Chapter 8

[1]Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 64.

[2]The new discoveries, in their general effect, do not involve any drastic changes in the accepted chronological scheme, as the local rearrangements largely counterbalance one another; see below,p. 117f.

[3]Cf. "Letters of Hammurabi," III., pp. lxviii, 236 f.

[4]See "Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings," I., p. 68 f.; 11., p. 17 f.

[5]Cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Inscriptions de Sumener et d'Akkad," p. 300, n. 3; and "Sum. und Akkad. Königsinschriften," p. 210 f., notek.

[6]Cf. "Letters of Hammurabi," III., pp. xxvi ff.

[7]Their votive inscriptions are collected by Thureau-Dangin, "Königsinschriften," pp. 206 ff.

[8]Knowing that I was engaged upon this volume of my History and that it would probably be printed off before his own work left the press, Professor Clay very kindly sent me a transcript of his Larsa Kings' List with full permission to make use of it. To enable the reader to follow the argument with regard to the dynasty and its chronology, the following transliteration and rendering may be given of the text: "21 MU Na-ap-la-nu-um | 28 MU E-mi-su I 35 MU Sa-mn-um | 9 MU Za-ba-aia | 27 MU Gu-un-gu-nu-um | 11 MU A-bi-sa-ri-e | 29 MU Su-mu-ilum | 16 MU Nu-ur-(ilu)Adad | 7 (?) MU (ilu)Sin-idin-nam | 2 MU (ilu)Sin-i-ri-ba-am | 6(?) MU(ilu)Sin-i-ki-sha-am | 1 MU Sili(li)-(ilu)Adad | 12 MU Warad-(ilu)Sin | 61 MU (ilu)Ri-im-(ilu)Sin | 12 (?) MU (ilu)Ha-am-mu-ra-bi | 12 MU Sa-am-su-i-lu-na sharru | 289 MU-III." In the translation that follows, a semicolon separates each line of the text: "21 years Naplanum; 28 years Emisa; 35 years Samum; 9 years Zabâia; 27 years Gungunum; 11 years Abi-sarê; 29 years Sumu-ilum; 10 years Nûr-Adad; 7(?) years Sin-idinnam; 2 years Sin-iribam; 6(?) years Sin-iḳîsham; 1 year Sili-Adad; 12 years Warad-Sin; 61 years Rîm-Sin; 12(?) years Hammurabi; 12 years Samsu-iluna, the king; 289 the years thereof." From the insertion of the wordsharru,"king," after Samsu-iluna's name, we may infer that the list is a contemporaneous document, drawn up in Samsu-iluna's twelfth year. Another point of interest is that the scribe has written the determinative for divinity before the names of Rîm-Sin and Hammurabi, but not before that of Samsu-iluna. The numbers followed by a query are those suggested by Professor Clay for the three broken passages; it will be noted that they make up the total of the figures, which is given by the scribe as two hundred and eighty-nine years.

[9]See above, p. 88.

[10]See further, p. 98 f.

[11]It should be noted that the name of the Babylonian city now usually rendered as Isin should be more correctly read as Nîsin. This is suggested by two forms of the name, which Prof. Clay tells me occur on two tablets in the Yale Babylonian Collection, Nos. 5415 and 5417; in the date-formulæ upon these tablets the city's name is written asNi-i-si-in(KI) andNi-i-si-in-na(KI). Eventually the initial was dropped; cf. p. 254, n. 2.

[12]Cf. "Chronicles," I., p. 168, n. 1.

[13]Cf. Hilprecht, "Mathematical, Metrological and Chronological Tablets" (in "Bab. Exped.," Ser. A., Vol. X., i.), p. 55, n. 1.

[14]Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," pp. 63, 313 f.

