CHAPTER V.

MESOPOTAMIA AND THE BIBLE.

1. _Assyria._

MESOPOTAMIA--“the Land between the Rivers”--is a tract of country nearly 700 miles long, and from 20 to 250 miles broad, enclosed between the Euphrates and the Tigris, and extending from the mountains of Armenia to near the Persian Gulf. It is for the most part a vast plain, but is crossed near its centre by a range of hills running almost east and west-from Hit on the Euphrates, famous for its bitumen pits, to Samarah on the Tigris. North of this line the country, though dry and bare, is undulating, and rises occasionally into mountains, while south of it the region is flat and consists of rich, moist, alluvial land, formed by the rivers themselves. This land of alluvium was Babylonia, and its capital Babylon; the country north of it was Assyria, with its capital Nineveh. But the extent of both countries varied from time to time, according to the power of various monarchs and their successes in war.

The beginnings of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires are lost in obscurity, and no records exist among the people themselves accounting for their origin. Yet the account given in the Bible agrees so well with what is known from the records that there can be no reasonable doubt that in it there is a true history of the rise of these two nations, which were in after time to wield the power of the then known world. This Biblical account, borne out and amplified as it is by the late discoveries, forms one of the most interesting and instructive links in the history of the human race and its progress in civilisation.

“Taking, then, the account as it stands in the Bible,”[49] says Mr Budge, “it appears that the descendants of Ham, the third son of Noah, were Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. The lands of Cush and Mizraim have hitherto been identified with Ethiopia and Egypt respectively; Phut was regarded as doubtful, and Canaan was the country with which we are so well acquainted from the frequent occurrence of the name in the Bible. The identification of the first-named and most important of these districts, the land of Cush, has been regarded by many as unsatisfactory: for Nimrod, judging from the names of towns said to have been founded by him, could hardly have been an Ethiopian, though, according to the Bible story, he was a descendant of Cush.”

Amongst the treasures of the Assyrian excavations there has luckily been found a tablet, giving, in a list of the nations, &c., along the Taurus range of mountains, a country bearing the name of Kusu, the same word as is used in the inscriptions to denote the country of Ethiopia; and from this and from other sources it is clear that two countries of this name were known to the people of the ancient world, the one being Ethiopia and the other Cappadocia or its immediate neighbourhood. It seems therefore likely that Nimrod and his followers, for some reason unrecorded, left his home in the land of Cush or Cappadocia, and journeying in a south-easterly direction, came to the land of Sumer or Shinar. There meeting perhaps with the Semitic population of the country, he did not go any farther, but settled there with his followers, and built Babylon, and Birs Nimroud, the supposed Tower of Babel.

In course of time the new comers began to mingle with the original (Semitic) inhabitants of the country, and both races were obliged, for the purpose of trade and intercourse, to learn each other’s language, so that there must have been for several hundreds of years two tongues in use at the same time in Mesopotamia, and it was not until the twelfth or even perhaps the tenth century before Christ, that the Akkadian was entirely supplanted by the language of the Semitic Babylonians. The Norman invasion in England is a case parallel to the above, but with this difference, that whilst the invasion of England by the Normans was a conquest, the entry of these people (afterwards known as Akkadians and Sumerians) into Babylonia seems to have been otherwise; and the Babylonian language, therefore, while admitting very many Akkadian and Sumerian words, has not suffered, with regard to the grammatical forms, to the same extent as the English language.

The entry of the Akkadians into Babylonia was the beginning of civilisation in that country, for they brought with them, along with their religion, their legends and traditions, their laws, their art, building knowledge, agricultural skill, and that great civiliser of nations, the art of writing. From this union of the intellectual Akkadian race and the warlike Babylonians arose the two nations of whom both tradition and history have preserved the record, as having been the mightiest of the nations of the ancient world, namely, Babylonia and Assyria, of whom so many tales are told, and whose power and high civilisation amongst the barbarism of the early ages of the world made so great an impression during the time of their supremacy.

After the mingling of these two races, but long before the Akkadian language had died out, the Babylonians, as they will be henceforth called, sent out colonies northwards and founded the great cities of Assyria--Ninua (Nineveh), Resin, Kalhu (Calah), Assur, &c.

The religion of the Assyrians was derived from Babylonia, and remained very similar to that of the latter country. Both countries worshipped the same deities, but the Assyrians made some changes in the system, especially in introducing the worship of Assur. Assur was worshipped as “king of the gods,” “father of the gods,” “the deity who created himself.” Among the other principal gods of the Assyrians were Nebo, the god of writing; Merodach, or Bel, a companion deity to Nebo; Shamas, the Sun-god, and Sin, the Moon-god; Ishtar, corresponding to Venus; Nergal and Ninip, gods of hunting; Vul, the storm god, Anu, king of heaven, and Hea, the lord of the under world.

The government of Assyria was monarchical, and the power of the king was absolute, though in practice his rule was tempered by the advice of counsellors. The commander-in-chief of the army was called the Tartan, and here was also a high officer called the Rabshakeh (2 Kings xviii. 17). Judges decided cases in the gate of the temple or the palace, and there was an appeal from them to the governor or king. The priests were a privileged class; they lived on the revenues of the temples and the offerings of worshippers. The Assyrian months were lunar, and the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days were Sabbaths of rest: extra work and even missions of mercy were forbidden, certain foods were not to be eaten, and the king was not to ride in his chariot. The laws of the country resembled in many respects those of Israel: a father was supreme in his household, and a husband had the power of divorcing his wife. Slavery was in vogue, and whole families were sometimes sold together. Various trades were practised, including weaving, dyeing, manufacture of iron goods, copper, and bronze goods, sculpture, and building, &c. But the most remarkable feature of Assyrian civilisation was their literature and libraries of clay tablets, and it is to these that we owe most of our present knowledge of this great people.

Before the days of Moses there was friendly intercourse, as we have seen, between Mesopotamia and Egypt. In later ages Assyria and Egypt were frequently at war with one another. The hostile armies were obliged to march through Palestine; and it became very difficult for the kings of Israel and Judah to look on with equanimity and preserve a strictly neutral attitude. Yet if they favoured one of the great powers they of course gave umbrage to the other; besides which, Assyria, in the days of its power, could hardly brook to leave any small kingdom independent. At length Samaria was conquered, and its inhabitants deported, by Shalmaneser or by Sargon; and afterwards Judea also, by Nebuchadnezzar.

Speaking of the captivity of Israel in Babylonia as a providential event, a great German writer, Lessing, says,--“When the child, by dint of blows and caresses had come to years of understanding, the father sent it at once into foreign countries, and here it recognised at once the good which in its father’s house it had possessed but not been conscious of.”[50] Again he says,--“The child, sent abroad, saw other children, who knew more, who lived more becomingly, and asked itself in confusion, why do I not know that too? why do I not live so too? ought I not to have been taught and admonished of all this in my father’s house?”

It is because of this sojourn abroad of the Jews, and the influence of other nations upon them, that the exploration of these eastern countries is a matter of such importance to Bible students. In Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt we get into by-paths of Bible history, and the old records when unearthed, read sometimes like new chapters of the Bible.

