The earliest mention of Babylon is in a dated tablet of the reign of Sargon of Akkad (3800 B.C.), who is stated to have built sanctuaries there to Anunit and A[=e] (or Ea), and H. Winckler may be right in restoring a mutilated passage in the annals of this king so as to make it mean that Babylon owed its name to Sargon, who made it the capital of his empire. If so, it fell back afterwards into the position of a mere provincial town and remained so for centuries, until it became the capital of "the first dynasty of Babylon" and then of Khammurabi's empire (2250 B.C.). From this time onward it continued to be the capital of Babylonia and the holy city of western Asia. The claim to supremacy in Asia, however real in fact, was not admitted _de jure_ until the claimant had "taken the hands" of Bel-Merodach at Babylon, and thereby been accepted as his adopted son and the inheritor of the old Babylonian empire. It was this which made Tiglath-pileser III. and other Assyrian kings so anxious to possess themselves of Babylon and so to legitimize their power. Sennacherib alone seems to have failed in securing the support of the Babylonian priesthood; at all events he never underwent the ceremony, and Babylonia throughout his reign was in a constant state of revolt which was finally suppressed only by the complete destruction of the capital. In 689 B.C. its walls, temples and palaces were razed to the ground and the rubbish thrown into the Arakhtu, the canal which bordered the earlier Babylon on the south. The act shocked the religious conscience of western Asia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib was held to be an expiation of it, and his successor Esar-haddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death Babylonia was left to his elder son Samas-sum-yukin, who eventually headed a revolt against his brother Assur-bani-pal of Assyria. Once more Babylon was besieged by the Assyrians and starved into surrender. Assur-bani-pal purified the city and celebrated a "service of reconciliation," but did not venture to "take the hands" of Bel. In the subsequent overthrow of the Assyrian empire the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance.
With the recovery of Babylonian independence under Nabopolassar a new era of architectural activity set in, and his son Nebuchadrezzar made Babylon one of the wonders of the ancient world. It surrendered without a struggle to Cyrus, but two sieges in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, and one in the reign of Xerxes, brought about the destruction of the defences, while the monotheistic rule of Persia allowed the temples to fall into decay. Indeed part of the temple of E-Saggila, which like other ancient temples served as a fortress, was intentionally pulled down by Xerxes after his capture of the city. Alexander was murdered in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar, which must therefore have been still standing, and cuneiform texts show that, even under the Seleucids, E-Saggila was not wholly a ruin. The foundation of Seleucia in its neighbourhood, however, drew away the population of the old city and hastened its material decay. A tablet dated 275 B.C. states that on the 12th of Nisan the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to the new town, where a palace was built as well as a temple to which the ancient name of E-Saggila was given. With this event the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later we find sacrifices being still performed in its old sanctuary.
Our knowledge of its topography is derived from the classical writers, the inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar, and the excavations of the _Deutsche Orientgesellschaft_, which were begun in 1899. The topography is necessarily that of the Babylon of Nebuchadrezzar; the older Babylon which was destroyed by Sennacherib having left few, if any, traces behind. Most of the existing remains lie on the E. bank of the Euphrates, the principal being three vast mounds, the _Babil_ to the north, the _Qasr_ or "Palace"
(also known as the _Mujelliba_) in the centre, and the Ish[=a]n 'Amran ibn 'Ali, with the outlying spur of the Jumjuma, to the south. Eastward of these come the Ish[=a]n el-Aswad or "Black Mound" and three lines of rampart, one of which encloses the _Babil_ mound on the N. and E. sides, while a third forms a triangle with the S.E. angle of the other two. W. of the Euphrates are other ramparts and the remains of the ancient Borsippa.
We learn from Herodotus and Ctesias that the city was built on both sides of the river in the form of a square, and enclosed within a double row of lofty walls to which Ctesias adds a third. Ctesias makes the outermost wall 360 stades (42 m.) in circumference, while according to Herodotus it measured 480 stades (56 m.), which would include an area of about 200 sq.
m. The estimate of Ctesias is essentially the same as that of Q. Curtius (v. 1. 26), 368 stades, and Clitarchus (_ap._ Diod. Sic. ii. 7), 365 stades; Strabo (xvi. 1. 5) makes it 385 stades. But even the estimate of Ctesias, assuming the stade to be its usual length, would imply an area of about 100 sq. m. According to Herodotus the height of the walls was about 335 ft. and their width 85 ft; [v.03 p.0099] according to Ctesias the height was about 300 ft. The measurements seem exaggerated, but we must remember that even in Xenophon's time (_Anab._ iii. 4. 10) the ruined wall of Nineveh was still 150 ft high, and that the spaces between the 250 towers of the wall of Babylon (Ctes. 417, _ap._ Diod. ii. 7) were broad enough to let a four-horse chariot turn (Herod. i. 179). The clay dug from the moat served to make the bricks of the wall, which had 100 gates, all of bronze, with bronze lintels and posts. The two inner enclosures were faced with enamelled tiles and represented hunting-scenes. Two other walls ran along the banks of the Euphrates and the quays with which it was lined, each containing 25 gates which answered to the number of streets they led into. Ferry-boats plied between the landing-places of the gates, and a movable drawbridge (30 ft. broad), supported on stone piers, joined the two parts of the city together.