[15]The identification of Rîm-Sin's capture of Nîsin with that referred to in Sin-muballit's seventeenth year was first suggested in "Letters of Hammurabi," III., p. 228, n. 39, and it was adopted for purposes of chronology,'by Hilprecht, "Math., Met., and Chron. Tabl.," p. 50, note; Meyer, "Geschichte," I., ii., pp. 345, 556; Ungnad, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1908, Col. 66, and "Z.D.M.G.," LVI., p. 714, and others. Langdon has recently sought to identify Rîm-Sin's capture with that referred to in the formula for Hammurabi's seventh year; see "The Expositor," 1910, p. 131, and "Babyloniaca," 1914, p. 41, and cf. Chiera, "Legal and Administrative Documents," p. 24 f. For Chiera's own researches on the point, see below,p. 93f.

[16]Cf. Edward Chiera, "Legal and Administrative Documents from Nippur chiefly from the Dynasties of Isin and Larsa" (in "University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications, Babylonian Section," Vol. VIII., No. 1), pp. 19 ff.

[17]Op. cit.,p. 22.

[18]Cf. Chiera,op. cit.,pl. ix., No. 15, 11. 27 ff.; pl. xxiii., No. 35, 11. 20 ff.; and p. 21, No. 26.

[19]Op. cit.,pl. vii., No. 12, 11. 29, 35 f.; pl. xxxv., No. 81, 11. 2, 23 ff.; and p. 20, No. 6.

[20]Professor Clay has written to inform me that on the two tablets Y.b.c., Nos. 4229 and 4270, the usual formula for the second year of the Nîsin era is followed by the wordsshag mu ki XVIII-kam,which may be rendered "within the eighteenth year,"i.e.corresponding to the eighteenth year. On one tablet the addition to the usual date takes the formshag mu ki XVIII-kam in-ag (?),but Prof. Clay is not quite certain of the reading of the signag,which, he writes, "because the tablet was cased, is badly twisted." If the reading is correct it is important, for the addition may then be rendered "within (i.e.corresponding to) the eighteenth year that he reigned," the wordin-agbeing the verb usually employed in Sumerian dynastic lists in sentences stating the number of years a king reigned. Two other long date-formulæ for the same year (on tablets Y.b.c., Nos. 4307 and 4481) begin as follows:mu ki II dim(?) mu ki XIX giš-ku-makh Ana (dingir) En-lil (dingir) En-ki,etc. Here the reading of the signdimis not absolutely certain, but, assuming its correctness, the formula may be rendered: "The second year (corresponding to the nineteenth year) in which with the exalted weapon of Anu, Enlil and Ea, Rîm-Sin the king took the city of Nîsin," etc. It will be seen that the readings, which are suggested by Prof. Clay for the two uncertain signs in the formulæ, give excellent sense, and, if correct, they definitely prove that the second figures in the equations were derived from Rîm-Sin's regnal years. Hut, even if we regard the two signs as quite uncertain, the general interpretation of the double-dates is not affected; it would be difficult to explain them on any other hypothesis than that adopted in the text.

[21]Some of his earlier date-formulæ have been recovered; see below,p. 155.

[22]For many years past the latest date recovered of the Nîsin era was one of the thirtieth year; see Scheil, "Recueil de travaux," XXI. (1899), p. 125, and cf. "Letters of Hammurabi," III., p. 229. Prof. Clay informs me that among the tablets of the Yale Babylonian Collection is one dated in the thirty-first year of the fall of Nîsin.

[23]The fact that they had always dated by formulæ, and not by numbered years of the king's reign, is quite sufficient to explain the uncertainty as to whether the accession-year should be included in their reckoning. Thus the apparent discrepancy in the double-dates, so far from weakening the explanation put forward in the text, really affords it additional support and confirmation.

[24]See below, p. 190.

[25]See "Chronicles concerning early Babylonian Kings," II.. p. 18.

[26]Cf. Winckler, "Orient. Lit.-Zeit.," 1907, Col. 585 f., and Hrozný, "Wiener Zeitschrift," Bd. 21 (1908), p. 382.

