Nineveh and the first Cossæan kings--The peoples of Syria, their towns,
their civilization, their religion--Phoenicia.
The world beyond the Arabian desert presented to the eyes of the
enterprising Pharaohs an active and bustling scene. Babylonian
civilization still maintained its hold there without a rival, but
Babylonian rule had ceased to exercise any longer a direct control,
having probably disappeared with the sovereigns who had introduced it.
When Ammisatana died, about the year 2099, the line of Khammurabi became
extinct, and a family from the Sea-lands came into power.*
* The origin of this second dynasty and the reading of its
name still afford matter for discussion. Amid the many
conflicting opinions, it behoves us to remember that
Gulkishar, the only prince of this dynasty whose title we
possess, calls himself _King of the Country of the Sea_,
that is to say, of the marshy country at the mouth of the
Euphrates: this simple fact directs us to seek the cradle of
the family in those districts of Southern Chaldæa. Sayce
rejects this identification on philological and
chronological grounds, and sees in Gulkishar, King of the
Sea-lands, a vassal Kaldâ prince.
This unexpected revolution of affairs did not by any means restore
to the cities of Lower Chaldæa the supreme authority which they once
possessed. Babylon had made such good use of its centuries of rule that
it had gained upon its rivals, and was not likely now to fall back into
a secondary place. Henceforward, no matter what dynasty came into power,
as soon as the fortune of war had placed it upon the throne, Babylon
succeeded in adopting it, and at once made it its own. The new lord of
the country, Ilumaîlu, having abandoned his patrimonial inheritance,
came to reside near to Merodach.*
* The name has been read An-ma-an or Anman by Pinches,
subsequently Ilumaîlu, Mailu, finally Anumaîlu and perhaps
Humaîlu. The true reading of it is still unknown. Hommel
believed he had discovered in Hilprechts book an
inscription belonging to the reign of this prince; but
Hilprecht has shown that it belonged to a king of Erech,
An-a-an, anterior to the time of An-ma-an.
He was followed during the four next centuries by a dynasty of ten
princes, in uninterrupted succession. Their rule was introduced and
maintained without serious opposition. The small principalities of the
south were theirs by right, and the only town which might have caused
them any trouble--Assur--was dependent on them, being satisfied with the
title of vicegerents for its princes,--Khallu, Irishum, Ismidagan and
his son Sarnsiramman I., Igurkapkapu and his son Sarnsiramman II.* As
to the course of events beyond the Khabur, and any efforts Ilumaîlus
descendants may have made to establish their authority in the direction
of the Mediterranean, we have no inscriptions to inform us, and must
be content to remain in ignorance. The last two of these princes,
Melamkurkurra and Eâgamîl, were not connected with each other, and had
no direct relationship with their predecessors.** The shortness of their
reigns presents a striking contrast with the length of those preceding
them, and probably indicates a period of war or revolution. When these
princes disappeared, we know not how or why, about the year 1714 B.C.,
they were succeeded by a king of foreign extraction; and one of the
semi-barbarous race of Kashshu ascended the throne which had been
occupied since the days of Khammurabi by Chaldæans of ancient stock.***
* Inscription of Irishum, son of Khallu, on a brick found at
Kalah-Shergat, and an inscription of Sarnsiramman II., son
of Igurkapkapu, on another brick from the same place.
Sarnsiramman I. and his father Ismidagan are mentioned in
the great inscription of Tiglath-pileser II., as having
lived 641 years before King Assurdân, who himself had
preceded Tiglath-pileser by sixty years: they thus reigned
between 1900 and 1800 years before our era, according to
tradition, whose authenticity we have no other means of
verifying.
** The name of the last is read Eâgamîl, for want of
anything better: Oppert makes it Eâgâ, simply transcribing
the signs; and Hilprecht, who took up the question again
after him, has no reading to propose.
*** I give here the list of the kings of the second dynasty,
from the documents discovered by Pinches: No monument
remains of any of these princes, and even the reading of
their names is merely provisional: those placed between
brackets represent Delitzschs readings. A Gulkishar is
mentioned in an inscription of Belnadiuabal; but Jensen is
doubtful if the Gulkishar mentioned in this place is
identical with the one in the lists.
[Illustration: Table]
These Kashshu, who spring up suddenly out of obscurity, had from the
earliest times inhabited the mountainous districts of Zagros, on the
confines of Elymais and Media, where the Cossæans of the classical
historians flourished in the time of Alexander.*
* The Kashshu are identified with the Cossæans by Sayce, by Schrader,
by Fr. Delitzsch, by Halévy, by Tiele, by Hommel, and by Jensen. Oppert
maintains that they answer to the Kissians of Herodotus, that is to say,
to the inhabitants of the district of which Susa is the capital. Lehmann
supports this opinion. Winckler gives none, and several Assyriologists
incline to that of Kiepert, according to which the Kissians are
identical with the Cossæans.
It was a rugged and unattractive country, protected by nature and easy
to defend, made up as it was of narrow tortuous valleys, of plains of
moderate extent but of rare fertility, of mountain chains whose grim
sides were covered with forests, and whose peaks were snow-crowned
during half the year, and of rivers, or, more correctly speaking,
torrents, for the rains and the melting of the snow rendered them
impassable in spring and autumn. The entrance to this region was by two
or three well-fortified passes: if an enemy were unwilling to incur the
loss of time and men needed to carry these by main force, he had to make
a detour by narrow goat-tracks, along which the assailants were obliged
to advance in single file, as best they could, exposed to the assaults
of a foe concealed among the rocks and trees. The tribes who were
entrenched behind this natural rampart made frequent and unexpected
raids upon the marshy meadows and fat pastures of Chaldæa: they dashed
through the country, pillaging and burning all that came in their way,
and then, quickly regaining their hiding-places, were able to place
their booty in safety before the frontier garrisons had recovered
from the first alarm.* These tribes were governed by numerous chiefs
acknowledging a single king--_ianzi_--whose will was supreme over
nearly the whole country:** some of them had a slight veneer of Chaldæan
civilization, while among the rest almost every stage of barbarism might
be found. The remains of their language show that it was remotely allied
to the dialect of Susa, and contained many Semitic words.*** What is
recorded of their religion reaches us merely at second hand, and the
groundwork of it has doubtless been modified by the Babylonian scribes
who have transmitted it to us.****
* It was thus in the time of Alexander and his successors,
and the information given by the classical historians about
this period is equally applicable to earlier times, as we
may conclude from the numerous passages from Assyrian
inscriptions which have been collected by Fr. Delitzsch.
** Delitzsch conjectures that _Ianzi_, or _Ianzu_, had
become a kind of proper name, analogous to the term
_Pharaoh_ employed by the Egyptians.
*** A certain number of Cossæan words has been preserved and
translated, some in one of the royal Babylonian lists, and
some on a tablet in the British Museum, discovered and
interpreted by Fr. Delitzsch. Several Assyriologists think
that they showed a marked affinity with the idiom of the
Susa inscriptions, and with that of the Achæmenian
inscriptions of the second type; others deny the proposed
connection, or suggest that the Cossæan language was a
Semitic dialect, related to the Chaldæo-Assyrian. Oppert,
who was the first to point out the existence of this
dialect, thirty years ago, believed it to be the Elamite; he
still persists in his opinion, and has published several
notes in defence of it.
**** It has been studied by Pr. Delitzsch, who insists on
the influence which daily intercourse with the Chaldæans had
on it after the conquest; Halévy, in most of the names of
the gods given as Cossæan, sees merely the names of Chaldæan
divinities slightly disguised in the writing.
They worshipped twelve great gods, of whom the chief--Kashshu, the lord
of heaven-gave his name to the principal tribe, and possibly to the
whole race:* Shûmalia, queen of the snowy heights, was enthroned beside
him,** and the divinities next in order were, as in the cities of the
Euphrates, the Moon, the Sun (Sakh or Shuriash), the air or the
tempest (Ubriash), and Khudkha.*** Then followed the stellar deities or
secondary incarnations of the sun,--Mirizir, who represented both Istar
and Beltis; and Khala, answering to Gula.****
* The existence of Kashshu is proved by the name of
Kashshunadinakhé: Ashshur also bore a name identical with
that of his worshippers.
** She is mentioned in a rescript of Nebuchadrezzar I., at
the head of the gods of Namar, that is to say, the Cossæan
deities, as the lady of the shining mountains, the
inhabitants of the summits, the frequenter of peaks. She is
called Shimalia in Rawlinson, but Delitzsch has restored her
name which was slightly mutilated; one of her statues was
taken by Samsirammân III., King of Assyria, in one of that
sovereigns campaigns against Chaldæa.
*** All these identifications are furnished by the glossary
of Delitzsch. Ubriash, under the form of Buriash, is met
with in a large number of proper names, Burnaburiash,
Shagashaltiburiash, Ulamburiash, Kadashmanburiash, where the
Assyrian scribe translates it _Bel-matâti_, lord of the
world: Buriash is, therefore, an epithet of the god who was
called Rammân in Chaldæa. The name of the moon-god is
mutilated, and only the initial syllable Shi... remains,
followed by an indistinct sign: it has not yet been
restored.
**** Halévy considers Khala, or Khali, as a harsh form of
Gula: if this is the case, the Cossæans must have borrowed
the name, and perhaps the goddess herself, from their
Chaldæan neighbours.
The Chaldæan Ninip corresponded both to Gidar and Maruttash, Bel to
Kharbe and Turgu, Merodach to Shipak, Nergal to Shugab.* The Cossæan
kings, already enriched by the spoils of their neighbours, and supported
by a warlike youth, eager to enlist under their banner at the first
call,** must have been often tempted to quit their barren domains and to
swoop down on the rich country which lay at their feet. We are ignorant
of the course of events which, towards the close of the XVIIIth century
B.C., led to their gaining possession of it. The Cossæan king who seized
on Babylon was named Gandish, and the few inscriptions we possess of
his reign are cut with a clumsiness that betrays the barbarism of the
conqueror. They cover the pivot stones on which Sargon of Agadê or one
of the Bursins had hung the doors of the temple of Nippur, but which
Gandish dedicated afresh in order to win for himself, in the eyes of
posterity, the credit of the work of these sovereigns.***
* Hilprecht has established the identity of Turgu with Bel
of Nippur.
** Strabo relates, from some forgotten historian of
Alexander, that the Cossæans had formerly been able to
place as many as thirteen thousand archers in line, in the
wars which they waged with the help of the Elymæans against
the inhabitants of Susa and Babylon.
*** The full name of this king, Gandish or Gandash, which is
furnished by the royal lists, is written Gaddash on a
monument in the British Museum discovered by Pinches, whose
conclusions have been erroneously denied by Winckler. A
process of abbreviation, of which there are examples in the
names of other kings of the same dynasty, reduced the name
to Gandê in the current language.
Bel found favour in the eyes of the Cossæans who saw in him Kharbê or
Turgu, the recognised patron of their royal family: for this reason
Gandish and his successors regarded Bel with peculiar devotion. These
kings did all they could for the decoration and endowment of the ancient
temple of Ekur, which had been somewhat neglected by the sovereigns
of purely Babylonian extraction, and this devotion to one of the most
venerated Chaldæan sanctuaries contributed largely towards their winning
the hearts of the conquered people.*
* Hilpreoht calls attention on this point to the fact that
no one has yet discovered at Nippur a single ex-voto
consecrated by any king of the two first Babylonian
dynasties.
