ns is said to
have had as its field of operations a district of Magan, which, in the
view of the writer, undoubtedly represented the Sinaitic Peninsula and
perhaps Egypt. This expedition against Magan no doubt took place, and
one of the few monuments of Naramsin which have reached us refers to it.
Other inscriptions tell us incidentally that Naramsin reigned over the
"four Houses of the world," Babylon, Sippara, Nipur, and Lagash. Like
his father, he had worked at the building of the Ekur of Nipur and the
Bulbar of Agade; he erected, moreover, at his own cost, the temple
of the Sun at Sippara.* The latter passed through many and varied
vicissitudes. Restored, enlarged, ruined on several occasions, the date
of its construction and the name of its founder were lost in the course
of ages.

* The text giving us this information is that in which
Nabonidos affirms that Naramsin, son of Sargon of Agado, had
founded the temple of the Sun at Sippara, 3200 years before
himself, which would give us 3750 B.C. for the reign of
Naramsin.

The last independent King of Babylon, Nabonaid [Nabonidos], at length
discovered the cylinders in which Naramsin, son of Sargon, had signified
to posterity all that he had done towards the erection of a temple
worthy of the deity to the god of Sippara: "for three thousand two
hundred years not one of the kings had been able to find them." We
have no means of judging what these edifices were like for which
the Chaldaeans themselves showed such veneration; they have entirely
disappeared, or, if anything remains of them, the excavations hitherto
carried out have not revealed it. Many small objects, however, which
have accidentally escaped destruction give us a fair idea of the artists
who lived in Babylon at this time, and of their skill in handling the
graving-tool and chisel. An alabaster vase with the name of
Naramsin, and a mace-head of exquisitely veined marble, dedicated by
Shargani-shar-ali to the sun-god of Sippara, are valued only on account
of the beauty of the material and the rarity of the inscription; but a
porphyry cylinder, which belonged to Ibnishar, scribe of the above-named
Shargani, must be ranked among the masterpieces of Oriental engraving.
It represents the hero Gilgames, kneeling and holding with both hands
a spherically shaped vase, from which flow two copious jets forming a
stream running through the country; an ox, armed with a pair of gigantic
cres