CHAPTER III_How to Study Architecture

CHALDÆAN, ASSYRIAN, AND BABYLONIAN CIVILISATION

Rooted deep in the recesses of the past was the ancient civilisation

that flourished in Mesopotamia. Some latest scholars are disposed to

believe that it even preceded the civilisation of Egypt, with which it

has some features in common. For this strip of territory, extending from

near the Persian Gulf in the south to the mountainous country of Armenia

in the north, is an alluvial plain, made and nourished by its

rivers--the Tigris on the east and the Euphrates on the west. The latter

is a shallow stream, except at the annual flood, when it sweeps over the

low banks and innundates the flat lands. Thus the inhabitants of

Mesopotamia, like the Egyptians, early learned to control the river with

drains and dykes and to construct canals and systems of irrigation. And

on a par with their engineering prowess became their achievements in

building.

Like Egypt also, Mesopotamia came to have its upper and lower kingdoms.

The former, the Biblical Padan-Aram, became associated with the history

of the Assyrians; the latter, the Plain of Shinar, with that of the

Chaldæans and Babylonians. It was the lower or southern part that seems

to have been first occupied, by a people apparently of non-Semitic

stock, whose origin is unknown. Named by different scholars Akkadians or

Sumerians, they were an unwarlike race which early attained a

considerable degree of civilisation. Their chief city was Babylon,

whence the country derived the name of Babylonia. It is supposed that

these people invented the cuneiform system of writing, which was later

employed by the Babylonians and Assyrians, while its use spread to the

other nations from Persia to the Mediterranean.

This wedge-shaped script was in its origin a form of pictorial or

ideographic writing and developed its peculiar character from the fact

that the writing was done on tables of soft clay. Pressure was needed to

make the marks and accordingly the stylus came to be formed of three

plane surfaces, meeting at a point like the angle of a cubic triangle.

As the system grew the ideogram from merely picturing the object was

used to denote the first syllable of its name and then by degrees to

denote that syllable in whatever word it might occur.

The clue to the reading of the cuneiform script was discovered in 1802

by a German, Georg Friedrich Grotefind, whose work was carried farther

by Christian Lassen of Bohn. Meanwhile, the Englishman, Henry Rawlinson

had mastered the secret through a study of Persian cuneiform script.

Thus an immense mine of knowledge was opened up to the scholars, for the

kings of Babylonia and Assyria kept most extensive records, not only of

their wars and personal prowess in the chase, but also of commercial

transactions, while many of them epitomised the history of past periods.

For example, it is from one of these records, made by Napa-haik, the

last native king of Babylonia (555-538 B.C.), that we get the earliest

date of the so-called Akkadians. For he caused it to be written that,

while he was restoring an ancient temple at Sippar, he found among the

foundations a record of Sargon I--not to be confused with the later

Assyrian king of the same name--which dated back 3200 years before its

discovery. Moreover, an Assyrian scribe makes this Sargon relate of

himself that he was born in secret, exposed as an infant in a basket of

rushes on a river, rescued and brought up by a shepherd, chosen the

leader of a band in the mountains and finally became a king. It would be

interesting to know the date of this record, but presumably it was after

the Jews had been carried captive to Assyria.

* * * * *

The prosperity of this early race and its unwarlike character invited

invaders. For, it is in this particular that the fortunes of Mesopotamia

differed from those of Egypt. While the latter was isolated by great

deserts and its people in early times were neither disturbed from the

outside nor tempted to stray beyond their borders, the deserts

surrounding Mesopotamia were broken up with frequent spots of fertility.

On these subsisted nomad tribes of Semitic origin, which early must have

looked with covetous eyes upon the superior abundance of the

river-enclosed lands. Thus the non-Semitic inhabitants became involved

with Semitic peoples: Chaldæans, Elamites, and Assyrians.

Fortunately it is not necessary for our purpose to attempt the difficult

task of unravelling the stages of this obscure story. A few particulars

will suffice.

* * * * *

The Chaldæans appeared in the South and established a capital at Ur of

the Chaldees, extending their sway over what was called later Babylonia.

But so far from crushing the original inhabitants, they seem to have

assumed toward them the attitude of protectors. They were the strong

men, as it were, that kept the house armed against aggression, while the

peaceful occupants continued to pursue their industries and arts. Thus

ensued that period distinguished as THE EARLY CHALDÆAN (about 2250 to

1110 B.C.) which produced those treasures of art, especially in glazed

pottery, that recent exploration has been discovering.