The Cossæan rule over the countries of the Euphrates was doubtless
similar in its beginnings to that which the Hyksôs exercised at first
over the nomes of Egypt. The Cossæan kings did not merely bring with
them an army to protect their persons, or to occupy a small number of
important posts; they were followed by the whole nation, and
spread themselves over the entire country. The bulk of the invaders
instinctively betook themselves to districts where, if they could not
resume the kind of life to which they were accustomed in their own land,
they could, at least give full rein to their love of a free and wild
existence. As there were no mountains in the country, they turned to the
marshes, and, like the Hyksôs in Egypt, made themselves at home about
the mouths of the rivers, on the half-submerged low lands, and on the
sandy islets of the lagoons which formed an undefined borderland between
the alluvial region and the Persian Gulf. The covert afforded, by the
thickets furnished scope for the chase which these hunters had been
accustomed to pursue in the depths of their native forests, while
fishing, on the other hand, supplied them with an additional element of
food. When their depredations drew down upon them reprisals from their
neighbours, the mounds occupied, by their fortresses, and surrounded
by muddy swamps, offered them almost as secure retreats as their former
strongholds on the lofty sides of the Zagros. They made alliances with
the native Aramæans--with those Kashdi, properly called Chaldæans, whose
name we have imposed upon all the nations who, from a very early
date, bore rule on the banks of the Lower Euphrates. Here they formed
themselves into a State--Karduniash--whose princes at times rebelled,
against all external authority, and at other times acknowledged the
sovereignty of the Babylonian monarchs.*
* The state of Karduniash, whose name appears for the first
time on the monuments of the Cossæan period, has been
localised in a somewhat vague manner, in the south of
Babylonia, in the country of the Kashdi, and afterwards
formally identified with the _Countries of the Sea_, and
with the principality which was called Bît-Yâkin in the
Assyrian period. In the Tel-el-Amarna tablets the name is
already applied to the entire country occupied by the
Cossæan kings or their descendants, that is to say, to the
whole of Babylonia. Sargon II. at that time distinguishes
between an Upper and a Lower Karduniash; and in consequence
the earliest Assyriologists considered it as an Assyrian
designation of Babylon, or of the district surrounding it,
an opinion which was opposed by Delitzsch, as he believed it
to be an indigenous term which at first indicated the
district round Babylon, and afterwards the whole of
Babylonia. From one frequent spelling of the name, the
meaning appears to have been _Fortress of Duniash_; to this
Delitzsch preferred the translation _Garden of Duniash_,
from an erroneous different reading--Ganduniash: Duniash, at
first derived from a Chaldæan God _Dun_, whose name may
exist in _Dunghi_, is a Cossæan name, which the Assyrians
translated, as they did Buriash, _Belmatâti_, lord of the
country. Winckler rejects the ancient etymology, and
proposes to divide the word as Kardu-niash and to see in it
a Cossæan translation of the expression _mât-kaldi_, country
of the Caldæans: Hommel on his side, as well as Delitzsch,
had thought of seeking in the Chaldæans proper--_Kaldi_ for
_Kashdi_, or _Kash-da_, domain of the Cossæans --the
descendants of the Cossæans of Karduniash, at least as far
as race is concerned. In the cuneiform texts the name is
written Kara--D. P. Duniyas, the Wall of the god
Duniyas (cf. the Median Wall or Wall of Semiramis which
defended Babylonia on the north).
The people of Sumir and Akkad, already a composite of many different
races, absorbed thus another foreign element, which, while modifying
its homogeneity, did not destroy its natural character. Those Cossæan
tribes who had not quitted their own country retained their original
barbarism, but the hope of plunder constantly drew them from their
haunts, and they attacked and devastated the cities of the plain
unhindered by the thought that they were now inhabited by their
fellow-countrymen. The raid once over, many of them did not return home,
but took service under some distant foreign ruler--the Syrian princes
attracting many, who subsequently became the backbone of their armies,*
while others remained at Babylon and enrolled themselves in the
body-guard of the kings.
* Halévy has at least proved that the Khabiri mentioned in.
the Tel el-Amarna tablets were Cossæans, contrary to the
opinion of Sayce, who makes them tribes grouped round
Hebron, which W. Max Müller seems to accept; Winckler,
returning to an old opinion, believes them to have been
Hebrews.
To the last they were an undisciplined militia, dangerous, and difficult
to please: one day they would hail their chiefs with acclamations, to
kill them the next in one of those sudden outbreaks in which they were
accustomed to make and unmake their kings.* The first invaders were
not long in acquiring, by means of daily intercourse with the old
inhabitants, the new civilization: sooner or later they became blended
with the natives, losing all their own peculiarities, with the exception
of their outlandish names, a few heroic legends,** and the worship of
two or three gods--Shûmalia, Shugab, and Shukamuna.
* This is the opinion of Hommel, supported by the testimony
of the _Synchronous Hist._: in this latter document the
Cossæans are found revolting against King Kadashmankharbé,
and replacing him on the throne by a certain Nazibugash, who
was of obscure origin.
** Pr. Delitzsch and Schrader compare their name with that
of Kush, who appears in the Bible as the father of Nimrod
(_Gen._ x. 8-12); Hommel and Sayce think that the history of
Nimrod is a reminiscence of the Cossæan rule. Jensen is
alone in his attempt to attribute to the Cossæans the first
idea of the epic of Gilgames.
As in the case of the Hyksôs in Africa, the barbarian conquerors thus
became merged in the more civilized people which they had subdued. This
work of assimilation seems at first to have occupied the whole attention
of both races, for the immediate successors of Gandish were unable
to retain under their rule all the provinces of which the empire was
formerly composed. They continued to possess the territory situated on
the middle course of the Euphrates as far as the mouth of the Balikh,
but they lost the region extending to the east of the Khabur, at
the foot of the Masios, and in the upper basin of the Tigris: the
vicegerents of Assur also withdrew from them, and, declaring that they
owed no obedience excepting to the god of their city, assumed the royal
dignity. The first four of these kings whose names have come down to
us, Sulili, Belkapkapu, Adasi, and Belbâni,* appear to have been but
indifferent rulers, but they knew bow to hold their own against the
attacks of their neighbours, and when, after a century of weakness and
inactivity, Babylon reasserted herself, and endeavoured to recover her
lost territory, they had so completely established their independence
that every attack on it was unsuccessful. The Cossæan king at that
time--an active and enterprising prince, whose name was held in honour
up to the days of the Ninevite supremacy--was Agumkakrimê, the son of
Tassigurumash.**
* These four names do not so much represent four consecutive
reigns as two separate traditions which were current
respecting the beginnings of Assyrian royalty. The most
ancient of them gives the chief place to two personages
named Belkapkapu and Sulili; this tradition has been
transmitted to us by Rammânnirâri III., because it connected
the origin of his race with these kings. The second
tradition placed a certain Belbâni, the son of Adasi, in the
room of Belkapkapu and Sulili: Esarhaddon made use of it in
order to ascribe to his own family an antiquity at least
equal to that of the family to which Rammânnirâri III.
belonged. Each king appropriated from the ancient popular
traditions those names which seemed to him best calculated
to enhance the prestige of his dynasty, but we cannot tell
how far the personages selected enjoyed an authentic
historical existence: it is best to admit them at least
provisionally into the royal series, without trusting too
much to what is related of them.
** The tablet discovered by Pinches is broken after the
fifth king of the dynasty. The inscription of Agumkakrimê,
containing a genealogy of this prince which goes back as far
as the fifth generation, has led to the restoration of the
earlier part of the list as follows:
Gandish, Gaddash, Adumitasii .... 1655-? B.C.
Gandê ........................... 1714-1707 B.C.
Tassigurumash.................... ?
Agumrabi, his son................ 1707-1685
Agumkakrimê ..................... ?
[A]guyashi ...................... 1685-1663
Ushshi, his son.................. 1663-1655
This brilliant scion of Shukamuna entitled himself lord of the Kashshu
and of Akkad, of Babylon the widespread, of Padan, of Alman, and of the
swarthy Guti.* Ashnunak had been devastated; he repeopled it, and the
four houses of the world rendered him obedience; on the other hand,
Elam revolted from its allegiance, Assur resisted him, and if he still
exercised some semblance of authority over Northern Syria, it was owing
to a traditional respect which the towns of that country voluntarily
rendered to him, but which did not involve either subjection or control.
The people of Khâni still retained possession of the statues of Merodach
and of his consort Zarpanit, which had been stolen, we know not how,
some time previously from Chaldæa.** Agumkakrimê recovered them and
replaced them in their proper temple. This was an important event, and
earned him the good will of the priests.
* The translation _black-headed_, i.e. dark-haired and
complexioned, _Guti_, is uncertain; Jensen interprets the
epithet _nishi saldati_ to mean the Guti, stupid (foolish?
culpable?) people. The Guti held both banks of the lower
Zab, in the mountains on the east of Assyria. Delitzsch has
placed Padan and Alman in the mountains to the east of the
Diyâleh; Jensen places them in the chain of the Khamrîn, and
Winckler compares Alman or Halman with the Holwân of the
present day.
** The Khâni have been placed by Delitzsch in the
neighbourhood of Mount Khâna, mentioned in the accounts of
the Assyrian campaigns, that is to say, in the Amanos,
between the Euphrates and the bay of Alexandretta: he is
inclined to regard the name as a form of that of the Khâti.
The king reorganised public worship; he caused new fittings for the
temples to be made to take the place of those which had disappeared, and
the inscription which records this work enumerates with satisfaction the
large quantities of crystal, jasper, and lapis-lazuli which he lavished
on the sanctuary, the utensils of silver and gold which he dedicated,
together with the seas of wrought bronze decorated with monsters and
religious emblems.* This restoration of the statues, so flattering to
the national pride and piety, would have been exacted and insisted upon
by a Khammurabi at the point of the sword, but Agumkakrimê doubtless
felt that he was not strong enough to run the risk of war; he therefore
sent an embassy to the Khâni, and such was the prestige which the name
of Babylon still possessed, from the deserts of the Caspian to the
shores of the Mediterranean, that he was able to obtain a concession
from that people which he would probably have been powerless to extort
by force of arms.**
* We do not possess the original of the inscription which
tells us of these facts, but merely an early copy.
** Strictly speaking, one might suppose that a war took
place; but most Assyriologists declare unhesitatingly that
there was merely an embassy and a diplomatic negotiation.
The Egyptians had, therefore, no need to anticipate Chaldæan
interference when, forsaking their ancient traditions, they penetrated
for the first time into the heart of Syria. Not only was Babylon no
longer supreme there, but the coalition of those cities on which she had
depended for help in subduing the West was partially dissolved, and the
foreign princes who had succeeded to her patrimony were so far conscious
of their weakness, that they voluntarily kept aloof from the countries
in which, previous to their advent, Babylon had held undivided sway. The
Egyptian conquest of Syria had already begun in the days of Agumkakrimê,
and it is possible that dread of the Pharaoh was one of the chief causes
which influenced the Cossæans to return a favourable answer to the
Khâni. Thûtmosis I., on entering Syria, encountered therefore only the
native levies, and it must be admitted that, in spite of their renowned
courage, they were not likely to prove formidable adversaries in
Egyptian estimation. Not one of the local Syrian dynasties was
sufficiently powerful to collect all the forces of the country around
its chief, so as to oppose a compact body of troops to the attack of
the African armies. The whole country consisted of a collection of
petty states, a complex group of peoples and territories which even the
Egyptians themselves never completely succeeded in disentangling. They
classed the inhabitants, however, under three or four very comprehensive
names--Kharû, Zahi, Lotanû, and Kefâtiû--all of which frequently recur
in the inscriptions, but without having always that exactness of meaning
we look for in geographical terms. As was often the case in similar
circumstances, these names were used at first to denote the districts
close to the Egyptian frontier with which the inhabitants of the Delta
had constant intercourse. The Kefâtiû seem to have been at the outset
the people of the sea-coast, more especially of the region occupied
later by the Phoenicians, but all the tribes with whom the Phoenicians
came in contact on the Asiatic and European border were before long
included under the same name.*
* The Kefâtiû, whose name was first read Kefa, and later
Kefto, were originally identified with the inhabitants of
Cyprus or Crete, and subsequently with those of Cilicia,
although the decree of Canopus locates them in Phoenicia.
