ARTS AND SCIENCES.
“Chaldaei cognitione astrorum sollertiaque ingeniorum antecellunt.”
Cic. _de Div._ i. 41.
Among the arts which the first Ethiopic settlers on the shores of the
Persian Gulf either brought with them from their former homes, or very
early invented in their new abode, must undoubtedly have been the two
whereby they were especially characterized in the time of their greatest
power--architecture and agriculture. Chaldaea is not a country disposing
men to nomadic habits. The productive powers of the soil would at once
obtrude themselves on the notice of the new comers, and would tempt to
cultivation and permanency of residence. If the immigrants came by sea,
and settled first in the tract immediately bordering upon the gulf, as
seems to have been the notion of Berosus, their earliest abodes may have
been of that simple character which can even now be witnessed in the
Affej and Montefik marshes--that is to say, reed cabins, supported by the
tall stems of the growing plants bent into arches, and walled with mats
composed of flags or sedge. Houses of this description last for forty or
fifty years and would satisfy the ideas of a primitive race. When
greater permanency began to be required, palm-beams might take the place
of the reed supports, and wattles plastered with mud that of the rush
mats; in this way habitations would soon be produced quite equal to those
in which the bulk of mankind reside, even at the present day.
In process of time however, a fresh want would be felt. Architecture,
as has been well observed, has its origin, not in nature only, but in
religion. The common worship of God requires temples; and it is soon
desired to give to these sacred edifices a grandeur, a dignity, and a
permanency corresponding to the nature of the Being worshipped in them.
Hence in most countries recourse is had to stone, as the material of
greatest strength and durability; and by its means buildings are raised
which seem almost to reach the heaven whereof they witness. In
Babylonia, as it has been already observed, this material was entirely
wanting. Nowhere within the limits of the alluvium was a quarry to be
found; and though at no very great distance, on the Arabian border, a
coarse sandstone might have been obtained, yet in primitive times, before
many canals were made, the difficulty of transporting this weighty
substance across the soft and oozy soil of the plain would necessarily
have prevented its adoption generally, or, indeed, anywhere, except in
the immediate vicinity of the rocky region. Accordingly we find that
stone was never adopted in Babylonia as a building material, except to an
extremely small extent; and that the natives were forced, in its default,
to seek for the grand edifices, which they desired to build, a different
substance.
The earliest traditions, and the existing remains of the earliest
buildings, alike inform us that the material adopted was brick. An
excellent clay is readily procurable in all parts of the alluvium; and
this, when merely exposed to the intense heat of an Eastern sun for a
sufficient period, or still more when kiln-dried, constitutes a very
tolerable substitute for the stone employed by most nations. The baked
bricks, even of the earliest tines, are still sound and hard; while the
sun-dried bricks, though they have often crumbled to dust or blended
together in one solid earthen mass, yet sometimes retain their shape and
original character almost unchanged, and offer a stubborn resistance to
the excavator. In the most ancient of the Chaldaean edifices we
occasionally find, as in the Bowariyeh ruin at Warka, the entire
structure composed of the inferior material; but the more ordinary
practice is to construct the mass of the building in this way, and then
to cover it completely with a facing of burnt brick, which sometimes
extends to as much as ten feet in thickness. The burnt brick was thus
made to protect the unburnt from the influence of the weather, while
labor and fuel--were greatly economized by the employment to so large an
extent of the natural substance. The size and color of the bricks vary.
The general shape is square, or nearly so, while the thickness is, to
modern ideas, disproportionately small; it is not, however, so small as
in the bricks of the Romans. The earliest of the baked bricks hitherto
discovered in Chaldaea are 11 1/4 inches square, and 2 1/2 inches thick,
while the Roman are often 15 inches square, and only an inch and a
quarter thick. The baked bricks of later date are of larger size than
the earlier; they are commonly about 13 inches square, with a thickness
of three inches. The best quality of baked brick is of a
yellowish-white tint, and very much resembles our Stourbridge or fire
brick; another kind, extremely hard, but brittle, is of a blackish blue;
a third, the coarsest of all, is slack-dried, and of a pale red. The
earliest baked bricks are of this last color. The sun-dried bricks have
even more variety of size than the baked ones. They are sometimes as
large as 16 inches square and seven inches thick, sometimes as small as
six inches square by two thick. Occasionally, though not very often,
bricks are found differing altogether in shape from those above
described, being formed for special purposes. Of this kind are the
triangular bricks used at the corners of walls, intended to give greater
regularity to the angles than would otherwise be attained; and the
wedge-shaped bricks, formed to be employed in arches, which were known
and used by this primitive people.
The modes of applying these materials to building purposes were various.
Sometimes the crude and the burnt brick were used in alternate layers,
each layer being several feet in thickness; more commonly the crude brick
was used (as already noticed) for the internal parts of the building, and
a facing of burnt brick protected the whole from the weather.
