MESOPOTAMIAN
ARCHÆOLOGY

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ARCHÆOLOGY OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. BY PERCY S. P. HANDCOCK, M.A. WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS, ALSO MAPS

LONDON: MACMILLAN AND CO. LTD., AND PHILIP LEE WARNER, ST. MARTIN’S STREET. MDCCCCXII

DEDICATED TO

A. M. LORD

IN RECOGNITION

OF MANY ACTS OF FRIENDSHIP

PREFACE

IN every department of science the theories of yesterday are perpetually being displaced by the empirical facts of to-day, though the ascertainment of these facts is frequently the indirect outcome of the theories which the facts themselves dissipate. Hence it is that the works of the greatest scholars and experts have no finality, they are but stepping-stones towards the goal of perfect knowledge. Since the publications of Layard, Rawlinson, Botta and Place much new material has been made accessible for the reconstruction of the historic past of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and we are consequently able to fill in many gaps in the picture so admirably, and as far as it went, so faithfully drawn by the pioneers in the field of excavation and research. This work, which owes its origin to a suggestion made by Dr. Wallis Budge, represents an endeavour on the part of the writer to give a brief account of the civilization of ancient Babylonia and Assyria in the light of this new material.
It is hoped that the infinitude of activities and pursuits which go to make up the civilization of any country will justify the writer’s treatment of so many subjects in a single volume. It will be observed that space allotted to the consideration of the different arts and crafts varies on the one hand according to the relative importance of the part each played in the life of the people, and on the other hand according to the amount of material available for the study of the particular subject.
No effort has been spared to make the chapters on Architecture, Sculpture and Metallurgy as comprehensive as the limitations of the volume permit, while forPg viii the sake of those who desire to pursue the study of any of the subjects dealt with in this book, and to work up the sketch into a picture, a short bibliography is given at the end.
It has not been thought desirable to amass a vast number of references in the footnotes, and the writer is thereby debarred from acknowledging his indebtedness to the works of other writers on all occasions as he would like to have done.
In addition to the chapters which deal expressly with the cultural evolution of the dwellers in Mesopotamia, two chapters are devoted to the consideration of the Cuneiform writing—its pictorial origin, the history of its decipherment, and the literature of which it is the vehicle, while another chapter is occupied with a historical review of the excavations. The short chronological summary at the end obviously makes not the slightest pretension to even being a comprehensive summary; it merely purports to give the general chronological order of some of the better known rulers and kings of Babylonia and Assyria to whom allusion is made in this volume, together with a notice of some of the more significant land-marks in the history of the two countries.
The writer’s thanks are due to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to photograph some of the objects in the Babylonian and Assyrian Collections, and to Dr. Wallis Budge for facilities and encouragement in carrying out the work; to the University of Chicago Press for allowing him to reproduce illustrations from the American Journal of Semitic Languages and also diagrams from Harper’s Memorial Volumes; to M. Ernest Leroux for permitting him to make use of some of the plates contained in the monumental works of De Sarzec and Heuzey, and to M. Ch. Eggimann of the “Libraire Centrale d’art et d’architecture ancienne maison Morel,” for his very kind permission to reproduce two of the plates contained in Dieulafoy, L’ArtPg ix Antique de la Perse. He is similarly indebted to the Deutsche-Orient Gesellschaft for allowing him to make an autotype copy of one of the plates in Andrae’s Der Anu-Adad Tempel. He further desires to acknowledge the generosity of Prof. H. V. Hilprecht in allowing him to make use of many of the illustrations contained in his numerous publications, and also of Dr. Fisher for permitting him to reproduce some of the photographs contained in his magnificently illustrated work on the excavations at Nippur. He is very sensible of his indebtedness to these two gentlemen, as also to M. Leroux and the Deutsche-Orient Gesellschaft, for the photographs of excavations in progress are obviously of a unique character and admit of no repetition; he further desires to express his obligations to Dr. W. Hayes Ward for his most kind permission to copy a number of seal-impressions and other illustrations contained in his recently published work—Cylinder-Seals of Western Asia. Lastly, he welcomes the opportunity of acknowledging the kindness of Mr. Mansell for allowing him to publish many photographs of objects in the British Museum and the Louvre contained in his incomparable collection, and for in other ways facilitating the illustration of this volume. Most of the plans and drawings used for this volume are the work of Miss E. K. Reader, who has performed her task with her usual skill.

P. S. P. H.

March, 1912.

ERRATA ET CORRIGENDA

p. 6, l. 3, for 2500 B.C. read 2400 B.C.

p. 6, l. 18, for 2500 B.C. read 2400 B.C.

p. 43, l. 7 from foot,read both French and English explorers

p. 62, l. 2, for considerable read much

p. 89, l. 5, for ± read —

p. 110, l. 2, for 2500 B.C. read 2400 B.C.

p. 125, l. 7 from foot, for or read and

p. 130, l. 23, for 2400 B.C. read 2350 B.C.

p. 155, l. 31, for having read have

p. 235, l. 9 from foot, for Sumu-la-ilu read Sumu-ilu

p. 247, l. 1, for 2500 B.C. read 2400 B.C.

p. 249, l. 35, after crudeness read these heads

The reference numbers as printed on Plates VII to XI are inaccurate, and should be altered as follows, in agreement with the List of Illustrations and the references in the text:—

Present number
and position Correct number
and position

Ziggurat of Ashur-naṣir-pal VII Facing p. 64 VIII Facing p. 78

Inscriptions on Clay VIII”78 IX”106

Ruined Mounds and Court of Men IX”106 X”132

Water Conduit, Nippur X”132 XI”138

Excavations in Temple Court XI”138 VII”64

Pg xi

CHAPTER	PAGE
I.	Introduction—
	(a) Land and People	1
	(b) Sketch of Babylonian and Assyrian History	28
II.	Excavations	40
III.	Decipherment of the Cuneiform Inscriptions	85
IV.	Cuneiform Inscriptions	95
V.	Architecture	119
VI.	Sculpture	181
VII.	Metallurgy	242
VIII.	Painting	270
IX.	Cylinder-Seals	284
X.	Shell-Engraving and Ivory-work	309
XI.	Terra-cotta Figures and Reliefs	317
XII.	Stoneware and Pottery	325
XIII.	Dress, Military Accoutrements, etc.	337
XIV.	Life, Manners, Customs, Law, Religion	364
	Short Bibliography	406
	List of the more important Kings and Rulers and a Brief Chronological Summary	408
	Index	411

Pg xxii

Pg xiii

ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE IN COLOURS
PLATE
I.	Coloured Lion at Khorsabad	Frontispiece
PLATES IN HALF-TONE
		FACING PAGE
II.	Kouyunjik and Nebi Yûnus (two views)	42
	Nimrûd (Calah)	42
	Khorsabad	42
III.	Excavations at Nimrûd (Calah) in Ashur-naṣir-pal’s Palace	44
IV.	“Fish-God,” and Entrance Passage, Kouyunjik	48
V.	Doorway at Tellô, erected by Gudea	54
	South-eastern façade of Ur-Ninâ’s building at Tellô	54
VI.	Remains of a Stele in a building under that of Ur-Ninâ	58
	The Well of Eannatum	58
VII.	Excavations In the Temple Court: Nippur	64
VIII.	The Ziggurat and Palace of Ashur-naṣir-pal, Ashur	78
IX.	Inscriptions on clay illustrating the sizes and shapes of the Tablets, etc., used by the Babylonians and Assyrians	106
X.	The Ruined Mounds of Nippur	132
	Court of the Men from the North-East, Nippur	132
XI.	Water Conduit of Ur-Engur, Nippur	138
XII.	Portion of the “Vulture Stele” of Eannatum, Patesi of Lagash	186
XIII.	Stele of Victory of Narâm-Sin	192
XIV.	Stele engraved with Khammurabi’s Code of Laws	198
	The Sun-God Tablet	198
XV.	Bas-relief of Ashur-naṣir-pal	202
Pg xivXVI.	Bas-reliefs of Ashur-naṣir-pal (four subjects)	204
XVII.	Siege of a City by battering-ram and archers	206
XVIII.	Ashur-bani-pal’s Hunting Scenes: Lion and lioness in a garden	218
XIX.	Ashur-bani-pal’s Hunting Scenes (two subjects)	218
XX.	Ashur-bani-pal’s Hunting Scenes: Hunting wild asses with dogs	220
	Ashur-bani-pal pouring out a libation over dead lions	220
XXI.	Ashur-bani-pal reclining at meat	222
	Musicians and Attendants	222
XXII.	Limestone figure of an early Sumerian	224
	Three archaic stone heads	224
XXIII.	Head and two diorite statues of Gudea; upper part of female statuette	228
XXIV.	Statues of Nebo and Ashur-naṣir-pal; torso of a woman	230
XXV.	Winged man-headed genii	236
XXVI.	Stone lion of Ashur-naṣir-pal	238
XXVII.	The Kasr lion	240
XXVIII.	Miscellaneous objects of bronze, from Nimrûd	254
XXIX.	Bronze bowl, from Nimrûd	256
XXX.	Decorated arch at Khorsabad	278
XXXI.	Glazed bricks	282
XXXII.	Ivory panels, from Nimrûd	314
XXXIII.	Pottery, from Nimrûd and Nineveh	334

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

FIGURE	PAGE
1. Pictographs	97
2. Pictographs	99
3. Late Babylonian “squeeze” of an early inscription	117
4. Brick-stamp of Narâm-Sin	117
5. Clay covering of the “Sun-Tablet”	117
6. Restoration of the temple at Nippur	137
7. Restoration of the Anu-Adad temple at Ashur	144
Pg xv8. Restoration of Sargon’s palace at Khorsabad	151
9. Domed roofs in Assyria	155
10, 11. Terra-cotta drains	159
12. Columnar piers at Tellô	161
13. Large column capital; small column capital	165
14. Columns (various)	166
15. Early arch at Nippur	170
16. Early arch at Tellô	170
17. Corbelled arch at Nippur	173
18. Round arch at Babylon	173
19-22. Arched drains at Khorsabad	174
23. Burial-vault at Ashur	176
24. Burial-vault at Ur (Muḳeyyer)	176
24a. Ziggurat on Assyrian bas-relief	180
24b. Ziggurat at Khorsabad	180
25. Six early bas-reliefs	182
26. Stele of Ur-Ninâ and mace-head of Mesilim	185
27. Two fragments of the “Vulture Stele”; little sculptured block (Entemena’s reign)	189
28. Five bas-reliefs, including one of Narâm-Sin	194
29. Bas-relief of Sargon, king of Assyria	209
30. Bas-relief of Sennacherib; removal of stone bull	213
31. Sennacherib at Lachish	215
32. Statue of Esar, king of Adab	223
33. Early stone statue of a woman	224
34. Statue of Manishtusu; seated figure of a woman; head of a woman	225
35. Seated figure of Shalmaneser II	231
36. Stone lion-head; figure of a dog; stone figure of a human-headed bull inlaid with shell	234
37. Copper spear-head; hollow copper tube	243
38. Early copper figures	245
39. Copper figures of Basket-bearers; copper figure of Gudea	247
40. Figures and heads of animals in copper and bronze	250
41. Two Assyrian swords; an Assyrian axe	254
42. Bronze dish	257
Pg xvi43, 44. Bronze gate-bands	259, 260
45. Silver vase of Entemena	265
46. Coloured clay relief lion from Babylon	274
47. Coloured bull at Babylon; coloured bull at Nimrûd (Calah)	275
48. Three cylinder seals; clay tablet bearing a seal-impression	285
49-77. Impressions from cylinder-seals	289-307
78-83. Engravings on shells	310-312
84. Carved ivory panel from Nimrûd	314
85. Early terra-cotta figures	318
86. Terra-cotta figures of later date	320
87. Terra-cotta figure of a dog	323
88. Terra-cotta plaque showing dog with attendant	323
89. Stone vase of Narâm-Sin	328
90. Decorated stone vase of Gudea	328
91. Three stone vessels, one of which bears an inscription of Sennacherib, and another the name of Xerxes; small glass vessel of Sargon	330
92, 93. Two early clay pots from Nippur	332
94. Boomerang-shaped weapons	342
95. Assyrian jewellery	348
96, 97. Combs	349
98, 99. Foot-spearman and Foot-archers of the first Assyrian period	350
100-102. Archers in the reign of Sargon	351
103-105. Archers in the reign of Sennacherib	352
106, 107. Assyrian cavalry	354, 355
108. Assyrian chariotry	356
109. Assyrian helmets and head-gears	357
110. Assyrian weapons of offence	358
111. Battering-rams and shields	360
112. Naval equipment of the Assyrians	362
113-115. Babylonian emblems	396-398
MAPS
(1) Mesopotamia, (2) Babylonia	Folder at end

Pg 1

Mesopotamian Archæology

CHAPTER I—INTRODUCTION

(a) LAND AND PEOPLE

THE Mesopotamian civilization shares with the Egyptian civilization the honour of being one of the two earliest civilizations in the world, and although M. J. de Morgan’s excavations at Susa the ruined capital of ancient Elam, have brought to light the elements of an advanced civilization which perhaps even antedates that of Mesopotamia, it must be remembered that the Sumerians who, so far as our present knowledge goes, were the first to introduce the arts of life and all that they bring with them, into the low-lying valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, probably themselves emigrated from the Elamite plateau on the east of the Tigris; at all events the Sumerians expressed both “mountain” and “country” by the same writing-sign, the two apparently being synonymous from their point of view; in support of this theory of a mountain-home for the Sumerians, we may perhaps further explain the temple-towers, the characteristic feature of most of the religious edifices in Mesopotamia, as a conscious or unconscious imitation in bricks and mortar of the hills and ridges of their native-land, due to an innate aversion to the dead-level monotony of the Babylonian plain, while it is also a significant fact that in the earliest period Shamash the Sun-god is represented with one foot resting on a mountain, Pg 2 or else standing between two mountains. However this may be, the history of the Elamites was intimately wrapped up with that of the dwellers on the other side of the Tigris, from the earliest times down to the sack of Susa by Ashur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, in the seventh century. Both peoples adopted the cuneiform system of writing, so-called owing to the wedge-shaped formation of the characters, the wedges being due to the material used in later times for all writing purposes—the clay of their native soil—: both spoke an agglutinative, as opposed to an inflexional language like our own, and both inherited a similar culture.
A further, and in its way a more convincing argument in support of the mountain-origin theory is afforded by the early art of the Sumerians. On the most primitive seal cylinders 1 we find trees and animals whose home is in the mountains, and which certainly were not native to the low-lying plain of Babylonia. The cypress and the cedar-tree are only found in mountainous districts, but a tree which must be identified with one or the other of them is represented on the early seal cylinders; it is of course true that ancient Sumerian rulers fetched cedar wood from the mountains for their building operations, and therefore the presence of such a tree on cylinder seals merely argues a certain acquaintance with the tree, but Ceteris paribus it is more reasonable to suppose that the material earthly objects depicted, were those with which the people were entirely familiar and not those with which they were merely casually acquainted. Again, on the early cylinders the mountain bull, known as the Bison bonasus, assumes the rôle played in later times by the lowland water-buffalo. This occurs with such persistent regularity that the inference that the home of the Sumerians in those days was in the mountains is almost inevitable. Again, as Ward points out, the composite man-bull Ea-bani, the Pg 3 companion of Gilgamesh, has always the body of a bison, never that of a buffalo. So too the frequent occurrence of the ibex, the oryx, and the deer with branching horns, all argues in the same direction, for the natural home of all these animals lay in the mountains.
The Mesopotamian valley may, for the immediate purpose of this book, be divided into two halves, a dividing-line being roughly drawn between the two rivers just above Abû Habba (Sippar); the northern half embraces the land occupied by the Assyrians, and the southern half that occupied by the Babylonians. The precise date at which Assyria was colonized by Babylonia is not known, but to the first known native 2 king of Assyria, Irishum, we may assign an approximate date of 2000 B.C. Babylonia proper is an alluvial plain the limits of which on the east and west are the mountains of Persia and the table-land of Arabia respectively. This valley has been gradually formed at the expense of the sea’s domain, for in the remote past the Persian Gulf swept over the whole plain at least as far northward as the city of Babylon where sea-shells have been found, and probably a good deal further. It owes its formation to the silt brought down by the two rivers and deposited at the mouth of the Gulf: the amount of land thus yearly reclaimed from the sea in early times is not known, but as Spasinus Chorax the modern Mohammerah, which is now some forty-seven miles inland, was situated on the sea-coast in the time of Alexander, we know that the conquest of the land over the sea has been progressing since his time at the rate of 115 feet yearly.
Thus the physical characteristics of the country in which Babylonian civilization was developed, if it was not actually the place of its origin, form a close parallel to those of Lower Egypt; in Egypt however Pg 4such evidence as there is, would indicate the South, or Upper Egypt as the earliest scene of civilization, the North being conquered by the Mesniu (Metal-users) of the South, not only in the battle-field but also in culture and civilization. Both countries have but a small sea-board where their rivers find an outlet, the Nile into the Mediterranean, and the Tigris and Euphrates into the Persian Gulf; both countries had emerged and were yearly emerging out of the sea, for it is certain that at one time the Mediterranean penetrated as far south as Esneh, while as already mentioned, the Persian Gulf extended at least as far as Babylon; we are accordingly not surprised to find in both the Babylonian and Egyptian cosmologies a tradition which told of the creation of the world out of a primæval mass of water, though this idea looms less conspicuously in the Egyptian than in the Babylonian and Hebrew cosmologies. Both countries also were visited by a yearly inundation which, while it brought no small amount of devastation in its train, at the same time deposited the mud so essential to the enrichment of the soil, the desolation being checked or at least mitigated in either country by an elaborate system of irrigation canals, which same canals were in the summer-time the means of conveying the life-giving water to the dry and thirsty land. Both Babylonia and Egypt enjoy a warm climate, though Egypt is much more dry and therefore healthier, and the corresponding dryness of its soil has preserved the tangible evidences of its ancient history in a far more perfect condition than the marsh-country of Lower Mesopotamia; and lastly the climate of Egypt is not subject to the same violent changes of temperature incidental to the seasons in the Valley of the Euphrates.
The evidence of any racial connection between the earliest known inhabitants of the two countries is very precarious; as regards their art, their customs and their language, the Sumerians on the one hand, and the pre-dynastic Pg 5and early dynastic Egyptians on the other, show a complete independence of each other; both countries were probably invaded at an early period of their histories by the Semites, who in the case of Mesopotamia completely supplanted their predecessors of different stock, but who were at the same time themselves absorbed by the higher civilization of the Sumerians to which they were the destined heirs, and to the further development of which they themselves were to contribute so largely; but at what period or periods the Semites swept over Egypt and the north coast of Africa, impressing their indelible and unmistakable stamp upon the foundation-structure of the Egyptian and Libyan languages is not known; whenever it was, we can safely assume that their advent took place in prehistoric days, for the hieroglyphs and probably also the language of the dynastic Egyptians were the natural development of the language and crude picture-signs of their predecessors, and the theory of a violent break in the continuity of early Egyptian civilization at the commencement of the first dynasty is daily becoming more untenable. We are similarly unable to assign any definite date to the arrival of the Semites in the Mesopotamian Valley, though the Neo-Babylonian King Nabonidus gives us a traditional date for Shar-Gâni-sharri 3 (Sargon) and his son Narâm-Sin, kings of Agade, who, so far as we know, established the first Semitic empire in the country. There were indeed Semitic Kings of Kish before the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri, but the extent of their sway was clearly very limited compared with the far-reaching empire of the rulers of Agade. But there are reasons for doubting the accuracy of the traditional date of 3750 B.C. which Nabonidus assigns to Narâm-Sin, the chief reason being the extraordinary gap in the yieldings of Babylonian excavations between Pg 6the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin, and that of Gudea, the priest-king of Lagash in Southern Babylonia, who reigned about 2400 B.C.; that is to say, concerning a period of about 1300 years the excavations have afforded us practically no information whatever, while both at the beginning and at the close of that period, we have abundant evidence of the civilization and history of the inhabitants of Babylonia; secondly, the style of art characteristic of the time of Gudea and the kings of Ur, as also the style of writing found in their inscriptions, presuppose no such long interval between the time of Sargon and their own day. But there are yet other considerations which are even more potent, and which deserve greater attention than has been up to the present accorded to them, depending as they do upon the stratification of the ruined mounds themselves. Now it is a very significant fact that the architectural remains of Ur-Engur (circ. 2400 B.C.) at Nippur, are found immediately above those of Narâm-Sin, for such an arrangement is hardly conceivable if a period of some thirteen hundred years separated these two rulers. Again, the excavations carried on by Dr. Banks for the University of Chicago at Bismâya have been productive of similar evidence, for immediately below the ruined ziggurat of Dungi, Ur-Engur’s successor on the throne of Ur, large square bricks of the size and shape characteristic of the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri were discovered, while among the bricks a strip of gold inscribed with the name of Narâm-Sin was also brought to light. The evidence afforded by the excavations on these two sites would thus appear to be exceedingly strong against the traditional date recorded by Nabonidus.4
It is therefore tempting to reason that that long silent period, the silence of which cannot be adequately accounted for, had no existence at all, that Nabonidus’ statement is therefore to be discredited, and that Shar-Gâni-sharri Pg 7and Narâm-Sin probably lived and reigned more than a thousand years later, i.e. about 2650 B.C. On the other hand it is important to remember that the Babylonians were astronomers and mathematicians of no mean order, and that they exercised the greatest possible care in calculating dates, that moreover Nabonidus was a king of Babylonia, and therefore “a priori” likely to be in possession of reliable traditions, if any existed, and further, that he lived 2500 years nearer to the time than we do. The inscription of Nabonidus in question was found in the mound of Sippar near Agade. It says:—“The foundation corner-stone of the temple E-ulba in the town of the eternal fire (Agade) had not been seen since the times before Sargon King of Babylonia and his son Narâm-Sin.... The cylinder of Narâm-Sin, son of Sargon, whom for 3200 years, no king among his predecessors had seen, Shamash the great lord of Sippara hath revealed to him.” Thus according to Nabonidus, Narâm-Sin lived about 3750 B.C. The archæological evidence is however so strong in this particular case, both negatively in regard to the absence of any tangible evidence of the long interval in question, and positively in regard to the stratification of the mounds containing the relics of these two kings and also in regard to the similarity between the earlier sculptures and inscriptions of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin and those belonging to the latter half of the third millennium B.C., that we are no longer able to maintain the implicit confidence in the historical accuracy of Nabonidus which early scholars once had.
From the inscriptions of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin that have been brought to light, we gather that the authors of these inscriptions were Semites, in other words we learn that the empire of Agade was a Semitic Empire, and since they extended their empire over all Western Asia, the Sumerian power located more in the south must have proportionately dwindled. But Pg 8their Sumerian predecessors had established their influence and power in Mesopotamia for a long and indefinite time before this date, for Sumerian inscriptions which are almost certainly to be assigned to the pre-Sargonic period give us the names of a large number of early kings and rulers of Babylonia; their early date is shown by the writing of these inscriptions which bear a more archaic stamp than those of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin. For just as uninscribed sculptures are relatively dateable by the style of art to which they conform, so that it is possible to provisionally say that this sculpture or cylinder-seal is older than that, because it presents a more archaic and less finished style of art, so is it possible to approximately date un-named and un-dated inscriptions by the style of writing adopted in those inscriptions. We thus have two means at our disposal by which we can assign uninscribed monuments of an early period to their relatively correct places in the evolution of art and culture; on the one hand the stratum of the ruined mound in which the object in question has been found can often itself be relatively dated by actually inscribed monuments found either in the stratum itself, or in the stratum immediately above or below; or failing these, by the depth at which the stratum lies below the top of the mound, though this latter alone is a poor criterion owing to the fact that such accumulation will obviously vary in different places. The value of all such evidence however depends on whether or not the strata have been disturbed, as is often unfortunately the case.
The reason why the ruins of Mesopotamian cities have assumed the form of mounds lies in the fact that a conquering chief demolished the clay walls and buildings of his vanquished foe, but instead of clearing the débris away, he built on the top of it; for his new building operations the new-comer often utilized part of the old material, hence the uncertainty of a date assigned to an object, based on the mere assumption that such object Pg 9belongs to the stratum in which it has ultimately found itself, without other corroborative evidence. On the other hand we are in these days always able to apply the purely archæological test, which depends upon a close examination of the style of art or the mode of writing.
Some of these pre-Sargonic rulers already alluded to can be arranged in strictly chronological order, i.e. the rulers of the city of Lagash, one of the earliest centres of Sumerian civilization in Babylonia. Lagash lies fifteen hours’ journey north of Ur and two hours’ east of Warka (the ancient Erech), and it is Lagash which has provided us with more material for our study of early Sumerian life and culture than any other city in the Euphrates valley.
The order of the early pre-Sargonic rulers of Lagash is as follows: Ur-Ninâ, apparently the founder of the dynasty, inasmuch as he bestows no royal title on his father or grandfather, and his successors traced themselves back to him; Akurgal, Eannatum, Enannatum I, Entemena, Enannatum II, Enetarzi, Enlitarzi, Lugal-anda, and Urukagina. But though their chronological order is certain, the length of their reigns is unknown, and their dates can only be approximately ascertained, and even these approximate and relative dates depend entirely on the date of Shar-Gâni-sharri. Assuming the latter’s date to have been about 2650 B.C., Ur-Ninâ’s date would be roughly about 3000 B.C. Ur-Ninâ the first member of the dynasty has left us a number of his sculptures and stelæ, but there are other nameless works of art discovered either in the neighbourhood or actually in Lagash itself which present a less developed form of art, and where inscriptions are concerned, a more archaic style of writing, while in certain cases the monuments in question were actually discovered in the strata underneath the building of Ur-Ninâ, and with these the history of Mesopotamian art and of the civilization to which it bears such eloquent testimony commences.
Pg 10

RACE

The race to which the Sumerians belonged is not known, but the fact that their language being agglutinative and not inflexional, was therefore neither Aryan nor Semitic, but at least and in this respect akin to the Mongolian languages, of which Turkish, Finnish, Chinese and Japanese are the most illustrious examples to-day, has led certain scholars to seek a connection between some of the Sumerian roots and certain Chinese words, it must however be admitted that this supposed connection is rather hypothetical at present. Further efforts have also been made by Lacouperie and others to establish parallels between Chinese art and culture and those of the Sumerians, but the evidence is not very convincing.