Zahi originally comprised that portion of the desert and of the maritime
plain on the north-east of Egypt which was coasted by the fleets, or
traversed by the armies of Egypt, as they passed to and fro between
Syria and the banks of the Nile. This region had been ravaged by Ahmosis
during his raid upon Sharuhana, the year after the fall of Avaris. To
the south-east of Zahi lay Kharû; it included the greater part of Mount
Seir, whose wadys, thinly dotted over with oases, were inhabited by
tribes of more or less stationary habits. The approaches to it were
protected by a few towns, or rather fortified villages, built in the
neighbourhood of springs, and surrounded by cultivated fields and
poverty-stricken gardens; but the bulk of the people lived in tents
or in caves on the mountain-sides. The Egyptians constantly confounded
those Khauri, whom the Hebrews in after-times found scattered among
the children of Edom, with the other tribes of Bedouin marauders, and
designated them vaguely as Shaûsû. Lotanû lay beyond, to the north of
Kharû and to the north-east of Zahi, among the hills which separate the
Shephelah from the Jordan.*
* The name of Lotanû or Rotanû has been assigned by Brugsch
to the Assyrians, but subsequently, by connecting it, more
ingeniously than plausibly, with the Assyrian _iltânu_, he
extended it to all the peoples of the north; we now know
that in the texts it denotes the whole of Syria, and, more
generally, all the peoples dwelling in the basins of the
Orontes and the Euphrates. The attempt to connect the name
Rotanû or Lotanû with that of the Edomite tribe of Lotan
(Gen. xxxvi. 20, 22) was first made by P. de Saulcy; it was
afterwards taken up by Haigh and adopted by Renan.
As it was more remote from the isthmus, and formed the Egyptian horizon
in that direction, all the new countries with which the Egyptians became
acquainted beyond its northern limits were by degrees included under the
one name of Lotanû, and this term was extended to comprise successively
the entire valley of the Jordan, then that of the Orontes, and finally
even that of the Euphrates. Lotanû became thenceforth a vague and
fluctuating term, which the Egyptians applied indiscriminately to widely
differing Asiatic nations, and to which they added another indefinite
epithet when they desired to use it in a more limited sense: that part
of Syria nearest to Egypt being in this case qualified as Upper Lotanû,
while the towns and kingdoms further north were described as being in
Lower Lotanû. In the same way the terms Zahi and Kharû were extended to
cover other and more northerly regions. Zahi was applied to the coast as
far as the mouth of the Nahr el-Kebir and to the country of the Lebanon
which lay between the Mediterranean and the middle course of the
Orontes. Kharû ran parallel to Zahi, but comprised the mountain
district, and came to include most of the countries which were at first
ranged under Upper Lotanû; it was never applied to the region beyond the
neighbourhood of Mount Tabor, nor to the trans-Jordanie provinces. The
three names in their wider sense preserved the same relation to each
other as before, Zahi lying to the west and north-west of Kharû, and
Lower Lotanû to the north of Kharû and north-east of Zahi, but the
extension of meaning did not abolish the old conception of their
position, and hence arose confusion in the minds of those who employed
them; the scribes, for instance, who registered in some far-off Theban
temple the victories of the Pharaoh would sometimes write Zahi where
they should have inscribed Kharû, and it is a difficult matter for us
always to detect their mistakes. It would be unjust to blame them too
severely for their inaccuracies, for what means had they of determining
the relative positions of that confusing collection of states with which
the Egyptians came in contact as soon as they had set foot on Syrian
soil?
A choice of several routes into Asia, possessing unequal advantages, was
open to the traveller, but the most direct of them passed through the
town of Zalû. The old entrenchments running from the Ked Sea to the
marshes of the Pelusiac branch still protected the isthmus, and beyond
these, forming an additional defence, was a canal on the banks of which
a fortress was constructed. This was occupied by the troops who guarded
the frontier, and no traveller was allowed to pass without having
declared his name and rank, signified the business which took him into
Syria or Egypt, and shown the letters with which he was entrusted.*
* The notes of an official living at Zalu in the time of
Mîneptah are preserved on the back of pls. v., vi. of the
_Anastasi Papyrus III_,; his business was to keep a register
of the movements of the comers and goers between Egypt and
Syria during a few days of the month Pakhons, in the year
III.
It was from Zalû that the Pharaohs set out with their troops, when
summoned to Kharû by a hostile confederacy; it was to Zalû they returned
triumphant after the campaign, and there, at the gates of the town,
they were welcomed by the magnates of the kingdom. The road ran for some
distance over a region which was covered by the inundation of the Nile
during six months of the year; it then turned eastward, and for some
distance skirted the sea-shore, passing between the Mediterranean
and the swamp which writers of the Greek period called the Lake of
Sirbonis.*
* The Sirbonian Lake is sometimes half full of water,
sometimes almost entirely dry; at the present time it bears
the name of Sebkhat Berdawil, from King Baldwin I. of
Jerusalem, who on his return from his Egyptian campaign died
on its shores, in 1148, before he could reach El-Artsh.
[Illustration: 177.jpg THE FORTRESS AND BRIDGE OF ZALU]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.
This stage of the journey was beset with difficulties, for the Sirbonian
Lake did not always present the same aspect, and its margins were
constantly shifting. When the canals which connected it with the open
sea happened to become obstructed, the sheet of water subsided from
evaporation, leaving in many places merely an expanse of shifting
mud, often concealed under the sand which the wind brought up from the
desert. Travellers ran imminent risk of sinking in this quagmire,
and the Greek historians tell of large armies being almost entirely
swallowed up in it. About halfway along the length of the lake rose the
solitary hill of Mount Casios; beyond this the sea-coast widened till
it became a vast slightly undulating plain, covered with scanty herbage,
and dotted over with wells containing an abundant supply of water,
which, however, was brackish and disagreeable to drink.
[Illustration: 178.jpg Map]
Beyond these lay a grove of palms, a brick prison, and a cluster of
miserable houses, bounded by a broad wady, usually dry. The bed of the
torrent often served as the boundary between Africa and Asia, and
the town was for many years merely a convict prison, where ordinary
criminals, condemned to mutilation and exile, were confined; indeed, the
Greeks assure us that it owed its name of Rhinocolûra to the number of
noseless convicts who were to be seen there.*
* The ruins of the ancient town, which were of considerable
extent, are half buried under the sand, out of which an
Egyptian naos of the Ptolemaic period has been dug, and
placed near the well which supplies the fort, where it
serves as a drinking trough for the horses. Brugsch believed
he could identify its site with that of the Syrian town
Hurnikheri, which he erroneously reads Harinkola; the
ancient form of the name is unknown, the Greek form varies
between Rhinocorûra and Rhinocolûra. The story of the
mutilated convicts is to be found in Diodorus Siculus, as
well as in Strabo; it rests on a historical fact. Under the
XVIIIth dynasty Zalû was used as a place of confinement for
dishonest officials. For this purpose it was probably
replaced by Rhinocolûra, when the Egyptian frontier was
removed from the neighbourhood of Selle to that of El-Arîsh.
At this point the coast turns in a north-easterly direction, and is
flanked with high sand-hills, behind which the caravans pursue their
way, obtaining merely occasional glimpses of the sea. Here and there,
under the shelter of a tower or a half-ruined fortress, the traveller
would have found wells of indifferent water, till on reaching the
confines of Syria he arrived at the fortified village of Raphia,
standing like a sentinel to guard the approach to Egypt. Beyond Raphia
vegetation becomes more abundant, groups of sycamores and mimosas and
clusters of date-palms appear on the horizon, villages surrounded with
fields and orchards are seen on all sides, while the bed of a river,
blocked with gravel and fallen rocks, winds its way between the last
fringes of the desert and the fruitful Shephelah;* on the further bank
of the river lay the suburbs of Gaza, and, but a few hundred yards
beyond, Gaza itself came into view among the trees standing on its
wall-crowned hill.**
* The term Shephelah signifies the plain; it is applied by
the Biblical writers to the plain bordering the coast, from
the heights of Gaza to those of Joppa, which were inhabited
at a later period by the Philistines (_Josh_. xi. 16; _Jer_.
xxxii. 44 and xxxiii. 13).
** Guérin describes at length the road from Gaza to Raphia.
The only town of importance between them in the Greek period
was Iênysos, the ruins of which are to be found near Khan
Yunes, but the Egyptian name for this locality is unknown:
Aunaugasa, the name of which Brugsch thought he could
identify with it, should be placed much farther away, in
Northern or in Coele-Syria.
The Egyptians, on their march from the Nile valley, were wont to stop
at this spot to recover from their fatigues; it was their first
halting-place beyond the frontier, and the news which would reach them
here prepared them in some measure for what awaited them further on.
The army itself, the troop of Râ, was drawn from four great races, the
most distinguished of which came, of course, from the banks of the Nile:
the Amû, born of Sokhît, the lioness-headed goddess, were classed in
the second rank; the Nahsi, or negroes of Ethiopia, were placed in the
third; while the Timihû, or Libyans, with the white tribes of the
north, brought up the rear. The Syrians belonged to the second of these
families, that next in order to the Egyptians, and the name of Amu,
which for centuries had been given them, met so satisfactorily all
political, literary, or commercial requirements, that the administrators
of the Pharaohs never troubled themselves to discover the various
elements concealed beneath the term. We are, however, able at the
present time to distinguish among them several groups of peoples and
languages, all belonging to the same family, but possessing distinctive
characteristics. The kinsfolk of the Hebrews, the children of Ishmael
and Edom, the Moabites and Ammonites, who were all qualified as Shaûsû,
had spread over the region to the south and east of the Dead Sea, partly
in the desert, and partly on the confines of the cultivated land. The
Canaanites were not only in possession of the coast from Gaza to a point
beyond the Nahr el-Kebir, but they also occupied almost the whole valley
of the Jordan, besides that of the Litâny, and perhaps that of the Upper
Orontes.* There were Aramaean settlements at Damascus, in the plains of
the Lower Orontes, and in Naharaim.**
* I use the term Canaanite with the meaning most frequently
attached to it, according to the Hebrew use (_Gen_. x. 15-
19). This word is found several times in the Egyptian texts
under the forms Kinakhna, Kinakhkhi, and probably Kûnakhaîû,
in the cuneiform texts of Tel el-Amarna.
** As far as I know, the term Aramæan is not to be found in
any Egyptian text of the time of the Pharaohs: the only
known example of it is a writers error corrected by Chabas.
W. Max Müller very justly observes that the mistake is
itself a proof of the existence of the name and of the
acquaintance of the Egyptians with it.
