Chaldea Part 9

14. One would think that so very perfect a system of religion, based too on so high and n.o.ble an order of ideas, should have entirely superseded the coa.r.s.e materialism and conjuring practices of the goblin-creed of the primitive Turanian settlers. Such, however, was far from being the case. We saw that the new religion made room, somewhat contemptuously perhaps, for the spirits of the old creed, carelessly ma.s.sing them wholesale into a sort of regiment, composed of the three hundred IGIGI, or spirits of heaven, and the six hundred ANUNNAKI, or spirits of earth.

The conjurers and sorcerers of old were even admitted into the priesthood in an inferior capacity, as a sort of lower order, probably more tolerated than encouraged--tolerated from necessity, because the people clung to their ancient beliefs and practices. But if their official position as a priestly cla.s.s were subordinate, their real power was not the less great, for the public favor and credulity were on their side, and they were a.s.suredly more generally popular than the learned and solemn priests, the counsellors and almost the equals of the kings, whose thoughts dwelt among the stars, who reverently searched the heavens for revelations of the divine will and wisdom, and who, by pursuing accurate observation and mathematical calculation together with the wildest dreams, made astronomy and astrology the inextricable tangle of scientific truth and fantastic speculation that we see it in the great work (in seventy tablets) prepared for the library of Sargon II.

at Agade. That the ancient system of conjuring and incantations remained in full force and general use, is sufficiently proved by the contents of the first two parts of the great collection in two hundred tablets compiled in the reign of the same king, and from the care with which the work was copied and recopied, commented on and translated in later ages, as we see from the copy made for the Royal Library at Nineveh, the one which has reached us.

15. There was still a third branch of so-called "science," which greatly occupied the minds of the Chaldeo-Babylonians from their earliest times down to the latest days of their existence: it was the art of Divination, i.e., of divining and foretelling future events from signs and omens, a superst.i.tion born of the old belief in every object of inanimate nature being possessed or inhabited by a spirit, and the later belief in a higher power ruling the world and human affairs to the smallest detail, and constantly manifesting itself through all things in nature as through secondary agents, so that nothing whatever could occur without some deeper significance, which might be discovered and expounded by specially trained and favored individuals. In the case of atmospheric prophecies concerning weather and crops, as connected with the appearance of clouds, sky and moon, the force and direction of winds, etc., there may have been some real observation to found them on.

But it is very clear that such a conception, if carried out consistently to extreme lengths and applied indiscriminately to _everything_, must result in arrant folly. Such was a.s.suredly the case with the Chaldeo-Babylonians, who not only carefully noted and explained dreams, drew lots in doubtful cases by means of inscribed arrows, interpreted the rustle of trees, the plashing of fountains and murmur of streams, the direction and form of lightnings, not only fancied that they could see things in bowls of water and in the shifting forms a.s.sumed by the flame which consumed sacrifices, and the smoke which rose therefrom, and that they could raise and question the spirits of the dead, but drew presages and omens, for good or evil, from the flight of birds, the appearance of the liver, lungs, heart and bowels of the animals offered in sacrifice and opened for inspection, from the natural defects or monstrosities of babies or the young of animals--in short, from any and everything that they could possibly subject to observation.

16. This idlest of all kinds of speculation was reduced to a most minute and apparently scientific system quite as early as astrology and incantation, and forms the subject of a third collection, in about one hundred tablets, and probably compiled by those same indefatigable priests of Agade for Sargon, who was evidently of a most methodical turn of mind, and determined to have all the traditions and the results of centuries of observation and practical experiences connected with any branch of religious science fixed forever in the shape of thoroughly cla.s.sified rules, for the guidance of priests for all coming ages. This collection has come to us in an even more incomplete and mutilated condition than the others; but enough has been preserved to show us that a right-thinking and religiously-given Chaldeo-Babylonian must have spent his life taking notes of the absurdest trifles, and questioning the diviners and priests about them, in order not to get into sc.r.a.pes by misinterpreting the signs and taking that to be a favorable omen which boded dire calamity--or the other way, and thus doing things or leaving them undone at the wrong moment and in the wrong way. What excites, perhaps, even greater wonder, is the utter absurdity of some of the incidents gravely set down as affecting the welfare, not only of individuals, but of the whole country. What shall we say, for instance, of the importance attached to the proceedings of stray dogs? Here are some of the items as given by Mr. Fr. Lenormant in his most valuable and entertaining book on Chaldean Divination:--

"If a gray dog enter the palace, the latter will be consumed by flames.--If a yellow dog enter the palace, the latter will perish in a violent catastrophe.--If a tawny dog enter the palace, peace will be concluded with the enemies.--If a dog enter the palace and be not killed, the peace of the palace will be disturbed.--If a dog enter the temple, the G.o.ds will have no mercy on the land.--If a white dog enter the temple, its foundations will subsist.--If a black dog enter the temple, its foundations will be shaken.--If a gray dog enter the temple, the latter will lose its possessions.... If dogs a.s.semble in troops and enter the temple, no one will remain in authority.... If a dog vomits in a house, the master of that house will die."

