third from the same locality bears the inscription: "Multal-ili, the son
of Ili-isme-anni, the worshipper of the god Nin-si-zida." The name of
the god signified in the old pre-Semitic language of Chaldæa "the lord
of the upright horn," while it is worth notice that the names of the
owner and his father are compounded simply with the word _ili_ or _el_,
"god," not with the name of any special divinity. Multal-ili means
"Provident is God," Ili-isme-anni, "O my God, hear me!"

Many centuries have to elapse before the monuments of Babylonia again
throw light on the history of Canaan. Somewhere about B.C. 2700, a
high-priest was ruling in a city of Southern Babylonia, under the
suzerainty of Dungi, the king of Ur. The high-priest's name was Gudea,
and his city (now called Tel-loh by the Arabs) was known as Lagas. The
excavations made here by M. de Sarzec have brought to light temples and
palaces, collections of clay books and carved stone statues, which go
back to the early days of Babylonian history. The larger and better part
of the monuments belong to Gudea, who seems to have spent most of his
life in building and restoring the sanctuaries of the gods. Diorite
statues of the prince are now in the Louvre, and inscriptions upon them
state that the stone out of which they were made was brought from the
land of Magan. On the lap of one of them is a plan of the royal palace,
with the scale of measurement marked on the edge of a sort of
drawing-board. Prof. Petrie has shown that the unit of measurement
represented in it is the cubit of the pyramid-builders of Egypt.

The diorite of Sinai was not the only material which was imported into
Babylonia for the buildings of Gudea. Beams of cedar and box were
brought from Mount Amanus at the head of the Gulf of Antioch, blocks of
stone were floated down the Euphrates from Barsip near Carchemish,
gold-dust came from Melukhkha, the "salt" desert to the east of Egypt