The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World Volume I Part 5

Loftus from Mugheir. [PLATE XVII., Fig. 1.] Iron, as already observed, is extremely uncommon; and when it occurs, is chiefly used for the rings and bangles which seem to have been among the favorite adornments of the people. Bronze is, however, even for these, the more common material.

[PLATE XVII, Fig. 2.] It is sometimes wrought into thin and elegant shapes, tapering to a point at either extremity; sometimes the form into which it is cast is coa.r.s.e and ma.s.sive, resembling a solid bar twisted into a rude circle. For all ordinary purposes of utility it is the common metal used. A bronze or copper bowl is found in almost every tomb; bronze bolts remain in the pieces of marble used for tesselating; bronze rings sometimes strengthen the cones used for ornamenting walls; bronze weapons and instruments are, as we have seen, common, and in the same material have been found chains, nails, toe and finger rings, armlets, bracelets, and fish-hooks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 17]

No long or detailed account can be given of the textile fabrics of the ancient Chaldaeans; but there is reason to believe that this was a branch of industry in which they particularly excelled. We know that as early as the time of Joshua a Babylonian garment had been imported into Palestine, and was of so rare a beauty as to attract the covetous regards of Achan, in common with certain large ma.s.ses of the precious metals.

The very ancient cylinder figured above must belong to a time at least five or six centuries earlier; upon it we observe flounced and fringed garments, delicately striped, and indicative apparently of an advanced state of textile manufacture. Recent researches do not throw much light on this subject. The frail materials of which human apparel is composed can only under peculiar circ.u.mstances resist the destructive power of thirty or forty centuries; and consequently we have but few traces of the actual fabrics in use among the primitive people. Pieces of linen are said to have been found attaching to some of the skeletons in the tombs; and the sun-dried brick which supports the head is sometimes covered with the remains of a "ta.s.selled cushion of tapestry;" but otherwise we are without direct evidence either as to the material in use, or as to the character of the fabric. In later times Babylon was especially celebrated for its robes and its carpets. Such evidence as we have would seem to make it probable that both manufactures had attained to considerable excellence in Chaldaean times.

The only sciences in which the early Chaldaeans can at present be proved to have excelled are the cognate ones of arithmetic and astronomy. On the broad and monotonous plains of Lower Mesopotamia, where the earth has little upon it to suggest thought or please by variety, the "variegated heaven," ever changing with the hours and with the seasons, would early attract attention, while the clear sky, dry atmosphere, and level horizon would afford facilities for observations, so soon as the idea of them suggested itself to the minds of the inhabitants. The "Chaldaean learning" of a later age appears to have been originated, in all its branches, by the primitive people; in whose language it continued to be written even in Semitic times.

We are informed by Simplicius that Callisthenes, who accompanied Alexander to Babylon, sent to Aristotle from that capital a series of astronomical observations, which he had found preserved there, extending back to a period of 1903 years from Alexander's conquest of the city.

Epigenes related that these observations were recorded upon tablets of baked clay, which is quite in accordance with all that we know of the literary habits of the people. They must have extended, according to Simplicius, as far back as B.C. 2234, and would therefore seem to have been commenced and carried on for many centuries by the primitive Chaldaean people. We have no means of determining their exact nature or value, as none of them have been preserved to us: no doubt they were at first extremely simple; but we have every reason to conclude that they were of a real and substantial character. There is nothing fanciful, or (so to speak) astrological, in the early astronomy of the Babylonians.

Their careful emplacement of their chief buildings, which were probably used from the earliest times for astronomical purposes, their invention of different kinds of dials, and their division of the day into those hours which we still use, are all solid, though not perhaps very brilliant, achievements. It was only in later times that the Chaldaeans were fairly taxed with imposture and charlatanism; in early ages they seem to have really deserved the eulogy bestowed on them by Cicero.

