THE IZDUBAR LEGENDS.
Izdubar.—Meaning of the name.—A solar hero.—Prototype of
Herakles.—Age of Legends.—Babylonian cylinders.—Notices
of Izdubar.—Surippak.—Ark City.—Twelve tablets.—Extent of
Legends.—Description.—Introduction.—Meeting of Hea-bani
and Izdubar.—Destruction of tyrant Khumbaba.—Adventures
of Istar.—Illness and wanderings of Izdubar.—Description
of Deluge and conclusion.—First Tablet.—Kingdom of
Nimrod.—Traditions.—Identifications.—Translation.—Elamite
conquest—Dates.
We now come to the great Epic of early Chaldea, first discovered by Mr.
Smith in 1872. The hero of this Epic is provisionally called Izdubar,
though this is certainly not the right reading of his name. The first
and last characters which compose it together form a compound ideograph
signifying “fire,” and pronounced _gibil_ in Accadian, _isatu_ in
Assyrian, while the middle character, _dhu_ or _dhun_, meant “a
mass” or “a going.” “A mass of fire” would have been by no means an
inappropriate name for a hero, who, as we shall see, was originally
the Accadian fire-god, and then a personified form of the sun-god.
The two last characters of the name, however, when used as a compound
ideograph, denoted “the under-lip,” and the first character symbolizes
“wood.”
Mr. Smith believed that Izdubar was the Biblical Nimrod, and was almost
inclined to think that this was the way in which the name ought to be
phonetically rendered. One passage, however, in which the last syllable
is followed by the syllable _ra_ seems to imply that the final letter
was _r_.
The originally solar character of the hero was still remembered at the
time when the great Epic of the Accadians was put together. As was
pointed out by Sir Henry Rawlinson shortly after Mr. Smith’s first
discovery of it, it is arranged upon an astronomical principle, its
twelve books or tablets corresponding with the twelve signs of the
Zodiac, through which the sun passes in his yearly course. Thus the
eleventh tablet, which contains the episode of the Deluge, answers to
Aquarius the eleventh sign of the Zodiac, and the eleventh month of the
Accadian year called “the rainy;” and the sixth tablet, describing his
courtship by Istar, answers to Virgo the sixth sign of the Zodiac, and
the sixth Accadian month called that “of the errand of Istar.” It is in
the second month, that of “the directing bull,” and under the sign of
Taurus, that Hea-bani, half-man, half-bull, is brought to Izdubar in
the second tablet; the lion is slain by Izdubar under the Zodiacal Leo,
and the lamentation he makes over the corpse of his friend and seer
Hea-bani is made in “the dark month” of Adar, as it was termed, at the
end of the year. Like the autumnal sun, too, Izdubar sickens in the
eighth book corresponding with the month of October, and only recovers
his health and brilliance after bathing in the waters of the eastern
ocean at the beginning of the new year.
If anything were needed to confirm the solar character of Izdubar and
his history, it would be afforded by a comparison with the legends of
the Greek solar hero, Herakles. Like much else of Greek mythology, the
twelve adventures of Herakles were brought to Greece from Babylonia
through the hands of the Phœnicians, and it has long been recognized
that Herakles is but a form of Baal Melkarth, the sun-god of Tyre.
Hea-bani reappears in Cheiron, the centaur, the friend and instructor
of Herakles, and just as Hea-bani was created by Hea, Cheiron was said
to be the son of Kronos, who is identified by Berosus with Hea in the
account of the Deluge. The lion slain by Izdubar is the lion of Nemea
slain by Herakles; the winged bull made by Anu is the famous bull of
Krete; the tyrant Khumbaba is the tyrant Geryon; the gems borne by the
trees of the forest beyond the gateway of the sun are the apples of the
Hesperides; and the deadly sickness of Izdubar himself is but the fever
of Herakles, caused by the poisoned tunic of Nessus.