Occasionally the mass of an edifice was composed entirely of crude brick;
but in such cases special precautions had to be taken to secure the
stability of this comparatively frail material. In the first place, at
intervals of four or five feet, a thick layer of reed matting was
interposed along the whole extent of the building, which appears to have
been intended to protect the earthy mass from disintegration, by its
protection beyond the rest of the external surface. The readers of
Herodotus are familiar with this feature, which (according to him)
occurred in the massive walls whereby Babylon was surrounded. If this
was really the case, we may conclude that those walls were not composed
of burnt brick, as he imagined, but of the sun-dried material. Reeds
were never employed in buildings composed of burnt brick, being useless
in such cases; where their impression is found, as not unfrequently
happens, on bricks of this kind, the brick has been laid upon reed
matting when in a soft state, and afterwards submitted to the action of
fire. In edifices of crude brick, the reeds were no doubt of great
service, and have enabled some buildings of the kind to endure to the
present day. They are very strikingly conspicuous where they occur,
since they stripe the whole building with continuous horizontal lines,
having at a distance somewhat the effect of the courses of dark marble in
an Italian structure of the Byzantine period.
Another characteristic of the edifices in which crude brick is thus
largely employed, is the addition externally of solid and massive
buttresses of the burnt material. These buttresses have sometimes a very
considerable projection; they are broad, but not high, extending less
than half way up the walls against which they are placed.
Two kinds of cement are used in the early structures. One is a coarse
clay or mud, which is sometimes mixed with chopped straw; the other is
bitumen. This last is of an excellent quality, and the bricks which it
unites adhere often so firmly together that they can with difficulty be
separated. As a gen eral rule, in the early buildings, the crude brick
is laid in mud, while the bitumen is used to cement together the burnt
bricks.
[Illustration: PLATE 8]
These general remarks will receive their best illustration from a
detailed description of the principal early edifices which recent
researches in Lower Mesopotamia have revealed to us. These are for the
most part temples; but in one or two cases the edifice explored is
thought to have been a residence, so that the domestic architecture of
the period may be regarded as known to us, at least in some degree. The
temples most carefully examined hitherto are those at Warka, Mugheir, and
Abu-Shahrein, the first of which was explored by Mr. Loftus in 1854, the
second by Mr. Taylor in the same year, and the third by the same
traveller in 1855. The Warka ruin is called by the natives Bowariyeh,
which signifies “reed mats,” in allusion to a peculiarity, already
noticed, in its construction. [PLATE VIII., Fig. 1.] It is at once the
most central and the loftiest ruin in the place. At first sight it
appears to have been a cone or pyramid; but further examination proves
that it was in reality a tower, 200 feet square at the base, built in two
stories, the lower story being composed entirely of sun-dried bricks laid
in mud, and protected at intervals of four or five feet by layers of
reeds, while the upper one was composed of the same material, faced with
burnt brick. Of the upper stage very little remains; and this little is
of a later date than the inferior story, which bears marks of a very high
antiquity. The sundried bricks whereof the lower story is composed are
“rudely moulded of very incoherent earth, mixed with fragments of pottery
and fresh-water shells,” and vary in size and shape, being sometimes
square, seven inches each way; sometimes oblong, nine inches by seven,
and from three to three and a half inches thick. The whole present
height of the building is estimated at 100 feet above the level of the
plain. Its summit, except where some slight remains of the second story
constitute an interruption, is “perfectly flat,” and probably continues
very much in the condition in which it was when the lower stage was first
built. This stage, being built of crude brick, was necessarily weak; it
is therefore supported by four massive buttresses of baked brick, each
placed exactly in the centre of one of the sides, and carried to about
one-third of the height. Each buttress is nineteen feet high, six feet
one inch wide, and seven and a half feet in depth; and each is divided
down the middle by a receding space, one foot nine inches in width. All
the bricks composing the buttresses are inscribed, and are very firmly
cemented together with bitumen, in thick layers. The buttresses were
entirely hidden under the mass of rubbish which had fallen from the
building, chiefly from the upper story, and only became apparent when Mr.
Loftus made his excavations.
It is impossible to reconstruct the Bowariyeh ruin from the facts and
measurements hitherto supplied to us even the height of the first story
is at present uncertain; and we have no means of so much as conjecturing
the height of the second. The exact emplacement of the second upon the
first is also doubtful, while the original mode of access is
undiscovered; and thus the plan of the building is in many respects still
defective. We only know that it was a square; that it had two stories at
the least; and that its entire height above the plain considerably
exceeded 100 feet. The temple at Mugheir has been more accurately
examined. [PLATE VIII., Fig. 2.] On a mound or platform of some size,
raised about twenty feet above the level of the plain, there stands a
rectangular edifice, consisting at present of two stories, both of them
ruined in parts, and buried to a considerable extent in piles of rubbish
composed of their debris. The angles of the building exactly face the
four cardinal points. It is not a square, but a parallelogram, having
two longer and two shorter sides. [PLATE IX., Fig. 1.] The longer sides
front to the north-east and south-west respectively, and measure 198
feet; while the shorter sides, which face the north-west and south-east,
measure 133 feet. The present height of the basement story is 27 feet;
but, allowing for the concealment of the lower part by the rubbish, and
the destruction of the upper part by the hand of time, we may presume
that the original height was little, if at all, short of 40 feet. The
interior of this story is built of crude or sun-dried bricks of small
size, laid in bitumen; but it is faced through out with a wall, ten feet
in thickness, composed of red kiln dried bricks, likewise cemented with
bitumen. This external wall is at once strengthened and diversified to
the eye by a number of shallow buttresses or pilasters in the same
material; of these there are nine, including the corner ones, on the
longer, and six on the shorter sides. The width of the buttresses is
eight feet, and their projection a little more than a foot. The walls
and buttresses alike slope inwards at an angle of nine degrees. On the
north-eastern side of the building there is a staircase nine feet wide,
with sides or balustrades three feet wide, which leads up from the
platform to the top of the first story. It has also been conjectured
that there was a second or grand staircase on the south-east face, equal
in width to the second story of the building, and thus occupying nearly
the whole breadth of the structure on that side. A number of narrow
slits or air-holes are carried through the building from side to side;
they penetrate alike the walls and buttresses, and must have tended to
preserve the dryness of the structure. The second story is, like the
first, a parallelogram, and not of very different proportions. Its
longer sides measure 119 feet, and its shorter ones 75 feet at the base.
