temple of Ishtar there had already been long established. It is true
that Gudea, the Sumerian patesi of Shirpurla, records that he rebuilt
the temple of the goddess Ninni (Ishtar) at a place called Nina. Now
Nina may very probably be identified with Nineveh, but many writers have
taken it to be a place in Southern Babylonia and possibly a district of
Shirpurla itself. No such uncertainty attaches to Hammurabi's reference
to Nineveh, which is undoubtedly the Assyrian city of that name.
Although no account has yet been published of the recent excavations
carried out at Nineveh by the British Museum, they fully corroborate the
inference drawn with regard to the great age of the city. The series of
trenches which were cut deep into the lower strata of Kuyunjik revealed
numerous traces of very early habitations on the mound.

Neither in Hammurabi's letters, nor upon the stele inscribed with his
code of laws, is any reference made to the contemporary governor or
ruler of Assyria, but on a contract tablet preserved in the Pennsylvania
Museum a name has been recovered which will probably be identified
with that of the ruler of Assyria in Hammurabi's reign. In legal and
commercial documents of the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon the
contracting parties frequently swore by the names of two gods (usually
Shamash and Marduk) and also that of the reigning king. Now it has been
found by Dr. Banke that on this document in the Pennsylvania Museum the
contracting parties swear by the name of Hammurabi and also by that of
Shamshi-Adad. As only gods and kings are mentioned in the oath formulas
of this period, it follows that Shamshi-Adad was a king, or at any rate
a patesi or ishshakku. Now from its form the name Shamshi-Adad must
be that of an Assyrian, not that of a Babylonian, and, since he is
associated in the oath formula with Hammurabi, it is legitimate to
conclude that he governed Assyria in the time of Hammurabi as a
dependency of Babylon. An early Assyrian ishshakku of this name, who was