with some earlier dynasty which may possibly have had its
capital in one of the other great cities of Babylonia (such as the Dynasty
of Isin).

New data have also been discovered bearing upon the period before the rise
of Babylon. A fragment of an early dynastic chronicle from Nippur[24] gives
a list of the kings of the dynasties of Ur and Isin. From this text we
learn that the Dynasty of Ur consisted of five kings and lasted for 117
years, and was succeeded by the Dynasty of Isin, which consisted of sixteen
kings and lasted for 225 1/2 years. Now the capture of the city of Isin by
R[=i]m-Sin, which took place in the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit, the
father of Khammurabi, formed an epoch for dating tablets in certain parts
of Babylonia,[25] and it is probable that we may identify the fall of the
Dynasty of Isin with this capture of the city. In that case the later
rulers of the Dynasty of Isin would have been contemporaneous with the
earlier rulers of Dynasty I. of the Kings' List, and we obtain for the rise
of the Dynasty of Ur a date not much earlier than 2300 B.C.

These considerable reductions in the dates of the earlier dynasties of
Babylonia necessarily react upon our estimate of the age of Babylonian
civilization. The very high dates of 5000 or 6000 B.C., formerly assigned
by many writers to the earliest remains of the Sumerians and the Babylonian
Semites,[26] depended to a great extent on the statement of Nabonidus that
3200 years separated his own age from that of Nar[=a]m-Sin, the son of
Sargon of Agade; for to Sargon, on this statement alone, a date of 3800
B.C. has usually been assigned. But even by postulating the highest
possible dates for the Dynasties of Babylon and Ur, enormous gaps occurred
in the scheme of chronology, which were unrepresented by any royal name or
record. In his valiant attempt to fill these gaps Radau was obliged to
invent kings and even dynasties,[27] the existence of which is now
definitely disproved. The statement of Nabonidus has not, however, been
universally accepted. Lehmann-Haupt suggested an emendation of the text,
reducing the number by a thousand years;[28] while Winckler has regarded
the statement of Nabonidus as an uncritical exaggeration.[29] Obviously the
scribes of Nabonidus were not anxious to diminish the antiquity of the
foundation-inscription of Nar[=a]m-Sin, which their royal master had
unearthed; [v.03 p.0111] and another reason for their calculations
result