[27]Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 317, n. 2. The broken line in the chronicle reads: (.........)zu-na-a (m)Rîm-(ilu)Sin ana (.........) illik(ik),"(.........) ... Rîm-Sin to (.........) marched." The rendering suggested by Winckler and Hrozný was: "[.........]zuna, the son of Rîm-Sin, to (.........) marched;" but their translation ignored the fact that, in these late chronicles, "son" is always expressed by the sign TUR (mâru,) never by A (aplu).

[28]Cf.Ungnad, "Zeits. für Assyr.," XXIII., pp. 73 ff., and Thureau-Dangin, "Journal Asiatique," xiv., 1909, pp. 335 ff.

[29]The difference in price may perhaps be traced to the political revolution, which may have enabled one of the parties to exact better terms from the other.

[30]See above, p. 90 f.

[31]Cf. "Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings," I., p. 184 f.

[32]See above, p. 93 f.

[33]See above, p. 94, n. 2.

[34]If Ibḳushu was appointed priest in Damiḳ-ilishu's last year, the interval would be exactly forty-four years; but as Damiḳ-ilishu reigned for twenty-three years, Ibḳushu may well have been appointed several years earlier.

[35]See Poebel, "Babylonian Legal and Business Documents," pl. 3, No. 6, 11. 25, 30 ff., and pl. 11, No. 23, 11. 33, 36 ff.; and cf. Chiera, "Legal and Administrative Documents from Nippur," p. 21, No. 24.

[36]Cf. Chiera,op. cit.,p. 22. Chiera's own deduction from the proper names (pp. 29 ff.) must of course be modified in view of the Larsa Kings' List; but his data hold good.

[37]On the suggested hypothesis with regard to the Larsa List, Rîm-Sin's capture of Nîsin would have taken place two years after Hammurabi's attack on that city. But, if we reject the hypothesis, the Nîsin era would have begun in Sin-muballit's seventh year.

[38]See pp. 142 ff. The survival of the Nîsin era, during the first years of Larsa's vassalage, seems to offer less difficulties than those involved in an acceptance of Rîm-Sin's sixty-one years of independent rule, followed at first by twenty-one or twenty-two years of political obscurity, and then by a period of active operations in the field. And, apart from the improbabilities involved in the length of Rîm-Sin's life, the further difficulty of the interruption of the Nîsin era by Sin-muballit's and Hammurabi's conquests of the city would still remain (see above,p. 92f.).

[39]That was the view I suggested in "Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings," I., pp. 96 ff., and it was adopted by Meyer, "Geschichte des Altertums," Bd. I., Hft, ii., p. 340 f.

[40]Cf. "Sumer and Akkad," p. 63, n. 2.

[41]See Poebel, "Business Documents," pl. 40, No. 68, and Chiera, "Legal and Administrative Documents," pi. xl., No. 89.

[42]Cf. "Chronicles," II., pp. 19 ff. That the Sea-Country was Babylon's most powerful rival at this time may be inferred from the inclusion of Iluma-ilum's name in the Chronicle. He is evidently selected for mention as the leader of the most notable invasion of the period.

[43]See above, p. 90, note.

[44]See Schorr, "Urkunden des altbab. Ziv. und Prozessrechts," p. 595.

[45]We know that Iluma-ilum was the contemporary of Abi-eshu' as well as of Samsu-iluna. As he is credited by the Kings' List with a reign of sixty years, it is possible, if we accept that figure, that he had established his dynasty in the Sea-Country some years before attacking Larsa. His accession has been placed as early as Hammurabi's twenty-sixth year (cf. Thureau-Dangin, "Zeits. für Assyr.," XXI., pp. 176 ff.), though the same writer, by making a reduction of twenty years in his dates for the Third and Second Dynasties, afterwards assumed that he secured his throne in Samsu-iluna's fourth year (op. cit.,p. 185 f.). As we have no evidence that Iluma-ilum was Hammurabi's contemporary, it is safer to place his accession in Samsu-iluna's reign; and, in that case, the date-formula for the twelfth year appears to offer the most probable occasion for his revolt.

[46]The figures are probably not absolutely accurate; see below,p. 209, n. 1.

[47]see his "Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel," 1907-1913.