The country beyond the Aramaean territory, including the slopes of the
Amanos and the deep valleys of the Taurus, was inhabited by peoples of
various origin; the most powerful of these, the Khâti, were at this time
slowly forsaking the mountain region, and spreading by degrees over the
country between the Afrîn and the Euphrates.*
The Canaanites were the most numerous of all these groups, and had
they been able to amalgamate under a single king, or even to organize
a lasting confederacy, it would have been impossible for the Egyptian
armies to have broken through the barrier thus raised between them and
the rest of Asia; but, unfortunately, so far from showing the slightest
tendency towards unity or concentration, the Canaanites were more
hopelessly divided than any of the surrounding nations. Their mountains
contained nearly as many states as there were valleys, while in the
plains each town represented a separate government, and was built on a
spot carefully selected for purposes of defence. The land, indeed, was
chequered with these petty states, and so closely were they crowded
together, that a horseman, travelling at leisure, could easily pass
through two or three of them in a days journey.**
* Thûtmosis III. shows that, at any rate, they were
established in these regions about the XVIth century B.C.
The Egyptian pronunciation of their name is _Khîti_, with
the feminine _Khîtaît, Khîtit_; but the Tel el-Amarna texts
employ the vocalisation _Khâti, Khâte_, which must be more
correct than that of the Egyptians, The form _Khîti_ seems
to me to be explicable by an error of popular etymology.
Egyptian ethnical appellations in _îti_ formed their plural
by _-âtiû, -âteê, -âti, -âte_, so that if _Khâte, Khâti_,
were taken for a plural, it would naturally have suggested
to the scribes the form _Khîti_ for the singular.
** Thûtmosis III., speaking to his soldiers, tells them that
all the chiefs the projecting spur of some mountain, or on a
solitary and more or less irregularly shaped eminence in the
midst of a plain, and the means of defence in the country
are shut up in Megiddo, so that to take it is to take a
thousand cities: this is evidently a hyperbole in the mouth
of the conqueror, but the exaggeration itself shows how
numerous were the chiefs and consequently the small states
in Central and Southern Syria.
Not only were the royal cities fenced with walls, but many of the
surrounding villages were fortified, while the watch-towers, or
_migdols_* built at the bends of the roads, at the fords over the
rivers, and at the openings of the ravines, all testified to the
insecurity of the times and the aptitude for self-defence shown by the
inhabitants.
* This Canaanite word was borrowed by the Egyptians from the
Syrians at the beginning of their Asiatic wars; they
employed it in forming the names of the military posts which
they established on the eastern frontier of the Delta: it
appears for the first time among Syrian places in the list
of cities conquered by Thûtmosis III.
[Illustration: 184.jpg THE CANAANITE FORTRESSES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
The aspect of these migdols, or forts, must have appeared strange to the
first Egyptians who beheld them. These strongholds bore no resemblance
to the large square or oblong enclosures to which they were accustomed,
and which in their eyes represented the highest skill of the engineer.
In Syria, however, the positions suitable for the construction of
fortresses hardly ever lent themselves to a symmetrical plan. The
usual sites had to be adapted in each case to suit the particular
configuration of the ground.
[Illustration: 185.jpg THE WALLED CITY OF DAPÛR, IN GALILEE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken at Karnak by
Beato.
It was usually a mere wall of stone or dried brick, with towers at
intervals; the wall measuring from nine to twelve feet thick at the
base, and from thirty to thirty-six feet high, thus rendering an assault
by means of portable ladders, nearly impracticable.*
* This is, at least, the result of investigations made by
modern engineers who have studied these questions of
military archæology.
The gateway had the appearance of a fortress in itself. It was
composed of three large blocks of masonry, forming a re-entering face,
considerably higher than the adjacent curtains, and pierced near the top
with square openings furnished with mantlets, so as to give both a front
and flank view of the assailants. The wooden doors in the receded face
were covered with metal and raw hides, thus affording a protection
against axe or fire.*
* Most of the Canaanite towns, taken by Ramses II. in the
campaign of his VIIIth year were fortified in this manner.
It must have been the usual method of fortification, as it
seems to have served as a type for conventional
representation, and was sometimes used to denote cities
which had fortifications of another kind. For instance,
Dapûr-Tabor is represented in this way, while a picture on
another monument, which is reproduced in the illustration on
page 185, represents what seems to have been the particular
form of its encompassing walls.
The building was strong enough not only to defy the bands of adventurers
who roamed the country, but was able to resist for an indefinite time
the operations of a regular siege. Sometimes, however, the inhabitants
when constructing their defences did not confine themselves to this
rudimentary plan, but threw up earthworks round the selected site. On
the most exposed side they raised an advance wall, not exceeding twelve
or fifteen feet in height, at the left extremity of which the entrance
was so placed that the assailants, in endeavouring to force their way
through, were obliged to expose an unprotected flank to the defenders.
By this arrangement it was necessary to break through two lines of
fortification before the place could be entered. Supposing the enemy to
have overcome these first obstacles, they would find themselves at
their next point of attack confronted with a citadel which contained,
in addition to the sanctuary of the principal god, the palace of the
sovereign himself. This also had a double enclosing wall and massively
built gates, which could be forced only at the expense of fresh losses,
unless the cowardice or treason of the garrison made the assault an easy
one.*
* The type of town described in the text is based on a
representation on the walls of Karnak, where the siege of
Dapûr-Tabor by Ramses II. is depicted. Another type is given
in the case of Ascalon.
[Illustration: 187.jpg THE MIGDOL OF RAMSES III. AT THEBES, IN THE
TEMPLE OF MEDINET-ABUL]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph taken by Dévéria
in 1865.
Of these bulwarks of Canaanite civilization, which had been thrown up by
hundreds on the route of the invading hosts, not a trace is to be seen
to-day. They may have been razed to the ground during one of those
destructive revolutions to which the country was often exposed, or
their remains may lie hidden underneath the heaps of ruins which thirty
centuries of change have raised over them.*
* The only remains of a Canaanite fortification which can be
assigned to the Egyptian period are those which Professor
F. I. Petrie brought to light in the ruins of Tell el-Hesy,
and in which he rightly recognised the remains of Lachish.
The records of victories graven on the walls of the Theban temples
furnish, it is true, a general conception of their appearance, but the
notions of them which we should obtain from this source would be of
a very confused character had not one of the last of the conquering
Pharaohs, Ramses III., taken it into his head to have one built at
Thebes itself, to contain within it, in addition to his funerary chapel,
accommodation for the attendants assigned to the conduct of his worship.
In the Greek and Roman period a portion of this fortress was demolished,
but the external wall of defence still exists on the eastern side,
together with the gate, which is commanded on the right by a projection
of the enclosing-wall, and flanked by two guard-houses, rectangular in
shape, and having roofs which jut out about a yard beyond the wall of
support. Having passed through these obstacles, we find ourselves face
to face with a _migdol_ of cut stone, nearly square in form, with two
projecting wings, the court between their loop-holed walls being made to
contract gradually from the point of approach by a series of abutments.
A careful examination of the place, indeed, reveals more than one
arrangement which the limited knowledge of the Egyptians would hardly
permit us to expect. We discover, for instance, that the main body of
the building is made to rest upon a sloping sub-structure which rises to
a height of some sixteen feet.
This served two purposes: it increased, in the first place, the strength
of the defence against sapping; and in the second, it caused the
weapons launched by the enemy to rebound with violence from its inclined
surface, thus serving to keep the assailants at a distance. The whole
structure has an imposing look, and it must be admitted that the royal
architects charged with carrying out their sovereigns idea brought to
their task an attention to detail for which the people from whom the
plan was borrowed had no capacity, and at the same time preserved the
arrangements of their model so faithfully that we can readily realise
what it must have been. Transport this migdol of Ramses III. into Asia,
plant it upon one of those hills which the Canaanites were accustomed to
select as a site for their fortifications, spread out at its base some
score of low and miserable hovels, and we have before us an improvised
pattern of a village which recalls in a striking manner Zerîn or Beîtîn,
or any other small modern town which gathers the dwellings of its
fellahin round some central stone building--whether it be a hostelry for
benighted travellers, or an ancient castle of the Crusading age.
[Illustration: 189.jpg THE MODERN VILLAGE OF BEÎTÎN (ANCIENT BETHEL),
SEEN FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
There were on the littoral, to the north of Gaza, two large walled
towns, Ascalon and Joppa, in whose roadsteads merchant vessels were
accustomed to take hasty refuge in tempestuous weather.* There were to
be found on the plains also, and on the lower slopes of the mountains,
a number of similar fortresses and villages, such as Iurza, Migdol,
Lachish, Ajalon, Shocho, Adora, Aphukîn, Keilah, Gezer, and Ono; and,
in the neighbourhood of the roads which led to the fords of the Jordan,
Gibeah, Beth-Anoth, and finally Urusalim, our Jerusalem.** A tolerably
dense population of active and industrious husbandmen maintained
themselves upon the soil.
* Ascalon was not actually on the sea. Its port, Maiumas
Ascalonis, was probably merely a narrow bay or creek, now,
for a long period, filled up by the sand. Neither the site
nor the remains of the port have been discovered. The name
of the town is always spelled in Egyptian with an s --
Askaluna, which gives us the pronunciation of the time. The
name of Joppa is written Yapu, Yaphu, and the gardens which
then surrounded the town are mentioned in the _Anastasi
Papyrus I_.
** Urusalim is mentioned only in the Tel el-Amarna tablets,
alongside of Kilti or Keilah, Ajalon, and Lachish. The
remaining towns are noticed in the great lists of Thûtmosis
III.
[Illustration: 191.jpg Page image]
The plough which they employed was like that used by the Egyptians and
Babylonians, being nothing but a large hoe to which a couple of oxen
were harnessed.* The scarcity of rain, except in certain seasons,
and the tendency of the rivers to run low, contributed to make the
cultivators of the soil experts in irrigation and agriculture. Almost
the only remains of these people which have come down ti us consist of
indestructible wells and cisterns, or wine and oil presses hollowed out
of the rock.**
* This is the form of plough still employed by the Syrians
in some places.
** Monuments of this kind are encountered at every step in
Judaea, but it is very difficult to date them. The aqueduct
of Siloam, which goes back perhaps to the time of Hezekiah.
Fields of wheat and barley extended along the flats of the valleys,
broken in upon here and there by orchards, in which the white and pink
almond, the apple, the fig, the pomegranate, and the olive flourished
side by side.
[Illustration: 192.jpg AMPHITHEATRE OF HILLS]
Drawn by Boudier, from a plate in Chesney.
Jerusalem, possibly in part to be attributed to the reign of Solomon,
are the only instances to which anything like a certain date may be
assigned. But these are long posterior to the XVIIIth dynasty. Good
judges, however, attribute some of these monuments to a very distant
period: the masonry of the wells of Beersheba is very ancient, if not as
it is at present, at least as it was when it was repaired in the time of
the Cæsars; the olive and wine presses hewn in the rock do not all date
back to the Roman empire, but many belong to a still earlier period, and
modern descriptions correspond with what we know of such presses from
the Bible.