The account thus given of the walls must be grossly exaggerated and cannot have been that of an eye-witness. Moreover, the two walls--Imgur-Bel, the inner wall, and Nimitti-Bel, the outer--which enclosed the city proper on the site of the older Babylon have been confused with the outer ramparts (enclosing the whole of Nebuchadrezzar's city), the remains of which can still be traced to the east. According to Nebuchadrezzar, Imgur-Bel was built in the form of a square, each side of which measured "30 _aslu_ by the great cubit"; this would be equivalent, if Professor F. Hommel is right, to 2400 metres. Four thousand cubits to the east the great rampart was built "mountain high," which surrounded both the old and the new town; it was provided with a moat, and a reservoir was excavated in the triangle on the inner side of its south-east corner, the western wall of which is still visible. The Imgur-Bel of Sargon's time has been discovered by the German excavators running south of the _Qasr_ from the Euphrates to the Gate of Ishtar.
The German excavations have shown that the _Qasr_ mound represents both the old palace of Nabopolassar, and the new palace adjoining it built by Nebuchadrezzar, the wall of which he boasts of having completed in 15 days.
They have also laid bare the site of the "Gate of Ishtar" on the east side of the mound and the little temple of Nin-Makh (Beltis) beyond it, as well as the raised road for solemn processions (_A-ibur-sabu_) which led from the Gate of Ishtar to E-Saggila and skirted the east side of the palace.
The road was paved with stone and its walls on either side lined with enamelled tiles, on which a procession of lions is represented. North of the mound was a canal, which seems to have been the Libilkhegal of the inscriptions, while on the south side was the Arakhtu, "the river of Babylon," the brick quays of which were built by Nabopolassar.
The site of E-Saggila is still uncertain. The German excavators assign it to the 'Amr[=a]n mound, its tower having stood in a depression immediately to the north of this, and so place it south of the _Qasr_; but E. Lindl and F. Hommel have put forward strong reasons for considering it to have been north of the latter, on a part of the site which has not yet been explored.
A tablet copied by George Smith gives us interesting details as to the plan and dimensions of this famous temple of Bel; a plan based on these will be found in Hommel's _Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients_, p. 321. There were three courts, the outer or great court, the middle court of Ishtar and Zamama, and the inner court on the east side of which was the tower of seven stages (known as the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth), 90 metres high according to Hommel's calculation of the measurements in the tablet; while on the west side was the temple proper of Merodach and his wife Sarpanit or Zarpanit, as well as chapels of Anu, Ea and Bel on either side of it. A winding ascent led to the summit of the tower, where there was a chapel, containing, according to Herodotus, a couch and golden table (for the showbread) but no image. The golden image of Merodach 40 ft. high, stood in the temple below, in the sanctuary called E-Kua or "House of the Oracle," together with a table, a mercy-seat and an altar--all of gold. The deities whose chapels were erected within the precincts of the temple enclosure were regarded as forming his court.
Fifty-five of these chapels existed altogether in Babylon, but some of them stood independently in other parts of the city.
There are numerous gates in the walls both of E-Saggila and of the city, the names of many of which are now known. Nebuchadrezzar says that he covered the walls of some of them with blue enamelled tiles "on which bulls and dragons were pourtrayed," and that he set up large bulls and serpents of bronze on their thresholds.
The _Babil_ mound probably represents the site of a palace built by Nebuchadrezzar at the northern extremity of the city walls and attached to a defensive outwork 60 cubits in length. Since H. Rassam found remains of irrigation works here it might well be the site of the Hanging Gardens.
These consisted, we are told, of a garden of trees and flowers, built on the topmost of a series of arches some 75 ft. high, and in the form of a square, each side of which measured 400 Greek ft. Water was raised from the Euphrates by means of a screw (Strabo xvi. 1. 5; Diod. ii. 10. 6). In the Jumjuma mound at the southern extremity of the old city the contract and other business tablets of the Egibi firm were found.
