Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 Part 23 (1/2)

The earliest mention of Babylon is in a dated tablet of the reign of Sargon of Akkad (3800 B.C.), who is stated to have built sanctuaries there to Anunit and A[=e] (or Ea), and H. Winckler may be right in restoring a mutilated pa.s.sage in the annals of this king so as to make it mean that Babylon owed its name to Sargon, who made it the capital of his empire. If so, it fell back afterwards into the position of a mere provincial town and remained so for centuries, until it became the capital of ”the first dynasty of Babylon” and then of Khammurabi's empire (2250 B.C.). From this time onward it continued to be the capital of Babylonia and the holy city of western Asia. The claim to supremacy in Asia, however real in fact, was not admitted _de jure_ until the claimant had ”taken the hands” of Bel-Merodach at Babylon, and thereby been accepted as his adopted son and the inheritor of the old Babylonian empire. It was this which made Tiglath-pileser III. and other a.s.syrian kings so anxious to possess themselves of Babylon and so to legitimize their power. Sennacherib alone seems to have failed in securing the support of the Babylonian priesthood; at all events he never underwent the ceremony, and Babylonia throughout his reign was in a constant state of revolt which was finally suppressed only by the complete destruction of the capital. In 689 B.C. its walls, temples and palaces were razed to the ground and the rubbish thrown into the Arakhtu, the ca.n.a.l which bordered the earlier Babylon on the south. The act shocked the religious conscience of western Asia; the subsequent murder of Sennacherib was held to be an expiation of it, and his successor Esar-haddon hastened to rebuild the old city, to receive there his crown, and make it his residence during part of the year. On his death Babylonia was left to his elder son Samas-sum-yukin, who eventually headed a revolt against his brother a.s.sur-bani-pal of a.s.syria. Once more Babylon was besieged by the a.s.syrians and starved into surrender. a.s.sur-bani-pal purified the city and celebrated a ”service of reconciliation,” but did not venture to ”take the hands” of Bel. In the subsequent overthrow of the a.s.syrian empire the Babylonians saw another example of divine vengeance.

With the recovery of Babylonian independence under Nabopola.s.sar a new era of architectural activity set in, and his son Nebuchadrezzar made Babylon one of the wonders of the ancient world. It surrendered without a struggle to Cyrus, but two sieges in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, and one in the reign of Xerxes, brought about the destruction of the defences, while the monotheistic rule of Persia allowed the temples to fall into decay. Indeed part of the temple of E-Saggila, which like other ancient temples served as a fortress, was intentionally pulled down by Xerxes after his capture of the city. Alexander was murdered in the palace of Nebuchadrezzar, which must therefore have been still standing, and cuneiform texts show that, even under the Seleucids, E-Saggila was not wholly a ruin. The foundation of Seleucia in its neighbourhood, however, drew away the population of the old city and hastened its material decay. A tablet dated 275 B.C. states that on the 12th of Nisan the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to the new town, where a palace was built as well as a temple to which the ancient name of E-Saggila was given. With this event the history of Babylon comes practically to an end, though more than a century later we find sacrifices being still performed in its old sanctuary.

Our knowledge of its topography is derived from the cla.s.sical writers, the inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar, and the excavations of the _Deutsche Orientgesellschaft_, which were begun in 1899. The topography is necessarily that of the Babylon of Nebuchadrezzar; the older Babylon which was destroyed by Sennacherib having left few, if any, traces behind. Most of the existing remains lie on the E. bank of the Euphrates, the princ.i.p.al being three vast mounds, the _Babil_ to the north, the _Qasr_ or ”Palace”

(also known as the _Mujelliba_) in the centre, and the Ish[=a]n 'Amran ibn 'Ali, with the outlying spur of the Jumjuma, to the south. Eastward of these come the Ish[=a]n el-Aswad or ”Black Mound” and three lines of rampart, one of which encloses the _Babil_ mound on the N. and E. sides, while a third forms a triangle with the S.E. angle of the other two. W. of the Euphrates are other ramparts and the remains of the ancient Borsippa.

