History of Egypt, Chaldæa, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 | Page 6

Museum.
Four of them relate to no less a personage than Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer,
"King of Elam," as well as to Eri-Aku or Arioch, King of Larsa, and his son
Dur-makh-ilani; to Tudghula or Tidal, the son of Gazza[ni], and to their war against
Babylon in the time of Khamrnu[rabi]. In one of the texts the question is asked, "Who is
the son of a king's daughter who has sat on the throne of royalty? Dur-makh-ilani, the son
of Eri-Âku, the son of the lady Kur... has sat on the throne of royalty," from which it may
perhaps be inferred that Eri-Âku was the son of Kudur-Laghghamar's daughter; and in
another we read, "Who is Kudur-Laghghamar, the doer of mischief? He has gathered
together the Umman Manda, has devastated the land of Bel (Babylonia), and [has
marched] at their side." The Umman Manda were the "Barbarian Hordes" of the Kurdish
mountains, on the northern frontier of Elam, and the name corresponds with that of the
Goyyim or "nations" in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. We here see
Kudur-Laghghamar acting as their suzerain lord. Unfortunately, all four tablets are in a
shockingly broken condition, and it is therefore difficult to discover in them a continuous
sense, or to determine their precise nature.
They have, however, been supplemented by further discoveries made by Dr. Scheil at
Constantinople. Among the tablets preserved there, he has found letters from

Kharnmurabi to his vassal Sin-idinnam of Larsa, from which we learn that Sin-idinnam
had been dethroned by the Elamites Kudur-Mabug and Eri-Âku, and had fled for refuge
to the court of Kharnmurabi at Babylon. In the war which subsequently broke out
between Kharnmurabi and Kudur-Laghghamar, the King of Elam (who, it would seem,
exercised suzerainty over Babylonia for seven years), Sin-idinnam gave material
assistance to the Babylonian monarch, and Khammurabi accordingly bestowed presents
upon him as a "recompense for his valour on the day of the overthrow of
Kudur-Laghghamar."
I must also refer to a fine scarab--found in the rubbish-mounds of the ancient city of Kom
Ombos, in Upper Egypt--which bears upon it the name of Sutkhu-Apopi. It shows us that
the author of the story of the Expulsion of the Hyksôs, in calling the king Ra-Apopi,
merely, like an orthodox Egyptian, substituted the name of the god of Heliopolis for that
of the foreign deity. Equally interesting are the scarabs brought to light by Professor
Flinders Pétrie, on which a hitherto unknown Ya'aqob-hal or Jacob-el receives the titles
of a Pharaoh.
In volumes VII., VIII., and IX., Professor Maspero concludes his monumental work on
the history of the ancient East. The overthrow of the Persian empire by the Greek soldiers
of Alexander marks the beginning of a new era. Europe at last enters upon the stage of
history, and becomes the heir of the culture and civilisation of the Orient. The culture
which had grown up and developed on the banks of the Euphrates and Nile passes to the
West, and there assumes new features and is inspired with a new spirit. The East perishes
of age and decrepitude; its strength is outworn, its power to initiate is past. The long ages
through which it had toiled to build up the fabric of civilisation are at an end; fresh races
are needed to carry on the work which it had achieved. Greece appears upon the scene,
and behind Greece looms the colossal figure of the Roman Empire.
During the past decade, excavation has gone on apace in Egypt and Babylonia, and
discoveries of a startling and unexpected nature have followed in the wake of excavation.
Ages that seemed prehistoric step suddenly forth into the daydawn of history; personages
whom a sceptical criticism had consigned to the land of myth or fable are clothed once
more with flesh and blood, and events which had been long forgotten demand to be
recorded and described. In Babylonia, for example, the excavations at Niffer and Tello
have shown that Sargon of Akkad, so far from being a creature of romance, was as much
a historical monarch as Nebuchadrezzar himself; monuments of his reign have been
discovered, and we learn from them that the empire he is said to have founded had a very
real existence. Contracts have been found dated in the years when he was occupied in
conquering Syria and Palestine, and a cadastral survey that was made for the purposes of
taxation mentions a Canaanite who had been appointed "governor of the land of the
Amorites." Even a postal service had already been established along the high-roads which
knit the several parts of the empire together, and some of the clay seals which franked the
letters are now in the Museum of the Louvre.
At Susa, M. de Morgan, the late director of the Service of Antiquities