d at Sippar. He was succeeded by Sumu-la-ilu,
a deified monarch, who moved from Sippar to Babylon, the great wall of
which he either repaired or entirely reconstructed in his fifth year.
With these two monarchs began the brilliant Hammurabi, or First
Dynasty of Babylonia, which endured for three centuries. Except
Sumu-abum, who seems to stand alone, all its kings belonged to the
same family, and son succeeded father in unbroken succession.

Sumu-la-ilu was evidently a great general and conqueror of the type of
Thothmes III of Egypt. His empire, it is believed, included the rising
city states of Assyria, and extended southward as far as ancient
Lagash.

Of special interest on religious as well as political grounds was his
association with Kish. That city had become the stronghold of a rival
family of Amoritic kings, some of whom were powerful enough to assert
their independence. They formed the Third Dynasty of Kish. The local
god was Zamama, the Tammuz-like deity, who, like Nin-Girsu of Lagash,
was subsequently identified with Merodach of Babylon. But prominence
was also given to the moon god Nannar, to whom a temple had been
erected, a fact which suggests that sun worship was not more
pronounced among the Semites than the Arabians, and may not, indeed,
have been of Semitic origin at all. Perhaps the lunar temple was a
relic of the influential Dynasty of Ur.

Sumu-la-ilu attacked and captured Kish, but did not slay
Bunutakhtunila, its king, who became his vassal. Under the
overlordship of Sumu-la-ilu, the next ruler of Kish, whose name was
Immerum, gave prominence to the public worship of Shamash. Politics
and religion went evidently hand in hand.

Sumu-la-ilu strengthened the defences of Sippar, restored the wall and
temple of Cuthah, and promoted the worship of Merodach and his consort
Zerpanitu^m at Babylon. He was undoubtedly one of the forceful
personalities of his dynasty. His son, Zabium, had a short but
successful reign, and appears to have continued the policy of his
father in consolidating the power of Babylon and securing the
allegiance of subject cities. He enlarged Merodach's temple, E-sagila,
restored the Kish temple of Zamama, and placed a golden image of
himself in the temple of the sun god at Sippar. Apil-Sin, his son,
surrounded Babylon with a new wall, erected a temple to Ishtar, and
presented a throne of gold and silver to Shamash in that city, while
he also strengthened Borsippa, renewed Nergal