CHAPTER I.

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MYTHS OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

Donald A. Mackenzie

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

I. The Races and Early Civilization of Babylonia

II. The Land of Rivers and the God of the Deep

III. Rival Pantheons and Representative Deities

IV. Demons, Fairies, and Ghosts

V. Myths of Tammuz and Ishtar

VI. Wars of the City States of Sumer and Akkad

VII. Creation Legend: Merodach the Dragon Slayer

VIII. Deified Heroes: Etana and Gilgamesh

IX. Deluge Legend, the Island of the Blessed, and Hades

X. Buildings and Laws and Customs of Babylon

XI. The Golden Age of Babylonia

XII. Rise of the Hittites, Mitannians, Kassites, Hyksos, and

Assyrians

XIII. Astrology and Astronomy

XIV. Ashur the National God of Assyria

XV. Conflicts for Trade and Supremacy

XVI. Race Movements that Shattered Empires

XVII. The Hebrews in Assyrian History

XVIII. The Age of Semiramis

XIX. Assyria's Age of Splendour

XX. The Last Days of Assyria and Babylonia

PREFACE

This volume deals with the myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria,

and as these reflect the civilization in which they developed, a

historical narrative has been provided, beginning with the early

Sumerian Age and concluding with the periods of the Persian and

Grecian Empires. Over thirty centuries of human progress are thus

passed under review.

During this vast interval of time the cultural influences emanating

from the Tigro-Euphrates valley reached far-distant shores along the

intersecting avenues of trade, and in consequence of the periodic and

widespread migrations of peoples who had acquired directly or

indirectly the leavening elements of Mesopotamian civilization. Even

at the present day traces survive in Europe of the early cultural

impress of the East; our "Signs of the Zodiac", for instance, as well

as the system of measuring time and space by using 60 as a basic

numeral for calculation, are inheritances from ancient Babylonia.

As in the Nile Valley, however, it is impossible to trace in

Mesopotamia the initiatory stages of prehistoric culture based on the

agricultural mode of life. What is generally called the "Dawn of

History" is really the beginning of a later age of progress; it is

necessary to account for the degree of civilization attained at the

earliest period of which we have knowledge by postulating a remoter

age of culture of much longer duration than that which separates the

"Dawn" from the age in which we now live. Although Sumerian (early

Babylonian) civilization presents distinctively local features which

justify the application of the term "indigenous" in the broad sense,

it is found, like that of Egypt, to be possessed of certain elements

which suggest exceedingly remote influences and connections at present

obscure. Of special interest in this regard is Professor Budge's

mature and well-deliberated conclusion that "both the Sumerians and

early Egyptians derived their primeval gods from some common but

exceedingly ancient source". The prehistoric burial customs of these

separate peoples are also remarkably similar and they resemble closely

in turn those of the Neolithic Europeans. The cumulative effect of

such evidence forces us to regard as not wholly satisfactory and

conclusive the hypothesis of cultural influence. A remote racial

connection is possible, and is certainly worthy of consideration when

so high an authority as Professor Frazer, author of _The Golden

Bough_, is found prepared to admit that the widespread "homogeneity of

beliefs" may have been due to "homogeneity of race". It is shown

(Chapter 1) that certain ethnologists have accumulated data which

establish a racial kinship between the Neolithic Europeans, the

proto-Egyptians, the Sumerians, the southern Persians, and the

Aryo-Indians.

Throughout this volume comparative notes have been compiled in dealing

with Mesopotamian beliefs with purpose to assist the reader towards

the study of linking myths and legends. Interesting parallels have

been gleaned from various religious literatures in Europe, Egypt,

India, and elsewhere. It will be found that certain relics of

Babylonian intellectual life, which have a distinctive geographical

significance, were shared by peoples in other cultural areas where

they were similarly overlaid with local colour. Modes of thought were

the products of modes of life and were influenced in their development

by human experiences. The influence of environment on the growth of

culture has long been recognized, but consideration must also be given

to the choice of environment by peoples who had adopted distinctive

habits of life. Racial units migrated from cultural areas to districts

suitable for colonization and carried with them a heritage of

immemorial beliefs and customs which were regarded as being quite as

indispensable for their welfare as their implements and domesticated

animals.

When consideration is given in this connection to the conservative

element in primitive religion, it is not surprising to find that the

growth of religious myths was not so spontaneous in early

civilizations of the highest order as has hitherto been assumed. It

seems clear that in each great local mythology we have to deal, in the

first place, not with symbolized ideas so much as symbolized folk

beliefs of remote antiquity and, to a certain degree, of common

inheritance. It may not be found possible to arrive at a conclusive

solution of the most widespread, and therefore the most ancient folk

myths, such as, for instance, the Dragon Myth, or the myth of the

culture hero. Nor, perhaps, is it necessary that we should concern

ourselves greatly regarding the origin of the idea of the dragon,

which in one country symbolized fiery drought and in another

overwhelming river floods.

The student will find footing on surer ground by following the process

which exalts the dragon of the folk tale into the symbol of evil and

primordial chaos. The Babylonian Creation Myth, for instance, can be

shown to be a localized and glorified legend in which the hero and his

tribe are displaced by the war god and his fellow deities whose

welfare depends on his prowess. Merodach kills the dragon, Tiamat, as

the heroes of Eur-Asian folk stories kill grisly hags, by casting his

weapon down her throat.

He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart,

He overcame her and cut off her life;

He cast down her body and stood upon it ...

And with merciless club he smashed her skull.

He cut through the channels of her blood,

And he made the north wind to bear it away into secret places.

Afterwards

He divided the flesh of the _Ku-pu_ and devised a cunning plan.

Mr. L.W. King, from whose scholarly _Seven Tablets of Creation_ these

lines are quoted, notes that "Ku-pu" is a word of uncertain meaning.

Jensen suggests "trunk, body". Apparently Merodach obtained special

knowledge after dividing, and perhaps eating, the "Ku-pu". His

"cunning plan" is set forth in detail: he cut up the dragon's body:

He split her up like a flat fish into two halves.

He formed the heavens with one half and the earth with the other, and

then set the universe in order. His power and wisdom as the Demiurge

were derived from the fierce and powerful Great Mother, Tiamat.

In other dragon stories the heroes devise their plans after eating the

dragon's heart. According to Philostratus,[1] Apollonius of Tyana was

worthy of being remembered for two things--his bravery in travelling

among fierce robber tribes, not then subject to Rome, and his wisdom

in learning the language of birds and other animals as the Arabs do.

This accomplishment the Arabs acquired, Philostratus explains, by

eating the hearts of dragons. The "animals" who utter magic words are,

of course, the Fates. Siegfried of the _Nibelungenlied_, after slaying

the Regin dragon, makes himself invulnerable by bathing in its blood.

He obtains wisdom by eating the heart: as soon as he tastes it he can

understand the language of birds, and the birds reveal to him that

Mimer is waiting to slay him. Sigurd similarly makes his plans after

eating the heart of the Fafner dragon. In Scottish legend

Finn-mac-Coul obtains the power to divine secrets by partaking of a

small portion of the seventh salmon associated with the "well dragon",

and Michael Scott and other folk heroes become great physicians after

tasting the juices of the middle part of the body of the white snake.

The hero of an Egyptian folk tale slays a "deathless snake" by cutting

it in two parts and putting sand between the parts. He then obtains

from the box, of which it is the guardian, the book of spells; when he

reads a page of the spells he knows what the birds of the sky, the

fish of the deep, and the beasts of the hill say; the book gives him

power to enchant "the heaven and the earth, the abyss, the mountains

and the sea".[2]

Magic and religion were never separated in Babylonia; not only the

priests but also the gods performed magical ceremonies. Ea, Merodach's

father, overcame Apsu, the husband of the dragon Tiamat, by means of

spells: he was "the great magician of the gods". Merodach's division

of the "Ku-pu" was evidently an act of contagious magic; by eating or

otherwise disposing of the vital part of the fierce and wise mother

dragon, he became endowed with her attributes, and was able to proceed

with the work of creation. Primitive peoples in our own day, like the

Abipones of Paraguay, eat the flesh of fierce and cunning animals so

that their strength, courage, and wisdom may be increased.

