Part 22 (1/2)
With the exception of a few rudely engraved gems and enamelled bricks, this was the only relic I obtained from the Mujelibe.
Excavations were carried on for some days in the smaller mounds scattered over the plain between Babel and the ruin last described, but without any results, except the discovery of the remains of brick masonry, of a few earthen vases, and of some fragments of gla.s.s.
The last ruin I examined was a mound of great extent, sometimes called by the Arabs Jumjuma, from a neighbouring village of that name, and sometimes, as stated by Rich, Amran ben Ali, from a Koubbe, or small domed tomb, of a Mohammedan saint on its summit. No masonry is here seen as in the Mujelibe. All remains of buildings, if there be any still existing, are deeply buried beneath the loose nitrous earth. It is traversed by innumerable ravines, and its form and level are equally irregular. I opened trenches in various parts, but could find no traces of an edifice of any kind. Some small objects of considerable interest, were, however, discovered. Although not of the true Babylonian epoch, they are, on more than one account, highly important.
The mound of Amran, as well as nearly all those in Babylonia, had been used as a place of burial for the dead long after the destruction of the great edifices whose ruins it covers. Some specimens of gla.s.s, and several terracotta figures, lamps, and jars, dug out of it, are evidently of the time of the Seleucidae or of the Greek occupation. With these relics were five cups or bowls of earthenware, and fragments of others, covered on the inner surface with letters written in a kind of ink. Similar objects had already been found in other Babylonian ruins. Two from the collection of the late Mr. Stewart had been deposited in the British Museum, and amongst the antiquities recently purchased by the Trustees from Colonel Rawlinson are eight specimens, obtained at Baghdad, where they are sometimes offered for sale by the Arabs; but it is not known from what sites they were brought. The characters upon them are in form not unlike the Hebrew, and on some they resembled the Sabaean and Syriac. These bowls had not attracted notice, nor had the inscriptions upon them been fully examined before they were placed in the hands of Mr. Thomas Ellis, of the ma.n.u.script department in the British Museum, a gentleman of great learning and ingenuity as a Hebrew scholar. Mr. E. has succeeded, after much labor, in deciphering the inscriptions.[206]
Little doubt can, I think, exist as to the Jewish origin of these bowls: and such being the case, there is no reason to question their having belonged to the descendants of those Jews who were carried captive by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon and the surrounding cities. These strangers appear to have clung with a tenacity peculiar to their race to the land of their exile. We can trace them about Babylon from almost the time of their deportation down to the twelfth century of the Christian era, when the Hebrew traveller, Benjamin of Tudela, wandered over the regions of the East and among the cities of the captivity to seek the remnant of his ancient nation. During the Persian dominion in Mesopotamia we find them enduring tortures and persecutions rather than help to rebuild a temple dedicated to a false G.o.d.[207] In the time of the Roman supremacy in the East they appear to have been a turbulent race, rebelling against their rulers and waging civil war amongst themselves. They had celebrated schools in many cities of a.s.syria and Chaldaea.
As early as the third century Hebrew travellers visited Babylon, and some of them have left records of the state of their countrymen. The Babylonian Talmud, compiled in the beginning of the sixth century, contains many valuable notices of the condition of the Jewish colonies in Babylonia, and enumerates more than two hundred Babylonian towns then under the Persian rule, inhabited by Jewish families. In ma.n.u.scripts of the eighth and ninth centuries we have further mention of these colonies.
In the twelfth century, Benjamin of Tudela found no less than twenty thousand Jews dwelling within twenty miles of Babylon, and wors.h.i.+pping in the synagogue, built, according to tradition, by the prophet Daniel himself. In Hillah alone were ten thousand persons and four synagogues, and he gives the number of families and of their places of wors.h.i.+p, in every town he visited, keeping during his journey an exact daily itinerary, which includes nearly all the stations on the modern caravan routes. Allowing for some exaggeration on the part of this traveller, it is still evident that a very considerable Jewish population lived in the cities of Babylonia. It has greatly diminished, and in some places has entirely disappeared. A few families still linger at Hillah, and in Baghdad the princ.i.p.al native trade and money transactions are carried on by Jews, who are the bankers and brokers of the governors of the city, as they no doubt anciently were of the Aba.s.side Caliphs.
