Part 28 (2/2)

The chief incident of the third zone shows us that, like the Egyptians, the a.s.syrians wished to a.s.sure themselves of the protection of some benevolent deity after death. In the Nile valley that protector was Osiris, in Mesopotamia Anou, Oannes, or Dagon, the fish G.o.d to whom man owed the advantages of civilization in this world and his safety in the next. The kingdom of shadows, into which he had to descend after death, was peopled with monstrous shapes, to give some idea of which sculptors had gone far afield among the wild beasts of the earth, and had brought together attributes and weapons that nature never combines in a single animal, such as the claws of the scorpion, the wings and talons of the eagle, the coils of the serpent, the mane and muzzle of the great carnivora. The conception which governs all this is similar to that of which we see the expression in those Theban tombs where the dead man prosecutes his voyage along the streams of Ament, and runs the gauntlet of the grimacing demons who would seize and destroy him but for the s.h.i.+elding presence of Osiris. And the resemblance is continued in the details. The boat is shaped like the Egyptian boats;[443] the river may be compared to the subterranean Nile of the Theban tombs, while it reminds us of the Styx and Acheron of the Grecian Hades. We remember too the line of the chant we have quoted:

”There too stand the foundations of the earth, the meeting of the mighty waters.”

Certain obscure points that still exist in connection with the Chaldaeo-a.s.syrian _inferno_ and with the personages by whom it is peopled, will, no doubt, be removed as the study of the remains progresses. We have been satisfied for the moment to explain, with the help of previous explorers, the notions of the Semites of Mesopotamia upon death and a second life, and to show that they did not differ sensibly from those of the Egyptians or of any other ancient people whose ideas are sufficiently known to us.

NOTES:

[419] See _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. chapter 3.

[420] Upon the tombs found at Nimroud see LAYARD, _Nineveh_, vol. i. pp.

17-19 and p. 352; vol. ii. pp. 37, 38. Some funerary urns discovered at Khorsabad are figured in BOTTA, _Monument_, &c. plate 165. There is one necropolis in a.s.syria that, in the employment of terra-cotta coffins, resembles the graveyards of Chaldaea; it is that of Kaleh-Shergat, which has long been under process of rifling by the Arabs, who find cylinders, engraved stones, and jewels among its graves. PLACE judges from the appearance of the coffins and other objects found that this necropolis dates from the Parthian times (_Ninive_, vol. ii. pp. 183-185). LAYARD is of the same opinion (_Nineveh_, vol. ii. pp. 58, 154, 155). Mr. Ra.s.sam found tombs at Kouyundjik, but much too late to be a.s.syrian (LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, p. 198, note). Loftus found some bones in a roughly-built vault some seventeen feet below the level of the south-eastern palace at Nimroud, but he acknowledges he saw nothing to lead him to a.s.sign these remains to the a.s.syrian epoch more than to any other (_Travels and Researches_, p. 198). Layard was disposed to see in the long and narrow gallery cleared by him at Nimroud (in the middle of the staged tower that rises at the north-western corner of the mound) a sepulchral vault in which the body of a king must once have been deposited (_Discoveries_, pp. 126, 128), but he confesses that he found nothing in it, neither human remains nor any trace of sepulchral furniture. His conjecture is therefore entirely in the air, and he himself only puts it forth under all reserve. The difficulty of this inquiry is increased by the fact that the people of different religions by whom the a.s.syrians were succeeded always chose by preference to bury their dead at high levels.

Even in our own day it is, as a rule, upon the heights studded over the plains that Christians, Mussulmans, and Yezidis establish their cemeteries; and these have become grave obstacles to the explorer in consequence of the natural disinclination on the part of the peasantry to disturb what may be the ashes of their ancestors. BENNDORF (_Gesichtshelme_, plate xiv. figs. 1 and 2) reproduces two golden masks similar to those found at Mycenae, which were found, the one at Kouyundjik, the other at some unknown point in the same district; he mentions (pp. 66, 67) a third discovery of the same kind.

But the character of the objects found with these masks seems clearly to show that the tombs from which they were taken were at least as late as the Seleucidae, if not as the Roman emperors (Cf. HOFFMANN, in the _Archaologische Zeitung_ for 1878, pp. 25-27).

[421] When we come to speak of Chaldaean sculpture, we shall give a reproduction of this relief. We cannot make much use of it in the present inquiry, because its meaning is so obscure. The stone is broken, and the imperfections of the design are such that we can hardly tell what the artist meant to represent. The two figures with baskets on their heads for instance--are they bringing funeral offerings, or covering with earth the heaped-up corpses on which they mount?

[422] LAYARD, _Monuments_, 1st series, plates 14, 21, 26, 57, 64, &c.

[423] In more than one battle scene do we find these birds floating over the heads of the combatants (LAYARD, _Monuments_, 1st series, plates 18, 22, 26, &c). We may also refer to the curious monument from Tell-loh, in which vultures carrying off human heads and limbs in the clouds are represented. For an engraving of it see our chapter on Chaldaean sculpture.

[424] See an article published by M. J. HALeVY in the _Revue archeologique_, vol. xliv. p. 44, under the t.i.tle: _L'Immortalite de l'ame chez les Peuples semitiques_.

[425] PLACE, _Ninive_, vol. ii. p. 184.

[426] LOFTUS, _Travels and Researches_, pp. 198, 199.

[427] LOFTUS especially speaks strongly upon this point (_Travels_, &c. p.

199). ”By far the most important of these sepulchral cities is Warka, where the enormous acc.u.mulation of human remains proves that it was a peculiarly sacred spot, and that it was so esteemed for many centuries. It is difficult to convey anything like a correct notion of the piles upon piles of human relics which there utterly astound the beholder. Excepting only the triangular s.p.a.ce between the three princ.i.p.al ruins, the whole remainder of the platform, the whole s.p.a.ce between the walls, and an unknown extent of desert beyond them, are everywhere filled with the bones and sepulchres of the dead. There is probably no other site in the world which can compare with Warka in this respect; even the tombs of Ancient Thebes do not contain such an aggregate amount of mortality. From its foundation by Urukh until finally abandoned by the Parthians--a period of probably 2,500 years--Warka appears to have been a sacred burial-place!”

[428] See the curious paper of M. E. LE BLANT ent.i.tled: _Tables egyptiennes a Inscriptions grecques_ (_Revue archeologique_, 1874).

[429] In his sixth and seventh chapters LOFTUS gives a very interesting account of his visits to the sanctuaries of Nedjef and Kerbela.

[430] The work he alludes to as his a.s.surioi logoi (i. 184).

[431] HERODOTUS, i. 198.

[432] See above, pp. 158-9 and fig. 49. The details that here follow are borrowed from the narrations of those who have explored the sepulchral mounds of lower Chaldaea. Perhaps the most important of these relations is that of Mr. J. E. TAYLOR, to which we have already referred so often (_Notes on the Ruins of Mugheir_, to which may be added his _Notes on Abou-Sharein and Tell-el-Lahm_, p. 413, in the same volume of the _Journal_). Cf. LOFTUS's eighteenth chapter (_Travels_, &c. p. 198) and the pages in LAYARD's _Discoveries_, from 556 to 561.

[433] ”Each of the Babylonians,” says HERODOTUS (i. 195), ”carries a seal and a walking-stick carved at the top into the form of an apple, a rose, a lily, an eagle, or something similar, for it is not their habit to use a stick without an ornament.”

[434] LOFTUS, _Travels_, p. 212.

[435] See _Art in Ancient Egypt_, vol. i. p. 145, note 3.

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