Babylonia was a land of bricks. Stone was not found nearer than the
mountains of Elam on the one side or the desert plains of Northern Arabia
on the other. Clay, on the contrary, was plentiful, and the art of making
bricks and building a house by means of them must have been invented by
the first settlers in the country. The bricks were dried in the sun, the
heat of which was sufficient to harden them. The clay was further bound
together by being mixed with chopped reeds, though the use of the latter
was not universal, at all events in the earlier times. In the later days
of Babylonian history, however, they were generally employed, and we learn
from the contracts that a bed of reeds grown for the sake of the
brick-makers’ trade was by no means an unprofitable investment. Either
clay or bitumen took the place of mortar; the bitumen was procured from
Hit or from the Kurdish hills, where there are still springs of naphtha;
after the conquest of Canaan it may have been brought from the
neighborhood of the Dead Sea. Some scholars have thought that this is
referred to by Gudea, the priest-king of Lagas (2700 B.C.).
The employment of brick had a very direct effect upon the character of
Babylonian architecture. Thick walls, supported by buttresses and devoid
of sculpture, were necessitated by it. The buildings of Babylonia were
externally plain and flat; masses of brick were piled up in the form of
towers or else built into long lines of wall of unbroken monotony. The
roofs were made of the stems of palm-trees, which rested on the stems of
other palm-trees, where the space between one brick wall and another was
too great to be safely spanned. The upright stems became columns, which
were imitated first in brick and then in stone. Babylonia was thus the
birthplace of columnar architecture, and in the course of centuries
columns of almost every conceivable shape and kind came to be invented.
Sometimes they were made to stand on the backs of animals, sometimes the
animal formed the capital. The column which rested against the wall passed
into a brick pilaster, and this again assumed various forms.
The monotony of the wall itself was disguised in different ways. The
pilaster served to break it, and the walls of the early Chaldean temples
are accordingly often broken up into a series of recessed panels, the
sides of which are formed by square pilasters. Clay cones were also
inserted in the wall and brilliantly colored, the colors being arranged in
patterns. But the most common form of decoration was where the wall was
covered with painted stucco. This, indeed, was the ordinary mode of
ornamenting the internal walls of a building; a sort of dado ran round the
lower part of them painted with the figures of men and animals, while the
upper part was left in plain colors or decorated only with rosettes and
similar designs. Ezekiel(6) refers to the figures of the Chaldeans
portrayed in vermilion on the walls of their palaces, and the composite
creatures of Babylonian mythology who were believed to represent the first
imperfect attempts at creation were depicted on the walls of the temple of
Bel.
Among the tablets which have been found at Tello are plans of the houses
of the age of Sargon of Akkad. The plans are for the most part drawn to
scale, and the length and breadth of the rooms and courts contained in
them are given. The rooms opened one into the other, and along one side of
a house there usually ran a passage. One of the houses, for example, of
which we have a plan, contained five rooms on the ground floor, two of
which were the length of the house. The dimensions of the second of these
is described as being 8 cubits in breadth and 1 _gardu_ in length. The
_gardu_ was probably equivalent to 18 cubits or about 30 feet. In another
case the plan is that of the house of the high priest of Lagas, and at the
back of it the number of slaves living in it is stated as well as the
number of workmen employed to build it. It was built, we are told, in the
year when Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, made the pavement of the temples
of Bel at Nippur and of Istar at Nin-unu.
The temple and house were alike erected on a platform of brick or earth.
This was rendered necessary by the marshy soil of Babylonia and the
inundations to which it was exposed. The houses, indeed, generally found
the platform already prepared for them by the ruins of the buildings which
had previously stood on the same spot. Sun-dried brick quickly
disintegrates, and a deserted house soon became a mound of dirt. In this
way the villages and towns of Babylonia gradually rose in height, forming
a _tel_ or mound on which the houses of a later age could be erected.
In contrast to Babylonia the younger kingdom of Assyria was a land of
stone. But the culture of Assyria was derived from Babylonia, and the
architectural fashions of Babylonia were accordingly followed even when
stone took the place of brick. The platform, which was as necessary in
Babylonia as it was unnecessary in Assyria, was nevertheless servilely
copied, and palaces and temples were piled upon it like those of the
Babylonians. The ornamentation of the Babylonian walls was imitated in
stone, the rooms being adorned with a sculptured dado, the bas-reliefs of
which were painted in bright colors. Even the fantastic shapes of the
Babylonian columns were reproduced in stone. Brick, too, was largely used;
in fact, the stone served for the most part merely as a facing, to
ornament rather than strengthen the walls.