A very slight inspection of the Epic is sufficient to show that it
has been pieced together out of a number of previously existing and
independent materials. Thus the history of the Deluge, which is itself
but an episode somewhat violently foisted into the legend of Izdubar
in order to preserve the astronomical arrangement of the Epic, may be
shown to have consisted of at least two older poems on the subject; and
a careful examination of other portions of the Epic brings the same
fact to light elsewhere.
As, however, there is clear proof that the Epic was originally composed
in Accadian, our present text being merely the Semitic translation of
the Accadian original, it must have existed in the form in which we now
have it before the age of Sargon and the extinction of the Accadian
language in Chaldea. We shall not be far wrong, therefore, in ascribing
its composition to about B.C. 2000, or a little earlier. The older
lays or poems out of which it was formed must therefore date before
this period. There seems to have been a considerable number of them,
each incident in the cycle of ancient Accadian mythology having been
the subject of various poems. Many of these originated in different
parts of the country, so that a long period of time must be allowed for
their growth and subsequent reduction to a literary form. But as the
legends they celebrated were traditions in the country before they were
embodied in poems and committed to writing, we must go back to quite a
remote epoch for their first starting-point.
The earliest evidence we have of them is in the carvings on early
Babylonian cylindrical seals. Among the earliest known devices on
these seals we have scenes from the legends of Izdubar, and from the
story of the Creation. The seals mostly belong to the age of the kings
of Ur, and some of them are a good deal older than B.C. 2000. The
principal incidents represented on them are the struggles of Izdubar
and his companion Hea-bani with the lion and the bull, the journey of
Izdubar in search of Xisuthrus, Noah or Xisuthrus in his ark, and the
war between Tiamtu the sea-dragon and the god Merodach. There is a
fragment of a document in the British Museum which claims to be copied
from an omen tablet belonging to the time of Izdubar himself, but it
is probably not earlier than B.C. 1600, when many similar tablets were
written.
There is an incidental notice of the ship or ark of “the god Izdubar”
in a tablet printed in “Cuneiform Inscriptions,” vol. ii. p. 46.
He is here called “the king who bears the sceptre.” This tablet,
which contains lists of wooden objects, was written in the time of
Assur-bani-pal, but is copied from an original, which must have been
written at least eighteen hundred years before the Christian era.
The geographical notices on this tablet suit the period before the
rise of Babylon. Surippak is called in it the ship or ark city, this
name forming another reference to the Flood legends. Izdubar is also
mentioned in a series of tablets relating to witchcraft, and on a
tablet containing prayers to him as a god; this last showing that
he was deified, which, however, was an honour also given to several
Babylonian kings.
As already stated, the legends of Izdubar are inscribed on twelve
tablets, of which there are remains of at least four editions. All
the tablets are in fragments, and none of them are complete; but
it is a fortunate circumstance that the most perfect tablet is the
eleventh, which describes the Deluge, this being the most important
of the series. In the first chapter the successive steps in the
discovery of these legends have been already described, and we may now
therefore pass on to the description and translation of the various
fragments. All the fragments of our present copies belong to the reign
of Assur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, in the seventh century B.C. From
the mutilated condition of many of them it is impossible at present
to gain an accurate idea of the whole scope of the legends, and many
parts which are lost have to be supplied by conjecture; the order even
of some of the tablets cannot be determined, and it is uncertain if
we have fragments of the whole twelve in what follows. Mr. Smith has,
however, conjecturally divided the fragments into groups corresponding
roughly with the subjects of the tablets. Each tablet when complete
contained six columns of writing, and each column had generally from
forty to fifty lines of writing, there being in all about 3,000 lines
of cuneiform text. The divisions adopted by Mr. Smith will be seen by
the following summary, which exhibits our present knowledge of the
fragments.
_Part I.—Introduction._
Tablet I.—Number of lines uncertain, probably about 240. First column
initial line preserved, second column lost, third column twenty-six
lines preserved, fourth column doubtful fragment inserted, fifth and
sixth columns lost.
