Part 26 (1/2)
Several of these amulets were not without value either for their material or their workmans.h.i.+p, but the great majority were of the roughest kind, some being merely sh.e.l.ls or stones with a hole through them, which must have belonged to the poorest cla.s.s of the community. In many cases their proper use could be easily divined; the holes with which they were pierced and other marks of wear showed them to be personal amulets.[409] Those present at the ceremony of consecrating the foundations must have detached them from the cords by which they were suspended, and thrown them, upon the utterance of some propitiatory formula by the priests, into the sand about to be covered with the first large slabs of alabaster.
The terra-cotta cylinders were in no less frequent use in a.s.syria than in Chaldaea. M. Place found no less than fourteen still in place in niches of the harem walls at Khorsabad. The long inscription they bore contained circ.u.mstantial details of the construction of both town and palace. Like that on the metal tablets, it ended with a malediction on all who should dare to raise their hands against the work of Sargon.[410]
As for the cylinders hidden in each angle of a building, none, we believe, have as yet been found in a.s.syria; perhaps because no search or an inefficient search has been made for them.
We have dwelt at some length upon the orientation of buildings, upon the importance attached to their angle stones, and upon the precautions taken to place an edifice under the protection of the G.o.ds, and to preserve the name of its founder from oblivion. We can point to no stronger evidence than that furnished by these proceedings as a whole, of the high civilization to which the people of Chaldaea and a.s.syria had attained at a very early date. The temple and palace did not spread themselves out upon the soil at the word of a capricious and individual fancy; a constant will governed the arrangement of its plan, solemn rites inaugurated its construction and recommended its welfare to the G.o.ds. The texts tell us nothing about the architects, who raised so many n.o.ble monuments; we know neither their names, nor their social condition, but we can divine from their works that they had strongly established traditions, and that they could look back upon a solid and careful education for their profession. As to whether they formed one of those close corporations in which the secrets of a trade are handed down from generation to generation of their members, or whether they belonged to the sacerdotal caste, we do not know. We are inclined to the latter supposition in some degree by the profoundly religious character of the ceremonies that accompanied the inception of a building, and by the accounts left by the ancients of those priests whom they called _the Chaldaeans_. It was to these Chaldaeans that Mesopotamian society owed all it knew of scientific methods and modes of thought, and it is, perhaps, fair to suppose that they turned to the practice of the arts those intellects which they had cultivated above their fellows.
Architecture especially requires something more than manual skill, practice, and natural genius. When it is carried so far as it was in Chaldaea it demands a certain amount of science, and the priests who by right of their intellectual superiority held such an important place in the state, may well have contrived to gain a monopoly as architects to the king. In their persons alone would the scientific knowledge required for such work be combined with the power to accomplish those sacred rites which gave to the commencement of a new building the character of a contract between man and his deity.
NOTES:
[397] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, p. 171.
[398] _Les Fouilles de Chaldee, communication d'une Lettre de M. de Sarzec par M. Leon Heuzey_, -- 2 (_Revue archeologique_, November, 1881).
[399] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. pp. 17, 18. BOTTA had previously made the same observation (_Monument de Ninive_, vol. v. p. 25).
[400] LAYARD, _Discoveries_, plan 2, p. 123.
[401] OPPERT, _Expedition scientifique de Mesopotamie_, vol. i. p. 273.
[402] _Les Fouilles de Chaldee, communication d'une Lettre de M. de Sarzec_, by M. Leon HEUZEY (_Revue archeologique_, November, 1881).
[403] As to the notions attached to these cones, whether sprinkled about the foundations of a building, set up in certain sanctuaries, or carried upon the person, an article published by M. LEDRAIN, _a propos_ of an agate cone recently added to the collections of the Louvre, may be read with advantage. Its full t.i.tle is _Une Page de Mythologie semitique_ (_la Philosophie positive, Revue_, 14th year, 1882, pp. 209-213).
[404] Taylor, _Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_ (_Journal_, &c. vol. xv., pp.
263, 264). LOFTUS, _Travels_, &c. p. 247.
