Part 14 (1/2)
Mounds of this period may be recognized by the typical square or oblong bricks (often with thumb-holes), with stamps of kings' names, &c., in non-cuneiform characters, or with hand-incised inscriptions in early cuneiform, made while the clay was wet; clay tablets or cones inscribed in early cuneiform; copper nails (those with gold- plated heads found at Shahrein may also date from this time); drab or black pottery sherds with impressed or incised designs, generally rough and evidently made with a piece of stick or the thumb-nail; rough stone quern-slabs with rubbers, grinding and hammer-stones, &c.; and the burials described above (these, however, also occur in later times).
IV. LATER BRONZE AGE: Ka.s.site, Middle Babylonian, and Early a.s.syrian periods; c. 1800- 1000 B.C.
Characteristics. Stabilization of Babylonian art; typical 'Ka.s.site'
cylinder-seals with straight sides (XIV, Fig. 6); disappearance of old non-cuneiform character with gradual disuse of Sumerian; early stone-cut inscriptions in cuneiform (see XV, Fig. 16; an Elamite inscription). Occasional and rare appearance of glazed pottery (imitation of Egyptian), and multi-coloured gla.s.s; early a.s.syrian sculpture (those unversed in minutiae of Mesopotamian art will only be able to tell this earlier work from the later by the earlier style of the accompanying inscriptions). Not many mounds of this period have been dug.
V. EARLY IRON AGE: 1. Late Babylonian and a.s.syrian periods; c. 1000-540 B.C.
Characteristics. Flouris.h.i.+ng period of a.s.syrian art and writing (for details see the archaeological books, which are very full on this period). Mounds may be known by the occurrence of fragments of granite or basalt bowl-querns, often with feet; pieces or whole vases of the multi-coloured opaque gla.s.s usually called 'Phoenician' (which are already found in the preceding period); alabaster pots; straight- sided cylinder seals (see XIV, Fig. 6); Syrian conical seals of steat.i.te (XIV, Fig. 7); small and rude clay figures of deities, such as Ishtar or Papsukal (the guardian of buildings), and animals, such as horses, sheep, doves, ducks, &c.; bronze pins, often with birds on the heads; baked clay tablets of the fine Kuyunjik type (see XV, Fig.
12; script, Fig. 17); pottery lamps with long protruding curved nozzles; pottery vases simple and undecorated save by incised lines, as for many centuries past (for types see XIV, Figs. 9 a b c d); light-blue glazed ware introduced from Egypt towards end of period; polychrome glazed ware with designs of rosettes, chevrons) &c., somewhat earlier; large pots without feet common for storage of grain and oil, sometimes for tablets: mouth often closed with a brick.
Stone pithoi are also found. Vertical drains or sinks, made of a number of pottery cylindrical drums, fitting on top of or into one another, are found everywhere on town-mounds of this period; visitors should avoid tumbling into them, as they are often open or only covered by a very thin crust of earth. Usually they are perforated to allow of soaking into the surrounding earth, and are, when excavated whole, generally found capped by, a beehive-shaped perforated cover.
Sometimes these drains were made of old pots with their lower parts broken off, and fitted into one another. Secular buildings were of burnt brick; sacred buildings usually of crude brick, from religious conservatism. Crude bricks nearly always oblong; burnt bricks square (14 ins.) or oblong (9x6x3 ins.). The burnt brick of Nebuchadnezzar's time is extraordinarily fine and hard, and the bitumen-mortar so finely spread as to be almost invisible (Babylon). Walls of this reign have a rock-like solidity and tenacity that should make them easily recognizable. Those of immediately preceding reigns show the bitumen far more clearly, and the bricks are usually not as finely made as Nebuchadnezzar's; at Babylon the latter's work is thus at once distinguishable from that of Nabopola.s.sar. A typical brick- inscription of Nebuchadnezzar is ill.u.s.trated above, XV, Fig. 11. It is in the revived archaic script, always used for this purpose by the late Babylonian kings. Use of coloured glazed brick is characteristic of period; often relief figures of animals are made up of glazed bricks each specially moulded for its proper position and numbered (Ishtar Gate, Babylon). Royal palaces were often decorated with reliefs depicting conquests, &c., carved on slabs of alabastrine marble placed along the brick walls, with great statues of human- headed bulls (_Cherubim_), &c. (Nimrud [CALAH], Kuyunjik [NINEVEH], Khorsabad. _Brit. Mus._ and _Louvre_.) Burials usually in drab clay pot-coffins (larnakes) with covers; bodies still contracted; funerary furniture scanty, consisting chiefly of pins, beads, an occasional cylinder-seal, and a few pots (XIV, Figs. 9 a b c d). Ribbed pots with blue (weathered green) glaze, often pitched both within and without, were also employed towards the end of the period, inverted over the bodies. Also anthropoid pottery sarcophagi, an idea imported from Egypt. Child burials in bowls. Iron objects sometimes buried with the dead; often found in palace-ruins (weapons, horse-furniture, &c.). Bronze commonly used for gates, door, bolts, &c. (Gates of Shalmaneser's palace; _Brit. Mus._).
2. Persian (Achaemenian) period: c. 540-330 B.C.
This period is distinguished from the former by the less frequent use of bronze, the introduction of coinage, and the development of the simplified Persian cuneiform writing (never on tablets, only on stone monuments; see XV, Fig. 18). Bitumen ceased to be used as mortar in buildings. Persian walls (e. g. the Apadana at Babylon) are easily distinguished by the use of clay mortar, and the unusual thickness of the mortar-courses between the bricks. Burials in shallow trough-like pottery coffins, with the bodies at full length, but with the knees slightly flexed (these continued during the next period).