The land of Mesopotamia, not inaptly called a graveyard of empires and nations, is now neglected and desolate, under Turkish misrule. “The monotony of the landscape would be unbroken” (says Zénaïde A. Ragozin) “but for certain elevations and hillocks of strange and varied shapes, which dot the plain in every direction; some are high and conical or pyramidal in form, others are quite extensive and rather flat on the summit, others again long and low, and all curiously unconnected with each other or with any ridge of hills. This is doubly striking in Lower Mesopotamia or Babylonia, proverbial for its excessive flatness. The few permanent villages, composed of mud-huts or plaited reed-cabins, are generally built on these eminences; but others are used as burying-grounds, and a mosque, the Mohammedan house of prayer, sometimes rises on one or the other. The substance of these mounds being rather soft and yielding, their sides are still furrowed in many places with ravines, worn by the rushing streams of rain-water. The rubbish washed away lies scattered on the plain, and is seen to contain fragments of bricks and pottery, sometimes inscribed with arrow-headed characters; in the ravines themselves are laid bare whole sides of walls of brickwork and pieces of sculptured stone.”

The Arabs never thought of exploring these curious heaps. Their law forbids them to represent the human form either in painting or sculpture, lest it should lead the ignorant into idolatry. They are superstitious, and look on relics of ancient statuary with suspicion amounting to fear, and connect them with magic and witchcraft. It is therefore with awe not devoid of horror that they tell travellers of underground passages in the mounds, haunted not only by wild beasts, but by evil spirits, strange figures having been dimly perceived in the crevices. Better instructed foreigners have long ago assumed that within these mounds must be entombed whatever ruins and relics may be preserved of the great cities of yore.

The first European whose love of learning was strong enough to make him disregard difficulty and expense, and use the pick-axe upon these mounds, was an Englishman named Rich. This was in 1820: but Mr Rich was not very successful, and it was literally true that up to 1842, “a case 3 feet square enclosed all that remained, not only of the great city Nineveh, but of Babylon itself.” In 1842 M. Botta, a French Consul stationed at Mosul on the Tigris, began to dig, and after fruitless labour at the mound of Kouyunjik, opposite Mosul, was directed by a native to Khorsabad, and there, on cutting a trench, entered a hall lined all round with sculptured slabs, representing battles, sieges, and similar events. A new and wonderful world was suddenly opened, and he walked as in a dream. The discovery created an immense sensation in Europe, and the spirit of research and enterprise was effectually aroused.

The investigation was soon taken up by Mr Austen Henry Layard, our own countryman, and the objects found were brought to the British Museum, which now boasts a splendid collection. After getting over preliminary difficulties--the interesting story of which may be found in his volumes on “Nineveh and its Remains”--Mr Layard obtained a grant of money from the Museum, with full licence from the Turkish Government, and then succeeded in organizing a band of Arabs to work willingly and well, and from that moment made new discoveries every day.

One morning, as he was going to the scene of operations--they were digging in the mound of Nimroud--two Arabs galloped up to him, and said, “Hasten, O Bey, hasten to the diggers, for they have found Nimrod himself! Wallah, it is wonderful, but it is true; we have seen him with our eyes! There is no God but God!” What they had seen was a sculptured human head, which, upon removing more earth, was seen to belong to a winged quadruped--one of those colossal “bulls” since deposited at the British Museum. A “bull” we say, but really a monster with the body of a bull (sometimes the body of a lion), the head of a man, and the wings of an eagle--the Assyrian idea of the cherubim. Many of these objects were surrounded by writing in the curious cuneiform or arrow-headed character.

Besides these so-called bulls, Mr Layard found obelisks of black basalt, with figures in low relief representing tribute being brought to the Assyrian kings. On the black obelisk in the British Museum--found in the central mound of Nimroud, amid the ruins of Shalmaneser’s palace--occurs the name and figure of Jehu, king of Israel, as bringing tribute to Shalmaneser II. (about B.C. 842). “I have received the tribute of Jehu, the son of Omri; silver, gold, bowls of gold, chalices of gold, cups of gold, pails of gold, lead, sceptres for the hand of the king, (and) spear-shafts.” The mistake indeed is made of calling him “Jehu, son of Omri;” Jehu sat upon the throne of Omri, but he was a usurper and not of Omri’s house. The tribute bearers on this obelisk carry golden cups and goblets, bars of the precious metals, and other valuable things. Rev. H. G. Tomkins, speaking of these Assyrian sculptured portraits of Jehu and his princes, says they have “strong aquiline features, and that peculiar shrug or quirk of the nostril which gives a shrewd and sinister look to many a Jew of London streets. In drawing one of these familiar faces from the monument, I was ready to believe that it belonged to a lineal ancestor of the London ‘Clo’ men.’ The bag falling down the stooping back deepened this impression.”[51]

In addition to these things Mr Layard brought home a large number of alabaster slabs sculptured with battle scenes, lion hunts, and the representation of sacred trees to which winged figures are making mysterious offerings. It was the custom of these Assyrian kings to have the halls and chambers of their palaces lined with plain alabaster slabs, and after each new victory to have the story engraved in a separate room, so that in one chamber we get an account of a battle in Babylonia, in another the story of the siege of Lachish near the Philistine country, and so on.

But the reader--who has no doubt visited the British Museum and looked at all these things--may perhaps ask why we repeat the familiar story. It is in order to give completeness to the picture, and also to induce young visitors to the Museum to look _into_ things as well as look at them. Where did the antiquities come from? How have the inscriptions been deciphered? What do they say? Although many of them were brought to the Museum years ago, the writing was not immediately read; the process of decipherment is still going on, and hardly a year passes without startling discoveries being made in the Museum itself. In the year 1872 Mr George Smith there, taking up a clay tablet that had been neglected, deciphered the inscription, and found it to be the Chaldean story of the Flood. In 1873, going out to Assyria for the purpose, he actually discovered the missing portion of the tablet. Such facts are intensely interesting to the student of the Scriptures, and they attract us to give a portion of our attention to the legends and the literature of the Assyrians and the Chaldeans.

Nineveh, we read, was a city of three days’ journey. It actually extended 20 miles in length by 10 miles in breadth, and was surrounded by a great wall upon which three chariots could be driven abreast.[52] Within this circumference great mounds exist, as those referred to at Nimroud, Khorsabad, and Kouyunjik. Within these mounds have been discovered six palaces and three temples; although only one of these buildings--the palace of Sennacherib, at Kouyunjik--is in a decent state of preservation. The restoration of this structure by Mr J. Ferguson, the architect, prefixed as an illustration to Layard’s “Nineveh,” shows it to have been a very magnificent pile. A second palace found at Kouyunjik belonged to Assurbanipal, the grandson of Sennacherib.

Sennacherib himself we are familiar with through the Bible. He was that monarch who so terrified the good king Hezekiah, when he sent him a blasphemous message and threatened to come and destroy Jerusalem. What the Jews of Jerusalem had to fear if he should come they knew too well; and we know now, for Sennacherib had been besieging Lachish (2 Kings xviii.; Isaiah xxxvi.) in Palestine, and we have recovered the record of that siege. It is inscribed on one of the bulls discovered at the largest of the royal buildings, and shows the monarch seated on his throne, while the writing around him says, “I, Sennacherib, the great king, the king of Assyria, seated on the throne of judgment before Lachish, I give permission for the slaughter.” Before him are the miserable captives, having rings fixed into their noses or lips, with bridles attached, so that their heads may be held facing forward while the king puts out their eyes with a pointed instrument. Captives are there having their tongues torn out, others being stripped naked and flayed alive, while human heads are piled up into pyramids.

All these tortures the Jews themselves had to fear if Sennacherib should take Jerusalem. It was doubtless a day of terrible suspense in the Holy City, and a night in which few dared go to sleep. But the early morning brought the tidings that the army of Sennacherib was destroyed, that the angel of the Lord had gone forth and slain in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred four score and five thousand men. We knew the Scripture story of the deliverance, but we can realise it better now when we have the record of the siege of Lachish, and know what fate threatened the Jews of Jerusalem.

