ORIENTAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE LIBRARY
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THE
CAMBRIDGE ANCIENT HISTORY
EDITED BY
J. B. BURY, M.A., F.B.A. S. A. COOK, LITT.D. F. E. ADCOCK, M.A.
4448
VOLUME I
EGYPT AND BABYLONIA
TO 1580 B.C.
SECOND EDITION
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1928
FIRST EDITION 1923 SECOND EDITION 1924 .J REPRINTED 1928
|fi!W^l>r* V&M8Y
4 v
~ '••- «'•*""
3PJRINTEI) IN GREAT BRITAIN
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
Cambridge Ancient History is designed as the first part JL of a continuous history of European peoples. The last part, the Cambridge Modern History^ has long since been complete, and the middle section, the Cambridge Medieval History^ is in course of publication, Starting with the remote and dim beginnings, upoh which some new rays of light fall every year, the Ancient History will go down to the victory of Constantine the Great in A»D. 324, the point at which the Medieval lakes up the story,
-The history of Europe begins outside Europe* Its civilization is so deeply indebted to the older civilizations of Egypt and south-western Asia that for the study of its growth the early history of those lands is more important than the barbarous life which Celts, Germans, and others lived within the limits of Europe* Europeans, who wish to follow the history of their own development from its origins, must first of all become acquainted with the civilizations of Egyptian, Sumerian, Hittite, Semitic and other peoples of north-eastern Africa and south-western Asia, and therefore our first volume is concerned mainly with these peoples,
Behind the civilizations of Babylon and Egypt lies a vast and still little known tract of time during which man was gradually toiling up towards that relatively high stage of civilization he had reached when he first appears to us in his written records* The discoveries which have rewarded the geologists, geographers, *md anthropologists of the last few decades have made it feasible to attempt a reconstruction of the story of man in Europe and its environs throughout those prehistoric millenniums. The story of the land-masses prior to the formation of the present con- tinental system can in some measure be written down and its significance apprehended. It is not out of place to recall -that the written history of one of the peoples of Palestine, which represents only the unscientific ideas of an Dearly age, was up to very recent 1|mes thought by learned tfaejx to furnish an authentic account of the beginnings of the earth and the 'human race, £
To-day a large though scattered mass of geological and archado^ logical facts supplies us with a little genuine knowledge p^Sit our ancestors were doing and making at a time wheii; ift£a and water and climate differed appreciably from what th^^te how, a time long anterior to that once commonly thougfit to be the date
VI
PREFACE
of the creation of the universe itself. To ignore what is now known, little as it is and precarious as it may be, about palae^- lithic and early neolithic man, would be indefensible in a work which aims at explaining how Europe came to be what it is to-day. The activities of the palaeolithic age have helped to build modern Europe, and its effects persist; individuals of 'Ami- gnacian' descent, physically true to type, are among us stilL The first two chapters of this volume, by Professor Myres, show how the story of primitive man may be read by his latest descendants, and how the darkness before the 'dawn of history* may be illuminated by a brilliant interpreter.
Chapter m, on the history of Exploration and Excavation, is designed to give the reader some notion of the arduous, qjid some- times romantic, work of a century which has revolutionized cmr knowledge of the Near East, In an account, necessarily brief, of archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, the Hittite and Aegean areas, and Cyprus, the writer, Professor Macalister, shows how archaeological data have been classified and interrogated, and how unknown scripts have been deciphered and forgotten languages recovered.
It seemed desirable to state the fundamental chronological problems which face the historian in regard to the early history of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Palestine, and Greece; to show how archaeological and historical evidence have been co-ordinated; and in the case of conflicting systems of chronology to explain which has been adopted and why. Chapter iv will help the reader who is not familiar with prehistoric research to understand how it has been possible to frame a definite chronological scheme, especially when the data, as in the case of Crete, are purely archaeological,
Thus the first four chapters are preliminary. In chapter v Dr S. A* Cook gives a general account of the Semitic area, famous as a stepping-stone between three continents and as the home of three great religions. This chapter is a prelude to the later history of the Semites* It describes generally the mind of the Semite as revealed in his beliefs and practices, in his history and his treat- ment of history, while it tells what is known about the early history of Syria and Palestine down to the close of the Hyks<y period, circa 1580 B.C., the lower limit of this volume,
In the four chapters (vi to ix) devoted to Egypt, Professor Peet treats the early predynastic age on the basis or the archaeo- logical evidence, and describes Egyptian life and thought under the Old and Middle Kingdoms (chapters vi> ix), while the his- torical events, and the historical sources, the administration and
PREFACE
vn
the social conditions., of these two kingdoms, are dealt with by Dr H, R. Hall (chapters vn and vm).
Three chapters (x to xn) on the earlier period of Babylonian history, by Professor Langdon, include an account of the interest- ing culture of ancient Susa and a discussion of the problem of the Sumerian invaders, and portray the history of the notable con- querors Sargon and Naram-Sin, in what may be called the Golden Age of the Sumerians. Mr Campbell Thompson (chapters xin to xv) continues the story, and also contributes a full description of the Golden Age of the Semitic Babylonians — the age of Hammurabi and his Code of Laws, the discovery of which (in the winter of 1901—2) threw a brilliant light on the character of society in that part of the Near East, four thousand years ago.
* Ifi the chapter (xvi) on early Egyptian and Babylonian Art Dr HalPs wide knowledge of ancient art and his familiarity with the collections in the British Museum have enabled him to illustrate the aesthetic temperaments of the peoples concerned, to discriminate the periods of artistic freshness and decline, and to throw light on the difficult problems of borrowing and foreign influence. The Editors regret that it was impossible to provide illustrative plates without unduly increasing the price of the volume; but in the Bibliography to this chapter the reader will find references to illustrated books.
Finally, Mr Wace has contributed the chapter on the early civilization of Aegean lands. Thirty years ago the chapter would have been a blank, because there was absolutely nothing to say. One of the finest triumphs of archaeological research has Jbeen the discovery in Crete of a wonderful and unsxispected civilization in contact with Egypt and Asia. This ancient meeting of ea$ft and west offers problems which unite the classical and the Sepiitic scholar, the Egyptologist and the student of 'Bible-lands/ \
Our first volume, then, while it contains a survey of the &arly history of a large network of inter-related lands, down to the occupation of Egypt by the Hyksos and of Babylonia by the Kassites (events which may perhaps be associated with sweeping movements in Indo-European lands to the north), may also be Regarded as a general introduction to those that will follow it. In the next volume a new age opens up, an age characterized by what we may perhaps call internationalism : Greeks whose names were well remembered in Greek records will come upon the $tage and the curtain will rise upon Old Testament history.
Any exposition of the history of early ages down to 3000 years ago and even beyond, must be in a very hig|i degree provisional*
viii PREFACE
This is due to the fortunate circumstance that new evidence is continually and rapidly accumulating- Conclusions historians draw to-day from the records at their disposal about Babylonia", Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Aegean may be upset, corrected, amplified, or transformed by a new discovery to-morrow. Since the writing of this volume was begun, writers who had completed their contributions have seen cause to change some of their state- ments in the light of new evidence which happened to be revealed in the meantime. Obviously there is a limit to this and experts must not expect to find a reference in every case to the npwyettes de Ijt^derniere heure* Even as we are writing, Sir Arthur El^ans publishes the news that his latest excavations at Cnossus (the spring of 1922) have disclosed the fact that the end of the second phase of the c Middle Minoan ' civilization was due to lin efrtih- quake. We may note that this disaster was not contempor- aneous with the volcanic eruption which wrought ruin in Them and Therasia (see below, p. 603) 1.
The appearance of some new evidence, to enable us to decide finally between conflicting views of the chronologies of Egypt and Babylonia, is much to be desired. In accordance with the opinion of the great majority of scholars we have adopted the * shorter' dates (see chapter iv, i, iii). It is desirable to impress upon the reader that the precision with which the dates are assigned is based partly upon ancient lists and computations assumed to be tmstworthy, but partly also upon modern calcula- tions of a few crucial dates as to which there is no definite unanimity. The date adopted here for Hammurabi is not accepted by some high authorities. And as to Egypt, Dr Hall is unable to accept the view of Professor E. Meyer and other historians who follow him, that the Xllth Dynasty ended in 1788 B.C*; and he puts back the date by more than two centuries. This view affects both the earlier Egyptian dates and the chronology of the early Aegean periods which depend on Egyptian synchronisms* 'Early Minoan HI/ which the latest investigations of Sir Arthur Evans have shown to extend from the Vlth to the Xlth Dynasty,, is on our chronological scheme 200 years earlier than it is on the scheme which he has adopted. See pp. 173, 656 syy,
In a co-operative work of this kind, no editorial pains coma avoid a certain measure of overlapping; and in fields, where there
* Weidner's recent discussion of Sargon's expedition to the west, and of the oldest historical relations between Babylonia and the Hittite area, may- be mentioned as another example of the progressive character of studies in this field (see p. 647, 6).
PREFACE
IX
Is so much uncertainty and such wide room for divergencies of Xiews? as in the first two volumes, overlapping must mean that occasionally different writers will express or imply different opinions. It has not been thought desirable to attempt to eliminate these differences, though they are often indicated or discussed. Such inconsistencies may sometimes be a little inconvenient for the reader's peace of mind, but it is better that he should learn to take them as characteristic of the ground over which he is being guided than that he should be misled by a dogmatic con- sistency into accepting one view as authoritative and final.
It will easily be understood that it is not possible to give chapter and verse for every statement or detailed arguments for every opinion, but it is hoped that the work will be found service- able to professional students as well as to the general reader. The general reader is constantly kept in view throughout, and our aim is to steer a middle course between the opposite dangers, a work which only the expert could read or understand and one so * popular' that serious students would rightly regard it with indifference.
In this connexion, the problem of transliterating occurs, and a quite satisfactory solution has not been found. Conventional and accepted spellings have been retained, but where usage varies the more correct are used (for Instance Mohammed, Nebuchad- rezzar), For classical Greek names the Latin forms are adopted (as in the yournal of Hellenic Studies). In regard to oriental names, we have thought it reasonable to assume that general readers are indifferent to what experts know; and experts do not always agree as to the precise spelling. We have followed generally Breasted, Hall, and King, and the Encyclopaedia Biblica, but attention has been paid to the lists drawn up by the Royal Geographical Society, and to the transliteration of Arabic recom- mended by the British Academy (vol. vm). The difficulty of transliterating unvocalized Egyptian names and of Interpreting names in cuneiform is commented on below (pp. 119, 126), Some modern technical transliterations are as formidable-looking as the hieroglyphs themselves. In Egyptian and in the other languages «}h is adopted instead of s or the like; s for £, ts, etc.; k for q, etc.; and kh for the harder guttural fc, &. But Hatti and Habiru haye been written because *Hittite* and * Hebrew* are so familiar; a$d Hammurabi is now well enough known to dispense even ^ith a diacritical point. Names when they first occur are sometimes written with their proper vowel-lengths, etc.; but as a rule dia- critical marks have been avoided (although :, Kaahshi may be
x PREFACE
thought clumsier than Kassi), and more or less conventional spellings (e.g. Ashur) have been freely employed. On the? other hand, an attempt is made in the Index to register some of the more correct spellings which for one reason or another deserve attention, but could not be introduced into the text without making it unduly technical1,
We wish to express our indebtedness to contributors for their readiness in carrying out editorial suggestions, in avoiding archaeological and other technicalities and in restricting the use of footnotes; for advice on questions of transliteration and on other difficult questions which arose from time to time; and foFthe preparation of the bibliographies and the lists of kings,
Mr Wace is indebted to Sir Arthur Evans for his kindness in reading the chapter on the Aegean and Early Greece,, imcr the Aegean section of the chapter on Chronology. Professor Myres wishes to express obligations to Professor H. J. Fleure, to Mr Harold Peake, F.S.A., and to Mr L. H, D. Burton. Dr Cook wishes to thank Dr H. R. Hall, Professor Kennett and Dr Nicholson for help in revising chapter v. He is particularly indebted to Professor A. A. Bevan, who read two proofs, and made many valuable criticisms and suggestions. But for the views put forward in that chapter the writer has sole responsibility.
Special thanks are due to Professor Myres for the Table facing p. 660, and for the preparation of Maps i— 6* For permission to use Maps 7, 8 and 1 1 we are indebted to the publishers of the Encyclopaedia Biblica^ Messrs A. & C, Black; to Messrs Chatto & Windus for Maps 9 and 10 (from the first and second volumes of the late Dr Leonard W. King's A History of Babylonia and Assyria from Prehistoric Times to the Persian Conquesi)\ and to Messrs Methuen & Co. for the plan of Babylon on p. 504 (from Dr H. R, Hall's The Ancient History of the Near East from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Salamis)* The index has been made by Mr W. E. C, Browne, M.A., former scholar of Ernmamiel College.
The design on the outside cover represents Hammurabi, king of Babylonia, and is from the head of the stone monument on which is inscribed the famous code now known after his namdt on the original he is depicted standing in the conventional attitude of adoration before the sun-god, Shamashu, the god of righteousness and justice*
J. B- B, 8. A. C. F, E. A. * See the letters a, c, d, g, h> j, k, q, s, t and z in the Index.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
^ ||" ^HE demand for a new edition of the first volume of the JL Cambridge Ancient History has come much sooner than the Editors ventured to anticipate, and they have not been able to do more than make some corrections and modifications which could be effected without disturbing the paging*
TSe remarks which they made at the top of page viii of the Preface have been amply justified since the volume was first sent to press. j[n Egypt, the Aegean, Babylonia, Palestine and Syria, excavations have continued and interesting discoveries have been made. At Byblus, for instance, new information has been gained touching the extensive relations between Egypt and Phoenicia during the Middle Kingdom (see below, p. a 2 6), The successful diggings at el-'Obeid and Kish have supplied archaeological and historical data, of which the bearing on the period covered in this volume cannot yet be justly estimated. We may point to Mr C. L. Woolley's report (The Times^ Jan. 19, 1924) of a monu- ment of A-an-ni-pad-da, son of Mes-an-ni-pad-da (on whom see below, p. 367), and Professor Langdon's addition to the kings of Kish (tb. Jan. 22, 1924). But the information which is thus being accumulated must be submitted to a careful criticism, and that takes time, as experience shows that the full significance of fresh material cannot be evaluated at once. This is especially true of the problems of chronology, which for the early Sumerian period have assumed a new aspect through Professor Langdon's publi- cation of a very important list of the early kings. Although, with the ever-present prospect of other historical inscriptions coming to light, we cannot treat this document as decisive, yet, as its im- portance is unquestionable, it seemed desirable that some account of it should be given in this edition, and on page xiii sq* will be found a statement drawn up on the basis of Professor Langdon's publication and of some notes which he has kindly sxijpplied.
A fly-sheet containing all the more important corrections and additions to this volume will also be issued separately with volume ii.
Some reviewers made the justifiable criticism on volume i that it suffered from the absence of illustrations. The Editors are glad to be able to state that the Syndics of the University Press have
Xll
agreed to publish a volume of plates which, it is hoped, will appear in the course of I fit,,
It remains for the Editors to express their cordial thanks to the contributors for help in the preparation of the new edition, particularly to Mr A, J, B.Iace in the account of excavations in the Aegean (Chap, in Section vi), and to Mr Campbell Thompson for the translation of the Kassite names thich is given on p. xv.
JIB, SIC, Fl'i
NOTE ON THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE EARLY SUMERO-BABYLONIAN PERIOD
PROFESSOR LANGDON has recently published an important inscription, part of the Weld- Blundell collection1 in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It is a large prism with eight columns of closely-written chronological material which gives the entire Sumerian lists of dynasties before and after the Flood to the end of the Isin dynasty in 2076 B.C. A small tablet in the same collection contains the names of the ten kings who reigned before the Flood, for which period it gives 456,000 years. The dynastic prism aas only eight kings before the Flood and assigns to them a duration of 241,200 years. Other important dynastic lists in fragmentary condition have been found in the Nippur Collection. These agree with the Oxford prism in giving twenty dynasties from t&e Fld%d to the Isin dynasty inclusive, and 125 kings.
The first dynasty reigned at Kish (p. 365, 1. 18 from end). It included 23 kings, who are said to have reigned 24,510 years, 3 months and 3^ days. The figure recalls the 'World-year' of 25,920 years, the approximate period of the sun's apparent revolution through the twelve signs of the zodiac; but it is unlikely that the precession of the equinoxes was known even in the age of the most advanced Babylonian astronomical knowledge (Langdon, op, tit* p. 3, n. 6, cf. Kugler, Stsrnkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, u, 24—32). The longest and shortest reigns of this dynasty are 1500 and 140 years respectively; the names differ somewhat from the list on p. 665, and the name of Zukakipu (the 'scorpion') is replaced by Daggagib. The first dynasty of Erech (p. 366) counted twelve kings, reigning 2310 years. The name of the second king of the dynasty of Ur (p. 367, 1. 19) may preferably be read Meskem-Nannar. The dynasty of Awan (the identification with Awa& should be omitted on pp. 366, L 21 sf.9 438, L 14, from end) had three kings ruling 3 56 years.
The details on p. 367 (lower half of the page) are considerably affected by the new prism. A list of seven kingdoms now intervenes between the semi-historic period and the northern Semitic kingdom of Akshak. The second dynasty at Kish, which succeeded that at Awan, may be placed about 3700 B.C.; to its eight kings the prism assigns 3195 years. The next dynasty ruled at Kharnazi and its king Khadanish is said to have ruled 360 or 420 years, the figures are presumably errors for six: or seven years* The sovereignty then returns to Erech in the south (c* 3400 B*C.), where the name of only one king, Enugduanna, is known. It is probable that the names of Lugalkigubnilakh and Lugalkisalsi are to be inserted here. After this second kingdom of Erech we reach the second kingdom of Ur, where four kings ruled 1 08 years. The capital now shifts to Adab for a period of 90 years, and then far to the north at Maer, where a dynasty of six kings (Ansir, [Lugaltar]zi, the rest are mutilated) reigned 136 years. It seems evident from the texts that the two succeeding kingdoms of Kish (the third) and Akshak were contemporary.
If, therefore, we may follow the new source, it may be computed that these djpiasties were founded about 2967—6 B.C., in which case the first approximately fixed date in Sumero-Babylonian history will have to be placed more than 200 year* lower than that given on p. 367, L 4 from end.
Moreover, it would now seem that the old third dynasty of Kish disappears (sec p. 667 [8], and n. 4); the two kings Urzaged and Lugal-tarsi belong to the second dynasty of Erech, and Mesilim possibly to the Awan dynasty (Langdpn, opf cit.
1 Oxford Editions of Cuneiform Texts, n. The Weld~$lundett collections, vol. ki. Historical inscriptions, containing principally the chronological prism, W-B 444. Oxford, 1923.
C.A.H.I.
xiv CHRONOLOGY OF SUMERO-BABYLONIAN PERIOD
p. 6 /f.). The first kings of ELish of whom we have contemporary records apparently belonged to other kingdoms, and claim the title because of its dignity. Oa p. 3^3,^ L 9 jf. read: who followed the second kingdom at Kish and the brief dynasty of Khamazi (r. 3400).
The third (not/0«r/j£) dynasty of Kish was founded by Kug-Bau, as the name should now be read instead of Azag-Bati (p. 370 last par., and 1. 7 from end). Ur-Nina was contemporary with the rulers of Maer, not Akshak (p. 379, L 14 from end). On p. 380, 11. 9—o? omit the words: convincing evidence. * * dynasty, and ib. 1. 6 from end, for Uruazagga the better reading now is Uru-kugga,
Rimush (p. 408, L 19 from end), according to the Oxford prism, reigned nine years. Manishtusu was his elder brother (p. 409, L 21 Jf.). Naram-Sitx was his son (contrast /^,), although Babylonian tradition calls him son of Sargon (p. 4r^foot)1. For 22 read 24 (/<£.last line); and note that the prism gives a much lower figure for his reign — probably 38 years (p. 413, L 6).
The fifth dynasty of Erech contains only one king, Utukhegal, to whom is ascribed a reign of 7 years, 2 months and 7 days (p. 434, last par.). T o Dungi^p. 43^, L 6) is ascribed a reign of 47 (not 58) years, and Langdon reduces all the figures in his reign (11. 4—18, and also p. 456, 1. 21 from end) by eleven. The length of the reign of Bur-Sin (p. 4575 L 20) is given as nine (not «<gvijf) years.
Finally, on the basis of the Oxford prism and other evidence Langdon arrives at dates generally lower than those adopted in this volume. Starting from Kegler's brilliant interpretation of the tablet of observations of the planet Venus for the twenty- one years of the reign of Ammi-zaduga, the tenth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, and in consultation with the Oxford astronomer, Dr Fotheringham, he now holds that the beginning of this dynasty may be placed at 2 1 69 E.G. The astronomical calculations in themselves are not entirely final, and the argument also turns upon the precise beginning of the year in certain contracts relating to the division of the date-harvest and the renting of fields in the seventh-eighth months. The date which Langdon now adopts is fifty-six years lower than that adopted in this volume (pp. 404, 1. 3, 479, 67.3)> but he definitely rejects the much lower dates for the dynasty which are held by Weidner (viz. 2057, see p. 672, xu i) and Kugler (viz. 2049),
Langdon maintains the date 2357 for the beginning of the dynasty of Isin (pp* 471, 672); but, besides the modification of the earliest approximately fixed date (viz. 2967—6, see above), other important changes are suggested arising out of the Oxford prism. Thus, the Maer-Akshak-Kish domination (p. 373^ L 14) may be dated 3 103-2777, For the Kug-Bau dynasty (/£„ L 7) he suggests 2967-2873, and a similar reduction of about 120 years becomes necessary on p, 378, L 12 (viz. 2967-2873)* So the date of Sargon becomes 2752 (pp. 368, L 16 from end, 403, 1. 8). Lugal-zaggisi begins to reign in 2777 (pp. 39 5, L 21, 402, L %), The fourth dynasty of Erech Is dated 2571-2542 (p, 423, L 9), and that of Gutium becomes 2541-2416 (pp. 423 f$.9 670). Ur-Bau's date is 2620 (p. 373, L 26). The end of the last dynasty of Ur is fixed at 2328 (p. 377, L 13), and Dungi and Bursin are dated respectively 2391 and 2345 B.C. ,(pp, 437, 1 5, 457, L 19),
These dates indicate the complexity of the chronological problems, and the difficulty of obtaining conclusive results, owing to the serious differences among tfce ancient souf ces themselves and the frequently very intricate character of the astro- nomical and other questions. They are not to be regarded as final, but it seemed desirable that a general statement of the evidence published by Prof* Langdon should be made accessible in this edition.
1 Prof. Lang-don adds that Sargfon claims to have collected ships from Melukhkha, Magan and Diknun at the quay of Agade (addition to p, 404, L 14),
ON
i i ^ i
ring is a translation of the Babylonian renderings of the names of tie twenty-one kings, diiefly Kassites, mentioned on p, ^ of volume i;
'J)
"Traeiin"
'Offspring of k Lord of Us'
'Servant o or 'Help of Bel
"
s
Jil
<(
U
Protect(ion) of [Stall]11 ion)oftkLordofknJs]'
eiiDotieW
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME
BY JOHN L. MYRES, O.B.E., M.A., D.Sc., F.S.A. Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, Oxford
PAGE
I. JUKE SETTING OF THE STAGE i
Definition of History I
Nature and Man ..»,.,.„. 2
IL PRE-GLACIAL GEOGRAPHY 3
Theseaof 'Tethys* 4
Tertiary mountain-building 6
Crust movements ..,,,.... 8
Beginning of the Mediterranean * 9
Tertiary flora and fauna . . , . . . . . r I
Africa separated from Asia 13
The Highland Zone 14
Relation to the Southern Flatland 16
African fauna , . . . . . . * * 17
III. THE GLACIAL CRISIS 1 8
Effect upon flora and fauna . . . , . . . 19
IV. THE PRINCIPAL HUMAN RACES 21
Mongoloid man »,..»,».. 22
His extension 24
African fauna and African man * . * , * • • 2 5
Sequence of human types 27
The white races , ,..,,.. 28
V. PALAEOLITHIC MAN IN THE SOUTH AND EAST , , * . 31
The Nile Valley ......... 33
Domesticated plants and animals . * , . . * 35
Links between Egypt and Europe 36
Man in Syria and Arabia 37
The Semites 38
Palestine 39
The Euphrates and Mesopotamia ...... 40
V L THE ICE AGE IN THE NEAR EAST ,,..., 42
Conditions in Armenia and Iran .43
VII. THE ICE AGE IN EUROPE 45
Mousterian man ......... 4^
Later types * ... .*..«» 48
Later palaeolithic cultures * S°
VIII. THE CLOSE OF THE OLD STONE AGE „ . . • • • 52
The kitchen-middens « . - * , , * , • S3
Swamp and forest in north-west Europe 54
xviii CONTENTS
CHAPTER II
NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES BY J. L. MYRES
PAGE
L THE HIGHLAND ZONE AND ALPINE MAN « . » . . 57
The forests . 58
Varieties of man .*.»..... 59
Forest culture and polished implements . ... - 63
II. CHARACTERISTICS OF NEOLITHIC CULTURE . 5 5
Inventions ......... $7
Eurasian and Eurafrican cradle-lands . . . ^9
Pottery and pottery styles ....... 70
III. REGIONAL TYPES OF NEOLITHIC CULTURE: ALPINE EUROPE . „ 71
The lake-dwelling 73
IV. REGIONAL TYPES: THE DANUBE BASIN . , . . . 75
Daimbian pottery ......... 77
South-eastern Europe and Asia Minor 79
V. REGIONAL TYPES: THE TRIPOLJE CULTURE . .... 80 VI* TKE CULTURE OF THE NORTH-EASTERN STEPPE . . , . . 82
Waggon-dwelling culture; languages ...... 84
VII* THE CULTURE OF ANAU AND SUSA . , . * . . . 85
Contact with the west 4 88
VIII. THE RE0-WARE CULTURE OF THE NEARER EAST .... 89
The influence of Cyprus and Syria ««*... 90
IX. THE CULTURE OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN . * . . 92
Early Aegean culture ..... 93
X. THE CULTURE OF THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN AND ITS OFFSHOOTS * 94
'Megalithic* origins . <, * . * » „ * 95
XI. THE CULTURE OF THE BEAKER-FOLK: . , * . . xoo
XII. THE COMING OF BRONZE . . . . . „ . .103
Aegean influence . „ . f , . . . .105
XIIL THE HALLSTATT CULTDRE . . . . « . . 106
The horse . . . . * , . * . 107
First appearance of iron . . . . . . . 109
Cremation . . . . . . , . . j to
CHAPTER III EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION
BY R. A. STEWART MACALISTER, L,iTT*D.> F.S.A. Professor of Celtic Archaeology, University College, Dublin
I. THE RELATION op ARCHAEOLOGY TO HISTORY . . » . . r 1 a
Petrie's pottery test . . . . . . . , * XI4
II. EGYPT : (a) Surface exploration , . . . , . .116
(&) Decipherment * . . . . . „ ,117
(c) Excavation , ,120
III. MESOPOTAMIA:
(a) Surface exploration . . . „ , , » 122
(ff) Decipherment , . » . , . » • . 123
(r) Excavation . , m , , , ^ ,127
CONTENTS xlx
IV* STRIA AND PALESTINE: PAGE
(a) Surface exploration. . . . . „ . .130
(<£) Decipherment . . . . . . ...132
(<r) Excavation . . . . . . . .132
V. THE HITTITE EMPIRE . . . . . . . . • *35
VI. THE AEGEAN CIVILIZATION . . * . . » * .136
The work of Schliemann , , . . . . 137
Periods of Cretan culture. . , . . . . .139
VII. CYPRUS ........... 142
Decipherment of Cypriote , . . . . . 1 44
CHAPTER IV CHRONOLOGY
I. MESOPOTAMIA
BY STANLEY A. COOK, Lrrr.D.
Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Introduction ........... 145
Mesopotamian usage . . . . . . . . . .147
The limmu lists ........... 148
The testimony of Berosus . , . . . . . . .150
Assyrian data » * . . . . . . . . .153
Dates of Hammurabi and Saigon . . . . . . . .155
Table of dates 156
II. THE OLD TESTAMENT
BY S. A. COOK
Character of data . . . . . » . , . .156
Period of the monarchy . . . . . . . . .158
Exilic and post-exilic period . . . . « . . * ,162
Pre-monarchical period > . . . . . . . .163
General character of the chronology . . „ . . . .165
Table of dates 1 66
III. EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY BY H. R. HALL, D.LITT., F.S.A.
Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum
Direct sources .... ....... 166
Sothic cycle ........... 168
Date of Xllth Dynasty . , 169
Date of Menes . . „ . . . . . . . .171
Institution of the calendar, 4241 B.C. ....... 172
Table of dates 173
IV. PREHISTORIC GREECE BY A. J. B. WACE> M.A.
Formerly Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge j Late Director of
the British School of Archaeology, Atb*™
Archaeological periods , ... tyrj
Early and Middle Minoan 175
Late Minoan . . . . . . . . , ^ , [76
Greek legend and tradition . . '. . . , *"- , 178
Helladic and Minoan co-ordinations . . , . . ,179
Thessalian periods ..*.., ...180
xx CONTENTS
CHAPTER V
THE SEMITES
BY S. A, COOK
PAGE
I. PEOPLE, LANGUAGE AND MOVEMENTS . , - . . 1 8 1
Geographical limits . . . . . - - ,182
The * sons7 of Noah: Shem 184
The Semitic languages . . . . . - , .186
The alphabet 189
Migrations and trading movements - „ , . . .190 Semitization of immigrants . . . . . . * ' 192
Influence of Arabia , . .193
II. TEMPERAMENT AND THOUGHT ....... 194
Psychology of the languages . „ . . - .195
Religious characteristics »....- . 197
Polytheism and Monotheism . . . . . . .199
Semitic and non-Semitic thought .*.,.. 203
The extremes of the Semites . . , . , . .205
IIL SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT ...... 206
The^W 207
Attitude to the divine powers „ . . , „ . .209
Fundamental ideas , . . , . . . . ,210
Men and the gods , . . . . . . „ .213
The sanctity of kings . . . . . . . .214
Historical vicissitudes , . . , . . . ,216
IV. TREATMENT OF HISTORY- . . . . . . . .2x7
Treatment of tradition . . . . , * . ,219
Attitude to development . . . . . . . .231
The writing of history , . . , . » . ,222
Historical ideas . , . * , * „ . ,223
V. SYRIA AND PALESTINE * .... , . ... . 225
The story of Sin tihe . * , „ . . * ,226
Amor and Mesopotamia . * . . . . . ,230
Amorite gods P . * . . . » . .231
The Hyksos 233
Native Palestinian traditions . , , . » , .234
Genesis, chap, xiv , . . . . . . . .236
Paucity of historical material , . , » ^ . .237
CHAPTER VI EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD
By T. ERIC PEKT, M.A* Professor of Egyptology, Liverpool University
L THE EVIDENCE OP THE CEMETERIES „ » . „ , ,238 Predynastic burial .....»»», 239 Predynastic settlements . . , , , . , ,241 Pottery and stone vases .»,.*.*, 243
Physical type, language and religion . - „ „ . 244
CONTENTS
XXI
PAGE II. JC^iTA FOR HISTORY ......„., 247
Introduction of tlie Calendar ....... 248
Sources for the predynastic period . , * . , .250 Historical slate palettes . . . . . . . .251
Ivory- knife-han die from Gebel el- Arak . „ . . .252 Original home of the predynastic Egyptian . * . . .254 Indications of eastern origin , , . „ . . .255
CHAPTER VII
THE UNION OF EGYPT AND THE OLD KINGDOM By H. R, HALL
L THE LISTS OF KINGS: DYNASTY I . . . „ . ,257
Sources . . . . . . . , . .258
Infiltration of aliens . . . . . . . . 261
Hamites and Armenoids ........ 262
Kingdoms of the north and south . . . . . .265
Pre~Menic kings ......... 266
The originals of Menes . . . . . . .267
Narmerza .......... 268
The court of Semti ......... 270
The dead and mummification ..,..,. 272
II. DYNASTIES II— IV . . . . . . , , .274
Zos&r and the first pyramid ...»**. 276 The age of Snefru ......... 278
Pyramids of Gizeh. . . . . . . . 28 r
Zenith of Egyptian art . . . . . . . .282
Mycerirxus . . , . , * " . , . .282
III. THE CLOSE OF THE OLD KINGDOM . . . . . . .284
The 'son of the Sun-god* 285
Art and religion . . . . . . . . .286
The 'admonitions of Ptahliotep' . , . . . .288
Unis and the pyramid at Sakkarah ... ... 290
Pepi ........... 291
Uni in Palestine ......... 293
Entrance of negroes . . . . . . . .295
The Heracleopolites ........ 297
CHAPTER VIII
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM AND THE HYKSOS CONQUEST
BY H. K. HALL
DYNASTIES XI AND XII ........ 299
Amenemhet I and the god Amon . * . , . 301
The Instructions of Amenemhet . , . , . .303
The story of Sinuhe . . . . . . . 3 04
The works of Senusret (Sesostris) I . . . * , . 305
Relations with Crete . , . . « * . .307
Senusret III, the historical Sesostris . * . ,,, . - 308
Amenemhct III , * , , . , ,r . • . . 309
xxii CONTENTS
PAGE
II. THE HYKSQS , 310
North Syrian movements . . . . . - . . 3 F2
Yekeb-hal, Khian and other kings . . . . . - 3 1 3
Expulsion of the Hyksos . . . . - « « 3r4
III. THE INTERNAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGE . . . - • .315
Life of the people 3*7
Officials and soldiers . . . . . » - 3 * &
Tombs and religion . . . . . . • .321
The priesthood 323
Religious literature . . . - . . . . .324 A Messianic prophecy . . . . . . . ,325
CHAPTER IX
LIFE AND THOUGHT IN EGYPT UNDER THE OLD AND MIDDLE KINGDOMS
BY T. E. PEET
General Egyptian character - , * • . . . * ,326
I. THE ARCHAIC 3PERIOD AND THE OLD KlNGDOM , . . . .328
Local and solar cults „ . . . . . . 329
Osiris - . . . . . , . . . -S3^
The^ 334
The tomb, death, and the hereafter . . . * * -33^
II. THE EARLIER INTERMEDIATE PERIOD, VllTH TO Xril DYNASTIES . . 340
Language and writing . . . » . . . .341
Early literature . . . . . . . , » 343
Pessimism . . . . . , , . * * 345
III. THE MIDDLE KINGDOM . . . . . , . ,346
Moral standards . . . . . . . . .347
'Story of the Eloquent Peasant' 349
Coffin Texts . „ * 351
Belief in a judgment . . .*. , . » »353 Hfke, rnagic and morality. . . . . „ . 354
CHAPTER X EARLY BABYLONIA AND ITS CITIES
BY STEPHEN H. LANGDONT, M*A.7 B,D., Pn.D* Professor of and Shiliito Reader in Assyriology, Oxford
L PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS * * , , * . . 356
The Euphrates and Lower Mesopotamia , . * . 358
Sumer and the date-palm , . , » . . 3 6C
II. THE ORIGIN OF THE SvMERIANS . . . . . * ,361
The cultures of Anau and Sxisa * * , . . „ ,362
IIL EARLIEST TRADITIONAL DYNASTIES . . . . , . .364
The first city-states . * . „ . . . m .365
The third dynasty of Kish . . . , , . ,368
The fourth dynasty of Kish . . * , , . 370
Sumerian writing and religion • , . . » . 371
CONTENTS xxili
PAGE TV TgE RECORDS OF THE CITY-STATES . . . . . . * 373
Lagash . . . . . . . . . . -373
Enkhegal and Ur-Nina . . . . . . . .374
Shuruppak and its legends . . . . . . • 377
The dynasty of Ur-Nina, 3100 B.C. . . , . . 378
Eannatum and Enannatum . . . . . . .380
Entemena and his son . . . . . , . .382
Rise of priests of Lagash . . . . . „ . .385
Social reforms of Urukagina . . . . . „ ,387
Inroad of Lugal-zaggisi . . . « . , . .388 V. OTHER crriEs , . . . . . . . . .389
~ Umma . ..,.*,.... 389
Adab .*.-**..,.. 39°
Nippur 391
Isip and Larak ......... 393
Kish ........... 393
Cuthah 394
Sippar 395
Erech. ........... 396
Larsa (Ellasar) ......... 397
Ur 398
Abu Shahrein (Eridu) . . . . . . . .399
Myth of Adapa ......... 400
Ashur ........... 401
CHAPTER XI
THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH BY S. H. LANG DON
I. THE RISE OF THE DYNASTY OF SARGON ...... 4O2
Stories of his origin , . , . . . . .403
Conquests in the west ........ 404
The foundation of Agade ....... 407
Accession of Rirnush ........ 408
Manishtusu .......... 409
Contemporary monuments . . . . , „ .410
Purchase of estates . . . . . , . . .411
II. NARAM-SIN AND THE DECLINE OP THE DYNASTY OF SARGON . . .412
Deification of Naram»Sin . . . * . . * .413 His conquests ......... 414
Expedition to Magan . * . . . . . .415
The * Stele of Victory* ........ 41,7
Submission of Elam, Lagash and Nippur ..... ;^8 ]<•
Reign of Shargalisharri ........ f;T^v
The rise of Gutium , ; 1421
Period of anarchy . . - . * . » .,; ;;V; 422
III. GUTIXJM AND LAGASH ....... 423
The kings of Gutium * . . . . . ./ . 424
Ur«Bau of Lagash . . . . * , » . 425
xxiv CONTENTS
PAGE IV. THE KINGDOM OF GUDEA OF LAGASH „ . . . - ¥ 426
The statues of Gudea • 4"^s
Contemporary art and literature . . « - • 43 2
Overthrow of dynasty of Gutium . . . . . .434
CHAPTER XII
THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL: THE EMPIRE OF UR By S. IL LANG DON
I. UR-ENGUR AND DUNGI .435
Might of Ur-Engur 43 6
Conquests in the east . . . . . . „ .438
Submission of Susa ........ 440
II. LAGASH AND OTHER CITIES OF THE EMPIRE . - . . .441
Sumerian liturgies . „ . * . . , . .443
The principal cults . . . . . . , , 4 44
Conditions in Akkad ..,.*..« 44^
III. THE EASTERN PROVINCES ..<....,. 447
Early deities of the east . . . . . . . ,448
Semitic infusion ......... 450
IV. THE NORTHERN ANZ> WESTERN EXTENSION . . . . . ,451
Ashur ...**.... 451
Subartu . . . * 452
Cappadocia and its Semitic colony „ . . . . ,453
V. THE DECLINE OF SUMERIAN POWER . . . . - . .456
Bur-Sin .......... 457
Gimll-Sm ..„„....„* 458
Ibi-Sin and his overthrow » « » . * * .459 Sumerian law and calendar *»..*.* 461 The influence of the Sumerians . * . . . .462
CHAPTER XIII
ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON
By R. CAMPBELL THOMPSON, M.A., F.S.A.
Fellow of Mcrton College, Oxfc rd
L THE POWER OP THE SEMITES .,.,.»*. 464 West Semitic elements .»«.«.*. 466 Amor (Amurru) ..,.,.... 467
Early Assyria ...*,,„»*. 468 Kara-Euynk and Kerkuk . , . . . . . .470
11^ THE DYNASTY OF ISIN ....»..,. 47o
Overthrow of Ibi-Sin ..»...«. 47 r Contemporary laments . „ . * . . . .472
^Chedorlaomer* and G-encs;s xiv . „ f » . .473 New Sumerian activity ..«*.... 474
An Amorite raid .*..,..*. 476 The wars of Gnngunurn - . , , * . , » 477 Larsa ........... 478
The First Dynasty of Babylon . » , » „ , .479
CONTENTS xxv
PAGE
Relations with Larsa and Isln . . . * , . .480 Defeat of Larsa by Elam . , - . . . . 483
Elamlte kings. ....... 484
Rim-Sin's successes against Isin . . . . , .485
Fight for Isin and Larsa . . . . . . . .486
III, HAMMURABI .......... 487
Conquest of Elam ......... 488
Temple and other works . . , . . . , .489 Campaigns in the north ........ 490
His law-code ......... 492
Extent of his empire ........ 493
CHAPTER XIV
THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI BY R. CAMPBELL THOMPSON
I. THE COUNTRY .......... 494
Communications by water . . . . . . .495
Ships and houses ......... 497
The date-palm ......... 499
Animals and birds . . . . , . . . .500
The Tigris .......... 501
II. BABYLON . 503
Plan . 504
Nebuchadrezzar's buildings . . . * . . .505 Tower of Babel 508
III. GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY ........ 508
The patesis 509
Judicial procedure . . . . . . . . . 511
The levy 514
Capital offences, penalties . . . - . . .516
Social castes " . . . -5*8
Slavery 520
IV. PRIVATE LIFE 522
Matrimony . . . . . . . . .523
Divorce and adultery . * , * . . . .524
Children and inheritance . . . . - . « .526
Loans ........... 528
V. RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS . - . . . - * * 529
The gods 529
Religious beliefs . . . . . . . . -53*
The temple and its staff 532
Priestesses and temple- women , . ... . . .536
VI. ORDINARY LIFE, DEATH, LITERATURE ...... 546
The crops -54*
Food 543
Coinage, metals and pottery . . » . . ,.545
A love-letter ........ * 547
Burial . * . . 548
Myths and legends * . - . . , % » 55°
xxvi CONTENTS
CHAPTER XV
THE KASSITE CONQUEST
BY R. CAMPBELL THOMPSON
PAGE
I. THE END OF THE FIRST BABYLONIAH DYNASTY * . . . . 552
The Kassites and their language . . - * . 553
The kings of the Sea-country 555
Their advance . . . . - - * - 5 $7
Abeshu' and his artificial Hoods . . . . . 558
A Hittite raid • - .561
Decline of Babylonia . . . . • * * ,562
II. THE KASSITE DYNASTY . . . . . • . . -5^3
Internal conditions . . . . . « - . .564
Religion and art . . . . » * . . .567
Prelude to the 'Amania Age' 568
CHAPTER XVI
THE ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA BY H. R, HALL
I. EGYPTIAN ART ..«,..»* . 570
Use of naetals . * * - , . . fc » 571
Archaic art . . . . - . . * , * 573
Portraiture * , . ,,574
Small art .....*,*. 576
II, INTERRELATIONS WITH BABYLONIA * . * . . , - 577
Prehistoric pottery . * . , . . . , .578
The Gebel el~Arak knife-handle . , . . . .580
Use of stone t . * . . . . . . 582
II L BABYLONrrAN ART . . . . . . , » * 5 84
The copper lions of el-*Obeid * * , . , « ,585
Relations with the west * . . « * » m ^
CHAPTER XVII
EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION BY A. J* B. WAGE
I. CRETE . . . . . 589
Transition to Earty Minoan Age . , coo
Conditions «... „ * . . SOI
Middle Minoan Age . . * « * 593
The script . . , JQ j
Palaces of Cnossus and Phaestus „ . ^ * 595
Middle Minoan culture . . * * . 596
Transition to Late Minoan , . *
CONTENTS xxvii
PAGE
II. T,PE_CYCLADES * . . 599
Earl/ Cycladic culture Relations with Crete
III. THE HELIADIC CIVILIZATION .
Early Helladic Period Middle Helladic Period . Minyan ware Cretan influence
IV. THE THESSALIAN CIVILIZATION
First Thessalian Period .
Second Period
Third Period
First and second cities of Troy ,
Supremacy of Crete
Appearance of Mycenae .
600 602 603 604 606 607 608 609 609 610 6ix 612 614 615
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 617
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
Chapters I and II ............ 619
Chapter III 625
Chapter IV 628
Chapter V 630
Chapter VI 636
Chapter VII 637
Chapter VIII 640
Chapter IX 643
Chapters X-XI1 645
Chapter XIII 649
Chapter XIV 651
Chapter XV 652
Chapter XVI 653
Chapter XVII 655
SYNCHRONISTIC TABLE 656
COMPARATIVE TABLE OF PRINCIPAL SEQUENCES AND CORRELATIONS IN SELECTED REGIONS BETWEEN
NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE AND MESOPOTAMIA FACING 660
LIST OF EGYPTIAN KINGS OF THE OLD AND MIDDLE
KINGDOMS, c. 3 500-1 580 B.C 661
LIST OF KINGS AND PATESIS OF SUMER AND AKKAD %$
KINGS OF ISIN, LARSA, BABYLON, ETC. , - . 672 GENERAL INDEX . . , . . . - .676
CONTENTS
LIST OF MAPS, ETC.
PACK
1, Stages in the growth of Land-masses , , , , FACING 16
2, The Ice Age », 48
3, Zones of Vegetation, to illustrate sequence of climatic regions „ 64
4, Olive, Vine and Orange Areas of the Mediterranean , „ 64
5, Principal Neolithic cultures „ no
6, Europe showing the principal lines of Early Bronze Aje
Intercourse „ no
7, Trade-routes of Hither Asia „ ^224
8, Egypt „ 324
9, Babylonia, stowing the sites of Ancient Cities, , , ^ 400
10, Babylonia, Assyria and Mesopotamia , , , . „ 4/14
n. Syria, Assyria and Babylonia „ 566
12, Map to illustrate Early Aegean culture , , , , ,. 614
Plan of Babylon , 504
CHAPTER I PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME
L THE SETTING OF THE STAGE
¥ TflSTORY, in its common and more popular sense, is the JLJl $tudy of Man's dealings with other men, and the adjust- ment of working relations between human groups. But there is a larger sense, in which Human History merges in Natural History, and aludieS the dealings of Man with Nature; and it may be ob- served that it has been only by slow degrees that any human group has attained to such vision of the unity of mankind, or of civiliza- tion, as might constrain it to regard other human groups as more than a peculiarly intractable element in its own natural surround- ings. An austere conception of War — that under certain circum- stances Right has no court of appeal but Might — survives to remind us that Man has not yet wholly rid himself of this con- fusion between things and alien persons; and the most modern conception of international right so far accepts this fact of an alienation between the higher functions of human groups, however reasonable, as to take differences of language — of the medium, that is, for interchange and reconciliation of ideas, — as the best guide when and where, for the present, it is safer to keep human groups apart, and let them manage their affairs as far as possible each in their own way.
History, in the narrowest sense of all, as the interpretation of written evidence for arrangements made for right living within a human group, or between such groups, accepts implicitly the same criterion, and stops short where such evidence is not available. Linguistic Pa^a525|^^y: goes a little further back, in the study of the distnf^^ groups, and of such relations
between them as loan-words, or structural likenesses in the speech, mgy suggest. But the spoken word does not fall to the ground, like the spent missile or the broken vessel, to be its own memorial of human achievement: it vanishes in air, so that the philologist deals not with originals, but at best with the reminiscence of an echo. To recover, therefore, what men were doing, or maKliig, still more what they were thinking or desiring, befofe the dawn of history, the sole available method is that of the archaeologist,
C,A,H«I I
2 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP,
merging as it does In that of the geologist : since these alone^ handle and interpret original creations of men's thought and will, and contemporary elements of the physical surroundings of those men. Where the tree falls, there shall it lie, and where the lost implement or shattered potsherd, or worn-out man fell, there have they lain, for all that any one cared then, or knows now. It is the careless- ness (in the literal sense) of the river as to the gravel which it carried, and an equal carelessness of those men as to what happened to their leavings., that justify such a hypothesis of the credibility of these data, and make prehistoric times at least a penumbra of history, ^ ^
"TSfor"are we compelled any longer by prejudice or authority to regard those times as catastrophically short, any more than we must believe that Rome was built in a day. Man's prehistory merges in the pageant of the animal world, and of the planet-wide arena on which it has been in progress. Mountain and sea-basin too have their history. Their geographical distribution has varied in immemorial years; the faith that can remove mountains is the same in kind as that in which the historian brings together armies and frontiers, 'bone to his bone/ showing *all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time/ Such 'historical* geography and 'historical' ethnology are a proper prelude to the history of the ancient world; and much, even within that history, cannot fully be understood without them. Ancient peoples come upon the stage of history, not all together, but in a certain order, and by their proper entrances; each with a character and make-up con- gruous with the part they will play* The pageant— or is it the drama ? — of history presupposes the formation of that character, and its equipment, in the green-room of the remoter past; and the sketch of the growth of initial 'cultures,* which follows now, is intended, like the hypothesis of a Greek play, to describe how men came by those qualities of build and temperament, those aims in life, atid the means wherewith they were attempting to achieve them. For, to the student of prehistory, a * culture is nothing more or less than this — the total equipment with which each gene- ration of men starts on its career, in whatever external conditions; to the archaeologist, no less, it is literally that equipment whirh the men of each generation were discarding, when they and it respectively ceased t6 be of Significant use.
To see how the stage itself was set for this pageant, we must look back beyond the moment "when the first characters enter it. For it has been Nature, rather than Man, hitherto, in almost every scene* that has determined where 'the action shall He* Only at a
I, n] 'NATURE5 AND 'MAN3 3
comparatively late phase of that action3 does Man in some measure shift t*he scenery for himself,
* And by Nature and Man are here meant neither supernatural force nor superhuman design, altering the arrangement of us and our surroundings like chessmen on a board. Nature, adopted in our speech from Latin natura^ an unlucky mistranslation of Greek $>vcn^ stands as a common and inclusive term for all 'physical' events that happen; its Greek original being a verbal substantive signifying the fact of growth, the 'way things grow/ the mere processes of a world as apprehended by a mind. It has nothing to do, SB its Latin antecedents might suggest, either with birth or any sort of coming-into-being; nor with any question 'what shall it be in the end thereof ?* These are matters outside * natural9 history and human history alike. All history is the mere study of processes, of the 'way things grow* in the old Greek sense; for to this, modern thought has laboriously but unequivocally reverted> after long preoccupation with beginnings and endings, with cos- mogony and eschatology of all kinds, in the centuries between Greek science and our own.
Within this Nature, so presented as a process or coherent sequence of occurrences, and so far as we know (by inference of me and you, each from experience of the rest of us corporeally participant in what goes on) a part of this Nature, stands Man, perceiving what goes on, learning what that is, conceiving it as alterable by inventive effort, and striving accordingly, with experience of what we call results, great or small, of that strife.
By Man, then, in what follows, is meant the collective total of such perceiving, learning, inventing, striving and experiencing * selves/ myself and yours and theirs. By races of men, are meant groups and sequences of such selves linked by corporeal similari- ties propagated by natural process within each group: by peoples or nations^ groups of selves exhibiting peculiarities of interpreta- tion, invention, and effort sufficiently similar for their results to be cumulative and coherent; and by cultures or civilizations the accu- mulated and coherent results of such similarities in the activity of selves like you and me.
IL PRE-GLACIAL GEOGRAPHY
The stage of human history is a wide one from the firs|.;;®vieii disregarding those varieties of man in inner Asiaiorrjc«jg3ferial Africa which come latest and most incidentally iB~to,^i::S|ory? the stage even of ancient history is the whole home o£ffieP ''white races/
4 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
from the Atlantic coast of Europe to the Persian plateaux, from the Sahara to the Baltic; the north-western quadrant of the? land- mass of the Old World,
To understand even the actual configuration of this area, some of which Is very complicated — still more, to understand the changes which have occurred in the form and extent of the land-masses since they have been inhabited by man — we must review the whole series of events which have resulted in the formation of the present European peninsula, of the sea-basins which lie north and south of it, and also of its eastward continuation into Hither Asia, a similarly constituted highland with comparatively low-lying* flat- lands to north and to south. For, if we trace this series of events far enough back, we reach, at all events, the more immediate reasons for those strongly marked contrasts in the composition and structure of Its rocks, which have so profoundly affected the habitability and human prosperity of each component region, through the peculiar distribution of its plants and animals, and eventually of its breeds of Man.
Herodotus, attempting to summarize the contrast between the northern flatland and the Aegean cradle of the Greeks, describes Scythia as a land where there are no earthquakes and they grow corn for sale. That immensity of arable is itself the corollary of the flatland's long immunity from geological stress, and its accu- mulation of successive sediments, as sea-floor or dusty desert. The recurring earthquakes in Greece and Italy, through ancient and modern times, are sufficient evidence that the process of mountain building is not yet complete, and the rarity and discontinuity of cultivable soils illustrate the dislocation and wear-and-tear inci- dental to such a process. The catastrophic geology of Genesis and the Psalms voices the same experience of Nature's workings among a people of the Nearer East. Let us summarize, then, the main course of that period of planetary history, within which the history of Man is one of the more recent episodes.
The chalk which composes the 'white walls' of England, the massive limestones of the 'hills which stand about Jerusalem/ and the similar grey limestone which gives its wilder grace to the land- scape of Greece, were formed by deposition on the floor of a gre»t sea which, covered all, and more than all, of the stage on which history has played its greatest drama hitherto. This sea, to which geologists give the picturesque name of *Tethjy/ belongs to the second of the three great schemes of oceans and continents, whose distribution can be distinguished in the long course of the earth's history. It had taken shape as the result of that period of violent
I, ii] SECONDARY DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND SEA 5
planetary convulsion which closed the * primary* phase, and its q^liteSration, with the exception of the Mediterranean Pontic- Caspian, and Caribbean basins, marks the change from the 'secondary' to the 'tertiary' in which human history is the most recent episode. Unliie the modern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans of the * tertiary' phase, which (whatever their breadth) extend from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle, Tethys had its greatest diameter from east to west, and was comparatively narrow from north to south. Eastward it abutted on an ancient s Angara' continent, of whi^h the solid core lay in north-eastern Asia, with more recent extensions further south: westward it opened into a Pacific Ocean. Southward it was bounded by another ancient continent, 'Gpnd- wana-lan^L,' which had once extended in one vast oblong from weat of South America to east of Australia, but was already foun- dering in places, so that growing gulfs in its southern margin were separating South America from South Africa, and South Africa from Australia; first symptoms of the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans that were to be. Similar collapse of its northern margin allowed the waters of Tethys to form a deep bay between Brazil and Morocco ; and a long gulf between East Africa, on the one hand, and, on the other, a 'I^muxian^ peninsula connecting South Africa through Madagascar with peninsular India. Both of these eventually broke clean through to meet the southern gulfs, and insulated South America and ' Lemuria* for ever* Round the north end of 'Lemuria/ there was in due course open sea between Tethys and the new Indian Ocean; and meanwhile the rise of the first mountain structure of south-eastern Asia connected the Australian fragment of old 'Gondwana' with the southward ap- pendages of * Angara-land,* so that a single continent extended from Arctic Siberia to New Zealand.
Northward, * Tethys' had probably sea-passage, of uncertain and perhaps varying width, to an Arctic Ocean, between 'Angara- land' and Scandinavia, one of the oldest and most massive corner-stones of the whole fabric. West of this again, between Scandinavia and Britain, a narrower strait extended far north, and perhaps reached the same Arctic Ocean. Beyond this, the rugged Caledonian highlands of Britain stood outpost on the eastern margin of a 'Laurentian* continent. The south coast of ' probably crossed the north Atlantic along the modern bulging then southward round the nascent Appalachian ch retreating northward near the Pacific coast of North ^A^S^c^ till it approached (or even joined) eastern * Aftgara^fflS'l^eyond the north Pacific, All north of this coastline seems €01 have been solid
6 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
land, with Greenland and Labrador at its core; but from time to time a wide lakeland covered the * middle west' of North AiAerica.
Round these ancient shores, under the influence of solar heat, the general planetary circulation of winds and sea-currents played then as now. The resulting climates however were different, by reason of the shape of the sea-basins, and the altitude of the land- masses. In particular, the long trough of 'Tethys/ lying wholly in north temperate atid subtropical latitudes, and landlocked towards the north from Mexico to Scandinavia, served — like the Medi- terranean of to-day, but on a vaster scale — to mitigate and aspimi- late in an exceptional degree the climates of its foreshores, and still more those of its islands.
For though most of 'Tethys* was open water, a lar/*e region between north Africa and Scandinavia was broken by large is- lands, ruinous fragments of continents older still, like Scandinavia itself, and the Caledonian highlands, Snowdonia, atid the Malvern and Mendip Hills, imbedded in the margin of *Laurentia.* One such forms now the plateau core of Spain and Portugal; Sardinia, Corsica, Elba, and the rugged *toe? of Italy are peaks of another, which we may call * Tyrrhenia*; the Caucasus, the Bohemian high* land, the Ardennes, are others, round whose skirts old shingle- banks and other shore deposits replace the clean limestones characteristic of the greater depths. So early in the history of the planet was the site of our European and Mediterranean region con- spicuous for its abnormalities, and its juxtaposition of old and new.
The * tertiary* period of crust-history, which is still in progress — for the term * Quaternary,1 signifying those recent phases when Man's presence can be demonstrated, is a needless concession to self-esteem — is characterized, like its * primary * and * secondary * predecessors, by vast readjustments of the crust, breaking up the Laurentian and Indo-African continents, and crumpling the cre- taceous sea-bed of 'Tethys* into a series of elevated ridges* These folds result; from two series of lateral stresses. The one, thrusting outwards from Angara-land to east, south and west, has caused a series of southward-bulging * arcs' (like the rucks in a tablecloth when a heavy book is pushed across it) which define the present continent of Asia* Such arcs form the half-submerged island*- chains, Aleutian, Kurile, Japanese, Lu-chu; the grand sweep through Burma, and the Malay peninsula with its insular pro- longation to the Moluccas; the Himalayan range and the Hindu- Kush; the Iranian arc which traverses Baluchistan, south and west Pefsia, and Kurdistan; and further west, the Tauric and Dinaric systems which bound respectively Asia Minor on the south* and
I, n] TERTIARY MOUNTAIN-BUILDING 7
the Balkan peninsula on the west,, as far as the head of the Adri- atic. Then follows the southward and westward-bulging Atlas range, and its prolongation into south-eastern Spain. Within these outer arcs rise other folds obviously concentric with them, most easily recognizable in north-eastern Asia, and behind the Hima- laya, but perceptible also in Iran and northern Asia Minor. Be- tween the folds, lie less crumpled areas, at higher or lower levels. The plateau of Tibet stands now at over 1 5,000 ft., the Tarim basin at over 3000 ft., and the core of Asia Minor at about xooo ft. above the sea; the Behring, Japan, and China Seas, on the other hand^have bottom at 12,000—9000 ft. down; the Gulf of Oman at 6000 ft., and the southern lobe of the Caspian at about 2000 ft* Similarly, outside each greater arc, the margin of old Gondwana- land*has been forced down and under, in the Bay of Bengal, in the Persian Gulf, — where the whole of Arabia has been tilted like an ill-laid paving slab — -and in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, where the north African foreland has been fractured stepwise, so that, while the Libyan shore is beset with quicksands, the greatest depths are off the Peloponnese and Rhodes.
The folds of the other series result not from southward but from northward thrusts, and overhang similarly sunken * forelands,' this time on their northern side. Examples are the Altai range between Mongolia and western Siberia, the Caucasus, and the whole Alpine series, — Balkans, Carpathians, Alps, and Pyrenees. The course of these European folds is complicated by several factors, chief among which is the presence of those older lands already mentioned, both north of the Alpine folds, in Bohemia, the Black Forest and Vosges, and the Auvergne, and within the folded area, as in Spain, *Tyrrhenia,' and Hungary; the stubbornness of which has not merely accentuated the transverse amplitude and overfolding of the ridges themselves, but has compressed them lengthways into the 2, -shape presented now by the Carpathians and Balkans and caused the spiral distortion of the Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Atlas, and the Spanish-Balearic arc.
Finally, local relaxations of these strains brought about the collapse of whole regions of the crust, either parallel to the trend of the folded arcs, or transversely. Examples of longitudinal subsidence are the Black Sea and southern Caspian, carrying away both ends of the Caucasus and another great segment of mountain range between the Crimea and the Balkans : another is the Adriatic, nipped between the Dinaric arc and the Apennines* ^fraft&Verse fracture and collapse are illustrated, within the mass of 013 Angara- land, by the long * trough-fault' or 'rift yall^' df the Red Sea,
8 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
which Is prolonged between Crete and Rhodes right across the junction of the Dinaric and Tauric arcs, submerging the Aegean archipelago, and breaking down a shattered trough through Macedonia and Serbia to the Hungarian plain. A branch of this same rift forking west across the Dinaric folds depressed the Gulf of Corinth; another diverging eastward further south forms the Gulf of Akaba, the Dead Sea, and the trough of Code-Syria, and may be traced far athwart Armenia. All these are only classical examples of the main types of crust movement to which the tertiary transformations of old * Tethys' are due.
Crust-movements of such amplitude occupied a vast period of time. And all the while, rainfall and frost were^denuding and dis- secting the land surfaces; rivers were transporting the debris, and depositing it in lake basins and coastal seas; limestones and fharls were accumulated in deeper waters; and at times along the lines of severest distortion and fracture, volcanic matter was discharged molten from beneath*
Principal stages in this tertiary derangement of what had been the cretaceous sea-bottom of Tethys may be summarized as fol- lows. Their importance for us, over and above their contribution to the actual distribution of land and water, of mountains and plains, is that in conjunction with the changes of climate resulting from such rearrangement of lands and seas,, they have restricted or extended the regions which this or that type of vegetation could occupy, and the range of the animal forms which such vegetation fed, and so contributed in due course to localize and differentiate the main varieties of Man*
Foldings and upheavals of the old sea-floor began earliest, as they have since reached their greatest amplitude, eastward in the heart of Asia, where the Himalaya, Kuen-lun andTienshan ranges, with the plateaux of Tibet and Mongolia uplifted between them, intervene between Angara-land and the * Leirmrian* sub-continent, of which only fragments soon remained, represented by Madagas- car and peninsular India. Elsewhere too during this stage there was widespread exposure of the sea-floor; especially along that east-and-west axis of upheaval which eventually becomes the 'Highland^Zone* of western Asia and southern Europe. Anl without being elevated, many of the remaining sea-basins dried up altogether, leaving vast deposits of salt and gypsum, like those which are forming now in the waste heart of Persia,
Renewed submergence followed, from the westward ocean* as far south as Kordofan, and as far east as Khorasan* But the Hindu- Kush and Iranian arc barred off for ever from Tethys its old south-
J, n] FIRST PHASES OF A MEDITERRANEAN SEA 9
ward gulf; and a mere bulging of the African continent cut off the eljj uf "depression in western Sahara from what we may now begin to call the Midland Sea; for it is the first phase of the Mediterra- nean of to-day. But the fauna and flora of the lands which were appearing now along the line of the Alpine folds were still essenti- ally of such Indo-African type as had spread thither during the period of exposure. And such they long remained; for these lands were mainly Insular, and as the Laurentian continent still limited the Atlantic northwards not far from the line joining Newfoundland to Cornwall, the oceanic currents which bathed their ^shores maintained a subtropical climate, warm, moist, and equable.
Furthe^ folding and upheaval of the western arcs extended and consolidated the mountain zone of the Nearer East as a long pro- montory connecting the high plateaux of Asia with these mid- European islands, and these again with the British promontory of Laurentia, along the very ancient line of folding represented by the Ardennes and the Mendips. The result was to bisect the Mid- land Sea into a southern or 'Mediterranean' and a northern or *Sarmatian* basin, which henceforth have separate histories until almost modern times. A further result was that the sinuous Apen- nine-Atlas ridge encircled a -'West Mediterranean' basin, which though it communicated usually with both the Atlantic and the East Mediterranean, was occasionally cut off from both, and in late Miocene times was so much reduced by evaporation that none of its deposits of that age are now above water level. There was therefore ample communication between the new mid-Europe and the Moroccan lobe of the old Africa*
The East Mediterranean long retained much of the character of its predecessor the Midland Sea, The highland arcs along its north border included Crete and Cyprus; the Adriatic had not yet SLink outside these arcs, nor the Aegean within them. The moun- tains of Media and Elam were still very imperfectly developed, and the Arabian slab of Gondwana-land had not yet been frac- tured or even tilted under their stresses. The southern border of this sea lay therefore far to the southward across Africa, from a Moroccan Gulf, south of Atlas, to Abyssinia, Hadramaut, and the mountain ridge of Oman; with an easterly gulf extending far Into Iran* It was separated however from all seas to the south-east, as its marine fauna show, by the ridge already mentioned connecting the Asiatic with the African continent. Occasionally disconnected from the Atlantic by elevation of the lands round tb^ttfestern basin, it underwent repeated phases of evaporation; stud Indo-African
io PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
plants and animals still occupied its northern margins^ leaving their remains for example in Sanies and Attica, "*
The northern or Sarmatian Sea had a similar though separate history. It extended repeatedly far east> to lake Balkash and the foothills of Altai and Tienshan, and far north round the base of the Urals, an old ridge accentuated by the same tertiary stresses as the mountain-zone which bounded this basin on the south. Caucasus was sometimes insulated, but usually formed part of its southern margin, with only gulfs or lakes outflanking it south- ward. Westward communication with the Atlantic was interrupted earlier, oftener, and more completely than in the Mediterranean area, thanks to the growing intimacy between Mid-Europe and those ridges and stacks of old land which we have seen ^embedded in the Laurentian foreshore. Between the rising Alps and- the Bohemian and mid-German highlands a long gulf remained^ or in high-and-dry periods a drainage basin which we may already call 'Danubian*, but the strong northward and outward bulge of the Carpathians eventually cut off these lowlands and the sunken Hungarian basin, to form inland lakes. An outlet through the Iron Gates to the Pontic basin cannot be demonstrated till later.
As the land-masses of Mid-Europe and also of North Africa and Western Asia increased in extent, the climate of the whole region became drier: the c Sarmatian' sea shrank into a * Pontic* scries of lakes, connected only by flood channels, if at all, but including then a region so far to the south-west as the present north Aegean* Eventually one of the deep fiver valleys, which dissected the ex- posed Sarmatian sea-floor, cut back into the high ground in the re-entrant angle between the Carpathians and Balkans, opened a new outlet for the waters of the Hungarian and Bavarian basins already mentioned, and created the Danubian drainage system. In this period also a long trough, faulted across Mid-Europe^ deter- mined the upper basin of the eventual Rhine, though it was long before this lakeland was tapped, like the Danubian, by a river cutting back from the north through the old Taunus highland from Coblenz to Bingetl,
The same period of uprise and continental climate affected the Mediterranean also. The rising escarpment of Media and Elam cr.t off its Iranian gulf, which became silted, first with river deposits* then, as its waters evaporated, with a crust of salt and gypsum. And as the folded escarpment rose, very steep and lofty, the foreland in front of it to the south-west was forced down and under, till the great quadrangular slab which we call Arabia was snapped off" from Africa> and tilted bodily, downwards at the foot
I, n] TERTIARY FLORA AND FAUNA n
of the new Zagros range, but with a free broken edge upreared to wqptwatJrd, and long troughs of dislocation and subsidence between itself and the African continent. The Red Sea trough opened for long into the Mediterranean, like the Nile trough to the west of it; but was closed at its south end by the main ridge from Asia to East Africa.