[48]This, the principal text, is numbered K. 160, and its text was published by George Smith in Rawlinson's "Cun. Inscr. West. Asia," III., pl. 63. Translations and studies have been given of it by Sayce, "Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch.," III. (1874), pp. 316 ff.; by Sayce and Bosanquet, "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society," XL. (1880). p. 566 ff., and by Schiaparelli, "Venusbeobachtungen und Berechnungen der Babylonier" (1906). For other references, see Bezold, "Catalogue," I., p. 42.

[49]The second of the two inscriptions is numbered K. 2821 + K. 3032, and its text has been published by Craig, "Astrological-Astronomical Texts." pl. 46; cf. also Virolleaud, "L'Astrologie Chaldéenne," Ishtar XII., XV. and XIV.

[50]Cf. "Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Mabel," Buch II., Teil ii., Hft. I, pp. 257 ff. In addition to broken passages occurring in the two texts, some scribal errors appear to have crept in in the course of transmission.

[51]From contemporary date-formulæ we know that Ammi-zaduga reigned for more than seventeen years. The Babylonian Kings' List ascribes him twenty-one.

[52]According to this criterion, Anuni-zaduga's sixth year could have fallen in 2036-5b.c., or in 1972-1b.c., or in 1853-2b.c., thus giving for his first year the three possible dates, 2041-40b.c., or 1977-6b.c., or 1858-7b.c.

[53]For this purpose it may be used in conjunction with the later Assyrian synchronisms, and with the date of Burna-Buriash as obtained from Egyptian sources (see below,p. 111).

[54]It may be worth while noting-that, if we place the whole of Rîm-Sin's reign of sixty-one years before Hammurabi's conquest of Larsa, we raise the first two dates given in the text by twenty-two years. On that assumption the Dynasty of Nîsin would have been founded in 2361b.c., and that of Larsa in 2357b.c.Consequently the Dynasties of Nîsin and of Babylon would have overlapped for a period of eighty-nine years, instead of one hundred and eleven. But the balance of probability is in favour of the later dates; see above, p. 103, n. 2.

[55]See Bezold, "Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch.," XI., pp. 94, 99, and pl. iv., 85-4-30, 2, Col. II., 11. 20 ff., and Rawlinson, "Cun. Inscr. West. Asia," I., 69, Col. II., 1. 4; cf. also Langdon, "Neubabylonischen Königsinschriften," p. 238 f.

[56]See "Chronicles," I., p. 87 f.

[57]An approximate date of 1430-1400b.c.is assigned to him by Budge, "History of Egypt," Vol. IV., pp. 113 ff.; while his accession is placed in 1383b.c.by Pétrie, "History of Egypt," Vol. II., pp. 205 ff.; in 1380b.c.by Meyer, "Ægyptische Chronologie," p. 68, and "Geschichte," I., ii., p. 335 f., and Hall, "Ancient History of the Near East," p. 228; and in 1375b.c.by Breasted, "History of Egypt," p. 509, and "Ancient Records," Vol. I., p. 43. Maspero implies a date of about 1380b.c.; cf. "Histoire ancienne," II., p. 337, note.

[58]According to Dr. Budge's scheme of chronology, an approximate date of 1400b.c.for Burna-Buriash would yield for Hammurabi a date of c. 2100b.c.(equivalent to his twenty-fourth year).

[59]See Hilprecht, "Old Babylonian Inscriptions," Pt. I., pi. 30 f., No. 83; cf. also Jensen, "Zeits. für Assyr.," VIII., pp. 220 ff.

[60]Cf. King, "Tukulti-Ninib I.," p. 118 f.

[61]See Rawlinson, "Cun. Inscr. West. Asia," Vol. III., pl. 38, No. 1, Obv. 1. 10.

[62]See below, p. 133.