Moreover, we have recovered Sennacherib’s own account of this very campaign, in which he tells us that he had taken forty-six fenced cities in Judea, and that he shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem “like a bird in a cage.” He forbears to tell us why he failed to capture the bird; he glosses over the disaster which befell his army; and he seems even to misrepresent the facts by declaring that, after this, Hezekiah sent him splendid presents to Babylon, for the presents of Hezekiah were sent before this, when Sennacherib was down by Lachish, and sent with the hope of buying him off, which there was no need to do after his retreat.

A great difficulty in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah is also satisfactorily cleared up by these inscriptions. Sennacherib, coming from the Philistine country to Jerusalem, would have to travel from the south-west, whereas, in an earlier chapter, Isaiah had told us that the Assyrian invader came down from the north, that he captured Carchemish in his way, and conquered Damascus, and took Samaria, and then, after crossing the gorge at Michmash, encamped at Nob, outside Jerusalem on the north. Moreover, the prophet intimates, he is likely to take the city; whereas, in the later chapter, he says, “He shall not take it, nor so much as shoot an arrow against it.” It was a great difficulty, and it appeared to be a contradiction; but it is now satisfactorily explained, for we find from the Assyrian inscriptions that there had been an earlier campaign, conducted by Sargon, the father of Sennacherib, ten years before, and that he it was who actually came by the northerly route, and did capture Carchemish, &c., on his way. There can be no doubt that if we read the 10th chapter of Isaiah with Sargon in our minds, and not Sennacherib, all difficulty disappears.

In the 20th chapter of Isaiah there is an incidental mention of this Sargon, “In the year that the Tartan (_i.e._, the commander-in-chief) came unto Ashdod, when Sargon, the king of Assyria, sent him,” &c.; and for twenty-five centuries this had been the only evidence that any such monarch had lived. Not unnaturally the evidence was thought insufficient--this isolated reference standing like a doubtful fossil in old-world rocks--and many historians and critics wished to identify Sargon with Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, or Esarhaddon. Some said that Isaiah had made a mistake. But Nineveh is disinterred, and it turns out that Sargon was a very great king, and not even the first of that name, for there had been two Sargons, heroes of antiquity, before him. M. Botta finds at Khorsabad the palace of Sargon; and it appears that he was the successor of Shalmaneser, he was the father of Sennacherib, and he reigned for seventeen years. Among the treasures which Mr George Smith recovered from the ruins of Nineveh is the royal seal of Sargon, with his name and date.

As soon as Sargon ascended the throne he prosecuted the Syrian war with vigour, keeping up the siege of Tyre, storming the city of Samaria, and subduing the whole country of Israel. The kingdom of Samaria was put an end to, the people being carried into captivity and spread over the northern provinces of the Assyrian empire and in the cities of the Medes. It appears to be Sargon who is referred to in 2 Kings xvii. 6, and xviii. 11 (although the passages had hitherto been understood of Shalmaneser), where “the king of Assyria” took Samaria and carried Israel away, placing in their cities men from Babylon, from Cuthah, from Avva and Hamath and Sepharvaim.

In the eleventh year of Sargon the people of Ashdod in Philistia deposed the ruler whom Sargon had placed over them, and set up a man named Yavan, whose chief recommendation was his hostility to Assyria. Yavan made league with Hezekiah, king of Judah, with Moab, and with Edom, and led the Philistines to revolt. The leaguers sent an embassy to Egypt, asking aid, and Pharaoh held out encouragements, but did not give any assistance when the hour of danger came. Sargon, learning of the revolt, came to Palestine; Yavan fled into Egypt, the rebellion collapsed, and the cities of Ashdod and Gimtu were taken by the Assyrians. Yavan ultimately delivered himself up to the king of Meroe, or Ethiopia, who bound him and sent him in chains to Sargon.

The expedition against Ashdod took place in B.C. 711, during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and is the one referred to in the twentieth chapter of Isaiah, where the prophet denounces the conduct of Egypt. The way in which Isaiah speaks of the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, in this and other chapters, is remarkably justified by the account given in the Assyrian inscriptions. Egypt is described in the annals of Sargon as a weak power, always stirring up revolts against Assyria, and unable to help or shield the revolters. “In those days” (remarks Mr George Smith, from whose larger work we are here quoting) “Egypt was truly a broken reed. The account which Sargon gives of the turning of the fountains and water-courses to protect the city of Ashdod strikingly parallels the similar preparations of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxxii.); and it is a curious fact that Hezekiah’s preparations had been made only two years before, according to the ordinary chronology.”

As remarked by Mr St Chad Boscawen, the political significance of the embassy of Berodach Baladan (2 Kings xx. 12) is at once apparent when viewed in the light of the monumental inscriptions; and the atmosphere of intrigue, rebellion, and stern vengeance is very clearly apparent in the writings both of the Hebrew and the Assyrian scribe. It was this embassy, in B.C. 712, which brought about the invasion of Judea and the siege of Jerusalem in B.C. 711, by Sargon. The prophecies of Isaiah (chapters x. and xi.), so long unsolved mysteries, are now found to be clear and detailed records of this lost incident in Oriental history.

“Sargon” claimed descent from an ancient hero named Bel-bani; and he assumed the name of an old Babylonian monarch--Sargon of Agadé, who was worshipped as a demi-god--but his own name was not really Sargon. When he stormed the city of Samaria, he carried away, he tells us, 27,000 of the Israelites into captivity. The kingdom of Samaria was suppressed, and those Israelites who were not deported were placed under an Assyrian governor. Thus the Bible account of the captivity of the ten tribes is confirmed. And as to Judah, when we come to the Babylonian annals of the conquest by Nebuchadnezzar, we find confirmation of the statement that he destroyed Jerusalem, and carried the inhabitants of that city into captivity.

These, then, are some instances of the light that is being thrown upon the Scriptures by these Assyrian writings--of the manner in which the Bible narrative is being filled out and illustrated with new and copious details, and on the whole, as all critics are bound to say, is being confirmed in its statements.

Besides Ahab and Omri, Jehu and Hezekiah, the cuneiform tablets mention Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea, kings of Israel; and Azariah, Ahaz, and Manasseh, kings of Judah. Ahaz is called Jehoahaz, his name, like so many more, being compounded with the name of Jehovah; and it would seem that on account of his perversion to foreign worship the Bible writers would not use the Lord’s name in such association. Further, the kings of Assyria and Babylon spoken of in the Bible come before us again in the cuneiform texts, with many particulars of their warlike expeditions,--Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Shalmaneser, Tiglath-Pileser, Nebuchadnezzar, &c. Tiglath-Pileser, we find, was not the first of that name, for there had been a monarch so designated as early as 1300 B.C. In fact the real name of the later king was Pul or Pulu, and it is doubtful whether he was the rightful heir; but when he ascended the throne (in B.C. 745) he took the name of the earlier conqueror, a circumstance which led the Bible writer to suppose there were two kings. [S. A. Strong, in “Records of the Past.” New Series. Vol. v.]

The other palace found at Kouyunjik belonged, as stated before, to Assurbanipal. He was the Sardanapalus of Greek writers and was a great conqueror. His date is about 640 B.C. Mr Rassam, the native co-worker with Mr Layard, was fortunate enough to discover Assurbanipal’s library--the library of the Assyrian kings. The “books” of the Assyrians differed very much from our own. They used to take a tablet of clay, to write upon it with an iron stylus, bake it into terra cotta, and then place the record on the library shelf. These clay tablets were more durable than leaves of paper or rolls of parchment, and the Assyrian records, covered up more than two thousand years ago, are in many cases so well preserved that scholars can read them.

