By-palhs of Biblelnowledge
1
BABYLONIAN
LIFE AND HISTORY
220
DELAVATE
REEBETTET
au
LALALALLAAMAMATAMAMLAMA
Α
TAMAMLANANLAMA
κολNAMAAAAAA
E A WALLIS BUDGEBA


le






SMS
See p 145.
LLAR
DDDDDD
JEG
UN
YA
TASTEAZIONE
36
16
DEMUA
UAB
MW
WIT
The Fight between Merodach (Bel) and the Dragon.


ਪ-


1.4IKI -


By-paths of Bible Knowledge.
V.
R
BABYLONIAN LIFE
AND HISTORY.
BY
E. A. WALLIS BUDGE, B.A.,
Tyrwhitt Hebrew Scholar, late Scholar and Exhibitioner
of Christ's College, Cambridge.
Assistant in the Department of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY,
56, PATERNOSTER ROW AND 65, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD.
1884.


“The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; and that which is
done is that which shall be done : and there is no new thing under the
sun.”—Ecclesiastes i. 9.
FOR THEIR
DOON
OCT
1884
azt
36 bgo


INTRODUCTION.
THE following pages have been written with the view
of offering to the Bible student, in a small compass, a
little of the history of Babylon, her thought, religion,
and manners, and consequently the means whereby he
may understand better some of the allusions of the
prophets and Bible historians. When they wrote, they
knew they were addressing a nation fully acquainted
with the knowledge necessary for the understanding of
their words. We inhabitants of the West are obliged
to have recourse to whatever contemporaneous records
we can find for the explanation of the history of the
time which is not clearly stated in the Bible. Conse-
quently the notices of Bible events and Bible history
which are obtained from the nation which had so much
to do with the Jews are of particular value,
The cuneiform writings possess one wonderful attri-
bute, and that is, they are records of events written at.
the time of their occurrence, Manuscript histories can
be tampered with, letters altered or erased, additions
inserted, whole parts cut out, and, starting with every-
A


INTRODUCTION.
thing correct, a careless scribe will make mistakes that
after generations will never be able to put right. For
example, in the oldest Egyptian papyri, words, and even
whole chapters, are written in such a way as to prove
that the scribe cannot have understood what he was
writing. Fortunately, alterations in these cuneiform
documents have been rendered impossible, because
they have been buried under the dust and dirt of
centuries, out of the reach of the hands alike of the
destructive Arab and “Tourist," and, in a measure,
unaffected by the hand of slowly but surely destroying
Time.
The decipherment of the clay tablets is not by any
means easy, especially of the unbaked, which have
recently been brought to England from old Babylon
and Sepharvaim. The writing is complex and difficult,
and in many cases the sharp edge of the writing has
been sadly rubbed, while the wedge itself is partly or
wholly filled in with dust and silica. When the tablets
are dug up they are wet and brittle; when they dry,
they often fall into dust or crumble away slowly.
Very much that has been done in cuneiform decipher-
ment is quite certain, but there is much that is still
uncertain. The small body of cuneiform scholars is
working hard to clear up these doubts, some of which
day by day disappear. The great need is more
syllabaries and bilingual tablets, on which we may find
the words explained which at present are unknown. A


INTRODUCTION..
little patience and forbearance too from those who are
sceptical as to the results obtained from cuneiform
decipherment are necessary; when cuneiform has been
studied as long as Greek and Latin, there will be very
little in it unknown.
See what it has already done for Bible history! It
has told us of the land of Abraham; it has given us a
version of the story of the flood; it has told us of
Babylon and Nineveh ; it has brought us face to face with
Sennacherib, Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, and Esarhaddon ;
it has revealed to us the home, the language, and the
thought of the haughty Nebuchadnezzar; it has given
us some of the beliefs, superstitions, religion, learning,
and wisdom of the fellow citizens of Abraham, “the
friend of God;" it has caused us to know intimately a
branch of the great Semitic race akin to the Jewish
nation from which sprang the Christ, and it carries us
back through the long dark vista of centuries and
shadowy time to a period when mankind was learning
its letters, and step by step was slowly advancing to
civilisation.
The meanings of the names of the cities and countries
mentioned in the Bible are now made clear, as are also
the meanings of the names of the kings and titles of
officers. Thus, Nebuchadnezzar is “Nebo protects the
landmark,” Nabopolassar is “ Nebo protects the son,"
Nabuzaradan is “Nebo gave a seed,” Sargon is “the
established king,” Esarhaddon is “Assur gave a brother,"
A 2


INTRODUCTION.
Sennacherib is “the moon-god increases brothers,"
Tiglath-Pileser is “the servant, the son of the Holy
House,” Chedorlaomer is “the landmark of Lagamar,"
Rabshakeh is “chief of the princes,” Tartan is "the
mighty son," and so on.
It is necessary to refer here to the inscription of
Sargon I. of Sippara, and to state plainly that the
opinions of Assyriologists are divided as to its antiquity.
A deeply learned French scholar denies that the first
character in the name is rightly read, and says that the
form of the name is not what it should be ; and with
this latter statement a renowned English scholar agrees.
The arguments, however, which they bring forward are
not conclusive, in my opinion, although future discoveries
may prove them to be right. In favour of the inscription
there are many points; among others, the form of the
characters of the inscription and the inscription itself,
and above all the date given by Nabonidus in his
cylinder. The Assyrians and Babylonians kept a good
and strict reckoning of events past, and their general
correctness goes to show that there is no reason to cloubt
the accuracy of the statement of Nabonidus. Moreover,
the date is found on more than one cylinder clearly and
carefully written. The king could have no object in
giving a false antiquity to his kingdom, or rather in
limiting it to the time of Naram-Sin and Sargon I.
There were kings of Babylon before this time; why
then did he choose these two monarchs, when he might


INTRODUCTION.
In this little book but few references by name have been
made to the works of other Assyrian scholars, as the
space allowed would not admit of it. Here, however, I
take the opportunity of expressing my obligations to
every scholar who may find his work used or quoted.
My thanks are also due to Dr. Richard Garnett, of the
British Museum, for reading the proof-sheets of the book,
and for his thoughtful suggestions.
As new excavations are made in Babylon, new facts
will be brought to light, and it is hoped that these will
be embodied in this work from time to time.
ERNEST A. W. BUDGE.


CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
BABYLON ACCORDING TO THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
PAGE
Babylonia.-Its great antiquity.-Extent of country.-Name derived
from capital city.-Its old name.-Names of Babylon in the in-
scriptions and their meanings. - Meaning of Babel. — Talmudic
discussion thereon.-Its situation.-Its size.—Its walls and their
names.—Translation of a long Nebuchadnezzar inscription obtained
from two barrel cylinders in the British Museum.--Nebuchadnezzar
rebuilt the Tower of Babel, col. 1, line 53. - List of temples of
Babylon.—He wrote an account of them.-Nebuchadnezzar's prayer.
—The two great temples of Babylon.-Meaning of their names. —
Birs-Nimrud the site of Borsippa.—Babylon and Borsippa according
to the Talmud.—Their bad name among the Jews.—Remains of
Nebuchadnezzar's buildings. The tower in seven stages.—Their
colours, etc.—Plain of Duru the same as the plain of Dura of
Daniel.-Euphrates.-Its name.-Sippara the Biblical Sepharvaim.
-Its name and meaning.-River Tigris and Nineveh ... ... 13
CHAPTER II.
BABYLON ACCORDING TO THE CLASSICAL AUTHORS.
The statement of Herodotus about Babylon. --Views of other Classical
authors as to its size and extent.— Its gates, houses, streets, defences,
and walls. — Temple of Jupiter Belus. ---- Comparison of these
accounts with those of the cuneiform inscriptions.—Extract from
East India House inscription.—Nebuchadnezzar used cedar covered
with gold for the ceilings of his temples.—Inscriptions of this
monarch near Riblah.—Want of definite history concerning his
Syrian campaigns


CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM ABOUT B.C. 3800-1330.
PAGR
Method of reckoning time in use among the Babylonians. The
eponym canon.—Sir H. Rawlinson's discovery.-Rimmon-Nirari I.,
B.C. 1330, caused his inscription to be dated.—Contract tablets. –
Extract from eponym canon.—The Assyrians kept a strict account
of events.- Image of the goddess Nana.–Babylonians made their
calculations by the help of astronomy. – Nabonidus mentions
Naram-Sin, who reigned 3200 years before his time.--Inscription of
Sargon I., B.C. 3800.-Extract from inscription of Nabonidus. -
Legend about Sargon. -- Babylonian kings Naram-Sin, Ur-Bagas,
Dungi, Ismi-Dagan, Libit-Istar, and others.-Hammurabi, the good
king.-His canal, his good policy.-Contract tablets dated in his
reign.-Revival of commerce in Babylonia.—The kings his suc-
cessors.---Tablet giving list of kings after the flood ... ... ...
33
CHAPTER IV.
BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668.
Rise of the Assyrian Empire under Rimmon-Nirari, B.C. 1330. —
Translation of his inscription.—Extent of his empire.—Tiglath-
Pileser I.-His immense kingdom. —His hunting expeditions in
Lebanon.-Rise of the Jewish power under David and Solomon.-
Assurnașirpal, king of Assyria.—Shalmaneser II. — Tribute of Jehu.
-The bronze gates of Balawat. – Wars between the Assyrian and
Babylonian kings.-Sargon of Assyria sends the Tartan against
Ashdod.-Hezekiah and Merodach - Baladan. -Sennacherib.—His
wars with Merodach-Baladan.-Sennacherib destroys Babylon.-
Terrible damage to buildings and libraries.—The boast of the
Rabshakeh.— Sennacherib's death. - Esarhaddon, the kind and
merciful king.--His respect for the Babylonian temples.-Trans-
lation of an inscription in Babylonian ... ... ... ... ... 45
CHAPTER V.
The Fall of Nineveil.–NEBUCHADNEZZAR.—B.C. 668–560.
Assurbanipal's wars with Elam.—His care for the libraries.—Fall of
Nineveh.—The vengeance of the Babylonians. -Nebuchadnezzar's
war with the Egyptians. -- Josiah, king of Judah.— Nebuchad-


CONTENTS.
PAGE
nezzar's buildings and canals. —Inscription on a bronze step.— The
siege of Tyre.-The destruction of Jerusalem and captivity of its
people.—Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel.—Biblical names of Adam,
Abel, Abraham, and Methuselah found on the tablets ... ... 65
CHAPTER VI.
The CUNEIFORM ACCOUNT OF THE CAPTURE OF BABYLON BY
Cyrus.—THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO IT.-B.C. 560-530.
Rab-Mag.–Nabonidus, king of Babylon, and Belshazzar, master of
the army.—Cyrus.-Rise of his power.—Death of the mother of
Nabonidus. -Chief events of the years of the reign of Nabonidus.
-Extract from an inscription of this monarch.-His researches.-
His restorations of the temples.—Nabonidus a sun-worshipper. -
Arrival of Cyrus at Babylon. His cylinder.-Part of cuneiform
text relating to the capture of Babylon.-Translation of it.-Cyrus
the “shepherd,” the good king.--His conciliatory policy.-His
kindness to the Jews.—His restoration of the cities and temples. --
Bible account of the fall of Babylon.-Belshazzar's feast ... ...
73
CHAPTER VII.
BABYLON UNDER THE RULE OF THE PERSIANS, AND UNDER
SELEUCUS.
Babylon under the Persians.—The proclamation of Cyrus to the Jews.
- Darius, Cambyses, and Gomates.—Sir Henry Rawlinson's trans.
lation of the Behistun Inscription.—Extract therefrom.-Kindness
of Darius to the Jews.-Confirmation of the decree of Cyrus.-
Xerxes gave the Jews permission to build the walls of Jerusalem.--
Philip and Alexander the Great, kings of Babylon.-Babylon under
Seleucus.-Extract from an inscription of Antiochus.- Lack of
historical cuneiform inscriptions after this period.-Gradual decay
of Babylon.- Prophecies relating to its fall ... ... ... ... 85
CHAPTER VIII.
BABYLONIAN WRITING AND LITERATURE.
Babylonian wedge-writing.-Manner in which the characters were
written. —- Comparison of signs. — Cuneiform signs were once
pictures.-Compound signs.—Polyphony of the characters.—The
syllabaries in two and three columns.- Bilingual lists of words.-


CONTENTS.
11
CHAPTER X.
PAGE
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND ART.
Religious duties of great importance.—Babylonian names. — Cremation.
-War.— Commerce.-Slavery.—Reading and writing.–Engrav-
ing. — The Babylonians good builders ... ...
... ... 152
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Fight between Merodach (Bel) and the Dragon (Frontispiece).
Stone object bearing the name of Sargon, king of Sippara, B.C. 3800 40
Contract Tablet and its Case, bearing the name of Rim-Sin, B.C. 2300 42
Stone object containing an Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar I., B.C. 1120
(about), recording a grant of privileges to Ritti-Marduk, king of
Bit - KARZIYABKU. Found at Abû-Habbah (Sepharvaim) by
Mr. H. Rassam ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 50
Inscription on the edge of the Bronze Step, bearing the name of
Nebuchadnezzar ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 69
Bronze Step (?) of Nebuchadnezzar II. ... ... ... ... ... 69
Babylonian Contract Tablet with Seal Impressions, dated 8th day of
Sebat, accession year of Neriglissar, king of Babylon ... ...
Terra-cotta Cylinder containing the History of the Capture of Babylon
by Cyrus the Great, king of Persia ... ... ... ... ...
Terra-cotta Cylinder of Antiochus, king of Babylon, B.C. 280–261 ... 94
Scene from the so-called “Sun-god Tablet,” representing priests and
king adoring the Sun's disk or image. About B.C. 900
Doc. you
..
... ... 134
Babylonian Seals ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 156





BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
BABYLON ACCORDING TO THE CUNEIFORM
INSCRIPTIONS.
Babylonia.-Its great antiquity.—Extent of country.-Name derived from
capital city.-Its old name. -Names of Babylon in the inscriptions and
their meanings.—Meaning of Babel.—Talmudic discussion thereon.-
Its situation.— Its size.—Its walls and their names.- Translation of a
long Nebuchadnezzar inscription obtained from two barrel cylinders in
the British Museum. —Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the Tower of Babel, col. 1,
line 53.—List of Temples of Babylon.--He wrote an account of them.-
Nebuchadnezzar's prayer.-The two great temples of Babylon.- Meaning
of their names.—Birs-Nimrud the site of Borsippa.- Babylon and
Borsippa according to the Talmud. Their bad name among the Jews.
-Remains of Nebuchadnezzar's buildings.—The tower in seven stages.-
Their colours, etc.--Plain of Duru the same as the plain of Dura of
Daniel. - Euphrates. — Its name.-Sippara the Biblical Sepharvaim.--
Its name and meaning.--River Tigris and Nineveh.
FAR, very far back, at a period involved and shrouded
in the mists of antiquity, the city Babylon began its
existence. No exact date can be assigned to this event,
but, judging by the evidence gained from the inscriptions,
it must have been at a time when all the “nations around"
were in a state of rude barbarism. Egypt existed, no
doubt, and had already become a settled empire, and its
people had reached a remarkably high state of civiliza-


14
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
tion. At present it seems as if these two peoples, the
Babylonians and Egyptians, were the only nations who
have left definite traces of their very early civilization.
In later days Babylonia was comprised between the
30th and 36th parallels of latitude, and the 43rd and
51st degrees of longitude. What its extent was in the
very early days of its career is unknown.
The name Babylonia is derived from its capital city.
Its old name was Kaidu, the people were called Kaldai,
i.e., the Kasdim of the Old Testament. They took their
name from an ancestor called Chesed, just as the
Hebrews took theirs from Eber, the Hittites from Heth
and many others. Still more anciently it was designated
by the two names Sumir and Akkad, i.e., South and
North Babylonia. Babylon, the city, is called by various
names in the inscriptions. They are as follows:-
1. V * in Assyrian Y ETY (EY.
2. A SETY ET
3. T.
4. B Y Y-=> or > E.
The first name reads KA DINGIRRA KI, that is,
gate + of god + the place, meaning "the place which
is the gate of God.” The second name reads TIN-
TIR KI, that is, “the wood of life.” The third is E KI,
and means, according to some scholars, “the house."
par excellence ; according to others, “the hollow.” It is
quite true that it can mean “hollow," but the Babylonian
meant that it was the most important dwelling-place in
the world, in fact, the metropolis of the universe. The
1 Gen. xxii. 22.


CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
15
two forms of the name given under No. 4, are simply
translations of No. 1, and are read bab ilani and
bab-ilu respectively. The mere look of the name
BE Y (EY tells what it means. The first is a
representation of a gate with its posts and bars, the
second represents a star, the third is the sign of the
genitive case, and the fourth is always added after the
name of a country. The form Babylon or Babel
commonly met with in our Bibles is derived from the
Assyrian Semitic translation of the Akkadian ka
dingirra-ki.
Babylon or Babilum (in Assyrian) means, then, “the
gate of God.” It has been generally stated that Babylon
means “confusion,” but the inscriptions prove this to be
incorrect; the history of the matter is that the Semites
made a pun upon the name of the city. There is a root
in Hebrew, balbel, which means “to confuse, to mix,”
and from this word they derived the name Babylon,
because the "confusion of tongues” took place there. It
will be remembered that in a Talmudic discussion the
question “Why is Babylon so-called ? ”was asked. Rabbi
Johanan replied, “Because it is confused in Scripture, in
Mishnah, and in Talmud.” And the Rabbi explained the
words “dark places” in the verse “He hath set me in
dark places,”? by saying that it meant “the doctrine of
Babel.”
The name “gate of God” is the designation (among
others) of the city from the earliest to the latest times
upon the monuments. Babylon was situated upon the
River Euphrates, above Borsippa. It was called “the
dwelling-place of the god Bel,” and “the town of
Marduk.”
i Lam. iii. 6.


CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
17
13. to restore the fortresses, and to renew the temples
14. greatly he encouraged me.
15. I put my trust in Marduk, my lord, my judge,
16. his supreme fortress, the citadel his high place, [the
walls]
17. Imgur-Bel, Nimitti-Bel
18. I caused to be completed over against [their] great
. fortresses. -
19. Upon the threshold of its great gates,
20. mighty lords (gods)
21. and [images] of poisonous snakes
22. I set up,
23. the which never had any king my predecessor made.
24. The quay (of the fortress), its ditch (moat),
25. with bitumen and brick
26. the father, my begetter, built and completed for a
bulwark (?).
27. As for me, the paths of the ancient quay
28. once, twice
29. I built up with bitumen and brick, and
30. the quay which my father had worked at I ex-
cavated.
31. I caused its foundation to be laid with huge flat slabs,
and
32. I raised up its summit like a mountain.
33. The quay of brick at the ford of the setting sun
34. within Babylon I completed.
35. The paths along the quay
36. with bitumen and brick
37. the father my begetter had worked at;
38. its buttresses (?) with brick
i Toco, he built two layers of brick work,
B


18
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
39. along the river of Sippara I bound together ;
40. and I fully completed its banks.
41. As for me, his eldest son (i.e., eldest son of
- Nabopolassar),
42. the beloved of his heart,
43. the paths along the quay
44. with bitumen and brick,
45. in addition to the quay which my father had made,
I renewed.
46. In the temple of SAG-ILU the kissra I set.
47. The palace of heaven and earth, the seat of tran-
quillity,
48. E KU-A, the shrine of Bel, the temple of the gods,
and of Marduk,
49. the gate of Hilisud, the seat of the goddess
.. Zirpanituni,
50. and the temple of ZI-DA, the dwelling-place of the
divine king of heaven and earth,
51. I caused them to be covered with shining gold, and
52. I made them brilliant as the day.
53. The temple, the foundation of heaven and earth, the
tower of Babel
54. I built anew. .
55. The temple of ZIDA, the eternal, the (temple)
beloved of Nebo
56. I built anew within Borsippa, and
COLUMN II.
1. with gold and sculptured stones
2. I made [it] like the brilliance of heaven.
3. I caused it to be covered over with durable cedar and
gold


:
19
CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
4. up to the ceiling of the great temple of Life. The
shrine of Nebo
5. I caused to be erected before those three.
6. The great temple, the temple of the “ lady of the
headland” within Babylon,
7. the temple (called) “he gives the sceptre of the
world,” the temple of Nebo of Harie,
8. the temple of Namgan, the teniple of the wind
. within Kumari,
9. the temple of the dwelling before the temple of the
lady of heaven, near the fortress
10. I rebuilt within Babylon, and
11. I reared up their summits
12. the which never had any king my predecessor done,
13. Four thousand cubits square, the citadel with walls
14. towering and inaccessible,
15. the everlasting fortress of Babylon at the ford of
the rising sun
16. I caused to surround. :
17. I dug out the moat, I emptied away the water that
had gathered there,
18. I made its bed of bitumen and brick, and I excavated
19. the quay which my father had worked at,
20. the lofty fortress with bitumen and brick
21. I built up like a mountain upon its sides.
22. The height of the fortress of Borsippa thoroughly
23. I rebuilt.
24. The quay and the moat [lined and built] with
bitumen and brick
25. I made to surround the citadel for a protection.
26. For the god Turkit, the lord, the breaker of the
weapons of my enemies
27. I rebuilt his temple within Borsippa.. . :
B 2


20
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
28. The temple of the Sun, the temple of the Sun-god
of Sippara,
29. the temple the established seat, the temple of the
god ......
30. of the city Bātz,
31. the temple of the eyes of the god Anum, the temple
of the god Dar
32. of the city of the planet Venus,
33. the temple of heaven, the temple of Istar of Erech,
34. the temple of the Sun, the temple of the Sun-god of
Larsa,
35. the temple of KIS-KUR-GAL, the temple of the Moon-
god of Ur,
36. these temples of the great gods
37. I rebuilt ; and
38. I caused their beautiful adornments to be completed.
39. The restorations (or furniture) of the temples of
SAG-ILI and ZIDA,
40. the new places of Babylon:
41. which more than before
42. I have made extensive
43. and I have reared them up even to their summits..
44. An account of all my magnificent works
45. and of my restorations of the temples of the great
gods
46. above what the kings my fathers wrote
47. upon a stone tablet I wrote; and
48. I set it up for future days.
49. The account of all my works
50. which I have written upon the stone tablet
5.1. with understanding mayest thou look upon
52. and upon the glorious things of the gods.
'3. May [men) understand that


CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS..
21
54. I built the fortresses of the gods and of the goddess
Istar,
55. of the great lord and of Marduk,
COLUMN III.
1. As for myself Marduk urged me on,
2, he girded me up in heart,
3. reverently, and not failing him
- 4. I completed his beautiful [works].
5. [I rebuilt] (?) for the god the king of Marad my lord
6. his temple within Marad the ....
7. which had been built from a remote time;
8. its ancient foundation stone
9. which no former king had ever seen,
10. I took hold of, I uncovered and
II. upon the foundation stone, the beloved of the Moon-
god, the king,
12. my ancient father, I laid down its foundation.
13. I made an inscription in my name and
14. I placed it within it.
15. O God the king of Marad, lord of all warriors,
16. to the brickwork which my happy hands [have
made]
17. be favourable joyfully and
18. my life to a far distant day
19. with abundance of glory,
20. fixity of throne, and length of rule
21. to eternity do thou lengthen.
22. Sweep away the disobedient,
23. smash their weapons,
24. devastate the lands of the enemies,
25. sweep them all away.
madej


BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
26. Thy mighty weapons
27. which benefit not my enemies
28. may they draw near and may they fight; .
29. for the subjugation of my enemies, may they go by
my sides.
30. In the presence of Marduk king of heaven and earth
31. upon my works pronounce blessing
32. command my prosperity.
Within Babylon there were two temples of great
importance, and these were the objects chosen for
restoration by all the Babylonian kings; one was called
E-SAGILI, “the temple of the lofty head;" the other
E-ZIDA, “the temple of life.” A third temple existed,
which was called “the temple of the firmament of
heaven and earth.” The temple of Zida had four gates ;
one was called “the gate of the rising sun ;" the names
of the others are difficult to interpret, and no satis-
factory, translation has yet been given. This temple
was dedicated to Marduk, and is the same as that said
to be dedicated to Belus by the Greeks. Herodotus says
that the two principal buildings in Babylon were this
temple of Belus and the royal palace; he says moreover
that the river ran between them. Now as this temple
of Belus of seven spheres was so large (being a stade?
square), we ought to find some remains of it. The only
spot, however, where ruins are found such as one would
expect to find of such an edifice is at a place called
Birs-Nimrud, the site of the old Borsippa. This place
is eight or nine miles distant from the site of the old
Babylon, and as in a hyınn we find an expression like
this, “O Bel, Babylon is thy dwelling, Borsippa thy
il.c., 606 feet 9 inches.


CT NEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
23
crown," it leads us to suppose that Borsippa was in-
cluded in Babylon. In the Talmud, Babel and Borsippa
are mentioned together as places which do harm to the
law. The question is asked, What is Borsippa ? that is,
What does the word mean? Now just as the Jews
made a pun on the name Babylon, so they made one on
Borsippa, and the ansiver is given, Borsippa is “bor
sharpe," id., a dry well. This question is followed up by
another: Why is the place called Borsippa? Because
it is like a cistern whose waters are dried up; that is, it
makes a man forget all that he has learnt, and they said
that the air of the tower caused forgetfulness or oblivion,
Elsewhere they said, “We call Borsippa Babel, and
Babel Borsippa.
At Babel there is a huge oblong mass of unbaked?
brick 110 feet high; the north, south, east, and west
sides are 200, 182, 200, and 136 yards long respectively.
Remains of a facing of burnt brickwork are still to
be found at the base, and in the tunnels which were
excavated by Sir A. Layard. These burnt bricks bear the
name of Nebuchadnezzar. The one stage that remains
is coated with blue slag, the other stages have decayed.
The mound called Amrám, which is 1,100 yards in
length and 800 in breadth, is probably the ruins of the
ancient palace. At Birs-Nimrud, however, there are
ruins which may be parts of the temple of Belus.
They consist of a large mound, whose north-west,
south-east, north-east, and south-west sides are 643,
643, 420, and 376 feet long respectively. Its height is
153 feet, and upon its top there is a large mass of
brickwork. This huge edifice was built in seven stages.
See Rawlinson's “Herodotus," Vol. II, p. 577.


BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
The first stage is 272 feet square, and 26 feet high;
originally its colour was black. The second stage is
230 feet square, and 26 feet high; it was orange-coloured.
The third is 188 feet square, and 26 feet high; it was
coloured bright red. The fourth is 146 feet square, and
15 feet high; it was coloured bright yellow. The fifth
was 104 feet square, and 15 feet high; it was coloured
pale yellow. The sixth is 62 feet square, and 15 feet
high; it was coloured dark blue. The seventh is 20 feet
square, and 15 feet high ; it was silver-coloured. These
stages were dedicated to Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun,
Venus, Mercury, and the Moon respectively. We have
in the British Museum fragments of coloured glazed
bricks from this spot. This temple was called “the
Seven Spheres ” according to some, and “the Seven
Lights” according to others : and its ruins were
thoroughly excavated and examined by Sir Henry
Rawlinson, and the above measurements are his.
In a geographical list three places in Babylon are
mentioned called Duru, and very possibly one of these
may be the “plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon,"
mentioned by Daniel. Through Babylon ran the
"great river," the river Euphrates. The Bible also calls
it “Euphrates,” and “the river Euphrates.”2 The Baby-
lonian name was Purat, or Puratu ; its old Akkadian
name Pura-nunu, “the great stream ;” and this corres-
ponds to the name given it in Gen. xv. 18, etc. Its
meaning in Assyrian texts appears to be “the water.”
The explanations of the meaning of this word generally
given that are not derived from these native sources
are incorrect. The Euphrates was called “the soul of
the land.”
i Chap. iii. I.
? Jer. xiii. 4, 5, 7; xlvi. 2, 6.


CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS.
25
One of the most important parts of Babylon was
Sippara. It was a double town, situated upon the
left bank of the Euphrates. One part was called
“Sippara of the sun-god," and the other “Sippara of
Anunit.” Its old name was Zimbir, and it became
Semiticised to “Sippara.” Its exact meaning is uncer-
tain, and the name Sippara has nothing to do with the
Hebrew word sepher, a “book,” with which it has been
often compared. Sippara is the same town as the
Sepharvaim of 2 Kings xvii. 24, 31, and the dual
termination is a reminder of the “double" form of the
city. Its name in the inscriptions is ut-kip-nun-ki. The
chief god of the city was Samas, or the Sun-god ; his
temple was called E-babbara, and in 2 Kings xvii. 31,
we read that “the Sepharvites burnt their children in
fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of
Sepharvaim.” The Euphrates was called the “river of
Sippara ;” and Sippara is also called Agade in the
inscription of Cyrus, which we shall notice farther on.
This name is probably the same as the Accad of
Gen. x. 10; it means according to some “the fire
crown," and may perhaps refer to the sun-god worship.
It has been recently shown that the correct reading
of the cuneiform sign for Akkad is Uru, and I think
that there is no doubt that this is the Ur from which
Abraham came. The temple of Anunit which existed
in the city was built by a king called Sagar-ak-ti-as, and
was called E-ul-bar.
Around the city of Babylon (according to Herodotus)
was a moat, and the soil which was excavated from this
was made into bricks for the wall. The builders used
hot bitumen for cement, and pieces of this bitumen,
with the impression of the king's stamp on the brick


26.
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
upon them, remain to this day, and are in the National
Collection. As to the hanging gardens, there seems to
be a representation of them upon a sculpture, and their
dimensions are known from other sources.
The next most important river in Babylonia was the
Tigris. It is called in the inscriptions Idiķlat, or Diklat.
It corresponds to the Hiddekel of Gen. ii. 14, and
appears to mean “the river with the high banks.” On
this river the city Nineveh was situated. The name is
non-Semitic, and means "the dwelling-place of the god
Ninua.” Each of the kings Assurbanipal, Esarhaddon,
and Sennacherib built palaces there. Other cities of
Babylonia were Borsippa, Kutha, Erech, Nippur, Ur,
and Larsa.


27.
CHAPTER II.
BABYLON ACCORDING TO CLASSICAL AUTHORS.
The statement of Herodotus about Babylon.— Views of other Classical authors
as to its size and extent. Its gates, houses, streets, defences, and walls.-
Temple of Jupiter Belus.- Comparison of these accounts with those of the
cuneiform inscriptions.—Extract from East India House inscription.-
Nebuchadnezzar used cedar covered with gold for the ceilings of his temples.
--Inscriptions of this monarch near Riblah.—Want of definite history
concerning his Syrian campaigns.
HERODOTUS tells us that “the city Babylon stands
on a broad plain, and is an exact square, 120 furlongs in
length each way, so that the entire circuit is 480 furlongs.
It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep
moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall 50 royal
cubits in width, and 200 in height. And here I may not
omit to tell the use to which the mould dug out of the
great moat was turned, nor the manner wherein the wall
was wrought. As fast as they dug the moat, the soil
which they got from the cutting was made into bricks,
and when a sufficient number were completed, they
baked the bricks in kilns. Then they set to building,
and began with bricking the borders of the moat, after
which they proceeded to construct the wall itself, using
throughout for their cement hot bitumen, and interposing
a layer of wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of the
bricks. On the top, along the edges of the wall, they


BABYLON ACCORDING TO CLASSICAL AUTHORS. 29
Q. Curtius, 368 ; Strabo, 385. There are also conflicting
statements as to the height of the walls of Babylon.
The statement of Ctesias goes to confirm that of
Herodotus, for he says they were 50 fathoms high.
Pliny gives 200, and others 75 feet as the measurement.
Sir Henry Rawlinson thinks that Herodotus referred to
hands, four of which were equal to the cubit, and does
not think that the height of the walls of Babylon
exceeded 60 or 70 English feet. One thing is certain,
and that is that the defences of Babylon must have
been remarkable in their day for their strength. One
of the greatest evils prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah
was “the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken,
and her high gates shall be burned with fire.”
The cuneiform inscriptions do not bear out the account
of the classical writers as to the height of the walls
and the extent of the city. The chief authority on
the buildings of Babylon is the large inscription of
Nebuchadnezzar preserved in the India House. It
consists of ten columns, and is engraved on a “short
column of black basalt ”in 619 lines. In the first column
he gives a list of his own titles, mentions his father
Nabu-pal-uşur, and speaks of his delight to do the works
of the gods Nabu, Marduk, Istar, and others. He
attributes his enthronement and origin to the god Nebo.
In the second and third columns an account of the
restoration of the great temple of Marduk, the prince of
the gods, is given. It appears that various parts of the
temple had fallen into decay, so the pious king collected
all sorts and kinds of beautiful and precious stones, and
began the restoration. He rebuilt the gates of E-Zida
and E-Sagili, he brought cedar wood from Lebanon,
Jeremiah li. 58.


30
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
(like the Jewish king Solomon) to embellish the temple ;
the inner walls he covered over with pine and lofty cedar
wood; in Borsippa he built the temple of Zida, and
parts of it he covered with bright silver. In column 4
he gives a list of the temples he built, and of their gods.
At the end of this column he mentions the two walls, an
outer and an inner, which formed the defences of his city,
He says:
66. of Imgur-Bel
67. and Nimitti-Bel
68. the mighty fortresses of Babylon,
69. which Nabu-pal-uşur
70. the king of Tintirki (Babylon), the father my
begetter
71. had made, but had not completed
72. their beauty.
COLUMN V.
'1. He excavated its ditch [with]
2. two huge embankments,
3. with brick and with bitumen
4. he bound (lined) its interior.
5. The ditch arahti
6. he made, and
7. with buttresses (?) of brick
8. the bank of the Euphrates
9. he bound, but
10. he did not complete (his work).
The text here becomes very difficult, but is cle: aret
when it speaks of Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel. Nel bu-
chadnezzar followed up his father's buildings, and joined
the parts of the fortresses which he built with those that


BABYLON ACCORDING TO CLASSICAL AUTHORS. 31
an ad
built
al to 7. Babylon
his father began. He built the wall of Babylon with
brick across the river westward. On the eastern side of
the river he built a fortification the like of which no
other king had ever made. It was 4,000 cubits long (?).
The moat which he had built he caused to be filled with
water as deep as the ocean, to keep off insolent enemies
who were hostile to the children of Babylon.
The end of column seven gives an account of the
-building of his palace. He built the “lofty place of
Royalty” within Babylon; it extended from the
eastern canal to Imgur-Bel, and from the Sippara
River to the Japur-Sabu. The exact meaning of all
the words in which the description of the decorations is
given is very difficult to make out. Inside Nimitti-Bel,
the inner defence of the city, Nebuchadnezzar built a
defence 400 cubits [ammas] long (?), which he completed
in fifteen days. In the eighth and ninth columns a
summary of his deeds is given, and the religious king
attributes all his glory and all his greatness to the god
Marduk. In the tenth is a prayer for the general
security of the empire, and for the long rule of the king
over the dark races.
For details as to the buildings undertaken by
Nebuchadnezzar the reader is referred to the translation
of the inscription given in Chapter I. There can be no
doubt as to the extent, magnificence, and beauty of these
temples and their decorations. A short time ago some
inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar were discovered at a
spot not far from Riblah ; and in them the king states
that he cut down cedar trees in Lebanon, and had the
wood transplanted to his own land for the beautifying of
the temples of the “great gods his lords.” Among the
ruins of Babylon there are bricks by the thousand, every


33
CHAPTER III.
BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM ABOUT B.C. 3800-1330.
Method of reckoning time in use among the Babylonians. The eponym
canon.-Sir H. Rawlinson's discovery.—Rimmon-Nirari 1., B.C. 1330,
caused his inscription to be dated.—Contract tablets.- Extract from eponym
canon.—The Assyrians kept a strict account of events. —Image of the
goddess Nana.—Babylonians made their calculations by the help of
astronomy.-Nabonidus mentions Naram-Sin, who reigned 3200 years
before his time.—Inscription of Sargon I., B.C. 3800.—Extract from
inscription of Nabonidus.—Legend about Sargon.—Babylonian kings
Naram-Sin, Ur-Bagas, Dungi, Ismi-Dagan, Libil-Istar, and others. —
Hanmurabi, the good king.–His canal, his good policy.-Contract tablets
dated in his reign.-Revival of commerce in Babylonia.—The kings his
successors.---Tablet giving list of kings after the flood.
THE Babylonian empire is certainly one of the oldest
in the world, and the question, How old is it? has been
asked over and over again. This question is extremely
difficult to answer, even with a moderate amount of
accuracy, considering our present knowledge. It will
perhaps be well, before we begin our sketch of the
history of Babylonia, to give an idea of the way in
which the Assyrians and Babylonians managed their
chronology. They reckoned twelve lunar months to
each year, and each of these had either twenty-nine
or thirty days. Their year began about the vernal
equinox, as Mr. Smith said, "the new moon next
before the equinox marking the commencement of
the new year.” Whenever the twelfth month ended


34
B.IBILONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
more than thirty days before the equinox, they inter-
calated a thirteenth month. This was called Ve-Adar,
and they had also an intercalary Nisan and Elul. These
two latter, however, are only found on Babylonian dated
tablets. The first year of a king's reign was reckoned
from the new year's day after his accession to the
throne; though there are instances in which this rule
has not been adhered to. Now just as there were
archons at Athens and consuls at Rome who were
elected annually, so among the Assyrians there was a
custom of electing one man to be over the year whom
they called limu, or “eponym.” Generally each district
and important town had its limu, so there is no doubt
that the custom was widespread and well known.
Babylonian and Assyrian documents were more gene-
rally dated by the names of these eponyms than by
that of the reigning king.
A common way of reckoning in olden times was by
referring to some important event which at that time
was well known. An instance of this is given in the
Bible, where we read of “the words of Amos which he
saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake.”
In 1862 Sir Henry Rawlinson discovered the frag-
ment of the eponym canon of Assyria. It was one of
the grandest and most important discoveries ever made,
for it has decided definitely a great many points which
otherwise could never have been cleared up. Fragments
of seven copies of this canon were found, and from
these the chronology of Assyria has been definitely
settled from B.C. 1330 to about B.C. 620. There is an
historical inscription of Rimmon-Nirari I. in the British
1 Amos i. 1.


