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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient
+Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea, by George Rawlinson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea
+       The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea,
+       Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian
+       or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
+
+Author: George Rawlinson
+
+Illustrator: George Rawlinson
+
+Release Date: July 1, 2005 [EBook #16161]
+Last Updated: September 6, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SEVEN GREAT MONARCHIES
+
+OF THE
+
+ANCIENT EASTERN WORLD;
+
+
+OR,
+
+
+THE HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, AND ANTIQUITIES OF CHALDAEA, ASSYRIA
+
+BABYLON, MEDIA, PERSIA, PARTHIA, AND SASSANIAN,
+
+OR NEW PERSIAN EMPIRE.
+
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A.,
+
+CAMDEN PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
+
+
+
+IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I.
+
+With Maps and Illustrations
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
+
+THE FIRST MONARCHY.
+
+CHALDAEA.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE COUNTRY
+
+CHAPTER II.
+CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS
+
+CHAPTER III.
+THE PEOPLE
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+LANGUAGE AND WRITING
+
+CHAPTER V.
+ARTS AND SCIENCES
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+RELIGION
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+HISTORY AND CHRONOLOGY
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO FIVE GREAT MONARCHIES.
+
+The history of Antiquity requires from time to time to be rewritten.
+Historical knowledge continually extends, in part from the advance of
+critical science, which teaches us little by little the true value of
+ancient authors, but also, and more especially, from the new discoveries
+which the enterprise of travellers and the patient toil of students are
+continually bringing to light, whereby the stock of our information as to
+the condition of the ancient world receives constant augmentation.  The
+extremest scepticism cannot deny that recent researches in Mesopotamia
+and the adjacent countries have recovered a series of “monuments”
+ belonging to very early times, capable of throwing considerable light on
+the Antiquities of the nations which produced them.  The author of these
+volumes believes that, together with these remains, the languages of the
+ancient nations have been to a large extent recovered, and that a vast
+mass of written historical matter of a very high value is thereby added
+to the materials at the Historian’s disposal.  This is, clearly, not the
+place where so difficult and complicated a subject can be properly
+argued.  The author is himself content with the judgment of “experts,”
+ and believes it would be as difficult to impose a fabricated language on
+Professor Lassen of Bonn and Professor Max Miller of Oxford, as to palm
+off a fictitious for a real animal form on Professor Owen of London.  The
+best linguists in Europe have accepted the decipherment of the cuneiform
+inscriptions as a thing actually accomplished.  Until some good linguist,
+having carefully examined into the matter, declares himself of contrary
+opinion, the author cannot think that any serious doubt rests on the
+subject.
+
+     [Some writers allow that the Persian cuneiform inscriptions have
+     been successfully deciphered and interpreted, but appear to doubt
+     the interpretation of the Assyrian records.  (See Edinburgh Review
+     for July, 1862, Art Ill., p.  108.) Are they aware that the Persian
+     inscriptions are accompanied in almost every instance by an Assyrian
+     transcript, and that Assyrian interpretation thus follows upon
+     Persian, without involving any additional “guess-work”]
+
+The present volumes aim at accomplishing for the Five Nations of which
+they treat what Movers and Kenrick have accomplished for Phoenicia, or
+(still more exactly) what Wilkinson has accomplished for Ancient Egypt.
+Assuming the interpretation of the historical inscriptions as, in
+general, sufficiently ascertained, and the various ancient remains as
+assigned on sufficient grounds to certain peoples and epochs, they seek
+to unite with our previous knowledge of the five nations, whether derived
+from Biblical or classical sources, the new information obtained from
+modern discovery.  They address themselves in a great measure to the eye;
+and it is hoped that even those who doubt the certainty of the linguistic
+discoveries in which the author believes, will admit the advantage of
+illustrating the life of the ancient peoples by representations of their
+productions.  Unfortunately, the materials of this kind which recent
+explorations have brought to light are very unequally spread among the
+several nations of which it is proposed to treat, and even where they are
+most copious, fall short of the abundance of Egypt.  Still in every case
+there is some illustration possible; and in one--Assyria--both the
+“Arts” and the  “Manners” of the people admit of being illustrated very
+largely from the remains still extant.--[See Chapters VI. and VII. of the
+Second Monarchy]
+
+The Author is bound to express his obligations to the following writers,
+from whose published works he has drawn freely: MM. Botta and Flandin,
+Mr. Layard, Mr. James Fergusson, Mr. Loftus, Mr. Cullimore, and Mr.
+Birch.  He is glad to take this occasion of acknowledging himself also
+greatly beholden to the constant help of his brother, Sir Henry
+Rawlinson, and to the liberality of Mr. Faux, of the British Museum.  The
+latter gentleman kindly placed at his disposal, for the purposes of the
+present work, the entire series of unpublished drawings made by the
+artists who accompanied Mr. Loftus in the last Mesopotamian Expedition,
+besides securing him undisturbed access to the Museum sculptures, thus
+enabling him to enrich the present volume with a large number of most
+interesting illustrations never previously given to the public.  In the
+subjoined list these illustrations are carefully distinguished from such
+as, in one shape or another, have appeared previously.
+
+Oxford, September, 1862.
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
+
+In preparing for the press, after an interval of seven years, a second
+edition of this work, the author has found it unnecessary to make,
+excepting in two chapters, any important or exensive alterations.  The
+exceptions are the chapters on the History and Chronology of Chaldaea and
+Assyria.  So much fresh light has been thrown on these two subjects by
+additional discoveries, made partly by Sir Henry Rawlinson, partly by his
+assistant, Mr. George Smith, through the laborious study of fragmentary
+inscriptions now in the British Museum, that many pages of the two
+chapters in question required to be written afresh, and the Chronological
+Schemes required, in the one case a complete, and in the other a partial,
+revision.  In making this revision, both of the Chronology and the
+History, the author has received the most valuable assistance both from
+the published papers and from the private communications of Mr.
+Smith--an assistance for which he desires to make in this place the
+warmest and most hearty acknowledgment.  He is also beholden to a recent
+Eastern traveller, Mr. A. D. Berrington, for some valuable notes on the
+physical geography and productions of Mesopotamia, which have been
+embodied in the accounts given of those subjects.  A few corrections
+have likewise been made of errors pointed out by anonymous critics.
+Substantially, however, the work continues such as it was on its first
+appearance, the author having found that time only deepened his
+conviction of the reality of cuneiform decipherment, and of the
+authenticity of the history obtained by means of it.
+
+OXFORD, November, 1870.
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE SIXTH MONARCHY.
+
+The following work is intended, in part, as a continuation of the ancient
+History of the East, already treated by the Author at some length in his
+“Five Great Monarchies”; but it is also, and more expressly, intended as
+a supplement to the ancient History of the West, as that history is
+ordinarily presented to moderns under its two recognized divisions of
+“Histories of Greece” and  “Histories of Rome.”  Especially, it seemed to
+the writer that the picture of the world during the Roman period,
+commonly put before students in  “Histories of Rome,” was defective, not
+to say false, in its omission to recognize the real position of Parthia
+during the three most interesting centuries of that period, as a
+counterpoise to the power of Rome, a second figure in the picture not
+much inferior to the first, a rival state dividing with Rome the
+attention of mankind and the sovereignty of the known earth.  Writers of
+Roman history have been too much in the habit of representing the later
+Republic and early Empire as, practically, a Universal Monarchy, a Power
+unchecked, unbalanced, having no other limits than those of the civilized
+world, engrossing consequently the whole attention of all thinking men,
+and free to act exactly as it pleased without any regard to opinion
+beyond its own borders.  One of the most popular enlarges on the idea--an
+idea quite inconsistent with the fact--that for the man who provoked the
+hostility of the ruler of Rome there was no refuge upon the whole face of
+the earth but some wild and barbarous region, where refinement was
+unknown, and life would not have been worth having.  To the present
+writer the truth seems to be that Rome never was in the position
+supposed--that from first to last, from the time of Pompey’s Eastern
+Conquests to the Fall of the Empire, there was always in the world a
+Second Power, civilized or semi-civilized, which in a true sense balanced
+Rome, acted as a counterpoise and a check, had to be consulted or
+considered, held a place in all men’s thoughts, and finally furnished a
+not intolerable refuge to such as had provoked Rome’s master beyond
+forgiveness.
+
+This Power for nearly three centuries (B.C. 64 - A.D. 225) was Parthia,
+after which it was Persia under the Sassanian kings.  In the hope of
+gradually vindicating to Parthia her true place in the world’s history,
+the Author has in his  “Manual of Ancient History” (published by the
+Delegates of the Clarendon Press) placed the Parthians alongside of the
+Romans, and treated of their history at a moderate length.  But it has
+seemed to him that something more was requisite.  He could not expect
+that students would be able to give Parthia her proper place in their
+thoughts unless her history were collected and put forth in a readable
+form with some fulness.  He has, therefore, employed most of his leisure
+during the last two years in writing the present work, which he commends
+to students of the later Greek and Roman periods as supplemental to the
+modern Greek and Roman histories in which those periods are commonly
+studied.
+
+The Parthian Chronology depends very much upon coins.  In preparing this
+portion of his work the Author has been greatly indebted to aid kindly
+rendered him by M. R. Stuart Poole and Mr. Gardiner of the British
+Museum.  The representations of coins in the work have been, with one
+exception, taken by the Author from the originals in the National
+Collection.  For the illustrations of Parthian architecture and art he is
+indebted to the published works of Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Ross, the late Mr.
+Loftus, and MM. Flandin and Coste.  He feels also bound to express his
+obligations to the late Mr. Lindsay, the numismatic portion of whose work
+on Parthia he has found of much service.
+
+CANTERBURY, December, 1872.
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO SEVENTH MONARCHY.
+
+This work completes the Ancient History of the East, to which the author
+has devoted his main attention during the last eighteen years.  It is a
+sequel to his  “Parthians,” published in 1873; and carries down the
+History of Western Asia from the third century of our era to the middle
+of the seventh.  So far as the present writer is aware, no European
+author has previously treated this period from the Oriental stand-point,
+in any work aspiring to be more than a mere sketch or outline.  Very many
+such sketches have been published; but they have been scanty in the
+extreme, and the greater number of them have been based on the authority
+of a single class of writers.  It has been the present author’s aim to
+combine the various classes of authorities which are now accessible to
+the historical student, and to give their due weight to each of them.
+The labors of M. C. Muller, of the Abbe Gregoire Kabaragy Garabed, and of
+M. J. St. Martin have opened to us the stores of ancient Armenian
+literature, which were previously a sealed volume to all but a small
+class of students.  The early Arab historians have been translated or
+analyzed by Kosegarten, Zotenberg, M. Jules Mohl, and others.
+The coinage of the Sassanians has been elaborately--almost
+exhaustively--treated by Mordtmann and Thomas.  Mr. Fergusson has
+applied his acute and practised powers to the elucidation of the
+Sassanian architecture.  By combining the results thus obtained with the
+old sources of information--the classical, especially the Byzantine
+writers--it has become possible to compose a history of the Sassanian
+Empire which is at once consecutive, and not absolutely meagre.  How the
+author has performed his task, he must leave it to the public to judge;
+he will only venture to say that he has spared no labor, but has gone
+carefully through the entire series of the Byzantine writers who treat
+of the time, besides availing himself of the various modern works to
+which reference has been made above.  If he has been sometimes obliged
+to draw conclusions from his authorities other than those drawn by
+Gibbon, and has deemed it right, in the interests of historic truth, to
+express occasionally his dissent from that writer’s views, he must not
+be thought blind to the many and great excellencies which render the
+“Decline and Fall” one of the best, if not the best, of our histories.
+The mistakes of a writer less eminent and less popular might have been
+left unnoticed without ill results.  Those of an historian generally
+regarded as an authority from whom there is no appeal could not be so
+lightly treated.
+
+The author begs to acknowledge his great obligations, especially, to the
+following living writers: M. Patkanian, M. Jules Mohl, Dr. Haug, Herr
+Spiegel, Herr Windischmann, Herr Mordtmann, Canon Tristram, Mr. James
+Fergusson, and Mr. E. Thomas.  He is also largely beholden to the works
+of M. Texier and of MM. Flandin and Coste for the illustrations, which he
+has been able to give, of Sassanian sculpture and architecture.  The
+photographic illustrations of the newly-discovered palace at Mashita are
+due to the liberality of Mr. R. C. Johnson (the amateur artist who
+accompanied Canon Tristram in his exploration of the  “Land of Moab”),
+who, with Canon Tristram’s kind consent, has allowed them to appear in
+the present volume.  The numismatic illustrations are chiefly derived
+from Longperier; but one or two have been borrowed from other sources.
+For his frontispiece the author is indebted to his brother, Sir Henry
+Rawlinson, who has permitted it to be taken from an original drawing in
+his possession, which he believed to be a truthful representation of the
+great Sassanian building.
+
+CANTERBURY: December 1875.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST MONARCHY.
+
+
+
+
+CHALDAEA.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+GENERAL VIEW OF THE COUNTRY.
+
+“Behold the land of the Chaldaeans.”--ISAIAH xxiii.  13.
+
+
+The broad belt of desert which traverses the eastern hemisphere, in a
+general direction from west to east (or, speaking more exactly, of
+W. S. W.  to N. E. E.), reaching from the Atlantic on the one hand nearly
+to the Yellow Sea on the other, is interrupted about its centre by a
+strip of rich vegetation, which at once breaks the continuity of the arid
+region, and serves also to mark the point where the desert changes its
+character from that of a plain at a low level to that of an elevated
+plateau or table-land.  West of the favored district, the Arabian and
+African wastes are seas of sand, seldom raised much above, often sinking
+below, the level of the ocean; while east of the same, in Persia, Kerman,
+Seistan, Chinese Tartary, and Mongolia, the desert consists of a series
+of plateaus, having from 3000 to nearly 10,000 feet of elevation.  The
+green and fertile region, which is thus interposed between the “highland”
+ and the “lowland” deserts, participates, curiously enough, in both
+characters.  Where the belt of sand is intersected by the valley of the
+Nile, no marked change of elevation occurs; and the continuous low desert
+is merely interrupted by a few miles of green and cultivable surface, the
+whole of which is just as smooth and as flat as the waste on either side
+of it.  But it is otherwise at the more eastern interruption.  There the
+verdant and productive country divides itself into two tracts, running
+parallel to each other, of which the western presents features not unlike
+those that characterize the Nile valley, but on a far larger scale; while
+the eastern is a lofty mountain region, consisting for the most part of
+five or six parallel ranges, and mounting in many places far above the
+level of perpetual snow.
+
+It is with the western or plain tract that we are here concerned.
+Between the outer limits of the Syro-Arabian desert and the foot of the
+great mountain range of Kurdistan and Luristan intervenes a territory
+long famous in the world’s history, and the chief site of three out of
+the five empires of whose history, geography, and antiquities it is
+proposed to treat in the present volumes.  Known to the Jews as
+Aram-Naharaim, or “Syria of the two rivers;” to the Greeks and Romans as
+Mesopotamia, or “the between-river country;” to the Arabs as Al-Jezireh,
+or “the island,” this district has always taken its name from the
+streams, which constitute its most striking feature, and to which, in
+fact, it owes its existence.  If it were not for the two great
+rivers--the Tigris and Euphrates--with their tributaries, the more
+northern part of the Mesopotamian lowland would in no respect differ
+from the Syro-Arabian desert on which it adjoins, and which in latitude,
+elevation, and general geological character it exactly resembles.
+Towards the south, the importance of the rivers is still greater; for of
+Lower Mesopotamia it may be said, with more truth than of Egypt, that it
+is “an acquired land,” the actual “gift” of the two streams which wash
+it on either side; being, as it is, entirely a recent formation--a
+deposit which the streams have made in the shallow waters of a gulf into
+which they have flowed for many ages.
+
+The division, which has here forced itself upon our notice, between the
+Upper and the Lower Mesopotamian country, is one very necessary to engage
+our attention in connection with the ancient Chaldaea.  There is no
+reason to think that the terns Chaldaea had at anytime the extensive
+signification of Mesopotamia, much less that it applied to the entire
+flat country between the desert and the mountains.  Chaldaea was not the
+whole, but a part of, the great Mesopotamian plain; which was ample
+enough to contain within it three or four considerable monarchies.
+According to the combined testimony of geographers and historians,
+Chaldaea lay towards the south, for it bordered upon the Persian Gulf;
+and towards the west, for it adjoined Arabia.  If we are called upon
+to fix more accurately its boundaries, which, like those of most
+countries without strong natural frontiers, suffered many fluctuations,
+we are perhaps entitled to say that the Persian Gulf on the south, the
+Tigris on the east, the Arabian desert on the west, and the limit between
+Upper and Lower Mesopotamia on the north, formed the natural bounds,
+which were never greatly exceeded and never much infringed upon.  These
+boundaries are for the most part tolerably clear, though the northern
+only is invariable.  Natural causes, hereafter to be mentioned more
+particularly, are perpetually varying the course of the Tigris, the shore
+of the Persian Gulf, and the line of demarcation between the sands of
+Arabia and the verdure of the Euphrates valley.  But nature has set a
+permanent mark, half way down the Mesopotamian lowland, by a difference
+of geological structure, which is very conspicuous.  Near Hit on the
+Euphrates, and a little below Samarah on the Tigris, the traveller who
+descends the streams, bids adieu to a somewhat waving and slightly
+elevated plain of secondary formation, and enters on the dead flat and
+low level of the mere alluvium.  The line thus formed is marked and
+invariable; it constitutes the only natural division between the upper
+and lower portions of the valley; and both probability and history point
+to it as the actual boundary between Chaldaea and her northern neighbor.
+
+The extent of ancient Chaldaea is, even after we have fixed its
+boundaries, a question of some difficulty.  From the edge of the alluvium
+a little below Hit, to the present coast of the Persian Gulf at the mouth
+of the Shat-el-Arab, is a distance of above 430 miles; while from the
+western shore of the Bahr-i-Nedjif to the Tigris at Serut is a direct
+distance of 185 miles.  The present area of the alluvium west of the
+Tigris and the Shat-el-Arab maybe estimated at about 30,000 square miles.
+But the extent of ancient Chaldaea can scarcely have been so great.  It
+is certain that the alluvium at the head of the Persian Gulf now grows
+with extraordinary rapidity, and not improbable that the growth may in
+ancient times have been even more rapid than it is at present.  Accurate
+observations have shown that the present rate of increase amounts to as
+much as a mile each seventy years, while it is the opinion of those best
+qualified to judge that the average progress during the historic period
+has been as much as a mile in every thirty years!  Traces of
+post-tertiary deposits have been found as far up the country as Tel
+Ede and Hammam, 10 or more than 200 miles from the embouchure of the
+Shat-el-Arab; and there is ample reason for believing that at the time
+when the first Chaldaean monarchy was established, the Persian Gulf
+reached inland, 120 or 130 miles further than at present.  We must
+deduct therefore from the estimate of extent grounded upon the existing
+state of things, a tract of land 130 miles long and some 60 or 70 broad,
+which has been gained from the sea in the course of about forty
+centuries.  This deduction will reduce Chaldaea to a kingdom of somewhat
+narrow limits; for it will contain no more than about 23,000 square
+miles.  This, it is true, exceeds the area of all ancient Greece,
+including Thessaly, Acarnania, and the islands; it nearly equals that of
+the Low Countries, to which Chaldaea presents some analogy; it is almost
+exactly that of the modern kingdom of Denmark; but it is less than
+Scotland, or Ireland, or Portugal, or Bavaria; it is more than doubled
+by England, more than quadrupled by Prussia, and more than octupled by
+Spain, France, and European Turkey.  Certainly, therefore, it was not in
+consequence of its size that Chaldaea became so important a country in
+the early ages, but rather in consequence of certain advantages of the
+soil, climate, and position, which will be considered in the next
+chapter.
+
+It has been already noticed that in the ancient Chaldaea, the
+chief--almost the sole-geographical features, were the rivers.  Nothing
+is more remarkable even now than the featureless character of the region,
+although in the course of ages it has received from man some
+interruptions of the original uniformity.  On all sides a dead level
+extends itself, broken only by single solitary mounds, the remains of
+ancient temples or cities, by long lines of slightly elevated embankment
+marking the course of canals, ancient or recent, and towards the
+south--by a few sand-hills.  The only further variety is that of color; for
+while the banks of the streams, the marsh-grounds, and the country for a
+short distance on each side of the canals in actual operation, present to
+the eye a pleasing, and in some cases a luxuriant verdure; the rest,
+except in early spring, is parched and arid, having little to distinguish
+it from the most desolate districts of Arabia.  Anciently, except for
+this difference, the tract must have possessed all the wearisome
+uniformity of the steppe region; the level horizon must have shown itself
+on all sides unbroken by a single irregularity; all places must have
+appeared alike, and the traveller can scarcely have perceived his
+progress, or have known whither or how to direct his steps.  The rivers
+alone, with their broad sweeps and bold reaches, their periodical changes
+of swell and fall, their strength, motion, and life-giving power, can
+have been objects of thought and interest to the first inhabitants; and
+it is still to these that the modern must turn who wishes to represent,
+to himself or others, the general aspect and chief geographical divisions
+of the country.
+
+The Tigris and Euphrates rise from opposite sides of the same
+mountain-chain.  This is the ancient range of Niphates (a prolongation
+of Taurus), the loftiest of the many parallel ridges which intervene
+between the Euxine and the Mesopotamian plain, and the only one which
+transcends in many places the limits of perpetual snow.  Hence its
+ancient appellation, and hence its power to sustain unfailingly the two
+magnificent streams which flow from it.  The line of the Niphates is
+from east to west, with a very slight deflection to the south of west;
+and the streams thrown off from its opposite flanks, run at first in
+valleys parallel to the chain itself, but in opposite directions, the
+Euphrates flowing westward from its source near Ararat to Malatiyeh,
+while the Tigris from Diarbekr “goes eastward to Assyria.”  The rivers
+thus appear as if never about to meet; but at Malatiyeh, the course of
+the Euphrates is changed.  Sweeping suddenly to the south-east, this
+stream passes within a few miles of the source of the Tigris below Lake
+Goljik, and forces a way through the mountains towards the south,
+pursuing a tortuous course, but still seeming as if it intended
+ultimately to mingle its waters with those of the Mediterranean.  It is
+not till about Balis, in lat. 36 deg., that this intention appears to be
+finally relinquished, and the convergence of the two streams begins. The
+Euphrates at first flows nearly due east, but soon takes a course which
+is, with few and unimportant deflections, about south-east, as far as
+Suk-es-Sheioukh, after which it runs a little north of east to Kurnah.
+The Tigris from Til to Mosul pursues also a south-easterly course, and
+draws but a very little nearer to the Euphrates.  From Mosul, however,
+to Samarah, its course is only a point east of south; and though, after
+that, for some miles it flows off to the east, yet resuming, a little
+below the thirty-fourth parallel, its southerly direction, it is brought
+about Baghdad within twenty miles of the sister stream.  From this point
+there is again a divergence.  The course of the Euphrates, which from
+Hit to the mounds of Mohammed (long. 44 deg.) had been E.S.E., becomes
+much more southerly, while that of the Tigris--which, as we have seen,
+was for awhile due south--becomes once more only slightly south of east,
+till near Serut, where the distance between the rivers has increased
+from twenty to a hundred miles.  After passing respectively Serut and El
+Khitr, the two streams converge rapidly.  The flow of the Euphrates is
+at first E. S. E., and then a little north of east to Kurnah, while that
+of the Tigris is S.S.E.  to the same point. The lines of the streams in
+this last portion of their course, together with that which may be drawn
+across from stream to stream, form nearly an equilateral triangle, the
+distance being respectively 104, 110, and 115 miles.  So rapid is the
+final convergence of the two great rivers.
+
+The Tigris and Euphrates are both streams of the first order.  The
+estimated length of the former, including main windings, is 1146 miles;
+that of the latter is 1780 miles.  Like most rivers that have their
+sources in high mountain regions, they are strong from the first, and,
+receiving in their early course a vast number of important tributaries,
+become broad and deep streams before they issue upon the plains.  The
+Euphrates is navigable from Sumeisat (the ancient Samosata), 1200 miles
+above its embouchure; and even 180 miles higher up, is a river “of
+imposing appearance,” 120 yards wide and very deep.  The Tigris is often
+250 yards wide at Diarbekr, which is not a hundred miles from its
+source, and is navigable in the flood time from the bridge of Diarbekr
+to Mosul, from which place it is descended at all seasons to Baghdad,
+and thence to the sea.  Its average width below Mosul is 200 yards, with
+a depth which allows the ascent of light steamers, unless when there is
+an artificial obstruction.  Above Mosul the width rarely exceeds 150
+yards, and the depth is not more in places than three or four feet.  The
+Euphrates is 250 yards wide at Balbi, and averages 350 yards from its
+junction with the Khabour to Hit: its depth is commonly from fifteen to
+twenty feet. Small steamers have descended its entire course from Bir to
+the sea.  The volume of the Euphrates in places is, however, somewhat
+less than that of the Tigris, which is a swifter and in its latter
+course a deeper stream. It has been calculated that the quantity of
+water discharged every second by the Tigris at Baghdad is 164,103 cubic
+feet, while that discharged by the Euphrates at Hit is 72,804 feet.
+
+The Tigris and Euphrates are very differently circumstanced with respect
+to tributaries.  So long as it runs among the Armenian mountains, the
+Euphrates has indeed no lack of affluents; but these, except the Kara
+Su, or northern Euphrates, are streams of no great volume, being chiefly
+mountain-torrents which collect the drainage of very limited basins.
+After it leaves the mountains and enters upon a low country at Sumefsat,
+the affluents almost entirely cease; one, the river of Sajur, is
+received from the right, in about lat.  36 deg. 40’; and two of more
+importance flow in from the left-the Belik (ancient Bilichus), which
+joins it in long.  39 deg. 9’; and the Khabour (ancient Habor or
+Chaboras), which effects a junction in long. 40 deg. 30’, lat.  35 deg.
+7’.  The Belik and Khabour collect the waters which flow from the
+southern flank of the mountain range above Orfa, Mardin, and Nisibin,
+best known as the “Mons Masius” of Strabo.  They are not, however,
+streams of equal importance. The Belik has a course which is nearly
+straight, and does not much exceed 120 miles.  The Khabour, on the
+contrary, is sufficiently sinuous, and its course may be reckoned at
+fully 200 miles.  It is navigable by rafts from the junction of its two
+main branches near the volcanic cone of Koukab, and adds a considerable
+body of water to the Euphrates.  Below its confluence with this stream,
+or during the last 800 miles of its course, the Euphrates does not
+receive a single tributary.  On the contrary, it soon begins to give off
+its waters right and left, throwing out branches, which either terminate
+in marshes, or else empty themselves into the Tigris.  After awhile,
+indeed, it receives compensation, by means of the Shat-el-Hie and other
+branch streams, which bring back to it from the Tigris, between Mugheir
+and Kurnah, the greater portion of the borrowed fluid.  The Tigris, on
+the contrary, is largely enriched throughout the whole of its course by
+the waters of tributary streams. It is formed originally of three main
+branches: the Diarbekr stream, or true Tigris, the Myafarekin River, and
+the Bitlis Chai, or Centrites of Xenophon, which carries a greater body
+than either of the other two. From its entry on the low country near
+Jezireh to the termination of its course at Kurnah, it is continually
+receiving from the left a series of most important additions.  The chain
+of Zagros, which, running parallel to the two main springs, shuts in the
+Mesopotamian plain upon the east, abounds with springs, which are well
+supplied during the whole summer from its snows, and these when
+collected form rivers of large size and most refreshing coolness.  The
+principal are, the eastern Khabour, which joins the Tigris in lat. 37
+deg. 12’: the Upper Zabo which falls in by the ruins of Nimrud: the
+Lower Zab, which joins some way below Kileh Sherghat: the Adhem, which
+unites its waters half way between Samarah and Baghdad: and the Diyaleh
+(ancient Gyndes), which is received between Baghdad and the ruins of
+Ctesiphon.
+
+By the influx of these streams the Tigris continues to grow in depth and
+strength as it nears the sea, and becomes at last (as we have seen) a
+greater river than the Euphrates, which shrinks during the latter part
+of its course, and is reduced to a volume very inferior to that which it
+once boasted.  The Euphrates at its junction with the Khabour, 700 miles
+above Kurnah, is 400 yards wide and 18 feet deep; at Irzah or Verdi, 75
+miles lower down, it is 350 yards wide and of the same depth; at
+Hadiseh, 140 miles below Werdi, it is 300 yards wide, and still of the
+same depth; at Hit, 50 miles below Hadiseh, its width has increased to
+350 yards, but its depth has diminished to 16 feet; at Felujiah, 75
+miles from Hit, the depth is 20 feet, but the width has diminished to
+250 yards.  From this point the contraction is very rapid and striking.
+The Saklawiyeh canal is given out upon the left, and some way further
+down the Hindiyeh branches off upon the right, each carrying, when the
+Euphrates is full, a large body of water.  The consequence is that at
+Hillah, 90 miles-below Felujiah, the stream is no more than 200 yards
+wide and 15 feet deep; at Diwaniyeh, 65 miles further down, it is only
+160 yards wide; and at Lamlun, 20 miles below Diwaniyeh, it is reduced
+to 120 yards wide, with a depth of no more than 12 feet!  Soon after,
+however, it begins to recover itself.  The water, which left it by the
+Hindiyeh, returns to it upon the one side, while the Shat-el-Hie and
+numerous other branch streams from the Tigris flow in upon the other;
+but still the Euphrates never recovers itself entirely, nor even
+approaches in its later course to the standard of its earlier greatness.
+The channel from Kurnah to El Khitr was found by Colonel Chesney to have
+an average width of only 200 yards, and a depth of about 18 or 19 feet,
+which implies a body of water far inferior to that carried between the
+junction with the Khabour and Hit.  More recently, the decline of the
+stream in its latter course has been found to be even greater.  Neglect
+of the banks has allowed the river to spread itself more and more widely
+over the land: and it is said that, except in the flood time, very
+little of the Euphrates water reaches the sea.  Nor is this an
+unprecedented or very unusual state of things.  From the circumstance
+(probably) that it has been formed by the deposits of streams flowing
+from the east as well as from the north, the lower Mesopotamian plain
+slopes not only to the south, but to the west.  The Euphrates, which has
+low banks, is hence at all times inclined to leave its bed, and to flow
+off to the right, where large tracts are below its ordinary level.  Over
+these it spreads itself, forming the well-known “Chaldaean marshes,”
+ which absorb the chief proportion of the water that flows into them, and
+in which the “great river” seems at various times to have wholly, or
+almost wholly, lost itself.  No such misfortune can befall the Tigris,
+which runs in a deep bed, and seldom varies its channel, offering a
+strong contrast to the sister stream.
+
+Frequent allusion has been made, in the course of this description of
+the Tigris and Euphrates, to the fact of their having each a flood
+season. Herodotus is scarcely correct when he says that in Babylonia
+“the river does not, as in Egypt, overflow the corn-lands of its own
+accord, but is spread over them by the help of engines.”   Both the
+Tigris and Euphrates rise many feet each spring, and overflow their
+banks in various places. The rise is caused by the melting of the snows
+in the mountain regions from which the two rivers and their affluents
+spring.  As the Tigris drains the southern, and the Euphrates the
+northern side of the same mountain range, the flood of the former stream
+is earlier and briefer than that of the latter.  The Tigris commonly
+begins to rise early in March, and reaches its greatest height in the
+first or second week of May, after which it rapidly declines, and
+returns to its natural level by the middle of June.  The Euphrates first
+swells about the middle of March, and is not in full flood till quite
+the end of May or the beginning of June; it then continues high for
+above a month, and does not sink much till the middle of July, after
+which it gradually falls till September.  The country inundated by the
+Tigris is chiefly that on its lower course, between the 32d and 31st
+parallels, the territory of the Beni Lam Arabs.  The territory which the
+Euphrates floods is far more extensive.  As high up as its junction with
+the Khabour, that stream is described as, in the month of April,
+“spreading over the surrounding country like a sea.”  From Hit
+downwards, it inundates both its banks, more especially the country
+above Baghdad (to which it is carried by the Saklawiyeh canal), the
+tract west of the Birs Nimrud and extending thence by way of Nedjif to
+Samava and the territory of the Affej Arabs, between the rivers above
+and below the 32d parallel.  Its flood is, however, very irregular,
+owing to the nature of its banks, and the general inclination of the
+plain, whereof mention was made above.  If care is taken, the inundation
+may be pretty equally distrib uted on either side of the stream; but if
+the river banks are neglected, it is sure to flow mainly to the west,
+rendering the whole country on that side the river a swamp, and leaving
+the territory on the left bank almost without water.  This state of
+things may be traced historically from the age of Alexander to the
+present day, and has probably prevailed more or less since the time when
+Chaldaea received its first inhabitants.
