L. W. King

“ Its foundation of burnt brick covered with bitumen is still preserved, upon which, to the south of the gateway, rested a pavement of massive flags, the centre of fine hard limestone, the sides of red breccia veined with white. In inscriptions upon the edges of these paving slabs, formerly hidden by their asphalt mortar, Nebuchadnezzar boasts that he paved the street of Babylon for the procession of the great lord Marduk, to whom he prays for eternal life. ”

“ The men of Umma, by the despoiling of Lagash, have committed a sin against the god Ningirsu! The power that is come unto them, from them shall be taken away! Of sin on the part of Urukagina, king of Girsu, there is none. But as for Lugal-zaggisi, patesi of Umma, may his goddess Nidaba bear this sin upon her head! ”

“ The increased use of burnt brick in the upper structure of the royal palaces rendered possible the brilliant enamelling of the Neo-Babylonian craftsmen. But, even as late as Nabopolassar's reign, the thick mud-brick walls of the king's dwelling must have resembled those of Hammurabi himself: it was mainly in point of size that the earlier palace and city differed from those of later monarchs. And when we examine the successive periods of the country's history, we shall find that tradition exerted an equally powerful influence in retaining unaltered the essential features of the national life. ”

“ We shall see that the problems we have to face concern the possible influence of Babylon, rather than of Egypt, upon Hebrew tradition. And one last example, drawn from the later period, will serve to demonstrate how Babylonian influence penetrated the ancient world and has even left some trace upon modern civilization. It is a fact, though one perhaps not generally realized, that the twelve divisions on the dials of our clocks and watches have a Babylonian, and ultimately a Sumerian, ancestry. For why is it we divide the day into twenty-four hours? ”

“ CHAPTER IX THE LATER RULERS OF LAGASH
We have seen that the Dynasty of Akkad marks the culminating point attained by the races of Sumer and Akkad during the earlier periods of their history. It is true that the kings of this period owed much to their immediate predecessors, but they added to and improved their inheritance. Through long centuries of slow development the village community had gradually been transformed into the city-state, and this institution had flourished and had in its turn decayed before the centralizing influence of the kingdoms of Sumer and Kish. ”

“ But in their other aspect the rivers of Mesopotamia could be terrible; and the Dragon motif itself, on the Tigris and Euphrates, drew its imagery as much from flood as from storm. When therefore a single deity must be made to appear, not only as Creator, but also as the champion of his divine allies and the conqueror of other gods, it was inevitable that the myths attaching to the waters under their two aspects should be combined. ”

“ Of no other period in the history of Babylon have we so intimate a knowledge as that of the West-Semitic kings under whom the city first attained the rank of capital. It was a time of strenuous growth, in the course of which the long struggle with regard to language and racial dominance was decided in favour of the Semite. But the victory involved no break of continuity, for all the essential elements of Sumerian culture were preserved, the very length of the struggle having proved the main factor in securing their survival. ”

“ On the Stele of the Vultures, Eannatum and his soldiers are sculptured with thick hair flowing from beneath their helmets and falling on their shoulders. But they have shaven faces, and, in view of the fact that on the same monument all the dead upon the field of battle and in the burial mounds have shaven heads, like those of the Sumerians assisting at the burial and the sacrificial rites, we may regard the hair of Eannatum and his warriors as wigs, worn like the wigs of the Egyptians, on special occasions and particularly in battle. ”

“ The reappearance of the fertile soil, after the receding inundation, doubtless suggested the idea of creation out of water, and the stream's slow but automatic fall would furnish a model for the age-long evolution of primaeval deities. When a god's active and artificial creation of the earth must be portrayed, it would have been natural for the primitive Sumerian to picture the Creator working as he himself would work when he reclaimed a field from flood. ”

“ Moreover, she always regarded the Assyrians as an upstart people, who had borrowed her culture, and whose land had been a mere province of her kingdom at a time when her own political influence had extended from Elam to the borders of Syria. Even in her darkest hour she was buoyed up by the hope of recovering her ancient glory, and she let no opportunity slip of striking a blow at the northern kingdom. She was consequently always a drag on Assyria's advance to the Mediterranean, for, when the latter's armies marched westward, they left Babylon and Elam in their rear. ”

“ There is a peculiar fascination in tracking any highly developed civilization to its source, and in watching its growth from the rude and tentative efforts of a primitive people to the more elaborate achievements of a later day. And it is owing to recent excavation that we are now in a position to elucidate the early history of the three principal civilizations of the ancient world. The origins of Greek civilization may now be traced beyond the Mycenean epoch, through the different stages of Aegean culture back into the Neolithic age. ”

“ It will be obvious that the same class of explanation cannot be applied to narratives of the Creation of the World. For there we are dealing, not with legends, but with myths, that is, stories exclusively about the gods. But where an examination of their earlier forms is possible, it would seem to show that many of these tales also, in their origin, are not to be interpreted as nature myths, and that none arose as mere reflections of the solar system. In their more primitive and simpler aspects they seem in many cases to have been suggested by very human and terrestrial experience. ”

“ CHAPTER VI THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON AND THE KINGS FROM THE COUNTRY OF THE SEA
In the closing years of Hammurabi's reign Babylon had reached the climax of her early power. The proud phraseology of the Prologue to his Code conveys the impression that the empire was solidly compact, and its component cities the willing recipients of his royal clemency and favour. And there can be no doubt that he owed his success in great measure to the efficient administration he had established under his personal control. ”

