kingdom.
_Monuments._--A few brief inscriptions.
1345 His son and successor, =Adad-nirari I=, continues conquests
in neighbouring territory. Rebuilds captured cities. Struggle
with Babylonian king. He adds considerably to strength of
kingdom.
_Monuments._--A bronze sword, on which he calls himself king of
Kishshati; an inscription, the oldest yet found with an eponym
date.
1330 His son, =Shalmaneser I=, establishes colonies between the
Euphrates and Tigris as a bulwark against the nomadic
populations of the farther north. Subjects the Musri in northern
Syria. Assyrians cross the Euphrates for the first time. The
rapidly growing kingdom firmly established as far as the Balikh
and perhaps the Euphrates. New capital built at Calah.
_Monuments._--Two broken tablets.
1290 Under his son and successor, =Tukulti-Ninib I=, there is
renewed trouble between Assyria and Babylonia. Invasion of
Babylonia; capital taken. Conquered city governed from Calah,
Assyrian officers stationed both in the north and south of the
country. Tukulti-Ninib adopts the title of “King of Sumer and
Accad” in addition to his former titles, “King of Kishshati” and
“King of Asshur.” This rule over Babylonia maintained for seven
years only. The king is killed in civil war. The most brilliant
reign in Assyrian history up to this time. The steady and rapid
progress of the Assyrians now checked.
1280 Rapid decline of Assyrian power under =Asshurnazirpal I=,
Tukulti-Ninib’s son. An attack of Babylonia is repulsed with
difficulty.
1250 Under his successors, =Asshur-narara= and =Nabu-daian=, the
Assyrian power continues to wane, while the Babylonian increases.
1240-1235 Under =Bel-kudur-usur= and =Ninib-apal-esharra=
Assyria is invaded by the Babylonians under Meli-shipak and
Marduk-apal-iddin. All the southern and part of the northern and
western conquered territory lost.
1210 Under =Asshur-dan I= rehabilitation of Assyrian power. He
crosses the Lower Zab, invades Babylonian territory, and
restores a small section of it to Assyria.
1150 Further Assyrian gains under =Mutakkil-Nusku= and
1140 =Asshur-rish-ishi=, who restores temple of Ishtar at Calah.
SECOND PERIOD, 1120-885 B.C.
1120 =Tiglathpileser I= (=Tukulti-apal-esharra=, my help is the god
Ninib).--He builds up anew the Assyrian Empire, and thus
records his work of conquest: “In all forty-two countries and
their kings from the Lower Zab (and) the border of the distant
mountains to beyond the Euphrates to the land of the Hittites
and the Upper Sea of the Setting Sun, from the beginning of my
sovereignty until my fifth year my hand has conquered.” His
great success in war equalled by a marvellous story of peaceful
achievements. The capital of Assyria brought back from Calah to
Asshur; the temples of Ishtar, Adad, and Bel rebuilt, palaces
restored and rebuilt.
_Monuments._--The eight-sided prism found at Calah: several
fragmentary annals of the early years of his reign.
1090 Under his successors, =Asshur-bel-kala= and =Shamshi-Adad
III=, both sons of Tiglathpileser, further peaceful development,
with gradually a falling off in the power and dignity of the
kingdom. The former king maintains terms of peace with the king
of Babylonia, Marduk-shapik-zer-mati, who thereby seems to be
considered an independent monarch. As to Shamshi-Adad I, he is
known to us only as the rebuilder of the temple of Ishtar in
Nineveh.
1050-950 A dark age. The fortunes of Assyria are at low ebb.
In this period reigned =Asshurnazirpal II=, =Erba-Adad=,
=Asshur-nadin-akhe=, and =Asshur-erbi=. The last loses territory
to the Aramæans, but he seems to have invaded Phœnicia.
950 =Tiglathpileser II=, who calls himself “King of Kishshati and
King of Asshur.”
930 =Asshur-dan II=, his son.
911 =Adad-nirari II.=--Revival of struggle with Babylonia. Defeats
Shamash-mudammik of Babylon in battle of Mount Yalman, also his
successor Nabu-shum-ishkun. Assyrian cities given to Babylonia.
Treaty of peace between the two nations.
890 =Tukulti-Ninib II.=--The period of weakness is passing. Babylon
ceases to be troublesome, and the Assyrians begin to seek
tribute in the north and west. The king ravages Armenia and the
land of Kummukh.
THIRD PERIOD, 885-722 B.C.
885 =Asshurnazirpal III=, begins campaigns of conquest at once.
In ten years all of Tiglathpileser I’s empire in the north, east,
and west, conquered or intimidated into subjection with atrocious
cruelties and barbarous devastations, is under heavy tribute.
876 A great invasion of the west. At his approach all the cities
from Carchemish to Tyre hasten to send presents and arrange for
tribute. The campaign ends in the gathering of timber for the
temple of Ishtar at Nineveh.
867 A short and bloody campaign against Kummukh, Qurkhi and the
country around Mount Masius. Asshurnazirpal rebuilds Calah, and
constructs a canal to supply the city with water from the Lower
Zab.
_Monuments._--The royal palace unearthed at Nimrud; monolith
containing accounts of his reign discovered by Layard at Nimrud;
several lesser inscriptions.
860 =Shalmaneser II=, his son, continues his father’s conquests
with similar cruelty. Campaign against Nairi and first of many
campaigns in the north and east lasting until 830 with no real
success.
857 The Aramæans of Bit-Adini in the Mesopotamian valley finally
conquered and their land placed under Assyrian government.
854 Shalmaneser proceeds successfully against a coalition of North
Syrian princes, Israel and Phœnicia. Battle of Qarqar. Yearly
tribute imposed on states of northern Syria.
852 Marduk-nadin-shun of Babylon calls Shalmaneser to help him
against his rebellious brother Marduk-bel-usati. Shalmaneser
attacks and vanquishes the rebels and Marduk-nadin-shum rules
under an Assyrian protectorate. The king of Assyria is once more
the real ruler of Babylon.
849-834 Campaigns against the west. The results are not definite,
and little is done except to pave the way for the future. Attack
upon Ben-Hadad II of Damascus and his allies. Jehu sends aid
against Damascus and the Assyrians get their first hold upon
Israel.
827 Rebellion of Shalmaneser’s son Asshur-danin-apli which splits
the kingdom into two discordant parts.
825 Death of Shalmaneser.
_Monuments._--The black basalt obelisk containing story of his
wars; monolith with portrait in bas-relief; gate inscriptions
from Balauat.
823 =Shamshi-Adad IV=, after two years of civil war with his
brother, is acknowledged legitimate king.
822-814 Campaigns in north, east, and west to receive allegiance.
813 Invasion of Chaldea.
812 Invasion of Babylon where Marduk-balatsu-iqbi refuses to pay
tribute--a decisive victory.
_Monuments._--Inscriptions.
811 =Adad-nirari III= succeeds his father--a ruler who increases
Assyrian prestige immensely. Successful campaigns in the west.
Eight brilliant campaigns against the Medes.
796-795 Babylon invaded--now practically an Assyrian province.
The king tries to efface all national differences. Temples built
in Assyria similar to those of Babylon, and Babylonian forms
introduced into the ritual.
_Monuments._--A statue of Nabu from the temple of Calah;
inscriptions.
782 =Shalmaneser III=, a period of decline sets in. Of his ten
campaigns, six are against the growing power of Urartu, which is
trying to wrest the land of Nairi from the Assyrians.
772 =Asshur-dan III.=--The decay continues. Campaigns against
Damascus, and Khatarikka in Syria. Two invasions of Babylon
(771-767).
763-758 A series of rebellions in various parts of the kingdom.
754 =Asshur-nirari II.=--A reign of decadence. Campaigns against
Arpad and Nairi, but no attempt to collect tribute.
746 Rebellion in Calah. Asshur-nirari disappears and with him the
royal family that has ruled Assyria for centuries.
FOURTH PERIOD, 745-606 B.C.
745 =Pulu.=--A man of obscure origin obtains the throne, probably
as the outcome of the Calah rebellion. He takes the name of
=Tiglathpileser (III)=, and begins at once the formation of
a great world-empire and proceeds first against Babylonia.
Reconquers the country as far south as Nippur and reorganises
the government. Makes a fixed policy of planting colonies and
transporting captives. He next subdues the troublesome land
east of Assyria, and sends his general, Asshur-danin-ani, into
Media. Second expedition into Media (737), but withal the
country remains practically independent. He takes up a difficult
problem in the north where Argistis of Urartu had regained
much territory, and his successor, Sarduris II, has formed an
alliance with many northern princes. The armies of Sarduris and
Tiglathpileser meet and the former is forced to retire.
742 Tiglathpileser, free from Sarduris, attacks Arpad, which falls,
740. Many neighbouring states send presents. The king of Unqi
resists, but is soon taken and his country annexed to Assyria.
739 Part of Nairi taken. Tiglathpileser sets out to break the
coalition of Syrian princes against him, aiming at Uzziah of
Judah, the ringleader. Menahem of Israel weakens and pays the
Assyrian heavy tribute, whereupon he abandons attacks on Judah,
but subdues, and returns home with tribute from, all the other
members of the league.
735 Campaign against Urartu--does not conquer but breaks the spirit
of the country.
734-732 Campaigns in Syria. Damascus taken. Ahaz of Judah gives
homage. Other lands incorporated with Assyria. Gaza captured.
731-729 He invades Babylonia to settle the internal strife raging
there. Determines to do away with native princes. Ukinzer
deposed. Merodach-baladan of Bit-Yakin gives homage.
728 Proclaimed legitimate king of Babylon.
_Monuments._--The annals badly defaced by Esarhaddon; the slabs
of Nimrud; inscription on clay tablets.
726 =Shalmaneser IV= succeeds.
725 Hoshea of Israel in alliance with Shabak of Egypt refuses
tribute. Shalmaneser lays siege to Samaria.
THE SARGONIDES, 722-606 B.C.
722 =Sargon II=--a usurper succeeds. Samaria falls in this year.
The inhabitants are removed to the Median mountains and replaced
by colonists from Kutha.
721 Merodach-baladan rebels and is proclaimed king of Babylon.
Sargon proceeds unsuccessfully against him. Rebellion in Hamath,
joined by Gaza and Samaria.
720 The confederation defeated at Raphia.
720-710 Continuous campaigns. Successful attack on Urartu.
Coalition in the north broken up.
717 Assyrian governors installed throughout the country. The career
of Carchemish ended.
710 Merodach-baladan defeated. Sargon adopts title “Shakkanak,”
Governor, of Babylon.
707 The great palace in his city of Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad) is
finished. The walls are covered with magnificent inscriptions. He
enters it the next year.
_Monuments._--The palace of Dur-Sharrukin with
inscriptions--other inscriptions.
705 =Sennacherib= (=Sin-akhe-erba=) succeeds his father.
702 Visits rebellious Babylonia and makes Bel ibni king.
701 Coalition against Sennacherib of Syrian princes and Tirhaqa
of Egypt. The Assyrian attacks Phœnician cities and most of
Syria submits. Battle of Altaku. Sennacherib’s army ravaged by
pestilence, and he returns to Nineveh which he has made his
capital.
700 Bel-ibni becomes hostile to Assyria through force of public
opinion. Merodach-baladan and Marduk-ushezib of Chaldea join him.
Sennacherib defeats them and has his own son Asshur-nadin-shum
proclaimed king of Babylon.
694 Campaigns against the Chaldeans settled in Elam.
Asshur-nadin-shum captured by the Elamites and Nergal-ushezib
crowned.
692 Mushezib-Marduk made king of Babylon. With the Elamites, the
Babylonians oppose Sennacherib at Khalule (691) and are utterly
defeated.
689 Destruction of Babylon by Sennacherib.
688-682 Sennacherib absent in Arabia.
681 Murder of Sennacherib by his sons Nergal-shar-eser and
Adarmalik.
681 =Esarhaddon= (=Asshur-akhe-iddin=) succeeds his father.
681-672 Nine campaigns to repress rebellions in different parts of
the empire.
672 Destruction of Sidon. City of Kar-Asshur-akhe-iddin built on
the same spot.
670 Esarhaddon appears in Egypt to punish Tirhaqa. Memphis taken.
The whole country surrenders to Esarhaddon who reorganises the
government.