17. The chapter on monstrous births is extensive. Not only is every possible anomaly registered, from an extra finger or toe to an ear smaller than the other, with its corresponding presage of good or evil to the country, the king, the army, but the most impossible monstrosities are seriously enumerated, with the political conditions of which they are supposed to be the signs. For instance:--"If a woman give birth to a child with lion's ears, a mighty king will rule the land ...

with a bird's beak, there will be peace in the land.... If a queen give birth to a child with a lion's face, the king will have no rival ... if to a snake, the king will be mighty.... If a mare give birth to a foal with a lion's mane, the lord of the land will annihilate his enemies ...

with a dog's paws, the land will be diminished ... with a lion's paws, the land will be increased.... If a sheep give birth to a lion, there will be war, the king will have no rival.... If a mare give birth to a dog, there will be disaster and famine."

18. The three great branches of religious science--astrology, incantation and divination--were represented by three corresponding cla.s.ses of "wise men," all belonging, in different degrees, to the priesthood: the star-gazers or astrologers, the magicians or sorcerers, and the soothsayers or fortune-tellers. The latter, again, were divided into many smaller cla.s.ses according to the particular kind of divination which they practised. Some specially devoted themselves to the interpretation of dreams, others to that of the flight of birds, or of the signs of the atmosphere, or of casual signs and omens generally. All were in continual demand, consulted alike by kings and private persons, and all proceeded in strict accordance with the rules and principles laid down in the three great works of King Sargon's time. When the Babylonian empire ceased to exist and the Chaldeans were no longer a nation, these secret arts continued to be practised by them, and the name "Chaldean" became a by-word, a synonym for "a wise man of the East,"--astrologer, magician or soothsayer. They dispersed all over the world, carrying their delusive science with them, practising and teaching it, welcomed everywhere by the credulous and superst.i.tious, often highly honored and always richly paid. Thus it is from the Chaldeans and their predecessors the Shumiro-Accads that the belief in astrology, witchcraft and every kind of fortune-telling has been handed down to the nations of Europe, together with the practices belonging thereto, many of which we find lingering even to our day among the less educated cla.s.ses. The very words "magic" and "magician" are probably an inheritance of that remotest of antiquities. One of the words for "priest" in the old Turanian tongue of Shumir was _imga_, which, in the later Semitic language, became _mag_. The _Rab-mag_--"great priest," or perhaps "chief conjurer," was a high functionary at the court of the a.s.syrian kings. Hence "magus," "magic," "magician," in all the European languages, from Latin downward.

19. There can be no doubt that we have little reason to be grateful for such an heirloom as this ma.s.s of superst.i.tions, which have produced so much evil in the world and still occasionally do mischief enough. But we must not forget to set off against it the many excellent things, most important discoveries in the province of astronomy and mathematics which have come to us from the same distant source. To the ancient Chaldeo-Babylonians we owe not only our division of time, but the invention of the sun-dial, and the week of seven days, dedicated in succession to the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets--an arrangement which is still maintained, the names of our days being merely translations of the Chaldean ones. And more than that; there were days set apart and kept holy, as days of rest, as far back as the time of Sargon of Agade; it was from the Semites of Babylonia--perhaps the Chaldeans of Ur--that both the name and the observance pa.s.sed to the Hebrew branch of the race, the tribe of Abraham. George Smith found an a.s.syrian calendar where the day called _Sabattu_ or _Sabattuv_ is explained to mean "completion of work, a day of rest for the soul." On this day, it appears it was not lawful to cook food, to change one's dress, to offer a sacrifice; the king was forbidden to speak in public, to ride in a chariot, to perform any kind of military or civil duty, even to take medicine.[AV] This, surely, is a keeping of the Sabbath as strict as the most orthodox Jew could well desire. There are, however, essential differences between the two. In the first place, the Babylonians kept _five_ Sabbath days every month, which made more than one a week; in the second place, they came round on certain dates of each month, independently of the day of the week: on the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st and 28th. The custom appears to have pa.s.sed to the a.s.syrians, and there are indications which encourage the supposition that it was shared by other nations connected with the Jews, the Babylonians and a.s.syrians, for instance, by the Phoenicians.

FOOTNOTES:

[AR] See A. H. Sayce, "The Ancient Empires of the East" (1883), p. 389.

[AS] Rawlinson's "Five Monarchies," Vol. I., p. 164.

[AT] It was the statue of this very G.o.ddess Nana which was carried away by the Elamite conqueror, Khudur-Nankhundi in 2280 B.C. and restored to its place by a.s.shurbanipal in 645 B.C.