[63]That Berossus depended on native lists of rulers in compiling his first dynasty of semi-mythical kings has been strikingly confirmed by documents discovered recently in the Niffer Collection of tablets preserved in the Pennsylvania Museum. These have been published by Poebel, "Univ. of Pennsyl. Mus. Publications," Vol. IV., No. I, and Vol. V., and the new information they furnish is of great interest for the earlier history. It may be noted that the figure 34,090 is that given for the duration of the dynasty in Syncellus (ed. Dindorf, p. 147); in the equivalent in sars, etc., which is added (i.e.9sars,2ners,and 8soss= 34,080 years), it is probable that the units are intentionally ignored, though some would regard 34,080 as the correct figure (see below,p. 115). In Eusebius ("Chron. lib. I.," ed. Schoene, Col. 25) the figure is 33,091 (probably a mistake for 34,091); this figure at any rate confirms the reading of ninety (against eighty) in Syncellus, cf. Meyer, "Beiträge zur alten Geschichte (Klio)," III., p. 133; and see further, p. 116 f., n. 5.

[64]Eusebius, "Chron. lib. I.," ed. Schoene, Col. 25; see also Schwartz in Pauly-Wissowa, "Real-Encyclopädie," III. (i.). Col. 311.

[65]In margin of MSS. 34 years.

[66]In margin of MSS. 48 years.

[67]See further, p. 115 f.

[68]Those before the Deluge are said to have reigned for a hundred and twentysars, i.e.432,000 years.

[69]Eusebius, "Chron. lib. I.," ed. Schoene, Col. 53: "Hoc pacto Khaldæi suæ regionis reges ab Aloro usque ad Alexandrum recensent."

[70]See above, p. 114, n. 1.

[71]"Chron. lib. I.," ed. Schoene, Col. 25: "postquos, inquit (sc.Poly-histor), rex Chaldæorum extitit, cui nomen Phulus est."

[72]That is to say, at the point marked by the group Χίνξηρος καὶ Πῶros in the Ptolemaic Canon. Ukîn-zêr is an abbreviation of Nabû-mukîn-zêr.

[73]See above, p. 114, n. 4.

[74]Cf. Meyer, "Beiträge zur alten Geschichte (Klio)," III., pp. 131 ff.

[75]The statement occurs in the commentary of Simplicius upon Aristotle's "De Caelo," and the Greek text reads 31,000; cf. ed. Heiberg, p. 506. But in a Latin translation by Moerbeka the figure is given as 1903, and this probably represents the original reading; cf. Lehmann-Haupt, "Zwei Hauptprobleme," pp. 109 f., 210, and Meyer,op. cit.,p. 131.

[76]The Pennsylvania documents published by Poebel (see above,p. 114, n. 1) suggest that variant traditions were current with regard to the number of mythical and semi-mythical rulers of Babylonia and the duration of their rule. For instance, in two of the lists drawn up under the Nîsin kings, and separated from one another by an interval of only sixty-seven years, the total duration of the preceding dynasties appears to be given in one as 32,243, and in the other as 28,876 years. But this fact does not, of course, prevent the use of the figures which have come to us from Berossus, in order to ascertain the beginning of the historical period in the system he employed.

The rise of Babylon to a position of pre-eminence among the warring dynasties of Sumer and Akkad may be regarded as sealing the final triumph of the Semite over the Sumerian. His survival in the long racial contest was due to the reinforcements he received from men of his own stock, whereas the Sumerian population, when once settled in the country, was never afterwards renewed. The great Semitic wave, under which the Sumerian sank and finally disappeared, reached the Euphrates from the coast-lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. But the Amurru, or Western Semites, like their predecessors in Northern Babylonia, had come originally from Arabia. For it is now generally recognized that the Arabian peninsula was the first home and cradle of the Semitic peoples. Arabia, like the plains of Central Asia, was, in fact, one of the main breeding-grounds of the human race, and during the historic period we may trace four great migrations of Semitic nomad tribes, which successively broke away from the northern margin of the Arabian pasture-lands and spread over the neighbouring countries like a flood. The first great racial movement of the kind is that of which the effects were chiefly apparent in Akkad, or Northern Babylonia, where the Semites first obtained a footing when overrunning the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. The second is distinguished from the first, as the Canaanite or Amorite, since it gave to Canaan its Semitic inhabitants; but how long an interval separated the one movement from the other it is impossible to say. The process may wellhave been a continuous one, with merely a change in the direction of advance; but it is convenient to distinguish them by their effects as separate movements, the sensitization of Canaan following that of Babylonia, but at the same time contributing to its complete success. Of the later migrations we are not for the moment concerned, and in any case only one of them falls within the period of this history. That was the third great movement, which began in the fourteenth century and has been termed the Aramean from the kingdom it established in Syria with its capital at Damascus. The fourth, and last, took place in the seventh century of our own era, when the armies of Islam, after conquering Western Asia and Northern Africa, penetrated even to South-Western Europe. It was by far the most extensive of the four in the area it covered, and, in spite of being the last of the series, it illustrates the character and methods of the earlier movements in their initial stages, when the desert nomad, issuing in force from his own borders, came within the area of settled civilization.