See C. J. Rich, _Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon_ (1816), and _Collected Memoirs_ (1839); A. H. Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_ (1853); C. P. Tiele, _De Hoofdtempel van Babel_ (1886); A. H. Sayce, _Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, App. ii. (1887); C. J. Ball in _Records of the Past_ (new ser. iii. 1890); _Mittheilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft_ (1899-1906); F. Delitzsch, _Im Lande des einstigen Paradieses_ (1903); F. H. Weissbach, _Das Stadtbild von Babylon_ (1904); F. Hommel, _Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients_ (1904).
(A. H. S.)
BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. I. _Geography._--Geographically as well as ethnologically and historically, the whole district enclosed between the two great rivers of western Asia, the Tigris and Euphrates, forms but one country. The writers of antiquity clearly recognized this fact, speaking of the whole under the general name of Assyria, though Babylonia, as will be seen, would have been a more accurate designation. It naturally falls into two divisions, the northern being more or less mountainous, while the southern is flat and marshy; the near approach of the two rivers to one another, at a spot where the undulating plateau of the north sinks suddenly into the Babylonian alluvium, tends to separate them still more completely.
In the earliest times of which we have any record, the northern portion was included in Mesopotamia; it was definitely marked off as Assyria only after the rise of the Assyrian monarchy. With the exception of Assur, the original capital, the chief cities of the country, Nineveh, Calah and Arbela, were all on the left bank of the Tigris. The reason of this preference for the eastern bank of the Tigris was due to its abundant supply of water, whereas the great Mesopotamian plain on the western side had to depend upon the streams which flowed into the Euphrates. This vast flat, the modern El-Jezireh, is about 250 miles in length, interrupted only by a single limestone range, rising abruptly out of the plain, and branching off from the Zagros mountains under the names of _Saraz[=u]r_, _Hamrin_ and _Sinjar_. The numerous remains of old habitations show how thickly this level tract must once have been peopled, though now for the most part a wilderness. North of the plateau rises a well-watered and undulating belt of country, into which run low ranges of limestone hills, sometimes arid, sometimes covered with dwarf-oak, and often shutting in, between their northern and north-eastern flank and the main mountain-line from which they detach themselves, rich plains and fertile valleys. Behind them tower the massive ridges of the Niphates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off Assyria from Armenia and Kurdistan.
The name Assyria itself was derived from that of the city of Assur (_q.v._) or Asur, now Qal'at Sherqat (Kaleh Shergat), which stood on the right bank of the Tigris, midway between the Greater and the Lesser Zab. It remained the capital long after the Assyrians had become the dominant power in western Asia, but was finally supplanted by Calah (_Nimr[=u]d_), Nineveh (_Nebi Yunus_ and _Kuyunjik_), and Dur-Sargina (_Khorsabad_), some 60 m.
farther north (see NINEVEH).
In contrast with the arid plateau of Mesopotamia, stretched the [v.03 p.0100] rich alluvial plain of Chaldaea, formed by the deposits of the two great rivers by which it was enclosed. The soil was extremely fertile, and teemed with an industrious population. Eastward rose the mountains of Elam, southward were the sea-marshes and the Kald[=a] or Chaldaeans and other Aramaic tribes, while on the west the civilization of Babylonia encroached beyond the banks of the Euphrates, upon the territory of the Semitic nomads (or Suti). Here stood Ur (_Mugheir_, more correctly _Muqayyar_) the earliest capital of the country; and Babylon, with its suburb, Borsippa (_Birs Nimr[=u]d_), as well as the two Sipparas (the Sepharvaim of Scripture, now _Abu Habba_), occupied both the Arabian and Chaldaean sides of the river (see BABYLON). The Arakhtu, or "river of Babylon," flowed past the southern side of the city, and to the south-west of it on the Arabian bank lay the great inland freshwater sea of _Nejef_, surrounded by red sandstone cliffs of considerable height, 40 m. in length and 35 in breadth in the widest part. Above and below this sea, from Borsippa to Kufa, extend the famous Chaldaean marshes, where Alexander was nearly lost (Arrian, _Exp. Al._ vii. 22; Strab. xvi. 1, -- 12); but these depend upon the state of the Hindiya canal, disappearing altogether when it is closed.
Eastward of the Euphrates and southward of Sippara, Kutha and Babylon were Kis (_Uhaimir_, 9 m. E. of _Hillah_), Nippur (_Niffer_)--where stood the great sanctuary of El-lil, the older Bel--Uruk or Erech (_Warka_) and Larsa (_Senkera_) with its temple of the sun-god, while eastward of the Shatt el-Hai, probably the ancient channel of the Tigris, was Lagash (_Tello_), which played an important part in early Babylonian history. The primitive seaport of the country, Eridu, the seat of the worship of Ea the culture-god, was a little south of Ur (at _Abu Shahrain_ or _Now[=a]wis_ on the west side of the Euphrates). It is now about 130 m. distant from the sea; as about 46 m. of land have been formed by the silting up of the shore since the foundation of Spasinus Charax (_Muhamrah_) in the time of Alexander the Great, or some 115 ft. a year, the city would have been in existence at least 6000 years ago. The marshes in the south like the adjoining desert were frequented by Aramaic tribes; of these the most famous were the Kald[=a] or Chaldaeans who under Merodach-baladan made themselves masters of Babylon and gave their name in later days to the whole population of the country. The combined stream of the Euphrates and Tigris as it flowed through the marshes was known to the Babylonians as the _n[=a]r marrati_, "the salt river" (cp. Jer. l. 21), a name originally applied to the Persian Gulf.