If the slopes of the valley rose too precipitously for cultivation,
stone dykes were employed to collect the falling earth, and thus to
transform the sides of the hills into a series of terraces rising one
above the other. Here the vines, planted in lines or in trellises,
blended their clusters with the fruits of the orchard-trees. It was,
indeed, a land of milk and honey, and its topographical nomenclature in
the Egyptian geographical lists reflects as in a mirror the agricultural
pursuits of its ancient inhabitants: one village, for instance, is
called Aubila, the meadow; while others bear such names as Ganutu,
the gardens; Magraphut, the mounds; and Karman, the vineyard. The
further we proceed towards the north, we find, with a diminishing
aridity, the hillsides covered with richer crops, and the valleys decked
out with a more luxuriant and warmly coloured vegetation. Shechem lies
in an actual amphitheatre of verdure, which is irrigated by countless
unfailing streams; rushing brooks babble on every side, and the vapour
given off by them morning and evening covers the entire landscape with
a luminous haze, where the outline of each object becomes blurred, and
quivers in a manner to which we are accustomed in our Western lands.*
Towns grew and multiplied upon this rich and loamy soil, but as these
lay outside the usual track of the invading hosts--which preferred to
follow the more rugged but shorter route leading straight to Carmel
across the plain--the records of the conquerors only casually mention a
few of them, such as Bîtshaîlu, Birkana, and Dutîna.**
* Shechem is not mentioned in the Egyptian geographical
lists, but Max Müller thinks he has discovered it in the
name of the mountain of Sikima which figures in the
_Anastasi Papyrus_, No. 1.
** Bîtshaîlu, identified by Chabas with Bethshan, and with
Shiloh by Mariette and Maspero, is more probably Bethel,
written Bît-sha-îlu, either with _sh_, the old relative
pronoun of the Phoenician, or with the Assyrian _sha_; on
the latter supposition one must suppose, as Sayce does, that
the compiler of the Egyptian lists had before him sources of
information in the cuneiform character. Birkana appears to
be the modern Brukin, and Dutîna is certainly Dothain, now
Tell-Dothân.
Beyond Ono reddish-coloured sandy clay took the place of the dark and
compact loam: oaks began to appear, sparsely at first, but afterwards
forming vast forests, which the peasants of our own days have thinned
and reduced to a considerable extent. The stunted trunks of these trees
are knotted and twisted, and the tallest of them do not exceed some
thirty feet in height, while many of them may be regarded as nothing
more imposing than large bushes.* Muddy rivers, infested with
crocodiles, flowed slowly through the shady woods, spreading out their
waters here and there in pestilential swamps. On reaching the seaboard,
their exit was impeded by the sands which they brought down with them,
and the banks which were thus formed caused the waters to accumulate
in lagoons extending behind the dunes. For miles the road led through
thickets, interrupted here and there by marshy places and clumps of
thorny shrubs. Bands of Shaûsû were accustomed to make this route
dangerous, and even the bravest heroes shrank from venturing alone along
this route. Towards Aluna the way began to ascend Mount Carmel by a
narrow and giddy track cut in the rocky side of the precipice.**
* The forest was well known to the geographers of the Græco-
Roman period, and was still in existence at the time of the
Crusades.
** This defile is described at length in the _Anastasi
Papyrus_, No. 1, and the terms used by the writer are in
themselves sufficient evidence of the terror with which the
place inspired the Egyptians. The annals of Thûtmosis III.
are equally explicit as to the difficulties which an army
had to encounter here. I have placed this defile near the
point which is now called Umm-el-Fahm, and this site seems
to me to agree better with the account of the expedition of
Thûtmosis III. than that of Arraneh proposed by Conder.
Beyond the Mount, it led by a rapid descent into a plain covered with
corn and verdure, and extending in a width of some thirty miles, by a
series of undulations, to the foot of Tabor, where it came to an
end. Two side ranges running almost parallel--little Hermon and
Glilboa--disposed in a line from east to west, and united by an almost
imperceptibly rising ground, serve rather to connect the plain of
Megiddo with the valley of the Jordan than to separate them. A single
river, the Kishon, cuts the route diagonally--or, to speak more
correctly, a single river-bed, which is almost waterless for nine months
of the year, and becomes swollen only during the winter rains with the
numerous torrents bursting from the hillsides. As the flood approaches
the sea it becomes of more manageable proportions, and finally
distributes its waters among the desolate lagoons formed behind the
sand-banks of the open and wind-swept bay, towered over by the sacred
summit of Carmel.*
* In the lists of Thûtmosis III. we find under No. 48 the
town of Rosh-Qodshu, the Sacred Cape, which was evidently
situated at the end of the mountain range, or probably on
the site of Haifah; the name itself suggests the veneration
with which Carmel was invested from the earliest times.
No corner of the world has been the scene of more sanguinary
engagements, or has witnessed century after century so many armies
crossing its borders and coming into conflict with one another. Every
military leader who, after leaving Africa, was able to seize Gaza and
Ascalon, became at once master of Southern Syria. He might, it is true,
experience some local resistance, and come into conflict with bands
or isolated outposts of the enemy, but as a rule he had no need to
anticipate a battle before he reached the banks of the Kishon.
[Illustration: 196.jpg THE EVERGREEN OAKS BETWEEN JOPPA AND CARMEL]
Drawn by Boudier, from a pencil sketch by Lortet.
Here, behind a screen of woods and mountain, the enemy would concentrate
his forces and prepare resolutely to meet the attack. If the invader
succeeded in overcoming resistance at this point, the country lay open
to him as far as the Orontes; nay, often even to the Euphrates. The
position was too important for its defence to have been neglected. A
range of forts, Ibleâm, Taanach, and Megiddo,* drawn like a barrier
across the line of advance, protected its southern face, and beyond
these a series of strongholds and villages followed one another at
intervals in the bends of the valleys or on the heights, such as Shunem,
Kasuna, Anaharath, the two Aphuls, Cana, and other places which we find
mentioned on the triumphal lists, but of which, up to the present, the
sites have not been fixed.
* Megiddo, the Legio of the Roman period, has been
identified since Robinsons time with Khurbet-Lejûn, and
more especially with the little mound known by the name of
Tell-el-Mutesallim. Conder proposed to place its site more
to the east, in the valley of the Jordan, at Khurbet-el-
Mujeddah.
[Illustration: 197.jpg ACRE AND THE FRINGE OF REEFS SHELTERING THE
ANCIENT PORT]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Lortet.
From this point the conqueror had a choice of three routes. One ran
in an oblique direction to the west, and struck the Mediterranean near
Acre, leaving on the left the promontory of Carmel, with the sacred
town, Rosh-Qodshu, planted on its slope.
[Illustration: 198.jpg Map]
Acre was the first port where a fleet could find safe anchorage after
leaving the mouths of the Nile, and whoever was able to make himself
master of it had in his hands the key of Syria, for it stood in the same
commanding position with regard to the coast as that held by Megiddo
in respect of the interior. Its houses were built closely together on a
spit of rock which projected boldly into the sea, while fringes of reefs
formed for it a kind of natural breakwater, behind which ships could
find a safe harbourage from the attacks of pirates or the perils of bad
weather. From this point the hills come so near the shore that one is
sometimes obliged to wade along the beach to avoid a projecting spur,
and sometimes to climb a zig-zag path in order to cross a headland. In
more than one place the rock has been hollowed into a series of
rough steps, giving it the appearance of a vast ladder.* Below this
precipitous path the waves dash with fury, and when the wind sets
towards the land every thud causes the rocky wall to tremble, and
detaches fragments from its surface. The majority of the towns, such as
Aksapu (Ecdippa), Mashal, Lubina, Ushu-Shakhan, lay back from the sea on
the mountain ridges, out of the reach of pirates; several, however,
were built on the shore, under the shelter of some promontory, and the
inhabitants of these derived a miserable subsistence from fishing and
the chase. Beyond the Tyrian Ladder Phoenician territory began. The
country was served throughout its entire length, from town to town,
by the coast road, which turning at length to the right, and passing
through the defile formed by the Nahr-el-Kebîr, entered the region of
the middle Orontes.
* Hence the name Tyrian Ladder, which is applied to one of
these passes, either Ras-en-Nakurah or Ras-el-Abiad.
[Illustration: 201.jpg THE TOWN OF QODSHU]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Beato.
The second of the roads leading from Megiddo described an almost
symmetrical curve eastwards, crossing the Jordan at Beth-shan, then
the Jab-bok, and finally reaching Damascus after having skirted at some
distance the last of the basaltic ramparts of the Haurân. Here extended
a vast but badly watered pasture-land, which attracted the Bedouin from
every side, and scattered over it were a number of walled towns, such as
Hamath, Magato, Ashtaroth, and Ono-Eepha.*
* Proof that the Egyptians knew this route, followed even to
this day in certain circumstances, is furnished by the lists
of Thûtmosis III., in which the principal stations which it
comprises are enumerated among the towns given up after the
victory of Megiddo. Dimasqu was identified with Damascus by
E. de Rougé, and Astarotu with Ashtarôth-Qarnaim. Hamatu is
probably Hamath of the Gadarenes; Magato, the Maged of the
Maccabees, is possibly the present Mukatta; and Ono-Repha,
Raphôn, Raphana, Arpha of Decapolis, is the modern Er-Rafeh.
Probably Damascus was already at this period the dominant authority over
the region watered by these two rivers, as well as over the villages
nestling in the gorges of Hermon,--Abila, Helbôn of the vineyards, and
Tabrûd,--but it had not yet acquired its renown for riches and power.
Protected by the Anti-Lebanon range from its turbulent neighbours, it
led a sort of vegetative existence apart from invading hosts, forgotten
and hushed to sleep, as it were, in the shade of its gardens.
The third road from Megiddo took the shortest way possible. After
crossing the Kishon almost at right angles to its course, it ascended
by a series of steep inclines to arid plains, fringed or intersected
by green and flourishing valleys, which afforded sites for numerous
towns,--Pahira, Merom near Lake Huleh, Qart-Nizanu, Beerotu, and Lauîsa,
situated in the marshy district at the head-waters of the Jordan.* From
this point forward the land begins to fall, and taking a hollow shape,
is known as Coele-Syria, with its luxuriant vegetation spread between
the two ranges of the Lebanon. It was inhabited then, as at the time of
the Babylonian conquest, by the Amorites, who probably included Damascus
also in their domain.**
* Pahira is probably Safed; Qart-Nizanu, the flowery city,
the Kartha of Zabulon; and Bcerôt, the Berotha of Josephus,
near Merom. Maroma and Lauîsa, Laisa, have been identified
with Merom and Laish.
** The identification of the country of Amâuru with that of
the Amorites was admitted from the first. The only doubt was
as to the locality occupied by these Amorites: the mention
of Qodshu on the Orontes, in the country of the Amurru,
showed that Coele-Syria was the region in question. In the
Tel el-Amarna tablets the name Amurru is applied also to the
country east of the Phoenician coast, and we have seen that
there is reason to believe that it was used by the
Babylonians to denote all Syria. If the name given by the
cuneiform inscriptions to Damascus and its neighbourhood,
Gar-Imirîshu, Imirîshu, Imirîsh, really means the
Fortress of the Amorites, we should have in this fact a
proof that this people were in actual possession of the
Damascene Syria. This must have been taken from them by the
Hittites towards the XXth century before our era, according
to Hommel; about the end of the XVIIIth dynasty, according
to Lenormant. If, on the other hand, the Assyrians read the
name Sha-imiri-shu, with the signification, the town of
its asses, it is simply a play upon words, and has no
bearing upon the primitive meaning of the name.