SOIL

As the surface-soil of Babylonia did not originate there, but was brought down by the rivers and deposited by them as their currents lost impetus in approaching the sea, and were thus unable to carry their burden further, it is well to trace this soil to its original source. Both the Euphrates and the Tigris rise in the mountains of Armenia,5 the geological formation of which is chiefly granite, gneiss and other feldspathic rocks. These rocks were gradually decomposed by the rains, their detritus being hurried rapidly down-stream; the rivers in the course of their career travel through a variety of geological formations including limestone, sandstone and quartz, all of which contribute something to the silt which is destined to form part of the delta’s soil; the latter being composed mainly of chalk, sand, and clay, is extremely fertile, which won for it a reputation testified to even by the classical writers: thus Herodotus who Pg 11flourished in the seventh century B.C. tells us (I, 293) that “of all the countries that we know, there is none which is so fruitful in grain. It makes no pretension indeed, of growing the olive, the vine, or any other trees of the kind; but in grain it is so fruitful as to yield commonly two hundredfold, and when the production is greatest even three hundredfold. The blade of the wheat-plant and barley is often four fingers in breadth. As for millet and the sesame, I shall not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge, for I am not ignorant that what I have already written concerning the fruitfulness of Babylonia, must seem incredible to those who have never visited the country.... Palm trees grow in great numbers over the whole of the flat country, mostly of the kind that bears fruit, and this fruit supplies them with bread, wine and honey.” However exaggerated this account may be, all ancient writers agree in ascribing to Babylonian soil a fertility and productivity surpassing that of any other country with which they were acquainted.
But the present state of the country is very different from what it was, neglect of cultivation having reduced it once more to a desert waste, or, in the immediate neighbourhood of the rivers, to a pestiferous marsh. The rivers have furthermore varied their courses time and again, though this remark applies more to the sluggish stream of the Euphrates with its low banks, than to the more swiftly flowing Tigris whose current is confined by higher banks, and whose course has consequently undergone less change. At the present time, great efforts are being made to make amends for the neglect to which the once fertile plain of Babylonia has so long been subject, and in the early part of last year (1911) the firm of Sir John Jackson (Limited), contractors and engineers, secured the contract for the building of a great dam at the head of the Hindiyah Canal: this latter is a channel for which the Euphrates has forsaken its own Pg 12bed, and consequently the Euphrates’ bed upon whose banks the city of Babylon lies, is in summer-time perfectly dry, all the water flowing down the Hindiyah Canal except at the time of the inundation. Thus it is that the population have practically ceased to attempt the cultivation of the Euphrates’ banks, and have for the most part migrated across country to this canal. The latter however, being quite inadequate for the burden thus thrust upon it by the undivided waters of the Euphrates, has become badly water-logged, and much good land has become swamp. The Turks have been endeavouring for a long time to erect a dam which would drive back part of the water into the bed of the river, and thus at the same time make the regulation of the flow in the canal a possibility, but they have not attained their object. The engineers of Sir William Willcocks were successful in filling up the space between the two arms of the barrage, but the dam was almost immediately breached at another point. When however the scheme now in hand is duly realized, the banks of the Euphrates will once again be dotted with the fertility of bygone days, while the district dependent for its prosperity upon the conditions of the Hindiyah Canal will be similarly improved.
By the side of these rivers flourished the acacia, the pomegranate and the poplar, but the tree which stood the Babylonians in best stead, was the date-palm, from the sap of which they made sugar and also a fermented liquor, while its fibrous barks served for ropes, and its wood, being at the same time light and strong, was extensively used as a building material. So many and so divers were the uses which the date-palm served, that the Babylonians had a popular song 6 in which they celebrated the three hundred and sixty benefits of this invaluable tree. The important part which it played in the life of the early Pg 13Sumerian population is indicated by the epithet applied by Entemena to the goddess Ninâ, whom he addresses as the lady “who makes the dates grow,” while various amphora-shaped vats, and also a kind of oval basin evidently used in the manufacture or preservation of date-wine were discovered by De Sarzec at Tellô.
The date-tree finds a place on the Assyrian bas-reliefs, but it must be confessed that the artistic products of the Babylonians and Assyrians do not afford us so much information as might be expected regarding the flora and fauna of the country. Vines and palms are of frequent occurrence on the later bas-reliefs, while oaks and terebinths were also known, for Esarhaddon uses them as material in his building operations at Babylon, and cedar trees were regularly procured for the same purpose.
Of the various trees represented on early seals, hardly any can be identified with any degree of certainty, the date-palm perhaps being excepted: the reed of the marshes appears fairly soon, but the fig-tree on the other hand occurs only in later times, which accords with Herodotus’ intimation that they were not grown in Mesopotamia in his day; this notwithstanding, they must have been known and presumably cultivated sufficiently early, for amongst the offerings made by Gudea (2450 B.C.) to the goddess Bau, figs are enumerated, while the olive-tree must also have been known at an early date, for objects in clay in the form of an olive belonging to the time of Urukagina are still extant.
The Lotus is sometimes engraved on a seal, always in the hand of a god, and with other Egyptian elements it is frequently found on the ivories and bronze dishes from Nimrûd.
Millet and other cereals have been the subject of artistic delineation; flowers of a nondescript character appear in later times, though the conventional designs Pg 14of the rosettes, so familiar in Assyrian art, an example of which is to be found in Pl. XXX, without doubt owed its origin to an actual attempt to reproduce a living flower, while ivy only occurs on a late Græco-Egyptian cylinder, and on a Syro-Hittite cylinder we find a representation of the thistle.
Reeds are found more often than any other tree or plant, alike on cylinder-seals and bas-reliefs. They were in great demand for the construction of huts and light boats, but the clay of their native soil furnished an all-availing and all-abundant material for the building operations of their palaces, temples and houses; its possibilities were recognized at a very early date, and were made use of accordingly. Stone is practically unknown in the low-lying plain of Babylonia,and when required, it had to be quarried far away in the mountains and transported at great cost and labour, hence it was comparatively seldom used for artistic or decorative effects pure and simple, but was rather employed where the desire for durability rendered it necessary; for this reason the stone used in Babylonia is generally basalt, diorite, dolerite or some other hard stone of volcanic origin. In Assyria on the other hand, both alabaster and various kinds of limestone were easily procurable, and were used largely for building purposes, while they both, also, adapted themselves readily to the chisel of the sculptor whose duty it was to record the chief events of the king’s reign in pictorial form upon the walls of his palace.
Of the cereals, wheat, barley, vetches and millet were the most important, and they all grew in large quantities, while as regards domestic animals—horses, oxen, sheep, pigs, goats, asses and dogs were the most familiar; upon the bas-reliefs from Kouyunjik, one of the mounds representing the ancient Nineveh (the other being Nebi Yûnus (“Prophet Jonah”), so-called by the natives, owing to their belief that the prophet Jonah was buried Pg 15there), camels are to be found, while they also form part of the tribute brought by tributary princes to Shalmaneser II King of Assyria 860-825 B.C., and are represented accordingly on the bronze gates from Balâwât and on the so-called Black Obelisk, principally famous for its representation of Jehu and his tribute-bearers. The camels represented here belong to the double-humped Bactrian breed, which have less staying-power than the single-humped dromedaries of Arabia and Africa. In Babylonia at the present day, these last-named are a most important means of locomotion, but in the hilly country of Assyria, they are of less use, owing to their tendency to slip on any but the flattest of grounds. There is apparently only one isolated occurrence of a camel on a cylinder-seal, and that belongs to the Persian period. The Assyrian word used for “camel” is probably of Arabic origin, and Arabia was doubtless the home of the camel. As for horses, oxen, sheep, goats and dogs, they are constantly represented in Assyrian art. The horse being native to Asia, was in all probability domesticated in Mesopotamia earlier than in Egypt; very early evidence of its existence in Mesopotamia was thought to be afforded by an archaic seal-cylinder, now in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, in which a god is represented driving a four-wheeled chariot, in contrast to the Assyrian war-chariots which were two-wheeled; the chariot is drawn by an animal of uncertain character, which Ward originally regarded as a horse, but in view of a representation of a bull drawing a chariot, found on an early Assyrian seal which he dates about 2000 B.C., it is clear that the bull was used to draw chariots in early times, and Ward accordingly regards the ambiguous animal alluded to, as also a bull. The Sumerian name for the horse was “the ass of the mountains,” an indication that the animal was first known to them in its wild state: we find it figured on one of Nebuchadnezzar Pg 16I’s boundary stone (circ. 1120 B.C.), but it was certainly known in the valley much earlier. The Hyksos, or shepherd-kings from Asia introduced the horse into Egypt about 1700 B.C., while mention is made of horses in a letter from Burraburiash the king of Babylon to Amenḥetep, king of Egypt about 1400 B.C.
An extremely early fragment from Nippur (cf. Fig. 25, E) published by Hilprecht and quoted and reproduced by Ward,7 shows us a horned animal dragging a plough, which Ward thinks may be a gazelle or an antelope; if the latter be the case, we may perhaps infer that an animal of that species was used for draft purposes before the bull, and certainly before the horse. However that may be, in later days the horse seems to have been reserved for the battle-field and the chase. The Assyrian soldiers both rode them and harnessed them to their war-chariots, and it is worth noticing how much more successful the Assyrian sculptors were in their representations of the horse than the Egyptians. The horses on the bas-reliefs apparently belong to a smaller, shorter and more thick-set breed than Arabs, and the breed is still supposed to be extant in Kurdistan. The Assyrians do not seem to have been in the habit of endowing the horse with wings or with a human head, as they sometimes did the bull and the lion, though some of the Pehlevi 8 seals and rings of later days (A.D. 226-632) show figures of winged horses.
The Ox with “long upright and bent horns” seems to have been domesticated from the very earliest period, and it is represented on cylinder-seals which by their inscriptions show that they belong to the early period when the line-writing had not as yet been supplanted by its later off-shoot cuneiform, while on one of these early seals (cf. Fig. 63) the god himself is depicted riding on one of these bulls; it is however to be observed that the Pg 17bull plays a less conspicuous part in the artistic representations of Mesopotamia than in those of Egypt, where the tombs so often exhibit the daily scenes of agricultural life. Only very rarely is the bull represented on cylinder-seals or sculptures as a sacrificial victim, the best example being afforded by a fragment of the Vulture Stele of Eannatum; the same king informs us elsewhere that he sacrificed bulls to the sun-god in Larsa, and a bull-calf to En-lil, the lord of Nippur, who is better known under the Semitic name of Bêl, a name which however he never bore;9 if however the bull were used but seldom in sacrificial worship, there is no doubt that he was regarded throughout Mesopotamian history as the embodiment of, and therefore the natural symbol for strength and fertility, while the winged bulls of Sargon (cf. Pl. XXV) are the most familiar and perhaps the most characteristic monuments of Assyrian art.
The Mule was used as a beast of burden; carts were drawn by mules, and women and children were borne by them, while they were used for carrying merchandise, and for menial work of every kind; they are occasionally seen on Assyrian bas-reliefs and form one of the subjects of Ashur-bani-pal’s famous Hunting Scenes, where they are in charge of the king’s servants.
The Sheep was domesticated from the earliest times, but representations of the goat are more common; in Fig. 62 we have an extremely archaic seal on which a man is seen driving a goat followed by two sheep. A further example of the goat and sheep is found on the early stone relief seen in Fig. 25, F.
The Goat is of frequent occurrence both on seals and also in bas-reliefs. The goat was, as far as we can tell, the most commonly used sacrificial victim, the worshipper often being represented as bringing a goat in his arms. (For an early example of a goat in Babylonian art, cf. the copper goat’s head from Fâra, 40, B.) Fig. Pg 18The beard is sometimes clearly delineated,10 thereby showing it to be a goat and not an antelope, while both the sheep and goat are well represented on the bronze gate-sheaths from Balâwât. Though the sheep however does not appear to have assumed so important a part as the goat in sacrificial worship, it played a far more conspicuous rôle in augury, and innumerable omens were deduced from an inspection of the various parts of its liver.
The Ass was known from the earliest period, both the wild ass, which Ashur-bani-pal seems to have been so fond of hunting (cf. Pl. XX), and also the domesticated ass. Ward has only found one example of its early representation on cylinder-seals, but the god Nin-girsu’s chariot on the famous Vulture Stele is drawn by an ass, and the fact that Urukagina, one of the kings of the First Dynasty of Lagash, enacted that if a good ass was foaled in the stable of one of the king’s subjects, the king could only purchase it by offering a fair price, and that even then he could not compel the owner to part with it, shows that the ass was in common use in his day.
The Dog finds a place on some of the earliest seals from Babylonia, and is especially common on those representing the legend of Etana and the Eagle (cf. Fig. 62): he also appears on the later Babylonian seals, and is of very frequent occurrence in the Assyrian bas-reliefs.
Here they are seen employed in the chase (cf. Pl. XX). The Assyrian hounds apparently resembled mastiffs, and according to Layard the breed is still extant in Tibet though not in Mesopotamia. We have another good reproduction of a dog on a terra-cotta plaque found by Sir H. Rawlinson at Birs-Nimrûd (cf. Fig. 88), while Ashur-bani-pal has left us a number of clay models of his dogs, made in one piece like the colossal bulls, but Pg 19rather crude in workmanship. Though we thus know little about the breeds of dogs with which the Assyrians and Babylonians were familiar, we at all events know, that they were acquainted with dogs of various colours, for they derived omens from piebald dogs, yellow dogs, black dogs, white dogs and the rest.
The Gazelle was known in Mesopotamia from an early day, and he sometimes appears to take the place of the goat as a victim for sacrifice.
The Antelope is often found represented on early cylinder-seals, and apparently it was occasionally yoked to the plough, as may be seen from an early stone relief from Nippur,11 but it is not always easy to distinguish between the antelope and the goat in Babylonian art.
The Ibex is similarly liable to be confused with the mountain sheep, owing to the shape of their horns, but where correctly depicted, it has a beard. A good and very early example of the Ibex is to be found engraved on a fragment of shell belonging to the earliest Sumerian period (cf. Louvre Cat. No. 222).
The Boar was not often figured, but was without doubt sufficiently common as it is to-day; it is found on an extremely archaic seal (cf. Fig. 54), and numbers of little swine are repeated in four registers on a later cylinder-seal, while on other seals, the huntsman is seen spearing a boar, and lastly a sow with her young are represented on one of the wall-reliefs from Sennacherib’s palace at Kouyunjik. It is interesting to note that as early as the time of Khammurabi 12 pork was a highly valued food, so much so that it frequently formed part of the temple offerings, and Ungnad calls attention to one case where a certain maleficent person stole one of the temple-pigs and paid a heavy penalty for so doing, while in the official lists of the provisions for the temple, various parts of the pig are specifically enumerated, Pg 20while from the inspection of pigs favourable and unfavourable omens were derived.
The Rabbit or Hare is rarely found in early sculptures or engravings, but it occurs on the later so-called Syro-Hittite cylinders, and is occasionally portrayed on the Assyrian bas-reliefs.13
The Oryx, the Mountain-Sheep, the Stag, the Tortoise, the Porcupine, the Monkey, all occur occasionally on the cylinders, while as regards the monkey, he forms part of the tribute brought by subject peoples to Shalmaneser II on the Black Obelisk, and is also similarly depicted on the bas-reliefs which adorned the walls of Ashur-naṣir-pal’s palace at Nimrûd, in both of which latter, the monkeys represented appear to belong to an Indian species, and were clearly novelties in the eyes of the Assyrians, who no doubt valued them accordingly.
There are solitary instances of the Fox, the Frog and the Bear, but none of the foregoing play what may be called an important part in the history of the country’s art. The Lion and the Serpent occupy a prominent position in artistic representations, and were undoubtedly familiar and formidable entities in real life, while the majesty of the former and the subtlety of the latter were alone sufficient to obtain for them a place in the mythological and heraldic symbolism of the dwellers of Mesopotamia. The lion was known everywhere, in highlands and lowlands alike, while he still haunts the low marsh country of Babylonia. On the cylinder-seals he generally appears engaged in deadly combat with Gilgamesh, the hero of Babylonian folk-lore, or his friend Ea-bani who of course on all occasions worsts him; he is figured in clay and stone from the earliest (cf. Fig. 26, B) to the latest times, he is embroidered on garments, and decorates scabbards, while he plays an all-important part in the heraldic device of the ancient city of Lagash, which is Pg 21composed of an eagle with outspread wings, clutching two lions facing in opposite directions (cf. Fig. 27), doubtless emblematic of the dominion exercised by the king of Lagash over the peoples of the East and West respectively. He enjoys the doubtful honour of being the peculiar object of the Assyrian King’s attention in later days, and afforded him the sport which he loved above all others (cf. Pl. XIX); individual kings slew great numbers, and Tukulti-Ninib I (1275 B.C.), to take a single example, places it on record that he slew some 920 lions, just as Amenḥetep III king of Egypt similarly boasts that he killed 102 lions in the first ten years of his reign. Originally no doubt lions were sufficiently plentiful, but as their numbers were thinned, it became necessary to capture and preserve them in cages till they were required for the royal hunt (cf. Pl. XXVII). The lion is sometimes reproduced in colossal size, and endowed with wings and the head of a man, in which capacity, stationed at the portals of the King’s palace, his vocation is to ward off the advances of malevolent and maleficent demons, while at other times, he is less fully equipped, and is provided only with a head, bust and hands of a man. Always a creature of weight in more ways than one, his body is not unfittingly adapted to the requirements of the scales; a considerable number of bronze lion-weights have come down to us, the workmanship of which was probably Phœnician (as was also the ivory work of the Assyrian empire), while the weight represented by each lion was inscribed in Phœnician characters. Sometimes again the hollow bronze head of a lion formed the ornate fitting of the end of a chariot-pole. As a general rule, the lion emblematized the King’s enemies, hence it is that, whenever he is seen engaged in conflict, he is always overpowered either by sheer bodily strength as in the case of Gilgamesh, or transfixed by an arrow, speared, or stabbed as we see him so frequently on the bas-reliefs of Assyrian Pg 22palaces. But lions were probably domesticated now and again as they are to-day. On Sir Henry Layard’s first visit to Hillah, he was presented with two lions by Osman Pasha; one of these, he tells us, was a well-known frequenter of the bazaars, the butcher-shops of which he was in the habit of regularly looting, but apart from this amiable little vagary, he appears to have been fairly well-behaved. In his description of the animal, Layard says that he was “taller and larger than a St. Bernard dog, and like the lion generally found on the banks of the rivers of Mesopotamia was without the dark and shaggy mane of the African species.” He further informs us that he had however, seen lions with a long black mane on the river Karûn, which river flows into the Gulf not far from Moḥammerah in the extreme south of Babylonia; but lions of either class are very rarely seen in Mesopotamia to-day, and these as a rule, only at a distance.
The serpent played a smaller part in Mesopotamian art than the lion, but at least from some points of view, a not less significant one. Two serpents entwined round a pole form the centre of the device engraved on the famous cup (cf. Fig. 90) dedicated by Gudea, patesi or priest-king of Lagash about 2450 B.C., to his god Nin-gish-zi-da, who was apparently emblematized by serpents, and on either side of the entwined reptiles, are two winged and serpent-headed monsters, while in a few cylinder-seals of the older period, we find a bearded god whose body consists of a serpent’s coil. In this connection we may compare the device on a cylinder-seal of the same Gudea (cf. Fig. 64), where the intermediary god who is introducing the patesi to a seated deity, whom Ward believes with some reason to be Ea, is characterized by serpents rising from his shoulders.
But the most familiar example of the serpent in Babylonian mythological representation is that of the seal on which two beings, perhaps divine, perhaps human, are Pg 23seated on either side of a tree, and behind one of the two an erect serpent is figured; this seal owes its fame to the opinion held by earlier scholars that this scene represents the pictorial counterpart in Babylonia of the Hebrew tradition of the Fall.
Judging from the representations of snakes found on vases, boundary-stones, cylinder-seals and elsewhere, the snakes prevalent in Mesopotamia at the time when these monuments were prepared, must have been of considerable size, while we know from the literature that some of these snakes were poisonous. The Assyrian kings further make mention of the prevalence of snakes in some of the countries whither they conducted expeditions, or which were subject to them, thus Esarhaddon for example tells us that the land of Bazu swarmed with snakes and scorpions like grasshoppers.
Among other beasts familiar to the inhabitants of Mesopotamia may be mentioned, the Bison (“rimu”) an animal of the mountains and forests, which plays a conspicuous part in the story of Gilgamesh; the old pictograph for the bison consists of the head of an ox in which were inclosed the three diagonal wedges which together signify “mountain,” and thus indicate the place of its origin. Various species of the bovine race have been identified on the cylinder-seals of Babylonia, showing that at the time of the making of the seals, the memory of their existence and probably the actuality of their presence were still felt and known. The buffalo which haunts the swamps of Southern Babylonia often occurs on cylinder-seals belonging to the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri and his successors, and is found engraved on fragments of shell belonging to the earliest Sumerian period. Layard tells us that these ugly animals which thrive in the marshes to-day supply the Arabs with large quantities of milk and butter; they are normally managed with ease, but they have a peculiar antipathy to the smell of soap, and in consequence the odour of freshly-washed Pg 24clothes is apt to irritate them in no small degree. The wild-bull was assiduously hunted by the Sargonid Assyrian kings, among whom we may especially mention Ashur-naṣir-pal in this connection. (For a graphic illustration of that king’s exploits in the chase cf. Pl. XVI). After the Sargonids, the bull-hunt appears no longer as one of the principal royal sports, possibly owing to the relentlessness with which these animals had been hunted down by the kings of that dynasty. In the jungles, at all events in Layard’s day, lions, leopards, lynxes, wild-cats, jackals, hyenas, wolves, deer, porcupines and boars still abounded, while hyenas are sufficiently common to-day.
The Leopard is occasionally figured on the more archaic seals, but seldom on those of later date, it is distinguished specifically by its spots; a good example of the leopard is afforded by an archaic seal much earlier than the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri.14 It will thus be seen that the artistic and literary bequests of Mesopotamia have aided us in no small degree in our endeavour to get a general idea as to the animal-world of that country in bygone days. Such however has been the case, only to a very limited extent in regard to birds, where colour is a more determining factor in their infinite variations than form and shape: here it was that the Egyptian shone forth in all his native genius, and succeeded in vividly depicting so many different kinds of birds upon the walls of his tombs by the aid of his brush and colours. In Assyria and Babylonia, on the other hand, where the artistic genius of the people can never really be said to have used colours alone as the mode of its expression, the only birds frequently found, are the eagle and the vulture,—the eagle as the emblem of sovereign royalty, the vulture as the ever-ready devourer of the remains of slaughtered foes—though without doubt a great variety of birds haunted the plains and marshes as they do to-day.
Pg 25The Eagle, the royal bird par excellence, is the embodiment of kingly rule in the heraldic arms of Lagash as early as the time of her first dynasty, and by the time of Gudea (2450 B.C.) the double-headed eagle, generally characteristic of Hittite art, has made its appearance. It is upon the eagle’s pinions that Etana seeks unsuccessfully to ascend to Heaven, which legend is pictorially represented (cf. Fig. 62) on various archaic seals. In course of time the eagle becomes the aerial support of Ashur, the god from whom Assyria derived its name, and lends its form to the winged disc, which, as M. Heuzey well says, is a “yet more mysterious emblem of divinity”; the Assyrians further deemed it worthy to receive the honour of being united with the body of a man, the composite creature thus produced being accredited with powers more than those enjoyed by mere men, and apparently partaking of a semi-divine character, while on other occasions we see its wings applied to the human-headed body of a bull (cf. Pl. XXV) or a lion, the combined effect of which must have been such as to stagger the boldest of subterranean demons.
The long and bare-necked Vulture is not of frequent occurrence in Mesopotamian art, while on cylinder-seals, it only occurs on those known as Syro-Hittite. The birds of prey from which the “Vulture-stele” derives its name, no doubt are intended to represent vultures; as also are the birds depicted on the bas-reliefs which adorned the walls of Ashur-bani-pal’s palace at Nineveh,15 for in either case they are busily engaged in carrying off the sharply severed limbs and heads of fallen foes.
The Ostrich only appears in Mesopotamian art at a late period, though in Elam rows of ostriches are found depicted on early pottery, closely and inexplicably resembling the familiar ostriches on the pre-dynastic pottery of ancient Egypt. It sometimes however assumes Pg 26a conspicuous position in the embroidery of an Assyrian king’s robe and is found also on a chalcedony seal in Paris.16
The Stork, which in winter time feeds in the Babylonian marshes, occurs on the cylinder-seals, but in some cases it is difficult to determine the bird figured; the Crane and the Bustard both appear to be represented, while we have an undoubted instance of the Swan in a soft serpentine seal which Ward regards as early Assyrian.17 The Cock is confined or practically confined to cylinder-seals of the Persian period.
Ducks are known to have existed by the discovery of stone and marble weights in the form of ducks, one of which is inscribed with the name of Nabû-shum, and another with that of Erba-Marduk.
Doves were used and appreciated from the earliest times, for Eannatum informs us that he offered four doves in sacrifice to the god Enzu, while Swallows and Ravens abounded, for in the Deluge-story, both the swallow and raven as well as the dove are sent forth by Ṣit-napishtim to ascertain how far the waters were abated.18
Locusts are found on one or two seals, and also appear as articles of diet on the Assyrian bas-reliefs (cf. Layard, Series II, Pl. 9), where they are seen strung up on a stick, while the scorpion is of frequent occurrence on the cylinder-seals, and is found on some of the earliest.
Fishes figure alike on seals and on palace walls, but their presence generally seems due to the artist’s desire to remove all doubt from the spectator’s mind with regard to the water, of the success of his reproduction Pg 27of which he is by no means too sanguine. We have one humorous episode in fish-life depicted on the walls of Sennacherib’s palace at Kouyunjik, where a crab is seen effectually pressing its nippers into the body of a luckless fish, while it also occurs once on a cylinder-seal.
Fish were undoubtedly used for food from the earliest times; thus Eannatum records that he presented certain fish as offering to his gods, while one of the reforms introduced by Urukagina, a king of the First Dynasty of Lagash, was the deprivation from office of the extortionate fishery inspectors. The marshes still abound in fish, some of which attain to a considerable size; they are for the most part barbel or carp, their flesh although coarse affording a regular supply of food to the Arabs.
It was not unnatural or unfitting that in a country which had been created and was yearly being created out of and at the expense of the sea, and in which the principal means of transit were the rivers and the canals, the fish as the lord of the waters should fulfil an important place in the mythological and religious conceptions entertained by the inhabitants of that country: thus it was that the god Ea of Eridu, one of the most famous and most important of the Babylonian gods, and the Oannes of the Greeks, who according to one account was the creator of the world, was represented in the form of a fish.
But it is necessary to avoid falling into the danger of assuming that all the animals, birds, fish and trees, either figured on monuments or mentioned in the literature of antiquity, belonged to the fauna or flora of Mesopotamia at the time when these engravings and sculptures were executed; the only absolutely certain and equally obvious inference is that the existence of such fauna or flora was known, while the degree of familiarity of the artist with the specimen in question may, with a good deal of reservation and allowance for the crudeness of Pg 28early art, be inferred from the comparative accuracy with which he has reproduced it, and also the frequency of its occurrence on contemporaneous works of art. With regard to the evidence of the literature, unfortunately in many cases there is some uncertainty as to the identification of the animals and plants alluded to, and furthermore, many of the animals represented pictorially on the monuments or alluded to in the literature form part of the tribute brought by subject states, the precise locality of which, to complicate matters yet further, is often uncertain. Sometimes, as in the case of the horse (cf. p. 15), the early ideographic form of writing teaches us something about the origin of the object mentioned, while the appearance of an animal or tree in early Mesopotamian art, and the existence of the same tree or animal in Mesopotamia to-day is good argument for including it among the ancient fauna and flora of the country. Again with exceptions it may be assumed that animals offered and accepted as tribute by the kings of Babylonia and Assyria were utilized in some way other than merely being afforded accommodation in a zoological gardens, in which connection we may perhaps fairly infer that kings of Assyria who accepted camels from vassal chiefs found use for them as a means of transit, though in the rough country of Assyria itself the camel would not be of great use any more than to-day, owing to the tendency of camels to slip on rough ground, and the consequently practical necessity of confining their use to flat sandy ground, such as is found in Babylonia, where they are seen by the thousand to-day.