668 Esarhaddon abdicates. He appoints his son Shamash-shum-ukin
viceroy of Babylonia, and another son, Asshurbanapal, receives
the throne of Assyria.
_Monuments._--The “Black Stone,” the stele of Zenjirli; other
inscriptions.
668 =Asshurbanapal= begins his reign.
667 Sends an army to Egypt which defeats Tirhaqa who has retaken
Memphis. Conspiracy of Egyptian princes to restore Tirhaqa. They
are taken and punished. Exacts tribute from King Baal of Tyre,
and other princes.
655 Psamthek I of Egypt throws off the Assyrian yoke.
Campaign against Elam.
War with Shamash-shum-ukin, who plots against Assyria, and severe
punishment of Babylonia. Cruel onslaught on Elam for assistance
to Shamash-shum-ukin and his allies. The same fate is meted out
to the Arabians.
Asshurbanapal is famous as a builder. Temple of E-kur-gal-kurra
in Nineveh adorned. Rebuilding of E-sagila in Babylon completed.
E-zida in Borsippa is embellished. The palace of Nineveh
reconstructed and a great library built and equipped. Vast
building operations in Babylonia and Arbela. His reign is one of
great glory in works of peace, but Egypt has been lost, and many
foreign provinces are on the verge of regaining their liberty.
_Monuments._--Many records from the library of Nineveh.
626-609 Asshurbanapal succeeded by =Asshur-etil-ili-ukinni=,
=Sin-shum-lishir=, and =Sin-shar-ishkum= (=Saracus=), of whom we
have but little knowledge.
625 First appearance of the Scythian tribes in Assyria. They invade
the land and burn Calah.
609 =Sin-shar-ishkum= attacks Babylonia, of which Nabopolassar is
now king. The latter allies himself with the Scythian tribe of
the Manda, which attacks Nineveh.
606 Sin-shar-ishkum sets fire to palace and perishes in the flames.
Nineveh taken and destroyed, as well as Dur-Sharrukin and Asshur.
The Manda secure the old land of Assyria, together with the
northern provinces as far as the river Halys. The Babylonians
take the southern and the Syrio-Phœnician possessions. =End of
the Assyrian Empire.=
THE NEW EMPIRE OF BABYLON
606-538 B.C.
=Nabopolassar= (=Nabu-apal-usur=), an Assyrian governor of
Babylonia about 625, finally becomes king, and a powerful rival
of Assyria. After the destruction of Nineveh he receives his
share of the old empire, and continues his reign in peace. Neku
II of Egypt marches upon Babylonia. Country developed by canals
and great buildings. Temple of Belit at Sippar rebuilt.
604-562 =Nebuchadrezzar= (=Nabu-kudur-usur=). Before he becomes
king, he has defeated Neku at Carchemish (605). Campaign against
Judah. Jerusalem twice besieged in 597, when Jehoiachin had to
surrender, in whose place Mattaniah, a son of Josiah, was made
king under the name of Zedekiah; and again in 586 when the city
is taken, plundered, and destroyed. Population deported and
Gedaliah placed as governor.
585-573 Investment of Tyre for thirteen years. Finally taken in 573
and King Ithobaal II deposed.
567 Invasion of Egypt in the reign of Aahmes II; heavy booty
secured, but no lasting results. Splendid works of peace shown in
numerous inscriptions. Extensive building operations. The walls
of Babylon rebuilt and rendered impregnable. Canals repaired and
temples reconstructed. Temples of Borsippa repaired and the walls
reconstructed, also at Sippar, Larsa, Ur, Dilbat, Baz, and Erech.
_Monuments._--Many inscriptions.
562 =Amil-Marduk= (the biblical =Evil-merodach=). No inscriptions found.
560 Assassinated by =Nergal-shar-usur= (=Neriglissor=).--Under
him Babylon adorned and enlarged. The temple E-sagila beautified.
Canal system regulated. Succeeded by
556 =Labashi-Marduk=, who was killed after a reign of only
nine months, and succeeded by
555 =Nabu-Na’id= (=Nabonidus=), a usurper. Chiefly engaged in building
and restoring temples. The temple E-ulbar restored and temples at
Sippar and Kharran in Babylonia rebuilt.
539 Babylonia invaded by Cyrus of Elam and Persia.
538 Sippar taken. Babylon surrenders. Triumphal entrance of Cyrus
into the city. =Babylonia a Persian province.=
FOOTNOTES
[15] [The theories of those who deny the existence of the Sumerians
have been already given in the Introductory Essay, pages 309-317, by
Professor Halévy, the leader of the anti-Sumerian school. The present
trend of opinion is, however, largely toward the Sumerian theory.]
CHAPTER I. LAND AND PEOPLE
Cities have been, and vanished; fanes have sunk,
Heaped into shapeless ruin; sands o’erspread
Fields that were Edens; millions too have shrunk
To a few starving hundreds, or have fled
From off the page of being. Now the dead
Are the sole habitants of Babylon;
Kings, at whose bidding nations toiled and bled,
Heroes, who many a field of carnage won,
Their names--their boasted names to utter death are done.
--JAMES GATES PERCIVAL.
It should be explained here at the very beginning that in speaking of
the Mesopotamian civilisation as a unit, we are adopting for the sake
of convenience a form of expression that is not historically accurate.
Even the word “Mesopotamia” cannot be justified on strict analysis. The
word is from the Greek, and means, literally, “between the rivers,”
an obvious reference to the fact that the important portion of the
territory in question lies between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The
word was used by the Greeks in indiscriminate application to Babylonia
and Assyria, and its extreme convenience as a generic term has led to
its retention in lieu of a better one; yet, as has been said, it cannot
be applied with strict accuracy unless its etymological significance be
quite overlooked; for, curiously enough, neither Babylon nor Nineveh
was wholly situated in the territory which the Greek word describes.
Babylon lay partly on the western shore of the Euphrates river, and
Nineveh was situated on the eastern shore of the Tigris. But in
common usage, as so often happens, the exact implication of the word
“Mesopotamia” has been overlooked, and the word itself has come to be
applied to the entire region of Babylonia and Assyria. In this sense,
rather than in the more restricted one, we shall find it convenient as
a substitute for the more cumbersome appellation, Babylonia-Assyria.
It has already been pointed out that we have to do with different
races of people in dealing with Mesopotamian history. After a long
dispute, carried on chiefly by philologists, it is now generally
conceded that the earliest civilisation of southern Babylonia was due
to a non-Semitic people, the Sumerians.[16] To this people, it would
seem, must be ascribed the honour of developing the chief features of
Mesopotamian civilisation, including the invention of the cuneiform
system of writing. It is not at all clear at precisely what time the
Semitic people, destined ultimately to become predominant in this
region, made their appearance. Nor is the place of Semitic origin
agreed upon among students of the subject. Some authors,[17] as Von
Kremer, Guidi, and Hommel, hold that Babylonia was itself originally
the cradle of the race. Others, including Sprenger, Sayce, Schrader, De
Goeje, Wright, and Barton, contend that the Semites invaded Babylonia
from Arabia. Yet others, including Palgrave, Gerland, Bertin, Brinton,
Nöldeke, Jastrow, Keane, and Schmidt, hold to the African origin; while
a modification of these views advocated by Wiedemann, De Morgan, and
Erman supposes that both the Semites and Hamites rose in Arabia, and
had their common civilisation before the Hamites went to Africa.
Confronted with such conflict of opinions, the historian must be
content to regard the exact antecedents of the Semites, previous to
their appearance in Babylonia, as quite unknown.
As to the date of the beginnings of Semitic civilisation in
Mesopotamia, Dr. John P. Peters, making use of Ainsworth’s estimates as
to the amount and rate of alluvial deposit at the head of the Persian
Gulf, computes that the seacoast must have been established this
side of the site of the city of Ur about 6600 B.C., which date must,
therefore, represent the earliest possible period for the foundation of
that city. Ur was apparently the most southerly city of old Babylonia,
and Nippur apparently the most northerly. Dr. Peters’ excavations at
Nippur lead him to base its foundation at some period previous to 6000
B.C., and possibly previous to 7000 B.C.[a] He sums up his theory as
follows:
“My suggestion, from the various facts here marshalled, would be that
the original home of civilisation in Babylonia was the strip of land
from Nippur southward to the neighbourhood of Ur, and not, as has
sometimes been argued, the region about Babylonia and northward to
Sippara; while the latter region is in itself older, it does not seem
to have been older as the home of civilised man.
“The ancestors of the civilisation of Babylonia seem to have come from
the region between Nippur and what was then the coast of the Persian
Gulf. This would accord also with the tradition preserved to us in
later sources that civilisation came to Babylonia out of the Persian
Gulf. Possibly Eridu, on the Arabian plateau near the western shore and
not far from the head of what was then the Persian Gulf, may represent
the oldest seat of that civilisation. However that may be, at a very
early period Nippur became the centre of civilisation and religion,
being founded at a time when everything below Ur probably was still
under water. As early as the close, if not the beginning, of the
seventh millennium B.C., this strip of land at the head of the then
Persian Gulf seems to have been the home of the civilised men, and from
here civilisation spread northward.”[f]
THE LAND
The land of the Euphrates and Tigris lies between the Iranian country
on the east and the Syrio-Arabian district on the west, from the chain
of mountains of the Zagros to the rocky heights of the Lebanon and the
Syrian desert. From the mountains of Armenia, in which both rivers have
their source, the land gradually declines to the plain, extending from
the point of their union to where they fall into the Persian Gulf.
The upper-river beds, winding through a high-lying, sometimes fertile
steppe country, are surrounded by heights, where plane and cypress
groves alternate with green meads and a rich growth of many-coloured
flowers and plants.
As the land grows flatter, these valleys widen to fertile pastures on
the river-banks, whilst the wide central plain grows more and more bare
and treeless, until it ends at last in a desert trodden only by a few
wandering shepherds with their flocks, and full of ostriches, bustards,
and wild game. This is known as the between-river (Mesopotamia)
district, which extends into a wide plain of rich brown soil, about
a hundred miles above the mouth, where the two rivers approach most
nearly, and the banks touch the so-called Median wall.
This plain, famous for its uncommon fertility as well as for its
historic importance, the “Shinar” Land of the Semites, and the
Babylonia of the Greeks, is as rainless as Egypt, and would have dried
up into a sandy desert, had not nature and human artifice contrived
means of irrigation.
For in the spring, when the snow melts on the Armenian mountains,
both rivers overflow their banks and water the thirsty land. This
overflowing of the gently moving Euphrates is as regular as that of
the Nile; the wide tract of water is unopposed in its inundation of
the plain and, like the Nile, it deposits a rich mud soil, and man’s
resources are called into play to aid nature by the artificial conduct
of water and by means of dams to give the neighbouring district a share
in the fertilising irrigation.
But the bed of the Tigris growing decidedly more narrow as it nears
the sea, receives the devastating stream from the eastern and northern
mountains, and the force of the waters transports the fertile soil from
the fields and transforms the plains into a wide swampy land, covered
with reeds and rushes.
The inhabitants, therefore, had the double task of stemming the force
of the stream to prevent destructive inundations, and of securing
a course for the fertilising waters by canals and lakes. So the
Babylonian plains were sown with such a number of small and great
canals, dams and ditches, that the waterworks and means of irrigation
were a source of wonder and astonishment to the whole of antiquity.
These canals, cut in every direction and decreasing in size until
they were almost rivulets, were furnished with countless machines and
pump-works. Many of these canals, which should have been kept free by
continuous clearing from the stoppage of mud, were lost in the sand;
others, emptying into the Tigris, increased its size, the nearer it
approached the sea, while the waters of the Euphrates were decreased
through the drain of the canals.[b]
The Tigris and the Euphrates have both flood seasons and carry their
waters over a wide extent of country, exactly as the Nile. This fact
is so perfectly clear that there can be no doubt concerning it, though
Herodotus directly asserts the contrary, saying, “The river does not,
as in Egypt, overflow the corn lands of its own accord, but is spread
over them by the help of engines.” The rise is indeed not so prolonged
as the rise of the Nile, but its influence is, nevertheless, distinctly
to be seen. Furthermore, the water was retained in sufficient quantity
to supply an irrigation system far back from the river for the grain
harvest, after the fall of the river. This entire system is now a vast
ruin. The river rises and falls as it wills, and sweeping far over the
western bank, turns the country into a morass. The harm of this is both
negative and positive. It makes impossible any such great ingathering
of grain as existed when this great valley was the world’s granary, and
it fills the land with a dangerous miasma, which produces fevers and
leaves the inhabitants weak and sickly. There are few instances in the
world of a sadder waste of a beautiful and fertile country.[e]
Old writers give the most brilliant descriptions of the wonders of the
district. Xenophon praises the quality and quantity of the dates, of
the groves of palms which line the banks of the lower course of the two
rivers and break the uniformity of the landscape, and are still very
productive where the cruel Turkish rule has not changed the garden into
a desert.