Its emplacement upon the first story is exact as respects the angles, but
not central as regards the four sides. While it is removed from the
south-eastern edge a distance of 47 feet, from the northwestern it is
distant only 30 feet. From the two remaining sides its distance is
apparently about 28 feet. The present height of the second story,
including the rubbish upon its top, is 19 feet; but we may reasonably
suppose that the original height was much greater. The material of which
its inner structure is composed, seems to be chiefly (or wholly)
partially-burnt brick, of a light red color, laid in a cement composed of
lime and ashes. This central mass is faced with kiln-dried bricks of
large size and excellent quality, also laid, except on the north-west
face, in lime mortar. No buttresses and no staircase are traceable on
this story; though it is possible that on the south-east side the grand
staircase may have run the whole height of both stories.
According to information received by Mr. Taylor from the Arabs of the
vicinity, there existed, less than half a century ago, some remains of a
third story, on the summit of the rubbish which now crowns the second.
This building is described as a room or chamber, and was probably the
actual shrine of the god in whose honor the whole structure was erected.
Mr. Taylor discovered a number of bricks or tiles glazed with a blue
enamel, and also a number of large copper nails, at such a height in the
rubbish which covers up much of the second story, that he thinks they
could only have come from this upper chamber. The analogy of later
Babylonian buildings, as of the Birs-Nimrud and the temple of Belus at
Babylon confirms this view, and makes it probable that the early
Chaldaean temple was a building in three stages, of which the first and
second were solid masses of brickwork, ascended by steps on the outside,
while the third was a small house or chamber highly ornamented,
containing the image and shrine of the god. [PLATE IX., Fig. 2.]
[Illustration: PLATE 9]
In conclusion, it must be observed that only the lower story of the
Mugheir temple exhibits the workmanship of the old or Chaldaean period.
Clay cylinders found in the upper story inform us that in its present
condition this story is the work of Nabonidus, the last of the Babylonian
kings; and most of its bricks bear his stamp. Some, however, have the
stamp of the same monarch who built the lower story and this is
sufficient to show that the two stories are a part of the original
design, and therefore that the idea of building in stages belongs to the
first kingdom and to primitive times. There is no evidence to prove
whether the original edifice had, or had not, a third story; since the
chamber seen by the Arabs was no doubt a late Babylonian work. The third
story of the accompanying sketch must therefore be regarded as
conjectural.
It is not necessary for our present purpose to detain the reader with a
minute description of the ancient temple at Abu-Shahrein. The general
character of this building seems to have very closely resembled that of
the Mugheir temple. Its angles fronted the cardinal points: it had two
stories, and an ornamented chamber at the top; it was faced with burnt
brick, and strengthened by buttresses; and in most other respects
followed the type of the Mugheir edifice. Its only very notable
peculiarities are the partial use of stone in the construction, and the
occurrence of a species of pillar, very curiously composed. The
artificial platform on which the temple stands is made of beaten clay,
cased with a massive wall of sandstone and limestone, in some places
twenty feet thick. There is also a stone or rather marble, staircase
which leads up from the platform to the summit of the first story,
composed of small polished blocks, twenty-two inches long, thirteen
broad, and four and a half thick. The bed of the staircase is made of
sun dried brick, and the marble was fastened to this substratum by copper
bolts, some portion of which was found by Mr. Taylor still adhering to
the blocks. At the foot of the staircase there appear to have stood two
columns, one on either side of it. The construction of these columns is
very singular. A circular nucleus composed of sandstone slabs and small
cylindrical pieces of marble disposed in alternate layers, was coated
externally with coarse lime, mixed with small stones and pebbles, until
by means of many successive layers the pillar had attained the desired
bulk and thickness. Thus the stone and marble were entirely concealed
under a thick coating of plaster; and a smoothness was given to the outer
surface which it would have otherwise been difficult to obtain. The date
of the Abu-Shahrein temple is thought to be considerably later than that
of the other buildings above described; and the pillars would seem to be
a refinement on the simplicity of the earlier times. The use of stone is
to be accounted for, not so much by the advance of architectural science,
as by the near vicinity of the Arabian hills, from which that material
could be readily derived.
