BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

The Land. The Preservation of Antiquities. The Discovery of Antiquities: By Benjamin of Tudela. By Rich. By Botta and Place. By Layard. By Loftus and Rawlinson. By Oppert and Rassam. By George Smith. By Sarzec. By Peters, Ward, and Haynes. By Koldeway. By Andrae. By de Morgan. By Harper and Banks. By Genouillac. The Decipherment of the Inscriptions: By Niebuhr. By Grotefend, De Sacy, and Rawlinson. Babylonian column. Babylonian-Semitic. Chronology. Outline of the History: The prehistoric period. Sumerians. The Pre-Babylonian period. “Stele of the Vultures.” The early Babylonian period. Kassites. Pashe dynasty. The early Assyrian period. The second Assyrian period. The Neo-Babylonian period. The Persian period. The Greek and Parthian periods. Discoveries which Illumine the Bible.

1. The Land.—The Mesopotamian Valley, as the great region watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers is called, in many respects resembles Egypt, although in other respects it differs strikingly from Egypt. The country is like Egypt in that it is formed by rivers; it differs from Egypt in that it has two rivers instead of one. In late geologic time the Persian Gulf extended far up toward the Mediterranean. All of what was Babylonia has been formed by detritus (silt) brought down by the Tigris and the Euphrates. The process of forming land is still going on. At the head of the Persian Gulf about seventy feet a year is still formed in this way, or a mile in about seventy-five years.

Both the Tigris and the Euphrates rise in the mountainous regions of Armenia, on opposite sides of the same range of mountains. The melting of the snows on these mountains gives both rivers, like the Nile, a period of overflow. As the source of the Tigris is on the south side of the mountains, it begins to rise first. Its rise begins about the first of March, its overflow is at its height in May, and the water recedes in June or July. The Euphrates begins to rise about the middle of March, continues to rise until June, and does not recede to its ordinary level until September. The soil thus formed is of rich materials, and the retreating flood leaves it each year well watered and softened for agriculture. Here, as in Egypt, one of the earliest civilizations of the world developed. It was quite independent of that in Egypt, and consequently differed from the Egyptian in many respects. Unlike Egypt, Babylonia had a rainy season; nevertheless she was mainly dependent upon the overflow of the rivers for her irrigation and her fertility. As she possessed two rivers, her breadth was greater than that of Egypt, but she lacked the contiguity of protecting deserts, such as Egypt possessed. All through her history her fertile plains attracted the mountain dwellers of the East and the peoples of the West. Subject to frequent invasion by these, Babylonia had no long peaceful development such as Egypt enjoyed before the Hyksos invasion. From before the beginning of written history race mingled with race in this great valley, invasions were frequent, and the construction of permanent empires difficult.

The breadth of the Mesopotamian Valley affected also the building materials and the character of the art. Stone was much more difficult to obtain than in Egypt. Clay only was abundant. All buildings were consequently of brick. These structures were far less enduring than those in Egypt; their upper parts have disintegrated and buried the lower portions. Babylonian ruins are accordingly all under ground. The abundant clay was also used by the Babylonians as writing material. When baked, it proved far more enduring than the Egyptian papyrus. Thus, notwithstanding the general similarities which the Mesopotamian Valley presents to Egypt, its differences profoundly affected Babylonian history and Babylonian art.

2. The Preservation of Antiquities.—Babylonian cities were usually built on terraces of brick. The walls of the cities and their buildings were constructed of the same material. Refuse from the houses in these towns was always thrown out into the streets, so that, as the centuries passed, the streets were gradually elevated. The walls of the brick houses gradually became unstable in the lapse of time, and as the houses were repaired they were brought up to the level of the street. Consequently even in peaceful times the mounds on which the cities were built gradually grew higher. Most of these cities were at various times destroyed in warfare. Sometimes all the houses would be partially demolished and the site would be for a time practically uninhabited. When at length the place was repeopled, the top of the mound would be smoothed off and taken as the base of a new city. In this way through the many centuries of Babylonian history the sites of her cities have become great mounds. When these cities finally fell into ruin, the clay of the upper part of the walls gradually disintegrated in the weather and formed a coating of earth over the whole, which preserved the foundations of the walls both of cities and houses, as well as the inscribed clay, stone tablets, and the works of art buried underneath.

Connected with each Babylonian and Assyrian temple was a kind of staged tower, shaped in a general way like the stepped pyramid of Zoser at Sakkarah in Egypt. The Babylonians called these towers Ziggurats. As the bricks of these towers decayed, they formed in connection with the city mound a kind of hillock or peak, which varied in accordance with the height of the tower. The ruin of the Ziggurat at Birs NimrÛd, the ancient Borsippa, is one of the most imposing to be seen in ancient Babylonia; it was long thought to be the original of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:9). It thus came about that no ancient temple of Babylonia, like some of those in Egypt, has remained above ground. Explorers have had to dig to discover antiquities; (see Fig. 22).

3. The Discovery of Antiquities: By Benjamin of Tudela.—The first man from western Europe who traveled through Babylonia and Assyria and noted their ruins was a Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre. Leaving home about 1160 A. D., he traveled through Palestine, crossed the desert by way of Tadmor, visited Mosul opposite ancient Nineveh, and went southward to the site of Babylon. He also saw the ruin of Birs NimrÛd, and believed it to be the Tower of Babel. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries many other travelers visited the Mesopotamian Valley and described what they saw. Some of these, toward the close of the eighteenth century, described curious inscriptions which they had seen there on bricks. This information led the British East India Company in 1797 to instruct its resident at Bussorah, in southern Babylonia, to try to secure some of these inscriptions. This he did, and early in 1801 the first case of inscribed bricks arrived at the East India House in London, where they are still preserved.

By Rich.—Early in the nineteenth century Claude James Rich became resident of the East India Company at Bagdad. In his travels through the region he visited the mounds of Hillah (Babylon), Kouyunjik (Nineveh), and others, where he made some slight excavations, and found many inscriptions. The smaller ones he added to his collection, but many of them were of too monumental a character to be removed. Through these efforts a wide-spread interest was aroused.

By Botta and Place.—In 1842 the French government created a vice-consulate at Mosul, opposite the site of ancient Nineveh, and appointed to the position Paul Emil Botta, who had served as French consul at Alexandria in Egypt. Botta’s mission was made in part archÆological. In December, 1842, Botta began digging in the mound of Kouyunjik, the site of ancient Nineveh. Here he worked for three months. As he found only a few inscribed bricks and the fragments of some bas-reliefs, he became discouraged, and changed the field of his operations to a mound called Khorsabad, situated about fourteen miles to the northeast of Kouyunjik. Here he discovered a palace filled with interesting inscribed bas-reliefs made of alabaster, as well as a city about a mile in circumference. Under the corners of the palace and under the city gates were many inscribed cylinders of clay. This proved to be the palace and city built by Sargon, King of Assyria (722-705 B. C.), as his new capital. He named it Dur-Sharrukin, or Sargonsburgh. His name had so entirely disappeared from ancient literature that only one reference to him has survived, that in Isaiah 20:1, but here was his palace arising from the dust together with abundant annals of his reign. (See Part II, p. 369, ff.)