The direct influence exercised by cultural contact, on the other hand,

may be traced when myths with an alien geographical setting are found

among peoples whose experiences could never have given them origin. In

India, where the dragon symbolizes drought and the western river

deities are female, the Manu fish and flood legend resembles closely

the Babylonian, and seems to throw light upon it. Indeed, the Manu

myth appears to have been derived from the lost flood story in which

Ea figured prominently in fish form as the Preserver. The Babylonian

Ea cult and the Indian Varuna cult had apparently much in common, as

is shown.

Throughout this volume special attention has been paid to the various

peoples who were in immediate contact with, and were influenced by,

Mesopotamian civilization. The histories are traced in outline of the

Kingdoms of Elam, Urartu (Ancient Armenia), Mitanni, and the Hittites,

while the story of the rise and decline of the Hebrew civilization, as

narrated in the Bible and referred to in Mesopotamian inscriptions, is

related from the earliest times until the captivity in the

Neo-Babylonian period and the restoration during the age of the

Persian Empire. The struggles waged between the great Powers for the

control of trade routes, and the periodic migrations of pastoral

warrior folks who determined the fate of empires, are also dealt with,

so that light may be thrown on the various processes and influences

associated with the developments of local religions and mythologies.

Special chapters, with comparative notes, are devoted to the

Ishtar-Tammuz myths, the Semiramis legends, Ashur and his symbols, and

the origin and growth of astrology and astronomy.

The ethnic disturbances which occurred at various well-defined periods

in the Tigro-Euphrates valley were not always favourable to the

advancement of knowledge and the growth of culture. The invaders who

absorbed Sumerian civilization may have secured more settled

conditions by welding together political units, but seem to have

exercised a retrogressive influence on the growth of local culture.

"Babylonian religion", writes Dr. Langdon, "appears to have reached

its highest level in the Sumerian period, or at least not later than

2000 B.C. From that period onward to the first century B.C. popular

religion maintained with great difficulty the sacred standards of the

past." Although it has been customary to characterize Mesopotamian

civilization as Semitic, modern research tends to show that the

indigenous inhabitants, who were non-Semitic, were its originators.

Like the proto-Egyptians, the early Cretans, and the Pelasgians in

southern Europe and Asia Minor, they invariably achieved the

intellectual conquest of their conquerors, as in the earliest times

they had won victories over the antagonistic forces of nature. If the

modern view is accepted that these ancient agriculturists of the

goddess cult were of common racial origin, it is to the most

representative communities of the widespread Mediterranean race that

the credit belongs of laying the foundations of the brilliant

civilizations of the ancient world in southern Europe, and Egypt, and

the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates.

INTRODUCTION

Ancient Babylonia has made stronger appeal to the imagination of

Christendom than even Ancient Egypt, because of its association with

the captivity of the Hebrews, whose sorrows are enshrined in the

familiar psalm:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down;

Yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows....

In sacred literature proud Babylon became the city of the anti-Christ,

the symbol of wickedness and cruelty and human vanity. Early

Christians who suffered persecution compared their worldly state to

that of the oppressed and disconsolate Hebrews, and, like them, they

sighed for Jerusalem--the new Jerusalem. When St. John the Divine had

visions of the ultimate triumph of Christianity, he referred to its

enemies--the unbelievers and persecutors--as the citizens of the

earthly Babylon, the doom of which he pronounced in stately and

memorable phrases:

Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,

And is become the habitation of devils,

And the hold of every foul spirit,

And a cage of every unclean and hateful bird....

For her sins have reached unto heaven

And God hath remembered her iniquities....

The merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her,

For no man buyeth their merchandise any more.

"At the noise of the taking of Babylon", cried Jeremiah, referring to

the original Babylon, "the earth is moved, and the cry is heard among

the nations.... It shall be no more inhabited forever; neither shall

it be dwelt in from generation to generation." The Christian Saint

rendered more profound the brooding silence of the desolated city of

his vision by voicing memories of its beauty and gaiety and bustling

trade:

The voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers and trumpeters

shall be heard no more at all in thee;

And no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any

more in thee;

And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee;

And the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no

more at all in thee:

For thy merchants were the great men of the earth;

For by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

_And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints,_

_And of all that were slain upon the earth_.[3]

So for nearly two thousand years has the haunting memory of the

once-powerful city pervaded Christian literature, while its broken

walls and ruined temples and palaces lay buried deep in desert sand.

The history of the ancient land of which it was the capital survived

in but meagre and fragmentary form, mingled with accumulated myths and

legends. A slim volume contained all that could be derived from

references in the Old Testament and the compilations of classical

writers.

It is only within the past half-century that the wonderful story of

early Eastern civilization has been gradually pieced together by

excavators and linguists, who have thrust open the door of the past

and probed the hidden secrets of long ages. We now know more about

"the land of Babel" than did not only the Greeks and Romans, but even

the Hebrew writers who foretold its destruction. Glimpses are being

afforded us of its life and manners and customs for some thirty

centuries before the captives of Judah uttered lamentations on the

banks of its reedy canals. The sites of some of the ancient cities of

Babylonia and Assyria were identified by European officials and

travellers in the East early in the nineteenth century, and a few

relics found their way to Europe. But before Sir A.H. Layard set to

work as an excavator in the "forties", "a case scarcely three feet

square", as he himself wrote, "enclosed all that remained not only of

the great city of Nineveh, but of Babylon itself".[4]

Layard, the distinguished pioneer Assyriologist, was an Englishman of

Huguenot descent, who was born in Paris. Through his mother he

inherited a strain of Spanish blood. During his early boyhood he

resided in Italy, and his education, which began there, was continued

in schools in France, Switzerland, and England. He was a man of

scholarly habits and fearless and independent character, a charming

writer, and an accomplished fine-art critic; withal he was a great

traveller, a strenuous politician, and an able diplomatist. In 1845,

while sojourning in the East, he undertook the exploration of ancient

Assyrian cities. He first set to work at Kalkhi, the Biblical Calah.

Three years previously M.P.C. Botta, the French consul at Mosul, had

begun to investigate the Nineveh mounds; but these he abandoned for a

mound near Khorsabad which proved to be the site of the city erected

by "Sargon the Later", who is referred to by Isaiah. The relics

discovered by Botta and his successor, Victor Place, are preserved in

the Louvre.

At Kalkhi and Nineveh Layard uncovered the palaces of some of the most

famous Assyrian Emperors, including the Biblical Shalmaneser and

Esarhaddon, and obtained the colossi, bas reliefs, and other treasures

of antiquity which formed the nucleus of the British Museum's

unrivalled Assyrian collection. He also conducted diggings at Babylon

and Niffer (Nippur). His work was continued by his assistant, Hormuzd

Rassam, a native Christian of Mosul, near Nineveh. Rassam studied for

a time at Oxford.

The discoveries made by Layard and Botta stimulated others to follow

their example. In the "fifties" Mr. W.K. Loftus engaged in excavations

at Larsa and Erech, where important discoveries were made of ancient

buildings, ornaments, tablets, sarcophagus graves, and pot burials,

while Mr. J.E. Taylor operated at Ur, the seat of the moon cult and

the birthplace of Abraham, and at Eridu, which is generally regarded

as the cradle of early Babylonian (Sumerian) civilization.

In 1854 Sir Henry Rawlinson superintended diggings at Birs Nimrud

(Borsippa, near Babylon), and excavated relics of the Biblical

Nebuchadrezzar. This notable archaeologist began his career in the

East as an officer in the Bombay army. He distinguished himself as a

political agent and diplomatist. While resident at Baghdad, he devoted

his leisure time to cuneiform studies. One of his remarkable feats was

the copying of the famous trilingual rock inscription of Darius the

Great on a mountain cliff at Behistun, in Persian Kurdistan. This work

was carried out at great personal risk, for the cliff is 1700 feet

high and the sculptures and inscriptions are situated about 300 feet

from the ground.

Darius was the first monarch of his line to make use of the Persian

cuneiform script, which in this case he utilized in conjunction with

the older and more complicated Assyro-Babylonian alphabetic and

syllabic characters to record a portion of the history of his reign.

Rawlinson's translation of the famous inscription was an important

contribution towards the decipherment of the cuneiform writings of

Assyria and Babylonia.

