ears before Dungi's death a temple was
erected to him at Nippur, where he was worshipped as Dagan. Until the
very close of his reign, which lasted for fifty-eight years, this
great monarch of tireless activity waged wars of conquest, built
temples and palaces, and developed the natural resources of Sumer and
Akkad. Among his many reforms was the introduction of standards of
weights, which received divine sanction from the moon god, who, as in
Egypt, was the measurer and regulator of human transactions and human
life.

To this age also belongs many of the Sumerian business and legal
records, which were ultimately carried off to Susa, where they have
been recovered by French excavators.

About half a century after Dungi's death the Dynasty of Ur came to an
end, its last king having been captured by an Elamite force.

At some time subsequent to this period, Abraham migrated from Ur to
the northern city of Harran, where the moon god was also the chief
city deity--the Baal, or "lord". It is believed by certain
Egyptologists that Abraham sojourned in Egypt during its Twelfth
Dynasty, which, according to the Berlin system of minimum dating,
extended from about 2000 B.C. till 1780 B.C. The Hebrew patriarch may
therefore have been a contemporary of Hammurabi's, who is identified
with Amraphel, king of Shinar (Sumer) in the Bible.[149]

But after the decline of Ur's ascendancy, and long before Babylon's
great monarch came to the throne, the centre of power in Sumeria was
shifted to Isin, where sixteen kings flourished for two and a quarter
centuries. Among the royal names, recognition was given to Ea and
Dagan, Sin, Enlil, and Ishtar, indicating that Sumerian religion in
its Semitized form was receiving general recognition. The sun god was
identical with Ninip and Nin-Girsu, a god of fertility, harvest, and
war, but now more fully developed and resembling Babbar, "the shining
one", the solar deity of Akkadian Sippar, whose Semitic name was
Shamash. As Shamash was ultimately developed as the god of justice and
righteousness, it would appear that his ascendancy occurred during the
period when well-governed communities systematized their religious
beliefs to reflect social conditions.

The first great monarch of the Isin dynasty was Ishbi-Urra, who
reigned for thirty-two years. Like his successors, he called himself
"King of Sumer and Akkad", and it appears that his sway extended to
the city of Sippar, where solar worship prev