rhaps the slight alteration of an alphabetical sign.
Chedor-laomer, identified with Kudur-Mabug, may have had several local
names. One of his sons, either Warad-Sin or Rim-Sin, but probably the
former, had his name Semitized as Eri-Aku, and this variant appears in
inscriptions. "Tidal, king of nations", has not been identified. The
suggestion that he was "King of the Gutium" remains in the realm of
suggestion. Two late tablets have fragmentary inscriptions which read
like legends with some historical basis. One mentions Kudur-lahmal
(?Chedor-laomer) and the other gives the form "Kudur-lahgumal", and
calls him "King of the land of Elam". Eri-Eaku (?Eri-aku) and Tudhula
(?Tidal) are also mentioned. Attacks had been delivered on Babylon,
and the city and its great temple E-sagila were flooded. It is
asserted that the Elamites "exercised sovereignty in Babylon" for a
period. These interesting tablets have been published by Professor
Pinches.

The fact that the four leaders of the expedition to Canaan are all
referred to as "kings" in the Biblical narrative need not present any
difficulty. Princes and other subject rulers who governed under an
overlord might be and, as a matter of fact, were referred to as kings.
"I am a king, son of a king", an unidentified monarch recorded on one
of the two tablets just referred to. Kudur-Mabug, King of Elam, during
his lifetime called his son Warad-Sin (Eri-Aku = Arioch) "King of
Larsa". It is of interest to note, too, in connection with the
Biblical narrative regarding the invasion of Syria and Palestine, that
he styled himself "overseer of the Amurru (Amorites)".

No traces have yet been found in Palestine of its conquest by the
Elamites, nor have the excavators been able to substantiate the claim
of Lugal-zaggizi of a previous age to have extended his empire to the
shores of the Mediterranean. Any relics which these and other eastern
conquerors may have left were possibly destroyed by the Egyptians and
Hittites.

When Hammurabi came to the throne he had apparently to recognize the
overlordship of the Elamite king or his royal son at Larsa. Although
Sin-muballit had captured Isin, it was retaken, probably after the
death of the Babylonian war-lord, by Rim-Sin, who succeeded his
brother Warad-Sin, and for a time held sway in Lagash, Nippur, and
Erech, as well as Larsa.

It was not until the thirty-first year of his reign that Hammurabi
achieved ascendancy over his powerful rival. Ha