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 Chaldaean
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
Naram-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.
[Illustration: 190.jpg STATUE OF GUDEA.]
The most famous of the later patesis, or viceroys, of
Shirpurla, the Sumerian city in Southern Babylonia now
marked by the mounds of Telloh.
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