(b) SKETCH OF BABYLONIAN AND ASSYRIAN HISTORY

In the early days of Babylonian history, the country was divided up into a number of small principalities or city-states, and the practical realization of the approved Pg 29truism that “unity is strength” was only attained at a later date. In this respect also, the early history of Babylonian civilization presents a parallel to that of ancient Egypt, where we find the country similarly apportioned out into a series of districts or nomes, which in course of time tended to amalgamate and in fact crystallized into a northern and a southern kingdom. But in Egypt the process of unification was carried a step further, and at about the time of the First Dynasty, the inhabitants of Egypt owed allegiance to one lord and one lord only—the king of the north and the south, his dual sovereignty being emblematized by his assumption of the crown of the north, and the crown of the south.
It is of course impossible to fix the date of the first appearance of the Sumerians in Babylonia, but the sites of their earliest known settlements were all situated in Sumer or Southern Babylonia, their principal cities being Ur, Erech, Nippur, Larsa, Eridu, Lagash and Umma. It is equally impossible to give anything in the nature of a definite date for the occupation of Northern Babylonia or Akkad by the Semites, suffice it to say that at the earliest period of which historical records have been brought to light, there appears to be evidence of the presence of Semites or Akkadians in Akkad alongside of the Sumerians in Sumer. The principal centres of Semitic occupation were the city of Akkad or Agade, Babylon, Borsippa (Birs-Nimrûd), Cutha, Opis, Sippar and Kish.
The city of Kish became an influential factor in Babylonian politics from the most ancient times.
Thus a certain Mesilim, king of Kish, whose inscribed mace-head was discovered at Tellô (Lagash),19 informs us that he had dedicated the same to the god Nin-girsu, during the patesiate of Lugal-shar-engur at Lagash, and that he had further restored the temple of this same god. Nothing further is known regarding Pg 30this patesi of Lagash, but Mesilim reigned at Kish at a very early date, for Entemena of Lagash commences his historical sketch of the relationship which had existed between his own city and that of Umma with the period of Mesilim.
Now the racial origin of Mesilim is a matter of doubt, but there is no doubt as to the Semitic origin of Sharru-Gi, Manishtusu and Urumush, later kings of Kish, whose reigns must be assigned to the pre-Sargonic period, and it is perhaps therefore reasonable to suppose that the earlier Mesilim was also a Semite. If that be the case, the mace-head of this ruler contains evidence that the early Sumerian city of Lagash was at one time under the domination of Semites, and conclusively proves that—so far as documentary evidence is concerned—Sumerians and Semites existed side by side in Babylonia from the earliest period of Mesopotamian civilization.
Some time after, Lagash succeeded in asserting her independence, and many of her subsequent rulers style themselves “kings.” The First Dynasty of Lagash which was seemingly founded by Ur-Ninâ established themselves securely for some considerable time, but the reign of Urukagina saw the end of the dynasty, and the capture and sack of the city by Lugal-zaggisi, a ruler of the neighbouring city of Umma.
The limits of Lugal-zaggisi’s empire included Ur, Erech, Larsa and Nippur, and he was undoubtedly one of the most powerful rulers of his day. Other pre-Sargonic kings whose power was specifically associated with Erech and Ur, were Lugal-kigub-nidudu and Lugal-kisalsi, but the extent of their sway cannot be estimated with any degree of certainty.
In the time immediately preceding the establishment of the empire of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin, the rallying point of the Semitic forces of Akkad seems to have been the city of Kish, the conquests of whose three Pg 31kings Sharru-Gi Manishtusu and Urumush prepared the way for their successors at Agade. Thus both Manishtusu and Urumush seem to have extended their power southward into the land of Sumer, while both these kings warred successfully against Elam.
The empire of Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin was however destined to entirely eclipse that of their forerunners, for it not only embraced Mesopotamia north and south, but also Syria and Palestine, and was in fact the first Babylonian empire worthy of the name.
Meanwhile the power of the Sumerians in the south had received a temporary check, and the patesis of Lagash, and other Sumerian centres at the time, clearly ruled on sufferance and not on the strength of rights which they were prepared to assert successfully in the battle-field.
But on the accession of Gudea about 2450 B.C., the momentarily smoking flame of Sumerian influence in Babylonia was kindled anew, and a strong anti-Semitic wave set in. This wave does not seem to have been characterized by a series of wars or battles, for the records of Gudea, the most powerful ruler among the later patesis of Lagash, seldom refer to anything in the nature of military achievements, but the extensiveness of his building operations testifies to the abundance of resources at his command, while the names of the countries which he laid under contribution for building-materials conclusively prove that the influence exercised by Lagash during the reign of Gudea was considerable. The list of the places from which he derived wood and stone includes the mountains in Arabia and on the Syrian coast, while he obtained copper from the mines in the Elamite territory east of the Tigris.
But the importance of Lagash was soon to pass away, and Ur became the dominating power in Babylonia. The dynasty of Ur (circ. 2400 B.C.), which lasted close on 120 years, was founded by Ur-Engur. He included Pg 32the whole of Southern Babylonia within his sphere of influence, while in the north, he has left evidence of his architectural undertakings at Nippur; hence he styled himself the “King of Sumer and Akkad,” but the fact that his son and successor Dungi found it necessary to reduce Babylon indicates that his authority in Akkad was not unquestioned. Dungi reigned 58 years, during which he reduced the whole of Babylonia beneath his sway, and apparently annexed the greater part of Elam. So firmly had he established his control over Elam, that we find the capital of that country (Susa) still retained by his successors, though frequent expeditions had to be undertaken to maintain the “status quo.”
The dynasty of Ur would appear to have been brought to an end by an invasion of Elamites; at all events Ibi-Sin, the last king of Ur, was carried away by the Elamites, and the rule in Babylonia then passed to the city of Isin. The dynasty of Isin lasted some 225 years, during which Babylonia enjoyed great prosperity.
In the latter part of the first half of this period the power in Babylonia seems to have passed temporarily into the hands of Gungunu, king of Ur and Larsa, who laid claim to rule over the whole of Sumer and Akkad, but his supremacy was of short duration, and Isin soon recovered her position as the paramount power in Babylonia.
Meanwhile the Semitic element in the north was gradually regaining its ascendency, and finally asserted itself as a concrete fact in the establishment of a dynasty by Sumu-abu, at the city of Babylon itself, about 2000 B.C.
At about this time the Elamites established themselves in Southern Babylonia at Ur and Larsa under Kudur-Mabuk and his sons Arad-Sin and Rîm-Sin, and during the earlier part of the dynasty exercised a suzerainty over the whole of that region. Subsequently Rîm-Sin met with a severe defeat at the hands of Khammurabi, Pg 33the most illustrious king of the dynasty and the Amraphel of the Book of Genesis, while he met with his death at the hands of Samsu-iluna, Khammurabi’s successor. With the death of Rîm-Sin Elamite power in Babylonia came to an end.
Khammurabi consolidated the power of Babylon, and extended his influence on all sides, but his chief title to fame depends upon his codification of Babylonian law. But Babylon’s supremacy in the south was soon to be successfully challenged by Iluma-ilu who founded a kingdom on the shores of the Persian Gulf, and inaugurated the so-called “Second Dynasty” of the lists of the kings.
Iluma-ilu was a contemporary of Samsu-iluna, whose attacks he twice repelled. Abêshu’, the successor of Samsu-iluna on the throne of Babylon, similarly tried to reduce the rebellious “Country of the Sea” beneath his sway, but without success, and from this time on, Southern Babylonia was ruled over by the kings of the “Country of the Sea.”
But Samsu-iluna had another foe to contend with, besides the southern rebels, a foe moreover ultimately destined to subjugate the whole of Babylonia, under whose rule she was governed for several centuries.
The Kassites were a warlike people whose home lay on the east of the Tigris, and to the north of Elam, and they apparently commenced raiding Babylonian territory in the reign of Samsu-iluna, though they do not seem to have materially affected the Babylonian power. About a century later however, the dynasty of Babylon was brought to an end by an invasion of the Hittites of Cappadocia who sacked the city, destroyed the temple of the great city-god, Marduk, and carried off his statue as a trophy. The Hittite conquest must have paved the way for the invasion of the Kassites who established themselves securely on the throne of Babylon for a very long period. At first their sphere of influence would Pg 34appear to have been confined to the northern half of the plain, but later on they extended their power to the Country of the Sea.
Meanwhile, Assyria in Northern Mesopotamia had emerged as a separate and independent kingdom, and already the signs of her future greatness were visible on the horizon.
The date of the colonization of Assyria is not known, but in any case it must have been before the time of Khammurabi, for the country bore the name of “Assyria” in his time, and was embraced within the limits of his empire. The struggle for supremacy finally ended in a victory for the northerners who under their king Tukulti-Ninib (circ. 1275 B.C.) effected the conquest of Babylonia. In addition to his title “King of Assyria,” Tukulti-Ninib styled himself “King of Karduniash (i.e. Babylon), King of Sumer and Akkad.” From that date down to the destruction of Nineveh (circ. 606 B.C.), and the foundation of the short-lived Neo-Babylonian empire by Nabopolassar, Babylonia takes a subsidiary place in the political history of Western Asia.
The immediate successors of Tukulti-Ninib I appear to have been perpetually engaged in war with the Babylonians, who at no period of their history readily submitted to the Assyrian yoke. Tiglath-Pileser I’s accession to the throne about 1100 B.C. inaugurated a new period in the history of Assyrian expansion. Some of the mountain-tribes who had owed allegiance to former Assyrian monarchs had revolted, and Tiglath-Pileser made it his business to crush them. The northern Moschians who sixty years previously had been the vassals of Assyria, had under the leadership of five kings invaded the territory of Commagene, but they were effectively reduced by Tiglath-Pileser, and the land of Commagene was conquered “throughout its whole extent.”
Various other tribes in the north, of whom the Nairi Pg 35would appear to have been the most important, were similarly brought beneath the Assyrian sway.
In a campaign against Babylonia he was also successful for the moment, and effected the reduction of Babylon, Sippar, Opis and other cities in Lower Mesopotamia. But his triumph here was short-lived, and the Assyrians were expelled by Marduk-nadin-akhê, the king of Babylon, who further invaded Assyria, and carried off the statues of some of the Assyrian gods.
Ashur-bêl-kala, the son and successor of Tiglath-Pileser I, retrieved the fortunes of the Assyrian arms in the south, and forced Marduk-shapik-zêrim the successor of Marduk-nadin-akhê to sue for peace.
But after the reigns of Tiglath-Pileser I’s two sons, Assyria suffered a severe disaster at the hands of the Hittites, and lost the territory gained by Tiglath-Pileser. Northern Syria which had been compelled to acknowledge the suzerainty of Tiglath-Pileser, now asserted her independence, and for some time remained the mistress of her own destinies.
Thus Assyria for the time being lost her position as a world-power, and it was only in the reign of Tukulti-Ninib II (890-885 B.C.) that her fortunes began to revive. The Nairi were again reduced by this king, and apparently the whole of the valley of the Upper Tigris was once more subjugated. Ashur-naṣir-pal (885-860 B.C.) carried on the work of expansion and re-conquest. With the further extension of Assyrian power northwards, the need of a capital occupying a more central position than ancient Ashur was at once realized, and accordingly Ashur-naṣir-pal transferred the seat of his government to Calah (Nimrûd) some forty miles north of Ashur.
Nearly 500 years before, Shalmaneser I had laid the foundations of a town at Calah, but the unsettled circumstances of the time had retarded its growth. Ashur-naṣir-pal demolished what remained of the old town, Pg 36and founded a new town on the same site, and for at least a century Calah remained the capital of the empire.
Ashur-naṣir-pal also extended his sphere of influence in a westerly direction and made a triumphal march through Northern Syria, but he appears to have cautiously refrained from coming into collision with the powerful king of Damascus.
Ashur-naṣir-pal’s son and successor, Shalmaneser II (860-825) consolidated the work of his father and grandfather and at the same time made fresh conquests himself. His campaigns in the west brought him into contact with the Israelites, and we find Ahab, king of Israel, mentioned as one of the Syrian allies who rebelled against him. Some years later, Shalmaneser became the suzerain of Israel, and received tribute from Jehu, the usurper.
After the reigns of Shalmaneser’s immediate successors, the power of Assyria began temporarily to decline, and the subject nations asserted their independence, but in 745 B.C. Tiglath-Pileser III, or Pul as he is called in 2 Kings xv. 19 and elsewhere, ascended the throne, and restored the influence and authority of Assyria in Western Asia. His wars in Syria meant disaster to Israel and the loss of independence to Judah. Ahaz, king of Judah, had sought the help of Tiglath-Pileser against the allied forces of Rezin, king of Damascus, and Pekah, king of Israel. Tiglath-Pileser at once seized this golden opportunity of interfering with the internal affairs of Palestine, defeated Israel and Damascus, and carried the Israelite tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh into captivity (734 B.C.). Hoshea, assassinator and usurper, purchased the right to the throne of Israel for ten talents of gold and a certain amount of silver, but in the reign of Tiglath-Pileser’s successor, Shalmaneser IV (727-722 B.C.) he became involved in an intrigue with Egypt, which led to his deportation to Assyria where he spent the rest of Pg 37his days as a prisoner. Meanwhile Samaria, the capital of his kingdom, was beleaguered, and after a two years’ siege was captured by Sargon, who deported the larger half of the population into Assyria. Sargon, “the son of a nobody,” i.e. a usurper, was one of the greatest of the Assyrian kings (722-705 B.C.) and was the first to come into actual conflict with the Egyptians. Palestine as a whole showed no alacrity to take up arms against her powerful overlord, but the Philistine town of Gaza, in reliance on the support of Egypt, refused to submit. Hannon the Philistine commander, on failing to repulse the Assyrian army retreated on Raphia, a town bordering on the Egyptian frontier, where he was joined by Shabê the Egyptian general. At Raphia the opposing armies joined battle, and after a fierce encounter, the allies had to retire before the better equipped and more disciplined army of Sargon. On his return, Sargon found it necessary to again subdue Babylonia, and he also carried on war with Elam. He was succeeded by his son Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.). After having suppressed the revolts which always seem to have signalized the accession of a new king, Sennacherib invaded Syria, established his authority over northern Palestine, reduced the rebellious Philistine city of Askelon, and then proceeded to attack the city of Ekron, to whose assistance an Egyptian army had rallied. Their combined forces were routed by Sennacherib at Altaku, and Ekron fell. Judah next occupied his attention; having captured numerous small towns and enslaved some 200,000 of the inhabitants, he proceeded to lay siege to Jerusalem. Hezekiah the king of Judah, withstood the siege for some time, but pressed by famine, he was compelled to yield and purchased the safety of his city by stripping the Temple of its treasures. Sennacherib thereupon returned to Assyria, but two years after, Hezekiah’s repudiation of his suzerainty occasioned another expedition to Palestine. The Assyrian troops first stationed Pg 38themselves at Lachish, whence Sennacherib dispatched a messenger to Hezekiah to demand his instant surrender. Meanwhile Sennacherib marched westward with a view to engaging the Egyptian army lying at Pelusium, one of the frontier towns of Egypt. But a sudden catastrophe—possibly an outbreak of plague—overtook the Assyrian host, and Sennacherib returned to Nineveh. On his arrival home, he found it necessary to once more suppress rebellious Babylon, and to render his work more lasting, he completely destroyed the city (689 B.C.). Towards the end of his reign he conducted a campaign in Cilicia where he defeated the Greeks and is said to have laid the foundations of the city of Tarsus. In 681 B.C. he was murdered by his sons, and the crown eventually settled on the head of Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.). The most striking event of his reign was the conquest of Lower Egypt (672 B.C.), but towards the end of his reign Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, recaptured Memphis and threatened to put an end to the Assyrian domination; his subjugation was one of the first acts of Ashur-bani-pal, the successor of Esarhaddon. Judah also became disaffected, but she was speedily reduced to submission and her king Manasseh was removed into captivity.
Ashur-bani-pal succeeded Esarhaddon in 668 B.C. The work of re-establishing the Assyrian power in Egypt occupied some time and was finally accomplished by the capture of Thebes (666 B.C.). Under Ashur-bani-pal Assyria attained the height of her power both at home and abroad, and the limits of her empire were extended further than ever before. After a lengthy war, Elam was subdued, but she subsequently joined Shamash-shum-ukîn, the brother of Ashur-bani-pal, and viceroy of Babylonia, in an organized revolt against Assyria, which resulted in the defeat of Shamash-shum-ukîn, and the ultimate capture and sack of Susa the Elamite capital (circ. 640 B.C.).
Pg 39
While Ashur-bani-pal was thus preoccupied with Babylonia and Elam, Lydia on the one hand, and Egypt on the other seized the opportunity to throw off the yoke of their suzerain. Lydia was reduced, but Egypt succeeded in maintaining her independence. Towards the close of Ashur-bani-pal’s reign, the wheel of fortune had already begun to turn, and clouds were already gathering on the eastern horizon. The Medes had made an inroad into Assyrian territory before his death in 626 B.C., and a few years after that event, Cyaxares king of the Medes inflicted a defeat on the Assyrian army and laid siege to Nineveh. But the end was temporarily stayed by the advance of the Scythian hordes.
Shortly afterwards Nineveh was again attacked by Cyaxares and Nabopolassar, an Assyrian general in command of Babylonia, and after a two years’ siege the city was taken and destroyed (circ. 606 B.C.). Assyria now passed under the power of the Medes, and Babylonia fell to Nabopolassar who founded the New or Neo-Babylonian empire. This late Babylonian empire only lasted about seventy years in all. Nabopolassar was succeeded by Nebuchadnezzar, who at the time of his father’s death was engaged in a campaign against Necho king of Egypt, upon whom he inflicted a severe defeat at Carchemish. His Palestinian expeditions led to the capture of Jerusalem, and the removal of a large part of the population of Judah into captivity. Both Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, kings of Judah, strove to throw off the Babylonian yoke but without avail. Nebuchadnezzar’s successors did little deserving of narration, and in the reign of Nabonidus, Babylon, which was under the command of Belshazzar, was captured by Cyrus, 539 B.C., and Babylonia passed under the rule of the Persians. She remained under Persian rule until the time of Alexander the Great’s ascendency when she became a Greek province.

Pg 40

CHAPTER II—EXCAVATIONS

THE history of the actual excavations properly commences with the first expedition sent out to dig, but there is one scholar who, although he did not excavate on any large scale, was the first to bring cuneiform inscriptions to Europe and on this account deserves special mention.
C. J. Rich, born in 1787 at Dijon, was from the early age of nine attracted to the study of Oriental languages, and in course of time made himself master of Hebrew, Persian, Aramaic and Arabic, while he is said to have attempted to read Chinese Hieroglyphics at the phenomenal age of fourteen. In 1803 he became a Cadet in the East India Company’s service, his military post being subsequently exchanged for a civil appointment. After visiting Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor and other countries, he returned to Bombay, but was, before the age of twenty-four, appointed the East India Company’s resident at Baghdad. In 1811 he visited the ruins of Babylon, an account of which is to be found in his “Memoir on the ruins of Babylon,” while his visit to Nineveh is recorded in his “Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan and on the site of ancient Nineveh, with Journal of a voyage down the Tigris to Baghdad, and an account of a visit to Shiraz and Persepolis.” It is moreover to Rich that we owe our first accurate plans of both Nineveh and Babylon. In the course of his travels, he made large collections consisting chiefly of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Aramaic and Syriac manuscripts, a number of Greek and oriental coins, and also many antiquities from Babylon and Nineveh, including the Pg 41first cuneiform tablets seen in Europe: his collections were acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum, after his death from cholera in 1820.
But as the pioneer in the actual field of excavation, M. Botta, the French Consul at Mosul, occupied the first place in point of time. In the year 1842, on the advice of Mohl, he began the exploration of the Mound of Kouyunjik, one of the two mounds which mark the site of the city of Nineveh, but meeting with scant success, he transferred his attention in 1843 to the Mound of Khorsabad (the town of Chosroes) some miles north of Mosul, where he laid bare the ruins of a palace which proved to be that of Sargon, king of Assyria (722-705 B.C.) and the father of Sennacherib. In the year 1851 the French Assembly voted the money for an expedition to Babylonia, and also for another expedition to Assyria, the object of which was to complete the excavations which had been commenced with so much promise at Khorsabad: this expedition was directed by Victor Place who at the same time succeeded Botta as French Consular agent at Mosul. During the years 1851-1855 Place completed the excavation of Sargon’s palace, and also laid bare the surrounding buildings and rooms, carrying his work right up to the wall of the town; Khorsabad was found to contain the ruins of a whole fortified town, which had remained entombed for some 2500 years: the town was named Dûr-Sharrukîn after its founder Sargon. The four corners of the city walls were oriented towards the four cardinal points, the walls themselves being pierced by eight enormous gates, each of which was named after an Assyrian deity. The palace had been built on a terraced mound 45 feet high, which was made of crude or unbaked bricks, and was protected by a casing-wall of large square stones. The palace contained wide halls, adorned with sculptures, winged bulls and the like. The floors of the various Pg 42chambers consisted generally of stamped clay, and were no doubt hidden from view by elaborate rugs, sometimes, however, tiles or blocks of marble concealed the unsightly clay.
The walls were of great thickness, i.e. from 9-1/2 to 16 feet, while in one place they measured as much as 25-1/2 feet. The inner walls of the less important chambers were only covered with a white plaster surrounded by black lines, the so-called women’s apartments, on the other hand, being decorated with frescoes and white or black arabesques. Marble statues were unearthed in the harem court, and the remains of a ziggurat or stage-tower—a characteristic feature in Mesopotamian temples—were brought to light. Place’s excavations were not so productive of large sculptures and monuments as those of Botta had been, but they were particularly fruitful as regards smaller objects of glass, stone, clay, and metal.
The first Englishman to enter the field was Layard who in 1845, only two years after Botta’s first expedition, commenced excavating the ruined mounds of Nimrûd. Nimrûd, which proved to be the ancient Calah, was built on a rectangular plateau just as Khorsabad had been, and the exploration of its site yielded a rich harvest of new materials for the reconstruction of the history of the past. Ashur-naṣir-pal, king of Assyria (885-860), following the example of Shalmaneser I (about 1300), removed the seat of government from Ashur forty miles northwards, to Calah, where he built a palace for himself, the excavation of which was one of Layard’s greatest triumphs. This palace occupied the north-western portion of the mound and was in part restored by Sargon; to the north of this palace of Ashur-naṣir-pal lay the site of the temple of Ninib or Adar, the god of war. Shalmaneser II (860-825) the successor of Ashur-naṣir-pal, also built a palace at Calah, on the south-east of that of his predecessor; this palace, known as the Pg 43central palace, was almost entirely rebuilt by Tiglath-Pileser III, the Biblical Pul (745-727 B.C.).