It may have been the astronomical knowledge of the Chaldaeans which gave them the confidence to adventure on important voyages. Scripture tells us of the later people, that "their cry was in the ships;" and the early inscriptions not only make frequent mention of the "ships of Ur," but by connecting these vessels with those of Ethiopia seem to imply that they were navigated to considerable distances. Unfortunately we possess no materials from which to form any idea either of the make and character of the Chaldaean vessels, or of the nature of the trade in which they were employed. We may perhaps a.s.sume that at first they were either canoes hollowed out of a palm-trunk, or reed fabrics made water-tight by a coating of bitumen. The Chaldaea trading operations lay no doubt, chiefly in the Persian Gulf; but it is quite possible that even in very early times they were not confined to this sheltered basin. The gold, which was so lavishly used in decoration, could only have been obtained in the necessary quant.i.ties from Africa or India; and it is therefore probable that one, if not both, of these countries was visited by the Chaldaean traders.

Astronomical investigations could not be conducted without a fair proficiency in the science of numbers. It would be reasonable to conclude, from the admitted character of the Chaldaeans as astronomers, that they were familiar with most arithmetical processes, even had we no evidence upon the subject. Evidence, however, to a certain extent, does exist. On a tablet found at Senkareh, and belonging probably to an early period, a table of squares is given, correctly calculated from one to sixty. The system of notation, which is here used, is very curious.

Berosus informs us that, in their computations of time, the Chaldaeans employed an alternate s.e.xagesimal and decimal notation, reckoning the years by the _soss,_ the _ner,_ and the _sar_--the _soss_ being a term of 60 years, the _ner_ one of 600, and the _sar_ one of 3600 (or 60 _sosses_). It appears from the Senkareh monument, that they occasionally pursued the same practice in mere numerical calculations, as will be evident from the ill.u.s.tration. [PLATE XVIII., Figs. 1, 2.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 18]

In Arabic numerals this table may be expressed as follows:

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE 66]

The calculation is in every case correct; and the notation is by means of two signs--the simple wedge [--] , and the arrowhead [--] ; the wedge representing the unit, the soss (60), and the sar (3600), while the arrowhead expresses the decades of each series, or the numbers 10 and 600. The notation is c.u.mbrous, but scarcely more so than that of the Romans. It would be awkward to use, from the paucity in the number of signs, which could scarcely fail to give rise to confusion,--more especially as it does not appear that there was any way of expressing a cipher. It is not probable that at any time it was the notation in ordinary use. Numbers were commonly expressed in a manner not unlike the Roman, as will be seen by the subjoined table. [PLATE XVIII., Fig. 3.]

One, ten, a hundred, and a thousand, had distinct signs. Fifty had the same sign as the unit--a simple wedge. The other numbers were composed from these elements.

CHAPTER VI.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

Chaldaea, unlike Egypt, has preserved to our day but few records of the private or domestic life of its inhabitants. Beyond the funereal customs, to which reference was made in the last chapter, we can obtain from the monuments but a very scanty account of their general mode of life, manners, and usages. Some attempt, however, must be made to throw together the few points of this nature on which we have obtained any light from recent researches in Mesopotamia.

The ordinary dress of the common people among the Chaldaeans seems to have consisted of a single garment, a short tunic, tied round the waist, and reaching thence to the knees, a costume very similar to that worn by the Madan Arabs at the present day. To this may sometimes have been added an _abba,_ or cloak, thrown over the shoulders, and falling below the tunic, about half-way down the calf of the leg. The material of the former we may perhaps presume to have been linen, which best suits the climate, and is a fabric found in the ancient tombs. The outer cloak was most likely of woollen, and served to protect hunters and others against the occasional inclemency of the air. The feet were unprotected by either shoes or sandals; on the head was worn a skull-cap, or else a band of camel's hairs--the germ of the turban which has now become universal throughout the East.

