CHALDÆA.
Chronology--Berosus--His Dates mythical--Dates
in Genesis--Synchronisms with Egypt and
Assyria--Monuments--Cuneiform Inscriptions--How
deciphered--Behistan Inscription--Grotefend and
Rawlinson--Layard--Library of Koyunjik--How preserved--Accadian
Translations and Grammars--Historical Dates--Elamite
Conquest--Commencement of Modern History--Ur-Ea and
Dungi--Nabonidus--Sargon I., 3800 B.C.--Ur of the
Chaldees--Sharrukin's Cylinder--His Library--His son
Naram-Sin--Semites and Accadians--Accadians and Chinese--Period
before Sargon I.--Patesi--De Sarzec's find at Sirgalla--Gud-Ea,
4000 to 4500 B.C.--Advance of Delta--Astronomical
Records--Chaldæa and Egypt give similar results--Historic Period
6000 or 7000 years--and no trace of a beginning.
Chaldæan chronology has within the last few years been brought into
the domain of history, and carried back to a date almost, if not
quite, as remote as that of Egypt. And this has been effected by a
process identical in the two cases, the decipherment of an unknown
language in inscriptions on ancient monuments. Until this discovery
the little that was known of the early history of Chaldæa was derived
almost entirely from two sources: the Bible, and the fragments quoted
by later writers from the lost work of Berosus. Berosus was a learned
priest of Babylon, who lived about 300 B.C., shortly after the
conquest of Alexander, and wrote in Greek a history of the country
from the most ancient times, compiled from the annals preserved
in the temples, and from the oldest traditions. He began with a
Cosmogony, fragments of which only are preserved, from which little
could be inferred, except that it bore some general resemblance to
that of Genesis, until the complete Chaldæan Cosmogony was deciphered
by Mr. George Smith from tablets in the British Museum. Then followed
a mythical period of the reigns of ten gods or demi-gods, reigning
for 432,000 years, in the middle of which period the divine fish-man,
Ea-Han or Oannes, was said to have come up out of the Persian Gulf,
and taught mankind letters, sciences, laws, and all the arts of
civilization; 259,000 years after Oannes, under Xisuthros (the Greek
translation of Hasisastra), the last of the ten kings, a Deluge is
said to have occurred; which is described in terms so similar to the
narrative of Noah's deluge in Genesis, as to leave no doubt that they
are different versions of the same legend.
Prior to the appearance of Oannes, Berosus relates, "that Chaldæa
had been colonized by a mixed multitude of men of foreign race, who
lived without order like animals," thus carrying back the existence
of mankind in large numbers, to some date anterior to 259,000 years
before the Deluge. There is also a legend resembling that of the
Tower of Babel and the confusion of languages, recorded in another
fragment of Berosus. These accounts are all so obviously mythical
that no historical value can be attached to them, and they have only
been preserved because early Christian writers saw in them some sort
of distorted confirmation of the corresponding narratives in the Old
Testament.
For anything like historical dates therefore the Bible remained the
principal authority, until the recent discoveries made from the
monuments of Chaldæa and Assyria. This authority does not carry us
very far back. The first event which can advance any claim to be
considered as historical, is that of the migration of Terah from
Ur of the Chaldees to Haran, and the further migration of his son
Abraham from Haran to Palestine. This is said to have taken place in
the ninth generation after Noah, about 290 years after the Deluge,
and it presupposes the existence of a dense population and a number
of large cities both in Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. It mentions
also an event, apparently historical, as occurring in Abraham's
time, viz. a campaign by Chedorlaomer, King of Elam, with four
allies, one of whom is a King of Shinar, against five petty kings in
Southern Syria. Chedorlaomer has been identified from inscriptions
with Khuder-lagomer, one of the kings of the Elamite dynasty, who
conquered Chaldæa about 2300 B.C., and were expelled before 2000 B.C.