“ The sculptor slowly freed himself from the stiff conventions of his Sumerian teachers, and, while borrowing their technical skill, he transformed the work of their hands. Such a cylinder-seal as that of Ibni-sharru, Shar-Ganni-sharri's scribe, with its design of kneeling heroes watering oxen, [89] is a marvellous product of the engraver's art; while the delicate modelling of the figures upon Narâm-Sin's stele, their natural attitudes, and the decorative arrangement of the composition as a whole, are not approached on any earlier monument. ”

“ Thus our new material enables us to check the age, and in some measure the accuracy, of the traditions concerning the dawn of history which the Greeks reproduced from native sources, both in Babylonia and Egypt, after the conquests of Alexander had brought the Near East within the range of their intimate acquaintance. The third body of tradition, that of the Hebrews, though unbacked by the prestige of secular achievement, has, through incorporation in the canons of two great religious systems, acquired an authority which the others have not enjoyed. ”

“ That Sin-muballit, the son of Apil-Sin, did not combine with Nîsin to expel the invader from Babylonian soil, may have played at first into the hands of the Elamites. But it is not to be forgotten that the Western Semites of Babylon were still a conquering aristocracy, and their sympathies were far from being involved in the fate of any part of Sumer. Both Elam and Babylon must have foreseen that the capture of Nîsin would prove a decisive advantage to the victor, and each was content to see her weakened in the hope of ultimate success. ”

“ In the earlier stages of its history the character of the local god, like that of his city, must have been far more simple and primitive than it appears to us as seen in the light of its later development. The authority of each god did not extend beyond the limits of his own people's territory. Each city was content to do battle on his behalf, and the defeat of one was synonymous with the downfall of the other. ”

“ In the reason here given for man's creation, or for his rescue from the Flood, we have an interesting parallel to the Sixth Tablet of the Semitic-Babylonian Creation Series. At the opening of that tablet Marduk, in response to "the word of the gods", is urged by his heart to devise a cunning plan which he imparts to Ea, namely the creation of man from his own divine blood and from bone which he will fashion. And the reason he gives for his proposal is precisely that which, as we have seen, prompted the Sumerian deity to create or preserve the human race. ”

“ In his dream he beheld the god Ningirsu, who appeared to him in visible form and came near him and stood by his head. And the god encouraged his patesi and promised him victory over his enemies. He was to go forth to battle and Babbar, the Sun-god who makes the city bright, would advance at his right hand to assist him. Thus encouraged by Ningirsu, and with the knowledge that he was carrying out the orders of his city-god, Eannatum marshalled his army and set out from Lagash to attack the men of Umma within their own territory. ”

“ It may thus appear a paradox to assert that the civilization, with which the name of Babylon is associated, was not Babylonian. But it is a fact that for more than a thousand years before the appearance of that city as a great centre of culture, the civilization it handed on to others had acquired in all essentials its later type. In artistic excellence, indeed, a standard had been already reached, which, so far from being surpassed, was never afterwards attained in Mesopotamia. ”

“ We are thus shown the old Sumerian god Gilimma piling reed-bundles in the water and heaping up soil beside them, till the ground within his dikes dries off and produces luxuriant vegetation. But here there is a hint of struggle in the process, and we perceive in it the myth-redactor's opportunity to weave in the Dragon motif. No such excuse is afforded by the other Sumerian myth, which pictures the life-producing inundation as the gift of the two deities of the Deep and the product of their union. ”

“ What light then does our new material throw upon traditional origins of civilization? We have seen that in Egypt a new fragment of the Palermo Stele has confirmed in a remarkable way the tradition of the predynastic period which was incorporated in his history by Manetho. It has long been recognized that in Babylonia the sources of Berossus must have been refracted by the political atmosphere of that country during the preceding nineteen hundred years. ”

“ All the great provincial towns were doubtless required to furnish contingents for the numerous military campaigns of the period, and they could have had little satisfaction in seeing the fruits of their conquests diverted to the aggrandizement of a city other than their own. The assumption of divine rank by the later kings of Ur may in itself be regarded as a symptom of the spirit which governed their administration. In the case of Dungi the innovation had followed the sudden expansion of his empire, and its adoption had been based upon political as much as upon personal grounds. ”

“ Thanks to Babylon's misfortunes at this time, we have recovered some of her finest memorials, including the famous Stele of Narâm-Sin, Hammurabi's Code of Laws, and an important series of the Kassite kudurrus, or boundary-stones, which, as we have seen, throw considerable light upon the economic condition of the country. These doubtless represent but a small proportion of the booty secured by Elam at this period, but they suffice to show the manner in which the great Babylonian cities were denuded of their treasures. ”

“ To-day we will examine the Egyptian, Sumerian, and Babylonian myths of Creation, and, after we have noted the more striking features of our new material, we will consider the problem of foreign influences upon Hebrew traditions concerning the origin and early history of the world.
In Egypt, as until recently in Babylonia, we have to depend for our knowledge of Creation myths on documents of a comparatively late period. Moreover, Egyptian religious literature as a whole is textually corrupt, and in consequence it is often difficult to determine the original significance of its allusions. ”