The Babylonian princes had themselves set the example of employing stone
for the sake of decoration. Stone was fetched for the purpose from the
most distant regions, regardless of cost. Gudea, the priest-king of Lagas,
imported limestone from the Lebanon and from Samalum, near the Gulf of
Antioch, while the statues which adorned his palace, and are now in the
Louvre, are carved out of diorite from the Peninsula of Sinai. The diorite
doubtless came by sea, but the blocks of hewn stone that were brought from
“the land of the Amorites” must have been conveyed overland.
Even more precious materials than stone were used for decorative purposes.
Gold and silver, bronze and ivory, lapis-lazuli and colored glass,
ornamented the cornices and other parts of the interior of the palace.
Gudea tells us that he had sent to the deserts which bordered on Egypt for
gold-dust and acacia-wood, to Arabia for copper, and to Mount Amanus for
beams of cedar. The elephant was still hunted on the banks of the
Euphrates near the city of Carchemish, and lapis-lazuli was furnished by
the mountains of Persia.
A garden was planted by the side of the house. The Babylonians were an
agricultural people, and even the cities were full of the gardens attached
to the houses of all who could afford to have them. Originally the garden
was little more than a grove of palms. But herbs and vegetables soon began
to be grown in it, and as habits of luxury increased, exotic trees and
shrubs were transplanted to it and flowers were cultivated for the sake of
their scent. Tiglath-pileser I. of Assyria tells us how he had “taken and
planted in the gardens of his country cedars” and other trees “from the
lands he had conquered, which none of the kings his predecessors had ever
planted before,” and how he had “brought rare vines which did not exist in
Assyria and had cultivated them in the land of Assyria.” At a later date
Sennacherib laid out a pleasure-garden or “paradise” by the side of the
palace he erected, filling it with cypresses and other trees as well as
fragrant plants, and digging a lake in the midst of it by means of which
it could be watered. One of the bas-reliefs in the palace of
Assur-bani-pal represents the King and Queen dining in the royal garden
under the shadow of its palms, while an attendant drives away the insects
with a fan. The Assyrians did but imitate their Babylonian neighbors, and
in the gardens of Nineveh we must see many copies of the gardens that had
been laid out in Babylonia long ages before. The very word “paradise,”
which in the Persian age came to signify a pleasure-park, was of
Babylonian origin. It is given in the exercise-book of a Babylonian
school-boy as the name of a mythical locality, and an etymological pun
attempts to derive it from the name of the god Esu.
It was, of course, only the houses of the rich and noble which were
artistically furnished or provided with a garden. The poorer classes lived
in mud huts of conical form, which seldom contained more than one or two
rooms. Air and light were admitted through the door or through small
apertures in the walls. In the better class of houses, on the other hand,
the windows were of large size, and were placed near the ceiling. The air
was excluded by means of curtains which were drawn across them when the
weather was cold or when it was necessary to keep out the sunlight. The
houses, moreover, consisted of more than one story, the upper stories
being approached by a flight of steps which were open to the air. They
were usually built against one of the sides of a central court, around
which the rooms were ranged, the rooms on the upper floors communicating
with one another by means of a covered corridor, or else by doors leading
from one chamber to the other. The apartments of the women were separate
from those of the men, and the servants slept either on the ground-floor
or in an outbuilding of their own.
The furniture, even of the palaces, was scanty from a modern point of
view. The floor was covered with rugs, for the manufacture of which
Babylonia was famous, and chairs, couches, and tables were placed here and
there. The furniture was artistic in form; a seal-cylinder, of the age of
Ur-Bau, King of Ur, the older contemporary of Gudea, represents a chair,
the feet of which have been carved into the likeness of those of oxen. If
we may judge from Egyptian analogies the material of which they were
formed would have been ivory. The Assyrian furniture of later days
doubtless followed older Babylonian models, and we can gain from it some
idea of what they must have been like. The chairs were of various kinds.
