Part 22 (2/2)

Marduk appears in this inscription as the principal deity of Babylon, holding the place that Ashur does on the reat Lord,” ”Lord of Lord,” ”Elder of the Gods,” &c Nebu see for what he has already done, and prays for his blessing on himself and his house[215]

It eneral plan the Babylonian palaces and temples reseion, the customs, and the laws of the two kindred people were nearly identical They spoke, also, the sae, and used, very nearly, the same written characters One appears to have borrowed fro to decide the question of priority of independent existence as a nation and of civilisation, it can be adin, and that they maintained for many centuries an intimate connection We find no remains of columns at Babylon, as none have been found at Nineveh If such architectural ornaments were used, they must have been either of wood or of brick The yptian-like capitals, usually chosen by artists for the restoration of Belshazzar's palaces and temples, are theremains whatever The Babylonian column more probably resembled, in form and proportions, that of Nineveh and Persepolis It may have been a ave birth to the Persian, for it was through Babylon that the arts appear to have penetrated partly, if not entirely, into Persia

Although the building reat edifices of Babylon may seem extremely mean when compared with those eypt, and even in the less massive edifices of assyria, yet the Babylonians appear to have raised, with them alone, structures which excited the wonder and admiration of the most famous travellers of antiquity The profuse use of color, and the taste displayed in its coether with the solidity and vastness of the is proudly stood, may have chiefly contributed to produce this effect upon the ers The palaces and temples, like those of Nineveh, were erected upon lofty platforin of assyrian architecture, which I have elsewhere described,[216] was especially that of Babylon The bricks, as in assyria, were either simply baked in the sun, or were burnt in the kiln The latter are of more than one shape and quality So[217] Those froenerally of a dark red color, whilst those froht yellow Speciht to this country, and are to be found in many public and private collections

The Babylonian inscribed bricks long excited the curiosity of the learned, and gave rise to a variety of ingenious speculations as to their use andBy some they were believed to be public docu dedications to the Gods, or registers of gifts to temples The question has now been entirely set at rest by the discovery made by Dr

Hincks, that almost every brick hitherto obtained from the ruins of Babylon bears the same inscription, with the exception of one or two uni of the city of Nebuchadnezzar the son of Nabubaluchun (?)

A few inscribed tablets of stone and baked clay, figures in bronze and terracotta, ems, have been almost the only undoubted Babylonian antiquities hitherto brought to Europe Such relics are preserved in inal collection in the British Museued partly to Sir Robert Ker Porter, and partly to Mr Rich

It may not be out of place to add a few remarks upon the history of Babylon The time of the foundation of this celebrated city is still a question which does not admit of a satisfactory determination, and into which I will not enter Some believe it to have taken place at a coyptian scholars assert, the nayptian dynasty, we have positive evidence of its existence at least in the fifteenth century before Christ[218] After the rise of the assyrian empire, it appears to have been at one tis of Nineveh, and at another to have been governed by its own independent chiefs

Expeditions against Babylonia are recorded in the earliest inscriptions yet discovered in assyria; and, as it has been seen, even in the tie arainst its rebellious inhabitants The Babylonian kingdom was, however, almost absorbed in that of assyria, the doan to decline, Babylon rose for the last time Media and Persia were equally ready to throw off the assyrian yoke, and at length the allied armies of Cyaxares and the father of Nebuchadnezzar captured and destroyed the capital of the Eastern world

Babylon now rapidly succeeded to that proud position so long held by Nineveh Under Nebuchadnezzar she acquired the power forfeited by her rival The bounds of the city were extended; buildings of extraordinary size and nificence were erected; her victorious arypt Her commerce, too, had now spread far and wide, from the east to the west, and she became ”a land of traffic and a city of reatness as an independent nation was short-lived The neighbouring kingdoms of Media and Persia, united under one monarch, had profited, no less than Babylon, by the ruin of the assyrian empire, and were ready to dispute with her the dominion of Asia Scarcely half a century had elapsed fro of the Chaldaeeans, was slain, and Darius, the Median, took the kingdom”[220] From that time Babylonia sank into a mere province of Persia

After the defeat of Darius and the overthrow of the Persian supreates to Alexander, who deehty empire On his return from India he wished to rebuild the tereat work he had intended to eer needed for war The priests, however, who had appropriated the revenues of this sacred shrine, and feared lest they would have again to apply thehtful purposes, appear to have prevented hin[221]

The last blow to the prosperity and even existence of Babylon was given by Seleucus when he laid the foundation of his new capital on the banks of the Tigris (B C 322) Already Patrocles, his general, had coe number of the inhabitants to abandon their hoe in the Desert, and in the province of Susiana The city, exhausted by the neighbourhood of Seleucia, returned to its ancient solitude According to some authors, neither the walls nor the teer, and only a few Chaldaeans continued to dwell around the ruins of their sacred edifices