Herodotus lays particular stress upon the natural fertility of the
country, for he writes: “Babylon is, as we know, famed for the best
tillage of all lands, producing always two hundredfold of fruit and, in
very good years, three hundredfold. The leaves of the wheat and barley
are all four fingers wide, and I very well know, but I would rather not
say, to what size the millet and seed grow; for I am certain that those
who have not been in Babylon, will not believe it. There are few trees,
no fig trees, no vine, no olive. They have no oil but what they make
from sesame. But palm trees grow all over the country, and the fruit is
eaten and honey and wine made from it.”
This country is now almost a desert, without buildings and vegetation,
a world of tower-like ruins, which vary the monotony of the vast plains.
“From these heights,” says Ritter in his _Geography_, “one sees in the
solemn stillness of this ruined world the far-reaching wide mirror
of the Euphrates, winding majestically through that solitude like a
royal pilgrim among the silent ruins of his departed kingdom. The
palaces and temples, and the magnificent buildings, have all dropped
into dust and ruin; hanging gardens and blooming paradises have fallen
into gray, rush-grown, swampy marshes; and even there, where once the
captive Israelites hung up their harps in the royal capital, and sang
their songs of mourning over fallen Jerusalem, only a few imperishable
willows remain, and the silence is unbroken by a voice of joy or
mourning.”
Assyria, a mountainous district between the Tigris and the mountainous
western boundary of Iran, is not so fertile as Babylonia, but its high
position gives it a bracing climate.
Like the southern plains, it has little rain, but it is partially
watered by the numerous rivers which flow eastward and westward to the
Tigris, and partially by the canals and water conduits, and is rendered
tolerably fertile by careful cultivation.
In the south only a few palm trees and cypresses break the monotony of
the wide tilled fields, as in the Babylonian plain, but in the centre
of the country are Aturia and Arbelitis (Adiabene) where the Upper
Zab, the Zabatus or Lycus of classical writers, pours its blue waters
into the Tigris, and there are fruitful hills, with protected valleys,
full of corn, wine, sesame, figs, olives, and oranges; naphtha streams
give forth their precious oil, and farther northward on the borders
of Armenia and Media there are mountainous districts, the heights of
which are crowned with woods of oak and pine. The eastern district at
the foot of the Zagros (Chalonitis) is particularly prized for its
wealth of palms, fruit trees, and olives, and the country of Arpakha
(Arrapachitis) in the Chaldean mountains is considered the home of
Abraham. From hence he descended into the river district of the centre
and settled in the land around Kharran.
Northward lies the pasture land of Mesopotamia, whose wide plains
became the scenes of bloody battles, and where races and royal families
sought to eternalise their transitory power by the foundation of
cities, which have mostly vanished, leaving no trace behind them. Like
the Assyrian hill country, it gradually declines into grass-grown
steppes until, in the south, it becomes a desert whose waterless wastes
are trodden only by wandering Arabs.[b]
So far back as we have yet been able to penetrate, we find in the
southern part of Mesopotamia a number of petty independent kingdoms,
governed from their capital cities. Our present knowledge of this land
and its inhabitants may be briefly summed up.
After the river Euphrates, with countless windings and sharp falls, has
cleft the Syrio-Mesopotamian plain where it fertilises the districts
contiguous on its banks, it approaches to within a few miles of the
Tigris, and both streams water a completely flat plain, intersected
by numerous rivers and canals, and, for the most part, flooded by the
Euphrates in the summer.
The numerous districts on both sides of the lower Tigris and west of
the Euphrates which are out of reach of the irrigation have a desert
character, as rain is as rare here as in Egypt. But the irrigated land
was proportionately fertile; at least it was so in antiquity and the
Middle Ages. The district at the mouth of the streams was of a marshy
character with numerous swamps and lakes. In olden times the confluence
of both rivers, at latitude about 31° N., formed a long narrow bay
which has now been filled up by their deposits. The Arabian Desert
lies at the west of the Euphrates, or rather on its western arm, the
Pallakopas. The country on the east of the Tigris rises gradually to
the wild mountainous boundary of the Iranian highlands, which descends
in terrace form to the Tigris, to which it sends numerous rivers, which
in earlier times flowed direct into the sea.
At the present time the greater part of this district is a swampy
desert traversed only by wandering tribes, whilst in antiquity, and
again at the time of the Caliphs, it was made one of the most fertile
countries in the world by dint of careful irrigation, regulation, and
the construction of dams and canals.[18]
The most ancient population of this country formed several closely
related races which had no connection with the other nations of Western
Asia, but in the course of historical evolution they lost their
language and nationality and were submerged in the neighbouring races.
In the land of Makan, the district of the mouth of the two chief
rivers, were the Sumerians (Sumer, with its chief city of Ur, on
the Euphrates); and in the northern part of the river country
(Melucha land) from Erech, now Warka, upwards to the borders of the
Mesopotamian steppes, lived the Accadians, so called from Agade, their
capital, north of Babylon. To the east of the Tigris, far into the
pathless districts of the Zagros Mountains, dwelt the warlike races
of the Kossæans (Assyrian Kasshu). From their home, mode of life
and character, they were evidently the predecessors of the modern
Kurds, who belong, by language, to the Iranians. Next came the land
of Elam, or Anshan, as it was called in the language of the country,
the district of the rivers Choaspes and Eulæos, called by the Greeks
Kissian, with the capital Shushan, the Susa of the Greeks.
Whilst the Kossæans were always a wild mountainous people, and
the inhabitants of the plains of Elam, although they had a firmly
established state organization, were dependent on their western
neighbours for culture, Sumer and Accad (_i.e._ Babylonia) possessed an
ancient and a complete, independently evolved culture, which, although
second to that of the Lower Nile in innate worth and exclusive
evolution, perhaps exceeded it in historical influence. The surplus of
water from inundations was distributed over the country by means of
canals and dykes. Thus ensued a better-ordered life of the state from
the closer union of the different provinces. The temples of the great
gods formed the centres of the different districts from which, as with
the Egyptians, the cities of Babylonia arose first everywhere.
In Ur (now El-Mugheir) there was a temple of the moon-god Sin (or
Nannar). In Eridu (now Abu Shahrein) was the temple of Ea, the ancient
god of the ocean, and in Larsa (now Senkereh) that of the sun-god
Babbar (or Shamash), the lord of the city. The latter was worshipped
in like manner in Sippar (now Abu Habba), whilst in the neighbouring
Agade (Accad) the goddess Anunit was the deity of the city. On the
south lay the sacred “Gate of the Gods” Ka-Dingira, the Semitic Babel
(Babylon), the capital of the country. [With it was later united the
city of Borsippa.] The city Erech (Orchoë, now Warka), the sanctuary
of the goddess Nana (Ishtar), was held in special veneration. North of
Larsa was Girsu; on the canal Shatt-el-Khai was probably Lagash (now
Telloh); north of this the city of Isin; near it was for a time the
chief city of all Babylonia, Nippur, which was the home of the god Bel.
It is here that the excavations of the University of Pennsylvania have
been so fruitful. About fifteen miles northeast of Babylon was Kutha
(now Tel-Ibrahim), whose god was Nergal; near Kutha was Kish. In the
northern limit of Babylonia were Dur-Kurigalzu, nearly opposite the
present Baghdad; and Upi [or Opis.]
It seems therefore that the lay dynasty arose mainly from the
priesthood of these temples, for the kings are universally found in
closest relation to the city deities, in whose honour they built or
restored the temples, and down to their last day the priestly dignity
ranked foremost in the title of the Babylonian kings.[c]
ORIGINAL PEOPLES OF BABYLON: THE SUMERIANS
It is coming to be a common agreement among Assyriologists that the
original peoples of Babylon were of a race that was not Semitic. Just
what it was these scholars are not yet prepared to say; although the
inclination of belief is that it was an Indo-European race and most
likely of the Turanian family. An attempt has recently been made to
connect the aborigines with the Ugro-Finnish branch of the Ural-Altaic
family, but with what success it is still too soon to say. But whatever
these people, the Sumerians, may have been, they occupied the land of
Babylonia until dislodged by a great wave of Semitic migration. This
fact has not gone unchallenged, and from the ranks of Philology there
has come a strong contention for a Semitic origin of the Babylonians,
and the assertion that the Sumerian texts “do not represent a real
language, but a kind of cipher written according to an artificial
system of grammar.” And throughout the following discussion, written by
Professor Hommel, it must not be forgotten that Professor Halévy, the
originator of the theory of the Sumerian texts summarised above, still
champions his contention and adduces evidence for it that seems to him
conclusive.[a]
It has often been observed that southern Babylonia was originally the
proper home of the Sumerians, while as early as the beginning of the
fourth millennium before the Christian era the Semitic Babylonians
were already settled in northern Babylonia, and, as is proved by the
Naram-Sin inscription and several dating from the time of Sargon, his
father (_circa_ 3800 B.C.) had already acquired the Sumerian character
(and, by inference, the Sumerian civilisation). In the case of southern
Babylonia, the discoveries at Telloh have put us in possession of a
number of sculptures--some of them in relief, others severed heads
of statues, dating from the period between _circa_ 4000 B.C., or
earlier, and _circa_ 3000. These present two different types. One is
characterised by a rounded head with slightly prominent cheek bones,
always beardless, and usually with clean-shaven crown. To this type
certainly belong the representations of vanquished foes on the archaic
sculpture, known as the Vulture stele, though the primitive method of
representing the brow and nose by a single slightly curved line gives a
merely superficial resemblance to the Semitic cast of countenance. The
other is a longer-skulled (dolichocephalous) type, with thick, black
hair and long, flowing beard.
It is certainly by no mere accident that the heads of the Telloh
statues, most of which are supposed to represent kings, are of the
first-mentioned (Sumerian) type, while the bronze votive offerings,
which likewise bear the name of Gudea, are carried, as is evident at
a glance, by Semites. And as there were Semites among the subjects of
Gudea, where the Sumerians were the dominant race, so we find the same
Semitic type clearly marked in the figures round the stem of a vase;
while the party of musicians, who are seen approaching with submissive
gestures on the fragment of a bas-relief, which probably also dates
from the reign of Gudea, must likewise be of Semitico-Babylonian
descent.
Fortunately, ancient Babylonian art gives us the opportunity, not
merely of studying the wholly non-Semitic language of the earliest
inhabitants of Babylonia in lengthy bilingual original inscriptions
such as many of the statues of Gudea bear, but of seeing with our own
eyes the bodily semblance of this singular people, and so observing
the striking correspondence of non-Semitic elements in speech and
facial type. In this connection we would draw attention to an ancient
Babylonian statue of a female figure, now in the Louvre at Paris. We
may confidently assume that the woman represented is a Sumerian and
not a Semitic Babylonian; and it may thus be regarded as a splendid
counterpart to the Gudea statues, which by the whole character of
workmanship it calls to mind. Whether we have here a queen or some
other lady of high rank (the supposition that she is a goddess appears
to be excluded by the absence of the head-dress goddesses are wont
to wear) cannot, of course, be determined with certainty. It is only
natural that various mixed types should have developed in course of
time, especially in northern Babylonia; and many of the faces we meet
with--on the seal-cylinders more particularly--may be representations
of such.
That the Sumerians, like the Semites, were not an autochthonous race
in Babylonia follows from the condition of the soil, which had to be
rendered fit for agriculture, and indeed, for human habitation, by a
system of canals. Whence, then, did the Sumerians originally come,
before they took possession of the swampy Euphrates valley and settled
there?