The alluvial plain of Babylonia was called Edin, the Eden of Gen. ii., though the name was properly restricted to "the plain" on the western bank of the river where the Bedouins pastured the flocks of their Babylonian masters. This "bank" or _kisad_, together with the corresponding western bank of the Tigris (according to Hommel the modern Shatt el-Hai), gave its name to the land of Chesed, whence the _Kasdim_ of the Old Testament. In the early inscriptions of Lagash the whole district is known as Gu-Edinna, the Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic _Kisad Edini_. The coast-land was similarly known as Gu-[=a]bba (Semitic _Kisad tamtim_), the "bank of the sea." A more comprehensive name of southern Babylonia was Kengi, "the land," or Kengi Sumer, "the land of Sumer," for which Sumer alone came afterwards to be used. Sumer has been supposed to be the original of the Biblical Shinar; but Shinar represented northern rather than southern Babylonia, and was probably the Sankhar of the Tell el-Amarna tablets (but see SUMER). Opposed to Kengi and Sumer were Urra (Uri) and Akkad or northern Babylonia. The original meaning of _Urra_ was perhaps "clayey soil," but it came to signify "the upper country" or "highlands," _kengi_ being "the lowlands." In Semitic times _Urra_ was pronounced _Uri_ and confounded with _uru_, "city"; as a geographical term, however, it was replaced by Akkadu (Akkad), the Semitic form of Agad[=e]--written Akkattim in the Elamite inscriptions--the name of the elder Sargon's capital, which must have stood close to Sippara, if indeed it was not a quarter of Sippara itself. The rise of Sargon's empire was doubtless the cause of this extension of the name of Akkad; from henceforward, in the imperial title, "Sumer and Akkad" denoted the whole of Babylonia. After the Kassite conquest of the country, northern Babylonia came to be known as Kar-Duniyas, "the wall of the god Duniyas," from a line of fortification similar to that built by Nebuchadrezzar between Sippara and Opis, so as to defend his kingdom from attacks from the north. As this last was "the Wall of Semiramis" mentioned by Strabo (xi. 14. 8), Kar-Duniyas may have represented the Median Wall of Xenophon (_Anab._ ii. 4. 12), traces of which were found by F. R. Chesney extending from Faluja to Jibbar.
The country was thickly studded with towns, the sites of which are still represented by mounds, though the identification of most of them is still doubtful. The latest to be identified are Bismya, between Nippur and Erech, which recent American excavations have proved to be the site of Udab (also called Adab and Usab) and the neighbouring F[=a]ra, the site of the ancient Kisurra. The dense population was due to the elaborate irrigation of the Babylonian plain which had originally reclaimed it from a pestiferous and uninhabitable swamp and had made it the most fertile country in the world.
The science of irrigation and engineering seems to have been first created in Babylonia, which was covered by a network of canals, all skilfully planned and regulated. The three chief of them carried off the waters of the Euphrates to the Tigris above Babylon,--the Zabzallat canal (or _Nahr Sarsar_) running from Faluja to Ctesiphon, the Kutha canal from Sippara to Madain, passing Tell Ibrahim or Kutha on the way, and the King's canal or Ar-Malcha between the other two. This last, which perhaps owed its name to Khammurabi, was conducted from the Euphrates towards Upi or Opis, which has been shown by H. Winckler (_Altorientalische Forschungen_, ii. pp. 509 seq.) to have been close to Seleucia on the western side of the Tigris. The Pallacopas, called Pallukkatu in the Neo-Babylonian texts, started from Pallukkatu or Faluja, and running parallel to the western bank of the Euphrates as far as Iddaratu or Teredon (?) watered an immense tract of land and supplied a large lake near Borsippa. B. Meissner may be right in identifying it with "the Canal of the Sun-god" of the early texts. Thanks to this system of irrigation the cultivation of the soil was highly advanced in Babylonia. According to Herodotus (i. 193) wheat commonly returned two hundred-fold to the sower, and occasionally three hundred-fold. Pliny (_H. N._ xviii. 17) states that it was cut twice, and afterwards was good keep for sheep, and Berossus remarked that wheat, sesame, barley, ochrys, palms, apples and many kinds of shelled fruit grew wild, as wheat still does in the neighbourhood of Anah. A Persian poem celebrated the 360 uses of the palm (Strabo xvi. 1. 14), and Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiv. 3) says that from the point reached by Julian's army to the shores of the Persian Gulf was one continuous forest of verdure.
