THE immense antiquity suggested in the maritime conditions at Ur and
Eridu is again emphasized by the astronomical tablets. At this remote
date it appears that these ancient Turanian Chaldeans had traced the
yearly course of the sun among the stars.
The twelve constellations forming the signs of the zodiac had also been
established by them, with the significations which have continued to the
present day.
They had divided the year into twelve months, and the first month of
their year—which began with the vernal equinox—was named for the
constellation, or zodiacal sign, which opened the year.
This was Taurus, whose figure appears in these ancient calendars as
leading the months at the beginning of the year. At the time this was
prepared the sun was in Taurus at the vernal equinox. About 2500 B. C.,
the sun entered Aries at this period of the year, while the date when
the sun entered Taurus at the vernal equinox was 4700 B. C.
Other evidences from these principal cities of southern Mesopotamia,
present, in the remoter times, this land of Sumir as a populous,
fertile, well watered and cultivated country.
It was divided into small states, each surrounding a city containing a
temple devoted to the service of certain astral divinities, as Ur, the
city of the Moon God; or Larsa, with its Temple of the Sun.
Near these temples, and accessible from them were the Zigguratas, the
temple observatories for astronomical and astrological studies.
They had also priestly colleges, schools for scribes, and libraries as
at Erech, which was known as the “City of Books.”
These small states with their cities, were in the earliest times each
governed by “patesi,” priest-kings, corresponding to the “pastor
princes” of ancient China, or the Horsheshu, of ancient Egypt. Later on
as certain of these priest kings became more powerful, the neighboring
states and cities came under their domination, until finally we find all
southern Mesopotamia ruled by kings of Sumir, and northern Mesopotamia
by kings of Accad.
Of the explorations which have been undertaken of these older cities of
Chaldea, the most extensive are those which have occurred on the sites
of the ancient Nippur and at Tel-Loh, the ancient Shirpulla.
The former excavations, which have been conducted under the auspices of
the University of Pennsylvania, since the year 1888 to the present date,
have recovered the most ancient remains as yet discovered of these older
civilizations, dating, as estimated by Prof. Hilfrecht, from a period
about 7000 B. C.
This includes the enormous structure dedicated to the older Bel, which
had been rebuilt by successive monarchs, its later ruins rising to a
height of over one hundred feet above the plain, while its lower
foundations reach as great a depth below.
From this and other great buildings in the vicinity were obtained
sacrificial vessels, marble and silver vases, objects in gold and
bronze, stone door sockets and over thirty thousand clay tablets.
These include remains from the earliest periods of civilization to the
latest Babylonian history, from the earliest primitive Sumerian rulers
to the latest Semitic kings.
They give records of powerful kings as rulers of Accad during the two
milleniums preceding the reigns of the great Sargon and his son,
Naram-Sin.
Of these two monarchs a great number of inscribed objects have been
obtained, some of the most important relics as yet discovered verifying
inscriptions found elsewhere of the extent of their power. Remains were
also found here of later kings of Ur and other cities of this region,
whose names elsewhere appear as great builders or restorers of ancient
temples.
Of this earlier period, that of the “patesi,” or priest kings, some very
wonderful records have been discovered by M. de Sarzec at Tel-Loh. The
group of mounds of which Tel-Loh is the chief, is the site of a very
ancient city in southern Mesopotamia, the ancient Zirgul, or Sirgulla.
It is situated between the Tigris and Euphrates, near the junction of
the former river with the Shat-el-Hic, a small river which flows
southwesterly to the Euphrates, connecting the waters of these two great
rivers.
The mound of Tel-Loh, “The Mound of the Idol,” formed part of the royal
quarter of the ancient city, rising at this point forty feet above the
plain.
It was in this locality that, in 1880-1881, M. de Sarzec, French consul
at Bagdad, who was carrying on excavations in this region under the
direction of the French government, came upon ten statues in the ruins
of a very ancient structure.
This proved to be the royal residence of an ancient king of Zirgul, the
patesi, or priest-king Gudea, whose date is fixed by various authorities
at about 4800 B. C.
The statues were nearly life size, and all were headless. Two heads soon
after were found in the ruins, one of them turbaned and the other
uncovered and shaved, supposed to represent the king as priest.
The type of feature reproduced in these finely sculptured heads is
unmistakably Turanian, of the Tartar branch of this great family, while
the turban, another characteristic indication in costume, might serve
for a copy in sculpture of the head dress worn by some living
representative of this race in central Asia at the present day.
All these statues were inscribed; nine of them with memorials of Gudea,
and the tenth of Urbahu, an earlier king who ruled in Zirgul before
Gudea.