[AU] The three circles above the G.o.d represent the Moon-G.o.d, the Sun-G.o.d, and Ishtar. So we are informed by the two lines of writing which ran above the roof.

[AV] Friedrich Delitzsch, "Beigaben" to the German translat. of Smith's "Chaldean Genesis" (1876), p. 300. A. H. Sayce, "The Ancient Empires of the East" (1883), p. 402. W. Lotz, "Quaestiones de Historia Sabbati."

VI.

LEGENDS AND STORIES.

1. In every child's life there comes a moment when it ceases to take the world and all it holds as a matter of course, when it begins to wonder and to question. The first, the great question naturally is--"Who made it all? The sun, the stars, the sea, the rivers, the flowers, and the trees--whence come they? who made them?" And to this question we are very ready with our answer:--"G.o.d made it all. The One, the Almighty G.o.d created the world, and all that is in it, by His own sovereign will."

When the child further asks: "_How_ did He do it?" we read to it the story of the Creation which is the beginning of the Bible, our Sacred Book, either without any remarks upon it, or with the warning, that, for a full and proper understanding of it, years are needed and knowledge of many kinds. Now, these same questions have been asked, by children and men, in all ages. Ever since man has existed upon the earth, ever since he began, in the intervals of rest, in the hard labor and struggle for life and limb, for food and warmth, to raise his head and look abroad, and take in the wonders that surrounded him, he has thus pondered and questioned. And to this questioning, each nation, after its own lights, has framed very much the same answer; the same in substance and spirit (because the only possible one), acknowledging the agency of a Divine Power, in filling the world with life, and ordaining the laws of nature,--but often very different in form, since, almost every creed having stopped short of the higher religious conception, that of One Deity, indivisible and all-powerful, the great act was attributed to many G.o.ds--"the G.o.ds,"--not to G.o.d. This of course opened the way to innumerable, more or less ingenious, fancies and vagaries as to the part played in it by this or that particular divinity. Thus all races, nations, even tribes have worked out for themselves their own COSMOGONY, i.e., their own ideas on the Origin of the World. The greatest number, not having reached a very high stage of culture or attained literary skill, preserved the teachings of their priests in their memory, and transmitted them orally from father to son; such is the case even now with many more peoples than we think of--with all the native tribes of Africa, the islanders of Australia and the Pacific, and several others.

But the nations who advanced intellectually to the front of mankind and influenced the long series of coming races by their thoughts and teachings, recorded in books the conclusions they had arrived at on the great questions which have always stirred the heart and mind of man; these were carefully preserved and recopied from time to time, for the instruction of each rising generation. Thus many great nations of olden times have possessed Sacred Books, which, having been written in remote antiquity by their best and wisest men, were reverenced as something not only holy, but, beyond the una.s.sisted powers of the human intellect, something imparted, revealed directly by the deity itself, and therefore to be accepted, undisputed, as absolute truth. It is clear that it was in the interest of the priests, the keepers and teachers of all religious knowledge, to encourage and maintain in the people at large this unquestioning belief.

2. Of all such books that have become known to us, there are none of greater interest and importance than the sacred books of Ancient Babylonia. Not merely because they are the oldest known, having been treasured in the priestly libraries of Agade, Sippar, Cutha, etc., at an incredibly early date, but princ.i.p.ally because the ancestors of the Hebrews, during their long station in the land of Shinar, learned the legends and stories they contained, and working them over after their own superior religious lights, remodelled them into the narrative which was written down many centuries later as part of the Book of Genesis.

