e country of Ammon. Sayce points out that we often find
the variant Am for the character usually read _Ham_ or
_Kham_--the name Khammurabi, for instance, is often found
written Ammurabi; the Ham in the narrative of Genesis would,
therefore, be identical with the land of Ammon in
Deuteronomy, and the difference between the spelling of the
two would be due to the fact that the document reproduced in
the XIVIIth chapter of Genesis had been originally copied from
a cuneiform tablet in which the name of the place was
expressed by the sign _Ham-Am._

In the mean time, the kings of the five towns had concentrated their
troops in the vale of Siddim, and were there resolutely awaiting
Kudur-lagamar. They were, however, completely routed, some of the
fugitives being swallowed up in the pits of bitumen with which the
soil abounded, while others with difficulty reached the mountains.
Kudur-lagamar sacked Sodom and Gomorrah, re-established his dominion on
all sides, and returned laden with booty, Hebrew tradition adding
that he was overtaken near the sources of the Jordan by the patriarch
Abraham.*

* An attempt has been made to identify the three vassals of
Kudur-lagamar with kings mentioned on the Chaldaean
monuments. Tidcal, or, if we adopt the Septuagint variant,
Thorgal, has been considered by some as the bearer of a
Sumorian name, Turgal= "great chief," "great son," while
others put him on one side as not having been a Babylonian;
Pinches, Sayce, and Hommel identify him with Tudkhula, an
ally of Kudur-lagamar against Khammurabi. Schrader was the
first to suggest that Amraphel was really Khammurabi, and
emended the Amraphel of the biblical text into Amraphi or
Amrabi, in order to support this identification. Halevy,
while on the whole accepting this theory, derives the name
from the pronunciation Kimtarapashtum or Kimtarapaltum,
which he attributes to the name generally read Khammurabi,
and in this he is partly supported by Hommel, who reads
"Khammurapaltu."

After his victory over Kudur-lagamar, Khammurabi assumed the title of
King of Martu,* which we find still borne by Ammisatana sixty years
later.** We see repeated here almost exactly what took place in Ethiopia
at the time of its conquest by Egypt: merchants had prepared the way for
military occupation, and the civilization of Babylon had taken