Probable subjects: conquest of Babylonia by the Elamites, birth and
parentage of Izdubar.
_Part II.—Meeting of Hea-bani and Izdubar._
Tablet II.—Number of lines uncertain, probably about 240. First and
second columns lost, third and fourth columns about half-preserved,
fifth and sixth columns lost.
Tablet III.—Number of lines about 270. First column fourteen lines
preserved, second, third, fourth, and fifth columns nearly perfect,
sixth column a fragment.
Probable subjects: dream of Izdubar, Hea-bani invited comes to Erech,
and explains the dream.
_Part III.—Destruction of the tyrant Khumbaba._
Tablet IV.—Number of lines probably about 260. About one-third of
first, second, and third columns, doubtful fragments of fourth, fifth,
and sixth columns.
Tablet V.—Number of lines about 260. Most of first column, and part
of second column preserved, third, fourth, and fifth columns lost,
fragment of sixth column.
Probable subjects: contests with wild animals, Izdubar and Hea-bani
slay the tyrant Khumbaba.
_Part IV.—Adventures of Istar._
Tablet VI.—Number of lines about 210. Most of first column preserved,
second column nearly perfect, third and fourth columns partly
preserved, fifth and sixth columns nearly perfect.
Tablet VII.—Number of lines probably about 240. First line of first
column preserved, second column lost, third and fourth column partly
preserved, fifth and sixth columns conjecturally restored from tablet
of descent of Istar into Hades.
Probable subjects: Istar loves Izdubar, her amours, her ascent to
heaven, destruction of her bull, her descent to Hades.
_Part V.—Illness and wanderings of Izdubar._
Tablet VIII.—Number of lines probably about 270. Conjectured fragments
of first, second, and third columns, fourth and fifth columns lost,
conjectured fragments of sixth column.
Tablet IX.—Number of lines about 190. Portions of all six columns
preserved.
Tablet X.—Number of lines about 270. Portions of all six columns
preserved.
Probable subjects: discourse to trees, dreams, illness of Izdubar,
death of Hea-bani, wanderings of Izdubar in search of the hero of the
Deluge.
_Part VI.—Description of Deluge, and conclusion._
Tablet XI.—Number of lines 294. All six columns nearly perfect.
Tablet XII.—Number of lines about 200. Portions of first four columns
preserved, two lines of fifth column, sixth column perfect.
Probable subjects: description of Deluge, cure of Izdubar, his
lamentation over Hea-bani.
TABLET I.
The opening words of the first tablet are preserved, and form as usual
the title of the series, but the expressions used are obscure from want
of any context to explain them. There are two principal or key-words,
_naqbi_ and _kugar_; the first of which means “a channel,” and is more
particularly applied to the canals with which Babylonia was intersected
and watered, while the second is the compound ideograph which literally
signifies “minister” or “servant of work.” It was the special title
of Izdubar, who, like his Greek double Herakles, was celebrated for
‘the twelve labours’ he successfully undertook. The title had no doubt
been originally given to the fire-god, in whom primitive man sees his
most useful servant and workman. The first line of the Epic would
consequently have run: “The canals, the toiling hero, the god Izdubar,
had seen.” Elsewhere, however, the title of Izdubar is written _Zicar_,
that is, “the male” or “hero.”
After the heading and opening line there is a considerable blank in the
story, two columns of writing being entirely lost. It is probable that
this part contained the account of the parentage and previous history
of Izdubar, forming the introduction to the story. In the subsequent
portions of the history there is very little information to supply the
loss of this part of the inscription; but it appears that the mother
of Izdubar was named Dannat, which signifies “the powerful lady.” His
father is not named in any of our present fragments, but he is referred
to in the third tablet. He was no doubt a deity, possibly the Sun-god,
who is supposed to interfere very much in his behalf. When Izdubar,
the old god of fire, after first becoming a form of the solar deity,
was finally personified and regarded as a mighty leader, strong in war
and hunting, he was turned into a giant, one of the mythical monarchs
who had ruled in Babylonia in long-past days, and had subdued the many
petty kingdoms into which the valley of the Euphrates was then divided.