We learn from Herodotus and Ctesias that the city was built on both sides of the river in the form of a square, and enclosed within a double row of lofty walls to which Ctesias adds a third. Ctesias makes the outermost wall 360 stades (42 m.) in circ.u.mference, while according to Herodotus it measured 480 stades (56 m.), which would include an area of about 200 sq.

m. The estimate of Ctesias is essentially the same as that of Q. Curtius (v. 1. 26), 368 stades, and c.l.i.tarchus (_ap._ Diod. Sic. ii. 7), 365 stades; Strabo (xvi. 1. 5) makes it 385 stades. But even the estimate of Ctesias, a.s.suming the stade to be its usual length, would imply an area of about 100 sq. m. According to Herodotus the height of the walls was about 335 ft. and their width 85 ft; [v.03 p.0099] according to Ctesias the height was about 300 ft. The measurements seem exaggerated, but we must remember that even in Xenophon's time (_Anab._ iii. 4. 10) the ruined wall of Nineveh was still 150 ft high, and that the s.p.a.ces between the 250 towers of the wall of Babylon (Ctes. 417, _ap._ Diod. ii. 7) were broad enough to let a four-horse chariot turn (Herod. i. 179). The clay dug from the moat served to make the bricks of the wall, which had 100 gates, all of bronze, with bronze lintels and posts. The two inner enclosures were faced with enamelled tiles and represented hunting-scenes. Two other walls ran along the banks of the Euphrates and the quays with which it was lined, each containing 25 gates which answered to the number of streets they led into. Ferry-boats plied between the landing-places of the gates, and a movable drawbridge (30 ft. broad), supported on stone piers, joined the two parts of the city together.

The account thus given of the walls must be grossly exaggerated and cannot have been that of an eye-witness. Moreover, the two walls--Imgur-Bel, the inner wall, and Nimitti-Bel, the outer--which enclosed the city proper on the site of the older Babylon have been confused with the outer ramparts (enclosing the whole of Nebuchadrezzar's city), the remains of which can still be traced to the east. According to Nebuchadrezzar, Imgur-Bel was built in the form of a square, each side of which measured ”30 _aslu_ by the great cubit”; this would be equivalent, if Professor F. Hommel is right, to 2400 metres. Four thousand cubits to the east the great rampart was built ”mountain high,” which surrounded both the old and the new town; it was provided with a moat, and a reservoir was excavated in the triangle on the inner side of its south-east corner, the western wall of which is still visible. The Imgur-Bel of Sargon's time has been discovered by the German excavators running south of the _Qasr_ from the Euphrates to the Gate of Ishtar.

The German excavations have shown that the _Qasr_ mound represents both the old palace of Nabopola.s.sar, and the new palace adjoining it built by Nebuchadrezzar, the wall of which he boasts of having completed in 15 days.

They have also laid bare the site of the ”Gate of Ishtar” on the east side of the mound and the little temple of Nin-Makh (Beltis) beyond it, as well as the raised road for solemn processions (_A-ibur-sabu_) which led from the Gate of Ishtar to E-Saggila and skirted the east side of the palace.

The road was paved with stone and its walls on either side lined with enamelled tiles, on which a procession of lions is represented. North of the mound was a ca.n.a.l, which seems to have been the Libilkhegal of the inscriptions, while on the south side was the Arakhtu, ”the river of Babylon,” the brick quays of which were built by Nabopola.s.sar.

The site of E-Saggila is still uncertain. The German excavators a.s.sign it to the 'Amr[=a]n mound, its tower having stood in a depression immediately to the north of this, and so place it south of the _Qasr_; but E. Lindl and F. Hommel have put forward strong reasons for considering it to have been north of the latter, on a part of the site which has not yet been explored.

A tablet copied by George Smith gives us interesting details as to the plan and dimensions of this famous temple of Bel; a plan based on these will be found in Hommel's _Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients_, p. 321. There were three courts, the outer or great court, the middle court of Ishtar and Zamama, and the inner court on the east side of which was the tower of seven stages (known as the House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth), 90 metres high according to Hommel's calculation of the measurements in the tablet; while on the west side was the temple proper of Merodach and his wife Sarpanit or Zarpanit, as well as chapels of Anu, Ea and Bel on either side of it. A winding ascent led to the summit of the tower, where there was a chapel, containing, according to Herodotus, a couch and golden table (for the s...o...b..ead) but no image. The golden image of Merodach 40 ft. high, stood in the temple below, in the sanctuary called E-Kua or ”House of the Oracle,” together with a table, a mercy-seat and an altar--all of gold. The deities whose chapels were erected within the precincts of the temple enclosure were regarded as forming his court.