Botta and his successor, Victor Place, excavated intermittently at Khorsabad for ten years, uncovering the palace and making a plan of it, excavating the city walls and gates, studying the drainage of the ancient town, and fully describing the whole. Although a part of the antiquities found were lost in the Tigris by the wreck of a raft on which they were being floated down the river, a large collection reached France, where they are preserved in the Louvre.

By Layard.—The success of Botta fired the enthusiasm of Austen Henry Layard, a young Englishman of Huguenot descent, who began to excavate in 1845 at NimrÛd, a mound further down the Tigris than Mosul, and the site of the Biblical Calah (Gen. 10:11). His money was at first furnished by a few friends, but as he soon discovered a royal palace there similar to the one Botta had unearthed at Khorsabad, the trustees of the British Museum commissioned him to excavate for them. He thus continued the work intermittently until 1849. During this time he spent most of his energy upon the mound of Kouyunjik, where he discovered another royal palace. This palace proved to be the work of Sennacherib, the son of Sargon (named in 2 Kings 18:13; Isa. 36), who built the one at Khorsabad, while the palace at Calah was, in its final form, the work of Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib. (See 2 Kings 19:37.) The palace at Nineveh had in turn been repaired by Esarhaddon’s son, Assurbanipal.

By Loftus and Rawlinson.—As these excavations progressed, others were stimulated to make minor explorations. Thus in 1850 William Kennett Loftus carried on small excavations at the mound of Warka, the site of the Biblical Erech (Gen. 10:10), in southern Babylonia, from which he recovered important antiquities. From 1851-1855 the oversight of English excavations was entrusted to Sir Henry C. Rawlinson, the British consul-general at Bagdad. Under his direction J. E. Taylor, British vice-consul at Bassorah, made an excavation at the mound of Mugheir, the site of Ur of the Chaldees, where he unearthed important inscriptions. At the same time Loftus was traveling about Babylonia collecting antiquities.

By Oppert and Rassam.—In 1852 a French expedition under the direction of Jules Oppert reached Babylonia. Oppert made important excavations at Hillah, the site of the city of Babylon, and at Birs NimrÛd, the ancient Borsippa. In 1852 Hormuzd Rassam, who had been one of Layard’s helpers, continued under Rawlinson’s direction the excavation at Nineveh. This work continued until 1854; Rassam had the good fortune to find, in a part of the mound previously untouched, still another palace. This was the palace of Assurbanipal, the last of Assyria’s great kings, who ruled from 668 to 626 B. C., and who collected here a great library. This library Rassam discovered, and as it contained every variety of Babylonian and Assyrian literature, including dictionaries and grammatical exercises, it was one of the most important archÆological discoveries ever made. During the last part of the time Rassam was succeeded by Loftus. Finally, in the autumn of 1854, Rawlinson himself undertook an excavation at Birs NimrÛd, and unearthed some important inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar II, King of Babylon, 604-562 B. C. (See 2 Kings 24, 25.)

After this the interest in excavation waned for a time, while scholars were busy reading the tablets already found.

By George Smith.—In December, 1872, George Smith, an employee of the British Museum, announced that among the tablets from Nineveh he had found an account of the flood which closely resembled that in the Bible. This aroused so much interest that the proprietors of the London Daily Telegraph contributed money to send George Smith to Assyria to explore further the mounds there. George Smith thus led two expeditions of exploration, one in 1873 and the other in 1874. He extended the trenches of his predecessors at Nineveh and discovered many more important inscriptions. In 1876 he was on his way to Mesopotamia for the third time, when he died of fever at Aleppo. The British Museum immediately secured the services of Rassam again, who during that year and 1877 extended the work at Kouyunjik (Nineveh) and also found a palace of Shalmaneser III, King of Assyria, 860-824 B. C., at a mound called Balawat, situated to the east of Kouyunjik.

By Sarzec.—Meantime, the interest of France was again aroused, and in 1877 her consul at Bassorah, Ernest de Sarzec, began the excavation of Telloh, a mound in southern Babylonia, which turned out to be the site of Shirpurla or Lagash, one of the oldest and most important of the ancient cities of Babylonia. Work was carried on at intervals here by Sarzec until his death in 1901, and has since been continued by Gaston Cros. The results have not received the popular acclaim accorded to the discoveries of Botta and Layard, but scientifically they are far more important. Some of the oldest examples of Babylonian art have been discovered, as well as many thousands of tablets. One room alone contained an archive of business documents estimated at thirty thousand. Much of our knowledge of the history of early Babylonia is derived from material found at Telloh.

By Peters, Ward, and Haynes.—In 1884 America began to take an interest in Babylonian exploration. This was due largely to the initiative of Dr. John P. Peters, then Professor of Hebrew in the University of Pennsylvania, now Rector of St. Michael’s Church, New York. Through his efforts Miss Catherine L. Wolfe, of New York, contributed the money to defray the expenses of an expedition to Babylonia for a preliminary survey. This expedition was led by Dr. William Hayes Ward, Editor of the New York Independent. It spent the winter of 1884-1885 in Mesopotamia, made many observations of the various mounds, and collected some archÆological material. Dr. Peters continued his efforts, and as a result a fund was raised in Philadelphia to defray the expenses of an excavation in the interest of the University of Pennsylvania. This expedition set out in 1888 under the direction of Dr. Peters. The site chosen for the exploration was Nuffar, about sixty miles to the southeast of Babylon. The work was continued for two seasons under the direct control of Dr. Peters. After an interruption of three years the work was resumed under the general direction of Dr. Peters, with Dr. John H. Haynes as Field Director. Dr. Haynes, in the most self-sacrificing and heroic manner, continued the work both summer and winter until February, 1896, laying bare many of the features of the ancient city of Nippur, which had occupied the site, and discovering many inscribed tablets. While this work was in progress Prof. Herman V. Hilprecht became nominal head of the expedition on account of the removal of Dr. Peters to New York. A fourth expedition under the guidance of Dr. Haynes began work at Nuffar (Nippur) in February, 1899, and worked until March, 1900. During this work Dr. Haynes discovered a large archive of tablets, the exact number of which is variously estimated. The find was similar to that made by Sarzec at Telloh; (see Figs. 16 and 17).

Nuffar, the ancient Nippur, was one of the oldest centers of Babylonian civilization, and the work of the Americans there is, for our knowledge of the history of ancient Babylonia, next in importance to that done by the French at Telloh. A large number of the tablets discovered at Nippur are now in the University Museum in Philadelphia. Meantime, the Turkish government had undertaken on its own account an excavation at Abu Haba, the site of the ancient Sippar in northern Babylonia. The direction of the work was committed to the oversight of the French Assyriologist PÈre Scheil, and the work was carried on in the early part of the year 1894. Much interesting material was brought to light.

By Koldewey.—Also during this decade a new Society, the Orient-Gesellschaft, had been formed in Berlin for the purpose of excavation. This Society began in 1899 the excavation of the great mound which covered the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon. The work was committed to the direction of Dr. Robert Koldewey, who has carried it steadily forward until the present time. Koldewey has laid bare at Babylon a number of the great works of King Nebuchadrezzar—the magnificent walls with which he surrounded Babylon, and the palace and temples with which he adorned it. As the work at Babylon has progressed, Koldewey has made a number of minor excavations in smaller mounds of Babylonia. During the season of 1912-1913 Dr. Julius Jordan undertook, under Dr. Koldewey’s general direction, an excavation at Warka, the Biblical Erech, where Loftus had dug sixty years before. A part of the great temple of Ishtar has been uncovered by Dr. Jordan, together with a portion of the city wall and many houses. Many tablets have also been found, some of them having been written as late as the Seleucid and Parthian periods, 312-50 B. C.; (see Fig. 18).