+
+The floods of the Tigris and Euphrates combine with the ordinary action
+of their streams upon their banks to produce a constant variation in
+their courses, which in a long period of time might amount to something
+very considerable.  It is impossible to say, with respect to any portion
+of the alluvial plain, that it may not at some former period have been
+the bed of one or the other river.  Still it would seem that, on the
+whole, a law of compensation prevails, with the result that the general
+position of the streams in the valley is not very different now from what
+it was 4000 years ago.  Certainly between the present condition of things
+and that in the time of Alexander, or even of Herodotus, no great
+difference can be pointed out, except in the region immediately adjoining
+on the gulf, where the alluvium has grown, and the streams, which were
+formerly separate, have united their waters.  The Euphrates still flows
+by Hit and through Babylon; the Tigris passes near Opis, and at Baghdad
+runs at the foot of an embankment made to confine it by Nebuchadnezzar.
+The changes traceable are less in the main courses than in the branch
+streams, which perpetually vary, being sometimes left dry within a few
+years of the time that they have been navigable channels.
+
+The most important variations of this kind are on the side of Arabia.
+Here the desert is always ready to encroach; and the limits of Chaldaea
+itself depend upon the distance from the main river, to which some branch
+stream conveys the Euphrates water.  In the most flourishing times of the
+country, a wide and deep channel, branching off near Hit, at the very
+commencement of the alluvium, has skirted the Arabian rock and gravel for
+a distance of several hundred miles, and has entered the Persian Gulf by
+a mouth of its own.  In this way the extent of Chaldaea has been at times
+largely increased, a vast tract being rendered cultivable, which is
+otherwise either swamp or desert.
+
+Such are the chief points of interest connected with the two great
+Mesopotamian rivers.  These form, as has been already observed, the only
+marked and striking characteristics of the country, which, except for
+them, and for one further feature, which now requires notice, would be
+absolutely unvaried and uniform.  On the Arabian side of the Euphrates,
+50 miles south of the ruins of Babylon, and 25 or 30 miles from the
+river, is a fresh-water lake of very considerable dimensions--the
+Bahr-i-Nedjif, the “Assyrium stagnum” of Justin.  This is a natural
+basin, 40 miles long, and from 10 to 20 miles broad, enclosed on three
+sides by sandstone cliffs, varying from 20 to 200 feet in height, and
+shut in on the fourth side--the north-east--by a rocky ridge, which
+intervenes between the valley of the Euphrates and this inland sea.  The
+cliffs are water-worn, presenting distinct indications of more than one
+level at which the water has rested in former times.  At the season of
+the inundation this lake is liable to be confounded with the extensive
+floods and marshes which extend continuously from the country west of
+the Birs Nimrud to Samava.  But at other tines the distinction between
+the Bahr and the marshes is very evident, the former remaining when the
+latter disappear altogether, and not diminishing very greatly in size
+even in the driest season.  The water of the lake is fresh and sweet, so
+long as it communicates with the Euphrates; when the communication is
+cut off it becomes very unpalatable, and those who dwell in the vicinity
+are no longer able to drink it.  This result is attributed to the
+connection of the lake with rocks of the gypsiferous series.
+
+It is obvious that the only natural divisions of Chaldaea a proper are
+those made by the river-courses.  The principal tract must always have
+been that which intervenes between the two streams.  This was anciently a
+district some 300 miles in length, varying from 20 to 100 miles in
+breadth, and perhaps averaging 50 miles, which must thus have contained
+an area of about 15,000 square miles.  The tract between the Euphrates
+and Arabia was at all times smaller than this, and in the most
+flourishing period of Chaldaea must have fallen short of 10,000 square
+miles.
+
+We have no evidence that the natural division of Chaldaea here indicated
+was ever employed in ancient times for political purposes.  The division
+which appears to have been so employed was one into northern and southern
+Chaldaea, the first extending from Hit to a little below Babylon, the
+second from Niffer to the shores of the Persian Gulf.  In each of these
+districts we have a sort of tetrarchy, or special pre-eminence of four
+cities, such as appears to be indicated by the words--“The beginning of
+his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad and Calneh, in the land of
+Shinar.”  The southern tetrarchy is composed of the four cities, Ur or
+Hur, Huruk, Nipur, and Larsa or Larancha, which are probably identified
+with the Scriptural “Ur of the Chaldees,” Erech, Calneh, and Ellasar.
+The northern consists of Babel or Babylon, Borsippa, Cutha, and Sippara,
+of which all except Borsippa are mentioned in Scripture.  Besides these
+cities the country contained many others,--as Chilmad, Dur-Kurri-galzu,
+Ihi or Ahava, Rubesi, Duran, Tel-Humba, etc.  It is not possible at
+present to locate with accuracy all these places.  We may, however, in
+the more important instances, fix either certainly, or with a very high
+degree of probability, their position.
+
+Hur or Ur, the most important of the early capitals, was situated on the
+Euphrates, probably at no great distance from its mouth.  It was probably
+the chief commercial emporium in the early times; as in the bilingual
+vocabularies its ships are mentioned in connection with those of
+Ethiopia.  The name is found to have attached to the extensive ruins (now
+about six miles from the river, on its right bank, and nearly opposite
+its junction with the Shat-el-Hie) which are known by the name of
+Mugheir, or “the bitumened.”  Hereon a dead flat, broken only by a few
+sand-hills, are traces of a considerable town, consisting chiefly of a
+series of low mounds, disposed in an oval shape, the largest diameter of
+which runs from north to south, and measures somewhat more than half a
+mile.  The chief building is a temple, hereafter to be more particularly
+described, which is a very conspicuous object even at a considerable
+distance, its greatest height above the plain being about seventy feet.
+It is built in a very rude fashion, of large bricks, cemented with
+bitumen, whence the name by which the Arabs designate the ruins.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 1]
+
+About thirty miles from Hur, in a north-westerly direction, and on the
+other side of the Euphrates, from which it is distant eight or nine
+miles, are the ruins of a town, called in the inscriptions Larrak, or
+Larsa, in which some of the best Orientalists have recognized at once the
+Biblical Ellasar, the Laranchue of Berosus, and the Larissa of
+Apollodorus, where the king held his court who sent Memnon to the siege
+of Troy.  The identification is perhaps doubtful; but, at any rate, we
+have here the remains of a second Chaldaean capital, dating from the very
+earliest times.  The ruins, which bear now the name of Senkereh or
+Sinkara, consist of a low circular platform, about four and a half miles
+in circumference, rising gradually from the level of the plain to a
+central mound, the highest point of which attains an elevation of seventy
+feet above the plain itself, and is distinctly visible from a distance of
+fifteen miles.  The material used consists of the ordinary sun-dried and
+baked bricks; and the basement platforms bear the inscriptions of the
+same king who appears to have been the original founder of the chief
+buildings at Ur or Mugheir.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 2]
+
+Fifteen miles from Larsa, in a direction a little north of west, and on
+the same side of the river, are ruins considerably more extensive than
+those of either Ur or Larsa, to which the natives apply the name of
+Warka, which is no doubt a corruption of the original appellation.  The
+Erech, or Orech, of the Hebrews, which appears as Huruk in the cuneiform
+geographical lists, became known to the Greeks as Orchoe; and this
+appellation, probably continuing in use to the time of the Arab conquest,
+was then corrupted into Urka or Warka, in which shape the name given by
+Nimrod still attaches to the second of his cities.  The ruins stand in
+lat. 31 deg. 19’, long. 45 deg. 40’, about four miles from the nearest
+bend of the Euphrates, on its left or east bank.  They form an irregular
+circle, nearly six miles in circumference, which is defined by the traces
+of an earthen rampart, in some places forty feet high.  A vast mass of
+undulating mounds, intersected by innumerable channels and ravines,
+extends almost entirely across the circular space, in a direction, which
+is nearly north and south, abutting at either end upon the rampart.  East
+and west of this mass is a comparatively open space, where the mounds are
+scattered and infrequent; while outside the rampart are not only a number
+of detached hillocks marking the site of ancient buildings, but in one
+direction--towards the east--the city may be traced continuously by means
+of ruined edifices, mounds, and pottery, fully three miles beyond the
+rampart into the desert.  The greatest height of the ruins is about 100
+feet; their construction is very rude and primitive, the date of some
+buildings being evidently as early as that of the most ancient structures
+of either Mugheir or Senkereh.
+
+Sixty miles to the north-west of these ruins, still on the left or
+eastern bank of the Euphrates, but at the distance of thirty miles from
+its present course, are the remains of another city, the only Chaldaean
+ruins which can dispute, with those already described, the palm of
+antiquity.  They consist of a number of separate and distinct heaps,
+which seem to be the remains of different buildings, and are divided into
+two nearly equal groups by a deep ravine or channel 120 feet wide,
+apparently the dry bed of a river which once ran through the town.
+Conspicuous among the other hillocks is a conical heap, occupying a
+central position on the eastern side of the river-bed, and rising to the
+height of about seventy feet above the general level of the plain.
+Further on in this direction is a low continuous mound, which seems to be
+a portion of the outer wall of the city.  The ruins are of considerable
+extent, but scarcely so large as those at either Senkereh or Warka.  The
+name which now attaches to them is Niffer: and it appears, from the
+inscriptions at the place, that the ancient Semitic appellation was but
+slightly different.  This name, as read on the bilingual tablets, was
+Nipur; and as there can be little doubt that it is this word which
+appears in the Talmud as Nopher, we are perhaps entitled, on the
+authority of that treasure-house of Hebrew traditions, to identify these
+ruins with the Calneh of Moses, and the Calno of Isaiah.
+
+About sixty-five miles from Niffer, on the opposite side of the
+Euphrates, and in a direction only slightly north of west, are the
+remains of the ancient Borsippa.  These consist of little more than the
+ruins of a single building--the great temple of Merodach--which was
+entirely rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar.  They have been sometimes regarded as
+really a portion of the ancient Babylon; but this view is wholly
+incompatible with the cuneiform records, which distinctly assign to the
+ruins in question the name of Borsip or Borsippa, a place known with
+certainty to have been distinct from, though in the neighborhood of, the
+capital.  A remnant of the ancient name appears to be contained in the
+modern appellation, Birs-Nimrud or Birsi-Nimrud, which does not admit of
+any explanation from the existing language of the country.
+
+Fifteen miles from thence, to the north-east, chiefly but not entirely on
+the left or east bank of the Euphrates, are the remains of “Babylon the
+Great,” which have been so frequently described by travellers, that
+little need be said of them in this place.  The chief ruins cover a space
+about three miles long, and from one to two broad, and consist mainly of
+three great masses: the first a square mound, called “Babil” by the
+Arabs, lying towards the north at some distance from the other remains;
+the second or central mound, a pile called the “Kasr” or Palace; and the
+third, a great irregular heap lying towards the south, known as the
+“mound of Amram,” from a tomb which crowns its summit.  The “Kasr” and
+“Amram” mounds are enclosed within two lines of rampart, lying at right
+angles to each other, and forming, with the river, a sort of triangle,
+within which all the principal ruins are comprised, except the mound
+called “Babil”.  Beyond the rampart, towards the north, south, and east,
+and also across the river to the west, are various smaller detached
+ruins, while the whole ground, in every direction, is covered with
+fragments of brick and with nitre, the sure marks of former habitations.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 3]
+
+The other cities of ancient Chaldaea which may be located with an
+approach to certainty, are Cutha, now Ibrahim, fifteen miles north-east
+by north of Hymar; Sippara or Sepharvaim, which was at Sura, near Mosaib
+on the Euphrates, about twenty miles above Babylon by the direct route;
+and Dur-Kurri-galzu, now Akkerkuf, on the Saklawiyeh canal, six miles
+from Baghdad, and thirty from Mosaib, in a direction a little west of
+north.  [PLATE III., Fig.  1.] Ihi, or Ahava, is probably Hit, ninety
+miles above Mosaib, on the right bank of the river; Chilmad may be
+Kalwadha, near Baghdad; and Rubesi is perhaps Zerghul, near the left bank
+of the Shat-el-Hie, a little above its confluence with the Euphrates.
+Chaldaean cities appear likewise to have existed at Hymar, ten miles from
+Babylon towards the east; at Sherifeh and Im Khithr, south and south-east
+of Hymar; at Zibbliyeh, on the line of the Nil canal, fifteen miles
+north-west of Niffer; at Delayhim and Bisrniya, in the Affej marshes,
+beyond Niffer, to the south-east; at Phara and Jidr, in the same region,
+to the south-west and south-east of Bismiya; at Hammam [PLATE III., Fig.
+2], sixteen miles south-east of Phara, between the Affej and the Shatra
+marshes; at Tel-Ede, six miles from Hammam, to the south-south-west
+[PLATE IV., Fig. 2]; at Tel-Medineh and Tel-Sifr, in the Shatra marshes,
+to the south-east of Tel-Ede and the north-east of Senkereh; at Yokha,
+east of Hammam, and Nuffdyji, north of Warka; at Lethami, near Niffer; at
+Iskhuriyeh, north of Zibbliyeh, near the Tigris; at Tel-Kheir and
+Tel-Dhalab, in the upper part of the alluvium, to the north of Akkerkuf;
+at Duair, on the right bank of the Euphrates, south of Hilleh and
+south-east of the Birs-Nimrud; at Jeb Mehari, south of the
+Bahr-i-Nedjif; at Mal Battush, near Swaje; at Tel-el-Lahm, nine or ten
+miles south of Suk-es-Sheioukh, and at Abu Shahrein, in the same
+neighborhood, on the very border of the Arabian Desert.  Further
+investigation will probably add largely to this catalogue, for many
+parts of Babylonia are still to some extent unexplored.  This is
+especially true of the tract between the Shat-el-Hie and the lower
+Tigris, a district which, according to the geographers, abounds with
+ruins.  No doubt the most extensive and most striking of the old cities
+have been visited; for of these Europeans are sure to hear through the
+reports of natives.  But it is more than probable that a number of the
+most interesting sites remain unexplored, and even unvisited; for these
+are not always either very extensive or very conspicuous.  The process
+of gradual disintegration is continually lowering the height of the
+Chaldaean ruins; and depressed mounds are commonly the sign of an
+ancient and long-deserted city.  Such remains give us an insight into
+the character of the early people, which it is impossible to obtain from
+ruins where various populations have raised their fabrics in succession
+upon the same spot.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 4]
+
+The cities here enumerated may not perhaps, in all cases, have existed in
+the Chaldaean period.  The evidence hitherto obtained connects distinctly
+with that period only the following--Babylon, Ur or Hur, Larrak or Larsa,
+Erech or Huruk, Calneh or Nopher, Sippara, Dur-Kurri-galzu, Chilmad, and
+the places now called Abu Shahrein and Tel-Sifr.  These sites, it will be
+observed, were scattered over the whole territory from the extreme south
+almost to the extreme north, and show the extent of the kingdom to have
+been that above assigned to it.  They are connected together by a
+similarity in building arrangements and materials, in language, in form
+of type and writing, and sometimes in actual names of monarchs.  The most
+ancient, apparently, are those towards the south, at Warka, Senkereh,
+Mugheir, and Niffer; and here, in the neighborhood of the sea, which then
+probably reached inland as far as Suk-es-Sheioukh, there is sufficient
+reason to place the primitive seat of Chaldaean power.  The capital of
+the whole region was at first Ur or Hur, but afterwards became Nipur, and
+finally Babel or Babylon.
+
+The geography of Chaldaea is scarcely complete without a glance at the
+countries which adjoin upon it.  On the west, approaching generally
+within twenty or thirty miles of the present course of the Euphrates, is
+the Arabian Desert, consisting in this place of tertiary sand and
+gravels, having a general elevation of a few feet above the Mesopotamian
+plain, and occasionally rising into ridges of no great height, whose
+direction is parallel to the course of the great stream.  Such are the
+Hazem and the Qassaim, in the country between the Bahr-i-Nedjif and the
+Persian Gulf, low pebbly ridges which skirt the valley from the Bahr to
+below Suk-es-Sheioukh.  Further west the desert becomes more stony, its
+surface being strewn with numerous blocks of black granite, from which it
+derives its appellation of Hejerra.  No permanent streams water this
+region; occasional “wadys” or torrent-courses, only full after heavy
+rains, are found; but the scattered inhabitants depend for water chiefly
+on their wells, which are deep and numerous, but yield only a scanty
+supply of a brackish and unpalatable fluid.  No settled population can at
+any time have found subsistence in this region, which produces only a few
+dates, and in places a poor and unsucculent herbage.  Sandstorms are
+frequent, and at times the baleful simoon sweeps across the entire tract,
+destroying with its pestilential breath both men and animals.
+
+Towards the north Chaldaea adjoined upon Assyria.  From the foot of that
+moderately lofty range already described which the Greeks call Masius,
+and the modern Turks know as Jebel Tur and Karajah Dagh, extends, for
+above 300 miles, a plain of low elevation, slightly undulating in places,
+and crossed about its centre by an important limestone ridge, known as
+the Sinjar hills, which have a direction nearly east and west, beginning
+about Mosul, and terminating a little below Rakkah.  This track differs
+from the Chaldaean lowland, by being at once less flat and more elevated.
+Geologically it is of secondary formation, while Chaldaea proper is
+tertiary or post-tertiary.  It is fairly watered towards the north, but
+below the Sinjar is only very scantily supplied.  In modern times it is
+for nine months in the year a desert, but anciently it was well
+inhabited, means having apparently been found to bring the whole into
+cultivation.  As a complete account of this entire region must be given
+in another part of the present volume, this outline (it is thought) may
+suffice for our present purpose.
+
+Eastward of Chaldaea, separated from it by the Tigris, which in its lower
+course is a stream of more body than the Euphrates, was the country known
+to the Jews as Elam, to the early Greeks as Cissia, and to the later
+Greeks as Susis or Susiana.  This territory comprised a portion of the
+mountain country which separates Mesopotamia from Persia; but it was
+chiefly composed of the broad and rich flats intervening between the
+mountains and the Tigris, along the courses of the Kerkhah, Kuran, and
+Jerahi rivers.  It was a rich and fertile tract, resembling Chaldaea in
+its general character, with the exception that the vicinity of the
+mountains lent it freshness, giving it cooler streams, more frequent
+rains, and pleasanter breezes.
+
+Capable of maintaining with ease a dense population, it was likely, in
+the early times, to be a powerful rival to the Mesopotamian kingdom, over
+which we shall find that in fact it sometimes exercised supremacy.
+
+On the south Chaldaea had no neighbor.  Here a spacious sea, with few
+shoals, land-locked, and therefore protected from the violent storms of
+the Indian Ocean, invited to commerce, offering a ready communication
+with India and Ceylon, as well as with Arabia Felix, Ethiopia, and Egypt.
+It is perhaps to this circumstance of her geographical position, as much
+as to any other, that ancient Chaldaea owes her superiority over her
+neighbors, and her right to be regarded as one of the five great
+monarchies of the ancient world.  Commanding at once the sea, which
+reaches here deep into the land, and the great rivers by means of which
+the commodities of the land were most conveniently brought down to the
+sea, she lay in the highway of trade, and could scarcely fail to profit
+by her position.  There is sufficient reason to believe that Ur, the
+first capital, was a great maritime emporium; and if so, it can scarcely
+be doubted that to commerce and trade, at the least in part, the early
+development of Chaldaean greatness was owing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.
+
+“Ager totius Asiae fertilissimus.”--PLIN. H. N. vi. 26.
+
+
+Lower Mesopotamia, or Chaldaea, which lies in the same latitude with
+Central China, the Punjab, Palestine, Marocco, Georgia, Texas, and
+Central California, has a climate the warmth of which is at least equal
+to that of any of those regions.  Even in the more northern part of the
+country, the district about Baghdad, the thermometer often rises during
+the summer to 120 deg. of Fahrenheit in the shade; and the inhabitants
+are forced to retreat to their _serdabs_ or cellars, where they remain
+during the day, in an atmosphere which, by the entire exclusion of the
+sun’s rays, is reduced to about 100 deg.  Lower down the valley, at
+Zobair, Busrah, and Mohammrah, the summer temperature is still higher;
+and, owing to the moisture of the atmosphere, consequent on the vicinity
+of the sea, the heat is of that peculiarly oppressive character which
+prevails on the sea-coast of Hindustan, in Ceylon, in the West Indian
+Islands, at New Orleans, and in other places whose situation is similar.
+The vital powers languish under this oppression, which produces in the
+European a lassitude of body and a prostration of mind that wholly unfit
+him for active duties.  On the Asiatic, however, these influences seem to
+have little effect.  The Cha’b Arabs, who at present inhabit the region,
+are a tall and warlike race, strong-limbed, and muscular; they appear to
+enjoy the climate, and are as active, as healthy, and as long-lived as
+any tribe of their nation.  But if man by long residence becomes
+thoroughly inured to the intense heat of these regions, it is otherwise
+with the animal creation.  Camels sicken, and birds are so distressed by
+the high temperature that they sit in the date-trees about Baghdad, with
+their mouths open, panting for fresh air.
+
+The evils proceeding from a burning temperature are augmented in places
+under the influence of winds, which, arising suddenly, fill the air with
+an impalpable sand, sometimes circling about a point, sometimes driving
+with furious force across a wide extent of country.  The heated
+particles, by their contact with the atmosphere, increase its fervid
+glow, and, penetrating by the nose and mouth, dry up the moisture of the
+tongue, parch the throat, and irritate or even choke the lungs.  Earth
+and sky are alike concealed by the dusty storm, through which no object
+can be distinguished that is removed many yards; a lurid gleam surrounds
+the traveller, and seems to accompany him as he moves: every landmark is
+hid from view; and to the danger of suffocation is added that of becoming
+bewildered and losing all knowledge of the road.  Such are the perils
+encountered in the present condition of the country.  It may be doubted,
+however, if in the times with which we are here concerned the evils just
+described had an existence.  The sands of Chaldaea, which are still
+progressive and advancing, seem to have reached it from the Arabian
+Desert, to which they properly belong: year by year the drifts gain upon
+the alluvium, and threaten to spread over the whole country.  If we may
+calculate the earlier by the present rate of progress, we must conclude
+that anciently these shifting sands had at any rate not crossed the
+Euphrates.
+
+If the heat of summer be thus fierce and trying, the cold of winter must
+be pronounced to be very moderate.  Frost, indeed, is not unknown in the
+country: but the frosts are only slight.  Keen winds blow from the north,
+and in the morning the ground is often whitened by the congelation of the
+dew; the Arabs, impatient of a low temperature, droop and flag; but there
+is at no time any severity of cold; ice rarely forms in the marshes; snow
+is unknown; and the thermometer, even on the grass, does not often sink
+below 30 deg.  The Persian kings passed their winter in Babylon, on
+account of the mildness of the climate; and Indian princes, expelled from
+the Peninsula, are wont, from a similar cause, to fix their residence at
+Busrah or Baghdad.  The cold of which travellers speak is relative rather
+than positive.  The range of the thermometer in Lower Chaldoea is perhaps
+100 deg., whereas in England it is scarcely 80 deg., there is thus a
+greater difference between the heat of summer and the cold of winter
+there than here; but the actual greatest cold--that which benumbs the
+Arabs and makes them fall from their horses--is no more than we often
+experience in April, or even in May.
+
+The rainy season of Chaldaea is in the winter time.  Heavy showers fall
+in November, and still more in December, which sensibly raise the level
+of the rivers.  As the spring advances the showers become lighter and
+less frequent; but still they recur from time to time, until the summer
+sets in, about May.  From May to November rain is very rare indeed.  The
+sky continues for weeks or even months without a cloud; and the sun’s
+rays are only tempered for a short time at morning and at evening by a
+gray mist or haze.  It is during these months that the phenomenon of the
+mirage is most remarkable.  The strata of air, unequally heated, and
+therefore differing in rarity, refract the rays of light, fantastically
+enlarging and distorting the objects seen through them, which frequently
+appear raised from the ground and hanging in mid-air, or else, by a
+repetition of their image, which is reflected in a lower stratum, give
+the impression that they stand up out of a lake.  Hence the delusion
+which has so often driven the traveller to desperation--the “image of a
+cool, rippling, watery mirror,” which flies before him as he advances,
+and at once provokes and mocks his thirst.
+
+The fertility of Chaldaea in ancient times was proverbial.
+
+“Of all countries that we know,” says Herodotus, “there is none that is
+so fruitful in grain.  It makes no pretension, indeed, of growing the
+fig, the olive, the vine, or any other tree of the kind; but in grain it
+is so fruitful as to yield commonly two hundred-fold, and when the
+production is at the greatest, even three hundred-fold.  The blade of the
+wheat-plant and of the barley-plant is often four fingers in breadth.  As
+for the 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 not visited the country.”  Theophrastus, the
+disciple of Aristotle, remarks--“In Babylon the wheat-fields are
+regularly mown twice, and then fed off with beasts, to keep down the
+luxuriance of the leaf; otherwise the plant does not run to ear.  When
+this is done, the return, in lands that are badly cultivated, is
+fifty-fold; while, in those that are well farmed, it is a hundred-fold.”
+ Strabo observes--“The country produces barley on a scale not known
+elsewhere, for the return is said to be three hundred-fold.  All other
+wants are supplied by the palm, which furnishes not only bread, but wine,
+vinegar, honey, and meal.”  Pliny follows Theophrastus, with the
+exception that he makes the return of the wheat-crop, where the land is
+well farmed, a hundred and fifty-fold.  The wealth of the region was
+strikingly exhibited by the heavy demands which were made upon it by the
+Persian kings, as well as by the riches which, notwithstanding these
+demands, were accumulated in the hands of those who administered its
+government.  The money-tribute paid by Babylonia and Assyria to the
+Persians was a thousand talents of silver (nearly a quarter of a million
+of our money) annually; while the tribute in kind was reckoned at one
+third part of the contributions of the whole empire.  Yet, despite this
+drain on its resources, the government was regarded as the best that the
+Persian king had to bestow, and the wealth accumulated by Babylonian
+satraps was extraordinary.  Herodotus tells us of a certain
+Tritanteechmes, a governor, who, to his own knowledge, derived from his
+province nearly two bushels of silver daily!  This fortunate individual
+had a “stud of sixteen thousand mares, with a proportionate number of
+horses.”  Another evidence of the fertility of the region may be traced
+in the fear of Artaxerxes Mnemon, after the battle of Cunaxa, lest the
+Ten Thousand should determine to settle permanently in the vicinity of
+Sittace upon the Tigris.  Whatever opinion may be held as to the exact
+position of this place, and of the district intended by Xenophon, it is
+certain that it was in the alluvial plain and so contained within the
+limits of the ancient Chaldaea.
+
+Modern travellers, speaking of Chaldaea in its present condition, express
+themselves less enthusiastically than the ancients; but, on the whole,
+agree with them as to the natural capabilities of the country.  “The
+soil,” says one of the most judicious, “is extremely fertile, producing
+great quantities of rice, dates, and grain of different kinds, though it
+is not cultivated to above half the degree of which it is susceptible.”
+ “The soil is rich,” says another, “not less bountiful than that on the
+banks of the Egyptian Nile.”  “Although greatly changed by the neglect of
+man,” observes a third, “those portions of Mesopotamia which are still
+cultivated, as the country about Hillah, show that the region has all the
+fertility ascribed to it by Herodotus.”  There is a general recognition
+of the productive qualities of the district, combined with a general
+lamentation over the existing neglect and apathy which allow such gifts
+of Nature to run to waste.  Cultivation, we are told, is now the
+exception, instead of the rule.  “Instead of the luxuriant fields, the
+groves and gardens of former times, nothing now meets the eye but an arid
+waste.”  Many parts of Chaldaea, naturally as productive as any others,
+are at present pictures of desolation.  Large tracts are covered by
+unwholesome marshes, producing nothing but enormous reeds; others lie
+waste and bare, parched up by the fierce heat of the sun, and utterly
+destitute of water; in some places, as has been already mentioned,
+sand-drifts accumulate, and threaten to make the whole region a mere
+portion of the desert.
+
+The great cause of this difference between ancient and modern Chaldaea is
+the neglect of the water-courses.  Left to themselves, the rivers tend to
+desert some portions of the alluvium wholly, which then become utterly
+unproductive; while they spread themselves out over others, which are
+converted thereby into pestilential swamps.  A well-arranged system of
+embankments and irrigating canals is necessary in order to develop the
+natural capabilities of the country, and to derive from the rich soil of
+this vast alluvium the valuable and varied products which it can be made
+to furnish.
+
+Among the natural products of the region two stand out as pre-eminently
+important-the wheat-plant and the date-palm.  [PLATE IV., Fig.  2.]
+According to the native tradition, wheat was indigenous in Chaldaea; and
+the first comers thus found themselves provided by the bountiful hand of
+Nature with the chief necessary of life.  The luxuriance of the plant was
+excessive.  Its leaves were as broad as the palm of a man’s hand, and its
+tendency to grow leaves was so great that (as we have seen) the
+Babylonians used to mow it twice and then pasture their cattle on it for
+awhile, to keep down the blade and induce the plant to run to ear.  The
+ultimate return was enormous; on the most moderate computation it
+amounted to fifty-fold at the least, and often to a hundred-fold.  The
+modern oriental is content, even in the case of a rich soil, with a
+tenfold return.
+
+The date-palm was at once one of the most valuable and one of the most
+ornamental products of the country.  “Of all vegetable forms,” says the
+greatest of modern naturalists, “the palm is that to which the prize of
+beauty has been assigned by the concurrent voice of nations in all ages.”
+ And though the date-palm is in form perhaps less graceful and lovely than
+some of its sister species, it possesses in the dates themselves a beauty
+which they lack.  These charming yellow clusters, semi-transparent, which
+the Greeks likened to amber, and moderns compare to gold, contrast, both
+in shade and tint, with the green feathery branches beneath whose shade
+they hang, and give a richness to the landscape they adorn which adds
+greatly to its attractions.  And the utility of the palm has been at all
+times proverbial.  A Persian poem celebrated its three hundred and sixty
+uses.  The Greeks, with more moderation, spoke of it as furnishing the
+Babylonians with bread, wine, vinegar, honey, groats, string and ropes of
+all kinds, firing, and a mash for fattening cattle.  The fruit was
+excellent, and has formed at all times an important article of
+nourishment in the country.  It was eaten both fresh and dried, forming
+in the latter case a delicious sweetmeat.  The wine, “sweet but
+headachy,” was probably not the spirit which it is at present customary
+to distil from the dates, but the slightly intoxicating drink called
+_lagby_ in North Africa, which may be drawn from the tree itself by
+decapitating it, and suffering the juice to flow.  The vinegar was
+perhaps the same fluid corrupted, or it may have been obtained from the
+dates.  The honey was palm-sugar, likewise procurable from the sap.  How
+the groats were obtained we do not know; but it appears that the pith of
+the palm was eaten formerly in Babylonia, and was thought to have a very
+agreeable flavor.  Ropes were made from the fibres of the bark; and the
+wood was employed for building and furniture.  It was soft, light and
+easily worked; but tough, strong and fibrous.