As progress was made in deciphering the inscriptions, it was found that new and remarkable light was being obtained regarding the history and civilisation of half-forgotten empires. Collections of inscribed tablets had been made by Tiglath-Pileser II. (B.C. 745), who had copied some historical inscriptions of his predecessors. Sargon, the father of Sennacherib (B.C. 722), had increased this library by adding a collection of astrological and similar texts; and Sennacherib himself (B.C. 705) had composed copies of the Assyrian canon, short histories, and miscellaneous inscriptions to add to the collection. Sennacherib also moved the library from Calah, its original seat, to Nineveh, the capital; and Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib, added numerous historical and mythological texts. All the inscriptions of the former kings, however, were nothing compared to those written during the reign of Assurbanipal, the grandson of Sennacherib, who not only recorded the events of his own reign, but collected literature from other countries, and caused translations to be made of Babylonian records which were then ancient. Thousands of inscribed tablets were collected and copied, and stored in the royal library at Nineveh; and it is this royal library which has been found.

The amount of Assyrian literature now in our possession is more than equal to the entire contents of the Old Testament. It includes religion, astronomy, mythology, history, geography, natural history, royal decrees and private letters, legal decisions and deeds of sale, lists of tributes and taxes, precepts for private life, &c. Among the sacred legends are stories of the Creation and the Deluge. These narratives did not originate with the Assyrians, for they received their religious system by inheritance from the Babylonians. But neither did they originate with the Babylonians; for we learn from their own records that this learning and these traditions were brought into their country by the Akkadians.

Assurbanipal, when he made raids into Babylonia and captured a city, would carry off the sacred writings to enrich the royal library at Nineveh. When they were brought to Nineveh they were copied by the priests, and they were sometimes translated into the Assyrian tongue, although Assyrians who professed to be well educated used to learn the Akkadian language, much as English boys learn Latin, or theological students study Hebrew and read the writings in the original. It is very interesting to find that these old Assyrians and these ancient Chaldeans had their own version of the Creation, the Deluge, the Building of Babel, &c., which they venerated as being ancient even then, and regarded as most sacred.

The Chaldean narratives differed in minor particulars from those in the Bible. The Chaldean Deluge, for instance, lasted only seven days, instead of the greater part of a year; the vessel was not an ark, but a ship, of proper ship shape, with a pilot on board to navigate it, and other people on board besides the family of Noah. The Chaldean Noah, when the waters were subsiding, sent out not only a raven and a dove, but a swallow as well; and in the end of the event he was translated that he should not see death; and this in the Bible does not occur to Noah, but to Enoch. Nevertheless, with these and other differences, we have the grand fact that the cycle of narratives preserved in the early chapters of Genesis are not mere ingenious inventions on the part of Hebrew writers, but had their parallel in early Chaldea. The key to their exact meaning is for the present lost; but we may hope that it will be recovered, and then there will be an end to the controversy between Geology and Genesis.

2. _Babylonia._

Babylonia comprehended the country from near the Lower Zab to the Persian Gulf, about 400 miles long; and from Elam, east of the Tigris, to the Arabian Desert, west of the Euphrates, an average breadth of 150 miles.

Its history begins very early, for one of its kings--Sargon of Accad--is believed to have reigned in 3800 B.C. The circumstance to which we owe the discovery of this remarkable fact is thus related in Dr Sayce’s “Hibbert Lectures”: “The last king of Babylonia, Nabonidos, had antiquarian tastes, and busied himself not only with the restoration of the old temples of his country, but also with the disinterment of the memorial cylinders which their builders and restorers had buried beneath their foundations. It was known that the great temple of the Sun-god at Sippara, where the mounds of Abu-Hubba now mark its remains, had been originally erected by Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, and attempts had been already made to find the records which, it was assumed, he had entombed under its angles. With true antiquarian zeal Nabonidos continued the search, and did not desist until, like the dean and chapter of some modern cathedral, he had lighted upon ‘the foundation stone’ of Naram-Sin himself. This foundation-stone, he tells us, had been seen by none of his predecessors for 3200 years. In the opinion, accordingly, of Nabonidos, a king who was curious about the past history of his country, and whose royal position gave him the best possible opportunities for learning all that could be known about it, Naram-Sin and his father, Sargon I., lived 3200 years before his own time, or 3750 B.C.”

The date is so remote and so contrary to all our preconceived ideas regarding the antiquity of the Babylonian monarchy, that it was not received without hesitation; but it appears to be supported by other evidence, and is now generally accepted. It is believed, indeed, that the monuments found at _Tell-lo_, including statues of diorite, a material foreign to Babylonia, are earlier still, and must be regarded as pre-Semitic.

It may be asked, what interest can we have in people and things so remote? the Babylonians and their religion have long since perished, and have no influence upon the world of to-day. To this it is replied that through the providential circumstances of the Captivity the Jews were brought into contact with the Babylonians; the Jewish religion in its turn influenced Christianity, and all Christians should be concerned to know what the Jews learned in their exile. In the view of Hebrew prophets the Jews were “sent into foreign countries” to receive education and discipline; the Assyrian conqueror was the rod of God’s anger (Isaiah x. 5), and the Babylonish exile was the punishment meted out to Judah for its sins. The captives who returned again to their own land came back with changed hearts and purified minds, intent upon re-establishing Jerusalem as the home of a righteous people. And they had done something more than learn to abominate idolatry, they had been led to weigh the value of the religious beliefs and practices of the nations they had lived with during seventy years.

But it was not only through the Babylonian exile that the religious ideas of the Babylonian and the Jew came into contact with each other. “It was then, indeed” (says Dr Sayce), “that the ideas of the conquering race were likely to make their deepest and most enduring impression; it was then, too, that the Jew for the first time found the libraries and ancient literature of Chaldea open to his study and use.” But old tradition had already pointed to the valley of the Euphrates as the primeval cradle of his race. We all remember how Abraham, it is said, was born in Ur of the Chaldees, and how the earlier chapters of Genesis make the Euphrates and Tigris two of the rivers of Paradise, and describe the building of the tower of Babylon as the cause of the dispersion of mankind. Now the Hebrew language was the language not only of the Israelites, but also of those earlier inhabitants of the country whom the Jews called Canaanites and the Greeks Phœnicians. Like the Israelites, the Phœnicians held that their ancestors had come from the Persian Gulf and the alluvial Plain of Babylonia. The tradition is confirmed by the researches of comparative philology. Their first home appears to have been in the low-lying desert which stretches eastward to Chaldea--in the very region, in fact, in which stood the great city of Ur, the modern Mugheir.

The earliest known kings of Shumir resided in Ur, and besides that, it was the principal commercial mart of the country. For, strange as it may appear, when we look on a modern map, and observe the ruins 150 miles from the sea, Ur was then a maritime city, with harbour and docks. Through the accumulation of alluvium brought down by the two great rivers, the Babylonian territory has steadily increased from age to age, and the waters of the Gulf have been pushed back. There was, in early times, a distance of many miles between the mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates, and Ur lay very near the mouth of the latter river. The platform of the principal mound which marks the site is faced with a wall 10 feet thick, of red kiln-dried bricks, cemented with bitumen. The mound has something of the shape of a pear, and measures about 2 miles in circumference. This mound representing the town, the suburban district is full of graves of all ages, showing the long period through which the city flourished.

It appears from the inscriptions found at Ur that the city was devoted to the worship of the Moon-god Sin, frequently called “the god Thirty,” in allusion to his function as the measurer of time by months. Here stood the great temple of the god, which was partially explored by Mr K. Loftus--a temple built in stages, of which two remain. The bricks of the temple are inscribed with the name of Ur-Bagas, its founder, the first monarch of united Babylonia of whom we know. Some of the hymns used in the ritual service of the temple, or at any rate composed in honour of the god, were obtained by Assurbanipal, and translated by his scribes out of the Akkadian language into the Assyrian. One of them begins thus:--

“Lord and prince of the gods who in heaven and earth alone is supreme!