A long interval then occurs during which the scattered notices in the
Bible relate mainly to the intercourse of the Hebrews with Egypt,
with the races of Canaan, with the Philistines, with the Phoenicians
of Tyre, and with the Syrians of Damascus. Mesopotamia first appears
after the rise of the Assyrian Empire had united nearly the whole of
Western Asia under the warlike kings who reigned at Nineveh, and when
Palestine had become the battle-field between them and the declining
power of Egypt, which under the eighteenth and nineteenth Egyptian
dynasties had extended to the Euphrates. The capture of Jerusalem in
the reign of Rehoboam by Shishak, the first king of the twenty-second
Egyptian dynasty, affords the first certain synchronism between
sacred and profane history. The date may be fixed within a few years
at 970 B.C. Assyria first appears on the scene two hundred years
later in the reign of Menahem King of Israel, when Pul, better known
as Tiglath-Pileser II., came against the land, and exacted a large
ransom from Menahem, whom he confirmed as a tributary vassal.
From this time forward the succession of Assyrian kings is recorded
more or less accurately in the Bible. Tiglath-Pileser accepted
vassalage and a large tribute from Ahaz to come to his assistance
against Rezin King of Syria, and Pekah King of Israel, who were
besieging Jerusalem, and Tiglath-Pileser came to his aid and captured
and sacked Damascus. Shalmaneser came up against Hoshea King of
Judah, who submitted, but was deposed for intriguing with Egypt,
and Shalmaneser then took Samaria and carried the ten tribes of
Israel away into Assyria, placing them in the cities of the Medes.
Sennacherib, in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, took all the fenced
cities of Judah, and his general, Rab-shakeh, besieged Jerusalem,
which was saved by the repulse of the main army under the king when
marching to invade Egypt. The murder of Sennacherib by his two sons
and the succession of Esarhaddon are next mentioned.
Nineveh then disappears from the scene, and the great Babylonian
conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar, puts an end to the kingdom of Judæa, by
taking Jerusalem and carrying the people captive to Babylon. This
historical retrospect carries us back a very short distance, and
little can be gathered in the way of accurate chronology from the few
vague references prior to this date. So stood the question until the
date of Chaldæan history and civilization was unexpectedly carried
back at least 3000 years by the discovery of its monuments.
When the first Assyrian sculptures were found by Botta and Layard
not fifty years ago in the mounds of rubbish which covered the
ruins of Nineveh, and brought home to Europe, it was seen that they
were covered with inscriptions in an unknown character. It was
called the cuneiform, because it was made up of combinations of a
single sign, resembling a thin wedge or arrow-head. This sign was
made in three fundamental ways, _i.e._ either horizontal [symbol],
vertical [symbol], or angular [symbol], and all the characters were
made up of combinations of these primary forms, which were obviously
produced by impressing a style with a triangular head on moist clay.
They resembled, in fact, very much the strokes and dashes used in
spelling out the words conveyed by the electric telegraph, in which
letters are formed by oscillations of the needle.
[Illustration}
This mode of writing had apparently been developed from
picture-writing, for several, of the groups of characters bore an
unmistakable resemblance to natural objects. In the very oldest
inscriptions which have been discovered the writing, is hardly yet
cuneiform, and the primitive pictorial character of the signs is
apparent.
But the bulk of the cuneiform inscriptions not being pictorial, there
could be little doubt that they were phonetic, or represented sounds.
The question was, what sounds these characters signified, and when
translated into sounds, what words and what language did the groups
of signs represent?
The first clue to these questions was, as in the parallel case of
Egypt, afforded by a trilingual inscription. The kings of the
Persian Empire reigned over subjects of various races and languages.
The three principal were the Persians, an Aryan race who spoke an
inflectional language which has been preserved in old Persian and
Zend; Semites, who spoke Aramaic, a language closely allied to
Hebrew; and descendants of the older Accadian races, whose language
was Turanian, or agglutinative.
It is almost the same at the present day in the same region, where
edicts or inscriptions, to be readily intelligible to all classes of
subjects, would require to be made in Persian, Arabic, and Turkish.
Accordingly, the pompous inscriptions and royal edicts of these
ancient monarchs were frequently made in the three languages,
and specimens of these were brought to Europe. The difficulty of
deciphering them was, however, great, for the inscriptions were
all written, though in different languages, in the same cuneiform
characters, so that the aid afforded in the case of the Rosetta
stone by a Greek translation of the hieroglyphic inscription was not
forthcoming.
