UCSB LIBRARY
 
 NEW LIGHT 
 
 ON THE 
 
 BIBLE AND THE HOLY LAND.
 
 New Light 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Bible and the Holy Land 
 
 BEING 
 
 ^Account of some (Recent (discoveries in 
 the East 
 
 BY 
 
 BASIL T. A. EYETTS, M.A. 
 
 Formerly of the Assyrian Department, British Museum. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 
 31 EAST i7TH ST. (UNION SQUARE)
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE more the records of Assyria and Babylonia are 
 studied, the more light they must throw on the history 
 of the neighbouring nation of Israel. The small 
 but fertile and wealthy district on the eastern coast 
 of the Mediterranean, intervening between the shores 
 of Egypt and the harbours of Tyre and Sidon, was 
 alternately, in the course of its history, overrun by the 
 powerful nations which dwelt on each side of it : by the 
 armies of the Nile, or by the warriors of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates. On this" account Syria, Samaria, and Judah 
 are frequently mentioned in the written monuments of 
 Nineveh and Babylon; and,on the other hand, the Hebrew 
 literature teems with allusions to these great cities. 
 But there was a closer connection than this between the 
 races of Western and Eastern Syria, if we may once 
 use the latter name in the wide sense sometimes given 
 to it by ancient authors. The Hebrews originally 
 proceeded from the plains of ChaldsBa, according to the 
 statements of their own historians ; and the valley of 
 the Euphrates was the cradle of their race. They were, 
 therefore, akin to the Babylonians in speech, in ideas, 
 and in social organisation ; and a study of the language,
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 the literature, and the archaeology of the one nation 
 must further the understanding of the phenomena 
 presented by the history of the other. , 
 
 After the cuneiform inscriptions were first de- 
 ciphered, it soon became apparent that the historical 
 narratives of the Bible would receive much elucida- 
 tion from these new sources. Records of the 
 Assyrian and Babylonian monarchs who attacked or 
 carried captive the nations of Israel and Judah were 
 found. On certain clay cylinders, Sennacherib was 
 discovered to have left us a brief account of his war 
 with Hezekiah. The name of Sargon, always a puzzle 
 to commentators, who had tried to identify him with 
 Tiglath-Pileser or Shalmaneser, was found to be that 
 of a powerful monarch who was the father of Sen- 
 nacherib, and who invaded Syria, according to the 
 native records, as well as according to the prophet 
 Isaiah. In the Assyrian chronicles of Tiglath-Pileser 
 III., this prince alludes to the kings of Israel and 
 Judah, whom he vanquished or who paid him tribute : 
 to Menahem, to Pekah, to Hosea, and to Azariah ; and 
 only recently it has been found that Pul was the name 
 given by the Babylonians, as well as by the author of 
 the Second Book of Kings in certain passages, to 
 the same Tiglath-Pileser III. Moreover, an Assyrian 
 monument, known as the Black Obelisk of Nimroud, 
 was found to exhibit the name of Jehu, who paid 
 tribute to Shalmaneser II. Besides these and many 
 other illustrations or confirmations of the history of 
 the people of Israel contained in the Hebrew books,
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 documents were discovered which were compared with 
 the primeval narratives of the Book of Genesis ; 
 especially that relating the story of the Flood, 
 translated and published by George Smith, in 1872. 
 The principal points of comparison between the 
 cuneiform inscriptions and the Bible found up to a 
 certain date, have been collected by Professor Schrader 
 in his work on " The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the 
 Old Testament," afterwards translated into English. 
 
 But Assyriology is a progressive science. Not only 
 does the material already brought to light require the 
 study of many years before its philological and historical 
 difficulties can be mastered ; but there is also a constant 
 addition of new material, the result of fresh excavations 
 on the ancient sites of Mesopotamia and Chaldsea. 
 During the last few years the Americans and Germans 
 have been conducting researches among the mounds 
 that mark the place of former cities, but the difficulties 
 placed in the way are so great that it is only occasionally 
 that success has attended these efforts. If only the 
 numerous ruins of Assyria and Babylonia could be fully 
 and systematically laid bare, a work of enormous labour 
 and expense, requiring the co-operation of the Turkish 
 Government, it is certain that the result would richly 
 repay the undertaking, in spite of the destruction that 
 has been wrought upon the ancient monuments by the 
 natives. Even now the mounds of Nineveh, after the 
 labours of Sir H. Layard and Mr. Rassam, which pro- 
 duced such marvellous fruit, must conceal immense 
 treasures ; while the ruins of Babylon can only have 
 b
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 yielded a very small part of their hidden wealth. 
 Besides the capitals, there were formerly flourishing 
 cities scattered over the valleys of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates, and still represented hy the numerous arti- 
 ficial hills that dot the plains and await excavation. 
 
 In consequence of the constant accessions to our 
 knowledge which follow the arrival of new materials 
 and the interpretation of materials already acquired, 
 every decade and even every year must throw new 
 light, if only a few dim rays, on some corner of the 
 vast field of Biblical research. Thus, during the last 
 ten years the study of the monuments discovered by 
 M. de Sarzec have already taught us something about 
 the earliest civilization of the district from whence 
 Abraham, according to the Book of Genesis, migrated 
 to the land of Canaan : about the state of the arts, and 
 incidentally about the religious and political condition 
 of that region at a very remote period. The subsequent 
 excavations of M. Dieulafoy have added much to our 
 knowledge of the architecture of the AchaBmenian period 
 in Persia, and of the minor arts which accompany that 
 principal branch of art; at the same time the recon- 
 struction, which is now possible, of the dwelling of 
 Xerxes and Artaxerxes, the remains of which have been 
 laid bare by the French expedition, illustrates those 
 passages in the Bible which refer to " Shushan the 
 palace," and is of much general interest on that account. 
 
 But the principal discovery of the last few years has 
 undoubtedly been that of the Tell el-Amarna tablets. 
 These documents create a new chapter of history ; they
 
 PREFACE. ri 
 
 tell us for the first time what was the condition of 
 Syria during the period immediately preceding the 
 Exodus of the Israelites, when the Canaanite was still 
 in the land ; for the indications derived from Egyptian 
 sources were too scanty to afford a clear idea of the 
 state of Western Asia under the supremacy of the 
 Pharaohs. 
 
 Professor Sayce was the first to detect the name of 
 Jerusalem on one of the Tell el-Amarna tablets, which 
 were subsequently found to include half a dozen letters, 
 written by the representative of the Egyptian power 
 in that city to his suzerain. According to Josephus, 
 Jerusalem was founded, in the year B.C. 2107, by 
 Melchisedech, whom the historian calls a " prince of 
 the Canaanites ; " but without accepting this date, we 
 may be sure that when the kings of the eighteenth 
 dynasty added Jerusalem to the list of tributary towns, 
 she must already have been for several centuries in 
 existence. Nevertheless, this was still the period of 
 the childhood of Jerusalem, alluded to by the prophet 
 Ezekiel, who reminds the city of her early history : 
 " Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of 
 Canaan ; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an 
 Hittite." 
 
 According to the letters found at Tell el-Amarna, 
 the Hittites and the Amorites were still in possession 
 of the country around Jerusalem, although they were, 
 from time to time reduced by their powerful neighbours 
 from the Nile into a state of partial submission, and 
 obliged to pay tribute to the Pharaoh.
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 It is evident, from the documents of which we are 
 speaking, that even the payment of tribute and the 
 recognition of the supremacy of Egypt was not long 
 endured without resistance by the turbulent tribes of 
 Canaan. The yoke placed upon their necks by the 
 earlier kings of the eighteenth dynasty seems to have 
 been thrown off under the later monarchs of the same 
 line ; and the way was made ready for the conquest of 
 the Israelites, who found no power able to restrain their 
 march through the country, and no mighty suzerain 
 to whom appeal could be made for help by the van- 
 quished inhabitants. Even the letters from Tell el- 
 Amarna show us that such appeals were made in vain, 
 under similar circumstances, to Amenophis IV., and 
 that in his reign the Hittites and other tribes overran 
 the Egyptian possessions without much resistance. 
 
 The letters from various princes of Western Asia 
 found at Tell el-Amarna disclose a state of advanced 
 civilization in that region, and show the great wealth 
 and luxury of the Courts at that early period. The art 
 of working in metals, in particular, appears already to 
 have arrived at a high degree of perfection. The com- 
 mercial intercourse of the kingdoms of Western Asia 
 with one another, and with the valley of the Nile, is 
 proved to have reached a state of much activity. We 
 hear of the merchants of the King of Babylon, who 
 frequently passed through the land of Canaan on their 
 way to Egypt, just as the merchants of Solomon carried 
 on their traffic with the neighbouring centres of trade. 
 After this there is no reason to be surprised when we
 
 PREFACE. xiii 
 
 find proofs of trade between Babylon and Canaan at the 
 time of the Israelitish invasion : the Babylonish gar- 
 ment, dipped in the scarlet dye for which the land of 
 Shinar was famous, had been sold at Jericho by a mer- 
 chant from the Euphrates, passing through the land as 
 his fellows had done for many years perhaps ever 
 since the conquests of Thothmes I. had begun to bring 
 the Egyptian kings into close relations with the regions 
 of Mesopotamia. 
 
 Babylon was, throughout her history, a great com- 
 mercial centre. She was, as Ezekiel says, a city of 
 merchants, situated in a land of traffic. In the Tell el- 
 Amarna tablets we see her exchanging her wares with 
 the Egyptians in return for the gold which the mines 
 of Eastern Africa poured into the valley of the Nile,' 
 until it became " like dust " in that region, and was 
 sought for from thence by all the most civilised 
 monarchs of the time. 
 
 The geographical results of the Tell el-Amarna 
 tablets are already important. We acquire information 
 from them concerning many cities and countries, well 
 known in later times, but of which the period to which 
 our documents belong had hitherto yielded no memorial. 
 Further study will, perhaps, lead to the identification of 
 some names which occur here, but which are not yet 
 certainly connected with names known to us from 
 other sources. Such is the land of Mitani, a power- 
 ful and highly cultivated State, the king of which 
 writes on terms of equality to the Pharaoh, who 
 on his side shows his friendship by allying himself
 
 xiv PREFACE. 
 
 with the reigning family through marriage with more 
 than one of its daughters ; and such, again, is the 
 land of Alashiya, productive of copper, and sending its 
 ships and merchants to the mouths of the Nile. All 
 we know of the position of these countries is that the 
 former lay in or near the region of Mesopotamia, and 
 that the latter was called in Egyptian Alesa, and 
 mentioned together with cities or States of Syria. 
 
 The principal authorities for the statements con- 
 tained in the following pages must now be given. M. de 
 Sarzec's discoveries are described in Decouvertes en 
 Chaldee, which is partly his own work and partly that of 
 M. L. Heuzey, the keeper of the Oriental Department 
 of the Louvre ; the book also includes some translations 
 of the inscriptions by the late M. Amiaud, who pub- 
 lished other work of the same sort in the Zeitschrift fur 
 Assyrioloyie. The researches of M. Dieulafoy are ex- 
 pounded in his work entitled L'Acropole de Suse ; and 
 a narrative of the expedition is given by Madame Dieu- 
 lafoy in A Suse, Journal des Fouilles. The tablets 
 from Tell el-Amarna at Berlin and at Gizeh have been 
 published, in the text only, by Drs. Winckler and Abel : 
 the title of their work is Der Thontafelfund von el- 
 Amarna. Translations of some of the texts given to 
 the world in the last-named work have been issued 
 by Professor Sayce, Dr. Winckler, Dr. Zimmern, and 
 others. The Tell el-Amarna tablets at the British 
 Museum were published last spring by the Trustees ; 
 the edition of the texts is the work of Dr. Bezold, 
 the introduction and summary are the joint
 
 PREFACE. xv 
 
 production of Dr. Bezold and Dr. Budge. In the 
 last-named portions of the book translations of many 
 passages are to be found, besides paraphrases which 
 are almost equivalent to translations. A bibliography 
 is also appended. The Tell el-Amarna tablets in 
 the possession of M. Bouriant, and those at Gizeh, 
 were published in a transcription and translation by 
 Professor Sayce in the Proceedings of the Society for 
 Biblical Archeology of 1888. The only independent 
 translations from cuneiform inscriptions in the present 
 work are some passages of the Tell el-Amarna tablets, 
 and some contracts of the time of Evil-Merodach 
 and Neriglissar, translated from the texts published by 
 the author. A collection of the principal historical texts 
 of Assyria and Babylonia has recently been edited, in 
 the form of a transcription and translation, by Professor 
 Schrader of Berlin, and is the work of the leading Assy- 
 riologists of Germany. Our knowledge of the astro- 
 nomy of the Babylonians is now to be derived from the 
 work of Father Strassmaier, S.J., and Father Epping, 
 S. J., entitled Astronomisches am Babylon ; the same 
 authors have published articles on the subject in the 
 Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie and other periodicals. Before 
 these works, the writings of Professor Sayce and Pro- 
 fessor Oppert were all that we had to depend upon ; the 
 former published an article on The Astronomy and Astro- 
 logy of the Babylonians in the Transactions of ike Society 
 for Biblical Archeology, 1874. A corpus of Babylonian 
 contracts, or legal deeds, from the time of Nabopolassar 
 to that of Darius Hystaspis, has been published by
 
 xvi PREFACE. 
 
 Father Strassmaier, wlio has made these documents for 
 the first time available to students. Other works are 
 referred to in foot-notes. 
 
 The following chapters have been written with the 
 view of presenting a brief account of the discoveries, 
 bearing upon the history related in the Bible, which 
 have been made during the last ten or twelve years, and 
 of doing this in a simple form, omitting all matters that 
 do not appear to be of general interest. Some of these 
 discoveries are already well known through the works 
 of Sir H. Rawlinson, of Canon Rawlinson, of Professor 
 Sayce, and of others. This is especially the case with 
 regard to Chapters XII. and XIII. It is important, 
 however, to see at a glance how many illustrations of 
 the Bible from contemporary sources have been found 
 during the last few years, and how much hope this may 
 arouse in us of many more illustrations which may be 
 given by further study and further excavations. 
 
 The history of the decipherment of the cuneiform 
 inscriptions here given, is, of course, intended not for 
 philologists, but for ordinary readers, who may some- 
 times be under misapprehensions as to the nature of 
 the processes through which the clay tablets have 
 been read and interpreted. Details intelligible only 
 to scholars have therefore been omitted; and it has also 
 been impossible to exhibit the innumerable confirma- 
 tions, which have come in from all sides, of the correct- 
 ness of the decipherments. The intention has been to 
 indicate in some measure the methods followed by 
 Assyriologists, so far as they are intelligible to the
 
 PREFACE. xvii 
 
 laity. It is necessary to remind the latter, however, 
 that while the general results of Assyrian and Baby- 
 lonian research are now placed beyond a doubt, there is 
 still much to be done before either the grammar or the 
 dictionary can be completed ; and that there may still 
 be much uncertainty with regard to the interpretation 
 of particular words or particular passages.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE DECIPHERMENT OF THE CUNEIFORM 
 INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE EUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sherley's impressions of Ruins of Babylon and Nineveh History of these 
 Cities since the time when they ceased to be Independent Capitals 
 Allusions of Classical Authors Of Syrian and Mahometan Writers 
 European Travellers from Benjamin of Tudela to the present day In- 
 terest aroused by inscriptions found among Ruins How were they to 
 be deciphered P. .......... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 THE PALACES OF PEESEPOLIS. 
 
 Legend of Jemsheed, to whom the Natives ascribe the Ruins Description 
 of Palaces Persepolis in Classical Authors Other Persian legends 
 relating to the Ruins European Travellers Barbaro Gouvea 
 Silva y Figueroa Sir T. Herbert and others Chardin De Bruin 
 Niebuhr Results of their Researches 50 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 DECIPHERMENT OF THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 Attempt on part of Natives to decipher Cuneiform Characters First notice 
 of inscriptions at Persepolis by Antonio de Gouvea Sir Thomas Her- 
 bert's account of them Hyde's view that they were simply orna- 
 mental designs Similar view held subsequently by Samuel Witte 
 Resemblance of cuneiform characters to Chinese noticed by Kaempfer, 
 Von Murr, and Raspe Comparison of the characters with Runic 
 writing by Court de Gebelin, Celsius, and Bock Publication of the 
 Caylus Vase Copies of Persepolitan inscriptions published by 
 Kaempfer, Chardin, De Bruin, and, above all, by Niebuhr First
 
 xx CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 interpretation of Zend by Anquetil-Dupcrron With help of Zend, 
 Tychsen and Miinter attempt decipherment of Persepolitan inscrip- 
 tions Grotefend at last successful in decipherment Do Sacy's inter- 
 pretation of Sassanian inscriptions Work of decipherment carried on 
 oy Saint-Martin, Rask, Lassen, Burnouf, Rawlinson, and others . . 79 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DECIPHERMENT OP THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN 
 INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 First inscriptions found at Babylon Bricks procured by the East India 
 Company from the ruins The Caillou Michaux First attempts at 
 decipherment Lichtenstein Grotefend Botta's excavations at Khor- 
 sabad Layard's excavations at Nimroud and Kouyunjik Decipher- 
 ment Botta De Saulcy Hincks Rawlinson- Oppert Criticism of 
 Ewald and Renan Progress of Assyriology Various aids to decipher- 
 ment and interpretation . . . . . . . . .105 
 
 flsrt II 
 
 RECENT DISCOVERIES. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 
 
 Date of invention of writing among Semitic peoples Formerly doubted 
 whether writing was invented before Moses Discovery of inscrip- 
 tions at Ur Civilization of Chaldaea before Abraham Rassum's 
 excavations at Sippara M. de Sarzec excavates mounds of Tello 
 Physical characters of the regions of Southern Babylonia Marshes 
 Abundance of palm-trees Purchase by French Government of 
 antiquities from Tcll-o Their great interest Complete and authentic 
 chronological records possessed by the Babylonians Care with which 
 these records were preserved Inscriptions of Rammaii-Nirari I., 
 Tiglath-Pileser I., Sardanapalus, Nabonidus Last-named king pro- 
 vides us with dates of Sargon I. and Naram-Sin Vase of latter found 
 at Tello Sculptures of different dates found a,t Tello" Eagle and 
 Lion Tablet " " Vulture-Stela "Governors of Lagash (Tello) De- 
 scription of their palace Statues of Gudea Their costume Gudea 
 as architect Inscriptions upon the statues 130 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 . THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 
 
 Discovery of the Tablets Their Date The Remains at Tell el-Amarna 
 Character of the Tablets The Epistolary style of the period Adula- 
 tion of the Pharaoh Use of the Babylonian Script and Language 
 throughout Western Asia Babylonian conquests in Syria Egyptian 
 conquest of Syria during the rule of the Eighteenth Dynasty . .163
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS (continued) LETTERS FROM 
 MESOPOTAMIAN PRINCES TO THE KINGS OF EGYPT. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 Purposes with which Mesopotamia:! princes sent letters to Egyptian kings 
 Intermarriage of royal family of Egypt with those of Mesopotamia^ 
 States Aunt, sister, and daughter of Tushratta, king of Mitani, 
 married to Amenophis III. of Egypt Dowries of these princesses- 
 Introduction of worship of Ishtar, or Ashtoreth, from Mesopotamia 
 into Egypt Mention of Gilu-khipa, Tushratta's sister, on Egyptian 
 scarabasus Letter of Tushratta referring to rebellion in his own 
 country and to war with the Hittites Letter from Amenophis III. to 
 the king of Babylon, referring to his sister who was married to the 
 Pharaoh History of Babylon at this period The trade of this time 
 carried on by kings Solomon the type of the royal merchants of 
 antiquity Letters of kings demanding gold from Egypt Letters from 
 the king of Alashiya to Pharaoh 186 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS (continued). 
 
 Canaan before the Exodus Political conditions of Canaan Forms of the 
 name Petty kings of Canaan Principal cities mentioned in the Tell 
 el-Amarna T; blets Tyre Byblus Officers of Egyptian king in these 
 cities Their duties Their overthrow by rebels Jerusalem Way 
 prepared for invasion, of Israelites ....... 207 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 8HTJSHAN THE PALACE. 
 
 M. Dieulafoy's first journey to Persia and visit to Shush, the ancient Susa 
 or Shushan Loftus's excavations on this site in 1852 Inscription dis- 
 covered by him M. Dieulafoy's second journey to Susa in 1885 
 Account of his excavations Character of people and country His dis- 
 covery of remains of the Apaddna, or hall of audience, built by Darius 
 I. and restored by Artaxerxes II. The architecture of this hall 
 Columns Enamelled bricks Mention of the palace of Susa in the 
 Bible : Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther Conquest of Susa by Sardana- 
 palus in the seventh century B.C. Use of the Apaddna by Persian kings 
 Their banquets Their various drinking-vessels Conquest of Susa 
 by Alexander Treasures found there by him Elucidation of the Book 
 of Esther from secular sources Name of Ahasuerus or Xerxes . . 229 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 
 
 Chaldaean astrologers in the Roman Empire Famous predictions Astro- 
 logy in the East to present day Isaiah's allusion to Babylonian 
 astronomers Astrological tablets from Babylonia Antiquity of 
 observations of stars in Babylonia Use of Babylonian records by 
 Ptolemy Discovery of original record of an eclipse mentioned by bin!
 
 xxii CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AO 
 
 Discoveries of Strassmaier and Epping Babylonian observatories 
 Tower of Babel Divisions of time introduced from Babylon into other 
 countries 258 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 
 
 Deeds of sale described by Jeremiah, compared with Babylonian documents 
 of same character System of pledges History of Evil-Merodach 
 Chronology of Babylonian contracts Kings of Babylon Last kings 
 of Assyria Khammurabi identified with Amraphel Sales of slaves 
 Wealth of priests of Sun-god at Sippara Sales of houses House-rent 
 Interest paid on money Bills ........ 277 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 LAST DAYS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 
 
 Belshazzar a puzzle to commentators before discovery of cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions Account by Berosus of last days of Babylonian monarchy 
 Herodotus Canon of Ptolemy Mention of Belshazzar in inscriptions 
 of his father, Nabonidus Inscription of Cyrus Discovery of annals 
 of Nabonidus proved Belshazzar to have acted as regent Conquest of 
 Babylon by Cyrus Character of the last king of Babylon and causes 
 which led to his downfall 298 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DISCOVERIES OF RECENT TEARS. 
 
 Difficulty in identification of Pul, the Assyrian king His invasion of 
 Samaria History of Tiglath-Pileser III. Final identification, through 
 discovery of cuneiform inscriptions, of Tiglath-Pileser with Pul 
 Other instances of double names in Assyria and among Israelites 
 Discovery that name of Gisdubar, the Babylonian hero, is to be pro- 
 nounced as Gilgamesh Discovery of new version of Babylonian legend 
 of creation Assyrian hymns and psalms . . . ... 315 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 
 
 Babylonian legends of creation Story of Flood Foundation of ancient 
 cities of Mesopotamia Size of Nineveh Tower of Babel Ur of the 
 Chaldees Haran Invasion of Chedorlaomer and his allies Monetary 
 system of Babylonia Period described in second Book of Kings, 
 Omri, Ahab, Jehu, Azariah, Menahem, Ahaz, Pekah, Hoshea Siege 
 of Samaria begun in reign of Shalrnaneser and finished in that of 
 Sargon So, king of Egypt Deportation of the people of Samaria 
 Sargon's expedition against Ashdod Sennacherib's invasion of Judah 
 Defeat of Tirhakah, and conquest of Egypt by Esarhaddon and 
 Sardanapalus Merodach-baladan Manasseh of Judah tributary to 
 Esarhaddon and Sardanapalus Manasseh taken to Babylon The 
 " great and noble Asnapper " perhaps Sardanapalus Capture and 
 plunder of No-Ammon, or Thebes, by the latter monarchNebuchad- 
 nezzar Persian kings 328
 
 CONTENTS. xxiii 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 
 
 I'AQE 
 
 Frequent invasions of Syria by Assyrians for the sake of tribute or plunder 
 The devastation wrought by them Assyrians the first to found an 
 empire Conquests of Sargon I. Kings of Ur Invasion of Chedor- 
 laomer Egyptian preponderance in Western Asia after expulsion of 
 Hyksos and during eighteenth dynasty Tiglath-Pileser I. and his 
 conquests Ashur-nasir-pal and his conquests Shalmaneser II. and his 
 wars Campaignsof Shamshi-Ramman Eamman-nirarilH. Tiglath- 
 Pileser III. and his conquests Sargon II. His conquests more exten- 
 sive than those of his predecessors Sennacherib Account of his war 
 with Hezekiah Conquests of Esarhaddon and Sardanapalus Ne- 
 buchadnezzar followed the example of his Assyrian predecessors . . 354 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 
 
 Wealth of Nineveh and Babylon Their trade Traditions of their riches 
 among the Greeks The precious metals Copper Art of working 
 in metals Clothing Purple garments Embroideries Ivory orna- 
 ments -Glass Decoration lavished upon all that surrounded the 
 Assyrians Form and arrangement of houses and their decoration 
 Sculpture Writing and literature Omens and magic Connection of 
 medicine with magic Music Laws of property .... 384 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 
 
 Form of the universe Connection of gods with the heavenly bodies 
 Principal gods : Bel-Merodach, the god of Babylon ; his son, Nebo ; 
 Rimmon, Nergal, Tan .muz, Dagon, Ashtoreth or Ishtar, Ashur the 
 god of Assyria Multitudes of inferior gods and spirits Images of 
 gods Their worship 414 
 
 CHAPTER XVIH. 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 Assyrian and Babylonian languages almost identical Their use for com- 
 parison with Hebrew Their monuments contemporary with Old Tes- 
 tament Later date of literatures of other Semitic languages Instances 
 of help afforded by Assyrian and Babylonian language to understand- 
 ing of Hebrew Conclusion 444
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 TABLETS FOUND AT TELL EL-AMARNA Frontis. 
 
 SARDANAPALUS IN HIS CHARIOT 5 
 
 SIEGE OF A TOWN BY THE ASSYRIANS ....... 9 
 
 EUPHRATES AND PLAIN OF BABYLON, RUIN OF BIRS-NIMROUD IN THE 
 
 DISTANCE 25 
 
 SITE OF NINEVEH ....... 30 
 
 AKERKUP OR NIMROD'S TOWEU ......... 35 
 
 THE BEHISTUN HOCK 103 
 
 THE " CAILLOU MICHAUX " 109 
 
 CYLINDRICAL SEALS FROM BABYLONIA '. .112 
 
 WINGED BULL FROM KHOHSABAD . . . . . . . .115 
 
 MUKEYYER, IDENTIFIED BY SlR H. RAWLINSON WITH Us, OF THE CHAXDEES 132 
 
 FRAGMENT OF THE VULTURE-STELA 148 
 
 STATUE OF GUDEA AS ARCHITECT 161 
 
 FRIEZE FROM BYBLUS, EGYPTIAN WINGED DISK 218 
 
 MODERN TOWN OF SHUSTER 233 
 
 MOUNDS OF SHUSH OR SUSA 237 
 
 CAPITALS OF COLUMNS AT SUSA 240 
 
 FRIEZE OF LIONS AT SUSA 242 
 
 RESTORATION OF THE APADANA AT SUSA . . . .... 250 
 
 RESTORATION OF ASSYRIAN OR BABYLONIAN TOWER IN STAGES. . '.'' 271 
 
 BlRS-NlMROUD : THE RUINS OF BlT-ZlDA . . . . ... 273 
 
 THE KUSH, OR RUINS OF THE PALACE OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR, AT BABYLON 301 
 
 SOLITARY TAMARISK-TREB AMONG THE RUINS OF THE PALACE OF BABYLON 306 
 
 SARGON : BAS-RELIEF FROM HIS PALACE AT KHOBSABAD .... 320 
 VILLAGE OF NEBI-YUNUS AMONG THE RUINS OF NINEVEH, CONTAINING 
 
 THE SO-CALLED ToMB OF JONAH 323 
 
 SACRED TREE 330 
 
 ASSYRIAN VESSEL _ ;588 
 
 ASSYRIAN SWORDS AND FLY-FLAP 339 
 
 ASSYRIAN CHARIOT AND TIARA 390 
 
 KING PUNISHING CAPTIVES 393 
 
 SENNACHERIB ON HIS THRONE 394 
 
 ASSYRIAN HEAD-STALL 397 
 
 ASSYRIAN JEWELLERY 393 
 
 IMAGINARY RESTORATION OF ASSYRIAN PALACE .... . 402
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE HOLY LAND. 
 
 I. 
 
 HISTOEY OF THE DECIPHERMENT OF THE CUNEIFORM 
 INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 
 
 " I WILL speake of Babylon ; not to the intent to tell stories, 
 either of the huge ruines of the first Towne or the splendour of 
 the second, but because nothing doth impose anything in man's 
 nature more than example to shew the truth of God's word, whose 
 vengeances, threatened by His Prophets, are truely succeeded in all 
 those parts. 
 
 " All the ground on which Babylon was spred is left now deso- 
 late ; nothing standing in that Peninsula between the Euphrates 
 and the Tigris, but only part, and that a small part, of the greate 
 Tower, which God hath suffered to stand (if man may speake so 
 confidently of His greate impenetrable counsels), for an eternal 
 Testimony of His greate work in the confusion of Man's pride, and 
 that Arke of Nebuchadnezzar for as perpetual a memory of his 
 greate idolatry and condigne punishment. 
 
 " Ninive, that which God Himself calleth That greate Citie, hath 
 not one stone standing which may give memory of the being of 
 a towne. One English mile from it is a place called Mosul, a small 
 
 B
 
 2 NEW LIGHT ON THE SIDLE. 
 
 thing, rather to be a witnesse of the other's mightinesse and God's 
 judgment than of any fashion of Magnificence in it selfe." 
 
 SUCH were the impressions and reflections of Anthony 
 Sherley, a protege of the Earl of Essex in the reign 
 of Elizabeth, and the first Englishman who has given 
 us an account of the remains of Nineveh and Babylon. 
 He had been sent on a military adventure to Eer- 
 rara, to assist the Duke with a body of troops against 
 the attacking forces of the Pope ; but on his arrival in 
 Italy he had found the city already in the possession 
 of the Papal army. Sherley 's patron, not wishing 
 him to return to England marked with the stigma 
 of failure, now proposed that he should undertake a 
 journey to the East, with various objects, both public 
 and private : partly to help forward the newly-estab- 
 lished trade in Asiatic Turkey, and partly to lend 
 his aid to the scheme of "Indian Navigation, then 
 principiated in Holland and muttered of in England." 
 Accordingly, Sherley received large means and letters 
 of credit to the Company of Merchants at Aleppo, 
 started from Venice in May, 1599, and on arriving 
 in Syria joined a caravan which was about to make 
 its way through Mesopotamia to Persia. 
 
 Sherley's observations, in spite of certain topo- 
 graphical inaccuracies, represent fairly well the effect 
 produced, by the famous ruins which he describes, upon 
 the minds of travellers since his time ; who, on account 
 of their familiarity with the vivid pictures of the ancient 
 magnificence of Nineveh and Babylon, presented in the 
 richly coloured pages of the Hebrew prophets, have
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 3 
 
 always been deeply impressed by the contrast between 
 those departed glories and the present loneliness of the 
 spots on which these cities formerly stood. Before 
 Sherley, the valleys of the Euphrates and the Tigris had 
 been almost unknown to Europeans ; Western scholars 
 had to rely for their information on the works of ancient 
 authors, and on the reports of one or two adventurous 
 pilgrims. But a new era was now beginning; the 
 Portuguese were no longer to have the monopoly of 
 Eastern trade ; other nations were asserting their right 
 to navigate the Indian Ocean; and in A.D. 1595 the 
 Dutch had founded their East India Company : an 
 example which the English were not slow to follow. 
 The new outlet for commercial activity drew a large 
 number of traders to Asiatic Turkey, on their road to 
 more distant regions, and some of these were sufficiently 
 intelligent to make occasional notes on the antiquities 
 of the countries which they visited. Moreover, a new 
 intercourse was now established between the Persian 
 Court and the European Powers, and Shah Abbas 
 received at Ispahan the visits of many envoys from the 
 West. Finally, now that the road was opened, the 
 religious orders of Christendom were able to inaugurate 
 permanent missions in Mahometan countries, which had 
 hitherto, by their hostility, made the enterprise im- 
 possible. 
 
 An account of the decipherment of the Assyrian and 
 
 Babylonian inscriptions naturally begins with a history 
 
 of the sites of Nineveh and Babylon. It was through 
 
 the visits of travellers to these famous spots that the 
 
 B 2
 
 4 NEW LIGHT ON THE SWL1S. 
 
 inscriptions were first discovered ; and it was through 
 the overwhelming interest felt by historians and theo- 
 logians in all the remains of those ancient centres of 
 civilisation, whence the oppressors of the Israel itish nation 
 had come, that every effort was directed towards the 
 interpretation of these inscriptions ; while, on the other 
 hand, the previous knowledge which scholars possessed 
 of the history of these cities formed an important aid 
 towards the interpretation of all written monuments pro- 
 ceeding from the ruins. Let us see, then, what had been 
 the fate of Nineveh and Babylon when they ceased to 
 be the capitals of empires. 
 
 We are more than once assured by ancient writers that 
 the city of Nineveh was entirely demolished at the time 
 of her capture : that is to say, about B.C. 606. The 
 Medes, under their king, Cyaxares, and the Chaldeans, 
 under Nebuchadnezzar, whose father, Nabopolassar, was 
 then sitting on the throne of Babylon, had united their 
 forces, and engaged in a siege that lasted, some say, 
 seventeen years. The warlike and powerful monarch 
 Ashur-bani-pal, the hero of so many wars and hunting 
 expeditious, called Sardanapalus by the Greeks, had, in 
 B.C. 626, been succeeded by his son, Ashur-itil-ili, whose 
 name is known to us from inscriptions on bricks which 
 he had made for the construction of a temple at Calah, 
 from contracts, and from a letter which alludes to a lady 
 of his harem. This prince had in his turn been fol- 
 lowed by Sin-shar-ishkun, called Saracus in the Greek 
 history of Berosus, but often confused with his famous 
 predecessor, Sardanapalus, from whom he differed
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND UABYLON. 5 
 
 widely in character. Saracus became a bye-word among 
 the nations, on account of his effeminate disposition ; 
 entirely abstaining from war and tbe chase, the proper 
 occupations of his station, he shut himself up in his 
 
 SARIUNAPALUS IN HIS CHARIOT. 
 
 harem, and joined with his wives in the feminine 
 employment of spinning wool. To complete his female 
 character, he is said to have painted his face with white 
 lead and other cosmetics. Near Tarsus, in Cilicia, there 
 was a bas-relief, which remained there till the time 
 of Alexander, representing an Assyrian king, probably
 
 6 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Sennacherib, the conqueror of that country ; it seems to 
 have been one of the monuments so frequently found, in 
 which the monarch stands erect, with one hand raised 
 in an attitude of command, and an inscription relates 
 the exploits of his reign. This was explained by the 
 Greek ciceroni as the effigy of the last King of Assyria 
 in the act of expressing his views on the value of 
 
 life :- 
 
 " Stranger, go thy way, eat, drink, and be merry ; for the rest of 
 human life is not worth a snap of the fingers ! " 
 
 Such was the reputation of the last successor of 
 Sargon and Shalmaneser, the final ruler of the oldest 
 empire of the world. During the long siege he had sat 
 confidently in his palace, relying on the strength of the 
 ramparts, and, it is said, on a prophecy, handed down 
 from his ancestors, which ran : 
 
 " None shall take Nineveh by force until the river itself declares 
 war upon the city." 
 
 But the time was come for this prediction, which 
 probably embodied former experiences of the destructive 
 power of floods, to be fulfilled ; the Tigris, or the 
 Khosr, rose to an unusual height above the stone base- 
 ment of the walls, and broke down part of the mud 
 rampart faced with burnt brick that was erected upon 
 it, so that the Medes and Babylonians were able to 
 enter through the breach. In the words of the prophet 
 Nahum 
 
 " The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be 
 dissolved."
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 7 
 
 Saracus, in despair, collected his wives and much 
 of his treasure in one of the great courtyards of his 
 house, set fire to the whole, and perished in the 
 conflagration. The gold and silver that could be saved 
 from the fire was seized and sent away to Ecbatana, the 
 capital of Media; * so Nahum exclaims : 
 
 " Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold : for there is 
 none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture." 
 
 The conquerors now had their revenge for the long 
 resistance made by the ill-fated capital ; they rased the 
 whole city to the ground, and dispersed the inhabitants 
 among the neighbouring towns. f Zephaniah poetically 
 describes the desolation which now reigned on the scene 
 of so much vanished splendour : 
 
 " He will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy 
 Assyria ; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilder- 
 ness. 
 
 " And flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of 
 the nations : both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the 
 upper lintels of it ; their voice shall sing in the windows ; desolation 
 shall be in the thresholds : for he shall uncover the cedar work. 
 
 "This is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in 
 her heart, I am, and there is none beside me : how is she become a 
 desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in ! every one that passeth 
 by her shall hiss, and wag his hand."| 
 
 The rivers of Mesopotamia, swollen every spring and 
 autumn by the melted snows of the Armenian moun- 
 tains, and by the rains, are subject to annual overflows. 
 
 * Diodorus Siculus, ii. 28. 
 
 f Diodorus Siculus, ii. 28 ; Straho, rri. i. 
 
 I Zeph. ii. 13-15.
 
 8 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 The ancient monarchs, by a system of canalization, 
 averted the dangers arising from this phenomenon, and 
 turned the excess of waters to good account in fertilizing 
 the dry lands at a distance from the stream ; so that it 
 was an exceptional event, perhaps caused by the stop- 
 ping up of the canals, which led to the downfall of the 
 ramparts of Nineveh. But when the system of canals 
 fell into disorder, the districts near the rivers would be 
 periodically flooded ; and at the present day the Khosr, 
 a branch of the Tigris which flowed under the walls of 
 Nineveh, sometimes turns the plain into a swamp.* In 
 this way we must explain the almost total disappearance 
 of the vast city; the mud houses, dissolved by the 
 waters, soon return as earth to earth. Only the walls, 
 with their brick facing and their stone basement, can 
 still in part be traced ; and the gigantic palaces, raised 
 on immense platforms, and constructed of the finest 
 bricks, were not easily to be destroyed. They were 
 partly burnt by the king himself, and partly, no doubt, 
 thrown down by the battering-ram, so constantly used 
 in the sieges of that period, until they formed immense 
 heaps of ruined brick-work. Then they were buried 
 under the decomposing material of the massive clay 
 vaultings with which the chambers were roofed, and of 
 the unbaked bricks which were mixed with the better 
 material. In this way they came to form the huge 
 mounds or artificial hills which Amyntas f described 
 in his geographical work, and which the modern 
 
 * F. Jones : " Topography of Nineveh," p. 22. 
 f See Atheuaeus, xii. 39.
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 9 
 
 traveller still sees oil the eastern shore of the Tigris, 
 opposite Mosul. 
 
 It is to these circumstances that we owe the preser- 
 vation of the sculptures and inscribed tablets which, un- 
 seen und untouched from the downfall of Assyria to the 
 present time, have allowed us in these latter days to 
 
 SIEGE OF A TOWN BY THE ASSYRIANS. 
 
 (Bos-rt lief from Nineveh). 
 
 study the history of the ancient empire. The mounds 
 which cover the palaces of the Assyrian kings now 
 form three heaps of ruins overgrown with grass, which 
 break the outline of the city walls. Kouyunjik, or the 
 " Citadel of Nineveh," as it is often called, the largest of 
 the mounds, covers a space of one hundred acres, and 
 forms a mass of fourteen millions and a half of tons of 
 earth and brick-work ; the' second in size, Nebi Yunus,
 
 10 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 encumbers forty acres with its six millions of tons 
 of similar material. It has been computed that a 
 thousand men constantly at work would require a hun- 
 dred and twenty years to excavate the first, and fifty- 
 four to dig out the second of the two hills. The recent 
 excavations and tunnelling* at Kouyunjik, fruitful as 
 they have been in results, have made little impression 
 on the vast mass of ruin, and only prove how much 
 might be gained by a complete clearance. 
 
 Xenophon, with his ten thousand Greeks, retreated 
 along the banks of the Tigris, about two hundred 
 years after the triumph of the Medes and their allies, 
 and if, in his account of the country, he alludes to 
 Nineveh at all, it is as Mespila, a deserted city, around 
 which the remains of a wall of brick on a basement 
 of limestone could still be traced. But the inhabitants 
 of the neighbourhood never forgot the name of the 
 great metropolis ; and very soon a new Nineveh arose 
 on the ancient site. This probably took place before the 
 time of Alexander the Great, for when Darius Codo- 
 manus started with his army to meet the conqueror on 
 the march which ended in the fatal field of Arbela, he is 
 described as making his way towards Nineveh.* The 
 new town or fort must have been small and unim- 
 portant compared with its predecessor ; but modern 
 geographers, at any rate, should be grateful for its 
 erection, as it has preserved the ancient name and made 
 an exact identification possible. The generals of the 
 Emperor Claudius, in their Parthian campaign of 
 * Piodorus Siculus, xvii. 53,
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 11 
 
 A.D. 49, captured the "town of Ninus." Apollonius of 
 Tyana, who lived in the first century of our era, is said 
 to have visited Nineveh in the course of his journey 
 through the Parthian dominions; but as his life, written 
 by Philostratus at the beginning of the third century, 
 is an historical romance, it is dangerous to quote it as 
 evidence of anything except the belief of the author 
 that such a town existed at the time. In the wars 
 of Trajan (A.D. 116) we find Nineveh the chief town of 
 a province ; and though Lucian, who was himself born 
 on the banks of the Euphrates in the second century 
 after Christ, says that Nineveh, so powerful and famous 
 in her time, had now so completely disappeared that it 
 was almost impossible to tell where she had stood, he 
 is not, of course, speaking of the comparatively unim- 
 portant successor of the Assyrian capital. The state- 
 ment is made in a dialogue between Charon and 
 Hermes, in which the former, who has left his post 
 in the infernal regions of ferryman of the dead, in 
 order to pay a short visit to this upper world, which he 
 is curious to inspect, asks Hermes, the swift-footed 
 messenger of the gods, to act as his guide during a 
 rapid tour around the chief sights. 
 
 CHARON : " Shew me the famous cities, of which we hear so 
 much down below : the Nineveh of Sardanapalus, and Babylon, and 
 Mycenae, and Cleonre, and especially Troy. I remember to have 
 ferried over the Styx so many who came from this last place, that I 
 could not haul my boat upon the bank, or have it thoroughly dried, 
 for ten whole years." 
 
 HERMES : " Nineveh, O Ferryman, perished long ago, and there 
 is no trace of her remaining ; nor would you be able to tell where
 
 12 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 she stood. Babylon is yonder city with the tair towers and the 
 immense circuit of wall, but will soon have to be sought for like 
 Nineveh." * 
 
 In the Persian campaign of the Emperor Julian, in 
 A. D. 303, Nineveh appears as if she were still the 
 principal town of her province. Two hundred and sixty- 
 four years later, the name of the great capital of 
 Sennacherib and Sardanapalus again became famous, 
 because the plain in which she stood was the scene of 
 the glorious victory of the Emperor Heraclius over the 
 Persian monarch, Chosroes, in A.D. 627. The battle of 
 Nineveh was the last triumph of the Roman Empire on 
 the banks of the Tigris ; a few years later, Assyria was 
 included in the rapidly growing dominions of the Arab 
 tribes, who had been driven by the fervour of their new 
 faith to leave their native deserts and conquer the world. 
 
 But, meanwhile, the existence and comparative im- 
 portance of the second Nineveh is proved by the choice 
 of her as the see of a Christian bishop, subject to the 
 Metropolitan of Adiabene. Isaac, Bishop of Nineveh, 
 was the author of various theological works in the 
 sixth century ; and many others who held this see 
 are known in the annals of the Syrian Church down 
 to the ninth century, when the bishopric seems to have 
 been abolished. There were several monasteries in this 
 district during the Middle Ages, especially those of 
 the Prophet Jonah, of Saint Matthew, and of Rabban 
 Hormuzd. At the end of the twelfth century we hear 
 of a Syrian primate, John of Sarug, who, in the course 
 
 * Luciau, Cbaron, 23,
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 13 
 
 of a visit to Nineveh, passed the night on the roof 
 of the great church called Beth Cudida, fell off it in his 
 sleep, and was killed. The next century is distinguished 
 in the annals of the Oriental Churches and of Syriac 
 literature by the life and works of Bar-Hebra3us, the 
 Primate of the East, who, in the course of his pastoral 
 journeys, frequently visited Nineveh and the monasteries 
 in its neighbourhood. Soon after his time the town 
 sank into the position of a small village, through the 
 ravages of the Kurds and the inroad of the Tartars, who 
 destroyed her neighbour, Mosul, burnt the monasteries, 
 and slew the Christian inhabitants. 
 
 Besides the testimonies to the existence of Nineveh 
 which come to us from the Christians of the East, 
 we must not forget those of the Mahometans. The 
 fort of Ninawi, opposite Mosul, is spoken of in the 
 account of the first campaigns of the Arabs by Beladhuri. 
 The geographers all speak of the ancient capital of 
 Assyria as having existed on this spot ; among them, 
 Abtilfeda is pre-eminent, because his works have long 
 been widely known in Europe, and have led to the 
 identification of many Eastern sites. The city of Mosul, 
 on the western bank of the Tigris, however, had risen, 
 after the Arab conquest, to such size and prosperity 
 that it had superseded its ancient neighbour, and was 
 itself sometimes mistaken for Nineveh. A still more 
 common error, as we shall see later in the chapter, was 
 that which placed Nineveh, in the opinion of some of 
 the natives, at Eski-Mosul, many miles higher up the 
 river.
 
 14 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Let us now leave the capital of Assyria, and see 
 what had been the fate of Babylon since the southern 
 city had ceased, in her turn, to be the metropolis of an 
 empire. Babylon did not meet with the same treat- 
 ment that she had dealt to her northern rival. Instead 
 of being rased to the ground, she found herself almost 
 intact, and still the chief town of a province. We 
 do not know, indeed, what were the immediate causes 
 which led to the entry of Cyrus into Babylon ; possibly, 
 if we may rely upon certain indications in two obscure 
 documents written on clay in the cuneiform character, 
 the Persian was invited by the discontented inhabitants 
 to release them from their native sovereign, Nabonidus, 
 who was not of royal descent, but had been raised to the 
 throne by a conspiracy. 
 
 A passage on a clay cylinder is thus translated : 
 
 " As a friend and helper did Cyrus enter into Babylon ; his far- 
 spreading armies, which, like the waters of the river, cannot be 
 numbered, extended themselves at his side. Without resistance or 
 fighting did the god Merodach bring him into Babylon, his city. He 
 spared the city ; Merodach delivered Nabonidus into his hand. 
 The inhabitants of Babylon, the great men and the chief priests 
 bowed down before him ; they kissed his feet ; they rejoiced that he 
 had gained the kingdom." 
 
 By whatever means the Persians were led to take 
 possession of Babylon, it is certain that after the defeat 
 of Nabonidus and the death of his son, Belshazzar, who 
 was acting as regent, very little injury was done to the 
 city. The walls were, perhaps, lowered ; but it was the 
 policy of Cyrus to conciliate the inhabitants by leaving 
 their houses and their temples untouched ; by professing
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 15 
 
 himself the fervent worshipper of the Babylonian gods ; 
 and by restoring 1 to their temples the images which the 
 late king for what reason we know not had taken 
 away. 
 
 After the death of Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, 
 Darius, the son of Hystaspes, a member of a junior 
 branch of the royal house, was set upon the throne by a 
 conspiracy. A general rebellion took place in various 
 quarters of the empire ; the false Smerdis had been slain 
 in Persia itself; but at Babylon, an impostor, calling 
 himself Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabonidus, headed 
 the insurrection of his countrymen. Darius, however, 
 was victorious on the banks of the Euphrates, as he was 
 at Susa and in Media ; the great city was taken after a 
 long siege, and severely punished for her attempt to 
 free herself from the foreign yoke. The ruin of 
 Babylon, in fact, may be said to date from the siege of 
 Darius. He destroyed part of the walls perhaps the 
 whole of the outer wall which Nebuchadnezzar had 
 built he carried off the gates, and he put to death 
 three thousand of the chief men. It is true that 
 Babylon still remained one of the chief towns of the 
 empire, and shared with Persepolis, Ecbatana. and Susa 
 the honour of entertaining the Persian Court during a 
 part of the year ; but the days of her good fortune were 
 over, and the successor of Darius carried on the work of 
 demolition begun by his father. Xerxes, forgetting the 
 policy of conciliation which had contributed so much to 
 the success of Cyrus, and regardless of the religious 
 feelings of his Chaldsean subjects, destroyed many, if
 
 16 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 not all, of the temples in the city, and even demolished 
 the great Temple of Bel itself : that immense structure 
 which it had been the pride of the native monarchs to 
 maintain. It must be put down to his credit, indeed, 
 that he did not sequestrate the revenues settled upon 
 this sanctuary by the ancient sovereigns. The Chaldaean 
 priests continued to enjoy the rich income of their 
 predecessors, although it could no longer be put to 
 its proper use of supporting the worship of the god and 
 keeping his shrine in repair. The Temple of Bel was 
 henceforward nothing more than a vast heap of ruins, 
 and soon became the shapeless mound of bricks and 
 earth which, under the name of Babil or of Mujelibah, 
 the Overthrown, remains the wonder of travellers to the 
 present day. 
 
 We have now come to the time when Herodotus, 
 if we are to believe his own words, visited Babylon ; 
 but the description of the Greek historian would 
 seem rather to apply to the city as it had been in 
 the days of its greatness than as he actually saw it. He 
 describes the walls as if they were still standing ; 
 though, later in his work, he himself confesses that 
 Darius had demolished them and carried off their gates. 
 From his account of the great temple, too, we should 
 suppose that it was still perfect, and its worship was 
 still carried on; but yet he admits that Xerxes had 
 carried off the golden statue of the god which stood 
 in the outer enclosure, and had slain the priest who 
 attempted to defend it. Perhaps Professor Sayce is 
 right, and Herodotus had not himself visited the banks
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 17 
 
 of the Euphrates ; or his account of the temple must be 
 taken as applying to the second great sanctuary at 
 Borsippa, according to the theory of M. Oppert. 
 
 As we have seen, however, the Persian kings still 
 looked upon the city, which they had done so much 
 to injure, as their spring head-quarters ; it was still the 
 capital of a territory from which they derived a third of 
 their whole revenue. Artaxerxes Mnemon was at Baby- 
 lon when his brother Cyrus advanced against him with 
 his army of Asiatic rebels and Greek mercenaries ; and 
 it was thither that this monarch retired, after his 
 victory of Cunaxa, to celebrate his triumph, and to 
 reward the general, Tissaphernes, with the hand of his 
 daughter. It was at Babylon that Artaxerxes Ochus 
 assembled his troops for his war against the Phrenicians, 
 the Cypriotes, and the Egyptians, and thither that he 
 returned with his army and his spoils. At Babylon, 
 again, Darius Codomannus, the last of his line, col- 
 lected his forces to repel the advance of Alexander the 
 Great ; and to Bab} r lon he returned after his defeat 
 at Issus. Finally, it was from Babylon that this ill- 
 fated monarch started on his march through Mesopo- 
 tamia, which ended in the decisive battle of Arbela and 
 the fall of the Persian dynasty. The Babylonians were 
 always ready for a change of government, and they 
 welcomed Alexander, after the overthrow of Darius, 
 as formerly they had welcomed Cyrus. 
 
 " The greater part of the citizens stood on the walls, eager to see 
 the new sovereign ; many went out to meet him. Bagophanes, the 
 keeper of the citadel and of the royal treasury, was the first to go 
 
 C
 
 18 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 forth ; he had caused the road to be strewn with flowers and gar- 
 lands, and had arranged a number of silver altars at intervals on 
 each side of the way ; and upon these incense and all other scented 
 gums were burning. As presents, he took out with him herds of 
 sheep and horses, besides lions and leopards, which were carried 
 in their cages. Then came the Magi, chanting ancient hymns to 
 their peculiar melodies ; next went the ChahUean priests and the 
 Babylonian singers and musicians, with their native harps. Last 
 rode the Babylonian horsemen, who, with their gorgeous robes and 
 the rich trappings of their steeds, made a display of effeminate 
 luxury rather than of military splendour." * 
 
 If Alexander, now master of Asia, had lived to carry 
 out his plans, Babylon would again have become the 
 capital of an empire. On his return from India, the 
 Macedonian conqueror was warned by the Babylonian 
 priests that lie must not enter their city, for an oracle of 
 the god Bel had announced that he would incur great 
 danger by doing so. 
 
 "But there was something which seemed suspicious to Alexander 
 in the conduct of the Chalda-an priests, and made him think that it 
 was not so much on account of an oracle as for their own profit that 
 they wished to prevent him from entering. For the Temple of Bel, stand- 
 ing in the midst of Babylon, was the greatest of all their sanctuaries, 
 and was built of baked bricks cemented with bitumen. This temple, as 
 well as the others, had been demolished by Xerxes when he i-eturned 
 from Greece ; but Alexander had it in his mind to rebuild it, either 
 on the old foundations or, as some say, on a larger scale than before ; 
 and for this reason [when he first took possession of the city] he 
 ordered the natives to clear away the mass of ruins; but while 
 he was absent, those to whom the work had been entrusted carried 
 it on without energy, so that when he returned he intended to set his 
 whole army to work upon the task. Now, the god Bel possessed 
 much land, with which he had been endowed by the Assyrian kings, 
 and much gold, which allowed the temple to be kept in repair and 
 
 * Quiutus Curtius, v. 7.
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 19 
 
 sacrifices to be offered to the god ; but since the destruction of the 
 temple, the Chaldaean priests had enjoyed the revenues of the god, 
 because there was no other object upon which the balance of money 
 could be expended. For this reason Alexander suspected that they 
 did not wish him to enter the city, because the temple would, in that 
 case, soon be restored, and they would lose the advantage of its 
 revenues." * 
 
 The fears of the crafty priests were not realised ; a 
 few days later, and the conqueror had expired. The 
 great temple, therefore, must soon have become a mere 
 mound, sucK as that which travellers have long re- 
 marked on the east bank of the Euphrates, a little 
 to the north-east of the modern Ilillah. This artificial 
 hill, which has specially retained the name of Babil, 
 or Babylon, .has for many years been identified as 
 the remains of the immense structure which Alexander 
 wished to restore, the sanctuary named Bit-Saggil by the 
 ancient Babylonians, which, with the other great temple 
 of Bit-Zida, at Borsippa, it had been the pride of the 
 native monarchs to maintain and keep in. repair. The 
 death of Alexander was followed by a deadly struggle 
 among his generals, who, under the nominal supremacy 
 of his imbecile half-brother, or his infant son, made a 
 partition of his empire. Babylonia fell to the share of 
 Seleucus, who for some years had to carry on wars with 
 Antigonus and his allies, and for a time fled to Egypt, 
 and left the city in the possession of his rival. The 
 city of Babylon suffered severely during this period ; 
 and when Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, advanced to 
 lay siege to the place, he found the whole space within 
 
 * Arrian, Anab., vii. 16. 
 
 c 2
 
 20 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the walls deserted, except the citadel. When Seleucus, 
 in B.C. 312, was recognised as undisputed master of 
 Babylonia and Syria, he determined to strengthen his 
 position by abolishing the memory of former dynasties, 
 and he dealt a deadly blow to the ancient metropolis 
 by founding on the Tigris a new city, which he named 
 Seleucia, after himself, and to which he induced the 
 inhabitants of Babylon to migrate, with the object 
 of exhausting the former capital. The Macedonian 
 king, however, allowed part of the population to remain 
 in their ancient seat, and especially gave permission to 
 the priests to continue to dwell near their ruined 
 temples. But though Babylon was thus drained of its 
 inhabitants, and fell from its former greatness, the pro- 
 vince continued to be called Babylonia, and the people 
 Babylonians ; thus we hear of a Greek philosopher, 
 Diogenes the Babylonian, who lived at Seleucia. The 
 new capital itself, too so vivid was the memory of the 
 ancient name sometimes received the appellation of 
 Babylon ; and in later times, when the Parthians made 
 Ctesiphon their chief town, this was often in its turn 
 named Babylon, at least by the Greeks and Romans ; 
 and many centuries after, when the Mahometans de- 
 stroyed Ctesiphon and founded Bagdad, this latest 
 metropolis of Mesopotamia was constantly spoken of in 
 the West under the name of the unforgotten city of 
 Nebuchadnezzar. Under the Roman Empire, the name 
 of Babylon was generally well known ; not only to 
 scholars who had read of the vast and wealthy city, the 
 home of the earliest astronomers, whither some of the
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 1>1 
 
 greatest philosophers had resorted for study, which 
 alone exhibited in its walls and hanging-gardens two 
 out of the seven wonders of the world ; but to men of all 
 sorts and conditions. This was for two reasons : firstly, 
 because all parts of the empire were invaded by a host 
 of Chaldsean astrologers, fortune-tellers, and conjurers, 
 able to foretell the hour of a man's death or to charm 
 away his diseases ; secondly, because there was a great 
 demand for Babylonian embroidered stuffs, which were 
 employed for hangings and couch coverings. The Em- 
 peror Nero gave 3,360 for a set of the latter. The 
 embroideries of Babylonia were only rivalled by the 
 damasks of Egypt ; hence Martial wrote the following 
 epigram to accompany a present of some bedchamber 
 hangings woven with designs in many-coloured threads : 
 
 " This is a gift which comes to you from the land of Memphis ; 
 now you see the needle of the Babylonian embroiderer outdone by 
 the comb of the weaver on the Nile." * 
 
 After the Macedonian conquest of Babylonia, the 
 native embroiderers, under the influence of the invaders, 
 had sometimes introduced Greek subjects into their 
 designs. 
 
 " The chamber of Habrocomes and Anthia was thus arranged : 
 the golden bed was overlaid with scarlet coverlets, and above the bed 
 was an embroidered Babylonian canopy. On one side of the latter 
 were depicted Loves in attendance upon Aphrodite, some riding 
 upon sparrows, some weaving garlands, some bringing flowers. On 
 the other side was Ares, unarmed and decked for his wedding with 
 Aphrodite ; he was crowned with roses, and wearing a tunic ; Eros 
 was leading him, holding in his hand a burning torch." f 
 
 * Martial, xiv. 150. f Xeuophou, Ephesiaca, i,
 
 22 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Meanwhile, although Seleucia was usurping her 
 place, and sometimes her name, the original Babylon 
 was, as we have seen, still partly inhabited ; and 
 Antiochus Soter (B.C. 281-202), the son and successor 
 of Seleucus, made some pretence of restoring the great 
 temple of the city and that of its suburb, Borsippa. 
 Perhaps he actually made some repairs in the latter, 
 which was probably less injured than the other shrine 
 which Alexander had wished to re-build ; in any case, a 
 clay cylinder of his reign has been found among the 
 ruins at Birs Nimroud, in which he speaks of causing 
 bricks to be made and of laying the foundations. The 
 inscription ends thus : 
 
 " May I conquer the lands from the rising to the setting of the 
 :sun ; may I bring their tribute for the completion of Bit-Saggil and 
 Bit-Zida. O Nebo, princely son, when thou enterest into Bit-Zida, 
 the true temple, may a blessing for Antiochus, the king of many 
 countries, for Seleucus the king, his son, and for Stratonice, his wife, 
 the queen, be in thy mouth !" 
 
 It was in this reign that Berosus, a priest of Bel, 
 probably attached to the former of the two ruined 
 temples mentioned above, translated into Greek, from 
 the clay tablets and cylinders inscribed with cuneiform 
 characters, a history of Babylon from the earliest times 
 to his own day, and this he dedicated to Antiochus 
 Soter. Unfortunately, the work is lost, and only 
 known to us from the scanty quotations given by 
 Josephus, Eusebius, Georgius Syncellus, and other 
 writers. 
 
 In B.C. 240 Babylonia fell under new masters, and
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 23 
 
 the Macedonian dynasty was forced to make way for 
 the Parthians. These invaders, under their king, 
 Arsaces, continued to regard Seleucia as the capital, but 
 chose for the residence of the Court and army a small 
 suburh on the opposite, or eastern, bank of the Tigris, 
 named Ctesiphon. That Babylon was still peopled 
 under the new rulers, we have proof in the rebellion in 
 which she took part about B.C. 127, for which she was 
 severely chastised by the Parthian general, Himerus, 
 who sold most of the inhabitants into slavery, burnt 
 the market-place and the temples that were still stand- 
 ing, and destroyed all that was left of the principal 
 buildings. Nothing now remained but a ruined ram- 
 part, enclosing a few scattered hamlets. The vast city 
 had almost disappeared. 
 
 Besides the political causes of her disappearance, 
 there were also physical causes at work. The district of 
 Babylon is even more exposed to the dissolving action 
 of the floods than Nineveh. The annual rising of the 
 Euphrates had been kept in check under the native 
 sovereigns by an elaborate network of canals, but these 
 required constant care to prevent them from being 
 choked up by the accumulation of the soft alluvial soil 
 at their mouths. One of the chief functions of the 
 ancient kings had been to preserve the free circulation 
 of the waters, and thus to turn Babylonia from a marsh 
 into a fertile plain covered with prosperous cities ; and 
 though the Persians neglected this duty, Alexander had 
 at once given his attention to the restoration of the 
 canals, and superintended in person the work upon that
 
 24 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 called Pallacopas, or Pallacottas,* by the Greeks, often 
 mentioned in commercial documents of the Babylonians 
 as the river PcdkatJcatum. Under the Parthians this 
 system of drainage was almost entirely forgotten ; a 
 few of the chief canals, indeed, exist to the present day, 
 but the annual floods soon began again their work 
 of destruction. The mud houses, therefore, of which 
 the vast city was chiefly composed, were soon dissolved. 
 The outer walls, stripped of their brick facing, became 
 mere ramparts of earth or were washed away. Little 
 was left except the immense mounds formed by ruined 
 temples and palaces. We have seen what the Temple of 
 Bit-Saggil became after its destruction by Xerxes ; the 
 mound of Babil, thought to be identical with it, now 
 forms a mass of crumbling brick- work about two hun- 
 dred yards long and fifty yards high. To the south 
 of this lies the Kasr, or palace, a somewhat smaller 
 ruin, in which walls of the finest brick -work, formerly 
 faced with enamelled tiles, are to be found. South 
 of this, again, is the mound of Tell-Amran, identified 
 by M. Oppert with the hanging-gardens of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar. There are also traces of the wall of the citadel, 
 enclosing a space of about 3f square miles, and there 
 are vestiges of the embankment along the river side. 
 On the other bank of the river, to the south of Hillah, 
 is the ruin of Birs Nimroud, a mass of broken brick- 
 work more than 700 yards in circumference at the 
 base, now known to represent the temple of Bit- 
 Zida, in the suburb of Borsippa, part of the vast 
 
 * Appian, De bellis civilibus, ii. 153,
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 
 
 25 
 
 city which Nebuchadnezzar enclosed with two lofty 
 walls, and which must have been seven times as large 
 as Paris. 
 
 That Babylon must have fallen into a state not very 
 different from this before the beginning of our era there 
 
 EUPHRATES AND PLAIN OF BABYLON, UUIN OF BIKS NIMROUD IN DISTANCE. 
 
 is sufficient evidence. In the reign of Augustus, it 
 is said of her that 
 
 " The great city has become a great desert," * 
 
 although there were still some inhabitants on the 
 desolate site. It seems that the Jews especially clung 
 to the scene of their captivity ; a plague, in the time of 
 
 * Strabo, xvi. 1.
 
 26 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Caligula, drove them from the hamlets of Babylon to 
 Seleucia, but they appear to have returned, and to have 
 dwelt on the spot far into the Mahometan period. The 
 Emperor Trajan, the only Eoman general whose con- 
 quest of Babylonia was more than momentary, after 
 capturing the Parthian capitals of Seleucia and Ctesi- 
 phon, and mastering their whole territory down to the 
 Persian Gulf, was drawn by a sentimental interest to 
 visit the remains of Babylon, the scene of Alexander's 
 death and of so much departed magnificence. The 
 imperial visitor was able to offer sacrifice in the house 
 (no doubt a wreck) in which the Macedonian conqueror, 
 the object of his admiration and the model of his 
 conduct, had breathed his last; but he found nothing 
 worthy of the fame of Babylon, only 
 
 " Mounds, and legends, and ruins." * 
 
 After Trajan, Babylonia was invaded by the Em- 
 perors Lucius Verus (A.D. 162), who took and de- 
 stroyed Seleucia; Septimius Severus (A.D. 201), who 
 burnt Ctesiphon ; and Carus (A.D. 283), who captured 
 the latter city, now restored by the new Sassanian 
 dynasty, which had overthrown the Parthians in A.D. 
 227. But we do not hear of the ancient city of Babylon 
 in any of these campaigns. In A.D. 303 Julian the 
 Apostate advanced to the walls of Ctesiphon, in the 
 course of the war which ended in his death. By 
 this time the Sassanian kings of Persia had turned 
 the deserted citadel of Babylon to a new use, for they 
 
 * Dio Cassius, Ixviii. 30.
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 27 
 
 had restored the ramparts to a sufficient height to 
 prevent the egress of wild beasts, and had turned 
 the enclosure into a park, where they enjoyed their 
 favourite amusement of hunting. 
 
 " As the Emperor Julian was marching forward through Babylonia, 
 he passed other unimportant fortresses, and came at last to a walled 
 enclosure, which the natives pointed out as a royal hunting-ground. 
 It was a low rampart, enclosing a wide space planted with trees 
 of every sort, in which all kinds of beasts were shut up ; they were 
 supplied with food by keepers, and gave the king the opportunity 
 of hunting whenever he felt inclined. When Julian saw this, he 
 caused a large part of the wall to be overthrown, and as the beasts 
 escaped they were shot down by his soldiers." * 
 
 Without pausing to comment on the unfair way in 
 which the Roman Emperor thus spoiled his enemy's 
 sport, we proceed to remark that it was a park of 
 this sort that the site of Babylon had become under 
 the Sassanian kings : so at least Saint Jerome, at the 
 beginning of the fifth century, assures us : 
 
 "Herodotus and many others who. have written histories in 
 Greek tell us that Babylon was a most powerful city, built square 
 in the midst of a plain, and measuring sixty-four miles in circum- 
 ference. The citadel or Capitol of that city is the same as the tower 
 which was built after the Flood, and is said to have reached the 
 height of four miles, and to have been built in the form of a 
 pyramid. They tell of marble temples in that city, of golden statues, 
 of streets glittering with gold and silver, and many other things 
 which almost seem incredible. I have mentioned all these matters 
 that I may show that before the wrath of God all power is as dust, 
 and is compared to cinders and ashes. If it was possible for us 
 to travel among a barbarous nation, and to see the last traces of this 
 
 * Zosimus, iii. 23.
 
 28 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 city, we should but behold the possession of the hedgehog,* and 
 pools of water, and the true fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah : 
 ' I will sweep it with a besom of destruction.' For except the walls 
 of baked bricks, which were restored many years ago for the purpose 
 of enclosing wild beasts, the whole space in the midst is a solitude. 
 
 " I was informed by a certain Elamite brother, who came from 
 those regions, and now leads the life of a monk at Jerusalem, that 
 there is a royal hunting ground at Babylon, and that wild game of 
 every kind is contained within the circuit of its walls.'' f 
 
 The Assyrian, Median, and AcLscmenian monarchs 
 had always made hunting their chief occupation alter- 
 nately with war, and the Sassanian kings followed their 
 example. Of the hunting expeditions of this period 
 we have vivid pictures in the beautiful Sassanian bas- 
 reliefs still existing at Tak-i-Bostan. 
 
 It was the universal belief of the ecclesiastical 
 writers of the fifth and sixth centuries that Babylon 
 had ceased to be ; and Synesius, for instance, says that 
 a visitor would not be aware that such a city had 
 existed. This testimony is, however, no more than 
 hearsay, and so need not be more fully quoted. 
 
 When the Arabs, in the first half of the seventh 
 century, overthrew the Sassanian kings, and took pos- 
 session of Babylonia, they seem to have found few 
 inhabitants on the site of the ancient capital, although 
 the Jews still lived in the hamlets of the neighbour- 
 hood. But the Mahometans retained the name of 
 District of Babil as the designation of the spot on 
 which Hillah was afterwards built, in A.D. 1100 ; and 
 
 * So the Septuagint and Vulgate render the word translated " bittern" 
 by the Authorised Version. 
 
 f S. Jerome : In Isaiam, ch. xiii. 20 and xiv. 22.
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 29 
 
 the name of Babil was. as we have already seen, 
 more particularly preserved for the huge mound which 
 has recently been recognised as the ruin of Bit-Saggil, 
 called the Temple or Tomb of Belus by the Greeks. 
 The Arabs destroj^ed Ctesiphon, and founded, in A.D. 
 760, the city of Bagdad, which now, as inheriting 
 the rank of the former capitals, earned in the West the 
 title of the New Babylon. 
 
 Let us now turn to Europe, and see what has been 
 the knowledge of these ancient sites from the decay of 
 learning which followed the irruption of the Goths 
 up to the present day. 
 
 Conspicuous among the few travellers who ventured 
 into the hostile regions of the East stands Benjamin, 
 a Jewish merchant of Tudela, in Northern Spain, who 
 made a journey through foreign countries about A.D. 
 1160, to visit the synagogues of his people, especially at 
 Jerusalem, the holy city of his nation, and at Bagdad, 
 the seat of its last princes. In the preceding century 
 the ancient Jewish community of Babylon, the " Holy 
 Synagogue of Babel," had left the hamlets on the site 
 of the great city, and had settled in the Mahometan 
 capital. Benjamin passed through Mosul, which, he 
 says, is united by a bridge with the ancient Nineveh, 
 and, although the latter lay in ruins, he saw some 
 small towns upon its site ; one of these was, of course, 
 the seat of the Christian bishopric to which reference 
 has already been made. At a later point in his 
 narrative the traveller speaks of the extensive ruins of 
 Babylon, three days' journey beyond Bagdad ; they
 
 30 
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 included the palace of Nebuchadnezzar that is to say, 
 probably the mound of Babil and the ruin of Birs 
 Nimroud, which he supposes, in accordance with the 
 Jewish tradition, to be the Tower of Babel. His 
 
 SITE OF NINEVEH. 
 
 account of the latter, which shows that it was in a state 
 of better preservation than at present, may perhaps be 
 quoted once more : 
 
 " The tower built by the dispersed generation is four miles from 
 Hillah. It is constructed of bricks called al-ajur " [this is the old 
 Babylonian word for a baked brick] ; " the base measures two miles,
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 31 
 
 the breadth 240 yards, and the height about 100 reeds " [a measure of 
 six cubits]. "A spiral passage, built into the tower (from ten to 
 twelve yards), leads up to the summit, from which there is a 
 prospect of twenty miles, the country being one wide plain, and 
 quite level. The heavenly tire which struck the tower split it to 
 its very foundation." 
 
 Shortly after the death of Benjamin, another Jew, 
 the Rabbi Pethachiah of Ratisbon, also made a pil- 
 grimage to the East for the purpose of visiting the 
 scattered congregations of his people. It must always 
 be borne in mind that these early travellers never 
 journeyed for a purely scientific purpose; they went 
 as traders or pilgrims, or political envoys or missionaries, 
 and the information they give us of historical or 
 geographical interest is always composed of notes, more 
 or less scanty, made by the way. The narrative of 
 Pethachiah has only come down to us in the form of an 
 abridgment made by one of his disciples. 
 
 "From Nisibis, after five days' journey, Rabbi Pethachiah arrived 
 at the new Nineveh on the Tigris. He crossed the river, and, after 
 having travelled for three days, he arrived at the ancient Nineveh, 
 which is now ruined. The soil in the neighbourhood is like pitch, 
 and the principal place of Nineveh, which was formerly a forest, has 
 been overthrown like Sodom, so that neither herbs nor bushes are 
 to be found there ; and the new Nineveh lies upon the opposite 
 bank. 
 
 " From Bagdad the Rabbi Pethachiah went in two days to 
 the extremity of ancient Babylon. The palace of Nebuchadnezzar 
 the wicked is entirely ruined. Near its old walls you see a column, 
 and the house of Daniel ; you see also the stone on which he 
 used to sit, and the marble on which he rested his feet ; above is the 
 stone on which was placed the book that he wrote. 
 
 " On his way to the tomb of Ezechiel, Pethachiah passed by the 
 Tower of the dispersed generation. It is falling into decay, and
 
 32 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 forms a lofty mound, an eternal ruin ; but the town which was in its 
 neighbourhood has been demolished." 
 
 Bagdad is almost always named Babylon by the 
 Babbi ; but, in spite of the inaccuracies of their narra- 
 tives, the two Israelites stand alone among the travellers 
 of their age. It is disappointing, after their accounts, 
 to find that Marco Polo, a hundred years later, visited 
 Mosul and Bagdad without leaving any notice of the 
 historical sites lying near these towns, in his delightful 
 Book concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the 
 East. Sir John Mandeville made a pilgrimage to 
 Palestine between A.D. 1322 and 1356, but he did not 
 visit Mesopotamia. His account of that region is 
 borrowed from ancient writers and from other travellers 
 of his period. The Friar Odericus wrote an itinerary in 
 A.D. 1330, in which he related his adventures on the 
 way to Tartary, but beyond a mention of the Tower of 
 Babel, which he passed, he gives us no particulars of 
 the kind that we require. 
 
 Early in the fifteenth century a member of the 
 noble family of Conti travelled from Venice to Arabia, 
 Chalda?a, and India for the purpose of trade ; he 
 returned in A.D. 1444. During his sojourn in 
 Mahometan countries he had renounced Christianity in 
 order to save his life, which was in danger from his 
 fanatical companions ; and on his return to Italy 
 he sought absolution from Pope Eugenius IV. This 
 pontiff, well known for his zeal for learning, imposed 
 upon the traveller the novel penance of composing and 
 dictating a full and accurate account of his journeys,
 
 THE RUIN OP NINEVEH AND BABYLON. - 33 
 
 and this was written down in Latin by his Florentine 
 secretary, Poggio. The interest which it aroused at 
 the time is proved by the Portuguese translation, which 
 King Manoel I. caused to be made in A.D. 1500 for 
 the instruction of his navigators, who had recently made 
 their way round the Cape, and were beginning to 
 explore the coasts of Asia. Conti, however, fell into 
 the common mistake made by European travellers in the 
 Middle Ages, and occasionally even down to the last 
 century, of supposing that Bagdad stood on the site 
 of the ancient Babylon, by which name they often 
 
 call the Mahometan capital. His words are : 
 
 *. 
 
 " On the river Euphrates (sic) stands a part of the most noble 
 and ancient city of Babylon, fourteen miles in circuit, the inhabi- 
 tants of which at present call it Bagdad. The river runs through 
 the middle of it, spanned by a strong bridge of fourteen arches, 
 which unites the two halves of the city. Many remains and 
 foundations of ancient buildings are still to be seen." 
 
 The exact state of the information which the scholars 
 of Western Europe possessed at the end of the sixteenth 
 century is shown by the learned and celebrated Geo- 
 graphical Treasury of Ortelius, of Antwerp, published 
 in A.D. 1596. In this work it is simply stated that 
 certain writers identified Nineveh with Mosul ; whether 
 this is correct or not the geographer is unable to decide ; 
 Mosul was also identified with Seleucia by some. Most 
 of the authorities quoted by Ortelius place the modern 
 Bagdad, or Baldach, as it was often called, upon the 
 site of ancient Babylon ; Benjamin of Tudela being 
 the only exception. It was the easier for Ortelius 
 D
 
 34 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE 
 
 to accept this identification because, so confusing- were 
 the scanty reports of mediaeval travellers, he believes, 
 like Conti, that Bag-dad was upon the Euphrates, and 
 there he sets it in his map. 
 
 We have now come to the period when travellers in 
 the East began to multiply, and their reports became 
 fuller and more intelligent. We shall find, however, 
 a certain vagueness in their opinions about the sites 
 of Nineveh and Babylon. The first they place near 
 Mosul, but whether it lay on the eastern bank, opposite 
 the modern town, or some miles higher up the river, at 
 Eski- Mosul, they are often at a loss to say. Babylon is 
 generally placed by them between Felujah, where the 
 traveller leaves the Euphrates on his way to Bagdad, 
 and the latter city, which they often supposed to stand 
 on the same ground as part of the ancient capital ; the 
 ruin of Akerkuf, or Nimrod's Tower, which is passed on 
 the road, was generally accepted as the Tower of Babel. 
 
 One of the most interesting documents in Hak- 
 luyt's collection of voyages and travels, published in 
 1599, is a translation from the Italian of the narrative 
 of Cesare de' Federici, or, as he is here called, Caesar 
 Frederike, a merchant of Venice, who started on a 
 journey to the East in 1563. He is the first who gives 
 us an account of the Tower of Akerkuf to which 
 allusion has just been made, and which has recently 
 been proved, by inscriptions in cuneiform characters, to 
 have been part of the ancient Babylonian town of Dur- 
 Kurigalzu. It is, indeed, very far from Borsippa, where 
 the Tower of Babel actually was.
 
 AXBRKUF, OR NIMROD'S TOWER. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Leonhardt Rauwolf was a physician of Augsburg, 
 who travelled to the East in 1573, for the purpose 
 of collecting medical herbs. At Aleppo he disguised 
 himself in Oriental garments, and started with a caravan 
 for Bagdad. At Felujah, on the Euphrates, he saw 
 mounds which, according to the common error which 
 has already been mentioned, he supposed to be the 
 remains of Babylon ; and he gives a description of 
 Akerkuf, under the belief that he had there beheld 
 the scene of the confusion of tongues. His account ol 
 Nineveh is more correct : 
 
 " At Mosul and in the neighbourhood lay in ancient times the 
 mighty city of Nineveh. ... In our days, except the fortress 
 which stands on a hill on the opposite side of the river, and certain 
 small hamlets which, according to the inhabitants, formed part of the 
 ancient city, no ruins, such as those of Babylon, are still remaining." 
 
 The fortress on the hill is, of course, Kouyunjik, 
 which, as we now know, covers the ruined palace of 
 Sennacherib and his successors. 
 
 In 1583 there was a band of English traders at 
 Bagdad and Bassorah. They were preparing the way 
 for the foundation of the East India Company, and 
 some of their letters were published in consequence 
 of the general interest felt in the new Eastern trade. 
 In one of these, John Eldred, not unmindful of the 
 historical ground on which he stood, speaks of Bagdad 
 as identical with the ancient city of Babylon. It was 
 soon after this time that Anthony Sherley, whose 
 observations are placed at the beginning of the chapter,
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AXD BABYLON. 37 
 
 visited the desolate scenes of ancient magnificence which 
 made so strong an impression upon him. 
 
 One of the most intelligent travellers in the early 
 years of the seventeenth century was John Cartvvright. 
 He was the first European who attempted a survey of 
 the rains of Nineveh, among which he seems to have 
 included the remains of neighbouring cities, unless his 
 figures are entirely wrong. 
 
 " We set forward toward Mosul. . . . Here . . . was 
 Ninive, built by Nimrod, but finished by Ninus. ... It seemes 
 by the ruinous foundation, which I thoroughly viewed, that it was 
 built with four sides, but not equall or square, for the two longer 
 sides had cache of them, as wee ghesse, a hundred and fifty furlongs, 
 the two shorter sides ninety furlongs, which aniounteth to four 
 hundred and eighty furlongs of ground, which makes sixty miles, 
 accounting eight furlongs to an Italian mile. Now it is destroyed, 
 as God foretold it should be, by the Chaldyeans, being nothing else 
 than a sepulture of her selfe, a little Towne of small trade, where the 
 Patriarch of the Nestorians keeps his seat. 
 
 " The citie of Bagdad by some is called New Babylone, and may 
 well be, because it did rise out of the ruins of old Babylon, not farre 
 distant. . . . Two places of greate antiquitie did we thoroughly 
 view in this country ; the one was the ruines of the old Tower 
 of Babel, as the inhabitants hold unto this day, built by Nimrod. 
 . . . And now at this day that which remayneth is called the 
 remnant of the Tower of Babel ; there standing as much as is 
 a quarter of a mile in compass, and as high as the stone-worke of 
 Paul's Steeple in London. It was built of burnt brick cimented and 
 joyned with bituminous mortar. . . . The bricks are three 
 quarters of a yard in length and one quarter in thickness, and 
 betweene every course of bricks there lieth a course of mats made of 
 canes and palm-tree leaves, so fresh as if they had been laid withiu 
 one yeare. 
 
 " The other place remarkable is the ruines of old Babylon. . 
 Some doe think that the ruines of Nimrod's Tower is but the 
 foundation of the Temple of Bel, and that, therefore, many travellers
 
 38 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 have been deceived who suppose they have seen part of the tower 
 which Nimrod builded. But who can tell whether it be one or the 
 other 1 Jt may be that confused chaos we saw was the ruins of 
 both, the Temple of Bel being founded on that of Nimrod." 
 
 The tower here described is, of course, again Aker- 
 kuf, which was always forced upon the notice of 
 European travellers, through its position on the road 
 leading from the Euphrates to the Tigris, and to 
 the city of Bagdad. Very few of these strangers from 
 the west went southwards to Hillah, or examined the 
 actual ruins of Babylon. But, at any rate, they passed 
 through the territory of Babylon. Gasparo Balbi, a 
 Venetian jeweller, and Alexander Hamilton, who both 
 travelled at the end of the sixteenth century, speak in 
 much the same terms as Cartwright of the remains that 
 they saw on their way to Bagdad between the two 
 great rivers. Hamilton names Masol (Mosul) as the 
 ancient Nineveh. 
 
 Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa, the ambassador 
 from Philip III. of Spain to the Persian Court at this 
 period, alludes to the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon ; 
 but a much fuller description of the latter is given 
 by Pietro della Valle, a Roman gentleman, who, though 
 he still fancies that Bagdad was on the site of Babylon, 
 paid a visit to the great mound near Hillah, which has 
 never lost the name of Babel, but which he mistook for 
 the tower the building of which led to the confusion 
 of tongues. Della Valle caused an artist who accom- 
 panied him to make a drawing of the mound ; he also 
 collected some of the bricks with which the ground was
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 39 
 
 strewn, and subsequently took them back with him 
 to Rome, where he presented one of them to Athanasius 
 Kircher, the learned Jesuit. Kircher, as he tells us in 
 his treatise on the Tower of Babel, a monument of 
 erudition and ingenuity, placed this brick in the 
 museum which he had recently founded, in the belief 
 that ii> had formed part of an edifice which had been 
 the scene of one of (rod's most astounding judgments 
 upon mankind. It is still to be seen in the Museo 
 Kircheriano, and must always be of interest to archae- 
 ologists as the first relic of Babylonian antiquity which 
 reached Europe. 
 
 Pedro Teixeira, a Portuguese who visited Mesopo- 
 tamia in the first years of the seventeenth century, 
 seems aware that the real site of Babylon is at some 
 distance from Bagdad, which generally bears the name, 
 and says that the ruins are still called Babel, but 
 that only " inconsiderable footsteps," as the English 
 translator has it, still remain to show what the great city 
 was. Sir Thomas Herbert went out with the British 
 Ambassador to Shah Abbas in 1626. He returned 
 through Mesopotamia, and, accordingly, mentions Bag- 
 dad as the new Babylon, and the Tower of Akerkuf. 
 The French traveller, Tavernier, visited Mosul in 1644, 
 and speaks thus, according to a translation of the 
 period : 
 
 "Nineveh was built upon the left shoar of the Tigris, upon 
 Assyria-side, being only a ieap of rubbish extending almost a league 
 along the river. . . . Though Bagdat usually bears the name of 
 Babylon, yet it is at a great distance from the ancient Babylon."
 
 40 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 He proceeds to describe the well-known ruin of 
 Akerkuf, but says it is doubtful whether this really 
 represents the Tower of Babel. 
 
 Meanwhile, the various religious orders the Augus- 
 tinians, the Carmelites, the Franciscans, and the Jesuits 
 were sending out their missions into Asiatic Turkey 
 and into Persia. Father Vincenzo Maria di Santa 
 Caterina da Siena, a Carmelite, returned overland from 
 India in 1057, and though the account which he gives of 
 this journey is somewhat confused, at least he visited 
 Hillah, and was, perhaps, the first since Benjamin of 
 Tudela who places the site of Babylon correctly : 
 
 "On the 16th September we arrived at Hillah, passing along 
 beautiful banks covered with palms and other fruit trees, and 
 abounding in the necessaries of life. Here we remained for several 
 days. 
 
 "It is a very genei'al opinion that this place was the ancient 
 Babylon, which is proved by the site being on the banks of the 
 Euphrates, by the fertility of the adjacent lands, and by the ruins of 
 magnificent buildings, which abound for many miles around ; but 
 above all, by the remains of the Tower of Babel, which to this day is 
 called Nim rod's Tower. We were curious to see these buildings, but 
 finding that no one would accompany us for fear of robbers, we were 
 compelled to give it up." * 
 
 Among the collection of Edifying Letters written 
 by various Fathers of the Society of Jesus who were 
 engaged in foreign missions, there is one sent from 
 Bassorah, on October 19th, 1675, to Monsieur Savary, 
 general agent for the Duke of Mantua in France. In 
 
 * I am obliged to quote this rare book at second-hand from Mrs. Rich's 
 preface to her husband's " Journey to Babylon." (London, 1839.)
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 41 
 
 this there is an account of the journey of the writer 
 through Mesopotamia : 
 
 "On April 13th we arrived at Mousol, or Mosul. This town 
 is in the neighbourhood of the spot where Nineveh once existed ; 
 some ruins of the latter are still seen, half buried under the ground. 
 On the opposite side of the Tigris, in the country of the 
 Medes, there are several Christian hamlets. It is on the same side 
 that the ruins of Nineveh are perceived. In the midst is a tomb, 
 held by tradition to be that of the Prophet Jonah, which the Turks 
 have enclosed in a mosque built for that purpose on these re- 
 mains. 
 
 " Scarcely had we penetrated a few leagues into Chaldtea along 
 the river, when we saw in the distance the ruins of ancient Babylon, 
 the mournful dwelling-place of the Jewish people under the reign of 
 Nebuchadnezzar. These ruins extend farther than the eye can 
 reach : they are vast and impressive. That day we continued our 
 journey ; and if night had not overtaken us in a certain spot, we 
 should have seen the remains of the Tower of Babel, although some 
 say that these are the ruins of a tower built by the modern Arabs. 
 On the nineteenth we arrived at last at Bagdad, which is the 
 new Babylon." 
 
 At the end of Vol. XXX. of the first edition of 
 the Lcttres Edifiantes, there was a dissertation, after- 
 wards suppressed, in support of the opinion hinted at 
 in this letter, that Bagdad was on the site of a part 
 of Babylon, and that the mounds hetween the modern 
 city and the Euphrates, including the Tower of Aker- 
 kuf, show the great extent of the ancient capital, which 
 must have covered the ground between the two rivers. 
 The same views were expressed by another Jesuit, the 
 Father Villotte, who published in 1730 a book of 
 travels in Turkey, Persia, Armenia, Arabia, and Bar- 
 bary. It is useless, however, to say more on this notion,
 
 42 NEW LIGHT ON TEE BIBLE. 
 
 which, although it had much to support it, was soon 
 universally abandoned. 
 
 We are now coming to the age of scientific tra- 
 vellers. In 1734 a member of the French Academy, 
 Otter, was sent out by the Count de Maurepas, Minister 
 and Secretary of State, in order to elucidate by his 
 researches the geography and history of the East. In 
 a map which he appends to his work, he places Nineveh, 
 correctly, opposite Mosul, although he had been slightly 
 .confused by the conflicting traditions he found existing 
 among the natives : 
 
 " Abulfeda [the Arabian geographer] says that Nineveh was on 
 the eastern bank of the Tigris, opposite the modern Mosul ; either he 
 must have been mistaken or the inhabitants of the district are 
 greatly in error, for the latter place Nineveh on the western bank of 
 the Tigris, on the spot which they call Eski-Mosul. If we attempt 
 to conciliate the two opinions by supposing that Nineveh was built 
 on both sides of the river, nothing is gained, for Eski-Mosul is seven 
 or eight leagues higher up the stream. One point seems to favour 
 the belief of Abulfeda, and that is, that opposite Mosul there is 
 a place called Tell-i-Toubah that is to say, the Hill of Repentance 
 where, they say, the Ninevites put on sackcloth and ashes to turn 
 away the wrath of God." 
 
 Otter is the first traveller who noticed the Rock 
 of Behistun, with its bas-reliefs and inscriptions, which 
 afterwards played so important a part in the inter- 
 pretation of the cuneiform characters. He identifies 
 Tak-Kesra, so often mistaken for the palace of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, with the residence of the Sassanian 
 nionarchs at Ctesiphon. Finally he reached Hillah : 
 
 " I arrived at Hillah, which Yakut [an Arabian geographer] 
 places in the district of Babel. . . . The city of Babel, or
 
 THE EUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 43 
 
 Babylon, formerly the capital of this country, left its name to the 
 whole district." 
 