The costume of the richer cla.s.s was more elaborate. A high mitre, of a very peculiar appearance, or else a low cap ornamented with two curved horns, covered the head. [PLATE XIX. Fig. 1.] The neck and arms were bare. The chief garment was a long gown or robe, extending from the neck to the feet, commonly either striped or flounced, or both; and sometimes also adorned with fringe. This robe, which was scanty according to modern notions, appears not to have been fastened by any girdle or cincture round the waist, but to have been kept in place by pa.s.sing over one shoulder, a slit or hole being made for the arm on one side of the dress only. In some cases the upper part of the dress seems to have been detached from the lower, and to have formed a sort of jacket, which reached about to the hips.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 19]

The beard was commonly worn straight and long, not in crisp curls, as by the a.s.syrians. [PLATE XIX., Fig. 2.] The hair was also worn long, either gathered together into a club behind the head, or depending in long spiral curls on either side the face and down the back. Ornaments were much affected, especially by the women. Bronze and iron bangles and armlets, and bracelets of rings or beads, ear-rings, and rings for the toes, are common in the tombs, and few female skeletons are without them.

The material of the ornaments is generally of small value. Many of the rings are formed by grinding down a small kind of sh.e.l.l; the others are of bronze or iron. Agate beads, however, are not uncommon, and gold beads have been found in a few tombs, as well as some other small ornaments in the same material. The men seem to have carried generally an engraved cylinder in agate or other hard stone, which was used as a seal or signet, and was probably worn round the wrist. Sometimes rings, and even bracelets, formed also a part of their adornment. The latter were occasionally in gold--they consisted of bands or fillets of the pure beaten metal, and were as much as an inch in breadth.

The food of the early Chaldaeans consisted probably of the various esculents which have already been mentioned as products of the territory.

The chief support, however, of the ma.s.s of the population was, beyond a doubt, the dates, which still form the main sustenance of those who inhabit the country. It is clear that in Babylonia, as in Scythia, the practice existed of burying with a man a quant.i.ty of the food to which he had been accustomed during life. In the Chaldaean sepulchres a number of dishes are always ranged round the skeleton, containing the viatic.u.m of the deceased person, and in these dishes are almost invariably found a number of date-stones. They are most commonly unaccompanied by any traces of other kinds of food; occasionally, however, besides date-stones, the bones of fish and of chickens have been discovered, from which we may conclude that those animals were eaten, at any rate by the upper cla.s.ses. Herodotus tells us that in his day three tribes of Babylonians subsisted on fish alone; and the present inhabitants of Lower Mesopotamia make it a princ.i.p.al article of their diet. The rivers and the marshes produce it in great abundance, while the sea is also at hand, if the fresh-water supply should fail. Carp and barbel are the princ.i.p.al fresh-water sorts, and of these the former grows to a very great size in the Euphrates. An early tablet, now in the British Museum, represents a man carrying a large fish by the head, which may be a carp, though the species can scarcely be identified. There is evidence that the wild-boar was also eaten by the primitive people; for Mr. Loftus found a jaw of this animal, with the tusk still remaining, lying in a shallow clay dish in one of the tombs. Perhaps we may be justified in concluding, from the comparative rarity of any remains of animal food in the early sepulchres, that the primitive Chaldaeans subsisted chiefly on vegetable productions.

The variety and excellence of such esculents are prominently put forward by Berosus in his account of the original condition of the country; and they still form the princ.i.p.al support of those who now inhabit it.

We are told that Nimrod was "a mighty hunter before the Lord;" and it is evident, from the account already given of the animals indigenous in Lower Mesopotainia, that there was abundant room for the display of a sportsman's skill and daring when men first settled in that region. The Senkareh tablets show the boldness and voracity of the Chaldaean lion, which not only levied contributions on the settlers' cattle, but occasionally ventured to attack man himself. We have not as yet any hunting scenes belonging to these early times; but there can be little doubt that the bow was the chief weapon used against the king of beasts, whose a.s.sailants commonly prefer remaining at a respectful distance from him. The wild-boar may have been hunted in the same way, or he may have been attacked with a spear--a weapon equally well known with the bow to the early settlers. Fish were certainly taken with the hook; for fish-hooks have been found in the tombs; but probably they were also captured in nets, which are among the earliest of human inventions.