+
+The cultivation of the date-palm was widely extended in Chaldaea,
+probably from very early times.  The combination of sand, moisture,
+and a moderately saline soil, in which it delights, was there found in
+perfection, more especially in the lower country, which had but recently
+been reclaimed from the sea.  Even now, when cultivation is almost wholly
+laid aside, a thick forest of luxuriant date-trees clothes the banks of
+the Euphrates on either side, from the vicinity of Mugheir to its
+embouchure at the head of the Persian Gulf.  Anciently the tract was much
+more generally wooded with them.  “Palm-trees grow in numbers over the
+whole of the flat country,” says one of the most observant and truthful
+of travellers--Herodotus.  According to the historians of Julian, a
+forest of verdure extended from the upper edge of the alluvium, which he
+crossed, to Mesene, and the shores of the sea.  When the Arabian
+conquerors settled themselves in the lower country, they were so charmed
+with the luxuriant vegetation and the abundant date-groves, that they
+compared the region with the country about Damascus and reckoned it among
+their four earthly paradises.  The propagation of the date-palm was
+chiefly from seed.  In Chaldaea, however, it was increased sometimes from
+suckers or offshoots thrown up from the stem of the old tree; at other
+times by a species of cutting, the entire head being struck off with
+about three feet of stem, notched, and then planted in moist ground.
+Several varieties of the tree were cultivated; but one was esteemed above
+all the rest, both for the size and flavor of the fruit.  It bore the
+name of “Royal,” and grew only in one place near Babylon.
+
+Beside these two precious products, Chaldaea produced excellent barley,
+millet, sesame, vetches and fruits of all kinds.  It was, however,
+deficient in variety of trees, possessing scarcely any but the palm and
+the cypress.  Pomegranates, tamarisks, poplars, and acacias are even now
+almost the only trees besides the two above mentioned, to be found
+between Samarah and the Persian Gulf.  The tamarisk grows chiefly as a
+shrub along the rivers, but sometimes attains the dimensions of a tree,
+as in the case of the “solitary tree” still growing upon the ruins of
+Babylon.  The pomegranates with their scarlet flowers, and the acacias
+with their light and graceful foliage, ornament the banks of the streams,
+generally intermingled with the far more frequent palm, while oranges,
+apples, pears, and vines are successfully cultivated in the gardens and
+orchards.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 5]
+
+Among the vegetable products of Chaldaea must be noticed, as almost
+peculiar to the region, its enormous reeds.  [PLATE  V.]  These, which
+are represented with much spirit in the sculptures of Sennacherib, cover
+the marshes in the summer-time, rising often to the height of fourteen or
+fifteen feet.  The Arabs of the marsh region form their houses of this
+material, binding the stems of the reeds together, and bending them into
+arches, to make the skeleton of their buildings; while, to form the
+walls, they stretch across from arch to arch mats made of the leaves.
+From the same fragile substance they construct their _terradas_ or light
+boats, which, when rendered waterproof by means of bitumen, will support
+the weight of three or four men.
+
+In mineral products Chaldaea was very deficient indeed.  The alluvium is
+wholly destitute of metals, and even of stone, which must be obtained, if
+wanted, from the adjacent countries.  The neighboring parts of Arabia
+could furnish sandstone and the more distant basalt; which appears to
+have been in fact transported occasionally to the Chaldaean Cities.
+Probably, however, the chief importation of stone was by the rivers,
+whose waters would readily convey it to almost any part of Chaldaea from
+the regions above the alluvium.  This we know to have been done in some
+cases, but the evidence of the ruins makes it clear that such importation
+was very limited.  The Chaldaeans found, in default of stone, a very
+tolerable material in their own country; which produced an inexhaustible
+supply of excellent clay, easily moulded into bricks, and not even
+requiring to be baked in order to fit it for the builder.  Exposure to
+the heat of the summer sun hardened the clay sufficiently for most
+purposes, while a few hours in a kiln made it as firm and durable as
+freestone, or even granite.  Chaldaea, again, yielded various substances
+suitable for mortar.  Calcareous earths abound on the western side of the
+Euphrates towards the Arabian frontier; while everywhere a tenacious
+slime or mud is easily procurable, which, though imperfect as a cement,
+can serve the purpose, and has the advantage of being always at hand.
+Bitumen is also produced largely in some parts, particularly at Hit,
+where are the inexhaustible springs which have made that spot famous in
+all ages.  Naphtha and bitumen are here given forth separately in equal
+abundance; and these two substances, boiled together in certain
+proportions, form a third kind of cement, superior to the slime or mud,
+but inferior to lime-mortar.  Petroleum, called by the Orientals _mumia_,
+is another product of the bitumen-pits.
+
+The wild animals indigenous in Babylonia appear to be chiefly the
+following:--the lion, the leopard, the hyeena, the lynx, the wild-cat,
+the wolf, the jackal, the wild-boar, the buffalo, the stag, the gazelle,
+the jerboa, the fox, the hare, the badger, and the porcupine.  The
+Mesopotamian lion is a noble animal.  Taller and larger than a Mount St.
+Bernard dog, he wanders over the plains their undisputed lord, unless
+when an European ventures to question his pre-eminence.  The Arabs
+tremble at his approach, and willingly surrender to him the choicest of
+their flocks and herds.  Unless urged by hunger, he seldom attacks man,
+but contents himself with the destruction of buffaloes, camels, dogs, and
+sheep.  When taken young, he is easily tamed, and then manifests
+considerable attachment to his master.  In his wild state he haunts the
+marshes and the banks of the various streams and canals, concealing
+himself during the day, and at night wandering abroad in search of his
+prey, to obtain which he will approach with boldness to the very skirts
+of an Arab encampment.  His roar is not deep or terrible, but like the
+cry of a child in pain, or the first wail of the jackal after sunset,
+only louder, clearer and more prolonged.  Two varieties of the lion
+appear to exist: the one is maneless, while the other has a long mane,
+which is black and shaggy.  The former is now the more common in the
+country; but the latter, which is the fiercer of the two, is the one
+ordinarily represented upon the sculptures.  The lioness is nearly as
+much feared as the lion; when her young are attacked, or when she has
+lost them, she is perhaps even more terrible.  Her roar is said to be
+deeper and far more imposing than of the male.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 6]
+
+The other animals require but few remarks.  Gazelles are plentiful in the
+more sandy regions; buffaloes abound in the marshes of the south, where
+they are domesticated, and form the chief wealth of the inhabitants;
+troops of jackals are common, while the hyaena and wolf are comparatively
+rare; the wild-boar frequents the river banks and marshes, as depicted in
+the Assyrian sculptures [PLATE VI., Fig.  1]; hares abound in the country
+about Baghdad; porcupines and badgers are found in most places--leopards,
+lynxes, wild-cats, and deer, are somewhat uncommon.
+
+Chaldaea possesses a great variety of birds.  Falcons, vultures, kites,
+owls, hawks and crows of various kinds, francolins or black partridges,
+pelicans, wild-geese, ducks, teal, cranes, herons, kingfishers, and
+pigeons, are among the most common.  The sand-grouse (Pterocles
+arenarius) is occasionally found, as also are the eagle and the
+bee-eater.  Fish are abundant in the rivers and marshes, principally
+barbel and carp, which latter grow to a great size in the Euphrates.
+Barbel form an important element in the food of the Arabs inhabiting the
+Affej marshes, who take them commonly by means of a fish-spear.  In the
+Shat-el-Arab, which is wholly within the influence of the tides, there
+is a species of goby, which is amphibious.  This fish lies in myriads on
+the mud-banks left uncovered by the ebb of the tide, and moves with
+great agility on the approach of birds.  Nature seems to have made the
+goby in one of her most freakish moods.  It is equally at home in the
+earth, the air, and the water; and at different times in the day may be
+observed swimming in the stream, basking upon the surface of the tidal
+banks, and burrowing deep in the mud.
+
+The domestic animals are camels, horses, buffaloes, cows and oxen, goats,
+sheep, and dogs.  The most valuable of the last mentioned are grayhounds,
+which are employed to course the gazelle and the hare.  The camels,
+horses, and buffaloes are of superior quality; but the cows and oxen seem
+to be a very inferior breed.  The goats and the sheep are small, and
+yield a scanty supply of a somewhat coarse wool.  Still their flocks and
+herds constitute the chief wealth of the people, who have nearly forsaken
+the agriculture which anciently gave Chaldaea its pre-eminence, and have
+relapsed very generally into a nomadic or semi-nomadic condition.  The
+insecurity of property consequent upon bad government has in a great
+measure caused this change, which render; the bounty of Nature useless,
+and allows immense capabilities to run to waste.  The present condition
+of Babylonia gives a most imperfect idea of its former state, which must
+be estimated not from modern statistics, but from the accounts of ancient
+writers and the evidences which he country itself presents.  From them we
+conclude that this region was among the most productive upon the face of
+the earth, spontaneously producing some of the best gifts of God to man,
+and capable, under careful management, of being made one continuous
+garden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PEOPLE.
+
+“A mighty nation, an ancient nation.”--JEREM. v. 15.
+
+That the great alluvial plain at the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris
+was among the countries first occupied by man after the Deluge, is
+affirmed by Scripture, and generally allowed by writers upon ancient
+history.  Scripture places the original occupation at a time when
+language had not yet broken up into its different forms, and when,
+consequently, races, as we now understand the term, can scarcely have
+existed.  It is not, however, into the character of these primeval
+inhabitants that we have here to inquire, but into the ethnic affinities
+and characteristics of that race, whatever it was, which first
+established an important kingdom in the lower part of the plain--a
+kingdom which eventually became an empire.  According to the ordinary
+theory, this race was Aramaic or Semitic.  “The name of Aramaeans,
+Syrians, or Assyrians,” says Niebuhr, “comprises the nations extending
+from the mouth of the Euphrates and Tigris to the Euxine, the river
+Halys, and Palestine.  They applied to themselves the name of Aram, and
+the Greeks called them Assyrians, which is the same as Syrians(?).
+Within that great extent of country there existed, of course, various
+dialectic differences of language; and there can be little doubt but that
+in some places the nation was mixed with other races.”  The early
+inhabitants of Lower Mesopotamia, however, he considers to have been pure
+Aramaeans, closely akin to the Assyrians, from whom, indeed, he regards
+them as only separate politically.
+
+Similar views are entertained by most modern writers.  Baron Bunsen, in
+one of his latest works, regards the fact as completely established by
+the results of recent researches in Babylonia.  Professor M. Muller,
+though expressing himself with more caution, inclines to the same
+conclusion.  Popular works, in the shape of Cyclopaedias and short
+general histories, diffuse the impression.  Hence a difficulty is felt
+with regard to the Scriptural statement concerning the first kingdom in
+these parts, which is expressly said to have been Cushite or Ethiopian.
+“And _Cush begat Nimrod:_ (he began to be a mighty one in the earth;
+he was a mighty hunter before the Lord; wherefore it is said, Even as
+Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord;) and the beginning of his
+kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of
+Shinar.”  According to this passage the early Chaldaeans should be
+Hamites, not Semites--Ethiopians, not Aramaans; they should present
+analogies and points of connection with the inhabitants of Egypt and
+Abyssinia, of Southern Arabia and Mekran, not with those of Upper
+Mesopotamia, Syria, Phoenicia, and Palestine.  It will be one of the
+objects of this chapter to show that the Mosaical narrative conveys the
+exact truth--a truth alike in accordance with the earliest classical
+traditions, and with the latest results of modern comparative philology.
+
+It will be desirable, however, before proceeding to establish the
+correctness of these assertions, to examine the grounds on which the
+opposite belief has been held so long and so confidently.  Heeren draws
+his chief argument from the supposed character of the language.  Assuming
+the form of speech called Chaldee to be the original tongue of the
+people, he remarks that it is “an Aramaean dialect, differing but
+slightly from the proper Syriac.”  Chaldee is known partly from the
+Jewish Scriptures, in which it is used occasionally, partly from the
+Targums (or Chaldaean paraphrases of different portions of the Sacred
+Volume), some of which belong to about the time of the Apostles.  and
+partly from the two Talmuds, or collections of Jewish traditions, made in
+the third and fifth centuries of our era.  It has been commonly regarded
+as the language of Babylon at the time of the Captivity, which the Jews,
+as captives, were forced to learn, and which thenceforth took the place
+of their own tongue.  But it is extremely doubtful whether this is a true
+account of the matter.  The Babylonian language of the age of
+Nebuchadnezzar is found to be far nearer to Hebrew than to Chaldee, which
+appears therefore to be misnamed, and to represent the western rather
+than the eastern Aramaic.  The Chaldee argument thus falls to the ground:
+but in refuting it an admission has been made which may be thought to
+furnish fully as good proof of early Babylonian Semitism as the rejected
+theory.
+
+It has been said that the Babylonian language in the time of
+Nebuchadnezzar is found to be far nearer to Hebrew than to Chaldee.  It
+is, in fact, very close indeed to the Hebrew.  The Babylonians of that
+period, although they did not speak the tongue known to modern linguists
+as Chaldee, did certainly employ a Semitic or Aramaean dialect, and so
+far may be set down as Semites.  And this is the ground upon which such
+modern philologists as still maintain the Semitic character of the
+primitive Chaldaeans principally rely.  But it can be proved from the
+inscriptions of the country, that between the date of the first
+establishment of a Chaldaean kingdom and the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the
+language of Lower Mesopotamia underwent an entire change.  To whatever
+causes this may have been owing--a subject which will be hereafter
+investigated--the fact is certain; and it entirely destroys the force of
+the argument from the language of the Babylonians at the later period.
+
+Another ground, and that which seems to have had the chief weight with
+Niebuhr, is the supposed identity or intimate connection of the
+Babylonians with the Assyrians.  That the latter people were Semites has
+never been denied; and, indeed, it is a point supported by such an amount
+of evidence as renders it quite unassailable.  If, therefore the
+primitive Babylonians were once proved to be a mere portion of the far
+greater Assyrian nation, locally and politically, but not ethnically
+separate from them, their Semitic character would thereupon be fully
+established.  Now that this was the belief of Herodotus must be at once
+allowed.  Not only does that writer regard the later Babylonians as
+Assyrians--“Assyrians of Babylon,” as he expresses it--and look on
+Babylonia as a mere “district of Assyria,” but, by adopting the mythic
+genealogy, which made Ninus the son of Belus, he throws back the
+connection to the very origin of the two nations, and distinctly
+pronounces it a connection of race.  But Herodotus is a very weak
+authority on the antiquities of any nation, even his own; and it is not
+surprising that he should have carried back to a remote period a state of
+things which he saw existing in his own age.  If the later Babylonians
+were, in manners and customs, in religion and in language, a close,
+counterpart of the Assyrians, he would naturally suppose them descended
+from the same stock.  It is his habit to transfer back to former times
+the condition of things in his own day.  Thus he calls the inhabitants of
+the Peloponnese before the Dorian invasion “Dorians,” regards Athens as
+the second city in Greece when Creesus sent his embassies, and describes
+as the ancient Persian religion that corrupted form which existed under
+Artaxerxes Longimanus.  He is an excellent authority for what he had
+himself seen, or for what he had laboriously collected by inquiry from
+eye witnesses; but he had neither the critical acumen nor the linguistic
+knowledge necessary for the formation of a trust worthy opinion on a
+matter belonging to the remote history of a distant people.  And the
+opinion of Herodotus as to the ethnic identity of the two nations is
+certainly not confirmed by other ancient writers.  Berosus seems to have
+very carefully distinguished between the Assyrians and the Babylonians or
+Chaldaeans, as may be seen even through the doubly-distorting medium of
+Polyhistor and the Armenian Eusebius.  Diodorus Siculus made the two
+nations separate and hostile in very early times.  Pliny draws a clear
+line between the “Chaldaean races,” of which Babylon was the head, and
+the Assyrians of the region above them.  Even Herodotus in one place
+admits a certain amount of ethnic difference; for, in his list of the
+nations forming the army of Xerxes, he mentions the Chaldaeans as serving
+with, but not included among, the Assyrians.
+
+The grounds, then, upon which the supposed Semitic character of the
+ancient Chaldaeans has been based, fail, one and all; and it remains to
+consider whether we have data sufficient to justify us in determinately
+assigning them to any other stock.
+
+Now a large amount of tradition--classical and other--brings Ethiopians
+into these parts, and connects, more or less distinctly, the early
+dwellers upon the Persian Gulf with the inhabitants of the Nile valley,
+especially with those upon its upper course.  Homer, speaking of the
+Ethiopians, says that they were “divided,” and dwelt “at the ends of
+earth, towards the setting and the rising sun.”  This passage has been
+variously apprehended.  It has been supposed to mean the mere division of
+the Ethiopians south of Egypt by the river Nile, whereby some inhabited
+its eastern and some its western bank.  Again it has been explained as
+referring to the east and west coasts of Africa, both found by voyagers
+to be in the possession of Ethiopians, who were “divided” by the vast
+extent of continent that lay between them.  But the most satisfactory
+explanation is that which Strabo gives from Ephorus, that the Ethiopians
+were considered as occupying all the south coast both of Asia and Africa,
+and as “divided” by the Arabian Gulf (which separated the two continents)
+into eastern and western-Asiatic and African.  This was an “old opinion”
+ of the Greeks, we are told; and, though Strabo thinks it indicated their
+ignorance, we may perhaps be excused for holding it that it might not
+improbably have arisen from real, though imperfect, knowledge.
+
+The traditions with respect to Memnon serve very closely to connect Egypt
+and Ethiopia with the country at the head of the Persian Gulf.  Memnon,
+King of Ethiopia, according to Hesiod and Pindar, is regarded by
+‘Eschylus as the son of a Cissian woman, and by Herodotus and others as
+the founder of Susa.  He leads an army of combined Susianians and
+Ethiopians to the assistance of Priam, his father’s brother, and, after
+greatly distinguishing himself, perishes in one of the battles before
+Troy.  At the same time he is claimed as one of their monarchs by the
+Ethiopians upon the Nile, and identified by the Egyptians with their
+king, Amunoph III., whose statue became known as “the vocal Memnon.”
+ Sometimes his expedition is supposed to have started from the African
+Ethiopia, and to have proceeded by way of Egypt to its destination.
+There were palaces, called “Memnonia,” and supposed to have been built
+by him, both in Egypt and at Susa; and there was a tribe, called
+Memnones, near Meroe.  Memnon thus unites the Eastern and the Western
+Ethiopians; and the less we regard him as an historical personage, the
+more must we view him as personifying the ethnic identity of the two
+races.
+
+The ordinary genealogies containing the name of Belus point in the same
+direction, and serve more definitely to connect the Babylonians with the
+Cushites of the Nile.  Pherecydes, who is an earlier writer than
+Herodotus, makes Agenor, the son of Neptune, marry Damno, the daughter of
+Belus, and have issue Phoenix, Isaea, and Melia, of whom Melia marries
+Danaus, and Isaea Aegyptus.  Apollodorus, the disciple of Eratosthenes,
+expresses the connection thus:--“Neptune took to wife Libya (or Africa),
+and had issue Belus and Agenor.  Belus married Anchinoe, daughter of
+Nile, who gave birth to AEgyptus, Danaus, Cepheus, and Phineus.  Agenor
+married Telephassa, and had issue Europa, Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix.”
+ Eupolemus, who professes to record the Babylonian tradition on the
+subject, tells us that the first Belus, whom he identifies with Saturn,
+had two sons, Belus and Canaan.  Canaan begat the progenitor of the
+Phoenicians (Phoenix?), who had two sons, Chum and Mestraim, the
+ancestors respectively of the Ethiopians and the Egyptians.  Charax of
+Pergamus spoke of AEgyptus as the son of Belus.  John of Antioch agrees
+with Apollodorus, but makes certain additions.  According to him, Neptune
+and Lybia had three children, Agenor, Belus, and Enyalius or Mars.  Belus
+married Sida, and had issue AEgyptus and Danaus; while Agenor married
+Tyro, and became the father of five children--Cadmus, Phoenix, Syrus,
+Cilix, and Europa.
+
+Many further proofs might be adduced, were they needed, of the Greek
+belief in an Asiatic Ethiopia, situated somewhere between Arabia and
+India, on the shores of the Erythraean Sea.  Herodotus twice speaks of
+the Ethiopians of Asia, whom he very carefully distinguishes from those
+of Africa, and who can only be sought in this position.  Ephorus, as we
+have already seen, extended the Ethiopians along the whole of the coast
+washed by the Southern Ocean.  Eusebius has preserved a tradition that,
+in the reign of Amenophis III., a body of Ethiopians migrated from the
+country about the Indus, and settled in the valley of the Nile.  Hesiod
+and Apollodorus, by making Memnon, the Ethiopian king, son of the Dawn
+(Greek) imply their belief in an Ethiopia situated to the east rather
+than to the south of Greece.  These are a few out of the many similar
+notices which it would be easy to produce from classical writers,
+establishing, if not the fact itself, yet at any rate a full belief in
+the fact on the part of the best informed among the ancient Greeks.
+
+The traditions of the Armenians are in accordance with those of the
+Greeks.  The Armenian Geography applies the name of Cush, or Ethiopia, to
+the four great regions, Media, Persia, Susiana or Elymais, and Aria, or
+to the whole territory between the Indus and the Tigris.  Moses of
+Chorene, the great Armenian historian, identifies Belus, King of Babylon,
+with Nimrod; while at the same time he adopts for him a genealogy only
+slightly different from that in our present copies of Genesis, making
+Nimrod the grandson of Cush, and the son of Mizraim.  He thus connects,
+in the closest way, Babylonia, Egypt, and Ethiopia Proper, uniting
+moreover, by his identification of Nimrod with Belus, the Babylonians of
+later times who worshipped Belus as their hero-founder, with the
+primitive population introduced into the country by Nimrod.
+
+The names of Belus and Cush, thus brought into juxtaposition, have
+remained attached to some portion or other of the region in question from
+ancient times to the present day.  The tract immediately east of the
+Tigris was known to the Greeks as Cissia or Cossaea, no less than as
+Elymais or Elam.  The country east of Kerman was named Kusan throughout
+the Sassanian period.  The same region is now Beloochistan, the country
+of the Belooches or Belus, while adjoining it on the east is Cutch, or
+Kooch, a term standing to Cush is Belooch stands to Belus.  Again, Cissia
+or Cossaea is now Khuzistan, or the land of Khuz a name not very remote
+from Cush; but perhaps this is only a coincidence.
+
+To the traditions and traces here enumerated must be added, as of primary
+importance, the Biblical tradition, which is delivered to us very simply
+and plainly in that precious document the “Toldoth Beni Noah,” or “Book
+of the Generations of the Sons of Noah,” which well deserves to be called
+“the most authentic record that we possess for the affiliation of
+nations.”  “The sons of Ham,” we are told, “were Cush, and Mizraim, and
+Phut, and Canaan . . . .  And Cush begat Nimrod . . . .  And the
+beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in
+the land of Shinar.”  Here a primitive Babylonian kingdom is assigned to
+a people distinctly said to have been Cushite by blood, and to have stood
+in close connection with Mizraim, or the people of Egypt, Phut, or those
+of Central Africa, and Canaan, or those of Palestine.  It is the simplest
+and the best interpretation of this passage to understand it as asserting
+that the four races--the Egyptians, Ethiopians, Libyans, and
+Canaanites--were ethnically connected, being all descended from Ham; and
+further, that the primitive people of Babylon were a subdivision of one
+of these races, namely of the Cushites or Ethiopians, connected in some
+degree with the Canaanites, Egyptians, and Libyans, but still more
+closely with the people which dwelt anciently upon the Upper Nile.
+
+The conclusions thus recommended to us by the consentient primitive
+traditions of so many races, have lately received most important and
+unexpected confirmation from the results of linguistic research.  After
+the most remarkable of the Mesopotamian mounds had yielded their
+treasures, and supplied the historical student with numerous and copious
+documents bearing upon the history of the great Assyrian and Babylonian
+empires, it was determined to explore Chaldaea Proper, where mounds of
+less pretension, but still of considerable height, marked the sites of a
+number of ancient cities.  The excavations conducted at these places,
+especially at Niffer, Senkereh, Warka, and Mugheir, were eminently
+successful.  Among their other unexpected results was the discovery, in
+the most ancient remains, of a new form of speech, differing greatly from
+the later Babylonian language and presenting analogies with the early
+language of Susiana, as well as with that of the second column of the
+Achoemenian inscriptions.  In grammatical structure this ancient tongue
+resembles dialects of the Turanian family, but its vocabulary has been
+pronounced to be “decidedly Cushite or Ethiopian;” and the modern
+languages to which it approaches the nearest are thought to be the Mahra
+of Southern Arabia and the Galla of Abyssinia. Thus comparative philology
+appears to confirm the old traditions.  An Eastern Ethiopia instead of
+being the invention of bewildered ignorance, is rather a reality which
+henceforth it will require a good deal of scepticism to doubt; and the
+primitive race which bore sway in Chaldaea Proper is with much
+probability assigned to this ethnic type. The most striking physical
+characteristics of the African Ethiopians were their swart complexions,
+and their crisp or frizzled hair.  According to Herodotus the Asiatic
+Ethiopian: were equally dark, but their hair was straight and not
+frizzled.  Probably in neither case was the complexion what we understand
+by black, but rather a dark red-brown or copper color, which is the tint
+of the modern Gallas and Abyssinians, as well as of the Cha’b and
+Montefik Arabs and the Belooches.  The hair was no doubt abundant; but it
+was certainly not woolly like that of the negroes.  There is a marked
+distinction between the negro hair and that of the Ethiopian race, which
+is sometimes straight, sometimes crisp, but never woolly.  This
+distinction is carefully marked in the Egyptian monuments, as is also the
+distinction between the Ethiopian and negro complexions; whence we may
+conclude that there was as much difference between the two races in
+ancient as in modern times.  The African races descended from the
+Ethiopians are on the whole a handsome rather than an ugly people; their
+figure is slender and well shaped; their features are regular, and have
+some delicacy; the forehead is straight and fairly high; the nose long,
+straight, and fine, but scarcely so prominent as that of Europeans; the
+chin is pointed and good.  [PLATE VI., Fig. 2.]
+
+The principal defect is in the mouth, which has lips too thick and full
+for beauty, though they are not turned out like a negro’s.  We do not
+possess any representations of the ancient people which can be distinctly
+assigned to the early Cushite period.  Abundant hair has been noticed in
+an early tomb; and this in the later Babylonians, who must have been
+descended in great part from the earlier, was very conspicuous;  but
+otherwise we have as yet no direct evidence with respect to the physical
+characteristics of the primitive race.  That they were brave and warlike,
+ingenious, energetic, and persevering, we have ample evidence, which will
+appear in later chapters of this work; but we can do little more than
+conjecture their physical appearance, which, however, we may fairly
+suppose to have resembled that of other Ethiopian nations.
+
+When the early inhabitants of ChaldAea are pronounced to have belonged to
+the same race with the dwellers upon the Upper Nile, the question
+naturally arises, which were the primitive people, and which the
+colonists?  Is the country at the head of the Persian Gulf to be regarded
+as the original abode of the Cushite race, whence it spread eastward and
+westward, on the one hand to Susiana, Persia Proper, Carmania, Gedrosia,
+and India itself; on the other to Arabia and the east coast of Africa?
+Or are we to suppose that the migration proceeded in one direction
+only--that the Cushites, having occupied the country immediately to the
+south of Egypt, sent their colonies along the south coast of Arabia,
+whence they crept on into the Persian Gulf, occupying Chaldaea and
+Susiana, and thence spreading into Mekran, Kerman, and the regions
+bordering upon the Indus?  Plausible reasons maybe adduced in support of
+either hypothesis. The situation of Babylonia, and its proximity to that
+mountain region where man must have first “increased and multiplied”
+ after the Flood, are in favor of its being the original centre from
+which the other Cushite races were derived.  The Biblical genealogy of
+the sons of Ham points, however, the other way; for it derives Nimrod
+from Cush, not Cush from Nimrod.  Indeed this document seems to follow
+the Hamites from Africa--emphatically “the land of Ham”--in one line
+along Southern Arabia to Shinar or Babylonia, in another from Egypt
+through Canaan into Syria. The antiquity of civilization in the valley
+of the Nile, which preceded by many centuries that even of primitive
+Chaldaea, is another argument in favor of the migration having been from
+west to east; and the monuments and traditions of the Chaldaeans
+themselves have been thought to present some curious indications of an
+East African origin.  On the whole, therefore, it seems most probable
+that the race designated in Scripture by the hero-founder Nimrod, and
+among the Greeks by the eponym of Belus, passed from East Africa, by way
+of Arabia, to the valley of the Euphrates, shortly before the opening of
+the historical period.
+
+Upon the ethnic basis here indicated, there was grafted, it would seem,
+at a very early period, a second, probably Turanian, element, which very
+importantly affected the character and composition of the people.  The
+_Burbur_ or _Akkad,_ who are found to have been a principal tribe under
+the early kings, are connected by name, religion, and in some degree by
+language, with an important people of Armenia, called _Burbur_ and
+_Urarda,_ the Alarodians (apparently) of Herodotus.  It has been
+conjectured that this race at a very remote date descended upon the plain
+country, conquering the original Cushite inhabitants, and by degrees
+blending with them, though the fusion remained incomplete to the time of
+Abraham.  The language of the early inscriptions, though Cushite in its
+vocabulary, is Turanian in many points of its grammatical structure, as
+in its use of post-positions, particles, and pronominal suffixes; and it
+would seem, therefore, scarcely to admit of a doubt that the Cushites of
+Lower Babylon must in some way or other have become mixed with a Turanian
+people.  The mode and time of the commixture are matters altogether
+beyond our knowledge.  We can only note the fact as indicated by the
+phenomena, and form, or abstain from forming, as we please, hypotheses
+with respect to its accompanying circumstances.
+
+Besides these two main constituents of the Chaldaean race, there is
+reason to believe that both a Semitic and an Arian element existed in the
+early population of the country.  The subjects of the early kings are
+continually designated in the inscriptions by the title of
+_kiprat-arbat,_ “the four nations,” or _arba lisun,_ “the four tongues.”
+ In Abraham’s time, again, the league of four kings seems correspondent
+to a fourfold ethnic division, Cushite, Turanian, Semitic, and Arian,
+the chief authority and ethnic preponderance being with the Cushites.
+The language also of the early inscriptions is thought to contain traces
+of Semitic and Arian influence; so that it is at least probable that the
+“four tongues” intended were not mere local dialects, but distinct
+languages, the representatives respectively of the four great families
+of human speech.
+
+It would result from this review of the linguistic facts and other ethnic
+indications, that the Chaldaeans were not a pure, but a very mixed
+people.  Like the Romans in ancient and the English in modern Europe,
+they were a “colluvio gentium omnium,” a union of various races between
+which there was marked and violent contrast.  It is now generally
+admitted that such races are among those which play the most
+distinguished part in the world’s history, and most vitally affect its
+progress.
+
+With respect to the name of Chaldaean, under which it has been customary
+to designate this mixed people, it is curious to find that in the native
+documents of the early period it does not occur at all.  Indeed it first
+appears in the Assyrian inscriptions of the ninth century before our era,
+being then used as the name of the dominant race in the country about
+Babylon.  Still, as Berosus, who cannot easily have been ignorant of the
+ancient appellation of his race, applies the term Chaldaean to the
+primitive people, and as Scripture assigns Ur to the Chaldees as early as
+the time of Abraham, we are entitled to assume that this term, whenever
+it came historically into use, is in fact no unfit designation for the
+early inhabitants of the country.  Perhaps the most probable account of
+the origin of the word is that it designates properly the inhabitants of
+the ancient capital, Ur or Hur-Khaldi being in the Burbur dialect the
+exact equivalent of Hur, which was the proper name of the Moon-God, and
+Chaldaeans being thus either “Moon-worshippers,” or simply “inhabitants
+of the town dedicated to, and called after, the Moon.”  Like the term
+“Babylonian,” it would at first have designated simply the dwellers in
+the capital, and would subsequently have been extended to the people
+generally.