PLATE II
1
2
3
4
	1. Kouyunjik and Nebi Yûnus from the North	3. Nimrûd (Calah)
	2. Kouyunjik and Nebi Yûnus from Mosul	4. Khorsabad

At the south-west corner, the palace of Esarhaddon (681-668) was excavated, in the construction of which, that king utilized the materials of the older palaces in the most unscrupulous fashion, but the building was found to have been much damaged by fire. North of Esarhaddon’s palace and south of that of Ashur-naṣir-pal, lay the comparatively small palace of Adad-nirari III (812-783 B.C.), and in the south-east corner of the parallelogram the insignificant remains of the palace of Ashur-etil-ilâni (about 625) one of the last of Assyria’s monarchs were brought to light.
Thus Layard discovered and excavated the remains of some seven royal palaces at Nimrûd; of these seven that of Ashur-naṣir-pal was by far the most important from the archæological and historical standpoint.
Wall bas-reliefs, human-headed winged lions and bulls (cf. Pl. XXV), obelisks, bronze bowls, iron reaping-hooks and spear-heads, carved ivory panels and mirrors, a “silver-plated” sceptre-head, and a variety of bells are a few among the many valuable finds at Nimrûd, each of which makes its contribution, be it small or be it great, to the restoration of a page of human history and cultural evolution.
But undoubtedly the most impressive monuments yielded by Assyrian excavations are the gigantic winged bulls and lions which were stationed at the royal palace gates. The removal of these monsters of oriental antiquity was an even more difficult task than their excavation, and taxed the inventive powers of both French and English explorers to the utmost.
Those excavated by the French at Khorsabad were embarked piecemeal for Paris, the parts into which they had been sawn, with a view to facilitating their transit, being fitted together again in the Louvre, the museum which they now adorn. Layard however adopted a Pg 44different method in effecting the transport of the winged bulls from Nimrûd to London, by means of which he successfully brought them over intact without breaking them up in any way; the extraordinary difficulties involved in this feat give us a vivid conception of the similar difficulties which the Assyrians must have had to overcome in the removal of these solid stone masses from the quarry to the entrances of the palaces, and in the exact adjustment of them in their specific places. Layard gives us a detailed description 20 of the plan he devised for the removal of some of these unwieldy monsters, of which thirteen pairs had already been discovered. His first efforts were directed towards two of the smaller colossi. The first and greatest problem to be solved was how to lower them without risk of their falling and so being broken. The sculptures were first of all wrapped in mats or felt to mitigate the effect of any misfortune that might befall them, either through the ropes giving way or cutting the soft stone. Heavy wooden rollers had been procured from the mountains; these were placed upon sleepers laid parallel to the sculpture, and it only now remained to lower the winged creature on to the rollers; this was effected by means of ropes skilfully applied, the descent of the gradually sinking monument being checked by thick beams which supported it in its fall and were gradually withdrawn as the occasion required. As the bull approached the rollers the beams had to be entirely removed, the whole of the weight and strain thus being on the cables and ropes, which stretched until finally they reached breaking point, and the bull fell some four feet or more to the ground, but fortunately without being damaged. A trench of about 200 feet in length, 15 feet wide, and in some places 20 feet deep, having been duly made through which the bull might proceed on the rollers to the edge of the mound—this course was necessary owing Pg 45to the impossibility of lifting such a massive weight—the giant animal was slowly pulled by a large number of Arabs to the end of the trench and down the slope of the mound, where it was lowered on to a specially-constructed cart, which had been a nine days’ wonder to the natives ever since its appearance. The cart itself was fitted with two strong axles which had been used by Botta in the removal of sculptures from Khorsabad. “Each wheel was formed of three solid pieces, nearly a foot thick, from the trunk of a mulberry tree, bound together by iron hoops. Across the axles were laid three beams, and above them several cross-beams, all of the same wood. A pole was fixed to one axle to which were also attached iron rings for ropes to enable men as well as buffaloes to draw the cart. The wheels were provided with movable hooks for the same purpose.” The mulberry wood used had of course to be procured in the mountains, there being no wood of the required substance or size in the Mesopotamian valley. Buffaloes were first harnessed to the pole, while a number of men tugged at the ropes attached to the wheels and the movable hooks, but the buffaloes appear to have soon struck, and they were consequently taken out, the whole of the work now being done by three hundred Arabs. At length, after multitudinous efforts, the bull arrived at the river where it was landed on a specially-prepared platform from which it might slide on to a raft. Thus much for the obstacles to be surmounted in the mere removal of these enormous blocks of stone by an excavator of the nineteenth century, from which we may form a small and very inadequate estimate of the indomitable zeal and invincible energy of the Assyrians some twenty-six or twenty-seven centuries ago in quarrying, carving, transporting and fixing the guardian genii.

PLATE III

From Layard

Excavations at Nimrûd (Calah) in Ashur-naṣir-pal’s Palace

Calah (Nimrûd) was the capital of Assyria for 220 years (885-668), but at the close of that period she had to yield her pre-eminence to Nineveh, which Sennacherib Pg 46rebuilt and which was the capital of the empire from his time till the end of the chapter, i.e. till about 630 B.C. Sennacherib naturally built a palace at his new capital, Nineveh, and the discovery and excavation of this palace are also due to the indefatigable efforts of the late Sir Henry Layard and his assistant Hormuzd Rassam. This palace of Sennacherib occupied the south-west corner of the northern of the two groups of mounds known as Kouyunjik which mark the site of ancient Nineveh, Ashur-bani-pal’s (668-626 B.C.) palace being located immediately to the north of it. Unfortunately Sennacherib’s palace suffered from fire when the Medes took the city in 606 B.C. in consequence of which most of his wall bas-reliefs are greatly marred. The complete excavation of this palace was the great triumph of Layard’s second campaign (1849-1851), and the bas-reliefs taken from the walls of its seventy or more halls and chambers now form, in spite of their comparatively bad state of preservation, one of the most priceless possessions of the British Museum. But one more epoch-making discovery in the annals of Mesopotamian excavations must be attributed to this world-renowned excavator.
One day Layard discovered two chambers connected with each other, and after removing the débris, he found that “to the height of a foot or more from the floor they were entirely filled with cuneiform tablets of baked clay, some entire, but the greater part broken into many fragments.”
In point of fact he had chanced upon part of the library of Ashur-bani-pal, one of Assyria’s greatest kings; the library appears to have been stored partly in the northern palace, that of Ashur-bani-pal proper, and partly in the south-western palace built by Sennacherib; it was in the latter that the rooms referred to were found; the other half of this great library of the later Assyrian kings was subsequently unearthed by Rassam. The contents of these tablets, made of the finest clay and ranging from Pg 47one to fifteen inches, are as varied as the tablets themselves. Some of them contain historical records, others astronomical reports, or mathematical calculations: there are also letters of a private and public character, but the majority of the tablets deal with astrology and medicine, both of which subjects were intimately connected in the mind of the Babylonian. Prayers, incantations, psalms and religious texts in general, formed a considerable part of this library, and as a large proportion of the “volumes” or tablets are not original works but copies from earlier Babylonian productions, the value of the library,—now known under the name of the “Kouyunjik collection,”—for the study of the religious and mythological conceptions of both the Babylonians and Assyrians is more than can be adequately estimated. Many of the tablets are bilingual, the ideographic Sumerian being provided with an Assyrian interlinear translation, and these, together with other tablets of the collection containing syllabaries in which the Sumerian value, the Assyrian name, and sometimes the Assyrian meaning of different signs are given, have been of the utmost use in the rediscovery of the languages of Mesopotamia. Layard also visited Babylonia, and began to excavate at Babylon and Nippur, but his Babylonian operations were not attended with the extraordinary success of his excavations at Nineveh and Calah.
In 1851 a French expedition was sent out to Babylonia under Fresnel and Jules Oppert: they secured various relics from the ruined mounds of Babylon, among which may be especially mentioned a fine collection of coloured-brick fragments, but unfortunately all was lost through a mishap on the Tigris in 1855.
In 1852 Rassam succeeded Layard in the field, and at once had to contend with difficulties resulting from Rawlinson’s concessions to Victor Place, to whom he had transferred the right of excavating what remained to be excavated at Kouyunjik, which from Rassam’s point of Pg 48view fell within the sphere of British influence, and to which therefore British excavators had a prior claim. In 1853 Rassam commenced operations at Ḳalat Sherḳât, but apart from the discovery of two clay prisms inscribed with the annals of Tiglath-Pileser I (1100-1080 B.C.), the ancient Ashur did not yield much fruit on this occasion. At Calah, the scene of Layard’s brilliant triumphs, Rassam discovered E-zida, the temple of Nebo, the god who vied with Marduk for the first place in the Babylonian pantheon of later days, and whose name is commemorated in the names of several of the kings of the first Babylonian empire, as also in three of those of the second empire, the most familiar of whom is the Biblical Nebuchadnezzar; six large statues of the god were brought to light, two of which at all events are by their inscriptions shown to be contemporaneous with the Assyrian king Adad-nirari III (812-783); a stele of King Shamshi-Adad II (825-812 B.C.), and the remains of an inscribed obelisk of Ashur-naṣir-pal complete the list of his principal finds on this site. But his name will be for ever associated with Kouyunjik; his first efforts were productive of no very great results beyond the discovery of a limestone obelisk of Ashur-naṣir-pal covered with bas-reliefs, and now in the Assyrian Transept of the British Museum, and a female torso from the palace of Ashur-bêl-kala, king of Assyria about 1080 B.C. (cf. Pl. XXIV). Rassam however profited by Victor Place’s omission to make use of the permission accorded to him by Rawlinson to explore the northern part of Kouyunjik, but at the same time took the precaution of making his initial operations under the cover of night. His nocturnal labours were crowned with the greatest success which the excavators of those days could have—the discovery of a new palace—and after he was satisfied on this point, the digging was allowed to proceed during the daytime, as it is a recognized rule that the discoverer of a new palace has established his claim to the complete excavation Pg 49of it, as against the rest of the world. The newly-discovered palace turned out to be that of Ashur-bani-pal, king of Assyria (668-626 B.C.), in whose reign Assyria attained the height of her power both at home and abroad, extending her sway even as far as Thebes, the capital of Upper Egypt, which was taken and sacked by this king in B.C. 666. But Ashur-bani-pal as well as being a great warrior, was also a great huntsman, and the bas-reliefs which he caused to be sculptured upon the walls of his palace at Kouyunjik, in commemoration of his exploits in the chase, are probably the masterpieces of Assyrian art. They thus testify not only to the sportsmanship of this king, but also to the encouragement which he gave to art, while Rassam’s further discovery of the other half of Ashur-bani-pal’s library has shown that king to have been an even greater patron of literature than there had hitherto been reason to suppose.

PLATE IV

“Fish-god,” Kouyunjik	Both from Layard Entrance Passage, Kouyunjik

In the spring of 1854, funds failed and Rassam was in consequence obliged to return, but shortly afterwards he accepted a political appointment at Aden. The meanwhile, work had already been commenced in Babylonia by W. K. Loftus who carried on small excavations at Warka, the ancient Erech, the ruins of which are the largest in Babylonia, but though many interesting antiquities were unearthed, none of them are of an epoch-making character, the slipper-shaped coffins belonging to the Parthian period, being perhaps the best known. Owing to the fact that Erech has been occupied during the greater part of its history, i.e. some 5000 years, it is not a fruitful mine for early antiquities. Senkereh (Larsa) on the other hand, which has been identified with the Ellasar of Genesis xiv. 1, seems to have remained more or less unoccupied after the Persian period, and hence it is a better site for the exploration and study of the earlier history of Southern Mesopotamia. Inscribed bricks from Senkereh show that Khammurabi (the Amraphel of Genesis xiv.?), and the Pg 50most famous king of the first dynasty of Babylon, repaired the ancient temple-tower there, as also did his Neo-Babylonian successor, Nabonidus, some fourteen centuries later, while the famous Nebuchadnezzar of Old Testament fame had also not neglected it in his works of restoration. The lower strata of the mound showed that Ur-Engur, King of Ur, whose reign may probably be assigned to the latter part of the third millennium B.C., had also made his presence felt in this ancient city of Larsa. Subsequently Larsa shared the fate of other early Babylonian cities, and was used as a cemetery: the tablets found near the coffins apparently belong to a much earlier date, and were probably found by the grave-diggers to whom their altered position is to be ascribed. Excavations were also conducted at the same time at Tell Sifr, which resulted in the discovery of about a hundred so-called case-tablets (i.e. tablets protected by a clay cover or envelope), belonging to the time of the first dynasty of Babylon, which in their turn led to the discovery of a hitherto unknown king of this dynasty, Samsu-iluna, the successor of Khammurabi.
When Loftus was excavating at Warka at the beginning of 1854, J. E. Taylor, the Vice-Consul at Basra, undertook excavations on behalf of the British Museum at Muḳeyyer, the site of the ancient city of Ur. He commenced operations on what appeared at the time, and what ultimately turned out to be, the principal building of the city, the temple of the Moon-god Sin, in the four corners of which he discovered four clay cylinders, and also another barrel-shaped cylinder the inscription of which is of even greater importance than those of the corner-cylinders. We learn that Ur-Engur, King of Ur, built the temple, that his son Dungi repaired it, and that Nabonidus the last King of Babylon restored it some two thousand years later. These foundation-cylinders of Nabonidus proved of great historical interest, the inscription on each of them concluding with a prayer for Pg 51Bêl-shar-uṣur, the King’s son and heir, the Belshazzar of Daniel v., who was in command of Babylon at the time of the capture of the city by Cyrus. Taylor also conducted excavations on other Babylonian sites, the most important of which was Abû Shahrein, the ancient Eridu whose god Ea was one of the most illustrious as well as one of the most time-honoured gods in Babylonia. Its ruins are smaller than those of Ur, but they contain the remains of a temple-tower, consisting of two storeys, which Taylor laid bare. From the inscribed bricks recovered, the identification of this site with the ancient Eridu was established.
Towards the end of the year 1854, Sir Henry Rawlinson commenced excavating Birs-Nimrûd, the Borsippa of antiquity; he commenced digging at the four corners of what ultimately proved to be the famous E-zida, the temple of Nebo, in search of clay cylinders such as had been found at the corners of other Babylonian buildings; he recovered two such foundation-cylinders which turned out to be duplicates, together with fragmentary parts of other cylinders, all of which had been deposited there by Nebuchadnezzar.
Soon after Rassam’s return from Assyria in the year 1854, Loftus entered the service of the Trustees of the British Museum, and was sent out to continue the excavation of Kouyunjik. Loftus ably followed up the work of his predecessor; new reliefs were brought to light, the most celebrated of which perhaps is that of Ashur-bani-pal and his queen reclining at meat in the garden (cf. Pl. XXI), but again though the spirit was willing, the funds were weak, and Loftus had to abandon all hope of completing the excavation of the palace of Assyria’s most famous king.
The abundant harvest, yielded by these numerous excavations in Mesopotamia, and stored away in the Museums, afforded a supply of material copious enough Pg 52to occupy the intellectual acumen of the savants for some time to come, while the general public whose interest in these archæological expeditions depended on the tangible results forthcoming, were inclined to await the decipherment and publication of the accumulated mass of clay tablets, monuments and stelæ already to hand, before furnishing the necessary funds for any fresh expeditions, and it was not till 1873 that George Smith, the able assistant of Sir Henry Rawlinson, whose discovery of the Babylonian account of the Deluge had alike won for him great fame, and also kindled again the enthusiasm of the public in the cause of excavation, was enabled, thanks to the munificence of the proprietors of the “Daily Telegraph,” to personally conduct an expedition to Mesopotamia. In the January of that year Smith set out for Mosul, but on his arrival, he found to his dismay that the requisite firmân had not as yet been granted by the Turkish Government, and he accordingly journeyed southward, examining the ruined mounds of Nimrûd and Ḳalat Sherḳat on the way. In northern Babylonia he spent but a short time which he employed in visiting the sites of Babylon, Borsippa (Birs-Nimrûd) and other ancient ruins, but by the beginning of April, he obtained the necessary permission to excavate in Assyria, and accordingly returned at once to Mosul. His attention was first of all directed to Nimrûd, the scene of so many of Layard’s triumphs, but his predecessors in the field had reaped their harvest to the full, and the gleanings which remained were poor and meagre.
In the following month he transferred the seat of his operations to Kouyunjik, with a view to discovering the remainder of Ashur-bani-pal’s library. The work was far from easy owing to the complete state of confusion in which the ruins then were, partly owing to the work of earlier excavators, partly owing to the builders of the bridge at Mosul who had made use of the remains of Pg 53Assyria’s ancient buildings for the construction of the bridge, and partly owing to the instability of some of Layard’s tunnels, which had the meanwhile collapsed. Here too, the harvest was past and the summer of Assyrian excavations was ended, but the object which the “Daily Telegraph” proprietors had in view was realized in the discovery of another fragment of the Babylonian account of the Deluge, which proved to fill in the chief lacuna in the story. Smith had entertained the hope that this all-important discovery would be an inducement to his financiers to grant an additional sum for the continuation of the work, but they declined. Smith accordingly had reluctantly to set his face westward and return to London, but before the year was out he was on his way back to the Orient, the Trustees of the British Museum having voted £1000 for another expedition thither. He arrived at Mosul on New Year’s Day 1874, and recommenced his quest for tablets, but the time at his disposal was short, his firmân expiring in the ensuing March; this notwithstanding, in the three months spent at Kouyunjik on these two expeditions, he brought to light some three thousand tablets dealing with a variety of different subjects, and providing invaluable material for the student of Babylonian and Assyrian astronomy, theology and chronology. To him is due not only the rediscovery of the Babylonian story of the Flood, but also of portions of the Creation legends, and of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero of Babylonian folk-lore, while to the student of Old Testament History, his discovery of Sargon’s own account of his campaign against the city of Ashdod recorded in the twentieth chapter of Isaiah is of paramount importance. In the spring of 1876 Smith conducted his third and last expedition to Assyria, under the auspices of the British Museum, the value of whose collections he had already so greatly enhanced. But he arrived to find the cholera rampant all over the Pg 54country, and confusion and disorder reigned everywhere. To excavate under such circumstances was an impossibility, but Smith spared no effort in his futile endeavour to overcome the impossible, boldly facing all dangers and difficulties, but he ultimately succumbed to the disastrous effects of climate and exposure, and died at Aleppo in August 1876, a martyr to the cause of science. George Smith was not only an excavator, but also a scholar, and his scholastic achievements are the more praise-worthy, when it is recollected that he was practically a self-educated man, who by dint of his extraordinary perseverance and indomitable will succeeded where other men of perhaps greater ability failed, and who on that account alone is entitled to the prominent place which he occupies in the annals of Assyriology.
Soon after the death of George Smith in 1876, the Trustees of the British Museum requested Rassam to resume his long-abandoned labours in Assyria, and after some unavoidable delay, operations were commenced in January 1878. The work was greatly facilitated by the presence of Sir Henry Layard as British special representative at Constantinople, for the latter having always been on friendly terms with the Turkish Government, was consequently able to secure concessions which might well have been denied to anyone else. Rassam’s marching orders were sufficiently explicit, he was sent out to continue the excavation of Nineveh, but his heart was bent on the discovery of palaces and temples rather than on the comparatively unexciting task of searching for tablets, the importance or non-importance of which could never be determined off-hand, without a detailed study of the contents. His ambition was satisfied shortly after his arrival: a year before his resumption of the work of Assyrian exploration two portions of a bronze door-panel covered with figures and cuneiform characters had been sent to him by a friend, and immediately on his Pg 55return to Assyria he made enquiries as to where these pieces of worked metal had been unearthed. He soon discovered that they formed part of a large bronze door-panel discovered quite accidentally by a peasant in a mound, some fifteen miles east of Mosul, called Balâwât. Accordingly, his immediate desire was to discover the remainder of this unique monument of ancient metallurgy, and with that end in view he determined to explore the Balâwât mound. He discovered that the site had been used as a cemetery by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and was consequently outside the limits of his firmân, but disregarding the risk of a collision with the authorities and the still more imminent risk of inciting the native population to open resistance, for no people civilized or uncivilized are in the habit of passively acquiescing in the disinterment of their dead, he determined to hazard everything in pursuit of his prize. Success attended his efforts, and very soon after the cutting of the first trenches, fragments of bronze plates similar to those which had previously come to light, were unearthed. In the course of a short time, the remaining panels were duly restored to the light of day: these panels had once upon a time decorated the wooden gates of a large building, to which they were affixed. The scenes portrayed thereon represent incidents in the life and campaigns of Shalmaneser II (860-825 B.C.), the successor of Ashur-naṣir-pal, and the first Assyrian king who is known to have come into immediate contact with Israel. In the course of his excavation of the mound, he came across the ruins of a small temple, and a large coffer made of marble containing two tablets made of the same material and bearing inscriptions of Ashur-naṣir-pal. Rassam’s work at Kouyunjik and Nimrûd was also far from fruitless, though Nimrûd certainly failed to yield a harvest in any way comparable to that of bygone days, a few bas-reliefs, a number of clay tablets and some enamelled tiles practically comprising all that Pg 56Nimrûd contributed to the study of Assyrian antiquity on this occasion. So too at Kouyunjik, clay inscriptions were the chief and indeed practically the only fruits of the excavations carried on by Rassam during his four expeditions (1878-1882). The most epoch-making of these inscriptions consisted in a ten-sided baked clay prism containing the annals of Ashur-bani-pal, and four barrel-shaped cylinders inscribed with an account of Sennacherib’s various campaigns. Rassam further attempted the complete exploration of Nebi Yûnus, the second large mound which marks the site or part of the site of ancient Nineveh, but he did not meet with the success which his indefatigable efforts deserved, owing to the innate factiousness and aptitude for intrigue which lie dormant in the Oriental breast even at the best of times, and which on this occasion so far from being dormant, showed themselves in all their pristine vigour, the result of which was the cessation of Rassam’s labours, and the final dissipation of all his hopes.

PLATE V

Déc. en Chald., Plate 53, ii

Doorway at Tellô, erected by Gudea; on the left a later building of Seleucid period

Déc. en Chald., Plate 54

South-Eastern Façade of Ur-Ninâ’s Building at Tellô

Meanwhile excavations were also going on in Babylonia, excavations moreover which were destined to usher in a new era of Babylonian exploration, and which proved of incalculable value both to the archæologist, and also to the student of early art. In the spring of 1877, some few months before Rassam’s return to Assyria after an interval of a quarter of a century, Ernest de Sarzec, the French Vice-Consul at Basra, started tentative operations at the ruined mounds of Tellô, whither his attention had been directed by J. Asfar, a native Christian, and formerly a dealer in antiquities. Tellô had already won for itself a name as a site likely to repay the labour entailed in its methodical excavation, in consequence of the discovery of inscribed cones and bricks in its ruins, and needless to say, it has more than lived up to its early reputation, for of all the ancient sites of Babylonian civilization, Tellô has yielded by far the richest harvest of material Pg 57for the reconstruction of Sumerian history, and the systematic study of Sumerian art and culture. It would be impossible here to chronicle all the far-reaching results of De Sarzec’s immortal work, and we must therefore content ourselves with a notice of the more important of his discoveries. On his very first visit to Tellô he was fortunate enough to find a portion of a dolerite statue lying at the foot of one of the mounds, from which he correctly inferred that the statue itself must have originally occupied a position in some large building, the ruins of which he assumed to be lying concealed within the mound in question. He accordingly commenced excavating the mound, and very shortly discovered that it contained a building of no small dimensions, erected upon a large platform of crude, or sun-dried bricks: the objects which he unearthed comprised a large statue of dolerite bearing an inscription of Gudea, priest-king of Lagash about 2450 B.C., inscribed door-sockets, sculptures and vases, copper statuettes of a votive character, and last but most important of all, the first fragments of the Vulture stele of Eannatum, one of the most famous works of early Babylonian art, both in regard to its antiquity and also in regard to the manner in which it illustrates not only the artistic but also the military operations of the Sumerians at this remote period (cf. Pl. XII). In his next two campaigns (1880-81) he systematically excavated the building in the mound generally known as “A,” in the course of which he discovered some nine or ten dolerite statues, numerous statuettes, and a stone vase of Narâm-Sin, son of Shar-Gâni-sharri of Agade, who probably lived some few centuries before Gudea. The building itself, which in the main belongs to the Parthian-period, but in which part of the old palace of Gudea had been incorporated is briefly discussed on page 149. But as Prof. Hilprecht 21 truly says, the dolerite statues of Pg 58Gudea “will always remain the principal discovery connected with De Sarzec’s name,” famous alike for the animation and life with which they are inspired, and also for the skill and dexterity which these early Babylonians display in their treatment of the hardest stones. Among other valuable or rather invaluable finds may be mentioned the well-known silver vase of Entemena (cf. Fig. 45), the carved mace-head of Mesilim, an enormous copper spear-head, and some bas-reliefs of Ur-Ninâ, the founder of the First Dynasty of Lagash. In mound “B,” De Sarzec’s excavations not only laid bare the building of Ur-Ninâ (cf. Pl. V) but also revealed the remains of a yet earlier structure lying beneath the edifice of this ancient ruler, and resting on a pavement some 16 feet below Ur-Ninâ’s platform. Copper statuettes and stone bas-reliefs of a most archaic character were also brought to light on this occasion.
In 1889 De Sarzec left Babylonia, not to return till 1894, when he renewed his excavations in mound “B.” Two wells and a watercourse of Eannatum’s time were discovered, while among the small relics of this long-forgotten age were various pieces of shell carved with pictures of trees and animals. It would be altogether impossible to over-estimate the debt which both the historian of early Babylonia, and the student of early Mesopotamian art owe to the work of that distinguished excavator; if to Layard, Botta, and Place is due the opening up of the book of Assyria’s ancient history, and the breaking of the seals that had kept that book closed for so long a period, to De Sarzec we owe the recovery of an even earlier page in the history of human life and progress. The last quarter of the 19th century which embraced the period of De Sarzec’s extraordinary activity in the archæological field (the first of his expeditions being conducted in 1877 and the last in 1900) will remain for all time memorable for the epoch-making discoveries in Babylonia, discoveries which posterity Pg 59will for ever associate with the name of the illustrious French excavator.