A considerable portion of the primitive population must have been engaged in maritime pursuits. In the earliest inscriptions we find constant mention of the "ships of Ur," which appear to have traded with Ethiopia --a country whence may have been derived the gold, which--as has been already shown--was so largely used by the Chaldaeans in ornamentation.

It would be interesting could we regard it as proved that they traded also with the Indian peninsula; but the "rough logs of wood, apparently teak," which Mr. Taylor discovered in the great temple at Mugheir, belong more probably to the time of its repair by Nabonidus than to that of its original construction by a Chaldaean monarch. The Sea-G.o.d was one of the chief objects of veneration at Ur and elsewhere; and Berosus appears to have preserved an authentic tradition, where he makes the primitive people of the country derive their arts and civilization from "the Red Sea." Even if their commercial dealings did not bring them into contact with any more advanced people, they must have increased the intelligence, as well as the material resources, of those employed in them, and so have advanced their civilization.

Such are the few conclusions concerning the manners of the Chaldaeans which alone we seem to have any right to form with our present means of information.

CHAPTER VII.

RELIGION.

The religion of the Chaldaeans, from the very earliest times to which the monuments carry us back, was, in its outward aspect, a polytheism of a very elaborate character. It is quite possible that there may have been esoteric explanations, known to the priests and the more learned, which, resolving the personages of the Pantheon into the powers of nature, reconciled the apparent multiplicity of G.o.ds with monotheism, or even with atheism. So far, however, as outward appearances were concerned, the worship was grossly polytheistic. Various deities, whom it was not considered at all necessary to trace to a single stock, divided the allegiance of the people, and even of the kings, who regarded with equal respect, and glorified with equally exalted epithets, some fifteen or sixteen personages. Next to these princ.i.p.al G.o.ds were a far more numerous a.s.semblage of inferior or secondary divinities, less often mentioned, and regarded as less worthy of honor, but still recognized generally through the country. Finally, the Pantheon contained a host of mere local G.o.ds or genii, every town and almost every village in Babylonia being under the protection of its own particular divinity.

It will be impossible to give a complete account of this vast and complicated system. The subject is still but partially worked out by cuneiform scholars; the difficulties in the way of understanding it are great; and in many portions to which special attention has been paid it is strangely perplexing and bewildering. All that will be attempted in the present place is to convey an idea of the general character of the Chaldaean religion, and to give some information with regard to the princ.i.p.al deities.

In the first place, it must be noticed that the religion was to a certain extent astral. The heaven itself, the sun, the moon, and the five planets, have each their representative in the Chaldaean Pantheon among the chief objects of worship. At the same time it is to be observed that the astral element is not universal, but partial; and that, even where it has place, it is but one aspect of the mythology, not by any means its full and complete exposition. The Chaldaean religion even here is far from being mere Sabaeanism--the simple worship of the "host of heaven."

The aether, the sun, the moon, and still more the five planetary G.o.ds, are something above and beyond those parts of nature. Like the cla.s.sical Apollo and Diana, Mars and Venus, they are real persons, with a life and a history, a power and an influence, which no ingenuity can translate into a metaphorical representation of phenomena attaching to the air and to the heavenly bodies. It is doubtful, indeed, whether the G.o.ds of this cla.s.s are really of astronomical origin, and not rather primitive deities, whose character and attributes were, to a great extent, fixed and settled before the notion arose of connecting them with certain parts of nature. Occasionally they seem to represent heroes rather than celestial bodies; and they have all attributes quite distinct from their physical or astronomical character.