It is true that great tracts of Central Arabia are to-day quite uninhabitable, but there is reason to believe that its present condition of aridity was not so marked in earlier periods. We have definite proof of this in the interior of Southern Arabia, where there is still a belt of comparatively fertile country between the flat coastal regions and the steep mountain range, that forms the southern boundary of the central plateau.[1]On the coast itself there is practically no rainfall, and even on the higher slopes away from the coast it is very scanty. Here the herds of goats frequently go without water for many weeks, and they have learnt to pull up and chew the fleshy roots of a species of cactus to quench their thirst. But further still inland there is a broad belt of country, which is marvellously fertile and in a high state of cultivation. The rainfall there is regular during a portion of the year, the country is timbered, and the main mountain range, though possessing no towns of any size, is thickly dotted withstrong fighting towers, which dominate the well-farmed and flourishing villages. To the north of the range, beyond the cultivation, is a belt roamed over by the desert-nomads with their typical black tents of woven goat-hair, and then comes the central desert, a region of rolling sand. But here and there the ruins of palaces and temples may still be seen rising from the sand or built on some slight eminence above its level.

At the time of the Sabæan kingdom, as early as the sixth centuryb.c., this region of Southern Arabia must have been far more fertile than it is at the present day. The shifting sand, under the driving pressure of the simoom, doubtless played its part in overwhelming tracts of cultivated country; but that alone cannot account for the changed conditions. The researches of Stein, Pumpelly, Huntington and others have shown the results of desiccation in Central Asia,[2]and it is certain that a similar diminution of the rainfall has taken place in the interior of Southern Arabia.[3]To such climatic changes, which seem, according to the latest theories, to occur in recurrent cycles,[4]we may probably trace the great racial migrations from Central Arabia, which have given their inhabitants to so many countries of Western Asia and North Africa.

It is possible to form a very clear picture of the Semite who issued from this region, for the life of the pastoral nomad, all the world over, is the same.[5]And even at the present day, in the hollows of the Arabian desert, there is enough deposit of moisture to allow of a sufficient growth of grass for pasture-lands, capable of supporting nomadic tribes, who move with their flocks of sheep and goats from one more favoured areato another. The life of such a nomad is forced into one mould by the conditions imposed by the desert; for the grass-land cannot support him and he must live on the milk and young of his flocks. He is purely a shepherd, carrying with him the simplest and lightest tents, tools, and weapons for his needs. The type of society is that of the patriarchal family, for each nomad tribe consists of a group of relatives; and, under the direction of their chief, not only the men of the clan, but the women and children, all take an active part in tending the flocks and in practising the simple arts of skin-curing and the weaving of hair and wool. So long as the pasture-lands can support his flocks, the nomad is content to leave the settled agriculturist beyond the desert edge in peace. Some of the semi-nomad tribes upon the margin of the cultivation may engage in barter with their more civilised neighbours, and even at times demand subsidies for leaving their crops in peace. But the bulk of the tribes would normally remain within their own area, while conditions existed which were capable of supplying the needs of their simple life. It is when the pasture lands dry up that the nomad must leave his own area or perish, and it is then that he descends upon the cultivation and proceeds to adapt himself to new conditions, should he conquer the settled races whose higher culture he himself absorbs.

