The History of Antiquity, Vol. 1 (of 6)

It was not till the subjection of Babylonia was complete that the Assyrian king Assurbanipal succeeded in reducing Elam, and in taking and destroying Susa, the ancient metropolis of the country. In his inscriptions this king of Assyria informs us that King Kudur-Nanchundi331 of Elam laid his hand on the temples of Accad (p. 257); two neres, seven sosses, and fifteen years, —i. e., 1,635 years previously, he carried away the image of the goddess Nana. He (Assurbanipal) brought her back; on the first of the month Kisallu (Kislev) the goddess was conducted back to Erech (p. 237); in Bithiliana he built for her a lasting sanctuary. As Elam was not completely subdued by Assurbanipal till the year 645 B.C., we may place the recovery of the statue of Nana in this year.332 Hence the date of Kudur-Nanchundi of Elam, whom an inscription of Susa calls the son of Sutruk-Nanchundi, would fall in the year 2280 B.C., and if about this time it was possible to carry away images of gods from Babylonia, we cannot place the beginnings of civilisation in Babylonia later than the year 2500 B.C. Tiles found at Mugheir, at no great distance from the mouth of the Euphrates in Babylonia, belong to a second king with a name of similar formation – Kudur-Mabuk. His inscriptions tell us that Kudur-Mabuk, lord of the west-land (martu), had erected a shrine to the god "Sin, his king, for prolonging his own life and that of his son, Zikar-Sin."333 On a statuette of bronze, now in the Louvre, we also read the name of Kudur-Mabuk and his son. Babylonian inscriptions speak of battles of Hammurabi king of Babylon against Kudur-Mabuk and against Elam.334 The tradition of the Hebrews tells us that the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, the kings of Adama, Zeboiim, and Zoar, i. e. the princes of the land of Jordan, whose names are quoted, had served Kedor-Laomer, king of Elam, for twelve years, and when they revolted, Kedor-Laomer and the princes with him, Amraphel of Shinar, Arioch and Tidal, had come down and conquered the Horites, the Amalekites, and the Amorites, i. e. the tribes of the Syrian desert, the land of Aram between Sinai and Hermon; and the kings of Jordan were defeated in the valley of Siddim. The first part of the name Kedor-Laomer corresponds to Kudur in the name Kudur-Nanchundi and Kudur-Mabuk. The second part recurs in the name Lagamar, which is the name of a god worshipped by the Elamites.335 According to this, the Kudurids, or kings of Elam, of whom Sutruk and Kudur-Nanchundi, Kudur-Mabuk, and Kudur-Lagamar are known by name, first attacked Babylonia, then became rulers of Babylonia, and at one time extended their dominion to the west as far as Syria. According to the computations of the Hebrews, the campaign of Kedor-Laomer to Syria would take place about the year 2100 B.C. The inscription would carry the beginning of the rule of the Kudurids in Elam to the year 2500 B.C., and consequently the beginning of a political constitution in Elam may be assumed to be prior to the year 2300 B.C., and the sovereignty of the Kudurids over Babylon and in the west may be placed about the year 2000 B.C.

If Elam was once more powerful than Babylon it may have been also older – as among the Hebrews Elam is the eldest son of Shem – the civilisation of the Elamites may have developed earlier than that of the Babylonians. But although a number of names of kings have been handed down to us on Assyrian tablets, which also tell us of ceaseless battles with Elam, we are in almost total darkness about the nature and direction of the civilisation of Elam. Our first notice is the Assyrian account of the fall of the kingdom and the capture of the capital, and from this we learn that the conditions and mode of life in the capital of the Elamites were not very different from those of Babylon and Nineveh. A picture of the city (found in the palace of Assurbanipal), shows it to us between the two rivers (p. 249), oblong in shape, and surrounded by high walls with numerous towers. Outside the city, between the walls and the rivers are palms, and some dwelling-houses.336 Assurbanipal narrates: "Shushan, the great city, the abode of their gods, the seat of their oracle, I took. I entered into their palaces and opened their treasure-houses. Gold and silver, and furniture, and goods, gathered together by the kings of Elam in times past and in the present, the brass and precious stones with which the kings of Accad, Samuges, and those before him had paid their mercenaries – the treasures on which no enemy before me had laid a hand, I brought forth to Assyria. I destroyed the tower of Shushan. The god of their oracles, who dwelt in the groves, whose image no man had seen, and the images of the gods Sumudu, Lagamar and the others (nineteen are mentioned), which the kings of Elam worshipped, I conveyed with their priests to Assyria. Thirty-two statues of the kings in silver, brass, and alabaster, I took from Shushan. Madaktu and Huradi, and the statues of Ummanigas, of Istar-Nanchundi, Halludus, and Tammaritu the younger, I carried to Assyria. I broke the winged lions and bulls which guarded the temple, and removed the winged bulls which stood at the gates of the temples of Elam. Their gods and goddesses I sent into captivity."337 More than a hundred years after this time the Elamites had not forgotten their independence, and they attempted to recover it by repeated rebellions against the Persians.

