History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 3 — 11 - Ch. 1: Ancient Chaldaea, pt. 11
* The text giving us this information is that in which Nabonidos affirms that Naramsin, son of Sargon of Agado, had founded the temple of the Sun at Sippara, 3200 years before himself, which would give us 3750 B. C.
for the reign of Naramsin.
The last independent King of Babylon, Nabonaid [Nabonidos], at length discovered the cylinders in which Naramsin, son of Sargon, had signified to posterity all that he had done towards the erection of a temple worthy of the deity to the god of Sippara: “for three thousand two hundred years not one of the kings had been able to find them.
” We have no means of judging what these edifices were like for which the Chaldaeans themselves showed such veneration; they have entirely disappeared, or, if anything remains of them, the excavations hitherto carried out have not revealed it.
Many small objects, however, which have accidentally escaped destruction give us a fair idea of the artists who lived in Babylon at this time, and of their skill in handling the graving-tool and chisel.
An alabaster vase with the name of Naramsin, and a mace-head of exquisitely veined marble, dedicated by Shargani-shar-ali to the sun-god of Sippara, are valued only on account of the beauty of the material and the rarity of the inscription; but a porphyry cylinder, which belonged to Ibnishar, scribe of the above-named Shargani, must be ranked among the masterpieces of Oriental engraving.
It represents the hero Gilgames, kneeling and holding with both hands a spherically shaped vase, from which flow two copious jets forming a stream running through the country; an ox, armed with a pair of gigantic crescent-shaped horns, throws back its head to catch one of the jets as it falls.
Everything in this little specimen is equally worthy of admiration--the purity of outline, the skilful and delicate cutting of the intaglio, the fidelity of the action, and the accuracy of form.
A fragment of a bas-relief of the reign of Naramsin shows that the sculptors were not a bit behind the engravers of gems.
This consists now only of a single figure, a god, who is standing on the right, wearing a conical head-dress and clothed in a hairy garment which leaves his right arm free.
The legs are wanting, the left arm and the hair are for the most part broken away, while the features have also suffered; its distinguishing characteristic is a sublety of workmanship which is lacking in the artistic products of a later age.
The outline stands out from the background with a rare delicacy, the details of the muscles being in no sense exaggerated: were it not for the costume and pointed beard, one would fancy it a specimen of Egyptian work of the best Memphite period.
[Illustration 096. jpg THE SEAL OF SHARGANI-SHAR-ALI: GILGAMES WATERS THE CELESTIAL OX.
] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Menant.
One is almost tempted to believe in the truth of the tradition which ascribes to Naramsin the conquest of Egypt, or of the neighbouring countries.
[Illustration: 096a.
jpg Painting in Color of Charioteer] Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph published by Father Schiel.
[Illustration: 097. jpg Page image] Did Sargon and Naramsin live at so early a date as that assigned to them by Nabonidos?
The scribes who assisted the kings of the second Babylonian empire in their archaeological researches had perhaps insufficient reasons for placing the date of these kings so far back in the misty past: should evidence of a serious character A constrain us to attribute to them a later origin, we ought not to be surprised.
In the mean time our best course is to accept the opinion of the Chaldaeans, and to leave Sargon and Naramsin in the century assigned to them by Nabonidos, although from this point they look down as from a high eminence upon all the rest of Chaldaean antiquity.
Excavations have brought to light several personages of a similar date, whether a little earlier, or a little later: Bingani-sharali, Man-ish-turba, and especially Alusharshid, who lived at Kishu and Nipur, and gained victories over Elam.
[Illustration: 098. jpg Page image: the arms op the city and kings of Lagash] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief from Lagash, now in the Louvre After this glimpse of light on these shadowy kings darkness once more closes in upon us, and conceals from us the majority of the sovereigns who ruled afterwards in Babylon.
The facts and names which can be referred with certainty to the following centuries belong not to Babylon, but to the southern States, Lagash, Uruk, Uru, Nishin, and Larsam.
The national writers had neglected these principalities;
we possess neither a resume of their chronicles nor a list of their dynasties, and the inscriptions which speak of their the arms of the city gods and princes are still very rare and kings of Lagash.
Lagash, as far as our evidence goes, was, perhaps, the most illustrious of all these cities.
* It occupied the heart of the country, and its site covered both sides of the Shatt-el-Hai; the Tigris separated it on the east from Anshan, the westernmost of the Elamite districts, with which it carried on a perpetual frontier war.
