of the Sun destroyed by the nomads at Sippar, but at the end of eighteen years he was assassinated.  His son Eamukinshurnu remained at the head of affairs some three to six months; Kashshu-nadinakhe ruled three or six years, at the expiration of which a man of the house of Bazi, Eulbar-shakinshumi by name, seized upon the crown.** His dynasty consisted of three members, himself included, and it was overthrown after a duration of twenty years by an Elamite, who held authority for another seven.***

* The name of this prince has been read Simbarshiku by Peiser, a reading adopted by Rost; Simbarshiku would have been shortened into Sibir, and we should have to identify it with that of the Sibir mentioned by Assur-nazir-pal in his Annals, col. ii. 1. 84, as a king of Karduniash who lived before his (Assur-nazir-pal’s) time (see p. 38 of the present volume).

** The name of this king may be read Edubarshakin-shumi.  The house of Bazi takes its name from an ancestor who must have founded it at some unknown date, but who never reigned in Chaldaea.  Winckler has with reason conjectured that the name subsequently lost its meaning to the Babylonians, and that they confused the Chaldaean house of Bazi with the Arab country of Bazu:  this may explain why in his dynasties Berosos attributes an Arab origin to that one which comprises the short-lived line of Bit-Bazi.

*** Our knowledge of these events is derived solely from the texts of the Babylonian Canon published and translated by G. Smith, by Pinches, and by Sayce.  The inscription of Nabubaliddin informs us that Kashu-nadinakhe and Eulbar- shakinshumu continued the works begun by Simashshiku in the temple of the Sun at Sippar.

It was a period of calamity and distress, during which the Arabs or the Aramaeans ravaged the country, and pillaged without compunction not only the property of the inhabitants, but also that of the gods.  The Elamite usurper having died about the year 1030, a Babylonian of noble extraction expelled the intruders, and succeeded in bringing the larger part of the kingdom under his rule.*

* The names of the first kings of this dynasty are destroyed in the copies of the Royal Canon which have come down to us.  The three preceding dynasties are restored as follows:—­

[Illustration:  006.jpg table of kings]

Five or six of his descendants had passed away, and a certain Shamash-mudammiq was feebly holding the reins of government, when the expeditions of Ramman-nirari iii. provoked war afresh between Assyria and Babylon.  The two armies encountered each other once again on their former battlefield between the Lower Zab and the Turnat.  Shamash-mudammiq, after being totally routed near the Yalman mountains, did not long survive, and Naboshumishkun, who succeeded him, showed neither more ability nor energy than his predecessor.  The Assyrians wrested from him the fortresses of Bambala and Bagdad, dislodged him from the positions where he had entrenched himself, and at length took him prisoner while in flight, and condemned him to perpetual captivity.*