at the capture of Shushan, the capital of Elam, by the Assyrians, about B.C. 645, thus making the initial date B.C. 2280. At that time an image of Nana was carried into captivity from Erech by the Elamite king, Kudur-nanhundi, who, according to these inscriptions, appears to have then ruled over and oppressed the land of Babylonia. It is possible that the ravaging of the city of Erech, mentioned in the fragment of the first tablet of the Izdubar legends, recounts the very event alluded to by Assurbanipal. This date and the circumstances of the Elamite conquest form, I think, a clue to the age of Izdubar. Kudur-nanhundi, who plundered Erech, was probably one of the later kings of this dynasty, and Humba-ba was the last. A fragment which refers to this period in " Cuneiform Inscriptions," vol. iii. p. 38, relates the destruction wrought in the country by the Elamites, and gives Kudur-nanhundi as following one of the other monarchs of this line, and as exceeding his predecessors in the injury he did to the country.
Putting together the detached notices of this period, I conjecture the following to be somewhere about the chronology, the dates being understood as round numbers.
B.C. 2450, Elamites overrun Babylonia.
B.C. 2280, Kudur-nanhundi, king of Elam, ravages Erech.
B.C. 2250, Izdubar or Nimrod slays Humba-ba, and restores the Chaldean power.