II. _Classical Authorities_.--Such a country was naturally fitted to be a pioneer of civilization. Before the decipherment of the cuneiform texts our knowledge of its history, however, was scanty and questionable. Had the native history of Berossus survived, this would not have been the case; all that is known of the Chaldaean historian's work, however, is derived from quotations in Josephus, Ptolemy, Eusebius and the Syncellus. The authenticity of his list of 10 antediluvian kings who reigned for 120 _sari_ or 432,000 years, has been partially confirmed by the inscriptions; but his 8 postdiluvian dynasties are difficult to reconcile with the monuments, and the numbers attached to them are probably corrupt. It is different with the 7th and 8th dynasties as given by Ptolemy in the _Almagest_, which prove to have been faithfully recorded:--
1. Nabonassar (747 B.C.) 14 years 2. Nadios 2 "
3. Khinziros and Poros (Pul) 5 "
4. Ilulaeos 5 "
5. Mardokempados (Merodach-Baladan) 12 "
6. Arkeanos (Sargon) 5 "
7. Interregnum 2 "
8. Hagisa 1 month 9. Belibos (702 B.C.) 3 years 10. Assaranadios (Assur-nadin-sum) 6 "
[v.03 p.0101]
11. R[=e]gebelos 1 year 12. M[=e]sesimordakos 4 years 13. Interregnum 8 "
14. Asaridinos (Esar-haddon) 13 "
15. Saosdukhinos (Savul-sum-yukin) 20 "
16. Sin[=e]ladanos (Assur-bani-pal) 22 "
The account of Babylon given by Herodotus is not that of an eye-witness, and his historical notices are meagre and untrustworthy. He was controverted by Ctesias, who, however, has mistaken mythology for history, and Greek romance owed to him its Ninus and Semiramis, its Ninyas and Sardanapalus. The only ancient authority of value on Babylonian and Assyrian history is the Old Testament.
III. _Modern Discovery._--The excavations of P. E. Botta and A. H. Layard at Nineveh opened up a new world, coinciding as they did with the successful decipherment of the cuneiform system of writing. Layard's discovery of the library of Assur-bani-pal put the materials for reconstructing the ancient life and history of Assyria and Babylonia into the hands of scholars. He also was the first to excavate in Babylonia, where C. J. Rich had already done useful topographical work. Layard's excavations in this latter country were continued by W. K. Loftus, who also opened trenches at Susa, as well as by J. Oppert on behalf of the French government. But it was only in the last quarter of the 19th century that anything like systematic exploration was attempted. After the death of George Smith at Aleppo in 1876, an expedition was sent by the British Museum (1877-1879), under the conduct of Hormuzd Rassam, to continue his work at Nineveh and its neighbourhood. Excavations in the mounds of Balaw[=a]t, called Imgur-Bel by the Assyrians, 15 m. east of Mosul, resulted in the discovery of a small temple dedicated to the god of dreams by Assur-nazir-pal III. (883 B.C.), containing a stone coffer or ark in which were two inscribed tables of alabaster of rectangular shape, as well as of a palace which had been destroyed by the Babylonians but restored by Shalmaneser II. (858 B.C.). From the latter came the bronze gates with hammered reliefs, which are now in the British Museum. The remains of a palace of Assur-nazir-pal III. at Nimr[=u]d (Calah) were also excavated, and hundreds of enamelled tiles were disinterred. Two years later (1880-1881) Rassam was sent to Babylonia, where he discovered the site of the temple of the sun-god of Sippara at Abu-Habba, and so fixed the position of the two Sipparas or Sepharvaim. Abu-Habba lies south-west of Bagdad, midway between the Euphrates and Tigris, on the south side of a canal, which may once have represented the main stream of the Euphrates, Sippara of the goddess Anunit, now _D[=e]r_, being on its opposite bank.
Meanwhile (1877-1881) the French consul, de Sarzec, had been excavating at Tello, the ancient Lagash, and bringing to light monuments of the pre-Semitic age, which included the diorite statues of Gudea now in the Louvre, the stone of which, according to the inscriptions upon them, had been brought from Magan, the Sinaitic peninsula. The subsequent excavations of de Sarzec in Tello and its neighbourhood carried the history of the city back to at least 4000 B.C., and a collection of more than 30,000 tablets has been found, which were arranged on shelves in the time of Gudea (_c._ 2700 B.C.). In 1886-1887 a German expedition under Dr Koldewey explored the cemetery of El Hibba (immediately to the south of Tello), and for the first time made us acquainted with the burial customs of ancient Babylonia.
