Domain of the Mongolo-Turki Section—Early Contact with Caucasic Peoples—Primitive Man in Siberia—and Mongolia—Early Man in Korea and Japan—in Finland and East Europe—Early Man in Babylonia—The Sumerians—The Akkadians—Babylonian Chronology—Elamite Origins—Historical Records—Babylonian Religion—Social System—General Culture—The Mongols Proper—Physical Type—Ethnical and Administrative Divisions—Buddhism—The Tunguses—Cradle and Type—Mental Characters—Shamanism—The Manchus—Origins and Early Records—Type—The Dauri—Mongolo-Turki Speech—Language and Racial Characters—Mongol and Manchu Script—The Yukaghirs—A Primitive Writing System—Chukchis and Koryaks—Chukchi and Eskimo Relations—Type and Social State—Koryaks and Kamchadales—The Gilyaks—The Koreans—Ethnical Elements—Korean Origins and Records—Religion—The Korean Script—The Japanese—Origins—Constituent Elements—The Japanese Type—Japanese and Liu-Kiu Islanders—Their Languages and Religions—Cult of the Dead—Shintoism and Buddhism.
Domain of the Mongolo-Turki Section—Early Contact with Caucasic Peoples—Primitive Man in Siberia—and Mongolia—Early Man in Korea and Japan—in Finland and East Europe—Early Man in Babylonia—The Sumerians—The Akkadians—Babylonian Chronology—Elamite Origins—Historical Records—Babylonian Religion—Social System—General Culture—The Mongols Proper—Physical Type—Ethnical and Administrative Divisions—Buddhism—The Tunguses—Cradle and Type—Mental Characters—Shamanism—The Manchus—Origins and Early Records—Type—The Dauri—Mongolo-Turki Speech—Language and Racial Characters—Mongol and Manchu Script—The Yukaghirs—A Primitive Writing System—Chukchis and Koryaks—Chukchi and Eskimo Relations—Type and Social State—Koryaks and Kamchadales—The Gilyaks—The Koreans—Ethnical Elements—Korean Origins and Records—Religion—The Korean Script—The Japanese—Origins—Constituent Elements—The Japanese Type—Japanese and Liu-Kiu Islanders—Their Languages and Religions—Cult of the Dead—Shintoism and Buddhism.
Distribution.
Present Range.The Northern Hemisphere from Japan to Lapland, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Great Wall and Tibet;Aralo-Caspian Basin;Parts of Irania;Asia Minor;Parts of East Russia, Balkan Peninsula, and Lower Danube.
Physical Characters.
Hair,generally the same as South Mongol, but in Mongolo-Caucasic transitional groups brown, chestnut, and even towy or light flaxen, also wavy and ringletty;beard mostly absent except amongst the Western Turks and some Koreans.
Colour,light or dirty yellowish amongst all true Mongols and Siberians;very variable (white, sallow, swarthy) in the transitional groups (Finns, Lapps, Magyars, Bulgars, Western Turks), and many Manchus and Koreans;in Japan the unexposed parts of the body also white.
Skull,highly brachycephalic in the true Mongol(80 to 85);variable (sub-brachy and sub-dolicho) in most transitional groups and even some Siberians (Ostyaks and Voguls 77).Jaws,cheek-bones,nose,andeyesmuch the same as in SouthMongols;but nose often large and straight, and eyes straight, greyish, or even blue in Finns, Manchus, Koreans, and some other Mongolo-Caucasians.
Stature,usually short (below 1.68 m., 5 ft. 6 in.), but many Manchus and Koreans tall, 1.728 m. to 1.778 m. (5 ft. 8 or 10 in.).Lips,arms,legs,andfeet,usually the same as South Mongols;but Japanese legs disproportionately short.
Mental Characters.
Temperament,of all true Mongols and many Mongoloids, dull, reserved, somewhat sullen and apathetic;but in some groups (Finns, Japanese) active and energetic;nearly all brave, warlike, even fierce, and capable of great atrocities, though not normally cruel;within the historic period the character has almost everywhere undergone a marked change from a rude and ferocious to a milder and more humane disposition;ethical tone higher than South Mongol, with more developed sense of right and wrong.
