A HISTORY
OF
BABYLONIA
FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE MONARCHY
TO THE PERSIAN CONQUEST
BY
LEONARD W. KING, LITT.D., F.S.A.
Assistant Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities in the British Museum
Professor of Assyrian and Babylonian Archæology in
the University of London
WITH MAP, PLANS, AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
1915
MERODACH-BALADAN II., KING OF BABYLON, MAKING A GRANT OF LAND TO BÊL-AKHÊ-ERBA, GOVERNOR OF BABYLON.
The first part of Leonard W. King's History of Babylon is available as A History of Sumer and Akkad, an Account of the Early Races of Babylonia from Prehistoric Times to the Foundation of the Babylonian Monarchy.
[PREFACE]
In the first volume of this work an account was given of the early races of Babylonia from prehistoric times to the foundation of the monarchy. It closed at the point when the city of Babylon was about to secure the permanent leadership under her dynasty of West-Semitic kings. The present volume describes the fortunes of Babylonia during the whole of the dynastic period, and it completes the history of the southern kingdom. Last autumn, in consequence of the war, it was decided to postpone its publication; but, at the request of the publishers, I have now finished it and seen it through the press. At a time when British troops are in occupation of Southern Mesopotamia, the appearance of a work upon its earlier history may perhaps not be considered altogether inopportune.
Thanks to recent excavation Babylon has ceased to be an abstraction, and we are now able to reconstitute the main features of one of the most famous cities of the ancient world. Unlike Ashur and Nineveh, the great capitals of Assyria, Babylon survived with but little change under the Achæmenian kings of Persia, and from the time of Herodotus onward we possess accounts of her magnificence, which recent research has in great part substantiated. It is true that we must modify the description Herodotus has left us of her size, but on all other points the accuracy of his information is confirmed. The Lion Frieze of the Citadel and the enamelled beasts of the Ishtar Gate enable us to understand something of the spell she cast. It is claimed that the site has been identified of her most famous building, the Hanging Gardens of the royal palace; and, if that should prove to be the case, they can hardly be said to have justified their reputation. Far more impressive is the Tower of Babel with its huge Peribolos, enclosing what has been aptly described as the Vatican of Babylon.
The majority of the buildings uncovered date from the Neo-Babylonian period, but they may be regarded as typical of Babylonian civilization as a whole. For temples were rebuilt again and again on the old lines, and religious conservatism retained the mud-brick walls and primitive decoration of earlier periods. Even Nabopolassar's royal palace must have borne a close resemblance to that of Hammurabi; and the street network of the city appears to have descended without much change from the time of the First Dynasty. The system which Hammurabi introduced into the legislation of his country may perhaps have been reflected in the earliest attempt at town-planning on a scientific basis. The most striking fact about Babylon's history is the continuity of her culture during the whole of the dynastic period. The principal modification which took place was in the system of land-tenure, the primitive custom of tribal or collective proprietorship giving place to private ownership under the policy of purchase and annexation deliberately pursued by the West-Semitic and Kassite conquerors. A parallel to the earlier system and its long survival may be seen in the village communities of India at the present day.
In contrast to that of Assyria, the history of Babylon is more concerned with the development and spread of a civilization than with the military achievements of a race. Her greatest period of power was under her first line of kings; and in after ages her foreign policy was dictated solely by her commercial needs. The letters from Boghaz Keui, like those from Tell el-Amarna, suggest that, in keeping her trade connexions open, she relied upon diplomacy in preference to force. That she could fight at need is proved by her long struggle with the northern kingdom, but in the later period her troops were never a match for the trained legions of Assyria. It is possible that Nabopolassar and his son owed their empire in great measure to the protecting arm of Media; and Nebuchadnezzar's success at Carchemish does not prove that the Babylonian character had suddenly changed. A recently recovered letter throws light on the unsatisfactory state of at least one section of the army during Nebuchadnezzar's later years, and incidentally it suggests that Gobryas, who facilitated the Persian occupation, may be identified with a Babylonian general of that name. With the fall of Media, he may perhaps have despaired of any successful opposition on his country's part.
Babylon's great wealth, due to her soil and semi-tropical climate, enabled her to survive successive foreign dominations and to impose her civilization on her conquerors. Her caravans carried that civilization far afield, and one of the most fascinating problems of her history is to trace the effect of such intercourse in the literary remains of other nations. Much recent research has been devoted to this subject, and the great value of its results has given rise in some quarters to the view that the religious development of Western Asia, and in a minor degree of Europe, was dominated by the influence of Babylon. The theory which underlies such speculation assumes a reading of the country's history which cannot be ignored. In the concluding chapter an estimate has been attempted of the extent to which the assumption is in harmony with historical research.
The delay in the publication of this volume has rendered it possible to incorporate recent discoveries, some of which have not as yet appeared in print. Professor A. T. Clay has been fortunate enough to acquire for the Yale University Collection a complete list of the early kings of Larsa, in addition to other documents with an important bearing on the history of Babylon. He is at present preparing the texts for publication, and has meanwhile very kindly sent me transcripts of the pertinent material with full permission to make use of them. The information afforded as to the overlapping of additional dynasties with the First Dynasty of Babylon has thrown new light on the circumstances which led to the rise of Babylon to power. But these and other recent discoveries, in their general effect, do not involve any drastic changes in the chronological scheme as a whole. They lead rather to local rearrangements, which to a great extent counterbalance one another. Under Babylon's later dynasties her history and that of Assyria are so closely inter-related that it is difficult to isolate the southern kingdom. An attempt has been made to indicate broadly the chief phases of the conflict, and the manner in which Babylonian interests alone were affected. In order to avoid needless repetition, a fuller treatment of the period is postponed to the third volume of this work. A combined account will then also be given of the literature and civilization of both countries.
I take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to Monsieur F. Thureau-Dangin, Conservateur-adjoint of the Museums of the Louvre, for allowing me last spring to study unpublished historical material in his charge. The information he placed at my disposal I found most useful during subsequent work in the Ottoman Museum at Constantinople shortly before the war. Reference has already been made to my indebtedness to Professor Clay, who has furnished me from time to time with other unpublished material, for which detailed acknowledgment is made in the course of this work. With Professor C. F. Burney I have discussed many of the problems connected with the influence of Babylon upon Hebrew literature; and I am indebted to Professor A. C. Headlam for permission to reprint portions of an article on that subject, which I contributed in 1912 to the Church Quarterly Review.
To Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge my thanks are due, as he suggested that I should write these histories, and he has given me the benefit of his advice. To him, as to Sir Frederic Kenyon and Mr. D. G. Hogarth, I am indebted for permission to make use of illustrations, which have appeared in official publications of the British Museum. My thanks are also due to Monsieur Ernest Leroux of Paris for allowing me to reproduce some of the plates from the "Mémoires de la Délégation en Perse," published by him under the editorship of Monsieur J. de Morgan; and to the Council and Secretary of the Society of Biblical Archæology for the loan of a block employed to illustrate a paper I contributed to their Proceedings. The greater number of the plates illustrating the excavations are from photographs taken on the spot; and the plans and drawings figured in the text are the work of Mr. E. J. Lambert and Mr. C. O. Waterhouse, who have spared no pains to ensure their accuracy. The designs upon the cover of this volume represent the two most prominent figures in Babylonian tradition. In the panel on the face of the cover the national hero Gilgamesh is portrayed, whose epic reflects the Babylonian heroic ideal. The panel on the back of the binding contains a figure of Marduk, the city-god of Babylon, grasping in his right hand the flaming sword with which he severed the dragon of chaos.
L. W. KING.
[CONTENTS]
INTRODUCTORY: BABYLON'S PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY
Babylon as a centre of civilization—Illustrations of foreign influence—Babylon's share in the origin of the culture she distributed—Causes which led to her rise as capital—Advantages of her geographical position—Transcontinental lines of traffic—The Euphrates route, the Royal Road, and the Gates of Zagros—Her supremacy based on the strategic and commercial qualities of her site—The political centre of gravity in Babylonia illustrated by the later capitals, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Baghdad—The Persian Gulf as barrier, and as channel of international commerce—Navigation on the Euphrates and the Tigris—Causes of Babylon's deposition—Her treatment by Cyrus, Alexander, and Seleucus—The Arab conquest of Mesopotamia instructive for comparison with the era of early city-states—Effect of slackening of international communications—Effect of restoration of commercial intercourse with the West—Three main periods of Babylon's foreign influence—Extent to which she moulded the cultural development of other races-Traces of contact in Hebrew religion and in Greek mythology—Recent speculation on the subject to be tested by the study of history [1]
THE CITY OF BABYLON AND ITS REMAINS: A DISCUSSION OF THE RECENT EXCAVATIONS
The site of Babylon in popular tradition—Observations of Benjamin of Tudela and John Eldred—Exaggerations of early travellers—The description of Herodotus—Modern survey and excavation—Characteristics of Babylonian architecture—The architect's ideal—Comparison of Babylonian and Assyrian architectural design—Difficulties of Babylonian excavation—The extent of Babylon and the classical tradition—Remains of the ancient city—The Walls of Babylon—The Outer City-wall—The Mound Bâbil—The Ḳaṣr—The Inner City-wall—Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl—Quay-walls and fortifications—Nebuchadnezzar's river-fortification—Change in the course of the Euphrates—Palaces of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar—The official courts of the palace—Al-Bît-shar-Bâbili—The Throne-Room and its enamelled façade—The private palace and the women's apartments—The Hanging Gardens of Babylon—The Ishtar Gate and its Bulls and Dragons—Later defences of the Southern Citadel —The Lion Frieze—The Procession Street—Temples of Babylon—E-makh, the temple of Ninmakh—Altars in the Babylonian and Hebrew cults—The unidentified temple—The temple of Ishtar of Akkad—Religious mural decoration—The temple of Ninib—E-sagila and the Tower of Babylon—The Peribolos or Sacred Precincts—E-zida and the Temple-tower of Borsippa—The Euphrates bridge—Merkes and the street net-work of Babylon—Strata of different periods—Early Babylonian town-planning—Material influence of the West-Semitic Dynasty—Continuity of Babylonian culture [14]