Another German expedition, on a large scale, was despatched by the _Orientgesellschaft_ in 1899 with the object of exploring the ruins of Babylon; the palace of Nebuchadrezzar and the great processional road were laid bare, and Dr W. Andrae subsequently conducted excavations at Qal'at Sherqat, the site of Assur. Even the Turkish government has not held aloof from the work of exploration, and the Museum at Constantinople is filled with the tablets discovered by Dr V. Scheil in 1897 on the site of Sippara.
J. de Morgan's exceptionally important work at Susa lies outside the limits of Babylonia; not so, however, the American excavations (1903-1904) under E. J. Banks at Bismya (Udab), and those of the university of Pennsylvania at Niffer (see NIPPUR) first begun in 1889, where Mr J. H. Haynes has systematically and patiently uncovered the remains of the great temple of El-lil, removing layer after layer of debris and cutting sections in the ruins down to the virgin soil. Midway in the mound is a platform of large bricks stamped with the names of Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin (3800 B.C.); as the debris above them is 34 ft. thick, the topmost stratum being not later than the Parthian era (H. V. Hilprecht, _The Babylonian Expedition_, i. 2, p. 23), it is calculated that the debris underneath the pavement, 30 ft. thick, must represent a period of about 3000 years, more especially as older constructions had to be levelled before the pavement was laid. In the deepest part of the excavations, however, inscribed clay tablets and fragments of stone vases are still found, though the cuneiform characters upon them are of a very archaic type, and sometimes even retain their primitive pictorial forms.
IV. _Chronology._[1] The later chronology of Assyria has long been fixed, thanks to the lists of _limmi_, or archons, who gave their names in succession to their years of office. Several copies of these lists from the library of Nineveh are in existence, the earliest of which goes back to 911 B.C., while the latest comes down to the middle of the reign of Assur-bani-pal. The beginning of a king's reign is noted in the lists, and in some of them the chief events of the year are added to the name of its archon. Assyrian chronology is, therefore, certain from 911 B.C. to 666, and an eclipse of the sun which is stated to have been visible in the month Sivan, 763 B.C., is one that has been calculated to have taken place on the 15th of June of that year. The system of reckoning time by _limmi_ was of Assyrian origin, and recent discoveries have made it clear that it went back to the first days of the monarchy. Even in the distant colony at Kara Euyuk near Kaisariyeh (Caesarea) in Cappadocia cuneiform tablets show that the Assyrian settlers used it in the 15th century B.C. In Babylonia a different system was adopted. Here the years were dated by the chief events that distinguished them, as was also the case in Egypt in the epoch of the Old Empire. What the event should be was determined by the government and notified to all its officials; one of these notices, sent to the Babylonian officials in Canaan in the reign of Samsu-iluna, the son of Khammurabi, has been found in the Lebanon. A careful register of the dates was kept, divided into reigns, from which dynastic lists were afterwards compiled, giving the duration of each king's reign as well as that of the several dynasties. Two of these dynastic compilations have been discovered, unfortunately in an imperfect state.[2] In addition to the chronological tables, works of a more ambitious and literary character were also attempted of the nature of chronicles. One of these is the so-called "Synchronous History of Assyria and Babylonia," consisting of brief notices, written by an Assyrian, of the occasions on which the kings of the two countries had entered into relation, hostile or otherwise, with one another; a second is the _Babylonian Chronicle_ discovered by Dr Th. G.
Pinches, which gave a synopsis of Babylonian history from a Babylonian point of view, and was compiled in the reign of Darius. It is interesting to note that its author says of the battle of Khalul[=e], which we know from the Assyrian inscriptions to have taken place in 691 or 690 B.C., that he does "not know the year" when it was fought: the records of Assyria had been already lost, even in Babylonia. The early existence of an accurate system of dating is not surprising; it was necessitated by the fact that Babylonia was a great trading community, in which it was not only needful that commercial and legal documents should be dated, but also that it should be possible to refer easily to the dates of former business transactions. The Babylonian and Assyrian kings had consequently no difficulty in [v.03 p.0102] determining the age of their predecessors or of past events. Nabonidus (Nabunaid), who was more of an antiquarian than a politician, and spent his time in excavating the older temples of his country and ascertaining the names of their builders, tells us that Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon of Akkad, lived 3200 years before himself (_i.e._ 3750 B.C.), and Sagarakti-suryas 800 years; and we learn from Sennacherib that Shalmaneser I. reigned 600 years earlier, and that Tiglath-pileser I. fought with Merodach-nadin-akhi (Marduk-nadin-akh[=e]) of Babylon 418 years before the campaign of 689 B.C.; while, according to Tiglath-pileser I., the high-priest Samas-Hadad, son of Isme-Dagon, built the temple of Anu and Hadad at Assur 701 years before his own time.