* We are indebted almost exclusively to the researches of M. de Sarzec, and his discoveries at Telloh, for what we know of it.
The results of his excavations, acquired by the French government, are now in the Louvre.
The description of the ruins, the text of the inscriptions, and an account of the statues and other objects found in the course of the work, have been published by Heuzey-Sakzec, _Decouvertes en Chaldee_.
The name of the ancient town has been read Sirpurla, Zirgulla, etc. All parts of the country were not equally fertile: the fruitful and well-cultivated district in the neighbourhood of the Shatt-el-Hai gave place to impoverished lands ending to the eastward, finally in swampy marshes, which with great difficulty furnished means of sustenance to a poor and thinly scattered population of fisher-folk.
[Illustration: 099. jpg FRAGMENT OF BAS-RELIEF BY URNINA, KING OF LAGASH.
] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a stone in the Louvre.
The capital, built on the left bank of the river, stretched out to the north-east and south-west a distance of some five miles.
It was not so much a city as an agglomeration of large villages, each grouped around a temple or palace--Uruazagga, Gishgalla, G-irsu, Nina, and Lagash, which latter imposed its name upon the whole.
A branch of the river Shatt-el-Hai protected it on the south, and supplied the village of Nina with water; no trace of an inclosing wall has been found, and the temples and palaces seem to have served as refuges in case of attack.
It had as its arms, or totem, a double-headed eagle standing on a lion passant, or on two demi-lions placed back to back.
Its chief god was called Ningirsu, that is, the lord of Girsu, where his temple stood: his companion Bau, and his associates Ninagal, Innanna and Ninsia, were the deities of the other divisions of the city.
The princes were first called kings, but afterwards vicegerents--_patesi_--when they came under the suzerainty of a more powerful king, the King of Uruk or of Babylon.
The earlier history of this remarkable town is made up of the scanty memoirs of its rulers, together with those of the princes of Gishban--“the land of the Bow,” of which Ishin seems to have been the principal town.
A very ancient document states, that, at the instigation of Inlil, the god of Nipur, the local deities, Ningirsu and Kirsig, set up a boundary between the two cities.
In the course of time, Meshilim, a king of Kishu, which, before the rise of Agade, was the chief town in those parts, extended his dominion over Lagash and erected his stele at its border; Ush, vicegerent of Gishban, however, removed it, and had to suffer defeat before he would recognize the new order of things.
After the lapse of some years, of which we possess no records, we find the mention of a certain Urukagina, who assumes the title of king: he restored or enlarged several temples, and dug the canal which supplied the town of Nina with water.
A few generations later we find the ruling authority in the hands of a certain Urnina, whose father Ninigaldun and grandfather Gurshar received no titles--a fact which proves that they could not have been reigning sovereigns.
Urnina appears to have been of a peaceful and devout disposition, as the inscriptions contain frequent references to the edifices he had erected in honour of the gods, the sacred objects he had dedicated to them, and the timber for building purposes which he had brought from Magan, but there is no mention in them of any war.
His son Akurgal was also a builder of temples, but his grandson Idingiranagin, who succeeded Akurgal, was a warlike and combative prince.
[Illustration: 101. jpg IDINGIRANAGIN HOLDING THE TOTEM OF LAGASH.
] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the bas-relief F2 in the Louvre.
It seems probable that, about that time, the kingdom of Gishban had become a really powerful state.
It had triumphed not only over Babylonia proper, but over Kish, Uru, Uruk, and Larsam, while one of its sovereigns had actually established his rule in some parts of Northern Syria.
Idingiranagin vanquished the troops of Gishban, and there is now in the Louvre a trophy which he dedicated in the temple of Ninglrsu on his return from the campaign.
* Hilpeecht, Bab.
Expcd.
of the Univ.
of Pennsylvania, vol. i.
, 2nd part, p. 47 sqq.
[Illustration: 102. jpg IDINGIRANAGIN IN HIS CHARIOT LEADING HIS TROOPS.
] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the Louvre.
The attendant standing behind the king has been obliterated, but we see clearly the contour of his shoulder, and his hands holding the reins.
It is a large stele of close-grained white limestone, rounded at the top, and covered with scenes and inscriptions on both its faces.
One of these faces treats only of religious subjects.
Two warlike goddesses, crowned with plumed head-dresses and crescent-shaped horns, are placed before a heap of weapons and various other objects, which probably represent some of the booty collected in the campaign.