PLATE VI

Déc. en Chald., Pl. 56, ii

Remains of a Stele in a building under that of Ur-Ninâ

Déc. en Chald., Pl. 57, ii

The Well of Eannatum

The meanwhile Rassam, had used to the utmost the facilities granted to him under the generous terms of the 1878 firmân, and had covered as much ground and visited as many sites as possible, though whether science would have gained more by the systematic exploration of a few mounds than by the ransacking of many is a question which would probably have to be answered in the affirmative. In 1879, he commenced operations in Babylonia, the ruined mounds of Babylon and Borsippa being the first to receive his attention. On his arrival he found a number of Arabs busily engaged in extracting building material from the Babil mound, and in the course of their digging they came upon four wells, some 140 feet deep, and made of blocks of red granite, each block being about 3 feet high, and fitted to the adjoining block with an extraordinary degree of precision. From the general appearance of the mound as well as from the magnitude of the ruined walls which it covered, Rassam came to the conclusion arrived at by Rich nearly a century before, and accepted by Hilprecht some years later, that to Babil we must look for the world-renowned hanging gardens of Diodorus and Pliny.
Rassam’s trenches on the Ḳasr mound were attended with no important results, but his work at the Jumjuma mound in the South,—so called from the name of the modern village now situated there,—yielded a rich harvest of tablets, mostly of a commercial character. Borsippa in like manner responded to the appeal made to it by the spade of Rassam, many tablets being recovered, while a large part of the renowned temple of E-zida, dedicated to the god Nebo, once again saw the light of day: among the smaller relics, the recovery of a bronze step of the famous Nebuchadnezzar is deserving of special mention, and also a baked clay cylinder of the time of Antiochus Soter 270 B.C., the latter being, according Pg 60to Hilprecht, “the last royal document composed in the Old Babylonian writing and language.” But perhaps Rassam’s most valuable contribution to Assyriology was the identification of the site of ancient Sippar. Many unsuccessful attempts had previously been made to locate this city, so frequently mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions, and already George Smith had tentatively suggested the mound of Abû Habba, located about thirty miles north of the City of Babylon, as its possible site, but to Rassam we owe the actual identification of the site of this old centre of the worship of Shamash the Sun-god in the Babylonian plain. The ruins of Abû Habba are low but extensive, the longest of the ancient city-walls measuring some 1400 yards, while on the western side the remains of an old ziggurat, or temple-tower are still to be seen. Rassam’s excavations on this site were abundantly successful, the most important of his discoveries in the ancient building with which he was principally concerned, being the famous stone tablet of Nabû-aplu-iddina, king of Babylonia, about 870 B.C. The inscription which records the restoration of the temple of the Sun-god by that king is surmounted on the obverse side by a magnificent bas-relief representing the worship of the Sun-god (cf. Pl. XIV and p. 205). The recovery of this remarkable tablet, apart from the value attaching to it as a work of art and a historical document, meant further the identification of one of the earliest sites of Mesopotamian civilization, and the rediscovery of the time-honoured shrine of Shamash. Among the other inscriptions unearthed on this occasion, the large clay cylinders of Nabonidus (555-538 B.C.), the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, are of paramount importance. Allusion has already been made to the tradition recorded by Nabonidus on his cylinder regarding the date of Shar-Gâni-sharri of Agade, and his son Narâm-Sin, and also to the archæological evidence calculated to diminish the historical value of Nabonidus’ Pg 61record (cf. p. 5). Rassam reconnoitred many other sites in Babylonia, notably that of Tellô, from which he recovered a few objects, including a number of tablets and two gate-sockets inscribed with the name of Gudea, during his swift and somewhat stealthy visit in the early part of 1879. But the three great triumphs of the excavator whose long career came to its natural end in 1910, were the identification of Sippar’s long-forgotten site, the discovery of the bronze gates at Balâwât, and last but far from least, the unearthing of Ashur-bani-pal’s northern palace at Nineveh, and the disclosure of the priceless relics of art and literature which it was found to contain.
Meanwhile other nations besides the French and the English were preparing themselves for the work so remarkably commenced, and so full of promise for the future. Germany was slow to move, but thanks to the munificence of Mr. L. Simon, an expedition was sent out to the Orient in the autumn of 1886, under the auspices of the Royal Prussian Museums of Berlin, and under the directorship of B. Moritz, R. Koldewey and L. Meyer. But in spite of the tardiness of German activity in the field of exploration, it must never be forgotten that to Friedrich Delitzsch belongs the unique honour and glory of having placed Assyriology upon a scientific basis, and in a real sense that distinguished scholar may be regarded as the father of that science. At the same time Delitzsch’s predecessor Schrader deserves a special mention, as being the first to lecture in Germany on this subject, and to whose lectures Delitzsch and other scholars doubtless owed much. The 1886 expedition commenced operations early in 1887 at the ruins of El-Hibba and Surghul, two mounds situated close to each other to the north-east of Tellô, which resulted in the discovery of buildings innumerable, mostly of a private character; the small relics yielded by the German excavations on these Pg 62two sites were for the most part considerably damaged by fire which had played much havoc in both places.
But the chief point of interest in regard to the excavations at El-Hibba and Surghul was the discovery of a number of early graves. Many of the bodies had been burnt, from which Koldewey inferred that cremation 22 was one of the ways in which the Sumerians of antiquity disposed of their dead. Many of the inscriptions recovered were published by the lately deceased Dr. Messerschmidt. The tablets in question include texts belonging both to first and second Dynasties of Lagash (Tellô). One of the tablets unearthed at Surghul and written by Gudea, the most famous ruler of the Second Dynasty of Lagash, showed that both El-Hibba and Surghul acknowledged Gudea as their suzerain-overlord.
At about the same time, the excavating spirit in America was also gradually fanning itself into life, and to-day America is doing more archæological work than any other country in the world.
The ancient city of Nippur had long been known as one of the most famous centres of Babylonian religion, and of the worship of the great god En-lil, and it was accordingly to this city that the Americans first directed their attention, and it was here that they made those epoch-making discoveries which have won for them so prominent a place in the history of Mesopotamian excavation, and that in spite of all the controversies which Pg 63have arisen out of those discoveries. The Americans had indeed sent out an expedition to Babylonia as early as 1884 under the directorship of Dr. W. Hayes Ward of the New York “Independent,” but the object for which it was sent was general exploration rather than for actual excavation. The first expedition (1888-89) to Nippur, which was organized chiefly by Prof. J. P. Peters, who was supported by Dr. Wm. Pepper, Provost Harrison, Messrs. E. W. Clay, C. H. Clark, W. W. Frazier, and others, was chiefly tentative in character, and served rather to show the magnitude of the work to be accomplished than to achieve any definite and practical results. Peters was the director of the first and second (1889-90) expeditions, while Prof. R. F. Harper and Prof. H. V. Hilprecht were appointed Assyriologists to the first expedition, Mr. Field being the architect. The first expedition was engaged in excavating for two months and nine days, while the second excavated for three months and eleven days. Dr. Haynes was the field-director of the third expedition (1893-96), and remained at the mounds of Nippur for nearly three years without a break. The fourth expedition (1898-1900) was conducted by Hilprecht as scientific director, Haynes as field-director, and Messrs. C. S. Fisher and H. V. Geere as architects, and during the last campaign excavations were carried on for some sixteen months, and led to many important discoveries.
The first expedition, as stated, was of a preparatory character, and consequently its results cannot be estimated merely by the number of discoveries actually made. During the short two months in which the excavators continued operations, a large building characterized by enormous buttresses and two round towers was brought to light. The building—without doubt a fortress—is of comparatively late date, belonging to the Parthian period, and was built upon the ancient temple of En-lil and its staged tower.
Pg 64
Bint-el-Amir, the mound which contained the ruins of this renowned temple, was conical in shape and covered a surface of more than eight acres.23 A scientific examination of a mound of such gigantic proportions was in itself no light task, while the exploration of the buried temple was a work of pioneering, none of the large Babylonian temples having as yet been completely excavated.

PLATE VII

Excavations in the Temple Court: Nippur
(From C. S. Fisher’s “Excavations at Nippur,” by permission)

The excavation of this temple proved that the stage-tower “did not occupy the central part of the temple-court,” and though it was undoubtedly the most conspicuous feature of the temple-area, it was not actually the temple itself: the latter is to be found in a large building adjacent to the stage-tower. This building is at all events as early as the time of the Shar-Gâni-sharri and his son Narâm-Sin. The stage-tower, which probably never had more than three stages, owed its latest form to Ur-Engur, king of Ur (circ. 2400), though Ashur-bani-pal, King of Assyria nearly two thousand years after, had occasion to repair and restore it. The bricks of Ashur-bani-pal, which are intermingled with those of Ur-Engur, bear the stamped inscription, “To Bel, the King of the lands, his King, Ashur-bani-pal, his favourite shepherd, the powerful King, King of the four quarters of the earth, built E-kur, his beloved temple, with baked bricks.” Four feet behind the facing-wall of Ur-Engur, large bricks characteristic of Narâm-Sin’s time were discovered, while the bricks of which the innermost core of the tower was formed belong to the pre-Sargonic and early Sumerian days.24
The extreme antiquity of the lower strata in this mound may be gauged from the fact that Haynes in descending into the pre-Sargonic period below the pavement of Narâm-Sin, penetrated through some thirty feet of ruins before he arrived at the virgin soil.
Pg 65
One of the most interesting discoveries in the early strata was a vaulted drain (cf. Fig. 15 and p. 170) which purports to be the earliest Babylonian arch known, while a large number of terra-cotta pipes as well as a terra-cotta drain were also brought to light. The smaller objects include votive stelæ (cf. Fig. 25), tablets, cylinder-seals and terra-cotta vases (cf. Figs. 92, 93). But a large number of relics contained in the strata above the level of Narâm-Sin were found to be pre-Sargonic in spite of their position in the mound. They included door-sockets, fragments of vases, slabs, statues, and more than fifty brick-stamps, bearing an inscription of Sargon or Narâm-Sin.
But the discovery and partial excavation of the Temple “Library”25 or “archive” at Nippur have produced the most far-reaching and epoch-making results, for thereby literally thousands of tablets have been unearthed, affording an amount of new material for Assyriological study seldom paralleled in the history of Babylonian exploration.
The greater part of the excavated material 26 is scientific or literary in character. The majority of the tablets are unbaked, and have consequently suffered from the detrimental effects of time, climate and other influences, among which may be particularly mentioned the havoc wrought by the invading Elamites during the third millennium B.C. In consequence of this, the decipherer’s task is much more arduous than it would otherwise have been, but in spite of the vandalism of the Elamites and the work of destruction which they sought to, and to some extent did accomplish, the archæologist probably owes the preservation of these tablets to their burial in the ruined débris of which they formed a part. These unbaked clay tablets seem to have been generally arranged Pg 66on shelves made of clay and about 1-1/2 feet wide, while they contain every variety of “literature,” treating of astronomy, astrology, mathematics, geography, history, medicine, grammar and religion. One of the tablets gives us valuable information regarding the temple itself; the name of the great hall of the temple was Emakh, and though En-lil and his consort were without doubt the principal deities of the place, there were some twenty-four shrines dedicated to other gods, just as was the case in E-sagila, the great Temple of Marduk at Babylon, recently excavated by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft.
The late Assyrian, neo-Babylonian and Persian periods are also well represented in the enormous accumulation of cuneiform tablets recovered from this site, among the most interesting of which are the “Murashû Tablets,” seven hundred or more of which were unearthed in a ruined building some twenty feet below the surface. The care with which these tablets had been made, and the numerous seal-impressions which they bore, at once attracted Hilprecht’s attention. They proved to belong to the business archives of Murashû Sons, brokers and bankers at Nippur, who flourished in the time of the Persian kings, Artaxerxes I (464-424 B.C.) and Darius II (423-405 B.C.). But apart from ordinary banking business, the firm acted as an agent for the Persian kings. Apparently the kings of Persia were in the habit of farming out the taxes like the Roman emperors of later days, and Murashû Sons undertook to levy the king’s taxes from their Babylonian subjects in Nippur and elsewhere. The interest of these tablets is not however confined to the information which they afford us in regard to the mode of conducting business at that period; but they are of even greater value for the insight which they give us into the ordinary life of the people.
It was during the last expedition that the city-walls Pg 67were carefully examined, and also those which enclosed the temple-area, the name of the former being Nîmit-Marduk and the name of the latter Imgur-Marduk. Access to the temple was gained by a gate in the southern wall, which was at all events as old as the time of Shar-Gâni-sharri of Agade. The “Abullu Rabu,” the great gate of the city, was situated to the north-east of the Temple; its length is 35 feet, by which we know that that was the thickness of the wall itself, though unfortunately nothing remains of the old city-wall at this point, the crude bricks of which it was composed having been removed and used for building materials in the later Nippur structures. The gateway itself consisted of a central road some 13 feet wide used for ordinary traffic, on either side of which was a raised passage for pedestrians, while the whole structure was built of thumb-marked bricks, and is therefore pre-Sargonic. Under the central roadway a foundation consisting of massive blocks of stone laid in bitumen was discovered. Some distance north of this gate a large part of the old city wall was discovered, belonging in the main to the times of Narâm-Sin and Ur-Engur respectively, the work of the latter king being of course superimposed on that of Narâm-Sin. Traces of some hundred feet of the wall of Narâm-Sin are still visible, and also a water-conduit consisting of baked bricks laid in bitumen. The wall was rebuilt by Ur-Engur, who adorned its outer face with a series of panels 11 feet in width, and placed at intervals of 30 feet, of which some seventeen were found in their original positions; the excavators were unable to ascertain the thickness of the wall, but in one place it was found preserved to the thickness of over 25 feet. Into the inner face of this later wall were built a number of small chambers in which were found relics of varying interest; a description of the later Parthian fortress, and of the little Parthian palace discovered on the other side of the Shatt-en-Nîl Canal, would treat Pg 68of a period with which this volume does not profess to deal, and the reader must accordingly refer to the standard works of some of the excavators themselves (Peters, Hilprecht or Fisher) for information concerning these later buildings, as also for details regarding all the structures and discoveries at Nippur. Sufficient however has perhaps been recounted to indicate the extraordinary importance with which the American expeditions to Nippur have been fraught, though even to-day we are not in a position to adequately appreciate the full value of the self-sacrificing labours of the excavators, and the ample results with which those labours have been and are daily being attended.
Meanwhile, the Turks themselves, alive to the importance of the monuments and relics recovered from the ruined mounds which ever since Rassam’s departure from Baghdad in 1882 had been exploited with considerable success by the agents of antiquity-dealers, determined to send out an expedition of their own. The expedition was placed under the directorship of Father Scheil, a young French Assyriologist, and Bedri Bey, the Ottoman Inspector of Antiquities, who commenced operations in the spring of 1894 at Abû Habba (Sippar), the site which had been the particular hunting ground of the dealers, and which therefore was calculated to be worth scientifically exploring. The most important result of the expedition was the discovery of about seven hundred tablets, mostly letters or contracts belonging to the time of the first Babylonian dynasty, and especially to the reign of Samsu-iluna, the son and successor of Khammurabi. In 1891 Dr. Wallis Budge excavated the neighbouring mound of Dêr and recovered many texts, etc.; these are now in the British Museum.
On March 26th, 1899, Dr. Koldewey, whose excavations at El-Hibba and Surghul had been more than successful, commenced operations on the Ḳasr mound Pg 69at Babylon, the mound which marks the site of the world-famed palace of Nebuchadnezzar.
The German excavations at Babylon undertaken by Koldewey, Meissner, Andrae and M. L. Meyer, have not indeed yielded so rich a harvest as was expected from the important part which that city played in the history of the country, from the time of Khammurabi onwards, for Sennacherib’s destruction of the city in 689 B.C. had been carried out with such rigour that little was left to tell the tale of Babylon’s greatness before his time, that little consisting chiefly of contract-tablets belonging to the time of the First Dynasty, and a number of pot-burials belonging to a yet earlier period. But however greatly we must regret the dearth of material yielded by Babylon’s ruined mounds, for the reconstruction of her earlier history, of the period during which she was at the height of her power,—the period of the great king Nebuchadnezzar (604-561 B.C.)—the German excavations have afforded us much valuable information. The Ḳasr mound which was found to conceal the remains of Nebuchadnezzar’s famous palace, the palace in which he lived during the greater part of his reign and the same one in which Alexander the Great died, seems to have been a new suburb of Babylon, and contained nothing earlier than the seventh century. The massive city-wall, which in all was found to be some 136 feet in thickness, was discovered, and the palace of Nebuchadnezzar in part excavated, but the two most important discoveries of the summer of 1899 were a stele of dolerite and a sandstone bas-relief. The stele of dolerite is 4 feet 2 inches high, and on the smooth side of it the figure of a Hittite god is depicted, while the reverse contains a Hittite inscription. The god has his two arms raised and brandishes a trident in one hand, a large hammer in the other, while a sword hangs from his side. A long plait of hair hangs down his back, his head-gear being a Phrygian cap, his footwear Pg 70the pointed shoes so characteristically Hittite, and his tunic, decorated with a fringe, reaches just to the knees. The second discovery consisted in a sandstone slab rather over 4 feet long and about 4-1/2 feet in height, showing in relief a group of figures of which the two most noteworthy are the god Adad, armed with two flashes of lightning in either hand, and the goddess Ishtar.
In the following year Koldewey was able to give more detailed information regarding the general plan and arrangement of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace. The palace contained a great number of rooms, arranged around larger central courts. The walls of the various buildings rest upon a massive foundation composed of bricks and fragments. Upon this foundation-platform a rampart-wall running east to west, over 56 feet thick and pierced with a single gateway, was discovered, while at the corner of this wall, another building, older than the wall itself, was brought to light. This building was made of burnt brick and asphalt, the bricks themselves bearing an Aramaic inscription and a walking lion.
On the east front of the Ḳasr in Babylon the paving-stones of the street are made of white limestone, or red and white breccia, but the only part of the street paving found in its original position is the layer of burnt bricks covered with asphalt which served as a foundation for the stone pavement above. The enormous limestone blocks measure over 3 feet square and about 13-1/2 inches thick. On some of these limestone blocks an inscription was found giving Nebuchadnezzar’s name, and stating that he had paved the Babel street for the procession of the great lord Marduk with “mountain-stone” slabs. The breccia slabs, none of which have been recovered complete, were apparently of more modest dimensions, being only about 26 inches square and 8 inches thick. There is no doubt that these are the Pg 71paving-stones wherewith Nebuchadnezzar paved the “Processional street of Marduk” the locus of which is now certain. Breccia had been used for building purposes before the time of Nebuchadnezzar: thus we know that Nabopolassar, the founder of the Neo-Babylonian Dynasty, had used it for paving the processional street, while at the Amran mound a block of breccia was found bearing an inscription of Sennacherib.
The discovery of the processional street of Marduk was of the greatest importance in regard to the topography of ancient Babylon, while the confirmation of the theory held by Delitzsch and others—hitherto based chiefly on inferences drawn from Nebuchadnezzar’s texts—in the identification of Marduk’s temple, E-sagila, with the old Babylonian building concealed within the Amran mound, during the excavations of May 1900, was of even greater moment.
Koldewey was further fortunate enough to discover a temple erected in honour of the goddess Nin-makh (Great Lady), who was at all events in later times identified with Ishtar.27 The importance of the discovery lay in the completeness of the building, and not in the magnitude of its dimensions, for it is quite small. During the excavation of this temple a well-preserved Assyrian cylinder was found, on which Ashur-bani-pal records that he has newly built Nin-makh’s temple in Babylon, in return for which act of piety he clearly expected a rich reward, for he begs the “sublime Nin-makh to look down compassionately” on his pious deeds, to pronounce his prosperity daily before Bêl and Bêlit, to prescribe a “life of many days as his fate,” and to establish his government firmly.
Another interesting discovery was that of a terra-cotta figure of a naked goddess, doubtless a relic of the Nin-makh-cult (cf. Fig. 86).
Pg 72
The excavations on the Amran hill revealed the presence of buildings prior to the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The upper strata of the mound belong for the most part to the Parthian and Seleucidian times, but at a depth of 68 feet below the surface of the mound, the floor of a Babylonian building was uncovered, and the clay walls of this building, which were over 9 feet thick, were still found in position to a considerable height. The floor itself was made of burnt bricks covered with asphalt, apparently only the bricks in the uppermost layer bearing the impress of Nebuchadnezzar’s stamp, in consequence of which it seems probable that the foundation of the building was laid before that king’s time. Underneath the lowest flooring a solid foundation of brick some 6-1/2 feet thick was found. On the uppermost flooring various objects of interest were brought to light, including a thin plate of gold, a silver knob, a gold ear-ring, and fragments of engraved shells. But the real importance of the excavations at the Amran mound centres round the discovery of Marduk’s famous temple—E-sagila, the meaning of which is “the house of heaven and earth.” The temple was founded by King Zabum during the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon (circ. 2000 B.C.), the period, that is to say, during which the city of Babylon became the most powerful city-state in Southern Mesopotamia. But the supremacy of Babylon meant the supremacy of Babylon’s god, and the prestige to which Marduk attained at this time is shown by his identification with Bêl, the ancient god of Nippur. But some few hundred years afterwards, when the power and influence of Babylon had decreased, and dominion in the Mesopotamian Valley had passed to the more warlike Assyrians in the north, E-sagila and her god suffered with the people of Babylon, the temple being looted and the god Marduk carried off by Tukulti-Ninib, King of Assyria (circ. 1275 B.C.) Some six centuries later found the Assyrians Pg 73still all-powerful, though always engaged in suppressing rebellions among the discontented Babylonian princes, until at last Sennacherib resolved to wipe out Babylon from off the face of the earth. E-sagila shared in the general catastrophe, and but little remains of the early city or of the temple of her time-honoured god, though fortunately various documents, vessels and other relics belonging to the time before Sennacherib escaped that king’s fury, and have been recovered recently by the German excavators. Esarhaddon however, the successor of Sennacherib, and one of the most humane of Assyrian monarchs,—which is not perhaps saying a very great deal—made it his special business to rebuild the city of Babylon and the temple of her god, but he did not live to see the realization of his project, and the completion of the work was thus left to Esarhaddon’s joint successors, Ashur-bani-pal and Shamash-shum-ukîn. The temple was roofed with cedar and cypress-wood, and was rich with gold, silver and precious stones. When all was finished, Marduk’s home-coming was celebrated with great pomp and splendour, Shamash the sun-god, Ea, Marduk’s venerable father, Nebo his illustrious son—even Nergal the god of the dead, came to welcome the exiled deity back. But magnificent as was the reconstruction of Marduk’s ancient fane by Ashur-bani-pal, Assyria’s mightiest king, it was surpassed by that of Babylon’s native kings—Nabopolassar (625-604) and his son Nebuchadnezzar. Ashur-bani-pal does not seem to have rebuilt the temple-tower, which Sennacherib had of course destroyed, but Nabopolassar reared once more the lofty stage-tower—the E-temen-an-ki (“house of the foundations of heaven and earth”), and Nebuchadnezzar his son carried on the laudable work. He built the walls of the chamber Ekua of pure gold, while the roof he made of cedar-wood which he covered with gold and precious stones, the sanctuaries of Nebo and Zarpanit being treated in the same luxurious manner, Pg 74while all the sacrificial vessels seem to have been made of pure gold. Neriglissar (559-556 B.C.) a successor of Nebuchadnezzar further built four gates to this temple,and when the city was finally taken by Cyrus, it will be recalled that that king made obeisance to Marduk, at whose behests he professed to have taken the city—“He (Marduk) sought out a righteous prince, a man after his own heart, whom he might take by the hand; and he called his name Cyrus.”
Various graves were discovered in the course of the excavations at Babylon, but mostly of a late date. A very interesting sarcophagus was brought to light in 1910,28 the “head” end of the terra-cotta cover of which bore in relief the bearded head of a man with long hair, and an Egyptian type of face. Two other sarcophagi were found at the same time, and all of these burials were inside ruined houses.
Of the many other important results attending the labours of Koldewey and his confrères, the discovery of the ancient canal Arakhtu, the tracing of its quay-walls, the excavation of the great wall between the north and south castles, and the clearing of the west wall of the southern citadel, are especially deserving of mention, while for details the reader must refer to the Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft.
But Babylon was not the only site in Lower Mesopotamia to receive the attention of the Germans on this expedition. On June 14th, 1902, Koldewey, Delitzsch and Baumgarten, with a party of labourers, took a boat down the Euphrates, arriving eventually at the ruined mounds of Fâra on the 18th. Digging was commenced in the northern part of the ruin, and it was very soon evident that the whole site is of very ancient date, not even the uppermost strata of the mounds containing anything that can be assigned to a late period. Various implements of bone and stone, including a number of Pg 75stone hatchets, as well as saws and knives made of flint or obsidian, all testified to the antiquity of its occupation, and as nothing was discovered at a greater depth than 6 to 7 feet, Fâra promised at the outset to be one of the most important sites for the study of early Sumerian civilization. The ruined mounds of other long-forgotten cities had indeed yielded relics of the past quite as old as those excavated at Fâra, but in nearly every case the upper strata of such mounds were found to contain the remains of a later date and a more recent occupation; Fâra however stands unique in this respect, as for some reasons unknown, it appears only to have been occupied in the earliest period of Babylonia’s history, during which it undoubtedly “had its day,” but has ever since “ceased to be” until the German excavators have at last rescued it from permanent oblivion. Among the smaller objects discovered on this site, was a number of seal-cylinders, the majority of which were made of alabaster, though sometimes of shells, but very rarely of the hard stones so frequently employed in later days. They were found sometimes amid the general débris, sometimes in the tombs; for the most part they exhibit battle-scenes, the combatants being either men, beasts, or mythical monstrosities, as the case may be. The simpler specimens of the pottery found resemble those unearthed by Koldewey at Surghul, while others were more elaborately decorated. A few tablets were unearthed, mostly round in shape, and all of them inscribed in archaic characters. The citizens of Fâra placed the bodies of their dead either in clay sarcophagi, or else in reed mats. The clay sarcophagi are oval in shape, and about six feet in length; the sides are perpendicular, and they are closed with a clay cover. The corpse was generally found lying on its side with the legs drawn up embryonic-wise, as was the case in pre-Dynastic Egypt, and one of the hands is holding to the mouth a cup made of stone, shell, copper, or clay, an incidental proof Pg 76of the Babylonian’s belief in the reality of the life after death even at this remote period. The tombs of the better classes contain also the implements, weapons and ornaments of the deceased. The arms include spears, poniards and hatchets made of “bronze” (?), the jewelry taking the form of chains, the beads of which are in the case of the more wealthy made of lapis lazuli, and agate, while the poorer folk had to content themselves with ordinary glass. Bracelets and rings of silver and bronze were also discovered, together with “bronze” staffs provided with lapis-points at either end. Among the tools may be enumerated fishing-hooks and hatchets made of “bronze,” while colour-boxes made of alabaster or shell were usually buried with the corpse, and were therefore presumably regarded as toilet requisites in the life beyond just as in the life which now is. The colours in most cases were found well preserved, the principal of which were black, yellow, red and light green. Many stone vessels of varying sizes and shapes were brought to light, most of them being made of alabaster, in fact alabaster was used quite extensively on this site, contrary to the usage of the Babylonians of later days, who seldom employed the softer stones which their Assyrian neighbours utilized so frequently and for so many divers purposes. The excavators report that they were unable to determine whether the sarcophagi or the mat-burials were the older, both apparently being used synchronously; an assumption that the sarcophagi were used by the better classes, the mat-interments by the poorer, would in itself be sufficiently reasonable, but for the awkward fact that the mat-graves are as richly provided with the accoutrements, ornaments and implements of the deceased as are the sarcophagi themselves. Very few sculptures were found, most of them being on alabaster and showing considerable skill in their general execution. The early part of 1903 was signalized by the discovery of a building made of well-baked bricks, in the ruined débris of Pg 77which were discovered a large number of well-preserved tablets.
Meanwhile excavations had been carried on at the same time at the mound of Abû Hatab, Koldewey having received a report of the discovery of inscribed bricks on this site. Operations were commenced here on December 24th, 1902, and resulted in the discovery of a number of small buildings, the walls of which were notable for their insubstantiality. Some of the bricks were found to bear an inscription of Bur-Sin, king of Ur (circ. 2350 B.C.). But Abû Hatab yielded little of interest to the student of early prehistoric remains. The tombs here consisted for the most part in two large pots “adjusted with their edges in a horizontal position,” a form of sarcophagus found also in the early strata at Babylon and Muḳeyyer (Ur). The corpse lay either on its back or side, but in both cases it was contracted, this being obviously necessitated by the limitations of the sarcophagus, as was similarly the case in the early pot-burials of ancient Egypt. A vessel of clay or copper was generally found placed near the head of the corpse, doubtless destined to fulfil a purpose similar to that of the drinking cups found in the graves at Fâra.
At about this time Andrae, Koldewey’s assistant, completed the excavation of the temple of Nebo at Birs-Nimrûd (Borsippa), whence Nebo paid his yearly visit to Marduk on the first day of the New Year.