3. The original sacred books were attributed to the G.o.d ea himself, the impersonation of the Divine Intelligence, and the teacher of mankind in the shape of the first Man-Fish, Oannes--(the name being only a Greek corruption of the Accadian eA-HAN, "ea the Fish")[AW] So Berosus informs us. After describing Oannes and his proceedings (see p. 185), he adds that "he wrote a Book on the Origin of things and the beginnings of civilization, and gave it to men." The "origin of things" is the history of the Creation of the world, Cosmogony. Accordingly, this is what Berosus proceeds to expound, quoting directly from the Book, for he begins:--"There was a time, _says he_, (meaning Oannes) when all was darkness and water." Then follows a very valuable fragment, but unfortunately only a fragment, one of the few preserved by later Greek writers who quoted the old priest of Babylon for their own purposes, while the work itself was, in some way, destroyed and lost. True, these fragments contain short sketches of several of the most important legends; still, precious as they are, they convey only second-hand information, compiled, indeed, from original sources by a learned and conscientious writer, but for the use of a foreign race, extremely compressed, and, besides, with the names all altered to suit that race's language. So long as the "original sources" were missing, there was a gap in the study both of the Bible and the religion of Babylon, which no ingenuity could fill. Great, therefore, were the delight and excitement, both of a.s.syriologists and Bible scholars, when George Smith, while sorting the thousands of tablet-fragments which for years had littered the floor of certain remote chambers of the British Museum, accidentally stumbled on some which were evidently portions of the original sacred legends partly rendered by Berosus. To search for all available fragments of the precious doc.u.ments and piece them together became the task of Smith's life. And as nearly all that he found belonged to copies from the Royal Library at Nineveh, it was chiefly in order to enlarge the collection that he undertook his first expedition to the a.s.syrian mounds, from which he had the good fortune to bring back many missing fragments, belonging also to different copies, so that one frequently completes the other. Thus the oldest Chaldean legends were in a great measure restored to us, though unfortunately very few tablets are in a sufficiently well preserved condition to allow of making out an entirely intelligible and uninterrupted narrative. Not only are many parts still missing altogether, but of those which have been found, pieced and collected, there is not one of which one or more columns have not been injured in such a way that either the beginning or the end of all the lines are gone, or whole lines broken out or erased, with only a few words left here and there. How hopeless the task must sometimes have seemed to the patient workers may be judged from the foregoing specimen pieced together of sixteen bits, which Geo. Smith gives in his book.

This is one of the so-called "Deluge-tablets," i.e., of those which contain the Chaldean version of the story of the Deluge. Luckily more copies have been found of this story than of any of the others, or we should have had to be content still with the short sketch of it given by Berosus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 61.--BACK OF TABLET WITH ACCOUNT OF FLOOD. (Smith's "Chaldean Genesis.")]

4. If, therefore, the ancient Babylonian legends of the beginnings of the world will be given here in a connected form, for the sake of convenience and plainness, it must be clearly understood that they were not preserved for us in such a form, but are the result of a long and patient work of research and restoration, a work which still continues; and every year, almost every month, brings to light some new materials, some addition, some correction to the old ones. Yet even as the work now stands, it justifies us in a.s.serting that our knowledge of this marvellous antiquity is fuller and more authentic than that we have of many a period and people not half so remote from us in point of place and distance.

5. The cosmogonic narrative which forms the first part of what Geo.

Smith has very aptly called "the Chaldean Genesis" is contained in a number of tablets. As it begins by the words "_When above_," they are all numbered as No. 1, or 3, or 5 "of the series WHEN ABOVE. _The property of a.s.shurbanipal, king of nations, king of a.s.syria._" The first lines are intact:--"When the heaven above and the earth below were as yet unnamed,"--(i.e., according to Semitic ideas, _did not exist_)--APSU (the "Abyss") and MUMMU-TIAMAT (the "billowy Sea") were the beginning of all things; their waters mingled and flowed together; that was the Primeval Chaos; it contained the germs of life but "the darkness was not lifted" from the waters, and therefore nothing sprouted or grew--(for no growth or life is possible without light). The G.o.ds also were not; "they were as yet unnamed and did not rule the destinies." Then the great G.o.ds came into being, and the divine hosts of heaven and earth (the Spirits of Heaven and Earth). "And the days stretched themselves out, and the G.o.d Anu (Heaven.) ..." Here the text breaks off abruptly; it is probable, however, that it told how, after a long lapse of time, the G.o.ds Anu, ea and Bel, the first and supreme triad, came into being. The next fragment, which is sufficiently well preserved to allow of a connected translation, tells of the establishment of the heavenly bodies: "He" (Anu, whose particular dominion the highest heavens were, hence frequently called "the heaven of Anu") "he appointed the mansions of the great G.o.ds" (signs of the Zodiac), established the stars, ordered the months and the year, and limited the beginning and end thereof; established the planets, so that none should swerve from its allotted track; "he appointed the mansions of Bel and ea with his own; he also opened the great gates of heaven, fastening their bolts firmly to the right and to the left" (east and west); he made Nannar (the Moon) to shine and allotted the night to him, determining the time of his quarters which measure the days, and saying to him "rise and set, and be subject to this law." Another tablet, of which only the beginning is intelligible, tells how the G.o.ds (in the plural this time) created the living beings which people the earth, the cattle of the field and the city, and the wild beasts of the field, and the things that creep in the field and in the city, in short all the living creatures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 62.--BABYLONIAN CYLINDER, SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE TEMPTATION AND FALL.]

