Part 27 (2/2)

| Karamless, &c., &c. | | | 14. Sennacherib | Kouyunjik, &c. | 703 B. C.

(Son of preceding) | | | | 15. Essarhaddon | S. W. Palace, Nimroud; | 690 B. C.?

(Son of preceding) | Nebbi Yunus; Shereef-Khan | | | 16. Sardanapalus III. (R) | Kouyunjik; Shereef-Khan | Ashurakhbal (H) | | (Son of preceding) | | | | 17. (Son of preceding) | S. E. Edifice, Nimroud | | | 18. Shamishakhadon (?) (H)| Black Stone, in possession | | of Lord Aberdeen |

TABLE II.--NAMES OF KINGS, COUNTRIES, CITIES, &c., mentioned in the Old Testament, which occur in the A Inscriptions.

Jehu, Omri, Menahem, Hezekiah, Hazael, Merodach Baladan, Pharoah, Sargon, Sennacherib, Essarhaddon, Dagon, Nebo, Judaea, Jerusalem, Samaria, Ashdod, Lachish, Damascus, Hamath, Hitt.i.tes (the), Tyre, Sidon, Gaza, Ekron, Askelon, Arvad, Gubal (the people of), Lebanon, Egypt, Euphrates, Carchemish, Hebar or Chebar (river), Harran, Ur, Gozan (the people of), Mesopotamia, Children of Eden, Tigris, Nineveh, Babylon, Elam, Shushan, Media, Persia, Yavan, Ararat, Hagarenes, Nabathaeans, Aramaeans, Chaldaeans, Meshek, Tubal, a.s.syria, a.s.syrians, Pethor, Tela.s.sar.

TABLE III.--Names of THIRTEEN GREAT G.o.dS OF a.s.sYRIA, as they occur on the upright tablet of the King, discovered at Nimroud.

1. a.s.sHUR, the King of the Circle of the Great G.o.ds.

2. ANU, the Lord of the Mountains, or of Foreign Countries.

3.(?) [Not yet deciphered.]

4. SAN.

5. MERODACH (? Mars).

6. YAV (? Jupiter).

7. BAR.

8. NEBO (? Mercury).

9. (?) Mylit (or Gula), called the Consort of Bel and the Mother of the Great G.o.ds (? Venus).

10. (?) Dagon.

11. BEL (? Saturn) Father of the G.o.ds.

12. SHAMASH (the Sun).

13. ISHTAR (the Moon).

Although no mention appears to be made in the a.s.syrian inscriptions of kings who reigned before the twelfth century B. C., this is by no means a proof that the empire, and its capital Nineveh, did not exist long before that time. I cannot agree with those who would limit the foundation of both to that period. The supposition seems to me quite at variance with the testimony of sacred and profane history. The existence of the name of Nineveh on monuments of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty is still considered almost certain by Egyptian scholars. I have in my former work quoted an instance of it on a tablet of the time of Thothmes III., or of the beginning of the fourteenth century B. C.[261] Mr. Birch has since pointed out to me three interesting cartouches copied by Dr. Lepsius in Egypt, which completely remove any doubt as to the name of a.s.syria having been also known as early as the eighteenth dynasty. They occur at the foot of one of the columns of Soleb, and are of the age of Amenophis III., or about the middle of the fourteenth century before Christ. The three figures, with their arms bound behind, represent Asiatic captives, as is proved by their peculiar features and head-dress, a knotted fillet round the temples, corresponding with that seen in the Nineveh sculptures. Each cartouche contains the name of the country from which the prisoner was brought. The first is Patana, or Padan-Aram; the second is written A-su-ru, or a.s.syria; and the third, Ka-ru-ka-mis.h.i.+, Carchemish. On another column are Saenkar (? s.h.i.+nar or Sinjar); Naharaina, or Mesopotamia; and the Khita, or Hitt.i.tes. The mention in succession of these Asiatic nations, contiguous one to the other, proves the correctness of the reading of the word a.s.syria, which might have been doubted had the name of that country stood alone.

Mr. Birch has detected a still earlier notice of a.s.syria in the statistical tablet of Karnak. The king of that country is there stated to have sent to Thothmes III., in his fortieth year, a tribute of fifty pounds nine ounces of some article called chesbit, supposed to be a stone for coloring blue. It would appear, therefore, that in the fifteenth century a kingdom, known by the name of a.s.syria, with Nineveh for its capital, had been established on the borders of the Tigris. Supposing the date now a.s.signed by Col. Rawlinson to the monuments at Nimroud to be correct, no sculptures or relics have yet been found which we can safely attribute to that period; future researches and a more complete examination of the ancient sites may, however, hereafter lead to the discovery of earlier remains.