Speech,very uniform;apparently only one stock language(Finno-TatarorUral-Altaic Family),a highly typical agglutinating form with no prefixes, but numerous postfixes attached loosely to an unchangeable root, by which their vowels are modified in accordance with subtle laws of vocalic harmony;the chief members of the family (Finnish, Magyar, Turkish, Mongol, and especially Korean and Japanese) diverge greatly from the common prototype.
Religion,originally spirit-worship through a mediator(Shaman),perhaps everywhere, and still exclusively prevalent amongst Siberian and all other uncivilised groups;all Mongols proper, Manchus, and Koreans nominal Buddhists;all Turki peoples Moslem;Japanese Buddhists and Shintoists;Finns, Lapps, Bulgars, Magyars, and some Siberians real or nominal Christians.
Culture,rude and barbaric rather than savage amongst the Siberian aborigines, who are nearly all nomadic hunters and fishers with half-wild reindeer herds but scarcely any industries;the Mongols proper, Kirghiz, Uzbegs and Turkomans semi-nomadic pastors;the Anatolian and Balkan Turks, Manchus, and Koreans settled agriculturists, with scarcely any arts or letters and no science;Japanese, Finns, Bulgars and Magyars civilised up to, and in some respects beyond the European average (Magyar and Finnish literature, Japanese art).
Main Divisions.
Mongol Proper.Sharra (Eastern), Kalmak (Western), Buryat (Siberian) Mongol.
Tungus.Tungus proper, Manchu, Gold, Oroch, Lamut.
Korean;JapaneseandLiu-Kiu.
Turki.Yakut; Kirghiz; Uzbeg; Taranchi; Kara-Kalpak; Nogai; Turkoman; Anatolian; Osmanli.
Finno-Ugrian.Baltic Finn; Lapp; Samoyed; Cheremiss; Votyak; Vogul; Ostyak; Bulgar; Magyar.
East Siberian.Yukaghir; Chukchi; Koryak; Kamchadale; Gilyak.
Domain of the Northern Mongols.
By "Northern Mongols" are here to be understood all those branches of the Mongol Division of mankind which are usually comprised under the collective geographical expressionUral-Altaic, to which corresponds the ethnical designationMongolo-Tatar, or more properlyMongolo-Turki[569]. Their domain is roughly separated from that of the Southern Mongols (Chap. VI.) by the Great Wall and the Kuen-lun range, beyond which it spreads out westwards over most of Western Asia, and a considerable part of North Europe, with many scattered groups in Central and South Russia, the Balkan Peninsula, and the Middle Danube basin. In the extreme north their territory stretches from the shores of the Pacific with Japan and parts of Sakhalin continually westwards across Korea, Siberia, Central and North Russia to Finland and Lapland. But its southern limits can be indicated only approximately by a line drawn from the Kuen-lun range westwards along the northern escarpments of the Iranian plateau, and round the southern shores of the Caspian to the Mediterranean. This line, however, must be drawn in such a way as to include Afghan Turkestan, much of the North Persian and Caucasian steppes, and nearly the whole of Asia Minor, while excluding Armenia, Kurdestan, and Syria.
Early Contact with Caucasic Peoples.
Nor is it to be supposed that even within these limits the North Mongol territory is everywhere continuous. In East Europe especially, where they are for the most part comparatively recent intruders, the Mongols are found only in isolated and vanishing groups in the Lower and Middle Volga basin, the Crimea, and the North Caucasian steppe, and in more compact bodies in Rumelia, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Throughout all these districts, however, the process of absorption or assimilation tothe normal European physical type is so far completed that many of the Nogai and other Russian "Tartars," as they are called, the Volga and Baltic Finns, the Magyars, and Osmanli Turks, would scarcely be recognised as members of the North Mongol family but for their common Finno-Turki speech, and the historic evidence by which their original connection with this division is established beyond all question.
In Central Asia also (North Irania, the Aralo-Caspian and Tarim basins) the Mongols have been in close contact with Caucasic peoples probably since the New Stone Age, and here intermediate types have been developed, by which an almost unbroken transition has been brought about between the yellow and the white races.
Primitive Man in Siberia and Mongolia.