Fifty-five of these chapels existed altogether in Babylon, but some of them stood independently in other parts of the city.

There are numerous gates in the walls both of E-Saggila and of the city, the names of many of which are now known. Nebuchadrezzar says that he covered the walls of some of them with blue enamelled tiles ”on which bulls and dragons were pourtrayed,” and that he set up large bulls and serpents of bronze on their thresholds.

The _Babil_ mound probably represents the site of a palace built by Nebuchadrezzar at the northern extremity of the city walls and attached to a defensive outwork 60 cubits in length. Since H. Ra.s.sam found remains of irrigation works here it might well be the site of the Hanging Gardens.

These consisted, we are told, of a garden of trees and flowers, built on the topmost of a series of arches some 75 ft. high, and in the form of a square, each side of which measured 400 Greek ft. Water was raised from the Euphrates by means of a screw (Strabo xvi. 1. 5; Diod. ii. 10. 6). In the Jumjuma mound at the southern extremity of the old city the contract and other business tablets of the Egibi firm were found.

See C. J. Rich, _Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon_ (1816), and _Collected Memoirs_ (1839); A. H. Layard, _Nineveh and Babylon_ (1853); C. P. Tiele, _De Hoofdtempel van Babel_ (1886); A. H. Sayce, _Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, App. ii. (1887); C. J. Ball in _Records of the Past_ (new ser. iii. 1890); _Mittheilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft_ (1899-1906); F. Delitzsch, _Im Lande des einstigen Paradieses_ (1903); F. H. Weissbach, _Das Stadtbild von Babylon_ (1904); F. Hommel, _Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients_ (1904).

(A. H. S.)

BABYLONIA AND a.s.sYRIA. I. _Geography._--Geographically as well as ethnologically and historically, the whole district enclosed between the two great rivers of western Asia, the Tigris and Euphrates, forms but one country. The writers of antiquity clearly recognized this fact, speaking of the whole under the general name of a.s.syria, though Babylonia, as will be seen, would have been a more accurate designation. It naturally falls into two divisions, the northern being more or less mountainous, while the southern is flat and marshy; the near approach of the two rivers to one another, at a spot where the undulating plateau of the north sinks suddenly into the Babylonian alluvium, tends to separate them still more completely.

In the earliest times of which we have any record, the northern portion was included in Mesopotamia; it was definitely marked off as a.s.syria only after the rise of the a.s.syrian monarchy. With the exception of a.s.sur, the original capital, the chief cities of the country, Nineveh, Calah and Arbela, were all on the left bank of the Tigris. The reason of this preference for the eastern bank of the Tigris was due to its abundant supply of water, whereas the great Mesopotamian plain on the western side had to depend upon the streams which flowed into the Euphrates. This vast flat, the modern El-Jezireh, is about 250 miles in length, interrupted only by a single limestone range, rising abruptly out of the plain, and branching off from the Zagros mountains under the names of _Saraz[=u]r_, _Hamrin_ and _Sinjar_. The numerous remains of old habitations show how thickly this level tract must once have been peopled, though now for the most part a wilderness. North of the plateau rises a well-watered and undulating belt of country, into which run low ranges of limestone hills, sometimes arid, sometimes covered with dwarf-oak, and often shutting in, between their northern and north-eastern flank and the main mountain-line from which they detach themselves, rich plains and fertile valleys. Behind them tower the ma.s.sive ridges of the Niphates and Zagros ranges, where the Tigris and Euphrates take their rise, and which cut off a.s.syria from Armenia and Kurdistan.

The name a.s.syria itself was derived from that of the city of a.s.sur (_q.v._) or Asur, now Qal'at Sherqat (Kaleh Shergat), which stood on the right bank of the Tigris, midway between the Greater and the Lesser Zab. It remained the capital long after the a.s.syrians had become the dominant power in western Asia, but was finally supplanted by Calah (_Nimr[=u]d_), Nineveh (_Nebi Yunus_ and _Kuyunjik_), and Dur-Sargina (_Khorsabad_), some 60 m.

farther north (see NINEVEH).