By Andrae.—While the excavation at Babylon has been in progress, the Orient-Gesellschaft has also conducted another at Kalah-Sherghat, on the Tigris, in ancient Assyria. This is the site of the city of Ashur, from which the country of Assyria took its name. (Cf. Gen. 10:10, 11.) The work has been under the direction of Dr. Andrae and has been in progress from 1902 to the present time. Temples and palaces have been uncovered, and inscriptions from every period of Assyrian history have been found. The latest reports of the work at Ashur tell of the discovery of objects which connect the founding of the city with immigrants from Lagash in southern Babylonia.

By de Morgan.—In 1900 a French expedition began the excavation of Susa, in ancient Elam, the Shushan of the Bible. (See Neh. 1:1; Esther 1:2, etc., and Dan. 8:2.) This work was under the direction of J. de Morgan. While Susa is not in Babylonia, the excavations here added greatly to our knowledge of Babylonian history and life, for during the first two seasons of the excavation, two inscribed stone pillars were discovered, which the ancient Elamites had at some time taken as trophies of war from the Babylonians. One of these was an inscription of Manishtusu, King of Kish, who ruled about 2700 B. C., and the other the pillar which contained the laws of Hammurapi, the most important single document relating to Babylonian life that is known to us. (See Part II, Chapter XIII.)

By Harper and Banks.—During the year 1903-1904 the University of Chicago sent an expedition to Babylonia. The expenses were borne by a contribution from John D. Rockefeller. The late Prof. Robert Harper was Scientific Director of the expedition, and Dr. Edgar J. Banks, Field Director. The work was conducted at the mound of Bismya, which proved to be the site of the ancient city of Adab, one of the oldest Babylonian cities, which seems not to have been occupied since about 2600 B. C. Many interesting finds were made, including a statue of a king, Lugaldaudu, and many tablets. Friction with the Turkish government brought the expedition to an untimely close, and owing to the same cause the tablets discovered are hoarded at Constantinople and have not been given to the world.

By Genouillac.—During the early part of the year 1914 a French expedition, under the direction of H. de Genouillac, excavated at Ukhaimir, the site of ancient Kish. They have discovered the great Ziggurat of the temple of Zamama, the god of Kish, and are said to have made other important finds, but the details are not yet published.

4. The Decipherment of the Inscriptions.—The task of learning to read the inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria was much more difficult than the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, for no such simple key as the Rosetta Stone was at hand. The key that finally unlocked the mystery came not from Babylonia, but from Persepolis in Persia. When Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 538 B. C. the Persians had not developed a system of writing. They accordingly adapted to their language the characters of the Babylonian script. The Babylonian script had begun, like the Egyptian hieroglyphs, as a system of picture-writing, in which each picture represented an idea. These had gone through a long development, in which the original picture-forms had been supplanted by conventional characters derived therefrom. In making these characters on clay, one end of a line was always wider than the other, hence the characters are called “wedge-shaped” or “cuneiform.” In the course of the ages the Babylonians had come to use the characters to express both syllables and whole words, and a scribe might mingle these uses of a sign at will in writing a composition. Many of the signs might also express any one of several syllables. In adapting this complicated system, the Persians had the wisdom to simplify it. They selected or constructed a character for each sound, making a real alphabet. Three of the Persian kings, Darius (521-485), Xerxes (456-465), and Artaxerxes II (405-359), wrote their inscriptions in three languages,—Babylonian, Elamite, and Persian,—employing wedge-shaped scripts for all of them.

By Niebuhr.—In the ruins of the great palace of the Persian kings at Persepolis many of these inscriptions in three languages were preserved. These ruins attracted the notice of many travelers from the time that Odoric, a monk, saw them in 1320 A. D., and a number of travelers had made copies of some of them and brought them back to Europe. The inscriptions were a great puzzle. After Alexander the Great (331-323 B. C.) Persia had been subject to foreign powers until 220 A. D., when the Sassanian dynasty (220-641 A. D.) made Persia again an independent kingdom. In the revival of Persian letters that occurred in Sassanian times, a form of the Phoenician alphabet was used, because the old characters of these inscriptions had been forgotten. In 1765 Carsten Niebuhr, a Dane, visited Persepolis and made accurate copies of a large number of these inscriptions. The first correct reading of any of these inscriptions was done from Niebuhr’s copies; (see Fig. 20).

By Grotefend, de Sacy, and Rawlinson.—A number of scholars had studied Niebuhr’s copies, but the first to read any of them correctly was Georg Friedrich Grotefend, a German scholar. He began with the assumption that the three groups of lines in the inscriptions contained respectively three languages, and that the first of these was the Persian of Cyrus and his successors. In the years 1787-1791 Sylvestre de Sacy, a French Oriental scholar, had studied and in part expounded some Sassanian alphabetic inscriptions from Persia, which had also long attracted the notice of scholars. These Sassanian inscriptions were many of them cast in the same mould. They ran thus:

Grotefend had these inscriptions before him, and compared this formula with the inscriptions from Persepolis. He noted that as often as the formula contained the word “king” the inscriptions from Persepolis contained the same group of signs, and that as often as it had “of kings,” they reproduced the group with a different ending. He therefore rightly concluded that these signs were the old Persian spelling of the Persian word for “king” with its genitive plural. Taking from the Sassanian inscriptions the word for king, he proceeded to parcel out its sounds among the characters with which the word was spelled in the Persepolis inscriptions. He also found a king, who was the son of a man not a king. This, he rightly held, could be none other than Darius, the son of Hystaspes. Apportioning the proper groups of signs among the sounds of these names, he obtained still further alphabetical values. Thus a beginning was made. Grotefend was, however, unable to carry the work far, and in the years that followed EugÈne Burnouf, Christian Lassen, Isidore Lowenstern, Henry C. Rawlinson, and Edward Hincks all made contributions to the subject. The honor of having first correctly read and interpreted a long inscription belongs to Rawlinson. Rawlinson was a young army officer, who as a boy had been in India, where he learned Persian and several of the dialects of India. In 1833 he was sent to Persia with other British officers to assist in the reorganization of the Persian army. Here his attention was attracted by the great Persian inscriptions in the mountains near Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, and in the intervals of military duties he copied and studied several of them. He was, in the early stages of his work, quite unaware of the work done by Grotefend and others, but hit independently upon the method followed by Grotefend. Owing to the fact that the inscriptions on which Rawlinson worked were longer than those accessible to Grotefend, and also contained more proper names, Rawlinson attained greater success than any of his predecessors. He did not publish his results, however, until he had become thoroughly familiar with all that others had done. It was not until 1846 that he published a full interpretation of the Persian column of the great Behistun[10] inscription of Darius I.