The ingenuity of a German scholar, Grotefend, furnished the first
clue by discovering that certain groups of signs represented the
names of known Persian kings, and thus identifying the component
signs in the Persian inscription as letters of an alphabet.
A few years later Sir Henry Rawlinson copied, and succeeded in
deciphering, a famous inscription engraved by the great Persian
monarch, Darius the first, high up in the face of a precipice forming
the wall of a narrow defile at Behistan, and giving an historical
record of the exploits of his reign. The clue thus afforded was
rapidly followed up by a host of scholars, among whom the names of
Rawlinson, Burnouf, Lassen, and Oppert were most conspicuous, and
before long the text of inscriptions in Persian and Semitic could be
read with great certainty. The task was one which required a vast
amount of patience and ingenuity, for the cuneiform writing turned
out to be one of great complexity, Though phonetic in the main, the
characters did not always represent the simple elements of sounds,
or letters of an alphabet, but frequently syllables containing one
or more consonants united by vowels, and a considerable number were
ideographic or conventional representations of ideas, like our
numerals 1, 2, 3, which have no relation to spoken sounds.
Thus the simple vertical wedge [symbol] represented "man," and was
prefixed to proper names of kings so as to show that the signs
which followed denoted the name of a man; the sign [symbol] denoted
country, and so on. The difficulties were, however, surmounted,
and inscriptions in the two known languages could be read with
considerable certainty.
[Illustration]
The third language, however, remained unknown until the finishing
stroke to its decipherment was given by the discovery by Layard
under the great mound of Koyunjik near Mosul on the Tigris, the site
of the ancient Nineveh, of the royal palace of Asshurbanipal, or
Sardanapalus, the grandson of Sennacherib, and one of the greatest
Assyrian monarchs, who lived about 650 B.C. This palace contained
a royal library like that of Alexandria or the British Museum, the
contents of which had been carefully collected from the oldest
records of previous libraries and temples, and almost miraculously
preserved. The secret of the preservation of these Assyrian and
Chaldæan remains, is that the district contains no stone, and all
the great buildings were constructed mainly of sun-dried bricks, and
built on mounds or platforms of the same material to raise them above
the alluvial plain. These, when the cities were deserted, crumbled
rapidly under the action of the air and rains, which are torrential
at certain seasons, into shapeless rubbish heaps of fine dry dust and
sand, under which everything of more durable material was securely
buried.
So rapid was the process, that when Xenophon on the famous retreat of
the ten thousand traversed the site of Nineveh only two hundred years
after its destruction, he found nothing but the ruins of a deserted
city, the very name and memory of which had been lost.
As regards the contents of the library the explanation of their
perfect preservation is equally simple. The books were written,
not on perishable paper or parchment, but on cylinders of clay.
It is evident that the cuneiform characters were exceedingly well
adapted for this description of writing, and probably originated
from the nature of the material. A fine tenacious clay cost nothing,
was readily moulded into cylinders, and when slightly moist was
easily engraved by a tool or style stamping on it those wedge-like
characters, so that when hardened by a slow fire the book was
practically indestructible. So much so, indeed, that though the
palace, including the library with its shelves and upper stories, had
all fallen to the ground, and the book-cylinders lay scattered on the
floor, they were mostly in a state of perfect preservation. Other
similar finds have been made since, notably one of another great
library of the priestly college at Erech, founded or enlarged as far
back as 2000 B.C. by Sargon II. Among the books thus preserved there
are fortunately translations of old Accadian works into the more
modern Aramaic or Assyrian, either interlined or in parallel columns,
and, also grammars and dictionaries of the old language to assist
in its study. It appears that as far back as 2000 years B.C. this
old language had already become obsolete, and was preserved as Latin
or Vedic Sanscrit are at the present day, as the venerable language
for religious uses, in which the earliest sacred books, historical
annals, and astrological and magical formulas had been written.
With these aids this ancient Accadian language can now be read with
almost as much certainty as Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the records
written in it are accumulating rapidly with every fresh exploration.
