ting close analogies to the
Egyptian art of the Old Empire, is superior to anything of the kind as
yet discovered in Babylonia of either an earlier or a later date. As in
Egypt, so too in Babylonia, the sculpture of later times shows
retrogression rather than advance. It is impossible not to believe that
between the art of Egypt in the age of the Old Empire and that of
Babylonia in the reigns of Sargon and Naram-Sin there was an intimate
connection. The mines of the Sinaitic Peninsula were coveted by both
countries.

Sumerian princes still continued to rule in Sumer or southern Babylonia,
but after the era of Sargon their power grew less and less. A Second
Sumerian dynasty, however, arose at Ur, and claimed sovereignty over the
rest of Chaldaea. One of its kings, Ur-Bau, was a great builder and
restorer of the temples, and under his son and successor Dungi (B.C.
2700), a high-priest of the name of Gudea governed Lagas, the monuments
of which have given us an insight into the condition of the country in
his age. His statues of hard diorite from the Peninsula of Sinai are now
in the Louvre; one of them is that of the architect of his palace, with
a copy of its plan upon his lap divided according to scale. Gudea,
though owning allegiance to Dungi, carried on wars on his own behalf,
and boasts of having conquered "Ansan of Elam." The materials for his
numerous buildings were brought from far. Hewn stones were imported from
the "land of the Amorites," limestone and alabaster from the Lebanon,
gold-dust and acacia-wood from the desert to the south of Palestine,
copper from northern Arabia, and various sorts of wood from the Armenian
mountains. Other trees came from Dilmun in the Persian Gulf, from Gozan
in Mesopotamia, and from Gubin, which is possibly Gebal. The bitumen was
derived from "Madga in the mountains of the river Gurruda," in which
some scholars have seen the name of the Jordan, and the naphtha springs
of the vale of Siddim.

The library of Gudea has been found entire, with its 30,000 tablets or
books arranged in order on its shelves, and filled with information
which it will take years of labour to examine thoroughly. Not long after
his death, the Second dynasty of Ur gave way to a Third, this time of
Semitic origin. Its kings still claimed that sovereignty over Syria and
Palestine which had been won by Sargon. One of them, Ine-Sin, carried
his arms to the west, and married his daughters to the "high-priests" of