Secondly, the striking resemblance of the Chaldaean system to that of the Cla.s.sical Mythology seems worthy of particular attention. This resemblance is too general, and too close in some respects, to allow of the supposition that mere accident has produced the coincidence. In the Pantheons of Greece and Rome, and in that of Chaldaea, the same general grouping is to be recognized; the same genealogical succession is not unfrequently to be traced; and in some cases even the familiar names and t.i.tles of cla.s.sical divinities admit of the most curious ill.u.s.tration and explanation from Chaldaean sources. We can scarcely doubt but that, in some way or other, there was a communication of beliefs--a pa.s.sage in very early times, from the sh.o.r.es of the Persian Gulf to the lands washed by the Mediterranean, of mythological notions and ideas. It is a probable conjecture that among the primitive tribes who dwelt on the Tigris and Euphrates, when the cuneiform alphabet was invented and when such writing was first applied to the purposes of religion, a Scythic or Scytho-Arian race existed, who subsequently migrated to Europe, and brought with them those mythical traditions which, as objects of popular belief, had been mixed up in the nascent literature of their native country, and that these traditions were pa.s.sed on to the cla.s.sical nations, who were in part descended from this Scythic or Scytho-Arian people.

The grouping of the princ.i.p.al Chalda an deities is as follows. At the head of the Pantheon stands a G.o.d, Il or Ra, of whom but little is known.

Next to him is a Triad, _Ana, Bil_ or _Belus,_ and _Hea_ or _Hoa,_ who correspond closely to the cla.s.sical Pluto, Jupiter, and Neptune. Each of these is accompanied by a female principle or wife, _Ana_ by _Anat, Bil_ (or Bel) by _Mulita_ or _Beltis,_ and _Hea_ (or _Hoa_) by _Davkina_.

Then follows a further Triad, consisting of _Sin_ or _Hurki,_ the Moon-G.o.d; _San_ or _Sansi,_ the Sun; and _Vul_ the G.o.d of the atmosphere. The members of this Triad are again accompanied by female powers or wives,--_Vul_ by a G.o.ddess called _Shala_ or _Tala, San_ (the Sun) by _Gula_ or _Anunit,_ and _Hurki_ (the Moon) by a G.o.ddess whose name is wholly uncertain, but whose common t.i.tle is "the great lady."

Such are the G.o.ds at the head of the Pantheon. Next in order to them we find a group of five minor deities, the representatives of the five planets,--Nin or Ninip (Saturn), Merodach (Jupiter), Nergal (Mars), Ishtar (Venus), and Nebo (Mercury). These together const.i.tute what we have called the _princ.i.p.al_ G.o.ds; after them are to be placed the numerous divinities of the second and third order.

These princ.i.p.al G.o.ds do not appear to have been connected, like the Egyptian and the cla.s.sical divinities, into a single genealogical scheme: yet still a certain amount of relationship was considered to exist among them. Ana and Bel, for instance, were brothers, the sons of Il or Ra; Vul was son of Ana; Hurki, the Moon-G.o.d, of Bel; Nebo and Merodach were sons of Hea or Hoa. Many deities, however, are without parentage, as not only Il or Ra, but Hea, San (the Sun), Ishtar, and Nergal. Sometimes the relationship alleged is confused, and even contradictory, as in the case of Nin or Ninip, who is at one time the son, at another the father of Bel, and who is at once the son and the husband of Beltis. It is evident that the genealogical aspect is not that upon which much stress is intended to be laid, or which is looked upon as having much reality. The great G.o.ds are viewed habitually rather as a hierarchy of coequal powers, than as united by ties implying on the one hand pre-eminence and on the other subordination.

We may now consider briefly the characters and attributes of the several deities so far as they can be made out, either from the native records, or from cla.s.sical tradition. And, first, concerning the G.o.d who stands in some sense at the head of the Chaldaean Pantheon.

IL, or RA.