The inscriptions in which the kings of Persia spoke to the nations of their wide empire are of a triple character. Three different kinds of cuneiform writing repeat the same matter in three different languages. The first gives the inscription in the Persian language, the language of the king and dominant people, the third repeats it in the Babylonian-Assyrian language. The second, we may suppose, gives the inscription in the language of Elam, for the Persian kings resided in Susa, and in the enumeration of the subject territories, Susiana and Babylonia as a rule come after Persia. The forms of the language in cuneiform inscriptions on bricks and tiles discovered in the ruins of Susa are closely related to the language of the cuneiform inscriptions of the second kind in the inscriptions of the Achæmenids.338 So far as these have been deciphered the language contained in them seems for the most part to be closely related to the Turkish-Tatar languages,339 while the names of the Elamite gods preserved in Assyrian inscriptions, although different from those of Babylonia and Assyria, and also the names of the kings of Elam, have more of a Semitic than a Turkish-Tatar sound.

On Assyrian tablets, beside the Assyrian and Babylonian names of the month, which are also the Hebrew names, we find names in another language unknown to us;340 and the symbols of the Assyrian cuneiform writing are not only explained by the addition of the phonetic value and actual meaning, but before the substantives, verb-forms, and declensions of the Babylonian-Assyrian language are placed the corresponding words and inflections of another language, which is decidedly of a non-Semitic character, and also seems to belong to the Turkish-Tatar branch of language.341 If it was considered necessary in Babylonia and Assyria to place another language before or beside their own, the relation of this language to that spoken by the Babylonians and Assyrians must have been very close. The most probable supposition is that it was the language of the ancient population of the land about the lower course of the two streams, which afterwards became subjected to Semitic immigrants. Whatever be the value of this supposition, we may in any case assume that the Semitic races found older inhabitants and an older civilisation on the lower Euphrates and Tigris. This older population was even then in possession of a system of writing, and this civilisation and writing was adopted by the Semitic races, just as at a later time the Armenians, Medes, and Persians borrowed their cuneiform writing from the inhabitants of Babylonia, Assyria, and Susiana.

The precedence of Elam in Hebrew tradition, the statement of Berosus that civilisation came from the Persian Gulf, the ancient supremacy of Elam over Babylonia, which we can discover from the Hebrew tradition, and more plainly from the inscriptions, are so many proofs that the oldest seats of culture in the lower lands of the Euphrates and Tigris lay at the mouths of the two rivers. And this conclusion receives further support from the fact that the oldest centres of the Babylonian state were nearer the mouth of the Euphrates. Perhaps we may even go a step further. The Hebrews ascribe the foundation of the Babylonian kingdom to a son of the south. The language and religious conceptions of the Babylonians and Assyrians show a close relationship with the language and religion of the tribes of South Arabia; some of these tribes are in Genesis variously enrolled among the descendants of Shem and of Cush. Hence we may perhaps assume that Arabian tribes on the sea-shore forced their way eastward, to the land at the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris, and then, passing up the stream, settled in the valley of the two rivers, as far as the southern offshoots of the Armenian mountains.342 Of these Semitic tribes those which remained on the lower Tigris and subjected the old population of Susiana, could not absorb the conquered Kissians (p. 249). The old language retained the upper hand, and developed; and the ruling tribe, the Semitic Elamites, were amalgamated with the ancient population. It was otherwise on the lower Euphrates, where the Semitic immigrants succeeded – probably in a long process of time, since it was late and by slow degrees that they gained the upper hand – in absorbing the old Turanian population, and formed a separate Semitic community, when they had borrowed from their predecessors the basis of civilisation and the system of cuneiform writing which was invented for another language.