Twelve years of brilliant Mesopotamian discovery concluded in 1854,

and further excavations had to be suspended until the "seventies" on

account of the unsettled political conditions of the ancient land and

the difficulties experienced in dealing with Turkish officials. During

the interval, however, archaeologists and philologists were kept fully

engaged studying the large amount of material which had been

accumulated. Sir Henry Rawlinson began the issue of his monumental

work _The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia_ on behalf of the

British Museum.

Goodspeed refers to the early archaeological work as the "Heroic

Period" of research, and says that the "Modern Scientific Period"

began with Mr. George Smith's expedition to Nineveh in 1873.

George Smith, like Henry Schliemann, the pioneer investigator of

pre-Hellenic culture, was a self-educated man of humble origin. He was

born at Chelsea in 1840. At fourteen he was apprenticed to an

engraver. He was a youth of studious habits and great originality, and

interested himself intensely in the discoveries which had been made by

Layard and other explorers. At the British Museum, which he visited

regularly to pore over the Assyrian inscriptions, he attracted the

attention of Sir Henry Rawlinson. So greatly impressed was Sir Henry

by the young man's enthusiasm and remarkable intelligence that he

allowed him the use of his private room and provided casts and

squeezes of inscriptions to assist him in his studies. Smith made

rapid progress. His earliest discovery was the date of the payment of

tribute by Jehu, King of Israel, to the Assyrian Emperor Shalmaneser.

Sir Henry availed himself of the young investigator's assistance in

producing the third volume of _The Cuneiform Inscriptions_.

In 1867 Smith received an appointment in the Assyriology Department of

the British Museum, and a few years later became famous throughout

Christendom as the translator of fragments of the Babylonian Deluge

Legend from tablets sent to London by Rassam. Sir Edwin Arnold, the

poet and Orientalist, was at the time editor of the _Daily Telegraph_,

and performed a memorable service to modern scholarship by dispatching

Smith, on behalf of his paper, to Nineveh to search for other

fragments of the Ancient Babylonian epic. Rassam had obtained the

tablets from the great library of the cultured Emperor Ashur-bani-pal,

"the great and noble Asnapper" of the Bible,[5] who took delight, as

he himself recorded, in

The wisdom of Ea,[6] the art of song, the treasures of science.

This royal patron of learning included in his library collection,

copies and translations of tablets from Babylonia. Some of these were

then over 2000 years old. The Babylonian literary relics were, indeed,

of as great antiquity to Ashur-bani-pal as that monarch's relics are

to us.

The Emperor invoked Nebo, god of wisdom and learning, to bless his

"books", praying:

Forever, O Nebo, King of all heaven and earth,

Look gladly upon this Library

Of Ashur-bani-pal, his (thy) shepherd, reverencer of thy

divinity.[7]

Mr. George Smith's expedition to Nineveh in 1873 was exceedingly

fruitful of results. More tablets were discovered and translated. In

the following year he returned to the ancient Assyrian city on behalf

of the British Museum, and added further by his scholarly achievements

to his own reputation and the world's knowledge of antiquity. His last

expedition was made early in 1876; on his homeward journey he was

stricken down with fever, and on 19th August he died at Aleppo in his

thirty-sixth year. So was a brilliant career brought to an untimely

end.

Rassam was engaged to continue Smith's great work, and between 1877

and 1882 made many notable discoveries in Assyria and Babylonia,

including the bronze doors of a Shalmaneser temple, the sun temple at

Sippar; the palace of the Biblical Nebuchadrezzar, which was famous

for its "hanging gardens"; a cylinder of Nabonidus, King of Babylon;

and about fifty thousand tablets.

M. de Sarzec, the French consul at Bassorah, began in 1877 excavations

at the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash (Shirpula), and continued them

until 1900. He found thousands of tablets, many has reliefs, votive

statuettes, which worshippers apparently pinned on sacred shrines, the

famous silver vase of King Entemena, statues of King Gudea, and

various other treasures which are now in the Louvre.

The pioneer work achieved by British and French excavators stimulated

interest all over the world. An expedition was sent out from the

United States by the University of Pennsylvania, and began to operate

at Nippur in 1888. The Germans, who have displayed great activity in

the domain of philological research, are at present represented by an

exploring party which is conducting the systematic exploration of the

ruins of Babylon. Even the Turkish Government has encouraged research

work, and its excavators have accumulated a fine collection of

antiquities at Constantinople. Among the archaeologists and linguists

of various nationalities who are devoting themselves to the study of

ancient Assyrian and Babylonian records and literature, and gradually

unfolding the story of ancient Eastern civilization, those of our own

country occupy a prominent position. One of the most interesting

discoveries of recent years has been new fragments of the Creation

Legend by L.W. King of the British Museum, whose scholarly work, _The

Seven Tablets of Creation_, is the standard work on the subject.

The archaeological work conducted in Persia, Asia Minor, Palestine,

Cyprus, Crete, the Aegean, and Egypt has thrown, and is throwing, much

light on the relations between the various civilizations of antiquity.

In addition to the Hittite discoveries, with which the name of

Professor Sayce will ever be associated as a pioneer, we now hear much

of the hitherto unknown civilizations of Mitanni and Urartu (ancient

Armenia), which contributed to the shaping of ancient history. The

Biblical narratives of the rise and decline of the Hebrew kingdoms

have also been greatly elucidated.

In this volume, which deals mainly with the intellectual life of the

Mesopotamian peoples, a historical narrative has been provided as an

appropriate setting for the myths and legends. In this connection the

reader must be reminded that the chronology of the early period is

still uncertain. The approximate dates which are given, however, are

those now generally adopted by most European and American authorities.

Early Babylonian history of the Sumerian period begins some time prior

to 3000 B.C; Sargon of Akkad flourished about 2650 B.C., and Hammurabi

not long before or after 2000 B.C. The inflated system of dating which

places Mena of Egypt as far back as 5500 B.C. and Sargon at about 3800

B.C. has been abandoned by the majority of prominent archaeologists,

the exceptions including Professor Flinders Petrie. Recent discoveries

appear to support the new chronological system. "There is a growing

conviction", writes Mr. Hawes, "that Cretan evidence, especially in

the eastern part of the island, favours the minimum (Berlin) system of

Egyptian chronology, according to which the Sixth (Egyptian) Dynasty

began at _c_. 2540 B.C. and the Twelfth at _c_. 2000 B.C.[8] Petrie

dates the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty at _c_. 3400 B.C.

To students of comparative folklore and mythology the myths and

legends of Babylonia present many features of engrossing interest.

They are of great antiquity, yet not a few seem curiously familiar. We

must not conclude, however, that because a European legend may bear

resemblances to one translated from a cuneiform tablet it is

necessarily of Babylonian origin. Certain beliefs, and the myths which

were based upon them, are older than even the civilization of the

Tigro-Euphrates valley. They belong, it would appear, to a stock of

common inheritance from an uncertain cultural centre of immense

antiquity. The problem involved has been referred to by Professor

Frazer in the _Golden Bough_. Commenting on the similarities presented

by certain ancient festivals in various countries, he suggests that

they may be due to "a remarkable homogeneity of civilization

throughout Southern Europe and Western Asia in prehistoric times. How

far", he adds, "such homogeneity of civilization may be taken as

evidence of homogeneity of race is a question for the ethnologist."[9]

In Chapter I the reader is introduced to the ethnological problem, and

it is shown that the results of modern research tend to establish a

remote racial connection between the Sumerians of Babylonia, the

prehistoric Egyptians, and the Neolithic (Late Stone Age) inhabitants

of Europe, as well as the southern Persians and the "Aryans" of India.