During recent years much light has been shed on the physiographical conditions of Central Asia in early times. Stein's[570]explorations in 1900-1 and 1906-8 in Chinese Turkestan, the Pumpelly Expeditions[571]in 1903 and 1904 in Russian Turkestan, the travels of Sven Hedin[572]in 1899-1902, and 1906-8, of Carruthers[573]in N.W. Mongolia, and the researches of Ellsworth Huntington[574](a member of the first Pumpelly Expedition) in 1905-7 all bear testimony to the variation in climate which the districts of Central Asia have undergone since glacial times. There has been a general trend towards arid conditions, alternating with periods of greater humidity, when tracts, now deserted, were capable of maintaining a dense population. Abundant evidence of man's occupation has been found in delta oases formed by snow-fed mountain streams, or on the banks of vanished rivers, where now-a-days all is desolation, though, as T. Peisker[575]points out, climate was not the sole or even the main factor in many areas. In some places, as at Merv, the earliest occupation was only a few centuries before the Christian era, but at Anau near Askhabad some 300 miles east of the Caspian, explored by the Pumpelly Expedition, the earliest strata contained remains of Stone Age culture. The NorthKurgan or tumulus, rising some 40 or 50 feet above the plain, showed a definite stratification of structures in sun-dried bricks, raised by successive generations of occupants. H. Schmidt, who was in charge of the excavations, was able to collect a valuable series of potsherds, showing a gradual evolution in form, technique and ornamentation, from the earliest to the latest periods. One point of great significance for establishing cultural if not physical relationships in this obscure region is the resemblance between the geometrical designs on pots of the early period and similar pottery found by MM. Gautier and Lampre[576]at Mussian, and by M. J. de Morgan[576]at Susa, while clay figurines from the South Kurgan (copper culture) are clearly of Babylonian type, the influence of which is seen much later in terra-cotta figurines discovered by Stein[577]at Yotkan.
With the progress of archaeological research, it becomes daily more evident that the whole of the North Mongol domain, from Finland to Japan, has passed through the Stone and Metal Ages, like most other habitable parts of the globe. During his wanderings in Siberia and Mongolia in the early nineties, Hans Leder[578]came upon countless prehistoric stations, kurgans (barrows), stone circles, and many megalithic monuments of various types. In West Siberia the barrows, which consist solely of earth without any stone-work, are by the present inhabitants calledChudskiye Kurgani, "Chudish Graves," and, as in North Russia, this term "Chude" is ascribed to a now vanished unknown race which formerly inhabited the land. To them, as to the "Toltecs" in Central America, all ancient monuments are credited, and while some regard them as prehistoric Finns, others identify them with the historic Scythians, the Scythians of Herodotus.
There are reasons, however, for thinking that the Chudes may represent an earlier race, the men of the Stone Age, who, migrating from north Europe eastwards, had reached the Tom valley (which drains to the Obi) before the extinction of the mammoth, and later spread over the whole of northern Asia, leaving everywhere evidence of their presence in the megalithic monuments now being daily brought to light in East Siberia,Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. This view receives support from the characters of two skulls found in 1895 by A. P. Mostitz in one of the five prehistoric stations on the left bank of the Sava affluent of the Selenga river, near Ust-Kiakta in Trans-Baikalia. They differ markedly from the normal Buryat (Siberian Mongol) type, recalling rather the long-shaped skulls of the South Russian kurgans, with cephalic indices 73.2 and 73.5, as measured by M. J. D. Talko-Hryncewicz[579]. Thus, in the very heart of the Mongol domain, the characteristically round-headed race would appear to have been preceded, as in Europe, by a long-headed type.
In East Siberia, and especially in the Lake Baikal region, Leder found extensive tracts strewn with kurgans, many of which have already been explored, and their contents deposited in the Irkutsk museum. Amongst these are great numbers of stone implements, and objects made of bone and mammoth tusks, besides carefully worked copper ware, betraying technical skill and some artistic taste in the designs. In Trans-Baikalia, still farther east, with the kurgans are associated the so-calledKameni Babi, "Stone Women," monoliths rough-hewn in the form of human figures. Many of these monoliths bear inscriptions, which, however, appear to be of recent date (mostly Buddhist prayers and formularies), and are not to be confounded with the much older rock inscriptions deciphered by W. Thomsen through the Turki language.
