The inscriptions on their bricks boast of their power, their piety, and their inexhaustible wealth. One after another they repaired and enlarged the temple built by Khumban-numena at Liyan, erected sanctuaries and palaces at Susa, fortified their royal citadel, and ruled over Habardip and the Cossaeans as well as over Anshan and Elam. They vigorously contested the possession of the countries on the right bank of the Tigris with the Babylonians, and Shutruk-nakhunta even succeeded in conquering Babylon itself. He deprived Zamama-shumiddin, the last but one of the Cossaean kings, of his sceptre and his life, placed his own son Kutur-nakhunta on the throne, and when the vanquished Babylonians set up Bel-nadinshumu as a rival sovereign, he laid waste Karduniash with fire and sword. After the death of Bel-nadinshumu, the Pashe princes continued to offer resistance, but at first without success. Shutruk-nakhunta had taken away from the temple of Esagilla the famous statue of Bel-Merodach, whose hands had to be taken by each newly elected king of Babylon, and had carried it off in his waggons to Elam, together with much spoil from the cities on the Euphrates.* * The name of the king is destroyed on the Babylonian document, but the mention of Kutur-nakhunta as his son obliges us, till further information comes to light, to recognise in him the Shutruk-nakhunta of the bricks of Susa, who also had a son Kutur-nakhunta. This would confirm the restoration of Shutruk-nakhunta as the name of a sovereign who boasts, in a mutilated inscription, that he had pushed his victories as far as the Tigris, and even up to the Euphrates. Nebuchadrezzar I. brought the statue back to Babylon after many vicissitudes, and at the same time recovered most of his lost provinces, but he had to leave at Susa the bulk of the trophies which had been collected there in course of the successful wars. One of these represented the ancient hero Naram-sin standing, mace in hand, on the summit of a hill, while his soldiers forced their way up the slopes, driving before them the routed hosfcs of Susa. Shutruk-nakhunta left the figures and names untouched, but carved in one corner of the bas-relief a dedicatory inscription, transforming this ancient proof of Babylonian victories over Elam into a trophy of Blamite victories over Babylon. [Illustration: 348.jpg BAS-RELIEF OF NAKAM-SIN, TKANSPORTED TO SUSA BY SHUTKUK-NAKHUNTA] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. de Morgan. His descendants would assuredly have brought Mesopotamia into lasting subjection, had not the feudal organisation of their empire tolerated the existence of contemporary local dynasties, the members of which often disputed the supreme authority with the rightful king. The dynasty which ruled Habardip* seems to have had its seat of government at Tarrisha in the, valley of Malamir.**