Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

ELAM AND BABYLON 83
Shushinak, a great administrator who was also a great
builder. De Morgan owes much to him, for he never
inscribed his name on a restored temple without also
mentioning the original founder. Even better, he transcribed
word for word the old commemorative inscriptions
in the Semitic language and added the Anzanite translation,
with the result that we have, with an interval of 2000
years between them, two editions of the first text, and
marvel at the antiquity of the people of Elam. This was
their golden age in art and literature ; and stelae, columns
of bronze, bricks, and inscriptions belonging to it abound.
The Fashe Dynasty of Babylon^ circa 1 130-1000 b.c.—
A new dynasty gained a victory over the Elamites and
Marduk was brought back to Babylon. The victor
Nebuchadnezzar I. was a leading member of the Pashe
dynasty, so called from one of the quarters of Babylon.
He for the last time carried the power of Babylon as far
as the Mediterranean. From the close of his career to
[the end of the period, about 1000 B.C., very little trustworthy
information can be gleaned.
It is
most of it Elam was the overlord.
probable that
during
The Sea-land and Bazi Dynasties^ circa 1000-960 b.c.—
Three kings belonging to a second dynasty of the Sea-land
ruled for twenty-one or twenty-three years, to be succeeded
by another, of three kings, which endured for two decades
and was known as the Dynasty of Bazi. Then the Elamites
again appear in Babylonia, and we find an Elamite
ruler on the throne, but only for a brief period of six
years.
This fact in itself is sufficient evidence of the state of
impotence into which Babylonia had fallen in consequence
of the invasion of the country by the nomadic Gutians in
one of the
jthe reign of the usurper Ramman-aplu-iddina,
successors
devastated
of the powerful Nebuchadnezzar I. They
both Sumer and Akkad, plundered the cities
and
destroyed the
great temples, with the result that
i:he land lay prostrate and without stable government.
Ramman-aplu-iddina had attempted to secure Assyrian
id, and, probably with this object in view, had given his
ughter in marriage to the reigning Assyrian monarch.