Babylonian Column.—This successful achievement related, however, only to the Persian column. The mysteries of the Babylonian column had not yet been solved. This task, as will be evident from the complicated nature of the writing mentioned above, was a much more difficult one. The decipherment of the Persian had, however, taught the sound of many cuneiform signs. These sounds were carried over to the Babylonian column as a nucleus of information. Excavations were all the time also bringing new material to light, and a comparison of inscriptions, in many of which the same words were written in different ways, sometimes ideographically and sometimes syllabically, helped on the general stock of knowledge. Rawlinson, Hincks, Jules Oppert, and Fox Talbot were the men who at this stage of the work were still wrestling with the problem. Again Rawlinson was the man to achieve the first distinguished success. In 1851 he published one hundred and twelve lines of the Babylonian portion of the Behistun inscription with transliteration and translation, and accompanied the whole with copious notes in which the principles of the grammar were set forth. A list of the signs and their values was also added. From that day to this the study has steadily gone forward.

Babylonian-Semitic.—The work of Rawlinson and his co-laborers proved that the language of the ancient Babylonians was a Semitic language, closely akin to Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Ethiopic. Within the next few years after he had found the key to the cuneiform writing, Rawlinson announced that the inscriptions from Babylonia contained material in another and very different language. The researches of later years have fully confirmed this, and scholars call this language Sumerian. The people who spoke it were the inventors of many elements in the civilization of early Babylonia, and for many centuries at the dawn of history divided the country with the Semites.

5. Chronology.—The materials for constructing the chronology of Babylonian and Assyrian history are as follows:

(1) Claudius Ptolemy, an Egyptian astronomer who flourished in the second century A. D., made a list of the kings of Egypt, Persia, and Babylonia back to the accession of the Babylonian king, Nabonassar, in 747 B. C. This list was compiled as an astronomical aid, and is very accurate.

(2) The Assyrian kings kept lists of years and of principal events, to which scholars have given the name “Eponym Lists,” because each year was named after the king or some officer. Tablets containing these lists have been recovered on which we can still read the chronology from 893 to 666 B. C. This list accordingly overlaps the list or “canon” of Ptolemy. Some of these Assyrian kings were also kings of Babylon, and where the lists overlap they agree. One of these lists mentions an eclipse which occurred at Nineveh in the month Sivan (May-June), 763 B. C. This eclipse has been calculated and verified by modern astronomers, so that the chronology covered by these lists rests upon a secure scientific basis.

(3) For dates in Assyrian history anterior to 893 B. C. we have to depend upon incidental notices in the inscriptions. Thus Sennacherib, whose date is fixed by the Eponym Lists as 705-681 B. C., relates that during his reign he recovered from Babylon the images of two gods that had been taken as booty by Marduknadinakhi, King of Babylon, from Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, 418 years before Sennacherib brought them back. It follows from this that Tiglath-pileser I of Assyria and Marduknadinakhi of Babylon were ruling from about 1120 to 1100 B. C.

We also have a long inscription from the Tiglath-pileser mentioned here, who relates that in his reign he restored a temple, which had been built by Shamshi-Adad, ruler of Assyria, son of Ishmi-Dagan, ruler of Assyria, 641 years before the time of Ashur-dan, King of Assyria. Ashur-dan had, he tells us, pulled the temple down and it had lain in ruins 60 years until he (Tiglath-pileser) rebuilt it. By adding these numbers we reach 1819 or 1820 B. C. as the accession of Shamshi-Adad.

Again Sennacherib found at Babylon a seal which bore the following inscription:

“Tukulti-Ninib, king of the world, son of Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, conqueror of the land of ChaldÆa. Whoever changes the writing of my name, may Ashur and Adad destroy his name. This seal was presented by the land of Assyria to the land of Akkad” (Babylonia).

To this Sennacherib added the following inscription:

“I, Sennacherib, after 600 years conquered Babylon, and from its treasures brought it out and took it.”

We learn from this that Tukulti-Ninib was ruling in Assyria from about 1300 to 1290 B. C.

Andrae has recently (1914) published an inscription of Tukulti-Ninib in which he states that he repaired a temple which had been built by his ancestor, Ilu-shumma, King of Assyria, 720 years before. Ilu-shumma was, accordingly, ruling in Assyria about 2020 to 2010 B. C.

(4) Among the tablets in the British Museum are two so-called “dynastic tablets” which contain lists of the kings of Babylon from the time that Babylon became the leading city of the country to its capture by the Persians. The kings are divided into eight dynasties, the length of the reign of each king was originally given, and at the end of each dynasty a statement was given of the number of kings in that dynasty and the total length of their reigns. These tablets are unfortunately much broken, so that they afford us little help after the year 1000 B. C. We learn from them, however, that Marduknadinakhi, the king mentioned by Sennacherib as ruling about 1100 B. C., belonged to the fourth Babylonian dynasty, and, if we add together the years given for the previous dynasties, we are taken back nearly to the year 2400 B. C. for the accession of the first dynasty of Babylon. Evidence has, however, come to light in recent years which proves that the first and second of these dynasties overlapped, one ruling in the north while the other ruled in the south. A reliable chronology cannot, therefore, be obtained by adding these numbers together. In order to correct them recourse must be had to other evidence.

(5) Franz Xaver Kugler, who is both an astronomer and an Assyriologist, has recently shown that an astronomical tablet which was published as long ago as 1870, and which notes for a series of years when Venus was the evening and when the morning star, contains a date formula which fixes its compilation in the reign of Ammi-zadugga, the tenth of the eleven kings of the first dynasty of Babylon. From mathematical calculations of the position of the planet Venus, Kugler is accordingly able to fix the accession year of Ammi-zadugga as either 2040, 1976, or 1857 B. C. As the first of these dates is too early, and the third is, in the judgment of most scholars, too late, it follows that his accession year was in 1976. From the lengths of the reigns of the various kings of this dynasty as given in the dynastic tablets, it follows that the first dynasty of Babylon began its rule in 2206 B. C.

(6) Under Adad-nirari III, King of Assyria (810-782 B. C.), a so-called synchronistic history of Assyria and Babylonia was compiled. It covered about 600 years, beginning with a treaty of peace between Karaindash, King of Babylon, and Ashur-rim-nishishu, King of Assyria. It aids in filling gaps left by breaks in other lists.

(7) A chronological tablet in the Babylonian collection of Yale University contains a list of the kings of Larsa. This city was conquered by Hammurapi, of the first dynasty of Babylon, in the 31st year of his reign. The tablet, therefore, counts Hammurapi one of the kings of Larsa, ascribing to him twelve years of rule. The tablet was apparently compiled in the twelfth year of Samsuiluna, Hammurapi’s successor, to whom twelve years are also ascribed. It gives the total length of the dynasty of Larsa as 289 years. That dynasty, accordingly, began its rule in 2358 B. C.

(8) In a chronological list of the kings of Ur and Nisin on a tablet in the University Museum, Philadelphia,[11] it is stated that the kings of Ur ruled 117 years and the kings of Nisin 225 years and 6 months. A tablet has now been discovered which shows that the dynasty of Nisin was not overthrown until 2117 or 2116 B. C. Its 225 years, therefore, were all parallel to the time of the dynasty of Larsa. As the dynasty of Nisin rose upon the ruins of the kingdom of Ur, the dates of the kingdom of Ur are, therefore, fixed as 2458-2341 B. C.