The centre of the empire of Izdubar is laid in the region of Shinar,
or Sumir, Erech “the lofty” being the chief seat of his power, and
thus agrees with the site of the kingdom of Nimrod, according to
Genesis x. 8, 9, 10, where we read: “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began
to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the
Lord: wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before
the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and
Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” We cannot overlook the fact
that the character of Izdubar as hunter, leader, and king, corresponds
with that of Nimrod. Cush, the father of Nimrod, may be identified
with Cusu, Cusi or Cus, the Accadian deity of sunset and night. The
word in Accadian signified “rest” and “darkness,” and is translated
by the Assyrian _nakhu_ “to rest,” and _nukhu_ or _nukh_ “rest.” This
latter word is identical with the Biblical Noah. It is very possible,
therefore, that Cush, the father of Nimrod, has nothing to do with
Cush or Ethiopia, the son of Ham, the two being set side by side in
Genesis merely on account of the similarity of their names. In this
case all the ethnological difficulties occasioned by the belief that
the Accadians of Babylonia were Cushites, and connected with Egypt or
Ethiopia, will be avoided. It is curious to find the Christian writers
identifying Nimrod with Evechous, the first king of Babylon, according
to Berosus, after the flood.
The next passage in Genesis after the one describing Nimrod’s dominion
may also refer to Nimrod, if we read with the margin, “Out of that land
he went forth to Assyria,” instead of “Out of that land went forth
Assur.” These verses will then read (Genesis x. 11, 12): “Out of that
land he went forth to Assyria, and builded Nineveh, and the suburbs of
the city, and Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah: the same is
a great city.” It must be remembered, however, that Assur was regarded
by the Assyrians as their supreme god and eponymous founder, and that
in Micah v. 6, “the land of Assur” and “the land of Nimrod” seem to
be contrasted with one another. But it is possible to consider the
two expressions in the latter passage to be both applied to the same
country.
After the date of the later books of the Old Testament we know nothing
of Nimrod for some time; it is probable that he was fully mentioned
by Berosus in his history, but his account of the giant hunter has
been lost. The reason of this appears to be, that a belief had grown
up among early Christian writers that the Biblical Nimrod was the
first king of Babylonia after the Flood, and looking at the list of
Berosus they found that after the Flood according to him Evechous
first reigned in Babylonia, and at once assumed that the Evechous of
Berosus was the Nimrod of the Bible; but as Evechous has given to him
the extravagant reign of four ners or 2,400 years, and his son and
successor, Chomasbelus, four ners and five sosses, or 2,700 years, this
identification gives little hope of our finding an historical Nimrod.
It is possible that this identification of Nimrod with Evechous, made
by the early chronologists, has caused them to overlook his name and
true epoch in the list of Berosus, and has thus lost to us his position
in the series of Babylonian sovereigns.
Belonging to the first centuries of the Christian era are the works of
various Jewish and Christian writers, who have made us familiar with a
number of later traditions concerning Nimrod. Josephus declares that
he was a prime mover in building the Tower of Babel, an enemy of God,
and that he reigned at Babylon during the dispersion. Later writers
make him a contemporary with Abraham, the inventor of idol worship,
and a furious worshipper of fire. At the city of Orfa, in Syria, he is
said to have cast Abraham into a burning fiery furnace because he would
not bow down to his idols. These legends have been taken up by the
Arabs, and although his history has been lost and replaced by absurd
and worthless stories, Nimrod still remains the most prominent name in
the traditions of the country; everything good or evil is attributed to
him, and the most important ruins are even now called after his name.
From the time of the early Christian writers down to to-day, men have
been busy framing systems of general chronology, and since Nimrod was
always known as a famous sovereign it was necessary to find a definite
place for him in each chronological scheme. Africanus and Eusebius held
that he was the Evechous of Berosus, and reigned first after the Flood.
