Explorations in Bible lands during the 19th century - H. V. Hilprecht

DURING 19 CENTURY: ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA 257
or slabs, of Naram-Sin, in slate and diorite, apparently
intended as bases for small statues or some other kind of
votive objects. Both slabs are provided with square holes
in their centres and engraved with inscriptions of considerable
interest. We learn from the one legend that the conquests
of the last-mentioned powerful king, whose empire
extended from the mountains of Elam to the boundary
of Egypt, included the country of Armanu. 1 The other
makes us acquainted with a son and with a granddaughter
of Naram-Sin, who served as a priestess of Sin, so that
practically we now know four generations of the ancient
kings of Agade.
According to a personal communication from De Sarzec,
his eleventh campaign, which lasted only twelve weeks,
yielded no less
than 4000 baked cuneiform tablets and fragments
of the same general character as those described
above, two exquisite new heads of statues in dolerite, and
several other monuments of the period of Ur-Nina and his
successors, the first description of which we must leave to
the pen of Heuzey, the eloquent and learned interpreter of
his friend's epoch-making discoveries in Southern Babylonia.
The tablets have been studied very recently by
Thureau-Dangin. 2
According to his information thev contain
several new governors (patesis) of Shir-pur-la from that
obscure period which lies between the reigns of Naram-Sin
(about 3750 b. c.) and Ur-Gur (at present read Ur-Engur
by the French scholar 3 ), the probable founder of the later
dynasty of Ur (about 2700 b. c). They also give us an
insight into the administrative machinery of the powerful
kingdom of Ur, and are of especial importance for the long
government of Dungi, son and successor of Ur-Gur, who
1
Which can scarcely be separated from Ar-man mentioned v R. 12, No. 6,
47. Comp. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies ? Leipzig, 1881, p. 205.
2
Comp. Comptes Rendus, 1902, session of Jan. 10, pp. 77-94.
8
L. c. p. 82, note 2.