VI. MIDDLE IRON AGE: 1. Greek and Parthian periods; c. 330 B.C.-220 A.D.
Characteristics. Sudden degeneration and disappearance of the ancient native civilization and art; imitation of Greek culture, Greek buildings (theatre at Babylon), and inscriptions; Greek legends on Parthian coins; Parthian kings call themselves 'Philh.e.l.lenes'; Graeco-Roman architecture imitated (Hatra). Graeco-Roman terra- cottas, pottery lamps, pilgrim-flasks and bone-carvings; cla.s.sical seal gems; Roman gla.s.s; fragments of imitation of cla.s.sical sculpture in marble (the material being adopted as well as the style); and, of course, coins--these are characteristic remains found on mounds of this period. About l00 B.C. the use of cuneiform was given up; clay tablets were no longer used. Aramaic became the usual form of writing; ink used on sherds; wax tablets. Small bowls often found with ink-written incantations in Judaeo-Aramaic (see XV, Fig. 19).
Mounds of this period are perhaps most easily recognized by the quant.i.ties of deep-blue glazed sherds found lying about on them. The glaze is rather thin, laid on a coa.r.s.e drab ware, and is often cracked. The blue is very fine, rivalling the old Egyptian. Burials of this period are often found in (besides the shallow pottery coffins mentioned above) rectangular oblong boxes of thin coa.r.s.e ware with light friable blue glaze (Babylon), or (later) in slipper-shaped coffins (possibly Sa.s.sanian) of the same ware, rudely decorated with human figures (warriors) in relief, on panels (Warka). The blue glaze has often changed to a dark green, especially in the case of the Warka slipper-coffins. The lids are cemented to the coffins.
Internments are now full length, the old custom of contraction having been entirely abandoned [1]. Gold ornaments and pieces of gold leaf, gold fillets, &c., are not unfrequently found with the bodies, besides armlets, toe and finger rings, &c., of silver and bronze, the finger-rings usually of ordinary Roman types; pottery, lamps, and gla.s.s vessels. These coffins are often in brick vaults, usually placed haphazard in the ground, as in earlier times. Bricks small, hard, and yellow.
[1] The western custom of cremation was never adopted, in spite of the h.e.l.lenization of culture. It offended both Babylonian and Iranian sentiment, although the Parthians were never very orthodox followers of Ahuramazda, and venerated (at least platonically) the most popular deities of the Greek pantheon.
2. Sa.s.sanian Period; c. 220-650 A.D.
Characteristics. Reaction towards Oriental motives in art: a typical _antika_ of the period is the Sa.s.sanian seal of cornelian, chalcedony, or haemat.i.te, in shape sometimes a ring, more often a flat sphere with one-third cut off to form a seal-base, perforated for stringing (see XIV, Fig. 8), and inscribed in Pehlevi (see XV, Fig. 20) a script that to the unitiated looks very like Cufie Arabic: the language is Old-Persian, which was spoken by the court officials at Ctesiphon, the language of the people being Aramaic. Sculpture barbarized, but with a picturesque character of its own (Nakhsh-i- Rustam, Tak-i-Bostan), sometimes reminiscent of Indian work.
Architecture: Parthian-Roman traditions (Ctesiphon). Pottery usually glazed blue (thicker glaze). Unglazed bowls with Hebrew and Mandaitic magical inscriptions. Bronze no longer used except for coins. Objects from mounds very like those of preceding age, but less of Roman origin. Not much known of burials; the Warka slipper-coffins usually regarded as Parthian may possibly be of early Sa.s.sanian age.
VII. LATER IRON AGE: Muhammadan Period; c. 650-1500 A.D.[1]
Characteristics. Development of art under Persian influence till Tartar conquest in thirteenth century: the destruction and depopulation of the country at that time brought all real artistic development to an end. Flouris.h.i.+ng period: the 'Abbasid Khalifate: ninth century: Harun al-Ras.h.i.+d. Ruins of the ancient city and palaces of Samarra: halls with modelled and painted plaster-decorations, not only geometrical but also (Persian heterodox influence) representing trees, birds, &c. No more sculpture in round or relief of human figures or animals. The only survival of cla.s.sical tradition would appear to be to some extent in architecture: Greek architects.
Coins: thin gold, and silver, with Cufic inscriptions only (see XV, Fig. 21). Mounds of this period may be known by fragments of marble- carving with Cufic inscriptions, plasterwork, Arab and Persian vase and tile fragments in thick blue, green, yellow, or brown glaze, metallic l.u.s.tre-glaze, &c., variegated gla.s.s bangles, and rings; bits of cloudy white gla.s.s (from lamps); fragments of wood, carved and inlaid with bone, nacre, &c., in geometrical patterns; textile fragments, (which are naturally not commonly found in older mounds), &c.
Nothing is said with regard to burials as these may not be touched.
[1] The limit of age which const.i.tutes an 'antiquity' for legal purposes is fixed in most antiquity-laws at 1500 A.D.
APPENDIX
LAWS OF ANTIQUITIES
The following brief notes on the Laws of Antiquities in force in the various territories with which this book is concerned must not be taken as absolving the traveller from the necessity of consulting the full text of the laws. At the time of going to press, the Turkish Law presumably prevails in such parts of the Turkish Empire as are not occupied by the troops of the Entente; in the remainder, temporary regulations are in force which will doubtless be modified when the new governments are established; and it is possible that the Turkish Law itself may be brought into greater harmony with modern ideas.