Shalmaneser I. in his turn states that the high-priest Samas-Hadad, the son of Bel-kabi, governed Assur 580 years previously, and that 159 years before this the high-priest Erisum was reigning there. The raid of the Elamite king Kutur-Nakhkhunt[=e] is placed by Assur-bani-pal 1635 years before his own conquest of Susa, and Khammurabi is said by Nabonidus to have preceded Burna-buryas by 700 years.
[Sidenote: Early Sumerian period.]
V. _History_.--In the earliest period of which we have any knowledge Babylonia was divided into several independent states, the limits of which were defined by canals and boundary stones. Its culture may be traced back to two main centres, Eridu in the south and Nippur in the north. But the streams of civilization which flowed from them were in strong contrast.
El-lil, around whose sanctuary Nippur had grown up, was lord of the ghost-land, and his gifts to mankind were the spells and incantations which the spirits of good or evil were compelled to obey. The world which he governed was a mountain; the creatures whom he had made lived underground.
Eridu, on the other hand, was the home of the culture-god Ea, the god of light and beneficence, who employed his divine wisdom in healing the sick and restoring the dead to life. Rising each morning from his palace in the deep, he had given man the arts and sciences, the industries and manners of civilization. To him was due the invention of writing, and the first law-book was his creation. Eridu had once been a seaport, and it was doubtless its foreign trade and intercourse with other lands which influenced the development of its culture. Its cosmology was the result of its geographical position: the earth, it was believed, had grown out of the waters of the deep, like the ever-widening coast at the mouth of the Euphrates. Long before history begins, however, the cultures of Eridu and Nippur had coalesced. While Babylon seems to have been a colony of Eridu, Ur, the immediate neighbour of Eridu, must have been colonized from Nippur, since its moon-god was the son of El-lil of Nippur. But in the admixture of the two cultures the influence of Eridu was predominant.
We may call the early civilization of Babylonia Sumerian. The race who first developed it spoke an agglutinative language, and to them was due the invention of the pictorial hieroglyphs which became the running-hand or cuneiform characters of later days, as well as the foundation of the chief cities of the country and the elements of its civilization. The great engineering works by means of which the marshes were drained and the overflow of the rivers regulated by canals went back to Sumerian times, like a considerable part of later Babylonian religion and the beginnings of Babylonian law. Indeed Sumerian continued to be the language of religion and law long after the Semites had become the ruling race.
[Sidenote: Semitic Influence.]
_Arrival of the Semites_.--When the Semites first entered the Edin or plain of Babylonia is uncertain, but it must have been at a remote period. The cuneiform system of writing was still in process of growth when it was borrowed and adapted by the new comers, and the Semitic Babylonian language was profoundly influenced by the older language of the country, borrowing its words and even its grammatical usages. Sumerian in its turn borrowed from Semitic Babylonian, and traces of Semitic influence in some of the earliest Sumerian texts indicate that the Semite was already on the Babylonian border. His native home was probably Arabia; hence Eridu ("the good city") and Ur ("the city") would have been built in Semitic territory, and their population may have included Semitic elements from the first. It was in the north, however, that the Semites first appear on the monuments.
Here in Akkad the first Semitic empire was founded, Semitic conquerors or settlers spread from Sippara to Susa, Khana to the east of the Tigris was occupied by "West Semitic" tribes, and "out of" Babylonia "went forth the Assyrian." As in Assyria, so too in the states of Babylonia the _patesi_ or high-priest of the god preceded the king. The state had grown up around a sanctuary, the god of which was nominally its ruler, the human _patesi_ being his viceregent. In course of time many of the high-priests assumed the functions and title of king; while retaining their priestly office they claimed at the same time to be supreme in the state in all secular concerns. The god remained nominally at its head; but even this position was lost to him when Babylonia was unified under Semitic princes, and the earthly king became an incarnate god. A recollection of his former power survived, however, at Babylon, where Bel-Merodach adopted the king before his right to rule was allowed.