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 3800-1330.
37
saw the inscription which the Assyrian king had caused
to be put there. Nabonidus did not remove it, but, in
accordance with the request upon it, he cleansed it, and
offered up sacrifices. He then put the inscription back
in its place, together with one of his own, and restored
the place to its former condition.
Nabonidus then made excavations under the temple
of the Sun-god, “the judge of heaven and earth,” in
Sippara, which Nebuchadnezzar, a preceding king, had
made. He sought for the foundation stone, but found it
not, and as the temple had much decayed, he brought
out the Sun-god and placed it in another temple.
Nabonidus made further excavations, and having gone
to a depth of 15 square or earth cubits he made a great
discovery. As his account of it is of such importance to
us and to chronology generally, I quote his own words :-
LINE
COLUMN II.
55. HY Z V Ⓡ EVEN IY EM
bitsu - a - tim ad - kì - e - ma
that temple
I excavated
1 The concluding lines inscribed on a large cylinder of Assurbanipal i:2
the British Museum read thus :-
Col. 10, 1. 109. May he whomsoever, among the kings my descendants Assur
and Istar shall proclaim for the dominion of the country and its
people,
110. when this temple of Riduti has become old and decayed
II1. may he repair its decay, the inscription in my name, my father, and
112. my grandfathers, an everlasting royal seed, may he look upon, the
chamber (altar) may he cleanse,
113. may he offer up sacrifices, may he place (my inscription) with his own.
114. And may the great gods whose names are written down in this
inscription
115. extend unto him power and glory even as they have unto myself.


38
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
LINE
56. *Y Y- > EV V MYY ME EV ET
te - me- en - sula - bi - riu - ba - ! - ma
its ancient foundation stone I sought,
(
W E K 77? -YYY
15 ammati ga - ga - ri
fifteen square. cubits
57. YE #LY Y- SAMEN Y Y Y
u - sap - pi - il - ma te - me - en - na
I dug down [for] the foundation stone of
✓ Y
EL »t « Et Y MY
D.P. Na - ram D.P. Sin abil D.P. sar - gi - na
Naram-Sin the son of Sargon
58. ELSY MY - M P- *~Y~1 KK EN MY EY
sa 3 x 1000 + 2 x 100 mu- an - na-mes ma-na-ma
which for three thousand two hundred years no
WAT 30 YY EN DET * (YY
sarru a- lik mah - ri - ya li - i - mu - ru
king my predecessor had seen.
In other words, Nabonidus, king of Babylon, dug
among the foundations of the temple of the Sun-god to
find the foundation stone which Naram-Sin, the son of
Sargon, who ruled over Babylonia 3,200 years before,
had deposited. Now this statement fixes the date of
the very early king Naram-Sin, and it also gives his
father's name. We have at present no notice of an
anterior date or king.
A very short time ago a small, perforated, oval-shaped
object, made of mottled, pinkish-grey, hard stone, arrived


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 3800-1330.
39
at the British Museum. It was found to contain a
legend in what is called technically “line” Babylonian
writing, that is, writing in which the characters are
formed more by lines than by the ordinary wedges.
This style of writing is found upon stone gate sockets
of the earliest times, and goes back to a period in the
history of the nation when they were beginning to
discontinue the use of the hieroglyphic or pictorial
system of writing, which was found too cumbrous and
difficult. The legend transcribed into ordinary Baby-
lonian reads thus:-
I Sargon
the King
king of
TY TEAM EU Agade
YY
Y to
*
Y the Sun-god (Samas)
X
4 FT
*
} in Sippara
7114
V * SY have dedicated.
The stone was brought from Sepharvaim (Abû-
habbah), and was discovered by Mr. Rassam. It is of
the utmost importance, for it is an inscription without
doubt made by the father of Naram-Sin, the Sargon
mentioned in the inscription of Nabonidus.
Now Nabonidus began to reign about 554 B.C., and he
says that Naram-Sin reigned 3,200 years before his time;
these two numbers added together make a total of
3,754 years, which is the date of Naram-Sin's building
the temple of the Sun-god at Sippara. Here, then,


40
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY,
fairly accurate chronology begins. It would be absurd
to suppose that there were no Babylonian kings before
Sargon or Naram-Sin; the only difficulty in the matter is
to estimate the number of years which must have passed

S
TILLEDE
S
ENS
Stone object bearing the name of Sargon, king of Sippara, B.C. 3800.
before the Babylonians had arrived at the high state of
culture and civilization necessary to enable them to
produce such an object as that described above. The
stone is most beautifully drilled and polished, and the
characters are carefully and remarkably well executed.
Babylonian history, then, as known to us, begins with
Sargon I, king of Agade, B.C. 3800. A curious legend
is extant respecting this king, to the effect that he was
born in a city on the banks of the Euphrates, that his
mother conceived him in secret, and brought him forth
in a humble place; that she placed him in an ark of
rushes and closed it with pitch; that she cast him upon
the river in the water-tight ark; that the river carried
him along; that he was rescued by a man called Akki,


42
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
carried out his policy, and succeeded in making them-
selves masters of a large part of Babylonia. A list of
kings of Babylonia following after Rim-Agu gives the
following particulars of this period :-
Sumu-Abi .. .. .. reigned 15 years.
Sumulau .. .. .. . 35 »
Zabu, son of Sumulau, built
the temples of Samas and
Anunit, in Sippara
· 14
Abil-Sin, son of Zabu .. , 18 ,
Sin-Muballit, son of Abil-Sin
35 »
About B.C. 2100 a powerful king (some think him a
Kassite), called Hammurabi, made war against Kudur-
Mabug and his son, Rim-Agu. He defeated them and
became master of all Babylonia. Rim-Agu appears
to have called in the aid of the Elamites, for a tablet is
dated :
“22nd day of Sebat, in the year
when Hammurabi the king in the service of Anu
and Bel marched victoriously
and overthrew the king of Elam and Rim-Agu."
Hammurabi was a devout, pious, and broad-minded
king. He repaired the temple of every god, and dug a
huge canal for the benefit of the people of Sumir and
Akkad, which he called "Hammurabi, the benefactor of
mankind.” Commerce must have revived considerably
under his rule, for there are a very large number of con-
tract tablets in the British Museum dated in his reign.
The contract, or deed of sale, was written on both sides of
a flat piece of clay, which piece of clay was then covered
over completely with other clay, and upon this the deed



VARPA

Contract Tablet and its Case, bearing the name of Rim-Sin, B.C. 2300.





BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 3800-1330.
43
was again inscribed. It must have been about this time
that Abraham went forth from “ Ur of the Chaldees.”
Hammurabi reigned fifty-five years. He was followed
by Samsu-iluna, his son, who reigned 35 years. Ebisum
was the next king, he reigned 25 years. He had a son
called Ammi-satana, who reigned 25 years. The next
two kings were called Ammi-sa-duga and Samsu-satana,
who reigned 21 and 31 years respectively. There are
no details of the reigns of these kings. On a bilingual
tablet lately discovered there are nearly a hundred kings'
names given ; and some day, when the other parts are
discovered, it is hoped that it will be possible to recon-
struct the chronology of that early time with accuracy.
The names of the kings that followed close after the
Flood are given, they are:-1. .... Sin, 2. . . . . Sin,
3. Amil-Gula, 4. Samas-nasir, 5. Amil-Sin, 6. Amil-
Samas, 7. Sapin-mat-nukurti, 8. Muabbid-Kissati, 9. Abil-
Ea - sar- mati, 10. Abil - Bel - usum - same, il. Sargina,
12. Baü-ellit.
The first part of the column, where probably the names
of the kings before the Flood were, is broken off. It is to
be noticed that the above names are Semitic.
About 1700 years B.C. we find a Kassite dynasty ruling
in Babylon, the first king of which was called Agu-kak-
rimi, the son of Tassi-gur-umas. His sway extended
over Babylon, Asnunak, Padan, Alman, and Guti. He
was king of Kassi and Akkadi, and he restored the
temples of the gods Marduk and Zir-panitum. He also
prays to Anu and Anunitum, Bel and Beltis, Ea and
Damkina, to grant him a long life. About the year 1450
we find a king called Kara-Indas ruling over Babylon,
and he made a covenant with Assur-bil-nisi-su, the king
of Assyria, regarding the boundaries of their dominions.


45
CHAPTER IV.
BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668.
Rise of the Assyrian Empire under Rimmon-Nirari, B.C. 1330.- Trans-
lation of his inscription.—Extent of his empire.— Tiglath-Pileser 1.-
His immense kingdom.-His hunting expeditions in Lebanon. ---Rise of
the Jewish power under David and Solomon. -Assurnașirpal, king of
Assyria.-Shalmaneser 11.-Tribute of Jehu.-The bronze gates of
Balawat.-Wars between the Assyrian and Babylonian kings.-Sargon
of Assyria sends the Tartan against Ashdod.--Hezekiah and Merodach-
Baladan.-Sennacherib.—His wars with Merodach-Balalan.-Senna-
cherib destroys Babylon.-Terrible damage to buildings and libraries.-
The boast of the Rabshakeh. -Sennacherib's death.- Esarhaddon, the kind
and merciful king.–His respect for the Babylonian temples. - Translation
of an Inscription in Babylonian.
ABOUT B.C. 1330 the kingdom of Assyria began to be
powerful and mighty. A most enterprising and spirited
ruler called Rammanu-Nirari held sway, and he has left
us an account of his conquests in a beautifully executed
inscription dated in the eponymy of Shalman-Karradu.
As it is not very long, and is a good specimen of an
Assyrian historical inscription, I reproduce here Professor
Sayce's translation of it.
OBVERSE.
1. RIMMON-NIRARI, the holy Prince, appointment of
god,
2. the holy conqueror, established by heaven (and)
earth (and) the gods,


46
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
3. establisher of fortresses (and) demolished buildings.
4. of the host of the Cassi, Gutium, Lulumi,
5. and Subari, destroyer of all
6. enemies above and below, the trampler
7. on their countries from Lubdi (?) and Rapiku
8. to the confines of Zabidadi and Nisi,
9. the (remover) of boundaries and landmarks,
10. the (overthrower) of Kings and Princes
11. (whom) the gods ANU, ASSUR, SAMAS, RIMMON,
12. and ISTAR to his feet subjected ;
13. the supreme worshipper of BEL.
14. The son of PUDIL, established by BEL,
15. Vicegerent of ASSUR, the conqueror
16. of the lands of Turuci and Nirkhi
17. as far as the frontiers of his furthest castles,
18. ruling the mountains and the forests
19. of the frontiers of wide Gutium,
20. of the Gunukhlami and the Suti,
21. their streams and lands;
22. the remover of boundaries and landmarks.
23. The grandson of BEL-NIRARI,
24. worshipper of Assur also, who on the army of the
Cassi
25. laid his yoke, and the spoil of his foes
26. his hand captured, the remover of boundaries
27. and landmarks. The great-grandson
28. of ASSUR-YUBALLIDH, the powerful King
29. whom as a worshipper in Bit-Kurra I fixed.
30. The restoration and peace of his kingdom
31. to distant regions like a mountain he extended ;
32. the sweeper away of the armies
33. of the wide-spread Subari,
34. the remover of boundaries and landmarks.


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668.
47
35. At that time the ascent to the temple of Assur my
Lord,
36. which (was before) the gate of the men of my country
REVERSE.
1. and the gate of the stars (called) Judges,
2. which existed in former times, was decayed, and
3. was stopped up and was ruined ;
4. this place I selected,
5. its strength I took,
6. with clay and sand 4 gurs I cemented,
7. I made, to its place I restored,
8. and my inscription I placed
9. for future days. The future Prince
10. at the time (when) this place
11. shall grow old and decay
12. its ruins let him renew ; my inscriptions (and) my
written name :
13. to its place let him restore. The god ASSUR
14. his prayers heareth. Whoever my written name
15. shall crase and his own name shall write,
16. and the record of my inscription shall cause to wash
out,
17. to destruction shall devote,
18. in the flood shall lay, in the fire
19. shall burn, in the water shall lay,
20. with the dust shall cover,
21. into a house underground, a place not seen,
22. shall cause to descend and place,
23. then I appoint these curses :
24. (even) the enemy, the stranger, the wicked one and
the injurer;
25. the hostile tongue, and whosoever


43
: BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
26. a rival shall urge on and excite,
27. and whatever he devises he shall accomplish.
28. Assur, the mighty god, who dwells in the temple of
Kharsak-kurra,
29. the gods ANU, BEL, HEA, and TSIRU,
30. the great gods, the spirit of heaven,
31. (and) the spirit of earth, in their ministry,
32. mightily may they injure him, and
33. with a grievous curse quickly
34. may they curse him ; his name, his seed, his forces
35. and his family in the land may they destroy ;
36. the glory of his country, the duration of his people
37. and his landmarks, by their august mouth,
38. may it go forth, and may RIMMON in inundation
39. malign inundate (with) whirlwind,
40. may the wind dry up, and amongst his offspring
41. destruction, want of crops,
42. curse (and) famine in his country may he lay, with
rain his country like a whirlwind may he fill,
43. to a mound and ruins may he turn; may RIMMON
in his evil devouring his country devour.
44. (Dated) the month Mukhur-ili, the 20th day, during
the eponymy of SHALMAN-KARRADU.
After the time of Rimmon-Nirari the history becomes
doubtful, and all that is known with certainty is that
Tukulti Ninip, king of Assyria, conquered Babylonia.
Following in his steps, the Assyrian king Assur-Danan
attacked and defeated Zagaga-suma-iddina, king of
Babylonia, and captured the cities of Zaba, Irriya, and
Agarsal.
The next king of Babylonia appears to have been Bel-
zakir-iskun ; and during his life the Elamites made several


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668.
49
fierce attacks upon Babylonia, under the leadership of
Kudur-nan-ḥundi.
About this time Nebuchadnezzar the First became
king of Babylon, and he made three wars against Assur-
ris-isi (or ilim), king of Assyria. The particulars of the
first campaign are not given ; in the second we read
that Nebuchadnezzar burnt his baggage and retreated ;
and in the third he was defeated by the Assyrians, and
forty of his chariots taken. Assur-ris-isi was the grand-
son of Assur-Danan, and the father of Tiglath-Pileser I.,
king of Assyria, who reigned about B.C. 1120. With
Tiglath-Pileser I., Marduk-nadin-ahi, the next king of
Babylon, fought; he marched into Assyria, pillaged the
temples, and carried off the images of the gods Ram-
manu (Rimmon) and Sala. Tiglath-Pileser, however,
gathered together his army, made an attack on Babylon,
and captured it, overrunning at the same time all Baby-
lonia. He captured both parts of the city Sippara, also
Upe and Rapiku.
Under the powerful rule of Tiglath-Pileser I., Assyria
became a truly mighty empire. He attacked and de-
feated on all sides the nations that had rebelled after the
death of his father. His armies marched through diffi-
cult countries, and crossed the rivers on rafts of inflated
skins. He penetrated as far west as the shores of the
Mediterranean Sea, and he records that he went into a
ship at Arvad, and killed a dolphin. During his journey
through the Lebanon forests and mountains he slew
one hundred and twenty lions and many other animals.
He cared also for the well-being of his people, for he
re-cut the canal which Assur-Danan had made to bring
water to the city Assur, and put it in good repair. He
undertook various buildings, and from one of the towers


GIDS

Stone object containing an Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar I., B.C. 1120 (about),
recording a grant of privileges to Ritti-Marduk, king of Bit-KARZIYABKU.
Found at Abû-Habbah (Sepharvaim) by Mr. H. Rassam.





BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1336-668.
51
II. the anointer of kings, the prince, the beloved of the
god Marduk
12. [the words “Marduk the king of the gods scnt" (see
line 1) form this line in the text]
13. he sent forth his weapons to revenge Akkad.
14 From Dēr the fortress of the god Anu
15. he made destruction for the distance of thirty kasbu
(i.e., sixty miles).
16. In the month, the month Tammuz, he took the road.
17. The burning (?)........., blazed like fire,
18. and covering (?) the roads there sprouted forth under-
growth (or jungle)
19. there was no water of any sort, the places thereof
were destroyed.
20. The strength of the great horses remained,
21. and the zeal of the warlike hero returned.
22. The rnighty king went forward, the gods sustained
him,
23. and Nebuchadnezzar marched on, none opposing him.
24. He turned not back from the strength of the field,
the wooden growth he cut down.
25. Ritti-Marduk lord of the house of Bit-Karziyabku,
26. who his fortress, Bit-Imitti,
27. (to) the king his lord he did not give up—he burnt
his fortress.
28. The strong king marched speedily, he captured as
far as the bank of the river Ulā.
29. The kings of every region gathered together, they
made battle,
30. (and) among them the fire blazed forth.
31. The face of the sun was darkened by their clouds of
dust,
32. the hurricane collected itself, the storm broke.
D 2


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668.
53
53. no master of the horse, foals, or mares,
54. shall cause to go into the midst of the cities;
55. taxes of oxen and sheep by the king and governor
of Namar shall not be taken,
56. a measure (?) or homer of fodder (?)
57. an ass shall not be given to the tax-gatherer,
58. stallion keepers shall not enter the city,
59. stallions shall not be taken among the mares, (and)
60. the fruit of the plantations and the sakal tree shall
not be cut down.
COLUMN II.
1. The castle of Bit-Šamaš and of the city Ilu-Bašâ
shall not be made,
2. the bridge shall not be made, the road shall not be
opened.
3. From the people of Nipur, (and) of Babylon, for the
army of the king,
4. as many as dwell in the cities of Bit-Karziyabku,
5. whether in town or whether in country, a seizure of
men shall not take place.
6. From the time when the god Tuk (?) spoke to him
. in the boundary of the country of Namar,
7. Nebuchadnezzar king of multitudes, the cities of
Ritti-Marduk,
8. the son of Karziyabku, all the ground of the land of
. Namar
9. freed for future days, and the multitudes dwelling in
those cities
10. he appointed for a compensation to the chief, the
governor of Namar,
Il. at the freeing of those cities.