The ruins of his palace were found by M. de Sarzec below the palace of
Gudea, and also the foundations of an ancient pyramid temple first
erected by Urbahu and rebuilt by Gudea.
The inscriptions were in very archaic cuneiform and were incised upon
the robes of the figures. Upon the principal statue of Gudea were
inscribed three hundred and thirty-six lines of writing, divided into
nine columns. About one hundred and thirty characters are used, and
these texts represent the longest of the ancient cuneiform writings
found.
The material of the statues is a peculiar variety of granite, a dark
green diorite, one of the hardest of stones. This was nowhere to be
found in Mesopotamia. So far as known, it only appears in the peninsula
of Sinai.
Again, the facility and skill in the manipulation of the material has
indicated that the tools used for the work must have been of the hardest
metals. They are supposed to have been of the hardest bronze. But this
presupposes an amazing antiquity for the practice of metallurgy.
The replies to the question, from whence the bronze? are now abundant,
and come from a variety of sources, but the testimony from the
inscriptions of the statues is the most direct and ample, opening before
us a commercial intercourse between nations and people of these regions
scarcely suspected of such very remote dates.
There are indications that even in these early days tin from Cornwall
was exported to these far off regions.
The inscriptions relate chiefly to the building of a pyramid temple by
Urbahu, and on the Gudea statues to the rebuilding of the temple by this
later prince.
Referring constantly to himself as patesi, or priest-king, he says that
for this purpose his God, Nin-Girsu, has opened the way for him “from
the sea of the highlands,”—the Persian Gulf—“to the upper sea,” the
Mediterranean.
“I,” says Gudea, “made the lordly temple of the God who enlightens the
darkness; of costly woods I made it for him; with wood from Lebanon
(Amanus); wood of seventy and fifty cubits. I raised its roof
twenty-five cubits high.”
From the copper and silver mines of the Taurus, near “the great pass,”
“the gate of Syria,” copper was brought for the great pillars. Marble
also from the “Mountain of Canaan,” (Tidalum), in Phœnicia, for the
foundations. He sent ships to upper Egypt, where gold was obtained for
the porch of the temple. “To the country of Gubi and to the country of
Nituk which possesses every kind of tree, vessels to be laden with all
sorts of trees for Sippara I have sent.”
Sippara, “The City of the Bright Flame,” was another name by which
Zirgul was known. Reference to this comes in the inscriptions concerning
the “God who enlightens the darkness.”
Then of his statues he says: “Strong stone being brought from Magan
(Sinaitic peninsula) I made an image therewith that my name may be
remembered gloriously.”
Again of this statue he says: “Neither in silver, nor in copper, nor in
tin, nor in bronze let any one undertake the execution. An image
yielding none of these no man will demand as spoil; made of hard stone
may it remain in the place thereof, forever.”
These statues thus had a peculiar religious significance. Placed in the
sacred temple, always before the god to whose service they were
dedicated, they were supposed to represent the king constantly in life,
and like the “Ka” statues of the Egyptian kings, to be the residence of
the soul of the departed prince which was thus ever reverently before
his god. Thus we can understand the terrible curse pronounced by Gudea
upon whosoever should remove this statue from its place.
This and the companion statues from Tel-Loh, were nevertheless sent to
Paris and placed in the Louvre, where they will receive more distinction
than has been accorded them for ages. Perhaps this, and also the fact
that the inscriptions on them could not be read until they were placed
where competent Assyriologists could have access to them, may induce the
Ka of Gudea to revoke his maledictions should they threaten this later
disturber of his repose.
However this may be, the view thus given of this far off time, of which
we have no trace in history, is one of the most interesting
archæological discoveries of the century.
Here, long ages before the time of Hiram, king of Tyre, the friend of
David and Solomon; long ages even before the days of Abraham, the ships
of Gudea were navigating the seas from the trading ports of Ur and
Eridu, then at the mouth of the Euphrates on the Persian Gulf; coasting
down the shores of the Arabian peninsula, which they circumnavigated,
into the waters of the Red Sea; sailing northward to Magan, “the
enclosed port,” on the peninsula of Sinai, where the diorite for the
statues was obtained, and perhaps copper also from the Wady Magarah,
“the land of bronze;” then to various trading ports of the Egyptian
coasts, for gold from Meroe, and for timber from Ethiopia, and then for
the return voyage.
Other confirmation of the trade communications of southern Mesopotamia
with the peninsula of Sinai appears in the beautiful statue of Kephren,
the builder of the second pyramid, now in the Boulak museum. This statue
was recently exhumed from the sands of the desert near the great Sphynx
in Egypt, and is of stone so similar to the diorite of the Tel-Loh
statues that it is evident they were both obtained from the same source.
