Art, too, reached a high perfection.  The seal-cylinders of the reign of Sargon of Akkad represent the highest efforts of the gem-cutter’s skill in ancient Babylonia, and a bas-relief of Naram-Sin, found at Diarbekr in northern Mesopotamia, while presenting 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 Ansan in Elam, and of Mer’ash in northern Syria.  His grandson, Gimil-Sin, marched to the ranges of the Lebanon and overran the land of Zamzali, which seems to be the Zamzummim of Scripture.