ere formerly cast upon these traditions inasmuch
as they were found in a text containing omens or forecasts, but these
doubts were removed by the discovery of contemporary documents by which
the later traditions were confirmed. Sargon's conquest of Elam, for
instance, was proved to be historical by a reference to the event in a
date-formula upon tablets belonging to his reign. Moreover, the event
has received further confirmation from an unpublished tablet in the
British Museum, containing a copy of the original chronicle from which
the historical extracts in the "Omens" were derived. The portion of
the composition inscribed upon this tablet does not contain the lines
referring to Sargon's conquest of Elam, for these occurred in an earlier
section of the composition; but the recovery of the tablet puts beyond
a doubt the historical character of the traditions preserved upon the
omen-tablet as a whole, and the conquest of Elam is thus confirmed
by inference. The new text does recount the expedition undertaken by
Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, against Apirak, and so furnishes a direct
confirmation of this event.

Another early conqueror of Elam, who was probably of Semitic origin,
was Alu-usharshid, king of the city of Kish, for, from a number of his
inscriptions found near those of Sargon at Nippur in Babylonia, we learn
that he subdued Elam and Para'se, the district in which the city of Susa
was probably situated. From a small mace-head preserved in the British
Museum we know of another conquest of Elam by a Semitic ruler of this
early period. The mace-head was made and engraved by the orders of
Mutabil, an early governor of the city of Dur-ilu, to commemorate his
own valour as the man "who smote the head of the hosts" of Elam. Mutabil
was not himself an independent ruler, and his conquest of Elam must have
been undertaken on behalf of the suzerain to whom he owed allegiance,
and thus his victory cannot be classed in the same category as those of
his predecessors. A similar remark applies to the success against
the city of Anshan in Elam, achieved by Grudea, the Sumerian ruler
of Shirpurla, inasmuch as he was a patesi, or viceroy, and not an
independent king. Of greater duration was the influence exercised over
Elam by the kings of Ur, for bricks and contract-tablets have been found
at Susa proving that Dungi, one of the most powerful kings of Ur, and
Bur-Sin, Ine-Sin, and Oamil-Sin, kings of the second dynasty in that
c