 Unfortunately, though he occupies several pages 
 with an account of the legends that han^ about the 
 spot, he gives no description of the ruins, but merely 
 remarks : 
 
 "The Turkish geographer places Babylon near Hillah, on the 
 left of the road as you go to Bagdad. At the present day nothing 
 but a wood is to be seen there." 
 
 Probably the fear of Bedouin robbers prevented 
 Otter, like so many others, from visiting the lonely 
 mounds and ridges. 
 
 Edward Ives was a military surgeon who travelled 
 overland from India in 1758. He alludes to the 
 common view that Akerkuf represents the Tower of 
 Babel, but does not himself hold it ; and he is aware of 
 the inaccuracy of the opinion that Bagdad stood upon 
 the site of Babylon, but he did not visit the true 
 remains of that city. Later, he passed by the ruins of 
 Nineveh and the tomb of Jonah, but is in doubt 
 whether he shall place the true site there or higher up 
 the river, at Eski-Mosul, according to the view held 
 by some, which had caused so much difficulty to his 
 predecessor, Otter. 
 
 Another missionary of the Carmelite order, Father 
 Emmanuel de Saint Albert, made a report on the ruins 
 of Babylon to the Duke of Orleans, which aroused 
 interest in France, and, though it was never published, 
 formed the basis of a memoir on the position of Babylon, 
 read in 1755 by D'Anville before the French Academy
 
 44 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 of Inscriptions. Hitherto the only real description 
 of any part of the remains near Hillah, which D'Anville 
 finally accepts as the ruins of Babylon, had been Pietro 
 della Valle's account of the mound of Babel. Father 
 Emmanuel had discovered the vast mass of the Birs 
 Nimroud the position of which Benjamin of Tudela 
 vaguely indicates on the west bank of the Euphrates, 
 five miles south of Hillah, and thus vindicated the 
 description of the ancient authors, who divided the city 
 into two parts, between which the river ran. D'Anville 
 concludes his memoir, which finally settled the question 
 of the identification of the site of Babylon, by deciding 
 that the existing remains, and the name of Babel, which 
 has never been effaced from the memory of the in- 
 habitants, determine, by their agreement with the dis- 
 tance between Seleucia the site of which is also now 
 settled and Babylon, as given by Pliny, Strabo, and 
 others, the question of the position of the latter city. 
 He adds : 
 
 " The written characters which, as Father Emmanuel says in his 
 report, are impressed upon the bricks which remain of buildings 
 so ancient that they may have formed part of the original Babylon, 
 would be, for scholars who wish to penetrate into the most remote 
 antiquity, an entirely new matter of meditation and study." 
 
 It now only remained for others to take up and 
 complete the researches of the Pere Emmanuel. The 
 Danish traveller, Carsten Niebuhr, was one of the most 
 learned, intelligent, and accurate of the men who 
 have published accounts of foreign countries ; and his 
 much towards laying the foundations for
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 45 
 
 future research into the Persian and Assyrian inscrip- 
 tions. 
 
 It was from Niebuhr's plates of the cuneiform 
 characters at Persepolis that Grotefend, as we shall see 
 in a subsequent chapter, first deciphered the names of 
 Darius and Xerxes, and opened the way for all further 
 researches of this kind. On his way home from Persia, in 
 1765, Niebuhr passed through Bagdad and Mosul, and 
 explored the country which surrounds those two towns. 
 He says : 
 
 " Of Babylon and Nineveh few indications are now to be found. 
 These famous cities lay in marshy regions, where hewn stone was 
 costly, and where bad materials were employed for building, which 
 have long fallen into ruin, or have been carried off to other towns." 
 
 Niebuhr gives a fairly complete description of the 
 mound of Babil, and identifies it with the citadel 
 described by Greek writers. He visited Birs Nimroud, 
 and he identifies it with the Temple of Bel, described by 
 Herodotus and others. Our traveller says much about 
 the inscribed clay bricks which lay about these ruins, 
 and concludes that they contained the records of the 
 Babylonians, such as those of which Pliny speaks. 
 Niebuhr had no difficulty in identifying the site of 
 Nineveh also ; the natives pointed out to him a mound 
 called Nunia, on which stood the tomb of the prophet 
 Jonah, and another great mound called Kallah Nunia, 
 or the fortress of Nineveh, on which stood the village 
 of Kaindsjag, or Kouyunjik, besides the traces of the 
 walls of the great city ; he also speaks of the ruins 
 of Nimroud, eight hours below Mosul. Here we have
 
 46 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 a clear aud intelligent description of the ancient sites, 
 which, like the rest of the traveller's work, attracted 
 much attention among the learned in Europe, and, 
 above all, induced scholars to take an interest in the 
 inscriptions found upon these famous ruins. 
 
 One of the learned priests sent out from Europe 
 to Asiatic Turkey was the Abbe Beauchamp, Vicar- 
 General of Babylon in 1782. His account of his 
 researches among the ruins of the ancient city was pub- 
 lished in the Journal des Savants, and quickly translated 
 into English in the European Magazine of May, 1792. 
 He visited the mound called Babel by Pietro dell a 
 Valle and Otter, but named by him Makloube, or the 
 Euin, according to another popular designation. Besides 
 this, he first called the attention of archa3ologists to 
 a second mound near the first; he calls it Babel, 
 but it is generally named the Kasr, or palace ; some 
 of the stamped bricks of which it is composed he 
 extracted from their bituminous cement, and brought 
 home to Europe. Of Birs Nimroud, which he calls 
 Broussa, he says little, although he had seen it. 
 
 In 1794 a physician, named Olivier, was sent out 
 by the French Government to make researches in the 
 Turkish Empire and in Persia. He is very clear as 
 to the site of Nineveh, and says that all modern 
 geographers seem to agree in placing it on the east 
 bank of the Tigris, opposite Mosul. He visited the 
 " Fortress of Nunia," the village of Nunia, in which the 
 tomb of Jonah stands, and the traces of the ancient 
 walls. During his stay in the neighbourhood of Bagdad,
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 47 
 
 Olivier inspected Tak-Kesra, already identified as the 
 palace of Ctesiphon, and made a survey of the ruins of 
 Babylon, of which he says : 
 
 " The ground on which the city stood, twenty leagues to the 
 south of Bngdad, presents at first sight no trace of a town ; it must be 
 traversed in all directions before certain mounds and slight elevations 
 can be observed, and it is seen that the soil has everywhere been 
 disturbed. The Arabs have been busy here for twelve centuries 
 excavating and extracting bricks, of which Cufa, Bagdad, Meshed 
 Ali, Meshed Hossain, Hillah, and other towns have been built." 
 
 A league north of Hillah, Olivier observed the 
 mound of Babil, which he identifies with the Temple of 
 Belus ; and he found large portions of the ancient brick 
 walls. He was unable as so many travellers had been 
 before him to visit Birs Nimroud, which he knew 
 well by report. 
 
 In 1812 the ruins of Babylon were for the first time 
 completely examined. Claudius James Rich was ap- 
 pointed political resident for the East India Company at 
 Bagdad in 1808, and his intelligence and learning soon 
 induced him to study the antiquities of the historical 
 region in which his official duties had placed him. In 
 1812 he visited the site of the great city, carefully 
 studied the disposition of the various mounds, and 
 measured them with equal accuracy ; he was also able to 
 collect some inscriptions on clay tablets and cylinders, 
 which he presented to the British Museum. Ten years 
 later Eich examined the site of Nineveh, and obtained 
 some inscriptions on clay and stone from the mounds of 
 Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunus; the ruins of Nimroud,
 
 48 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 too, alluded to by Niebuhr, were fully described by the 
 British resident. 
 
 About the same time Sir Eobert Ker Porter, whose 
 work forms one of the most valuable descriptions of 
 modern Persia, paid a visit to the ruins of Babylon 
 in company with Rich, who was already well acquainted 
 with them. He has given us a very full account, 
 to which he adds notes of other old Babylonian sites 
 around Bagdad ; some of the inscriptions which he 
 collected are still to be seen in the British Museum. 
 
 A few years later Buckingham passed through the 
 ruins both of Nineveh and Babylon, and afterwards 
 published a full account of them. 
 
 But we have now reached a period when the sites of 
 these ancient cities begin to be as well known to 
 the learned as the most familiar ruins of Europe. Since 
 Buckingham, detailed descriptions have been given to 
 the world by Botta, Place, Sir H. Layard, Sir H. 
 Rawlinson, and M. Oppert ; but it would be useless 
 to examine these one by one. 
 
 Early in the present century, then, the sites of 
 Nineveh and Babylon had been fully identified, and the 
 greatest interest had been aroused in Europe by the 
 descriptions of travellers, and by the antiquities which 
 had been brought home from these historical spots, and 
 stored in our museums. It was recognised that some great 
 results must follow if the inscriptions could be deciphered 
 and translated. Pliny had spoken of the ancient re- 
 cords, reaching back to a fabulous antiquity, which 
 were preserved at Babylon upon baked bricks ; and here
 
 THE RUIN OF NINEVEH AND BABYLON. 49 
 
 were some of these very-baked bricks at the disposal of 
 any who could read them. Most scholars, when these 
 inscriptions were first found, had looked upon the task 
 as hopeless ; the baked bricks from Nineveh and Baby- 
 lon must remain for ever like the book with seven seals, 
 which no man could open. But in the first years of the 
 century the clue to their interpretation had been found. 
 It did not come from Nineveh or Babylon ; it came 
 from the palaces of Persepolis.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOLIS. 
 
 ACCORDING to the Persian poets and historians, Jem- 
 sheed was the fourth King of Persia, and ruled the 
 country for seven hundred years. At the beginning 
 of his reign the world was calm, and free from discord; 
 even the spirits and the birds obeyed him. He taught 
 men how to forge iron, and to make helmets, lances, 
 cuirasses, coats of mail, and armour for horses ; in 
 this course of instruction he was occupied for fifty 
 years. For another fifty years he employed himself 
 in the manufacture of tissues of linen, silk, wool, 
 beaver's hair ; he showed his subjects the art of twist- 
 ing, spinning, and interlacing threads, of making gar- 
 ments of woven material, and of composing rich 
 brocades. During another fifty years, Jemsheed assem- 
 bled together the members of the various professions, 
 and formed guilds and castes of priests, warriors, agri- 
 culturists, and labourers. Yet another half century was 
 spent in training men to mould bricks, and to build 
 baths, lofty edifices, and palaces ; precious stones were 
 sought for, perfumes were distilled, medicines were first 
 compounded ; all that had hitherto been unknown was 
 brought to light ; never had the world seen so diligent
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOLIS. 51 
 
 an investigator of its secrets. During fifty years 
 Jemsheed travelled through all the countries of the 
 earth. On his return, he caused a throne to be erected 
 for himself, encrusted with jewels ; and at his order 
 the spirits raised it to the height of the vault of 
 heaven. Here the mighty monarch sat like the sun 
 shining in the zenith ; his subjects assembled around 
 his seat, marvelling at his high fortunes. Three hun- 
 dred years passed, during which not only death, but 
 also pain and distress, were unknown among men ; the 
 evil spirits were bound like slaves in the service of 
 the great king ; order prevailed throughout mankind, 
 and the world was filled with the sweet sounds of music. 
 
 But the king became proud, and revolted against 
 God, saying : " I recognise none in the world besides 
 myself; it is I that have brought the intelligence 
 of mankind into operation ; it is through my will that 
 the universe has been set in order ; to me you owe 
 your food, your sleep, your tranquillity, your clothing, 
 and all your pleasures. Who dares to say that there is 
 another king besides me ? " Then the Divine favour 
 abandoned him ; the world was filled with discord ; his 
 subjects deserted him, and his power disappeared. A 
 rebel prince took possession of the throne, and, although 
 Jemsheed escaped and lay hid for a hundred years, 
 he was at last seized and sawn in two by the ordei 
 of his enemy. 
 
 The reason for which it seems not unfitting to 
 begin an account of the palaces of Persepolis with 
 the legend of Jemsheed, as told by Firdusi, whose Book 
 E 2
 
 52 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 of the Kings is accessible to all in the charming French 
 translation of Jules Mohl, is that for many centuries 
 the Persians have attributed to this hero of the golden 
 age the foundation of the famous structures which form 
 the subject of this chapter. Takht-i-Jemsheed, the 
 Throne of Jemsheed, is the name by which the ruins 
 are known among the natives of the spot ; and upon 
 the sculptured walls, where we see the effigies of Darius 
 and Xerxes, they behold with awe the similitude of 
 the primeval monarch and the marvellous events of his 
 Saturuian reign. Although we have to give a more 
 prosaic account of the builders of the palaces, the latter 
 are indeed wo:' 1 ^ of the most flourishing epoch of 
 Persian history ; and the r ader will, it is hoped, for- 
 give the introduction in this place of a detailed account 
 of a unique monument of antiquity. 
 
 Thirty miles from the modern town of Shiraz, in 
 South-western Persia, at the foot of Mount Each met, 
 part of a range of hills composed of a dark grey 
 limestone marble, which supplies a material for building 
 of the most durable quality, there rises from the plain a 
 vast terrace of irregular dimensions : partly a natural 
 spur of the mountain, partly the work of man. Enclosed 
 in a semi-circular hollow against the hill-side, it has 
 somewhat the appearance of an immense theatre. The 
 western side, nearly fifteen thousand feet in length, 
 which abuts upon the plain, is faced, as well as the two 
 ends, with a wall composed of huge irregular blocks 
 of the local marble, finely polished and fitted together 
 without cement ; the height varies in different parts,
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSE POLIS. 53 
 
 but was probably twenty feet in its original state. On 
 the south wall are four huge slabs, bearing cuneiform 
 inscriptions (two in the Persian language, one in Baby- 
 lonian, and one in Susian), which inform the visitor, as 
 they are now interpreted, that the terrace which he 
 beholds is the work of King Darius, the son of 
 Hystaspes, who implores his god Ahuramazda to protect 
 and preserve the structure. Access from the plain 
 to the summit of the platform is gained by a mag- 
 nificent staircase of four flights of steps towards the 
 northern end of the western face, occupying a break of 
 forty-five feet in the wall, and consisting of fifty-five 
 steps, three inches and a half in height and twenty- 
 two feet in breadth, so that six horsemen abreast can 
 mount with ease ; two diverging flights arrive, half-way 
 from the bottom, at two landings, whence two other 
 flights converge towards the top. On arriving at 
 the summit, the visitor is confronted by two piers 
 of masonry, in which are embedded two colossal figures 
 of bulls : their heads project from the front, one side of 
 their bodies stands out slightly from the inner walls, 
 and the rest is concealed. This is the entrance to 
 the grand porch which formed the vestibule to the 
 whole group of palaces ; and cuneiform inscriptions, 
 in Persian, Susian, and Babylonian, on the wall above 
 the bulls inform us of the builder : 
 
 " A great god is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who 
 created yonder Heaven, who made man, who made delights for men, 
 who has made Xerxes king, the sole king over many, the sole ruler 
 over many.
 
 54 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 "I am Xerxes the great king, the king of kings, king of the 
 countries which contain many races, king henceforward of this vast 
 earth, son of King Darius, the Achsemenid. 
 
 " Thus says Xerxes the great king : ' By the grace of Ahuramazda 
 I have built this doorway. Many other fair works in Persia have I 
 and my father made. By the grace of Ahuramazda alone have we 
 executed these fair works.' 
 
 " Thus says Xerxes the king : ' May Ahuramazda protect me 
 and my dominions, and the works that I and my father have made. 
 All these may Ahm-amazda protect. '" 
 
 Further remains of the porch are to be seen at a 
 short distance, first in the shape of two columns seven- 
 teen yards high, surmounted by the characteristic Perse- 
 politan capital ; secondly, in the bases of two other 
 columns ; and lastly, in two more piers forming the 
 egress, in which two colossal figures of bulls, winged, 
 human-headed, and crowned, like the Assyrian monsters 
 of Nineveh, Khorsabad, or Nimroud, are embedded in 
 the same manner as the figures at the entry. This 
 porch was, no doubt, roofed over with cedar beams, and 
 formed a passage, open at the sides and paved with 
 large slabs, through which access was obtained to a 
 courtyard or garden, a single trace of which now 
 remains in a square cistern, to be seen at a short 
 distance. 
 
 Turning to the right on emerging from the porch, 
 the visitor sees before him, at a distance of a hundred 
 and fifty feet, the wall of another terrace, rising eight 
 feet above the level on which he is now standing ; 
 in the midst of the wall is the famous sculptured stair- 
 case, formed of two double converging flights of steps.
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSE POLIS. 55 
 
 The outer wall of the staircase, which forms a triangle 
 between the two central flights, is sculptured with bas- 
 reliefs, representing a file of soldiers of the royal body- 
 guard, five on each side, facing towards the middle; 
 they wear long robes and upright tiaras, and carry 
 spears and bows. Before the sculptures were injured, 
 the winged figure of the god Ahuramazda hovered above 
 the group. In each of the angles formed between 
 the ascending balustrades and the ground, a lion is seen 
 devouring a bull : doubtless a symbol of the destroying 
 power of the Persian monarchy. The inner balustrade 
 exhibits a row of guards as if in the act of ascending 
 the stairs ; lotus- flowers and cypresses also enter into 
 the decoration. The wall on each side of the central 
 double staircase that is to say, the space between 
 it and the other convergent flights to the right and left 
 of it is occupied by three series of figures one above 
 the other, separated by bands of rosettes. We here see 
 behind a row of the Immortals, or picked troops, 
 officials from all parts of the Persian Empire, in every 
 variety of costume, in the act of being introduced by 
 Court functionaries into the presence of the sovereign, 
 for whom they are bringing gifts of every kind. That 
 Xerxes was the builder of this staircase, which has 
 always been one of the chief wonders of Persepolis, 
 is attested by the inscription on the wall, drawn up, 
 as usually, in three languages. 
 
 " A great god is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who 
 created yonder Heaven for men, who has made Xerxes king, sole 
 king over many, sole ruler over many. . .
 
 56 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " Thus says Xerxes, the great king : ' By the grace of Ahura- 
 mazda I have constructed this building ; may Ahuramazda protect 
 me and my dominions, and all that I have made.' " 
 
 Mounting one of the four flights of steps, tht 
 visitor sees before him, at a distance of about fifteen 
 yards, the far-famed group of columns which gave to 
 the ruins of Takht-i- Jemsheed the name by which they 
 were first known in Europe namely, Clicliel Minar, or 
 the Forty Minarets. Now, indeed, only thirteen are 
 standing ; but originally there were seventy-two tall 
 pillars, supporting a roof of cedar, and forming the 
 Apodana, or Throne-Room of Xerxes, similar in plan to 
 the Apadana of Artaxerxes Mnemon at Susa, where the 
 inscriptions were found that supplied us with this old 
 Persian name for a hall of the sort. It is the word 
 borrowed by the Prophet Daniel, when he says, " And 
 He shall plant the tabernacles of His palace between 
 the seas in the glorious holy mountain." There were 
 three porticoes, or colonnades, to this throne-room 
 one on the north side, facing the staircase, one on the 
 east, and another on the west, each supported by twelve 
 columns. The central hall, nearly fifty yards square, 
 was upheld by a phalanx of thirty-six columns. All 
 these pillars were of the characteristic Persepolitan 
 order, only to be found in the palaces of the Acha?menian 
 dynasty founded by Cyrus, which ended with the 
 conquest of Alexander the Great; their height is 
 sixty feet, or thirteen times the diameter at the base, 
 which is formed like a bell, and sculptured with lotus- 
 leaves; from this rises a slender fluted shaft, which
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOLIS. S? 
 
 terminates in a composite capital, consisting of a richly- 
 moulded bell, above which is a lotus-flower surmounted 
 by inverted volutes, which sustain a double bull's head 
 projecting on both sides to support the rafters of cedar- 
 wood. There can never have been doors to this hall ; 
 embroidered curtains, probably of Babylonian workman- 
 ship, hung between the pillars, as they are described in 
 the Book of Esther. 
 
 Thirty-five yards behind, or tp the south of this 
 great lieception Hall of Xerxes, rises the palace of 
 Darius Hystaspis, standing upon a platform of its own, 
 ten feet in height. The summit of this platform is 
 reached by two sculptured staircases, one of which is 
 decorated with bas-reliefs similar to those of the larger 
 
 o 
 
 and more famous staircase of Xerxes ; the ornaments 
 of the other vary in design. On ascending, we find the 
 remains of a building that was evidently no mere hall 
 of audience, like the Apadana of seventy-two columns, 
 but was the actual habitation of the king; and that this 
 king was Darius is proved by a trilingual inscription on 
 one of the doorposts, above a bas-relief which represents 
 the sovereign in state, surrounded by courtiers : 
 
 " Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of the world, 
 the son of Hystaspes, built this house." 
 
 Xerxes, the successor of Darius, added two other 
 inscriptions on the staircase and on a pier of masonry; 
 in these, after the usual ascription of praise to Ahura- 
 mazda and the enumeration of his own titles, he 
 adds :
 
 58 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " Thus says Xerxes, the great king : ' By the gmce of A liuramazda, 
 Darius, my father, erected this building. May Ahuvamazda protect 
 me and this my work, and the work of my father ; all this mav 
 Ahuramazda protect ! ' ' : 
 
 The walls of this palace, undoubtedly of brick, have 
 entirely disappeared ; the material lias been pillaged for 
 the construction of more recent towns or villages ; but 
 the doorways, window-frames, and corner piers, built of 
 the dark grey marble of Mount Each met, are still 
 standing, and enable us to trace out the plan of the 
 edifice. There was a central hall, supported by sixteen 
 columns, and entered through a portico of eight 
 columns ; around the central chamber were fourteen 
 small rooms of various forms and dimensions. The 
 doorways and windows have projectii g cornices, slightly 
 hollowed out like those of Egyptian temples, and carved 
 with a triple row of lotus-leaves; on the inner sides of 
 the doorways and on the corner piers are bas-reliefs 
 which represent the king in close combat with a lion or 
 a bull, or attended by officers bearing the umbrella and 
 the fly-flap ensigns of royalty that the Persian 
 monarchs had borrowed, from Assyria. E-ound some of 
 the window-frames are cuneiform inscriptions giving 
 the name and title of the monarch : 
 
 " Darius, the great king, the king of the world, the king of 
 kings, the son of Hystaspes, the Achsemenid." 
 
 To the south of the palace of Darius, and in a 
 corner of the terrace, stood the palace of Artaxerxes 
 Ochus, also raised upon .a small platform of its own, 
 and identified by an inscription on the sculptured
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSE TOLIS. 59 
 
 staircase, in which this monarch names himself as the 
 builder : 
 
 "A great god is Ahuramazda, who created this earth, who 
 created yonder Heaven, who made man, who created delights for 
 men, who has made me, Artaxerxes, sole king over many, sole ruler 
 over many. 
 
 " Thus says Ai-taxerxes, the great king, the king of kings, the 
 king of all countries, the king of this world : ' I am Artaxerxes, son 
 of Artaxerxes the king, who was the sou of Darius the king, who 
 was the son of Artaxerxes the king, who was the son of Xerxes the 
 king, who was the son of Darius the king, who was the son of 
 Hystaspes, who was the son of Arsames, an Achsemenid ; this lofty 
 building of stone have I made for myself.' 
 
 " Thus says Artaxerxes the king : ' May Ahuramazda and the god 
 Mithras protect me and .this land, and all that I have made ! ' " 
 
 Another copy of the same inscription is to be found 
 on the western staircase of Darius Hystaspis, whose 
 palace was thus appropriated, and perhaps restored, by 
 Artaxerxes. Very little is left of the edifice erected by 
 Ochus ; the chief parts that remain are portions of the 
 staircase and of the wall which surrounds the platform, 
 besides some traces of columns. The scenes represented 
 in the bas-reliefs of the staircase seem to have resembled 
 those on the other monuments of the kind ; they 
 exhibited a procession of officials bearing presents for 
 their sovereign, among which tusks of ivory were con- 
 spicuous. 
 
 To the east of the habitation of Artaxerxes Ochus 
 was the larger palace of Xerxes, about eighty yards by 
 seventy in area, standing on its own platform at the 
 extremity of the same terrace. As in the case of the 
 house of Darius, we are enabled to judge of the general
 
 60 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 plan of this building also from the doorways, window- 
 frames, and corner piers that still remain, although the 
 intermediate brick-work and the timber roofing have 
 altogether disappeared. Two staircases, with the usual 
 bas-reliefs, conduct the visitor to a portico, upborne by 
 twelve columns, and leading into a central hall of 
 thirty-six columns, on each side of which are small 
 apartments opening into it, to the number of twelve. 
 The doorways are sculptured in the same fashion as 
 those of Darius. An inscription on the staircase names 
 Xerxes as the constructor of this palace ; it begins with 
 the usual praise of Ahuramazda, followed by the titles 
 of the king, and concludes thus : ' 
 
 " Thus says Xerxes, the great king : ' This that I have made here, 
 and all that I have elsewhere made, I have made through the grace 
 of Ahuramazda. May Ahuramazda protect me and my kingdom 
 and all that I have made ! ' " 
 
 Eastwards from the house of Darius, on the terrace 
 which the visitor first reached, and therefore on a lower 
 level than the group of buildings that has just been 
 described, stands a small Apadana, of which nothing but 
 the bases of a few pillars and some other fragments now 
 remain. South of this is the great Apadana of the 
 Hundred Columns. Of the pillars which upheld 
 this vast hall, in which, perhaps, Alexander held his 
 banquet on the fatal night which ended in the confla- 
 gration that ruined these splendid palaces, only the 
 bases now remain, but most of the doorways, window- 
 frames, and piers of masonry which formed the corners 
 are still in place. On one doorway the king is sculp-
 
 THE PALACES OF PEESEPOLIS. 61 
 
 tured sitting upon his throne under an embroidered 
 canopy ; the platform on which the throne is raised is 
 supported by three rows of carved figures, one above 
 the other. On one of the piers the throne is seen sus- 
 tained by ten rows of five doryphori, or soldiers of the 
 body-guard. In each case the winged figure of the god 
 Ahuramazda hovers above the earthly sovereign, who 
 relies upon his protection. In other doorways the king 
 is seen in close combat with a bull, a lion, or a winged 
 gryphon. The entrance to this immense hall of audience 
 was guarded by two colossal human-headed bulls, of 
 which portions still exist. 
 
 Close behind these palaces, on the face of the moun- 
 tain, are the two royal tombs alluded to by Diodorus 
 which gave rise to the name " Royal Mountain." A 
 sculptured facade, exhibiting the king before a fire- 
 altar upon a platform supported by several rows of 
 figures, leads into a small chamber in which the 
 sarcophagus was deposited. The spot where Darius 
 was buried, now called Naksh-i-Kustam, seems also 
 to have been named the Eoyal Mountain, although 
 situated at some distance from the palaces. 
 
 We have now made the tour of these magnificent 
 ruins, which, indeed, form one of the finest monuments 
 of antiquity, and hold in many respects an unique 
 position. Of the great palaces of Assyria, buried as 
 they are under mountains of rubbish, little but the 
 lower portion of the walls is now to be traced by 
 the excavator ; but at Persepolis we have the very 
 doors, windows, and columns still standing above
 
 62 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 ground, and in the same position as when first erected. 
 In Egypt we have, indeed, vast temples and tombs 
 of far greater antiquity than the residences of Darius 
 and Xerxes, hut no royal palace has been preserved 
 to us. Some of the Greek temples are as old as the 
 buildings of the Achsemenids, but, as in Egypt, it 
 was the dwellings of the gods, not of men, that were 
 constructed with sufficient durability to withstand 
 the ravages of time. Only on the Roman Palatine 
 do we see a group of imperial habitations which may 
 remind us of the Persian palaces ; but even there 
 the bare brick walls, the fragmentary pavements of 
 porphyry, and the broken marble balustrades have far 
 less to teach us than the sculptured doorways and 
 monumental staircases of Persepolis. 
 
 Very little is said of Persepolis in ancient authors ; 
 we only gather that, under the Achsemenian dynasty, 
 which began with Cyrus, and ended with Darius 
 Codomannus, there was in this city a splendid royal 
 residence, strongly fortified, and containing the wealth 
 gradually amassed by the Persian kings. When 
 Alexander took the place, in B.C. 330, a treasure of gold 
 and silver, equal in value to a hundred and twenty 
 thousand talents of silver, fell into his hands, and the 
 Macedonian invader was forced to send to Susa and 
 Babylonia for a sufficient number of mules and 'camels 
 to carry off the booty. Afterwards, in a drunken revel, 
 or in revenge for the ravages of Xerxes in Greece, 
 Alexander and his companions set fire to the palace, 
 which was partly destroyed. The description of the
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOLIS. 63 
 
 palace given by Diodorus was, however, sufficient to 
 enable scholars, after many controversies, to decide that 
 the ruins which we have been describing were, without 
 doubt, the remains of the Achsemenian residence ; and 
 this was finally proved when the cuneiform inscriptions 
 upon the walls were at last deciphered. The question 
 of the origin of these structures was in former days 
 much confused by the legends which had grown 
 up among the natives of the spot with regard to the 
 ruined edifices which attracted their wonder and ad- 
 miration from generation to generation. The name 
 of Persepolis was soon lost : indeed, it may never have 
 existed except in the mouths of the Greeks, who 
 thus spoke of the city of the Persians ; during the 
 Middle Ages the town in the neighbourhood of the 
 ruins was called Istakhar. So the poet Firdusi, in 
 the tenth century of our era, says that " Alexander 
 marched to the town of Istakhar, and there placed upon 
 his head the glorious crown of the Keianids " that 
 is to say, the Achsemenids. In another place Firdusi 
 speaks of Istakhar as " the diadem of the kings and the 
 glory of Persia." The ruined palaces themselves have 
 received various names from the natives. The authentic 
 tradition which preserved the name Khaneh-i-Dara, or 
 House of Darius, has not been generally accepted among 
 them. The purely descriptive designation of Chehd 
 Minar, or the Forty Minarets, seems to have been 
 current in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth 
 centuries ; forty is, of course, a round number, and the 
 name alludes to the columns of the Hall of Xerxes, the
 
 64 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 slender and lofty pillars which at once strike the eye of 
 the traveller as he advances across the plain. But 
 the ordinary and constant appellation is that which was 
 indicated at the beginning of the chapter : namely, 
 Takht-i-Jemsheed. 
 
 Misled by this, even learned Europeans, before the 
 decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, have some- 
 times fancied that the sculptured scenes might have 
 been intended by builders of some unknown date to 
 represent the legendary monarch, his court, and his 
 army ; and in this way they have failed to understand 
 the true period to which the remains belong. 
 
 Besides the opinion which attributed the ruins of 
 Persepolis to Jemsheed, there were other legends as 
 to their origin. Some thought that Solomon, who was 
 indeed sometimes identified with Jemsheed, had built 
 these imposing structures ; for instance, a Persian writer 
 of the thirteenth century, who says : 
 
 " At Istakhar there is a very considerable Fire-temple ; the 
 Magians affirm that this edifice was a Masjed, or Temple of Solomon, 
 on whom be the peace of God. I have been there and beheld won- 
 derful structures : mai'ble columns of great height and extraordinary 
 appearance, and on the summits of these columns huge figures carved 
 in stone; and this lofty edifice stands near the foot of the mountain." 
 
 Solomon, whose command over all nature is so 
 widely celebrated among the Mahometans, is believed 
 to have employed demons to erect this palace, as well as 
 the Temple of Baalbek, in Syria; and the king, who 
 could transport himself with ease to a great distance in 
 a short time, frequently spent the day at Baalbek and 
 the night at Istakhar.
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOLIS. 65 
 
 According to another account, found in a Persian 
 history, the ruins of Persepolis were neither the work of 
 man nor of demons, but were a monument of a terrible 
 judgment of Grod : 
 
 "The people of Istakhar were very wicked, and the Almighty 
 turned them into stone ; so that even now we may behold there the 
 forms of women reposing with their husbands, of butchers cutting 
 meat into pieces, of infants in their cradles, of bread in ovens, and 
 of many other things, all become marble." 
 
 The people upon whom this miraculous destruction 
 came are identified by other Eastern writers with 
 the tribe of Ad, so well known to all Mahometans 
 through the frequent mention of them in the Koran ; 
 they refused to listen to the voice of the prophet who 
 was sent to them, and accordingly they were all de- 
 stroyed at one stroke, and their deserted city remained 
 a witness to all generations of the punishment incurred 
 by those who reject the messengers of Grod. Mahomet 
 made use of this story to warn ai:d terrify those 
 among the Arabs who were inclined to doubt his own 
 mission. 
 
 To medieval Europe Persia was even more of an 
 unknown land than Assyria and Babylonia. As soon, 
 however, as intercourse took place between the ancient 
 dominions of Cyrus and the modern world, the remains 
 of the palaces at the foot of Mount Rachmet were 
 quickly discovered, because they lay near the high road 
 from Shiraz to Ispahan, generally traversed by visitors 
 from the West to the Persian court. Accordingly, an 
 account of them is given the first on record by 
 
 F
 
 66 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Giosafat Barbaro, a Venetian envoy despatched by the 
 Republic, in A.D. 1472, to the court of Uzun Cassan. 
 Barbaro had no idea of the real date or character of the 
 Persepolitan ruins : he follows the legend which at- 
 tributed them to Solomon ; but his -remarks are worth 
 quoting, on account of the priority of his testimony. 
 
 " Near the town of Cainara is seen a circular mountain, which 
 on one side appears to have been cut and made into a terrace, six 
 paces high. On the summit of this terrace is a flat space, and around 
 are forty columns, which, are called Cilminar, which means in our 
 tongue Forty Columns, each of which is twenty cubits long, as thick 
 as the embrace of three men ; some of them are ruined, but, to judge 
 from that which can still be seen, this was formerly a beautiful 
 building. The terrace is all of one piece of rock, and upon it stand 
 sculptured figures of animals as large as giants, and above them is a 
 figure like those by which, in our country, we represent God the 
 Father, enclosed in a circle, and holding a ring in His hand ; under- 
 neath are other smaller figures. In front is the figure of a man 
 leaning on his bow, which is said to be a figure of Solomon. Below 
 are many others which seem to support those above them, arid 
 among these is one who seems to wear on his head a papal mitre, 
 and holds up his open hand, apparently with the intention of giving 
 his benediction to those below, who look up to him, and seem to 
 stand in a certain expectation of the said benediction. Beyond this, 
 there is a tall figure on horseback, apparently that of a strong man : 
 this they say is Samson, near whom are many other figures dressed 
 in the French fashion and wearing long cloaks ; all these figures are 
 in half relief. Two days' journey from this place there is a village 
 called Thimar ; and two days' farther off another village, where there 
 is a tomb in which they say the mother of Solomon was buried. 
 Over this is built an edifice in the form of a chapel, and there are 
 Arabic letters upon it, which say, as we understand from the in- 
 habitants of the place, Messer Suleirnen, which means in our tongue 
 Temple of Solomon, and its gate looks towards the East." 
 
 The figure of God the Father is, of course, the 
 representation of Ahuramazda hovering over his
 
 THE PALACES OF PEBSEPOLIS. 67 
 
 devotees, and that which appears to give the benedic- 
 tion is the king, surrounded by his courtiers, and hold- 
 ing up his hand with a gesture of command. 
 
 Of all the Oriental monarchs of any age, few have 
 been better known to Europe than Shah Abbas the 
 Great, who. reigned in Persia from A. D. 1582 to 1627. 
 Quite a group of Europeans gathered at his court, and 
 published reports of what they saw and hoard, either in 
 the quality of ambassadors and political envoys or of 
 religious missionaries, or simply as guests who enjoyed 
 his generous hospitality. Antonio de Gouvea, Anthony 
 and Robert Sherley, Cartwright, Silva y Figueroa, Sir 
 Thomas Herbert, Sir Dodmore Cotton, and Pietro della 
 Valle are among the visitors to Shah Abbas who have 
 done most to acquaint us with his character and the 
 history of his reign. Antonio de Grouvea was an 
 Augustinian friar of Portuguese nationality, who was 
 sent in 1602 by Philip III., King of Spain and Por- 
 tugal, in company with some other friars, partly to 
 spread the doctrines of Christianity among the Persians, 
 and also with the political purpose of inducing the Shah 
 to make war upon the Turks, those dreaded enemies of 
 all the Christian Powers of Europe. In this latter 
 object, at any rate, the diplomatic friar was successful, 
 for Abbas was induced, by promises of support from the 
 West, to engage in a campaign against the Sultan 
 Mahomet, which seriously weakened the resources of 
 the Ottoman Empire ; but, what is more to our purpose, 
 the Portuguese missionary published a narrative of 
 his journey to Ispahan, in which he announced the 
 * 2
 
 68 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 existence of tlie palace, or, as he supposed, the tomb of 
 Persepolis, recognising, although in a vague manner, 
 its true period ; and, above all, not forgetting to 
 mention the inscriptions in unknown characters upon 
 the walls. 
 
 "We continued our journey as far as a village called Chelminira, 
 which in their language means Forty Minarets, because that was 
 the number in the tomb of an ancient king which stood there. . . . 
 We went to see the tomb of which I have spoken, and it is my firm 
 belief that the mausoleum which Artemisia erected to her husband 
 was not more notable, though it is held as one of the wonders of the 
 world ; but the mausoleum has been destroyed by time, which seems 
 to have no power against this monument, which has also resisted the 
 efforts of human malice. . . . The place is between two high 
 ridges, and the tomb of which I have made mention is at the foot of 
 the northern ridge. Those who say that Cyrus rebuilt the city of 
 Shiraz affirm also that he built for himself this famous tomb. There 
 are indications that Ahasuerus, or Artaxerxes, erected it for himself, 
 besides another near it which he made for Queen Yashti ; and this 
 opinion is made more probable by the consideration of the short 
 distance from this site to the city of Suzis, or Shushan, in which he 
 generally resided. . . . At the foot of the ridge began two stair- 
 cases facing one another, with many steps made of stones, of so great 
 a size that it will be beyond belief when I affirm that some of them, 
 when they were first hewn, were more than twenty-five palms in cir- 
 cumference, ten or twelve broad, and six or eight high ; and of these, 
 there were very many throughout the whole structure, for the build- 
 ing was chiefly composed of them ; and it was no small wonder to 
 consider how they could have been placed one upon the other, 
 particularly in the columns, where the stones were larger than in 
 any other part. That which astonished us most was to see that 
 certain small chapels were made of a single stone : doorway, pavement, 
 walls, and roof. . . . The staircases of which I have spoken met on a 
 broad landing, from which the whole plain was visible. The walls 
 of the staircases were entirely covered with figures in relief, of work- 
 manship so excellent that I doubt whether it could be surpassed; and 
 by ascending the staircases access was gained to an extensive terrace,
 
 THE PALACES OF PEIiSEPOLTS. 69 
 
 on which stood the forty columns which give their name to the 
 place, each formed, in spite of their great size, of no more than three 
 stones. . . . The bases might Jue thirty palms round, and on the 
 columns were beautifully carved figures. The porches through which 
 the terrace was entered were very high and the walls very thick ; at 
 each end stood out figures of lions and other fierce animals, carved in 
 relief in the same stone : so well executed that they seemed to be 
 endeavouring to terrify the spectators. The likeness of the king was 
 drawn of life-size upon the porches and in many other parts. 
 
 " From this place was an ascent to another much higher, where 
 was a chamber excavated in the hill-side, which must have been 
 intended to contain the king's body, although the natives, imagining 
 that it contained a different treasure, have broken into it, having 
 little respect for the ancient memory of him who constructed 
 it ... 
 
 " The inscriptions which relate the foundation of the edifice, 
 and, no doubt, also declai-e the author of it, although they remain in 
 many parts very distinct, yet there is none that can read them, for 
 they are not in Persian, nor Arabic, nor Armenian, nor Hebrew, 
 which are the languages current in those parts ; and thus all helps 
 to blot out the memory of that which the ambitious king hoped to 
 make eternal. And because the hardness of the material of which 
 it is built still resists the wear of time, the inhabitants of the place, 
 ill-treated or irritated by the numbers of visitors who came to see 
 this wonder, set to work to do it as much injury as they could, 
 taking as much trouble, perhaps, to deface it as the builders had 
 done to erect it. The hard stone has resisted the effect of fire and 
 steel, but not without showing signs of injury." 
 
 Probably through the fact that Gouvea wrote in 
 Portuguese (a language never widely known in Europe), 
 his account of Persepolis has generally been overlooked, 
 and his priority as a discoverer has rarely been acknow- 
 ledged, although some of the writers of his period 
 speak of him as one of the most distinguished travellers 
 of his age. His influence with the Shah was so great 
 that the latter assigned to him and to those who
 
 70 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 accompanied him one of the disused palaces of Ispahan; 
 and here the Auo-ustinian friars continued to reside for 
 
 o 
 
 many }<ears, showing hospitality to European visitors, 
 and doing what they could to make the doctrines of 
 Christianity known among the Mahometans. Their 
 house is described as large enough to lodge a hundred 
 persons, and as containing a handsome chapel, and 
 many rooms painted with blue and gold, which opened 
 on to a garden, where fountains played in basins of 
 marble. Gouvea's narrative of his travels was, how- 
 ever, soon superseded by that of Don Garcia de Silva y 
 Figueroa, ambassador from Philip III. of Spain to Shah 
 Abbas. In 1619 Silva addressed a letter to his friend, 
 the Marquess de Bedmar, then residing at the Court of 
 the Spanish Regent of the Netherlands. This letter, 
 dated from Ispahan, 1619, was printed at Antwerp in 
 1620 ; it was quickly translated from the Latin into 
 English, and made known to our countrymen by its 
 publication in Purchas' Pilgrims, in 1625. It contains 
 the following passages : 
 
 " There are yet remayning most of those huge wilde buildings of 
 the Castle and Palace of Persepolis, so much celebrated in the 
 monuments of ancient writers. These frames do the Arabians 
 and Persians in their owne language call Chilminara : which is 
 as much as if you should say in Spanish Quarenta Columnas, or 
 Alcoranes : for so they call those high narrow round steeples which 
 the Arabians have in their Mesquites. This rare, yea and onely 
 monument of the World (which farre exceedeth all the rest of the 
 World's miracles that we have seen or heard of), sheweth it selfe to 
 them that come to this Citie from the Towne of Xiria, and standeth 
 about a league from the River Bandamir, in times past called 
 Araxis (not that which parteth Media from the greater Armenia),
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOL1S. 71 
 
 whereof often mention is made by Q. Curtins, Diodorus, and 
 Plutarch : which Authors doe point us oute the situation of Perse- 
 polis, and doe almost leade us unto it by the hand. The largenesse, 
 fairnesse, and long-lasting Matter of those Pillars appeareth by 
 the twentie which are yet left of alike fashion ; which with othei 
 remaynders of those stately Piles do move admiration in the minde 
 of beholders, and cannot but with much labour and at leisure be 
 layed open. But since it is your Lordships hap to live now at 
 Venice, where you may see some resemblance of the things which 
 I am about to write of, I will briefly tell you that most of the 
 pictures of men, that, ingraven in marble, doe seele the front, the 
 sides and statelier parts of this building, are decked with a very 
 comely cloathing, and clad in the same fashion which the Venetian 
 Magniticoes goe in : that is, Gownes downe to the heeles with wide 
 sleeves, with round flat caps, their hair spred to the shoulders, 
 and notable long beards. Yee may see in these tables some men 
 sitting with great rnaiestie in certayne loftier chayres, such as use 
 to bee with us in the Quires and Chapter-Houses of Cathedrall 
 Churches, appointed for the seates of the chiefe Prelates ; the seate 
 being supported with a little foote-stoole neatly made, about a hand 
 high. And, which is very worthy of wonder in so divers dresses of 
 so many men as are ingraven in these tables, none cometh neere the 
 fashion which is at this day, or hath beene these many Ages past, in 
 use through all Asia. For though out of all Antiquitie we can 
 gather no such arguments of the cloathing of Assyrians, Medes, and 
 Persians, as we finde many of the Greekes and Romanes ; yet it 
 appeareth sufficiently that they used garments of a middle size for 
 length, like the Punike vest used by the Turks and Persians at this 
 day, which they call Aljuba, and these Cavaia : and shashes round 
 about their heads, distinguished yet both by fashion and colour from 
 the Cidaris, which is the Royall Diademe. Yet verily in all this 
 sculpture (which, though it be ancient, yet shineth as neatly as if it 
 were but new-done) you can see no picture that is like or in the 
 workmanship resembleth any other, which the memorie of man could 
 yet attaine to the knowledge of from any part of the World : so 
 that this worke may seeme to exceede all Antiquities. Now nothing 
 more contirmeth this than one notable Inscription cut in a Jasper 
 table, with characters still so freshe and faire that one would wonder 
 how it could scape so many Ages without touch of the least blemish.
 
 72 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 The Letters themselves are neither Chsildsean, nor Hebrew, nor 
 Greeke, nor Arabike, nor of any other Nation which was ever found 
 of old, or at this day to be extant. They are all three-cornered, but 
 somewhat long, of the forme of a Pyramide, or such a little Obeliske 
 as I have set in the margin (A) ; so that in nothing do they differ 
 from one another but in their placing and situation, yet so conformed 
 that they are wondrous plaine, distinct, and perspicuous. What kind 
 of building the whole was (whether Corinthian, lonick, or mixt) 
 cannot be gathered from the remaynder of these ruines : which is 
 otherwise in the old broken walls at Rome, by which that may easily 
 be discerned. Notwithstanding the wondrous and artificiall exact- 
 nesse of the worke, the beautie and elegancy of it shining out of the 
 proportion and symmetrie, doth dazzle the eyes of the beholders. 
 But nothing amazed me more than the hardnesse and durablenesse of 
 these Marbles and Jaspers ; for in many places there are Tables 
 so solide, and so curiously wrought and polished that ye may see 
 your face in them as in a glasse. Besides the Authors by me 
 alreadie commended, Arrianus and Justine make special mention of 
 this Palace; and they report that Alexander the Great (at the 
 instigation of Thai's) did burne it downe. But most delicately of all 
 doth Diodorus deliver this storie. 
 
 "The whole Castle was encompassed with a threefold circle 
 of walls, the greater part whereof hath yielded to the time and 
 weather. There stand also the Sepulchres of their kings, placed on 
 the side of that hill, at the foote whereof the Castle itself is built ; 
 and the monuments stand just so farre from one another as Diodorus 
 reporteth. In a worde, all doth so agree with his discourse of it that 
 he that hath scene this and read that cannot possibly be deceived." 
 
 Much attention was attracted by this account of 
 the ruins, which is indeed less complete than a report 
 on them by Pietro della Valle in a letter to Mario 
 Schipano, dated from Shiraz, 1616, but not published 
 till 1650, thirty years after Silva's epistle to the 
 Marquess de Bedmar. What most distinguishes 
 Delia Valle's narrative is that he actually gives a copy 
 of five of the cuneiform characters engraved on the
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOLIS. 73 
 
 walls of the ruined palaces, and has the sagacity to 
 infer that they were read from left to right ; the signs 
 which he gives us are part of the title of Darius and 
 Xerxes, which has now been interpreted as " King of 
 Kings." In the last } 7 ear of Abbas (1G % 27), Sir Thomas 
 Herbert was in Persia with the English Ambassador, 
 Sir Dodmore Cotton, and he afterwards published an 
 account of Chehel-minar, with a copy of a few of the 
 cuneiform, or, as he calls them, pyramidal characters. 
 These antiquities had now excited so much interest that 
 a representation of them was greatly desired in Europe. 
 Sir Thomas Herbert says : 
 
 " Is it not greate pity that some Illustrious Prince or other 
 Noble Person valuing rarities has not ere this sent some painter or 
 other like artist to take a full and perfect draught of this so ancient 
 Mouument 1 the rather seeing that the Inhabitants of Shyraz. but 
 principally the Vil lagers at Mardash and other People thereabouts, 
 put no value upon it ; but contrarily in barbarous manner spare not 
 to deface and tear asunder what they can in spight, and under pre- 
 tence of serving their common occasions. ... I may here with 
 thankfulness acknowledge how that, upon my proposing it some 
 years since unto that great Maecenas of antiquity, the late noble 
 Lord Thomas, Earl of Arundel, he was so sensible thereof as to 
 that end he dispatched a Youth thither, whom Mr. Norgate recom- 
 mended to his Lordship for one he knew could both design and copy 
 well. But I hear he died by the way at or near Surat, before he 
 could reach Persia ; so as that worthy endeavour became frustrate." 
 
 Other travellers visited the site of Persepolis about 
 this time : for instance, Cartwright, Boullaye-le-Grouz, 
 Mandelslo, Tavernier, Thevenot, Daulier Peslandes ; and 
 they all give more or less correct accounts of the 
 remains, and express various opinions about their
 
 74 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 origin. Daulier Deslandes is to be distinguished as 
 having, in his Beautez de la Perse, published at Paris, 
 1673, given a fairly accurate engraving of the palaces 
 of Persepolis, on too small a scale, however, to allow 
 the details to be seen. 
 
 In 16G6 our English Royal Society had issued a 
 series of inquiries relative to the antiquities and physical 
 conditions of various countries, answers to which were 
 earnestly desired by the learned in the cause of science. 
 One of these inquiries demands : 
 
 " Whether, there being already good Descriptions in Words of 
 the Excellent Pictures and Basse Relieves that are about Persepolis 
 at Chilmenar, yet none very particular, some may not be found 
 sufficiently skilled in those parts, that might be engaged to make a 
 Draught of the Place and the Stories there pictured and carved." 
 
 In consequence of this inquiry, a merchant named 
 Flower, who in the course of his professional journeys 
 to the East took the opportunity of paying a visit to 
 the ruins, made a copy of some of the inscriptions 
 there ; but, unfortunately, he was attacked by disease, 
 and died in Syria, and his papers, communicated to the 
 Royal Society in 1693, only gave a very imperfect 
 answer to the question which that learned body had 
 propounded. 
 
 In consequence of the general desire of a representa- 
 tion of Persepolis, and the difficulty of actually pro- 
 curing one, an eccentric Dutchman, named Struys, 
 published a view and description of the remains in 
 1686, in his work entitled " Three Eemarkable and 
 most Disastrous Journeys through Italy, Greece,
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOL1S. 75 
 
 Livonia, Muscovy, Tartary, Media, Persia, East India, 
 Japan, and various other Countries." Some writers 
 have gone so far as to assert that Struys was an 
 impostor, who never left the flats and dykes of Holland ; 
 at any rate, he never saw Persepolis. His plate repre- 
 sents a marvellous building, in which Turkish domes 
 and classical columns are combined in a fashion never 
 seen in any earthly structure ; if he had even carefully 
 read the reports of his contemporaries, he could never 
 have made such a blunder as this. 
 
 The first complete book of travels in Persia is the pro- 
 duction of Chardin, who was in the East between 1664 
 and 1677 ; in his famous work he not only published a 
 full description of Chehel-minar, but also gave numerous 
 plates, representing the ruins and some of the inscrip- 
 tions. Chardin, however, would not accept the view of 
 Silva y Figueroa and Delia Valle that the remains are 
 part of a palace of Darius ; the spot would, he fancies, 
 have been too much exposed to the heat to have been 
 chosen as a dwelling-place ; it was probably a temple, 
 he thinks, especially as the bas-reliefs appear to have a 
 religious character. As for the date of the edifice, he 
 adopts the Persian tradition, which ascribes it to 
 Jemsheed, accepting the latter as an historical person- 
 age, who must have lived about the time of Jacob. So 
 do the doctors differ ! An equally remote antiquity was 
 ascribed to Chehel-minar by Engelbert Kaempfer, a 
 German physician and good Persian scholar, who re- 
 turned from the East in 1694, and wrote a Latin work 
 on Persia and other parts of Asia, in which he gives
 
 76 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 plates of the ruins and of some of the inscriptions, to 
 which he was the first to assign the name of cuneiform. 
 He says : 
 
 " The southern wall [of the terrace] . . . exhibits an inscription 
 in strange characters, which have the form of small wedges (cuneoli), 
 such as are not to be found in any other part of the world, except in 
 the chambers of the same palace ; nor can they be understood at 
 present by any human being." 
 
 An illustrious successor of Chardin and Kaempfer 
 was the Dutchman Cornells de Bruin, who started for 
 the East in 1701, and on his return gave to the world a 
 full account of his journeys, including plates drawn by 
 himself of Persepolis and of some of the inscriptions. 
 De Bruin rejects the theories of the two former travellers 
 on the origin of the remains, saying : 
 
 " I think we may conclude that the ruins of Chilminar are those 
 of the famous palace of Persepolis which was destroyed by Alexander 
 the Great." 
 
 In justice to our countrymen, a work must here be 
 mentioned which was published in London in 1739. It 
 is " Persepolis Illustrata," and contains twenty-one 
 engravings on copper-plates of the palaces, accompanied 
 by a description of them, and a lithographed account of 
 the ancient authors who have written upon them. 
 Considering the period, we must allow that the engrav- 
 ings do credit to the artists, but they are incomplete and 
 full of mistakes in details. A fairly correct view is taken 
 of the date of the buildings. 
 
 All former travellers were eclipsed by Niebuhr 
 (17G5), whose drawings and copies of the ruins and
 
 THE PALACES OF PERSEPOLIS. 77 
 
 inscriptions henceforward formed the material that 
 scholars could best rely upon, and whose opinions upon 
 all the subjects of which he treats are accurate and 
 scholarly. No new information was supplied by the 
 Count Ferrieres Sauveboeuf (1782), who saw little to 
 admire in the Achsemenian palace, or by Francklin, who 
 journeyed from Bengal to Persia in 1786, and is in- 
 clined to accept the native legends about the origin 
 of the remains. One remark of Francklin is worth 
 recording, as it has been partly justified by events : 
 
 " I should presume that until the ancient characters on the walls 
 can be decyphered, no account of this place, either Grecian or 
 Persian, or any other, can be depended upon as genuine or authentic, 
 as they are unquestionably of an antiquity far beyond the records of 
 any language now known in the world." 
 
 At this time, then, the end of the eighteenth 
 century, the learned world of Europe possessed a fairly 
 complete knowledge of the ruins of Persepolis and of 
 the inscriptions upon them. The time was come for 
 the decipherer to arise. Since this date other travellers 
 have visited Persia, and have corrected and added to 
 the information already possessed. Sir Robert Ker 
 Porter, especially, published copies of the inscriptions 
 more correct even than those of Niebuhr ; Morier, who 
 accompanied the embassy of Sir Harford Jones, added 
 much useful information ; Sir William Ouseley, who 
 accompanied his brother's embassy in 1810, through his 
 great knowledge of Persian, supplied us with many 
 interesting facts ; and Buckingham must not be 
 omitted. Then came the French expedition sent out
 
 78 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 by Louis Philippe in 1839, during which MM. Flandin 
 and Coste made the drawings which they published 
 in their magnificent work. Lastly, M. Dieulafoy and 
 Dr. Stolze have completed our knowledge by their 
 works on the " Ancient Art of Persia" and on 
 "Persepolis."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DECIPHERMENT OF THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS 
 
 WHEN it was made known in Europe that inscriptions 
 in an unknown character had been found at the ruins of 
 Chehel-minar, identified by some with the ancient palace 
 of the Achsemenian monarchs at Persepolis, much in- 
 terest was excited among the learned, but the idea of 
 interpreting the mysterious sentences was generally 
 given up as hopeless. The native Persians believed 
 that the writing on the walls contained the key which, 
 if discovered, would open the door to the treasures 
 buried beneath ; for all ancient ruins are supposed in 
 the East to contain hidden wealth. It must not be 
 omitted, however, that some of the natives seem to have 
 made attempts to decipher the writing, and to have 
 preserved a correct notion of its nature and origin ; for 
 in a Persian manuscript, the contents of which were 
 communicated by Lord Teignmouth to Sir William 
 Ouseley in 1798, there is a list of cuneiform characters, 
 many of them, it is true, of imaginary form, but all 
 composed of wedges in different positions, and some 
 actually found at Persepolis ; and the modern Persian 
 letters supposed to correspond to them are added 
 beneath. The whole scheme is absolutely inaccurate,
 
 80 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 but it is worth quoting, in order to show that an 
 attempt at the decipherment of their ancient characters 
 had been made by the modern Persians ; and still more 
 on account of the title placed at the head of the list : 
 "The Alphabet of the Zoroastrians, or Fire- worshippers, 
 which was introduced in the latter part of the reign of 
 Gushtasp."* Now, Gushtasp, or Hystaspes, is generally 
 understood to represent Darius, son of Hystaspes, in 
 whose time (there are many reasons for believing) the 
 cuneiform characters were actually brought into use in 
 Persia. No other attempt to explain the inscriptions 
 has been made, so far as it is known, by the natives 
 of the country. 
 
 The first European who noticed the inscriptions was 
 Antonio de Gouvea, the Portuguese friar, who, as we 
 have seen in the last chapter, correctly surmised that 
 they contained records of the builder of the edifice, who 
 wished in this way to preserve the memory of his name. 
 But many travellers preferred less obvious and more 
 far-fetched theories of the meaning of the lines. Sir 
 Thomas Herbert (1626) seems to have thought that 
 they might have been engraved by order of the prophet 
 Daniel himself: 
 
 " There is [on the wall of the terrace] a Jasper or Marble Table, 
 about twenty feet from the pavement, wherein are inscribed about 
 twenty lines of character, every line being a yard and a half broad, or 
 thereabouts ; all of them very perfect to the eye, and the stone 
 so well polished that it still preserves its lustre. The characters are 
 of a strange and unusual shape, neither like Letters nor Hiero- 
 glyphicks ; yea, so far from our deciphering that we could not so 
 
 * Sir W. Ouseley in " Oriental Collections," Jan. March, 1798, p. 57.
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 81 
 
 much as make any positive judgment whether they were words 
 or characters ; albeit, I rather incline to the first, and that they 
 comprehend words or syllables, as in Brachyography or Short-writing 
 we familiarly practise. Nor indeed could we judge whether the 
 Writing were from the right hand to the left, according to the 
 Chaldee and usual manner of these Oriental Countreys ; or from the 
 left hand to the right, as the Greeks, Romans, and other Nations 
 imitating their alphabets have accustomed. Nevertheless by the 
 posture and tendency of some of the characters (which consist of 
 several magnitudes) it may be supposed that this writing was rather 
 from the left hand to the right, as the Armenian and Indian do 
 at this day. And concerning the Characters, albeit I have since 
 compared them with the twelve several alphabets in Postellus, and 
 after that with those eight and fifty different Alphabets I find in 
 Purchas, which indeed comprehend all or most of the various forms 
 of lettei\s that either now are or at any time have been in use 
 through the greater part of the Universe, I could not perceive that 
 these had the least resemblance or coherence with any of them, 
 which is very strange, and certainly renders it the greater curiosity ; 
 and, therefore, well worthy the scrutiny of some ingenious Persons 
 that delight themselves in this dark and difficult art or exercise 
 of deciphering. For how obscure soever these seemed to us, without 
 doubt they were at some time understood, and peradventure by Daniel, 
 who probably might be the surveyor and instruct the Architector of 
 this Palace, as he was of those memorable Buildings at Shushan and 
 Ecbatan ; for it is very likely that this structure was raised by 
 Astyages or his Grandson, Cyrus, and it is acknowledged that this 
 great Prophet (who likewise was a Civil Officer in highest trust and 
 repute during those great revolutions of State under the mighty 
 Monarchs Nebuchodonosor, Belshazzar, Astyages, Darius, and Cyrus) 
 had his mysterious characters. So as how incommunicable soever 
 these Characters be to us (for they bear the resemblance of pyramids 
 inverted or with bases upwards, Triangles or Deltas), yet doubtless 
 in the Age they were engraven they were both legible and intelli- 
 gible, and it is not to be imagined that they were there placed either to 
 amuse or to delude the spectators ; for it cannot be denied but that 
 the Persians in those primitive times had Letters peculiar to them- 
 selves which differed from those of all other Nations. However, 
 I have thought fit to insert a few of these for better demonstration, 
 O
 
 82 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 which, nevertheless, whiles they cannot be read, will in all pro- 
 bability, like the Mene Tekel, without the help of a Daniel, hardly be 
 interpreted." * 
 
 Mandelslo (1630) appears to believe that the in- 
 scriptions are talismans, and conceal secrets which time 
 will disclose. 
 
 At the end of the seventeenth century, although 
 the accounts of travellers showed the existence of many 
 inscriptions of considerable length among the ruins of 
 Chehel-minar, the only copies that had reached Europe 
 were five characters published by Delia Valle in 1650, 
 three lines very inaccurately given by Sir Thomas 
 Herbert, and two equally inaccurate lines printed from 
 Flower's copy in the ". Philosophical Transactions " of 
 June, 1693. This was all that the learned Dr. Hyde, 
 who occupied two chairs at Oxford as liegius Professor 
 of Hebrew and Laudian Professor of Arabic had seen 
 when, in 1700, he published his opinion that the 
 cuneiform or pyramidal figures engraved upon the 
 walls of Persepolis were not writing, but simply an 
 ornamental device, introduced by the architect as part 
 of the decoration of the building. He explains himself 
 thus : 
 
 " There are some who think it necessary to suppose that these 
 pyramidal figures express letters, of which words are composed. In 
 my opinion, however, they are not letters, and were not intended for 
 letters ; but they were engraved simply for the sake of ornament, by 
 a mere whim of the original architect of the palace when it was first 
 erected, which induced him to try how many different figures he 
 
 * " Some Yeares Travels into divers parts of Africa and Asia the 
 Great," etc. p. 141 ff.
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 83 
 
 could compose by arranging strokes of the same form in a variety of 
 positions." * 
 
 This theory of Hyde's, which was certainly an easy 
 mode of solving the difficult problem of the meaning 
 of the cuneiform characters, resembles the view of the 
 Abbe Tandeau on the nature of the Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphics, expounded in a work entitled " A Dissertation 
 on the Hieroglyphic Writing," and published about the 
 middle of the eighteenth century. According to the 
 Abbe, the figures with which the obelisks and temples 
 on the Nile are covered are not a form of writing, as 
 had generally been supposed, but simply ornamental 
 designs carved by the architect upon the granite, with 
 no other purpose than that of decoration ; it was only 
 in later years that the priests, anxious to find a new 
 means of support for their religion, interpreted the 
 various figures as containing the mysteries of their 
 creed, which were thus concealed beneath symbolic 
 characters of immemorial antiquity. 
 
 A view similar to those of Hyde and Tandeau was, 
 at the end of the last century, and therefore on the eve 
 of the actual decipherment of the inscriptions, ex- 
 pounded by Samuel Witte, a professor in the University 
 of Rostock, who maintained that we have at Persepolis 
 elementary designs of flowers in bouquets and gar- 
 lands : 
 
 " It is impossible to say exactly what sort of flowers are here 
 intended to be represented ; this, however, is not necessary : it is 
 enough to state the general principle. Yet, in order to show the 
 
 * " Historia Religionis veterum Persarum," etc., 1700, p. 526. 
 G2
 
 84 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 possibility that flowers are here designed, we may compare those 
 that have a funnel-shaped blossom, such as the wild convolvulus, the 
 larger and smaller pansies, the common tobacco with tongue-shaped 
 petals, and even the different kinds of carnation." 
 
 Kaempfer, whose work was published in 1712, was 
 the first to be struck by a superficial resemblance of the 
 cuneiform character to the Chinese an idea which 
 occurred to many after his time. The resemblance 
 consists chiefly in the form of the wedge-shaped strokes, 
 thick at one end and pointed at the other, which is in 
 reality an accidental rather than an essential feature of 
 the two systems of writing ; the Chinese character is 
 written or painted with a brush, and the cuneiform was 
 generally impressed on clay with a stick ; hence the 
 shape of the strokes. It has been remarked that 
 certain Greek inscriptions have a cuneiform appearance, 
 due to the greater facility of engraving strokes of the 
 shape described. Kaempfer says : 
 
 " On the southern wall of the terrace is an inscription in strange 
 characters, having the form of wedges, such as are not to be found 
 elsewhere on the face of the earth, except in the chambers of this 
 palace, nor at present can they be understood by any mortal. We 
 do not know what the language is, or whether the writing is 
 alphabetic, like that of Europe, or expresses syllabic sounds like that 
 of the Japanese, or whole ideas like the Chinese. I conjecture that 
 the last is the case, and that the wedges, according to their different 
 position and arrangement, denote different things ; and therefore 
 that it is immaterial for the reader to know what was the idiom of 
 the writer. The fact that there are sometimes very few wedges in 
 one character, while the strokes in the Chinese characters are far 
 more numerous, does not alter my opinion. For here there is no 
 need of so many wedges as there is of strokes in the Chinese ; for 
 the Chinese strokes are without head or tail, or, if they have them
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 85 
 
 for the sake of calligraphy, may drop them without alteration of the 
 sense, and therefore in one position can only have one meaning; 
 whereas our wedges in the same position, if they are inverted, may 
 have two meanings, and therefore may serve their purpose in less 
 profusion and with less complication of forms." * 
 
 After Kaempfer, Christoph Gottlieb von Murr 
 (1777), who had received accurate copies of the in- 
 scriptions at Persepolis from the hand of Niebuhr 
 himself, was led astray by the supposed analogy of the 
 Chinese characters, and wasted much time in studying 
 this point, as he himself tells us : 
 
 "Have the characters any analogy with the Chinese? If I 
 wished to make a show of my ingenuity, I could talk to you much 
 about this analogy. But I already regret the long hours that I have 
 wasted in comparing the combinations of strokes in thes>e characters 
 with the Chinese, which also consist of strokes and crooked lines, 
 simply that I might not seem to have neglected any chance of inter- 
 pretation. I also compared them, with respect to their combinations, 
 with the oldest script of the Chang dynasty (1,000 years before 
 Christ); and with the ancient characters called Ku wen and 
 Tschoang tsee." f 
 
 The same fancied resemblance between the Chinese 
 and Persepolitan scripts attracted Easpe, who published 
 a "Catalogue of Ancient Gems" in 1791. Easpe was 
 not an Oriental scholar, and seems to have derived his 
 knowledge of Chinese from a brief intercourse with Dr. 
 Morton, the Librarian of the British Museum ; but he 
 nevertheless asserts that the cuneiform inscriptions 
 on certain cylindrical seals " perfectly resemble " the 
 Chinese character. This is the more remarkable because 
 
 * " Amoenitates Exoticae," p. 331. 
 
 f "Journal zur Kunstgeschichte," etc., p. 137.
 
 86 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Raspe ridicules at the same time those who tried to 
 explain the hieroglyphics of Egypt by the Chinese 
 characters, although this latter theory is scarcely less 
 fanciful than his own. 
 
 Other incipient, but equally unsuccessful, attempts 
 to explain the cuneiform character were made by those 
 who were struck by the apparent resemblance of the 
 Runic script or of the Ogham writing of Ireland. Of 
 the former, Court de Gebelin is the chief, but Andrew 
 Celsius, the Upsala professor, and the Baron de Bock 
 adopted the same hypothesis ; none of them, however, 
 brought this view to any result. The hopes thus 
 expressed by Bock were never realised : 
 
 " The language of the Persepolitan inscriptions is not entirely 
 lost ; on the contrary, the new discoveries of M. Court de Gebelin 
 ought to make us hope that the interpretation of it will soon be 
 discovered."* 
 
 In 1752 the Count de Caylus published an in- 
 scription which proved afterwards of some importance 
 in the history of the decipherment ; it was engraved on 
 an alabaster vase, brought from Egypt, and placed in 
 the Cabinet of Antiquities attached to the Royal 
 Library, where it may still be seen. The vase exhibits 
 some hieroglyphic characters in a cartouche, together 
 with three lines of writing similar to that found at 
 Persepolis. Caylus concludes from these facts that the 
 Persepolitan script was of Egyptian origin ; but, of 
 course, he was totally unable to interpret a single word. 
 
 By the end of the eighteenth century there was 
 
 " Essai BUI 1'Histoire du Sabeisme,'' 1788, p. 62.
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 87 
 
 considerable material for the decipherers to work upon ; 
 Kaempfer, Chardin, and De Bruin had published in- 
 scriptions varying in length and accuracy ; and, lastly, 
 Niebuhr had given copies to the world that obviously 
 far excelled all former efforts in completeness and 
 correctness. Niebuhr's conscientious and enthusiastic 
 efforts to obtain true representations of the buildings 
 and inscriptions of Persepolis are thus described by 
 his son : 
 
 "These ruins, inscriptions, and bas-reliefs had been sufficiently 
 well represented by three former travellers to arouse the attention of 
 Niebuhr as the most important monument of the East. The number 
 ,of inscriptions and sculptures made him hope that an interpreter 
 might be found who, by comparing them, would be able to under- 
 stand them, if once correct copies of them were placed before him ; 
 and Niebuhr's keen eye told him how insufficient the drawings 
 hitherto published were. Nothing out of all that he saw in Asia 
 attracted him so powerfully in anticipation ; he could not rest until 
 he had reached Persepolis, and the last night saw him sleepless. 
 The remembrance of these ruins remained ineffaceable all his life 
 long ; they were for him the gem of all that he had viewed. 
 
 "Three weeks and a half he remained beneath them, in the midst 
 of a wilderness ; and during this time he worked without interrup- 
 tion at the measurement and drawing of the ruins. The inscriptions 
 are placed high up on the walls, and were clearly to be distinguished 
 only when the sun shone upon them ; as in this atmosphere the 
 hard, originally polished marble is not weather-worn, his eyes, 
 already affected by the uninterrupted work, were dangerously in- 
 named ; and this, as well as the death of his Armenian servant, 
 obliged him, much against his will, to leave the old Persian sanctuary 
 before he had completed his drawings." 
 
 It was Niebuhr's copies, then, that were studied by 
 the three men who, at the end of the last century 
 and beginning of the present, undertook serious work
 
 88 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE, 
 
 upon the decipherment of the Persepolitan inscriptions. 
 Let us see how the way had been prepared for them. 
 
 The ancient language in which the sacred books 
 of Persia were written had recently been interpreted. 
 The history of this event forms one of the romantic 
 pages in the dull annals of Oriental philology. The hero 
 of the story is Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, 
 a Parisian, born in 1731, and destined by his parents 
 for the priesthood. After passing through two semi- 
 naries, however, the young man found that his taste 
 for theology was so much weaker than his passion for 
 Eastern languages, that he gave himself up entirely to 
 the latter ; and his assiduity at the lloyal Library of 
 Paris attracted the notice of the Abbe Sallier, keeper 
 of the manuscripts, who succeeded in procuring for 
 him a small salary in the capacity of student of Arabic 
 and Persian Soon after this, some odd leaves of a 
 Zend manuscript fell into his hands, and the desire to 
 find the key to the interpretation of the sacred language 
 of the Parsees became so strong within him, that he 
 determined, by some means or other, to make his way 
 to India, and to study under the native priests. At 
 this time the difficulties between the French and 
 English in India were beginning, and a military ex- 
 pedition was about to start from Havre ; accordingly 
 the young Anquetil enlisted as a private soldier, and 
 set out with his knapsack on his back. His patrons, 
 however, heard of this, and hastened to the minister, 
 who, affected by the zeal for knowledge of which the 
 young man had given such unquestionable proof,
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 89 
 
 granted him a free passage, with a seat at the captain's 
 table, and appointed a salary to be paid him upon his 
 arrival in India. The ship reached Pondicherry after 
 a passage of nine months, and Anquetil set out to 
 Chandernagore with the intention of studying Sanscrit. 
 Here he fell ill, and immediately after his recovery the 
 place was besieged and taken by the English. This 
 occurrence obliged Anquetil to return to Pondicherry, 
 and he made the journey on foot, without money or 
 baggage, across a most dangerous country. On arriving 
 at Pondicherry, after an eventful march of a hundred 
 days, the undaunted student embarked for Surat. 
 There he succeeded in overcoming the fanaticism and 
 scruples of some Parsee priests, and acquired from them 
 a sufficient knowledge of Zend to translate a great 
 part of the Zend-Avesta, their holy scriptures. In 
 1762 Anquetil was back in Paris, where he obtained 
 a small post at the Royal Library, and employed 
 himself in publishing the text and translation of the 
 Zend-Avesta, hitherto entirely unknown in Europe ; 
 these appeared in 1771. Later, he gave up his post, 
 and his subsequent life may be best described in his 
 own words, prefixed to his edition of the " Upanishads ": 
 
 " Anquetil-Duperron to the sages of India salutation ! You will 
 not disdain, O sages, the writings of a man who is, so to speak, of 
 your own caste. Hear, I pray you, what is my manner of life. My 
 daily food is composed of a little milk or cheese and water from the 
 well, the whole costing about four French sous, or the twelfth part 
 of an Indian rupee ; I pass the winter without a fire ; the use of a 
 mattress or of sheets is unknown to me ; my linen is never changed 
 or washed ; without income, without salary, without position, I live
 
 00 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 upon my literary work, and am well enough for my age, in spite of 
 my former labours ; I have neither wife, nor children, nor servant ; 
 destitute of all the good things of this world, and free from all its 
 ties, yet I am conscious of a love for all men, and especially good 
 men. In this condition, waging war against my senses, I despise the 
 seductions of the world, and I overcome, them ; I am near the term 
 of my existence ; I aspire keenly and constantly towards the 
 Supreme and Perfect Being ; and I await with calmness the dissolu- 
 tion of my mortal frame." 
 
 This was the single-minded, if somewhat slovenly, 
 scholar who first made known to the European world 
 the sacred books of the Parsees ; and it was seen at 
 once that the Zend language in which these were 
 written, perhaps in the time of the successors of Cyrus, 
 might, as the oldest Persian language known, be that 
 in which the inscriptions of Persepolis were drawn up. 
 Tychsen, a member of the University of Rostock, 
 adopted this view in the first serious essay towards the 
 decipherment of the unknown characters that had yet 
 appeared : namely, his " Lucubration on the Cuneiform 
 Inscriptions of Persepolis," published in 1798. This 
 essay was, however, a failure. In the first place, the 
 author was led astray by the notion, put forth by 
 certain travellers and scholars, that the ruins of 
 Chehel-minar could not be the palace of the AchsB- 
 menian sovereigns, because this was burnt down by 
 Alexander ; while the existing remains show no trace 
 of fire. Tychsen forgot or was ignorant that great 
 portions of the palaces, especially the immense Hall, 
 or Apadana, of the Hundred Columns, have almost 
 entirely disappeared, and may well have been burned
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 91 
 
 down, that the cedar roofing has vanished in all the 
 buildings, and that Plutarch expressly states that 
 the original historians of Alexander agree that the 
 latter caused the fire to be quickly extinguished before it 
 had spread to all the structures. Tychsen also remarks 
 that the palace of Persepolis was built by Egyptian 
 workmen whom Cambyses had brought from Egypt, 
 while the existing remains are not of Egyptian archi- 
 tecture. Here he would be contradicted by modern 
 archa3ologists, who consider that there is a considerable 
 trace of Egyptian influence, especially in the forms of 
 the columns. Misled by these and other considerations, 
 Tychsen declares that the ruins of Chehel-minar cannot 
 be older than the Parthian dynasty (B.C. 246-A.D. 227); 
 accordingly he actually interprets two short inscrip- 
 tions in his own way with the help of the Zend, as 
 referring to the founder of this dynasty, Arsaces. 
 This is what he makes out of four lines written above 
 the figure of a king : 
 
 " This is the king, this is Arsaces the great, this is Arsaces, this 
 is Arsaces, the perfect and the king, this is Arsaces the divine, the 
 pious, the admirable hero." 
 
 This happens to be the very inscription in which 
 Grotefend afterwards correctly discovered the names 
 of Xerxes and Darius. As for the means by which 
 Tychsen found out, as he thought, the value of the 
 cuneiform letters, he does not take us fully into his 
 confidence on this point, but he observes that some of 
 the letters resemble the Greek in form. Tychsen's 
 interpretation in any case was an entire failure ; not
 
 92 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 a single scholar accepted it as a solution of the 
 problem. A more scholarly but less ambitious " Essay 
 upon the Cuneiform Inscriptions at Persepolis " was 
 published by Dr. Frederick Mimter, of Copenhagen, in 
 1800. Mimter at once rejects all Tychsen's sugges- 
 tions, and contents himself with preparing the way for 
 subsequent decipherment. He says much about the 
 date of the ruins and inscriptions, which he refers, after 
 a full discussion, to the time of the Achajmenids. One 
 point alone, he says, would be enough to refute 
 Tychsen's view that the Parthians were the founders 
 of Chehel-minar, and that is the appearance of Ethio- 
 pians among the tribute-bearers on the sculptured stair- 
 case ; not a foot of land was ever possessed in Africa 
 by the rulers of Persia except between the reigns of 
 Cambyses and Darius Codomannus. As to the actual 
 decipherment, Hunter accepts Delia Valle's opinion, 
 that the lines are to be read from left to right, because 
 characters found in one place at the right end of 
 a line occur elsewhere in a similar inscription at the 
 left end of the next line ; and he adopts Niebuhr's 
 discovery that the inscriptions of Persepolis are drawn 
 up in three different forms of character and, without 
 doubt, in three different languages. The kind of in- 
 scription which always appears first is much simpler 
 than the others, and the words are divided from one 
 another by an oblique stroke. Miinter was the first 
 who announced this last discovery. This simple kind 
 of inscription is evidently composed of alphabetic cha- 
 racters, to judge from the small number of them which
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 93 
 
 are found : namely, no more than forty-eight ; from the 
 number which go to make up one word ; and from the 
 frequency with which they occur, even in the same 
 word. The two other kinds of inscription are probably 
 written in syllabic characters, or characters expressing 
 a complete idea, like the Chinese. The first and 
 simplest kind of inscription is, without doubt, written 
 in the native Persian language. There are many cases 
 in antiquity of inscriptions in two or more languages, 
 set .up by the Acha3menian monarchs and others. 
 Miinter tried to ascertain the value of a few of the 
 alphabetic characters, especially the vowels, which he 
 rightly considers must be those that occur most 
 frequently, but his efforts remained without result. 
 
 Besides the cuneiform inscriptions, there were others 
 in Persia which had recently been attracting the atten- 
 tion of scholars. These were written in the Pehlvi 
 character, and accompanied sculptures of the Sassanian 
 period (A.D. 227-641) ; the principal examples were 
 found at the tombs of Naksh-i-Rustam. In the last 
 years of the eighteenth century the great Arabist, 
 Silvestre de Sacy, succeeded in deciphering the Sas- 
 sanian inscriptions ; they contained the name and titles 
 of the monarch whose effigy was carved beneath, and 
 generally ran in this fashion : 
 
 "N., the great king, the king of kings, the king of Iran and 
 Aniran, son of N., the great king, etc." 
 
 This was a discovery which contained suggestions 
 for those who were occupying themselves with the 
 attempt to interpret the more ancient characters.
 
 94 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 The year 1802 marks an epoch in the decipherment 
 of the cuneiform characters. On September 1 8th of 
 that year the Gottingische gelehrte Anzcigen announced 
 that George Frederick Grotefend then studying at the 
 University of Gottingen 
 
 " had been led by certain historical pre-suppositions, and also by 
 the analogy of the Sassanian inscriptions, to discover in the shorter 
 cuneiform inscriptions of Persepolis, written in the first and simplest 
 of the three forms of character, which he had examined with this 
 
 purpose in view, the names and titles of Darius and Xerxes." 
 
 
 
 Oddly enough, however, the essay in which Grote- 
 fend explained the method by which he had made this 
 startling discovery was never published ; it was only 
 in the writings of other authors that he described the 
 steps by which he had been led to so important a 
 result. In the next year Silvestre de Sacy, the de- 
 cipherer of the Sassanian inscriptions, gave a full 
 account of Grotefend's work in a letter published in 
 the Magasin Encyclopedique \ and in 1805 an account 
 in Grotefend's own words was given to the world at the 
 end of the first volume of his friend Heeren's Ideas on 
 the Politics and Trade of the Foremost Nations of the Ancient 
 World. As this was the first step towards a complete 
 interpretation of the Persian inscriptions in the cunei- 
 form character, we give a short account of it. 
 
 Grotefend was the son of a shoemaker of Mi'mden- 
 on-the-Weser, and had entered the University of Got- 
 tingen in 1795, for the purpose of studying theology 
 and philology. He soon showed an aptitude for 
 dealing with obscure portions of science, and the most
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 95 
 
 difficult problems were precisely those which allured 
 him. In 1802, his friend Fiorillo, the librarian, sug- 
 gested that Grotefend should make an effort to decipher 
 the cuneiform inscriptions of Persepolis, then the 
 object of so much interest, and provided him with 
 all the books bearing on the subject. The attempt 
 was the more daring because Grotefend's studies had 
 not lain in the direction of Oriental philology ; on the 
 contrary, the future professor of classical literature was 
 not acquainted with a single Eastern language ; but this 
 did not hinder him from setting bravely to work. He 
 chose for his first attempt two short trilingual inscrip- 
 tions, published by Niebuhr, and naturally selected the 
 first and simplest of the three versions in each case, 
 believing, with Miinter, that it was written in alphabetic 
 characters, that the words were divided by oblique 
 strokes, and that it was composed in the Persian 
 language. The two inscriptions are found over the 
 heads of sculptured figures of kings ; therefore Tychsen 
 had concluded that they contained the names and titles 
 of the monarchs here represented. A certain word 
 occurred several times in both, and Miinter had con- 
 jectured that this meant " king." Other words were 
 placed near to one another in both inscriptions, but in 
 different relative positions ; therefore Grotefend, re- 
 membering the formulae on the Sassanian monuments,, 
 came very rapidly to the conclusion that the inscrip- 
 tions ran in this form, the names varying in each case : 
 
 " N-, the great (?) king, the king of kings, the son of N. [the 
 king]. . . ."
 
 96 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Then came the question : Who conld the kings be, 
 and what names were to be supplied here ? Keeren's 
 history and Hunter's essay convinced Grotefend that 
 the palaces and inscriptions of Persepolis were of the 
 time of the Achsemenian dynasty ; the choice of names 
 was, therefore, not very great. Cyrus and Cambyses 
 were rejected because the names of the father and son 
 in the inscription did not begin with the same letter, 
 and, moreover, the first of these two names would be 
 too short. Artaxerxes was too long a word. Darius and 
 Xerxes alone remained ; and these appeared to fit so 
 well into the characters that little doubt could remain 
 of the correctness of the inference. Besides, in one of 
 the inscriptions, the title of king did not appear 
 after the name of the father, and this at once coin- 
 cided with the statement of the Greek historians 
 that Hystaspes, the father of Darius, was not himself 
 king. 
 
 For the actual Persian names Grotefend had before 
 him the Greek Dareios which Strabo asserts to be an 
 altered form and the Hebrew Daryavesh ; the Greek 
 Xerxes, corresponding to the Hebrew Akhashverosh, 
 which is given by the Septuagint as Assoueros,* by the 
 Vulgate as Assuerus, and by our Authorised Version as 
 Ahasuerus ; and for Hystaspes he had the modern 
 Persian form, Gushtasp. Accordingly, being careful to 
 give the same value to the same letter in all cases, he 
 read the names : 
 
 * I.e., in Ezra and Daniel. In Esther the LXX. have Artaxerxes.
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 97 
 
 Kh-sh-h-e r-sh-e - Xerxes, or Akhashverosh. 
 D-a-r-h-e-u-sh = Dareios or Daryavesh. 
 G-o-sh-t-a-s-p = Hystaspes. 
 
 and translated the inscriptions : 
 
 " Xerxes the mighty king, king of kings, son of Darius, the 
 king. . . ." 
 
 " Darius the mighty king, king of kings . . . son of 
 Hystaspes. . . ." * 
 
 It will be seen that there are several letters common 
 to the three names, or to two of them, which were 
 sufficient to prove the exactness of the whole. Twelve 
 letters had, in fact, been now identified out of the forty- 
 eight in the Persian alphabet. Many of Grotefend's 
 results were afterwards repudiated, but these twelve 
 letters have remained as a permanent acquisition of 
 science since his time, and have proved to be a sufficient 
 basis for further researches by competent scholars. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Grotefend's discovery 
 met with no opposition. It was warmly received by 
 many scholars, such as De Sacy and the aged Anquetil- 
 Duperron himself ; Sir William Ouseley and Sir Robert 
 Ker Porter both expressed their admiration of the sagacity 
 which led to so satisfactory a result, and their hopes 
 that this was only the beginning of a complete interpreta- 
 tion ; but Volney denounced the decipherment as resting 
 on forms of names which were probably incorrect ; and 
 in Germany many voices were raised against a discovery 
 which was said to have been made by blind chance. 
 
 Moreover, although Grotefend had done much, he 
 
 * See above, pp. 57 and 58. 
 H
 
 98 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 had only made a beginning ; but lie fancied he could 
 do more than this. He tried to decipher the whole of 
 the two inscriptions, and fell into many errors. He 
 imagined that all the vowels would be expressed in the 
 Persian cuneiform writing; yet this is not so; for, as in 
 the Indian alphabets, the short a is not written, but is 
 inherent in every consonant, unless another vowel is sup- 
 plied ; this mistake, of course, prevented all progress. 
 He attempted to discover the old Persian words from 
 the inaccurate Zend vocabularies of Anquetil-Duperron, 
 and made a complete fiasco in every case. The real 
 result of these labours was that the way was pointed 
 out for other scholars to follow ; the date of the in- 
 scriptions and of the palaces of Persepolis were put 
 beyond a doubt ; the Persian history, as given us by 
 Herodotus, had received a certain confirmation ; the 
 native forms of the names Darius and Xerxes were 
 shown to correspond closely with those preserved in 
 the Biblical books, and the Ahasuerus of the Book of 
 Esther was now finally identified. 
 
 In 1822 Grotefend's decipherment received an un- 
 expected support. The Cabinet of Antiquities at the 
 Royal Library of Paris contained an alabaster vase, 
 procured in Egypt, with an inscription in hierogly- 
 phics and in the three kinds of cuneiform character 
 found at Persepolis ; it will be remembered that this 
 vase was published by the Count de Caylus in 1752. 
 At the period of which we are now speaking, which 
 indeed seems to be the age of decipherments, Cham- 
 pollion was engaged in studying and interpreting the
 
 TUB OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 99 
 
 hieroglyphics of Egypt, and had made much progress 
 in this new branch of science. It occurred to him to 
 suggest to the Abbe Saint-Martin, a well-known 
 Orientalist, who was occupying himself with the criti- 
 cism of Grotefend's work, that they should study this 
 vase together, and the result of this joint examination 
 was that the inscriptions proved to contain the name of 
 King Xerxes in the two forms of writing in use at his 
 time in Egypt and in Persia. 
 
 Persian Cuneiform : Kh-sh-e-a-r-sh-a. 
 Egyptian Hieroglyphics : Kh-sh-e-a-r-sh-a. 
 
 The hieroglyphics thus bore a useful testimony to 
 the correctness of the interpretation of the cuneiform 
 character. It was the same Abbe Saint-Martin who sug- 
 gested that the name of the father of Darius should be 
 read as Vishtasp, according to the oldest Zend form, 
 instead of Goshtasp, the form which Grotefend had 
 adopted. 
 
 In 1826 a Danish scholar, Rask, who travelled to 
 India to pursue his studies in Zend, and to collect Zend 
 MSS., incidentally remarked, through his knowledge 
 of Zend grammar, that two letters which occurred in 
 the termination of the genitive plural, " king of kings," 
 should be n and m, instead of ch and o, as read by 
 Grotefend. This discovery was at once confirmed by 
 the fact that it enabled another word applied in these 
 same inscriptions as an epithet to Darius and Xerxes 
 to be read as " AcliaBmenid." 
 
 In 1836 two treatises, by Lassen of Bonn and 
 H 2
 
 100 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Burnouf of Paris, corrected many of the remaining 
 mistakes of Grotefend, and nearly completed the de- 
 cipherment of the old Persian alphabet. These two 
 writers were profound students of Zend, especially the 
 latter, who had been enabled to make great advances 
 on the road opened by Anquetil-Duperron, and whose 
 Commentary on the Yasna marked a new stage in the 
 progress of Zend studies. Lassen, accepting much of 
 Grotefend's work, took as the starting-point of his new 
 decipherments an inscription on the terrace of Perse- 
 polis, published by Niebuhr, which, as he inferred from 
 the letters which he already knew, contained a number 
 of geographical names, the appellations of the peoples 
 who, as represented on the sculptured staircase, came 
 to pay tribute to the King of Persia : such a list, in 
 fact, as Darius had inscribed on the pillars by the 
 Bosphorus ; and by comparing with these names the 
 lists of nations subject to the Persians given us by 
 Herodotus and Strabo, he found out almost all the 
 letters not yet correctly discovered by Grotefend. The 
 inscription which Lassen selected is now finally trans- 
 lated as follows : 
 
 " I am Darius the great king, king of kings, king of these many 
 regions, son of Hystaspes, the Achsemenid. 
 