Some idea of the wealth of the materials already found may be formed
from the fact that the number of tablets in the different museums of
Europe from the Nineveh library alone exceeds 10,000. They present
to us a most interesting picture of the religion, literature, laws,
and social life of a period long antecedent to that commonly assigned
for the destruction of the world by Noah's Deluge, or even to that
of the creation of Adam. To some of these we shall have occasion
subsequently to refer, but for the present I confine myself to the
immediate object in view, that of verifying the earliest historical
dates.
The first certain date is fixed by the annals of the Assyrian King
Asshurbanipal, grandson of Sennacherib, who conquered Elam and
destroyed its capital, Susa, in the year 645 B.C. The king says that
he took away all the statues from the great temple of Susa, and among
others, one of the Chaldæan goddess Nana, which had been carried
away from her own temple in the city of Erech, by a king of Elam
who conquered the land of Accad 1635 years before. This conquest,
and the accession of an Elamite dynasty which lasted for nearly 300
years, is confirmed from a variety of other sources, and its date is
thus fixed, beyond the possibility of a doubt, at 2280 _B.C._ A king
of this dynasty, Khudur-Lagamar, synchronizes with Abraham, assuming
Abraham and the narrative in the Old Testament respecting his defeat
of that monarch to be historical.
This Elamite conquest of Chaldæa is a memorable historical era, for
it inaugurates the period of great wars and of the rise and fall of
empires, which play such a conspicuous part in the subsequent annals
of nations. Elam was a small province between the Kurdish mountains
and the Tigris, extending to the Persian Gulf, and its capital,
Susa, was an ancient and famous city; which afterwards became one
of the principal seats of the Persian monarchs. The Elamites were
originally a Turanian race like the Accads, and spoke a language
which was a dialect of Accadian, but, as in Chaldæa and Assyria,
the kings and aristocracy appear to have been Semites from an early
period. It was apparently an organized and civilized State, and the
conquest was not a passing irruption of barbarians, but the result
of a campaign by regular troops, who founded a dynasty which lasted
for more than 200 years. It evidently disturbed the equilibrium of
Western Asia, and led to a succession of wars. The invasion of Egypt
by the Hyksos followed closely on it. Then came the reaction which
drove the Elamites from Chaldæa and the Hyksos from Egypt. Then
the great wars of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, which carried
the arms of Ahmes and Thotmes to the Euphrates and Black Sea, and
established for a time the supremacy of Egypt over Western Asia. Then
the rise of the Hittite Empire, which extended over Asia Minor, and
contended on equal terms with Ramses II. in Syria. Then the rise of
the Assyrian Empire, which crushed the Hittites and all surrounding
nations, and twice conquered and overran Egypt. Finally, the rise of
the Medes, the fall of Nineveh, the short supremacy of Babylon, and
the establishment of the great Persian Empire. From the Persian we
pass to the Greek, and then to the Roman Empire, and find ourselves
in full modern history. It may be fairly said, therefore, that modern
history, with its series of great wars and revolutions, commences
with this record of the Elamite conquest of Chaldæa in 2280 B.C.
The next tolerably certain date is that of Ur-ea, and his son
Dungi, two kings of the old Accadian race, who reigned at Ur over
the united kingdoms of Sumir and Accad. They were great builders
and restorers of temples, and have left numerous traces of their
existence in the monuments both at Ur, and at Larsam, Sirgalla,
Erech, and other ancient cities. Among other relics of these kings
there is in the British Museum the signet-cylinder of Ur-ea himself,
on which is engraved the Moon-God, the patron deity of Ur, with the
king and priests worshipping him. The date of Ur-ea is ascertained
as follows--Nabonidus, the last king of Babylon, 550 B.C., was a
great restorer of the old temples, and, as Professor Sayce says, "a
zealous antiquarian who busied himself much with the disinterment
of the memorial cylinders which their founders and restorers had
buried beneath their foundations." The results of his discoveries
he recorded on special cylinders for the information of posterity,
which have fortunately been preserved. Among others he restored
the Sun-temple at Larsam, in which he found intact in its chamber
under the corner-stone, a cylinder of King Hummurabi or Khammuragas,
stating that the temple was commenced by Ur-ea and finished by his
son Dungi, 700 years before his time. Hummurabi was a well-known
historical king who expelled the Elamites, and made Babylon for the
first time the capital of Chaldæa, about 2000 B.C. The date of Ur-ea
cannot therefore be far from 2700 B.C.
