called Senkereh. With the help of his Elamite kindred, he extended his
power from thence over the greater part of Southern Babylonia. The old
city of Ur, once the seat of the dominant dynasty of Chaldæan kings,
formed part of his dominions; Nipur, now Niffer, fell into his hands
like the seaport Eridu on the shores of the Persian Gulf, and in one of
his inscriptions he celebrates his conquest of "the ancient city of
Erech." On the day of its capture he erected in gratitude a temple to
his god Ingirisa, "for the preservation of his life."

But the god did not protect him for ever. A time came when Khammurabi,
king of Babylon, rose in revolt against the Elamite supremacy, and drove
the Elamite forces out of the land. Eri-Aku was attacked and defeated,
and his cities fell into the hands of the conqueror. Khammurabi became
sole king of Babylonia, which from henceforth obeyed but a single
sceptre.

Are we to see in the Amraphel of Genesis the Khammurabi of the cuneiform
inscriptions? The difference in the names seems to make it impossible.
Moreover, Amraphel, we are told, was king of Shinar, and it is not
certain that the Shinar of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis was that
part of Babylonia of which Babylon was the capital. This, in fact, was
the northern division of the country, and if we are to identify the
Shinar of scripture with the Sumer of the monuments, as Assyriologists
have agreed to do, Shinar would have been its southern half. It is true
that in the later days of Hebrew history Shinar denoted the whole plain
of Chaldæa, including the city of Babylon, but this may have been an
extension of the meaning of the name similar to that of which Canaan is
an instance.

Unless Sumer and Shinar are the same words, outside the Old Testament