6. There are some tablets which have been supposed to treat of the creation of man and perhaps to give a story of his disobedience and fall, answering to that in Genesis; but unfortunately they are in too mutilated a condition to admit of certainty, and no other copies have as yet come to light. However, the probability that such was really the case is very great, and is much enhanced by a cylinder of very ancient Babylonian workmanship, now in the British Museum, and too important not to be reproduced here. The tree in the middle, the human couple stretching out their hands for the fruit, the serpent standing _behind the woman_ in--one might almost say--a whispering att.i.tude, all this tells its own tale. And the authority of this artistic presentation, which so strangely fits in to fill the blank in the written narrative, is doubled by the fact that the engravings on the cylinders are invariably taken from subjects connected with religion, or at least religious beliefs and traditions. As to the creation of man, we may partly eke out the missing details from the fragment of Berosus already quoted. He there tells us--and so well-informed a writer must have spoken on good authority--that Bel gave his own blood to be kneaded with the clay out of which men were formed, and that is why they are endowed with reason and have a share of the divine nature in them--certainly a most ingenious way of expressing the blending of the earthly and the divine elements which has made human nature so deep and puzzling a problem to the profounder thinkers of all ages.

7. For the rest of the creation, Berosus' account (quoted from the book said to have been given men by the fabulous Oannes), agrees with what we find in the original texts, even imperfect as we have them. He says that in the midst of Chaos--at the time when all was darkness and water--the principle of life which it contained, restlessly working, but without order, took shape in numberless monstrous formations: there were beings like men, some winged, with two heads, some with the legs and horns of goats, others with the hind part of horses; also bulls with human heads, dogs with four bodies and a fish's tail, horses with the heads of dogs, in short, every hideous and fantastical combination of animal forms, before the Divine Will had separated them, and sorted them into harmony and order. All these monstrous beings perished the moment Bel separated the heavens from the earth creating light,--for they were births of darkness and lawlessness and could not stand the new reign of light and law and divine reason. In memory of this destruction of the old chaotic world and production of the new, harmonious and beautiful one, the walls of the famous temple of Bel-Mardouk at Babylon were covered with paintings representing the infinite variety of monstrous and mixed shapes with which an exuberant fancy had peopled the primeval chaos; Berosus was a priest of this temple and he speaks of those paintings as still existing. Though nothing has remained of them in the ruins of the temple, we have representations of the same kind on many of the cylinders which, used as seals, did duty both as personal badges--(one is almost tempted to say "coats of arms")--and as talismans, as proved by the fact of such cylinders being so frequently found on the wrists of the dead in the sepulchres.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 63.--FEMALE WINGED FIGURES BEFORE THE SACRED TREE. (From a photograph in the British Museum.)]

8. The remarkable cylinder with the human couple and the serpent leads us to the consideration of a most important object in the ancient Babylonian or Chaldean religion--the Sacred Tree, the Tree of Life. That it was a very holy symbol is clear from its being so continually reproduced on cylinders and on sculptures. In this particular cylinder, rude as the design is, it bears an unmistakable likeness to a real tree--of some coniferous species, cypress or fir. But art soon took hold of it and began to load it with symmetrical embellishments, until it produced a tree of entirely conventional design, as shown by the following specimens, of which the first leans more to the palm, while the second seems rather of the coniferous type. (Figs. No. 63 and 65.) It is probable that such artificial trees, made up of boughs--perhaps of the palm and cypress--tied together and intertwined with ribbons (something like our Maypoles of old), were set up in the temples as reminders of the sacred symbol, and thus gave rise to the fixed type which remains invariable both in such Babylonian works of art as we possess and on the a.s.syrian sculptures, where the tree, or a portion of it, appears not only in the running ornaments on the walls but on seal cylinders and even in the embroidery on the robes of kings. In the latter case indeed, it is almost certain, from the belief in talismans which the a.s.syrians had inherited, along with the whole of their religion from the Chaldean mother country, that this ornament was selected not only as appropriate to the sacredness of the royal person, but as a consecration and protection. The holiness of the symbol is further evidenced by the kneeling posture of the animals which sometimes accompany it (see Fig. 22, page 67), and the att.i.tude of adoration of the human figures, or winged spirits attending it, by the prevalence of the sacred number seven in its component parts, and by the fact that it is reproduced on a great many of those glazed earthenware coffins which are so plentiful at Warka (ancient Erech). This latter fact clearly shows that the tree-symbol not only meant life in general, life on earth, but a hope of life eternal, beyond the grave, or why should it have been given to the dead? These coffins at Warka belong, it is true, to a late period, some as late as a couple of hundred years after Christ, but the ancient traditions and their meaning had, beyond a doubt, been preserved. Another significant detail is that the cone is frequently seen in the hands of men or spirits, and always in a way connected with worship or auspicious protection; sometimes it is held to the king's nostrils by his attendant protecting spirits, (known by their wings); a gesture of unmistakable significancy, since in ancient languages "the breath of the nostrils" is synonymous with "the breath of life."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 64.--WINGED SPIRITS BEFORE THE SACRED TREE. (Smith's "Chaldea.")]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 65.--SARGON OF a.s.sYRIA BEFORE THE SACRED TREE. (Perrot and Chipiez.)]