Comparative notes are provided in dealing with the customs, religious

beliefs, and myths and legends of the Mesopotamian peoples to assist

the student towards the elucidation and partial restoration of certain

literary fragments from the cuneiform tablets. Of special interest in

this connection are the resemblances between some of the Indian and

Babylonian myths. The writer has drawn upon that "great storehouse" of

ancient legends, the voluminous Indian epic, the _Mahabharata_, and it

is shown that there are undoubted links between the Garuda eagle myths

and those of the Sumerian Zu bird and the Etana eagle, while similar

stories remain attached to the memories of "Sargon of Akkad" and the

Indian hero Karna, and of Semiramis (who was Queen Sammu-ramat of

Assyria) and Shakuntala. The Indian god Varuna and the Sumerian Ea are

also found to have much in common, and it seems undoubted that the

Manu fish and flood myth is a direct Babylonian inheritance, like the

Yuga (Ages of the Universe) doctrine and the system of calculation

associated with it. It is of interest to note, too, that a portion of

the Gilgamesh epic survives in the _Ramayana_ story of the monkey god

Hanuman's search for the lost princess Sita; other relics of similar

character suggest that both the Gilgamesh and Hanuman narratives are

derived in part from a very ancient myth. Gilgamesh also figures in

Indian mythology as Yama, the first man, who explored the way to the

Paradise called "The Land of Ancestors", and over which he

subsequently presided as a god. Other Babylonian myths link with those

found in Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia, Iceland, and the British Isles

and Ireland. The Sargon myth, for instance, resembles closely the myth

of Scyld (Sceaf), the patriarch, in the _Beowulf_ epic, and both

appear to be variations of the Tammuz-Adonis story. Tammuz also

resembles in one of his phases the Celtic hero Diarmid, who was slain

by the "green boar" of the Earth Mother, as was Adonis by the boar

form of Ares, the Greek war god.

In approaching the study of these linking myths it would be as rash to

conclude that all resemblances are due to homogeneity of race as to

assume that folklore and mythology are devoid of ethnological

elements. Due consideration must be given to the widespread influence

exercised by cultural contact. We must recognize also that the human

mind has ever shown a tendency to arrive quite independently at

similar conclusions, when confronted by similar problems, in various

parts of the world.

But while many remarkable resemblances may be detected between the

beliefs and myths and customs of widely separated peoples, it cannot

be overlooked that pronounced and striking differences remain to be

accounted for. Human experiences varied in localities because all

sections of humanity were not confronted in ancient times by the same

problems in their everyday lives. Some peoples, for instance,

experienced no great difficulties regarding the food supply, which

might be provided for them by nature in lavish abundance; others were

compelled to wage a fierce and constant conflict against hostile

forces in inhospitable environments with purpose to secure adequate

sustenance and their meed of enjoyment. Various habits of life had to

be adopted in various parts of the world, and these produced various

habits of thought. Consequently, we find that behind all systems of

primitive religion lies the formative background of natural phenomena.

A mythology reflects the geography, the fauna and flora, and the

climatic conditions of the area in which it took definite and

permanent shape.

In Babylonia, as elsewhere, we expect, therefore, to find a mythology

which has strictly local characteristics--one which mirrors river and

valley scenery, the habits of life of the people, and also the various

stages of progress in the civilization from its earliest beginnings.

Traces of primitive thought--survivals from remotest antiquity--should

also remain in evidence. As a matter of fact Babylonian mythology

fulfils our expectations in this regard to the highest degree.

Herodotus said that Egypt was the gift of the Nile: similarly

Babylonia may be regarded as the gift of the Tigris and

Euphrates--those great shifting and flooding rivers which for long

ages had been carrying down from the Armenian Highlands vast

quantities of mud to thrust back the waters of the Persian Gulf and

form a country capable of being utilized for human habitation. The

most typical Babylonian deity was Ea, the god of the fertilizing and

creative waters.

He was depicted clad in the skin of a fish, as gods in other

geographical areas were depicted wearing the skins of animals which

were regarded as ancestors, or hostile demons that had to be

propitiated. Originally Ea appears to have been a fish--the

incarnation of the spirit of, or life principle in, the Euphrates

River. His centre of worship was at Eridu, an ancient seaport, where

apparently the prehistoric Babylonians (the Sumerians) first began to

utilize the dried-up beds of shifting streams to irrigate the soil.

One of the several creation myths is reminiscent of those early

experiences which produced early local beliefs:

O thou River, who didst create all things,

When the great gods dug thee out,

They set prosperity upon thy banks,

Within thee Ea, the king of the Deep, created his dwelling.[10]

The Sumerians observed that the land was brought into existence by

means of the obstructing reeds, which caused mud to accumulate. When

their minds began to be exercised regarding the origin of life, they

conceived that the first human beings were created by a similar

process:

Marduk (son of Ea) laid a reed upon the face of the waters,

He formed dust and poured it out beside the reed ...

He formed mankind.[11]

Ea acquired in time, as the divine artisan, various attributes which

reflected the gradual growth of civilization: he was reputed to have

taught the people how to form canals, control the rivers, cultivate

the fields, build their houses, and so on.

But although Ea became a beneficent deity, as a result of the growth

of civilization, he had also a demoniac form, and had to be

propitiated. The worshippers of the fish god retained ancient modes of

thought and perpetuated ancient superstitious practices.

The earliest settlers in the Tigro-Euphrates valley were

agriculturists, like their congeners, the proto-Egyptians and the

Neolithic Europeans. Before they broke away from the parent stock in

its area of characterization they had acquired the elements of

culture, and adopted habits of thought which were based on the

agricultural mode of life. Like other agricultural communities they

were worshippers of the "World Mother", the Creatrix, who was the

giver of all good things, the "Preserver" and also the

"Destroyer"--the goddess whose moods were reflected by natural

phenomena, and whose lovers were the spirits of the seasons.

In the alluvial valley which they rendered fit for habitation the

Sumerians came into contact with peoples of different habits of life

and different habits of thought. These were the nomadic pastoralists

from the northern steppe lands, who had developed in isolation

theories regarding the origin of the Universe which reflected their

particular experiences and the natural phenomena of their area of

characterization. The most representative people of this class were

the "Hatti" of Asia Minor, who were of Alpine or Armenoid stock. In

early times the nomads were broken up into small tribal units, like

Abraham and his followers, and depended for their food supply on the

prowess of the males. Their chief deity was the sky and mountain god,

who was the "World Father", the creator, and the wielder of the

thunder hammer, who waged war against the demons of storm or drought,

and ensured the food supply of his worshippers.

The fusion in Babylonia of the peoples of the god and goddess cults

was in progress before the dawn of history, as was the case in Egypt

and also in southern Europe. In consequence independent Pantheons came

into existence in the various city States in the Tigro-Euphrates

valley. These were mainly a reflection of city politics: the deities

of each influential section had to receive recognition. But among the

great masses of the people ancient customs associated with agriculture

continued in practice, and, as Babylonia depended for its prosperity

on its harvests, the force of public opinion tended, it would appear,

to perpetuate the religious beliefs of the earliest settlers, despite

the efforts made by conquerors to exalt the deities they introduced.

Babylonian religion was of twofold character. It embraced temple

worship and private worship. The religion of the temple was the

religion of the ruling class, and especially of the king, who was the

guardian of the people. Domestic religion was conducted in homes, in

reed huts, or in public places, and conserved the crudest

superstitions surviving from the earliest times. The great "burnings"

and the human sacrifices in Babylonia, referred to in the Bible, were,

no doubt, connected with agricultural religion of the private order,

as was also the ceremony of baking and offering cakes to the Queen of

Heaven, condemned by Jeremiah, which obtained in the streets of

Jerusalem and other cities. Domestic religion required no temples.

There were no temples in Crete: the world was the "house" of the

deity, who had seasonal haunts on hilltops, in groves, in caves, &c.

In Egypt Herodotus witnessed festivals and processions which are not

referred to in official inscriptions, although they were evidently

practised from the earliest times.

Agricultural religion in Egypt was concentrated in the cult of Osiris

and Isis, and influenced all local theologies. In Babylonia these

deities were represented by Tammuz and Ishtar. Ishtar, like Isis,

absorbed many other local goddesses.

According to the beliefs of the ancient agriculturists the goddess was

eternal and undecaying. She was the Great Mother of the Universe and

the source of the food supply. Her son, the corn god, became, as the

Egyptians put it, "Husband of his Mother". Each year he was born anew

and rapidly attained to manhood; then he was slain by a fierce rival

who symbolized the season of pestilence-bringing and parching sun

heat, or the rainy season, or wild beasts of prey. Or it might be that

he was slain by his son, as Cronos was by Zeus and Dyaus by Indra. The

new year slew the old year.

The social customs of the people, which had a religious basis, were

formed in accordance with the doings of the deities; they sorrowed or

made glad in sympathy with the spirits of nature. Worshippers also

suggested by their ceremonies how the deities should act at various

seasons, and thus exercised, as they believed, a magical control over

them.

In Babylonia the agricultural myth regarding the Mother goddess and

the young god had many variations. In one form Tammuz, like Adonis,

was loved by two goddesses--the twin phases of nature--the Queen of

Heaven and the Queen of Hades. It was decreed that Tammuz should spend

part of the year with one goddess and part of the year with the other.