The same fortunate circumstance of the habit, by kings who built or
restored famous temples, of laying the foundation-stone, such as
our royal personages often do at the present day, and depositing
under it, in a secure chamber, a cylinder recording the fact, has
given us a still more ancient date, that of Sharrukin or Sargon
I. of Agade. The same Nabonidus repaired the great Sun-temple of
Sippar, and he says "that having dug deep in its foundations for the
cylinders of the founder, the Sun-god suffered him to behold the
foundation cylinder of Naram-Sin, son of Sharrukin or (Sargon I.),
which for three thousand and two hundred years none of the kings
who lived before him had seen." This gives 3750 B.C. as the date of
Naram-Sin, or, allowing for the long reign of Sargon I., about 3800
B.C. as the date of that monarch. This discovery revolutionized the
accepted ideas of Chaldæan chronology, and carried it back at one
stroke 1000 years before the date of Ur-ea, making it contemporary
with the fourth Egyptian dynasty who built the great Pyramids. The
evidence is not so conclusive as in the case of Egypt, where the
lists of Manetho give us the whole series of successive kings and
dynasties, a great majority of which are confirmed by contemporary
records and monuments. The date of Sargon I. rests mainly on the
authority of Nabonidus, who lived more than 3000 years later, and
may have been mistaken, but he was in the best position to consult
the oldest records, and had apparently no motive to make a wilful
mis-statement. Moreover, other documents have been found in different
places confirming the statement on the cylinder of Nabonidus, and
the opinion of the best and latest authorities has come round to
accept the date of about 3800 B.C. as authentic. Professor Sayce,
in his Hibbert Lecture in 1888, gives a detailed account of the
evidence which had overcome his original scepticism, and forced him
to admit the accuracy of this very distant date. Since the discovery
of the cylinder of Nabonidus, several tablets have been found and
deciphered, containing lists of kings and dynasties of the same
character as the Egyptian lists of Manetho. One tablet of the kings
who reigned at Babylon takes us back, reign by reign, to about 2400
B.C. Other tablets, though incomplete, give the names of at least
sixty kings which are not found in this record of the Babylonian era,
and who presumedly reigned during the interval of about 1400 years
between Khammuragas and Sargon I. The names are mostly Accadian, and
if they did not reign during this interval they must have preceded
the foundation of a Semite dynasty by Sargon I., and thus extend the
date of Chaldæan history still further back. The probability of such
a remote date is enhanced by the certainty that a high civilization
existed in Egypt as long ago as 5000 B.C., and there is no apparent
reason why it should not have existed in the valleys of the Tigris
and Euphrates as soon as in that of the Nile.
Boscawen, in a paper read at the Victoria Institute in 1886, says
that inscriptions found at Larsa, a neighbouring city to Ur of the
Chaldees, show that from as early a period as 3750 _B.C._ a Semitic
population existed in the latter city, speaking a language akin to
Hebrew, carrying on trade and commerce, and with a religion which,
although not Monotheist, had at the head of its pantheon a supreme
god, Ilu or El, from whose name that of Elohim and Allah has been
inherited as the name of God by the Hebrews and Arabs. The latest
discoveries all point to the earliest dates, and some authorities
think that genuine traces of the earliest Accadian civilization can
be found as far back as 6000 B.C. There can be no doubt, moreover,
that this Sharrukin or Sargon I. is a perfect historical personage. A
statue of him has been found at Agade or Accad, and also his cylinder
with an inscription on it giving his name and exploits. It begins,
"Sharrukin the mighty king am I," and goes on to say, "that he knew
not his father, but his mother was a royal princess, who to conceal
his birth placed him in a basket of rushes closed with bitumen,
and cast him into the river, from which he was saved by Akki the
water-carrier, who brought him up as his own child." It is singular
how the same or a very similar story is told of Moses, Cyrus, and
other heroes of antiquity. It is probable from this that he was a
military adventurer who rose to the throne; but there can be no doubt
that he was a great monarch, who united the two provinces of Shumir
and Accad, or of Lower and Upper Mesopotamia, into one kingdom,
as Menes did the Upper and Lower Egypts, and extended his rule
over some of the adjoining countries. He says "that he had reigned
for forty-five years, and governed the black-headed (Accadian)
race. In multitudes of bronze chariots I rode over rugged lands. I
governed the upper countries. Three times to the coast of the sea I
advanced." If there is any truth in this inscription it would be very
interesting as showing the existence in Western Asia of nations to be
conquered in great campaigns, with a force of horse-chariots, at this
remote period, 2000 years earlier than the campaigns of Ahmes and
Thotmes recorded in the Egyptian monuments of the eighteenth dynasty.