According to their own tradition these Hebrew families were descended from the Jews of the captivity. They still preserved their pedigrees, and traced their lineage to the princes and prophets of Judah. Their chief resided at Baghdad, and his t.i.tle was ”Lord Prince of the Captivity.” He was lineally descended, according to his people, from king David himself.
Even Mohammedans acknowledged his claim to this n.o.ble birth, and called him ”Our Lord, the Son of David.” His authority extended over the countries of the East as far as Thibet and Hisdostan. He was treated on all occasions with the greatest honor and respect, and when he appeared in public he wore robes of embroidered silk, and a white turban encircled by a diadem of gold.[208]
We may then safely conclude, that these earthen bowls belonged to Jews of Babylonia and Chaldaea. Similar relics have been found as I have stated in many ruins near Babylon. I discovered an entire bowl, as well as many fragments, at Niffer. Nearly at the same time, several were dug out of a mound about half-way between Baghdad and Hillah, but they were unfortunately dispersed or destroyed before I could obtain possession of them. On all these sites during the first centuries of the Christian era, dwelt Jewish families.
As no date whatever is found in the inscriptions, it is difficult to determine the exact time when they were written. We must endeavour to form some opinion upon such internal evidence as they may afford. Mr. Ellis remarks, that, ”as this is the first time anything of the kind has been examined in Europe, he can only hazard a conjecture from the forms of the letters, which are, certainly, the most ancient known specimens of the Chaldaean, and appear to have been invented for the purpose of writing the cuneiform character in a more cursive and expeditious manner.”[209] In support of this conjecture he cites the language of the a.s.syrian inscriptions as closely resembling that on the bowls. The relics, however, are evidently of different dates. The most ancient might be referred to the second or third century before Christ, but may be of a later period.
Others are undoubtedly of a more recent date, and might even have been written as late as the fifth century of our era. The Syriac characters on the latter bowl appear to have marks of a Sabaean or Mendean origin, and on a bowl from Mr. Stewart's collection there is an inscription, unfortunately almost destroyed and no longer decipherable, in that peculiar character still used by the Sabaeans of Susiana.
In the forms of expression and in the names of the angels, these inscriptions bear a striking a.n.a.logy to the apocryphal book of Enoch, which is supposed to have been written by a Jew of the captivity, shortly before the Christian era. That singular rhapsody also mentions the ”sorceries, incantations, and dividing of roots and trees,” which appear to have been practised by the Jews at that period, and to be alluded to on the bowls.[210]
As to the original use of these vessels it is not improbable, as conjectured by Mr. Ellis, that the writing was to be dissolved in water, to be drank as a cure against disease, or a precaution against the arts of witchcraft and magic. Similar remedies are still resorted to in the East in cases of obstinate illness, and there are Mullahs who make the preparation of such charms their peculiar profession. The modern inscriptions generally consist of sentences from the Koran, interspersed with various mystic signs and letters. But if such was their object, it is evident that they could not have been used for that purpose, as the writing upon them is perfectly fresh, and it is essential that it should be entirely washed into the water to make the remedy efficacious. As they were found at a considerable depth beneath the surface in mounds which had undoubtedly been used as places of sepulture, I am rather inclined to believe that they were charms buried with the dead, or employed for some purpose at funeral ceremonies, and afterwards placed in the grave.
CHAPTER XXIII.
STATE OF THE RUINS OF BABYLON.--CAUSE OF THE DISAPPEARANCE OF BUILDINGS.--NATURE OF ORIGINAL EDIFICES.--BABYLONIAN BRICKS.--THE HISTORY OF BABYLON.--ITS FALL.--ITS REMARKABLE POSITION.--COMMERCE.--Ca.n.a.lS AND ROADS.--SKILL OF BABYLONIANS IN THE ARTS.--ENGRAVED GEMS.--CORRUPTION OF MANNERS, AND CONSEQUENT FALL OF THE CITY.--THE MECCA PILGRIMAGE.--SHEIKH IBN REs.h.i.+D.--THE GEBEL SHAMMAR.--THE MOUNDS OF EL HYMER.--OF ANANA.