It is evident, that if the Chaldaean temples were of the character and
construction which we have gathered from their remains, they could have
possessed no great architectural beauty, though they may not have lacked
a certain grandeur. In the dead level of Babylonia, an elevation even of
100 or 150 feet must have been impressive; and the plain massiveness of
the structures no doubt added to their grand effect on the beholder. But
there was singularly little in the buildings, architecturally viewed, to
please the eye or gratify the sense of beauty. No edifices in the world
--not even the Pyramids--are more deficient in external ornament. The
buttresses and the air-holes, which alone break the flat uniformity of
the walls, are intended simply for utility, and can scarcely be said to
be much embellishment. If any efforts were made to delight by the
ordinary resources of ornamental art, it seems clear that such efforts
did not extend to the whole edifice, but were confined to the shrine
itself--the actual abode of the god--the chamber which crowned the whole,
and was alone, strictly speaking, “the temple.” Even here there is no
reason to believe that the building had externally much beauty. No
fragments of architraves or capitals, no sculptured ornaments of any
kind, have been found among the heaps of rubbish in which Chaldaean
monuments are three-parts buried.
The ornaments which have been actually discovered, are such as suggest
the idea of internal rather than external decoration; and they render it
probable that such decoration was, at least in some cases, extremely
rich. The copper nails and blue enamelled tiles found high up in the
Mugheir mound, have been already noticed. At Abu-Shahrein the ground
about the basement of the second story was covered with small pieces of
agate, alabaster, and marble, finely cut and polished, from half an inch
to two inches long, and half an inch (or somewhat less) in breadth, each
with a hole drilled through its back, containing often a fragment of a
copper bolt.
[Illustration: PAGE 56]
It was strewn less thickly with small plates of pure gold, and with a
number of gold-headed or gilt, headed nails, used apparently to attach
the gold plates to the internal plaster or wood-work. These fragments
seem to attest the high ornamentation of the shrine in this instance,
which we have no reason to regard is singular or in any way exceptional.
The Chaldaean remains which throw light upon the domestic architecture of
the people are few and scanty. A small house was disinterred by Mr.
Taylor at Mugheir, and the plan of some chambers was made out at
Abu-Shahrein; but these are hitherto the only specimens which can be
confidently assigned to the Chaldaean period. The house stood on a
platform of sundried bricks, paved on the top with burnt bricks. It was
built in the form of a cross, but with a good deal of irregularity, every
wall being somewhat longer or shorter than the others. The material used
in its construction was burnt brick, the outer layer imbedded in bitumen,
and the remainder in a cement of mud. Externally the house was
ornamented with perpendicular stepped recesses, while internally the
bricks had often a thin coating of gypsum or enamel, upon which
characters were inscribed. The floors of the chambers were paved with
burnt brick, laid in bitumen. Two of the doorways were arched, the arch
extending through the whole thickness of the walls; it was semicircular,
and was constructed with bricks made wedge-shaped for the purpose. A
good deal of charred date-wood was found in the house, probably the
remains of rafters which had supported the roof.
The chambers at Abu-Shahrein were of sun-dried brick, with an internal
covering of fine plaster, ornamented with paint. In one the
ornamentation consisted of a series of red, black, and white bands, three
inches in breadth; in another was represented, but very rudely, the
figure of a man holding a bird on his wrist, with a smaller figure near
him, in red paint. The favorite external ornamentation for houses seems
to have been by means of colored cones in terra cotta, which were
imbedded in moist mud or plaster, and arranged into a variety of
patterns. [PLATE IX., Fig. 3.]
[Illustration: PLATE 10]
But little can be said as to the plan on which houses were built.
[Illustration: PLATE X., Fig. 2. ] The walls were generally of vast
thickness, the chambers long and narrow, with the outer doors opening
directly into them. The rooms ordinarily led into one another, passages
being rarely found. Squared recesses, sometimes stepped or dentated,
were common in the rooms; and in the arrangement of these something of
symmetry is observable, as they frequently correspond to or face each
other. The roofs were probably either flat-beams of palm-wood being
stretched across from wall to wall--or else arched with brick. No
indication of windows has been found as yet; but still it is thought that
the chambers were lighted by them, only they were placed high, near the
ceiling or roof, and thus do not appear in the existing ruins, which
consists merely of the lower portion of walls, seldom exceeding the
height of seven or eight feet. The doorways, both outer and inner, are
towards the sides rather than in the centre of the apartments--a feature
common to Chaldaean with Assyrian buildings.