[Illustration: CYLINDER SEAL OF SARGON I., FROM AGADE. (Hommel,
"Gesch. Babyloniens u. Assyriens.")]
The reality of these campaigns is moreover confirmed by inscriptions
and images of this Sargon having been found in Cyprus and on the
opposite coast of Syria, and by a Babylonian cylinder of his son
Naram-Sin, found by Cesnola in the Cyprian temple of Kurion. In
another direction he and his son carried their arms into the
peninsula of Sinai, attracted doubtless by the copper and turquoise
mines of Wady Maghera, which were worked by the Egyptians under the
third dynasty. Sargon I. is also known to have been a great patron
of literature, and to have founded the library of Agade, which was
long one of the most famous in Babylonia. A work on Astronomy and
Astrology, in seventy-two books, which was so well known in the time
of Berosus as to be translated by him into Greek, was also compiled
for him.
Another king of the same name, known as Sargon II., who reigned about
2000 B.C., either founded or enlarged the library of the priestly
college at Erech, which was one of the oldest and most famous cities
of Lower Chaldæa, and known as the "City of Books." It was also
considered to be a sacred city, and its necropolis extends over a
great part of the adjoining desert, and contains innumerable tombs
and graves ranging over all periods of Chaldæan and Assyrian history,
up to an unknown antiquity.
The exact historical date of Sargon I. may be a little uncertain;
but whatever its antiquity may be, it is evident that it is already
far removed from the beginnings of Chaldæan civilization. Sargon
II. is perfectly historical, and his library and the state of the
arts and literature in his reign prove this conclusively. He states
in his tablets that 350 kings had reigned before him, and in such a
literary age he could hardly have made such a statement without some
foundation. If anything like this number of kings had reigned before
2000 B.C., the date of Sargon II.'s Chaldæan chronology would have to
be extended to a date preceding that of Egypt. Moreover, Sargon was
a Semite, who founded a powerful monarchy over a mixed population,
consisting mainly of a primitive Accadian race, who had already
built large cities and famous temples, written sacred books, and
made considerable progress in literature, science, agriculture, and
industrial arts. This primitive race was neither Semitic nor Aryan,
but Turanian. They spoke an agglutinative language, and resembled the
Chinese very much both in physical type and in character. They were a
short, thick-set people, with yellow skins, coarse black hair, and,
judging from the ancient statues recently discovered, of decidedly
Tartar or Mongolian features. They were, like the Chinese, a
peaceable, patient, and industrious people, addicted to agriculture,
and specially skilled in irrigation. They were educated and literary,
but very superstitious in regard to ghosts, omens, and evil spirits.
This resemblance to the Chinese has been remarkably confirmed by
the discovery made within the last few years, that the Accadian and
Chinese languages are closely allied, and that a great many words are
identical. The early prehistoric and astronomical legends were almost
similar, and in some instances, as in the division of the year, the
names and order of the planets, and the number and duration of the
fabulous reigns of gods, so identical as to leave no doubt of their
having had a common origin. But as the Chinese annals do not extend
farther back than about 2700 B.C., the priority of invention must be
assigned to the Accadians.
This Turanian population had been long settled in Mesopotamia before
the accession of Sargon I., and before the supremacy of the Semitic
races began to assert itself. Though called Accadian, which is said
to mean "Highlanders," their principal seat was in Shumir or Lower
Mesopotamia, in the alluvial delta formed in the course of ages by
the Euphrates, Tigris, and other rivers which flow into the Persian
Gulf; and their traditions point to their civilization having come
from the shores of this Gulf, and having gradually spread northwards.