There is a word in Sumerian, “Kar” (Turkish _yer_), which means
“country” (as does the Turkish word). But in Sumerian it has also
come to signify “mountain” and likewise “east” (since the mountains
lie only in the east of Babylonia)--meanings which the Turkish word
does not bear. This is, therefore, a clear indication that, even after
the Sumerians had settled in Babylonia, the range on the Median
frontier and what lay behind it always passed with them for their true
country, the original home whence they had come. There is also extreme
significance in the fact that they were originally unacquainted with
both the lion and the horse, as also with wine (and consequently with
the vine) and the palm tree; for they had no names for them, and called
the lion “great dog” (_nug magh_), the horse “ass of the mountains” or
“of the east,” wine the “drink of life” (_gish-tin_, from _gash-tin_),
and the palm “tree of Magan” (_mis-magan_), or “the upright” (_ügin_,
in its Semitic form _mus-ukannu_).
THE SEMITIC BABYLONIANS
By far the greater part of Babylonian literature, as well as the many
official documents of the kings of Babylon (in the more restricted
sense of the term) and Asshur is written in a language which was
clearly perceived, as early as 1849, to be intimately related to
the so-called Semitic languages of Anterior Asia. The relationship
is but confirmed by the type presented to us in various statues and
sculptures in relief, apart, of course, from the Sumerian sculptures
of the very oldest period; though in Babylonia we frequently meet with
a hybrid type, yet even in this the Semitic element is unmistakable.
In the heads of Assyrian figures the Semitic characteristics are very
strikingly marked. But since the Babylonians and Assyrians were a
single nation as far as language is concerned, and differed in blood
only by the fact that there seems to have been a strong admixture
of some foreign element in the former, while the latter presents a
strongly marked and far purer racial type, it may be taken as proved
that this type is that of the Semitic races, a conclusion which is
doubly vouched for by language and by facial conformation. It has
already been remarked in the foregoing chapter, that (unlike the
Sumerians) the Semitic population of Babylonia, which we meet with in
northern Babylonia as early as 3800 B.C., and which predominated there
from 2500 B.C. (or even earlier) onwards, was distinguished by an
abundant growth of black hair and long beards.
[Illustration: A RELIGIOUS PROCESSION]
From the circumstance that in the third millennium before the
Christian era the old Babylonian kings who resided in Middle Babylonia
(particularly at Nisin and Erech) and in Ur and Larsa bore Semitic
names, though the inscriptions that have come down to us from their
reigns are written entirely in Sumerian, we are probably justified
in concluding that in Middle Babylonia, where the dominant Sumerian
population of the south and the dominant Semitic population of the
north must have come most directly into contact, the interfusion of
the two races was at that time taking place on a very large scale.
On the other hand, in northern Babylonia, where Sumerians had lived
from the very earliest period, but had never risen to any political
importance as compared with the Semitic immigrants, the two must have
lived strictly apart down to 2000 B.C. (the latest date of which we
can be certain), for not long before that time colonists went out
from northern Babylonia and founded the empire of Assyria. The far
greater purity of the Semitic type among the Assyrians, together with
the absolute identity of their language and civilisation with that of
Babylonia, leads inevitably to the inference that the intermixture of
Sumerian blood with Semitic in North Babylonia had either not begun, or
had as yet proceeded but a very little way.
[Illustration: AN ASSYRIAN GOD]
Tested thus by philology, the Assyrio-Babylonian language, together
with Canaanitish (under which title we include Phœnician, Hebrew, and
Moabitish), Aramaic (Syrian, the so-called Biblical Chaldee, Palmyrene,
etc.), and Arabic (and under this heading not only the Sabæan tongue of
southern Arabia, but the Ethiopian and Amharic languages of Abyssinia,
should be placed), belong to a single well-defined group which we have
long been accustomed to call Semitic (cf. Stade’s _Geschichte des
Volkes Israel_) and the races which spoke and speak them are known to
ethnology as Semites. From the remotest antiquity down to modern times
these races have maintained a singular purity of blood and racial type;
the Canaanites represented in Egyptian tombs of the XIIth Dynasty, the
Assyrian heads in the bas-reliefs of Nineveh, the features of Jews at
the present time living in the midst of Indo-Germanic nations, and the
Bedouins who to-day roam the Syrian and Arabian deserts, all exhibit
a family likeness so remarkable that we see that throughout the whole
course of history they can have mingled but little with alien races.
The question of how and from what causes the Semitic type in Assyria
came to be preserved in greater purity than in Babylonia itself, whence
the Assyrians emigrated, is one that has been briefly touched upon
above.
Under these circumstances it is only to be expected that the constant
type of character proper to other Semites should be discoverable,
or, at least, in part recognisable in the Babylonians and Assyrians;
although we are bound to take into account the fact that even in later
days the Hebrews retained much of their old nomadic habits, that the
Aramæans of the Assyrian period were for the most part nomadic, and
that the Arabs are so still; while from the very beginning of their
appearance in history the Semitic inhabitants of the regions about
the Euphrates and Tigris are a home-dwelling people on a high level
of civilisation. Many traits of primitive national character tend
to be obliterated or modified by such an advance to a superior stage
of civilisation, while others, foreign to the brother or kindred
races which remained longer or still remain in the nomadic stage, are
developed.
In the Assyrians and Babylonians, as a matter of fact, we must meet
with so much that recalls instinctively their kin with those whom
the Bible and universal history have long rendered us familiar that
it offers the fullest confirmation of the conclusions arrived at by
a study of their language and physical type. It is very difficult to
compress into a few words a correct description of Semitic national
character.
[Illustration: SIEGE OF A CITY (NINEVEH)]
Eduard Meyer, in his otherwise admirable _Geschichte des Alterthums_,
says, “A very matter of fact habit of thought, keen observation of
detail, a calculating intellect ever directed to practical aims,
keeping the creations of the imagination completely under control and
averse from any freer flight of the spirit into the Illimitable, such
are the characteristics that distinguish the Arabs and Phœnicians,
Hebrews and Assyrians,”--a judgment which, though in the main correct,
is nevertheless not exhaustive. [Some of Professor Meyer’s other
estimates are less satisfactory to Professor Hommel, who quotes
the following with entire disapproval, claiming that they quite
misrepresent the true character of the Semitic mind: “This same
abominably matter-of-fact habit of thought, which dominates the Koran
and by means of which it wrought its effect, lies at the root of the
human sacrifices of the Canaanites, the religious phrases of the
Assyrians, and, finally, of Yahvism” (_i.e._ the religion of the Old
Testament). “The relation of the individual to the god is regarded in a
strictly rationalistic and calculating spirit. An ethical or mystical
relation to the Deity is wholly alien to the Semitic mind.”] Compare
these and other passages of the same sort [Professor Hommel continues]
with the fact that, on the contrary, a monotheistic tendency stronger
than in any other race in the world, and combining with it the idea of
a heartfelt surrender of the whole man to the Deity, was one of the
principal characteristics of the Semitic mind as a whole (though most
highly developed among the Israelites).
It is true that the cruelty of the Assyrians to foreign prisoners of
war, which often shocks us and estranges our sympathies from the whole
nation, recall certain instances of a like defect among the ancient
Israelites too strongly not to tempt us to think of it as a Semitic
propensity; but nevertheless these are mere excesses and excrescences
which must not be set to the account of national character. The Semite
is not naturally cruel. If he were so, the trait must have come out
most strongly in the Bedouin Arabs, who for centuries have remained at
the barbaric stage in religious matters; whereas this is not so, but
rather the reverse. With many races (some of them Indo-Germanic) of
whom the most unspeakable horrors and acts of violence are recorded in
the course of history, sheer lust of blood and torture has been the
motive of such actions (or rather crimes), while the cruelties just
referred to sprang from the dark side (revolting, it must be confessed)
of a national virtue: true zeal for the Holiest.
THE ORIGINAL HOME OF THE BABYLONIAN SEMITE
On such questions as the degree of kinship in which the Babylonians
and Assyrians stood to other Semites, their original home, their last
halting-places, and consequently the sequence of Semitic migrations,
Eduard Meyer holds the same views as the famous orientalist, Sprenger,
to wit, that Arabia, _i.e._ the desert as distinct from the arable
land, used from the very earliest times to send forth the surplus
of her predatory and rapacious Bedouin population to the great
pastoral districts in the vicinity, that is, to Palestine, the plain
of Mesopotamia (Aram), and, in times long out of mind, to northern
Babylonia also; that they were, so to speak, deposited there from time
to time, and that all Semitic nations whom we meet with in a state of
civilisation in the course of subsequent history have come into being
in this manner.
“But this ingenious theory has been directly refuted by later
investigations set on foot by A. von Kremer, and followed up by
Ign. Guidi at Rome, and, more especially, by myself, with a view to
discovering what domestic animals and cultivated plants were known
to the original Semitic stock. By the year 1879 Guidi and I had
come independently and, to some extent, by different ways to the
conclusion that the original home of the Semites could not possibly be
Arabia, but must be sought farther to the northeast. In the treatise,
_Die sprachgeschichtliche Stellung des Babylonisch-Assyrischen_, I
succeeded in proving further that the people who afterwards became the
Babylonians and Assyrians must have separated from the common stock in
some part of central Asia where the lion was indigenous, and emigrated
into northern Babylonia through one of the passes of the Medio-Elamite
range certainly no later than the fifth millennium B.C. The rest,
however, came by way of the southern shore of the Caspian Sea--probably
towards the end of the fourth millennium and at all events later than
the Hamites of northern Babylonia--and entered what was afterwards
Aramæan Mesopotamia from the north, then occupied it, and spread
gradually from thence to Syria, Palestine, and Arabia.” (Hommel.) So,
by subsequent offshoots and migrations, they became the Aramæans,
Canaanites, and Arabs.
This theory furnishes, on the one hand, the first satisfactory
explanation of many points in which Babylonian development, in language
and various respects, differs from that of other Semites. On the
other hand, it sets the large amount they have in common in a most
interesting light, since it proves to be the primitive heritage of the
Semitic race.
The whole question of the manner of Semitic migrations and offshoots
is one that cannot be a matter of indifference to the historian, as
may be objected in some quarters; and for a right understanding of
the history of Babylonia in the earliest times, it is of the utmost
consequence that we should know whether the Semitic Babylonians were
a distinct branch, as compared with their brethren, whose relations
among themselves were much closer, and whether the beginning of their
migration had led their steps through the land where grew the olive,
fig, vine, and other cultivated plants not to be found in Babylonia;
and lastly, it is imperative for a right comprehension of the history
of Semitic civilisation to arrive at a decision on these questions.
The fact that we find in the Assyrio-Babylonian language no trace of
the common Semitic name (found in Aramaic, Canaanitish, and Arabic)
for the three plants just mentioned, and others of the same nature,
constitutes, together with weighty philological considerations, the
positive argument in favour of the theory I have set forth: namely,
that the route by which the Semitic settlers of the lower Euphrates
came did not lie through regions where these plants are indigenous, but
that they migrated in advance of the rest of the Semites straight from
the east or northeast into anterior Asia and so to their new home of
Babylonia.[d]
FOOTNOTES
[16] [Compare, however, Professor Halévy’s Introductory Essay.]
[17] [See _Sketch of Semitic Origins_, by G. A. Barton, Ph.D. New York
and London, 1902.]
[18] [This entire system is now a vast ruin, according to Rogers, who
adds: “The great valley has a climate which appears little fitted to
produce men of energy and force, for the temperature over its entire
surface is very high in the summer season. It is, however, altogether
probable that in the period of the ancient history neither the heat
nor the sand was such a menace.… During the period of the glory of
Babylon these sand waves (from Arabia) had certainly not gone beyond
the Euphrates, and they could hardly have reached it.”]
CHAPTER II. OLD BABYLONIAN HISTORY
We have here the mere dust of history, rather than history itself;
here an isolated individual makes his appearance in the record of
his name, to vanish when we attempt to lay hold of him; there the
stem of a dynasty which breaks abruptly off, pompous preambles,
devout formulas, dedications of objects or buildings; here and
there the account of some battle, or the indication of some
foreign country with which relations of friendship or commerce
were maintained--these are the scanty materials out of which to
construct a connected narrative.--MASPERO.