9. There can be no a.s.sociation of ideas more natural than that of vegetation, as represented by a tree, with life. By its perpetual growth and development, its wealth of branches and foliage, its blossoming and fruit-bearing, it is a n.o.ble and striking ill.u.s.tration of the world in the widest sense--the Universe, the Cosmos, while the sap which courses equally through the trunk and through the veins of the smallest leaflet, drawn by an incomprehensible process through invisible roots from the nourishing earth, still more forcibly suggests that mysterious principle, Life, which we _think_ we understand because we see its effects and feel it in ourselves, but the sources of which will never be reached, as the problem of it will never be solved, either by the prying of experimental science or the musings of contemplative speculation; life eternal, also,--for the workings of nature _are_ eternal,--and the tree that is black and lifeless to-day, we know from long experience is not dead, but will revive in the fulness of time, and bud, and grow and bear again. All these things _we_ know are the effects of laws; but the ancients attributed them to living Powers,--the CHTHONIC POWERS (from the Greek word CHTHON, "earth, soil"), which have by some later and dreamy thinkers been called weirdly but not unaptly, "the Mothers,"

mysteriously at work in the depths of silence and darkness, unseen, unreachable, and inexhaustibly productive. Of these powers again, what more perfect symbol or representative than the Tree, as standing for vegetation, one for all, the part for the whole? It lies so near that, in later times, it was enlarged, so as to embrace the whole universe, in the majestic conception of the Cosmic Tree which has its roots on earth and heaven for its crown, while its fruit are the golden apples--the stars, and Fire,--the red lightning.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 66.--EAGLE-HEADED FIGURE BEFORE THE SACRED TREE. (Smith's "Chaldea.")]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 67.--FOUR-WINGED HUMAN FIGURE BEFORE THE SACRED TREE.

(Perrot and Chipiez.)]

10. All these suggestive and poetical fancies would in themselves suffice to make the tree-symbol a favorite one among so thoughtful and profound a people as the old Chaldeans. But there is something more. It is intimately connected with another tradition, common, in some form or other, to all nations who have attained a sufficiently high grade of culture to make their mark in the world--that of an original ancestral abode, beautiful, happy, and remote, a Paradise. It is usually imagined as a great mountain, watered by springs which become great rivers, bearing one or more trees of wonderful properties and sacred character, and is considered as the princ.i.p.al residence of the G.o.ds. Each nation locates it according to its own knowledge of geography and vague, half-obliterated memories. Many texts, both in the old Accadian and the a.s.syrian languages, abundantly prove that the Chaldean religion preserved a distinct and reverent conception of such a mountain, and placed it in the far north or north-east, calling it the "Father of Countries," plainly an allusion to the original abode of man--the "Mountain of Countries," (i.e., "Chief Mountain of the World") and also ARALLU, because there, where the G.o.ds dwelt, they also imagined the entrance to the Arali to be the Land of the Dead. There, too, the heroes and great men were to dwell forever after their death. There is the land with a sky of silver, a soil which produces crops without being cultivated, where blessings are for food and rejoicing, which it is hoped the king will obtain as a reward for his piety after having enjoyed all earthly goods during his life.[AX] In an old Accadian hymn, the sacred mount, which is identical with that imagined as the pillar joining heaven and earth, the pillar around which the heavenly spheres revolve, (see page 153)--is called "the mountain of Bel, in the east, whose double head reaches unto the skies; which is like to a mighty buffalo at rest, whose double horn sparkles as a sunbeam, as a star." So vivid was the conception in the popular mind, and so great the reverence entertained for it, that it was attempted to reproduce the type of the holy mountain in the palaces of their kings and the temples of their G.o.ds. That is one of the reasons why they built both on artificial hills. There is in the British Museum a sculpture from Koyunjik, representing such a temple, or perhaps palace, on the summit of a mound, converted into a garden and watered by a stream which issues from the "hanging garden" on the right, the latter being laid out on a platform of masonry raised on arches; the water was brought up by machinery. It is a perfect specimen of a "Paradise," as these artificial parks were called by the Greeks, who took the word (meaning "park" or "garden") from the Persians, who, in their turn, had borrowed the thing from the a.s.syrians and Babylonians, when they conquered the latter's empire. The _Ziggurat_, or pyramidal construction in stages, with the temple or shrine on the top, also owed its peculiar shape to the same original conception: as the G.o.ds dwelt on the summit of the Mountain of the World, so their shrines should occupy a position as much like their residence as the feeble means of man would permit. That this is no idle fancy is proved by the very name of "Ziggurat," which means "_mountain peak_," and also by the names of some of these temples: one of the oldest and most famous indeed, in the city of a.s.shur, was named "the House of the Mountain of Countries." An excellent representation of a Ziggurat, as it must have looked with its surrounding palm grove by a river, is given us on a sculptured slab, also from Koyunjik. The original is evidently a small one, of probably five stages besides the platform on which it is built, with its two symmetrical paths up the ascent. Some, like the great temple at Ur, had only three stages, others again seven--always one of the three sacred numbers: three, corresponding to the divine Triad; five, to the five planets; seven, to the planets, sun and moon. The famous Temple of the Seven Spheres at Borsip (the Birs-Nimrud), often mentioned already, and rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar about 600 B.C. from a far older structure, as he explains in his inscription (see p. 72), was probably the most gorgeous, as it was the largest; besides, it is the only one of which we have detailed and reliable descriptions and measurements, which may best be given in this place, almost entirely in the words of George Rawlinson:[AY]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 68.--TEMPLE AND HANGING GARDENS AT KOYUNJIK. (British Museum.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 69.--PLAN OF A ZIGGURAT. (Perrot and Chipiez.)]

