The third sort of lyre was larger than either of the others, and

considerably more elaborate. It had probably a sounding-board at bottom,

like the lyre just described, though this, being carried under the left

elbow, is concealed in the representations. Hence there branched out two

curved arms, more or less ornamented, which were of very unequal length;

and these were joined together by a cross-bar, also curved, and

projecting considerably beyond the end of the longer of the two arms.

Owing to the inequality of the arms, the cross-bar sloped at an angle to

the base, and the strings, which passed from the one to the other,

consequently differed in length. The number of the strings in this lyre

seems to have been either five or seven. [PLATE CXXVIII., Figs. 2, 3.]

[Illustration: PLATE 128]

The Assyrian guitar is remarkable for the small size of the hollow body

or sounding-board, and the great proportionate length of the neck or

handle. There is nothing to show what was the number of the strings, nor

whether they were stretched by pegs and elevated by means of a bridge.

Both hands seen to be employed in playing the instrument, which is held

across the chest in a sloping direction, and was probably kept in place

by a ribbon or strap passed round the neck. [PLATE CXXVIII., Fig. 1.]

It is curious that in the Assyrian remains, while the double pipe is

common, we find no instance at all either of the flute or of the single

pipe. All three were employed in Egypt, and occur on the monuments of

that country frequently; and though among the Greeks and Romans the

double pipe was more common than the single one, yet the single pipe was

well known, and its employment was not unusual. The Greeks regarded the

pipe as altogether Asiatic, and ascribed its invention to Marsyas the

Phrygian, or to Olympus, his disciple. We may conclude from this that

they at any rate learnt the invention from Asia; and in their decided

preference of the double over the single pipe we may not improbably have

a trace of the influence which Assyria exercised over Asiatic, and thus

even over Greek, music. [PLATE CXXVIII., Fig. 1.]

The Assyrian double pipe was short, probably not exceeding ten or twelve

inches in length. It is uncertain whether it was really a single

instrument consisting of two tubes united by a common mouthpiece, or

whether it was not composed of two quite separate pipes, as was the case

with the double pipes of the Greeks and Romans.

The two pipes constituting a pair seem in Assyria to have been always of

the same length, not, like the Roman “right” and “left pipes,” of

unequal length, and so of different pitches. They were held and played,

like the classical one, with either hand of the performer. There can be

little doubt that they were in reality quite straight, though sometimes

they have been awkwardly represented as crooked by the artist.

The tambourine of the Assyrian was round, like that in common use at the

present day; not square, like the ordinary Egyptian. It seems to have

consisted simply of a skin stretched on a circular frame, and to have

been destitute altogether of the metal rings or balls which produce the

jingling sound of the modern instrument. It was held at bottom by the

left hand in a perpendicular position, and was struck at the side with

the fingers of the right. [PLATE CXXIX., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE 129]

Assyrian cymbals closely resembled those in common use throughout the

East at the present day. They consisted of two hemispheres of metal,

probably of bronze, running off to a point, which was elongated into a

bar or handle. The player grasped a cymbal in each hand, and either

clashed theme together horizontally, or else, holding one cupwise in his

left, brought the other down upon it perpendicularly with his right.

[PLATE CXXX., Fig. 1.]

Two drums are represented on the Assyrian sculptures.

One is a small instrument resembling the _tubbul_, now frequently used

by Eastern dancing girls. The other is of larger size, like the _tubbul_

at top, but descending gradually in the shape of an inverted cone, and

terminating almost in a point at bottom. Both were carried in front,

against the stomach of the player--attached, apparently, to his girdle;

and both were played in the same way, namely, with the fingers of the

open hands on the top. [PLATE CXXX., Fig. 2.]

[Illustration: PLATE 130]

A few instruments carried by musicians are of an anomalous appearance,

and do not admit of identification with any known species. One, which is

borne by a musician in a processional scene belonging to the time of

Sennacherib, resembles in shape a bag turned upside-down. By the manner

in which it is held, we may conjecture that it was a sort of rattle--a

hollow square box of wood or metal, containing stones or other hard

substances which produced a jingling noise when shaken. But the purpose

of the semicircular bow which hangs from the box is difficult to

explain, unless we suppose that it was merely a handle by which to carry

the instrument when not in use. Rattles of different kinds are found

among the musical instruments of Egypt; and one of them consists of a

box with a long handle attached to it. The jingling noise produced by

such instruments may have corresponded to the sound now emitted by the

side-rings of the tambourine.

Another curious-looking instrument occurs in a processional scene of the

time of Asshur-bani-pal, which has been compared to the modern

_santour_, a sort of dulcimer. It consisted (apparently) of a number of

strings, certainly not fewer than ten stretched over a hollow case or

sounding-board. The musician seems to have struck the strings with a

small bar or hammer held in his right hand, while at the same time he

made some use of his left hand in pressing them so as to produce the

right note. It is clear that this instrument must have been suspended

round the neck, though the Assyrian artist has omitted to represent the

belt which kept it in place. [PLATE CXXIX., Fig. 2.]

In addition to all these various instruments, it is possible that the

Assyrians may have made use of a sort of horn. An object is represented

on a slab of Sennacherib’s which is certainly either a horn or a

speaking-trumpet. It is carried by one of the supervisors of the works

in a scene representing the conveyance of a colossal bull to its

destination. In shape it no doubt resembles the modern speaking-trumpet,

but it is almost equally near to the tuba or military trumpet of the

Greeks and Romans. This will appear sufficiently on a comparison of the

two representations, one of which is taken from Mr. Layard’s

representation of Sennacherib’s slab, while the other is from a

sculpture on the column of Trajan. As we have no mention of the

speaking-trumpet in any ancient writer, as the shape of the object under

consideration is that of a known ancient instrument of music, and as an

ordinary horn would have been of great use in giving signals to workmen

engaged as the laborers are upon the sculpture, it seems best to regard

the object in question as such a horn--an instrument of great power, but

of little compass--more suitable therefore for signal-giving than for

concerts. [PLATE CXXX., Fig. 3.]

Passing now from the instruments of the Assyrians to the general

features and character of their music, we may observe, in the first

place, that while it is fair to suppose them acquainted with each form

of the triple symphony, there is only evidence that they knew of two

forms out of the three--viz, the harmony of instruments, and that of

instruments and voices in combination. Of these two they seem greatly to

have preferred the concert of instruments without voices; indeed, one

instance alone shows that they were not wholly ignorant of the more

complex harmony. Even this leaves it doubtful whether they themselves

practised it: for the singers and musicians represented as uniting their

efforts are not Assyrians, but Susianians, who come out to greet their

conquerors, and do honor to the new sovereign who has been imposed on

them, with singing, playing, and dancing.

Assyrian bands were variously composed. The simplest consisted of two

harpers. A band of this limited number seems to have been an established

part of the religious ceremonial on the return of the monarch from the

chase, when a libation was poured over the dead game. The instrument in

use on these occasions was the antique harp, which was played, not with

the hand, but with the _plectrum_. A similar band appears on one

occasion in a triumphal return from a military expedition belonging to

the time of Sennacherib. [PLATE CXXI.]

[Illustration: PLATE 131]

In several instances we find bands of three musicians. In one case all

three play the lyre. The musicians here are certainly captives, whom the

Assyrians have borne off front their own country. It has been thought

that their physiognomy is Jewish, and that the lyre which they bear in

their hands may represent that “kind of harp” which the children of the

later captivity hung up upon the willows when they wept by the rivers of

Babylon. There are no sufficient grounds, however, for this

identification. The lyre may be pronounced foreign, since it is unlike

any other specimen; but its ornamentation with an animal head is

sufficient to show that it is not Jewish. And the Jewish _kinnor_ was

rather a harp than a lyre, and had certainly more than four strings.

Still, the employment of captives as musicians is interesting, though we

cannot say that the captives are Jews. It shows us that the Assyrians,

like the later Babylonians, were in the habit of “requiring” music from

their prisoners, who, when transported into a “strange land,” had to

entertain their masters with their native melodies.

Another band of three exhibits to us a harper, a player on the lyre, and

a player on the double pipe. A third shows a harper, a player on the

lyre, and a musician whose instrument is uncertain. In this latter case

it is quite possible that there may originally have been more musicians

than three, for the sculpture is imperfect, terminating in the middle of

a figure.

Bands of four performers are about as common as bands of three. On an

obelisk belonging to the time of Asshur-izir-pal we see a band composed

of two cymbal-players and two performers on the lyre. A slab of

Sennacherib’s exhibits four harpers arranged in two pairs, all playing

with the _plectrum_ on the antique harp. Another of the same date, which

is incomplete, shows us a tambourine-player, a cymbal-player, a player

on the nondescript instrument which has been called a sort of rattle,

and another whose instrument cannot be distinguished. In a sculpture of

a later period, which is represented above, we see a band of four,

composed of a tambourine-player, two players on two different sorts of

lyres, and a cymbal-player.