Next to their edifices, the most remarkable of the remains which the
Chaldaeans have left to after-ages, are their burial-places. While
ancient tombs are of very rare occurrence in Assyria and Upper Babylonia,
Chaldaea Proper abounds with them. It has been conjectured, with some
show of reason, that the Assyrians, in the time of their power, may have
made the sacred land of Chai the general depository of their dead, much
in the same way as the Persians even now use Kerbela and Nedjif or Meshed
Ali as special cemetery cities, to which thousands of corpses are brought
annually. At any rate, the quantity of human relics accumulated upon
certain Chaldaean sites is enormous, and seems to be quite beyond what
the mere population of the surrounding district could furnish. At Warka,
for instance, excepting the triangular space between the three principal
ruins, the whole remainder of the platform, the whole space within the
walls, and an unknown extent of desert beyond them, are everywhere filled
with human bones and sepulchres. In places coffins are piled upon
coffins, certainly to the depth of 30, probably to the depth of 60 feet;
and for miles on every side of the ruins the traveller walks upon a soil
teeming with the relics of ancient, and now probably extinct, races.
Sometimes these relics manifestly belong to a number of distinct and
widely separate eras; but there are places where it is otherwise.
However we may account for it--and no account has been yet given which
is altogether satisfactory--it seems clear, from the comparative
homogeneousness of the remains in some places, that they belong to a
single race, and if not to a single period, at any rate to only two,
or, at the most, three distinct periods, so that it is no longer very
difficult to distinguish the more ancient from the later relics. Such
is the character of the remains at Mugheir, which are thought to contain
nothing of later date than the close of the Babylonian period, B. C.
538; and such is, still more remarkably, the character of the ruins at
Abu-Shahrein and Tel-el-Lahm, which seem to be entirely, or almost
entirely, Chaldaean. In the following account of the coffins and mode of
burial employed by the early Chaldaeans, examples will be drawn from
these places only; since otherwise we should be liable to confound
together the productions of very different ages and peoples.
[Illustration: PLATE 11]
The tombs to which an archaic character most certainly attaches are of
three kinds-brick vaults, clay coffins shaped like a dish-cover, and
coffins in the same material, formed of two large jars placed mouth to
mouth, and cemented together with bitumen. The brick vaults are found
chiefly at Mugheir. [PLATE XI., Fig. 1.] They are seven feet long, three
feet seven inches broad, and five feet high, composed of sun-dried bricks
imbedded in mud, and exhibit a very remarkable form and construction of
the arch. The side walls of the vaults slope outwards as they ascend;
and the arch is formed, like those in Egyptian buildings and Scythian
tombs, by each successive layer of bricks, from the point where the arch
begins, a little overlapping the last, till the two sides of the roof are
brought so near together that the aperture may be closed by a single
brick. The floor of the vaults was paved with brick similar to that used
for the roof and sides; on this floor was commonly spread a matting of
reeds, and the body was laid upon the matting. It was commonly turned on
its left side, the right arm falling towards the left, and the fingers
resting on the edge of a copper bowl, usually placed on the palm of the
left hand. The head was pillowed on a single sun-dried brick. Various
articles of ornament and use were interred with each body, which will be
more particularly described hereafter. Food seems often to have been
placed in the tombs, and jars or other drinking vessels are universal.
The brick vaults appear to have been family sepulchres; they have often
received three or four bodies, and in one case a single vault contained
eleven skeletons.
[Illustration: PLATE 12]
The clay coffins, shaped like a dish-cover, are among the most curious of
the sepulchral remains of antiquity. [PLATE XI., Fig. 2; PLATE XII.,
Fig. 1.] On a platform of sun-dried brick is laid a mat exactly similar
to those in common use among the Arabs of the country at the present day;
and hereon lies the skeleton disposed as in the brick vaults, and
surrounded by utensils and ornaments. Mat, skeleton, and utensils are
then concealed by a huge cover in burnt clay, formed of a single piece,
which is commonly seven feet long, two or three feet high, and two feet
and a half broad at the bottom. It is rarely that modern potters produce
articles of half the size. Externally the covers have commonly some
slight ornament, such as rims and shallow indentations, as represented in
the sketch (No. 1). Internally they are plain. Not more than two
skeletons have ever been found under a single cover; and in these cases
they were the skeletons of a male and a female. Children were interred
separately, under covers about half the size of those for adults. Tombs
of this kind commonly occur at some considerable depth. None were
discovered at Mugheir nearer the surface than seven or eight feet.
The third kind of tomb, common both at Mugheir and at Telel-Lahm, is
almost as eccentric as the preceding. Two large open-mouthed jars (a and
b), shaped like the largest of the water-jars at present in use at
Baghdad, are taken, and the body is disposed inside them with the usual
accompaniments of dishes, vases, and ornaments. [PLATE XII. Fig. 2.]
The jars average from two and a half feet to three feet in depth, and
have a diameter of about two feet; so that they would readily contain
a full-sized corpse if it was slightly bent at the knees.
Sometimes the two jars are of equal size, and are simply united at their
mouths by a layer of bitumen (dd); but more commonly one is slightly
larger than the other, and the smaller mouth is inserted into the larger
one for a depth of three or four inches, while a coating of bitumen is
still applied externally at the juncture. In each coffin there is an
air-hole at one extremity (c) to allow the escape of the gases generated
during decomposition.