(9) A chronological tablet published by Scheil in the Comptes rendus of the French Academy for 1911 gives a list of five early dynasties of Babylonia: a dynasty of Opis, one of Kish, one of Agade, and two of Erech.

(10) A group of chronological tablets in the University Museum in Philadelphia,[12] which assign several dynasties to each of several well-known Babylonian cities, ascribe to their kings incredibly long reigns. One of these is translated in Part II, Chapter IV.

(11) Fragments of a work of Berossos, a Babylonian priest who lived after the time of Alexander the Great, contain a list of Babylonian kings. He based his work on such tablets as those in the University Museum. His statements abound accordingly in incredible numbers.

From these tablets it appears that the dynasty of Ur was preceded by the dynasty of Gutium, which ruled for 159 years; the dynasty of Gutium was preceded by a dynasty of Erech for 26 years; that, by a dynasty of Agade for 197 years; that, by one king of Erech, Lugalzaggisi, who ruled 25 years; he was apparently preceded by a dynasty of Kish for 106 years; that, by a dynasty of Opis for 99 years. These figures take us back to 3070 B. C., though the arrangement for the time before Lugalzaggisi is in part conjectural. Four dynasties of what are known to have been historical kings existed before this time, so that we are led to place the beginning of the historical period in Babylonia about 3200 B. C. or earlier.

(12) Nabuna’id, King of Babylon, 555-538 B. C., states that he found, in repairing the temple at Sippar (Agade), the temple-platform of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which no one had seen for 3,200 years. As he made this statement about 550 B. C., it was long supposed that this fixed the date of Naram-Sin as 3750 B. C., and that of his father, Sargon, at about 3800 B. C. These dates will be found in many of the older books, but they are incredible. They would, if true, leave long gaps in the history that we have no information to fill. Since it has been clearly proved that the dynasties overlapped, it seems that Nabuna’id reached his date by adding together the totals of dynasties, some of which were contemporary. It now seems probable that he placed Naram-Sin about 1,100 years too early.

The sources here enumerated afford us a tolerably accurate chronology back to about 2450 B. C. All dates earlier than this have to be estimated by combining statements of early dynastic tablets with archÆological and palÆographic considerations.

6. Outline of the History.—The history of Babylonia and Assyria falls into eight different periods. Our information is not yet sufficiently complete to enable us to write the history of any one of them, but we can discern in outline a most fascinating course of events.

(1) The Prehistoric Period, or the period before the rise of written history, during which we can ascertain from various inferences the general course of events. This period must have begun about 4500 or 5000 B. C. and lasted down to about 3200 B. C. The Semites from Arabia[13] were the first to pour into the fertile valley of Mesopotamia. They came up from the south, establishing the city of Eridu on the shore of the Persian Gulf, then the cities of Ur, Erech, Lagash, Nippur, etc. They carried with them the culture of the palm-tree, and learned to raise grain in the alluvial soil of the rivers, but they had no system of writing. The early cities of Babylonia were the fortified residences of different tribes, which were frequently at war with one another. One city would subjugate its neighbors for a time and establish a small empire. As long as it continued to rule, a certain degree of homage was paid to its god by all the cities over which it ruled. In prehistoric times there were kingdoms of this sort ruled at one time by Eridu, at another by Erech, and at another by Nippur, for Ea, the god of Eridu, Anu, the god of Erech, and Enlil or Bel, god of Nippur, were ever after worshiped as the supreme gods of Babylonia.

Sumerians.—At some time before the dawn of history a people whom we call Sumerians moved into Babylonia from the East. These people spoke a language which possesses some features in common with Finnish and Turkish. They were neither Aryans nor Semites. The Semites wore thick hair and long beards; the Sumerians shaved both their heads and faces. These Sumerians overran southern Babylonia as far north as Nippur and in this region became the ruling race. They grafted the worship of their own gods upon the worship of the deities of the cities which they conquered, but the Semitic elements of these local deities persisted even in Sumerian thought. It thus came about that the bald and beardless Sumerians picture their gods with hair and beards. After settling in Babylonia, the Sumerians developed a system of writing. It was at first hieroglyphic, like the Egyptian system. Afterward the Semites, who still retained the supremacy in the cities of Kish and Agade in the north, and who had probably been reinforced there by fresh migrations from Arabia, adapted this system of writing to their own language. As clay was the usual writing material and it was difficult to make good pictures on it, the pictographic form of the writing was soon lost. The pictures degenerated into those conventional symbols which are today known as the “cuneiform” characters.

(2) The Pre-Babylonian Period of the history includes the period from about 3200 B. C. down to the rise of the city of Babylon, about 2100 B. C. This period, like the preceding, was a time of successive city kingdoms. One city would establish an empire for a while, then another, having become more powerful, would take the leadership. When first our written records enable us to trace the course of events, Lagash in the south and Kish in the north were the rival cities. Lagash was ruled by a king, Enkhegal. A little later Meselim, King of Kish, conquered all of southern Babylonia, including Lagash. After Meselim had passed away, Ur-Nina founded a new dynasty at Lagash and gained his independence. Ur-Nina’s grandson, Eannatum, raised the power of Lagash to its greatest height, conquering all the cities of Babylonia, even Kish. The Elamites were always invading the fertile plains of Babylonia, so Eannatum ascended the eastern mountains and subjugated Elam.

“Stele of the Vultures.”—He celebrated his victories by the erection of one of the most remarkable monuments which the ancient world produced, the so-called “stele of the vultures.” From the pictures on the monument we learn that the soldiers of Lagash, about 2950 B. C., waged their battles in a solid phalanx protected by shields. The Greeks were formerly supposed to have invented this form of attack, but were anticipated by 2,500 years; (see Fig. 19).

Although this dynasty furnished several other rulers, the leadership of all Babylonia was lost after the death of Eannatum. It passed first to Opis and then again to Kish. Lagash continued to flourish, however, during 200 years, while these cities were the overlords of its rulers. Its wars had made it rich, and all the arts flourished there. Our best specimens of terra-cotta and stone work come from this period of this city. Under Entemena, the successor of Eannatum, a silver vase of exquisite workmanship and ornamentation was made; (see Fig. 21). After a century or more of wealth and luxury, during which priests and officials became corrupt, a new king, Urkagina, seized the throne and endeavored to reform the administration. Naturally, his reforms were unpopular with the priesthood and the army, and, though popular with the people, he unintentionally weakened the defensive power of his country.

At this juncture a new ruler named Lugalzaggisi arose in the city of Umma, who ultimately overthrew Lagash and became king of all Babylonia. He made Erech his capital. This was about 2800 B. C. Lugalzaggisi claims to have overrun the country from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. If so, and there is no good reason to doubt his claim, Babylonia and the Palestinian coast-lands were under him brought together for the first time.

After Lugalzaggisi the city of Agade came to the fore. Its great King Sargon about 2775 B. C. founded a dynasty which ruled for nearly two hundred years. The kings of this line were Semitic and resided sometimes at Agade and sometimes at Kish. Sargon conquered Syria and a later chronicle says that he crossed the western sea. As a seal of this dynasty was found in Cyprus, it is possibly true. Naram-Sin, one of the most famous kings of this line, conquered the country of Magan, which some believe to be the peninsula of Sinai, but which others hold was situated in eastern Arabia.