It is not often that we find representations of bands containing more

than four performers. On the sculptures hitherto discovered there seem

to be only three instances where this number was exceeded. A bas-relief

of Sennacherib’s showed five players, of whom two had tambourines; two,

harps of the antique pattern; and one, cymbals. Another, belonging to

the time of his grandson, exhibited a band of seven, three of whom

played upon harps of the later fashion, two on the double pipe, one on

the guitar, and one on the long drum with the conical bottom. Finally,

we have the remarkable scene represented in the illustration, a work of

the sane date, where no fewer than twenty-six performers are seen

uniting their efforts. Of these, eleven are players on instruments,

while the remaining fifteen are vocalists. The instruments consist of

seven harps, two double pipes, a small drum or tubbel, and the curious

instrument which has been compared to the modern _santour_. The players

are all men, six out of the eleven being eunuchs. The singers consist of

six women and nine children of various ages, the latter of whom seem to

accompany their singing, as the Hebrews and Egyptians sometimes did,

with clapping of the hands. Three out of the first four musicians are

represented with one leg raised, as if dancing to the measure. [PLATE

CXXXII., Fig. I.]

[Illustration: PLATE 132]

Bands in Assyria had sometimes, though not always, time-keepers or

leaders, who took the direction of the performance. These were commonly

eunuchs, as indeed were the greater number of the musicians. They held

in one hand a double rod or wand, with which most probably they made

their signals, and stood side by side facing the performers. [PLATE

CXXXII., Fig. 2.]

The Assyrians seem to have employed music chiefly for festive and

religious purposes. The favorite instrument in the religious ceremonies

was the antique harp, which continued in use as a sacred instrument from

the earliest to the latest times. On festive occasions the lyre was

preferred, or a mixed band with a variety of instruments. In the quiet

of domestic life the monarch and his sultana were entertained with

concerted music played by a large number of performers: while in

processions and pageants, whether of a civil or of a military character,

bands were also very generally employed, consisting of two, three, four,

five, or possibly more, musicians. Cymbals, the tambourine, and the

instrument which has been above regarded as a sort of rattle, were

peculiar to these processional occasions: the harp, the lyre, and the

double pipe had likewise a place in them.

In actual war, it would appear that music was employed very sparingly,

if at all, by the Assyrians. No musicians are ever represented in the

battle-scenes: nor are the troops accompanied by any when upon the

march. Musicians are only seen conjoined with troops in one or two

marching processions, apparently of a triumphal character. It may

consequently be doubted whether the Assyrian armies, when they went out

on their expeditions, were attended, like the Egyptian and Roman armies,

by military bands. Possibly, the musicians in the processional scenes

alluded to belong to the court rather than to the camp, and merely take

part as civilians in a pageant, wherein a share is also assigned to the

soldiery.

In proceeding, as already proposed, to speak of the navigation of the

Assyrians, it must be at once premised that it is not as mariners, but

only as fresh-water sailors, that they come within the category of

navigators at all. Originally an inland people, they had no power, in

the earlier ages of their history, to engage in any but the secondary

and inferior kind of navigation; and it would seem that, by the time

when they succeeded in opening to themselves through their conquests a

way to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, their habits had become

so fixed in this respect that they no longer admitted of change. There

is satisfactory evidence which shows that they left the navigation of

the two seas at the two extremities of their empire to the subject

nations--the Phoenicians and the Babylonians contenting themselves with

the profits without sharing the dangers of marine voyages, while their

own attention was concentrated upon their two great rivers--the Tigris

and the Euphrates, which formed the natural line of communication

between the seas in question.

The navigation of these streams was important to the Assyrians in two

ways. In the first place it was a military necessity that they should be

able, _readily and without delay_, to effect the passage of both of

them, and also of their tributaries, which were frequently too deep to

be forded. Now from very early times it was probably found tolerably

easy to pass an army over a great river by swimming, more especially

with the aid of inflated skins, which would be soon employed for the

purpose. But the _materiel_ of the army--the provisions, the chariots,

and the siege machines--was not so readily transported, and indeed could

only be conveyed across deep rivers by means of bridges, rafts, or

boats. On the great streams of the Tigris and Euphrates, with their

enormous spring floods, no bridge, in the ordinary sense of the word, is

possible. Bridges of boats are still the only ones that exist on either

river below the point at which they issue from the gorges of the

mountains. And these would be comparatively late inventions, long

subsequent to the employment of single ferry boats. Probably the

earliest contrivance for transporting the chariots, the stores, and the

engines across a river was a raft, composed hastily of the trees and

bushes growing in the neighborhood of the stream, and rendered capable

of sustaining a considerable weight by the attachment to it of a number

of inflated skins. A representation of such a raft, taken from a slab of

Sennacherib, has been already given. Rafts of this kind are still

largely employed in the navigation of the Mesopotamian streams, and,

being extremely simple in their construction, may reasonably be supposed

to have been employed by the Assyrians from the very foundation of their

empire.

To these rafts would naturally have succeeded boats of one kind or

another. As early as the time of Tiglath-Pileser I. (ab. B.C. 1120) we

find a mention of boats as employed in the passage of the Euphrates.

These would probably be of the kind described by Herodotus, and

represented on one of the most ancient bas-reliefs--round structures

like the Welsh coracles, made of wickerwork and covered with skins,

smeared over with a coating of bitumen. Boats of this construction were

made of a considerable size. The one represented contains a chariot, and

is navigated by two men. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 1.] In the later

sculptures the number of navigators is raised to four, and the boats

carry a heavy load of stone or other material. The mode of propulsion is

curious and very unusual. The rowers sit at the stem and stern, facing

each other, and while those at the stem pull, those at the stern must

have pushed, as Herodotus tells us that they did. The make of the oars

is also singular. In the earliest sculptures they are short poles,

terminating in a head, shaped like a small axe or hammer; in the later,

below this axe-like appendage, they have a sort of curved blade, which

is, however, not solid, but perforated, so as to form a mere framework,

which seems to require filling up. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 3.]

[Illustration: PLATE 133]

Beside these round boats, which correspond closely with the _kufas_ in

use upon the Tigris and Euphrates at the present day, the Assyrians

employed for the passage of rivers, even in very early times, a vessel

of a more scientific construction. The early bas-reliefs exhibit to us,

together with the _kufas_, a second and much larger vessel, manned with

a crew of seven men--a helmsman and six rowers, three upon either side

and capable of conveying across a broad stream two chariots at a time,

or a chariot and two or three passengers. This vessel appears to have

been made of planks. It was long, and comparatively narrow. It had a

flattish bottom, and was rounded off towards the stem and stern, much as

boats are rounded off towards the bows at the present day. It did not

possess either mast or sail, but was propelled wholly by oars, which

were of the same shape as those used anciently by the rowers in the

round boats. In the steersman’s hand is seen an oar of a different kind.

It is much longer than the rowing oars, and terminates in an oval blade,

which would have given it considerable power in the water. [PLATE

CXXXIII., Fig. 4.] The helmsman steered with both hands; and it seems

that his oar was lashed to an upright post near the stern of the vessel.

It is evident that before armies could look habitually to being

transported across the Mesopotamian streams, wherever they might happen

to strike them in their expeditions, by boats of these two kinds, either

ferries must have been established at convenient intervals upon them, or

traffic along their courses by means of boats must have been pretty

regular. An Assyrian army did not carry its boats with it, as a modern

army does its pontoons. Boats were commonly found in sufficient numbers

on the streams themselves when an army needed them, and were impressed,

or hired, to convey the troops across. And thus we see that the actual

navigation of the streams had another object besides the military one of

transport from bank to bank. Rivers are Nature’s roads; and we may be

sure that the country had not been long settled before a water

communication began to be established between towns upon the

river-courses, and commodities began to be transported by means of them.

The very position of the chief towns upon time banks of the streams was

probably connected with this sort of transport, the rivers furnishing

the means by which large quantities of building material could be

conveniently concentrated at a given spot, and by which supplies could

afterwards be regularly received from a distance. We see in the Assyrian

sculptures the conveyance of stones, planks, etc. along the rivers, as

well as the passage of chariots, horses, and persons across them. Rafts

and round boats were most commonly used for this purpose. When a mass of

unusual size, as a huge paving-stone, or a colossal bull or lion, had to

be moved, a long, flat-bottomed boat was employed, which the mass

sometimes more than covered. In this case, as there was no room for

rower’s, trackers were engaged, who dragged the vessel along by means of

ropes, which were fastened either to the boat itself or to its burden.

[PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 2.]

During the later period of the monarchy various improvements took place

in Assyrian boat-building. The Phoenician and Cyprian expeditions of the

later kings made the Assyrians well acquainted with the ships of

first-rate nautical nations; and they seem to have immediately profited

by this acquaintance, in order to improve the appearance and the quality

of their own river boats. The clumsy and inelegant long-boat of the

earlier times, as replaced, even for ordinary traffic, by a light and

graceful fabric, which was evidently a copy from Phoenician models.

Modifications, which would seem trifling if described, changed the whole

character of the vessels, in which light and graceful curves took the

place of straight lines and angles only just rounded off. The stem and

stern were raised high above the body of the boat, and were shaped like

fishes’ tails or carved into the heads of animals. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig.

2.] Oars, shaped nearly like modern ones, came into vogue, and the

rowers were placed so as all to look one way, and to pull instead of

pushing with their oars. Finally, the principle of the bireme was

adopted, and river-galleys were constructed of such a size that they had

to be manned by thirty rowers, who sat in two tiers one above the other

at the sides of the galley, while the centre part, which seems to have

been decked, was occupied by eight or ten other persons.

In galleys of this kind the naval architecture of the Assyrians seems to

have culminated. They never, so far as appears, adopted for their boats

the inventions with which their intercourse with Phoenicia had rendered

them perfectly familiar, of masts, and sails. This is probably to be

explained from the extreme rapidity of the Mesopotamian rivers, on which

sailing boats are still uncommon. The unfailing strength of rowers was

needed in order to meet and stem the force of the currents; and this

strength being provided in abundance, it was not thought necessary to

husband it or eke it out by the addition of a second motive power.

Again, the boats, being intended only for peaceful purposes, were

unprovided with beaks, another invention well known to the Assyrians,

and frequently introduced into their sculptures in the representations

of Phoenician vessels. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 5.]

In the Assyrian biremes the oars of the lower tier were worked through

holes in the vessel’s sides. This arrangement would of course at once

supply a fulcrum and keep the oars in their places. But it is not so

easy to see how the oar of a common row-boat, or the uppermost tier of a

bireme, obtained their purchase on the vessel, and were prevented from

slipping along its side. Assyrian vessels had no rowlocks, and in

general the oars are represented as simply rested without any support on

the upper edge of the bulwark. But this can scarcely have been the real

practice; and one or two representations, where a support is provided,

may be fairly regarded as showing what the practice actually was. In the

figure of a _kufa_, or round boat, already given, it will be seen that

one oar is worked by means of a thong, like the [--] or [--] of the

Greeks, which is attached to a ring in the bulwark. In another

bas-relief, several of the oars of similar boats are represented as kept

in place by means of two pegs fixed into the top of the bulwark and

inclined at an angle to one another. [PLATE CXXXIII., Fig. 6.] Probably

one or other of these two methods of steadying the oar was in reality

adopted in every instance.

With regard to Assyrian commerce, it must at the outset be remarked that

direct notices in ancient writers of any real authority are scanty in

the extreme. The prophet Nahum says indeed, in a broad and general way,

of Nineveh, “Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of

heaven;” and Ezekiel tells us, more particularly, that Assyrian

merchants, along with others, traded with Tyre “in blue clothes, and

broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel.” But, except these two,

there seem to be no notices of Assyrian trade in any contemporary or

quasi-contemporary author. Herodotus, writing nearly two hundred years

after the empire had come to an end, mentions casually that “Assyrian

wares” had in very ancient times been conveyed by the Phoenicians to

Greece, and there sold to the inhabitants. He speaks also of a river

traffic in his own day between Armenia and Babylon along the course of

the Euphrates, a fact which indirectly throws light upon the habits of

earlier ages. Diodorus, following Ctesias, declares that a number of

cities were established from very ancient times on the banks of both the

Tigris and the Euphrates, to serve as marts of trade to the merchants

who imported into Assyria the commodities of Media and Paraetacene.

Among the most important of these marts, as we learn from Strabo, were

Tiphsach or Thapsacus on the Euphrates, and Opis upon the Tigris.

It is from notices thus scanty, partial, and incidental, eked out by

probability, and further helped by a certain number of important facts

with respect to the commodities actually used in the country, whereof

evidence has been furnished to us by the recent discoveries, that we

have to form our estimate of the ancient commerce of the Assyrians. The

Inscriptions throw little or no light upon the subject. They record the

march of armies against foreign enemies, and their triumphant return

laden with plunder and tribute, sometimes showing incidentally what

products of a country were most in request among the Assyrians; but they

contain no accounts of the journeys of merchants, or of the commodities

which entered or quitted the country in the common course of trade.

The favorable situation of Assyria for trade has often attracted remark.

Lying on the middle courses of two great navigable streams, it was

readily approached by water both from the north-west and from the

south-east. The communication between the Mediterranean and the Southern

or Indian Ocean naturally--almost necessarily--followed this route. If

Europe wanted the wares and products of India, or if India required the

commodities of Europe, by far the shortest and easiest course was the

line from the eastern Mediterranean across Northern Syria, and thence by

one or other of the two great streams to the innermost recess of the

Persian Gulf. The route by the Nile, the canal of Neco, and the Red Sea,

was decidedly inferior, more especially on account of the dangerous

navigation of that sea, but also because it was circuitous, and involved

a voyage in the open ocean of at least twice the length of the other.

Again, Assyria lay almost necessarily on the line of land communication

between the north-east and the south-west. The lofty Armenian

mountain-chains--Niphates and the other parallel ranges--towards the

north, and the great Arabian Desert towards the south, offered

difficulties to companies of land-traders which they were unwilling to

face, and naturally led them to select routes intermediate between these

two obstacles, which could not fail to pass through some part or other

of the Mesopotamian region.

The established lines of land trade between Assyria and her neighbors

were probably very numerous, but the most important must have been some

five or six. One almost certainly led from the Urumiyeh basin over the

_Keli-shin_ pass (lat. 37°, long. (45° nearly)), descending on Rowandiz,

and thence following the course of the Greater Zab to Herir, whence it

crossed the plain to Nineveh. At the summit of the Kell-shin pass is a

pillar of dark blue stone, six feet in height, two in breadth, and one

in depth, let into a basement block of the same material, and covered

with a cuneiform inscription in the Scythic character. At a short

distance to the westward on the same route is another similar pillar.

The date of the inscriptions falls within the most flourishing time of

the Assyrian empire, and their erection is a strong argument in favor of

the use of this route (which is one of the very few possible modes of

crossing the Zagros range) in the time when that empire was in full

vigor.

Another line of land traffic probably passed over the same

mountain-range considerably further to the south. It united Assyria with

Media, leading from the Northern Ecbatana (Takht-i-Suleiman) by the

Banneh pass to Suleimaniyeh, and thence by Kerkuk and Altura-Kiupri to

Arbela and Nineveh.

There may have been also a route up the valley of the Lesser Zab, by

Koi-Sinjah and over the great Kandil range into Lajihan. There are said

to be Assyrian remains near Koi-Sinjah, at a place called the Bihisht

and Jehennen (“the Heaven and Hell”) of Nimrud, but no account has been

given of them by any European traveller.

Westward there were probably two chief lines of trade with Syria and the

adjacent countries. One passed along the foot of the Sinjar range by

Sidikan (_Arban_) on the Khabour to Tiphsach (or Thapsacus) on the

Euphrates, where it crossed the Great River. Thence it bent southwards,

and, passing through Tadmor, was directed upon Phoenicia most likely by

way of Damascus. Another took a more northern line by the Mons Masius to

Harran and Seruj, crossing the Euphrates at Bir, and thence

communicating both with Upper Syria and with Asia Minor. The former of

these two routes is marked as a line of traffic by the foreign objects

discovered in such abundance at Arban, by the name Tiphsach, which means

“passage,” and by the admitted object of Solomon in building Tadmor. The

other rests on less direct evidence; but there are indications of it in

the trade of Harran with Tyre which is mentioned by Ezekiel, and in the

Assyrian remains near Seruj, which is on the route from Harran to the

Bir fordway.

Towards the north, probably, the route most used was that which is

thought by many to be the line followed by Xenophon, first up the valley

of the Tigris to Til or Tilleh, and then along the Bitlis Chai to the

lake of Van and the adjacent country. Another route may have led from

Nineveh to Nisibis, thence through the Jebel Tur to Diarbekr, and from

Diarbekr up the Western Tigris to Arghana, Kharput, Malatiyeh, and Asia

Minor. Assyrian remains have been found at various points along this

latter line, while the former is almost certain to have connected the

Assyrian with the Armenian capital.