The form Ra represents probably the native Chaldaean name of this deity, while _Il_ is the Semitic equivalent. _Il,_ of course, is but a variant of _El,_ the root of the well-known Biblical _Elohim_ as well as of the Arabic _Allah_. It is this name which Diodorus represents under the form of Elms ('H??oc), 7 and Sanchoniathon, or rather Philo-Byblius, under that of _Elus_ or _Ilus_. The meaning of the word is simply "G.o.d," or perhaps "the G.o.d" emphatically. _Ra,_ the Cus.h.i.te equivalent, must be considered to have had the same force originally, though in Egypt it received a special application to the sun, and became the proper name of that particular deity. The word is lost in the modern Ethiopic. It formed an element in the native name of Babylon, which was _Ka-ra,_ the Cus.h.i.te equivalent of the Semitic _Bab-il,_ an expression signifying "the gate of G.o.d."

Ra is a G.o.d with few peculiar attributes. He is a sort of fount and origin of deity, too remote from man to be much worshipped or to excite any warm interest. There is no evidence of his having had any temple in Chaldaea during the early times. A belief in his existence is implied rather than expressed in inscriptions of the primitive kings, where the Moon-G.o.d is said to be "brother's son of Ana, and eldest son of Bil, or Belus." We gather from this that Bel and Ana were considered to have a common father; and later doc.u.ments sufficiently indicate that that common father was Il or Ra. We must conclude from the name _Babil,_ that Babylon was originally under his protection, though the G.o.d specially worshipped in the great temple there seems to have been in early times Bel, and in later times Merodach. The identification of the Chaldaean, Il or Ra with Saturn, which Diodorus makes, and which may seem to derive some confirmation from Philo-Byblius, is certainly incorrect, so far as the planet Saturn, which Diodorus especially mentions, is concerned; but it may be regarded as having a basis of truth, inasmuch as Saturn was in one sense the chief of the G.o.ds, and was the father of Jupiter and Pluto, as Ra was of Bil and Ana.

ANA.

_Ana,_ like Il and Ra, is thought to have been a word originally signifying "G.o.d," in the highest sense. The root occurs probably in the Annedotus and Oannes of Berosus, as well as in Philo-Byblius's An.o.bret.

In its origin it is probably Cus.h.i.te: but it was adopted by the a.s.syrians, who inflected the word which was indeclinable in the Chaldaean tongue, making the nominative Anu, the genitive Ani, and the accusative Ana.

Ana is the head of the first Triad, which follows immediately after the obscure G.o.d Ra. His position is well marked by Damascius, who gives the three G.o.ds, a.n.u.s, Illinus, and Aus, as next in succession to the primeval pair, a.s.sorus and Missara. He corresponds in many respects to the cla.s.sical Hades or Pluto, who, like him, heads the triad to which he belongs. His epithets are chiefly such as mark priority and antiquity.

He is called "the old Ana," "the original chief," perhaps in one place "the father of the G.o.ds," and also "the Lord of spirits and demons."

Again, he bears a number of t.i.tles which serve to connect him with the infernal regions. He is "the king of the lower world," the "Lord of darkness" or "death," "the ruler of the far-off city," and the like. The chief seat of his worship is Huruk or Erech--the modern Warka--which becomes the favorite Chaldaean burying city, as being under his protection. There are some grounds for thinking that one of his names was _Dis._ If this was indeed so, it would seem to follow, almost beyond a doubt, that _Dis,_ the lord of Orcus in Roman mythology, must have been a reminiscence brought from the East--a lingering recollection of _Dis_ or Ana, patron G.o.d of Erech (_Opex_ of the LXX), the great city of the dead, the necropolis of Lower Babylonia. Further, curiously enough, we have, in connection with this G.o.d, an ill.u.s.tration of the cla.s.sical confusion between Pluto and Plutus; for Ana is "the layer-up of treasures"--the "lord of the earth" and of the "mountains," whence the precious metals are derived.