In Pl. XIV we have a reproduction of the sculptured stele of black basalt upon which is inscribed the world-renowned legal code of Khammurabi, the most illustrious king of this first dynasty of Babylon. The king is seen standing in reverential attitude before the Sun-god Shamash, from whom he is receiving the laws inscribed below. The king wears a long robe reaching down to his ankles, but leaving his right arm, which is raised in adoration, untrammelled by the folds of his mantle. The seated deity likewise has a long beard, but his high horned cap differentiates him at once from his adoring servant, while from his shoulders tongues of fire are seen shooting forth, doubtless representing the rays of the sun. In his right hand he holds the ring and staff emblematic of dominion and power. He is similarly represented in Nabû-aplu-iddina’s tablet (cf. Pl. XIV) and also on two contemporaneous stelæ in the Louvre, in one of which he is in a standing position. Beneath his feet are the mountains portrayed in miniature. The laws enacted on this stele, which is now one of the treasures of the Louvre, number about two hundred and eighty, and deal with all kinds of subjects. It was set up in E-sagila, the temple of the chief god Marduk in Babylon, so that every aggrieved party at law could go and consult it. Like so many of the monuments of Babylonian antiquity, this stele was captured by the Elamites and removed to Susa, where it remained until the French excavations on that site brought it once more to light. As we have already seen[93] the dynasty to which Khammurabi belonged was brought to an end some time later by an invasion of the Hittites, a powerful mountainous people whose home lay in Cappadocia. A century or so afterwards, i.e. about 1800 B.C., another mountainous nation known as the Kassites swept down from their strongholds in the Elamite territory on the east of the Tigris into the defenceless Babylonian plain, where they established and maintained their supremacy for a long time to come. Unfortunately the artistic relics of the Kassite period are few, and for the most part unimportant. Meanwhile, however, the Assyrians in the north had asserted their independence, and ultimately (i.e. about 1275 B.C.) succeeded in reducing Babylonia and establishing their sway over the whole of Mesopotamia. In spite of this fact, we have practically no specimen of the sculptor’s art during the long interval separating the fall of the First Dynasty of Babylon and the ninth century B.C., and it is not till the time of Ashur-naṣir-pal, king of Assyria, and Nabû-aplu-iddina, king of Babylon, that we are able again to study in detail the work of the sculptor in the Tigro-Euphratian valley. To the former king we are indebted for a large series of bas-reliefs taken from the walls of his palace at Nimrûd (Calah), while to the latter we owe one of the most interesting and instructive Babylonian bas-reliefs in existence (cf. Pl. XIV).