ART, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE.
Assyrian art was, speaking generally, imported from Babylonia. Even the
palace of the king was built of bricks, and raised upon a mound like the
palaces and temples of Babylonia, although stone was plentiful in
Assyria, and there was no marshy plain where inundations might be
feared. It was only the walls that were lined with sculptured slabs of
alabaster, the sculptures taking the place of the paintings in
vermilion, which adorned the houses of Babylonia (Ezek. xxiii. 14).
It is at Khorsabad, or Dur-Sargon, the city built by Sargon, to the
north of Nineveh, that we can best study the architectural genius of
Assyria. The city was laid out in the form of a square, and surrounded
by walls forty-six feet thick and over a mile in length each way, the
angles of which faced the four cardinal points. The outer wall was
flanked with eight tall towers, and was erected on a mound of rubble.
On the north-west side stood the royal palace, defended also by a wall
of its own, and built on a [T]-shaped platform. It was approached
through an outer court, the gates of which were hung under arches of
enamelled brick, and guarded by colossal figures in stone. From the
court an inclined plane led to the first terrace, occupied by a number
of small rooms, in which the French excavators saw the barracks of the
palace-guard. Above this terrace rose a second, at a height of about ten
feet, upon which was built the royal palace itself. This was entered
through a gateway, on either side of which stood the stone figure of a
'cherub,' while within it was a court 350 feet long and 170 feet wide.
Beyond this court was an inner one, which formed a square of 150 feet.
On its left were the royal chambers, consisting of a suite of ten rooms,
and beyond them again the private chapel of the monarch, leading to the
apartments in which he commonly lived. On the west side of the palace
rose a tower, built in stages, on the summit of which was the royal
observatory.
It is a question whether the Assyrian palace possessed any upper
stories. On the whole, probability speaks against it. Columns, however,
were used plentifully. The column, in fact, had been a Babylonian
invention, and originated in the necessity of supporting buildings on
wooden pillars in a country where there was no stone. From Babylonia
columnar architecture passed into Assyria, where it assumed exaggerated
forms, the column being sometimes made to rest on the backs of lions,
dogs, and winged bulls.
The apertures which served as windows were protected by heavy folds of
tapestry, that kept out the heats of summer and the cold winds of
winter. In warm weather, however, the inmates of the house preferred to
sit in the open air, either in the airy courts upon which its chambers
opened, or under the shady trees of the _paradeisos_ or park attached to
the dwellings of the rich. The leases of houses let or sold in Nineveh
in the time of the Second Assyrian Empire generally make mention of the
'shrubbery,' which formed part of the property.
Assyrian sculpture was for the most part in relief. The Assyrians carved
badly in the round, unlike the Babylonians, some of whose sitting
statues are not wanting in an air of dignity and repose. But they
excelled in that kind of shallow relief of which so many examples have
been brought to the British Museum. We can trace three distinct periods
in the history of this form of art. The first period is that which
begins, so far as we know at present, with the age of Assur-natsir-pal.
It is characterised by boldness and vigour, by an absence of background
or landscape, and by an almost total want of perspective. With very few
exceptions, faces and figures are drawn in profile. But with all this
want of skill, the work is often striking from the spirit with which it
is executed, and the naturalness with which animals, more especially,
are depicted. A bas-relief representing a lion-hunt of Assur-natsir-pal
has been often selected as a typical, though favourable, illustration of
the art of this age.
The second period extends from the foundation of the Second Assyrian
Empire to the reign of Esar-haddon. The artist has lost in vigour, but
has compensated for it by care and accuracy. The foreground is now
filled in with vegetable and other forms, all drawn with a
pre-Raffaellite exactitude. The relief consequently becomes exceedingly
rich, and produces the effect of embroidery in stone. It is probable
that the delicate minuteness of this period of art was in great measure
due to the work in ivory that had now become fashionable at Nineveh.
The third, and best period, is that of the reign of Assur-bani-pal.
There is a return to the freedom of the first period, but without its
accompanying rudeness and want of skill. The landscape is either left
bare, or indicated in outline only, the attention of the spectator being
thus directed to the principal sculpture itself. The delineation of the
human figure has much improved; vegetable forms have lost much of their
stiffness, and we meet with several examples of successful
foreshortening. Up to the last, however, the Assyrian artist succeeded
but badly in human portraiture. Nothing can surpass some of his pictures
of animals; when he came to deal with the human figure he expended his
strength on embroidered robes and the muscles of the legs and arms. The
reason of this is not difficult to discover. Unlike the Egyptian, who
excelled in the delineation of the human form, he did not draw from nude
models. The details of the drapery were with him of more importance than
the features of the face or the posture of the limbs. We cannot expect
to find portraits in the sculptures of Assyria. Little, if any, attempt
is made even to distinguish the natives of different foreign countries
from one another, except in the way of dress. All alike have the same
features as the Assyrians themselves.