In contrast with the arid plateau of Mesopotamia, stretched the [v.03 p.0100] rich alluvial plain of Chaldaea, formed by the deposits of the two great rivers by which it was enclosed. The soil was extremely fertile, and teemed with an industrious population. Eastward rose the mountains of Elam, southward were the sea-marshes and the Kald[=a] or Chaldaeans and other Aramaic tribes, while on the west the civilization of Babylonia encroached beyond the banks of the Euphrates, upon the territory of the Semitic nomads (or Suti). Here stood Ur (_Mugheir_, more correctly _Muqayyar_) the earliest capital of the country; and Babylon, with its suburb, Borsippa (_Birs Nimr[=u]d_), as well as the two Sipparas (the Sepharvaim of Scripture, now _Abu Habba_), occupied both the Arabian and Chaldaean sides of the river (see BABYLON). The Arakhtu, or ”river of Babylon,” flowed past the southern side of the city, and to the south-west of it on the Arabian bank lay the great inland freshwater sea of _Nejef_, surrounded by red sandstone cliffs of considerable height, 40 m. in length and 35 in breadth in the widest part. Above and below this sea, from Borsippa to Kufa, extend the famous Chaldaean marshes, where Alexander was nearly lost (Arrian, _Exp. Al._ vii. 22; Strab. xvi. 1, -- 12); but these depend upon the state of the Hindiya ca.n.a.l, disappearing altogether when it is closed.

Eastward of the Euphrates and southward of Sippara, Kutha and Babylon were Kis (_Uhaimir_, 9 m. E. of _Hillah_), Nippur (_Niffer_)--where stood the great sanctuary of El-lil, the older Bel--Uruk or Erech (_Warka_) and Larsa (_Senkera_) with its temple of the sun-G.o.d, while eastward of the Shatt el-Hai, probably the ancient channel of the Tigris, was Lagash (_Tello_), which played an important part in early Babylonian history. The primitive seaport of the country, Eridu, the seat of the wors.h.i.+p of Ea the culture-G.o.d, was a little south of Ur (at _Abu Shahrain_ or _Now[=a]wis_ on the west side of the Euphrates). It is now about 130 m. distant from the sea; as about 46 m. of land have been formed by the silting up of the sh.o.r.e since the foundation of Spasinus Charax (_Muhamrah_) in the time of Alexander the Great, or some 115 ft. a year, the city would have been in existence at least 6000 years ago. The marshes in the south like the adjoining desert were frequented by Aramaic tribes; of these the most famous were the Kald[=a] or Chaldaeans who under Merodach-baladan made themselves masters of Babylon and gave their name in later days to the whole population of the country. The combined stream of the Euphrates and Tigris as it flowed through the marshes was known to the Babylonians as the _n[=a]r marrati_, ”the salt river” (cp. Jer. l. 21), a name originally applied to the Persian Gulf.

The alluvial plain of Babylonia was called Edin, the Eden of Gen. ii., though the name was properly restricted to ”the plain” on the western bank of the river where the Bedouins pastured the flocks of their Babylonian masters. This ”bank” or _kisad_, together with the corresponding western bank of the Tigris (according to Hommel the modern Shatt el-Hai), gave its name to the land of Chesed, whence the _Kasdim_ of the Old Testament. In the early inscriptions of Lagash the whole district is known as Gu-Edinna, the Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic _Kisad Edini_. The coast-land was similarly known as Gu-[=a]bba (Semitic _Kisad tamtim_), the ”bank of the sea.” A more comprehensive name of southern Babylonia was Kengi, ”the land,” or Kengi Sumer, ”the land of Sumer,” for which Sumer alone came afterwards to be used. Sumer has been supposed to be the original of the Biblical s.h.i.+nar; but s.h.i.+nar represented northern rather than southern Babylonia, and was probably the Sankhar of the Tell el-Amarna tablets (but see SUMER). Opposed to Kengi and Sumer were Urra (Uri) and Akkad or northern Babylonia. The original meaning of _Urra_ was perhaps ”clayey soil,” but it came to signify ”the upper country” or ”highlands,” _kengi_ being ”the lowlands.” In Semitic times _Urra_ was p.r.o.nounced _Uri_ and confounded with _uru_, ”city”; as a geographical term, however, it was replaced by Akkadu (Akkad), the Semitic form of Agad[=e]--written Akkattim in the Elamite inscriptions--the name of the elder Sargon's capital, which must have stood close to Sippara, if indeed it was not a quarter of Sippara itself. The rise of Sargon's empire was doubtless the cause of this extension of the name of Akkad; from henceforward, in the imperial t.i.tle, ”Sumer and Akkad” denoted the whole of Babylonia. After the Ka.s.site conquest of the country, northern Babylonia came to be known as Kar-Duniyas, ”the wall of the G.o.d Duniyas,” from a line of fortification similar to that built by Nebuchadrezzar between Sippara and Opis, so as to defend his kingdom from attacks from the north. As this last was ”the Wall of Semiramis” mentioned by Strabo (xi. 14. 8), Kar-Duniyas may have represented the Median Wall of Xenophon (_Anab._ ii. 4. 12), traces of which were found by F. R. Chesney extending from Faluja to Jibbar.