[Illustration: 202.jpg THE TYRIAN LADDER AT RAS EL-ABIAD]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
Their capital, the sacred Qodshu, was situated on the left bank of the
Orontes, about five miles from the lake which for a long time bore its
name, Bahr-el-Kades.* It crowned one of those barren oblong eminences
which are so frequently met with in Syria. A muddy stream, the Tannur,
flowed, at some distance away, around its base, and, emptying itself
into the Orontes at a point a little to the north, formed a natural
defence for the town on the west. Its encompassing walls, slightly
elliptic in form, were strengthened by towers, and surrounded by two
concentric ditches which kept the sapper at a distance.
* The name Qodshu-Kadesh was for a long time read Uatesh,
Badesh, Atesh, and, owing to a confusion with Qodi, Ati, or
Atet. The town was identified by Champollion with Bactria,
then transferred to Mesopotamia by Bosollini, in the land of
Omira, which, according to Pliny, was close to the Taurus,
not far from the Khabur or from the province of Aleppo:
Osburn tried to connect it with Hadashah (_Josh_. xv. 21),
an Amorite town in the southern part of the tribe of Judah;
while Hincks placed it in Edessa. The reading Kedesh,
Kadesh, Qodshu, the result of the observations of Lepsius,
has finally prevailed. Brugsch connected this name with that
of Bahr el-Kades, a designation attached in the Middle Ages
to the lake through which the Orontes flows, and placed the
town on its shores or on a small island on the lake. Thomson
pointed out Tell Neby-Mendeh, the ancient Laodicea of the
Lebanon, as satisfying the requirements of the site. Conder
developed this idea, and showed that all the conditions
prescribed by the Egyptian texts in regard to Qodshu find
here, and here alone, their application. The description
given in the text is based on Conders observations.
[Illustration: 206.jpt THE DYKE AT BAIIK EL-KADES IN ITS PRESENT
CONDITION]
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.
A dyke running across the Orontes above the town caused the waters to
rise and to overflow in a northern direction, so as to form a shallow
lake, which acted as an additional protection from the enemy. Qodshu was
thus a kind of artificial island, connected with the surrounding country
by two flying bridges, which could be opened or shut at pleasure. Once
the bridges were raised and the gates closed, the boldest enemy had
no resource left but to arm himself with patience and settle down to
a lengthened siege. The invader, fresh from a victory at Megiddo, and
following up his good fortune in a forward movement, had to reckon upon
further and serious resistance at this point, and to prepare himself for
a second conflict. The Amorite chiefs and their allies had the advantage
of a level and firm ground for the evolutions of their chariots during
the attack, while, if they were beaten, the citadel afforded them a
secure rallying-place, whence, having gathered their shattered troops,
they could regain their respective countries, or enter, with the help
of a few devoted men, upon a species of guerilla warfare in which they
excelled.
The road from Damascus led to a point south of Quodshu, while that
from Phonicia came right up to the town itself or to its immediate
neighbourhood. The dyke of Bahr el-Kades served to keep the plain in a
dry condition, and thus secured for numerous towns, among which Hamath
stood out pre-eminently, a prosperous existence. Beyond Hamath, and to
the left, between the Orontes and the sea, lay the commercial kingdom of
Alasia, protected from the invader by bleak mountains.*
* The site of Alasia, Alashia, was determined from the Tel
el-Amarna tablets by Maspero. Niebuhr had placed it to the
west of Cilicia, opposite the island of Eleousa mentioned by
Strabo. Conder connected it with the scriptural Elishah, and
W. Max Millier confounds it with Asi or Cyprus.
On the right, between the Orontes and the Balikh, extended the land of
rivers, Naharaim. Towns had grown up here thickly,--on the sides of the
torrents from the Amanos, along the banks of rivers, near springs or
wells--wherever, in fact, the presence of water made culture possible.
The fragments of the Egyptian chronicles which have come down to us
number these towns by the hundred,* and yet of how many more must the
records have perished with the crumbling Theban walls upon which the
Pharaohs had their names incised! Khalabu was the Aleppo of our own
day,** and grouped around it lay Turmanuna, Tunipa, Zarabu, Nîi,
Durbaniti, Nirabu, Sarmata,*** and a score of others which depended upon
it, or upon one of its rivals. The boundaries of this portion of the
Lower Lotanû have come down to us in a singularly indefinite form, and
they must also, moreover, have been subject to continual modifications
from the results of tribal conflicts.
* Two hundred and thirty names belonging to Naharaim are
still legible on the lists of Thûtmosis III., and a hundred
others have been effaced from the monument.
** Khalabu was identified by Chabas with Khalybôn, the
modern Aleppo, and his opinion has been adopted by most
Egyptologists.
*** Tunipa has been found in Tennib, Tinnab, by Noldoke;
Zarabu in Zarbi, and Sarmata in Sarmeda, by Tomkins;
Durbaniti in Deîr el-Banât, the Castrum Puellarum of the
chroniclers of the Crusades; Nirabu in Nirab, and Tirabu in
Tereb, now el-Athrib. Nirab is mentioned by Nicholas of
Damascus. Nîi, long confounded with Nineveh, was identified
by Lenormant with Ninus Vetus, Membidj, and by Max Millier
with Balis on the Euphrates: I am inclined to make it Kefer-
Naya, between Aleppo and Turmanin.
[Illustration: 208.jpg Map]
We are at a loss to know whether the various principalities were
accustomed to submit to the leadership of a single individual, or
whether we are to relegate to the region of popular fancy that Lord
of Naharaim of whom the Egyptian scribes made such a hero in their
fantastic narratives.*
* In the Story of the Predestined Prince the heroine is
daughter of the Prince of Naharaim, who seems to exercise
authority over all the chiefs of the country; as the
manuscript does not date back further than the XXth dynasty,
we are justified in supposing that the Egyptian writer had a
knowledge of the Hittite domination, during which the King
of the Khâti was actually the ruler of all Naharaim.
Carchemish represented in this region the position occupied by Megiddo
in relation to Kharû, and by Qodshu among the Amorites; that is to say,
it was the citadel and sanctuary of the surrounding country. Whoever
could make himself master of it would have the whole country at his
feet.
[Illustration: 211.jpg Site of Carchemish]
It lay upon the Euphrates, the winding of the river protecting it on its
southern and south-eastern sides, while around its northern front ran
a deep stream, its defence being further completed by a double ditch
across the intervening region. Like Qodshu, it was thus situated in the
midst of an artificial island beyond the reach of the battering-ram or
the sapper. The encompassing wall, which tended to describe an ellipse,
hardly measured two miles in circumference; but the suburbs extending,
in the midst of villas and gardens, along the river-banks furnished in
time of peace an abode for the surplus population. The wall still rises
some five and twenty to thirty feet above the plain. Two mounds divided
by a ravine command its north-western side, their summits being occupied
by the ruins of two fine buildings--a temple and a palace.* Carchemish
was the last stage in a conquerors march coming from the south.
* Karkamisha, Gargamish, was from the beginning associated
with the Carchemish of the Bible; but as the latter was
wrongly identified with Circesium, it was naturally located
at the confluence of the Khabur with the Euphrates. Hincks
fixed the site at Rum-Kaleh. G. Rawlinson referred it
cursorily to Hierapolis-Mabog, which position Maspero
endeavoured to confirm. Finzi, and after him G. Smith,
thought to find the site at Jerabis, the ancient Europos,
and excavations carried on there by the English have brought
to light in this place Hittite monuments which go back in
part to the Assyrian epoch. This identification is now
generally accepted, although there is still no direct proof
attainable, and competent judges continue to prefer the site
of Membij. I fall in with the current view, but with all
reserve.
[Illustration: 212.jpg THE TELL OF JERABIS IN ITS PRESENT CONDITION]
Reproduced by Faucher-Gudin, from a cut in the _Graphic_.
For an invader approaching from the east or north it formed his first
station. He had before him, in fact, a choice of the three chief fords
for crossing the Euphrates. That of Thapsacus, at the bend of the river
where it turns eastward to the Arabian plain, lay too far to the
south, and it could be reached only after a march through a parched
and desolate region where the army would run the risk of perishing from
thirst.
[Illustration: 213.jpg A NORTHERN SYRIAN]
Drawn by faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
For an invader proceeding from Asia Minor, or intending to make his
way through the defiles of the Taurus, Samosata offered a convenient
fording-place; but this route would compel the general, who had Naharaim
or the kingdoms of Chaldæa in view, to make a long detour, and
although the Assyrians used it at a later period, at the time of their
expeditions to the valleys of the Halys, the Egyptians do not seem ever
to have travelled by this road. Carchemish, the place of the third ford,
was about equally distant from Thapsacus and Samosata, and lay in a
rich and fertile province, which was so well watered that a drought or
a famine would not be likely to enter into the expectations of its
inhabitants. Hither pilgrims, merchants, soldiers, and all the wandering
denizens of the world were accustomed to direct their steps, and the
habit once established was perpetuated for centuries. On the left
bank of the river, and almost opposite Carchemish, lay the region of
Mitânni,* which was already occupied by a people of a different race,
who used a language cognate, it would seem, with the imperfectly
classified dialects spoken by the tribes of the Upper Tigris and Upper
Euphrates.** Harran bordered on Mitânni, and beyond Harran one may
recognise, in the vaguely defined Singar, Assur, Arrapkha, and Babel,
states that arose out of the dismemberment of the ancient Chaldæan
Empire.***
* Mitânni is mentioned on several Egyptian monuments; but
its importance was not recognised until after the discovery
of the Tel el-Amarna tablets and of its situation. The fact
that a letter from the Prince of Mitânni is stated in a
Hieratic docket to have come from Naharaim has been used as
a proof that the countries were identical; I have shown that
the docket proves only that Mitânni formed a part of
Naharaim. It extended over the province of Edessa and
Harran, stretching out towards the sources of the Tigris.
Niebuhr places it on the southern slope of the Masios, in
Mygdonia; Th. Reinach connects it with the Matiôni, and asks
whether this was not the region occupied by this people
before their emigration towards the Caspian.
** Several of the Tel el-Amarna tablets are couched in this
language.
*** These names were recognised from the first in the
inscriptions of Thûtmosis III. and in those of other
Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties.
The Carchemish route was, of course, well known to caravans, but armed
bodies had rarely occasion to make use of it. It was a far cry from
Memphis to Carchemish, and for the Egyptians this town continued to be
a limit which they never passed, except incidentally, when they had to
chastise some turbulent tribe, or to give some ill-guarded town to the
flames.*
* A certain number of towns mentioned in the lists of
Thûtmosis III. were situated beyond the Euphrates, and they
belonged some to Mitânni and some to the regions further
away.
[Illustration: 215.jpg THE HEADS OF THREE AMORITE CAPTIVES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
It would be a difficult task to define with any approach to accuracy the
distribution of the Canaanites, Amorites, and Aramæans, and to indicate
the precise points where they came into contact with their rivals of
non-Semitic stock. Frontiers between races and languages can never be
very easily determined, and this is especially true of the peoples of
Syria. They are so broken up and mixed in this region, that even in
neighbourhoods where one predominant tribe is concentrated, it is easy
to find at every step representatives of all the others. Four or five
townships, singled out at random from the middle of a province,
would often be found to belong to as many different races, and their
respective inhabitants, while living within a distance of a mile or two,
would be as great strangers to each other as if they were separated by
the breadth of a continent.
