a tribe who held Erech for a short time, and were driven out by Izdubar, whose exploit and subsequent assumption of the crown of Erech were related in the remainder of the first tablet (see "Assyrian Discoveries," p. 169), but this conjecture has not been confirmed by my subsequent investigations; in fact it appears that Izdubar did not assume the crown until long after the events recorded on this tablet. It appears that Izdubar did not become king until after he had slain the tyrant Humbaba, and this leads directly to the conclusion that it was Humbaba, or at least the race to which he belonged, that conquered and tyrannized over Erech and probably over the whole of Babylonia.
The name of Humbaba, or Hubaba, as it is occasionally written, is evidently Elamite and composed of two elements, "Humba," the name of a celebrated Elamite god, and "ba," a verb, usually a contraction for ban, bana, and bani, meaning "to make," the whole name meaning "Humbaba has made [me]." Many other Elamite names compounded with Humba are mentioned in the inscriptions: Humba-sidir, an early chief; Humba-undasa, an Elamite general opposed to Sennacherib; Humba-nigas, an Elamite monarch opposed to Sargon; Tul-humba, an Elamite city, &c.
The notice of foreign dominion, and particularly of Elamite supremacy at this time, may, I think, form a clue from which to ascertain the approximate age of Izdubar; but I would first guard against the
