The discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets threw doubt on the reading of the name Akharru:  some thought that it ought to be kept in any case; others, with more or less certainty, think that it should be replaced by Amuru, Amurru, the country of the Amorites.  But the question has now been settled by Babylonian contract and law tablets of the period of Khaminurabi, in which the name is written A- mu-ur-ri (ki).  Hommel originated the idea that Martu might be an abbreviation of Amartu, that is, Amar with the feminine termination of nouns in the Canaanitish dialect:  Martu would thus actually signify the country of the Amorites.

Probably even at that date they called the north Khati,* and Cole-Syria, Amurru, the land of the Amorites.  The scattered references in their writings seem to indicate frequent intercourse with these countries, and that, too, as a matter of course which excited no surprise among their contemporaries:  a journey from Lagash to the mountains of Tidanum and to Gubin, or to the Lebanon and beyond it to Byblos,** meant to them no voyage of discovery.  Armies undoubtedly followed the routes already frequented by caravans and flotillas of trading boats, and the time came when kings desired to rule as sovereigns over nations with whom their subjects had peaceably traded.

* The name of the Khati, Khatti, is found in the Book of Omens, which is supposed to contain an extract from the annals of Sargon and Naramsin; as, however, the text which we possess of it is merely a copy of the time of Assurbanipal, it is possible that the word Khati is merely the translation of a more ancient term, perhaps Martu.  Winckler thinks it to be included in Lesser Armenia and the Melitone of classical authors.

** Gubin is probably the Kupuna, Kupnu, of the Egyptians, the Byblos of Phoenicia.  Amiaud had proposed a most unlikely identification with Koptos in Egypt.  In the time of Ine-Sin, King of Ur, mention is found of Simurru, Zimyra.

It does not appear, however, that the ancient rulers of Lagash ever extended their dominion so far.  The governors of the northern cities, on the other hand, showed themselves more energetic, and inaugurated that march westwards which sooner or later brought the peoples of the Euphrates into collision with the dwellers on the Nile:  for the first Babylonian empire without doubt comprised part if not the whole of Syria.*

* It is only since the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets that the fact of the dominant influence of Chaldaea over Syria and of its conquest has been definitely realized.  It is now clear that the state of things of which the tablets discovered in Egypt give us a picture, could only be explained by the hypothesis of a Babylonish supremacy of long duration over the peoples situated between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean.

Among the most celebrated names in ancient history,