We know in this connection, that Seneferu, a predecessor of Kephren, had
conquered and held in possession the Sinaitic peninsula with a strong
garrison of Egyptian troops, which were maintained here during his reign
and the reign of his immediate successors; that under this protection
the fine stone of this region was quarried, and that at Wady Margarah
the rich mines of copper, turquoise and other precious stones were
worked.
Another evidence of the contact of Gudea with Egypt is the fact that on
the lap of the principal statue of Gudea the plan of the city is carved,
and the scale of measurement used is the “pyramid inch,” instead of the
Babylonian or Chaldean.
Aside from this, the finish, detail and workmanship of the Tel-Loh
statues is so similar in style and character to the statue of Kephren
that they all suggest the same influence and the same school of
sculpture.
There are many evidences from other sources of the commercial
intercourse between the Babylonians and Egyptians at these early dates,
and it is probable that the cities of Eridu and Ur may have maintained
the same relations in the prehistoric commerce of the Persian Gulf which
obtained in later times with Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean. The
commercial horizon thus opening before us is a broad one but is
constantly extending.
The natural depressions of the Mesopotamian valley extend from the
Persian Gulf northerly and northwesterly, thence through the Orontes
valley to the Mediterranean. In prehistoric times and for long ages this
was “the highway of nations,” by the great rivers, the Tigris and
Euphrates, from sea to sea, the chief trade route between India and the
western coasts of Asia Minor.
Solomon is said to have founded Tadmor in the Desert for the extensive
trade from the Euphrates, by Damascus to Jerusalem, whence the rich
stuffs and spices from India were conveyed.
Later on, Nebuchadnezzer established the port of Teredon, on the Persian
Gulf, for the commerce brought from the southern seas destined for the
great waterways, the Tigris and Euphrates, northwards.
These facts are comparatively modern history to Gudea and his days, when
the waters of the Persian Gulf washed the shores at Eridu, while ships
from India, Ceylon and the different trading ports on the Red Sea
unloaded their cargoes on the docks of the great maritime city of Ur of
the Chaldees.
The city of Ur, then not far from the mouth of the Euphrates, was
situated upon its western shores, and was at this time, and later, a
city of great commercial and political importance, and the first capital
of the kings of all Chaldea.
As in all maritime cities trading with distant countries, people of
various nationalities were gathered here. It is not improbable that the
name of “Ur of the Chaldees” may have reference to certain families of
foreign stock, the “Kaldai” or “Kaldi” who inhabited the regions round
and about Ur, perhaps nomadic tribes from Arabia. Other authorities,
however, speak of these “Kaldai” as a priest class, magicians and
astrologers, possessing strange learning and speaking a peculiar
language; as representatives also of the primitive inhabitants of the
country, filling a sacred office and consulted by the king on all
religious subjects.
The divinity of this city was Hurki, or Sin, the great Moon God, and
here may be seen at the present day on the mounds of Mugheir the remains
of an ancient temple dedicated to this deity, rising to the height of
seventy feet above the plain. This was founded by Urukh, or Ur Gur, one
of the earliest known of the kings of united Sumir, who exercised
dominion over the greater portion of southern Mesopotamia.
The remains of temples built by him are found in all the larger of the
ancient cities of this region and the enormous proportions of these and
their number have won for him the name of “The Builder.” It is evident
that this king had at his command vast resources in human skill and
industry.
The Bowariyeh mound at Warka is described as two hundred feet square and
one hundred feet high and that above thirty million bricks must have
gone into its construction.
Other structures on a similar scale, the remains of which are found at
Erech, Larsa, Calneh, Ur, Nippur and other cities in this region, show
the magnitude of his resources and the extent of his authority. These
buildings are, for the most part, temples dedicated to the tutelar
divinity of each special locality, as at Larsa, where he erected a
temple to the Sun God, and at Calneh to Belus.
The distinguishing features of his structures which were continued in
the later Babylonian temples, are the rectangular base, the peculiar
orientation of these with their angles to the cardinal points, the rise
in receding stages, the sloped walls, the buttresses for increased
strength, the drains for the ventilation of the walls, the external
staircases for ascent and the ornamental shrine crowning the whole.
The temple founded by Ur Gur at Ur, was originally of great size. It
rose in three receding stages to a vast height, where, upon the final
platform, the temple was placed, containing the statue of the Moon God,
which was thus visible to a great distance from the surrounding plain.
The lower stages of this structure were built of large bricks laid with
bitumen. In the upper stages the masonry is cemented with mortar.
It appears that this was the work of two monarchs, Ur Gur, and his son,
Dungi, who as his successor, completed here, as elsewhere, the buildings
unfinished by his father. The names of both kings are inscribed upon the
bricks in the structure, and on the signet and clay cylinders found in
the ruins.
