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.
[Illustration: 240.jpg BRICK STAMPED WITH AN INSCRIPTION OF
KUDUR-MABURG]
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 Naram-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.
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