eds of these two early rulers
with certain augural phenomena) that Naram-Sin had made an expedition
to Sinai in the course of his reign and had conquered the king of the
country. The new text gives contemporary confirmation of this assertion
and furnishes us with additional information with regard to the name of
the conquered ruler of Sinai and other details of the campaign.

That monuments of such great interest to the early history of Chaldaea
should have been found at Susa in Persia was sufficiently startling,
but an easy explanation was at first forthcoming from the fact that
Naram-Sin's stele of victory had been used by the later Elamite king,
Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, for an inscription of his own; this he had engraved
in seven long lines along the great cone in front of Naram-Sin, which is
probably intended to represent the peak of the mountain. From the fact
that it had been used in this way by Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, it seemed
permissible to infer that it had been captured in the course of a
campaign and brought to Susa as a trophy of war. But we shall see later
on that the existence of early Babylonian inscriptions and monuments in
the mound of the acropolis at Susa is not to be explained in this way,
but was due to the wide extension of both Sumerian and Semitic influence
throughout Western Asia from the very earliest periods. This subject
will be treated more fully in the chapter dealing with the early history
of Blam.

The upper surface of the tell of the acropolis at Susa for a depth of
nearly two metres contains remains of the buildings and antiquities
of the Achaemenian kings and others of both later and earlier dates.
In these upper strata of the mound are found remains of the
Arab, Sassanian, Parthian, Seleucian, and Persian periods, mixed
indiscriminately with one another and with Elamite objects and materials
of all ages, from that of the earliest patesis down to that of the
Susian kings of the seventh century B.C.

[Illustration: 160.jpg BABIL.]

The most northern of the mounds which now mark the site of
the ancient city of Babylon; used for centuries as a quarry
for building materials.

The reason of this mixture of the remains of many races and periods is
that the later builders on the mound made use of the earlier building
materials which they found preserved within it. Along the skirts of the
mound may still be seen the foundations of the wall which formed the
principal defence of the