The effect of the bas-reliefs was enhanced by the red, black, blue, and
white colours with which they were picked out. The practice had come
from Babylonia, but whereas the Babylonians delighted in brilliant
colouring, their northern neighbours contented themselves with much more
sober hues. It was no doubt from the populations of Mesopotamia that the
Greeks first learnt to paint and tint their sculptured stone.
Unfortunately it is difficult, if not impossible, to find any trace of
colouring remaining in the Assyrian bas-reliefs now in Europe. When
first disinterred, however, the colours were still bright in many cases,
although exposure to the air soon caused them to fade and perish.
The bas-reliefs and colossi were moved from the quarries out of which
they had been dug, or the workshops in which they had been carved, by
the help of sledges and rollers. Hundreds of captives were employed to
drag the huge mass along; sometimes it was transported by water, the
boat on which it lay being pulled by men on shore; sometimes it was
drawn over the land by gangs of slaves, urged to their work by the rod
and sword of their task-masters. On the colossus itself stood an
overseer holding to his mouth what looks on the monument like a modern
speaking-trumpet. Over a sculpture representing the transport of one of
these colossi Sennacherib has engraved the words: 'Sennacherib, king
of legions, king of Assyria, has caused the winged bull and the colossi,
the divinities which were made in the land of the city of the Baladians,
to be brought with joy to the palace of his lordship, which is within
Nineveh.' We may infer from this epigraph that the images themselves
were believed to be in some way the abode of divinity, like the Beth-els
or sacred stones to which reference has been made in the last chapter.
[Illustration: Fragment now in the British Museum showing primitive
Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform Characters side by side.]
Like Assyrian art, Assyrian literature was for the most part derived
from Babylonia. A large portion of it was translated from Accadian
originals. Sometimes the original was lost or forgotten; more frequently
it was re-edited from time to time with interlinear or parallel
translations in Assyro-Babylonian. This was more especially the case
with the sacred texts, in which the old language of Accad was itself
accounted sacred, like Latin in the services of the Roman Catholic
Church, or Coptic in those of the modern Egyptian Church.
The Accadians had been the inventors of the hieroglyphics or pictorial
characters out of which the cuneiform characters had afterwards grown.
Writing begins with pictures, and the writing of the Babylonians formed
no exception to the rule. The pictures were at first painted on the
papyrus leaves which grew in the marshes of the Euphrates, but as time
went on a new and more plentiful writing material came to be employed in
the shape of clay. Clay was literally to be found under the feet of
every one. All that was needed was to impress it, while still wet, with
the hieroglyphic pictures, and then dry it in the sun. It is probable
that the bricks used in the construction of the great buildings of
Chaldea were first treated in this way. At all events we find that up to
the last, the Babylonian kings stamped their names and titles in the
middle of such bricks, and hundreds of them may be met with in the
museums of Europe bearing the name of Nebuchadnezzar. When once the
discovery was made that clay could be employed as a writing material, it
was quickly turned to good account. All Babylonia began to write on
tablets of clay, and though papyrus continued to be used, it was
reserved for what we should now term 'éditions de luxe.' The writing
instrument had originally been the edge of a stone or a piece of stick,
but these were soon superseded by a metal stylus with a square head.
Under the combined influence of the clay tablet and the metal stylus,
the old picture-writing began to degenerate into the cuneiform or
'wedge-shaped' characters with which the monuments of Assyria have made
us familiar. It was difficult, if not impossible, any longer to draw
circles and curves, and accordingly angles took the place of circles,
and straight lines the place of curves. Continuous lines were equally
difficult to form; it was easier to represent them by a series of
indentations, each of which took a wedge-like appearance from the square
head of the stylus. As soon as the exact forms of the old pictures began
to be obliterated, other alterations became inevitable. The forms began
to be simplified by the omission of lines or wedges which were no
longer necessary, now that the character had become a mere symbol
instead of a picture; and this process of simplification went on from
one century to another, until in many instances the later form of a
character is hardly more than a shadow of what it originally was.
