ABRAHAM.
Babylonians, with whom they were continually at war. Babylonia was itself split up into various kingdoms and unable to combine against the invading force; hence, it often happened that the Elamites obtained the superiority, and, for a time, exer- . cised supreme power over the whole country. An Assyrian monarch, Assur-bani-pal, who is identified with Sardanapalus, records in one of his inscriptions I how that 1635 years before his own time, about B.C. 2280, a king of Elam, named Kurdur-nankhundi, had invaded Babylonia and carried away an image of the goddess Nana who was worshipped there. For many years subsequent to this event the Elamites retained their supremacy, and Chedorlaomer was probably a descendant of Kurdur-nankhundi, and was sovereign of the Babylonian kings who are mentioned with him in Gen. xiv. r. These kings are evidently named from accurate accounts in national annals.• First comes Amraphel, king of Shinar, or Southern Babylonia, whom the Septuagint calls Amarphal, and whose name, though not actually identified in any inscription, contains, according to Professor Sayce, the same element as that of a monumental king called Amar-Aku. Priority is gi~en to him as representative of the great kingdom founded by Nimrod, from whom some writers make him fourth in succession. Next, we have Arioch, king of Ellasar, whom the Vulgate calls" Rex Ponti." Ellasar is Larsa, a town on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, a little to the south-east of Erech or Warka, and now marked by the mounds of Senkereh.3 Arioch ruled over that portion of Southern Chaldrea not comprised in the kingdom of Amraphel. The name Arioch occurs as that of a Babylonian in Dan. ii. 14- It is, with some reason, supposed to be identified with the Accadian Eri-Aku, "servant of the Moon-god," who, in an inscription found at Mugheir, and now in the British Museum, calls himself the son of Kudur-Mabuk, "King of Elam," and" Father of the West," i.e. Syria. Kudur and Eri are equivalent terms, meaning " servant"; the former being an Elamite word, the latter an Accadian. 4 Kudur ap-
i.e.,
1 G. Smith, " History of Babylonia," p. 97 f. Sayce, " Fresh Light from the Monuments.'' p. 47 f. ; " Monthly Interpreter,'' iii. 463 f. • Schrader, "Die Keilinschriften des Alt. Test.,'' p. 135 ff. Rawlinson, "Egypt and Babylon," pp. 14-16. 3 Loftus, pp. 240, 256. Schrader, p. 135. See above, p. 20. 4 " Monthly Interpreter,'' ubi supra.