Concerning the later rulers of city-states of Babylonia which succeeded the disruption of the empire founded by Sargon of Agade and consolidated by Naram-Sin, his son, the excavations have little to tell us which has not already been made use of by Prof.  Maspero in his history of this period.*

* The tablets found at Telloh by the late M. de Sarzec, and published during his lifetime, fall into two main classes, which date from different periods in early Chaldaean history.  The great majority belong to the period when the city of Ur held pre-eminence among the cities of Southern Babylonia, and they are dated in the reigns of Dungi, Bur- Sin, Gamil-Sin, and Ine-Sin.  The other and smaller collection belongs to the earlier period of Sargon and Naram-Sin; while many of the tablets found in M. de Sarzec’s last diggings, which were published after his death, are to be set in the great gap between these two periods.  Some of those recently discovered, which belong to the period of Dungi, contain memoranda concerning the supply of food for the maintenance of officials stopping at Shirpurla in the course of journeys in Babylonia and Elam, and they throw an interesting light on the close and constant communication which took place at this time between the great cities of Mesopotamia and the neighbouring countries.

[Illustration:  190.jpg STATUE OF GUDEA.]

The most famous of the later patesis, or viceroys, of Shirpurla, the Sumerian city in Southern Babylonia now marked by the mounds of Telloh.  Photograph by Messrs. Mansell & Co.

Ur, Isin, and,Larsam succeeded one another in the position of leading city in Babylonia, holding Mppur, Eridu, Erech, Shirpurla, and the other chief cities in a condition of semi-dependence upon themselves.  We may note that the true reading of the name of the founder of the dynasty of Ur has now been ascertained from a syllabary to be Ur-Engur; and an unpublished chronicle in the British Museum relates that his son Dungi cared greatly for the city of Eridu, but sacked Babylon and carried off its spoil, together with the treasures from E-sagila, the great temple of Marduk.  Such episodes must have been common at this period when each city was striving for hegemony.  Meanwhile, Shirpurla remained the centre of Sumerian influence in Babylonia, and her patesis were content to owe allegiance to so powerful a ruler as Dungi, King of Ur, while at all times exercising complete authority within their own jurisdiction.

During the most recent diggings that have been carried out at Telloh a find of considerable value to the history of Sumerian art has been made.  The find is also of great general interest, since it enables us to identify a portrait of Gudea, the most famous of the later Sumerian patesis.  In the course of excavating the Tell of Tablets Captain Cros found a little seated statue made of diorite.  It was not found in place, but upside down, and appeared