 " Thus says Darius the king : ' By the grace of Ahuramazda these 
 are the lands that I rule with my Persian host, that feared me and 
 brought me tribute : the inhabitants of Susiana, the Medes, the 
 Babylonians, the Arabs, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Cappa- 
 docians, the Sparda, the Greeks of the mainland and of the islands ; 
 and these lands in the East, the Sagartians, the Parthians, the Zaraka, 
 Aria, Bactria, Sogdiana, Chorasmia, the Sattagydes, Arachosia, India, 
 Gandcvra, the Saka, and the Maka.' "
 
 THE OLD PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 101 
 
 It will easily be understood how by taking the 
 twelve letters discovered by Grotefend, and trying- to 
 make out with their help the names of the nations 
 mentioned by Herodotus and Strabo, Lassen, with his 
 knowledge of the forms of Sanscrit and Zend, was able 
 to discover many new letters of the old Persian alphabet. 
 
 Burnouf worked upon two inscriptions of a different 
 sort, lately copied on Mount Elvend, near Hamadan, 
 the ancient Ecbatana, in Media, by the unfortunate 
 Dr. Schulz, who was murdered on his way home. It 
 had been supposed by the natives that if any man could 
 find the key to the interpretation of these mysterious 
 characters on the rock, the mountain would be shaken 
 from the top to the bottom, and an immense treasure 
 would be disclosed ; but it does not appear that all this 
 took place when Burnouf published his version, which 
 simply contains the name and titles of Darius and 
 Xerxes, with the ascription of praise to Ahuramazda, 
 such as we have seen on the walls of Persepolis. In 
 a work like the present it would be of no use to 
 examine every step which these decipherers made, and 
 the methods, often intelligible only to philologists, by 
 which they formed their inferences. Burnouf's own 
 description of the general character of his method is 
 as follows : 
 
 " There is only one scientific method for the determination of an 
 unknown character : all the words in which it occurs must be 
 collected and compared, and the values of the alphabet not yet 
 represented by known characters [i.e., through Grotefend's work] 
 must be applied to it one after the other, until meanings which suit 
 all the cases are obtained."
 
 102 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 One great result of the labours of Lassen and 
 Burnouf was the discovery that the old Persian lan- 
 guage of the time of Darius and Xerxes was by no 
 means identical with the Zend, as earlier decipherers 
 had supposed, but stood in the relation of a sister 
 dialect to the sacred language of the Parsees. The 
 work of the two great scholars was soon subjected to 
 fruitful criticism by various Orientalists ; Beer corrected 
 three false values given to letters of the old Persian 
 alphabet ; Jacquet discovered two mistakes of the same 
 sort ; much was done towards the interpretation of the 
 language and the explanation of the grammatical forms 
 by Holtzmann and Benfey. Since Niebuhr new 
 material has been given to decipherers in the fresh 
 inscriptions copied by Ker Porter, Ilich, Schuiz, 
 Westergaard, and Loftus. 
 
 But the most important work was done by our own 
 countryman. Sir Henry Rawlinson had begun the 
 study of the cuneiform inscriptions in 1835, while 
 living in the East, and he appears to have worked at 
 first quite independently upon them ; he had heard 
 rumours of Grotefend's discoveries, but no details ; and 
 in his examination of the tablets of Elvend, near 
 Hamadan, found the names of Hystaspes, Darius, and 
 Xerxes, without any assistance from the labours of the 
 Hanoverian professor.* In 1837 he copied for the 
 first time the great inscription on the rock of Behistun, 
 described by Otter and Ker Porter. Meanwhile, he 
 had an opportunity of comparing the work of other 
 
 * Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, Yol. X., p. 4.
 
 THE BEHISTUN 11OCK.
 
 104 NEW LIGHT ON THE B1B1.E 
 
 European scholars with his own, by studying the 
 memoirs of Burnouf and Lassen. In 1838 he received 
 Burnouf's Commentary on the Yasna, of which he says : 
 
 " To this work I owe in a great measure the success of mv 
 translations ; for, although I conjecture the Zend to be a later 
 language than that of the inscriptions, upon the debris of which it 
 was indeed probably refined and systematized, yet I believe it to 
 approach nearer to the Persian of the ante-Alexandrian ages than 
 to any other dialect of the family, except the Vedic Sanskrit, that 
 is available to modern research. At the same time, also, that I 
 acquired through the luminous critique of M. Burnouf an insight 
 into the peculiarities of Zend expression, and by this means obtained 
 a general knowledge of the grammatical structure of the language of 
 the inscriptions, I had the good fortune to procure copies of the 
 Persepolitan tablets which had been published by Niebuhr, Le Brun, 
 and Porter, and which had hitherto formed the chief basis of 
 continental study." * 
 
 In 1847 Sir H. Rawlinson published the great 
 inscription of Behistun, nearly two hundred lines, 
 which had for so many years been the object of his 
 studies, and thus supplied large additional material 
 for students of the old Persian language ; the edition 
 was accompanied by a translation. Since that time 
 little more has been done. M. Oppert explained a 
 few characters that were still unknown, and he and 
 Herr Spiegel have added to the accuracy of the in- 
 terpretations, and to the explanation of the grammatical 
 forms. The inscriptions of the Acha3inenian kings of 
 Persia in the palaces of Persepolis, on the tomb of 
 Naksh-i-Kustam, on the rock of Elvend, on the palace 
 of Susa, and on the monument of Suez, have all been 
 deciphered and translated. 
 
 * Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. X., p. 8, 1847.
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE DECIPHERMENT OF THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN 
 INSCRIPTIONS. 
 
 IT was Niebuhr, as we have seen, whose accurate eye 
 first detected the three different systems of cuneiform 
 writing of which the inscriptions at Persepolis consist, 
 and which we now know to be the Persian, Susian, 
 and Babylonian versions of the same text, which Darius 
 and Xerxes thus made known to the principal "nations 
 and languages " of their empire. It was long, however, 
 before it was discovered that the third of these systems 
 was that of the Babylonians. Pietro della Valle had 
 brought home to Italy bricks from the ruins of 
 Babylon at the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 but the characters stamped upon these bricks do not 
 seem to have occupied his attention, nor that of 
 Kircher, who received one of these bricks for his 
 museum in Rome. Kaempfer published one of the 
 Babylonian inscriptions at Persepolis in 1712, but so 
 carelessly tHt no profit was derived from it. The first 
 traveller who remarked the inscriptions on the bricks of 
 Babylon was the Father Emmanuel de Saint Albert, 
 already mentioned in Chapter I., whose report provided
 
 106 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 D'Anville with the material for his memoir on the 
 position of Babylon in 1755. Then came Niebuhr, 
 who observed many inscribed clay tablets and bricks 
 among the ruins near Hillah, but did not identify the 
 writing on them with the third system employed at 
 Persepolis. The Abbe Beauchamp (1785) particularly 
 noticed the inscriptions on the bricks of Babylon, and 
 sent some specimens of the bricks to Paris, where they 
 were stored in the National Library, the keeper of which, 
 Millin, published some of the inscriptions, and had 
 plaster casts of them taken and sent to various scholars 
 of Europe, 
 
 The East India Company, always an enlightened 
 body, had been aroused by the reports of the recent 
 identification of the ruins of Babylon, and of the 
 inscriptions in unknown characters which had been 
 found among them. Consequently, in a public letter 
 to Bombay, dated October 18th, 1797, they declare that 
 
 " Being always desirous to lend their assistance to those who may be 
 employed in the elucidation of Oriental antiquities, and being in- 
 formed that near the town of Hillah, on the River Euphrates, there 
 exist the remains of a very large and magnificent city, supposed to 
 be Babylon ; and that the bricks of which those ruins are composed, 
 are remarkable for containing on an indented scroll or label, appar- 
 ently a distich, in characters totally different from any now made 
 use of in the East ; " 
 
 they have decided to direct the Governor of Bombay 
 
 " to give orders to their resident at Bassorah to procure from thence 
 ten or a dozen of the bricks, and to transmit them, carefully packed 
 up, as early as possible to Bombay, that they might be thence 
 forwarded to them in one of theiv ships sailing for England."
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 107 
 
 Here we have the beginning of the taste for 
 collecting Babylonian antiquities in England which 
 has finally brought into existence the unequalled 
 galleries of the Assyrian Department of the British 
 Museum. Hager, in 1801, published the inscription 
 upon these bricks ; it contains the name and titles of 
 Nebuchadnezzar : . 
 
 " I am Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, maintainer of the 
 temples of Bit-Saggil and Bit-Zida ; princely son of Nabopolassar, 
 king of Babylon." 
 
 But, of course, the inscription was not read or trans- 
 lated till long after. It is found with slight variations 
 on the thousands of bricks dug up among the ruins of 
 Babylon, and employed to build modern houses at 
 Hillah and elsewhere. 
 
 It was about this time that Andre Michaux, a 
 botanist, visited Mesopotamia in pursuit of his studies, 
 and found near the ruins of Ctesiphon a polished piece of 
 grey limestone marble, carved with figures of monstrous 
 animals, and engraved with characters similar to those 
 which had been remarked on the Babylonian bricks, and 
 in some ways resembling those of the now well-known in- 
 scriptions at Persepolis. On his return to France, Michaux 
 presented this monument to the Cabinet des Antiques of 
 the Nation al Library, the keeper of which, the learned 
 Millin, published a full account of it in 1802. The 
 Caillou Michaux, as it was called, was henceforth, 
 through its publication, one of the principal examples 
 of the Babylonian writing in Europe ; it formed one of 
 the chief problems for Oriental philologists to solve. But
 
 108 NEW LIGHT ON TEE BIBLE 
 
 now, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there 
 were a certain number of cuneiform inscriptions in every 
 museum of Europe, consisting of inscribed bricks and 
 cylindrical seals of haematite or carnelian, with characters 
 engraved upon them. 
 
 At the beginning of the present century Miinter, 
 Tychsen, and Grotefend were busying themselves with 
 the attempt to decipher the inscriptions at Persepolis, as 
 published by Niebuhr ; and it occurred to Lichtenstein 
 to study another monument in cuneiform characters 
 apparently similar to those of Persia. He took the 
 Caillou Michaux as the object of his studies. But 
 Lichtenstein had no definite process to follow, such as 
 that which led his colleagues to fruitful results ; he 
 seems to have thought that inspiration might take the 
 place of scientific method. He was like Alastor in the 
 Egyptian temples : 
 
 " Among the ruined temples there, 
 Stupendous columns, arid wild images 
 Of more than man, where marble demons watch 
 The zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men 
 Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, 
 He lingered, poring on memorials 
 Of the world's youth ; through the long burning day 
 Gazed on those speechless shapes ; nor when the moon 
 Filled the mysterious halls -with floating shades 
 Suspended he that task, but ever gazed 
 And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind 
 Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw 
 The thrilling secrets of the birth of time." * 
 
 Shelley does not tell us what were the results of 
 inspired decipherment of the hieroglyphics, 
 
 t Shelley, "Alwtor," 118-129,
 
 ,^\\%^~ , x 
 
 ' J/\ --'.<-,- -iO" V "-'' ' r - C\f 
 
 iM^-'^^y V ""**T- -o**"i. -^ =y4. V- 
 
 j 
 
 I'-^fS K< * Lit Vri=ri 
 
 ^S,-^ ^Til ^ ^S- 
 I^TSf^^SlH-^ 
 
 
 THE " CAILLOU MIOIAtTX.
 
 110 NEW LIGHT ON TILE BIBLE. 
 
 but they could not have been more erroneous than 
 Lichtenstein's explanation of the Caillou Michaux. The 
 latter conceives that the Babylonian characters inscribed 
 on this and other monuments are a variety of the Arabic 
 character, and that, therefore, none of these inscriptions 
 are older than the seventh century of our era. The 
 Caillou Michaux 
 
 " contains a discourse addressed by the priest of the temple of the 
 god of death to the women, attired in mourning garments, who 
 assembled on the day of commemoration of all souls at the tombs of 
 their departed relations, in order to give themselves up to transports of 
 grief ; he exhorts them in this discourse to moderate their sorrow, to 
 await with confidence the consolations of the deity, to cultivate purity 
 of conduct, and to occupy themselves with their household duties." 
 
 This summary, followed by a full translation, was 
 seriously offered by Lichtenstein as the true interpreta- 
 tion of a monument which has since proved to be a 
 boundary stone, containing a legal conveyance of land, 
 of the twelfth century before Christ. As Lichtenstein 
 did not explain the process by which he arrived at his 
 interpretation, it was impossible to refute him at the 
 time ; but no scholar accepted his statements as if they 
 had been proved. 
 
 Grotefend, who by his happy discovery of the names 
 of Xerxes, Darius, and Hystaspes, had opened the way 
 for the interpretation of the old Persian inscriptions, 
 occupied himself also with the other two systems of 
 cuneiform writing on the walls of Persepolis ; the chief 
 result was that he was enabled to show that the third 
 system was identical with that found among the ruins
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. Ill 
 
 of Babylon, and therefore contained a Babylonian 
 translation of the Persian text. From a careful ex- 
 amination of Babylonian bricks and other inscriptions, 
 Grotefend was also led to discover the frequently 
 recurring 1 names of Nebuchadnezzar and his father, 
 
 O ' 
 
 Nabopolassar, because, as he detected, they showed 
 the same beginning and end ; he could not, however, 
 pronounce either of these names. Sir Harford Jones, 
 the East India Company's resident at Bagdad, acquired 
 at the beginning of the century a large black stone, 
 covered with a very complicated kind of cuneiform 
 character. This was immediately published, and Grote- 
 fend showed that the inscription was identical with a 
 cylinder in the third Persepolitan character brought 
 from Babylon by Ker Porter, and that both contained 
 the name of Nebuchadnezzar. This was a valuable 
 help to decipherers, since this complicated kind has 
 been frequently discovered since, and on account of 
 its employment in the most ancient monuments has 
 generally received the name of " archaic character," 
 although Nebuchadnezzar and his successors also made 
 frequent use of it. This was all that Grotefend did in 
 the field of Babylonian research. 
 
 Among the inscribed monuments discovered in the 
 ruins of Babylon since the time of Pere Emmanuel, 
 there had been many small cylindrical objects of 
 carnelian, haematite, and other precious stones, en- 
 graved with figures and characters like those of 
 Persepolis. These were generally thought to be 
 amulets, and were still worn as such by some of the
 
 112 
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 natives of Bagdad, who had been fortunate enough to 
 discover some of them, in spite of the prohibition of the 
 Koran. They were soon recognised in Europe as being 
 the seals which Herodotus tells us were universally 
 carried by the Babylonians, and the hole with which 
 
 CYLINDRICAL SEALS FROM BABYLONIA 
 
 they are perforated was evidently to enable the wearer 
 to pass a string through them. This inference has 
 been confirmed by the fact that impressions of them 
 are frequently found on the Babylonian legal and 
 commercial documents : the clay contracts, which the 
 witnesses and official scribes stamped with their seals, 
 as equivalent to written signature. One such seal was 
 found early in this century by the Baron de Fauvel on 
 the field of Marathon : undoubtedly a memorial of one
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 113 
 
 of the soldiers of Darius who perished there. Many 
 others were acquired in the course of the last century, 
 and stored in public and private collections. Two such 
 seals were published by Dorow at Wiesbaden in 1820, 
 with a long discussion upon them by Grrotefend, but no 
 solid results were obtained from his explanations. In 
 1840, although the Persian inscriptions had all been read 
 and explained, there had been no serious work on the 
 Babylonian inscriptions, so much more complicated in 
 their nature, and partly written, as Tychsen, Miinter, 
 and Grotefend inferred, in monograms. To the inscribed 
 stones, bricks, and gems brought to Europe by the 
 Abbe Beauchamp, Michaux, and the East India Com- 
 pany, had been added many clay cylinders and tablets 
 and inscribed slabs, brought by Olivier, Ker Porter, and 
 Bich. The last of these had found cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions not only at Babylon, but among the ruins of 
 Nineveh. These especially attracted the attention of 
 the well-known Orientalist, Jules Mohl, who visited 
 England about 1840, and was much interested in Rich's 
 and Ker Porter's small collection of Assyrian anti- 
 quities at the British Museum. On his return to 
 Paris, accordingly, Mohl strongly urged Botta, who 
 was about to be sent out to Asiatic Turkey, in order 
 to occupy the newly-founded post of French Consul 
 at Mosul, to employ his spare time in making excava- 
 tions on the neighbouring site of Nineveh. Botta 
 went out in 1842, and immediately set to work to 
 follow the advice of Mohl, announcing the results in 
 a series of letters to his friend, some of which were
 
 114 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 published, as they arrived, in the Journal Asiafique during 
 the years 1843-1845. 
 
 Botta first attempted to make excavations among 
 the mounds of Kouyunjik and Nebi Yunus, described 
 by Rich, opposite Mosul ; but he was hampered in 
 every way by the authorities, and only acquired a 
 few fragments of inscribed stone. By chance an in- 
 habitant of TChorsabad, a small village four hoars' 
 journey to the north-west of Mosul, came upon the 
 scene, and informed the French Consul that inscriptions 
 were much more frequently found at the place where 
 he lived. Botta caught at the hint, and started ex- 
 cavations on this new spot, with the result that he 
 soon laid bare the foundations of an immense edifice, 
 and found among them sculptures of a style hitherto 
 unknown, and in large quantities ; he had, in fact, 
 brought to light the first Assyrian palace disclosed 
 to the eyes of modern Europe : the residence of the 
 powerful monarch, Sargon, whose name is mentioned 
 by Isaiah, and who was the father of Sennacherib. This 
 identification, however, was not yet discovered. The 
 important point for our history is that a large number 
 of inscriptions were found on the walls of the palace, 
 on the winged bulls, and on the bas-reliefs, which 
 supplied much fresh material for the decipherers to 
 work upon, and gave a great impetus to the study of 
 the cuneiform writing. The difficulties against which 
 Botta had to struggle during his work of excavation 
 were enough to have overcome a weaker man. A 
 passage in the Arabian geographer Yakut announced
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 115 
 
 that a large treasure was concealed at Khorsabad, and 
 the knowledge of this aroused the suspicions of the 
 Turkish authorities, who put every obstacle in the way 
 of the French researches. Botta was accused of at- 
 
 i'lm' M, 
 
 WINGED BULL FROM KHORSABAD. 
 
 tempting to erect a fort at Khorsabad ; some of the 
 monuments that lie found were destroyed ; news was 
 sent to Constantinople, and the Government of the 
 Sultan was asked to stop the excavations. But courage 
 and perseverance won the day, and in 1847 a large 
 collection of sculpture and more than two hundred 
 12
 
 116 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 inscriptions from Khorsabad arrived safely at Paris. 
 
 J 
 
 When the labour of excavation was done, Botta set to 
 work to study the material he had found. Others had 
 already examined the copies which he had sent from 
 Mesopotamia and published in the Journal Asiatique. 
 In 1845 Loewenstern issued a memoir in which he 
 recognised the identity, behind certain variations, of the 
 cuneiform characters of Khorsabad with the third kind 
 of writing at Persepolis and the writing found among 
 the ruins of Babylon, and he surmised, but was unable 
 to prove, that the name of the builder of Khorsabad 
 was Sargon. 
 
 In 1846 our own country began to take the leading 
 part in Mesopotamian excavations that she has since 
 maintained. Sir Henry Layard, with the assistance 
 of Lord Stratford de Iledcliffe, then ambassador at 
 Constantinople, began his famous researches at Nimroud, 
 five hours below Mosul ; two galleries of antiquities in 
 the Assyrian department of the British Museum are 
 the result of these labours. The distinguished explorer 
 has given us a graphic account of the first discovery of 
 the winged bulls which stood at the gate of the ancient 
 palace of Ashur-nasir-pal. The natives, in immense 
 excitement, all declared that Nimrod himself had been 
 unearthed; and one of the Arabs, at the first moment 
 of the discovery, started off at a rapid run to Mosul, to 
 inform the Pacha of the event. The result, of course, 
 was that it was declared impious to touch the figure of 
 the patriarch ; the excavations were stopped, and they 
 could only be resumed on the receipt of a special permit
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 117 
 
 from the Sultan, obtained by the British ambassador 
 himself. But Sir H. Layard's work is too well known 
 to be again described here. It needs only to be added 
 that between 1848 and 1853, not only Ashur-nasir-pal's 
 palace at Nimroud, but also the palaces of Sennacherib 
 and Aslmr-bani-pal, or Sardanapalus, at Kouyuujik, had 
 been laid bare by Sir H. Layard and Mr. Hormuzd 
 Rassam ; and that in a hall of the latter edifice the 
 immense collection of clay tablets inscribed with cunei- 
 form characters, known as the Library of Ashur-bani-pal, 
 had been discovered. 
 
 Meanwhile, Botta's work upon his inscriptions had 
 borne some fruits; he finally established the identity, 
 with slight variations, of the Assyrian writing with 
 that of Babylon and the third kind at Persepolis ; he 
 discovered the meaning of several characters occurring 
 both at Khorsabad and in Persia, such as " king," 
 "king of kings," "country," " my lands," interpreting 
 them by means of the Persian version ; but he could 
 not pronounce a single letter, except the word signifying 
 " I," which, from the occurrence of the characters in 
 certain proper names, he read A-n-k, and identified with 
 the Hebrew anoki. 
 
 In 1 849 the Semitic scholar De Saulcy published 
 the Babylonian version of the trilingual inscription of 
 Elvend, with a commentary, in which the value of 
 every character and the meaning of every word are 
 discussed. This was the first attempt of the kind, and 
 in many ways still retains its importance; only De 
 Saulcy imagined that the Babylonian writing was
 
 118 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 alphabetic : this obliges him to adopt the theory that 
 many characters have the same value ; two diameters 
 alone (bu and mus) suggest to him the idea that they 
 represent syllables. A second memoir by De Saulcy 
 determined the consonantal value of 120 Assyrian 
 characters, although he still looked upon them as alpha- 
 betic, and did riot understand that a vowel was inherent 
 in them. This will show that the work of this scholar 
 on the Babylonian inscriptions was of considerable 
 importance. 
 
 It was Dr. Hincks, of Dublin, who discovered the 
 leading principle of the Assyrian writing : namely, the 
 expression of whole syllables by the characters, not 
 simply of alphabetic values, whether those of vowels or 
 consonants. Hincks read the results of his researches 
 before the Irish Academy at various sessions during the 
 years 184G-1849. Besides the syllabic characters, he 
 finds many of the monogrammatic characters already 
 noticed by Tychsen, Miinter, and Grotefend, and these 
 he calls abbreviated characters. 
 
 In 1851 Sir Henry Eawlinson published the Baby- 
 lonian version of the great Behistun inscription, the 
 Persian form of which, it will be remembered, he had 
 given to the world in 1846. The chief help to the 
 decipherment consisted in no less than eighty proper 
 names, which were compared with the Persian forms. 
 It will at once be obvious that this is sufficient material 
 for the reading of a large number of Babylonian cha- 
 racters ; only as these are not alphabetic, but are 
 syllabic and monogrammatic, and amount in number to
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 119 
 
 more than six hundred, it will be seen that even here 
 there is not an opportunity of finding out nearly all the 
 values. 
 
 Sir H. Eawlinson's own account of his method may 
 be given here : 
 
 "The tablets of Behistun, of Naksh-i-Rustam, and Persepolis 
 have furnished a list of more than eighty proper names, of which 
 the true pronunciation is fixed by the Persian orthography, and 
 of which we have Babylonian equivalents. Careful comparison of 
 these duplicate forms of writing the same name, and a due appre- 
 ciation of the phonetic distinctions peculiar to the two languages, 
 have supplied means of determining, with more or less of certainty, 
 the value of about a hundred Babylonian characters, and a very 
 excellent basis has been thus determined for a complete arrangement 
 of the alphabet. The next step has been to collate the inscriptions, 
 and to asce~tain or infer from variant orthographies of the same 
 name (and particularly the same geographical name) the homophones 
 of each known alphabetical power. In this stage of the enquiry 
 much caution, or, if I may so call it, ' critique,' is necessary ; for 
 though two inscriptions are absolutely identical in sense, and even in 
 expression, it does not follow that wherever one text may differ 
 from the other we are justified in supposing that we have found 
 alphabetical variants. Many sources of variety exist besides the 
 employment of homophones. Ideographs or abbreviations may be 
 substituted for words expressed phonetically ; sometimes the allo- 
 cution is altered ; sometimes synonyms are made use of ; grammatical 
 suffixes and affixes, again, may be employed, or suppressed, or modified 
 at option. By mere comparison, however, repeated in a multitude 
 of instances, so as to reduce almost infinitely the chance of error, 
 I have added nearly fifty characters to the hundred previously 
 known through the Persian key." * 
 
 At the same time Sir Henry Rawlinson had to 
 announce the discovery of one of the strangest pheno- 
 mena that exist in any language or any system of 
 
 * Journal of Asiatic Society, Yol. xii., p. 404 (1850).
 
 120 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 writing, and that is the use in Babylonian and Assyrian 
 of " allophones," or characters that can be read in two 
 or more different ways. An instance may, perhaps, be 
 allowed : the Babylonian word for " Achsemenid " is 
 written in the following different ways in the inscriptions 
 of Persia ; the syllables between the hyphens are each 
 represented by one character 
 
 A-kha-ma-an-ni-is-si'. 
 
 A-kha-ma-nis-si'. 
 
 A-kha-man-nis-si'. 
 
 Now, in the last mode of writing, the characters for 
 man and nis happen to be identical in form ; yet there 
 can, be no doubt that they are to be read as two entirely 
 different sounds. The different ways of writing 
 " Acha9menid " illustrate the variety of orthography 
 in the Assyrian and Babylonian texts ; the same words 
 are found written in several manners. 
 
 Another quotation from Sir Henry Eawlinson will 
 show how progress was made with the translation, as 
 apart from the decipherment of the Assyrian and 
 Babylonian inscriptions. 
 
 " The Babylonian translations of Persian inscriptions have fur- 
 nished a list of about two hundred Babylonian words, of which we 
 know the sound approximately and the meaning certainly. These 
 words are almost all found either entire or modified in the Assyrian 
 inscriptions, and we can usually arrive at a fairly correct notion of 
 the phrase in which they occur. 
 
 " The difficult, and at the same time the essential, part of the 
 study of Assyrian consists in discovering the unknown from the 
 known, in laying bare the anatomy of the Assyrian sentences, and, 
 guided by grammatical indications, by a few Babylonian landmark;-:,
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 121 
 
 and especially by the context, in tracing out, sometimes through 
 Semitic analogies, but more frequently through an extensive com- 
 parison of similar or cognate phrases, the meaning of words which 
 are otherwise strange to us. ... Thus, I have added about 
 two hundred meanings certainly, and a hundred more probably, to 
 the vocabulary already obtained through Babylonian translations. 
 I estimate the number of words in the Babylonian and Assyrian 
 inscriptions at about five thousand, and I do not pretend to be 
 acquainted with more than a tenth part of that number ; but it 
 must be remembered that these words constitute all the most 
 important terms in the language, and are in fact sufficient for the 
 interpretation of the historical inscriptions and for the general 
 recognition of the object of every record, be it an invocation or a 
 dedication, or, as it more frequently happens, be it intended as a 
 mere commemorative legend." ' 
 
 In this same year, 1850, before Sir H. Eawlinson 
 had actually published any of his Assyrian translations, 
 De Saulcy published a translation of ninety lines found 
 at Khorsabad ; this was the first explanation of any- 
 thing beyond the trilingual inscriptions of Persia. Sir 
 H. liawlinson immediately published the same text, 
 with an interpretation slightly different. One of the 
 principles of the Assyrian writing was illustrated by 
 the discovery in the Behistun inscription that the name 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, clearly recognised in the Persian 
 text, was written in Babylonian with characters that 
 could only be read An-pa-sa-du-sis. It was soon seen 
 that besides the simple ideograms of one character, or 
 monograms, which had early been detected here and 
 there in the Babylonian inscriptions, there were also 
 words written ideographically with two or more 
 
 * Journal of Asiatic Society, Yol xii., p. 409 (1850).
 
 122 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 characters, and that the pronunciation of these could 
 only be learnt from other sources, where the ideograms 
 are represented by words spelt phonetically. 
 
 The year 1857 is memorable in the annals of 
 Assyriology. In that year the Royal Asiatic Society 
 of London proposed a test of the genuine character of 
 the translations offered by scholars of the Assyrian 
 inscriptions. It was as follows : eight hundred lines of 
 cuneiform writing, recently found by Layard on clay 
 cylinders at Kalah Sherkat, not far from the site of 
 Nineveh, were to be independently translated by any 
 scholars who would come forward and accept the pro- 
 posal ; the results of their work were to be sent sealed 
 to the secretary of the Society, and the packets were to 
 be opened on the same day before a commission, which 
 should report on the points of resemblance or unlikeness 
 to be found in the translations. This proposal was 
 made public in March, and on May 25th four packets 
 were opened, containing the work of Sir II. Eawlinson, 
 Mr. Fox Talbot, Dr. Hincks, and Dr. Oppert. The 
 general similarity of the results in the four essays 
 formed a strong confirmation of the genuineness of 
 the translations and the correctness of the method of 
 decipherment, which even such a sceptic as M. Renan 
 freely admitted. 
 
 As it was to be expected, however, the youthful 
 science of Assyriology met with much opposition, 
 especially from Semitic scholars. The fact that 
 Assyrian and Babylonian belonged to the Semitic 
 family of languages had early been surmised, and the
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 123 
 
 researches of De Saulcy had put it beyond a doubt. 
 The Italian scholar, Luzzatto, had indeed decided on 
 a priori grounds that Assyrian must belong to the Indo- 
 European family of languages ; in 1849 he had pub- 
 lished a pamphlet to show that the Assyrian proper 
 names and titles in the Hebrew Scriptures and in Greek 
 authors could only be explained with the help of Sanscrit 
 and Persian ; and a year later he issued a study on 
 the inscriptions of Persepolis, Hamadan, Van, and 
 Khorsabad, in which he remarked : 
 
 " As for the language, all these Assyrian scripts which present 
 apparent differences at Van, at Khorsabad, at Babylon, and in 
 Persia, express one and the same language, which, indeed, may have 
 undergone the changes worked by time on the most stable idioms ; 
 and this language belongs by its grammar and by its lexicon to the 
 great family of the Indo-European tongues, at the head of which 
 stands Sanscrit.'' * 
 
 But De Saulcy, Botta, Rawlinson, Hincks, and 
 Oppert had, in the opinion of most scholars, overthrown 
 this idea, and established the character of Assyrian as a 
 Semitic dialect. Nevertheless, they had not laid all 
 doubts to rest. The greatest Hebrew scholar, perhaps, 
 of his day, Heinrich Ewald, wrote severely in 1858 on 
 the work of Assyriologists, and on the improbability of 
 the grammatical forms which they expected to be 
 received as Semitic. f 
 
 In 1859 a review of M. Oppert's "Expedition Sci- 
 entifique en Mesopotamie " one of the most valuable 
 
 * " Etudes sur les inscriptions Assyrieunes de Persepolis, Hamadan, 
 Van, et Khorsabad " (1850), p. 207. 
 
 t " Crottingische gelehrte Anzeigeu " (1858), p. 190 E.
 
 124 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 works written on the decipherment of the Assyrian in- 
 scriptions was published by M. Renan, who showed 
 great reluctance to accept Assyrian as a Semitic 
 language : 
 
 " If we examine the Semitic language which results from the 
 readings of Assyriologists, independently of the processes by which 
 they are obtained, we experience much perplexity. The usages of 
 general Semitic grammar are often violated. Peculiarities which 
 are thrown into the background in Semitic grammar here appear in 
 the foreground ; we are constantly meeting with forms which do not 
 seem at home, and with words never found in the other Semitic 
 languages. To \mderstand the astonishment caused by this fact, 
 we must recall the strongly-marked character of unity presented by 
 the Semitic languages. There is no language in this family in which 
 in is not translated by bi, to by li, all by kol. A Semitic language 
 in which in is rendered by ina, to by ana, all by yabbti, as M. Oppert 
 wishes, is a phenomenon almost as difficult for the philologist to 
 admit as it would have been for Cuvier to admit a carnivorous 
 animal with flat teeth or a mastodon with wings. The organisation 
 of a language is as much a living whole as that of an animal, and 
 the philologist is as fully authorised to declare certain grammatical 
 forms unnatural as the anatomist is to reject the possibility of 
 certain beings. ... I am bound to say this : the Semitic 
 language given us by M. Oppert offends, on many points, the 
 sense which I believe that I have of the nature of a Semitic 
 language. I should mistrust this judgment if it was isolated ; but 
 it is also that of one of the men who best understand in Europe the 
 comparative grammar of the Semitic tongues. I demur to the 
 somewhat harsh form of M. Ewald's observations. Researches of 
 the kind which now occupies us, if they are conducted with a serious 
 purpose, ought always to be received with gratitude, even when 
 objections must necessarily be made to them. M. Ewald, whose 
 merit as a specialist on the grammar of Hebrew and the kindred 
 languages is disputed by no one, rejects the Assyrian grammar 
 resulting from M. Oppert's readings. His observations on the 
 inflexions, especially that of the noun, are most just ; and in 
 general, M. Ewald's impressions in the presence of this so-called
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 125 
 
 Semitic language are exactly those that I have myself experi- 
 enced." * 
 
 But, nevertheless, M. Renan was forced to admit 
 that there were very clear marks of Semitism in 
 Assyrian ; and he, therefore, suggests that the language 
 had adopted a large number of Semitic words and 
 forms like Pehlvi, or even modern Turkish and Persian. 
 Assyrian seemed to him to be only half Semitic. 
 
 In spite, however, of the opposition of these Semitic 
 scholars, the Assyriologists have gone calmly on their 
 way, collecting more and more material for the grammar 
 and lexicon of the Assyrian language. Immense diffi- 
 culties have stood in their way, owing to the inaccurate 
 mode of writing of the Assyrians ; the variety of ortho- 
 graphy ; the incompleteness of the syllabary, which does 
 not express some of the most important letters, namely, 
 the gutturals; and innumerable inaccuracies, which often 
 make it impossible to understand the exact form of a 
 word. The object of the Assyrians in writing seems, 
 in fact, to have been simply to render the sound more 
 or less roughly, and with many inconsistencies. The 
 precise orthography of the other Semitic languages was 
 unknown to them, as well as the accuracy of the later 
 Semitic alphabets. Their characters, as has long been 
 surmised, were probably borrowed from a non-Semitic 
 people. 
 
 During the last thirty years constant progress has 
 been made in the interpretation of the Assyrian and 
 Babylonian texts. New material has been brought over 
 
 * Journal des Savants (April, 1859), p. 246.
 
 126 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 from Mesopotamia from time to time, especially by Mr. 
 George Smith and Mr. Hormuzd Rassam. Texts and 
 translations, commentaries, papers treating of points of 
 grammar or lexicography, have been published in 
 numbers every year. Everything tends to clear up 
 disputed points, arid to complete the knowledge of the 
 language. The Semitic character of Assyrian is no 
 longer doubted by the most sceptical. 
 
 Perhaps this sketch of the decipherment may be 
 concluded with a short account of some of the external 
 aids to reading and interpretation, and some of the 
 methods pursued by Assyriologists in general. Pro- 
 fessor Schrader, in his book on the principles of the 
 cuneiform writing, classifies the external aids as 
 follows: the trilingual inscriptions of Persia, the parallel 
 passages, the syllabaries, the sculptures, historical 
 tradition, 'free combination. The help afforded by the 
 inscriptions has been, it is hoped, sufficiently explained. 
 The parallel passages are found, for instance, in the 
 numerous parallel inscriptions with which the walls 
 of the Assyrian palaces are covered, and which also 
 exist on clay cylinders and tablets ; they illustrate the 
 complicated nature of the Assyrian writing and the 
 variety of its orthography. For instance, there is one 
 character, among others, which Sir H. Rawlinson was 
 unable to read in the Behistun inscription ; in one of 
 the inscriptions found by Botta at Khorsabad it occurs 
 in the name of a city ; and in a parallel passage from 
 the same place the name of this city is written without 
 this particular character, but with two other already
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 127 
 
 known characters in its place: namely, zi-ir. This at 
 once shows the value of the unknown character to be 
 zir, and the word was easily identified with the Hebrew 
 zera ', and translated seed Gt family. This is one instance 
 of a process that had to be repeated hundreds of times 
 before the characters of the Assyrian writing were 
 understood. 
 
 The help given by the " syllabaries " was totally 
 unexpected by the first decipherers. It was in 1849 
 that Sir Henry Layard discovered a number of clay 
 tablets in the "library of Ashur-bani-pal," which proved, 
 on examination, to be evidently intended by the As- 
 S} 7 rians themselves as helps for those who were learning 
 to read and write in ancient days. The syllabaries are 
 chiefly of service for the explanation of the ideograms 
 or monogrammatic characters, which frequently occur 
 in the inscriptions, where there is sometimes no clue to 
 their pronunciation. They afford the same help that 
 was given, in the instance cited above, by the parallel 
 passage. We find in the syllabaries such cases as the 
 following : a character, often used as an ideogram, is 
 written on one side of a line drawn down the middle ; 
 on the other side are some well-known phonetic 
 characters which express the sound of the aforesaid 
 ideogram ; thus : 
 
 x 
 
 (one character). 
 
 si-i-mu 
 
 (three characters). 
 
 This teaches us that the hitherto unknown character 
 x is to be pronounced slum.
 
 128 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 The help rendered to the decipherer by the sculp- 
 tures will be easily understood ; although its value 
 lies rather in suggestion and confirmation of results 
 
 o o 
 
 derived from other considerations, and it would be 
 dangerous to depend upon it alone. The bas-relief on 
 the rock of Beliistun, which represents a king placing 
 his foot on the neck of a prostrate individual, while 
 nine others with ropes round their necks stand before 
 him, illustrates in a most satisfactory manner the 
 account read by Sir H. Bawlinson in the text of the 
 conquest and chastisement of rebels by Darius. In 
 the black obelisk from Nimroud we sec trains of envoys 
 bringing presents to the Assyrian king, and here we 
 have a confirmation of the decipherment of the inscrip- 
 tion as a list of monarchs who sent tribute to Shal- 
 maneser II., including Jehu, the king of Israel. In the 
 hunting-scenes, we see Ashur-bani-pal seizing a lion 
 by the ear, and an accompanying inscription announces 
 
 that the king "seized the animal by the ; " we 
 
 can infer that the unknown character here signifies ear: 
 an inference fully borne out by the further study of an 
 ideogram, the pronunciation and meaning of which have 
 now been fully established. 
 
 The assistance rendered by historical tradition is. 
 illustrated by the f~ct that it was the statement of 
 Grenesis, chap, x., that the Assyrians were a Semitic 
 people, which induced the decipherers to expect a 
 Semitic language behind the cuneiform characters of 
 Nineveh ; and this expectation was fully justified by 
 the results. Again, in certain cylinders from Nineveh,
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 129 
 
 a king was mentioned as the subject of the narrative, 
 whose name was written in ideograms, and could not be 
 read ; but in the same inscriptions a city, Ur-sa-Jun-mi/, 
 and a Jewish king, Ha-za-ki-ya-hu, were alluded to, and 
 these could hardly be other than the names of Jeru- 
 salem and Hezekiah ; the Assyrian king, therefore, 
 was identified with Sennacherib, and since then the 
 ideograms composing his name have been fully ex- 
 plained from other sources, and are read Sin-akhi-irba. 
 A land of Akharri * is frequently mentioned in Assyrian 
 inscriptions. The geographical position of this region 
 would be entirely unknown to us were it not that the 
 cities of Tyre (Surru) and Sidon (Ziduni) are alluded 
 to as situated within it, and prove it to be Phoenicia. 
 
 * The Tell el Amarna tablets show us that this name is to bo pro- 
 nounced Amuri, and probably means " land of the Amorites," a designation 
 roughly given to the whole of Syria.
 
 $art II. 
 
 RECENT DISCOVERIES. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 
 
 UNTIL recently, the date at which the art of writing 
 may have been introduced among the Semitic races was 
 a much disputed question. Many held that no written 
 monuments could have existed before Moses. There 
 was certainly no proof that the art was practised in the 
 time of the patriarchs ; such a composition as the song 
 of Lamech, with its pro verb- like brevity, might well 
 have been handed down by oral tradition ; and there is 
 no mention of writing in the Book of Genesis. The 
 important question whether a written character was 
 already in use among the Semitic peoples in the time of 
 Joseph or Abraham, and whether Moses, supposing him 
 to be the author of Genesis, could have made use of 
 documents earlier than his own time, was one that found 
 no answer. It was discovered, indeed, early in this 
 century that the Egyptians had employed their hiero- 
 glyphics from a remote period ; but these could never 
 have been adopted by a Semitic people ; and there was 
 no reason to suppose that the Phoenicians had invented 
 their alphabet until a date subsequent to Moses. 
 
 Heinrich Ewald, whose " History of Israel " was 
 first published in 1843, the year which gave birth to
 
 THE DISCOVEUIES AT TELLO. 131 
 
 the new science of Assyriology through Botta's first 
 discoveries at Khorsabad, thus expresses himself :*- 
 
 " The question stands briefly thus : Was there a system of 
 writing already current in the time of Joseph or Abraham, or at 
 least in the days of Moses? We are entirely without evidence to 
 decide this question. . . . 
 
 "The narratives of the patriarchal ages bear no trace of a 
 certain tradition of the use of writing in that ancient period. . . . 
 
 " It cannot be proved that any written documents came down 
 from the patriarchal times to later ages." 
 
 Now, however, the question may receive a positive 
 answer. Recent discoveries among the most ancient 
 remains of Chaldaea have proved that the art of writing 
 was practised at a period long anterior to the time of 
 Abraham, in the very country from which the patriarch 
 himself is said to have proceeded. It is now generally 
 accepted that the city of Ur, on the west bank of the 
 Euphrates, half-way between Babylon and the Persian 
 Gulf, and represented by the ruins which the modern 
 Arabs call Mukeyyer, was that Ur of the Chaldees where 
 Abraham was born ; and inscriptions on clay have been 
 found there which must be ascribed to a date long 
 before B.C. 2000. But the question whether Ur of the 
 Chaldees was a city, or, as the Septuagint takes it, 
 simply the territory of the Chaldseans, makes little 
 difference here, since the cuneiform inscriptions agree 
 with Strabo in showing that the Chaldeans inhabited 
 the southern region of Mesopotamia in which Mukeyyer 
 is situated. The inscriptions found at Ur itself have 
 at present been few in number, and belong to a limited 
 
 * Ewald, " Geschichte des Volkes Israel" (1843), YoL i., pp. 63 and 66. 
 
 j 2
 
 132 
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 period. If the great temple of the moon-god, founded 
 in the very beginning 1 of history, and maintained down 
 
 J J * 
 
 to the latest times of the Babylonian monarchy, could 
 be fully excavated, or if the city, round the walls of 
 which lies a circle of tombs, could be ransacked for its 
 hidden archaeological treasures, the results would, no 
 doubt, reward the hardest labour ; but at present we must 
 
 MUKEYYER, IDENTIFIED BY SIR H. KAWLINSON WITH UR OF THE CHALDEES. 
 
 look for our chief source of information about the early 
 civilization of Chaldsea, in the time of Abraham and 
 before his date, to another site, that of a city which was 
 at a certain period subject to the powerful kings of Ur, 
 in the neighbourhood of which it lies. This site is 
 that of the city of Lagash, represented by the mounds 
 of Tello, fifteen hours north of Mukeyyer, and twelve 
 hours east of Warka, the ancient Erech.* 
 
 * Genesis x. 10.
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 133 
 
 It was a belief of ancient writers that Abraham was 
 a learned man, especially versed in the science of astro- 
 nomy, which he imparted to the Egyptians during his 
 visit to their country ; and this opinion seems to have 
 been partly based on a passage in the Babylonian history 
 of Berosus, now unfortunately lost. Modern writers 
 have considered that it was a false ascription to an 
 uncultivated age of the high cultivation which distin- 
 guished the Babylonians in the days of Darius or 
 Alexander. But in the face of the new discoveries, we 
 must now admit that even in the time of Abraham 
 the Chaldaeans had reached a high degree of culture, 
 and very probably had already obtained much of that 
 knowledge of the stars which their constant obser- 
 vations on the plains of the Euphrates enabled them to 
 acquire. We must remind ourselves that, according to 
 the Babylonian tradition, the coast of the Persian Grulf 
 was the cradle of civilization ; it was there that the 
 mythical Oannes appeared, and 
 
 "gave men the knowledge of letters and sciences, and arts of all 
 kinds ; and taught them to build cities, and to found temples, and 
 to enact laws, and to measure the ground ; and showed them how to 
 sow seeds and gather in the fruits ; and in general instructed them 
 in all matters that tend to civilize human life." * 
 
 Let us now see what the last ten years have brought 
 to licrht of the most ancient civilization of Southern 
 
 O 
 
 Babylonia, or Chaldsea, the country from which Abraham 
 set forth on his journey to Canaan. 
 
 Until ten years ago hardly anything was known of 
 
 * Berosus in Eusebius, Chron. Arm., p. 8, and Syiicellus, p. 28, B.
 
 134 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the early history of Babylonia. The excavations at 
 Khorsabad, Nimroud, Kouyunjik, and other places, had 
 brought to light inscriptions which enabled us to 
 re-construct the history of Assyria in the most authentic 
 manner, from contemporary monuments belonging to a 
 period of nearly a thousand years ; and the sculptures, 
 architectural remains, and objects of all sorts, gave us 
 a very fair idea of the manners and customs of the 
 ancient empire. But comparatively little had been 
 found among the even more ancient remains of 
 Babylonia or Chaldtea. The site of Eridu at Abu 
 Shahrein, that of Larsa at Senkereh, that of Erech at 
 Warka, and that of Ur at Mukeyyer, had been proved 
 to contain architectural remains of the highest interest, 
 and had yielded some inscriptions of the greatest value; 
 but the imperfect excavations had brought to light no 
 important works of sculpture, and had not been 
 sufficiently methodical or complete to show how many 
 treasures are really concealed beneath those mounds 
 with which the plains of ChaldaBa are strewn. At 
 last, in 1878, Mr. Horinuzd Eassam discovered the 
 remains of the Temple of the Sun at Abu Habba, the 
 ancient Sippara, so famous for its school of astronomers 
 and its library of clay tablets ; here he found many 
 valuable records, and above all a mass of legal deeds 
 and commercial contracts on clay, belonging to the 
 period from Nabopolassar to Darius Hystaspis (B.C. 620 
 -485). 
 
 At about the same time that Mr. Eassam was 
 exploring Abu-Habbah, the French vice-consul at
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 135 
 
 Bassorah, M. de Sarzec, began to undertake excavations 
 at a series of mounds named Tello, situated fifteen 
 hours north of Mukeyyer and twelve hours east of 
 Warka : an hour and a half to the east of an ancient 
 canal, called the Shatt el-Hai, which, running almost 
 due north and south, joins the Tigris to the 
 Euphrates. The region in which Tello lies had always 
 been considered unapproachable ; for it is in the midst 
 of deserts and marshes, only inhabited by the Montefik 
 Arabs, a tribe of warlike marauders, almost always in 
 a state of rebellion against the Turkish authorities. 
 M. de Sarzec, however, during his residence at 
 Bassorah, had formed some alliances with members of 
 this tribe, and so was enabled to venture for a time, 
 although at considerable risk, into their domain. The 
 whole district is covered with mounds ; but the excep- 
 tional number of fragments of all sorts, potsherds, 
 inscribed cones and bricks, and broken sculpture, which 
 strewed the mounds of Tello, made the French consul 
 decide to begin operations here. He was rewarded by 
 finding that the principal elevation was formed of a 
 building of baked bricks, standing on a platform of 
 unburnt brick-work, covered and concealed by the sands 
 of the desert, which for many centuries had been blown 
 across it. 
 
 Further researches on the part of M. de Sarzec 
 brought to light all sorts of remains, such as the frames 
 of doorways, a series of brick cavities enclosing bronze 
 statuettes and inscribed tablets, and two large clay 
 cylinders covered with cuneiform characters. After
 
 136 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 working during two winters, he made a journey home 
 to Europe, and arrived in Paris with his first spoils in 
 July, 1878. At the beginning of 1880 the vice-consul 
 had returned to the East with a firman from the Sultan, 
 granting full permission for further excavations ; and 
 accordingly he proceeded again to the scene of his 
 former labours. During his absence in France, M. de 
 Sarzec had been married, and his bride courageously 
 insisted on sharing with him the risk and exposure 
 involved in his work. They established their house- 
 hold in a tent at a small village on the banks of the 
 Shatt el-Hai, and, in spite of constant alarms, were not 
 seriously molested by the turbulent Arabs ; and from 
 his hearth in the midst of the desert M. de Sarzec 
 journeyed every morning across the rough and marshy 
 country to the mounds of Tello. 
 
 The physical features of the region of Lower 
 Chaldaea, in which Tello is situated, are thoroughly 
 characteristic. There are two ways of reaching the 
 place from Bassorah, says M. de Sarzec : either by the 
 Tigris and the Shatt el-Hai or by the Euphrates and 
 the Shatt el-Hai. Those travelling by the second 
 route find that at the village of Beni-Seds the 
 Euphrates divides into several branches, each of which 
 is sub-divided into little canals, by which the river 
 spreads over the country and makes it a huge marsh, 
 twelve or fifteen leagues broad from east to west, and 
 ten or twelve from north to south. 
 
 " Among the network of canals which cross one another in the 
 midst of the reed-beds and islets with which the marshes are covered,
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 137 
 
 we find two navigable channels, usually followed by the boats which 
 ascend and descend the Euphrates. 
 
 " One of them, named by the people of the country the Old 
 Euphrates, turns abruptly to the left, and, describing an immense 
 curve towards the south, encloses the marshes, and separates them 
 from the desert. Then ascending once more towards the north-east, 
 the channel becomes broader and deeper, in proportion as it leaves 
 the marshes and re-enters its bed. Two hours before arriving at 
 Sook esh-shioukh the stream has become a river again ; and the 
 Euphrates, now nearly two hundred yards broad, flows slowly 
 on between two rows of date-palms. This ancient bed of the river, 
 choked up long ago by the mud of the marshes, in which it almost 
 loses itself, is now only followed by light boats drawing very little 
 water. 
 
 " The other branch is a narrow but deep channel, which crosses 
 the marsh almost in a straight line from one end to the other. The 
 boat glides along by a thousand turnings among the reeds, which 
 here grow several yards high. From time to time the reed-beds 
 separate sufficiently to allow you to perceive on the right, towards 
 the north, and in the direction of Tello, a real inland sea, the 
 uniform surface of which extends as far as you can see towards the 
 horizon. Here and there, on the right and left of the channel, 
 appear, among islets covered with date-palms, the huts of the Arab 
 villages. It requires twelve hours to traverse these marshes." 
 
 This description of the region of Lower Chaldsea, its 
 marshes, its reed-beds, and its date-palms, shows us 
 what the country has been like from the time of Abra- 
 ham to the present day ; only in the days of the 
 highest civilization, when the canals were kept in order 
 by the Babylonian kings, part of what is now marsh- 
 land was a fertile and inhabited district. The bas- 
 reliefs of the time of Sennacherib and Sardanapalus give 
 pictures of the country which closely agree with the 
 words of M. de Sarzec ; we see the same streams flowing 
 among the reeds, which formed a convenient hiding-place
 
 138 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 for fugitives in time of war ; and the date-palms growing 
 by the waterside are not absent from the scene. Strabo's 
 account of the region in the time of Christ presents the 
 same features : 
 
 "It thus happens that the overflow of the rivers covers the 
 plains towards the sea, and produces lakes and marshes and beds of 
 reeds, out of which all sorts of baskets are manufactured." 
 
 As for the palm, it was so common that it provided 
 the chief part of the food of the people 
 
 " The country produces barley in greater luxuriance than any 
 other, for it is said to bear three hundred-fold ; but all other food is 
 provided by the palm-tree, from which come bread, wine, vinegar, 
 honey, meal, and all sorts of ropes and mats ; coppersmiths use the 
 date-kernels as fuel, while the same, steeped in water, are given as 
 food to oxen and sheep. They say that there is a Persian song in 
 which three hundred and sixty uses for the palm-tree are reckoned 
 up." * 
 
 This extensive use of dates as food is illustrated by 
 the contract tablets of Babylonia, which are frequently 
 occupied with sales of loads of dates, or payment of 
 dates as tribute to temples. The fermented juice of the 
 date was called shikaru by the Babylonians, as it is still 
 named sakar by the Arabs : the same word is frequently 
 mentioned in the Old Testament in connection with 
 wine, and translated " strong drink " in the Authorized 
 Version. In the Gospel of Saint Luke the same Semitic 
 word sikera is used, where it is said that John the 
 Baptist 
 
 " shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither 
 wine nor strong drink." 
 
 Strabo, xvi 1.
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 139 
 
 Even at the present day the peasantry of Chaldsea 
 chiefly subsist on dates pressed into cakes, and drink 
 the sakar, or spirituous liquor made of the same fruit, 
 from which they also prepare a sort of molasses, or 
 honey, as in Straho's time. 
 
 During the year 1880 M. de Sarzec and his band of 
 excavators succeeded in laying bare almost the whole of 
 the great building concealed under the principal mound 
 of Tello, and in finding nine large statues, th first 
 Babylonian sculptures of importance that had yet been 
 discovered. During the course of the same year, his 
 work was interrupted by an attack of marsh fever, the 
 scourge of this annually inundated region ; but in the 
 autumn, and in the spring of 1881, he had resumed his 
 diggings, and disinterred other smaller buildings in the 
 neighbouring mounds. Meanwhile, the attention of the 
 scientific world had been drawn to the new discoveries, 
 and the French Government had become interested in 
 the work of the vice-consul. Accordingly, in May, 
 1882, M. Jules Ferry propoied a grant for the purchase 
 of the antiquities discovered, and the Chambers voted 
 in favour of it. The statues and other objects were 
 placed in the Louvre, and M. Leon Heuzey, the keeper 
 of the Oriental department, was entrusted with the care 
 of them. 
 
 It is chiefly from the results of M. Heuzey 's study 
 of the Chaldsean remains brought to Paris by M. de 
 Sarzec that the rest of Europe has become acquainted 
 with the importance of the new find. The buildings, 
 sculptures, bronzes, and inscriptions of Tello were the
 
 140 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 first extensive remains discovered of that early Chaldsean 
 civilization, the beginnings of which belong to a period of 
 culture probably exceeding in antiquity that of any other 
 region. To the Biblical student, above all, these monu- 
 ments possess the highest interest, for they throw some 
 light on the early culture of that country from which 
 the Hebrew race proceeded : the country of the patriarch 
 Abraham. Mukeyyer, the remains of that city of Ur 
 which is now generally identified with Ur of the 
 Chaldees, lies only fifteen hours to the south of Tello ; 
 the kings of Ur were at a certain period the rulers of 
 Lagash, as Tello was called in ancient times. The 
 objects and inscriptions found by M. de Sarzec belong 
 to various periods, covering many centuries, and it may 
 well be that some of them are actually of the date 
 when Abraham left Ur, and journeyed towards the west. 
 The town of Lagash seems to have been founded in the 
 very earliest period of civilization ; and yet the palace, 
 at any rate, seems actually to have been restored and 
 inhabited many years after the conquest of Alexander, 
 by the Gra3co-Parthian kings of Characene. Above all, 
 such discoveries as that of Tello give us good reason to 
 hope that, when once the mounds which dot the alluvial 
 plains of Chaldaea are fully excavated, sufficient material 
 will be found to re-construct the history of that region 
 from the very origin of civilization. 
 
 No peoples have been so careful to preserve records 
 of their deeds as the Babylonians and Assyrians. The 
 materials upon which they chose to write, clay and 
 stone, are qualified to last to the end of time, and the
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 141 
 
 almost superstitious reverence which they themselves 
 had for their records guarded the latter from wilful 
 destruction. This is what makes the cuneiform in- 
 scriptions of such exceptional interest and value to the 
 historian. Many statements in ancient authors in- 
 dicate the completeness of the series of chronological 
 records preserved by the Chaldseans. Berosus says that 
 his countrymen possessed documents covering a period of 
 150,000 years, and containing histories of the heavens, 
 of the seas, of the creation of man, and of the kings of 
 Babylon ; and there are frequent proofs in the cunei- 
 form inscriptions of the existence of historical accounts 
 (which modern explorers, however, have not yet had 
 the good fortune to discover) reaching back to remote 
 epochs. The clay cylinders on which the Baby- 
 lonian and Assyrian monarchs had the records of their 
 wars and buildings inscribed were carefully buried in 
 cavities made on purpose to contain them, in the base- 
 ment of their palaces or temples ; and these documents 
 always end with the injunction, addressed to any future 
 sovereign who shall, in repairing the building, discover 
 the hiding-place of the cylinder, to replace it carefully, 
 with religious rites ; if he should fail to do so, the 
 curse of the gods is invoked upon his head. The 
 same expressions are used in the inscribed tablets which 
 were put up on the walls of the palaces and temples, 
 to proclaim to every visitor the exploits of the king. 
 Thus Bamman-Nirari I., who reigned over Assyria in 
 the fourteenth century before Christ, declares at the 
 end of an inscription on a slab, found in the Temple
 
 142 NEW LIGHT ON THE SIDLE. 
 
 of Ashur, among the ruins of the city of Ashur, one 
 of the ancient capitals of the country : 
 
 "For future days: let future princes, if this place shall grow old 
 and fall into decay, restore the ruins, and replace my tablet and the 
 inscription of my name, then will Ashur hear their prayers ; but if 
 any shall erase my name and write his own name in its place, or if 
 he shall remove my tablet, destroy it, throw it into the river, or 
 burn it with fire .... may Ashur, the high god, who inhabits 
 the temple of Eharsagkurkura : may Anu, Bel, Ea, and Ishtar, the 
 great gods : may the Igigi of heaven and the Anunnaki of earth 
 strike him with their hands, curse him with an evil curse, destroy 
 his name, his seed, his power, and his family in the land ; may 
 destruction of his land, ruin to his people and his territory, come 
 forth out of their holy mouth ; may Blmmon punish him with 
 storms of rain, and send floods, evil winds, rebellion, oppression, 
 famine into his land. . . . 
 
 We have several proofs that the princes who kept 
 the palaces and temples in repair, through fear, perhaps, 
 that these curses might be fulfilled, had the greatest 
 respect for the records of their predecessors, even when 
 they belonged to dynasties different from their own. It 
 was, without doubt, a foundation-cylinder, or a tablet 
 which informed Tiglath-Pileser I. of the date of the 
 erection of a temple which he restored in Ashur, his 
 capital : 
 
 " At that time the temple of Anu and Kimmon, the great gods, 
 my lords, which Shamshi-Ramman, the priestly governor of Ashur, 
 son of Ishmi-Dagan, the priestly governor of Ashur, had built, had 
 gradually, during six hundred and forty-one years, been falling into 
 ruin. Ashur-dan, king of Assyria, had pulled that temple down, but 
 had not re-built it; for sixty years its foundations had not been 
 laid. 
 
 " At the beginning of my reign, Anu and Rimmon, the great gods, 
 my lords, commanded me to restore their sanctuary. I had bricks
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 143 
 
 made, cleared the ground, and laid the foundations of strong stone 
 from the mountains." 
 
 Historical records, carefully preserved for more than 
 sixteen centuries, enabled Sardanapalus to know the 
 history of a certain image of the goddess Nana, long 
 before carried away from Babylonia, and recovered by 
 him in his campaign against the Blamites in B.C. 648, 
 upon the capture of Susa, their capital. 
 
 " Kudurnankhundi the Elamite, who did not honour the name of 
 the great gods, relying in his madness on his own power, laid his 
 hand upon the temples of Accad and laid waste the land of Accad. 
 . . . But the days were fulfilled, the time appointed arrived, the 
 great gods saw what had occurred, and took revenge, after sixteen 
 hundred and thirty-five years, for the destruction wrought by the 
 Elamites. They sent me, Sardanapalus the prince, their worshipper, 
 to ravage the land of Elam, and placed in my hand" a pitiless 
 weapon." 
 
 The great re-builder of ancient temples among the 
 Babylonian monarchs was the last of the latter : namely, 
 Nabonidus. In his work of restoration he more than 
 once came upon the records of ancient sovereigns, which 
 he carefully restored to their place. Thus, in describing 
 the repairs which he executed at the ancient Temple of 
 the Sun, which had not only fallen into ruin, but had 
 actually been buried under a covering of dust, like that 
 which conceals the ruined edifices of Babylonia at the 
 present day, Nabonidus tells us that he found records of 
 Burnaburyash and of Khammurabi. 
 
 " I beheld within it the written name of Khammurabi, the old 
 king, who, seven hundred years before Burnaburyash, had erected the 
 temple of the sun and the tower upon the old foundation."
 
 144 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 From this passage the date of Khammurabi is fixed 
 at about B.C. 2200. In a temple at Sippara, Nabonidus 
 found inscriptions of Shagashaltiyash, who, he says, 
 reigned eight hundred years before. These inscriptions 
 had been vainly sought for by Esarhaddon and Nebu- 
 chadnezzar ; Nabonidus carefully restored them to their 
 place, in company with his own records. Among the 
 remains of the staged tower at Ur, Nabonidus found 
 inscriptions of Dungi, the ancient king of that city. 
 In the city of Kharran Nabonidus rebuilt a temple, which 
 had formerly been restored by Sardanapalus ; the latter 
 king had, so Nabonidus tells us, found there the buried 
 cylinder of Shalmaneser II. (B.C. 860-825) : 
 
 " I summoned men from all parts, from Gaza, on the borders of 
 Egypt, on the upper sea beyond the Euphrates, to the lower sea : 
 the kings, princes, governors, and men from all parts, whom the 
 moon-god and the sun-god, my lords, and the goddess Ishtar, my 
 lady, had subjected to me, to build Ekhulkhul, the house of the moon- 
 god, my lord and helper, which stands in the city of Kharran, and 
 which Sardanapalus, king of Assyria, son of Esarhaddon, king of 
 Assyria, the prince who preceded me, had built. In a favourable 
 month, on the appointed day which the sun-god and Bimmon had 
 announced to me in a dream, I laid the foundation of the temple, 
 and built up its brick-work, in the wisdom of Ea and Merodach, with 
 incantations, with the art of the brick-god, the lord of foundation 
 stones and of bricks, . . . with joy and exultation, upon the in- 
 scribed foundations of Sardanapalus, king of Assyria, who had dis- 
 covered here the inscribed foundations of Shalmaneser, son of Ashur- 
 nasirpal. With palm-wine, grape-wine, oil, and honey I sprinkled 
 the walls. More than the kings my fathers, I strengthened its 
 walls and adorned its structure." 
 
 Among the temples restored by Nabonidus, there 
 was one of almost inconceivable antiquity : namely, that
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 145 
 
 of the sun- god at Sippara ; we know from the contracts 
 that the priests of this sanctuary possessed great 
 wealth ; nevertheless, at this time it was very much 
 " out of repair " : 
 
 " I brought the sun-god out of his temple, and placed him in 
 another house ; I pulled down that temple and sought for its old 
 inscribed cylinder. I made excavations to the depth of eighteen 
 cubits beneath the ground, and there the sun-god allowed me to 
 find the inscriptions of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which for three 
 thousand two hundred years no king who preceded me had found." 
 
 The figures here given by Nabonidus, which would 
 make the date of Sargon about 3,800 years before 
 Christ, have naturally excited astonishment and some 
 incredulity among modern scholars. But when we 
 consider the exactness with which the Babylonians 
 seem to have made their calculations, and the care with 
 which they preserved their records, it seems rash to 
 put the chronology of Nabonidus too lightly aside. 
 Moreover, even if this particular date should appear 
 a little too remote, there are many other reasons for 
 thinking that Sargon and Naram-Sin lived, at any rate, 
 many centuries before Khammurabi, who was king of 
 Babylon about B.C. 2200. 
 
 It may be hoped that these few extracts from the 
 Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions give some idea of 
 the care with which these people preserved their official 
 records, written on the cylinders that were buried 
 among the foundations, and on the slabs that adorned 
 the walls of the palaces and temples. We have other 
 proofs, however, among the cuneiform inscriptions, of
 
 146 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the completeness of the system of chronology which 
 the priests of Ashur and Bel possessed. Besides dupli- 
 cate copies, which were kept in the royal libraries, of 
 the records on the cylinders and slabs, and besides 
 other documents of an historical character, which were 
 composed from time to time, such as the " synchronous 
 history '' of Babylonia and Assyria, or the " Babylonian 
 Chronicle," lists of kings and governors have been 
 found, which are of as much importance for chronology 
 as the Roman lists of consuls. The Assyrians named 
 each year after some governor, high official, or the king 
 himself, who thus became the eponym for that year, 
 like the first archon at Athens ; and lists of such 
 eponyms have been found at Nineveh, covering the 
 period from the beginning of the ninth century before 
 Christ to the middle of the seventh. The king was 
 always eponym for one of the years of his reign. One of 
 these lists adds in a few words the chief events of each 
 year; and an eclipse of the sun, mentioned in the ninth 
 year of Ashur-dan, king of Assyria, and identified by 
 modern astronomers with the almost total eclipse, 
 visible at Nineveh, which occurred on June 15th, 
 B.C. 763, has enabled the Assyrian chronology to be 
 brought into relation with our era, and also to be com- 
 pared with the chronological list of Babylonian kings 
 in Greek, known as the Canon of Ptolemy, and drawn 
 up in the course of the second century after Christ, 
 with the result that the clay tablet and the Greek list 
 are shown to agree in the most satisfactory manner. 
 The Canon of Ptolemy also agrees with the lists of
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 147 
 
 Babylonian kings written on clay tablets, which give 
 the number of the years that they reigned. 
 
 All that we know, then, of the chronological system 
 of the Babylonians induces us to put a certain confi- 
 dence in their statements of dates. 
 
 The connection of this discussion on the reliability 
 of the Babylonian dates with Tello will appear when it 
 is learnt that inscriptions of Naram-Sin, who, according 
 to Nabonidus, reigned before B.C. 3700, have been 
 found among these ruins by M. de Sarzec. Buried in a 
 pile of masonry belonging to restorations of a com- 
 paratively late date, he discovered an alabaster vase 
 inscribed with the words : 
 
 "Naram-Sin, king of the four regions," 
 
 that is to say, of the north, south, east, and west, 
 according to the title adopted by the later monarchs of 
 Babylonia and Assyria. The capital of Naram-Sin and 
 his father Sargon seems to have been Agane, close to 
 Sippara, on a canal, called by Pliny Narragas, which 
 unites the Tigris with the Euphrates some distance to 
 the north of Babylon ; but the dominion of these kings 
 appears to have extended far beyond the walls of their 
 city. They were undoubtedly of Semitic race : this is 
 clear from their own names, and from the Semitic 
 language of the few inscriptions which have been found 
 of their time, including a second alabaster vase, bearing 
 the name of Naram-Sin, found by M. Oppert, but after- 
 wards lost in the Tigris, and the famous egg-shaped 
 object of variegated steatite, dedicated by Sargon to 
 K 2
 
 148 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the Temple of the Sun at Sippara ; the latter is now in 
 the British Museum. 
 
 Other inscriptions from Tello would seem, to judge 
 from the form of the cuneiform character, of an even 
 
 FRAGMENT OF THE VULTURE-STELA. 
 
 more remote date than Naram-Sin. They belong to a 
 time when Tello, then called Sirpulla, or Lagash, was 
 the head of an independent State, for they bear the 
 names of Khaldu, Ur-Nina, and Akurgal, kings of that 
 city. Some of the slabs on which these inscriptions 
 are engraved bear rude sculptures in relief, belonging 
 to the very earliest period of art. The " Eagle and
 
 TEE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 149 
 
 Lion tablet," of the time of Ur-Nina, exhibits an eagle 
 with its claws fixed into the backs of two lions, facing 
 different ways : an almost heraldic device. The 
 " Vulture-Stela," carved in the time of the son of the 
 last-named monarch, is a more important monument. 
 It formed, when it was complete, a slab of considerable 
 height and breadth, three inches thick, carved and 
 inscribed 011 both sides ; the chief scene represented 
 appears to be the burial of a pile of corpses after a 
 battle ; priests, or their attendants, carrying baskets on 
 their heads in the attitude of the Athenian canephoroe, 
 bring sacrificial offerings for the dead, according to the 
 wide-spread custom of antiquity; above, in the air, 
 hover a flock of vultures, holding human limbs and 
 heads in their beaks and claws. 
 
 The inscriptions on these monuments of the kings 
 and governors of Lagash are in the Accadian language. 
 We have seen in an earlier chapter that the cuneiform 
 characters and the system of writing in use among the 
 Assyrians and Babylonians were ill-suited to the needs 
 of a Semitic language, and were probably derived from 
 a non-Semitic race. Here, in these monuments from 
 Tello, we see this very non-Semitic race living among 
 the cities of Babylonia, and apparently, for a time, 
 independent in certain parts of its Semitic neighbours. 
 
 There was a great mixture of races in Chaldsea 
 from the earliest times, according to the testimony of 
 Berosus. The Book of Genesis indicates to'us which 
 were the principal branches of the human family that 
 inhabited that region ; they were two entirely distinct
 
 150 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 stems : the descendants of Gush, the son of Ham, and 
 the descendants of Asshur, the son of Shem. 
 
 " And Gush begat Nimrod : he began to be a mighty one in the 
 earth. 
 
 " He was a mighty hunter before the Lord : wherefore it is said, 
 Even as Nimrod, the mighty hunter before the Lord. 
 
 " And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and 
 Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 
 
 " Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and 
 the city Rehoboth, and Calah, 
 
 " And Resen between Nineveh and Calah : the same is a great 
 city." 
 
 Now, it was the descendants of Gush, the Accadians, 
 who appear to have made the first advances in civiliz- 
 ation ; so much so that the Assyrians and Semitic 
 Babylonians borrowed from them their system of writing 
 and their sacred literature. Ur was a Semitic city, if 
 we may judge from the inscriptions and from the 
 names of many of her kings ; and this inference would 
 agree with the Biblical account of Ur of the Chaldees 
 as the home of the family of Abraham. There is a 
 small votive tablet of black stone which contains a 
 purely Semitic inscription of the time of Dungi: 
 
 " Dungi the powerful, king of Ur and king of the four regions, 
 who has built Eshitlam, the temple of Nergal, his lord, at Cutha." 
 
 Lagash, on the other hand, seems to have been a 
 centre of Accadian civilization, for all the inscriptions 
 found there are in the Accadian language. As far as 
 it is possible, too, to conclude from the sculptures found 
 at Tello, the type of the inhabitants was quite distinct 
 from that of the Semitic Babylonians and Assyrians,
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 151 
 
 so familiar to us from the bas-reliefs of Nineveh. But 
 the intercourse of the two races must have begun at a 
 very early period. "Sargon and Naram-Sin had already 
 borrowed the Accadian system of writing. Lagash was 
 conquered by the kings of Ur, as Ur itself was taken 
 by the kings of Nisin and Larsa. What we can learn, 
 then, of the civilization of Lagash must throw some 
 light upon the state of culture of the rest of Chaldsea. 
 
 The period during which Lagash was subject to the 
 kings of Ur and other neighbouring monarchs is marked 
 in the inscriptions of Tello by the disappearance in them 
 of the title of king, and the substitution for it of the 
 designation patesi, or priestly governor. 
 
 But though, instead of kings, we soon begin to find 
 patesis, or priestly governors of Lagash, the latter seem 
 to have been hereditary chieftains, enjoying considerable 
 freedom, and acting with the independence of feudal 
 princes. They inscribed their names on the buildings 
 they erected in the same manner as the kings. The 
 oldest of the patesis, to judge from the form of the 
 written character, were En-annadu, his son, Entena, 
 and his grandson, also named En-annadu. 
 
 Of the time when Lagash was subject to the kings 
 of Ur we have one or two inscriptions which clearly 
 state the political subjection of the city. There is a cylin- 
 drical seal which has long been known to archaeologists; 
 the inscription which it bears is thus translated : 
 
 "To the god Adar, the mighty lord of Lagash, Kilulla-guzala, 
 son of Urbabi, has dedicated this for the life of Pungi, the powerful 
 prince, the king of Ur."
 
 152 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Another inscription was found by M. de Sarzec ; it 
 runs as follows : 
 
 "To . . . daughter of the goddess Bau, his Lady, for the 
 preservation of the life of Dungi, the powerful warrior, king of Ur, 
 king of Sumer and Accad, Ghala-lammu, son of Lukani, priestly 
 governor of Lagash [offers this]." 
 
 The title " King of Sumer and Accad " implies 
 sovereignty over the principal regions of Babylonia, 
 and was one of the titles borne by all later kings who 
 ruled over Babylonia, such as Sargon, Esarhaddon, 
 Sardanapalus, Nabopolassar, and Cyrus. 
 
 But the most flourishing period of Lagash seems to 
 have been the time when Gudea was pafesi, or priestly 
 governor, over this city : at least, if we may judge from 
 the remains which M. de Sarzec has discovered, and 
 from others acquired before his excavations, and now to 
 be seen at the British Museum. The great palace laid 
 bare by the French vice-consul is built principally with 
 bricks impressed with the stamp of Gudea, the only 
 exceptions being certain parts built by Ur-Bau, one of 
 his predecessors or successors, and much later resto- 
 rations by the Gra?co-Parthian princes of Characene. 
 A short description of the palace of Gudea may, 
 perhaps, be given here. 
 
 The palace stands on an immense quadrangular plat- 
 form of unbaked bricks, two hundred and eighteen 
 yards square and thirteen yards high ; the cement 
 employed was liquid clay, which has so united itself 
 with the unburnt bricks as to form a mass very 
 nearly homogeneous. The sides of the platform slope
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 153 
 
 considerably from the plain, and are ascended by a steep 
 staircase. The orientation of the building is worth 
 remark, for, like the later edifices of Mesopotamia, but 
 unlike the Egyptian temples, its four corners, not its 
 sides, face the four cardinal points. Upon the platform 
 stands the house (57 yards by 33 yards), built of baked 
 bricks, which have become red and yellow in colour by 
 their passage through the kiln ; they all bear on their 
 lower surface the name and titles of Gudea. The north- 
 eastern facade is evidently the principal one, for it has 
 two wide entrances, and is decorated in the peculiar 
 Chaldsean style also observed at Eridu and at Erech, 
 by a continuous series of semi-circular projections, like 
 half-columns, which vary the whole surface of the wall. 
 The outer walls of the edifice are more than two yards 
 thick, and give immense solidity to the structure. The 
 arrangement of the rooms is much like that of later 
 Assyrian or modern Oriental palaces ; they are built 
 round court-yards of different sizes, into which they 
 open ; all the light they receive is from the door-ways, 
 for there are no windows. The apartments around the 
 largest of the court-yards evidently formed the selamlik, 
 if we may borrow the Turkish term : the part, namely, 
 reserved for the prince and his male attendants, and 
 including the reception-rooms. A smaller court-yard 
 forms the centre of the harem; in this ovens were 
 found. A third group of chambers composed the Khan, 
 or offices and lodgings of the slaves. The rooms were 
 probably vaulted, but no trace of the roof now remains ; 
 they were paved with bricks, and before all the principal
 
 154 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 doors lay a threshold of marble or alabaster. The 
 absence of architectural decoration is very remarkable; 
 if there was any adornment, it must have consisted 
 chiefly in draperies. The superstition of the inhabi- 
 tants of this gloomy mansion is shown by the votive 
 figures, tablets, and amulets found buried beneath the 
 brick pavement, sometimes in cavities constructed on 
 purpose to receive them. 
 
 None of the doors which formerly closed the en- 
 trances into the chambers were found; they had been 
 constructed of wood and bound with copper; but the 
 sockets in which their pivots turned were discovered in 
 many cases, and sometimes still in position. These sockets 
 are rough blockn of diorite, the upper surface of which 
 is smoothed and hollowed out in the middle to receive 
 the bronze point of the door-post ; by the side of the 
 hollow, Grudea's name, with a votive inscription, is 
 inscribed. The roughness of the blocks, compared with 
 certain peculiarities of the statues carved out of the 
 same material, shows very clearly that the diorite was 
 not hewn out of a quarry, but simply found in 
 natural pieces of various sizes, which were fashioned 
 into human figures, or door-sockets, or stands for 
 vessels, according to the facilities that they offered 
 for such a transformation. 
 
 The works of art found by M. de Sarzec at Tello are 
 divided by M. Heuzey into three classes: those which 
 belong to an epoch of rudeness and simplicity; those which 
 exhibit a sobriety of style and technique, and already prove 
 the acquisition of considerable skill; and those which show
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 155 
 
 a studied delicacy and refinement of execution, belong- 
 ing to an advanced period. The last class is, unfor- 
 tunately, only represented by a few fragments, which 
 tantalize us with the desire for more. The first class is 
 represented by the " Vulture-stela " described above, 
 and by other monuments of similar character; but to 
 the second class belong the most important works of 
 art found at Tello : namely, the nine statues of Grudea, 
 governor of Lagash. These figures are proved, by the 
 inscriptions which cover part of the drapery and the 
 benches on which they sit, to have been placed in 
 different temples, as marks of devotion to certain 
 deities ; they probably stood opposite to the images 
 of the gods, and hence the attitude of submission, with 
 clasped hands, which marks them. At a very late 
 epoch they must have been brought within the walls of 
 the palace, and placed in the court-yard where they were 
 discovered. It is much to be regretted, in the interests 
 of archaeology, that the heads have in all cases been 
 broken^offby some invader who overthrew the dynasty 
 of Grudea ; but this misfortune is partly repaired by the 
 discovery of two heads at a distance from the statues. 
 
 The first thing to remark about these figures is the 
 material out of which they are carved. On the alluvial 
 plains of Chaldsea, where hardly a pebble is to be found, 
 it is startling to find, belonging to the earliest days 
 of civilization, works of art consisting of a hard volcanic 
 stone, which is only to be procured from the interior 
 of Asia or from the mountains of Egypt. It is a kind 
 of diorite, only less hard than granite and porphyry,
 
 156 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 analogous to that of which Egyptian statues were 
 frequently fashioned; and examination of the inscrip- 
 tions shows that, in fact, this stone was brought from 
 the " land of Magan," a territory Avhich lay on the 
 coasts of Egypt or in the peninsula of Sinai. This at 
 once says much for the navigation and commerce of 
 those remote days. In spite of the difficulty of working 
 with such material, the artist has treated his figures 
 with considerable skill ; he has even indicated the folds 
 of the drapery : a point neglected both by the later 
 Assyrians and the Egyptians, and first studied to ad- 
 vantage by the Greeks. 
 
 The costume of Gudea, as it is represented in his 
 statues, consists simply of a fringed shawl. One end 
 of this lies over the left shoulder in front ; the shawl 
 is then passed round the back and under the right arm, 
 which is left bare; the other end is again brought 
 round under the right arm, and tucked inside that part 
 of the garment which crosses the breast, thus firmly 
 keeping the whole in place. The Kornan toga was 
 differently worn, for it was flung over the left shoulder, 
 brought round behind under the right arm, and again 
 passed over the left shoulder, so that the end hung 
 down the back. M. Heuzey remarks that the dress of 
 Gudea offers a valuable study for artists depicting 
 Biblical scenes of the earliest period. A curious re- 
 presentation of fringed shawls worn exactly as we see 
 them in the figures of Gudea appears in the well-known 
 painting on the wall of one of the tombs at Beni- 
 Hasan, in Egypt. The date of this fresco is, perhaps,
 
 TSE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 157 
 
 not far from that of the statues of Tello ; it is of the 
 twelfth dynasty, and probably some centuries before 
 B.C. 2000. The wearers of the fringed shawls in the 
 painting are members of an Asiatic tribe, bringing 
 presents to the governor of an Egyptian province ; they 
 are thus described by Prisse d'Avennes : 
 
 " The second tomb, that of Naharse-Numhotep, military governor 
 and nomarch of the province, is especially interesting, both as a work 
 of art and on account of the valuable information it offers for the 
 history of the country. 
 
 " On the north wall the artist has painted a band of foreigners 
 in the act of being presented to Numhotep by two Egyptian 
 functionaries, the first of whom is a royal scribe, holding in his hand 
 a tablet covered with hieroglyphics. The nomarch, leaning care- 
 lessly on a staff, and surrounded by his dogs, is giving an uncere- 
 monious reception to the strangers, who have, apparently, been 
 attracted to Egypt by the report of the fertility of the Nile Valley. 
 They have a peculiar physiognomy, aquiline noses, and a fair com- 
 plexion ; they are dressed in rich stuffs, with head-dress and shoes 
 like those of the figures on Greek vases. First come two chiefs 
 leading antelopes : one of them is named Absha ; the other is re- 
 markable for a pearl attached to the end of his beard. Then come 
 four warriors, armed with lances, bows, and clubs. Then follow four 
 women clothed in variegated tunics, preceded by a young man 
 driving before him an ass, which carries two children, placed in a 
 sort of pannier. Last comes an ass loaded with household vessels, 
 led by a man playing a lyre, and followed by a warrior armed with 
 a bow and a club. 
 
 " This curious ethnographical picture, carefully painted more than 
 two thousand years before our era, has been variously interpreted 
 by travellers and authors. Some have seen here the arrival of the 
 Hebrews, or of Joseph himself ; others have thought that they could 
 recognise the Ionian type. The group seems at first sight to 
 represent Greeks, but there are points that do not agree with this 
 idea, which was that of Champollion, who even thought he could 
 read in the inscription the word luni : lonians. At the present
 
 158 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 day, thanks to the science of which he laid the foundation, his 
 pupils read above the picture the words : 'Arrival of thirty-seven 
 Aamu, bringing mestem.' This mestem was probably stibium, a 
 kind of eye-salve, valuable in a country like Egypt, where ophthal- 
 mia has been at all times as common as it is dangerous." 
 
 Other figures found at Tello are dressed in a stuff 
 made on the same principle as velvet or plush, with a 
 long shaggy pile on the outer side, looking almost like 
 the hair of an animal. It has been recognised by 
 archaeologists as probably identical with a Babylonian 
 stuff which was in later times much exported from 
 Chalda3a and Persia into Western countries. The 
 Greeks called it kaunakes, and gave high prices for it at 
 the markets of Sardis that great emporium for goods 
 coming from Persia and the East. A comic description 
 of it occurs in the Wasps of Aristophanes : 
 
 " BDELYCLEON : Take off your cloak, 
 
 And put this mantle on in the same fashion. 
 PHILOCLEON : But how shall I be able to live and do my duty as 
 
 a citizen 
 
 When this man wants to suffocate me in this way 1 
 BD. : Come, take this and put it on, and don't talk. 
 PH. : What is this terrible garment, in the name of all the gods ? 
 BD. : Some call it Persian stuff, others call it kaunakes. 
 PH. : Well, I thought it was a goatskin of the Thymaetids. 
 BD. : That is not surprising, as you have never been to Sardis. 
 
 If you had, you would know what it is ; but as it is, you do 
 
 not recognise it. 
 PH.: I? 
 
 Most certainly I do not recognise it. It seems to me most 
 
 like the goatskin cloak of Morychus. 
 BP. : It is not so ; for it is of woven stuff, manufactured at 
 
 Ecbatana. 
 
 It is woven by the barbarians at great expense ; 
 I daresay this mantle has swallowed up a whole talent of wool"
 
 THE DISCOVERIES AT TELLO. 159 
 
 Two of the seated statues of Gudea hold upon their 
 knees tablets and styli, or pointed instruments for 
 writing. Upon one of these tablets is carefully marked 
 out the ground plan of a building of which we see the 
 walls, the towers, and the gates ; at the side lies the 
 graduated rule that was employed for measurement. This 
 figure of Gudea represents the prince, in fact, as dedi- 
 cating to the gods his architectural work : as offering to 
 them the plans of buildings which he had designed, and 
 the drawing materials with which they were marked 
 out and measured. The inscriptions with which in 
 accordance with the Mesopotamian custom the drapery 
 of the statues and the benches on which they sit are 
 covered, are chiefly composed of the enumeration of 
 various temples built by Gudea, which he thus 
 dedicates to the gods. The most interesting of the 
 figures namely, the statue of the prince as architect, to 
 which allusion has just been made exhibits a long 
 inscription, engraved, as they all are, in the clearest and 
 most beautiful characters, of which the hard diorite has 
 preserved almost every line unimpaired. It begins as 
 follows : 
 
 " In the temple of the god Nin-girsu, his king, [is placed] this 
 statue of Gudea, priestly governor of Lagash, who has built the 
 temple of Eninnu. One ka of fermented drink, one ka of provisions 
 . . . , half a ka of . . . half a ka of . . . such are the 
 offerings that he makes. . . . 
 
 "To the god Ningirsu, the mighty warrior of the god Ellillu, 
 [this is dedicated by] Gudea, architect (?), and priestly governor of 
 Lagash ; the shepherd elected by the immovable will of the god 
 Ningirsu ; beheld with a favourable eye by the goddess Nina; gifted 
 with power by the god Nindara ; covered with renown by the
 
 160 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 goddess Bau ; son of the goddess Gatumdug ; endowed with 
 sovereignty and the sceptre of supremacy by the god Gal-alim ; 
 proclaimed afar among living creatures by the god Dunsaga ; whose 
 government is placed upon a solid foundation by the god Ningiszida 
 his god." 
 
 The inscription then relates the construction of a 
 temple by Grudea, and the solemnities and purifications 
 that took place at the time of its dedication. No 
 mourning was allowed during this period. 
 
 " No grave was dug in the burying-ground of the city ; no 
 corpse was interred (?). The kalu did not perform his funeral music 
 or utter his lamentations j the wailing-woman did not allow her 
 lamentation to be heard." 
 
 Gudea describes the materials he had brought from 
 various countries for his building operations : 
 
 " The god Ningii-su opened to him the roads from the sea of 
 Elam to the lower sea. In the mountains of Amanus, the mountain 
 of cedars, he had cedar-trees of great height cut down. . 
 These cedars he employed to make great gates ; he enriched them 
 with shining ornaments, and placed them in the temple of Eninnu. 
 Others he used as beams in the sanctuary of Emahkia. 
 
 " From the mountains of Phoenicia he brought stones and had 
 them carved into blocks ; he made of them the holy of holies of the 
 temple of Eninnu. From Tidanum in the mountains of Phoanicia 
 he brought shirgal habbia stones ; he had them carved into the form 
 of urpadda, and arranged them for the purpose of receiving the bars 
 of the gates. In the country of Kagal-adda, in the mountains of 
 Kimash, he had copper extracted. . . . From the country of 
 Meroe he brought trees. . 
 
 " By his arms he conquered the city of Anshan, in the land 
 of Elam ; its spoils he dedicated to the god Nin-girsu in the temple 
 of Eninnu. . . . 
 
 " From the mountains of the land of Magan he had hard stone 
 brought, and had it carved into a statue of himself. ' 0, my king, 
 whose temple I have built, may life be my reward ! ' such was the
 
 STATUE OF GUDBA AS ARCHITECT.
 
 162 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 name that he gave to this statue, and in the temple of Eninnu he 
 placed it." 
 
 This long inscription ends with a curse upon those 
 who shall injure the statue or remove it from its place 
 in the temple ; and this malediction is in the style of 
 those which the Assyrian and late Babylonian kings 
 invoked on all who should disturb their records. 
 
 On another statue Gudea speaks of a New Year's 
 festival which he celebrated in honour of the principal 
 goddess : 
 
 " To "Ningirsu, the powerful warrior of Ellilla, [this is dedicated] 
 by Gudea, priestly governor of Lagash, who has constructed the 
 temple of Eninnu, consecrated to Ningirsu. 
 
 " Eor Ningirsu, his lord, he has built the temple of Ekhud, the 
 tower in stages, from the summit of which Ningirsu grants him a 
 happy lot. 
 
 " Besides the offerings which Gudea made of his free will to 
 Ningirsu and to the goddess Ban, daughter of Anna, his beloved 
 consort, he has made others to his god Ningiszida. 
 
 " Gudea, priestly governor of Lagash, declared peace from Girsu 
 to Uru-azagga. 
 
 " That year he had a block of rare stone brought from the country 
 of Magan ; he had it carved into a statue of himself. 
 
 " On the day of the beginning of the year, the day of the festival 
 of Bau, on which offerings were made ; one calf, one fat sheep, three 
 lambs, six full grown sheep, two rams, seven pat of dates, 7 sab 
 of cream, seven palm buds. . . , 
 
 " Such were the offerings made to the goddess Bau in the ancient 
 temple on that day. . . . "
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 
 
 THE most remarkable archaeological discovery of the 
 last few years has, without doubt, been that of the 
 collection of letters, written in the cuneiform character 
 and in the Babylonian language on clay tablets, which 
 lay buried beneath the ground in the neighbourhood of 
 the modern village of Tell el-Amarna, on the Nile. It 
 is said that a countrywoman lighted upon these 
 treasures by chance ; but they quickly found their way 
 into the hands of European collectors. Dr. Budge 
 obtained eighty of the finest and best preserved of the 
 tablets for the British Museum ; the Eoyal Museum at 
 Berlin acquired a share of the spoil ; and the Egyptian 
 Museum, which has recently been removed from Boulak 
 to Gizeh, received a smaller number. A few also were 
 purchased by private collectors : for instance, those of 
 M. Bouriant, and one which M. Maspero has presented 
 to the Louvre. 
 