Further north, the same fractures crossed the Mediterranean floor, so that the free edge of the Arabian slab, or rather the de- tached strip of it which forms the Lebanon range, was thencefor- ward the eastward limit of that sea. The movement, violent as it appears in retrospect, was however gradual, and progressed from south to north so that the drainage basin formed on the tilted slab remained Connected with the Mediterranean through North Syria, and fee Jordan valley, lying in a smaller and earlier rift than that of the Red Sea and for long a tributary of a great river system of north-eastern Africa, still contains species in common with the Nile and the Euphrates* But, in time, Mesopotamia too became a separate basin like Iran, accumulating its own river sediments, and in dry periods its beds of salt and gypsum.
The gradual coherence of new land-masses where the Tethys basin had been, and the restricted communication between the remaining seas and the Atlantic, affected the climate of the whole region profoundly and adversely, and the fauna and flora were modified accordingly. Surviving representatives of the first occu- pants of tertiary Europe are now only recognizable in the Malay zoological region, and to some extent in tropical west Africa. For our present purpose we need only note that it Is in these two regions alone that the great anthropoids, gorilla and orang-utan, survive; that it is certain that various monkeys, and probable that creatures ancestral to Man, were among these * Malayan * occupants of mid-Europe; that the most * simian* varieties of Man himself, the dwarfish, heavy-jawed, and long-armed Negritos, have a similarly discontinuous distribution surviving only in central Africa, in Malaya and beyond, and to sorae extent ijp^sputhern India; and further, that the only creatures really intermediate be- tween these and the anthropoids, are Pithecanthropus from a deposit considerably later in Java and the Broken Hill skull from Rhodesia, It is not without reason, therefore, that search has been made for human handiwork, even in eocepe and miocgae beds. But^tjbfii; * eoliths* collected in Belgium from miocene deposits h^^etiibt yet been generally accepted as such: those from graves ililing the sides of the present Nile valley are rather betft^jrtS^te'd, but must still be viewed with reserve.
ia PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
As the climate became less favourable, the Malayan fauna gave place in the north-west to characteristically * African' types, which persisted in the new European (or rather *Eurafrican') region until the close of the Pontic stage. Then, rather abruptly,, and very widely, this * African' fauna was itself replaced by new forms, dis- tinctly 'Arctic/ advancing apparently from that Laurentian con- tinent which had existed all the while west of Britain, and prob- ably had extended also far eastward beyond Scandinavia as the Sarmatian sea evaporated; since similar 'Arctic' forms can be traced penetrating Asia too, as far as its Himalayan crest* The * African' withdrawal was of course gradual and unequal ; typical forms sur- vived in Bessarabia, for instance, later than elsewhere, and Spits- bergen and Greenland still had magnolias and plane-tpees during the Pontic phase. Within the folded zone, especially, there were secluded regions favourable to the survival of the old warmth- loving forms. The progressive folding of maturer mountain-ranges, and the development of more recent folds, such as the Apennines and the Jura, accentuated this subdivision of the north-western or * Eurafrican ' land-mass.
A fresh period of submergence follows, probably due to relaxa- tion of the folding stresses, and collapse of ill-supported blocks, The British promontory of Laurentia, and probably the whole southern seaboard of that continent, began to give way, so that the Atlantic ocean, which had long ago been extended southwards from Tethys to the Antarctic, spread northwards now into cooler latitudes. Since some of these sinking areas — for example, the Aquitanian region of France — adjoined the west Mediterranean, Atlantic marine fauna had access once more to the Mediterranean basins. As the water surface of these seas increased, the climate became moister, and the weathering of the highlands and main river valleys more destructive. It is in this period that the drainage systems of the lower Rhine, the Seine and other rivers of the English Channel, the Loire, Garonne and Guadalquivir, and the Wady Draa, south of the Moroccan Atlas, were established, in deep-lying gulfs; the Rhpne is another example of drainage con- sequent on such subsidence.
Further east, the Aegean depression, already noted, began Qo admit Mediterranean waters to basins hitherto belonging to the Pontic lake-system. The Pontic region, too, receiving ample rain- fall once more, regained its old continuity from the Carpathians as far as lake Baikal. The trough-valley of the Nile was being opened, as we have already seen, as far south as Assuan, and re- ceived copious drainage from the high west edge of the Arabian
I,n] SEVERANCE OF AFRICA FROM ASIA 13
slab; the first fractures had begun along the line of the Red Sea, and the remains of considerable lakes in the Dead Sea and Orontes region suggest similar subsidences further north. The Mesopo- tamian basin was by this time quite cut off from the Mediterranean by the tilting of Arabia, though the barrier from Lebanon north- ward was of no great width or height. When the tilting movement came to a crisis, and Arabia broke away from the African con- tinent, the Red Sea trough opened first as a gulf of the Mediter- ranean. But the foundering of the next block south of Arabia admitted the waters of the 'Indian1 Ocean into this gulf from the south; 'and a similar inbreak through the Hormuz strait converted the Mesopotamian lake, which had formed along the sunk eastern edge of Arabia, into a ' Persian gulf of the same southern ocean, extenfiing all along the foothills of Zagros, and also towards Anti- Taurus, and Anti-Lebanon. In this fashion, while the Mediter- ranean remained limited eastward almost at its present shoreline, the whole region between it and the Iranian plateau became almost wholly separated from what remained of old Gondwana-land, both in peninsular India and in east Africa, with a new and narrow isthmus, twice constricted, at Suez and north of the Lebanon, instead of the old broad land-avenue from Iran to Abyssinia.
The consequence of this separation will be seen to be of the utmost importance, when we consider the distribution of Man, and of the modern fauna and flora generally; for it is with the severance of Africa from southern Asia, on the one hand, and the replacement on the other of ' African * plants and animals north of the Mediterranean by northern forms from Scandinavia and the Laurentian foreshores about Britain, that the modern period of tertiary time may fairly be said to begin.
It will be evident from what precedes, that by this time not only Europe but the whole north-west quadrant of the Old World land-mass had been shaped approximately to its modern propor- tions : only the precise distribution of sea and lake over the shal- lower hollows in its surface being liable to shift, according as either the land rose or sank locally, or the supply of moisture varied over its landlocked basins. The broad features of this large group of regions, the eventual home of the 'white races* of man, may there- fore be summarized in modern geographical terms. It consists, essentially, of the Alpine 'folded highland/ whose structure ai^ conformation we have been tracing, bounded both northward^Scl southward by abrupt outward slopes overlooking depr^€^i btit undisturbed and level * forelands/ Included wi^^f'^iife ' folded region are numerous plateaux more or less ^le(vat©dy and more or
14 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
less buried under later sediments- And westward;* where the Alpine folds fade away towards the foreshores of the new Atlantic Ocean, and around the British remnants of Laurentia, now de- tached,, there is a * continental shelf of varying width, and liable to moderate oscillations of level.
Three main regions are therefore to be distinguished here: (i) the Highland Zone itself; (2) its Northern Foreland, from the North Sea to the foothills of Tienshan and Altai, with its south- eastern half liable to be submerged in *Sarmatian* or *Ponto~ Caspian * lakes; (3) its Southern Foreland, from Morocco to Mesopotamia, continuous and undisturbed at a fairly high average level in latitudes remote from the Highland Zone; more broken and depressed further north, till its fractured slabs sink beneath the waters of the Persian Gulf, the east Mediterranean, and the lake region of southern Tunis. As already described, it is by no geo- logical accident that the west Mediterranean basin lies north, not south, of the Atlas folds; within the Highland Zone, that is, not adjacent to it like the eastern basin,
The later history of these three principal regions must be traced separately, if only because the altitude of the Highland Zone has long been sufficient to give it a markedly cooler and moister climate than either of the Flatlands; so that its greater rainfall has sculp- tured it very deeply, and wrought upon its surface abrupt and complicated scenery of mountain and valley; the varied rocks thus exposed contributing directly, and still more (by their detritus) indirectly, to accentuate local differences in the soils and eventual flora of each drainage area. As its limits lie obliquely from north- west to south-east between latitude 50° in central Europe and 2 5° in south Persia, the larger changes of climate have affected its main regions serially from one extremity to the other. Its uplands have been sufficiently continuous at most periods to permit the spread and withdrawal of consecutive types of vegetation; yet the deep engraving of its passes has permitted the transmission of comparatively lowland flora from one basin to another* And what is evident for vegetation applies equally to all animals which are susceptible to changes of climate and food supply*
This Highland Zone3 then, may conveniently be regarded, Aa its main characters, as a single geographical region. Frequently and for long periods, it has been a promontory based on central Asia, or a long isthmus, connecting a south-eastern continent with a wide and old land in the north-west. At all times its upland conformation, moister climate, and denser forest vegetation have secluded it from the Flatlands on either flank. In so far as there
I, n] EURASIAN AND EURAFRICAN FLATLANDS 15
has been interaction. It has been the Highland which has had the initiative; because in periods of excessive moisture it has been from the" foothills of the Highland that forest has spread over adjacent plains; whereas in periods of drought, the extension of steppe con- ditions into the foothills has been retarded by the residual rainfall around the heights. Only by glaciation, It would seem., could the Highland vegetation be devastated from within, and even so under the most favourable conditions for reoccupatlon from the less frost- bitten highlands continuous with it to the south-east. And as we shall see in due course, such glacial devastation did actually occur, between the close of the pleistocene period and the beginning of our own.
North of the Highland Zone lies the Northern Flatland. It is alm*t featureless from Altai and Tienshan to the Baltic and North Sea; except for the narrow transverse fold of the Ural range, which however fades away southward before reaching latitude 5*0°. But beyond those almost accidental depressions of its western margin, which form our 'narrow seas,' this Flatland Is limited by two considerable mountain-masses, Scandinavian and British, of great age and stability; and beyond these to the north-west ex- tended formerly a long arm of that old Lauren tlan continent which still encircled the north Atlantic, long after it had ceased to occupy it; and it was probably the subsidence of this Laurentian land (represented now by the * Wyville-Thomson Ridge, * on the ocean floor from Britain to Iceland and Greenland) and the circumstance that the breach of continuity lay west and not east of the Scandi- navian and British mountain ranges and involved general redistri- bution of currents between the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, that determined the profound changes of climate to which allusion has already been made (p. 12).
Of secondary importance are the minor oscillations which deter- mined whether the northern parts of the Flatland, east and west of the Ural divide, should be above or below water; and thereby assigned to the remainder, and to the whole north face of the Highland Zone, a climate either moist enough to fill the Sarmatian depression with lakes or a sea, or dry enough to exhaust this re- servoir and reduce the whole northern Flatland to a cold desert as Inhospitable as the hot desert on the south side, to which we tutu now.
The southern or Eurafrlcan Flatland Is almost as simple ,ift its main features as the northern, and far more uniform in defSalL As this region lies within the planetary trade-wind b$l&$!i£tiS devoid of abruptly folded ridges which might precipitate ra,lia^— except the
16 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
Atlas to the north, which belongs to the folded Mountain Zone, and the highlands of Nigeria and Abyssinia, — it has always been less well watered than the regions north and south of it, which are moistened respectively by the westerlies and the equatorial rain- belt. As no cause seems to be known which could displace the equatorial belt of perennial rainfall and dense forest., to any con- siderable degree, the normal result of a pluvial or glacial crisis in the northern hemisphere has been to contract this trade-wind belt and its desert regime; and conversely. The only other important variable affecting the Southern Flatland has been the greater or less extent of submergence, in the Mediterranean and Mesopo- tamia, mitigating or accentuating the dryness of northerly winds, The mitigating influence of the Atlantic has of course been per- sistent, but has been neither great nor far-reaching, after the dis- appearance of that old gulf or lake-basin south of the Ahaggar plateau after the miocene period. It should be noted however that in periods of greater rainfall both this plateau and the Tassili and TIbesti uplands further north and east,, have attracted sufficient moisture to feed large rivers, running some southwards to the Niger, others northwards into the Mediterranean, by the Wadi Irharhar and the Tunisian Schotts*
Direct land-contact between the southern Flatland and the Highland Zone is interrupted for the middle third of its length by the persistent water-surface of the cast Mediterranean basin, last remnant of old *Tethys'; and again far eastward, by the Gulf of Oman and the Mesopotamian Gulf, formerly much larger and wider than now. Between these two sea-barriers, outer ridges of the Tauric arc radiate south-westward and southward into north Syria and Cyprus, and this highland prominence is continuous southward with the upstanding edge of the great Arabian slab and detached fragments of it, as far as the peninsula of Sinai, forming a causeway along which migrations of momentous im- portance have occurred repeatedly. In the west Mediterranean the Atlas range, which must always be regarded as being geo-
fraphically continuous, as well as structurally, with the ranges of icily and Italy, and also of south-eastern Spains has the west Saharan Flatland along its steep southern face; but the continuity of the Eurafrican land-mass here Is qualified by the depth, and usual submergence, of the west Mediterranean depressions. Only at either end of this western basin have there been intermittent land-bridges from Atlas; north-eastward through Sicily to the . Apennine arc, concentric with the Alps and repeating on a small .scale some features of the Syrian causeway; and through Spain, an
I, n] AFRICAN9 AND 'ARCTIC' FAUNA 17
old highland comparable in size and structure with that of Asia Minor? to the broad coast-plains of the Atlantic seaboard north of the Pyrenees,
It results from these northward avenues of the southern Flat- land, that there has been long intercourse between its inhabitants and those of the Highland Zone, at both ends of their long frontier; simple, marginal, and almost uniformly from north to south over the Syrian causeway; intermittent, complicated, oscillatory, and far-reaching, in the 'Eurafrican* west.
Such oscillations and, no less, the general replacement of 'Afri- can' by * Arctic* forms of life throughout the whole north-west of the Old World, were caused, or at all events greatly accelerated, in the pleistocene period by the onset of a profound change of climate, very severely felt all over the new European sub-continent of Eurafrica, but by no means confined to this region; for the *Ice Age' or * Glacial Period7 of the Old World has its counterpart in the New, and even very similar sub-periods. There have also been 'Ice Ages* in the southern hemisphere, but there is no proof that they either coincided or alternated with those in the northern, and they had no known influence on mankind. With the northern, and especially with the European Ice Age it was otherwise. That the replacement of African occupants, on the other hand, was as gradual as it was, was due to the fact that the Ice Age was not continuous, but had its * interglacial* phases, which permitted African forms to return northward, and also allowed Asiatic species to move westward into Europe along the Highland Zone; and we shall see that this oscillation had profound significance for Man.
For if we compare the earliest known distributions of the other primates with the actual distribution either of their modern repre- sentatives, or of the principal races of man, it becomes clear that whereas the four-handed, and also many of the four-footed mem- bers of this 'order* of animals, retained mainly arboreal habits, and consequently were withdrawn southward and eastward into Africa and Malaya, as the subtropical forests were restricted by the general change of climate, one intermediate variety, two-handed an4 two-footed, and thereby more able to accommodate itself to the accidents of life in the open, became so far master of its fate as to outlast the forest, and enter on a career of pedestrian adventure and manual exploitation. We do not yet know at what stages in this acclimatization to the parkland and grassland sequel of the retreating forest this biped primate achieved its three primary controls over its surroundings — control over dead matter, in the
C. A,BM
i8 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
shape of boughs and stones, prolonging the reach, and enhancing the force, of its natural hand-stroke; control over the wayward energy of fire, the scourge and the terror of all other animals; and therefore not only comparative security against carnivorous animals, but control over the fund of sustenance and energy supplied by animal flesh. But we do know already, from an implement-strewn surface of old land underlying some of the earliest glacial debris of East Anglia, that some sort of tool-using, and animal hunting * precursor' of ourselves ranged so far as this to the north-west before the climate was as yet quite glacial; and from similar indi- cations in the Nile gravels, and on the surrounding desert, that subtropical drought restricted him as little as subarctic cold. How far these early traces, or remoter relics such as the Trinil brain-case from Java, or the Broken Hall skull and other bones from Rhcdesia, may be connected with ancestors of any actual variety of Man we must consider in fuller view of the effects of the glacial crisis*
III. THE GLACIAL CRISIS
The causes of this Ice Age have been much discussed, and are still obscure: recent investigations lay greater stress on geo- graphical factors, such as the distribution of land and water, the elevation or depression of the region, and other circumstances favourable to intense snow-fall at certain places and seasons, than to those astronomical explanations by nutation of the earth's axis, or precession of the seasons, which were formerly popular. It is at all events certain that the severest glaciations occurred in periods of submergence, and that the repeated relaxations of glacial auster- ity coincide with greater exposure of land-surfaces, and with a continental climate drier rather than warmer, since dry air, how- ever cold, precipitates little snow; without copious snow there is nothing to feed a glacier, much less a continental ice-sheet; and under dry cold winds on the lowland the snout of the best-fed glacier shrinks rapidly by sheer evaporation* The same circum- stance goes far to explain why the main ice cap of the Old World lay so far towards its western edge, exposed to wet westerly winds off the north Atlantic which as we ixave seen had only recently attained its modern extent. In the same ways the evidence for ex- tensive glaciation on the mountain ranges of Caucasus, Armenia, and especially of Central Asia coheres with that for a wide water surface in the Ponto-Caspian lakeland, and for submergence of western Siberia,
Of such glacial maxima there have been recognized three in
I, m] THE FOURFOLD CRISES OF THE ICE AGE 19
most parts of France, and four on the north side of the Alps and Py^ene&s, and in north-western Germany, followed by two oscilla- tions during the final retreat over those districts which lay nearer to the principal snow-caps. The second, or * Mindel, * spell in the Alpine series (corresponding with the later part of the first, further north) was the severest; submergence was deepest, temperature lowest, and the Scandinavian ice sheet widest, covering all but the south coast of Britain, and meeting the glaciers of the Alps (while the Rhone glacier, for instance, extended to Lyon) and those of the Carpathians and Urals so that their margins, like the glaciers of the Caucasus, bordered and replenished the Sarmatian sea. Outlying ice-caps, mainly of this phase, have been traced on the Pyrenees, Apennines, and Dinaric and Tauric chains; in Armenia, Zagr8s, and the north Persian ranges; and over the whole moun- tain knot of the Pamirs and Hindu- Kush, from its Sarmatian shore to an ocean-gulf which flooded the Punjab. Over these vast areas, therefore, all life was obliterated temporarily, and round their margins and interspaces was reduced to sub-arctic desolation.
There is strong reason for believing that the climatic oscilla- tions of the whole north-west Quadrant synchronized and formed part of a single great planetary episode. Not only is the fourfold glaciation of north-western Europe repeated around the Alps and represented in a fourfold * pluvial' sequence in the Nile Valley; but the glacial maxima represented by deposits in Nebraska, Kan- sas, Illinois and Wisconsin respectively, though not necessarily contemporary, seem to repeat the relative intensity of the Gunz, Mindel, Riss, and Wtirm maxima of the European Ice Age. It is therefore permissible to treat as standard the southern Flatland, where there would seem to have been least bi*each of continuity in plant and animal life, and interpret the more broken and complicated sequence in the western and the northern Flatlands, and also in the Highland Zone, by reference of their main episodes to the principal stages in the south.
Before dealing with the human occupants of these regions, and their redistribution during and after the Ice Age, it is convenient to note briefly the effects of any such crisis on the distribution of anTmals and plants, partly because these effects can be more fully illustrated, partly because it was in response to changes in his animal and vegetable surroundings that man's first human efforts seem to have been made.
It follows directly that in any displacement of climatic zones the corresponding flora and fauna were displaced accordingly, with due allowance for peculiarities of soil or configuration which either
20 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
permitted the maintenance of any elements of such plant and animal associations, or accelerated their retreat. In this connexion, it is important to observe the normal sequence of the types of vegetation; round the margin of perennial snowfield or ice sheet* frozen treeless 'tundra* with transitory herbage after the spring thaw; then dwarf birch and stunted pine, passing to coniferous forest, and through this into mixed deciduous forest; oak, beech, and nut-bearing trees such as chestnut and walnut predominating in succession. Forest however may be interrupted, on soils un- favourable to trees, by other types of vegetation; on loess, repre- senting ancient deposits of wind-blown dust from adjacent desert, by precarious steppe or grass-land; on limestone, by the treeless turf of chalk-downs or wolds, owing to the withdrawal of surface water by underground channels; on ancient and imperviouslrocks, especially where these adjoin a wind-swept seaboard, by the dry bitter heather and gorse of moorland. Marshland too, and the
travels of river valleys, have their special * plant associations/ >rming open glades between the forests which clothe the higher ground. This normal sequence is of course retarded also locally by altitude, which increases -rainfall, and reduces mean temperature. Parnassus for example has pines above its olives and buy-trees, and alpine flowers above its pines.
Further south, in the 'Mediterranean' type of climate, with wet winter and rainless summer, deciduous trees give place to evergreens, and tall forest to thickets or shrubs; and as drought and warmth increase, even shrubs stand further apart,, in an under- growth of tough resinous bushes, and spring-flowering bulbs, annuals, and grasses* Eventually grasses, halfa-rush, and spiny leathery camel-fodder predominate, until they too fade out before drifting sand and sun-tanned rock.
As climate becomes milder, the zones of vegetation move north- wards, and uphill; but as trees take centuries to mature, the shift of vegetation may lag behind that of climate* On the other hand, adverse shift of climate rapidly destroys the less hardy plants, for they cannot retreat and only acclimatize slowly; more .mobile forms of life, such as the larger animals and man, will cither follow their habitual food-plants or maintain themselves in aust<frer climate by change of diet, by growing winter-fur, by taking shelter in caves, or, in man's case, by appropriating the hides and fur of other animals,
In an oscillating climate, therefore, such as that of this Ice Age* recurrent necessity offered exceptional stimulus to invention. It is man's inertia, rather than any initiative, his obstinate reluctance
I, iv] THE PRINCIPAL HUMAN RACES 21
to abandon a mode of life once adopted, his recourse to any compromise — * rather to endure the ills we have., than fly to others tha? we know not of* — and, in the result, his unique ability to conquer Nature by reasoned conformity with Nature's ways, that differentiates him from all animals but those, such as horse and dog, in which he has apprehended and elicited faculties remotely analogous to his own,
IV. THE PRINCIPAL HUMAN RACES
We are next concerned with the human stock, or stocks, which occupied these regions before and during the Ice Age. It has been noted already that the geological evidence points to prolonged geogttiphical severance between the plateaux of Central Asia, with their vast folded mountains and their eastward and northward forelands (including the whole of ancient Angara-land), and all that westward prolongation of the folded zone, with its forelands, which we have been discussing. This geographical severance at the narrow and almost impassable neck of high land where the Hindu Kush intervenes between Afghanistan and the Pamirs has its human counterpart in the segregation of the ancestors of the yellow-skinned, straight-haired Mong-oloid stock from all westerly varieties; for although anatomical evidence of its ancestry is not yet collected, enough is known, as we shall see (pp. 48, 59), about the slowness of the development of human types (for example, in pen- insular Europe) to justify the belief that this ancient seclusion of central and eastern Asia, lasted none too long for the differentia- tion of a kind of man so well-marked physically and even men- tally,
In the same way, the correlation of the black-skinned, woolly- haired stocks with the Malayan fauna, which is suggested by their actual distribution, would seem to postulate a period of time comparable with that suggested above for the Mongoloids, within which the no less highly-specialized negroid physique could be developed from a precursor more widely distributed, especially north-westward, and presenting those features in which both the negroid and the white stocks differ from the yellow.
On the northern slopes of the Asiatic core the supply of moisture during the Ice Age brought the Altai glaciers down to 6000 ft* from sea-level, far lower, that is, than sufficed to close all avenues from central Asia to the lowlands of Siberia and Tur- kestan. On the Himalayan side, monsoon winds from an Indian Ocean which covered the Punjab and Bengal, furnished snow
22 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
more copious still, and moraines are found as low as 3000 ft. But though the comparatively narrow neck of high land between rthe valleys of Indus and Oxus was wholly beset by its ice-cap, it is not necessary to suppose that within the great plateaux of central Asia there was perennial snow, or a wholly uninhabitable region. Rather the vast accumulations of loess, the deposit of countless dust storms, suggest a 'continental' climate with wide variations, and the possibility of at least seasonal occupation by fleet grazing- animals, such as the horse. It is indeed to an intimate parasitic connexion with such an animal "host/ in some siich circumstances, that we have probably to ascribe the highly specialized type of man characteristic of this region now. The yellow skin-colour of Mongoloid man gives him protective camouflage in sandy desert and dry-grass steppe; the structure of his straight wiry half, and its rarity except on the scalp, suggest adaptation to a continental climate; while its extreme length in both sexes serves to disguise the characteristic profile of the human head and neck, and approxi- mate it to that of a quadruped seen from behind. From the rather prominent jaw combined with globular brain-case may be inferred long habituation to some food which minimized the pull of the jaw muscles on the side-walls of the skull; and the only rood which fulfils this condition is milk and its products, on which nomad Tartars still live almost exclusively: the absence of face-hair, the short concave nose with spread nostrils, the peculiar infantile lips, the wide flat face and obliquely set eyes, are adaptations we should expect if for ages this milk was absorbed direct from the udder; and the short legs of some Mongoloids, and poor development of the calf-muscles in all> suggest that, like Tartar infants nowadays, the parasitic proto-IVtongol sat tight upon his host between meals, and shared its wanderings.
On the steppes of glacial Europe, man hunted and ate the horse; if we suppose that in central Asia, during the same and perhaps in long earlier periods, he made friends with him and lived upon his friendship, we seem to have a clue to the paradox of the emergence of a highly specialized breed of man from a region which had been for a very long time so little suited, except on these terms, to sustain him at all. The absence of rfhy widespread relics of such occupancy explains itself on the same hypothesis* Men who did not hunt or fight, had no more need of coups-de-poing than of supra-orbital ridges or a fighting-jaw^ such as characterize the negroids or the 'Neanderthal' type in Glacial Europe, As they must travel with their animal hosts or perish, they had no choice but to desert their ailing relatives when they
I, xv] SPREAD OF MONGOL MAN 23
fell behind; Interments therefore are not to be expected, nor a group-psychology which sets much value on human life, or gives out-let to futile emotion. Almost inhuman in his normal apathy, the Mongol can display almost equine savagery when provoked by panic or ill-usage.
The development of so peculiar a type presupposes not only a large continuous region? of appropriate physique, but also com- plete seclusion. The high plateaux had supplied the former for a very long time, since loess-land is so inhospitable to trees or shrubs that wide oscillations of climate only affect the density of its vege- tation without changing the quality. Seclusion has been assured by the great altitude of these plateaux, the ruggedness of the sur- rounding ranges, and the dense rain-forest of their monsoon-swept outvtfftjrd slopes. While therefore it has been exceptionally difficult for alien folk to intrude, it has been relatively easy for Mongol man to emerge, on one of two conditions — either that he parts company with his milk-giving host, and takes to hunting, as has happened in the north-east, or to agriculture, as in the south-east of Asia; or else, if he is to retain his nomad pastoral habit, he must wait till the climate has become so dry that Jhere are clearings of grassland through the forest belt. Even then he can only proceed so far as he finds grassland still in front of him; and this has only happened at two points: to the west, through the great avenue between Altai and Tienshan, and to the north-east, down the valley of the Hoang-ho; and even here it only happened far on in post-glacial time.
It would be beyond the plan of this chapter, to discuss in detail the subsequent spread of Mongoloid Man through the Asiatic foreshores of his plateaii-home; but his western and north-western expansion has so profoundly influenced the course of history in the modern world, that it is necessary to trace at least the outlines of them, so far as they can be recognized; and also to make quite clear their upward limits in time, which appear to be very narrow.
The older drainage of the southern and more elevated plateau, south of the Kuen-lun ranges, issued to the south-east, towards what is now the Malay Archipelago, but the Brahmaputra, cutting b^lck through the eastern Himalayas, where they have been inter- sected by the great Malayan folds, has captured the southernmost of these drainage areas; the Hoang-ho similarly has captured the northernmost, and the Yangtze the majority of those which lay between, leaving only a small remainder to feed the Sal wen and the Mekong. Consequently the main avenues of human movement have long been towards the eastern lowlands,, and the vast alluvial
24 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
area deposited by Chinese rivers, thus reinforced., has received and acclimatized most of the human overflow from the interior* m
From the northern and less elevated plateaux of Mongolia, however, the older drainage was mainly north-eastward; and here owing to the conformation of the eastern arcs, the eventual recipi- ents have been on the one hand the Amur, on the other the north- ward-flowing Lena and Yenisei. Here the continental core of old 'Angara-land/ which is embraced between these two rivers and has been an immemorial reservoir of ancient forms of life, has also formed the * asylum" into which have descended successive types of flora and fauna discarded from the plateau-margins in successive periods of austerity. The human population here, so far back as it can be traced, belongs to such discarded fauna, and is consequently Mongoloid, but of far less specialized types than those whichchavc never left the plateaux. It is from this Angara reservoir, and the mountain arcs which prolong the north margin of the plateaux and encircle them eastwards, that the whole north-eastern promontory of Asia has received its human population; and similar types, essentially yellow-skinned and straight-haired,, have passed on through it to Alaska and the New World,
Westward, the long-continued submergence of the Siberian lowland from the Yenisei to the Urals prevented all expansion until very recent times: and the present belts of tundra and forest vegetation are post-glacial. As far west as the longitude of Moscow they are of east Siberian origin, and it is only here that this Siberian forest meets mid-European forests advancing in the opposite direction; so that there is overlap of competing species, with a slight balance of advantage on the side of the eastern types. The importance of this is that with the forest, and its animals,, man has spread also, from east, as from west; coalescing in the same longitude as the species of trees. And over and above the disputable evidence of hybrid physique around the line of coalescence, the Mongolian antecedents of all groups cast of that line are betrayed by the fact that they have the reindeer domesticated, and do not hunt it, as Redskins do? and as did the men of the glacial west so long as wild reindeer survived there*
Quite distinct from all this, and representing a very much lat<£r phase of redistribution, is the exodus from the western gate of Mongolia. Here, about latitude 45°, the roughly parallel ranges of Altai and Tienshan stand (on an average) two hundred miles apart; the descent by this avenue onto the Kirghiz steppe is easy and manifold; the head waters of the Irtish have already cut back into the plateau, and an earlier affluent of the Sarmatian sea once
I^iy] AFRICAN FAUNA AND AFRICAN MAN 25
did the same, through the gap east of Lake Balkash, But this avenue only becomes passable under a special conjunction of cir- cumstances; the Kirghiz steppe, which all lies below 1500 ft., and much of it below 600 ft., must be neither submerged nor sand- swept; yet the avenue itself must be free of snow-cap and conver- gent glaciers; the forests on the outer slope and in the passes amist be discontinuous enough to permit pastoral nomads to pass with their flocks; and thirdly, there must be sufficient inducement to leave the plateaux at all. Obviously there is not here any large margin between one set of obstacles and the other. Moreover, ex- cept when the Sarmatian sea-floor is exposed, the Kirghiz steppe itself leads only to the Urals, where progress is barred again by forest. It is intelligible therefore that over long periods this western avenfae was not open for man; or if traversed at all, it served rather to admit western hunters from the steppes, or foresters along the foothills, than to let out the pastorals of the high plateaux; and the actual mixture of races all along this edge of the plateaux sug- gests that for a long while, and very widely, it was the west that was the aggressor, as indeed its cultures would lead us to suspect.
This summary outline is enough to show what seems to have been going on in the Asiatic continent which bounds the North- west Quadrant on the east. Its significance is that so far as can be seen, High Asia and its characteristic type of man remained utterly secluded from the North-west Quadrant until post-glacial time, and may be quite left out of its history.
We have next to deal with the African region which adjoins it on the south.
This African region, like the core of highland Asia, consists of ancient and stable land, on the northern half of which cretaceous and subsequent limestones have been laid down without serious disturbance over an area which has gradually diminished during tertiary times. In the north-west the multiple Atlas ranges belong to the Alpine folds, not to flatland Africa. Eastwards the con- tinuity of this vast flatland has been broken, as we have seen, by the sunken troughs of the Nile and Red Sea, as the Arabian slab was tilted and detached. Similar depression and tilting in front of th.e Tauric and Dinaric arcs submerged successive long strips of the north margin to the Mediterranean sea-floor, but the greater part of the Libyan flatland stood fast, and the Cyrenaic plateau was even forced slightly upwards, Here there has been oscillation, even within historic times, for the harbour of ancient Leptis is high and dry now, whereas at Cyrene the sea has invaded the Greek theatre,
With no barriers due to configuration, the distribution of plants
26 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
and animals over this large area closely follows the climate. Equa- torial rainfall, resulting as it does from the general atmospheric circulation,, may confidently be assumed as a permanent factor' of strictly limited range, and has probably never extended much farther north than latitude 20°. As the only really high ground is in Abyssinia., far to the south-east, the effects even of the present monsoon winds are minimized, and moreover, before the nearer sections of the Indian Ocean subsided, there was no reason for these winds to blow so far west at all. There has therefore been nothing since cretaceous times to interfere with the normal se- quence of trade-winds and westerlies over all northern Africa; and the only calculable effect even of the Scandinavian and Alpine glaciation would be to shift each of these zones southward towards the equatorial rainbelt, and narrow them both. The distribution of plant and animal life lay regularly therefore, as now, in zones of latitude: tropical forest in the south, passing through parkland into steppe and desert, and thence through steppe into evergreens followed by deciduous and coniferous forest, and sub-arctic moor- land and tundra. In the days of the early tertiary archipelago, the trade-wind zone was submerged, and there was therefore no desert; tropical plants and animals of old * Malayan' type flour- ished northwards almost to the Arctic circle, and those of the modern * temperate* zone were represented only in the interior of Laurentia, With the emergence of the western Sahara, and of the mid-European peninsula, 'Malayan' types were restricted to the Tropics, and replaced by * African * like those of the modern savannah region. On the establishment of a Mediterranean sea and European sub-continent north of it, * African* types were restricted in their turn, and replaced by * Arctic* forms from Laurentia; which have their counterpart in the modern flora of temperate North America, and are still fringed on the Atlantic and Mediterranean seaboards by the cLusitanian* remnants of genera widespread in America*
Of the human associates of this pre-glacial vegetation we have no direct evidence from Europe; but the modern human type which characterizes the zone now occupied by the restricted
* African* fauna, is the negroid, both in Africa itself, and (as tfate aboriginal type) in the present Malayan region, and among the
* African * fauna (with its lion, tiger, and elephant) which has fol- lowed the 'Malayan' into southern Asia. The Broken Hill skull, from a deep bone-deposit in a Rhodesian cave, was found associ- ated with a distinctive * African* fauna, and is reported to display no general character subversive of this statement*
I, iv] SEQUENCE OF HUMAN TYPES IN AFRICA 27
But here a distinction must be made. Among the vast majority of * African * (that is to say * negro ') men, the prominent carnivor- ous-looking jaw is accompanied by a markedly long-shaped skull, giving purchase to the powerful jaw-muscles and itself compressed by them. This, like the deeper blackness of the skin, has been commonly regarded as a special adaptation to 'African* zoological conditions; for other types survive isolated, not only in the heart of equatorial Africa and of the Malayan region, but far to the south where the edges of negro-land reach the Limpopo swamps and the Kalahari desert; types which though generally negroid, are of abnormally small stature, inclined to steatopygy (an abnormal development of superficial fat, especially among the women) and general hairiness, and with a yellowish or leathery tinge in their blackness, and a far less long-shaped head than either the standard negroes of Africa, or their * Malayan' counterpart in Melanesia. The trans-Malayan counterpart of the Bushmen, Vaalpens, and Strandloupers of South Africa is now easily recognizable in the Tasmanians1.
That these types are ancient, and that they were already associated with the * African" fauna before it disappeared from Europe, is rendered probable, first, by the occurrence of negroid individuals along with north-western or Eurafrican races in palaeolithic deposits at Mentone, and in carvings palaeolithic and later; by the survival of a pygmy type into early neolithic times at S chaff hausen; by the frequent steatopygy of late palaeolithic and also of neolithic statuettes; by the representations of similar types in neolithic Egypt; and by other traces of a far wider distri- bution than now, in Africa itself. Besides the very long head of the standard negro type other characteristics, such as high stature and great physical strength, the more purely black pigment, the woolly scalp, the lack of body-hair, the prominent heel and slender calf, and the everted lips, may be regarded (like the more striking pecu- liarities of the Mongol type) as secondary adaptations to a highly special regime — in this case the tropical rain-forest, during the restriction of the * African* fauna to its eventual range south of the desert belt. Analogous local adaptations of a genetically * African' Type, associated in its geographical range with survivals of an * African' fauna, may be regarded as sufficiently accounting for the 'oceanic' negroes; for the negroid 'Dravidian* survivals in
1 There are no doubt other factors to be taken into account in tljese cor- relations, such as the build of the skull-base and the spinal calumny iail that is attempted here is to illustrate analogies, which might be multiplied, between the remoter races of the two regions in question.
28 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
southern India and beyond; for the ancient descriptions of * Asi- atic Ethiopians' in Mekran and in the extreme south of Arabia, around the margin (that is) of the sunken regions of Indo-Africa; and for the curious survival in the Mediterranean, and even in France and Britain, of types which combine certain characteristics of negro and of white man without any of the common marks of the half-breed,
If an anthropologist were required to indicate an extant type of man to illustrate such common characters, he would choose the widespread and loosely interconnected group which includes the aboriginal elements of the population of Ceylon and peninsular India, and a long series of remnants further west; through southern Persia, and parts of southern Arabia, merging in thje darker- coloured and slighter built elements of the mixed 'Hamitic' p<3f>u- lation of north-eastern Africa, and in a superficially similar strain which is perceptible among outcasts and derelicts of the Mediter- ranean region and recurs as far afield as the British Isles, though here there are few precise observations yet.
Summing up the relations which have existed between the negro and the white races on the African continent we reach the following result. The climatic zone represented by the Saharan desert, though it has varied in width, has been maintained long" enough to serve as an impermeable screen between the negro and the white stocks, except along a narrow coast belt fringing the Atlantic, and perhaps in the Nile Valley. Only the rare 'negroid* individuals in the palaeolithic caves of the Riviera suggest that during exceptional northward shift of the climatic belts, African man may have reached south-western Europe, temporarily and in small numbers: though others would explain these facts not by northward incursion of ready-made African * negroids/ but by the former presence, along the whole length of the region immediately south of the Highland Zone, of 'dark white* types such as those already mentioned,
We have thus reconstituted, so far as it is known, the earlier distribution of the yellow-$kinned, straight-haired, round-headed Mongoloids, in the secluded upland heart of Asia; of the black- skinned, woolly-haired, and long-headed negroes of Indo-Africatf antecedents; and of the very indeterminate group of varieties which range from the Dravidian and other "dark-white* stocks to the 'poor-whites' of^the Near East and the Mediterranean, Having associated the peculiarities of their physical build, with the preva- lence of geographical conditions likely to give rise to them, we turn to the more complicated problems presented by the so-called
I, IY] THE WHITE RACES OF MAN 29
* white race" of the north-west Quadrant, Here the criteria of statute, hair-texture, skin colour, and headform seem at first sight to fail us, in the medley of tall and short peoples; slim or thickset; blondes, auburn s, and brunettes; with all varieties of wavy or curly hair, and of florid or pasty complexions; with eyes brown, hazel, grey or various shades of blue; and with heads rivalling the average proportions alike of Mongol and Negro, and presenting besides very marked variation, in the height and contour of the brain-case, and in the modelling of face and jaw,
In the long controversy which has been provoked by these anomalies, the following have been the principal turning points. Blumenbach selected a Georgian type from the Caucasus to illus- trate whaj he regarded as the embodiment of the qualities of the whftc race as a whole, and gave to the group a name the full appropriateness of which is appreciated only when it was realized what a medley of men is harboured in the Caucasus itself, Huxley insisted on the importance of the varieties of skin and hair, and distinguished within the whole group a blonde and a brunette section. Sergi recognized a closer structural relationship between the long-headed brunettes of the Mediterranean, and the long- headed blondes of the Baltic shores than between either of these and the broad-headed men of the Alpine zone; Bogdanof proved that the long-headed people of neolithic Russia and western Siberia belonged to the Baltic or * Nordic" type, not to the Medi- terranean type as Sergi had supposed, and were to be classed as blondes; Lapouge realized that the broad-headed strains, distri- buted through the mountain zone of central Europe, over an area tapering somewhat from east to west, and extending beyond this zone far into western Russia, into the Netherlands and Denmark, and into the south and east of Britain, originated not by local adaptation of various longer headed peoples to highland altitudes or other geographical conditions, but by the intrusion of a fresh 4 Alpine* race, anatomically distinct in its general build as well as in its characteristic head form. Ripley associated this European c Alpine' type with the great mass of even broader-headed varieties which occupy Asia Minor and the mountain zone eastward as far tLs the Pamirs. Deniker discriminated within this broad-headed complex, at least three brunette sub-types, the short thickset 'Cevenole' of central France and Savoy, the tall, well-propor- tioned 'Dinaric' variety of Dalmatia and Albania, and the very peculiar 'Armenoids* of Asia Minor, with their heads abruptly flattened behind; to which it was an easy corollary, that the blonde Alpines of north-eastern Europe had arisen by interbreeding with
30 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME" [CHAP.
'Nordic' blondes,, and his 'Littoral7 and "Atlantic ' types by similar interbreeding with * Mediterranean * brunettes. Keith distinguished between those broad-headed folk who entered Britain across 6ie North Sea, coining from north-eastern Germany, and those who entered across the Channel and originated west of the Rhine. More recently Peake has restated the evidence for separating alto- gether from any * Alpine/ that is to say south-easterly immigration, those broad-headed peoples, of northern Mongoloid descent who came westwards with the spread of the Siberian forest, round the northern edge of the old Sarmatian lake-land. It only remains before summarizing present knowledge, as heretofore, in brief narrative form, to note tentative identification by de Ouatrefagcs of the * Cro-Magnon type' of late-palaeolithic man with recent Berber and Guanche strains; the separation established by Scfiliz of* the old long-headed population of the Danube Valley both from the Nordiclong-heads of the Baltic area, and from the Mediterranean folk of the south-west, and his affiliation of it to the late palaeo- lithic hunting-folk; and Fleure's recent confirmation of the long- suspected survival, in the moorlands of central Wales, of a breed anatomically indistinguishable from the widespread * Aurignacian* type, of the same remote period. For the steps by which these main positions have been won, and consolidated into a realm of knowledge, reference must be made to current hand-books and the literature on which they are based,
The problem of the * white races* is simplified in some degree by the severe glaciation of northern and central Kurope, which is the central event of 'Pleistocene * and * Quaternary * times; since the origin of the modern population of the glaciated regions is to be sought not in any general survival of earlier kinds of man within them, but in their reo ecu pation by plants, animals and men alike, from unglaciated areas. It is therefore only in these adjacent areas that questions of continuous descent can arise; and the actual distribution of the Mongoloid and Negroid varieties, and still more the reported occurrence of non-Mongoloid and pro-Mon- goloid remains on a number of sites around the fringe of South America, offer a strong presumption that the human species had already spread very widely before the glacial crisis deranged itft distribution. The close association of Negroid survivals with the discontinuous African fauna makes it certain, as we have seen,, that man accompanied this fauna before its disruption^ and probable that he was associated with it when it was still in full occupation of the North- Western Quadrant. Human remains do in fact occur with those of * African * animals, in numerous European deposits
I, v] PALAEOLITHIC MAN IN THE NILE VALLEY 31
belonging to fairly early phases of the Ice Age; and the later and better 'attested varieties of * eoliths/ belonging to phases not long an*tecedent5 would be accepted by many people as evidence of a tool-using mode of life, if there were found contemporary traces of men who might have used them. In any case, the * Chellean' types of implements (p. 46), which are contemporary with the earliest human remains, are clearly not by any means primitive, but pre- suppose much experience in the improvement of handy stones,
V. PALAEOLITHIC MAN IN THE SOUTH AND EAST
The sequence of early forms of man and of his handiwork was first established laboriously and by comparison of many sites in western Isurope; and it is only recently that it has been realized that in the Nile valley we have a single continuous series of de- posits, outside the glaciated area, and free from its destructive austerity, but near enough to it to be affected by marked alterna- tions of moist and dry climate which can now be securely linked to the main periods of the Ice Age in Europe. With this clue to guide us, we can more easily seize the outstanding features of the European series, among their bewildering complexity of detail.
The deep narrow Nile-gulf which was formed, as we have seen, in the pliocene period, across an otherwise featureless plateau, became at the close of that period a series of long lakes fed partly from the upper Nile, but partly also by considerable lateral streams whose gravel-screes, washed from the plateau surface during a period of considerably greater rainfall than now, contain chipped flints of * eolith* types; and such * eoliths7 are found on the plateau also. In a period of increasing subsidence and more abundant rain these lakes were gradually silted up by the deeply stratified Melan- <?/w>-beds, which overlie the lateral screes as high as 1 80 ft* above the present flood level.
A rain maximum, which may be taken to represent the first glacial crisis in Europe, accelerated this silting, and made good hunting on the plateau for some kind of man, whose implements, of the Chellean* type familiar from interglacial gravels in west- ern Europe, are found both there and in the Melanop$is~bzd$. Breasted ascribes to this phase, on account of their deeply weather- stained appearance, certain earlier rock-engravings of animals and even of boats, on the precipitous edges of the plateau, A first inter- pluvial drought (representing an interglacial mitigation of the cli- mate of the north-west) terminated this silting; but the Nile stream, fed as now by tropical rainfall further south, continued to flow
32 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
over the dry lake-beds, and cut into them a deep canon. It should be observed here that any northward shift of the desert regime should be accompanied by some extension of the tropical rain belt, and probably also of the area affected by the monsoon rains, since the Indian Ocean was by this time as extensive as now; and that these rains, then as now, would continue to feed the Nile stream, however arid the climate of its lower valley. In this period of drought and erosion, man seems to have maintained himself on the dry lake-bed, for Chellean implements are found among those remnants of its surface which forms the 'upper-terraces' on either side of the gorge.
Next, a second rain-age, corresponding with the second or 4 Minder glaciation of Europe, flooded the gorge and set the lateral torrents to work again; and as a rise in the sea-levelf like that which submerged much of the Atlantic seaboard, checked the main stream, a fresh series of gravels, analogous to those of the Somme and Thames, were deposited to a height of 90-100 ft. above present flood level. In the new screes, as well as on the old plateau surface outside the valley, implements are found, of the more advanced *Acheulian* fabric, showing that man became again ubiquitous as the region became refertilized; and in the early part of the second interpluvial pause, he spread once more, as in France and Britain, on to the gravel beds, and scattered imple- ments there to the margins of the new gorge which was being cut through them by the main river*
Once again in a third rain-maximum, corresponding with the third or *Riss* glaciation, fresh gravels were laid down in this inner gorge, not so copious as the earlier series, but partly covering the recent lateral screes, and standing in some places as much as 30 ft* above modern flood level; since the actual valley has been eroded In them during a third interpluvial drought* And once again, man ranged over the surface of these gravels, and left his implements there, as well as on the plateau, where they He on the desert surface mixed with all their predecessors*
Then follows the fourth rain-maximum, a comparatively mild one, corresponding with the fourth or 'Wtlrm* glaciation. The gorge, of which the bed lies not less than 60 ft. below modern flood level, began to accumulate the first deposits of the present alluvium; which are shown by borings to contain human imple- ments at nearly all depths. A first pause in the deposition of this alluvium, corresponding probably with the * lower forest' period around the North Sea and the Channel, allowed man to descend through the fens to the river margin, and accounts for the presence,
I,v] CONTINUOUS HUMAN OCCUPATION 33
at a depth of 50—60 ft. not merely of implements but of rough fragmehts of pottery, and animal bones of domesticable if not domesticated species.
As the rate of deposition since the thirteenth century B.C. aver- ages 4-08 inches in a century, this depth would represent a period of 15,000—18,000 years, assuming that the rate remained uni- form. But as there were certainly oscillations, and probably more rapid deposition at first, this estimate can only be approximate, and should perhaps be reduced. A second and a third access of alluvium, corresponding with the lower and upper peat-moss periods in Europe, and separated by ill-defined pauses, has raised the flood plain to its present level, at which it covers not only the edges of th§ last-eroded gorge, but part of the valley floor of the fourtS rain-maximum between the 'lower terraces* already men- tioned, which in some places now rise only about 20 ft. above the flood plain.
It will be seen from this sequence of events that there is every reason to believe that the Nile valley, and the margins of the desert plateau on either side of it, have been occupied by man continu- ously, though with varying density of population, at least from the beginning of the pleistocene period. Wherever any of its succes- sive land surfaces remain in the valley itself, his implements have been found representing successive stages of skill analogous to those of western Europe; and on the surface of the plateau* which has been exposed continuously, implements of all periods are found indiscriminately, and constitute a more nearly uninterrupted and graduated series than anywhere else. The only serious gap, inevitably, is in the period immediately preceding the settlements on the present alluvial surface, because this alluvium is in process of deposition, and its encroachment, since the last interpluvial pause, on the surface of the lower terrace, has been burying the sites and tombs of immediately preceding phases,
As human occupation has been thus continuous and (in the more fertile intervals) widespread, and as there is nothing in the physique of the earliest known inhabitants of the alluvial surface to suggest that they have been of anything but the local variety of EiJrafrican man, it seems probable that the arts of life represented in all these deposits are of indigenous, or at least quite local de- velopment. The last period of alluvial aggression has however been a very long one, and while the pauses in it may be presumed to represent phases of greater drought than now, the periods of more rapid deposition should be interpreted conversely as periods of moister climate, and consequently of less complete isolation from
C. A.H.I 3
34 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
the comparatively well-watered and fertile region of Palestine and Syria, where a similar though not yet so perfect sequence* of im- plements is being found. At these phases therefore allowance mxist be made for the possibility of intrusions of Palestinian and Syrian man, anticipating that which is known to have occurred when the so-called 'Gizeh' type entered and dominated Egypt in early dynastic time, And the gradual dilution of this alien type on that occasion imposes caution in assuming,, from the approximate purity of the predynastic inhabitants of the valley, that no such intrusion had ever occurred earlier.
The importance of such caution will be understood when we take stock of the predynastic culture, more fully to be described in Chap, vi, and compare it with the distribution of |ome of its chief elements elsewhere. First, the types of implements preserve almost without qualification the ancient technique of mere chip- ping and flaking. The grinding and polishing, characteristic of neolithic implements in Europe and along the Highland Zone, are employed only late and in a supplementary way. The flaking on the other hand exhibits a climax of unparalleled delicacy just before the first apparition of copper implements, in immediately predynastic time. This obstinate adherence to the flake-technique cannot be merely due to the abundant supply of suitable flint, in the rocks of the valley sides; for the upper valley exhibits a large variety of crystalline and volcanic rocks, and pebbles from these rocks are included in old gravels downstream. Considering the proximity of the large West Asiatic region of ancient and highly developed skill in grinding and polishing such pebbles, the persistence of the flake-technique in Egypt is therefore a strong presumption of technical isolation; and the rare occurrence of polished celts, of the fully formed neolithic types common In Western Asia, points rather to occasional trade than to local manufacture*
This isolation is confirmed by the original and unparalleled sequence of the pottery-forms, at all events down to the point at which appears the * red-polished* ware which is common to Egypt, Syria, and Cyprus in immediately predynastic time. And the fact that so many of the Egyptian pot-forms seem to depend on those of vessels cut out, or rather ground out^ from hard stone, makes all the more remarkable that abstention from the grinding-tcchniqiie for implements, which has been noticed above* With the ovoid forms of many of these stone vases should be compared those of the perforated stone mace-heads, which likewise betray great technical skill in shaping and perforating refractory rocks,
I, v] DOMESTICATED PLANTS AND ANIMALS 35
It must however be remembered that it is just at this period that thfi Nile-valley series is least continuous and complete. Be- tween the two main groups of the oldest remains (the refuse heaps and the burials beyond the advancing edge of the alluvium) there is a notable discrepancy. For from the moment when the population left their earlier settlements, descended into the fens, and began to domesticate cattle and practise agriculture, until the time when the fens were completely reclaimed, the dead were probably buried in the alluvium, or on its margin, and the earlier tombs are there- fore covered more or less deeply by the later alluvium. That this was so, is shown by one or two of the oldest known burial-grounds, which not only lie on the very edge of the present alluvium but have been proved to extend beneath it. Yet even these show phases of culture which are highly developed and in some respects already decadent; and throughout the long 'predynastic' period for which burials are available, there is further decadence, especially in the finer stonework. Moreover, even in the earliest known graves, objects of lapis lazuli, which must be of foreign origin, are found occasionally, and also objects of copper. Probably therefore the greater part of the purely neolithic stage of Egyptian civilization still remains to be disinterred from tombs on the valley floor beneath the recent alluvium, and from sites on old flood plains within the alluvium itself.
Other arts of life, represented in the earliest burials, are the use of wattled huts, basketry, matting and vegetable thread; of leather and wood-work, and of bone, ivory, and shell for ornaments. Rouge and green malachite were used for paint. Agriculture is represented by flax, millet, barley, and wheat; of the latter grain, both the variety called emmer (Triticum dicoccum^ which is found wild in limestone uplands in Syria, and Moab, and in western Persia) was grown, and also the cultivated wheat (TrMcum vu/gare). Goats, sheep, and short-horn cattle were kept, all apparently of African varieties, and attempts were still being made even in early dynastic times to domesticate ibex, gazelle, antelope, deer, and other desert ruminants. There were domestic geese and ducks from the fens, and from early paintings it would seem that the os?xich was familiar, if not kept in captivity like the gazelle. The dog was known, and in early dynastic times there were special breeds for sport and other purposes. The only beast of burden was an African variety of ass. There was organized irrigation, and probably an ox-drawn hoe, the prototype of the plough, as it is depicted in early-dynastic hieroglyphs. The river was navigated in large house-boats; there was fishing with hooks of delicate
3 — *
36 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
flint work, and immemorial hunting on the desert and in the fens, for the prowess of chiefs was symbolized by a fobe^ of leopard-skin.
That in fertile periods a similar neolithic culture spread widely westward over north Africa is clear from early Egyptian records, depicting the Libyans as pastoral folk, with herds of cattle, and asses; and from the survival, even now, of pot fabrics and basketry of predynastic technique and decoration.
Connecting links between the palaeolithic series of the Nile valley and of western Europe are not yet numerous; but enough has been found, especially in Algeria, and around Gafsa in south Tunis, to support the conclusions drawn from the climatic regime, and geological confirmations of its effects, and from^he general character of the modern population, which includes Aurigifkcijin remnants like those of Plynlimmon and Dordogne, and is other- wise strikingly uniform with the older elements in western Europe. Eoliths have been recorded around Gafsa and in Algerian quaternary beds; pre-Chellcan and Chellean types from Gafsa ; and the later deposits around Gafsa reveal a typical North African culture equivalent to the later palaeolithic of Europe. Rock-draw- ings from Algeria resemble those in the later French and Spanish caves. The area of this 'Capsian' culture (so called from the ancient name of Gafsa itself) seems to cover all northern Africa as far south as the oasis of Ghadames; it passes over westward into the later palaeolithic of Spain and southern France, and extends east- ward into Syria, And the continuity, now abundantly evident for this later * Capsian ' culture, is indicated for earlier periods also by more scattered finds of implements of all fabrics common to the Nile and to west Europe, in the wide ill-explored area between Gibraltar and North Syria. We may safely assume, therefore, es- sential continuity of human occupancy of this region from before the first pluvial period, qualified only in its extent by the climatic oscillations, which cohere, as in Egypt, with those of the European Ice Age. We may conclude also that all interglacial ebb and flow of human types from the south towards the Atlantic seaboard was essentially the marginal expansion or contraction of this large Eurafrican region. Of the physical characters of Burafrican nfcn we learn more at present from the remains on European sites, than from the ill-explored areas further south; in Egypt, unfortunately, no such remains have been found before the time of the predynastic graves, which belong, as we have seen, to the latest alluvial phases* Before turning however to the palaeolithic series in Europe, the question confronts us ; what was happening east of the Nile valley,
I, v] EARLY MAN IN SYRIA AND ARABIA 37
and south of that section of the Folded Highland which affronts so abnfptly the Levant and the Persian Gulf; namely on that large Arabian flatland which lies dislocated and tilted askew between great Africa and greater Asia, and along the Palestinian isthmus which connects its north angle with the Highland Zone? In its earlier stages, as we have seen, this flatland was itself a part of Africa: and the great fractures which determined the geography of the Red Sea and the Nile valley did not wholly break this con- nexion. Both at the northern and the southern end of the Red Sea, there had been frequently continuous land, and in dry periods this sea shrank through evaporation, as the Dead Sea has shrunk now. But the great slab of Arabia itself, tilting steadily under Iranian fold-stresse^s, became structurally secluded behind its abrupt western escarpment, and offered to its occupants an independent, if rather restricted career. Until the comparatively late disruption of the Hormuz Strait, the waters of the long Mesopotamian lake — an Adriatic of the Nearer East — restricted the land area of this peninsula, and mitigated its climate. The dimensions of its east- ward-flowing drainage systems testify to former fertility; and we must probably conceive it as having long enjoyed a regime not unlike that of peninsular India, with Lebanon and Bashan playing the part of the Ghats.
That it was inhabited by man, with a palaeolithic culture re- sembling that of north Africa, is proved by implements from Sinai, Palestine and Phoenicia, the only districts which have been sufficiently explored; they range from CM ouster ian* types onwards; that is to say, from at least the third pluvial maximum. Of the sequence of physical types, we know nothing: provisionally it may be assumed, from the sequence of artefacts, that if * Neanderthal' Man ranged over this region, as is suggested by the * Mousterian ' implements, he was extirpated, as in the west, by men of generic- ally Eurafrican stock; for the actual inhabitants, though far from uniform, are in essentials akin to their western neighbours. It would be natural to expect some traces of the 'Grimaldi7 negroids of the Riviera caves, and of the *poor white' strains (already men- tioned) which are common to the Atlantic seaboard, the Mediter- nfihean, and peninsular India; and superficial observation supports this; but there has been no accurate survey as yet. All that can be stated at present is that a modern population, of generically Eurafrican stock, shows larger local modifications than the present uniform regime would lead us to expect; and it may be inferred from this, that with more copious vegetation the main drainage areas were formerly better secluded, and permitted such differ-
38 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
entiation. The most Important of these local varieties is a com- paratively broad-headed type in the extreme south of Arabia; but there is no evidence as to its antiquity here, and it may only result from intercourse in historic times with trading centres in north Syria, which as we have seen is an ancient dependency of the Highland Zone.
Such are the physical circumstances in which was fashioned one of the most notable of human stocks, the Semites of Arabia. Physically they are akin to their 'Hamitic* neighbours beyond the Red Sea and throughout Eurafrica, and strongly contrast with the men of the Highland Zone who have spread southward along its Syrian projection, or overflowed from time to time along the margins of the tilted slab. Culturally they have been habituated for long ages, like the Nile-plateau folk, to alternations'of moisture and drought, which however never seem to have permitted any extensive growth of forest, except on the monsoon frontage to the south-east, nor, on the other hand, ever to have extinguished the grassland vegetation entirely. They are therefore typically grass- land folk. They have domestic animals of their own, goat, camel,, and ass, all native to Arabia; the sheep, and eventually the horse, have been acquired by them from outside; in both cases from the north. They have a remarkable type of linguistic structure, re- motely shared only by the Hamitic group, which lies nearest to them, otherwise; and a temperament and outlook more coherent and persistent than that of any other of the greater races. In the moister spells, such people multiply over the widening grassland more rapidly than any alien can habituate himself to pastoral life, or to precarious agriculture c between the desert and the sown/ On the other hand, in spells of drought, Arabia erupts like a volcano, pouring floods of highly organized and mobile tribes across its land frontiers north-eastward, northward, and across the Jordan rift into coastland Syria and Palestine, perchance even into Africa. There has been percolation also, more insidious, but of wide effect, across the Red Sea, and especially its southern strait, where the transit into Africa is shorter, and timber for boats is more avail- able. Such periodic exodus of Arabian tribes can be traced back inferentially to the third millennium at least; and it need not tee supposed that the earliest recorded movement was by any means the first. The predynastic regime of Upper Egypt, for instance, seems to be partly due to such a movement crossing the Red Sea to Koseir, and reaching the Nile at Coptos by a trail which can be followed now. And it has already been hinted that the old popu- lation of the Nile valley may have been so supplemented even
I, vj THE PALESTINIAN ROAD FROM THE NORTH 39
earlier. The physical resemblance between Arabian and Eurafrican man is* however close enough to make detection difficult, even if eafly evidence were found. See also pp. 182 sqq^ 193, 254.
Allusion has already been made to the prolongation southwards of spurs from the Highland Zone through North Syria, to form with the high western edge of Arabia a continuous highland causeway along the abrupt eastern margin of the Mediterranean, and then along the Gulf of Akaba to loftier and steeper escarp- ments fronting to the Red Sea. In structure most of this causeway is Arabian, but its exposure to wet winds from the west has given it a Mediterranean climate and a considerable rainfall; it is the 'good land beyond Jordan, flowing with milk and honey/ which tempts the nomads of Arabia in all ages, yet has never acclimatized them to itsfclf. For the vegetation is partly old African, with tropi- cal survivals still in the hot moist jungle of the Jordan gorge; partly Mediterfanean, spreading along the coast plains and sea- ward foothills; but always mainly Asiatic, reinforced, ever since the junction of highland causeways above mentioned, from the Highland Zone at its north end. Of its earlier human occupants we have little but a few Mousterian implements; but in the first neolithic culture in Palestine the people are of the highland breed; they burn their dead; and their implements, pottery, and other equipment are in strong contrast both with everything Egyptian, and with the grassland influences which predominate later. Arabian man has occupied the 'good land' again and again; but the moist air seems to be fatal to him, and many of the peasantry of south Palestine are hardly to be distinguished from their neolithic pre- decessors,
But the Palestinian complication is not the only one which qualifies the homogeneity of Arabia. Very ancient interaction of the streams which furrow the south face of the Highland Zone has reduced its drainage systems in this region to three. The Cilician rivers, trending south-westward, have created a secluded alluvial foreshore on the Gulf of Alexandretta, peopled, in all ages, by tribes who have come down from the mountain region inland, or, more rarely, have landed from oversea. The Tigris, flowing smith-eastward, is joined below Mosul by the two Zab rivers from the Median highlands in what was once another such foreshore, at the head of a Mesopotamian gulf; but it could only attain its eventual importance when that foreshore spread along the foothills of Zagros and merged with the similar deltas of the Diyala, and eventually of the Kerkhah and Karun further south again. The latter even now has a separate mouth west of the Shatt el-Arab. Here again, as in
40 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
Palestine and Cilicia, vegetation and other occupants spread outwards from the valleys, and coastwise, as these delta foreshores encroached on the gulf.
But between the head-waters of the Tigris and those of the Ctlician rivers., one southward stream, Euphrates, has cut back deeper and further than its neighbours and intercepted not only the original headwaters of the Tigris, between Malatiu and Diarbekr, but far larger areas of old westward drainage as far as Erzerum and the slopes of Mount Ararat. Thus reinforced, Euphrates has excavated, in successive periods of elevation and copious rainfall, a wide and deep valley, well-watered and fertile throughout, athwart the sunk north-eastern slope of the Arabian slab, reaching the gulf formerly at el-Der, later at Ana, and (at the beginning of the modern phase) at Hit, where it cicscemis a last terrace of solid coast-line almost to the present sea-level. To plants, animals, and people of the foothills and the Syrian parkland, this long fertile valley has always offered sustenance far out into the steppe and desert which it traverses,
By this emphatic frontier of the Euphrates channel, a roughly triangular area of southward sloping plateau — -a miniature Arabia. about as large as Ireland — is marked off from the Syrian and north Arabian plateau, and has never wholly been rejoined in history. This is Mesopotamia, the 'land between rivers/ for the Tigris delimits it no less clearly eastward from the foothill country below the Zagros ranges. Its structure is continuous with that of Syria; its climate is essentially the same, giving it (at present) desert and steppe regime in the south, and parkland nearer the hills. Its only river, the Khabur, rises in the highland, where it threatens to behead what is left of the Upper Tigris at Diarbckr; but till this happens its drainage-area is not sufficient to give It geographical importance; except that where it falls into the Euphrates close below el-Der, its delta forms a cultivable plain opening on the main valley. It will be seen at once that like Syria to the westward, Mesopotamia forms a region of transition, occupiable from the highland north of it, as far as its parkland extends at any given period; but offering wide steppe-pasture to any nomads of Arabia who may succeed in putting their flocfeS across the Euphrates,
These then were the geographical and economic factors down to the time when the present sea-level was established* and the Euphrates delta, propagated south-eastward from Hit, began to coalesce with those of the Tigris and the Diyila round the Meso- potamian gulf-head, which then lay between Baghdad and Samarra,
I, v] SUMER AND AKKAD 4I
We might compare an immature Lombardy with, the Ticino pre- paring to join deltas with the Po.
'What has followed, while the joint delta pushed its alluvial steppe and dense fen-margin seaward over the 550 miles which separate Hit from the modern coastline., is disputed, and must inevitably be obscure. As in Egypt, the population, human and other, of the alluvial flood-plain may be presumed to have been derived from the shores of the gulf as it silted up. But these shores, as we have seen, were themselves peopled from different sources; the deltas of the eastern torrents, from the Zagros foothills; the Tigris banks, with sparse but continuous offshoots of the occu- pants of its upper valley; the fertile bed of the Euphrates, with similar elements, longer segregated however from their highland and parkland ancestry. Arabia, on the other hand, established a longer and longer land frontier with the growing flood-plain, as happened to Libya while the Nile trough was being silted up; it overflowed this frontier with its own aborigines, wherever steppe conditions were established; and this Arabian element became more important as two conditions were fulfilled; first, as the north- ern part of the delta between the main rivers, and behind its ad- vancing fen-frontage on the gulf-head, was assimilated in climate and vegetation to the steppe of southern Mesopotamia; second, as the main Euphrates stream took a more easterly course (as it eventually did), leaving a larger expanse of alluvium from Kerbela southward undefended by any considerable water-channel against Arabian immigrants; and this, too, nearly opposite the point where intercourse is easiest with the comparatively hospitable Nejd oases in the heart of the peninsula. On the other hand the establishment of an important bifurcation of the Euphrates threw a new channel across to the Tigris near Baghdad, and interposed a fresh obstacle to nomad intruders from Mesopotamia into what we may hence- forward call by its historic name of Babylonia, or by the older names of Sumer and Akkad, its principal sub-regions, which differ slightly in accordance with their respective situations. That under these circumstances the southern or Sumerian half of the growing delta should be more exclusively populated from the foothills of Za|>Tos, and that the northern or Akkadian half should show greater affinities with Arabian and Mesopotamia!! people, would seem to be inevitable, and is generally admitted. It is however unnecessary, in view of the geographical antecedents, to attribute all such northerly or westerly affinities to the earliest Semitic migration of which there is historic record. The same factors had been co-operating already for a long time.
