Boscawen, in a paper read at the Victoria Institute in 1886, says that inscriptions found at Larsa, a neighbouring city to Ur of the Chaldees, show that from as early a period as 3750 _B.C._ a Semitic population existed in the latter city, speaking a language akin to Hebrew, carrying on trade and commerce, and with a religion which, although not Monotheist, had at the head of its pantheon a supreme god, Ilu or El, from whose name that of Elohim and Allah has been inherited as the name of God by the Hebrews and Arabs. The latest discoveries all point to the earliest dates, and some authorities think that genuine traces of the earliest Accadian civilization can be found as far back as 6000 B.C. There can be no doubt, moreover, that this Sharrukin or Sargon I. is a perfect historical personage. A statue of him has been found at Agade or Accad, and also his cylinder with an inscription on it giving his name and exploits. It begins, "Sharrukin the mighty king am I," and goes on to say, "that he knew not his father, but his mother was a royal princess, who to conceal his birth placed him in a basket of rushes closed with bitumen, and cast him into the river, from which he was saved by Akki the water-carrier, who brought him up as his own child." It is singular how the same or a very similar story is told of Moses, Cyrus, and other heroes of antiquity. It is probable from this that he was a military adventurer who rose to the throne; but there can be no doubt that he was a great monarch, who united the two provinces of Shumir and Accad, or of Lower and Upper Mesopotamia, into one kingdom, as Menes did the Upper and Lower Egypts, and extended his rule over some of the adjoining countries. He says "that he had reigned for forty-five years, and governed the black-headed (Accadian) race. In multitudes of bronze chariots I rode over rugged lands. I governed the upper countries. Three times to the coast of the sea I advanced." If there is any truth in this inscription it would be very interesting as showing the existence in Western Asia of nations to be conquered in great campaigns, with a force of horse-chariots, at this remote period, 2000 years earlier than the campaigns of Ahmes and Thotmes recorded in the Egyptian monuments of the eighteenth dynasty. [Illustration: CYLINDER SEAL OF SARGON I., FROM AGADE. (Hommel, "Gesch. Babyloniens u. Assyriens.")]