History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 3 — 13 - Ch. 1: Ancient Chaldaea, pt. 13

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Chesney.

In the time of the Greeks and Romans the Chaldaeans were accustomed to navigate the Tigris either in round flat-bottomed boats, of little draught--“kufas,” in fact--or on rafts placed upon inflated skins, exactly similar in appearance and construction to the “keleks” of our own day.

These keleks were as much at home on the sea as upon the river, and they may still be found in the Persian Gulf engaged in the coasting trade.

Doubtless many of these were included among the vessels of Uru mentioned in the texts, but there were also among the latter those long large rowing-boats with curved stem and stern, Egyptian in their appearance, which are to be found roughly incised on some ancient cylinders.

These primitive fleets were not disposed to risk the navigation of the open sea.

They preferred to proceed slowly along the shore, hugging it in all cases, except when it was necessary to reach some group of neighbouring islands; many days of navigation were thus required to make a passage which one of our smallest sail-boats would effect in a few hours, and at the end of their longest voyages they were not very distant from their point of departure.

It would be a great mistake to suppose them capable of sailing round Arabia and of fetching blocks of stone by sea from the Sinaitic Peninsula; such an expedition, which would have been dangerous even for Greek or Roman Galleys, would have been simply impossible for them.

If they ever crossed the Strait of Ormuzd, it was an exceptional thing, their ordinary voyages being confined within the limits of the gulf.

The merchants of Uru were accustomed to visit regularly the island of Dilmun, the land of Magan, the countries of Milukhkha and Gubin; from these places they brought cargoes of diorite for their sculptors, building-timber for their architects, perfumes and metals transported from Yemen by land, and possibly pearls from the Bahrein Islands.

They encountered serious rivalry from the sailors of Dilmun and Magan, whose maritime tribes were then as now accustomed to scour the seas.

The risk was great for those who set out on such expeditions, perhaps never to return, but the profit was considerable.

[Illustration: 117. jpg AN ASSYRIAN KELEK LADEN WITH BUILDING-STONE.

] Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief from “Kouyunjik” (Layard, _The Monuments of Nineveh_, 2nd series, pi.

13; cf.

Place, _Ninive et l’Assyrie_, pl.

43, No. 1. ) Uru, enriched by its commerce, was soon in a position to subjugate the petty neighbouring states--Uruk, Larsam, Lagash, and Nipur.

Its territory formed a fairly extended sovereignty, whose lords entitled themselves kings of Shumir and Akkad, and ruled over all Southern Chaldaea for many centuries.

Several of these kings, the Lugalkigubnidudu and the Lugalkisalsi, of whom some monuments have been preserved to us, seem to have extended their influence beyond these limits prior to the time of Sargon the Elder; and we can date the earliest of them with tolerable probability.

Urbau reigned some time about 2900 B. C.

He was an energetic builder, and material traces of his activity are to be found everywhere throughout the country.

The temple of the Sun at Larsam, the temple of Nina in Uruk, and the temples of Inlilla and Ninlilla in Nipur were indebted to him for their origin or restoration: he decorated or repaired all structures which were not of his own erection: in Uru itself the sanctuary of the moon-god owes its foundation to him, and the fortifications of the city were his work.

Dungi, his son, was an indefatigable bricklayer, like his father: he completed the sanctuary of the moon-god, and constructed buildings in Uruk, Lagash, and Kutha.

There is no indication in the inscriptions of his having been engaged in any civil struggle or in war with a foreign nation; we should make a serious mistake, however, if we concluded from this silence that peace was not disturbed in his time.

The tie which bound together the petty states of which Uru was composed was of the slightest.

The sovereign could barely claim as his own more than the capital and the district surrounding it; the other cities recognized his authority, paid him tribute, did homage to him in religious matters, and doubtless rendered him military service also, but each one of them nevertheless maintained its particular constitution and obeyed its hereditary lords.

These lords, it is true, lost their title of king, which now belonged exclusively to their suzerain, and each one had to be content in his district with the simple designation of “vicegerent;” but having once fulfilled their feudal obligations, they had absolute power over their ancient domains, and were able to transmit to their progeny the inheritance they had received from their fathers.

Gudea probably, and most certainly his successors, ruled in this way over Lagash, as a fief depending on the crown of Uru.

After the manner of the Egyptian barons, the vassals of the kings of Chaldaea submitted to the control of their suzerain without resenting his authority as long as they felt the curbing influence of a strong hand: but on the least sign of feebleness in their master they reasserted themselves, and endeavoured to recover their independence.

A reign of any length was sure to be disturbed by rebellions sometimes difficult to repress: if we are ignorant of any such, it is owing to the fact that inscriptions hitherto discovered are found upon objects upon which an account of a battle would hardly find a fitting place, such as bricks from a temple, votive cones or cylinders of terra-cotta, amulets or private seals.

We are still in ignorance as to Dungi’s successors, and the number of years during which this first dynasty was able to prolong its existence.

We can but guess that its empire broke up by disintegration after a period of no long duration.

Its cities for the most part became emancipated, and their rulers proclaimed themselves kings once more.

We see that the kingdom of Amnanu, for instance, was established on the left bank of the Euphrates, with Uruk as its capital, and that three successive sovereigns at least--of whom Singashid seems to have been the most active--were able to hold their own there.