In the fragments of Berosus the inhabitants of Babylonia are called Chaldees, a name which Western writers give especially to the priests of Babylon, though even to them a district on the lower Euphrates is known as Chaldæa.343 The inscriptions of the Assyrian kings name the whole land Kaldi, and the inhabitants Kaldiai.344 To the Hebrews, as has been observed (p. 248), Erech, Accad, and Calneh were the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod. In the fragments of Berosus, Babylon, the Bab-Ilu of the inscriptions, i. e. "Gate of Il (El)," Sippara and Larancha are supposed to be in existence before the flood. Erech, the Orchoe of the Greeks, and Arku of the inscriptions, is the modern Warka, to the south of Babylon on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, where vast heaps of ruins remain to testify to the former importance of the city. The site of Calneh and of the Larancha mentioned in the fragments cannot be ascertained, unless the latter city is the same as the Larsam mentioned in the inscriptions. In these the name Accad occurs very frequently. The kings of Babylon, and after them the kings of Assyria, who ruled over Babylon, called themselves kings of Babel, of Sumir, and Accad, names which are used to denote the districts (perhaps Upper and Lower Babylonia) and their inhabitants. Sippara, the city of the sacred books and mystic lore of the Chaldæans (p. 246), is called by the Hebrews, Sepharvaim, i. e. "the two Sepher." Sepher means "writing." It was therefore the Babylonian City of Scriptures. The Hebrews were aware that this city worshipped the gods Adar and Anu, Adrammelech and Anammelech. The inscriptions also mention two cities of the name of Sippara, or as they give the word, Shipar; they distinguish the Shipar of the god Anu from the Shipar of Samas, the sun-god. The cuneiform symbol for Sippara means "City of the sun of the four quarters of the earth," and the Euphrates is denoted by a symbol which means "River of Sippara."345 From this it is clear what position this city once took in Babylonia. The Ur Kasdim, i. e. "Ur of the Chaldæans" in the Hebrew Scriptures, is the modern Mugheir, south-east of Babylon; on clay-tablets discovered in the ruins of this place we find cuneiform symbols, which are to be read as "Uru."346 The Kutha and Telassar of the Hebrews also recur in the Kuthi and Tel Assur of the inscriptions. In his inscriptions Sennacherib boasts that in the year 704 B.C. he took eighty-nine fortified cities and 820 places in Babylonia, beside Babylon itself.347

The tumuli covering the ruins of these cities and the Assyrian inscriptions have preserved for us the names of more than fifty of the kings who once ruled over Babylon. The fragments of Berosus limit the period of the independence of Babylon to the 458 years from 1976 B.C., to 1518 B.C. (p. 248), and after the Chaldæan kings of this period they place Arabian kings down to 1273 B.C., who in turn are followed by the Assyrian kings. These statements are flatly contradicted by the inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria. We have already seen that in the period from about the year 2300 B.C. to 2000 B.C., Elam had the preponderance, and in part the sovereignty, over Babylonia. Afterwards Babylon became independent, and maintained her position even against Assyria, until, after the ninth century before Christ, the latter gained the upper hand; and then, from the beginning of the seventh century, for a period of seventy or eighty years, the independence of Babylon was entirely destroyed.

As yet it is not possible to arrange the names preserved in the inscriptions in a definite order. We can only perceive that in the oldest period Babylon was not yet the capital of the kingdom. Erech, Ur, and Nipur, i. e. cities lying to the south, were the seat of government. We find also that the power of the ancient princes must have extended to the mouth of the Euphrates, and afterwards over a part of Mesopotamia, and over the Assyrian district on the upper Tigris, till Assyria, about the year 1500 B.C., became an independent kingdom. That the region of the upper Euphrates did not belong to Babylonia, but was the seat of independent princes, more especially at Karchemish, is shown by the campaigns of the Pharaohs against Naharina, i. e. Mesopotamia, which fall in the period between 1650 B.C. and 1350 B.C., and the assistance which was rendered at this time by the princes of the upper Euphrates to the Syrians against the Egyptians.348 Afterwards the Assyrians forced their way over the upper Euphrates towards Syria, without coming in conflict with the Babylonians. At a later period the lower part of Chaldæa separated from Babylon, and independent princes established themselves on the lower Euphrates – a fact which obviously was of great assistance to the Assyrians in gaining the upper hand over Babylon.