“Father Nannar, Lord of the firmament, prince of the gods!

“Father Nannar, Lord of heaven, mighty one, prince of the gods!

“Father Nannar, Lord of the moon, prince of the gods!”

It was from a city where such hymns were repeated in praise of the Moon-god that Abraham was called to rise up and go forth. With Terah, his father, and a tribe of servants and adherents, he started for new lands.

The distance from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran in northern Mesopotamia was considerable, but it lay along the line of the river and by the common route of travel. It is remarkable that Haran, like Ur, was a city of the Moon-god, who appears at one time to have taken primary rank among the Babylonians. Nabonidos restored the temple at Haran, and it is thus that he celebrates the event:--“May the gods who dwell in heaven and earth approach the house of Sin, the father who created them. As for me, Nabonidos, king of Babylon, the completer of this temple, may Sin, the king of the gods of heaven and earth, in the lifting up of his kindly eyes, with joy look upon me month by month at noon and sunset: may he grant me favourable tokens, may he lengthen my days, may he extend my years, may he establish my reign, may he overcome my foes, may he slay my enemies, may he sweep away my opponents. May Nin-gal, the mother of the mighty gods, in the presence of Sin, her loved one, speak like a mother. May Samas and Istar, the bright offspring of his heart, to Sin, the father who begat them, speak of blessing. May Nuzku, the messenger supreme, hearken to my prayer and plead for me.”

There would seem to be as much reason for Abraham to leave Haran as there was for his leaving Ur; and the Bible actually represents the stay in Haran as only a stage in the migration. Canaan was the land which God had “told him of;” and there, building altars successively at Shechem and Bethel and in the oak-grove of Mamre, he realized that the Lord could be approached in every place by those who worshipped in spirit and in truth.

Terah and Abraham had come out of Chaldea with a large family and numerous following. “For years,” says Ragozin, “the tribe travelled without dividing, from pasture to pasture, over the land of Canaan, into Egypt and out of it again, until the quarrel occurred between Abraham’s herdsmen and Lot’s, when Lot chose the Plain of the Jordan and Abraham remained in the centre of the country. After the battle of four kings against five, in the Vale of Siddim, when Lot was taken prisoner, Abraham pursued the victorious army, now carelessly marching homewards, with its long train of captives and booty, and produced a panic among them by a sudden and vigorous onslaught. Not only was Lot rescued, with his women folk and his goods, but all the captured goods and people were brought back too. Chedorlaomer, of whom the spirited Bible narrative gives us so life-like a sketch, lived, according to the most probable calculations, about 2200 B.C. In the cuneiform inscriptions he is called Khudur-Lagamar; and among the few vague forms whose blurred outlines loom out of the twilight of those dim ages, he is the second with any flesh and blood reality about him, probably the first, conqueror of whom the world has any authentic record.”

It is supposed that the “Amraphel, king of Shinar,” who marched with Khudur-Lagamar as his ally, was no other than a king of Babylon, one of whose names has been read Amarpal, while “Ariokh of Ellassar” was an Elamite, Eriaku, brother or cousin of Khudur-Lagamar and king of Larsam. At Larsam the Elamite conquerors had established a powerful dynasty, closely allied by blood to the principal one, which had made the venerable Ur its headquarters.

Babylon was a very ancient city of Babylonia, and is first mentioned in the inscriptions of Izdhubar,[53] a mythical hero, whose name is connected with the Chaldean story of the Flood. It remained for some centuries of secondary importance, but became at length the capital of the country. The native name, Bab-ilu, signifies the Gate-of-God, corresponding to Beth-el, the House of God, in the land of Palestine. According to Herodotus, the city stood in a broad plain, and was an exact square, measuring 15 miles each way. It was surrounded, he says, by a broad and deep moat, full of water, behind which rose a wall 50 royal cubits in breadth and 200 in height. In digging the moat the alluvial clay was at once made into bricks and baked in kilns; and with these the walls were built, the cement being hot bitumen. “On the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber, facing one another, leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn. In the circuit of the wall are a hundred gates of brass, with brazen lintels and side-posts.”

The broad stream of the Euphrates passed through the city, dividing it into two parts, and the centre of each division was occupied by a fortress. In the one stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size; in the other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus, a square enclosure, 2 furlongs each way, with gates of solid brass. “In the middle of the precinct,” says Herodotus, “there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight. The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers.... On the topmost tower there is a spacious temple, and inside the temple stands a couch of unusual size, richly adorned, with a golden table by its side. Below, in the same precinct, there is a second temple, in which is a sitting figure of Jupiter, all of gold.” Other historians make the circuit of the city from 45 to 48 miles, instead of 60; and it is hardly necessary to say that modern writers question both its extent and the height of its walls.

The god whom Herodotus calls Jupiter-Belus was Bel-Merodach. Babylon was called “the dwelling-place of Bel” and the “town of Marduk.” The temple of Bel is represented by the ruin of Babil, a mound on the eastern side of the stream. Some writers believe this to be the site of the Tower of Babel. Others, including Sir Henry Rawlinson, have identified the Babel tower with the ruin of Birs Nimroud, the ancient Borsippa, on the western side of the river. Birs Nimroud is one of the most imposing ruins in the country, standing in the midst of a vast plain, with nothing to break the view. Sir H. Rawlinson excavated at the site, and discovered that the tower was built in seven stages, the material being brickwork on an earthen platform. The first stage was an exact square, 272 feet each way, and 26 feet high, the bricks blackened with bitumen. The higher stages were of course successively smaller, but they were not placed in the centre of those on which they rested, but considerably nearer to the south-western end which constituted the back of the building. The bricks of the lowest stage being blackened, those of the second stage were orange-coloured, of the third red, the fourth it is supposed were plated with gold. Seven colours were used, emblematic of the planets, and the building was called the Temple of the Seven Spheres. On the seventh stage there was probably placed the ark or tabernacle, which seems to have been again 15 feet high, and must have nearly covered the top of the seventh story. This temple was sacred to Nebo, the Babylonian Mercury, the inventor of the alphabet, “the writer,” “the prophet,” “the author of the oracle.” Assurbanipal is never weary of telling us, at the end of the documents which his scribes had copied from Babylonian originals, that Nebo and Tasmit had given him broad ears, and endowed him with seeing eyes, so that he had written and bound together and published the store of tablets, a work which none of the kings who had gone before him had undertaken, even the secrets of Nebo!

From receptacles at the corners of the stages above described, Sir H. Rawlinson obtained inscribed cylinders, stating that the building was the Temple of the Seven Planets, which had been partially built by a former king of Babylon, and having fallen into decay, was restored and completed by Nebuchadnezzar. It was at Birs Nimroud that Mr Hormuzd Rassam found a leaf of metal with some writing on it, which proved to be a dedication by Nebuchadnezzar to the god Nebo for his restoration to health. If this relates to Nebuchadnezzar’s recovery from his madness, it is an interesting confirmation of the story in the Book of Daniel.