* * * * *

And just as this older civilisation was respected by the warlike

Chaldæans, so also it was borrowed and imitated by the warlike Assyrians

who gradually gathered power in upper or northern Mesopotamia. They

founded a city and called it Assur, after their national god, in whose

honour they erected a temple in 1820 B.C. This is the first definite

date of this people, based on the authority of King Tiglath-Pileser

(about 1120-1100 B.C.), who relates that, while restoring the temple, he

found the ancient record of its founding. It is significant of the

general attitude of the Assyrians toward the civilisation of Babylonia

that they also borrowed the latter’s national god, Marduk. The first

extensive records of the Assyrians are derived from the “library” of

this Tiglath-Pileser, found among the ruins of Assur. They describe his

wars and hunting expeditions and how he killed with his own hands ten

elephants and nine hundred and twenty lions. This monarch, by the

capture of Babylon, brought to a conclusion the rivalry that had existed

since the fifteenth century B.C. between Assyria and the

Chaldæan-Babylonian kingdom. We may date from his reign, namely about

1110 B.C. the supremacy of the ASSYRIAN EMPIRE which lasted until 606

B.C.

Meanwhile, the city of Nineveh, now marked by the mounds of Koyunjik and

Nebi Yanus had been in existence as early as 1816 B.C. A palace was

erected there by Shalmaneser I (1330 B.C.) and at some date unknown a

temple to Ishtar. She was the goddess of Love and War and in her

voluptuous aspect corresponds to Ashtoreth or Astarte of the

Syro-Phœnicians. This cult characterised her shrine at Nineveh, while in

her warlike aspect she was worshipped at Arbela.

For a time the prestige of Nineveh waned, as Assurnazar-pal (885 B.C.)

and Shalmaneser II erected palaces at Nimroud, the ancient Calah. The

latter monarch was the first, so far as known, to come in conflict with

Israel. He conquered Ahab and exacted tribute from Jehu.

With Tiglath-Pileser III (also called Pul by the Hebrews) who carried a

portion of Northern Israel into captivity (2 Kings xv), began the period

of Assyria’s greatest glory. The last dynasty commences with Sargon

(722-705 B.C.) who built himself the famous palace at Khorsabad. He

conquered Samaria and carried the whole of northern Israel into

captivity, replacing them with men “from Babylon and from Cuthah and

from Ava and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim” (2 Kings, xvii, 24). This

allusion to Babylon is significant. It points to Sargon’s policy of

reducing the rival power of the city, which was destroyed by his son and

successor, Sennacherib. It was the latter who “came up against all the

fenced cities of Judah and took them,” afterward suffering the loss of

his army in the siege of Jerusalem, as chronicled in 2 Kings, xviii,

xix; though this disaster is not mentioned in the cuneiform records. He

revived the grandeur of Nineveh, which was added to by his son

Esarhaddon (680-668 B.C.). This monarch’s reign represented the

high-water mark of Assyrian supremacy. Among his exploits was the

conquest of Egypt, whereby he added to his titles that of “King of Kings

of Lower and Upper Egypt and Ethiopia.” He was also a great builder,

restoring Babylon and erecting for himself a superb palace at Nineveh,

the materials for which were supplied by twenty-two subject kings.

Under his son Asurbanipal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks (668-626

B.C.), the last of the Sargon Dynasty, Assyrian prosperity reached its

culmination. Being, as he said, “endowed with attentive ears,”

Asurbanipal was inclined to the study of “all inscribed tablets” and

caused the collecting and re-editing of the whole cuneiform literature

then in existence. A great part of his “library” has been recovered from

the ruins of Koyunjik and is now in the British Museum.

In the year following this monarch’s death Nabopolassar (625-604 B.C.)

who seems to have been the Assyrian vice-roy of Babylonia, entered into

alliance with the Medes and through their help destroyed the supremacy

of the Assyrians and became the first king of the NEW BABYLONIAN EMPIRE.