42 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
VI. THE ICE AGE IN THE NEAR EAST
We have next to see how this region of the 'Two Rivers/ and the sections of the Highland Zone adjacent to it, northwards and eastwards, were affected by the glacial crisis. As evidence is at present scanty, conclusions must be more general,, and a wider survey will best bring out the most essential points. As far as the head of the Adriatic,, a single series of events has been reconstructed in greater detail for all western Europe, and to this we shall re- turn later. East of the Adriatic, information is less copious, but the main course of events is fairly clear. The Carpathians, Dinaric ranges, and the Thracian mass of Rhodope were heavily snow- capped, and glaciated locally, and similar conditions prevailed on the coast-ranges of Asia Minor, both north and soutfi. Caucasus and Armenia, rising to greater altitudes, were glaciated more severely; and Lebanon, flanked by the Mediterranean on the one side, and with the shores of the Mesopotamian Gulf not so far off as now, on the other, had an ice-cap exceptionally heavy for its latitude. But a large part of Asia Minor probably remained fertile and habitable throughout. What is far more characteristic of this region, as of the Aegean depression and the Hellenic promontory, is the severely pluvial denudation, accentuating the rugged high- lands, and smothering the foothills in vast sheets of gravel and sand. In these the rivers cut fresh gorges during the drier intervals, which were also periods of emergence and consequently of longer and steeper gradients. The older drainage of Asia Minor had been longitudinal, towards the Aegean subsidence; sections of It are recognizable In the headwaters of the Euphrates, Halys and Iris; and the great westward avenue past Afium-karahissar probably represents its main outlet seaward* But later upthrusts of the west end of the Tauric arc closed this outlet, and converted the central plain into a lake-land, where some salt and gypsum were deposited as in Iran, But this had all happened in prcglacial timesj and the subsequent development of Asia Minor was differ- ent. For it was an immediate result of the subsidences already mentioned in the Black Sea region^ to accelerate erosion in the torrents on the new north coast, and two of these, Sangarius afiid Halys, cutting back clean through the Paphlagonian range*, drained the greater part of the central lake-land, and kept all Its floor fresh and habitable except the small central basin or Lake Tatta, The present drought is recent, and in part remediable; even in the fifth century B.C. the district west of the Halys was 'richest in sheep and corn of all known 1ri tads' for Herodotus.
I, vi] GLACIAL CONDITIONS IN ARMENIA AND IRAN 43
Further east, the Armenian ice-cap extended at times almost to the plateaux, east and west; but in milder intervals there was con- tinuous highland country, full of small plateaux, glacier-fed gorges and lake-basins, from eastern Asia Minor to western Iran; prob- ably even at the worst some sort of corridor by way of Sivas, Kharput, Diarbekr, and the "Upper Tigris; while the triangular uplands of North Syria, between Adana, Damascus and Mosul, do not seem to have been glaciated at all.
Even now, though the water-surface of the Persian Gulf has been greatly restricted, the deflection of the jo-inch rain-line north-eastward beyond the Lebanon reveals an exceptionally moist and equable climate, and associates this margin of the Arabian slab with the highlands to the north, and with the Mediterranean sea- boatfl, rather than with the rest of Arabia. It is no wonder that we have record of elephants in one of these Syrian valleys as late as the twelfth century B.C., or that the Macedonian veterans of Alexander the Great made here their most enduring settlements. But the well-marked ridge which is followed by the caravan route from Damascus to Palmyra makes the transition from parkland to steppe rather abrupt; and as long as the Lebanon retained any con- siderable ice-cap- — and it was certainly glaciated severely — there was little or no communication between north Syria and the south. The spread of Highland Man into Palestine (p. 39) was probably quite post-glacial,
The course of events further east has been less easy to discover. Through the extension of an * Indian Ocean * along its southern margin, and through the re-establishment of the Sarmatian sea on the north, the climate of Iran necessarily became moister and more equable than it had been while its salt and gypsum beds were accumulating. Allowing always for its more southerly latitude, and ampler size, we may compare its geographical position with that of Asia Minor now, between the Levant and the Black Sea; and as it retains many elements of its old Indo-African fauna, there cannot have been any such climatic break as occurred further west. At most the salt and gypsum-covered waste in its centre has been larger or smaller, and more or less occupied by lakes; and i£S present drought is consequent on the quite recent shrinkage of the Sarmatian sea. During the glacial crisis, its high marginal ranges were snow-laden, but not severely glaciated except in the north-west and north-east; the diluvial thaw was consequently not very destructive; and as the main basin was never tapped by in- ward-cutting torrents, like Asia Minor (though some intermont basins in Zagros have begun to be drained by streams flowing
44 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
south into the Persian Gulf) its local reserve of moisture was only slowly dissipated, at the cost however of greater ultimate Salinity. East and west of it, however, the ice-caps of the Hindu Kush and Armenia, where the marginal ranges converge, isolated this region no less completely than did the seas to north and to south; for until the diluvial debris became continuous along the western frontage, the Persian Gulf extended, as we have seen, at least to the point where the Tigris emerges from the foothills of Kurdistan; while raised beaches of it have been traced far west of the Euphrates,
All these regions therefore were habitable during the greater part of the Ice Age, and there are Chellean implements on the sur- face in Iran and Arabia, and in gravels containing mampoth bones on the Caspian shore, to show that they were inhabited widely by Man.
The diluvial thaw, however, brought disaster here* As was natural so far south, it was very rapid, once the cold crisis was over; violent torrents seamed deeply the superficial sediments of the Arabian slab, and spread masses of debris, among which the older rivers followed uncertain courses, like the Oxus later on the Sarmatian sea-floor. Then, to diluvial rains succeeded drought and drifting sand, before any grassland, still less any forest regime could be established, sufficient to disintegrate this debris and ac- cumulate soil. In the foothills of Zagros similar torrents, descend- ing more abruptly, spent their diluvial energies within a narrower radius; so that the eventual course of the Tigris skirts and even erodes their fan-shaped screes of gravel Rapidly at first, and after- wards more gradually, the northern part of the old Persian Gulf was filled up by these converging deltas; while further south finer sediment accumulated with proportionate speed. There was up- ward earth movement, too, after long subsidence, for at Hit the Euphrates has cut down to an older shore line, and its rapids are now wearing through the sill of this* The disastrous effect of this diluvial phase was to eliminate Mesopotamia as a focus of post- glacial culture, and to postpone effective occupation till an alluvial area had been created beyond it. The contrast, in every respect, with Egypt on the one hand, and with the Po valley on the othfir, is complete,, and of historical Importance,
I, vnj EARLY MAN IN EUROPE 45
VII. THE ICE AGE IN EUROPE
We return now to peninsular Europe, west of the Adriatic and the Black Sea. Here the fourfold Alpine maxima of the glacial period corresponds as we have seen, with the pluvial maxima of the Nile, and with repeated glaciation, fringed by diluvial rainfall, of the Balkan lands and western Asia. Earlier study of the river gravels and caves of the Atlantic seaboard, from Britain to Spain, and most of all in northern and central France, has recently been supplemented by research along the north side of the Pyrenees, and in many parts of Spain; among the caves of the central German and Bohemian highlands; in the widespread deposits of interglacial loess along the Rhine, in the Danube valley, along the Margins of the north German lowland, and beyond the Car- pathians, in Poland, and Ukraine, There is controversy still as to the perspective of the earlier human finds; the principal question being whether these are later than the third or * Riss ' glaciation, or go back Into the milder interval between this and the second or * Minder crisis, which was the severest and most extensive of all. In what follows, the longer intervals are adopted, in the belief that these accord more closely with the pluvial series on the Nile, In Europe, as in Egypt, 'eolithic' objects from preglacial deposits, have been claimed by some observers as human handiwork. In the light of the Egyptian material, which offers very similar forms, the probability that they are so is somewhat increased; but it is too early yet for an accepted verdict on most of them. In East Angiia however the presence of preglacial Man seems already secure (p. 18),
On the longer reckoning above adopted, it is in the * first iiiter- glacial * deposits which preceded the boulder clays and moraines of the *Mindel* glaciation, that the earliest human fragment has been found, a lower jaw chinless but recognizably human, from a gravel-bed near Heidelberg. No implements have been discovered in this deposit. A more perfect skull of a quite different and more modern-looking type comes, together with 'eoliths' and rolled bones of subtropical animals, from a very early river-side deposit arPiltdown, near Lewes, above, though not actually with, which lay gravel with implements ruder than those next to be mentioned, but generally similar in type. The date of the Piltdown deposit is still disputed, but it cannot be later than the earlier glacial gravels of the Thames, and may be considerably earlier.
Next in the * second interglacial' debris of the thaw-swollen Somme, and other west European rivers, occur numerous imple-
46., PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
ments, of the ruder fashion typical of the gravels of Chelles, and then in more skilful workmanship, at St Acheul. Both styles are chipped from natural nodules of flint3 so as to leave one end pointed, and the butt naturally or designedly rounded for grasping in the hand. These are but flood-spoil from camping grounds on the river banks, and tell little about their makers and users except that they haunted the drinking-places of the large African fauna whose bones are in the same gravels. Here, though we have their implements, we have at present no trace of the men themselves,
It is only when the third glaciation draws on, and the African fauna were being replaced, except the woolly mammoth, by rein- deer, musk ox, arctic fox, marmot, and other Arctic animals, that man and his prey alike took shelter from the weathcj: in natural caves, and 'Mousterian* scrapers and borers, rudely fashioned by retouching the fresh edges of the flakes formed in shaping the 'Acheulian* coup-de-faing^ give a glimpse of the scraping and piercing of bones and hides during such sojourn, and the first hint of woman's knack of finding secondary uses for the waste from man's chase and chipping. The colder climate was enforcing the invention of clothes. In a Jersey cave of this period the hunting weapons predominated near the opening; domestic scrapers and hacked bones of animals further in; the remains of a child lay a little outside the entrance. In one French cave, an old man had been buried intentionally in the floor, crouched as so many savages sleep.
This phase also has a wide distribution, from the south of England to Spain and Portugal, Algeria and Tunis, the plateau edge of the Nile valley and the Syrian margin of Arabia; eastward too through mid- Europe as far as Hungary, south Russia* and the Caucasus; and the style of the new implements Is still very uni- form. But outside these limits, lMousterian* settlements have not been found as yet, whereas Acheulian and Chellcan implements are common in South Africa^ and even further afield; and it is possible that it is to this period that we should assign a great divergence between human experiences within and beyond this ' Mousterian ' area, for reasons to be stated later (pp. 47—50).
Like their implements, the men of this Older Palaeolithic Age are of very uniform type; and as this 'Neanderthal' type differs markedly from all subsequent varieties of men and also from the older but more modern-looking type represented by the Piltdown skull and some other finds of various early periods, it must be noted briefly at this point. Into the difficult question of its place in the human genealogy, this is not the place to go. Its distribution
48 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
definitely human chin. Well represented by examples from Britain, France, and as far east as Predmost in Moravia,, this is a^type in which not only "there are no salient features which cannot be matched among the living races of the present day/ but it remains the predominant element among the modern inhabitants of se- cluded districts such as the Plynlimrnon moorland in central Wales; it is common still in the west of Ireland, in the Dordognc, in Sardinia, about Guipuzcoa in Spain, and in parts of Tra-os- Monte5? and has been noted in the oases south of Algeria and Tunis, and among Egyptians, Somalis, and elsewhere in north-eastern Africa, The numerous earlier allusions to 'Neanderthaloid' indi- viduals in modern European populations probably refer to these Aurignacians, who look 'primitive* enough when contrasted with the majority of modern men, but are separated by almost, as -great an interval from the real Neanderthal type. From characteristics of these survivors it is possible to supplement the evidence of the early skeletons. The forehead is narrow, with marked hollows in the temples, above the heavy eyebrows; the orbits are long and narrow, the cheeks are high and broad. The nose is broad, the jaw prominent, and the chin rather weak; the stature is low, the carriage loose and ungainly, and the arms very long: the hair, eyes, and complexion are dark, and the whole body is very hairy. In some individuals, the resemblance to a common type of aboriginal Australian is well-marked; and the similarity between Aurignacian skulls in Europe and the prehistoric skulls from Lagoa Santa, in Brazil and other remote localities round the margins of South America, suggests that this type had once almost as wide a dis- tribution as that of the older types of implements. It does not however seem to have been recorded, as those have been, from tropical or southern Africa; and its extreme hairiness and the wavy texture of individual hairs distinguishes it altogether both from the Negroid and from the Mongoloid breed-
With the occupation of western Europe, therefore, by Auri- gnacian Man begins a continuous series of events and material remains running on to modern times* There are moments in this series where continuity of civilization cannot be directly traced, but continuous descent is sure, and therewith continuity of tradi- tion, which above all other human characters engages the atten- tion of historians. Other breeds of man have intruded later, as we shall see, from the south-east along the Mountain Zone, and from the north-east as the Siberian forest extended towards the Volga basin; but in western Europe, Aurignacian man has never been wholly superseded, and still forms coherent groups such as the
I, viz] CRO-MAGNON AND GRIMALDI TYPES 49
Plynlimmon moorlanders, and the secluded settlements already mentioned in Spain, Portugal, and Algeria.
We are confronted however at this stage with a new turning point of advancement, the participation of more than one distinct breed of man in a single tradition of culture, and in exploitation of the same region. For, side by side with this Aurignacian type, at least two other varieties of man made their appearance in west- ern Europe during the warmer and drier period now in question. One of these, represented by the * Cro-Magnon ' skeletons, is both less widely distributed, and of larger and more modern-looking build; and has left, like the Aurignacian, its descendants among the modern population of France, Spain and North Africa, and also (according to some observers) round the western Baltic, Its genefal similarity with the Aurignacian has led to the presumption that it spread likewise from the south-west.
The other type, distinctly negroid, is best represented by skele- tons from the Grimaldi cave near Mentone. There can be little doubt of its African affinities, and there are two other indications of such African types in Europe : a pygmy breed of somewhat negroid appearance, from an ill-dated deposit at Schaffhausen, near Constance; and the well-marked steatopygy which character- izes negroid Bushmen and Hottentots of South Africa,, and of some other negro breeds further north, and is represented in European drawings and sculptures of the female figure from Auri- gnacian times to the neolithic art of Malta. Steatopygy however is not an exclusively negroid character, and as it has been observed among the living in the same secluded districts along the western Pyrenees as the Aurignacian individuals already mentioned, all that results from the Grimaldi and Schaffhausen finds is that African varieties either had not yet entirely disappeared from southern Europe, or occasionally returned thither during periods of exceptional warmth* In general, however, it may be assumed that the present climatic zones were henceforward fairly well established; and that negro man, in the mass, did not range north of the Sahara desert, nor, except sporadically as now, along the Atlantic seaboard of North Africa.
*The mode of life of * Aurignacian * man differed, no less than his build, from that of the Mousterians whom he superseded; and there is no reason for an archaeologist to dispute the consensus of anthropologists that there is no trace of intercourse between the two types* If they met, it was as independent competitors for the means of subsistence; and the almost total disappearance of Mous- teriati man after the arrival of Aurignacian, suggests that it was
c.A.H-r
50 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
'war to the knife' between them. The Tasmanians had no better fortune, after the arrival of Europeans in their country; and while the Tasmanians were rather less brutish than Mousterians, Euro- pean culture claims some advance over Aurignacian.
Aurignacian industry shows great superiority over Mousterian. Flint implements are fashioned no longer from cores, but from selected Hakes, and are trimmed by careful flaking on both sur- faces., not on one only as heretofore. There are special types for boring and graving, knives adapted for a drawing-cut, and chisels for push-scraping. And the uses of all these are illustrated by an increasing quantity of bone tools, some of them shaped to be hafted with wood. There are bone dress-pins, beads and pendants; and bone whistles suggest concerted signals for action at a dis- tance. We may infer that men hunted now in a horde, and obeyed a leader; and that women took some pains with their attire.
More noteworthy still is the beginning of pictorial art; en- gravings on bone and eventually carvings in relief and in the round; larger drawings and paintings on the walls of caves* The subjects are the animals most hunted by man, as their remains in his settlements show, reproduced with a sympathy and accuracy of observation, and a vigour of draughtsmanship and modelling, which have rarely been equalled. Human figures are rarer; usxntlly representing women, with rather prominent jaw, long-braided hair, and frequent steatopygy. Both men and women arc usually shown very hairy, and are seldom clothed, except when they mas- querade in complete hides of animals* A late and perplexing class of linear designs may represent huts or other constructions of timber.
This civilization extends in time from the beginning of the interglacial period already mentioned, until far on into the last recurrence of glacial or rather pluvial conditions, for the fourth or 'Warm' glaciation was a comparatively small affair. It passes through several phases, Aurignacian in the special sense; Mag- dalenian, a well-marked regional culture of the Atlantic coast plain, best illustrated in the Dordogne cave of La Madeleine, which belongs to the beginning of a late spell of austerity; and Azilian, first identified in a remarkable cave in the foothills of the Pyrenees, which shows Magdalenian art and industry much de- generated, and only retrieved in interest by its use of painted symbols to distinguish hoarded pebbles of uncertain use. It is the first advance from delineation of objects to the visual representa- tion of ideas.
On some sites in France, between Aurignacian and Magdalenian
I, vn] THE LATER PALAEOLITHIC CULTURES 51
deposits, which in general form a continuous series of develop- ment, otcur fresh and very characteristic types of implements best represented at Solutre, near Macon, where hearths and burials of their makers lie immediately over a vast deposit of horse-bones marking the climax of the dry steppe regime, and probably some kind of late-Aurignacian slaughter-ground. Their graceful 'laurel- leaf and Svillow-leaf ' blades, single edged knives, and one-shoul- dered points suitable for missiles,, economize labour by skill in the choice and manipulation of material, and might be mistaken for a high quality of neolithic work. This use of missile weapons is itself a new invention, appropriate to the hunters of so swift an animal as the horse. Ivory beads, in country now devoid of ele- phants, suggest either wide range of movement, or some form of exch^fhge* Sketches of animals, on pebble and bone, and hoards of yellow, red, and brown colouring matter, indicate artistic tastes; insignia and whistles imply organized action against swift and in- telligent game. It has even been suggested that Solutrean horses were tame; but no horse-bits have been found, nor proof of any special breeding.
This Solutrean episode is noteworthy because here for the first time we have intrusion of one culture, abruptly and temporarily, into the region where another was in process of development. And as this intrusion occurs at the climax of a cycle of dry continental climate when conditions were most uniform and the obstacles of forest, river, and morass were minimized, it has been commonly interpreted as due to the intrusion of fresh people of the tall heavy- built long-headed stock represented by individuals from Brunn and Predmost in Moravia. Whence these people and their culture originated is not yet clear, as no human remains can be identified as theirs. Their flint technique, as has been already noted, suggests that they inherited Acheulian tradition, and it is possible that this tradition survived somewhere further east, while central Europe and parts of the west were passing through the Mousterian de- cadence and receiving Aurignacian culture from the south-west. So severely continental a climate in western Europe suggests austere drought further inland, and accords with the deep accu- mulations of loess over the greater part of the northern flatland, during late palaeolithic times. It was certainly a good country to leave. The lack of Solutrean remains south of the Pyrenees (except one isolated find at Altamira), and their comparatively frequent occurrence in lower Austria, Bohemia, Hungary a&d eastern Poland, almost preclude the alternative of a southern origin, which was formerly thought possible; and the striking resemblance of
4—2
52 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
certain Nile valley implements, which has been adduced in favour of this, must be taken in connexion with the similar workihanship of the earliest implements of neolithic Susa (which will be "dis- cussed on p. 85); and would be explicable by just such an exodus southward from the north-eastern steppe, as has brought nomad raiders more than once from Turkestan to Mesopotamia and the borders of Egypt within historic times* We shall see reason to suppose, later on, that the earliest neolithic people of the south Russian steppe, and probably also of the Danubian region, may be descendants of these Solutrcan hunters, withdrawn as rapidly as they had come, when the Magdalen ian climate reafforested the western plains, and restricted their hunting grounds. Another small group of Solutrean remains is notable as the first indication of man's presence in Scandinavia, the soxfchern promontory of which must therefore have been released at least temporarily from the ice-grip; and there seems reason to believe that there may be Solutrean blood in the earliest men of that region whose remains have been preserved; though their date is very much later. Indeed, at any period when the forest zone was restricted to the foothills of the Carpathians and the central German highlands, there was no physical obstacle to the move- ments of hunting hordes between the shores of the Black Sea and Caspian, and those of the Baltic, or the margin of the Scandinavian ice-sheet,
VIII. THE CLOSE OF THE OLD STONE AGE
On the other hand, the steadily increasing moisture of the Mag~ dalenian climate restricted the habitable areas; for the forest en- croached on the hunting ground, and horde-hunting tribes do not easily adapt themselves to forest life. Arts and industries degener- ated, especially when the antlers of the reindeer gave place to the less workable tines of the forest-ranging deer, as the material for harpoons and spearheads* The barbed harpoons themselves betray the growing importance of fishing, as the rivers increased in size, The abundance of miniature flints, at Tardenoise and many similar sites, suggests that wooden clubs or spears were armed with them, as was customary later in the Alpine lake-dwellings; and indicates that timber was more plentiful*
Then, for causes which are still obscure, the distinctive * Cap- stan' type of culture, which we have already seen to have been best and earliest represented near Gafsa in Tunis and widely distri- buted from Tripoli to Morocco, spread northwards through Spain
I, vm] CLOSE OF THE OLD STONE AGE 53
and France (where its local varieties have been commonly known as 'Caiftpignian') into Belgium: it shows a revived interest in flint work, and some of its forms recall a far older technique, which had certainly lasted long in north-west Sahara, and apparently also all across north Africa. This early African style has some resemblance to the Mousterian; and we may compare the relation already suggested between the Acheulian and Solutrean tech- niques. In any case the Campignian style was of southerly origin, and marks a last palaeolithic attempt to reoccupy the west of Europe, perhaps during some spell of drier weather. But this adventure failed, like the Solutrean irruption, and Campignian survivors merged in the disorganized remnants who harboured in cave shelters in Spain and the south of France, in open settle- ment on the downs along the Marne and Somrae and in Belgium (where there is some reason to believe that at Flenu and Spicnncs there was also immigration of rude tribes from the north-east), and in fishing and hunting stations along the Atlantic coast from Portugal to Scotland and Denmark.
Here immense refuse-heaps of shells, bones, and implements mark a last stage of collapse of the old hunting folk, like the modern Yahgans of Terra-del-fuego and the * Strandloopers ' of Cape Colony. These 'kitchen-middens' represent a long period, during which the interior of the continent was for the most part forest or swamp, and men hunted or gathered shellfish along the strand without wandering far, except occasionally seaward for fishing. Only three almost accidental acquisitions betray some overlap between the desperate state of these survivors of the Old Stone Age and the new world which was coming into being within the dreaded oak-forest. The dog, in this extremity, became man's messmate and fellow-hunter; occasional implements of neolithic fabric were acquired somehow, and refurbished by flaking as if in mere ignorance of their proper handling; and the clay linings of old leathern cups and bowls, accidentally burned at first and there- by hardened in the fire, gave a first notion of pot-making, to be imitated by degrees, but without improvement of form. All three discoveries suggest contact, at least occasional, with some other kind of man, to whom forest and swamp were familiar, and habit- able. And both forest and swamp contained such men, as we have now to see*
Further north, the swamp, engulfing by degrees much that had been tundra and cold steppe, north of the central German high- lands, had long since been assisted in its dreary advarice by con- siderable subsidence of the whole of north-west Europe, so that
54 PRIMITIVE MAN, IN GEOLOGICAL TIME [CHAP.
the period during which the Scandinavian ice-sheet shrank finally back, and exposed the south promontory of Sweden, waS one in which the Baltic was an open gulf of an enlarged North Sea "that washed the 'hundred-foot terrace* of its Scottish coast. The silt set free by the annual thaws varied slightly in quality, as the season changed^ and the banded clays which it formed in this Baltic gulf form an uniquely continuous record, so minutely graduated that it has been possible to reckon within a few centuries the interval between then and now. From this vast natural chronometer it would appear that the coast of Scania was released about 12,000 years ago, and northern Sweden about 5000 years later. The re- lease of the north German lowland was of course rather earlier, perhaps about 15,000 B.C. Those inshore * Yoldia* clays, so called from the chief marine shell which they contain, were later raised above water so far that the Danish archipelago became dry land, and the Baltic a lake wherein Ancyfas and other freshwater shells superseded the marine Yoldia.
This rise greatly increased the swamp-covered area, and seems to have permitted the westward spread of a peculiar culture, best illustrated by the Maglemose settlement in eastern Denmark* Afloat or stranded^ according to the season, a raft was constructed of pine trunks from the coniferous forest fringe which encroached on the swamp margin as it rose and dried; and from this precarious home men fished and hunted, of a distinct breed which seems to have moved westward from the cold steppe of northern Eurasia, and may have been of ultimately Mongoloid origin. At its greatest extension, this type may have made touch with the Magdalenian hunters of France, if it be admitted that one of its men has been found with them in the Chancelade cave* But it borrowed little from them, and only in its retreat, when the forest restricted Its swampy hunting grounds, did it absorb something of the Mag- dalenian artistic spirit, perhaps from hunting parties out of the west who had wandered onto the north flank or the forest and re- mained there. "With the Maglemose culture may be connected other swamp-land settlements round Lake Ladoga and in the coastlands east of the Baltic; and it seems likely that a Mongoloid clement among the modern Finns> and probably the main strain of the Lapps, are descendants of these people*
What forced the retirement of the Maglemose culture was no less the aggression of the sea than that of the continental forest. The Baltic became open gulf again, rather more so than at present^ for it is to this phase that the ^o-foot terrace * of Scotland belongs* Marine shellfish entered, such as the periwinkle^ which gives its
I, vm] SWAMP AND FOREST IN N.W. EUROPE 55
name to this L//#mr^-stage; and following them the shellfish-eat- ing folk of the kitchen-middens wandered along the north German coa^t as far as Lettland, where the pine forest closes upon the shore. Here they persisted long; and the miserable Fenni described by Tacitus in the first century A.D. may well be a last remnant of them.
The swamp-culture of the north-east, as will be seen from this sequence of events, coexisted with a considerable part of the palaeolithic decadence. At least two minor advances of the snow-cap of the Alps can be traced during the long withdrawal of the Scandinavian ice-sheet, and the general mitigation of the climate of western Europe was to this extent delayed and interrupted. It would probably be safe to place the Maglemose culture at about the same period as the spread of Campignian influences northwards over France, and it is certainly older than the kitchen-middens, since these crowd closely on the modern coastline, which was submerged in the Maglemose period.
The part played in north-western Europe by the swamp-culture, and by those alien men from the north-east who are its repre- sentatives, was but slight and of short duration. The continental forest on the other hand, which had been spreading intermittently across Europe, northward and westward in the wake of the re- treating ice-sheet, fringed by birch, hazel and pine, but itself com- posed mainly of oak and other deciduous trees, with the zone of beech, walnut, and chestnut following on an average some five hundred miles behind the pines, had reached and smothered all country where trees could grow, as far as the Atlantic seaboard, and southern Britain at least, by a date which may roughly be estimated not far short of 7000 B.C. The palaeolithic remnant had retreated before it till only the kitchen-midden folk survived on the very strand-line, and discontinuously even there. In the in- terior, a few exceptional moorlands, bleak downs, and the larger expanses of thirsty loess in the Rhine and Danube basins and in the north German plain, remained comparatively treeless oases where hunting folk might live. And if this had been all, the Old Stone Age might have passed out of human experience, a withered b?anch of the 'Tree of Life.1
That this was not so is due essentially to two factors. One is the sequence of climatic belts already noted, which provides that a northward shift of the westerly winds is accompanied by commen- surate though not necessarily equal shift of the * Mediterranean ' and * desert-zone* climates, and consequently by ampler* accom- modation for human activities of the Eurafrican type. The other
DI
n
III
nil
V
CHAPTER II NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES
I. THE HIGHLAND ZONE AND ALPINE MAN
WHAT then was going 021, meanwhile, within the Highland Zone? For several reasons, evidence from this region is very scanty. Much of it is ill-explored from every point of view; still more — and especially in its best explored west-end where lateifrperiofls are exceptionally well exhibited and have been care- fully studied — is out of reach for the same reason as is so much the evidence for Interglacial man elsewhere; namely that the nearer we approach the centres of glaciation, the more completely do later glacial deposits cover the surfaces of the earlier; so that in Switzer- land and south Germany, for example, human record hardly begins before the neolithic age. Further south-east the scale of acci- dent is loaded the other way: for, in proportion as glacial action passes Into pluvial, it is not excess of deposits but the wholesale removal of them by rain-fed torrents that limits observation. A very large proportion of the land surface of Asia Minor, for in- stance, has no 'surface deposits/ in the ordinary sense, at all; even in the greater valleys, which are themselves rare, the upper terrace gravels have been severely dissected; and the lower have been covered by alluvium, deposited often within historic times.
Consequently, it is almost exclusively by inference from other data, such as the distribution of racial types to-day, and certain indications of the course of events in immediately prehistoric times, that the prehistory of this great region must be reconstructed pro- visionally. Limiting conditions are supplied by the climate, vege- tation, and consequent mode of existence imposed here upon man in general.
Like all other highlands this literally * Alpine* Zone has always Imd a cooler and moister climate than the lowlands north and south of it; and in periods when the submerged areas on its Mediterra- nean and Sarmatian flanks were extensive, this humidity was greatly accentuated, It must be inferred from this that the whole region has been predominantly and persistently a forest area. General changes of temperature would replace subtropical by temperate or subarctic species, but would not necessarily alter the forest area.
58 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
A period of general drought would draw the forest margin inwards and upwards among the foothills; a pluvial period would expand it into the plains; and a heavy snow-cap would devastate it amdng the peaks and ridges5 and down the glaciated valleys. But none of these agencies would avail to destroy the forest regime altogether; that catastrophe was reserved for the hand of man; and even man has not devastated it wholly as yet.
It follows that the grassland and parkland, fauna, whether African or Arctic, which is so widely associated elsewhere with the first signs of man's presence,, did not pervade the Highland Zone at all generally. In alluvial valleys, and in the large interment plains and forelands, such as the Danube valley, which are characteristic of the region and were reserved to grassland by their mantle of interglacial loess, it was possible for small herds of elephants to wander, as they did still in north Syria in the twelfth century B.C.; and for the lion to maintain himself as he did in Palestine until, at least, the tenth century,, in Macedon until the fifth, and in the Mesopotamian foothills until the present time. But these animals were never characteristic of the great mass of the highland: their place was taken by bear, wolf, and ruminants large and small.
Man, hunting in the open, as he hunted in the lowlands of western Europe, or on the great steppes and parklands, had there- fore no inducement to occupy the forest area: at most his mode of subsistence brought him along the larger rivers such as the Danube, and its tributaries. It is significant that all the earlier individuals whose remains have been found hitherto within the Highland Zone are of the Neanderthal type; that the only large
froup of Neanderthal men hitherto recorded is that from tlie rapina cavern in the headwaters of the Save; and that almost all the Neanderthal men have been found, along the western outliers of the highland core of Europe, To draw conclusions from the distribution of so few examples is risky, and the fragments from Kent's Cavern and one of the Gibraltar caves impose caution already; but there is another reason for expecting that the Nean- derthal type may be found to represent an early forest man, differ- entiated by his surroundings-, as well as by long descent,, from his Aurignacian contemporaries on the grasslands and parklands ouf- side. Whatever the relations of Neanderthal man to 'the Highland Zone, the Aurignacian stock at all events seems to have originated elsewhere, and to have only penetrated it locally and 'marginally* Here again, however, it is possible that Aurignacian relics scattered nearer its core may have been obliterated by the last outspread of glacial debris. And these last glacial deposits are
sufficiently widely distributed to show that in the period which in westerti Europe is that of transition from palaeolithic to neolithic culture, practically the whole of the main highland was divested, not only of any human population it may have harboured inter- glacially, but of all save the most alpine vegetation. In any case we know enough about the changes of climate within the glacial period, to presume wide oscillation of contrasted types of man, as the forest spread or shrank again.
As the highland was surrounded from north-east to south-west by tundra and cold steppe, while southward and eastward its slopes were washed by Mediterranean and Pontic Seas, there was only one avenue by which, when the climate was mitigated finally, it could be rgoccupied by that sequence of plants and animals which it exhibits now. This avenue is from the south-east, and consists of the long Asiatic continuation of the Highland Zone itself; for the Hellespont * river, * as Greek geography rightly named it, offered no real obstacle, and the occurrence of alpine flora in Crete and even in the larger Cyclades illustrates the regional continuity between the highland shores of the Archipelago itself.
We have therefore to conceive the Highland Zone as a single great region, peninsular and self-contained; thrust westward into the heart of Europe from its Armenian summit, where it joins, base to base, its twin eastward promontories, the north Persian ridges and the Zagros escarpment south-eastward, and the diminu- tive but vitally important southward causeway through Syria into south Palestine. North of the Armenian mountain knot, and inti- mately associated with it, in climate, flora and fauna, lay the trans- verse ridge of Caucasus, steep-fronted towards Sarmatian seas or their flatland bed.
Though we have no direct evidence yet as to the older human population, the modern inhabitants of this Highland Zone give an important clue, and the known course of events in the long neo- lithic and chalcolithic periods confirms that clue impressively. From end to end, the dominant type in historic times is distinct and characteristic; interrelated by well-marked broad-headedness and high-headedness; by wide and high orbits, set level or droop- ihg outwards, with almost no trace of brow-ridges; by broad cheek- bones and palate; by a characteristic wide square jaw with its * hinge-ends long, massive, and rising nearly at right angles with the plane of the teeth. It has broad shoulders and hips, broad hands and feet, with thick wrists and ankles, and a generally thickset build; dense parchment-like skin, sallow in the shade, and leathery under the weather; eyes hazel or brown, dark brown wavy hair,
60 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
long In both sexes and very copious on the body, with profuse beard in the men. Its nearest affinities are with the other white-skinned and wavy-haired types, and with these it has formed numero'us intermediate varieties3 within which its own bodily features appear to be in the Mendelian sense * dominant,1 so that, once introduced into a region, it tends to persist and become accentuated with time, Its purer varieties are all found within the Highland Zone: its occurrences in north-west Africa, Spain, and the Canaries are not sufficient to establish the south-western origin formerly proposed; and the broad-headed strains which connect it north-eastward with the Mongoloid population of the Eurasiatic woodland, — whose other physical features are very different, — may be attributed rather to admixture between independent types spreading in op- posite directions, than to any propagation of such strains inter the Highland. The * Alpine' type in fact may be regarded as essentially of Alpine origin.
On account of its great width, this type of skull was long classed with the Mongolian; but the general build and lofty proportions of the brain-case, and still more the peculiarities of the face and jaw? should have precluded this; and the absence of skin pigment, the wavy hair, and the copious beard and body-hair, force the con- clusion that we are dealing with a stock of quite other origin, more likely to be akin to the other * white* races, b>ut nevertheless strongly contrasted with these, in its head-form and bodily build.
Moreover, between the highland home of * Alpine* man, and the still loftier plateaux, which we have seen reason to regard as the Mongoloid * cradle/ the narrow but gigantic ridges of the Hindu Kush and Pamirs have been long and almost continuously glaciated, as we have already noticed; their flanks are dissected by ancient transverse gorges; and below ice-level there Is vast extent of dense Inhospitable forest, fed, like the snows above them, by wet monsoon winds. Such human elements as have worked their way round this vast ice-cap since its last contraction have moved wholly from west to east, not from the Mongolian habitat into the Alpine; and Mongol admixture in highlands west of the Hindu Kush can always be traced to another and quite recent origin^ namely to nomad pastorals Intruded transversely from the low* lying grasslands of Turkestan, which m all but the latest phases of the Sarmatian sea lay submerged and therefore as Impassable as the snow-cap.
Enough seems to be known of the correlation between diet and the form of the jaw, and of the pull of the jaw-muscles on the tem- poral and parietal region of the skull, to warrant the suggestion
II, i] PRINCIPAL VARIETIES OF ALPINE MAN 61
that the peculiar combination of a short and massive jaw, suited rather Tor crushing than for cutting or tearing, with a musculature soTeeble as to be accompanied by almost no lateral compression of the brain-case, points to a long-continued mode of subsistence quite different from that of the carnivorous hunters of the steppes and parklands of Eurafrica. And we have already seen that the Highland Zone has necessarily been at all periods more or less completely a forest area, ill-adapted to maintain the large land- animals of the parkland except quite locally and sporadically, but abounding in many kinds of trees and shrubs bearing fruits or nuts, from conifers to chestnut and walnut, and from cranberry, crab-apple and sloe, to the characteristic fleshy-fruited apricot and peach of Persia and Armenia, and the vine, mulberry, fig and olive whi&h are common to the foothills of the forest zone and the ever- green flora of the Mediterranean region south of it. We shall see reason also to suspect that the first domesticated grasses, wheat, barley, and millet belong to genera which inhabit this same mar- ginal belt between the forest and the southern grasslands; and that they were cultivated by men of Alpine stock as far west as the Swiss lake-basins, and as early as we have any evidence of modern man in that section of the highland (p. 72).
In this connexion it is perhaps worth noting, that Greek eth- nology, which so often formulates conclusions which it has been reserved to modern observers to substantiate, clearly distinguished between an earlier phase of subsistence, that of the * nut-eating' men (ySaXaz/^c^ctyot az/8/>es), and a later 'meal-eating* culture (az/Spes aX^Tya-rat); and that, in a very ancient stratum of Greek myth and ritual, the Power to whom the gift of grain-food was ascribed was worshipped with sacrifice of the pig, a typical forest-ranger.
But within the Highland itself, the Alpine type varies, and the actual distribution of its principal varieties gives a clue to its prob- able cradle-land. Most accentuated is the 'Armenoid' variety, of the Ararat mountain region, with a head characterized by very lofty vault and outward-drooping orbits, and so abruptly flattened behind, that it has been ascribed by some observers, both ancient and modern, to artificial deformation. This variety predominates throughout the central section of the Highland, and is also not un- common throughout south-eastern and east-central Kurope. Least peculiar in the two respects already noted and distinguished rather by its smoothly globular cranium, and by a jaw broad but not so angular, are the West European varieties, especially in AuVergne and Savoy, and the most easterly groups from nolth Persia to the Pamirs and beyond; and the general likeness between these
62 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
remotest groups is in fact such as to suggest that they represent a quite early phase both of differentiation and of outward srpread. Intermediate types, characteristic of east-central and south-eastern Europe, and commonly described as Dinaric5 show this globular head becoming more angular and cubical; and have their counter- part in Caucasus, western Persia, and along the southern margin of the highland thence towards the 'Dinaric' area westward, with notable offshoots southwards through Syria, Their distribution suggests a later stage both of specialization and of dissemination, around the central area already described, where alone the develop- ment has attained to that extreme 'Artnenoid* phase whose dis- tribution is least wide and also apparently least early.
The relative antiquity of these successive phases of growth and spread can be stated approximately; for the outermost western or 'Cevenole7 type made its appearance in the Alps and in France during the transition from late palaeolithic to neolithic culture, At Ofnet, in Bavaria, it made its appearance in the Azilian phase, mixed with Aurignacian people, and already interbreeding with them; eastward, on the other hand, the human remains from Anau show that no such * Alpine' type had reached the north margin of Persia until after the second desertion of this early settlement (p. 85). Similarly the broad-headed intruders into Egypt at the beginning of the dynastic series, and into Crete and the Cy chides at the beginning of the Minoan Bronze Age, belong to the second phase, which may therefore be dated about 4000—3500 B.C.: and the first known occupants of Cyprus, and of Troy, in the earliest Bronze Age are of the same type, Fully developed 'Armenoid* remains, on the other hand, do not seem to be found anywhere until the second millennium at earliest*
At present, therefore, it seems safe to regard this * Alpine* group of broad-headed types as representing phases of a special development within the Armenian mountain mass, or rather (since this region was certainly subjected to severe glaciation during the Ice Age) within the mountain-girt plateau of Asia Minor imme- diately west of it; large enough, isolated enough, and at all relevant periods habitable enough to become the cradle of such a sequence of varieties; sufficiently well connected with large similarly quatf fied regions eastward and westward and sufficiently liable from its geographical position to periodic changes of climate, to serve as a reservoir of population, like the highlands of Atlas and the Iberian peninsula in earlier times, and like the Arabian and Eur- asian reservoirs later on.
Surprise has sometimes been expressed, that even considering
II, i] FOREST CULTURE AND POLISHED IMPLEMENTS 63
how little scientific research there has been in this region, traces of palaeolithic culture are still so rare here, especially in view of the quite common occurrence of neolithic implements of polished stone in all parts of it. There is however good reason why flaked implements should be in any case rare in such a region. Though fairly well adapted for attacking wild animals, cutting up game, and dressing hides, and even for shaping and decorating imple- ments of bone and antler, the flaked implement is comparatively ineffective for felling trees, splitting logs, dressing planks, or pounding roots, bark or nuts* Moreover, though a large part of the great flatlands consist of, or rest on, flint-bearing strata — cre- taceous or derivative — and are as open country as they actually are, mainly because these limestone surfaces are inhospitable to tree^ in the highland zone, on the other hand, these beds are either absent — which accentuates its forest aspect, seeing how precarious is tree growth over limestone — or so distorted, or even deficient in flint and chert, that the supply of this material was scanty, and (what was worse) discontinuous. Collateral evidence is that in Egypt, where timber was rare and exotic, the flake- technique persisted and underwent cumulative refinement from Solutrean to chalcolithic times; and that in the kitchen-middens of north-west Europe acquaintance with polished implements in- creases pan passu with the northward advance of oak-forest, dis- placing conifers, just as these and the dwarf-birch had previously invaded the cold steppe. A further point is, that even before ac- quaintance with the polished technique began, there is a complete revolution in the mode of employment of stone implements gener- ally. The tapering pyramidal point for stabbing, and the longi- tudinal edge for cutting or ripping, are supplemented, and even- tually replaced in the more massive implements, by the transverse edge for hacking and clearing, under shock (rather than pressure) applied to the butt-end. This is conspicuous in the Campignian technique, which will be remembered as marking a last palaeo- lithic aggression in the moist forest-ridden west. The form of the butt-end, too, frequently suggests the use of some form of haft; ajid hafting itself presumes familiarity with wooden staves and clubs, and therefore with parkland at all events. Again, in any region where roots and tubers formed any considerable part of the food supply, the mere act of breaking the ground with pick or hoe, whether of wood, of bone or antler, or of hafted stone, automatic- ally smooths the surfaces of the implement about the point or edge, and leads to a natural finish, familiar among the digging-hoes of shell which are used by some Pacific peoples, and among stone
64 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP,
hoes from pre-Columbian sites in North America. From this it is but a single step to the artificial improvement of blunted or splin- tered edges by grinding, not by flaking; and certain implements from the Nile valley show every stage of this advance in technique, though they are always exceptional there, and late. On these grounds, the inference seems justified., that whatever other causes may have been in operation, forest life, and especially the hacking of timber and the grubbing-up of edible roots? favoured the de- velopment of such types of stone implements, and methods of manufacture, asactually occur earliestandmost persistently through- out the Highland Zone, and are least and latest represented in comparatively treeless regions such as the Nile valley and the wide flatland of north Africa. ^ f
It would be premature to correlate in more than the most t&nta- tive way the polished-stone technique exhibited in this region, both by catting, cleaving and grubbing implements, and by those for crushing and rubbing which so commonly accompany them, with the probability already noted, that the type of skull and jaw char- acteristic of Alpine man may result from long habituation to a diet of nuts, roots, and other vegetable foodstuffs needing steady mastication rather than the biting and tearing which meat re- quires, and so thoroughly received from the long highly-muscu- lated jaw? and prominent incisors and canines both of negro man and of the long-skulled Aurignaclan hunters of Eurafrica and the north-west* But the coincidence is noteworthy, and the roughly concomitant spread of * Neolithic * culture and of * Alpine * types of man is more striking still.
That the earlier stages of such spread should be ill-represented is only what might be expected in view of the prolonged glaciation and widespread diluvial deposits of those western sections of the Highland Zone which alone are adequately explored* But it seems clear that the advanced stage of neolithic industry which is repre- sented even in the earliest settlements around the Swiss and Italian lakes, which had an Alpine population, presupposes a long and homogeneous development; and the occasional introduction of implements in fairly advanced phases of this polished technique into the Danish kitchen-midden s? which are the leavings of Aun- gnacian people, among a multitude of flaked implements of Campigniati and other late palaeolithic makes, suggests that in north-western Europe at all events there was just such an overlap of the older and the newer industries, as is proved for the long- " leaded and broad-headed stocks themselves by the mixed Azilian deposit, at Ofnet in Bavaria, which is of sufficiently late date to
MAP 3
offline treeless1 areas" Coniferous forest Deciduous (broad leaved) forest Evergreens Temperate gr/js-f lands
merging into steppe
MAP 4
OUVE,VINE & ORANGE
AREAS OF THE
MEDITBWAJSTEAN"
n by W, 6-AX. Jotoston !.¥ Ealiv
II, ii] CHARACTERISTICS OF NEOLITHIC CULTURE 65
invite comparison with the earliest broad-headed remains from Grenellfe near Paris, and Furfooz in eastern Belgium, and with the ^earliest lake-dwellers among the Alps themselves.
II. CHARACTERISTICS OF NEOLITHIC CULTURE
Formerly, when attention was still mainly directed to the various types of stone implements found accidentally in surface soil., the contrast between flaked and polished technique seemed to be of greater value as an indication of date, than jiow, when the long overlap in time of these two techniques has been established on evidence from tombs and stratified sites, and when the significance of each fabric is better understood, Though the terms * Palaeo- lithic** and '^Neolithic/ have remained in common use for the older and later phases of the Stone Age, they are now applied in a secondary sense, to denote strongly contrasted phases of general advancement; and it is important to realize wherein this contrast consists. The men of the Older Stone Ages took the world as they found it, and made little attempt to alter it. They chipped natural stones into weapons for cutting and stabbing; they wrapped them- selves in skins and furs stripped from their prey. But the animals which they hunted and the fruits they gathered were wild, their shelters were natural caves, they buried their dead (at best) in a hole in the cave floor. With the late exception of hafted spears, they had no notion of construction1, and no use for timber, or for any movable object not easily held in the hand. The sole hints of cooperation or of social order are occasional whistles, and carved staves which may have symbolized rank. We may probably fill in the picture from the habits of merely hunting peoples on the open lands of Siberia, North and South America, South Africa and Australia; except in so far as all these have acquired the dog, which cannot be traced back earlier than the kitchen-middens.
The New Stone Age, from its first beginnings, reveals a quite different outlook on nature. Even the implements illustrate this; their materials are varied, and presume search and selection, me- thodical and gradual improvement, constructive skill in hafting, a£Td appreciation of the elastic quality of wood, for long axe-helves, and above all for the bow, which appears first in the transitional rock paintings of Spain (p. 94). With axe and adze, man's do- minion over the forest was assured; and with chisel and saw, his mastery over the timber he had to fell. Loose stones he had already
1 Some French observers, however, have interpreted certain linear designs in Magdalenlan caves as representing wigwams and pitfalls for game.
C,A«H. i 5
66 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
piled together occasionally, at all events to conceal jEiis dead. Car- pentry and roof-construction were only a matter of time. To utilize other waste products of nature., fibrous twigs, grass, bark, fruit, rind and the like, for binding, wrapping, and eventually for plat- ters, bags,, and baskets, was another elementary step in the same direction, supplementing the use, which was already ancient, of hunters' debris, bone, sinew, hide, and fur; for man seems to have used up his own leavings before appropriating those of nature. The caulking of such vessels with another waste product, ubiqui- tous mud, led on to substitution of mere clay, hardened by fire to earthenware, for perishable skins and basketry. Other waste pro- ducts, nuts, kernels, pips, and grass seeds squandered after a meal, and found germinating in spoiled earth round old encampments, propounded problems of their own. It has been suggested^ too, that early beliefs connecting such germination with human life and death may have been suggested by unforeseen .growth of fresh plants over old graves. But this obviously did not occur till the graves were in the open, not in cave floors; and the whole notion that by deranging natural soil, natural vegetation may be sup- planted by a 'crop/ more edible and fertile, and of man's own selection, is quite outside the hunter's range of ideas.
The other new notion, of captivating, rather than capturing, wild creatures, and making them domestic,- — that is, *at home' around the camp, — is less alien to the hunter*s thought, and in its simpler forms is not easily reconcilable with the plans of the plant-grower: between Cain and Abel, in the story,, there was early feud, for the grazing herd draws no distinction between natural and cultivated green-stuff, except to prefer the latter. But funda- mentally the pastoral creed is the same as that of the cultivators; * man's place in nature* is at the source of life, to multiply and replenish the earth,
These various forms of exploitation increase subsistence, but they demand effort: Mn the sweat of thy face shalt thoti eat bread/ When the world is 'so full of a number of things/ as it becomes for either cultivator or pastoral, a human group is so far released from ^ the rigorous restrictions self-imposed on hunting-hordps, that it may increase its population not merely safely "but with advantage: many hands make light work. But many hands, many herds, and much store of foods which must be gathered at one harvest for the twelvemonth, mean much fear of attack from without; and other waste products, loose stones^ dead trees, mere soil, were piled into a ring-fence round the settlement. It was only gradually that unpenetrable defences challenged invention
II, n] EXPRESSIONS OF INTELLECT AND EMOTION 67
in the aggressor, and differentiated Implements of war from mere hunting-tools.
These principal aspects of invention, — which is reason's ad- justment of the materials and the forces of nature to fulfil desires, — all come into view as the New Stone Age dawns, and separate it from the Old. Of the other great inventions we have to wait long even for the next; when fire, already in use to harden clay, should be applied also to soften stone, and extract metals therefrom; and when animals already tame should yield man not only nutriment but a new source of power. Four others, on a higher intellectual plane, come only slowly into sights observation of the sun and moon in their seasons, first hinted by sundry circles and crescents in neolithic &rt, superseding the palaeolithic masterpieces of animal portraiture; the curiously abstract quality of nmch else in neo- lithic ornament, as if number, mass, and proportion were felt to have an interest of their own; a conception of value, which may fairly be presumed among people who, though sedentary, are found to have acquired, for whatever reason, commodities from afar like turquoise or amber; and a new self-consciousness and introspection, displayed in emphasis on details of technique in decoration, and in the choice of men and their acts and works, rather than natural forms, for pictorial record.
Still higher aspects of advancement than these are even less easy to detect without risk of private interpretation. Whatever the first purpose of those emphatically feminine figures, whose neo- lithic types eventually come to be associated with the profoundest conceptions of early religion, their origin is not here, but long be- fore in Aurignacian time. The same applies to the first impulse to representative art of other kinds (in any magical implications which it may have had), in which Magdalenian draughtsmen are unexcelled; to the motives for careful disposal of the dead, which as a custom is at least Mousterian; and to the beliefs and emotions aroused by the primeval mystery of fire. All these we may take to have been already traditional at the close of the Old Stone Age : the New added only those fresh glimpses of the significance of life, wkich were suggested by experimental acquaintance with the be- haviour of animals and plants. Religious conceptions such as those of a * Good Shepherd ' or of the * Bread of Life ' can hardly have anticipated economic discoveries from which they draw their sym- bolism; while they may be but little subsequent.
In estimating the significance of forest and dense parkland as a factor in the transition to the neolithic stage, the distribution of such conditions should be considered as a whole. The composition
68 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
of actual forests in Europe shows them to have resulted from spread and coalescence around at least three centres. The clearest example of this is in the north-east, where the characteristic birches, pines and oaks of the Alpine Highland, spreading beyond the foot- hills of the Carpathians over central Russia, have met about longi- tude 45°? a westward-spreading woodland composed of Siberian species. That their narrow zone interpenetration., once established by contact of their advancing margins, has remained in long equi- librium is shown by the distribution of early cultures, and varieties of man; all eastward of this zone being related to widespread Asiatic types, and nearly all west of it to Alpine, Danubian and Baltic. Only comparatively recently have Asiatic people succeeded in establishing themselves west of this zone, and acquiring un- familiar woodcraft.
To the south-west the course of events has not been so clearly traced* The greater range of latitude here, and the wider variations of climate which the Atlantic seaboard has undergone, have per- mitted far greater oscillation. The woodlands of Spain and Africa Minor have been repeatedly continuous with those of west-central Europe, and have developed but few distinctive forms, so that their coalescence is harder to detect. The former existence of large forest regions between the Pyrenees and the Sahara is however established; the Spanish forest flora stands more closely related to the north African than to the Alpine; but deep interpenetration is shown on the one hand by the * Spanish' chestnut and walnut, which intrude from the Alpine highland, and on the other by the occurrence of evanescent *Lusitanian* types as far north as the British Isles. That the latest interpenetration was but recent is demonstrated by the comparatively narrow range of typically * Alpine' forms beyond the Garonne, and especially by the fact that some of the most important of them, like the chestnut and walnut, are notably serviceable to man.
All considerations, therefore, drawn from the peculiarities of forest life, such as the neolithic skill to grind implements instead of chipping, and the exploitation of nuts and other tree fruits for food, apply in a measure to the forested highlands beyond fjhe Garonne, as well as to those of central and south-eastern Europe. In the same way, arguments based on the early development ' of agriculture along the south-eastern margins of the highland to- wards Mesopotamia and Syria, or in the Nile valley, apply also to the foothills of Atlas and Pyrenees, to the margins of the Iberian table-land, and to other well-watered coastlands of the west Medi- terranean; and account must be taken of ancient and persistent
II, nj EURASIAN AND EURAFRICAN CRADLE-LANDS 69
tradition that cereals were introduced into Greece by a Sicilian goddesS, and that wheat and barley grew wild in lands of the western sea.
Similarly, the domestication of animals, though certainly very early in Egypt, Arabia, and Mesopotamia, cannot be assumed to be necessarily derived from these regions. On the one side, the breeds of domestic animals at Anau in the foothills between Trans- caucasia and Iran, and in early settlements along its western park- land fringe, are distinct from those of the * Ancient East/ On the other, those of western Europe, differing from both these groups, and no less from those of the Alpine lakeland, may be independent and Eurafrican.
Most significant of all, whereas the earliest pottery of the 'Ancient East* mainly copies the forms of gourd vessels, appro- priate to a region of large irrigable alluvia, traversing ill-watered and inhospitable flatland, those of the western Mediterranean, and of the whole Atlantic seaboard, exhibit intimate dependence on fine basketry, such as still supplements pottery for storage purposes throughout the Atlas region and Iberia, in fact wherever the char- acteristic esparto-grass dominates all open country, and furnishes unsurpassed material for this kind of gear. The Nile valley, lying towards the western edge of this esparto-region, participates in both techniques. In the earliest graves, pottery of indigenous stoneware models is associated both with swollen unornamented gourd-forms in polished redware and with dull brown or black plates and saucers, quite different in profile, and copiously incised with angular geometrical schemes as closely reminiscent of bas- ketry as the shapes of the vessels themselves*
That this kind of evidence should come into the reckoning at all, is a measure of the gulf which separates the study of the Old Stone Age from that of the New; and attention must be drawn, at this point, to the fresh source of information as to human habits and activities which is derived from objects of baked clay. During palaeolithic times, almost the only evidence for man's mode of life is supplied by his implements of stone, and latterly of bone and antler; and for his artistic capacity, by the carved decoration of* these, and by the engraved and painted walls of his cavern- homes. Henceforward, though the successive types of implements remain of very great importance, their evidence is supplemented almost everywhere by that of pottery, more varied and far more expressive. There are special reasons for this eloquence of * pot- sherds.* First, clay is eminently plastic^ unlike stone, wood or fibre, it has no 'grain* or texture of its own; it is therefore^/?/?, and can
70 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
be modelled Into any form characteristic of the natural ' grain' or texture of any other material; all objects of pottery are therefore literally figments of the potter's -will, fictions (to vary the phrasft) of his memory or imagination. 'Hath not the potter power over the clay?' But the potter, and still more those who will use his pots, are creatures of habit. A hunting or a pastoral people, if it makes pottery at all, will make its clay vessels like hunter's game-bags, or the leathern bowls and flasks of the nomad dairy; or forest-folk will imitate wooden bowls3 or basketry; agriculturists,, strawplait or gourds. Moreover, the practice of primitive peoples suggests that sometimes pottery has originated accidentally, through" leaky vessels of these other materials,, temporarily caulked with clay, being dropped into a fire. For? plastic as it is to begin with, clay once * fired' is unalterable^ whereas many materials which it irused to replace are perishable; it may even3 in the case supposed, not merely retain the form of the basket of which it was the lining, but even the impress of the basketwork; examples of such im- pressions on early and primitive pottery are worldwide, and serve to record whole industries whose actual products have disappeared* But however indestructible in detail, pottery is so/rajf/fc, as to be practically irreparable, once broken ; consequently there is enor- mous waste, as every housekeeper knows, and accumulation of discarded fragments. It provides therefore exceptionally copious material, and as every fragment is an original work of art, the evi- dence of pottery justifies broader and surer generalizations than almost any other human document; every potsherd in any waste heap being the response of somebody's hand and brain to some- body's need, at the same time individual and communal, industrial and aesthetic. A further consequence of this fragility is that pottery is seldom carried far from the place of manufacture: its presence characterizes a settled mode of life, and signals the neighbourhood of a settlement; though on the other hand, the absence of pottery from any district is no proof of the nonexistence of a nomad popu- lation* The utter uselessness of pottery, once broken, except as extemporized scrapers, or as builder's ballast to level a new floor, is the main cause of its archaeological value; for where broken pottery is cast out of a settlement, there it is allowed to lie and .accumulate, layer over layer, later over earlier; so that the 'se- quence-dating' derived from such a rubbish-heap is as secure as the sequence of the fossils in the sedimentary rocks, and of the highest value as evidence for changes of style3 that is to say* of the notions, industrial and aesthetic, of successive generations oir makers and breakers of pottery. As breakage and replacement arc con-
II, in] MIGRATION AND CONFLATION OF STYLES 71
stant, clay almost ubiquitous, and pot-transport risky, the pottery- series ift. any settlement is exceptionally continuous and coherent; the'smallest changes of style are recorded infallibly, directly, and immediately; and every other object cast upon the same waste- heap is conserved automatically in stratified order, and can be dated by the potsherds around it, between older ones below3 and later ones above. See p. 1 1 3 sq.
Further, being ubiquitous and plastic, clay is also cheap. It is the poor man's substitute for materials which he cannot afford. It may therefore record not only the equipment of daily life, but the fashionable shapes of articles of luxury, such as vessels of gold and silver* It is also the mean man's, subterfuge on occasions of cus- tomary sacrifice; to equip the dead, for example, with a cheap and durable imitation of valuable originals retained for the use of sur- vivors* This is the special interest of all funerary pottery, for it correlates each isolated * tomb-group* with the waste-heaps of the settlement to which it belongs. In general, therefore, the potsherds of any people record continuously and accurately the general cul- ture and style of successive periods; the local and daily variations both of needs and of the satisfaction of them; the more abrupt innovations resulting from intercourse with neighbours similarly recorded; and the revolutions due to immigration. Conquest, in particular, may leave its memorial in wholesale destruction, and clearance of the debris of war, and in collateral production, after- wards, of objects in distinct fashions — 'peasant style' and 'palace style' — for the respective use of old compatriots and new masters. And as it usually happens in simple societies that pot-making is women's work, supersession of an indigenous by an immigrant style is strong presumption that the newcomers brought their own women with them; whereas, if they intermarried with the natives, there may be perplexing combinations, for example of indigenous shapes and technique with imported ornaments, to please the master's eye. In either case, eventual coalescence of racial or social elements may be signalled by the rise of a new mixed style, which is sometimes of striking originality (see pp. 81, 87, 90, 97, 101).
III. REGIONAL TYPES OF NEOLITHIC CULTURE: ALPINE EUROPE
We have seen that the first indication of the westward spread of a new variety of man is the appearance of broad-headed indivi- duals, side by side with Aurignacian long-heads, in a remarkable burial-place in an Azilian cave at Ofnet in Bavaria, and in caves at
72 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
Laugerie Basse and elsewhere in central France. Isolated ex- amples in several districts of Spain, of uncertain and pfobably rather later age, may indicate that the spread of forest conditibns had carried the same human movement far to the south-west; but allowance has to be made here for the effects of a later sea-borne movement which will be discussed in its place below (p. 104),
Next, and far more significant,, because associated with fresh elements of culture, is the broad-headed population of the pile- dwellings which occupy all the principal Alpine lakes* Here or- ganized communities were occupying settlements on artificially constructed platforms supported by wooden piles driven into the lake bottom, and communicating with the shore by a gangway. These communities maintained themselves both by haunting and fishing, and by collecting wild fruits and nuts from the forests: But they also practised agriculture from the first, and must therefore have brought this art with them when they first ventured into lake-land* Their wheat? barley, millet and flax are of the same species and varieties as were cultivated in the earliest known settle- ments on the Nile alluvium., and in the earliest stratum at Anau. Oats and rye, on the other hand, they did not grow, though the wild plants have a wide range in Europe* Perhaps they gathered them wild,, as people still gather them for food In outlying villages of Germany; but If so, it is odd that no grains of them fell overboard. Domesticated animals only became known here later; and this again corresponds with the sequence of events at Anau, Their implements include harpoons, perforators, and scrapers of botie and deer-antler perpetuating Magdalenian and Azilian forms, flaked flints like those of Azil and Taraenoisc, and especially many miniature flakes^ one use of which is here demonstrated by their occurrence mounted lengthways like saw teeth in wooden hafts* Early Egyptian reapers used sickles of the same construction* But along with these are numerous implements formed from natural pebbles of compact stone* selected for oval or cylindrical form, and improved either by splitting them longitudinally or by grinding a naturally wedge-shaped end on one or both of its faces to form a cutting edge. In^these tough or granular materials flaking is almost impracticable. Similar pebble-shaped implements with ground and polished edge are found in many regions, in surface soil and other post-glacial deposits, and mark the beginning of the New Stone Age wherever they occur. Gradually the grinding and polishing were applied to the whole surface of such implements to improve their symmetry, but it was long before oval or tapering pebble- shape at the butt-end was replaced by flat sides and more or less
ll^ni] THE LAKE-DWELLING CULTURE 73
rectilinear profile. Flat edges In particular are a mark of advanced technicfue, and comparatively late date. Another important innovation is the perforating of hammer-stones and eventually of hammer-axes, effected first with sand and a blunt stick; later with a tubular drill of reed. A similar drill was used along the reed-fringed Nile at an early predynastic stage.
The frequent fires to which the pile-dwellings were liable must have familiarized their occupants with the effects of fire on clay, even if they had not this knowledge already; and their pottery, which is found even on the earliest sites, Is so primitive that It may well be original. Much of It is clumsy and formless, but the more shapely pots take their forms almost exclusively from leather vessels. Atjfirst there is no attempt at ornament; later, modelled rims* and ridges, and roughly scratched patterns betray the influence of basketry and textiles, first of local, and later also of non-Alpine styles from the Rhine and Danube basins.
The earliest lake-dwellers buried their dead ashore, In earth graves or slab-lined cists. But at a quite early stage it became cus- tomary to burn the bodies, and bury the ashes, with such personal ornaments as endured the fire, in a rough clay pot, closed with a saucer. As this custom of cremation destroyed direct evidence from skeletons, it prevents positive conclusions as to later changes of race; but, by drowning and other accidents, enough individuals escaped a regular funeral, to justify not merely the view that the population of the lake-regions remained broad-headed through- out, as it still essentially is, but the hypothesis that in most early periods peoples who burned their dead were probably of broad- headed ancestry. Later exceptions will be noted and discussed as they occur (pp. 81, 101).
The sudden and widespread establishment of the lake-dwelling culture and of the broad-headed type almost explains Itself. From Its very construction, a lake-village could not be expanded inde- finitely, and consequently if its home population outgrew, super- fluous members had to go elsewhere and construct a fresh one. And as the Alpine lake-basins are interconnected both downstream and by passes between valley-heads, what may be described as longitudinal propagation was easy, both within the highland and along the rivers which issue from it. And in fact such movements have been traced, into the Danube valley, and beyond it into the rivers of the north German plain and the peat-mosses of the Danish peninsula; along the whole course of the Rhine and widely over northern France, Belgium, and Britain, where lake-villages were numerous, especially in mosses and bogs in Scotland and
74 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
Ireland. Some of them remained in use until Roman times, as at Glastonbury, and even later still, changing their industries and
arts, but not their structure or organization. c
On the steep southern face of the Alps, the abrupt transition from highland to alluvial plain checked such expansion for long; but towards the end of the Stone Age a sudden movement spread lake-dwellings from Lakes Como and Maggiore as far as the main channel of the Po; a little later, when bronze was already in occasional use, a similar but more vigorous emigration from the eastern Alps occupied all the lower valley, crossed the main river, and advanced, in the specialized stream-bed settlements known as 'Terremare* (from the use made of their debris as a fertilizer by the modern peasants),, as far as the passes of the Apennines. A few adventurous parties passed on into lower Italy, and one such settle- ment exists close to Taranto. Reserving the details of this pro- foundly important movement, for the chapter on prehistoric Italy, in VoL ii, it must be noted here that by bursting the triple barrier of Alps, fenland, and Apennine forest, which had hitherto se- cluded Italy, this migration of lake-dwellers established a con- tinuity of race and of culture between that peninsula and the tributaries of the middle and upper Danube, which has had profound influence throughout all later ages. It is a commonplace that the history of this peninsula is that of * Italy and its Invaders'; and the first of these invaders arc the Alpiae lake-folk, and their descendants in the *terremare* villages.
Eastward, subsequent changes have been so numerous and far-reaching, that equivalents of these Alpine lake-dwellings are not easily found. Quite early examples occur as far cast as Laibach; later settlements widely on suitable sites throughout the Hungarian lowland; and the influence of their culture extends as far north as Bohemia, In Bosnia, the remarkable settlement at Butmir, and less famous sites in the same region, illustrate special adaptation of the pile-structure to dry valley-bottoms, in many ways analogous to Italian *terremare/ Herodotus, iti the fifth century B.C., graphically describes the pile-dwellings of Lake Prasias in the Strymon basin ; and the occurrence of pottery of typical lacustrine and *terremare' forms, in this part of Macedonia and elsewhere in the Balkans, confirms and amplifies his testimony- Further afield again, ancient descriptions of pile-dwellings in waterlogged valleys of North Syria and Georgia, unverified as yet by excavation, suggest that our Alpine lake-settlements are to be regarded as a westward section of a very large region of early and essentially homogeneous culture, adapted to the conditions of a
II, IT] REGIONAL TYPES: THE DANUBE BASIN 75
moist forest-clad lake-land, such as Asia Minor and much of the highland region eastward of it must have constituted during the long * pluvial' period which was the counterpart of the Ice Age in Europe. The same climatic changes which have restricted the forests and displaced north-westward the forest-fauna and forest- type of Man have not only disrupted this area of culture, but have also destroyed much of the evidence of its former extent; for the torrential discharge of the modern seasonal rainfall has scoured out most of the alluvium from the valleys, leaving only the numer- ous early types of polished implements, — in which this whole region abounds, though it is apparently devoid of chipped flints1, — to testify to the former existence of such a culture.