Still, however, a part of the population appears to have returned to their former seats, for in the early part of the second century of the Christian era we find the Parthian king, Eve numerous families froreat and beautiful edifices still standing in the city

In the tiustus, the city is said to have been entirely deserted, except by a feho still lingered ast the ruins St Cyril, of Alexandria, declares, that in his day, about the beginning of the fifth century, in consequence of the choking up of the great canals derived from the Euphrates, Babylon had become a vastchanged its course, leaving only a small channel to mark its ancient bed Then were verified the prophecies of Isaiah and Jerehty Babylon should be but ”pools of water,” ”that the sea should come upon her, and that she should be covered with theof the seventh century, at the time of the Arab invasion, the ancient cities of Babylonia were ”a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness” Amidst the heaps that marked the site of Babylon herself there rose the s before Babylon had overcome her rival Nineveh she was famous for the extent and importance of her commerce No position could have then beenon a trade with all the regions of the knoorld Even only moderate skill and enterprise could scarcely fail to make Babylon, not only the emporium of the Eastern world, but the main link of commercial intercourse between the East and the West

The inhabitants did not neglect the advantages bestowed upon theable canals that ineer, connected together the Euphrates and Tigris, those great arteries of her coe of the art of surveying, and of the principles of hydraulics, the Babylonians took advantage of the different levels in the plains, and of the periodical rises in the two rivers, to complete the water communication between all parts of the province, and to fertilise by artificial irrigation an otherwise barren and unproductive soil

Alexander, after he had transferred the seat of his empire to the East, so fully understood the ireat works, that he ordered them to be cleansed and repaired, and superintended the work in person, steering his boat with his own hand through the channels

High-roads and causeways across the Desert united Syria and Palestine with Babylonia Fortified stations protected thetribes of Arabia, walled cities served as resting-places and store-houses, and wells at regular intervals gave an abundant supply of water during the hottest season of the year One of those highas carried through the centre of Mesopota the Euphrates near the town of Anthemusia led into central Syria A second appears to have left Babylon by the western quarter of the city, and entered Iduh the country of the Nabathaeans Others branched off to Tadmor, and to cities which were built in the midst of the Desert almost solely for purposes of trade

To the east of Babylonia was the celebrated military and commercial road described by Herodotus It led from Sardis to Susa in ninety days journey, and was furnished, at intervals of about fifteen miles, with stations and public hostelries, probably rese the modern caravanserais of Persia

Merchandise and travellers descended the rivers upon rafts of skins, as well as in boats built of reeds coated with bitumen, or of more solid materials The land trade was no doubt principally carried on, as at the present day, by caravans of oods on the backs of camels, horses, and asses

It is difficult to deterated in vessels the Indian Ocean Of the various articles of merchandise stored in Babylon, the produce of the islands and shores of the Persian Gulf, and even of India, formed no inconsiderable part Pearls, from the fisheries of Bahrein, which still supply Arabia, Persia, and Turkey, and perhaps even from Ceylon; cotton, spices, frankincense, precious stones, ivory, ebony, silks, and dyes, were aht to her markets They could only have been obtained from the southern coasts of Arabia, and directly or indirectly from the Indian peninsula We learn fro the country at the ris and Euphrates possessed vessels in which, when defeated by the assyrians, they took refuge on the sea The prophet Isaiah also alludes to the shi+ps of the Chaldaeans[224] Ti could have been floated with ease from the mountains of Armenia to the very quays of Babylon, or to her ports at the head of the Persian Gulf

A race of dogs, ht from India A satrap of Babylon is declared to have devoted the revenues of four cities, to the support of a number of these animals On a small terracotta tablet in the British Museum, frohdad, but probably found in soure of a , which has been identified with a species still existing in Thibet

Tin, cedar-wood, and various articles, were brought from Phoenicia and other parts of Syria, which were in return supplied with the produce of India and the Persian Gulf, through Babylon[225]

Whilst the Babylonians thus imported the produce of the East and West, they also supplied foreign countries withto tradition first greild in Mesopotareat extent, and was sent to distant provinces The Babylonian carpets, silks, and woollen fabrics, woven or eures of ns, were not less famous for the beauty of their texture and workmanshi+p, than for the richness and variety of their colors The ar after she had ceased to be a city[226]

The engraved gems and cylinders discovered in the ruins bear ample witness to the skill of the Babylonian lapidaries Many of these relics exist in European collections, and, during my residence at Hillah, I was able to obtain several interesting specimens from the Arabs, who usually pick them up on the mounds after rain The most remarkable of them is a cylinder of spotted sienite, upon which are incised seven figures, and a few Babylonian characters The letters of the inscription are rudely formed, and have not yet been deciphered

Another interesting geate cone, upon the base of which is engraved a winged priest or deity, standing in an attitude of prayer before a cock on an altar Above this group is the crescent al, the idol of the men of Cuth, had the form of a cock[227]