THE DYNASTIES OF BABYLON: THE CHRONOLOGICAL SCHEME IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT DISCOVERIES
Chronology the skeleton of history—Principal defect in the Babylonian scheme—The Dynasties of Nîsin, Larsa and Babylon—Discovery of a List of the kings of Larsa—Introduction of fresh uncertainty—Relationship of the kings of Babylon and Nîsin—Absence of synchronisms—Evidence of date-formula?.—A fresh and sounder line of research—Double-dates supply the missing link for the chronology—The Nîsin era—Explanation of the double-dates—The problem of Rîm-Sin—Method of reconciling data—Another line of evidence—Archæological research and the Second Dynasty of the Kings' List—Date-formulæ of Hammurabi, Samsu-iluna and Iluma-ilum—Methods of fixing period of First Dynasty—Ammi-zaduga's omens from the planet Venus—Combinations of Venus, sun, and moon—Possibility of fixing period of observations—Alternative dates in their relation to historical results—The time of harvest in farming-out contracts of the period—Probable date for the First Dynasty—Re-examination of chronological notices in later texts—The Dynasties of Berossus and the beginning of his historical period—Effect of recent discoveries on the chronological scheme as a whole—Our new picture of the rise of Babylon [87]
THE WESTERN SEMITES AND THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON
Original home of the Amurru, or Western Semites—Arabia one of the main breeding-grounds of the human race—The great Semitic migrations and their cause—Evidence of diminution of rainfall in Arabia—The life of the pastoral nomad conditioned by the desert—The change from pastoral to agricultural life—Successive stages of Canaanite civilization—The neolithic inhabitants and the Amorite migration—Canaanites of history and their culture—Eastern Syria and the middle Euphrates—Recent excavations at Carchemish and its neighbourhood—Early Babylonian cylinder-seals on the Sajûr—Trade of Carchemish with Northern Babylonia—West Semitic settlements on the Khâbûr—The kingdom of Khana—The Amorite invasion of Babylonia—The Dynasties of Nîsin and Larsa—Recent discoveries at Ashur—Proto-Mitannians—The Western Semites in Babylon and their conflict with Assyria—Early struggles and methods of expansion—The Elamite conquest of Larsa—The three-cornered contest of Nîsin, Elam and Babylon—The fall of Nîsin and the duel between Babylon and Elam—Hammurabi's defeat of Rîm-Sin and the annexation of Sumer by Babylon—Extent of Hammurabi's empire—Hammurabi the founder of Babylon's greatness—His work as law-giver and administrator [119]
THE AGE OF HAMMURABI AND ITS INFLUENCE ON LATER PERIODS
The energy of the Western Semite and his perpetuation of a dying culture—His age one of transition—Contemporaneous evidence on social and political conditions—The three grades in the social scale of Babylon—The nobles a racial aristocracy—Origin and rights of the middle class—Condition of slaves—Pastoral and agricultural life in early Babylonia—Regulations sanction long-established custom—The corvée for public works—Canals and fishing-rights—Methods of irrigation and their modern equivalents—Survival of the Babylonian plough and grain-drill—Importance of the date-palm and encouragement of plantations—Methods of transport by water—The commercial activities of Babylon and the larger cities—Partnerships for foreign trade—Life in the towns—Family life in early Babylonia—The position of women—Privileges enjoyed by votaries—The administration of justice—Relation of the crown and the priestly hierarchy under the Western Semites—The royal regulation of the calendar and the naming of the year—System of administration—Changes in the religious sphere and revision of the pantheon—Literary activity—The complete semitization of the country unaccompanied by any break in culture—Babylon's later civilization moulded by Hammurabi's age [162]
THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON AND THE KINGS FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE SEA
Condition of the empire on Samsu-iluna's accession—Early Kassite raid the signal for revolt, assisted by Elamite invasion—Resources of Babylon strained in suppressing the rebellion—Rise of an independent kingdom in the Sea-Country on the littoral of the Persian Gulf—Capacity of the Sea-Country for defence and as a base for offensive operations—Sumerian elements in its population—Babylon's loss of territory and her struggle with the Sea-Country kings—Symptoms of decadence under the later West-Semitic kings of Babylon—The deification of royalty and increased luxury of ritual—Evidence of Babylon's growing wealth and artistic progress under foreign influence—Temporary restoration of Babylon's power under Ammi-ditana—Renewed activity of the Sea-Country followed by gradual decline of Babylon—The close of the West-Semitic dynasty brought about or hastened by Hittite invasion—Period of local dynasties following the fall of Babylon—Continued succession of the Sea-Country kings [197]
THE KASSITE DYNASTY AND ITS RELATIONS WITH EGYPT AND THE HITTITE EMPIRE
The Kassite conquest of Babylonia—The Kassites probably Aryans by race and akin to the later rulers of Mitanni—Character of their rule in Babylon—Their introduction of the horse into Western Asia—The Kassite conquest of the Sea-Country and its annexation to Babylon—Gap in our knowledge of the Kassite succession—The letters from Tell el-Amarna and Boghaz-Keui—Egypt and Western Asia at the close of the fifteenth century—Diplomacy and the balance of power—Dynastic marriages and international intercourse of the period—Amen-hetep III. and Kadashman-Enlil—Akhenaten and his policy of doles—Babylon's caravans in Syria—The correspondence of Burna-Buriash and Akhenaten—Egypt's loss of her Asiatic provinces—Rise of the Hittite Empire—The Hittites and their civilization—Their capital of Khatti—Their annexation of Mitanni and the Egyptian war—The relations of Khattusil with Kadashman-turgu and Kadashman-Enlil II.—Character of the Hittite correspondence—The growth of Assyria and her relations with Babylon—First phase in the long struggle of the two kingdoms —The later members of the Kassite Dynasty—Its fall to be traced to Elamite invasion—Economic conditions in Babylonia under the Kassites—Kudurru-inscriptions or boundary-stones—Their evidence on the Babylonian system of land-tenure—Gradual disappearance of tribal proprietorship as a result of West-Semitic and Kassite policy—Transition from collective to private ownership [214]
THE LATER DYNASTIES AND THE ASSYRIAN DOMINATION
Spoils at Susa from the Elamite invasion—Recovery of her territory by Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar I.—Renewal of conflicts and treaties with Assyria—The devastation of Babylonia by the Sutû—Ephemeral Babylonian dynasties—The state of Sippar typical of the condition of the country—Renaissance of Assyria—The conquests of Ashur-uasir-pal and Babylon's abortive opposition—Babylonian art in the ninth century—Intervention of Shalmaneser III. in Babylonian politics—His campaign in Chaldea—The kingdom of Urartu and its effect on Assyrian expansion—Independence of provincial governments during a relaxation of central control—Temporary recovery of Babylon under Nabonassar—Gradual tightening of Assyria's grasp upon the southern kingdom—Character of her later empire—Tiglath-pileser IV.'s policy of deportation and its inherent weakness—The disappearance of Erartu as a buffer state—Sargon and Merodach-baladan—Sennacherib's attempt to destroy Babylon—Esarhaddon's reversal of his father's policy—The Assyrian conquest of Egypt—Ashur-bani-pal and the revolt of Shamash-shum-ukîn—The sack of Susa—Babylon under the Sargonids—The policies of encouragement and coercion—Effect of their alternation [252]
THE NEO-BABYLONIAN EMPIRE AND THE PERSIAN CONQUEST
Nabopolassar and his nascent kingdom—The Scythian invasion and its effects—The sons of Ashur-bani-pal—Nabopolassar and the Medes—The fall of Nineveh—Division of Assyrian territory—Babylon's conflict with Egypt—Nebuchadnezzar II. and the Battle of Carchemish—Capture of Jerusalem and deportation of the Jews—Occupation of Phoenicia and siege of Tyre—Nebuchadnezzar's later campaign in Egypt—Babylon and the Median suzerainty—Lydia under the successors of Ardys—Conflict of Cyaxares and Alyattes on the Halys and the intervention of Babylon—Nebuchadnezzar as builder—Condition of the Babylonian army in Nebuchadnezzar's closing years and under his successors—Gubaru, the general, and the governor of Gutium—Death of Neriglissar—Character of Nabonidus—The decaying empire under Median protection—The rise of Cyrus—His ease in possessing himself of Media, and the probable cause—His defeat and capture of Croesus and the fall of Lydia—His advance on Babylon—Possibility that Gobryas was a native Babylonian—His motive in facilitating the Persian occupation—Defeat and death of Belshazzar—Popularity of Cyrus in Babylon—Tranquillity of the country under Persian rule—Babylon's last bids for independence—Her later history—Survival of Babylonian cults into the Christian era [275]
GREECE, PALESTINE, AND BABYLON: AN ESTIMATE OF CULTURAL INFLUENCE
Influence of Babylon still apparent in the modern world—The mother of astronomy, and the survival of her ancient system of time-division—The political and religious history of the Hebrews in the light of Babylonian research—Echoes from Babylonian legends in Greek mythology—The Babylonian conception of the universe—The astral theory and its comprehensive assumptions—Was Babylonian religion essentially a star-worship?—Application of historical test—Evolution of the Babylonian god—Origin of divine emblems and animal symbolism—World Ages and the astral theory—Late evidence and the earlier historical periods—The astral ages of the Twins, the Bull and the Ram—Suggested influence of each age upon the historical literature of antiquity—The Old Testament and the Odyssey under astral interpretation—Astronomical defects of the astral theory—The age of Babylonian astronomy—Hipparchus of Nicæa and the precession of the equinoxes—Hebrews and Babylonian astrology—Contrast of the Babylonian and Hellenic temperaments—Mesopotamia and the coast-lands of Asia Minor—Tales that are told [289]
I. A COMPARATIVE LIST OF THE DYNASTIES OF NISIX, LAKSA, AND BABYLON [318]
II. A DYNASTIC LIST OF THE KINGS OF BABYLON [320]
INDEX [323]
LIST OF PLATES
I. Merodach-baladan II., King of Babylon, making a grant of land to Bêl-akhê-erba, governor of Babylon [Frontispiece]
[II]. (i) The temple-tower of E-zida at Borsippa. (ii) The Lion of Babylon on the Ḳaṣr Mound 18
[III]. The Throne Room in Nebuchadnezzar's palace at Babylon, showing the recess in the back wall where the throne once stood 39
[IV]. Eastern Towers of the Ishtar Gate, the portions preserved having formed the foundation of the final gateway 48
[V]. Trench showing a portion of the Sacred Way of Babylon, to the east of the Peribolos 61
[VI]. Two views of the Temple of Ninib in course of excavation 72
[VII]. Brick of Sin-idinnam, King of Larsa, recording the cutting of a canal and the restoration of the Temple of the Moon-god in the city of Ur 90
[VIII]. Hammurabi, King of Babylon, from a relief in the British Museum, dedicated on his behalf to the West Semitic goddess [Ash]ratum by Itur-ashdum, a provincial governor 97
[IX]. Brick of Warad-Sin, King of Larsa, recording building operations in the city of Ur 105
[X]. The Citadel Mound of Carchemish from the north-west 128
[XI]. Upper portion of the Code of Hammurabi, engraved with a scene representing the king receiving his laws from the Sun-god 144
[XII].(i) Bronze cone and votive figure, (ii) Stone cylinder with a votive inscription of Warad-Sin, King of Larsa 153
[XIII]. Portion of the text of Hammurabi's Code, Columns 6-8 168
[XIV]. A modern gufa, a form of coracle described by Herodotus and represented on the monuments 177
[XV]. (i) A small kelek on the Tigris at Baghdad, (ii) Ferry-boats on the Euphrates at Birejik 184
[XVI]. Impressions of Babylonian cylinder-seals, engraved with mythological subjects 193
[XVII]. Impressions of Kassite cylinder-seals 199
[XVIII]. Brick of Sin-gashid, King of Erech, recording the building of his palace in that city 210
[XIX]. Head of a colossal statue of Amen-hetep III 220
[XX]. Hittite hieroglyphic inscription at Carchemish 241
[XXI]. Kassite kudurrus, or boundary-stones, set up in the reigns of Meli-Shipak II. and Nazi-maruttash 248
[XXII]. Divine emblems on the upper part of akudurru, or boundary-stone, engraved with a charter of privileges granted by Nebuchadnezzar I 255