Continuing his investigations in Mongolia proper, Leder here also discovered earthen kurgans, which, however, differed from those of Siberia by being for the most part surmounted either with circular or rectangular stone structures, or else with monoliths. They are calledKürüktsúrby the present inhabitants, who hold them in great awe, and never venture to touch them. Unfortunately strangers also are unable to examine their contents, all disturbance of the ground with spade or shovel being forbidden under pain of death by the Chinese officials, for fear of awakening the evil spirits, now slumbering peacefully below the surface. The Siberian burial mounds have yielded no bronze, a fact which indicates considerable antiquity, although no date can be set for its introduction into these regions. Better evidence of antiquity is found in the climatic changes resulting in recent desiccation,which must have taken place here as elsewhere, for the burials bear witness to the existence of a denser population than could be supported at the present time[580].
Early Man in Korea and Japan.
Such an antiquity is indeed required to explain the spread of neolithic remains to the Pacific seaboard, and especially to Korea and Japan. In Korea W. Gowland examined a dolmen 30 miles from Seul, which he describes and figures[581], and which is remarkable especially for the disproportionate size of the capstone, a huge undressed megalith 14½ by over 13 feet. He refers to four or five others, all in the northern part of the peninsula, and regards them as "intermediate in form between a cist and a dolmen." But he thinks it probable that they were never covered by mounds, but always stood as monuments above ground, in this respect differing from the Japanese, the majority of which are all buried in tumuli. In some of their features these present a curious resemblance to the Brittany structures, but no stone implements appear to have been found in any of the burial mounds, and the Japanese chambered tombs, according to Hamada, Professor of Archaeology in Kyoto University, are usually attributed to the Iron Age (fifth to seventh centuriesA.D.[582]).
In many districts Japan contains memorials of a remote past—shell mounds, cave-dwellings, and in Yezo certain pits, which are not occupied by the present Ainu population, but are by them attributed to theKoro-pok-guru, "People of the Hollows," who occupied the land before their arrival, and lived in huts built over these pits. Similar remains on an islet near Nemuro on the north-east coast of Yezo are said by the Japanese to have belonged to theKobito, a dwarfish race exterminated by the Ainu, hence apparently identical with the Koro-pok-guru. They are associated by John Milne with some primitive peoples of the Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, and Kamchatka, who, like the Eskimo of the American coast, had extended formerly much farther south than at present.
In a kitchen-midden, 330 by 200 feet, near Shiidzuka in the province of Ibaraki, the Japanese antiquaries S. Yagi and M. Shinomura[583]have found numerous objects belonging to the Stone Age of Japan. Amongst them were flint implements, worked bones, ashes, pottery, and a whole series of clay figures of human beings. The finders suggest that these remains may have belonged to a homogeneous race of the Stone Period, who, however, were not the ancestors of the Ainu—hitherto generally regarded as the first inhabitants of Japan. In the national records vague reference is made to other aborigines, such as the "Long Legs," and the "Eight Wild Tribes," described as the enemies of the first Japanese settlers in Kiu-shiu, and reduced by Jimmu Tenno, the semi-mythical founder of the present dynasty; theEbisu, who are probably to be identified with the Ainu; and theSeki-Manzi, "Stone-Men," also located in the southern island of Kiu-shiu. The last-mentioned, of whom, however, little further is known, seem to have some claim to be associated with the above described remains of early man in Japan[584].
Early Man in Finland and East Europe.
In the extreme west the present Mongol peoples, being quite recent intruders, can in no way be connected with the abundant prehistoric relics daily brought to light in that region (South Russia, the Balkan Peninsula, Hungary). The same remark applies even to Finland itself, which was at one time supposed to be the cradle of the Finnish people, but is now shown to have been first occupied by Germanic tribes. From an exhaustive study of the bronze-yielding tumuli A. Hackman[585]concludes that the population of the Bronze Period was Teutonic, and in this he agrees both with Montelius and with W. Thomsen. The latter holds on linguistic grounds that at the beginning of the new era the Finns still dwelt east of the Gulf of Finland, whence they moved west in later times.
Early Man in Babylonia.
