** The inscription of Ramman-nirari I. styles him the prince
"who crushes the army of the Cossaeans, he whose hand
unnerves the enemy, and who enlarges the territory and its
limits." The Cossaeans mentioned in this passage are usually
taken to be the Cossaean kings of Babylon, and not the
mountain tribes.

Like Susiana, this part of the country was divided up into parallel
valleys, separated from each other by broken ridges of limestone, and
watered by the tributaries of the Tigris or their affluents.

[Illustration: 152.jpg A VILLAGE IN THE MOUNTAIN DISTRICTS OF THE OLD
ASSAEAN KINGDOM]

Drawn by Boudier, from a drawing by Pere Durand.

It was thickly strewn with walled towns and villages; the latter,
perched upon the precipitous mountain summits, and surrounded by deep
ravines, owed their security solely to their position, and, indeed,
needed no fortification. The country abounded in woods and pastures,
interspersed with cornlands; access to it was gained by one or two
passes on the eastern side, which thus permitted caravans or armies to
reach the districts lying between the Erythraean and Caspian Seas.
The tribes who inhabited it had been brought early under Chaldaean
civilization, and had adopted the cuneiform script; such of their
monuments as are still extant resemble the bas-reliefs and inscriptions
of Assyria.* It is not always easy to determine the precise locality
occupied by these various peoples; the Guti were situated near the upper
courses of the Turnat and the Badanu, in the vicinity of the Kashshu;**
the Lulume had settled in the neighbourhood of the Batir, to the north
of the defiles of Zohab;*** the Namar separated the Lulume from Elam,
and were situated half in the plain and half in the mountain, while the
Arapkha occupied, both banks of the Great Zab.

* Pinches has published an inscription of a king of Khani,
named Tukultimir, son of Ilushaba, written in
Chaldeo-Assyrian, and found in the temple of Shamash at
Sippara, where the personage himself had dedicated it.
Winckler gives another inscription of a king of the Guti,
which is also in Semitic and in cuneiform character.

** The name is written sometimes Quti, at others Guti, which
induced Pognon to believe that they were two different
peoples: the territory occupied by this nation must have
been originally to the east of the Lesser Zab, in the upper
basin