Tammuz was also a Patriarch, who reigned for a long period over the

land and had human offspring. After death his spirit appeared at

certain times and seasons as a planet, star, or constellation. He was

the ghost of the elder god, and he was also the younger god who was

born each year.

In the Gilgamesh epic we appear to have a form of the patriarch

legend--the story of the "culture hero" and teacher who discovered the

path which led to the land of ancestral spirits. The heroic Patriarch

in Egypt was Apuatu, "the opener of the ways", the earliest form of

Osiris; in India he was Yama, the first man, "who searched and found

out the path for many".

The King as Patriarch was regarded during life as an incarnation of

the culture god: after death he merged in the god. "Sargon of Akkad"

posed as an incarnation of the ancient agricultural Patriarch: he

professed to be a man of miraculous birth who was loved by the goddess

Ishtar, and was supposed to have inaugurated a New Age of the

Universe.

The myth regarding the father who was superseded by his son may

account for the existence in Babylonian city pantheons of elder and

younger gods who symbolized the passive and active forces of nature.

Considering the persistent and cumulative influence exercised by

agricultural religion it is not surprising to find, as has been

indicated, that most of the Babylonian gods had Tammuz traits, as most

of the Egyptian gods had Osirian traits. Although local or imported

deities were developed and conventionalized in rival Babylonian

cities, they still retained traces of primitive conceptions. They

existed in all their forms--as the younger god who displaced the elder

god and became the elder god, and as the elder god who conciliated the

younger god and made him his active agent; and as the god who was

identified at various seasons with different heavenly bodies and

natural phenomena. Merodach, the god of Babylon, who was exalted as

chief of the National pantheon in the Hammurabi Age, was, like Tammuz,

a son, and therefore a form of Ea, a demon slayer, a war god, a god of

fertility, a corn spirit, a Patriarch, and world ruler and guardian,

and, like Tammuz, he had solar, lunar, astral, and atmospheric

attributes. The complex characters of Merodach and Tammuz were not due

solely to the monotheistic tendency: the oldest deities were of

mystical character, they represented the "Self Power" of Naturalism as

well as the spirit groups of Animism.

The theorizing priests, who speculated regarding the mysteries of life

and death and the origin of all things, had to address the people

through the medium of popular beliefs. They utilized floating myths

for this purpose. As there were in early times various centres of

culture which had rival pantheons, the adapted myths varied greatly.

In the different forms in which they survive to us they reflect, not

only aspects of local beliefs, but also grades of culture at different

periods. We must not expect, however, to find that the latest form of

a myth was the highest and most profound. The history of Babylonian

religion is divided into periods of growth and periods of decadence.

The influence of domestic religion was invariably opposed to the new

and high doctrines which emanated from the priesthood, and in times of

political upheaval tended to submerge them in the debris of immemorial

beliefs and customs. The retrogressive tendencies of the masses were

invariably reinforced by the periodic invasions of aliens who had no

respect for official deities and temple creeds.

We must avoid insisting too strongly on the application of the

evolution theory to the religious phenomena of a country like

Babylonia.

The epochs in the intellectual life of an ancient people are not

comparable to geological epochs, for instance, because the forces at

work were directed by human wills, whether in the interests of

progress or otherwise. The battle of creeds has ever been a battle of

minds. It should be recognized, therefore, that the human element

bulks as prominently in the drama of Babylon's religious history as

does the prince of Denmark in the play of _Hamlet_. We are not

concerned with the plot alone. The characters must also receive

attention. Their aspirations and triumphs, their prejudices and

blunders, were the billowy forces which shaped the shoreland of the

story and made history.

Various aspects of Babylonian life and culture are dealt with

throughout this volume, and it is shown that the growth of science and

art was stimulated by unwholesome and crude superstitions. Many rank

weeds flourished beside the brightest blossoms of the human intellect

that wooed the sun in that fertile valley of rivers. As in Egypt,

civilization made progress when wealth was accumulated in sufficient

abundance to permit of a leisured class devoting time to study and

research. The endowed priests, who performed temple ceremonies, were

the teachers of the people and the patrons of culture. We may think

little of their religious beliefs, regarding which after all we have

only a superficial knowledge, for we have yet discovered little more

than the fragments of the shell which held the pearl, the faded petals

that were once a rose, but we must recognize that they provided

inspiration for the artists and sculptors whose achievements compel

our wonder and admiration, moved statesmen to inaugurate and

administer humanitarian laws, and exalted Right above Might.

These civilizations of the old world, among which the Mesopotamian and

the Nilotic were the earliest, were built on no unsound foundations.

They made possible "the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that

was Rome", and it is only within recent years that we have begun to

realize how incalculable is the debt which the modern world owes to

them.

CHAPTER I.

THE RACES AND EARLY CIVILIZATION OF BABYLONIA

Prehistoric Babylonia--The Confederacies of Sumer and

Akkad--Sumerian Racial Affinities--Theories of Mongolian and

Ural-Altaic Origins--Evidence of Russian Turkestan--Beginnings of

Agriculture--Remarkable Proofs from Prehistoric Egyptian

Graves--Sumerians and the Mediterranean Race--Present-day Types in

Western Asia--The Evidence of Crania--Origin of the Akkadians--The

Semitic Blend--Races in Ancient Palestine--Southward Drift of

Armenoid Peoples--The Rephaims of the Bible--Akkadians attain

Political Supremacy in Northern Babylonia--Influence of Sumerian

Culture--Beginnings of Civilization--Progress in the Neolithic

Age--Position of Women in Early Communities--Their Legal Status in

Ancient Babylonia--Influence in Social and Religious Life--The

"Woman's Language"--Goddess who inspired Poets.

Before the dawn of the historical period Ancient Babylonia was

divided into a number of independent city states similar to those

which existed in pre-Dynastic Egypt. Ultimately these were grouped

into loose confederacies. The northern cities were embraced in the

territory known as Akkad, and the southern in the land of Sumer, or

Shumer. This division had a racial as well as a geographical

significance. The Akkadians were "late comers" who had achieved

political ascendency in the north when the area they occupied was

called Uri, or Kiuri, and Sumer was known as Kengi. They were a people

of Semitic speech with pronounced Semitic affinities. From the

earliest times the sculptors depicted them with abundant locks, long

full beards, and the prominent distinctive noses and full lips, which

we usually associate with the characteristic Jewish type, and also

attired in long, flounced robes, suspended from their left shoulders,

and reaching down to their ankles. In contrast, the Sumerians had

clean-shaven faces and scalps, and noses of Egyptian and Grecian

rather than Semitic type, while they wore short, pleated kilts, and

went about with the upper part of their bodies quite bare like the

Egyptian noblemen of the Old Kingdom period. They spoke a non-Semitic

language, and were the oldest inhabitants of Babylonia of whom we have

any knowledge. Sumerian civilization was rooted in the agricultural

mode of life, and appears to have been well developed before the

Semites became numerous and influential in the land. Cities had been

built chiefly of sun-dried and fire-baked bricks; distinctive pottery

was manufactured with much skill; the people were governed by

humanitarian laws, which formed the nucleus of the Hammurabi code, and

had in use a system of cuneiform writing which was still in process of

development from earlier pictorial characters. The distinctive feature

of their agricultural methods was the engineering skill which was

displayed in extending the cultivatable area by the construction of

irrigating canals and ditches. There are also indications that they

possessed some knowledge of navigation and traded on the Persian Gulf.

According to one of their own traditions Eridu, originally a seaport,

was their racial cradle. The Semitic Akkadians adopted the distinctive

culture of these Sumerians after settlement, and exercised an

influence on its subsequent growth.

Much controversy has been waged regarding the original home of the

Sumerians and the particular racial type which they represented. One

theory connects them with the lank-haired and beardless Mongolians,

and it is asserted on the evidence afforded by early sculptural

reliefs that they were similarly oblique-eyed. As they also spoke an

agglutinative language, it is suggested that they were descended from

the same parent stock as the Chinese in an ancient Parthian homeland.