[Sidenote: Ur-nin[=a]
_Early Princes_.--The earliest monuments that can be approximately dynasty.] dated come from Lagash (Tello). Here we hear of a "king of Kengi," as well as of a certain Me-silim, king of Kis, who had dealings with Lugal-suggur, high-priest of Lagash, and the high-priest of a neighbouring town, the name of which is provisionally transcribed Gis-ukh (formerly written Gis-ban and confounded with the name of Opis). According to Scheil, Gis-ukh is represented by Jokha, south of F[=a]ra and west of the Shatt el-Hai, and since two of its rulers are called kings of T[=e] on a seal-cylinder, this may have been the pronunciation of the name.[3] At a later date the high-priests of Lagash made themselves kings, and a dynasty was founded there by Ur-Nin[=a]. In the ruins of a building, attached by him to the temple of Nin[=a], terra-cotta bas-reliefs of the king and his sons have been found, as well as the heads of lions in onyx, which remind us of Egyptian work and onyx plates. These were "booty" dedicated to the goddess Bau. E-anna-du, the grandson of Ur-Nin[=a], made himself master of the whole of southern Babylonia, including "the district of Sumer" together with the cities of Erech, Ur and Larsa (?). He also annexed the kingdom of Kis, which, however, recovered its independence after his death. Gis-ukh was made tributary, a certain amount of grain being levied upon each person in it, which had to be paid into the treasury of the goddess Nin[=a] and the god Ingurisa. The so-called "Stele of the Vultures," now in the Louvre, was erected as a monument of the victory. On this various incidents in the war are represented. In one scene the king stands in his chariot with a curved weapon in his right hand formed of three bars of metal bound together by rings (similar, as M. L. Heuzey has pointed out, to one carried by the chief of an Asiatic tribe in a tomb of the 12th dynasty at Beni-Hasan in Egypt), while his kilted followers with helmets on their heads and lances in their hands march behind him. In another a flock of vultures is feeding on the bodies of the fallen enemy; in a third a tumulus is being heaped up over those who had been slain on the side of Lagash.
Elsewhere we see the victorious prince beating down a vanquished enemy, and superintending the execution of other prisoners who are being sacrificed to the gods, while in one curious scene he is striking with his mace a sort of wicker-work cage filled with naked men. In his hand he holds the crest of Lagash and its god--a lion-headed eagle with outstretched wings, supported by two lions which are set heraldically back to back. The sculptures belong to a primitive period of art.
E-anna-du's campaigns extended beyond the confines of Babylonia. He overran a part of Elam and took the city of Az on the Persian Gulf. Temples and palaces were repaired or erected at Lagash and elsewhere, the town of Nin[=a]--which probably gave [v.03 p.0103] its name to the later Nin[=a] or Nineveh--was rebuilt, and canals and reservoirs were excavated. He was succeeded by his brother En-anna-tum I., under whom Gis-ukh once more became the dominant power. As En-anna-tum has the title only of high-priest, it is probable that he acknowledged Ur-lumma of Gis-ukh as his suzerain. His son and successor Entemena restored the prestige of Lagash.
Gis-ukh was subdued and a priest named Illi was made its governor. A tripod of silver dedicated by Entemena to his god is now in the Louvre. A frieze of lions devouring ibexes and deer, and incised with great artistic skill, runs round the neck, while the eagle crest of Lagash adorns the globular part. The vase is a proof of the high degree of excellence to which the goldsmith's art had already attained. A vase of calcite, also dedicated by Entemena, has been found at Nippur.
The eighth successor of Ur-Nin[=a] was Uru-duggina, who was overthrown and his city captured by Lugal-zaggisi, the high-priest of Gis-ukh.
Lugal-zaggisi was the founder of the first empire in Asia of which we know.
He made Erech his capital and calls himself king of Kengi. In a long inscription which he caused to be engraved on hundreds of stone vases dedicated to El-lil of Nippur, he declares that his kingdom extended "from the Lower Sea of the Tigris and Euphrates," or Persian Gulf, to "the Upper Sea" or Mediterranean. It was at this time that Erech received the name of "the City," which it continued to bear when written ideographically.
[Sidenote: Sargon.]
_Semitic Empire of Sargon of Akkad._--The next empire founded in western Asia was Semitic. Semitic princes had already established themselves at Kis, and a long inscription has been discovered at Susa by J. de Morgan, belonging to one of them, Manistusu, who like Lugal-zaggisi was a contemporary of Uru-duggina. Another Semitic ruler of Kis of the same period was Alusarsid (or Urumus) who "subdued Elam and Barahs[=e]." But the fame of these early establishers of Semitic supremacy was far eclipsed by that of Sargon of Akkad and his son, Naram-Sin. The date of Sargon is placed by Nabonidus at 3800 B.C. He was the son of Itti-Bel, and a legend related how he had been born in concealment and sent adrift in an ark of bulrushes on the waters of the Euphrates. Here he had been rescued and brought up by "Akki the husbandman"; but the day arrived at length when his true origin became known, the crown of Babylonia was set upon his head and he entered upon a career of foreign conquest. Four times he invaded Syria and Palestine, and spent three years in thoroughly subduing the countries of "the west," and in uniting them with Babylonia "into a single empire."