in
an early stage of its development, when the hieroglyphic or pictorial
character of the ideographs was still prominent.
Although the meaning of the majority of these ideographs has not yet
been identified, P?re Scheil, who has edited the texts, has succeeded
in making out the system of numeration. He has identified the signs for
unity, 10, 100, and 1,000, and for certain fractions, and the signs for
these figures are quite different from those employed by the Sumerians.
sexagesimal, system of numeration.

That in its origin this form of writing had some connection with that
employed and, so far as we know, invented by the ancient Sumerians
is possible.* But it shows small trace of Sumerian influence, and the
disparity in the two systems of numeration is a clear indication that,
at any rate, it broke off and was isolated from the latter at a very
early period. Having once been adopted by the early Elamites, it
continued to be used by them for long periods with but small change or
modification. Employed far from the centre of Sumerian civilization, its
development was slow, and it seems to have remained in its ideographic
state, while the system employed by the Sumerians, and adopted by the
Semitic Babylonians, was developed along syllabic lines.

* It is, of course, also possible that the system of writing
had no connection in its origin with that of the Sumerians,
and was invented independently of the system employed in
Babylonia. In that case, the signs which resemble certain of
the Sumerian characters must have been adopted in a later
stage of its development. Though it would be rash to
dogmatize on the subject, the view that connects its origin
with the Sumerians appears on the whole to fit in best with
the evidence at present available.

It was without doubt this proto-Elamite system of writing which the
Semites from Babylonia found employed in Elam on their first incursions
into that country. They brought with them their own more convenient form
of writing, and, when the country had once been finally subdued, the
subject Elamite princes adopted the foreign system of writing and
language from their conquerors for memorial and monumental inscriptions.
But the ancient native writing was not entirely ousted, and continued
to be employed by the common people of Elam for the ordinary purposes
of daily life. That this was the case at least until the reign of
Karibu-sha-Shu-shinak, one of the early subject native rulers, is clear
from one of his inscriptions engraved upon a block of limestone to
commemorate the dedication of what were probably some temple furnishings
in honour of the god Shu-shinak.