The actual area of continuous lake-dwelling culture has thus beei» very much reduced by adverse physical changes, aggressive from the south-east. It has also been superseded, both on this side, and around the margins of its Alpine citadel, by other types of culture better accommodated to these changes, which (as we have seen in this extreme instance) have been on the whole by way of less moisture and greater warmth, and consequent curtailment of lake-land and forest.
IV. REGIONAL TYPES: THE DANUBE BASIN
The first great change indeed, affecting the lake culture itself, is typical of what was going on. This is the introduction of do- mesticated animals: and as all these, in the Alpine lake-villages, are of breeds not derived from the wild species of the region, but identical with domesticated breeds of the Near East, ancient and modern, and with some of those known in neolithic Egypt, it may be inferred that their arrival in central Europe results either through exchange from tribe to tribe from the south-east, or through direct immigration of pastoral people possessing such flocks and herds. Both would be impracticable as long as a dense and continuous forest covered south-eastern Europe to the Car- pathians and the Hellespont. Either would be comparatively easy %$ soon as a drier climate, with more seasonal rainfall of the Hel- ladic and Mediterranean type2, began to break up the forests into
1 Occasional reports of such implements, of Mousterian type, belong to a period so much earlier, that if verified they would not affect the impression created by the dearth of anything later.
2 Mention must be made here of the cardinal discoveries of Roumanian and Russian pedologists as to the sequence of climate and types of vegetation along the outer face of the Carpathians and on the adjacent steppe.
76 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
parkland and meadow; a process which is always accelerated by the presence either of porous limestones like those of the Dinaric and Balkan chains, or of the loess deposits which (as we have s£en) cover so much of the lowlands of Hungary and Bulgaria, as well as of Rouznania, Galicia and Ukraine,
Similar loess deposits occupy large areas of Moravia and Bo- hemia, of the Upper Danube and its northern tributaries, of the Neckar, Main5 and middle Rhine, West of the last-named river lay the north-and-south barrier of the Jura, Vosges and Ardennes, accentuated by the denser woodland which is fed by the wet winds of the Atlantic seaboard, and still clothes their western slopes and masks the passes between them. These loess-lands had been the last prairie hunting-grounds of Magdalcnian and A/ilian man, as the wet forests of the transition period closed up, alon^ the highlands to the north, from the Carpathians to the Taunus and the Black Forest. When the neolithic period opened they were still occupied by long-headed folk only slightly modified from the late-palaeolithic Aurignacians, but distinguished from their rela- tives north and west of those forested highlands, by a fuller oval headform, less angular, and associated with other characters which persisted long, and only gave way gradually before the later ex- pansion of broad-headed Alpine foresters. Here were all the con- ditions for the spread either of pastoral or of agricultural folk, so soon as the loftier, and therefore more forest-bound regions to the south-east became passable.
The evidence for such passage, and for the period at which it was achieved, is as usual twofold: from the copious relics of a new and distinctive culture, and from the physical remains of the people themselves during and after its introduction.
The earliest neolithic culture of these wide and interconnected lowlands, from the Balkan lands to the headwaters of the Danube, and. the basins of the Neckar, Main, Upper Elbe and Oder, is curiously uniform in type. There are regular settlements in the open valleys, usually grouped in clusters within reach of a con- siderable stream* They combine pastoral with agricultural life, and possess the same primitive crops as the Alpine lake-folk, and the same herds as the lake-folk acquired eventually. Their habitual implements are of the split-and-ground pebble type, but show a characteristic improvement on those of the lake-folk, and of the great south-eastern region of the Balkan lands and Asia Minor, in that they are ground nearly flat on one face,, and only left rounded on the other. For timber«working3 and still more for hoeing, this adze-like celt, set transversely in its haft, had obvious
11,1V] DANUBIAN 'BAND-POTTERY' 77
advantages, as with careful usage it maintained its own edge, like the shell-adzes used for sago-getting in Melanesia, and the convex maftock of the Levantine peasant. The pottery of these settlements consists mainly of small globular vessels, rather more than hemi- spherical, rounded below, and usually without rim or handle. There is no hint of imitation of any kind of structure such as leather or basketry, and the outer surface, smooth and uniform, is treated as a single open field for a continuous scheme of decoration which returns into itself, and has earned for this technique the nicknames of ' band-pottery' (Eand-keramikj Ceramique a rubans)^ and of the * free-field' style. The designs are rendered by continuous lines incised in the clay before firing; either rectilinear zigzags, or curved into lobes,^waves, or coils, sometimes rather complicated, and always quite irrespective of any limits but those imposed by the general shape of the pot. There is no attempt to emphasize or dis- tinguish its parts, for indeed it usually has none: at most there may be a collar-band following the edge of the opening. This is so different from the commoner 'skeuomorphic ' decoration of an object by enhancing its natural texture or structural elements (for example in the * western ' and * north-western y styles to be described later), and so closely resembles the * free-field7 ornament employed by those modern peoples who make their vessels of gourds, — whose natural surface is uniformly smooth and of imperceptible texture, — that it has been suggested with much probability that the Danubian * band-pottery* likewise originated so, and that consequently its origin must be sought further south-east in regions, such as Asia Minor and Syria, where gourd-plants occur naturally, and have been in immemorial use, as the earliest pot-fabrics of these and adjacent regions attest.
Here again allowance must be made for the known shift of climate, and account taken of the remarkable gourd-types of the first pottery of Cyprus, and less distinctively of certain early fabrics in the Cyclades and Crete, which like Cyprus lie under the lee of this continental area; and also of a distinct gourd-element in the neolithic pottery of Egypt, which is not aboriginal there, but intrudes itself at an early phase among indigenous forms mainly derived from vases of stone. Once again it looks as though we were witnessing such an exodus from Asia Minor, both to south-east and to north-west, as we have already had occasion to infer as a probable consequence of the desiccation of this section of the Highland Zone, and as indicated by the distribution of the varieties of broad-headed man (p. 61 sgl). We have only to add, to complete the evidence at present available, that it is during the
78 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP,
period represented by the neolithic * band-pottery ' that we have
the first Indications of the spread of broad-headed man 'among the population of the Danubian region.
Northwards, as we have seen, this Danubian culture occupied the loess-lands of Moravia and Bohemia., and reached the middle Rhine- It also influenced temporarily a large area beyond it in the direction of Belgium* But as the heavily forested ridges of the Carpathians and the central German highlands limited its north- ward range, so the Vosges and Jura barred extension westward, and it was not long before all its Rhine-ward provinces fell under alien influence from the north-west, of which account will be taken later (p. 9 8 jy.). Southward, its influence is clearly perceptible in the later technique of the lake-dwellers; but as it never affected Italy, the migration of the 'terremare '-builders must have oceitrred before this phase.
Further to the south., the large western tributaries of the Danube, and especially the Save, received this culture early and developed it in a rather special fashion which makes the results difficult to correlate with the main Danubian types* Not enough is yet known of this district as a whole, to determine whether the remarkably rich settlement at Butmir in Bosnia is typical or not, nor to assign it to its proper phase; but it seems certain that the spiral ornaments, extraordinarily varied and beautiful, which were in vogue there, are on the one hand a local and perhaps spontaneous elaboration of the curvilinear elements common to nearly all schools of the * free-field* style; on the other, that the Butmir style of pottery, once established, was in wide demand (as actual exports show) and had a range of influence even wider^ from Thessaly and Macedonia to the Carpathians, and eventually far beyond towards the Dnieper, It has even been thought, chiefly by Teutonic ob- servers., that the spiral decoration which became so popular in the Minoan Bronze Age of the Aegean may have resulted from con- tact with this Bosnian school; but the contrary view is widely held, and until the relative dates of Minoan and of Bosnian culture are better established, this question remains open, It may even be that the Bosnian culture, lying so near as it does to the Adriatic coast, may have stood in more direct relation than is usually supposed to the neolithic art of Malta and the west Mediterranean., which also makes striking and very early use of spiral decoration; but here too intercourse cannot be asserted yet; priority even less.
Though the general culture, and especially the technique of implements and pottery, of the whole of this Danubian region shows generic similarities^ each principal district developed pecu-
II, iv] SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE AND ASIA MINOR 79
liarities of Its own, of which those of the Bosnian area are only an exceptionally striking example; and these idiosyncrasies became more marked as time went on. It may be inferred, first, that the various groups of people were on the whole sedentary, as their agricultural habit suggests. Then, from the very gradual spread of broad-headed folk, among a mainly long-headed population, it would seem that this type of civilization spread rather by inter- course than by conquest; from the open situation of the settlements and the rarity of weapons of offence, that they were in no great fear of disturbance; and from the frequency of their villages and tombs, and the repeated reconstructions of their huts, that this peaceful development lasted a long time.
The sam£ gradual and pacific advance characterizes also the next ftoteworthy change. As long as culture remained purely neo- lithic, and in most parts for some while after, the pottery, if it shows any designed interference with the natural colour of the clay, is baked black with the aid of a smoky fire, or of charred vegetable matter in the clay itself, or of a dressing of graphite. The surface is burnished by friction, and the incised ornaments are eventually enhanced by a filling of white earth. But about the time of the first introduction of copper, an improved method of firing came into use which took advantage of the presence of iron oxides in the clay to produce a brick-red surface, or imitated this by a wash of more ferruginous clay. Burnishing and white-filling went on as before. Now the earliest copper objects, — flat axe- blades, leaf-shaped daggers, awls, and dress-pins, — repeat with only slight variation the forms characteristic of the earliest metal- age in predynastic Egypt, in Syria, and in Cyprus; and the infer- ence that the Danubian region was acquiring its higher industries from the south-east, by way of the Hellespont, is confirmed by the fact (p. 8 9) that all over Asia Minor, similar but more emphatic replacement of polished black-ware by red-ware accompanies the spread of metal-working. This is well illustrated in the stratified site at Hissarlik on the Hellespont, where the first city has the black-ware and the second the red-ware technique. And the fact th&t these two settlements are separated by a layer of natural soil, showing that this site was for a while uninhabited, confirms the
general impression that whatever intercourse there may have been, om Asia Minor into Europe, at an earlier stage, it had ceased for a while, and was renewed (and with it the importance of the Hissarlik site) when the new metal-traffic was becoming frequent, and was eliciting a return traffic in amber from the Baltic shores. As the second city seems from its contents to have been destroyed
So NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
not later than 2000 B.C. and to have existed for a long while before that catastrophe, we have here a rough lower-limit of the period within which this traffic was established; and the foreign objects found in this second city give further cross-references to the cul- tures of other regions, as far afield as Sicily and Malta (p* 97)^ and the third civilization of Anau (p, 87),
V. REGIONAL TYPES: THE TRIPOIJE CULTURE
To present intelligibly the next two phases of the neolithic cul- ture of Europe and the crises which introduce them, it is necessary to range further afield3 into regions hitherto unaflrected, so far as is known, by the emergence of broad-headed man either in Asia Minor or in Alpine Europe. His relations with the Syrian highland, and with Egypt, have been discussed already, and the circumstances which hindered his general extension along the North African coast. We shall see later by what stages his culture, though not necessarily his race, passed south-eastward and eastward into the region of the ancient * painted pottery5" culture of Susa and Anau (pp. 85 jyf.). And we shall see that there is reason to believe that the site of Anau reveals that * painted7 culture in oscil- lation between the highland and the northward steppe, and in- debted for the technique of its forms, as well as of its ornament, partly to wood-using foresters, partly to leather-using pastorals from the steppe or its oases. It does not need much imagination to suggest that a steppe- or oasis-culture of this kind is unlikely to be confined to one section only of the steppe-margin; and that it is most likely to be recovered at any section of that margin where the steppe is bounded by mountain and forest as abrupt as the Kopet Dagh above Anau, and as liable to oscillations of climate, and alternate advance or retreat of the forest and its parkland fringe* Such conditions actually occur on the eastward face of the Car- pathians, and the Roumanian and Russian students of what is for those countries a problem of high practical importance to the national economy have demonstrated such oscillations throughout post-glacial time; though they have not yet established correlation in detail with those exhibited at Anau*
It was therefore no surprise to geographers when the discovery was announced of a * painted pottery' culture on a number of iso- lated sites distributed oasis-like over the trans-Carpathian steppe, between the Dnieper and the Danube,, and supplemented by two other groups, one along the north side of the Carpathians, through- out Galicia> the other occupying sites in SiebenbUrgen on the
II, v] « PAINTED-WARE' CULTURE OF TRIPOLJE 81
reverse flank of the Carpathian arc, as Susa and Moussian stand on the 'reverse flank or the north Persian highlands, looking over Mesopotamia and exploiting its lowlands, just as the cis-Carpathian sites spread down from Siebenbtirgen into the Hungarian plain.
Like the culture of Anau, the Tripolje culture (so called from the best known of the trans-Carpathian sites) has two main phases. In both, the dead were burned, and it has been inferred from this that the people were of 4 Alpine' origin; but this does not neces- sarily follow, and the racial question may be left open for the present. The first phase seems to be purely neolithic; its decorative painting, like the first style at Anau, is simply geometrical; and it seems to beiimited to the flat land, except one brief incursion into the effrlier neolithic culture of Thessaly, with which it is at present linked only by a few casual finds in Macedonia and Bulgaria. The second, which is separated from the first by a considerable pause, during which sites were evacuated and reoccupied, as at Anau, shows marked development of its vase-forms, and still more de- cided change in its decoration; for in the interval it had acquired an empirical, though not very intelligent, acquaintance with the curvilinear ornaments of the Danubian ^band-pottery/ at a period when the latter was already strongly influenced by the Bosnian spiral designs. The painted trans-Carpathian spirals, however, never reproduce their prototypes with the close understanding of their geometry which characterizes the Bosnian school, but are Introduced haphazard in bizarre confusion among the triangles and other linear schemes which were already traditional.
After a fairly long existence, to judge from the depth of de- posits on the Galician and Roumanian sites, — though there Is nowhere the vast depth of debris which Is common to Anau and Susa, — the Tripolje culture ceases abruptly and uniformly. Its sites were deserted and not reoccupied; and the cause of their evacuation is indicated by the occurrence, over the whole region of their distribution, of burial tumuli in a late phase of the neolithic culture ascribed by Russian observers to the * kurgan-folk1 ' or *rgd-ochre-people? (see below p. 83), who had long been in occupation of the central steppe, but seem to have been held aloof from the Tripolje folk along the course of the Dnieper. The occa- sion, and the cause, of their irruption can only be guessed, for it
1 Kurgan is a local word for a burial mound. These people will be herein- after described as the 'Tumulus-folk.' The red ochre with which they be- smeared their dead has been thought to be a survival of palaeolithic, perhaps Solutrean, observance (see below, p. 83),
C.A.H.I
82 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
cannot at present be correlated exactly with other events, though, curiously enough, pottery resembling the later Tripolje style ap- pears suddenly in Thessaly? at a longish Interval after the "first incursion (p, 81), whether we measure it in phases of the local styles, or by the depth of superimposed settlements. It may re- present an arrival of dispossessed folk from beyond the Danube. It is certain, however, that once let loose on Roumania the * tumulus-folk' were checked westward only by the Carpathians, and that southward they crossed the Danube, spread their tumuli widely over Bulgaria and Thrace, and penetrated into north-western Asia Minor, where their tumuli overlook the 1 lellespont and follow the Sangarius valley as for as the Phrygian plateau. It has been suggested, with some probability, that it was they wJ?o destroyed the second city at Hissarlik; at all events one skull from this city, wholly different from its contemporaries, closely resembles the * tu- mulus-folk* type; and if so, their irruption would be approximately dated not later than 2000 E.G., and would range with other great movements (pp* 91, 107) which were in progress about that time*
While the left wing of this irruption from the steppe swung southwards in this fashion, the right or northern wing pressed on outside the Carpathians, scattering the Tripolje folk of Galicia into Silesia, Moravia, and Bohemia, The effects of this movement must be followed at a later stage (p, 101).
Other survivors of the Tripolje culture seem to have taken refuge with their cis-Carpathian kinsmen and to have introduced disorganized elements of their culture* and especially their painted decoration, rather widely within the Dnnubian region., from north- ern Serbia to Bohemia* Perhaps this dissemination had already begun, from the cis-Carpathian sites, for the relative dates are uncertain; but the general similarity of these derivative painted techniques rather points to a single impulse, of not very early date.
VI. THE CULTURE OF THE NORTH-EASTERN STEPPE
While in western and north-western Europe the passing of the Old Stone Age can be traced in- fairly full detail,, the record^ is as yet less copious in the east, Roumanian and Russian studies of post-glacial deposits make it certain that the deposits of loess which indicate dry steppe and desert conditions, though generally con- tinuous,, were interrupted several times by moister periods which allowed soil to form, far out from the Carpathians towards the Dnieper. Nearer the Carpathians, and further south towards the Balkans, not only are these layers more numerous, but they can be
II, vi] CLIMATE AND CULTURE OF THE STEPPE 83
correlated with the flood-wash of the lower Danube and other Roumanian rivers, and with other soils so richly impregnated with vegetable matter that they are regarded as evidence for forest, like that of the Carpathian foothills but extended for some distance into the plain. The forest regime attained therefore here too, and more than once in post-glacial time, a wider extension than now; and the changes of climate which this presupposes are indicated also by wider distribution of swamps and other shore-deposits of an enlarged Black Sea. As similar oscillations are established on the low ground between Black Sea and Caspian, at Anau, and around the southern foothills of the Ural range, it may be inferred that the old Sarmatian sea-basin still exercised its moderating in- fluence over^the whole Eurasian lowland, whenever the westerlies shiftefl far enough north to supply it with rain.
But these oscillations only affected the margin; and meanwhile it was only gradually that the Asiatic forest, already mentioned in other connections (p. 24), was enabled by the shrinkage of the Scandinavian and Ural ice-caps to spread round the northern edge of what seems to have been continuously steppe or desert, at all events in its central area.
This region has already been suggested (p. 51 sg?) as the probable reservoir of the Solutrean hunters who intruded into western Europe at the end of the Aurignacian period, and as their probable refuge when they withdrew, with the steppe-fauna, when the Magdalenian moisture set in. That they did not permanently lose access to central Europe is clear from the occurrence of similar long-headed individuals in the Ofnet burial-place, mixed with early representatives of the new broad-headed folk of the Alpine forest region; and that their culture penetrated atone time right across the Iranian section of the Highland Zone is suggested by the discovery of implements of the peculiar Solutrean technique on sites over- looking Mesopotamia, and even in the Nile valley; though the occasions of these deposits cannot yet be dated.
Many of the later palaeolithic folk on west- and mid-European sites had the habit of supplying their dead with a quantity of pojvdered red ochre ; in what belief as to its efficacy we can only guess from occasional instances of the same custom among modern savages; there is obvious symbolism in so durable a representation of blood. It is therefore of the first importance, that the same practice is habitual among the earliest inhabitants of the Eurasian steppe, a tall, heavy-built and long-headed race not very different from those western types, burying their dead in surface graves, and marking these with earth-mounds, the only possible monument in the tree-
6—*
84 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
less and stoneless loess-land. These mounds (for which the local word is kurgan) do not seem to begin until the fine Solutrean tech- nique had been lost, and their earliest contents are more roughly worked implements, and hemispherical pots of clay — durable sub- stitutes for the simple bowls of gourd or leather, available to a prairie folk. As horse-bits, and later on, fragments of wooden cars on wheels, are found in these mounds, we must infer that the horse had been domesticated, and that we have here an early phase of the waggon-dwelling culture which still occupied this grassland when it was visited by Greek explorers later on. Dates for these two inventions, locomotive animals and wheeled transport, cannot as yet be fixed; but they presuppose a combination of level un- obstructed country, with the presence of the wild hon?e, and access to parkland timber supply, which is nowhere so fully realised as in this region; and at no period so favourably even there, as in the late palaeolithic phase of moist climate, and consequent encroach- ment of such parkland far out into the steppe wherever its dusty soil was tolerant of trees. At the climax of the moist phase we have probably to picture this region wholly grassland at its centre, wholly encircled by forest, and with its southern half invaded by the swampy shores of a continuous Ponto-Caspian lakeland.
It is not the purpose of this chapter to deal at length with the history of language, for though the periods of this may be as- signed an order of sequence, they can seldom be dated, because words, unlike implements, do not fall to the ground after use, But it may be noted here that the population of a region so long secluded, so vast in itself, and so absolutely devoid of internal ob- stacles can hardly have failed to acquire a fairly uniform vocabulary for such elements of their common experience and culture as the open sky, sun, moon and stars; open water, with some sort of boat, and swampland with geese and ducks; open grassland, with cattle and horses; but also parkland trees, with axes to fell them, and gourds for vessels; and the structural details of a waggon- home for its journey over paths and fords. Whether such people had also knowledge of the simpler agriculture would obviously depend on eventual intercourse with kindred men of the parkkyid, or with some other culture on the forest margin or beyond it; for on the grassland itself, as every nomad knows, even to scratch the surface may be to wound irremediably the delicate film of vegeta- tion on which depends alL Such vocabulary seems to have been among the oldest common possessions of Aryan-speaking folk; and there is now general agreement that whatever their subsequent adventures, the original speakers of this type of language probably
II, vn] EARLY MAN ON THE MARGINS OF IRAN 85
Inhabited this region; while some observers go so far as to identify tbftm with these c tumulus-folk/
VII. THE CULTURE OF ANAU AND SUSA
We reach next, in our survey of early neolithic cultures, the eastern section of the Highland Zone, separating the northern steppe from the lowland of Mesopotamia, where the earlier phases of civilization have been already noticed (pp. 42 syg."). In this eastern section the record is still fragmentary, in spite of the brilliant work of the French Mission in Persia. Palaeolithic culture, of the normal types, has not been detected. This is what would be expected, if the southward shift of climate clothed its abrupt escarpments on eithei^hand with forests impenetrable by hunting folk. At most, during a climax of drought, there might be occasional incursions, such as the rare occurrence of Solutrean types of implements to the south-westward has suggested already. The survival of dark- skinned folk akin to the older races of India and beyond, in the more extensive and better watered ranges of the south-western margin, suggests that this region long retained the character rather of a westward appendage of that great south-easterly region, than of an eastward extension, either of 'Africa- Arabia,' or even of the Highland Zone; and the intense glaciation of the Armenian and north-west Persian mountain-knot gives a reason for this long isolation from the west. Scanty human remains from Susa and other sites on its south-western margin, and from the ancient site at Anau, on its northern, agree in supporting this notion of its early human population, and at Anau in particular there is evi- dence that this type persisted, even where it would least have been expected, far on into early historic times. Further south, the same type seems to be figured in the Sumerian art of Babylonia early in the third millennium.
The remarkable analogies between the earliest culture at Anau and on the Susan group of sites, need not therefore surprise us, nor the remote antiquity to which this common culture appears to^o back with essential continuity of development; for the lacuna between the second and third phases at Anau has been shown to be due to an encroachment of northern steppe-desert, which evacuated the site temporarily without destroying the civilization of which Anau was seldom more than an outpost.
The unusual depth of continuously deposited debris on all these sites — at Susa 27 ft. for the first culture and nearly 50 for the second; at Anau 45 ft. for the first and 40 for the second — is
86 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
presumptive evidence for very long duration, unless the contrary can be proved. We may compare the 25 ft. of pre-Minoan neo- lithic debris at Cnossus, and the occurrence of pottery at 50—60 ft. below the present flood-plain of the Nile* The second culture is succeeded, after an interval of desertion, by a third, 59 ft. thick, the later part of which contains objects not much later than 2000 B.C. Without accepting therefore estimates based on rate of accu- mulation on later sites in other regions, it is permissible to regard the beginning of the Susa-Anau cycle of civilization as falling within the same scale of time as is indicated by the Baltic sedi- ments for the close of the European Ice Age*
Comparison of the most recent reckonings reveals indeed very striking similarities. Breasted, relying on the actual r&tc of alluvial deposit in Egypt, dates the beginning of the present Nile alltSrvium, and the first human occupation of it, 60-80 ft. below the modern surface, to about 18,000—15,000 B.C.; a second * floor* of occupa- tion (at 35 ft.) to about 10,000 B.C,, and the earliest tombs still exposed along its edge to about 4000 B.C. Baron de Geer's study of the annual increment of laminated clays in the Baltic area sug- gests 20,000 B.C. for the retreat of the Scandinavian ice from the north German plain; 15,000 B.C. for the release of the south end of Sweden (which very soon received Solutrean immigrants from the south) and 8000 B.C. for its northern districts. Pumpclly and Huntington begin the first settlement at Anau, in south Turkestan about 9000 B.C.; the second,, which succeeded it, about 6000 B.C.; and the third, after an interval of desert-drought, about 5200 B.C.; ending with another drought about 2200 B.C. De Morgan and Montelius allow 20,000 years for the whole series at Susa; Evans and Montelius 14,000 for that at Cnossus, The drought which evacuated Anau between 6000 and 5000 B*c* would thus corre- spond with the period of elevation and more continental climate in the Ancylus period of the Baltic area, by which time the Eurasiatic tundra and forest belt had completed their fusion with the west European, and were allowing Mongoloid folk to penetrate into the Baltic area. See also p. 579*
The material cultures of Susa and of Anau present close sia^i- laxities. That of Susa is described below (pp. 361 $$$•'). At Anau the first culture in the lower part of the * North Kurgan" site begins likewise with hand-made pottery, of simple but shapely forms based partly on leather work, partly^ as usual, on a still older pot- fabric; the decoration, carefully applied in dark paint, is borrowed from other techniques, and is already so conventional that its ancestry remains doubtful. The material culture of these folk, that
II, vn] FIRST AND SECOND CULTURES AT ANAU 87
is, must be considerably older than anything deposited on this site. The principal implements are small flint flakes, probably for insertion in a wooden haft, like those which appear in western Europe late in the palaeolithic decline, and at the beginning of the Alpine lake culture; and perforated mace-heads fashioned from pebbles of hard rock, such as occur in the earliest Nile-valley settlements, and also in lake-dwellings in the Alps. The huts were of mud-brick; their rectangular plan suggests the use of timber for roofing. Spin die- whorls attest the arts of spinning and weaving. Wheat and barley were cultivated from the first; but the earliest bones of ox, horse*, sheep and pig are those of wild species, like the gazelle and red deer with which they are associated. There are foxes and wolves, but no dogs. Gradually, however, ox, pig, horse, and ^wo kinds of sheep were domesticated into special breeds. The occurrence of small objects of turquoise, and of copper and lead, in the later phases of this first culture, shows that in some region with which Anau had intercourse these mineral resources were already exploited; but proves little or nothing as yet as to the rela- tive date of objects at Anau itself. The human remains, which occur at all depths, are long-headed: without accepting as more than provisional the first descriptions of them as *negrito' or 'Dravidian' they may be taken as proof of the extension of a south Asiatic type over the west Iranian plateau and its mountain rim. A notable observance of these people was the burial of young children beneath the house floors.
The later part of this first culture lies in a phase of gradually increasing drought; and the second culture, which succeeds it or (more accurately) invades it rather suddenly, brings little change in essentials. Sling-stones became common, stone pivots for the doors, and baking-ovens made from a large pot, Lapis lazuli and cornelian supplement turquoise, and daggers of copper are found. Agriculture proceeds as before, but the camel, goat, a new horn- less sheep, and the dog are added to the domestic animals. This, and the new fabrics of pottery, of smooth red or grey ware, un- decorated except for dark smoke-mottling on the red ware, sug- gest wider intercourse with another, and in the main more south- westerly region. This is just what would be expected if drought had disorganized the forests of the highland at its narrowest point, namely between the Caspian and Mesopotamia; for we may re- member that one of the earliest fabrics of pottery in Syria and Asia Minor, is a red-ware with various blackened by-products (p. 79; cf. p. 89 below), and that a similar fabric appears in predynastic Egypt (p. 34).
88 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
At the end of the second period, Anau had become so dry that the site was abandoned. When it was reoccupied the settlement was not on the old pile of debris, but on a lower mound a litfeie to the south. The people of this * South Kurgan' and their habits were the same as of old, including the practice of child-burial; but their pottery was now wheel-made and kiln-baked, and its decora- tion, painted as at the first, was more elaborate; the painted and the red-ware styles, moreover, have been combined in subsidiary fabrics; the red-ware and grey-ware have incised ornaments like the earliest pottery of early Asia Minor and Cyprus., and some of the forms recall those of early North Syrian fabrics. Elaborately incised clay figures of women, cattle, and wheeled carts indicate fresh contact with the grassland to the north, and with the North Syrian culture far to the west. The shapes and ornaments qf the spindlewhorls have a general resemblance to those of Cyprus and Hissarlik. Copper is supplemented by occasional bronze, and the daggers of the second culture by sickles, lances and arrowheads, There are also arrowheads of flint and obsidian, and ornaments of marble, alabaster, and blue-glazed paste like that of Egypt* A single gable-shaped seal-stone with its surfaces engraved respec- tively with a man and two winged griffins is another link with the Syrian culture, and has even been claimed as of Cretan type* This third culture also was expelled from Anau by a dry spell, more severe than the former one,, and the pause was long enough for the deserted mound to be devastated by rain-wash, till the climate improved once more and a fourth culture brought iron objects to Anau, probably not much earlier than Persian times.
So detailed a survey of the scries at Anau may be justified by several considerations. First, to emphasize its close similarity with the Susan culture,, in quality, in duration, and. in the sterile interval between an earlier and a later period, on adjacent sites at Anau, but at Susa actually superposed*
Secondly, because in the second culture at Susa, which corre- sponds with the earliest sites on the Sumerian ulluvium, a fresh set of influences, exemplified in the undccorated red-ware and grey- ware, appears in competition with the old painted-ware, in much the same way as in the second and third cultures at Anau, Bofn series point towards a distinct centre of culture further west, and the only culture which has such a red-ware tradition is that of early Syria, which has ancient relations with Egypt on the one hand, and with the highland-girt plateau of Asia Minor on the other; the latter a smaller replica, in respect of physical geography, of that of Iran.
II, vmj RELATIONS BETWEEN IRAN AND SYRIA 89
Thirdly, because the more copious use of copper, even in the lowest layers at Susa, and still more in the tombs belonging to it, suggests that in this region, as at Anau, this copper is not originally local, but comes from another source, to which Susa had the easier access. This again points westward, to the Syrian culture or be- yond it.
Fourthly, the occurrence of painted ware, resembling more or less closely the later stages of that of Anau and Susa, throughout North Syria, in south Palestine, in Cyprus (where it can be seen intruding into a purely red-ware culture), and locally also in Asia Minor, suggests a phase of reaction, later (as the sequence in Cyprus shows) than the widest expansion of the red-ware culture, in which the painted-ware tradition profoundly affected the Syrian region. Thiarphase cannot be precisely dated yet, but the presence in Egypt, under the early dynasties, of painted fabrics alien to the Nilotic styles, probably gives a downward limit for its arrival in Syria, and consequently for the previous spread of the red-ware culture eastward* The latter, on this reckoning, should be not far from contemporary with the beginning of the dynastic regime in Egypt, and the first culture of Anau would be altogether predynastic.
VIIL THE RED-WARE CULTURE OF THE NEARER EAST The red-ware culture has already been noted in two connex- ions: (i) as the source of the new elements which are intruded into the second culture at Anau, and confront the Susan culture at the phase when it began to spread onto the Sumerian alluvium; and (2) on an earlier page (p» 79) as the probable source of the red-ware technique which has been traced spreading widely over the Danubian region. We have now to define its range and ex- amine its origin.
The region over which it seems to be at home extends from Palestine on the south, to the Hellespont westward, and to the Upper Euphrates, or possibly rather further east; covering that is, the whole of the Anatolian or peninsular section of the Highland Zone, together with its Syrian appendage between the north end of Arabia and the eastern gulf of the Mediterranean. The earliest pottery of this region is illustrated best in the first city at His- sarlik, which has only very slight acquaintance with copper; in tombs at Yortan Keui and a number of casual finds all over Asia Minor, and in the lowest layer at the stratified site at Sakje- geuzi in North Syria. Its forms are partly close imitations of gourds, partly of skin vessels; the clay is densely blackened, and hand-burnished; the ornaments are simple bands, triangles and
go NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP,
lozenges, with sparing use of punctured dots within the outlines,
all incised3 and emphasized with white paste. Locally this fine * black-ware' degenerates into ashy grey? and loses its burnished surface. This early culture seems to be purely neolithic, with plump pebble-like celts rubbed to a blunt edge, and very little use
of flaked flint. With the spread of copper implements a marked change takes place in the technique. Black polish gives place to a clear^brick-red, degenerating to chestnut-brown, as the black de- generated to grey. The forms become more gourd -like; open bowls3 long-necked jugs with one handle or none, wide-mouthed jars with cylindrical neck and two handles or more. Incised decora- tion becomes rarer, and is supplemented with ornaments modelled in relief. At Hissarlik, in the second city, many jars fcave human faces on the neck, or on a deep cover which fits over it, *
It is in this period that the first exploitation of Cyprus takes place, and it is here, in a culture transplanted fully formed into a fresh locality, that its other characteristics have been most closely observed. Cereal agriculture was practised, as well as the growing of domesticated gourds; oxen and sheep were kept; the copper, which is abundant here, was worked extensively, and exported. The earliest forms of implement are the flat celt, the leaf-shaped dagger, and a longer dagger with a hooked tang to secure it in a wooden haft, The latter is peculiar to this culture; the former two are common to it and to predynastic Egypt., where the majority of the forms are quite different. The technique also of the red-ware is identical with the predynastic Egyptian, though its forms are wholly different; even the few gourd-forms among the Nile pottery being quite otherwise treated.
The question now arises,, did Egypt or the Syrian culture ori- ginate copper-working, and transmit it to the other? In Egypt copper appears as a luxurious adjunct to a highly developed in- dustry or flaked flint, with very little grinding of implements, though hard stones were skilfully worked into vases; and it Is only very gradually that flint work declines and copper becomes com- moner; the transition is incomplete at the opening of the dynastic series about 4000 B,C* In the Asiatic red-ware region a small selejp- tion from the Egyptian copper-types appears suddenly amid the polished-stone culture, together with the red-ware pottery: Syria adds one new type of its own, and then remains long stagnant. There is copper ore in Syria itself, and in many parts of Asia Minor? but it would seem that it was the richer copper of Cyprus, exploited by men of the red- ware culture, which excelled competitors, and stereotyped these few forms over so large a
I I,vxn] ORIGINALITY OF NEAR-EASTERN CULTURE 91
region. At first sight the Egyptian copper industry would seem to have priority. But the same question of priority arises as to the .origin of cultivated grains, wheat, barley and millet. Their wild forms are found along the Highland Zone, from Syria eastward; the same cultivated varieties are already in use from the first at Anau, and in predynastic Egypt. But Anau had had a very long career before the first irruption of the red-ware culture, and had copper from the first. Its domesticated animals, which it acquired some while before the red-ware came, are on the one hand derived from local species, on the other identical with the breeds of predynastic Egypt. Had Anau, or Egypt, priority? Or were both indebted to that intermediate region where the red-ware cul- ture arose £ In the present state of our knowledge of this * Middle Kitsgdom ' of the Near East, the answer remains in suspense,
In another line of advancement the originality of the Syrian culture is less disputable. It is with the reoccupation of Anau by its third culture that the first clay figures of nude women appear. At Hissarlik they begin in the first city, and are copious in de- generate clay and stone types, from the second onwards. In south- western Asia Minor, similarly, they are found in the black-ware technique, and beyond the margin of this region they are part of the repertoire of neolithic Crete, and of the early bronze age of the Cyclades; in the latter case contemporary with a local school of red-ware. In Cyprus they are frequent in the local red-ware and even in a fairly early phase of it. In other parts of Asia Minor, and throughout Syria, they occur in various early techniques, in more and more traditional and grossly accentuated forms. Though a few female figures in local red-ware have been found in predynastic Egypt, they are unconventionalized and even this type had no regular vogue. In Palestine, where it became popular in the Bronze Age, there are only late and secondary types. In Babylonia it was unknown till the time of Hammurabi, and then became popular; and Hammurabi's people are thought by some authorities to have come down the Euphrates out of Syria, about 2300 B.C. (see p. 467). In Syria itself alone, on cylinders of rather earlier date, the conventional type can be traced in course of development. Everything therefore points to the creation of this artistic type, and of the religious con- ceptions which it symbolizes, within the region dedicated in his- toric times to the 'Great Mother of Asia/ With the exception of the figures of palaeolithic women, — no relationship with which can be established at present for this Asiatic type, — it is the earliest * ideal type' in history; and the earliest cult of which we know thp meaning as well as the symbol.
92 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
IX. THE CULTURE OF THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN
We come now to the last great region, and tradition of culture, which remains to complete the survey of our neolithic cosmos — the Mediterranean itself and the districts interconnected by it. Like the painted-ware culture of western Iran, and the red-ware culture of Syria and Asia Minor, the neolithic Mediterranean culture passes over so gradually into that of the full Bronze Age, that its development and relationships to neighbouring civiliza- tions can only be traced within a broad period of time, as well as over a wide extent of country. Local advancement was uncon- formable within its limits, and precocious varieties overlapped the more belated. And from two of its most prolific areas, currents of influence were projected beyond and athwart the regions and cul- tures which have been outlined already, to an extent which has profoundly influenced all subsequent history,
Contemporary with the earliest known phase of prcdynastic civilization on the margins of the Nile alluvium, occur rare ex- amples of an alien fabric of pottery, which has provisionally been described as Libyan, that is to say, they are thought to be intrusive from the west. The clay is dark-brown or blackish, hand-made and burnished; the forms are open bowls and cups, sometimes on three or four short feet. The ornament is incised in simple geometrical forms, suggestive of basketry, sometimes rather elaborate, and always emphasized by careful filling with lines or dots. White paste is used, as in the old black-ware of Asia Minor, which shares the liking for tripod supports,, but has little love for basketry.
Very scattered finds further west in northern Africa link these stray vessels with an amazing wealth of distinct but similar fabrics on neolithic sites in Malta, representing a long series of develop- ment, which culminates later in the great stone-built monuments at Hajiar-Kim, Mnaidra, Hal-Tarshien, and at Gtgantea in Gozo; Sardinia has another local school, and characteristic tripod vases? at Anjelu-Ruju; Sicily has similar but less fantastic fabrics, self- coloured and richly incised, at Stentinello and Villafrati; south- Italy has others, at Matera and Pulo di Molfetta, very early modi- fied, however,, by contact with other cultures to which reference Is made later (pp* 104 sgy^). Further north,, the Rhone valley has settlements of similar culture, as far inland as the great Camp de Chassy, near Macon. By far the most important regions, however* in which this widespread Mediterranean culture occurs? are Crete and Spain,
II, ix] AFFINITIES OF EARLY AEGEAN CULTURE 93
In Crete, below the first Bronze Age layers at Cnossus (see Chap. rxvn), which are as old or older than the first Egyptian dyn- astfes and therefore not later than 3500—3000 B.C.., lie neolithic deposits about 25 ft, in thickness. From trial pits in these de- posits comes self-coloured pottery incised with simple linear and dotted ornament, showing general resemblance both to the other * Mediterranean ' fabrics above mentioned, especially in respect of the vase forms, and also rarer points of correspondence with the neolithic c black-ware' of Asia Minor. Almost identical pottery occurs locally in cave-deposits on the Syrian coast, but nothing similar is known in Cyprus. Further north in the Aegean, Melos, Amorgos, and some other islands show late and specialized phases of a similar culture, already affected both by the black-ware tech- nique, and by the red-ware of Asia Minor which superseded it. These Cycladic schools belong to the first period of the Aegean Bronze Age; they had intercourse with the earliest Bronze Age culture of Minoan Crete, and so indirectly with Egypt, and may be regarded as contemporary with Dynasties IV— VI, or not later than 2500 B.C. Aegean neolithic culture thus lies in a sort of sea- girt enclave between the black-ware culture of neolithic Asia Minor, the southernmost margin of the great Danubian region in Thrace, Macedon and northern Greece, and those scattered off- shoots of the trans-Carpathian painted-ware culture which pene- trated the Balkan highland and established themselves in the Thessalian plain. Its affinities are almost wholly with the other Mediterranean coastlands, but in default of information from the long stretch of north African coast opposite — which has under- gone progressive submergence since the beginning of the Nile- alluviation — it is difficult to define its exact relations with its west Mediterranean counterpart. As the Cretan neolithic was super- seded about the beginning of dynastic Egypt by the bronze-age 'Minoan' culture, with fresh vase-forms, painted decoration, azid engraved seal-stones, its principal interest is a proof of the very long period occupied by the * Mediterranean ' neolithic period before the dawn of the Minoan. This is in full accord with the Recurrence of those * Mediterranean * types of incised pottery in early predynastic tombs, with which this section of our enquiry started,
For more detailed discussion of the Minoan series itself in Crete and the Cyclades, see pp. 139 sqq^ 1 74 sqq^ and Chap* xvn. Its share in the propagation of a bronze-using culture outside its Aegean cradle-land is outlined briefly below, pp. 103 $qq«
94 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
X. THE CULTURE OF THE WESTERN MED1, TERRANEAN AND ITS OFFSHOOTS
The great Spanish peninsula stands in a totally different rela- tion to the neolithic culture of the west Mediterranean basin, from that of Crete in the eastern. It is in itself a little continent, of about the same size as Asia Minor, more diverse in its configu- ration, and of at least equal variety and abundance of resources. Its two great central plateaux drain westwards to the Atlantic; as Phrygia and Cappadocia drain away northwards into the Euxine. The northern is more completely isolated, and has but a narrow foreshore astride the Douro mouth. The southern, by the two- fold access of the Tagus and Guadiana, communicates with the maritime lowlands of southern Portugal, and is reached with Kttle difficulty also by the headwaters of the Guadalquivir, from Anda- lusia,) the Lydia of Spain, Back to back with these central plateaux and facing onto the Mediterranean like JLyeia and Pisidiu in Asia Minor, are the narrow but very habitable coastlands of Almeriaj Alicante, and Valencia, with the Balearic chain, like Rhodes and Cyprus, inviting exploration seawards. Then comes Catalonia, a counterpart of Cilicia, with the long Kbro trough cut back far into the continent and opening a back door to the two plateaux of the interior. Finally, round the abrupt end of the Pyrenees and beyond lie more such lowlands, with access by the gap of Carcassonne to the vast coast plain of western France, and by the Rhone to central Europe* It would perhaps not strain analogy unduly to compare with these the Syrian coast, in some at least of its early relations with Mesopotamia.
Throughout palaeolithic time this vast region had been the vehicle and the recipient of alternate phases of culture; Chellean, Acheulian, Mousterian, and at least one raid of Solutrean, from the north; Aurignacian and afterwards Capsian from north Africa, a twin continent which has no counterpart in the surroundings of Asia Minor., though its Saharan background has played repeatedly the same part in western history as Arabia has in the Near East, The long Magdalenian decadence affected the lands south of thp Pyrenees but little, and only late. Cave draughtsmanship at Al- tamira and other sites in the north-west achieves finer and maturer triumphs, and hands on eventually its own traditions to eastern and south-eastern districts-, where the rock-shelters show stag, oxen, and perhaps bison, hunted by men armed with bow and arrow, who sometimes fight among themselves, as at Morella, and whose women are shown at Cogul wearing long skirts, and
II, x] 'MEGALJTHIC* ORIGINS 95
engaged In ritual dance. Even here, however, the period of cold moistuf e with consequent wide extension of forest restricted the descendants of the old hunters to these and a few other sheltered districts. Kitchen-middens accumulated along the Portuguese coast, and in the interior the subsequent deposits are mostly in caves. Rare early examples of broad-headed men show that the new people from the Alpine forest region began to spread beyond the Pyrenees, and a considerable population of this type estab- lished itself in the district around Mugem in southern Portugal. This crisis past, the whole peninsula was the prize of the next comer; and we have probably to make large allowance for our defective knowledge of Morocco and all northern Africa, in esti- mating Ibeyian originality. The small south-eastern coastlands, and ^especially that of Almeria, acquired early elements of the Mediterranean neolithic culture, and developed it rapidly; with regular settlements round caves and on hill tops, subsisting on the chase, with bow and arrow, and on simple terrace agriculture, like all branches of this Mediterranean culture. But the steep high- lands, still heavily forested, prevented expansion into the interior. From similar origins on the coast between Cadiz and Huelva, the Andalusian lowland was exploited with more success.
But the main centre of advancement was the larger lowland of south Portugal. Here the kitchen-midden folk, reinforced as we have seen by 'lost tribes' of Alpine ancestry, and probably now by settlers from the Andalusian coast plain of the Guadiana, multi- plied rapidly, and created a culture of their own. Its industries are those of the other coast-districts, grafted on to those of the kitchen- middens, but matured early, rapidly, and distinctively, in this large and exceptionally favourable region. Most important of all, it is here that we first meet the custom of burying the dead, or at all events those of the more important families, in artificial chambers formed of upright blocks of untrimmed stone, and roofed with others, all as large as there was man-power to handle. Originally they were probably covered with a mound of earth, at least to the level of the cap-stone. From rude beginnings these 'megalithic* bjarial-chambers developed through a well-defined series of forms; the mere chamber, round or polygonal, according to the size of the wall-blocks; the chamber with corridor entrance, necessarily of some length as the diameter and height of the mound increased; the corridor with a terminal alcove replacing the chamber; the mere corridor with lateral alcoves or apses; and only after this, by gradual reduction of scale, the mere trench or cist below the natural surface, still lined and roofed with slabs in the ancient way.
96 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
There seems no need to infer alien influence at any stage; even the corbelled cupolas which replace the megalithic cap-stone "are but another case of ^necessity mother of invention/ Such works pre- sume co-operation, and no ordinary degree of social coherence; and people so constituted and so situated had a whole world at their feet. As the climate became drier, and the forest more pene- trable, they pressed up the great valleys, onto the southern plateau and eventually beyond it into the Ebro basin, where they found and mastered the backwood settlements from the Catalan sea- board* They reached the Mediterranean coast around Valencia; they occupied Andalusia, and were only prevented by the rugged highlands of Granada and Murcia from transforming likewise the secluded Almeria culture. The latter was to have its turn later on. The great abundance, variety and excellence of their arrowheads betray their chief means of aggression; the growing perfection of their pottery,, grey or black-polished, incised with white-filled linear ornaments, of skill and beauty, attests their sense of style; everywhere their great burial chambers demonstrate their effici- ency and energy,
Nor were they checked by the sea. The * talayots* of the Balearic Islands are a local adaptation of 'megalithic' architecture to a dis- trict where soil was too precious for mound-building, and must be replaced by rubble from the fields. The * giants* graves* of Sar- dinia show development from simpler types to the phase when the corridor had outlived its terminal chamber, but not yet developed alcoves in its sides; the great monuments of Malta and Gozo show the supreme achievement of successive paired apses, dwarfing the corridor, roofed with cupolas of ashlar masonry, and supplied with side-doorways cut through a single slab* A distant but apparently early outpost is the group of burial chambers in the heel of Italy; Corsica has another such. To what extent the north African coast was occupied, the small, late, and little-studied 'megaliths' of Roknia and Enfida do not clearly inform us; the impressive 4se- nams* of Algeria and Tripoli are now known not to belong to this culture at all, but to oil-presses of Roman date; and the * mega- lithic' structures of Nubia and Moab have been too little explored to permit more than conjecture as to any affinity with the west Mediterranean culture: they seem to be rather cists than dolmens, and if so, are comparatively late. The same applies to a reported group of large-stone monuments in eastern Thrace, to those of the Crimea, and to another limited and coherent * megalithic* area on the Pontic coast of Georgia, connected, apparently, by some isolated examples south of the Caspian, with a vast region to the
II, x] ITS EASTWARD LIMITATIONS 97
south-east, including most of India and extending into the Pacific, where chambers of similar construction are found sporadically.
Though the area exploited by the * megalith' builders included the whole of the western Mediterranean, and perhaps extended beyond it eastward, and though the total period of this exploita- tion is shown by the successive types of the monuments to have been a long one, its influence was not permanent. In Malta, after a brilliant climax, in which many concurrent styles of decoration were attempted, including an experiment in spiral ornament which seems rather to descend from still earlier western attempts in Azilian times, than to be the result of intercourse either with Bosnia or with the Aegean, the neolithic culture seems to have been cut off suddenly and in its prime. In Sicily, which was apparently little effected by it, perhaps because its climate and soil made its forests too difficult, except close around Palermo and in the south- eastern corner, the primitive neolithic culture of Stentinello gave place to a strange and alien 'First Sicel' style, as at Castelluccio, which arrived fully developed, with geometrically painted pottery which has its only near counterpart in immemorial leatherwork design among the peoples of western and central Sahara, and in the primitive-looking pottery of the Aures and the Kabyle country of Algeria. An African origin for it, as for the Stentinello culture, is supported by the distribution of the characteristic rock-hewn chamber-tombs in which it is found. These recur in Malta, where painted pottery of rather different style is found with that of the 'megalith' culture; and also in Tunisia. But it must be remem- bered, on the other hand, that painted ware resembling that of Thessaly occurs at Matera in the heel of Italy — within the mar- gin, that is, of the 'megalith* culture, though not actually on a *megalithic* site — and that there was certainly intercourse between the painted-ware culture of Sicily and the second city of Hissarlik far away in north-western Asia Minor, a peculiar type of carved plaque in bone and ivory being common to both, and occurring also in neolithic Malta.
It might have been expected, and was indeed formerly sup- pc^sed, that the neolithic culture of Malta and Sicily owed some of its characters to Aegean initiative. But this has not yet been proved, and at present such correlation as is possible tends to show that the west Mediterranean culture long developed independently, and was for the most part earlier than the great Minoan Age, The earliest links are supplied on the one hand by the bone plaques already mentioned, which are dated at Hissarlik not later than 2000 B.C.; on the other, by the painted pottery of Matera, which
C.A.H.I 7
98 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
if it be of Balkan origin, belongs to an even earlier phase. As both these links are subsequent to the spread into Sicily and* Italy of the 'bell beaker' culture, to which reference must next be made, they serve to emphasize the relative earliness of the western cul- ture, and its independence of anything Aegean. And it has been noted already that even the neolithic settlement at Cnossus, seems rather to be an early northward offshoot of an essentially Medi- terranean culture with its cradle in maritime Africa, than itself originally Aegean*
While the 'megalith '-building culture was permeating the west Mediterranean in this way, it was achieving even wider and more arduous expansion northward along the Atlantic seaboard. That this expansion took place mainly coastwise, and not over- land, is suggested by the distribution of the monuments in«» west- ern Europe, and especially of the different types* Principal early centres are, first, the promontory of Brittany, whence *megalithic' enterprise diverges, northward to Britain and Ireland, and north- eastward past the Low Countries to Denmark and southern Swe- den; secondly, this Scandinavian area, whence the whole of the western half of the North German plain was occupied, as far as the foothills of the central highlands. Meanwhile, the whole of lowland France was exploited, mainly up the Atlantic rivers, but also directly by land past the Pyrenees, and probably also from Catalonia along the Mediterranean shore, into Provence and up the Rhone, along an earlier line of exploration already noted (p, 92). That the whole of this vast area remained in fairly full inter- course with the motherland of the megalith-culture is clear from the occurrence of the same varieties of tomb-plan in nearly every region, usually in the same order of development, as is shown by the sequence of associated implements. The pottery varies locally, within a general uniformity of technique. But the individuals buried in these tombs vary in type, so that it is not possible to speak of a Megalith-people/ but only of a megalithic culture and a social structure imposed by its originators on the natives among whom they came. In the British Isles, these are more or less pure descen- dants of Aurignacian and other old long-headed stocks. In Scsyi- dinavia and the whole north-western area of the Continent, they are the tall massive long-headed folk who had apparently been developing there since the dispersal of the Cro-Magnon and Solu- trean hunters; they seem to be an early offshoot of the c Tumulus- people ' of southern Russia, and are the ancestors of the present 'Nordic' blondes. On the Atlantic seaboard, and all across France, there is the mixed population of Magdalenian survivors and Alpine
II, x] THE NORTH-WESTERN PROVINCE 99
intruders, by this time much interbred except in the central high- land of Auvergne, where the forest remained intact longest, and the Sevenole type of broad-heads purest, and also least affected by 'megalithic' innovations.
To follow the tfmegalithic* culture in detail as it made its way up the valleys leading into the Central German highland is impossible here. It is essential only to note that the strong forest barrier of the Vosges and Ardennes, and around the headwaters of the Marne, Seine and Loire, checked progress from the west, while the Rhine and Weser invited intrusion from the north. Consequently the Rhine, and its eastern tributaries Main and Neckar, early received elements of 'megalithic' culture from the seaboard, and greatly modified the^)ld Danubian culture which had exploited these areas beforehand. A temporary advance of Alpine lake-dwellers down- Rhine was met and repelled, so that northern elements penetrate even into the lakeland, and with them some Nordic men. Further east, the forest-frontier of the Danube basin seems to have held firm for a while, though northern traits were already becoming common locally, in pottery and implements, before the next crisis came. Further east still, local cultures more or less clearly based on the * north-western * megalithlc tradition, established them- selves along the upper courses of all the North German rivers as far as the Vistula, but failed like the Rhenish and Thuringian intruders to penetrate into Bohemia or Silesia, which remained essentially Danubian. Bohemia however was being affected about this period by an Alpine outflow similar to those down the Rhine and into northern Italy (p. 74), all probably due to some passing austerity of Alpine climate uncorrelated yet with events elsewhere. And before the crisis with which we have next to deal, Bohemia was also being influenced by the * painted-ware * culture from be- yond the Carpathians; so that our survey of events in neolithic Europe has now returned upon its starting point.
Not merely was Europe itself by this time plotted out among well-defined regional cultures occupying its principal lowland and loessland areas, but the barriers of highland and forest which ha4 separated those areas hitherto were beginning to break down before human aggression from outside* We distinguish, that is, not merely eventual Hispanic and Gallic provinces on the Atlantic seaboard, an eventual Rhine-land and Danube-land, and Bohemian and North German regions, distinct from these and from each other; but also historic avenues like those of Carcassonne, Moravia, and the Lower Rhine.
7— *
ico NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP,
XL THE CULTURE OF THE BEAKER-FOLK
Meanwhile, a second impulse originating within the Spanish peninsula was to produce even more far-reaching effects than those due to the 'megalith '-builders. A good deal of the decoration, and some of the forms, of all early pottery in the neolithic Mediterra- nean, from Portugal to Crete and the * Libyan' vessels in Egypt, shows the widespread use of various kinds of basketry. This is natural enough when we consider that this culture is bounded southward by the grassland margin of Sahara, and that the most characteristic plant of all this grassland and of the plateaux of Spain itself is the half a or esparto rush, one of the finest materials for basketry in the world. But at a late period in the * megalith* culture something more specific occurs: the * bell-beaker' type of pottery, more closely imitated, both in form and incised decoration, from flexible rushwork vessels than any earlier or later type, is so suddenly intruded among existing Spanish forms, and followed by so remarkable a fresh outburst of exploitation, that there is much inducement to ascribe it to the intrusion of some fresh stimulus, perhaps from the African side, like the mediaeval coming of the Moors. Whatever the cause, the effects are certain. Over- running all parts of the peninsula, and reaching Mediterranean localities so remote as Sardinia, western Sicily, and Remedello near Brescia, in the far north-east of Italy, the 'bell-beaker* cul- ture crossed the Pyrenees, and penetrated almost all districts of France. Following the old coastal route to Brittany, it passed over to Britain and Ireland, and affected also profoundly the large region beyond the Netherlands which the * megalith '-builders had already made their own.
That it was not a mere distribution of trade-objects is clear from the fact that the bell-beakers themselves are of local materials and various techniques; that it was not only the half a baskets them- selves that were traded a,nd imitated locally — though this, too, is probable — is shown by the simultaneous appearance of other kinds of objects, and by the shift not merely of whole provinces of cul- ture but of the frontiers of physical types, in the same direction as the spread of the * bell-beakers/ which, wherever they appear, are a storm-signal of profound disturbances, from Denmark to Buda Pesth. It has even been doubted whether those at Remedello are transmarine or transalpine intruders.
Neglecting, as before, the bewildering details where they are known, and supplementing provisionally the no less baffling scarcity of data at some important points, we may yet present a
II, xi] NEW WESTERN ACCESS TO CENTRAL EUROPE 101
general outline of the course of the 'bell-beaker' movement, and its principal effects.
Ii? general, the 'bell-beaker' movement followed the main lines of the 'megalithic' culture, overtaking it however on its frontiers and passing beyond them. In one respect, however, it created a new situation altogether; for whereas in eastern France the 'me- galithic' advance had been held up by the forested highlands west of the Rhine, the * bell-beaker * folk, better organized and better armed, especially with highly-developed archery, forced this bar- rier (perhaps already weakened by previous clearings towards its main gaps north and south of the Vosges) and broke through into the Danube valley. We may speak confidently here of invasion, because the change of culture is not only sudden, but is accom- panied by replacement of the old Rhenish and Danubian popula- tion by the moderately broad-headed stock which had long been characteristic of the region of Atlantic drainage. The open villages and peaceable habits of the Danubian valley-folk made them an easy prey : remnants of them survived here and there in the foot- hills of the central highland, but this barrier also was obsolete, and the northern and western groups of * bell-beaker ' folk coalesced as they advanced, and occupied even the secluded Bohemian area. Further east still, parts of Silesia remained in occupation of a Danubian remnant; but a * bell-beaker* has been found as far down-stream as Buda Pesth. The main flood of invaders, however, was stayed in the more hilly country between Bohemia and the Austrian Alps, where the valley narrows, and the old Alpine cul- ture with its secure lake-settlements offered better resistance, and diverted the invaders northward into Bohemia and Moravia*
This long-secluded region now became the centre of a fresh movement, the origin of which is obscure, though its results were revolutionary. Its population was by this time chaotically mixed, partly old Danubian, partly Alpine, partly new western invaders, and perhaps partly of more easterly and south-easterly origin; for the tumulus-building steppe-folk who, as we have seen, displaced the Tripolje culture from Galicia (p. 8 i sq.), seems to have pressed forward thus far about this time, while their southern kinsfolk made chaos in the Balkan lands. And out of this crucible of diverse stocks a new and remarkable type of man emerged, broad-headed like the Alpines, heavy browed like the steppe people, with mas- sive square face and jaw like the men of the old north-west, and with something of the high-vaulted brain-case of the Dinaric and Balkan roundheads. Their industries were in the main those of the 'bell-beaker' culture, and their east Alpine connexions kept them.
102 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
in remote touch with the nascent copper culture of Italy; ^but they buried their dead in cist-graves resembling the latest *megalithic* tombs, covered however by conspicuous earthen tumuli, nof oval like the * long barrows' of neolithic Britain, but circular like those of the steppe people. It is one of the few instances where a new kind of man has come into existence under conditions where the ante- cedents are in any degree knowable, and whose racial history ex- presses so clearly the qualities of the brain within the new type of skull. It was apparently not long before the 'round-barrow folk/ as we may conveniently call them, outgrew their Bohemian cradle, and dominated the Danube valley, and much of the eastern Alps, coalescing with the already mixed folk (Alpines, western in- vaders, and Danubian remnants), whom they found *there. West- ward they spread into Thuringia; eastward into the Hungarian and Galician lowlands. But their main achievement was to the north-west, where they overran the lowland as far south as the Seine, penetrated into Denmark and Scandinavia^ and built their 'round barrows ' in south Sweden and south-western Norway. At the estuaries of the Elbe, Weser and Rhine, they took to the sea, and occupied the eastern districts of Britain, from the Thames to the Forth, driving the long-headed folk of the 'long barrows' into the forests, but not disturbing the more civilized 'megalithic* folk of Kent and the south and south-west. Here too their 'round barrows' indicate their distribution; and the 'beaker' types of the pottery in them clearly betray their affinities. And wherever they went, they settled and have remained, the ancestors of the 'John Bull* type of Englishman and the kindred continental stocks,
The old long-headed Nordic people, whom they disturbed, partly coalesced with them, partly enlarged their own borders northward at the expense of the representatives of the old * Arctic" culture, till they were checked, partly by the climate, partly by the Mongoloid ancestors of the Lapps who had been working their way round the head of the Baltic as soon as the shrinkage of the last Swedish glaciers made this possible.
In the Mediterranean, the 'bell-beaker' culture produced com- paratively small effects, so far as our present information goes^ It reached Sardinia and Sicily, but apparently not Malta; and there are no known traces of it on the north African coast. And its vogue appears to have been short. There seems to be good reason for this, as the west Mediterranean, and even the Mediterranean coast of Spain itself, began now to come under a fresh influence, which was to change the whole outlook of this region. It is only in this direction that we may hope to gain even relative dates.
II, xii] THE BRONZE AGE 203
XII. THE COMING OF BRONZE
The movement which initiated the Minoan bronze age culture in Crete and the Cyclades does not seem to have been confined to the Aegean, Its sources were multiple, and are not to be sought only in Egypt, though intercourse between the Nile and Crete was early, active and persistent. The implements and the pottery, both red-ware and painted, have much in common, as the very names of these styles imply, with Asia Minor and Syria and with that far-easterly culture which penetrated these regions early. Further west, the connecting links are scanty, but the fact that copper-working began early in south-eastern Spain, that the first copper implements there are the leaf-shaped dagger and the flat celt, ^and that with the copper appear fresh vase-forms and an imperfect red-ware technique, which spread rapidly and widely, suggests that this western copper-industry was not an independent discovery, but resulted from intercourse with the Levant. It was not, however, the * bell-beaker' regime of the plateau, but the smaller, more secluded, and hitherto more backward culture of the Almeria coastland, which acquired and exploited the new know- ledge; and the reason for this is certainly the wealth of copper ores in the coast ranges of Murcia and Granada, near enough to the sea to be accessible to prospectors, well supplied with timber for fuel, and perhaps already provided from the same source with seafaring vessels and oversea connexions of its own. Once intro- duced, the new industry developed rapidly; improved types of implements were designed; and the discovery, perhaps accidental, that certain ores yielded a yellower metal, resembling the gold which already circulated as a rarity in neolithic Spain, led to the employment of this for ornaments, which were traded into the interior for some while before the new alloy, as this yellow * bronze' was later discovered to be, was used for implements also, when its greater toughness was appreciated, and produced designedly with the aid of * tin-stone/ This mineral is widely distributed in certain districts of the far interior, and was soon traded to the copper- working districts, and eventually also abroad. At Hissarlik bronze is found in the second city, not later than 2000 B.C., and probably a good deal earlier, in weapons of Asia Minor type; in Egypt it appears first under the Vth Dynasty, not later than 2800 B.C.; aiid in Crete it goes back earlier still, almost to the beginning of the Minoan series.
Here also therefore Spanish priority in discovery cannot be proved: the transmission of knowledge Is far more difficult to
io4 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
B detect than the transport of commodities; but it is significant that "in the tombs at Anjelu-Ruju, in Sardinia, which belong to a pre- metallic stage, and have a purely western culture, 10 out oT 63 bodies are not of Mediterranean type, and are indistinguishable from the broad-headed stock of Asia Minor, which certainly was entering eastern Crete early in the Minoan age, and must there- fore be presumed to have had already some seafaring skill. These Sardinian Immigrants had not been there long, for there had not been time for them to mix their blood much with the natives. Other patches of broad-headed folk have been recognized in Gerba island, off western Tripoli, and in the hill-country of north- eastern Tunis, but the earliness of their arrival here has not been demonstrated. In Spain direct evidence of such * prospecting* aliens has not been recorded yet.
It can hardly be accidental, however, that the nascent copper- Industry in the west is accompanied, like that of Asia Minor and Cyprus, by active production of silver. This metal however was for long of local importance mainly, the ease with which It tar- nishes in a moist climate making it far less popular in the north- west.
Another invention, this time definitely Spanish, did much to popularize the western metal industry. The leaf-shaped dagger, already broadened at the base, was fixed transversely (like a flat celt) in a long handle, and the * halberd' so constructed was'in wide demand. Together with other western types (elongated or ex- panded celts, the triangular dagger itself, and a longer swordlike blade), it was introduced into Italy, where the discovery of copper ores in Elba and Etruria set that peninsula fairly soon on an inde- pendent career; while Its nearness to the great Danubian province, now mainly dominated (as we have seen) by people of the * bell- beaker' culture, gave it an insatiable market for its metal work, traded against Baltic amber, and perhaps tin from the Central German highland. Later on, the Danube basin, and particularly the Hungarian region of it, began to exploit its own wealth of ore and fuel, and created a culture of its own; but central and north- western Europe long depended almost exclusively on Italian models, and in great part on Italian traffic.
As in the west Mediterranean, so along the Atlantic seaboard, the Spanish metal traffic with its special series of forms followed in the wake of the bell-beaker culture. Halberds of early Spanish type have been found on the Upper Danube, and were widely copied in the north-west, as far as Ireland.
It appears to have been about the time of the Bohemian exodus
II, xnj COPPER AND BRONZE IN CENTRAL EUROPE 105
(p. 101) that the knowledge of copper began to penetrate Into westerif and central Europe; in the west mainly from Spain, and so, Jh the wake of the 'bell-beaker' folk, into the Upper Danube valley; in the centre mainly from Italy, greatly aided apparently by the arrival near Brescia and elsewhere in north-eastern Italy, and eventually as far south as Latium, of parties of people ex- hibiting mixed Alpine and Danubian physique, and burying their dead contracted in earthen graves, in old Danubian fashion. As a similar settlement has been found near Landshut in the Inn valley, it looks as if the famous Inn-Adige route across the Alps was already in use and in the hands of people from the north side. It must be reserved for a later chapter to describe the improvements in copper a#d bronze objects which were made there, and how they«cvere imitated in local factories north of the Alps, as northern ores were discovered and copper-working spread. Here it is suffi- cient to note that in all the earliest and some of the most important of the later types, such as the socketed celt, Italy supplied the models for all central Europe from the Carpathians to the Rhine, and competed, by way of Savoy and the Rhone valley, with the Spanish types which were already current further west. Far to the south-east, it is true, the copper and bronze of western Asia Minor seem to have been traded into Balkan lands through the second city at Hissarlik, and indirectly this traffic may have extended far, for amBer occurs in the second city, and celts, daggers, and pins, — spiral-headed or with an eyelet in the stem, and all common to Hissarlik, Cyprus and Syria, — are found in early lake-dwellings in Austria, But the disturbances due to the dispersal of the painted- ware people from Ukraine, and to the inroads of the 'tumulus- folk/ seem to have dislocated this traffic for a while; and it is not until a much later period, when the Late Minoan culture had at last reached the Hellespont and the north shores of the Aegean, not much before 1300 B.C., that its highly-developed swords, perforated axe-heads, and characteristic spiral decoration began to influence* the bronze work of Hungary and eventually of Denmark and Scandinavia.