[XXIII]. Memorial-tablet of Nabû-aplu-iddina, King of Babylon, recording his restoration of the Sun-temple at Sippar 260
[XXIV]. Shalmaneser III. receiving the submission of the Chaldeans, from the bronze sheathing of his Gates in the British Museum 269
[XXV]. Ashur-bani-pal, represented carrying a builder's basket, as the restorer of E-sagila, the temple of Marduk at Babylon 273
[XXVI]. Bronze door-step from E-zida, the temple of Nabû at Borsippa, inscribed with the name and titles of Nebuchadnezzar II. 278
[XXVII]. (i) Baked clay foundation-cylinder of Nabonidus, referring to the defeat of Astyages by Cyrus, (ii) Baked clay foundation-cylinder of Cyrus, recording his entry into Babylon "without battle and without fighting" 287
[XXVIII]. Impressions of Neo-Babylonian and Persian cylinder-seals 287
[XXIX]. Limestone statue of the god Nabû at Nimrûd292
[XXX]. Divine emblems sculptured on the lower portion of the boundary-stone engraved with a charter of Nebuchadnezzar I. (cp. Plate XXII.) 297
[XXXI]. Two views of a clay model of a sheep's liver with the surface divided up and labelled for purposes of divination 303
[XXXII]. A Neo-Babylonian treatise on astronomy, inscribed with classified lists of the principal stars and constellations, heliacal risings and settings, culminations in the south, etc. 311
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
[1]. Diagram to illustrate the political centre of gravity in Babylonia 8
[2]. Map of the neighbourhood of Babylon and Birs-Nimrûd; after the India Office Map 16
[3]. Plan of the ruins of Babylon; after Koldewey and Andrae 24
[4]. Ground-plan of part of the outer city-wall; after Koldewey and Andrae 26
[5]. Conjectural restoration of the Southern Citadel; after Andrae 29
[6]. Plan of the Southern Citadel; after Koldewey, Reuther, and Wetzel 31
[7]. Ground-plan of quay-walls and fortification-walls in the north-west corner of the Southern Citadel; after Koldewey 32
[8]. Section of the quay-walls and fortification-walls along the north front of the Southern Citadel; after Andrae 34
[9]. Plan of the Throne Room of Nebuchadnezzar II. and part of the private palace; after Koldewey 42
[10]. Design in enamelled brick from the façade of the Throne Room 44
[11]. Plan of the north-east corner of the palace with the Vaulted Building; after Koldewey 46
[12]. Bull in enamelled brick from the Ishtar Gate 50
[13]. Dragon in enamelled brick from the Ishtar Gate 51
[14]. Ground-plan of the Ishtar Gate; after Koldewey 52
[15]. Section of the Ishtar Gate; after Andrae 53
[16]. Diagram to show the arrangement of the beasts of the Ishtar Gate; after Koldewey 54
[17]. Enamelled fragment of the Ishtar Gate still in position 56
[18]. Plan of the later defences of the Citadel upon the north, showing the walls with the Lion Frieze and the Ishtar Gate 57
[19]. Lion from the frieze of the Sacred Way to the north of the Ishtar Gate 59
[20]. Ground-plan of E-makh, the temple of the goddess Ninmakh; after Andrae 64
[21]. Conjectural restoration of E-makh; after Andrae 65
[22]. Gold plaque, with architectural design, from a Neo-Babylonian burial; enlargement after photo, by Koldewey 67
[23]. Ground-plan of the unidentified temple known as "Z"; after Andrae 68
[24]. Conjectural restoration of the unidentified temple known as "Z"; after Andrae and Koldewey 69
[25]. Ground-plan of the temple of Ishtar of Akkad; after Reuther 70
[20]. Ground-plan of the temple of Ninib; after Andrae 71
[27]. Ground-plan of E-temen-anki and E-sagila; after Wetzel 74
[28]. Conjectural reconstruction of E-temen-anki and E-sagila; after Andrae 75
[29]. Ground-plan of E-zida and the temple-tower of Nabû at Borsippa; after Koldewey 78
[30]. Rough engraving of a temple-tower upon a boundary-stone 80
[31]. Plan of the Merkes Mound, showing part of the street network of Babylon; after Koldewey 82
[32]-[33]. Arabs of the seventh century b.c., from a sculpture in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum 123
[34]. Head of an archaic limestone figure from Ashur 137
[35]-30. Heads of archaic figures from Ashur and Tello 138
[37]-39. Examples of archaic sculpture from Ashur and Tello, exhibiting the same convention in the treatment of woollen garments 140
[40]. The Old Babylonian form of plough in use; after Clay 175
[41]. Assyrian kelek on the Tigris; after La yard 178
[42]. The Assyrian prototype of the gufa; from a bas-relief in the British Museum 179
[43]. Assyrian raft of logs on the Tigris; from a bas-relief in the British Museum 181
[44]. Swamp in Southern Babylonia, or the Sea-Country; after a bas-relief at Nineveh 201
[45]. The zebu or humped oxen of the Sea-Country; after a bas-relief from Nineveh in the British Museum 204
[46]. Akhenaten, with his queen and infant daughters, on the balcony of their palace; after N. de G. Davies 223
[47]-48. Representations of Hittites in Egyptian sculpture; after Meyer 226
[49]. Hittite foot-soldiers at the Battle of Kadesh; after Meyer 227
[50]. Hittite chieftain, a captive of Rameses III.; after Meyer 228
[51]. Figure, probably of a Hittite king, from the Royal Gate at Khatti; after a photo, by Puchstein 229
[52]. The Royal Gate of Khatti, the capital of the Hittites, viewed from the outside; after Puchstein 231
[53]. Conjectural restoration of a Hittite gateway viewed from outside; after Puchstein 232
[54]. Longitudinal section of the Lower Western Gateway at Khatti; after Puchstein 234
[55]. Transverse section of the Lower Western Gateway at Khatti; after Puchstein 235
[56]. One of the two sacred boats of Khonsu, the Egyptian Moongod, who journeyed into Cappadocia to cast out a devil from a Hittite princess; after Rosellini 238
[57]. Rameses II. offering incense to one of the boats of Khonsu before he started on his journey; after Rosellini 239
[58]. Scene representing Nabû-mukîn-apli sanctioning a transfer of landed property 258
[59]. Marduk and his dragon from a votive offering of Marduk-zakir-shum; after Weissbach 261
[60]. The Assyrian army in Chaldea, 851 b.c.; from the Gates of Shalmaneser in the British Museum 262
[61]. A Chaldean town of the ninth century b.c.; from the Gates of Shalmaneser 263
[62-63]. The tribute of the Chaldeans; from the Gates of Shalmaneser 264
[64]. Bas-relief of Shamash-rêsh-usur, governor of the lands of Sukhi and Mari; after a photo, by Weissbach 266
[65]. The god Adad from a votive offering dedicated in E-sagila by Esarhaddon; after Weissbach 271
[66-68]. The weather-god and two goddesses from an Assyrian bas-relief; after Layard 294
[69]. Figure of deity in portable shrine; after Layard 295
[70]. Sumerian harp, with the sound-case surmounted by the figure of a bull 298
[71]. The guardian lions of the Eastern Gate of Heaven, from the impression of a cylinder-seal in the Louvre; after Heuzey 299
[72]. Winged monster on enamelled frieze at Persepolis; after Dieulafoy 300
MAPS AND PLANS
[I]. Diagram to illustrate the political centre of gravity in Babylonia (Fig. 1) 8
[II]. Map of the neighbourhood of Babylon and Birs-Nimrûd (Fig. 2) 16
[III]. Plan of the ruins of Babylon (Fig. 3) 24
[IV]. Ground-plan of part of the outer city-wall (Fig. 4) 26
[V]. Plan of the Southern Citadel (Fig. 6) 31
[VI]. Ground-plan of quay-walls and fortification-walls in the N.W. corner of the S. Citadel (Fig. 7) 32
[VII]. Plan of the Throne Room of Nebuchadnezzar and part of the private palace (Fig. 9) 42
[VIII]. Plan of the N.E. corner of the palace with the Vaulted Building (Fig. 11) 46
[IX]. Ground-plan of the Ishtar Gate (Fig. 14) 52
[X]. Plan of the later defences of the Citadel upon the N., showing the walls with the Lion Frieze and the Ishtar Gate (Fig. 18) 57
[XI]. Ground-plan of E-makh, the temple of the goddess Ninmakh (Fig. 20) 64
[XII]. Ground-plan of the unidentified temple known as "Z" (Fig. 23) 68
[XIII]. Ground-plan of the temple of Ishtar of Akkad (Fig. 25) 70
[XIV]. Ground-plan of the temple of Ninib (Fig. 20) 71
[XV]. Ground-plan of E-temen-anki and E-sagila (Fig. 27) 74
[XVI]. Ground-plan of E-zida and the temple-tower of Nabii at Borsippa (Fig. 29) 78
[XVII]. Plan of the Merkes Mound, showing part of the street network of Babylon (Fig. 31) 83
[A HISTORY OF BABYLON]
[CHAPTER I]
INTRODUCTORY: BABYLON'S PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF ANTIQUITY
The name of Babylon suggests one of the great centres from which civilization radiated to other peoples of the ancient world. And it is true that from the second millennium onwards we have evidence of the gradual spread of Babylonian culture throughout the greater part of Western Asia. Before the close of the fifteenth century, to cite a single example of such influence, we find that Babylonian had become the language of Eastern diplomacy. It is not surprising perhaps that the Egyptian king should have adopted the Babylonian tongue and method of writing for his correspondence with rulers of Babylon itself or of Assyria. But it is remarkable that he should employ this foreign script and language for sending orders to the governors of his Syrian and Palestinian dependencies, and that such Canaanite officials should use the same medium for the reports they despatched to their Egyptian master. In the same period we find the Aryan rulers of Mitanni, in Northern Mesopotamia, writing in cuneiform the language of their adopted country. A few decades later the Hittites of Anatolia, discarding their old and clumsy system of hieroglyphs except for monumental purposes, borrow the same character for their own speech, while their treaties with Egypt are drawn up in Babylonian. In the ninth century the powerful race of the Urartians, settled in the mountains of Armenia around the shores of Lake Van, adopt as their national script the writing of Assyria, which in turn had been derived from Babylon. Elam, Babylon's nearest foreign neighbour, at a very early period had, like the Hittites of a later age, substituted for their rude hieroglyphs the language and older characters of Babylon, and later on they evolved from the same writing a character of their own. Finally, coming down to the sixth century, we find the Achæmenian kings inventing a cuneiform sign-list to express the Old Persian language, in order that their own speech might be represented in royal proclamations and memorials beside those of their subject provinces of Babylon and Susiania.
These illustrations of Babylonian influence on foreign races are confined to one department of culture only, the language and the system of writing. But they have a very much wider implication. For when a foreign language is used and written, a certain knowledge of its literature must be presupposed. And since all early literatures were largely religious in character, the study of the language carries with it some acquaintance with the legends, mythology and religious beliefs of the race from whom it was borrowed. Thus, even if we leave out of account the obvious effects of commercial intercourse, the single group of examples quoted necessarily implies a strong cultural influence on contemporary races.
It may thus appear a paradox to assert that the civilization, with which the name of Babylon is associated, was not Babylonian. But it is a fact that for more than a thousand years before the appearance of that city as a great centre of culture, the civilization it handed on to others had acquired in all essentials its later type. In artistic excellence, indeed, a standard had been already reached, which, so far from being surpassed, was never afterwards attained in Mesopotamia. And although the Babylonian may justly be credited with greater system in his legislation, with an extended literature, and perhaps also with an increased luxury of ritual, his efforts were entirely controlled by earlier models. If we except the spheres of poetry and ethics, the Semite in Babylon, as elsewhere, proved himself a clever adapter, not a creator. He was the prophet of Sumerian culture and merely perpetuated the achievements of the race whom he displaced politically and absorbed. It is therefore the more remarkable that his particular city should have seen but little of the process by which that culture had been gradually evolved. During those eventful centuries Babylon had been but little more than a provincial town. Yet it was reserved for this obscure and unimportant city to absorb within herself the results of that long process, and to appear to later ages as the original source of the culture she enjoyed. Before tracing her political fortunes in detail it will be well to consider briefly the causes which contributed to her retention of the place she so suddenly secured for herself.