 The site of Tell el-Amarna, the modern Arab village 
 situated, nearly 190 miles to the south of Cairo, in a 
 sandy plain between the mountain chain, which here 
 recedes in the form of a bay, and the eastern bank of 
 the Nile, has long been known to Egyptologists for its
 
 164 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 ancient remains, and especially for the tombs hewn in 
 the sides of the neighbouring hills. About fifteen 
 centuries before Christ, as far as the date can be ascer- 
 tained, there stood on this spot a city which for the 
 time being held the rank of the capital of Egypt and of 
 her dependent States. Amen-hetep, or, in the Greek 
 form, Amenophis IV., the ninth king of the eighteenth 
 dynasty, who was then reigning, had departed from the 
 traditions of his forefathers, and had adopted a new 
 religion of foreign origin, which enjoined the worship 
 of Aten, or the Sun's Disk, and rejected that of Amen, 
 the great god of Egypt, whose name accordingly the 
 monarch erased from the walls of the temples. Amen- 
 ophis IV. went so far as to change his own name to 
 Chu-en-Aten, or the "Splendour of the Sun's Disk." 
 He abandoned the 'great city of Thebes, which the kings 
 of his dynasty had done so much to enlarge and beautify, 
 and he founded, on the site of the modern Tell el- 
 Amarna, a new capital, which he called by his own new 
 designation, Chu-en-Aten. But after his death, this 
 town, which usurped for so brief a reign the place of 
 Thebes, was soon abandoned in its turn, and in 
 consequence of this sudden desertion it has left 
 much clearer traces behind than greater cities which 
 have fallen slowly into decay, or been razed to the 
 ground by victorious besiegers. Memphis has dis- 
 appeared ; but the streets and buildings of Chu- 
 en-Aten can still in part be traced. The follow- 
 ing description of the remains is given by Prisse 
 d'Avennes :
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 165 
 
 "The ruins now left of this second Heliopolis are more than a 
 mile and a quarter long and half a mile broad. The town was 
 divided from north to south by a wide street, cut at right angles by 
 cross streets, which marked off the houses and other buildings into 
 numerous quarters. The principal quarter lay to the north, and con- 
 tained temples and various other buildings, one of which is especially 
 remarkable for its numerous pillars of brick-work, showing the plan 
 of the hypostyle halls that stood here ; it was probably a palace, but 
 it is impossible at the present day to determine its exact form and 
 arrangement. 
 
 " The temples were enclosed within walls of burnt brick, like 
 most of the great edifices of this epoch, but ruins and traces of the 
 walls are all that is now left, and the stone structures have been so 
 completely demolished that there is no clear outline of their inner 
 arrangements. 
 
 "Several dwellings of unburnt brick, however, have not been 
 entirely destroyed, but have escaped the hand of man and the 
 ravages of time ; little more than the sub-structures remain of them, 
 but these are still able to give a fairly exact idea of their form and 
 distribution. These are the best preserved and the most ancient 
 dwellings in the valley of thn Nile. 
 
 " In this capital of Chu-en-Aten, erected with all speed in order 
 to form a centre for the nrw sun-worship, far from the haunts of the 
 traditional ideas which were so constantly evoked by the monuments 
 of Thebes, the builders were forced to employ the most readily avail- 
 able materials ; and accordingly sun-dried bricks play a large part 
 in all the structures. 
 
 " In one of the principal streets the two piers are to be seen, 
 which formed the sides of a pylon; the colossal gateway, twelve yards 
 wide, can only have been surmounted by a vault made up of several 
 concentric arches, like those of the pylons at El Assacif and Thebes. 
 The walls are eight yards thick ; the bricks are very carefully laid ; 
 and although they are composed of a somewhat sandy clay, they are, 
 even at the present day, hard enough to be used by the inhabitants 
 of the neighbourhood." 
 
 After this description of the remains of the town, it 
 may, perhaps, not be unacceptable to give from the
 
 166 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 same source a short account of some of the paintings on 
 the walls of the tombs at Tell el-Amarna, which 
 belong to the same period, and refer to the reign of 
 Amenophis IV. The following scene represents the 
 monarch in the act of making offerings to the Sun's 
 Disk :- 
 
 "At first, the most striking feature in this picture, which is 
 arranged with remarkable taste, is the irradiation of the sun, repre- 
 sented by means of divergent lines, terminating in hands holding 
 the sacred sign of life, or simply open to bless the chief personages 
 of the royal family and to accept their offerings. Three altars, 
 loaded with food arid flowers, divide the scene into two principal 
 compartments. On the left, the Pharaoh Chu-en-Aten and his wife, 
 both holding in their hands emblems that have since been effaced, 
 take part in a religious ceremony in honour of Aten-ra, the irradiat- 
 ing sun, which, at this epoch, through the special devotion of the 
 Pharaoh who is here depicted, represented the sole and exclusive 
 divinity of Egypt. Behind the queen, two young princesses, her 
 daughters, seem to be taking part in the ceremony with all the 
 inattention proper to their age : that is to say, that they are playing 
 with one another. On the right, the queen-mother, Thi, is represented 
 with one of her grandchildren -the Princess Aten-bek at her side, 
 apparently offering her a basket. 
 
 " The lower compartment of the picture is half filled with a row 
 of secondary figures, who, according to the custom of antiquity, are 
 represented as of smaller stature than the royal family. They are 
 the king's officers, female musicians, and servants busied in the 
 preparation of offerings. The picture was never completed, perhaps 
 on account of the premature death of the person for whom this tomb 
 was prepared ; or, perhaps, on account of the political and religious 
 reaction which overthrew the capital of Chu-en-Aten, and put an 
 end to the exclusive worship of the Sun's Disk." 
 
 Another painting in a tomb at the same place 
 exhibits a royal chariot drawn by a pair of horses : a 
 subject which may be of interest in consequence of the
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 167 
 
 frequent mention in the Tell el-Amarna tablets of gifts 
 of this kind from the princes of Mesopotamia to the 
 king of Egypt at this period. 
 
 " Compared with the superb beasts of the feline or bovine species 
 which were sculptured and painted at this same epoch, these horses 
 are depicted with incredible naivete and awkwardness. It might be 
 thought that the artist had never studied living models, and yet he 
 had such every day before his eyes. However it may be, these 
 horses may be reckoned among the finest of the eighteenth dynasty. 
 They are represented walking : a pace which does not offer the 
 beautiful curves seen in. the gallop. 
 
 " Besides the painting of the horses, the picture gives a good 
 example of the harness and chariots, which at this period showed 
 an admirable mixture of simplicity and elegance. 
 
 "The chariot is not decorated, but simply provided with a wide 
 case to contain the bow, and painted modestly with the favourite 
 colours of the Egyptians. Mention is made in the inscriptions of 
 this date of chariots enriched with gold, silver, and agate, which 
 came from the countries of Ruten (Syria) and Naharina (Mesopo- 
 tamia). The harness much simpler than it is generally seen is 
 covered with embroideries designed with as much sobriety as taste." 
 
 Much astonishment was naturally excited by the 
 discovery of cuneiform inscriptions on the site of this 
 old Egyptian town ; and the first question to be 
 answered was to what period they were to be assigned. 
 The fact that they were found at Tell el-Amarna made 
 it at first probable that they belonged to the time of 
 Amenophis IV., in whose reign alone the city of Chu- 
 en-Aten had been a place of importance ; and it was 
 found, in fact, that several of the letters were addressed 
 to " Nibmuariya " or " Nimmuriya, king of Egypt," 
 and that others were intended for the perusal of 
 " Napkhurriya " or " Napkhurririya." These names,
 
 168 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 allowing for the difficulty which the Babylonians and 
 Assyrians had in reproducing Egyptian words, were 
 seen to represent, although in an outlandish form, the 
 additional names or prenomens which Amenophis IV r . 
 and his father, Amenophis III., assumed on their 
 accession to the throne : namely, Nefer-kheper-ra and 
 Neb-inat-ra. The matter was settled by a seal bearing 
 the prenomen of Amenophis IV. written in the ordinary 
 way, in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and some plaques of 
 glazed faience exhibiting the prenomen of Amenophis 
 III., also in hieroglyphics, which were found in the 
 company of the cuneiform inscriptions. The clay 
 tablets were recognised to belong to the period of these 
 two monarchs, and accordingly a date was assigned to 
 them of fifteen hundred years perhaps a little more 
 and perhaps a little less before our era. It must be 
 admitted, indeed, that the chronology of this period of 
 Egyptian history is somewhat uncertain. 
 
 In several respects the Tell el-Amarna tablets are 
 unlike all other documents, inscribed with cuneiform 
 characters, that had hitherto been discovered. The 
 shape of many of them resembles small pillows of 
 clay. The characters, too, vary from those that are 
 to be seen in the inscriptions belonging to earlier or 
 later periods ; for few cuneiform inscriptions of this 
 particular date are known. It is remarkable that 
 several different forms of the same character are to be 
 observed in these tablets ; but, generally speaking, a 
 difference of character here goes with a difference of 
 origin ; those tablets that come from one town or
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 169 
 
 country show the same forms. The characters appear 
 often to have a more archaic appearance than those of the 
 Assyrian inscriptions of the fourteenth or thirteenth 
 centuries, which come next to them in date among the 
 already known inscriptions from Assyria. 
 
 The Tell el-Amarna letters were sent from many 
 parts of Western Asia to the court of Egypt. Some of 
 them were written by the scribes of Babylonian princes, 
 anxious to maintain friendship with the mighty Pharaoh, 
 whose suzerainty extended to the banks of the Eu- 
 phrates. One of them comes from a king of Assyria. 
 Several of them were sent by kings of Mitani and 
 Alashiya territories probably situated near the region 
 of Mesopotamia. Most of them, however, are from the 
 native governors of cities under the dominion of Egypt, 
 in different parts of Syria, and the land of Canaan. 
 This at once shows of what historical importance these 
 documents are. They throw an entirely new light on 
 the condition of Western Asia, and especially Syria 
 and Canaan, at a period probably not long before the 
 exodus of the Israelites. The Egyptian inscriptions of 
 the eighteenth dynasty had already informed us of the 
 conquests of the Pharaohs in that region from the 
 reign of Aahmes (about B.C. 1700) to that of Thothmes 
 III. ; but for the reigns of Amenophis III. and his 
 son we had very little information with regard to the 
 events that took place among the Syrian tributaries ; 
 the Tell el-Amarna tablets, therefore, create a new 
 chapter of history, interesting alike to the student of 
 Egyptian and of Hebrew literature. The historical
 
 170 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 results, however, will be discussed in subsequent 
 chapters. For the present, it may be worth while 
 to examine the general character of these early ex- 
 amples of the art of letter writing. 
 
 We here see the epistolary art in a very primitive 
 stage ; although letters had been written and despatched 
 in Egypt for many centuries before this time,* and in 
 the tombs of the ancient empire scribes are represented 
 in paintings and sculptures folding up and sealing 
 the small rolls of papyrus by means of which the 
 inhabitants of the Nile Valley communicated with one 
 another. It would be an interesting question to ask 
 whether letters were first written in Egyptian hiero- 
 glyphics or in the cuneiform characters of Babylon. 
 Perhaps, like the two systems of writing, the epistolary 
 art had an independent origin in both cases. But the 
 letters on the Tell el-Amarna tablets are written in the 
 cuneiform character, and in the Babylonian language. 
 They are distinct proofs that the whole of Western 
 Asia was at this period under the influence of a form 
 of culture which proceeded from the banks of the 
 Euphrates, and that the speech of Babel was, like 
 French in modern days, and like Greek after the 
 Macedonian conquest, the medium of communication 
 between civilized nations in the sixteenth or fifteenth 
 century before Christ. With the language, the 
 Syrians and Canaanites, without doubt, adopted the 
 epistolary forms of the Mesopotamian valley, and, in 
 
 * For information on the letters of the ancient Egyptians see Maspero, 
 Le G^nre epistolaire chez les anciens
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 171 
 
 fact, we find the letters written in Babylonia at an 
 earlier date than this commencing in a similar or 
 identical manner. Nevertheless, there are certain 
 formula? in the letters addressed by governors of towns 
 to the Egyptian sovereign which were taken from the 
 Court phraseology of Thebes. 
 
 The epistles of the Mesopotamian kings to the 
 Pharaoh, among the Tell el-Amarna collection, begin 
 with salutations as from one prince to another, his equal 
 in station, if not in political power. The following is 
 the manner in which Burraburyash, king of Babylon, 
 begins a letter to Amenophis IV. : 
 
 " To Nipkhurririya, king of Egypt, thus says Burrabnryash, 
 king of Karduniyash, thy brother : ' It is well with me ; may it be 
 well indeed with thee, and may it be well indeed with thy household, 
 thy wives, thy children, thy land, thy great men, thy horses, and thy 
 chariots.' " 
 
 The king of Alashiya opens his letters with a rather 
 more lengthy preamble ; he begins thus : 
 
 " To the king of Egypt, my brother, thus says the king of 
 Alashiya, thy brother : ' It is well with me; it is well indeed with 
 my household, my wives, my children, my great men, my horses, and 
 my chariots, and my lands ; may my brother be well ; may it be well 
 with thy household, thy wives, thy children, thy great men, thy 
 horses, thy chariots, and thy lands ! Behold, my brother, I have 
 sent my messenger to thee, in company with thy messenger, to the 
 land of Egypt.'" 
 
 It is not without interest to notice that the mode 
 of salutation usual in these ancient letters is that which 
 was current among the Israelites, and has been pre- 
 served among the Semitic races to the present day.
 
 172 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " May my brother be well " should be literally 
 translated, "Upon my brother be peace." With the 
 very same words Jacob enquired after his uncle Laban, 
 asking of the people of Haran : "Is he well ? " 
 and they said " He is well " ; or literally, " Is there 
 peace to him ? " and they said " There is peace." The 
 Hebrew 8/idldm and the Babylonian shtihnu are repre- 
 sented in modern Arabic by the word saldm. Sahim 
 aleik, " Peace upon you," is, to this day, the ordinary 
 salutation of Mussulmans to one another. 
 
 The letters of the natives of Egypt also began with 
 similar salutations ; for instance : 
 
 "The captain of mercenaries N". to the captain of mercenaries 
 N. : ' Mayest thou be in good health and in favour with Amen-Ra 
 and the other gods.' " 
 
 It seems, however, to mark a distinction between the 
 epistolary styles of Egypt and Babylon, that while the 
 latter requires the epistle almost invariably to begin 
 with the name of the person to whom it is addressed 
 (" To such an one thus says such an one "), the former 
 sets the name of the sender in the first place. On this 
 point the Asiatics seem to give a lesson in good manners 
 to their African neighbours. 
 
 Some of the letters discovered at Tell el-Amarna are 
 those of a king of Mitani who was connected through 
 several marriages with the Pharaoh, and accordingly 
 professes the affection of a kinsman in the preamble, 
 which runs as follows in an epistle to Amenophis III. : 
 
 " To Nimmuriya, the great king, king of Egypt, my brother and 
 my son-in-law, who loves me and whom I love, thus says Tushratta,
 
 THE TELL EL-AMAENA TABLETS. 173 
 
 the great king thy father-in-law, who loves thee, the king of Mitanni 
 thy brother ; ' I am well ; mayest thou be well ; may it be well with 
 thy household ; may it be well indeed with my sister and the rest of 
 thy wives, with thy children, thy chariots, thy horses, thy great men, 
 thy land, and all that belongs to thee.' " 
 
 One of Tushratta's letters is written to a queen of 
 Egypt, apparently to Thi, the wife of Amenophis III., 
 and mother of Amenophis IV. The writer offers salu- 
 tations to his daughter Tatum-khipa, who had been 
 sent in marriage to Amenophis III., but on the death of 
 the latter was handed over to his son and successor ; he 
 opens his epistle as follows : 
 
 "To [Thi] the lady of the land of Egypt . . . thus says 
 Tushratta, king of Mitani : ' May it be well with thee ; may it be 
 well with [Amenophis IV.] thy son ; may it be well with Tatum- 
 khipa, thy daughter-in-law ; may it be well indeed with thy lands 
 . . . and with all that thou hast.' " 
 
 There is only one letter from Assyria among the 
 documents ; it begins with a somewhat shorter preamble 
 than the rest : 
 
 " To Napkhuririya [the great king], king of Egypt, my brother ; 
 thus says Ashur-uballit, king of Assyria, the great king thy brother : 
 ' May it be well with thee, with thy household, and with thy land. '" 
 
 The letters from Asiatic officials in the employment 
 of the king of Egypt are naturally couched in terms 
 different from those used by the royal personages, and 
 we now meet with phrases borrowed from the court 
 language of the ruling country. The Pharaoh was 
 acknowledged in Egypt as the son of the sun-god, and 
 even as being himself a god. There are many proofs of 
 this in the hieroglyphic inscriptions of the same date as
 
 174 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the Tell el-Amaraa tablets, and alluding to the same 
 kings. Amenophis III. actually acknowledges himself 
 as the god of Nubia, and his son ascribes divinity to 
 him in the inscriptions on the pylon of the temple of 
 Soleb. In a papyrus, also, Amenophis III. is men- 
 tioned as one of the gods of Memphis, and on a certain 
 stela his priests are named. The same honours were 
 received by his ancestors. Thothmes III., the great 
 conqueror of Western Asia, received divine adoration in 
 his earliest youth, and sacrifice was offered to him by 
 the scribe User-Amen, in. his fifth year. Similar kin- 
 ship with the gods was attributed under the following 
 dynasty to Rameses II., for example, who is spoken of 
 
 as: 
 
 "Approved by the sun-god, the son of the sun-god, the eternal 
 and everlasting, beloved by the gods Amen-ra-harmachis, Ptah of 
 Memphis, Mut the lady of the city of Asru . . . who, like his 
 father Harmachis, is king on the throne of Horus the living one for 
 ever and ever." 
 
 We must not be surprised, then, when we find the 
 Canaanite governors of cities tributary to the king of 
 Egypt addressing their suzerain in the following 
 terms : 
 
 " Rip- Adda says to the lord of the countries, the king of the 
 countries, the great king, the king of the universe : ' May the goddess 
 Beltis of Byblus give power to the king, my lord. At the feet of 
 my lord, my sun-god, I prostrate myself seven times and seven times.' " 
 
 Ammunira, governor of the city of Beyrout, thus 
 begins his letter : 
 
 " To the king, my lord, my sun-god, my gods ; thus says Ammu- 
 nira, a man of the cities, thy servant and the dust of thy feet : ' At
 
 THE TELL EL-AM ARNA TABLETS. 175 
 
 the feet of the king, my lord, my sun-god, my gods, seven times and 
 seven times I fall.' " 
 
 The expression " my gods," which is frequently 
 found in these Canaanitish letters, is exceedingly re- 
 markable, for it corresponds apparently to the Hebrew 
 Elohim, God ; and is, like the latter, a " plural of 
 majesty." Shubandi, another governor of a city, writes 
 the following salutations at the head of his letter : 
 
 " To the king, my lord, my gods, my sun-god, the sun who is 
 from heaven ; thus says Shubandi, thy servant, the dust of thy feet, 
 the groom (?) of thy horses : 'At the feet of the king, my lord, my sun- 
 god from heaven, I bow seven times and seven times, with my heart 
 and with my back.'" 
 
 The mosJi extravagant terms of adulation are used 
 by Abi-milki, the governor of Tyre, who begins his 
 letter as follows : 
 
 " To the king, my lord, my gods, my sun-god ; thus says Abi- 
 milki, thy servant : ' Seven times and seven times I bow at the feet of 
 the king, my lord. I am the dust beneath the feet of the king, my 
 lord. My lord is the sun-god who rises day by day upon the lands, 
 according to the decree of the sun-god his gracious father, and gives 
 life by his glorious voice, and speaks (?) within his sanctuary (?), and 
 makes all lands to dwell in strength, peace, and abundance,* and gives 
 forth thunder in heaven like the god Rimmon [the god of the air], 
 and all lands are consumed with terror because of his thunder.' " 
 
 Examples enough have now been given to show 
 what unmeasured flattery was employed by the officers 
 of the king of Egypt in addressing their lord and 
 master. It seems to go far beyond that which was 
 customary in other ancient Eastern courts or that 
 offered to modern Oriental sovereigns. The kings of 
 
 * See Brit. Mus. Edition.
 
 176 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Assyria and Babylon imagined themselves indeed to be 
 the especial favourites of the gods, and professed to per- 
 form all their deeds at the instigation and under the 
 protection of Aslmr and Bel ; but they never supposed 
 that they were themselves divine, or had worship paid 
 to them.* The expressions used in speaking of the 
 Pharaoh remind us of the adulation offered to some of 
 the Roman emperors, not only after their death, but 
 sometimes during their lifetime ; we recall the phrase 
 " Dominus Deus," the " Lord God," which was applied 
 to Domitian. Martial says, in speaking of a performing 
 elephant in the amphitheatre, that even the brute 
 creation felt the divinity of CaBsar : 
 
 "When the elephant kneels before thee, Csesar, like a pious 
 devotee, after his victory over the fierce bull, he is not acting at the 
 bidding of his trainer, or because he has been taught to do this, but, 
 believe me, because even he feels the presence of a god among us." 
 
 The body of the letters which follow the salutations 
 consists of short sentences strung together without much 
 connection, and with many vain repetitions. Sometimes 
 a new paragraph or a new subject is introduced by the 
 word shamtu, which means " another thing," and is 
 exactly equivalent to a similar phrase used in a similar 
 manner in the letters of the native Egyptians in ancient 
 times. The latter begin a new paragraph with the 
 word/?:/, "another thing," or ki zod, "another word," 
 in the following manner : 
 
 " I have obeyed the message sent me by my lord, saying : ' Watch 
 over the men who are under thy orders.' 
 
 * Except perhaps in the case of Aslmr -nasir-pal, before whose image 
 at Nimroud an altar was found.
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 177 
 
 " Another thing : The horses of my master are well ; I give them 
 their corn every day. 
 
 "Another thing: I have obeyed the message sent me by my 
 lord, saying '. ' Give the soldiers their rations, and also give rations to 
 the Aperiu who bring the stone for the Temple of the Sun at 
 Memphis.'" 
 
 And so during the rest of the letter. 
 
 The same form appears in some of the Tell el-Amarna 
 tablets. For example, Ammunira, governor of Beyrout, 
 after the salutations at the head of his epistle which 
 have been given above, continues thus : 
 
 " Another thing : I have heard the words of the king my lord, 
 my sun-god, my gods, and the heart of thy servant, who is the dust of 
 the feet of the king, my lord, my sun-god, my gods, rejoiced greatly 
 when the breath of the king my lord, my sun-god, my gods, came 
 forth to his servant, the dust of his feet. 
 
 " Another thing : When the king, my lord, my sun-god, sent to 
 his servant, the dust of his feet, saying : ' Send out forces to join the 
 soldiers of the king thy lord,' I obeyed these words with all my heart. 
 And behold I sent all my horses, and all my chariots, and all that I 
 had that was with the servant of the king my lord, to join the soldiers 
 of the king my lord. May they shed the blood * of the king's enemies, 
 and may the eyes of thy servant see the eyes of the king my lord ! 
 
 " Another thing : See, O king my lord, my sun-god, my gods, let 
 all that belongs to thy servant return to him. Behold, I am a servant 
 of the king and the footstool of his feet. Behold, I will defend the 
 city of the king my lord and its citadel, until my eyes see again the 
 soldiers of the king my lord." 
 
 The " soldiers " frequently mentioned in the Tell 
 el-Amarna tablets would seem to be the men that were 
 sent by the king of Egypt to act as the garrison of the 
 different towns under his rule. 
 
 The introduction of new paragraphs by the words 
 
 * Literally : May they drench the breasts of the king's enemies. 
 M
 
 178 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 "Another thing" or "Another word" remained the 
 usage of the Egyptian scribes down to a late period, 
 for many Coptic letters of early Christian times retain it. 
 
 The employment of the Babylonian system of 
 writing, and still more the use of the Babylonian lan- 
 guage as the means of communication throughout 
 Western Asia, shown in the letters found at Tell el- 
 Amarna, proves the overpowering influence of Baby- 
 lonian civilization in that part of the world during the 
 age preceding the rule of the eighteenth dynasty in 
 Egypt. None of the letters in question are written by 
 native Babylonians or Assyrians, except those few that 
 come from the kings of Babylon, Kallimma-Sin, and 
 Burraburyash, and the single letter from Ashur-uballit, 
 king of Assyria. The rest are either from Canaanite 
 officials who indeed spoke a Semitic dialect, but one 
 quite distinct from the Babylonian or they come from 
 Mesopotamian princes, some of whom (for instance, the 
 king of Mitfmi) did not speak a Semitic language at all. 
 Among the letters is one written in the language of 
 Mitani, which cannot at present be assigned to any 
 known family of languages ; even in this the cuneiform 
 characters are employed. 
 
 If any proof were needed that the writers of these 
 letters were not native Babylonians, it would be found 
 in the frequent occurrence of glosses. In many 
 passages of letters from Canaan we meet with a Baby- 
 lonian word followed by an oblique stroke, after which 
 comes the Canaanite word that has the same meaning. 
 We are enabled to recognise the second term as
 
 THE TELL EL-AMAENA TABLETS. l?y 
 
 Canaanite, because it is generally identical with the 
 Hebrew form so far as the latter can be expressed in the 
 clumsy cuneiform system of writing; occasional!}-, how- 
 ever, these glosses seem to be Syriac or Arabic words. 
 As an instance of such glosses, we may quote the follow- 
 ing passage in a letter from Rip-Adda, governor of 
 Byblus, to the king of Egypt : 
 
 "There is no one who will deliver me out of the hand of my 
 enemies ; I am like a bird caught in a trap kilubu." 
 
 Here the word "trap " represents the Assyrian word 
 employed by the scribe, who then adds the Canaanite 
 gloss " kilubu," which any Hebrew scholar will at once 
 recognise as the word translated "basket" in the follow- 
 ing passage of the Authorised Version : 
 
 " Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me : and behold a basket 
 of summer fruit. 
 
 " And he said, Amos, what seest thou ? And I said, A basket 
 of summer fruit." 
 
 But in a passage of Jeremiah the word is used 
 exactly in the same way as in the letter of Rip- Adda; 
 our version here translates it " cage ": 
 
 " For among my people are found wicked men ; they lay wait, as 
 he that setteth snares ; they set a trap, they catch men. 
 
 " As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit." 
 
 Kilubu, or k'lub, was in fact a fowler's basket of 
 wicker-work, in which he caught his defenceless prey. 
 Such glosses as this in the letter of Rip-Adda are of 
 great interest, on account of the light which they throw 
 upon the language of Canaan at this period, not long 
 before the exodus of the Israelites. 
 M 2
 
 180 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 The question, of course, arises : How was it that the 
 Babylonian script and language were so widely spread 
 over Western Asia at this time ? Had there been in 
 the period preceding the rule of the eighteenth dynasty 
 in Egypt a conquest of these countries as far as the 
 shore of the Mediterranean by the Babylonians ? There 
 are several indications that such indeed had been the 
 case, but the obscurity of that remote period of history 
 is so dense that we must be satisfied for the present 
 with slight hints and suggestions ; more will probably 
 be discovered before long. Among these hints is the 
 statement of Manetho, the author of the history of 
 Egypt in Greek, composed nearly three hundred years 
 before Christ ; much weight is attached to his words 
 because he was a native of the country, and had access 
 to reliable sources which are not known to us. Manetho 
 tells us, in one of the fragments still preserved of his 
 lost work, that in the time of the Hyksos, or shepherd- 
 kings, who ruled Egypt for many centuries, and were 
 finally driven out of the country by the first king of 
 the eighteenth dynasty, about B.C. 1700, the Assyrians 
 were predominant in Western Asia, and the Hyksos 
 built fortresses on the eastern frontier of Egypt to 
 guard themselves against an invasion of these powerful 
 enemies. " Assyrians " was a name often indiscrimi- 
 nately given By Greek writers to the Babylonians as 
 well as their northern neighbours, with whom they 
 often formed one State. The cuneiform inscriptions 
 also supply us with notices of very early invasions of 
 Syria and Canaan by Babylonian princes. Sargon,
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 181 
 
 King of Agane, for instance, the father of Naram-Sin, 
 to whom Nabonidus assigns the very remote date 
 mentioned in another chapter, is said, in a mutilated 
 astrological text, to have invaded Canaan, and to 
 have advanced to the shores of the " upper sea," or 
 Mediterranean : 
 
 " Sargon marched to the western land, and conquered it ; he ob- 
 tained possession of the four regions [i.e., North, South, East, and 
 West]. . . . 
 
 " Sargon, following this omen, marched to ... he had no 
 equal ; he spread his terror over the land ; he crossed the western 
 sea ; he conquered the western land during three years, and united 
 it together ; he set up his image in the west ; he transported the 
 spoil over land and sea." 
 
 Again the Elamite prince, Kudurmapuk, who per- 
 haps reigned over Babylonia shortly before the time of 
 Abraham,* calls himself " lord of the west country :" that 
 is to say, of Syria, for that was the name by which this 
 country is always alluded to in the cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions ; the title appears on a brick which formed part 
 of a temple built by this king, and runs as follows : 
 
 " To the god Nannar his lord, Kudurmapuk, prince of Syria, son 
 of Simtishilhak, when Nannar heard his prayer, built the temple of 
 E-nun-makh for his own life and the life of his son Rim-Sin." 
 
 From these indications it would appear that from 
 the most remote ages the powerful monarchs of the 
 regions watered by the Tigris and Euphrates began to 
 overrun from time to time the strip of fertile land along 
 the coast of the Mediterranean which the natives called 
 
 * The invasion of Chedorlaomer and Amraphel related in Genesis xiv, 
 is another instance of early Babylonian, conquests in. Syria,
 
 182 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Canaan, and the Greeks Phoenicia. This country 
 became rich in very ancient times on account of the 
 trade in which its inhabitants began so early to engage, 
 and the booty of its cities excited the cupidity of Me.so- 
 potamian as well as Egyptian marauders. Moreover, 
 the land of Canaan was the key to the valley of the 
 Nile, and was therefore coveted by primitive generals 
 and statesmen. The result of these repeated conquests 
 of Canaan and the intermediate territories was that the 
 Babylonian language and writing were introduced per- 
 force among the inhabitants, just as Greek became the 
 literary and diplomatic language of the same countries 
 in later times, after the conquest of Alexander. It is, 
 of course, to be presumed that the Phoenician alphabet 
 had not yet been invented. The latter must have been 
 borrowed from the Egyptians (if it was so borrowed, as 
 De Rouge first held) during the centuries between B.C. 
 1400 and B.C. 900, for in the ninth century it is found 
 in use. 
 
 The Babylonian supremacy in Western Asia must 
 have been in abeyance at the time when the Hyksos 
 kings were driven out of Egypt, and the latter power 
 began to gain a foothold in Syria. This took place at 
 the beginning- of the eighteenth dynasty, when Ahmes I. 
 took Sharhan, a city in the south of Canaan below 
 Gaza, included after the exodus within the borders of 
 the tribe of Simeon. The third king of the dynasty, 
 Thothmes I., advanced to the northern parts of Ruten, 
 or Syria, and subdued the native princes to his rule ; 
 he did not, however, require further proof of their
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 183 
 
 submission than the payment of a considerable tribute 
 of gold and silver, and other things ; the native kings 
 were allowed to retain their petty thrones, and even to 
 make war upon one another, and agree upon treaties 
 between themselves. It was during the rule of the 
 eighteenth dynasty that horses were first brought into 
 Egypt, where they were hitherto unknown, as part of 
 the spoil or tribute of the princes of Euten. 
 
 Besides the name of Ruten, the Egyptians gave to 
 Canaan the designation of the " divine land," or the 
 " holy land." The god Amen, for instance, is repre- 
 sented as saying to the Pharaoh : 
 
 " I grant thee the tribute of the enemy, a load of silver, gold, 
 lapis-lazuli, and all kinds of precious stones from the holy land." 
 
 The precious stones and metals were brought into 
 Phoenicia and Palestine by the trade of the Tyrian and 
 Sidonian merchants. Silver is mentioned before gold 
 here, as in the Old Testament and in the cuneiform 
 inscriptions, and is an illustration of the greater im- 
 portance at that period of the former metal. 
 
 The greatest conqueror of the eighteenth Egyptian 
 dynasty was Thothmes III., who began to reign, perhaps, 
 about B.C. 1600. In his days the cities of Syria rebelled 
 against the Egyptian supremacy. The Pharaoh, there- 
 fore, undertook a series of expeditions into their territory. 
 A certain Tanuni accompanied his sovereign on one of 
 his campaigns as royal chronicler, and he has left in the 
 inscriptions of his tomb an account of it : 
 
 " I followed the gracious god Thothmes III. ; I saw the victory 
 of the king which he gained over all the lands : how he brought the
 
 184 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 princes of Tahi (Phoenicia) alive as captives to the land of Egypt ; 
 how he took all their fortresses and destroyed their plantations. . . . 
 I put down in writing the victories which he gained over all the 
 lands as soon as they were accomplished." 
 
 Among the towns or districts conquered by Thoth- 
 mes III. during this expedition we find mention of 
 Helbon, or Chalybon, so famous for its wine, which alone 
 was drunk in later times by the Persian kings, and 
 which is spoken of by Ezekiel as one of the chief 
 articles in which the Tyrian merchants traded. We 
 meet with the names of Graza, Zoar, Megiddo ; of Tyre, 
 of Arvad or Aradus, of Kadesh, of Carchemish all 
 familiar to us from scriptural or classical sources. The 
 conquests of Thothmes extended as far as the Euphrates, 
 and even the king of Assyria was forced to pay tribute 
 to him, as well as the Hittites, the Canaanites, and 
 many other nations. The conqueror inaugurated the 
 custom of alliance by marriage with tributary princes 
 by taking a daughter of a Syrian king as his wife. 
 Thothmes III. enlarged the boundaries of the Egyptian 
 empire to an extent which none of his predecessors or 
 successors ever reached. 
 
 Amenophis II. made an expedition as far as the 
 Euphrates, so that, apparently, in his time the Syrians 
 remained subject to the supremacy of Egypt. Thothmes 
 IV. is also said to have subdued his enemies as far as 
 the regions of Mesopotamia. We have now reached 
 the time of the Tell el-Amarna tablets, for the son 
 and successor of Thothmes IV. was Amenophis III. 
 According to Egyptian inscriptions, Amenophis III,
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 185 
 
 subdued various cities of Syria and Mesopotamia, and 
 he also engaged in lion-hunting expeditions during his 
 stay in those regions. He reigned thirty -four years, 
 and was succeeded by his son, Amenophis IV., who 
 introduced the heretical religion already alluded to. 
 In the comparatively short reign of Amenophis IV. the 
 Egyptian dominions in Western Asia seem to have 
 begun to fall away from the supremacy of the Pharaoh.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS (continued). 
 
 LETTERS FROM MESOPOTAMIAN PRINCES TO THE KINGS OF 
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 THE purposes for which the kings of Mesopotamian 
 States sent letters to the Pharaoh were the following : 
 to strengthen their alliance with the most powerful 
 monarch of the time, whose tributary States touched 
 upon their own borders; and to acquire some of the gold 
 which was so abundant in the land of Egypt, and in 
 exchange for which they despatched valuable treasures 
 of other sorts. In order to cement their friendship 
 with their mighty neighbour, they often sent him their 
 daughters in marriage, and these unions were the more 
 readily accepted or proposed by the Pharaoh because 
 these princesses brought with them from the banks of 
 the Euphrates an exceedingly handsome dowry. Thus 
 the custom of intermarriage between the royal families 
 of Egypt and of Western Asia had already begun. As 
 we have seen, Thothmes III. obtained the hand of a 
 Syrian princess ; in later times Barneses II. had a 
 Hittite wife ; and doubtless there were many other cases 
 of the same sort. The Tell el-Amarna tablets show us
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 187 
 
 that Thothmes IV. married a princess of Mitani, and 
 that his son, Amenophis III., received two wives from 
 the royal family of that country, in addition to the 
 Mesopotamia!! princess Thi, who was his " great wife," 
 or queen. One of these ladies, who was sent as a wife 
 to Amenophis III. at the end of his reign, was on his 
 death married to his son and successor, Amenophis IV. 
 Her name was Tatum-Khipa, and she was the daughter 
 of the king Tushratta. The kings of Babylon also sent 
 the ladies of their family to be the wives of the Pharaoh; 
 both the sister and the daughter of Kallimma-Sin 
 
 O 
 
 were espoused to Amenophis III. On the other hand, 
 Egyptian princesses were also sent in marriage to foreign 
 princes ; for, just as Solomon won the hand of the 
 "daughter of Pharaoh," and the Edomite prince Hadad 
 was rewarded with the hand of the sister of Tahpenes, 
 the Egyptian queen, so the daughter of Amenophis IV. 
 became the wife of a son of Burraburyash, king of 
 Babylon. The alliances by marriage between the royal 
 houses of Egypt and Mitani are all alluded to in a 
 much mutilated letter from King Tushratta to Amen- 
 ophis IV., from which a few extracts may, perhaps, be 
 given here : 
 
 "[To Amenophis IV.] my son-in-law, whom Hove, and who loves 
 me : thus says Tushratta, the great king, the king of Mitani, thy 
 brother, thy father-in-law, who loves thee : ' It is well with me. May 
 it be well with Thi [thy mother], with Tatumkhipa, my daughter, 
 thy wife ; may it be well with thy children, thy great men, thy 
 chariots, and thy horses . . . and all that thou hast ! 
 
 "'The father of Nimmuriya [i.e., Thothmes IV., father of Amen- 
 ophis III., and grandfather of Amenophis IV.] sent messengers to
 
 188 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Artatama, my grandfather, and asked for his daughter in marriage. 
 My grandfather refused ; he sent five times and six times, and my 
 grandfather would not give her ; he sent again, and under compul- 
 sion my grandfather gave her to him. 
 
 "'The messenger of Nimmuriya [Amenophis III.], thy father, 
 sent to Shutarna my father, and asked for my father's daughter, 
 my own sister, in marriage. . . . He sent five and six times, and 
 under compulsion my father gave her to him. Nimmuriya also sent 
 to me, and demanded my daughter in marriage . . . and I gave 
 her to him.' " 
 
 The rest of the letter is too much mutilated to be 
 fully understood or translated ; but the fragments show 
 that it was occupied with assurances of friendship to 
 Amenophis IV., who had lately come to the throne, 
 with expressions of grief over the death of Amenophis 
 III. ; with allusions to Thi, the queen-mother, who, as 
 is usual in the East, held a position of great influence 
 at the Court of her son, and with an enumeration of 
 gifts sent to the king, his mother, and his wife. 
 
 The Princess Tatum-khipa, Tushratta's daughter, 
 who, as we have just seen, was sent in marriage to 
 Amenophis III., and then handed over to his son and 
 successor, took with her a dowry which might well 
 induce the Pharaoh to make similar alliances with the 
 wealthy princes of Mesopotamia, who were thus eager 
 to purchase his friendship. The list of objects of which 
 it was composed covers two large clay tablets, now in 
 the Berlin Museum ; they are among the largest tablets 
 that have ever been found, and are covered with very 
 minute writing; even in their present mutilated con- 
 dition they contain about 600 lines. The title of the 
 document runs as follows :
 
 THE TELL EL-AMAUNA TABLETS. 189 
 
 "This is the whole of the dowry which Tushratta, king of 
 Mitanni, gave to Nimmuriya, king of Egypt, his brother and his son- 
 in-law, when he sent Tutum-khipa, his daughter, to the land of 
 Egypt to Nimmuriya to be his wife ; on that day he gave it." 
 
 The dowry is composed of an immense number of 
 vessels, instruments, furniture, and other objects of gold 
 and precious stone, such as lapis-lazuli, besides many of 
 silver and copper and a few of iron. In addition to 
 these, there are horses, and a chariot adorned with 
 gold,- and garments of variegated stuffs ; many of 
 the metallic objects were evidently proofs of the great 
 skill of the Mesopotamian smiths and jewellers, for 
 some of them were made partly of gold and partly of 
 silver, or of bronze overlaid with the precious metals, 
 and they were often encrusted with precious stones. 
 
 The Princess Tatum-khipa, who took this dowry 
 with her to Egypt, is also mentioned by name in a 
 letter from her father to the Egyptian queen- mother 
 Thi, who, in consequence of the lady's marriage with 
 Amenophis IV., had now become her mother-in-law. 
 The salutations at the head of this letter have been 
 given in a former chapter. The body of the document 
 is very much mutilated ; it was occupied with assurances 
 of friendship towards Egypt, and mentions certain gifts 
 sent by Tushratta to the queen. 
 
 Tushratta had also in a former year sent greetings 
 to his daughter in a letter to Amenophis III., written 
 quite at the end of the latter monarch's reign ; the date 
 is proved by a docket in Egyptian hieratic characters, 
 painted with black ink at the end of the letter by the
 
 190 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 keeper of the Pharaoh's archives. The salutations at 
 the head of this letter have already been quoted in the 
 preceding chapter as an instance of the epistolary forms 
 in use at this period. They are succeeded by the fol- 
 owing paragraphs : 
 
 " Thus says the goddess Lshtar, of the city of Nina, the lady of 
 the whole world : ' I will go into the land of Egypt, the land that I 
 love ; I will proceed thither.' Behold, now, I will send her, and she 
 shall go. 
 
 " Behold, in the time of my father, the goddess Ishtar, the Lady, 
 went into that land, and, as formerly she dwelt there and he wor- 
 shipped her, so now let my brother honour her ten times more than 
 before. Let my brother honour her with joy; and then let him send 
 her back and let her return. 
 
 " May Ishtar, the lady of heaven, guard my brother and me a 
 hundred years, and may she give great joy to both of us, if we do 
 what is right. 
 
 " The goddess Ishtar has been up to me ; but to my brother she 
 has not been." 
 
 It appears from this letter that the intercourse of 
 Egypt with Western Asia was resulting in the introduc- 
 tion of the worship of the latter region into the valley 
 of the Nile. This, in fact, took place to such an extent 
 that Amenophis IV., the successor of the king to whom 
 this epistle is addressed, finally apostatized, as we have 
 seen in the last chapter, from the religion of his fore- 
 fathers. A curious episode in the religious history of 
 Egypt may be compared with the sending of the image 
 of Ishtar, or Ashtoreth, mentioned above ; it is the 
 introduction of the worship of the Semitic Ashtoreth 
 into the island of Pharos, mentioned by several ancient 
 writers ; she was known subsequently as the Pharian
 
 THE TELL EL-AMAUNA TABLETS. 191 
 
 Isis, since her worship was assimilated to that of the 
 kindred Egyptian goddess. The rites of Mesopotamia 
 prescribed the moving of the images of the gods from 
 place to place ; religious processions appear to have 
 been frequent in Babylonia and Assyria, and their 
 stoppage by Nabonidus was imputed to him by the 
 priests as a grievous crime, which, indeed, probably led 
 to his overthrow. 
 
 We have seen that, besides his daughter, Tushratta's 
 sister had also been sent in marriage to the king of 
 Egypt. Her name was Gilu-khipa, and she was the 
 daughter of the king Shutarna, Tushratta's father. The 
 discovery of her name in the Tell el-Amarna tablets* 
 was an interesting confirmation of an Egyptian inscrip- 
 tion in hieroglyphics upon a scarabaeus belonging to the 
 reign of Amenophis III., which states that 
 
 " Kirgipa, the daughter of Shutarna, prince of Mesopotamia, was 
 brought to His Majesty, together with three hundred and seventeen 
 of the ladies of her train." 
 
 The name Gilu-khipa appears as Kirgipa in 
 Egyptian, because that language did not contain the 
 letter /, but represented it by r. This princess is men- 
 tioned by her brother Tushratta in the following letter 
 to Amenophis III. : 
 
 " To Nipmuariya, king of Egypt, my brother, thus says Tush- 
 ratta, king of Mitani, thy brother: 'I am well; mayest thou be well, 
 may Giju-khipa, my sister, be well, may thy palace, thy wives, thy 
 children, thy great men, thy army, thy horses, thy chariots, thy 
 lands be well indeed ! 
 
 * See article by the author in " Zeitschrift f iir agyptische Spraclie " 
 (1890), p. 113.
 
 192 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " ' When I took rny seat upon the throne of ray father, I was 
 young, and Pirkhi had done evil * things to my land, and had slain 
 his lord ; but on account of this, I, and those who were friendly 
 with me, for good fortune did not abandon me, smote our enemies 
 on account of the evil things they had done in my land, and I slew 
 the men that had slain my brother Artashumara, every one of them. 
 
 " ' Because thou wast friendly with my father, on account of 
 that, I send and tell thee this news. When my brother hears it, 
 he will be glad. My father loved thee, and thou didst love my 
 father. . . 
 
 " ' [The Hittites made war upon me, but] . . . when the 
 enemy invaded my land, the god Rimmon, my lord, gave them into 
 my hand, and I slew them. There was not one left to return to his 
 own country. 
 
 " ' Behold, I send to thee out of the spoil of the Hittites a 
 chariot and a pair of horses, one slave-boy, and one slave-girl. 
 
 " ' As a gift to my brother, I send five chariots and five pairs of 
 horses. 
 
 " ' As a gift to Gilu-khipa, my sister, I send a pair of gold 
 bracelets, a pair of gold earrings, a golden bowl, and one vase of 
 precious stone full of precious ointment. 
 
 " ' Behold, I have sent Giliya, my messenger, and Tanip-ipri. Let 
 my brother send them back speedily, and let them bring back news 
 speedily. When I hear of the gifts of my brother may I rejoice. 
 
 " ' Let my brother ask for good things from me, and let my 
 brother send his messengers, and when they receive my brother's gifts 
 I shall hear of it.' " 
 
 We have seen that Amenophis III. was also allied 
 by marriage with the royal family of Babylon ; and 
 among the Tell el-Amarna tablets is actually a letter 
 from the Pharaoh himself to Kallimma-Sin, king of 
 Babylon, in the Babylonian language, referring to the 
 Babylonian wife whom he had already married, and to 
 another whose hand he demands. 
 
 * This word is derived from a preposition meaning before, against; 
 and it has the signification of contrary, hostile.
 
 THE TELL EL-AMAUNA TABLETS. 193 
 
 It would seem from this that a Babylonian scribe 
 was kept at the Egyptian court at this period in order 
 to interpret the despatches received from Western Asia, 
 and to answer them in the language that was then 
 the general medium of international communication in 
 that region. It will be seen that the epistolary forms 
 of Babylon are preserved. The king of Babylon, who 
 was sufficiently powerful in these days of Egyptian 
 preponderance to oblige even the Pharaoh to address 
 him with deference, and almost in an apologetic tone, 
 had refused to send his daughter to Egypt until he was 
 assured of the welfare of his sister, who was already an 
 inmate of the house of Pharaoh. The following is the 
 
 CJ 
 
 first part of the letter of Amenophis : 
 
 "To Kallimma-Sin, king of the land of Karduniyash, my brother, 
 thus says Nipmuariya, the great king, the king of the land of Egypt, 
 thy brother : ' It is well with me ; may it be well, indeed, with thee, 
 with thy household, thy wives, thy children, thy great men, thy 
 horses, thy chariots, and thy country ! ' 
 
 " Behold, I have heard the word which thou hast sent to me, 
 saying thus: 'Behold, thou seekest my daughter in marriage. But 
 my sister whom my father gave thee has been long with thee, and 
 no one has seen her to know whether she be alive or dead.' These 
 are thy words, which thou hast sent me on thy tablet. If thou wilt 
 send a priest who knows thy sister, and who has spoken with her 
 and held intercourse with her, then let him speak with her. The 
 men whom thou hast sent are simply messengers. . . 
 
 " When thou sentest word to me thus : ' Thou didst speak to my 
 messengers, when thy wives were assembled and stood before thee, 
 saying thus : " See your mistress, who stands before you " ; and my 
 messengers did not know whether she be my sister who is with thee 
 or not.' 
 
 " Behold, thou didst send word to me thus : ' My messengers did 
 
 N
 
 194 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 not know her.' Whom canst thou mention that can know her? 
 Why hast thou not sent a priest who can tell thee the truth that 
 thy sister is well, and thou shalt tell him to enter and see her house, 
 and her favour with the king I " ... 
 
 In a letter subsequently received by Amenophis III., 
 the king of Babylon gives his consent to the marriage 
 of his daughter with the Pharaoh. He says : 
 
 " As for Sukhartu, my daughter, whom thou didst send to ask in 
 marriage, . . . send messengers and let them take her." 
 
 After the death of Kallimma-Sin, a king named 
 Karaindash. sat upon the throne of Babylon ; he is thus 
 named in the inscription upon a brick which once 
 formed part of a temple that he built : 
 
 " To the goddess Nana, the lady of E anna, his lady, has 
 Karaindash, the mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Shumir and 
 Accad, king of the Kassites, king of Karduniyash, built the temple 
 at E-aima." 
 
 Karaindash was succeeded by Kurigalzu, who, in his 
 turn, was followed by Burnaburyash, or Burraburyash, 
 in the time of Amenophis IV. of Egypt. The latter 
 received several letters from Burraburyash, which are 
 to be found among the Tell el-Amarna tablets ; but 
 before quoting them, let us see what previous know- 
 ledge we possessed of this king. He is mentioned in 
 the following terms on a clay tablet which contains 
 a record of certain treaties and wars between Babylonia 
 and Assyria in early times ; the document begins 
 thus : 
 
 "Karaindash, king of Babylon, and Ashur-bil-nishishu, king of 
 Assyria, made treaties with one another, and tendered an oath to one 
 another with regard to this territory.
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 195 
 
 " Busur-ashur, king of Assyria, and Burnaburyash, king of 
 Karduniyash, treated of this territory and defined the boundaries. 
 
 " In the time of Ashur-uballit, king of Assyria, the Kassites fell 
 away from Karakhardash, king of Karduniyash, son of Muballitat- 
 sirua, daughter of Ashur-uballit, and killed him ; and they raised 
 Nazibugash, the son of nobody, to be king over them. 
 
 " [Ashur-uballit] marched to the land of Karduniyash to avenge 
 Karakhai'dash ; he killed Nazibugash, king of Karduniyash, and 
 placed the young Kurigalzu, son of Burnaburyash, to reigu upon the 
 throne of his father." 
 
 We also possess bricks from a temple restored by 
 Burraburyasli, exhibiting the following stamp : 
 
 " To the sun-god, the great lord of heaven and earth, the high 
 judge of the Anunnaki, who gives life to Larsa, has Burnaburyash, 
 the mighty king, king of Babylon, king of Shumir and Accad, 
 built and restored the temple . . . which for many ages had fallen 
 to decay." 
 
 Among the many works of restoration undertaken 
 by the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, in the sixth 
 century before Christ, this monarch repaired, as he tells 
 us, certain buildings erected or restored by Burraburyash. 
 Allusion, however, has been made to this in a former 
 chapter, and some of the passages have been quoted, so 
 that they need not be repeated here. Let us proceed 
 to enquire in what terms Burraburyash sought to assure 
 his alliance with the king of Egypt ; the following is 
 one of the letters that he addressed to Amenophis IV. : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " When my father and thy father spoke good words with one 
 another they sent fair gifts to one another. Did they not also make 
 fair demands of one another? Now my brother has sent me two 
 manehs of gold as a gift. Now, send me much gold, as much as thy 
 father, or send me even half as much a-s thy father. Why hast thou 
 
 N 2
 
 196 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 sent two manehs of gold ? There is much work now in the temple, 
 and I have undertaken much to carry it out. Send me much gold ; 
 and whatever thou desirest in my land, send me word and let them 
 take it to thee. 
 
 " In the time of Kurigalzu, my father, all the Canaanites sent to 
 him, saying thus : 'We go to Kannishat to rebel [against Pharaoh] ; 
 let us make an alliance with thee.' My father sent this message to 
 them, saying thus : ' Leave speaking with me to incite me [against 
 Pharaoh]. If you make war upon the king of Egypt, my brother, 
 and make an alliance with another, shall I not march against you, and 
 ravage your country ? ' . . . My father would not listen to them 
 for the sake of thy father. Now the Assyrians are seeking my 
 favour ; have I not sent word to thee of what they have said ? Why 
 have they invaded thy territory 1 If thou remainest friendly with 
 rne, they will do thee no harm. 
 
 " For a gift to thee, I send three manehs of lapis-lazuli, and five 
 pairs of horses, with five wooden chariots." 
 
 In another letter Burraburyash alludes to the 
 daughter of Pharaoh, who had become the wife of his 
 son. But the object of the Mesopotamian princes in 
 writing to one another was not merely political, or to 
 strengthen themselves against the attacks of enemies 
 by seeking the friendship of Pharaoh, and by giving 
 him their daughters in marriage. They had also com- 
 mercial objects in view. In these early days the kings 
 were the great merchants. In the imperfectly organized 
 condition of society in which the States of Western 
 Asia and of the Valley of the Nile, although at the head 
 of the civilization of their time, found themselves in the 
 sixteenth century before Christ, the monarch united all 
 the chief functions of the State in his own person, and 
 took the lead in all manifestations of human activity. 
 He was often high priest, general of the array, chief
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 197 
 
 architect, and also he was the chief merchant of the 
 State, and into his hands the wealth of the country was 
 collected. There are many proofs of this in ancient 
 times. The kings of Tyre and Sidon are represented to 
 us as merchant-princes, and even as late as the sixth 
 century before Christ Ezekiel says to the prince of 
 Tyre :- 
 
 " With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast 
 gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures. 
 
 " By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic hast thou increased thy 
 riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches." 
 
 The Jewish kings monopolised the trade in balsam 
 and dates, and the Arabian princes that in foreign per- 
 fumes ; the Lydian kings were the first merchants of 
 their country ; the tyrant of Corinth was a slave-dealer. 
 As for the king of Egypt, we are told that his servants 
 who went abroad to promote his gains and carry on his 
 trade were the only Egyptians who were allowed with- 
 out censure to travel away from their own country; 
 such was the horror that the inhabitants of the Valley 
 of the Nile had of foreign customs and religions, and 
 such was their dread of contamination from the latter. 
 But the most vivid picture we possess of the royal mer- 
 chants of antiquity is the account of the trade between 
 Hiram of Tyre and King Solomon, and of their united 
 commercial enterprises on the shores of the Mediter- 
 ranean and in the Bed Sea. Perhaps we may be 
 allowed to reproduce it here : 
 
 " Hiram, the king of Tyre, had furnished Solomon with cedar 
 trees and fir trees, and with gold according to all his desire ;
 
 198 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 then King Solomon gave Hiram twenty cities in the land of 
 Galilee. 
 
 " And Hiram sent to the king six score talents of gold. 
 
 " And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which 
 is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. 
 
 "And Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had 
 knowledge of the sea, with the servants of Solomon. 
 
 "And they came to Ophir, and fetched from thence gold, four 
 hundred arid twenty talents, and brought it to King Solomon. 
 
 " And the navy also of Hiram that brought gold from Ophir 
 brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees and precious 
 stones. 
 
 " Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was 
 six hundred threescore and six talents of gold. 
 
 "Beside that he had of the merchantmen, and of the traffick of 
 the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the 
 governors of the country. 
 
 " For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of 
 Hiram : once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing 
 gold and silver, ivory and apes, and peacocks. 
 
 " So King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches 
 and for wisdom. 
 
 " And all the earth sought to Solomon, to hear his wisdom which 
 God had put in his heart, 
 
 " And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver and 
 vessels of gold, and garments, and armour, and spices, horses, and 
 mules, a rate year by year. 
 
 " And Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen, and he 
 had a thousand and four hundred chariots and twelve thousand horse- 
 men, whom he bestowed in the cities for chariots, and with the king 
 at Jerusalem. 
 
 " And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones, and 
 cedars made he to be as the sycomore trees that are in the vale, for 
 abundance.
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 109 
 
 "And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn : 
 the king's merchants received the linen yarn at a price. 
 
 " And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred 
 shekels of silver, and an horse for an hundred and fifty : and so for 
 all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they 
 bring them out by their means." 
 
 It will be noticed that the servants of Solomon who 
 carried out his commercial transactions are called the 
 "king's merchants." Similar messengers, or "king's 
 merchants," are mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna tablets. 
 The king of Alashiya sends the following letter to 
 Amenophis III. : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " My brother, send back my messenger quickly and safely, and 
 let me hear of thy good health. My brother, send back this man, 
 who is rny merchant, safely and quickly. Have not my merchant 
 and my ship brought thy wares (?) with them 1 " 
 
 East Africa was the great gold country of ancient 
 times. It was on the east coast of Africa, without 
 doubt, that Ophir was situated. Solomon sent directly 
 to this region for much of the gold that was brought to 
 him, but in the time of Amenophis III. and his son, 
 gold reached the markets of Western Asia through 
 Egypt, the dominions of which extended far to the 
 south of its own boundaries. So we find the Mesopo- 
 tamian princes especially requesting the Pharaoh to 
 send them gold in return for the copper, or perfumes, or 
 other wares which they sent to him. The following is 
 a letter to Amenophis III. from Tushratta, king of 
 Mitani, who, as we have already seen, was closely allied 
 by various marriages with the royal family of Egypt:
 
 200 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " As for thy ancestors, they were most friendly with my 
 ancestors, and thou, also, wast exceedingly friendly with my father. 
 Now, if thou and I shall be friendly together, thou shalt be multi- 
 plied ten times more than thy father. May the gods that we love 
 favour this alliance namely : Rimmon, my lord, and Amen ! May 
 they answer our prayers for ever, as at the present time ! 
 
 " Since my brother has sent Mani, his messenger, saying thus : 
 ' My brother, give me thy daughter in marriage, to be the lady of 
 the land of Egypt,' let not my brother's heart be sick ; did I not 
 say this formerly"? As my brother desired, I showed her to Mani, 
 and he saw her ; and when he saw her, he admired her greatly. In 
 peace shall they take her to the land of my brother; and may 
 Ishtar and Amen fashion her according to the heart of my brother ! 
 
 " Giliya, my messenger, repeated to me my brother's words, and 
 when I heard them they were good, and I rejoiced greatly, saying 
 thus : ' Bring this to pass between us, that we may be friendly with 
 one another.' Behold, according to these words we will be friendly 
 with one another for ever. 
 
 " When I sent to my brother and said thus : ' I and my brother 
 will be exceedingly friendly with one another,' I also said thus : 
 'My brother shall return to me ten times more than to my father.' 
 
 " So I asked much gold of my brother, saying thus : ' Multiply 
 it to me more than to my father.' Let my brother multiply it to 
 me. Thou didst send much gold to my father; thou didst send him 
 a great quantity of gold and great masses of gold : cakes of gold 
 as if it were copper shalt thou send to me. 
 
 " I send my messenger, Giliya, to my brother, and I ask him 
 thus : ' Let my brother return to me ten times more than he did to 
 my father, and let him send me much unworked gold.' Thus I 
 say to my brother : ' Thy vessels which my grandfather made I 
 will make,' . . . and so also I say : ' The gold that my brother 
 sends let him send for the dowry [of my daughter, whom he is 
 about to marry].' 
 
 "Behold, now, I send to my brother, and let my brother 
 multiply friendship to me more than to my father. Behold, I ask
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 201 
 
 gold of my brother, and the gold I ask of my brother I have been 
 twice to ask ; first, for the . . . and secondly, for the dowry. 
 
 " Let my brother send me much unworked gold, and let my 
 brother send me more gold than he did to my father. In my 
 brother's land gold is multiplied like dust. May the gods grant that 
 gold may be multiplied in my brother's land as now, and ten times 
 more than now ! Let not the gold that I ask for make the heart of 
 my brother sick ; let me not make the heart of niy brother sick. 
 Let my brother send me exceedingly large quantities of unworked 
 gold, and whatever my brother desires for his house let him send 
 and take it ; and I will give my brother whatever gift he desires. 
 
 " This land is my brother's land, and this house is my brother's 
 house. 
 
 " Behold, I have sent my messenger Giliya to my brother ; let 
 not my brother despise him. Let him dismiss him quickly and let 
 him go. When I hear of my brother's gift I shall rejoice greatly ; 
 I shall value my brother's gift for ever. These words which we send 
 to one another, may the god Rimmon, my lord, and Amen, allow 
 . . . and, as now, may they fashion them according to their own 
 will ! As now we love one another, so for ever may we love one 
 another ! " 
 
 The letter concludes with an enumeration of gifts 
 sent by Tushratta to Amenophis III., including several 
 objects of gold inlaid with lapis-lazuli and other 
 precious stones, ten pairs of horses, ten chariots with all 
 their fittings, and thirteen slave-girls. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable to find that after these 
 urgent requests for gold from the Pharaoh, Tushratta 
 sent such a treasure of gold vessels and ornaments with 
 his daughter, whom, as he says in this letter, he married 
 to Amenophis III. The dowry of Tushratta's daughter 
 has already been described above. But the explanation 
 is given in this letter itself : part of the unworked gold 
 obtained by Tushratta from Egypt was actually sent
 
 202 NEW LIGHT ON TEE BIBLE. 
 
 back as his daughter's dowry in the form of vessels and 
 furniture of elaborate workmanship, and adorned with 
 jewels. It must be supposed that Tushratta kept a 
 sufficient quantity of the gold for himself, and if he 
 returned much of it with his daughter it was because he 
 was anxious to purchase peace at any price by pre- 
 serving friendship with the all-powerful Pharaoh. 
 
 Not only the king of Mitani, but other princes of 
 Western Asia send demands for gold to the land of 
 Egypt, where "gold is as dust." The latter phrase 
 resembles expressions which occur in the Bible more 
 than once, when the amassing of great treasures by 
 wealthy princes is spoken of. Zechariah says : 
 
 " Tyre did build herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver as the 
 dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets." 
 
 It is said of Solomon, in the passage quoted above: 
 
 "And the king made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones." 
 
 On account of the treasures of gold which came to 
 Egypt from the more southern regions of Africa, we 
 find the king of Assyria sending for a quantity of the 
 precious metal in a letter to Amenophis IV., inscribed 
 on one of the Tell el-Amarna tablets : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " When I saw thy messengers I rejoiced greatly. I sent for thy 
 messengers to come into my presence. 
 
 " I send as a gift for thee a chariot . . . and two white horses 
 . . . one chariot, and a seal of lapis-lazuli. 
 
 (< Gold is like dust in thy country,
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 203 
 
 " My father, Ashur-nadin-akhi, sent messengers to Egypt, and 
 they sent him twenty talents of gold. 
 
 " If thou art favourably disposed towards me, send and let thy 
 messengers take whatever thou desirest." 
 
 In a letter quoted above, from Burraburyash, king 
 of Babylon, to Amenophis IV., in which the writer 
 seeks to confirm his alliance with the Egyptian monarch, 
 there is a similar request for gold, which was to be sent 
 in exchange for other wares. Apparently, Amenophis 
 IV. was not active in his commercial transactions, to 
 use a modern term, with Babylonia, for in the following 
 letter we find Burraburyash complaining that the precious 
 metal which he desired for the building of a temple was 
 not arrived in sufficient quantities. The writer says : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " From the time of Karaindash, and from the time when thy 
 father's messengers came before my father until now, they have been 
 friendly. Now, I and thou we will be friendly. 
 
 " Thy messengers have come hither three times, but they have 
 not brought any good gift ; and therefore I have not sent thee any 
 good gift. I have lost nothing, and I have deprived thee of nothing (?). 
 
 " Thy messenger whom thou hast sent has not paid the full 
 amount of the twenty manehs of gold." 
 
 In another letter Burraburyash says : 
 
 " Send thy messengers and let them take whatever thou desirest 
 from my country ; and I will send my messengers and let them take 
 what I desire from thy country." 
 
 We can imagine that Solomon sent letters similar to 
 these to Hiram and the other princes with whom he
 
 204 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 exchanged the wares of his own country for the pro- 
 ducts of theirs. 
 
 The predecessor of Burraburyash, Kallimma-Sin, 
 some of whose letters to Amenophis III. are quoted 
 above, also sent demands for gold to Egypt, and with 
 the same urgency, on account of building operations 
 which he had undertaken ; when the work is finished he 
 will not require gold, nor would he accept even the 
 immense sum of 3,000 talents ; unless the gold arrives 
 at once he will not send his daughter in marriage to the 
 Pharaoh. 
 
 Another prince who carried on commercial transac- 
 tions with the Egyptian monarch was the king of 
 Alashiya. It is difficult to conjecture where this 
 country lay ; it must have had a sea-board, because the 
 king sent his messengers in ships to Egypt ; and as it is 
 mentioned in the Egyptian inscriptions in connection 
 with Mesopotamia and Syria, it would seem to have 
 touched upon those regions. One thing seems certain : 
 and that is that Alashiya produced copper in large 
 quantities, for this is the commodity that the king of 
 that country sends to Egypt in exchange for other 
 wares. It seems that copper was found in ancient 
 days in the Lebanon mountains, in Cilicia, in the 
 kingdom of Israel, and in the country of Edom ; 
 although by far the best in quality came from Cyprus. 
 There was no copper in Egypt, so that, without doubt, 
 the West Asiatic merchants could command a high 
 price for this metal. It is remarkable, however, that 
 the king of Alashiya asks for silver, not gold ; yet all
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 205 
 
 the silver in Egypt must have come through foreign 
 trade. The following is the most complete of his 
 letters : 
 
 " To the king of Egypt, my brother, thus says the king of the 
 land of Alashiya, thy brother : ' It is well indeed with me, with my 
 household, my wives, my children, my great men, my horses, my 
 chariots, and my country. May it be well indeed with my brother, 
 with thy household, thy wives, thy children, thy great men, thy 
 horses, thy chariots, and thy country. 
 
 " ' Behold, my brother, I have sent my messenger, in company 
 with thy messenger, to the land of Egypt. 
 
 " ' Behold, I have sent thee five hundred weight of copper ; as 
 a gift to my brother I have sent them. My brother, lay it not to 
 heart that there is little copper in thy country ; for the hand of the 
 god Nergal [the deity of Hades] slew all the men in my country, 
 and there were no workers in copper ; but, my brother, lay it not 
 to heart. 
 
 " ' Send thy messenger back with my messenger speedily, and 
 whatever copper thou desirest, my brother, I will send to thee. 
 
 " ' My brother, do thou send me much silver ; give me, my 
 brother, the silver of the gods, and I will send thee in return what- 
 ever thou desirest. 
 
 " ' Another thing : give me, my brother, the oxen which my 
 messenger will ask for, and the precious ointments ; send me two jars 
 of . . . , my brother, and send me one of the bird-breeders (?). 
 
 " ' Another thing : a man of the land of Alashiya has died in the 
 land of Egypt, and his goods are still in thy country, but his wife 
 and children are with me. My brother, give the goods of the 
 natives of Alashiya into the hand of my messenger. 
 
 '' 'My brother, lay it not to heart that thy messenger has dwelt 
 for three years in my land, because the hand of Nergal has lain upon 
 my land, and in my own house my wife brought forth a son who is 
 now dead, O my brother. 
 
 " ' Send thy messenger in company with my messenger under 
 guard every month. I have sent a gift to my brother. 
 
 " ' Another thing : My brother, send the silver which T ask of
 
 206 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 thee in great quantities, and send the goods which I ask of thee ; 
 and I have performed all the requests of my brother, and I will 
 perform all the requests that my brother shall make of me. 
 
 " ' Make no alliance with the king of the Hittites or with the 
 king of Shinar. Whatever gifts they have sent to me, I return 
 twofold to thee. 
 
 " ' Thy messenger came to me by name, and my messenger goes 
 to thee by name.' "
 
 CHAPTEB VIII. 
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS 
 
 CANAAN BEFORE THE EXODUS. 
 
 WHEN the Egyptian kings of the eighteenth dynasty 
 invaded the country which lies along the eastern shore 
 of the Mediterranean, and which the natives called 
 Canaan and the Greeks Phoenicia, they found it divided 
 into a number of small States, each governed by an inde- 
 pendent prince. It was the policy of the Pharaohs to 
 leave the country under the same conditions of govern- 
 ment, only requiring the regular payment of tribute, 
 and at a later time placing native Canaan ites upon 
 whom they could rely as their own officers in the cities, 
 side by side with the hereditary prince. This is the 
 political state of Canaan shown in the Tell el-Amarna 
 tablets, only we here see the Egyptian supremacy on 
 the decline. The native princes are beginning to throw 
 off their allegiance to the Pharaoh. The officers of the 
 king of Egypt are attacked or deserted ; they attempt 
 to maintain his authority with the help of the soldiers 
 whom he sends them ; but in many cases they are 
 shut up and besieged in certain cities until they are 
 forced to yield. 
 
 In the letters from the Egyptian officials which
 
 208 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 reveal to us this state of affairs, the name of the Pharaoh 
 under whose reign they took place is not generally 
 stated, but it was, without doubt, Amenophis IV., whom 
 Akizzi addresses by name, and whose power is known 
 to have been much weakened by religious dissensions ; 
 moreover, it was on the site of his capital that all this 
 body of correspondence was found. Nevertheless, one 
 of the letters of Burraburyash, quoted in the last chapter, 
 shows us that the Canaanites had already meditated 
 rebellion in the time of Amenophis III., and had actually 
 asked for the alliance and support of the king of Baby- 
 lon, who, however, had loyally refused to listen to the 
 treacherous proposal. 
 
 The name of Canaan had never been found in the 
 cuneiform inscriptions until the discovery of the Tell 
 el-Amarna tablets. It occurs here, however, in the two 
 forms, mat Kindkld and mat Kinakhna, which corre- 
 spond to the native forms Kna and Kna an, or Canaan. 
 We know, of course, from many passages in the Bible, 
 that the sea-coast from Sidon to the boundary of Egypt, 
 including a strip of inland territory, was known as the 
 land of Canaan before the invasion of Joshua. We 
 also learn from Phoenician inscriptions and from ancient 
 authors that the natives of Tyre and Sidon, and the rest 
 of this country which was not included in the dominions 
 of Israel, continued to name their territory Kna , or 
 Canaan, until comparatively late times; and Saint 
 Augustine says that even the rustics of North Africa, in 
 his own day, who represented the ancient colony from 
 Tyre, if they were asked of what nationality they were,
 
 THE TELL EL-AMAHNA TABLETS. 209 
 
 would answer " Canaanites." When the letters found 
 at Tell el-Amarna were written, the name of Canaan 
 was still applied to the whole region, including that 
 part which afterwards formed the kingdoms of Israel 
 and Judah. The following appears to be a letter of 
 commendation which the servant or " merchant " of some 
 Mesopotamian prince took with him to serve as a pass- 
 port on his way through Canaan to Egypt. It is 
 addressed to any of the native princes tributary to the 
 Pharaoh through whose petty dominions the envoy 
 might have to journey : 
 
 "To the kings of the land of Canaan (Kindkhna), the servants of 
 my brother, thus says the king . . . : ' Behold I send Akiya, my 
 messenger, to the king of Egypt, my brother. . . . Let no one 
 hinder him. Send him on safely to the land of Egypt. . . . Let 
 no violence be done to him.' " 
 
 Such a passport was necessary to ensure the protection 
 of the envoys and merchants of various kings, who were 
 obliged to pass through Canaan on their way into 
 Egypt. The dangers which were incurred during these 
 journeys through that unsettled and turbulent country 
 are illustrated by the fate which befell the merchants of 
 King Burraburyash of Babylon, related in the following- 
 letter from that monarch to Amenophis IV. : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " I and my brother, we have spoken good things to one another. 
 This is what we said : ' As our fathers were friendly with one 
 another, so let us be friendly.' 
 
 " Now, my merchants who were conveying their wares (?) to my 
 brother have met with their death. When they were carrying mer- 
 chandise for my brother, and had come to the city of Kninnatuni, in 
 
 O
 
 210 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the land of Canaan, Shum-Adda, the son of Malumme, and Shutadna, 
 the son of Sharatum of the city of Accho [the modern Acre], sent 
 their men and slew my merchants and seized their silver. 
 
 " The land of Canaan is thy land, therefore call those kings to 
 account since I have suffered violence in their land, and make them 
 restore the money that they have stolen, and slay the men who slew 
 my servants. ... If thou dost not slay those men . . . they 
 will slay thy messengers, and no messenger will be able to pass (?) 
 between us. . . . Shum-Adda cut off the feet of my servant and 
 struck off his hands, and the other, Shutadna of Accho, cut off (?) his 
 head. . . ." 
 
 The investiture of such petty princes as those of 
 Canaan by the Egyptian kings is alluded to in the 
 following passage : 
 
 "Manakhbiya [Thothmes IV., father of Amenophis III.], ap- 
 pointed . . . king of the land of Nukhashi, and poured oil upon 
 his head." 
 
 Besides the name of Canaan, we find another com- 
 monly applied to the country in the Tell el-Amarna 
 tablets. This is the term " land of Amuri," or land of 
 the Amorites, and is the same name which the prophet 
 Amos uses where he says : 
 
 " I brought, you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty 
 years through the wilderness to possess the land of the Amorite." 
 
 This name appears in Egyptian as the land of Amaure. 
 It is the designation generally given in the cuneiform 
 inscriptions, both those of earlier and those of later date 
 than the Tell el-Amarna tablets, to the land lying along 
 the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, and by a trans- 
 ference of meaning signifies the west generally ; the 
 west wind is called the wind of Amwru.
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 211 
 
 Among the cities of Canaan mentioned in the Tell 
 el-Amarna tablets we find : Tyre, Sidon, Beyrout, Byblus, 
 or Gebal, Acre, Aradus, or Arvad, Gaza, Joppa, Simyra, 
 or Zemar, Gezer, Jerusalem, and many others ; Damascus 
 also appears. 
 
 The officer of the Egyptian government in Tyre 
 writes to the Pharaoh in sore distress ; he is attacked 
 by the enemies of the Egyptian power on all sides, and 
 unless the king sends him men and supplies he will not 
 be able to hold out. The officer is a native Canaanite, 
 and his name is Abi-milki, or Abimelech, and means 
 " the king is my father." It will be remembered that 
 the name of the " cunning workman " sent to Solomon 
 by King Hiram of Tyre was named Hiram-abi, or 
 " Hiram is my father." We learn from the letters of 
 Abi-milki that Tyre was already a city upon an island, 
 and we hear no mention of the other Tyre upon the 
 mainland, which the Greeks called Palaetyrus, and 
 which was believed to be the more ancient part of the 
 city. The great merchant city of Phoenicia was already, 
 in the time of the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, seated 
 in "the midst of the seas,"* and "inhabited by seafaring 
 men." In consequence of her position, she suffered 
 severely in time of war from the want of water and 
 other supplies, which were habitually brought over from 
 the mainland in boats. This operation is actually men- 
 tioned in an Egyptian papyrus, which contains notes of 
 the travels of an officer of the Pharaoh through part of 
 
 * Ezekiel xxvi. 17; xxvii. 4; xxviii. 2 
 
 o 2
 
 212 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Syria, not more than a century, perhaps, later than the 
 letters of Abi-milki : 
 
 " They [i.e., such and such places] are near another city in. the 
 sea, the name of which is Tyre, the port. Water is brought to it in 
 boats ; it is richer in fish than in sand." 
 
 That part of Tyre which lay on the mainland was 
 richly provided with water from wells and aqueducts ; 
 the supply from the latter was cut oft' by the king- of 
 Assyria, who besieged the place in the eighth century 
 before Christ. The reason for which the city on the 
 island was founded was that there were here two good 
 harbours, whereas Palaetyrus had no harbour, although 
 well situated in other respects. For the convenience of 
 navigation and trade, therefore, the two bare rocks 
 which lay at a short distance from the shore were 
 covered with soil, and buildings were erected upon them ; 
 and it was from these rocks that the name Tyre, or 
 the Eock, was derived. Of the two harbours, one was 
 called the Sidonian, because it looked north ; and the 
 other the Egyptian, because it received the trading 
 vessels from the mouth of the Nile. As for the date of 
 the foundation of Tyre, it must remain uncertain for 
 the present. Herodotus, however, was informed by the 
 Tyrian priests that their city was first built two thousand 
 three hundred years before the date of his visit : that is 
 to say, about B.C. 2750. The city was ancient in the 
 time of Abi-milki. We do not hear anything in the 
 Tell el-Amarna tablets about the trade of Tyre ; we do 
 not know how far she already anticipated the picture 
 drawn by the prophet Ezekiel of her varied commerce.
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 213 
 
 But as we hear of her ships, which she was the first to 
 build for the purposes of her trade, we may conclude 
 that the merchants of Tyre were already known in many 
 ports of the Mediterranean, where they exchanged the 
 wares of Egypt and Assyria, as well as those of their 
 own country, for the rough produce of less civilized 
 nations. 
 
 The appearance of the island city excited the admi- 
 ration of many lovers of the picturesque in later and 
 more cultivated days : 
 
 " Never have I seen so much beauty ; for the lofty trees murmur 
 beside the waves, and the forest nymph bends down to listen to the 
 song of the sea nymph, floating at her feet ; while the soft mid-day 
 breeze blows from Lebanon on the Tyrian waters, and on the sea-girt 
 fields, and with the same breath ripens the fruits, and drives the 
 ships across the waves, at once cooling the labourer's brow, and tilling 
 the sails of the mariner. 
 
 " O, city, famous throughout the world, the type of earth, the 
 image of heaven, thou bearest the triangular sword-belt of thy fellow 
 the sea. 
 
 "Greatly Dionysus rejoiced when he saw the city which the 
 ocean-god has bound with the liquid girdle of the waves. In shape 
 she was like the crescent moon. As he looked it seemed a double 
 wonder, since Tyre lies in the sea and is bound by the waves, and 
 yet belongs to the land. She seemed like a maiden floating motionless, 
 half submerged in the waters." * 
 
 After the siege of Alexander the Great, Tyre ceased 
 to be an island, for the great causeway which he con- 
 structed united her with the coast. The city now 
 resembled a ship which was moored near to the shore, 
 and had put out a gangway for the landing of the 
 
 * Nonnus, Dionysiaca, xl. 311 ft
 
 214 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 passengers.* She afforded a new spectacle : that of a 
 city in the midst of the sea and at the same time of 
 an island on shore. f Let us see in what terms Abi- 
 milki wrote to the Egyptian king for help, when the 
 enemies of the Pharaoh shut him up on the rock of 
 Tyre : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " I am guarding the city of the king, which he entrusted to my 
 charge, with all my might. My desire is to go and see the face of 
 the king, my lord, but I cannot escape from the hand of Zimrida, the 
 Sidonian. The king has heard that he has become great, and has 
 made war upon me. Let the king give me men to defend the city 
 of the king, my lord. Let me enter into the presence of the king, my 
 lord, to see his face and obtain his favour. . . . Let the king 
 ask the officer of his Gate whether I do not serve the king, my lord. 
 
 " We have no water and we have no wood. Behold I send Ilu- 
 milki, my messenger, into the presence of the king, my lord, and I 
 have given him five talents of copper. 
 
 " The king sent to me, saying : ' Send word to me of what thou 
 nearest from the land of Canaan.' (I say therefore that) the king of 
 the land of Dananu is dead, and his brother is become king after 
 him, and his land is at peace. Let the king know that half of the 
 city of Elgarit is burnt with fire. . . . There are no soldiers from 
 the land of the Hittites. Etagamapairi of Kadesh, and Aziru have 
 made war upon Namyawiza. . . . Zimrida has collected ships 
 and men from the cities." 
 
 The following letter depicts the same state of 
 distress : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " The king said to his servant : ' [Command] Shalmayati, my 
 servant, to give water that you may drink.' But they did not do as 
 the king commanded ; they did not give it. 
 
 * Charitoii, vii. f Achilles Tatius, ij,
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 215 
 
 " Let the king counsel his servant Shalruayati to give water, that 
 he may save his own life. 
 
 "Another thing: O, my lord the king, we have no wood; we 
 have no water. . . 
 
 "Let the king command his servant, and the city of Tyre, the 
 city of Shalmayati; and whatever comes forth from the mouth of the 
 king to his servant, I will perform." 
 
 It thus appears that Abi-Milki soon had cause to 
 regret his appointment as the representative of the king 
 of Egypt, over which he showed so much joy at the 
 beginning. It is curious to compare with the letters 
 that have just been quoted one which he wrote when 
 he was first placed as " Egyptian Resident " in Tyre : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " Thus says the servant to his lord : ' Behold, I have heard the 
 messenger who brought the gracious message of the king, and who 
 came to his servant, and the favourable words which came out of 
 the mouth of the king, my lord, to his servant when he spoke his 
 words. If the messenger of the king, my lord, had not come he would 
 not have spoken the words ; the mouth of my enemies would have 
 spoken. See, now, behold the words of the king have come forth 
 upon me. Then I rejoiced greatly. 
 
 " ' Behold I have heard the favourable messenger who came from 
 my lord, and all the world fears before the face of my lord. Behold, 
 I have heard the gracious words and the favourable messenger who 
 came to me.' Behold, the king, my lord, said : ' Stand before the face 
 of the great men ' ; and the servant said to his lord : ' Yea, yea.' 
 
 " If a man does not obey the words of the king his lord, his city 
 perishes ; his house perishes ; his name is lost for ever in his country. 
 But if the servant obeys the voice of his lord, hi city remains ; his 
 house continues, and his name lasts for ever,''
 
 216 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Another Canaanite officer of the Egyptian king, who 
 is represented by a large number of letters among the 
 Tell el-Amarna tablets, was Rip- Adda of Byblus. This 
 faithful servant of the Pharaoh was attacked and be- 
 sieged by his enemies, who shut him up in his city like 
 " a bird in a trap." The leaders of the faction opposed 
 to Kip- Adda were a certain Abd-Ashirta and his son 
 Aziru. Yet, strange to say, Abd-Ashirta himself sent 
 letters to the king of Egypt, professing loyalty to the 
 Egyptian supremacy : 
 
 "To the king, my lord, thus says Abd-Ashirta, the servant of the 
 king : 'At the feet of the king, my lord, I bow seven times.' 
 
 " Let the king learn that the hostility against me is strong. May 
 I receive favour in the sight of the king, and may he send a great 
 man to defend me. 
 
 "Another thing : The king sent a message to his servant, and I 
 have obeyed all the words of the king. 
 
 " Behold, I have sent ten female slaves." 
 
 Byblus was one of the most ancient of the primeval 
 cities on the Phoenician coast ; some, indeed, said that 
 she was the most ancient of all. She possessed a famous 
 image of the goddess Beltis, whose blessing Rip-Adda 
 in all his letters invokes upon the head of the Pharaoh. 
 The goddess is also mentioned in a Phoenician inscrip- 
 tion upon a stela of the sixth or fifth century before 
 Christ, which runs as follows : 
 
 " I am Jehavmelech, king of Byblus, son of Jaharbaal, grandson 
 of Adonimelech, king of Byblus, whom my Lady the goddess Beltis 
 of Byblus set as king over Byblus. I invoke my Lady, Beltis of 
 Byblus, because [she hears my voice], I have made for my Lady,
 
 THE TELL EL-AMAIiNA TABLETS. 217 
 
 Beltis of Byblus, this brazen altar, in this [temple], and this golden 
 ornament and the golden [uraeus in the middle of the stone] over 
 this golden ornament ; and this porch, and its columns, and their 
 capitals, and the roof, I, Jehavmelech, king of Byblus, have made 
 for my Lady, Beltis of Byblus, because whenever I have invoked my 
 Lady, Beltis of Byblus, she has heard my voice and conferred favours 
 upon me. May Beltis of Byblus bless Jehavmelech, king of Byblus, 
 and give him life, and lengthen his days and his years in Byblus, 
 because lie is a righteous king ; and may Beltis of Byblus give him 
 grace before the gods and before the people of this land, and the 
 favour of the people of strange lands for ever. Every prince and 
 every man who shall change this altar, or this golden ornament, or 
 this porch, I, Jehavmelech, set my face against him. . . . May 
 the goddess Beltis of Byblus destroy that man and his seed." 
 
 The upper part of the stela which exhibits this in- 
 scription is occupied by a bas-relief, showing the king, 
 Jehavmelech himself, in a costume apparently borrowed 
 from the Persian fashion of his day, as he offers prayers 
 to the goddess. The latter appears in the form of the 
 Egyptian Hathor, with the horns of the heifer and the 
 disk of the moon between them. The intercourse 
 between Egypt and Phoanicia had in fact in this case, 
 as in others, led to an assimilation of certain deities and 
 worships proper to the two nations. We have seen in 
 the last chapter that the worship of Ishtar, or Ashtoreth, 
 was introduced from Mesopotamia into Egypt during 
 the rule of the eighteenth dynasty, and that the Pharian 
 Isis was identical with the Semitic goddess. On this 
 stela we see that Beltis, another Semitic goddess, was 
 also identified by the Egyptians with Hathor, or Isis. 
 Although the inscription of Byblus is later, the union 
 of the two worships may be supposed to have taken
 
 218 
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 place in the days of 
 Egyptian supremacy over 
 Western Asia, when, as 
 we find in the Tell el- 
 A marna tablets, the native 
 governor of Byblus under 
 the Egyptian suzerain in- 
 voked the blessing of 
 Beltis upon the head of 
 the Pharaoh. The Temple 
 of Beltis, represented on 
 coins of the Emperor Ma- 
 crintis, contained an Egyp- 
 tian obelisk in the court- 
 yard. 
 
 Be searches upon the 
 site of Byblus have brought 
 to light other traces of 
 the Egyptian influences 
 which we know to have 
 reigned there. Among 
 these the frieze is conspi- 
 cuous which shows the 
 Egyptian winged disk 
 carved in low relief. 
 
 The following extracts 
 from Rip-Adda's letters 
 will show in what condi- 
 tion the Egyptian au- 
 thorities were placed at
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 219 
 
 this period of general disorganisation in Western 
 Asia: 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " Let the king, my lord, know that the city of Byblus, the faithful 
 handmaid of the king since the days of his fathers, is betrayed. 
 Now let the king deliver his faithful city out of the hand of the 
 enemy. Let the king, my lord, behold the countries which were the 
 house of his father, that there is no faithful servant left in the city 
 of Byblus. They do not obey thy servant, for the war carried on by 
 the Marauders is cruel. 
 
 " The cities on the mountains have joined the enemy, and become 
 part of the Marauders. Only two cities are left to me. Behold, 
 now, Abd-Ashirta has taken the city of Shigata to himself, and he 
 sai I to the men of the city of Ammiya : ' Kill your chief, and you 
 will become like us, and you will be prosperous.' So they did 
 according to his words, and they became like the Marauders. 
 
 " Now, Abd-Ashirta sent to the men in Bit-Ninip (?) saying : 
 ' Collect yourselves together, and we will attack the city of Byblus, 
 for the inhabitants will not save it out of our hands, and we will 
 appoint governors out of the country, and all the lands will join the 
 Marauders . . . and our sons and our daughters will be at peace 
 for ever.' . 
 
 " The whole country is rebelling against the king, and what will 
 become of us '? I fear greatly that there is no one who can deliver 
 me out of their hand. I am like a bird caught in a trap. 
 
 " Behold thus I send word to the Great House [i.e., Pharaoh], 
 and wilt thou not listen to my words ? Behold, Amanappa is with 
 thee ; ask of him, for he knows and has seen the evil that has befallen 
 me. Let the king listen to the words of his servant and grant the 
 life of his servant, and let him live." 
 
 Those who were at this period rebelling against the 
 Egyptian supremacy, and attacking the servants of the 
 Pharaoh, are often named the "Robbers," or "Brigands,"
 
 220 KEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 or "Marauders." This term cannot fail to remind us 
 of the ancient Phoenician inscription at Tangier, quoted 
 by Procopius, which stated that those who set it up had 
 been driven out of Canaan by the " Bobber " Joshua, 
 the son of Nun. The term expresses the view which 
 the inhabitants of a country naturally take of an army 
 of invaders. The letter of Rip- Adda, given above, 
 shows the manner in which these " Marauders " are 
 spoken of ; the following passages will illustrate it 
 further. 
 
 The governor of Gezer writes : 
 
 " Let the king save us out of the hand of the ' Marauders,' that 
 the Marauders may not destroy us." 
 
 Dagan-takala appeals to the Pharaoh : 
 
 " Deliver me from my powerful enemies, from the hand of the 
 Marauders." 
 
 Another writer states : 
 
 " The king's country is in the power of the Marauders. Let the 
 king give instructions to his officer and send him to the king's 
 country, and let the king despatch his troops to help me." 
 
 The only hope for protection which those who 
 remained true to the authority of Amenophis could 
 cling to lay in the arrival of the Egyptian troops. 
 Accordingly, they send the most pressing appeals to 
 Egypt that the soldiers may be sent. Bip-Adda of 
 Byblus, for instance, whose letters have already been 
 quoted, writes : 
 
 "Let the king send his troops to the city of Byblus."
 
 THE TELL EL-AMABNA TABLETS. 221 
 
 Milkili, also governor of a town tributary to Egypt, 
 writes : 
 
 " Let the king send troops to his servants." 
 
 Shuardata writes : 
 
 " Let the king learn that I am alone ; let the king, my lord, send 
 many troops to deliver me." 
 