It is unfortunate that, owing probably to the character of the country, remains of the Stone Age in Babylonia are wanting so that no comparison can yet be made with the neolithic cultures of Egypt and the Aegean. The constant floods to which Babylonia was ever subject swept away all traces of early occupations until the advent of the Sumerians, who builttheir cities on artificial mounds. The question of Akkado-Sumerian[586]origins is by no means clear, for many important cities are unexplored and even unidentified, but the general trend of recent opinion may be noted. The linguistic problem is peculiarly complicated by the fact that almost all the Sumerian texts show evidence of Semitic influence, and consist to a great extent of religious hymns and incantations which often appear to be merely translations of Semitic ideas turned by Semitic priests into the formal religious Sumerian language. J. Halévy, indeed, followed by others, regarded Sumerian as no true language, but merely a priestly system of cryptography[587], based on Semitic. As regards linguistic affinities, K. A. Hermann[588]endeavoured to establish a connection between the early texts and Ural-Altaic, more especially with Ugro-Finnish. A more recent suggestion that the language is of Indo-European origin and structure rests on equally slight resemblances. The comparison with Chinese has already been noticed. J. D. Prince[589]utters a word of caution against comparing ancient texts with idioms of more recent peoples of Western Asia, in spite of many tempting resemblances, and claims that until further light has been shed on the problem Sumerian should be regarded as standing quite alone, "a prehistoric philological remnant."
The Sumerians.
E. Meyer[590]claims for the Sumerians not only linguistic but also physical isolation. The Sumerian type as represented on the monuments shows a narrow pointed nose, with straight bridge and small nostrils, cheeks and lips not fleshy, like the Semites, with prominent cheek-bones, small mouth, narrow lips finely curved, the lower jaw very short, with angular sharply projecting chin, oblique Mongolian eyes, low forehead, usually sloping away directly from the root of the nose. In fact the nose has almost the appearance of a bird's beak, projecting far in advance of mouth and chin, while the forehead almost disappears. The hairand beard are closely shaven. The Sumerians were undoubtedly a warlike people, fighting not like the Semites in loosely extended battle array, but in close phalanx, their large shields protecting their bodies from neck to feet, forming a rampart beyond which projected the inclined spears of the foremost rank. Battle axe and javelin were also used. Helmets protected head and neck. Besides lance or spear the royal leaders carried a curved throwing weapon, formed of three strands bound together at intervals with thongs of leather or bands of metal; this seems to have developed later into a sign of authority and hence into a sceptre. The bow, the typical weapon of the Semites and the mountainous people to the east, was unrepresented. The gods carried clubs with stone heads. It is important to notice that, in direct contrast to the Sumerians themselves, their gods had abundant hair on their heads, carefully curled and dressed, and a long curly beard on the chin, though cheeks and lips were closely shaven; these fashions recall those of the Semites. Thus, although the general view is to regard the Sumerians as the autochthones and the Semites as the later intruders in Babylonia, the Semitic character of the Sumerian gods points to an opposite conclusion. But the time has not yet come for any definite conclusion to be reached. All that can be said is that according to our present knowledge the assumption that the earliest population was Sumerian and that the Semites were the conquering intruders is only slightly more probable than the reverse[591].
Recent archaeological discoveries make Sumerian origins a little clearer. Explorations in Central Asia (as mentioned above p. 257) show that districts once well watered, and capable of supporting a large population, have been subject to periods of excessive drought, and this no doubt is the prime cause of the racial unrest which has ever been characteristic of the dwellers in these regions. A cycle of drought may well have prompted the Sumerian migration of the fourth millenniumB.C., as it is shown to have prompted the later invasions of the last two thousand years[592]. Although there is no evidence to connect the original home of the Sumerians with any of theoases yet excavated in Central Asia, yet signs of cultural contact are not wanting, and it may safely be inferred that their civilisation was evolved in some region to the east of the Euphrates valley before their entrance into Babylonia[593].
The Akkadians.
Since Semitic influence was first felt in the north of Babylonia, at Akkad, it is assumed that the immigration was from the north-west from Arabia by way of the Syrian coastlands, and in this case also the impulse may have been the occurrence of an arid period in the centre of the Arabian continent. The Semites are found not as barbarian invaders, but as a highly cultivated people. They absorbed several cultural elements of the Sumerians, notably their script, and were profoundly influenced by Sumerian religion. The Akkadians are represented with elaborately curled hair and beard, and hence, in contradistinction to the shaven Sumerians, are referred to as "the black-headed ones." Their chief weapon was the bow, but they had also lances and battle axes. As among the Sumerians the sign of kingship was a boomerang-like sceptre[594]. Except for Babylon and Sippar, which throw little light on the early periods, no systematic excavation has been undertaken in northern Babylonia, and the site of Akkad is still unidentified.