The fact that under her West-Semitic kings Babylon should have taken rank as the capital city does not in itself account for her permanent enjoyment of that position. The earlier history of the lands of Sumer and Akkad abounds with similar examples of the sudden rise of cities, followed, after an interval of power, by their equally sudden relapse into comparative obscurity. The political centre of gravity was continually shifting from one town to another, and the problem we have to solve is why, having come to rest in Babylon, it should have remained there. To the Western Semites themselves, after a political existence of three centuries, it must have seemed that their city was about to share the fate of her numerous predecessors. When the Hittite raiders captured and sacked Babylon and carried off her patron deities, events must have appeared to be taking their normal course. After the country, with her abounding fertility, had been given time to recover from her temporary depression, she might have been expected to emerge once more, according to precedent, under the aegis of some other city. Yet it was within the ancient walls of Babylon that the Kassite conquerors established their headquarters; and it was to Babylon, long rebuilt and once more powerful, that the Pharaohs of the eighteenth Dynasty and the Hittite kings of Cappadocia addressed their diplomatic correspondence. During Assyria's long struggle with the southern kingdom Babylon was always the protagonist, and no raid by Aramean or Chaldean tribes ever succeeded in ousting her from that position. At the height of Assyrian power she continued to be the chief check upon that empire's expansion, and the vacillating policy of the Sargonids in their treatment of the city sufficiently testifies to the dominant rôle she continued to play in politics. And when Nineveh had fallen, it was Babylon that took her place in a great part of Western Asia.
This continued pre-eminence of a single city is in striking contrast to the ephemeral authority of earlier capitals, and it can only be explained by some radical change in the general conditions of the country. One fact stands out clearly: Babylon's geographical position must have endowed her during this period with a strategical and commercial importance which enabled her to survive the rudest shocks to her material prosperity. A glance at the map will show that the city lay in the north of Babylonia, just below the confluence of the two great rivers in their lower course. Built originally on the left bank of the Euphrates, she was protected by its stream from any sudden incursion of the desert tribes. At the same time she was in immediate contact with the broad expanse of alluvial plain to the south-east, intersected by its network of canals.
But the real strength of her position lay in her near neighbourhood to the transcontinental routes of traffic. When approaching Baghdad from the north the Mesopotamian plain contracts to a width of some thirty-five miles, and, although it has already begun to expand again in the latitude of Babylon, that city was well within touch of both rivers. She consequently lay at the meeting-point of two great avenues of commerce. The Euphrates route linked Babylonia with Northern Syria and the Mediterranean, and was her natural line of contact with Egypt; it also connected her with Cappadocia, by way of the Cilician Gates through the Taurus, along the track of the later Royal Road.[1] Farther north the trunk-route through Anatolia from the west, reinforced by tributary routes from the Black Sea, turns at Sivas on the Upper Halys, and after crossing the Euphrates in the mountains, first strikes the Tigris at Diarbekr; then leaving that river for the easier plain, it rejoins the stream in the neighbourhood of Nineveh and so advances southward to Susa or to Babylon. A third great route that Babylon controlled was that to the east through the Gates of Zagros, the easiest point of penetration to the Iranian plateau and the natural outlet of commerce from Northern Elam.[2] Babylon thus lay across the stream of the nations' traffic, and in the direct path of any invader advancing upon the southern plains.
That she owed her importance to her strategic position, and not to any particular virtue on the part of her inhabitants, will be apparent from the later history of the country. It has indeed been pointed out that the geographical conditions render necessary the existence of a great urban centre near the confluence of the Mesopotamian rivers.[3] And this fact is amply attested by the relative positions of the capital cities, which succeeded one another in that region after the supremacy had passed from Babylon. Seleucia, Ctesiphon and Baghdad are all clustered in the narrow neck of the Mesopotamian plain, and for only one short period, when normal conditions were suspended, has the centre of government been transferred to any southern city.[4] The sole change has consisted in the permanent selection of the Tigris for the site of each new capital, with a decided tendency to remove it to the left or eastern bank.[5] That the Euphrates should have given place in this way to her sister river was natural enough in view of the latter's deeper channel and better water way, which gained in significance as soon as the possibility of maritime communication was contemplated.
Throughout the whole period of Babylon's supremacy the Persian Gulf, so far from being a channel of international commerce, was as great a barrier as any mountain range. Doubtless a certain amount of local coasting traffic was always carried on, and the heavy blocks of diorite which were brought to Babylonia from Magan by the early Akkadian king Narâm-Sin, and at a rather later period by Gudea of Lagash,[6] must have been transported by water rather than over land. Tradition, too, ascribed the conquest of the island of Dilmun, the modern Bahrein, to Sargon of Akkad; but that marked the extreme limit of Babylonian penetration southwards, and the conquest must have been little more than a temporary occupation following a series of raids down the Arabian coast. The fact that two thousand years later Sargon of Assyria, when recording his receipt of tribute from Upêri of Dilmun, should have been so far out in his estimate of its distance from the Babylonian coast-line,[7] is an indication of the continued disuse of the waters of the gulf as a means of communication. On this supposition we may readily understand the difficulties encountered by Sennacherib when transporting his army across the head of the gulf against certain coast-towns of Elam, and the necessity, to which he was put, of building special ships for the purpose.
There is evidence that in the Neo-Babylonian period the possibilities of transport by way of the gulf had already begun to attract attention, and Nebuchadnezzar II. is said to have attempted to build harbours in the swamp at the mouths of the delta.[8] But his object must have been confined to encouraging coastal trade, for the sea-route between the Persian Gulf and India was certainly not in use before the fifth century, and in all probability was inaugurated by Alexander. According to Herodotus[9] it had been opened by Darius after the return of the Greek Scylax of Caryanda from his journey to India, undertaken as one of the surveying expeditions on the basis of which Darius founded the assessment of his new satrapies. But, although there is no need to doubt the historical character of that voyage, there is little to suggest that Scylax coasted round, or even entered, the Persian Gulf.[10] Moreover, it is clear that, while Babylon's international trade received a great impetus under the efficient organization of the Persian Empire, it was the overland routes which benefited. The outcrops of rock, or cataracts, which blocked the Tigris for vessels of deeper draft, were not removed until Alexander levelled them; and the problem of Babylon's sea-traffic, to which he devoted the closing months of his life, was undoubtedly one of the factors which, having now come into prominence for the first time, influenced Seleucus in selecting a site on the Tigris for his new capital.[11]
But that was not the only cause of Babylon's deposition. For after her capture by Cyrus, new forces came into play which favoured a transference of the capital eastward. During the earlier periods of her history Babylon's chief rival and most persistent enemy had lain upon her eastern frontier. To the early Sumerian rulers of city-states Elam had been "the mountain that strikes terror,"[12] and during subsequent periods the cities of Sumer and Akkad could never be sure of immunity from invasion in that quarter. We shall see that in Elam the Western Semites of Babylon found the chief obstacle to the southward extension of their authority, and that in later periods any symptom of internal weakness or dissension was the signal for renewed attack. It is true that the Assyrian danger drew these ancient foes together for a time, but even the sack of Susa by Ashur-bani-pal did not put an end to their commercial rivalry.
During all this period there was small temptation to transfer the capital to any point within easier striking distance of so powerful a neighbour; and with the principal passes for eastward traffic under foreign control, it was natural that the Euphrates route to Northern Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean coast should continue to be the chief outlet for Babylonian commerce. But on the incorporation of the country within the Persian empire all danger of interference with her eastern trade was removed; and it is a testimony to the part Babylon had already played in history that she continued to be the capital city of Asia for more than two centuries. Cyrus, like Alexander, entered the city as a conqueror, but each was welcomed by the people and their priests as the restorer of ancient rights and privileges. Policy would thus have been against any attempt to introduce radical innovations. The prestige the city enjoyed and the grandeur of its temples and palaces doubtless also weighed with the Achæmenian kings in their choice of Babylon for their official residence, except during the summer months. Then they withdrew to the cooler climate of Persepolis or Ecbatana, and during the early spring, too, they might transfer the court to Susa; but they continued to recognize Babylon as their true capital. In fact, the city only lost its importance when the centre of government was removed to Seleucia in its own immediate neighbourhood. Then, at first possibly under compulsion, and afterwards of their own freewill, the commercial classes followed their rulers to the west bank of the Tigris; and Babylon suffered in proportion. In the swift rise of Seleucia in response to official orders, we may see clear proof that the older city's influence had been founded upon natural conditions, which were shared in an equal, and now in even a greater degree, by the site of the new capital.
FIG. 1.
DIAGRAM TO ILLUSTRATE THE POLITICAL CENTRE OF GRAVITY IN BABYLONIA.
The circle marks the limits within which the capital shifted from the period of the First Dynasty onwards. It was only under the abnormal conditions produced by the Moslem conquest that Kûfa and Basra became for five generations the twin capitals of 'Irâk; this interval presents a parallel to the earlier period before the rise of Babylon.
The secret of Babylon's greatness is further illustrated by still later events in the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris. The rise of Ctesiphon on the left bank of the river was a further result of the eastward trend of commerce. But it lay immediately opposite Seleucia, and marked no fresh shifting of the centre of gravity. Of little importance under the Seleucid rulers, it became the chief city of the Arsacidæ, and, after the Parthian Empire had been conquered by Ardashir I., it continued to be the principal city of the province and became the winter residence of the Sassanian kings. When in 636 A.D. the Moslem invaders defeated the Persians near the ruins of Babylon and in the following year captured Ctesiphon, they found that city and Seleucia to which they gave the joint name of Al-Madâin, or "the cities," still retaining the importance their site had acquired in the third century b.c. Then follows a period of a hundred and twenty-five years which is peculiarly instructive for comparison with the earlier epochs of Babylonian history.
The last of the great Semitic migrations from Arabia had resulted in the conquests of Islam, when, after the death of Mohammed, the Arab armies poured into Western Asia in their efforts to convert the world to their faith. The course of the movement, and its effect upon established civilizations which were overthrown, may be traced in the full light of history; and we find in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates a resultant economic condition which forms a close parallel to that of the age before the rise of Babylon. The military occupation of Mesopotamia by the Arabs closed for a time the great avenues of transcontinental commerce; and, as a result, the political control of the country ceased to be exercised from the capital of the Sassanian kings and was distributed over more than one area. New towns sprang into being around the permanent camps of the Arab armies. Following on the conquest of Mesopotamia, the city of Basra was built on the Shatt el-'Arab in the extreme south of the country, while in the same year, 638 A.D., Kûfa was founded more to the north-west on the desert side of the Euphrates. A third great town, Wâsit, was added sixty-five years later, and this arose in the centre of the country on both banks of the Tigris, whose waters were then passing along the present bed of the Shatt el-Hai. It is true that Madâin retained a measure of local importance, but during the Omayyad Caliphate Kûfa and Basra were the twin capitals of 'Irâk.[13]
Thus the slackening of international connections led at once to a distribution of authority between a north and a south Babylonian site. It is true that both capitals were under the same political control, but from the economic standpoint we are forcibly reminded of the era of city-states in Sumer and Akkad. Then, too, there was no external factor to retain the centre of gravity in the north; and Erech more than once secured the hegemony, while the most stable of the shifting dynasties was the latest of the southern city of Ur. The rise of Babylon as the sole and permanent capital of Sumer and Akkad may be traced, as we shall note, to increased relations with Northern Syria, which followed the establishment of her dynasty of West-Semitic kings.[14] And again we may see history repeating herself, when Moslem authority is removed to Baghdad at the close of the first phase in the Arab occupation of Mesopotamia. For on the fall of the Omayyad dynasty and the transference of the Abbasid capital from Damascus to the east, commercial intercourse with Syria and the west was restored to its old footing. Basra and Kûfa at once failed to respond to the changed conditions, and a new administrative centre was required. It is significant that Baghdad should have been built a few miles above Ctesiphon, within the small circle of the older capitals;[15] and that, with the exception of a single short period,[16] she should have remained the capital city of 'Irâk. Thus the history of Mesopotamia under the Caliphate is instructive for the study of the closely parallel conditions which enabled Babylon at a far earlier period to secure the hegemony in Babylonia and afterwards to retain it.