PLATE VIII

The Ziggurat and Palace of Ashur-naṣir-pal: Ashur
(By permission of the German Oriental Society)

Koldewey and Andrae did not however confine their attention to the ruined mounds of Babylonia, but in 1903 commenced excavations at Ḳalat Sherḳat, the site of Ashur, Assyria’s ancient capital, and the name of the god from whom Assyria derives her name. As early as 1852 Sir Henry Layard had conducted excavations on this site, the chief tangible result of which was the discovery of Tiglath-Pileser I’s clay cylinders, though fragments of bas-reliefs and other inscriptions were also Pg 78discovered here both by Layard and Rassam. Shalmaneser I (circ. 1300 B.C.) had transferred the seat of his government from Ashur to Calah, but his successor Tukulti-Ninib (circ. 1275 B.C.) restored the capital of the empire to Ashur. The mounds which mark the site of this ancient city are to a great extent of natural formation (cf. Pl. VIII), thereby differing from most of the ruined mounds in Mesopotamia, which owe their existence to artificial formation. From September 1903 to April 1904 operations were of a tentative character and consisted of trial trenches, but in April 1904 the Germans commenced excavating the large mound of mud-brick, the ziggurat, the eastern plateau, and the large court of Ashur’s temple, part of the fortification-wall also receiving attention, while the main work centred round the palace-buildings of Shalmaneser I (circ. 1300 B.C.). The great temple of Ashur, built or restored by Ushpia, an early ruler of the city who antedates Irishum, is situated in the north-east corner, and it adjoins the palace of Shalmaneser I. The ziggurat or stage-tower lies to the west-south-west, and the palace of Ashur-naṣir-pal adjoins the temple of Anu and Adad, which would appear to be the best preserved building in Ashur. Various other buildings have been discovered, of which the temple of Nebo and the palace of Tukulti-Ninib I (circ. 1275 B.C.) may be specially mentioned. Numerous graves were found of various kinds, those with brick walls being undoubtedly Assyrian. Many valuable historical inscriptions were found, while the discovery of a wall-decoration consisting of a series of rosettes was another interesting result. The so-called “Mushlala” of Adad-nirari I (circ. 1325 B.C.), according to whom it formed a part of the temple of Ashur, was found to be identical with that restored by Sennacherib with “mountain-stone,” and afterwards repaired by Esarhaddon (681-668 B.C.) with “pîlu”-stone. The foundations of the building situated at the southern Pg 79side of the eastern plateau proved to be of very great depth, while the plan of the building itself is said to closely resemble the early Babylonian type. The temple of Ashur the great lord of Assyria is alluded to by Irishum, king of Assyria (circ. 2000 B.C.), by Shamshi-Adad who calls himself builder of the temple of Ashur, by Adad-nirari and by Shalmaneser I. In Shalmaneser I’s reign it was destroyed by fire, and that king undertook its restoration. An inscription of Tiglath-Pileser II informs us that he decorated the temple with enamelled bricks. Some of these inscriptions were found “in situ” thus fixing the precise locus of Ashur’s famous shrine. The temple was situated at the extreme north of the city, three of its sides overlooking the open country and the fourth over-towered by the ziggurat. Remains of Shalmaneser’s work have been found in the foundation and pavement constructed by that king, and some of the enamelled bricks which decorated the buildings of Sargon have also been recovered, while the pavement of the great court, as well as pieces of enamelled brick and the clay cones of Tiglath-Pileser II have been brought to light. The temple itself was originally high above the level of the street. A second smaller ziggurat was further found, which proved to be a part of the temple of Anu and Adad, and the work of three distinct periods has been traced in this structure.29 Of interesting relics here unearthed, we may specifically mention a three-pronged thunderbolt of wood sheathed with gold.
The remains of various palaces have been unearthed including those of Adad-nirari and Shalmaneser I, and the royal residence of Tukulti-Ninib has been also excavated. Many tablets were recovered, and a pot containing 113 unbaked clay tablets was also brought to light: the tablets are written in a script characteristic of the time of Tiglath-Pileser I, and are chiefly Pg 80concerned with receipts for cattle. Much pottery was unearthed, together with a variety of objects including some Roman imperial coins of the second century. The northern part of the city was that which was favoured by the Assyrian kings, and accordingly contains the remains of several temples and palaces, but the ruins of private houses are perhaps of even greater interest than the palaces of kings and the abodes of the gods. They are small in size, but were evidently carefully drained. Within the houses a number of graves were discovered, apparently belonging to the same period as the houses themselves. In many cases the excavators state that they found clear traces of cremation in the graves. Seven distinctly different kinds of graves were found at Ashur—vaults, clay sarcophagi, baked clay trays placed over the corpse, jars, brick graves, potsherd graves, and earth graves. The vaults 30 are of various shapes and dimensions, are made of burnt brick, and consist generally of a fairly spacious chamber and an entrance shaft. The bodies—always more than one in each vault—lay on the floor in a contracted position, surrounded with drinking vessels of every description, and in all cases there was a small niche for a lamp. The clay sarcophagi show even greater varieties, including jars into which the bodies were pressed, and tubs both high and short into which the corpse was placed in a seated position, while both of these classes comprise many different types.
Another class of jar-burial, known as the “capsule,” consisted in two jars drawn over the feet and head respectively and pressed together till they met, thus forming a “capsule.” The Brick-graves were practically Brick-sarcophagi, the graves being built coffin-wise, but few of these have been found. The Potsherd graves are so called from the use of potsherds to cover the corpse. Apparently these various methods of burial coexisted at the same time, and they accordingly cannot Pg 81be classified into periods, as is the case to some extent in early Egypt.
Concerning the fortifications of the city, the inscriptions of the various kings who built, repaired, or rebuilt these, afford us a good deal of information, but the excavations themselves have not up to the present told us as much as we could desire. Shalmaneser II’s work of restoration on the southern wall has been identified by the clay-cones of that king found in the upper part of the wall, while in some of his inscriptions Shalmaneser calls himself the builder of the “Dûru” itself. The quay-wall built by Adad-nirari I, restored by Adad-nirari II, and later on by Adad-nirari III, has been excavated for nearly 490 yards of its length; it is built of blocks of limestone and is faced with brick on the river-side, coherency being added to the whole by an ample employment of asphalt and clay-mortar. Part of the city-moat built by Tukulti-Ninib I has also been found, the excavations having further revealed the restoration of the city-wall, for which Ashur-naṣir-pal was probably responsible.
The year 1908 saw the excavation of the temple erected in honour of the god Nebo at Ashur by Sin-shar-ishkun, the last king of Assyria (circ. 615 B.C.).31 The general ground-plan of this late Assyrian temple was found to correspond to that of the Anu-Adad temple, and also to that of the temple built by Sargon at Khorsabad.32 Numerous stelæ and other monuments of stone were recovered from the ruins of Ashur; they include a basalt stele of Tukulti-Ninib,33 a stele of Tiglath-Pileser III, and another of Ashur-resh-ishi II,34 a limestone stele of Ashur-naṣir-pal, an alabaster stele with the representation of a king adoring a god and goddess, which in some way resembles the Bavian relief of Sennacherib,35 and fragments of a diorite sculpture 36 Pg 82with small figures recalling the style of art characteristic of the Khammurabi period. The interest of these monuments is chiefly centred in the inscriptions which throw new light upon the number and order of the Assyrian kings.
Meanwhile the Americans, whose excavations in Babylonia had been inaugurated with so much promise, had again taken the field. On Christmas day 1903 an expedition sent out by the Oriental Exploration Fund of the University of Chicago, under the directorship of Professor R. F. Harper (E. J. Banks as field-director) commenced excavations at Bismâya, the name of a group of mounds situated between the Tigris and Euphrates, and due south of Bagdad. The mounds are very extensive, measuring about a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, but their altitude is very low compared with that of other mounds, such as Erech, Nippur (cf. Pl. X) or Borsippa. The temple was the first building at Bismâya to receive attention, partly owing to the fact that it happened to be concealed beneath one of the loftiest of the Bismayân mounds, and partly because the general shape of the mound suggested the possible existence of a stage-tower beneath its ruined débris. Trenches dug on all sides of the mound towards the centre soon revealed the lower storey of one of these temple towers, the second storey of which had disappeared, though some of the burnt bricks which formed its outer casing were found lying about. The surviving lower stage consisted in crude bricks and clay, but was provided with a facing of burnt brick some four feet thick. Many of these casing bricks were inscribed with the name of Dungi, king of Ur (circ. 2400 B.C.). Beneath the bricks of Dungi was found another layer of burnt bricks, some of which bore the name of Ur-Engur, Dungi’s immediate predecessor on the throne of Ur. Of small objects unearthed, the three most interesting Pg 83were a thin strip of gold found about two feet below the baked bricks of Dungi, and bearing the name of the renowned Nârâm-Sin, the son of Shar-Gâni-sharri of Agade, and the second was a small white marble statuette found at no great distance from the strip of gold, and conforming to the style of art characteristic of the age of Narêm-Sin, while the third was another marble statue belonging to the earliest Sumerian period, and closely resembling those excavated in the lowest strata at Tellô (Lagash). This statue (cf. Fig. 32) is probably unique as a statue in the round belonging to so early a period, and is especially noticeable for the fact that the arms are in this case entirely free from the body, and carved altogether in the round.
Just below the place where the gold of Narâm-Sin was recovered, large bricks about 18 inches square and belonging to the age of Shar-Gâni-sharri were found, while numerous inscriptions of this same king were forthcoming from some of the other mounds at Bismâya. Beneath the large Sargonic bricks there was a layer of thin oblong and finger-marked bricks, while lower still, some five feet below the surface, small plano-convex bricks set in bitumen were brought to light.
A great number of vase fragments made of marble, porphyry, granite, alabaster and onyx, together with innumerable objects made of ivory, mother of pearl, metal and stone were found round about the temple tower.
In regard to the temple itself, an entrance was discovered on the south-east side, the principal remaining features of which were the marble gate-socket supported on two slabs of pink marble. At the south corner, an oval-shaped room was brought to light, which was once covered with a dome-shaped roof. But the base of the temple tower had depths even below the stratum containing the small plano-convex bricks, which yet remained to be fathomed.
Some sixteen or seventeen feet below the surface a Pg 84large metal spike (cf. Fig. 40) terminating in a lion’s head was recovered, while much lower still, about thirty-nine to forty feet below the level of the mound a number of fragments of wheel-made black pottery were revealed. The date of this wheel-made pottery is of course unknown, but judging from the depth at which it was found, Dr. Banks, the Field-director of the expedition, suggests a date of 10,000 B.C. In the same year (1903) in which these successful excavations were being carried on at Bismâya, Nineveh, the ruined mounds of which once-famous city had already yielded such a rich harvest to the great pioneers in the field of Mesopotamian exploration, received further attention at the hands of the Trustees of the British Museum, who sent out an expedition under Messrs. L. W. King and R. C. Thompson, with a view to the further excavation of the Kouyunjik mound. The principal result of the excavations carried on there between the years 1903 and 1905 was the discovery of the site of Nabû’s temple, which had however been so ruthlessly destroyed—presumably by the Elamites—that no complete plan of the temple could be made.
Meanwhile the excavations at Tellô (Lagash) which had been brought suddenly to an end by the death of the brilliant French excavator (M. de Sarzec) in May, 1901, were resumed in January, 1903, under the directorship of Captain Gaston Cros. The principal fresh discovery made was a massive fortification wall built by Gudea (circ. 2450 B.C.). It is about thirty-two and a half feet thick, and in places is still in position to the height of twenty-six feet. Captain Cros also excavated a large rectangular building, and brought to light various objects of interest, including implements of flint and copper, together with a brick-stamp of Narâm-Sin, which latter may be regarded as evidence that building operations were carried on in Lagash by a Semitic king of Agade during the period of Semitic supremacy.

Pg 85

CHAPTER III—DECIPHERMENT OF THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS

THE first person to bring reports of cuneiform inscriptions to Europe was Pietro della Valle, an Italian belonging to a Roman family of noble birth. In the years 1614-26 he made a journey to Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Persia and India, and published an account of his travels in 1650, but the first communication of his discovery of cuneiform inscriptions at Persepolis was contained in a letter written from Shiraz and dated October 21st, 1621. Josafat Barbaro at the end of the fifteenth century had already taken notice of the strange signs found on the monuments at Persepolis, but Pietro della Valle was the first to suspect that the inscriptions were something more than mere decorative incisions on the rock. But though Pietro della Valle had made copies of a few of the inscriptions on the walls of the ruined palaces of Persepolis as early as 1621, to Chardin (1674) belongs the honour of making the first copy of a complete cuneiform inscription, the so-called “Window-Inscription,” the shortest of the trilingual Achaemenian inscriptions, and his copy is to be found in the account of his travels (published 1711). This same inscription was copied in 1694 by Kampfer, who also copied the Babylonian text of the “H” inscription found at Persepolis, and who was the first to adopt the term “cuneiform.” In the work which he published in 1712 he discusses whether the unknown script is alphabetic, syllabic, or ideographic, and decides in favour of the last. In 1701, the Dutchman De Bruin commenced his travels: Pg 86he devoted the year 1704 to an examination of the ruins at Persepolis and ten years later he published two new trilingual inscriptions in addition to an Old Persian and a Babylonian inscription, but to copy was one thing and to decipher was quite another, and well nigh a century elapsed before any real progress was made towards the unravelling of these cryptic signs, and the reconstruction of the languages which they embodied. In 1762 the inscription on the Vase of Xerxes found by Count Caylus was published, and a quadrilingual inscription of this king was published the same year. In 1765 Carsten Niebuhr, a Dane, copied several Achaemenian inscriptions at Persepolis, and pointed out that the first of the three columns on each of the trilingual inscriptions that had been found, contained only forty-two varieties of cuneiform characters from which he surmised rightly that the system in the first column was neither ideographic (each sign representing a word), nor syllabic (each sign representing a syllable), but alphabetic. From 1798 onwards, Tychsen and Münter, also a Dane, carried on the work begun by Niebuhr, and published their results in 1802. Münter had correctly guessed that the ubiquitous diagonal wedge

served to separate the words from each other, and one word which occurred at the beginning of each inscription, he rightly adjudged to be the word for “king.” In the meantime the Zend 37 language of the later Zoroastrian faith had been rediscovered, and with the aid of it, de Sacy had been able to decipher the Pehlevi 38 inscriptions. Now only the older Pg 87Persian inscriptions of the Achaemenian kings awaited interpretation. In 1802 G. Friedrich Grotefend, of Hanover, a schoolmaster by profession, entered the field, and by the following process of reasoning he became the pioneer discoverer of part of the Persian cuneiform alphabet, and the first decipherer of a complete cuneiform inscription. Old writers had provided him with the all-important information that the palaces of Persepolis, amid the ruins of which so many of these cuneiform inscriptions had been found, were built by the Achaemenian kings. The Pehlevi inscriptions moreover, which had also been found on this site and had been deciphered by de Sacy, led him to expect that the cuneiform inscriptions would contain something analogous. Grotefend had already satisfied himself that the inscriptions read from left to right, and selecting two short inscriptions, one engraved on a gate-post of a building on the second palace-terrace, and the other engraved on the wall of a building on the third palace-terrace at Persepolis, he commenced his successful investigations. Both inscriptions contained the group of signs which Münter had already rightly inferred represented “king,” though what was the Persian for “king” remained as yet unknown, the only difference being that in Inscription I “king” was preceded by a group of signs which may be conveniently designated “X,” while in Inscription II “king” is preceded by a group of signs which may be called “Y,” and that moreover in Inscription II “X” and the word for “king” following it occurred after the “Y” + “king.” In I on the other hand “X” + “king” was followed by another group of signs which may be labelled “Z,” without however the usual accompanying “king.”
Thus I reads “X” + king.........“Z”.........

And II reads “Y” + king......... “X” + king.

Pg 88
From this, Grotefend concluded that the groups of signs “X” “Y” and “Z” represented proper names, and that as “X” and “Y” were accompanied by “king,” they must be king’s names, and lastly Achaemenian kings’ names, for ancient writers stated that these palaces at Persepolis were built by Achaemenian kings, and furthermore their position suggested that these proper names must stand in genealogical relation to each other. In I “X” must be the son of “Z,” and in II “Y” must be the son of “X”; “X” and “Y” are accompanied with the sign for “king,” “Z” is not, therefore “Z” the father of “X” is not a king, and consequently “X” is presumably the founder of the dynasty. But apart from this hypothesis, some of the names of the five kings composing the (fortunately) short Achaemenian Dynasty—Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes—were at once ruled out of court: thus Cyrus and Cambyses were out of the question, for “X” and “Y” did not commence with the same cuneiform letter (it must be remembered that it had already been rightly assumed that the system was an alphabetic one), and moreover Cyrus’ father and son were both named Cambyses, and accordingly if “X” were Cyrus then “Y” and “Z” should be the same, which they are not. Cyrus and Artaxerxes were likewise disqualified, as there was no such discrepancy in the length of the words, there thus remained only Darius and Xerxes to be considered, and as “X’s” father “Z” is not called king, and it is further known that Hystaspes the father of Darius is not styled “king” by the classical writers, “X” was rightly assumed to be Darius. Having ascertained the oldest forms of the names of the Achaemenian kings in question from the classical writers, and Hebrew and Persian literature, he applied these forms to the groups of cuneiform signs which he had been led to believe they represented, and he found the respective groups contained the same Pg 89number of individual signs as the proper names in question contained letters, and for
“X” he accordingly read—D A R — — U SH = Darius

“Z” he read—G O SH T A S P = Hystaspes

— the Zend form of the name.

But “Y,” which on his hypothesis should be Xerxes, was not quite so easy to explain. He already knew the values of four or five of the seven signs composing group “Y,” and these known values occurred in the order he expected, but the first and third signs in the group remained to be dealt with. Grotefend observed that the first sign was the same as the first sign of the group correctly guessed by Münter to represent “king”: he ascertained that the Greek letter “x” was transliterated in the Zend by “kh,” and rightly inferred that the Greek “x” commencing the proper name Xerxes would be similarly transliterated by “kh” in old Persian, in other words that the first sign in the group should be read “Kh.” The result of Grotefend’s investigations was the discovery of the correct values for eight letters in the Persian cuneiform alphabet, the letter “a” having been already rightly read by Tychsen and Münter. His method of decipherment was proved to be correct by the quadrilingual vase-inscription already alluded to. The first version of this latter inscription is written in Egyptian hieroglyphics and was deciphered by Champollion as the name of Xerxes. The other three versions are written in cuneiform characters, the first of which, the old Persian, gave precisely the same group of signs as that which Grotefend read as Xerxes on the inscription from Persepolis. As Sayce 39 well says, the decipherment of cuneiform and all the far-reaching consequences resultant from it, depended upon a successful guess, but a guess made “in accordance with scientific method,” and it was upon Grotefend’s discovery that all Pg 90subsequent attempts to decipher cuneiform—Persian, Median, or Assyrian—were based. But unfortunately, though Grotefend had thus given the clue, and scented the track for all future scholars, his own ignorance of eastern languages prevented him from reaping himself the full harvest of his brilliant commencement, and the work so nobly begun was not completed till a later day.
The next great step forward was taken by the French scholar Emile Burnouf in 1836; he discovered that one inscription contained a list of the satrapies, and as the names of the satrapies were known from the Greek writers he was able on the partial knowledge of the alphabet already attained, to fit in the names to the cuneiform signs, and as a result he produced an alphabet of thirty letters mostly correct. About the same time Lassen assigned the correct values to almost all the letters in the alphabet, and further demonstrated that the language of the inscriptions was akin to the language of the Zend and also to the Sanskrit, though identical with neither.
Meanwhile Rawlinson had entered the field, and being attached to the British Mission in Persia, he had opportunities which others lacked, his position making it possible for him to copy and on a subsequent occasion take squeezes 40 of the inscription on the sacred rock of Behistun, which is filled with proper names. The French traveller Otter was apparently the first European to draw attention to the inscribed rock of Behistun, about the year 1734, and it is also mentioned by Oliver, but the earliest reference to it is contained in the History of Diodorus Siculus who flourished in the first century A.D. Kinneir who saw it in 1810 states that it is clear that the figures portrayed there are of the same age and character as those from Persepolis. In 1818 Porter Pg 91made a sketch of the figures, but did not attempt to copy the inscription in spite of the experience he had gained in copying the inscription at Persepolis. The copying of it was no easy task, for Rawlinson had to be lowered in a basket from the top, the ladders which he had with him not being long enough to reach the upper part of the inscription from below. He sent his copy 41 to Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, who carefully revised it, and in 1849 an analysis and commentary on the text was published. With Rawlinson and Norris must be mentioned the Irish clergyman Hincks, who with his unrivalled genius in the decipherment of inscriptions was the first to discover that the alphabet was not a true one, but that a vowel-sound was attached to each of the consonants; and also Beer Holtzman and Westergaard, all of whom contributed to the work of investigation and made discoveries in regard to both the grammar and lexicon. Rawlinson cannot indeed claim to have actually discovered the first clue which led to the decipherment of cuneiform, but his translation of the Behistun inscription was unquestionably the most valuable contribution ever made towards the unravelling of the old Persian language. His work was moreover at first quite independent of Grotefend’s, and without any assistance from the latter he had deciphered the names of Cyrus, Hystaspes and Darius on the inscriptions from Elvend and Hamadan as early as 1835. Thus the efforts of half a century resulted at length in the discovery of a new alphabet and the resurrection of an old language. The Persian texts on the inscriptions were accompanied by two other texts, which as Grotefend divined must have been the two other principal languages used in the Persian Empire. The third text Pg 92closely resembling the inscriptions on bricks and cylinder seals found in Babylon was naturally and correctly assumed to be Assyrian.42 The decipherment of this third transcript was fraught with difficulties of every description; there was such an endless variety of signs of a simple and complex order, and there was nothing whatever to indicate where a word or a sentence started or finished, and further the characters on the monuments from Persepolis differed very considerably from those found on the Babylonian monuments, which also varied among themselves very greatly. On the seal-cylinders they were especially complicated, and it was almost impossible to see any resemblance whatever between the characters on the latter and those of the Persepolitan inscriptions.
But light was to come from another quarter: in 1842 Botta, French Consul at Mosul, began excavating on the site of Nineveh, but not meeting with success he transferred his operations to Khorsabad further north, and there excavated a large palace which subsequently turned out to be that of Sargon. In 1845 Layard entered the field, and carried on most successful excavations at Nimrûd (the ancient Calah) and then at Kouyunjik, one of the mounds which represents the site of Nineveh.
Botta published the inscriptions he had found in 1846-50, and also classified the signs, which numbered 642, while he further demonstrated the identity of the cuneiform system of the Nineveh inscriptions with that of the third column on the Persepolitan monuments, but it was reserved for the incomparable Hincks to discover the fact that the Assyrian cuneiform system was syllabic and not alphabetic like the Persian.
Pg 93
The proper names in the Persian columns gave the first clue to the decipherment of the Assyrian columns. The values thus obtained for some of the Assyrian signs made it possible to read many of the words, their meanings being determined by a comparison with the Persian columns. It was then seen that Assyrian was a Semitic language and resembled Hebrew in particular; this was proved conclusively by De Saulcy in 1849. In 1850 Rawlinson submitted a translation of the inscription on the Black obelisk of Shalmaneser II to the Royal Asiatic Society, a translation which was in the main correct, and in the following year he published the text and translation of the Assyrian transcript on the Behistun inscription, and announced two facts, one already known, namely that the Assyrian signs can be used ideographically, i.e. to denote an object or idea, as well as to represent merely a syllable, the other fact was that the characters were polyphonous, i.e. could represent more than one syllable each: this was again proved to demonstration by the redoubtable Hincks. Both facts alike argued that the cursive Assyrian cuneiform had its origin in picture writing, for in the latest times when cuneiform was as it were fully stereotyped, the signs were still used alone singly to represent an object or an idea, and also the polyphonous character of the individual signs testified to the same origin, for example the picture of an arm would signify not merely an “arm” but also “strength,” “might,” “grasp,” etc., and thus though the sign would—at least originally—only have one general idea attached to it, it would have quite a number of phonetic values: these phonetic values would in the first be inseparably connected with the root idea, but in time when the sign had become cursive and developed and no longer resembled the original picture, the various phonetic values of the sign would not necessarily have anything whatever to do with the original root idea.
Pg 94
For example, a character with the meaning and phonetic value of the word “win,” would in later times come to represent the syllable “win” quite apart from the basis meaning of the word win, thus the sign could be used to represent the first syllable in the word win-ter.
In 1857 the Royal Asiatic Society proposed to test the reliability of the translations put forward by scholars of the Assyrian inscriptions in the following manner: some eight hundred lines of cuneiform writing contained on clay cylinders found by Layard at Ḳalat Sherḳat, the ancient Ashur, were to be independently translated by any scholars who were prepared to accept the proposal; the translations were to be sent under seal to the society’s secretary, and were to be opened together and examined before a commission on a set day. Rawlinson, Fox Talbot, Hincks and Oppert entered the lists, and on May 25th their respective products were opened and compared. The great similarity which they all displayed afforded conclusive proof as to the correctness of the method of decipherment, and demonstrated finally that the investigations carried on, together with the results of those investigations, had not been mere speculative guesses, but were based on sound scientific principles.
Many other scholars deserve our gratitude for the share they took in the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, of whom one may perhaps specially name Westergaarde, Löwenstern, De Saulcy and Longperier, but for an account of the particular achievements of each, the reader must refer to general works on the subject.43

