Alalakh would seem to have come once…

Eshnunna had eventually been drawn within the sphere of Third Dynasty of Ur, before achieving a short-lived political prominence—after Ur's decline and fall—within the first two centuries of the second millennium BCE.

At this time, Eshnunna again represents the focus of an independent polity of significant size and influence.

Eshnunna is ultimately conquered in 1759 by Hammurabi, Amorite ruler of Babylon, and absorbed within the Old Babylonian Empire (sometimes called the First Babylonian Dynasty).

There is evidence that the entire town is ravaged by a terrible flood in about 1755, just four years after its supposed capture.

Mari is destroyed for the third and final time around 1757 BCE by Hammurabi.

This is known from the numerous state archives tablets that recount Hammurabi turning on his old ally Zimrilim, and defeating him in battle.

At this time Zimrilim disappears from historical view, and is presumed to have been killed.

After this destruction, there will be scattered habitations by Assyrians and Babylonians, but the city will remain a village until the arrival of the Greeks, and vanish from history thereafter.

Kudur-mabug, apparently king of another Sumerian state to the north of Larsa, manages to install his son, Warad-Sin, on the throne of Larsa around 1760 BCE; Warad-Sin's brother, Rim-Sin, succeeds him and conquers much of Mesopotamia for Larsa.

The so-called Code of Hammurabi, created in response to the needs of increasing trade, usury and commerce, seeks to end blood feud and personal retribution and replace these with a secular state code based on the idea of citizenship.

The Code defines the legal rights of all sections of the population, including the enslaved people.

It consists of two hundred and eighty-two provisions systematically arranged under such headings as family, labor, personal property, real estate, trade, and business.

Legal actions are initiated under the code by written pleadings; testimony is taken under oath; witnesses can be subpoenaed.

The Code is guided by such principles as that the strong should not injure the weak and that punishment should fit the crime.

Severe in its penalties, it prescribes "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

The legitimacy of the code is maintained by invoking the authority of the gods and the state.

The Code recognizes various methods of disposing of property, including sale, lease, barter, gift, dedication, loan, pledge, and bailment.

The law of sales includes the doctrine that the Romans were later to call caveat emptor ("let the buyer beware").

The Code regards usury as an offense.

The code establishes price ceilings for goods as well as maximum wages and fees for laborers, artisans, and professionals.

Crimes punishable by death require a trial before a bench of judges.

Capital crimes include bigamy, cowardice in the face of the enemy, incest, kidnapping, adultery, theft, false witness, and malfeasance in public office.

Murder, however, is not included in the code.

Among the family law provisions is the requirement of a written contract for marriage.

Dowry and marriage settlements are allowed, with penalties for their breach spelled out in the marriage contract.

A husband wishing to divorce his wife is required to provide alimony and child support.

Wives may obtain divorces for desertion, cruelty, or neglect.

Hamurrabi, the sixth king of Babylonia’s Amorite (or Old) Dynasty, dies around 1750, after a forty-two-year reign that had inaugurated the so-called “first golden age of Semitic culture.”

Owing to his reputation in modern times as an ancient lawgiver, Hammurabi's portrait is featured in many government buildings throughout the world.

Low flood levels and attendant famines throw Egypt into political disarray in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Shamshi-Addad’s next target is Mari, the city that controls the caravan route between Anatolia and Mesopotamia.

The king of Mari, Iakhdunlim, is assassinated by his own servants, possibly on Shamshi-Adad's orders.

Shamshi-Adad seizes the opportunity and occupies Mari.

The heir to the throne, Zimri-Lim, is forced to flee to Aleppo, ancient Yamkhad.

Here he puts his second son, Yasmah-Adad, on the throne, and then returns to Shubat-Enlil.

Assyria loses its independence to a dynasty of Amorite descent from Terqa, a city near Mari, on the Euphrates River, when a member of this dynasty conquers Assyria and reigns from around 1740 BCE as Shamshi-Adad I, his kingdom extending from the Euphrates to the Zagros Mountains.

The capital of this Old Assyrian kingdom, called Shubat-Enlil, is founded some distance from Urkesh at another Hurrian settlement in the Khabur River valley, modern Tell Leilan.

Shamshi-Adad I dies around 1718 BCE; his son, Ishme-Dagan, is defeated by Hammurabi of Babylon, who thus establishes himself as ruler of Assyria.

The conquest of the Khabur River valley region by the Amorite king Shamshi-Adad I, who lived from about 1765 BC to 1700 BCE, had revived the abandoned site of Shekhna, present Tell Leilan.

Shamshi-Adad, seeing the great potential in the rich agricultural production of the region, had made it the capital city of his northern Mesopotamian kingdom and renamed it from Shekhna to Shubat-Enlil, meaning "the residence of the god Enlil" in the Akkadian language.

A royal palace has been built and a temple acropolis to which a straight paved street leads from the city gate.

There is also a planned residential area and the entire city is enclosed by a wall.

Shubat-Enlil, covering about ninety hectares, or more than two hundred and twenty-two acres, may have a population of twenty thousand people at its peak.

Shamshi-Adad’s eventual conquest of the fortress of Ekallatum on the left bank of the Tigris had made it possible for him to control the city-state of Assur, a flourishing city that trades heavily with Anatolia.

His rise to glory had earned him the envy of neighboring kings and tribes, and throughout his reign, he and his sons had faced several threats to their control.

While Ishme-Dagan, whom his father had placed on the throne of Ekallatum, probably was a competent ruler, his brother Yasmah-Adad, charged with the rule of Mari, appears to have been a man of weak character.

Shamshi-Adad had continued to strengthen his kingdom throughout his life, but upon his death it soon began to crumble.

The empire lacks cohesion and is in a vulnerable geographical position.

When the news of Shamshi-Adad's death spread, his old rivals at once set out to topple his sons from the throne.

Yasmah-Adad had been expelled from Mari in 1779 by Zimrilim, the son and heir of the previous ruler, and the rest of the empire would soon be lost to Hammurabi of Babylon.