+
+A different theory has of late years been usually maintained with respect
+to the Chaldaeans.  It has been supposed that they were a race entirely
+distinct from the early Babylonians--Armenians, Arabs, Kurds, or Sclaves
+--who came down from the north long after the historical period, and
+settled as the dominant race in the lower Mesopotamian valley.
+Philological arguments of the weakest and most unsatisfactory character
+were confidently adduced in support of these views; but they obtained
+acceptance chiefly on account of certain passages of Scripture, which
+were thought to imply that the Chaldaeans first colonized Babylonia in
+the seventh or eighth century before Christ.  The most important of these
+passages is in Isaiah.  That prophet, in his denunciation of woe upon
+Tyre, says, according to our translation,--“Behold the land of the
+Chaldaeans this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them
+that dwell in the wilderness; they set up the towers thereof, they raised
+up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin;” or, according to
+Bishop Lowth, “Behold the land of the Chaldaeans.  This people was of no
+account.  (The Assyrians founded it for the inhabitants of the desert,
+they raised the watch-towers, they setup the palaces thereof.) This
+people hath reduced her and shall reduce her to ruin.”  It was argued
+that we had here a plain declaration that, till a little before Isaiah’s
+time, the Chaldaeans had never existed as a nation.  Then, it was said,
+they obtained for the first time fixed habitations from one of the
+Assyrian kings, who settled them in a city, probably Babylon.  Shortly
+afterwards, following the analogy of so many Eastern races, they suddenly
+sprang up to power.  Here another passage of Scripture was thought to
+have an important bearing on their history.  “Lo! I raise up the
+Chaldaeans,” says Habakkuk, “that bitter and hasty nation, which shall
+march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwelling places that
+are not theirs.  They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their
+dignity shall proceed of themselves; their horses also are swifter than
+the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their
+horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far;
+they shall fly as an eagle that hasteth to eat; they shall come all for
+violence; their faces shall nip as the east wind, and they shall gather
+the captivity as the sand.  And they shall scoff at the kings, and the
+princes shall be a scorn unto them; they shall deride every stronghold;
+they shall heap dust and take it.”  The Chaldaeans, recent occupants of
+Lower Mesopotamia, and there only a dominant race, like the Normans in
+England or the Lombards in North Italy, were, on a sudden, “raised”
+ elevated from their low estate of Assyrian colonists to the conquering
+people which they became under Nebuchadnezzar.
+
+Such was the theory, originally advanced by Gesenius, which, variously
+modified by other writers, held its ground on the whole as the
+established view, until the recent cuneiform discoveries.  It was, from
+the first, a theory full of difficulty.  The mention of the Chaldaeans in
+Job, and even in Genesis, as a well-known people, was in contradiction to
+the supposed recent origin of the race.  The explanation of the obscure
+passage in the 23d chapter of Isaiah, on which the theory was mainly
+based, was at variance with other clearer passages of the same prophet.
+Babylon is called by Isaiah the “_daughter_ of the Chaldaeans,” and is
+spoken of as an ancient city, long “the glory of kingdoms,” the oppressor
+of nations, the power that “smote the people in wrath with a continual
+stroke.”  She is “the lady of kingdoms,” and “the beauty of the Chaldees’
+excellency.”  The Chaldaeans are thus in Isaiah, as elsewhere generally
+in Scripture, the people of Babylonia, the term “Babylonians” not being
+used by him; Babylon is their chief city, not one which they have
+conquered and occupied, but their “daughter”--“the beauty of their
+excellency;” and so all the antiquity and glory which is assigned to
+Babylon belong necessarily in Isaiah’s mind to the Chaldaeans.  The
+verse, therefore, in the 23d chapter, on which so much has been built,
+can at most refer to some temporary depression of the Chaldaeans, which
+made it a greater disgrace to Tyre that she should be conquered by them.
+Again, the theory of Gesenius took no account of the native historian,
+who is (next to Scripture) the best literary authority for the facts of
+Babylonian history.  Berosus not only said nothing of any influx of an
+alien race into Babylonia shortly before the time of Nebuchadnezzar, but
+pointedly identified the Chaldaeans of that period with the primitive
+people of the country.  Nor can it be said that he would do this from
+national vanity, to avoid the confession of a conquest, for he admits no
+fewer than three conquests of Babylon, a “Midian, an Arabian, and an
+Assyrian.”  Thus, even apart from the monuments, the theory in question
+would be untenable.  It really originated in linguistic speculations,
+which turn out to have been altogether mistaken.
+
+The joint authority of Scripture and of Berosus will probably be accepted
+as sufficient to justify the adoption of a term which, if not strictly
+correct, is yet familiar to us, and which will conveniently serve to
+distinguish the primitive monarchy, whose chief seats were in Chaldaea
+Proper (or the tract immediately bordering upon the Persian Gulf), from
+the later Babylonian Empire, which had its head-quarters further to the
+north.  The people of this first kingdom will therefore be called
+Chaldaeans, although there is no evidence that they applied the name to
+themselves, or that it was even known to them in primitive times.
+
+The general character of this remarkable people will best appear from the
+account, presently to be given, of their manners, their mode of life,
+their arts, their science, their religion, and their history.  It is not
+convenient to forestall in this place the results of almost all our
+coming inquiries.  Suffice it to observe that, though possessed of not
+many natural advantages, the Chaldaean people exhibited a fertility of
+invention, a genius, and an energy which place them high in the scale of
+nations, and more especially in the list of those descended from a
+Hamitic stock.  For the last 3000 years the world has been mainly
+indebted for its advancement to the Semitic and Indo-European races; but
+it was otherwise in the first ages.  Egypt and Babylon--Mizraim and
+Nimrod--both descendants of Ham--led the way, and acted as the pioneers
+of mankind in the various untrodden fields of art, literature, and
+science.  Alphabetic writing, astronomy, history, chronology,
+architecture, plastic art, sculpture, navigation, agriculture, textile
+industry, seem, all of them, to have had their origin in one or other of
+these two countries.  The beginnings may have been often humble enough.
+We may laugh at the rude picture-writing, the uncouth brick pyramid, the
+coarse fabric, the homely and ill-shapen instruments, as they present
+themselves to our notice in the remains of these ancient nations; but
+they are really worthier of our admiration than of our ridicule.  The
+first inventors of any art are among the greatest benefactors of their
+race; and the bold step which they take from the unknown to the known,
+from blank ignorance to discovery, is equal to many steps of subsequent
+progress.  “The commencement,” says Aristotle, “is more than half of the
+whole.”  This is a sound judgment; and it will be well that we should
+bear it in mind during the review, on which we are about to enter, of the
+language, writing, useful and ornamental art, science, and literature of
+the Chaldaeans.  “The child is father of the man,” both in the individual
+and the species; and the human race at the present day lies under
+infinite obligations to the genius and industry of early ages.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+LANGUAGE AND WRITING.
+
+It was noted in the preceding chapter that Chaldaea, in the earliest
+times to which we can go back, seems to have been inhabited by four
+principal tribes.  The early kings are continually represented on the
+monuments as sovereigns over the Kiprat-arbat, or, Four Races.  These
+“Four Races” are called sometimes the Arba Lisun, or “Four Tongues,”
+ whence we may conclude that they were distinguished from one another,
+among other differences, by a variety in their forms of speech.  The
+extent and nature of the variety could not, of course, be determined
+merely from this expression; but the opinion of those who have most
+closely studied the subject appears to be that the differences were great
+and marked-the languages in fact belonging to the four great varieties of
+human speech--Hamitic, Semitic, Arian, and Turanian.
+
+The language which the early inscriptions have revealed to us is not, of
+course, composed equally of these four elements.  It does, however,
+contain strong marks of admixture.  It is predominantly Cushite in its
+vocabulary, Turanian in its structure.  Its closest analogies are with
+such dialects as the _Mahra_ of Arabia, the _Galla_ and _Wolaitsa_ of
+Abyssinia, and the ancient language of Egypt, but in certain cases it
+more resembles the Turkish.  Tatar, and Magyar (Turanian) dialects; while
+in some it presents Semitic and in others Arian affinities.  This will
+appear sufficiently from the following list:
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 42]
+
+_Dingir, or Dimir,_ “God.”  Compare Turkish _Tengri_.
+_Atta,_ “father.”  Compare Turkish atta. _Etea_ is “father” in the
+Wolaitsa (Abyssinian) dialect.
+_Sis,_ “brother.”  Compare Wolaitsa and Woratta _isha_.
+_Tur,_ “a youth,” “a son,” Compare the _tur-khan_ of the Parthians
+     (Turanians), who was the Crown Prince.
+_E,_ “a house.”  Compare ancient Egyptian _e,_ and Turkish _ev_.
+_Ka,_ “a gate.”  Compare Turkish _kapi_.
+_Kharran,_ “a road.”  Compare Galla _kara_.
+_Huru,_ “a town.”  Compare Heb. [--]
+_Ar,_ “a river.”  Compare Heb. [--] , Arab. _nahr_.
+_Gabri_, “a mountain.”  Compare Arabic _jabal_.
+_Ki,_ “the earth.”
+ _Kingi,_ “a country.”
+ _San,_ “the sun.”
+ _Kha,_ “a fish”(?).
+_Kurra,_ “a horse.”  Compare Arabic _gurra_.
+_Guski,_ “gold.”  Compare Galla _irerke_.  _Guski_ means also “red” and
+“the evening.”
+ _Babar,_ “silver,” “white,” “the morning.”  Compare Agau _ber,_ Tigre
+     _burrur_.
+_Zabar,_ “copper.”  Compare Arabic _sifr_.
+_Hurud,_ “iron.”  Compare Arabic _hadid_.
+_Zakad,_ “the head.”  Compare Gonga _toko_.
+_Kat,_ “the hand.”  Compare Gonga _kiso_.
+_Si,_ “the eye.”
+ _Pi,_ “the ear.”  Compare Magyar _ful_.
+_Gula,_ “great.”  Compare Galla _guda_.
+_Tura,_  “little.”  Compare Gonga _tu_ and Galla _tina_.
+_Kelga,_ “powerful.”
+ _Ginn,_ “first.”
+ _Mis,_ “many.”  Compare Agau _minch_ or _mench_.
+_Gar,_  “to do.”
+ _Egir,_ “after.”  Compare Hhamara (Abyssinian) _igria_.
+
+The grammar of this language is still but very little known.  The
+conjugations of verbs are said to be very intricate and difficult, a
+great variety of verbal forms being from the same root as in Hebrew, by
+means of preformatives.  Number and person in the verbs are marked by
+suffixes--the third person singular (masculine) by _bi_ (compare Gonga
+_bi,_ “he”), or _ani_ (compare Galla _enni,_ “he”), the third person
+plural by _bi-nini_.
+
+The accusative case in nouns is marked by a postposition, _ku_, as in
+Hindustani.  The plural of pronouns and substantives is formed sometimes
+by reduplication.  Thus _ni_ is “him,” while _nini_ is “them;” and
+_Chanaan, Yavnan, Libnan_ seem to be plural forms from _Chna, Yavan_ and
+_Liban_.
+
+A curious anomaly occurs in the declension of pronouns.’ When accompanied
+by the preposition kita, “with,” there is a tmesis of the preposition,
+and the pronouns are placed between its first and second syllable; e.g.
+vi, him’’-ki-ni-ta, “with him.”  This takes place in every number and
+person, as the following scheme will show:--
+
+                    1st person.    2d person.      3d person.
+
+         Sing.      _ki-mu-ta_     _ki-zu-ta_      _ki-ni-ta_
+                     (with me)     (with thee)     (with him)
+
+         Plur.      _ki mi-ta_    _ki zu-nini-ta_  _ki-nini-ta_
+                     (with us)      (with you)     (with them)
+
+N. B.--The formation of the second person plural deserves attention.  The
+word _zu-nini_ is, clearly, composed of the two elements, _zu,_ “thee,”
+ and _nini,_ “them”--so that instead of having a word for “you,” the
+Chaldaeans employed for it the periphrasis “thee-them”!  There is, I
+believe, no known language which presents a parallel anomaly.
+
+Such are the chief known features of this interesting but difficult form
+of speech.  A specimen may now be given of the mode in which it was
+written.  Among the earliests of the monuments hitherto discovered are a
+set of bricks bearing the following cuneiform inscription [PLATE VI.,
+Fig. 3]:
+
+This inscription is explained to mean:--“Beltis, his lady, has caused
+Urukh (?), the pious chief, King of Hur, and King of the land (?) of the
+Akkad, to build a temple to her.”  In the same locality where it occurs,
+bricks are also found bearing evidently the same inscription, but written
+in a different manner.  Instead of the wedge and arrow-head being the
+elements of the writing, the whole is formed by straight lines of almost
+uniform thickness, and the impression seems to have been made by a single
+stamp.  [PLATE VII., Fig. 1.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 7]
+
+This mode of writing, which has been called without much reason “the
+hieratic,” and of which we have but a small number of instances, has
+confirmed a conjecture, originally suggested by the early cuneiform
+writing itself, that the characters were at first the pictures of
+objects.  In some cases the pictorial representation is very plain and
+palpable.
+
+     [Etext Editor’s Note: the next two pages contain many examples
+     of heiratic symbols [--] which can be seen only in the html file
+     or the jpg image <page0044.jpg>]
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 44]
+
+For instance, the “determinative” of a god--the sign that is, which marks
+that the name of a god is about to follow, in this early rectilinear
+writing is [--] an eight-rayed star.  The archaic cuneiform keeps closely
+to this type, merely changing the lines into wedges, thus [--], while the
+later cuneiform first unites the oblique wedges in one [--] , and then
+omits them as unnecessary, retaining only the perpendicular and the
+horizontal ones [--] .  Again, the character representing the word “hand”
+ is, in the rectilinear writing [--] , in the archaic cuneiform [--] ,
+in the later cuneiform [--] .  The five lines (afterwards reduced to four)
+clearly represent the thumb and the four fingers.  So the character
+ordinarily representing “a house” is evidently formed from the original
+--, the ground-plan of a house; and that denoting “the sun” [--] , comes
+from [--] , through [--] , and [--] , the original [--] being the best
+representation that straight lines could give of the sun.  In the case of
+_ka,_ “a gate,” we have not the original design; but we may see posts,
+bars, and hinges in [--] , the ordinary character.
+
+Another curious example of the pictorial origin of the letters is
+furnished by the character [--] , which is the French _une,_ the feminine
+of “one.”  This character may be traced up through several known forms to
+an original picture, which is thus given on a Koyunjik tablet [--] . It has
+been conjectured that the object here represented is “a sarcophagus.”
+ But the true account seems to be that it is a _double-toothed comb,_ a
+toilet article peculiar to women, and therefore one which might well be
+taken to express “a woman,” or more generally the feminine gender.  It is
+worth notice that the emblem is the very one still in use among the Lurs,
+in the mountains overhanging Babylonia.  And it is further remarkable
+that the phonetic power of the character here spoken of is _it_ (or
+_yat_)the ordinary Semitic feminine ending.
+
+The original writing, it would therefore seem, was a picture-writing as
+rude as that of the Mexicans.  Objects were themselves represented, but
+coarsely and grotesquely--and, which is especially remarkable, without
+any curved lines.  This would seem to indicate that the system grew up
+where a hard material, probably stone, was alone used.  The cuneiform
+writing arose when clay took the place of stone as a material.  A small
+tool with a square or triangular point, impressed, by a series of
+distinct touches, the outline of the old pictured objects on the soft
+clay of tablets and bricks.  In course of time simplifications took
+place.  The less important wedges were omitted.  One stroke took the
+place of two, or sometimes of three.  In this way the old form of objects
+became, in all but a few cases, very indistinct; while generally it was
+lost altogether.
+
+Originally each character had, it would seem, the phonetic power of the
+name borne by the object which it represented.  But, as this namee was
+different in the languages of the different tribes inhabiting the
+country, the same character came often to have several distinct phonetic
+values.  For instance, the character [--] representing “a house,” had the
+phonetic values of _e, bit,_ and _mal,_ because those were the words
+expressive of “a house,” among the Hamitic, Semitic, and Arian
+populations respectively.  Again, characters did not always retain their
+original phonetic powers, but abbreviated them.  Thus the character which
+originally stood for _Assur,_ “Assyria,” came to have the sound of _as,_
+that denoting _bil_, “a lord,” had in addition the sound of _bi,_ and so
+on.  Under these circumstances it is almost impossible to feel any
+certainty in regard to the phonetic representation of a single line of
+these old inscriptions.  The meaning of each word may be well known; but
+the articulate sounds which were in the old times attached to them may be
+matter almost of conjecture.
+
+The Chaldaean characters are of three kinds-letters proper, monograms,
+and determinatives.  With regard to the letters proper, there is nothing
+particular to remark, except that they have almost always a syllabic
+force.  The monograms represent in a brief way, by a wedge or a group of
+wedges, an entire word, often of two or three syllables, as Nebo, Babil,
+Merodach, etc.  The determinatives mark that the word which they
+accompany is a word of a certain class, as a god, a man, a country, a
+town, etc.  These last, it is probable, were not sounded at all when the
+word was read.  They served, in some degree, the purpose of our capital
+letters, in the middle of sentences, but gave more exact notice of the
+nature of the coming word.  Curiously enough, they are retained
+sometimes, where the word which they accompany has merely its phonetic
+power, as (generally) when the names of gods form a part of the names
+of monarchs.
+
+It has been noticed already that the chief material on which the ancient
+Chaldaeans wrote was moist clay, in the two forms of tablets and bricks.
+On bricks are found only royal inscriptions, having reference to the
+building in which the bricks were used, commonly designating its purpose,
+and giving the name and titles of the-monarch who erected it.  The
+inscription does not occupy the whole brick, but a square or rectangular
+space towards its centre.  It is in some cases stamped, in some impressed
+with a tool.  The writing--as in all cuneiform inscriptions, excepting
+those upon seals--is from left to right, and the lines are carefully
+separated from one another.  Some specimens have been already given.
+
+The tablets of the Chaldaeans are among the most remarkable of their
+remains, and will probably one day throw great additional light on the
+manners and customs, the religion, and even, perhaps, the science and
+learning, of the people.  They are small pieces of clay, somewhat rudely
+shaped into a form resembling a pillow, and thickly inscribed with
+cuneiform characters, which are sometimes accompanied by impressions of
+the cylindrical seals so common in the museums of Europe.  The seals are
+rolled across the body of the document, as in the accompanying figure.
+[PLATE VII., Fig.  2.] Except where these impressions occur, the clay is
+commonly covered on both sides with minute writing.  What is most
+curious, however, is that the documents thus duly attested have in
+general been enveloped, after they were baked, in a cover of moist clay,
+upon which their contents have been again inscribed, so as to present
+externally a duplicate of the writing within; and the tablet in its cover
+has then been baked afresh.  That this was the process employed is
+evident from the fact that the inner side of the envelope bears a cast,
+in relief, of the inscription beneath it.  Probably the object in view
+was greater security--that if the external cover became illegible, or was
+tampered with, there might be a means of proving beyond a doubt what the
+document actually contained.  The tablets in question have in a
+considerable number of cases been deciphered; they are for the most part
+deeds, contracts, or engagements, entered into by private persons and
+preserved among the archives of families.
+
+Besides their writings on clay, the Chaldaeans were in the habit, from
+very early times, of engraving inscriptions on gems.  The signet cylinder
+of a very ancient king exhibits that archaic formation of letters which
+has been already noted as appearing upon some of the earliest bricks.
+[PLATE  VII., Fig.  3.] That it belongs to the same period is evident,
+not only from the resemblance of the literal type, but from the fact that
+the same king’s name appears upon both.  This signet inscription--so far
+as it has been hitherto deciphered--is read as follows:--“The signet of
+Urukh, the pious chief, king of Ur, . . . .  High-Priest (?) of . . . .
+Niffer.”  Another similar relic, belonging to a son of this monarch, has
+the inscription, “To the manifestation of Nergal, king of Bit-Zida, of
+Zurgulla, for the saving of the life of Ilgi, the powerful hero, the king
+of Ur, . . . . son of Urukh . . . . May his name be preserved.”  A third
+signet, which belongs to a later king in the series, bears the following
+legend: “--_sin, the powerful chief, the king of Ur, the king of the
+Kiprat-arbat (or four races) . . . . his seal.”  The cylinders, however,
+of this period are more usually without inscriptions, being often plain,
+and often engraved with figures, but without a legend.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ARTS AND SCIENCES.
+
+“Chaldaei cognitione astrorum sollertiaque ingeniorum antecellunt.”
+ Cic. _de Div._ i. 41.
+
+Among the arts which the first Ethiopic settlers on the shores of the
+Persian Gulf either brought with them from their former homes, or very
+early invented in their new abode, must undoubtedly have been the two
+whereby they were especially characterized in the time of their greatest
+power--architecture and agriculture.  Chaldaea is not a country disposing
+men to nomadic habits.  The productive powers of the soil would at once
+obtrude themselves on the notice of the new comers, and would tempt to
+cultivation and permanency of residence.  If the immigrants came by sea,
+and settled first in the tract immediately bordering upon the gulf, as
+seems to have been the notion of Berosus, their earliest abodes may have
+been of that simple character which can even now be witnessed in the
+Affej and Montefik marshes--that is to say, reed cabins, supported by the
+tall stems of the growing plants bent into arches, and walled with mats
+composed of flags or sedge.  Houses of this description last for forty or
+fifty years and would satisfy the ideas of a primitive race.  When
+greater permanency began to be required, palm-beams might take the place
+of the reed supports, and wattles plastered with mud that of the rush
+mats; in this way habitations would soon be produced quite equal to those
+in which the bulk of mankind reside, even at the present day.
+
+In process of time however, a fresh want would be felt.  Architecture,
+as has been well observed, has its origin, not in nature only, but in
+religion.  The common worship of God requires temples; and it is soon
+desired to give to these sacred edifices a grandeur, a dignity, and a
+permanency corresponding to the nature of the Being worshipped in them.
+Hence in most countries recourse is had to stone, as the material of
+greatest strength and durability; and by its means buildings are raised
+which seem almost to reach the heaven whereof they witness.  In
+Babylonia, as it has been already observed, this material was entirely
+wanting.  Nowhere within the limits of the alluvium was a quarry to be
+found; and though at no very great distance, on the Arabian border, a
+coarse sandstone might have been obtained, yet in primitive times, before
+many canals were made, the difficulty of transporting this weighty
+substance across the soft and oozy soil of the plain would necessarily
+have prevented its adoption generally, or, indeed, anywhere, except in
+the immediate vicinity of the rocky region.  Accordingly we find that
+stone was never adopted in Babylonia as a building material, except to an
+extremely small extent; and that the natives were forced, in its default,
+to seek for the grand edifices, which they desired to build, a different
+substance.
+
+The earliest traditions, and the existing remains of the earliest
+buildings, alike inform us that the material adopted was brick.  An
+excellent clay is readily procurable in all parts of the alluvium; and
+this, when merely exposed to the intense heat of an Eastern sun for a
+sufficient period, or still more when kiln-dried, constitutes a very
+tolerable substitute for the stone employed by most nations.  The baked
+bricks, even of the earliest tines, are still sound and hard; while the
+sun-dried bricks, though they have often crumbled to dust or blended
+together in one solid earthen mass, yet sometimes retain their shape and
+original character almost unchanged, and offer a stubborn resistance to
+the excavator.  In the most ancient of the Chaldaean edifices we
+occasionally find, as in the Bowariyeh ruin at Warka, the entire
+structure composed of the inferior material; but the more ordinary
+practice is to construct the mass of the building in this way, and then
+to cover it completely with a facing of burnt brick, which sometimes
+extends to as much as ten feet in thickness.  The burnt brick was thus
+made to protect the unburnt from the influence of the weather, while
+labor and fuel--were greatly economized by the employment to so large an
+extent of the natural substance.  The size and color of the bricks vary.
+The general shape is square, or nearly so, while the thickness is, to
+modern ideas, disproportionately small; it is not, however, so small as
+in the bricks of the Romans.  The earliest of the baked bricks hitherto
+discovered in Chaldaea are 11 1/4 inches square, and 2 1/2 inches thick,
+while the Roman are often 15 inches square, and only an inch and a
+quarter thick.  The baked bricks of later date are of larger size than
+the earlier; they are commonly about 13 inches square, with a thickness
+of three inches.  The best quality of baked brick is of a
+yellowish-white tint, and very much resembles our Stourbridge or fire
+brick; another kind, extremely hard, but brittle, is of a blackish blue;
+a third, the coarsest of all, is slack-dried, and of a pale red.  The
+earliest baked bricks are of this last color.  The sun-dried bricks have
+even more variety of size than the baked ones.  They are sometimes as
+large as 16 inches square and seven inches thick, sometimes as small as
+six inches square by two thick.  Occasionally, though not very often,
+bricks are found differing altogether in shape from those above
+described, being formed for special purposes.  Of this kind are the
+triangular bricks used at the corners of walls, intended to give greater
+regularity to the angles than would otherwise be attained; and the
+wedge-shaped bricks, formed to be employed in arches, which were known
+and used by this primitive people.
+
+The modes of applying these materials to building purposes were various.
+Sometimes the crude and the burnt brick were used in alternate layers,
+each layer being several feet in thickness; more commonly the crude brick
+was used (as already noticed) for the internal parts of the building, and
+a facing of burnt brick protected the whole from the weather.
+Occasionally the mass of an edifice was composed entirely of crude brick;
+but in such cases special precautions had to be taken to secure the
+stability of this comparatively frail material.  In the first place, at
+intervals of four or five feet, a thick layer of reed matting was
+interposed along the whole extent of the building, which appears to have
+been intended to protect the earthy mass from disintegration, by its
+protection beyond the rest of the external surface.  The readers of
+Herodotus are familiar with this feature, which (according to him)
+occurred in the massive walls whereby Babylon was surrounded.  If this
+was really the case, we may conclude that those walls were not composed
+of burnt brick, as he imagined, but of the sun-dried material.  Reeds
+were never employed in buildings composed of burnt brick, being useless
+in such cases; where their impression is found, as not unfrequently
+happens, on bricks of this kind, the brick has been laid upon reed
+matting when in a soft state, and afterwards submitted to the action of
+fire.  In edifices of crude brick, the reeds were no doubt of great
+service, and have enabled some buildings of the kind to endure to the
+present day.  They are very strikingly conspicuous where they occur,
+since they stripe the whole building with continuous horizontal lines,
+having at a distance somewhat the effect of the courses of dark marble in
+an Italian structure of the Byzantine period.
+
+Another characteristic of the edifices in which crude brick is thus
+largely employed, is the addition externally of solid and massive
+buttresses of the burnt material.  These buttresses have sometimes a very
+considerable projection; they are broad, but not high, extending less
+than half way up the walls against which they are placed.
+
+Two kinds of cement are used in the early structures.  One is a coarse
+clay or mud, which is sometimes mixed with chopped straw; the other is
+bitumen.  This last is of an excellent quality, and the bricks which it
+unites adhere often so firmly together that they can with difficulty be
+separated.  As a gen eral rule, in the early buildings, the crude brick
+is laid in mud, while the bitumen is used to cement together the burnt
+bricks.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 8]
+
+These general remarks will receive their best illustration from a
+detailed description of the principal early edifices which recent
+researches in Lower Mesopotamia have revealed to us. These are for the
+most part temples; but in one or two cases the edifice explored is
+thought to have been a residence, so that the domestic architecture of
+the period may be regarded as known to us, at least in some degree.  The
+temples most carefully examined hitherto are those at Warka, Mugheir, and
+Abu-Shahrein, the first of which was explored by Mr. Loftus in 1854, the
+second by Mr. Taylor in the same year, and the third by the same
+traveller in 1855. The Warka ruin is called by the natives Bowariyeh,
+which signifies “reed mats,” in allusion to a peculiarity, already
+noticed, in its construction.  [PLATE VIII., Fig.  1.] It is at once the
+most central and the loftiest ruin in the place.  At first sight it
+appears to have been a cone or pyramid; but further examination proves
+that it was in reality a tower, 200 feet square at the base, built in two
+stories, the lower story being composed entirely of sun-dried bricks laid
+in mud, and protected at intervals of four or five feet by layers of
+reeds, while the upper one was composed of the same material, faced with
+burnt brick.  Of the upper stage very little remains; and this little is
+of a later date than the inferior story, which bears marks of a very high
+antiquity.  The sundried bricks whereof the lower story is composed are
+“rudely moulded of very incoherent earth, mixed with fragments of pottery
+and fresh-water shells,” and vary in size and shape, being sometimes
+square, seven inches each way; sometimes oblong, nine inches by seven,
+and from three to three and a half inches thick.  The whole present
+height of the building is estimated at 100 feet above the level of the
+plain.  Its summit, except where some slight remains of the second story
+constitute an interruption, is “perfectly flat,” and probably continues
+very much in the condition in which it was when the lower stage was first
+built.  This stage, being built of crude brick, was necessarily weak; it
+is therefore supported by four massive buttresses of baked brick, each
+placed exactly in the centre of one of the sides, and carried to about
+one-third of the height.  Each buttress is nineteen feet high, six feet
+one inch wide, and seven and a half feet in depth; and each is divided
+down the middle by a receding space, one foot nine inches in width.  All
+the bricks composing the buttresses are inscribed, and are very firmly
+cemented together with bitumen, in thick layers.  The buttresses were
+entirely hidden under the mass of rubbish which had fallen from the
+building, chiefly from the upper story, and only became apparent when Mr.
+Loftus made his excavations.
+
+It is impossible to reconstruct the Bowariyeh ruin from the facts and
+measurements hitherto supplied to us even the height of the first story
+is at present uncertain; and we have no means of so much as conjecturing
+the height of the second.  The exact emplacement of the second upon the
+first is also doubtful, while the original mode of access is
+undiscovered; and thus the plan of the building is in many respects still
+defective.  We only know that it was a square; that it had two stories at
+the least; and that its entire height above the plain considerably
+exceeded 100 feet.  The temple at Mugheir has been more accurately
+examined.  [PLATE VIII., Fig.  2.]  On a mound or platform of some size,
+raised about twenty feet above the level of the plain, there stands a
+rectangular edifice, consisting at present of two stories, both of them
+ruined in parts, and buried to a considerable extent in piles of rubbish
+composed of their debris.  The angles of the building exactly face the
+four cardinal points.  It is not a square, but a parallelogram, having
+two longer and two shorter sides.  [PLATE IX., Fig. 1.]  The longer sides
+front to the north-east and south-west respectively, and measure 198
+feet; while the shorter sides, which face the north-west and south-east,
+measure 133 feet.  The present height of the basement story is 27 feet;
+but, allowing for the concealment of the lower part by the rubbish, and
+the destruction of the upper part by the hand of time, we may presume
+that the original height was little, if at all, short of 40 feet.  The
+interior of this story is built of crude or sun-dried bricks of small
+size, laid in bitumen; but it is faced through out with a wall, ten feet
+in thickness, composed of red kiln dried bricks, likewise cemented with
+bitumen.  This external wall is at once strengthened and diversified to
+the eye by a number of shallow buttresses or pilasters in the same
+material; of these there are nine, including the corner ones, on the
+longer, and six on the shorter sides.  The width of the buttresses is
+eight feet, and their projection a little more than a foot.  The walls
+and buttresses alike slope inwards at an angle of nine degrees.  On the
+north-eastern side of the building there is a staircase nine feet wide,
+with sides or balustrades three feet wide, which leads up from the
+platform to the top of the first story.  It has also been conjectured
+that there was a second or grand staircase on the south-east face, equal
+in width to the second story of the building, and thus occupying nearly
+the whole breadth of the structure on that side.  A number of narrow
+slits or air-holes are carried through the building from side to side;
+they penetrate alike the walls and buttresses, and must have tended to
+preserve the dryness of the structure. The second story is, like the
+first, a parallelogram, and not of very different proportions.  Its
+longer sides measure 119 feet, and its shorter ones 75 feet at the base.