[Illustration: 216.jpg MIXTURE OF SYRIAN RACES]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
It would appear that the breaking up of these populations had not been
carried so far in ancient as in modern times, but the confusion must
already have been great if we are to judge from the number of different
sites where we encounter evidences of people of the same language
and blood. The bulk of the Khâti had not yet departed from the Taurus
region, but some stray bands of them, carried away by the movement which
led to the invasion of the Hyksôs, had settled around Hebron, where
the rugged nature of the country served to protect them from their
neighbours.*
* In very early times they are described as dwelling near
Hebron or in the mountains of Judah. Since we have learned
from the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments that the Khâti
dwelt in Northern Syria, the majority of commentators have
been indisposed to admit the existence of southern Hittites;
this name, it is alleged, having been introduced into the
Biblical around text through a misconception of the original
documents, where the term Hittite was the equivalent of
Canaanite.
The Amorites* had their head-quarters Qodshul in Coele-Syria, but one
section of them had taken up a position on the shores of the Lake of
Tiberias in Galilee, others had established themselves within a short
distance of Jaffa** on the Mediterranean, while others had settled in
the neighbourhood of the southern Hittites in such numbers that their
name in the Hebrew Scriptures was at times employed to designate the
western mountainous region about the Dead Sea and the valley of the
Jordan. Their presence was also indicated on the table-lands bordering
the desert of Damascus, in the districts frequented by Bedouin of the
tribe of Terah, Ammon and Moab, on the rivers Yarmuk and Jabbok, and at
Edrei and Heshbon.***
* Ed. Meyer has established the fact that the term Amorite,
as well as the parallel word Canaanite, was the designation
of the inhabitants of Palestine before the arrival of the
Hebrews: the former belonged to the prevailing tradition in
the kingdom of Israel, the latter to that which was current
in Judah. This view confirms the conclusion which may be
drawn from the Egyptian monuments as to the power of
expansion and the diffusion of the people.
** These were the Amorites which the tribe of Dan at a later
period could not dislodge from the lands which had been
allotted to them.
*** This was afterwards the domain of Sihon, King of the
Amorites, and that of Og.
The fuller, indeed, our knowledge is of the condition of Syria at the
time of the Egyptian conquest, the more we are forced to recognise the
mixture of races therein, and their almost infinite subdivisions. The
mutual jealousies, however, of these elements of various origin were
not so inveterate as to put an obstacle in the way, I will not say of
political alliances, but of daily intercourse and frequent contracts.
Owing to intermarriages between the tribes, and the continual crossing
of the results of such unions, peculiar characteristics were at length
eliminated, and a uniform type of face was the result. From north
to south one special form of countenance, that which we usually call
Semitic, prevailed among them.
[Illustration: 218.jpg A CARICATURE OF THE SYRIAN TYPE]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph.
The Syrian and Egyptian monuments furnish us everywhere, under different
ethnical names, with representations of a broad-shouldered people of
high stature, slender-figured in youth, but with a fatal tendency
to obesity in old age. Their heads are large, somewhat narrow, and
artificially flattened or deformed, like those of several modern tribes
in the Lebanon. Their high cheek-bones stand out from their hollow
cheeks, and their blue or black eyes are buried under their enormous
eyebrows. The lower part of the face is square and somewhat heavy, but
it is often concealed by a thick and curly beard. The forehead is rather
low and retreating, while the nose has a distinctly aquiline curve. The
type is not on the whole so fine as the Egyptian, but it is not so heavy
as that of the Chaldæans in the time of Gudea. The Theban artists have
represented it in their battle-scenes, and while individualising every
soldier or Asiatic prisoner with a happy knack so as to avoid monotony,
they have with much intelligence impressed upon all of them the marks of
a common parentage.
[Illustration: 219.jpg]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the original wooden object.
One feels that the artists must have recognised them as belonging to one
common family. They associated with their efforts after true and exact
representation a certain caustic humour, which impelled them often to
substitute for a portrait a more or less jocose caricature of their
adversaries. On the walls of the Pylons, and in places where the majesty
of a god restrained them from departing too openly from their official
gravity, they contented themselves with exaggerating from panel to panel
the contortions and pitiable expressions of the captive chiefs as they
followed behind the triumphal chariot of the Pharaoh on his return from
his Syrian campaigns.*
* An illustration of this will be found in the line of
prisoners, brought by Seti I. from his great Asiatic
campaign, which is depicted on the outer face of the north
wall of the hypostyle at Karnak.
Where religious scruples offered no obstacle they abandoned themselves
to the inspiration of the moment, and gave themselves freely up to
caricature. It is an Amorite or Canaanite--that thick-lipped, flat-nosed
slave, with his brutal lower jaw and smooth conical skull--who serves
for the handle of a spoon in the museum of the Louvre. The stupefied air
with which he trudges under his burden is rendered in the most natural
manner, and the flattening to which his forehead had been subjected
in infancy is unfeelingly accentuated. The model which served for this
object must have been intentionally brutalised and disfigured in order
to excite the laughter of Pharaohs subjects.*
* Dr. Regnault thinks that the head was artificially
deformed in infancy: the bandage necessary to effect it must
have been applied very low on the forehead in front, and to
the whole occiput behind. If this is the case, the instance
is not an isolated one, for a deformation of a similar
character is found in the case of the numerous Semites
represented on the tomb of Rakhmiri: a similar practice
still obtains in certain parts of modern Syria.
[Illustration: 220.jpg SYRIANS DRESSED IN THE LOIN-CLOTH AND DOUBLE
SHAWL]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.
The idea of uniformity with which we are impressed when examining the
faces of these people is confirmed and extended when we come to study
their costumes. Men and women--we may say all Syrians according to
their condition of life--had a choice between only two or three modes
of dress, which, whatever the locality, or whatever the period, seemed
never to change. On closer examination slight shades of difference in
cut and arrangement may, however, be detected, and it may be affirmed
that fashion ran even in ancient Syria through as many capricious
evolutions as with ourselves; but these variations, which were evident
to the eyes of the people of the time, are not sufficiently striking to
enable us to classify the people, or to fix their date. The peasants and
the lower class of citizens required no other clothing than a loin-cloth
similar to that of the Egyptians,* or a shirt of a yellow or white
colour, extending below the knees, and furnished with short sleeves. The
opening for the neck was cruciform, and the hem was usually ornamented
with coloured needlework or embroidery. The burghers and nobles wore
over this a long strip of cloth, which, after passing closely round the
hips and chest, was brought up and spread over the shoulders as a sort
of cloak. This was not made of the light material used in Egypt, which
offered no protection from cold or rain, but was composed of a thick,
rough wool, like that employed in Chaldæa, and was commonly adorned with
stripes or bands of colour, in addition to spots and other conspicuous
designs.
* The Asiatic loin-cloth differs from the Egyptian in having
pendent cords; the Syrian fellahin still wear it when at
work.
Rich and fashionable folk substituted for this cloth two large
shawls--one red and the other blue--in which they dexterously arrayed
themselves so as to alternate the colours: a belt of soft leather
gathered the folds around the figure. Red morocco buskins, a soft cap,
a handkerchief, a _kejfîyeh_ confined by a fillet, and sometimes a wig
after the Egyptian fashion, completed the dress.
[Illustration: 222a.jpg]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a figure on the tomb of Ramses III.
Beards were almost universal among the men, but the moustache was of
rare occurrence. In many of the figures represented on the monuments
we find that the head was carefully shaved, while in others the hair
was allowed to grow, arranged in curls, frizzed and shining with oil or
sweet-smelling pomade, sometimes thrown back behind the ears and falling
on the neck in bunches or curly masses, sometimes drawn out in stiff
spikes so as to serve as a projecting cover over the face.
[Illustration: 222b.jpg A SYRIAN WITH HAIR TIRED PENT-HOUSE FASHION]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Champollion.
The women usually tired their hair in three great masses, of which the
thickest was allowed to fall freely down the back; while the other two
formed a kind of framework for the face, the ends descending on each
side as far as the breast. Some of the women arranged their hair after
the Egyptian manner, in a series of numerous small tresses, brought
together at the ends so as to form a kind of plat, and terminating in
a flower made of metal or enamelled terracotta. A network of glass
ornaments, arranged on a semicircle of beads, or on a background of
embroidered stuff, was frequently used as a covering for the top of the
head.*
* Examples of Syrian feminine costume are somewhat rare on
the Egyptian monuments. In the scenes of the capturing of
towns we see a few. Here the women are represented on the
walls imploring the mercy of the besieger. Other figures are
those of prisoners being led captive into Egypt.
[Illustration: 223.jpg Page Image]
The shirt had no sleeves, and the fringed garment which covered it
left half of the arm exposed. Children of tender years had their heads
shaved, as a head-dress, and rejoiced in no more clothing than the
little ones among the Egyptians. With the exception of bracelets,
anklets, rings on the fingers, and occasionally necklaces and earrings,
the Syrians, both men and women, wore little jewellery. The Chaldæa
women furnished them with models of fashion to which they accommodated
themselves in the choice of stuffs, colours, cut of their mantles or
petticoats, arrangement of the hair, and the use of cosmetics for the
eyes and cheeks. In spite of distance, the modes of Babylon reigned
supreme. The Syrians would have continued to expose their right shoulder
to the weather as long as it pleased the people of the Lower Euphrates
to do the same; but as soon as the fashion changed in the latter region,
and it became customary to cover the shoulder, and to wrap the upper
part of the person in two or three thicknesses of heavy wool, they at
once accommodated themselves to the new mode, although it served to
restrain the free motion of the body. Among the upper classes, at least,
domestic arrangements were modelled upon the fashions observed in the
palaces of the nobles of Car-chemish or Assur: the same articles of
toilet, the same ranks of servants and scribes, the same luxurious
habits, and the same use of perfumes were to be found among both.*
* An example of the fashion of leaving the shoulder bare is
found even in the XXth dynasty. The Tel el-Amarna tablets
prove that, as far as the scribes were concerned, the
customs and training of Syria and Chaldæa were identical.
The Syrian princes are there represented as employing the
cuneiform character in their correspondence, being
accompanied by scribes brought up after the Chaldæan manner.
We shall see later on that the king of the Khati, who
represented in the time of Ramses II. the type of an
accomplished Syrian, had attendants similar to those of the
Chaldæan kings.
From all that we can gather, in short, from the silence as well as from
the misunderstandings of the Egyptian chroniclers, Syria stands before
us as a fruitful and civilized country, of which one might be thankful
to be a native, in spite of continual wars and frequent revolutions.
The religion of the Syrians was subject to the same influences as their
customs; we are, as yet, far from being able to draw a complete picture
of their theology, but such knowledge as we do possess recalls the same
names and the same elements as are found in the religious systems of
Chaldæa. The myths, it is true, are still vague and misty, at least
to our modern ideas: the general characteristics of the principal
divinities alone stand out, and seem fairly well defined. As with the
other Semitic races, the deity in a general sense, the primordial type
of the godhead, was called _El_ or _Ilû_, and his feminine counterpart
_Ilât_, but we find comparatively few cities in which these nearly
abstract beings enjoyed the veneration of the faithful.* The gods
of Syria, like those of Egypt and of the countries watered by the
Euphrates, were feudal princes distributed over the surface of the
earth, their number corresponding with that of the independent states.
Each nation, each tribe, each city, worshipped its own lord--_Adoni_**
--or its master--_Baal_*** --and each of these was designated by a
special title to distinguish him from neighbouring _Baalîm_, or masters.
* The frequent occurrence of the term _Ilû_ or _El_ in names
of towns in Southern Syria seems to indicate pretty
conclusively that the inhabitants of these countries used
this term by preference to designate their supreme god.