If, however, the oblique eye was not the result of faulty and

primitive art, it is evident that the Mongolian type, which is

invariably found to be remarkably persistent in racial blends, did not

survive in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, for in the finer and more

exact sculpture work of the later Sumerian period the eyes of the

ruling classes are found to be similar to those of the Ancient

Egyptians and southern Europeans. Other facial characteristics suggest

that a Mongolian racial connection is highly improbable; the prominent

Sumerian nose, for instance, is quite unlike the Chinese, which is

diminutive. Nor can far-reaching conclusions be drawn from the scanty

linguistic evidence at our disposal. Although the languages of the

Sumerians and long-headed Chinese are of the agglutinative variety, so

are those also which are spoken by the broad-headed Turks and Magyars

of Hungary, the broad-headed and long-headed, dark and fair Finns, and

the brunet and short-statured Basques with pear-shaped faces, who are

regarded as a variation of the Mediterranean race with distinctive

characteristics developed in isolation. Languages afford no sure

indication of racial origins or affinities.

Another theory connects the Sumerians with the broad-headed peoples of

the Western Asian plains and plateaus, who are vaguely grouped as

Ural-Altaic stock and are represented by the present-day Turks and the

dark variety of Finns. It is assumed that they migrated southward in

remote times in consequence of tribal pressure caused by changing

climatic conditions, and abandoned a purely pastoral for an

agricultural life. The late Sumerian sculpture work again presents

difficulties in this connection, for the faces and bulging occiputs

suggest rather a long-headed than a broad-headed type, and the theory

no longer obtains that new habits of life alter skull forms which are

usually associated with other distinctive traits in the structure of

skeletons. These broad-headed nomadic peoples of the Steppes are

allied to Tatar stock, and distinguished from the pure Mongols by

their abundance of wavy hair and beard. The fact that the Sumerians

shaved their scalps and faces is highly suggestive in this connection.

From the earliest times it has been the habit of most peoples to

emphasize their racial characteristics so as to be able, one may

suggest, to distinguish readily a friend from a foeman. At any rate

this fact is generally recognized by ethnologists. The Basques, for

instance, shave their pointed chins and sometimes grow short side

whiskers to increase the distinctive pear-shape which is given to

their faces by their prominent temples. In contrast, their neighbours,

the Andalusians, grow chin whiskers to broaden their already rounded

chins, and to distinguish them markedly from the Basques.[12] Another

example of similar character is afforded in Asia Minor, where the

skulls of the children of long-headed Kurds are narrowed, and those of

the children of broad-headed Armenians made flatter behind as a result

of systematic pressure applied by using cradle boards. In this way

these rival peoples accentuate their contrasting head forms, which at

times may, no doubt, show a tendency towards variation as a result of

the crossment of types. When it is found, therefore, that the

Sumerians, like the Ancient Egyptians, were in the habit of shaving,

their ethnic affinities should be looked for among a naturally

glabrous rather than a heavily-bearded people.

A Central Asiatic source for Sumerian culture has also been urged of

late with much circumstantial detail. It breaks quite fresh and

interesting ground. Recent scientific expeditions in Russian and

Chinese Turkestan have accumulated important archaeological data which

clearly establish that vast areas of desert country were at a remote

period most verdurous and fruitful, and thickly populated by organized

and apparently progressive communities. From these ancient centres of

civilization wholesale migrations must have been impelled from time to

time in consequence of the gradual encroachment of wind-distributed

sand and the increasing shortage of water. At Anau in Russian

Turkestan, where excavations were conducted by the Pumpelly

expedition, abundant traces were found of an archaic and forgotten

civilization reaching back to the Late Stone Age. The pottery is

decorated with geometric designs, and resembles somewhat other

Neolithic specimens found as far apart as Susa, the capital of ancient

Elam, on the borders of Babylonia, Boghaz Köi in Asia Minor, the seat

of Hittite administration, round the Black Sea to the north, and at

points in the southern regions of the Balkan Peninsula. It is

suggested that these various finds are scattered evidences of early

racial drifts from the Central Asian areas which were gradually being

rendered uninhabitable. Among the Copper Age artifacts at Anau are

clay votive statuettes resembling those which were used in Sumeria for

religious purposes. These, however, cannot be held to prove a racial

connection, but they are important in so far as they afford evidence

of early trade relations in a hitherto unsuspected direction, and the

long distances over which cultural influence extended before the dawn

of history. Further we cannot go. No inscriptions have yet been

discovered to render articulate this mysterious Central Asian

civilization, or to suggest the original source of early Sumerian

picture writing. Nor is it possible to confirm Mr. Pumpelly's view

that from the Anau district the Sumerians and Egyptians first obtained

barley and wheat, and some of their domesticated animals. If, as

Professor Elliot Smith believes, copper was first used by the Ancient

Egyptians, it may be, on the other hand, that a knowledge of this

metal reached Anau through Sumeria, and that the elements of the

earlier culture were derived from the same quarter by an indirect

route. The evidence obtainable in Egypt is of interest in this

connection. Large quantities of food have been taken from the stomachs

and intestines of sun-dried bodies which have lain in their

pre-Dynastic graves for over sixty centuries. This material has been

carefully examined, and has yielded, among other things, husks of

barley and millet, and fragments of mammalian bones, including those,

no doubt, of the domesticated sheep and goats and cattle painted on

the pottery.[13] It is therefore apparent that at an extremely remote

period a knowledge of agriculture extended throughout Egypt, and we

have no reason for supposing that it was not shared by the

contemporary inhabitants of Sumer.

The various theories which have been propounded regarding the outside

source of Sumerian culture are based on the assumption that it

commenced abruptly and full grown. Its rude beginnings cannot be

traced on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, but although no

specimens of the earliest form of picture writing have been recovered

from the ruins of Sumerian and Akkadian cities, neither have any been

found elsewhere. The possibility remains, therefore, that early

Babylonian culture was indigenous. "A great deal of ingenuity has been

displayed by many scholars", says Professor Elliot Smith, "with the

object of bringing these Sumerians from somewhere else as immigrants

into Sumer; but no reasons have been advanced to show that they had

not been settled at the head of the Persian Gulf for long generations

before they first appeared on the stage of history. The argument that

no early remains have been found is futile, not only because such a

country as Sumer is no more favourable to the preservation of such

evidence than is the Delta of the Nile, but also upon the more general

grounds that negative statements of this sort cannot be assigned a

positive evidence for an immigration."[14] This distinguished

ethnologist is frankly of opinion that the Sumerians were the

congeners of the pre-Dynastic Egyptians of the Mediterranean or Brown

race, the eastern branch of which reaches to India and the western to

the British Isles and Ireland. In the same ancient family are included

the Arabs, whose physical characteristics distinguish them from the

Semites of Jewish type.

Some light may be thrown on the Sumerian problem by giving

consideration to the present-day racial complexion of Western Asia.

The importance of evidence of this character has been emphasized

elsewhere. In Egypt, for instance, Dr. C.S. Myers has ascertained that

the modern peasants have skull forms which are identical with those of

their pre-Dynastic ancestors. Mr. Hawes has also demonstrated that the

ancient inhabitants of Crete are still represented on that famous

island. But even more remarkable is the fact that the distinctive

racial type which occupied the Palaeolithic caves of the Dordogne

valley in France continues to survive in their vicinity after an

interval of over twenty thousand years.[15] It is noteworthy,

therefore, to find that in south-western Asia at the present day one

particular racial type predominates over all others. Professor Ripley,

who summarizes a considerable mass of data in this connection, refers

to it as the "Iranian", and says: "It includes the Persians and Kurds,

possibly the Ossetes in the Caucasus, and farther to the east a large

number of Asiatic tribes, from the Afghans to the Hindus. These

peoples are all primarily long-headed and dark brunets. They incline

to slenderness of habit, although varying in stature according to

circumstances. In them we recognize at once undoubted congeners of our

Mediterranean race in Europe. The area of their extension runs off

into Africa, through the Egyptians, who are clearly of the same race.