• Considerably earlier than this, however, and probably not much later than the days of the second city at Hissarlik, Aegean ex- plorers began to sail westwards, and penetrate into the western Mediterranean. Occasional finds betray their intercourse with south Italy as early as the Middle Minoan period, not later than 2000 B.C., trading with the Lipari islands for a rare decorative mineral, influencing the local pottery of Cassibile in Sardinia, and making at least one voyage as far as Marseilles. Their bronze
io6 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
swords, of rather later date, reached Sicily when the c painted Sicel* style was in its decline; and in the Late Minoan peridd, after 1400 B.C. they had regular settlements on the east coast of Sfcily, and another at Tarentum. Their wares now reached the head of the Adriatic, and influenced the native metal-work of Este on the old Adige-route to the north, and of Etruria, probably by way of Bologna, which was then the great centre of intercourse between northern and central Italy.
XIII. THE HALLSTATT CULTURE
It was also perhaps by way of the Adriatic, rather than through the Macedonian passes, that Minoan manufactures, f.nd particu- larly the later types of bronze swords, reached the Middle Danube, and more especially the centres of a new culture which was de- veloping, under combined Italian, Hungarian, and Danubian in- fluences, in valley bottoms among the Austrian and Dalmatian Alps. Of the material culture of central Europe one great trading centre, Hallstatt, among the great salt-beds to which it owes its name and its exceptional wealth, gives, a little later, an unusually full glimpse; for this * Hallstatt culture* not only dominates all the Upper Danube, but exercises widespread influence over middle Germany, over central and northern France, and over Britain and Ireland. Its characteristic swords, modelled at two removes on the Late Minoan type already mentioned, travelled even further into Bosnia, Macedonia, Hungary, East Prussia, Posen, Hanover, Schleswig and Scandinavia and in later varieties into Spain and the British Isles. It was in fact the first culture so general as to deserve the name of European, and with its spread about 900— 800 B.C. this survey of the prehistoric world may close.
Outlines of its distribution are given by the finds of a character- istic leaf-shaped sword with broad-flanged handleplate, a 'superior weapon' which cut its way rapidly in the hands or men of superior organization, across a large part of central Europe,, and betrays their occasional incursions into the coast lands or the Mediterra- nean, as far as the Greek islands and Egypt. ^
Several fresh factors contributed to this rapid expansion, and give the Hallstatt culture its distinctive quality. In the first place, this is the first great regional culture which made systematic use of the horse for riding as well as for driving. The horse had been hunted for food since palaeolithic times, but there is no clear evi- dence even of its domestication as a milch-animal, outside the high plateaux of central Asia, until a comparatively late date.
II, KIII] THE COMING OF THE HORSE 107
The first positive record is in a Babylonian tablet of about 2 100 B*.C,, where it is described as the 'ass from the east,' or 'from the**nountains/ and was therefore still a recent acquisition among the ass-using folk west of the Zagros range (p, 501). Its arrival here is commonly referred to that Irruption of fresh peoples from Iran or beyond, who founded the barbarian Kassite dynasty of Babylon about 1750 B.C.; and as there is no reason to believe that the great plateau of Iran itself was even then In much better condition than now to support an indigenous pastoral civilization, it is probable that this irruption originated further to the north-east, on the Sarmatian flatland, and that it is to be connected, in Its significance, if not precisely in date, with the irruption of Aryan-speaking folk into India .from the same northern reservoir, and with that west- ward outflow of the "tumulus-folk* across the Dnieper, which broke up the painted-ware culture of Tripolje and penetrated through Galicia into Bohemia, and through the Balkan lands into north-west Asia Minor (pp. 82 sqq.}.
The rapidity and violence of these eruptions from the northern grassland, far exceeding in extent and effects all earlier move- ments of which we have any clear Indication, were themselves probably due less to the sudden urgency of unsettlement, than to the acquaintance of the unsettled peoples with unprecedented means of rapid and concerted movement, namely the domestic horse, as steed rather than milk-giver; though the practice of mediaeval and modern horse-riding nomads shows that the two functions are compatible, and that commissariat troubles almost disappear in such a mode of life, provided only that there is ample grazing.
This however is precisely the most difficult condition to be at- tained within the Highland Zone and to the south of it; and it is only on the grassland itself, and in Hungary, Thrace, Thessaly and other Intermont plains in the Balkan lands; on the Phrygian and Cappadocian plateaux In Asia Minor; in the larger basins of north Syria; and in a few secluded troughs within the Median and Persian mountains, that local centres of horse-breeding and horse- manship were established permanently. The position of Egypt is ambiguous, as usual. It has been suggested that the peculiarities of the thoroughbred 'barb* variety point to an independent domes- , tication of a north African breed of horse now otherwise extinct; but it is noteworthy that Egypt does not seem to have made any use of horses at all, eastern, indigenous or western, until after the period of oppression by Asiatic invaders which separates the Xllth Dynasty from the XVIIIth; that is, until about 1600
io8 NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
B.C.; and by this time the horse was apparently being already im- ported into Crete, only a little before the period at which the northern aggressors were beginning to break through into ^the coastlands of the Aegean. Once introduced, however, the horse found congenial quarters around the fen-margins of the Delta, and Egyptian chariotry met Hittite chariots and cavalry on equal terms in the Syrian wars of the thirteenth century.
As in Cappadocia and Syria, so in Thrace and above all in Hun- gary, and eventually throughoxit the Danube valley, horse-driving, and eventually horse-riding conquerors organized and led their very mixed native levies, in every direction where there was pros- pect of loot and lands. The Phrygians, for example, passed over into Asia Minor in the thirteenth century, on the same track as earlier ^tumulus-folk,' and wrecked the decadent empire of* the horse-driving Hittites. Some think that the Homeric *Achaeans' represent another such incursion through Macedonia and Thessaly as far as * horse-grazing Argos.' The terremare-culture of the Po valley came to an abrupt and violent end through a similar invasion out of Styria and Krain, where most graphic representations of these sporting and fighting people are found on bronze vessels of rather later date.
North of the Carpathians again, other bodies of essentially simi- lar horse-owning folk traversed the North German plain as far as Denmark, with similar social and political consequences. The sub- sequent adventures of these, and of the eventual Danubian and mid-German invaders of the maritime west, belong, however, to a later volume*
It is not to be expected that the whole story of the coming of the horse should be based upon direct evidence of equine remains or of horse-bits and other horseman's gear. Enough, however, seems to be known of the general culture of the horse-owning peoples, to supplement such direct evidence as there is, by that of their weapons, ornaments, and other property. Of these, the swords already mentioned are the most significant; for among a multitude of earlier types developed by local craftsmen, especially in Hun- gary, from the old straight-edged daggers imported as we hav^ seen from Italy, and perhaps earlier still from Asia Minor by way of the Hellespont, there appears at last one, derived from an Aegean pattern, which gave these restless northern peoples what was in the literal sense the "superior weapon' against all adversaries. This * leaf-shaped* sword combined for the first time the advantages of thrust and of cut; and its long flat tang running the full length of the handle and furnished with lateral flanges gave the structural
II, XHI] FIRST APPEARANCE OF IRON 109
security of a girder where this was most absent from all earlier blades.*Its occurrence as far to the south-east as Egypt, along with other mid-European types, all belonging to the period of the great sea-raids of the years about 1200 B.C.; in Cyprus where it was eventually manufactured locally; and as far west as Spain and Ire- land, is the best proof of its efficiency as a weapon. From it were developed not only the specifically 'Hallstatt* swords of the tenth, ninth and eighth centuries, but the swords of the Greeks of classi- cal times, and less directly that shorter Spanish sword which was eventually adopted by the Romans.
Another notable invention must be brought into retrospect here, and may fitly close our story; for it was during the domination of the leaf-sh%ped sword that bronze began to give place to iron as the material for cutting weapons; though rather in the south than in the home of those swords themselves. Until some first-class site has been properly explored in Asia Minor or North Syria, cer- tainty is unattainable at the most crucial points in the history of the new metal : but from the fragmentary material at present avail- able, the following points seem to be made out. Egypt had occa- sional, perhaps accidental, acquaintance with iron as a rarity, from late predynastic times, and received Syrian iron as a precious metal in tribute under the XlXth Dynasty, but made no general use of the metal till Greek times. Babylonia had no early iron, and though Assyria had it occasionally from the thirteenth century onwards, there was no iron industry there till later, and iron was mainly obtained from the highland district of Commagene between North Syria and Asia Minor* In Palestine, literary references presume that iron was in use as early as the eleventh century; and iron weapons occur at Lachish and other Philistine sites after the arrival of the sea-raiders at the beginning of the twelfth. In North Syria, an iron-using culture intrudes from the north-west in the twelfth century, and it is about the same time, after the collapse of the Minoan sea-power, and of the old coast-land civilization of Cilicia before similar intruders from inland, that iron weapons become common rather suddenly in Cyprus.
m As a precious metal for jewellery, Cyprus, like Rhodes, Crete, and the Minoan area generally, had known iron since about 1400, and it was perhaps through Minoan intercourse that iron finger- rings became customary in parts of peninsular Italy. At Hissarlik, iron does not appear till after the destruction of the sixth city, which occurred not earlier than the twelfth century; and there is no reason at present to believe either that Asia Minor obtained its knowledge of iron from Europe (as has been suggested) or that it
no NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES [CHAP.
was brought to Europe directly by the Hellespontine route. In the north the * leaf-shaped ' swords are regularly of bronze, irbn only coming into use gradually during the 'Hallstatt* period, and super- seding bronze only at its close; later, that is, than in Greece, and later still than in Cyprus, where the weapons of * leaf-shaped" type are in iron throughout, from about the eleventh century. Traces both of the older use of iron as a treasured rarity, and of its later use for tools and weapons, occur in the Homeric poems, but with- out precise clue to the relative dates of the passages. That eventu- ally a great iron-working centre arose in Noricum, and repaid to Rome the north's ancient debt to Italian bronze, is iindisputed; and it may be that those who introduced the * leaf-shaped ' sword into Cyprus during the twelfth-century sea-raids parsed on the Levant's knowledge of iron-working to the north, by way of the Aegean or the Adriatic; but at present, priority seems to lie with the North Syrian source, with the possibility that this in turn may be found to be derivative from some other centre beyond Taurus, such as the Chalybes in north-eastern Asia Minor from whom early Greece obtained afterwards its finer quality of steel*
A third revolution in custom, of a less material kind, finds its first illustration on any sufficient scale, in the great burial-ground at Hallstatt. The custom of cremation, as an alternative to burial, was of old standing in Europe; for it appears almost (though not quite) at the beginning of the lake-dwelling occupation of the Alpine region, and is also characteristic of the painted-ware cul- ture in Ukraine. But it is not confined to Europe, The Medi- terranean region knows it not, but practises interment uniformly, until after the first northern aggressions; and the painted-ware culture of Anau and Susa has simple earth graves or cists* In Palestine, however, cremation was practised in a very early phase of culture at Gezer, and, though it was superseded there later by burials which seem to represent the first Semitic immigrants, yet "they made a very great burning' for King Asa of Judah in the tenth ceti tury,- and only omitted it for King Jehoram, for special reasons, in the ninth. So it may be that at this far southern outlier of what we have already seen to be the larger habitat of * Alpine/ man an old forest-usage was retained as long as there was fuel to spare.
In late neolithic times, Alpine cremation spread into Italy with the 'terremare'-folk, and similarly on the north side of the Alps it came gradually into general use, passing over, for example, into Britain and Asia Minor alike. Something must however be allowed here for the dispersal of the Tripolje people westward, over the
MAP 5
EUROPE
SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL
NEOLITHIC CULTURES
MAP 6
<£?:
EUROPE
SHOWING THE PRINCIPAL LINES OF
EARLY BRONZE AGE INTERCOURSE
Land above 30Q0 feet
II, xra] CREMATION IN CLASSICAL TIMES m
middle basin of the Danube, and also for the prevalence of cre- mation among the Aryan-speaking invaders of India, and there- fore ^probably among other folk also on the northern grassland,
At Hallstatt itself, the actual process of replacement is illustrated by many examples, interment being first supplemented by partial cremation, for example of the head, feet or abdomen, and only gradually superseded by total incineration. This, however, is a late instance; in Thessaly, cremation appears with the earliest 'leaf- shaped' swords, probably about the eleventh century, and the splendid pyre-funerals of the Homeric poems may anticipate this by a few generations, In Greece and in Italy, as in Herodotus' description of Thrace in his own day, both rituals persisted side-by-side^till Christian doctrine restored the aboriginal usage of thi south.
Into the significance of this conflict of beliefs as to the latter end of Man, this is not the place to go : let Herodotus, with whose wisdom we began, close the story in his own way. 'Him who has left them, they bury in the earth, with gladness and sport, recount- ing all the evils from which he is now free and in perfect bliss' , . , 'for three days they lay out the body, slay all sorts of sacrifice, and hold a feast, ending their mourning first; and then they bury, hming to ashes, or merely interring and cast a mound, and hold sports of every kind, in which the chiefest prizes are for single combat, Such is the Thradan's funeral'— on the margin between two worlds,
CHAPTER III EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION
L THE RELATION OF ARCHAEOLOGY TO HISTORY
¥N every department of human life the past century has wit- JL nessedthe gradual growth of free enquiry. Documents formerly regarded as infallible have in recent years been made the subject of the severest criticism. Neither the sanction of long habitual acceptance, as in the case of the classical historians, nor the endorsement of the divine verbal inspiration attributed to the Hebrew Scriptures, has exempted the writings named from this treatment. The statements which they contain have been put to every conceivable test. Along with the textual and literary criticism of the documents themselves, there have advanced pan passu the exploration of the obscurer literatures of North European and of Oriental nations, the observation and tabulation of the rites, customs, and beliefs of peoples in primitive stages of civilization, and the excavation of ancient cities and settlements. A wealth of illustrative material has thus been collected, which has undoubt- edly illuminated many formerly dark passages in the historical records,
It is not to be supposed, however, that archaeological or ethno- logical research can supersede the labour of the historical critic, or that the results of such work can be called in, definitely to cor- roborate or to refute his conclusions. Doubtless the archaeologist may discover an inscription which, referring to some historical event, may supplement, or correct, the account of the same event in the pages of some ancient historian. But even such an inscrip- tion must itself be submitted to criticism. Oriental monarchs were not above exaggerating their mighty deeds beyond all reason, and allowance must be made for this weakness. Archaeological research consists principally in the discovery and the classification of the common things of daily life — houses, personal ornaments, domestic utensils, tools, weapons, and the like (see pp. i $q^ 66-70)* These are occasionally of value even to the historical critic; for example, they may help to expose anachronisms. If, to suggest a possible concrete case, a narrative should describe a community as using tools or weapons of iron, at a time when, as contemporary deposits
CHAP. Ill, ij ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY 113
indicate, it had not yet emerged from the earlier Bronze stage of cultnre, then the critic must re-examine Ms texts. Either the docmrnent is wrong in this particular, or, perchance,, the word which he has rendered 'iron9 may be found, to have some other signification. The reader will understand that this illustration is merely put forward as an example of the kind of assistance which the archaeologist may render to the historian. Archaeological evi- dence of this nature must, however, be cross-examined, like every other evidence. In a case such as we have supposed, the archae- ologist must satisfy the historian that the deposits upon which he bases his deductions are fairly representative of the state of culture of the whole community, and not merely relics of some insigni- ficant and t^ickward group of people living within its borders, but haviag no direct connexion with the course of history.
In archaeological study we cannot always deduce causes from the observed effects with mathematical certainty: the evidence is often ambiguous, and frequently there are no indications to en- able us to choose among several possible solutions of a problem. We may, for example, find a layer of ashes in a stratified city-site. The historian may tell us of a conquest or of a raid about the time of this deposit; but it is at least an even chance that the fire which produced the ashes was a mere accidental conflagration, of which no documentary record has been preserved. Indeed, it is in most cases desirable for the archaeologist to form his conclusions as to chronology and allied problems independently of the historian3 and for the two fellow-labourers to settle any differences by gradual approximation.
To excavate merely with the purpose of 'confirming' written history is to court inevitable disappointment, and, what is worse, to do most serious injury to the sites examined. Out often thou- sand recorded events, not more than one or two can possibly leave any permanent record upon the aspect of the sites which witnessed them. Even the scars of war quickly heal on the face of the earth. Abraham, Joshua, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Paul march in a ma- jestic procession through Palestine, but we ransack the land in Xgin for their faintest footprint : they live in the written word alone. An explorer who should be so foolish as to go in pursuit of their relics would neglect, and very probably destroy, the countless valuable remains which he would actually meet. The true function of archaeological research is to discover the conditions amid which lived such heroes of old as we have mentioned; to show them, no longer as solitary, more or less idealised or superhuman, figures, but as men of like passions to ourselves moving with other men,
C.A.H.I 8
u4 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
in a busy world engrossed in its secular interests, and making daily use of the common things of life.
To excavate with the sole purpose of adding to the stock of written history, by the discovery or tablets, papyri, or inscriptions, is an equally fatal error. It would not be too severe to describe many excavations that have been made as mere 'tablet-piracies/ So engrossed has the excavator been in finding libraries of tablets — the importance of which no one would dream of minimizing— that he has neglected the pots and the pans, which are essential if he is to fill in the picture of the ancient life of the region.
To Professor W, M. Flinders Petrie belongs the credit for calling attention to the importance of 'unconsidered trifles/ and he has shown it at many times during his long career as an ex- cavator. To mention one striking instance, by his preliminary re- connaissance at Tell el-Hesy, the site of Lachish, in Southern Palestine, he determined for all time the principles of the dating of Palestinian pottery. He proved, by comparing stratum with stratum in the mound that covered the remains of this often-re- built city, that every age had its own style of pot shapes or orna- ment, and of clay baking. At different times different foreign in- fluences were brought to bear upon the craftsman. So completely can the evolution be systematized, that, thanks to Prof. Petrie, whose scheme has not been modified by his successors except in occasional details, it is possible to date a Palestinian mound as unambiguously as if it had been full of inscriptions. Even from horseback an observant traveller can often assign approximate limits of date to an ancient site in the country.
Among other advantages, the pottery-test affords a valuable check by which the modern identification of ancient sites can be tested and controlled. Many such identifications, made in the early days of research, chiefly on the unstable foundation of similarity of name, must now be abandoned, as the potsherds show that the date of the site, and the date assigned in the literary documents, do not correspond. Seeing that the comprehension of certain his- torical events (as, for example, military movements) often depends upon an exact understanding of topography, the unimportant sherds which the archaeologist collects may thus not infrequently become of at least an indirect value to the historian.
The antiquities of the Near East have attracted the attention and interest of travellers from the days of Herodotus. But for the purposes of this chapter it is hardly necessary to go back further than the beginning of the nineteenth century. Before that time these monuments were a matter rather for intelligent curiosity
111,1] POTTERY AND EARLY RECORDS 115
than for serious scientific study. We recall how the Spectator^ in his first* number (i March 1711), describes himself as making *a Voyage to Grand Cairo, on purpose to take the Measure of a Pyramid/ and adding, 'as soon as I had set rny self right in that Particular, [I] returned to my Native Country with great Satis- faction/ In short, having acquired a disconnected scrap of in- formation, in itself of only moderate interest, he made no further use of it. He was typical of his time.
It was, indeed, impossible for any progress to be made in re- search so long as the inscriptions remained undecipherable. The outward appearance of Egyptian hieroglyphs was probably familiar to some Europeans at all times. The more remote cuneiform of Mesopotamia and Asia Minor was naturally for long quite un- knovrti; but from the time of the publication of Pietro della Valle's delightful letters describing his extensive Oriental travels, there was at least a scrap of knowledge available with regard to the as- pect of that mysterious script, for the writer named has repro- duced five characters which he saw at Persepolis; and has stated reasons for his supposition, which proved correct, that they should be read from left to right. The letter in which he gives these Old Persian characters is dated 21 October 1621. But the only sources of knowledge on which would-be decipherers could draw, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, were the writers of Greece; and, as has been subsequently proved, even in the meagre information which they vouchsafe on these obscure points, they were blind leaders of the blind.
In this chapter it is proposed to give a brief survey of the history of the archaeological researches of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which have so greatly enlarged our knowledge of Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, and neighbouring lands; have revealed the empire of the Hittites; and have discovered the unsuspected civilization that flourished in the lands of the Aegean in the third and second millennia B.C. In setting forth the material, we shall follow the order in which a pioneer expedition to any country would naturally conduct its researches. First would come a survey o&the country, with an enumeration of the remains above ground; secondly, the collection and decipherment of its inscriptions; and thirdly, the excavation of its cities and burial places.
8—2
n6 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
II. EGYPT (a) SURFACE EXPLORATION
Many accounts of the wonders of Egypt have come down to us from the hands of early writers. Herodotus has provided rich material for controversy with his descriptions of Lake Moeris and of the Labyrinth; and, in later times, the pyramid-fields accessible from Cairo attracted the attention of many mediaeval travellers and pilgrims. It is, however, hardly worth our while to expend space upon these fragmentary allusions. It is a strange and prob- ably a unique fact that the foundations of scientific Egyptology were laid in a military expedition. With the army that Napoleon conveyed to Egypt in 1798., in pursuance of his enter prises/ there were a number of draughtsmen and of keen scientific enquirers, and these made so good a use of their time and opportunities that they collected an unprecedented mass of topographical informa- tion* On the materials which they brought together is based the great Description de V&gyfte published in many volumes by the French Academy between 1809 and 1813, in which we find the first systematic account of the monuments of the Valley of the Nile.
The inscriptions reproduced in this publication, although the copies were not without faults — as was to be expected, considering that they were in a script as yet completely unintelligible — fur- nished a quantity of useful material for those who first seriously attempted to unlock the secret of the hieroglyphs. When, as we shall see in the next section, Champollion had made some progress with the decipherment of the inscriptions, he was enlisted in the second great survey, that of Rosellini in 1828, Xhis enterprise considerably enlarged the body of knowledge accessible on the subject of the topography of the country; and the reading of the inscriptions made it possible for the first time to arrange the monuments in some historical order. The result of the expedition was not published, however, till after Champollion "s death in 1831*
These explorations had confined themselves to the lower part of the Nile valley — that below the Aswan cataract. The study^of Egyptian remains In Nubia, and as far south as Khartum., was the work of the next survey, that of Lepsius in 1 840, This scholar had become the most prominent authority of the day on the Egyptian language. Not only did he examine the surface, but at Memphis and other places he made excavations. He thus greatly enlarged the geographical limits within which Egyptian remains were to be studied, and, further, in returning, he discovered and published
Ill, n] EXPLORATION IN EGYPT 117
the important inscriptions left behind by the ancient Egyptian miners *at the copper-bearing parts of the Sinai Peninsula.
By this time the main facts as to the surface antiquities of Egypt had been ascertained and put on record. All the monu- ments that a traveller would see in journeying through the country had been noted and delineated. Of course hardly a year has passed since then without adding some detail — a new inscription or graf- fito, for example — but in the main the statement may stand, that Lepsius exhausted the general topographical study of the country. The peculiar conformation of Egypt, a long narrow strip on each side of a river, and bordered by uninhabitable desert, makes it possible for a single expedition to cover the whole ground in a way hardly possible in any other country. More scientific and artistic cartclgraphy may have been undertaken since the time of Lepsius: the Egypt Exploration Fund is carrying out a detailed archaeo- logical survey; and the erection of the Aswan dam, which involved the submersion of important ancient remains over a wide extent of territory, necessitated a close examination of the country af- fected. But most of the significant work subsequent to Lepsius has been excavation rather than exploration.
(£) DECIPHERMENT
The few particulars of value regarding the Egyptian hiero- glyphs, preserved by a number of more or less obscure Greek writers, would never have been sufficient to enable a scholar to decipher a single inscription. Till the discovery at Rashid (Ro- setta), near Alexandria, by an officer of the Napoleonic expedition, of a bilingual inscription, in Egyptian and Greek, and till its sub- sequent analysis by European scholars, no solution of the riddle of Egyptian writing could be found.
The Rosetta stone is a large slab of basalt bearing an inscrip- tion three times repeated. At the bottom the text appears in Greek, at the top in hieroglyphics; in the middle it is given again in Egyptian, but in a cursive simplification of the hieroglyphic called 'Demotic/ The hieroglyphic part of the inscription is much broken, and every line has lost its beginning and end; the Greek portion is also imperfect at the bottom. With regard to the con- tents of the inscription, all that we need say is that it is a proclama- tion by the priests of Memphis, setting forth the good deeds of Ptolemy Epiphanes, and decreeing that his statue shall be set up in every temple in Egypt.
The Rosetta stone is often supposed to have been the sole key used for the solution of the problem of decipherment. But this is
ii 8 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
not the case. The decipherers proceeded on the method adopted by readers of the common substitutionary form of cryptograms. The first step in such a process would necessarily be the dfeter- mination of the phonetic meaning of the characters; and the lan- guage of the Egyptian part of the inscription being unknown, this could not be done unless with the aid of -proper names^ which would be common to the Greek and the Egyptian. The Rosetta stone, in its present condition, happens to contain but one proper name — that of Ptolemy, In Zoega's De origine et usu obeliscorum (1797), the happy speculation was adventured that groups of characters surrounded with an oval ring or cartouche are proper names, or else especially sacred formulae. They are, as a matter of fact, royal names; and such a group of characters occurred in the Rosetta inscription at places corresponding to the appearance of the name riTOAEMAIOS (Ptolemaios) in the Greek version. An obelisk from the island of Philae supplied in 1822 the neces- sary further material. This bore inscriptions in Greek and Egyp- tian; it had the name IITQAEMAIOZ, and corresponding to it a cartouche identical with that on the Rosetta stone; it had also the name K A EOF"! AT PA (Cleopatra) with a different cartouche corre- sponding. Now the hieroglyphic letters in these cartouches (setting them out in a row) were respectively as follows;
(A)
w i
x a 3 4 5 67
(B)
Here it is obvious that A I is the same as B 5, and thus must be equated to the Greek fl (/>), which comes in the same positions in the Greek form of the names. Likewise A 4 is the same as B 2, and by the same argument must be equivalent to A (/). Again A 3 and B 4 are alike, and must therefore somehow represent the Greek O. In B, letters 6 and 9 are the same, and must have been regarded as equivalents to A, We have now got a framework of known letters, with gaps between them that can be filled imme- diately by reference to the Greek; we can thus identify A 2 as T, A 5 as M, and presumably A 7 as £ (s\ the preceding letter being in some way representative of the group of Greek vowels A!O. Similarly, in B, we learn to treat letter I as K, 3 as the equivalent of E, and 8 as P (r), 7 is T, but here we are introduced to the differentiation of cognate sounds, for it is a different character which is used for the same Greek equivalent in the first name. As
Ill, n] DECIPHERMENT OF HIEROGLYPHS 119
for the two remaining characters, their explanation came in due time wB.en it was recognized that they always follow and distin- guish divine female proper names ; the one is /, the feminine suffix, the other an egg.
An alphabet of eleven phonetic characters was thus obtained. The list was extended by applying it to other cartouches found in the publication of the French Academy, some of which contained the names of Roman Caesars or of Ptolemaic monarchs or queens, known from accessible historical sources. A few letters of each of these being determined, the rest followed automatically, as in the solution of a cryptogram. When a sufficient body of phonetic characters had been determined, the application of the key thus obtained to*the body of the Rosetta inscription proved that the Egyptian language was the ancestor of the modern Coptic. This tongue therefore provided a clue, making it possible to identify the common words with their Greek equivalents, and to systematize the grammatical structure of the language. Thus were the founda- tions laid on which three generations of Egyptologists have built ever since. The study, however, grows in complexity as it ad- vances. The language is now known to have changed greatly during its long life: the ancient Pyramid texts are in a very differ- ent form of the language from the inscriptions of the later empire. The principle that the script represents the consonantal framework of the language only (adopted by the Berlin school of Erman, but first enunciated by Brugsch in 1 857), and that the characters once supposed to be vowels are not so primarily, has added serious difficulty to the grammatical study (see p. 341 $$.*)*
Readers of books on Egyptology are often perplexed by the variety of spellings adopted by different scholars in rendering Egyptian words, and especially proper names. To make them pro- nounceable at all, the vowels must be supplied; but in most cases there is little or no guidance to the correct vocalization. And even the nature of the nuances which distinguished the sounds of the so-called homophonous consonants is not always certain: thus, there are several kinds of d^ k and h sounds, as there are in the Semitic languages, but the nature of the differences between them cannot always be determined. There is thus an unavoidable differ- ence of opinion among scholars as to the true principles of trans- literation of words written in hieroglyphics : and whenever Hero- dotus or Manetho happens to give us a Grecized form, that form is often adopted for simplicity's sake.
It is regrettable that personal and international jealousies have done much to obscure the question of the man or men first respon-
120 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP
sible for this great addition to knowledge. Four names stand out prominently in the history of the pioneer researches : the renowned Oriental scholar, De Sacy; Akerblad, Swedish Minister at R5me; Thomas Young; and Jean Frangois Champollion. It was the de- motic text which first attracted attention in the Rosetta Stone, and a facsimile was prepared by the Society of Antiquaries of London for distribution among scholars. De Sacy and Akerblad first pub- lished dissertations upon it in 1802, and the latter succeeded in identifying correctly fourteen of its characters. Dr Thomas Young (1773—1829)3 one of those singular * Admirable Crichtons* who were more numerous in former generations than they are now,, in these days of specialization, published in 1814 a study of the de- motic characters with an alphabet embodying AkerbfexFs results* but without sufficient acknowledgment of his predecessor's ^rork; it is true, he seems to have arrived at his own results independ- ently, but he had certainly read Akerblad's essay before he pub- lished, his own. Later, in 1 8 1 8, he contributed an extensive article on Egypt to the Encyclopaedia Britanmcay embodying all his re- searches, with an explanation (on the whole very incorrect, it must be confessed) of about 200 hieroglyphs.
The true founder of scientific Egyptology, so far as the lan- guage is concerned, was undoubtedly Champollion (i79o~""I832)> who, again, worked on similar lines to the other investigators, and (as it would appear) with full knowledge of the progress of their researches. It is regrettable that, as Young absorbed the work of Akerblad, so he seems to have quietly appropriated the work of Young, without doing justice to his useful pioneer labours. He possessed, however, a thorough knowledge of Coptic, which his rivals lacked, and without which even in modern times a scientific study of the language is impossible; and thus equipped, he was able far to outdistance his competitors, and to win for himself a permanent fame which a little more generosity to his fellow- labourers would not have diminished.
(0 EXCAVATION
It is impossible to give any complete survey of the history cf Egyptian excavation. A few details only can be mentioned. We have already seen that Lepsius conducted some excavations at Memphis and elsewhere during his survey of the country. But the real founder of excavation work in Egypt was Augusta Marietta, the first director of the Cairo Museum. For the thirty years fol- lowing 1850 Mariette had the whole work of excavation in his own hands under an exclusive permit; and as all Egypt was virgin
Ill, u] CHAMPOLLION, MARIETTE AND FOLLOWERS 121
soil before him, it is not surprising that his name is associated with some of the most epoch-making discoveries that have been made in trie country. The Serapeum of Memphis (the cemetery of the sacred Apis bulls), the temple of the Sphinx at Gizeh, and the cemeteries of Sakkarah, are among the chief fruits of his labours, as well as the clearance of the great temples of Abydos, Medinet Habu, Der el-Bahri, and Edfu from the rubbish that centuries of Arab neglect had allowed to accumulate. At the same time in- numerable inscriptions, works of art, statues, and other minor ob- jects enriched the museums of Paris or of Cairo. After his death in 1880, while the Cairo Museum continued., very properly, to reserve the right to prevent unique or otherwise valuable objects from leaving the country, permission was extended to representa- tives*of other countries to increase knowledge by conducting ex- cavations on their own account. The reign of Maspero (afterwards Sir Gaston Maspero) in the Cairo Museum was brilliantly inau- gurated by the opening of the pyramid of Unas at Sakkarah, on the walls of whose chamber were found the priceless * Pyramid Texts,* documents of absolutely inestimable value for the philo- logical history of the Egyptian language, and for the study of the early development of Egyptian religious ideas.
In 1883 the English Egypt Exploration Fund (now the Egypt Exploration Society) was founded, and has since done steady work in several departments: excavation, surface exploration and sur- vey, including the publication of inscriptions; and Greco-Roman studies, more especially the decipherment and publication of the immense stores of papyri which certain sites have yielded. France, Germany, Switzerland and the United States of America followed suit in establishing and maintaining excavating expeditions. Every year produces a bewildering mass of new material. Among the more striking discoveries are the cache of Royal Mummies (Mas- pero and Loret, 1 88 1), the sites of Tanis and of Naucratis (Petrie, 1884—5% the Tell el-Amarna correspondence (1887), the site of Bubastis (Naville, 1887—9), Tell el-Amarna, and the numerous relics of the Heresy of Ikhnaton (Petrie, 1891), the Fayyum ex- cavations, which resulted in the identification of the Lake Moeris and of the Labyrinth of Herodotus, the Greco-Roman mummy portraits, and the first great collection of Greco-Roman papyri (Petrie, 1888), the treasures of the pyramids of Dahshur (De Morgan, 1 8 94), the tombs of the early dynastic kings at Abydos (Amelineau, 1895, continued in later years by Petrie and by Naville), the * Israel7 stele of Merneptah (Petrie, 1896), the *pre- dynastic ' race, first found at Nakadah (Petrie, 1896), the Tombs of
122, EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
the Kings near Thebes (various explorers and years — most re- markable, probably, being the rich tomb of the parents of Queen Tiy, and of the Queen herself, by T. Davis, 1 904-6), the tonlb of Osiris at Abydos (Naville, 1902, and following years), the Ara- maic papyri at Elephantine (i 905 and following years), the de- tailed study of the temple of Der el-Bahri, resulting in the dis- covery of the wonderful Hathor cow-figure and many other works of art (Naville, a work of many years). This may suffice to give some idea of the work that has been no less energetically pursued since the date at which this enumeration stops1.
IIL MESOPOTAMIA (*) SURFACE EXPLORATION
The testimonies of early travellers regarding the 'remains of Mesopotamia are for the greater part confined to the two biblical sites of Nineveh and Babylon — the former close to the town of Mosul, the latter not far from Baghdad. The tradition of the identification of these two sites was never quite lost, although some travellers express themselves as sceptical about them. From the point of view of archaeological discovery, however, the criticisms and observations of the seventeenth and eighteenth century pioneers are of historical interest only.
As in the case of Egypt, it was the nineteenth century which witnessed the real beginning of scientific work in Mesopotamia. In the important department of surface surveying the first name that calls for mention is that of C. J. Rich (1787— 1 820), Resident in Baghdad of the East India Company, who employed his leisure in visiting and surveying the gigantic mounds and fields of ruins which represent the ancient cities of Babylonia and Assyria. By his labours, accurate knowledge became available for the first time as to the real magnitude and outward appearance of the remains at such sites as Babylon, Arbela, Nineveh and others* During, and soon after, Rich's official residence at Baghdad, the best-known remains were visited by Buckingham (i 8 r 6), R» 1C Porter (i 8 1 8), Mignan (1837), 9* ^ Eraser (1834), and other travellers, all of whom added details of importance to the facts already recorded^ But a detailed survey of the whole region was still lacking : there was as yet nothing but the observations of single travellers upon individual sites.
This want was in part supplied by the survey, in 1835—7, of the courses ^of the Euphrates and Tigris, by a British expedition tinder the direction of General Chesney. The maps which embody
1 On the work of the Egyptian Research Account, the Egyptian Exploration Society, etc., see p. 625 (r).
Ill, in] EXPLORATION IN MESOPOTAMIA 123
the results of this work were the foundation for all later topo- graphicM investigation. Although the purpose of the Chesney ex- pedition was commercial and political rather than scientific, science profited in no small degree by the results of the work, and a great stimulus was given to further exploration. Of more immediate scientific value were the surveys of Assyria by JL F. Jones (1852), and the unfinished reconnaissance of Babylon under Selby, in the early sixties.
(<£) DECIPHERMENT
The decipherment of the cuneiform characters was a task of considerably greater difficulty than that of the Egyptian hiero- glyphs. In the latter study, the investigators had the assistance of inscriptions in a form of writing and language so thoroughly well- known as Greek; and when the Egyptian words themselves began to emerge from the hieroglyphic mystery which enshrouded them, their similarity to their Coptic progeny made the further task of interpretation comparatively smooth. In the case of the cuneiform characters, however, the decipherers had first to contend with the complexity and apparent want of individuality of the symbols themselves, and with their enormous number. Nor was there any available translation, in a known language, of any of the inscrip- tions to be analysed. True, the key was ultimately obtained, as in all such cases, by the use of bilingual inscriptions; but the 'trans- lation' had itself to be first made intelligible. Though the deci- pherers were not obliged (in current phrase) to interpret ignotum per ignofius, it is certainly true that they had to interpret ignotum far ignotum.
Already in 1765 Niebuhr had surveyed the imposing ruins of Persepolis, a site which had shared with Nineveh and Babylon the interest of the earlier travellers, but by reason of their magnitude rather than of their historical associations; and he had pointed out that the cuneiform characters, while possessing a superficial simi- larity in all inscriptions, were not always identical in detail. There were certain inscriptions which appeared to be in a simplified form <?f the script (Old Persian) : in these comparatively few characters — some forty — were employed, and the words were divided by a single oblique wedge. In others a more complex script, em- ploying many characters, was used (Susian or Elamite). A third form (Babylonian) was distinguished by a still greater elaboration of the groups of wedges which formed the individual characters, and by an even greater number of signs. In many cases these three forms were found side by side, and it was natural to suppose
124 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
that such groups were a threefold presentation of the same state- ment, like the three parallel legends on the Rosetta stoneC
The first successful attempt at deciphering any of the cilnei- form characters was made by G. F. Grotefend, who in 1 802 identi- fied three royal names in the simplified script. Being ignorant of Oriental languages, he was unable to make further progress; but he had succeeded in ascertaining the correct values of about one- third of the Old Persian letters. His dissertation, presented to the Gottingen Academy, was refused publication; not till 1893 was it unearthed and printed from Grotefend's MS, as a landmark in the history of cuneiform studies. It is noteworthy that the first steps towards the unriddling of the hieroglyphs of Egypt and the cuneiform characters of Mesopotamia were made*:*! the same year. Meanwhile at Naksh-i-Rustam. inscriptions in Greek aftd in the Pehlevi script of Persian afforded the clue, in the hands of De Sacy, to the latter character; and Anquetil-Duperron (stimulated by Thomas Hyde's History of Persian Religion, 1700)., succeeded by his studies of the Avesta in further advancing the knowledge of the Old Persian,, the language which ultimately proved to be of great value for the decipherment of the cuneiform. Even so early as 1823, Saint-Martin had shown that a vase, first published in 1762, with inscriptions in Egyptian and cuneiform, was a bi- lingual : the cuneiform being the Persian equivalent of the Egyp- tian, shown by ChampolHon to read 'Xerxes the Great King/
Grotefend is the Akerblad or the Young of cuneiform studies; their ChampolHon is Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson* This mili- tary officer, stationed in Persia on diplomatic duty, without any previous knowledge of Grotefend's work, succeeded independ- ently in finding his key; and as he possessed the knowledge which Grotefend lacked of ancient tongues, such as Zend (cognate with the Old Persian language of the cuneiform inscriptions), he was able to carry the solution of the problem to the end, The discovery of the key rests on what may not unfairly be called a happy guess. Near Hamadan Rawlinson discovered two short inscriptions, set forth in the trilingual form already observed at Persepolis. When the texts of the ' simplified * script, on which it was natural to begin the study, were set side by side, it was found that they were prac- tically identical, save in two places. In the twelfth line of inscrip- tion A there was a word, which we may denote by #, and corre- sponding to it in inscription B was a different word, y* In the nine- teenth line of inscription A a third word, z, was found, and in the corresponding place of B the word x reappeared. Rawlinson assumed that these three words were the names of kings; that the
Ill, in] DECIPHERMENT OF CUNEIFORM 125
Inscriptions were the proclamations of successive kings, who In the cotfrse of their inscriptions referred to themselves and to their fathers; and that therefore -the name of the king In the earlier of the two inscriptions would appear in the place assigned to the name of the king's father In the later. By trial this theory could be tested; all that was needed was to find, if possible,, three successive monarchs whose names would fit the alphabetic characters. This proved to be actually the case with Hystaspes, Darius, and Xerxes, in their Old Persian forms; and the identification of their names with the three words gave Rawlinson fourteen characters of the alphabet. With the knowledge of Zend which he possessed, the extension of the decipherment to cover the whole ground of the simplest fb#m of cuneiform, now proved to be Old Persian, was only a matter of time.
The two more complex forms still remained unknown, but the conquest of the Persian inscriptions provided the necessary key. On the borders of Media stands the great isolated rock of Behistun, rising sheer from the surrounding plain to a height of about 1700 feet. On a portion of the surface of this rock, chosen at a height of 300 feet — no doubt to guard against the wilful de- facement of later generations — and specially prepared for the pur- pose,, Darius Hystaspes had caused to be engraved, in the year 516 B.C., a long account of the glories of his reign, and of his triumphs over his many enemies, foreign and domestic. This in- scription, again, is trilingual, and being of considerable length it offers much valuable material to the decipherer; moreover, owing to the nature of its contents, it contains a large number of proper names, the first landmarks to be noted by those who would un- ravel an unknown script. With wonderful perseverance Rawlinsoti overcame the dangers and difficulties of climbing the rocks and of copying and making squeezes of the inscriptions, a work which he began in 1835—7, and continued at intervals, as his official duties gave him opportunity, till, in 1847, he was able to publish a com- plete translation, with full grammatical analysis, of the Persian text.
Rawlinson then proceeded to the third (the Babylonian) cunei- form script and with Immediate success. Other labourers were soon attracted into the field, chief among them being Edward Hincks, an Irish clergyman, to whom much of the credit of ex tending the conquest into the more difficult field of the associated scripts is due. Oppert, de Saulcy, and Talbot are also to be teamed among these pioneers. The discovery that Babylonian and Assyrian — for both began to emerge when the force of the characters was determined — were Semitic tongues, closely cognate with Hebrew,
126 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
to some extent lightened the labour. The decipherment was sub- mitted to a final test in 1857, when the Royal Asiatic "Society challenged students to prepare translations, without collaboration, for official comparison, of the long inscription on the newly-found cylinder of Tiglath-pileser I. Rawlinson, Hincks, Talbot, and Oppert all submitted renderings; and when these were unsealed and compared, the President of the Society was able to announce that the renderings were so close as to leave no doubt that the true key had been found, and that the new science, loosely named "Assyriology/ was thus established on a solid foundation.
The difficulties of the decipherment of the Semitic cuneiform inscriptions, as compared with the Persian, lie in the following facts : the characters are not alphabetic, but syllabic or ideographic; in consequence, as was first pointed out by Botta, words o£ft be written in different ways, using different syllabic combinations, or even ideograms alone; while even a small inflexion of a word may change its external aspect. Moreover, each character has not always one meaning alone, and each syllable is not necessarily represented by one sign alone. Very many of the characters have more than one sound attached to them, to be determined from the context; and there are many groups of different characters having some one phonetic significance in common. This difficulty was felt by the ancient scribes themselves; who, for their own guidance and for the help of their pupils, drew up elaborate sign-lists, which have proved of great service to modern interpreters. This ambiguity will explain the bewildering variety of form which historical and legendary names have assumed in the hands of different scholars — Ut(a)-Napishtim and Shamas-Napishtim; Ur-Bau and Ur~ Engur, and so forth.
It is not only such coincidences of reading as the test in 1857* that have given modern scholars their security in reading cunei- form script. Their assurance comes also from the conformity of the Babylonian and Assyrian languages — they are almost one — thus revealed, with the grammatical formulae of Semitic speech; from the Aramaic endorsements sometimes found upon contract- tablets, which give in a well-known script transliterations of namer recorded in the cuneiform documents; from certain late cuneiform renderings of Greek words; from fragments of the Aramaic trans- lation of the Behistun inscription found on Elephantine Island; and from the discovery at Boghaz Keui of the cuneiform (Baby- lonian) version of the treaty between Ramses II and the Hittites, of which the Egyptian version had long been known.
The second group of cuneiform characters is now known to
Ill, m] SEMITIC AND SUMERIAN I2?
represent a later form of the old language of Susa or Elam : It is of an agglutinative construction. The decipherment of this group is di??e largely to Westergaard and Norris (1844—52).
Meanwhile*, Hincks in 1850 recognized that the cuneiform used for the writing of the Semitic languages of Mesopotamia was not originally devised for the purpose, but had been borrowed from some other source which was variously called 'Scythian' (Hincks), * Akkadian' (Rawlinson) or 'Sumerian' (Oppert). This was the first seed of the great * Sumerian * controversy. For as in- vestigation advanced, another language made its appearance, of agglutinative form, a language which had been assiduously studied by the Babylonians, for tablets with vocabularies and interlinear translations -from this unknown tongue into Babylonian were dis- covered. It seemed impossible that the very ancient Babylonian civilization should have been preceded by another, altogether for- gotten, which had in fact taught its arts to the Babylonians : and some scholars accordingly sought refuge from such a conclusion by supposing that the parent culture was a purely artificial con- trivance of the Babylonian priests. This view is no longer held, but there is still some difference of opinion as to the priority of Sumerian or Semitic; and the uncertainty whether particular proper names are to be regarded as the one or the other accounts for some of the above-mentioned differences in transliteration* See further, pp. 357, 364 sy.y 371,
CO EXCAVATION
The story of formal excavation in Mesopotamia begins in 1842, with the exploration of the mounds now called Kuyunjik and Khorsabad respectively. Paul Botta was appointed French consu- lar agent at Mosul in that year, and his ambitions were aroused by the sight of the great mounds almost at his door. Dependent on his own personal resources, he at first attacked Kuyunjik, but with discouraging results; afterwards, acting on a hint given him by a friendly native, he turned his attention to Khorsabad, and almost immediately uncovered the great sculptures of the palace o£ Sargon*
Three years later (Sir) Henry Layard opened the mound of Nimrud (the biblical Calah), and in it discovered the palaces of Ashur-nasir-pal, Sargon, Shalmaneser, and other great Assyrian monarchs. He found the huge winged bulls, the graphic sculptures of Ashur-nasir-pal, the black obelisk of Shalmaneser, and other priceless treasures which now adorn the British Museum. In his second expedition (1849-1850) he found at Kuyunjik the palace-
128 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
sculptures of Sennacherib, and the first of those great and varied store-houses of vanished literature, the palace libraries? But to make a full list of Layard's numerous and varied discoveries,reven to enumerate the mounds which he examined, would here be im- possible. It is little wonder that popular enthusiasm was aroused, for the public mind was at the time being rendered uneasy by the advances of biblical criticism, and the enunciation of the doctrines of evolution, with all that they implied. The obvious bearing of these discoveries on the credibility of the Scriptural history did not fail to kindle an interest that mere art or archaeology could not hope to arouse.
While we must in fairness not forget that in the fifties of the last century the principles of scientific excavation— a new disci- pline— had not been established, we cannot withhold criticism from the methods of these early pioneers. It was a fatal mistake to wander from mound to mound, pitting here and there in search of sculptures and of piles of tablets. Not only were the architectural monuments disturbed, but the eyes of the local natives were opened to the value of loot so easily gathered. The expense of completely working out one single site would indeed be great, but the scien- tific results would exceed to an extent incalculable those of the same amount of scrappy work at a large number of sites.
Layard's work was continued, after his departure from the scene of his labours, by his former companion, a cultivated native of the country, Hormuzd Rassam. He, too, had the good fortune that proverbially attends the beginner: in 1853 he found at Kuyunjik the palace of Ashur-bani-pal, with its sculptures and its library; many years later (1878) lie discovered the famous bronze gates of Balawat, and in 1882 he finished his career with the identifica- tion and partial excavation of the site of Sippan
So far Assyria had been the centre of interest. In 185*4 Baby- lonia began to attract the attention of the digger, the work of Loftus on the site of Erech being the first extensive work of the kind in that country. He was followed by Layard, who excavated, but without conspicuous success, in Babel, Nippur, and one or two other sites. The great mounds of Babylonia were found to ofj^r no such immediate and startling results as those of the Assyrian palaces. The buildings were for the greater part in brick, and their interest was religious rather than artistic or domestic* This does not, of course, detract from their scientific importance; but it makes it less easy to interest those on whom the explorers have to count for financial aid. Nor did the early Babylonian excavations produce such great literary harvests as the libraries of Assyria*
Ill, in] THE DELUGE TABLET 129
Unable to linger over these early excavations we have to pass over witii a bare mention Taylor's digging at Abu Shahrein and his examination of the temple of the moon-god at Mukayyar (Ur) in 1 855,, and Rawlinson's investigation, about the same time, which finally settled the character of the tower-temple of Nebu- chadrezzar, called in modern times el-Birs, and popularly sup- posed to be the ruin of the Tower of Babel (p. 503).
The next great discovery was made in the British Museum. On the 3rd of December 1872, George Smith, a man of unusual natural gifts, who had at first been employed as an assistant in a quite subordinate capacity, read a paper before the newly-founded Society of Biblical Archaeology which began with these words — surely the boldest announcement ever made of an epoch-making find : 4 A short time back I discovered among the Assyrian tablets in the British Museum an account of the Flood/ This was the first of that wonderful series of Cosmogonic legends that Assyria has yielded to us, new examples of which still come to light from time to time, and which, joined with the progress of geology and of historical criticism, have revolutionized the current conceptions of the early chapters of Genesis. Enthusiasm was aroused to an extraordinary height, and the Daily Telegraph subsidized an ex- pedition to be conducted by Smith in search of more tablets. In this and in a later expedition, at the charges of the British Museum, Smith collected a great literary spoil from the already much-plundered mound of Kuyunjik. Unfortunately on his third expedition, in 1876, to make further excavations at Nineveh, he collapsed in health and died at Aleppo.
The centre of gravity of interest now once more shifted to Babylonia. The French consul at Basrah, De Sarzec, turned Ms attention to the mound of Telloh, afterwards identified with the Babylonian city of Shirpurla, or Lagash, as the name is now gener- ally read. His success was astonishing. The famous sculptures and other relics of Gudea and other early Sumerian kings revealed a style of art hitherto unknown, told us of the unimagined greatness of these ancient and forgotten monarchs, opened an unsuspected chapter in the world's history, and, among other results of scarcely less importance, showed us primitive forms of the writing which developed into the cuneiform script. The Germans now entered the arena, hitherto occupied exclusively by France and Britain; and Moritz and Koldewey by their work at the sites of Surghul and el-Hibbah still further enlarged our knowledge of the Sumer- ian empire: this expedition began it£ work in 1887. In the follow- ing year America joined in, and the expedition to Nippur, begin-
130 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
ning in 18885 and continued at intervals jfor many years, had rich results, the publication of which is still in progress.
De Sarzec died in 1901, and two years later the French ronce more attacked Telloh, greatly adding to the material already col- lected from that magnificent site. But during the present century the interest of these Babylonian sites has been to some extent eclipsed by the results of De Morgan's Persian mission, beginning with the first excavation at Susa in 1897-8, Such 'finds* as the great obelisk of Manishtusu, king of Kish, the 'Victory Stele* of Naram-Sin, with its most graphic and life-like reliefs, and above all the world-famous code of Hammurabi, one of the most striking archaeological discoveries ever made, have secured for the Susa expedition a place in the front rank of undertaking* of the kind from which it can never be dislodged. *
Of later work in Babylonia and Assyria we may mention the further British Museum excavations at Kuyunjik by L. W. King and R. Campbell Thompson (1903—5), and those of Koldewey at Babylon, carried on continuously until the outbreak of war in 1914. However in 1918 Thompson and Hall were able to resume excavation and among other discoveries at Abu Shahrein (Eridu) found indications of a presumably prehistoric occupation by some Elamite or related people. See further. Chap* x, pp* 373
IV. SYRIA AND PALESTINE
0) SURFACE EXPLORATION
The unique interest of Syria and Palestine has made the surface of this region familiar to the pilgrims of many generations. But here also, as in the other countries considered in this chapter, scientific exploration begins in the nineteenth century. Seetzen in 1801, and Burckhardt, who discovered the rock-city of Petra in 1809, as well as Buckingham in 1821, may be said to have been the pioneers; these men penetrated, in the face of great difficulties, into recesses of the land till then unvisited. Costigan in 1835 first attempted to navigate the waters of the Dead Sea and to explore its mysterious shores. But he fell a victim to the deadly fevers of Jericho^ as did Molyneux in 1847, his successor in the same enter- prise, and also, many years afterwards, Tyrwhitt Drake, an officer of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The first man who endeavoured to make a reconnaissance of the whole country was Edward Robin- son, an American Congregationalist minister, whose studies ex- tended over the years from 1838 to 1852, and whose book, Bib- lical Researches in Palestine^ notwithstanding the primary exegeti- cal interest which the title expresses, marks an era in Palestinian
Ill, iv] EXPLORATION IN PALESTINE 131
geography. Robinson was followed by Tobler (1845—1866) and Guerin (1852 and following years), whose rich topographical col- lectlolis paved the way for the Ordnance Survey conducted under the auspices of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The admirable cartographic work of Van der Velde (1851—2) must not be for- gotten; and while his maps were superseded only by the Palestine Exploration Fund's survey, the wonderful photographic survey carried out under military auspices during the recent war marks a very great advance in this department.
In Syria, which had been neglected in comparison with Pales- tine, and the thorough exploration of which Is still a geographical desideratum, good work was done in the middle of the nineteenth century by I>e Vogue and Waddington, by the former in studying the atfcient churches, and by both in collecting the Semitic and Greek inscriptions, which are so numeroiis in various parts of Syria, Valuable surveys were made in Phoenicia (1860) by Renan; and, in recent years, by an American expedition under H. C. Butler.
The Palestine Exploration Fund, the first public body to devote itself exclusively to work in this region, was founded in London In 1865. After some preliminary work of excavation in Jerusalem, it embarked in 1 8 70 on the Ordnance Survey above mentioned, under the direction of Conder and Tyrwhitt Drake. The latter was a young zoologist, but endowed with a marvellous capacity for acquiring languages. He had already accompanied the noted linguist, E. H. Palmer, in an adventurous march through the desert of the Tih, and seemed well fitted by his physical powers to take part in so laborious an enterprise as the survey. But he died shortly after the work began. His place was taken by a young lieutenant of engineers, afterwards to be famous as Lord Kitchener of Khartum. The maps, and the series of volumes accompanying them, containing name-lists, descriptions of fauna and flora, and brief — sometimes too brief — notices of the surface appearances of the various sites and mounds and fields of ruins scattered so richly over the country, are the basis of all later topographical work. It cannot be claimed that the work was as full as it might be, foT there are still plenty of gleanings left, even for an explorer who does not dig; and the knowledge since acquired on the subject of the chronology of pottery, as explained above (p. 1 14), reopens the question of many of the identifications of ancient sites proposed by the explorers. Still, these defects are mere sun-spots, and the work will always stand as a monument of industry and enthusiasm. Some later surveys, such as those of Schumacher and of Musil, in the land of Moab, may be noticed in passing*
1 32 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
(6) DECIPHERMENT
There is nothing to say in this section under the head $f de- cipherment, as all the inscriptions of Palestine and Syria are in known scripts and languages — though the interpretation of many of them offers no little difficulty. The Hittitc hieroglyphs are treated in a later section. Of the inscriptions in which the mys- terious Philistines may have recorded their sentiments, and which, when they appear, may be expected to offer problems analogous to those of the hieroglyphic and cuneiform mysteries, none has as yet rewarded any excavator,, and the * speech of Ashdod ' still re- mains unknown*
(0 EXCAVATION
The excavations which have been carried on in the Holy Land, like those in Mesopotamia, have all been partial. Lack of funds, and the limitations imposed by the Turkish Imperial Permits, which required the work to be completed in two or at most three years, have hitherto prevented the attainment of the ideal of carry- ing out an excavation to the very end* The sites dug have been as follows; isolated spots in and around Jerusalem (Warren, 1867— 70); Tell el-Hesy, the ancient Lachish (Petrie and afterwards Bliss, 1891-2); the Soxith Wall of Jerusalem (Bliss and Dickie, 1 894-7); Gath (?), Azekah (?), and Marissa (Bliss and R. A, S. Macalister, 1899—1900); Gezer (Macalister, 1901—8); Beth-Shemesh (D. Mackenzie and F. G, Newton, 1910—12), Megiddo (Schumacher, 1903— 4);Taanach(Sellin, 1902—3); Jericho (Sellin and Watzinger, 1909—10); Samaria (Lyon and Reissner, 1908—10). The above list down to Beth-Shemesh contains the sites dug for the Palestine Exploration Fund; Megiddo and Jericho were excavated under German auspices, Taanach under Austrian, and Samaria under American. Since the War excavation has been undertaken at other sites, such as Ashkclon (Garstang, 1920—2).
The results which have rewarded this activity have been very different from those obtained by Egyptian and Mesopotamian ex- plorers. It is not in human nature for a Palestine explorer to r#ad without a feeling of envy of the rich epigraphic and artistic harvest gathered by his brethren in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Moabite Stone, found almost at the beginning of scientific excavation (in 1868), is always before his eyes as a stimulus and encouragement; but so far that extraordinary monument stands alone, and many hundreds of tons of earth have to be removed before a find of really outstanding importance can be expected*
Ill, iv] PALESTINE, SYRIA AND ARABIA I33
The chief discoveries that have been made on Palestinian soil (including in the denomination Syria and the land across the Jordan) have not been numerous. In epigraphy, the stele of Mesha, commonly called the Moabite Stone, stands easily first as a monu- ment of unique importance. A long way behind comes the Siloam tunnel inscription, which tells us little of real historical value. This and the Gezer calendar, and the Samaria ostraca, are the only other specimens of pre-exilic Hebrew, apart from inscribed seals, etc., as yet discovered. These, while possessing some sociological and philological interest, are devoid of direct historical value. A few cuneiform inscriptions have come to light, e.g. in Lachish, a tablet belonging to the Tell el-Amarna series, two Gezer tablets of the period of the* Assyrian domination of Israel, and a few in Taanach. All trBe other important epigraphic discoveries in Palestine proper have been late inscriptions, a few in Hebrew (Jewish), but mostly in Greek, as for instance the minatory stele of Herod's Temple, discovered at Jerusalem by Clermont-Ganneau, and the taxation- tablet found in fragments at Beer-sheba. Across the Jordan, the most important monument, next to the Moabite stone, is the stele of Seti I, found at Tell esh-Shihab. This, perhaps, is the most con- venient place for referring to the Aramaean inscriptions of Zen- jirli, north of Aleppo, found in 1888—9, anc^ relating to a small North Semitic kingdom of which it was the centre; as well as the funerary inscriptions of the Phoenician kings, Tabnith and Esh- munazar, and the dedicatory inscriptions cut upon the foundations of the Temple of Eshmun at Sidon. Other excavations and dis- coveries in North Syria will be mentioned in their place.
Reference must also be made to the epigraphic discoveries that have been made in Arabia. This country lies outside the main stream of ancient history, and for this reason it would be superfluous to devote a special section of this chapter to the chequered history of its exploration, though it has an important place in the scenery of the background. Its climate, its difficulties of transit, its long stretches of barren lands, and the character of its population have made its topographical study a matter of no ordinary risk. The iit-fated expedition of Niebuhr (1761—4) began work which has been carried on through the nineteenth century by Burckhardt, Von Wrede, Burton, Wetzstein, Hal6vy, Hurgronje, Doughty, Huber, Glaser — to name but a few of the taost important. Passing over the many contributions to geography and the various branches of anthropology and natural history which these explorers have made, we confine ourselves to mentioning the many inscriptions that have been copied, or c squeezed, y often at very serious per-
134 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
sonal risk. These are for the greater part confined to the south of the peninsula., and fall into two series, an older, in the 'Minaean* dialect, and a later, the 'Sabaean' (see p. 188). They are ofc con- siderable historical and linguistic value, and throw much welcome light upon ancient Arabian religion. But some of those that are known still await publication, and those that have been published are not as yet fully elucidated. There are also, in northern Arabia, as well as in the Sinaitic peninsula, a large number of Nabataean inscriptions in an Aramaean dialect; although most of these are mere graffiti, several are grave-inscriptions and illustrate the re- ligious and social institutions.
The artistic harvest from Syria and Palestine has if anything been still less than the epigraphic. The art is all, without exception, exotic, Babylon, Egypt, Crete and Cyprus, all in turn influence the native craftsman, who never by any chance turned out any- thing original, except unintentionally. That the magnates of Sidon could appreciate good art — when they saw it — is shown by the great 'Alexander* sarcophagus, a consummate masterpiece of classical Greek art: but they had to go abroad for it. The excava- tions in the country towns, above enumerated, have shown that the average standard of living was not much, if at all, higher than that of the fellahin of modern times. How far the excavation of a metropolis, such as Jerusalem, would tell a different tale it is im- possible to say, as the modern buildings effectually seal up the underlying soil from the excavator's pick. But this region takes its place as a mart or a centre of exchange rather than as an original contributor.
Some of the discoveries that have been made in the region are of considerable importance from the point of view of religious and social conditions. Numerous figures of deities — of no artistic merit — come to light in every excavation. The High Place of Gezer and the terra-cotta altar of Taanach may be mentioned in this connexion as being of some importance for early Palestinian re- ligion. Though a description of Palestinian research has to be pitched in a lower key than an account of work in Egypt or in Mesopotamia, the resources of the region are by no means ex- hausted, and the light already thrown upon Palestinian life and thought affords some hint of the wealth of information that might be anticipated, were excavators able to dig their sites from end to end.
Ill, v] THE HITTITES 135
V, THE HITTITE EMPIRE
resuscitation of the long-forgotten Hittlte empire begins with the discovery by Jean Otter in 1736 of the famous relief at Ibriz in south Cappadocia. This was followed in 1812 by the discovery of one of the Hamath inscriptions by Burckhardt. Other finds of the same kind were made from time to time; but they were scattered, and no special notice was taken of them. The revival of interest begins with the rediscovery of the Hamath stone in 1 870, by J. A. Johnson, the American Consul-General in Syria, and the Rev* Dr Jessup, a Beirut Missionary: several others were found at the same time. In 1872 Richard Burton, in his Unexplored Syriay published tile first available transcript of the Hamath inscription, whicii, though not an exact copy, was enough to show that the writing was a hitherto unknown hieroglyphic script. In the same year Dr W. Wright, an Irish missionary at Damascus, with the co-operation of the Turkish governor, procured the transmission of the Hamath stones to the Constantinople Museum, and sent home to London two sets of plaster casts; and the British Museum also secured a number of inscriptions from Jerabls, the ancient Car- chemish. Wright seems to have been the first to suggest that in these writings we were to see monuments of the people known in the Bible as Hittites — a people sufficiently great to command the respect and fear of the Egyptians, and who also occupy a promi- nent position in the contemporary cuneiform records. This sugges- tion is now generally accepted. In 1884 Wright collected every- thing till then known of the Hittites in his book, The Empire of the HittiteSy with valuable facsimiles of all the inscriptions that had come to light, and with a first attempt at decipherment by Pro- fessor Sayce, to whose persistence and ingenuity Hittite studies have been greatly indebted.
Since Wright's publication a considerable amount of material has accumulated, especially as the result of two important excava- tions — that of Winckler at Boghaz Keui, and that of the British Museum at Carchemish by Hogarth, Campbell Thompson, Law- p^nce and Woolley. The civilization called * Hittite' extended over north Syria and the greater part of Asia Minor; almost everywhere in that great area are to be found sculptures, at least as bold and as lifelike as the reliefs of the Assyrian palaces, and inscriptions. In spite of heroic attempts, however, the hieroglyphs of the Hittites have not yet been deciphered. The numerous cuneiform inscrip- tions which Boghaz Keui has yielded have thrown much light upon this people; on these see Vol. u, Chap. xi»
136 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
VI. THE AEGEAN CIVILIZATION
Of all the discoveries In archaeology that the nineteenth cerftury has witnessed, perhaps the most extraordinary is that of the great Bronze Age Empire which centred in the Island of Crete.
The foundations of this discovery were laid by Heinrich Schlie- mann, whose romantic story has been told by himself, with a char- acteristic naivete^ in his book Ilios. He relates how he raised him- self from the poverty of his youthful surroundings to wealth, with the single purpose before him of carrying out an ambition, formed in childhood, to excavate Troy. The first sod was turned at Hissar- lik, the site of this city, in April, 1870, when the explorer was In his forty-eighth year. This was merely in the nature orf a prelimi- nary trial; it immediately became clear that the work would ifeces- sarlly be so extensive that authority from the Porte to prosecute the research would be imperative. The permit was not granted till the autumn of 1871, after which, in the face of many difficulties, partly climatic, partly imposed by Turkish officialdom, S chile- mann continued at work until the following year* In 1872 he un- earthed the great treasure of gold and silver, which In his first publication he named 'the Treasure of Priam/ This name is an indication of the spirit in which Schliemann worked. He had a child-like faith in the Homeric poems. He was in search of the heroes of the Iliad\ and his work as a whole, it must be frankly admitted, cannot be altogether exempted from the strictures which, as we saw earlier in this chapter, an idee fixe of such a kind almost inevitably incurs. We can however pardon Schlieinann, for in the seventies of the last century excavation had not become a science; indeed, he was one of the pioneers whose labours established it as such. We now know that he was wholly wrong in his Identification of the Homeric Troy, which he supposed to be the second of the series of nine superposed cities buried In the mound of HIssarllk, It was, In fact, the sixth, which belonged to the time to which the Trojan war is assigned, as was proved afterwards by the excava- tions of Dr Dorpfeld (1892). Thus Schliemann, by a too eager , haste, actually destroyed part of what he was in search of, sine* to reach the second city he had to cut through all the superposed layers. This, however, he could not have been expected to know: such knowledge has been attained gradually, by the patient study of many stratified sites, and by a minute investigation of the mor- phological evolution of pottery and other classes of antiquities capable of seriation.
The treasure of Priam, * though a great discovery, was of
Ill, vi] THE WORK OF SCHLIEMANN 137
mixed advantage for the excavator. The removal of so much bullion from Turkish soil aroused the indignation of the Ottoman Govern- merit, involved Schliemann in a tedious and expensive law-suit, and made it a difficult matter for him ever again to obtain per- mission to excavate within Ottoman dominions. He accordingly- turned his attention to Mycenae, where, in 1876 (after a brief return,, under a new permit, to Troy) he discovered the marvellous treasures of the shaft-graves, which have enriched the Athens Museum with the most wonderful collection of ancient gold ob- jects in the world.