Babylonian Chronology.
The chronology of this early age of Babylonia is much disputed. The very high dates of 5000 or 6000B.C.formerly assigned by many writers to the earliest remains of the Sumerians and the Babylonian Semites, depended to a great extent on the statement of Nabonidus (556B.C.) that 3200 years separated his own age from that of Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon of Agade; for to Sargon, on this statement alone, a date of 3800 has usually been assigned[595]. This date presents many difficulties, leaving many centuries unrepresented by any royal names or records. Even the suggested emendation of the text reducing the estimate by a thousand years is not generally acceptable. Most authorities hesitate to date any Babylonian records before 3000B.C.[596]and agree that the time has not arrived for fixing any definite dates for the early period.
Despite the legendary matter associated with his memory, Shar-Gani-sharri, commonly called Sargon of Akkad, about 2500B.C.(Meyer), 2650B.C.(King), was beyond question a historical person though it seems that there has been some confusion with Sharru-gi, or Sharrukin, also called Sargon, earliest king of Kish[597]. Tradition records how his mother, a royal princess, concealed his birth by placing him in a rush basket closed with bitumen and sending him adrift on the stream, from which he was rescued by Akki the water-carrier, who brought him up as his own child. The incident, about which there is nothing miraculous, presents a curious parallel to, if it be not the source of, similar tales related of Moses, Cyrus, and other ancient leaders of men. Sargon also tells us that he ruled from his capital, Agade, for 45 years over Upper and Lower Mesopotamia, governed the black-headed ones, as the Akkads are constantly called, rode in bronze chariots over rugged lands, and made expeditions thrice to the sea-coast. The expeditions are confirmed by inscriptions from Syria, though the cylinder of his son, Naram-Sin, found by Cesnola in Cyprus, is now regarded as of later date[598]. As they also penetrated to Sinai their influence appears to have extended over the whole of Syria and North Arabia. They erected great structures at Nippur, which was at that time so ancient that Naram-Sin's huge brick platform stood on a mass 30 feet thick of the accumulated debris of earlier buildings. Among the most interesting of recent discoveries at Nippur are pre-Semitic tablets containing accounts similar to those recorded in the book of Genesis, from which in some cases the latter have clearly been derived. The "Deluge Fragment" published in 1910 relates the warning given by the god Ea to Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, and the directions for building a ship by means of which he and his family may escape, together with the beasts of the field and the birds of heaven[599]. A still later discovery agrees more closely with the Bible version, giving the name of the one pious man as Tagtog, Semitic Nûhu, and assigning nine months as the period of the duration of the flood. The same tablet also contains an account of theFall of Man; but it is Noah, not Adam, who is tempted and falls, and the forbidden fruit is cassia[600].
Elamite Origins.
Sennacherib's grandson, Ashurbanipal, who belongs to the late Assyrian empire when the centre of power had been shifted from Babylonia to Nineveh, has left recorded on his brick tablets how he overran Elam and destroyed its capital, Susa (645B.C.). He states that from this place he brought back the effigy of the goddess, Nana, which had been carried away from her temple at Erech by an Elamite king by whom Akkad had been conquered 1635 years before,i.e.2280B.C.Over Akkad Elam ruled 300 years, and it was a king of this dynasty, Khudur-Lagamar, who has been identified by T. G. Pinches with the "Chedorlaomer, king of Elam" routed by Abraham (Gen. xiv. 14-17)[601]. Thus is explained the presence of Elamites at this time so far west as Syria, their own seat being amid the Kurdish mountains in the Upper Tigris basin.
Historical Records.
The Elamites do not appear to have been of the same stock as the Sumerians. They are described as peaceful, industrious, and skilful husbandmen, with a surprising knowledge of irrigating processes. The non-Semitic language shows possible connections with Mitanni[602]. Yet the type would appear to be on the whole rather Semitic, judging at least from the large arched nose and thick beard of the Susian god, Ramman, brought by Ashurbanipal out of Elam, and figured in Layard'sMonuments of Nineveh, 1st Series, Plate 65. This, however, may be explained by the fact that the Elamites were subdued at an early date by intruding Semites, although they afterwards shook off the yoke and became strong enough to conquer Mesopotamia and extend their expeditions to Syria and the Jordan. The capital of Elam was the renowned city of Susa (Shushan, whence Susiana, the modern Khuzistan). Recentexcavations show that the settlement dates from neolithic times[603].