Moses of Khorene identified him with Bel, the great god of Babylon;
and he is said to have extended his dominions to the foot of the
Armenian mountains, falling in battle there when attempting to enforce
his authority over Haic, king of Armenia. Other writers identified
Nimrod with Ninus, the mythical founder of the city of Nineveh. These
remained the principal identifications before modern research took up
the matter; but so wide a door was open to conjecture, that one writer
actually identified Nimrod with the Alorus of Berosus, the first king
of Babylonia _before_ the Flood.
One of the most curious theories about Nimrod, suggested in modern
times, was grounded on the “Book of Nabatean Agriculture.” This work is
a comparatively modern forgery, pretending to be a literary production
of the early Chaldean period. In this work Nimrod heads a list of
Babylonian kings called _Canaanite_, and a writer in the “Journal of
Sacred Literature” has argued with considerable force in favour of
these Canaanites being the Arabs of Berosus, who reigned about B.C.
1550 to 1300. The southern half of Arabia is known as Cush in the Old
Testament like the opposite coast of Africa, and, as Nimrod is called
a Cushite in Genesis, there was a great temptation to identify him
with the leader of the Arab dynasty. This idea, however, gained little
favour, and has not been held by any section of inquirers as fixing
the position of Nimrod. The discovery of the cuneiform inscriptions
threw a new light on the subject of Babylonian history, and soon after
the decipherment of the inscriptions attention was directed to the
question of the identity and age of Nimrod. Sir Henry Rawlinson, the
father of Assyrian discovery, first seriously attempted to fix the name
of Nimrod in the cuneiform inscriptions, and he endeavoured to find
the name in that of the second god of the great Chaldean triad. (See
Rawlinson’s “Ancient Monarchies,” vol. i. p. 117.) The names of this
deity are really Enu, Elum, and Bel, and he was evidently worshipped at
the dawn of Babylonian history, and is in fact represented as one of
the creators of the world; time, moreover, has shown that the cuneiform
characters on which the identification was grounded do not bear the
phonetic values then supposed.
Sir Henry Rawlinson also suggested (“Ancient Monarchies,” p. 136) that
the god Nergal was a deification of Nimrod. Nergal, however, which
means literally “the illuminator of Hades,” was a god of the lower
world, and even if Nimrod was deified under the name of Nergal this
does not explain his position or epoch.
Canon Rawlinson, brother of Sir Henry, in the first volume of his
“Ancient Monarchies,” p. 153, and following, makes some judicious
remarks on the chronological position of Nimrod, and suggests that he
may have reigned a century or two before B.C. 2286; he asserts the
historical character of his reign, and supposes him to have founded the
Babylonian monarchy, but does not himself identify him with any king
known from the inscriptions. At the time when this was written (1871),
the conclusions of Canon Rawlinson were the most satisfactory that
had been advanced since the discovery of the cuneiform inscriptions.
Since this time, however, some new theories have been started, with the
idea of identifying Nimrod; one of these, brought forward by Professor
Oppert, makes the word a geographical term, but such an explanation is
evidently quite insufficient to account for the traditions attached to
the name.
Another theory brought forward by the Rev. A. H. Sayce and Josef
Grivel, “Transactions of Society of Biblical Archæology,” vol. ii.
part 2, p. 243, and vol. iii. part 1, p. 136, identifies Nimrod with
Merodach, the god of Babylon; partly on the ground of the similarity of
name, Merodach being Amar-utuci or Amar-ud in Accadian, partly because
Merodach the patron-deity of Babylon stood in the same relation to that
city that Asshur did to Assyria (see Micah v. 6), and partly since we
find Merodach called “a hero” like Nimrod in Genesis, and assigned
“four divine dogs” as though he were a hunter. These dogs are Uccumu
“the despoiler,” Acculu “the devourer,” Icsuda “the capturer,” and
Iltebu “the carrier away.” Merodach, it must be remembered, is always
represented as a man, and is armed with weapons of war.