Similarly we meet with it in Aramaic names, and later on
among the Nabathseans; it predominates at Byblos and Berytus
in Phoenicia and among the Aramaic peoples of North Syria;
in the Samalla country, for instance, during the VIIIth
century B.C.
** The extension of this term to Syrian countries is proved
in the Israelitish epoch by Canaanitish names, such as
Adonizedek and Adonibezek, or Jewish names such as Adonijah,
Adonikam, Adoniram-Adoram.
*** Movers tried to prove that there was one particular god
named Baal, and his ideas, popularised in Prance by M. de
Vogiié, prevailed for some time: since then scholars have
gone back to the view of Münter and of the writers at the
beginning of this century, who regarded the term Baal as a
common epithet applicable to all gods.
The Baal who ruled at Zebub was styled Master of Zebub, or
Baal-Zebub;* and the Baal of Hermon, who was an ally of Gad, goddess
of fortune, was sometimes called Baal-Hermon, or Master of Hermon,
sometimes Baal-G-ad, or Master of Gad; ** the Baal of Shechem,
at the time of the Israelite invasion, was Master of the
Covenant--Baal-Berîth--doubtless in memory of some agreement which he
had concluded with his worshippers in regard to the conditions of their
allegiance.***
* Baal-Zebub was worshipped at Ekxon during the Philistine
supremacy.
** The mountain of Baal-Hermon is the mountain of Baniâs,
where the Jordan has one of its sources, and the town of
Baal-Hermon is Baniâs itself. The variant Baal-Gad occurs
several times in the Biblical books.
*** Baal-Berith, like Baal-Zebub, only occurs, so far as we
know at present, in the Hebrew Scriptures, where, by the
way, the first element, Baal, is changed to El, El-Berith.
[Illustration: 226.jpg LOTANÛ WOMEN AND CHILDREN FROM THE TOMB OF
RAKHMIEÎ]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from coloured sketches by Prisse
dAvennes.
The prevalent conception of the essence and attributes of these deities
was not the same in all their sanctuaries, but the more exalted among
them were regarded as personifying the sky in the daytime or at night,
the atmosphere, the light,* or the sun, Shamash, as creator and
prime mover of the universe; and each declared himself to be
king--_melek_--over the other gods.** Bashuf represented the lightning
and the thunderbolt;*** Shalmân, Hadad, and his double Bimmôn held sway
over the air like the Babylonian.
* This appears under the name _Or_ or _Ur_ in the Samalla
inscriptions of the VIIIth century B.C.; it is, so far, a
unique instance among the Semites.
** We find the term applied in the Bible to the national god
of the Ammonites, under the forms _Moloch, Molech, Mikôm,
Milkâm_, and especially with the article, _Ham-molek_; the
real name hidden beneath this epithet was probably _Amnôn or
Ammân_, and, strictly speaking, the God Moloch only exists
in the imagination of scholars. The epithet was used among
the Oanaanites in the name Melchizedek, a similar form to
Adonizedek, Abimelech, Ahimelech; it was in current use
among the Phoenicians, in reference to the god of Tyre,
Melek-Karta or Melkarth, and in many proper names, such as
Melekiathon, Baalmelek, Bodmalek, etc., not to mention the
god Milichus worshipped in Spain, who was really none other
than Melkarth.
*** Resheph has been vocalised _Rashuf_ in deference to the
Egyptian orthography Rashupu. It was a name common to a
whole family of lightning and storm-gods, and M. de Rougé
pointed out long ago the passage in the Great Inscription of
Ramses III. at Medinet-Habu, in which the soldiers who man
the chariots are compared to the Rashupu; the Rabbinic
Hebrew still employs this plural form in the sense of
demons. The Phoenician inscriptions contain references to
several local Rashufs; the way in which this god is coupled
with the goddess Qodshu on the Egyptian stelæ leads me to
think that, at the epoch now under consideration, he was
specially worshipped by the Amorites, just as his equivalent
Hadad was by the inhabitants of Damascus, neighbours of the
Amorites, and perhaps themselves Amorites.
Rammânu;* Dagon, patron god of fishermen and husbandmen, seems to
have watched over the fruitfulness of the sea and the land.** We are
beginning to learn the names of the races whom they specially protected:
Rashuf the Amorites, Hadad and Rimmon the Aramæans of Damascus, Dagon
the peoples of the coast between Ashkelon and the forest of Carmel.
Rashûf is the only one whose appearance is known to us. He possessed the
restless temperament usually attributed to the thunder-gods, and was,
accordingly, pictured as a soldier armed with javelin and mace, bow and
buckler; a gazelles head with pointed horns surmounts his helmet, and
sometimes, it may be, serves him as a cap.
* Hadad and Rimmon are represented in Assyrio-Chaldæan by
one and the same ideogram, which may be read either Dadda-
Hadad or Eammânu. The identity of the expressions employed
shows how close the connection between the two divinities
must have been, even if they were not similar in all
respects; from the Hebrew writings we know of the temple of
Rimmon at Damascus (_2 Kings_ v. 18) and that one of the
kings of that city was called Tabrimmôn = llimmon is good
(_1 Kings_ xv. 18), while Hadad gave his name to no less
than ten kings of the same city. Even as late as the Græco-
Roman epoch, kingship over the other gods was still
attributed both to Rimmon and to Hadad, but this latter was
identified with the sun.
** The documents which we possess in regard to Dagon date
from the Hebrew epoch, and represent him as worshipped by
the Philistines. We know, however, from the Tel el-Amarna
tablets, of a Dagantakala, a name which proves the presence
of the god among the Canaanites long before the Philistine
invasion, and we find two Beth-Dagons--one in the plain of
Judah, the other in the tribe of Asher; Philo of Byblos
makes Dagon a Phoenician deity, and declares him to be the
genius of fecundity, master of grain and of labour. The
representation of his statue which appears on the Græco-
Roman coins of Abydos, reminds us of the fish-god of
Chaldæa.
Each god had for his complement a goddess, who was proclaimed
mistress of the city, _Baalat_, or queen, _Milkat_, of heaven, just
as the god himself was recognised as master or king. * As a rule, the
goddess was contented with the generic name of Astartê; but to this was
often added some epithet, which lent her a distinct personality, and
prevented her from being confounded with the Astartês of neighbouring
cities, her companions or rivals.**
* Among goddesses to whom the title Baalat was referred,
we have the goddess of Byblos, Baalat-Gebal, also the
goddess of Berytus, Baalat-Berîth, or Beyrut. The epithet
queen of heaven is applied to the Phoenician Astartê by
Hebrew (_Jer._ vii. 18, xliv. 18-29) and classic writers.
The Egyptians, when they adopted these Oanaanitish
goddesses, preserved the title, and called each of them
_nibît pit,_ lady of heaven. In the Phoenician inscriptions
their names are frequently preceded by the word _Rabbat:
rabbat Baalat-Gebal_, (my) lady Baalat-Gebal.
** The Hebrew writers frequently refer to the Canaanite
goddesses by the general title the Ashtarôth or Astartês,
and a town in Northern Syria bore the significant name of
Istarâti = the Ishtars, the Ashtarôth, a name which finds
a parallel in Anathôth = the Anats, a title assumed by a
town of the tribe of Benjamin; similarly, the Assyrio-
Chaldæans called their goddesses by the plural of Ishtar.
The inscription on an Egyptian amulet in the Louvre tells us
of a personage of the XXth dynasty, who, from his name,
Rabrabîna, must have been of Syrian origin, and who styled
himself Prophet of the Astartês, Honnutir Astiratu.
[Illustration: 229.jpg ASTARTE AS A SPHINX]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a copy of an original in chased
gold.
Thus she would be styled the good Astartê, Ashtoreth Naamah, or the
horned Astartê, Ashtoreth Qarnaîm, because of the lunar crescent which
appears on her forehead, as a sort of head-dress.* She was the goddess
of good luck, and was called Gad;** she was Anat,*** or Asîti,**** the
chaste and the warlike.
* The two-horned Astartê gave her name to a city beyond the
Jordan, of which she was, probably, the eponymous goddess:
(Gen xiv. 5) she would seem to be represented on the curious
monument called by the Arabs the stone of Job, which was
discovered by M. Schumacher in the centre of the Hauran. It
was an analogous goddess whom the Egyptians sometimes
identified with their Hâthor, and whom they represented as
crowned with a crescent.
** Gad, the goddess of fortune, is mainly known to us in
connection with the Aramæans; we find mention made of her by
the Hebrew writers, and geographical names, such as Baal-Gad
and Migdol-Gad, prove that she must have been worshipped at
a very early date in the Canaanite countries.
*** Anat, or Anaîti, or Aniti, has been found in a
Phoenician inscription, which enables us to reconstruct the
history of the goddess. Her worship was largely practised
among the Canaanites, as is proved by the existence in the
Hebrew epoch of several towns, such as Beth-Anath, Beth-
Anoth, Anathôth; at least one of which, Bît-Anîti, is
mentioned in the Egyptian geographical lists. The appearance
of Anat-Anîti is known to us, as she is represented in
Egyptian dress on several stelæ of the XIXth and XXth
dynasties. Her name, like that of Astartê, had become a
generic term, in the plural form Anathôth, for a whole group
of goddesses.
**** Asîti is represented at Radesieh, on a stele of the
time of Seti I.; she enters into the composition of a
compound name, _Asîtiiàkhûrû_ (perhaps the goddess of Asiti
is enflamed with anger ), which we find on a monument in
the Vienna Museum. W. Max Müller makes her out to have been
a divinity of the desert, and the place in which the picture
representing her was found would seem to justify this
hypothesis; the Egyptians connected her, as well as the
other Astartês, with Sit-Typhon, owing to her cruel and
warlike character.
[Illustration: 231.jpg Page Image]
The statues sometimes represent her as a sphinx with a womans head,
but more often as a woman standing on a lion passant, either nude,
or encircled round the hips by merely a girdle, her hands filled
with flowers or with serpents, her features framed in a mass of heavy
tresses--a faithful type of the priestesses who devoted themselves to
her service, the _Qedeshôt_. She was the goddess of love in its animal,
or rather in its purely physical, aspect, and in this capacity was
styled Qaddishat the Holy, like the hetairæ of her family; Qodshu,
the Amorite capital, was consecrated to her service, and she was there
associated with Rashuf, the thunder-god.*
* Qaddishat is know to us from the Egyptian monuments
referred to above. The name was sometimes written Qodshû,
like that of the town: E. de Bougé argued from this that
Qaddishat must have been the eponymous divinity of Qodshû,
and that her real name was Kashit or Kesh; he recalls,
however, the _rôle_ played by the Qedeshoth, and admits that
the Holy here means the prostitute.
But she often comes before us as a warlike Amazon, brandishing a club,
lance, or shield, mounted on horseback like a soldier, and wandering
through the desert in quest of her prey.* This dual temperament rendered
her a goddess of uncertain attributes and of violent contrasts; at times
reserved and chaste, at other times shameless and dissolute, but always
cruel, always barren, for the countless multitude of her excesses for
ever shut her out from motherhood: she conceives without ceasing, but
never brings forth children.** The Baalim and Astartês frequented
by choice the tops of mountains, such as Lebanon, Carmel, Hermon, or
Kasios:*** they dwelt near springs, or hid themselves in the depths of
forests.**** They revealed themselves to mortals through the heavenly
bodies, and in all the phenomena of nature: the sun was a Baal, the moon
was Astartê, and the whole host of heaven was composed of more or less
powerful genii, as we find in Chaldæa.