From this brief survey of events it will have been noted that Babylon's supremacy falls in the middle period of her country's history, during which she distributed a civilization in the origin of which she played no part. When she passed, the culture she had handed on passed with her, though on Mesopotamian soil its decay was gradual. But she had already delivered her message, and it has left its mark on the remains of other races of antiquity which have come down to us. We shall see that it was in three main periods that her influence made itself felt in any marked degree beyond the limits of the home-land. The earliest of these periods of external contact was that of her First Dynasty of West-Semitic rulers, though the most striking evidence of its effect is only forthcoming after some centuries had passed. In the second period the process was indirect, her culture being carried north and west by the expansion of Assyria. The last of the three epochs coincides with the rule of the Neo-Babylonian kings, when, thanks to her natural resources, the country not only regained her independence, but for a short time established an empire which far eclipsed her earlier effort. And in spite of her speedy return, under Persian rule, to the position of a subject province, her foreign influence may be regarded as operative, it is true in diminishing intensity, well into the Hellenic period.
The concluding chapter will deal in some detail with certain features of Babylonian civilization, and with the extent to which it may have moulded the cultural development of other races. In the latter connexion a series of claims has been put forward which cannot be ignored in any treatment of the nation's history. Some of the most interesting contributions that have recently been made to Assyriologieal study undoubtedly concern the influence of ideas, which earlier research had already shown to be of Babylonian origin. Within recent years a school has arisen in Germany which emphasizes the part played by Babylon in the religious development of Western Asia, and, in a minor degree, of Europe. The evidence on which reliance has been placed to prove the spread of Babylonian thought throughout the ancient world has been furnished mainly by Israel and Greece; and it is claimed that many features both in Hebrew religion and in Greek mythology can only be rightly studied in the light thrown upon them by Babylonian parallels from which they were ultimately derived. It will therefore be necessary to examine briefly the theory which underlies most recent speculation on this subject, and to ascertain, if possible, how far it may be relied on to furnish results of permanent value.
But it will be obvious that, if the theory is to be accepted in whole or in part, it must be shown to rest upon a firm historical basis, and that any inquiry into its credibility should be more fitly postponed until the history of the nation itself has been passed in review. After the evidence of actual contact with other races has been established in detail, it will be possible to form a more confident judgment upon questions which depend for their solution solely on a balancing of probabilities. The estimate of Babylon's foreign influence has therefore been postponed to the closing chapter of the volume. But before considering the historical sequence of her dynasties, and the periods to which they may be assigned, it will be well to inquire what recent excavation has to tell us of the actual remains of the city which became the permanent capital of Babylonia.
[1] Cf. Hogarth, "The Nearer East," pp. 212 ff., and Ramsay, "The Historical Geography of Asia Minor," pp. 27 ff. Herodotus (V, 52-54) describes the "Royal Road" of the Persian period as passing from Ephesus by the Cilician Gates to Susa, and it obtained its name from the fact that all government business of the Persian Court passed along it; the distances, given by Herodotus in parasangs and stages, may well be derived from some official Persian document (cf. How and Wells, "Commentary on Herodotus," II, p. 21). But it followed the track of a still earlier Royal Road, by which Khatti, the capital of the old Hittite Empire, maintained its communications westward and with the Euphrates valley.
[2] At the present day this forms the great trunk-road across the highlands of Persia, by way of Kirmanshah; and, since the Moslem conquest, it has been the chief overland route from the farther East for all those making the pilgrimage to Mecca.
[3] Cf. Hogarth, op. cit., p. 200 f.
[4] See below, pp. 9 ff.
[5] It is not improbable that the transference from one bank to the other was dictated by the relations of the ruling empire with Persia and the West.
[6] See "Sumer and Akkad," p. 242.
[7] Cf. Delitzsch, "Paradies," pp. 178 ff., and Meyer, "Geschichte des Altertums," 1., ii.; p. 473.
[8] See below, Chap. IX., p. 280.
[9] IV., 44.
[10] Cp. Myres, "Geographical Journal," Mil. 1896, p. 623, and How and Wells, "Commentary on Herodotus," Vol. I., p. 320.
[11] See Bevan, "House of Seleucus," I., pp. 242 ff., 253.
[12] Cf. "Sum. and Akk.," p. 149.
[13] As such the two cities were known as 'Al-'Irâkân, or Al-'Irâkayn, meaning "the two capitals of 'Irâk"; cf. G. Le Strange. "The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate," p. 25.
[14] See further, Chap IV. The fact that from time to time other cities of Akkad had secured the leadership, suggests that the forces which eventually placed Babylon at the head of the country were already beginning to be felt. They were doubtless checked in no small degree by the absence of an internal administration of any lasting stability during the acute racial conflict which characterized the period.
[15] The city was founded by the second Abbasid Caliph in 762 A.D.
[16] For a period of fifty-six years (336-392 A.D.) the Caliphate was removed to Sâmarrâ. The circumstances which led to the transference may be traced directly to the civil war which broke out on the death of Harûn-ar-Rashîd; cf. Le Strange, op. cit., p. 32.
[CHAPTER II]
THE CITY OF BABYLON AND ITS REMAINS: A DISCUSSION OF THE RECENT EXCAVATIONS
The actual site of Babylon was never lost in popular tradition. In spite of the total disappearance of the city, which followed its gradual decay under Seleucid and Parthian rule, its ancient fame sufficed to keep it in continual remembrance. The old Semitic name Bâb-ilî, "the Gate of the Gods," lingered on about the site, and under the form Babil is still the local designation for the most northerly of the city-mounds. Tradition, too, never ceased to connect the exposed brickwork of Nebuchadnezzar's main citadel and palace with his name. Ḳaṣr, the Arab name for the chief palace-mound and citadel of Babylon, means "palace" or "castle," and when in the twelfth century Benjamin of Tudela visited Baghdad, the Jews of that city told him that in the neighbouring ruins, near Hilla, the traveller might still behold Nebuchadnezzar's palace beside the fiery furnace into which Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah had been thrown. It does not seem that this adventurous rabbi actually visited the site,[1] though it is unlikely that he was deterred by fear of the serpents and scorpions with which, his informants said, the ruins were infested.
In the sixteenth century an English merchant traveller, John Eldred, made three voyages to "New Babylon," as he calls Baghdad, journeying from Aleppo down the Euphrates. On the last occasion, after describing his landing at Faluja, and how he secured a hundred asses for lack of camels to carry his goods to Baghdad, he tells us that "in this place which we crossed over stood the olde mightie citie of Babylon, many olde ruines whereof are easilie to be scene by daylight, which I, John Eldred, have often behelde at my goode leisure having made three voyages between the New Citie of Babylon and Aleppo over this desert."[2] But it would seem probable from his further description that "the olde tower of Babell," which he visited "sundry times," was really the ruin of 'Akarkûf, which he would have passed on his way to Baghdad. Benjamin of Tudela, on the other hand, had taken Birs-Nimrûd for the Tower of Babel,[3] and had noted how the ruins of the streets of Babylon still extend for thirty miles. In fact, it was natural that several of the early travellers should have regarded the whole complex of ruins, which they saw still standing along their road to Baghdad, as parts of the ancient city; and it is not surprising that some of the earlier excavators should have fallen under a similar illusion so far as the area between Bâbil and El-Birs is concerned.[4] The famous description of Herodotus, and the accounts other classical writers have left us of the city's size, tended to foster this conviction; and, although the centre of Babylon was identified correctly enough, the size of the city's area was greatly exaggerated. Babylon had cast her spell upon mankind, and it has taken sixteen years of patient and continuous excavation to undermine that stubborn belief. But in the process of shrinkage, and as accurate knowledge has gradually given place to conjecture, the old spell has reappeared unchanged. It may be worth while to examine in some detail the results of recent work upon the site, and note to what extent the city's remains have thrown light upon its history while leaving some problems still unsolved.
FIG. 2.
MAP OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BABYLON AND BIRS-NIMRÛD.
A: The mound Bâbil. B: The mound Ḳaṣr. C: The mound 'Amrân-ibn-'Ali. D: The mound Merkes. E: Inner City-wall of Babylon. F: Outer City-wall of Babylon. G: Ruins of western walls. H: Temple-tower of E-zida. K: Ruins of E-zida. L: Marsh. M: Hindîya Canal.
(After the India Office Map.)
In view of the revolution in our knowledge of Babylonian topography, which has been one of the most striking results of recent work, no practical purpose would be served by tracing out the earlier but very partial examinations of the site which were undertaken successively by Rich in 1811,[5] by Layard in 1850,[6] by Oppert as the head of a French expedition in the years 1852-54,[7] and by Hormuzd Rassam, between 1878 and 1889, when he was employed on excavations for the British Museum.[8] During the last of these periods the British Museum obtained a valuable series of tablets from Babylon, some of the texts proving of great literary and scientific interest. In 1887, and again after a lapse of ten years, Dr. Robert Koldewey visited the site of Babylon and picked up fragments of enamelled bricks on the east side of the Ḳaṣr. On the latter occasion he sent some of them to Berlin, and Dr. Richard Schöne, at that time Director of the Royal Museums, recognized their artistic and archæological interest. Thus it was with the hope of making speedy and startling discoveries that the German Oriental Society began work upon the site at the end of March in the year 1899; and it is the more to the credit of the excavators that they have not allowed any difficulties or disappointments to curtail and bring to a premature close the steady progress of their research.
The extent of ground covered by the remains of the ancient city, and the great accumulation of débris over some of the principal buildings rendered the work more arduous than was anticipated, and consequently the publication of results has been delayed. It is true that, from the very beginning of operations, the expert has been kept informed of the general progress of the digging by means of letters and reports distributed to its subscribers every few months by the society.[9] But it was only in 1911, after twelve years of uninterrupted digging, that the first instalment was issued of the scientific publication. This was confined to the temples of the city, and for the first time placed the study of Babylonian religious architecture upon a scientific basis.[10] In the following year Dr. Koldewey, the director of the excavations, supplemented his first volume with a second, in which, under pressure from the society, he forestalled to some extent the future issues of the detailed account by summarizing the results obtained to date upon all sections of the site.[11] It has thus been rendered possible to form a connected idea of the remains of the ancient city, so far as they have been recovered.
In their work at Babylon the excavators have, of course, employed modern methods, which differ considerably from those of the age when Layard and Botta brought the winged bulls of Assyria to the British Museum and to the Louvre. The extraordinary success which attended those earlier excavators has, indeed, never been surpassed. But it is now realized that only by minuteness of search and by careful classification of strata can the remains of the past be made to reveal in full their secrets. The fine museum specimen retains its importance; but it gains immensely in significance when it ceases to be an isolated product and takes its place in a detailed history of its period.
(I) THE TEMPLE-TOWER OF E-ZIDA AT BORSIPPA.