Armenian productions would, however, reach Nineveh and the other great

central cities mainly by the Tigris, down which they could easily have

been floated from Tilleh. or even from Diarbekr. Similarly, Babylonian

and Susianian productions, together with the commodities which either or

both of those countries imported by sea, would find their way into

Assyria up the courses of the two streams, which were navigated by

vessels capable of stemming the force of the current, at least as high

as Opis and Thapsacus.

We may now proceed to inquire what were the commodities which Assyria,

either certainly or probably, imported by these various lines of land

and water communication. Those of which we seem to have some indication

in the existing remains are gold, tin, ivory, lead, stones of various

kinds, cedar-wood, pearls, and engraved seals.

Many articles in gold have been recovered at the various Assyrian sites

where excavations have been made; and indications have been found of the

employment of this precious metal in the ornamentation of palaces and of

furniture. The actual quantity discovered has, indeed, been small; but

this may be accounted for without calling in question the reality of

that extraordinary wealth in the precious metals which is ascribed by

all antiquity to Assyria. This wealth no doubt flowed in, to a

considerable extent, from the plunder of conquered nations and the

tribute paid by dependent monarchs. But the quantity obtained in this

way would hardly have sufficed to maintain the luxury of the court and

at the same time to accumulate, so that when Nineveh was taken there was

“none end” of the store. It has been suggested that “mines of gold were

probably once worked within the Assyrian dominions,” although no gold is

now known to be produced anywhere within her limits. But perhaps it is

more probable that, like Judaea and Phoenicia, she obtained her gold in

a great measure from commerce, taking it either from the Phoenicians,

who derived it both from Arabia and from the West African coast, or else

from the Babylonians, who may have imported it by sea from India.

Tin, which has not been found in a pure state in the remains of the

Assyrians, but which enters regularly as an element into their bronze,

where it forms from one-tenth to one-seventh of the mass, was also,

probably, an importation. Tin is a comparatively rare metal. Abundant

enough in certain places, it is not diffused at all widely over the

earth’s surface. Neither Assyria itself nor any of the neighboring

countries are known to have ever produced this mineral. Phoenicia

certainly imported it, directly or indirectly, from Cornwall and the

Scilly Isles, which therefore became first known in ancient geography as

the Cassiterides or “Tin Islands.” It is a reasonable supposition that

the tin wherewith the Assyrians hardened their bronze was obtained by

their merchants from the Phoenicians in exchange for textile fabrics and

(it may be) other commodities. If so, we may believe that in many

instances the produce of our own tin mines which left our shores more

than twenty-five centuries ago, has, after twice travelling a distance

of many thousand miles, returned to seek a final rest in its native

country.

Ivory was used by the Assyrians extensively in their furniture, and was

probably supplied by them to the Phoenicians and the Greeks. It was no

doubt sometimes brought to them by subject nations as tribute; but this

source of supply is not sufficient to account, at once, for the

consumption in Assyria itself, and for the exports from Assyria to

foreign countries. A regular trade for ivory seems to have been carried

on from very early times between India and Dedan (Bahrein,?) in the

Persian Gulf. The travelling companies of the Dedanim, who conveyed

this precious merchandise from their own country to Phoenicia, passed

probably along the course of the Euphrates, and left a portion of their

wares in the marts upon that stream, which may have been thence conveyed

to the great Assyrian cities. Or the same people may have traded

directly with Assyria by the route of the Tigris. Again, it is quite

conceivable--indeed, it is probable--that there was a land traffic

between Assyria and Western India by the way of Cabal, Herat, the

Caspian Gates, and Media. Of this route we have a trace in the land

animals engraved upon the well-known Black Obelisk, where the

combination of the small-eared or Indian elephant and the rhinoceros

with the two-humped Bactrian camel, sufficiently marks the line by which

the productions of India, occasionally at, any rate, reached Assyria.

The animals themselves were, we may be sure, very rarely transported.

Indeed, it is not till the very close of the Persian empire that we find

elephants possessed--and even then in scanty numbers--by the western

Asiatic monarchs. But the more portable products of the Indus region,

elephants’ tusks, gold, and perhaps shawls and muslins, are likely to

have passed to the west by this route with far greater frequency.

The Assyrians were connoisseurs in hard stones and gems, which they seem

to have imported from all quarters. The lapis lazuli, which is found

frequently among the remains as the material of seals, combs, rings,

jars, and other small objects, probably came from Bactria or the

adjacent regions, whence alone it is procurable at the present day. The

cornelian used for cylinders may have come from Babylonia, which,

according to Pliny furnished it of the best quality in the more ancient

times. The agates or onyxes may have been imported from Susiana, where

they were found in the bed of the Choaspes (_Kerkhah_), or they may

possibly have been brought from India. Other varieties are likely to

have been furnished by Armenia, which is rich in stones; and hence too

was probably obtained the _shamir_, or emery-stone, by means of which

the Assyrians were enabled to engrave all the other hard substances

known to them.

That cedar-wood was imported into Assyria is sufficiently indicated by

the fact that, although no cedars grew in the country, the beams in the

palaces were frequently of this material. It may not, however, have been

exactly an article of commerce, since the kings appear to have cut it

after their successful expeditions into Syria, and to have carried it

off from Lebanon and Amanus as part of the plunder of the country.

Pearls, which have been found in Assyrian ear rings, must have been

procured from the Persian Gulf, one of the few places frequented by the

shell-fish which produces then. The pearl fisheries in these parts were

pointed out to Nearchus, the admiral of Alexander, and had no doubt been

made to yield their treasures to the natives of the coasts and islands

from a remote antiquity. The familiarity of the author of the book of

Job with pearls is to be ascribed to the ancient trade in them

throughout the regions adjoining the Gulf, which could not fail to bring

them at an early date to the knowledge of the Hebrews.

Engraved stones, generally in the shape of scarabs, seem to have been

largely imported from Egypt into Assyria, where they were probably used

either as amulets or as seals. They have been found in the greatest

plenty at Arban on the lower Khabour, the ancient Sidikan or Shadikanni,

which lies nearly at the extreme west of the Assyrian territory; but

many specimens have likewise been obtained from Nineveh and other of the

central Assyrian cities.

If we were to indulge in conjecture, we might add to this list of

Assyrian importations at least an equal number of commodities which,

though they have not been found in the ancient remains, may be fairly

regarded, on grounds of probability, as objects of trade between Assyria

and her neighbors. Frankincense, which was burnt in such lavish

profusion in the great temple at Babylon, was probably offered in

considerable quantities upon Assyrian altars, and could only have been

obtained from Arabia. Cinnamon, which was used by the Jews from the time

of the Exodus, and which was early imported into Greece by the

Phoenicians, who received it from the Arabians can scarcely have been

unknown in Assyria when the Hebrews were familiar with it. This precious

spice must have reached the Arabians from Ceylon or Malabar, the most

accessible of the countries producing it. Mullins, shawls, and other

tissues are likely to have come by the same route as the cinnamon; and

these may possibly have been among the “blue clothes and broidered work

and rich apparel” which the merchants of Asshur carried to Tyre in

“chests, bound with cords and made of cedar-wood.” Dyes, such as the

Indian lacca, raw cotton, ebony and other woods, may have come by the

same line of trade; while horses and mules are likely to have been

imported from Armenia, and slaves from the country between Armenia and

the Halys River.

