The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

NOTES AND ADDENDA. 297
If this conclusion be a sound one, the inferences which may be de-
duced from it will be not unimportant. In the first place, it is quite
evident that the age in which king Hammurabi of Babylon , sixth in
the series of Babylonian kings, lived, must be placed much earlier
than we have hitherto been disposed to place' him. Ofcourse a precise
estimate of the length (beginning and end) of the first dynasty, though
we have exact data, cannot be arrived-at, since the Canon has a lacuna
in the middle which can only be filled up hypothetically. Pinches
assigns to the dynasty the date B.C. 2232—1939, while Tiele, Gesch.
Vol. I, p. 112, basing his calculation on the statements of Assyrian
kings, is inclined to place the date 70 or 80 years earlier .... King
Hammurabi must be placed somewhere about the time 2100 B. C
We thereby obtain a result which, in my opinion, is likely to shed
some light on a subject that has hitherto remained obscure. As is
well known, we may conclude from the dates of contract-tablets be-
longing to the reign of this Babylonian king that he conquered king
Riv-Aku (I'ri-Aku) of Larsav and incorporated his dominion in his
own.* Riv-Aku of Larsav i. e. the Biblical Arioch of Ellasar, was
* See the statements in Geo. Smith, Notes on the Early History of
Assyria and Babylonia, London 1872, p. 9 foil.; Early History of
Babylonia in Records of the Past V p. 64 foil. 68. 70. Tiele, Baby-
lonisch-Assyrische Geschichte p. 122 footn. 3. The passages in the
inscriptions, with which we are now concerned, are to be found in
IV Rawl. 36, 4—20, comp. 21 — 44. Tiele in his History Vol. I p. 124
objects to the identification of Arioch and I'ri-Aku that the reading
of the latter, though possible, is by no means proved. He would
hardly deny that the same objection might be urged with equal force
against his own reading Arad-Sin. For the reading I'ri-Aku (or Riv-
Aku) it may be argued that this name with the pronunciation Arioch
^T'lJ^
was certainly quite current in Babylonia even in the latest
times, as we learn from the Book of Daniel (II. 14 foil.). It will pro-
bably be no longer a matter of doubt in the present day that the
Babylonian proper names in that book are not artificially formed,
whatever views may be held respecting the historical character of
however, appears in our eyes decisive
as to the ti'ue reading of the name in question is the phonetic mode
those who bear them . . . What,
in which the name of the 'son of Kudurmabug' is written viz. Ri-iv-
AN.EN.ZU in col. I, 11 of the insc. of Afadj (see Lenorm. , choix de
textes cun^if. p. 164) whei'eby the reading Arad-Sin (or -Aku) is
finally disposed of. Moreover we have also to investigate the identity of
Riv-Aku with Ri-iv-A-gu-um (IV Rawl. 35 No. 8, 1, comp. Delitzsch,
Kossaer p. 69 note 1).