Mr. Smith first fancied that Nimrod might be Khammuragas, whom he
identified with the first Arab king of Berosus, as this line of kings
appeared to be connected with the Cossæans. This identification
failing, after the discovery of the Deluge tablet in 1872, he
conjectured that the hero whose name is provisionally read Izdubar is
the Nimrod of the Bible, a conjecture which has since been adopted by
several other scholars.
The supposition that Nimrod was an ethnic or geographical name,
which was at one time favoured by Sir Henry Rawlinson, and has since
been urged by Professor Oppert, is quite untenable, for it would be
impossible on this theory to account for certain features in what we
are told of the hero.
Mr. Smith’s opinion that he was the hero of the Izdubar Epic was first
founded on the discovery that the latter formed the centre of the
national historical poetry, and was the hero of Babylonian legend—in
fact, occupies much the same place as Nimrod in later Arab tradition.
Izdubar, moreover, agrees _exactly_ in character with Nimrod; he was
a hunter, according to the cuneiform legends, who contended with and
destroyed the lion, tiger, leopard, and wild bull or buffalo, animals
the most formidable in the chase in any country. He ruled first in
Babylonia over the region which from other sources we know to have
been the centre of Nimrod’s kingdom. The principal scene, too, of
his exploits and triumphs was the city of Erech, which, according to
Genesis, was the second capital of Nimrod.
There remains the fact that the cuneiform name of this hero is
undeciphered, the name Izdubar being a mere makeshift. It is possible
that when the phonetic reading of the characters is found it will turn
out to correspond with the name Nimrod. At all events it is noteworthy
that Izdubar seems to have been specially connected with the town of
Marad, the original Accadian name of which was Amarda, and that the
Accadian _an Amarda_ or “god of Amarda,” closely corresponds with the
Biblical name of Nimrod. The translations and notes given in this book
will lead, perhaps, to the general admission of the identity of the
hero Izdubar with the traditional Nimrod; but this result can be firmly
established only when more evidence is before us than that which we
have at present.
At the time of the opening of the Epic, the great city of the south
of Babylonia, and the capital of this part of the country, was Uruk,
called in Genesis, Erech. Erech was devoted to the worship of Anu, the
god of heaven, and his wife, the goddess Anatu, as well as of Istar,
the Phœnician Ashtoreth, or Astarte, the myth of whose love for the
Sun-god Dumuzi or Tammuz, the Adonis of Greek story, is alluded to in
the course of the poem. The worship of Anatu, however, was subsequent
to the Semitic occupation of the country, since the necessity of
providing a female deity by the side of every male one was not felt
until the Accadians, whose language was unacquainted with genders, were
succeeded by the Semites with their nouns either masculine or feminine.
Here may provisionally be placed the first fragment of the Izdubar
legends, K 3200. This fragment consists of part of the third column of
a tablet, which is probably the first; and it gives an account of a
conquest of Erech by its enemies. The fragment reads:—
1. his ..... he left
2. ....... and he goes down to the river,
3. .... in the river his ship is made good.
4. .... he is .... and he weeps bitterly
5. .... placed, the city of Ganganna which had (suffered) destruction.
6. .... their _samuri_ (were) she asses
7. .... their _raburi_ (were) great wild bulls.
8. Like cattle the people fears,
9. like doves the slaves mourn.
10. The gods of Erech the lofty
11. turned to flies and brood in swarms.
12. The spirits (_sedu_) of Erech the lofty
13. turned to cocks and went forth in outposts.
14. For three years the city of Erech does the enemy besiege,
15. the great gates were thrown down and trampled upon,
16. the goddess Istar before its enemies could not lift her head.
17. Bel his mouth opened and speaks,
18. to Istar the queen a speech he makes:
19. ..... in the midst of Nipur my hands have placed,
20. .... my country? Babylon (Din-tir) the house of my delight,
21. my .... I gave my hands.