If from the imports of Assyria we pass to her exports, we leave a region

of uncertain light to enter upon one of almost total darkness. That the

“wares of Assyria” were among the commodities which the Phoenicians

imported into Greece at a very early period, we have the testimony of

Herodotus; but he leaves us wholly without information as to the nature

of the wares themselves. No other classical writer of real authority

touches the subject; and any conclusions that we may form upon it must

be derived from one of two sources, either general probability, or the

single passage in a sacred author which gives us a certain amount of

authentic information. From the passage in question, which has been

already quoted at length, we learn that the chief of the Assyrian

exports to Phoenicia were textile fabrics, apparently of great value,

since they were most carefully packed in chests of cedar-wood secured by

cords. These fabrics may have been “blue cloaks,” or “embroidery,” or

“rich dresses” of any kind, for all these are mentioned by Ezekiel; but

we cannot say definitely which Assyria traded in, since the merchants of

various other countries are joined in the passage with hers. Judging by

the monuments, we should conclude that at least a portion of the

embroidered work was from her looms and workshops; for, as has been

already shown, the embroidery of the Assyrians was of the most delicate

and elaborate description. She is also likely to have traded in rich

apparel of all kinds, both such as she manufactured at home, and such as

she imported from the far East by the lines of traffic which have been

pointed out. Some of her own fabrics may possibly have been of silk,

which in Roman times was a principal Assyrian export. Whether she

exported her other peculiar productions, her transparent and colored

glass, her exquisite metal bowls, plates, and dishes, her beautifully

carved ivories, we cannot say. They have not hitherto been found in any

place beyond her dominion, so that it would rather seem that she

produced them only for home consumption. Some ancient notices appear to

imply a belief on the part of the Greeks and Romans that she produced

and exported various spices. Horace speaks of Assyrian nard Virgil of

Assyrian _amomuum_, Tibullus of Assyrian odors generally. AEschylus has

an allusion of the same kind in his Agamemnon. Euripide, and Theocritus,

who mention respectively Syrian myrrh and Syrian frankincense, probably

use the word “Syrian” for “Assyrian.” The belief thus implied is not,

however, borne out by inquiry. Neither the spikenard nor the amonmum,

nor the myrrh tree, nor the frankincense tree, nor any other actual

spice, is produced within the limits of Assyria, which must always have

imported its own spices from abroad, and can only have supplied them to

other countries as a carrier. In this capacity she may very probably,

even in the time of her early greatness, have conveyed on to the coast

of Syria the spicy products of Arabia and India, and thus have created

an impression, which afterwards remained as a tradition, that she was a

great spice-producer as well as a spice-seller.

In the same way, as a carrier, Assyria may have exported many other

commodities. She may have traded with the Phoenicians, not only in her

own products, but in the goods which she received from the south and

east, from Bactria, India, and the Persian Gulf,--such as lapis lazuli,

pearls, cinnamon, muslins, shawls, ivory, ebony, cotton. On the other

hand, she may have conveyed to India, or at least to Babylon, the

productions which the Phoenicians brought to Tyre and Sidon from the

various countries bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea and even the

Atlantic Ocean, as tin, hides, pottery, oil, wine, linen. On this point,

however, we have at present no evidence at all; and as it is not the

proper office of a historian to indulge at any length in mere

conjecture, the consideration of the commercial dealings of the

Assyrians may be here brought to a close.

On the agriculture of the Assyrians a very few remarks will be offered.

It has been already explained that the extent of cultivation depended

entirely on the conveyance of water. There is good reason to believe

that the Assyrians found a way to spread water over almost the whole of

their territory. Either by the system of _kanats_ or subterranean

aqueducts, which has prevailed in the East from very early times, or by

an elaborate network of canals, the fertilizing fluid was conveyed to

nearly every part of Mesopotamia, which shows by its innumerable mounds,

in regions which are now deserts, how large a population it was made to

sustain under the wise management of the great Assyrians monarchs. Huge

dams seem to have been thrown across the Tigris in various places, one

of which (the Afrui) still remains, seriously impeding the navigation.

It is formed of large masses of squared stones, united together by

cramps of iron. Such artificial barriers were intended, not (as Strabo

believed) for the protection of the towns upon the river from a hostile

fleet, but to raise the level of the stream, in order that its water

might flow off into canals on one bank or the other, whence they could

be spread by means of minor channels over large tracts of territory. The

canals themselves have in most cases been gradually filled up. In one

instance, however, owing either to the peculiar nature of the soil or to

some unexplained cause, we are still able to trace the course of an

Assyrian work of this class and to observe the manner and principles of

its construction.

[Illustration: PLATE 134]

In the tract of land lying between the lower course of the Great Zab

River and the Tigris, in which was situated the important town of Calah

(now Nimrud), a tract which is partly alluvial, but more generally of

secondary formation, hard gravel, sandstone, or conglomerate, are the

remains of a canal undoubtedly Assyrian, which was carried for a

distance of more than five-and-twenty miles from a point on the Khazr or

Ghazr Su, a tributary of the Zab, to the south-eastern corner of the

Nimrud ruins. [PLATE CXXXIV., Fig. 1.] Originally the canal seems to

have been derived from the Zab itself, the water of which was drawn off,

on its northern bank, through a short tunnel--the modern Negoub--and

then conducted along a cutting, first by the side of the Zab, and

afterwards in a tortuous course across the undulating plain, into the

ravine formed by the Shor-Derreh torrent. The Zab, when this part of the

work was constructed, ran deep along its northern bank, and, sending a

portion of its waters into the tunnel, maintained a constant stream in

the canal. But after awhile the river abandoned its north bank for the

opposite shore; and, water ceasing to flow through the Negoub tunnel, it

became necessary to obtain it in some other way. Accordingly the canal

was extended northwards, partly by cutting and partly by tunnelling to

the Ghazr Su at about two miles above its mouth, and a permanent supply

was thenceforth obtained from that stream. The work may have been

intended in part to supply Calah with mountain water; but the remains of

dams and sluices along its course sufficiently show that it was a canal

for irrigation also. From it water was probably derived to fertilize the

whole triangle lying south of Nimrud between the two streams, a tract

containing nearly thirty square miles of territory, mostly very fertile,

and with careful cultivation well capable of supporting the almost

metropolitan city on which it abutted.

In Assyria it must have been seldom that the Babylonian system of

irrigation could have been found applicable, and the water simply

derived from the rivers by side-cuts, leading it off from the natural

channel. There is but little of Assyria which is flat and alluvial; the

land generally undulates, and most of it stands at a considerable height

above the various streams. The water therefore requires to be raised

from the level of the rivers to that of the lands before it can be

spread over them, and for this purpose hydraulic machinery of one kind

or another is requisite. In cases where the subterranean conduit was

employed, the Assyrians probably (like the ancient and the modern

Persians) sank wells at intervals, and raised the water from them by

means of a bucket and rope, the latter working over a pulley. Where they

could obtain a bank of a convenient height overhanging a river, they

made use of the hand-swipe, and with its aid lifted the water into a

tank or reservoir, whence they could distribute it over their fields. In

some instances, it would seem, they brought water to the tops of hills

by means of aqueducts, and then, constructing a number of small

channels, let the fluid trickle down them among their trees and crops.

They may have occasionally, like the modern Arabs, employed the labor of

an animal to raise the fluid; but the monuments do not furnish us with

any evidence of their use of this method. Neither do we find any trace

of water-wheels, such as are employed upon the Orontes and other swift

rivers, whereby a stream can itself be made to raise water from the land

along its bunks.

According to Herodotus, the kinds of grain cultivated in Assyria in his

time were wheat, barley, sesame, and millet. As these still constitute

at the present day the principal agricultural products of the county, we

may conclude that they were in all probability the chief species

cultivated under the Empire. The plough used, if we may judge by the

single representation of it which has come down to us, was of a rude and

primitive construction--a construction, however, which will bear

comparison with that of the implements to this day in use through modern

Turkey and Persia. Of other agricultural implements we have no specimens

at all, unless the square instrument with a small circle or wheel at

each corner, which appears on the same monument as the plough, may be

regarded as intended for some farming purpose. [PLATE CXXXIV., Fig. 2.]

Besides grain, it seems certain that the Assyrians cultivated the vine.

The vine will grow well in many parts of Assyria; and the monuments

represent vines, with a great deal of truth, not merely as growing in

the countries to which the Assyrians made their expeditions, but as

cultivated along the sides of the rivers near Nineveh, and in the

gardens belonging to the palaces of the kings. In the former case they

appear to grow without any support, and are seen in orchards intermixed

with other fruit-trees, as pomegranates and figs. In the latter they are

trained upon tall trees resembling firs, round whose stems they twine

themselves, and from which their rich clusters droop. Sometimes the long

lithe boughs pass across from tree to tree, forming a canopy under which

the monarch and his consort sip their wine.

Before concluding this chapter, a few remarks will be added upon the

ordinary private life of the Assyrians, so far as the monuments reveal

it to us. Under this head will be included their dress, their food,

their houses, furniture, utensils, carriages, etc., their various kinds

of labor, and the implements of labor which were known to them.

The ordinary dress of the common people in Assyria was a mere plain

tunic, or skirt, reaching from the neck to a little above the knee, with

very short sleeves, and confined round the waist by a broad belt or

girdle. Nothing was worn either upon the head or upon the feet. The

thick hair, carried in large waves from the forehead to the back of the

head, and then carefully arranged in three, four, or five rows of stiff

curls, was regarded as a sufficient protection both from sun and rain.

No head-covering was ever worn, except by soldiers, and by certain

officials, as the king, priests, and musicians. Sometimes, if the hair

was very luxuriant, it was confined by a band or fillet, which was

generally tied behind the back of the head. The beard was worn long, and

arranged with great care, the elaboration being pretty nearly the same

in the case of the king and of the common laborer. Laborers of a rank a

little above the lowest wore sandals, indulged in a fringed tunic, and

occasionally in a phillibeg, while a still higher class had a fringed

tunic and phillibeg, together with the close-fitting trouser and boot

worn by soldiers. These last are frequently eunuchs, who probably

belonged to a corps of eunuch laborers in the employ of the king.