Besides the coffins themselves, some other curious features are found in
the burial-places. The dead are commonly buried, not underneath the
natural surface of the ground, but in extensive artificial mounds, each
mound containing a vast number of coffins. The coffins are arranged side
by side, often in several layers; and occasionally strips of masonry,
crossing each other at right angles, separate the sets of coffins from
their neighbors. The surface of the mounds is sometimes paved with
brick; and a similar pavement often separates the layers of coffins one
from another. But the most remarkable feature in the tomb-mounds is
their system of drainage. Long shafts of baked clay extend from the
surface of the mound to its base, composed of a succession of rings two
feet in diameter, and about a foot and a half in breadth, joined together
by thin layers of bitumen. [PLATE XII., Fig. 3.] To give the rings
additional strength, the sides have a slight concave curve and, still
further to resist external pressure, the shafts are filled from bottom to
top with a loose mass of broken pottery. At the top the shaft contracts
rapidly by means of a ring of a peculiar shape, and above this ring are a
series of perforated bricks leading up to the top of the mound, the
surface of which is so arranged as to conduct the rain-water into these
orifices. For the still more effectual drainage of the mound, the
top-piece of the shaft immediately below the perforated bricks, and also
the first rings, are full of small holes to admit any stray moisture;
and besides this, for the space of a foot every way, the shafts are
surrounded with broken pottery, so that the real diameter of each drain
is as much as four feet. By these arrangements the piles have been kept
perfectly dry; and the consequence is the preservation, to the present
day, not only of the utensils and ornaments placed in the tombs, but of
the very skeletons themselves, which are seen perfect on opening a tomb,
though they generally crumble to dust at the first touch.
The skill of the Chaldaeans as potters has received considerable
illustration in the foregoing pages. No ordinary ingenuity was needed to
model and bake the large vases, and still larger covers, which were the
ordinary receptacles of the Chaldaean dead. The rings and top-pieces of
the drainage-shafts also exhibit much skill and knowledge of principles.
Hitherto, however, the reader has not been brought into contact with any
specimens of Chaldaean fictile art which can be regarded as exhibiting
elegance of form, or, indeed, any sense of beauty as distinguished from
utility. Such specimens are, in fact, somewhat scarce, but they are not
wholly wanting. Among the vases and drinking vessels with which the
Chaldaean tombs abound, while the majority are characterized by a certain
rudeness both of shape and material, we occasionally meet with specimens
of a higher character, which would not shrink from a comparison with the
ordinary productions of Greek fictile art. A number of these are
represented in the second figure [PLATE XIII., Fig 2], which exhibits
several forms not hitherto published-some taken from drawings by Mr.
Churchill, the artist who accompanied Mr. Loftus on his first journey;
others drawn for the present work from vases now in the British Museum.
[Illustration: PLATE 13]
It is evident that, while the vases of the first group are roughly
moulded by the hand, the vases and lamps of the second have been
carefully shaped by the aid of the potter’s wheel. These last are formed
of a far finer clay than the early specimens, and have sometimes a slight
glaze upon them, which adds much to their beauty.
In a few instances the works of the Chaldaeans in this material belong to
mimetic art, of which they are rude but interesting specimens. Some of
the primitive graves at Senkareh yielded tablets of baked clay, on which
were represented, in low relief, sometimes single figures of men,
sometimes groups, sometimes men in combination with animals. A scene in
which a lion is disturbed in its feast off a bullock, by a man armed with
a club and a mace or hatchet, possesses remarkable spirit, and, were it
not for the strange drawing of the lion’s unlifted leg, might be regarded
as a very creditable performance. In another, a lion is represented
devouring a prostrate human being; while a third exhibits a pugilistic
encounter after the most approved fashion of modern England. It is
perhaps uncertain whether these tablets belong to the Chaldaean or to the
Babylonian period, but on the whole their rudeness and simplicity favor
the earlier rather than the later date.
[Illustration: PLATE 14]
The only other works having anything of an artistic character, that can
be distinctly assigned to the primitive period, are a certain number of
engraved cylinders, some of which are very curious. [PLATE XIV., Fig. 1]
It is clearly established that the cylinders in question, which are
generally of serpentine, meteoric stone, jasper, chalcedony, or other
similar substance, were the seals or signets of their possessors, who
impressed them upon the moist clay which formed the ordinary material for
writing. They are round, or nearly so, and measure from half an inch to
three inches in length; ordinarily they are about one-third of their
length in diameter. A hole is bored through the stone from end to end,
so that it could be worn upon a string; and cylinders are found in some
of the earliest tombs which have been worn round the wrist in this way.
In early times they may have been impressed by the hand; but afterwards
it was common to place them upon a bronze or copper axis attached to a
handle, by means of which they were rolled across the clay from one end
to the other. The cylinders are frequently unengraved, and this is most
commonly their condition in the primitive tombs; out there is some very
curious evidence, from which it appears that the art of engraving them
was really known and practised (though doubtless in rare instances) at a
very early date. The signet cylinder of the monarch who founded the most
ancient of the buildings at Mugheir, Warka, Senkareh, and Niffer, and who
thus stands at the head of the monumental kings, was in the possession of
Sir R. Porter; and though it is now lost, an engraving made from it is
preserved in his “Travels.” [PLATE XIV., Fig. 2.] The signet cylinder
of this monarch’s son has been recently recovered, and is now in the
British Museum. We are entitled to conclude from the data thus in our
possession that the art of cylinder-engraving had, even at this early
period, made considerable progress. The letters of the inscriptions,
which give the names of the kings and their titles, are indeed somewhat
rudely formed, as they are on the stamped bricks of the period; but the
figures have been as well cut, and as flowingly traced, as those of a
later date. It was thought possible that the artist employed by Sir R.