56
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
49. may Siru, and Supū the son of the temple of the
city of Dēr,
50. may the god Sin, and the lady of Akkad, the gods
of the house of Kirban,
51. may the great gods, in strength of heart,
52. for evil destine him, and
53. may another become master of the house which he
shall build, [and may he be]
54. a sharp goad in his side, and a running in his eye.
55. May he bow down his face to his conqueror,
56. may he not accept his weeping from him,
57. may he cut off his life speedily;
58. by the destruction of his house may his hands enter
the mud,
59. may he [i.e., the conqueror] send afflictions to him as
long as his life lasts,
60. and as long as heaven and earth exist may he expel
his seed.
Simmas-Siḥu (or Sipak), the son of Iriba Sin, next
reigned for seventeen years. The Elamites pillaged
Sippara in his reign, and did great mischief. His suc-
cessor was Ea-mukin-ziri, son of ķutmar, who reigned
for three months. Next came Kassu-nadin-ahi, son of
Sappai, who ruled for six years, and after him E-Ulbar-
sakin-sumi, son of Bazi. He reigned for fifteen years, his
brother Ninip-kudurri-uşur reigned for two years, and
another brother, whose name is uncertain, for three
months. An Elamite dynasty then assumed the govern-
ment of the country for six years.
The history is again doubtful until the time of
Merodach-Baladan II., a son of Iriba-Marduk. We find
that a king called Sibir marched into Assyria and
destroyed a city called Adlil. A king called Nabu-sum-


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668.
57
damik next reigned, but he was defeated by Rammanu-
Nirari, of Assyria. After Nabu-sum-damik we find a
king called Nabu-suma-iskun ruling over Babylon,
who likewise was defeated by the Assyrian king. An
Assyrian king, Tukulti-Ninip IV., then ruled Babylon for
seven years.
About this time the Jewish nation and kingdom rose
to great power under David and Solomon. Curiously
enough, none of the “nations around” were powerful
enough to attack or to harm the kingdom of David after
his defeat of Hadar-ezer, king of Zobah. Egypt was
quiet, and the unfriendly Assyrian little by little lost
all his importance until the empire revived under Assur-
naşir-pal.
While Assur-naşir-pal was ruling over Assyria, Nabu-
abla-iddina held sway in Babylonia. He joined in league
with the Suhi, and they attempted to resist the power of
the Assyrian king. They were, however, unsuccessful,
and were defeated after two days' battle. Zabdan, the
brother of the king of Babylon, was taken captive
together with the chief of the host, Bel-pal-iddina. The
leader of the Suḥi and seventy of his followers fled by
way of the river. Afterwards the Babylonian king made
a treaty with Shalmaneser II., king of Assyria, the son
of Assur-naşir-pal, who was now dead. This king was
a votary of the Sun-god, and in the so-called “Sun-god"
tablet, he relates that a wicked enemy, called the Sutu,
had invaded Babylon before his time, had attacked the
temple of the Sun, and had wrought considerable
damage and destruction therein. Other kings before
his time had executed several considerable repairs, but
no one had done so much as he did. He apportioned a
fixed revenue from the royal farms for the support of


58
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
this temple, and presented the priests with valuable
garments.
The next legitimate claimant of the throne was
Marduk-suma-iskun, the son of Nabu-pal-iddina, but it
was also claimed by an usurper called Marduk-bel-usati,
who, aided by the populace, took possession of the country.
The Assyrian king, Shalmaneser II., took the part of the
lawful heir to the throne, and marched to his assistance.
The heir fled to Halman, but was followed by the
Assyrians and slain; the rebel was defeated at Gan-
nanati by the Assyrian king, who then marched to
Babylon. It must not be forgotten that it was this king
who made Jehu, the son of Nimshi, pay him tribute; and
on the “black obelisk," which stands in the British
Museum, the picture of Jehu kneeling down doing rever-
ence to the Assyrian lord may be seen. This king
erected most magnificent gates covered with plates of
bronze, having in relief upon them beautifully executed
scenes from his wars and expeditions.
Bau-ahi-iddin and Marduk-balatsu-ikbi were the next
kings of Babylon. Little is known of either save that
the latter was king during the reign of Samsi-Rammanu
over Assyria, who made many raids on Babylonia. In
one of these raids he took Dur-papsukal, and in
another he defeated the Babylonian army. Babylonian
history is now silent as to the names of its kings; but we
know from the annals of the sister kingdom Assyria,
that many expeditions were made by its kings, Rammanu-
Nirari III., Shalmaneser III., and Assur-Dan against
Babylon. Rammanu-Nirari III. was the son of Samas-
Rimmon, who died about B.C. 812. Shalmaneser III.
made three expeditions against Babylon between the
years B.C. 783 and B.C. 767.


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668. 59
Here comes a blank in Babylonian history for about
twenty years, and the next king we find to be Nabu-naşir.
No mention is made of him in the inscriptions, but he is
brought to light by Ptolemy's canon. Tiglath-Pileser III.
was king of Assyria during his reign, and he captured
“the fortress of Kuri-galzu” (a town built by an early
Babylonian king of that name), together with that part
of Sippara dedicated to Samas, the Sun-god. The people
of these places, he tells us, he took away to people his
city of “the fortress of Assur,” which he had founded.
Nabu-naşir died about B.C. 734, and was succeeded by
Nabu-nadin-ziri, who reigned two years. He in his turn
was succeeded by Nabu-suma-ukin, who reigned but a
few weeks. The inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser, the king
of Assyria at this time, seem to point out that there were
many important chiefs living in Babylonia each main-
taining his city and army. He mentions three, Nabu-
usabsi, Zakiru, and Ukin-ziru. This latter chief is pro-
bably the Chinzirus of Ptolemy, who appears to have
become sole king of Babylonia about B.C. 730. The
canon of Ptolemy inserts the name Ilulaeus (Assyr. Ulaa)
after Ukin-ziru. For the last two or three hundred years,
Babylonia had been the scene of perpetual fights and
battles, at one time winning, at another losing. The
energies of the people had been strained to their highest
pitch to maintain their position, but little by little the
Assyrian power had dominated until the Assyrians had
become masters of the country.
But now a new king of Babylon arose called Merodach.
Baladan, or Marduk-pal-iddina, i.e., “Marduk gave a son.”
He was the son of Yakin, the Yugaeus of Ptolemy's
canon, and appears to have been a man of great ruling
ability. In arms he was no match for the great Sargon,


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668. 61
depth of 34 feet, and into it they directed all the springs
of the city, to form a moat. All the inhabitants of
Philistia, Judah, Edom, and Moab, dwelling by the sea,
whose duty it was to bring gifts and offerings to
Assur, my lord, spoke treason. These people and their
rebellious chieſs carried their presents to Pharaoh, the
king of Egypt-a monarch who could not deliver them
—and entreated his assistance. Then I, Sargon, the
majestic prince, the worshipper of Assur and Merodach,
jealous for the honour of Assur, passed over the Tigris
and Euphrates at their flood time, Yaman, who relied
upon himself, and who would not submit to my authority,
heard of the advance of my expedition to the land of
the Hittites; and the might of Assur overwhelmed him.
He Aed to Meroe, near Egypt, to a far-off place, and was
no more seen.” .
Hezekiah did not support Merodach-Baladan, who
then sent to Kudur-Naħħunte, king of Elam, and they
became allies. Having prepared his army, he made
strong his fortifications to resist the march of Sargon of
Assyria. But his city Dur-athara was captured, himself
put to fight, and obliged to seek refuge in his own
country Beth Yakur. On the road thither he retreated
to a city called Ikbi-Bel, and Sargon having captured
Babylon marched against it. Merodach-Baladan and his
followers forsook Ikbi-Bel and took refuge in Dur-
Yakin, which they strongly fortified. This was useless,
however, for Sargon took the city and carried off
Merodach-Baladan and all his family.
Sargon died B.C. 705, and was succeeded by his son,
Sennacherib. He reigned quietly for two years, when a
man called by Eusebius Hagisa (probably Marduk-
zakir-sumi of the inscriptions) came to the throne,


62
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
Sennacherib being deposed. Merodach-Baladan gathered
his armies together, attacked this rebel and slew him.
He then set himself upon the throne. Sennacherib
re-assembled his armies and marched from Nineveh
against him, and utterly routed Merodach-Baladan at
the city of Kisu, and compelled him to seek refuge in
Guzummanu. Afterwards he gathered together what-
ever people were willing to follow his fortune, and led
them to a district called Nagitu, down by the Persian
Gulf, where he died an exile. Sennacherib placed upon
the throne of Babylon a young man called Bel-epus.
Another Babylonian rebel arose called Suzub, the son of
Gaḥul, but Sennacherib soon suppressed him and ravaged
his country. He was taken captive and sent to Nineveh.
Sennacherib was now occupied in trying to destroy
Merodach-Baladan's settlement in Nagitu ; and, while
labouring for this object, Suzub escaped, and, aided by
the king of Elam, marched to Babylon and became
king. He was routed by the Assyrians and obliged to
keep in hiding, but soon after he gathered together
another army and again taking Babylon proclaimed
himself king. He met the Assyrian army in battle at
Halub, on the Tigris ; he was utterly defeated, and the son
of Merodach-Baladan, Nabu-sumu-iskum, who had joined
him, fell into the hands of the victorious Assyrian army.
Suzub fled, and Umman-Minanu, his helper, the king of
Elam, retreated to his own kingdoin.
Sennacherib's vengeance upon Babylon was most
severe. He pulled down the temples, removed walls
and towers, and hurled them into the river Araxes.
Everything capable of being destroyed he destroyed.
It is very hard to form even an idea of the damage
which this king must have done. In Babylon was the


BABYLONIAN HISTORY FROM B.C. 1330-668.
63
accumulated learning of ages and of hundreds of gene-
rations of the children of men. The libraries were the
repository of all the science and knowledge which the
most civilized of the Semitic races had. The books of
astronomy and observations of the heavenly bodies were
all there, in addition to their beautiful collection of myths
and stories of the “Childhood of the world.” With every
other great building, the libraries must have suffered,
and very possibly many of the stories and legends which
have supplied the other nations of the world with the
groundwork of their mythology, perished under the
needlessly cruel vengeance which Sennacherib wreaked
upon the city, "the gate of God.”
Every one is familiar with the boastful speeches of
the Rabshakeh? (in Assyrian ES ET- EN K««), and
without doubt they were the very words which the king
himself had commanded to be spoken. In deeds he was
cruel, in speech haughty, and every word of his inscrip-
tions breathes the spirit of his boast, “I ain the mighty
king, the powerful.”
Sennacherib deposed Bel-epus and raised to the Baby-
lonian throne his son, Assur-nadin-sumi. The particulars
of these battles belong properly to the history of Assyria,
but it is necessary to touch upon them briefly for the
right understanding of the history of Babylon. Assur-
nadin-sumi reigned about six years, and was succeeded by
Nergal-edir, who, in his turn, was succeeded by Musesib-
Marduk. Sennacherib was murdered about B.C. 681,
and his son, Assur-nadin-sumi, whom he had appointed
over Babylon, had died about B.C. 694. Another son
Esarhaddon, came to the Assyrian throne B.C. 680, but,
1 2 Kings xviii. 16-35.


64
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
meanwhile, a son of Merodach-Baladan, called Nabu-zir-
napisti-esir, had seized his father's dominions near the
Persian Gulf, and wished to rule Babylonia. The sons of
Sennacherib after his death quarrelled as to the succession.
While this quarrel was going on Nabu-zir-napisti-esir
attacked the city of Ur, which was ruled over by Ningal-
iddina. His siege was unsuccessful, however, for Esar-
haddon, having defeated his brothers, marched against
him, and Nabu-zir-napisti-esir was compelled to take
refuge in Elam. His brother, Nahid-Marduk, submitted
to Esarhaddon, and was appointed by him to the govern-
ment of the sea-coast. The judicious king, Esarhaddon,
went to Babylon and began to repair the damages which
his father had done. He not only was merciful and
kind, but he did his best to show that he honoured the
ancient city Babylon. He built ten temples there, and
there are inscriptions in the British Museum in Babylonian
as well as in Assyrian, which go to prove that he wished
to conform to the usages of the people and their kings as
far as he could. His mild but firm policy pacified the
excitable and angry breasts of the various tribes ever
ready for war, and rendered his short reign of thirteen
years very glorious. During his reign he associated his
son, Assurbanipal, with him in the kingdom of Assyria,
and left the government of Babylon to another son,
Samullu-sum-ukin or Samas-sum-ukin.
ca


CHAPTER V.
THE FALL OF NINEVEH.–NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
B.C. 668–560.
Assurhanipal's wars with Elam.-His care for the libraries.-Fall of
Nineveh.—The vengeance of the Babylonians.—Nebuchadnezzar's war
with the Egyptians. --Josiah, king of Judah.—Nebuchadnezzar's buildings
and canals.-Inscription on a bronze step.- The siege of Tyre.--The
destruction of Jerusalem and captivity of its people.--Nebuchadnezzar and
Daniel.—Biblical names of Adam, Abel, Abraham, and Methuselah
found on the tablets.
FOR ten or a dozen years we have peace in the land.
After this a king of Elam, called Urtaki, made a league
with Bel-basa, king of the Gambulu, and began to make
war against Assurbanipal and his brother. Assurbanipal
hearing of this, sent an army to fight these kings, and it
succeeded in driving Urtaki back into Elam, which
country he subsequently conquered and placed Umman-
igas, a son of Urtaki, upon the throne. Another serious
trouble now awaited Assurbanipal. His brother's spirit
chafed at the idea of his being in subjection to him, and
knowing that the king of Elam was ill-disposed to
Assurbanipal, the sacrilegious monarch opened the
treasuries of the temples of the gods Bel, Nebo, and
Nergal, and taking out their gold and silver he sent it to
Umman-igas, the king of Elam, and prayed for his
assistance to make a war against his brother, Assurbani-
pal. The Elamite king was quite ready to take up arms
against his benefactor, and raising a large army, he,
together with the Babylonian king, began a series of


THE FALL OF NINEVEH.
67
him Governor of Babylon on account of the skill which
he showed in ruling Babylon and suppressing the
rebellion. He afterwards became king of Babylon, and
made it great and mighty, as in days of old. When,
however, he found that he had armies under his own
control, and the power to do with them as he pleased,
he next turned his successful troops against their old
enemies the Assyrians. The Babylonians were only
too glad to assist their vigorous leader Nabu-pal-uşur in
his meditated attack upon Nineveh. Instead of being
the general in the service of the government of Assyria,
he now became a most formidable rival and opponent of
its ling. Assyria had been the ruling power for some
time, but her power and her glory were diminishing,
and she found herself powerless to resist or control
the iron-willed rule of her opponent, Nabu-pal-uşur
(Nabopolassar). He was wise enough to see that Assyria
could not be completely crushed by one nation, and
he therefore made a league with Pharaoh Necho, of
Egypt, and asked the Median king, Cyaxares, to give
his daughter Amytes to Nebuchadnezzar, his son, to
wife. Thus a league was made, and about B.C. 609 the
kings marched against Assyria. They suffered various
defeats, but eventually the Assyrian army was defeated,
and Shalman, the brother of the king of Assyria, slain.
The united kings then besieged Nineveh. During the
siege the river Tigris rose and carried away the greater
part of the city wall. The Assyrian king gathered
together his wives and property in the palace, and
setting fire to it, all perished in the flames. The
enemies went into the city and utterly destroyed all
they could lay their hands upon.
With the fall of Nineveh, Assyria as a power practically
E 2


68
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
ceased to exist. The Babylonians remembered the
vengeance taken upon them by Sennacherib, and the
destruction he wrought; and there is very little doubt but
that Nabopolassar took care to avenge this treatment.
About this time Josiah, the king of Judah, went out with
his small army against the Egyptian hosts. The fate of
this courageous, fearless monarch is known to all, and
needs no repetition here.
In the fourth year of Jehoiakim,” Nabopolassar, king
of Babylon, sent his son, Nebuchadnezzar, to make war
against the Egyptians; war, for some reason or other,
having been declared. While Nebuchadnezzar was
carrying out the instructions of his father, news reached
him of the death of Nabopolassar; he therefore
hastened back to Babylon to receive his father's crown.
The battle which Nebuchadnezzar fought with the
Egyptian king took place at Carchemish about B.C. 608.
When Nebuchadnezzar reached Babylon he found
that the throne had been kept for him. When he had
become established in the kingdom he set his various
captives, Jews, Phænicians, Syrians, and Egyptians at
work to make Babylon the greatest city in the world.
And as a builder he remains almost unsurpassed. He
surrounded Babylon with two huge walls, an inner and
an outer. The outer wall he simply repaired, but the
inner he built entirely. He reared a huge palace in
fifteen days, and dug the great canal, the remains of
which Sir Henry Rawlinson traced from Hit to the
bay of Graine, a distance of nearly 500 miles.
| 2 Kings xxiii, 29, 30.
2 Jer. xlvi. 2.
3 See Col. 8, line 63, of his large inscription, and this is mentioned ly
Berosus,





70
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
After Nebuchadnezzar had returned from Syria,
Judæa threw off his yoke together with Phænicia,
expecting help from the king of Egypt. He marched
at once against Tyre, but was unable to take it. He
therefore left an army encamped before the city, and
went to Jerusalem. Jehoiakim, who was king of Judah
at that time, rebelled (2 Kings xxiv. I); and although
he afterwards submitted, it was to no purpose, for
Nebuchadnezzar put him in fetters and established
Jeconiah in his stead. Soon after Nebuchadnezzar
came to Jerusalem again, removed Jeconiah from the
throne, carried him to Babylon, and made Zedekiah
king in his stead. The Babylonian king, however, met
with much resistance from the Tyrians, for it took
thirteen years to capture the city. So good an historian
as Mr. Grote thinks it never was taken; Jerenniah and
Ezekiel both prophesy its downfall,4 and speaking
generally it seems impossible that iron-willed Nebuchad-
nezzar should be defeated in this matter, having all his
army and the whole naval force of Phoenicia to help him.
Three years before the fall of Tyre, however, and in
the ninth year of Zedekiah, Jerusalem rebelled, hoping to
obtain assistance from the new king of Egypt, Pharaoh
Hophra, and with this end in view the Jewish king,
Zedekiah, sent messengers to Egypt. But before help
could come from this quarter Nebuchadnezzar had
1 Compare 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6 ; 2 Kings xxiv. 1-6.
? 2 Chron. xxxvi. 8. 3 2 Kings xxiv. 11-17. Jer. xxvii. 3-6; Ezek. xxvi.
5 Jer. xxxvii. 5-11; Ezek. xvii. 15-20. The Biblical Pharaoh Hophra
(otherwise known as Apries) is the
ries) is the 716 108-
or
3
8
0) of the Hieroglyphi
of the Hieroglyphs.


THE FALL OF NINEVEH.
71
besieged Jerusalem, and hearing that the Egyptian
force was on the march, he raised the siege and went to
do battle with it. Some say that Pharaoh Hophra was
defeated, others that he retreated as the Babylonians
advanced. Nebuchadnezzar returned to the siege of
Jerusalem, and after two years the city surrendered in
the nineteenth year of his reign. Zedekiah's eyes were
put out and he was carried to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar
destroyed the temple, the city and its walls, and trans-
ported the greater part of the people to his own land.
A few years after this he again marched through
Syria and Palestine into Egypt to make war with the
Egyptian king, ravaging the country far and wide. As
usual he was successful, and obtained much spoil and
many captives. Nebuchadnezzar is the subject of the
liveliest interest to us, for it was this king that threw
the three children into the fiery furnace; and it must
never be forgotten that he was very kind to the prophet
Jeremiah. Daniel was called 6 Belteshazzar; this is
probably a corruption of Beltis-sarra-uşur, i.e., Beltis pro-
tects the king."
The question has been asked over and over again, Is
Daniel's name found in the inscriptions ? The answer is,
No; but this fact is easily explained. When an eastern
king performed any great work or deed, or carried on
1 Jer. xxxvii. 5.
? Jer. lii. 12.
3 “I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans, yet shall he
not see it, though he shall die there.”—Ezek. xii. 13.
4 Jer. lii. 12-30 ; 2 Kings xxv. 8-12.
5 Compare Jer. xlvi. 3, 13–26 ; Ezek. xxix. 17–20 ; xxx. 10-26 ; xxxi..
II-16.
6 Dan. iv. 8.
? In cuneiform it would be ~Y~| #T .






