Part 11 (1/2)

Paradises or parks planted by the kings; gardens and shrubberies containing summer-houses by the wealthy; hanging garden, 130-1.

Penitential psalms composed at a very remote period, one of the finest addressed to Istar, 71-3.

Phnician galley builders and sailors employed by Sennacherib on the Persian Gulf in his attack on the last refuge of the Chaldaeans, 132.

Planisphere from Nineveh, and a table of lunar longitudes, 116-7.

Polygamy practised by the king, and the palace guarded by eunuchs, 129.

Prayer after a bad dream, 70.

Prayer of an a.s.syrian court for the king, 76.

Prayers to Bel and various deities on different occasions, 68-70.

Private will of Sennacherib in favour of Esar-haddon, 134.

Proud boast of the Babylonian monarch about exalting his throne above the stars, and sitting in the a.s.sembly of the G.o.ds, 77.

Pul, a military adventurer, seized the crown, B.C. 743, and a.s.sumed the name of Tiglath-Pileser II; he was an able ruler, a good general, and a skilful administrator, and consolidated the empire by deporting the turbulent populations to distant homes, and importing others; he divided the empire into provinces, and fixed the annual tribute; he endeavoured to subvert the power of the Hitt.i.tes of Carchemish, and turn the trade of Asia Minor into a.s.syrian channels, and render Syria and Phnicia tributary, 34; he annexed Northern Babylonia, punished the Kurds, utterly defeated Sarduris and his confederates, and captured Arpad after a siege of two years; he stormed Hamath, and transplanted part of the inhabitants to Armenia; he received tribute from the Syrian kings, and Menahem, Rezon, Hiram, and Pisiris; he blockaded Van, and ravaged the surrounding country, 35-6; he was heavily bribed by Ahaz to attack Rezon and Pekah; Damascus was invested and forced to surrender through famine, and forces were sent against the Ammonites, Moabites, and Philistines; on the fall of Damascus it was plundered and the inhabitants transplanted to Kir; Babylonia was reduced, and under his original name of Pul, he a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of King of Sumir (s.h.i.+nar) and Accad, 37.

R.

Relative rank of women in Accadian and Babylonian times, 139.

Religion of a.s.syria, including deities and beliefs borrowed from Babylonia; but the Semites had greatly modified the original Accadian conceptions; belief of the _Zi_, evil and good spirits; diseases caused by demoniacal possession, and only curable by exorcisms and charms; the spirits most dreaded those who had been raised to the position of G.o.ds, as Anu, Mul-ge, and Ea; spirits of the heavenly bodies, 55-6; curious contrasts: polytheism and monotheism, 83-4; victories ascribed to a.s.sur, and wars undertaken in his name: inconsistency and changes in the cult explained; inferiority to the faith of Israel, 84-5.

Rents paid by tenants of land in Babylonia, 139.

Repet.i.tion of the names of the G.o.ds, and its efficacy, 73.

Resen, name found in the inscriptions, but the site not yet determined; its meaning, 22-3.

Rimmon or Ramman, 'the thunderer,' the G.o.d of the atmosphere, rain, and storms; his cult extended to Syria, and he appears to have been the chief deity of Damascus, where he was known as Hadad or Dadda, 61.

Rimmon-nirari I, inscriptions of: his wars against the Babylonians, Kurds, and Shuites, 27.

Roads formed and kept in good condition, 131-2.

Rowandiz, where the ark is supposed to have rested; a snow-clad peak, 'the mountain of the world,' and 'the mountain of the East;' thought to be the abode of the G.o.ds, and the support of the vault of heaven, 77, 82.

Royal hunts, at first wild elephants and lions; but under Esar-haddon had degenerated into a _battue_ of tamed animals kept in cages for the purpose, 129, 130.

S.

Sabbath early known, but confounded with the feast of the New Moon; kept on the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth day of the lunar month, 73-4.