About the time of this dynasty, or a little before, King Lugaldaudu flourished at Adab, the modern Bismya, where Dr. Banks found his statue. In this same general period a king named Anubanini ruled in a city to the northward, called Lulubi.

Perhaps it was under the later kings of this dynasty of Agade, or under a dynasty of Erech which held sway for a brief period after them, that Gudea flourished at Lagash. This ruler does not claim to be a king, but his city enjoyed great prosperity under him, and he rebuilt it in fine style. He seems to have been on peaceful terms with much of the world, and brought for his structures stone from Magan, cedar wood from Amanus on the Mediterranean coast, and copper from Lebanon. After this time the land was overrun by hordes from Gutium, a region to the northeast beyond the Tigris. They established a dynasty which lasted for 125 (or 159) years.

In 2458 B. C. a dynasty arose in the city of Ur, situated far to the south. These kings were Sumerians and under them a great Sumerian revival occurred. By this time northern Babylonia was called Akkad, from the city of Agade, and southern Babylonia was called Sumir, from a corruption of the name of one of the quarters of Lagash. These kings combined with the title “king of Ur” the title “king of Sumir and Akkad.” Sumir is the Biblical “Shinar” (Gen. 10:10; 11:2, etc.).

Dungi, the second king of this dynasty of Ur, reigned 58 years and established a wide empire, which included Elam and the city of Susa. He established a system of government posts to aid the royal officers of army and state in the performance of their duties.

Upon the fall of the dynasty of Ur, the dominion of Babylonia was divided between two cities, Nisin and Larsa, each of which furnished a dynasty which flourished for more than two and a quarter centuries. Naturally, these kings were continually struggling with each other for the supremacy, and sometimes one city was the more powerful, sometimes the other. The Elamites, who during the whole period had occasionally swooped down into the Mesopotamian Valley, overran Larsa and furnished the last two kings of its dynasty,—Arad-Sin and Rim-Sin. These kings have each been thought by different scholars to be the Arioch of Gen. 14:1. (See Part II, Chapter IX.)

About 2210 B. C. a dynasty of rulers was founded in the city of Babylon that was destined to bring a new era into the history of the country. After a struggle of more than a century Hammurapi, the sixth king of this line, broke the power of Larsa and made Babylon the leading city of the country. Nisin had previously fallen. With the rise of Babylon another period of the life of the country was ended.

The above sketch calls attention to a few only of the more prominent features and cities of Babylonia. There were many others which participated in her life during the millennium of the pre-Babylonian period. The recovery of more inscriptions will no doubt make this statement more true even than we now dream. Each of these contributed its mite to the progress of civilization in this melting-pot of races in this far-off time.

(3) The Early Babylonian Period began with the reign of Hammurapi and continued till about 1050 B. C. It includes the rule of the first four dynasties of Babylon. The period began gloriously under Hammurapi, who conquered all of Babylonia, and extended his sway also to the Mediterranean. He was as great as an administrator as he was as a conqueror; he codified the laws of Babylonia and inscribed them on a stone pillar, which was set up in the temple of Marduk in Babylon. These laws have been recovered, and are one of the most valuable archÆological discoveries of modern times. (See Part II, Chapter XIII.)

Soon after the death of Hammurapi, a revolt occurred under one Ilumailu, who established in the region near the Persian Gulf a dynasty known as the “dynasty of the sea lands,” which was afterward called the second dynasty of Babylon. Down to 1924 B. C. the two dynasties divided the country between them. In that year Babylonia was invaded by the Hittites, who came from the northwest, and the first dynasty of Babylon was overthrown. The Hittites appear to have ruled the country for a short time, when they were driven out by the “dynasty of the sea lands,” which, so far as we know, controlled the country for the next hundred and fifty years.

Kassites.—About 1750 B. C., or shortly before, Babylonia was once more invaded by a race of barbarians from the east of the Tigris, called Kassites or CossÆans. They captured Babylon and founded the third dynasty of Babylon, which ruled for 576 years. The kings of this dynasty gradually absorbed Babylonian culture. Soon after 1700 B. C. they expelled the kings of the sea lands from the south and ruled the whole country.

Assyria, which under the first dynasty had been a Babylonian colony, gained her independence before 1400 B. C., so that after that the independent histories of the two lands run on parallel lines. During the long period of Kassite rule, Babylon experienced many vicissitudes. Assyria was at times friendly and at times hostile. In the reign of Kurigalzu, Elam was successfully invaded and spoil formerly taken by the kings of Elam was brought back to Babylonia. Kadashman-turgu and Burnaburiash, kings of this dynasty, carried on friendly correspondence with Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, kings of Egypt, 1400-1350 B. C.

Pashe Dynasty.—About 1175 B. C. the Kassite dynasty was superseded by the Pashe dynasty, which ruled the country for more than a hundred and thirty years. The greatest king of this time was Nebuchadrezzar I, who reigned about 1150 B. C. He emulated with considerable success the career of his great predecessor, Hammurapi. After the fall of the fourth dynasty, the country was divided and fell a prey to the Elamites, who overran it about 1050. For the following 450 years Babylonia, though often independent, was of little political importance.

(4) The Early Assyrian Period.—Assyria’s empire grew out of the domination of the city of Ashur, as that of Rome grew out of the domination of the city of Rome. Ashur and Nineveh had been founded by colonists from Lagash about 3000 or 2800 B. C. This is shown by archÆological remains found at Ashur, and by the name of Nineveh. We can first trace the names of Assyria’s rulers shortly before the year 2000 B. C. They do not call themselves kings, and were, perhaps, then subject to Babylon.

About 1430 B. C. we learn that Assyria had become an independent kingdom. Her king at that time, Ashur-rim-nishishu, was a contemporary of Karaindash, King of Babylon. Ashur-uballit about 1370-1343 was a contemporary of Burnaburiash, King of Babylon, and shared in the correspondence with Egyptian kings contained in the El-Amarna letters. Shalmaneser I about 1300 B. C. conquered the region to the west of Assyria extending across the Euphrates in the direction of the Mediterranean. Ashur-nasirpal, a later king (884-860 B. C.), says that Shalmaneser “made” the city of Calah[14] as a new capital for his country. His son, Tukulti-Ninib I, turned his arms to the southward and conquered Babylon, which he held for seven years. After him Assyria’s power declined for a time, but was revived by Tiglath-pileser I, who carried Assyria’s conquests again across the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea and northward to the region of Lake Van. After the reign of Tiglath-pileser I, Assyria’s power rapidly declined again, and the first period of Assyria’s history was closed. Our sources almost fail us for a hundred years or more.(5) The Second Assyrian Period.—Assyria slowly emerged from the obscurity into which she had fallen after the death of Tiglathpileser I. The progress went forward through the reigns of eleven different kings. Finally, in the reign of Ashur-nasirpal II, 884-860 B. C., a period of foreign conquest was once more inaugurated. This monarch again carried the conquests of his country northward and also to the Mediterranean. (See Part II, p. 360.) Under him Assyria became the best fighting machine in the ancient world—a machine that was run with ruthless cruelty over all conquered peoples. This king set his successors the example of flaying and impaling numbers of conquered peoples, and of boasting of such deeds in his chronicles. Probably such deeds were not now committed for the first time, but so far as we know they had not been so gloated over.