Not only the modern peoples, but the Ancient Egyptians and the

Phoenicians also have been traced to the same source. By far the

largest portion of this part of Western Asia is inhabited by this

eastern branch of the Mediterranean race." The broad-headed type

"occurs sporadically among a few ethnic remnants in Syria and

Mesopotamia".[16] The exhaustive study of thousands of ancient crania

in London and Cambridge collections has shown that Mediterranean

peoples, having alien traits, the result of early admixture, were

distributed between Egypt and the Punjab.[17] Where blending took

place, the early type, apparently, continued to predominate; and it

appears to be reasserting itself in our own time in Western Asia, as

elsewhere. It seems doubtful, therefore, that the ancient Sumerians

differed racially from the pre-Dynastic inhabitants of Egypt and the

Pelasgians and Iberians of Europe. Indeed, the statuettes from Tello,

the site of the Sumerian city of Lagash, display distinctively

Mediterranean skull forms and faces. Some of the plump figures of the

later period suggest, however, "the particular alien strain" which in

Egypt and elsewhere "is always associated with a tendency to the

development of fat", in contrast to "the lean and sinewy appearance of

most representatives of the Brown race".[18] This change may be

accounted for by the presence of the Semites in northern Babylonia.

Whence, then, came these invading Semitic Akkadians of Jewish type? It

is generally agreed that they were closely associated with one of the

early outpourings of nomadic peoples from Arabia, a country which is

favourable for the production of a larger population than it is able

to maintain permanently, especially when its natural resources are

restricted by a succession of abnormally dry years. In tracing the

Akkadians from Arabia, however, we are confronted at the outset with

the difficulty that its prehistoric, and many of its present-day,

inhabitants are not of the characteristic Semitic type. On the Ancient

Egyptian pottery and monuments the Arabs are depicted as men who

closely resembled the representatives of the Mediterranean race in the

Nile valley and elsewhere. They shaved neither scalps nor faces as did

the historic Sumerians and Egyptians, but grew the slight moustache

and chin-tuft beard like the Libyans on the north and the majority of

the men whose bodies have been preserved in pre-Dynastic graves in the

Nile valley. "If", writes Professor Elliot Smith, "the generally

accepted view is true, that Arabia was the original home of the

Semites, the Arab must have undergone a profound change in his

physical characters after he left his homeland and before he reached

Babylonia." This authority is of opinion that the Arabians first

migrated into Palestine and northern Syria, where they mingled with

the southward-migrating Armenoid peoples from Asia Minor. "This blend

of Arabs, kinsmen of the proto-Egyptians and Armenoids, would then

form the big-nosed, long-bearded Semites, so familiar not only on the

ancient Babylonian and Egyptian monuments, but also in the modern

Jews."[19] Such a view is in accord with Dr. Hugo Winckler's

contention that the flow of Arabian migrations was northwards towards

Syria ere it swept through Mesopotamia. It can scarcely be supposed

that these invasions of settled districts did not result in the fusion

and crossment of racial types and the production of a sub-variety with

medium skull form and marked facial characteristics.

Of special interest in this connection is the evidence afforded by

Palestine and Egypt. The former country has ever been subject to

periodic ethnic disturbances and changes. Its racial history has a

remote beginning in the Pleistocene Age. Palaeolithic flints of

Chellean and other primitive types have been found in large numbers,

and a valuable collection of these is being preserved in a French

museum at Jerusalem. In a northern cave fragments of rude pottery,

belonging to an early period in the Late Stone Age, have been

discovered in association with the bones of the woolly rhinoceros. To

a later period belong the series of Gezer cave dwellings, which,

according to Professor Macalister, the well-known Palestinian

authority, "were occupied by a non-Semitic people of low stature, with

thick skulls and showing evidence of the great muscular strength that

is essential to savage life".[20] These people are generally supposed

to be representatives of the Mediterranean race, which Sergi has found

to have been widely distributed throughout Syria and a part of Asia

Minor.[21] An interesting problem, however, is raised by the fact

that, in one of the caves, there are evidences that the dead were

cremated. This was not a Mediterranean custom, nor does it appear to

have prevailed outside the Gezer area. If, however, it does not

indicate that the kinsmen of the Ancient Egyptians came into contact

with the remnants of an earlier people, it may be that the dead of a

later people were burned there. The possibility that unidentified

types may have contributed to the Semitic blend, however, remains. The

Mediterraneans mingled in Northern Syria and Asia Minor with the

broad-headed Armenoid peoples who are represented in Europe by the

Alpine race. With them they ultimately formed the great Hittite

confederacy. These Armenoids were moving southwards at the very dawn

of Egyptian history, and nothing is known of their conquests and

settlements. Their pioneers, who were probably traders, appear to have

begun to enter the Delta region before the close of the Late Stone

Age.[22] The earliest outpourings of migrating Arabians may have been

in progress about the same time. This early southward drift of

Armenoids might account for the presence in southern Palestine, early

in the Copper Age, of the tall race referred to in the Bible as the

Rephaim or Anakim, "whose power was broken only by the Hebrew

invaders".[23] Joshua drove them out of Hebron,[24] in the

neighbourhood of which Abraham had purchased a burial cave from

Ephron, the Hittite.[25] Apparently a system of land laws prevailed in

Palestine at this early period. It is of special interest for us to

note that in Abraham's day and afterwards, the landed proprietors in

the country of the Rephaim were identified with the aliens from Asia

Minor--the tall variety in the Hittite confederacy.

Little doubt need remain that the Arabians during their sojourn in

Palestine and Syria met with distinctive types, and if not with pure

Armenoids, at any rate with peoples having Armenoid traits. The

consequent multiplication of tribes, and the gradual pressure

exercised by the constant stream of immigrants from Arabia and Asia

Minor, must have kept this part of Western Asia in a constant state of

unrest. Fresh migrations of the surplus stock were evidently propelled

towards Egypt in one direction, and the valleys of the Tigris and

Euphrates in another. The Semites of Akkad were probably the

conquerors of the more highly civilized Sumerians, who must have

previously occupied that area. It is possible that they owed their

success to the possession of superior weapons. Professor Elliot Smith

suggests in this connection that the Arabians had become familiar with

the use of copper as a result of contact with the Egyptians in Sinai.

There is no evidence, however, that the Sumerians were attacked before

they had begun to make metal weapons. It is more probable that the

invading nomads had superior military organization and considerable

experience in waging war against detached tribal units. They may have

also found some of the northern Sumerian city states at war with one

another and taken advantage of their unpreparedness to resist a common

enemy. The rough Dorians who overran Greece and the fierce Goths who

shattered the power of Rome were similarly in a lower state of

civilization than the peoples whom they subdued.

The Sumerians, however, ultimately achieved an intellectual conquest

of their conquerors. Although the leaders of invasion may have formed

military aristocracies in the cities which they occupied, it was

necessary for the great majority of the nomads to engage their

activities in new directions after settlement. The Semitic Akkadians,

therefore, adopted Sumerian habits of life which were best suited for

the needs of the country, and they consequently came under the spell

of Sumerian modes of thought. This is shown by the fact that the

native speech of ancient Sumer continued long after the dawn of

history to be the language of Babylonian religion and culture, like

Latin in Europe during the Middle Ages. For centuries the mingling

peoples must have been bilingual, as are many of the inhabitants of

Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish Highlands in the present age, but

ultimately the language of the Semites became the prevailing speech in

Sumer and Akkad. This change was the direct result of the conquests

and the political supremacy achieved by the northern people. A

considerable period elapsed, however, ere this consummation was

reached and Ancient Babylonia became completely Semitized. No doubt

its brilliant historical civilization owed much of its vigour and

stability to the organizing genius of the Semites, but the basis on

which it was established had been laid by the ingenious and

imaginative Sumerians who first made the desert to blossom like the

rose.

The culture of Sumer was a product of the Late Stone Age, which should

not be regarded as necessarily an age of barbarism. During its vast

periods there were great discoveries and great inventions in various

parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Neoliths made pottery and

bricks; we know that they invented the art of spinning, for

spindle-whorls are found even in the Gezer caves to which we have

referred, while in Egypt the pre-Dynastic dead were sometimes wrapped

in finely woven linen: their deftly chipped flint implements are

eloquent of artistic and mechanical skill, and undoubted mathematical

ability must be credited to the makers of smoothly polished stone

hammers which are so perfectly balanced that they revolve on a centre

of gravity. In Egypt and Babylonia the soil was tilled and its

fertility increased by irrigation. Wherever man waged a struggle with

Nature he made rapid progress, and consequently we find that the

earliest great civilizations were rooted in the little fields of the

Neolithic farmers. Their mode of life necessitated a knowledge of

Nature's laws; they had to take note of the seasons and measure time.

So Egypt gave us the Calendar, and Babylonia the system of dividing

the week into seven days, and the day into twelve double hours.