It would appear that they accompany a tall figure of a god or king, possibly that of the deity Ningirsu, patron of Lagash and its kings.
Ningirsu raises in one hand an ensign, of which the staff bears at the top the royal totem, the eagle with outspread wings laying hold by his talons of two half-lions back to back;
with the other hand he brings a, club down heavily upon a group of prisoners, who struggle at his feet in the meshes of a large net.
[Illustration: 103. jpg Page image.
VULTURES FEEDING UPON THE DEAD.
] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the fragment of a bas-relief in the Louvre.
This is the human sacrifice after the victory, such as we find it in Egypt--the offering to the national god of a tenth of the captives, who struggle in vain to escape from fate.
On the other stele the battle is at its height.
Idingiranagin, standing upright in his chariot, which is guided by an attendant, charges the enemy at the head of his troops, and the plain is covered with corpses cut down by his fierce blows: a flock of vultures accompany him, and peck at each other in their struggles over the arms, legs, and decapitated heads of the vanquished.
Victory once secured, he retraces his steps to bestow funeral honours upon the dead.
[Illustration: 104. jpg PILING UP THE MOUND OF THE DEAD AFTER THE BATTLE.
] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the fragment of a bas-relief in the Louvre.
The bodies raised regularly in layers form an enormous heap: priests or soldiers wearing loin-cloths mount to its top, where they pile the offerings and the earth which are to form the funerary mound.
The sovereign, moreover, has, in honour of the dead, consigned to execution some of the prisoners, and deigns to kill with his own hand one of the principal chiefs of the enemy.
The design and execution of these scenes are singularly rude; men and beasts--indeed, all the figures--have exaggerated proportions, uncouth forms, awkward positions, and an uncertain and heavy gait.
The war ended in a treaty concluded with Enakalli, vicegerent of Grishban, by which Lagash obtained considerable advantages.
Idingiranagin replaced the stele of Meshilim, overthrown by one of Enakalli’s predecessors, and dug a ditch from the Euphrates to the provinces of Guedln to serve henceforth as a boundary.
He further levied a tribute of corn for the benefit of the goddess Nina and her consort Ningirsu, and applied the spoils of the campaign to the building of new sanctuaries for the patron-gods of his city.
[Illustration: 105. jpg KING URNINA AND HIS FAMILY.
] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the Louvre.
Cf.
another bas-relief of the same king, p. 244; and for the probable explanation of these pierced plaques, see p. 258 of the present work.
His reign was, on the whole, a glorious and successful one.
He conquered the mountain district of Elam, rescued Uruk and Uru, which had both fallen into the hands of the people of Gishban, organized an expedition against the town of Az and killed its vicegerent, in addition to which he burnt Arsua, and devastated the district of Mishime.
He next directed an attack against Zuran, king of Udban, and, by vanquishing this Prince on the field of battle, he extended his dominion over nearly the whole of Babylonia.
The prosperity of his dynasty was subjected to numerous and strange vicissitudes.
Whether it was that its resources were too feeble to stand the exigencies and strain of war for any length of time, or that intestine strife had been the chief cause of its decline, we cannot say.
Its kings married many wives and became surrounded with a numerous progeny: Urnina had at least four sons.
They often entrusted to their children or their sons-in-law the government of the small towns which together made up the city: these represented so many temporary fiefs, of which the holders were distinguished by the title of “vicegerents.
” This dismemberment of the supreme authority in the interest of princes, who believed for the most part that they had stronger claims to the throne than its occupant, was attended with dangers to peace and to the permanence of the dynasty.
The texts furnish us with evidence of the existence of at least half a dozen descendants of Akurgal--Inannatuma I.
, Intemena, his grandson Inannatuma II, all of whom seem to have been vigorous rulers who energetically maintained the supremacy of their city over the neighbouring estates.
Inannatuma I. , however, proved no match in the end against Urlamma, the vicegerent of Gishban, and lost part, at least, of the territory acquired by Idingiranagin, but his son Intemena defeated Urlamma on the banks of the Lumasirta Canal, and, having killed or deposed him, gave the vicegerency of Gishban to a certain Hi, priest of Ninab, who remained his loyal vassal to the end of his days.
With his aid Intemena restored the stelae and walls which had been destroyed during the war; he also cleared out the old canals and dug new ones, the most important of which was apparently an arm of the Shatt-el-Hai, and ran from the Euphrates to the Tigris, through the very centre of the domains of Ghirsu.
