n of Naram-Sin, the
early Semitic King of Agade, who reigned about 3750 B.C. One face of
this stele is sculptured with a representation of the king conquering
his enemies in a mountainous country. [* See illustration.] The king
himself wears a helmet adorned with the horns of a bull, and he carries
his battle-axe and his bow and an arrow. He is nearly at the summit of
a high mountain, and up its steep sides, along paths through the
trees which clothe the mountain, climb his allies and warriors bearing
standards and weapons. The king's enemies are represented suing for
mercy as they turn to fly before him. One grasps a broken spear, while
another, crouching before the king, has been smitten in the throat by an
arrow from the king's bow. On the plain surface of the stele above the
king's head may be seen traces of an inscription of Naram-Sin engraved
in three columns in the archaic characters of his period. From the few
signs of the text that remain, we gather that Naram-Sin had conducted
a campaign with the assistance of certain allied princes, including the
Princes of Sidur, Saluni, and Lulubi, and it is not improbable that
they are to be identified with the warriors represented on the stele as
climbing the mountain behind Naram-Sin.

In reference to this most interesting stele of Naram-Sin we may here
mention another inscription of this king, found quite recently at
Susa and published only this year, which throws additional light on
Naram-Sin's allies and on the empire which he and his father Sargon
founded. The new inscription was engraved on the base of a diorite
statue, which had been broken to pieces so that only the base with
a portion of the text remained. From this inscription we learn that
Naram-Sin was the head of a confederation of nine chief allies, or
vassal princes, and waged war on his enemies with their assistance.
Among these nine allies of course the Princes of Sidur, Saluni, and
Lulubi are to be included. The new text further records that Naram-Sin
made an expedition against Magan (the Sinaitic peninsula), and defeated
Manium, the lord of that region, and that he cut blocks of stone in the
mountains there and transported them to his city of Agade, where
from one of them he made the statue on the base of which the text was
inscribed. It was already known from the so-called "Omens of Sargon
and Naram-Sin" (a text inscribed on a clay tablet from Ashur-bani-pal's
library at Nineveh which associates the de