Even after the capture of Susa by Ashurbanipal, Elam again rose to great power under Cyrus the Great, who, however, was no Persian adventurer, as stated by Herodotus, but the legitimate Elamite ruler, as inscribed on his cylinder and tablet now in the British Museum:—"Cyrus, the great king, the king of Babylon, the king of Sumir and Akkad, the king of the four zones, the son of Kambyses, the great king, the king of Elam, the grandson of Cyrus the great king," who by the favour of Merodach has overcome the black-headed people (i.e.the Akkads) and at last entered Babylon in peace. On an earlier cylinder Nabonidus, last king of Babylon, tells us how this same Cyrus subdued the Medes—here calledMandas, "Barbarians"—and captured their king Astyages and his capital Ekbatana. But although Cyrus, hitherto supposed to be a Persian and a Zoroastrian monotheist, here appears as an Elamite and a polytheist, "it is pretty certain that although descended from Elamite kings, these were [at that time] kings of Persian race, who, after the destruction of the old [Elamite] monarchy by Ashurbanipal, had established a new dynasty at the city of Susa. Cyrus always traces his descent from Achæmenes, the chief of the leading Persian clan of Pasargadæ[604]." Hence although wrong in speaking of Cyrus as an adventurer, Herodotus rightly calls him a Persian, and at this late date Elam itself may well have been already Aryanised in speech[605], while still retaining its old Sumerian religion. TheBabylonian pantheon survived, in fact, till the time of Darius Hystaspes, who introduced Zoroastrianism with its supreme gods, Ahura-Mazda, creator of all good, and Ahriman, author of all evil.
Babylonian Religion.
It is now possible to gain some idea of the gradual growth of the city states of Babylonia. Beginning with a mere collection of rude reed huts, these were succeeded by structures of sun-dried bricks, built in a group for mutual protection, probably around a centre of a local god, and surrounded by a wall. The land around the settlement was irrigated by canals, and here the corn and vegetables were grown and the flocks and herds were tended for the maintenance of the population. The central figure was always the god, who occasionally gave his name to the site, and who was the owner of all the land, the inhabitants being merely his tenants who owed him rent for their estates. It was the god who waged wars with the neighbours, and with whom treaties were made. The treaty between Lagash and Umma fixing the limitations of their boundaries, a constant matter of dispute, was made by Ningirsu, god of Lagash, and the city god of Umma, under the arbitration of Enlil, the chief of the gods, whose central shrine was at Nippur.
With the growth of the cities disputes of territory were sure to arise, and either by conquest or amalgamation, cities became absorbed into states. The problem then was the adjustment of the various city gods, each reigning supreme in his own city, but taking a higher or lower place in the Babylonian pantheon. When one city gained a supremacy over all its neighbours, its governor might assume the title of king. But the king was merely thepatesi, the steward of the city god. Even when the supremacy was sufficiently permanent for the establishment of a dynasty, this was a dynasty of the city rather than of a family, for the successive kings were not necessarily of the same family[606].
Among the city gods who developed into powerful deities were Anu of Uruk (Erech), Enlil of Nippur and Ea of Eridu (originally a sea-port). These became the supreme triad, Anu ruling over the heavens, enthroned on the northern pole, asking and father of the gods; Enlil, the Semitic Bel, god of earth, lord of the lands, formerly chief of all the gods; and Ea, god of the water-depths, whose son was ultimately to eclipse his father as Marduk of Babylon. A second triad is composed of the local deities who developed into Sin, the moon-god of Ur, Shamash the sun-god of Larsa, and the famous Ishtar, the great mother, goddess of love and queen of heaven. The realm of the dead was a dark place under the earth, where the dead lived as shadows, eating the dust of the earth. Their lot depended partly on their earlier lives, and partly on the devotion of their surviving relatives. Although their dead kings were deified there seems to be no evidence for a belief in a general resurrection or in the transmigration of souls. The hymns and prayers to the gods however show a very high religious level in spite of the important part played by soothsaying and exorcism, relics of earlier culture. The permanence of these may be partly ascribed to the essentially theocratic character of Babylonian government. The king was merely the agent of the god, whose desires were interpreted by the priestly soothsayers and exorcists, and no action could be undertaken in worldly or in religious concerns without their superintendence. The kings occasionally attempted to free themselves from the power of the priests, but the attempt was always vain. The power of the priests had often a sound economic basis, for the temples of the great cities were centres of vast wealth and of far-reaching trade, as is proved by the discovery of the commercial contracts stored in the temple archives[607].