དག་
1:|
རྫ ས་གང་ཡང་
Babylonian contract Tablet with seal-impressions, dated 8th day of Sebat,
accession year of Neriglissar, king of Babylon.


73
CHAPTER VI.
THE CUNEIFORM ACCOUNT OF THE CAPTURE OF
BABYLON BY CYRUS.—THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO
IT.-B.C. 560-530.
Rab-Alag.–Nabonidus, king of Babylon, and Belshassar, master of the
army.-Cyrus.-Rise of his power.--Death of the mother of Nabonidus. -
Chief events of the years of the reign of Nabonidus.-Extract from an
inscription of this monarch.- His researches.—His restorations of the
temples.—Nabonidus a sun-worshipper.- Arrival of Cyrus at Babylon.-
His Cylinder.- Part of cruneiform text relating to the capture of Babylon.
- Translation of it.-Cyrus the “ shepherd,” the good king.–His con-
ciliatory policy.-His kindness to the Jews.--His restoration of the cities
and temples.--Bible account of the fall of Babylon.—Belshazzar's feast.
EVIL MERODACH, after a reign of two years, was
assassinated by his sister's husband, Nergal-sarra-uşur
or Neriglissar. Some think that he was the Nergal
Sharezer, the Rab-Mag, who was with Nebuchadnezzar
at the siege of Jerusalem. He reigned three years, and
died B.C. 556. Rab-Mag is in Babylonian ruba emga,
“ the glorious prince.” His son Labasi-Marduk (the
Laborosoarchod of Ptolemy) succeeded him, and was
assassinated after a reign of nine months.
The next successor to the throne was Nabu-Nahid,
Nabonidus, the son of Nabu-balat-su-ikbi, who began
to reign about B.C. 556. And now slowly but surely the
Babylonian empire began to decay. Cyrus was be-
coming a powerful king, and the inertness of Nabonidus
* Jer. xxxix. 3 and 13.


74
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
prepared the way for his future capture of Babylon.
Nabonidus dwelt in the city Tema, and to his son
Belshazzar was entrusted the care of the army. In the
first year of the reign of Nabonidus we find that he made
war with a king whose name is lost; in the second there
was a slight rebellion in Hamath. In his third year he
went to a country called Ammananu. In his sixth year
Cyrus, the king of Anzan, went to a country whose name
is lost. Hearing of this, the soldiers of Astyages revolted
in this year, and delivered him into the hands of Cyrus.
On the cylinder of Nabonidus, quoted further on, the king
says that Cyrus himself conquered Astyages; but the
statement which makes the soldiers of Astyages deliver
their king into the hands of Cyrus agrees with that of
Herodotus. Cyrus was pushing on his fortunes rapidly,
for he captured the royal city in Ecbatana, and carried
the silver, gold, furniture, and goods which he had taken
there to Anzan. In the seventh year of his reign
Nabonidus was still in Tema, while his army was in
Akkad. We have no notice of what took place in the
eighth year. In his ninth year he was still in Tema, and
his army was in Akkad. In the month Nisan of this
year the mother of the king died; there was mourning
for three days and much weeping. Cyrus, the king of
Anzan or Persia, gathered his army together, crossed the
Tigris by Arbela, and went to attack a king who lived
there. In the tenth year, B.C. 549, Nabonidus was in
Tema, and the army in Akkad. The priests made
sacrifices to the gods of Babylon and Borsippa, asking
for peace. In this year, on the 21st of Sivan, Cyrus
marched from the land of the Elamites into Akkad. Of
the eleventh year of Nabonidus we know little, save that
the king was in Tema, the army in Akkad, and that they


ACCOUNT OF THE CAPTURE OF BABYLON.
75
sacrificed victims to the gods presiding over Babylon and
Borsippa, entreating peace. The tablet which gives
these particulars also tells us that the god “Bel did not
go to Babylon,” nor did Nebo come forth during these
years, which means that even the worship of the gods
began to be neglected. This would make the priests
angry, and as they were a caste which always carried
great influence, it makes us wonder why the king dared
to offend them.
In the seventeenth year of Nabonidus (B.C. 539) Cyrus
captured Babylon; but we must give some notice of the
work of Nabonidus before we deal with this event.
Some little time ago Mr. Rassam brought to England
fragments of some Nabonidus "cylinders.” One of these
is a very important document, and we shall describe here
briefly its contents. The cylinder is in three columns,
and contains 159 well-written lines. He begins by
calling himself the son of Nabu-balat-su-ikbi, the "mighty
prince.” It appears that an enemy called the Şabmanda
had gone to Harran and had destroyed the “temple of
the Moon-god.” The god Bel wished Nabonidus to
undertake the re-erection of this temple and the re-
establishment of the city, and Marduk and Sin, the
Moon-god, appeared to him in a dream and told him
what Bel desired. The following is Nabonidus' own
account of the matter :-
15. In the beginning of my long reign, Marduk the
great lord and Sin
16. the illuminator of heaven and earth, the strengthener
of all showed me
17. a dream. Marduk spoke with me (saying)


76
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
·
18. Nabonidus, king of Babylon, with the horses of thy
chariots
19. rear up the walls of E-ḥulḥul and of Sin the great
lord,
20. fix the dwelling-place within it.
21. Reverently I spoke to the lord of the gods Marduk,
22, that house of which thou speakest I will build.
23. The Şabmanda of which thou speakest destroyed it,
strong was their might.
24. Marduk spoke with me saying the Sabmanda of
which thou speakest
25. they, their country and the kings going by their side
shall not exist.
26. In the third year with his small army
27. he made Cyrus the king of Anzan his young servant
to go;
28. he overthrew the wide-spreading Şabmanda, he
captured
29. Astyages king of Şabmanda and took his treasures
to his own land.
Nabonidus began the work of restoration, and brought
his army from Gaza for the purpose. He tells us that
Assurbanipal, the son of Esarhaddon, had restored it in
his time. During the excavations for the necessary
repairs of the foundations he found the cylinders which
had been deposited by Shalmaneser II. (who reigned
about B.C. 860) and Assurbanipal. Nabonidus gave all
his energies to the work, and had the bricks made like
“white marble," i.e., he glazed them white. He set
figures of the god Laḥmu on each side of the doors
of the temple. He then had the image of the Moon-
god brought from Su-anna and placed it in the shrine



ང་རང་བ
ལྟ་ཞིར་
ཟིགས་འམས་པས་
འཐབ་ལཚོ
13
Terra-cotta Cylinder containing the history of the capture of Pabylon by Cyrus the
Great, king of Persia,





ACCOUNT OF THE CAPTURE OF BABYLON.
81
the length and breadth of the land, and he proclaimed
his glory to all. He made all the people of Gutium
whom he had gathered to his feet, and all the dark races
whom he had caused his hand to take, to dwell under
law and righteousness. Merodach, the great lord,
directed his (Cyrus') hand and heart; he lived happily.
The god commanded him to make the march to his city
Babylon, he made him take the road to Tintir (Babylon),
the forces of Cyrus marched like a cloud and an earth
wall. His army was wide-spreading and far-reaching
like the waters of a river, his forces were without number.
He made them enter Kal-anna without fighting and
without contest; he made breaches all round the city,
and he (the god) delivered Nabonidus, who did not
reverence him, into the hands of Cyrus. All the people
of Tintir and all the people of Akkad and Sumir, nobles
and priests who had opposed the king, he crushed
beneath him, and they came and kissed his feet. And
then the god Merodach, who by his service makes the
dead to live, and who in difficulty and trouble aids
every one, drew near to him favourably and made known
his proclamation, saying, “I am Cyrus the king ....
the great king, the mighty king, king of Tintir, king of
Sumir and Akkad, king of the four regions of the earth,
the son of Cambyses, the great king, king of the city
Anzan, grandson of Cyrus, the great king, king of the
city of Anzan, great-grandson of Teispes, the great king
of the city of Anzan, of the ancient seed of royalty,
whose dominion (reign) Bel and Nebo had exalted
according to the beneficence of their hearts.”
After Cyrus entered Babylon with joy and gladness,
he enlarged the royal palace, the seat of royalty, and
Merodach, whom the Babylonians had grieved, daily re-


82
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
joiced the heart of his follower. His wide-spreading forces
were spread over the land peacefully, and he repaired
the cities and made joyful the children of Babylon.
Cyrus was careful to repair immediately the temple of
the god Merodach, and the god was pleased to approach
him favourably. All the kings of Phænicia and round
about brought their tribute, and kissed the feet of Cyrus.
He restored the shrines and dwelling-places of the gods
of the towns of Agade, Isnumnak, Zamban, and else-
where. The gods of Akkad and Sumir, which Nabo-
nidus had brought from their shrines for the final festival,
Cyrus restored to their places. The last line or two
of the inscription tells us that he prayed daily to Nebo
and Bel that they would be pleased to prolong his days,
to bless the decree for his prosperity, and that Merodach
would regard him as his faithful follower and son.
Such is the account given of this remarkable fragment
of the fall of Babylon. It will be remembered that the
old historian Herodotus tells us that Cyrus drained the
river Euphrates nearly dry by means of a canal running
into a lake, and that the Persians marched up through
the river gates, which were carelessly left open by the
Babylonians. No mention of this is made in the in-
scriptions; but there is no reason why Cyrus should not
have had recourse to this means as well as to fighting.
We have mentioned that Nabonidus had entrusted the
charge of the Babylonian army to his son Belshazzar,
and the Bible tells us that he was slain on the awful
night of the capture of Babylon. It makes no mention
of Nabonidus. Josephus says, “and when Neriglissar
was dead the kingdom came to Baltasar, who by the
Babylonians was called Naboandelus,” and in another
part of his book he calls Nabonidus “Nabonnedon.”


ACCOUNT OF THE CAPTURE OF BABYLON.
83
Now it is evident that the father Nabonidus and the son
Belshazzar became confused in the minds of the writers
of the histories, but one and the same king is meant.
It was natural that foreigners should consider Belshazzar
to be the king, because he was master of the army.
The Bible and Josephus record an event in this king's
life which the inscriptions and Herodotus mention not.
It is said, “Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a
thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thou-
sand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded
to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father
(i.e., his ancestor) Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the
temple which was in Jerusalem, that the king and his
princes, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein
........ In the same hour came forth fingers of a
man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon
the plaister of the wall of the king's palace; and the
king saw the part of the hand that wrote.” Belshazzar,
exceedingly terrified at this, called for all the astrologers,
soothsayers, and augurs, and demanded an interpreta-
tion; but none could read it. At last came Daniel, the
servant of the Lord, and read the awful dictum to the
king—MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN, i.e., “God hath
numbered thy kingdom and finished it; thou art weighed
in the balances and art found wanting; thy kingdom is
divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” A verse
or two later we read, “In that night was Belshazzar, the
king of the Chaldeans, slain.”
The Babylonians had heard for years of the conquests
of Cyrus, but they felt secure when they remembered
the walls of their city and the huge gates which broke
i Daniel v.
F
2


84
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
their line at short distances. They thought of their past
conquests, of their glories, of their old lines of kings, and
were insolently secure in their hearts. The prophets of
Israel denounced Babylon in their prophecies ; all nations
took up the cry of joy at her downfall, and the cry
“ Babylon is fallen” resounded from city to city, and
from one end of the earth to the other.


CHAPTER VII.
BABYLON UNDER THE RULE OF THE PERSIANS,
AND UNDER SELEUCUS,
Babylon under the Persians.—The proclamation of Cyrus to the Jews.-
Darius, Cambyses, and Gomates.—Sir Henry Rawlinson's translation of
the Behistun Inscription.—Extract therefrom.-Kindness of Darius to the
Jews.—Confirmation of the decree of Cyrus.—Xerxes gave the Jews
permission to build the walls of Jerusalem.-Philip and Alexander the
Great, kings of Babylon,-Babylon under Seleucus.-Extract from an
inscription of Antiochus.-Lack of historical cuneiform inscriptions after
this period. — Gradual decay of Babylon.--- Prophecies relating to its fall.
IT fared better, however, with Babylon under the merciful
hands of Cyrus than it did when Sennacherib the king
of Assyria was the conqueror. Cyrus, the tolerant king,
restored its temples, and made its inhabitants to dwell
in peace and safety; he re-organised the religious
services in its temples, and endeavoured to make the
people regard him as a kind reformer more than as a
conquering king. He was a generous protector of the
Jews, and obtained the glorious appellation of “My
shepherd,” and “My anointed,”l from the Lord God
of Hosts, Who also spoke by the spirit of prophecy in
Isaiah, and gave an exact description of the siege :-
“ Thus saith the Lord to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose
right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him ;
and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before
him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not
1 Is. xliv. 28 ; xlv. I.


86
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
be shut: I will go before thee, and make the crooked
places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of
brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron : and I will
give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches
of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the
Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of
Israel. For Jacob My servant's sake, and Israel Mine
elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have
surnamed thee, though thou hast not known Me. I am
the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside
Me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known Me:
that they may know from the rising of the sun, and
from the west, that there is none beside Me: I am the
Lord, and there is none else."1
Under his rule we are told “ Daniel prospered.”2
When Cyrus had arranged the affairs of Babylon, he
turned his attention to the Jews, and in his first year3
“the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia,
that he made a proclamation throughout all his king-
dom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith
Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven hath
given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and He hath
charged me to build Hiin an house at Jerusalem, which
is in Judah. Who is there among you of all His people ?
his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem,
which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God
of Israel (He is the God), which is in Jerusalem. And
whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth,
let the men of his place help him with silver, and with
gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill
offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.” Not
1 Is. xlv. 1-6.
Dan. vi. 28.
3 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, 23; Ezra i. 1-4.


RULE OF THE PERSIANS.
91
of Cyrus. There was not any one bold enough to say
aught against Gomátes the Magian until I arrived.
Then I prayed to Ormazd ; Ormazd brought help to
me. On the roth day of the month Bagayádish (the ist
month) then it was, with my faithful men I slew that
Gomátes the Magian and the chief men who were his
followers. The fort named Sictachotes, in the district
of Media, named Nisaea, there I slew him ; I dispos-
sessed him of the empire. By the grace of Ormazd I
became king ; Ormazd granted me the sceptre.”
Darius restored all the temples which the rebel
Magian had injured or destroyed, and established the
royalty of the old Achaemenian line. He gives his
genealogy thus : “My father was Hystaspes; of
Hystaspes the father was Arsames; of Arsames the
father was Ariyaramnes; of Ariyaramnes the father was
Teispes; of Teispes the father was Achaemenes. On
that account we have been called Achaemenians.
There are eight of my race who have been kings before
me, I am the ninth.” Sir Henry Rawlinson gives the
royal line in a double series provisionally thus :-
I Achaemenes.
2 Teispes.
3 Cyrus.
7 Ariaramnes.
8 Arsames.
4 Cambyses.
5 Cyrus the Great
(Hystaspes.)
6 Cambyses.
9 Darius.


92
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
Hystaspes appears to have been a private person, and
he certainly played a secondary part in the war of his
son Darius against the rebellious Parthians. Darius
conquered Gomátes the Magian, Atrines the Susian,
Nadintu-Bel the Babylonian, Martes the Persian,
Phraortes the Median, Sitratachmes the Sagartian,
Phraates the Magian, Veisdátes the Persian, and Aracus
the Armenian, each of whom personated some one else
and pretended to be a king. This Aracus, or Arahu,
personated Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabonidus, in
the year 515 B.C. He was the son of Handita, and his
rebellion took place at a town called Duban. It was
probably in the reign of this Darius that Daniel was cast
into the lions' den.
Darius was most kind to the Jews, endorsing and con-
firming the decree of Cyrus which allowed the Jews to
rebuild their temple: He added to the gifts which
Cyrus had ordered to be made, and appointed them
“ Young bullocks and rams and lambs, for the burnt
offerings of the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, and oil,
according to the appointment of the priests which are at
Jerusalem, let it be given them day by day without fail ;
that they may offer sacrifices of sweet savours unto the
God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and of
his sons."1 The prophets Zechariah and Haggai lived
during the reign of this king. We find Babylonian
contract tablets dated in the thirty-fifth year of the reign
of Darius, which fact goes to prove that his reign was
long and successful. Under him Babylon remained an
important town; but it became absorbed entirely into
the Persian kingdom. Darius died about B.C. 485, and
was succeeded by his son Xerxes, who was favourable and
? Ezra vi. 9, 10.


RULE OF THE PERSIANS.
93
tolerant to the Jews. Josephus tells us that this was the
king who gave Nehemiah permission to go and build the
wall of Jerusalem.
No cuneiform documents have yet been discovered
which give the history of Babylon at this period, and
therefore we have to rely solely upon the statements
made by the classical authors on the subject. The con-
tract tablets, however, again come to our help, and record
the names of Philip of Macedon and his celebrated son,
Alexander the Great, and this shows that the latter was
considered the legal king at the time the documents
were made. We must wait until Babylon is thoroughly
excavated for fresh light concerning its history at this
time.
Seleucus became king of Babylon after the death
of Alexander the Great, and with him the era of the
Seleucidæ begins. At present nothing is known of him
from the cuneiform inscriptions. He died about B.C.
281–280, and his son, Antiochus, reigned in his stead.
This king was, as he styles himself, “the eldest son of
Seleucus the Macedonian,” the king of E-ki (Babylon).
He restored the famous temples of SAGILI and ZIDA,
and his "pure hands” brought the bricks for this
purpose from the land of Hâtim. On the 20th day
of the month Adar, in the 43rd year of the Seleucian
era (i.e., about 270 years B.C.), he laid the foundation of
the temple in Borsippa dedicated to the god Nebo, the
eldest son of Marduk, the offspring of the god Aneana,
the queen, the opener of the hands of (her) offspring.
The wife of Antiochus was called Stratonice, and his
son was called Antiochus after himself. The small
cylinder which gives the above facts uses the Greek
word kíklos under the form ku-uk-lu. This is very


94
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
important, for it shows that the Greek had so far
influenced the Babylonian at that early age as to
cause him to use Greek words to express what he could
have expressed so easily in his own Semitic tongue.
Antiochus prays Nebo, the "eldest son, to grant and
establish by thy command the prosperity of Antiochus,
Seleucus his son, and Stratonice the queen." He
reigned from about B.C. 281–280 to B.C. 261-260. Like
Cyrus, he had the good policy to restore the temples of
the gods, and to sacrifice to the ancient divinities of
the nations which it was his lot to conquer.
This little cylinder was brought to England by
Mr. Rassam from Babylon, and the writing upon it is the
most curious and complex of all the various styles and
kinds of Babylonian varieties. The cylinder is figured on
the opposite page, and as the writing is so curious, we
have reproduced a few lines of it with a transcript in
ordinary Babylonian and Assyrian, that the reader inay
be able to observe how different the style is; a trans-
literation and translation are also added. Though the
account of the reign of Antiochus given upon this
cylinder is very short, yet it is most valuable, for it shows
that Antiochus wished to conciliate the Babylonians by
rebuilding their temples, and also to restore to the city
a little of its former glory.
CYLINDER OF ANTIOCHUS.
1. Y * KED EY 3=Y1 Elarim
D.P. An- ti-ku us sarru
Antiochus
FET-
rab - u
king
great



コールテール
​このドレ
​Terra-cotta Cylinder of Antiɔchus, king of Babylon. B.C. 280-261.