“The secrets of Nebo” referred to by Assurbanipal, were astronomical records and other writings stored up in Nebo’s temple. The religion of the Babylonians was based on a study of the heavenly bodies, and was so intimately connected with astronomy that it was necessary for the priests to be astronomers. There were observatories at the principal temples; observations of the heavens were regularly made, and naturally the records were preserved in the temple chambers, and became the nucleus of large libraries. It was the good fortune of Mr Rassam to discover one of the most important of these libraries, at Abu Hubba--about 30 miles south-east from Bagdad--on one of the canals branching eastward from the Euphrates. Abu Hubba proves to be the ancient Sippara, the Biblical Sepharvaim, whence some of the people were taken, to re-people Samaria after the ten tribes of Israel were carried away. The Hebrew name being in the dual form, and signifying the two Sippars, we look for duality in the ruins, and we find them actually on the two sides of the stream. Sippara, we knew from Berosus, was a great seat of sun-worship; the temple of the god Shamas was here, and it was here that Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah, was said to have buried the records of the antediluvian world. The explorations of Mr Rassam have restored to us the remains of the Sun-god’s temple.

The citadel occupies the southern portion of the _enceinte_, and its highest point on the south-west face was once on the banks of a stream, either the Euphrates itself or a broad canal communicating with the river. The trenches excavated in the mound soon struck the walls of a building, and by following the line of this wall the outer face of a large square edifice was uncovered. Trenches and shafts sunk in the interior showed that within the outer rampart there were more than one hundred chambers ranged round a central court. In the central portion of the mound an important pair of chambers were found, and in the centre of one of them a large brick altar platform, about 30 feet square, upon which it was evident that the altar of burnt-offering had stood, for there were charred fragments about. The axis of this chamber was north-east and south-west, and at the north-east end a doorway was found, leading into a smaller chamber, the floor of which was paved with a material resembling asphalt. Under this floor Mr Rassam discovered a terra cotta box containing three inscribed records, namely, a stone tablet with a sculptured panel, representing the worship of the Sun-god, and two cylinders. The cylinders were found to bear inscriptions of Nabonidos, king of Babylon, B.C. 555, recording the restoration of this temple in the year B.C. 550; and the stone tablet bore a long and important record of the restoration of the temple by Nabu-abla-iddina, king of Babylon, whose date may be given as about B.C. 852. Above the figure of the Sun-god on this tablet were the words--“The statue of the Sun-god--the great lord--dwelling in the House of Light, which is within the city of Sippara.” But the statue and other objects of value had been removed. From the cylinder of Nabonidos, as previously stated, we learn that the temple had been restored by Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon I., in the year 3750 B.C. It was of very great interest to find in the lower strata of the temple area a small ovoid of pink and white marble, bearing an inscription of Sargon I., of such archaic character as to appear to confirm this date.

The temple was called by many titles--as, “Palace of the God,” “High Place,” “Dwelling of the God,” “Resting-Place of the God,”--and, among others, the “House of God,” in Akkadian, E-Din-gira, in Semitic Babylonian, Bit-ilu, in Hebrew, Bethel.

The city of Akkad or Agadé, built by Sargon I., seems to have been a part of the double Sippara, and here Sargon founded the celebrated library which contained among its treasures a great work on astronomy and astrology, in seventy books. Around this nucleus other writings aggregated, and the temple of Shamas became the great record office of the state. Mr Rassam found at Abu Hubba some thousands of tablets relating to fiscal, legal, and commercial transactions; and it would thus appear that all documents of this character were preserved by the priests. A remarkable example of the careful preservation of the writings committed to their charge was furnished in the course of the excavations. On the south-east side of the large quadrangle was a smaller square, in which were a series of chambers, evidently offices of the temple. In one of these over 30,000 tablets were found stored. They were packed by Mr Rassam as he found them, and removed to England without any disturbance of their order; and when the cases came to be examined it was found that the majority of the tablets were arranged chronologically. Ranging as these tablets did from B.C. 625 to B.C. 200, they must have lain for nearly 2000 years quite undisturbed in the ruins.

A Babylonian temple was also the court of justice, and as the Jewish Sanhedrim met in the temple at Jerusalem, so did the council of the grey-haired ones meet in the courts of Chaldean temples to answer judgment. Dr Oppert has translated some contracts and legal decisions relating indubitably to captive Jews who had been carried to Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem. One of the most interesting of them is a law-suit commenced by a Jewish slave named Barachiel in order to recover his freedom. The case was as follows:--Barachiel--who bears the same name as the father of Elihu in the Book of Job (xxxii. 2-6),--had been the property of a wealthy person named Akhi-nuri, who had sold him to a widow of the name of Gaga, about 570 B.C. He remained in the house of this lady as a slave, with the power of liberating himself by paying a sum equal to his _peculium_ or private property, which he had been allowed to acquire, like a slave in ancient Rome; but it seems that he was never fortunate enough to be able to afford the sum of money required. He remained with Gaga twenty-one years, and was considered the _res_ or property of the house, and as such was handed over in pledge, was restored, and finally became the dowry of Nubti, the daughter of Gaga. Nubti gave him to her son and husband in exchange for a house and some slaves. After the death of the two ladies he was sold to the wealthy publican, Itti-Marduk-baladh, from whose house he escaped twice. Taken the second time, he instituted an action in order that he might be recognised as a free-born citizen, of the family of Belrimanni; and to prove that he was of noble origin he pretended that he had performed the matrimonial solemnities at the marriage of his master’s daughter, Qudasa, with a certain Samas-mudammiq. Such a performance, doubtless, implied that the officiating priest was of free birth, and no slave or freed-man was qualified to take part in it.

The name Barachiel, says Dr Oppert, is evidently that of a Jew. He is called “a slave of ransom;” that is to say, not a slave who has already purchased his freedom, but a slave who was allowed by special laws to employ his private fortune in the work of liberating himself. He professes to have been the “joiner” of the hands of bride and bridegroom at a wedding which must have taken place before the thirty-fifth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, when he still belonged to the house of Akhi-nuri, “the seller of the slave,” as he is called at the end of the text.

The judges, after perusing all the evidence, do not find any proofs that Barachiel was a man of free birth, and accordingly say to him:--“Prove to us that you are the descendant of a noble ancestor.” Thereupon Barachiel confesses that he is not free-born, but has twice run away from the house of his master; as, however, the act was seen by many people, he was afraid, and said he was the son of a noble ancestor. “But I am not free-born,” he confesses, and then gives an account of the events of his life. The judges decided that Barachiel should be restored to his condition as a slave of ransom.[54]

Such a story as this serves to show what the life of many an Israelite may have been during the Captivity.

3. _How the Writings were Read._

To the ordinary visitor to the British Museum, looking at the cuneiform inscriptions--nothing but arrowhead characters variously grouped--it seems wonderful that they should constitute a language, and incredible that they should be read. The question is often asked, “How can we trust the translations put before us? How do we know that they are any more than guesses?” It may be well, therefore, to relate how the key to the lost character was obtained, and how the decipherment proceeded until now the translation of narrative texts can be made with as much certainty as translations from the Hebrew of the Old Testament.

The clue was obtained from the Behistun inscriptions, through the energy of Sir Henry Rawlinson; and the records of the successive steps of the discovery will be found in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society_, in the _Quarterly Review_ for March 1847, and in such popular works as Mr Vaux’s “Nineveh and Persepolis.” Edwin Norris and others had laboured, and the process of deciphering cuneiform texts was already well advanced when Sir Henry Layard and Mr Rassam discovered such abundant treasures in the mounds on the Tigris. The inscriptions which are now known to record the personal history of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, are almost always in three forms of the cuneiform character, which may be described as Persian, Median, and Assyrian, and were addressed to different races of his subjects. The most extensive monument of the kind is found on a rock escarpment at Behistun, on the frontiers of Persia, a place on the high road from Babylonia to the further east. The rock is almost perpendicular, and rises abruptly from the plain to the height of 1700 feet, an imposing object which must always have attracted the attention of travellers. It was known to the Greeks, who erected on the top of it a temple to Zeus; and it had probably been sacred to Ormazd, the supreme deity of the Persians. High up on the face of this rock, 300 feet above the plain, there are two tablets, one of them containing sculptured figures and nearly a thousand lines of cuneiform character. The sculptured portion of the rock represents a line of nine persons united by a cord tied round their necks, and having their hands bound behind their backs, who are approaching another of more majestic stature, who, holding up his right hand in token of authority, treads on a prostrate body. His countenance expresses the idea of a great king or conqueror, and behind the king stand two guards with long spears in their hands.