* * * * *

His son, Nebuchadnezzar, or Nebuchadrezzar, conquered Jerusalem and

carried its inhabitants captive to Babylon. To him this city owed its

final magnificence. Occupying both banks of the Euphrates, it was now

surrounded by two fortified walls, the outer one being fifty-five miles

in circumference, with a height of 340 feet and a thickness of 85. It

was further protected by 250 towers and pierced with a hundred gates of

brass. Numerous temples adorned the city, the grandest being that of the

national god, Marduk (Merodach). Near this was the royal palace, now

represented by the ruins of Al Gasr, “the Castle.” Sloping down from it

to the river were the terraced gardens laid out by the king for the

pleasure of his Median wife, Amytis. They are better known as the

hanging gardens of Semiramis, from the Greek account that attributed

various Oriental wonders to this mythical queen. Nebuchadnezzar also

restored the temple of Nebo in a suburb of Babylon, now called Borsippa.

This famous shrine was constructed in the form of a stepped-pyramid and

from its seven terraces was called “The Temple of the Seven Spheres of

Heaven and Earth.” Included in Assyrian temples was frequently a tower,

and the one belonging to this temple of Nebo is assumed to have been

associated with the story of the “Tower of Babel” (Genesis xi).

Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son, Nabonidus, whose eldest son,

Belshazzar, was co-regent with him and governor of South Babylon. This

is the cuneiform record, which varies from that of Daniel (Chapter v),

who makes Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar and last king of

Babylonia. In 538 B.C. Cyrus the Great took Babylon by storm and the

country passed under the Persian rule. Darius I razed the fortified

walls and Xerxes stripped the temples of their golden images and

treasure. The city fell into decay, until in 300 B.C. much of it was

demolished to provide material for building the neighbouring city of

Seleucia. By the time of Pliny (23-72 A.D.) the once proud city was a

place of desolation.

* * * * *

While the Assyrians and Babylonians were religious peoples, their

temples were insignificant, as compared with those of the Egyptians nor

have they left any tombs of architectural importance. Their religion was

of an eminently practical kind, devoted to securing benefits in this

world and concerned little with a future life. Thus their gods were

representative of natural phenomena or of their own pursuits: gods of

the sun, moon, the heavens, earth (Bel), weather; of water and canals,

the chase, war, invention of writing and literature; and unfriendly gods

of pestilence and fire.

As may be seen in their sculptures, they valued the qualities of energy

and physical prowess. Their kings are not represented, like those of

Egypt, as of slim, svelte figure, or wrapped in monumental composure.

They are giants of exaggerated muscular development, engaged in conflict

with wild beasts of corresponding strength. They were mighty captains of

war and in times of peace, mighty hunters and builders.

While Assyria borrowed its culture from Babylonia, the character of the

two nations was very different. Babylonia was a country of merchants and

agriculturists; Assyria, an organised camp. The latter’s dynasties were

founded by successful generals; while in Babylonia it was always a

priest whom a revolution raised to the throne and the king remained to

the last a priest under the control of a powerful hierarchy. The

Assyrian King, on the contrary, was an autocratic general, supported in

earlier times by a feudal nobility and, from the reign of

Tiglath-Pileser III, by an elaborate bureaucracy. In each country there

was a large body of slaves.

In Assyria education was confined to the ruling class; whereas in

Babylonia every one, women as well as men, learned to read and write.

Most of the Babylonian cities and temples had their libraries and the

genius of the people displayed itself most characteristically in

literature. Among works which have been discovered, whole or in

fragments, were the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” consisting of twelve books each

of which recounts an adventure in the hero’s career; another epic, that

of the Creation, and the “Legend of Adapa,” the first man. In astronomy

and astrology the Chaldæans and Babylonians from early times were

adepts; observatories being attached to the temples from which reports

were regularly submitted to the King. They were also skilled in

mathematics and mechanics. For example, a glass lens, turned on a lathe,

was discovered by Layard at Nimroud, among the remains of glass vases

which bear the name of Sargon.

While the Chaldæans in time had become mingled with the Babylonians, so

that the latter name was used to designate both peoples, the term

Chaldæan came to be used in a special sense. The “Wisdom of the

Chaldæans” continued to be recognised, and it was probably to the pure

race of Chaldæans that the priests, “astrologers” and “magicians”

belonged. And their distinction as wise men even survived the overthrow

of Babylon. In all likelihood they were Chaldæans, those “Wise men from

the East,” who saw and interpreted the star and followed it to

Bethlehem.