Some had backs and arms, some were mere stools. The seats of many were so
high that a footstool was required by those who used them. The employment
of the footstool must go back to a considerable antiquity, since we find
some of the Tel-el-Amarna correspondents in the fourteenth century before
our era comparing themselves to the footstool of the King. Chairs and
stools alike were furnished with cushions which were covered with
embroidered tapestries. So also were the couches and bedsteads used by the
wealthier classes. The poor contented themselves with a single mattress
laid upon the floor, and since everyone slept in the clothes he had worn
during the day, rising in the morning was not a difficult task.
The tables had four legs, and the wood of which they were composed was
often inlaid with ivory. Wood inlaid with ivory and other precious
materials was also employed for the chairs and sofas. Tripods of bronze,
moreover, stood in different parts of the room, and vases of water or wine
were placed upon them. Fragments of some of them have been found in the
ruins of Nineveh, and they are represented in early Babylonian seals. The
feet of the tripod were artistically shaped to resemble the feet of oxen,
the clinched human hand, or some similar design. At meals the tripod stood
beside the table on which the dishes were laid. Those who eat sat on
chairs in the earlier period, but in later times the fashion grew up, for
the men at any rate, to recline on a couch. Assur-bani-pal, for example,
is thus represented, while the Queen sits beside him on a lofty chair.
Perhaps the difference in manners is an illustration of the greater
conservatism of women who adhere to customs which have been discarded by
the men.
Vases of stone and earthenware, of bronze, gold, and silver, were
plentifully in use. A vase of silver mounted on a bronze pedestal with
four feet, which was dedicated to his god by one of the high-priests of
Lagas, has been found at Tello, and stone bowls, inscribed with the name
of Gudea, and closely resembling similar bowls from the early Egyptian
tombs, have also been disinterred there. A vase of Egyptian alabaster,
discovered by the French excavators in Babylonia, but subsequently lost in
the Tigris, bore upon it an inscription stating it to have been part of
the spoil obtained by Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon of Akkad, from his
conquest of the Sinaitic peninsula. In Assyrian days the vases were
frequently of porcelain or glass; when these were first introduced is
still unknown. Various articles of furniture are mentioned in the later
contracts. Under Nabonidos, 7 shekels, or 21 shillings, were given for a
copper kettle and cup, the kettle weighing 16 manehs (or 42 pounds troy)
and the cup 2 manehs (5 pounds 7 ounces troy). These were left, it may be
noted, in the safe-keeping of a slave, and were bought by a lady. At a
later date, in the third year of Cambyses, as much as 4 manehs 9 shekels,
or £36 7s., were paid for a large copper jug and _qulla_, which was
probably of the same form as the _qullas_ of modern Egypt. The female
slave who seems to have started an inn in the sixth year of Cambyses
provided herself with five bedsteads, ten chairs, three dishes, one
wardrobe (?), three shears, one iron shovel, one syphon, one
wine-decanter, one chain (?), one brazier, and other objects which cannot
as yet be identified. The brazier was probably a Babylonian invention. At
all events we find it used in Judah after contact with Assyria had
introduced the habits of the farther East among the Jews (Jer. xxxvi. 22),
like the gnomon or sun-dial of Ahaz (Is. xxxviii. 8), which was also of
Babylonian origin (Herod., ii., 109). The gnomon seems to have consisted
of a column, the shadow of which was thrown on a flight of twelve steps
representing the twelve double hours into which the diurnal revolutions of
the earth were divided and which thus indicated the time of day.
What the chairs, tables, footstools, and couches were like may be seen
from the Assyrian bas-reliefs. They were highly artistic in design and
character, and were of various shapes. The tables or stands sometimes had
the form of camp-stools, sometimes were three-legged, but more usually
they were furnished with four legs, which occasionally were placed on a
sort of platform or stand. At times they were provided with shelves.
Special stands with shelves were also made for holding vases, though large
jars were often made to stand on tripods.
If we may judge from the old lists of clothing that have come down to us,
the Babylonians must have been fond of variety in dress. The names of an
immense number of different kinds of dress are given, and the monuments
show that fashions changed from time to time. Thus the earliest remains of
Chaldean art exhibit three successive changes in the head-dress, and
similar changes are to be noticed in the dress of the Assyrian kings as it
is represented in the bas-reliefs.