Recent researches in old Babylonia have brought to light a very
large quantity of historical documents which tell a most important
story, inasmuch as they have to do with the very remotest periods of
antiquity. At Telloh, the site of the ancient city of Shirpurla, the
French explorers have found an abundance of interesting material,
while the Americans have exhumed, and are still exhuming, at Nippur, a
mass of documents which bids fair to rival in quantity the voluminous
records from the libraries of the Assyrian kings. In a single season’s
excavating, Mr. Haynes has very recently brought to light thousands of
inscribed tablets, some of which date from a period as long anterior to
the time of the great Assyrian kings as that time is to our own.
The historian is to be particularly congratulated in that many of
these ancient documents have the most direct bearing upon his studies.
It has already been pointed out that the Babylonians were much more
amply endowed with historical sense than were the Egyptians. They had
a tolerably full appreciation of the importance of chronology, and
though, like the Egyptians, they lacked a fixed era from which to
reckon, they, to some extent, compensated for this defect by the ample
series of king lists and “synchronisms” which various monarchs caused
to be written. Several of these chronological documents have been
restored to us by the various excavators, and, thanks to these, the
outlines of considerable periods of early Babylonian history are now
more accurately known than many much more recent epochs of occidental
history.
Unfortunately, these ancient lists consist, for the most part, of
tables of names having strange and unfamiliar sounds. To the average
reader these names are necessarily repellant. Such words as E-anna-tum,
Urumush or Alusharshid, Samsu-iluna, Kadashman-Kharbe cannot well be
otherwise than mystifying when unconnected with any vivid sequence of
tangible events. And for the most part the names of these earliest
rulers of Babylonia stand, in the present state of our knowledge, as
mere names, with only here and there a suggestion of tangibility.
Now and then we hear that a bas-relief of a certain king has been
preserved, as in the case of one Ur-Nina, “builder of an edifice
attached to the temple of Nina at Lagash,”[19] and in such a case the
mind conjures a curious world of associations at thought of an actual
likeness, real or alleged, being preserved for a period of more than
six thousand years. The king whose image is thus tangibly brought
to view after all these centuries of oblivion must seem a very real
personage, however little else is known of him or of his achievements.
Again, in the case of certain other monarchs, there are brief records
of campaigns and conquests against neighbouring peoples whose very
names, perhaps, have been preserved to us only through this incidental
mention. In such cases the mind is stimulated to the formation of
vague pictures of unknown peoples of that remote era, and the least
imaginative person must feel a bewildered sense of wonderment as to
what these peoples were like, whence they came, and whither they
vanished. But for that matter the Babylonian kings themselves, and
the peoples over whom they ruled, seem shadowy and mysterious enough,
to say nothing of their neighbours. The present knowledge does not by
any means suffice to give us a full list of the names of these early
monarchs.
In all probability there are lists still in existence buried in the
ruins of various cities, as yet unexplored, that in time will restore
to us a reasonably full record of those long stretches of time which
now seem so hazy. In numerous places the excavations are still going
on, discoveries are daily being made, undeciphered material is being
read; in a word, new chapters of this oldest past are being almost
daily brought to light. Whatever is written to-day regarding early
Babylonian history must then, in the nature of the case, be subject
to possible revision to-morrow. At least this is true to the extent
that additions are sure to be made to the present incomplete knowledge
in the near future. It does not follow, however, that the knowledge
of the present will be altogether superseded. Such king lists as have
been already deciphered, covering in the aggregate considerable periods
of time, may be depended upon, in general, as accurate and permanent
records, which will be supplemented rather than supplanted by the new
records of future discovery. Meantime, we must be content with the
glimpses into here and there an epoch, and with the citation of here
and there a name, covering as best we may some three or four thousand
years of Babylonian history in a few meagre chapters.
Tantalising as it is to catch such mere glimpses into realms that must
be fascinating could we but know their fuller history, there is at
least a certain consolation in the thought that our generation is the
first within the past two thousand years to gain even a glimpse of
these epochs of history. Even in classical times nothing was known of
early Babylonia: such reminiscences of Mesopotamian greatness as were
preserved pertained to the later Assyrian history and to New Babylonia.
And the Assyrians and New Babylonians themselves were possessed of but
little information regarding their remote ancestors, whose records
were, in the main, as completely hidden from them as they have been
from all succeeding generations of men until our own time.
To co-ordinate properly the great mass of information, unearthed of
late years concerning the numerous states that existed in Babylonia
in the earliest historic period, is the task that Dr. Hugo Radau has
undertaken with great success. The following extract from his recently
published work[20] will give the reader the latest knowledge of these
petty kingdoms, and enable him to understand how the greater ones
absorbed the lesser, and how the way was thus paved for the union of
all Babylonia under one ruler.[a]
THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4500 B.C.]]
The oldest king of Babylonia of whom we have any record, is
Enshagkushanna, whose date we have placed before 4500 B.C. He calls
himself “lord of Kengi,” the southern part of Babylonia. As to his
nationality, whether he was a so-called “Sumerian” or a “Semite,” we
have no means of knowing. Besides “lord of Kengi,” he seems to have
had another title, viz. “king of … “ The lacuna probably contained the
names of the capital of the kingdom. He must have waged war against
Kish in northern Babylonia, which city he terms “wicked of heart.”
He was the victor, and presented the spoil to “Enlil, king of the
lands.” Enlil--the later Bel--was the chief god in Nippur; Nippur
accordingly was called En-lil-ki, the “city of Enlil.” Hence Enlil
of Nippur seems to have been the god who wielded the chief influence
over the inhabitants of Early Babylonia. From inscriptions of certain
patesis[21] of Shirpurla, as well as from those of Lugalzaggisi, we
know that this temple was under the control of the king, who called
himself accordingly _patesi-gal_, “the great patesi.” But it also had
its own “chief local administrator,” the _dam-kar-gal_, who in his
turn had several minor priests or patesis under him. The cult of this
god seems to have been well arranged; the king, being the _summus
episcopus_, had a host of other officers (priests) under him, who
exercised the ordinary functions of the so-called priesthood of Bel.
Few as the historical notices are, yet they enable us to get an insight
into the condition of the land and of the people at this remote time.
They show us that a struggle went on between the south (Kengi) and the
north (Kish) which struggle lasted undoubtedly for several centuries.
Prominent cities at this time were the capital of Kengi, _i.e._
Shirpurla-Girsu, as we shall see later on; not Erech (Hilprecht),
Nippur, and Kish.
It is necessary, however, before tracing the different steps in the
development of Kish, to turn our attention to a kingdom called in
the inscriptions “Shirpurla.” The inscriptions of the rulers of this
kingdom give us an impression of a power and might which presupposes
centuries for its development. All that we know of its art and
civilisation tends in the same direction.
THE RULERS OF SHIRPURLA
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4500-4100 B.C.]]
Shirpurla is the modern Tel-Loh (or Telloh) where De Sarzec found the
inscriptions relating to the rulers of this dynasty. It is situated
fifteen hours north of Mugheir, on the east side of the Shatt-el-Khai,
and about twelve hours east of Warka. At this early time the city of
Shirpurla seems to have included four component parts, viz. Girsu,
Nina, Uruazagga, Erim. Thus it happened that one and the same king
might call himself either “king of Shirpurla” or “king of Girsu.” These
suburbs were built by various rulers in honour of their favourite gods
or goddesses. Whether Shirpurla is the right reading, or Sirgulla
(Hommel), we do not know. According to Pinches, _Guide to the Kuyunjik
Gallery_, p. 7, London, 1883, and _Babyl. Records_, iii, p. 24,
Shirpurla may read Lagash, which reading is adopted throughout by
Jensen in K. B. iii. We retain the old reading Shirpurla, because this
writing occurs most frequently in the monuments.
The rulers of Shirpurla may conveniently be grouped under four
divisions:
(1) The dynasty of Urukagina--beginning with this ruler or his
predecessor(s) and ending with Lugalshuggur and his successor(s).
(2) The dynasty of Ur-Nina, ending with Lummadur.
(3) The patesis between Lummadur and Ur-Ba’u.
(4) Ur-Ba’u and his successors, ending with Gala-Lama.
To Urukagina, the oldest member of the first dynasty of Shirpurla, we
have assigned the approximate date of 4500 B.C. His greatness consisted
not so much in successful wars against the neighbouring cities, as in
securing a peaceful administration for his country and city. As “king
of Girsu-Shirpurla,” he devoted his energy to the building of different
storehouses, that should take up “the abundance of the countries,”
and erected temples for different gods--thus showing his devotion and
piety. He built “for Nina the beloved canal, the canal Nina-ki-tum-a,”
and thus supplied his city with water. Bel of Nippur still exercises
the highest influence. Ningirsu (“the lord of Girsu”) is the chief
city-god, under whose control the capital stands. He is the _Gud_ or
“hero” of Enlil. In somewhat later inscriptions, Ningirsu has the title
_gud-lig-ga_, “the strong hero” of Enlil. Many other gods are mentioned
in his inscriptions.
To this oldest dynasty of Shirpurla belongs also a certain En-gegal
(“lord of abundance” or “very rich”). He, like Urukagina, calls himself
“_lugal Pur-shir-la_,” “king of Shirpurla.” Besides this he bears the
proud title “_lugal ki-gal-la_,” “the great king,” and terms himself
_shib (dingir) Nin-gir-su_, “the priest of Ningirsu,” a title similar
to that of _patesi-gal_. From the title “the great king” we may venture
to conclude that he, unlike his predecessor, must have carried his
arms successfully against his enemies, who had previously succeeded in
plundering Shirpurla; but fate decreed that his royal capital should
be reduced to the seat of a patesi. Kish, having been defeated some
time before by Enshagkushanna, seems to have acquired new strength. Its
king, Mesilim, became lord paramount of Shirpurla, thus reducing its
rulers to mere patesis. The name of only one of these earliest patesis
is preserved to us, _i.e._ Lugal-shug-gur, who is mentioned in the
inscription of Mesilim. The sovereignty of Kish over Shirpurla does
not seem to have lasted very long. Shirpurla regained its former glory
under a new dynasty, namely, that of Ur-Nina.
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4300-4200 B.C.]]
With Ur-Nina begins a new dynasty, probably the mightiest of early
Babylonia, the duration of its sovereignty extending from 4300 B.C.
to 4100 B.C. Looking at the art and the inscriptions of these kings,
we cannot help thinking that in Shirpurla civilisation must have been
far advanced, so far advanced as to force upon us the conclusion that
“several centuries have elapsed before men could reach this stage of
civilisation.” The greater number of these art treasures are preserved
in the Louvre; the inscriptions found on them have been published in
_Découvertes en Chaldée_ and in the _Revue d’Assyriologie_.
The first king of this dynasty was Ur-Nina (servant of Nina). The
dynasty of Urukagina must have been reduced to mere nothingness by the
kings of Kish, so that Ur-Nina found it easy to take possession of the
throne. He must have been of an old family, for he mentions the name of
his father and grandfather, who have the title neither of patesi nor of
king. He, like his predecessor seems to have been great in peace. He
built temples and various storehouses. A passage in his inscriptions
where he records the building of the “wall of Shirpurla,” suggests
that the old enemy, Kish, was still troublesome, so that he found it
necessary to fortify his capital against the deadly enemies from the
north.
The son of Ur-Nina, who succeeded him upon the throne of Shirpurla,
was Akurgal. As yet no inscriptions of this monarch have been found.
All that is known about him is gathered either from the inscriptions
of his son (Eannatum) or from those of his father (Ur-Nina). In these
inscriptions eight sons of Ur-Nina are mentioned. If we classify them
according to their height, and take this as a basis for determining
their age, we would get the following result:
UR-NINA
--------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Lid-da, (2) Mu-ri-kur-ta, (3) A-ni-kur-ra, (4) Lugal-shir,
(5) A-kur-gal, (6) Nun-pad, (7) E-ud-bu, (8) Nina-ku-tur-a.