Porter had given a flattering representation of his original, but the
newly recovered relic, known as the “cylinder of Ilgi,” bears upon it
figures of quite as great excellence: and we are thus led to the
conclusion that both mechanical and artistic skill had reached a very
surprising degree of excellence at the most remote period to which the
Chaldaean records carry us back.
[Illustration: PLATE 15]
It increases the surprise which we naturally feel at the discovery of
these relics to reflect upon the rudeness of the implements with which
such results would seem to have been accomplished. In the primitive
Chaldaean ruins, the implements which have been discovered are either in
stone or bronze. Iron in the early times is seemingly unknown, and when
it first appears is wrought into ornaments for the person. Knives of
flint or chert [PLATE XIV., Fig. 3], stone hatchets, hammers, adzes, and
nails, are common in the most ancient mounds, which contain also a number
of clay models, the centres, as it is thought, of moulds into which
molten bronze was run, and also occasionally the bronze instruments
themselves, as (in addition to spear heads and arrow-heads) hammers,
adzes, hatchets, knives, and sickles. It will be seen by the engraved
representations that these instruments are one and all of a rude and
coarse character. [PLATE XV.], [PLATE XVI.] The flint and stone knives,
axes, and hammers, which abound in all the true Chaldaean mounds, are
somewhat more advanced indeed than those very primitive implements which
have been found in a drift; but they are of a workmanship at least as
unskilled as that of the ordinary stone celts of Western and Northern
Europe, which till the discoveries of M. Perthes were regarded as the
most ancient human remains in our quarter of the globe. They indicate
some practical knowledge of the cleavage of silicious rocks, but they
show no power of producing even such finish as the celts frequently
exhibit. In one case only has a flint instrument been discovered
perfectly regular in form, and presenting a sharp angular exactness.
The instrument, which is figured [PLATE XVI., Fig. 2], is a sort of long
parallelogram, round at the back, and with a deep impression down its
face. Its use is uncertain; but, according to a reasonable conjecture,
it may have been designed for impressing characters upon the moist clay
of tablets and cylinders--a purpose for which it is said to be
excellently fitted.
[Illustration: PLATE 16]
The metallurgy of the Chaldaeans, though indicative of a higher state of
civilization and a greater knowledge of the useful arts than their stone
weapons, is still of a somewhat rude character, and indicates a nation
but just emerging out of an almost barbaric simplicity. Metal seems to
be scarce, and not many kinds are found. There is no silver, zinc, or
platinum; but only gold, copper, tin, lead, and iron. Gold is found in
beads, ear-rings, and other ornaments, which are in some instances of a
fashion that is not inelegant. [PLATE XVI., Fig. 3.] Copper occurs
pure, but is more often hardened by means of an alloy of tin, whereby it
becomes bronze, and is rendered suitable for implements and weapons.
Lead is rare, occurring only in a very few specimens, as in one jar or
bottle, and in what seems to be a portion of a pipe, brought by Mr.
Loftus from Mugheir. [PLATE XVII., Fig. 1.] Iron, as already observed,
is extremely uncommon; and when it occurs, is chiefly used for the rings
and bangles which seem to have been among the favorite adornments of the
people. Bronze is, however, even for these, the more common material.
[PLATE XVII, Fig. 2.] It is sometimes wrought into thin and elegant
shapes, tapering to a point at either extremity; sometimes the form into
which it is cast is coarse and massive, resembling a solid bar twisted
into a rude circle. For all ordinary purposes of utility it is the
common metal used. A bronze or copper bowl is found in almost every
tomb; bronze bolts remain in the pieces of marble used for tesselating;
bronze rings sometimes strengthen the cones used for ornamenting walls;
bronze weapons and instruments are, as we have seen, common, and in the
same material have been found chains, nails, toe and finger rings,
armlets, bracelets, and fish-hooks.
[Illustration: PLATE 17]
No long or detailed account can be given of the textile fabrics of the
ancient Chaldaeans; but there is reason to believe that this was a branch
of industry in which they particularly excelled. We know that as early
as the time of Joshua a Babylonian garment had been imported into
Palestine, and was of so rare a beauty as to attract the covetous regards
of Achan, in common with certain large masses of the precious metals.