Persons of the humbler laboring class wear no ornament, neither armlet,

bracelet, nor earrings. Armlets and bracelets mark high rank, and indeed

are rarely found unless the wearer is either an officer of the court, or

at any rate a personage of some consideration. Earrings seem to have

descended lower. They are worn by the attendants on sportsmen, by

musicians, by cavalry soldiers, and even occasionally by foot soldiers.

In this last case they are seldom more than a simple ring, which may

have been of bronze or of bone. In other cases the ring mostly supports

a long pendant.

[Illustration: PLATE 135]

Men of rank appear to have worn commonly a long fringed robe reaching

nearly to the feet. The sleeves were short, only just covering the

shoulder. Down to the waist, the dress closely fitted the form,

resembling, so far, a modern jersey; below this there was a slight

expansion, but still the scantiness of the robe is very remarkable. It

had no folds, and must have greatly interfered with the free play of the

limbs, rendering rapid movements almost impossible. A belt or girdle

confined it at the waist, which was always patterned, sometimes

elaborately. [PLATE CXXXV., Fig. 1.] If a sword was carried, as was

frequently the case, it was suspended, nearly in a horizontal position,

by a belt over the left shoulder, to which it was attached by a ring, or

rings, in the sheath. There is often great elegance in these

cross-belts, which look as if they were embroidered with pearls or

beads. [PLATE CXXXV., Fig. 2.] Fillets, earrings, armlets, and (in most

instances) bracelets were also worn by Assyrians of the upper classes.

The armlets are commonly simple bands, twisted round the arm once or

twice, and often overlapping’ at the ends, which are plain, not

ornamented. [PLATE CXXXV., Fig.] The bracelets are of slighter

construction; their ends do not meet; they would seem to have been of

thin metal, and sufficiently elastic to be slipped over the hand on to

the wrist, which they then fitted closely. Generally they were quite

plain; but sometimes, like the royal bracelets, they bore in their

centre a rosette. Sandals, or in the later times shoes, completed the

ordinary costume of the Assyrian “gentleman.”

Sometimes both the girdle round the waist, and the cross-belt, which was

often worn without a sword, were deeply fringed, the two fringes falling

one over the other, and covering the whole body from the chest to the

knee. Sometimes, but more rarely, the long robe was discarded, and the

Assyrian of some rank wore the short tunic, which was then, however,

always fringed, and commonly ornamented with a phillibeg.

Certain peculiar head-dresses and peculiar modes of arranging the hair

deserve special attention from their singularity. [PLATE CXXXV., Fig.

4.] They belong in general to musicians, priests, and other official

personages, and may perhaps have been badges of office. For instance,

musicians sometimes wear on their heads a tall stiff cap shaped like a

fish’s tail; at other times their head-dress is a sort of tiara of

feathers.

Their hair is generally arranged in the ordinary Assyrian fashion; but

sometimes it is worn comparatively short, and terminates in a double row

of crisp curls. Priests have head-dresses shaped like truncated cones. A

cook in one instance, wears a cap not unlike the tiara of the monarch,

except that it is plain, and is not surmounted by an apex or peak. A

harper has the head covered with a close-fitting cap, encircled with a

row of large beads or pearl; from which a lappet depends behind,

similarly ornamented. A colossal figure in a doorway, apparently a man,

though possibly representing a god, has the hair arranged in six

monstrous curls, the lowest three resting upon the shoulder. [PLATE

CXXXV., Fig. 6.]

Women of the better sort seem to have been dressed in sleeved gowns,

less scanty than those of the men, and either striped or else patterned

and fringed. Outside this they sometimes wore a short cloak of the same

pattern as the gown, open in front and falling over the arms, which it

covered nearly to the elbows. Their hair was either arranged over the

whole of the head in short crisp curls, or carried back in waves to the

ears, and then in part twisted into long pendent ringlets, in part

curled, like that of the men, in three or four rows at the back of the

neck. [PLATE CXXXV., Fig. 5.] A girdle was probably worn round the

waist, such as we see in the representations of goddesses, while a

fringed cross-belt passed diagonally across the breast, being carried

under the right arm and over the left shoulder. The feet seem to have

been naked, or at best protected by a sandal. The head was sometimes

encircled with a fillet.

[Illustration: PLATE 136]

Women thus apparelled are either represented as sitting in chairs and

drinking from a shallow cup, or else as gathering grapes, which, instead

of growing naturally, hang up on branches that issue from a winged

circle. The circle would seem to be emblematic of the divine power which

bestows the fruits of the earth upon man. [PLATE CXXXVI., Fig. 1.]

The lower class of Assyrian women are not represented upon the

sculptures. We may perhaps presume that they did not dress very

differently from the female captives so frequent on the bas-reliefs,

whose ordinary costume is a short gown not covering the ankles, and an

outer garment somewhat resembling the chasuble of the king. The head of

these women is often covered with a hood where the hair appears, it

usually descends in a single long curl. The feet are in every case

naked.

The ornaments worn by women appear to have been nearly the same as those

assumed by men. They consisted principally of earrings, necklaces, and

bracelets. Earrings have been found in gold laid in bronze, some with

and some without places for jewels. One gold earring still held its

adornment of petals. Bracelets were sometimes of glass, and were slipped

over the hand. Necklaces seem commonly to have been of beads, strung

together. A necklace in the British Museum is composed of glass beads

of a light blue color, square in shape and flat, with horizontal

flutings. [PLATE CXXXVI., Fig. 2.] Glass finger-rings have also been

found, which were probably worn by women.

We have a few remains of Assyrian toilet articles. A bronze disk, about

nine inches in diameter, with a long handle attached, is thought to have

been a mirror. In its general shape it resembles both the Egyptian and

the classical mirrors; but, unlike them, it is perfectly plain, even the

handle being a mere flat bar. [PLATE CXXXVI., Fig. 3.] We have also a

few combs. One of these is of iron, about three and a half inches long,

by two inches broad in the middle. It is double, like a modern

small-tooth comb, but does not present the feature, common in Egypt, of

a difference in the size of the teeth on the two sides. The very ancient

use of this toilet article in Mesopotamia is evidenced by the fact,

already noticed, that it was one of the original hieroglyphs whence the

later letters were derived. Another comb is of lapis lazuli, and has

only a single row of teeth. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 1.] The small vases of

alabaster or fine clay, and the small glass bottles which have been

discovered in tolerable abundance, were also in all probability intended

chiefly for the toilet. They would hold the perfumed unguents which the

Assyrians, like other Orientals, were doubtless in the habit of using,

and the dyes wherewith they sought to increase the beauty of the

countenance.

[Illustration: PLATE 137]

No doubt the luxury of the Assyrian women in these and other respects

was great and excessive. They are not likely to have fallen short of

their Jewish sisters either in the refinements or in the corruptions of

civilization. When then we hear of the “tinkling ornaments” of the Jewish

women in Isaiah’s time, “their combs, and round tires like the moon,”

their “chains and bracelets and mufflers,” their “bonnets, and ornaments

of the legs, and head-bands, and tablets and ear-rings,” their “rings

and nose-jewels,” their “changeable suits of apparel, and mantles, and

wimples, and crisping-pins,” their “glasses, and fine linen, and hoods,

and veils,” their “sweet smells, and girdles, and well-set hair, and

stomachers,” we may be sure that in Assyria too these various

refinements, or others similar to them, were in use, and consequently

that the art of the toilet was tolerably well advanced under the second

great Asiatic Empire. That the monuments contain little evidence on the

point need not cause any surprise; since it is the natural consequence

of the spirit of jealous reserve common to the Oriental nations, which

makes them rarely either represent women in their mimetic art or speak

of them in their public documents.

If various kinds of grain were cultivated in Assyria, such as wheat,

barley, sesame, and millet, we may assume that the food of the

inhabitants, like that of other agricultural nations, consisted in part

of bread. Sesame was no doubt used, as it is at the present day,

principally for making oil; while wheat, barley, and millet were

employed for food, and were made into cakes or loaves. The grain used,

whatever it was, would be ground between two stones, according to the

universal Oriental practice even at the present day. It would then he

moistened with water, kneaded in a dish or bowl, and either rolled into

thin cakes, or pressed by the hand into smalls balls or loaves. Bread

and cakes made in this way still form the chief food of the Arabs of

these parts, who retain the habits of antiquity. Wheaten bread is

generally eaten by preference; but the poorer sort are compelled to be

content with the coarse millet or _durra_ flour, which is made into

cakes, and then eaten with milk, butter, oil, or the fat of animals.