A short visit to Ithaca followed, where an excavation revealed the remains of an ancient settlement. In 1878 work was once more resumed at«Troy, continuing at intervals till 1883, when Schlie- manit finally left the site. In the latter years his labours there were shared, greatly to their advantage, by specialists in anthropology like Virchow, in archaeology and architecture like Dorpfeld, and in literary scholarship like Burnouf. The * finds/ with the excep- tion of the proportion handed over to the Ottoman empire, were presented to the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.
The fine beehive tomb, popularly called the ' Treasury of Min- yas/ at Orchomenus occupied Schliemann's attention in 1880, the Mound of Marathon early in 1884; later in the same year he uncovered the foundation of the great palace of Tiryns, from many points of view one of the most important of his discoveries. In the later years of his life he resumed, with the collaboration of Dorp- feld, patient work at Troy, He had just found the sixth or Homeric city, when at the end of 1 890 he died suddenly at Naples. The results of Schliemann's work were far different, atzd far greater, than those which he had anticipated when he turned the first sod at Hissarlik. He went, as we have said, in search of the heroes of Homer; and indeed he believed, not without reason, that he had found them, when he broke into the shaft-graves at Mycenae, with their amazing wealth of golden treasure. But what he really found, though he himself never fully realized it, was a mighty Empire, that had passed altogether into legend. Even the Hittites still lived in the contemporary records of Egypt and Mesopotamia; but all that remained of the empire of the Aegean were the fairy-tales — as they seemed to be — of Minos and the Labyrinth, the Minotaur, Daedalus, Theseus, and Ariadne, ._,
These excavations revealed the existence of an art previously unknown, totally different from the Greek art of classical times. It became immediately a problem of momentous importance to determine the origin and the affinities of this new art. Much of it
138 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
was obviously conventionalized, and therefore derived from some as yet undiscovered naturalistic art: where, then, was thfe proto- type to be sought? Various answers to this question — mo«t of them best forgotten — were put forward: the least unreasonable theory was that the art was Egyptian in origin, and had been carried by Phoenician mariners to the islands and shores of the Aegean. Schliemann himself looked towards Crete.
The credit of pointing the way to the true solution,, and after- wards of practically demonstrating its correctness, belongs to Sir Arthur Evans. His attention was directed to Crete by the exami- nation of a series of remarkable seals which came Into his hands., bearing upon them figures in which he recognized a previously unknown form of picture-writing. In 1896, in a Presidential ad- dress to the Anthropological Section of the British Association, in session at Liverpool, he put forward the Cretan hypothesis, ending his address with these words, in reference to the struggle for political independence at the time in progress: 'To Crete the earliest Greek tradition looks back as the home of divinely-inspired legislation and the first centre of maritime dominion. Inhabited since the days of the first Greek settlement by the same race, speaking the same language, and moved by the same independent impulses, Crete stands forth again to-day as the champion of the European spirit against the yoke of Asia/
Nearly in the centre of the north side of Crete is the site of the palace of Cnossus. Some desultory digging in 1878 had shown that it contained antiquities, Schliemann in 1887 endeavoured in vain to obtain permission to excavate the site, a task which it was the good fortune of Sir Arthur Evans to accomplish. The results of this investigation have completely revolutionized our know- ledge of the ancient history of the Near East, We now know that roughly between 2250 and 1200 B.C. the island of Crete was the centre of a maritime empire, which extended its influence, in politics and in culture, over the Aegean islands and mainland shore, and which, though not using iron — a metal the working of which was not as yet introduced into Europe — practised a natural- istic art of the highest merit, and enjoyed a civilization in many respects more 'modern* in its comforts than any other of the ancient world. The Palace of Cnossus, with its innumerable cham- bers and passages, and with its frescoes of bulls, is the tangible historic basis of the tales of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur, We have been admitted to the throne-room of king Minos, and we may even sit upon his royal seat. We can turn over the tablets upon which his stewards recorded the household accounts and in-
Ill, vi] PERIODS OF CRETAN CULTURE 139
ventories, though, as yet we may not pry Into their secrets. And in the beautiful painted ware that graced his halls we may at last see the long-sought origin of the art with which in its later, con- ventionalized, form, Schliemann at Mycenae had startled the world of scholars of his generation.
The archaeological yield of the Palace of Cnossus was brilliantly supplemented by that at other palaces excavated at the same time — Phaestus and Hagia Triada by the Italian expedition under Halbherr, Pernier, Savignoni and Paribeni, and in E. Crete by Miss Harriet Boyd (Mrs Hawes) and by Seager. From the results of this work the chronology of the c Minoan? periods, as Sir Arthur Evans has named them, has been determined. The great chrono- logical importance of pottery was nowhere so fully demonstrated: the Scale constructed by Evans and his lieutenant, Dr Duncan Mackenzie, has proved a guide to the dating of the results of all research in the pre-classical antiquities of the Eastern Mediter- ranean.
Other excavations may be passed over with a bare mention, space not permitting more, though they cannot be left wholly without notice. Such are Palaikastro in Crete, a city with im- portant tombs, excavated by the British School at Athens; in the Cyclades, the scene of Tsountas* patient and fruitful researches, Phylakopi in Melos (the centre of the obsidian trade), excavated by the British School at Athens; and the French and German excavations of Thera. On the mainland of Greece, besides the excavations of Schliemann, already mentioned, we may refer to Tsountas' long campaigns at Mycenae and brilliant success at Vaphio; Dorpfeld's opening of cupola tombs at Kakovatos in Triphylia (Elis), identified with the Pylos of Nestor; the tombs of Spata and Aphidna in Attica; the excavations of Keramopoulos on the site of Thebes ; and of Soteriadis around Chaeronea, which have considerably extended our knowledge of ancient pottery. The French excavations of Delphi have revealed pre-classical remains; • and those of Tsountas, especially at Dimini and at Sesklo, and of Wace and Thompson in Thessaly, have advanced our knowledge *»f the early civilization of that region.
The nine periods into which the history of Bronze-Age civiliza- tion in Crete and the area under its influence have been divided, chiefly through the evidence of pottery, are as follows: their char- acteristics are here stated as briefly as possible.
Early Minoan /(immediately overlying the thick neolithic layer under the site of Cnossus, and continuous with it). Black lucchero ware, of similar appearance to the neolithic pottery, but differing
140 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
in the technique of the ornamentation. In the neolithic pottery this consists of geometrical devices, 'encrusted,' i.e. inciSed and filled in with gypsum : in the Early Minoan pottery it is applied in colour, either light-tinted on a black ground, or mce versa. Similar pottery found in Egyptian first-dynasty tombs.
Early Minoan II (Ossuary at Hagia Triada, Vasiliki pottery, Hagios Onuphrios). Pottery similar to preceding, but showing a higher class of workmanship. Beginning of spiral and other cur- vilinear decoration. Copper triangular daggers. Rude idol figures. Conical seals of marble, ivory, and soft stones. Appearance of vases with long spouts (Schnabelkanneri).
Early Minoan III (Hagios Onuphrlos, later deposits at Hagia Triada, Geometrical Pottery of Gournia, Cyclades, Bkissarlik city II, Phylakopi city I). Schnabelkannen with shortened spouts; inore elaborate decoration of pottery; beginning of polychrome decora- tion. Recrudescence of neolithic incised and dotted decoration. Cycladic types of 'fiddle-shaped' idol-figures (*Amorgos* type). Spiral decoration developed. Beginning of writing (pictographs on seals). This period terminates with Egyptian Dynasty XL
Middle Minoan /(beginning of greatness of Cnossus). A notable advance in civilization and art. Polychrome decoration of pottery; geometrical patterns continued and developed, but first appear- ance of naturalistic forms (animal figures painted on ware). Elabor- ate ruffed figures of PetsofL Seals with hieroglyphic figures.
Middle Minoan II (first palace of Cnossus destroyed at the end of this period. Palace of Phaestus). Kamares pottery with poly- chrome decoration of the highest merit. Seals with hieroglyphic signs. Contemporary with Egyptian Dynasty XI L
Middle Minoan ///(later palace of Cnossus). Pottery decoration decadent: naturalistic forms now reach their highest point. Great palace frescoes. Beginning of the linear script. Daggers, which have been hitherto the chief metal weapon, begin to develop into swords. Contemporary with Egyptian Dynasties XIII — XVTL
Late Minoan /(Acropolis of Mycenae, Palace of Hagia Triada), Pottery similar to preceding period, except for the technical differ- ence that whereas the artists of the former period preferred lightly" coloured designs of a dark ground, those of thp latter period re- verse the effect* Linear writing freely used during this period* Art still naturalistic.
Late Minoan II (great vases of the t Palace' style: end of Cnossus), Conventionalization in art grows; architectonic decora- tion in pottery noticeable (devices arranged, as it were. In friezes divided into groups suggestive of the alternation of metopes and
Ill, vi] PERIODS OF THESSALIAN CULTURE 141
triglyphs). The 'Stirrup-vases' (Bugelkannetf) which began to ap- pear at'Hagia Triada in the preceding period are in use, though still *rare. Linear script; many tablets. Contemporary with Egyp- tian Dynasty XVIIL
Late Minoan III (period of general diffusion of style formerly called 'Mycenean'), Art stereotyped into conventional forms, in themselves pleasing, but poor when set beside the prototypes from which they have degenerated. Stirrup-vases common and char- acteristic. Fine and long swords^ and excellent works of art in gold and ivory.
During the time of the Minoan civilization In the Aegean area, Thessaly offered a barrier between this region and central Europe. The neolitkic culture long persisted in Thessaly; the Early and Midltile Minoan art of Crete and the Cyclades made no impression there, even though the existence of trade with the latter islands is suggested by numerous implements of obsidian. It is not till we reach the Late Minoan or Mycenaean stage that Thessaly yields to Aegean influences.
The First Thessalian period5 the chronology of which in relation to the Minoan periods is not yet certainly established, is neolithic. Tools are found in polished stone5 flint and obsidian, as well as rude idol-figures : the latter are of a type wholly different from those of the Cyclades. The pottery of this period is well made: it is either red monochrome, with thin walls, or else is covered with a white slip bearing designs in red or reddish brown (geometrical and conventionalized floral patterns).
The Second period is likewise neolithic, and on the whole re- sembles the first, differing only in detaiL The idol-figures are per- haps less gross in type. The pottery shows a foreign influence of some not certainly determined origin (the Dimini ware): it is gracefully decorated with spirals or straight lines.
The Third period, in which metal (copper) first begins to be used, shows otherwise a decadence. The pottery becomes coarse, and the painted decoration disappears. There are remarkable idol- figures in this period, consisting of a marble head with a spike, *which is intended to fit into a crudely modelled clay body*
The Fourth period is the beginning of the Age of Bronze in Thessaly. The pottery is crude, grey or black monochrome.
After this there follows directly the art of Late Minoan III, which thus gives a minor limit of date for the earlier periods.
The recent work of Wace and Blegen, founded upon a number of excavations in the Peloponnesus and elsewhere, has done much to establish a similar series of evolutionary periods on the main-
142 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP.
land of Greece, To these have been given the names Early, Middle and Late Helladic. The character of their pottery, and t&eir ap- proximate synchronism with the Minoan periods, are as follows :
Early Helladic I (= Early Minoan I, II). Bowls of hand-made monochrome ware, black, red, or buff, sometimes decorated with incised patterns; jugs and other vessels, hand-made, with red, buff or grey slip.
Early Helladic II (= Early Minoan II, III). Vases wholly or partly covered with a glaze paint. These last in use till the time of Middle Minoan I.
Early Helladic III (= Early Minoan III, Middle Minoan I). Vases with a zone of geometrical or basket-work decoration sur- rounding the body; the surface may otherwise be left plain, or else covered with a light glaze paint, the decoration in such a€'case being in dark lines. A variant shows a light coloured decoration on a dark glaze background.
Middle Helladic (= Middle Minoan II, III). A wheel-made, metallic-looking ware, of the type commonly called Minyan^ first found by Schliemann at Orchomenus. In the earlier phases of this period this ware is of a grey colour, but later it is yellowish-buff. Another new type is introduced in the Middle Helladic, namely jugs and other vessels with linear devices in matt colours — at first hand-made3 afterwards wheel-made. This type of pottery gradu- ally improves in technique as time goes on, three stages of develop- ment being recognized, The first of these belongs to the first phase of the Middle Helladic, the second and third to later phases. The period of the shaft-graves at Mycenae begins at the end of the Middle Helladic.
Late Helladic or "Mycenaean (= Late Minoan I? II, III). This period includes the whole of the great history of Argolis and Boeotia, from the shaft-tombs at Mycenae down to the time of the general diffusion over the Aegean area of the Mycenaean types of pottery. See also below. Chap, iv, pp. 174 sqq.\ and Chap, xvu,
VIL CYPRUS
In conclusion we may give some particulars as to the antiquities of this important island.
Excavations have been comparatively few, and some of them have been lamentably unscientific. Indeed, it has not been without very considerable difficulty that any order has been evolved from the chaos into which the archaeological history of Cyprus has been thrown by native and foreign tomb-plunderers. On the other hand,
Ill, vn] HELLADIC AND CYPRIOTE CULTURE 143
there have been excavations of a high order of importance, such as those*of Hagia Parasceve, an important cemetery of the copper and •bronze ages (Ohnefalsch-Richter); Kalopsida and Laksa (Myres); and Curium, Enkorni, and Amathis (Murray, for the British Museum).
Cyprus was famous from very early times for the copper-mines which have given the island its name. It maintained in consequence commercial relations with Mesopotamia,, Syria, Crete and Egypt. Letters from Cyprus figure in the Tell el-Amarna correspondence (if the identification with Alashia be accepted), and numerous ob- jects of foreign origin have been found in Cypriote graves. The island is, in fact, a sort of clearing-house of ancient culture, and its deposits fchus present associations of objects of the highest value for chronological purposes.
The neolithic stage of civilization is not well represented, Very few implements of polished stone have been found on the island. It gives place to the Copper Age at about 3000 B.C. This lasts till, roughly, 2200 B.C., as Babylonian cylinders, found in the tombs of the period, inform us : these cylinders are witnesses to trade, not, as was formerly supposed, to a Babylonian domination. The Bronze Age in the island may be divided into two periods, dated in round numbers 2200—1550, and 1550—11-00 B.C. respectively. The Copper Age, and the two bronze periods, correspond each in its turn to the Early, Middle and Late Minoan periods of the Cretan area, though It is not till the last-named epoch that we find much evidence of communication between Cyprus and the centres of the Aegean culture.
The metal-work of the bronze periods shows no small degree of skill on the part of the craftsman. True, it is clumsy in comparison with the finest work of the Cretan artists, but it Is often decorated with no little skill and taste. The pottery of the Copper Age Is covered with a brilliantly-burnished slip, decorated with geo- metrical patterns Incised or in relief — not painted. Especially characteristic of all periods of Cypriote culture are globular jugs with long cylindrical necks, sometimes set crookedly. In the bronze periods a light-coloured slip is used, sometimes5 Indeed, of a milk- white colour, with geometrical patterns in dark sepia, usually frets and ladder-like patterns. This type of ware (hemispherical bows and jugs) has a wide range of Influence, having been freely ex- ported to Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere. At Enkomi were found rich deposits of ornament In gold and ivory, as well as fine ex- amples of coloured ware, of Late Minoan types.
Especially noteworthy in connexion with Cyprus is its posses-
144 EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION [CHAP. Ill, vn
sion of a system of writing. This is a syllabary, each character de- noting a vowel, or else a consonant followed by a vowel. We owe Its first decipherment to the insight of George Smith, the? dis- coverer of the Deluge Tablet (p. 129). Many of the inscriptions are in Greek; but it is quite obvious that the syllabary cannot have been originally designed for rendering Greek words. To these it Is a very bad misfit; they have indeed, to be distorted almost out of recognition to be expressed in the Cypriote syllabary at all For example,, an inscription discovered at Tamassus begins with the words rov dv$pidvTav rwSe (?) eSa/cei/, which appear as to-na-ti-ri-a-ta-ne-to-te ( T)-e-to-ke-ne. There are other inscriptions written in this character the language of which is unknown, and presumably it is to this latter tongue that the script properly be- longs. The origin of the Cypriote syllabary is as yet nothing«4nore than a matter of speculation ; it is natural to connect it with the Cretan linear writing on the one hand, or with the Hittite hiero- glyphs on the other — and indeed, efforts have been made to deter- mine phonetic values for certain of the Hittite characters on the basis of the undeniable similarity which they present to Cypriote signs. But such theories must for the present be regarded as tenta- tive and uncertain.
Even a moderately complete history of the archaeological researches, that have been carried out during the past hundred years in the regions with which we have been dealing, would more than fill this entire volume. There is indeed, we might almost say, an element of grotesqueness in an endeavour to compress the story into some thirty pages. Only the barest out- lines, with a slight emphasis on the more important details, can be attempted in a space so restricted. Moreover, even the fullest history must necessarily be incomplete. Knowledge grows from day to day, even from hour to hour. As we write, researches are being carried out In more centres than one which might revolu- tionize knowledge of the ancient history of the Near East, and give the historians of the future surprises as unexpected as those that have been their lot in the present age.
CHAPTER IV CHRONOLOGY
the Bible three eras gained currency at an early date, namely, those of the first Olympiad (776 B.C.), the foundation of Rome (753 B.C.), and the establishment of the Se- leucid power in Syria and Mesopotamia (312 B.C.). The last of these long continued in use, even by the side of the Mohammedan era (622 A.D.), and survived among the Jews until about the fifteenth century. By means of these and other less familiar eras it became possible to synchronize 'biblical* and * profane* history; and the earliest efforts to form a single scheme of universal history may be said to begin in the third century A.D,, when Julius Afri- canus, in the first Christian history of the world, combined biblical and other data in one comprehensive scheme. He reckoned 5500 years from the Creation of the world to the birth of Christ, and in the person of Peleg (Gen. x, 25) found a partition of the world (see p. 1 85 jy.). He was followed by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, who succeeded in subordinating all his eras and dates to an era of Abraham (corresponding to 2017 B.C.). The work of the 'Father of Church History* thus gives him an honourable place among those who have sought, and with increasing success, to construct an absolute chronology of history.
The necessity of some method of reckoning time was naturally felt from an early age. On the other hand, the interest in preserving and arranging records of the past has not been so widespread. Only after a long development did the desire to record the dates of business dealings and of political and other occurrences give rise to a variety of devices which were gradually made more consistent and trustworthy. Only at a relatively late date were there efforts to synchronize different systems, and, finally, to attempt to sub- ordinate them to national or to universal history. But, unfortun- ately, the most important of the more detailed of the accessible sources seems to have been already imperfect and inconsistent; and when, for example, Eusebius endeavoured to arrange his biblical and other material, in order to exhibit a comparative table of past kings and events, he was obliged to submit the numbers contained in the Bible to a candid criticism, the necessity of which has also been recognized by every succeeding historian.
C.A.H- 1 *Q
14.6 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
In more modern times the vast and increasing accumulation of ancient historical and archaeological material lias solved some serious problems, but has brought many new ones. The tas^ of writing the history of the past has been rendered difficult, partly by the obscurity or ambiguity even of old and often more or less contemporary evidence, partly by the greater strictness of modern historical methods, and partly, also, by the fact that long before the time of Eusebius scribes and historians had frequently employed a sort of criticism of their own and have left us results which we are unable to control. Consequently, the modern historian often cannot do more than balance the probabilities; and conflicting conclusions are unavoidable, on account of the difficulty of decid- ing between conflicting sources, each apparently valid, and of determining the meaning or worth of historical references or-allu- sions. Further, from time to time new discoveries are made which force some revision of historical and chronological conclusions.
From Eusebius to Ussher — whose chronological scheme found its way into the margin of the Old Testament and thus gained widespread currency in the English-speaking world — and from Ussher to the present day, solid progress has been made in deter- mining an absolute chronology. Still, as regards the Ancient East, finality is far from attained, and in every department there are characteristic fundamental problems which have to be considered by themselves and in relation to the other departments. The chronology of Syria and Palestine is bound up with that of the Old Testament and of the surrounding Empires. The Old Testa- ment is the most ancient of continuous historical writings, and in the past its chronology has invariably been of the first importance for universal history. But it is relatively young compared with the records of Egypt and Mesopotamia; and its chronology can be fixed only through that of Mesopotamia which is also essential for fixing the chronology of Egypt. With the chronology of Egypt is connected, to a certain extent, that of prehistoric Greece; and the evidence of both Egypt and prehistoric Greece is indispensable for dating the archaeological development of Syria and Palestine. All the chronological problems are therefore interrelated to #> greater or less degree, and it will be convenient to summarize them separately, beginning with those of Mesopotamia,
IV, i] BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA 147
I. MESOPOTAMIA
Mesopotamia (Babylonia and Assyria) and Egypt together laid the foundations of our modern systems of reckoning time and of computing the intervals between events. If, in some respects, the Egyptians were more accurate, the men of Mesopotamia paid more attention to chronology, and to them are due the division into years, months and weeks (the designation of the seven days of the week after certain deities is later), the subdivision of the day into twelve double hours, and the sexagesimal system. Their astronomical, or rather their astrological, observations go back to a very remote date, and, as the year was a lunar one, it was neces- sary to introduce from time to time intercalary months so that it migRt correspond to the solar year (p. 461)* A letter of the famous king Hammurabi (c, 2100 B.C.) of the First Babylonian Dynasty to a governor at Larsa informs him that * the year has a deficiency,* and that the current month was, accordingly, to be registered as the Second EluL Mention is also made in this period of a Second Nisan and a Second Adar.
Later, in the period of the Assyrian Empire, the astronomers sent numerous reports to the king, who officially regulated the calendar and gave instructions for the insertion of the necessary intercalary month. Watch was kept for the appearance of the new moon; and in Palestine, even as late as the Christian era, the be- ginning of the month was fixed by personal observation on the part of appointed officials. No doubt the Mesopotamian kings were advised by the temple astrologers and other officials, who would foretell the duration of the month and the next new moon; and since contracts and other business tablets were commonly dated and preserved in the local temple, some locally authoritative calculation of time would arise in connexion with the temples.
At first each year was named after some more or less noteworthy event. The practice is natural in itself; and modern examples have been found, for example, among the Dacotas, where the events are at first often of ritual interest. On the Mesopotamian tablets the year-names refer to the building of a temple, the performance of some religious ceremony, the capture of a city, and so forth; the predominance of ritual events clearly betrays the influence of the temple. The system had many inconveniences. Sometimes the year was called *the year after' the name of the preceding, or it was named from an event as yet unfinished or nearing completion. Two or more years might be named after the same event, or different localities would give each its own name to the same year,
I0 — a
148 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
so that one year might have several names. Among the Sumerians Ur-Engur (c« twenty-fifth century) fixed a single system of reckon- ing in place of the various local systems; but the local scribes would often add the name of their priest-king (jpates?) to the authoritative year-name, and this jealous regard for local rights finds a much later parallel in the many local city eras of the Greek and Roman ages.
The ceremonial naming of the year probably took place at the beginning of the year at the New Year's Feast on the First of Nisan. It was then that the gods were believed to meet to decide the fate — in other words, the history — of the coming year, and the Babylonian king grasped the hands of the temple gods as a sign of his divine appointment. When the name was fixed, presumably after consultation with the temple officials, it was sent round* the country, usually being abbreviated in the process. The first two years of Hammurabi are called: 'the year in which H. became king' and 'the year in which H., the king, established the heart of the land in righteousness.' His thirty-first year was *the year in which H., the king, after that he with the assistance of Anu and Enlil, marching at the head of his troops, the land of Yamut- bal and its king Rim-Sin had brought under his power/ By associ- ating the name of each year with the reigning king a certain degree of method was introduced; and about the same period we find that the capture of Isin was used as an era (p. 486). But it was not until the Kassite period (c* 1746), that the simple plan of dating by the years of the reigning king was definitely adopted, although it had been in use before the time of Sargon (pp. 390, 419). Here the first year begins with the First of Nisan after the king's accession, and the preceding year, the year in which his predecessor died, is the year in which A died or B entered his father's house.
Among the Assyrians the limmu lists form the starting-point of positive chronology. They enumerate the various officials who gave their names each to his year of office; and they sometimes also add brief references to events of political and other import- ance. The year of each official is the limmu (or limu\ the *epony- mate/ and events are in the limmu of so-and-so. The practice re^ calls the Greek method of dating events by the local archons of Athens, the Spartan ephors, or the Argive priestesses of Hera. But there is this interesting peculiarity, that the names of the Assyrian officials begin with that of the king and are in rota from the higher officials to the lower, followed by governors of the old cities, and with the later addition of cities and provinces subse- quently acquired. Each in turn names the year, the king leading,
IV, i] THE LIMMU LISTS 149
until with the accession of a new king there is a fresh beginning, althoifgh sometimes the rota is continued irrespective of the break. Tine institution of the Kmmu is found even in the old Assyrian tablets from Cappadocia (p. 455)., and the practice of designating the year after sacerdotal and other officials was known earlier in Shuruppak and Lagash (pp. 378, 384 sg.\ The Assyrian method looks like a compromise between rival class and local interests; it shows the significance once attached to the honour of naming the year, and seems to point to a republican rather than a monarchical or sacerdotal origin.
In order to fix events dated by the limmu^ lists of the eponyms are needed; and in fact the Canon or Eponym lists have proved as valuable a& the catalogues of the Greek archons or the Consular Fasti of the Romans. Those as yet found extend — apart from fragments — from 893 to 666, that is, from the reign of the As- Syrian king Adad-nirari II (911—890) to that of Ashurbanipal (669—625). Among the events mentioned is one in the ninth year of Ashur-dan, in the eponymate of Bur-sagale of the city of Gozan ; ca revolt in the city of Ashur; in the month of Sivan an eclipse of the sun took place/ It is now agreed that the latter observation Is to be identified with the total solar eclipse of 15 June, 763, visible at Nineveh, and from this it Is easy to determine all the dates in the Assyrian Canon and to co-ordinate both dates and events with what is known from other tablets of Assyrian history and from the relations with Babylonia and other countries. In addition to this, the lower part of these lists can be co-ordinated with 'Ptolemy's Canon of Kings/ that is, the list of Babylonian, Persian, Greek and Roman kings with the length of their reigns, and a record of eclipses, compiled by the Egyptian, Claudius Ptolemaeus, In the second century A.D. This list can be independently verified and shown to date from Nabonassar (747), to whose age later astro- logical theory ascribed the beginning of a new period. Ptolemy's dates are reckoned after the Egyptian year; and, as the first year of a king is calculated in the Babylonian style, short reigns which did not extend to the First of Nisan are ignored. Although the royal names are rather deformed, it is possible to connect Ptolemy's Canon with the Assyrian lists, and in this manner all the dates can be fixed as far back as the beginning of Adad-nirari's reign. ,
The foundations of Mesopotamlan chronology having thus been laid, It remains to determine further details from the numerous contract tablets, historical Inscriptions, chronicles, and the like. Among the records of Babylonia and Assyria the most valuable have been the synchronous chronicles, one of which deals with
150 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
the Interrelations between the two countries, from the middle of the sixteenth to the end of the ninth century. Lists of kings and dynasties were compiled by scribes at various periods, and of these one of the most important comprises a list of the Babylonian kings down to the seventh century B.C. The most remarkable of ancient lists is as early as the twenty-second century B.C. (see below, pp. 152, 365), and the persistence of elaborate lists is proved by the * Canons' preserved by later classical writers, the best-known being that which claims to be due in the first instance to the Babylonian priest Berosus.
Even in the earliest lists mistakes could easily arise, e.g. the alternative names for the same year could be counted as separate years; indeed, on closer inspection we often find discrepancies, misunderstandings and exaggerations. In addition to the acfcual contents of inscribed tablets, useful hints can also be obtained from a study of their palaeography, terminology and material. Attention is also to be paid to the strata in which they are dis- covered and their relation to other strata; and in this way the archaeological evidence may be used, sometimes to suggest a date for otherwise undated events, or to supplement, check, or revise dates obtained by other means. Striking examples of the inde- pendent value of the archaeological argument are afforded in the case of the date of Sargon I in Babylonia, and of the duration of the Hyksos invasion in Egypt (pp. 156, 169, 233)*
Of the lists preserved by classical writers, most importance is commonly attached to that of Berosus, a priest of the god Bel at Babylon, who dedicated to his patron Antiochus I Soter (280— 261), an elaborate work upon Babylonian or Chaldean history in three parts. Of this fragments alone remain, quoted at second- hand by Josephus, Eusebius and others. These include lists of
(I) ten antediluvian kings from Alorus to the hero of the Deluge, reigning, in all, 120 sars, i.e. 432,000 years (a sar is 3600 years);
(II) the kings from the Flood onwards; and (III) a narrative of events from Nabonassar to Alexander the Great. In the second part six dynasties or divisions are specified: (a) 86 kings, total 34,080 years; (ff) 8 Median usurpers, 224 years (according to*- another reading 34); (c) n kings of unknown length (according to a marginal reading 48 years); (/) 49 Chaldeans, 458 years; (e) 9 Arabians, 245* years; and (/) 45 kings, 526 years.
As the lists of Berosus are presumably based upon earlier material, it is necessary to consider their value and ascertain, if possible, what underlies his remarkable scheme. It is well known that curious theories arose in the Greek and later ages concerning
IV, ij THE TESTIMONY OF BEROSUS 151
vast world-periods or world-cycles, and one of these in particular populated the notion of a cycle 0^36,525 years, that is, 25 times the Sothic period of 1461 (1460) years (see p. 168). On the other hand, it is now generally supposed that, as Berosus reckoned by sars of 3600 years in the first part, he probably arranged the second in a cycle of 10 sars, i.e. 363000 years. Consequently, if we deduct the exaggerated figures in (a), the remainder, it is presumed, may be accepted as the figures for those kings whom we may re- gard as historical. From 36,000, if we deduct 34,080 (the figure quoted by Syncellus) or 34,091 (assuming that 33,091, as cited by Eusebius, is a slip) there are 1920 or 1909 years from the mythical age of (a) to the unknown terminus of the chronological system. No*w, according to Abydenus (cited by Eusebius) the 'Chaldeans' reckoned their kings from Alorus (the first of the ten antediluvian kings of Berosus) to Alexander (i.e. 331—323 B.C.), hence if we reckon back from 322 we obtain 2242 or 2232 as the date for the commencement of the historical period* If, however, in view of the patronage Berosus enjoyed, the date should perhaps be fixed at the beginning of the Seleucid Era (312 B.C.), the beginning will be merely ten years later.
In any event it is quite uncertain whether the notice in Berosus of the '8* Median usurpers* with their 224 years (margin 34) is really to be regarded as a reference to the First Babylonian Dynasty of 1 1 kings and some 300 years, or whether the starting-point is the sixth and most important king, Hammurabi. Presumably, by * Media* we are to understand the people of the land later held by the Medes. But unfortunately the old classical writers contain so many discrepant and confused statements and figures that little reliance can be placed upon their unsupported testimony* Thus, as regards the end of the sixth division Eusebius states, after Alexander Polyhistor, that there followed a king of the Chaldeans named 'Phulus/ Phulus is the Pul of the Old Testament, Tiglath- pileser III. But Polyhistor, after mentioning the nine Arabian kings (viz. e, above), proceeds to say that Semiramis reigned over the Assyrians, and he then ( minutely enumerates' the names of •4.5 kings with their 526 years, after whom came Phulus. Now Semiramis (the Sammuramat of history) is the famous Assyrian , queen of classical legend. She has a prominent position in the traditional lists of Assyrian kings extending from the legendary Ninus, the founder of Nineveh, to the equally notorious Sardan- apalus, who is placed at the age of a Median invasion or, other- wise, in the time of Nebuchadrezzar (c. 600 B.C.). To this Assyrian empire is attributed a duration varying from 520 years (Herodotus
152 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
I, 96) to ten or even fourteen centuries. It looks, therefore, as though the scheme of Berosus has introduced the Assyrian empire together with the Babylonian., and that his list contains dynasties that were really contemporary.
On these and other grounds the testimony of Berosus is of dubious value, although we need not deny that he embodies some ancient computations. Thus, his account of antediluvian kings, although of no historical importance, is of considerable interest, partly because of the points of contact that have been found be- tween it and the biblical tradition, and partly also because it goes back to very early Sumerian lists, where to 134 kings from the Deluge to the eleventh king of the dynasty of Isin is ascribed a total of 28,876 years, and there is a certain general resemblance between these lists and that of Berosus. Accordingly, while Bdrosus presents what is essentially a Babylonian tradition of the sequence of mythical and other rulers, the old Sumerian lists represent a much earlier and Sumerian tradition peculiar to Kish, Ur and other cities, before the age of Babylonian supremacy (see p. 365).
So far as the leading chronological problems are concerned, the whole course of Mesopotamian history can be roughly divided into the three pre-Christian millennia: (i) the Sumerian and Semitic periods prior to the First Babylonian dynasty; (2) this dynasty, the Kassite dynasty, and the growth of Assyria under Tiglath-pileser I; and (3) the supremacy of Assyria and Its fall, the Neo-Babylonian empire, and Its overthrow by the Persians. The dates for the last period can be approximately fixed through the /zmmu-Iists* For the next earlier period the 'Amarna Age' is central, namely, the age of the fourteenth century illumined by the cuneiform tablets found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, which are to be supplemented by those found at Boghaz Keui, the capital of the Hittite empire of Asia Minor.
Sennacherib asserts in his second Babylonian campaign that he recovered certain deities which Mardufc-nadin-akhe had carried off In the time of Tiglath-plleser, king of Assyria, 418 years pre- viously. As his conquest of Babylon can be dated at 689, Tiglath- pileser was evidently reigning In 1107; and as It Is known tha^r this defeat was not In the first five years of his reign> his first year must be not later than 1 1 12. At the same time, a boundary-stone of the Babylonian king mentions a certain victory in the tenth year of his reign, so that his first year may perhaps be dated 1 117—6, Tiglath-pileser I was one of the greatest of the kings of the early Assyrian empire, and consequently the dates thus obtained are important. Moreover, he himself mentions that at the beginning
IV, i] ASSYRIAN DATA: THE AMARNA AGE 153
of his reign he restored a temple at Ashur which his grandfather,, Ashur-dan (who 'attained to grey hairs and a ripe old age*), had pull«d down sixty years previously. This allows us to fix the date of that king, who is elsewhere described as contemporary with the Babylonian Zamama-shum-iddin, who began to reign four years before the close of the Third or Kassite Dynasty. On the other hand, in an undated statement, Nabonidus (Nabu-naid, 555—539) asserts that he dug down to the foundations of the temple in Sippar built 800 years previously by Shagarakti-Shuriash, son of Kutur-Enlil. This king may be identified with Shagarakti-Shuri- ash, son of Kutur-Enlil who, according to the lists, began to reign 92 years before the close of the Third Dynasty and ruled for 13 years. Accordingly he must have flourished about 1339 (539 + 8 oo), and the close of the Dynasty must then be dated about the first half of the thirteenth century, or about a century earlier than the date now generally accepted. But since the number given by Na- bonidus is clearly a round one it need not be taken too literally.
Again, when Sennacherib conquered Babylon he recovered the seal of Tukulti-Ninurta, son of Shalmaneser of Assyria, 600 years after its capture. It is doubtful whether this occurred in the first or the second campaign of Sennacherib (702 or 689); and the figure is again a round one. But we may safely place Tukulti- Ninurta shortly after 1300. This king was the grandson of Adad- nirari, and the conqueror of Kashtiliash III of Babylon; and his genealogy is recorded back to Ashur-uballit, whose daughter married Burna-Buriash of Babylon, a contemporary of the Egyptian Amenhotep IV (Ikhnaton) who can be independently dated at 1380. These are not, indeed, final dates; there are discrepancies and inconsistencies, but the broad outlines are clear.
The Third or Kassite Dynasty, to which the late Babylonian Royal List ascribes 36 kings reigning 576 years, 9 months, can be provisionally dated about 1746—1169. There are unfortun- ately great gaps in the middle; and while the lower end can be associated with the history of the ' Amarna' and later ages, the upper portion is more obscure. To the First (Babylonian) and Second dynasties are ascribed by the old lists 1 1 kings each and totals of 304 and 368 years respectively, and on the assumption that all three dynasties were consecutive it was supposed that the First began c. 2440 B.C. But it has since been discovered that the Second Dynasty (that of the Sea-Lands, or Lower Babylonia) was partly contemporary with the First and the Third, and conse- quently the dates must be considerably reduced.
Now, the Babylonian Nebuchadrezzar I, who was a contem-
154 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
porary of the father of Tiglath-pileser I, and therefore flourished about the latter half of the twelfth century, was separated," accord- ing to a boundary stone of the period, by 696 years from*Gul- kishan, who is known as the sixth king of the Second Dynasty. But since the stone refers to events in the fourth year of his imme- diate successor, Enlil-nadin-apli, we have a round seven centuries between the latter and Gulkishar, and the figure 696 at once loses its semblance of precision. At all events, if Gulkishar (who reigned 55 years) may be placed about the middle of the nineteenth cen- tury, the beginning of the dynasty — the five preceding kings are assigned a total of 193 years — will evidently be a couple of cen- turies earlier. The first of these, Iluma-ilu, waged war with Ham- murabi's son (Samsu-iluna) and grandson (Abi-eshu); and the famous Hammurabi himself, according to Nabonidus, flourfshed seven centuries before Burna-Buriash, who, as we have seen, was a contemporary of Amenhotep IV (V. 1 380). The great Babylonian king, whose name probably reappears in Amraphel, one of the kings said to have been defeated by Abraham (Gen. xiv), can therefore be dated about 2100 B.C. The coincidence is interesting, but perhaps may only be due to common reliance upon the same chronological scheme. However, the same date has been reached through a series of tablets of astrological omens derived from ob- servations of the planet Venus, and containing a precise reference to the eighth year of Ammi-zaduga, whose reign can be dated on independent astronomical grounds at 1977. As the lists place him 103 years after Hammurabi's reign of 43 years,, we can thus ob- tain for the latter the date, 2123—2081.
On the other hand, quite another indication Is afforded by Shalmaneser I, who, as the father of Tukulti-Ninurta, flourished soon after 1300 B.C. He refers to the building of a temple in Ashur by Ushpia; which was rebuilt by Erishu, and 159 years later again rebuilt by Sharnshi-Adad, and finally after 580 years burned down in his own reign. But Esarhaddon, who lived some BIX cen- turies later, gives the figures as 126 and 434. If we accept the former, Erishu may be dated about 2040, and if his father Ilu- shuma may be identified with the contemporary of Sumu-abu, thf founder of the First Dynasty, the lists reckon 1 02 years from his accession to that of Hammurabi. If, on the other hand, we accept the latter, the beginning of the Dynasty would be in the first half of the twentieth century. In either event the date of Hammurabi is brought considerably below that previously mentioned, and the difference between the figures of Shalmaneser and those of Esar- haddon is a disconcerting example of the difficulties of Mesopo-
IV, i] HAMMURABI AND SARGON i55
tamian chronology. For the sake of completeness it may be added that Shamshi-Adad, who, according to Esarhaddon, was the son of BeKkabi, is also the name of a contemporary of Hammurabi; and if 159 (or 126) years sever him from Erishu, the latter's father is severed by 102 years from Hammurabi. But another of the same name, son of Ishme-Dagan, is mentioned by Tiglath- pileser as restoring the temple of Ami and Adad in Ashur, 641 years before it was pulled down by Ashur-dan (named above), and must therefore have lived c. 1820 (perhaps 1840—1821). A third of the name should, however, probably be presumed, an experi- ence by no means uncommon in dealing with little-known kings of Mesopotamia (see pp. 490, 568 ^.).
Finally, n« unambiguous indication is afforded by the state- ment fif Ashurbanipal (c. 650) that he recovered an image which the Elamite Kutur-nakhkhunte had carried off 1635 years earlier (c. 2280), as it is uncertain whether the events he refers to occurred during the Elamite campaigns in the First Babylonian Dynasty or earlier (see p. 471).
Consequently the dates of the early Babylonian dynasties can- not be fixed with the precision desired; and although the discovery that the first three dynasties are not to be reckoned consecutively has narrowed the extent of the divergence in modern computa- tions, the chronological schemes that have been proposed vary according to their reliance upon the trustworthiness of the refer- ences already mentioned, and of the figures in the Royal Lists and other summaries.
As for the earliest period the dates depend primarily upon the history and chronology of the dynasties in question. It is true that the dynasties of Ur and I sin have been dated on the basis of a reference to the capture of Isin by Rim-sin of Larsa in the seven- teenth year of Sin-muballit, the father of Hammurabi. On this view the two dynasties of five and eleven kings, reigning 117 and 225 years respectively, then came to an end, and their commence- ment would be about three-and-a-half centuries before the age of Hammurabi. The evidence, however, is inconclusive, and what- ever other points of contact can be found, there always remains the solitary chronological notice for which Nabonidus is once more the authority. He declares that he saw the foundation inscription of the temple of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon of Agade, which no one had seen for 3200 years. As he lived c* $£$—539, at a stroke we are taken back to the thirty-eighth century B.C., far removed from all tangible and consecutive history. On the other hand, we should note that (i) in an old chronicle the section concerning
156 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
Dungi, the second king of the dynasty of Ur (c. twenty-fifth cen- tury) follows immediately after that concerning Naram-Sin, More- over (2)5 for palaeographical reasons, the age of Sargon and Maram- Sin can hardly be severed by any great interval from the other early dynasties. Finally (3), at Nippur the pavement of Ur-Engur, the first king of the dynasty of Ur, rested immediately upon the brickwork of Naram-Sin (cf. also pp» 390, 419 sq^ 426). On these and other grounds, it has been found impossible to accept the extra- ordinary figures of Nabonidus, and we should perhaps assume a simple clerical mistake and reduce his figure to 2200. Against the view that Naram-Sin fought Menes of Egypt, and that Sargon's age can be dated by Egyptian chronology, see pp, 171 j^., 303 n.
The chronological framework of Mesopotamiandiistory there- fore rests primarily upon a combination of fixed dates (the? limmu lists), early computations, synchronisms and lists, and on the inter- pretation of the relevant historical and other notices and allusions. For further details reference must be made to the discussions in the following chapters, and the tables at the end of the volume. Below are given some of the chief dates — most of them only ap- proximate— of leading authorities, viz;. Jastrow (J), L, W, King (K), Langdon (L), Eduard Meyer (M) and R, Campbell Thomp- son (T).
Sargon of Agade . . 2872 (L), 2650 (K), 2500 (J, M).
Dynasties of Ur and Ism 2474— (L), 2400—2100 (K), 2304-1963 (M),
2300—1980 (J).
First Dynasty of Babylon 2225—1926 (K, T), 2060—1761 (J, M).
Hammurabi . . 2123— 208 r (K., T), 1958— 1916 (J5 M),
Second Dynasty (the Sea- 2085—1718 (Ungnad), 1910— (M)> i goo- Country) 17200*), 2070—1703 (T),
Third (Kassite) Dynasty 1 760-1 185 (K)> 1 746-1 1 69 (T).
Gulkishar . 1877-1823 (J, T).
1276-1257 Tf). 1 146-1 123 (T), c. 1 140 (K). c. ii25(J), 1 1 15-1103 (T). c. iuo(K).
745-7^7 CD- 604-561 (K).
555-539
Shalmaneser I Nebuchadrezzar I Tiglath-PIleser I Marduk-nadin-akhe Tiglath-Pileser III Nebuchadrezzar II Nabunaid (Nabonidus)
IL THE OLD TESTAMENT
Although ordinary ideas of the history of the ancient East have commonly been based upon the Old Testament, the latter has no true era and its dates are a matter of careful computation. It cer- tainly contains very precise chronological schemes, but these are
IV, n] THE OLD TESTAMENT 157
distinct from, and often inconsistent with, the narratives embedded in them.*Thus, in the book of Genesis, the elaborate chronological scheme that runs through the book will often represent the patri- archs as being of an age very different from what we should expect from the popular stories* In point of fact the Israelites entered history after the best days of Egypt and Babylonia, and, like the Arabs of the days of Islam, they were in several respects relatively simple. For example, they maintained the practice of reckoning periods and historical vicissitudes in terms of genealogies and generations, similar to the early pedigrees of the Greeks. But the duration of a generation is obviously variable, and the genealogical lists are wont to suffer from interpolation or abbreviation, whether accidental 01* intentional.
OrPthe other hand, we certainly find events dated by reference to other events, e.g. to the Exodus (Ex. xvi, i), the capture of Ashdod (Is. xx, i), and the Exile (Ezek. xxxiii, 2 1). The prophecy of Amos is dated two years before what was evidently an earth- quake of unusual severity; and as a rule the prophecies are dated more or less fully by the year or reign of a king (even of Babylonia) or kings. In the Books of Kings events of importance for the temple are dated after the reigning king, and it is possible that some sys- tematic record was kept in the temple-archives. This is suggested also by the character of the more elaborate chronological schemes; and, while there is reason, as we shall see, to assume that there was some knowledge of Mesopotamian chronology, the statement (Num. xiii, 22) that Hebron was built seven years before Zoan (Tanis) in Egypt testifies to some synchronism — not necessarily trustworthy — of Egyptian and Palestinian affairs. This associa- tion recalls the zeal of the rival historiographers of the Ptolemaic and subsequent periods who vehemently and rather maliciously expatiated upon early relations between Jews and Egyptians at the time of the Hyksos kings and the Exodus.
Now, although Tanis itself dates from before the eleventh dynasty of Egypt, it was rebuilt by Ramses II (thirteenth century); and if there were some tradition of the founding of Hebron in the same period, the old belief, recorded by Josephus, that Tyre, too, was founded one year before the fall of Troy (and therefore about 1 200 B.C.), or 240 years before the building of Solomon's temple (and therefore c. 1 1 80), may point to some common chronological tradition of the importance of the age in question. Tyre itself was in truth a much older city, but the interest of the old chrono- logical data lies often, not in their face-value, but in their testimony to early schemes or theories of history. This is especially true as
158 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP
regards the biblical chronology from the Creation of Man to the Deluge and thence to the time of Abraham. Here the attempts to fit the numbers into some reasonable scheme have always* been hindered by internal discrepancies in the numbers, and by the numerous variations between the Hebrew (or Massoretic) text, the Samaritan recension of the Pentateuch, and the Greek ver- sions. Even in 1738 Des Vignolles knew of about 200 different attempts to compute the earliest period : the date of the Creation ranging from 6984 to 3483 B»C. And while the Jews reckon it at 3760 the Greek Church has accepted 5509. Archbishop Ussher's calculation (4004 B.C.) in some way found a place in the reference editions of the Authorized Version, and his system (published 1 650— 4) and that of Dr William Hales (1809—1 8 174)5 have fre- quently been quoted and often regarded as final, Ussher did not strictly follow the Old Testament, according to which the dates for the Creation and the Deluge would be 4157 and 2501 respec- tively, whereas his figures are 4004 and 2348 (Hales 5411 and 3155). He allowed 4000 years between the Creation and the birth of Christ in harmony with the belief that the world would last 6000 years, namely, 2000 before the Law, 2000 tinder it, and 2000 years under the Messiah, In thus subordinating the num- bers to a definite and, in this case, a Christian conception of world- history, he merely followed in the footsteps of earlier speculations (Babylonian, Persian, etc*), a clear trace of one of which can prob- ably be found iti the biblical figures themselves (p. 165),
As we descend, the chronological notices become less untrust- worthy and Ussher's date for the accession of David (1056 B.C.) is probably only about fifty years too early, while that for the fall of Jerusalem (588 B.C.) is almost exact. The period of the Hebrew monarchies is in -fact the starting-point of an absolute chronology, thanks to the Assyrian !immu-\iBt§> which have already been de- scribed. But although a few dates of biblical history can thereby be definitely fixed, much still remains uncertain owing to the nature of the biblical evidence itself.
In the history of the divided monarchies of Judah and Ephraim (or Israel) the length of the reign of each king is given, and hh accession is dated by the regnal year of the rival dynasty. The period from the schism, when Rehoboam and Jeroboam presum- ably began to reign contemporaneously, to the fall of the northern kingdom in the sixth year of Hezekiah of Judah, is divided into two by the contemporary accession of Athaliah, queen of Judah, and Jehu of Israel. In the first subdivision, however, the syn- chronistic schemes reckon 8 8 years, whereas the reigns of the
IV, u] THE KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH 159
kings total 95 and 98 for Judah and Israel respectively. (The Septuagilit, by adding three years to the reign of Abijam of Judah, equalizes the numbers, I Kings xv, 2.) Now, the first year of a king could be that after the year in which his predecessor died (the Babylonian method); or it might be that year itself (the Egyp- tian method), in which case it could be counted twice over (as the last year of the dead king and the first of his successor). This double reckoning is seen in the case of Nadab and Blah, who are assigned each two years, although the synchronism shows that the reign of each began and ended in one year (i Kings xv jy.). Traces of the simpler reckoning are preserved, however, both in the Hebrew text and in an important recension of the Septuagint (Luciati's); acid if we allow for the double reckoning the years of both monarchies during the first subdivision amount to 89. This is so far satisfactory. In the second subdivision, on the other hand, there are irreconcilable discrepancies : 1 70 years are reckoned by the synchronisms, but the reigns amount to 165 and 143 for Judah and Israel respectively, and when allowance is made for double reckoning, the figures are 158 and 135.
There is reason to believe that the synchronisms are of second- ary origin and a later insertion in the history; and, in fact, for the time of Jehoshaphat and Ahab there are traces in the Septuagint of another system (i Kings xvi, 29; xxii, 51; 2 Kings i, 17). In addition to this, not only are the totals of the reigns sometimes open to suspicion on various historical grounds, but it would also seem that the kings of Judah and of Israel were supposed to reign 480 and 240 years respectively, and that each of these grand totals was artificially subdivided into three equal portions. Thus, the Aramean wars of Israel continued 80 years and form the second of three periods of 80 years each; and the second subdivision of the Judaean period comprises the 1 60 years from the temple re- form of Joash to the death of Hezekiah. Moreover, while Solomon is said to have begun to build the temple in the 48oth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt, it has been computed that 480 years from the lower date would carry us to the end of the Exile. This calculation is on the assumption that the Exile lasted only 50 years, the true number being quite uncertain. Further, it is at least a coincidence that the total 480 represents roughly 12 gener- ations, of 40 years each, that twelve generations of priests can be calculated from the Exodus to the days of Solomon's temple (i Chron. vi), and that there are eleven high-priests of the temple to Jehozadak, who was carried into Exile.
The earliest absolute date is furnished by the Assyrian record
160 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
of the defeat by Sfaalmaneser at Karkar of a confederation includ- ing Ahabbu Sir'lai, who Is presumably the Israelite Ah^b, son of OmrL This can be dated at 854 B.C. Twelve years later ShpJman- eser records the payment of tribute by Yaua, son (sic) of Omri, who is evidently the Jehu who overthrew the dynasty of Ahab. But it is only with difficulty that the biblical account of Ahab's successors, Ahaziah and Jehoram, and of the relations with the Arameans, can be made to fit Into the twelve years. Still, it may be assumed that the Assyrian year is to be reckoned, as usual, from the spring, and the Hebrew, In accordance with the earlier usage, from the autumn, and that Ahab died during the year 855 (autumn) — 854 (autumn).
These dates 854 and 842 are commonly accepted*. Calculating back, and allowing for double reckoning, the accession of^Reho- boam and Jeroboam is inferred to be 932, that of Solomon 970, and that of David c. 1010. The results obtained approximately agree with external Phoenician and Egyptian sources. For Ahab married the daughter of Ethbaal of Sidon, in whose reign Men- ander of Epliesus records a one-year famine which Josephus iden- tifies with that at the beginning of Ahab's reign; and the Phoeni- cian lists allow the dates 878—866 for the reign of Ithobal (Eth- baal) and 969—936 for that of Hiram, Solomon's contemporary. As for Egypt, only one synchronism can safely be found, namely, Shishak, who was contemporary with the close of Solomon's reign, the rise of Jeroboam and the reign of Rehoboam (p. 173). 'Zerah the Ethiopian/ defeated by Asa (2 Chron. xiv), has been identified with Shlshak's successor Osorkon; but, although the Chronicler may have wished to make this synchronism, the narrative itself does not seem to have referred originally to an Egyptian invasion, but to one from Arabia.
After 842 the next definite date is furnished by the mention of Meni^im (Menahem), of Samerinaa (Samaria), among those who paid tribute to Assyria In the eighth year of Tiglath-pileser III, i.e. 738. The 104 years that Intervene agree tolerably with 112, the total of the regnal years of the seven kings of Israel from Jehu to Menahem inclusive. Serious difficulties now arise. Menahe*n was succeeded by Pekahiah (2 years), Pekah (20 years), and Hoshea, in whose ninth year Samaria fell (2 Kings xvii, 6; xviii, 10). But Tiglath-pileser relates (in 733) that he himself placed Hoshea on the throne, Samaria was besieged by Shalmaneser in 724—722, and the fall of the city was claimed by Sargon in 722. Here there Is obviously no room for Pekah's long reign, and the relationship between him and Pekahiah (to whom Lucian's recen-
IV, H] THE ASSYRIAN FIXED DATES 161
slon ascribes 10 years) is far from clear. Various proposals have been m£de, and it is at least certain that the fall of the northern kingdom was quicker than it is represented to have been in the chronological scheme of the biblical writer, according to which the last third of Israel's 80 years consisted of 40 years of glory under Jeroboam II, and 40 years of decline.
Nor are the difficulties less when we turn to Judah. The fall of Samaria was in the sixth year of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii, 10), According to the biblical figures this was 165 years after the ac- cession of Athaliah in 842, i.e. at the impossibly late date of 667; but as they also reckon 139 years to the fall of the Judaean kingdom in 587, we arrive at the date 727 or 720 (according as we adopt the longer or shorter computation). The date 720 is preferred on independent grounds; since, if, as we are told, Hezekiah became king in the third year of Hoshea at the age of 25, and his father Ahaz died at the age of 3 6 after a reign of 1 6 years (2 Kings xvi, 2; xviii, i), Ahaz would be about 10 years of age when his son was born! Moreover, Ahaz is mentioned among the tributaries of Tiglath-pileser III in 72 8, and, according to Is* xiv, 28, he died in the year when Philistia was threatened, a reference, as is held5 to Sargon's expedition of 720. On the other hand, a still later date has been suggested, since Sennacherib's invasion of Judah in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii, 1 3) can be definitely dated in 701, and this gives us 715 as the year of his accession. On the assumption that the story of the sign given to Hezekiah (2 Kings xx) had its basis in some eclipse, astronomical calculations have dated this in 679 (which is clearly too late), or in 710 (14 March 71 i—io), the year when Sargon took Ashdod. Moreover, the embassy of Merodach-baladan (2 Kings xx, 12), now associated with Hezekiah's sign and the promised defence of Jerusalem (v* 6\ can be dated on Independent grounds either during the former's short lease of power in 702, or, preferably, during his earlier reign (72 1—7 1 o), when he was at length driven out by Sargon. In addition to this, further difficulty is occasioned by the possibility of a second invasion of Palestine by Sennacherib after 701, and by the date «,nd identification of 'Tirhakah, King of Ethiopia/
In consequence of these difficulties the history of this important period cannot be finally dated, nor is it possible to recover with any confidence the chronological schemes of the early writers. As another instance of the internal intricacies, it may be observed that a period of enmity between Judah and Israel culminated in the defeat of Amaziah and the partial destruction of Jerusalem by Jehoash of Israel. Forthwith Judah and Israel flourished under
C.A.H.I I*
1 62 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
the long rule of Azariah (Uzziah) and Jeroboam II respectively, and the latter's reign of 4 1 years ended in the thirty-eighth year of the former. But according to another notice, while Jeroboam began to reign at once, Amaziah * lived' (not * reigned') 15 years (xiv, 17, 23), and, according to a third, there is a gap of 12 years, and it is not until the twenty-seventh year of Jeroboam that the great Judaean king came to the throne (xv, i).
For the close of the Judaean monarchy the starting-point is the defeat of Necho of Egypt by Nebuchadrezzar II, at the battle of Carchemish* According to the biblical evidence, this was in the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, 'king of Babylon/ and in the fourth year of Jehoiakim of Judah (Jer. xlvi, 2; cf. xxv, i). On the other hand, we learn from Berosus that his father Nabopolassar was still reigning, but died shortly after the victory. Thus thers is a discrepancy as regards the true date of the first year of Nebuchad- rezzar* Now, after Jehoiakim's reign of 1 1 years, Jehoiachin was carried off after a brief three months, and accordingly this is called the eighth year of Nebuchadrezzar (2 Kings xxiv, 8, 12), Jeru- salem was again besieged from the ninth to the eleventh years of Zedekiah, and was captured in Nebuchadrezzar's nineteenth year (xxv, i, 2, 8), On the other hand, another statement, not in the Septuagintj, specifies two captivities in the king's seventh and eighteenth years, and a third, otherwise unknown, five years later (Jer, Hi, 28 sqqC). Finally, while to Nebuchadrezzar is ascribed, by Berosus, a reign of 43 years, his successor Evil-Nferodach (Amil- Marduk) at once liberated Jehoiachin, who had been in captivity a few days short of 38 years (2 Kings xxv, 27), These discrep- ancies remain, and consequently the dates have not been settled unanimously. Nebuchadrezzar's death is dated 562 or 561, and the final fall of Jerusalem is fixed at 587 or preferably 586*
As regards the length of the Exile, the familiar three-score years and ten is too long (Jer. xxv, 1 1 $eq»\ Zech. i, 12, etc.). The first year of Cyrus can be independently fixed at 538—7; and the foun- dation of the new Temple in 536 (Ezr. iii) fits in with the fifty years during which, according to Josephus (contra Apion. i, 21), the temple had been desolate* The allowance in Matthew i, ol fourteen generations from the Exile to the birth of Christ (14 x 40 = 560)3 also agrees fairly with the results. Thenceforth dates can be more readily determined: e.g. the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah in the second year of Darius (520), and the return of the Jews under Ezra in the seventh year of Artaxerxes (458). But the historical problems themselves are exceedingly intricate. There was an increasing and astounding ignorance of this age, and the
IV, n] DATES BEFORE THE MONARCHY 263
book of Daniel even gives currency to a tradition that Darius pre- ceded Cyrus (v, 31; vi, 28). It is not at all certain that the above- mentioned Artaxerxes was the first of the three kings who bore that name, and here as elsewhere the chronological questions are bound up with questions of historical criticism.
For the periods before the kings of Judah and Israel there are no fixed dates. According to a late and doubtful statement, when Solomon began to build the temple in his fourth year (c. 967, see above) 480 years had elapsed since the Israelites came out of Egypt (i Kings vi, i). The various biblical chronological notices amount to 534 years, and this number is exclusive of the rule of Joshua, Samuel and Saul. Various acute efforts have been made to harmonize the statements, and it is observed that, if we reckon 480 years as equivalent to 12 generations, we can count 12 priests from Eleazar's son to Solomon's priest Azariah (i Chron. vi, 3—10), and 12 prominent leaders (Moses, Joshua, Othniel, Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, Eli, Samuel, Saul and David). On these figures the Exodus would have occurred in the fifteenth century (967 + 480); whereas, if we accept the figure 534, or the figure given by Josephus for the interval (vix* 612, c* A-p* n, 2), this event would be a century earlier.
If, however, we attempt to reckon forward from the time of Abraham, we have a choice of variant traditions. The patriarchs were in Palestine 215 years (Gen. xii, 4, and other notices), and the Israelites remained in Egypt for 400 years (Gen. xv, 13) or 430 (Ex. xii, 40). Hence an interval of 615 (or 630) years separates Abraham from the Exodus. But the Septuagint, by allow- ing 430 (or 435) years for the entire interval (similarly Gal, iii, 1 7), reduces the length of the Egyptian period to 2 1 $ years. Similarly, Gen. xv, 16, represents a period of merely four generations, and with this agree approximately the genealogical lists (Ex. vi, 14—27, Numb, xxvi, 59; Josh, vii, i); and Joseph is even said to live to see his grandchildren who were contemporaries of Moses (Gen. 1, 23; Num. xxxii, 39—41)*
If we leave the biblical notices and consider the external evi- cLsnce, the first clue should be the date of Hammurabi, with whose name we may doubtless identify that of Abraham's foe Amraphel (Gen. xiv). It is not impossible that there were records or traditions synchronizing the two, and consequently the first half of the twenty-first century would be a plausible date for the Hebrew patriarch. It is then possible that the descent of Jacob or Israel into Egypt, 215 years later, represents the biblical writers* idea of the Hyksos invasion; in any case, the Hyksos period made a great im-
1 64 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
pression upon late Alexandrian writers., and Jewish historians may not unnaturally have striven to co-ordinate Jewish and Egyptian tradition (see pp. 2 2 2, 3 r i ) . All this, however, is entirely conj ectural ; and we are not on much surer ground when we attempt to date the Exodus by external evidence. If the Israelites built Pithom and Raamses in the time of Ramses II (Exod. i, 1 i), the Exodus is consequently later (thirteenth century), and the figures for the period from the Exodus to Solomon must be considerably reduced. And if we adopt this thirteenth-century date, and enquire when Israel descended into Egypt, the variant traditions of the duration of the bondage allow abundant range. It has been varyingly sug- gested that the sons of Jacob or Israel entered with the Hyksos and came out with them, or that it was only after the exodus of the Hyksos that there arose the king who 'knew not Josepbu' But Joseph has also been identified with a minister of the time of Amenhotep IV (c. 1380), and even with a later Semitic official (c. 1200) before the rise of Ramses IIL
External history may suggest that the biblical chronology of the period from Abram (Abraham) to David and Solomon should be subordinated to what is known of the Hyksos, or connected with the movements of the time of Amenhotep III and IV. In any event, the activity of the Philistines before the rise of the Hebrew kingdom and the fact that this independent monarchy itself could arise owing to the weakness of the surrounding empires, may cer- tainly be said to support the broad outlines of the biblical history. Yet it must be recognized that there is a complicated blend of trust- worthy and untrustworthy material, not unlike what may be found in Berosus, or in the Alexandrian writers, or in such a work as Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Britonum^ and this precludes any further attempt to disentangle the chronological intricacies without the help of conclusive external evidence.
As becomes more evident when we approach the pre-Abra- hamic period, the figures, although of extraordinary precision, re- present particular schemes and calculations, the source of which can hardly be conjectured. It is possible to compute 2666 years from the Creation to the Exodus, and this number is twc- thirds of a cycle of 4000. Following this up it has been observed that if we regard this number as 26 centuries or generations, we may assign 20 from Adam to Abraham, one each to Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Aaron, while the fraction remains for Eleazar, who was an adult at the time of the Exodus. This does not stand alone. Through the loss or the addition of whole hundreds the figures from the Creation to the Deluge are 1656
IV, n] INSECURITY OF THE CHRONOLOGY 165
(Hebrew text)., 1307 (Samaritan version) and 2242 or 2262 (Septuagint). But it is at least a coincidence that the number 2 2 6& approximates to the 2280 which Africanus, on the authority of Manetho, gives for Egypt from Menes to the end of the Xlth Dynasty; and it is possible that the Septuagint was acquainted with Manetho's chronology. Again, the 432,000 years ascribed by Berosus to the 10 antediluvian kings of Babylonia represent 86,400 lustra^ and the same number of weeks would represent 1656 years, the number given by the Hebrew text. Accordingly, the Hebrew * week-unit' would seem to correspond to a Baby- lonian unit of five years; and, in a word, the general result is to indicate a complexity which is probably due to the fusion of different systems and schemes.
It fe quite typical, therefore, that In the Pentateuch there are two full forms of dating, the one by day, month and year (Num. i, r, etc.) and the other by year, month and day (Num. x, n, etc.), and that these correspond respectively to Mesopotamian and Egyptian methods. Again, while the Jews came to adopt the Baby- lonian names for the months, and to transfer the beginning of the year to the spring, the final chronological system seems to show conformity to Egyptian reckoning, viz. by months of 30 days and a solar year of 365 J days. Yet besides Egyptian and Mesopotamian influences, there was, it would seem, an elaborate system of reckoning by generations of 40 years, and this rather rudimentary system is entirely characteristic of the more simple and naive life and thought of the Israelites.
It is regrettable that the fixed dates of the Old Testament should be so few. But the historical books in their present form are rela- tively quite late. They are the result of complicated editorial pro- cesses which are also reflected in the intricacies of the chrono- logical frameworks, wherein earlier narratives and sources have been fitted and adjusted to much later conceptions of monarchical history, of the history of the Hebrews, and of the history of the world as then known. Still, it must be more than a coincidence that Hebrew post-diluvian tradition enters upon a new stage with Abram who Is assigned to an age evidently contemporary both with that of Hammurabi (of the First Babylonian Dynasty) in Mesopotamia, and with that of the Xllth Dynasty in Egypt. The era of Abraham adopted by Eusebius thus has some justification in tradition (see p. 145).
The following dates are mainly those of Driver, with the inclu- sion of those of Ussher (U), Skinner (S), etc. Dates fixed indepen- dently by Assyrian evidence are in square brackets.
1 66 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP,
B,C»
c. 2100 Abraham, 1996-1821 (U)j real biblical date 21 1 1-20315.
c, 1230 The Exodusj 1491 (U).
c. 1025 Saul? 1099 (U).
c. 1010 David, 1056 (U).
c. 970 Solomon, 1017 (U).
c* 933 Separation of Judah and Israel, 977 (U).
876 Ahab, 9i8(U).
[854 Ahab at battle of Karkar.J
843 Jehu(S).
[842 Jehu's tribute to Assyria.]
797 Amaziah, 798 (S), 790(0. C. Whitehouse).
783 Jeroboam II> 785 (S, Whitehouse).
779 Uzziah.
743 Menahem, 745 (S).
[738 Menahem pays tribute to Tiglath-pileser IIL]
736 Ahaz, 735(8),
728 Hezekiah, 726 (U), 725 (Robertson Smith), 720 (S, H. P, Smith), 715 (Hezekiah's sole reign; 726—715, Hezekiah and Ahaz; Whitehouse).
[722 Fall of Samaria.]
[701 Sennacherib's campaign against Phoenicia, Palestine and Philistia.j
639 Josiah, 641 (U), 640 (H. P. Smith), 637 (S).
[605 Battle of Carchemish.]
597 ^irst captivity, 599 (U).