Education was widely spread in Babylonia; in spite of the cumbrousness
and intricacy of the system of writing, there were few, it would appear,
who could not read and write, and hence, as was natural, all kinds of
handwritings were prevalent, some good and some bad. Among these various
cursive or running hands were some which were selected for public
documents; but as the hands varied, not only among individuals, but also
from age to age, the official script never became fixed and permanent,
but changed constantly, each change, however, bringing with it increased
simplicity in the shapes of the characters, and a greater departure from
the primitive hieroglyphic form. The earliest contemporaneous monuments
with which we are at present acquainted, are those recently excavated by
the French Consul M. de Sarzec at a place called Tel-Loh; on these we
see the early pictures in the very act of passing into cuneiform
characters, the pictures being sometimes preserved and sometimes already
lost. A comparison of the forms found at Tel-Loh with those usually
employed in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, will show at a glance what
profound modifications were undergone by the cuneiform syllabary in the
course of its transmission from generation to generation.
In contrast to the Babylonians, the Assyrians were a nation of warriors
and huntsmen, not of students, and with them, therefore, a knowledge of
writing was confined to a particular class, that of the scribes. At an
early period, accordingly, in the history of the kingdom, a special form
of script was adopted not only in official documents, but in private
documents as well, and this script remained practically unchanged down
to the fall of Nineveh. This form of script was one of the many
simplified forms of handwriting that were used in Babylonia, and it was
fortunately a very clear and well-defined one. Now and then, it is true,
contact with Babylonia made an Assyrian king desirous of imitating the
archaic writing of Babylonia, and inscriptions were consequently
engraved in florid characters, abounding in a multiplicity of needless
wedges, and reminding us of our modern black-letter. Such ornamental
inscriptions are not numerous, and were carved only on stone. The clay
literature was all written in the ordinary Assyrian characters, except
when the scribe was unable to recognise a character in a Babylonian text
he was copying, and so reproduced it exactly in his copy.
The clay tablets used by the Assyrians were an improvement on those of
Babylonia. Instead of being merely dried in the sun, they were
thoroughly baked in a kiln, holes being drilled through them here and
there to allow the steam to escape. As a rule, therefore, the tablets of
Assyria are smaller than those of Babylonia, since there was always a
danger of a large tablet being broken in the fire. In consequence of
the small size of the tablets, and the amount of text with which it was
often necessary to cover them, the characters impressed upon them are
frequently minute, so minute, indeed, as to suggest that they must have
been written with the help of a magnifying glass. This supposition is
confirmed by the existence of a magnifying lens of crystal discovered by
Sir A. H. Layard on the site of the library of Nineveh, and now in the
British Museum.
[Illustration: AN ASSYRIAN BOOK.
(_From the original in the British Museum._)]
A literary people like the Babylonians needed libraries, and libraries
were accordingly established at a very early period in all the great
cities of the country, and plentifully stocked with books in papyrus and
clay. In imitation of these Babylonian libraries, libraries were also
founded in Assyria by the Assyrian kings. There was a library at Assur,
and another at Calah which seems to have been as old as the city itself.
But the chief library of Assyria that, in fact, from which most of the
Assyrian literature we possess has come, was the great library of
Nineveh (Kouyunjik). This owed its magnitude and reputation to
Assur-bani-pal, who filled it with copies of the plundered books of
Babylonia. A whole army of scribes was employed in it, busily engaged in
writing and editing old texts. Assur-bani-pal is never weary of telling
us, in the colophon at the end of the last tablet of a series which made
up a single work, that 'Nebo and Tasmit had given him broad ears and
enlightened his eyes so as to see the engraved characters of the written
tablets, whereof none of the kings that had gone before had seen this
text, the wisdom of Nebo, all the literature of the library that
exists,' so that he had 'written, engraved, and explained it on tablets,
and placed it within his palace for the inspection of readers.'
A good deal of the literature was of a lexical and grammatical kind, and
was intended to assist the Semitic student in interpreting the old
Accadian texts. Lists of characters were drawn up with their
pronunciation in Accadian and the translation into Assyrian of the words
represented by them. Since the Accadian pronunciation of a character was
frequently the phonetic value attached to it by the Assyrians, these
syllabaries, as they have been termed—in consequence of the fact that
the cuneiform characters denoted syllables and not letters—have been of
the greatest possible assistance in the decipherment of the
inscriptions. Besides the syllabaries, the Semitic scribes compiled
tables of Accadian words and grammatical forms with their
Assyro-Babylonian equivalents, as well as lists of the names of animals,
birds, reptiles, fish, stones, vegetables, medicines, and the like in
the two languages. There are even geographical and astronomical lists,
besides long lists of Assyrian synonyms and the titles of military and
civil officers.