Dates, the principal support of the inhabitants of Chaldaea, or

Babylonia, both in ancient and in modern times, were no doubt also an

article of food in Assyria, though scarcely to any great extent. The

date-palm does not bear well above the alluvium, and such fruit as it

produces in the upper country is very little esteemed. Olives were

certainly cultivated under the Empire, and the oil extracted from them

was in great request. Honey was abundant, and wine plentiful.

Sennacherib called his land “a land of corn and wine, a land of bread

and vineyards, a land of oil olive and of honey;” and the products here

enumerated were probably those which formed the chief sustenance of the

bulk of the people.

Meat, which is never eaten to any great extent in the East was probably

beyond the means of most persons. Soldiers, however, upon an expedition

were able to obtain this dainty at the expense of others; and

accordingly we find that on such occasions they freely indulged in it.

We see them, after their victories, killing and cutting up sheep and.

oxen, and then roasting the joints, which are not unlike our own, on the

embers of a wood-fires [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 2.] In the representations

of entrenched camps we are shown the mode in which animals were prepared

for the royal dinner. They were placed upon their backs on a high table,

with their heads hanging over its edge; one man held them steady in this

position, while another, taking hold of the neck, cut the throat a

little below the chin. The blood dripped into a bowl or basin placed

beneath the head on the ground. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 3.] The animal was

then no doubt, paunched, after which it was placed either whole, or in

joints--in a huge pot or caldron, and, a fire being lighted underneath,

it was boiled to such a point as suited the taste of the king. [PLATE

CXXXVII., Fig. 5.] While the boiling progressed, some portions were

perhaps fried on the fire below. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 5.] Mutton

appears to have been the favorite meat in the camp. At the court there

would be a supply of venison, antelope’s flesh, hares, partridges, and

other game, varied perhaps occasionally with such delicacies as the

flesh of the wild ox and the onager.

Fish must have been an article of food in Assyria, or the monuments

would not have presented us; with so many instances of fishermen.

Locusts were also eaten, and were accounted a delicacy, as is proved by

their occurrence among the choice dainties of a banquet, which the royal

attendants are represented in one bas-relief as bringing into the palace

of the king. Fruits, as was natural in so hot a climate, were highly

prized; among those of most repute were pomegranates, grapes, citrons,

and, apparently, pineapples. [PLATE CXXXVII., Fig. 4.]

There is reason to believe that the Assyrians drank wine very freely.

The vine was cultivated extensively, in the neighborhood of Nimrud and

elsewhere; and though there is no doubt that, grapes were eaten, both

raw and dried, still the main purpose of the vineyards was

unquestionably the production of wine. Assyria was “a land of corn and

wine,” emphatically and before all else. Great banquets seem to have

been frequent at the court, as at the courts of Babylon and Persia, in

which drinking was practised on a large scale. The Ninevites generally

are reproached as drunkards by Nahum. In the banquet-scenes of the

sculptures, it is drinking and not eating that is represented.

Attendants dip the wine-cups into a huge bowl or vase, which stands on

the ground and reaches as high as a man’s chest and carry them full of

liquor to the guests, who straightway fall to a carouse. [PLATE

CXXXVIII., Fig. 1.]

[Illustration: PLATE 138]

The arrangement of the banquets is curious. The guests, who are in one

instance some forty or fifty in number, instead of being received at a

common table, are divided into messes of four, who sit together, two and

two, facing each other, each mess having its own table and its own

attendant. The guests are all clothed in the long tasselled gown, over

which they wear the deeply fringed belt and cross-belt. They have

sandals on their feet, and on their arias armlets and bracelets. They

sit on high stools, from which their legs dangle; but in no case have

they footstools, which would apparently have been a great convenience.

Most of the guests are bearded men, but intermixed with them we see a

few eunuchs. Every guest holds in his right hand a wine-cup of a most

elegant shape, the lower part modelled into the form of a lion’s head,

from which the cup itself rises in a graceful curve. [PLATE CXXXVIII.,

Fig. 2.] They all raise their cups to a level with their heads, and look

as if they were either pledging each other, or else one and all drinking

the same toast. Both the stools and the tables are handsome, and

tastefully, though not very richly, ornamented. Each table is overspread

with a table-cloth, which hangs down on either side opposite the guests,

but does not cover the ends of the table, which are thus fully exposed

to view. In their general make the tables exactly resemble that used in

a banquet scene by a king of a later date, but their ornamentation is

much less elaborate. On each of them appears to have been placed the

enigmatical article of which mention has been already made as a strange

object generally accompanying the king. Alongside of it we see in most

instances a sort of rude crescent. These objects have probably, both of

them, a sacred import, the crescent being the emblem of Sin, the

Moon-God, while the nameless article had some unknown religious use or

meaning.

In the great banqueting scene at Khorsabad, from which the above

description is chiefly taken, it is shown that the Assyrians, like the

Egyptians and the Greeks in the heroic times, had the entertainment of

music at their grand feasts and drinking bouts. At one end of the long

series of figures representing guests and attendants was a band of

performers, at least three in number, two of whom certainly played upon

the lyre. The lyres were ten-stringed, of a square shape, and hung round

the player’s neck by a string or ribbon.

The Assyrians also resembled the Greeks and Romans in introducing

flowers into their feasts. We have no evidence that they wore garlands,

or crowned themselves with chaplets of flowers, or scattered roses over

their rooms; but still they appreciated the delightful adornment which

flowers furnish. In the long train of attendance represented at Koyunjik

as bringing the materials of a banquet into the palace of the king, a

considerable number bear vases of flowers. [PLATE CXXXVIII., Fig. 3.]

These were probably placed on stands, like those which are often seen

supporting jars, and dispersed about the apartment in which the feast

was held, but not put upon the tables.

We have no knowledge of the ordinary houses of the Assyrians other than

that which we derive from the single representation which the sculptures

furnish of a village certainly Assyrian. It appears from this specimen

that the houses were small, isolated from one another, and either

flat-roofed, or else covered in with a dome or a high cone. They had no

windows, but must have been lighted from the top, where, in some of the

roofs, an aperture is discernible. The doorway was generally placed

towards one end of the house; it was sometimes arched, but more often

square-headed.

The doors in Assyrian houses were either single, as commonly with

ourselves, or folding (_fores_ or _valvoe_), as with the Greeks and

Romans, and with the modern French and Italians. Folding-doors were the

most common in palaces. They were not hung upon hinges, like modern

doors, but, like those of the classical nations, turned upon pivots. At

Khorsabad the pavement slabs in the doorways showed everywhere the holes

in which these pivots had worked, while in no instance did the wall at

the side present any trace of the insertion of a hinge. Hinges, however,

in the proper sense of the term, were not unknown to the Assyrians; for

two massive bronze sockets found at Nimrud, which weighed more than six

pounds each, and had a diameter of about five inches, must have been

designed to receive the hinges of a door or gate, hung exactly as gates

are now hung among ourselves. [PLATE CXXXVIII., Fig. 4.] The

folding-doors were fastened by bolts, which were shot into the pavement

at the point where the two doors met; but in the case of single doors a

lock seems to have been used, which was placed about four feet from the

ground, and projected from the door itself, so that a recess had to be

made in the wall behind the door to receive the lock when the door stood

open. The bolt of the lock was of an oblong square shape and was shot

into the wall against which the door closed.

The ordinary character of Assyrian furniture did not greatly differ from

the furniture of modern times. That of the poorer classes was for the

most part extremely plain, consisting probably of such tables, couches,

and low stools as we see in the representations which are so frequent,

of the interiors of soldier’s tents. In these the tables are generally

of the cross-legged kind; the couches follow the pattern given in a

previous page of this volume, except that the legs do not end in

pine-shaped ornaments; and the stools are either square blocks, or

merely cut _en chevron_. There are no chairs. The low stools evidently

form the ordinary seats of the people, on which they sit to converse or

to rest themselves. [PLATE CXXXIX., Fig. 1.] The couches seem to have

been the beds whereon the soldiers slept, and it may be doubted if the

Assyrians knew of any other. [PLATE CXXXIX., Fig. 2.] In the case of the

monarch we have seen that the bedding consisted of a mattress, a large

round pillow or cushion, and a coverlet; but in these simple couches of

the poor we observe only a mattress, the upper part of which is slightly

raised and fitted into the curvature of the arm, so as to make a

substitute for a pillow. [PLATE CXXXIX., Fig. 2.] Perhaps, however, the

day-laborer may have enjoyed on a couch of this simple character

slumbers sounder and more refreshing than Sardanapalus amid his

comparative luxury.