While still held within the grip of the desert, there was never any prospect of his development or advance in civilization. The only great changes that have taken place in the life of the Arabian nomad have been due to the introduction of the horse and the camel. But these have merely increased his mobility, while leaving the man himself unchanged. The Arabs of the seventh centuryb.c., depicted in the reliefs from Nineveh as fleeing on their camels before the advance of the Assyrians, can have differed in no essential feature from their earliest predecessors, who made their way to the Euphrates valley on foot or with only the ass as a beast of burden. For, having once succeeded in domesticating his flocks and in living by their means upon the rolling steppes of pasture-land, the nomad's needs arefully satisfied, and his ways of life survive through succeeding generations. He cannot accumulate possessions, as he must be able to carry all his goods continually with him, and his knowledge of the uneventful past is derived entirely from oral tradition. The earliest inscriptions recovered in Arabia are probably not anterior to the sixth centuryb.c., and they were naturally not the work of nomads, but of Semitic tribes who had forsaken their wanderings for the settled life of village and township in the more hospitable regions of the south.

FIG. 32.ARABS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURYb.c.From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum.

FIG. 32.

ARABS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURYb.c.

From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum.

The Amurru, or Western Semites, to whose incursion into Babylonia the rise of Babylon itself was directly due, had long abandoned a nomadic existence, and in addition to the higher standards of the agriculturist had acquired a civilization which had been largely influenced by that of Babylonia. Thanks to the active policy of excavation, carried out during the last twenty-five years in Palestine, we are enabled to reconstruct the conditions of life which prevailed in that country from avery early period. It is, in fact, now possible to trace the successive stages of Canaanite civilization back to neolithic times. Rude flint implements of the palaeolithic or Older Stone Age have also been found on the surface of the plains of Palestine, where they had lain since the close of the glacial epoch. But at that time the climate and character of the Mediterranean lands were very different to their present condition; and a great break of unknown length then occurs in the cultural sequence, which separates that primæval period from the neolithic or Later Stone Age. It is to this second era that we may trace the real beginnings of Canaanite civilization. For, from that time onwards, there is no break in the continuity of culture, and each age was the direct heir of that which preceded it.

FIG. 33.ARABS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURYb.c.From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum.

FIG. 33.

ARABS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURYb.c.

From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum.

The neolithic inhabitants of Canaan, whose implements of worked and polished stone mark a greatadvance upon the rough flints of their remote predecessors, belonged to the short, dark-skinned race which spread itself over the shores of the Mediterranean. Dwelling in rude huts, they employed for household use rough vessels of kneaded clay which they fashioned by hand and baked in the fire. They lived chiefly by the cattle and flocks they had domesticated, and, to judge by their clay spindle-whorls, they practised a simple form of weaving, and began to clothe themselves with cloth in place of skins. Over these primitive inhabitants a fresh tide of migration swept, probably in the early part of the third millenniumb.c.The new-comers were Semites from Arabia, of the same stock as those nomadic hordes who had already overrun Babylonia and had established themselves in a great part of that country. After they had settled in Canaan and Syria they were known to the Babylonians as the Amurru or Amorites. They were taller and more vigorous than the neolithic Canaanites, and they seem to have brought with them a knowledge of the use of metal, acquired probably by traffic with southern Babylonia.[6]The flint arrows and knives of their enemies would have had little chance against weapons of copper and bronze. But, whether helped by their superior armament or not, they became the dominant race in Canaan. By intermarrying with their predecessors they produced the Canaanites of history, a people of Semitic speech, but with a varying admixture in their blood of the dark-skinned Mediterranean race of lower type.

