The fact that the whole of Syria is described in the annals of Sargon as “the land of the Amorites,” implies, not only that the Amorites were the ruling population in the country, but also that they must have extended far to the south.  The “land of the Amorites” formed the basis and starting-point for the expedition of Naram-Sin into Magan; it must, therefore, have reached to the southern border of Palestine, if not even farther.  The road trodden by his forces would have been the same as that which was afterwards traversed by Chedor-laomer, and would have led him through Kadesh-barnea.  Is it possible that the Amorites were already in possession of the mountain-block within which Kadesh stood, and that this was their extreme limit to the south?

There were other names by which Palestine and Syria were known to the early Babylonians, besides the general title of “the land of the Amorites.”  One of these was Tidanum or Tidnum; another was Sanir or Shenir.  There was yet another, the reading of which is uncertain, though it may be Khidhi or Titi.

Mr. Boscawen has pointed out a coincidence that is at least worthy of attention.  The first Babylonian monarch who penetrated into the peninsula of Sinai bore a name compounded with that of the Moon-god, which thus bears witness to a special veneration for that deity.  Now the name of Mount Sinai is similarly derived from that of the Babylonian Moon-god Sin.  It was the high place where the god must have been adored from early times under his Babylonian name.  It thus points to Babylonian influence, if not to the presence of Babylonians on the spot.  Can it have been that the mountain whereon the God of Israel afterwards revealed Himself to Moses was dedicated to the Moon-god of Babylon by Naram-Sin the Chaldaen conqueror?

If such indeed were the case, it would have been more than two thousand years before the Israelitish exodus.  Nabonidos, the last king of the later Babylonian empire, who had a fancy for antiquarian exploration, tells us that Naram-Sin reigned 3200 years before his own time, and therefore about 3750 B.C.  The date, startlingly early as it seems to be, is indirectly confirmed by other evidence, and Assyriologists consequently have come to accept it as approximately correct.

How long Syria remained a part of the empire of Sargon of Akkad we do not know.  But it must have been long enough for the elements of Babylonian culture to be introduced into it.  The small stone cylinders used by the Babylonians for sealing their clay documents thus became known to the peoples of the West.  More than one has been found in Syria and Cyprus which go back to the age of Sargon and Naram-Sin, while there are numerous others which are more or less barbarous attempts on the part of the natives to imitate the Babylonian originals.  But the imitations prove that with the fall of Sargon’s empire the use of seal-cylinders in Syria, and consequently of documents for sealing, did not disappear.  That knowledge of writing, which was a characteristic of Babylonian civilization, must have been carried with it to the shores of the Mediterranean.