22. ..... he was favourable to the sanctuaries
23. ..... in the day ....
24. ..... the great gods. ....
Here we have a graphic account of the condition of Erech, when the
enemy overran the country, and the first question which occurs is, who
were these conquerors? Conjecture is idle in the want of evidence.
They may have been the Semitic successors of the Accadians, they may
have been the Medes of Berosus, or they may have been tribes who belong
only to the realm of mythology. Mr. Smith believed that they were the
subjects of Khumbaba, the tyrant whose death is related in the fourth
book of the Epic, and who ruled over the land of Elam.
The name of Khumbaba, or Khubaba, as it is occasionally written, is
probably a compound of “Khumba,” or “Khumbume,” the name of one of the
chief Elamite gods. Many other Elamite names compounded with Khumba
are mentioned in the inscriptions: Khumba-sidir, an early chief;
Khumba-undasa, an Elamite general opposed to Sennacherib; Khumba-nigas,
an Elamite monarch opposed to Sargon; Tul-khumba, an Elamite city, &c.
The notice of foreign dominion, and particularly of Elamite supremacy
at this time, may, perhaps, form a clue from which to ascertain the
approximate age of the poems as we have them. We know that myths are
localized in the country of those who hand them down to posterity, and
assigned to an age which has made an impression on their narrators.
There must have been some reason for the legendary siege and capture of
Erech, some actual event around which the story of Izdubar has entwined
itself.
Looking at the fragments of Berosus and the notices of Greek and Roman
authors, we may ask whether there is any epoch of conquest and foreign
dominion which can be fixed upon as representing such an actual event?
Let us glance for a moment at the earlier history of Babylonia so far
as it is known to us.
The earlier part of the list of dynasties quoted from Berosus gives the
following periods from the Flood downwards:—
86 Chaldean kings from the Flood down to the Median conquest, reigning
for 34,080 or 33,091 years.
8 Median kings who conquered and held Babylon, 234, or 224, or 190
years.
11 other kings, race and duration unknown.
49 Chaldean kings, for 458 years.
The last of these dynasties preceded a dynasty of kings called Arabian
by the copyists of Berosus, and though neither the number of the reigns
nor the length of time assigned to the dynasty agrees with what the
monuments tell us of the Cassite or Cossæan line of kings, there is
no other line which can in any way be identified with the Arabians
of the Babylonian historian. The 49 Chaldean kings must, therefore,
have reigned before Khammuragas, that is before B.C. 2000-1750. Now
an inscription of Nabonidus informs us that Lig-bagas, the first
monarch of all Chaldea of whom we know, flourished 700 years anterior
to the reign of Khammuragas; he would, therefore, come among the 11
nameless kings of Berosus, supposing any reliance can be placed on the
statements of the latter, and about 250 years before the accession of
the Chaldean dynasty. But the engraved cylinders and seals of the
age of Lig-bagas show that the legend of Izdubar was already popular,
and we must accordingly seek a still older period in which to place
its origin and attachment to a particular historical event. Hence it
may well be that the siege of Erech, the memory of which is preserved
in the first book of the Izdubar Epic, was the work of those foreign
invaders whom the Babylonian historian has termed Median.
Now it is not improbable that the Median dynasty was really Elamite; or
at all events belonged to the same race as the primitive inhabitants of
Elam. This race was closely allied to the Accadians; and it was spread
over the whole range of country which stretched from the southern
shores of the Caspian to the Persian Gulf. The Protomedes, as they are
sometimes called, were not conquered and supplanted by Aryan invaders
from the east till the ninth century B.C. It was in their country that
Kharsak-kurra, “the Mountain of the East,” was localized whereon the
Accadians and their kinsfolk in Elam and Media believed the ark to
have rested after the Flood, and which they regarded as the cradle
of their race. It was therefore pre-eminently “the land,” _mada_ in
Accadian, and from this _mada_ there is every reason to think the name
of Media has been derived. Consequently, the Medians of Berosus, the
inhabitants of _mada_ “the land” of the east, need not have been more
than one of the many Elamite swarms that from time to time descended
into the fertile plains of Babylonia, and not unfrequently obtained
a settlement there. Such were the Accadians, or “Highlanders”
themselves; such, too, the two Cassite or Cossæan dynasties which we
learn from the monuments long held sway over Chaldea.