Their most ancient cities and temples were in the Lower Province
of Shumir, and the bulk of the population continued for ages to be
Turanian, while in Accad or Upper Mesopotamia, where the land rises
from the alluvial plain up to the mountains of Kurdistan and Armenia,
the Semitic element preponderated from an early period, though the
civilization and religion long remained those of Shumir or Chaldæa
proper.
When the Semite Sargon I. founded the united monarchy, the capital
of which was Agade in the upper province, he made no change in the
established state of things, maintained the old temples, and built
new ones to the same gods. Before his reign we have, as in the
parallel case of Egypt before Menes, little definite information from
monuments or historical records. We only know that the country was
divided into a number of small states, each grouped about a city with
a temple dedicated to some god; as Eridhu, the sanctuary of Ea, one
of the trinity of supreme gods; Larsam, with its Temple of the Sun;
Ur, the city of the Moon-god; Sirgalla, with another famous temple.
These small states were ruled by _patesi_, or priest-kings, a term
corresponding to the Horsheshu of Egypt; and a fortunate discovery by
M. de Sarzec in 1881 at Tell-loh, the site of the ancient Sirgalla,
has given us valuable information respecting its _patesi_. To the
surprise of the scientific world, with whom it had been a settled
belief that no statues were ever found in Assyrian art, M. de Sarzec
discovered and brought home nine large statues of diorite, a very
hard black basalt of the same material as that of the statue of
Chephren, the builder of the second pyramid, and in the same sitting
attitude. The heads had been broken off, but one head was discovered
which was of unmistakably Turanian type, beardless, shaved, and with
a turban for head-dress. With these statues a number of small works
of art were found, representing men and animals of a highly artistic
design and exquisite finish, and also several cylinders. Both these
and the backs of the statues are covered with cuneiform inscriptions
in the old Accadian characters, which furnish valuable historical
information. The name of one of the _patesi_ whose statues were found
was Gud-Ea, and his date is computed by some of the best authorities
at from 4000 to 4500 B.C., probably earlier, and certainly not later
than 4000 B.C. This makes the _patesi_ of Sirgalla contemporary with
the earliest Egyptian kings, or even earlier, and it shows a state of
the arts and civilization then prevailing in Chaldæa very similar to
those of the fourth dynasty in Egypt, and in both cases as advanced
as those of 2000 or 3000 years later date.
[Illustration: HEAD OF ANCIENT CHALDÆAN. FROM TELL-LOH
(SIRGALLA). SARZEC COLLECTION.
(Perrot and Chipiez.)]
Before such a temple as that of Sirgalla could have been built and
such statues and works of art made, there must have been older and
smaller temples and ruder works, just as in Egypt the brick pyramids
of Sakkarah and the oldest temples of Heliopolis and Denderah
preceded the great pyramids of Gizeh, the temple of Pthah at Memphis,
and the diorite statues, wooden statuettes, and other finished works
of art of the fourth dynasty.
[Illustration: STATUE OF GUD-EA, WITH INSCRIPTION; FROM TELL-LOH
(SIRBURLA OR SIRGALLA) SARZEC COLLECTION. (Hommel.)]
It is important to remark that in those earliest monuments both the
language and art are primitive Accadian, with no trace of Semitic
influences, which must have long prevailed before Sargon I. could
have established a Semitic dynasty over an united population of
Accads and Semites living together on friendly terms. The normal
Semites must have settled gradually in Chaldæa, and adopted to a
great extent the higher civilization of the Accadians, much as the
Tartars in later times did that of the Chinese. It is remarkable
also that this pre-Semitic Accadian people must have had extensive
intercourse with foreign regions, for the diorite of which the
statues of Sirgalla are formed is exactly similar to that of the
statue of the Egyptian Chephren, and in both cases is only found in
the peninsula of Sinai. In fact, an inscription on one of the statues
tells us that the stone was brought from the land of Magan, which was
the Accadian name for that peninsula. This implies a trade by sea,
between Eridhu, the sea-port of Chaldæa in early times, and the Red
Sea, as such blocks of diorite could hardly have been transported
such a distance over such mountains and deserts by land; and this is
confirmed by references in old geographical tablets to Magan as the
land of bronze from the copper mines of Wady-Maghera, and to "ships
of Magan" trading from Eridhu.
