To this age also belongs many of the Sumerian business and legal records, which were ultimately carried off to Susa, where they have been recovered by French excavators.

About half a century after Dungi’s death the Dynasty of Ur came to an end, its last king having been captured by an Elamite force.

At some time subsequent to this period, Abraham migrated from Ur to the northern city of Harran, where the moon god was also the chief city deity—­the Baal, or “lord”.  It is believed by certain Egyptologists that Abraham sojourned in Egypt during its Twelfth Dynasty, which, according to the Berlin system of minimum dating, extended from about 2000 B.C. till 1780 B.C.  The Hebrew patriarch may therefore have been a contemporary of Hammurabi’s, who is identified with Amraphel, king of Shinar (Sumer) in the Bible.[149]

But after the decline of Ur’s ascendancy, and long before Babylon’s great monarch came to the throne, the centre of power in Sumeria was shifted to Isin, where sixteen kings flourished for two and a quarter centuries.  Among the royal names, recognition was given to Ea and Dagan, Sin, Enlil, and Ishtar, indicating that Sumerian religion in its Semitized form was receiving general recognition.  The sun god was identical with Ninip and Nin-Girsu, a god of fertility, harvest, and war, but now more fully developed and resembling Babbar, “the shining one”, the solar deity of Akkadian Sippar, whose Semitic name was Shamash.  As Shamash was ultimately developed as the god of justice and righteousness, it would appear that his ascendancy occurred during the period when well-governed communities systematized their religious beliefs to reflect social conditions.

The first great monarch of the Isin dynasty was Ishbi-Urra, who reigned for thirty-two years.  Like his successors, he called himself “King of Sumer and Akkad”, and it appears that his sway extended to the city of Sippar, where solar worship prevailed.  Traces of him have also been found at Eridu, Ur, Erech, and Nippur, so that he must have given recognition to Ea, Sin, Anu, and Enlil.  In this period the early national pantheon may have taken shape, Bel Enlil being the chief deity.  Enlil was afterwards displaced by Merodach of Babylon.

Before 2200 B.C. there occurred a break in the supremacy of Isin.  Gungunu, King of Ur, combined with Larsa, whose sun temple he restored, and declared himself ruler of Sumer and Akkad.  But Isin again gathered strength under Ur-Ninip, who was not related to his predecessor.  Perhaps he came from Nippur, where the god Ninip was worshipped as the son of Bel Enlil.

According to a Babylonian document, a royal grandson of Ur-Ninip’s, having no direct heir, selected as his successor his gardener, Enlil-bani.  He placed the crown on the head of this obscure individual, abdicated in his favour, and then died a mysterious death within his palace.