[Illustration: MIGRATION OF EASTERN TRIBE; FROM EARLY BABYLONIAN
CYLINDER.]
An early Babylonian cylinder, which came from Erech and originally
belonged to a member of the royal family of that city, presents us
with a curious picture of a rude nomad tribe apparently arriving in
Babylonia. The chief marches in front armed with bow and arrows, and
wearing the same kind of boots with turned-up ends as distinguished the
Hittites in ancient times and are still worn in Asia Minor and Greece.
They indicate that the wearer came from a cold and mountainous country.
The animals’ skins which compose the dresses of his three retainers
also point to a similar conclusion. Besides the retainers, the wife of
the chief is depicted, as well as two slaves who carry some objects
on their shoulders. Unfortunately no light is cast upon the group
by the inscription, which simply states that the cylinder belonged
to “Gibil-dur (or Ne-Zicum), the brother of the king of Erech, the
librarian, thy servant.” All we can gather from it is that the famous
library of Erech, which furnished Assur-bani-pal and his scribes with
the original texts of the Izdubar Epic, was already in existence, and
that the office of librarian was considered honourable enough to be
borne by a brother of the reigning monarch.
If the legendary siege of Erech is not to be referred to the epoch
of the Median conquest, it may have fallen at the time when the
image of the goddess Nana was carried away from Erech by the Elamite
king Kudur-nankhundi, 1635 years before the capture of Shushan, the
capital of Elam, by the Assyrians (about B.C. 645), and consequently
about B.C. 2280. A fragment which refers to this period in “Cuneiform
Inscriptions,” vol. iii. p. 38, relates the destruction wrought in the
country by the Elamites, and makes Kudur-nankhundi follow one of the
other monarchs of an Elamite dynasty and exceed his predecessors in the
injury he did to the country.
Putting together the detached notices of this period, the following may
approximately represent the chronology, the dates being understood as
round numbers.
? B.C. 2750, Elamites (Medes) overrun Babylonia.
B.C. 2280, Kudur-nankhundi, king of Elam, ravages Erech.
B.C. 1800, Khammuragas conquers Babylonia.
Although the dates transmitted through ancient authors are as a rule
vague and doubtful, there are many independent notices which seem to
point to somewhere about the twenty-third century before the Christian
era for the foundation of the Babylonian and Assyrian power. Several
of these dates are connected either directly or by implication with
Nimrod, who first formed a united empire over these regions.
The following are some of these notices:—
Simplicius relates that Callisthenes, the friend of Alexander, sent to
Aristotle from Babylon a series of stellar observations reaching back
1,903 years before the taking of Babylon by Alexander. This would make
1903 + 331 = B.C. 2234.
Berosus and Critodemus are said by Pliny to have made the inscribed
stellar observations reach to 480 years before the era of Phoroneus; as
the latter date was supposed to be about the middle of the eighteenth
century B.C., 480 years before it comes also to about the period of
Kudur-nankhundi.
Diodorus makes the Assyrian empire commence a thousand years or more
before the Trojan war.
Ctesias and Cephalion make its foundation early in the twenty-second
century B.C.
The two last statements, however, are probably derived from Ctesias,
whose so-called history has been shown by cuneiform decipherment to
have been a mere fiction put together out of misunderstood myths
and fragments of theology. In any case, too, they apply only to the
foundation of the Assyrian power, which was modern as compared with
that of Babylonia, in spite of the assertion of Sargon, who boasts of
having been preceded on the throne by 350 kings.
Of the latter part of the first tablet of the Izdubar Epic we have as
yet no knowledge.