+Its emplacement upon the first story is exact as respects the angles, but
+not central as regards the four sides.  While it is removed from the
+south-eastern edge a distance of 47 feet, from the northwestern it is
+distant only 30 feet.  From the two remaining sides its distance is
+apparently about 28 feet.  The present height of the second story,
+including the rubbish upon its top, is 19 feet; but we may reasonably
+suppose that the original height was much greater.  The material of which
+its inner structure is composed, seems to be chiefly (or wholly)
+partially-burnt brick, of a light red color, laid in a cement composed of
+lime and ashes.  This central mass is faced with kiln-dried bricks of
+large size and excellent quality, also laid, except on the north-west
+face, in lime mortar.  No buttresses and no staircase are traceable on
+this story; though it is possible that on the south-east side the grand
+staircase may have run the whole height of both stories.
+
+According to information received by Mr. Taylor from the Arabs of the
+vicinity, there existed, less than half a century ago, some remains of a
+third story, on the summit of the rubbish which now crowns the second.
+This building is described as a room or chamber, and was probably the
+actual shrine of the god in whose honor the whole structure was erected.
+Mr. Taylor discovered a number of bricks or tiles glazed with a blue
+enamel, and also a number of large copper nails, at such a height in the
+rubbish which covers up much of the second story, that he thinks they
+could only have come from this upper chamber.  The analogy of later
+Babylonian buildings, as of the Birs-Nimrud and the temple of Belus at
+Babylon confirms this view, and makes it probable that the early
+Chaldaean temple was a building in three stages, of which the first and
+second were solid masses of brickwork, ascended by steps on the outside,
+while the third was a small house or chamber highly ornamented,
+containing the image and shrine of the god.  [PLATE IX., Fig.  2.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 9]
+
+In conclusion, it must be observed that only the lower story of the
+Mugheir temple exhibits the workmanship of the old or Chaldaean period.
+Clay cylinders found in the upper story inform us that in its present
+condition this story is the work of Nabonidus, the last of the Babylonian
+kings; and most of its bricks bear his stamp.  Some, however, have the
+stamp of the same monarch who built the lower story and this is
+sufficient to show that the two stories are a part of the original
+design, and therefore that the idea of building in stages belongs to the
+first kingdom and to primitive times.  There is no evidence to prove
+whether the original edifice had, or had not, a third story; since the
+chamber seen by the Arabs was no doubt a late Babylonian work.  The third
+story of the accompanying sketch must therefore be regarded as
+conjectural.
+
+It is not necessary for our present purpose to detain the reader with a
+minute description of the ancient temple at Abu-Shahrein.  The general
+character of this building seems to have very closely resembled that of
+the Mugheir temple.  Its angles fronted the cardinal points: it had two
+stories, and an ornamented chamber at the top; it was faced with burnt
+brick, and strengthened by buttresses; and in most other respects
+followed the type of the Mugheir edifice.  Its only very notable
+peculiarities are the partial use of stone in the construction, and the
+occurrence of a species of pillar, very curiously composed.  The
+artificial platform on which the temple stands is made of beaten clay,
+cased with a massive wall of sandstone and limestone, in some places
+twenty feet thick.  There is also a stone or rather marble, staircase
+which leads up from the platform to the summit of the first story,
+composed of small polished blocks, twenty-two inches long, thirteen
+broad, and four and a half thick.  The bed of the staircase is made of
+sun dried brick, and the marble was fastened to this substratum by copper
+bolts, some portion of which was found by Mr. Taylor still adhering to
+the blocks.  At the foot of the staircase there appear to have stood two
+columns, one on either side of it. The construction of these columns is
+very singular.  A circular nucleus composed of sandstone slabs and small
+cylindrical pieces of marble disposed in alternate layers, was coated
+externally with coarse lime, mixed with small stones and pebbles, until
+by means of many successive layers the pillar had attained the desired
+bulk and thickness.  Thus the stone and marble were entirely concealed
+under a thick coating of plaster; and a smoothness was given to the outer
+surface which it would have otherwise been difficult to obtain. The date
+of the Abu-Shahrein temple is thought to be considerably later than that
+of the other buildings above described; and the pillars would seem to be
+a refinement on the simplicity of the earlier times.  The use of stone is
+to be accounted for, not so much by the advance of architectural science,
+as by the near vicinity of the Arabian hills, from which that material
+could be readily derived.
+
+It is evident, that if the Chaldaean temples were of the character and
+construction which we have gathered from their remains, they could have
+possessed no great architectural beauty, though they may not have lacked
+a certain grandeur.  In the dead level of Babylonia, an elevation even of
+100 or 150 feet must have been impressive; and the plain massiveness of
+the structures no doubt added to their grand effect on the beholder.  But
+there was singularly little in the buildings, architecturally viewed, to
+please the eye or gratify the sense of beauty.  No edifices in the world
+--not even the Pyramids--are more deficient in external ornament.  The
+buttresses and the air-holes, which alone break the flat uniformity of
+the walls, are intended simply for utility, and can scarcely be said to
+be much embellishment.  If any efforts were made to delight by the
+ordinary resources of ornamental art, it seems clear that such efforts
+did not extend to the whole edifice, but were confined to the shrine
+itself--the actual abode of the god--the chamber which crowned the whole,
+and was alone, strictly speaking, “the temple.”  Even here there is no
+reason to believe that the building had externally much beauty.  No
+fragments of architraves or capitals, no sculptured ornaments of any
+kind, have been found among the heaps of rubbish in which Chaldaean
+monuments are three-parts buried.
+
+The ornaments which have been actually discovered, are such as suggest
+the idea of internal rather than external decoration; and they render it
+probable that such decoration was, at least in some cases, extremely
+rich.  The copper nails and blue enamelled tiles found high up in the
+Mugheir mound, have been already noticed.  At Abu-Shahrein the ground
+about the basement of the second story was covered with small pieces of
+agate, alabaster, and marble, finely cut and polished, from half an inch
+to two inches long, and half an inch (or somewhat less) in breadth, each
+with a hole drilled through its back, containing often a fragment of a
+copper bolt.
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 56]
+
+It was strewn less thickly with small plates of pure gold, and with a
+number of gold-headed or gilt, headed nails, used apparently to attach
+the gold plates to the internal plaster or wood-work.  These fragments
+seem to attest the high ornamentation of the shrine in this instance,
+which we have no reason to regard is singular or in any way exceptional.
+
+The Chaldaean remains which throw light upon the domestic architecture of
+the people are few and scanty.  A small house was disinterred by Mr.
+Taylor at Mugheir, and the plan of some chambers was made out at
+Abu-Shahrein; but these are hitherto the only specimens which can be
+confidently assigned to the Chaldaean period.  The house stood on a
+platform of sundried bricks, paved on the top with burnt bricks.  It was
+built in the form of a cross, but with a good deal of irregularity, every
+wall being somewhat longer or shorter than the others.  The material used
+in its construction was burnt brick, the outer layer imbedded in bitumen,
+and the remainder in a cement of mud.  Externally the house was
+ornamented with perpendicular stepped recesses, while internally the
+bricks had often a thin coating of gypsum or enamel, upon which
+characters were inscribed.  The floors of the chambers were paved with
+burnt brick, laid in bitumen.  Two of the doorways were arched, the arch
+extending through the whole thickness of the walls; it was semicircular,
+and was constructed with bricks made wedge-shaped for the purpose.  A
+good deal of charred date-wood was found in the house, probably the
+remains of rafters which had supported the roof.
+
+The chambers at Abu-Shahrein were of sun-dried brick, with an internal
+covering of fine plaster, ornamented with paint.  In one the
+ornamentation consisted of a series of red, black, and white bands, three
+inches in breadth; in another was represented, but very rudely, the
+figure of a man holding a bird on his wrist, with a smaller figure near
+him, in red paint.  The favorite external ornamentation for houses seems
+to have been by means of colored cones in terra cotta, which were
+imbedded in moist mud or plaster, and arranged into a variety of
+patterns.  [PLATE IX., Fig. 3.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 10]
+
+But little can be said as to the plan on which houses were built.
+[Illustration: PLATE X., Fig.  2. ]  The walls were generally of vast
+thickness, the chambers long and narrow, with the outer doors opening
+directly into them.  The rooms ordinarily led into one another, passages
+being rarely found.  Squared recesses, sometimes stepped or dentated,
+were common in the rooms; and in the arrangement of these something of
+symmetry is observable, as they frequently correspond to or face each
+other.  The roofs were probably either flat-beams of palm-wood being
+stretched across from wall to wall--or else arched with brick.  No
+indication of windows has been found as yet; but still it is thought that
+the chambers were lighted by them, only they were placed high, near the
+ceiling or roof, and thus do not appear in the existing ruins, which
+consists merely of the lower portion of walls, seldom exceeding the
+height of seven or eight feet.  The doorways, both outer and inner, are
+towards the sides rather than in the centre of the apartments--a feature
+common to Chaldaean with Assyrian buildings.
+
+Next to their edifices, the most remarkable of the remains which the
+Chaldaeans have left to after-ages, are their burial-places.  While
+ancient tombs are of very rare occurrence in Assyria and Upper Babylonia,
+Chaldaea Proper abounds with them.  It has been conjectured, with some
+show of reason, that the Assyrians, in the time of their power, may have
+made the sacred land of Chai the general depository of their dead, much
+in the same way as the Persians even now use Kerbela and Nedjif or Meshed
+Ali as special cemetery cities, to which thousands of corpses are brought
+annually.  At any rate, the quantity of human relics accumulated upon
+certain Chaldaean sites is enormous, and seems to be quite beyond what
+the mere population of the surrounding district could furnish.  At Warka,
+for instance, excepting the triangular space between the three principal
+ruins, the whole remainder of the platform, the whole space within the
+walls, and an unknown extent of desert beyond them, are everywhere filled
+with human bones and sepulchres.  In places coffins are piled upon
+coffins, certainly to the depth of 30, probably to the depth of 60 feet;
+and for miles on every side of the ruins the traveller walks upon a soil
+teeming with the relics of ancient, and now probably extinct, races.
+Sometimes these relics manifestly belong to a number of distinct and
+widely separate eras; but there are places where it is otherwise.
+However we may account for it--and no account has been yet given which
+is altogether satisfactory--it seems clear, from the comparative
+homogeneousness of the remains in some places, that they belong to a
+single race, and if not to a single period, at any rate to only two,
+or, at the most, three distinct periods, so that it is no longer very
+difficult to distinguish the more ancient from the later relics.  Such
+is the character of the remains at Mugheir, which are thought to contain
+nothing of later date than the close of the Babylonian period, B. C.
+538; and such is, still more remarkably, the character of the ruins at
+Abu-Shahrein and Tel-el-Lahm, which seem to be entirely, or almost
+entirely, Chaldaean.  In the following account of the coffins and mode of
+burial employed by the early Chaldaeans, examples will be drawn from
+these places only; since otherwise we should be liable to confound
+together the productions of very different ages and peoples.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 11]
+
+The tombs to which an archaic character most certainly attaches are of
+three kinds-brick vaults, clay coffins shaped like a dish-cover, and
+coffins in the same material, formed of two large jars placed mouth to
+mouth, and cemented together with bitumen.  The brick vaults are found
+chiefly at Mugheir.  [PLATE XI., Fig. 1.] They are seven feet long, three
+feet seven inches broad, and five feet high, composed of sun-dried bricks
+imbedded in mud, and exhibit a very remarkable form and construction of
+the arch.  The side walls of the vaults slope outwards as they ascend;
+and the arch is formed, like those in Egyptian buildings and Scythian
+tombs, by each successive layer of bricks, from the point where the arch
+begins, a little overlapping the last, till the two sides of the roof are
+brought so near together that the aperture may be closed by a single
+brick.  The floor of the vaults was paved with brick similar to that used
+for the roof and sides; on this floor was commonly spread a matting of
+reeds, and the body was laid upon the matting.  It was commonly turned on
+its left side, the right arm falling towards the left, and the fingers
+resting on the edge of a copper bowl, usually placed on the palm of the
+left hand.  The head was pillowed on a single sun-dried brick.  Various
+articles of ornament and use were interred with each body, which will be
+more particularly described hereafter.  Food seems often to have been
+placed in the tombs, and jars or other drinking vessels are universal.
+The brick vaults appear to have been family sepulchres; they have often
+received three or four bodies, and in one case a single vault contained
+eleven skeletons.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 12]
+
+The clay coffins, shaped like a dish-cover, are among the most curious of
+the sepulchral remains of antiquity.  [PLATE  XI., Fig.  2; PLATE XII.,
+Fig. 1.] On a platform of sun-dried brick is laid a mat exactly similar
+to those in common use among the Arabs of the country at the present day;
+and hereon lies the skeleton disposed as in the brick vaults, and
+surrounded by utensils and ornaments.  Mat, skeleton, and utensils are
+then concealed by a huge cover in burnt clay, formed of a single piece,
+which is commonly seven feet long, two or three feet high, and two feet
+and a half broad at the bottom.  It is rarely that modern potters produce
+articles of half the size.  Externally the covers have commonly some
+slight ornament, such as rims and shallow indentations, as represented in
+the sketch (No. 1).  Internally they are plain.  Not more than two
+skeletons have ever been found under a single cover; and in these cases
+they were the skeletons of a male and a female.  Children were interred
+separately, under covers about half the size of those for adults.  Tombs
+of this kind commonly occur at some considerable depth.  None were
+discovered at Mugheir nearer the surface than seven or eight feet.
+
+The third kind of tomb, common both at Mugheir and at Telel-Lahm, is
+almost as eccentric as the preceding.  Two large open-mouthed jars (a and
+b), shaped like the largest of the water-jars at present in use at
+Baghdad, are taken, and the body is disposed inside them with the usual
+accompaniments of dishes, vases, and ornaments.  [PLATE  XII.  Fig. 2.]
+The jars average from two and a half feet to three feet in depth, and
+have a diameter of about two feet; so that they would readily contain
+a full-sized corpse if it was slightly bent at the knees.
+
+Sometimes the two jars are of equal size, and are simply united at their
+mouths by a layer of bitumen (dd); but more commonly one is slightly
+larger than the other, and the smaller mouth is inserted into the larger
+one for a depth of three or four inches, while a coating of bitumen is
+still applied externally at the juncture.  In each coffin there is an
+air-hole at one extremity (c) to allow the escape of the gases generated
+during decomposition.
+
+Besides the coffins themselves, some other curious features are found in
+the burial-places.  The dead are commonly buried, not underneath the
+natural surface of the ground, but in extensive artificial mounds, each
+mound containing a vast number of coffins.  The coffins are arranged side
+by side, often in several layers; and occasionally strips of masonry,
+crossing each other at right angles, separate the sets of coffins from
+their neighbors.  The surface of the mounds is sometimes paved with
+brick; and a similar pavement often separates the layers of coffins one
+from another.  But the most remarkable feature in the tomb-mounds is
+their system of drainage.  Long shafts of baked clay extend from the
+surface of the mound to its base, composed of a succession of rings two
+feet in diameter, and about a foot and a half in breadth, joined together
+by thin layers of bitumen.  [PLATE XII., Fig. 3.] To give the rings
+additional strength, the sides have a slight concave curve and, still
+further to resist external pressure, the shafts are filled from bottom to
+top with a loose mass of broken pottery.  At the top the shaft contracts
+rapidly by means of a ring of a peculiar shape, and above this ring are a
+series of perforated bricks leading up to the top of the mound, the
+surface of which is so arranged as to conduct the rain-water into these
+orifices.  For the still more effectual drainage of the mound, the
+top-piece of the shaft immediately below the perforated bricks, and also
+the first rings, are full of small holes to admit any stray moisture;
+and besides this, for the space of a foot every way, the shafts are
+surrounded with broken pottery, so that the real diameter of each drain
+is as much as four feet.  By these arrangements the piles have been kept
+perfectly dry; and the consequence is the preservation, to the present
+day, not only of the utensils and ornaments placed in the tombs, but of
+the very skeletons themselves, which are seen perfect on opening a tomb,
+though they generally crumble to dust at the first touch.
+
+The skill of the Chaldaeans as potters has received considerable
+illustration in the foregoing pages.  No ordinary ingenuity was needed to
+model and bake the large vases, and still larger covers, which were the
+ordinary receptacles of the Chaldaean dead.  The rings and top-pieces of
+the drainage-shafts also exhibit much skill and knowledge of principles.
+Hitherto, however, the reader has not been brought into contact with any
+specimens of Chaldaean fictile art which can be regarded as exhibiting
+elegance of form, or, indeed, any sense of beauty as distinguished from
+utility.  Such specimens are, in fact, somewhat scarce, but they are not
+wholly wanting.  Among the vases and drinking vessels with which the
+Chaldaean tombs abound, while the majority are characterized by a certain
+rudeness both of shape and material, we occasionally meet with specimens
+of a higher character, which would not shrink from a comparison with the
+ordinary productions of Greek fictile art.  A number of these are
+represented in the second figure [PLATE XIII., Fig  2], which exhibits
+several forms not hitherto published-some taken from drawings by Mr.
+Churchill, the artist who accompanied Mr. Loftus on his first journey;
+others drawn for the present work from vases now in the British Museum.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 13]
+
+It is evident that, while the vases of the first group are roughly
+moulded by the hand, the vases and lamps of the second have been
+carefully shaped by the aid of the potter’s wheel.  These last are formed
+of a far finer clay than the early specimens, and have sometimes a slight
+glaze upon them, which adds much to their beauty.
+
+In a few instances the works of the Chaldaeans in this material belong to
+mimetic art, of which they are rude but interesting specimens.  Some of
+the primitive graves at Senkareh yielded tablets of baked clay, on which
+were represented, in low relief, sometimes single figures of men,
+sometimes groups, sometimes men in combination with animals.  A scene in
+which a lion is disturbed in its feast off a bullock, by a man armed with
+a club and a mace or hatchet, possesses remarkable spirit, and, were it
+not for the strange drawing of the lion’s unlifted leg, might be regarded
+as a very creditable performance.  In another, a lion is represented
+devouring a prostrate human being; while a third exhibits a pugilistic
+encounter after the most approved fashion of modern England.  It is
+perhaps uncertain whether these tablets belong to the Chaldaean or to the
+Babylonian period, but on the whole their rudeness and simplicity favor
+the earlier rather than the later date.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 14]
+
+The only other works having anything of an artistic character, that can
+be distinctly assigned to the primitive period, are a certain number of
+engraved cylinders, some of which are very curious.  [PLATE XIV., Fig. 1]
+It is clearly established that the cylinders in question, which are
+generally of serpentine, meteoric stone, jasper, chalcedony, or other
+similar substance, were the seals or signets of their possessors, who
+impressed them upon the moist clay which formed the ordinary material for
+writing.  They are round, or nearly so, and measure from half an inch to
+three inches in length; ordinarily they are about one-third of their
+length in diameter.  A hole is bored through the stone from end to end,
+so that it could be worn upon a string; and cylinders are found in some
+of the earliest tombs which have been worn round the wrist in this way.
+In early times they may have been impressed by the hand; but afterwards
+it was common to place them upon a bronze or copper axis attached to a
+handle, by means of which they were rolled across the clay from one end
+to the other.  The cylinders are frequently unengraved, and this is most
+commonly their condition in the primitive tombs; out there is some very
+curious evidence, from which it appears that the art of engraving them
+was really known and practised (though doubtless in rare instances) at a
+very early date.  The signet cylinder of the monarch who founded the most
+ancient of the buildings at Mugheir, Warka, Senkareh, and Niffer, and who
+thus stands at the head of the monumental kings, was in the possession of
+Sir R. Porter; and though it is now lost, an engraving made from it is
+preserved in his “Travels.”  [PLATE XIV., Fig. 2.]  The signet cylinder
+of this monarch’s son has been recently recovered, and is now in the
+British Museum.  We are entitled to conclude from the data thus in our
+possession that the art of cylinder-engraving had, even at this early
+period, made considerable progress.  The letters of the inscriptions,
+which give the names of the kings and their titles, are indeed somewhat
+rudely formed, as they are on the stamped bricks of the period; but the
+figures have been as well cut, and as flowingly traced, as those of a
+later date.  It was thought possible that the artist employed by Sir R.
+Porter had given a flattering representation of his original, but the
+newly recovered relic, known as the “cylinder of Ilgi,” bears upon it
+figures of quite as great excellence: and we are thus led to the
+conclusion that both mechanical and artistic skill had reached a very
+surprising degree of excellence at the most remote period to which the
+Chaldaean records carry us back.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 15]
+
+It increases the surprise which we naturally feel at the discovery of
+these relics to reflect upon the rudeness of the implements with which
+such results would seem to have been accomplished.  In the primitive
+Chaldaean ruins, the implements which have been discovered are either in
+stone or bronze.  Iron in the early times is seemingly unknown, and when
+it first appears is wrought into ornaments for the person.  Knives of
+flint or chert [PLATE XIV., Fig. 3], stone hatchets, hammers, adzes, and
+nails, are common in the most ancient mounds, which contain also a number
+of clay models, the centres, as it is thought, of moulds into which
+molten bronze was run, and also occasionally the bronze instruments
+themselves, as (in addition to spear heads and arrow-heads) hammers,
+adzes, hatchets, knives, and sickles.  It will be seen by the engraved
+representations that these instruments are one and all of a rude and
+coarse character.  [PLATE XV.], [PLATE XVI.]  The flint and stone knives,
+axes, and hammers, which abound in all the true Chaldaean mounds, are
+somewhat more advanced indeed than those very primitive implements which
+have been found in a drift; but they are of a workmanship at least as
+unskilled as that of the ordinary stone celts of Western and Northern
+Europe, which till the discoveries of M. Perthes were regarded as the
+most ancient human remains in our quarter of the globe.  They indicate
+some practical knowledge of the cleavage of silicious rocks, but they
+show no power of producing even such finish as the celts frequently
+exhibit.  In one case only has a flint instrument been discovered
+perfectly regular in form, and presenting a sharp angular exactness.
+The instrument, which is figured [PLATE XVI., Fig. 2], is a sort of long
+parallelogram, round at the back, and with a deep impression down its
+face.  Its use is uncertain; but, according to a reasonable conjecture,
+it may have been designed for impressing characters upon the moist clay
+of tablets and cylinders--a purpose for which it is said to be
+excellently fitted.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 16]
+
+The metallurgy of the Chaldaeans, though indicative of a higher state of
+civilization and a greater knowledge of the useful arts than their stone
+weapons, is still of a somewhat rude character, and indicates a nation
+but just emerging out of an almost barbaric simplicity.  Metal seems to
+be scarce, and not many kinds are found.  There is no silver, zinc, or
+platinum; but only gold, copper, tin, lead, and iron.  Gold is found in
+beads, ear-rings, and other ornaments, which are in some instances of a
+fashion that is not inelegant.  [PLATE XVI., Fig. 3.]  Copper occurs
+pure, but is more often hardened by means of an alloy of tin, whereby it
+becomes bronze, and is rendered suitable for implements and weapons.
+Lead is rare, occurring only in a very few specimens, as in one jar or
+bottle, and in what seems to be a portion of a pipe, brought by Mr.
+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 coarse and massive, 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.
+
+[Illustration: 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 masses 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 circumstances 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 “tasselled 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 assume 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 quantities 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 sexagesimal 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 illustration.  [PLATE XVIII., Figs.  1, 2.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 18]
+
+In Arabic numerals this table may be expressed as follows:
+
+[Illustration: 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 cumbrous, 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 class 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 passing 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.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 19]
+
+The beard was commonly worn straight and long, not in crisp curls, as by
+the Assyrians.  [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 shell; 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 mass 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 quantity 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 viaticum 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 classes.  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 principal 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 principal
+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 principal 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 assailants 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-God 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 gods 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 principal gods were a far more
+numerous assemblage 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 gods 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
+principal 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 gods,
+are something above and beyond those parts of nature.  Like the classical
+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 gods of this
+class 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
+Classical 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
+titles of classical divinities admit of the most curious illustration and
+explanation from Chaldaean sources.  We can scarcely doubt but that, in
+some way or other, there was a communication of beliefs--a passage in
+very early times, from the shores 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 passed on to the classical
+nations, who were in part descended from this Scythic or Scytho-Arian
+people.
+
+The grouping of the principal Chalda an deities is as follows.  At the
+head of the Pantheon stands a god, 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 classical 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-god; _San_ or _Sansi,_ the Sun; and _Vul_ the god of the
+atmosphere.  The members of this Triad are again accompanied by female
+powers or wives,--_Vul_ by a goddess called _Shala_ or _Tala, San_ (the
+Sun) by _Gula_ or _Anunit,_ and _Hurki_ (the Moon) by a goddess whose
+name is wholly uncertain, but whose common title is “the great lady.”
+
+Such are the gods 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 constitute what we
+have called the _principal_ gods; after them are to be placed the
+numerous divinities of the second and third order.
+
+These principal gods do not appear to have been connected, like the
+Egyptian and the classical 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-god, 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 gods 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 classical tradition.  And, first, concerning the god 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 “God,” or
+perhaps “the god” emphatically. _Ra,_ the Cushite 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
+Cushite equivalent of the Semitic _Bab-il,_ an expression signifying “the
+gate of God.”
+
+Ra is a god 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-god 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 documents 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 god 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 gods, 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 “God,” in the highest sense.  The root occurs probably in the
+Annedotus and Oannes of Berosus, as well as in Philo-Byblius’s Anobret.
+In its origin it is probably Cushite: but it was adopted by the
+Assyrians, 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 god Ra.  His position is well marked by Damascius, who gives the
+three gods, Anus, Illinus, and Aus, as next in succession to the primeval
+pair, Assorus and Missara.  He corresponds in many respects to the
+classical 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 gods,” and also “the Lord of spirits and demons.”
+ Again, he bears a number of titles 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 god 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 god, an illustration of the classical
+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.
+
+The worship of Ana by the kings of the Chaldaean series is certain.  Not
+only did Shanias-vul, the son of Ismi-dagon, raise a temple to the honor
+of Ana and his son Vul at Kileh-Shergat (or Asshur) about B.C. 1830--
+whence that city appears in later times to have borne the name of Telane,
+or “the mound of Ana”--but Urukh himself mentions him as a god in an
+inscription quoted above; and there is reason to believe that from at
+least as early a date he was recognized as the presiding deity at Erech
+or Warka.  This is evident from the fact, that though the worship of
+Beltis superseded that of Ana in the great temple at that place from a
+very remote epoch, yet the temple itself always retained the title of
+Bit-Ana (or Beth-Ana), “the house of Ana;” and Beltis herself was known
+commonly as “the lady of Bit-Ana,” from the previous dedication to this
+god of the shrine in question.  Ana must also have been worshipped
+tolerably early at Nipur (Rifer), or that city could scarcely have
+acquired, by the time of Moses, the appellation of Calneh in the
+Septuagint translation, which is clearly Kal Ana, “the fort of Ana.”
+
+Ana was supposed to have a wife, Anata, of whom a few words will be said
+below.  She bore her husband a numerous progeny.  One tablet shows a list
+of nine of their children, among which, however, no name occurs of any
+celebrity.  But there are two sons of Ana mentioned elsewhere, who seem
+entitled to notice.  One is the god of the atmosphere, Vul (?), of whom a
+full account will be hereafter given.  The other bears the name of Martu,
+and may be identified with the _Brathy_ of Sanchoniathon.  He represents
+“Darkness,” or “the West,” corresponding to the Erebus of the Greeks.
+
+
+ANATA.
+
+Anat or Anata has no peculiar characteristics.  As her name is nothing
+but the feminine form of the masculine Ana, so she herself is a mere
+reflection of her husband.  All his epithets are applied to her, with a
+simple difference of gender.  She has really no personality separate from
+his, resembling Amente in Egyptian mythology, who is a mere feminine
+Ammon.  She is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the historical and
+geographical inscriptions.
+
+
+
+BIL, or ENU.
+
+Bil or Enu is the second god of the first Triad.  He is, probably, the
+Illinus (_Il-Enu_ or “God Enu “) of Damascius.  His name, which seems to
+mean merely “lord,” is usually followed by a qualificative adjunct,
+possessing great interest.  It is proposed to read this term as _Nipru,_
+or in the feminine _Niprut,_ a word which cannot fail to recall the
+Scriptural Nimrod, who is in the Septuagint Nebroth.  The term nipru
+seems to be formed from the root napar, which is in Syriac to “pursue,”
+ to “make to flee,” and which has in Assyrian nearly the same meaning.
+Thus Bil-Nipru would be aptly translated as “the Hunter Lord,” or “the
+god presiding over the chase,” while, at the same time, it might combine
+the meaning of “the Conquering Lord” or “the Great Conqueror.”
+
+On these grounds it is reasonable to conclude that we have, in this
+instance, an admixture of hero-worship in the Chaldaean religion.
+Bil-Nipru is probably the Biblical Nimrod, the original founder of the
+monarchy, the “mighty hunter” and conqueror.  At the same time, however,
+that he is this hero deified, he represents also, as the second god of
+the first Triad, the classical Jupiter.  He is “the supreme,” “the father
+of the gods,” “the procreator,” “the Lord,” _par excellence,_ “the king
+of all the spirits,” “the lord of the world,” and again, “the lord of all
+the countries.”  There is some question whether he is altogether to be
+identified with the Belus of the Greek writers, who in certain respects
+rather corresponds to Merodach.  When Belus, however, is called the first
+king, the founder of the empire, or the builder of Babylon, it seems
+necessary to understand Bil-Nipru or Bel-Nimrod.  Nimrod, we know, built
+Babylon; and Babylon was called in Assyrian times “the city of
+Bil-Nipru,” while its famous defences--the outer and the inner wall--were
+known, even under Nebuchadnezzar, by the name of the same god.--Nimrod,
+again, was certainly the founder of the kingdom; and, therefore, if
+Bil-Nipru is his representative, he would be Belus under that point of
+view.
+
+The chief seat of Bel-Nimrod’s worship was undoubtedly Nipur (Niffer) or
+Calneh.  Not only was this city designated by the very same name as the
+god, and specially dedicated to him and to his wife Beltis, but
+Bel-Nimrod is called “Lord of Nipra,” and his wife “Lady of Nipra,” in
+evident allusion to this city or the tract wherein it was placed.
+Various traditions, as will be hereafter shown, connect Nimrod with
+Niffer, which may fairly be regarded as his principal capital.  Here then
+he would be naturally first worshipped upon his decease; and here seems
+to have been situated his famous temple called Kharris-Nipra, so noted
+for its wealth, splendor, and antiquity, which was an object of intense
+veneration to the Assyrian kings.  Besides this celebrated shrine, he
+does not appear to have possessed many others.  He is sometimes said to
+have had four “arks” or “tabernacles;” but the only places besides
+Niffer, where we know that he had buildings dedicated to him, are Calah
+(Nimrud) and Dur-Kurri-galzu (Akkerkuf).  At the same time he is a god
+almost universally acknowledged in the invocations of the Babylonian and
+Assyrian kings, in which he has a most conspicuous place.  In Assyria he
+seems to be inferior only to Asshur; in Chaldaea to Ra and Ana.
+
+Of Beltis, the wife of Bel-Nimrod, a full account will be given
+presently.  Nin or Ninip--the Assyrian Hercules--was universally regarded
+as their son; and he is frequently joined with Bel-Nimrod in the
+invocations.  Another famous deity, the Moon-god, Sin or Hurki, is also
+declared to be Bel-Nimrod’s son in some inscriptions.  Indeed, as “the
+father of the gods,” Bel-Nimrod might evidently claim an almost infinite
+paternity.
+
+The worship of Bel-Nimrod in Chaldaea extends through the whole time of
+the monarchy.  It has been shown that he was probably the deified Nimrod,
+whose apotheosis would take place shortly after his decease.  Urukh, the
+earliest monumental king, built him a temple at Niffer; and Kurri-galzu,
+one of the latest, paid him the same honor at Akkerkuf.  Urukh also
+frequently mentions him in his inscriptions in connection with Hurki, the
+Moon-god, whom he calls his “eldest son.”
