The new ruler’s name was Hammurabi and his people were called Babylonians. He made the city of Babylon his capital and tried to develop it in any way. The people became good traders – they went off far away on trading expeditions. While trading people used lumps of silver as money – they were very advanced people, as one can guess. In addition, bills for the goods were written in cuneiform. Babylonians already had all kinds of business papers and every businessman had a seal – a little cylinder of stone with a picture carved on it. A businessman signed a paper by rolling his seal across the wet clay. Envelopes were marked in the same way. It can be said that some of the seals were true works of art.

The Babylonians were also good builders and constructed buildings of bricks. Those constructions were not kept long – all crumbled away long ago. They were truly advanced people – they used arches in their work.

After Hammurabi different people poured into Babylonia – they had horses in their fighting. The invaders didn’t bring new ideas – they followed the Babylonian ways of living actually as far as I have learned.

Several hundred years after Hammurabi the people of Assur – they were called Assyrians, managed to conquered Babylonia and much land round about. It was they who set up a strong empire because they were good fighters – they even had weapons of iron. They traveled by carts and chariots drawn by horses. And besides, they possessed battering rams to knock down the walls of cities. It proves their being good warriors. The walls of their capital, for example, stretched for more than three miles along the Tigris. Within the walls there were many beautiful buildings decorated with sculptures – I even could see some of them.

It goes without saying that they were advanced and educated people – more than 20,000 clay tablets were found in the ruins of their library.

Unfortunately, in spite of their strong armies, the Assyrians could not hold their empire. Babylonia was conquered by a desert tribe, the Chaldeans. And the history goes on …