Other tablets contain phrases and sentences extracted from some
particular Accadian work and explained in Assyrian, while others again
are exercises or reading-books intended for boys at school, who were
learning the old dead language of Chaldea. In addition to these helps
whole texts were provided with Assyrian translations, sometimes
interlinear, sometimes placed in a parallel column on the right-hand
side; so that it is not wonderful that the Assyrians now and then
attempted to write in the extinct Accadian, just as we write nowadays in
Latin, though in both cases, it must be confessed, not always with
success.
Accadian, however, was not the only language besides his own that the
Semitic Babylonian or Assyrian was required to know. Aramaic had become
the common language of trade and diplomacy, so that not only was it
assumed by the ministers of Hezekiah that an official like the
Rab-shakeh or Vizier of Sennacherib could speak it as a matter of course
(2 Kings xviii. 26), but even in trading documents we find the Aramaic
language and alphabet used side by side with the Assyrian cuneiform.
This common use of Aramaic explains how it was that the Jews after the
Babylonish captivity gave up their own language in favour not of the
Assyro-Babylonian, but of the Aramaic of Northern Syria and Arabia. An
educated Assyrian was thus expected to be able to read and write a dead
language, Accadian, and to read, write, and speak a foreign living
language, Aramaic. In addition to these languages, moreover, he took an
interest in others which were spoken by his neighbours around him. The
Rab-shakeh of Sennacherib was able to speak Hebrew, and tablets have
been discovered giving the Assyrian renderings of lists of words from
the barbarous dialects of the Kossæans in the mountains of Elam and of
the Semitic nomads on the western side of the Euphrates.
All the branches of knowledge known at the time were treated of in
Assyrian literature, though naturally history, legend, and poetry
occupied a prominent place in it. But even such subjects as the
despatches of generals in the field, or the copies of royal
correspondence found a place in the public library. The chronology of
Assyria, and therewith of the Old Testament also, has been restored by
means of the lists of successive 'eponyms' or officers after whom the
years were named, while a recent discovery has brought to light a table
of Semitic Babylonian kings, arranged in dynasties, which traces them
back to B.C. 2330.
[Illustration: Part of an Assyrian Cylinder containing Hezekiah's Name.
(_From the original in the British Museum._)]
The following is the transcription into the ordinary Assyrian Characters
of the last thirteen lines of the photograph on page 104.
[Illustration]
By way of comparison, a specimen of Babylonian writing is also given
here.
[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF BABYLONIAN WRITING FROM AN INSCRIPTION OF
NEBUCHADNEZZAR.]
The following is the transliteration and translation of the
transcription on page 105.
29. a-na D.P.[6] Kha-za-ki-ya-hu
_to Hezekiah._
[6] D.P. stands for 'Determinative Prefix.' There are thirty
determinatives in Assyrian.
The D.P. [Illustration: Symbol 1], the sign meaning 'heaven,' or
anything in heaven, is put before the name of a god.
The D.P. [Illustration: Symbol 2], the sign meaning 'country,'
is put before the name of a country.
The D.P. [Illustration: Symbol 3], the sign meaning 'city,' is
put before the name of a city, and so on.