The very ancient cylinder figured above must belong to a time at least
five or six centuries earlier; upon it we observe flounced and fringed
garments, delicately striped, and indicative apparently of an advanced
state of textile manufacture. Recent researches do not throw much light
on this subject. The frail materials of which human apparel is composed
can only under peculiar circumstances resist the destructive power of
thirty or forty centuries; and consequently we have but few traces of the
actual fabrics in use among the primitive people. Pieces of linen are
said to have been found attaching to some of the skeletons in the tombs;
and the sun-dried brick which supports the head is sometimes covered with
the remains of a “tasselled cushion of tapestry;” but otherwise we are
without direct evidence either as to the material in use, or as to the
character of the fabric. In later times Babylon was especially
celebrated for its robes and its carpets. Such evidence as we have would
seem to make it probable that both manufactures had attained to
considerable excellence in Chaldaean times.
The only sciences in which the early Chaldaeans can at present be proved
to have excelled are the cognate ones of arithmetic and astronomy. On
the broad and monotonous plains of Lower Mesopotamia, where the earth has
little upon it to suggest thought or please by variety, the “variegated
heaven,” ever changing with the hours and with the seasons, would early
attract attention, while the clear sky, dry atmosphere, and level horizon
would afford facilities for observations, so soon as the idea of them
suggested itself to the minds of the inhabitants. The “Chaldaean
learning” of a later age appears to have been originated, in all its
branches, by the primitive people; in whose language it continued to be
written even in Semitic times.
We are informed by Simplicius that Callisthenes, who accompanied
Alexander to Babylon, sent to Aristotle from that capital a series of
astronomical observations, which he had found preserved there, extending
back to a period of 1903 years from Alexander’s conquest of the city.
Epigenes related that these observations were recorded upon tablets of
baked clay, which is quite in accordance with all that we know of the
literary habits of the people. They must have extended, according to
Simplicius, as far back as B.C. 2234, and would therefore seem to have
been commenced and carried on for many centuries by the primitive
Chaldaean people. We have no means of determining their exact nature or
value, as none of them have been preserved to us: no doubt they were at
first extremely simple; but we have every reason to conclude that they
were of a real and substantial character. There is nothing fanciful, or
(so to speak) astrological, in the early astronomy of the Babylonians.
Their careful emplacement of their chief buildings, which were probably
used from the earliest times for astronomical purposes, their invention
of different kinds of dials, and their division of the day into those
hours which we still use, are all solid, though not perhaps very
brilliant, achievements. It was only in later times that the Chaldaeans
were fairly taxed with imposture and charlatanism; in early ages they
seem to have really deserved the eulogy bestowed on them by Cicero.
It may have been the astronomical knowledge of the Chaldaeans which gave
them the confidence to adventure on important voyages. Scripture tells
us of the later people, that “their cry was in the ships;” and the early
inscriptions not only make frequent mention of the “ships of Ur,” but by
connecting these vessels with those of Ethiopia seem to imply that they
were navigated to considerable distances. Unfortunately we possess no
materials from which to form any idea either of the make and character of
the Chaldaean vessels, or of the nature of the trade in which they were
employed. We may perhaps assume that at first they were either canoes
hollowed out of a palm-trunk, or reed fabrics made water-tight by a
coating of bitumen. The Chaldaea trading operations lay no doubt,
chiefly in the Persian Gulf; but it is quite possible that even in very
early times they were not confined to this sheltered basin. The gold,
which was so lavishly used in decoration, could only have been obtained
in the necessary quantities from Africa or India; and it is therefore
probable that one, if not both, of these countries was visited by the
Chaldaean traders.
Astronomical investigations could not be conducted without a fair
proficiency in the science of numbers. It would be reasonable to
conclude, from the admitted character of the Chaldaeans as astronomers,
that they were familiar with most arithmetical processes, even had we no
evidence upon the subject. Evidence, however, to a certain extent, does
exist. On a tablet found at Senkareh, and belonging probably to an early
period, a table of squares is given, correctly calculated from one to
sixty. The system of notation, which is here used, is very curious.
Berosus informs us that, in their computations of time, the Chaldaeans
employed an alternate sexagesimal and decimal notation, reckoning the
years by the _soss,_ the _ner,_ and the _sar_--the _soss_ being a term of
60 years, the _ner_ one of 600, and the _sar_ one of 3600 (or 60
_sosses_). It appears from the Senkareh monument, that they occasionally
pursued the same practice in mere numerical calculations, as will be
evident from the illustration. [PLATE XVIII., Figs. 1, 2.]
[Illustration: PLATE 18]
In Arabic numerals this table may be expressed as follows:
[Illustration: PAGE 66]
The calculation is in every case correct; and the notation is by means of
two signs--the simple wedge [--] , and the arrowhead [--] ; the wedge
representing the unit, the soss (60), and the sar (3600), while the
arrowhead expresses the decades of each series, or the numbers 10 and
600. The notation is cumbrous, but scarcely more so than that of the
Romans. It would be awkward to use, from the paucity in the number of
signs, which could scarcely fail to give rise to confusion,--more
especially as it does not appear that there was any way of expressing a
cipher. It is not probable that at any time it was the notation in
ordinary use. Numbers were commonly expressed in a manner not unlike the
Roman, as will be seen by the subjoined table. [PLATE XVIII., Fig. 3.]
One, ten, a hundred, and a thousand, had distinct signs. Fifty had the
same sign as the unit--a simple wedge. The other numbers were composed
from these elements.