+
+
+BELTIS.
+
+Beltis, the wife of Bel-Nimrod, presents a strong contrast to Anata, the
+wife of Ana.  She is far more than the mere female power of Bel-Nimrod,
+being in fact a separate and very important deity.  Her common title is
+“the Great Goddess.”  In Chaldaea her name was Mulita or Enuta--both
+words signifying “the Lady;” in Assyria she was Bilta or Bilta-Nipruta,
+the feminine forms of Bil and Bilu-Nipru.  Her favorite title was “the
+Mother of the Gods,” or “the Mother of the Great Gods:” whence it is
+tolerably clear that she was the “Dea Syria” worshipped at Hierapolis
+under the Arian appellation of Mabog. Though commonly represented as the
+wife of Bel-Nimrod, and mother of his son Nin or Ninip, she is also
+called “the wife of Nin,” and in one place “the wife of Asshur.”  Her
+other titles are “the lady of Bit-Ana,” “the lady of Nipur,” “the Queen
+of the land” or “of the lands,” “the great lady,” “the goddess of war and
+battle,” and the “queen of fecundity.”  She seems thus to have united the
+attributes of the Juno, the Ceres or Demeter, the Bellona, and even the
+Diana of the classical nations: for she was at once the queen of heaven,
+the goddess who makes the earth fertile, the goddess of war and battle,
+and the goddess of hunting.  In these latter capacities she appears,
+however, to have been gradually superseded by Ishtar, who sometimes even
+appropriates her higher and more distinctive appellations.
+
+The worship of Beltis was wide-spread, and her temples were very
+numerous.  At Erech (Warka) she was worshipped on the same platform, if
+not even in the same building with Ana.  At Calneh or Nipur (Niffer), she
+shared fully in her husband’s honors.  She had a shrine at Ur (Mugheir),
+another at Rubesi, and another outside the walls of Babylon.  Some of
+these temples were very ancient, those at Warka and Niffer being built by
+Urukh, while that at Mugheir was either built or repaired by Ismi-dagon.
+
+According to one record, Beltis was a daughter of Ana.  It was especially
+as “Queen of Nipur” that she was the wife of her son Nin.  Perhaps this
+idea grew up out of the fact that at Nipur the two were associated
+together in a common worship.  It appears to have given rise to some of
+the Greek traditions with respect to Semiramis, who was made to contract
+an incestuous marriage with her own son Ninyas, although no explanation
+can at present be given of the application to Beltis of that name.
+
+
+HEA, or HOA.
+
+The third god of the first Triad was Hea, or Hoa, probably the Aus of
+Damascus.  His appellation is perhaps best rendered into Greek by the
+[--] of Helladius--the name given to the mystic animal, half man, half
+fish, which came up from the Persian Gulf to teach astronomy and letters
+to the first settlers on the Euphrates and Tigris.  It is perhaps
+contained also in the word by which Berosus designates this same
+creature--Oannes--which may be explained as _Hoa-ana,_ or “the god Hoa.”
+ There are no means of strictly determining the precise meaning of the
+word in Babylonian; but it is perhaps allowable to connect it,
+provisionally, with the Arabic Hiya, which is at once life and “a
+serpent,” since, according to the best authority, there are very strong
+grounds for connecting Hea or Hoa with the serpent of Scripture and the
+Paradisaical traditions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.
+
+Hoa occupies, in the first Triad, the position which in the classical
+mythology is filled by Poseidon or Neptune, and in some respects he
+corresponds to him.  He is “the lord of the earth,” just as Neptune is
+[Greek]; he is “the king of rivers;” and he comes from the sea to teach
+the Babylonians; but he is never called “the lord of the sea.”  That
+title belongs to Nin or Ninip.  Hoa is “the lord of the abyss,” or of
+“the great deep,” which does not seem to be the sea, but something
+distinct from it.  His most important titles are those which invest him
+with the character, so prominently brought out in Oe and Oannes, of the
+god of science and knowledge.  He is “the intelligent guide,” or,
+according to another interpretation, “the intelligent fish,” “the teacher
+of mankind,” “the lord of understanding.”  One of his emblems is the
+“wedge” or “arrowhead,” the essential element of cuneiform writing, which
+seems to be assigned to him as the inventor, or at least the patron of
+the Chaldaean alphabet.  Another is the serpent which occupies so
+conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the black stones
+recording benefactions, and which sometimes appears upon the cylinders.
+[PLATE XIX., Fig. 3.] This symbol, here as elsewhere, is emblematic of
+superhuman knowledge--a record of the primeval belief that the serpent
+was more subtle than any beast of the field.  The stellar name of Hoa was
+Kimmut; and it is suspected that in this aspect he was identified with
+the constellation Draco, which is perhaps the Kimah of Scripture.
+Besides his chief character of “god of knowledge,” Hoa is also “god of
+life,” a capacity in which the serpent would again fitly symbolize him.
+He was likewise “god of glory,” and “god of giving,”  being, as Berosus
+said, the great giver of good gifts to man.
+
+The monuments do not contain much evidence of the early worship of Hoa.
+His name appears on a very ancient stone tablet brought from Mugheir
+(Ur); but otherwise his claim to be accounted one of the primeval gods
+must rest on the testimony of Berosus and Helladius, who represent him as
+known to the first settlers.  He seems to have been the tutelary god
+of Is or Hit, which Isidore of Charax calls Aeipolis, or “Hea’s city;”
+ but there is no evidence that this was a very ancient place.  The
+Assyrian kings built him temples at Asshur and Calah.
+
+Hoa had a wife Dav-Kina, of whom a few words will be said presently.
+Their most celebrated son was Merodach or Bel-Merodach, the Belus of
+Babylonian times.  As Kimmut, Hoa was also the father of Nebo, whose
+functions bear a general resemblance to his own.
+
+
+DAV-KINA.
+
+Dav-Kina, the wife of Hoa, is clearly the Dauke or Davke of Damascius who
+was the wife of Ails and mother of Belus (Bel-Merodach).  Her name is
+thought to signify “the chief lady.”  She has no distinctive titles or
+important position in the Pantheon, but, like Anata, takes her husband’s
+epithets with a mere distinction of gender.
+
+
+SIN, or HURKI.
+
+The first god of the second Triad is Sin, or Hurki, the moon-deity.  It
+is in condescension to Greek notions that Berosus inverts the true
+Chaldaean order, and places the sun before the moon in his enumeration of
+the heavenly bodies.  Chaldaean mythology gives a very decided preference
+to the lesser luminary, perhaps because the nights are more pleasant than
+the days in hot countries.  With respect to the names of the god, we may
+observe that Sin, the Assyrian or Semitic term, is a word of quite
+uncertain etymology, which, however, is found applied to the moon in many
+Semitic languages; while Hurki, which is the Chaldaean or Hamitic name,
+is probably from a root cognate to the Hebrew _Ur_, “vigilare,” whence is
+derived the term sometimes used to signify “an angel” _Ir,_ “a watcher.”
+
+The titles of Hurki are usually somewhat vague.  He is “the chief,” “the
+powerful,” “the lord of the spirits,” “he who dwells in the great
+heavens;” or, hyperbolically, “the chief of the gods of heaven and
+earth,” “the king of the gods,” and even “the god of the gods.”
+ Sometimes, however, his titles are more definite and particular: as,
+firstly, when they belong to him in respect of his being the celestial
+luminary--e.g., “the bright,” “the shining,” “the lord of the month;”
+ and, secondly, when they represent him as presiding over buildings and
+architecture, which the Chaldaeans appear to have placed under his
+special superintendence.  In this connection he is called “the supporting
+architect,” “the strengthener of fortifications,” and, more generally,
+“the lord of building” (Bel-zuna).  Bricks, the Chaldaean building
+material, were of course under his protection; and the sign which
+designates them is also the sign of the month over which he was
+considered to exert particular care.  His ordinary symbol is the crescent
+or new moon, which is commonly represented as large, but of extreme
+thinness: though not without a certain variety in the forms.
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 81]
+
+The most curious and the most purely conventional representations are a
+linear semicircle, and an imitation of this semicircle formed by three
+straight lines.  The illuminated part of the moon’s disk is always turned
+directly towards the horizon, a position but rarely seen in nature.
+
+The chief Chaldaean temple to the moon-god was at Ur or Hur (Mugheir), a
+city which probably derived its name from him, and which was under his
+special protection.  He had also shrines at Babylon and Borsippa, and
+likewise at Calah and Dur-Sargina (Khorsabad).  Few deities appear to
+have been worshipped with such constancy by the Chaldaean kings.  His
+great temple at Ur was begun by Urukh, and finished by his son Ilgi--the
+two most ancient of all the monarchs.  Later in the series we find him in
+such honor that every king’s name during some centuries comprise the name
+of the moon-god in it.  On the restoration of the Chaldaean power he is
+again in high repute.  Nebuchadnezzar mentions him with respect; and
+Nabonidus, the last native monarch, restores his shrine at Ur, and
+accumulates upon him the most high-sounding titles.
+
+The moon-god is called, in more than one inscription, the eldest son of
+Bel-Ninnod.  He had a wife (the moon-goddess) whose title was “the great
+lady,” and who is frequently associated with him in the lists.  She and
+her husband were conjointly the tutelary deities of Ur or Hur; and a
+particular portion of the great temple there was dedicated to her honor
+especially.--Her “ark” or “tabernacle,” which was separate from that of
+her husband was probably, as well as his, deposited in this sanctuary.
+It bore the title of “the lesser light,” while his was called,
+emphatically, “the light.”
+
+
+SAN, or SANSI.
+
+San, or Sansi, the sun-god, was the second member of the second Triad.
+The main element of this name is probably connected with the root _shani_
+which is in Arabic, and perhaps in Hebrew, “bright.”  Hence we may
+perhaps compare our own word “sun” with the Chaldaean “San;” for “sun” is
+most likely connected etymologically with “sheen” and “shine.”  Shamas or
+Shemesh, the Semitic title of the god, is altogether separate and
+distinct, signifying as it does, the Ministering office of the sun, and
+not the brilliancy of his light.  A trace of the Hamitic name appears in
+the well-known city Bethsain, whose appellation is declared by Eugesippus
+to signify “domus Solis,” “the house of the sun.”
+
+The titles applied to the sun-god have not often much direct reference to
+his physical powers or attributes.  He is called indeed, in some places,
+“the lord of fire,” “the light of the gods,” “the ruler of the day,” and
+“he who illumines the expanse of heaven and earth.”  But commonly he is
+either spoken of in a more general way, as “the regent of all things,”
+ “the establisher of heaven and earth;” or, if special functions are
+assigned to him, they are connected with his supposed “motive” power, as
+inspiring warlike thoughts in the minds of the kings, directing and
+favorably influencing their expeditions; or again, as helping them to
+discharge any of the other active duties of royalty.  San is “the supreme
+ruler who casts a favorable eye on expeditions,” “the vanquisher of the
+king’s enemies,” “the breaker-up of opposition.”  He “casts his motive
+influence” over the monarchs, and causes them to “assemble their
+chariots and warriors”--he goes forth with their armies, and enables them
+to extend their dominions--he chases their enemies before them, causes
+opposition to cease, and brings them back with victory to their own
+countries.  Besides this, he helps them to sway the sceptre of power,
+and to rule over their subjects with authority.  It seems that, from
+observing the manifest agency of the material sun in stimulating all the
+functions of nature, the Chaldaeans came to the conclusion that the
+sun-god exerted a similar influence on the minds of men, and was the
+great motive agent in human history.
+
+The chief seats of the sun-god’s worship in Chaldaea appear to have been
+the two famous cities of Larsa (Ellasar?) and Sippara.  The great temple
+of the Sun, called Bit-Parra, at the former place, was erected by Urukh,
+repaired by more than one of the later Chaldaean monarchs, and completely
+restored by Nebuchadnezzar.  At Sippara, the worship of the sun-god was
+so predominant, that Abydenus, probably following Berosus, calls the town
+Heliopolis.  There can be little doubt that the Adrammelech, or
+“Fire-king,” whose worship the Sepharvites (or people of Sippara)
+introduced into Samaria, was this deity.  Sippara is called Tsipar sha
+Shamas, “Sippara of the Sun,” in various inscriptions, and possessed a
+temple of the god which was repaired and adorned by many of the ancient
+Chaldaean kings, as well as by Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus.
+
+The general prevalence of San’s worship is indicated most clearly by the
+cylinders.  Few comparatively of those which have any divine symbol upon
+them are without his.  The symbol is either a simple circle, a quartered
+disk a four-rayed orb of a more elaborate character.
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 83]
+
+San or Sansi had a wife, Ai, Gula, or Anunit, of whom it now follows to
+speak.
+
+Al, GULA, or ANUNIT.
+
+Ai, Gula, or Anunit, was the female power of the sun, and was commonly
+associated with San in temples and invocations.  Her names are of
+uncertain signification, except the second, Gula, which undoubtedly means
+“great,” being so translated in the vocabularies.  It is suspected that
+the three terms may have been attached respectively to the “rising,” the
+“culminating,” and the “setting sun,” since they do not appear to
+interchange; while the name Gula is distinctly stated in one inscription
+to belong to the “great” goddess, “the wife of the meridian Sun.”  It is
+perhaps an objection to this view, that the male Sun, who is decidedly
+the superior deity, does not appear to be manifested in Chaldaea under
+any such threefold representation.
+
+As a substantive deity, distinct from her husband, Gula’s characteristics
+are that she presides over life and over fecundity.  It is not quite
+clear whether these offices belong to her alone, or whether she is
+associated in each of them with a sister goddess.  There is a “Mistress
+of Life,” who must be regarded as the special dispenser of that blessing;
+and there is a “Mistress of the Gods,” who is expressly said to “preside
+over births.”  Concerning these two personages we cannot at present
+determine whether they are really distinct deities, or whether they are
+not rather aspects of Gula, sufficiently marked to be represented in the
+temples by distinct idols.
+
+Gula was worshipped in close combination with her husband, both at Larsa
+and Sippara.  Her name appears in the inscriptions connected with both
+places; and she is probably the “Anammelech,” whom the Sepharvites
+honored in conjunction with Adrammelech, the “Fire-King.”  In later times
+she had also temples independent of her husband, at Babylon and Borsippa,
+as well as at Calah Asshur.
+
+The emblem now commonly regarded as symbolizing Gula is the eight-rayed
+disk or orb, which frequently accompanies the orb with four rays in the
+Babylonian representations.  In lieu of a disk, we have sometimes an
+eight-rayed star and even occasionally a star with six rays only.  It is
+curious that the eight-rayed star became at an early period the universal
+emblem of divinity: but perhaps we can only conclude from this the
+stellar origin of the worship generally, and not any special pre-eminence
+or priority of Anunit over other deities.
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 84]
+
+
+VUL, OR IVA
+
+The third member of the second Triad is the god of the atmosphere, whose
+name it has been proposed to render phonetically in a great variety of
+ways.  Until a general agreement shall be established, it is thought best
+to retain a name with which readers are familiar; and the form Vul will
+therefore be used in these volumes.  Were Iva the correct articulation,
+we might regard the term as simply the old Hamitic name for “the air,”
+ and illustrate it by the Arabic _heva,_ which has still that meaning.
+
+The importance of Vul in the Chaldaean mythology, and his strong positive
+character, contrast remarkably with the weak and shadowy features of
+Uranus, or AEther, in the classical system.  Vul indeed corresponds in
+great measure with the classical Zeus or Jupiter, being, like him, the
+real “Prince of the power of the air,” the lord of the whirlwind and the
+tempest, and the wielder of the thunderbolt.  His standard titles are
+“the minister of heaven and earth,” “the Lord of the air,” “he who makes
+the tempest to rage.”  He is regarded as the destroyer of crops, the
+rooter-up of trees, the scatterer of the harvest.  Famine, scarcity, and
+even their consequence, pestilence, are assigned to him.  He is said to
+have in his hand a “flaming sword,” with which he effects his works of
+destruction; and this “flaming sword,” which probably represents
+lightning, becomes his emblem upon the tablets and cylinders, where it is
+figured as a double or triple bolt. [PLATE XIX., Fig. 4.] Vul again, as
+the god of the atmosphere, gives the rain; and hence he is “the careful
+and beneficent chief,” “the giver of abundance,” “the lord of fecundity.”
+ In this capacity he is naturally chosen to preside over canals, the great
+fertilizers of Babylonia; and we find among his titles “the lord of
+canals,” and “the establisher of works of irrigation.”
+
+There is not much evidence of the worship of Vul in Chaldaea during the
+early times.  That he must have been known appears from the fact of his
+name forming an element in the name of Shamas-Vul, son of Ismi-dagon, who
+ruled over Chaldaea about B.C. 1850.  It is also certain that this
+Shamas-Vul set up his worship at Asshur (Kileh-Sherghat) in Assyria,
+associating him there with his father Ana, and building to them
+conjointly a great temple.  Further than this we have no proof that he
+was an object of worship in the time of the first monarchy; though in the
+time of Assyrian preponderance, as well as in that of the later
+Babylonian Empire, there were few gods more venerated.
+
+Vul is sometimes associated with a goddess, Shala or Tala, who is
+probably the Salambo or Salambas of the lexicographers.  The meaning of
+her name is uncertain; and her epithets are for the most part obscure.
+Her ordinary title is sacrat or sharrat, “queen,” the feminine of the
+common word sar, which means “Chief,” “King,” or “Sovereign.”
+
+
+BAR, NIN, or NINIP.
+
+If we are right in regarding the five gods who stand next to the Triad
+formed of the Moon, the Sun, and the Atmosphere, as representatives of
+the five planets visible to the naked eye, the god Nin, or Ninip, should
+be Saturn.  His names, Bar and Nin, are respectively a Semitic and a
+Hamitic term signifying “lord” or “master.”  Nin-ip, his full Hamitic
+appellation, signifies “Nin, by name,” or “he whose name is Nin;” and
+similarly, his full Semitic appellation seems to have been Barshem, “Bar,
+by name,” or “he whose name is Bar”--a term which is not indeed found in
+the inscriptions, but which appears to have been well known to the early
+Syrians and Armenians, and which was probably the origin of the title
+Barsemii, borne by the kings of Hatra (Hadhr near Kileh-Sherghat) in
+Roman times.
+
+In character and attributes the classical god whom Nin most closely
+resembles is, however, not Saturn, but Hercules.  An indication of this
+connection is perhaps contained in the Herodotean genealogy, which makes
+Hercules an ancestor of Ninus.  Many classical traditions, we must
+remember, identified Hercules with Saturn; and it seems certain that in
+the East at any rate this identification was common.  So Nin, in the
+inscriptions, is the god of strength and courage.  He is “the lord of the
+brave,” “the champion,” “the warrior who subdues foes,” “he who
+strengthens the heart of his followers;” and again, “the destroyer of
+enemies,” “the reducer of the disobedient,” “the exterminator of rebels,”
+ “he whose sword is good.”  In many respects he bears a close resemblance
+to Nergal or Mars.  Like him, he is a god of battle and of the chase,
+presiding over the king’s expeditions, whether for war or hunting, and
+giving success in both alike.  At the same time he has qualities which
+seem wholly unconnected with any that have been hitherto mentioned.  He
+is the true “Fish-God” of Berosus, and is fig ured as such in the
+sculptures.  [PLATE XIX., Fig. 5.] In this point of view he is called
+“the god of the sea,” “he who dwells in the sea,” and again, somewhat
+curiously, “the opener of aqueducts.”  Besides these epithets, he has
+many of a more general character, as “the powerful chief,” “the supreme,”
+ “the first of the gods,” “the favorite of the gods,” “the chief of the
+spirits,” and the like.  Again, he has a set of epithets which seem to
+point to his stellar character, very difficult to reconcile with the
+notion that, as a celestial luminary, he was Saturn. We find him called
+“the light of heaven and earth,” “he who, like the sun, the light of the
+gods, irradiates the nations.”  These phrases appear to point to the
+Moon, or to some very brilliant star, and are scarcely reconcilable with
+the notion that he was the dark and distant Saturn.
+
+Nin’s emblem in Assyria is the Man-bull, the impersonation of strength
+and power.  [PLATE XIX., Fig. 6.] He guards the palaces of the Assyrian
+kings, who reckon him their tutelary god, and give his name to their
+capital city.  We may conjecture that in Babylonia his emblem was the
+sacred fish, which is often seen under different forms upon the
+cylinders.  [PLATE XIX., Fig. 7.]
+
+The monuments furnish no evidence of the early worship of Nin in
+Chaldaea.  We may perhaps gather the fact from Berosus’ account of the
+Fish-God as an early object of veneration in that region, as well as from
+the Hamitic etymology of the name by which he was ordinarily known even
+in Assyria.  There he was always one of the most important deities.  His
+temple at Nineveh was very famous, and is noticed by Tacitus in his
+“Annals;” and he had likewise two temples at Calah (Nimrud), both of them
+buildings of some pretension.
+
+It has been already mentioned that Nin was the son of Bel-Nimrod, and
+that Beltis was both his wife and his mother.  These relationships are
+well established, since they are repeatedly asserted.  One tablet,
+however, inverts the genealogy, and makes Bel-Nimrod the son of Nin,
+instead of his father.  The contradiction perhaps springs from the double
+character of this divinity, who, as Saturn, is the father, but, as
+Hercules, the son of Jupiter.
+
+
+BEL-MERODACH.
+
+Bel-Merodach is, beyond all doubt, the planet Jupiter, which is still
+called Bel by the Mendaeans.  The name Merodach is of uncertain etymology
+and meaning.  It has been compared with the Persian _Mardak,_ the
+diminutive of _mard,_ “a man,” and with the Arabic _Mirrich,_ which is
+the name of the planet Mars.  But, as there is every reason to believe
+that the term belongs to the Hamitic Babylonian, it is in vain to have
+recourse to Arian or Semitic tongues for its derivation.  Most likely the
+word is a descriptive epithet, originally attached to the name Bel, in
+the same way as _Nipru,_ but ultimately usurping its place and coming to
+be regarded as the proper name of the deity.  It is doubtful whether any
+phonetic representative of Merodach has been found on the monuments; if
+so, the pronunciation should, apparently, be _Amardak,_ whence we might
+derive the Amordacia of Ptolemy.
+
+The titles and attributes of Merodach are of more than usual vagueness.
+In the most ancient monuments which mention him, he seems to be called
+“the old man of the gods,” and “the judge;” he also certainly has the
+gates, which in early times were the seats of justice, under his special
+protection.  Thus he would seem to be the god of justice and judgment--an
+idea which may have given rise to the Hebrew name of the planet Jupiter,
+viz. _sedek,_ “justitia.”  Bel-Merodach was worshipped in the early
+Chaldaean kingdom, as appears from the Tel-Sifr tablets.  He was probably
+from a very remote time the tutelary god of the city of Babylon; and
+hence, as that city grew into importance, the worship of Merodach became
+more prominent.  The Assyrian monarchs always especially associate
+Babylon with this god; and in the later Babylonian empire he becomes by
+far the chief object of worship.  It is his temple which Herodotus
+describes so elaborately, and his image, which, according to the
+Apocryphal Daniel, the Babylonians worshipped with so much devotion.
+Nebuchadnezzar calls him “the king of the heavens and the earth,” “the
+great lord,” “the senior of the gods,” “the most ancient,” “the supporter
+of sovereignty,” “the layer-up of treasures,” etc., and ascribes to him
+all his glory and success.
+
+We have no means of determining which among the emblems of the gods is to
+be assigned to Bel-Merodach; nor is there any sculptured form which can
+be certainly attached to him.  According to Diodorus, the great statue of
+Bel-Merodach at Babylon was a figure “standing and walking.”  Such a form
+appears more often than any other upon the cylinders of the Babylonians;
+and it is perhaps allowable to conjecture that it may represent this
+favorite deity.  [PLATE XIX., Fig. 8.]
+
+
+ZIR-BANIT.
+
+Bel-Merodach has a wife, with whom he is commonly associated, called
+Zir-banit.  She had a temple at Babylon, probably attached to her
+husband’s, and is perhaps the Babylonian Juno (Hera) of Diodorus.  The
+essential element of her name seems to be Zir, which is an old Hamitic
+root of uncertain meaning, while the accompanying _banit_ is a
+descriptive epithet, which may be rendered by “genetrix.”  Zir-banit was
+probably the goddess whose worship the Babylonian settlers carried to
+Samaria, and who is called Succoth-benoth in Scripture.
+
+
+NERGAL.
+
+Nergal, the planet Mars, whose name was continued to a late date, under
+the form of Nerig in the astronomical system of the Mendaeans, is a god
+whose character and attributes are tolerably clear and definite.  His
+name is evidently compounded of the two Hamitic roots _nir,_ “a man,” and
+_gala,_ “great;” so that he is “the great man,” or “the great hero.”  He
+is the special god of war and of hunting, more particularly of the
+latter.  His titles are “the king of battle,” “the champion of the gods,”
+ “the storm ruler,” “the strong begetter,” “the tutelar god of Babylonia,”
+ and “the god of the chase.”  He is usually coupled with Nin, who likewise
+presides over battles and over hunting; but while Nin is at least his
+equal in the former sphere, Nergal has a decided pre-eminence in the
+latter.
+
+We have no distinct evidence that Nergal was worshipped in the primitive
+times.  He is first mentioned by some of the early Assyrian kings, who
+regard him as their ancestor.  It has, however, been conjectured that,
+like Bil-Nipru, he represented the deified hero, Nimrod, who may have
+been worshipped in different parts of Chaldaea under different titles.
+
+The city peculiarly dedicated to Nergal was Cutha or Tiggaba, which is
+constantly called his city in the inscriptions.  He was worshipped also
+at Tarbisa, near Nineveh, but in Tiggaba he was said to “live,” and his
+shrine there was one of great celebrity.  Hence “the men of Cuth,” when
+transported to Samaria by the Assyrians, naturally enough “made Nergal
+their god,” carrying his worship with them into their new country.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 20]
+
+It is probable that Nergal’s symbol was the Man Lion.  [PLATE XX.]  Nir
+is sometimes used in the inscriptions in the meaning of “lion;” and the
+Semitic name for the god himself is “Aria”--the ordinary term for the
+king of beasts both in Hebrew and in Syriac.  Perhaps we have here the
+true derivation of the Greek name for the god of war, _Ares,_ which has
+long puzzled classical scholars.  The lion would symbolize both the
+fighting and the hunting propensities of the god, for he not only engages
+in combats upon occasions, but often chases his prey and runs it down
+like a hunter.  Again, if Nergal is the Man-Lion, his association in the
+buildings with the Man-Bull would be exactly parallel with the
+conjunction, which we so constantly find, between him and Nin in the
+inscriptions.
+
+Nergal had a wife, called Laz, of whom, however, nothing is known beyond
+her name.  It is uncertain which among the emblems of the gods appertains
+to him.
+
+
+ISHTAR, or NANA.
+
+Ishtar, or Nana, is the planetary Venus, and in general features
+corresponds with the classical goddess.  Her name Ishtar is that by which
+she was known in Assyria; and the same term prevailed with slight
+modifications among the Semitic races generally.  The Phoenician form was
+Astarte, the Hebrew Ashtoreth; the later Mendaean form was Ashtar.  In
+Babylonia the goddess was known as Nana, which seems to be the Naneea of
+the second book of Maccabees, and the Nani of the modern Syrians.  No
+satisfactory account can at present be given of the etymology of either
+name; for the proposal to connect Ishtar with the Greek (Zend _starann,_
+Sanscrit _tara,_ English _star,_ Latin _stella_), though it has great
+names in its favor, is not worthy of much attention.
+
+Ishtar’s aphrodisiac character, though it can scarcely be doubted, does
+not appear very clearly in the inscriptions.  She is “the goddess who
+rejoices mankind,” and her most common epithet is “Asurah,” “the
+fortunate,” or “the happy.”  But otherwise her epithets are vague and
+general, insomuch that she is often scarcely distinguishable from Beltis.
+She is called “the mistress of heaven and earth,” “the great goddess,”
+ “the queen of all the gods,” and again “the goddess of war and battle,”
+ “the queen of victory,” “she who arranges battles,” and “she who defends
+from attacks.”  She is also represented in the inscriptions of one king
+as the goddess of the chase.
+
+The worship of Ishtar was wide-spread, and her shrines were numerous.
+She is often called “the queen of Babylon,” and must certainly have had
+a temple in that city.  She had also temples at Asshur (Kileh-Sherghat),
+at Arbela, and at Nineveh.  It may be suspected that her symbol was the
+naked female form, which is not uncommon upon the cylinders.  [PLATE
+XXI., Figs. 1, 2.]  She may also be represented by the rude images in
+baked clay so common throughout the Mesopotamian ruins, which are
+generally regarded as images of Mylitta.  Ishtar is sometimes coupled
+with Nebo in such a way as to suggest the notion that she was his wife.
+This, however, can hardly have been her real position in the mythology,
+since Nebo had, as will presently appear, another wife, Varamit, whom
+there is no reason to believe identical with Ishtar.  It is most probable
+that the conjunction is casual and accidental, being due to special and
+temporary causes.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE 21]
+
+
+NEBO.
+
+The last of the five planetary gods is Nebo, who undoubtedly represents
+the planet Mercury.  [PLATE XXI., Fig. 3.] His name is the same, or
+nearly so, both in Babylonian and Assyrian; and we may perhaps assign it
+a Semitic derivation, from the root _nibbah,_  “to prophesy.”  It is his
+special function to preside over knowledge and learning.  He is called
+“the god who possesses intelligence,” “he who hears from afar,” “he who
+teaches,” or “he who teaches and instructs.”  In this point of view, he
+of course approximates to Hoa, whose son he is called in some
+inscriptions, and to whom he bears a general resemblance.  Like Hoa, he
+is symbolized by the simple wedge or “arrowhead,” the primary and
+essential element of cuneiform writing, to mark his joint presidency with
+that God over writing and literature.  At the same time Nebo has, like so
+many of the Chaldaean gods, a number of general titles, implying divine
+power, which, if they had belonged to him only, would have seemed to
+prove him the supreme deity.  He is “the Lord of lords, who has no equal
+in power,” “the supreme chief,” “the sustainer,” “the supporter,” “the
+ever ready,” “the guardian over the heavens and the earth,” “the lord of
+the constellations,” “the holder of the sceptre of power,” “he who grants
+to kings the sceptre of royalty for the governance of their people.”  It
+is chiefly by his omission from many lists, and his humble place when he
+is mentioned together with the really great gods, that we know he was
+mythologically a deity of no very great eminence.
+
+There is nothing to prove the early--worship of Nebo.  His name does not
+appear as an element in any royal appellation belonging to the Chaldaean
+series.  Nor is there any reference to him in the records of the primeval
+times.  Still, as he is probably of Babylonian rather than Assyrian
+origin, and as an Assyrian king is named after him in the twelfth century
+B.C., we may assume that he was not unknown to the primitive people of
+Chaldaea, though at present their remains have furnished us with no
+mention of him.  In later ages the chief seat of his worship was
+Borsippa, where the great and famous temple, known at present as the
+Birs-Nimrud, was dedicated to his honor.  He had also a shrine at Calah
+(Nimrud), whence were procured the statues representing him which are now
+in the British Museum.  He was in special favor with the kings of the
+great Babylonian empire, who were mostly named after him, and viewed him
+as presiding over their house.  His symbol has not yet been recognized.
+
+The wife of Nebo, as already observed, was Varamit or Urmit--a word which
+perhaps means “exalted,” from the root on, “to be lifted up.”  No special
+attributes are ascribed to this goddess, who merely accompanies her
+husband in most of the places where he is mentioned by name.