11. The temple is raised on a platform exceptionally low--only a few feet above the level of the plain; the entire height, including the platform, was 156 feet in a perpendicular line. The stages--of which the four upper were lower than the first three--receded equally on three sides, but doubly as much on the fourth, probably in order to present a more imposing front from the plain, and an easier ascent. "The ornamentation of the edifice was chiefly by means of color. The seven Stages represented the Seven Spheres, in which moved, according to ancient Chaldean astronomy, the seven planets. To each planet fancy, partly grounding itself upon fact, had from of old a.s.signed a peculiar tint or hue. The Sun (Shamash) was golden; the Moon (Sin or Nannar), silver; the distant Saturn (Adar), almost beyond the region of light, was black; Jupiter (Marduk) was orange; the fiery Mars (Nergal) was red; Venus (Ishtar) was a pale yellow; Mercury (Nebo or Nabu, whose shrine stood on the top stage), a deep blue. The seven stages of the tower gave a visible embodiment to these fancies. The bas.e.m.e.nt stage, a.s.signed to Saturn, was blackened by means of a coating of bitumen spread over the face of the masonry; the second stage, a.s.signed to Jupiter, obtained the appropriate orange color by means of a facing of burnt bricks of that hue; the third stage, that of Mars, was made blood-red by the use of half-burnt bricks formed of a bright-red clay; the fourth stage, a.s.signed to the Sun, appears to have been actually covered with thin plates of gold; the fifth, the stage of Venus, received a pale yellow tint from the employment of bricks of that hue; the sixth, the sphere of Mercury, was given an azure tint by vitrifaction, the whole stage having been subjected to an intense heat after it was erected, whereby the bricks composing it were converted into a ma.s.s of blue slag; the seventh stage, that of the moon, was probably, like the fourth, coated with actual plates of metal. Thus the building rose up in stripes of varied color, arranged almost as nature's cunning hand arranges hues in the rainbow, tones of red coming first, succeeded by a broad stripe of yellow, the yellow being followed by blue. Above this the glowing silvery summit melted into the bright sheen of the sky.... The Tower is to be regarded as fronting the north-east, the coolest side, and that least exposed to the sun's rays from the time that they become oppressive in Babylonia. On this side was the ascent, which consisted probably of a broad staircase extending along the whole front of the building. The side platforms, at any rate of the first and second stages, probably of all, were occupied by a series of chambers.... In these were doubtless lodged the priests and other attendants upon the temple service...."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 70.--"ZIGGURAT" RESTORED. ACCORDING TO PROBABILITIES.

(Perrot and Chipiez.)]

12. The interest attaching to this temple, wonderful as it is in itself, is greatly enhanced by the circ.u.mstance that its ruins have through many centuries been considered as those of the identical Tower of Babel of the Bible. Jewish literary men who travelled over the country in the Middle Ages started this idea, which quickly spread to the West. It is conjectured that it was suggested by the vitrified fragments of the outer coating of the sixth, blue, stage, (that of Mercury or Nebo), the condition of which was attributed to lightning having struck the building.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 71.--BIRS-NIMRUD. (ANCIENT BORSIP.) (Perrot and Chipiez.)]

13. That the Ziggurats of Chaldea should have been used not only as pedestals to uphold shrines, but as observatories by the priestly astronomers and astrologers, was quite in accordance with the strong mixture of star-worship grafted on the older religion, and with the power ascribed to the heavenly bodies over the acts and destinies of men. These constructions, therefore, were fitted for astronomical uses by being very carefully placed with their corners pointing exactly to the four cardinal points--North, South, East and West. Only two exceptions have been found to this rule, one in Babylon, and the a.s.syrian Ziggurat at Kalah, (Nimrud) explored by Layard, of which the sides, not the corners, face the cardinal points. For the a.s.syrians, who carried their entire culture and religion northward from their ancient home, also retained this consecrated form of architecture, with the difference that with them the Ziggurats were not temple and observatory in one, but only observatories attached to the temples, which were built on more independent principles and a larger scale, often covering as much ground as a palace.