To the last, however, the principal constituents of Babylonian dress
remained the same. There were a hat or head-dress, a tunic or shirt, and a
long robe which reached to the ankles, to which in cold weather was added
a cloak. The hat or cap was made of some thick substance like felt and was
sometimes quilted. The Babylonian King Merodach-nadin-akhi (1100 B.C.) is
represented in a square cap which is ornamented with a row of feathers;
below these is a band of rosettes. The Assyrian King generally wore a
lofty tiara; this was a survival of the tiara of the early Babylonians.
Above his head was carried a parasol to protect him from the sun; but the
use of the parasol was confined to the upper classes, if not to the royal
family alone.
The tunic was of linen, or more often of wool, which was manufactured in
Babylonia on a large scale. It reached half-way down the knees and was
fastened round the waist by a girdle. Under it a second tunic or vest was
sometimes worn in cold weather. Drawers were seldom used, though in the
time of the second Assyrian empire the cavalry and heavy-armed bowmen wore
tightly fitting drawers of plaited leather, but the custom was probably
introduced from the north. A bilingual vocabulary, however, gives a
Sumerian word for this article of dress, which may therefore have been
occasionally adopted in pre-Semitic days.
The long robe was usually sleeveless and ornamented with a fringe. It
opened in front, and in walking allowed the left leg to be seen. The
girdle was often tied around it instead of round the tunic. The Assyrian
King is sometimes represented as wearing a sort of richly embroidered cape
over the robe. The cape or cloak, however, was specially characteristic of
the Babylonians, as the Assyrians found it inconvenient in war or active
exercise, and accordingly preferred to discard it. Most of them wore it
only on state occasions or when in full dress.
The feet were shod with sandals, though the Babylonians, as a rule, went
barefoot. So also did the lower classes among the Assyrians, as well as a
portion of the army. The sandals were attached to the foot by leather
thongs, and the heel was protected by a cap. The boot, however, was
introduced from the colder regions of the north before the twelfth century
B.C. At all events, Merodach-nadin-akhi is depicted as wearing soft
leather shoes, and Sennacherib adopted a similar foot-covering. This was
laced in front like the high-laced boots with which the Assyrian cavalry
were provided toward the end of the reign of Tiglath-pileser III.
The priest was distinguished by a curiously flounced dress, made perhaps
of a species of muslin, which descended to the feet, and is often pictured
on the early seals. Over his shoulders was flung a goat’s skin, the symbol
of his office, like the leopard’s skin worn by the priests in Egypt.
In the early Babylonian period the dress of all classes was naturally much
more simple than that of a later date. The poor were contented with a
short kilt, the King and his family with a long one. One of the early
rulers of Lagas, for instance, is represented as wearing only a skull-cap
and a kilt which reaches nearly to the ankles. It was under the Semitic
empire of Sargon of Akkad that the long robe seems first to have become
common. But it was worn over the left shoulder only, and as the tunic was
not yet introduced into ordinary use, the right shoulder was left bare.
Even Naram-Sin, the conqueror of Sinai, is depicted as clad in this simple
costume in a bas-relief found near Diarbekr. The robe is quilted, and on
the King’s head is a conical cap of felt. The statues of the age of Gudea
also show no sign of the tunic. The development out of the kilt must
belong to a later age.
The costume of the women does not appear to have differed much from that
of the men. Both alike adopted the long robe. But representations of women
are unfortunately rare. The Queen of Assur-bani-pal is dressed in a long,
sleeveless robe, over which is a fringed frock reaching to the knees, and
over this again a light cape, also fringed and embroidered with rosettes.
This may, therefore, be regarded as the official dress of a grand lady in
the closing days of the Assyrian empire.
Both men and women were fond of jewelry, and adorned themselves with
rings, bracelets, ear-rings, and necklaces. The women also wore anklets,
like many of the Oriental women of to-day. The men carried a stick in the
street, and all who could afford it had a small engraved cylinder of stone
attached to the wrist by a ring which passed through an orifice in the
cylinder. The cylinder served the purpose of a seal, and was constantly
required in business transactions. No deed was valid without the seal or
mark of the contracting parties; when either of them was too poor to
possess a seal, a nail-mark was impressed upon the clay of the contract
tablet, and a note added stating to whom it was that the mark belonged.