The country was thickly studded with towns, the sites of which are still represented by mounds, though the identification of most of them is still doubtful. The latest to be identified are Bismya, between Nippur and Erech, which recent American excavations have proved to be the site of Udab (also called Adab and Usab) and the neighbouring F[=a]ra, the site of the ancient Kisurra. The dense population was due to the elaborate irrigation of the Babylonian plain which had originally reclaimed it from a pestiferous and uninhabitable swamp and had made it the most fertile country in the world.

The science of irrigation and engineering seems to have been first created in Babylonia, which was covered by a network of ca.n.a.ls, all skilfully planned and regulated. The three chief of them carried off the waters of the Euphrates to the Tigris above Babylon,--the Zabzallat ca.n.a.l (or _Nahr Sarsar_) running from Faluja to Ctesiphon, the Kutha ca.n.a.l from Sippara to Madain, pa.s.sing Tell Ibrahim or Kutha on the way, and the King's ca.n.a.l or Ar-Malcha between the other two. This last, which perhaps owed its name to Khammurabi, was conducted from the Euphrates towards Upi or Opis, which has been shown by H. Winckler (_Altorientalische Forschungen_, ii. pp. 509 seq.) to have been close to Seleucia on the western side of the Tigris. The Pallacopas, called Pallukkatu in the Neo-Babylonian texts, started from Pallukkatu or Faluja, and running parallel to the western bank of the Euphrates as far as Iddaratu or Teredon (?) watered an immense tract of land and supplied a large lake near Borsippa. B. Meissner may be right in identifying it with ”the Ca.n.a.l of the Sun-G.o.d” of the early texts. Thanks to this system of irrigation the cultivation of the soil was highly advanced in Babylonia. According to Herodotus (i. 193) wheat commonly returned two hundred-fold to the sower, and occasionally three hundred-fold. Pliny (_H. N._ xviii. 17) states that it was cut twice, and afterwards was good keep for sheep, and Berossus remarked that wheat, sesame, barley, ochrys, palms, apples and many kinds of sh.e.l.led fruit grew wild, as wheat still does in the neighbourhood of Anah. A Persian poem celebrated the 360 uses of the palm (Strabo xvi. 1. 14), and Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus (xxiv. 3) says that from the point reached by Julian's army to the sh.o.r.es of the Persian Gulf was one continuous forest of verdure.

II. _Cla.s.sical Authorities_.--Such a country was naturally fitted to be a pioneer of civilization. Before the decipherment of the cuneiform texts our knowledge of its history, however, was scanty and questionable. Had the native history of Berossus survived, this would not have been the case; all that is known of the Chaldaean historian's work, however, is derived from quotations in Josephus, Ptolemy, Eusebius and the Syncellus. The authenticity of his list of 10 antediluvian kings who reigned for 120 _sari_ or 432,000 years, has been partially confirmed by the inscriptions; but his 8 postdiluvian dynasties are difficult to reconcile with the monuments, and the numbers attached to them are probably corrupt. It is different with the 7th and 8th dynasties as given by Ptolemy in the _Almagest_, which prove to have been faithfully recorded:--

1. Nabona.s.sar (747 B.C.) 14 years 2. Nadios 2 ”

3. Khinziros and Poros (Pul) 5 ”

4. Ilulaeos 5 ”

5. Mardokempados (Merodach-Baladan) 12 ”

6. Arkeanos (Sargon) 5 ”

7. Interregnum 2 ”