Among the ancient princes of Babylon one of the first places must be allotted to a king whose name is read as Urukh. On tiles discovered at Warka (Erech) we find that the "king of Ur, king of Sumir and Accad, has built a temple to his Lady, the goddess Nana;" on tiles discovered at Mugheir (Ur), it is said that "Urukh has built the temple and fortress of Ur in honour of his Lord, the god Sin;" and finally on an inscription of Nabonetus, the last king of Babylon, which he had surrendered as far as Ur, we are told that Urukh began to build a temple here to the great goddess, and that his son Ilgi completed it. At Nipur (Niffer), Urukh built temples to Bel and Bilit, and a temple to the god Samas at the modern Senkereh.349 On a cylinder of Urukh we find three beardless forms, apparently the king, his son, and the queen, holding up their hands to an aged long-bearded and seated figure, which the new moon visible above him denotes as the moon-god Sin; the inscription, written in the older form of cuneiform writing (see below), runs thus: "Of Urukh, the mighty Lord, the King of Ur…" Another cylinder belongs to the time of his son Ilgi. It bears the inscription: "For saving the life of Ilgi, from the mighty Lord, the king of Ur, son of Urukh. May his name continue!" Inscriptions on tiles inform us that he built a temple at Mugheir.350 King Ismidagon (i. e. "Dagon hears"), whose name is also found on tiles of Mugheir, is entitled on them, "Lord of Nipur,351 king of Sumir, and Accad." Of king Sarruk (i. e. "strong is the king") an inscription tells us that he built the city of Agane, and the tablets of prognostication announce to him, that he will conquer Elam, and subjugate the whole of Babylonia and Syria.352 The inscriptions of king Hammurabi (i. e. "the sun-god is great") discovered at Babylon, Zerghul, and Tell Sifr, tell us that the gods El and Bel had delivered the inhabitants of Sumir and Accad to his dominion, that he had overthrown Elam, and conquered Mabuk (p. 251), and that he had caused the river Hammurabi (i. e. the canal of that name) to be dug for the benefit of the Babylonians, and had provided a constant supply of water for Sumir and Accad. At the command of Merodach he had erected a fortress on this canal, of which the towers were as high as mountains, and had named it after the name of his father Dur-Ummubanit.353

Hammurabi is the first who, according to his inscriptions, resided at Babylon. If Sarrukin and he succeeded in breaking down the supremacy of Elam, we must put Hammurabi at the head of the dynasty which reigned over Babylon, according to Berosus, from 1976-1518 B.C. (p. 248). In an Assyrian list of the kings of Babylon, belonging to the times of Assurbanipal, we find, after Hammurabi, the names of more than fifteen kings, and opposite the last of these, king Binsumnasir of Babylon, two kings of Assyria, Assurnirar and Nabudan, are placed as contemporaries (between 1500 and 1450 B.C.; see below).354 Then Karatadas, of Babylon, makes an alliance with Assurbel-nisi, king of Assyria, and the friendship was continued under their successors, Purnapuryas of Babylon, and Busurassur of Assyria (about 1450 to 1400 B.C.) Assuruballit, the successor of Busurassur, made war upon Nazibugas, the usurper who succeeded Purnapuryas, and raised to the throne in his place Kurigalzu, a son of Purnapuryas (about 1400 B.C.) Tiles at Senkereh inform us that Purnapuryas, "king of Babylon, of Sumir and Accad," restored the great temple which Urukh had built for the sun-god Samas. Tiles are found at Ur (Mugheir) with the name Kurigalzu; and the fortress Dur-Kurigalzu (Akerkuf), which is often mentioned in later Assyrian inscriptions, and spoken of as "the key of Babylonia," was built, as is proved by the stamp on the tiles, in the reign of this king.355 An ornament, now in the British Museum, has the inscription: "Kurigalzu, son of Purnapuryas, king of Babel."356 The grandson of Kurigalzu was Merodach-Baladan (Marduk-habaliddina, i. e. "Merodach presented the son").357 Then about the year 1300 B.C., Tiglath Adar (Tuklat Adar), of Assyria, attacked the Babylonians, at first, as it seems, with success, but at last he lost his seal in this war, and for 600 years it was preserved in the treasury at Babylon. Still more unfortunate was Belkudurussur of Assyria in his attempt on Babylon. He was defeated, and fell himself in the battle (about 1200 B.C.); his successor also, Adarpalbitkur, barely succeeded in defending himself from the attacks of the Babylonians. When afterwards the first Nebuchadnezzar (Nabukudurussur) of Babylon twice invaded Assyria, Assur-ris-ilim, king of Assyria (between 1150-1130 B.C.), succeeded in repulsing him, and Nebuchadnezzar lost forty war-chariots and a standard. Tiglath Pilesar I. (Tuklat-habal-assar, about 1120 B.C.), the successor of Assur-ris-ilim, fought against the Babylonians, and, like Tiglath Adar, he was at first successful. Assyrian tablets boast that in two successive years he had taken Dur-Kurigalzu, both Sipparas (p. 257), and even Babylon. But the result of the war was that Marduknadinakh, king of Babylon, about the year 1110 B.C., carried off images of gods from Assyria to Babylon.358 Assur-bel-kala of Assyria (1110-1090 B.C.) had to fight against another Marduk of Babylon. Two hundred years later Nebubaladan of Babylon repulsed the attacks of Assurnasirpal of Assyria (883-859 B.C.) Then Shalmaneser II. of Assyria made such excellent use of a contention for the throne of Babylonia, that in the year 850 B.C. he offered sacrifice at Babylon, Borsippa, and Kutha. But it was not till the year 703 or 689 B.C. that the seal of Tiglath Adar and the images lost by Tiglath Pilesar I. were carried back to Assyria.