586 Fall of Jerusalem, 588 (U), 587 (S).
561 Release of Jehoiachin.
538 Capture of Babylon; edict of Cyrus, 536 (U).
516 Completion of Second Temple.
458 Return of Exiles under Ezra, seventh year of Artaxerxes.
445 First Visit of Nehemiah to Jerusalem*
432 Second visit of Nehemiah (ch. xiii, 6), 434 (U).
III. EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY
The chronology of ancient Egyptian history depends largely upon that of Babylonia. For Egypt we have nothing corresponding to the regular chronology of the eponymous /f#w&-officials, and the Egyptians never had an era continuously used* There occurs, indeed, cthe year 400 of Nubti* on a monument of Ramses II, which incidentally dates the Hyksos period to 400 years before his time; but this instance is isolated. As a rule, the Egyptians only mention such and siich a year of King X, In early times they, like the Babylonians, merely quoted a year as that in which some particular event occurred. Later, they reckoned by the fiscal numberings that took place every two years, in connexion with the festival of Horus. As time went on these records were combined into regnal annals, engraved on monumental
IV, m] EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY 167
stelae set up under the Vth Dynasty. Fragments of these have been discovered in modern days. The famous Palermo Stele is one of theim Scrappy as they are, these fragments are Invaluable, because they give us hints of the approximate lengths of the reigns of some of the kings from the 1st to the Vth Dynasty.
It was the habit of the kings of the Xllth Dynasty to associate their sons with them on the throne; and this custom, combined with the fact that the regnal year is more frequently mentioned on monu- ments of this period than of any other, supplies a useful check on chronology. When we know that the thirtieth year of Amenemhet I was also the tenth of his son Senusret (Sesostris) I, and that the forty-fifth of Senusret was also the third of Amenemhet II, and so on, *>we can reconstruct the regnal years of the dynasty with*considerable accuracy. This custom was revived under the XXIInd Dynasty, The Turin Papyrus of Kings, compiled under the XlXth Dynasty3 gives the duration of the reigns (sometimes with the odd months and days), but the kings to which they refer cannot always be identified* This document has to be used with caution because it was garbled by copyists. There is a notable instance of a mistake in the regnal years which the papyrus assigns to Pepi I of the VI th Dynasty, He apparently reigned 50 years, but here he is credited with only 20* Manetho, the Ptolemaic historio- grapher, gives him fifty-three, which is likely enough. As for Manetho, originally his dates were probably trustworthy; but his text has been so terribly mangled by copyists that it would be most unsafe to trust its data unless they are confirmed by the Turin Papyrus or by monumental evidence. The regnal years of a few kings, who are historical persons, given by Herodotus and Diodorus are of little value.
So much for the direct sources. In order to compile a definite list of the probable lengths of the reigns, we have to fall back very largely upon the study of the monuments, checked by syn- chronisms with Mesopotamian history. These synchronisms are based ultimately on the limmu-lists and the succession-lists of the Mesopotamian kings. Thus the known date of Shalmaneser I of •Assyria (p. 153 jy.) fixes approximately that of his Egyptian con- temporary Ramses II and other kings (e.g. Kadashman-turgu of Babylonia), and also that of his great-great-grandfather, Ashur- uballit, who was contemporary with Amenhotep IV (Ikhnaton),
Astronomical evidence has also been successfully used in con- nexion with data derived from Mesopotamia. Eclipses were not noticed with any particular interest in Egypt. It is the observation not of eclipses but of the heliacal risings of Sirius that helps our
1 68 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
chronological enquiries. The Egyptians had discovered ^the true length of the solar year from their observations of the"" heliacal rising (that is, the latest visible rising before sunrise) of the star Sinus, which they called Sothis. This civil year consisted of 365 days (360+ 5 epagomenal). They did not intercalate an addi- tional day every four years. The necessity of this intercalation may have been known to the later Egyptians, but it was never officially recognized, probably on account of a religious conservatism, like that which preserves the Julian calendar in Russia and Greece, Hence the months lost all relations to the seasons, and if the heliacal rising of Sirius fell on the first day of the first month, say, in 4241 B.C., it would fall in the middle of the year at the end of 730 years (in 3511 B.C.), and would not coincide again with the first day of the first month till 2781 B.C., when 1460 years had been completed. This interval of 1460 years, due to the defects of the Egyptian calendar, is known as the Sothic cycle. It was only used for regulating the calendar, never for dating events.
Now, we know that a new Sothic cycle began in A.D. 139 (or 143). Theon, the mathematician of Alexandria, calls the preceding cycle, which must have begun in 1321 B.C. (or 1317), 'the epoch of Menophres.' The 'throne-name* of Ramses I, who succeeded Harmhab about 1321 B.C., was Menpehre. His date is known because his predecessor dated the years of his reign from the death of Amenhotep III, the father of Ikhnaton (whose reign is ignored on account of his religious heresy), and * reigned' at least 59 years, 1380—1321 B.C. Thus 1321 B.C. was the first year of a Sothic cycle, and the evidence fits in well. The two preceding cycles will have begun in 2778 or 2781 B.C. and 4238 or 4241 B.C., and in one of these years the cycle was instituted (p, 248).
If we find that the heliacal rising of Sirius is noted in an Egypt- ian document as falling in a certain month of a certain year in the reign of a certain king, it would seem that by calculating the loss of days implied we could discover the year B.C. to which the given year corresponds. On this principle, by means of a statement in a papyrus found at Kahun, that Sothis rose heliacally on the first of the month Pharmouthi in the seventh year of Senusret III, it ha^ been computed that this year was 1882 (1876) or 1876 (1872) B.C., while from the same data another computer has arrived at 1945 B.C. But there are many considerations which militate against an unreserved acceptance of either of these dates, in the present state of our knowledge. If the former date were accepted, the end of the Xllth Dynasty would fall in 1788 B.C. But it will be ad- mitted by all who have studied the material for the history of the
IV, m] DATE OF THE Xllxn DYNASTY i6g
time that to allow only two centuries for the period between Dynasties XII and XVIII is difficult. If there are resemblances in culture between the Xllth and the early reigns of the XVIIIth Dynasty which argue a comparative proximity in time, there are, on the other hand, differences which cannot be accounted for if the distance is to be measured by no more than two hundred years. The Xllth Dynasty itself lasted for two centuries: are the changes observable during its continuance in any way comparable to those which had come about between its termination and the rise of the XVIIIth? The answer can only be a decided negative. Moreover, it seems impossible to find room in two centuries for the two dynasties of the Hyksos or 'Shepherd-kings,' preceding the XVIIItJi Dynasty, some of whom seem to have had very long reigns and to have ruled the whole land (so that they cannot have been contemporaneous with other kings ruling in the south whose names we know), as well as for the long Xlllth Dynasty that pre- ceded them, some of whose kings also reigned long and ruled the whole country.
An attempt has been made to cut this Gordian knot by pushing the Xllth Dynasty back a whole Sothic period of 1460 years, and assuming the true date of Senusret III to be about 3330 B.C. This seems an impossible solution. For though we might find some support for it in the long periods assigned by Manetho to the dynasties between the Xllth and the XVIIIth, 1600 years is far too long a period to be compatible with the resemblances between the Middle Kingdom and the beginning of the New Kingdom, and is far longer than our material demands. Were the Sothic date unknown, our evidence would not require more than 400 or at most 500 years between the two dynasties (see also p. 303 #.).
In the present writer's view, there must have been some mistake in the original observation of the star (if not in the modern calcula- tion of the date); or possibly some change in the calendar, unknown to us, was introduced between the time of Senusret III and the beginning of Dynasty XVIII. Until the astronomical date is con- firmed by another recorded observation in another reign, we are h.ot justified in assuming that the Xllth Dynasty ended so late as 1788 B.C., or even 70 years earlier. Provisionally it would seem best to assume the round date 2000 B.C. for the end of Dynasty XII , This would satisfy all the requirements of our other know- ledge. But it must be borne in mind that the majority of writers accept the later date which it seems difficult to reconcile with the facts (see p. 3 1 5 jy.).
If any change occurred which would invalidate the accuracy of
1 70 ' CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
the computation — some failure of record, perhaps, consequent on the Hyksos invasion and resulting anarchy — it must have occurred before the rise of the XVIIIth Dynasty. This is certain from the fact that the dates of certain new-year festivals which were cele- brated on certain days of the month in certain years of the kings Thutmose III and Amenhotep I can, by computing back from the epoch of Menophres, be fixed to the years 1474 (or 1470) and 1550 (or 1546) B.C. And from what we know of the lives of the kings of Dynasty XVIII and of the details of the history of the time, we can see that these dates correspond to what a dead reckoning from the time of Ramses I would demand. Computing back from Amenhotep I, we find that Amosis, the founder of the dynasty, must have ascended the throne about 1580 B.C. This, in the present writer's opinion, is the earliest date for an Egyptian king of which we can be absolutely certain within the margin of a few years either way.
Taking the hypothetical date of (about) 2000 B»C, for the end of Dynasty XII and working back, we reckon up the regnal years of the kings of this dynasty as to which we have clearly seen that we are very fully informed. By this means we are able to arrive at (about) 2375 B.C. for the beginning of Dynasty XL
At this point we reach the second 'dark age' that meets us in a regress through Egyptian history, the period intervening between the Old and the Middle Kingdom. There were eighteen kings of Dynasties IX and X, namely the Heracleopolites, of whom the latest were contemporaneous with the earlier kings of Dynasty XL We do not know whether they were also contemporaries of the later Memphite kings of Dynasties VII and VIIL The official Egyptian lists recognized as legitimate the kings of Dynasties VII and VIII and the later kings of Dynasty XI, but did not recognize the Heracleopolites. Thus it is uncertain whether we are to sup- pose that the last king of Dynasty VIII immediately preceded, in the north, the king of Dynasty XI who united the two kingdoms under the Theban sceptre (Nebhapetre), or that a number of Heracleopolites intervened between them. The Turin Papyrus of kings appears to count the sum of the years of the king^ from Dynasty I to Dynasties VII and VIII as 955, If the Hera- cleopolites never ruled over the whole country but were contem- poraneous with the Memphites, then, reckoning 955 years from Nebhapetre, whose reign probably began about 2290 B.C., we shall get (about) 3200 B.C. as the date of Menes, the unifier of Egypt and the founder of the monarchy.
But it is more probable that several of the Heracleopolite kings
IV?m] DATE OF MENES 171
did rule over all Egypt; and moreover we have to account for the degeneration of art and culture which is apparent under Dynasty XI as compared with Dynasty VI, a fact which points to a con- siderable period of anarchy and possibly foreign invasion (see below, p. 295 jy.). We can hardly assume less than one century of decadence between Dynasties VI and XI; on the other hand, not more than two, since in many ways the two ages approximate very closely, much more closely than Dynasties XII and XVIII. More- over, we have to allow for the kings of Dynasties VII and VIII, the last of whom were possibly contemporary with the first Hera- cleopolites. Thus we come to 2600 (less preferably 2500) B.C. as the latest probable date for the end of the Vlth Dynasty.
Now if we reckon the 955* years of the Turin Papyrus from 2400 B.C. (as the probable date of the end of Dynasty VIII), we get 3355 B.C. as the date of Menes, which nearly agrees with that adopted by some high authorities. But the 955 years of the Papyrus need not be taken as final, for mistakes were made by the copyists, e.g. in the case of King Pepi L If, then, we combine the informa- tion supplied by the Papyrus with that available from other sources and a dead reckoning of the probable lengths of the reigns, de- rived from a study of the monuments, we find that very nearly 1000 years must have elapsed from the founding of the monarchy to the end of Dynasty VI. Thus we arrive at 3500 B.C. as an approximate date for Menes. This agrees with the calculation of those who hold the later date of the Xllth Dynasty, that an interval of roughly 1500 years separated Dynasty I from Dynasty XII. Our argument puts each of these dynasties about two centuries earlier.
The bold suggestion has been made that Menes, the founder of the Egyptian monarchy, is none other than Manium or Mannu- dannu, king of * Magan,' who is mentioned by Naram-Sin, the early Semitic king of Babylonia (cf. p. 4 1 5 sy*'). Now the Babylonian king Nabonidus states thatNaram-Sin reigned 3 200 years before his own time, that is, about 3750 B.C. (above, p. 155 jf.). As there seems to be a historical blank between this date and the period of Gudea, «patesi of Lagash, who certainly reigned not long before 2500 B.C., and as such a remote date for a Semitic king seems inherently im- probable (seeing that Sumerians were still reigning in Babylpjtii& after Gudea's time), it has of later years generally been supposed that Nabonidus made a mistake of a round thousand and mdant to say 2200, thus making Naram-Sin's date 2750 B.C., which is far more probable. Accordingly, the suggestion can be maintained only if we bring down the date of Menes from, the minimum of
172 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
3500 B.C., which seems to be demanded, to 3000 B.C. But it is surely Impossible to assign such a late date to the 1st Dynasty, and if it is held that Magan is Egypt and Manium is Menes, we .-must admit that the actual figures of Nabonidus for the date of Naram- Sin are correct and that Menes reigned about 3750 B.C. This is quite as probable as the minimum date we have postulated, 3500 B.C. But the gap of 1200 years between Naram-Sin and Gudea would still remain to be explained. Moreover, Mannu or Manium was a usual Semitic name in Naram-Sin's time; and although Magan may conceivably be the western coast of the Red Sea, and so Egypt in a sense, it is not certain that the land of Melukhkha, which is often mentioned along with Magan and certainly meant Ethiopia in later times, had the same signification in the age of Naram-Sin (see p. 416). The assignation of the name to EtKiopia two thousand years later may have been due to faulty antiquar ianism. Therefore, with our present knowledge, we cannot claim 3750 B.C. as the date of Menes on the ground that he was contemporary with Naram-Sin, though otherwise the date is probable enough.
If the Sothic cycle was first observed in 27 8 1 B.C. this event would, on our chronological scheme, have taken place under the Vth Dynasty. But it is highly probable that the cycle, and quite certain that the calendar to which it was applied, are both much older. The civil year of 360+ 5 days is mentioned in the 'Pyramid Texts,* inscribed under the Vth and Vlth Dynasties, but in reality far older. And under the I Vth Dynasty we hear of two New Year Days, 'the First of the Year/ which apparently relates to the civil calendar, and the * Opening of the Year,' which is connected with the Sothic year. It is then obvious that the civil calendar was estab- lished and its relation to the Sothic year known earlier than the IVth Dynasty, Either^ then, the date of the IVth Dynasty, and of the mention of the civil calendar with its epagomenal days under the Vth, is later than 2781 B.C., which is hardly possible; or the Egyptian civil calendar was introduced in 4241 B.C., or another Sothic cycle earlier, 4241 B.C., in the times before the foundation of the united monarchy, is the more probable date, and, if it is right, it is the earliest that we know in Egyptian history.
To return to the starting point from which we worked back. Ramses II was reigning about 1260 B.C, and his reign can be fixed with fair accuracy to 1300—1234 B.C., by means of dead reckoning and other evidence. After him the principal synchronism is that between SHshak (Sheshonk), Jeroboam of Israel, and Rehoboam of Judah. This date has been fixed, on the authority of the Assyrian /immu~lists and the biblical evidence, to the neighbourhood of 930
, in]
EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY
B.C., and the reign of Shishak may fairly be assigned to 947—925 B.C. After this, we enter the accurately dated domain of Assyrian histc^ry, which certifies our Egyptian dates down to the seventh century when the list of limmi ceases, but not before we are able to date Psammetichus I to 651-610 B.C. After him we have the Greek historians to guide us.
The following chronological framework has thus been estab- lished; for the sake of comparison some dates maintained by other authorities are inserted, vi%. Breasted (B) and Meyer (M),
B.C. 4241 (?)
3500 (?) 30*0 (?) 2781 2600 (?) 2400 (?)
2375 "" 2275
2212
2OOO c. 1650 c. 1580
Institution of the Calendar(F). Beginning of the First Sothic
Cycle.
Beginningof theOld Kingdom; Dynasty I. 3400 (B), 331 5 (M). Approximate date of the Great Pyramid (Dynasty IV), Beginning of the Second Sothic Cycle. End of Dynasty VI. 2475 (B).
End of the Old Kingdom; Dynasty VIII. 2445 (B). Beginning of the Middle Kingdom; Dynasty XL 2160 (M). Reunion of Egypt under Nebhapetre. Beginning of Dynasty XII. 2000 (B, M). End of Dynasty XII. 1788 (B, M). Hyksos Kings reigning. End of Middle Kingdom. Beginning of New Kingdom;
Dynasty XVIII.
Amenhotep I reigning (c. 1559—1530) Thutmose III reigning (c. 1501—1447). End of reign of Amenhotep III and accession of Ikhnaton
(c. 1380-1362). Beginning of the Third Sothic Cycle. First year of Ramses I
(Menophres). 1315 (B). Ramses II reigning (c. 1300—12345 1292—1225 B); Dynasty
XIX.
Shishak (Sheshonk I) reigning (c. 947—925)5 Dynasty XXII. Reign of Psammetichus I (663—609 B); Dynasty XXVI.
IV. PREHISTORIC GREECE
The chronology of prehistoric Greece is naturally far from cer- tain although through connexions with Egypt certain general •dates can be given. For the present everything must be based on the archaeological evidence till the clay tablets and other inscribed objects found in Crete and on the mainland of Greece can be read and interpreted. So many surprising revelations about the great prehistoric civilization of Greece, of which. Homer is the echo, have come to light since Schliemann first began the exploration of Mycenae in 1 876, that it would not greatly astonish us if some fortunate excavator at Cnossus3 or some other rich site, were to
1550
1450
c. 1380
1321 1250
930
651-610
174 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
find the remains of royal and diplomatic correspondence like that of Tell el-Amarna. Till then, however, the potsherds and other archaeological finds must be the hieroglyphs from which history has to be pieced together, for it is a truism that in a prehistoric age archaeology is history.
Archaeology divides prehistoric Greece into the four great re- gions : Crete (Minoan), the Cyclades (Cycladic), the Peloponnese and south-eastern Greece (Helladic), Thessaly and north Greece (Thessalian). Systems of dating the objects found have, as ex- plained in the last chapter, been drawn up, and it is consequently easy to express the date of a characteristic object from the Cyclades in terms of the Minoan or of the Helladic series1.
These archaeological dates are purely relative, and naturally the series slide up or down in relation to one another as new discoreries are made. But the main lines have stood the test of several years and the general correspondences may be regarded as fixed. The difficulty comes when we attempt to fit these archaeological dates into any scheme of world chronology or to fit them on to the his- tory of another country outside Greece. Asia Minor is still unex- plored and the connexions through Macedonia and Thrace be- tween Greece proper and the Balkan countries are not yet known though some indications are already to hand.
The one neighbouring land where there is a fairly stable chrono- logical system based on written documents and inscriptions is Egypt. Between Egypt and prehistoric Greece, especially Crete and Mycenae, there was intercourse as shown by Egyptian objects found in Crete and Mycenae, and by Cretan and Mycenaean objects found in Egypt. The relations between Crete and Egypt in the first (Early Minoan) period are indistinct, but there is clear evi- dence of contact between the two countries. The Early Minoan ossuaries, or receptacles for human bones, found in the Messara plain, contained some flakes of pale-grey, transparent obsidian, and fragments of the same kind of obsidian have been picked up at Cnossus* The obsidian usually found in Crete is the well-known black, opaque Melian obsidian, while the pale-grey transparent variety is found in Egyptian and Hittite sites and comes fronv African and Anatolian sources2. In the same ossuaries hundreds of small stone bowls were found, which, though of local fabric and material, are analogous to the stone vessels of the first six Egyptian dynasties. A large number of beautiful stone bowls of the same date and general character, which have been found at Mochlos and
1 See Chap, m, pp. 139 sqq, ; and below Chap, xvxr, on early Aegean civilization. 2 Or possibly the Dodecanese.
IV, iv] EARLY AND MIDDLE MINOAN 175
at Cnossus, were genuine Egyptian vases in Syenite and diorite assigned? to the late predynastic period and to the Ilnd and IVth Dynasties. At Cnossus, atPyrgus not far to the north-east, and in the cave at Arkalochori, were vases of the Early Minoan period which are similar to some found by Petrie in 1st Dynasty sur- roundings at Abydos. Another strong point of contact is formed by the Early Minoan seals in stone and ivory, especially those from the Messara ossuaries mentioned above, which by their style and their devices are parallel to Egyptian seals of the first six dynasties. Button seals of a sixth dynasty type are especially to be noted. Again, stone and marble palettes of Early Minoan and Early Cycladic times resemble analogous palettes found in early dynastic tombs in Egypt,
Generally speaking, therefore, the Early Minoan period may be said to have begun before the middle of the fourth millennium and to have ended about 2250 B.C. This dating is only approxi- mate, and of course depends upon that assigned to the Xllth Dynasty. It is consequently complicated by the problems peculiar to early Egyptian chronology. Further, although the succession of pottery styles and the development of the other classes of objects mentioned are fairly clear within the Early Minoan period, it is impossible to say, except very approximately, what particular style in the Early Minoan period corresponds to any given Egyp- tian dynasty. The excavation of a well-stratified Early Minoan site would do much to clear up some of these points. All detailed study, however, of the evidence so far available, and daily increas- ing, brings out more and more the close connexion between Crete and Egypt in those remote times,
In the Middle Minoan period the intercourse between Crete and Egypt so far revealed is clear and reciprocal. At Kahun were found Middle Minoan potsherds in a Xllth Dynasty context (time of Senusret II), and at Abydos a tomb of the latter half of the Xllth Dynasty contained a Middle Minoan II poly- chrome vase. Meanwhile, at Cnossus have been unearthed in Middle Minoan strata a diorite statuette of one Ab-nub~mes- jjpazet-user of the Aphroditopolite nome, dating from the Xllth or early XHIth Dynasty, and the lid of an alabastron bearing the cartouche of the Hyksos king, Khian (of the XVIIth cent. B.C.?), Another monument of Khian, a black granite lion in the British Museum, has been found at Baghdad, and suggests interesting speculations about the influence of this king of whom unfortun- ately all too little is known from the Egyptian records (p* 313). It nevertheless seems clear that the first two phases of the Middle
176 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
Minoan age are contemporaneous with the Xllth Egyptian Dyn- asty and are therefore to be dated towards the close of the third millennium. But here again this date depends on the view taken of Egyptian chronology, as to the expansion or compression of the intervals between the Vlth and Xllth and between the Xllth and XVII Ith dynasties (see pp. 169 sqq^ 316).
Many vases, dating from the First Late Minoan period, have been found in Egypt, although not all are of Cretan fabric; also a scarab of the later XVI I Ith Dynasty in one of the tombs of the Cnossian cemetery of the third phase of this period. In the frescoes on the walls of the tombs of Senmut and Rekhmire, great officials who administered Egypt under Queen Hatshepsut and Thut- mose III (c+ 1501—1447), appear Keftian and other foreigners bringing offerings consisting of vessels of precious metals which are in shape unmistakably the same as characteristic Minoan vase types — cups like the fine gold cup from Vaphio (a type very com- mon in pottery of the Late Minoan I period) and rhytons (fillers) — similar to the fine steatite specimens from Phaestus and Hagia Triada in Crete. Some also carry copper ingots, such as have been found at Phaestus* Who the Keftians were is for Egyptologists to decide, but it is remarkable that the Keftian bearers of tribute in the Egyptian tombs have a considerable likeness, both in their appear- ance and in the style of the frescoes themselves, to the cup-bearer of the Cnossus fresco. The general style of the XVIIIth Dynasty frescoes from Thebes and Tell el-Amarna also shows artistic kin- ship with the frescoes of Cnossus and Phaestus, and is again re- flected in an early group of frescoes from Mycenae and Tiryns. Through this Cretan evidence we can correlate the Late Minoan period with the XVIIIth Dynasty, and their parallelism is con- firmed by the evidence from Mycenae and elsewhere,
At Mycenae itself several Egyptian objects have been brought to light. We have a monkey in blue vitreous paste with the car- touche of Amenhotep II3 a faience plaque and a genuine Egyptian lotos-bowl with that of Amenhotep III (though unfortunately we do not know the context in which these were found), and a scarab of Queen Tiy from a chamber tomb of the Third Late Helkdir period. This evidence is again supported by a scarab of Amen- hotep III from lalyssos in Rhodes and one of Queen Tiy from Cyprus, both found in tombs which contained vases of the Third Late Minoan period. At the same time, vases of the typical My- cenaean style (Late Minoan III, or rather Late Helladic III, for the vases are Mycenaean not Cretan), have been found in quan- tities in Egypt, especially in the ruins of Ikhnaton's palace at
IV, iv] LATE MINOAN; RAIDS ON EGYPT 177
Tell el-Amarna which thus gives a fixed date (about 1380 B.C.) for this style of vase-painting. They are found, too, in the foreign settlement at Gurob, and in many other sites in association with XlXth and XXth Dynasty objects. Further, in the tomb of Ramses III (XXth Dynasty) stirrup vases of the typical Mycenaean shape in gold and copper are represented, and Egyptian imitations of the same vase type and of rhytons in blue faience, which date from the XlXth Dynasty, are now in the British Museum. The archaeological evidence all points to the fact that the greatest and closest relation between prehistoric Greece and Egypt was during the XVIIIth, XlXthand XXth Dynasties (c. 1580—1100 B.C.), a period which may be treated as generally contemporaneous with the Late Minoan and Late Helladic
Here again other considerations occur. It was in these times that Egypt was in close contact with, and in fact often invaded by, the peoples from the Great Green Sea, among whom are men- tioned the Danauna and the Akaiuasha, long since identified as 'Danaoi* and 'Achaeans.* The Danauna possibly appear in a letter of Abimilki of Tyre to Amenhotep (Tell el-Amarna, No, 151); later they reappear in the reign of Ramses III as threatening Egypt with the Libyans, Pulesati (Philistines), and certain other tribes that cannot be identified. It is possible that the Danauna are the Danaoi, and it may be more than a coincidence that their appearance in Egypt at this date (shortly after 1 200 B.C.), is the time when *the isles were restless/ and Danaoi under Agamemnon were besieging Troy. The Akaiuasha formed part of the horde of peoples who invaded the Delta in the days of Merneptah some thirty years earlier and were principally, it seems, from Asia Minor. If the Akaiuasha were Achaeans and the Danauna Danaoi, it is worth noting that these raids on Egypt by peoples from Greek lands took place in the Third Late Helladic period, which was the time of the greatest diffusion of Mycenaean culture,
We shall see later that the colonization of Cyprus by Achaeans may be assigned, following the traditional dates, to 1 176 B.C., and tins island, as so often in history, would have formed an excellent base of operations for seafaring raiders from Asia Minor and the Aegean to harry the Nile basin. Egypt may have been to the sea- kings of Crete and Mycenae what the Spanish Main was to Eliza- bethan England, or the British Isles and neighbouring coasts to the Northmen, In this latter case the settlement in Normandy would find a parallel in that of the Philistines (Pulesati) on the Palestinian coast, and perhaps also in that of the Mycenaean or
C*A.H*I 13
178 CHRONOLOGY [CHAP.
Cretan elements who seem to be included among the "Phoeni- cians* of the Syrian coast.
Accordingly, the Greek tradition of the prominence of*4 Red Men9 (<t>oaafc€s) in prehistoric times in Greece, and their intro- duction of the alphabet, and other signs of civilization, could be taken as a reference to the Cretans who, as we know, were the first to develop a script in the Aegean basin and to introduce it on the mainland of Greece. Similarly, too, the tales of Cadmus, Cecrops, Danaus and other foreigners, as coming from Phoenicia, or Egypt, and settling in Greece as the bearers of a higher type of civilization, could be again the echo of the gradual penetration and, partly too, colonization by 'IVtmoan' (as we may call them) chiefs and traders of parts of the Greek mainland* The Thucy- didean tradition of Minos the thalassocrat, the tales of the settle- ment of this island and of that by some son of Minos, of Theseus and the human tribute exacted from Athens, and the frequent occurrence of the place-name Minoa, all point in the same direc- tion, namely that civilization in the Aegean area began in Crete and spread northwards. When all this took place cannot yet be dated with even approximate accuracy.
Greek traditional dates — commonly based on genealogies — for the reign of Minos, the Trojan War? and other events all more or less legendary, do not entirely disagree with the dates to be deduced from Egyptian chronology through the medium of archaeological comparisons. One of the most important Greek documents giving traditional dates is the Marmor Parium, an inscription, found in Paros and now in Oxford, which gives, so far as it is preserved, a series of dates (based upon computation) for the principal events of Greek history both of heroic and of historic times. It dates from 264—3 B-c* and differs from other authorities in some of its figures, placing, for instance, the Fall of Troy at 1209—8 B,C, The works of Eratosthenes and Apollodorus as preserved in Eusebius, Suidas, and other late writers, also give important help, though naturally their authority is secondhand. Other traditional dates are given by Thucydides and Herodotus, who, with Diodorus and the Marmor Parium^ are the most trust- worthy sources* The royal genealogies given by Pausanias and others are of some assistance, though there is some ground for suspecting that they have been rationalized.
From a comparison of these sources, then, we might hazard the following approximate chronology. We might date Cecrops between 1582 and 1556, Cadmus to 1313, Danaus to 1466, Pelops to 1283, Minos to 1229, while the Trojan War may probably be
IV, iv] GREEK LEGEND AND TRADITION 179
dated to r 192—83, the Achaean settlement in Cyprus to 1 176, the Thessalian migration to 1 124, and place to about 1 104 the great Dorian invasion which really marks the end of the prehistoric age and of the marvellous Bronze-Age civilization of Greece and the begin- ning of the Iron Age. This would mean that, by the archaeological dates determined by the Egyptian evidence, the House of Pelops would have reigned at Mycenae during the Third Late Helladic period which was, as the recent excavations have shown, the time when Mycenae was at the very climax of its wealth and power.
Following these lines we can observe a certain correspondence between Greek legend and tradition and the archaeological dates derived from Egypt; but as the traditions are naturally enough vague and often contradictory, the simple archaeological evidence should be preferred in any case of doubt, and there are unfortun- ately only too many. For instance, in transferring dates of the Minoan series into the Helladic series we are faced with the fundamental difficulty that there is only a general correspondence between the three series (Minoan, Cycladic and Helladic), each with its three periods (Early, Middle and Late). The Early periods at the beginning of the Bronze Age correspond, because it is clear from a comparison of the archaeological finds that these three areas were inhabited by peoples very much akin in culture, and at approximately about the same stage of progress towards civilization, though, through the impulse and perhaps coloniza- tion from early dynastic Egypt, Crete rapidly drew ahead of the other two. Beyond this statement it is impossible to go at present, nor can we date the Early Cycladic and Early Helladic periods by the Egyptian dynasties through the medium of Crete.
In the Middle period we know from the Cretan polychrome ware found at Phylakopi in Melos that the Middle Cycladic and Middle Minoan periods were contemporary; but there is no certain connexion between the mainland and Crete at this time. There is, however, a class of pottery which is typical of the Middle Helladic period, and has been found at Phylakopi in the same stratum as the Cretan ware. We are thus enabled to correlate Middle Helladic aSid Middle Minoan periods, but it is impossible to date one de- finitely in terms of the other in the absence of direct contacts. For the late periods, with the spread of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilization all over the Greek area, and the great improvement in trade and communications, which seems to have marked this age, one can say with far less chance of inaccuracy that the first Late Helladic period is to all intents and purposes contemporaneous with Late Minoan L The progress of civilization to the final climax of
i8o CHRONOLOGY [CHAP. IV, iv
the Bronze Age and the establishment,, apparently, of big centres of political power (for instance, at Cnossus and Mycenae) dominant over wide spheres of influence, produced a far greater unity in the culture of the different areas, and so give a surer basis for any attempt at chronology especially when, as we have seen, the contacts with Egypt at this time are so strong and numerous.
When we turn to the remaining area, Thessaly, which is divided into four periods, we £nd that here there are serious difficulties, for relations between this region and the south seem to have been few. At Corinth Thessalian pottery of the Second period has been found underlying pottery of the later Early Hellaclic period, at Orchomenus and Lianokladi Early Helladic pottery has been found above pottery of the First and Second Thessalian periods, and at Tsani Magoula in Thessaly some Early Helladic vase§ have been found in a stratum placed at the end of the Second period, The only other links are provided by pottery of Late Helladic I! and III periods found in Thessaly at the end of the Fourth period and by the discovery in strata only slightly anterior of a ware typical of the Middle Helladic age, which occurs however as late as Late Helladic II. From this one can say that the First Thessa- lian period is older than the Early Helladic, while the Second Thessalian period is partly contemporary with the Early Helladic, and the later part of the Fourth period is parallel with the Late Helladic age. More than this the archaeological evidence, so far available, will not bean It is therefore impossible at present to attempt to represent the Thessalian series in terms of any one of the others with any approach to accuracy, Further careful excava- tion is necessary. It is in fact only by careful excavation by well- trained observers, not to mention the proper study and publication of all material found in the past — for full justice has not yet been done to many excavations in this way — no less than in the future that we can hope for further light on the chronology of prehistoric Greece.
For a comparative table of periods, see pp. 656
CHAPTER V
THE SEMITES
I. PEOPLE, LANGUAGE AND MOVEMENTS
dawn of continuous history breaks In that great region Ji which is the meeting-place of three continents each with its own physical, ethnical and even psychological characteristics. The region may be treated as a unit, although the several threads of the histories of the constituent portions often run independently and, indeed, must be handled separately if we would understand the development of the Ancient East. Interrelations both within and without can be recognized in prehistoric times; and although it happens that the development of Egypt can be traced back fur- ther than that of Babylonia and the rest of western Asia, at Anau in Turkestan, for example, there was a culture which may have been quite as ancient as that of Egypt (pp. 86, 91). But we must be guided by the nature of our material, and partly, also, by the necessity of finding the thread of history, and of determining the interconnexion of events. Thus, although Indo-Iranian and Mon- golian elements from time to time enter our field, India and China naturally lie outside our horizon. On the other hand, our present knowledge of early Asia Minor and the Aegean, scanty and dis- connected though it is, illumines later conditions when the actual historical material is more abundant and consecutive, and all the lands concerned in the great drama can be more clearly viewed and their parts more fairly estimated,
Of this virtually homogeneous area the Semites are the central figures throughout the earlier developments. They have a per- manent interest because three religions have arisen among them and shaped the world's history. Of these Judaism and Christianity ate Palestinian, and are historically and otherwise closely associ- ated. They may be regarded as the last phases in the decay of the old Semitic culture. Later, after its death, Islam, the third religion,, arose in Arabia and rapidly spread west and east. The history of Islam frequently illustrates factors that have always operated In the east; and the different periods and aspects of Semitic history so explain each other, and such has been the similarity of geo- graphical, economic and other conditions, that it Is possible, with
1 84 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
been governed from unexpected centres. Though nothing, per- haps, can be more barren than the Sinaltic peninsula, it & part of an area (the ancient Edom) which., owing to the trade-routes, had a political significance far beyond its own natural resources. North of the Hijaz, an oasis like el-Ola, which was the seat of a * South Semitic' colony, illustrates the part played by oases as seats of power or as stages in the passage of elements of culture from one end of the Semitic world to the other* The Palmyrene oasis, especially in the third century A.D., is an example of an extraordinarily powerful and wealthy state founded upon commerce. East of the Jordan rich states have arisen and enjoyed a short and brilliant career in spite of the ever-present risk of bedouin invasion. And, further north, Damascus itself, unprotected, and remote from natural trade- routes, still maintains itself as the most ancient of cities, and under the Omayyad Caliphs (vnth— virith cent, A.D.) actually became the capital of a realm extending from India to Spain. Syria and Pales- tine, by reason of their geographical and historical circumstances, are the meeting-ground of different peoples and civilizations. They have been the object of conflicting ambitions and policies for some four millennia, and may thus be said to surpass in historical interest the other 'Semitic7 lands.
The problem of this term now becomes acute. The term c Se- mite f is more convenient than accurate, and is derived from Shem, a son of Noah, the hero of the Deluge (Gen. ix— xi). In an elaborate genealogical table many divisions of the world as formerly known are traced back to Noah's three sons, with the result that each division stands in some more or less intelligible relationship to the rest. This method of reckoning geographical, ethnical or political divisions has always been in vogue and recurs, for example, in Hesiod's genealogy of 'Hellen' (the Hellenes), the son of Deu- calion (also the hero of a Deluge), who is the father of Dorus (Dorians), Aeolus (Aeolians), and Xuthus, the father of Ion (lon- ians) and Achaeus (Achaeans). Precisely what was believed at the time when these chapters were written is uncertain. They embody at least two groups of traditions and, according to the older, Noah was not connected with the story of the Deluge, but was the firs** to make wine, and so mitigate the curse of agricultural toil (Gen. v, 29; ix, 20 sqq^). The narrative in its original form told how Canaan was cursed and condemned to be the servant of Shem, whereas Japheth is very favourably recognized as Shem's protegcS. The genealogy represents Canaan as the * father' of certain Phoeni- cian cities and of Heth, the latter being not necessarily the Hittites of Asia Minor, but later offshoots in Palestine. Canaan's territory
V,i] THE 'SONS' OF SHEM 185
is from Sidon to south Palestine and the east of the Dead Sea; and it includes the Amorites and other peoples who are regularly spoken of as pre-Israelite. The identity of Japheth is obscure, but Shem is the ancestor of Eber (^ebher} — i.e. of the Hebrews (VMm;z) — who is the father of Peleg (division) and of Joktan, the 'father* of certain Arabian groups. As Yahweh (the * Jehovah' of the Eng- lish Bible)1 is explicitly called the God of Shem (ix, 26), he is not god of Israel alone (cf. similarly iv5 26), even as the Hebrews are evidently regarded as more extensive than Israel. But in the later source. Ham, who is here Noah's son, is the * father5 of Cush (Ethiopia), Mizraim (Egypt), Canaan, and other names; the divi- sions of Japheth belong to the northern zone as far as Greece; and Shem seems to have another meaning* Shem's divisions include Elam (east of Babylonia), Assyria, Aram (with relationships in the south) and Lud (apparently Lydia). Shem, accordingly, extends along the great ancient post-road between Susa and Sardes (Herod, v, 52). The whole scheme is broadly geographical, and recognizes three zones, Japheth in the north, Ham in the south, and Shem in the centre. This scheme has takenToot, and in the *Book of Jubilees * (shortly before the Christian era) it was developed further in ac- cordance with later knowledge, and it is observed that the land of Japheth is cold, that of Ham is hot and that of Shem is a blend. The foundation of Babylonia and Assyria is ascribed to Nimrod, son of Cush; but the Cushite divisions are unmistakably Arabian (they include the Sabaeans, who are otherwise ascribed to Shem's descendant Joktan), and it is uncertain whether Ethiopian immi- grants were supposed to pass eastwards into Babylonia, whether there was a Cush in Arabia, or whether there has been some con- fusion with the ancient dynasty of Kish (p. 365) or with the Kass- ite immigrants from the north (p. 552). In any event the table can- not be strictly linguistic^ because the Phoenicians, whose language differs only dialectically from Hebrew, and is related to Assyrian, are ascribed to Ham; and even though Phoenicia was from early times culturally connected with Egypt, this cannot be said of the Hittites, with whom Phoenicia is also associated. Moreover, "Lydian and Elamite were linguistically different from each other and from. Semitic. Feelings of relationship can express themselves in genealogical form and differently at different times; hence
1 In order to avoid pronouncing the Divine Name (perhaps originally Yahweh) the Jews replaced it by j4donfiyy "lord/ the vowels of which were subsequently introduced into the consonants (T[or JJ-h-vfor wj-h). Early Christian scholars, misunderstanding this? as early as the fourteenth century A,a>.? gave currency to the impossible form which has since become familiar.
1 86 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
Shem may have had diverging meanings, just as was the case with Amor (the Amorites), Heth (the Hittites), and many ^another name. As regards its precise meaning in the narratives in Genesis we must be guided by the fact that our sources now represent the standpoint of a people which ascribes itself to Sheni, and feels firmly settled among alien groups — viz. Canaan — to whom there is the keenest antipathy. While dominating Canaan it graciously receives the alien Japheth of the north. The people whose god is Yahweh admits the closest kinship with the desert; and elsewhere the genealogies and traditions closely associate Abraham with northern Mesopotamia, and with Aramaean and Arabian groups. There is also a hint of some * division * (viz. Peleg) whereby the southern and Joktanite Arabs were severed from some 'son* of Eber, the ancestor of the Hebrews (see p. 233 sy.*).
What history lies beneath this remains uncertain owing to the difficulty of dating the biblical traditions and of determining their precise reference. But in so far as they point to some separation, and some intrusion of a stock with desert kinship among an older settled people, they correspond to a typical process. Moreover, the desert stocks, especially of Arabia, have always remained rela- tively primitive, and the Arabic language in particular has also been regarded as typically Semitic. Indeed, the Semitic languages have retained throughout all time (except in Africa) their most distinctive features, and this persistence corresponds to that of a certain temperament which is best seen among the desert-peoples. The facts have led to the theory of Arabia as the original home of the Semites and of the Arabian (bedouin) mind as the representa- tive of Semitic thought. The theory deserves attention because it is often used as a key to the interpretation of the development of Semitic history and culture.
The best-known Semitic languages are the Akkadian (some- times used as a convenient term for the practically identical Baby- lonian and Assyrian dialects), Canaanite (a term to include Phoeni- cian, Hebrew, Moabite, etc.), Aramaean (Syriac, etc*), and South Arabian (Minaean and Sabaean). Their close interrelation resembles that among the members of the Romance or of the Teutonic sub-** divisions of the Indo-European family. But the linguistic, ethnical and cultural boundaries are not similar. Semitic languages have been adopted by invaders (Kassites, Philistines, etc.); Armenians and Jews despite a noteworthy physical similarity spoke entirely distinct languages; and, notwithstanding constant Intercourse between Syria and Asia Minor, no Semitic language was spoken to any considerable extent or for long in Cilicia or elsewhez-e. In
V, i] THE SEMITIC LANGUAGES 187
more senses than one the Semitic languages come between Indo- Europe*an and Hamitic (Egyptian, etc.). They have noteworthy points of contact with the latter, they share with both the distinc- tion of gender (there is however no neuter in Semitic and Egyp- tian), but they have no evident relationship with the former or with any non-Hamitic tongue. Semitic is characterized by the possession of peculiar gutturals, triconsonantal roots with regular vocal changes., affixes and suffixes to express modification of the stem-meaning {MeLeK king, MaLKenu our king, hiMLtK he caused to rule, maMLaKah kingdom), only two tense-forms5 peculiar case-relations, and an extreme rarity of compounds (ex- cept in proper names which are often sentences). But Semitic both influenced the strange agglutinative Sumerian and was influenced by it, Jews and Syrians adopted and naturalized Greek loan-words> and Persian words passed into Arabic and were adapted to its own peculiar structure. On the other hand, Arabic has exercised a re- markable influence upon African languages, and the strangest blends have arisen when, as in Amharic, Hamitic tribes have modified Semitic to their modes of thought and expression. Very drastic changes thus ensue; and as there have often been move- ments from south-west Asia into Egypt and Abyssinia, the factors that can be recognized in historical times may also have operated before our history begins. See pp. 25^, 261 and above p. 28*
While Semitic is characteristically triliteral, Egyptian contains several familiar Semitic words (for mouth3 water, etc.) which are not of triliteral origin. And not only are there some indications of a primary biliteral monosyllabic stage in Semitic, but an ultimate linguistic connexion has even been claimed — although the evi- dence is not convincing — between Semitic and Sumerian. In any case, if we go back far enough there was a period before € Semitic ' became what we call Semitic, though it does not follow that there was a single Egypto-Semitic language which afterwards bifurcated (p. 255). So also, there must obviously have been a time before the separate leading languages acquired their distinctive characters — even as Amharic has grown up and is supplanting other lan- guages— although we cannot therefore postulate one single Se- mitic stock from which the rest have differentiated. Such questions lie outside history, but they are very important for our ideas of what really characterizes Semitic and the Semites, and for the further question whether the earliest or most primitive features are therefore the most typical.
The Babylonian is the first Semitic language of which we have any knowledge; it is not primitive, but has a lengthy philological
r88 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
development behind it. By the middle of the third millennium B.C. the existence of Canaanite can be assumed. The numerous inscriptions of the southern Semites (Minaeans, Sabaeans, etc.), which belong to the first millennium B.C., contain some noteworthy points of contact with Babylonian and with the Canaanite (or rather the so-called 'Amorite') of about 2100. Babylonian, after becoming by the fifteenth century a language of diplomacy in Egypt and south-west Asia, was gradually replaced by Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Persian empire, which ultimately drove Hebrew into the Rabbinical schools and was used even by Arabs* Meanwhile, the old Arabian language of the inscriptions remained relatively unchanged throughout many centuries, a fact which sug- gests a firm literary hieratical tradition. It had died out by about A.D. 5003 when the 'pre-Islamic* period begins (500—622); and finally Aramaic almost entirely disappeared, and a later form of Arabic became the common language.
By classical Arabic is understood that language,, spoken in central and northern Arabia, which, through Mohammed, the Koran and Islam, became a sacred tongue and one of the principal languages of the world. It preserves many forms which have developed or decayed in the cognate languages; and although the documents are almost modern compared with Babylonian the language is relatively ancient, like Lithuanian among the Indo-European languages* It is not truly primitive, nor is it the sole ancestor of the modern dia- lects; the older extinct Arabic (Minaean, etc,) was in some respects more primitive, and has left a few traces In certain modern dialects (in south Arabia), while others betray the Influence of Aramaean. Besides, it is to be remembered that classical Arabic had not been the only Arabic current in Arabia, Hence it cannot be regarded as necessarily representing the earliest form of Semitic, and one must not assume that Babylonian and Canaanite, which are his- torically earlier, and preserve certain archaic forms, go back to some prehistoric language resembling the 'classical' Arabic. It is true that the later Arabian dialects underwent vicissitudes analo- gous to those that can be presumed In the development of the older languages themselves* It is also possible to observe the factor,, that restrict the decay of one dialect or give new prominence to another. But, in general, the history of the Semitic languages, like that of the Semites and of their culture, proves to be more complex than has been thought; and one must avoid the mistake, made by the Semites themselves, of unduly simplifying the data and of assuming regular relationships and developments.
The most essential fact is that the desert is the home of nomads
V, i] CLASSICAL ARABIC. THE ALPHABET 189
or semi-nomads who from time to time thrust themselves into the settled districts and replenish the population. The desert itself is monatonous and the conditions remain the same in spite of re- curring change. Its occupants have preserved certain character- istics which seem to be typical; and even at the present day the bedouin will speak a dialect purer and more archaic than that of the townsman. But it does not follow that a language is best pre- served where it originated, or that the Semitic language and the Semites 'originated7 in the desert. The history of the rise of Islam itself shows how certain definite historical circumstances brought 'classical Arabic* to the front; it was the result of a new movement after a period of decay, unrest and transition. It was a new growth in an old cradle. But how Semitic arose and what caused the very marked cleavage between the south Semites (Arabia, Ethiopia) and the rest can hardly be conjectured.
There is a similar cleavage between the * North* and the * South* Semitic alphabets. They are ultimately related to one another and to the parent of the European scripts. In contrast to the cuneiform writing (p, 126) and to secondary developments in south Semitic (Ethiopia, etc.), the Semitic script was wholly consonantal* The * North* Semitic alphabet begins to divide (in the eighth century B.C.) into Canaanite (Phoenician, Old Hebrew, Samaritan, etc.) and Aramaean branches, at about the time when the Aramaean inscrip- tions of North Syria are neither pure Canaanite nor pure Aramaic. The origin and date of the common alphabet are still uncertain. Derivations have been sought in every conceivable quarter, but the old theory of an Egyptian origin is again favoured, owing to the remarkable characters found at the mines worked by the Egyptians at Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinaitic peninsula (? c. 1500 B.C.)1* Yet, Sumerian parallels have also been found for both the forms and the sounds. In any case, the Phoenicians can no longer be credited with the invention of writing. It is, however, known that they were importing papyrus from Egypt about noo B.C., and It may well be that the Semitic alphabet, like the Semitic lan- guages and culture, was the result of a native, Independent fusion of external and non-Semitic influences. Such * Semitization * is, at all events, entirely characteristic*
In spite of numerous minor differences, natural among peoples living under different conditions, there has been a persistence of language, thought and custom, even as there has been one of physical type, despite movements of population. These movements are important for history* There are regular seasonal movements^ 1 A. H. Gardiner, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology ', 1916, vol m.
190 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
often over large areas, in search of pasturage; and although tribal names familiar at one period are often lost at another, when new ones will appear. Sir George Adam Smith found the Beni Mesaid pitching their summer camp east of Jordan where a Greek inscrip- tion of A.D. 214 still records the presence of a nomad tribe of the same name (<£uX/*? Mc£aieSip>coz'). Tribes have also escaped into Egypt or out of it. But, above all, *upon Arabia nature has be- stowed few gifts beyond that of breeding men/ and tribes, driven by bad seasons, famine, increase of population, pressure or lust of conquest constantly drive against the fertile districts, wedge them- selves in, or expel the settlers and destroy all fertility and culture. The Decapolis represented a Greek league to keep the bedouins out, and the Romans played off the invading tribes one against the other and built forts to ward off the invaders. Besides, the invari- ably heavy death-rate of the towns is only counterbalanced by a constant infiltration of the peasantry. There are many gradations from the pure nomad to the settled agriculturist; and even nomad traders have been capable of inaugurating dynasties scarcely more ephemeral than many of those of more settled lands. Such move- ments as are known are typical. The great Islamic movement and the entry of Israel into the 'Promised Land* are not without lesser parallels. The Moabite Adwan believe that they came from Arabia some ten generations ago, and the Jafnites (Ghassanids) were said to have journeyed from Yemen about the first century A*D. Earlier still, about the middle of the first millennium B.C., another im- portant movement can be faintly traced, contemporary with the decay of the great empires of Egypt and west Asia. The religious wars of Islam, and Israel's debt to Sinai, Horeb and to the Arabian kin of Moses, illustrate the influence of the south; but some im- portant influences have flowed from the north. The Arabs them- selves received many elements of culture from the Aramaic- speaking tribes of the north; Greeks, Persians and Jews have exercised political and cultural influence over south Arabia, and a physical relationship has been traced between the south Arabians (as distinct from the bedouins) and the Armenoid types of the north. The biblical accounts of Shem, Eber, Abraham and Jacob point to the north and to a southward movement of Aramaeans; and the Aramaeans were apparently responsible for the collapse of Solomon's great empire.
Although there has been no diffusion of Semites analogous to that of the Indo-Europeans, the spread of Islam is only an extreme example of its kind. The influence of the trading Phoenicians with their colonies in the Mediterranean and Atlantic can hardly be
V, i] TRADERS AND COLONISTS 191
calculated. Carthage then, and Morocco more recently* are speci- mens of what Semitic influence could achieve on congenial soil. Of tjje south Arabians, also great traders, and with communica- tions with Africa and India, only little is known. The Jews, though hardly a sea-faring people, traded successfully on land, and their settlements and synagogues paved the way for Christianity, in the spread of which Syrians travelled eastwards as far as China, and were the forerunners of Mohammedan traders and missionaries, (It is difficult to determine the precise share of Phoenicians and Aramaeans in spreading the European and north Semitic forms of the one common ancestral alphabet in the west and east respec- tively.) Syrians in the west were merchants, musicians, slaves, and carriers of oriental cults. So also, the c Chaldeans' — astrologers and diviners — succeeded in making their own name a synonym for impostor. Going further back, we find a Semitic colony at the mines of Kara Euyuk in Cappadocia, by the twenty-first century B.C.; and, in addition to the relationship between Assyrian art and Phrygia (seventh century), and between Assyria and Lydia, there are old traditions of * white Syrians* of Cappadocia, and, as we have already seen, Shem/s genealogy extends from Blam and Assyria to Lydia. Moreover, there was a Minoan sea-power long before the Phoenicians are named in history; * Byblus-farers ' plied in the Levant, and there was frequent intercourse between the Phoenician coast and the Delta. Hence the people we call * Phoeni- cians ' are strictly the heirs of an old-established system of inter- course, and the Tyrian sea-power itself was only one of a succes- sion of thalassocracies. How much intercourse and movement lie outside our records must of course be entirely conjectural. It is at least certain that the * Semitic* world was no secluded one. There were periods almost cosmopolitan, notably in the * Amarna' period (see pp» 152, 177, 312, 569), and again, later, under the Persians. A vivid picture of Phoenician traffic is given in EzekiePs descrip- tion of Tyre (ch. xxvii); and when Jerusalem was 'the gate of the people* (ib. xxvi, 2) we see how commercial activities could give wealth and influence to cities that were fortunately situated or were centres of government (cf. also Mecca, Medina and Palmyra).
South-west Asia and north-east Africa have many points of contact; Abyssinian and negroid elements are found in south Arabia, and noteworthy ethnical and sociological relationships have been observed between the Semitic and African popula- tions. The * wilderness of the land of Egypt* was the scene of the wanderings of the tribes of Israel (Ezek. xx, 36), and, conversely, one of the Egyptian nomes was later called Arabia.
192 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
Yet, the Semites belong essentially to Asia and have been mainly influenced from the north; and Egypt hardly "became truly * Semitic' until the collapse of her old distinctive culture and the conquest by the Mohammedans, It was always difficult for Asia to hold Egypt, and Egypt was ever ready to conspire with the Levant against the East, In the north the Semites were unable to make any lasting impression upon Asia Minor: "so soon as the land-level of northern Syria attains a mean altitude of 2500 feet, the Arab tongue is chilled to silence > (Hogarth). Not the Semites, but only the north-country Turks could hold it definitely; while, on the other hand, peoples passing into the Semitic area have com- monly undergone a process of *Semitization.* The Semite and the invading Sumerian exchanged religious, literary, and other ele- ments of culture. Similarly, Elamites and Kassites were Semitized, and some strange blends are found in the mountain districts. Fierce racial difference did not prevent the Persians from being true Mohammedans after a few generations; and the debt of the Semites to the Persian, most obvious under the Abbasid Caliphs of Baghdad, is recognizable earlier in the days of the Achaemenid Persians, and can be suspected at some other periods. Mongols, Turks, and Persians often seem to become more Semitic than the Semites; and when, as in early times, religious and other aspects of culture tended to form a single system, assimilation was easier, and conquerors were conquered. Through the Hittites, Kassites, Mitannians, Philistines — to mention no more — the Semitic area was seemingly impregnated with foreign influences. But it showed an astonishing receptivity, and an ability to assimilate; although sometimes the influence was not so deep as it appeared, or there were most remarkable syncretisms which, however, hardly took root among the simpler classes. The fact remains that the blood of the peasantry has always determined the type, and foreign ele- ments tended to disappear in the process — -in the words of Robert- son Smith : ' One of the most palpable proofs that the populations of all the old Semitic lands possessed a remarkable homogeneity of character is the fact that in them, and in them alone, the Arabs and Arab influence took permanent root/
By a bold generalization the attempt has sometimes been mad* to view the entire history of the Semitic area as the result of suc- cessive waves of nomad Semites migrating from a 'home' in the deserts of Arabia owing to overcrowding, desiccation or some other natural cause. In this way five epochs have been distin- guished, the latest being the Mohammedan movement of the seventh century A.D* The first invasion would date about the
V5i] INFLUENCE OF ARABIA 193
fourth millennium B.C., occupying Mesopotamia and North Syria. About tfte middle of the third millennium will come the Canaan- ites a^id a modification ('Amorite') of the "Semitic element in Mesopotamia. A thousand years later the Aramaean wave, a vast movement, brings the Hebrew and related peoples (Edom, Moab and Ammon), and fills the north as far as the Taurus mountains. Again, after another millennium, a fourth, invasion is responsible for the Nabataeans and for later settlers, e.g. the Lakhmids and Ghassanids of the east and west respectively. All theories of this sort, however, while in accordance with many facts,, give too schematic a view of the movements; and, in endeavouring to sim- plify complex processes of ethnical history, they follow the mistake of the old-time historians themselves who, as exemplified in the biblical narratives, tried to simplify the traditions at their dis- posal. The theories are largely influenced by linguistic considera- tions, whereas, at present, enough is not known of the early Se- mitic languages to base historical arguments upon the character of each.
Although the tendency of desert tribes to move into the * fertile crescent' is exceedingly significant for Semitic history, there are repeated influences from without and to the south no less signifi- cant. By the Semites we may understand the homogeneous group of Semitic-speaking peoples occupying a definite area which has retained a certain stamp. What is 'Semitic' is not necessarily of single or simple origin, for nowhere do we reach the absolutely primitive Semite; and we have to look, not for the most rudimen- tary features, but for the most typical and persistent. Now, some interpreters of Semitic history have been impressed by the relative primitiveness of Arabian life and thoxight, and the * Arabian home' of the Semites; others by the antiquity, solidarity and widespread influence of a culture best exemplified in Babylonia. The rudeness and simplicity of bedouin conditions are thus weighed against a culture which was apparently homogeneous among all the great ancient powers, and presumably left its mark upon all intervening districts. But the alternatives between the simple, unchanging fcedouin and the complex and long-extinct culture of Mesopotamia have been stated too rigorously. We have rather to recognize that certain psychological and other tendencies, which have taken in- choate and primitive forms among rudimentary tribes, have be- come more developed, though less permanent, among the more highly organized; and that they appear to be responsible for new creative periods and the rise of new political organisms. See p. 38 sy.
C. A.H.I *3
I94 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
II. TEMPERAMENT AND THOUGHT ,
Among the factors that have conditioned the course of Somitic history may be mentioned the marked differences of soil, the irre- gularities of climate, the broken character of Syria and Palestine, the inhospltallty of the desert (whereby the bedouin often lives In alternating periods of semi-starvation and surfeit), the social differ- ences in town-life, and the varieties of thought due to the con- tiguity of different social and ethnical types. Although the per- sistence of typical forms of life and thought has made the 'un- changeable East* a truism, conspicuous differences of character can often be noticed in different villages and tribes. A very Im- portant factor, however., has been the influence of foreigners. Egypt, Crete, Asia Minor, and, above all, Iran., have exercised an Influence which, In the case of the last-mentioned. Is incalculable. The proximity of Indo-Europeans, the easy gateways, and the re- currence at one time or another of Indo-European personal names from Lake Van to south Palestine combine to suggest possibilities of fusion such that the separation of what is and what Is not Se- mitic may well seem hopeless. At all events, it is noteworthy that Aramaic, which was used and spoken In the northern part of the Semitic area, and was therefore nearer to Indo-European influence, is a much more flexible language than Hebrew or Arabic, and lends itself more readily to the interconnexion and subordination of sentences and of ideas.
On the other hand, there is a typical similarity of life and thought throughout the desert-lands of Syria and Arabia, and also of north Africa. A relatively primitive type prevails outside the influence of more developed and complex forms of life, and it becomes more prominent at certain creative periods, notably at the rise of Islam, but also during the history of Israel. It does not follow that the primitive features represent some primeval type of Semitic thought; for Islam,, too, like the Arabic language itself, betrays the influence of earlier and more developed growths. Biit there are certain modes and processes which recur at the great creative periods and are more rudimentary among the simple anct undeveloped classes, and these persisting and formative factors may be considered characteristic of the Semites.
The pure and bracing desert air stimulates the faculties, and gives a lively consciousness of health and vigour* It breeds energy, enthusiasm, and aggressiveness. Courageous, furious in attack, contemptuous of death, the Semites are better in skirmishes and raids than in prolonged attack; they are soon discouraged, and,
V, n] PSYCHOLOGY OF THE LANGUAGES 195
outside the Assyrian and Carthaginian conquests, organizing power is rare. More intent upon ends than means they have no base for operations, no lines of communication, and they anticipate short cuts to success. But they can meet defeat and misfortune with resignation, await a proverbial forty years for revenge, and they pass easily from extremes of optimism and confidence to pessimism and despair. They have been called superficial, vain, aristocratic, and swift to feel humiliation* The heroic virtues of the warriors were group-loyalty, self-sacrifice, defiance of the strong foe and protection of the weak kinsman. But the horizon is a small one. Tribal or family pride readily conquers civic or national loyalty, and is a disintegrating factor when nomads take to settled life. The personal or tribal interest is all-compelling; but the bravest deeds are often Isolated, or of no social value. The individual easily reacts to personal appeal, emotion has the last word; his fancy and imagination can be stirred — less readily his intellect. Personal feel- ing is the source of action, not commonsense, or plan, or morality. A personal claim is recognized, and there is admiration for any manifestation of personal power and ability as distinct from its ethical value or its consequences. Ideas of lordship, power and control have a fascination, and here again ethical distinctions are secondary.
The older Semitic languages are simple, direct, immediate, and 'without the particles and auxiliaries which unite phrases and give suppleness to the Indo-European languages. The syntax is simple; sentences are statements with little subordination, although Ara- bic, and more especially Aramaic, are decidedly freer. But it must be remembered that at the more rudimentary stages, and among simpler peoples, there is everywhere a certain syntactical resem- blance, so that colloquial English and Egyptian non-literary papyri approximate to Hebrew usage and the frequent *and* of the Fourth* Gospel. Though Semitic ideas may be limited and undeveloped, the languages have a much richer vocabulary than might be imagined, e.g. from the restricted character of Hebrew and Syriac literature. Hebrew itself is poor in abstracts, but rich in concrete, ^sensuous imagery; though it does not follow that every concept conveyed what its most literal meaning might suggest. Its direct- ness and concreteness give the Old Testament its persisting appeal to the senses and feelings; it incorporates the thought of an emo- tional, self-conscious and observant people at a simple stage of development. Later, both Hebrew and Arabic were extended and used for abstruse and scientific topics, though Syriac was content to borrow the necessary terms. A characteristic feature is the ease
13— a
196 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
with which the individual passes from one standpoint or picture to another. Thus., the conditional proposition may consist of two distinct mental pictures, the juxtaposition of which causes <*hern mutually to determine each other, Again, impending or future events can be regarded as actually present; conditions and results can be associated, and what was once future (from some past standpoint) can be regarded as still unaccomplished. The tenses in Hebrew hardly express time from our point of view, but rather states of development; and the language is dominated by the action and reaction of living ideas and the judgment of the speaker. The Indo-European scheme of three distinct time-periods (past, present and future) is not expressed, although even in the old Babylonian the Semitic * imperfect J was slightly differentiated in order to dis- tinguish what we call present and preterite.
Not only does the Semite's appreciation of time in events and actions colour his general historical perspective, but disconnected- ness and love of bold imagery are manifested in many forms. The poetry is intensely realistic. No figure is too bold, and even the mysticism is not vague. In common with the love of eloquence, rhetoric and the use of sonorous and striking words, these char- acteristics can easily become wearisome when they are overdone, Hebrew poetry, though deeper and richer than that of the Arabs, was intensely subjective, and sublime rather than beautiful. There is in general a love of practical and epigrammatic brevity. Led away by personal interest the individual is terse, inconsequential and frequently indifferent to discrepancies irrelevant for his pur- pose, but perhaps not for ours. Alike in the Hebrew prophets and in Mohammed's Koran we have enthusiasm, eloquence and imagi- nation rather than logical exactness, sustained thought and sweep- ing comprehension. Guided by the impulse and feeling of the moment, the language is elliptical, representing a series of emo- tional states which require elaborate expositions to understand and co-ordinate them,
The thought does not proceed step-wise, nor is it detached or objective. There is too much earnestness — or obsession — for that. There are no half-tones — nothing between love or hate, one might" almost add; and even in the developed legal code of the Babylonian king, Hammurabi, actions are either right or wrong. Things to be of any interest must be of deep personal interest, and passion then generates a feeling of human relationship even with the inanimate. The whole of nature is subordinated, the universe blends with personal conviction., and there is an * immediacy' in conceptions of God and Nature, in contrast to a detached or scientific view
V, n] CHARACTER OF SEMITIC THOUGHT 197
of things. This profound consciousness and this depth of feeling give the Old Testament its religious value. In contrast to the un- impassioned and intellectual admiration of the Greek for grandeur and beauty, the sensuous Semite must possess them for himself. Religious truths are apprehended as personal necessities. They are ends in themselves. There is no creativeness or originality, the 'poets' are not the 'makers' that their Greek name means. There is reshaping rather than a constructive or reproductive ability, symbolism rather than plasticity. With all the keen observation of Man and Nature there is no apprehension of a great or united whole: the unity is of subjective feeling and purpose rather than of composition, or of analysis and synthesis*
The desert stimulates the nerves, but the mind starves. There is much to feed fancy, little to encourage discursive thought. Interests are few, a man has his ends in himself and carries his world with him. But life is a fight; one must be heedful, and every- thing is ominous. So, there can be no repose, and the self-control of the bedouin is apt to be an affectation, a truce, or a prelude to some sudden explosion. The nomad does not need many goods, he has the simplest categories : there is no wealth of social detail to en courage or compel speculation. The simple patriarchal organi- zation of life is his pattern of thought. Moreover, desert-life does not promote social stability. It throws men back upon themselves; and self-consciousness brings out the contrast between the poor degenerate types, whose only conscience is a self-discontent, and those nobler, aristocratic, if pagan, types which at once arouse our admiration. It has been said that the Arabs of the classical period and their descendants, the bedouins of the present day, are perhaps one of the races most untouched by the solemnities of religious awe that have ever existed (Sir Charles Lyall). Certainly, their poems will breathe a 'pagan' passionate love of life (cf. also David's Lament in 2 Samuel, dbu i); and it is, in any case, one of the paradoxes of the Semites that they have given the world its greatest religious geniuses.
The religious and other aspects of life are not distinguished as among more developed peoples. This relatively less differentiated stage of development makes the study of Semitic life and thought one of absorbing interest. Religion and ethics, social, political and religious institutions formed more or less a whole. Consequently religion has played a really unique part in Semitic history, and Semitic religion is important for developments which we are accus- tomed to consider outside the sphere of religion. The Semites breed men of tremendous personality, men who hold the world
198 THE SEMITES [CHAP
within them and feel themselves anyone's equal. Impetuous and imperious they rush at difficulties; and, although they are normally unadventurous, they outstrip, when aroused, their racial rivak, but rarely leave heirs.
Mohammed transformed a tendency already represented by a few, and as a single individual perhaps did more than any other to shape history. The main lines of his doctrines developed those familiar in Judaism, and his conception of God is essentially that of the Old Testament, Christianity began as a Jewish sect amid new religious tendencies in which Jews played the most prominent part. Judaism itself is of uncertain origin — tradition ascribed it to Moses, earlier to Abram^and the worship of Yahweh is even said to begin with Enosh, the grandson of Adam, the first man (see further p. 235)0 But it owed its persistence and renewal to the Maccabees (second century B.C.), and to earlier prophetical or other figures, some of them quite unknown* Yet the religion of Israel, indebted to Sumerian, Iranian and other non-Semitic influences,, is essen- tially one with the other Semitic religions, although reformers and transformers wrought the essential spiritual differences that mark it out from the rest. In their broad outlines all the Semitic religions are the natural expression of the Semitic temper and modes of thought. Characteristic are the simplicity, directness, exclusiveness and intensity which give them a seeming monotheistic trend. True monotheism, however, is rare — Yahweh himself gave objects of worship to the heathen (Deut, iv, 1 9) — and the temporary or con- sistent worship of one god above all others and to their exclusion is 'henotheism* or *monolatry.' Further, even when only one god is recognized, the question of his ethical and moral character and of his functions is vital. There is a vast difference between a psycho- logical monotheism (as where the god filled the entire emotional life of his worshipper) and one that is metaphysical and involves theoretical problems of causation which, needless to say, the Semites did not consider.