14. The singular orientation of the Chaldean Ziggurats (subsequently retained by the a.s.syrians),--i.e., the manner in which they are placed, turned to the cardinal points with their angles, and not with their faces, as are the Egyptian pyramids, with only one exception,--has long been a puzzle which no astronomical considerations were sufficient to solve. But quite lately, in 1883, Mr. Pinches, Geo. Smith's successor in the British Museum, found a small tablet, giving lists of signs, eclipses, etc., affecting the various countries, and containing the following short geographical notice, in ill.u.s.tration of the position a.s.signed to the cardinal points: "The South is Elam, the North is Accad, the East is Suedin and Gutium, the West is Phoenicia. On the right is Accad, on the left is Elam, in front is Phoenicia, behind are Suedin and Gutium." In order to appreciate the bearing of this bit of topography on the question in hand, we must examine an ancient map, when we shall at once perceive that the direction given by the tablet to the _South_ (Elam) answers to our _South-East;_ that given to the _North_ (Accad) answers to our _North-West;_ while _West_ (Phoenicia, i.e., the coast-land of the Mediterranean, down almost to Egypt) stands for our _South-West_, and _East_ (Gutium, the highlands where the Armenian mountains join the Zagros, now Kurdish Mountains,) for our _North-East_.

If we turn the map so that the Persian Gulf shall come in a perpendicular line under Babylon, we shall produce the desired effect, and then it will strike us that the Ziggurats _did_ face the cardinal points, according to Chaldean geography, _with their sides_, and that the discovery of the small tablet, as was remarked on the production of it, "settles the difficult question of the difference in orientation between the a.s.syrian and Egyptian monuments." It was further suggested that "the two systems of cardinal points originated no doubt from two different races, and their determination was due probably _to the geographical position of the primitive home of each race._" Now the South-West is called "the front," "and the migrations of the people _therefore_ must have been from North-East to South-West."[AZ] This beautifully tallies with the hypothesis, or conjecture, concerning the direction from which the Shumiro-Accads descended into the lowlands by the Gulf (see pp. 146-8), and, moreover, leads us to the question whether the fact of the great Ziggurat of the Seven Spheres at Borsip facing the North-East with its front may not have some connection with the holiness ascribed to that region as the original home of the race and the seat of that sacred mountain so often mentioned as "the Great Mountain of Countries" (see p. 280), doubly sacred, as the meeting-place of the G.o.ds and the place of entrance to the "Arallu" or Lower World.[BA]

15. It is to be noted that the conception of the divine grove or garden with its sacred tree of life was sometimes separated from that of the holy primeval mountain and transferred by tradition to a more immediate and accessible neighborhood. That the city and district of Babylon may have been the centre of such a tradition is possibly shown by the most ancient Accadian name of the former--TIN-TIR-KI meaning "the Place of Life," while the latter was called GAN-DUNYASH or KAR-DUNYASH--"the garden of the G.o.d Dunyash," (probably one of the names of the G.o.d ea)--an appellation which this district, although situated in the land of Accad or Upper Chaldea, preserved to the latest times as distinctively its own. Another sacred grove is spoken of as situated in Eridhu. This city, altogether the most ancient we have any mention of, was situated at the then mouth of the Euphrates, in the deepest and flattest of lowlands, a sort of borderland between earth and sea, and therefore very appropriately consecrated to the great spirit of both, the G.o.d ea, the amphibious Oannes. It was so much identified with him, that in the Shumirian hymns and conjurings his son Meridug is often simply invoked as "Son of Eridhu." It must have been the oldest seat of that spirit-worship and sorcerer-priesthood which we find crystallized in the earliest Shumiro-Accadian sacred books. This prodigious antiquity carries us to something like 5000 years B.C., which explains the fact that the ruins of the place, near the modern Arab village of Abu-Shahrein, are now so far removed from the sea, being a considerable distance even from the junction of the two rivers where they form the Shat-el-arab. The sacred grove of Eridhu is frequently referred to, and that it was connected with the tradition of the tree of life we see from a fragment of a most ancient hymn, which tells of "a black pine, growing at Eridhu, sprung up in a pure place, with roots of l.u.s.trous crystal extending downwards, even into the deep, marking the centre of the earth, in the dark forest into the heart whereof man hath not penetrated." Might not this be the reason why the wood of the pine was so much used in charms and conjuring, as the surest safeguard against evil influences, and its very shadow was held wholesome and sacred? But we return to the legends of the Creation and primeval world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 72.--BEL FIGHTS THE DRAGON--TIAMAT (a.s.sYRIAN CYLINDER.) (Perrot and Chipiez.)]