30. D.P. Ya-hu-da-â id-di-nu-su nak-ris a-na zil-li e-śir-su
_of the Jews they gave him as an enemy In a dungeon he shut him up._
31. ip-lukh lab-ba-su-un sarrani mat Mu-tsu-ri
_Their heart feared. The kings of the country of Egypt,_
32. D.P. tsabi D.P. mitpani D.P. narkabaté
_the men of bows and chariots,_
D.P. sisē sa sar D.P. Me-lukh-khi
_the horses of the king of Meluḥḥi_,
33. e-mu-ḳi la ni-bi ik-te-ru-nim-ma il-li-ku
_a force without number they brought together and they marched to_
34. ri-tsu-uś-śu-un. i-na ta-mir-ti D.P. Al-ta-ḳu-u
_their aid. In the sight of the city Altaku_
35. el-la-mu-u-a śi-id-ru rit-ku-nu u-sa-a'-lu
_before me the order of battle they had placed, they appealed to_
36. D.P. kakk-su-un i-na tukulti D.P. Assur beli-ya it-ti-su-un
_their weapons. By the support of Assur my lord with them_
37. am-da-khi-its-ma as-ta-kan hapikta-su-un
_I fought and I accomplished their overthrow;_
38. D.P. beli-narkabate u abli sarrani D.P. Mu-tsu-ra-â
_the charioteers and the sons of the kings of the Egyptians_
39. a-di D.P. beli-narkabate sa sar D.P. Me-lukh-khi
_together with the charioteers of the king of Meluḥḥi_
bal-ḍu-śu-un
_alive_
40. i-na ḳabal tam-kha-ri ik-su-da ḳatā D.P. Al-ta-ḳu-u
_in the midst of battle my two hands captured. The city Altaku_
41. D.P. Ta-am-na-a al-me aks-ud as-lu-la
_and the city Tāmnā I besieged I captured I carried away
sal-la-śun
_their spoil._
A flood of light has been poured on Chaldean astronomy and astrology, by
the fragments of the original work called 'The Observations of Bel'
which was translated into Greek by the Babylonian priest Bêrôssos. It
consisted of seventy-two books, and was compiled for king Sargon of
Accad, whose date is assigned by Nabonidos to B.C. 3800. Another work on
omens, in 137 books, had been compiled for the same king, and both
remained to the last days of the Assyrian Empire the standard treatises
on the subjects with which they dealt. To the same period we should
probably refer a treatise on agriculture, extracts from which have been
preserved in a reading-book in Accadian and Assyrian. Here the songs are
quoted with which the Accadian ox-drivers beguiled their labours
in the field: 'An heifer am I: to the cow thou art yoked: the
plough's handle is strong: lift it up lift it up;' or again: 'The knees
are marching, the feet are not resting; with no wealth of thy own grain
thou begettest for me.' Some of the most curious specimens of this
department of literature are the fables, riddles, and proverbs, which
embody the homely wisdom of the unofficial classes.
Here, for instance, is a riddle propounded to Nergal and the other gods
by 'the wise man,' such as Orientals still delight in:
'What is (found) in the house; what is (concealed) in the secret place;
what is (fixed) in the foundation of the house; what exists on the floor
of the house; what is (perceived) in the lower part (of the house); what
goes down by the sides of the house; what in the ditch of the house
(makes) broad furrows; what roars like a bull; what brays like an ass;
what flutters like a sail; what bleats like a sheep; what barks like a
dog; what growls like a bear; what enters into a man; what enters into a
woman?' The answer is, of course, the air or wind.
Among the most treasured portions of the library of Nineveh was the
poetical literature, comprising epics, hymns to the gods, psalms and
songs. Fifteen of these songs, we are told, were arranged on the eastern
and northern sides of the building, 'on the western side being nine
songs to Assur, Bel the voice of the firmament, the Southern Sun,' and
another god. The mention of songs to Assur shows that there were some
which were of Assyrian origin. The epics, however, all came from
Babylonia, and were partly translations from Accadian, partly
independent compositions of Semitic Babylonian poets. The names of the
reputed authors of many of them have come down to us. Thus the great
epic of Gisdhubar was ascribed to Sin-liki-unnini; the legend of Etána
to Nis-Sin; the fable of the fox to Ru-Merodach the son of
Nitakh-Dununa.
