d
after those of the bull or ox. We may conclude, without much danger of
mistake, that in the time of the monarch who owned this seal, dresses of
delicate fabric and elaborate pattern, and furniture of a recherche and
elegant shape, were in use among the people over whom he exercised
dominion.

The chief capital city of Urukh appears to have been Ur. He calls
himself "King of Ur and Kingi Accad;" and it is at Ur that he raises his
principal buildings. Ur, too, has furnished the great bulk of his
inscriptions. Babylon was not yet a place of much importance, though it
was probably built by Nimrod. The second city of the Empire was Huruk or
Erech: other places of importance were Larsa (Ellasar?) and Nipur or
Calneh.

Urukh appears to have been succeeded in the kingdom by a son, whose name
it is proposed to read as Elgi or Ilgi. Of this prince our knowledge is
somewhat scanty. Bricks bearing his name have been found at Ur (Mugheir)
and at Tel Eid, near Erech, or Warka; and his signet-cylinder has been
recovered, and is now in the British Museum. We learn from inscriptions
of Nabonidus that he completed some of the buildings at Ur, which had
been left unfinished by his father; while his own bricks inform us that
he built or repaired two of the principal temples at Erech. On his
signet-cylinder he takes the title of "King of Ur."

After the death of Ilgi, Chaldaean history is for a time a blank. It
would seem, however, that while the Cushites were establishing themselves
in the alluvial plain towards the mouths of the two great rivers, there
was growing up a rival power, Turanian, or Ario-Turanian, in the
neighboring tract at the foot of the Zagros mountain-chain. One of the
most ancient, perhaps the most ancient, of all the Asiatic cities was
Susa, the Elamitic capital, which formed the centre of a nationality that
endured from the twenty-third century B.C. to the time of Darius
Hystaspis (B.C. 520) when it sank finally under the Persians. A king of
Elam, whose court was held at Susa, led, in the year B.C. 2286 (or a
little earlier), an expedition against the cities of Chaldaea, succeeded
in carrying all before him, ravaged the country, took the towns,
plundered the temples, and bore off into his own country, as the most
striking evidence of victory, the images of the deities which the
Babylonians especially reverenced. This king's name, which was
Kudur-Nakhunta, is thought to be the exact equivalent of one w