In any case, it is certain that a very long period of purely Accadian
civilization must have existed prior to the introduction of Semitic
influences, and long before the foundation of a Semitic dynasty by
Sargon I. With these facts it will no longer seem surprising that
some high authorities assign as early a date as 6000 B.C. for the
dawn of Chaldæan civilization, and consider that it may be quite as
old or even older than that of Egypt.
The great antiquity assigned to these dates from books and monuments
is confirmed by other deductions. The city of Eridhu, which was
generally considered to be the oldest in Chaldæa, and was the
sanctuary of the principal god, Eâ, appears to have been a sea-port
in those early days, situated where the Euphrates flowed into the
Persian Gulf. The ruins now stand far inland, and Sayce computes that
about 6000 years must have elapsed since the sea reached up to them.
Astronomy affords a still more definite confirmation. The earliest
records and traditions show that before the commencement of any
historic period the year had been divided into twelve months,
the course of the sun mapped out among the stars, and a zodiac
established of the twelve constellations, which has continued in
use to the present day. The year began with the vernal equinox, and
the first month was named after the "propitious Bull," whose figure
constantly appears on the monuments as opening the year. The sun,
therefore, was in Taurus at the vernal equinox when this calendar
was formed, which could only be after long centuries of astronomical
observation; but it has been in Aries since about 2500 B.C., and
first entered in Taurus about 4700 B.C.
Records of eclipses were also kept in the time of Sargon I., which
imply a long preceding period of accurate observation; and the
Ziggurat, or temple observatory, built up in successive stages above
the alluvial plain, which gave rise to the legend of the Tower of
Babel, is found in connection with the earliest temples. The diorite
statues also and engraved gems found at Sirgalla testify to a
thorough knowledge of the arts of metallurgy at this remote period,
and to a commercial intercourse with foreign countries from which the
copper and tin must have been derived for making bronze tools capable
of cutting such hard materials.
The existence of such a commercial intercourse in remote times is
confirmed by the example of Egypt, where bronze implements must have
been in use long before the date of Menes; and although copper might
have been obtained from Sinai or Cyprus, tin or bronze must have been
imported from distant foreign countries alike in Egypt and in Chaldæa.
Chaldæan chronology therefore leads to almost exactly the same
results as that of Egypt. In each case we have a standard or
measuring-rod of authentic historical record, of certainly not less
than 6000, and more probably 7000 years from the present time; and
in each case we find ourselves at this remote date, in presence, not
of rude beginnings, but of a civilization already ancient and far
advanced. We have populous cities, celebrated temples, an organized
priesthood, an advanced state of agriculture and of the industrial
and fine arts; writing and books so long known that their origin is
lost in myth; religions in which advanced philosophical and moral
ideas are already developed; astronomical systems which imply a long
course of accurate observations. How long this prehistoric age may
have lasted, and how many centuries it may have taken to develop
such a civilization, from the primitive beginnings of neolithic and
palæolithic origins, is a matter of conjecture. Bunsen thinks it may
have taken 10,000 years, but there are no dates from which we can
infer the time that may be required for civilization to grow up by
spontaneous evolution, among nations where it is not aided by contact
with more advanced civilizations from without. All we can infer is,
that it must have required an immense time, probably much longer than
that embraced by the subsequent period of historical record. And
we can say with certainty that during the whole of this historical
period of 6000 or 7000 years there has been no change in the
established order of Nature. The earth has revolved round its axis
and round the sun, the moon and planets have pursued their courses,
the duration of human life has not varied, and there have been no
destructions and renovations of life or other traces of miraculous
interference. And more than this, we can affirm with absolute
certainty that 6000 years have not been enough to alter in any
perceptible degree the existing physical types of the different races
of men and animals, or the primary linguistic types of their forms of
speech. The Negro, the Turanian, the Semite, and the Aryan, all stand
out as clearly distinguished in the paintings on Egyptian monuments
as they do at the present day; and the agglutinative languages are as
distinct from the inflectional, and the Semite from the Aryan forms
of inflections, in the old Chaldæan cylinders as they are in the
nineteenth century.