The epic of Gisdhubar, as has already been stated, contained the account
of the Deluge, introduced as an episode into the eleventh book. It
consisted in all of twelve books, and was arranged upon an astronomical
principle, the subject-matter of each of the books being made to
correspond with one of the signs of Zodiac. Thus the fifth book records
the death of a monstrous lion at the hands of Gisdhubar, answering to
the Zodiacal Leo; in the sixth book the hero is vainly wooed by Istar,
the Virgo of the Zodiacal signs; and just as Aquarius is in the eleventh
Zodiacal sign, so the history of the Deluge is embodied in the eleventh
book. There was a special reason, however, for this arrangement;
Gisdhubar himself was a solar hero. He seems originally to have been the
fire-stick of the primitive Accadians, and then the god or spirit of the
fire it produced, eventually in the Semitic period passing first into a
form of the Sun-god, and then into a solar hero. His twelve labours or
adventures answer to the twelve months of the year through which the sun
moves, like the twelve labours of the Greek Hêraklês. The latter,
indeed, were simply the twelve labours of Gisdhubar transported to the
west. The Greeks received many myths and mythological conceptions from
the Phœnicians, along with their early culture, and these myths had
themselves been brought by the Phœnicians from their original home in
Chaldea. It has long been recognised that Hêraklês was the borrowed
Phœnician Sun-god; we now know that his primitive prototype had been
adopted by the Phœnicians from the Accadians of Babylonia. It is not
strange, therefore, that just as in the Greek myth of Aphroditê and
Adônis we find the outlines of the old Chaldean story of Istar and
Tammuz, so in the legends of Hêraklês we find an echo of the legends of
Gisdhubar. The lion destroyed by Gisdhubar is the lion of Nemea; the
winged bull made by Anu to avenge the slight offered to Istar is the
winged bull of Krete; the tyrant Khumbaba, slain by Gisdhubar in 'the
land of pine-trees, the seat of the gods, the sanctuary of the spirits'
is the tyrant Geryôn; the gems borne by the trees of the forest beyond
'the gateway of the sun' are the apples of the Hesperides; and the
deadly sickness of Gisdhubar himself is but the fever sent by the
poisoned tunic of Nessos through the veins of the Greek hero. It is
curious thus to trace to their first source the myths which have made so
deep an impress on classical art and literature. The indebtedness of
European culture to the valley of the Euphrates is becoming more and
more apparent every year.
It is impossible to determine the age of the great Chaldean epic, but
it must have been composed subsequently to the period when, through the
precession of the equinoxes, Aries came to be the first sign of the
Zodiac instead of Taurus, that is to say, about B.C. 2500. On the other
hand, it is difficult to make it later than B.C. 2000, while the whole
character and texture of the poem shows that it has been put together
from older lays, which have been united into a single whole. The poem
deservedly continued to be a favourite among the Babylonians and
Assyrians, and more than one edition of it was made for the library of
Assur-bani-pal. A translation of all the portions of it that have been
discovered will be found in George Smith's 'Chaldean Account of
Genesis.'
It is difficult for the English reader to appreciate justly the real
character of many of these old poems. The tablets on which they are
inscribed were broken in pieces when Nineveh was destroyed, and the roof
of the library fell in upon them. A text, therefore, has generally to be
pieced together from a number of fragments, leaving gaps and lacunæ
which mar the pleasure of reading it. Then, again, the translator
frequently comes across a word or phrase which is new to him, and which
he is consequently obliged to leave untranslated or to render purely
conjecturally. At times there is a lacuna in the original text itself.
When the Assyrian scribe was unable to read the tablet he was copying,
either because the characters had been effaced by time or because their
Babylonian forms were unknown to him, he wrote the word _khibi_, 'it is
wanting,' and left a blank in his text. It is not wonderful, therefore,
that what is really a fine piece of literature reads tamely and poorly
in its English dress, more especially when we remember that the
decipherer is compelled to translate literally, and cannot have recourse
to those idiomatic paraphrases which are permissible when we are dealing
with known languages.
But it must be confessed that many of the best compositions of Babylonia
are spoilt for us by the references to a puerile superstition, and the
ever-present dread of witchcraft and magic which they contain. A good
example of this curious mixture of exalted thought and debasing
superstition is the following hymn to the Sun-god:—
'O Sun-god, king of heaven and earth, director of things
above and below,
O Sun-god, thou that clothest the dead with life, delivered
by thy hands,
judge unbribed, director of mankind,
supreme in mercy for him that is in trouble,
bidding the child and offspring come forth, light of the
world,
creator of all thy land, the Sun-god art thou!
O Sun-god, when the bewitchment for many days
is bound behind me and there is no deliverer,
the expulsion of the curse and return of health are brought
about (by thee).
Among mankind, the flock of the god Ner, whatever be their
names, he selects me:
after trouble he fills me with rest,
and day and night I stand undarkened.
In the anguish of my heart and the sickness of my body
there is ...
O father supreme, I am debased and walk to and fro.
In misery and affliction I held myself (?).
My littleness (?) I know not, the sin I have committed I
knew not.
I am small and he is great:
The walls of my god may I pass.
O bird stand still and hear the hound!
O Sun-god stand still and hear me!
The name of the evil bewitchment that has been brought
about overpower,
whether the bewitchment of my father, or the bewitchment of
my begetter,
or the bewitchment of the seven branches of the house of my
father,
or the bewitchment of my family and my slaves,
or the bewitchment of my free-born women and concubines,
or the bewitchment of the dead and the living, or the
bewitchment of the adult and the suckling (?),
or the bewitchment of my father and of him who is not my
father.