It is remarkable that the first-born, Lidda, is mentioned in only
one inscription. Did he never succeed his father upon the throne
of Shirpurla? Did Akurgal, his fifth son, in preference to all the
others, inherit the royal sceptre, and thus become the immediate
successor of Ur-Nina? Interesting as these questions are, we are yet,
with the means on hand, unable to decide them. This much only we
know, that both Eannatum and Enannatum I, call themselves, “son of
Akurgal.” Another interesting fact is that Eannatum, in his “Stèle des
Vautours,” calls his father _lugal_ (“king”) of Shirpurla, while in
his other inscriptions he only terms him “patesi of Shirpurla.” Not
very much can be concluded from this, because even Ur-Nina is styled
by Eannatum “patesi of Shirpurla.” The translation of this latter
passage, is not yet certain. Ur-Nina’s successor, however,--either
Lidda or Akurgal,--may have lost the title “king” in consequence of an
unsuccessful war. Eannatum, on the other hand, being more successful,
resumes again for a short time the title “king” after his victory over
Kish. This latter fact is very important. Eannatum expressly tells us
that Innanna gave him the nam-lugal Kish-ki, “the kingship of Kish,”
while as ruler of Shirpurla he was only patesi. The state of affairs
then was as follows:
Ur-Nina, a usurper, was able to constitute himself king of Shirpurla in
consequence of the weakness of the patesis of Shirpurla who preceded
him, they having been reduced by the kings of Kish to complete
powerlessness. Ur-Nina’s successors, however, were not able to retain
the title of their father. Was it internal disharmony between the sons
of Ur-Nina which caused this? They lost the title “king,” and had to
accept that of patesi. Undoubtedly they were forced to do this by one
of the successors of Mesilim, _i.e._ by a king of Kish. Eannatum--a
great hero--was able to overcome the old enemy Kish. He even was so
fortunate as to add to his old title, “patesi of Shirpurla,” that
of “king” (sc. of “Kish”) and by a stretch of this latter title he
may have also called himself “king of Shirpurla.” The successors of
Eannatum called themselves, and are called without exception “patesis
of Shirpurla.”
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4200 B.C.]]
After these preliminary remarks about the titles of the different
members of the dynasty of Ur-Nina, we now turn our attention to
Eannatum (_i.e._ “The house of heaven is stable”), the son of Akurgal
himself. Whether he reigned contemporaneously with his brother
Enannatum I or not, we cannot tell. The fact that the sons of Enannatum
I succeeded upon the throne of Shirpurla makes it reasonable to suppose
that Eannatum preceded Enannatum I. This latter ruler seems to have
played only a minor rôle in early Babylonia history. Only two of his
inscriptions have so far come down to us. Eannatum, his brother, on
the contrary, is the greatest of the whole dynasty. The deeds of this
monarch have been preserved to us on different monuments, among which
the “Stèle des Vautours” is the most important. In order to obtain
a full conception of his time we must compare this “Stèle” with the
so-called “Cone” of Entemena. Those monuments in connection with the
Galet A, give us the following interesting piece of history:
The god of Shirpurla (Ningirsu) and the god of Gishban, at the
instigation of Enlil (god of Nippur), agree to settle the boundaries
between their respective territories (Cone i, 1-7). Mesilim, king of
Kish,--a contemporary of Lugalshuggur, patesi of Shirpurla,--in the
quality of lord paramount of Shirpurla, corroborates the result of
this “settling of boundaries,” and erects a statue on the junction of
the two territories, to mark out the boundaries of the territory of
Shirpurla on the one side and of Gishban on the other (Cone i, 8-12).
Ush, however, a certain ambitious patesi of Gishban, is not satisfied
with this decision. He takes away the statue which Mesilim had erected,
and then invades Shirpurla, undoubtedly to extend his territory beyond
the boundary previously fixed (13-21). A war between Shirpurla and
Gishban ensues.
Mesilim, who feels dishonoured by this action of Ush, takes the side
of Shirpurla and defeats Gishban (22-31). Gishban in course of time
again becomes restless. It invades, under its patesi Gunammide, the
territory of Shirpurla, and more specifically the Guedin, a district
sacred to Ningirsu. “Gunammide, the patesi of Gishban, according
to the command of his god … the Guedin, the beloved territory of
Ningirsu he destroyed.” Eannatum, after having fortified Shirpurla
sufficiently (“the wall of Uruazagga he built”), and having led his
armies victoriously against Elam and Gishgal, feels himself strong
enough to deal a deadly (?) blow at Gishban. “Gishban he put under the
yoke, twenty of its dead ones he buried.” Having done this, he restores
the sacred territory, the Guedin, to Ningirsu; concludes a treaty with
Enakalli, (one of) the successor(s) of Gunammide; digs a canal “from
the great river (_i.e._ the Euphrates?) to the Guedin,” and makes the
Gishbanites swear never to invade the sacred territory of Ningirsu
again, nor to trespass this boundary.
“In the future time the territory of Ningirsu, when (the Gishbanites)
should invade it again, the dyke and the canal, if they should trespass
it, the statue, if they should take it away--at that time when they
invade it, then the _sa-shush-gal_ (_i.e._ Eannatum) of Utu, the
powerful king by whom they have sworn, shall rise against Gishban.”
“The Stèle des Vautours” has for its main object the commemoration of
this treaty with Enakalli, patesi of Gishban, after the latter city had
been defeated by Eannatum. But Eannatum was not satisfied with this;
he imposes a heavy tribute upon Gishban, consisting of one karu of
grain for Nina and one karu for Ningirsu, besides 144,000 (?) great
karu. (Cone ii, 19 ff.) After having reduced Gishban to tranquillity,
Eannatum also carries his victorious weapons against Erech (Warka) and
Ur (the Ur of the Chaldeans), Ki-Utu (Larsa?) and Az (on the Persian
Gulf)--the patesi of which latter city he kills--against Melimme and
Arua. These latter cities were all in the neighbourhood of Shirpurla.
Last of all he crushes and defeats Zuzu, king of Ukh. But even this
does not exhaust the record of his victories. He becomes king of
Kish--Kish, which for so long had itself been sovereign over Shirpurla.
How this victory was accomplished is not evident from the inscriptions
so far extant. Probably at some future time we may find an account of
this war.
Eannatum was not only a hero in war, but also a wise administrator.
He not only renewed three suburbs of his capital, one of
which--Uruazagga--he even surrounded by a wall, but also improved the
condition of Shirpurla itself by digging different canals, which he
consecrated to his god Ningirsu: the Kishedin, which probably marked
the boundary between the Guedin and Gishban, and which the Gishbanites
had to swear never to cross; the Lummagirnuntashagazaggipadda along the
territory of Ningirsu; and the Lummadimshar.
Urukagina, we have seen, was the first to build a canal, viz. one for
Nina, which he called Nina-ki-tum-a. In the Cone of Entemena are also
mentioned the canal Lummasirta, the Imdubba, and the Namnundakiggara.
Here, then, we have the beginning of the most characteristic feature of
Babylonia. Babylonia becomes the “land of canals,” such as the Psalmist
had in mind when he wrote that touching psalm, “By the rivers of
Babylon we sat down and wept.” Further, Eannatum was not unmindful of
his duty to the gods. He confesses that all that he is and that he has
comes from his gods. Accordingly, he shows his gratitude by erecting
sanctuaries for Enlil, Ninkharsag, Ningirsu, and Utu, and by restoring
old buildings, which had been erected by his predecessors in honour of
the gods, among which is to be found the Tirash.
In spite of the solemn promise of Gishban never to invade the territory
of Shirpurla again, or to pass over the boundary canal, it very
soon--probably at the end of the reign of Eannatum, or better, at
the beginning of that of Enannatum I--becomes rebellious as before.
It invades the territory of Girsu, under the leadership of a certain
Urlumma, patesi of Gishban, passes over the boundary canals which
Eannatum had made, removes the steles erected on those canals in
honour of Ningirsu, casts them into the fire, and even destroys the
sanctuaries which Eannatum had built on one of these canals (_i.e._ the
Namnundakigarra) in honour of Enlil, Ninkharsag, Ningirsu, and Utu, and
lays waste the country. Enannatum promptly arises to chastise “those
dogs” who had dared to break their solemn promise. Whether this battle
was decisive or not, is not evident. It seems, however, that Enannatum
I gained but a slight victory over Gishban.
For Entemena, the son of Enannatum, finds it necessary to renew the
war with Gishban. “He puts Urlumma under the yoke,” _i.e._ subdues
him, forces him to return to his own country, and pursues him to the
very midst of Gishban. This triumphant victory began with the decisive
battle at the canal Lummasirta in the territory of Shirpurla. “Of his
(_i.e._ Urlumma’s) army sixty men on the side of the Lummasirta he
left.” On account of the severe loss Gishban fled. Entemena pursued
after it, of which pursuit he records that “he left the bones of the
soldiers (of Urlumma) in the field.” Many of these soldiers of Gishban
must have fallen, so many that Entemena was obliged “to bury their dead
in five different places.”
Arrived in Gishban, Entemena makes a certain priest of Innannaab-ki
(or Nin-ab-ki), Ili by name, patesi of Gishban, probably after having
deposed Urlumma. As a compensation for the new dignity thus conferred,
Entemena commands Ili to build in the territory of Karkar--which latter
had also become rebellious--boundary canals and some other buildings.
The canal which Eannatum had built “from the great river (Euphrates?)
to the Guedin” Entemena prolongs to the Tigris, and also repairs the
other canals, which had been destroyed more or less by the Gishbanites,
and dedicates them anew to Ningirsu and Nina.
Interesting also is the subscription of this Cone:
“When the men of Gishban the boundary canal of Ningirsu and
the boundary canal of Nina--for the purpose of ravaging these
territories--shall pass over, then may Enlil destroy the men of Gishban
and the men of the mountains; may Ningirsu bring his curse over them;
may he lift up his great power; may the soldiery of his (Entemena’s)
city be filled with bravery; may in the midst of the city be courage in
their hearts.”
With Lummadur, the son of Enannatum II, we arrive at the last
representative of the house of Ur-Nina. Nothing but his name is known
to us. From the absence of the title patesi behind his name, we may
conclude that Enannatum II was the last patesi of the line of Ur-Nina,
and that the old enemies, Kish and Gishban, have finally succeeded in
overpowering Shirpurla.
It is hardly possible to look back upon this dynasty of Ur-Nina--which,
as we have seen, dates from before 4000 B.C.--without being impressed
by the high civilisation, cult, the many buildings and canals, military
skill, and style of writing. Surely such a people as this could not
have sprung into existence as a _deus ex machina_; it must have had its
history--a history which presupposes a development of several centuries
more. We would gladly follow up the history of the successors of
Lummadur, but the lack of material prevents us from so doing. Passing,
therefore, over an interval of about two hundred years in the history
of Shirpurla, we turn now to the enemies of the “hero Ningirsu,” _i.e._
Kish and Gishban (or, better, Gishukh).
KINGS OF KISH AND GISHBAN
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4200-4000 B.C.]]
Various changes had befallen the land of Kish. When speaking of
Enshagkushanna, we saw that Kish was defeated. It had, however, in
course of time again increased in strength. Mesilim was able to
establish himself as ruler over Shirpurla at the time of Lugalshuggur.
His successors may have retained their glory for a considerable period.
They were, however, not able to withstand the mighty weapons of
Eannatum. This latter king not only shook off the old yoke which Kish
had fastened upon Shirpurla, but even became “king of Kish.” He must
have reduced Kish to total impotence. Hence it came about that Kish was
vanquished by another power, of which we shall hear shortly.
Just as Gishban, after its defeat by Eannatum, felt strong enough
to disregard the solemn promise never to invade the territory of
Shirpurla, so Kish, after its overthrow by Eannatum, seems to have
rapidly regained its old power. For we find a certain En-ne-ugun,
“king of Kish,” who is also termed “king of the hordes of Gishban,”
desirous with the help of this latter city to extend the power of his
capital. He was, however, defeated by a certain king of a certain
country (the names cannot be read on account of the mutilated condition
of the tablets). “His statue”--this unknown victorious king records,
while relating his victory over En-ne-ugun--“his shining silver, the
utensils, his property, he carried away, and presented them to Bel at
Nippur.”
In course of time, however, and probably not very long after this
defeat, Kish seems to have recovered from this blow. A certain
Urzaguddu must have been very successful in his wars, for, in addition
to his title “king of Kish,” he calls himself also “king of …”
Unfortunately here again we have a gap, so that we cannot determine of
what city he became king.
Very little is known of the next king of Kish, Lugaltarsi. At what
time subsequent to Urzaguddu he lived we cannot tell. So much only is
certain, that he reigned some time before Alusharshid, about 3850 B.C.