The reign of Darius was disturbed by many revolts, and the insurrectionary attempts of many impostors and pretenders. It is these impostors who are represented as prisoners in the sculpture, and over the head of each figure we find his name and description. The first one, the prostrate figure, is “Gomates, the Magian, an impostor,” who said, “I am Bartius, the son of Cyrus; I am the King,” and so on. The inscription is by far the largest and most important record which has been preserved of the greatness of Darius, and of the Persian state and system. The lines over the monarch himself would read in English as follows:--

“I am Darius the king, the great king, the king of kings, the king of Persia, the king of the (dependent) provinces, the son of Hystaspes, the grandson of Arsames, the Achæmenian,” &c.

It will be noticed here how the word king is repeated; as the inscription proceeds the name Darius is repeated also. A German scholar, Professor Grotefend, had observed that such inscriptions generally begin with three or four words, one of which varies while the others do not. He suspected that the word which changes would be the king’s name--as different inscriptions would relate to different kings--and that the other words gave the king’s titles. He felt convinced that a word which was constantly repeated signified “king,” and conjectured that when two kings were mentioned they were probably father and son. Finding that the names of Cyrus and Cambyses would not suit, because no two names in the inscription he was dealing with commenced with the same letter, he tried others. Cyrus and Artaxerxes seemed equally inapplicable, because of their unequal length, the two names he was dealing with being of six letters each. The only names remaining were those of Darius and Xerxes; and these on further comparison appeared to agree so exactly with the characters that he did not hesitate at once to adopt them. Having thus found out more than twelve letters, among which were precisely those composing the royal title, the next business was to give these names their original Persian form, in order that by ascertaining the correct value of each character, the royal title might be deciphered. From the “Zendavesta” of Anquetil du Perron, M. Grotefend found that the Greek form Hystaspes was originally represented in Persian by Gustasp, Kishtasp, or Wistasp. The first seven letters of this name were at once discovered, while a comparison of all the royal titles led him to the conclusion that the three last formed the inflection of the genitive singular, corresponding to the Latin Hystaspis. Thus did Grotefend proceed step by step, his ingenuity and perseverance being beyond all praise. Meantime Sir Henry Rawlinson, although stationed in Persia and cut off in a great degree from the results of European scholarship, was devoting himself with ardour to the study of the Behistun inscription, and making independent progress.

It turned out that of the three forms of arrow-headed character in this class of inscriptions the Persian was the easiest to decipher, being an alphabetic language, and that the other two were not purely alphabetic. Still, a sure clue was obtained, and the key being applied by an increasing number of investigators, the Median and the Assyrian in the course of time yielded up their secrets. At length, in 1857, to put the method of decipherment to a test, the inscription of Tiglath-Pileser I. was submitted to four eminent Assyriologists, namely, Sir H. Rawlinson, Dr Oppert, Mr Fox Talbot, and Dr Hincks, who made translations of it independently, and sent them, under seal, to the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society. When they were opened and compared it was found that they exhibited a remarkable resemblance to one another, much greater, in fact, than could have been the case if the method of decipherment had not been sound. Since 1857 immense advances have been made, until now, as Dr Sayce confidently declares, it is possible to translate an ordinary Assyrian text with as much ease and certainty as a page of the Old Testament.

[_Authorities and Sources_:--“Assyrian Discoveries.” By George Smith. “The Chaldean Genesis.” By George Smith. “Ancient History from the Monuments: Assyria.” By George Smith. “Ancient History from the Monuments: Babylonia.” By Rev. Dr A. H. Sayce. “Nineveh and its Remains.” H. A. Layard. “Nineveh and Persepolis.” W. S. W. Vaux. “Guide to the Kouyunjik Gallery.” British Museum. “The Story of the Nations: Assyria.” By Zénaïde A. Ragozin. “The Story of the Nations: Babylonia.” Zénaïde A. Ragozin. “Hibbert Lectures.” Dr A. H. Sayce. “Records of the Past.” “Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology.” Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible.” “From Under the Dust of Ages.” St Chad Boscawen.]

THE VANDALISM OF THE ORIENTALS.

It seems to be quite providential that the calamities of cities and the burial of treasures of art and knowledge should result in their preservation, and contribute to the education of the world. It is remarkable also that the explorers of the buried cities of the East should be the Christian nations of the West, and that such a wealth of discovery should enrich this nineteenth century. Through the catastrophe which overwhelmed Pompeii, and preserved it under volcanic ashes for 1700 years, we have become better acquainted with the private life of the Romans than would have been possible by any other means. The fugitive from Pompeii, in the hurry of escape, abandoned articles of intrinsic value, and could not pause or stoop to pick them up; yet they were saved from the hand of the robber that they might give instruction to the world many centuries afterwards. The golden diadems, ear-rings, and bracelets which Dr Schliemann found in a great silver vase on the supposed site of Troy had been packed in the greatest haste, and the fair owner, unable to return to them, no doubt gave them up for lost; but she was an instrument in the hand of Providence, and knew not what she did. By the recovery of the Assyrian royal library, we are being informed concerning the religion and mythology, as well as the history, of early nations, about whom we knew too little through the ordinary channels of history. Think of Assurbanipal’s librarian at Nineveh speculating on the ultimate destiny of the records under his care! How could he guess that when the empire was passed away, its kings forgotten, its gods put aside as mythical inventions, there would come scholars from beyond the pillars of Hercules and learn to decipher its records?

How disappointing is it, then, to all lovers of knowledge, as well as to all students of Bible antiquities, to know that, now, when the existence of these treasures is known, there is too little enterprise in our people to go and reap the harvest of them; and while we wait they are being carelessly or wantonly destroyed! One explorer tells of an Arab who found an entire black statue, and because it was too heavy to carry away bodily, broke off its head and carried that away first. Palaces and temples, when unearthed, are used as quarries for the building stone. Limestone slabs, covered with precious sculptures and inscriptions, are burnt for the sake of the lime. Decaying mounds of bricks, because they contain nitre, are carted off as manure for the fields! The following are a few instances of the vandalism which seems to be defeating the apparent intention of Providence.

The beautiful sanctuaries “erected by Amenhotep III. in the island of Elephantine, which were figured by the members of the French expedition at the end of the last century, were destroyed by the Turkish governor of Assouan in 1822.”--_Professor Maspero._

The great Sphinx at Gizeh.--“The nose and beard have been broken off by fanatics.”--_Professor Maspero._

Sebakh diggers ply their occupation in the midst of the mounds of the ancient city of Thebes. “_Sebakh_, signifying ‘salt,’ or ‘saltpetre,’ is the general term for that saline dust which accumulates wherever there are mounds of brick or limestone ruins. This dust is much valued as a manure or ‘top-dressing,’ and is so constantly dug out and carried away by the natives, that the mounds of ancient towns and villages are rapidly undergoing destruction in all parts of Egypt.”--_Miss Amelia B. Edwards._

“Prisse d’Avennes relates that when he visited, in 1836, Behbeit el Hagar, the site of the old Heb, in the Sebennyte nome, near the present city of Mansoorah, he went away disgusted, seeing the regular trade that was carried on in the most beautiful sculptures of the ruined temple, which was besides used as a quarry by the inhabitants of the spot.”--_M. Naville._

“When the sheikh on whose land I was excavating became reassured as to the object of my researches, he told me that some twenty years ago a great number of inscribed stones were unearthed on that spot [site of Goshen]; but since that time they had disappeared, most of them having been used for building purposes. The great number of broken pieces which are built into the walls of the houses prove that the sheikh spoke the truth.”--_M. Naville._

“At Babel there are four wells scientifically built. When Mr Rassam cleared one of them of _debris_ he came to water at the bottom. Each stone is 3 feet in thickness, is bored, and made to fit the one below it so exactly that you would imagine the whole well was hewn out of the solid rock. Yet the Arabs break up these stones for the sake of making lime.”--_Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology_, viii. 185.

