Part 3 (2/2)

The account was introduced as an episode into the eleventh book of the great Babylonian epic of Gisdhubar, and appears to be the amalgamation of two older poems on the subject. The story of the Deluge, in fact, was a favourite theme among the Babylonians, and we have fragments of at least two other versions of it, neither of which, however, agree so remarkably with the Biblical narrative as does the version discovered by Mr. Smith. Apart from the profound difference caused by the polytheistic character of the Chaldean account, and the monotheism of the Scriptural narrative, it is only in details that the two accounts vary from one another. Thus, the vessel in which Xisuthros, the Chaldean Noah, sails, is a s.h.i.+p, guided by a steersman, and not an ark, and others besides his own family are described as being admitted into it. So, too, the period of time during which the flood was at its height is said to have been seven days only, while, beside the raven and the dove, Xisuthros is stated to have sent out a third bird, the swallow, in order to determine how far the waters had subsided. The Chaldean ark rested, moreover, on Rowandiz, the highest of the mountains of Eastern Kurdistan, and the peak whereon Accadian mythology imagined the heavens to be supported, and not on the northern or Armenian continuation of the range.

Babylonian tradition, too, had fused into one Noah and Enoch, Xisuthros being represented as translated to the land of immortality immediately after his descent from the ark and his sacrifice to the G.o.ds. It is noticeable that the Chaldean account agrees with that of the Bible in one remarkable respect, in which it differs from almost all the other traditions of the Deluge found throughout the world. This is in its ascribing the cause of the Deluge to the wickedness of mankind. It was sent as a punishment for sin.

As might have been expected, the Babylonians and a.s.syrians knew of the building of the Tower of Babel, and the dispersion of mankind. Men had 'turned against the father of all the G.o.ds,' under a leader the thoughts of whose heart 'were evil.' At Babylon they began to erect 'a mound,' or hill-like tower, but the winds destroyed it in the night, and Anu 'confounded great and small on the mound,' as well as their 'speech,'

and 'made strange their counsel.' All this was supposed to have taken place at the time of the autumnal equinox, and it is possible that the name of the rebel leader, which is lost, was Etana. At all events the demi-G.o.d Etana played a conspicuous part in the early historical mythology of Babylonia, like two other famous divine kings, Ner and Dun, and a fragment describes him as having built a city of brick. However this may be, Etana is the Babylonian t.i.tan of Greek writers, who, with Prometheus and Ogygos, made war against the G.o.ds.

If we sum up the character of a.s.syrian religion, we shall find it characterised by curious contrasts. On the one hand we shall find it grossly polytheistic, believing in 'lords many and G.o.ds many,' and admitting not only G.o.ds and demi-G.o.ds, and even deified men, but the mult.i.tudinous spirits, 'the host of heaven and earth,' who were cla.s.sed together as the '300 spirits of heaven and the 600 spirits of earth.'

Some of these were beneficent, others hostile, to man. In addition to this vast army of divine powers, the a.s.syrian offered wors.h.i.+p also to the heavenly bodies, and to the spirits of rivers and mountains. He even set up stones or 'Beth-els,' so called because they were imagined to be veritable 'houses of G.o.d,' wherein the G.o.dhead dwelt, and over these he poured out libations of oil and wine. Yet, on the other hand, with all this gross polytheism, there was a strong tendency to monotheism. The supreme G.o.d, a.s.sur, is often spoken of in language which at first sight seems monotheistic: to him the a.s.syrian monarchs ascribe their victories, and in his name they make war against the unbeliever. A similar inconsistency prevailed in the character of a.s.syrian wors.h.i.+p itself. There was much in it which commands our admiration: the a.s.syrian confessed his sins to his G.o.ds, he begged for their pardon and help, he allowed nothing to interfere with what he conceived to be his religious duties. With all this, his wors.h.i.+p of Istar was stained with the foulest excesses-excesses, too, indulged in, like those of the Phnicians, in the name and for the sake of religion.

Much of this inconsistency may be explained by the history of his religious ideas. As we have seen, a large part of them was derived from a non-Semitic population, the primitive inhabitants of Babylonia, under whose influence the Semitic Babylonians had come at a time when they still lacked nearly all the elements of culture. The result was a form of creed in which the old Accadian faith was bodily taken over by an alien race, but at the same time profoundly modified. It was Accadian religion interpreted by the Semitic mind and belief. Baal-wors.h.i.+p, which saw the Sun-G.o.d everywhere under an infinite variety of manifestations, waged a constant struggle with the conceptions of the borrowed creed, but never overcame them altogether. The G.o.ds and spirits of the Accadians remained to the last, although permeated and overlaid with the wors.h.i.+p of the Semitic Sun-G.o.d. As time went on, new religious elements were introduced, and a.s.syro-Babylonian religion underwent new phases, while in a.s.syria itself the deified state in the person of the G.o.d a.s.sur tended to absorb the religious cult and aspirations of the people. The higher minds of the nation struggled now and again towards the conception of one supreme G.o.d and of a purer form of faith, but the dead weight of polytheistic beliefs and practices prevented them from ever really reaching it. In the best examples of their religious literature we constantly fall across expressions and ideas which show how wide was the gulf that separated them from that kindred people of Israel to whom the oracles of G.o.d were revealed.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IV.