 It was the business of those who held offices under 
 the Egyptian king to provide the army of the Pharaoh 
 with food, drink, lodging, and all the necessaries of life. 
 Thus we find statements like the following, which is 
 made by Widya, governor of Ascalon : 
 
 " Behold, I have obeyed the words of the king, my lord, the son 
 of the sun-god, and behold I have sent meat, palm-wine, corn, oxen 
 before the face of the troops of the king, my lord. . . . What 
 is thy servant, a dog, that he should not listen to the words of the 
 king, the son of the sun-god ? " 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Behold, I have sent everything . . . palm-wine, oxen . . . 
 straw, everything that the king, my lord, said to me." 
 
 Akizzi, an officer of the king of Egypt at Katna, 
 writes to Amenophis IV. : 
 
 " My lord, behold the troops and chariots of my lord the king. 
 . . . I have prepared meat, and palm-wine, and oxen . . . 
 and honey, and oil before the face of the troops and the chariots of 
 my lord. Behold the great men of my lord ; let my lord ask them." 
 
 The officials of Canaan were also expected to supply 
 contingents of their own to the royal forces. This they 
 assure the Pharaoh, in their despatches, that they have 
 done. For instance :
 
 222 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 "Thou didst send word to me that I should send men to join the 
 troops [from Egypt]. Behold, I have sent all my men and my 
 chariots to join the troops of the king, my lord." 
 
 A similar passage occurs in a letter to the Pharaoh 
 from Ammunira of Beyrout, which has already been 
 quoted. 
 
 Among the other despatches from officials in Canaan 
 is one from Zimrida of Lachish. This has a special 
 interest on account of the important excavations which 
 Mr. Petrie has lately been undertaking at Tell Hesy, 
 on the site of this ancient and famous city. Moreover, 
 not only has Mr. Petrie discovered many important 
 traces of Lachish and of the different populations that 
 successively occupied it, but a tablet inscribed with 
 cuneiform characters has recently been disinterred there, 
 together with Egyptian scarabs and beads of the same 
 period as the Tell el-Amarna tablets, and this text 
 actually contains the name of Zimrida. We must all 
 look forward with interest to the forthcoming trans- 
 lation of this document by Professor Sayce. The letter 
 of Zimrida found at Tell el-Amarna runs as follows : 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 " The messenger of the king, my lord, whom he sent to me. I 
 have obeyed his words with all my heart. Behold, I have sent the 
 troops as he commanded me." 
 
 The cities of Gaza and Joppa, in South Palestine, are 
 mentioned in the following epistle, in which Yabitiri 
 professes his loyalty to the king of Egypt, and asks 
 for his favour : 
 
 [After salutations. J
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. ii23 
 
 " See, I am a faithful servant of the king, my lord. I look this 
 way and I look that way, and there is no light ; but when I look 
 towards the king, my lord, there is light. A tile may give way 
 beneath its . . . but I shall never give way beneath the feet of 
 the king, my lord. Let the king, my lord, enquire of Yaukhamu, his 
 Officer of the Gate, whether I am a child. Bring me into the land 
 of Egypt, and I will go down to the king, my lord, and stand in the 
 gate of the king, my lord. Let the king enquire of his Officer of the 
 Gate whether I defended the gate of the city of Gaza and the gate 
 of the city of Joppa. I have been with the troops of the king, my 
 lord ; wherever they have been, I have been with them. Behold, I 
 am with them now. The yoke of the king, my lord, is upon my neck, 
 and I will bear it." 
 
 The most powerful enemies of the Egyptian power 
 in Western Asia were the Hittites, the rightful owners 
 since the time of Abraham* of the inland territories of 
 Canaan, which formed indeed part of " the land of the 
 Hittites. "f It was with the Hittite king that traitors 
 to the Pharaoh like Abd-Ashirta were conspiring, all 
 the time that they were protesting their own loyalty ; 
 this we see from the following passages. 
 
 Aziru, son of Abd-Ashirta, alludes to the charge of 
 treachery made against him in these words : 
 
 " Another thing : The king, my lord, also said to me : ' Why hast 
 thou given answers to the messenger of the king of the Hittites, and 
 hast given no answers to my messenger ? ' Yet this is a country sub- 
 ject to my lord, and the king placed me here among the governors. 
 
 " Let the king's messenger go, and repeat all that I have said 
 before the king, and let the king hear my words." 
 
 The real character of Aziru aad his father, Abd- 
 Ashirta, is stated by Rip-Adda of Byblus, who says : 
 
 * Genesis xiii. 3 . f Joshua i. 4
 
 224 A#JF LIGHT ON THE BI&Lfi. 
 
 " Al>d-Ashirta is a servant of the king of Mitani, and of the king 
 of Kashi, and of the king of the Hittites ; he seeks to seize all the 
 cities of the king, the sun-god." 
 
 In the last chapter we saw that Tushratta announced 
 to Amenophis III. a victory which he had gained over 
 the Hittites as a piece of good news which would 
 rejoice the heart of the king of Egypt. But in the 
 reign of Amenophis IV. the dreaded enemy had begun 
 to encroach on the territories that paid tribute to the 
 Pharaoh, and from this time onward, until their crushing 
 defeat at the hands of Rameses II., the Hittites seem 
 to have steadily progressed in power. Several of their 
 depredations are mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna 
 tablets. They ravaged the city of Katna, in company 
 with the rebel Aziru, as we learn from the following 
 passages in a letter from Akizzi to Amenophis IV. : 
 
 " Let the king, my lord, know . . . that now the king of the 
 land of the Hittites has burnt [our cities] with fire, and carried off 
 their gods and their inhabitants. 
 
 " Aziru has seized the men of Katna, my servants, and [carried 
 them away] from the country of my lord." 
 
 The invasion of territories tributary to Egypt by 
 the Hittites is also thus alluded to : 
 
 "The king of the land of the Hittites has taken up his quarters 
 in the land of Nukhashi, and I fear because of him, that he will go 
 up into the land of the Amorites." 
 
 To many readers, perhaps the most interesting of 
 the Tell el-Amarna letters will be those written from 
 Jerusalem, which, as well as the rest of Canaan, was at
 
 THE TELL EL-AMAItNA TABLETS. 225 
 
 the time of the eighteenth dynasty tributary to the 
 king of Egypt. The city is already called Uruvalim, 
 Jerusalem, not Jebus. In the reign of Amenophis IV. 
 the Egyptian supremacy was on the wane here, as in 
 other parts of the country, and the district was attacked 
 by the league of princes adverse to the claims of the 
 Pharaoh, who were doing their best to overthrow his 
 power. In speaking of these " leaguers," or " allies," 
 we must not omit to notice a different view which has 
 been taken of the meaning of this word. It is written 
 in these texts in the form Khabiri, and might on philo- 
 logical grounds be conceived to be identical with the 
 word Hebrew ; on this account it has been suggested 
 that we have here an actual allusion to the invasion 
 of the Hebrews* and their attack upon Jerusalem. 
 This opinion, if it were correct, would alter the view 
 now generally taken of the date of the exodus, which 
 is indeed uncertain ; but the matter is simply mentioned 
 here as a suggestion which has been made. 
 
 On account of the interest naturally felt in the 
 earliest written documents proceeding from Jerusalem, 
 a translation of one or two of the letters of Abdi-khiba, 
 the representative of the Pharaoh in that city, is 
 subjoined: 
 
 [After salutations.] 
 
 "What have I done against the king, my lord? I am slandered 
 before the king, thus : ' Abdi-khiba is rebellious against the king, his 
 lord.' See, as for myself, it was not my father or my mother who 
 
 * See Zimmern in Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins, Bd. xiii^ 
 p. 133 ff. 
 
 P
 
 226 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 set me in this place, but it was the arm of the mighty king that 
 brought me into my father's house. Why, then, should I sin against 
 the king? As long as the king, my lord, lives, I say thus to the 
 messengers of the king, my lord : ' Why do you favour the Leaguers 
 (Khabiri), and show hostility towards the governors [of the king of 
 Egypt]?' 
 
 " All the governors are slain ; there is no governor of the king 
 left. Let the king turn his face towards his people, and send troops. 
 There are no longer any lands of the king left. The Leaguers 
 (Khabiri) have plundered all the lands of the king. If the troops 
 come this year, the lands of the king may yet be saved; but if they 
 do not come, the lands of the king will be lost." 
 
 In another letter Abdi-kbiba says : 
 
 " Let the king send troops against the men who have committed 
 sins against the king, my lord. If the troops come this year, the 
 lands and the governors may be preserved for the king, my lord ; 
 but if they do not come, there will be no lands of the king left. See, 
 as for this city of Jerusalem ; it was not my father or my mother 
 who gave it to me ; the arm of the king gave it to me. This is the 
 deed of Milkili, and the deed of the son of Lapapi, who have given 
 up the king's land to the Leaguers [Khabiri]." 
 
 " See, the king has placed his name upon Jerusalem for ever , 
 therefore he cannot abandon the city of Jerusalem." 
 
 In another letter Abdi-khiba writes : 
 
 " Behold the deeds that Milkili and Shuardatum have done 
 against the land of the king, my lord. They have brought the troops 
 of Gezer, the troops of Gath, and the troops of Kegila, and have 
 seized the territory of the city of Rubute. The land of the king has 
 gone over to the Leaguers [Khabiri]. Now, moreover, a city of the 
 territory of Jerusalem, the city of Bit-Ninip, a city of the king, has 
 gone over, like the city of Kegila. Therefore let the king listen to 
 his servant Abdi-khiba, and send troops, that I may win back the
 
 THE TELL EL-AMARNA TABLETS. 227 
 
 land of the king for the king. But if no troops come, then the land 
 of the king will go over to the Leaguers \Khabiri\" 
 
 On the other hand, Abdi-khiba's enemy, Milkili, 
 whom he represents as a traitor to Egypt, wrote him- 
 self to the Pharaoh, as a faithful servant of the 
 latter : 
 
 " I have heard the message of the king, my lord, to me, and let 
 the king send troops to the aid of his servants . . ." 
 
 In another letter Milkili speaks of an outrage com- 
 mitted upon him by an Egyptian official, and demands 
 that the king should assist him to take revenge upon 
 the aggressor : 
 
 " Let the king know the deed that Yankhamu has done since I 
 left the presence of the king, my lord. 
 
 " He said to me : ' Give up to me thy wife and thy children.' 
 Let me destroy him (?) ; let the king know this deed. Let the king 
 send chariots, and bring me into his presence ; let him not escape (1)." 
 
 Possibly, if the conjecture may be allowed, this out- 
 rage on the part of a high Egyptian official drove 
 Milkili into rebellion. 
 
 The city of Beyrout is alluded to as a seaport, which 
 possessed ships ; and the ships of Sidon and Zemar are 
 also mentioned. Damascus appears as a city loyal to 
 the king of Egypt, and distressed at the victory of his 
 enemies. 
 
 " My lord, as the city of Damascus in the land of Ubi [i.e., 
 Hobah] falls at thy feet and grasps them with her hands, so the city 
 of Katna falls at thy feet and grasps them with her hands."
 
 228 NEW LIGHT ON THE HlBLE. 
 
 We may now recapitulate some of the results which 
 have been obtained from a study of the letters from 
 Canaan, with the full conviction that further researches 
 will bring to light much more that is still to be learnt 
 from these documents of clay. We see, then, a great 
 part, if not the whole, of Canaan and Syria between B.C. 
 1500 and B.C. 1400 in a disorganised condition. The 
 native princes, driven to despair by the apathy and 
 inaction of their Egyptian suzerain, are allying them- 
 selves with the kings of the Hittites, and seizing the 
 towns and ships of the Pharaoh. The representatives 
 of the king of Egypt are driven away, or blockaded 
 and reduced to the greatest straits in the cities that 
 still remain faithful, while their appeals to Egypt for 
 help too often remain unanswered. This state of affairs 
 undoubtedly prepared the way for the invasion of the 
 Israelites. When Joshua entered the land of the 
 Amorites and the land of Canaan, he found the country 
 broken up into small States, governed by petty kings, or 
 chiefs, who were constantly fighting with one another. 
 It will be remembered that Adonibezek spoke of seventy 
 kings whom he had vanquished and captured, and whom 
 he mutilated and kept in his palace, where they gathered 
 up crumbs under his table. If the Egyptian supremacy 
 had still remained unshaken in Western Asia, it may be 
 conceived that the conquest of Canaan would have been, 
 for a small nation like the Israelites, exceedingly difficult, 
 if not impossible. In the absence, however, of a sovereign 
 power, the defeat and conquest of a number of petty inde- 
 pendent chieftains was a matter of comparative facility.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 
 
 THE first journey made by M. Marcel Dieulafoy to 
 Persia, in 1882, resulted in the publication of " I? Art 
 antique de la Perse" & work which is now one of the 
 chief authorities on the antiquities existing in the 
 dominions of the Shah. During this expedition, bow- 
 ever, the enterprising architect and engineer had not 
 been able to do more than glance at the remains of 
 Susa ; but what he saw had filled him with a strong desire 
 to bring to light some of the treasures concealed beneath 
 the three mounds which the natives at the present day 
 designate as Shush. Our own countryman, Loftus, had 
 already attacked this interesting site in 1852, when he 
 formed part of an English Commission entrusted with 
 the task of settling the boundary-line between the Otto- 
 man territories and the Kingdom of Persia. Profiting 
 by the immunities which were calculated to secure them 
 from annoyance on a spot of peculiar sanctity, in the 
 neighbourhood of the reputed tomb of the Prophet 
 Daniel, in the midst of a population notoriously fana- 
 tical in character, Loftus and his companions had dug 
 some trenches in the tumuli of Shush, and had been so 
 far successful that they had found the bases of a few
 
 230 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 columns and the sub-structure of an edifice built in the 
 form of a large hypostyle hall. The most important 
 discovery made by the English excavators was that of 
 the trilingual cuneiform inscriptions on the bases of the 
 columns ; for through these the date of the edifice 
 became at once incontestable. The words engraved 
 upon the stone, in the same characters as those found 
 at Persepolis, ran as follows : 
 
 " Thus says Artaxerxes, the great king, the king of kings, the 
 king of all the countries that are upon this earth, the son of Darius 
 the king, who was the son of Artaxerxes the king, who was the son 
 of Xerxes the king, who was the son of Darius the king, 
 who was the son of Hystaspes, the Achsemenid : ' My ancestor 
 Darius built this Apaddtia in former times. In the reign 
 of Artaxerxes, my grandfather, it was consumed by fire. By 
 the grace of Ahuramazda, Anaitis, and Mithras, I have restored this 
 Apaddna. May Ahuramazda, Anaitis, and Mithras protect me from 
 all evil ; and may they preserve from destruction this that I have 
 built.'" 
 
 This important inscription, written in Persian, 
 Susian, and Babylonian, at once fixed the period of the 
 structure discovered by Loftus ; it had been first erected 
 by Darius Hystaspis (B.C. 521-485), partly burnt down 
 in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus (B.C. 464-425), 
 and restored by Artaxerxes Mnemon (B.C. 406-359). 
 The order of the Persian kings given us by Greek 
 historians was fully confirmed by this same inscrip- 
 tion. The name of Anaitis illustrated a passage of the 
 Babylonian historian, Berosus, quoted by Clement of 
 Alexandria, to the effect that images of this god- 
 dess were first set up by Artaxerxes Mnemon in the
 
 SHUSH AN THE PALACE. 231 
 
 chief towns of his empire. The name of Mithras con- 
 firmed various passages in ancient authors, which allude 
 to the worship of this god under the Achgemenian 
 sovereigns. 
 
 Loftus was not able to carry on his excavations. 
 The religious susceptibilities of the people were aroused; 
 the tomb of Daniel was thought to be in danger of 
 profanation by the infidels. After the departure of the 
 English mission, the cholera broke out in the province 
 of Arabistan ; it was, of course, attributed to the 
 vengeance of the prophet, who thus punished the 
 Mussulmans for tolerating the presence of the un- 
 believers. Since that time no Europeans had stayed 
 upon the spot. 
 
 M. Dieulafoy, however, was not deterred by the 
 reputation of the inhabitants from wishing to undertake 
 new excavations at Susa. Interested by what he had 
 seen of the site in his first visit to Persia, he solicited, 
 in 1884, the help of the French Government to enable 
 him to return thither, and to make fresh researches 
 among the tumuli. He received the promise of a certain 
 sum of money ; two young men were appointed to act as 
 his assistants ; and equipments w r ere furnished by the 
 offices of war and marine. The chief difficulty lay in 
 obtaining the consent of the Persian Government, and 
 the first request was met by a direct refusal. By means, 
 however, of a European physician intimate with the 
 Shah, the sovereign himself was induced to take an 
 interest in the matter. It was- represented to him that 
 the greatness of his predecessors, the Achtemenian
 
 232 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 monarchs, would be freshly illustrated by the excavation 
 of another of their magnificent residences, and that his 
 own reputation in Europe was raised whenever he 
 appeared in the light of a promoter of learning. Finally, 
 towards the end of 1884, the Government of Nasr ed-din 
 Shah gave the required permission, with certain qualifi- 
 cations. 
 
 "The Persian Government offered some observations with regard 
 to the tribes of marauders inhabiting Arabistan ; formulated certain 
 fears on the subject of local fanaticism ; made reservations referring 
 to the tomb of Daniel ; required a share of the objects discovered ; 
 claimed sole ownership of the precious metals ; and granted us 
 authority to make excavations in the tumuli of Elam." 
 
 Accordingly, M. Dieulafoy started for the East, 
 accompanied by the rest of the mission, and, above all, 
 by Madame Dieulafoy, who took the most enthusiastic 
 interest in the expedition, and whose " Journal of the 
 Excavations" gives us a lively account of their origin 
 and progress. The first day of the work is thus 
 described : 
 
 "March 1st, 1885. The excavations at Susa were to begin 
 to-day ; Marcel promised this, and he has kept his word. His 
 battalion is not brilliant : an old Arab, who pastures, for want of 
 more substantial food, on the young thistles in the valley ; a one- 
 eyed man, who has come on a pilgrimage to the Prophet Daniel, in 
 the hope of obtaining the cure of his second eye, already compro- 
 mised ; the son of a widow, dying of starvation, also under the 
 protection of Daniel ; two supernumerary soldiers, our servants, and 
 the two members of our mission. Armed with spades and pickaxes, 
 we made our way towards a brick wall, made visible by a small 
 landslip near our tents. 
 
 " The honour of inaugurating the work had been reserved for me.
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 
 
 233 
 
 With much emotion, I seized a heavy sapper's pickaxe, and worked 
 until my strength was extinguished ; Marcel relieved me, and our 
 acolytes carried the soil away." 
 
 The character of the population with which the 
 French mission had to deal, and the real dangers that 
 
 MODEB.M TOWN OF SHUSTEK. 
 
 they incurred, in spite of the protection of the central 
 government, were soon apparent. The governor of the 
 district, Mozaffer el Molk, was so much alarmed for the 
 safety of the Europeans entrusted to his care, that only 
 a fortnight after their arrival at Susa he addressed the 
 following letter to M. Dieulafoy :
 
 234 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " SIR, The Mussulmans are ignorant, uncivilized, and unruly ; 
 they are, in fact, a stumbling-block in the way of your work. In 
 my absence, it is difficult for you, I believe, to direct your mission. 
 The tumult of passions aroused by the religion of Islam will, perhaps, 
 cause a great danger to you, which it will be impossible for me to 
 prevent. 
 
 " It would be better for you to leave your property at Dizful, 
 and to come and stay at Sinister, near me. 
 
 "After my return to Dizful, you will proceed with your business, 
 with the escort, the support, and the advice of the Government." 
 
 M. and Mme. Dieulafoy and their companions, how- 
 ever, were not so easily frightened. They saw that their 
 work would be much delayed, and, perhaps, could never 
 be resumed, if they acceded to the governor's proposal, 
 and they determined to stick to their post. The gravity 
 of the risk which they incurred was afterwards explained 
 to them. They were informed that 
 
 "The day after our departure [from Dizful for Susa], five or six 
 hundred fanatics, roused by the thought that Christians were about 
 to defile the tomb of Daniel with their presence, and, perhaps, to. 
 steal the body of the holy prophet, and to transport this palladium of 
 the district into Frangistan, assembled in the mosques of the town. 
 These defenders of the faith made a vow either to expel the unbe- 
 lievers by main force or to massacre them ; and with this object 
 they set off on the way to Susa. 
 
 "Some were armed with bad muskets and pistols, others with 
 lances; all and this is a serious matter with slings, which, in the 
 hands of the people of Dizful, are a terrible weapon. The whole troop, 
 dancing and howling, invoked the names of Ali and his sons, the mar- 
 tyrs of Medina and Kerbela. They crossed the plain, and had forded 
 the river twelve miles separated them from Susa when they were 
 joined by two horsemen, who had galloped after them at full speed 
 from the town. These were the sons of Sheikh Mohammed Taher. 
 The sheikh, terrified by the unauthorised character of this remark- 
 able crusade, had enjoined them to bring back the demoniacs.
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 235 
 
 " At first the young men were scouted, and treated as unbe- 
 lievers ; but they succeeded at last in gaining a hearing. The Diz- 
 fulis consented to return to the town, under the solemn promise that 
 a deputation of descendants of Mahomet, doctors of the law, and 
 their own leaders, should make next day the severest inquiries. 
 If the Christians had violated the tomb of Daniel, Sheikh Taher 
 in person would lead the agents of justice, and preside over the 
 massacre of the criminals." 
 
 After a time the religious passions of the people grew 
 calmer; they found that the strangers preserved the most 
 careful respect for the shrine of the prophet, and never 
 allowed themselves to approach its walls, and, moreover, 
 that they were ready to pay good wages to all who would 
 work for them. Accordingly, the idea of molesting the 
 French mission was given up, the excavators were left 
 in peace, and were able to enroll a fair body of workmen 
 to act under their orders. The population in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Siisa is composed of three entirely distinct 
 races, and M. Dieulafoy had representatives of each race 
 under his orders ; but the three bands had no dealings 
 with each other. 
 
 First, there were the Dizfulis from the neighbouring 
 town a people of mean physique, small and nervous, 
 and generally affected with some skin disease, who, 
 nevertheless, were more intelligent and did more work 
 than the Persian nomads. The latter are men of Aryan 
 descent, but lead a similar life to that of other desert 
 tribes ; they are tall and powerful, but dull and stupid. 
 It is thought that the former of these two races repre- 
 sents the aboriginal Elamites or Susians, and that the 
 latter may be descendants of the Persians who, under
 
 236 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Cyrus, conquered the country. In support of this 
 theory, it is alleged that the vocabulary of the Dizfulis 
 is full of words foreign to the language of the Persians. 
 The third class of labourers employed by M. Dieulafoy 
 was taken from the Bedouin Arabs. 
 
 The plains of Susiana are in many respects similar 
 to those of Chaldsea. The rivers no longer kept in 
 check by the ancient canals, of which there are many 
 traces annually turn the lands upon their borders into 
 a marsh. The Eulaeus, or Choaspes, was formerly cele- 
 brated as the river of Susa : it was the Ulai to which 
 Daniel saw himself transported in a vision. Of this 
 stream alone the Persian monarchs drank, and in their 
 expeditions they carried with them, in waggons, silver 
 casks containing its waters. Now, under the name of 
 the Kerkha, it spreads over the swamps or loses itself 
 in canals choked up with mud ; not a town or hamlet 
 is to be seen on its banks. All the glories of Susiana, 
 except its sun, have set ; but the latter is still so power- 
 ful that it forces the inhabitants to roof their narrow 
 huts built of palm-logs with thick coatings of clay, 
 as in the time of Augustus. 
 
 M. Dieulafoy and his mission spent two seasons at 
 Shush, living in tents on provisions purchased from the 
 neighbouring tribes, and working indefatigably at the 
 excavations. There are three mounds on the spot. One, 
 higher and steeper than the rest, is believed to be the 
 citadel which the Greeks named the Memnonium, and 
 supposed to have been built at the time of the siege of 
 Troy. The next tumulus is lower, but covers a far
 
 238 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 larger area of ground. This is believed to conceal the 
 greater part of the remains of the royal palace, including 
 the harem, or " houses of the women,"* and the lodgings 
 of the king himself. In these two mounds the excava- 
 tions have not been fruitful. Trenches dug in the citadel, 
 to the depth of five yards, have given small results. In the 
 second tumulus large sub-structures of brick have been 
 found ; the ground-plan of a keep or donjon has been 
 traced ; a doorway, and part of the bronze plating of a 
 door, handsomely decorated witli rosettes, have been 
 discovered; and the base of a small column, in the form 
 of a lotus-flower, bearing an inscription of Darius, the 
 father of Xerxes, has been disinterred. The researches 
 on the third mound that in which Loftus laid bare the 
 bases of four columns have yielded much greater 
 results. They have, in fact, enabled M. Dieulafoy to 
 reconstruct in imagination, with all its details, the 
 structure which the Persian kings, Darius and Arta- 
 xerxes, here erected, and which forms the scene of more 
 than one narrative in the Hebrew Scriptures. This 
 structure is, as these monarchs themselves call it in their 
 inscriptions, an Apaddna. The name is an old Persian 
 one ; and in the Babylonian version of the inscriptions, 
 where the Persian text has 
 
 " I have built this Apadana," 
 
 the engraver has written 
 
 "I have built this which is called Apadana," 
 * Esther ii. 3, 9, 14, etc.
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 239 
 
 thus proving that he is employing a word foreign to 
 the language of Babylon. Nevertheless, the term is 
 borrowed by the Prophet Daniel when he says : 
 
 " He shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas, 
 in the glorious holy mountain." 
 
 The plan of the Apaddna at Susa is as follows : 
 There is a square hall, supported by thirty-six columns 
 in rows of six. The two sides and back of the hall were 
 composed of solid walls of brick-work, each pierced by 
 four doors ; the front of the hall is open. On each side 
 of this central structure are two porticoes, each formed 
 of two rows of six columns. At the back is an apart- 
 ment of no great depth, but of the same width as the 
 whole building, closed on all sides, except where the 
 two doors give admittance into the central hall. At 
 each corner of the building stands what M. Dieulafoy 
 calls a " pylon," composed of two high walls, crowned 
 with battlements, and standing at right angles to one 
 another ; these " pylons " form wings at each side of 
 the entrance to the central hall, and at each end of the 
 two colonnades at the sides. They were built of brick, 
 like the rest of the structure, and decorated on the 
 outside with narrow perpendicular recesses and pro- 
 jections, and with friezes of enamelled bricks. 
 
 The whole edifice was covered by a flat roof of cedar 
 rafters, supported by beams of the same wood, which 
 rest on the summit of the pillars ; all this timber was 
 brought, with immense labour, from Phoenicia. The 
 columns are of the same order as those found at
 
 240 
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Persepolis, and described in a former chapter. A tall 
 slender shaft, resting on a base in the shape of an 
 
 CAPITAL OF COLUMN AT SUSA. 
 
 inverted lotus-flower, supports a massive capital formed 
 of a bell or lotus, above which rise four inverted volutes, 
 one on each side, capped by the colossal heads, necks,
 
 SSUSHAN THE PALACE. 241 
 
 and bent fore-legs of two bulls, facing opposite ways. 
 The columns, delicately fluted, are of a grey limestone, 
 which becomes dark when polished, but when left 
 untouched appears nearly white. The walls were coated 
 with stucco, coloured red ; the floor was paved with 
 bricks. The doorways and false windows were of the 
 same grey marble as the pillars ; they were surmounted 
 by a projecting Egyptian cornice, carved into the form 
 of two rows of lotus-leaves. 
 
 The enamelled bricks found by M. Dieulafoy at 
 Susa constitute a most important illustration of the 
 history of the ceramic art. Near the top of the outer 
 wall of the " pylons " was a frieze, twelve feet in height, 
 representing a procession of lions between two horizon- 
 tal borders, decorated with palmettes, rosettes, and 
 denticulations. The beasts stand out in relief from a 
 background of pale turquoise-blue ; they are conven- 
 tionally treated, both in design and in colour; the 
 greater part of their bodies is greyish-white, the 
 muscles are marked in deep yellow, and the mane is of 
 a watery green. The frieze of the archers is even 
 handsomer than this ; it is about fifteen feet in 
 height, and ran along the upper part of the side walls 
 of the Apaddna, on the outer face ; it exhibits a pro- 
 cession of " Immortals," or members of the body-guard 
 of the Persian kings. They wear long-sleeved tunics, 
 alternately yellow and white, spangled either with 
 daisies or with squares enclosing what appears to be 
 the image of a fortress ; their heads are crowned with 
 twisted turbans of a green colour ; they wear bracelets
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 243 
 
 and ear-rings, and are shod with laced boots of blue or 
 yellow. They are armed with a bow and quiver and 
 .carry a pike or lance, the shaft of which ends in a silver 
 knob. Their nationality is shown by the deep brown 
 of their skins ; they came from the province or satrapy 
 of India. These enamelled bricks remind us, in some 
 degree, of those which decorated the palaces of Assyria 
 and Babylonia ; but they are superior in colour and 
 design, and distinguished by the fact that the forms 
 stand out in relief. 
 
 The palace of the Persian kings at Susa is one of 
 the very few buildings, forming the scene of a narrative 
 in the Old Testament, which have been sufficiently 
 brought to light by modern excavators to enable us to 
 reconstruct them with certainty in imagination. The 
 city of Susa is mentioned in three books of the Hebrew 
 Canon: in the Books of Daniel, Nehemiah, and Esther. 
 
 It was to Susa that Daniel was transported in one 
 of his visions. He says : 
 
 " In the third year of the reign of king Belshazzar a vision 
 appeared unto me, even unto me Daniel, after that which appeared 
 unto me at the first. 
 
 " And I saw in a vision ; and it came to pass, when I saw, that I 
 was at Shushan in the palace, which is in the province of Elam ; and 
 I saw in a vision, and I was by the river of TJlai. 
 
 " Then I lifted up mine eyes, and saw, and, behold, there stood 
 before the river a ram which had two horns : and the two horns 
 were high ; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came 
 up last. 
 
 " I saw the ram pushing westward, and northward, and south- 
 ward ; so that no beasts might stand before him, neither was there 
 any that could deliver out of his hand ; but he did according to his 
 will, and became great 
 
 Q 2
 
 244 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 "And as I was considering, behold, an he-goat came from the 
 west on the face of the whole earth, and touched not the groun 1 : 
 and the goat had a notable horn between his eyes. 
 
 " And he came to the ram that had two horns, which I had seen 
 standing before the river, and ran unto him in the fury of his 
 power. 
 
 " And I saw him come close unto the ram, and he was moved 
 with choler against him, and smote the ram, and brake his two horns : 
 and there was no power in the ram to stand before him, but lie cast 
 him down to the ground, and stamped upon him : and there was none 
 that could deliver the ram out of his hand. 
 
 "Therefore the he-goat waxed very great: and when he was 
 strong, the great horn was broken ; and for it came up four notable 
 ones toward the four winds of heaven. 
 
 " And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed 
 exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward 
 the pleasant land. 
 
 " And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven ; and it cast 
 down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped 
 upon them. 
 
 " Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by 
 him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary 
 was cast down. 
 
 " And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason 
 of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground ; and it 
 practised, and prospered. 
 
 " Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto 
 that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision con- 
 cerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to 
 give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot 1 
 
 "And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three hundred 
 days ; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." 
 
 Such was the vision of the succession of dynasties, 
 which Daniel saw in the form of the Apocalyptic animals 
 struggling on the banks of the Eulaeus at Susa. 
 
 The Book of Nehemiah begins as follows :
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 245 
 
 "The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah. And it came to 
 pass in the month Chisleu, in the twentieth year, as I was in 
 Shushan the palace, 
 
 " That Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of 
 Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, 
 which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. 
 
 " And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the cap- 
 tivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach : the 
 wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are 
 burned with fire." 
 
 A few verses later we find what office it was that 
 Nehemiah held in the Palace of Susa, when he tells us 
 as follows : 
 
 " And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year 
 of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him : and I took up 
 the wine, and gave it unto the king." 
 
 He occupied, in fact, at the Persian Court the post 
 of cupbearer always an honourable one among the 
 ancients. 
 
 The whole scene of the Book of Esther is laid at 
 Susa. The narrative thus opens : 
 
 " Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus, (this is Ahasuerus 
 which reigned, from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and 
 seven and twenty provinces :) 
 
 " That in those days, when the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne 
 of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace, 
 
 " In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his 
 princes and his servants ; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles 
 and princes of the provinces, being before him ; 
 
 " When he shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the 
 honour of his excellent majesty many days, even an hundred and 
 fourscore days. 
 
 " And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto 
 all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto
 
 246 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 great and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king's 
 palace ; 
 
 '' Where were white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with 
 cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble : 
 the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, 
 and white, arid black marble. 
 
 "And they gave them drink in vessels of gold, (the vessels being 
 diverse one from another,) and royal wine in abundance, according 
 to the state of the king. 
 
 "And the drinking was according to the law ; none did compel : 
 for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that 
 they should do according to every man's pleasure." 
 
 The Persian monarchs of the Achsemenian line had, 
 as it is well known, four principal residences; they spent 
 the spring at Babylon, the summer at Ecbatana, among 
 the cool mountains of Media, the autumn at Persepolis, 
 and the winter at Susa. The temperature of the last 
 place is exceedingly high during part of the year. 
 
 " Susiana is a wealthy province, but possesses a burning, fiery 
 climate, especially in the neighbourhood of the capital. It is said 
 that lizards and serpents, when the sun is at its full height -at noon- 
 tide in summer if they attempt to cro^s the streets of the city, are 
 scorched to death before they have time to reach the other side (a 
 thing that would never happen at Persepolis, although it lies farther 
 to the south) ; and that if cold water is set out in the sun it becomes 
 hot immediately, and barley scattered in the sun is parched as in an 
 oven ; on this account the roofs of the houses are covered with earth 
 two cubits in depth, and the houses are built narrow but long, for 
 there is a lack of large timber, and yet the rooms must be as large as 
 possible, to avoid suffocation. . . . The reason of the heat is said 
 to be that there is a range of high mountains lying towards the 
 north, which keeps off all the winds from that quarter." * 
 
 We know from the cuneiform inscriptions that Susa 
 had been the capital of the ancient Elamite kings long 
 
 * Strabo, xv. 3.
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 247 
 
 before the province was conquered by Cyrus. The 
 Greeks believed the crty to have existed in the time of 
 the Trojan war, but we have better evidence of its 
 antiquity in the testimony of Sardauapalus, who states 
 that Kudurnankhundi, the Elamite king, had carried 
 off the image of Nana from Babylonia to Susa in 
 B.C. 22SO. The name is Shushan in Assyrian, as in 
 Hebrew. Sardanapalus sacked the city about B.C. 650 ; 
 he says : 
 
 " I conquered Shushan, the great city, the dwelling of their gods. 
 
 By the command of Ashur and Ishtar, I entered into the 
 palaces, and sojourned there with joy. I opened their treasuries, in 
 which gold, silver, and other possessions were stored, which the 
 ancient kings of Elam and the kings who have reigned there up to 
 this day collected and placed there ; on which no other enemy 
 besides me had laid his hand. I brought it out and accounted it as 
 my booty. Silver, gold, and other possessions, the property of Baby- 
 lonia, which the earlier kings of Elam had carried away in seven 
 expeditions, and brought to Elam. . . . Jewels, a costly 
 treasure, such as beseemed the royal dignity, which former kings of 
 Babylonia had sent to Elam to make alliance with its kings ; garments 
 such as beseemed the royal dignity ; weapons of war ; furniture, 
 which had been brought into the palaces, upon which the kings had 
 sat and laid down, out of which they had eaten and drunk, poured 
 libations and anointed themselves; chariots and waggons; horses with 
 bridles of gold or silver ; all this I carried away as booty to Assyria. 
 The temple-tower of Shushan, faced with alabaster, I destroyed 
 
 . their gods and goddesses, with their treasures, their 
 possessions, their vessels, their priests, I carried away to Assyria. 
 Thirty-two statues of kings, of silver, gold, bronze, and stone 
 .... I took with me to Assyria." 
 
 A hundred years later, Susiana became part of the 
 empire of Cyrus ; but the conqueror did not make it
 
 248 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 one of his capitals. It was his son, Cambyses, who 
 formed the design of building a great palace at Susa. 
 He sent a body of workmen from Egypt, according to 
 the tradition current in that country at the time of 
 Augustus, to construct residences for himself at Ecba- 
 tana, Persepolis, and Susa. The Persians had no 
 architecture of their own ; they were backward in all 
 the arts ; and on this account Cambyses chose builders 
 from Egypt, so famous for its great temples and palaces, 
 to build for him in his own country. But his early 
 death prevented him from carrying out his designs ; 
 and it was his successor, Darius, who, as the already 
 quoted inscriptions tell us, was actually the founder 
 of the palaces of Persepolis and Susa. The employment 
 of Egyptian architects, however, accounts for many 
 features in the construction and decoration of these 
 buildings. The architecture of the AchaBinenian period 
 was a combination of forms borrowed from Assyria and 
 Egypt, the two most civilized provinces of the empire 
 of Cambyses and Darius. Everyone must recognise the 
 influence of Egypt in the lotus-flowers of the columns 
 at Susa, the volutes, and the animals' heads in the 
 capitals of the columns ; the cornice of the doorways 
 is purely Egyptian ; the traditions of the Nile are 
 as distinctly to be recognised here as those of the 
 Euphrates and the Tigris in the winged bulls at 
 Persepolis, or the lions in the frieze of glazed bricks. 
 Nevertheless, there is something quite distinctive in 
 Persian architecture ; the foreign forms are combined, 
 and modified by the spirit of the ruling race.
 
 SHUSH AN THE PALACE. 249 
 
 M. Dieulafoy thus describes his own impressions of 
 the Persian palaces : 
 
 " For my part, when I try to restore these grand structures in 
 my fancy : when I seem to see those porticoes of marble or porphyry 
 columns : those double-headed bulls, the horns, feet, eyes, and collars 
 of which mnst have been overlaid with a thin sheet of gold : the 
 cedar beams and rafters of the intablature and the roof; the designs 
 in brick- work, like heavy lace, standing out upon the walls ; the 
 cornices covered with enamelled tiles of turquoise-blue glittering in 
 the sunlight : when I think of the draperies hung before the doors, 
 the delicate open wood-work of the mashrabiyehs, the thick carpets 
 laid upon the pavement, I ask myself sometimes whether the religious 
 monuments of Egypt, or the very temples of Greece itself, ought to 
 produce upon the imagination of the visitor so strong an impression 
 as the palaces of the great king." 
 
 The Apaddna of Darius and Artaxerxes at Susa, 
 excavated by M. Dieulafoy, was probably the Hall of 
 the Knob-bearers, or body-guard, in which the king 
 often sat with his ~wives, who sang and played the harp. 
 The knob-bearers, or Melopkori, were a band of a 
 thousand picked men, selected from the ten thousand 
 Immortals ; their name alludes to the knob at the end 
 of their pikes. When the great king walked through 
 the hall he trod upon Sardian carpets, reserved exclu- 
 sively for his own royal feet; and when he reached the 
 entrance he mounted his chariot by a golden footstool, 
 always carried behind him by a slave for that purpose. 
 When Darius or Xerxes gave judgment, or consulted his 
 counsellors in this hall, he sat upon a golden throne, 
 under a crimson canopy, embroidered with gold' and 
 stretched upon golden supports. In the sculptures of 
 Persepolis we see very careful representations of the!
 
 250 
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 royal throne, which appears to be after the Assyrian 
 
 pattern. Each 
 side of the 
 canopy is simi- 
 larly decorated 
 with two bands 
 of different de- 
 sign, one above 
 the other ; a 
 horizontal row 
 of daisies is 
 I divided by a 
 U strip from a 
 \ row of bulls ; 
 
 4 
 
 in the middle 
 
 4 
 
 I is the winged 
 s figure of Ahu- 
 ramazda. 
 | In this 
 
 I very Apaddna 
 Xerxes must 
 have held the 
 banquet de- 
 scribed in the 
 Book of Esther, 
 and consulted 
 with his chief 
 men on the 
 project of war 
 with Greece.
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 251 
 
 We know from Herodotus what the council-meetings 
 of the Persians were like ; they were literally '' ban- 
 quets," or, rather, " drinkiug-bouts," as the Book of 
 Esther calls them : 
 
 " They are accustomed to debate upon the most important matters 
 when they are drunk ; and whatever they approve in their debate is 
 proposed to them on the next day, when they are sober, by their host, 
 in whose house they happen to be deliberating, and if they still 
 approve the matter when they are sober, they finally decide upon it. 
 But if they have a preliminary consultation upon any matter while 
 they are sober, they debate it afresh when they are drunk." 
 
 The Persians were much given to wine, although this 
 must have been an expensive luxury among them ; for 
 no vines were grown in Susiana or Persia until the 
 Macedonians planted them, at the time of Alexander's 
 conquest. The Persian kings had their wine imported ; 
 they only drank Chalybonian, which must be the 
 " royal wine " of Esther i. 7. 
 
 The royal banquets of Persia are thus described : 
 
 " Those who wait upon the kings of the Persians at their 
 meal all wash themselves before they serve, and wear fair garments, 
 and busy themselves almost half the day over the meal. Some of 
 the king's guests eat without, and these can be seen by any who 
 wish ; and others eat within, with the king. But the latter do not 
 sit at the same table with him, for there are two rooms next to one 
 another, in one of which the king takes his meal, and in the other 
 the guests ; and the king can see them, through the curtain which 
 hangs over the door, but they cannot see him. Some, however, 
 if it. is a feast-day, eat in the same room with the king, in the 
 great house. And when the king has a drinking party (and this 
 he often does), he generally has twelve boon companions. When 
 they have finished their meal, the king sitting by himself and the 
 guests without, one of the eunuchs calls the latter in ; and when they 
 enter they drink with the king, but not the same wine ; and they sit on
 
 25-J NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the ground, but he reclines on a couch with golden feet ; and when 
 they are drunk they go away. Generally the king breakfasts and 
 sups alone ; but sometimes his wife and some of his sons sup with 
 him, and the ladies of the harem sing and play the harp during the 
 meal." * 
 
 At some of the royal banquets, however, it is said 
 that fifteen thousand men were present, and that the 
 expense of the meal amounted to four hundred talents,! 
 or about 1 7s. a head in our money. 
 
 The Persians were also celebrated for the variety of 
 their drinking vessels, " diverse one from the other," in 
 the words of the Book of Esther. Several forms are 
 mentioned by Greek authors : one kind of cup re- 
 sembled a golden egg, out of which the king drank. 
 Alexander found many gold, silver, and jewelled cups 
 among the treasures of the Persian kings ; and he him- 
 self gives a list of such, naming the various sorts of 
 drinking-vessels, which cannot all now be identified. 
 There were 
 
 " Three silver-gilt batiacce ; one hundred and seventy-six silver 
 condya ; thirty-three of the same, gilded ; one silver tisigites ; thirty- 
 two silver-gilt spoons ; one silver vegetable-dish ; one silver wine-jar of 
 foreign workmanship, enamelled with colours ; twenty-nine other 
 small drinking-vessels of every shape ; drinking-horns, batia, gilded 
 vessels of Lycian workmanship ; censers and bowls." 
 
 Many ancient customs of the Persian Court have 
 been retained during the different dynasties down to 
 modern times ; and Anthony Sherley, whose name, has 
 already appeared in former chapters, witnessed a series 
 of banquets at the Court of Shah Abbas, which recall to 
 
 * Heraclides in Atheiiseus, iv. 26. 
 
 t Ctesias and Dino, in Atheiiaeus, iv. 27.
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 253 
 
 the reader the scenes described in the first chapter of the 
 Book of Esther : 
 
 " For thirty days continuallie the king made that feast in a great 
 garden of more than two miles compasse, under tents pitched by 
 certain small courses of running water, like divers rivers, where 
 everie man that would come was placed according to his degree, 
 either under one or other tent, provided for abundantlie with 
 meate, fruite, and wine ; drinking as they would, some largelie, some 
 moderatelie, without compulsion. A roialty and splendor which I 
 have not seene, nor shall not see againe but by the same king : 
 our princes abhorring such vaine expences ; desiring rather to have 
 the power of dominion than to make those sorts of ostentation." 
 
 When Alexander took Susa, in B.C. 330, he found 
 a vast treasure in the palace, including five thousand 
 talents of uncoined gold and silver. There was also a 
 store of nine thousand talents of gold in coin : that is to 
 say, consisting of the well-known Darics, first introduced 
 by Darius Hystaspis. One of the historians of Alex- 
 ander tells a little anecdote of an incident which we 
 may suppose to have occurred in the Apaddna excavated 
 by M. Dieulafoy : 
 
 " Alexander took his seat upon the royal throne, but it was too 
 high for his stature. One of the slaves, seeing that his feet did not 
 reach the footstool in front of the throne, brought the table of Darius, 
 and placed it under Alexander's feet, which were hanging in the air, and 
 as it fitted his requirements, the king accepted the good suggestion thus 
 made. But one of the eunuchs who stood by the throne, moved in 
 his spirit by the changes of fortune which he beheld, wept; and when 
 Alexander asked him : ' What harm have you seen done that makes 
 you weep 1 ' the eunuch said : ' Now I am your slave, but formerly 
 I was the slave of Darius ; and as it is my duty to love my master, 
 I am pained by seeing a piece of furniture, which he put to an 
 honourable use, now dishonoured.' When the king was reminded by
 
 254 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 this answer of the great change that had taken place in the fortunes 
 of the Persian monarchy, he suspected that he had been guilty of 
 an act of pride, contrasting with his former generosity towards the 
 captive princesses. Therefore he called the attendant who had 
 brought the table, and bid him take it away again. Thereupon 
 Philotas remarked : ' Nay, it is no pride, since the thing was not 
 commanded by you ; but it is done by the purpose and counsel of 
 some good spirit.' Then the king, accepting this saying as a good 
 omen, commanded that they should leave the table standing at the 
 foot of the throne." 
 
 When Alexander afterwards captured Persepolis, he 
 took his seat in a similar manner on the throne of the 
 great king in the Persepolitan palace : 
 
 " When he first sat under the golden canopy, on the royal seat, 
 the Corinthian Demaratus, who had been a friend of his father, 
 remarked, with tears of emotion, that those Greeks had been de- 
 prived of a great pleasure who had died before they could see 
 Alexander sitting on the throne of Darius." 
 
 Among the treasures at Susa, Alexander found the 
 famous bronze statues of Harmodius and Aristogiton, 
 who had freed Athens from the tyranny of the sons of 
 Pisistratus, but died as the martyrs of liberty. The 
 statues were the work of Praxiteles. The Macedonian 
 conqueror, the great object of whose life was to obtain 
 the applause of the Athenians, sent them back to their 
 city, whence they had been carried away by Xerxes, 
 during his invasion of Greece. 
 
 Perhaps no book in the Hebrew Canon has received 
 so many elucidations from secular sources as the Book 
 of Esther. Much of the history may be compared with 
 that of Herodotus ; the assembly of nobles and princes
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. 25^ 
 
 in the third year of the reign of Ahasuerus, reminds us 
 of the council which Xerxes called at Susa, in the third 
 year of his reign (B.C. 483), to deliberate upon the 
 proposed invasion of Greece. Esther entered the palace 
 in the seventh year, hy which time Xerxes had returned 
 to Susa from his ill-fated expedition. The name of 
 India, which occurs in this book alone in the Old 
 Testament, is found among the list of the satrapies in 
 the Greek historian. Many other points referring to 
 the character of the monarch, and to Persian customs, 
 are illustrated by Herodotus and other Greek writers. 
 Since the beginning of this century the cuneiform 
 inscriptions have contributed their share to the elucida- 
 tion of this book. Grotefend's first discovery showed 
 that the name of the king, in its Hebrew form, was a 
 very close reproduction of the native name of Xerxes. 
 Achashverosh contains all the consonants of Chshyarsha, 
 only the y is changed to v. The initial A is the result 
 of the inability of the Semitic races to pronounce two 
 consonants together at the beginning of a word ; in the 
 same way the Arabs call Plato " Iflatun." The vowels 
 of the name Achashverosh are, of course, to be taken with 
 all reserve ; they are those of the Massorah. It is in- 
 teresting to compare the form of the name of Chshyarsha, 
 or Xerxes, used by the Hebrews, with that employed by 
 the Babylonians, their kinsmen. In the trilingual 
 inscriptions of Persia, the name appears in Babylonian 
 as Chishiyarsha ; but in the contracts of Babylonia we 
 meet with the forms, Achshiyarshu, Akkashiyarshi, and 
 a very corrupt form, Akohiakarshu. The cuneiform
 
 loB NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 inscriptions have thus enabled us finally to reject the 
 identification of the name Achashverosh with Artaxerxes, 
 given by the Septuagint and Josephus. Saint Jerome 
 simply reproduced the Hebrew, as closely as possible, 
 in his form Assuerus ; and our translators followed him 
 with Ahasuerus. 
 
 Many other Persian words are found in the Book of 
 Esther, in forms closely corresponding with those of the 
 time of Xerxes. . The proper names of the Persian 
 nobles and others present difficulties ; but M. Oppert has 
 proposed explanations of nearly all of them. With 
 regard to the names of the eunuchs, M. Oppert remarks 
 that perhaps the latter were not Persians ; and here he 
 would seem to be right : for we are expressly told that 
 slaves of this sort were sought for in the neighbouring 
 countries.* But, after all, our knowledge of the old 
 Persian language is small. Much more material might 
 be found to elucidate the Book of Esther, and other 
 parts of the Hebrew Canon, if the mounds of Shush were 
 more fully excavated and made to give up all their 
 treasures. We know very little even of what the 
 Greeks wrote about Persia in the time of Xerxes, his 
 predecessors and his successors ; but we are never likely 
 to recover the lost works of Dinon of Rhodes, Dionysius 
 of Miletus, Charon of Lampsacus, Aristides of Miletus, 
 Agatharchides of Samos, Balon of Sinope, Chrysermus 
 of Corinth, Ctesiphon, or Pharnuchus of Nisibis all of 
 whom devoted complete works to the history of Persia. 
 
 * Clearclius in Athenaeus, xii. 9 ; Herodotus, iii. 92.
 
 SHUSHAN THE PALACE. . 257 
 
 If, however, tlie tumuli which still conceal part of the 
 famous palace of Shushan were thoroughly searched, we 
 might obtain much more valuable documents in the 
 form of inscriptions in the name of the great king him- 
 self, and the very remains of the building in which he 
 lived. 
 
 n
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OV BABYLON. 
 
 IN a celebrated romance of the second century we read 
 of a certain Chaldsean astrologer named Diophanes, 
 who travelled from place to place in different parts of 
 the Roman Empire, and succeeded in making a consi- 
 derable fortune by his predictions. He was sought 
 after by youths and maidens who wished to learn which 
 day would be a lucky one for their wedding ; he was 
 consulted by merchants anxious to know the propitious 
 moment for striking a bargain ; enquiries were regu- 
 larly made of him as to when the foundations of a house 
 might be laid, or when a ship should sail that she might 
 safely arrive in port, or when a traveller might start 
 upon a journey without fear of thieves. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, for his reputation, Diophanes 
 arrived at a certain town in Thessaly. Here he was 
 standing one day in the market-place, surrounded by a 
 circle of enquirers, when a merchant named Cerdo came 
 up, and asked at what hour the stars would be favourable 
 to the undertaking of a journey to a distant region, 
 which his business required him to visit. The Chaldsean 
 solemnly consulted his mysterious documents, and 
 selected a lucky day for the proposed start ; accordingly
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON'. 259 
 
 the merchant pulled out his purse, and began to extract 
 the customary fee of a hundred denarii, or about 3 10s.* 
 But at that moment a young man made his way through 
 the crowd, approached the astrologer, and affectionately 
 saluted the latter, who was so much surprised at the 
 unexpected arrival of his friend that he forgot the trans- 
 action in hand. " How did you fare," asked the new- 
 comer, " on the way hither from Euboea, where I last 
 saw you?" "Never was there so unlucky a journey," 
 answered the fortune-teller. " It was like the wanderings 
 of Ulysses ; I could not desire a worse experience for 
 my greatest enemy. First, we were shipwrecked upon 
 a desolate coast, and then, when some of us had swum 
 to shore through the raging waves, we were attacked 
 by a party of thieves, and my only brother was slain 
 before my eyes." While the astrologer, put off his 
 guard by the unlooked-for meeting, was making these 
 frank admissions of his inability to protect himself from 
 ill-fortune, in spite of all his knowledge of the stars, 
 the merchant who had just consulted him listened with 
 all his ears, and finally, before the Chaldsean could see 
 what his client was doing, gathered up the coins that 
 he had already laid down, and quietly made off through 
 the crowd. Diophanes, discovering the absence of the 
 money, was further aroused to a sense of his own 
 imprudence by the loud laughter of the circle of by- 
 standers. 
 
 This story shows at once the repute in which the 
 
 * That is to say, if the silver denarius is intended ; there was also a 
 copper denarius. 
 
 R 2
 
 260 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Chaldsean astrologers were generally held in the Roman 
 Empire, and the opinion which educated men had of 
 their honesty. The fame of the knowledge which the 
 philosophers of Babylonia had acquired of the stars, and 
 of their influence upon human life, ensured especial 
 credit for the fortune-tellers who came from that region ; 
 they were more readily believed than any others. The 
 Roman ladies especially were accustomed to consult 
 them. On the other hand, the more intelligent minds 
 received the utterances of the Chaldseans with incredulity. 
 A Roman philosopher of the second century once de- 
 livered a lecture on this very subject. The so-called 
 science of astrology was, he said, the invention of needy 
 impostors, who did not scruple to seek their living by 
 deceiving others. To make their assertions plausible, 
 they pointed out certain visible influences exercised by 
 the heavenly bodies upon the course of events on our 
 earth : as, for instance, on the tides of the ocean, which 
 appear to be controlled by the moon. Even if these 
 influences were actually exercised on human life and 
 human actions, it would be impossible for mortals to 
 perceive them and to be able to predict their results. 
 At the most, a vague idea of the form that such in- 
 fluences would take would be all that the human mind 
 could reach ; to know more than this would be omni- 
 science, and would remove the boundary between gods 
 and men. In the next place, if we allow the statement 
 of the astrologers, that the heavenly influences and their 
 manifestations had been studied on the plains of Baby- 
 lonia for many thousands of years, the result of such
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 261 
 
 studies would be applicable to that region alone, since 
 the phenomena of the sky vary according to the position 
 of the observer. Further, the philosopher asked, acutely 
 anticipating the discoveries of modern astronomy, how 
 can it be taken as proved that there are no other planets 
 in the sky besides those seven which are vulgarly 
 accepted, and are held by their motions among the con- 
 stellations to point out the destinies of men ? But if 
 there are other planets, which, because of their distance 
 or the excessive brilliancy of their rays, are not percep- 
 tible to human vision, a knowledge of the movements 
 of these wandering stars, as well as of the seven already 
 known to us, would be indispensable to an accurate 
 astrological prediction. But, in any case, how can a 
 sufficient number of observations, extending over innu- 
 merable centuries, have been taken to justify the pre- 
 diction of the events of each man's life according to the 
 position of the stars at the hour at which he was born, 
 especially since the necessity of noting the exact moment 
 of birth is clear from the diversity of the fates of men 
 born within a very short distance of time from one 
 another, and from the variety of fortune which befalls 
 even twins ? The philosopher remarked, moreover, that 
 the same fate overtakes many at the same moment, who 
 yet were born under very different aspects of the stars : 
 as, for instance, in war, when a city is sacked, in a ship- 
 wreck, or in an earthquake. How can this be recon- 
 ciled with the doctrine that the different positions of 
 the heavenly bodies indicate a different course of events 
 in each man's life ? In spite of all this, however, these
 
 262 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 astrologers are widely credited, because perhaps from 
 time to time they seem to hit upon the truth, partly by 
 accident and partly because they purposely use vague 
 and ambiguous language in uttering their prophecies. 
 The philosopher concluded his lecture by warning his 
 hearers to pay no heed to such impostors, who stuff the 
 ears of their hearers with a wealth of falsehood in order 
 that they may fill their own purses with gold. If they 
 foretell good fortune, and the event belies them, the dis- 
 appointment will be bitter ; if they predict evil, and it 
 does not come to pass, it has yet already existed in the 
 miseries of anticipation ; and, on the other hand, the 
 knowledge of misfortune before it arrives only doubles the 
 unkindness of fate, and the suspense caused by deferred 
 happiness heavily discounts the expected enjoyment. 
 
 Perhaps the most famous instance known to history 
 of the predictions of the Babylonian star-gazers one, 
 too, which was believed to have been duly fulfilled is 
 the prophecy of the priests of Bel concerning the fate 
 that would befall Alexander the Great if he should enter 
 the city of Babylon on his return from his Indian cam- 
 paign. How far treachery lent its aid to the accom- 
 plishment of this prediction we shall never know. The 
 Chaldean priests were also believed to have foretold the 
 deaths of Antigonus and Seleucus. When the latter 
 was about to found, on the banks of the Tigris, the new 
 capital which he designed to take the place of Babylon, 
 and to bear his own name, he consulted the astrologers 
 according to the custom of the country, in order to 
 learn which day and hour would be fortunate for laying
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 263 
 
 the first stone of the city. The priests, however, 
 attempted to deceive their foreign ruler, who was taking 
 a step which would lead to the final ruin of Babylon, 
 that ancient home of the gods ; and Seleucus was in- 
 formed that such and such a time, in reality most un- 
 propitious, would be favourable to the success of the 
 enterprise. The Macedonian king, however, was led by 
 circumstances to lay the first stone of Seleucia, not at 
 the hour indicated by the astrologers, but at a moment 
 which, although he did not know it, was precisely the 
 most auspicious that he could have chosen. The priests 
 accordingly recognised the hand of the gods, and frankly 
 informed the prince of this manifest mark of Divine favour. 
 
 It will be remembered that the Emperor Tiberius 
 himself studied Chaldean astrology during his stay in 
 the island of Rhodes. His teacher was Thrasyllus, 
 of whose learning and skill in this branch of science 
 Tiberius convinced himself by finding that his master 
 did not hesitate to foretell the prince's own death. The 
 most remarkable instance on record in which Tiberius 
 made use of his knowledge of the stars is his prediction 
 of the fate of Galba, then consul : " Thou too, Galba," 
 said the princely fortune-teller, " wilt some day taste of 
 the imperial power." This was understood to be a 
 reference to the few months' reign during which Galba, 
 after the death of Nero, governed the Roman Empire. 
 
 The Bab} r lonian astrologers retained their influence 
 in the Roman world until they were discountenanced by 
 the Christian Church. Saint Ephraim, in the fourth 
 century, wrote ten hymns against the Chaldseans. The
 
 264 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 doctrines of the latter were handed on to the mediaeval 
 astrologers of Europe. In the East astrology has 
 remained in force to the present century, and many 
 modern travellers have remarked traces of its existence. 
 Shah Abbas, who has already been mentioned once or 
 twice, actually abdicated his throne at the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century in obedience to the predictions 
 of star-gazers ; but then we must remember that our 
 own Charles I., the contemporary of the great Persian, 
 also consulted the famous astrologer Lilly. When 
 Claudius James Eich, the first systematic explorer of the 
 ruins of Nineveh and Babylon, visited Suleimanieh, the 
 capital of Kurdistan, in 1820, he was requested by the 
 Pasha to put off his entry into the city for a day or 
 two, and then to pass through the gate exactly at nine 
 o'clock in the morning, in order that the stars might be 
 favourable to his presence. 
 
 The cuneiform inscriptions have, as might have been 
 expected, furnished us with some of the documents 
 composed or studied by the ancient star-gazers on the 
 plains of Chaldsea. They afford a fresh proof of the 
 great influence which astrology exercised over Babylonian 
 life. The}' fully illustrate the words of Isaiah when he 
 shows how all the knowledge of the stars claimed by 
 the priests and philosophers of Babylon did not enable 
 them to foresee the misfortunes of their own country, 
 or to save it from overthrow. 
 
 " Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness. . . . Thy wisdom and 
 thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee ; and thou hast said in thy 
 heart : I am, and none else beside me.
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 265 
 
 " Therefore shall evil come upon thee : thou shalt not know 
 from whence it riseth ; and mischief shall fall upon thee : thou slialt 
 not be able to put it off; and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, 
 which thou shalt not know. 
 
 " Stand, now, with thine enchantments, and with the multitude 
 of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth ; if so 
 be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. 
 
 " Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now 
 the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators stand 
 up, and save thee from those things that shall come upon thee. 
 
 " Behold, they shall be as stubble ; the fire shall burn them ; 
 they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flames." 
 
 We learn from the cuneiform inscriptions that the 
 Babylonians possessed a great astrological work, con- 
 sisting of seventy clay tablets. This was said to have 
 been composed in the time of Sargon, king of Agane 
 and Bab}don, and father of Naram-Sin, to whom, as we 
 have. already seen, the Babylonian chronologists assigned 
 an almost incredibly remote date. At least, this fact 
 illustrates the antiquity of the observations of the stars 
 recorded by the Chaldseans. One of the tablets shows 
 which months are lucky and which unlucky for various 
 actions in war ; it must have been to such documents 
 as this that the prophet Isaiah alludes in the words 
 quoted above which speak of the " monthly prognosti- 
 cators." Many tablets, written in such a way as to be 
 unintelligible to the uninitiated, refer to all sorts of 
 events which follow, or are supposed to follow, the ap- 
 pearance of the planets in certain positions. Some of 
 the tablets contain horoscopes, and declare the fate of 
 a person born under such and such aspects of the 
 stars. Other documents speak of eclipses of the
 
 266 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 moon, and relate the misfortunes which follow such 
 phenomena. 
 
 These documents of which we speak are all astro- 
 logical; they refer to the influences of the heavenly 
 bodies on human life. But through the constant study 
 of the moon and stars for the purpose of discovering 
 their terrestrial effects, the Chaldseans acquired a very 
 considerable knowledge of the movements of these orbs. 
 Through studying astrology, they became astronomers. 
 
 It is certain that the Babylonians began to observe 
 the stars very early, and that they possessed records of 
 their observations reaching back to a very remote epoch. 
 We need not believe that these records literally covered 
 a period of hundreds of thousands of years before Christ, 
 as the statements of many ancient writers would imply. 
 But at least we may feel sure that the Chaldacans were 
 the first inventors of astrology, and of her daughter, 
 astronomy ; and we may safely put aside the claims of 
 the Egyptians, the Rhodians, or the Phoenicians to this 
 honour. Claudius Ptolemy, who was himself born at 
 Alexandria in the second century of our era, used Baby- 
 lonian authorities for the earlier astronomical obser- 
 vations which he records, and he dates them by the era 
 of Nabonassar, king of Babylon in B.C. 747. Three 
 eclipses of the moon are described by Ptolemy from 
 Babylonian sources : one which took place in the second 
 year of Merodach-Baladan (B.C. 719), another which 
 occurred under Nabopolassar (B.C. 620), and a third 
 which happened in the seventh year of Cambyses, the 
 of Cyrus (B.Q, 5 $8, July 16th), The Original record
 
 THE STAE-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 267 
 
 of this last eclipse has recently been discovered on a 
 clay tablet, published by Father Strassmaier, S.J. 
 Ptolemy says : 
 
 " In the seventh year of Cambyses, which is the two hundred and 
 twenty-fifth year of Nabonassar, in the Egyptian month of Phamenoth, 
 in the night of the seventeenth-eighteenth, one hour before midnight, 
 according to the hour of Babylon, the moon was eclipsed, beginning 
 by the north, to the half of her diameter." 
 
 In the cuneiform text inscribed upon the clay tablet 
 from Babylonia we read : 
 
 " In the year seven [of Cambyses], in the night of Tarnmuz the 
 fourteenth, three hours and one third after nightfall, there was an 
 eclipse of the moon. At its maximum, half of the diameter dis- 
 appeared, beginning by the north." 
 
 The two statements fully agree, and Ptolemy, or 
 rather Hipparchus, from whom he derived his know- 
 ledge of Babylonian astronomy, probably borrowed his 
 record of this eclipse from the very cuneiform text, a 
 copy of which is now in the British Museum. 
 
 Besides the movements of the planets, among which 
 the Babylonians included the sun and moon, the astro- 
 nomers on the banks of the Euphrates are said by 
 ancient writers to have studied the orbits of the comets, 
 and to have been able to predict the return of some of 
 them. It would indeed be interesting if records of 
 comets were distinctly to be discovered among the 
 cuneiform tablets. 
 
 The clearest proofs of the advance made by the 
 Babylonians in astronomical science have lately been 
 found by Fathers Strassraaier and Epping. The
 
 268 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 documents in which the records that these scholars 
 have given to the world appear are of a late epoch ; they 
 are the fruit of the last days of Babylonian civilization, 
 before it finally sank under the barbarism of the Parthian 
 dynasty. The texts bear the date of the first centuries 
 of Parthian rule, and, among other results, have fixed 
 the chronology of the period to which they belong with 
 a certainty not realised in the case of any other pre- 
 Christian times. This is because they generally give 
 two dates : one according to the era of Seleucus (B.C. 310), 
 and the other according to the era of Arsaces (B.C. 246). 
 It had already been observed that there was a slight 
 difference between the reckoning of the Chaldeans and 
 the Syrians from the era of Seleucus. 
 
 The texts lately published and explained by Fathers 
 Epping and Strassmaier consist chiefly of tables drawn 
 up to record the phases of the moon or the movements 
 of the planets with much exactness. The Babylonian 
 star-gazers had learnt to predict the moment of the 
 appearance of the new moon; they had observed the 
 heavens with sufficient care to be able to foretell the 
 courses of the planets through the constellations, and 
 their position in relation to certain fixed stars. Much, 
 however, of the work of Fathers Epping and Strassmaier 
 is intelligible only to students of astronomy, who may 
 be referred to the book written by these authors under the 
 title " Astronomisches am Babylon," and to their articles 
 in certain periodical publications. The names which 
 the Babylonians gave to the planets have been deter- 
 mined. There is one name occasionally given by the
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 269 
 
 Chaldsean astronomers to the planet Saturn, which also 
 appears in the Bible. This designation is that of 
 Kaimanu or Kaivanu, which is identical with the word 
 Kiun, or Chiun. The prophet Amos says : 
 
 " Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilder- 
 ness forty years, O house of Israel 1 
 
 "But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun 
 your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. 
 
 " Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Da- 
 mascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts." 
 
 Besides the names of the planets, the names of a 
 few of the fixed stars among the Babylonians have been 
 discovered ; and some of these clearly show whence 
 later astronomers derived the appellations of these 
 bodies. For instance, Regulus was called The King 
 on the plains of Chalda3a many centuries before the 
 science of the stars penetrated into the West. Alde- 
 baran, in the constellation Taurus, is called the Ox. 
 It has long been known or suspected that the Baby- 
 lonians first distinguished the signs of the zodiac ; and 
 the recent researches have discovered the names of all 
 of these in the astronomical documents. Some of 
 these designations, at least, are identical with those 
 that were given in later times and have come down 
 to us : for example, the Scorpion, the Fishes, the 
 Twins, and the Goat. The representations of the 
 signs of the zodiac are to be seen carved on certain 
 Babylonian monuments, notably in the case of the 
 boundary-stones which were set up to mark the limit of 
 a landed estate, and contain engraved upon them the
 
 270 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 deed of sale, or of gift, surmounted by certain grotesque 
 figures, which appear to indicate the aspect of the 
 heavenly bodies under which the transaction was con- 
 cluded. The Babylonian star-gazers were, of course, 
 consulted as to the lucky moment for conveying land, 
 as well as in most of the other important operations of 
 life. 
 
 Many of the Babylonian texts which we are now 
 considering were evidently drawn up for the purpose of 
 composing an astronomical calendar which should pre- 
 dict the positions of the planets for every day. As it 
 was already known from ancient authors, the Chaldaian 
 astrologers named the seven planets, including the sun 
 and moon, the "interpreters," because by their position 
 in relation to the other stars they pointed out the 
 destinies of man. But although the object of these 
 ancient sages was not truly scientific, their observations 
 attained to such exactness that they succeeded in 
 founding the science of astronomy out of the materials 
 which they collected for a less enlightened purpose. 
 
 For greater facility in observing the sky, it is pro- 
 bable that the Chaldeans made use of the tall structures 
 which they erected to serve also as the temples of their 
 gods, who were often personifications of the heavenly 
 bodies. Perhaps it was on this account that they first 
 began to build the " towers whose top should reach unto 
 heaven." There were probably many such primitive 
 observatories scattered over the plains of the Lower 
 Euphrates and Tigris. We are told that there were 
 several schools of astrologers, whose doctrines did not
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 
 
 271 
 
 always agree with one another; the most famous of 
 these learned bodies had their seats respectively at 
 Sippara, Erech, and Borsippa. Now, it was from the 
 ruins of the first of these ancient cities, now called 
 Abu Habba, that most of the astrological and astrono- 
 
 7 O 
 
 RESTORATION OP ASSYRIAN OR BABYLONIAN TOWER IN STAGEa 
 
 mical tablets have recently been brought to Europe ; 
 the documents would seem, therefore, to have formed 
 part of the scientific archives of Sippara. The Hebrew 
 name of this famous city on the canal Narragas was 
 Sepharvaim, as will at once be remembered, whence 
 the Assyrian king, Sargon, deported some of the in- 
 habitants to people the newly vanquished country of
 
 272 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Samaria ; and the antiquity of this city was so great 
 that it was believed to have existed before the flood, 
 and to have contained an ancient library, perhaps partly 
 composed of astronomical records, dating from times 
 anterior to that catastrophe. The principal temple at 
 Sippara was the celebrated sanctuary of the sun-god, 
 one of the wealthiest foundations of Babylonia, as we 
 may conjecture from the numerous documents written in 
 the cuneiform character referring to the property of 
 this shrine, which the kings of the country, without 
 doubt, had endowed as richly as the great temple of 
 Bit-Saggil in Babylon. Attached to this temple there 
 must have been a body of priests devoted to the study 
 of the stars. A high tower, built in stages, and ascended 
 by a staircase running round the outside, no doubt 
 formed the observatory of these sages of Sippara. 
 
 The third of the astrological schools of Babylonia was 
 that seated at Borsippa, the suburb of ancient Babylon, 
 which M. Oppert believes to have formed part of the 
 vast city, almost a province, as Aristotle said, enclosed 
 by Nebuchadnezzar within two lofty walls. The close 
 connection of Borsippa with the capital is shown by the 
 statement in the Talmud that he who speaks of Bor- 
 sippa is referring to what is in reality a part of Babylon. 
 The observatory of the star-gazers of Borsippa was the 
 vast temple of Bit-Zida, which still exists in the form 
 of a mountainous ruin, under the name of Birs-Nimroud. 
 This lofty edifice was, according to the ancient tradition 
 of the Jews, identical with the Great Tower of Babylon, 
 the building of which in primeval times is spoken of in
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 273 
 
 the Book of Genesis. It will be remembered that 
 Benjamin of Tudela and the Rabbi Pethachiah both 
 visited Birs-Nimroud, under the impression that this 
 was actually the Tower of Babel. Father Strassmaier 
 
 BIRS-NIMROUD : THE RUINS OF BIT-ZIDA. 
 
 has lately discovered a cuneiform text which shows the 
 high astronomical significance of Bit-Zida in the eyes 
 of the Babylonians. It will be better to quote his own 
 words. The text is, he says 
 
 " A systematic extract out of an old treatise composed at Borsippa 
 on astronomy and astrology, written by Bel-akhe-iddin, with his own 
 
 S
 
 274 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 hand, at Borsippa, on the 27th Airu (the Jewish lyyar) in the year 
 111 [of Arsaces], which is equivalent to the year 174 [of Seleticus], 
 that is to say, B.C. 138. 
 
 "Like almost all astronomical texts, it begins: 'According to 
 the word of Bel and Beltis,' and proceeds to treat of the significance 
 of the summer and winter solstices, of the vernal and autumnal 
 equinoxes, of the connection of the oracles with the full moon, of the 
 influence of the moon and of the heat of summer on the diseases of 
 men, and of the incantations by which sicknesses are healed, of the 
 various sacrifices in spring and autumn, and of the significance of the 
 heliacal rising and setting of Sirius and of the star su-gi. In con- 
 nection with these heavenly phenomena stand the different festivals : 
 the mourning for Tammuz at midsummer, the lamentation over the 
 receding sun, the mourning in winter for the disappearance of vege- 
 tation, the feast of Merodach at the reappearance of vegetation in 
 spring, the various ceremonies in public worship in which healing 
 plants, amulets, and different kinds of wood and of corn play an 
 important part. Here we also find tabulated the forecasts from the 
 different sacred birds which were kept in the temples. A complete 
 explanation of the text requires a more thorough study, but we here 
 see for the first time the peculiarly astronomical significance of the 
 two chief temples of Babylon, Bit-Saggil and Bit-Zida, since heavenly 
 phenomena, such as eclipses, the revolutions and the courses of the 
 planets, are described as 'daughters of Bit-Saggil,' which at mid- 
 summer go in procession to Bit-Zida, the ' House of the Night,' in 
 order to lengthen the nights ; while conversely, the ' Daughters of 
 Bit-Zida ' go out to Bit-Saggil to lengthen the days. Whether the 
 different orientation of the Babylonian temples is connected with 
 this, perhaps those Assyriologists can tell us who have visited Baby- 
 lon. The ruins of Babel, or Mujelibah, are said to face the cardinal 
 points with their sides, not with their corners ; and on the other hand, 
 the ruins of Birs-Nimroud turn their corners to the four quarters of 
 the heavens." 
 
 The Babylonians must have been the first to draw 
 up a calendar, and not only this, but the first to mark 
 the divisions of time in a systematic manner. The 
 Greeks acknowledged that the twelve divisions of the
 
 THE STAR-GAZERS OF BABYLON. 275 
 
 day were the invention of the natives of Chaldtea, and 
 that the first instrument for recording the advance of 
 the sun through the sky, and so dividing the time into 
 equal sections that is to say, the concave sun-dial with 
 its index was introduced into the West from the banks 
 of the Euphrates. The system of intercalary months 
 kept the Babylonian year almost in accordance with the 
 progress of the sun. It is probable that the division of 
 the lunar month into periods of seven days also origi- 
 nated in Babylonia, where there are indications that a 
 sabbath, or day of rest, was observed; but these are 
 points which require further investigation. The divi- 
 sion of the hour into sixty minutes belongs to the 
 sexagesimal system of notation which was peculiar tc 
 the Babylonians. 
 
 An indirect result of the systematic observation of 
 the stars by the Babylonians was the establishment of 
 an exact chronology among them. In the first place, 
 the astrologers were obliged to date their observations 
 that they might be of use to their successors ; and in 
 the second place, one of their principal objects was to 
 connect such or such a phenomenon among the heavenly 
 bodies with such or such an event in the life of a king. 
 The result was that gradually lists of kings were drawn 
 up, with the length of their reign and the principal 
 events which happened in such and such years. Berosus, 
 in the third century before our era, seems to have had 
 access to a complete series of chronological records from 
 the very beginning of history ; they were, it may be 
 presumed, those preserved among the archives of hir 
 s 2
 
 276 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 own Temple of Bel-Merodach : the great structure named 
 Bit-Saggil. Modern researches have already succeeded 
 in discovering fragments of such records. We have 
 already considered the Assyrian lists of eponyms, first 
 made known by George Smith. Within the last ten 
 years lists of Babylonian kings have been brought to 
 light. These lists give the names of the kings in 
 proper order, and add the number of years during which 
 each monarch reigned. The Alexandrian astronomer 
 Ptolemy, or rather Hipparchus, from whom the former 
 derived his knowledge, must have had access to a similar 
 list, from which the famous Ptolemaic canon was drawn 
 up. It is now possible to compare Ptolemy's list of 
 Babylonian kings from the time of Nabonassar (B.C. 
 747) downwards with the clay tablets on which it must 
 originally have I een based ; and it is satisfactory to be 
 able to convince ourselves of the absolute authenticity 
 of a document which has until the present day been of 
 such incalculable value to chronologists.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 
 
 THE prophet Jeremiah describes for us the form in 
 which deeds of sale were drawn up in his time. He 
 says : 
 
 " Fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is deso- 
 late without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. 
 
 " Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences, arid 
 seal them, and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin, and in the 
 places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities 
 of the mountains, and in the cities of the valley, and in the cities of 
 the south : for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the Lord." 
 
 Many such deeds of sale have been discovered in 
 recent times, and are now stored up in our museums. 
 They are, of course, written upon the ordinary writing 
 material of the Babylonians : that is to say, upon clay 
 tablets, such as the prophet Ezekiel speaks of : 
 
 " Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, 
 and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem." 
 
 Such plans of towns and buildings as this which 
 was drawn upon a clay tablet by the prophet Ezekiel, 
 have been found among the cuneiform inscriptions. 
 Even as early as the time of Grudea, governor of Lagash, 
 the architects traced their plans upon tablets, and this
 
 278 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 personage himself is represented in a statue at tlie 
 Louvre, already alluded to, holding such a design of a 
 palace or fort upon his knees, with the stylus which 
 served as his instrument to mark it out upon the clay. 
 Plans of the city of Babylon itself, and of other towns 
 or buildings, have also been found. When Ezekiel 
 wrote, he was a captive in Babylonia, and naturally 
 followed the custom of the country. 
 
 Of the deeds of sale of this period, similar in form 
 to those described by Jeremiah, we find such examples 
 as the following, of the time of Evil-Merodach, the son 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, and successor of the latter upon the 
 throne of Babylon : 
 
 " A piece of land, consisting of five measures of corn-land, a field, 
 a meadow, and a palm-garden, adjoining the corn-field of Itri-Saktum, 
 in front of the gate of the Sun-god, in the suburbs of Babylon. Its 
 measurements are : 
 
 " 336 cubits on the upper western side, adjoining the property of 
 Zilla, son of Nur-Sin ; 
 
 " 339 cubits on the lower eastern side, adjoining the property of 
 Eimut-Bel, son of Bel-uballit, son of Sin-shadunu ; 
 
 " 128 cubits, 20 fingers on the upper northern side, adjoining the 
 road 
 
 " 126 cubits, 20 fingers on the lower southern side, adjoining the 
 property of Bimut, son of Nadin, son of Sin-kudurnu. 
 
 " Total : 5 measures of corn-land and 1 measure of pasture-land. 
 
 " During the years from the 32nd year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of 
 Babylon, Marduk-akhi-usur, son of Marduk-ibni, the king's officer, 
 has held the land as pledge for three manehs of silver, at the hands 
 of Ramman-nasir, son of Apia, son of the priest of Rimmon. After- 
 wards, in the second year of Evil-Merodach, king of Babylon, 
 Marduk-akhi-usur, son of Marduk-ibni, the king's officer, has declared 
 and reckoned the full value of the land as 3^ manehs, 6 shekels of 
 pure silver, and has deposited 5 shekels of silver in addition. Thg
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 279 
 
 total price, 3f manehs, 1 shekel, 3 ud of pure silver. Ramman-nasir, 
 son of Apia, son of the priest of Rimmon, has received the full price 
 of the land in silver, at the hands of Marduk-akhi-usur, son of 
 Marduk-ibni, the king's officer. 
 
 " In the presence of the Royal Scribes, in the city of Ipkida, the 
 tablet has been sealed, and Marduk-akhi-usur has paid the price. 
 
 " Witnesses : Bel-iddin, son of Sitillu, son of the chief architect ; 
 Nabu etir-napshati, son of Shamash-nasir, son of Nur-Sin ; Nabu- 
 iddin, son of Mushallim, son of the sword-bearer ; Mushezib Marduk, 
 son of Nabu-pal-iddin, son of Dabibi 
 
 " Besides the male witnesses of the tablet of Marduk-akhi-usur, 
 Saggil-namrat, daughter of Ramman-nasir, and wife of Uballit- 
 Marduk, sat as witness. 
 
 " Ramman-takul, son of Ramman-nasir, son of the priest of 
 Rimmon, has received three shekels of stamped (?) silver at the 
 hands of Marduk-akhi-usur, and sat together with the witnesses 
 
 " Scribe : Nabu-shar-usur, son of Zirutu, son of Marduk-shakin- 
 pushu. 
 
 " Babylon, month of Tammuz, 1 5th day, 2nd year of Evil- 
 Merodach, king of Babylon. 
 
 " Nail-mark of Ramman-nasir, son of Apia, son of the Priest of 
 Rimmon, in place of his seal." 
 
 We here see the legal process described by Jeremiah 
 in the words quoted above, and also in another passage 
 where the prophet says : 
 
 " I bought the field of Hanameel my uncle's son, that was in 
 Anathoth, and weighed him the money, even seventeen skekels of 
 silver. 
 
 " And I subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, 
 and weighed him the money in the balances. 
 
 " So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was 
 sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open : 
 
 " And I gave the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch the son 
 of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah, in the sight of Hanameel mine 
 uncle's sen, and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the 
 book of the purchase, before all the Jews that sat in the cou,rt of the.
 
 280 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 "And I charged Barucli before them, saying, 
 
 "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Take these 
 evidences, this evidence of the purchase, both which is sealed, and 
 this evidence which is open; and put them in an earthen vessel, that 
 they may continue many days." 
 
 The two copies of the tablet, the one " sealed " and 
 the other open, would seem to refer to the Babylonian 
 habit of enclosing some of the contract-tablets in an 
 outer case of clay, which then received impressions of 
 the cylindrical seals of the judges, and was marked with 
 a few words, to indicate the nature of the document 
 contained within. A large number of such contracts 
 in cases are now contained in the British Museum. 
 The contract cannot be read until the outer covering is 
 broken. Examples have also been found of the "earthen 
 vessels " in which legal deeds were sometimes preserved. 
 The most remarkable of these is the large clay coffer 
 which contained the finely-carved stone tablet from the 
 Temple of the Sun-god at Sippara. 
 
 The system of receiving pledges would seem to have 
 been identical among the Babylonians and among the 
 Israelites. The latter were required by their law to 
 show especial consideration for poor debtors in this 
 matter : 
 
 " When thou dost lend thy brother anything, thou shalt not go 
 into his house to fetch his pledge. 
 
 " Thou shalt stand abroad, and the man to whom thou dost lend 
 shall bring out the pledge abroad unto thee. 
 
 " And if the man be poor, thou shalt not sleep with his pledge. 
 
 " In any case, thou shalt deliver him the pledge again when the 
 sun goeth down, that he may sleep in his own raiment, and bless
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 281 
 
 thee ; and it shall be righteousness unto thee before the Lord 
 thy God." 
 
 The Babylonian contract quoted above is of the 
 reign of Evil-Merodach. This is a king of whom we 
 know very little. The Canon of Ptolemy gives his 
 name and the length of his reign : namely, two years 
 a statement entirely confirmed by the Babylonian 
 contracts, which are all carefully dated, with the year, 
 the month, and the day of the month. The historian 
 Berosus gave an account of Evil-Merodach in his 
 Greek history of Babylonia, but, as we only know the 
 latter through the extracts of Greek writers, not one 
 of whom seems to have studied the work at first hand, 
 we know little of what the learned Chaldaean priest may 
 have said ; we only hear from Josephus that the 
 monarch was a son of Nebuchadnezzar, that he reigned 
 lawlessly, and that finally he was assassinated by his 
 brother-in-law, Neriglissar, who seized upon the throne. 
 The Bible, however, has preserved for us an incident 
 in the reign of Evil-Merodach, which proves that this 
 prince had some generosity of character ; it is related 
 both by Jeremiah and by the author of the Second Book 
 of Kings. 
 
 " And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the 
 captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the 
 five and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-Merodach king of 
 Babylon in the first year of his reign lifted up the head of 
 Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison, 
 
 " And spake kindly unto him, and set his throne above the throne 
 of the kings that were with him in Babylon, 
 
 " And changed his prison garments : and he did continually eat 
 bread before him all the days of his life.
 
 282 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 "And for his diet, there was a continual diet given him of the king 
 of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the 
 days of his life." 
 
 One of the remarkable results of the immense collec- 
 tion of Babylonian contracts that have been brought 
 to England is the important aid they lend to history 
 by the absolutely authentic chronological data which 
 they afford. It is only recently that the great body 
 of these documents has been made available to students 
 through the publication of a full series of contracts, 
 arranged according to their dates, by Father Strassmaier. 
 In contemplating this work, the labours on Babylonian 
 astronomy and other results of research among the cunei- 
 form inscriptions, we are reminded of the words of Lord 
 Bacon in the seventeenth century, only sixty-six years 
 after the foundation of the Society, that " the Jesuits, 
 partly in themselves and partly by the emulation and 
 provocation of their example, have much quickened and 
 strengthened the state of learning." The chronological 
 results, then, of the Babylonian contracts have con- 
 firmed in a remarkable manner the dates given by the 
 Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy, in his Canon. It will 
 be remembered that the Ptolemaic Canon gives the 
 number of years during which each Babylonian king 
 reigned, from Nabonassar (B.C. 747) to Nabonidus ; 
 then the length of the rule of the Persian kings who 
 had conquered Babylon, from Cyrus to Darius Codo- 
 manus ; then the dates of Alexander, his half-brother, 
 his son, and his successors in the kingdom of Egypt, 
 from Ptolemy Lagi to Cleopatra; lastly, of the Roman
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 253 
 
 emperors to Antoninus Pius. The latter part of his 
 chronology had long ago been confirmed from manifold 
 sources; the first portion has, as we have seen, recently 
 been verified by the newly-discovered lists of Babylonian 
 kings on clay tablets. That part, however, which 
 refers to the Babylonian monarchs from Nabopolassar 
 to Nabonidus has most remarkably been supported by 
 the recently published contract tablets, all carefully 
 dated, which have been found in such numbers that 
 there is one for almost every month of the period to 
 which reference has just been made, and often many for 
 each month. 
 
 The names of these Babylonian months are, of 
 course, the same which were borrowed by the Jews 
 after the 'Babylonish captivity, and which we find 
 employed in those books of the Bible that were written 
 after that epoch : Nisan, lyyar, Si van, Tarn muz, Ab, 
 Elul, Tishri, Marchesvan, Chisleu, Tebet, Shebat, 
 Adar. 
 
 It may easily be understood how valuable the 
 chronological results of the contracts are for periods of 
 which we have but little other information, as, for 
 example, for the reign of Evil-Merodach, already spoken 
 of. This sovereign was succeeded by his sister's 
 husband, Neriglissar, who, as we find from the Canon 
 of Ptolemy and from the contracts, reigned for nearly 
 four years. The name Neriglissar is a Greek corruption 
 of the Babylonian Nergal-shar-usur, which appears in 
 the Bible as Nergalsharezer, the appellation of two 
 Babylonian princes, in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar :
 
 284 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, 
 the ninth day of the month, the city [of Jerusalem] was broken up. 
 
 " And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in and sat 
 in the middle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-Nebo, Sarsechim, 
 Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-Mag, with all the residue of the 
 princes of the king of Babylon." 
 
 It seems highly probable that this very prince, 
 whose name appears first in the list, may have been the 
 same who married Nebuchadnezzar's daughter, and 
 finally succeeded Evil-Merodach upon the throne of 
 the kingdom. The name means, " Nergal defends 
 the king." A certain Nergal-shar-usur, son of Bel- 
 shum-ishkun, appears constantly in the deeds of the 
 time of Evil-Merodach and Nebuchadnezzar as a per- 
 sonage of great importance in the State and of much 
 wealth, whose pecuniary transactions are always carried 
 on by means of intermediary agents ; he is also thought 
 to be the prince who afterwards, through an act of 
 treachery already alluded to, became king of Babylon. 
 The name of the god Nergal, which appears as an 
 element in the name of this monarch, will be remem- 
 bered as that of the divinity whose worship was 
 introduced into Samaria by some of the foreign 
 colonists brought into that country after its conquest 
 by Shalmaneser and Sargon, kings of Assyria. 
 
 "Every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the 
 houses of the high places, which the Samaritans had made, every 
 nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. 
 
 " And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of 
 Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima." 
 
 Nergal was the god of the infernal regions ; he was
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 285 
 
 a sort of Pluto. One of the most remarkable documents 
 found with the letters in the Babylonian language at 
 Tell el-Amarna is a fragment of a mythological legend 
 referring to Nergal and to his wife, Eresh-kigal, the 
 Babylonian Proserpine. This text is very carefully 
 spelt out in phonetic characters, and may possibly have 
 served as a reading-book for the study of the Baby- 
 lonian language among some members of the Egyptian 
 royal family or court ; or perhaps one of the North 
 Mesopotamian princesses who were sent as wives to 
 the Pharaoh brought it with her from her own country, 
 where Babylonian was not the native language, but was 
 certainly the medium of literary expression and of 
 communication with other parts of Western Asia. The 
 text in question is the first to show us the true pro- 
 nunciation of the name of the goddess Eresh-kigal, 
 which has hitherto been read as Nin-kigal. Eresh-kigal 
 is her Accadian name ; her Assyrian appellation is 
 Allatu. It will be remembered that this same goddess 
 appears as ruler of the infernal regions in the celebrated 
 Assyrian poem known as " The Descent of Tshtar into 
 Hades," in which the queen of the dead is represented 
 as the implacable enemy of the goddess of love, whom 
 she strips of her ornaments, and detains in the depths 
 of hell until the rest of the gods release the captive 
 divinity. In the legend discovered with the Tell el- 
 Amarna tablets the Queen of Hades is described as 
 entering the realm of her husband, perhaps for the first 
 time, for she was most u.ikindly treated at first, after 
 she had passed twice seven gates.
 