His inscription--the only one so far known to us--is preserved in the
British Museum in which he records the building of Bad-kisal in honour
of Bel and Ishtar. We can now place Manishtusu and Alusharshid also
among the kings of Kish. Both flourished somewhere about 3850 B.C.,
before Sargon I.
When reading the inscriptions of these kings, it is as if a new race
were speaking to us, so widely different is the language used by these
rulers from that of their predecessors, or of any other kings we
have so far met with. We here find for the first time the so-called
Semitic-Babylonian inscriptions. It is the same language which is also
employed in the inscriptions of Sharganisharali and his successors,
in that of Lasirab, king of Guti, and of Annubanini, king of Lalubu,
all of whom were more or less contemporary with these kings of Kish.
Scholars who believe that we must postulate two different races among
the inhabitants of early Babylonia call the kings who wrote in this
style “Semitic kings,” while the others are referred to the Sumerian
population. As a result of this they read the names of these kings in a
Semitic way. Manishtusu becomes Ma-an-is-tu-iro (so Winckler). Urumush
becomes Alu-usharshid (_i.e._ “He--some deity--founded the city”).
The inscription of Manishtusu, whom we place provisionally before
Urumush, runs, “Manishtuirba, king of Kish, has presented (this) to
Belit-Malkatu.”
Of more importance, from the historical point of view as well as
from the linguistic, is the next ruler who followed soon after the
former. This ruler is Alusharshid. From his inscriptions--to be found
in fifty-one fragments of vases, which have been excavated by the
expedition of the University of Pennsylvania under Dr. Peters, and
partly published by Hilprecht--we learn that he subdued Elam, on the
eastern side of the Tigris, and the country of Bara’se (Para’se), from
which lands he brought back these marble vases, and dedicated them to
his gods at Nippur and Sippar.
For but a short period subsequent to Alusharshid does Kish seem to have
enjoyed its old power. The might of Kish gave place to that of Agade,
as we shall see shortly. Leaving, therefore, Kish for the present, we
turn our attention to the other enemy of Old Shirpurla, viz. Gishban.
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4000 B.C.]]
At about 4000 B.C., not long after the time of Eannatum, Gishban seems
to have acquired new power and might. It directed its chief attention
not so much towards Shirpurla as towards the south. Probably the rulers
of Shirpurla had at this time been reduced to utter weakness by its
old enemies (_i.e._ Kish and Gishban), of which enemies Gishban was
destined to play the most important rôle in the development of ancient
Babylonian history.
Lugalzaggisi, the son of Ukush, patesi of Gishban, we find at the
head of the armies of Gishban, which he leads victoriously against
the south. After Erech had opened its doors, the whole of Babylonia
to the Persian Gulf fell an easy prey to the conquering hero. He,
although originally only the son of a patesi, becomes king of Erech,
nay, even king of the “whole world.” “Enlil, king of the lands, has
given to Lugulzaggisi the kingship of the world; _he_ has made him to
prosper before the world; _he_ it was that had placed the lands under
his sceptre--the lands ‘from the rising of the sun even unto the going
down of the same.’ _He_ it also was that gave him the tribute of those
lands, which he made to dwell in peace, notwithstanding that they
had been brought under a new régime.” With these words Lugalzaggisi
acknowledges, as the kings of Shirpurla did, that Enlil, and Enlil
alone, had granted to him so unprecedented a dominion, extending from
the lower sea of the Tigris and the Euphrates (_i.e._ the Persian Gulf)
to the upper sea (_i.e._ the Mediterranean). Constituted thus “lord of
the world,” he now becomes its “summus episcopus.” “In the sanctuaries
of Kengi, as patesi of the lands, and in Erech, as high priest, they
(the gods) established him.”
To quote Hilprecht: “Babylonia, as a whole, had no fault to find with
this new and powerful régime. The Sumerian civilisation was directed
into new channels from stagnation; the ancient cults between the lower
Tigris and Euphrates began to revive and its temples to shine in new
splendour.” Thus, endowed with the highest temporal and spiritual
power, he “makes Erech to abound in rejoicing.” Nor does he forget
the other representative cities of his domain: “Ur, like a steer,
to the top of the heavens he raised.” “Over Larsa, the beloved city
of Shamash, he poured out waters of joy.” His own native town and
land receive chief attention: “Gishban, the beloved city of … to an
unheard-of power he raised.” He, as wise ruler and statesman, not only
shows his good will and favour towards the larger and more influential
cities, but also protects the weaker ones: “Ki-Innanna-ab he kept in an
enclosure, like a sheep that is to be shorn.”
Indeed, “Lugalzaggisi stands out from the dawn (?) of Babylonian
history as a giant who deserves our full admiration for the work he
accomplished.”
Seeing that Semitisms occur in almost all the earliest inscriptions
so far known to us, and that the rulers themselves may have been and
probably were Semites--let us confess this--then the other question
arises: At what time did the Semites come into the country, so as to
induce the original inhabitants to employ expressions foreign to their
own language? Where did they come from? To the last question, which
has been repeatedly discussed by scholars, different answers have
been given. Some make Africa the original home of the Semites; others
Arabia; and Hilprecht, who last spoke of this problem, assigns for this
purpose Kish, or better, Kharran some distance north of Babylonia.
According to his theory, Lugalzaggisi, the great conqueror from Gishban
(Kharran), was the first Semite to occupy any territory in Babylonia,
and thus opened the way for the Semitic population. But Lugalzaggisi
_does not antedate_ Ur-Nina. Ur-Nina is a Semite, as we have seen,
consequently Semites were in the country _before_ Lugalzaggisi.
Gishban is not Kharran, but the neighbouring state of Shirpurla; hence
the Semites did not come from Kharran, but actually occupied already
the whole country of Babylonia. Thus the two questions--when did
the Semites invade Babylonia? and, whence did they come?--are still
awaiting an answer. It is possible that some tablets may give us a key
to this problem, but so far these tablets have not been found.
[Sidenote: _ca._ 6000-3800 B.C.]
But further, if the Semites at so early a time as 4500 B.C. (Urukagina)
had possession of Babylonia and had adopted the old language of the
country, which language they interspersed with their own idiom, they
must have been for a long time resident in the land. This would bring
the immigration of the Semites back to at least 5000 B.C. and earlier,
when the Sumerian power began to decay. We must therefore push back the
height of Sumerian influence to a yet more remote period.
Hence, whatever view we take in regard to the two peoples and their
languages, we are led to the same general result: _Civilisation and
history must go back to at least 6000 B.C._
THE FIRST DYNASTY OF UR
Of Ur--the Biblical “Ur of the Chaldees”--we have already heard at the
time of Eannatum. It was situated at the western side of the Euphrates,
opposite the place where the Shatt-el-Khai flows into it. Up to the
time of Lugalzaggisi it may not have been of very great importance.
This latter ruler, however, “raised it like a steer to the top of the
heaven,” hence at no long period subsequent to Lugalzaggisi we meet two
kings, father and son, ruling at Ur. It is not impossible that this
dynasty may itself have brought about the overthrow of Lugalzaggisi,
as to whose successors we have no information. Probably, also, it took
possession of the more northern part of Babylonia (Nippur), for we find
that both these kings present vases to Enlil, the “lord of the lands.”
The names of these two monarchs forming the _first_ dynasty of Ur are:
Lugalkigubnidudu, and his son (?); Lugalkisalsi.
Their dominion extended over Ur, Erech, and Nippur, probably also over
Shirpurla, for the kings of the south could not have gained possession
of Nippur without passing Shirpurla. This would explain why we know so
very little about Shirpurla at this time. It is, however, remarkable
that both these kings should call themselves first “kings of Erech,”
and then “kings of Ur”; while on the other hand, Lugalkigubnidudu
expressly says that Enlil added (_tab_) the lordship (_nam-en_) to the
kingship (_nam-lugal_), which lordship so added was Erech. We would
expect that, if he were originally king of Ur, the title, “king of Ur,”
would come first. Here, then, we have an analogy to and a confirmation
of the argument used in regard to Urzaguddu. The latter king had also
two titles, viz. “king of Kish” and “king of …,” and it was argued
that the latter title, “king of …,” was the original, _i.e._ Urzaguddu
became later on “king of Kish.” So here “king of Ur” was the original
title; Lugalkigubnidudu subsequently became “king of Erech.”
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 4000-3800 B.C.]]
How long this dynasty flourished, how many rulers were comprised in
it, and when and by whom it was overthrown, we cannot tell. Probably,
however, it was replaced by a mighty kingdom which arose in the north
(that of Agade), destined to bear sway over “the four corners of the
world.”
Once more--before we leave southern Babylonia and pass over to the
north--we have to direct our attention to Shirpurla. The traces which
we possess of the life of Shirpurla and its patesis during this time
(_i.e._ 4100-3800 B.C.) are but fragmentary. Only one patesi is known
to us from a tablet recently published by Thureau-Dangin, in the _Revue
d’Assyriologie_. This patesi, Lugalanda by name, cannot have lived very
long after Lummadur, for the writing of that tablet shows all the
palæographic peculiarities of the inscriptions of Eannatum. Probably he
belonged to those patesis over whom Lugalzaggisi or his successors may
have ruled.
With the next two patesis, Lugalushumgal and his son (?) Ur-E,
we arrive at the time of Sharganisharali [Sargon], 3800 B.C. A
considerable gap in this period has still to be filled up. Let us
hope that the future excavations, combined with the industry of the
decipherer, will bring some light into this darkest of all periods in
Old Babylonian history.
Mentioning only another patesi that belongs to this period, Ur-(dingir)
Utu(?)--whose name is followed by [nam?] patesi Uru-um-ki-ma (_i.e._
Ur)--we pass from the south to the north of Babylonia, _i.e._ to the
city of Agade.
KINGS OF AGADE
Agade, near the modern Abu-Habba, formed in olden times with Sippar a
double city. It was situated near the Euphrates and north of Babylon.
As early as 3800 B.C. Semitic kings ruled in this city, extending their
sceptres over the whole of Babylonia.
[Illustration: THE FINDING OF THE INFANT SARGON]
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3800 B.C.]]
The first king, as far as our knowledge goes, was Sharganisharali,
cited by us as Sargon I. He was the son of a certain Itti-Bel. This
latter is neither called a king nor even a patesi. In this we may
see a confirmation of the so-called “legend of Sargon,” according to
which this monarch was “of an inferior birth on his father’s side,”
and so either a usurper or the founder of the dynasty of Agade. This
legend--probably written in the eighth century B.C.--purports to be
a copy of an inscription written on a statue of this great king, and
bears a certain similarity to the Biblical account of Moses. It reads:
“Shargena, the powerful king, the king of Agade, am I. My mother was
of noble family (?) [others: was poor], my father I did not know,
whereas the brother of my father inhabited the mountains. My town was
Azipiranu, which is situated on the bank of the Euphrates. My mother
of noble family (?) (or, who was poor) conceived me and gave birth to
me secretly. She put me into a basket of _shurru_ (reeds?), and shut
up the mouth (?) of it (?) with bitumen; she cast me into the river,
which did not overwhelm (?) me. The river carried me away and brought
me to Akki, the drawer of water. Akki, the drawer of water, took me up
in … Akki, the drawer of water, reared me to boyhood. Akki, the drawer
of water, made me a gardener. During my activity as gardener, Ishtar
loved me. X + IV years I exercised dominion, … years I commanded the
black-headed people (_i.e._ the Semites) and ruled them,” etc. The rest
of this legend tells us something about his campaign against Dur-ilu on
the borders of Elam; it is, however, too fragmentary to be coherent.
In connection with this legend we would call the attention of the
reader once more to the fact that not merely the identity of this
Shargena with our Sharganisharali, his deeds and warlike expeditions
recorded in the so-called “Tablet of Omens,” with the date of his rule,
have been doubted, but even his very existence. A series of new facts
connected with the time of Naram-Sin and Sharganisharali have since
come to light by the publication of a great number of contract-tablets
written during the reign of these kings. These tablets are to be found
in _Revue d’Assyriologie_, iv, No. iii. Hence it is now impossible to
doubt the historicity of Sharganisharali, as was done by Niebuhr.