ART, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE.

a.s.syrian art was, speaking generally, imported from Babylonia. Even the palace of the king was built of bricks, and raised upon a mound like the palaces and temples of Babylonia, although stone was plentiful in a.s.syria, and there was no marshy plain where inundations might be feared. It was only the walls that were lined with sculptured slabs of alabaster, the sculptures taking the place of the paintings in vermilion, which adorned the houses of Babylonia (Ezek. xxiii. 14).

It is at Khorsabad, or Dur-Sargon, the city built by Sargon, to the north of Nineveh, that we can best study the architectural genius of a.s.syria. The city was laid out in the form of a square, and surrounded by walls forty-six feet thick and over a mile in length each way, the angles of which faced the four cardinal points. The outer wall was flanked with eight tall towers, and was erected on a mound of rubble.

On the north-west side stood the royal palace, defended also by a wall of its own, and built on a [T]-shaped platform. It was approached through an outer court, the gates of which were hung under arches of enamelled brick, and guarded by colossal figures in stone. From the court an inclined plane led to the first terrace, occupied by a number of small rooms, in which the French excavators saw the barracks of the palace-guard. Above this terrace rose a second, at a height of about ten feet, upon which was built the royal palace itself. This was entered through a gateway, on either side of which stood the stone figure of a 'cherub,' while within it was a court 350 feet long and 170 feet wide.

Beyond this court was an inner one, which formed a square of 150 feet.

On its left were the royal chambers, consisting of a suite of ten rooms, and beyond them again the private chapel of the monarch, leading to the apartments in which he commonly lived. On the west side of the palace rose a tower, built in stages, on the summit of which was the royal observatory.

It is a question whether the a.s.syrian palace possessed any upper stories. On the whole, probability speaks against it. Columns, however, were used plentifully. The column, in fact, had been a Babylonian invention, and originated in the necessity of supporting buildings on wooden pillars in a country where there was no stone. From Babylonia columnar architecture pa.s.sed into a.s.syria, where it a.s.sumed exaggerated forms, the column being sometimes made to rest on the backs of lions, dogs, and winged bulls.

The apertures which served as windows were protected by heavy folds of tapestry, that kept out the heats of summer and the cold winds of winter. In warm weather, however, the inmates of the house preferred to sit in the open air, either in the airy courts upon which its chambers opened, or under the shady trees of the _paradeisos_ or park attached to the dwellings of the rich. The leases of houses let or sold in Nineveh in the time of the Second a.s.syrian Empire generally make mention of the 'shrubbery,' which formed part of the property.

a.s.syrian sculpture was for the most part in relief. The a.s.syrians carved badly in the round, unlike the Babylonians, some of whose sitting statues are not wanting in an air of dignity and repose. But they excelled in that kind of shallow relief of which so many examples have been brought to the British Museum. We can trace three distinct periods in the history of this form of art. The first period is that which begins, so far as we know at present, with the age of a.s.sur-natsir-pal.

It is characterised by boldness and vigour, by an absence of background or landscape, and by an almost total want of perspective. With very few exceptions, faces and figures are drawn in profile. But with all this want of skill, the work is often striking from the spirit with which it is executed, and the naturalness with which animals, more especially, are depicted. A bas-relief representing a lion-hunt of a.s.sur-natsir-pal has been often selected as a typical, though favourable, ill.u.s.tration of the art of this age.

The second period extends from the foundation of the Second a.s.syrian Empire to the reign of Esar-haddon. The artist has lost in vigour, but has compensated for it by care and accuracy. The foreground is now filled in with vegetable and other forms, all drawn with a pre-Raffaellite exact.i.tude. The relief consequently becomes exceedingly rich, and produces the effect of embroidery in stone. It is probable that the delicate minuteness of this period of art was in great measure due to the work in ivory that had now become fas.h.i.+onable at Nineveh.

The third, and best period, is that of the reign of a.s.sur-bani-pal.