RULE OF THE PERSIANS.
95
dan
and
2. K
Y Y
sarru | dan .nu sarkissatisar
king great king of multitudes king of
HIKVIXX
E - kisar
matati
Babylon king of countries.
3 兴冲冲冲 ​BAHN (IF)
za - ni - in E - Sag - ili
restorer of
E - Sagili
刚开
​E - Zi - da
E-Zida
ORDINARY BABYLONIAN.
I.
IM K 空冊
​D.P. An - ti - ' - ku - us sarru rab - u
Antiochus
king great
2.沙子冷冷冷冷
​sarru dan-nu sar kissati sar E - kisar matati
king great king of multitudes king of Babylon king of countries.
3. 分评分评HIST (H) -
TRY
za - ni - in E - Sag - ili u E - Zi - da
restorer of E-Sagili and E-Zida.
| ASSYRIAN.
I.I
- I国II遊​- FIF
D.P. An - ti - - ku- us sarru rab - u
Antiochus
king great
2. 游​=IF于瑞q游 ​| 恒瑞
​sarru dan-nu sar kissati sar E - ki sar matati
king mighty king of multitudes king of Babylon king of countries.


RULE OF THE PERSIANS.
97
fication and delight. Isaiah in his prophecy called her
the “golden city,”1 and with his majestic language
describes her downfall, saying : “Thy pomp is brought
down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the
worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.”
And of her king he says: “How art thou fallen from
heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou
cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt iny throne above the stars of God: I
will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the
sides of the north ; I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds; I will be like the Most High.” And the prophet
goes on : “ The fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of
Lebanon. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet
thee at thy coming." And again Isaiah says: “Come.
down, and sit in the dust, О virgin daughter of Babylon,
sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the
Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and
delicate. Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover
thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass
over the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea,
thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I
will not meet thee as a nan ..... Sit thou silent, and get
thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans : for
thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms."
The renown of Babylon filled the earth; but her
haughtiness and pride brought along with them their
own punishment. Her king, Nebuchadnezzar, trod down
the land of Palestine, and wasted Jerusalem with fire and
sword; he sacked the temple and brought out from
? Is. xiv. 4. ? Is. xiv. 8, and following verses.
3 Is, xlvii. 1-3, 5.


98
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
thence the vessels of the Lord, and marched back to his
capital with joy and glory. He made the captive Jews
assist in building the walls of his town, and probably the
walls of the temples of his pagan gods. His fate and
the fate of his city have been accurately described by
Jeremiah in his book, saying: “And Babylon shall
become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonish-
ment and an hissing, without an inhabitant. Her cities
are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land
wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth anix son of man
pass thereby. And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I
will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath
swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together
any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.
As Babylon hath caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at
Babylon shall fall the slain of all the earth. Thus safith
the Lord of hosts : The broad walls of Babylon shall be
utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with
fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in
the fire, and they shall be weary.”
We, the people of to-day, see how very surely all the se
threats have been fulfilled. We look for Sodom and
Gomorrah, and their place is not known, and but for the
enterprise of our nation and the inscribed bricks fof
Babylon, its exact site would still remain unnoticed and
unknown. “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, whe
beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when (rod
overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be
inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to
generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there :
neither shall the shepherds inake their fold there. But
wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses
? Jer. li. 37, 43, 44, 49, 58.


BABYLONIAN WRITING AND LITERATURE. 101
Museum (Assyrian Gallery, No. 84). An official is por-
trayed noting down the amount of spoil upon a scroll
made of some material. The word often translated
“papyrus” is called in Babylonian likhúsi, and has the
determinative for wood before it, which shows that it
was some vegetable substance. Now when clay became
the material generally used for writing purposes, it was
found difficult to form circles; and therefore the original
picture of the sun, i.e. O, in wedges became . This
even was found difficult to write, and consequently we
find the Assyrian form of this to be sy. As the scribe
wrote from left to right [the wedges being in a slanting
direction], custom gradually discarded all the wedges that
could not be written easily in this direction, with a few
exceptions. The following small table of characters will
show how the forms of the characters varied, and how they
became simplified. In column i a few of the characters
are given, selected from inscriptions of the early
Babylonian empire. Column 2 gives a short list of
characters found on the inscribed clay cylinder of
Antiochus, B.C. 280. Column 3 shows the ordinary form
of Babylonian writing as found upon contract and other
tablets; and column 4 the ordinary Assyrian as found
upon the tablets of Assurbanipal's library.
1.
-
2.
4.
B.C. 2000.
B.C. 280.
ORDINARY
BABYLONIAN.
NINEVITE
OR
ASSYRIAN.
***
1
Lpp
|
E
|


I02
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
1.
2.
3.
B.C. 2000.
B.C. 280.
ORDINARY
BABYLONIAN.
NINEVITE
OR
ASSYRIAN.
# YET
TEL
YY <<<<<
#3
২২য়
DAY
EN
Erk
AI
Elena
WLY
ETET
In some cases the character still shows what the
object they originally represented was. Thus * repre-
sented a star, and the home of a star, i.e., the heavens ;
it is also placed before a god's name. The sign for
gate was y , the wedges at the ends representing
posts, and those joining them cross-bars. Sometimes
two signs are placed together to express a word, and
their two meanings added together give a new one.
Thus <> represented a circular object, and ««< meant
“thirty ;” but as meant “month,” called after the
round moon and its thirty days. By means “house,”


104
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
sentence of two words in Akkadian, and explains them
in Assyrian as meaning “the going forth of the sun.”
No. 3 has the character to be explained in the middle
column, the signs on the right hand read katainu, and
show that the sign meant cover, while those on the left
tell one that its sound is dul. Syllabaries in three
columns have been found written in Akkadian, Sumirian,
and Assyrian. The bilingual lists were exceedingly
useful to foreigners who came to Assyria, and they were
used by the native children and others; and to us
to-day they are among the most important necessaries
for the right decipherment of the inscriptions.
The quantity of tablets that were drawn up in two
languages must have been enormous. Indeed, at one
period nearly all documents were thus written. But,
though these syllabaries were necessary and explanatory
for the students of Assyrian or Babylonian and Ak-
kadian, yet there was another indispensable, and that
was a reading book. Some of these have come down
to us among other things, and the following is an extract
from one of them :-
a price.
his price.
for his price.
for his price he fixed.
a complete price.
an incomplete price.
his complete price.
his incomplete price.
for his complete price.
for the ending of his incomplete price.
(Tablet K 46.)


106
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
which shows they had need of these high numbers for
some kind of reckoning. An example will make this
clear.
✓
EV Y
TEET i.e.
1 is the cube of
I
do.
»
8
»
27
MY WY
u
125
oooo v aur A w N-
YTJ ««<
do. „ 216
W <3 my pang ang do. „ 343
every ««« Y han do. „ 512
KVT portant w here do. » 729
Gymn«
do. „1000 , 10
Astronomy mixed with astrology occupied a large
number of tablets in the Babylonian libraries, and Isaiah
refers to this when he says to Babylon, "Thou art
wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the
astrologers (the viewers of the heavens, Marg.), the star-
gazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up.” The
largest astrological work of the Babylonians contained
seventy tablets, and was compiled by the command of
Sargon of Agade, thirty-eight hundred years before
Christ. It was called the “illumination of Bel.” Their
observations were made in towers, “ziggurate." The
following are specimens of their purely astronomical
portents and reports :-
(1.) The star Marbuda passed into an eclipse.
The star of the Upper Sphere aforesaid causes
fog and rain.
The star Lula portends extended mists.
1 Is. xlvii. 13.


BABYLONIAN WRITING AND LITERATURE.
107
The star of the Wolf portends tempest.
The star of Mars to the Double-Star is oppo-
site; the prince dies.
The star Nin-si portends a complete life.
The stars at sunrise are for windy rain and
flood.
(2.) The report of Nabu-kul-la-ni.
The Moon and the Sun were seen with one
another on the 16th day: king to king
hostility sends, etc.
(3.) The sixth day of Nisan
the day and the night
were balanced (i.e., equal).
(There were) six kasbu of day
(and) six kasbu of night.
May Nebo and Merodach
to the king my lord
draw near.
This latter report refers to the vernal equinox. They
divided the day equally into two parts, and assigned
six kasbu to each; one kasbu equalled two hours of
time. The Babylonian year was divided into 12 months
of 30 days each, with an intercalary month every six years.
Every seventh day was a rest day, and on these days it
was forbidden to do certain things. Each day was
lucky or unlucky, and was under the protection of some
god. A tablet calendar in the British Museum
(76—11–17. 2389) gives all the lucky and unlucky
days in the year. The following are examples of
astronomical reports and portents :-
1. The Moon and the Sun are balanced. The country
is established. Food


BABYLONIAN WRITING AND LITERATURE. 109
7. (the moon) goes. We did not see (it).
8. The Moon at its appearance in clouds was hiddei.
9. Rain comes down.
10. There is fog (?) and movement.
11. The Moon at its appearance piles the sky (with
clouds).
12. Rain falls.
13. In a thick cloud it is seen; and
14. (this is the report) of Nebo-akhi-erba.
No. IV.
1. The Moon out of its reckoned-time is seen.
2. The tariff is small.
3. The twelfth day with the Sun it is seen, and
4. contrary to their calculated timethe Moon and the Sun
5. with one another are seen.
6. A strong enemy ravages the land.
7. The king of Akkad under the enemy is placed.
8. The twelfth day with the Sun (the Moon) is seen ;
and
9. the twelfth day it is seen; and evil to Akkad,
10. prosperity to Elam and Phoenicia.
II. Evil to Akkad it (is).
12. (The report) of Balasi.
The months were called after the signs of the Zodiac,
and each was dedicated to some god. The following is
a list:-
1. Nisannu [March] was dedicated to Anu and Bel.
2. Airu [April]
» »
Ea.
3. Sivanu [May]
4. Duzu
[June]
Adar.
5. Abu [July]
“The Queen of the Bow."
6. Ululu . [August]
7. Tasritu [September]
Samas.
"
99
Sin.
Istar.


"BABYLONIAN WRITING AND LITERATURE.
III
Another very important branch of Babylonian litera-
ture was formed by the magic tablets. There were
whole series of these in their libraries, arranged upon
shelves, and each tablet bore as a colophon its number
in the series and the first words of the first line. The
Babylonian must have passed his life in perpetual terror
of evil spirits and demons, and so we find addresses to
every kind and sort of spirit to avert evil from the reciter.
There is a large incantation tablet in the Kouyunjik
Gallery of the British Museum which gives a number
of formulas ending with “O spirit of heaven, mayest thou
exorcise ; O spirit of earth, mayest thou exorcise.” The
sentences implore protection against the evil spirits
which cause sickness in the different parts of the body.
The first three paragraphs entreat the compassion of the
spirits of heaven and earth generally, the fourth prays
the spirits to avert the ulcer spirit, the fifth is against the
“sickness of the head and disease of the heart," the sixth
is against the evil eye and evil breast, the seventh
entreats the spirits of heaven and earth to exorcise the
demons which were supposed to attack children; and so
on to the end of the tablet. Two other paragraphs are
worthy of note, the sixteenth and twenty-seventh; the
former directs the placing of the god of a sick man
before the rising sun, or the figure of a propitious bull,
to free him by its influence from his sickness; the latter
prays to Ninkigal, or Proserpine, to expel the evil spirit
from the sick man, and to put a beneficent one in its
place. The tablet concludes finally with “ the sick man
by an offering of grace and peace, like refined copper,
becoming pure. May the Sun-god give that man life.
Marduk, eldest son of the abyss, peace and happiness be
to thee. O spirit of heaven, mayest thou exorcise ;
O spirit of earth, mayest thou exorcise."


II2
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
The belief that evil spirits took possession of human
bodies was current in our Lord's time, for we read, “And
in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of
an unclean devil ;” and other allusions to this demoniacal
possession are scattered throughout the Bible. In
Isaiah's time, too, the belief was prevalent, and these
baneful spirits were supposed to dwell particularly in
desert places. Isaiah says, “The screech owl also shall
rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.” The
word translated “screech owl” is lilith, and the same
word is found in Babylonian; it means the “night spirit,"
which was especially malignant and harmful. The
Rabbis have many stories about her.
Another very important branch of Babylonian litera-
ture is formed by the “contract tablets.” The Semite
was always a trader, and was always able to lend money
or produce to his more needy brother or foreigner. The
historical documents, indeed, reveal the immense wars
undertaken by the various kings, and the other tablets
record their learning, either actual or theoretical ; but
these tablets open to our view the very innermost work-
ings of their commercial business. One serious draw-
back exists, and that is that very many of the words are
quite unknown to us. Contract tablets are of all shapes,
oval, oblong, square; their colour varies, sometimes
black, then brown, dark and light, and all intermediate
shades. Sometimes they are baked, often they are not.
We have many thousands in our national collection, as
many as 5,000 were unpacked at one time. They record
loans of money and produce, the sale of houses, fields,
and wheat, marriage deeds and dowries, sales of slaves,
notices of loans paid, promissory notes, and all sorts and
1 Luke iv. 33.
2 Is. xxxiv, 14.


BABYLONIAN WRITING AND LITERATURE. 113
kinds of traffic carried on by one Babylonian with
another. At times we find that the contract tablet has
been placed in a clay envelope, and upon the outside a
copy of the contract within has been inscribed. There
is in the British Museum a fine collection of these, which
belong to a period as far back as 2400 B.C. On the one
side (obverse) the contract and contracting parties'
names are stated, on the other (reverse) comes the list of
witnesses, and at the bottom follows the date, the name
of the king and his country. Often these tablets bear
impressions of the seals of the witnesses; the poor
impressed the mark of his nail. Often we find signatures
in Phænician, sometimes the reverse is in Greek, and
upon one tablet we find some curious writing which at
present no one has been able to make out. As the tablet
is interesting we give a translation of it:-
1. E-sagila-lissi son of Nabu-kuşur-su, Bel-balat-su
2. son of Nidintum, and Ina-E-sagila-lilbir son of Bel-
ederu
3. in the joy of their heart, Nana-Babili-sininni, their
servant
4. whose right hand with the name of Ina-E-sagila-
lilbir the slave dealer
5. son of Bel-ederu, is inscribed, for one maneh eight
shekels of silver
6. refined, for the price complete to Urmanū
7. son of Lisir they have given; the money one maneh
eight shekels of silver
8. refined, the price of Nana-Babili-sininni, the servant
of the men
9. E-sagila-lissi, Bel-balat-śu and Ina-E-sagila-lilbir
10. by the hands of Urmanū have received.
Il. In the day when a claim upon Nana-Babili-sininni
H


118
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
OBVERSE.
Literally translated, it reads :
1. Bel-hai-iddin and Nabu-ahi-bul-lit the sons of E-sagili.
suma-epus
2. the son of Sin-damak and the woman Rimat their
mother, daughter
3. of Suzub son of the “priest of the altar,” in the joy
of their heart,
4. Nabu-e-du-ași, the woman Bani-tum-umma his wife,
5. the woman Kisrinni and the woman Gisinni his
sister(s)
6. in all four people, for two manehs of silver for the price
7. Complete to Nabu-aḥi-iddin the son of Sula
8. the son of Egibi has given, bu-ut si-hi-i pa-kir-ra-nu
9. and mar ban-u-tu of the people Bel-aḥi-iddin
10. and Nabu-aḥi-bul-lit the sons of E-sagili-suma-epus
11. the son of Sin-damak and the woman Rimat their
mother have brought
12. one būt double they bring.
REVERSE.
1. Witnesses : Nabu-epus-aḥi the son of Suzub son of
the altar priest
2. . . . .-ridu the son of Marduk-naşir the son of the
priest of the god,
3. Marduk-basu-anni the son of Bani-ya the son of
Ellat-nahid
4. the son of Dup-zir the son of Nergal-ukin the son of
“Sin heard my prayers.”
5. Bel-iddin the son of Bel-sibsi the priest of the god
Zariku
6. Rimmon-ibni the son of Zariku-zir-epus the son of
the priest of the god Zariku


120
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
including the deposit, belongs to his (i.e., the testator's)
son ; Zirya will decide, that he does not know this kind
of inheritance of the testator's property, nor about the
right of taking possession of it, as if the deposit would
belong to the son. Itti-Marduk-balat will render it with
his seal in presence of Kiribtu, the magistrate, Edir-Bel,
the magistrate, Nirgal-ah-uşur, and Ziki-ukin, the judges,
and will give it to Bel-rimanni.
Da-Marduk, the scribe, son of Banu-sin-ilu.
The royal city of Babylon, in the month Elul, the 5th
day, the 17th year of Nabonidus, king of Babylon.
The seal of Nergal-ah-uşur, the judge (the im-
pression is rather effaced); the seal of Zikir-ukin, the
judge (represents a priest standing before a large bird,
over which is a star).
The seal of Kiribtu (a priest standing before an altar,
over which on the top of a pole a cock is seated).
The seal of Edir-Bel, the magistrate; a priest standing
before an animal seated on an altar, behind which two
poles are standing.
Sometimes Babylonian legal documents were inscribed
on large stones, which then formed landmarks. Such a
stone is generally inscribed on one side with the agree-
ment, names of witnesses, and a whole string of curses on
the person who shall dare to move it, and on the other
are figured in relief various gods and signs.
The Michaux stone is a fair specimen of this kind of
document, and I therefore give Dr. Oppert's translation
of it:-
COLUMN I.
Twenty hin of corn is the quantity for seeding an
arura. The field is situated near the town of Kar-Nabu,


BABYLONIAN WRITING AND LITERATURE.
123
this tablet, curse him with irrevocable malediction, and
scatter his race even to the last days.
The class of tablets inscribed with omens is very
interesting, and reveals many of the strange ideas and
beliefs of the Babylonians so long since passed away.
Omens were drawn from births, dreams, animals, birds,
and geometrical figures. The following are specimens:-
(1.) If a dog to the palace goes, and on a bed lies down,
that palace none with his hand takes.
If a dog into a temple enters, the gods to the country
grant no favour.
If a black dog into a temple enters, the foundation of
that temple is not stable.
(2.) When a woman bears a child and its jaws are want-
ing, the days of the prince are long ; that house
is destroyed.
When a woman bears a child and its lower jaw is
wanting, the produce of the country for a year is
not brought down.
There have come down to us from the old Babylonians
many isolated tablets, the description of which would
occupy too much space, and which when described
would only interest the specialist. The tablets which
interest us most are of course the historical, and as their
contents (as far as they relate to Babylonia) are given in
the chapter on Babylonia, a description of their form
will suffice here. The Assyrian kings wrote the annals
of their wars and victories in lines across the huge
sculptures which adorned their palaces. Assyrian and
Babylonian kings were fond, too, of having brief notices
stamped upon the bricks of their palaces; but the usual
form the royal historical documents took was that of a


128
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
of their empire frequently fell into disuse and neglect in
after times. The most important ennead among the
Babylonians was as follows :-
Male Element. Female Element. Offspring.
Anu
Anat
Rimmon.
Ea
Damkina Samas.
Bel
Beltis
Sin.
The oldest Babylonian Semitic inscription that we
have, namely, that of Sargon I., B.C. 3800, mentions the
Sun-god of Sippara. The very early bricks and cones
speak often of the god Bel, who appears to have been
worshipped to the last days of the empire. He was one
of the great Trinity of Anu, Ea, and Bel; their wives,
or feminine elements, were called Nana, Beltis, and
Damkina; and Jeremiah' says, “Bel is confounded, Mero-
dach is broken in pieces,” which goes to prove that his
worship was wide-spread and very important among the
Babylonians, and his downfall the signal of the destruc-
tion of the city. He is mentioned by Isaiah,” and again
in Jeremiah.” He was the Jupiter of the Romans, and
the Zeus of the Greeks. There appears to be a confusion
between Bel and Merodach (the names occur together
on a tablet which applies numbers to the gods), and the
temple dedicated to Merodach (as we know by the
inscriptions) is the temple of the Belus of the Greeks.
But Merodach himself now claims attention. He was
the son of Ea, the “god of the abyss.” He was the lord
of life and light, and the greatest and best names were
given to him. With the Oriental fire has ever been the
object of adoration, and as the signs which form his
Jer. 1. 2. ? Is. xlvi. I. 3 ſer. li. 44.