The seal-cylinder was a Babylonian invention. In a land where there were
no stones every pebble was of value, and the Babylonians accordingly
became expert gem-cutters at a very early period. Gem-cutting, in fact,
was a highly developed art among them, and the seal-cylinder of
Ibni-sarru, the librarian of Sargon of Akkad, which is now in a private
collection in Paris, is one of the most beautiful specimens of the art
that has ever been produced. The pebble was cut in a cylindrical shape,
and various figures were engraved upon it. The favorite design was that of
a god or goddess to whom the owner of the seal is being introduced by a
priest; sometimes the King takes the place of the deity, at other times it
is the adventures of Gilgames, the hero of the great Chaldean Epic, that
are represented upon the stone. The design is usually accompanied by a few
lines of inscription, giving the name of the owner of the seal, as well as
that of his father, and stating of what god or King he was “the servant.”
The seals were often kept in stock by their makers, a blank space being
left for the inscription, which was to be engraved upon them as soon as
they had found a purchaser. Hence it is that at times the names have never
been filled in.
The style and pattern of the cylinder changed in the course of centuries,
as well as the favorite materials of which it was made. Under the dynasty
of Ur, which preceded that of Khammurabi, for instance, hæmatite was more
especially in vogue; in the age of Nebuchadnezzar crystal became
fashionable. At one period, moreover, or among the artists of a particular
local school, the representation of a human sacrifice was common. Between
the inscription on the cylinder, however, and the subjects engraved upon
it there is seldom, if ever, any connection, except when a portrait is
given of the god or King of whom the owner calls himself the servant.
A hole was drilled through the length of the cylinder, and through this a
string was passed. Instead of the string a rod of metal or ivory was often
employed; this was fixed in a frame of gold or bronze, and the cylinder
was thus able to turn upon it. When the seal was used it was rolled over
the soft clay, leaving an indelible impression behind. Among the objects
found at Tello are balls of clay, which were attached to papyrus
documents, like the seals of mediæval deeds, and sealed with the cylinders
of the post-masters of Sargon and Naram-Sin. Above the seal comes the
address, in one case to Naram-Sin, in another to the high-priest of Lagas.
It is evident that a postal system had already been established between
Lagas and Agade or Akkad, the capital of Sargon’s empire. The impressions
show that the seals must have been very beautiful specimens of
workmanship. They all belonged to high officials; one to Dada, “the seer
of the palace,” another to the high-priest of Lagas himself.
Great attention was paid to the hair of the head and beard. But this was
more especially the case among the Semites, who were a bearded race. The
older Sumerian population had but little hair upon the face, and to the
last the typical Babylonian was distinguished from the Assyrian by the
greater absence of beard. The result was that while the Semite encouraged
his hair to grow, the Sumerian shaved it except in the case of old men.
Most of the Sumerian heads which have been discovered in the excavations
of Tello have smooth faces and shorn heads. The figures represented on the
so-called Stela of the Vultures, one of the earliest examples of Chaldean
art, are without beards, and on the early seal-cylinders the gods alone,
as a rule, are permitted to wear them. We are reminded of the Egyptian
custom which forbade the beard except to the King and the god. The barber,
in fact, occupied an important position in ancient Babylonia, and the old
Sumerian code of laws enjoins that a son who denies his father shall be
shorn and sold as a slave.
With the rise of Semitic supremacy, however, there is a great change.
Naram-Sin, in the bas-relief of Diarbekr, wears beard and whiskers and
mustache like the Assyrians of a later day, and like them also his hair is
artificially curled, though to a lesser extent. The same long beard also
distinguishes Khammurabi in a piece of sculpture in which he is entitled
“the king of the land of the Amorites.” The gods, too, now assume a
mustache as well as a beard and take upon them a Semitic character.
The use of cosmetics must have become widely spread, and many of the small
stone vases in which they were kept and which have been found on the sites
of Babylonian cities were doubtless intended for the hair-dresser. The oil
that was poured upon the hair made it bright and shining and it was worn
long whether it grew on the head or on the face. The Babylonians had long
been known as “the people of the black heads,” perhaps in contrast to the
fairer inhabitants of the Kurdish mountains to the north, and the black
hair, frizzled and curled, was now allowed to be visible. The working
classes bound it with a simple fillet; the wealthier members of society
protected it with caps and tiaras. But all alike were proud of it; the
days were past when a beardless race had held rule in Western Asia.