Sea had been colonized by fresh Semitic tribes, so far from opposing their kindred in Babylon, most probably they would have proved to them a source of additional strength and support.  In fact, there are indications that the people of the Country of the Sea are to be referred to an older stock than the Elamites, the Semites, or the Kassites.  In the dynasty of the Country of the Sea there is no doubt that we may trace the last successful struggle of the ancient Sumerians to retain possession of the land which they had held for so many centuries before the invading Semites had disputed its possession with them.

Evidence of the Sumerian origin of the kings of the Country of the Sea may be traced in the names which several of them bear.  Ishkibal, Grulkishar, Peshgal-daramash, A-dara-kalama, Akur-ul-ana, and Melam-kur-kura, the names of some of them, are all good Sumerian names, and Shushshi, the brother of Ishkibal, may also be taken as a Sumerian name.  It is true that the first three kings of the dynasty, Iluma-ilu, Itti-ili-nibi, and Damki-ilishu, and the last king of the dynasty, Ea-gamil, bear Semitic Babylonian names, but there is evidence that at least one of these is merely a Semitic rendering of a Sumerian equivalent.  Iluma-ilu, the founder of the dynasty, has left inscriptions in which his name is written in its correct Sumerian form as Dingir-a-an, and the fact that he and some of his successors either bore Semitic names or appear in the late list of kings with their Sumerian names translated into Babylonian form may be easily explained by supposing that the population of the Country of the Sea was mixed and that the Sumerian and Semitic tongues were to a great extent employed indiscriminately.  This supposition is not inconsistent with the suggestion that the dynasty of the Country of the Sea was Sumerian, and that under it the Sumerians once more became the predominant race in Babylonia.

The new chronicle also relates how the dynasty of the Country of the Sea succumbed in its turn before the incursions of the Kassites.  We know that already under the First Dynasty the Kassite tribes had begun to make incursions into Babylonia, for the ninth year of Samsu-iluna was named in the date-formulae after a Kassite invasion, which, as it was commemorated in this manner by the Babylonians, was probably successfully repulsed.  Such invasions must have taken place from time to time during the period of supremacy attained by the Country of the Sea, and it was undoubtedly with a view to stopping such incursions—­for the future that Ea-gamil—­the last king of the Second Dynasty, decided to invade Elam and conquer the mountainous districts in which the Kassite tribes had built their strongholds.  This Elamite campaign of Ea-gamil is recorded by the new chronicle, which relates how he was defeated and driven from the country by Ulam-Buriash, the brother of Bitiliash the Kassite.  Ulam-Buriash did not rest content with repelling Ea-gamil’s invasion of his land,