The agricultural life permitted large communities to live in river

valleys, and these had to be governed by codes of laws; settled

communities required peace and order for their progress and

prosperity. All great civilizations have evolved from the habits and

experiences of settled communities. Law and religion were closely

associated, and the evidence afforded by the remains of stone circles

and temples suggests that in the organization and division of labour

the influence of religious teachers was pre-eminent. Early rulers,

indeed, were priest-kings--incarnations of the deity who owned the

land and measured out the span of human life.

We need not assume that Neolithic man led an idyllic existence; his

triumphs were achieved by slow and gradual steps; his legal codes

were, no doubt, written in blood and his institutions welded in the

fires of adversity. But, disciplined by laws, which fostered

humanitarian ideals, Neolithic man, especially of the Mediterranean

race, had reached a comparatively high state of civilization long ages

before the earliest traces of his activities can be obtained. When

this type of mankind is portrayed in Ancient Sumeria, Ancient Egypt,

and Ancient Crete we find that the faces are refined and intellectual

and often quite modern in aspect. The skulls show that in the Late

Stone Age the human brain was fully developed and that the racial

types were fixed. In every country in Europe we still find the direct

descendants of the ancient Mediterranean race, as well as the

descendants of the less highly cultured conquerors who swept westward

out of Asia at the dawn of the Bronze Age; and everywhere there are

evidences of crossment of types in varying degrees. Even the influence

of Neolithic intellectual life still remains. The comparative study of

mythology and folk beliefs reveals that we have inherited certain

modes of thought from our remote ancestors, who were the congeners of

the Ancient Sumerians and the Ancient Egyptians. In this connection it

is of interest, therefore, to refer to the social ideals of the early

peoples who met and mingled on the southern plains of the Tigris and

Euphrates, and especially the position occupied by women, which is

engaging so much attention at the present day.

It would appear that among the Semites and other nomadic peoples woman

was regarded as the helpmate rather than the companion and equal of

man. The birth of a son was hailed with joy; it was "miserable to have

a daughter", as a Hindu sage reflected; in various countries it was

the custom to expose female children after birth and leave them to

die. A wife had no rights other than those accorded to her by her

husband, who exercised over her the power of life and death. Sons

inherited family possessions; the daughters had no share allotted to

them, and could be sold by fathers and brothers. Among the peoples who

observed "male right", social life was reflected in the conception of

controlling male deities, accompanied by shadowy goddesses who were

often little else than figures of speech.

The Ancient Sumerians, on the other hand, like the Mediterranean

peoples of Egypt and Crete, reverenced and exalted motherhood in

social and religious life. Women were accorded a legal status and

marriage laws were promulgated by the State. Wives could possess

private property in their own right, as did the Babylonian Sarah, wife

of Abraham, who owned the Egyptian slave Hagar.[26] A woman received

from her parents a marriage dowry, and in the event of separation from

her husband she could claim its full value. Some spinsters, or wives,

were accustomed to enter into business partnerships with men or

members of their own sex, and could sue and be sued in courts of law.

Brothers and sisters were joint heirs of the family estate. Daughters

might possess property over which their fathers exercised no control:

they could also enter into legal agreements with their parents in

business matters, when they had attained to years of discretion. Young

women who took vows of celibacy and lived in religious institutions

could yet make business investments, as surviving records show. There

is only one instance of a Sumerian woman ascending the throne, like

Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt. Women, therefore, were not rigidly excluded

from official life. Dungi II, an early Sumerian king, appointed two of

his daughters as rulers of conquered cities in Syria and Elam.

Similarly Shishak, the Egyptian Pharaoh, handed over the city of

Gezer, which he had subdued, to his daughter, Solomon's wife.[27] In

the religious life of ancient Sumeria the female population exercised

an undoubted influence, and in certain temples there were priestesses.

The oldest hymns give indication of the respect shown to women by

making reference to mixed assemblies as "females and males", just as

present-day orators address themselves to "ladies and gentlemen". In

the later Semitic adaptations of these productions, it is significant

to note, this conventional reference was altered to "male and female".

If influences, however, were at work to restrict the position of women

they did not meet with much success, because when Hammurabi codified

existing laws, the ancient rights of women received marked

recognition.

There were two dialects in ancient Sumeria, and the invocatory hymns

were composed in what was known as "the women's language". It must not

be inferred, however, that the ladies of Sumeria had established a

speech which differed from that used by men. The reference would

appear to be to a softer and homelier dialect, perhaps the oldest of

the two, in which poetic emotion found fullest and most beautiful

expression. In these ancient days, as in our own, the ideal of

womanhood was the poet's chief source of inspiration, and among the

hymns the highest reach of poetic art was attained in the invocation

of Ishtar, the Babylonian Venus. The following hymn is addressed to

that deity in her Valkyrie-like character as a goddess of war, but her

more feminine traits are not obscured:--

HYMN TO ISHTAR

To thee I cry, O lady of the gods,

Lady of ladies, goddess without peer,

Ishtar who shapes the lives of all mankind,

Thou stately world queen, sovran of the sky,

And lady ruler of the host of heaven--

Illustrious is thy name... O light divine,

Gleaming in lofty splendour o'er the earth--

Heroic daughter of the moon, oh! hear;

Thou dost control our weapons and award

In battles fierce the victory at will--

crown'd majestic Fate. Ishtar most high,

Who art exalted over all the gods,

Thou bringest lamentation; thou dost urge

With hostile hearts our brethren to the fray;

The gift of strength is thine for thou art strong;

Thy will is urgent, brooking no delay;

Thy hand is violent, thou queen of war

Girded with battle and enrobed with fear...

Thou sovran wielder of the wand of Doom,

The heavens and earth are under thy control.

Adored art thou in every sacred place,

In temples, holy dwellings, and in shrines,

Where is thy name not lauded? where thy will

Unheeded, and thine images not made?

Where are thy temples not upreared? O, where

Art thou not mighty, peerless, and supreme?

Anu and Bel and Ea have thee raised

To rank supreme, in majesty and pow'r,

They have established thee above the gods

And all the host of heaven... O stately queen,

At thought of thee the world is filled with fear,

The gods in heaven quake, and on the earth

All spirits pause, and all mankind bow down

With reverence for thy name... O Lady Judge,

Thy ways are just and holy; thou dost gaze

On sinners with compassion, and each morn

Leadest the wayward to the rightful path.

Now linger not, but come! O goddess fair,

O shepherdess of all, thou drawest nigh

With feet unwearied... Thou dost break the bonds

Of these thy handmaids... When thou stoopest o'er

The dying with compassion, lo! they live;

And when the sick behold thee they are healed.

Hear me, thy servant! hearken to my pray'r,

For I am full of sorrow and I sigh

In sore distress; weeping, on thee I wait.

Be merciful, my lady, pity take

And answer, "'Tis enough and be appeased ".

How long must my heart sorrow and make moan

And restless be? How long must my dark home

Be filled with mourning and my soul with grief?

O lioness of heaven, bring me peace

And rest and comfort. Hearken to my pray'r!

Is anger pity? May thine eyes look down

With tenderness and blessings, and behold

Thy servant. Oh! have mercy; hear my cry

And unbewitch me from the evil spells,

That I may see thy glory... Oh! how long

Shall these my foes pursue me, working ill,

And robbing me of joy?... Oh! how long

Shall demons compass me about and cause

Affliction without end?... I thee adore--

The gift of strength is thine and thou art strong--

The weakly are made strong, yet I am weak...

O hear me! I am glutted with my grief--

This flood of grief by evil winds distressed;

My heart hath fled me like a bird on wings,

And like the dove I moan. Tears from mine eyes

Are falling as the rain from heaven falls,

And I am destitute and full of woe.

* * * * *

What have I done that thou hast turned from me?

Have I neglected homage to my god

And thee my goddess? O deliver me

And all my sins forgive, that I may share

Thy love and be watched over in thy fold;

And may thy fold be wide, thy pen secure.

* * * * *

How long wilt thou be angry? Hear my cry,

And turn again to prosper all my ways--

O may thy wrath be crumbled and withdrawn

As by a crumbling stream. Then smite my foes,

And take away their power to work me ill,

That I may crush them. Hearken to my pray'r!

And bless me so that all who me behold

May laud thee and may magnify thy name,

While I exalt thy power over all--

Ishtar is highest! Ishtar is the queen!

Ishtar the peerless daughter of the moon!