 286 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " ' Behold, I am Allatu ! ' They seized her ; they took Eresh- 
 
 kigal into the midst of the house They were about to 
 
 strike her head against the ground. ' Slay me not, my brother ; let 
 me speak a word ! ' The god Nergal listened to her ; he put forth 
 his hand ; he wept ; he embraced her. ' Be thou my husbaucl and 
 I will be thy wife, and will cause thee to obtain dominion over the 
 wide earth, and will place a written tablet of wisdom in thy hand ; 
 thou shalt be lord and I will be lady.' The god Nergal listened to 
 her words ; he embraced her, he kissed her, and wiped away her 
 tears. ' Whomsoever thou desirest ... I will slay.' " 
 
 After the deatli of Neriglissar, or Nergal-sharezer, 
 his son became king. The new monarch was a mere 
 child, named Labashi-Marduk, or, in the much corrupted 
 form given by Joseph us, Laborosoarchod. In Eusebius 
 a more correct form is preserved : namely, Labassoar- 
 ascus. This unfortunate youth is said by Berosus 
 to have given proof that he would exhibit bad qualities 
 as a ruler, and therefore he was assassinated, under 
 circumstances of cruelty, by a body of conspirators. 
 The length of his reign is stated by Josephus, quoting 
 at second or third hand from Berosus, to have been nine 
 months. The Canon of Ptolemy does not give his 
 name, because for the astronomical purposes for which 
 this list was drawn up it was useless to mention reigns 
 that lasted for less than a year ; and accordingly, we 
 do not find Laborosoarchod any more than we meet 
 with the Roman emperors Galba, Otho, or Vitellius, 
 or, at an earlier epoch, with the Pseudo-Smerdis, who 
 reigned for some months over Persia. The Babylonian 
 contracts, however, appear to indicate that the reign of 
 the youthful son of Neriglissar was confined to the
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 287 
 
 short space of two months, between his father's death, 
 in the month of Nisan, and the accession of the leader 
 of the conspirators, Nabonidus, in the month of Sivan. 
 The seventeen years' reign of Nabonidus, the last native 
 king 1 of Babylon, are very fully represented by docu- 
 ments bearing the date of nearly every month during 
 which he ruled. 
 
 On the disappearance of the native dynasty, the 
 Babylonian scribes began to date their legal documents 
 by the year of the Persian kings, whom they entitled 
 " king of Babylon and king of the world." Thus we 
 have a full series of such texts for the reign of Cyrus, 
 Cambyses, and Darius Hystaspis. Through the 
 chances of disco veiy, rather than through the actual 
 want of inscriptions, probably still buried beneath the 
 soil of Babylonia, few contracts of the period subsequent 
 to Darius have at present been brought to Europe. 
 There is a small number known, however, of the time 
 of Xerxes : one, for instance, which refers to some 
 corn, the property of a lady named Artim, the foster- 
 mother or nurse of the "king's daughter," Ittakhshakh: 
 a name possibly corresponding to Atossa, which was 
 the appellation of the mother of Xerxes, and may, not 
 improbably, have been also borne by his daughter or 
 sister. We possess, moreover, a few contracts of the 
 time of Artaxerxes Longimanus ; then there is a gap in 
 the series ; but of later reigns we have a small number 
 belonging respectively to the times of Alexander ; his 
 half-brother, Philip Arrhidseusj his son, Alexander the 
 Younger, and some of his successors on the throne of
 
 288 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Syria and Babylonia : Seleucus, Antiochus, Demetrius. 
 Finally, we arrive at the Parthian period. 
 
 Some of the Babylonian contracts bear names of 
 kings who are at present represented by few or no other 
 monuments ; for instance, besides Evil-Merodach and 
 Laborosoarchod, Sin-shar-ishkun, the last king of 
 Assyria, called by Berosus Saracus, whose name appears 
 in the following document : 
 
 " 30 talents of reeds, the property of the Sun-god, due from 
 Shamash-epush, Bel-ibni, and Shamash-aplu. . . . They shall 
 pay ... as interest. In the month of Adar they shall pay 
 their debt. They act as guarantee for one another. 
 
 "Witnesses: Nabu-bel-shanati, son of the priest of Nana; Ikisha, 
 son of Rabu, son of Addaru ; . son of the Smith. Scribe : 
 
 Kidini, son of the Smith. 
 
 " Sippara, month of Sivan, 25th day, 2nd year of Sin-shar-ishkun, 
 king of Assyria." 
 
 The predecessor of Saracus, Ashur-etil-ili, son of 
 Sardanapalus, also appears in some contracts recently 
 discovered during the American excavations at Niffer, 
 on the site of the ancient Babylonian city of Nippuru. 
 
 These contracts that have been described are all of 
 comparatively late date ; but there actually exist a 
 number of far more ancient documents of the same 
 class. The British Museum possesses a large number 
 of such texts, bearing the date of various years in the 
 reign of Khammurabi, king of Babylon, identified, 
 although without certainty, with Amraphel, king of 
 Shinar, who, in company with Chedorlaomer, king of 
 Elam, fought against Abraham in the land of Canaan. 
 The epoch of Khammurabi must be set about B.C.
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS, 289 
 
 2200 ; he reigned, as Nabonidus tells us in an inscrip- 
 tion already quoted, seven hundred years before Burna- 
 buryash, some of whose letters are found among the 
 Tell el-Amarna tablets. 
 
 Let us examine some of the contents of the Baby- 
 lonian law-deeds. A sale of land has already been 
 quoted, drawn up, according to Jeremiah's description, 
 with the names of the witnesses and the impressions 
 of the seals of the judges. The seller of the land, 
 according to a very common custom, made the 
 impression of his nail in the damp clay, instead of 
 stamping it with his seal ; such nail-marks are con- 
 stantly seen in these legal deeds on the edge of the 
 tablet, where they form a semicircular indentation. The 
 names of women rarely appear as witnesses, but in this 
 case there is one, who is described as sitting in court, 
 to add her testimony to the proceedings. 
 
 The Babylonians measured land by reeds and cubits, 
 and these were the measures used by the Jews at the 
 time of the captivity. Ezekiel says : 
 
 " Behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in 
 the man's hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and 
 an hand breadth ; so he measured the breadth of the building one 
 reed, and the height one reed." 
 
 After this, Ezekiel gives all the measurements of the 
 temple and of its court in reeds and cubits. These are 
 the same measurements that we find in the Babylonian 
 contracts : only in the latter the reed is equivalent to 
 seven cubits. The following document refers to a sale 
 of land : 
 T
 
 290 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " Four reeds, one cubit, eight fingers [of land], the property of 
 Marduk-shakin-shum, son of Marduk-shum-usur, son of Shigua, 
 worth 2| manehs, If shekel of silver, according to the valuation; 
 together with 10 garments and 2 reeds 6| cubits [of land], the 
 property of Kurbanni-Marduk, son of Sazutu, son of Dakhar, worth 
 1 maneh, 1\ shekels, are sold to Nergal-shar-usur, son of Bel-shura- 
 ishkun, for their full price : namely, 2f manehs, If shekel of silver, 
 to Marduk-shakin-shum, as the price of his land, and 1 maneh, 
 7i shekels of silver, to Kurbanni-Marduk, as the price of his land. 
 By the direction of Nergal shai--usur, the money has been paid by 
 Nabu-akhi-iddin, son of Gula, son of Egibi. 
 
 " Witnesses : Nabu-aplu-iddin, son of Itti-Marduk-balatu, son of 
 Shanashishu ; Bimut-Bel-ilani, son of Nabu-kishir, son of Zazakku; 
 Nabu-belshunu, son of Bel-akhi-irba, son of Ukkai. 
 
 " Scribe : Damuk, son of Rirnut-Bel, son of the Ashlaku. 
 
 "Babylon, month of Tebet, 9th day, 1st year of Evil-Merodach, 
 King of Babylon." 
 
 Many of these legal documents contain the enumera- 
 tion of the objects given as dowries on the occasion of 
 a marriage, and are, in fact, marriage settlements. 
 Money, land, slaves, and property in other forms were 
 given by the Babylonians, with their daughters, to 
 their sons-in-law, as we see in the following case : 
 
 " Marduk-shar-usur, son of Nabu-etir, of his free will gives 5 
 manehs of silver, 3 slaves, 30 sheep, two oxen, and the rent of a 
 house, with his daughter, Hibta, as dowry, to Nabu-bani-ziru, son of 
 Bel-uballit, son of Dannia. Nabu-bani-ziru has received the dowry 
 at the hands of Marduk-shar-usur. 
 
 " Witnesses : Kudur, son of ... son of Diki ; Mushezib- 
 Marduk, son of Apia, son of the priest of Adar; Siriktum, son of 
 Ith-Marduk-Balatu, son of Sin-damik. 
 
 " Scribe : Nabu-zir-irasshi, son of Nabu-nasir, son of Bel-aplu-usur. 
 
 " Babylon, month of Elul, 6th day, 1st year of Neriglissar, king 
 of Babylon." 
 
 In other documents we see certificates of betrothal
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS, 291 
 
 or marriage, as in the following, in which the king, 
 Neriglissar, seems to have promised his daughter to a 
 priest attached to the great temple of Bit-Zulu the 
 " Tower of Babel " as we have seen above. The 
 tablet is unfortunately mutilated : - 
 
 " Nabu-shum-ukin, priest of Nebo, keeper (1) of the Temple of 
 Bit-Zida, son of Shiriktum, son of Isde-ilani-danau, says to Nerig- 
 lissar, king of Babylon: 'Give thy virgin daughter, Gi/itum, in 
 marriage ; let her be my wife.' Neriglissar, king of Babylon [says] 
 to Nabu-shum-ukin, priest of Nebo, keeper of the Temple of Bit- 
 Zida. . . . 
 
 " [Witnesses : . . . ] son of Nalm-iddiu . . . son of 
 Nabu-shar-usur, the judge. 
 
 " Scribe : Nabu-shuin, son of Ina. 
 
 " Babylon, month of Nisan, 1st day, 1st year of Neriglissar, king 
 of Babylon." Copy of the Temple of Bit-Zida. 
 
 We have already observed that slaves were some- 
 times given as part of a dowry, and many others of the 
 Babylonian contracts refer to the sale of slaves, and 
 illustrate the manner in which this class of persons 
 were dealt with on the banks of the Euphrates. For 
 example : 
 
 "Belilitum, daughter of Bel-ushezib, son of Shanashishu, of her 
 own free will, sells Bazuzu her slave for -J maneh, 5 shekels of silver, 
 being the full price, to Nabu-akhi idclin, son of Simla, son of Egibi, 
 'ubject to the chances of esca]>e, legal complaints, compulsory royal 
 service, and adoption, which may occur to Bazuzu. Etillu, son of 
 Balatsu, son of Dannia, acts as guarantee for Belilitum ; the one is 
 responsible for the other. 
 
 "Witnesses: N aid-Bel, son of Shamash-akh-iddin, son of Nabu- 
 sheme ; Bel-akhi-iddin, son of Takis-Gula, son of Sigua ; Sakin-dunpa 
 son of Marduk-nasir, son of the priest of the God. 
 
 " Scribe : Bel-kasir, son of Bel-rimanni, son of Babutu. 
 
 rn O
 
 292 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 "Babylon, month of Ab, 3rd day, 1st year of Neriglissar, king of 
 Babylon." 
 
 Sometimes a whole family of slaves are sold together; 
 and this would lead us to suppose that the Babylonians 
 were more humane in their treatment of these living- 
 articles of commerce than some modern nations, which 
 were in the habit of parting husbands from their wives 
 and mothers from their children when it was more 
 profitable to sell them separately. Ardiya sold Nabu- 
 dinu-epush, with his wife and daughter, to another for 
 the price of two- thirds of a maneh, or forty shekels ; 
 and in the following document we read of another 
 family who were sold together. Their owner was the 
 son of a priest; and this is one among many proofs of 
 the wealth of the ministers of the gods in ancient 
 Chaldaea. 
 
 "Bel-akhi-iddin and Nabu-akhi-bullit, sons of Saggil-shum-ibni, 
 son of Sin-damaku, and Riniat, their mother, daughter of Shuzubu, 
 son of the priest of the shrine, of their own free-will, sell Nabu-edu- 
 usur, Banitum-umma, his wife, Kisrinni and Gimilinni : in all four 
 slaves, for 2 manehs of silver, being the full price, to Nabu-akhi-iddin, 
 son of Shula, son of Egibi, subject to the chances of escape, legal 
 complaint, and adoption of the slaves as sons or daughters. 
 
 " The sellers guarantee one another. 
 
 "Witnesses: Nabu-bani-akhu, son of Shuzubu, son of the priest 
 of the shrine ;...., son of Marduk-nasir, son of the priest 
 of the god ; Marduk-ikisanni, son of Baniya, son of Kassadi ; Tabik- 
 ziru, son of Nergal-ushallim, son of Sin-karabi-isme ; Bel-iddin, son 
 of Bel-ushallim, son of the priest of Zariku : Ramman-ibni, son of 
 Zariku-zir-ibni, son of the priest of Zariku. 
 
 " Scribe : Rimut, son of Nabu-shum-ishkun, son of. ... 
 
 "Babylon, month of Elul, 16th day, year of accession of Nerig- 
 lissar, king of Babylon."
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF TEE BABYLONIANS. 291 
 
 It will be noticed tliat the adoption of slaves as 
 sons is spoken of in these deeds of sale. This usage 
 has been thought to correspond to the Israelitish custom 
 of adopting slaves, who were called " sons of the 
 house," * as in Jeremiah ii. 14. The Babylonian 
 slaves could also own property, as we see from the 
 following document, among others : 
 
 " 2 shekels' weight of silver, the property of Nabu-kin-akhu, the 
 slave, son of Iddin Marduk, are lent to Rimut, son of Nirgal-shuin- 
 iddin. He shall repay the principal of the silver. . . 
 
 " Witnesses : Sula, son of Bel-zir-ibni ; Kidini, son of Ramman- 
 magubbu. 
 
 " Babylon, month of Tammuz, 15th day, 1st year of Xeriglissar, 
 king of Babylon." 
 
 We have spoken of the wealth of the priests, and 
 many of the Babylonian contracts which come from 
 Sippara bear witness to the large property possessed 
 by the great Temple of the Sun-god in that city, to 
 which allusion has been made in the last chapter. The 
 property is represented as belonging to the god himself. 
 It must have consisted largely of land, which was 
 farmed out, a portion of the produce being regularly 
 paid to the priests, as we see in this text : 
 
 " Shamash-namir, son of Dihummu, swears by Bel, Nebo, the 
 Sun-god Nergal, and the laws of Neriglissar, king, of Babylon, to 
 Nabu-balatu-eresh, the custodian of the Temple of the Sun-god : 
 ' When the month of Tyyar is ended, I will pay to thee the portions 
 of corn which are due from me, and the remainder I will procure (?) 
 and pay to thee in the month of Tishri.' 
 
 " Witnesses : Nabu-naid, son of Bel-epush, son of Mushezib ; 
 
 * See " Zeitschrif t fur Assyriologie," Vol. V., p. 27.
 
 294 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Balatu, son of Irba ; Khar-ibni, son of Bel-piya-ukin, the priest ; 
 Shamash-nasir, son of Siriktum, son of the Fowler. 
 
 " Sippara, month of Tebet, 10th day, 2nd year of Neriglissar, 
 king of Eridu." 
 
 We know how much use the ancient and the modern 
 Babylonians have made of the fruit of the palm-tree, 
 both for food and drink ; consequently, dates are one of 
 the forms of produce that were most frequently paid by 
 the tenants of the Sun-god. 
 
 " Dates fully ripe .... the property of the Sun-god, 
 paid by Shugubbu to the Temple of the Sun-god. 
 
 " Month of Tebet, 4th day, 2nd year of Neriglissar, king of 
 Babylon." 
 
 Besides the fruit of their own land, the Babylonian 
 priests received the payment of tithe as regularly as 
 the Jewish priests. 
 
 " Dates, in payment of tithe, delivered by Nadin to the Temple 
 of the Sun-god. 
 
 "Month of Chisleu, 28th day, accession year of Evil-Merodach, 
 king of Babylon." 
 
 Sometimes we catch a glimpse of the mode in which 
 the priests employed their wealth. The temples of sun- 
 dried or partly of kiln-baked bricks were often falling 
 into ruin and had to be restored ; it was especially im- 
 portant to keep the lofty tower, from which the obser- 
 vations of the stars were made, in good condition. 
 
 " 3 shekels of silver, from the treasury of Gula, are paid to the 
 Temple of the Sun-god, for the work of the Tower. 
 
 " In the presence of Mushezib-Marduk, son of Nabu-nibshari. 
 
 "Month of Tishri, 3rd day, 2nd year of Neriglissar, king of 
 Babvlon."
 
 LEGAL DEEDS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 295 
 
 Many of the contracts refer to the sales of houses or 
 to the rent due for them from the tenant to the ow.ier. 
 For instance : 
 
 " 4 manehs of silver, the property of Shum-usur, son of Nur-ea, 
 son of Mastukku, are due from Tabik-ziru, son of Marduk-usur, son 
 of Da-Marduk. For his house which adjoins , and also 
 
 adjoins the house of Rimut-Be], son of Zirya, son of Misirai, and the 
 house of Zirya, son of Bel-eteru, the rent is wanting ; the weight of 
 silver is wanting ; the house has been in the possession of Iddin- 
 akhu as a pledge for 3 years. The bare places on the walls shall be 
 renewed, the cracks shall be filled up. After 3 years, silver to the 
 amount of 4 manehs shall be paid by Tabik-ziru to Iddin akhu, and 
 the latter shall quit the house ; the rent of the chamber of the ser- 
 vant shall also be brought by Tabik-Ziru : every door that Iddin- 
 akhu has brought into the house of Tabik-ziru shall be taken out. 
 
 "Witnesses: Marduk-kin-aplu, son of Kiribtu, son of Da-Marduk, 
 Labashi, son of Nabu-nasir, son of Abi-ul-idi ; Nabu-etir, son of 
 Nurea, son of Mastukku, the priest of Nabu-sabik-ilani, son of Nabu- 
 kin-aplu, son of Da-Marduk. 
 
 " Babylon, month of Ab, 4th day, 2nd year of Evil-Merodach, 
 King of Babylon." 
 
 Or again : 
 
 "The house of Nabu-shum-ukin, son of Shamash-shakin-shum, 
 which he has built npon the land of Nabu-bel-shanati. On the east 
 is a house ; in front of it is a house ; on the side is a house. It, 
 with its courtyard, is let to Sikkuti, daughter of Bel-ushallim, for a 
 habitation, according to the tablet, at the yearly rent of 2 J shekels of 
 silver. 
 
 " She shall repair the breaches and renew the bare places. 
 
 " At the beginning of the year she shall pay half the rent ; at the 
 end of the year she shall pay the rest. 
 
 " Witnesses : Bel-usallim, son of Nabu-irassi, son of Ramman- 
 samme ; Rimut, son of Nirgal-uballit, son of the Potter. 
 
 " Scribe : Apia, son of Nabu-shum-iskun. 
 
 " Sippara, month of Tebet, 20th day, 1st year of Neriglissar, King 
 of Babvlou "
 
 296 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 In this last document we Lave an example of a house 
 let to a tenant who is bound to keep it in repair; she 
 makes the agreement to restore the dilapidated brick- 
 work and to renew the fallen plaster on the walls. At 
 the present day a heavy fall of rain will often do much 
 damage to an Oriental house, built after the manner of 
 the native architects. 
 
 The system of mortgages was general among the 
 Babylonians : 
 
 "12 manehs of silver, the property of the king's son, lent, through 
 Nabu-sabit-kata, the majordomo of the king's son, to Shum-ukin, 
 son of Mushallim-ilu. In the month of Nisan he shall pay back the 
 principal of the silver to the amount of 12 manehs. His whole 
 property in town and country is mortgaged to the King's son. No 
 other creditor shall make claims upon this until the debtor has 
 delivered the silver to Nabu-sabit-kata. ISTabu-akhi-iddin, son of 
 Sula, son of Egibi, guarantees the payment of the silver. 
 
 " Witnesses : Shamash-uballit, son of Ikisa ; Kalba, son of Bel- 
 eresh. 
 
 " Scribe : Bel-Akhi-ikisa, son of Bel-etir. 
 
 "Babylon, month of Elul, 10th day, 2nd year of Neriglissar, 
 King of Babylon." 
 
 Many of the Babylonian contracts refer to money 
 lent at interest. For instance : 
 
 " 2f manehs, 6 shekels of silver, the property of Nabu-shum-usur, 
 son of Marduk, son of Epesh-ilu, are lent to Nabu-akhi-iddin, son of 
 Sula, son of Egibi. 
 
 " Every month he shall pay as interest upon [this money] one 
 shekel per maneh. 
 
 " Witnesses : Marduk . . . . , son of Baniya, son of Marduk 
 . . . . j Mushezib-Marduk, son of Kudur, son of. ... 
 
 " Scribe : Nabu-akhi-iddin, son of Sula, son of Egibi. 
 
 "Babylon, month of Marchesvan, 30th day, 1st year of Neri- 
 glissar, King of Babylon."
 
 LEGAL DEELS OF THE BABYLONIANS. 297 
 
 But perhaps the largest number of the Babylonian 
 contracts are simply bills, containing receipts or not. 
 The articles which have most frequently been found 
 recorded up to the present time as bought and sold by 
 the merchants of Babylon are corn, vegetables, sesame, 
 dates occasionally palm- wine or oil. Many lists of 
 objects have been found which formed part of the 
 property of a temple, or were given to it as tribute. 
 Sometimes these are animals for sacrifice, or food for the 
 maintenance of priests and workmen, or woven stuffs. 
 Many lists of amounts of wool and metal are found 
 which were handed over to workmen for the purpose of 
 manufacture.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 
 
 UNDOUBTEDLY, one of the important results already 
 obtained from the study of the native chronicles of 
 Babylon is the establishment, on grounds apart from 
 the question of the authenticity of the Book of 
 Daniel, of the historical character of Belshazzar. 
 The name of this prince had always been a puzzle 
 to commentators and historians. The only native 
 authority on Babylonian history Berosus did not 
 appear to have mentioned such a person, so far as could 
 be gathered from the second or third-hand quotations of 
 Greek writers, such as the Jew Josephus and the Chris- 
 tian Eusebius : both anxious to confirm the accuracy of 
 the Book of Daniel. 
 
 According to the extracts from the work of Berosus 
 preserved for us in the writings of these authors, the 
 following is the history of the last King of Babylon. 
 His name was Nabonidus, or Nabonnedus, and he first 
 appears as the leader of a band of conspirators who 
 determined to bring about a change in the government. 
 The throne was then occupied by the youthful Laboro- 
 soarchod (for this is the corrupt Greek form of the Baby- 
 lonian Labashi-Marduk), who was the son of Neriglissar,
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 299 
 
 and therefore, through his mother, the grandson of the 
 great Nebuchadnezzar; but, in spite of his tender age, 
 the new sovereign, who had only succeeded his father 
 two months before, had already given proof of a bad 
 disposition. We are not told, in these very probably 
 imperfect extracts from Berosus, whether Nabonidus was 
 connected, by marriage or otherwise, with the reigning 
 house, as the Book of Daniel and Herodotus would have 
 us believe ; we are simply informed that he took the 
 lead in the plot laid against the life of Laborosoarchod, 
 and that when the designs of the conspirators had been 
 carried out, they appointed Nabonidus king in the room 
 of the youthful son of Neriglissar. The love* of building 
 shown by the new sovereign of which we possess so 
 many proofs in the cuneiform inscriptions describing his 
 restoration of ancient temples is reflected in the state- 
 ment of Berosus that in this reign the embankment along 
 the River Euphrates was constructed of bricks and bitu- 
 men. We next hear that in the seventeenth year of Na- 
 bonidus, Cyras, who had already conquered the rest of 
 Asia, marched upon Babylon. The native forces met the 
 Persians in battle, but were put to flight, with their king 
 at their head, and took refuge behind the ramparts of Bor- 
 sippa. Cyrus thereupon entered Babylon, we are told, 
 and threw down her walls. The last statement, how- 
 ever, we cannot believe, since there is no allusion to such 
 a proceeding in the cuneiform inscriptions ; and in 
 the time of Darius we find the walls still standing, 
 until the latter king destroyed them in part, as a punish- 
 ment for the rebellion of which the inhabitants of the
 
 300 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 city had been guilty. After Cyrus had thus taken pos- 
 session of the capital, Nabonidus surrendered himself to 
 the conqueror. The captive monarch was kindly treated, 
 and life was granted to him on condition that he would 
 consent to reside in the province of Carmania, at a dis- 
 tance from his own country ; it was in that region that 
 he died. 
 
 The historian Herodotus although his account of 
 the conquests of Cyrus is in many respects so full says 
 little about the affairs of Babylonia at the time of the 
 Persian invasion. He tells us, however, that the name 
 of the native sovereign who was overcome by the great 
 conqueror was Labynetus, and this is evidently the same 
 name as Nabonidus, or Nabonnedus. Labynetus, says 
 Herodotus, was not only the name borne by the last 
 native king of Babylon, but it was also that of his 
 father, the prince who, many years before, had made a 
 treaty with the Lydians, and whose wife, Nitocris, had 
 done much to beautify the capital city. This earlier 
 Labynetus of Herodotus is evidently Nebuchadnezzar, 
 whose name, indeed, begins with the same element 
 as Nabonidus that is to say, the name of the 
 god Nebo. The works which Herodotus attributes 
 to Nitocris were in reality those of her husband, 
 Labynetus or Nebuchadnezzar if, indeed, this princess 
 be an historical personage at all. It is interesting, how- 
 ever, that Herodotus states that the last king of Babylon 
 was the son of the great Nebuchadnezzar to give that 
 monarch his true name for in so doing he bears out, so 
 far as his testimony is of any value, the words of the
 
 302 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Book of Daniel, which not only calls Belshazzar son of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, but also introduces the wife of the 
 latter monarch as being the mother of the ill-fated 
 'prince who closed the long line of native rulers. 
 
 Such being the only testimony of secular writers, 
 there was no alternative but to identify Belshazzar with 
 Nabonidus or Labynetus, the last king of Babylon, 
 according to the extracts from Berosus, whose history, 
 it must be repeated, does not seem to have been actually 
 seen by any of the authors of ancient works now extant. 
 Berosus was, in this particular, borne out by the cele- 
 brated Canon of Ptolemy, already spoken of, the 
 accuracy of which there was every reason to believe. 
 Yet the name Nabonidus stood in no sort of relation 
 to that of Belshazzar; and the identification of the 
 two personages was, undoubtedly, both arbitrary and 
 difficult. 
 
 The cuneiform inscriptions brought to Europe from 
 the site of Babylon and other ancient cities of Chaldsea 
 soon changed the aspect of the problem. The historical 
 extracts, given by Josephus and Eusebius, from the 
 annals composed by the priests of Bel, were indeed fully 
 confirmed, and the Canon of Ptolemy retained its repu- 
 tation for accuracy. Nabonidus, or, in the native form, 
 Nabu na'id, that is to say, " Nebo exalts," is the name 
 given to the last native king of Babylon in the con- 
 temporary records inscribed on clay. This monarch, 
 however, was found to speak of his eldest son as bearing 
 the very name preserved in the Book of Daniel, and 
 hitherto known to us from that source alone. The
 
 THE LAST DATS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 303 
 
 following is one of the inscriptions in which the name 
 occurs ; it was discovered in four copies inscribed on 
 clay cylinders, which were in receptacles constructed 
 to contain them at the four corners of the platform 
 which supported the great temple of the Moon-god, at 
 Mukeyyer identified, as we have already seen, with Ur 
 of the Chaldees. This temple is one of the many 
 sanctuaries restored by Nabonidus : 
 
 " I am Nabonidus, king of Babylon, maintainer of the temples of 
 Bit-Saggil and Bit-Zida, worshipper of the great gods. 
 
 " The temples of . . . , the tower of Egish-shir-gal, in the 
 city of Ur, were built but not completed, by Ur-Uk, the ancient 
 king ; Dungi, his son, completed his work. I found it recorded in 
 the inscriptions of Ur-Uk and of Dungi his son, that Ur-Uk had 
 built that tower but had not completed it ; and that Dungi, his son, 
 had completed his work. 
 
 " In my days that temple had become old. Upon the ancient 
 foundation which Ur-Uk and Dungi, his son, had built, I undertook 
 to erect that tower anew with bricks and bitumen,* as in former 
 times ; and I founded it and built it to the glory of the Moon-god, 
 Lord of the gods of heaven and earth, king of the gods, god of the 
 gods who inhabit the great heavens, lord of the temple of E-gish- 
 shir-gal, in the city of Ur. 
 
 " O Moon-god, lord of the gods, king of the gods of heaven and 
 earth, god of the gods who inhabit the great heavens ; when thou 
 enterest joyfully into this temple, may a blessing for the temples of 
 thy great godhead, Bit-Saggil, Bit-Zida, and E-gish-shir-gal, be upon 
 thy lips ; and set the fear of thy great godhead in the hearts of the 
 people, that they may not sin against thy great godhead. Let the 
 foundations of the temples stand firm, like the heavens. 
 
 " Save me, Nabonidus, who am king of Babylon, from sinning 
 against thy great godhead, and give me a life of long days, as a 
 gift. 
 
 * Or " slime," as the Authorised Version says, in the account of the 
 building of the Tower of Babel.
 
 304 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " Set the fear of thy great godhead in the heart of Belshazzar, 
 my firstborn son, my own offspring ; and let him not commit sin, in 
 order that he may enjoy the fulness of life." 
 
 The name which the Hebrew writer gives us in the 
 form Belshazzar is, in its native Babylonian form, Bel- 
 shar-usur, and signifies "Bel protects the king." It 
 occurs also in some of the legal deeds of the reign of 
 Nabonidus. A passage, resembling that just quoted, 
 is found in a longer inscription of the same period, also 
 discovered among the ruins of Ur; but the clay cylinder 
 is mutilated at that particular part where the words 
 referring to Belshazzar are written. We are able to see, 
 however, that Nabonidus is here concluding his prayer 
 to the Moon-god with a similar petition in favour of his 
 firstborn son : 
 
 " Belshazzar, my firstborn son . . . lengthen his days ; let 
 him not commit sin. . . ." 
 
 These passages provide us, in an unexpected manner, 
 with the name which had hitherto been known from 
 the Book of Daniel, and from that document alone ; but 
 we were still in the dark as to the reason which could 
 have induced the author to represent Belshazzar as king 
 of Babylon. The prince was indeed the eldest son of 
 his father, but there was no occasion for inferring from 
 the Babylonian records that he ever became king or 
 exercised kingly power. On the contrary, the cylinder 
 from Babylon, bearing a record of Cyrus, which was 
 discovered in 1880, harmonised with the statements of 
 Berosus in showing that Nabonidus was the monarch 
 whom the Persians overthrew ; some lines from this
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 305 
 
 document have already been quoted above in the history 
 of the ruin of the great city, in order to show in what 
 manner the conqueror was received by his new subjects. 
 A few more words may be cited here : 
 
 " I am Cyrus, king of multitudes, the great king, the mighty king, 
 king of Babylon, king of Shumir and Accad, king of the four regions 
 [that is to say, the four quarters of the world, north, south, east, and 
 west], son of Cambyses, the great king, king of Anshan, grandson of 
 Tei'spes, the great king, king of Anshan, the eternal seed of the 
 kingdom, whose rule is favoured by Bel and Nebo, whose lordship is 
 desired by them for the joy of their hearts. 
 
 " When I entered in peace into Babylon, I joyfully took up my 
 abode in the royal palace. 
 
 "My far-extending armies spread themselves out peacefully 
 through the city of Babylon. I allowed no adversary to trouble the 
 men of Shumir and Accad ; I provided for their welfare in Babylon 
 and in all their cities. 
 
 "All the kings who dwell in all the regions from the upper sea 
 to the lower sea [that is to say, from the Mediterranean to the Persian 
 Gulf], the kings of Syria .... brought their heavy tribute, 
 and kissed my feet within the city of Babylon. 
 
 " The gods of Shumir and Accad, whom Nabonidus, in spite of 
 the wrath of the lord of the gods, had taken away to Shuanna, I 
 restored to their places by the command of Merodach, the lord of the 
 gods, and placed them in seats that delighted their hearts. 
 
 " May all the gods whom I have restored to their own cities 
 daily announce before Bel and Nebo the length of my days, and 
 pronounce words of blessing upon me." 
 
 Nabonidus, then, was the last king of Babylon, and 
 was overthrown by Cyrus, in accordance with the account 
 of Berosus and the allusion of Herodotus.
 
 306 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 In 1882 a cuneiform inscription was for the first 
 time interpreted and published by Mr. Pinches ; it had 
 been disinterred among the ruins of Babylon by Mr. 
 Hormuzd Rassam. This document proved to contain 
 the annals of the king whose fate we have just been 
 
 SOLITARY TAMARISK-TREE AMONG THE RUINS OF THE PALACE OF BABYLON. 
 
 discussing namely, Nabonidus. Though mutilated in 
 parts, it allowed us to learn some portions of his history, 
 both before and during the invasion of Babylonia by 
 Cyrus ; and one of the most remarkable facts that it 
 added to our knowledge was that of the regency if 
 that term may be used of the king's son, during the 
 absence of the sovereign from the Court and army. 
 Here, surely, the explanation of the Book of Daniel was
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 307 
 
 found : Belshazzar was, at the time of the irruption of 
 the Persians, acting as his father's representative ; he 
 was commanding the Babylonian army and presiding 
 over the Babylonian Court. When Cyrus entered Baby- 
 lon, doubtless the only resistance he met with was in the 
 royal palace, and there it was probably slight. In the 
 same night Belshazzar was taken and slain ; perhaps 
 he was betrayed to the conqueror by the disaffected 
 soldiers. 
 
 In the sixth year of Nabonidus, we are told by his 
 native chronicler in the document discovered as we have 
 just seen, the Persians captured the chief city of Media 
 Ecbatana, called in the Book of Ezra Achmetha 
 where, since Cyrus had made it one of his own capitals, 
 a roll containing his decree concerning the rebuilding of 
 the Temple of Jerusalem was found many years later. 
 These are the words of the Book of Ezra : 
 
 " Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the 
 house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon. 
 
 " And there was found at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the 
 province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record thus 
 written : 
 
 " In the first year of Cyrus the king, the same Cyrus the king 
 made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem." 
 
 " The first year of Cyrus " means his first year as 
 King of Babylon, according to a system of dating which 
 was followed in the legal deeds of his reign found among 
 the cuneiform inscriptions. Whether the decree in ques- 
 tion was written with cuneiform characters, or whether the 
 scribes of the Acha3menian monarchs employed another 
 u 2
 
 308 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 form of writing for documents on parchment, and 
 reserved the wedge-shaped letters for clay and stone, we 
 do not at present know. 
 
 The conquest of Ecbatana was the beginning of that 
 vast accumulation of treasure by the Persian kings which 
 afterwards excited the astonishment of the Macedonians 
 under Alexander the Great. In the treasury of the Median 
 monarchs Cyrus found the remains of the immense 
 wealth which had been seized at the capture of Nineveh, 
 and carried away, as we have seen in a former chapter, 
 to the Median capital. The riches which Sardanapalus 
 had hoarded in the cellars * of his palace by the Tigris, 
 "the silver and gold, and the pleasant furniture," were 
 now captured for a second time by a nation of needy 
 shepherds, and led to the entire alteration of their 
 manners and morals. 
 
 Ecbatana was conquered in the sixth year of Nabo- 
 nidus, and therefore eleven years before Cyrus captured 
 the city of Babylon and became ruler of the Jews. Let 
 us see how the events of this year are noted in the 
 chronicle discovered in 1882: 
 
 "The troops of Astyages [King of Media] revolted against 
 him ; he was captured and delivered up to Cyrus. Cyrus 
 marched to Ecbatana, the royal city. The silver, gold, and other 
 goods of Ecbatana were carried away as booty, and brought to the 
 land of Anshan. 
 
 " In the seventh year, the king [Nabonidus] was in the city of 
 Tema. The king's son, the great men, and his troops, were in the 
 land of Accad. The king did not come to Babylon in the month of 
 
 * Herodotus ii. 150.
 
 THE LAST DAYS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. '609 
 
 Nisan ; the god Nebo did not come to Babylon ; Bel did not come 
 
 forth ; the festivals were not kept. Sacrifices were offered to the 
 
 gods of Babylon and Borsippa in the temples of Bit-Saggil and 
 Bit-Zida." 
 
 These lines explain the disaffection of the priests and 
 people towards their king, which was also alluded to 
 by Cyrus in his inscription quoted above. The ordinary 
 religious rites consecrated, without doubt, by the usage 
 of immemorial antiquity were not carried on, through 
 the negligence or heresy of the monarch. Especial 
 allusion would seem to be made to the omission of the 
 customary festivals and of the processions, in which the 
 images of the gods were carried, in the manner repre- 
 sented in a well-known bas-relief from the ruins of 
 Nineveh. According to the cylinder of Cyrus, and to 
 a passage in the chronicle which will presently be 
 quoted, images of the divinities had also been taken 
 away from their respective temples by the unpopular 
 monarch, who, through his conduct in this respect, 
 seems to have brought about the ruin of his own 
 dynasty. 
 
 The words which bear on the subject of Bel- 
 shazzar, however, are those that tell us that the " king's 
 son was with the great men and with his troops " that 
 is to say, that he was taking the place in the Court and 
 in the army that should have been held by his father. 
 It may be that the passion for restoring the ancient 
 temples of the country to which several inscriptions 
 from which quotations have been given in former 
 chapters bear witness Je4 Nabonidugj ^o neglect his
 
 3JO NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 other duties as king and as high priest. A similar 
 state of affairs is described as existing- in the ninth year 
 of the reign : 
 
 "Ninth year. Nabonidus the king was in the city of Tema.' 
 The king's son, the great men, and the troops were in the land of 
 Accad. The king did not come to Babylon in the month of Nisan. 
 Nebo did not come to Babylon ; Bel did not come forth ; the festivals 
 were neglected. 
 
 " On the fifth of Nisan, the king's mother died in the town of Dur- 
 karashu, on the banks of the Euphrates, above Sippara. The king's 
 son and the troops mourned for three days ; there was weeping ; in 
 the month of Sivan there was weeping in the land of Accad . . . for 
 the king's mother. In the month of Nisan, Cyrus, king of Persia, 
 summoned his troops ; he crossed the Tigris below Arbela." 
 
 The festivals and religious rites which especially 
 fell into neglect through the absence of Nabonidus 
 seem to have been those of the new year : those which 
 should have been celebrated in Nisan, the first month 
 of the Babylonian calendar, coinciding with the latter 
 half of March and the first half of April. During the 
 tenth and eleventh years of the reign, the same condition 
 of religious and political matters is described; and after 
 that the tablet on which the chronicle is written is un- 
 fortunately broken. 
 
 On the other side of the tablet, however, we find 
 some details of the invasion and conquest of Babylonia 
 by Cyrus. We have here reached the end of Nabonidus' 
 reign of seventeen years. 
 
 " In the month of Tammuz, Cyrus gave battle to the troops of 
 Accad, and the men of Accad made a rebellion ; a slaughter took
 
 THE LAST DATS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 311 
 
 place. On the 14th day Sippara was captured without fighting. 
 Nabonidus fled. On the 16th, Gobryas, governor of Gutium, and the 
 troops of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting. Afterwards, 
 Nabonidus was surrounded and captured in Babylon. 
 
 " In the month of Marchesvan, on the third day, Cyrus entered 
 into Babylon. . . . He gave peace to the city. Cyrus an- 
 nounced peace to all Babylon. He set Gobryas, his officer, as officer 
 in Babylon. From the month of Chisleu to the month of Adar, the 
 gods of Accad, which Nabonidus had carried down to Babylon, 
 returned to their own cities. 
 
 "The wife of the king died. From the 27th day of Adar to the 
 3rd Nisan [that is to say, for a week] there was weeping in Accad. 
 All the people gashed their heads." 
 
 This is all that we have been able to learn from the 
 cuneiform inscriptions about the destruction of the native 
 Babylonian dynasty, and the Persian conquest of the 
 ancient kingdom. The materials at our disposal are 
 even now of the most scanty character ; if only the 
 mounds of Babylon were fully excavated, what might 
 we not expect to find? All our doubts about this 
 obscure period of history might be cleared up. All the 
 records which the Babylonians kept with so much care, 
 and wrote upon such imperishable material, might be 
 discovered. 
 
 The records hitherto found that refer to Nabonidus 
 give us details of some of the restorations of ancient 
 temples in which he delighted. Some of these have 
 already been spoken of. In Sippara Nabonidus restored 
 the great Temples of the Sun and Moon. The Temple 
 of the Sun had been originally founded by Naram-Sin, 
 who, as Nabonidus himself tells us, reigned about B.C.
 
 312 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 3750. Nabonidus sent, like all the royal builders of 
 Assyria and Babylonia, to Phoenicia for cedars from 
 Lebanon and Araanus for the re-building of the ancient 
 sanctuaries. Even Gudea, governor of Lagash, had, as 
 we have seen, brought timber from the same distant 
 region for the construction of his temples. The want 
 of wood in Babylonia has always driven the natives to 
 import it from other parts, and perhaps was one of the 
 inducements which led the kings of the regions watered 
 by the Euphrates and the Tigris to the perpetual suc- 
 cession of invasions from which Phoenicia suffered, from 
 the time of the early Sargon to that of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 It will be remembered that Alexander the Great con- 
 ceived the idea of building ships on the shores of the 
 Persian Gulf and keeping a navy in those waters ; but 
 he was forced for the purpose to procure the firs and 
 cedars of Lebanon, after he had cut down the few 
 cypresses that the gardens of Babylonia were able to 
 furnish. The cedar-beams employed in the palaces of 
 Nineveh have been discovered by modern explorers, and 
 fragments may be seen in our museums : proofs of the 
 power of the Assyrian kings and the unlimited command 
 over human labour which they possessed. The same 
 must be said of the Persian monarchs, who roofed the 
 palaces of Susa and Persepolis with cedars of Lebanon, 
 dragged to their destination over mountains and across 
 rivers, for many hundreds of miles. 
 
 Gold and silver were employed by Nabonidus in the 
 adornment of the temples, which were made, according 
 to the expression of the royal builder, to " shine like
 
 THE LAST DATS OF THE BABYLONIAN MONARCHY. 313 
 
 the day." Doors of cedar, bound with bronze, led into 
 the interior of the sanctuary. Nabonidus put up in- 
 scriptions to record what he had done ; and, above all, 
 he was careful to restore to their places the inscriptions 
 of his royal predecessors, anointing them with oil, and 
 sacrificing victims, according to the prescribed rites, in 
 order to avert the curses which would otherwise fall 
 upon his head. 
 
 Besides the great Temple of the Sun, there was a 
 Temple of the Moon at Sippara. This Nabonidus was 
 commanded in a vision by the god Merodach to restore, 
 towards the beginning of his reign. " Nabonidus, 
 king of Babylon," said the deity, " bring bricks with 
 the horses of thy chariots, build the temple, and let the 
 Moon-god, the great lord, take up his abode therein." 
 At this time, however, the Scythians had invaded the 
 dominions of Babylon, and Nabonidus feared that they 
 would prevent the design of restoration from being 
 carried out. But Cyrus, who was then only prince of 
 Anshan, and a vassal of the Babylonian monarch, 
 defeated the Scythians, and the danger was averted. 
 
 The Temple of the Moon had been founded in the 
 ninth century before Christ by Shalmaneser, son of 
 Ashur-nasir-pal, so well known to us from the bas- 
 reliefs from Nimroud now in the British Museum ; and 
 had afterwards been restored by Ashur-bani-pal, or 
 Sardanapalus. Nabonidus, however, beautified and 
 strengthened its walls more than his fathers had done. 
 At the ceremony of laying the new foundations on the 
 old site the stones were sprinkled with palm-wine,
 
 314 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 grape-wine, oil, and honey. The images of the gods 
 were brought into the newly-restored temple with much 
 rejoicing. 
 
 Besides the temples of Sippara, Nabonidus kept the 
 great temples of Bit-Saggil and Bit-Zida, in Babylon 
 and Borsippa, in repair. He also, as we have already 
 seen, restored the Temple of the Moon at Ur. At 
 Agane there was a sanctuary that had existed there 
 since the days of Sargon and Naram-Sin, who had made 
 that city their capital in times of remote antiquity. 
 This building was restored by Nabonidus with the same 
 care as the others, and here he found the ancient inscrip- 
 tion of Shagashaltiyash, who reigned over Babylon about 
 B.C. 1500, and who had executed works upon this struc- 
 ture. Another famous shrine restored by the last king 
 of Babylon was the Temple of the Sun at Larsa a city 
 represented by the modern Senkereh where an inscrip- 
 tion of Burraburyash, the king whose letters are to be 
 read among the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, was found by 
 the royal builder. 
 
 Such was the activity of the ill-fated Nabonidus in 
 repairing the ancient and famous dwellings of the gods, 
 which towered above the walls of the chief cities of his 
 kingdom ; yet he did not succeed in retaining the 
 favour of the priests, who, apparently because he ne- 
 glected some customary rites, ceased to support their 
 native sovereign, and gladly welcomed the arrival of the 
 invader, Cyrus.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DISCOVERIES OF RECENT YEARS. 
 
 FOR many years after the first decipherment of the 
 Assyrian inscriptions there was a difficulty in the iden- 
 tification of the Assyrian monarch Pul, who, according 
 to the Second Book of Kings, invaded Samaria in the 
 reign of Menahem. The latter prince, in order to win 
 the friendship of the Assyrians, paid to Pul a heavy 
 tribute, consisting of a thousand talents of silver, which 
 he exacted from the wealthy men of the land, forcing 
 each of them to contribute fifty talents ; and, after re- 
 ceiving this sum, the king of Assyria returned to his 
 own country. Menahem was succeeded on the throne of 
 Israel by his son, Pekahiah, who, after a reign of two 
 years, was assassinated by Pekah, a captain of his 
 army, and this usurper seized upon the royal power. In 
 the reign of Pekah the Assyrians again invaded Israel 
 under Tiglath-Pileser, who took many cities, and carried 
 away the inhabitants, according to the custom of that 
 time. Pekah was, in his turn, assassinated by Hoshea, 
 who was at first the servant of tLd Assyrian monarch, and 
 paid him tribute, but after a time acted treacherously 
 towards his suzerain, and intrigued with the king of 
 Egypt, until this conduct brought upon him the
 
 316 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 vengeance of the Assyrians, and finally led to the destruc- 
 tion of the kingdom of Samaria. Tiglath-Pileser was 
 also brought into relation with the kingdom of Judah, 
 for Ahaz purchased his friendship by large gifts. 
 
 The name of Tiglath-Pileser was soon discovered 
 among the Assyrian records disinterred by Sir H. Layard 
 in the palace at Nimroud the ancient Halah, or Calah, 
 where bas-reliefs were also found representing some of 
 the incidents in this monarch's campaigns. In the 
 inscriptions engraved on the alabaster slabs which 
 lined the walls of the palace, and written on the 
 clay cylinders preserved among its foundations, the 
 conquests of Tiglath-Pileser and his triumphs over 
 neighbouring princes are narrated. The warlike 
 monarch tells us how he destroyed the city of 
 Sarrabanu and made it into heaps ; how he im- 
 paled the king before the gate of his city, and carried 
 away his wife, his sons, and his daughters into captivity, 
 together with the treasures of his palace. A descrip- 
 tion is given us of the conquest of Babylonia, then 
 governed by its native king, Ukin-zir (the Chinzeros of 
 Ptolemy), but soon to be subdued under the supremacy 
 of Assyria. As a thanksgiving for this success, the 
 victor offered up sacrifices to the principal gods and 
 goddesses : to Ashur, to Bel, to Nebo, to Nana, the 
 Lady of Babylon, and to Nergal. Tiglath-Pileser also 
 turned his arms northwards, and vanquished the terri- 
 tories of Armenia or Ararat. But this did not satisfy 
 him : the lands of the west tempted him by their wealth, 
 as they tempted his predecessors and successors. He sent
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DISCOVERIES OF RECENT TEARS. 317 
 
 his officer, the Eabsak a designation which the Hebrews 
 turned into the name Rabshakeh to Tyre, and forced 
 the King of Tyre to pay him a tribute of one hundred 
 and fifty talents of gold ; the kings of the Hittites were 
 also his tributaries. With the cedars of Lebanon he 
 erected at Calah a magnificent palace, which he adorned 
 with the gold, silver, and bronze sent to him by the 
 vanquished princes of the West. 
 
 But that which interests us most in the annals of 
 Tiglath-Pileser is that portion which alludes to his rela- 
 tions with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. At this 
 time Azariah, who is more commonly called Uzziah, 
 was sitting upon the throne of Judah. Tiglath- 
 Pileser mentions many cities which were unfaithful to 
 Assyria and allied themselves with Azariah; he conquered 
 them, and set Assyrian officers over them as governors. 
 Menahem, King of Samaria, and Rezin, King of Syria, 
 appear among the list of princes who paid tribute to this 
 Assyrian monarch. The gifts sent by the various 
 countries and cities who thus acknowledged the 
 supremacy of Assyria consisted of gold, silver, lead, 
 iron, hides, garments of variegated stuffs, of blue and 
 scarlet, precious woods, asses with scarlet trappings, 
 birds of gay plumage, horses, mules, sheep and oxen, 
 and camels. 
 
 In other passages Tiglath-Pileser says that he put 
 Pekah to death, and made Hoshea king in his room ; 
 and that he carried away many of the inhabitants of 
 Samaria, to Assyria, and received tribute from the new 
 king. The Kingdom of Israel is named in the latter
 
 318 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 passage the House of Omri : a designation which, as is 
 well known, alternates with Samaria as the name of 
 this country in the Assyrian records. The siege of 
 Damascus by Tiglath-Pileser is narrated in other parts 
 of his annals ; the people were shut up within the 
 ramparts like birds in a cage, and the leaders who were 
 taken alive were impaled before the walls of the city. 
 
 The difficulty of identifying Pul with any of the 
 Assyrian kings mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions 
 became greater when the chronological lists of Assyrian 
 sovereigns were found. According to these, Tiglath- 
 Pileser was preceded on the throne of Assyria by Ashur- 
 nirari, who reigned eight years, and before whom came 
 Ashur-dan, who reigned eighteen years, and who had 
 followed Shalmaneser III., the successor of Ramman- 
 nirari ; this takes us back to the beginning of the 
 eighth century. On the other hand, the immediate 
 successor of Tiglath-Pileser was Shalmaneser IV., who 
 was followed by Sargon, and his son Sennacherib. 
 There was thus no appearance of any king named Pul 
 in these Assyrian lists, even if we were to suppose some 
 gross chronological error in the Hebrew narrative. 
 
 We have already seen, however, that Tiglath-Pileser 
 states in his annals that he conquered Ukin-zir, king of 
 Chalda3a, and made that country subject to Assyria; 
 and yet in the Ptolemaic list of Babylonian kings the 
 name of Tiglath-Pileser does not occur. On the other 
 hajid, the name of Chinzerus is found there as that of 
 a king who reigned together with another named Poms; 
 the former of these two words is evidently a corruption
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DISCOVERIES OF RECENT YEARS. 319 
 
 of Ukin-zir, and the latter resembles the Hebrew Pul, 
 since r and / are often interchanged. Could Tiglath- 
 Pileser have been known in Babylonia by a different 
 name, as Pul ? This question was finally answered in 
 the affirmative by two documents : the Babylonian list 
 of kings, acquired by the British Museum in 1830, and 
 the " Babylonian Chronicle," made known to the world 
 by Mr. Pinches, in 1884. The Babylonian list gives 
 the name of Ukin-zir, who reigned over Babylon for 
 three years, and places next to it the name of Pulu, 
 who sat on the throne for two years. The " Babylonian 
 Chronicle," on the other hand, tells us that Tiglath- 
 Pileser invaded Babylon in the third year of Ukin-zir, 
 took this prince captive, and seated himself upon the 
 throne of Babylon, which he occupied for the space of 
 two years : the term of his own life. Here we have an 
 absolutely complete explanation of the difficulty with 
 regard to Pul. The latter was the name by which 
 Tiglath-Pileser was known in Babylonia; this monarch 
 is the Pul of the Book of Kings and the Porus of the 
 Ptolemaic Canon ; if he is represented in the latter 
 document as reigning together with Chinzerus, this is 
 because the native prince was still alive in captivity 
 during the two years' rule of the Assyrian invader; 
 their joint reigns amount to five years. 
 
 The two names of Tiglath-Pileser are not the only 
 instances of the kind in Assyrian history. His own 
 immediate successor, Shalmaneser IV., who invaded 
 Samaria in the reign of Hoshea, and governed Assyria 
 and Babylonia for five years (B.C. 727-722), was known
 
 
 SAROON : BA8-KBLIEF FKOM HIS PALACE AT KHORSABAD.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DISCOVERIES OF RECENT YEARS. 321 
 
 in the latter country as Ululai : a name represented by 
 the Ilulaios of the Ptolemaic Canon. The successor of 
 Shalmaneser IV. was Sargon, the " king of Assyria " 
 whose attack upon Ashdod is mentioned by Isaiah, and 
 in whose reign the final capture of Samaria and de- 
 struction of the kingdom of Israel took place ; and 
 Sargon appears to have also borne the name of Jareb ; 
 for it can hardly * be another who is thus alluded to by 
 the prophet Hosea : 
 
 " When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Juclah saw his wound, 
 then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb : yet 
 could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound." 
 
 And again : 
 
 " The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of 
 Beth-aven : for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests 
 thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is 
 departed from it. 
 
 " It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to king 
 Jareb : Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of 
 his own counsel. 
 
 " As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the 
 water. " 
 
 A few verses further on, Hosea speaks of the im- 
 mediate predecessor of Sargon, using the abbreviated 
 form of his name : 
 
 " Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy 
 fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel in the day 
 of battle : the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children." 
 
 Another instance of the double names borne by kings 
 of Assyria is that of Ashurbanipal, or Sardanapalus, 
 
 * See Professor Sayce in "Babylonian and Oriental Records," II., 
 No. 1, p. 18 ff.
 
 322 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 who appears as Kandalanu on the Babylonian con- 
 tract tablets, and as Kineladanos in the Canon of 
 Ptolemy. Among the Israelites the same peculiarity 
 occurs, for Solomon was called Jedidiah, and Gideon 
 Jerubbaal. 
 
 The " Babylonian Chronicle," which has just been 
 mentioned, was written upon the clay tablet which 
 we now possess in the twenty-second year of Darius 
 Hystaspis, king of Persia, and is a copy from an older 
 original. It gives the names of the kings who ruled 
 over Babylon from Nabonassar to Shamash-shum-ukin, 
 the Saosduchinos of Ptolemy, and the brother of 
 Sardanapalus, who afterwards put him to death ; the 
 length of each reign is carefully given, and various 
 events of importance are noted from time to time. 
 The wars and revolutions which took place are recorded, 
 and the chronicler is careful to note when the images 
 of the gods were carried off from such or such a city, 
 and when they were brought back by a change of 
 fortune. Among the political events, it is interesting 
 to find the murder of Sennacherib by his son, in 
 accordance with the statement of Isaiah and the Second 
 Book of Kings. 
 
 Among the stories told by the Greek writer JElian 
 to show the intelligence of animals and birds is the 
 following : An ancient king of Babylon, named Seve- 
 choros, was warned by the priests that the offspring of 
 his daughter would be a source of danger to himself. 
 He therefore shut her up in a lofty tower, to which 
 none but the guardian had access, and when her child
 
 324 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 was born he gave orders that it should be put to death. 
 The officer who was charged with this task threw the 
 infant out of the topmost window of the tower, that it 
 might be dashed to pieces through falling from so great 
 a height. But an eagle which was flying past received 
 the falling child upon its outspread wings and carried 
 him to a place of safety, where he grew up, and whence 
 he issued in after-days to become king instead of his 
 grandfather. The name of the child was Gilgamos. 
 
 When the name of the Chaldean hero, hitherto 
 provisionally read as Gisdubar, was found by Mr. 
 Pinches to have been pronounced Gilgamesh at least 
 by the later Babylonians Professor Sayce at once 
 recognised the identity of this name with the Gilgamos 
 of Lilian, and thus arrived at some idea of the date 
 assigned by the ancient historians upon the banks of the 
 Euphrates to the hero of their legend ; for Sevechoros, 
 the grandfather of Gilgamos, is evidently the same as 
 the Sevechoos who appeared in the work of Berosus as 
 the first king after the Flood, and one of the mythical 
 princes who preceded the Median dynasty. 
 
 The new reading of this name, Gisdubar, as Gil- 
 gamesh, was found on a fragment of a clay tablet, in- 
 scribed with a portion of a syllabary explaining the 
 pronunciation of various words. Everyone feels an in- 
 terest in the Babylonian hero, Gisdubar or Gilgamesh, 
 for he is the subject of the great series of legends which 
 formed a sort of Babylonian epic, and contained the 
 history of the Flood, the events of which are narrated 
 to Gisdubar by Adra-khasis or Xisuthrus, the Babylonian
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DISCOVERIES OF RECENT YEARS. 325 
 
 Noah. George Smith was inclined to identify Gisdubar 
 with the Nimrod of the Book of Genesis, because the 
 former was " a giant, a subduer of great animals in the 
 times after the Flood ; and he acquired the sovereignty 
 of Babylonia, one of his capitals being Uruk, or Erech." * 
 Another recent discovery of Mr. Pinches was that 
 of a new version of the story of the Creation, different 
 from that found in the series of legends from Nineveh, 
 and published by George Smith. The new version is 
 part of an incantation, written in the Accadian language, 
 and accompanied by a translation in Assyrian. It 
 appears to speak of the principal cities and temples as 
 having been created at the very beginning of the 
 world : 
 
 " In that day Eridu was made, E-sagila [the great Temple of 
 Bel, in Babylon] was constructed ; 
 
 " Esagila, which the god Lugal-du-azaga had founded within the 
 abyss. 
 
 " Babylon was built, Esagila was completed. 
 
 "He made the gods and the Anunnaki [i.e. spirits] together ; 
 
 " He announced from on high the name of the glorious city, the 
 habitation which gives joy to their hearts. 
 
 " Merodach bound together a foundation beside the waters ; 
 
 " He made dust, and poured it out with the flood, 
 
 " That he might cause the gods to dwell in a habitation that 
 brings joy to their hearts. 
 
 " He created men ; 
 
 "The goddess Aruru created the family of mankind together 
 with him. 
 
 " He made the beasts of the field, and living creatures in the 
 fields. 
 
 " He created the Tigris and the Euphrates, and set them in their 
 
 place. 
 
 * G. Smith, in " Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch.," Yol. HI., p. 460.
 
 326 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " He called them by their name with favour. 
 " He created the grass, the plants of the marsh, the reed, and the 
 forest. 
 
 " He created the verdure of the plain, 
 
 " The lands, the lakes, the thicket, 
 
 " The oxen, the young of the ox, the cow and her calf. 
 
 " He laid the bricks, he made the beams, 
 
 " He constructed the house, he built the city, 
 
 " He built the city, lie made the foundations glorious. 
 
 " He built the city of Niffer ; he built E-kura, its temple. 
 
 " He built the city of Erech ; he built E-ana, its temple." 
 
 Some of the phrases in this account resemble the 
 history of the Creation in the Book of Grenesis ; and the 
 cities of Babel and Erech, which the Babylonians 
 thought so ancient that they imagined their foundation 
 contemporary with the creation of the world, are said 
 by the Hebrew writer to have been built in the very 
 earliest ages aftej* the Flood. 
 
 Among the Assyrian literature, a considerable num- 
 ber of prayers or hymns, addressed to the gods, have 
 been found. Some of these have been compared to the 
 Hebrew psalms, and Dr. Zimmern has published a few 
 of them, under the title of "Babylonian Penitential 
 Psalms," Recently Dr. Briinnow has also edited, from 
 some clay tablets, a small collection of Assyrian hymns, 
 a few passages of which may be given here. 
 
 The Sun-god is thus addressed : 
 
 " At the ends of the earth, in the midst of the heaveus, art thou 
 suspended. 
 
 " Thou orderest all the peoples of the world. 
 
 " Thou rulest over all that the god Ea, the king, has created.
 
 MISCELLANEOUS DISCOVERIES OF RECENT YEARS. 327 
 
 " Thou carest for all those that have life ; 
 
 " Thou art the shepherd of those on high and of those below. 
 
 "Thou goest over the firmament of the heavens ; 
 
 " To subdue the earth thou comest every day." 
 
 " There is not among the spirits one who can rest without thee ; 
 " Of the gods of all the hosts, who is mighty like thee ? 
 
 " The binder of the prison, his horn thou destroyest ; 
 
 " The doer of violence, who plans oppression for his land, 
 
 "The unjust judge thou showest him bonds. 
 
 " He that takes bribes, and is not rightly guided upon him thou 
 puttest sin. 
 
 u But he that accepts no bribe, that takes the part of the weak, 
 
 " Shall receive good things from the Sun-god, and shall obtain 
 life." 
 
 Among the hymns is one which contains a prayer, 
 addressed by Ashurnasirpal, the powerful king of 
 Assyria who reigned in the earlier part of the ninth 
 century before Christ, to the goddess Ishtar, the Ash- 
 toreth of the Pho3nicians, who was also sometimes called 
 Nana. She is thus addressed : 
 
 "To the Lady of Nineveh, the exalted; 
 
 " To the daughter of Sin, the Moon-god, to the sister of Shamash, 
 the Sun-god ; 
 
 " To her who determines decrees, the goddess of the universe ; 
 
 " To the lady of heaven and earth, who receives prayers ; 
 
 " To her who hearkens unto pleading, who accepts supplications ; 
 
 " To the merciful goddess, who loves justice. 
 
 " Ishtar is distressed by the sight of confusion. 
 
 "The afflictions which I see I bewail before thee; 
 
 " Let thy ears attend to my words, full of sighing ; 
 
 " Let thy mind be opened to my afflicted speech ; 
 
 " Look upon me, O Lady, that through thy turning towards me 
 the heart of thy servant may become strong ! "
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 
 
 IN the preceding chapters an attempt has been made to 
 present in a simple form some of the chief results of 
 Assyriological research during the last few years ; it 
 may now be profitable to glance back at the discoveries, 
 referring to the history of the Bible, that had previously 
 been made. What was learnt, then, from the cuneiform 
 inscriptions, about the beliefs of the Babylonians or 
 Assyrians with regard to the creation and constitution 
 of the world, and its first ages, that may be compared 
 with the account given in the Book of Grenesis ? 
 
 The tablets hitherto found recounting the creation 
 of the world are, for the most part, much mutilated, 
 so that we can form only an imperfect idea of the whole 
 series of legends which belong to that section of the 
 Babylonian literature. The heaven and earth were 
 believed to have come into existence through the union 
 of the seas with the waters of the abyss, which had 
 existed from all eternity. The name of the sea or deep 
 is the same as that which is employed in Grenesis : 
 
 " And darkness was upon the face of the deep ; and the Spirit 
 of God moved upon the face of the waters."
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 329 
 
 The division of light from darkness is symbolized 
 in the legend of the deadly fight between the god 
 Merodach and the dragon * of the abyss, whom he at 
 length vanquishes and tears to pieces. Out of her 
 limbs rent asunder the earth and sky are formed. 
 
 The office of creator, however, is sometimes assigned 
 to the god Ea, who receives the title of the "Potter," 
 because he formed man out of clay. The word for the 
 material of which man was made is not the same in 
 the Hebrew and Babylonian accounts ; the Babylonian 
 thought of the alluvial clay of his marshy plains, while 
 the Hebrew word means " dust " simply. One of the 
 tablets describes the creation of the heavenly bodies 
 and the setting of them in their places. The moon 
 was appointed as a star of the night. Times and 
 seasons were marked out. The zenith was set in the 
 middle of the heavens, and the north and south were 
 established in their places. 
 
 With regard to the account of the garden of Eden, 
 it has been thought that certain illustrations of the 
 history are to be found in the cuneiform inscriptions. 
 The word Eden has no meaning in Hebrew, but may 
 be a form of the Babylonian word which means "plain," 
 or " field." The expression " tree of life " has not 
 been met with on Babylonian or Assyrian tablets, but 
 the bas-reliefs and cylindrical seals show us that the 
 inhabitants of the countries watered by the Hiddekel 
 
 * The text containing this legend was brought by Mr. Rassam from 
 Babylon, copied and described by Dr. Budge in 1883, and translated by 
 Prof. Sayce in 1887. Dr. Budge published his copy iu 1887.
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 331 
 
 (Tigris) and Euphrates held in reverence as a sacred 
 symbol a conventional representation of a tree, which 
 sometimes appears guarded by two deities, one on each 
 side of it. This sacred tree was often embroidered 
 upon the robes of the Assyrians, perhaps as a charm. 
 In the same way, the equivalent of the word "cherubim " 
 does not seem to have been found with certainty ; but 
 the winged and human-headed beings who defended 
 the entrances of the Assyrian palaces seem to corre- 
 spond to the descriptions of the figures upon the Ark 
 of the Israelites and to those seen in the vision of 
 Ezekiel. 
 
 The most remarkable illustration of the Book of 
 Genesis found among the Assyrian and Babylonian 
 documents is the history of the Flood. It must be 
 remembered, indeed, that neither the account of the 
 Creation furnished us by the cuneiform inscriptions, 
 nor that of the Deluge obtained from the same sources, 
 were entirely new to us ; we knew from the extracts, 
 still preserved, of the Babylonian history of Berosus 
 that such accounts existed among the literature of the 
 Chaldean priests, and certain details of them were also 
 known. Yet it was a great advantage to acquire copies 
 of the very documents upon which Berosus may have 
 founded his history ; copies made, too, some centuries 
 before the date of that historian ; and, moreover, the 
 tablets contained much that was quite new to us. 
 
 The account of the Flood upon the clay tablets, 
 first made known by George Smith in 1872, is given 
 by Sit-napishtim (or Shamash-napishtim) to Gilgamesh
 
 332 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 (Gisdubar), the great Babylonian hero. Sit-napishtim 
 is the Babylonian Noah ; he bore another name : Atra- 
 khasis, which is probably the native name represented 
 by the Greek form Xisuthrus, employed by Berosus as 
 the appellation of this hero. Like most of the tablets 
 from which the accounts of the first ages of the world, 
 as preserved among the Babylonians, are at present 
 to be learnt, the tablets containing the account of the 
 Flood are fragmentary, and many of the fragments are 
 defaced and illegible in parts. We are able to learn, 
 however, that Bel, contrary to the desires of the other 
 gods, determined to send a flood of waters upon the 
 earth, and to destroy the whole of mankind. Some of 
 the gods, therefore, without the knowledge of Bel, bade 
 Sit-napishtim, whom they wished to save from death 
 on account of his virtues, build a ship, and stock it with 
 the means of livelihood, that he and his family might 
 not be destroyed with the rest of their fellow-creatures. 
 After a gap of several lines, we find Sit-napishtim 
 entering the ship with his wife, his family, and beasts 
 of the field ; after entering, he shut the door. The 
 ship was pitched within and without. The name of 
 the helmsman was Puzur-Bel. Now the waters began to 
 descend upon the earth ; the god Eimmon gave forth 
 his thunders ; the whole world was overwhelmed ; even 
 the gods trembled at the sight of the destruction that 
 was wrought ; the goddess Ishtar, in particular, poured 
 forth lamentations over the fate of mankind. For 
 six days and six nights the rain descended and the 
 storm raged. On the seventh day the flood ceased.
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 333 
 
 Sit-napishtim looked out from his ship, and saw that 
 all men had returned to the clay from which they were 
 taken, and he wept bitter tears over the sight which he 
 beheld. The ship rested on the mountain of Nisir, and 
 remained fast. After another seven days, Sit-napishtim 
 sent out a dove from his ship, but as she could find no 
 resting-place, she returned to the ship. Then he let 
 loose a swallow, which returned in the same way. 
 Lastly, Sit-napishtim sent out a raven, which found 
 that the waters had abated, and did not return to the 
 ship. Thereupon, Sit-napishtim left his ship, with his 
 family, and offered sacrifice to the four winds upon the 
 summit of the mountain ; he placed seven vessels of 
 libations as offerings to the gods. The gods smelt the 
 savour of the sacrifice, and assembled about it like flies. 
 The goddess Ishtar again broke out into lamentations 
 over the destruction of mankind, and condemned the 
 folly of Bel, who had sent the flood upon them. When 
 Bel saw the ship, and discovered that some had been 
 saved from the general fate, he was exceedingly 
 indignant, but the rest of the gods succeeded in appeas- 
 ing his wrath. The great creator, Ea, especially pleaded 
 the cause of mankind, and blamed Bel for sending the 
 flood upon them ; it was Ea who had warned Sit- 
 napishtim, in a dream, of the approaching catastrophe. 
 Finally, Bel accepted the defence of Ea, and bestowed 
 his blessing upon Sit-napishtim and his wife, who were 
 raised to the rank of divinities. 
 
 This is the history of the Deluge, according to the 
 tablets found in the library of the palace of Sardanapalus
 
 334 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 at Nineveh, and borrowed, doubtless, by the Assyrian 
 scribes from the literature of Babylonia. The place at 
 which Sit-napishtim is represented as dwelling is Shu- 
 rippak, beside Sippara, near the Euphrates, and not far 
 from Ur ; and after their deification he and his wife are 
 destined to dwell at the mouth of the stream. Many 
 points are omitted in the above paraphrase which seem 
 to be of doubtful meaning, or depend upon conjectural 
 emendations of the mutilated text. 
 
 After the cosmogony, we come to the history. The 
 Book of Genesis alludes to the beginnings of the 
 primeval States founded in the valleys of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates when the rest of the world, except Egypt, 
 was sunk in barbarism. Nimrod,* the grandson of Ham, 
 founded, we are told, Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, 
 in the land of Shinar ; and Asshur went forth from the 
 same land, and founded Nineveh, and Rehoboth, and 
 Calah, and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah : " the 
 same is a great city." Many of these names were found 
 upon clay tablets or bricks in the first period of Assyrian 
 research, and the immense antiquity of the Babylonian 
 cities was fully illustrated. The investigations among 
 the ruins on the Tigris also appeared to explain the 
 account of the cities founded by Asshur. 
 
 The great size attributed to Nineveh by the Book 
 of Jonah, and also by the Greek historian Ctesias, 
 had always been a stumbling-block to commentators. 
 But as early as the sixteenth century the suggestion 
 was offered that the name of Nineveh was sometimes 
 
 * Compare above, p. 149 f.
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 335 
 
 given in an extended sense to a group of cities situated 
 close together, and perhaps connected by populous 
 suburbs : an explanation suggested by the verse in 
 Genesis just quoted, which names four towns, and 
 concludes with the words, " this is the great city." Sir 
 Henry Layard's excavations soon proved that while the 
 mounds of Kouyunjik and Nebi-Yunus, with their en- 
 circling rampart, bore, in accordance with the unbroken 
 tradition, the name of Nineveh, the mounds of Nimroud, 
 a little to the south, represented the ancient Calah, 
 mentioned in the passage of Genesis. E-esen must have 
 been between these two groups of ruins, and is doubtless 
 marked by the mounds which still exist in the inter- 
 mediate space. Now, if a line was drawn to include 
 these ruins and the neighbouring mounds of Khorsabad, 
 a thickly-populated district would thus be marked out, 
 bounded on the west by the Tigris and on the south by 
 the Zab, and forming, in fact, one " great city " about 
 ninety miles in circumference, and requiring three days 
 for a journey around its walls. The principal quarter 
 of this great city would be Nineveh proper, which might 
 quite naturally give its name to the whole group ; just 
 as at the present day " the district of Mosul " includes 
 a large space around that town, and " the district of 
 Babel" extends for many miles around the ruins of 
 Babylon. As for Rehoboth Ir " the city of Rehoboth," 
 as our version puts it it means properly the " wide 
 places of the city," and may well denote the inter- 
 spaces between the principal quarters of the great town. 
 Nineveh proper, on the other hand, was not a city
 
 336 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 of great dimensions ; its walls are still to be traced, and 
 its site was surveyed in 1852 by a commission sent by 
 the Indian Government. According to the results of 
 this investigation, the city was seven miles and four 
 furlongs in circumference : just one-eighth of the extent 
 given by Ctesias. The area amounts to eighteen 
 hundred acres, and if one inhabitant is allotted to fifty 
 square yards, according to the common estimate, the 
 population of Nineveh would have numbered 174,000 
 souls, whereas it is inferred from the Book of Jonah that 
 the great city contained 700,000 inhabitants. Nothing 
 is more reasonable, therefore, than to conclude that this 
 Nineveh proper was rather the citadel or head-quarters 
 of a thickly-populated district, commonly spoken of as 
 " the great city," or, by an extension of the meaning of 
 the name, simply as Nineveh. 
 
 The Tower of Babel, or Babylon, without doubt 
 exists to the present day in the ruins of Birs Nimroud,* 
 the antiquity of which is attested by the cuneiform 
 inscriptions. It was named by the Babylonians Bit- 
 zida, and formed the centre of the town of Borsippa, 
 which afterwards became part of the enlarged city of 
 Babylon, under Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar. 
 The latter monarch carried out extensive restorations in 
 this great sanctuary. It would appear from one of his 
 inscriptions that the summit of the tower had never 
 been finished down to his time, and that he was the 
 first who completed the structure. The ruin is, even 
 now, 153 feet in height. It was especially dedicated to 
 
 * See page 273.
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 337 
 
 Nebo, the interpreter of the gods, and the patron of 
 writing and literature. Nebuchadnezzar overlaid the 
 temple with gold and silver, and furnished it with cedar 
 and bronze. 
 
 As we have seen in a former chapter, the ruins of 
 Mukeyyer have been identified by modern research with 
 the city named Ur of the Chaldees in Genesis. The 
 extent of the remains at Mukeyyer * which, how- 
 ever, have been but imperfectly examined show that 
 the ancient city was of great size, and that it was 
 especially devoted to the worship of Sin, the Moon-god, 
 whose great temple still exists in part. In very early 
 times the kings of Ur held sway over an extensive ter- 
 ritory in the neighbourhood of the city. Terah, with 
 his son Abram and the rest of his family, migrated to 
 Haran, a town which is several times mentioned in 
 the Assyrian inscriptions ; it lay in the region of 
 Mesopotamia. 
 
 The first Babylonian king mentioned in the Bible is 
 Amraphel, king of Shinar, who, together with Chedor- 
 laomer, king of Elam, and Arioch, king of Ellasar, 
 invaded the land of Canaan in the time of Abram. 
 The cuneiform inscriptions have supplied us with 
 certain information which may throw some light on the 
 history of these kings. In the first place, Babylonia 
 was invaded and conquered, about B.C. 2360, by an 
 Elamite prince, named Kudurnankhundi, the first part 
 of whose name seems to correspond to the first part of 
 the name of Chedorlaomer, especially if we remember 
 
 * See page 132. 
 
 w
 
 338 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 th.it the vowels of our present Hebrew text are often 
 uncertain in proper names, and that the Septuagint 
 writes the word as Chodollogomor. The second part of 
 Chedorlaomer's name would seem to be the appellation 
 of the Elamite god Lagamar, whose image was carried 
 away from Susa by Sardanapalus in the seventh century 
 before Christ. Another Elamite king is known to us, 
 whose name begins with the element Kudur ; * this is 
 Kudurmapuk, who reigned over part of Babylonia 
 perhaps about B.C. 2250, and who also names himself 
 " lord of Syria." Whether his son, who reigned over 
 Larsa possibly identical with Ellasar and whose name 
 was perhaps pronounced Biaku, is the same as the 
 Arioch of Genesis must remain an open question. The 
 same must be said of Khammurabi, king of Babylon 
 about the same time, who has been identified by some 
 with the Amraphel of the narrative in question. 
 
 Upon the death of Sarah, we are told, Abraham 
 bought the field and cave of Machpelah, at Hebron, 
 of the Hittites, then in possession of the country, for 
 four hundred shekels of silver. This was according to 
 the Babylonian system of money, and the word shekel 
 means "weight" in Babylonian as in Hebrew. The 
 Hebrews, however, reckoned fiftyf shekels to a maneh : 
 not sixty, as the Babylonians did ; this was merely a 
 modification of the system which they had borrowed 
 
 * The suggestion is, of course, that Chedorlaomer belonged to the 
 same dynasty as these other Elamite " Kudurides." 
 
 t In later times the Hebrews reckoned 100 shekels to a maneh ; com- 
 pare 1 Kings x. 17 with 2 Chron. ix. 16. Ezekiel xlv. 12 seems to adopt 
 the Babylonian computation of 60 shekels to a maneh.
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 339 
 
 from their kinsmen. Many weights, in the form of 
 bronze lions or ducks, have been found among the 
 Assyrian ruins, marked with the amount which they 
 represent, as e.g. "one royal maneh." The amount is 
 generally marked in Aramaic as well as in Assyrian : 
 a proof of the foreign trade at the time ; the weights, 
 however, belong to a period much later than that which 
 we are now speaking of: namely, to the ninth and 
 eighth centuries. 
 
 It is when we come to the period described in the 
 Second Book of Kings that the cuneiform inscriptions 
 supply us with more numerous illustrations. Omri, 
 the king of Israel who founded Samaria, is not himself 
 spoken of, but his successor, Jehu, appears on the 
 obelisk of Shalmaneser II. (B.C. 860-825) as "the son 
 of Omri," who paid tribute, among others, to this 
 Assyrian monarch.* The kingdom of Israel is also 
 called " the House of Omri ; " but the name " Israelite " 
 itself is given to Ahab, whose troops fought against the 
 same Shalmaneser in company with Ben-hadad, king of 
 Syria, and were defeated. Later, Hazael, king of Syria, 
 also appears in the Assyrian inscriptions as being 
 overcome by Shalmaneser, and as paying him tribute 
 at the same time as Jehu. Jeroboam II., although not 
 mentioned by name, also appears to have paid tribute 
 to Eamman-nirari, king of Assyria (B.C. 812-783). 
 
 It has already been stated that Tiglath-Pileser 
 in his annals names Azariah of Judah, and says that 
 
 * It is well known that there are occasional discrepancies between the 
 Biblical chronology and that of the cuneiform inscriptions. 
 
 w 2
 
 340 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 he overcame some of the allies, but not the Jewish 
 monarch himself. This fully agrees with the picture 
 drawn of Azariah, in the Second Books of Kings and 
 Chronicles, as a powerful prince. It is to be noted 
 also that the Assyrian records give the name as Azariah, 
 not as Uzziah, and thus prove that the king had two 
 names, and that the form Azariah is not a clerical error, 
 as had sometimes been supposed. Menahem of Israel 
 and Ahaz of Judah are mentioned as paying tribute to 
 Tiglath-Pileser in the annals of this monarch. Pekah 
 was slain, and Hoshea was appointed in his stead by the 
 Assyrian king, and thus was simply the vassal of the 
 latter ; and when he revolted and turned to Egypt for 
 support, at once drew upon himself the wrath of his 
 suzerain. The final siege of Samaria was begun by 
 Shalmaneser IV., according to the Second Book of 
 Kings ; but of this Shalmaneser few records have yet 
 been discovered among the cuneiform inscriptions ; the 
 chronological lists, however, give his name and the 
 length of his reign : a period of five years only (B.C. 
 727-722).* Professor Schrader also attributes to this 
 Shalmaneser a bronze weight in the form of a lion, 
 found in the north-west palace of Nimroud. But 
 although the Book of Kings states that Shalmaneser 
 came up against Hoshea, who became his servant, it 
 does not expressly say that it was this monarch who 
 actually took Samaria ; and the cuneiform inscriptions 
 
 * The Babylonian Chronicle states that the " city of Shabarain " was 
 destroyed in this reign ; and a black stone in the Berlin Museum men- 
 tions a certain governor of Dur-ilu in the reign of Shalmaneser IV.
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 341 
 
 tell us that the " king of Assyria " who finally captured 
 the city and subdued the kingdom of Israel was Sargon, 
 the successor of Shalmaneser. In the year of Sargon's 
 accession to the throne, he or his troops took Samaria. 
 It was on account of treacherous dealings with " So, 
 king of Egypt," that Hoshea drew upon himself the 
 chastisement of his Assyrian suzerain : so we are told 
 by the Hebrew historian ; and this Egyptian prince So, 
 or Sabaco, appears in the cuneiform records, where he 
 is called the " tartan," or " general," of Egypt, and his 
 name is given as SiVu. So, or Sabaco, king of Egypt, 
 was put to flight by Sargon in a battle, thus recorded 
 in the same inscription from Khorsabad : 
 
 " Khanunu, king of Gaza, together with Sib'u the tartan [general] 
 of Egypt, marched against me to Rapikhu, to give me battle ; I 
 inflicted a defeat upon them. Sib'u feared the noise of my weapons, 
 fled away, and was no more found ; Khanunu, king of Gaza, I took 
 captive. I received the tribute of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, of 
 Samsi, queen of Arabia, and of the king of Saba : gold, products of 
 the mountains, horses, and camels." 
 
 The fate of Samaria after its final capture by the 
 Assyrians is described for us in the Book of Kings : the 
 inhabitants were deported to Assyria and other distant 
 provinces of Sargon's empire ; some of them were placed 
 in the city of Halah ; others on the river Habor, a 
 branch of the Euphrates ; and others at Gozan, in 
 Mesopotamia. The same events are briefly recorded 
 in the inscriptions at Khorsabad describing Sargon's 
 exploits. 
 
 " I besieged and captured the city of Samaria ; I seized as 
 my spoil twenty-seven thousand two hundred and eighty of its
 
 342 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 inhabitants ; I set apart fifty chariots found among them, and I made 
 my soldiers take the rest of their goods ; my officer I placed over the 
 inhabitants, and imposed upon them the same tribute that former 
 kings had received from them." 
 
 After the deportation of the native inhabitants of 
 the kingdom of Samaria to more eastern regions, some 
 of the inhabitants of Babylonian cities were brought to 
 fill their place. The Assyrian kings were, of course, 
 enemies and conquerors in Babylonia as well as in the 
 kingdom of Israel, and Sargon and his predecessors and 
 successors were on many occasions occupied in subduing 
 rebellions in the southern regions of the Euphrates ; 
 hence, there is nothing surprising in the fact that some 
 of the Babylonians were sent away like slaves out of 
 their own country, to weaken the hostile elements in 
 that part of the Assyrian Empire. The towns from 
 which they were chosen are well known to us from the 
 native records on clay. Not to mention Babylon, 
 Sepharvaim is the large and nourishing city of Sippara, 
 the seat of the Sun-god ; Cuthah is Kutu, one of the 
 chief towns of the south ; and Hamath is the great 
 Hittite city on the Orontes. Erom this last place 
 the cuneiform inscriptions expressly tell us that Sargon 
 carried away many of the inhabitants after he had 
 vanquished the native king, Ilubid ; and that subse- 
 quently he planted a colony of fresh inhabitants in 
 this depopulated district. 
 
 This history of Sargon is one of the greatest results of 
 the interpretation of the cuneiform inscriptions. Before 
 the excavations of Botta and the decipherment of the
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 313 
 
 engraved slabs and clay cylinders which he brought to 
 light, this great Assyrian conqueror was only known to 
 us from a passage referring to his conquest of Ashdod, 
 in the Book of Isaiah. The Canon of Ptolemy preserved 
 his name, indeed, but in a form not to be recognised, 
 since Sargon appears in that document, among the rulers 
 of Babylonia, as " Arkeanos." The king of Assyria who 
 captured Samaria, according to the Book of Kings, was 
 understood to be Shalmaneser. There is no reason to 
 suppose, however, that either Shalmaneser or Sargon 
 took part in the siege in person; the military operations 
 undertaken during the reign of an Assyrian king are 
 always attributed by Oriental servility to the monarch 
 himself, and possibly the inhabitants of the kingdoms 
 of Israel and Judah, when the city of Samaria fell, were 
 actually ignorant that Shalmaneser had died, and that 
 Sargon had recently, in that very year, ascended the 
 throne in the distant city of Nineveh. The records of 
 Sargon now discovered inform us of the chief events 
 that took place during the whole of his seventeen years' 
 reign (B.C. 722-705). During that period the Assyrian 
 armies undertook several successful campaigns in 
 Samaria, in Elam, in Babylonia, among the Hittites 
 and the Philistines, in Syria, in Media, in Armenia, 
 on the borders of Egypt and Arabia. The fame of 
 the conqueror spread so far that even the inhabitants 
 of the islands in the upper and lower seas, in the 
 Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, through fear of 
 him, sent him tribute ; and the princes of Cyprus and 
 of Dilmun acknowledged him as their suzerain.
 
 344 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 In the year 711, Sargon, whose conquests extended 
 on all sides of his kingdom, undertook a campaign 
 against Ashdod and other cities of the Philistines 
 whose princes refused the customary tribute. Ashdod 
 was taken, in accordance with the statement of Isaiah 
 and of the native chroniclers of Nineveh. The follow- 
 ing account is given in the great inscription on the 
 walls of Sargon's palace at Dur-Sarrukin, the modern 
 Khorsabad, excavated in 1843 by Botta: 
 
 "Azuri, king of Ashdod, planned in his heart to bring no more 
 tribute, and sent to the kings of the neighbouring districts to make 
 war against the land of Assyria. On account of the evil he had done, 
 I had removed him from the government of the people of his land, 
 and had placed his brother, Akhimiti, to rule over them. But evil- 
 minded Hittites were hostile to the government of this prince, and 
 raised up Yamani, who had no claim to the throne, and who, like 
 them, would not acknowledge my supremacy. In the wi-ath of my 
 heart I did not collect the mass of my troops nor break up my 
 camp. With my soldiers alone, who do not turn aside from the 
 place to which 1 turn, I marched to Ashdod. But Yatnani heard of 
 the approach of my troops when I was yet far off, fled to Egypt, 
 and was 110 more seen. I besieged and took Ashdod, Gath, and 
 Ashdudimmu ; his gods, his wife, his sons and daughters, his property, 
 the treasures of his palace, together with the people of his land, I 
 counted as booty. I settled those cities anew, and caused people 
 from the east, whom I had vanquished, to inhabit them ; I set my 
 officer over them, and counted them as subjects of the land of 
 Assyria ; and they paid submission to me." 
 
 The son and successor of Sargon was Sennacherib, 
 whose name means, "The Moon-god multiplies brothers." 
 For the first part of Sennacherib's reign we possess 
 records as complete as those of his father's ; they proceed, 
 for the most part, from the palace which he founded in
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 345 
 
 the city of Nineveh, properly so-called, and which is 
 now concealed under the mound of Kouyunjik, but has 
 been excavated by Sir H. Layard and Mr. Rassam. 
 Sennacherib's name was, of course, well known from 
 the account in the Second Book of Kings and in Isaiah 
 of his campaign against Hezekiah, and, as it happens, 
 the cylinders found in the usual cavities at the corners 
 of the platform of his palace give an account of this 
 very expedition, which took place in the third year 
 of his reign (B.C. 701). 
 
 Of Sennacherib's siege of Lachish we have not only 
 mention in writing, but also bas-reliefs depicting- the 
 events of the siege ; these are now in the British 
 Museum. One of the bas-reliefs shows Sennacherib 
 himself sitting on a richly-decorated throne in state, 
 while the Jewish captives are brought before him. A 
 short inscription above explains the scene : - 
 
 " Sennacherib, king of the hosts, king of Assyria, sits upon his 
 throne, while the spoils of Lachish pass before him." 
 
 It is true that no account has yet been found among 
 the Assyrian records of which we are far from possess- 
 ing a complete series of the destruction of Sennacherib's 
 army, mentioned in the Book of Kings and in Isaiah, 
 and also referred to by Herodotus. Still, there are 
 certain points to be remarked in the Assyrian narrative. 
 It is quite clear that Sennacherib did not take Jerusalem 
 or annex the kingdom of Judah to his own empire, 
 although Hezekiah paid him tribute, as the Hebrew 
 record also tells us ; it is certain that Sennacherib,
 
 346 NEW LIGHT ON THE BJ13LE. 
 
 for some reason, did not carry out his threat, re- 
 ported by the Hebrew historian, of deporting the 
 people of Jerusalem from their own country into the 
 east. The only point on which the two narratives 
 would seem at first to contradict one another is the 
 conquest of the Egyptians mentioned by the cylin- 
 ders, while the Hebrew account seems to speak of 
 Sennacherib as retreating before Tirhakah. This is 
 explained by some writers by the supposition * of two 
 campaigns of Sennacherib in Southern Palestine : one 
 comparatively successful, ending in the extortion of 
 tribute from Hezekiah and the taking; of Lachish ; the 
 
 o ' 
 
 other unsuccessful, and ending in the destruction of the 
 Assyrian army. Of the hitter campaign we have no 
 account at present in the native records. Professor 
 Schrader, on the other hand, believes that there is no 
 reason to imagine a second expedition of Sennacherib 
 unmentioned in the Bible or in the cuneiform inscrip- 
 tions. As he says, the victory over the Egyptians 
 would seem to have been very slight, hardly amounting 
 to a victory at all ; there is no list of booty taken from 
 the enemy, and no conquest of the country ; nothing 
 more probable, therefore, than that a subsequent rally 
 and advance of the Egyptian army should take place, 
 as mentioned in 2 Kings xix. 9 : 
 
 " He heard say of Tirliakah, king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come 
 out to fight against thee." 
 