[405] See the _Athenaeum_ for January 20, 1855 (No. 1421), p. 84. ”After two months' excavation Colonel Rawlinson was summoned to the work by the information that ... a wall had been found and laid bare to a distance of 190 feet, and that it turned off at right angles at each end, to be apparently carried all round the mound, forming a square of about twenty-seven feet in height, surmounted by a platform. He immediately rode to the excavation, examined the spot, where he found the workmen quite discouraged and hopeless, having laboured long and found nothing. He was now, however, well aware of these facts, and at once pointed out the spot, near the corner, where the bricks should be removed. In half an hour a small hollow was found, from which he immediately directed the head workman to 'bring out the commemorative cylinder'--a command which, to the wonder and bewilderment of the people, was immediately obeyed; and a cylinder covered with inscriptions was drawn out from its hiding-place of twenty-four centuries, as fresh as when deposited there by the hands, probably, of Nebuchadnezzar himself! The Colonel added in a note that the fame of his magical power had flown to Bagdad, and that he was besieged with applications for the loan of his wonderful instrument to be used in the discovery of hidden treasures!”
[406] Among these we may mention the Philips cylinder, from which, in speaking of the great works carried out by Nebuchadnezzar, LENORMANT gives long extracts in his _Manuel d'Histoire ancienne_, vol. ii. pp. 233 and 235.
[407] LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. p. 115, and vol. ii. p. 91.
[408] OPPERT, _Expedition en Mesopotamie_, vol. ii. pp. 343-351.
[409] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. i. p. 188.
[410] OPPERT, _Expedition scientifique_, vol. i. pp. 354 _et seq._
-- 9.--_Mechanical Resources._
The Chaldaeans and a.s.syrians were never called upon to transport such enormous ma.s.ses as some of the Egyptian monoliths, such as the obelisks and the two great colossi at Thebes. But the stone bulls that decorated the palaces of Nineveh were no light weight, and it was not without difficulty that the modern explorers succeeded in conveying them to the borders of the Tigris and loading them on the rafts upon which they began their long journeys to Paris and London. In moving such objects from place to place the a.s.syrians, like the Egyptians, had no secret beyond that of patience, and the unflinching use of human arms and shoulders in unstinted number.[411] We know this from monuments in which the details of the operation are figured even more clearly and with more pictorial power than in the bas-relief at El-Bercheh, which has served to make us acquainted with the methods employed in taking an Egyptian colossus from the quarry to its site.
In Mesopotamia, as in Egypt, there were waterways that could be used at any season for the transport of heavy ma.s.ses. Quarries were made as near the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris as possible, and when a stone monster had to be carried to a town situated at some distance from both those rivers the ca.n.a.ls by which the country was intersected in every direction supplied their place. Going down stream, and especially in flood time, no means of propulsion were required; the course of the boats or rafts was directed by means of heavy oars like those still used by the boatmen who navigate the Tigris in _keleks_, or rafts, supported on inflated hides; in ascending the streams towing was called into play, as we know from one of the Kouyundjik bas-reliefs.[412] In this the stone in course of transport is oblong in shape and is placed upon a wide flat boat, beyond which it extends both at the stern and the bows. It is securely fastened with pieces of wood held together by strong pins. There are three tow ropes, two fastened to the stone itself and the third to the bow of the boat.
The towers pull upon these cables by means of smaller cords pa.s.sed round the shoulders of each and spliced to the main ropes; by such means they could bring far more weight to bear than if they had been content to hold the cable in their hands, as in Egypt. The bas-relief in question is mutilated, but we may guess that a hundred men were attached to each cable, which would make three hundred in all obeying the single will of the superintending engineer who is perched upon the stone and directing their movements. On each flank of the gang march overseers armed with swords and rattans that would be quick to descend on the back and loins of any s.h.i.+rker.
More than one instance of such punishment may be seen on the bas-relief reproduced in part in our Fig. 151. In its lower division two or three of these slave-drivers may be seen with their hands raised against the workmen; in one case the latter sinks to the ground beneath the blows rained upon him. The way in which the whole series of operations is represented in this Kouyundjik relief is most curious. High up in the field we often find the king himself, standing in his chariot and urging on the work. The whole occupies several of Layard's large plates. We can only reproduce the central group, which is the most interesting to the student of engineering in ancient Mesopotamia.