Pg 95

CHAPTER IV—CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS

ALL alphabets and all modes of writing have their ultimate origin in pictures or hieroglyphs, and the cuneiform script offers no exception to this universal rule. When the early pictorial symbols are used to indicate objects and ideas other than the particular object of which the symbol is a representation the accuracy or inaccuracy of the picture becomes a matter of small importance, and an inevitable tendency to sketch the picture in the most speedy manner possible ends finally in the evolution of a purely cursive script. In Mesopotamia this course of development—or deterioration—was hastened by the nature of the material used in later times for all ordinary writing purposes, i.e. the all-abundant clay of the valley, it being impossible to draw the lines and curves necessary for the production of pictures on so plastic a substance as clay. The shape assumed by the signs forming the characters was due to the same cause, the point at which the stylus first comes in contact with the soft clay being unavoidably thicker than the remainder of the stroke which automatically tapers off into the form of a wedge. But so forcible is the influence of habit and so strong the imitative tendency, that we find the cuneiform characters which owed their wedge-shaped formation entirely and solely to the adoption of clay as a writing material, faithfully and slavishly copied on the colossal stone bulls, stelæ and wall-reliefs of later Assyrian kings.
The early decipherers of cuneiform had no specific knowledge of its pictographic origin, for all the inscriptions at that time discovered showed the same stereotyped Pg 96and cursive script, but since their day a vast number of archaic inscriptions have been brought to light which prove conclusively that cuneiform as such was no invention of either Semites or Sumerians, but was simply the last stage in the process of degeneration to which the early pictures of the pre-Semitic Sumerians were subject. In the following illustrations (Figs. 1 and 2) we have a number of characters taken from actual inscriptions and arranged in order of evolution so to speak,44 the sign in the left-hand column containing the most archaic form of the sign as yet discovered, the signs in the right-hand column showing the gradual transition to cursive cuneiform, while the last sign in the column is the ordinary late Assyrian ideograph. Thus in “A” we have the crude picture of a man recumbent, and one can follow the course of its development or deterioration from the various forms it has assumed on monuments and bricks arranged in order of sequence. Given the ordinary cuneiform sign for “man” by itself, it would be quite impossible to conjecture that it originated in the picture of a man at all. Below (“B”) we have the old Sumerian hieroglyph for “king,” consisting in a man lying down, surmounted by either a crown or an umbrella as part of the insignia of royalty. In “C” we have the picture of a man’s head in recumbent posture, the lips being represented by two slanting lines, while the series of characters in the centre illustrates the various forms the sign has assumed on the bricks and monuments, and the arrangement shows the process whereby the original hieroglyph gradually discarded all trace of its pictorial origin, and became a cursive stereotyped sign the principal value of which is “mouth.” Below we have another rude picture of a man’s head, but on this occasion he wears a beard, which would suggest a full-grown man; hence the meaning of the Pg 97Assyrian ideograph is “strength,” “be strong,” or “protection.” In figure “E” there is a representation of a potted plant: this sign, instead of becoming simpler as it makes each progressive step towards cuneiform, becomes Pg 98paradoxically more complex, until it finally subsides and assumes its normal cursive form, the principal value for which is “cypress-tree.” Below (“F”) two plants are seen, growing likewise in a pot: the progress is again obvious, the meanings of the ideogram being “plant” and “garment”; this latter meaning is probably attached to the sign through the use of flax as a material for clothing. “G” appears to be a tree growing by water; the late cuneiform sign has numerous values, but none of them suggest any immediate connection with the obvious signification of the picture-character from which it was developed. “H” gives us a picture of a reed, the late cuneiform character being the ideogram for “kanu” which means a “reed.”

Fig. 1.—From Harper’s Old Testament and Semitic Studies, Vol. II, pp. 241 ff.—By permission.

In Fig. 2, “Q” we have a picture of a fish; the meaning of the Assyrian ideogram derived from it are a “fish,” to “peel” (from preparing a fish for eating), the god Ea, on account of his sometimes being represented in the form of a fish, and finally a “prince,” and “great” from its association with Ea. Below (“R”) is another fish, provided with what appears to be a dorsal fin, hence the signification of the Assyrian sign is “broad” or a “monster.”
Our next illustration (“I”) is concerned with water: we have here the wavy lines for water which is similarly represented in both Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphics. Below (“J”) we have a representation of the little irrigation ditches by which gardens are watered: hence the cuneiform ideogram derives the meaning of “field” and stands for two distinct Assyrian words—“ginu” and “iklu,” both of which mean “field.” It is somewhat doubtful what the hieroglyph in “K” is intended to represent: Hommel regarded it as a picture of a leathern bottle which would not unnaturally suggest the meaning “desert”; Barton, on the other hand, with perhaps greater probability regards it as a rude outline of the Euphrates valley, with its two rivers and Pg 99its “occasional sections of irrigated and so fertile land,” indicated by the cross-lines, and he rightly says that this would account for the meanings “plain” and “lands,” and by an extension “desert,” “elevated country,” and last of all “back.” In “L” we see the Pg 100picture of a house, which however hardly corresponds with our conception of what a house should be: the cuneiform sign derived from it is the ideogram for “bitu” (the Hebrew “Beth” occurring in the proper names Bethlehem, “house of bread,” Bethshemesh, “house of the sun,” etc.), the ordinary Assyrian word for “house.”

Fig. 2.—From Harper’s Old Testament and Semitic Studies, Vol. II, pp. 241 ff.—By permission.

The next figure (“M”) shows us a covered and steaming pot; hence the meanings of the later cuneiform sign are to “burst forth,” “exult,” “rejoice.” “N” is somewhat doubtful, but it probably represents a “priestly garment,” inasmuch as the cuneiform sign derived from it is the Assyrian ideogram for “šangu” a “priest.” “O” is apparently a rude picture of either a crown or a ceremonial umbrella, as the emblem of greatness, the picture of the Assyrian king attended by a slave whose office it is to hold an umbrella over the head of his royal master being, through its frequent occurrence on the bas-reliefs which adorned the walls of the palaces, sufficiently familiar. However that maybe, the cuneiform sign is the ordinary ideogram for “rabu” (the root which occurs in Rabshakeh, Rabsaris, etc.), which means “great”; we have already seen this sign compounded with the picture of a man, the two together meaning “king.” In “P” we see a picture of a bowl in which two tinder-sticks have been inserted with a view to their ignition by friction; hence is derived the meaning of the cuneiform sign developed from it,—“fire.”
As has been already indicated, clay was the material mostly used by the Assyrian and Babylonian scribes for the purposes of writing; but stone was also extensively used from the earliest to the latest times. Stone obelisks, colossal statues of bulls and lions, and last but far from least the bas-reliefs which decorated the walls of the royal palaces were generally covered with an inscription, the wedges sometimes measuring as much as two inches. In writing on sculpture the carved figures were completely Pg 101ignored, the inscription being chiselled regardlessly through every detail of the carving. Stone was however sometimes used solely and exclusively as the material medium for perpetuating a legal agreement, or immortalizing the work of some self-satisfied grandee, and tablets of limestone or alabaster exist in large numbers, good examples of which are those of Rîm-Sin and Sin-Gamil, rulers of the ancient city of Larsa.
Boundary-stones or land-marks form another interesting class of inscribed stone objects. The texts refer to land-tenure and property conveyancing, while the upper part of most of these boulder-shaped monuments is sculptured in relief with mythological emblems. They belong almost exclusively to the Kassite period. Sometimes a plan of the field seems to have been chiselled on the stone which marked its boundary. A good example of such a boundary-stone is that of Nebuchadnezzar I, which was discovered at Nippur and is published by W. J. Hinke;45 a further point of interest about this stone is that it is inscribed with a hymn to En-lil, the god of Nippur.
But neither the Babylonians nor the Assyrians confined themselves exclusively to the use of clay and calcareous stone as the material whereon to write their inscriptions. Sometimes the hardest volcanic rocks were employed for the purpose, doubtless in consideration of their durability and power of resisting the devastating influences of time and climate. Thus in the course of the German excavations at Babylon a plate of dolerite measuring about a foot and a half square and bearing an inscription of Adad-nirari the son of Ashur-dan was discovered. So too Dungi and Bur-Sin, kings of Ur (circ. 2350 B.C.), have left us inscriptions chiselled on hard diorite, the inscriptions themselves being of a votive Pg 102character, while a club-button made of the same material and bearing an inscription of ten lines was found at Babylon. The various statues and stelæ made of these hard igneous stones and found both in Assyria and Babylonia, though more frequently in the mother country, practically always bear an inscription. A good example of an Assyrian inscription on basalt is that found on the basalt statue of Shalmaneser II (860-825 B.C.), which was brought to light in the course of the recent excavations conducted by the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft at Ashur. Again the numerous stone gate-sockets discovered in the ruins of early buildings in Babylonia are nearly all inscribed with the name and titles of the person who erected the building, and sometimes the original inscription has been erased or obliterated to make room for the inscription of a later ruler, who knowing full well the difficulty of procuring stone in the low-lying country of Babylonia, was not so short-sighted as to cast away the gate-sockets of his vanquished predecessor, but on the contrary utilized them for his own new building. Thus for example the gate-socket of Lugal-kigub-nidudu, an early king of Sumer, was subsequently used by Shar-Gâni-sharri, king of Akkad, in the construction of his temple at Nippur.
But sometimes stones of comparative rarity, such as lapis lazuli, were employed as a material whereon to engrave inscriptions: thus a tablet made of that material and dedicated by Lugal-tarsi, an early king of Kish, to the god Anu and the goddess Ninni, is preserved in the British Museum, and in the course of the recent excavations at Babylon two bars of lapis lazuli with reliefs and both bearing cuneiform inscriptions were discovered. One of these showed the picture of a god standing up, surmounted with a feather crown, and holding the symbol of lightning in each hand, while his dress is decorated with three shields, and a cuneiform inscription of five lines is further added; Pg 103on the other, a god in similar posture and dress but holding a staff and ring on his breast and grasping the tail of a double-horned dragon in his right hand is portrayed: the god’s girdle is decorated with figures, while on one of the three shields adorning the raiment, horses are depicted, and there is an accompanying inscription of eight lines.
Metal in like manner was not exempt from being drawn into the service, the metals mostly employed being bronze and copper. Thus the female statuettes from Tellô all bear an inscription, Elamite or Babylonian as the case may be, the general purport of which is that the statuette is dedicated with a view to the preservation of the life of the donor: so too the colossal copper lance-head discovered on the same site bears a royal inscription, while the famous bronze gate-sheaths from Balâwât belonging to the time of Shalmaneser II, are perhaps the most familiar instance of cuneiform inscriptions engraved on bronze. Many bronze tablets of the Assyrian period have been found, and the well-known bronze doorstep of Nebuchadnezzar II provides us with another excellent example of an inscription engraved on metal. Moreover the more precious metals such as silver and gold were occasionally inscribed. Inscriptions on gold are very rare, but by no means unknown. M. de Sarzec for example found a plate of gold bearing a cuneiform inscription at Tellô, and a strip of gold bearing the name of the illustrious Narâm-Sin of Agade was brought to light in the course of the American excavations at Bismâya.
But the inscribed clay tablets, countless in number and infinitely various in size, shape and contents, far outweigh in importance all other kinds of cuneiform inscriptions in existence. A detailed treatment of the latter would far exceed the necessary limits of this little volume, but a few words may be said regarding the main classes of tablets discovered. Their size and shape are sometimes Pg 104indicative of the period to which they belong, sometimes of the subject-matter with which they deal. A very early type is represented by those found below the level of Ur-Ninâ’s building at Tellô; the tablets in question which have not been baked in an oven, and are round in form, deal with the sale and purchase of land. Similar round tablets were found by the German excavators at Fâra, which were however baked and not sun-dried. The same rounded baked clay tablets were evidently in vogue at the time of Bur-Sin, for several have been brought to light which are dated in his reign, and contain details regarding certain landed property. But the commonest type of clay tablet is that characterized by its rectangular shape, sometimes square, but more frequently oblong, and varying greatly in size. The tablets in the Kouyunjik collection, which represents the largest, and in one sense the only Assyrian library as yet discovered, vary from one to fifteen inches in length when complete, many of them being made from the very finest clay. The writing is sometimes exceedingly minute, though marvellously clear and sharp, and is more or less stereotyped in character. Astrology, astronomy, history, mythology, magic, medicine, mathematics, prayers, hymns, lists of gods, omens, lexicography and grammar are all well represented in this famous library. Many of the texts are copies of older Babylonian literature made by Ashur-bani-pal’s scribes, and stored away in the royal archives. Some of the texts are bilingual, the top line containing the Sumerian ideographic version, and the lower line giving the Assyrian translation, and these bilingual inscriptions together with the syllabaries have enabled scholars to unravel and elucidate at all events to some extent the old Sumerian language.
By the year 1873 all scholars were agreed that the cuneiform script was not invented by the Semitic Babylonians, but by a people who spoke an agglutinative as opposed to an inflexional language, a language Pg 105which was therefore, at least in this respect, akin to the Tartar languages. In the following year however Joseph Halévy, the famous French Semitist, started a theory which denied the existence of a Sumerian language altogether, and explained the ideographic texts in the bilingual inscriptions already alluded to, as a secret writing intelligible only to the priests; but primâ facie the theory lacked probability and even plausibility. Halévy, it is true, propounded his theory at a time when the study of Sumerian was in its infancy, though it can hardly be said to have grown out of its childhood even at the present day, but this notwithstanding, it would be indeed singular if the priests took the precaution to enshrine their secret lore in cryptic language, and then frustrated themselves by subscribing an Assyrian translation. Moreover many of the Sumerian inscriptions treat of such very ordinary matters, that it is extremely difficult to see how it could have been necessary to employ a cryptic language to conceal them. A more ready explanation is to be found in the theory accepted by the majority of scholars to-day,—that the Sumerian language existed side by side with Semitic Babylonian, and was used much as Latin is to-day.
One class of tablet especially easily distinguishable by its shape and size is that comprising legal contracts for the exchange of land, cattle and property of every description. They are small in size, oblong in shape, both sides being slightly concave, and the whole not unlike a small narrow pillow in general appearance. Many of these contract tablets were enclosed in clay envelopes to ensure their preservation. When a contract was effected by the Babylonians, the contracting parties had recourse to a legal or priestly official, and the terms of the agreement were set forth on a clay tablet which was deposited either in the temple or the record chamber: it was furthermore protected by a clay envelope upon which Pg 106the terms inscribed on the contract tablet were copied in duplicate; thus every precaution was taken to secure the preservation of the original document. Sometimes the text on the envelope varies somewhat from that contained in the document itself, and in such cases the envelopes therefore have more than a purely archaic interest, and are of actual linguistic value. One or two copies were made of the contract and were kept by either or both of the contracting parties. The deed was subscribed by the witnesses, one of whom was the scribe who drew up the document and sealed it. The seal was generally affixed by rolling a small cylinder seal over the tablet while still moist, though sometimes a three-sided clay cone received the impress of the seal, and this cone was attached to the tablet by means of a reed inserted in the apex of the cone, the other end of the reed being joined to the tablet by a piece of moist clay. Many of these contract “case” tablets belong to the times of Khammurabi, the most celebrated king of the First Dynasty of Babylon (circ. 1900 B.C.). Some of the envelopes of these tablets bear the impression of a cylinder-seal, a good example of which is found on a tablet recording the sale of a piece of land by Sin-eribam and his brother to Sin-ikisham (Brit. Mus. No. 92649). The clay of this class of tablet is generally somewhat dark in colour, and the characters are often difficult to read.

PLATE IX

British Museum

Inscriptions on clay illustrating the sizes and shapes of the tablets etc. used by the Babylonians and Assyrians

