ers, himself included, and it was overthrown
after a duration of twenty years by an Elamite, who held authority for
another seven.***

* The name of this prince has been read Simbarshiku by
Peiser, a reading adopted by Rost; Simbarshiku would have
been shortened into Sibir, and we should have to identify it
with that of the Sibir mentioned by Assur-nazir-pal in his
Annals, col. ii. 1. 84, as a king of Karduniash who lived
before his (Assur-nazir-pal's) time (see p. 38 of the
present volume).

** The name of this king may be read Edubarshakin-shumi. The
house of Bazi takes its name from an ancestor who must have
founded it at some unknown date, but who never reigned in
Chaldaea. Winckler has with reason conjectured that the name
subsequently lost its meaning to the Babylonians, and that
they confused the Chaldaean house of Bazi with the Arab
country of Bazu: this may explain why in his dynasties
Berosos attributes an Arab origin to that one which
comprises the short-lived line of Bit-Bazi.

*** Our knowledge of these events is derived solely from the
texts of the Babylonian Canon published and translated by G.
Smith, by Pinches, and by Sayce. The inscription of
Nabubaliddin informs us that Kashu-nadinakhe and Eulbar-
shakinshumu continued the works begun by Simashshiku in the
temple of the Sun at Sippar.

It was a period of calamity and distress, during which the Arabs or the
Aramaeans ravaged the country, and pillaged without compunction not only
the property of the inhabitants, but also that of the gods. The
Elamite usurper having died about the year 1030, a Babylonian of noble
extraction expelled the intruders, and succeeded in bringing the larger
part of the kingdom under his rule.*

* The names of the first kings of this dynasty are destroyed in
the copies of the Royal Canon which have come down to us. The three
preceding dynasties are restored as follows:--

[Illustration: 006.jpg TABLE OF KINGS]

Five or six of his descendants had passed away, and a certain
Shamash-mudammiq was feebly holding the reins of government, when the
expeditions of Ramman-nirari III. provoked war afresh between Assyria
and Babylon. The two armies encountered each other once again on
their former battlefield between the Lower Zab and the Turnat.
Shamash-mudammiq, after being totally routed near the Yalman mountains,
di