MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
Chaldaea, unlike Egypt, has preserved to our day but few records of the
private or domestic life of its inhabitants. Beyond the funereal
customs, to which reference was made in the last chapter, we can obtain
from the monuments but a very scanty account of their general mode of
life, manners, and usages. Some attempt, however, must be made to throw
together the few points of this nature on which we have obtained any
light from recent researches in Mesopotamia.
The ordinary dress of the common people among the Chaldaeans seems to
have consisted of a single garment, a short tunic, tied round the waist,
and reaching thence to the knees, a costume very similar to that worn by
the Madan Arabs at the present day. To this may sometimes have been
added an _abba,_ or cloak, thrown over the shoulders, and falling below
the tunic, about half-way down the calf of the leg. The material of the
former we may perhaps presume to have been linen, which best suits the
climate, and is a fabric found in the ancient tombs. The outer cloak was
most likely of woollen, and served to protect hunters and others against
the occasional inclemency of the air. The feet were unprotected by
either shoes or sandals; on the head was worn a skull-cap, or else a band
of camel’s hairs--the germ of the turban which has now become universal
throughout the East.
The costume of the richer class was more elaborate. A high mitre, of a
very peculiar appearance, or else a low cap ornamented with two curved
horns, covered the head. [PLATE XIX. Fig. 1.] The neck and arms were
bare. The chief garment was a long gown or robe, extending from the neck
to the feet, commonly either striped or flounced, or both; and sometimes
also adorned with fringe. This robe, which was scanty according to
modern notions, appears not to have been fastened by any girdle or
cincture round the waist, but to have been kept in place by passing over
one shoulder, a slit or hole being made for the arm on one side of the
dress only. In some cases the upper part of the dress seems to have been
detached from the lower, and to have formed a sort of jacket, which
reached about to the hips.
[Illustration: PLATE 19]
The beard was commonly worn straight and long, not in crisp curls, as by
the Assyrians. [PLATE XIX., Fig. 2.] The hair was also worn long,
either gathered together into a club behind the head, or depending in
long spiral curls on either side the face and down the back. Ornaments
were much affected, especially by the women. Bronze and iron bangles and
armlets, and bracelets of rings or beads, ear-rings, and rings for the
toes, are common in the tombs, and few female skeletons are without them.
The material of the ornaments is generally of small value. Many of the
rings are formed by grinding down a small kind of shell; the others are
of bronze or iron. Agate beads, however, are not uncommon, and gold
beads have been found in a few tombs, as well as some other small
ornaments in the same material. The men seem to have carried generally
an engraved cylinder in agate or other hard stone, which was used as a
seal or signet, and was probably worn round the wrist. Sometimes rings,
and even bracelets, formed also a part of their adornment. The latter
were occasionally in gold--they consisted of bands or fillets of the pure
beaten metal, and were as much as an inch in breadth.
The food of the early Chaldaeans consisted probably of the various
esculents which have already been mentioned as products of the territory.
The chief support, however, of the mass of the population was, beyond a
doubt, the dates, which still form the main sustenance of those who
inhabit the country. It is clear that in Babylonia, as in Scythia, the
practice existed of burying with a man a quantity of the food to which he
had been accustomed during life. In the Chaldaean sepulchres a number of
dishes are always ranged round the skeleton, containing the viaticum of
the deceased person, and in these dishes are almost invariably found a
number of date-stones. They are most commonly unaccompanied by any
traces of other kinds of food; occasionally, however, besides
date-stones, the bones of fish and of chickens have been discovered, from
which we may conclude that those animals were eaten, at any rate by the
upper classes. Herodotus tells us that in his day three tribes of
Babylonians subsisted on fish alone; and the present inhabitants of Lower
Mesopotamia make it a principal article of their diet. The rivers and
the marshes produce it in great abundance, while the sea is also at hand,
if the fresh-water supply should fail. Carp and barbel are the principal
fresh-water sorts, and of these the former grows to a very great size in
the Euphrates. An early tablet, now in the British Museum, represents a
man carrying a large fish by the head, which may be a carp, though the
species can scarcely be identified. There is evidence that the wild-boar
was also eaten by the primitive people; for Mr. Loftus found a jaw of
this animal, with the tusk still remaining, lying in a shallow clay dish
in one of the tombs. Perhaps we may be justified in concluding, from the
comparative rarity of any remains of animal food in the early sepulchres,
that the primitive Chaldaeans subsisted chiefly on vegetable productions.
The variety and excellence of such esculents are prominently put forward
by Berosus in his account of the original condition of the country; and
they still form the principal support of those who now inhabit it.
We are told that Nimrod was “a mighty hunter before the Lord;” and it is
evident, from the account already given of the animals indigenous in
Lower Mesopotainia, that there was abundant room for the display of a
sportsman’s skill and daring when men first settled in that region. The
Senkareh tablets show the boldness and voracity of the Chaldaean lion,
which not only levied contributions on the settlers’ cattle, but
occasionally ventured to attack man himself. We have not as yet any
hunting scenes belonging to these early times; but there can be little
doubt that the bow was the chief weapon used against the king of beasts,
whose assailants commonly prefer remaining at a respectful distance from
him. The wild-boar may have been hunted in the same way, or he may have
been attacked with a spear--a weapon equally well known with the bow to
the early settlers. Fish were certainly taken with the hook; for
fish-hooks have been found in the tombs; but probably they were also
captured in nets, which are among the earliest of human inventions.
A considerable portion of the primitive population must have been engaged
in maritime pursuits. In the earliest inscriptions we find constant
mention of the “ships of Ur,” which appear to have traded with Ethiopia
--a country whence may have been derived the gold, which--as has been
already shown--was so largely used by the Chaldaeans in ornamentation.
It would be interesting could we regard it as proved that they traded
also with the Indian peninsula; but the “rough logs of wood, apparently
teak,” which Mr. Taylor discovered in the great temple at Mugheir, belong
more probably to the time of its repair by Nabonidus than to that of its
original construction by a Chaldaean monarch. The Sea-God was one of the
chief objects of veneration at Ur and elsewhere; and Berosus appears to
have preserved an authentic tradition, where he makes the primitive
people of the country derive their arts and civilization from “the Red
Sea.” Even if their commercial dealings did not bring them into contact
with any more advanced people, they must have increased the intelligence,
as well as the material resources, of those employed in them, and so have
advanced their civilization.
Such are the few conclusions concerning the manners of the Chaldaeans
which alone we seem to have any right to form with our present means of
information.