The later, or Neo-Babylonian legal and commercial documents show greater variation in size and shape than those belonging to the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon. They are generally oblong, but on the smaller tablets the text is generally written in such a manner that each line extends over the length of the tablet instead of over its breadth. The larger legal documents of this period are sometimes inscribed on tablets of quite exceptional thickness, their general size and shape being not unlike that of an old Latin prayer-book.
Pg 107
But contracts were not the only kind of inscription protected by a clay envelope or “case”; letters and despatches sometimes shared the same consideration. Like contracts, letters were inscribed on small oblong tablets, such as might be easily transmitted through the Babylonian and Assyrian post, that is to say carried by the messenger whose duty it was to convey the letter to its destination. As might be expected, the envelope in this case bore the name of the person to whom the letter was addressed, and occasionally also that of the sender, just as the envelopes of letters are sometimes initialled to-day. Many of these letters are of a royal character, and emanate from kings and princes. Quite a number of letters and despatches from the early kings of Babylon to their officials and governors have come down to us. They treat of divers subjects: in one Khammurabi writes to Sin-Idinnam commanding him to send forty-seven shepherds to Babylon in order that they may give an account to the king of the flocks under their care (Brit. Mus. No. 23122). In another letter the king writes to the same prince with instructions to arrest three officials and despatch them to Babylon, while in yet another Khammurabi writes to Sin-Idinnam with orders to restore a certain baker to his former position. Some of Sin-Idinnam’s official correspondence has also been preserved. In one communication he directs a legal officer to summon a certain man to appear in court (Brit. Mus. No. 12868). Sin-Idinnam’s duties were clearly very varied and must have been sufficiently arduous. In one of these despatches Khammurabi orders Sin-Idinnam to cut down some “Abba” trees required by smelters of metal (Brit. Mus. No. 26234). In another he commands the same personage to see to the mustering of crews for transport-barges (Brit. Mus. No. 27288). Others contain instructions to attend to the repair of the banks of the Euphrates at various points. But his duties were not Pg 108exclusively civil; judicial affairs fell to his charge also; thus it is that to him the king writes regarding a dispute between a landlord and his tenant concerning the payment of rent for land, while he is perpetually receiving orders to arrest delinquent officials and other misconducted persons. In one letter (Brit. Mus. No. 12827) Khammurabi directs Sin-Idinnam to postpone the date of a certain trial, owing to the presence of the plaintiff, one Ili-Ippalzam, in the city of Ur at a certain festival.
Elsewhere (Brit. Mus. No. 12841) Khammurabi issues a report to the same overburdened official to the effect that certain persons have cancelled a deed of mortgage, and commands the instant presence of Enubi-Marduk, who received their lands on mortgage, in Babylon. Many of the letters of these early kings of Babylon embody the royal wishes regarding the date of sheep-shearing, or the reaping of corn, as well as instructions concerning the irrigation canals.
In one letter, Samsu-iluna (Brit. Mus. No. 27269) instructs Sin-Idinnam and the judges of Sippar to prohibit certain fishermen from fishing in forbidden waters; at other times the same judges are directed to send a particular case for trial in the capital (cf. Brit. Mus. No. 27266). Another collection of letters written in cuneiform and on clay tablets are the famous Tell el-Amarna Letters,—generally of somewhat larger size and less distinctly oblong than the ordinary Babylonian despatches. The majority of them are rectangular, though a few are oval. Some are convex on both sides, some are flat on both sides, while others are plano-convex or pillow-shaped. These tablets were discovered at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt; they represent nearly all that remains of the official and diplomatic correspondence which passed between the Pharaohs Amenhetep III and Amenhetep IV of the Eighteenth Dynasty (i.e. they belong to the fourteenth or fifteenth century B.C.), and their Pg 109various officials and vassals in Palestine. Some of the tablets found at Tell el-Amarna are inscribed with letters from the King of Babylon, from the King of Mitani, from the King of Alashiya, and other royal potentates, but as they are mostly of Palestinian and Egyptian interest, a detailed consideration of them would be out of place in this volume.
Among the larger rectangular clay tablets in existence are those containing syllabaries. Owing to the deterioration and simplification which the cuneiform characters underwent in the course of ages, the Assyrian scribes found it necessary to make lists of the early Babylonian characters adding what they believed to be the later Assyrian equivalents. Most of these syllabaries consist of three columns; in the middle column the Assyrian sign to be explained is given, on the left the Sumerian value of the same, and in the right-hand column either the Assyrian name for the sign, or else the Assyrian meaning, and occasionally both. These syllabaries are obviously of immense importance in the reconstruction of the old Sumerian language.
Other tablets of abnormally large size are those dealing with astrology, magic and medicine: the two latter subjects are inextricably confused owing to the fact that they went hand in hand with each other; the medicine was prescribed and administered, but the medicine alone was by no means sufficient to cure the patient, that could only be effected by the potent spell of the magician.
But the largest clay tablets emanate from Babylonia and contain lists of accounts mostly concerning grain, cattle, asses, lambs, sheep. Some of these tablets are perfectly square, and measure as much as a foot each way, while nearly all of them are more square than oblong: the clay of which they are made is of fine quality, and the Babylonian characters with which they are inscribed are singularly clear. Most of them may be assigned to the second half of the third millennium B.C., and many Pg 110of them are specifically dated in the reign of Dungi, king of Ur about 2400 B.C. But as already mentioned, tablets were not always rectangular; sometimes they assumed a circular form. Tablets of this kind are usually inscribed in the Sumerian language, and contain lists of landed estates and fields, with information regarding their size, their capacity for producing crops and other details. Many of these circular tablets are dated, the year deriving its name after some noteworthy event, as was the regular mode of dating in the early days of Babylonian civilization. Thus many of these lists are dated “in the year after that in which the land of Khukhnuri was laid waste,” and were drawn up in the reign of Bur-Sin and other kings of Ur, i.e. during the second half of the third millennium B.C.
The clay of which these tablets are made is of the finest, while the writing is exceedingly clear; they vary from about two to six inches in diameter, and are oval on one side and more or less flat on the other.
Other large rectangular tablets are inscribed with lists of the principal events in different kings’ reigns and are obviously of immense importance for the reconstruction of Babylonian and Assyrian history. One of the tablets belonging to this class (Brit. Mus. No. 92702) gives us a list of the chief events, after which the various years of Sumu-abu, Sumu-la-ilu, Zabum, Apil-Sin, Sin-muballit, Khammurabi and Samsu-iluna, kings of the first dynasty of Babylon (about the end of the third and beginning of the second millennium B.C.) were named. Another of the same class (Brit. Mus. No. 92502) gives us a list of the leading events which took place in Babylonia and Assyria from the third year of Nabonassar, king of Babylon 744 B.C., and the first year of Shamash-shum-ukîn, the contemporary of Ashur-bani-pal (668 B.C.). One of the most interesting events here alluded to is the assassination of Sennacherib by his son on the 20th day of the month Tebet, and in the 23rd year of Pg 111his reign. Among other historical documents of primary importance, a tablet generally known as “the Synchronous History” must be placed in the first rank. This document is an agreement drawn up about the time of Ashur-bani-pal, and it had as its object the settlement of boundary-disputes between Babylonia and Assyria, while its historical value lies largely in the short notices of the various conflicts and alliances between the two countries from about 1600-800 B.C. One other large rectangular tablet (K. 3751) of exceptional interest alike to the historian and the Biblical student, is the document in which Tiglath-Pileser III, king of Assyria 745-727 B.C., gives us an account of his building operations and conquests, and mentions “Ahaz, King of Judah” as one of his tributary princes. This tablet must have been very large when complete, for what remains of it measures nine inches by seven and a half. The largest tablet in the Kouyunjik collection is not however historical in character, but contains a list of the names and titles of various gods, and in its present fragmentary state measures fifteen inches in length.
Other cuneiform inscriptions were written on pieces of clay shaped like cones. Most of these terra-cotta cones date from the time of the dynasty of Ur, i.e. the latter half of the third millennium B.C. Two good examples of this kind of cuneiform inscription bear the name of Sin-gashid, king of Erech, and record the dedication of a temple to the god Lugal-banda and the goddess Ninsun, and give the price of wool, grain, oil and copper during the reign of Sin-gashid (Brit. Mus. 91, 150). Another baked clay cone is inscribed with the name of Sin-idinnam, king of Larsa about 2300 B.C., and likewise records the dedication of a temple—in this case that of the Sun-god, Larsa being one of the principal centres of the worship of the Sun-god. But the conquering Elamites, who imitated their subjugated enemies, the Babylonians, in so many ways, also adopted the Pg 112practice of writing cuneiform inscriptions on clay cones; for an example of an Elamite cone we may compare Brit. Mus. 91, 149, which bears the name of Kudur-Mabug. But the habit of writing inscriptions on clay cones did not cease at this period, at least not permanently, for a similar cone exists bearing the name of the Neo-Babylonian king Nabopolassar (625-604 B.C.), and like the older cones recording the dedication of a temple, this time the temple of Marduk at Babylon. (Brit. Mus. No. 91,090.)
But Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions on clay were not always in the form of rectangular or circular tablets; frequently they assumed the form of large hexagonal, octagonal, or decagonal prisms, or in the case of Babylonia of barrel-shaped cylinders. It was customary to place these large clay memorials in the four corners of the foundation of a building in Babylonia and Assyria, a good example of which practice was found at Muḳeyyer (Ur): the cylinders from Ur had been deposited at the four angles of the foundation of the temple of Sin, the Moon-god, by Nabonidus, and they record the rebuilding of the temple by Nabonidus (555-538 B.C.) on the site of the ancient temple erected by Ur-Engur and his son Dungi, about 2400 B.C. The text finds a fitting conclusion in a prayer to the god whose fane he is restoring, on behalf of his eldest son Bal-shar-uṣur, the Biblical Belshazzar. Three octagonal prisms of baked clay give us an account of the campaigns and building operations of Tiglath-Pileser I, king of Assyria about 1100 B.C. (Brit. Mus. 91033-91035). Another prism is inscribed with an account of the expeditions of Sargon, king of Assyria 721-705 B.C. (Brit. Mus. No. 22505), while the fragments of an octagonal prism of the same king, and also preserved in the British Museum, (K. 1668, etc.) are of peculiar interest in that they give Sargon’s own account of his campaign against the Philistine city of Ashdod, which is referred to in Isaiah XX. I. Judah is Pg 113mentioned as one of the allies of Ashdod, but the Assyrians were ultimately successful in reducing the rebellious city. Sargon’s successor, Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.), similarly caused his military achievements to be recorded on large clay prisms, and the most interesting document of his reign is preserved on the six sides of a hexagonal prism now in the British Museum (91032). It records the defeat of Merodach-Baladan, king of Babylon, and the subjugation of various other peoples, but the particular interest attaching to this cylinder lies in the allusions to the Palestinian campaign of 2 Kings xviii. Sennacherib states that he severely punished the rebellious people of Ekron and restored the banished Padî to his throne; he then proceeded to attack Hezekiah in Jerusalem “his royal city”; he laid siege to Jerusalem, and shut Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage, but in spite of this demonstration, he was clearly unable to open the cage and seize the bird. However, Hezekiah seems to have been duly impressed, and he hastened to buy off Sennacherib with gifts and tribute—“thirty talents of gold, eight hundred talents of silver, precious stones, eye paint ... ivory couches and thrones, hides and tusks, precious woods and divers objects,” together with his daughters, his women-folk and male and female musicians—apparently being the price.
Another interesting octagonal prism of this same king has been recently acquired by the British Museum (No. 103,000). It contains information regarding two campaigns not recorded elsewhere. The first of these, which took place in 698 B.C., was undertaken to suppress a revolt in Cilicia; the campaign was completely successful and the Assyrian power was entirely restored in those regions. It is interesting to note that the city of Tarsus was one of those which Sennacherib sacked on this occasion. The second campaign took place three years later in 695 B.C., and resulted in the siege and capture of a certain city called Til-Garimum in the land of Tubal, Pg 114which lay to the north-east of Cilicia. We are also furnished with an account of the rebuilding and fortification of Nineveh by Sennacherib, which contains valuable information regarding the inner and outer wall of the city, and the positions and names of the fifteen gates. It is dated in the eponymy 46 of Ilu-Ittia, the Assyrian governor of Damascus. This cylinder was apparently buried as a foundation memorial in the structure of one of the city gates referred to in the text.
Esarhaddon, Sennacherib’s son and successor, has likewise left us a number of hexagonal prisms of historic importance. One of the principal events narrated on Esarhaddon’s cylinders is the siege and capture of Sidon and the subjugation of the surrounding country. Ashur-bani-pal, Esarhaddon’s famous son and successor, has left us a number of cylinders and prisms, but by far the most important is that upon which an account of the principal events of the early part of his reign is inscribed (Brit. Mus., No. 91,026). We have here a record of his first and second Egyptian campaigns, of the defeat he inflicted upon Tirhakah, the Ethiopian king of Egypt, and the sack of Thebes, the capital of the country. The capture of Tyre is also narrated and the campaign against Te-Umman, king of Elam, whom Ashur-bani-pal slew and whose severed head is seen hanging from a tree in the bas-relief in which Ashur-bani-pal and his wife are reclining at meat in their garden. There is also an account of the siege and capture of Babylon, whose king Shamash-shum-ukîn had thrown off the suzerainty of Assyria; the conquest of Arabia is recorded as well as the final triumph of the Assyrian arms over Elam, and the text concludes with an account of Ashur-bani-pal’s building operations.
Pg 115
We have already alluded to a clay cylinder belonging to the Neo-Babylonian king Nabonidus, while another cylinder of the same king, which has been discussed elsewhere (cf. p. 7), is equally notable, as a complete system of chronology has been based upon its contents. Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon 604-561 B.C., and belonging to the same dynasty has likewise left us a number of barrel-shaped cylinders, the inscriptions upon which are chiefly concerned with a recital of his building achievements, while to the cylinder of Cyrus the Persian conqueror of Babylonia (538 B.C.) reference has been made elsewhere (cf. p. 74). But the practice of writing cuneiform inscriptions on baked clay cylinders did not even come to an end with the Persian kings of Babylonia, for we have a cylinder (Brit. Mus. 36277) bearing an inscription in archaic Babylonian characters, of Antiochus Soter, king of Babylonia about 280 B.C.; it records the restoration of the temples E-Sagil, and E-zida in Babylon and Borsippa in the year 270 B.C., and concludes with a prayer to the god Nebo on behalf of Antiochus, his son Seleucus and his wife.
But besides rectangular, round, barrel-shaped, cylindrical and cone-shaped clay inscriptions, yet other varieties exist. Among these a four-sided block of clay forming an elongated kind of cube, the height of which is 9-1/2 inches and the breadth of each of its four sides 3-3/4 inches (Brit. Mus. No. 92611), deserves a mention; its date is about 2100 B.C., and it is inscribed with lists of the names of fish, birds, plants, stones and garments.
Another unique object is a clay model of an ox-hoof (Brit. Mus. No. R. 620), inscribed with forecasts. A somewhat similar object is found in a clay model of a sheep’s liver, also preserved in the British Museum (No. 92,668); the inscription which it bears is magical in character, and the object was probably used for divination purposes. Other tablets, though not being moulded in the form of a sheep’s liver, bear the incised outlines of Pg 116different parts of the liver. Hepatoscopy, or the practice of deriving omens from the shape, size, or condition of the liver, was one of the most popular forms of magic among the Babylonians and Assyrians.
Plans of cities seem to have sometimes been drawn on clay tablets, a good example of which is afforded by a tablet discovered at Nippur, and incised with a plan of that city, a plan which in spite of its antiquity seems to have helped the work of the excavators in no small degree. Another example is the British Museum fragment (No. 35385), on which a plan of part of the city of Babylon is still to be seen. Sometimes the plan was merely that of an estate (cf. Brit. Mus. No. 31483), but in one instance at all events, the world itself is the subject (Brit. Mus. No. 92687), the most interesting feature of which from the geographical point of view is the world-encircling ocean—the Babylonians believing the earth to be surrounded by and apparently supported on water: the earth itself was supposed to resemble an inverted saucer in shape, while the heavens bore the same shape, the only difference being that they were obviously more extensive, and the lower edges rested on the earth itself, while the edge of the earth rested upon the ocean.
Sometimes amulets were made of clay, a good example of which is Brit. Mus. No. 85-4-8, 1; it is shaped like a cylinder-seal, and is inscribed with an incantation for Shamash-Killâni.
Other inscribed clay objects are those known as astrolabæ or instruments for making astrological calculations.


Fig. 3.	Fig. 4. (Brit. Mus., 103040.)

Fig. 5. (Brit. Mus., 91102.)

Labels again were made of clay: two small clay labels (Brit. Mus. K. 1400, K. 1539) give us the titles of two series of astrological and omen tablets; while another (K. 3787) gives us the name of Khipa, a female slave; it is dated in the 11th year of Marduk-aplu-iddina, i.e. circ. 710 B.C. There are miscellaneous clay objects which do not properly come under the heading of terra-cotta figures or clay bas-reliefs, and therefore may be mentioned Pg 117here. Sometimes clay squeezes or impressions were made of early inscriptions; an excellent example of such squeezes was acquired some years ago by the University of Pennsylvania (cf. Fig. 3);47 it is a squeeze made by a Neo-Babylonian scribe of the sixth century B.C. of an inscription belonging to Shar-Gâni-sharri, king of Akkad. The characters of course are raised in relief and read backwards. Allusion is elsewhere made to the clay brick-stamps with which Babylonian kings were in the habit of inscribing their building bricks: an interesting specimen of a clay brick-stamp is seen in Fig. 4. It is a fragment of a stamp belonging to Narâm-Sin, the son of Pg 118Shar-Gâni-sharri. The characters here are of course in relief and reversed as in the case of a seal. Another clay object of exceptional interest is seen in Fig. 5; it is a clay covering made by order of Nabopolassar, king of Babylon 625-604 B.C., for the preservation of the stone tablet of his predecessor Nabû-aplu-iddina (circ. 870 B.C.). It was presumably during the course of his work at the restoration of the temple of the Sun-god at Sippar that he alighted upon this early tablet. The clay cover bears an inscription of Nabopolassar on the reverse side and records the various offerings he deposited at the shrine of the Sun-god. The cover itself was found in a baked clay box, also preserved in the British Museum, and probably belonging to the same reign. Clay was further employed by the sculptor for tentative sketches, and by the stone-inscriber for rough drafts. Thus the sculptor to whom we are indebted for the portrayal of Ashur-bani-pal, king of Assyria, spearing a lion, sketched out his picture in clay preparatory to chiselling it on slabs of stone, and his original sketch is still extant (cf. Brit. Mus. 93011), while we can still see two rough drafts on clay of epigraphs inscribed on Ashur-bani-pal’s bas-reliefs (cf. Brit. Mus. Sm. 1350 and K. 4453 + K. 4515).

Pg 119

CHAPTER V—ARCHITECTURE

THE architecture of a country is determined very largely by the materials with which nature has endowed that country; it is also influenced by the configuration of the country itself as well as by the climate whose effects it is the builder’s object to either regulate or counteract. The physical characteristics of the Mesopotamian Valley as also the climatic conditions which prevail there have already been under consideration, but it will not perhaps be unfitting to devote a few pages to a review of the materials which were used for building operations, before we proceed to discuss the ruins of the buildings themselves.
It has been already stated, that practically no stone at all is to be found in the low-lying and marshy country of Babylonia, hence it never assumed an important place in Babylonian architecture; any stone required, had to be quarried far away in the mountains and transported at great labour, in consequence of which it was only employed for exceptional purposes and in cases where the desire for permanent durability rendered it necessary. Accordingly the stone used was generally diorite, basalt, or some other hard stone of volcanic origin, contrasting strikingly with the softer stone utilized so freely by the Assyrians. Assyria on the other hand was more fortunate in this respect and afforded a very fair supply of limestone and alabaster which were used extensively by her sculptors and builders, though the clay so easily procurable all over the valley was the one indispensable element in the erection Pg 120of temples, palaces, or houses in both countries. The supply of wood again was extremely scanty not only in Babylonia but also in Assyria, and any wood used for columns, lintels or thresholds was generally brought from Lebanon, Amanus, or some other distant place.
We thus see that the art of brick-building was almost forced upon the dwellers of Mesopotamia from the very necessity of the case.
The clay used for the purpose was by no means uniform either as regards its colour, or as regards its quality. Sometimes it is of a light yellow colour, sometimes it is almost black, while the clay from which other bricks are made is of a reddish hue. Those made of light yellow clay are the best from the point of view of durability. The bricks further vary both in size and shape according to the period to which they belong, so that it is often possible to provisionally assign a date to a building or the remains of a building by an examination of the style of brick employed. The type of brick characteristic of the early periods of Sumerian history is that known as the plano-convex 48 type; thus the kiln-burnt bricks of which the storehouse of Ur-Ninâ, the first king of Lagash, was composed, are oblong and plano-convex, while each of them also bears the impression of a thumb-mark on the convex side.
But a yet earlier form of brick 49 was found in the building underneath Ur-Ninâ’s storehouse: the bricks of which this building was composed were indeed plano-convex like those of Ur-Ninâ, but they were smaller, had no thumb- or finger-marks and were also unfortunately uninscribed.
At Muḳeyyer (Ur) Taylor came across a pavement Pg 121made of plano-convex bricks, the antiquity of which was attested alike by the appearance of this type of brick and also by the depth below the surface at which the platform was found. This excavator discovered similar bricks at Abû Shahrein (Eridu), a further corroboration of the traditional antiquity of Ea’s once famous city. The excavations at other early sites have also yielded the same results; at Fâra (Shuruppak) the traditional scene of the Deluge, as well as at Yôkha, Bismâya, and in the pre-Sargonic strata at Nippur, the same style of bricks has been found.
But with the expansion of the Semites, culminating in the establishment of the empire of Shar-Gâni-sharri and his son Narâm-Sin, the comparatively small, oblong and plano-convex brick fell into disuse, and gave way to a large square brick. Immediately beneath the crude-brick platform of Ur-Engur (circ. 2400 B.C.) at Nippur, part of the earlier work of Narâm-Sin and Shar-Gâni-sharri was uncovered, the bricks used being no longer plano-convex and oblong, but flat and square, and measuring 20 x 20 x 3-1/2 inches; they are made of clay mixed with straw, and are at the same time well-dried and very hard; this type of brick was employed in all the buildings of these two kings.
The next period in the history of Babylonian brick-making is that belonging to the times of the second dynasty of Lagash and the first dynasty of Ur (i.e. circ. 2450 B.C.). The type of brick characteristic of this age resembles that of the preceding in regard to shape but not in regard to size. The bricks of Ur-Engur, king of Ur, and of Gudea, the most renowned ruler of the second dynasty of Lagash (circ. 2450 B.C.) are square like those of their Semitic predecessors, Shar-Gâni-sharri and Narâm-Sin, but very much smaller, measuring a little over 12 x 12 inches, and this small square brick remained in use, with occasional slight variations, till the close of Mesopotamian history. The transition from Pg 122the large brick used by the kings of Agade to the small brick in question was doubtless effected only gradually, for the bricks of Ur-bau, ruler of Lagash some time before Gudea, are larger than those of the latter king, but after the time of Gudea and Ur-Engur, the shape and size of the bricks became more or less stereotyped. The bricks of Ur-Engur himself vary somewhat from those of Gudea, thus the solid mass underlying the temple-tower at Nippur, which was constructed by Ur-Engur, is composed of bricks measuring only 9 × 6 × 3 inches, the arms of the causeway on the other hand are built of larger bricks measuring 14 × 14 × 6 inches. Kiln-burnt bricks were always used for the important parts of the building in Babylonia, the crude sun-dried bricks which as a rule formed the core of the terraced platforms, being revetted with a wall of burnt brick, or sometimes, in the case of Assyria with a supporting wall of stone. The reason of course for this lay in the inability of sun-dried bricks to resist damp, and their corresponding tendency to disintegrate. The bricks were as a rule carried on to the ground as soon as they were fairly dry and firm, and were laid while still soft.
Generally speaking the bricks bear the name of the king who caused the structure to be made, thus the majority of the bricks of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon (604-561 B.C.) are inscribed:—“Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, restorer of the pyramid and tower, eldest son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, am I.” It is interesting to note that though the tiles on the western side of Nebuchadnezzar’s palace at Babylon bear the ordinary stamp of that king, those on the eastern side are stamped with a lion and an Aramaic inscription. Koldewey indeed says that there is no doubt that this part of the building was also erected by Nebuchadnezzar, as wall-tiles bearing the regular palace-inscription of the king have been found there. Prof. Euting however, from the forms of the Aramaic characters, would assign Pg 123these Aramaic-inscribed bricks to the middle of the seventh century, i.e. about 650 B.C. None of the bricks found on the Kasr mound bear the stamp of any Assyrian kings, the latter apparently only having left their marks on the floor-bricks of E-sagila, the temple of Marduk. The characters were generally impressed with a stamp, though on both Assyrian and Babylonian bricks the inscription was sometimes engraved by hand. The stamps used were made of terra-cotta; a well-preserved specimen of a terra-cotta brick-stamp is that of Narâm-Sin referred to above (cf. Fig. 4), while a terra-cotta brick-stamp of Shar-Gâni-sharri, the father of Narâm-Sin, was discovered at Nippur, and one of the minor results of the expedition to Bismâya, directed by Harper, was the discovery of a number of clay brick-stamps. Many Assyrian and Babylonian bricks are glazed or enamelled and coloured in the most ornate fashion, and with the most striking pictures and designs, but an examination of these will naturally find its place in the chapter devoted to “Painting.”
Sometimes the architects of Babylonia contrived to adapt the clay employed in their building operations to decorative devices. Such was the case at Warka (Erech) where Loftus discovered a wall some thirty feet long, composed entirely of clay cones fixed in a cement made of mud and straw, and laid horizontally with their bases outwards. Some of these cones had been coloured red or black and were arranged to form various geometrical designs. They were sometimes inscribed, sometimes not. But clay cones were apparently not the only kind of cone used for architectural decoration, for in the course of his excavations at Abû Shahrein, Taylor 50 discovered cones of limestone and marble, some of which had a “rim round the edge filled with copper”; these cones vary from four to ten inches in length, their diameter measuring from one to three inches.
Pg 124

MORTAR

The layers and courses of clay bricks of which the buildings in Mesopotamia were for the most part composed, were cemented together by mud in the earliest times; this clay-mud is generally distinguishable from the bricks which it unites by the difference of its colour. Mud-mortar has been found on some of the earliest sites and in some of the most ancient buildings, while in Assyria it appears to have been the regular form of cement used at all times. In the city of Babylon, strange to say, clay mortar appears to have been used instead of lime or asphalt in the late buildings of Sassanidian times. This mud-mortar consisted of clay mixed with water and perhaps a little straw, as was the case in the cone-wall at Warka,51 while sometimes reeds embedded in clay were laid between the bricks, as was the case at both Warka and Hammam, but at an extremely remote period the Babylonian architect began to avail himself of the rich supply of bitumen gratuitously yielded by the soil of his native land, for the purpose in question.
The most famous bituminous springs in Mesopotamia were those at Ḥit on the Euphrates. Their fame had reached Egypt as early as the time of the eighteenth dynasty, for Thothmes III brought bitumen thence to Egypt. Herodotus a millennium later—about 450 B.C.—alludes to Ḥit as famous for her bitumen, and subsequent writers make similar mention of the springs there. A good example of the early use of bitumen in Babylonia was found at Abû Shahrein, the site of ancient Eridu, where a very early building was excavated by Taylor, the antiquity of which was proved by the pre-Sargonic plano-convex bricks used in its construction, and these bricks were all laid in bitumen; the same was Pg 125found to be the case in a building composed of finger-marked bricks at Ur (Muḳeyyer), all of which were embedded in bitumen.
The platform upon which Ur-Ninâ’s storehouse at Tellô was erected consisted of three layers of plano-convex and finger-marked bricks, all set in bitumen, while in the building underneath that of Ur-Ninâ, bitumen was also freely used.52
In like manner at Nippur, the finger-marked bricks of which the city-gate was constructed were laid in bitumen, though the bricks composing the early arch found on this site were set in mud, probably an indication that at the time when the arch was built bitumen was not used; around the base of Ur-Engur’s ziggurat on the other hand there was a coating of bitumen, while the crude brick altar found by Haynes in the lowest stratum at Nippur had a rim of bitumen; but in later times it was supplemented by the more tenacious lime-mortar, though only partially was this the case, for even as late as Nebuchadnezzar’s time (604-561 B.C.) its practical utility as a preventive against the destructive forces of rain were still recognized, the burnt brick retaining walls of his palace at Babylon being actually laid in bitumen. In like manner the bricks composing the old fortification wall, are rendered adhesive by means of a lavish prodigality of asphalt, so adhesive in fact, that it is often very difficult to separate them. Fortunately the side bearing the stamped inscription has its face downwards and therefore is not in immediate contact with the asphalt from which it is separated by the layer of reeds and clay already alluded to.
In the later buildings at Babylon, however, lime-mortar is also used, the transition period being marked by the employment of both in one and the same building, and in point of fact Koldewey found that in the case Pg 126of one of the walls of a building of Nebuchadnezzar, one half of the wall was cemented together by means of asphalt, while in the other half lime-mortar alone was used. But in the new castle which Nebuchadnezzar built for himself on the Kasr, the very finest materials were employed, the bricks being of a pale yellow colour and extremely hard, contrasting with the bricks used in his earlier buildings, which are of a reddish-brown colour and less durable, while in this new structure, pure white lime-mortar alone is used. Lime-mortar, as well as mud-cement and bitumen, was employed at Nippur, as also at Birs-Nimrûd (Borsippa), and the mortar used has such adhesive properties that the bricks can only be separated by breaking them, while at Muḳeyyer (Ur) a mortar composed of a mixture of lime and ashes was employed.
In Assyria on the other hand, mortar seems to have been used more sparingly; when stone was employed as a building material, generally speaking no cement of any kind was used, the stones being carefully dressed so as to permit of no interstices, as for example was found to be the case with the stone retaining-wall round the ziggurat at Nimrûd; when ordinary crude bricks were employed, they were laid in a sufficient state of moisture to render them adhesive; while when burnt brick was the material in question, the mortar adopted was a mixture of clay and water. Bitumen however was by no means unknown in Assyria, but it was used chiefly under pavements or the limestone floors of sewers, to prevent leakage or infiltration.

STONE

The use of stone in Babylonia, as a building accessory, although seldom as a fundamental material, dates from the most ancient Sumerian times. A very early example of the use of stone for definitely architectural purposes in Babylonia is afforded by the pavement upon which a Pg 127building at Lagash, found under the structure of Ur-Ninâ, was erected. The pavement 53 consists of slabs of limestone, three or four feet long, one and a half to two feet broad, and about six inches thick. The door-sockets, again, of some of the earliest rulers of Lagash have been brought to light, among which may be mentioned those of the illustrious Eannatum and Entemena, all being made of marble or some other hard stone, while in Eridu, one of the most ancient sites of civilization in the Euphrates Valley, stone seems to have been quite extensively used. The terraced artificial platform upon which the temple and city of Eridu were built was buttressed by a wall of sandstone, and the staircase which led up to the first stage of the ziggurat was made of polished marble slabs, which are now lying about casually on the mound; pieces of agate and alabaster were discovered, and granite was also employed there. Stone gate-sockets have been similarly found at Nippur and in the ruins of other early cities of Babylonia, while both the Semite Narâm-Sin, and the Sumerian Gudea a little later, brought heavy blocks of diorite from Magan, or Sinai, though apparently for sculptural rather than for architectural purposes.
In the Neo-Babylonian era stone was employed to a greater extent: the procession pavement of the god Marduk at Babylon, discovered recently by the Germans, was formed of slabs of limestone, bearing an inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, while Herodotus

////////////////////////////////
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45229/45229-h/45229-h.htm
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

reyladerabible

Friday, January 17, 2020