(II) THE LION OF BABYLON ON THE ḲAṢR MOUND
In order to grasp the character of the new evidence, and the methods by which it has been obtained at Babylon, it is advisable to bear in mind some of the general characteristics of Babylonian architecture and the manner in which the art of building was influenced by the natural conditions of the country. One important point to realize is that the builders of all periods were on the defensive, and not solely against human foes, for in that aspect they resembled other builders of antiquity. The foe they most dreaded was Hood. Security against flood conditioned the architect's ideal: he aimed solely at height and mass. When a king built a palace for himself or a temple for his god, he did not consciously aim at making it graceful or beautiful. What he always boasts of having done is that he has made it "like a mountain." He delighted to raise the level of his artificial mound or building-platform, and the modern excavator owes much to this continual filling in of the remains of earlier structures. The material at his disposal was also not without its influence in the production of buildings "like mountains," designed to escape the floods of the plain.
The alluvial origin of the Babylonian soil deprived the inhabitants of an important factor in the development of the builder's art: it produced for them no stone. But it supplied a very effective building-material in its place, a strongly adhesive clay. Throughout their whole history the Babylonian architects built in crude and in kiln-burnt brick. In the Neo-Babylonian period we find them making interesting technical experiments in this material, here a first attempt to roof in a wide area with vaulting, elsewhere counteracting the effects of settlement by a sort of expansion-joint. We shall see, too, that it was in this same medium that they attained to real beauty of design.
Brick continued to be the main building-material in Assyria too, for that country derived its culture from the lower Euphrates valley.[12] But in the north soft limestone quarries were accessible. So in Assyria they lined their mud-brick walls with slabs of limestone, carved in low relief and brightly coloured; and they set up huge stone colossi to flank their palace entrances. This use of stone, both as a wall-lining and in wall-foundations, constitutes the main difference between Babylonian and Assyrian architectural design. Incidentally it explains how the earlier excavators were so much more successful in Assyria than in Babylonia; for in both countries they drove their tunnels and trenches into most of the larger mounds. They could tunnel with perfect certainty when they had these stone linings of the walls to guide them. But to follow out the ground-plan of a building constructed only of unburnt brick, with mud or clay for mortar, necessitates a slower and more systematic process of examination. For unburnt brick becomes welded into a solid mass, scarcely to be distinguished from the surrounding soil, and the lines of a building in this material can only be recovered by complete excavation.
An idea of the labour this sometimes entails may be gained from the work which preceded the identification of E-sagila, the great temple of Marduk, the city-god of Babylon. The temple lies at a depth of no less than twenty-one metres below the upper level of the hill of débris; and portions of two of its massive mud-brick walls, together with the neighbouring pavements, were uncovered by bodily removing the great depth of soil truck by truck. But here even German patience and thoroughness have been beaten, and tunnelling was eventually adopted to establish the outer limits of the ground-plan, much of the interior of which still remains unexplored.[13]
The Babylon which has now been partially cleared, though in its central portion it reaches back to the First Dynasty and to the period of Hammurabi, is mainly that of the Neo-Babylonian empire, when Nebuchadnezzar II., and Nabonidus, the last native Babylonian king, raised their capital to a condition of magnificence it had not known before. This city survived, with but little change, during the domination of the Achæmenian kings of Persia, and from the time of Herodotus onward Babylon was made famous throughout the ancient world. At that time Ashur and Nineveh, the great capitals of Assyria, had ceased to exist; but Babylon was still in her glory, and descriptions of the city have come down to us in the works of classical writers. To fit this literary tradition to the actual remains of the city has furnished a number of fascinating problems. How, for example, are we to explain the puzzling discrepancy between the present position of the outer walls and the enormous estimate of the city's area given by Herodotus, or even that of Ctesias? For Herodotus himself appears to have visited Babylon; and Ctesias was the physician of Artaxerxes II. Mnemon, who has left a memorial of his presence in a marble building on the Ḳaṣr.
Herodotus reckons that the walls of Babylon extended for four hundred and eighty stades, the area they enclosed forming an exact square, a hundred and twenty stades in length each way.[14] In other words, he would have us picture a city more than fifty-three miles in circumference. The estimate of Ctesias is not so large, his side of sixty-five stades giving a circumference of rather over forty miles.[15] Such figures, it has been suggested, are not in themselves impossible, Koldewey, for example, comparing the Great Wall of China which extends for more than fifteen hundred miles, and is thus about twenty-nine times as long as Herodotus's estimate for the wall of Babylon.[16] But the latter was not simply a frontier-fortification. It was the enclosing wall of a city, and a more apposite comparison is that of the walls of Nanking, the largest city-site in China, and the work of an empire even greater than Babylon.[17] The latter measure less than twenty-four miles in circuit, and the comparison does not encourage an acceptance of Herodotus's figures on grounds of general probability. It is true that Oppert accepted them, but he only found this possible by stretching his plan of the city to include the whole area from Babil to Birs-Nimrûd,[18] and by seeing traces of the city and its walls in every sort of intervening mound of whatever period.
As a matter of fact part of the great wall, which surrounded the city from the Neo-Babylonian period onward, has survived to the present day, and may still be recognized in a low ridge of earth, or series of consecutive mounds,[19] which cross the plain for a considerable distance to the south-east of Babil. The traveller from Baghdad, after crossing the present Nîl Canal by a bridge,[20] passes through a gap in the north-eastern wall before he sees on his right the isolated mound of Bâbil with the extensive complex of the Ḳaṣr and its neighbour, Tell 'Amrân-ibn-'Ali, stretching away in front and to his left.[21] The whole length of the city-wall, along the north-east side, may still be traced by the position of these low earthen mounds, and they prove that the city on this side measured not quite two and three-quarter miles in extent. The eastern angle of the wall is also preserved, and the south-east wall may be followed for another mile and a quarter as it doubles back towards the Euphrates. These two walls, together with the Euphrates, enclose the only portion of the ancient city on which ruins of any importance still exist. But, according to Herodotus and other writers, the city was enclosed by two similar walls upon the western bank, in which case the site it occupied must have formed a rough quadrangle, divided diagonally by the river. No certain trace has yet been recovered of the western walls,[22] and all remains of buildings seem to have disappeared completely on that side of the river. But for the moment it may be assumed that the city did occupy approximately an equal amount of space upon the western bank; and, even so, its complete circuit would not have extended for more than about eleven miles, a figure very far short of any of those given by Herodotus, Ctesias and other writers.
FIG. 3.
PLAN OF THE RUINS OF BABYLON.
A: The mound Babil. B: Outer City-wall. C: Inner City-wall. D: The Ḳaṣr mound. E: The mound 'Amrân-ibn-'Ali. F: E-makh, temple of the goddess Ninmakh. G: Temple of Ishtar of Akkad. H: E-tomen-anki, the Tower of Babylon. I: Ancient bed of the Euphrates. J: The mound Merkes. K: E-sagila, the temple of Marduk. L: The mound Ishin-aswad. M: Unidentified temple known as "Z." N: E-patutila, the temple of Ninib. P: Greek theatre. Q: Sakhn, the small plain covering the precincts of the Tower of Babylon. R: The mound Homera. S: Nîl Canal. T: Bridge over Nîl Canal. U: Former bed of Nîl Canal. V: Old Canal. W: Euphrates. X: Track from Baghdad to Hilla. Z: Mounds covering the ruins of walls. I: Village of Anana. 2: Village of Kweiresh. 3: Village of Jumjumma. 4: Village of Sinjar.
(After Koldewey and Andrae.)
Dr. Koldewey suggests that, as the estimate of Ctesias approximates to four times the correct measurement, we may suspect that he mistook the figure which applies to the whole circumference for the measure of one side only of the square. But even if we accept that solution, it leaves the still larger figure of Herodotus unexplained. It is preferable to regard all such estimates of size, not as based on accurate measurements, but merely as representing an impression of grandeur produced on the mind of their recorder, whether by a visit to the city itself, or by reports of its magnificence at second-hand.
The excavators have not as yet devoted much attention to the city-wall, and, until more extensive digging has been carried out, it will not be possible to form a very detailed idea of the system of fortification. But enough has already been done to prove that the outer wall was a very massive structure, and consisted of two separate walls with the intermediate space filled in with rubble. The outer wall, or face, which bore the brunt of any attack and rose high above the moat encircling the city, was of burnt brick set in bitumen. It measured more than seven metres in thickness, and below ground-level was further protected from the waters of the moat by an additional wall, more than three metres in thickness, and, like it, constructed of burnt brick with bitumen as mortar. Behind the outer wall, at a distance of some twelve metres from it, was a second wall of nearly the same thickness. This faced inward towards the city, and so was constructed of crude or unburnt brick, as it would not be liable to direct assault by a besieger; and the mortar employed was clay.[23] The crude-brick wall cannot be dated accurately, but it is certainly older than the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, and in his father's time it probably formed the outer city's sole protection.[24] The burnt-brick wall and the moat-lining in front of it date, in their present form, from the age of Nebuchadnezzar, for they are built of his square bricks, impressed with his usual stamp, which are so common over the whole site of Babylon.
FIG. 4.
GROUND-PLAN OF PART OF THE OUTER CITY-WALL.
A: Outer moat-lining of burnt-brick. B: Moat. C: Inner moat-lining of burnt-brick. D: Outer wall of burnt-brick. E: Rubble-filling. F: Inner wall of crude brick, with towers built at intervals across it. The figures on the plan give measurements in metres.
(After Koldewey and Andrae.)
At intervals along the crude-brick wall were towers projecting slightly beyond each face.[25] Only the bases of the towers have been preserved, so that any restoration of their upper structure must rest on pure conjecture. But, as rubble still fills the space between the two walls of burnt and unburnt brick, it may be presumed that the filling was continued up to the crown of the outer wall. It is possible that the inner wall of crude brick was raised to a greater height and formed a curtain between each pair of towers. But even so, the clear space in front, consisting of the rubble filling and the burnt-brick wall, formed a broad roadway nearly twenty metres in breadth, which extended right round the city along the top of the wall. On this point the excavations have fully substantiated the account given by Herodotus, who states that "on the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another, leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn."[26] Even if smaller towers were built upon the outer edge, there would have been fully enough space to drive a team of four horses abreast along the wall, and in the intervals between the towers two such chariots might easily have passed each other. It has been acutely noted that this design of the wall was not only of protection by reason of its size, but was also of great strategic value; for it enabled the defence to move its forces with great speed from one point to another, wherever the attack at the moment might be pressed.[27]
In fact it is only in the matter of size and extent that the description given by Herodotus of the walls of Babylon is to be discounted; and those are just the sort of details that an ancient traveller would accept without question from his local guide. His total number for the city-gates is also no doubt excessive,[28] but his description of the wall itself as built of burnt-brick tallies exactly with the construction of its outer face, which would have been the only portion visible to any one passing outside the city. Moreover, in one portion of the wall, as reconstructed by Nebuchadnezzar, its inner as well as its outer half appears to have been formed of burnt-brick. This is the small rectangular extension, which Nebuchadnezzar threw out to protect his later citadel now covered by the mound known as Babil.[29]
The mound of Babil represents Nebuchadnezzar's latest addition to the city's system of fortification, and its construction in advance of the old line of the outer walls was dictated by the desire, of which we find increasing evidence throughout his reign, to strengthen the capital against attack from the north. The mound has not yet been systematically excavated, but enough has been done to prove that, like the great citadel upon the Ḳaṣr, it protected a royal palace consisting of a large number of chambers and galleries grouped around open courts. From this fact it is clear that a Babylonian citadel was not simply a fortress to be used by the garrison for the defence of the city as a whole: it was also a royal residence, into which the monarch and his court could shut themselves for safety should the outer wall of the city itself be penetrated. Even in times of peace the king dwelt there, and the royal stores and treasury, as well as the national armoury and arsenal, were housed in its innumerable magazines. In the case of the Southern Citadel of Babylon, on which excavations have now been continuously carried out for sixteen years, we shall see that it formed a veritable township in itself. It was a city within a city, a second Babylon in miniature.[30]
The Southern or chief Citadel was built on the mound now known as the Ḳaṣr, and within it Nebuchadnezzar erected his principal palace, partly over an earlier building of his father Nabopolassar. The palace and citadel occupy the old city-square or centre of Babylon, which is referred to in the inscriptions as the irsit Babili, "the Bâbil place."[31] Though far smaller in extent than Nebuchadnezzar's citadel, we may conclude that the chief fortress of Babylon always stood upon this site, and the city may well have derived its name Bâb-ilî, "the Gate of the Gods," from the strategic position of its ancient fortress, commanding as it does, the main approach to E-sagila, the famous temple of the city-god.[32] The earliest ruins in Babylon, which date from the age of Hammurabi and the First Dynasty of West-Semitic kings, lie under the mound of Merkes[33] just to the east of E-sagila and the Tower of Babylon, proving that the first capital clustered about the shrine of the city-god. The streets in that quarter suffered but little change, and their main lines remained unaltered down through the Kassite period into Neo-Babylonian and later times.[34] It was natural that even in the earlier period the citadel should have been planted up-stream, to the north of city and temple, since the greatest danger of invasion was always from the north.