+
+
+Such, then, seem to have been the chief gods worshipped by the early
+Chaldaeans.  It would be an endless as well as an unprofitable task to
+give an account of the inferior deities.  Their name is “Legion;” and
+they are, for the most part, too vague and shadowy for effective
+description.  A vast number are merely local; and it may be suspected
+that where this is the case the great gods of the Pantheon come before us
+repeatedly, disguised under rustic titles.  We have, moreover, no clue at
+present to this labyrinth, on which, even with greater knowledge, it
+would perhaps be best for us to forbear to enter; since there is no
+reason to expect that we should obtain any really valuable results from
+its exploration.
+
+A few words, however, may be added upon the subject of the Chaldaean
+cosmogony.  Although the only knowledge that we possess on this point is
+derived from Berosus, and therefore we cannot be sure that we have really
+the belief of the ancient people, yet, judging from internal evidence of
+character, we may safely pronounce Berosus’ account not only archaic, but
+in its groundwork and essence a primeval tradition, more ancient probably
+than most of the gods whom we have been considering.
+
+“In the beginning,” says this ancient legend, “all was darkness and
+water, and therein were generated monstrous animals of strange and
+peculiar forms.  There were men with two wings, and some even with four,
+and with two faces; and others with two heads, a man’s and a woman’s on
+one body; and there were men with the heads and horns of goats, and men
+with hoofs like horses, and some with the upper parts of a man joined to
+the lower parts of a horse, like centaurs; and there were bulls with
+human heads, dogs with four bodies and with fishes’ tails, men and horses
+with dogs’ heads, creatures with the heads and bodies of horses, but with
+the tails of fish, and other animals mixing the forms of various beasts.
+Moreover there were monstrous fish and reptiles and serpents, and divers
+other creatures, which had borrowed something from each other’s shapes;
+of all which the likenesses are still preserved in the temple of Belus.
+A woman ruleth them all, by name Omorka, which is in Chaldee Thalatth,
+and in Greek Thalassa (or “the sea”).  Then Belus appeared, and split the
+woman in twain; and of the one half of her he made the heaven, and of the
+other half the earth; and the beasts that were in her he caused to
+perish.  And he split the darkness, and divided the heaven and the earth
+asunder, and put the world in order; and the animals that could not bear
+the light perished.  Belus, upon this, seeing that the earth was
+desolate, yet teeming with productive power, commanded one of the gods to
+cut off his head, and to mix the blood which flowed forth with earth, and
+form men therewith, and beasts that could bear the light.  So man was
+made, and was intelligent, being a partaker of the divine wisdom.
+Likewise Belus made the stars, and the sun and moon, and the five
+planets.”
+
+It has been generally seen that this cosmogony bears a remarkable
+resemblance to the history of Creation contained in the opening chapters
+of the book of Genesis.  Some have gone so far as to argue that the
+Mosaic account was derived from it.  Others, who reject this notion,
+suggest that a certain “old Chaldee tradition” was “the basis of them
+both.”  If we drop out the word “Chaldee” from this statement, it may be
+regarded as fairly expressing the truth.  The Babylonian legend embodies
+a primeval tradition, common to all mankind, of which an inspired author
+has given us the true groundwork in the first and second chapters of
+Genesis.  What is especially remarkable is the fidelity, comparatively
+speaking, with which the Babylonian legend reports the facts.  While the
+whole tone and spirit of the two accounts, and even the point of view
+from which they are taken, differ, the general outline of the narrative
+in each is nearly the same.  In both we have the earth at first “without
+form and void,” and “darkness upon the face of the deep.”  In both the
+first step taken towards creation is the separation of the mixed mass,
+and the formation of the heavens and the earth as the consequence of such
+separation.  In both we have light mentioned before the creation of the
+sun and moon; in both we have the existence of animals before man; and in
+both we have a divine element infused into man at his birth, and his
+formation “from the dust of the ground.”  The only points in which the
+narratives can be said to be at variance are points of order.  The
+Babylonians apparently made the formation of man and of the animals which
+at present inhabit the earth simultaneous, and placed the creation of the
+sun, moon, and planets after, instead of before, that of men and animals.
+In other respects the Babylonian narrative either adds to the Mosaic
+account, as in its description of the monsters and their destruction, or
+clothes in mythic language, that could never have been understood
+literally, the truth which in Scripture is put forth with severe
+simplicity.  The cleaving of the woman Thalatth in twain, and the
+beheading of Belus, are embellishments of this latter character; they are
+plainly and evidently mythological; nor can we suppose them to have been
+at any time regarded as facts.  The existence of the monsters, on the
+other hand, may well have been an actual belief.  All men are prone to
+believe in such marvels; and it is quite possible, as Niebuhr supposes,
+that some discoveries of the remains of mammoths and other monstrous
+forms embedded in the crust of the earth, may have given definiteness and
+prominency to the Chaldaean notions on this subject.
+
+Besides their correct notions on the subject of creation, the primitive
+Chaldaeans seem also to have been aware of the general destruction of
+mankind, on account of their wickedness, by a Flood; and of the
+rebellious attempt which was made soon after the Flood to concentrate
+themselves in one place, instead of obeying the command to “replenish the
+earth” an attempt which was thwarted by means of the confusion of their
+speech.  The Chaldaean legends embodying these primitive traditions were
+as follows:--
+
+“God appeared to Xisuthrus (Noah) in a dream, and warned him that on the
+fifteenth day of the month Daesius, mankind would be destroyed by a
+deluge.  He bade him bury in Sippara, the City of the Sun, the extant
+writings, first and last; and build a ship, and enter therein with his
+family and his close friends; and furnish it with meat and drink; and
+place on board winged fowl, and four-footed beasts of the earth; and when
+all was ready, set sail.  Xisuthrus asked ‘Whither he was to sail?’ and
+was told, ‘To the gods, with a prayer that it might fare well with
+mankind.’  Then Xisuthrus was not disobedient to the vision, but built a
+ship five furlongs (3125 feet) in length, and two furlongs (1250 feet) in
+breadth; and collected all that had been commanded him, and put his wife
+and children and close friends on board.  The flood came; and as soon as
+it ceased, Xisuthrus let loose some birds, which, finding neither food
+nor a place where they could rest, came back to the ark.  After some days
+he again sent out the birds, which again returned to the ark, but with
+feet covered with mud.  Sent out a third time, the birds returned no
+more, and Xisuthrus knew that land had reappeared: so he removed some of
+the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold! the vessel had grounded
+on a mountain.  Then Xisuthrus went forth with his wife and his daughter,
+and his pilot, and fell down and worshipped the earth, and built an
+altar, and offered sacrifice to the gods; after which he disappeared from
+sight, together with those who had accompanied him.  They who had
+remained in the ark and not gone forth with Xisuthrus, now left it and
+searched for him, and shouted out his name; but Xisuthrus was not seen
+any more.  Only his voice answered them out of the air, saying, ‘Worship
+God; for because I worshipped God, am I gone to dwell with the gods; and
+they who were with me have shared the same honor.’  And he bade them
+return to Babylon, and recover the writings buried at Sippara, and make
+them known among men; and he told them that the land in which they then
+were was Armenia.  So they, when they had heard all, sacrificed to the
+gods and went their way on foot to Babylon, and, having reached it,
+recovered the buried writings from Sippara, and built many cities and
+temples, and restored Babylon.  Some portion of the ark still continues
+in Armenia, in the Gordiaean (Kurdish) Mountains; and persons scrape off
+the bitumen from it to bring away, and this they use as a remedy to avert
+misfortunes.”
+
+“The earth was still of one language, when the primitive men, who were
+proud of their strength and stature, and despised the gods as their
+inferiors, erected a tower of vast height, in order than they might mount
+to heaven.  And the tower was now near to heaven, when the gods (or God)
+caused the winds to blow and overturned the structure upon the men, and
+made them speak with divers tongues; wherefore the city was called
+Babylon.”
+
+Here again we have a harmony with Scripture of the most remarkable
+kind--a harmony not confined to the main facts, but reaching even to the
+minuter points, and one which is altogether most curious and interesting.
+The Babylonians have not only, in common with the great majority of
+nations, handed down from age to age the general tradition of the Flood,
+but they are acquainted with most of the particulars of the occurrence.
+They know of the divine warning to a single man, the direction to
+construct a huge ship or ark, the command to take into it a chosen few
+of mankind only, and to devote the chief space to “winged fowl and
+four-footed beasts of the earth.”  They are aware of the tentative
+sending out of birds from it, and of their returning twice, but when
+sent out a third time returning no more.  They know of the egress from
+the ark by removal of some of its covering, and of the altar built and
+the sacrifice offered immediately afterwards.  They know that the ark
+rested in Armenia; that those who escaped by means of it, or their
+descendants, journeyed towards Babylon; that there a tower was begun,
+but not, completed, the building being stopped by divine interposition
+and a miraculous confusion of tongues.  As before, they are not content
+with the plain truth, but must amplify and embellish it.  The size of
+the ark is exaggerated to an absurdity, and its proportions are
+misrepresented in such a way as to outrage all the principles of naval
+architecture.  The translation of Xisuthrus, his wife, his daughter, and
+his pilot--a reminiscence possibly of the translation of Enoch--is
+unfitly as well as falsely introduced just after they have been
+miraculously saved from destruction.  The story of the Tower is given
+with less departure from the actual truth.  The building is, however,
+absurdly represented as an actual attempt to scale heaven; and a storm
+of wind is somewhat unnecessarily introduced to destroy the Tower, which
+from the Scripture narrative seems to have been left standing.  It is
+also especially to be noticed that in the Chaldaean legends the whole
+interest is made narrow and local.  The Flood appears as a circumstance
+in the history of Babylonia; and the priestly traditionists, who have
+put the legend into shape, are chiefly anxious to make the event redound
+to the glory of their sacred books, which they boast to have been the
+special objects of divine care, and represent as a legacy from the
+antediluvian ages.  The general interests of mankind are nothing to the
+Chaldaean priests, who see in the story of the Tower simply a local
+etymology, and in the Deluge an event which made the Babylonians the
+sole possessors of primeval wisdom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HISTORY AND CHRONOLOGY.
+
+“The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and
+Calneh, in the land of Shinar.”--GEN. X. 10.
+
+The establishment of a Cushite kingdom in Lower Babylonia dates probably
+from (at least) the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth century before our era.
+Greek traditions’ assigned to the city of Babylon an antiquity nearly as
+remote; and the native historian, Berosus, spoke of a Chaldaean dynasty
+as bearing rule anterior to B.C.  2250.  Unfortunately the works of this
+great authority have been lost; and even the general outline of his
+chronological scheme, whereof some writers have left us an account, is to
+a certain extent imperfect; so that, in order to obtain a definite
+chronology for the early times, we are forced to have recourse, in some
+degree, to conjecture.  Berosus declared that six dynasties had reigned
+in Chaldaea since the great flood of Xisuthrus, or Noah.  To the first,
+which consisted of 86 kings, he allowed the extravagant period of 34,080
+years.  Evechous, the founder of the dynasty, had enjoyed the royal
+dignity for 2400 years, and Chomasbelus, his son and successor, had
+reigned 300 years longer than his father.  The other 84 monarchs had
+filled up the remaining space of 28,980 years--their reigns thus
+averaging 345 years apiece.  It is clear that these numbers are
+unhistoric; and though it would be easy to reduce them within the limits
+of credibility by arbitrary suppositions--as for instance, that the years
+of the narrative represent months or days--yet it may reasonably be
+doubted whether we should in this way be doing any service to the cause
+of historic truth.  The names Evechous and Chomasbelus seem mythic rather
+than real; they represent personages in the Babylonian Pantheon, and can
+scarcely have been borne by men.  It is likely that the entire series of
+names partook of the same character, and that, if we possessed them,
+their bearing would be found to be, not historic, but mythological.  We
+may parallel this dynasty of Berosus, where he reckons king’s reigns by
+the cyclical periods of _sosses_ and _ners,_ with Manetho’s dynasties of
+Gods and Demigods in Egypt, where the sum of the years is nearly as
+great.
+
+It is necessary, then, to discard as unhistorical the names and numbers
+assigned to his first dynasty by Berosus, and to retain from this part of
+his scheme nothing but the fact which he lays down of an ancient
+Chaldaean dynasty having ruled in Babylonia, prior to a conquest, which
+led to the establishment of a second dynasty, termed by him Median.
+
+The scheme of Berosus then, setting aside his numbers for the first
+period, is--according to the best extant authorities, as follows:--
+
+Dynasty  I.  of (?) Chaldaean kings.  (?) years.
+        II.  of  8  Median     “  234 (?)   ”
+        III.  “  11     “       “   48 (?)   ”
+         IV.  “  49 Chaldaean   “  458       ”
+          V.  “   9 Arabian     “  245       ”
+         VI.  “  45   (?)       “  526       ”
+ Reign of Pul                          (?)
+Dynasty VII. of (?)  (?) kings        (?)
+    “  VIII.  “  6 Chaldaean   “   87       ”
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 98]
+
+It will be observed that this table contains certain defects and
+weaknesses, which greatly impair its value, and prevent us from
+constructing upon it, without further aid, an exact scheme of chronology.
+Not only does a doubt attach to one or two of the numbers--to the years,
+i.e., of the second and third dynasty--but in two cases we have no
+numbers at all set down for us, and must supply them from conjecture, or
+from extraneous sources, before we can make the scheme available.
+Fortunately in the more important case, that of the seventh dynasty, the
+number of years can be exactly supplied without any difficulty.  The Canon
+of Ptolemy covers, in fact, the whole interval between the reign of Pul
+and the close of the Babylonian Empire, giving for the period of the
+seventh dynasty 13 reigns in 122 years, and for that of the eighth 5
+reigns in 87 years.  The length of the reign of Pul can, however, only be
+supplied from conjecture.  As it is not an unreasonable supposition that
+he may have reigned 28 years, and as this number harmonizes well with the
+chronological notices of the monuments, we shall venture to assume it,
+and thus complete the scheme which the fragments of Berosus imperfect.
+
+
+[Illustration: PAGE 99]
+
+This scheme, in which there is nothing conjectural except the length of
+the reign of Pul, receives very remarkable confirmation from the Assyrian
+monuments.  These inform us, first, that there was a conquest of Babylon
+by a Susianian monarch 1635 yers before the capture of Susa by
+Asshurbanipal, the son of Esarhaddon; and, secondly, that there was a
+second conquest by an Assyrian monarch 600 years before the occupation of
+Babylon by Esarhaddon’s father, Sennacherib.  Now Sennacherib’s
+occupation of Babylon was in B.C. 702; and 600 years before this brings
+us to B.C. 1302, within a year of the date which the scheme assigns to
+the accession of the seventh dynasty.  Susa was taken by Asshur-bani-pal
+probably in B.C.  651; and 1635 years before this is B.C. 2286, or the
+exact year marked in the scheme for the accession of the second (Median)
+dynasty.  This double coincidence can scarcely be accidental; and we may
+conclude, therefore, that we have in the above table at any rate a near
+approach to the scheme of Babylonian chronology as received among both
+the Babylonians and Assyrians in the seventh century before our era.
+
+Whether the chronology is wholly trustworthy is another question.  The
+evidence both of the classical writers and of the monuments is to the
+effect that exact chronology was a subject to which the Babylonians and
+Assyrians paid great attention.  The “Canon of Ptolemy,” which contained
+an exact Babylonian computation of time from B.C. 747 to B.C. 331, is
+generally allowed to be a most authentic document, and one on which we
+may place complete reliance.  The “Assyrian Canon,” which gives the years
+of the Assyrian monarchs from B.C. 911 to B.C. 660, appears to be equally
+trustworthy.  How much further exact notation went back, it is impossible
+to say.  All that we know is, first, that the later Assyrian monarchs
+believed they had means of fixing the exact date of events in their own
+history and in that of Babylon up to a time distant from their own as
+much as sixteen or seventeen hundred years; and secondly, that the
+chronology which result from their statements and those of Berosus is
+moderate, probably, and in harmony with all the knowledge which we obtain
+of the East from other sources.  It is proposed therefore, in the present
+volumes, to accept the general scheme of Berosus as, in all probability,
+not seriously in error; and to arrange the Chaldaean, Assyrian, and
+Babylonian history on the framework which it furnishes.
+
+Chaldaean history may therefore be regarded as opening upon us at a time
+anterior, at any rate by a century or two, to B.C. 2286.  It was then
+that Nimrod, the son or descendant of Cush, set up a kingdom in Lower
+Mesopotamia, which attracted the attention of surrounding nations.  The
+people, whom he led, came probably by sea; at any rate, their earliest
+settlements were on the coast; and Ur or Hur, on the right bank of the
+Euphrates, at a very short distance from its embouchure, was the
+primitive capital.  The “mighty hunter” rapidly spread his dominion
+inland, subduing or expelling the various tribes by which the country was
+previously occupied.  His kingdom extended northwards, at least as far as
+Babylon,--which (as well as Erech or Huruk, Accad, and Calneh) was first
+founded by this monarch.  Further historical details of his reign are
+wanting; but the strength of his character and the greatness of his
+achievements are remarkably indicated by a variety of testimonies, which
+place him among the foremost men of the Old World, and guarantee him a
+never-ending remembrance.  At least as early as the time of Moses his
+name had passed into a proverb.  He was known as “the mighty hunter
+before the Lord”--an expression which had probably a double meaning,
+implying at once skill and bravery in the pursuit and destruction of wild
+beasts, and also a genius for war and success in his aggressions upon
+men.  In his own nation he seems to have been deified, and to have
+continued down to the latest times one of the leading objects of worship,
+under the title of Bilu-Nipru or Bel-Nimrod, which may be translated “the
+god of the chase,” or “the great hunter.”
+
+One of his capitals, Calneh, which was regarded as his special city,
+appears afterwards to have been known by his name (probably as being the
+chief seat of his worship in the early times); and this name it still
+retains, slightly corrupted.  In the modern Niffer we may recognize the
+Talmudical Nopher, and the Assyrian Nipur which is Nipru, with a mere
+metathesis of the two final letters.  The fame of Nimrod has always been
+rife in the country of his domination.  Arab writers record a number of
+remarkable traditions, in which he plays a conspicuous part; and there is
+little doubt but that it is in honor of his apotheosis that the
+constellation Orion bears in Arabian astronomy the title of El Jabbar, or
+“the giant.”  Even at the present day his name lives in the mouth of the
+people inhabiting Chaldaea and the adjacent regions, whose memory of
+ancient heroes is almost confined to three--Nimrod, Solomon, and
+Alexander.  Wherever a mound of ashes is to be seen in Babylonia or the
+adjoining countries, the local traditions attach to it the name of
+Niinrud or Nimrod; and the most striking ruins now existing in the
+Mesopotamian valley, whether in its upper or its lower portion, are made
+in this way monuments of his glory.
+
+Of the immediate successors of Nimrod we have no account that even the
+most lenient criticism can view as historical.  It appears that his
+conquest was followed rapidly by a Semitic emigration from the
+country--an emigration which took a northerly direction.  The Assyrians
+withdrew from Babylonia, which they still always regarded as their
+parent land, and, occupying the upper or non-alluvial portion of the
+Mesopotamian plain, commenced the building of great cities in a tract
+upon the middle Tigris.  The Phoenicians removed from the shores of the
+Persian Gulf, and, journeying towards the northwest, formed settlements
+upon the coast of Canaan, where they became a rich and prosperous
+people.  The family of Abraham, and probably other Aramaean families,
+ascended the Euphrates, withdrawing from a yoke which was oppressive, or
+at any rate unpleasant. Abundant room was thus made for the Cushite
+immigrants, who rapidly established their preponderance over the whole
+of the southern region. As war ceased to be the necessary daily
+occupation of the newcomers, civilization and the arts of life began to
+appear.  The reign of the “Hunter” was followed, after no long time, by
+that of the “Builder.” A monumental king, whose name is read doubtfully
+as Urkham or Urukh, belongs almost certainly to this early dynasty, and
+may be placed next in succession, though at what interval we cannot say,
+to Nimrod.  He is beyond question the earliest Chaldaean monarch of whom
+any remains have been obtained in the country.  Not only are his bricks
+found in a lower position than any others, at the very foundations of
+buildings, but they are of a rude and coarse make, and the inscriptions
+upon them contrast most remarkably, in the simplicity of the style of
+writing used and in their general archaic type, with the elaborate and
+often complicated symbols of the later monarchs.  The style of Urukh’s
+buildings is also primitive and simple in the extreme; his bricks are of
+many sizes, and ill fitted together; he belongs to a time when even the
+baking of bricks seems to have been comparatively rare, for sometimes he
+employs only the sun-dried material; and he is altogether unacquainted
+with the use of lime mortar, for which his substitute is moist mud, or
+else bitumen.  There can be little doubt that he stands at the head of
+the present series of monumental kings, another of whom probably reigned
+as early as B.C. 2286.  As he was succeeded by a son, whose reign seems
+to have been of the average length, we must place his accession at least
+as early as B.C.  2326.  Possibly it may have fallen a century earlier.
+
+It is as a builder of gigantic works that Urukh is chiefly known to us.
+The basement platforms of his temples are of an enormous size; and though
+they cannot seriously be compared with the Egyptian pyramids, yet
+indicate the employment for many years of a vast amount of human labor in
+a very unproductive sort of industry.  The Bowariyeh mound at Warka is
+200 feet square, and about 100 feet high.  Its cubic contents, as
+originally built, can have been little, if at all, under 3,000,000 feet;
+and above 30,000,000 of bricks must have been used in its construction.
+Constructions of a similar character, and not very different in their
+dimensions, are proved by the bricks composing them to have been raised
+by the same monarch at Ur, Calneh or Nipur, and Larancha or Larsa, which
+is perhaps Ellasar.  It is evident, from the size and number of these
+works, that their erector had the command of a vast amount of “naked
+human strength,” and did not scruple to employ that strength in
+constructions from which no material benefit was derivable, but which
+were probably designed chiefly to extend his own fame and perpetuate his
+glory.  We may gather from this that he was either an oppressor of his
+people, like some of the Pyramid Kings in Egypt, or else a conqueror, who
+thus employed the numerous captives carried off in his expeditions.
+Perhaps the latter is the more probable supposition; for the builders of
+the great fabrics in Babylonia and Chaldaea do not seem to have left
+behind them any character of oppressiveness, such as attaches commonly to
+those monarchs who have ground down their own people by servile labor.
+
+The great buildings of Urukh appear to have been all designed for
+temples.  They are carefully placed with their angles facing the cardinal
+points, and are dedicated to the Sun, the Moon, to Belus (Bel-Nimrod), or
+to Beltis.  The temple at Mugheir was built in honor of the Moon-god, Sin
+or Hiuki, who was the tutelary deity of the city.  The Warka temple was
+dedicated to Beltis.  At Calneh or Nipur, Urukh erected two temples, one
+to Beltis and one to Belus.  At Larsa or Ellasar the object of his
+worship was the Sun-god, San or Sansi.  He would thus seem to have been
+no special devotee of a single god, but to have divided out his favors
+very fairly among the chief personages of the Pantheon.
+
+It has been observed that both the inscriptions of this king, and his
+architecture, are of a rude and primitive type.  Still in neither case do
+we seem to be brought to the earliest dawn of civilization or of art.
+The writing of Urukh has passed out of the first or hieroglyphic stage,
+and entered the second or transition one, when pictures are no longer
+attempted, but the lines or wedges follow roughly the old outline of the
+objects in his architecture, again, though there is much that is rude
+and simple, there is also a good deal which indicates knowledge and
+experience.  The use of the buttress is understood; and the buttress is
+varied according to the material.  The importance of sloping the walls of
+buildings inwards to resist interior pressure is thoroughly recognized.
+Drains are introduced to carry off moisture, which must otherwise have
+been very destructive to buildings composed mainly, or entirely, of crude
+brick.  It is evident that the builders whom the king employs, though
+they do not possess much genius, have still such a knowledge of the most
+important principles of their art as is only obtained gradually by a good
+deal of practice.  Indeed, the very fact of the continued existence of
+their works at the distance of forty centuries is sufficient evidence
+that they possessed a considerable amount of architectural skill and
+knowledge.  We are further, perhaps, justified in concluding, from the
+careful emplacement of Urukh’s temples, that the science of astronomy was
+already cultivated in his reign, and was regarded as having a certain
+connection with religion.  We have seen that the early worship of the
+Chaldaeans was to a great extent astral--a fact which naturally made the
+heavenly bodies special objects of attention.  If the series of
+observations which Callisthenes sent to Aristotle, dating from B.C.
+2234, was in reality a record, and not a mere calculation backwards of
+the dates at which certain celestial phenomena must have taken place,
+astronomical studies must have been pretty well advanced at a period not
+long subsequent to Urukh.
+
+Nor must we omit to notice, if we would estimate aright the condition of
+Chaldaean art under this king, the indications furnished by his
+signet-cylinder.  So far as we can judge from the representation, which
+is all that we possess of this relic, the drawing on the cylinder was as
+good and the engraving as well executed as any work of the kind, either
+of the Assyrian or of the later Babylonian period.  Apart from the
+inscription this work of art has nothing about it that is rude or
+primitive.  The elaboration of the dresses and headgear of the figures
+has been already noticed.  It is also worthy of remark, that the
+principal figure sits on an ornamental throne or chair, of particularly
+tasteful construction, two legs of which appear to have been modelled
+after those of the bull or ox. We may conclude, without much danger of
+mistake, that in the time of the monarch who owned this seal, dresses of
+delicate fabric and elaborate pattern, and furniture of a recherche and
+elegant shape, were in use among the people over whom he exercised
+dominion.
+
+The chief capital city of Urukh appears to have been Ur.  He calls
+himself “King of Ur and Kingi Accad;” and it is at Ur that he raises his
+principal buildings.  Ur, too, has furnished the great bulk of his
+inscriptions.  Babylon was not yet a place of much importance, though it
+was probably built by Nimrod.  The second city of the Empire was Huruk or
+Erech: other places of importance were Larsa (Ellasar?) and Nipur or
+Calneh.
+
+Urukh appears to have been succeeded in the kingdom by a son, whose name
+it is proposed to read as Elgi or Ilgi.  Of this prince our knowledge is
+somewhat scanty.  Bricks bearing his name have been found at Ur (Mugheir)
+and at Tel Eid, near Erech, or Warka; and his signet-cylinder has been
+recovered, and is now in the British Museum.  We learn from inscriptions
+of Nabonidus that he completed some of the buildings at Ur, which had
+been left unfinished by his father; while his own bricks inform us that
+he built or repaired two of the principal temples at Erech.  On his
+signet-cylinder he takes the title of “King of Ur.”
+
+After the death of Ilgi, Chaldaean history is for a time a blank.  It
+would seem, however, that while the Cushites were establishing themselves
+in the alluvial plain towards the mouths of the two great rivers, there
+was growing up a rival power, Turanian, or Ario-Turanian, in the
+neighboring tract at the foot of the Zagros mountain-chain.  One of the
+most ancient, perhaps the most ancient, of all the Asiatic cities was
+Susa, the Elamitic capital, which formed the centre of a nationality that
+endured from the twenty-third century B.C.  to the time of Darius
+Hystaspis (B.C. 520) when it sank finally under the Persians.  A king of
+Elam, whose court was held at Susa, led, in the year B.C. 2286 (or a
+little earlier), an expedition against the cities of Chaldaea, succeeded
+in carrying all before him, ravaged the country, took the towns,
+plundered the temples, and bore off into his own country, as the most
+striking evidence of victory, the images of the deities which the
+Babylonians especially reverenced.  This king’s name, which was
+Kudur-Nakhunta, is thought to be the exact equivalent of one which has a
+world-wide celebrity, to wit, Zoroaster.  Now, according to Polyhistor
+(who here certainly repeats Berosus), Zoroaster was the first of those
+eight Median kings who composed the second dynasty in Chaldaea, and
+occupied the throne from about B. C. 2286 to 2052.  The Medes are
+represented by him as capturing Babylon at this time, and imposing
+themselves as rulers upon the country.  Eight kings reigned in space of
+234 (or 224) years, after which we hear no more of Medes, the
+sovereignty being (as it would seem) recovered by the natives.  The
+coincidences of the conquest the date, the foreign sovereignty and the
+name Zoroaster, tend to identify the Median dynasty of Berosus with a
+period of Susianian supremacy, which the monuments show to have been
+established it Chaldaea at a date not long subsequent to the reigns of
+Urukh and Ilgi, and to have lasted for a considerable period.
+
+There are five monarchs known to us who may be assigned to this dynasty.
+The first is the Kudur-Nakhunta above named, who conquered Babylonia and
+established his influence there, but continued to hold his court at Susa,
+governing his conquest probably by means of a viceroy or tributary king.
+Next to him, at no great interval, may be placed Kudur-Lagamer, the
+Chedor-laomer of Scripture, who held a similar position to
+Kudur-Nakhunta, reigning himself in Elam, while his vassals, Amraphel,
+Arioch, and Tidal (or Turgal) held the governments respectfully of
+Shinar (or Upper Babylonia), Ellasar (Lower Babylonia or Chaldaea), and
+the Goim or the nomadic races.  Possessing thus an authority over the
+whole of the alluvial plain, and being able to collect together a
+formidable army, Kudur-Lagamer resolved on a expedition up the
+Euphrates, with the object of extending his dominion to the
+Mediterranean Sea and to the borders of Egypt.  At first his endeavors
+were successful.  Together with his confederate kings, he marched as far
+as Palestine, where he was opposed by the native princes, Bera, king of
+Sodom, Birsha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Admah, Shemeber, king
+of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela or Zoar.  A great battle was fought
+between the two confederated armies in the vale of Siddim towards the
+lower end of the Dead Sea.  The invaders were victorious; and for twelve
+years Bera and his allies were content to own themselves subjects of the
+Elamitic king, whom they “served” for that period.  In the thirteenth
+year they rebelled: a general rising of the western nations seems to
+have taken place; and in order to maintain his conquest it was necessary
+for the conqueror to make a fresh effort.  Once more the four eastern
+kings entered Syria, and, after various successes against minor powers,
+engaged a second time in the valley of Siddim with their old
+antagonists, whom they defeated with great slaughter; after which they
+plundered the chief cities belonging to them.  It was on this occasion
+that Lot, the nephew of Abraham, was taken prisoner.  Laden with booty
+of various kinds, and encumbered with a number of captives, male and
+female, the conquering army set out upon its march home, and had reached
+the neighborhood of Damascus, when it was attacked and defeated by
+Abraham, who with a small band ventured under cover of night to fall
+upon the retreating host, which he routed and pursued to some distance.
+The actual slaughter can scarcely have been great; but the prisoners and
+the booty taken had to be surrendered; the prestige of victory was lost;
+and the result appears to have been that the Mesopotamian monarch
+relinquished his projects, and, contenting himself with the fame
+acquired by such distant expeditions, made no further attempt to carry
+his empire beyond the Euphrates.
+
+The other three kings who may be assigned to the Elamitic dynasty are a
+father, son, and grandson, whose names appear upon the native monuments
+of Chaldaea in a position which is thought to imply that they were
+posterior to the kings Urukh and Ilgi, but of greater antiquity than any
+other monarchs who have left memorials in the country.  Their names are
+read as Sinti-shil-khak, Kudur-Mabuk, and Arid-Sin.  Of Sinti-shil khak
+nothing is known beyond the name.  Kudur-Mabuk is said in the
+inscriptions of his son to have “enlarged the dominions of the city of
+Ur;” and on his own bricks he bears the title of Apda Martu, which
+probably means “Conqueror of the West.”  We may presume therefore that
+he was a warlike prince, like Kudur-Nakhunta and Kudur-Lagamer; and
+that, like the latter of these two kings, he made war in the direction
+of Syria, though he may not have carried his arms so far as his great
+predecessor.  He and his son both held their court at Ur, and, though of
+foreign origin, maintained the Chaldaean religion unchanged, making
+additions to the ancient temples, and worshipping the Chaldaean gods
+under the old titles.