Ashur-nasirpal’s successor, Shalmaneser III, 868-824 B. C., made, besides campaigns into Armenia and elsewhere, six campaigns against the lands of Syria and Palestine. On his first campaign in 854 he was met at Qarqar by a confederation of kings, among whom were Ahab of Israel and Ben-Hadad of Damascus. (See Part II, p. 360, ff.) On his fourth campaign in 842 B. C. Jehu, who had in that year usurped the throne of Israel, hastened to make his peace with Shalmaneser by giving him a heavy tribute. Thus Assyria gained a right to claim Israel as a vassal state. (See Part II, p. 362, f.)

The next two kings, Shamshi-Adad IV and Adad-nirari IV, controlled Assyria until 783 B. C., and maintained her power. The last-mentioned king made three expeditions into the West, and claims to have received tribute not only from Israel but from Philistia and Edom, but no details of his campaigns have survived.

After 783 the power of Assyria declined again, and the decline lasted until 745, when the reigning dynasty was overthrown, and an able general, whose name was apparently Pul, gained the throne (cf. 2 Kings 15:19), and took the great name of Tiglath-pileser. He reigned as the fourth king of that name. Tiglath-pileser IV was great both as a warrior and as a statesman. He broke for the time being the power of the kingdom of Urartu in Armenia, conquered parts of Media on the east, and also annexed Babylon to Assyria. Babylon during this later Assyrian period had usually been permitted to retain a king of her own, though the kingdom was of little political importance as compared with Assyria. Tiglath-pileser made his power dominant in Babylonia at the beginning of his reign, and during the last two years of his life actually reigned there as king. The Babylonian scribes did not recognize his high-sounding name of Tiglath-pileser, but still called him Pul.

In the first year of his reign Tiglath-pileser IV inaugurated a new policy with reference to conquered peoples. This was the policy of transporting to a distant part of his empire the wealthy and influential members of a conquered nation, and of putting similar exiles from other lands in their place. Individuals so transported would be unable longer to foment rebellion against him. It was a brutal policy, but it was a measure designed to build up a permanent empire.

Tiglath-pileser made four expeditions to the west, though the first two touched northern Phoenicia only. In 739, when he made his appearance in Palestine, Menahem, King of Israel, hastened to pay him tribute (2 Kings 15:19). Four years later, however, after Pekah had usurped the throne of Israel, that king formed an alliance with Rezin of Damascus for the purpose of throwing off the Assyrian yoke, and tried to force Ahaz of Judah to join in the enterprise. (See Isa. 7:1, f.) This, Ahaz, supported by the prophet Isaiah, refused to do. In 733-732 Tiglath-pileser came again into the West, overran the territory of the kingdom of Israel, deported the chief inhabitants of Galilee to distant parts of his dominions (2 Kings 15:29, 30), and replaced Pekah, who had been killed, by King Hoshea, who ruled over a greatly diminished territory and upon whom a heavy Assyrian tribute was imposed. Tiglath-pileser then turned eastward and conquered Damascus, which his predecessors since the days of Shalmaneser III had been vainly trying to capture. While the Assyrian monarch was at Damascus, King Ahaz of Judah went thither and became his vassal. (See 2 Kings 16:10, f.) Thus Judah also passed under the Assyrian yoke. (See Part II, p. 366.)

Tiglath-pileser IV was succeeded by Shalmaneser V, 727-722 B. C., and soon after the death of Tiglath-pileser, Hoshea of Israel was persuaded to join several petty rulers of Philistia and Egypt in rebelling against Assyria. In 725 an Assyrian army overran Hoshea’s territory, and laid siege to Samaria. The military position of Samaria and its strong walls made it almost impregnable, and the siege dragged on for three years (2 Kings 17:5). Before the city fell, another king had ascended the throne of Assyria. He was a usurper, a general, who took the great name of Sargon, and who ruled from 722 to 705 B. C. Samaria succumbed in Sargon’s first year and 27,290 of its inhabitants were deported. The discontent of the west was not at once quieted. Other states remained in rebellion and an Assyrian army finally defeated them at Raphia, southwest of Gaza, in 719 B. C. Sargon then turned his arms in other directions, fighting at various times with the kingdom of Urartu in Armenia, overcoming Carchemish, a Hittite kingdom on the Euphrates in 717 (see Isa. 10:9), and making an expedition into Arabia in 715. In 711 Ashdod revolted and Sargon’s Tartan or chief officer came to put the rebellion down (Isa. 20:1).

At the beginning of Sargon’s reign his arms had been defeated in Babylonia, and Merodachbaladan, a ChaldÆan (see 2 Kings 20:12), seized the throne of Babylon and held it from 721 to 709. Then he was defeated and Sargon took over the control of Babylonia. Merodachbaladan, however, escaped to the marsh lands at the head of the Persian Gulf, and survived to make trouble later. In 705 Sargon died and was succeeded by his son, Sennacherib, who ruled from 705 to 681 B. C. At the beginning of his reign troubles broke out in Babylonia, which cannot here be followed in detail. They lasted for years, and none of Sennacherib’s measures gave the country permanent peace. At last Sennacherib became so incensed that he destroyed Babylon. Her buildings were burned and battered down, her walls overthrown, and the Euphrates turned through canals into the land on which she had stood, to make it a marsh. One incident in the series of events which led up to this sad climax was the reappearance in 702 of Merodachbaladan, who seized the throne of Babylon and tried to stir up a rebellion against Assyria. He even sent letters to Hezekiah, King of Judah. (See 2 Kings 20:12.) At the beginning of Sennacherib’s reign a number of the petty kings of Philistia had withheld their tribute. Into this revolt Hezekiah, King of Judah, had been drawn. Busied with other wars, Sennacherib was unable to quell this rebellion until the year 701. In that year his army met the forces of the confederated kingdoms at Elteke in the valley of Aijalon and overcame them. Sennacherib then proceeded to Lachish, where he received the submission of the neighboring kinglets. From Lachish he sent a messenger who summoned Hezekiah of Judah to submit (cf. Isa. 36, 37). Hezekiah obeyed the summons and paid a heavy tribute. Space does not permit us to speak of the wars of Sennacherib against Elam and other countries.

It would seem that after Tirhakah ascended the throne of Egypt in 688 B. C., he persuaded the kingdoms of Palestine to rebel. The Assyrian came west again and threatened to invade Egypt and to destroy Jerusalem. Isaiah then predicted that Jerusalem would be delivered (Isa. 31:5), a prediction which was fulfilled. Sennacherib’s army was attacked by bubonic plague and was compelled to retire.[15]

Sennacherib was assassinated in 681 and was succeeded by his son, Esarhaddon, who ruled till 668. Esarhaddon rebuilt Babylon, which his father had destroyed, and two years before his death conquered all of Lower Egypt and made it an Assyrian province. During his reign a great horde of Scythians poured into Asia through the Caucasus region from southern Russia. The Assyrian army prevented Assyria from being overwhelmed by this horde. The stream of invaders was divided, one part flowing east to Media, the other part westward to Asia Minor.

