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Centuries had already passed since Sargon of Akkad had made himself master of the Mediterranean coast and his son Naram-Sin had led his forces to the Peninsula of Sinai. Istar of Babylonia had become Ashtoreth of the Canaanites, and Babylonian trade had long moved briskly along the very road that Abraham traversed.

From Naram-Sin, ruler of Agade, on through the period of Cassite rule, the kings of Nippur proudly include in their titles that of 'builder of the Temple of Bel at Nippur, measuring their attachment to the deity by the additions and repairs made to his sacred edifice. Besides the kings of Agade, the rulers of other places pay their devotions to Bel of Nippur.

Then came his last campaign against Northern Mesopotamia, from which he returned with abundant prisoners and spoil. Sargon's son and successor was Naram-Sin, "the beloved of the Moon-god," who continued the conquests of his father. His second campaign was against the land of Magan, the name under which Midian and the Sinaitic peninsula were known to the Babylonians.

From the few signs of the text that remain, we gather that Narâm-Sin had conducted a campaign with the assistance of certain allied princes, including the Princes of Sidur, Saluni, and Lulubi, and it is not improbable that they are to be identified with the warriors represented on the stele as climbing the mountain behind Narâm-Sin.

The new inscription was engraved on the base of a diorite statue, which had been broken to pieces so that only the base with a portion of the text remained. From this inscription we learn that Narâm-Sin was the head of a confederation of nine chief allies, or vassal princes, and waged war on his enemies with their assistance.

Nabonidos, the last king of the later Babylonian empire, who had a fancy for antiquarian exploration, tells us that Naram-Sin reigned 3200 years before his own time, and therefore about 3750 B.C. The date, startlingly early as it seems to be, is indirectly confirmed by other evidence, and Assyriologists consequently have come to accept it as approximately correct.

Of an ancient king, Sargon, a story was related how he was exposed in a boat, and, 'knowing neither father nor mother, was found by a ferryman. The exploits of this king and of his successor, Naram-Sin, were incorporated in an omen text a circumstance that again illustrates how the popular fancy connected the heroes of the past with its religious interests.

Nabonnedos tells us that it was founded by Naram-Sin. Sargon has put his name on some object that he dedicates to the sun-god at Sippar.

The age of Amraphel, indeed, is in certain respects an age of decline. The heyday of Babylonian art lay nearly two thousand years before it, in the epoch of Sargon and his son Naram-Sin.

At a comparatively deep level in the mound inscriptions of Sargon himself were recovered, along with bricks stamped with the name of Narâm-Sin, his son. It was, therefore, a reasonable conclusion roughly to date the particular stratum in which these objects were found to the period of the empire established by Sargon, with its centre at Agade.