As I have thus given a general sketch of the contents of the inscriptions, it may not be out of place to make a few observations upon the nature of the a.s.syrian records, and their importance to the study of Scripture and profane history. In the first place, the care with which the events of each king's reign were chronicled is worthy of remark. They were usually written in the form of regular annals, and in some cases, as on the great monoliths at Nimroud, the royal progress during a campaign appears to have been described almost day by day. We are thus furnished with an interesting ill.u.s.tration of the historical books of the Jews. There is, however, this marked difference between them, that whilst the a.s.syrian records are nothing but a dry narrative, or rather register, of military campaigns, spoliations, and cruelties, events of little importance but to those immediately concerned in them, the historical books of the Old Testament, apart from the deeds of war and blood which they chronicle, contain the most interesting of private episodes, and the most sublime of moral lessons. It need scarcely be added, that this distinction is precisely what we might have expected to find between them, and that the Christian will not fail to give to it a due weight.

The monuments of Nineveh, as well as the testimony of history, tend to prove that the a.s.syrian monarch was a thorough Eastern despot, unchecked by popular opinion, and having complete power over the lives and property of his subjects--rather adored as a G.o.d than feared as a man, and yet himself claiming that authority and general obedience in virtue of his reverence for the national deities and the national religion. It was only when the G.o.ds themselves seemed to interpose that any check was placed upon the royal pride and l.u.s.t; and it is probable that when Jonah entered Nineveh crying to the people to repent, the king, believing him to be a special minister from the supreme deity of the nation, ”arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.”[262] The Hebrew state, on the contrary, was, to a certain extent, a limited monarchy. The Jewish kings were amenable to, and even guided by, the opinion of their subjects. The prophets boldly upbraided and threatened them; their warnings and menaces were usually received with respect and fear. ”Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken,”

exclaimed Hezekiah to Isaiah, when the prophet reproved him for his pride, and foretold the captivity of his sons and the destruction of his kingdom;[263] a prophecy which none would have dared utter in the presence of the a.s.syrian king, except, as it would appear by the story of Jonah, he were a stranger. It can scarcely, therefore, be expected that any history other than bare chronicles of the victories and triumphs of the kings, omitting all allusion to their reverses and defeats, could be found in a.s.syria, even were portable rolls or books still to exist, as in Egypt, beneath the ruins.

It is remarkable that the a.s.syrian records should, on the whole, be so free from the exaggerated forms of expression, and the magniloquent royal t.i.tles, which are found in Egyptian doc.u.ments of the same nature, and even in those of modern Eastern sovereigns. I have already pointed out the internal evidence of their truthfulness so far as they go. We are further led to place confidence in the statements contained in the inscriptions by the very minuteness with which they even give the amount of the spoil; the two registrars, ”the scribes of the host,” as they are called in the Bible,[264] being seen in almost every bas-relief, writing down the various objects brought to them by the victorious warriors,--the heads of the slain, the prisoners, the cattle, the sheep,[265] the furniture, and the vessels of metal.

The next reflection arising from an examination of the a.s.syrian records relates to the political condition and const.i.tution of the empire, which appear to have been of a very peculiar nature. The king, we may infer, exercised but little direct authority beyond the immediate districts around Nineveh. The a.s.syrian dominions, as far as we can yet learn from the inscriptions, did not extend much further than the central provinces of Asia Minor and Armenia to the north, not reaching to the Black Sea, though probably to the Caspian. To the east they included the western provinces of Persia; to the south, Susiana, Babylonia, and the northern part of Arabia. To the west the a.s.syrians may have penetrated into Lycia, and perhaps Lydia; and Syria was considered within the territories of the great king; Egypt and Meroe (aethiopia) were the farthest limits reached by the a.s.syrian armies. According to Greek history, however, a much greater extent must be a.s.signed to a.s.syrian influence, if not to the actual a.s.syrian empire, and we may hereafter find that such was in fact the case.

I am here merely referring to the evidence afforded by actual records as far as they have been deciphered.

The empire appears to have been at all times a kind of confederation formed by many tributary states, whose kings were so far independent, that they were only bound to furnish troops to the supreme lord in time of war, and to pay him yearly a certain tribute. Hence we find successive a.s.syrian kings fighting with exactly the same nations and tribes, some of which were scarcely more than four or five days' march from the gates of Nineveh.

The Jewish tribes, as it had long been suspected by biblical scholars, can now be proved to have held their dependent position upon the a.s.syrian king, from a very early period, indeed, long before the time inferred by any pa.s.sage in Scripture. Whenever an expedition against the kings of Judah or Israel is mentioned in the a.s.syrian records, it is stated to have been undertaken on the ground that they had not paid their customary tribute.[266]

The political state of the Jewish kingdom under Solomon appears to have been very nearly the same as that of the a.s.syrian empire. The inscriptions in this instance again furnish us with an interesting ill.u.s.tration of the Bible. The scriptural account of the power of the Hebrew king resembles, almost word for word, some of the paragraphs in the great inscriptions at Nimroud. ”Solomon reigned over the kingdoms from the river unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt: they brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his life.... He had dominion over all the region on this side the river, from Tipsah even unto the Azzah, _over all the kings_ on this side the river.”[267]

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