 After thus receiving the news of the advance of the 
 
 * See Sir H. Rawlinson, in Canon Rawlinson's " Herodotus," I., p. 
 393, and Canon Rawlinson's "Five Great Monarchies," II., p. 105.
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 347 
 
 Egyptians, Sennacherib made a fresh attempt to reduce 
 Hezekiah to submission by threats, and then returned 
 to his own country, after the destruction of his army. 
 The last occurrence is naturally passed over in silence by 
 the Assyrian records, which conclude with a statement 
 of the tribute paid by Hezekiah earlier in the campaign. 
 The amount of the tribute is identical in the two 
 accounts ; for, though the Hebrew narrative mentions 
 three hundred talents of silver and the Assyrian eight 
 hundred, this results from the difference of the talent 
 of silver in the two countries. The Palestinian talent of 
 silver was exactly eight- thirds of the Babylonian ; the 
 talent of gold, on the other hand, was the same in both 
 countries. 
 
 Of Sennacherib's murder by his son at Nineveh 
 we have only recently obtained information from the 
 Assyrian records.* 
 
 Tirhakah was a king of the Ethiopian dynasty 
 which ruled Egypt at this period. He was afterwards 
 subdued by Esarhaddon, the son and successor of 
 Sennacherib, as we learn from the inscriptions of Esar- 
 h addon's son Sardanapalus, who also fought successfully 
 against this monarch, and who tells us : 
 
 o 
 
 " In my first expedition I marched against Magan and Meroe. 
 Tirhaka, king of Egypt and Ethiopia, whom Esarhaddon, king of 
 Assyria, my father, defeated, and whose land he made his own 
 possession, despised the might of Ashur and Ishtar, the great gods, 
 my lords, and presumed upon his own strength." 
 
 That Esarhaddon was the son of Sennacherib is 
 
 * See above, p. 322.
 
 348 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 confirmed by many passages. We possess, for instance, 
 bricks of his reign, stamped with his name thus : 
 
 " Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, son of Sennacherib, king of 
 Assyria." 
 
 The annals of Esarhaddon's reign state the same 
 fact. 
 
 After the account in the Book of Kings and in 
 Isaiah of Sennacherib's only partly successful campaign 
 in Syria, which ended disastrously to his army, we hear 
 of another Mesopotamian prince, Merodach-baladan, 
 who sent messengers to Hezekiah, and sought alliance 
 with him. This name belonged to more than one 
 Babylonian king about this period ; its meaning is 
 " The god Merodach has given a son." This was a 
 time of repeated conflicts between the Babylonian State 
 and the powerful kings of Assyria : the latter rarely 
 succeeded in maintaining their rule over the southern 
 kingdom for more than a few years without rebellion. 
 As, however, the Hebrew historian does not give the 
 exact date of Merodach-baladan's embassy, it is some- 
 what difficult to connect it at present with the prince 
 of that name mentioned in the Assyrian records as 
 rebelling against Sennacherib. But it was probably 
 the Merodach-baladan who reigned for some months 
 in the year B.C. 704 who sent the messengers to 
 Hezekiah. 
 
 Hezekiah's successor on the throne of David was 
 his son Manasseh, who, like his father, paid tribute to 
 his all-powerful Assyrian neighbour ; his name occurs 
 among a list of Syrian princes who acknowledged the
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 349 
 
 supremacy of Esarhaddon. In a similar list of the next 
 reign, that of Sardanapalus, the " king of Judah " also 
 appears ; and this is probably Manasseh again. In the 
 Hebrew records, on the other hand, Sardanapalus him- 
 self appears to be mentioned as the " great and noble 
 Asnapper " * who sent colonists to Samaria from other 
 parts of his empire. The name Asnapper is probably 
 a corrupted form of Ashurbanipal, the final I being 
 changed into r, as in Porus, the Greek form of Pul. 
 
 The Book of Chronicles states that Manasseh was 
 carried away to Babylon by the king of Assyria, and 
 afterwards restored to his own country. This event 
 has not yet been found related in the Assyrian records, 
 but there are many facts that suggest an explanation 
 of it. From B.C. 068 to B.C. 648, Babylon was ruled by 
 Shamash-shum-ukin, the son of Esarhaddon, and brother 
 of Sardanapalus, king of Assyria. Now, we are expressly 
 told that this prince acted treacherously towards his 
 brother Sardanapalus, and caused certain nations, in- 
 cluding the tribes of Syria and Phoenicia, to revolt 
 from their obedience to Nineveh ; afterwards Shamash- 
 shum-ukin was vanquished and slain by Sardanapalus, 
 who took the government of Babylon into his own 
 hands. Nothing could be more likely, then, than that 
 Manasseh should be punished in the way described in 
 the Book of Chronicles for his defection from his 
 obedience to his suzerain, the king of Assyria, when the 
 latter had regained the supremacy ; and as Babylon 
 was now in the hands of Sardanapalus, it is quite as 
 
 * Ezra iv. 10.
 
 350 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 natural that the Jewish prince should have been held 
 in captivity there as at the northern capital of Nineveh. 
 The allusion to the capture of No-Ammon, or Thehes, 
 by the prophet Nahum was never understood until the 
 interpretation of the cuneiform inscriptions threw light 
 upon it. From these it appears that Thebes was taken 
 by Ashurbanipal or Sardanapalus in the course of a 
 successful campaign in Egypt. The prince Urdamani 
 fled from Thebes on the approach of the Assyrian army. 
 The fate of the city thus abandoned is described in 
 the following terms : 
 
 " My hands vanquished this city by the help of Ashur and 
 Ishtar. I seized upon the silver, gold, precious stones, the furniture 
 of the palace, all that was found, garments of variegated stuffs, 
 horses, slaves, both male and female, two obelisks weighing 2,500 
 talents, which stood at the door of the temple ; and all this I took 
 with me to Assyria. Booty without number I captured in Thebes." 
 
 As for the last king of Assyria, Sin-shar-ishkun, or 
 Saracus, he is perhaps alluded to in the brief description 
 of Pharaoh-necho's campaign against the " king of 
 Assyria," in the course of which Josiah, king of Judah, 
 was slain at the battle of Megiddo, fighting against 
 the Egyptians.* 
 
 At the end of the seventh century before Christ, the 
 Assyrian supremacy was overthrown by the Babylonians, 
 and the great king of the southern State, Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, now appears as the invader and oppressor of the 
 West-Syrian countries. Of this monarch we possess many 
 monuments, consisting of bricks, tablets, and cylinders, 
 
 * 2 Kings xiii. 29.
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 351 
 
 inscribed with cuneiform characters. At present, how- 
 ever, no account of his campaigns * has been found ; 
 the inscriptions are entirely occupied with his work as 
 a builder and restorer of palaces and temples, and his 
 improvements of the city of Babylon. As for the 
 supposed portrait of Nebuchadnezzar preserved on a 
 well-known cameo, f there can be no doubt that, although 
 the inscription engraved around it is a genuine Baby- 
 lonian inscription, containing the name of the great 
 monarch, yet the head itself is Greek in character, and 
 must have been carved under the Macedonian dynasty 
 on an older gem. The activity of Nebuchadnezzar as 
 a builder, illustrated by the cuneiform inscriptions 
 already found, fully corresponds to the words of the 
 Book of Daniel, which speak of the king as exulting 
 over the magnificence of the city which he had himself 
 done so much to enlarge and beautify : 
 
 " The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I 
 have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, 
 and for the honour of my majesty 1 " 
 
 In his own annals, Nebuchadnezzar speaks in the 
 same way of the palace which he had built as the 
 " dwelling-place of his kingdom," or " royalty," and 
 boasts of having enlarged the city of Babylon and built 
 the two great walls around it. Within this great city, 
 
 * There are two fragments of a clay tablet which contained an 
 account of Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Egypt (Jer. xliii. 16 ff. ; Ez. 
 xxix. 19). Only a few words can be made oat. 
 
 t Now in the Museum at Florence. If not of the Macedonian period, 
 it may well have been carved under the Parthians, who allowed Seleucia 
 to remain in many ways a Greek city.
 
 352 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 as lie says, lie received tribute from all the princes of 
 the earth, and the homage of all mankind. The chief 
 temples were, restored by him, and overlaid with gold 
 until they shone like the sun. It is well known that 
 almost all the bricks dug up in such quantities by the 
 Arabs on the site of Babylon, and employed in the 
 erection of modern houses, bear the name of " Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar," upon them. 
 
 Of the last days of the Babylonian monarchy we 
 have already heard in a former chapter. We have seen 
 that Belshazzar was an historical personage, to whose 
 existence ample testimony is borne by the native 
 records, as well as by the Book of Daniel, and that the 
 capture of Babylon by Cyrus is mentioned in the 
 cuneiform inscriptions in terms that agree with the 
 allusions in the same book : the city was taken unex- 
 pectedly, and without resistance. Nothing, however, has 
 yet been found to explain the position of Darius the 
 Mede, but the same observation would have been made 
 some time ago about Belshazzar, about Pul, and about 
 Sargon. The Babylonian tablets have shown us the 
 origin of the names of the months employed by the 
 Jews from the time of the captivity. Two of these 
 names may be singled out that of Marchesvan, which 
 is in Babylonian Arakh-samna : that is to say, the 
 eighth month, in accordance with its position in the 
 calendar ; and Weadar, which was called on the banks 
 of the Euphrates " the intercalary month of Adar," and 
 was inserted from time to time, to keep the calendar in 
 accordance with the march of the sun,
 
 A SUMMARY OF FORMER RESULTS. 353 
 
 The Persian kings who are named in the Books of 
 Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther are well known to us from 
 the cuneiform inscriptions, as it has already been pointed 
 out. The character of Cyrus and the conciliatory policy 
 which he adopted towards the peoples whom he con- 
 quered are well illustrated by the monuments of his 
 reign found in Babylonia. He professes in these 
 documents to be the servant of the native gods, and 
 he carries out the desire of the priests in restoring the 
 images of the gods to their own cities and temples from 
 which they had been brought to Babylon by Naboni- 
 dus, whose policy it seems to have been to make the 
 capital a centre * of religious worship, just as Jerusalem 
 was in the west, and to destroy the local cults, which 
 were so deeply rooted in the hearts of his subjects, that 
 in the hope of their restoration they eagerly welcomed 
 a foreign invader. 
 
 * See Sayce : " Hibbert Lectures."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 
 
 FROM the glimpses that we catch in the pages of the 
 Hebrew prophets and historians, we are able to form 
 some idea of the power and wealth of the Assyrian 
 and Babylonian monarchs. We hear of their repeated 
 invasions of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and of 
 the countries that lay upon the borders of these small 
 principalities ; and we see the kings of Samaria and 
 of Jerusalem paying heavy tribute, or carried off as 
 captives, or put to death as a punishment for having 
 intrigued with other nations against the Assyrians. 
 To collect together the amount of the tribute extorted 
 by their suzerains, the vassal-kings would even tear 
 off the gold with which the doors and pillars of the 
 Temple itself were overlaid, and would pillage the 
 treasury of Jehovah in order to satisfy the demands 
 of the all-powerful monarch, whose armies were ravag- 
 ing the surrounding regions, carrying away the in- 
 habitants into slavery, and leaving desolation behind 
 wherever they appeared. We also hear of the great- 
 ness of Nineveh and Babylon, the capitals of empires 
 and the centres of trade, where all the culture and
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 355 
 
 luxury that the time could boast of had reached their 
 culminating point. 
 
 The picture painted for us by the Hebrew writers 
 has been explained and rendered more intelligible by 
 the na';ive records which have been brought to lip-lit 
 
 ~ o 
 
 during this century, and interpreted through the 
 patient labour of modern scholars. The annals of the 
 Assyrian kings are little more than a list of conquests 
 or a record of architectural work ; these monarchs seem 
 to have been constantly occupied either in overrunning 
 the surrounding countries at the head of their armies, 
 making slaves of the inhabitants, and seizing all the 
 wealth that could be found in the captured cities, or 
 in erecting great palaces and temples of brick and 
 slime, whose tops should reach unto heaven, in the 
 midst of their strongly-fortified cities. In whatever 
 direction the Assyrian armies turned, the same results 
 followed ; in Elam, in Media, in Armenia, in Cappa- 
 docia, in Syria, in Canaan, the " fenced cities were 
 turned into ruinous heaps," like the " sandhills formed 
 by the whirlwind," and the inhabitants were "dismayed 
 and confounded," for the conquerors "reckoned them 
 as their spoil," together with the gold and silver, the 
 weapons of war, the chariots, and the furniture of the 
 houses. 
 
 This is the characteristic feature of the history of the 
 Assyrians from the earliest period, although there were, 
 naturally, long intervals during which their power was 
 weakened for a time, and the course of their conquests 
 was stopped. According to the tradition received by the
 
 356 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Greek and Roman writers who composed histories of 
 the East, the Assyrians were the first to enlarge their 
 dominions beyond their own borders : the first, in fact, 
 to found an empire. 
 
 "In the remotest antiquity . . . the nations were occupied 
 in defending their own borders rather than in enlarging them ; the 
 kings were confined within the territories handed down to them by 
 their ancestors. Ninus, king of Assyria, was the first whom the 
 ambition to found an empire drove to change the ancient order of 
 things. He was the first who made war upon his neighbours, and he 
 overcame the tribes, yet inexperienced in the arts of defence, as far 
 as the boundaries of Libya." * 
 
 Ninus, of course, is the mythical king whose name 
 occurs only in Greek and Roman writers, and was 
 borrowed from that of the city of Nineveh, which they 
 also call Ninus ; but the rest of Justin's words seem to 
 be borne out by what we learn from the native records. 
 
 The first Assyrian conqueror of whom we hear is 
 Sargon of Agane.t The account of this monarch's 
 origin in some points resembles the history of Moses ; 
 for, like the Hebrew law-giver, Sargon was exposed by 
 his mother in a basket of reeds daubed with slirne and 
 with pitch, but was afterwards rescued, and lived to 
 achieve greatness. Sargon's mother was a princess, but 
 his father was unknown ; " the brother of his father 
 dwelt on the mountain." His mother, to conceal his 
 birth, placed him in a basket of reeds, smeared with 
 bitumen, on the river Euphrates, from whence he was 
 rescued by Akki, the irrigator, who brought him up as 
 his own son, and made him, his gardener ; the goddess 
 
 * Justin, i. 1. t See above, pp. 145 and 265.
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 357 
 
 Ishtar conceived an affection for him, and eventually 
 by what steps we are not told set him upon the throne 
 of Accad. This part of the story is evidently a legend ; 
 but of the historical character of Sargon there can be no 
 doubt, for we possess several short inscriptions of his 
 time, and of the time of his son, Nararn-Sin ; nor is 
 there reason to doubt the account of his wars. Sargon 
 extended his conquests to the Mediterranean on the 
 west and to the Persian Gulf on the south ; and more 
 than this, he crossed the seas to the island of Cyprus 
 on the one hand, and to the islands of Dilmun, or 
 Bahrein, on the other. His conquest of Cyprus is borne 
 witness to by an inscription that has been found in 
 that island ; in this his son, Naram-Sin, is worshipped 
 as a god. The land of Elam was also included in 
 Sargon's conquests, as it was in those of some of his 
 remote successors in the government of Babylonia. 
 
 The son of Sargon was Naram-Sin, the founder of 
 the Temple of the Sun at Sippara. This prince is said 
 to have conquered Magan, a country identified with the 
 peninsula of Sinai,* although the name was applied 
 more extensively in later days to the territories of 
 Ethiopia. It was from Magan that Gudea, the ruler 
 of Lagash, obtained, as we have seen, the blocks of 
 diorite out of which his statues and other sculptured 
 works were made. It may have been through the 
 conquests of Naram-Sin that the acquisition of this 
 stone was made possible. Perhaps the copper which 
 Gudea used for his statuettes, now in the British 
 
 * See above, p. 156.
 
 358 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Museum and in the Louvre, and for the adornment of 
 his temples, also came from the mines of Sinai ; the 
 copper of Cyprus, however, is of better quality, and, 
 as Sargon had subdued Cyprus, there may already have 
 been, in these very early times, an influx of this metal 
 from the island which afterwards gave it its Latin name 
 into Babylonia. The intercourse between Egypt and 
 Bab} T lonia at this remote period is further illustrated by 
 the scale of measurement found on the graduated rule 
 which Gudea holds on his knee in the statue which repre- 
 sents him in the character of architect; * for the standard 
 of measurement here marked is recognised by Mr. Petrie 
 as identical with that used by the Egyptians of the 
 fourth and two following dynasties, and as differing 
 slightly from that employed in later times by the 
 Babylonians and Assyrians. 
 
 The kings of Ur, Erech, and Nipur seem to have 
 extended their conquests over the neighbouring regions, 
 but we do not know how far. The title " king of the 
 four regions," of the north, south, east and west, is 
 borne by Dungi, King of Ur, and by other rulers of the 
 same city ; but the inscriptions of these early times are 
 often limited to the stamps upon the bricks of which the 
 buildings were constructed, or to dedicatory lines upon 
 votive objects. 
 
 The first event in Babylonian history recorded in the 
 Hebrew books, except the foundation of the great tower, 
 is the invasion of Syria by Chedorlaomer, King of 
 Elam, Amraphel, King of Shinar, and their allies. As 
 
 * See above, p. 159 f.
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 359 
 
 we have already seen, Kudurmapuk an Elamite prince, 
 probably of the same dynasty as Chedorlaomer calls 
 himself " Lord of Syria " in a cuneiform inscription. 
 This is another instance of the warlike expeditions 
 which the kings of the Mesopotamian valleys made, all 
 through their history, into the surrounding countries, 
 and especially into the territories which lie upon the 
 shores of the Mediterranean. The Elamite dynasty was 
 overthrown by Khammurabi, the first king of the city 
 of Babylon of whom we have monuments, who, pro- 
 bably not long before B.C. 2200, established the supre- 
 macy of that city in the lower valley of the Euphrates. 
 During the next age the States of Mesopotamia do 
 not seem to have extended their conquests beyond the 
 limits of that region. They were, doubtless, sufficiently 
 occupied with wars among themselves. The kingdoms 
 of Assyria and Babylonia were now formed. The 
 southern kingdom was ruled for many centuries by the 
 Kassite dynasty, to which Burraburyash belonged a 
 prince made familiar to us by the Tell el-Amarna 
 tablets. Of the quarrels between Assyria and Baby- 
 lonia, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries before 
 Christ, we have some knowledge through the " Synchro- 
 nous History," already quoted.* It is also hinted, in 
 the letters of Burraburyash, that the Assyrians as well 
 as the Canaanites attempted, from time to time, to resist 
 the supremacy of the .Egyptian power in Western Asia 
 at this period. But the armies of the Nile were too 
 strong, for several centuries, to allow the Babylonians or 
 
 * See above, p. 194 f.
 
 360 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Assyrians to overrun the principalities of Syria and 
 Canaan, as they had done in the preceding age. From 
 the destruction of the Hyksos until the latter days of 
 the eighteenth dynasty, Egypt was acknowledged as 
 mistress in Syria, and received the tribute of Tyre and 
 Jerusalem. Then came a period of Hittite supremacy, 
 until this was weakened by the victories of Rameses II. 
 But the Egyptians never again ruled in Western Asia 
 as they had done under Thothmes and Amenophis. 
 There was a period during which the Syrian States were 
 left to develop themselves, undisturbed by their power- 
 ful neighbours ; in this interval the Israelites took pos- 
 session of Canaan, and eventually founded the kingdoms 
 of Israel and Judah. Then the armies of the Tigris and 
 Euphrates again began to make the small States of 
 Syria their prey from time to time ; and the treasuries 
 of Mesopotamian cities were again filled with the spoils 
 of Phoenicia. This period of Assyrian conquest was 
 ushered in by Tiglath-Pileserl., who reigned about B.C. 
 1100. The following are the titles which this prince 
 gives to himself in the prelude to his annals : 
 
 " Tiglath-Pileser, the mighty king, the king of nations, without 
 equal ; the king of the four regions of the world ; the king of all 
 princes, the lord of lords, the king of kings ; the high priest, to 
 whom the glorious sceptre has been given in the name of the Sun- 
 god ; the ruler of all the subjects of the god Bel ; the true prince, 
 whose power over all rulers is acknowledged; the high judge, whose 
 weapons clash in the service of the god Ashur ; whose name is called 
 to rule over the four quarters of the world for ever ; who has carried 
 his power like the advancing storm into the land of the enemy ; who, 
 by the will of Bel, has no adversary, and has overthrown the enemies 
 of Ashur."
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 361 
 
 At the beginning of bis reign, Tiglatb-Pileser in- 
 vaded Commagene, in North-eastern Syria, where he 
 captured the cities, slew large numbers of the inhabi- 
 tants, and carried off others into slavery. The pretext 
 for his attack upon this nation was that they had refused 
 to pay tribute to the god Ashur, or, in other words, to 
 the Assyrian king himself ; and this makes it probable 
 that Commagene had already acknowledged the su- 
 premacy of Assyria in earlier reigns. Some of the 
 troops of the invaded district fled to Shirishi, a city on 
 the other side of the Tigris ; but they were pursued by 
 the relentless conqueror, and the city was taken and 
 sacked. The list of booty is given, according to the 
 general custom of the Assyrian annalists, and shows the 
 real object for which such expeditions were undertaken. 
 Tiglath-Pileser took into captivity the king, his wives, 
 and his children, and carried away all his treasure of 
 gold, silver, and bronze, and the images of his gods. 
 The whole territory of Commagene was made part of the 
 Assyrian Empire. 
 
 After this victory, Tiglath-Pileser led his armies 
 into the mountainous region north of the recently-van- 
 quished country. As far as it was possible, the Assyrians 
 took their chariots ; but when the mountain passes be- 
 came too rough for the chariots, the army, with the king 
 at their head, scaled the precipices on foot. The town 
 of Mildish a hill-fortress was taken, and turned into 
 a heap, and all its treasures were carried off. 
 
 Many of the neighbouring regions were overrun in 
 the same way by Tiglath-Pileser, who took the cities and
 
 362 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 carried off the booty. The land of the Hittites was 
 invaded, and their capital, Carchemish, was captured; 
 many of the inhabitants were slain, and the spoils that 
 were carried off were " without number." In his inva- 
 sion of the land of the Hittites, Tiglath-Pileser even 
 reached the shores of the Mediterranean. In his own 
 words : 
 
 "Altogether, my hand conquered forty-two countries and their 
 princes, from beyond the Lower Zab to beyond the Euphrates, to the 
 land of the Hittites and the upper western sea, between the begin- 
 ning of my reign and the fifth year of my government. I united the 
 lands together, I took their hostages, and I imposed upon them the 
 payment of tribute." 
 
 After the account of his military campaigns, Tiglath- 
 Pileser gives us a description of his hunting expeditions. 
 These he represents as undertaken in the service of the 
 gods as much as his wars ; and his success in both is 
 entirely attributed to the divine assistance that he re- 
 ceived. In the neighbourhood of the Habor that 
 branch of the Euphrates on which the captive Israelites 
 were settled in later times the Assyrian king slew ten 
 elephants, and he also killed 920 lions in the same 
 regions. The elephant has long disappeared from that 
 part of the world, and the lion, though still existing, is 
 far from common. 
 
 When the success of his campaigns allowed him to 
 indulge in the enjoyments of peace, Tiglath-Pileser em- 
 ployed himself in the erection of temples to the gods, 
 and in restoring ruined palaces and city walls through- 
 out lus kingdom, He also planted parks with cedars
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 363 
 
 and other trees that he had brought from the countries 
 conquered by him. 
 
 The history of Tiglath-Pileser I. is the earliest 
 account we have of a typical Assyrian monarch, such as 
 those who, in later times, captured Samaria and besieged 
 Jerusalem, and whose characters are so vividly drawn 
 for us by the Hebrew writers. His activit}^ alike 
 in war and in peace ; his desolating campaigns, during 
 which the countries that he invaded were swept as if by 
 a tempest, and their inhabitants and their treasures 
 were carried off; and, in peace, his employment of his 
 resources in erecting great palaces of brickwork and 
 cedar, and lofty temples partly overlaid with gold and 
 silver ; the obedience that he claimed, and the tribute 
 that he exacted all correspond exactly to the pictures 
 presented by the prophets and historians of Judah. The 
 latter refer, however, to the later kings the successors 
 of Tiglath-Pileser I. who, as we shall see, closely re- 
 sembled him in their character and policy. 
 
 Among this monarch's successors, the first who 
 equalled him in power and activity, so far as our infor- 
 mation allows us to judge, was Ashur-nasir-pal, who 
 reigned from B.C. 885 to B.C. 860. The capital city of 
 Tiglath-Pileser was Ashur, now represented by the ruins 
 of Kalah-Sherkat, on the Tigris, some distance south of 
 Nineveh ; it was amongst these ruins that his records 
 were found. The capital of Ashur-nasir-pal, on the 
 other Land, was Calah,* five hours' journey south of 
 Nineveh, but considerably to the north of Ashur. The 
 
 * The modern Niinroud; see pp. 45, 116.
 
 364 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 empire of the last-named monarch extended from the 
 Mediterranean, on the west, to the lake now called 
 Urumiah, on the east ; and from Mount Ararat and the 
 Upper Euphrates, on the north, to the Lower Zab, on the 
 south. This is a smaller extent of territory than that 
 which was included in the conquests of Tiglath-Pileser 
 I., or in the empire of later rnonarchs. The campaigns 
 of Ashur-nasir-pal, however, were as numerous as those 
 of his great predecessor. Commagene was again in- 
 vaded, for the purpose of receiving the tribute of that 
 country, consisting of copper vessels, sheep, oxen, and 
 wine. While the Assyrians were still in Commagene, 
 news was brought to them of the rebellion of a town 
 named Suru, where a leader of unknown extraction had 
 been placed upon the throne, and had renounced his 
 allegiance to the Assyrian king. Ashur-nasir-pal at 
 once marched upon the rebellious city, and although 
 the chief men came out to meet him and to beg for their 
 lives, he gave the place up to plunder. All the treasures 
 that could be collected from the palace and temple were 
 seized : they consisted of a store of gold and silver, lead 
 and iron, of a great number of copper vessels, of 
 chariots and horses, garments of blue and scarlet, cedar 
 panels, and other objects of Oriental luxury. The women 
 and children were carried off as slaves. The rebels were 
 punished with the greatest cruelties ; many were flayed 
 alive, others were impaled. The insurgent leader, who 
 had made himself king, was carried to Nineveh, where 
 he was flayed alive" and his skill exposed upon the city 
 walls,
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 365 
 
 Not long afterwards, Ashur-nasir-pal advanced to the 
 sources of the River Subnat, the scene of former victo- 
 ries of Tiglath-Pileser I. Here the last-named prince 
 had erected his own image, as a visible token of his 
 supremacy, according to a common custom of the 
 Assyrian monarchs. Ashur-uasir-pal set up a figure 
 of himself in the same way beside that of Tiglath- 
 Pileser, and subsequently he received the tribute of 
 the country. Certain parts of the territory, however, 
 refused to submit to him, and he inflicted a terrible 
 punishment upon them for their insubordination. Many 
 cities were taken and ravaged, and the capture of the 
 city of Tila is described by the Assyrian annalist in the 
 following terms, in which, according to the invariable 
 custom, the king is represented as relating his own 
 deeds : 
 
 " I approached the city of Tila. The city was very strong, sur- 
 rounded by three walls ; the inhabitants trusted in their strong 
 walls and their numberless troops, and did not come out to embrace 
 my feet. I stormed the city with battle and slaughter, and I took 
 it. Three thousand warriors I laid low with my weapons. I carried 
 off the spoils, the goods of the people, their sheep and their oxen. 
 Many of those that were taken captive I burned with fire. Many I 
 took alive, and cut off their hands, their noses, and their ears ; I put 
 out the eyes of many. I erected a pile of living bodies and another 
 pile of heads. Their youths and maidens I burned in the fire. I 
 ravaged and laid waste the city, burnt it with fire, and destroyed it. 
 Then I ravaged the cities of Nirbi, and threw down their strong 
 walls ; I destroyed the cities, and burned them with fire." 
 
 This is only one instance of the destruction wrought 
 by Ashur-nasir-pal upon the cities that refused to 
 pay him tribute or acknowledge his supremacy. He
 
 366 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 describes many other sieges and captures in almost iden- 
 tical terms in the course of his annals not omitting to 
 
 O 
 
 mention, with a certain horrible complacency, the tor- 
 tures that he inflicted on the unfortunate inhabitants, 
 who, trusting in their own strength, had dared to dis- 
 pute the sovereignty of the gods of Assyria, and had 
 neglected to send the gifts required of them. 
 
 After a succession of conquests, Ashur-nasir-pal 
 restored the city of Calali, where he founded a temple 
 in honour of the god Ninib. In the sixth year of his 
 reign he matched forth again at the head of his troops, 
 to collect the tribute of the surrounding countries. 
 Among the countries that he invaded was the land of 
 the Hittites. He advanced to their capital, Carchemish, 
 and received at their hands tribute, consisting of gold 
 and silver, a store of copper vessels, rich garments, ivory, 
 and chariots. All the kings of the country came and 
 kissed his feet in token of submission, and he received 
 hostages from them as guarantees of their fidelity. 
 
 After his triumphal passage through the land of the 
 Hittites, Ashur-nasir-pal crossed the Orontes, and ad- 
 vanced as far as the shores of the Mediterranean. Here 
 he cleansed his weapons in the waters of the Great 
 Sea, and offered sacrifice to the gods. The kings of the 
 Phoenician States along the coast came and brought 
 him tribute ; among them, the kings of Tyre, Sidon, 
 Gebal or Byblus, Arvad or Aradus, offered him gold, 
 silver, copper, linen garments, precious woods, and 
 other valuable gifts. During his stay in Pho3nicia, 
 Ashur-nasir-pal caused a supply of cedar- wood to be cut
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 367 
 
 down on the mountains of Amanus, that he might take 
 it back with him to Assyria, to serve in the construction 
 of his palaces and temples. 
 
 The newly-restored city of Calah was peopled with 
 the inhabitants of the various countries overrun by 
 Aslmr-nasir-pal in the course of his campaigns, whom 
 lie had deported into Assyria from their own native 
 lands ; exactly as Sargou peopled Samaria with Baby- 
 lonians and Hittites. A new canal was dug to bring 
 water through the town from the Upper Zab, and the 
 neighbourhood was planted with gardens. 
 
 The following is the inscription upon the stela 
 bearing the image of this powerful and ruthless con- 
 queror, this typical Assyrian prince, which was found 
 amoDg the remains of his palace at Calah : 
 
 " Ashurnasirpal, the great king, the mighty king, the king of 
 hosts, the king of Assyria, son of Tukulti-Ninib, the great king, the 
 mighty king, the king of hosts, the king of Assyria, who was 
 son of Ramman-nirari, the great king, the mighty king, the king 
 of hosts, the king of Assyria. Ashurnasirpal conquered the lands 
 from the river Tigris to the Lebanon, and to the Great Sea; he 
 subdued under his feet all the lands from the rising of the sun to the 
 setting of the sun." 
 
 The son of Ashur-nasir-pal was named Shalmaneser, 
 and was the second of the name. He reigned from B.C. 
 860 to. B.C. 825, and equalled or surpassed his father in 
 the extent of his conquests. The very first of his expe- 
 ditions was directed to the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 where, like his father, he dipped his weapons in the 
 sea, according to some religious rite, the meaning of 
 which is not further explained, and lie offered sacrifice
 
 368 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 to the gods ; after which he proceeded to carry out that 
 which was, doubtless, the chief object of the expedition, 
 and caused his troops to cut down a supply of cedars 
 and cypresses upon the sides of Mount Amanus. The 
 following campaigns of Shalmaneser led him to the 
 regions of Armenia, and afterwards to Babylonia, where 
 the king, Marduk-nadin-shum, had been overthrown by 
 his own brother, and had sent to Assyria for help. 
 The assistance of the powerful armies of the northern 
 kingdom soon restored Marduk-nadin-shum to his 
 throne. The Assyrian records speak with much rever- 
 ence of the ancient Babylonian temples which were 
 visited by Shalmaneser, who there offered rich sacrifices 
 to the gods. In the city of Babylon " the bolt which 
 fastens heaven and earth together, the seat of life " the 
 Assyrian monarch paid his devotions to the great god 
 Bel, in the Temple of Bit-Saggil ; and in Borsippa he 
 presented his gifts to Nebo, in the sanctuary of Bit- 
 Zida. The result of this Chaldaian campaign was, of 
 course, that the country became tributary to its mighty 
 neighbour, and the Babylonian princes were forced to 
 send their gifts to Assyria. 
 
 In the eleventh year of his reign, Shalmaneser 
 carried his conquests to districts of Phoenicia and Syria 
 that had not for many centuries lain under the Assyrian 
 yoke. He crossed the Euphrates for the ninth time, 
 and marched into the land of the Hittites, where he 
 subdued no less than eighty-nine cities. Ashur-nasir-pal 
 had received tribute from Tyre and Sidon ; but his son 
 went as far south as Damascus and vanquished Hadade-
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 369 
 
 zer,* a Syrian king of the same name as lie who had 
 formerly fought with David. Hadadezer allied himself 
 with twelve kings of Syria, including Ahab, king of 
 Israel, in the hope of being able to resist the Assyrian 
 forces by the union of their armies with his own ; but 
 they were, nevertheless, put to flight. Some years later, 
 Shalmaneser overcame Hazael, King of Damascus, who 
 had made a fresh attempt to oppose the Assyrian 
 conquests. During this expedition tribute was sent to 
 Shalmaneser, not only by the princes of Tyre and Sidon, 
 but also by Jehu, King of Israel. 
 
 Shalmaneser II. was the first Assyrian king who 
 conquered parts of Cilicia, and who advanced far into 
 Armenia, and beyond Lake Urumiah, into regions that 
 now form part of the kingdom of Persia. During every 
 year of his reign he seems to have sent out a military 
 expedition into some of the surrounding territories, for 
 the purpose of enforcing the payment of tribute, or 
 of chastising those princes who dared to resist his 
 supremacy. But, of course, it is not necessary to 
 suppose that he always went in person at the head 
 of his troops ; it was the flattery of the court annalists, 
 which represented all the deeds of the Assyrian armies 
 as the exploits of the monarch himself: just as the 
 king, in his turn, attributes his successes to the assist- 
 ance of the national divinities. 
 
 We do not hear so much in the annals of Shalma- 
 neser of the cruelties which accompanied the Assyrian 
 conquests ; but we have an actual representation of 
 
 * Called Beiihadad in the Book of Kings. 
 Y
 
 370 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 some of them in the bus- reliefs upon the bronze bands, 
 now in the British Museum, which formerly decorated 
 the gates of the temple at Imgur-Bel, the modern 
 Balawat. We there see living captives impaled upon 
 stakes outside the walls of the captured cities ; and in 
 other places the Assyrian executioner is seen in the 
 act of hewing off the hands and feet of unfortunate 
 prisoners, and making a pile of these ghastly trophies. 
 
 Shalmaneser II. was succeeded upon the throne of 
 Assyria by his son, Shamshi-Kamman (B.C. 825-812). 
 The first campaign of this prince was undertaken 
 against Armenia. It would seem that the supremacy 
 of the foreign suzerain never remained long undisputed 
 in the tributary States : it was necessary for the kings 
 of Assyria to be constantly making fresh expeditions 
 into the countries that they had already overrun ; other- 
 wise, the supply of tributary gifts soon fell off, and the 
 conquered princes of Syria and Armenia soon began to 
 make alliances with one another against the hated 
 tyrant from the Tigris. Accordingly, Shamshi-Ramman 
 was obliged to undertake a series of campaigns into the 
 very territories that his father had subdued before him. 
 
 The second expedition of this monarch's reign was- 
 not undertaken by him in person, as the annalist ex- 
 pressly tells us ; but the Eabshak was sent at the head 
 of the troops into Armenia, as the Rabshak of Sen- 
 nacherib was sent to the gates of Jerusalem in the 
 days of Hezekiah. 
 
 The fourth campaign of the king whose reign 
 we are now considering led him to the conquest of
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 371 
 
 Babylonia, whence he carried off immense booty and 
 thousands of captives. Of the royal city of one of the 
 Chaldsean princes the records speak as follows : 
 
 " I captured that city in the course of my expedition. I laid 
 thirteen thousand of the warriors low with my weapons, and made 
 their blood flow like water through the streets ; I piled up their 
 corpses into heaps. Three thousand men I took alive. I carried off 
 from that city the royal bed, the royal couch, the treasures of the 
 palace, the women, the goods and furniture in unnumbered quantities. 
 I laid waste, destroyed, and burnt that city." 
 
 The next king of Assyria, Ramman-nirari III. (B.C. 
 812-783), extended the Assyrian Empire even further 
 than his father and predecessor. His titles run as 
 follows upon a stone tablet from his palace at Calah : 
 
 " Ramman-nirari, the great king, the mighty king, the king of 
 hosts, the king of Assyria, who was called in his childhood by the 
 god Ashur king of the heavenly spirits, and endowed with an 
 empire that has no equal. From the Great Sea of the rising of the 
 sun to the Great Sea of the setting of the sun, his hand has 
 conquered and subdued all the regions." 
 
 On another tablet which was formerly placed on the 
 walls of the same palace the conquests of Ramman- 
 nirari are thus enumerated : 
 
 " Beyond the Euphrates, I subdued under my feet the land of 
 the Hittites, the whole of the land of the Amorites, Tyre, Sidon, the 
 land of Omri [that is, the kingdom of Samaria], Edom, Philistia, as 
 far as the Great Sea of the setting of the sun, and I imposed tribute 
 upon them. I marched against the territory of Damascus, and shut 
 up Mari, the king, in Damascus, his royal city. The fear of the 
 glory of Ashur, his lord, overcame him, and he embraced my feet 
 and submitted to me. I captured in his palace in Damascus 2,300 
 talents of silver, 20 talents of gold, 3,000 talents of copper, 5,000 
 
 Y 2
 
 372 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 talents of iion, garments of many colours, linen, a bed of ivory, a 
 couch inlaid with ivory, and his goods and furniture in unnumbered 
 quantities." 
 
 In the same way, the Chaldsean princes sent their 
 gifts to Eamman-nirari, especially from Babylon, Bor- 
 sippa, and Cutha. The empire of this prince seems 
 to have comprised all that is now called Turkey in Asia, 
 outside the limits of Anatolia, and even parts of the 
 latter province and of the western regions of Persia. 
 Soon after the death of Eamman-nirari, the throne of 
 Assyria was ascended by Tiglath-Pileser III. (B.C. 745- 
 727), whose Babylonian name of Pul has been discussed 
 in a former chapter. This is the first Assyrian in- 
 vader of the Syrian principalities who is mentioned 
 by name in the Bible. The reign of this prince 
 was taken up, like those of his predecessors, with a 
 series of military expeditions for the enforcement of 
 tribute and the punishment of rebellious princes, but 
 he does not seem to have enlarged the boundaries of his 
 empire beyond those fixed by Eamman-nirari. He was 
 accepted by the Babylonians as their king, as the royal 
 lists tell us, and as he tells us himself, thus : 
 
 " In Sippara, Nipur, Babylon, Borsippa, Cutha, Kish, Dilbat, 
 and Erech, tlie cities that have no equal, I offered pure sacrifices to 
 Bel, to Zirbanit, to Nebo, to Tashmit, to Nergal, the great gods, my 
 lords, and they accepted my priestly ministrations. I subdued the 
 broad lands of Babylonia, and exercised kingly authority over them." 
 
 Among the names of the princes who paid tribute 
 to Tiglath-Pileser in the latter part of his reign, we 
 read those of rulers of Commagene, of Hamath, of
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 373 
 
 Byblus, of Cappadocia, of Aradus, of Ammon, of Moab, 
 of Ascalon, of Edom, of Gaza, and more interesting to 
 us of Ahaz, King of Judah. The predecessor of Ahaz, 
 however Azariah, or Uzziah was powerful or for- 
 tunate enough to remain independent of the Assyrians ; 
 some of his allies were subdued, but not himself : 
 
 " Cities that by their sin had allied themselves with Azariah I 
 brought back to the dominion of Assyria, and placed my officers in 
 them as governors." 
 
 Menaliem, King of Israel, on the other hand, the con- 
 temporary of Azariah, was reckoned among the tributa- 
 ries of Tiglath-Pileser, together with Resin, King of 
 Syria. 
 
 A-t the end of the reign of Tiglath-Pileser, he caused 
 Pekah, the usurping king of Israel, to be put to death, 
 and raised Hoshea, his tributary, to the throne of Sa- 
 maria. At the same time he carried off a large number 
 of the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel into cap- 
 tivity. He tells us himself : 
 
 " As for the land of the House of Omri [that is, Samaria] . . . 
 a multitude of its inhabitants, together with their possessions, I 
 carried away to Assyria. I slew Pekah, their king; I placed Hoshea 
 over them [as king]." 
 
 Very soon after the establishment of Hoshea upon 
 the throne of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser died, and was suc- 
 ceeded by Shalmaneser IV. (727-722), who, on account 
 of the unfaithfulness of Hoshea and his intrigues with 
 Egypt, caused the Assyrian armies to besiege Samaria. 
 Before the siege had been brought to an issue, however, 
 Shalraaneser of whose wars we do Rot possess any
 
 374 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 records in his native language died, and was succeeded 
 by Sargon, so that Samaria was actually taken in the 
 reign of the latter king. 
 
 Sargon was the greatest of the Assyrian conquerors 
 that had yet appeared. He seems to have ascended 
 the throne through a revolution, and not to have been 
 connected with the former royal house. In the first 
 year of his reign Samaria was taken, and the kingdom 
 of Israel was destroyed. During the subsequent wars 
 of Sargon this great conqueror overran Babylonia, Elam, 
 the northern parts of Arabia, Armenia, Commagene, 
 Syria, and the land of the Hittites, and the country of 
 the Philistines to the borders of Egypt. Many of the 
 inhabitants of the conquered cities were deported into 
 other countries : the native annals tell us that certain 
 Arab tribes were settled by Sargon in Samaria, exactly 
 as, according to the Book of Kings, he settled a colony 
 of Babylonians in the same district. Other tribes were 
 planted in other parts of Syria. He says : 
 
 "I carried away the inhabitants of Sukkia, Bala, Abitikna, 
 Pappa, and Lallukna from their native country, and I settled them 
 in Damascus and the land of the Hittites." 
 
 In the same way, when Sargon had vanquished the 
 people of Commagene, north of Syria, he carried them 
 away to Assyria, and colonised their country with fresh 
 inhabitants. The record tells us : 
 
 " Mutallu of Commagene, a wicked man, without reverence for 
 the name of the gods, who planned wickedness and counselled ini- 
 quity, placed his trust in Argisti, king of Ararat, a helper who could 
 not save him ; he neglected to pay the yearly tribute, and refused to
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 375 
 
 send his gifts. In the wrath of my heart, I advanced against him 
 with my chariots and horsemen. He saw my army approach, and 
 abandoned his city, and was no more seen. I besieged and took that 
 city, and sixty-two other strong cities in his country. I carried 
 away his wife, his children, his possessions, and the treasures of his 
 palace, together with the people of his land. I did not leave one 
 behind. I peopled that country afresh, and caused the natives of 
 Babylonia, whom I had taken captive, to dwell in it. I placed my 
 officer as governor over them, and laid the yoke of my rule upon 
 them." 
 
 It was thus the general policy of Sargon perhaps to 
 a greater extent than of his predecessors to carry off 
 the inhabitants of a conquered city or district, and to 
 people it afresh with captives from other regions. 
 During the latter part of his reign Sargon was recog- 
 nised by the Babylonians as their legitimate king ; he 
 was allowed to " take the hands of Merodach " according 
 to the priestly rite, and he made rich offerings to the 
 gods, including 154 talents of gold and 1,604 talents 
 of silver. This secured him from rebellion during the 
 rest of his reign ; but as soon as his son, Sennacherib, 
 ascended the throne of Assyria, the claims of the latter 
 were disputed in the southern kingdom. 
 
 The reign of Sennacherib was occupied with a series 
 of campaigns like those of his predecessors. First of all, 
 he was engaged in fighting with Merodach-baladan in 
 Babylonia. Then he overran the highlands of Elam. 
 His third campaign drew him to the land of the west 
 to the land of the Hittites and the Phoenician sea-coast. 
 At the news of Sennacherib's approach, Luli, or Elulseus, 
 King of Sidon, fled beyond the sea to the island of 
 Cyprus. After receiving the submission and tribute of
 
 376 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the principal cities of Phoenicia, Sennacherib laid siege 
 to Ekron, the king of which, Padi, who had acknow- 
 ledged the supremacy of Assyria, had been imprisoned 
 by Hezckiah in Jerusalem, whither he had been sent in 
 chains by the chief men of Ekron, who were desirous of 
 breaking away from the Assyrian yoke. In thus rebel- 
 ling against the all-powerful suzerain, the men of Ekron 
 relied upon the help of Egypt ; but this did not avail 
 them, and the annals of Sennacherib describe their defeat 
 thus : 
 
 " The chief men, the officers, and the other inhabitants of Ekron, 
 had thrown Padi, who was their king according to the laws and 
 decrees of Assyria, into iron fetters, and had given him up, with 
 hostile purposes, to Hezekiah the Jew, who threw him into prison. 
 But their hearts began to fear. The princes of Egypt assembled the 
 bowmen, chariots, and horses of the King of Ethiopia, a numberless 
 host, and came to the help of the Ekronites. They drew up their 
 battle array against me before Elthekeh, and raised their swords. 
 Trusting in the god Ashur, my lord, I fought with them, and inflicted 
 a defeat upon them. I took with my own hand the commander of 
 the chariots and the sons of one of the princes of Egypt, as well as 
 the commander of the chariots of the King of Ethiopia. I besieged 
 Elthekeh and Timnath ; I captured them, and carried their booty away. 
 
 " Then I returned to Ekron. I slew the chief men and officers, 
 who had committed sin against me, and I bound their corpses on 
 stakes around the city. I carried away into captivity those inhabi- 
 tants of the city who had committed sins and iniquities against me ; 
 to the others who had committed no sin I spoke words of favour. I 
 caused Padi, their king, to come out of Jerusalem, and to sit again 
 upon the throne of their kingdom. I laid upon him the tribute due 
 to my supremacy. 
 
 " As for Hezekiah the Jew, who had not submitted to my yoke, 
 I besieged forty-six of his strong cities, and small towns without 
 number. ... I brought out 200,150 of the inhabitants, young 
 and old, male and female, together with horses, mules, asses, camels,
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 377 
 
 sheep, and oxen, and I counted them as my booty. Hezekiah him- 
 self I shut up, like a caged bird, in Jerusalem, the city of his king- 
 dom. I fortified the strongholds against him, and caused those who 
 came out of the gates of his city to turn back. I took the cities 
 which I had plundered away from his land, and gave them to 
 Mitintu, King of Ashdod, Padi, King of Ekron, and the King of Gaza. 
 To the former tribute I added the tribute which was due to my 
 supremacy, and laid it upon him. . . . Besides 30 talents of 
 gold and 800 talents of silver, I caused precious stones, ivory couches, 
 precious woods, a vast store, and his daughters and his slaves to be 
 brought after me to Nineveh, the city of my kingdom ; and he sent 
 his officer to offer tribute and to pay submission." 
 
 The last words remind us that the capital of Assyria 
 was now Nineveh. Sargon, the father of Sennacherib, 
 had removed his royal residence from Calah to the 
 newly-founded fortress of Dur-Sharrukin, or the " Fort 
 of Sargon," now Khorsabad. Sennacherib, however, 
 built a vast palace at Nineveh, and made this town his 
 residence. We must remember, however, that Dur- 
 Sharrukin and Calah were both very near to Nineveh, 
 and were probably included in a thickly-populated dis- 
 trict often called " the Great City of Nineveh." It is 
 a common custom in the East, and has always been so, 
 that each king should build a house for himself, al- 
 though in Assyria and Babylonia this habit was united 
 with a respect for the buildings of former kings, which 
 were constantly restored by their successors. 
 
 In B.C. 699, Sennacherib made war fora second time 
 upon the Babylonians, who would not accept his rule ; 
 and this time, after putting the native leaders to flight, 
 he set his own son, Ashur-nadin-shum, upon the throne 
 of Chaldsa. This prince reigned for six years.
 
 378 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Some of the Babylonians, however, rather than sub- 
 mit to an Assyrian ruler, fled across the Persian Gulf to 
 a city on the coast of Elam. Sennacherib pursued them 
 with ships brought from the land of Syria for that pur- 
 pose ; for Babylonia did not produce timber enough for 
 the building of a navy, and hence, in later times, Alex- 
 ander, as we have seen above,* had to send to Phoenicia 
 when he thought of establishing a navy in the Persian 
 Gulf. 
 
 In spite of Sennacherib's chastisement of these rebels, 
 the native movement was too strong for him. His son, 
 whom he had made King of Babylon, was captured, with 
 the help of the Elamites, and carried into captivity in 
 Elam. The King of Elam supported the Babylonians in 
 setting Nergal-ushezib, a native prince, upon the throne ; 
 the latter, however, after a short reign of one year and 
 a half, was vanquished by the Assyrians and carried off 
 into captivity. Yet Sennacherib did not even now suc- 
 ceed in imposing his authority upon this rebellious 
 nation, supported as they were by those ancient enemies 
 of Assyria, the Elamites. The successor of Nergal- 
 ushezib was another native prince, Mushezib-Marduk, 
 called Mesesimordacus in the Canon of Ptolemy a 
 name which means " Merodach is my saviour." After 
 the four years' reign of this monarch there was a period 
 of anarchy in Babylonia, similar to that which occurred 
 at the beginning of Sennacherib's reign, although, per- 
 haps, in both periods many of the inhabitants acknow- 
 ledged the authority of Sennacherib, which he certainly 
 
 * See above, p. 312.
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 379 
 
 asserted. But during the last five years of his reign he 
 rested from the labours of war and engaged in those of 
 peace namely, in the building of palaces and temples. 
 
 In B.C. 681 Sennacherib was murdered in the 
 course of an insurrection ; and when tranquillity was 
 at length restored and tlie murderers had fled, his sou, 
 Esarhaddon, succeeded him. The first task of the new 
 monarch was to invade Babylonia, where he set the 
 kingdom in order, and was universally recoguised as 
 king ; he gained the support of the priests by offering 
 large gifts to the gods and decorating their temples ; 
 and he re-built the walls of Babylon. Esarhaddon 
 deprived the Babylonians of the support of their chief 
 allies by inflicting a severe defeat upon the Elamites, 
 and putting their king to death. The reign of Esar- 
 haddon was occupied with a series of campaigns like 
 those of his predecessor, in the course of which he 
 overran his extensive empire, and enforced the payment 
 of tribute and the recognition of his supremacy. The 
 Assyrian annalist gives us a long list of Syrian and 
 Cypriote princes who paid tribute to Esarhaddon. 
 Besides Manasseh, King of Judah, the list includes 
 the names of the Kings of Tyre, Edom, Moab, Gaza, 
 Ascalon, Ekron, Byblus or Gebal, Arvad, Ashdod ; and 
 those of Paphos, Idalium, and eight other cities in the 
 island of Cyprus. But Esarhaddon extended the limits 
 of his empire in one direction beyond those reached 
 by his predecessors, for he invaded Egypt, now 
 governed by the Ethiopian dynasty, and subdued that 
 country under the power of Assyria. The Assyrian
 
 380 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 supremacy over Egypt lasted under part of the next 
 reign that of Ashur-bani-pal, or Sardanapalus and 
 then ceased ; only it appears from the writings- of the 
 Hebrew prophets and of Berosus that Nebuchadnezzar, 
 who, at the end of the seventh century before Christ,- 
 succeeded to the empire of the Assyrian monarchs, 
 invaded Egypt with success in the course of his reign.* 
 
 Esarhaddon had set up a number of princes in 
 Egypt, as representatives of the Assyrian power, and 
 the first expedition of his son and successor, Sardana- 
 palus, was undertaken in order to defend these servants 
 of his against the attack of the Ethiopian king, 
 Tirhakah, who had proved unfaithful to his suzerain. 
 The campaign was successful ; the army of Tirhakah 
 was defeated before Memphis, and this prince fled 
 from Memphis to Thebes. The governors appointed by 
 Esarhaddon were restored to their posts, among them 
 being Necho, prince of Memphis, of the same name as 
 the Pharaoh-nechoh who invaded Syria in the reign of 
 Josiah, and slew the latter king at Megiddo.f 
 
 This was not the only campaign of Sardanapalus 
 in Egypt. He undertook a second campaign against 
 Urdamani, son of that So, or Sabaco, who had supported 
 the Philistines against Assyria in the reign of Sargon.| 
 1 1 was during this war that the plunder of No, or 
 Yiiehes, took place, which is alluded to by the prophet 
 N T ;ihum. Seven campaigns of Sardanapalus are de- 
 ^c.ibed in his re-cords as undertaken during his reign 
 of lorty-two years. Besides the conquest of Egypt, he 
 
 * See above, p. 351, note, f 2 Kings xxiii. 29. J See above, p. 341.
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 381 
 
 subdued the Elamites, and placed over them a prince of 
 his own choosing ; he conquered some of the tribes in 
 Northern Arabia, and he vanquished and put to deatli 
 his own brother, Shamash-shum-ukin (in Greek, Saos- 
 duchinos, or Sammuges), who had been placed on the 
 throne of Babylon by the will of his father, Esar- 
 haddon ; in the west he vanquished the Phoenicians 
 and some of the nations of Asia Minor. Many of the 
 natives of the conquered countries were carried away 
 to Assyria or to other countries, where they replaced 
 the former inhabitants, for Sardanapalus continued to 
 follow the practice of deportation so characteristic of 
 the political methods of his nation. 
 
 With Sardanapalus the days of Assyrian supremacy 
 are over. Of his two successors we know little, except 
 the Greek tradition about the effeminacy of the last 
 king, Saracus, or Sin-shar-ishkun, for whose name they 
 so frequently substitute that of Sardanapalus ; although 
 some of their writers were aware of the warlike 
 character of Ashur-bani-pal, whom they distinguish as 
 Sardanapalus the First. With the end of the seventh 
 century before Christ, came the fall of Nineveh and 
 the overthrow of the Assyrian Empire, the bulk of 
 which passed into the power of the kings of Babylon. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar carried on the traditions of con- 
 quest handed down to him from his predecessors, the 
 kings of Assyria ; he overran the countries of Western 
 Asia, enforced the payment of tribute, and deposed 
 or slew the princes who refused to acknowledge his 
 supremacy ; and he carried away whole nations into
 
 382 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 captivity, like Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon, or Sardanapalus. 
 The native records of his reign that have already been 
 found, however, are not occupied with the wars, but 
 with the buildings of Nebuchadnezzar, and we still 
 await the discovery of an account in cuneiform charac- 
 ters of the taking of Jerusalem and the deportation of 
 the Jews into Babylonia. 
 
 The accounts that have been given above of the 
 course of conquest which attended the development 
 of the Assyrian power are meant to illustrate the 
 passages in the prophets arid historians of Judah. 
 which allude to the extensive conquests of the Assyrians, 
 to their warlike and ruthless character, and to their 
 peculiar methods of warfare. These accounts enable us 
 to understand, as we could not do before the decipher- 
 ment of the inscriptions, what the passages of Isaiah, 
 Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Micah, Nahum, and Zepha- 
 niah mean, which speak of the Assyrian and Baby- 
 lonian armies, of the terror which they inspired, of the 
 devastation which followed in their track. They show 
 that the carrying off of the people of Samaria and of 
 Judah was part of a settled policy, followed by the rulers 
 of the Assyrian Empire, to enforce absolute submission, 
 and to ensure the receipt of the tribute, which was the 
 real object of their expeditions. Is not the course of 
 conquest in Syria pursued by the Assyrians from the 
 days of Tiglath-Pileser the First to the time of Sardana- 
 palus, and described by the cuneiform inscriptions, 
 accurately epitomised in the following words of 
 Isaiah ?
 
 THE ASSYRIANS AS CONQUERORS. 383 
 
 " Thou hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come 
 up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon ; and I 
 will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees [or 
 cypresses] thereof : and I will enter into the height of his border, 
 and the forest of his Carrael. 
 
 " I have digged, and drunk water ; and with the sole of my feet 
 have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places. 
 
 " Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it ; and of 
 ancient times, that I have formed it ? now have I brought it to 
 pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous 
 heaps. 
 
 " Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were 
 dismayed and confounded : they were as the grass of the field, and 
 as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as corn blasted 
 before it be grown up." 
 
 In the words of Hezekiah, " the kings of Assyria 
 had laid waste all the nations and their countries." 
 
 It was not until the discovery and interpretation 
 of the native records taught us how terrible a scourge 
 Assyria had been for many centuries to the surrounding 
 nations that we are able fully to understand the exul- 
 tation that was felt when the rumour of the fall of 
 Nineveh first reached the ears of men : 
 
 " There is no healing of thy bruise ; thy wound is grievous : all 
 that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee : for upon 
 whom, hath not thy wickedness passed continually T' * 
 
 * Nahum iii. 19.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 
 
 THE cities of Nineveh and Babylon are represented to 
 us by the Hebrew writers of the seventh and sixth 
 centuries before Christ as being wealthy and luxurious 
 beyond all others of their time. They were the great 
 centres of trade and civilisation, from which the rest of 
 the world purchased, or which they imitated in arts and 
 refinements. The merchants of Nineveh were " multi- 
 plied above the stars of heaven." When the Chaldeans 
 and Medes destroyed Nineveh, Babylon succeeded to the 
 high place formerly occupied by the latter as the capi- 
 tal of Western Asia and the centre of the commerce of 
 that region then, with Egypt, the most civilised in the 
 world. Babylon was a " city of merchants " ; she was 
 " abundant in treasures " ; she is compared to a 
 " golden cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth 
 drunken." The concourse of strangers and of traders 
 from foreign countries to Babylon was so great that 
 it is said that " all nations flowed together unto it." 
 
 The palaces of the kings of Assyria at Nineveh are 
 described as being roofed with cedar, and filled with 
 gold and silver and an endless store of " pleasant furni- 
 ture." The city was strongly fortified with brick walls.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 385 
 
 As for the buildings of Babylon, they are said to have 
 mounted up to heaven, and the fortifications were 
 thought to be impregnable. 
 
 The gorgeous array of the Assyrian and Babylonian 
 horsemen is described by Ezekiel, who speaks of the 
 Ass}'rian captains and rulers, " clothed most gorgeously 
 with blue, all of them desirable young men, riding upon 
 horses " ; and of the Babylonians, " girded with girdles 
 upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their 
 heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner 
 of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their 
 nativity." 
 
 The mighty armies of Assyria and Babylonia 
 which were the terror and scourge of Western Asia 
 from the eleventh to the sixth century before Christ 
 are described as being numerous like a swarm of cater- 
 pillars. The troops of horsemen thundered through the 
 streets of captured cities, and the multitude of chariots 
 jostled and rattled as they entered the gates, making 
 the hearts of the inhabitants tremble at the approach of 
 cruel death or slavery. " Engines of war " and batter- 
 ing-rams were employed in sieges ; mounds were cast 
 up and forts erected before the walls of beleaguered 
 towns. The arts of war had been brought to greater 
 perfection by the Assyrians and Babylonians than by 
 any of their contemporaries. 
 
 All these points of Assyrian and Babylonian culture, 
 
 described or alluded to by the Hebrew historians and 
 
 prophets, are illustrated by the cuneiform inscriptions 
 
 or by archa3ological discoveries on the Mesopotamian 
 
 z
 
 386 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 sites. Of the great wealth of Nineveh \ve have ample 
 proof in the lists of spoil captured by the Assyrian 
 kings, and the records of tribute paid to them by foreign 
 princes. Some of these have been quoted in former 
 chapters. The amount of gold and silver that must 
 have been stored in the Assyrian palaces seems to us at 
 the present day almost incredible. It was remarked, 
 indeed, before the decipherment of the Assyrian inscrip- 
 tions, that the farther back we go into the history of 
 Western Asia, the greater are the stores of precious 
 metal recorded to have been collected by the princes of 
 that region. The riches of Damascus captured by David, 
 and those of David's own son, Solomon, are instances of 
 this. The fame of the wealth amassed by the ancient 
 kings of Nineveh and Babylon was handed down to the 
 Greeks, some of whom have left us records of what they 
 heard or read on this subject. Sardanapalus, especially, 
 was famous as the wealthiest and most luxurious prince 
 that had ever reigned. The city of Ecbatana, in Media, 
 whither the treasures of Nineveh were transferred after 
 its capture, became, in its turn, one of the wealthiest in 
 the world ; and the subsequent conquest of Ecbatana by 
 Cyrus enriched the poverty-stricken tribe of the Per- 
 sians. Babylon was still more renowned for its wealth. 
 The value of the treasures of its temples, the golden 
 images and furniture, are estimated by Herodotus and 
 Ctesias at an almost incredible amount. According to 
 the former and more moderate of the two historians, the 
 statue of Bel-Merodach, in his great temple of Bit- 
 Saggil, together with its golden pedestal, table, and
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 387 
 
 throne, was composed of 800 talents of the precious 
 metal ; and this was only one of many golden images. 
 Even under the AchaBmenian kings, Babylon remained 
 the richest city in the Persian Empire, and its rank in 
 this respect was handed on to Seleucia and Ctesiplion. 
 " Babylonian gold " was well known among the 
 Romans. 
 
 The lists of spoil and tribute given us by the 
 Assyrian annalists show us what were the principal 
 articles of culture and luxury among the nations of 
 Western Asia of their time. Besides the stores of gold 
 and silver in disks, bars, or wedges for there was no 
 coinage we read of vessels of various kinds made of 
 the precious metals or, more frequently, of copper. In 
 the records of Ashur-nasir-pal, for instance, there is 
 frequent mention of " copper caldrons," or " copper 
 dishes," coming next to the amount of gold and silver 
 captured from some town, or received as tribute from 
 some prince of Syria or Commagene. Some of these 
 very copper dishes, perhaps, are now in the British 
 Museum, which possesses a small store of such vessels, 
 found by Sir Henry Layard among the remains of 
 Ashur-nasir-pal 's palace at Nimroud, the ancient Calah. 
 The copper in use throughout Western Asia was 
 probably introduced by Phoenician trade, and most 
 of it must have come from Cyprus from the Phoenician 
 colonies in that island. But not only the material of 
 these copper dishes of which we now speak is from 
 Phoenicia ; the workmanship also is Phoenician. They 
 are not of pure copper, but of bronze, a tenth part of 
 
 7. 9,
 
 388 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 tin being added for the purpose of strengthening the 
 copper. The tin also must have come to Asia through 
 the enterprise of the Phoenician merchants, who ob- 
 tained it from the west of Europe ; so that possibly 
 some of the tin used to manufacture the vessels which 
 eventually found their way to the palace of the great 
 king at Nineveh may have come from the mines of 
 our own barbarous island. The ornaments, either 
 stamped in repousse or engraved upon these dishes, 
 betray their Phoenician origin by the 
 mixture of Egyptian and Assyrian de- 
 signs, so characteristic of a nation which 
 had no original art of its own ; but if 
 there were any doubt of this, it would be 
 allayed by the fact that Phoenician in- 
 scriptions are also to be found on some 
 of the vessels. The designs often consist of concen- 
 tric bands of rosettes and symmetrical festoons of 
 figures ; we find forms such as the winged scarabseus, 
 or the sphinx of Egypt, or the images of the goddess 
 Hathor or the god Bel. Some of the dishes are in- 
 crusted with gold or silver. Similar dishes, undoubtedly 
 of Phoenician workmanship, have been discovered in 
 Cyprus, and even in Italy, where the Phoenicians had 
 colonies. Besides these artistically decorated dishes, the 
 Assyrians employed the copper which they obtained as 
 spoil or tribute, or purchased through trade, in the 
 more homely manufacture of household vessels and 
 utensils of every kind. Specimens of these have been 
 found among the ruins. Chairs and couches were also 
 
 ASSYRIAN VESSEL.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 389 
 
 made of bronze, and these were worked into shapes of 
 much elegance; some remains of bronze furniture of this 
 sort have also been discovered among the excavations. 
 
 The household furniture of the Assyrians, whether 
 of bronze, ivory, or wood, is fully illustrated in the 
 bas-reliefs from their palaces. The forms which the 
 workmen imitated in their designs are borrowed from 
 the animal and vegetable worlds. The lion was es- 
 pecially copied in the decorative arts of Assyria; he 
 
 ASSYRIAN FLY-FLAP AND SWORDS. 
 
 was then common in the country, and appeared as a 
 symbol of strength and majesty ; hence, lions' heads 
 and lions' claws ornament the feet of the tables and the 
 arms of the chairs, as well as the hilts of swords and 
 the poles of standards. But there is much variety of 
 ornament to be seen in the productions of the industrial 
 artists of Assyria : goats, panthers, and bulls supply 
 motives ; and from the vegetable world, flowers and 
 leaves, the lotus and the palm, are seen, arranged in 
 elegant combinations ; besides geometrical designs, 
 rosettes, interlacing lines, and other figures. 
 
 One of the most elaborate pieces of furniture repre-
 
 390 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 sented in the bas-reliefs is the throne upon which Sen- 
 nacherib sits before the walls of Lachish, while the 
 Jewish captives pass before him. The horizontal bars 
 of this throne are supported by three rows of human 
 figures, one above the other, and are themselves 
 elaborately sculptured, as well as the feet and the 
 accompanying footstool. 
 
 The chariots of the Assyrians, the multitudes of 
 which struck such terror into . the hearts of re- 
 
 ASSYKIAN CHARIOT. ASSYRIAN' TIARA. 
 
 bellious vassals and tributaries, were built of wood, 
 adorned with elegant work in metal. The form of 
 the chariot closely resembled that in use among the 
 Greeks and Romans. The body, which was of light 
 wicker-work, was semicircular in shape, and open at 
 the back ; it was very small, and could only contain 
 the warrior and his charioteer ; at the sides were richly- 
 decorated cases, like quivers, to contain the arrows 
 required in the combat. The form of the pole shows 
 much artistic fancy and skill ; it was exceedingly slender 
 and gracefully curved, and it terminated in the head of 
 an animal or a bird; and from this head, bent gracefully
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 31)1 
 
 backwards, a broad strip of embroidered leather was 
 stretched to the body of the chariot, above the pole, 
 in order to keep the horses more completely from touch- 
 ing one another. 
 
 The Assyrian soldiers covered their heads with 
 bronze helmets, specimens of which are to be seen in 
 our museums ; at least seven different forms of the 
 helmet have been identified, and most of them are 
 ornamented by a crest at the top. Some of the soldiers 
 wore leather tunics, and others protected themselves 
 more efficacious!}' from the weapons of the enemy by 
 coats of mail. The bronze shields which they carried 
 were often almost as highly ornamented as that of 
 Achilles : at least they were covered with elaborate 
 designs in repousse ; and there is one at the British 
 Museum adorned with concentric processions of lions 
 and bulls. The weapons with which the Assyrians 
 were armed were the bow and arrows, the spear, the 
 sword, and the club. The arrow-heads, the spear-heads, 
 and the swords had sometimes a nucleus of iron coated 
 with bronze, and were sometimes entirely of the 
 stronger, but rarer, metal. Bronze was also largely 
 used for all sorts of minor works of art, such as 
 statuettes of gods and genii or of the Assyrian kings, 
 and weights in the form of couching lions which 
 were used in commerce. Many of the last bronze 
 monuments have been found, of various weights and 
 sizes ; and since they have the amount of the weight to 
 which they correspond marked upon them in Assyrian, 
 and also sometimes in Aramaic characters, they enable
 
 392 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 us to know in the most authentic manner the exact 
 value of the Assyrian talent, maneh, and shekel in the 
 eighth, seventh, and sixth centuries before Christ. 
 One such weight, in the form of a lion, weighing " two 
 royal manehs," is the only contemporary monument we 
 possess of Shalmaneser IV., the invader of Samaria, 
 whose name is also marked upon it. 
 
 The standards of the Assyrians are frequently 
 represented in the bas-reliefs which supply us with 
 scenes from their campaigns. Jeremiah speaks of the 
 standards carried by the armies of Western Asia, and 
 bids the enemies of Babylon " set up the standard upon 
 the walls " of that city, and to " set up a standard in 
 the land " to call together the nations against her. 
 The Assyrian standards were formed of a pole, hav- 
 ing at the summit a disk of bronze, the .surface of 
 which was decorated with symbolical figures ; the figure 
 of the god Ashur, drawing his bow against his enemies, 
 stood between the two diverging streams of the 
 Euphrates and Tigris, on each side of which were 
 figures of oxen. The pole of the standard was further 
 decorated with bulls' heads and lions' heads, arranged 
 alternately along it. 
 
 The degree of excellence to which the Assyrians 
 carried the art of working in bronze is best shown by 
 the bands of that metal which decorated the gates at 
 Balawat. These bands are nine inches broad, and 
 decorated in repousse with scenes from the campaigns 
 of Shalmaneser II. ; * the figures are, of course, very 
 
 * See page 367 if.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 31W 
 
 small, and are executed with great skill. An immense 
 number of figures enter into the decoration, for the 
 hands are divided in two by a horizontal row of 
 rosettes running along the middle ; and above as well 
 as below this ban'd are a series of representations of 
 battles, marches, sieges, reception of tributaries, and 
 punishments of prisoners. Besides the human figures, 
 the chariots and horses, the rivers, mountains, trees, and 
 
 ASSYKIAX KING WITH 1'RISOXEKS 
 
 walls are carefully reproduced, on a very small scale 
 and with much knowledge and skill. These bronze 
 bands were nailed on the wooden gates at intervals, so 
 that they formed a series of horizontal lines across it. 
 
 Nothing is more carefully represented in the 
 Assyrian bas-reliefs than the clothing of the king and 
 his officers. They wear most gorgeous garments, stiff 
 and heavy with embroideries of the most various de- 
 signs, which often entirely cover the material * of which 
 
 * The Babylonians wore a long linen tunic, and over that an upper 
 garment of wool. It may be supposed that silk, coming from China 
 through India. Avas also occasionally worn (Ezek. XA i. 10, 13).
 
 394 
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the dress is made ; and their head-dresses are no less 
 elaborately decorated. They are, in fact, the Chaldsean 
 horsemen, captains and rulers, " dressed most gorge- 
 ously," and " exceeding in dyed attire upon their 
 heads," whom Aholah and Aholibah saw and loved in 
 the allegory of Ezekiel. It corresponds to this gor- 
 geousness of apparel in ancient Meso- 
 potamia and Syria that, among the 
 spoils and tribute of the Assyrian 
 kings, many-coloured garments and 
 garments of blue- purple and red- 
 purple are so frequently mentioned. 
 According to Ezekiel, the Assyrian 
 captains were dressed in " blue " or 
 bluish-purple ; and the very word 
 (Hebrew t'keleth, Assyrian takillu) 
 frequently occurs in the lists of spoil 
 or tribute received by the Assyrian 
 monarchs during their campaigns ; the 
 Septuagint and the Vulgate render 
 the word by "hyacinthine,"'* thus showing of what 
 shade the colour was. There were two kinds of purple 
 known to the western Asiatics during those early 
 ages the reddish-purple and the bluish-purple, which 
 are constantly mentioned together in the Assyrian 
 records ; as, for instance, in the list of Hezekiah's 
 tribute, quoted above, f The two colours are also 
 
 * That is to say, probably, of ft colour approaching that of the hyacinth- 
 stone or sapphire. 
 f See page 377. 
 
 SENNA.CHERIH ON HIS 
 THRONE.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 395 
 
 mentioned together in passages of the Old Testament : 
 as, for instance, in the description of the Tabernacle 
 (Exodus xxv. 4, xxvi. 1), and in the description of the 
 palace of Xerxes at Susa (Esther i. 6). The reddish- 
 purple (Hebrew arpdmdn, Assyrian argamdnu) was more 
 properly the purple colour ; it is translated " purple " 
 in our version, as well as in the Septuagint and Vulgate. 
 It was this reddish-purple that was borrowed by the 
 Western nations as the proper colour of royal and impe- 
 rial robes. The Roman emperors adopted this as their 
 colour. What the exact tint of the imperial robes was 
 we may conclude from the " purple" stone the porphyry 
 which was also held to be imperial in colour, and to 
 represent the colour of the emperor's toga. Some of 
 the later Roman statues have the head of white marble 
 and the dress of porphyry, with the intention of 
 reproducing the actual colour of the robe ; and as it 
 was fitting that those born in the purple should also 
 be buried in the purple, the sarcophagus of some of the 
 rulers of the Roman world was also carved out of the 
 purple stone. 
 
 The Popes, after the Gothic invasion of Italy, be- 
 came in many ways the successors of the Roman em- 
 perors, and therefore they adopted the imperial purple : 
 thus the papal mantle is at the present day a survival 
 of the purple toga of the Caesars, and different shades 
 of the imperial colour were conceded to cardinals and 
 bishops. The crimson robes of European sovereigns 
 have a similar origin ; and thus the " reddish-purple " 
 worn by Oriental princes and great men in ancient days
 
 396 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 has, to some degree, retained its significance to the 
 present time. 
 
 As we have seen, the Assyrian robes of hyacinth 
 and purple, or blue and crimson, were richly embroidered. 
 It is worth while to remark some of the designs which 
 these embroideries show ; for many of them had a reli- 
 gious significance, and many survived in Oriental em- 
 broideries down to the Middle Ages, if not to the 
 present day. The robes of Ashur-nasir-pal show de- 
 signs such as the sacred tree, guarded by genii, and 
 symbolical animals vanquished by gods or fighting with 
 one another, besides flowers, rosettes, and other figures 
 that may have become purely decorative. It seems not 
 unlikely, however, that all these designs were, in the 
 first instance, intended to act as charms or talismans, 
 which should protect the wearer and attract the favour 
 of the deity to him, and that in process of time they 
 lost their meaning and became mere ornaments as they 
 certainly did when they spread to foreign countries, or 
 were handed down to later times when new religions 
 had been introduced. The combats between animals 
 such as the attack of the lion upon the bull or antelope 
 were handed down through the Persians to the artists 
 of Constantinople and to the Arabs, and may be seen in 
 mediaeval embroideries, such as the imperial robes at 
 Vienna. We have already seen how great a demand 
 there was for Babylonian embroideries under the Roman 
 Empire ; the representations of them on the bas-reliefs 
 discovered in Mesopotamia during this century fully 
 illustrate and explain the beauty of the work upon which 
 so high a value was set.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 397 
 
 A substance wliich is frequently named in the lists 
 of tribute and spoil is ivory ; we read of tusks of ivory, 
 and also of furniture incrusted with ivory, such as 
 couches and thrones. Some examples of the ivory orna- 
 ments possessed by the Assyrians have been found in 
 Ashur-nasir-pal's palace at Nimroud, and appear, like 
 the bronze dishes, to be of Phrenician workmanship; 
 for they show the same intermixture of Egyptian with 
 Assyrian designs. Among these 
 ivory ornaments are some which 
 formed the cover of a casket ; 
 their designs, skilfully carved in 
 relief, include an Ethiopian, with 
 woolly hair, holding a lotus-stalk, 
 and a woman, with her hair dressed 
 in the Egyptian fashion, framed 
 in a window with a balustrade of 
 Egyptian form. In some of the 
 ivory incrustations of furniture, the main material is 
 inlaid with coloured glass. 
 
 The name of the last substance has not been 
 recognised with certainty in the cuneiform inscriptions, 
 but many glass vessels have been found among the 
 Assyrian ruins. The most remarkable of these is 
 thought to be of Pboenician workmanship, and is the 
 oldest piece of transparent glass known to us, so far 
 as we can judge. It bears its own date upon itself, 
 for it exhibits the words " Palace of Sargon " upon its 
 surface, and must, therefore, have "been manufactured 
 in the latter years of the seventh century before Christ. 
 
 ASSYRIAN HEAD-STALLS.
 
 398 
 
 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 The Assyrians lavished decoration upon everything 
 with which they were surrounded. The leather harness 
 and trappings of their horses are elaborately em- 
 broidered ; the head-stall is decorated with metal or ivory 
 studs and with a profusion of tassels, and hung with 
 bells. Of their jewellery, the excavations have naturally 
 furnished few examples, because the precious metals were 
 seized by the conquerors many centuries ago. Neck- 
 laces of gold and of precious stones have been found at 
 
 ASSYRIAN JEWELLERY. 
 
 Khorsabad, and a few earrings and bracelets have been 
 disinterred. On the other hand, we learn much from 
 the bas-reliefs about the jewellery of the Assyrians. 
 The king and his attendants wear necklaces, earrings, 
 and bracelets of various and elegant forms. The 
 monarch also wears a golden diadem around his em- 
 broidered tiara. The bracelets are often wound two or 
 three times round the arm, and are ornamented with 
 animals' heads at their extremities ; or they are simple 
 bands decorated with rosettes.* 
 
 * The advanced state of refinement reached by the Assyrians is 
 illustrated by the attention which they paid to their own persons. In- 
 stances of this are the elaborately curled wigs and false beards worn by 
 the king, and the carefully crisped hair of his attendants.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 399 
 
 Of the cylindrical seals mentioned by Herodotus 
 as worn by every Babylonian, and employed to make 
 impressions upon the clay documents, in place of 
 signature, nothing need be said, for they are the 
 commonest and best known of all the monuments of 
 Assyria and Chaldsea. The skill with which, in the 
 best periods, they are engraved is another instance of 
 the high culture of the Assyrians and Babylonians 
 during the latter centuries of their supremacy. 
 
 The excavations of the present century have enabled 
 us to form a fair idea of the form and decoration of the 
 Assyrian palaces, and of the skill attained by the 
 inhabitants of Nineveh and Calah in architecture and 
 the arts which accompany it. The palaces stood on 
 immense platforms, built of clay and sun-baked bricks, 
 sometimes faced with limestone, and designed to raise 
 them above the plain : both for the sake of adding 
 dignity to the royal residence, and of protecting it from 
 the injurious action of the periodical floods. The 
 summit of the platform which supported the palace of 
 Sargon at Dur-Sharrukin, the modern Khorsabad, was 
 nearly twenty-five acres in area ; and the mass of 
 material brought together to form it is estimated at 
 forty-eight millions of cubic feet. On a bas-relief of 
 the time of Sennacherib we see a body of captives 
 engaged in constructing a similar platform, for the 
 palace of Nineveh ; and the king himself, attended by 
 his officers, sometimes came in person to inspect the 
 work of construction. 
 
 The platform was reached by staircases, besides
 
 400 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 which there was an ascent on an inclined plane for 
 horses and chariots. The upper surface was paved 
 with burnt bricks, and it was surrounded by a rampart 
 of brick or stone. Upon the terrace, or platform, rose 
 the structure of the palace itself, consisting of a large 
 number of chambers arranged round different court- 
 yards. The palace of Sargon contained no less than 
 two hundred and nine large rooms. The walls were 
 built of baked or crude bricks, and probably the rooms 
 were often roofed with a solid vaulting or dome of 
 bricks and clay. Two rooms in Sargon's palace were 
 no less than forty -four feet square, and must have been 
 covered by domes. Indeed, some fragments of the 
 vaulting which had fallen into the chambers, but had 
 partly retained their form, were actually found by the 
 excavators. Many of the rooms were long, but narrow, 
 in order to afford a firmer support for the vaulted roof. 
 Other rooms must have been roofed with cedar beams 
 brought from the Lebanon, for fragments of such 
 beams have been discovered ; and it will be remembered 
 what an extensive employment of cedar from the 
 .Amanus and Lebanon was made by the Assyrian and 
 Babylonian monarchs, who sometimes seem to have sent 
 expeditions solely for the purpose of cutting down 
 the trees upon those mountain ranges. This plunder 
 of the mountain-sides is what the prophet alludes 
 to in the following words, referring to the death 
 of the King of Babylon, who, in his Phoenician 
 campaign, had followed the example of his Assyrian 
 predecessors :
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 401 
 
 "Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, 
 saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against 
 us." * 
 
 The Assyrian palaces seem to have been divided 
 into three principal parts, like the royal residences of 
 more recent times in the East. There were the king's 
 own apartments, and the rooms for official business and 
 receptions ; there was the harem, or part allotted to the 
 women of the royal palace ; and lastly, there was the 
 division which inbluded the offices and the lodgings of 
 the household slaves and of the king's guards. Besides 
 smaller courts, there were three courtyards of especially 
 large extent, into which the principal chambers of the 
 three divisions opened. The harem communicated with 
 the rest of the house by two doors only. Some of the 
 courts were probably surrounded by a colonnade of 
 slender wooden pillars, sometimes cased with bronze ; 
 and in some cases there was, without doubt, a second 
 storey above the lower rooms. 
 
 Many traces have been found of the decorations of 
 the palaces. The walls of the court-yards were some- 
 times lined with enamelled tiles, decorated with human 
 figures or with ornamental designs in colour. The 
 finest of such tiles were those over the doorway form- 
 ing the principal entrance at Khorsabad, where they 
 covered the archivolt. The ground of this semicircular 
 border of glazed bricks was of a bright blue ; and upon 
 this were figures of winged genii, in white and yellow, 
 divided by rosettes ; the upper and lower edges of 
 
 * Isaiah xir. 8. 
 A A
 
 402 
 
 NEW LTGTIT ON THE BIFtLE. 
 
 the archivolt showed white bands and rows of white 
 rosettes. The decoration with enamelled tiles in the 
 Assyrian palaces was only inferior to that of the 
 
 IMAGINARY RESTORATION OP ASSYRIAN PALACE. 
 
 Persian palaces, of which we have already heard. The 
 palace of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon, although it 
 has been so imperfectly examined, is known to have 
 been partly faced with enamelled tiles, fragments of 
 which have been discovered, decorated with designs 
 of animals and flowers in colours. The Babylonians 
 appear to have invented the glazed bricks with de- 
 signs in relief, which were imitated by the Persians 
 at Susa.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 403 
 
 Tiles from Ashur-nasir-pal's palace at Calah show 
 the king himself, attended by his officers, pouring out a 
 libation. 
 
 The chambers of the palaces were internally deco- 
 rated with bas-reliefs carved on thin slabs of alabaster, 
 which lined the walls from the floor to a considerable 
 height. Some of these are the principal examples of 
 Assyrian art that have reached Europe, and the large 
 collection of them at the British Museum is well 
 known to everyone. These bas-reliefs are sculptured 
 with scenes from the history of the kings of Assyria ; 
 principally with their wars, but also with their hunting 
 expeditions and their building operations. The earliest 
 are those from the palace of Ashur-nasir-pal, and the 
 latest those of Sardanapalus ; so that we are enabled 
 to trace the progress of Assyrian sculpture from the 
 beginning of the ninth century before Christ to the 
 end of the seventh. It is not difficult to detect a 
 very considerable advance in correctness and delicacy 
 of execution during that period. 
 
 The treatment of the human figure, although it 
 improves, remains stiff and conventional to the last ; 
 but the drawing of the animals in the reign of 
 Sardanapalus is so true to life that it has perhaps 
 hardly been surpassed at the present day. 
 
 It is in the treatment of composite scenes that the 
 defects of Assyrian art are above all apparent. There 
 is an entire absence of perspective, and often a com- 
 plete disregard of the relative size of objects, so that 
 men are taller than their horses, and even than the 
 
 A A 2
 
 404 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 walls of the fortresses which they are besieging.* By 
 a common device in ancient art, the principal person- 
 ages of a scene are represented as taller than the rest; 
 the king, for instance, appears as a giant among his 
 subjects, exactly as he does in the Egyptian paintings 
 and bas-reliefs. On the other hand, it was in the 
 treatment of details that the sculptors of Nineveh and 
 Calah excelled. All the minute ornament that was 
 lavished on the dress and furniture of the Assyrians is 
 elaborately reproduced in the sculptures. We have 
 already remarked how much can be learnt from them 
 about embroidery, upholstery, jewellery, and the rest of 
 the industrial arts, and this is for the reason now given 
 because of the excessive attention to minute detail on 
 the part of the artists. 
 
 Above the line of the bas-reliefs, the Assyrian 
 chambers were decorated by paintings on the stucco ; 
 for the bare brickwork was nowhere allowed to be seen. 
 Such paintings appear to have consisted, like those on 
 the enamelled tiles, of symbolical figures of animals 
 and genii, interspersed with decorative figures, such as 
 rosettes, pine-cones, and geometrical designs, bordered by 
 rows of battlements or guilloches. The same sort of 
 decoration was applied to the vaulted ceilings ; but 
 sometimes the chambers, instead of being vaulted, were 
 " ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion." The 
 bas-reliefs which have just been described were also 
 originally painted so that they harmonised with the 
 coloured decoration above them ; traces of blue and 
 
 * See page 9.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 405 
 
 vermilion may still be detected on many parts of these 
 sculptured slabs in our museums, although, for the most 
 part, the colouring has been rubbed off or has faded 
 away. 
 
 The floors of the Assyrian palaces were paved with 
 bricks, but they were covered in ancient times with rich 
 carpets, representations of which are to be seen in the 
 carved alabaster thresholds which lay outside some of 
 the doors. These thresholds are probably copied from 
 the carpets which lay inside the doors. Those that have 
 been found are decorated with a number of squares 
 symmetrically arranged, and separated by borders of 
 rosettes ; the squares contain a rosette in the centre, 
 from which four pine-cones diverge towards the four 
 corners ; between the cones are lotus-flowers or tulips. 
 The border of the whole carpet is formed of a series 
 of cones and lotus-flowers, placed alternately. Nothing 
 can exceed the charming effect of these designs as a 
 decoration of the floor. 
 
 The principal entrances were closed with cedar doors, 
 bound with bronze, and turning on pivots in stone 
 sockets. The entrances of the chambers had embroi- 
 dered curtains hung before them. 
 
 It might be expected that as the Assyrians reached 
 such excellence in sculpture, they would have adorned 
 their residences with statues as well as bas-reliefs. That 
 they did not do so is chiefly, or entirely, to be attributed 
 to the want of stone suitable for sculpture in the round ; 
 for the alabaster or gypsum of which the sculptured 
 slabs were made is found in thin layers, and is extremely
 
 406 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 soft and friable in its nature hence, although well 
 suited for the bas-reliefs, it was not fit material for 
 statues. Some attempts at carving statues were made, 
 however, and the British Museum possesses a standing 
 figure of Ashur-nasir-pal, which, by its defects, shows 
 what the cause was for which such works were not 
 more often executed ; the arms and hands are held close 
 to the body, and the hair and beard are imperfectly 
 finished, to avoid the chance of breaking. Besides this, 
 there are two rough statues of the god Nebo, also of 
 the ninth century ; and at Khorsabad there were found 
 two columns in the form of human figures, like the 
 Caryatides of the Erechtheum. 
 
 The main entrances of the palaces were guarded on 
 each side by the immense human-headed bulls or lions 
 with which we are so familiar ; but these monsters are 
 never entirely disengaged from the blocks out of which 
 they are carved ; on account of the softness of the gypsum 
 and the danger of breakage, one side of the block is 
 always left, and the other side alone is sculptured into 
 the form required. The plain part of the block was, of 
 course, built into the wall of the gateway, and the 
 winged bulls and lions formed the inner sides of the 
 entrance : so they faced the visitor as he arrived, and 
 he passed between them on his way into the courtyard 
 of the palace. We all know the form of these monsters : 
 their immense wings, on which every feather is so care- 
 fully carved, and their terrible countenances crowned 
 by the embroidered tiara, with horns on each side, as a 
 conventional mark of their super-terrestrial nature.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 407 
 
 It must surely be a proof that the motive of the 
 Assyrian artists was less artistic than religious that 
 so many of their sculptures not only the winged bulls, 
 but also the bas-reliefs and statues are partly covered 
 with inscriptions, which, to a considerable degree, 
 spoil the artistic effect. The fact is that the sculp- 
 tures, like the writing upon them, were not, in the 
 first instance, executed for the sake of beauty, but as 
 monuments before gods and men of the religious devo- 
 tion of the monarch on the one hand, and of his power 
 and greatness on the other; and thus they attracted 
 the favour of the heavenly powers, and also impressed 
 a suitable lesson of submission upon the rest of man- 
 kind. In these inscriptions the monarch records his 
 execution of the will of the gods by his punishment of 
 their enemies : that is to say, his military campaigns, in 
 which he extorted tribute from the surrounding nations, 
 and severely chastised those who were slow to pay it. 
 
