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HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS
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lands.[1] Traditions other than those preserved in the king lists declared that in the times of Lugalbanda and Dumuzi, the third and fourth kings of this dynasty, the Elamites invaded Babylonia from their mountains.[2] With sad hearts the scribes were forced to record the fact that considerably later the kingship deserted Uruk for Awan, definitely an Elamite city. For a time a second dynasty at Kish restored the sovereignty to Babylonia, but the succeeding rule in the city Hamazi suggests a return of power to the highlands north of Elam.[3] Finally, when the kingship once more returned to grace the city Kish under the ruler Utug, omitted from the scribal lists,[4] reverberations of the struggles between Elamite highlandersand Babylonians may be referred to in an inscription of Lugal-anne-mundu of Adab, who warred with Elam, Marhashi, and Gutium.[5]

  1. Ibid.; P. Dhorme in Revue biblique, XXXV (1926), 72 n., interprets the phrase to mean the death of Meskengasher.
  2. A. Poebel, Historical and Grammatical Texts (PBS, Vol. V), No. 20 rev. 14 ff.; cf. Poebel, Historical Texts (PBS, Vol. IV, Part 1), pp. 117 and 122.
  3. Langdon, op. cit., pp. 13 f.; cf. Poebel, Historical Texts, p. 128; E. A. Speiser, Mesopotamian Origins (Philadelphia, 1930), pp. 35 f. and 43.
  4. H. V. Hilprecht, Old Babylonian Inscriptions (BE, Series A, Vol. I), Part 2, Nos. 108 f.; cf. F. Thureau-Dangin, Die sumerischen und akkadischen Königsinschriften (Leipzig, 1907; hereafter abbreviated SAK), pp. 160 f.
  5. Poebel, Historical and Grammatical Texts, No. 75 iii 29 ff., and iv 27 ff. See H.-G. Güterbock in ZA, XLII (1934), 42 ff. Marhashi (in its Akkadian form, Barahshi) is doubtless to be located north of Elam; cf. W. F. Albright in JAOS, XLV (1925), 232; Speiser, op. cit., p. 31.