+
+The circumstances which brought the Elamitic dynasty to a close, and
+restored the Chaldaean throne to a line of native princes, and
+unrecorded by any historian; nor have the monuments hitherto thrown any
+light upon them.  If we may trust the numbers of the Armenian Eusebius,
+the dynasty which succeeded, ab. B.C. 2052, to the Susianian (or
+Median), though it counted eleven kings, bore rule for the short space
+of forty-eight years only.  This would seem to imply either a state of
+great internal disturbance, or a time during which viceroys, removable
+at pleasure and often removed, governed the country under some foreign
+suzerain.  In either case, the third dynasty of Berosus may be said to
+mark a transition period between the time of foreign subjection and that
+of the recovery by the native Chaldaeans of complete independence.
+
+To the fourth Berosian dynasty, which held the throne for 458 years,
+from about B. C. 2004 to B. C. 1546, the monuments enable us to assign
+some eight or ten monarchs, whose inscriptions are characterized by a
+general resemblance, and by a character intermediate between the extreme
+rudeness of the more ancient and the comparative elegance and neatness
+of the later legends.  Of these kings one of the earliest was a certain
+Ismidagon, the date of whose reign we are able to fix with a near
+approach to exactness.  Sennacherib, in a rock inscription at Bavian,
+relates that in his tenth year (which was B. C. 692) he recovered from
+Babylon certain images of the gods which had been carried thither
+by Merodach-iddin-akhi, King of Babylon, after his defeat of
+Tiglath-Pileser, King of Assyria, 418 years previously.  And the same
+Tiglath-Pileser relates that he rebuilt a temple in Assyria, which had
+been taken down 60 years before, after it had lasted 641 years from its
+foundation by Shamas-Vul, sun of Ismi-dagon.  It results from these
+numbers that Ismi-dagon was king as early as B.C. 1850, or, probably a
+little earlier.
+
+The monuments furnish little information concerning Ismidagon beyond the
+evidence which they afford of the extension of this king’s dominion into
+the upper part of the Mesopotamian valley, and especially into the
+country known in later times as Assyria.  The fact that Shamas-Vul, the
+son of Ismi-dagon, built a temple at Kileh-Sherghat, implies necessarily
+that the Chaldaans at this time bore sway in the upper region.
+Shamas-Vul appears to have been, not the eldest, but the second son of
+the monarch, and must be viewed as ruling over Assyria in the capacity
+of viceroy, either for his father or his brother.  Such evidence as we
+possess of the condition of Assyria about this period seems to show that
+it was weak and insignificant, administered ordinarily by Babylonian
+satraps or governors, whose office was one of no great rank or dignity.
+
+In Chaldaea, Ismi-dagon was succeeded by a son, whose name is read,
+somewhat doubtfully, as Gunguna or Gurguna.  This prince is known to us
+especially as the builder of the great public cemeteries which now form
+the most conspicuous objects among the ruins of Mugheir, and the
+construction of which is so remarkable.  Ismi-dagon and his son must
+have occupied the Chaldaean throne during most of the latter half of the
+nineteenth century before our era-from about B.C. 1850 to B.C. 1800.
+
+Hitherto there has been no great difficulty in determining the order of
+the monumental kings, from the position of their bricks in the principal
+Chaldaean ruins and the general character of their inscriptions.  But
+the relative place occupied in the series by the later monarchs is
+rendered very doubtful by their records being scattered and unconnected,
+while their styles of inscription vary but slightly.  It is most
+unfortunate that no writer has left us a list corresponding in
+Babylonian history with that which Manetho put on record for Egyptian;
+since we are thus compelled to arrange our names in an order which rests
+on little more than conjecture.
+
+The monumental king who is thought to have approached the nearest to
+Gurguna is Naram-Sin, of whom a record has been discovered at Babylon,
+and who is mentioned in a late inscription as the builder, in
+conjunction with his father, of a temple at the city of Agana.  His date
+is probably about B.C. 1750.  The seat of his court may be conjectured
+to have been Babylon, which had by this time risen into metropolitan
+conse quence.  It is evident that, as time went on, the tendency was to
+remove the seat of government and empire to a greater distance from the
+sea.  The early monarchs reign at Ur (Mugheir), and leave no traces of
+themselves further north than Niffer.  Sin-Shada holds his court at
+Erech (Warka), twenty-five miles above Mugheir; while Naram-Sin is
+connected with the still more northern city of Babylon.  We shall find a
+similar tendency in Assyria, as it rose into power.  In both cases we
+may regard the fact as indicative of a gradual spread of empire towards
+the north, and of the advance of civilization and settled government in
+that direction.
+
+A king, who disputes the palm of antiquity with Naram-Sin, has left
+various records at Erech or Warka, which appears to have been his
+capital city.  It is proposed to call him Sin-Shada. He constructed, or
+rather re-built, the upper terrace of the Bowariyeh ruin, or great
+temple, which Urukh raised at Warka to Beltis; and his bricks are found
+in the doorway of another large ruin (the _Wuswas_) at the same place;
+it is believed, however, that in this latter building they are not in
+situ, but have been transferred from some earlier edifice.  His reign
+fell probably in the latter part of the 18th, century B. C.
+
+Several monarchs of the Sin series--i.e. monarchs into whose names the
+word Sin, the name of the Moon-god, enters as an element--now present
+themselves.  The most important of them has been called Zur-Sin.  This
+king erected some buildings at Mugheir; but he is best known as the
+founder of the very curious town whose ruins bear at the present day the
+name of Abu-Shahrein.  A description of the principal buildings at this
+site has been already given.  They exhibit certain improvements on the
+architecture of the earlier times, and appear to have been very richly
+ornamented, at least in parts.  At the same time they contain among
+their debris remarkable proofs of the small advance which had as yet
+been made in some of the simplest arts.  Flint knives and other
+implements, stone hatchets, chisels, and nails, are abundant in the
+ruins; and though the use of metal is not unknown, it seems to have been
+comparatively rare. When a metal is found, it is either gold or bronze,
+no trace of iron (except in ornaments of the person) appearing in any of
+the Chaldaean remains.  Zur-Sin, Rim-Sin, and three or four other
+monarchs of the Sin series, whose names are imperfect or uncertain, may
+be assigned to the period included between B.C. 1700 and B.C. 1546.
+
+Another monarch, and the only other monumental name that we can assign to
+Berosus’s fourth dynasty, is a certain Nur-Vul, who appears by the
+Chaldaean sale-tablets to have been the immediate predecessor of Rim-Sin,
+the last king of the _Sin_ series.  Nur-Vul has left no buildings or
+inscriptions; and we seem to see in the absence of all important
+monuments at this time a period of depression, such as commonly in the
+history of nations precedes and prepares the way for a new dynasty or a
+conquest.
+
+The remaining monumental kings belong almost certainly to the fifth, or
+Arabian, dynasty of Berosus, to which he assigns the period of 245 years
+--from about B.C. 1546 to B.C. 1300.  That the list comprises as many as
+fifteen names, whereas Berosus speaks of nine Arabian kings only, need
+not surprise us, since it is not improbable that Berosus may have omitted
+kings who reigned for less than a year.  To arrange the fifteen monarchs
+in chronological order is, unfortunately, impossible.  Only three of them
+have left monuments.  The names of the others are found on linguistic and
+other tablets, in a connection which rarely enables us to determine
+anything with respect to their relative priority or posteriority.  We
+can, however, definitely place seven names, two at the beginning and five
+toward the end of the series, thus leaving only eight whose position in
+the list is undetermined.
+
+The series commences with a great king, named Khammurabi, who was
+probably the founder of the dynasty, the “Arab” chief who, taking
+advantage of the weakness and depression of Chaldaea under the latter
+monarchs of the fourth dynasty, by intrigue or conquest established his
+dominion over the country, and left the crown to his descendants.
+Khammurabi is especially remarkable as having been the first (so far as
+appears) of the Babylonian monarchs to conceive the notion of carrying
+out a system of artificial irrigation in his dominions, by means of a
+canal derived from one of the great rivers.  The _Nahar-Khammu-rabi_
+(“River of Khabbu-rabi “),whereof he boasts in one of his inscriptions,
+was no doubt, as he states, “a blessing to the Babylonians”--it “changed
+desert plains into well-watered fields; it spread around fertility an
+abundance”--it brought a whole district, previously barren, into
+cultivation, and it set an example, which the best of the later monarchs
+followed, of a mode whereby the productiveness of the country might be
+increased to an almost inconceivable extent.
+
+Khammu-rabi was also distinguished as a builder.  He repaired the great
+temple of the Sun at Senkereh and constructed for himself a new palace at
+Kalwadha, or Chilmad, not far from the modern Baghdad.  His inscriptions
+have been found at Babylon, at Zerghul, and at Tel-Sifr; and it is
+thought probable that he made Babylon his ordinary place of residence.
+His reign probably covered the space from about B.C. 1546 to B.C. 1520,
+when he left his crown to his son, Samsu-iluna.  Of this monarch our
+notices are exceedingly scanty.  We know him only from the Tel-Sifr clay
+tablets, several of which are dated by the years of his reign.  He held
+the crown probably from about B.C. 1520 to B.C. 1500.
+
+About sixty or seventy years after this we come upon a group of names,
+belonging almost certainly to this same dynasty, which possess a peculiar
+interest, inasmuch as they serve to connect the closing period of the
+First, or Chaldaean, with the opening portion of the Second, or Assyrian,
+Monarchy.  A succession of five Babylonian monarchs is mentioned on an
+Assyrian tablet, the object of which is to record the synchronous history
+of the two countries.  These monarchs are contemporary with independent
+Assyrian princes, and have relations toward them which are sometimes
+peaceful, sometimes warlike.  Kara-in-das, the first of the five, is on
+terms of friendship with Asshur-bel-nisi-su, king of Assyria, and
+concludes with him a treaty of alliance.  This treaty is renewed between
+his successor, Purna-puriyas, and Buzur-Asshur, the successor of
+Asshur-bel-nisi-su on the throne of Assyria.  Not long afterwards a third
+Assyrian monarch, Asshur-upallit, obtains the crown, and Purna-puriyas
+not only continues on the old terms of amity with him, but draws the ties
+which unite the two royal families closer by marrying Asshur-upallit’s
+daughter.  The issue of this marriage is a prince named Kara-khar-das,
+who on the death of Purna-puriyas ascends the throne of Babylon.  But
+now a revolution occurs.  A certain Nazi-bugas rises in revolt, puts
+Kara-khar-das to death, and succeeds in making himself king.  Hereupon
+Asshur-upallit takes up arms, invades Babylonia, defeats and kills
+Nazi-bugas, and places upon the throne a brother of the murdered
+Kara-khar-das, a younger son of Purna-puriyas, by name Kurri-galzu,
+or Durri-galzu.  These events may be assigned with much probability
+to the period between B.C. 1440 and B.C. 1380.
+
+Of the five consecutive monarchs presented to our notice in this
+interesting document, two are known to us by their own inscriptions.
+Memorials of Purna-puriyas and Kurri-galzu, very similar in their general
+character, have been found in various parts of Chaldala.  Those of
+Purna-puriyas come from Senkereh the ancient Larsa, and consist of bricks,
+showing that he repaired the great temple of the Sun at that city which
+was originally built by Urukh.  Kurri-galzu’s memorials comprise bricks
+from Mugheir (Ur) and Akkerkuf, together with his signet-seal, which was
+found at Baghdad in the year 1800. [PLATE  XXI., Fig. 4.] It also appears
+by an inscription of Nabonidus that he repaired a temple at the city of
+Agana, and left an inscription there.
+
+But the chief fame of Kurri-galzu arises from his having been the founder
+of an important city.  The remarkable remains at Akkerkuf, of which an
+account has been given in a former chapter, mark the site of a town of
+his erection.  It is conjectured with some reason that this place is the
+Dur-Kurri-galzu of the later Assyrian inscriptions--a place of so much
+consequence in the time of Sargon that he calls it “the key of the
+country.”
+
+The remaining monarchs, who are on strong grounds of probability,
+etymological and other, assigned to this dynasty are Saga-raktiyas, the
+founder of a Temple of the male and female Sun at Sippara, Ammidi-kaga,
+Simbar-sikhu, Kharbisikhu, Ulam-puriyas, Nazi-urdas, Mili-sikhu, and
+Kara-kharbi.  Nothing is known at present of the position which any of
+these monarchs held in the dynasty, or of their relationship to the kings
+previously mentioned, or to each other.  Most of them are known to us
+simply from their occurrence in a biliugual list of kings, together with
+Khammu-rabi, Kurri-galzu, and Purna-puriyas.  The list in question
+appears not to be chronological.
+
+Modern research has thus supplied us with memorials (or at any rate with
+the names) of some thirty kings, who ruled in the country properly termed
+Chaldaea at a very remote date.  Their antiquity is evidenced by the
+character of their buildings and of their inscriptions, which are
+unmistakably rude and archaic.  It is further indicated by the fact that
+they are the builders of certainly the most ancient edifices whereof the
+country contains any trace.  The probable connection of two of them with
+the only king known previously from good authority to have reigned in the
+country during the primitive ages confirms the conclusion drawn from the
+appearance of the remains themselves; which is further strengthened by
+the monumental dates assigned to two of them, which place them
+respectively in the twenty-third and the nineteenth century before our
+era.  That the kings belong to one series, and (speaking broadly) to one
+time, is evidenced by the similarity of the titles which they use, by
+their uninterrupted worship of the same gods, and by the general
+resemblance of the language and mode of writing which they employ.
+That the time to which they belong is anterior to the rise of Assyria
+to greatness appears from the synchronism of the later monarchs of the
+Chaldaean with the earliest of the Assyrian list, as well as from the
+fact that the names borne by the Babylonian kings after Assyria became
+the leading power in the country are not only different, but of a
+different type.  If it be objected that the number of thirty kings is
+insufficient for the space over which they have in our scheme been
+spread, we may answer that it has never been, supposed by any one that
+the twenty-nine or thirty kings, of whom distinct mention has been made
+in the foregoing account, are a complete list of all the Chaldaean
+sovereigns.  On the contrary, it is plain that they are a very incomplete
+list, like that which Herodotus gives of the kings of Egypt, or that
+which the later Romans possessed of their early monarchs.  The monuments
+themselves present indications of several other names of kings, belonging
+evidently to the same series, which are too obscure or too illegible for
+transliteration.  And there may, of course, have been many others of whom
+no traces remain, or of whom none have been as yet found.  On the other
+hand, it may be observed, that the number of the early Chaldaean kings
+reported by Polyhistor is preposterous.  If sixty-eight consecutive
+monarchs held the Chaldaean throne between B.C. 2286 and B.C. 1546, they
+must have reigned on an average, less than eleven years apiece.  Nay, if
+forty-nine ruled between B.C. 2004 and B.C. 1546, covering a space of
+little more than four centuries and a half--which is what Berosus is made
+to assert--these later monarchs cannot even have reigned so long as ten
+years each, an average which may be pronounced quite impossible in a
+settled monarchy such as the Chaldaean. The probability would seem to be
+that Berosus has been misreported, his numbers having suffered corruption
+during their passage through so many hands, and being in this instance
+quite untrustworthy.  We may conjecture that the actual number of reigns
+which he intended to allow his fourth dynasty was nineteen, or at the
+utmost twenty-nine, the former of which numbers would give the common
+average of twenty-four years, while the latter would produce the less
+usual but still possible one of sixteen years.
+
+The monarchy which we have had under review is one, no doubt, rather
+curious from its antiquity than illustrious from its great names, or
+admirable for the extent of its dominions.  Less ancient than the
+Egyptian, it claims the advantage of priority over every empire or
+kingdom which has grown up upon the soil of Asia.  The Arian, Turanian,
+and even the Semitic tribes, appear to have been in the nomadic
+condition, when the Cushite settlers in Lower Babylonia betook themselves
+to agriculture, erected temples, built cities, and established a strong
+and settled government.  The leaven which was to spread by degrees
+through the Asiatic peoples was first deposited on the shores of the
+Persian Gulf at the mouth of the Great River; and hence civilization,
+science, letters, art, extended themselves northward, and eastward, and
+westward.  Assyria, Media, Semitic Babylonia, Persia, as they derived
+from Chaldaea the character of their writing, so were they indebted to
+the same country for their general notions of government and
+administration, for their architecture, their decorative art, and still
+more for their science and literature.  Each people no doubt modified in
+some measure the boon received, adding more or less of its own to the
+common inheritance.  But Chaldaea stands forth as the great parent and
+original inventress of Asiatic civilization, without any rival that can
+reasonably dispute her claims. The great men of the Empire are Nimrod,
+Urukh, and Che-dor-laomer.  Nimrod, the founder, has the testimony of
+Scripture that he was “a mighty one in the earth;” “a mighty hunter;”
+ the establisher of a “kingdom,” when kingdoms had scarcely begun to be
+known; the builder of four great and famous cities, “Babel, and Erech,
+and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar,” or Mesopotamia.  To him
+belong the merit of selecting a site peculiarly fitted for the
+development of a great power in the early ages of the world, and of
+binding men together into a community which events proved to possess
+within it the elements of prosperity and permanence. Whether he had,
+indeed, the rebellious and apostate character which numerous traditions,
+Jewish, Arabian, and Armenian, assign to him; whether he was in reality
+concerned in the building of the tower related in the eleventh chapter of
+the Book of Genesis, we have no means of positively determining.  The
+language of Scripture with regard to Nimrod is laudatory rather than the
+contrary; and it would seem to have been from a misapprehension of the
+_nexus_ of the Mosaic narrative that the traditions above mentioned
+originated.  Nimrod, “the mighty hunter _before the Lord_,” had not in
+the days of Moses that ill reputation which attached to him in later
+ages, when he was regarded as the great Titan or Giant, who made war
+upon the gods, and who was at once the builder of the tower, and the
+persecutor who forced Abraham to quit his original country.  It is at
+least doubtful whether we ought to allow any weight at all to the
+additions and embellishments with which later writers, so much wiser
+than Moses, have overlaid the simplicity of his narrative.
+
+Urukh, whose fame may possibly have reached the Romans, was the great
+Chaldaean architect.  To him belongs, apparently, the conception of the
+Babylonian temple, with its rectangular base, carefully placed so as to
+present its angles to the four cardinal points, its receding stages, its
+buttresses, its drains, its sloped walls, its external staircases for
+ascent, and its ornamental shrine crowning the whole.  At any rate, if he
+was not the first to conceive and erect such structures, he set the
+example of building them on such a scale and with such solidity as to
+secure their long continuance, and render them well-nigh imperishable.
+There is no appearance in all Chaldaea, so far as it has been explored,
+of any building which can be even probably assigned to a date anterior to
+Urukh.  The attempted tower was no doubt earlier; and it may have been a
+building of the same type, but there is no reason to believe that any
+remnant, or indeed any trace, of this primitive edifice, has continued to
+exist to our day.  The structures of the most archaic character
+throughout Chaldaea are, one and all, the work of King Urukh, who was not
+content to adorn his metropolitan city only with one of the new edifices,
+but added a similar ornament to each of the great cities within his
+empire.
+
+The great builder was followed shortly by the great conqueror.
+Kudur-Lagamer, the Elamitic prince, who, more than twenty centuries
+before our era, having extended his dominion over Babylonia and the
+adjoining regions, marched an army a distance of 1200 miles from the
+shores of the Persian Gulf to the Dead Sea, and held Palestine and Syria
+in subjection for twelve years, thus effecting conquests which were not
+again made from the same quarter till the time of Nebuchadnezzar,
+fifteen or sixteen hundred years afterward, has a good claim to be
+regarded as one of the most remarkable personages in the world’s
+history-being, as he is, the forerunner and proto-type of all those
+great Oriental conquerors who from time to time have built up vast
+empires in Asia out of heterogeneous materials, which have in a longer
+or a shorter space successively crumbled to decay.  At a time when the
+kings of Egypt had never ventured beyond their borders, unless it were
+for a foray in Ethiopia, and when in Asia no monarch had held dominion
+over more than a few petty tribes, and a few hundred miles of territory,
+he conceived the magnificent notion of binding into one the manifold
+nations inhabiting the vast tract which lies between the Zagros
+mountain-range and the Mediterranean.  Lord by inheritance (as we may
+presume) of Eliun and Chaldaea or Babylonia, he was not content with
+these ample tracts, but, coveting more, proceeded boldly on a career of
+conquest up the Euphrates valley, and through Syria, into Palestine.
+Successful here, he governed for twelve years dominions extending near a
+thousand miles from east to west, and from north to south probably not
+much short of five hundred.  It was true that he was not able to hold
+this large extent of territory; but the attempt and the success
+temporarily attending it are memorable circumstances, and were probably
+long held in remembrance through Western Asia, where they served as a
+stimulus and incentive to the ambition of later monarchs.
+
+These, then, are the great men of the Chaldaean empire.  Its extent, as
+we have seen, varied greatly at different periods.  Under the kings of
+the first dynasty--to which Urukh and Ilgi belonged--it was probably
+confined to the alluvium, which seems then to have been not more than 300
+miles in length along the course of the rivers, and which is about 70 or
+80 miles in breadth from the Tigris to the Arabian desert.  In the course
+of the second dynasty it received a vast increase, being carried in one
+direction to the Elamitic mountains, and in another to the Mediterranean,
+by the conquest of Kudur-Nakhunta and Chedor-laomer.  On the defeat of
+the latter prince it again contracted, though to what extent we have no
+means of determining.  It is probable that Elam or Susiana, and not
+unlikely that the Euphrates valley, for a considerable distance above
+Hit, formed parts of the Chaldaean Empire after the loss of Syria and
+Palestine.  Assyria occupied a similar position, at any rate from the
+time of Ismi-dagon, whose son built a temple at Kileh-Sherghat or Asshur.
+There is reason to think that the subjection of Assyria continued to the
+very end of the dynasty, and that this region, whose capital was at
+Kileh-Sherghat, was administered by viceroys deriving their authority
+from Chaldaean monarchs. These monarchs, as has been observed, gradually
+removed their capital more and more northwards; by which it would appear
+as if their empire tended to progress in that direction.
+
+The different dynasties which ruled in Chaldaea prior to the
+establishment of Assyrian influence, whether Chaldaean, Susianian, or
+Arabian, seem to have been of kindred race; and, whether they established
+themselves by conquest, or in a more peaceful manner, to have made
+little, if any, change in the language, religion, or customs of the
+Empire.  The so-called Arab kings, if they are really (as we have
+supposed), Khammurabi and his successors, show themselves by their names
+and their inscriptions to be as thoroughly proto-Chaldaaan as Urukh or
+Ilgi.  But with the commencement of the Assyrian period the case is
+altered.  From the time of Tiglathi-Nin (about B.C. 1300), the Assyrian
+conqueror who effected the subjugation of Babylon, a strong Semitizing
+influence made itself felt in the lower country--the monarchs cease to
+have Turanian or Cushite and bear instead thoroughly Assyrian names;
+inscriptions, when they occur, are in the Assyrian language and
+character.  The entire people seems by degrees to have been Assyrianized,
+or at any rate Semitized-assimilated, that is, to the stock of nations to
+which the Jews, the northern Arabs, the Aramaeans or Syrians, the
+Phoenicians, and the Assyrians belong.  Their language fell into disuse,
+and grew to be a learned tongue studied by the priests and the literati;
+their Cushite character was lost, and they became, as a people, scarcely
+distinguishable from the Assyrians. After six centuries and a half of
+submission and insignificance, the Chaldaeans, however, began to revive
+and recover themselves--they renewed the struggle for national
+independence, and in the year B.C. 625 succeeded in establishing a second
+kingdom, which will be treated of in a later volume as the fourth or
+Babylonian Monarchy.  Even when this monarchy met its death at the hands
+of Cyrus the Great, the nationality of the Chaldaeans was not swept away.
+We find them recognized under the Persians, and even under the Parthians,
+as a distinct people.  When at last they cease to have a separate
+national existence, their name remains; and it is in memory of the
+successful cultivation of their favorite science by the people of Nimrod
+from his time to that of Alexander, that the professors of astronomical
+and astrological learning under the Roman Emperors receive, from the
+poets and historians of the time, the appellation of “Chaldaeans.”
+
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF AUTHORS AND EDITIONS QUOTED IN THE NOTES.
+
+ABULPHARAGIUS, Chronicon Syriacum, ed. J. Bruno, Lipsim, 1789.
+Agathangelus, Historia Regni Tiridatis, in C. Muller’s Fragm. Hist.
+     Gr. vol. v.,Parisiis, 1870.
+Agathias, in the Corpus Script. Hist. Byz. of B. G. Niebuhr, Bonnm, 1828.
+Ammianus Marcellinus, ed. Gronovius, Lugd. Bat., 1693.
+Analecta Grmca, ed. Benedict., Lutetite Parisioruin, 1688.
+Annales de l’Institut Archeologique, Paris, 1828, &c.
+Anonymus (continuator of Dio Cassius),in the Fragm. Hist. Gr.,
+     vol. iv., Parisiis, 1851.
+Antonini Itinerarium, ed. Parthey et Pinder, Berolini, 1848.
+Appianus, Historia Romana, ed. H. Stephanus, Parisiis. 1592.
+Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, ed.Tauchnitz, Lipsim, 1831.
+Arrianus, Exped. Alex., ed. Tauchnitz, Lipsim, 1829. Fragments of,
+     in the Fragm. Hist.Greec. of C. MUller, vol. iii., Parisiis, 1849.
+     Historia Indica. in C. Muller’s Geographi Minores, Parisiis, 1855-1861.
+Asseman, Bibliotheca Orientalis, Romae, 1719-1728.
+Athanasius, Opera, ed. Benedict., Parisiis, 1698.
+Athenaeus, Deipnosophistw,ed. Schweighmuser, Argentorat., 1801-1807.
+Atkinson, Firdausi, in the Publications of the Oriental Translation
+     Committee, London, 1832.
+Augnstinus, Opera, ed. Benedict., Antwerpim, 1700.
+Aurelius Victor, Hist. Rom. Breviarium, ed. Pitiscus, Traject.
+     ad. Rhen., 1696.
+
+BASILIUS STUs., Opera, ed. Benedict., Peruses, 17,21-17.10.
+Behistun inscription, ed. H. C. Rawlinson. in the
+     Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vols. X.. xi., &c.
+Berosus, in the Fragments Histor. Grmorum of C. Miiller,
+     vol. ii., Paris, 1847.
+Bohlen, Das alte Indien, Konigsberg, 1830.
+Botta, Monument de Ninive, Paris, 1850, Bunsen, Chevalier,
+     Philosophy (if Universal History. London, 1854.
+Burton, Dr., Ecclesiastical History of the First Three Centuries,
+     Oxford,1831.
+
+CAPITOLINUS. JULIUS, in the Historiai,  Augustm Scriptores of Jordan
+     and  Eyssenhardt, Berolini, 1864.
+Cedrenus, in the Corpus Script. Hist. Byzant. of B, G. Niebuhr, Bonnm, 1838.
+Champagny, Les Caesars du Troisieme Siecle, Paris, 1865.
+Chardin, Voyage en Perse. Amsterdam, 1735.
+Chronicon Paschale, in the Corpus  Script. Hist. Byzant. of
+     B. G. Niebuhr, Bonnae, 1832.
+Cicero, Opera, ed. Ernesti, Londini, 1819.
+Claudianus. Opera, in the Corpus Poetarum Latinorum of G. S. Walker,
+     Loudini, 1865.
+Clinton, Fasti Romani, Oxford,1845-1850.
+Cosnias Iudicopleustes, Topographia
+Christiana, in Montfaucon’s Collectio nova Patrons, q. v.
+Creuzer, Symbolik and Mythologie, Leipzig, 1819-1821.
+Curtius, Quietus. Vita Alexandri Magni, ed. Pitiscus. Hague, 1708.
+Cyrillus Alexandrinus, Opera, ed. Aubert, Parisiis, 1638.
+Cyrillus Monachus, Vita Euthymii, in the Analecta Grmca, q. v.
+
+D’ANVILLE, Geographie Ancienne, Paris, 1768.
+De Sacy, Memoire surdiverses Antiquities de la Perse, Paris, 1793.
+D’Herbelot, Bibliothoque Orientale, Paris, 1781.
+Dino, in the Fragm. Hist. Grace. of C. Muller, vol. ii., Paris 1845.
+Dio Cassius, ed. Fabricius, Hamburgi, 1750-1752.
+Dio Chrysostomus, ed. Morell, Parisiis, 1604.
+Diodorus Siculus, ed. Dindorf, Parisiis, 1843-4.
+Diogenes Laertius, ed. Wetstein, Amstelodami, 1692.
+
+ECKHEL, Doctrina, Nummorum Veterum, Vindobonae, 1792.
+Elisaeus translated into French by M. l’Abbe Kabaragy Garabed,
+     Paris, 1844.
+Epiphanies, Opera, ed. Valesius, Coloniae, 1682.
+Ethnological Journal, London, 1869, &c.
+Eunapius, Vitae Philosophorum, ex officin. P. Stephani, Parisius, 1616.
+Eusebius Pamphili, Vita Constantini Magni, Ac., ed. Heinichen, Lugd.
+     Bat., 1562.
+Eutropius. Brevarinm Hist. Rom., ed Verheyk. Ladg. Bat., 1762.
+Eutychius, Annales, Oxonii, 1654-1656.
+Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica, ed. Reading, Cantabrigiae, 1720.
+
+FABRICIUS. Bibliotheca Graeca, ed. Harles, Hamburgi. 1590-1809.
+Fanstus of Byzantium, in the Fragm. Hist. Grace. of C. Muller,
+     vol. v., Paris, 1850.
+Fergusson, James, History of Architecture, London, 1873.
+Festus (Sext. Rufus). Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani,
+     ed. Verheyk. (See Eutropius.).
+Firdausi, edited by Atkinson, in the series published by the Oriental
+     Translation Fund, 1839-71.
+Flandin. Voyage en Peise, Paris, 1851,
+Fraser, Journey into Khorasan, London, 1825.
+
+GEOGRAPHIA ARMENICA, in Whiston’s edition of Moses of Chorene, q v.
+Georgius Pisida, ed. Bekker. in the Corp. Hist. Byzant. of
+     B. G. Niebuhr, Bonnae,1836.
+Gesenius, De Inscriptione Phoenico-Greeca in Cyrenaica nuper reperta,
+     Halle, 1825.
+Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. Dr. W. Smith, London,
+     1854-1855.
+Gregorius Nazianzenus. Opera, ed. Morell, Lutetiae Parisiorum., 1609.
+Grote, History of Greece, London, 1862.
+
+HAUG, DR. MARTIN, Essays on the Sacred Writings of the Parsees, Bombay,
+     1862.
+     --Die Gathas, Leipzig, 1858-1860.
+     --Old Pahlavi-Pazand Glossary, Bombay and London. 1870.
+Haxthausen. Baron, Transcaucasia, London, 1854.
+Herodianus. Historiarum libri octo, Oxoniae, 1699.
+Herodotus, ed, Bahr, Lipsiae, 1856-1831.
+     --English Translation of. by the Author, 2nd ed., London, 1862.
+Hieronymus, Opera, ed. Benedict., Parisiis. 1093-1706.
+Historim Angastm Scriptores, ed. Jordan et Eyssenhardt, Berolini. 1864.
+Historiae. Byzantinae Scriptores, ed. B.G. Niebuhr. Bonnae, l828. &c.
+Horatius, Opera, ed. Doring, Oxonii, 1838.
+Hyde. De Religione Veterum Persarum, Oxonii, 1760 (2nd edition).
+
+IBN KHALLIKAN. Biographical Dictionary, in the series published by the
+     Oriental Translation Fund, Paris, 1868.
+Inscriptions of Sassanian kings. (See De Sacy.)
+Irving, Washington. Successors of Mahomet, in the collected edition
+     of his Works, London, 1854.
+Isidorus Characenus, in the Geographi Minores of C. Muller, Parisiis,
+     1855-1861.
+
+JOHANNES ANTIOCHENUS, in the Fragm. Hist. Grmc. of C. Miiller, vol. iv.,
+     Parisiis, 1851.
+     --Epiphaniensis, in the same.
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+
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