These kings, are, however, of later date than Gudea. In their day the
priest kings of one city had become kings of many, gathering various
localities in Sumir under their dominion.
Among the discoveries obtained during the explorations at Nippur, by the
Babylonian expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, there are many
relics of Dungi and Urea, or Ur Gur.
At this time, there are evidences of an organized priesthood in whose
hands were placed the religious interests of the king and the people,
who proclaimed to them the will of the gods as observed in the relations
of the planets and the stars.
In more primitive times the religion of this people was pure Shamanism,
a worship of demons and the evil influences of nature, a religion common
to all Turanian people even at the present day.
Very early, however, in the history of this people, a recognition of the
benign influences in nature is apparent, and while the older belief
never became entirely extinct, yet the propitious influences were
regarded as attributes of the higher gods.
The sorcerers and magicians held a power of their own, but they were
subject to the greater divinities by whose influence their mischiefs
could be averted.
Whether this religious development was brought about by contact with
another race possessing nobler religious ideals, or was a development
through their scientific applications of astronomy to astrology, it is
impossible to say. However this may be, these higher religious
conceptions had developed very early into a cult which became the
inheritance of later races that came into contact with them.
The peculiar and distinct civilization of these primitive Babylonians
must have continued through long ages. Their system of writing had
developed from the simple pictorial lines into the cuneiform and these
signs had become phonetic, expressing sound as well as ideas. They had
also developed a syllabary.
Finally, there are evidences of the gradual increase among them of
another race of people. This was a Semitic people who seem at first to
have established themselves in northern Babylonia in the kingdom of
Accad, finally becoming supreme in the land.
About 3800 B. C., the kingdoms of Accad and Sumir are found united under
Sargon I, a Semitic king. There are indications of Accadian or Sumerian
kings who ruled over the separate kingdoms of Accad and Sumir at earlier
and later dates, but the main course of testimony after Sargon I tells
of Semitic kings as rulers in northern Babylonia, or Accad, and a
Semitic influence dominant there.
The influence of such close social contact brought about material
changes in the life, literature and language of both people.
In Accad, which came first under Semitic influence, the old language
rapidly declined. In Sumir, or southern Mesopotamia, which continued
much longer under the ancient rule and influence, the old language held
its own down to comparatively recent times.
The Semites, however, seem to have received from the Accadians more than
they gave. The arts and sciences and civilization of this ancient people
became the arts and sciences and civilization of the Semitic Assyrians
and Babylonians.
They appropriated the religion and gods of these early Chaldeans. They
became heirs of their literature and they adopted their system of
writing.
The most curious instance in these various adoptions of the Semites was
the Sumerian syllabary.
Now in applying the syllabary of one language to the uses of another, it
might be expected that the signs expressing a certain syllabic sound in
one language would be used to express the syllabic sounds in the other.
This however, was not the case in this instance. When the Semites
adopted the old Accadian syllabary they used these signs quite as often
to express the Semitic sounds of the original ideographs as for syllabic
signs.
As an instance of this curious example of polyphony, Mr. Taylor gives
the cuneiform sign which in the primitive pictorial form represented an
ear. The name of ear in Accadian is _pi_. This sign had another syllabic
value, signifying a drop of water. When the Semites adopted this sign to
their uses they retained the phonetic value of the sign as _pi_. They,
however, used this sign also to express the sound of the Semitic words,
“eznu,” an ear, and “giltanu,” a drop of water.
This use of signs is the reverse of homophonism, where by the use of one
sign many words having the same sound are expressed. It is an instance
of polyphonism where one sign is used to express words having different
sounds. The result was, however, the same. It led in both cases to the
increase of determinatives, and other explanatory signs to indicate the
word to be expressed by the sign.
The use of ideographs as determinatives was evidently suggested by the
Sumerian syllabary, but the language of the Sumerians was simple,
requiring fewer signs to express sounds. On the contrary, the Semitic
language was more copious, possessing a greater variety of syllabic
utterances.
It will thus be seen that when the decipherment of the Assyrian
cuneiform was first attempted, scholars could not for a time master the
curious complications they found.
The Assyrian syllabary could only be explained as a foreign importation,
not as an evolution from a Semitic speech. As Professor Sayce says:
“Like the discoverers of the planet Uranus, they had to presuppose
another language to account for its origin and appearance.”
The decipherment of the older cuneiform soon after, and the discovery of
the bilingual texts, where copies from the old Sumerian originals were
placed side by side with the Semitic translations, soon explained the
sources of confusion, the original values of these signs and their
application to another language.