turbulent times, and coalesced the patchwork of small states into a single nation; it is only from the time of Hammurabi that southern Mesopotamia acquired the name Babylonia. Hammurabi turned his disciplined armies eastwards and invaded the region which a thousand years later became Iran, conquering Elam, Gutians, Lullubi and Kassites. To the west, he conquered the Amorite states of the Levant (modern Syria and Jordan) including the powerful kingdoms of Mari and Yamhad. Hammurabi then entered into a protracted war with the Old Assyrian Empire for control of Mesopotamia and dominance of the Near East. Assyria had extended control over much of the Hurrian and Hattian parts of southeast Anatolia from the 21st century BC, and from the latter part of the 20th century BC had asserted itself over the northeast Levant and central Mesopotamia. After a protracted struggle over decades with the powerful Assyrian kings Shamshi-Adad I and Ishme-Dagan I, Hammurabi forced their successor Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute to Babylon c. 1751 BC, giving Babylonia control over Assyria's centuries-old Hattian and Hurrian colonies in Anatolia. One of Hammurabi's most important and lasting works was the compilation of the Babylonian law code, which improved the much earlier codes of Sumer, Akkad and Assyria. This was made by order of Hammurabi after the expulsion of the Elamites and the settlement of his kingdom. In 1901, a copy of the Code of Hammurabi was discovered on a stele by Jacques de Morgan and Jean-Vincent Scheil at Susa in Elam, where it had later been taken as plunder. That copy is now in the Louvre. From before 3000 BC until the reign of Hammurabi, the major cultural and religious center of southern Mesopotamia had been the ancient city of Nippur, where the god Enlil was supreme. Hammurabi transferred this dominance to Babylon, making Marduk supreme in the pantheon of southern Mesopotamia (with the god Ashur, and to some degree Ishtar, remaining the long-dominant deity in northern Mesopotamian Assyria). The city of Babylon became known as a "holy city" where any legitimate ruler of southern Mesopotamia had to be crowned. Hammurabi turned what had previously been a minor administrative town into a large, powerful and influential city, extended its rule over the entirety of southern Mesopotamia, and erected a number of impressive buildings. The Amorite-ruled Babylonians, like their predecessor states, engaged in regular trade with the Amorite and Canaanite city-states to the west,