FIG. 5.
CONJECTURAL RESTORATION OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.
The view is reconstructed from the north, the conventional mound in the foreground covering the Central Citadel now partially excavated. The Sacred Road passes through the Ishtar Gate and along the east side of the palace; further to the east and within the fortifications is the small temple of Ninmakh. The innermost wall encloses the palace of Nebuchadnezzar with its four open courts; the façade of the Throne Room, with three entrances, is visible in the Great Court. The flat roofs of the palace are broken here and there by smaller courts or light-wells. Compare the ground-plan on p. 30, Fig. 6.
(After Andrae.)
The outer city-wall, already described, dates only from the Neo-Babylonian period, when the earlier and smaller city expanded with the prosperity which followed the victories of Nabopolassar and his son. The eastern limits of that earlier city, at any rate toward the close of the Assyrian domination, did not extend beyond the inner wall, which was then the only line of defence and was directly connected with the main citadel. The course of the inner wall may still be traced for a length of seventeen hundred metres by the low ridge or embankment,[35] running approximately north and south, from a point north-east of the mound Homera.[36] It was a double fortification, consisting of two walls of crude or unburnt brick, with a space between of rather more than seven metres. The thicker of the walls, on the west, which is six and a half metres in breadth, has large towers built across it, projecting deeply on the outer side, and alternating with smaller towers placed lengthwise along it. The outer or eastern wall has smaller towers at regular intervals. Now along the north side of the main or Southern Citadel run a pair of very similar walls,[37] also of crude brick, and they are continued eastward of the citadel to a point where, in the Persian period, the Euphrates through a change of course destroyed all further trace of them.[38] We may confidently assume that in the time of Nebuchadnezzar[39] they were linked up with the inner city-wall to the north of Homeni and formed its continuation after it turned at right angles on its way towards the river-bank. This line of fortification is of considerable interest, as there is reason to believe it may represent the famous double-line of Babylon's defences, which is referred to again and again in the inscriptions.
FIG. 6.
PLAN OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.
A: East Court of the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar. B: Central Court. C: Great Court. D: Private portion of palace built over earlier Palace of Nabopolassar. E: West extension of palace. F: Throne Room of Nebuchadnezzar. G: Sacred Road, known as Aibur-shabû. H: Ishtar Gate. I: Continuation of Sacred Road with Lion Frieze. J: Temple of Ninmakh. K: Space between the two fortification-walls of crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl. L: Older moat-wall. M: Later moat-wall. N: Later fortification thrown out into the bed of the Euphrates. P: Southern Canal, probably part of the Libil-khegalla. R: Basin of canal. S: Persian building. T: Moat, formerly the left side of the Euphrates. V: River-side embankment of the Persian period, a: Gateway to East Court, b: Gateway to Central Court, c: Gateway to Great Court, d: Double Gateway to private part of palace, e, f: Temporary ramps used during construction of palace, g: Temporary wall of crude brick, h: Broad passage-way, leading northwards to Vaulted Building.
(After Koldewey, Reuther and Wetzel.)
The two names the Babylonians gave these walls were suggested by their gratitude to and confidence in Marduk, the city-god, who for them was the "Bêl," or Lord, par excellence. To the greater of the two, the dûru or inner wall, they gave the name Imgur-Bêl, meaning "Bêl has been gracious"; while the shaikhu, or outer one, they called Nimitti-Bêl, that is, probably, "The foundation of Bêl," or "My foundation is Bêl."[40] The identification of at least one of the crude-brick walls near Homera with Nimitti-Bêl, has been definitely proved by several foundation-cylinders of Ashur-bani-pal, the famous Assyrian king who deposed his brother Shamash-shum-ukîn from the throne of Babylon and annexed the country as a province of Assyria.[41] On the cylinders he states that the walls Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl had fallen into ruins, and he records his restoration of the latter, within the foundation or structure of which the cylinders were originally immured. Unfortunately they were not found in place, but among the débris in the space between the walls, so that it is not now certain from which wall they came. If they had been deposited in the thicker or inner wall, then Nimitti-Bêl must have been a double line of fortification, and both walls together must have borne the name; and in that case we must seek elsewhere for Imgur-Bêl. But it is equally possible that they came from the narrow or outer wall; and on this alternative Nimitti-Bêl may be the outer one and Imgur-Bêl the broader inner-wall with the widely projecting towers. It is true that only further excavation can settle the point; but meanwhile the fortifications on the Ḳaṣr have supplied further evidence which seems to support the latter view.
FIG. 7.
GROUND-PLAN OF QUAY-WALLS AND FORTIFICATION-WALLS IN THE N.W. CORNER OF THE S. CITADEL.
A: Sargon's quay-wall. B: Older moat-wall. C: Later moat-wall of Nebuchadnezzar. D: Intermediate wall. E: South fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl. F: North fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Nimitti-Bêl. G: North wall of the Southern Citadel. I: Ruins of building, possibly the quarters of the Captain of the Wall. J: Palace of Nabopolassar. K: West Extension of the Southern Citadel. L: Connecting wall. M: Later wall across channel with grid for water. N: Water, originally the left side of the Euphrates. P: Later fortification of Nebuchadnezzar in former bed of the Euphrates. 1-3: Nabopolassar's quay-walls. N.B. The quays and moat-walls are distinguished by dotting.
(After Koldewey.)
The extensive alterations which took place in the old citadel's fortifications, especially during Nebuchadnezzar's long reign of forty-three years, led to the continual dismantling of earlier structures and the enlargement of the area enclosed upon the north and west. This is particularly apparent in its north-west corner. Here, at a considerable depth below the later fortification-walls, were found the remains of four earlier walls,[42] the discovery of which has thrown considerable light on the topography of this portion of Babylon. All four are ancient quay-walls, their northern and western faces sloping sharply inwards as they rise. Each represents a fresh rebuilding of the quay, as it was gradually extended to the north and west. Fortunately, stamped and inscribed bricks were employed in considerable quantities in their construction, so that it is possible to date the periods of rebuilding accurately.
The earliest of the quay-walls, which is also the earliest building yet recovered on the Ḳaṣr, is the most massive of the four,[43] and is strengthened at the angle with a projecting circular bastion. It is the work of Sargon of Assyria,[44] who states the object of the structure in a text inscribed upon several of its bricks. After reciting his own name and titles, he declares that it was his desire to rebuild Imgur-Bêl; that with this object he caused burnt-bricks to be fashioned, and built a quay-wall with pitch and bitumen in the depth of the water from beside the Ishtar Gate to the bank of the Euphrates; and he adds that he "founded Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl mountain-high upon it."[45] The two walls of Sargon, which he here definitely names as Imgur-Bêl and Nimitti-Bêl, were probably of crude brick, and were, no doubt, demolished and replaced by the later structures of Nabopolassar's and Nebuchadnezzar's reigns. But they must have occupied approximately the same position as the two crude brick walls above the quay of Sargon,[46] which run from the old bank of the Euphrates to the Ishtar Gate, precisely the two points mentioned in Sargon's text. His evidence is therefore strongly in favour of identifying these later crude-brick walls, which we have already connected with the inner city-wall, as the direct successors of his Imgur-Bêl and his Nimitti-Bêl, and therefore as inheritors of the ancient names.
FIG. 8.
SECTION OF THE QUAY-WALLS AND FORTIFICATION-WALLS ALONG THE NORTH FRONT OF THE SOUTHERN CITADEL.
A: Sargon's quay-wall. B: Older moat-wall. O: Later moat-wall of Nebuchadnezzar. D: Intermediate wall. E: South fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Imgur-Bêl. F: North fortification-wall of crude brick, probably Nimitti-Bêl. G: North wall of Southern Citadel. H: Remains of older crude brick wall.
(After Andrae.)
We find further confirmation of this view in one of the later quay-walls, which succeeded that of Sargon. The three narrow walls already referred to[47] were all the work of Nabopolassar, and represent three successive extensions of the quay westward into the bed of the stream, which in the inscriptions upon their bricks is given the name of Arakhtu.[48] But the texts make no mention of the city-walls. No inscriptions at all have been found in the structure of the next extension, represented by the wall B, which, like the latest quay-wall (C), is not rounded off in the earlier manner, but is strengthened at the corner with a massive rectangular bastion. It was in this latest and most substantial of all the quay-walls that further inscriptions were found referring to Imgur-Bêl. They prove that this wall was the work of Nebuchadnezzar, who refers in them to Nabopolassar's restoration of Imgur-Bêl and records that he raised its banks with bitumen and burnt-brick mountain-high. It is therefore clear that this was the quay-wall of Imgur Bêl, which it supported in the manner of Sargon's earlier structure. That the less important Nimitti-Bêl is not mentioned in these texts does not necessitate our placing it elsewhere, in view of Sargon's earlier reference.
We may therefore provisionally regard the two crude-brick walls along the Ḳaṣr's northern front[49] as a section of the famous defences of Babylon, and picture them as running eastward till they meet the inner city-wall by Homera. The point at which they extended westward across the Euphrates can, as yet, only be conjectured. But it is significant that the angle of the western walls, which may still be traced under mounds to the north of Sinjar village,[50] is approximately in line with the north front of the Ḳaṣr and the end of the inner wall by Homera. Including these western walls within our scheme, the earlier Babylon would have been rectangular in ground-plan, about a quarter of it only upon the right bank, and the portion east of the river forming approximately a square. The Babylon of the Kassite period and of the First Dynasty must have been smaller still, its area covering little more than the three principal mounds; and, though part of its street net-work has been recovered, no trace of its fortifications has apparently survived.
The evidence relating to the city's walls and fortifications has been summarized rather fully, as it has furnished the chief subject of controversy in connexion with the excavations. It should be added that the view suggested above is not shared by Dr. Koldewey, whose objections to the proposed identification of Imgur-Bêl rest on his interpretation of two phrases in a cylinder of Nabopolassar, which was found out of place in débris close to the east wall of the Southern Citadel. In it Nabopolassar records his own restoration of Imgur-Bêl, which he tells us had fallen into decay, and he states that he "founded it in the primæval abyss," adding the words, "I caused Babylon to be enclosed with it towards the four winds."[51] From the reference to the abyss, Dr. Koldewey concludes that it had deep foundations, and must therefore have been constructed of burnt, not crude, brick; while from the second phrase he correctly infers that it must have formed a quadrilateral closed on all sides. But that, as we have seen, is precisely the ground-plan we obtain by including the remains of walls west of the river. And, in view of the well-known tendency to exaggeration in these Neo-Babylonian records, we should surely not credit any single metaphor with the accuracy of a modern architect's specification. If a single section of the wall had been furnished, during restoration, with a burnt-brick substructure, it would have been enough to justify the royal claim.
