Its history begins very early, for one of its kings—Sargon of Accad—is believed to have reigned in 3800 B.C. The circumstance to which we owe the discovery of this remarkable fact is thus related in Dr Sayce's "Hibbert Lectures": The last king of Babylonia, Nabonidos, had antiquarian tastes, and busied himself not only with the restoration of the old temples of his country, but also with the disinterment of the memorial cylinders which their builders and restorers had buried beneath their foundations. It was known that the great temple of the Sun-god at Sippara, where the mounds of Abu-Hubba now mark its remains, had been originally erected by Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, and attempts had been already made to find the records which, it was assumed, he had entombed under its angles. With true antiquarian zeal Nabonidos continued the search, and did not desist until, like the dean and chapter of some modern cathedral, he had lighted upon 'the foundation stone' of Naram-Sin himself. This foundation-stone, he tells us, had been seen by none of his predecessors for 3200 years. In the opinion, accordingly, of Nabonidos, a king who was curious about the past history of his country, and whose royal position gave him the best possible opportunities for learning all that could be known about it, Naram-Sin and his father, Sargon I., lived 3200 years before his own time, or 3750 B.C."
The date is so remote and so contrary to all our pre-conceived ideas regarding the antiquity of the Babylonian monarchy, that it was not received without hesitation; but it appears to be supported by other evidence, and is now generally accepted. It is believed, indeed, that the monuments found at Tell-lo, including statues of diorite, a material foreign to Babylonia, are earlier still, and must be regarded as pre-Semitic.
It may be asked, what interest can we have in people and things so remote? the Babylonians and their religion have
