There only remain to be discussed the original grounds for the suggestion that Damik-ilishu was Sin-muballit's contemporary, and that the fall of the Dynasty of Isin is to be set in the seventeenth year of the latter's reign. According to this view the conqueror of Isin would have been Rîm-Sin, assisted by his vassal, Sin-muballit. But a recent discovery has shown that Rîm-Sin can hardly have been a contemporary of Sin-muballit, or, at any rate, old enough in the seventeenth year of the latter's reign to have captured the city of Isin. From the chronicle concerning early Babylonian kings we already knew that he was not finally defeated in Hammurabi's thirty-first year, but lived on into the reign of Samsu-iluna, by whom he was apparently defeated or slain.[37] It is true that the passage is broken, and it has been suggested that the record concerns the son of Rîm-Sin, and not Rîm-Sin himself.[38] But it has now been pointed out that two of the contract-tablets found at Tell Sifr, which appear to record the same act of sale, and are inscribed with the names of the same witnesses, are dated, the one by Rîm-Sin, the other in Samsu-iluna's tenth year.[39] However we may explain the existence of these two nearly identical copies of the same document, their dates certainly imply that Rîm-Sin was in possession of a portion of Babylonia at least as late as the ninth year of Samsu-iluna's reign.[40] If, therefore, he captured Isin in the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit, Samsu-iluna's grandfather, we must suppose that his military activity in Babylonia extended over a period of at least fifty-six years, and probably longer. Such an achievement is within the bounds of possibility, but it cannot be regarded as probable.
But, quite apart from this objection, there are small grounds for the belief that Sin-muballit was Rîm-Sin's vassal, or that they could have taken part in any united action at this period. In fact, every indication we have points to the conclusion that it was from a king of Larsa that Sin-muballit captured Isin in the seventeenth year of his reign.[41] Three years previously the date-formula for his fourteenth year commemorated his defeat of the army of Ur, and there are good grounds for believing that Ur was acting at this time with the army of the king of Larsa. For certain tablets are dated in the year in which Sin-muballit defeated the army of Larsa, and we may with some confidence regard this as a variant formula for the fourteenth year.[42] Thus, three years after his defeat of the king of Larsa, Sin-muballit followed up his success by capturing the city of Isin, which he commemorated in the formula for the seventeenth year. But he cannot have held it for long, for it must have been shortly retaken by Larsa, before being again recaptured in Hammurabi's seventh year.[43] Thus, in less than eleven years, from the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit to the seventh year of Hammurabi, the city of Isin changed hands three times. We may therefore conclude that the date-formula for Sin-muballit's seventeenth year, and those found upon the Tell Sifr tablets,[44] did not commemorate the fall of the Dynasty of Isin in Damik-ilishu's reign, but were based upon two episodes in the struggle for that city, which took place at a later date, between the kings of Larsa and of Babylon.
In view of the importance of the question, we have treated in some detail the evidence that has been adduced in favour of the theory, that the later kings of Isin were contemporaneous with the earlier rulers of Babylon. It will have been seen that the difficulties involved by the suggested synchronism between Damik-ilishu and Sin-muballit are too grave to admit of its acceptance, while they entirely disappear on referring the disputed date-formulæ to their natural place in the struggle between Babylon and Larsa. This does not preclude the possibility that the dynasties may have overlapped for a shorter period than ninety-nine years. But in view of the total absence of any information on the point, it is preferable to retain the view that the Babylonian monarchy was not established before the close of the Dynasty of Isin.[45] Whatever troubles may have befallen Isin after Ur-Ninib's family had ceased to reign, there is no doubt that under her last two kings the city's influence was re-established, and that she exercised control over Babylon itself. In the course of the German excavations, a clay cone has been found in the temple E-patutila at Babylon, bearing a votive inscription of Sin-magir, the fifteenth king of Isin; and this was evidently dedicated by him as a votive offering in his character of suzerain of the city.[46] Moreover, in this text he lays claim to the rule of Sumer and Akkad. Akkad, as well as Sumer, was also held by his son Damik-ilishu, who succeeded him upon the throne. For a tablet has been found at Abû Habba, dated in the year in which Damik-ilishu built the wall of Isin,[47] and the date upon a tablet from Nippur commemorates his building of the temple of Shamash, named E-ditar-kalama, which was probably in Babylon.[48] Thus both Sippar and Babylon were subject to the city of Isin under the last of her rulers, who, like his father before him, maintained an effective hold upon the kingdom of Sumer and Akkad.
With the rise of Babylon we reach the beginning of a new epoch in the history of the two countries. The seat of power now passes finally to the north, and, through the long course of her troubled history, the city of Babylon was never dislodged from her position as the capital. Foreign invasions might result in the fall of dynasties, and her kings might be drawn from other cities and lands, but Babylon continued to be the centre of their rule. Moreover, after the fresh wave of immigration which resulted in the establishment of her First Dynasty, the racial character of Babylonia became dominantly Semitic. Before the new invaders the Sumerians tended to withdraw southwards into the coastal districts of the Persian Gulf, and from here, for a time, an independent dynasty, largely of Sumerian origin, attempted to contest with Babylon her supremacy. But with the fall of Isin the political career of the Sumerians as a race may be regarded as closed. Their cultural influence, however, long survived them. In the spheres of art, literature, religion, and law they left behind them a legacy, which was destined to mould the civilization of the later inhabitants of the country, and through them to exert an influence on other and more distant races.
[1] See Boissier, "Choix de textes relatifs à la divination," II., p. 64, and Meissner, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," March, 1907, col. 114, n. 1.
[2] See "Cun. Inscr. West. Asia," Vol. III., pl. 38, No. 1, Obv., l. 16.
[3] Cf. Scheil, "Textes Élam.-Anzan.," II., p. 20; "Textes Élam.-Sémit.," III., p. 29, and IV., p. 15.