[Illustration: 299.jpg A SMALL KELEK, OK RAFT, UPON THE TIGRIS AT
BAGHDAD.]
It is conceivable that the king may have held admirable convictions, but
have been possessed of little power to carry them out and to see
that his regulations were enforced. Luckily, we have not to depend on
conjecture for settling the question, for Hammurabi's own letters which
are now preserved in the British Museum afford abundant evidence of the
active control which the king exercised over every department of his
administration and in every province of his empire. In the earlier
periods of history, when each city lived independently of its neighbours
and had its own system of government, the need for close and frequent
communication between them was not pressing, but this became apparent
as soon as they were welded together and formed parts of an extended
empire. Thus in the time of Sargon of Agade, about 3800 B.C., an
extensive system of royal convoys was established between the principal
cities. At Telloh the late M. de Sarzec came across numbers of lumps of
clay bearing the seal impressions of Sargon and of his son Naram-Sin,
which had been used as seals and labels upon packages sent from Agade
to Shirpurla. In the time of Dungi, King of Ur, there was a constant
interchange of officials between the various cities of Babylonia and
Elam, and during the more recent diggings at Telloh there have been
found vouchers for the supply of food for their sustenance when stopping
at Shirpurla in the course of their journeys.
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