His son, Ammiditana, who succeeded him, apparently inherited a prosperous and well-organized Empire, for during the first fifteen years of his reign he attended chiefly to the adornment of temples and other pious undertakings.  He was a patron of the arts with archaeological leanings, and displayed traits which suggest that he inclined, like Sumu-la-ilu, to ancestor worship.  Entemena, the pious patesi of Lagash, whose memory is associated with the famous silver vase decorated with the lion-headed eagle form of Nin-Girsu, had been raised to the dignity of a god, and Ammiditana caused his statue to be erected so that offerings might be made to it.  He set up several images of himself also, and celebrated the centenary of the accession to the throne of his grandfather, Samsu-iluna, “the warrior lord”, by unveiling his statue with much ceremony at Kish.  About the middle of his reign he put down a Sumerian rising, and towards its close had to capture a city which is believed to be Isin, but the reference is too obscure to indicate what political significance attached to this incident.  His son, Ammizaduga, reigned for over twenty years quite peacefully so far as is known, and was succeeded by Samsuditana, whose rule extended over a quarter of a century.  Like Ammiditana, these two monarchs set up images of themselves as well as of the gods, so that they might be worshipped, no doubt.  They also promoted the interests of agriculture and commerce, and incidentally increased the revenue from taxation by paying much attention to the canals and extending the cultivatable areas.

But the days of the brilliant Hammurabi Dynasty were drawing to a close.  It endured for about a century longer than the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt, which came to an end, according to the Berlin calculations, in 1788 B.C.  Apparently some of the Hammurabi and Amenemhet kings were contemporaries, but there is no evidence that they came into direct touch with one another.  It was not until at about two centuries after Hammurabi’s day that Egypt first invaded Syria, with which, however, it had for a long period previously conducted a brisk trade.  Evidently the influence of the Hittites and their Amoritic allies predominated between Mesopotamia and the Delta frontier of Egypt, and it is significant to find in this connection that the “Khatti” or “Hatti” were referred to for the first time in Egypt during the Twelfth Dynasty, and in Babylonia during the Hammurabi Dynasty, sometime shortly before or after 2000 B.C.  About 1800 B.C. a Hittite raid resulted in the overthrow of the last king of the Hammurabi family at Babylon.  The Hyksos invasion of Egypt took place after 1788 B.C.

CHAPTER XII.

RISE OF THE HITTITES, MITANNIANS, KASSITES, HYKSOS, AND ASSYRIANS