The manner in which the Euphrates was utilized for the defence and water-supply of the citadel has also been illustrated by the excavations. The discovery of Sargon's inscriptions proved that in his day the river flowed along the western face of his quay-wall;[52] while the inscriptions on bricks from the three successive quay-walls of Nabopolassar[53] state, in each case, that he used them to rebuild the wall of a channel he calls the "Arakhtu," using the name in precisely the same way as Sargon refers to the Euphrates. The simplest explanation is that in Nabopolassar's time the Arakhtu was the name for that section of the Euphrates which washed the western side of the citadel, and that its use in any case included the portion of the citadel-moat, or canal, along its northern face, which formed a basin opening directly upon the river.[54] The "Arakhtu" may thus have been a general term, not only for this basin, but for the whole water-front from the north-west corner of the citadel to some point on the left bank to the south of it. It may perhaps have been further extended to include the river frontage of the Tower of Babylon, since it was into the Arakhtu that Sennacherib cast the tower on his destruction of the city. Within this stretch of water, particularly along the northern quays, vessels and keleks would have been moored which arrived down stream with supplies for the palace and the garrison. The Arakhtu, in fact, may well have been the name for the ancient harbour or dock of Babylon.
Some idea of the appearance of the quays may be gathered from the right-hand corner of the restoration in Fig. 5.[55] It is true that the outer quay-wall appears to have been built to replace the inner one, while in the illustration both are shown. But since the height of the citadel and of its walls was continually being raised, the arrangement there suggested is by no means impossible. But in the later part of his reign Nebuchadnezzar changed the aspect of the river-front entirely. To the west of the quay-walls, in the bed of the river, he threw out a massive fortification with immensely thick walls, from twenty to twenty-five metres in breadth.[56] It was constructed entirely of burnt-brick and bitumen, and, from his reference to it in an inscription from Sippar, it would seem that his object in building it was to prevent the formation of sandbanks in the river, which in the past may have caused the flooding of the left bank above E-Sagila.[57] A narrow channel[58] was left between it and the old quay, along which the river water continued to flow through gratings. This no doubt acted as an overflow for the old northern moat of the citadel, since the latter fed the supply-canal, which passed round the palace and may still be traced along its south side.[59] It is possible that the subsequent change in the course of the Euphrates may be traced in part to this huge river-fortification. Its massive structure suggests that it had to withstand considerable water-pressure, and it may well have increased any tendency of the stream to break away eastward. However that may be, it is certain that for a considerable time during the Persian and Seleucid periods it flowed round to the eastward of the Ḳaṣr, close under three sides of the citadel and rejoined its former bed to the north of Marduk's temple and the Tower of Babylon. Its course east of the Ishtar Gate is marked by a late embankment sloping outwards, which supported the thicker of the crude-brick walls at the point where they suddenly break off.[60] Beyond this embankment only mud and river sediment were found. The water-course to the south of the citadel is probably the point where the river turned again towards the channel it had deserted. A trench that was dug here showed that the present soil is formed of silt deposited by water, and beyond the remains of the earlier canal no trace of any building was recovered. This temporary change in the river's course, which the excavations have definitely proved, explains another puzzle presented by the classical tradition—the striking discrepancy between the actual position of the principal ruins of Babylon in relation to the river and their recorded position in the Persian period. Herodotus,[61] for example, places the fortress with the palace of the kings (that is, the Ḳaṣr), on the opposite bank to the sacred precinct of Zeus Belus (that is, E-temen-anki, the Tower of Babylon). But we have now obtained proof that they were separated at that time by the Euphrates, until the river returned to its former and present bed, probably before the close of the Seleucid period.
The greater part of the Southern Citadel is occupied by the enormous palace on which Nebuchadnezzar lavished his energies during so many years of his reign. On ascending the throne of Babylon, he found the ancient fortress a very different place to the huge structure he bequeathed to his successors. He had lived there in his father's life-time, but Nabopolassar had been content with a comparatively modest dwelling. And when his son, flushed with his victory over the hosts of Egypt, returned to Babylon to take the hands of Bêl, he began to plan a palace that should be worthy of the empire he had secured. Of the old palace of Nabopolassar, in which at first he was obliged to dwell, very little now remains. What is left of it constitutes the earliest building of which traces now exist within the palace area. Nebuchadnezzar describes it, before his own building operations, as extending from the Euphrates eastward to the Sacred Road; and the old palace-enclosure undoubtedly occupied that site. Traces of the old fortification-wall have been found below the east front of the later palace, and the arched doorway which gave access to its open court, afterwards filled up and built over by Nebuchadnezzar, has been found in a perfect state of preservation.[62]
III. The Throne Room in Nebuchadnezzar's palace at Babylon, showing the recess in the back wall where the throne once stood.
The old palace itself[63] did not reach beyond the western side of Nebuchadnezzar's great court.[64] The upper structure, as we learn from the East India House Inscription,[65] was of crude brick, which was demolished for the later building. But Nabopolassar, following a custom which had survived unchanged from the time of Hammurabi, had placed his crude-brick walls upon burnt-brick foundations. These his son made use of, simply strengthening them before erecting his own walls upon them. Thus this section of the new palace retained the old ground-plan to a great extent unchanged. The strength and size of its walls are remarkable and may in part be explained by the crude-brick upper structure of the earlier building, which necessarily demanded a broader base for its walls.
When Nebuchadnezzar began building he dwelt in the old palace, while he strengthened the walls of its open court on the east and raised its level for the solid platform on which his own palace was to rise.[66] For a time the new and the old palace were connected by two ramps of unburnt-brick,[67] which were afterwards filled in below the later pavement of the great court; and we may picture the king ascending the ramps with his architect on his daily inspection of the work. As soon as the new palace on the east was ready he moved into it, and, having demolished the old one, he built up his own walls upon its foundations, and filled in the intermediate spaces with earth and rubble until he raised its pavement to the eastern level. Still later he built out a further extension[68] along its western side. In the account he has left us of the palace-building the king says: "I laid firm its foundation and raised it mountain-high with bitumen and burnt-brick. Mighty cedars I caused to be stretched out at length for its roofing. Door-leaves of cedar overlaid with copper, thresholds and sockets of bronze I placed in its doorways. Silver and gold and precious stones, all that can be imagined of costliness, splendour, wealth, riches, all that was highly esteemed, I heaped up within it, I stored up immense abundance of royal treasure therein."[69]
A good general idea of the palace ground-plan, in its final form, may be obtained from Fig. 6. The main entrance was in its eastern front, through a gate-way,[70] flanked on its outer side by towers, and known as the Bûb Bêlti, or "Lady Gate," no doubt from its proximity to the temple of the goddess Ninmakh.[71] The gate-house consists of an entrance hall, with rooms opening at the sides for the use of the palace-guard. The eastern part of the palace is built to the north and south of three great open courts,[72] separated from each other by gateways[73] very like that at the main entrance to the palace. It will be noticed that, unlike the arrangement of a European dwelling, the larger rooms are always placed on the south side of the court facing to the north, for in the sub-tropical climate of Babylonia the heat of the summer sun was not courted, and these chambers would have been in the shade throughout almost the whole of the day.
Some of the larger apartments, including possibly the chambers of the inner gateways, must have served as courts of justice, for from the Hammurabi period onward we know that the royal palace was the resort of litigants, whose appeals in the earlier period were settled by the king himself,[74] and later by the judges under his supervision. Every kind of commercial business was carried on within the palace precincts, and not only were regular lawsuits tried, but any transaction that required legal attestation was most conveniently carried through there. Proof of this may be seen in the fact that so many of the Neo-Babylonian contracts that have been recovered on the site of Babylon are dated from the Al-Bît-shar-Bâbili, "the City of the King of Babylon's dwelling," doubtless a general title for the citadel and palace-area. All government business was also transacted here, and we may provisionally assign to the higher ministers and officials of the court the great apartment and the adjoining dwellings on the south side of the Central Court of the palace.[75] For many of the more important officers in the king's service were doubtless housed on the premises; and to those of lower rank we may assign the similar but rather smaller dwellings, which flank the three courts on the north and the Entrance Court upon the south side as well. Even royal manufactories were carried on within the palace, to judge from the large number of alabaster jars, found beside their cylindrical cores, in one room in the south-west corner by the outer palace-wall.[76]
It will be seen from the ground-plan that these dwellings consist of rooms built around open courts or light-wells; most of them are separate dwellings, isolated from their neighbours, and having doors opening on to the greater courts or into passage-ways running up from them. No trace of any windows has been found within the buildings, and it is probable that they were very sparsely employed. But we must not conclude that they were never used, since no wall of the palace has been preserved for more than a few feet in height, and, for the greater part, their foundations only have survived. But there is no doubt that, like the modern houses of the country, all the dwellings, whether in palace or city, had flat roofs, which formed the natural sleeping-place for their inhabitants during the greater part of the year. Towards sunset, when the heat of the day was past, they would ascend to the house-tops to enjoy the evening breeze; during the day a window would have been merely a further inlet for the sun. The general appearance of the palace is no doubt accurately rendered in the sketch already given.[77]
Fig. 9.
PLAN OF THE THRONE ROOM OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR
AND PART OF THE PRIVATE PALACE
C: Great Court. F: Throne Room, a: Recess in back-wall for throne, b-d: Entrances to Throne Room from Court, e-g: Entrances from side and back. 1-3: Open courts, surrounded by rooms for the royal service. 4, 5: Open courts in the south-east corner of the Private Palace. (After Koldewey.)
The most interesting apartment within the palace is one that may be identified as Nebuchadnezzar's Throne Room. This is the room immediately to the south of the Great Court.[78] It is the largest chamber of the palace, and since the walls on the longer sides are six metres thick, far broader than those at the ends, it is possible that they supported a barrel-vaulting. It has three entrances from the court,[79] and in the back wall opposite the centre one is a broad niche, doubly recessed into the structure of the wall, where we may assume the royal throne once stood. During any elaborate court ceremony the king would thus have been visible upon his throne, not only to those within the chamber, but also from the central portion of the Great Court. It was in this portion of the palace that some traces of the later Babylonian methods of mural decoration were discovered. For, while the inner walls of the Throne Room were merely washed over with a plaster of white gypsum, the brickwork of the outer façade, which faced the court, was decorated with brightly-coloured enamels.
Only fragments of the enamelled surface were discovered, but these sufficed to restore the scheme of decoration. A series of yellow columns with bright blue capitals, both edged with white borders, stand out against a dark blue ground. The capitals are the most striking feature of the composition. Each consists of two sets of double volutes, one above the other, and a white rosette with yellow centre comes partly into sight above them. Between each member is a bud in sheath, forming a trefoil, and linking the volutes of the capitals by means of light blue bands which fall in a shallow curve from either side of it. Still higher on the wall ran a frieze of double palmettes in similar colouring, between yellow line-borders, the centres of the latter picked out with lozenges coloured black and yellow, and black and white, alternately. The rich effect of this enamelled façade of the Throne Room was enhanced by the decoration of the court gateway, the surface of which was adorned in a like fashion with figures of lions. So too were the gateways of the other eastern courts, to judge from the fragments of enamel found there, but the rest of the court-walls were left undecorated or, perhaps, merely received a coat of plaster. The fact that the interior of the Throne Room, like the rest of the chambers of the palace, was without ornamentation of any sort favours the view that heat, and light with it, was deliberately excluded by the absence of windows in the walls.
FIG. 10.