Down to the time of Hilprecht’s publication of _Old Babylonian
Inscriptions_, Part I, our knowledge of Sargon I was almost entirely
drawn from the “legend” and the “Tablet of Omens.” Hence it happened
that the great deeds which were attributed to Sargon and Naram-Sin
in the “Tablet of Omens” were said to be “purely legendary” (so by
Winckler, _Geschichte Babylon. und Assyr._, p. 38). Others thought
that his deeds had been simply projected backwards (so Maspero,
_Dawn of Civilization_, New York, 1895, p. 599; “Sargon II is he who
projected backward”); others again, not believing that Sargon I could
have undertaken such expeditions and have become practically the “king
of the four corners of the earth,” invented another king Sargon (so
Hommel, _Gesch. Baby. und Assyr._, Berlin, 1883, p. 307, note 4; this
Sargon he places at about 2000 B.C.).
Thanks to the excavations at Telloh and the industry of Thureau-Dangin,
we are now in a position to prove that the statements of the “Tablet of
Omens” are correct in almost every particular.
Let us hear what this “Tablet of Omens” has to say. Eleven of these
“omens” are ascribed to Sargon and two to Naram-Sin. They generally
begin with the phrase: “When the moon was in such and such position,”
then Sargon, etc.
The first omen records Sargon’s expedition to and subjection of Elam.
The second tells how he marched to the land Akharri (_i.e._ the
West-land), and subjected it, and that his army subjugated the _kibrati
irbitta_, _i.e._ “the four corners of the world.”
The third tells us that he brought sorrow upon Kish and Babylon, and
built a city after the pattern (?) of Agade, and called it Ub-da-ki,
_i.e._ “place (city) of the world.”
The fourth records another expedition against the West and the taking
possession of the four corners of the earth. So also the fifth omen.
The sixth omen is too fragmentary to yield any certain sense.
The seventh gives us a fuller account of the expedition against
Akharri; he crosses the sea of the West and wages war against it for
three years, takes it, erects there his statues, and transports the
prisoners, whom he had taken, over land and sea.
The eighth describes the repairing of one of his palaces, which he
calls “E-ki-a-am i-ni-lik,” _i.e._ “the house”: “so let us walk.”
In the next we hear of a campaign against a certain Kashtubilla of
Kasalla, who had revolted. Sargon goes against him, conquers him and
his army, and destroys the rebellious country.
The tenth probably is one of the most important. It reads: “Sargon,
against whom under this omen the elders of the whole country had
revolted, and in Agade had shut him up--Sargon went out, conquered
them, and cast them down, subdued their army, and.…”
The last omen tells us something about Sargon’s campaign against the
land Suri, how he overcame it, and took it, and how he destroyed its
army.
The two omens relating to Naram-Sin record a campaign against Apirak
(Omen i) and against Magan (Omen ii). In both expeditions Naram-Sin was
so successful, that he even took captive the kings of these countries,
viz.: Resh-Ramman (Adad), king of Apirak, and N. N. king of Magan.
According to this “Tablet of Omens,” then Sargon I subdued Elam, the
“West-land,” brought woe upon Babylon and Kish, conquered the country
Kasalla, suppressed a revolt which had arisen against him while on his
expeditions, and finally subdued the land Suri “in its totality.”[b]
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 3750-2700 B.C.]]
Sargon’s son and successor, Naram-Sin, followed up the successes of
his father by marching into Magan, whose king he took captive. He
assumed the imperial title of “king of the four zones,” and, like his
father, was addressed as a “god.” He is even called “the god of Agade”
(Accad), reminding us of the divine honours claimed by the Pharaohs
of Egypt, whose territory now adjoined that of Babylonia. A finely
executed bas-relief, representing Naram-Sin, and bearing a striking
resemblance to early Egyptian art in many of its features, has been
found at Diarbekir. Babylonian art, however, had already attained a
high degree of excellence; two seal cylinders of the time of Sargon
are among the most beautiful specimens of the gem-cutter’s art ever
discovered. The empire was bound together by roads, along which there
was a regular postal service, and clay seals, which took the place of
stamps, are now in the Louvre bearing the names of Sargon and his son.
A cadastral survey seems also to have been instituted, and one of the
documents relating to it states that a certain Uru-Malik, whose name
appears to indicate his Canaanitish origin, was governor of the land of
the Amorites, as Syria and Palestine were called by the Babylonians. It
is probable that the first collection of astronomical observations and
terrestrial omens was made for a library established by Sargon.
Bingani-shar-ali was the son of Naram-Sin, but we do not yet know
whether he followed his father on the throne. Another son was
high priest of the city of Tutu, and in the name of his daughter,
Lipus-Eaum, a priestess of Sin, some scholars have seen that of the
Hebrew deity, Yahveh. The Babylonian god, Ea, however, is more likely
to be meant.
THE KINGS OF UR
The fall of Sargon’s empire seems to have been as sudden as its rise.
The seat of supreme power in Babylonia was shifted southward to Erech,
Isin, and Ur. At least three dynasties appear to have reigned at Ur
and claimed suzerainty over the other Babylonian states. One of these,
under Gungunu, succeeded in transferring the capital of Babylonia from
Isin to Ur. It is still uncertain whether Gungunu belonged to the
second or third dynasty of Ur; if to the second, among his successors
would have been Ur-Gur, a great builder, who built or restored the
temples of the Moon-god at Ur, of the Sun-god at Larsa, of Ishtar
at Erech, and of Bel at Nippur. His son and successor was Dungi II,
one of whose vassals was Gudea the _patesi_ or high priest of Lagash
[Shirpurla]. Gudea was also a great builder, and the materials for his
buildings and statues were brought from all parts of western Asia,
cedar wood from the Amanus Mountains, quarried stones from Lebanon,
copper from northern Arabia, gold and precious stones from the desert
between Palestine and Egypt, dolerite from Magan (the Sinaitic
peninsula), and timber from Dilmun in the Persian Gulf. Some of his
statues, now in the Louvre, are carved out of Sinaitic dolerite, and
on the lap of one of them is the plan of his palace, with the scale
of measurement attached. Six of the statues bore special names, and
offerings were made to them as to the statues of the gods. Gudea
claims to have conquered Anshan in Elam, and was succeeded by his son,
Ur-Ningirsu. His date may be provisionally fixed at 2700 B.C.
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 2700-2340 B.C.]]
The high priests of Lagash still owned allegiance to Ur, when the
last dynasty of Ur was dominant in Babylonia. The dynasty was
Semitic, not Sumerian, though one of its kings was Dungi II. He was
followed by Bur-Sin II, Gimil-Sin, and Ine-Sin, whose power extended
to the Mediterranean, and of whose reigns we possess a large number
of contemporaneous monuments in the shape of contracts and similar
business documents, as well as chronological tables. After the fall of
the dynasty, Babylonia passed under foreign influence.
ACCESSION OF A SOUTH ARABIAN DYNASTY
Sumu-abi (“Shem is my father”), from southern Arabia (or perhaps
Canaan), made himself master of northern Babylonia, while Elamite
invaders occupied the South. After a reign of fourteen years, Sumu-abi
was succeeded by his son, Sumu-la-ilu, in the fifth year of whose reign
the fortress of Babylon was built, and the city became for the first
time a capital. Rival kings, Pungun-ila and Immeru, are mentioned
in the contract tablets as reigning at the same time as Sumu-la-ilu
(or Samu-la-ilu); and under Sin-muballit, the great-grandson of
Sumu-la-ilu, the Elamites laid the whole of the country under tribute,
and made Eri-Aku, or Arioch, called Rim-Sin by his Semitic subjects,
king of Larsa. Eri-Aku was the son of Kudur-Mabuk, who was prince of
Yamudbal [or E-mutbal], on the eastern border of Babylonia, and also
“governor of Syria.”
The Elamite supremacy was at last shaken off by the son and successor
of Sin-muballit, Khammurabi, whose name is also written Ammurapi and
Khammuram, and who was the Amraphel of Genesis xiv. 1. The Elamites,
under their king, Kudur-Lagamar or Chedorlaomer, seem to have taken
Babylon and destroyed the temple of Bel-Merodach; but Khammurabi
retrieved his fortunes, and in the thirtieth year of his reign (in 2340
B.C.), he overthrew the Elamite forces in a decisive battle and drove
them out of Babylonia. The next two years were occupied in adding Larsa
and Yamudbal to his dominion, and in forming Babylonia into a single
monarchy, the head of which was Babylon.
A great literary revival followed the recovery of Babylonian
independence, and the rule of Babylon was obeyed as far as the shores
of the Mediterranean. Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated in
the reigns of Khammurabi and other kings of the dynasty, have been
discovered, as well as autograph letters of the kings themselves,
more especially of Khammurabi. Among the latter is one ordering the
despatch of two hundred and forty soldiers from Assyria and Situllum,
a proof that Assyria was at the time a Babylonian dependency. Constant
intercourse was kept up between Babylonia and the West, Babylonian
officials and troops passing to Syria and Canaan, while “Amorite”
colonists were established in Babylonia for the purposes of trade.
One of these Amorites, Abi-ramu or Abram by name, is the father of
a witness to a deed dated in the reign of Khammurabi’s grandfather.
Ammi-satana, the great-grandson of Khammurabi, still entitles himself
“king of the land of the Amorites,” and both his father and son
bear the Canaanitish (and South Arabian) names of Abesukh or Abishua
[Ebishum], and Ammi-zadok [or Ammi-sadugga].
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 2287-1100 B.C.]]
Samsu-satana, the son of Ammi-zadok, was the last king of the first
dynasty of Babylon, which was followed by a dynasty of eleven Sumerian
kings for 368 years. We know but little of them; their capital has not
yet been discovered, and no trading documents dated in their reigns
have been found. They were overthrown and Babylonia was conquered
by Kassites or Kossæans from the mountains of Elam, under Kandish
[Gandish] or Gaddas (in 1800 B.C.), who established a dynasty which
lasted for 576 years and nine months.
THE KASSITE DYNASTY
Under this foreign domination, Babylonia lost its empire over western
Asia. Syria and Palestine became independent, and the high priests of
Asshur made themselves kings of Assyria. The divine attributes with
which the Semitic kings of Babylonia had been invested disappeared
at the same time; the title of “god” is never given to a Kassite
sovereign. Babylon, however, remained the capital of the kingdom and
the holy city of western Asia. Like the sovereigns of the Holy Roman
Empire, it was necessary for the prince, who claimed rule in western
Asia, to go to Babylon and there be acknowledged as the adopted son of
Bel before his claim to legitimacy could be admitted. Babylon became
more and more a priestly city, living on its ancient prestige and
merging its ruler into a pontiff. From henceforth, down to the Persian
era, it was the religious head of the civilised East.
One of the earlier Kassite kings was Agum-kakrime, who recovered the
images of Merodach and his consort, which had been carried away to
Khani. At a later date Kadashman-Bel and Burna-buriash I corresponded
with the Egyptian Pharaohs, Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV (1400
B.C.). The Assyrian king Asshur-uballit still owned allegiance to his
Babylonian suzerain, and intermarriages took place between the royal
families of Assyria and Babylonia. Babylonia, moreover, still sought
opportunities of recovering its old supremacy in Palestine, which the
conquests of the XVIIIth Dynasty had made an Egyptian province, and
along with Mitanni or Aram-Naharain and the Hittites intrigued against
the Egyptian government with disaffected conspirators in the West.
After the death of Burna-buriash, however, civil war in Babylonia led
to Assyrian interference in the affairs of the country, and from this
time forward even the nominal obedience of Assyria to its old suzerain
was at an end.
ASSYRIAN CONQUEST OF BABYLON
Frequent wars broke out between the two nations, and eventually
(about 1280 B.C.) Tukulti-Ninib of Assyria, in the fifth year of
his reign, captured Babylon and sent the treasures of E-sagila, the
temple of Bel-Merodach, to Asshur. For seven years the Assyrian
monarch reigned over Babylonia, then a revolt obliged him to retire;
Adad-shum-usur of the native dynasty was placed on the Babylonian
throne; and Tukulti-Ninib was shortly afterwards murdered by his son,
Asshurnazirpal I. Assyria steadily increased in power, while Babylonia
fell more and more into decay. Shalmaneser I, the builder of Calah (now
Nimrud) in 1300 B.C., carried his victorious arms in all directions,
and Tiglathpileser I extended the Assyrian Empire as far as the
Mediterranean (1100 B.C.).
[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1230-745 B.C.]]