Esarhaddon’s son and successor, Ashurbanipal, ruled from 668 to 626. His reign was the Augustan age of Assyria. At the beginning he was called upon to put down a rebellion in Egypt, and as trouble there recurred several times, trouble which was fomented by emissaries from Thebes and Nubia, he finally in 661 pushed up the Nile and conquered Thebes and gave it over to plunder. (See Nahum 3:8.) Space does not permit us to follow Ashurbanipal’s wars. About the middle of his reign his brother, Shamash-shumukin, who was ruling Babylon, rebelled along with many other vassals, and although the rebels were finally put down, the seeds of the decay of Assyria’s power were sown. Manasseh, King of Judah, as long as he lived was a faithful vassal of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. (Cf. 2 Kings 19:37; 2 Chron. 33.)

The great work of Ashurbanipal was the collection of his library at Nineveh. He sent to all the old temples of Babylonia and had copies made of their incantations, hymns, and epics. These, together with chronicles, medical tablets, dictionaries, etc., he collected in his palace, where they were found by Layard and Rassam, and form the basis of our knowledge of the Assyrian and Babylonian language, literature, and history. With the death of Ashurbanipal, the last Assyrian period had really closed. Though the kingdom continued for twenty years more, they were but the years of a lingering death.

(6) The Neo-Babylonian Period.—In 625, the year after Ashurbanipal’s death, Nabopolassar, the viceroy of Babylon, who appears to have been a ChaldÆan,[16] gained his independence, and established the Neo-Babylonian, or ChaldÆan empire. Nabopolassar himself reigned till 604 B. C. During his reign the power of the city of Babylon gradually extended over all southern Babylonia, and up the Euphrates to Carchemish. During these years Assyria was gradually diminishing in territory. As Assyria had declined, Media, which had long been in greater or less degree subject to Assyria, had become free, and Median kings had little by little gained control of the country toward Assyria. Nabopolassar finally made an alliance with the Median king, and together they overthrew Nineveh in 606 B. C.

In 604 Necho of Egypt marched with an army to the Euphrates, and Nabopolassar sent his son, Nebuchadrezzar II, to meet him. Nebuchadrezzar defeated Necho at the battle of Carchemish, and hotly pursued him toward Egypt. (See Jer. 46.) The pursuit was, however, interrupted by the death of Nabopolassar, and the recall of Nebuchadrezzar to Babylon to be crowned as king. The defeat of Necho had made Judah a Babylonian vassal-state. Nebuchadrezzar ruled until 562 B. C., and raised Babylon to a height of power which rivaled that attained under the great Hammurapi. He also rebuilt the city in great magnificence. The palaces, temples, and walls of this period, unearthed by Koldewey, were most magnificent structures. Owing to rebellions, first of Jehoiakim and then of Zedekiah, kings of Judah, Nebuchadrezzar twice besieged Jerusalem, once in 597, and again in 586 B. C., on both occasions capturing the city. In 586 he destroyed it. (2 Kings 24, 25.) Following the Assyrian practice, which had prevailed since Tiglath-pileser IV, he transported considerable numbers of the more influential people of the city each time he took it. These were settled in Babylonia. One colony of them was stationed near Nippur. Among those who were transported in 597 was a young priest, who afterward became the prophet Ezekiel. The colony with which he came was settled by the Khubur canal near Nippur. (See Ezek. 1:1.) The young king, Jehoiachin, who was also taken captive at that time, remained in confinement during the rest of Nebuchadrezzar’s reign. He was only released by Amil-Marduk, Nebuchadrezzar’s son, who succeeded his father and reigned two years. (See 2 Kings 25:27-30.)

After Nebuchadrezzar the kingdom of Babylon rapidly declined through four reigns. Meantime, Cyrus, who in 553 had overthrown the kingdom of Media and erected the kingdom of Persia on its ruins, had been gradually extending his realm to the Ægean Sea on the west, and to the borders of India on the east. In 538 B. C. Cyrus captured Babylon and overthrew Nabuna’id.

(7) The Persian Period lasted from 538 to 331 B. C. During this time Babylonia was but a province of the Persian empire, though the Persian kings made it one of their capitals. Cyrus reversed the policy of transportation, which had been practised by the Assyrians and Babylonians for two hundred years, and permitted subject peoples to return to their lands and restore their institutions and worship. He sought to attach them to his government by gratitude instead of fear. It was owing to this policy that the Jewish state was once more established with Jerusalem as its capital, though still a Persian colony. Cambyses extended Persian power to Egypt in 525, and Darius I, 521-485 B. C., extended it to India and into Europe. Under Darius the temple at Jerusalem was rebuilt and the Jews there tried unsuccessfully to regain their independence. This they attempted once more under Artaxerxes III about 350 B. C., but his general, Bagoses, put down their rebellion with great severity. During the Persian period life in Babylonia went on as before. The old gods were worshiped, the old culture was continued, the same language was used, and many business documents written in it have come down to us. The earlier Persian kings employed it for their inscriptions, and in a short time the Persians made from it an alphabet of their own.

(8) The Greek and Parthian Periods.—Alexander the Great overthrew Darius III, the last of the Persian kings, in 331 B. C., when Assyria and Babylonia passed under the sway of the Macedonian. When Alexander returned from his conquest of hither India in 325 B. C., he planned to extend his empire westward to the Atlantic Ocean, and to make Babylon its capital. Plans for the enlargement and beautifying of the city, so as to make it a worthy capital for such an empire, were under way when Alexander suddenly died in June, 323 B. C. In the final division of the world among Alexander’s successors, Babylonia fell to Seleucus, together with all the territory from the Mediterranean to the borders of India. As Seleucus desired a capital on the Mediterranean, so as to watch more successfully the movements of his rivals, he built Antioch on the Orontes and made it his residence. Babylon was, however, made the capital of the eastern half of the empire, and the king’s son, as viceroy, made it his residence.

Soon after 260 B. C. Bactria and Parthia, in the eastern part of the empire of the SeleucidÆ, gained their independence. In course of time Parthia absorbed Bactria and became an empire, which lasted till 230 A. D. About 150 B. C. the Parthians conquered Babylonia, which remained with little interruption under their sway till the establishment of the Sassanian kingdom of the Persians in 220 A. D. Babylonia was under the control of this last dynasty until the coming of the Mohammedans in the year 637 A. D. The old culture of the Babylonians, their religion, language, and writing were maintained well down toward the Christian era. Copies of old Sumerian hymns have been found in Babylonia which bear dates as late as 81 B. C., and business documents in Semitic are numerous.[17]

7. Discoveries Which Illumine the Bible.—Discoveries in Babylonia and Assyria which illumine the Biblical narratives are numerous. The sites of many cities, such as Ur of the Chaldees, Erech, Babylon, Ashur, Nineveh, and Calah, have been excavated. The number of documents which have come to light which in one way or another have a bearing on the Bible is too numerous to mention here. An effort has been made in Part II to translate examples of most of them. Indeed, the greater part of the material in Part II was recovered by excavations in these countries.

To Babylonia and to Egypt mankind owes the working out of the initial problems of civilization, the processes of agriculture, the making of bricks, the working of stone, the manufacture and use of the ordinary implements of life, the development of elementary mathematics and astronomy, etc. These problems were by slow processes independently worked out in each country through long ages. The higher spiritual concepts which have now become the heritage of man neither Babylonia nor Egypt was fitted to contribute. These came through the agency of other peoples.