 The art of writing and the practice of litera- 
 ture in Assyria and Babylonia were, without doubt, 
 in the first instance the invention of the priests, in 
 whose hands they remained, to a great extent, down 
 to the final decay of their religious system. The 
 beginning of the cuneiform writing took place among 
 a non-Semitic nation the Sumerians or Accadians ; 
 but we hardly know it except as borrowed by their 
 Semitic neighbours, who so early obtained the upper 
 hand in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. The 
 Bible says little about the literature of Babylonia or 
 Assyria. Only, when Isaiah speaks of the star-gazers
 
 408 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 and enchanters, he of course implies the existence of an 
 astrological and magical literature, such as we can now 
 actually study on the clay tablets in the British Museum. 
 Again, when Sennacherib boasts of the exploits of his 
 ancestors, and asks, " Have the gods of the nations de- 
 livered them which my fathers have destroyed ? " he 
 implies the existence of the records upon the clay cylin- 
 ders and tablets, in which, as we now know, the Assy- 
 rian kings read of the deeds of their predecessors, to 
 which they so often allude in their own annals. 
 The Book of Daniel alone speaks directly of the 
 " learning of the Chaldeans," by which the lore 
 of the astrologers and of the interpreters of omens 
 would seem, above all, to be intended. The great 
 collection of texts referring to omens and their inter- 
 pretation forms one of the most important parts of 
 the Assyrian and Babylonian literature now stored in 
 the British Museum, and much of it is concerned with 
 dreams and their explanation. This part of Assyrian 
 literature is, however, one of the most difficult to under- 
 stand ; yet it may be hoped that before many years it 
 will be translated with as great accuracy as the historical 
 inscriptions.* Of the astrological and astronomical lite- 
 rature of the Babylonians mention has been made in a 
 former chapter ; it was with this branch of learning that 
 the astrologers of Nebuchadnezzar's court were occupied 
 the Book of Daniel speaks of them in several places. 
 There seems, to judge from the cuneiform inscriptions, 
 
 * Dr. Bezold's catalogue of the cuneiform inscriptions is doing much 
 towards the interpretation of the omen-tablets.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 409 
 
 to have been a chief astronomer, or Astronomer Royal, 
 whose business it was to make periodical reports to the 
 king concerning the phenomena of the heavens, such 
 appearances being considered of the greatest importance 
 for the conduct of political affairs. 
 
 Isaiah, as we have seen, alludes to the Babylonian 
 magicians or sorcerers, and the Book of Daniel also 
 speaks of them. A large number of the incantations 
 which these sorcerers employed are now preserved in 
 the British Museum. Like the omen-texts, they do 
 not come from Babylon, but from Nineveh, where they 
 formed part of the library of Sardanapalus. There is 
 little doubt, however, that all this literature was 
 borrowed from Babylonia, and, in fact, originally taken 
 from the Accadian inhabitants of that region, who 
 handed on their religion and their magic to the people 
 of Semitic race who eventually ruled their country. 
 The Babylonian enchanters were especially employed 
 to charm away diseases, and many of the texts in 
 the library of Sardanapalus contain the formulas that 
 were repeated over the sick, and the directions for the 
 compounding of magical drinks which were to put the 
 disease to flight. The Chaldsean magicians, who, 
 besides the astrologers of the same nationality, infested 
 various parts of the Roman Empire in later days, 
 claimed the same power over sickness, and there are 
 several stories in Greek and Latin literature of sup- 
 posed cures performed by this class of impostors, 
 lamblichus gives an account of a girl, thought to be 
 dead, who was restored to life by a Chaldsean.
 
 410 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Yet it would seem not improbable that the 
 Chaldsean magic had a good result. The use of 
 magical herbs gradually led to a discovery of the 
 real medical properties of some among them, and so, 
 as Chaldaean astrology finally brought into existence 
 the science of astronomy, in the same way Chalda^an 
 magic brought into existence the science of medicine. 
 Some of the cuneiform inscriptions already appear to 
 contain partly medical prescriptions mixed up with 
 magical practices. 
 
 This ancient sorcery of the Accadians and Baby- 
 lonians was, like the other branches of their lore, the 
 property of the priests, and closely connected with 
 religion. It is another example of the connection of 
 religion in the earliest times with, all the manifesta- 
 tions of social energy and all the efforts of civilization. 
 In a society iti which the king was high priest, and 
 war was undertaken solely in the service of the gods, 
 we cannot be surprised to find all branches of learning 
 also in the hands of the priesthood, and all branches of 
 art proceeding from a religious motive. 
 
 The library of Sardanapalus also contains many 
 specimens of purely religious literature in the form of 
 prayers and hymns which were repeated during the 
 religious solemnities ; and one or two specimens of these 
 have been given above. But the branch of Assyrian 
 and Babylonian literature which still interests us most 
 is the historical branch the records of the kings, of 
 which such a number have been found. The principal 
 historical documents are the inscribed slabs which lined
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 411 
 
 the walls of the palaces in parts, including the bas- 
 reliefs partly covered with inscriptions, of which we 
 have spoken, and the clay cylinders. 
 
 The latter are a remarkable phenomenon among 
 literary documents, for it is quite clear that they were 
 not written, as history is written now, simply for the 
 purpose of recording events for the instruction of later 
 times. They were not put up on the walls or stored in 
 libraries, but they were buried in cavities made for 
 them at the corners of palaces or temples; and they 
 contained careful instructions to those who, in the 
 event of the ruin or restoration of the temple, might 
 find them to restore them to their places with religious 
 rites, sacrificing victims and pouring out oil. They 
 were therefore intended to be read only in case of the 
 restoration of the building ; and if the latter took 
 place, they gave to the restorer full information about 
 the original builder, with details of his campaigns and 
 hunting expeditions, and an account of his erection of 
 the structure in question. In this way they ensured 
 full credit for the builder, and removed the possibility 
 of the restorer's taking to himself credit which did not 
 rightfully belong to him. Fearful curses were invoked 
 on those who should fail to preserve the record of the 
 true builder; and, accordingly, the restorer not only 
 obeyed the instructions to place the cylinder back in its 
 place, but also scrupulously named the original builder 
 in his own records, and took no more credit to himself 
 than was due to him for his restorations. These rules 
 of architectural etiquette are seen to have been observed
 
 412 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 by Nabonidus* in particular, and are illustrated by 
 passages in his annals, as well as in those of former 
 kings. Thus architecture was undertaken in the service 
 and under the sanction of religion, like the other 
 branches of art. This is true not only, as' we might ex- 
 pect, in the case of the erection of temples, but also in 
 the construction of royal palaces, fortresses, and city walls. 
 The king was the servant and representative of the gods, 
 and his city and his house were protected and favoured 
 by them, as well as their own dwellings, the temples. 
 
 We know hardly anything of Assyrian or Baby- 
 lonian music, as, from the nature of the case, it 
 might be expected. Only in some of the bas-reliefs 
 we see musicians, with various stringed and wind 
 instruments " harps and organs " f who came out to 
 welcome the conqueror at the head of his army, and 
 who took part in religious rites. When Sardanapalus 
 offered to the gods the lions that he had slain in his 
 hunting expeditions, and poured oil and wine over 
 them, musicians accompanied the rite with their music, 
 and probably hymns in Accadian were sung. Quintus 
 Curtius speaks of the Babylonian priests singing hymns 
 when they went out to meet Alexander.^ The prophet 
 Isaiah speaks of the pomp of the king of Babylon 
 and of the " noise of his viols." And the well-known 
 passage of Daniel gives an enumeration of the instru- 
 ments emplo} 7 ed in honour of the golden image, when 
 the sounds of "all kinds of music" were the signal for 
 tlie worshippers to fall upon their knees. 
 
 * Sue page 143 ff. f Genesis iv. 2L J See page 18.
 
 THE CULTURE OF ASSYRIA AND BASYLOX1A. 413 
 
 An immense number of the Babylonian inscrip- 
 tions brought to England are commercial and legal 
 documents, and have already been spoken of.* 
 These bear witness to the great wealth of the 
 country, to its commercial activity and its financial 
 developments, to the riches of its priesthood, to the 
 high development of its laws concerning property, and 
 the care with which they were enforced ; and, in fact, 
 point to an exceedingly high state of social organisation, 
 under Nebuchadnezzar and his successors, such as in 
 some points was, perhaps, hardly realized by any other 
 nation of antiquity, not excepting the Romans. All 
 this illustrates what is said by the prophets about 
 Babylon, which, according to them, was only ruined 
 by its false system of religion. Babylon was the " glory 
 of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency." 
 The allusions of the prophets to its wealth and pros- 
 perity, and the greatness of its buildings, have already 
 been quoted. But all this only served to increase the 
 astonishment and awe felt by men when the news at 
 last arrived that Babylon was fallen. 
 
 * See Chapter XL
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION.* 
 
 THE Babylonians, as well as the Assyrians, who held 
 the same religious beliefs as the former, believed that 
 the earth had the form of a vast mountain rising out 
 of the ocean, or " deep," which entirely surrounded it. 
 The earth was not, however, according to the Chaldean 
 philosophers, a solid body, but was hollow ; and under 
 the vast subterranean vault lay the region of the dead, 
 which they named Aralu. The earth was divided into 
 seven concentric zones ; and, corresponding to these, 
 there were seven circles of Hades, divided from one 
 another by walls and gates. Besides this division of 
 the earth into zones, it was also marked off into four 
 equal quarters, which were denominated the " Four 
 Regions "; and over these the Assyrian and Babylonian 
 princes, in their pride, often claimed the right of 
 dominion ; for it will be remembered that " King of 
 the Four Regions " is one of their most frequently 
 recurring titles. 
 
 Above the earth was set the firmament of heaven, 
 
 * For all that is known of Assyrian and Babylonian religion and 
 cosmology, see Professor Sayce's " Hibbert Lectures," and Jensen, Kos- 
 mologie der Bdbylonier.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 415 
 
 the vault of which enclosed the earth and the terrestrial 
 ocean, which surrounded it. Above this vault was the 
 heavenly ocean, the waters of which were prevented 
 from deluging the earth by the interposition of the 
 firmament, upon which they rested. Over this heavenly 
 ocean there was the innermost heaven : the dwelling of 
 the gods. Beneath the vault of the firmament of heaven, 
 and immediately above the earth, the stars were fixed, 
 and the sun and moon and five planets moved in paths 
 appointed for them. The fixed stars formed a mys- 
 terious " writing " on the heavenly vault ; and this 
 " writing " was studied by the astrologers, who read 
 the destinies of men therein ; the constellations were 
 a kind of heavenly hieroglyphics. On the east and on 
 the west were doors in heaven, from which the sun 
 issued in the morning and into which he entered in 
 the evening ; hence the sunrise and sunset were named 
 the " coming forth " and " entering in " of the sun. 
 
 The sun and moon and planets were worshipped 
 by the Babylonians as gods. Of Shamash, the " Sun- 
 god," and Sin, the " Moon-god," frequent mention has 
 already been made. Of the rest of the planets for the 
 sun and moon were also included under this category 
 Jupiter was identified with Merodach, Venus with 
 Ishtar or Ashtoreth, Mars with Nergal, Mercury with 
 Nebo, and Saturn with Ninib. These were the names 
 which the planets bore when looked upon as divinities. 
 When considered astrologically or astronomically, they 
 had other names, chiefly of Accadian origin ; and it is 
 an interesting confirmation of modern researches that
 
 416 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 the Greek lexicographer, Hesychius, lias preserved tlie 
 names given to the planets by the Babylonians, in 
 forms closely agreeing with those resulting from the 
 decipherments of the cuneiform characters. 
 
 The first creation of the universe does not appear to 
 have been recorded in the sacred literature of Baby- 
 lonia. We are told by Greek writers that the Chaldsean 
 philosophers believed in the eternity of matter, and this 
 statement is borne out by the cuneiform inscriptions. 
 The latter represent the world as originally in a state 
 of chaos, and covered by the waters of the deep ; there 
 were no living beings, and none of the gods had come 
 into existence. The abyss was the father, and the 
 ocean of chaos was the mother of all things. The first 
 offspring of the ocean and the abyss was the great god 
 Lakhmu, with his brother Lakhamu, who were con- 
 ceived as a sort of primeval monsters : the evil brood 
 of chaos. Ages afterwards, the gods An-sar and Ki-sar 
 were also born of the abyss and the chaotic ocean ; these 
 beings represent the first division of heaven and earth, 
 as their names imply. Of these two principles, after 
 long ages, the three great gods Anu, Bel, and Ea were 
 born ; and Bel was the creator of that order of things 
 which we now see. According to other accounts, Ea 
 was the creator, and is spoken of as " the potter," 
 because he formed man out of clay. But in the 
 accounts preserved by Berosus and Damascius, and in 
 the legend of Bel-Merodach and the dragon of chaos, 
 of which we have the original version in cuneiform 
 characters, as well as according to the new account of
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 417 
 
 the creation discovered by Mr. Pinches and quoted 
 above, * it is Bel-Merodach, the great god of Babylon, 
 who performs the functions of creator. The fight 
 between Bel-Merodach and the ocean of chaos, per- 
 sonified as a terrible monster, with claws and the head 
 of a savage beast, symbolizes the struggle of light and 
 darkness. When Merodach had overcome the mather 
 of chaos and her brood, he divided her into two, and 
 formed the creatures of heaven and earth out of the 
 two halves. 
 
 The tutelary god of Babylon, Bel-Merodach, is 
 several times named by the Hebrew prophets. Jere- 
 miah speaks of him as a personification of the city which 
 he was believed to protect and govern, and which was 
 his proper home and residence : 
 
 " 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." 
 
 According to the same figure, which typifies the 
 city under the name of its presiding deity, Jeremiah 
 speaks of the fall of Babylon as the destruction of 
 Merodach : 
 
 "Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a 
 standard ; publish, and conceal not ; say : Babylon is taken ; Bel is 
 confounded ; Merodach is broken in pieces." 
 
 It was a sign of the pre-eminence of this god in 
 Babylonia that a very large proportion of the Babylonian 
 names are compounded of the name of Bel or Merodach, 
 together with other elements. Among those most 
 
 * See Chapter xiii., p. 325. 
 B I)
 
 418 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 familiar to us may be mentioned : Merodach-baladan, 
 which is a corrupt form of Marduk-ablu-iddin, signify- 
 ing, " Merodach lias given a son"; Belshazzar, which 
 means " Bel defends the king " ; * Evil-Merodach, or 
 *' the Man of Merodach." Besides these names, so well 
 known to us from the Hebrew Scriptures, the legal and 
 commercial documents of Babylonia supply us with a 
 host of names formed in a similar manner, among the 
 commonest of which are : Bel-aMe-iddin, or " Bel gives 
 brothers " ; Bel-cpush, or " Bel creates " ; Bel-uballit, or 
 " Bel gives life " ; Bel-ukin, or " Bel establishes " ; Bel- 
 shum-ish/cun, or " Bel sets the name " ; and, on the other 
 hand, MarduJc-iddin, or " Merodach gives " ; Marduk-etir, 
 or " Merodach preserves " ; Marduk-irba, or " Merodach 
 multiplies " ; Marduk-zir-ibni, or " Merodach creates 
 offspring.'' 
 
 In the last chapter of the Book of Daniel, according 
 to the version of the Septuagint, the god Bel, his image, 
 his temple, and his worship are spoken of. It is quite 
 in accordance with the Babylonian records that Cyrus 
 is, in this chapter, represented as a devout worshipper 
 of Bel- Merodach, f through whose favour he was sup- 
 posed to have taken possession of Babylonia. 
 
 As it has been frequently observed, the principal 
 temple of Babylon was that called Bit-Saggil, dedicated 
 to Bel- Merodach. The magnificence of this temple is 
 described by Herodotus and Ctesias. The images and 
 furniture which it contained were overlaid with gold and 
 silver. A cuneiform inscription on a clay tablet gives an 
 
 * See page 304 f See above, pp. 14 and 305.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 419 
 
 account of a temple which is apparently to be identified 
 with Bit-Saggil, and George Smith published a summary 
 of the contents of this document in 1875. According 
 to this account, the length of the grand court- yard of the 
 temple is estimated at 1,156 English feet, and its breadth 
 at 900 feet. Around the court-yard were six gates, each 
 of which had its own name : there was the grand gate, 
 the gate of the rising sun, the great gate, the gate of 
 the colossi, the gate of the canal, and the gate of the 
 tower. In the centre was a platform upon which rose 
 the great tower in stages, which formed the principal 
 feature of the temple. The tower had seven storeys, 
 gradually diminishing in length and breadth from the 
 bottom to the top. The lower stage was 300 feet 
 square and 110 feet high ; the second was 260 feet 
 square and 60 feet high ; the third, fourth, fifth, and 
 sixth were each 20 feet high, and respectively 200, 170, 
 140, and 110 feet square; the seventh and topmost 
 storey was 80 feet long, 70 feet broad, and 50 feet high. 
 Thus the whole tower was 300 feet in height ; but as it 
 stood upon a platform, the height of the summit above 
 the plain was more than the figure here stated. The 
 topmost storey was used by the priestly astronomers for 
 their observations. An inclined passage wound round the 
 outside and led to the summit.* 
 
 Around the base of this lofty tower were a number of 
 small temples or chapels, dedicated to Bel-Merodach 
 himself and to other gods ; for, besides being the 
 sanctuary of the great presiding god of Babylon, Bit- 
 
 * See page 27L 
 B B 2
 
 420 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 Saggil was a pantheon in which all the gods of the em- 
 pire had shrines. The lesser gods, although in their 
 own cities they might be supreme, came to Babylon only 
 to pay their respects to Bel-Merodach. On the festival 
 of the new year the great god solemnly took his seat in 
 his temple, and the gods of heaven and earth reverently 
 bowed before their king. 
 
 Many of the rulers of Babylonia both the Assyrian 
 and the native sovereigns have left us records of the 
 gifts that they offered to the temple of Bit- Saggil, and 
 its companion temple, Bit-Zida, in Borsippa. The 
 " Maintainer of Bit-Saggil and Bit-Zida " was the 
 common title of these princes from early times, and is 
 to be read on all the thousands of bricks that have 
 been extracted from the ruins of Babylon for the con- 
 struction of modern towns or villages. Most of these 
 bricks are of the time of Nebuchadnezzar ; and this, in 
 fact, was the prince who, so far as the records tell us, did 
 most to beautify these great temples. Nebuchadnezzar 
 tells us in his inscriptions that he repaired the outer walls 
 of Bit-Saggil, and overlaid some of the walls with gold : 
 
 " His chamber, the royal chamber, the lordly chamber, conse- 
 crated to the leader of the gods, to the prince Merodach, which a 
 former king had covered with silver, I overlaid with bright gold." 
 
 In illustration of the adornment of temple walls with 
 gold, it should be mentioned that thin plates of gold, 
 with the gilded nails which had formerly fastened 
 them in their place, were found among the remains of 
 the staged tower at Abu Shahrein, the ancient Eridu; 
 they were buried among the rubbish at the summit of
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 421 
 
 the tower, and must have served to gild the roof or 
 cupola which formed its crown. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar provided no less lavishly for the 
 services of the temple. He gave golden vessels for the 
 use of the sanctuary. Many of the treasures which he 
 had carried off as spoil, during his campaigns between 
 " the upper sea and the lower sea," were dedicated to 
 Merodach. He says 'himself : 
 
 " He, the revered prince, the leader of the gods, the prince 
 Merodach, heard my supplication and received my prayer ; he laid 
 the fear of his godhead in my heart ; I feared his glory. In his high 
 service I passed through distant lands, remote mountain ranges, from 
 the upper to the lower sea precipitous roads, closed paths, where 
 my march was impeded, where there was no foothold, impassable 
 ways ways through thirsty deserts. I subdued rebels, I took my 
 adversaries captive, I ruled the land, I made the inhabitants pros- 
 perous, and carried away the wicked and the rebellious into distant 
 regions ; I brought silver and gold, precious stones, copper, precious 
 woods, cedar, precious stores of all kinds, the products of the moun- 
 tains, the products of the sea, rich gifts, splendid offerings ; and I 
 laid them before Merodach in Babylon." 
 
 The Babylonian temples must actually have " shone 
 like the sun," as Nebuchadnezzar himself says. Per- 
 haps it was the splendour of the gilded domes and 
 walls that made the prophet speak of Babylon as "the 
 golden city." * 
 
 An epithet frequently given to Bel-Merodach is the 
 " merciful one," and he was said to restore the dead 
 to life. 
 
 A prayer, recited before his image by the priests at 
 the new year's festival, runs as follows : 
 
 * Isaiah xiv. 4.
 
 422 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " O Bel, who in thy strength hast no equal ! O Bel, blessed 
 sovereign, lord of the world, seeking after the favour of the great 
 gods ; the lord who by thy glance hast destroyed the strong, lord of 
 kings, light of mankind, establisher of laith ! O Bel, thy sceptre is 
 Babylon; thy crown is Borsippa, the wide heaven is the dwelling- 
 place of thy liver. O lord of the world, light of the spirits 
 of heaven, utterer of blessings, who is there whose mouth murmurs 
 not of thy righteousness, and speaks not of thy glory, and celebrates 
 not thy dominion] lord of the world, who dwellest in the temple 
 of the Sun, reject not the hands that are raised to thee ; be merciful 
 to thy city of Babylon ; incline thy face to thy temple of Bit-Saggil ; 
 and grant the prayers of thy people, the sons of Babylon ! " * 
 
 There seems to have been a certain inconsistency 
 among the religious beliefs of the Babylonians ; and, 
 although there was a separate Sun -god, whose principal 
 temple was at Sippara, yet Bel-Merodach himself seems 
 to have been often identified with the sun, as well as 
 with the planet Jupiter. These are points, however, 
 which require further investigation. 
 
 The son of Bel-Merodach was the almost equally 
 powerful divinity Nebo, whose name is coupled with 
 that of his father by the Hebrew prophet,! when he 
 predicts the destruction of the idols of Babylon at the 
 fall of that city : 
 
 " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth. . . . They stoop, they 
 bow down together ; they could not deliver the burden, but them- 
 selves are gone into captivity." 
 
 Nebo was the special patron of the literary class in 
 Babylonia, and consequently in Assyria, whither the 
 religious traditions of Babylonia flowed. His principal 
 sanctuary was the second great temple of Babylonia, 
 
 * Professor Sayce's translation. f Isaiah xlvi. 1.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 423 
 
 Bit-Zida at Borsippa, called by the Jews the "Tower 
 of Babylon." This temple seems to have been no less 
 magnificent than its fellow, Bit-Saggil, and was, equally 
 with the latter, the object of the generous devotion of 
 the kings. Nebuchadnezzar completed its summit, and 
 adorned it with cedar, bronze, silver, and gold. The 
 king thus prays Nebo to reward him for his gifts :-- 
 
 "O Nebo, true son, sublime messenger, majestic, beloved of 
 Merodach, look favourably upon my pious works : grant me long 
 life and enjoyment of life ; let my throne be firm, my reign long ; 
 let my enemies be overthrown, let me subdue the lands of the 
 enemy. Decree length of days, and write down life for me upon 
 thy faithful tablet, which determines the circle of heaven and earth. 
 Make my deeds pleasing in the sight of Merodach, the king of 
 heaven and earth, thy father and progenitor, and speak in my 
 favour. Let the words ' Nebuchadnezzar is a king who adorns the 
 temples ' be in thy mouth ! " 
 
 A monument of Nebuchadnezzar's restoration of 
 Bit-Zida is now in the British Museum, in the form of 
 a bronze threshold brought from the ruins of Birs- 
 Nimroud, which are the remains of the great temple. 
 Upon this bronze threshold are the following words : 
 
 " I, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, maintainer of the temples 
 of Bit-Saggil and Bit-Zida, princely son of Nabopolassar, king of 
 Babylon, have restored for Nebo, the high lord, who makes the days 
 of my life long, his temple, Bit-Zida, in Borsippa." 
 
 Nebo was the scribe and counsellor of the gods, and 
 in this capacity he became the guardian of writing and 
 literature. He communicated his deep wisdom to the 
 priests of Babylonia. He seems to have interceded 
 with Bel-Merodach in favour of his worshippers. His
 
 424 NEW LIGll'l ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 very name means the " speaker " or " prophet," and 
 conies from the same root as the name which the 
 Hebrews applied to their prophets when the latter 
 were no longer called " seers." * 
 
 In the British Museum are two large stone statues 
 of Nebo, brought from his temple at Calah. They 
 were set up in the reign of Ramman-nirar III. 
 (B.C. 812-783) by the governor of Calah, who caused 
 the following inscription to be engraved upon them : 
 
 " To the god Nebo, the high ruler, the son of Bit-Saggil ; the 
 clear-sighted, the well-placed, the princely, the sublime son of 
 Nukimmut, whose commands are received; the patron of arts (?), 
 to whom all things in heaven and earth are entrusted ; the all- 
 knowing, whose name is the ' attentive one ' ; the holder of the 
 writing-reed, . . . the merciful, the majestic, who possesses 
 wisdom ; . the beloved of Bel, the lord of lords ; whose 
 
 power is unequalled ; without whom no counsel is taken in heaven ; 
 the compassionate, the gracious ; whose rule is good, who dwells in 
 Bit-Zida within Calah ; the great lord, his ruler; has Biltarsi-iluma, 
 governor of Calah and other cities, caused this image to be made 
 and consecrated, for the life of Ramman-nirar, king of Assyria, his 
 lord, and for the life of Sammuramat, the wife of the palace, his 
 lady, and for his own life, that he may see long days and . . 
 years, may have peace for himself and his family, and may be 
 spared from sickness. 
 
 "O future generations, trust in Nebo, and trust in no other 
 god ! " 
 
 From this inscription it seems that Nebo possessed 
 a temple at Calah of the same name as his principal 
 sanctuary at Borsippa. In a similar manner there was, 
 in the temple of Bit-Saggil, a chapel, dedicated to 
 Nebo, and also called Bit-Zida. 
 
 * 1 Samuel ix. 9.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 425 
 
 Exactly as the Babylonians formed many proper 
 names with the name of their chief god Bel, or 
 Merodach, so they formed others with the name of 
 Nebo. The name of the great conqueror Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, or, in the more correct form used by Jeremiah, 
 Nebuchadrezzar, is a reproduction in Hebrew of the 
 Babylonian name Nabu-kudur-usur, or " Nebo defends 
 the crown." The father of Nebuchadnezzar was Nabu- 
 apal-mur : a name altered by the Greeks into Nabo- 
 polassaros, and signifying " Nebo defends the son." 
 The last king of Babylon was named Nabd-naid, or, by 
 the Greeks, Nabonidos, Nabonnedos, Labunetos ; and 
 this name means " Nebo exalts." The first king of 
 Babylon who appears in the Canon of Ptolemy is 
 Nabonassar, or, more correctly, Nabii-ndxir, that is to 
 say, " Nebo is the defender." The captain of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's guard, who was left in charge of Jerusalem 
 and carried the Jewish people into captivity, was 
 Nebuzaradan, more correctly, Nabii-zir-idditi, or, " Nebo 
 gives offspring." The Kab-saris, or chief of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's eunuchs, was Nebushasban, or, in the 
 native form, Nabu-Shezibanni : " Nebo, save me ! " 
 
 Mention has been made above of the Babylonian 
 Pluto, who was called Nergal.* He was especially the 
 local deity of Cuth, or Cutha, and appears as such in 
 the passage of the Second Book of Kings where it is 
 stated that the Babylonian captives, deported from their 
 native city of Cutha, in order to people the desolate 
 country of Samaria, introduced the worship of Nergal 
 
 * See page 285.
 
 426 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 into the latter region, and set up his images there. 
 Prom very early days Nergal had been worshipped in 
 the old city of Cutha, which was probably founded by 
 the Accadians, but was soon captured or colonised by 
 their Semitic neighbours. The inscription of Dungi, 
 king of TJr, quoted above,* shows that in his time this 
 divinity was already the tutelary god of Cuth ; and later 
 Babylonian inscriptions refer to the same city as the 
 earthly home of the king of Hades. 
 
 Many proper names were compounded with the 
 name of Nergal in Baby Ionia. First comes that of 
 Nebuchadnezzar's son-in-law, the King Neriglissar, or 
 Nergal-xhar-usur, which was also the name of the great 
 officer called the Bab-mag, f who took part in the siege 
 of Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar, and, when the city 
 was taken, came in and sat in the middle gate, with the 
 other princes and officers. Then there are many names 
 which occur in the commercial and legal documents, 
 such as Neryal-akh-iddin, or ''Nergal gives a brother"; 
 Nergal-ulallit, or " Nergal gives life " ; Nergal-8ha,zibauni t 
 or " Nergal, save me ! " 
 
 Some others of the Babylonian gods are mentioned 
 in the Bible, through their being worshipped in Syria 
 and Phoenicia, as well as in Mesopotamia. The great 
 Syrian god Kimmon, in whose house Naaman begged 
 that he might still be allowed to bow down, was 
 worshipped also by the Babylonians and Assyrians. 
 Besides the name of Kimmon, he had another : that of 
 Hudad ; and the prophet Zechariah, uniting the two 
 * See page 150, f Jeremiah xxxix. 3 and 13.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 427 
 
 names, speaks of " the mourning of Hadadrirnmon in 
 the valley of Megiddon." A Babylonian document 
 expressly informs us that Addu that is to say, Hadad 
 was a name given in Syria to the god Eimmon ; and 
 the name of Kip-Adda of Byblus, now familiar to us 
 from the Tell el-Amarna tablets, is often written with 
 the same cuneiform ideogram which expresses the name 
 of Eimmon, or Ramman, in the texts of Babylonia and 
 Assyria, although it is sometimes written phonetically 
 as Ri-ip-Ad-da. In Syria, Eimmon or Hadad was 
 recognised as a personification of the sun ; in Babylonia 
 and Assyria he is more especially the god of the at- 
 mosphere, and rules the weather. Perhaps he owed 
 his importance in that region, which suffers so terribly 
 from the action of the floods, to the belief that the 
 latter were under his control. He is sometimes invoked 
 in maledictory passages that he may employ his power 
 to cause damage to some enemy. An instance of this 
 is seen in the curses * poured forth upon those who 
 might in future days disturb or destroy the records of 
 the royal architects of Assyria and Babylonia, which 
 are placed upon the walls of their buildings or buried 
 in cavities among the foundations. Eimmon is im- 
 plored to drown the lands of the guilty with his floods, 
 or to strike the sinners with his thunderbolts. The 
 thunder was the voice of Eimmon. 
 
 Various proper names were formed with the name of 
 the god Eimmon ; for example, that of Eamman-nirar, 
 which belonged to three kings of Assyria known to 
 
 * See page 142.
 
 428 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 us. Other instances are Ramman-nasir, or " Rimmon 
 defends " ; Manwian-s/tum-iddin, or " Rimmon gives the 
 name " ; and similar compounds. 
 
 Dagon appears in the Bible especially as the god of 
 the Philistines ; but he was also worshipped in Assyria 
 and Babylonia, although his name does not appear so 
 frequently in the texts as those of the gods already 
 mentioned. 
 
 Tammuz was a Syrian divinity, whose death was 
 mourned by the women at midsummer. Ezekiel, in a 
 vision, saw the Israelitish women weeping for Tammuz at 
 the gate of the house of Jehovah, and was provoked to anger 
 at the sight of this and other idolatrous abominations. 
 It is well known that Tammuz was called Adonis by the 
 Greeks, from the Semitic word signifying " my lord," by 
 which title he was addressed in the religious ceremonies 
 of his festival. It is also generally recognised at present 
 that Tammuz, or Adonis, was a personification of the 
 fresh vegetation of spring, slain by the fierce rays of the 
 sun at midsummer, as Adonis was slain by the tusk of 
 the boar. In Babylonian the name appears as Duzu, 
 the husband of Ishtar, whom she went to seek in the 
 infernal regions after his death. The identity of the 
 names is further proved by the fact that the Babylonian 
 month, "Duzu," appears in the list of the Hebrew 
 months as Tammuz. An allusion to the midsummer 
 festival of Tammuz appears in the astronomical tablet 
 discovered by Father Strassmaier, of which an account 
 is given above.* Greek writers have given us an 
 
 * See page 274.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 429 
 
 account of the solemnities which took place at this festival 
 in Syria, and especially in Byblus, the city of Adonis. 
 The women indulged in extravagant lamentations, and 
 the withering of the vernal vegetation by the mid- 
 summer sun was symbolised by the " gardens of 
 Adonis " pots of earth filled with mould, in which cut 
 flowers and herbs were planted, that quickly faded away 
 and died. 
 
 Very much more frequently than the last-mentioned 
 divinities is Ashtoreth, or Ishtar, named in the Assyrian 
 and Babylonian texts. This goddess was identified by 
 the Babylonians with Venus, the evening star not with 
 the moon, as by the Phoenicians. There were several 
 cities which claimed Ishtar as their tutelary deity ; and 
 perhaps, to some extent, these Ishtars were looked upon 
 as different goddesses. In early inscriptions of Baby- 
 lonia we find the name of Ishtar of Erech, and also of 
 Ishtar of Hallab, who was worshipped by Kudurmapuk 
 and Rim-aku, the Elamite princes, and by Khaminu- 
 rabi, the first powerful King of Babylon. In later days 
 we meet with frequent mention of Ishtar of Nineveh 
 and Ishtar of Arbela. It will be remembered that the 
 image of Ishtar of Nina, or Nineveh, was sent into 
 Egypt in the reign of Amenophis III., as one of the 
 Tell el- Amarna tablets informs us. Another name given 
 to the goddess Ishtar was Nana. 
 
 The following prayer, addressed to the goddess 
 Ishtar, occurs in the annals of Sardanapalus, who was 
 about to engage in a war against Te-umman, King of 
 Elam :
 
 430 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 " O Lady of Arbela ! I am Sardanapalus, King of Assyria, the 
 creation of thy hands. ... I have visited thy dwelling-place in 
 order to restore the temples of Assyria, and to complete the building 
 of the cities of Accad. . . . Te-uinman, King of Elam . 
 has set his army in motion and makes himself ready for battle, that 
 he may march against Assyria. O warlike one among the gods . . . 
 scatter him in the midst of the battle ; send against him a storm and 
 an evil wind." 
 
 In consequence of this prayer to Ishtar for her pro- 
 tection, the goddess appeared in a dream to a magician 
 or interpreter of dreams, in the habit of a warrior armed 
 with a bow and a sword, and promised to go before Sar- 
 danapalus during his campaign, and to ensure his victory. 
 The announcement of this dream inspired Sardanapalus 
 with the fullest confidence, and he marched against the 
 Elamites with the firm expectation of a victory, which 
 was not slow to follow. 
 
 Ishtar was one of the principal divinities of Assyria 
 and Babylonia. She is mentioned on a par with Bel, 
 Nebo, the Sun-god, the Moon-god, Eimmon, Nergal, 
 Ninib, and, in Assyria, with the great national god of 
 that country, Ashur. 
 
 The last-named deity was unknown in Babylonia, 
 but in Assyria was the greatest of all the gods, so far as 
 any one of them was greater than the others. He is 
 generally mentioned first, and often spoken of as " lord 
 of the gods " a title, however, which is not applied 
 consistently to any one of the deities. The name Ashur 
 is, of course, identical with the name of the country of 
 Assyria and with that of its earliest capital, Ashur,* the 
 
 * See page 142.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 431 
 
 modern Kalat-Sherkat. In all the records of the 
 Assyrian kings the latter attribute their exploits to the 
 favour and assistance of Ashur and other ods. When 
 
 o 
 
 foreign princes refused to pay tribute to the King of 
 Assyria, this was looked upon as a sin against Ashur, the 
 great god, and by his command the king undertook his 
 expeditions into the country of the rebels, and chastised 
 them for their disobedience to his national deity, who, 
 in the bas-reliefs, appears as leading the Assyrian armies 
 to victory, and hovering above them in the air. 
 
 Nothing is clearer from the Assyrian and Baby- 
 lonian records than the identification of the gods with 
 the countries or cities over which they presided. An 
 offence against Assyria is an offence against the god 
 Ashur, and an offence against Babylon is an offence 
 against Bel-Merodach. When a city was captured it 
 was the custom to seize and carry away the images of 
 the local gods, who were held to be vanquished when 
 the place over which they presided was taken. This 
 idea is very clearly expressed in the words of Senna- 
 cherib to Hezekiah, whom he reproaches for trusting 
 in a God who would be overcome like the gods of the 
 nations : 
 
 " Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will 
 deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land 
 out of the hand of the king of Assyria ? 
 
 " Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad 1 where are the 
 gods of Sepharvaim 1 and have they delivered Samaria out of my 
 hand 1 ? 
 
 " Who are they among all the gods of these lands that have 
 delivered their land out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver 
 Jerusalem out of my hand ? "
 
 432 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 There are many instances in the records of the 
 carrying of the gods of conquered nations into captivity, 
 together with the people whom they had failed to 
 protect. When Sardanapalus sacked Susa, he carried 
 off the images of the native gods and goddesses ; * and 
 thus he took revenge upon the Elamites, who, sixteen 
 hundred years before, had carried off the image of 
 Nana from Babylonia. In the reign of Sennacherib the 
 Assyrians captured and removed the gods of Erech. 
 Esarhaddon carried off the gods of Khazu. Sometimes, 
 instead of being removed, the gods were burnt. The 
 general purpose was, however, to transfer the rule of 
 the country from the conquered to the conquerors by 
 taking the gods to the capital city of the latter, where, 
 it was thought, they became subject, together with 
 their respective countries, to the gods of the ruling 
 race. So the first thought, when a change of fortune 
 was brought about, was to bring back the gods to their 
 own cities, where they might again exercise an inde- 
 pendent rule. It was in this way that, when Assyria 
 ceased to maintain her supremacy over Babylonia, as, 
 for instance, on the accession of Shamasb-shum-ukin, 
 the gods of Babylon were brought out of Assyria to 
 their own place. 
 
 The names of several of the local gods of Assyria 
 and Babylonia have already been mentioned. Bel- 
 Merodach was the local god of Babylon ; Nergal, of 
 Cutha; Ishtar, of Nineveh, or of Erech, or of Arbela ; 
 the Sun-god was the tutelary deity of Sippara, and the 
 
 * See page 247.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 433 
 
 Moon-god of Ur ; and besides these, eacli city liad, 
 without doubt, its own local divinity. 
 
 Besides the principal gods whom we have men- 
 tioned, there was an innumerable host of spirits and 
 divinities in the Babylonian pantheon. Many of them, 
 may have been of local importance, but we know little 
 or nothing of them. Ashur-nasir-pal, in an inscription, 
 speaks of " 65,000 gods of heaven and earth." The 
 largest tablet in the British Museum is one covered 
 with a long list of deities. According to a Semitic 
 belief, each god had a corresponding goddess ; so Bel 
 had a wife, Biltu, or Beltis. 
 
 The idols of Babylonia are much spoken of by the 
 Hebrew prophets, from whom we hear that they were 
 often lavishly adorned or overlaid with gold or silver ; 
 that they were dressed in garments of bluish- purple or 
 reddish-purple ; * that they were carried in procession ; 
 that their number was exceedingly great, and that the 
 people were enthusiastic in their worship. 
 
 According to Jeremiah, Babylonia was 
 
 " The land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols." 
 
 Isaiah says : 
 
 " They lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, 
 and hire a goldsmith ; and he maketh it a god : they fall down, yea, 
 they worship. 
 
 " They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him 
 in his place, and he standeth ; from his place shall he not remove." 
 
 Habakkuk, speaking of the Babylonians, exclaims : 
 
 * See page 394 ff. 
 
 c c
 
 t34 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 "What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath 
 graven it ; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of 
 his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols 1 
 
 "Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb 
 stone, Arise, it shall teach ! Behold, it is laid over with gold and 
 silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it." 
 
 In the " epistle of Jeremiah " to the Jews about to 
 be taken as captives to Babylonia, included in the Book 
 of Baruch,* there is an account of the temples and idols 
 of the Babylonians which quite corresponds to all that 
 we know of them from native sources. The writer 
 says that the Jews, when they reach Babylon, will 
 see gods of gold and silver, and others simply of wood 
 or stone, carried about on men's shoulders in procession, 
 and striking awe into the hearts of their worshippers, 
 who bow down before and behind them. The images 
 are said to have gold crowns on their heads, to wear 
 purple robes, and to hold sceptres or swords in their 
 hands ; their temples are hung with many lamps, the 
 smoke of which made the faces of the idols black ; many 
 animals were offered to them in sacrifice. A large body 
 of priests was devoted to their worship ; and it is re- 
 marked that the priests had shaven heads : a custom 
 which may have been borrowed, like so much of 
 Babylonian religion, from the Accadians, whose priests, 
 at least in the time of Gudea, as we know from his 
 statues, had closely- shaven heads. 
 
 Few images of the gods have been found in the 
 excavations made during this century in Mesopotamia. 
 
 * In the Vulgate. Separate in the LXX.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 435 
 
 Naturally, the precious metals were not allowed to 
 remain unplundered when the temples fell into ruin 
 or were sacked ; and we are expressly told that the 
 later Persian kings carried off golden images of the 
 Babylonian gods. Only a few small figures of bronze 
 and clay have been disinterred among the ruins ; and 
 these are not easily to be identified with any of the gods 
 known to us. There is one notable exception, however, 
 and that is the twin images of Nebo from Calah, now 
 in the British Museum, the inscription upon which has 
 been quoted above. These are two stone figures, larger 
 than life, representing the god in a standing posture, 
 with clasped hands. On his head he wears the tiara 
 with horns on each side, appropriated to figures of 
 supernatural beings, gods, or genii. As works of art, 
 the statues are not to be admired ; the execution is 
 stiff and poor. On the skirt of the robe, the folds of 
 which are not indicated, the inscription of the donor is 
 engraved in large characters, and covers half of the 
 surface. 
 
 Upon a bas-relief discovered by Sir Henry Layard 
 at Nineveh, but, unfortunately, never brought to 
 Europe, there was a representation of two images of 
 gods, carried in procession upon men's shoulders, ac- 
 cording to the words of the Hebrew prophets. The 
 idols wear the horned tiaras, of which we have spoken, 
 surmounted by rosettes ; they appear to be dressed in 
 embroidered robes, and carry in their hands, not 
 sceptres or swords, but symbolical rings. The priests 
 who bear them wear pointed caps and short tunics, 
 c c 2
 
 436 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 The Babylonian historian Berosus speaks of a 
 certain priestess named Sarachero, who was the dresser 
 of the image of Beltis. Under her charge must have 
 been the robes of blue and crimson, embroidered like 
 those in the bas-relief, of which the prophet Jeremiah 
 speaks : 
 
 "The customs of the people are vain : for one cutteth a tree out 
 of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. 
 
 " They deck it with silver and with gold ; they fasten it with 
 nails and with hammers, that it move not. 
 
 "They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not : they must 
 needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them ; for 
 they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good. 
 
 " Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold 
 from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the 
 founder : blue and purple is their clothing : they are all the work of 
 cunning men. 
 
 " Every man is brutish in his knowledge : every founder is con- 
 founded by the graven image : for his molten image is falsehood, and 
 there is no breath in them." 
 
 Besides having the care' of the gorgeous robes worn 
 by the images, the dressers of the gods must have had 
 charge of their tiaras, of the necklaces and bracelets 
 which they wore, and of the emblems which they 
 carried. 
 
 Nabu-apal-iddin, who reigned over Babylon from 
 B.C. 883 to B.C. 852, so far as his date can be ascer- 
 tained, has left us a list of the offerings which he made 
 to the Temple of the Sun at Sippara, already so often 
 mentioned. It includes the flesh of animals, such as
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 437 
 
 sheep, oxen, and goats, fish, honey, and wine ; and it 
 also enumerates certain garments to be worn by the 
 images of the Sun-god and other divinities. These 
 garments were partly of the bluish-purple already 
 spoken of; but beyond that our knowledge of the 
 Assyrian language does not allow us to go. The other 
 terms used in the description of the garments are at 
 present unintelligible to us. The list is beautifully 
 engraved on a stone tablet, enclosed in a clay coffer, 
 and disinterred by Mr. Rassam among the ruins of 
 Sippara. At the head of the inscription is a small but 
 carefully executed bas-relief, representing the Sun-god 
 on his throne, attended by his priests ; above the figure 
 of the god is the disk of the sun. The monument is to 
 be seen at the British Museum. 
 
 The religious processions, in which the images of the 
 gods were carried through the streets, while the multitude 
 fell down in adoration before them, according to the allu- 
 sions of the prophets and the scene depicted on the bas- 
 relief, are mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions. It 
 will be remembered that in the annals of Nabonidus * it 
 is particularly stated that during several successive years 
 the solemn processions at the beginning of the year, in 
 the month of Nisan, did not take place, owing to the 
 negligence of the king or to the disapproval of his policy 
 on the part of the priests. As the clay tablet tells 
 us : 
 
 " Nebo did not PQme to Babylon ; Bel d.id ngt come forth." 
 * See page 309 ,
 
 438 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 On this festival it was customary that the image of 
 the god Nebo should be solemnly carried from his temple 
 at Borsippa, to greet his father, Bel-Merodach, in his 
 temple, Bit-Saggil, in Babylon. One of the prayers 
 used at this festival has already been quoted.* The god 
 Bel came out to meet his son. It was at this festival 
 that the oracles of Bel were communicated to the 
 priests, and announced by them to the king and people. 
 
 Among the tablets forming the library of Sardana- 
 palus there are a certain number of texts containing the 
 ritual to be observed in the worship of the gods ; but 
 these require further study before they can be fully 
 understood, for the unusual words and the use of tech- 
 nical terms present many difficulties. The material 
 for comparison is not large, as it is in the historical 
 inscriptions. 
 
 The latter documents, however, make occasional 
 mention of religious rites. From them we learn that 
 the King of Babylon was consecrated and legitimated 
 by a rite which is called " grasping the hands of Bel." 
 Thus we read of Sargon, who, after the night of 
 Merodach-baladan II., became King of Babylon : 
 
 " In his thirteenth year [as King of Assyria], Sargon grasped 
 the hands of Bel, and subdued Babylonia." 
 
 After this rite, the god accepted the king, who thus 
 yielded himself to his guidance, and henceforth the 
 monarch looked upon himself as " led by the hand of 
 Merodach." No fact is more clearly to be learnt from 
 
 * See page 422.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 439 
 
 the inscriptions than that the Assyrian and Babylonian 
 sovereigns attributed their legitimacy to their acceptance 
 by the gods Ashur or Bel-Merodach. It is they who 
 raise the kings to the thrones of their respective coun- 
 tries, and make them the rightful rulers : without the 
 authority of the gods the kings have no rights. In 
 fact, the doctrine of the " divine right " of kings lay 
 at the root of the whole system of government in Meso- 
 potamia; but it was not accompanied by the more 
 modern doctrine that this divine right was necessarily 
 inherited. The right of government was conferred by 
 the gods upon whomsoever they chose, whether this was 
 the son of the preceding monarch or a man of private 
 station, or even a foreigner, like Cyrus the Persian. The 
 kingly authority depended, in fact, upon the favour of 
 the priests, and he was most assured of establishing his 
 throne who made the richest offerings to the temples and 
 supported most faithfully the recognised worship. Ac- 
 cording to Professor Sayce, Nabonidus lost his throne 
 because he tried to abolish the local worships, which 
 formed the essence of Babylonian religion, and to 
 centralise the worship of the country in Babylon a 
 policy through which he only succeeded in offending 
 the other cities of his kingdom and in irritating the 
 priests of Merodach, who saw himself injured in the 
 insults offered to his brother-gods. This point, how- 
 ever, does not seem quite clear ; for it might be thought 
 that the priests of Merodach would have reaped great 
 advantages through such a centralisation, and yet it is 
 this deity in particular who was offended by the policy
 
 440 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 of Nabonidus, and, rejecting the latter, transferred his 
 protection to the alien, Cyrus. 
 
 The sacrifices offered by the Babylonians and Assy- 
 rians seem to have resembled those of the other ancient 
 nations of Western Asia. Sheep and cattle were slaugh- 
 tered as offerings to the gods, and gifts of vegetable pro- 
 ducts were also made to them. Libations of wine were 
 poured out before them ; special sacrifices were offered 
 every month. Nebuchadnezzar says that at the great 
 festivals he offered to Merodach and Nebo, in their 
 temples, bulls without blemish, fish, birds, garlic, honey, 
 wine, milk, and other drinks all in great abundance. 
 Many of the offerings were, of course, devoted to the 
 maintenance of the priests. To the latter, tithes were 
 regularly paid,* and besides that, they possessed large 
 property in land and in gold, with which the kings 
 had endowed them. The kings themselves were re- 
 garded as high priests of the gods, and the latter is 
 one of their proudest titles. There seem to have been 
 several orders of priests, who were known by different 
 designations. 
 
 Of other ritual observances we know little. There 
 were rites of purification by water, and it seems that 
 vessels of lustral water, similar to those represented in 
 the bas-relief of the temple of the god Khaldia in 
 Armenia, stood at the entrances of the temples ; the 
 sculpture shows two circular vessels, supported on 
 tripods, and in shape resembling the immense " Vase 
 of Amathus," now in the Louvre. Incense was 
 * See page 294
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 441 
 
 burnt in honour of the gods, and pillars with smoking 
 censers at the top are seen in the bas-reliefs. Hymns 
 were sung to the accompaniment of wind-instruments 
 and harps. Prayers were recited by the priests, usu- 
 ally in the Accadian language, according to the general 
 law of religious conservatism, which preserves the 
 ancient language of religious worship even when it 
 ceases to be understood by the vulgar. It has been 
 already remarked that the liturgical formula? of Baby- 
 lonia were borrowed from the Accadians, together with 
 much of their religion. Possibly the priests of Baby- 
 lonia were an hereditary caste of Accadian descent, as 
 certain passages in ancient authors might imply ; but 
 this is uncertain. They had, of course, learnt to use 
 the Semitic Babylonian in the ordinary intercourse of 
 life ; and they bore Semitic names. 
 
 One of the bas-reliefs from the palace of Ashur- 
 nasir-pal at Calah exhibits this monarch offering to 
 the gods a bull, which he had slain during one of his 
 hunting expeditions. The king, dressed in his royal 
 robes, and with the peaked tiara of royalty upon his 
 head, holds in one hand his bow, upon which he leans, 
 and in the other a goblet containing the wine of 
 
 o o 
 
 libation. Behind the king stands the chief eunuch, 
 holding over the monarch the royal umbrella, which 
 was an emblem of kingly power in ancient Assyria, 
 from whence it was borrowed by the Persians and, in 
 later times, by Mahometan sovereigns. Behind the 
 eunuch are two of the great officers of the court, and 
 facing the king are three figures, one with the fly-flap,
 
 442 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 while the others stand with clasped hands, and are 
 probably the chief priests. Behind the latter are two 
 musicians with harps, or, rather, lyres, which they strike 
 with the plectrum, while the priests sing their hymns 
 to the gods. 
 
 Another bas-relief, which proceeds from the palace 
 of Sardanapalus at Nineveh, represents a similar scene : 
 the offering up of lions slain by the monarch during 
 one of the lion-hunts which the sculptures of his reign 
 so vividly reproduce for us. The ritual followed is 
 similar to that in the sacrifice of Ashur-nasir-pal. 
 
 An inscription of Sardanapalus also speaks of certain 
 offerings which he made in memory of his ancestors. 
 
 Some of the mystical purifications and other reli- 
 gious or magical rites of the Chaldseans were handed 
 down to comparatively late times, and were borrowed 
 by some of the Greek philosophical sects. 
 
 Of the internal arrangement of the temples we 
 know little. At the extremity appears to have been 
 the shrine of the god, concealed by a veil. Before this 
 were altars and tables, on which the offerings were laid. 
 Many lamps were kept burning in the temples, which 
 admitted no daylight except through the door. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that besides the gods, 
 the Assyrian and Babylonian mythology included an 
 immense number of spirits who inhabited heaven and 
 earth ; some were good, and some were evil. To the 
 latter diseases and misfortunes of all sorts were attri- 
 buted, and the sorcerers and enchanters muttered their 
 incantations for the purpose of driving them away.
 
 ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN RELIGION. 443 
 
 One of the oldest legends of Babylonia narrates the 
 attack of seven evil spirits upon the moon. Some of 
 the sculptures seem to represent the popular idea of 
 such malignant demons, in the figures of monsters, 
 with human bodies and the heads of wild beasts, or 
 other monstrous forms which we see in the bas-reliefs.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 SINCE the language of the Assyrians and Babylonians 
 was a Semitic language, closely allied to the Hebrew, 
 the monuments of it that have been discovered during 
 this century are of great value for comparison with the 
 language of the Old Testament ; and as the study of 
 the cuneiform inscriptions progresses, it maybe expected 
 that the two branches of the Semitic family of speech 
 will throw more and more light upon one another. It 
 is usual to speak of Assyrian and Babylonian as a single 
 branch of language, because, so far as it can be judged, 
 they were, though undoubtedly distinct dialects, yet so 
 nearly identical that for ordinary purposes they may be 
 accepted as one. As it has already been remarked, how- 
 ever, the cuneiform system of writing is often far from 
 giving an exact reproduction of the sounds of the lan- 
 guages which it expresses, and therefore, probably, many 
 shades of difference in the pronunciation of vowels and 
 consonants escape us, which would form further proofs 
 of dialectical differences if we were aware of them. 
 
 No other language of the Semitic family can show 
 written monuments contemporary with the books of
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 445 
 
 the Hebrew Canon, with the exception of Phoenician,* 
 which is illustrated by a few inscriptions, some of which 
 are as early as the ninth century before Christ, but which 
 offer only scanty material for comparison with the sister 
 language. The Phoenician inscriptions are all exceed- 
 ingly brief, with the exception of that upon the sar- 
 cophagus of Eshmunazar, King of Sidon, and that upon 
 the monument dedicated to the goddess Beltis of 
 Byblus,t which has been quoted above ; and these two 
 inscriptions are of comparatively late date, for Esh- 
 munazar lived in the fourth century before Christ, and 
 Jehavmelech certainly not earlier than the latter part of 
 the sixth. The Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, 
 then, form the only philological material of any extent, 
 composed in a kindred language, contemporary with the 
 Biblical records of the Old Testament ; and it may be 
 said that there are inscriptions from Assyria or Baby- 
 lonia contemporary with every period of the Old Testa- 
 ment literature, while the whole mass of inscriptions 
 already discovered is of very considerable bulk. That 
 portion of the library of Sardanapalus, for instance, 
 which has already been rescued from the ruins of his 
 palace, consists of considerably more than twelve thousand 
 clay tablets, inscribed with compositions of various dates. 
 Most of these tablets, it must be confessed, are no more 
 than fragments ; but these fragments are gradually 
 being joined together a work of extreme labour, and 
 requiring much patience so that in time the tablets 
 
 * The Moabite stone is, of course, an important exception, 
 t See page 216 f.
 
 446 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 will all be restored to their original state of complete- 
 ness. Then, besides this library, there are many histo- 
 rical cylinders which were buried at the corners of the 
 platforms on which the palaces and temples were 
 erected, and which are covered with hundreds of lines 
 of writing in minute characters. Babylonia, too, has 
 yielded the immense collection of legal and commercial 
 documents, now at the British Museum, which were 
 disinterred among the ruins of Babylon, or in far 
 greater quantities at Sippara, the seat of the Sim-god. 
 A considerable number of astronomical texts has also 
 been found at Sippara a portion of the scientific 
 archives of the priestly astrologers and astronomers of 
 that centre of learning. From Babylonia also come 
 the oldest inscriptions in the cuneiform character, many 
 of which must be ascribed to periods considerably ante- 
 rior to the beginning of the second millennium before 
 Christ, and which, altogether, form a large mass of 
 material. The directly historical material found in 
 Babylonia is large, though not so large as that dis- 
 covered in Assyria, and it is of the greatest scientific 
 importance. 
 
 Among the other branches of the Semitic family of 
 languages which are all employed for the elucidation 
 of their elder sister, the Hebrew there is none that 
 can boast of monuments to be compared in point of 
 antiquity with the Assyrian and Babylonian. The most 
 cultivated of the Semitic languages, and that which 
 possesses the largest literature, is the Arabic ; but no 
 monuments of the Arabic language belong to a time
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 447 
 
 older than the seventh century after Christ, when the 
 rise of Islam roused the Arab tribes to a new life, and 
 when Arabic literature began with the Koran. Certain 
 songs and poems, which were composed before the age 
 of Mahomet, were probably not committed to writing 
 before his time ; and, in fact, the art of writing was not 
 introduced into Arabia long before the birth of the 
 prophet. 
 
 The ancient Himyaritic inscriptions of Southern 
 Arabia supply a very scanty material for philologists. 
 
 The Aramaic language is divided into two branches 
 the Chaldee and the Syriac. To the former branch 
 the Targums and the Talmud belong monuments 
 ranging between the third century B.C. and the sixth 
 
 A.D. 
 
 The Syriac literature is entirely ecclesiastical in 
 character. It came into existence after the conversion 
 of Syria to Christianity. The literary monuments of 
 Syriac are fairly numerous, but most of them belong to 
 a period of literary activity beginning with the fifth 
 century after Christ. The translation of the Bible is, 
 of course, an important exception, for it is attributed to 
 the second century. 
 
 Palmyra has yielded a few inscriptions of the time 
 of her prosperity, in the third century after Christ. 
 There are some Aramaic monuments of the period be- 
 fore Christ, consisting of the short inscriptions on gems 
 and on clay tablets, where they accompany the cuneiform 
 text, and the Aramaic texts in Egyptian papyri. The 
 Aramaic versions accompanying cuneiform inscriptions,
 
 448 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 although scanty, are of great interest on account of 
 the confirmation which, so far as they go, they allbrd of 
 the interpretation of the Assyrian characters by modern 
 scholars. The following inscription, attributed to the 
 seventh century before Christ, will serve as an instance 
 of the longer and more important of such bi-lingual 
 texts; it is rare to find one of such length. The 
 Assyrian text runs thus : 
 
 " Five homers of barley (1), the property of the king's son, are 
 lent to Khamatutu, of the city of Khanduate. Thirty-four ka shall 
 be paid as interest per homer. 
 
 "Month of Tishri ; year of the eponymy * of Nabu-shar-usur. 
 
 "Five reapers." 
 
 The Aramaic version, or docket, written in charac- 
 ters resembling the ancient Phoenician letters, is thus 
 translated : 
 
 "This is the interest of the prince from Kharaatut of Khad- 
 duah : five homers at thirty- four ka each. Five reapers. 
 
 " In the year of the eponymy of Barnadi Nabu-shar-usur." 
 
 The other important branch of the Semitic family of 
 languages is the Ethiopic, formerly spoken in the country 
 now called Abyssinia and the neighbouring regions. It 
 is closely allied to Arabic, and, in fact, its original home 
 was in Southern Arabia. The Ethiopic literature is, 
 like the Syriac, entirely ecclesiastical, and belongs to a 
 period of religious culture which followed the conversion 
 of Ethiopia to Christianity in the fourth century after 
 Christ. The modern dialects of Abyssinia are much 
 
 * See page 146.
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 449 
 
 mixed with words borrowed from neighbouring African 
 tribes. 
 
 There are other branches of the Semitic family even 
 more modern than the Syriac, Ethiopic, and classical 
 Arabic. In modern Babylonia there is the interesting 
 Mandaitic dialect, and in Northern Mesopotamia there 
 is the Neo-Syriac. The modern dialects of Arabic, also, 
 are interesting illustrations of the phenomena of lan- 
 guage and the changes which it undergoes. 
 
 Of all the kindred tongues, then, the Assyro-Baby- 
 lonian is that which, when it is fully understood, will 
 be compared with the Hebrew with the greatest fruit. 
 The two languages are contemporary ; they grew up 
 side by side ; and the monuments which we possess of 
 them belong to a period when the two nations which 
 spoke these languages were constantly in communication 
 with one another when the intercourse between the 
 Hebrews and the people of Mesopotamia was almost 
 uninterrupted. A large proportion of the Hebrew 
 literature, indeed, belongs to a time when the kingdoms 
 of Israel and Judah were either directly subject to the 
 Assyrian monarch, or were, at least, tributary to him. 
 
 In spite of this close connection, however, it cannot 
 be denied that, so far as our knowledge of the language 
 allows us to judge, the literature of Mesopotamia con- 
 tains nothing to be compared, in point of style or 
 imagination, with the writings of the Hebrews. Even 
 the chronicles of the latter are infinitely superior to the 
 dry annals of the Assyrians, with their perpetually- 
 recurring formulae and their purely official statements of 
 
 1) U
 
 450 NEW LIGHT ON THE 11IPLE. 
 
 acts. In the series of legends connected with the name 
 of GHlgamesh (Gisdubar) there is probably greater merit 
 in the literary execution ; and the Descent of Ishtar into 
 Hades is even to be placed upon a higher level than 
 these. But it is premature to discuss the literary merit 
 of the Assyrian compositions until our knowledge of the 
 language is more completely established. 
 
 To point out the words and grammatical forms 
 identical or analogous in the two languages would, 
 of course, be foreign to the purpose of a popular 
 work. A few indications, however, of the manner 
 in which the two branches of the Semitic family of 
 languages which were spoken respectively on the shores 
 of the Mediterranean and in the valleys of the Tigris 
 and Euphrates throw light upon one another may be 
 of some interest. The Assyrian word signifying 
 "God," for example, is identical with the word El, of 
 the same meaning, which is familiar to all from the 
 compound Beth-el, or " the House of God," and many 
 similar compounds. It has already been remarked * that 
 "the deep " in the account of the creation of the world 
 is mentioned also in the Assyrian account of the crea- 
 tion, where, by her union with the abyss, she produced 
 the first gods as her offspring, from whom all things in 
 heaven and earth subsequently sprang. It was the same 
 " deep," or " sea," who fought with Merodach, according 
 to the myth of the struggle between the darkness of 
 chaos and the light of the creating sun. 
 
 The names of the Euphrates and Tigris are identical 
 
 * tie* page 328.
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 451 
 
 in Assyrian and Hebrew, although, as in all other cases, 
 the forms of the words are somewhat different. When 
 words are said to be identical in two different languages, 
 it is, of course, meant that the root of the word can be 
 distinctly recognised as identical ; each dialect has its 
 own forms, and its own modifications of the original 
 root. The name of the Tigris in some of the Assyrian 
 texts appears as Idiglat, or Idlklat ; and the first syllable 
 here is of interest because it belongs to an old form of 
 the word corresponding to the Hebrew Hiddekel, but 
 lost in the Aramaic and Arabic forms, as in the com- 
 moner Assyrian form, -Diglat. The initial H of the 
 Hebrew word is not expressed in the cuneiform writing, 
 which, as we have already seen, is deficient in the ex- 
 pression of aspirates and gutturals. In the Persian 
 form of this name (viz., Tiyrd], not only was the first 
 syllable dropped, but the / was turned to r, according 
 to a common interchange of consonants ; and hence the 
 Greeks, followed by the Romans, borrowed their name of 
 the river which has come down to us : namely, " Tigris." 
 The syllable at at the end of the Assyrian word is 
 simply the feminine termination, while the Hebrews 
 made the word masculine. The other Semitic languages 
 follow the Assyrian in making the name of the great 
 river of Assyria feminine. The Euphrates was called 
 by the early Accadian inhabitants of Babylonia the 
 " river of Sippara " ; and the characters with which the 
 Accadians wrote the word were preserved by the As- 
 syrians and Babylonians as the commonest mode of 
 writing it down to the latest times. This peculiarity 
 D D 2
 
 452 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 in writing is an instance of the compound ideograms 
 mentioned in Chapter IV.,* which formed so great a 
 difficulty to the first decipherers of the cuneiform in- 
 scriptions. The characters used to express the name 
 of the Euphrates, if read phonetically, would be pro- 
 nounced ut. Irip. f nnn. ki. ; but the syllabaries f show 
 that these characters, when preceded by the character 
 that stands as the ideogram for " river," are to be pro- 
 nounced Puratlum. This last name allowing for the 
 presence of the termination, which is dropped in Hebrew, 
 although preserved in classical Arabic is obviously 
 identical with the Hebrew name of the Euphrates, P'rdth 
 L the Arabic Fardtun (Phurdtun). In some of the 
 historical texts, on the other hand, the name is written 
 phonetically, as Pu-rat-tum. The use of ideograms in 
 the Assyrian system of writing is to be accounted for, as 
 it has already been said, by the supposition, now gene- 
 rally accepted as an ascertained fact, that this system of 
 writing was borrowed from the early " Accadian " inhab- 
 itants of Babylonia, who spoke a language entirely 
 different from the Semitic family of languages. Most 
 of the Accadian words were expressed in writing by a 
 single character, exactly as words are expressed in the 
 Chinese system of writing. Compound words, on the 
 other hand, were expressed by a group of two or more 
 characters. Now, when the Semitic Babylonians bor- 
 rowed the Accadian system of writing, they made use of 
 the Accadian characters in two different ways. Sometimes 
 they preserved the sound of the character, but not the 
 * See page 121. t See page 127.
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 453 
 
 sense, and used it to express, not a word, but simply one of 
 the syllables of their own words ; and thus they introduced 
 the principle of phonetic writing with syllabic characters. 
 Sometimes, on the other hand, the Babylonian scribes 
 kept the Accadian characters or groups of characters 
 with their original sense ; and in this case they gave a 
 new sound to the characters, and read them as Semitic 
 Babylonian words. This is the origin, according to the 
 generally-received hypothesis, of the ideograms, both 
 simple and compound, which occur in the Assyrian 
 and Babylonian texts, where they are mixed up with 
 words written phonetically. The same phenomena are 
 to be found in the Japanese system of writing, which 
 was borrowed from the Chinese, who speak a language 
 different from that of the former nation. The Japanese 
 sometimes use the Chinese characters as expressing 
 sounds, and write with them the words of their own 
 language on the phonetic principle ; and sometimes they 
 keep the sense of the Chinese characters and alter the 
 sound, reading them as words of their own language. 
 On this principle, it will be understood how the Semitic 
 Babylonians and Assyrians sometimes wrote the name 
 of the Euphrates with the characters ut. kip. nun. ki., 
 which they nevertheless pronounced Pur at turn, and how 
 they often wrote " Nebuchadnezzar " as An. pa. sa. du. 
 sis.,* and read these characters as Nabu-ktidtir-usur, or 
 " Nebo defends the crown." In this last example of 
 ideographic writing the first character means " god " in 
 Accadian, the second " Nebo," the third and fourth to- 
 
 * See page 121.
 
 454 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 gether form a compound ideogram meaning " crown," 
 and the last character signifies " defends." A curious 
 instance of a compound ideogram is the group of charac- 
 ters which the Assyrians and Babylonians employed to 
 express the idea of a horse, which they hardly ever 
 represented in the phonetic mode of writing. They 
 used, instead of the latter, three characters which sig- 
 nify " the animal of the land of the sunrise " : that is 
 to say, the animal which was originally imported into 
 Babylonia from the East. The second and third 
 characters would ordinarily be pronounced mat. ra. ; the 
 first is never used to express a sound, but only as the 
 ideogram for " animal " ; yet the group of three charac- 
 ters was read by the Assyrians and Babylonians simply 
 as sisu a word identical with the Hebrew sus. 
 
 The name of Abel, the son of Adam and Eve, does 
 not seem to find any satisfactory explanation in Hebrew ; 
 but in Assyrian and Babylonian the word ablu or aplu 
 means " son," and it may possibly have been pronounced 
 with an initial aspirate in Babylonian, as in the 
 Hebrew proper name. 
 
 It is related, in the Hebrew account of the Deluge, 
 that Noah pitched the ark within and without. The 
 word used in the Hebrew text is identical with that 
 employed also in the Babylonian story of the Flood, 
 quoted above. The " pitch " is the bitumen which is 
 so abundant in Babylonia, where there are bituminous 
 springs of water on which this substance floats, and 
 from which it is collected by the natives. The most 
 famous springs of bitumen are on the Euphrates, 180
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 455 
 
 miles above Babylon, at Hit a place mentioned by 
 Herodotus, under the name of 7*, as the principal source 
 from whence this substance was obtained in his time. 
 Strabo says that there are many bituminous springs in 
 Babylonia, but does not mention the name of any parti- 
 cular place. In the bituminous springs of Hit the fluid 
 bubbles up like discoloured water ; the bitumen then 
 forms on the surface in lumps, which are collected in 
 large ladles constructed of palm-branches. After cool- 
 ing, the bitumen is divided into square masses, and 
 transported down the Euphrates to Hillah. Even at 
 the present day it is largely used for caulking boats, and 
 for coating cisterns, baths, and other places which re- 
 main in contact with water. So conservative are the 
 people of Mesopotamia that they still employ on the 
 rivers those round boats of osier, coated with bitumen, 
 which we are so familiar with in England through the 
 bas-reliefs from the ancient palaces of Sennacherib and 
 Sardanapalus, in which they are represented ; at the 
 present day they are called kuffehs. Two rowers occupy 
 the boat, and one pulls towards, while the other pulls 
 from him. This is the mode of rowing which we see in the 
 sculptures ; and Herodotus gives an exact description of 
 these same round boats and of the mode of propelling 
 them. The swift currents of the Mesopotamian rivers 
 and their numerous shallows make it difficult or impos- 
 sible to navigate them with ordinary boats ; only boats 
 drawing very little water can be employed. Hence, 
 besides these circular kuffehs now mentioned, the com- 
 monest craft was a kind of raft, supported by the inflated
 
 456 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 skins of goats. These rafts are called kelck in modern 
 Arabic. They are described by all the modern travellers 
 who have visited Mesopotamia, where they are still of 
 the same construction as that which we see in the ancient 
 sculptures. The rafts are carried down the stream by 
 the current, and the only oars used are two long poles, 
 with a kind of blade at one end consisting of pieces of 
 cane fastened together ; and these oars are used rather 
 as rudders than for the purpose of propelling the raft. 
 Inflated skins are also used by individuals now, as in the 
 days of Sennacherib, to buoy them up while they swim 
 across 'the river. 
 
 In ancient Babylonia and Assyria the bitumen of 
 which we have been speaking was the principal sort of 
 cement employed in the construction of buildings. The 
 kings often tell us that they erected a temple or a palace 
 of " burnt brick and bitumen," the latter word being the 
 same as that used in Genesis in the account of the 
 building of the ark, and translated " pitch " in the 
 Authorised Version. In the Hebrew account of the 
 Tower of Babel it is stated that the builders used 
 " slime " or bitumen for mortar, although the Hebrew 
 text here gives a different, but synonymous, term. 
 
 Bitumen, however, though probably cheaper because 
 it was provided ready to hand by Nature, was not so 
 strong a cement as the plaster which the Babylonians 
 manufactured of the gypsum which is so common in 
 their country. This lime-mortar is so strong that at 
 the present day the bricks cemented together by its 
 means are so firmly fixed, in spite of the lapse of ages,
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 457 
 
 that they can only be removed with the greatest diffi- 
 culty, whereas those laid in a bed of bitumen can be 
 removed with the greatest ease. In our museums, Baby- 
 lonian bricks may be seen with the bituminous cement 
 still adhering to them, to remind us of the materials of 
 which the Tower of Babel was constructed. 
 
 Although the Hebrew writer does not, in his account 
 of the Tower of Babel, use the common Babylonian 
 word for bitumen which occurs in the account of the 
 construction of the ark by Noah, yet, on the other hand, 
 he uses there a word for " brick " which is very familiar 
 to us from the cuneiform inscriptions. The art of build- 
 ing with brick was probably invented in Babylonia, as 
 the narrative of the Tower of Babel would lead us to 
 suppose. The geological conditions of that country 
 forced this mode of building upon its inhabitants. Baby- 
 lonia is a great alluvial plain, formed by the deposit 
 during many ages of the soil brought down by the rivers 
 Euphrates and Tigris. The rate at which the land at 
 the mouth of the Shatt el- Arab, or confluence of the 
 two streams, is formed at the present day is said to be 
 sixty-six feet a year, and this is the result of the soil 
 brought down by the rivers and deposited upon their 
 banks. The alluvial plain, thus brought into being, con- 
 sists of the finest clay, well-adapted for making bricks. 
 On the other hand, there is a remarkable absence of 
 the other materials which the different nations of the 
 world have employed for raising walls and constructing 
 habitations. Stone is almost unknown. The only tree 
 which grows naturally is the date-palm, which, indeed,
 
 458 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 is more abundant and flourishes better in the lower 
 regions of the Tigris and Euphrates than in any other 
 part of the world. But the palm, although it can be 
 used for making roofs, is almost useless for the construc- 
 tion of walls. In consequence, therefore, of this state 
 of things, the Babylonians were driven by necessity to 
 make bricks, and to fix them together with the bitumen 
 which the springs offered them : " They said one to 
 another : Go to, let us make brick, and burn them 
 throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime 
 had they for mortar." 
 
 It was only, however, for the best of their buildings 
 that the Babylonians employed burnt bricks. They 
 generally used bricks that were simply dried in the sun, 
 such as those which are still employed for the construction 
 of ordinary houses by the peoples of the East. Conse- 
 quently, they had two words to express the different 
 kinds of bricks. The word for the burnt brick does not 
 seem to be found in any other of the Semitic languages 
 except Arabic ; it survived in Mesopotamia, and was 
 adopted by the Mahometan conquerors when they sub- 
 dued that country. The Hebrews used one word for all 
 kinds of bricks. 
 
 As we have frequently observed in former chapters, 
 the Babylonian and Assyrian bricks were stamped with 
 the name and titles of the king in whose reign they 
 were manufactured : so the bricks found among the 
 ruins of Babylon almost all bear the name of the great 
 Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar. The side of the 
 brick on which the name was stamped was laid
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 459 
 
 wards. The die used for stamping must have been of 
 wood. The bricks are generally, from the earliest times 
 downwards, larger than our modern bricks ; and the 
 kiln-baked bricks are of a much finer material, and much 
 harder than those to which we are accustomed. The 
 general size of the Babylonian bricks is about eight 
 inches square and four inches thick. The clay was 
 mixed with straw or chopped reeds. A layer of reeds 
 was often laid between two layers of bricks, to give 
 greater cohesion to the structure ; and portions of these 
 mats of reeds, as described by Herodotus, may be seen 
 in our museums still adhering to the surface of the 
 bricks. 
 
 As for the rude structures of unbaked bricks, they 
 were often united together by a simple mortar of clay, 
 and so came sometimes to form an almost homogeneous 
 mass. This is especially seen to be the case in the base- 
 ments or platforms of the palaces, which formed im- 
 mense solid masses of clay, only pierced by the vaulted 
 drains which carried away the sewage of the upper 
 structures. 
 
 In speaking of the account of the Flood, the name 
 Ararat naturally suggests itself. With this word, as 
 the name of a district of Armenia, we are familiar in the 
 cuneiform inscriptions. The country of Urartu, or Ar- 
 menia, was invaded by many of the great conquerors, 
 such as Sennacherib and Sardanapalus, and was reck- 
 oned among the countries that were tributary to As- 
 syria. 
 
 When we come to the ethnological lists of Genesis,
 
 460 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 we meet with many names that are known in the 
 Assyrian and Babylonian literature. Media is Madai 
 in Assyrian, as in Hebrew. Ionia, or Greece, is Javan 
 in both languages : Sargon speaks of the Sea of Javan 
 (the Ionian Sea, or Mediterranean), and Darius speaks 
 of Greece as Javan in the Babylonian version of the 
 inscriptions on his tomb and on the rock of Behistun. 
 Cush is a name given by the Assyrians to Ethiopia ; and 
 the name of Mizraim, or Egypt, is identical in Assyrian 
 and in Hebrew, although the latter puts it in the dual num- 
 ber and the former in the singular. We have spoken of 
 the name of Canaan in the chapters on the Tell el-Amarna 
 tablets;* before the discovery of the latter documents 
 the name had not been found in any cuneiform inscrip- 
 tion, and the districts of Canaan and Western Syria were 
 only recognised under another name that of " land of 
 the Amorites,"t as it may now be rendered. The name 
 of Babylon, or Babel, is identical in Hebrew and in 
 Babylonian, in which language we also find the names 
 of Erech, Accad, and Shinar. Nineveh, with its neigh- 
 bouring cities, has already been discussed, j The Philis- 
 tines, or Pilishti, were subdued by Sennacherib and other 
 Assyrian kings. Sidon is, of course, very frequently 
 mentioned ; its princes had constantly to send gifts or 
 tribute to the supreme kings of Assyria. Heth, " the 
 son of Canaan," was the ancestor of the Hittites, or 
 " sons of Heth " ; and this nation was one of those 
 whose territories lay nearest to the regions of Assyria, 
 and were most frequently overrun by the armies of the 
 * See page 308, t See page 129. % See page 334 ff.
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 461 
 
 latter country.* The Assyrian form of their name is 
 Klmtti, or Haiti. Besides the Hittites and Amorites, 
 among the Canaanite nations we are well acquainted 
 with the Assyrian forms of the names Arvad, Zemar, 
 Hamath, Gaza. Among the other nations in the ethno- 
 logical list, the Hebrew names of Elam and Aram 
 are identical with those of the Assyrian and Babylonian 
 language. Further researches will probably identify 
 with certainty many more of the names in this interest- 
 ing list. 
 
 Ur of the Chaldees, as it has been said, is identical 
 at least in name with the extremely ancient city of 
 Uru, the ruins of which are now called Mukeyyer. The 
 historical identification depends partly on the name, 
 partly on the geographical position in the land of the 
 Chaldees. The name Camerina also, which, according 
 to Eupolemus, a writer of the second century before 
 Christ, was given to Urie a town of Babylonia, believed 
 by him to be the same as Ur of the Chaldees may 
 mean the city of the Moon-god, to whose worship, as 
 we have seen, the ancient Uru, or Mukeyyer, was espe- 
 cially devoted. Moreover, Eupolemus adds that Urie 
 means " city " in Babylonian, and this is not improbably 
 the signification of the ancient name of Uru preserved 
 in the cuneiform inscriptions. 
 
 The words used by the Hebrews for the rising and 
 setting of the sun are identical with those of the Assy- 
 rians, and mean literally f the " coming out " and 
 " going in of the sun." 
 
 * See pp. 362, 366, etc. t See page 415.
 
 462 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 As we have seen,* the common formula of saluta- 
 tion among the Semitic nations, including the ancient 
 Hebrews, was also that in use among the Assyrians and 
 Babylonians. 
 
 The name of the Biver Nile was borrowed by the 
 Hebrews from the Egyptians, among whom the word 
 meant simply " the river," since it is the only river in 
 their country. The same name was also borrowed by 
 the Assyrians and Babylonians to designate the great 
 river of Egypt. 
 
 The Assyrians also did as the Hebrews did in using 
 the title given by the Egyptians to their king as if it 
 were a proper name. " Pharaoh, King of Egypt," is 
 the phrase used in the inscriptions of Sargon, just as it 
 is in Genesis and Exodus. The word Pharaoh, as 
 everyone knows, simply means the "great house" or 
 " palace," and was a respectful way of speaking of the 
 king himself. The Assyrian word for " palace " or "great 
 house " seems to be used occasionally in the same 
 way, not only in the passage from the Tell el-Amarna 
 tablets quoted above, f where it simply translates the 
 Egyptian title, but in passages that refer to the King of 
 Assyria, as in that quoted above,} where Sammuramat 
 is called " wife of the palace " or " great house." 
 
 The word which denotes " king " in Assyrian is 
 not the same as that used to designate the kings of Israel 
 and Judah. It is well known in Hebrew, however, in 
 which language it is applied to princes, nobles, and 
 high officials. On the other hand, the verb from which 
 * See page 171 f. f See page 219. J See page 424.
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 463 
 
 the Hebrew word meaning " king " is derived is fre- 
 quently used in Assyrian, with the signification "to 
 take possession of," " to rule," and the substantive in 
 question is used to denote Syrian princes. 
 
 The meaning of the Hebrew word degel, "a stan- 
 dard," is explained by the Assyrian, which possesses a 
 verb, dagdlu, meaning " to look at." This verb is 
 especially used in the common phrase, " to look to the 
 face " of a king that is to say, to acknowledge sub- 
 mission to him and to seek his favour. The standard 
 of an army or of a tribe was, of course, intended to be 
 the object to which all should look, that it might guide 
 their movements in battle or on the march. 
 
 The frequent mention of blue and crimson stuffs, 
 expressed by identical words in Hebrew and Assyrian, 
 has already been noticed. There is another word for 
 " variegated stuffs " used in both languages. The word 
 occurs in the Book of Ezekiel. Our Authorised Version 
 translates it " rich apparel." The prophet is speaking 
 of the trade of Tyre, and mentions, among other things, 
 the garments dyed with blue, the embroideries from 
 Mesopotamia and Syria, and the cedar-chests bound with 
 cords, which contained variegated stuffs of great value 
 ready for exportation to the markets of Greece and 
 Egypt, Such variegated stuffs were laid up among the 
 treasures of Oriental princes, and were frequent!}' carried 
 off as spoil by the Assyrian invaders. 
 
 Naturally, the peculiarly Assyrian or Babylonian 
 words borrowed by the writers of the Old Testament 
 are found again in the cuneiform inscriptions. Such
 
 464 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 words are " tartan," meaning " general of the troops " ; 
 " Babshakeh,' 5 vvliicli was the title of one of the great 
 officers ; * the word s'gdnim, which is used by Ezekiel 
 and Jeremiah of the Babylonian governors, and trans- 
 ferred after the captivity to the Jewish officials. 
 
 These are a few indications of the help afforded by 
 the Assyrian and Babylonian language to the student 
 of Hebrew in the better understanding of the vocabulary 
 of the latter language. The grammar affords also valu- 
 able matter of comparison. Eventually, without doubt, 
 almost every word and grammatical form in Hebrew will 
 be able to be compared with those of the sister language 
 of Mesopotamia ; and already that is the case with a 
 large number of words and forms. What a mass of 
 new material is here provided for the student of the 
 Semitic languages, and how unexpected a resurrection 
 of a branch of that family of speech thought to be lost 
 for ever ! It was, indeed, buried under the rubbish of 
 ruined temples and palaces, but it was not dead ; or, at 
 least, it has been brought to life again by the labours 
 of modern explorers and decipherers. And the monu- 
 ments of this language have this special interest : that 
 they are absolutely authentic representatives of the 
 times in which they were written there has been no 
 corruption of the original texts by copyists, no altera- 
 tions and misunderstandings which might leave us in 
 doubt as to the original text but we have here the 
 original text itself, preserved unchanged on clay and 
 stone through thousands of years. 
 
 * See pp. 317 and 370.
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 465 
 
 The cuneiform inscriptions snow us the other side of 
 the picture painted by the Hebrew prophets. The 
 latter tell us of the supremacy of Assyria or Babylonia 
 in Western Asia during the eighth, seventh, and sixth 
 centuries before Christ. Ezekiel represents Assyria as 
 " a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a 
 shadowing shroud, and of an high stature." Alluding 
 to the great rivers of Mesopotamia, and to the network 
 of canals which saved that country from the injurious 
 effects of the periodical floods and ensured its prosperity, 
 the prophet says that " the waters made him great, the 
 deep set him up on high with her rivers running round 
 about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all 
 the trees of the field." The greatness of the Assyrian 
 Empire is typified by the growth of the cedar : " His 
 height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and 
 his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became 
 long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot 
 forth. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his 
 boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of 
 the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow 
 dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his great- 
 ness, in the length of his branches : for his root was by 
 great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could 
 not hide him : the fir trees were not like his boughs, 
 and the chestnut trees were not like his branches ; nor 
 any tree in the garden of Grod was like unto him in his 
 beauty. I have made him fair by the multitude of his 
 branches : so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the 
 garden of Grod, envied him." Under this image of the 
 
 E E
 
 466 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 cedar overtopping all other trees, and sheltering all 
 nations under its branches, the prophet indicates to us 
 the impression that the Assyrian power made upon its 
 subjects and contemporaries. The cuneiform inscriptions, 
 on the other hand, show us how the Assyrians regarded 
 the nations whom they subdued and plundered, the con- 
 tempt which the conquerors felt for those who dared to 
 resist their sovereign power, and their ruthless disregard 
 of the sufferings inflicted on those from whom they chose 
 to demand obedience and tribute. We see from the native 
 records how the Assyrians became so great and wealthy 
 that no other nation in Asia could be compared with 
 them ; how all the cities of Syria and Armenia were 
 ransacked for their gold and silver and purple stuffs, 
 which were stored in the treasuries of Nineveh ; how 
 all the tribes of Western Asia hastened to bring the 
 heaviest tribute and to lay it at the feet of the cruel con- 
 querors, which they kissed in token of abject submis- 
 sion, in order that they might save themselves from 
 death, torture, or slavery. 
 
 When the supremacy was transferred to Babylon, at 
 the end of the seventh century, the new dynasty carried 
 on the policy of their Assyrian predecessors for a short 
 period, until the Persian conquest altered the face of 
 Western Asia, and introduced an era of comparative 
 peace and cessation from perpetual ravage and plunder. 
 Habakkuk speaks of the Chaldasans as " that bitter and 
 hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of 
 the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not 
 theirs." He describes them as "terrible and dreadful";
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 467 
 
 "their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are 
 more fierce than the evening wolves : and their horsemen 
 shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come 
 from far ; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. 
 They shall come all for violence : their faces shall sup 
 up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity 
 as the sand. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the 
 princes shall be a scorn unto them : they shall deride 
 ever}'' stronghold ; for they shall heap dust, and take 
 it." This is the aspect which the armies of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar presented to his enemies, for whose over- 
 throw he thanks his gods, who had made him ruler 
 over the whole world, and filled his treasury with the 
 spoils of all nations. 
 
 It is hardly too much to say that the history of 
 Western Asia, from the eleventh or twelfth century 
 before Christ down to the sixth, is the history of As- 
 syria and Babylonia. Armenia, Syria, and parts of Asia 
 Minor were tributary to them during a great part 
 of that period, and the influence which these great 
 nations exercised upon the civilization of the surround- 
 ing countries can hardly be exaggerated. These con- 
 siderations show of what importance the study of the 
 cuneiform inscriptions must be for the understanding of 
 the history of the people of Israel. The material cul- 
 ture of the Israelites must have been, in great measure, 
 borrowed from the example of the ruling nation, and the 
 greater wealth and more extensive commerce of Nineveh 
 and Babylon must have enabled them to impose their 
 modes of life upon their less important neighbours.
 
 468 NEW LIGHT ON THE BIBLE. 
 
 This conclusion is strengthened when we consider 
 the antiquity of the influence exercised by the States of 
 Mesopotamia upon the neighbouring lands, and espe- 
 cially upon Syria. We have seen that between the 
 twelfth and sixth centuries this supremacy was almost 
 uninterrupted; but at a much earlier period it had 
 already existed. It is true that this earlier period was 
 separated from the later by an age of Egyptian supre- 
 macy under the eighteenth dynasty, followed by a period 
 during which the Hittites and Amorites were left to 
 themselves ; but the earlier period, beginning with the 
 conquests of Sargon of Agade in Phoenicia, must have 
 left ineffaceable traces behind. As we have seen from a 
 study of the Tell el-Amarna tablets, this earlier period 
 of Babylonian supremacy left behind it the use of the 
 Babylonian language and system of writing in Syria and 
 Canaan, as well as in countries further east, and perhaps 
 further north, which came within the range of early 
 Babylonian civilization. The connection of the Baby- 
 lonian supremacy in those remote days with the emi- 
 gration of Abraham and his family from the Babylonian 
 city of Ur into Canaan cannot, indeed, be traced at 
 present ; but it is certainly important to know from the 
 Babylonian records that, probably before the time of 
 Abraham, Syria and Canaan had been conquered by the 
 Babylonian princes : had been influenced by the culture 
 of Babylonia so far that they had borrowed its language 
 for literary purposes and its system of writing ; and not 
 improbably had formed part of a Babylonian empire, 
 just as they did in the days of Nebuchadnezzar.
 
 THE ASSYRIAN AND BABYLONIAN LANGUAGE. 169 
 
 But, after all, this close connection between Canaan 
 and Mesopotamia, both in earlier and in later times, 
 only accentuates more strongly the independent cha- 
 racter of the religious literature and the religious 
 practice of the Jews. How much more marvellous 
 does the Old Testament become when it is clearly un- 
 derstood that it was written by members of a small 
 nation or tribe, under the overshadowing influence of 
 the supreme power of Assyria or Babylonia ! The sur- 
 rounding nations, doubtless, had their own local gods ; 
 but most of these were the same as those of Babylonia, 
 and were probably worshipped with similar rites. Baal, 
 or Bel, Ishtar, or Ashtoreth, Bimmon, Dagon, Tammuz, 
 are gods common to the Semitic races of Western Asia, 
 and these were the principal deities of the nations 
 around Samaria and Judah. It is true, indeed, that 
 the Israelites and many of the Jews adopted these 
 worships ; but the priests and prophets of Jehovah 
 kept up a different form of faith ; and the thought 
 that Isaiah and Ezekiel preached and wrote, not only 
 in the face of their apostate countrymen, but in spite 
 of the political supremacy and overshadowing culture 
 of Nineveh and Babylon, adds to the deep impression 
 produced by the study of their books. 
 
 THE END.
 
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