Social System.
How the family expands through the clan and tribe into the nation, is clearly seen in the Babylonian social system, in which the inhabitants of each city were still "divided into clans, all of whose members claimed to be descended from a common ancestor who had flourished at a more or less remote period. The members of each clan were by no means all in the same social position, some having gone down in the world, others having raised themselves; and amongst them we find many different callings—from agricultural labourers to scribes, and from merchants to artisans. No natural tie existed among the majority of these members except the remembrance of their common origin, perhaps alsoa common religion, and eventual rights of succession or claims upon what belonged to each one individually[608]." The god or goddess, it is suggested, who watched over each man, and of whom each was the son, was originally the god or goddess of the clan (its totem). So also in Egypt, the members of the community were all supposed to come of the same stock (páit), and to belong to the same family (páitu), whose chiefs (ropáitu) were the guardians of the family, several groups of such families being under aropáitú-há, or head chief[609].
Amongst the local institutions, it is startling to find a fully developed ground-landlord system, though not quite so bad as that still patiently endured in England, already flourishing ages ago in Babylonia. "The cost of repairs fell usually on the lessee, who was also allowed to build on the land he had leased, in which case it was declared free of all charges for a period of about ten years; but the house and, as a rule, all he had built, then reverted to the landlord[610]."
General Culture.
In many other respects great progress had been made, and it is the belief of von Ihring[611], Hommel[612]and others that from Babylonia was first diffused a knowledge of letters, astronomy, agriculture, navigation, architecture, and other arts, to the Nile valley, and mainly through Egypt to the Western World, and through Irania to China and India. In this generalisation there is probably a large measure of truth, although it will be seen farther on that the Asiatic origin of Egyptian culture is still far from being proved[613].
One element the two peoples certainly had in common—a highly developed agricultural system, which formed the foundation of their greatness, and was maintained in a rainless climate by a stupendous system of irrigation works. Such works were carried out on a prodigious scale by the ancient Babylonians six or eight thousand years ago. The plains of the Lower Euphrates and Tigris, since rendered desolate under Turkish misrule, are intersected by the remains of an intricate network of canalisation covering all the space between the two rivers, and are strewn with the ruins of many great cities, whose inhabitants, numbering scores of thousands, weresupported by the produce of a highly cultivated region, which is now an arid waste varied only by crumbling mounds, stagnant waters, and the camping-grounds of a few Arab tent-dwellers.
The Mongols Proper.
Those who attach weight to distinctive racial qualities have always found a difficulty in attributing this wonderful civilisation to the same Mongolic people, who in their own homes have scarcely anywhere advanced beyond the hunting, fishing, or pastoral states. But it has always to be remembered that man, like all other zoological forms, necessarily reflects the character of his environment. The Mongols might in time become agriculturalists in the alluvial Mesopotamian lands, though the kindred people who give their name to the whole ethnical division and present its physical characters in an exaggerated form, ever remain tented nomads on the dry Central Asiatic steppe, which yields little but herbage, and is suitable for tillage only in a few more favoured districts. Here the typical Mongols, cut off from the arable lands of South Siberia by the Tian-shan and Altai ranges, and to some extent denied access to the rich fluvial valleys of the Middle Kingdom by the barrier of the Great Wall, have for ages led a pastoral life in the inhabitable tracts and oases of the Gobi wilderness and the Ordos region within the great bend of the Hoang-ho. During the historic period these natural and artificial ramparts have been several times surmounted by fierce Mongol hordes, pouring like irresistible flood-waters over the whole of China and many parts of Siberia, and extending their predatory or conquering expeditions across the more open northern plains westwards nearly to the shores of the Atlantic. But such devastating torrents, which at intervals convulsed and caused dislocations amongst half the settled populations of the globe, had little effect on the tribal groups that remained behind. These continued and continue to occupy the original camping-grounds, as changeless and uniform in their physical appearance, mental characters, and social usages as the Arab bedouins and all other inhabitants of monotonous undiversified steppe lands.