Uru had still, however, sufficient prestige and wealth to make it the actual metropolis of the entire country.

No one could become the legitimate lord of Shumir and Accad before he had been solemnly enthroned in the temple at Uru.

For many centuries every ambitious kinglet in turn contended for its possession and made it his residence.

The first of these, about 2500 B. C.

, were the lords of Nishin, Libitanunit, Gamiladar, Inedin, Bursin I. , and Ismidagan: afterwards, about 2400 B. C.

, Gungunum of Nipur made himself master of it.

The descendants of Gungunum, amongst others Bursin II.

, Gimilsin, Inesin, reigned gloriously for a few years.

Their records show that they conquered not only a part of Elam, but part of Syria.

They were dispossessed in their turn by a family belonging to Larsam, whose two chief representatives, as far as we know, were Nurramman and his son Sinidinnam (about 2300 B. C.

).

Naturally enough, Sinidinnam was a builder or repairer of temples, but he added to such work the clearing of the Shatt-el-Hai and the excavation of a new canal giving a more direct communication between the Shatt and the Tigris, and in thus controlling the water-system of the country became worthy of being considered one of the benefactors of Chaldaea.

We have here the mere dust of history, rather than history itself: here an isolated individual makes his appearance in the record of his name, to vanish when we attempt to lay hold of him; there, the stem of a dynasty which breaks abruptly off, pompous preambles, devout formulas, dedications of objects or buildings, here and there the account of some battle, or the indication of some foreign country with which relations of friendship or commerce were maintained--these are the scanty materials out of which to construct a connected narrative.

Egypt has not much more to offer us in regard to many of her Pharaohs, but we have in her case at least the ascertained framework of her dynasties, in which each fact and each new name falls eventually, and after some uncertainty, into its proper place.

The main outlines of the picture are drawn with sufficient exactitude to require no readjustment, the groups are for the most part in their fitting positions, the blank spaces or positions not properly occupied are gradually restricted, and filled in from day to day; the expected moment is in sight when, the arrangement of the whole being accomplished, it will be necessary only to fill in the details.

In the case of Chaldaea the framework itself is wanting, and expedients must be resorted to in order to classify the elements entering into its composition.

Naramsin is in his proper place, or nearly so; but as for Gudea, what interval separates him from Naramsin, and at what distance from Gudea are we to place the kings of Uru?

The beginnings of Chaldaea have merely a provisional history: the facts in it are certain, but the connection of the facts with one another is too often a matter of speculation.

The arrangement which is put forward at present can be regarded only as probable, but it would be difficult to propose a better until the excavations have furnished us with fresh material; it must be accepted merely as an attempt, without pledging to it our confidence on the one hand, or regarding it with scepticism on the other.

CHAPTER II--THE TEMPLES AND THE GODS OF CHALDAEA

_THE CONSTRUCTION AND REVENUES OF THE TEMPLES--THE POPULAR GODS AND THE THEOLOGICAL TRIADS----THE DEAD AND HADES_.

_Chaldaean cities: the resemblance of their ruins to natural mounds caused by their exclusive use of brick as a building material--Their city walls: the temples and local gods; reconstruction of their history by means of the stamped bricks of which they were built--The two types of ziggurat: the arrangement of the temple of Nannar at Uru.

The tribes of the Chaldaean gods--Genii hostile to men, their monstrous shapes; the south-west wind; friendly genii--The Seven, and their attacks on the moon-god; Gibil, the fire-god, overcomes them and their snares--The Sumerian gods; Ningirsu: the difficulty of defining them and of understanding the nature of them; they become merged in the Semitic deities.

Characteristics and dispositions of the Chaldaean gods--the goddesses, like women of the harem, are practically nonentities; Mylitta and her meretricious rites--The divine aristocracy and its principal representatives: their relations to the earth, oracles, speaking statues, household gods--The gods of each city do not exclude those of neighbouring cities: their alliances and their borrowings from one another--The sky-gods and the earth-gods, the sidereal gods: the moon and the sun.

The feudal gods: several among them unite to govern the world; the two triads of Eridu--The supreme triad: Anu the heaven; Bel the earth and his fusion with the Babylonian Merodach; Ea, the god of the waters--The second triad: Sin the moon and Shamash the sun; substitution of Bamman for Ishtar in this triad; the winds and the legend of Adapa, the attributes of Ramman--The addition of goddesses to these two triads;

the insignificant position which they occupy.

The assembly of the gods governs the world: the bird Zu steals the tablets of destiny--Destinies are written in the heavens and determined by the movements of the stars; comets and their presiding deities, Nebo and Ishtai--The numerical value of the gods--The arrangement of the temples, the local priesthood, festivals, revenues of the gods and gifts made to them--Sacrifices, the expiation of crimes--Death and the future of the soul--Tombs and the cremation of the dead; the royal sepulchres and funerary rites--Hades and its sovereigns: Nergal, Allat, the descent of Ishtar into the infernal regions, and the possibility of a resurrection The invocation of the dead--The ascension of Etana.

_ [Illustration: 124. jpg Chapter II] CHAPTER II--THE TEMPLES AND THE GODS OF CHALDAEA