.. who have left the country
of Ashur and the district of Shitullum." From this most interesting
reference it followed that the country to the north of Babylonia was
known as Assyria at the time of the kings of the First Dynasty of
Babylon, and the fact that Babylonian troops were stationed there
by Hammurabi proved that the country formed an integral part of the
Babylonian empire.
These conclusions were soon after strikingly confirmed by two passages
in the introductory sections of Hammurabi's code of laws which was
discovered at Susa. Here Hammurabi records that he "restored his (i.e.
the god Ashur's) protecting image unto the city of Ashur," and a few
lines farther on he describes himself as the king "who hath made
the names of Ishtar glorious in the city of Nineveh in the temple of
E-mish-mish." That Ashur should be referred to at this period is what we
might expect, inasmuch as it was known to have been the earliest capital
of Assyria; more striking is the reference to Nineveh, proving as it
does that it was a flourishing city in Hammurabi's time and that the
temple of Ishtar there had already been long established. It is true
that Gudea, the Sumerian patesi of Shirpurla, records that he rebuilt
the temple of the goddess Ninni (Ishtar) at a place called Nina. Now
Nina may very probably be identified with Nineveh, but many writers have
taken it to be a place in Southern Babylonia and possibly a district of
Shirpurla itself.
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