To father and mother be thou a father, and to brother and
child be thou a father.
To friend and neighbour be thou a father, and to handmaid
and man be thou a father.
To the field thou hast made and thy ... be thou a father.
May the name of my god be a father where there is no
justice.
To mankind, the flock of the god Ner, whatever be their
names, who are in field and city,
speak, O Sun-god, mighty lord, and bid the evil enchantment
be at rest.'
Even the science of the Babylonians and their Assyrian disciples was not
free from superstition. Astronomy was mixed with astrology, and their
observation of terrestrial phenomena led only to an elaborate system of
augury. The false assumption was made that an event was caused by
another which had immediately preceded it; and hence it was laid down
that whenever two events had been observed to follow one upon the other,
the recurrence of the first would cause the other to follow again. The
assumption was an illustration of the well-known fallacy: 'Post hoc,
ergo propter hoc.' It produced both the pseudo-science of astrology and
the pseudo-science of augury.
The standard work on astronomy, as has already been noted, was that
called 'The Observations of Bel,' compiled originally for the library of
Sargon I at Accad. Additions were made to it from time to time, the
chief object of the work being to notice the events which happened after
each celestial phenomenon. Thus the occurrences which at different
periods followed a solar eclipse on a particular day were all duly
introduced into the text and piled, as it were, one upon the other. The
table of contents prefixed to the work showed that it treated of
various matters—eclipses of the sun and moon, the conjunction of the
sun and moon, the phases of Venus and Mars, the position of the
pole-star, the changes of the weather, the appearance of comets, or, as
they are called, 'stars with a tail behind and a corona in front,' and
the like. The immense collection of records of eclipses indicates the
length of time during which observations of the heavens had been carried
on. As it is generally stated whether a solar eclipse had happened
'according to calculation' or 'contrary to calculation,' it is clear
that the Babylonians were acquainted at an early date with the
periodicity of eclipses of the sun. The beginning of the year was
determined by the position of the star Dilgan (α Aurigæ) in relation to
the new moon at the vernal equinox, and the night was originally divided
into three watches. Subsequently the _kasbu_ or 'double hour' was
introduced to mark time, twelve _kasbu_ being equivalent to a night and
day. Time itself was measured by a clepsydra or water-clock, as well as
by a gnomon or dial. The dial set up by Ahaz at Jerusalem (2 Kings xx.
11) was doubtless one of the fruits of his intercourse with the
Assyrians.
The Zodiacal signs had been marked out and named at that remote period
when the sun was still in Taurus at the beginning of spring, and the
equator had been divided into sixty degrees. The year was
correspondingly divided into twelve months, each of thirty days,
intercalary months being counted in by the priests when necessary. The
British Museum possesses fragments of a planisphere from Nineveh,
representing the sky at the time of the vernal equinox, the
constellation of Tammuz or Orion being specially noticeable upon it.
Another tablet contains a table of lunar longitudes.
With all this attention to astronomical matters it is not surprising
that every great city boasted of an observatory, erected on the summit
of a lofty tower. Astronomers were appointed by the state to take charge
of these observatories, and to send in fortnightly reports to the king.
Here are specimens of them, the first of which is dated B.C. 649:—'To
the king, my lord, thy servant Istar-iddin-pal, one of the chief
astronomers of Arbela. May there be peace to the king, my lord, may
Nebo, Merodach, and Istar of Arbela, be favourable to the king, my lord.
On the twenty-ninth day we kept a watch. The observatory was covered
with cloud: the moon we did not see. (Dated) the month Sebat, the first
day, the eponymy of Bel-kharran-Sadua.' 'To the king, my lord, thy
servant Abil-Istar. May there be peace to the king, my lord. May Nebo
and Merodach be propitious to the king, my lord. May the great gods
grant unto the king, my lord, long days, soundness of body, and joy of
heart. On the twenty-seventh day (of the month) the moon disappeared. On
the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth days, we kept a watch for
the eclipse of the sun. But the sun did not pass into eclipse. On the
first day the moon was seen during the day. During the month Tammuz
(June) it was above the planet Mercury, as I have already reported to
the king. During the period when the moon is called Anu (_i.e._, from
the first to the fifth days of the lunar month), it was seen declining
in the orbit of Arcturus. Owing to the rain the horn was not visible.