“In 1815 Lady Hester Stanhope conducted excavations at Ascalon, and found a colossal statue of a Roman emperor, thought possibly to have been that of Augustus, erected by Herod. It was unfortunately broken up by the workmen in search of treasure supposed to be concealed within.”--Conder’s “_Syrian Stone-lore_.”

“At Cæsarea a broad street has been laid out (by the recent immigrants from Bosnia) which passes directly over the remains of the Roman temple built by Herod in honour of Cæsar and of Rome (the finely dressed white stone being turned to good account by the colonists), and over the Crusaders’ Cathedral, the foundations and walls of which also furnish splendid building material.”--“_Quarterly Statement_ of Palestine Exploration Fund,” July 1884.

“I pointed out that while the objects underground would keep a few years longer, the march of civilisation was rapidly erasing all records of the past above ground. The ancient ruins were being burnt into lime, the old names were giving way to modern appellations, and the records of the past were disappearing.”--_Colonel Sir Charles Warren._

“Of Memphis there is at present hardly a trace left; and other great cities known to ancient travellers have disappeared with their monuments. Mummy cases and coffins with most interesting inscriptions have for centuries been used as fuel. And innumerable manuscripts have suffered the same fate.... The tombs are convenient abodes for Arab families, who destroy the paintings and inscriptions either by the dense smoke of their fires or by actually pulling down walls. I was taken to see the ‘Lay of the Harper,’ one of the most interesting remains of Egyptian poetry, which was published a few years ago by Dr Dumichen, but we found the walls on which the poem was written a mere heap of ruins. But the vandalism of European and American travellers is most fatal to the monuments. There is, or rather was, a famous picture at Beni-hassan, which was formerly thought to represent Joseph presenting his brethren to Pharaoh. An English lady has been heard to request her guide to cut out for her the face of Joseph!”--_P. Le Page Renouf._

TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From “Records of the Past.” New Series, vol. ii.

[2] See Bishop Butler’s “Sermon on the Character of Balaam.”

[3] Rev. H. G. Tomkins argues that he was a Semite, though in close contact with the Hittites.--“Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” November 1889.

[4] Major Conder, in the “Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” August 1889.

[5] See the authorities given in “Rawlinson’s Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament.”

[6] Dyer’s “Pompeii.”

[7] Exod. xxix. 22; Levit. vii. 32, viii. 25, ix. 21; Num. xviii. 18.

[8] See Sayce’s “Fresh Light from the Monuments,” p. 139.

[9] “Records of the Past,” New Series, vol. ii.

[10] Brugsch, “History of Egypt,” vol. ii.

[11] May it not perhaps have been a new name given to Bubastis, after rebuilding?

[12] M. Naville, whose excavations at Tell Basta have shown that Bubastis was a very large city, and a favourite resort of the king and his family, thinks it quite possible that, at the time we are speaking of, the king was at Bubastis and not at Zoan.

[13] Gesenius gives the meaning, “rush, reed, seaweed;” and in Exod. ii. 3, Moses is said to have been laid in an ark of _souph_ or reeds.

[14] In this paraphrase I render one of the _vavs_ by “then” instead of “and.” This will be allowed me. What will be objected to is the assumption that Lasha is Laish, especially as Lasha contains a different radical, the _ayin_ (לָשַׁע). But the passage in Genesis may give an archaic spelling; and as Lasha signifies “the breaking through of waters,” it is eminently descriptive of the source of the Jordan at Dan. To place Lasha in the south-east of Palestine, as is done in Smith’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” is to charge the description in Genesis with being defective, for how are the limits of a people defined by tracing two sides of an irregular quadrangle?

[15] Josephus: “Wars,” iii. 10. § 8.

[16] “Twenty-one years’ Work in the Holy Land.”

[17] For an account of the “Book of Jasher,” see the “Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch.”

[18] Little Hermon is really a misnomer for the conical hill of Duhy just north of the Valley of Jezreel. The mention of Tabor and Hermon together in Psalm lxxxix. 12, has misled those who did not realize that Tabor would be in the same line of vision with Mount Hermon, for many observers in the south.

[19] See the chapter on Jerusalem.

[20] _Greek_ “Akra.”

[21] ἡ καθύπερθεν αὐταῖς

[22] “Survey Memoirs.”

[23] This is Dr Sayce’s improved translation, in “Records of the Past,” Second Series, vol. ii. The inscription has since been cut out and stolen.

[24] “Quarterly Statement,” Jan. 1890.

[25] Might mean arched, or gibbous, or humped. Conder understands it “rising to a peak.” Q. S. Oct. 1873.

[26] “Quarterly Statement,” January 1876.

[27] “Wars,” v. 4. 2.

[28] “Quarterly Statement,” Jan. 1886.

[29] In the Authorised Version it is Meah, in the Revised Version Hammeah. It might be translated Tower of the Hundred.

[30] Ezra iv. 16, 20; v. 3, 6; vi. 6, 8, 13; viii. 36.

[31] The Nethinim were but servants of the Levites.

[32] “Recovery of Jerusalem,” pp. 155-9.

[33] Zion is only called Moriah as the hill of vision (2 Chron. iii. 1).

[34] The resemblances are better seen in the Hebrew.

[35] “Quarterly Statement,” April, 1890.

[36] “Quarterly Statement,” Jan.-March 1870.

[37] Antiq., vii. 14, 4.

[38] Antiq., ix. 10. 4.

[39] “Sinai and Palestine,” chap. iii.

[40] “Quarterly Statement,” July, 1890.

[41] “The Recovery of Jerusalem,” p. 284.

[42] “Quarterly Statement,” 1872, p. 116.

[43] It would be legitimate to read “by the sheep-pool” instead of “by the sheep-gate.”

[44] xv. 11. 5.

[45] v. 5. 2.

[46] “Sinai and Palestine.”

[47] Conder’s “Tent Work.”

[48] See a paper by Rev. Charles S. Robinson, in the _Century Magazine_, November, 1888.

[49] Genesis x. 6.

[50] Lessing: “Education of the Human Race.”

[51] “Journal of the Anthropological Institute,” February, 1889.

[52] It is right to say that some writers are not convinced that Nineveh was 60 miles round. They regard Nimroud, Kouyunjik, &c., as so many separate cities.

[53] Or Gilgames. (See _Academy_, Nov. 8th, 1890.)

[54] “Records of the Past.” New Series, Vol. i.

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

1. Obvious spelling, printers’ and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.

2. Where appropriate, both hyphenated and non-hyphenated words have been retained as in the original.

3. Where appropriate, original spelling has been retained.

4. Superscripts are represented using the caret character, e.g. D^r.

5. In chapter 3, for the numbered subsections, the number 4 was incorrectly stated as 5. This has been corrected.