[Illustration: PLATE 139]

The household utensils seen in combination with these simple articles of

furniture are few and somewhat rudely shaped. A jug with a long neck, an

angular handle, and a pointed bottom, is common: it usually hangs from a

nail or hook inserted into the tent-pole. Vases and bowls of a simple

form occur, but are less frequent. The men are seen with knives in their

hands, and appear sometimes to be preparing food for their meals; but

the form of the knife is marked very indistinctly. Some of the household

articles represented have a strange and unusual appearance. One is a

sort of short ladder, but with semicircular projections at the bottom,

the use of which is not apparent; another may be a board at which some

game was played; while a third is quite inexplicable. [PLATE CXXXIX.,

Fig. 8.] From actual discoveries of the utensils themselves, we know

that the Assyrians used dishes of stone, alabaster, and bronze. They had

also bronze cups, bowls, and plates, often elaborately patterned. The

dishes had commonly a handle at the side, either fixed or movable, by

which, when not in use, they could be carried or hung on pegs. [PLATE

CXXXIX., Fig. 6.] Chaldrons of bronze were also common: they varied from

five feet to eighteen inches in height, and from two feet and a half to

six feet in diameter. Jugs, funnels, ladles, and jars have been found in

the same metal; one of the funnels is shaped nearly like a modern wine

strainer. [PLATE CXXXIX., Fig. 4.]

The Assyrians made use of bronze bells with iron tongues, and, to render

the sound of these more pleasing, they increased the proportion of the

tin to the copper, raising it front ten to fourteen per cent. The bells

were always of small size, never (so far as appears) exceeding three

inches and a quarter in height and two inches and a quarter in diameter.

It is uncertain whether they were used, as modern bells, to summon

attendants, or only attached, as we see them on the sculptures, to the

collars and headstalls of horses.

Some houses, but probably not very many, had gardens attached to them.

The Assyrian taste in gardening was like that of the French. Trees of a

similar character, or tall trees alternating with short ones, were

planted in straight rows at an equal distance from one another, while

straight paths and walks, meeting each other at right angles, traversed

the grounds. Water was abundantly supplied by means of canals drawn off

from a neighboring river, or was brought by an aqueduct from a distance.

A national taste of a peculiar kind, artificial and extravagant to a

degree, caused the Assyrians to add to the cultivation of the natural

ground the monstrous invention of “Hanging Gardens:” an invention

introduced into Babylonia at a comparatively late date, but known in

Assyria as early as the time of Sennacherib. A “hanging garden” was

sometimes combined with an aqueduct, the banks of the stream which the

aqueduct bore being planted with trees of different kinds. At other

times it occupied the roof of a building, probably raised for the

purpose, and was supported upon a number of pillars. [PLATE CXXXIX.,

Fig. 5.]

The employments of the Assyrians, which receive some illustration from

the monuments, are, besides war and hunting--subjects already discussed

at length--chiefly building, boating, and agriculture. Of agricultural

laborers, there occur two or three only, introduced by the artists into

a slab of Sennacherib’s which represents the transport of a winged bull.

They are dressed in the ordinary short tunic and belt, and are employed

in drawing water from a river by the help of hand-swipes for the purpose

of irrigating their lands. Boatmen are far more common. They are seen

employed in the conveyance of masses of stone, and of other materials

for building, ferrying men and horses across a river, guiding their boat

while a fisherman plies his craft from it, assisting soldiers to pursue

the enemy, and the like. They wear the short tunic and belt, and

sometimes have their hair encircled with a fillet. Of laborers, employed

in work connected with building, the examples are numerous. In the long

series of slabs representing the construction of some of Sennacherib’s

great works, although the bulk of those employed as laborers appear to

be foreign captives, there are a certain number of the duties--duties

less purely mechanical than the others which are devolved on Assyrians.

Assyrians load the hand-carts, and sometimes even draw them [PLATE

CXXXIX., Fig. 7], convey the implements--pickaxes, saws, shovels,

hatchets, beams, forks, coils of rope--place the rollers, arrange the

lever and work it, keep the carved masses of stone steady as they are

moved along to their proper places, urge on the gangs of forced laborers

with sticks, and finally direct the whole of the proceedings by signals,

which they give with their voice or with a long horn. Thus, however

ample the command of naked human strength enjoyed by the Assyrian king,

who had always at his absolute disposal the labor of many thousand

captives, still there was in every great work much which could only be

intrusted to Assyrians, who appear to have been employed largely in the

grand constructions of their monarchs.

The implements of labor have a considerable resemblance to those in

present use among ourselves. The saws were two-handed; but as the handle

was in the same line with the blade, instead of being set at right

angles to it, they must have been somewhat awkward to use. The shovels

were heart-shaped, like those which Sir C. Fellows noticed in Asia

Minor. The pickaxes had a single instead of a double head, while the

hatchets were double-headed, though here probably the second head was a

mere knob intended to increase the force of the blow. [PLATE CXL., Fig.

1.] The hand-carts were small and of very simple construction: they were

made open in front and behind, but had a slight framework at the sides.

They had a pole rising a little in front, and were generally drawn by

two men. The wheels were commonly four-spoked. When the load had been

placed on the cart, it seems to have been in general secured by two

bands or ropes, which were passed over it diagonally, so as to cross

each other at the top.

[Illustration: PLATE 140]

Carts drawn by animals were no doubt used in the country; but they are

not found except in the scenes representing the triumphant returns of

armies, where it is more probable that the vehicles are foreign than

Assyrian. They have poles--not shafts--and are drawn by two animals,

either oxen, mules, or asses. The wheels have generally a large number

of spokes--sometimes as many as eleven. Representations of these carts

will be found in early pages.

The Assyrians appear to have made occasional use of covered carriages.

Several vehicles of this kind are represented on an obelisk in the

British Museum. They have a high and clumsy body, which shows no window,

and is placed on four disproportionately low wheels, which raise it only

about a foot from the ground. In front of this body is a small

driving-place, enclosed in trelliswork, inside which the coachman stands

to drive. Each of these vehicles is drawn by two horses. It is probable

that they were used to convey the ladies of the court; and they were

therefore carefully closed, in order that no curious glance of

passers-by might rest upon the charming inmates. [PLATE CXL., Fig. 3.]

The _carpentum_, in which the Roman matrons rode at the great public

festivals, was similarly closed, both in front and behind, as is evident

from the representations which we have of it on medals and tombs.

Except in the case of these covered vehicles, and of the chariots used

in war and hunting, horses (as already observed) were not employed for

draught. The Assyrians appear to have regarded them as too noble for

this purpose, unless where the monarch and those near to him were

concerned, for whose needs nothing was too precious. On the military

expeditions the horses were carefully fed and tended. Portable mangers

were taken with the army for their convenience; and their food, which

was probably barley, was brought to them by grooms in sieves or shallow

boxes, whence no doubt it was transferred to the mangers. [PLATE CXL.,

Fig. 2.] They appear to have been allowed to go loose in the camp,

without being either hobbled or picketed. Care was taken to keep their

coats clean and glossy by the use of the curry-comb, which was probably

of iron. [PLATE CXL., Fig. 4.]

Halters of two kinds were employed. Sometimes they consisted of a mere

simple noose, which was placed in the horse’s mouth, and then drawn

tight round the chin. More often (as in the illustration) the rope was

attached to a headstall, not unlike that of an ordinary bridle, but

simpler, and probably of a cheaper material. Leading reins, fastened to

the bit of an ordinary bridle, were also common.

Such are the principal points connected with the peaceful customs of the

Assyrians, on which the monuments recently discovered throw a tolerable

amount of light. Much still remains in obscurity. It is not possible as

yet, without drawing largely on the imagination, to portray in any

completeness the private life even of the Assyrian nobles, much less

that of the common people. All that can be done is to gather up the

fragments which time has spared; to arrange them in something like

order, and present them faithfully to the general reader, who, it is

hoped, will feel a certain degree of interest in them severally, as

matters of archeology, and who will probably further find that he

obtains from them in combination a fair notion of the general character

and condition of the race, of its mingled barbarism and civilization,

knowledge and ignorance, art and rudeness, luxury and simplicity of

habits. The novelist and even the essayist may commendably eke out the

scantiness of facts by a free indulgence in the wide field of

supposition and conjecture: but the historian is not entitled to stray

into this enchanted ground. He must be content to remain within the tame

and narrow circle of established fact. Where his materials are abundant.

he is entitled to draw graphic sketches of the general condition of the

people; but where they are scanty, as in the present instance, he must

be content to forego such pleasant pictures, in which the coloring and

the filling-up would necessarily be derived, not from authentic data,

but from his own fancy.