Such then were the discoveries amongst the ruins of ancient Babylon. They were far less numerous and important than I could have antic.i.p.ated, nor did they tend to prove that there were remains beneath the heaps of earth and rubbish which would reward more extensive excavations. It was not even possible to trace the general plan of any one edifice; only shapeless piles of masonry, and isolated walls and piers, were brought to light--giving no clue whatever to the original form of the buildings to which they belonged. If the tradition be true that Xerxes, to punish the Babylonians and humiliate their priests, ordered them utterly to destroy their temples and other great public edifices, and that Alexander the Great employed 10,000 men in vain to clear away the rubbish from the temple of Belus alone,[211] it is not surprising that with a small band of Arabs little progress should have been made in uncovering any part of the ancient buildings.
No sculptures or inscribed slabs, the panelling of the walls of palaces, have been discovered amongst the ruins of Babylon as in those of Nineveh.
Scarcely a detached figure in stone, or a solitary tablet, has been dug out of the vast heaps of rubbish. ”Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her G.o.ds he hath broken unto the ground.”[212]
The complete absence of such remains is to be explained by the nature of the materials used in the erection of even the most costly edifices. In the immediate vicinity of Babylon there were no quarries of alabaster, or of limestone, such as existed near Nineveh. The city was built in the midst of an alluvial country, far removed from the hills. Consequently stone for building purposes could only be obtained from a distance. The black basalt, a favorite material amongst the Babylonians for carving detached figures, and for architectural ornaments, as appears from numerous fragments found amongst the ruins, came from the Kurdish mountains, or from the north of Mesopotamia. It was probably floated down the Euphrates and Tigris on rafts from those districts. The a.s.syrian alabaster could have been brought from Nineveh, and the water communication by the rivers and ca.n.a.ls offered great facilities for transport; yet enormous labor and expense would have been required to supply such materials in sufficient quant.i.ties to construct an entire edifice, or even to panel the walls of its chambers.
The Babylonians were, therefore, content to avail themselves of the building materials which they found on the spot. With the tenacious mud of their alluvial plains, mixed with chopped straw, they made bricks, whilst bitumen and other substances collected from the immediate neighborhood furnished them with an excellent cement. A knowledge of the art of manufacturing glaze, and of compounding colors, enabled them to cover their bricks with a rich enamel, thereby rendering them equally ornamental for the exterior and interior of their edifices. The walls of their palaces and temples were also coated, as we learn from several pa.s.sages in the Bible, with mortar and plaster, which, judging from their cement, must have been of very fine quality. The fingers of the man's hand wrote the words of condemnation of the Babylonian empire ”upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace.”[213] Upon those walls were painted historical and religious subjects, and various ornaments, and, according to Diodorus Siculus, the bricks were enamelled with the figures of men and animals.
Images of stone were no doubt introduced into the buildings. We learn from the Bible that figures of the G.o.ds in this material, as well as in metal, were kept in the Babylonian temples. But such sculptures were not common, otherwise more remains of them must have been discovered in the ruins.
On one of the most important Babylonian relics brought to this country we have some highly curious notices of the architecture of the Babylonians.
They are contained in tablets inscribed upon a black stone, and divided into ten columns. The inscription commences according to Dr. Hincks, with the name and t.i.tles of Nebuchadnezzar the Great, whose reign began, it may be inferred from Ptolemy's Canon, B. C. 604. He is called ”Nabukudurruchur, king of Babylon, son of Nabubaluchun, king of Babylon.”
We may infer that his grandfather was not a king from the omission of his name. The subsequent part of the inscription contains no notice of any foreign conquests, but speaks of the building of various temples and palaces in addition to the walls of Babylon and Borsippa. If the tablets could be completely deciphered, and the meaning of many doubtful words accurately ascertained, much information would be obtained relating to Babylonian architecture. The walls were built of burned bricks and bitumen lined with gypsum and other materials. Some seem to have been wainscotted.
Over these walls was woodwork, and on the top an awning sustained by poles, like ”the white, green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings, and pillars of marble,” in Ahasuerus' palace at Shushan.[214] Some of the woodwork is said to have been gilt, other parts silvered: and a large portion of it was brought from Lebanon.
Marduk appears in this inscription as the princ.i.p.al deity of Babylon, holding the place that Ashur does on the monuments of Nineveh. He is called ”the great Lord,” ”Lord of Lord,” ”Elder of the G.o.ds,” &c. Nebu seems to hold the second rank. The king offers him thanksgiving for what he has already done, and prays for his blessing on himself and his house.[215]