130
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
told him that he should be victorious. The king sacri-
ficed to the goddess Istar of Arbela, and he made a
prayer to her in which he recalled to her mind the
benefits that she had done to his father Esarhaddon; he
told her that the enemy Teumman had spread out his
forces against him, and then entreated her to crush him
and overcome him in battle. That night a seer slept
and had a vision, and he went to the king saying, “Istar
of Arbela drew near me surrounded with glory on the
right hand and on the left. She held a bow in her hand
with the string stretched by an arrow pointed for battle.
Her face was fixed, and she was in pain concerning thee,
even as a mother bringing forth. Istar the beloved of
the gods has decreed a decree, saying thus, Whither
thou goest I will go; I will guard thee, and I will cause
thee to obtain the desire of thy heart. Before thee the
enemy shall not stand in battle, neither shall he oppose
thy steps.”
And farther back, when the father of this same king,
Esarhaddon, was in trouble and grief because of the war
brought against him by his brothers, the goddess Istar
spake to him by the oracle of Arbela, saying :
“Fear not, O Esarhaddon,
I am, (as) Bel, thy strength
I will ease the supports of thy heart,
Each of the sixty great gods my strong ones
with his life will guide thee.
the Moon-god at thy right hand, the Sun-god at
thy left.
Upon mankind trust not,' bend thine eyes upon me,
I am Istar of Arbela.”
1 Compare Psalm cxlvi. 3 ; cxviii. 8, 9.


THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.
131
And again :
“Mighty legions which devise against me,
before thy feet
I cut them in pieces.
Thou, thou,
art king of kings.”
During the reign of Esarhaddon a very beautiful little
tablet was made which we now have in the British
Museum, its number is S. 954. It contains a hymn to the
goddess Istar, and is written in the two languages
Akkadian and Assyrian. The reading of some of the
lines of the “obverse ” is difficult and doubtful, but the
“reverse” is sufficiently clear to show the meaning of it,
and it will serve as a specimen of the best hymns of this
kind. The translation is that of my friend Professor
Sayce :-
5. Thou who as the axis of heaven dawnest, in the
dwellings of the earth her name revolves; my
begetter.
2. As Queen of heaven above and below may she be
invoked ; my begetter.
3. The mountains fiercely she hurls into the deep; my
begetter.
4. As to the mountains, their goodly stronghold (art)
thou, their mighty lock art thou; my begetter.
5. May thy heart rest; may thy liver be magnified.
6. O Lord Anu, the mighty, may thy heart rest.
7. O Lord, the mighty Prince (lit. mountain) Bel, may
thy liver be magnified.
8. Istar, the Lady of heaven, may thy heart rest.
9. O Lady, Queen of heaven, may thy liver (be
magnified).
aw
I 2


132
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
10. O Lady, Queen of the House of heaven, may thy
heart (rest).
11. O Lady, Queen of the land of Erech, may thy liver
(be magnified).
12. O Lady, Queen of the land of the four rivers of
Erech, may thy heart (rest).
13. O Lady, Queen of Mountain of the World, may thy
liver (be magnified).
14. O Lady, Queen of Temple of the Resting-place of
the World, may thy heart (rest).
15. O Lady, Queen of Babylon, may thy liver (be
magnified).
16. O Lady, Queen of the Memorial of Nana, may thy
heart (rest).
17. O Queen of the Temple, Queen of the gods, may
thy liver (be magnified).
18. Prayer of the heart to Istar.
A cuneiform tablet mentions an “Istar of Erech,” but
very little is known of her. The sky-god Anu is generally
mentioned among a number of gods, but no especial
worship appears to have been paid to him.
Ea was another god of great importance in the Baby-
lonian Pantheon. He was the father of the mighty
Merodach, and to the Babylonians was the personification
of wisdom and secret knowledge. He was the soul that
pervaded all, which animated all, and he is often invoked
in the bilingual hymns as the “spirit of earth.” He had
no father, but was self-begotten, and perpetually renewed
himself from the watery element which formed his home,
for he is always called “the lord of the abyss” or deep.
He was the god that knew how to frustrate the powers
of the demons and spirits, for he knew their secrets; and


DIE
123
Scene from the so-called “Sun-god Tablet,” representing priests and king adoring the Sun's disk or image. About B.C. 900.


THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.
135
hands of two attendant spirits by the roof. Three figures
stand with their faces towards the disk: the first, a priest,
is holding the stool by his left hand while with his right
he grasps the left hand of the second figure, the king,
whose right hand is raised in adoration to the god. The
third figure follows at a short distance with both hands
raised in adoration. Above the heads of the three
figures run the three lines of inscription, which read “the
image of the Sun-god, the mighty lord, the dweller in
the Temple of Parra (or Bara) which is within Sippara.”
HYMNS TO THE SUN.
I.
1. Magical incantation.
2. Sun, from the foundations of heaven thou art risen ;
3. thou hast unfastened the bolts of the shining skies :
4. thou hast opened the door of heaven.
5. Sun, above the countries thou hast raised thy head,
6. Sun, thou hast covered the immensity of the heavens
and the terrestrial countries.
II.
1. Lord, illuminator of the darkness, who piercest the
face of darkness.
2. Merciful God, who settest up those that are bowed
down, who sustainest the weak.
3. Towards the light the great gods direct their glances,
4. the archangels of the abyss, every one of them, con-
template eagerly thy face.
5. The language of praise, as one word, thou directest it.
6. The host of their heads seeks the light of the Sun in
the South.
7. Like a bridegroom thou restest joyful and gracious.


136
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
8. In thy illumination thou dost reach afar to the
boundaries of heaven.
9. Thou art the banner of the vast earth.
10. O God! the men who dwell afar off contemplate
thee and rejoice.
Side by side with Samas, the Moon-god, Sin, held a
prominent place in the Babylonian Pantheon; he was
the personification of the moon, and the eldest son of
Bel. Though we Westerns regard the moon as a
feminine and the sun as a masculine object, the Orientals
(like the Germans) held just the opposite idea, namely,
that the moon is masculine and the sun feminine, for the
latter is called the “ lady of the world.” In the Hebrew
text of the Bible the sun is regarded as of common
gender. The wife of the Moon-god was called Nana,
but the moon is represented as a female, hence arose
the idea of her hermaphrodite nature. Her chief city
was Ur, and her daughter's name was Istar.
The other principal gods, Ninip, Nergal, Nebo, and
Rimmon, call for little comment. Ninip was the god of
the planet Saturn, and was the Hercules of the Baby-
lonian Pantheon ; he was both the son and husband of
Beltis. He was, perhaps, the modern representative of
the Akkadian god Nindar, “ the night sun." Nergal
was the god of the planet Mars, and his name forms part
of the name Nergalsar-eser, i.e., Nergal-sara-uşur,“ Nergal
protects the king.” Rimmon was the son of Anu, and
the governor of heaven and earth. He represented
generally the atmosphere, the storm, and the tempest,
and his commonest name is the “inundator.”
The god Nebol was also called Nusku, and his wife was
1 Is. xlvi. 1.


THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.
137
called Tasmit. He was the god of the planet Mercury,
the “lofty intelligence” and the “lord of Tablets;"
his chief city was Borsippa. This god is usually men-
tioned (together with the goddess Tasmit in the
colophons of tablets as the being who gives “broad ears”
. to the king that he may understand knowledge, and the
writing upon the tablets is regarded as “the secrets of
Nebo."
In addition to the number of gods which the Baby-
lonians worshipped, we find them much addicted to the
belief in spirits, and this to so great an extent that the
prayers and incantations against them form a very large
portion of their religious literature. Every man, accord-
ing to their belief, began his existence possessed of some
spirit, and everything in nature had its spirit, good or
bad. It was the duty, then, of a man to propitiate this
spirit if bad, and if good to endeavour to make it serve
him. The Babylonian saw the mass of the sun, the
moon, etc., and he worshipped its spirit; but in later
days this higher idea was lost, and nothing but sun
worship pure and simple remained. To the Babylonian,
the spirit of the overflowing river, which desolated his
lands and destroyed his property, was an evil spirit, and
had to be exorcised ; the evil spirit which gave him
pains, aches, and diseases was regarded as a devil, and
was prayed against accordingly. We can trace this
belief very distinctly in the Bible. In Matt. xii. 22, we
read of a “dumb man possessed with a devil ;” the
daughter of the woman of Canaan? “was grievously
vexed with a devil.” There were “seven spirits "which
the Babylonians imagined to be more wicked and deadly
than any others. They were the objects of awe and
| Matt. xv. 22.


THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.
139
The throne bearers (?) of the gods are they
Disturbers in the .... are they set
Evil are they, baleful are they."
The Babylonian implored every spirit in heaven and
earth to ward off the attack of the evil spirits from them,
for they were the originators of all diseases and evils.
Christ tells us of “seven other spirits ”I which may enter
a man; and we are all familiar with the story of His
casting out seven devils from Mary Magdalene.
There was one evil spirit which was a great terror to the
Babylonian, and this was the spirit of the South-West
Wind, which brought disease and death with it. There
are four models of this monster in the British Museum
(there is another at Paris), with huge staring eyeballs and
gaunt features and lantern jaws. Amulets were worn as a
protection against these spirits; and a few of these em-
blems of superstition have come down to us, telling us
very plainly what torments these people must have
suffered through terror of the monsters of their religion.
This belief was current in the early ages of the world's
history; the prophets knew of it, and appealed to the
nations by it; and to-day the Arab, when praying with
his face towards Mecca, salaams to the right and to the
left, to pacify the spirits that he imagines are present
there.
Did the Babylonians know of a heaven or a hell, a place
of torment for the wicked, or of a devil? We will give all
the evidence we can from the inscriptions, and perhaps we
shall find that their Hades was not so very far different
from the Sheol, or “the pit,” of the Bible, nor the devil
much to be distinguished from the Satan we read of.
Matt. xii. 45 ; Luke xi. 26. ? Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2.


140
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
Heaven, the place where the spirits of good Babylonians
reposed, was called the “land of the shining sky," and
was the seat of the gods. It cannot at present be decided
whether they attained the conception of one “God the
Almighty,” but it seems improbable, for to the last days
of the duration of their kingdom, in the prayers and
histories they mention more than one god. The Jews
were the people who enunciated the grand idea of the
unity of God.' In the Babylonian heaven, “the house of
life,” the “ land of life," the warrior found his reward, for
he reclined on a couch, and drank "pure drinks” toge-
ther with his friends and associates. Not a strange idea
for a nation that was at war with its fellows perpetually,
but far, very far, from the holy conception of heaven of
the prophet of the New Testament, with God for its sun,
its tree of life for the healing of the nations, its pure
river of water of life, where there is no more curse, nor
sorrow, nor pain, nor death, and where God Himself
wipes away all tears.
The Babylonian conception of hell is made known to
us by a tablet which relates the descent of Istar thither
in search of her lovely young husband, Tammuz. It
has been stated that the same word for Hades, i.e., Sheol,
as that used in the Hebrew Scriptures, has been found
in Babylonian texts; but this assertion has been made
while the means for definitely proving it do not at
present exist. The lady of the Babylonian Hades was
called Nin-ki-gal, and the place itself had a river running
through it, over which spirits had to cross. There was
aiso “a porter of the waters” (which reminds us of the
i Deut. vi. 4: “Hear, O Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord ;" or,
according to the true translation, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is
ONE."


THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.
141
of a
Charon of the Greeks), and it had seven gates. The
tablet mentioned above tells us that-
1. To the land of no return, to the afar off, to regions
of corruption,
2. Istar, the daughter of the Moon-god, her attention
firmly
3. fixed, the daughter of the Moon-god her attention
fixed
4. the house of corruption, the dwelling of the deity
Irkalla (to go)
5. to the house whose entrance is without exit
6. to the road whose way is without return
7. to the house whose entrance is bereft of light
8. a place where much dust is their food, their meat
mud,
9. where light is never seen, where they dwell in dark-
ness
10. ghosts (?) like birds whirl round and round the vaults
II. over the doors and wainscoting there is thick dust.
The outer gate of this “land of no return” was strongly
guarded and bolted, for the porter having refused to
grant Istar admission, the goddess says-
“Open thy gate and let me enter in ;
If thou openest not the gate, and I come not in,
I force the gate, the bolt I shatter,
I strike the threshold, and I cross the doors,
I raise the dead, devourers of the living,
(for) the dead exceed the living.”
There is another name for Hades, the signs which
form it meaning “ the house of the land of the dead.”
A gloss gives its pronunciation as Arali. Such, then, is


THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.
143
The narrative then proceeds with the statement that
Marduk's command is unchangeable and unalterable,
and that high and low seek his hand. A prayer follows,
which entreats that “whatever goes forth from thy
mouth, O Marduk, may it be established, thy fortune not
failing.” Next there appears to be a reference to the
“gifts of the gods,” and then another prayer saying, “in
the dwelling of the gods, at the place of their crown, may
thy place be established.” Again follows a pæan of
praise :-
“O Merodach thou art also the returner of our benefits,
we ascribe to thee royalty, thou hast in the assembly of
the gods the multitude of the whole of everything,
may thy command be high, may they not force thy
weapon,
may thy enemy tremble.”
And the beautiful line of prayer, “ O lord, who trusts
thee, do thou benefit his soul,” comes next. The gods
then approved of Merodach's mission against the wicked
Tiamat, for we are told “they rejoiced,” they drew near
to Merodach the king, they endowed him with sceptre,
throne, and reign, they gave him an unequalled weapon
for destroying his enemies, and said : “Go, make an
end of the life of Tiamat, and may the wind carry away
her blood to a dismal place.” The gods decreed his
fate, and made him set out on his enterprise. Now
follows the record of the equipment of the god. He
had a bow, a club, his right hand held the bow, and he
hung the skin quiver at his side. He set the lightning
before him, and filled his body with "swift destruction.”
Then he obtained a scimitar (or as some read “net”) to
attack Tiamat. We are told that Anu his father made


146
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
god. It is another form of an old Semitic idea; the Jews
wrote copies of the law each man for himself, every
king was bound to do so; to-day the Mahommedans
write copies of their Koran. To go back to the Baby-
lonian tablet, however. The story is told in very concise
and brief language, and the expressions are here and
there somewhat obscure. The sense of a few of the
lines I cannot make out, owing to a number of words
the meanings of which at present are unknown. If one
puts aside the weird and mystic imagery of the Oriental
from it, it is the account of the battle of light against
darkness. Merodach is the “ brilliance of the sun," and
he goes armed with the bow of his father Anu, “the sky
god,” and the mul-mul-lum, or principle of the stars and
fire; he takes the lightning and gathers together to his
side the winds, the powers of the heavens. With this
armour he does battle against Tiamat. The Hebrew
equivalent of this word we meet with in the second
verse of the first chapter of Genesis. We read that there
was darkness upon the face of the deep, and the word
rendered deep is t'hom, i.e., Tiamat, in Babylonian.
Tiamat is represented as the abyss from whence all
things noxious sprang; she herself is personified in the
form of a being with scales, feathers, wings, claws,
gaping jaws, and a tail, and over this hideous being the
glorious light sprang. St. John, in the Apocalypse, spoke
of the time when there shall be “no more sea,” intimating
that the abolition of the sea with its monsters and
terrors was to be a part of the glorious future. In the
tablet spoken of above the line-
“O lord, who trusts in thee, do thou benefit his soul,”:
· The word is rendered club; perhaps “ fire stick” would be a better
translation.


THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.
147
reminds one forcibly of various passages in the Psalms,
and reveals to us the craving of the soul of the Baby-
lonian for the assistance and support of a mighty and
powerful god. Whether they had a deeper meaning
veiled under the words is hard to say, but it is not at all
improbable that the ideas of right and wrong were repre-
sented by them under the symbols of light and darkness.
A curious name is given to Tiamat in the tablet, she
is called “the great serpent” (we have already spoken of
her shape above and of her being the personification of
chaos), which reminds one of the Revelation where
Satan is called “the great dragon.”] The Jews, too,
have called Satan “the prince over chaos.” This Tiamat
then is clearly the Babylonian tempter which led man
astray, and which brought death and destruction into the
world. There is a seal in the British Museum bearing
an engraving which seems to be a picture of the fall of
man. It is figured on page 156, and has been published
before. In the middle of the scene there stands a tree
with branches, and on either side of the trunk there
is a fruit. Seated on the right is a man, and upon
the left is a woman, behind whom stands the serpent.
The tree is the “tree of life,” which played a great part
in the Babylonian and Assyrian religions, and was
understood too by the Babylonians to be the symbol
of immortality.
As to the views of the Babylonians about the creation
we know but little, for only a few lines on this subject,
and these on a fragment of a tablet, have come down to
us. They read-
“When on high the heavens were not named,
1 Rev. xii. 7-9; xx. 2.
2 Smith, “Chaldean Genesis,” p. 91.
K 2


148
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
and beneath, the abyss recorded not a name,
the water deep first begot them, the lady Tiamat
was the bringer forth of all.
The waters first were collected, but the clouds were not
collected together, and in the earth was not a seed.
Then none of the gods had come forth.”
These words evidently refer to a time when the earth was
"without form and void.”
Apparently the pious Babylonian repented deeply at
times, for we find the lament of one which says, “ From
the days of my youth I am bound fast to the yoke of
sin;" and his conscience was at times sorely troubled.
When in distress, through a calamity or any other cause,
he asks himself, “Have I estranged father and son,
brother and brother, or friend and friend ? Have I not
freed the captive, released the bound, and delivered him
who was confined in prison ?? Have I resisted my god
or despised my goddess? Have I taken territory not
my own, or entered with wrong motives the house of my
fellow ? Have I approached the wife of my fellow man?
Have I shed man's blood or robbed one of his clothing?"
The Babylonian could bewail his sins, iniquities, and
ignorance in very pathetic words, and the following lines
will show how nearly the words and ideas approach
some of our own prayers of to-day:-
“O my lord, my transgression is great, many are my
sins.
O my god ....
O my goddess ....
O my god that knowest that I knew not, my trans-
gression is great, many are my sins.
Compare Matt. xxv. 44.


THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.
149
O my goddess that knowest that I knew not, my trans-
gression is great, many are my sins.
The sin that I committed I knew not.
The sin that I sinned I knew not.
The forbidden things did I eat.
The .... did I trample upon.
My lord in the wrath of his heart has punished me.
God in the strength of his heart has overpowered me.
I lay on the ground, and no man extended the hand.
In tears I dissolved myself, and none my palms took.
I cried aloud ; there was none that would hear me.
The feet of my goddess I embraced.
To my god, who knew though I knew not, I made
supplication.
To my goddess who knew, I made supplication.
How long, O my god ?
How long, O my goddess ?
O my god, seven times seven are my transgressions, my
transgressions are before me.'
My transgressions are before me, may thy judgment
give me life.
May thy heart like the heart of the mother of the setting
day to its place return.
For the tearful supplication of my heart, let the name of
every god be invoked 65 times.
Peace afterwards.
We have now seen something about the Babylonian's
gods, his heaven, his hell, his devil and evil spirits. We
have also seen some of his best ideas and conceptions.
He had grand ideas about his gods, but he appears to
1 This prayer to be repeated ten times.
2 This prayer to be repeated five times.


Ijo
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY. .
have feared the attacks of the evil spirits more than he
trusted in his great gods to defend him from them. At the
beginning he peopled all nature and everything in nature
with spirits, but by degrees he attributed more power
to some of these than to others, and hence arose the
“great gods.” His religion was a mixture of sublimity
and absurdity, of purity and impurity, of refined ideas
and coarse conceptions; in short, he made the gods in
his own image. He never grasped the idea of one God
making and ruling all things, the Ruler and Governor of
nations and individuals alike, but he multiplied idols and
gods without end. This brought down Jeremiah's just
observation, “It is the land of graven images, and they
are mad upon their idols.” He was superstitious and
easily terrified by the supernatural, and was slavish in his
obedience to it. His mind was easily led captive by the
pomp and religious processions, which the priests took
care to make as attractive as possible. To these were
added the practices of nature worship so strongly de-
nounced in the Bible under the names of Baal, Baal-
Peor, Ashtoreth, and “the groves;” and thus the mind of
the Babylonian was led astray, and whatever good he
had lying in his soul was crushed and blotted out. In
the day of retribution when Babylon fell his idols were
powerless to save him, as he found to his bitter cost.
Though the Babylonians asked the Jews to sing them
“one of the songs of Zion,” yet they profited nought by
it, neither did they learn anything of Jehovah, who had
done mighty deeds and “driven out mighty nations" for
this people. Though Daniel and “the three children” were
living witnesses of God in Babylon, its people repented
not, as Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah.
· Jer. 1. 38.
on," yet thee of Jehovan tions” for


152
CHAPTER X.
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND ART.
Religious duties of great importance.—Babylonian names.-Cremation.-
War.-Commerce. -Slavery.- Reading and writing.–Engraving.– The
Babylonians good builders.
ONE of the chief concerns of the Babylonian was to
attend to his religious duties, and to take part in the
worship and praise due to his gods. We are ignorant of
the exact ceremonies that were carried out in their
temples, but it seems that processions of priests bearing
the image of a god were common and frequent. The
kings richly endowed the temples with part of the spoils
which they obtained in war, and each person, according
to his ability, no doubt did the same. They craved for
a visible representation of their deities, and were not
satisfied with an invisible presence, even if they had any
conception of it. Every person, high or low, rich or
poor, took part in the nature-worship which was carried
out under the beautiful sky of Chaldea. It is probable
that they chanted hymns and praises to their gods,
for the Babylonian copy of the fourth tablet of the
“ Creation ” series, recording the fight between Merodach
and Tiamat, exhibits a rhythm and a parallelism in many
of its lines. One would think that the narrative part
was recited or sung by a few voices, and the lines of
praise by a huge chorus in which everyone joined.
Their sacred books were the so-called Gisțubar legends,


BABYLONIAN LIFE AND ART
153
which relate that the solar hero Gisțubar performed
twelve mighty deeds, each of which formed the subject
of a narrative. The Babylonians prayed, for their prayers
have come down to us. Every seventh day was a
“Sabbath,” or as they put it, “a day of rest for the
heart.” A god or goddess presided over every day in
the year, and lists of the days of the months, with their
regents mentioned, have come down to us. Their repre-
sentation of the Sun-god took the form of a disk, and a
beautiful woman was the type of Istar, the daughter of
the Moon-god. At the doorways of their palaces they
placed huge stone figures of a composite being, with the
face and head of a man, the body and tail of a horse, the
legs and hoofs of a bull, and the huge feathered pinions of
a mighty bird, which indicated that it had the wisdom and
intelligence of a man, the swift body of the horse, the
fleet wings of the eagles, and the mighty treading down
power of the bull. These figures "guarded the footsteps
of the king their maker.”.
The contract tablets show us that the Babylonians had
two names, one an official and the other private; whether
any ceremony attended the naming is not known. When
the Babylonian died he was most probably burnt, and it
is thought that furnaces were always kept going for this
purpose. It has been suggested that it was into one of
these furnaces that the “three children ” were cast after
it had been made “seven times hotter” than usual.
There are earthenware pots in the British Museum
which contained the calcined bones and ashes of people
that were burnt more than two thousand years ago, and
these pots are common and abundant in the ruins of the
old Babylonian cities. In the time of the Parthians they
used coffins, and of these specimens in a greenish glazed


BABYLONIAN LIFE AND ART.
155
to set riders upon them.”l. A list was kept of the people
destroyed in each city, and of the spoil taken. Wars
were undertaken on various pretexts, such as rebellion
and invasion of territory; but the kings often made raids
on slight provocation when the funds of their treasuries
were low. It was the wealth of Hezekiah's palace and
of the Temple that attracted Merodach-Baladan and
Nebuchadnezzar; and the riches of Tyre always made
it an attractive object for conquest in the eyes of the
Babylonians and Assyrians.
Many of the Babylonians were engaged in commerce,
for the Semite was always a trader, and we know for
certainty that it was respected, inasmuch as we find that
the business of the firm of Egibi and Son was carried on
throughout all the wars and civil commotions which con-
vulsed Babylon. The Babylonians made legal promises
to pay certain debts they had contracted. They bought
and sold land, and they lent money or merchandise on
interest. This business firm of Egibi and Son arranged
dowries for unwedded women, and some records of this
sort are in our national collection.
The Babylonians bought slaves, male and female, and
it appears that some of the owners went so far as to
brand their own name upon them with hot irons.
In stature the Babylonians were short and thick-set;
they had the characteristic Semitic nose, thick lips, and
“oblique eyes.” Their hair was thick and curly, and of
course black; whether they plaited or knotted it in the
way we see it represented is doubtful, for the dressing
shown on the sculptures may be for the sake of ornament.
They wore dyed raiment, probably of a brilliant colour,
girdles round their waist, and sandals on their feet.
Isaiah xxxvi. 8.


ANCIENT BABYLONIAN Seals.

Hea-Bani struggling with a savage animal.

Engraving on a Babylonian seal representing the temptation of Adam and
Eve and the Tree of Life.

The Babylonian hero Gistubar in conflict with a lion.





158
BABYLONIAN LIFE AND HISTORY.
quantity of work to be done is enormous, and the
labourers in the field are very few. The task of reading
the cuneiform inscriptions is a hard one, and much
patient work is necessary before it can be done; but
surely it is a study attractive enough!
In this little book only a few of the most important
facts have been touched upon, and we have tried to state
only such things as admit of proof and are certain. It is
self-evident, however, how very necessary the knowledge
of the facts obtained from the cuneiform inscriptions is
for the right understanding of that part of Bible history
which relates to Babylon and Assyria.


· 159
INDEX.
roham
::::
::::::::::::::
... 41
:::
... 110
Abil-Bel-usum-same
Abil-Ea-sar-mati
Abil-Sin
Abraham
Abu = July
Accad =Ur
Achaemenes ...
Adam ...
Addaru=February
Adlil
... ...
Agarsal... ... ...
Agu-kak-rimi ..
Ahe-iddin ... ...
Airad ... .
Airu= April ... ...
Akkad =North Babylonia
Akkadian hymn to Istar
Akki ... ...
Alexander the Great ...
Allit ... ...
Alman ... ...
Amil-Gula
Amil-Marduk
Amil-Samas ...
Amil-Sin
Ammananu ...
Ammi-sa-duga ...
Ammi-satana ...
Amram, mound of
Amulets
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
PAGE
PAGE
Amytes ...
Anat ... ...
... . 128
Aneana ... ... ... ... 93
Anna, "heaven”
- ...
...
... 36
Antiochus ... ... .. 93
--- his cylinder...
Anunit, temple of ...
Anunitum ... ... ... 43
... 110
- her temple in Sippara
... 56
Anzan .. ... ... ... 74
... 48 Apirak ... ... ...
Apries ...
... 70
Arad-Gula ...
... 115
Araḥ-samna=October
... 109 Arahu-mahru, the intercalary
month ... ... ... NIO
Arahu or Aracus; he personi.
fied Nebuchadnezzar, son of
Nabonidus ... ...,
Arakadres ... ...
Araxes ... ...
Arbela, oracle of
... ... 130
Arithmetic ... ... 105
Ariyaramnes...
... 91
Arsaces, the era of
· 116
Arsames
91
... 43 Artaxerxes ...
• I14
... 43 Ashdod, siege of
| Ashtoreth ...
... 139 ) Asnunak
::::::::::::
:::::::::::
... 43
60
129
.
43


INDEX.
161
... 118
::::
...
... 110
::::::::::::::::
115
43
PAGE 1
PAGE
Bel-hai-iddur ...
Case tablets
Bel-idannu
... 115
| Chinzirus
... ... 59
Bel-iddin
... 114, 115 Colossi... ... ... ... 153
Bel-lumur
Comets...
Bel-nirari
Contract tablets
Beli-sunu
Cyaxares
... ... ... 67
Belshazzar ...
Cyrus a monotheist...
Belshazzar's Feast
-- makes peace with Baby-
Bel-temenna ...
| lon ... ... ... 78
Belteshazzar ...
71
entry into Babylon ... 82
Beltis ... .
- rise of his kingdom ...
Bel-upaḥḥir ...
-- march to Akkad ...
Belu-Usumgallu
... ... 115
Cuneiform text (part 8) of the
Bel-zakir-iskun
capture of Babylon ... ... 80
Beth-Yakur ...
... ... 61 Cuneiform writing used after
Birs-Nimrud ...
the Christian era ... ... 116
Bit-Imitti ...
Bit-Karziyabku
D.
Bitumen
... ... 25, 26
Black Obelisk ...
Damkina... ... ... ... 43
Borsippa
Daniel, his name not found in
- Talmudic puns on
the inscriptions
the name ... ...
Dar, a god ... ...
Bricks from the temple in Darius the Median ...
seven stages ... ... ... Days, lucky and unlucky
- glazed white ... ... Deluge tablet ... ...
Bronze step of Nebuchadnezzar, Demons
*** ... ... III
inscription upon, and transla-
Duban ... ...
tion ... ... ... ... 69 Dungi ... ...
Burial of the Babylonians ... 153 Dura, plain of ... ...
Burna-Buryas ... ... ... 44
Dur-Athara ... ...
Buzuzu ... ... ... ... 115
Dur-papsukal ... ...
Duru = Dura, Dan. iii. I
Dur-yakin ... ..
Duzu = June ... ...
:::::::::::::ñ ::
22
22
Calendar: ...
... 110
Cambyses, his expedition into
Egypt ... ... ... 88
...
Carchemish ... ... ... 68 Fa-epus ...
Cardinal points ... ... 110 | Ea-mukin-ziri ...
| Ea
...
...
...
...
...
... 132
... 114
... 56


162
INDEX.
:::::
... 115
... 116
... 128
: :
... 89
... 98
...
... 26
... 60
PAGE
PAGE
Ebisum ...
... 43
| Gananati
Ecbatana
Gan-duniyas ... - ... . 44
Ecliptic
... 110 Garmapada
Edom ... ...
Geography
... ... ... 110
Egibi ... ..
Geology
... ... 110
- the banker
Gisinni ... ...
Egyptians, antiquity of
Gobryas
1 ... 78
E-Hulhul, a temple ...
God triads
E-ki ... ... ...
Gods, enormous number of, in
E-ku-a, shrine of Bel ...
Babylon
... ... 127
E-Parra (or Barra)
Gomates
Eponym canon
34, 35
Gomorrah ...
Equinox ...
Graine, bay of ...
Erech ... ...
Great Sea ...
- - Istar of ...
... 132
Gudea ... ...
E-Sagila-lissi ...
... ... ... 113
Gula ...
... 114, 133
E-Sagili ...
... ... 22
Gula-zir-tepus ...
E-Sagili-suma-epus
Guti ... ..
Esarhaddon ... ...
Guzummanu ...
... ... 62
E-Ulbar ...
E-Ulbar-sakin-sumi ...
Euphrates, its names and their
meanings
- drained dry by
Cyrus
Hablai ... ...
Evil eye
... ... 116
... ... ... III
Evil-Merodach
Hadar-ezer ...
... ... 72
Haggai contemporary with
Evil spirits ... ...
Cyrus...
- exorcisms against III
Hagira ...
- seven ... ... 138
Halman... ...
E-Zida, a temple of Babylon 16
Halub, city on the Tigris
Hamath, rebellion in ...
F.
Hammurabi
Handita ...
Fortress of Kuri-Galzu ... 59
Hanging gardens
Harran ...
G.
Hatim ... ...
Hell ... ...
Gaḥul ... ... ... ... 62 — gates of ...
Gambulu ... ... ... 65 - river of ... ...
::::::::::
: : : : : : : :
:
X
"..
...
83
III
:
:::::::::::


INDEX.
165
... 115
64
115
. 59
PAGE
Ningal-iddina ... ...
Nunitti Bel, a wall of Babylon 16
Ninip-kudurri-uşur
Nippur ... ... ..
Nisaea ... ... ... ... 91
Nisannu = March ...
Nusku ... ...
... ... 136
::::::::::::
::::::::::::::
52
Omen tablets ...
Ormazd.. ...
...
35
...
...
19
PAGE
Nabu-sum-esir ...
Nabu-uhi-su ....
Nabu-usabsi...
Nabu-usitik-urri
Nabu-usur-napistu
Nabu-zir-napisti-esir
Nadin ... ...
Nadintu-Bel ...
Nagitu ...
Nahid-Marduk
Nail marks
Namar ... ...
Nana, goddess ...
Nana-Babili-sininni ...
Naram Sin ...
Nazi-bugas ...
Nebo, his temple at Harie. His
temple called “Life” ...
Nebuchadnezzar I., his wars
against Assyria
Nebuchadnezzar's city, Babylon
Nebuchadnezzar II., his war
against Tyre ... ... ...
-
his war
against Egypt
- his kind-
ness to Jeremiah ... ...
- East India
House inscription ... ... 29
- brought
wood from Lebanon ... 29
- his prayer
to Marad ... ...
... 21
- translation
of two of his inscriptions 16, 22
Nergal ... ...
... 136
Nergal-balit ... ...
Nergal-edir ...
Neriglissar ...
Nindar ... ...
Nineveh, destruction of
Pacorus... ...
Padan ... ...
Patizithes ...
Pharaoh Hophra
Pharaoh Necho
Philip of Macedon
Philistia ...
Phraates the Magian
Phraortes
Pissiachádá ...
Planisphere ...
Prexashes ...
Promissory notes
Pudil ... ..
Puya
::::::::::::::
::::::::::::
... 112
Rabbi Johânân ..
Rab-Mag .... "
Rabshakeh ...
Rammanu-abla-iddina


INDEX.
167
...
81
::
:
"
... 65
PAGE
PAGE
Sumir ...
...
| Time, mode of reckoning by
Sumir=South Babylonia ... the Assyrians
... 33
Sumu Abi ... ... ... 42 Tower of Babel
Sum-ukur ... ...
Tradition in the East ...
Sumulau ...
... ... ... 42 Tree of Life...
Sun-god, repairs of his tem
Tukulti-Ninip...
by Nabonidus
Tukulti-Ninip IV.
Sun-god tablet... ... ... 132 Tuna .. ... ...
Sun, hymns to... ...
Tyre, fall of ...
Sun-spots ...
Supu ... ... ... ... 56
Sutu, a nation unfriendly
Babylon
Suzub ... ... ... 62, 118
Syllabary ... ... ... 103
Ukin-ziru ...
Ululu = August
Umas ... ...
Umman-Minanu
Ummanigas ...
Ur ...
...
...
... 26, 136
Țabitu = December ...
Ur-Bagas ...
... 41
Tablet of squares and cubes ... 105 Urmanū ... ...
Tablets, arrangement of ... INI Urrame...
Tablets, “ trial”
Urtaki, king of Elam....
Tammuz
Tartan ... ...
Tasmit ...
... ... ... 136
Tasritu=September ...
Tassi-gur-umas
Teispes ...
Veisdátes
...
Tema ...
Venus, city of ...
Temple of seven stages
Viyakhana ...
of the Jews, rebuilding
of ...
Third temple of Babylon
Tiamat...
"
...
.. ... 142
Tiglath-Pileser I. ...
Wedges ... ... ... 105
Tiglath-Pileser III. ...
Witnesses whose names are
Tigris, or Hiddekel ...
mentioned by Nebuchad-
— rise of, and destruction nezzar I. ... ... ... 54
of walls of Nineveh ... 67 | Writing... ... ... ... 100


168
INDEX.
X.
PAGE
• 42
Xerxes ...
...
...
PAGE
... 92
::::
with
Yakin .. ...
Yaman the usurper
Yugaeus
Zabu ... ...
Zagaga-suma-iddina ...
Zakiru ... ...
Zamban ...
Zechariah contemporary
Cyrus
Zedekiah
Zergulla
Ziggurat
Zir-Idin
Zirpanitum
Zodiac..
:::::::
70
41
106
116
Zaba, a city
Zabdan
... 48
...
57
Harrison and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane, London.



THUBE
LES
L
Time
BY-PATHS OF BIBLE KNOWLEDGE.
UNDER this general title THE RELIGIOUS TRACT
SOCIETY is now publishing a Series of Books on subjects
of interest connected with the Bible, not adequately dealt
with in the ordinary Handbooks.
The writers will, in all cases, be those who have
special acquaintance with the subjects they take up,
and who enjoy special facilities for acquiring the latest
and most accurate information.
The Series is designed for general readers, who
wish to get in a compact and interesting form the fresh
knowledge that has been brought to light during the
last few years in so many departments of Biblical study.
Sunday-school teachers, and all Bible students will, it
is hoped, find these Volumes both attractive and useful.
The following Books are already published :-
I. CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE. A History of the
Obelisk on the Embankment, a Translation and Exposi-
tion of the Hieroglyphics, and a Sketch of the two kings,
whose deeds it commemorates. By Rev. JAMES KING,
M.A., Authorized Lecturer to the Palestine Exploration
Fund. Crown 8vo. 25. 6d. cloth boards. [P. T.o.