Such in origin was the Canaanite branch of the Western Semites, and it may be worth while to glance for a moment at the main features of their culture as revealed by excavation in Palestine.[7]One thing standsout clearly: they revolutionized conditions of life in Canaan. The rude huts of the first settlers were superseded by houses of brick and stone, and, in place of villages, cities rose surrounded by massive walls. The city-wall of Gezer was more than thirteen feet thick and was defended by strong towers. That of Megiddo was twenty-six feet in thickness, and its foot was further protected by a slope, orglacis,of beaten earth. To secure their water-supply in time of siege, the arrangements were equally thorough. At Gezer, for example, a huge tunnel was found, hewn in the solid rock, which gave access to an abundant spring of water over ninety feet below the surface of the ground. Not only had the earlier nomad adopted the agricultural life, but he soon evolved a system of defence for his settlements, suggested by the hilly character of his new country and its ample supply of stone.[8]Not less remarkable is the light thrown by the excavations on details of Canaanite worship. The centre of each town was the high place, where huge monoliths were erected, some of them, when unearthed, still worn and polished by the kisses of their worshippers. At Gezer ten such monoliths were discovered in a row, and it is worth noting that they were erected over a sacred cave of the neolithic inhabitants, proving that the ancient sanctuary was taken over by the Semitic invaders. The religious centres inherited by the Ba'alîm, or local "Lords" of Canaanite worship, had evidently been sanctified by long tradition. In the soil beneath the high places both at Gezer and at Megiddo numbers of jars werefound containing the bodies of children, and we may probably see in this fact evidence of infant-sacrifice, the survival of which into later periods is attested by Hebrew tradition. In the cultural remains of these Semitic invaders a distinct development is discernible. During the earlier period there is scarcely a trace of foreign influence, but later on we find importations from both Babylonia and Egypt.

It is but natural that southern and central Canaan should have long remained inaccessible to outside influence, and that the effects of Babylonian civilization should have been confined at first to eastern Syria and to the frontier districts scattered along the middle course of the Euphrates. Recent digging by natives so far to the north as the neighbourhood of Carchemish, for example, have revealed some remarkable traces of connexion with Babylonia at a very early period.[9]In graves at Hammam, a village on the Euphrates near the mouth of the Sajûr, cylinder-seals were found which exhibit unmistakable analogies to very early Babylonian work;[10]and the use of this form of seal at a period anterior to the First Dynasty of Babylon is in itself proof that Babylonian influence had reached the frontier of Syria by the great trade-route up the course of the Euphrates, along which the armies of Sargon of Akkad had already marched in their raid to the Mediterranean coast.[11]It is not improbable, too, that Carchemishherself sent her own products at this time to Babylon, for one class of her local pottery at any rate appears to have been valued by other races and to have formed an article of export. At the time of the later kings of the First Dynasty a special kind of large clay vessel, in use in Northern Babylonia, was known as "a Carchemisian," and was evidently manufactured at Carchemish and exported.[12]The trade was no doubt encouraged by the close relations established under Hammurabi and his successors with the West, but its existence points to the possibility of still earlier commercial intercourse, such as would explain the occurrence of archaic Babylonian cylinder-seals in early graves in the neighbourhood.

But, apart from such trade relations, there is nothing to suggest that the early culture of Carchemish and its adjacent districts had been effected to any great extent by that of Babylon, nor is there any indication that the inhabitants of the early city were Semites. Indeed, the archæological evidence is entirely in favour of the opposite view. The bronze age at Carchemish and its neighbourhood is distinguished from the preceding period by the use of metal, by different burial customs, and by new types of pottery, and must be regarded as marking the advent of a foreign people. But throughout the bronze age itself at Carchemish, from its beginning in the third millennium to its close in the eleventh centuryb.c., there is a uniform development.[13]There is no sudden outcrop of new types such as had marked its own beginning, and, since in its later periods it was essentially Hittite, we may assume that it was neither inaugurated nor interrupted by the Semites. Its earlier representatives, before the great Hittite migration from Anatolia, may well have been a branch of that proto-Mitannian stock, itself possibly of Anatolian origin, evidence of whose presence we shall note at Ashur before the rise of Babylon's First Dynasty.[14]

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