There is a return to the freedom of the first period, but without its accompanying rudeness and want of skill. The landscape is either left bare, or indicated in outline only, the attention of the spectator being thus directed to the princ.i.p.al sculpture itself. The delineation of the human figure has much improved; vegetable forms have lost much of their stiffness, and we meet with several examples of successful foreshortening. Up to the last, however, the a.s.syrian artist succeeded but badly in human portraiture. Nothing can surpa.s.s some of his pictures of animals; when he came to deal with the human figure he expended his strength on embroidered robes and the muscles of the legs and arms. The reason of this is not difficult to discover. Unlike the Egyptian, who excelled in the delineation of the human form, he did not draw from nude models. The details of the drapery were with him of more importance than the features of the face or the posture of the limbs. We cannot expect to find portraits in the sculptures of a.s.syria. Little, if any, attempt is made even to distinguish the natives of different foreign countries from one another, except in the way of dress. All alike have the same features as the a.s.syrians themselves.

The effect of the bas-reliefs was enhanced by the red, black, blue, and white colours with which they were picked out. The practice had come from Babylonia, but whereas the Babylonians delighted in brilliant colouring, their northern neighbours contented themselves with much more sober hues. It was no doubt from the populations of Mesopotamia that the Greeks first learnt to paint and tint their sculptured stone.

Unfortunately it is difficult, if not impossible, to find any trace of colouring remaining in the a.s.syrian bas-reliefs now in Europe. When first disinterred, however, the colours were still bright in many cases, although exposure to the air soon caused them to fade and perish.

The bas-reliefs and colossi were moved from the quarries out of which they had been dug, or the workshops in which they had been carved, by the help of sledges and rollers. Hundreds of captives were employed to drag the huge ma.s.s along; sometimes it was transported by water, the boat on which it lay being pulled by men on sh.o.r.e; sometimes it was drawn over the land by gangs of slaves, urged to their work by the rod and sword of their task-masters. On the colossus itself stood an overseer holding to his mouth what looks on the monument like a modern speaking-trumpet. Over a sculpture representing the transport of one of these colossi Sennacherib has engraved the words: 'Sennacherib, king of legions, king of a.s.syria, has caused the winged bull and the colossi, the divinities which were made in the land of the city of the Baladians, to be brought with joy to the palace of his lords.h.i.+p, which is within Nineveh.' We may infer from this epigraph that the images themselves were believed to be in some way the abode of divinity, like the Beth-els or sacred stones to which reference has been made in the last chapter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fragment now in the British Museum showing primitive Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform Characters side by side.]

Like a.s.syrian art, a.s.syrian literature was for the most part derived from Babylonia. A large portion of it was translated from Accadian originals. Sometimes the original was lost or forgotten; more frequently it was re-edited from time to time with interlinear or parallel translations in a.s.syro-Babylonian. This was more especially the case with the sacred texts, in which the old language of Accad was itself accounted sacred, like Latin in the services of the Roman Catholic Church, or Coptic in those of the modern Egyptian Church.

The Accadians had been the inventors of the hieroglyphics or pictorial characters out of which the cuneiform characters had afterwards grown.

Writing begins with pictures, and the writing of the Babylonians formed no exception to the rule. The pictures were at first painted on the papyrus leaves which grew in the marshes of the Euphrates, but as time went on a new and more plentiful writing material came to be employed in the shape of clay. Clay was literally to be found under the feet of every one. All that was needed was to impress it, while still wet, with the hieroglyphic pictures, and then dry it in the sun. It is probable that the bricks used in the construction of the great buildings of Chaldea were first treated in this way. At all events we find that up to the last, the Babylonian kings stamped their names and t.i.tles in the middle of such bricks, and hundreds of them may be met with in the museums of Europe bearing the name of Nebuchadnezzar. When once the discovery was made that clay could be employed as a writing material, it was quickly turned to good account. All Babylonia began to write on tablets of clay, and though papyrus continued to be used, it was reserved for what we should now term 'editions de luxe.' The writing instrument had originally been the edge of a stone or a piece of stick, but these were soon superseded by a metal stylus with a square head.

Under the combined influence of the clay tablet and the metal stylus, the old picture-writing began to degenerate into the cuneiform or 'wedge-shaped' characters with which the monuments of a.s.syria have made us familiar. It was difficult, if not impossible, any longer to draw circles and curves, and accordingly angles took the place of circles, and straight lines the place of curves. Continuous lines were equally difficult to form; it was easier to represent them by a series of indentations, each of which took a wedge-like appearance from the square head of the stylus. As soon as the exact forms of the old pictures began to be obliterated, other alterations became inevitable. The forms began to be simplified by the omission of lines or wedges which were no longer necessary, now that the character had become a mere symbol instead of a picture; and this process of simplification went on from one century to another, until in many instances the later form of a character is hardly more than a shadow of what it originally was.

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