Such is my report. During the period when the moon was Anu, I sent to
the king, my lord, the following account of its conjunction:—It was
stationary and visible below the star of the chariot. During the period
when the moon is called Bel (_i.e._, from the tenth to the fifteenth
day), it became full; to the star of the chariot it approached. Its
conjunction (with the star) was prevented; but its conjunction with
Mercury, during the period when it was Anu, of which I have already sent
a report to the king, my lord, was not prevented. May the king, my lord,
have peace!'
Astronomical observations imply a knowledge of mathematics, and in this
the Babylonians and Assyrians seem to have excelled. Tables of squares
and cubes have been found at Senkereh, the ancient Larsa, and a series
of geometrical figures used for augural purposes presupposes a sort of
Babylonian Euclid. The mathematical unit was 60, which was understood as
a multiple when high numbers had to be expressed, IV, for example,
standing for (4 × 60 =) 240. Similarly, 60 was the unwritten denominator
of fractional numbers. The plan of an estate outside the gate of Zamama
at Babylon, and belonging to the time of Nebuchadnezzar, has been
discovered, while the famous Hanging Gardens of that city were watered
by means of a screw.
Medicine also was in a more advanced state than might have been
expected. Fragments of an old work on medicine have been found, which
show that all known diseases had been classified, and their symptoms
described, the medical mixtures considered appropriate to each being
compounded and prescribed quite in modern fashion. Here is one of them:
'For a diseased gall-bladder, which devours the top of a man's heart
like a ring(?) ... within the sick (part), we prepare cypress-extract,
goats' milk, palm-wine, barley, the flesh of an ox and bear, and the
wine of the cellarer, in order that the sick man may live. Half an ephah
of clear honey, half an ephah of cypress-extract, half an ephah of
_gamgam_ herbs, half an ephah of linseed, half an ephah of ..., half an
ephah of _imdi_ herbs, half an ephah of the seed of _tarrati_, half an
ephah of calves' milk, half an ephah of _senu_ wood, half an ephah of
_tik_ powder, half an ephah of the ... of the river-god, half an ephah
of _usu_ wood, half an ephah of mountain medicine, half an ephah of the
flesh(?) of a dove, half an ephah of the seed of the ..., half an ephah
of the corn of the field, ten measures of the juice of a cut herb, ten
measures of the tooth of the sea (sea-weed), one ephah of putrid
flesh(?), one ephah of dates, one ephah of palm-wine and _insik_, and
one ephah of the flesh(?) of the entrails; slice and cut up; or mix as a
mixture, after first stirring it with a reed. On the fourth day observe
(the sick man's) countenance. If it shows a white appearance his heart
is cured; if it shows a dark appearance his heart is still devoured by
the fire; if it shows a yellow appearance during the day, the patient's
recovery is assured; if it shows a black appearance he will grow worse
and will not live. For the swelling(?), slice (the flesh of) a cow which
has entered the stall and has been slaughtered during the day. Seethe it
in water and calves' milk. Drink the result in palm-wine. Drink it
during the day.'
Generally, however, the prescriptions are not so elaborate as this. They
are more usually of this nature: 'For low spirits, slice the root of the
destiny tree, the root of the _susum_ tree, two or three other vegetable
compounds, and the tongue of a dog. Drink the mixture either in water or
in palm-wine.'
Even medical science, however, was invaded by superstition. In place of
trying the doctor's prescription, a patient often had the choice allowed
him of having recourse to charms and exorcisms. Thus the medical work
itself permits him to 'place an incantation on the big toe of the left
foot and cause it to remain' there, the incantation being as follows: 'O
wind, my mother, wind, wind, the handmaid of the gods art thou; O wind
among the storm-birds; yea, the water dost thou make stream down, and
with the gods thy brothers liftest up the glory of thy wisdom.' At other
times a witch or sorceress was called in, and told to 'bind a cord twice
seven times, binding it on the sick man's neck and on his feet like
fetters, and while he lies in his bed to pour pure water over him.'
Instead of the knotted cord verses from a sacred book might be
employed, just as phylacteries were, and still are, among the Jews. Thus
we read: 'In the night-time let a verse from a good tablet be placed on
the head of the sick man in bed.' The word translated 'verse' is
_masal_, the Hebrew _mâshâl_, which literally signifies a 'proverb' or
'parable.' It is curious to find the witch by the side of the wizard in
Babylonia. 'The wise woman,' however, was held in great repute there,
and just as the witches of Europe were supposed to fly through the air
on a broomstick so it was believed that the witches of Babylonia could
perform the same feat with the help of a wooden staff.
[Illustration]
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