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Western Asia 29 mountains poured into the Baby- lonian plain. The most impor- tant thing about them was that they brought with them the horse, which then appeared in Babylonia for the first time (twenty-first century B.C.). The barbarians divided and soon de- stroyed the kingdom of Hammu- rapi. After him there followed more than a thousand years of total stagnation in Babylonia. 42. The Assyrian Empire. There is nothing we need record here between the times of Ham- murapi and the rise of the great Assyrian Empire a thousand years after his death. Semites from the desert had founded the town of Assur (see map, p. 30) and adopted the civilization of the Sumerians to the south (in- cluding cuneiform, to write their Semitic dialect). These people of Assur, whom we call Assyr- ians, had by noo B.C. marched westward and looked out on the Mediterranean. It took three hundred years thoroughly to con- quer this region, but by 750 B.C. Assyria had firmly established herself along the Mediterranean. SILVER VASE OF A SUMERIAN ClTY-KlNG This is the finest piece of metal work from early Babylonia. The eagle and lions which appear on it formed the symbol, or arms, of the Sumerian city-kingdom of Lagash. Such animal symbols passed over into Europe and were used in mod- ern times by Russia, Austria, Prus- sia, and other European nations. The eagle one sees on the United States coins is in a sense a de- scendant of the eagle of Lagash five thousand years ago In the meantime she subdued Babylonia, thus gaining possession of the entire Fertile Crescent. She even gained control of Egypt in 670 and held it for a short time. Thus the once feeble little city of Assur gained the lordship