Long after, Hammurabi, king of Babylon, delivered Chaldæa from the domination of Elam, and one of his successors, Kuri-galsu, even succeeded in entering Susa as a conqueror. But later again the Susians gained their revenge; they took Babylon by assault, and carried away the statue of Bel. A king of Susa, Shutruk-Nakhunta, boasts of having devastated Chaldæa, and of having seized the stelæ of Melishikhu; he records that he took some hundreds of towns, brought back several kings as captives, and built a large number of temples at Susa. His grandson, Shilkhak-in-Shushinak, restored these buildings, where the stelæ, the _kudurru_, and the statues of Chaldæan divinities were placed, with all the precious objects taken from the towns of the Tigris valley. The names of about twenty other Susian kings are known; they belong to two or three different dynasties, and we can trace the existence of conflicting races in Susa itself. This fact is further shown by the variety of languages which are found written in cuneiform character. By turns conquerors and conquered, the Susians passed from the rôle of oppressors to that of oppressed; raid succeeded to raid, with results as contradictory as the gusts of wind in a gale. The kings of Nineveh, who during the twelfth century B.C. became the most powerful rulers of this part of the world, were the dominating power in Chaldæa and constituted themselves protectors of the country against the incursions of the Susians. Under Sargon, king of Assyria (B.C. 722-705) and his successors there began a mighty struggle, which ended with the ruin of Susa by Assurbanipal in B.C. 647. We must here recall that strange and tragic episode of the annals of the Assyrian monarchy.