CHAPTER II.

THE RELIGION AND SCIENCE OF THE CHALDÆANS

In the period from 2000 to 1000 B.C., Babylonia under Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar, and Marduknadinakh, was already the foremost state of Hither Asia in power, science, and skill in art. Her civilisation had developed without external assistance. If the first foundations were borrowed, and not laid by the Babylonians, they certainly were not due to the Egyptians. The religious views of the Babylonians and the Egyptians rest on an entirely different basis. In Egypt the heavens were carefully observed; but the Chaldæans arrived at a different division of the heavens, of the year, and month, and day, and the results of their astronomy were far clearer and more exact. In Egypt, weights and measures were regulated by the priests; the Chaldæans established a much more accurate and consistent system, which prevailed far beyond the borders of Babylonia. The Egyptians reached the highest point that could be reached by the art of building in stone; but the buildings of the Chaldæans in brick are unsurpassed in size, strength, and height by any nation or period. To what antiquity the hydraulic works of the Chaldæans reached we do not know (the canal of Hammurabi has been mentioned above); but we find that in size and variety they were not behind those of Egypt. Their sculpture cannot be compared with the Egyptian in artistic finish; but the few fragments which remain exhibit a style which, while thoroughly independent, is more vigorous and complete, and shows a greater freedom of conception than the Egyptian.

The Babylonians, as we learn from Diodorus, worshipped twelve gods as lords of the sky. To each of these a sign in the zodiac and a month in the year were dedicated.359 These statements are supported by the inscriptions. The supreme god of the Babylonians was El (Il), after whom they named their capital, Babel, "Gate of El." After El came the gods Anu, Bel (Bil), Hea, Sin, Samas, and Bin; and after these the gods of the planets; Adar, Merodach, Nergal, Istar, and Nebo. Of El we only know that he was the supreme god, who sat enthroned above the other gods. What peculiar importance and power is ascribed to him is the more difficult to ascertain, as the name of the third deity, Bel, simply means "lord," and by this title not only Bel himself, but El and other gods also are invoked. In his inscription, king Hammurabi says "that El and Bel have given over to his rule the inhabitants of Sumir and Accad." In the story of the flood, quoted above, El is called "the prince of the gods," "the warrior." In Assyrian inscriptions he is the "lamp of the gods," "the lord of the universe." The Greeks give us accounts of the great temple of Belus at Babylon, and represent the Babylonians as swearing "by the great Belus."360 In the fragments of Berosus it was Belus who smote asunder the primæval darkness, and divided Omorka, and caused the creation of men and beasts; while according to the clay tablets of the flood, El was unwilling to save even Sisit. Of the god Hea we can at present ascertain no more from the inscriptions than that he is the "lord of the earth," "the king of rivers;" and that it is he who announced the coming flood to Sisit, and pointed out the means of safety. Anu, the god who follows next after El, was sovereign of the upper realms of the sky. In the narrative of the flood given on the clay tablets the gods fled horror-stricken before the storm into the heaven of Anu. In Assyrian inscriptions the god has frequently the epithet Malik (i. e. "king"). As the Hebrews inform us that the men of Sepharvaim worshipped Anammelech, it is obvious that Anumalik and Anammelech are one and the same deity. The creature, who brought the first revelations of language and writing, is called in Berosus Oan, by others, Yan.361 As these revelations reached Sepharvaim, and the sacred books were preserved there (p. 245), we may venture to assume that the Oan of Berosus and the Anu of the inscriptions are the same god. The nature of the next deities, Sin, Samas, and Bin, is more intelligible. Sin is the god of the moon. On monuments the new moon is often found beside his bearded image. The inscriptions provide him with "white-beaming horns." The main seat of his worship is Ur (Mugheir), where, as we have seen, Urukh built him a temple, and Nabonetus, the last king of Babylon, prays this god "to plant in the heart of his first-born a reverence for his great divinity, that he might not yield to sin, or favour the unfaithful."362 The sun-god Samas is distinguished by sign of the circle; according to the inscription he illuminates "heaven and earth," and is the "lord of the day." Beside Sin and Samas the Babylonians worshipped a deity of the heaven, Bin, the god who "thunders in the midst of the sky," who holds "a flaming sword in his hand," "who holds the lightning," "who is the giver of abundance, the lord of fertility."363