The belief in demoniacal and other agencies persisted under Judaism, even as it had flourished amid Sumerian polytheism. In point of fact, polytheism prevailed over the Semitic world; but^ every man was at least a potential henotheist and the god addressed might be unique for the time being, A social organization with polygamy and easy divorce could hardly foster ideas of undivided loyalty; on the other hand, political organization tending towards a single, supreme head caused ideas of monotheism and of mon- archy to flow together, and to the great and only ruler of the land would correspond one great and only god. But a monotheism
V, n] RELIGIOUS TENDENCIES 199
which. Is simply a single government of the universe Is not as such of a very exalted order. Co-ordinating and synthesizing processes, Identifying gods or reducing their number, and simplifying ideas of divine or supernatural powers, were repeatedly at work, but there was no conception of a philosophical or metaphysical unity. Yet everywhere there Is a vague colourless and Inchoate feeling of *God* — even in the polytheistic code of Hammurabi; and although It often defies formulation, It is the God then and there felt, who can sometimes be identified with some known and named god. Hence, although the religious Indifference of the bedouin is notorious, this El (Bab. ilu] Is a supreme feeling into which reason hardly enters, although It is the source of the explicit doctrines of the more developed communities. In general, the bedouin accepts the * superstitions' of the settled people, and, among the latter, the monotheizing (i.e. unifying) tendencies are constantly at war with the more developed Ideas of the prevailing civilization.
Semitic monotheism is a passionate demand rather than the result of reflection. The remarkable monotheism of the Egyptian king Ikhnaton (fourteenth century BX,) was explicitly a * doctrine'; it broke with the anthropomorphism of the people, and was in turn broken by the popular or national cult* Nor was the Semitic conception of divine * holiness' necessarily ethical, It might be that of some transcending and tremendous energy utterly outside human power. We should notice the prominence of gods of sun, storm, thunder and lightning, and the recurrence of catastrophic and destructive Imagery. Moreover, prophecy and madness, ecstasy and raving, were admittedly Interrelated. Men and women devoted to licentious religious cults were 'holy* or * sacred* — the difficulty of translating such terms is obvious (see p. 538 ^.)^ and even with a £ God of Righteousness' — the great gift of Israel to the world — practical religion and ethics had to ask, What constitutes righteousness, and Who is a man's neighbour? There was no Necessity' to which even a Zeus was subordinate: the Deity is all In all. He Is true to His character, and all further practical ques- tions were answered by the practical behaviour of the Semite, whose religious, social and political ideas tended to form an in- divisible whole. The intense feeling of the immediacy of a super- sensuous realm was a force driving every man according to his temper and leading men to good or evil. There is the keenest desire to maintain the dogma of divine supremacy; but the indi- vidual is the interpreter, vessel or representative. Yet, an impass- able gulf severs gods and men, and woe to those who dare to set themselves upon a level with the Most High*
200 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
Men and nations are clay in the potter's hand, and heaven and earth must bend to His purpose. Hebrew literature enshrines the effort to reconcile intense religious conviction and the has*d ex- periences of history, God must be omnipotent; it is He who hardens Pharaoh's heart, deceives men, tempts them to sin, gives them statutes that are not good (Ezek. xx, 25)3 so that the Law itself becomes a temporary measure in the eyes of Paul (but see Rom. :xi, 25—32). Semitic religion is coloured throughout by a rather crass determinism and the sense of man's nothingness before an arbitrary God. Indeed, the Semitic gods are not at ease. Mighty and imperious, they manifest themselves in the more terrifying phenomena; they are devouring fires to destroy alike sinners and the uninitiated (Ex* xix, 1 2 sq.\ xxiv, 1 i), to punish both the ethical and the ritual misdemeanour (Is. xxxiii, 14). Accordingly we find the greatest extremes; entire dependence upon the deity, tears, laments, utter abasing, a femininity, a * slave' temper; or else it is a sublime and often very spiritual confidence; or it is a self-suffi- ciency, with all the arrogance of a divinely-chosen representative. Although * I slam' is pious * submission' to the will of God, it is a resignation not without a confident assurance of what, that will is. Entirely characteristic are the words of a very old Babylonian attempt to solve the mysteries of personal experience : * If men hunger they are like corpses; if satiated they consider themselves a rival to their god; if things go well, they prate of mounting to heaven; if they are in distress, they speak of descending into Ir~ kallu (*.£. the world of the dead)/
Sensual grossness alternates with reverence; and both asceticism and sensuality have been pursued to the extremest lengths. The jealousy and intolerance of the gods is that of the worshipper; and the history of the Semites, like that of other ancient peoples, has many pictures of fanaticism and of horror. Still, the fact remains that as one follows the general trend of Semitic life and thought one is invariably filled with admiration for the brilliant exceptions; and the protests of reforming spirits and the striking conceptions of the purer minds are the more to be appre- ciated. One contrasts the Babylonian hero of the flood saved by the favouritism of the god Ea, with Noah delivered by his merits — Lot is saved for his hospitality; and there is a profound protest in the assurance that God is not one to lie or change His mind (Numb, xxiii, 1 9). Intelligibly enough, fear and gloom run through- out Semitic religion (cf. pp, 443, 533 sq.}. Men must confess that of which they are not consciously guilty; they must be cleansed of their unknown sins, and appease all known and unknown gods
V, n] CHARACTER OF THE RELIGIONS 201
and goddesses whoever they may be. Neither the Semites nor their gods have the softer virtues. In the Mohammedan conceptions of Alia]* attributes of vengeance overshadow those of love; but all the religions reiterate the ultimate mercifulness of their god. Se- mitic religion in general is naive and child-like; it is often that of the trustful and, it must be said, of the spoilt child. The require- ments were simple: be good and enjoy the land (Is. i, 19 sq.}. It is essentially practical, with practical rewards in this life, or (in the case of the Mohammedan Paradise) in the next. Their simplicity and their immediate explanations of all mysteries kept alive Judaism and Islam, until the advance to a more developed stage of life and thought made the elementary ideas too imperfect and unsatisfying and raised questions which could not be answered. To the Semite the fear of the Lord was indeed the beginning, or the best, of knowledge. Learning grew out of and centred around the sacred places which were under priestly control. The Jewish synagogues were centres of religious and communal life; the old temples had far wider functions, they were storehouses (the modern local shrines are also so used), banks, and trading establishments, and thereby gained immense influence (p, 534^.)- The Babylonian commercial organization of about the sixth cen- tury B.C. was comparable only to that of modern times, of which it was, perhaps, through the Greeks and Romans, the parent. And not only was trade bound up with religion, it reacted upon it, so that commercial intercourse spread religion, and promoted a cer- tain cosmopolitanism. But purists could object to those who 'strike hands with the children of strangers' and learn of their idolatrous ways (Is, ii, 7 sq.\ cf. Zeph. i, 8)* The old hepatoscopy, or divina- tion by means of the liver (p. 409) in order to determine the will of the gods, contributed to anatomy, even as astronomy was in- debted to the astrological study of the divine decrees in the move- ments of the stars. Moreover the priests were interested in local or national traditions, and in substantiating claims or privileges. But one must not look for objective history; and personal bias will show itself beneath the surface, in some strange tradition, or will 'come out in some Psalm of vengeance, in the ejaculations of a Nehemiah (e.g. v, 1 9; xiii, 14, 3 1) or in the * aside* of an Arab poet* Already in early Babylonia the religious literature fostered the study of the Babylonian and Sumerian languages — lexicography began among the Babylonians (cf. p. 5 52 sy^ and among Jews and Arabs it was also the main factor in linguistic and related pursuits. When Jewish learning concentrated upon the Law — and with all the contempt of Confucianism for the unlearned, the * people of
202 THE SEMITES [CHAK
the land* — the discipline at least meant some legal training, and an ability to thresh out the theologico-legal questions of Rabbin- ism. Purely intellectual speculation, however, was scarcely en- couraged when religious conceptions of divine power, not to men- tion beliefs in demoniacal and other causes, settled all doubts; and unusual phenomena were marvels whose * natural' causes were not to be Investigated, if only because men had not our conception of * natural/ The conditions were not favourable to complex thought; and speculative advance Is intuitive, with no secure de- fence and no 'lines of communication.' Emotion and feeling are oblivious to inconsistencies, and some Hebrew words for thought and purpose, suggestively enough, come to indicate Irreligious activity. The Semite was not analytical; It was the Egyptian who, avoiding the elaborate, clumsy syllabary of the cuneiform writing, took the first step towards an alphabet (p. 342).
The Semite, unlike the Egyptian, was interested only in this world, and this difference between them reappears throughout their culture (see p. 531). On the other hand, Islam owed to ex- ternal influence its conception of a heaven of joys with Its counter- part in the tortures of helL The old popular hymns of Tammuz celebrated the death and rebirth of nature; but these did not sug- gest, as did the later mysteries, the resurrection of the dead. And even then, to Jews and Arabs it was a marvel of divine power, and no process like the natural quickening of the seed (i Cor, xv). In religious and other thought the Semitic mind was at the implicit stage; It might apprehend metaphysical facts of the spiritual order (tf.^g". the personality of God), but It was unable to reason about them. The prophets of Israel had a practical goal, and Jewish c wisdom' was an insight into human life and into the significance of nature for man. Whatever Solomon's observations were (i Kings vi, 6, 33), they would not be those of detached science, but gnomic, like the later reflections upon the ant and the rock-badger (Prov, vi, xxx). The religious sentiments were hostile to both science and art, and the latter could not exercise the influence it did in Egypt or Greece (pp. 134, 586). A religious theory of history was early developed (see p, 223 J^.); but theology and cosmogony hardly pass^ beyond elementary stages, and the curious Phoenician doctrines preserved by Greek writers (like the Greek accounts of Egyptian wisdom) cannot be taken, as they stand, to represent old Semitic thought. They represent the efforts of writers trained in Greek thought to restate that which at an early stage had been expressed in intelligible myths. Yet, in the old Babylonian conception of the creative power of the Word there are the germs of a more
V, n] SEMITIC AND NON-SEMITIC THOUGHT 203
developed doctrine (c£ p. 443), though It Is to the Greek or the Persian lhat the Semites owed such developments.
Tbe Greek cities of the Decapolis produced some well-known Greeks (e.g. Meleager, Theodorus the rhetorician), and later on we can contrast the semi-barbaric Lakhmids with the effect of Greek culture upon the Ghassanids, and mark the influence of Persian intellectual and speculative activity upon Baghdad. The proud bedouin left agricultural toil to the miserable fellahin and literary culture to the Persians. Arab speculation was unsystematized so long as it was only slightly influenced by the Greeks; and the Mohammedan Arabs who excelled in religious or scientific en- quiries were either not of Arab origin or were indebted to foreign teachers. But the co-operation of Semite and Greek spread Baby- lonian astrology, and much else besides; and while Spain in the west gave a new and almost modern turn to the typical Arab poetry, the partnership in the east enriched the world from Spain to India with a literary culture the benefits of which for the Europe of the 'Dark Ages' can hardly be over-estimated. In a word, the Semites are middle-men, copying foreign models (like the Phoenician and Arab artists), reshaping what they adopt (like the Israelite treat- ment of the older myths), and stamping themselves upon what they send out. So characteristic is the repeated external influence upon the Semites that one may suspect that Semitic culture was really a complex organism from the earliest times.
The Semite must personify; law and order in the Universe must be embodied In or associated with an anthropomorphic god, and Semitic anthropomorphism is sometimes of the crudest. Later Se- mitic antipathy to idolatry was in contrast with Greek bias for the personal and the individual and Its aversion from the amor- phous; but it was not only detrimental to the arts, it allowed in- complete conceptions of divine personality. Imageless worship (e.g. of Yahweh, Ashur) certainly discouraged tendencies of thought which were grossly human; but it encouraged ideas the reverse of spiritual, because the ideas of human personality were not suffici- ently advanced. Semitic anthropomorphism is unstable, and the "curious fantastic, half-animal and half-human forms in Egypt and west Asia, and the use of skins, masks, etc*, and the animal sym- bolism of the religious literature, indicate rudimentary (pernaps totemic) and imperfect conceptions of personality, or attempts to clothe ideas for which the human figure seemed far too inadequate.
Religious, social and political ideas were interrelated. Polygamy excluded an intimate family life, and therefore a family religion as in Greece or Rome. Certain social and political organizations
204 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
encouraged Ideas of ruling gods; and among the Jews of Elephan- tine in Upper Egypt (fifth century B.C.), Yahweh, like'the local gocl Khnum, and like Abraham with his Sarah and Hagar^seems to have two female companions of higher and lower rank (cf. also, p. 523). The conviction that the gods belong to the family or tribe is fundamental, and the kinship of gods and men expresses itself in many ways (cf. p. 350^.). The deities are men's kin, and old Semitic personal names frequently express some intimate bond. The be- lief inspires fine ideas, but can lead to gross cults, suggesting or symbolizing the intimate relationship. The marriage-relation — the god and the land, people or king — was especially familiar, but the idea of divine sonship is more inveterate and permanent, The gods join in the life of their worshippers, they share in the feasts, the wine that cheers gods and men is passed round, and all are one. So the gods are loyally active for their group; and the ideas are capable of profound development — until the religion becomes particularistic and the morality narrow. And this exclusiveness, characteristic of the Semitic gods, is at once the Semite's strength and his weakness.
The lengthy history of the Semites presents many phases of growth and decay. When the fire of enthusiasm dies down, all that is best perishes. The pointed speech becomes a mannerism, and the richness of language is tautologous. The vigorous Arab poetry with the virility of desert-life becomes a euphuism, Hebrew his- torical narrative with all its picturesqueness becomes supremely dull, poetry is gravely misunderstood (e.g. Josh, x, 13), Jewish apocalypses lose their early glow, the agonies of Syrian martyrs fail to move us, and Syrian metrical theology becomes tiresome when Isaac of Antioch is guilty of a stupendous poem of 2137 verses on a parrot which proclaimed the holiness of the Deity. There is then an absence of moderation, and the typical Semitic aversion from absolute symmetry in art, poetry and thought be- comes a mechanical extravagance* The religion and ethics decline and leave a sterile magic. Sumerian and Jewish sacerdotalism be- comes extreme. Then the vision is sealed up among the few, and ordinary men must resort to whatever native or foreign gods they can find — and excavation has indicated the lasting popularity of some Egyptian gods (notably the grotesque Bes) in early Pales- tine. New mystical symbolism flourishes, and at periods of de- generacy there are excesses of rude? licentious and cruel cults. Already the Egyptian of the Xllth Dynasty could take a pessimist outlook upon life, and the maid Sabitu gives the old Babylonian hero Gilgamesh what is later the counsel of Ecclesiastes (ii, 24).
V, H] RELIGIOUS VICISSITUDES 205
The pre-Islamic bedouin, too, had a thoroughly hedonistic view of life. jKt the periods of disintegration there are advances in indi- vidualism which are not lost when later there is a new unity. This individualism has meant a greater originality of thought owing to the decay of earlier religious and social systems, and has led to the spread of new ideas. Older beliefs, customs or privileges formerly associated with the few have been extended to the many. Yet this individualism was disintegrating; men refused to acknowledge either the rights of others or the supreme authority of their gods. At such times men do 'each that which is right in his own eyes/ until the arrival of the new stage, which is typically one with a religious, no less than a social and political aspect. So it is char- acteristic of Semitic life that periods of decay are followed by a religious renewal, and that in the two versions of the accession of Saul, the first king of Israel, he is either a divinely-sent saviour or the kingship is an affront and the deity is the only king.
The extremes of the Semites have been their making and their undoing. Their permanent religious and ethical gifts to humanity were in large measure protests evoked by current cruelty, licenti- ousness, excessive sacrifice and ritual, love of wealth and grossness of superstition. Their best was due to the ability of a few to rise above their worst* The instability of the Semites is in harmony with their subjectivity, it permeates every phase of life; and their enthusiasm and energy were never moderated by that objective knowledge and reason which would have saved them — from both extremes. Although their characteristics taken separately are not peculiar to them alone, together they form a systematic whole, due partly to natural and physical conditions, and partly to their inability to develop beyond the child-stage. The Semites of old represent a child-stage of humanity and an arrested develop- ment; and, what has been said of their shortcomings is true of other ancient peoples. Where a social or political organism broke down it led to no new organism; there was not that transformation of idiom and thought which we find in the relatively more mature Indo-European world. If there have been greater and more radical thanges (e.g. in the Semitic dialects) during the Christian era — and some transformations can be adduced — the fact remains that the culture of the old Semitic world has long passed away, and that its true Golden Age is as far removed from the beginning of the Christian era as is this age.
206 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
III. SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT
The ordinary economic conditions among the Semites are«easily recognizable; compare, for example, the situation in ancient and modern Babylonia (Chap, xiv). The rivers of Mesopotamia led as naturally to the union of cities as did the Nile of Egypt. In both lands the physical conditions compelled co-operation, and made for a certain unity and homogeneity of life and thought; Baby- lonia, however, suffered from its more exposed situation and hetero- geneity of population, and Palestine and Syria were little adapted for any union from within. In the steppes and deserts an Ishmael could flourish with his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him; but access to the pasture-grounds and the use of the wells demanded some sort of order and discipline, and at the oases of the desert loosely-knit groups are easily formed. The products of the soil are so unevenly distributed that there can be no com- plete independence; groups must exchange surplus goods for necessaries, and from the earliest times trading-activities have been an important factor in political development. Caravans must be organized, friendly relations maintained along the routes, and the typical Semite is essentially an aristocratic trader.
Needless to say, the whole system of conditions among traders would be entirely different from that of the agricultural districts or towns. So, a distinction was also drawn of old between Jabal, 'father' of the tent-dweller, and Tubal-Cain, the metal worker, between the agriculturist Cain and Abel the pastoral, and between Jacob and Esau, of whom the latter corresponds precisely to the Phoenician hunter TJsoos (the Greek spelling). The aversion from agricultural toil reflects itself in the curse pronounced on the first man, and only mitigated by the invention of wine by Noah, the comforter (Gen* iii, 17—19; v, 29). The ideal life was under one's vine and fig-tree; and Israel could boast of occupying cities it had not built and vineyards it had not planted (with the contrast in Deut. xxviii, 30, 33). Blessings and curses are very significantly of an agricultural order. But although trade is sometimes explicitly associated with the alien Canaanites, it was of vital importance for^ the prosperity of Palestine and Syria; and not only was this recog- nized as regards the temple (Is. xxiii), but there are divine promises of a prosperous foreign commerce and of the ability to lend to foreign nations — but with the threat of the reverse in case of dis- obedience (Deut. xv? 6; xxviii, 12 sq^ 44).
The deep-reaching interconnexion of religious and economic ideas has many interesting aspects among the Semites. Various
V, in] PRODUCTION AND OWNERSHIP 207
tabus were Imposed upon the families charged with the care of incense-trade; and the date-palm, a staple food and invaluable in many^ways, was the centre of various important rites and beliefs (pp. 361, 543 sq.}. Ideas of ownership and immovable property were not naturally developed among bedouins and traders, who tend to be aristocratic communists; and where these ideas appear they are part of the problem of the cause of growth and prosperity, and the ownership of products, and are interwoven with religious, social and political ideas. Thus, as regards the condition of women and the ownership of children, two main social types can be recognized. The prevailing one is that where the woman on marriage leaves her kin or group, and the husband is the natural guardian of wife and children. He is her baaly and the woman is 'held by a ia'al* (be'ulah^ Is. Ixii, 4, R*V. mg.). Nevertheless, such women could exercise power : the force of harem-intrigue Is notorious, the queen- mothers of Judah were important personages, women could carry on business and with profit to their baal (Prov. xxxi), and in desert warfare a maiden could be the centre of the fight and the palladium whose capture meant the utter rout of her tribe. But there is another type, where the woman remains a member of her family or group; she is visited by her husband or lovers, and the children find their natural protector in the mother's family, and especially in her brother. Descent will here be reckoned through the mother, and paternity may be quite uncertain. In both types the extent of a woman's freedom or subjection depended very largely upon individual circumstances; Laban, for example, claimed the off- spring of his daughters and their husband Jacob; but the wives complain that they have not their rightful share in the inheritance (Gen. xxxi). The two types involve fundamental questions of ownership of the wife and of the children, and also of production. The emphasis can be laid upon the woman or upon the man; has the woman borne, or the man begotten ? Has she borne children for her family or group ? — in which case paternity may be of quite secondary importance. Or are the children the husband's? — and in this case, a Ruth may bear children for a dead husband, or an 'Abraham, when Sarah is sterile, may take a concubine. In the baal type the standpoint is essentially that of the man and of his personal rights.
The fundamental ideas are singularly important, because if the term baal connotes ownership, the subjection of the woman is not necessarily peculiar to the baal type, and even when subjected to her baal she could enjoy considerable freedom. Further, baal is the ordinary term for a god, and the gods were not originally
208 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
owners; the common word El itself frequently denotes rather a local numen. The term certainly comes to imply possession; and similarly, when 'God Most High' is called * possessor' of hgaven and earth (Gen. xiv, 19), the word is rendered 'maker5 by the R.V.marg. (the verb is used of 'acquiring' and 'creating*). Ideas of production and ownership readily converge — 'the producer owns' — and the explanation may be that the laal is primarily the effec- tive cause, the functionary, the genius, the productive element, and,, therefore, the holder of peculiar rights.
The precise sexual aspects of production are not primary. The Hebrew did not originally distinguish between bearing and be- getting; and the difference between "to bear' (yalad}, and the causative form, 'to cause to bear' (holiJ, to beget)3 is a secondary development of the use of a verb which primarily has some un- differentiated use (e.g. "to have a child'). Also, several feminine words have no feminine ending (em, mother; rahel, ewe). Further, the deities are begetters and causes of increase, and specific god- desses are not only tender or voluptuous, but also protective and warring Amazons. Some of the great deities, in fact, are indiffer- ently male or female. The Sumerian Gudea appeals to his * mother' and 'lord' Nin-girsu, and we hear of * mother-father Enlil/ and * father-mother Ninlil'; c£ also the bisexual Kadi of Der (p. 448). The male Tammuz sometimes seems to be regarded as feminine^ and has titles that properly belong to Ishtar. The goddess Ishtar herself — "with a feminine ending In west Semitic (e.g. Ashtart, the biblical Ashtoreth) — is a male in south Arabia, but is called both a mother (Umm-Athtar) and a baal. And the sun-deity, Shamash, who is female in the south, is generally male in the north! Very complex forms arise in the apparent fusion of male and female qualities: the deities Ishtar-Chemosh in Moab, the Phoenician Eshmun-Ashtart, the royal name Shamshi-Adad in Assyria (p. 232), and the later combination of Mithra and Ana- hita. Strangest of all is the bisexual Venus, the * bearded Ishtar/
It is often difficult to see clearly what ideas lay beneath the efforts to explain growth and increase. Yet, throughout Semitic thought there are certain recurring beliefs and practices which may be said to imply certain essential ideas of which each case is some particular and more or less developed form. There is that which is holy, sacred, distinctive or tabu; it is to be approached with caution, with proper ritual, or through recognized inter- mediaries. There are powers, definite or vague, to be invoked on all important occasions when man feels the need of a help outside his own power. There are times and occasions when the * religious'
V, in] BAALS AND OTHER POWERS 209
preliminaries are indispensable to success. Sacrifices are necessary before n£w soil is broken; one must obtain permission from the El (god)^ Adon (lord), Baal,, or, as at the present day, from the Sahib. New buildings must be dedicated, new undertakings solemnly in- augurated (harvest, war, coronation, etc.). There is an implicit and sometimes an explicit theorizing. Is the soil spontaneously pro- ductive? does it require an external cause — sun or rain, a god of sun or of rain ? or does God rule over sun and rain, and are His favours influenced by man's prayer, and hindered by man's sin? The gods grant the increase of nature and of man; therefore they must have the first-fruits, the firstlings, and theoretically, at least, the first-born, who in any case have some special virtue. The theory is implicit that the first causes are with the gods; and things are *holy' before they are ceremonially made * secular * and for com- mon use. The gods must be tended and served, they must be fed, housed and clothed. But ethical ideas are by no means absent, and they culminate in the supreme conviction that God desires justice, humility and mercy rather than sacrifice (Micah vi, i— 8).
In general, there was 'power' ('mana') outside ordinary reach; but accessible under given conditions. It was associated) on the one side, with unseen beings (gods, angels, demons, the Arab jinn)^ and, on the other, with special individuals, who had peculiar abilities and almost unrestricted gifts. It is the illegitimate and anti-social use of one's power or of external powers which, properly speaking, is * magic*; and the religious side of life is concerned with the acquisition and manipulation of power> whether directly or indirectly through the will of the gods, through prayer, ritual or conduct (cf. p. 354 ^.). Herein lies the importance of the priest, but not of him alone. The closer the relationship of men with the source of power, the more complete the co-operation between men and gods, for the gods need men, even as men need the gods. And men can learn the will of the gods. * Yahweh will do nothing without revealing his secret counsel to his prophets' (Amos iii, 7; iv, 13; cf. also, Rev. x, 7); and, according to the Koran, God has sent a succession of prophets to direct men. Liver- *tiivination and astrology, lots, curses, oaths and ordeals — all de- pend upon the belief in the ability of man to learn an unseen will and utilize it* But as the relationship of the gods with their wor- shipping group is usually closer with special individuals-- — and notably the priest-kings, secular rulers, and priests — Semitic social-political theory is fundamentally bound up with religious ideas.
The underlying ideas take many different forms. It is Yahweh
C.A.H.I 14
2IO
THE SEMITES [CHAP.
who tends the land of Israel (Deut. xi); but otherwlse^we find special functional gods (of rain, corn, etc.), or baals, causes or authors of all fertility, human, animal and vegetable. Personal names frequently express some religious conviction or wish; and while the names of modern Arab tribes are rarely fortuitous, but have some significant meaning, the old names characteristically suggest the power or attribute of a god (Ishmael, El will hear), a relationship (Abiezer, the father [god] is a help), or they identify god and people (Ashur, Gad). Place-names, too, often have a sacred meaning, e.g. Jezreel (may El sow), Baal Peor, Baal Leb- anon; or they refer to some definite deity, e.g. Anathoth (the Anaths), Beth-Shemesh (house of the Sun-deity)^ Everywhere there were local, district and city-gods, the last being especially female, like the Tyche or 'fortune' of the Greek age. These were effective, indispensable powers, upon whose help and good-will men depended. The precise relationship varies, but everywhere we find particular forms of the fundamental Ideas, so that com- munities differ according to the way in which these are developed and systematized.
In their most inchoate form we find them among the desert- tribes. Here there is an inveterate aversion from discipline, duty, responsibility, and all that goes to make a coherent society. Yet, although there is no law-giver there is law; customary usage is the strictest of rules, and what ought or ought not to be done is the bond that unites men. The link is common sentiment: the offend- ing kinsman is outlawed and becomes right-less; and ceremonies of adoption, and fictions of kinship and genealogical fabrication can make the stranger a true member of the group. Common feel- ing is typically a more fundamental bond even than blood; al- though blood-ceremonies will inevitably give concrete expression to the feeling. The keen sense of unity and loyalty within each group engenders a collective responsibility for good and eviL An offence by one defiles all (cf. Josh, vii, xxii; Judg. xx $q.}. An injury to one is an injury to all, and revenge is the most solemn of duties when a kinsman has been killed. The practice of blood- revenge knits together the members of each group, but sets oneT group against another. It is mainly responsible for the weakness of political organization; and, indeed, the legalized lawlessness of the Semites recurs in the 'brotherhood' money paid to the bandits of the desert, in the tribute exacted by Assyrian kings in their raxxias, and in the payments formerly made by European govern- ments to the Moroccan pirates to ensure the safety of their ship- ping. The mechanical tallo ("an eye for an eye') may take a more
V, HI] FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS 211
retributive force ('By what things a man sinneth, thereby he is punished*' Wisdom xi, 16); it is a step from endless reprisal among all the parties concerned to the regulated punishment by duly authorized officials. But although the restriction of personal vengeance has been the first care of every government from Ham- murabi to Moses and Mohammed, yet, when there is a period of social decline, there is a reversion to the unsystematized practice of collective group action, and blood-revenge still remains the custom of the desert.
Throughout there are ideas of right and justice, and a sense of the evil consequences of crime. These ideas become more explicit in divine ordeals, judgments, and so forth. The executive force, however, is weak. The chiefs and elders of the tribes are men noble, wise and brave, but with slight authority. In Aramaic the root from which the common Semitic term for 'king7 is derived means 'to advise'; even the mighty Mesopotamian kings themselves had no very exclusive powers. Permanent authority is resented; though it would be granted to an independent religious head, who could weld together conflicting tribes (cf. Moses, Mohammed). Author- ity is based upon religious rather than upon political ideas of king- ship and of representative men. Even in the secular and highly- developed Code of Hammurabi certain difficult cases must come before 'God' (i/u). The desert sheikhs are frequently of im- portance only in ceremonial and religious affairs; and when men become leaders in time of war, the story of Gideon and Abimelech illustrates at once the interconnexion of religious and political ideas, and the typical instability of leadership when it is dependent solely upon personal claim (Judg. vi— x).
Men regarded as 'sacred' or of some superior efficacy can exert extraordinary influence; moreover, to men of surpassing ability will be attributed superhuman aid and almost unrestricted powers. Such men swing between the human and the divine. The mixed effects of modern Dervishism are notorious, and Semitic history is full of men of striking personality, earnest, reckless and fanatic. Men will arise and protest against existing conditions; and, while file reformer tends to become a ruler, the thorough-going political revolutionary will often appear as a religious leader. The head of a militant sect will rule a state, and politics will constantly take at religious form. Creeds sever the Semites, and on the smallest points. But they are also the strongest bonds; and, when Mohammed cut himself off from his people, he founded a new community in which slaves and freedmen might be united by the new ideas. The link was creed not blood. Similarly the Levites of Israel, on one view,
14 — a
2I2 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
were a new body formed of men who had broken old bonds (Exod. xxxii, 29; Deut. xxxiii, 9). New movements of this nature will be marked by stern discipline, a puritanism, or even an antipathy to certain elements of civilization. This rigour has characterized certain sects or groups (Rechabites, Essenes, and the modern Wahhabites and Sanusis), and has been more prominent at some reforming period (e.g. Ezra's strict marriage reforms). The move- ment will encourage ideas of collective authority, conditions of equality, and a certain communism, illustrated in the military constitution of the warrior-nation of Islam and, earlier, in the armed camp of Israel in the wilderness of wanderings.
Where there have been migrations, the settlement has forced adjustment of ideas. In settling down among the older inhabitants there are new economic conditions: the need of private and landed property is felt, class-distinctions arise, the causes of the earlier cohesion disappear, old ties are broken and new local ties are formed. Tribal names will persist with a geographical rather than a genealogical and ethnical value, and the newcomers will often accept the local names, traditions and religion of their new home. At one end of the scale we find intermarriage and fusion; and at the other, a proud isolation and an unwillingness on the part of the aristocratic invaders to admit the indigenes to their circle. The particular reforming movements and migrations belong to history. But their interpretation is often rendered difficult by the confusing use of appellatives as tribal or national names ('plunderers/ c desert-dwellers, * 'allies'), by the growth of religious sects into political entities (the Druzes), or by the religious use of earlier tribal or national names (Israel, Jew).
In the change from desert to settled life the fundamental Se- mitic ideas take another and more highly developed form. The aristocratic institutions and despotisms are wholly in accord with the Semitic temper; a practical sovereignty could always be appre- ciated and accepted* There are many vivid pictures of what this meant, of men of extraordinary will, barbaric, ill-balanced or half- mad, yet patrons of letters, religion or art; men entirely arbitrary, or men who, as was said of Abdul-Malik, came *to do good witt£ out feeling pleasure, and to do evil without feeling pain/ They were men with such powers for good or for evil that one must the more appreciate the conspicuous cases of a higher morality (as in David's repentance in the matter of Bath-sheba), or courageous courtiers and others protesting against injustice. The Semitic despot ruled, often only with the help of mercenaries, but also because he possessed, besides the accepted qualifications (e.g.
V, m] MEN AND THE GODS 213
blood, physical and other ability), some token of superhuman power or'of divine recognition. But while, as part of the conviction of the jntimate relationship between men and their gods, the demo- cratically-minded prophets of Israel taught that prosperity de- pended upon the behaviour of the people (Is. i, 19), in more aristocratic regimes the emphasis is laid rather upon the behaviour of the representative individuals — the priests (especially the high- priest), and in early political systems, the priest-king, or king with priestly powers. Thus, a Babylonian list of warnings begins, 'If the king does not heed the law, his people will be destroyed, his power will pass away/ The biblical accounts of Yahweh's relations to the rivals, Saul and David, and their representation of the history of apostate Israel and faithful Judah, afford other examples of this aspect of divine authority, which in one form or another is wide- spread.
The Egyptian Rarnses II * gives health to whom he wilP; he sacrificed to the god Sutekh for fair weather and was popularly supposed to possess influence with his god. But in modern north- east Africa, barely outside the Semitic area, there are veritable royal rain-makers; and while rain-charms are to be found from the old Jewish Feast of Tabernacles to modern eastern custom, the absence of rain in Israel was ascribed to tribal or national sin (Hag. i, 10 sq.\ Zech. xiv, 16—19). The fundamental conception throughout is that of a connexion between nature and man or? more especially, certain men to whom were ascribed special powers. According to an Assyrian saying, 'the man is the shadow of God, the slave is the shadow of man, the king is like God/ The ruler stands in closest relationship to the gods, and to the people he is as the god, or the god's visible representative. Ramses II was called the husband of Egypt, and Israel was YahweVs spouse. Merneptah declares that Egypt was the only daughter of Re, whose son (i.e. he himself) sits upon the throne; and this filial rela- tionship of king or land to the god was very familiar. The king is the god's anointed — as also is the people (Ps. xxviii, 8); and the divine king could anoint vassal kings and ceremonially recognize •Vassal gods (e.g. Egypt), He ruled by divine authority as the chosen one of the gods, if not predetermined (like a people, Is. xlix, 3—5; or prophet, Jer. i, 5) ; and his divinity showed itself in the insignia, costume, and toilet, in court etiquette and royal prerogative, in the tithes and tribute, and in the connexion between the temple and the palace; Such special individuals are intermediaries between gods and men ; and in the Old Testament, which betrays a certain hostile attitude to the divinity of the king — God being king — the
214 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
idea becomes ultimately that of a people intermediary between God and the world. Although there are many gradations from mere prestige to superstitious veneration or to actual deification, there is a general pervading idea of the intermediate position of the representative individual between the people and their gods; it underlies institutions, court language, and political and eccle- siastical rivalries.
The ruler by his success manifested divine favour; and what injured so important a person injured the country. Hence the conviction that he must be carefully guarded, lest lie 'quench the lamp' of his people (2 Sam. xxi, 17), The Egyptian Pharaoh must survive death at all hazards; and to retain the favour of the gods rulers must perform certain ritual, and observe certain ethical re- quirements, the nature of which depended upon current concep- tions. In Mesopotamia there were royal ceremonial laments; and the old hymns, prayers and ritual were primarily for the king who, like the high-priest of a later day, upheld the national cult. Later the sacred literature was extended to the needs of individual re- ligion; and by a democratizing process ideas of life in the next world, once indispensable for the all-important Pharaoh, became more widely applicable. Again, while the Babylonian king at the religious ceremony of coronation grasped the hand of his god's image, thus legalizing his position, the solar monotheism of the Egyptian Ikhnaton, a universalizing rather than a narrow national cult, expanded this into the conception of a hand at the end of each of the innumerable rays of the sun held out for every wor- shipper and every country. In Israel, too, some early fundamental ideas are popularized in the ideal of an entire kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and in the extension to the individual of con- ceptions earlier associated only with secular or priestly authorities* It is iti such processes of extension and modification of ideas that positive developments can be recognized.
The rulers typically represent or symbolize, on the one side, the gods on whom the land or people depend, and, on the other, the land or people itself (e.g. the Pharaoh's double crown, see p. 266). They helped to suggest or mould conceptions of the gods/" and the arbitrariness or fierceness of the gods accords with the temper of the oriental despot. In such circumstances as these righteousness and loyalty are one. Every war is holy, the gods take part in the wars and even in the subsequent treaties. Where there were local or city chiefs with their corresponding deities, there were inevitable problems of rival claims and functions; and alliances and federations had both religious and political aspects
V, in] THE DIVINE KINGSHIP 215
(cf. for example, pp. 329, 389). In co-ordinating the deities the advantage of cosmic or universal powers — like sun, storm or rain — wag obvious. A successful king would naturally encourage a political monotheism; and when certain cities gained a leading religious importance, religion was centralized (Nippur, Babylon, Jerusalem, Shechem). Moreover, royal claims to rule over the four quarters or over all lands encouraged ideas of a no less universal god. These developed a political and religious imperialism, which, however, did not necessarily mean much politically (with the notable exception of Assyria in the eighth century B.C.); while in religion it would involve some identification of cults (in Israel the local baals were popularly identified with Yahweh), or, may be, the offering of gifts to the mother-sanctuary or Church. But such tendencies to universalism were not necessarily of a high ethical order, save when, for example, the prophets of Israel taught that Yahweh, to vindicate the Right, would even use an enemy to destroy his own erring people.
The divine kingship inevitably brought difficult questions of both a political and a theological character : some typical examples of these are furnished by the Old Testament. The monarchy is a divine institution (i Sam. ix, 16 j^.), or it is inconsistent with divine supremacy (xii, 12; c£ Judg. viii, 23). The deity gives kings, but takes them away in his wrath (Hos. xiii, 10 ^$".); or he refuses to recognize them (viii, 4). Hence there are conflicting attitudes to the great schism of Judah and Israel, and notably to the sanguinary overthrow of the house of Ahab by Jehu and the fierce reforming Rechabites. Coronation was a religious ceremony, and continuity of rule could be symbolized by the possession of the regalia, or the predecessor's harem, or his favourite wife. Often the king must be of the old ruling family, even as the Caliph must be of Mohammed's tribe; and the Shiites accept as the legitimate religious head of the Moslem world a member of the family of AH, The Pharaohs maintained the fiction of solar origin — to be adopted by every new dynasty — and the Judaean kings sat on * David's throne' and at least claimed to be a perfectly unbroken line. Under the divine kingship the king's success or failure could be attributed to divine favour or anger, and while this obviously opened the door for a religious explanation of any failing, just out- side the Semitic area, among the African Dinka and Shilluk, chiefs are still killed at old age or at the first signs of weakness. At dynastic changes (for whatever cause) whole families were some- times extirpated (seventy is used as a round number), and the usurpers would sometimes take a famous old name (Sargon,
214 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
idea becomes ultimately that of a people intermediary between God and the world. Although there are many gradations from mere prestige to superstitious veneration or to actual deification, there is a general pervading idea of the intermediate position of the representative individual between the people and their gods; it underlies institutions, court language, and political and eccle- siastical rivalries.
The ruler by his success manifested divine favour; and what injured so important a person injured the country. Hence the conviction that he must be carefully guarded, lest lie 'quench the lamp' of his people (2 Sam. xxi, 17), The Egyptian Pharaoh must survive death at all hazards; and to retain the favour of the gods rulers must perform certain ritual, and observe certain ethical re- quirements, the nature of which depended upon current concep- tions. In Mesopotamia there were royal ceremonial laments; and the old hymns, prayers and ritual were primarily for the king who, like the high-priest of a later day, upheld the national cult. Later the sacred literature was extended to the needs of individual re- ligion; and by a democratizing process ideas of life in the next world, once indispensable for the all-important Pharaoh, became more widely applicable. Again, while the Babylonian king at the religious ceremony of coronation grasped the hand of his god's image, thus legalizing his position, the solar monotheism of the Egyptian Ikhnaton, a universalizing rather than a narrow national cult, expanded this into the conception of a hand at the end of each of the innumerable rays of the sun held out for every wor- shipper and every country. In Israel, too, some early fundamental ideas are popularized in the ideal of an entire kingdom of priests and a holy nation, and in the extension to the individual of con- ceptions earlier associated only with secular or priestly authorities* It is iti such processes of extension and modification of ideas that positive developments can be recognized.
The rulers typically represent or symbolize, on the one side, the gods on whom the land or people depend, and, on the other, the land or people itself (e.g. the Pharaoh's double crown, see p. 266). They helped to suggest or mould conceptions of the gods/" and the arbitrariness or fierceness of the gods accords with the temper of the oriental despot. In such circumstances as these righteousness and loyalty are one. Every war is holy, the gods take part in the wars and even in the subsequent treaties. Where there were local or city chiefs with their corresponding deities, there were inevitable problems of rival claims and functions; and alliances and federations had both religious and political aspects
V,iv] HISTORICAL VICISSITUDES 217
represents animosity towards Canaan, but kindliness towards Japhetlf, some alien northern people. The Semites submit to foreigners who can rule, and the energy and simplicity of their religious cults have often attracted enthusiastic proselytes, who become almost more Semitic than the Semites. Under non-Semitic sovereignty (Achaemenid or Turk) rival populations have lived side by side and tolerated each other; or some Moses or Moham- med has been able to exert a divine authority and stand above rival feuds. The success of Alexander the Great had also a 'theological* rather than a 'political' basis. The Semites do not cohere; the religious enthusiasm which has often united them has as often had a disintegrating effect. Conditions become too complex; the thought cannot develop to meet the social-political growth, and institutions do not cope with expanding ideas. Religious-political theory finds Its ultimate authority in a subjective emotionalism, and there is neither the objective knowledge or thought to main- tain continuity, nor any external authority to still intertribal or international jealousies. Society has then disintegrated into its simplest elements, and the consequences have been more drastic where the material civilization has depended upon elaborate co- operation. So, the collapse of artificial irrigation has been largely responsible for depopulation and for the ruin of the great cultures of old, whereas simpler organisms, and especially those of the desert, which were never highly developed, did not suffer serious alteration^ but remained characteristically 'Semite/ But reflective minds commented on the desolate c tells y (cf. Jer. xxx, 1 8, R.V. mg.), and ruined palaces; and a moral philosophy, or rather the germs of a philosophy of history, became a feature of Semitic history.
IV. TREATMENT OF HISTORY
Pride of race encouraged genealogical zeal which could lead to fanciful results, and to a love of tribal lore which was in no wise unbiased. Oral tradition in poetry or in metrical prose can still have its exponents in mere herd-boys. But oral tradition is pre- carious, and it was the loss in battle of many of the men who knew most of the Koran by heart that led to the first authoritative written edition. Some of the earliest Arab poems (c. A.D. 500) were inspired by tribal warfare, and tribes were naturally anxious to preserve traditions that fed their vanity and supported tdeil* claims. The birth of a poet to perpetuate their deeds and ferae was especially welcome, and the poet among the Arabs was in some sense a man of supernatural or magical power — one recalls the story of Balaam's efficacy (Num. xxii sqq?).
2i8 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
Annals date In Egypt from a very early period (pp. 1 66 jrjr., 266). Religious and magical factors have also been prominent itf the rise of history-writing, and Mesopotamian astrological and similar tablets record for the warning of all concerned, portents, signs, catastrophes, including references to events of current interest, such as foreign invasions. They also contain references to past history (see pp, 403—409). In view of the reliance upon divination, dreams and visions, a religious and didactic treatment of the past is natural; and events were readily connected with divine help and counsel or men's disobedience. Ritual laments for national mis- fortune were of a semi-historical character, and the more significant, seeing that the gods met annually to determine the fate of men and land for the coming year. Sacred myths, which among rudi- mentary peoples are often acted, are depicted upon the temple walls of Egypt. It was essential to remember the deeds of gods or of divine ancestors; and an appeal could be made to the deity's sense of honour and his prestige (cf. Josh, vii, 9; Num. xiv, 16). The records of the past thus inspire courage amid defeat, and hope despite existing evil (Hab. iii). They fortify a people and reiterate the consciousness of its relations with its gods. Here myth, magic and religion readily overlap : what the gods have done, they can, will, and surely must do. A Sumerian account of creation, which has been adapted to a purely Babylonian standpoint, now forms the introduction to an incantation; and an incantation for the cure of toothache Is prefaced by a cosmology introducing the worm that is the supposed cause of the trouble. The possession of know- ledge is power, and the knowledge of the secret name of a god Is especially efficacious.
The curiosity of children must be satisfied — authoritatively (e.g. Ex. xii, 2 6), and the usual curiosity as regards origins, strange phenomena, and local features leads to a mass of conflicting lore which Is consciously or unconsciously sifted. Hence arise variant accounts of Creation and Deluge, or of local shrines, ancestors, or heroes; and of such the Old Testament has preserved only a selection, but one so strangely uneven that it needs explanation. Myths and legends easily become complex through religious and ' other developments; and cuneiform tablets (notably the versions of the annals of Ashurbanipal) and Egyptian papyri, In common with the Old Testament, bear many marks of compilation and adjustment, and the effort to subordinate one point of view to another (cf. pp. 351 ^., 443 Sqq^ 447). The scribe was indifferently copier or author — authorship has no special prestige — and the discovery of contemporary documents has proved that he was far
V, iv] TREATMENT OF TRADITION 219
from faultless. There is at times an astonishing accuracy; but the oft-quofed care of Jewish scribes and copyists was after the Hebrew text<pf the Old Testament had been fixed, though with all its errors, and was a scrupulousness which almost bordered on the superstitious.
Many late traditions (e.g. of Berosus) go back to an early date (see p. 152)5 and, like those in the Old Testament, reflect some historical facts; but the numerous errors and misunderstandings entirely forbid the not uncommon assumption that the authen- ticity of any element carries with it that of the whole (cf. p. 368). One can follow the growth of unhistorical material in a comparison of Herodotus (fifth century) with Ctesias (c. 400 B.C,), or of the books of Samuel and Kings with Chronicles, or of the earlier and later parts of Genesis with the book of Jubilees and other very late writings. Here, an ancient writer who has tried to exercise some criticism of his own and has given us his results, will often be of less service to the modern historian than one who, as often in the Old Testament, is somewhat naive, and has left more undigested material for modern historical criticism. Ancient * criticism' was characteristically simple. The unwelcome monuments of prede- cessors are erased, mutilated or partly destroyed; and even written narratives (as in the Old Testament) sometimes show the most obvious indications of an almost equally mechanical process, where distasteful traditions and myths are concerned. There were no critical principles. The growth of traditions of the Prophet de- manded some sifting, and the test was agreement with the Koran and with Mohammed's own character: 'Whatever good saying has been said I myself have said it.* But an enormous amount of false tradition was already extant; and the luxuriant growth of oriental tradition, which can be traced at the rise of Mohammed, and more recently also of Baha-ullah, is a suggestive indication of what recurred at earlier periods of religious activity. The hope- lessly complicated traditions of Moses and Aaron are an example.
The agreement with an accepted tradition or interpretation was more vital than the legitimacy of the latter; and as a general rule the early writer, in subordinating his material to his main interest, was hardly conscious of absence of proportion or internal dis- crepancy. Semitic learning is apt to present an undigested chaos, like the native Arab lexicons, the Talmud, Israelite and Arab genealogies, or the medley of inconsistencies in the account of the Exodus. The Hebrew Decalogue is printed with two mutually conflicting systems of accents, the result is confused, but the reader has before him two arrangements and must make his choice.
22O
THE SEMITES [CHAP.
Impossible grammatical forms are sometimes rather suggestions,, hints and aids, not to be taken too literally. When the Assyrian sculptor gives his animal five legs, it is that we may either se^ the animal facing us with the fore-legs planted together, or view it sideways,, striding, all four legs visible. The Mesopotamia!! artist will crowd in every detail regardless of effect, or will indicate in terms of size the importance of his leading figures. In the same way, the biblical historians clearly indicate their sense of the relative importance of events, and modern criticism has been due mainly to the recognition of the extreme importance of facts which the old writers had subordinated to their own purposes or had neg- lected. The Egyptian monuments taught the people history, but the artists do not hesitate to take some liberties with the facts. The old slate-palette of the Egyptian Manner is in some respects intermediate between a true picture and a piece of picture-writing (cf. the palettes, pp. 251 sq^ 269, 574); and the naiveness and ingenuousness of the early Semitic artist repeat themselves in descriptive writings which are not to be judged in the light of modern distinctions between history and romance. And the Oriental is a born storyteller.
In general there is more ingenuity than originality. Rulers will be inspired by, if they do not actually claim, the annals or monu- ments of predecessors; e.g. the account of SauPs wars is either based on that of David's, or more probably is its basis. The book of Chronicles has a historical outline similar to that of Samuel- Kings, but the narratives themselves usually represent later events or points of view; in like manner the account of the Exodus is partly indebted to narratives no longer in their original context. In Arab poetry less attention is paid to diversity of idea and more to the diversity of form in which an idea is expressed; the poet will give a new turn to the phraseology, and show his merit by improving the work of him whose composition he has adopted. The Hebrews took over and reshaped earlier myths; and it is a characteristic fact that development is not recognized by the Semites, although some development can usually be traced. There is reliance upon old precedents and antipathy to the new; yet there is always some change. The new is introduced under the auspices of ancient names: Moses, Enoch, Solomon, Isaiah, or^Baruch. Prophecy in Israel authoritatively ended, but glosses, editings, and anonymous or pseudepigraphical writings continued; and ^ familiar adjurations against tampering with written works persist by the side of habitual editorial processes. The Law underwent development, but it was not to be expanded or shortened
V, iv] ATTITUDE TO DEVELOPMENT 221
(Deut. iv, 2; c£ v, 22); and the supremacy of the Written Law was maintained by the side of continuous development through the Jewish fiction of an esoteric Oral Law; cf, also Rev. xxii, 1 8 sq+
The custom of burying clay-cylinders, papyri, etc., in temples led to the later discovery of some old sources; but the practice could suggest a way of justifying some new change, and not every * discovery* of a reputed old work was genuine (so especially 2 Kings xxii). At certain periods there was a more conscious archaizing and return to the past; and this and the constant copy- ing of older sources often make it difficult to date literature and trace the development of thought, Talmudic writings of the Christian era will contain examples of ancient Babylonian legal usage, and many elements of Semitic belief and custom are quite undatable. It is often difficult to determine whether Assyrian or Neo-Babylonian texts represent current thought (seventh to fifth century B.C.),, or that of the twenty-first century B.C. and earlier; and the fundamental problem of Israelite history is that of the relation between the Judaism of Ezra's time and the earlier Mosaism, and of determining how much is Mosaic, how much exclusively post-Exilic, and what historical development inter- venes. Here as in other cases there have been movements which drastically affected life and thought; but tradition prefers to pass over the intervening periods and will interest itself in the more remote past for its significance or meaning for the present. Certain periods thus come to resemble each other; and, when they are periods of some new social, political and religious revival, there is a new cohesion and interrelation very different from the disin- tegrating tendencies of the preceding periods. At these times more attention is paid to the general practical needs of the moment — continuity must be maintained, precedents discovered/ changes rendered legitimate and orthodox, and popular interests satisfied,
Popular memory does not necessarily cherish the most promi- nent events of historical importance; different ages, countries and persons are confused, and good historical data, legend and myth are inextricably blended. The early Mohammedan historians were content to adopt current Christian or Jewish tradition rather than authentic history; and, at an age of considerable culture among Jews, Syrians and Abyssinians, the pre-Islamic Arabs, few of whom could read or write, had only the most confused and untrustworthy recollections of the past, the old Minaean and Sabaean culture being almost forgotten. Early advances in civilization are often lost, e.g. the old north Semitic inscriptions of the eighth century B.C. are more precise in the division of words, etc,, than are those
222 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
of the Phoenicians several centuries later, A description of the distant past may, like the Phoenician cosmogony, survive only in a very late form, and the 'primitiveness* that often characterizes the Old Testament is not, on that account, of ancient date. The interest is always for the present, and the 'truth' of a narrative lies in its whole personal appeal to the simple reader — our Edomite foe (Gen. xxv, 23; xxvii), the origin of yon Danite sanctuary (the caustic story in Judg. xvii sq^ — and not in the question whether things happened exactly as described. The biblical series, Joshua-Kings, was explicitly styled the 'Former Prophets/ a clear indication that they were not records of history, but didactic ex- positions with a lesson and an interest for the present. The writers do not stand outside their history as we can. From time to time we can follow a secularizing tendency (e.g. in the Code of Ham- murabi), or we can trace tendencies to individualism (Jeremiah), or to what may be called democracy (bedouin life), or to rationaliza- tion (the treatment of ancestral heroes), or to deification (among Sumerian kings), or to the explicit moralizing treatment of history (Judg. ii) in contrast to the unsophisticated spontaneity where the moral is implicit (as often in Genesis). Again, we can see the transition from fresh religious historical interest to the dryness and insipidity of lists or summaries (Ps. cvsy., cxxxvi, Chronicles; cf. the inscriptions of Ramses III). These are tendencies which do not occur together or at one age, and we can gain a wider and truer perspective of history than could the early historian.
The Semites have produced some famous historians, and their theories of history are of much interest. The Arab, deriving his alphabet and early literary culture from the Syrians, seems to have thought Syriac absolutely primitive. Much earlier, Babylonia was the spiritual home (p. 234); and no doubt the itinerant * Chaldean ' priests and diviners were as patriotic propagandists as were the Jews, whose zeal in glorifying their own culture and in proclaiming its priority, led to no little controversy, the more especially when Jews and Egyptians occupied themselves with the traditions of their relations in Hyksos days (pp. 1 57, 1 63 sq^. How Medes and Persians influenced Semitic tradition can only be guessed from some of the extraordinary traditions in Ctesias and other classical writers. Alike the pre-Islaniic Arabs and the Israelites had their theories of primitive inhabitants; and amid touches of antiquar- ianism we find curious mistakes and misconceptions, and the strangest ideas of the past. The Israelites certainly manifest a genius for historical construction, and the Old Testament em- bodies the oldest history-writing extant. Here there are most
V, iv] THE WRITING OF HISTORY 223
interesting, though not necessarily trustworthy, conceptions of early social development (Gen. iv), of typical migrations and settle- ment,<»and some admirable specimens of historical narrative which, in their present fragmentary form, presuppose a fairly extensive body of literature. Historical inscriptions from Moab and north Syria (ninth—eighth century) also have a very good style, and are the fruits of an unmistakable sense of history. Even earlier (four- teenth century), some of the 'Amarna* letters from Jerusalem, Byblus, etc., to the Egyptian court are extremely informing and vivid. It is precisely on account of the combination in the Old Testament of different sorts and centres of interest, types of thought and perspectives of religious and political history that the Israelites* own account of the past has to be replaced by the attempt to recover the historical events that lie behind it. A whole history lies behind their history-writing, for the Old Testament began to assume its present form about the sixth century B.C., an age of which very little is known. Although the records are scanty, this period is one of disintegration, immi- gration and transition, in no whit less significant for mankind than the epoch-making vicissitudes at the Israelite invasion, the birth of Christianity, or the rise of Islam, It was the age of the great collapse of oriental empire; and subsequent writers, throwing themselves back into the past, discovered new hope in old glories, and, as the world seemed to be falling to pieces under the feet of Persian and Greek, found in their religious interpretation of history a solace and rallying-point, and a mission for the future, Bitter experience influenced their conception of history, and to the Jews more than any other people personal experience and the philosophy of history were interdependent.
The acute Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (fourteenth century A.D.), from a wide experience of Arab conditions, developed a note- worthy theory of the historical development from nomad to settled life. He saw how the relatively simpler and purer nomads conquer, settle down and become corrupted by luxury; they lose their old moral superiority, and in time are swept away by a new wave of conquest. In his opinion society is bound together by community of interest — esprit de corps — and by religion; and he held that without religious enthusiasm the Arabs could not found a king- dom. A kingdom, like an individual, has a life of its own, lasting, however, three generations; and history is an endless cycle of growth and decline, of moral strength and decay, though there is a gradual advance throughout to some higher goal. His theory may be compared with that of the Israelite writers; it is virtually
THE SEMITES [CHAP.
the theory of Deut. xxxii (Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked); union and migration are followed by settlement and disunion, apostasy brings defeat, religious revival means victory and a new era (Judg. ii sqq^. But Instead of Ibn Khaldun's objective cycle of events., the Israelite theory was the essentially subjective one of cycles or periods of retribution (cf. 2 Sam, ix-xx and i Kings i-ii; also 2 Kings xvii, 6-1 8). Its conception of fulfilment was the accomplishment of what had preceded or was predetermined, the filling up of the half-filled cup. A sense of Incomplete or unfinished destiny under- lies the expected return of the dispersed Jews, the mission of Israel,, the coming Messiah, and the desire for the renewal of the broken unity of God and Man. And this same unity, in other forms, underlies the later conception of a Second Adam answering to the First, and of a final consummation with a New Creation and a New Heaven and Earth corresponding to the first Creation of the World (Rev. xxi jy.).
The Semite has no conception of any absolute beginning: things pre-exist (like the Messiah or Koran), a heaven is already in exist- ence, or gods are presupposed (cf. Gen. i). Nor is there any concep- tion of an end. The theory of history is emotional and subjective. There is anticipation of cataclysm — and Semitic history is cata- strophic— but no consciousness of development. Alpha is Omega, the first is last, and the Semite feels his self-identity and maintains a continuity, while denying the evolution of which he nevertheless manifests the effects.
Building upon his ordinary knowledge, the Semite has made the patriarchal system his pattern. Disregarding the facts of inter- marriage and alliance, he conceives pure stocks, he distinguishes Israel from Canaan (contrast Judg. iii, 6), contrives simple gene- alogies, and ignores the complexity of life. Generalizing the family with its patriarchal head, he has easily Imagined one primitive pair, although every head is only one of many, and the family itself is an abstraction. Thus, he finds a single, primaeval human pair and a single ancestor Abraham, although the history also conceives a Jacob as the father of Israelite tribes. In this way It has seemed natural to assume a single human ancestry at some particular time and place, a single primitive language the ancestor of the rest, an original ancestral Semitic language and a single home of a pure race of Semites. Yet these conceptions are more theoretical than historical. Our sources allow us to strike the stream of history at particular periods, or to trace particular develop- ments; but we are unable to go back to origins when, e.g. the Semitic languages or the Semites were not Semitic in our sense of
V, v] SYRIA AND PALESTINE 225
the term (p. 187), or when beliefs and practices were so rudi- mentary* that our terms ('religion/ 'ethics/ 'philosophy/ * civi- lization/ etc.) cannot be legitimately stretched to embrace them, Our whole conception of world-history, as derived ultimately from the Bible, is Semitic, the product of the religious conscious- ness and the result of religious reflection. Modern views of origins and of early development are replacing the wisdom of the ancients, but the religious and philosophical interpretation of the new facts does not lie within the province of the historian. Nor can he assert that, at some point in the past, history, as distinct from myth and legend, first begins. The entrance of Abram (Abraham) and his followers into Palestine was presumably held to be contemporary both with the time of Hammurabi (c. 2100), the Golden Age of Babylonia — that of the Sumerians lies further back — and with the Xllth Dynasty of Egypt, an age of new activity and intercourse. The biblical history has evidently recognized here a landmark, which it associates with the rise of the ancestral figure of Abraham. After a universal catastrophe (the Deluge), and after man's arrogant attempt to build a tower that should reach heaven (see p. 505), the race is scattered, and in due course, after the birth of Abram, the history of Israel opens. But although the twenty-first century is not so ancient from the point of view of Egyptian and Meso- potamian history, we have only the scantiest knowledge of Syria and Palestine. The prevailing view of Israelite origins is not the only one, and the biblical narratives, in Genesis as so frequently elsewhere, are of chief importance for the light they throw upon what was thought of the past. In this way they illumine the inner history of very much later times, when the development of thought in these lands can be more fully traced. The early chapters of Genesis, which purport to be the history of the world before Abraham, thus prove to be of real and permanent value for our knowledge of subsequent periods, to which they are a far more important contribution than ever they could be for pre-Abrahamic or pre- Mosaic history.
V. SYRIA AND PALESTINE
Syria and Palestine do not enter into the full light of history before the sixteenth century B.C., and then the land is so completely bound up, with the surrounding countries that we may infer that this was already the case in the earlier period for which, unfortun- ately, our material is of the scantiest. The land certainly could not have wholly escaped the influences which flowed over it between
C.A.H.I 15
226 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
Egypt, Asia Minor, the Aegean and Mesopotamia, although it is not easy to determine how far it was affected by them. But even in early times, as was certainly true later, Palestine was sot so highly developed as Syria, whose superior political importance is due to its proximity to Asia Minor and the Mesopotamia*! king- doms. For the earliest conditions, see above, pp. 36 sqq.^ 90 sy.
Early Mesopotamian kings had occasional relations with Syria from the time of Lugal-zaggisi (see pp. 402, 404 sq.^ 417, 577 sq^. It is uncertain whether Sumerian or Babylonian influence then spread westwards; but Egypt strongly influenced the coast and the south, and there are many traces of early intercourse with Egypt and of the presence of Egyptians (pp. 290, 293). Various strange fusions result. Egyptian objects are widely copied, Egyptian and Syrian (or Mesopotamian) elements of culture blend, and as far south as Lachish the buildings betray northern influence. The cedars of Lebanon were eagerly sought after on all sides, and in the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinaitic peninsula was an Egypto-Semitic temple to the goddess whom the Egyptians identified with their own Hathor. Egypt had trading and warring relations with Palestine in the IVth—VIth Dynasties (under Sne- fru, Sahure and Pepi), and the tomb of Inti (Vth Dynasty) depicts a characteristic scene at a place whose name, compounded with Ain (*weir), shows that a Semitic language was already in use (see p. 290). But in the later dynasties there were Asiatic incursions into Egypt, possibly part of some larger Semitic movement, and during the Middle Kingdom intercourse between Asia and Egypt was complete. The Romance of Sinuhe gives an excellent picture of contemporary life, about the twenty-second century B.C., and points to conditions in Syria and Palestine which essentially correspond to those illustrated by the Amarna letters (fourteenth century) when the internal and external history of the land can be followed for the first time. Like the Tale of the Two Brothers (which has parallels in Gen. xxxix), it was perhaps known in Palestine.
The story of Sinuhe is of some important personage who at the death of Amenemhet I found it advisable to flee to Palestine until after many years he was graciously received back to the court oJ Senusret I (see pp. 304, 348). After some obscure adventure with an unnamed man Sinuhe reached the "Wall of the Ruler, which had long before been erected to keep off the bedouins. Eluding the guard he entered the desert and was succoured by a bedouin chief whom he had previously known in Egypt. He was given water and boiled milk and, accompanying the tribe, was passed on from one district to another until he reached Byblus (so one
V, v] THE ROMANCE OF SINUHE 227
version), and then Kedme (Kedem? the Semitic term for the East), perhaps the district to the east of Damascus. After two and a half yearSj* Ammi-anshi (so the name is generally read)1, the chief of Upper Tenu, heard of his fame and invited him to join him and live among other Egyptian-speaking people. He set him over his children and gave him his eldest daughter in marriage — one re- calls the flight of Moses after his murder of the Egyptian and his marriage with the daughter of the priest of Midian (Exod. ii). He made him prince and allowed him to choose the best of his land : it was the land of Ya (an unidentified locality), fair, rich in fruit, grain, oil, and innumerable herds. All good things were his, in addition to what his hounds caught; and his children grew up, each the chieftain of his tribe. So Sinuhe lived, dispensing hos- pitality as became a sheikh, and the courtiers travelling to and fro were his care. He gave water to the thirsty, brought back the straying, and protected the robbed. When the bedouins went forth to war against the princes of the lands he was the brains; and lead- ing the men of the prince of Xenu he made war on all sides, carrying off cattle, people and food, killing the people with his sword and bow, and by his cleverness. Such exploits had won him the chief's love and had made him set him over his children. His success galled the Asiatics, and a doughty braggart of Tenu, a hero without his equal, came to challenge him, Sinuhe passed the night preparing his bow and arrows and dagger, and cleaning his weapons. Day dawned, and the tribes came around. Sinuhe was the favourite, every heart was kindled for him; the women cried, and everyone was full of anxiety. The champion approached with shield and dagger and an armful of spears. At last he was shot by an arrow in his neck, he fell on his nose, and Sinuhe des- patched him with his own battle-axe (cf. David and Goliath, i Sam. xvii, 51). Standing on his back he raised a cry of victory and praised his god Month (the Egyptian go$ of war). The people shouted, Ammi-anshi embraced him, and Sinuhe took the dead man's goods and herds: * What he thought to do to me, that did Jf to him/
He t^as now great, wealthy, and rich in herds. Would that the god that had decreed his flight would now be gracious 1 He longed to return to the place where his heart was, and to be buried in the land of his birth. A messenger arrived and read a friendly letter from court, where he was missed, holding out the supreme hope of a respectable Egyptian funeral ceremony instead of a bedouin's
1 The name, however, could be read Neshi son of Amu (A. H. Gardiner,
c~ de Travauxy 1914, p. 196).
228 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
burial In a sheepskin. In a suitable reply Sinuhe interceded on be- half of three princes; it is possible that they were Egyptiatfrefugees like himself. He then transferred his possessions to his children, and appointed his eldest son as leader of his tribe. Proceeding south he reached the 'Horus way ' and his bedouin retinue was dismissed; he arrived at court and, after being chaffed as a veritable bedouin,, a son of the north wind, he was restored to favour. So, once more decently cleansed and anointed, he enjoys the luxury of Egypt, no longer a sand-dweller he is clad in fine linen, he again sleeps in a bed, and leaves the sand to those who live in it.
This romance, a favourite one among the Egyptians, and the more likely to be known in Palestine, may have left its traces in the story of the rise of David and his fight with Goliath (i Sam. xvii). It illustrates Egyptian influence and prestige, Asiatic interest in Egyptian politics, and also the poor opinion Egypt usually had of her Asiatic neighbours. The 'plunderers,' or 'sand-dwellers/ in Egyptian opinion, were never in one place; they were always fighting, but were neither conquerors nor conquered; they were ready to plunder small settlements, but less willing to attack the towns. These latter, as we know from the excavations, stood on small eminences (50—300 feet high), occupying very little space; such important cities as Jericho and Megiddo, for example, covered only some 11—13 acres. They were surrounded by walls, those of the above cities being about 800—1000 yards in circum- ference. The walls of Gezer were 1 3 feet thick and were dotted with towers about 24 by 40 feet square. The houses were crowded together in crooked lanes; but an important building like the palace at Taanach covered about 75 by 77 feet. That there were men who possessed no inconsiderable skill is proved by the walls of Jericho (some 24 feet at least in height), which are remarkably well constructed from a military point of view, and by a tunnel- at Gezer, which runs 130 feet through the rock, and for the greater part is about 23 feet high and nearly 14 feet broad, and was hewn in order to reach a spring. The Semitic type of the people is clear, especially from the Middle Kingdom tombs at Beni-Hasan repre- senting a party of 37 Asiatics (Amu) from the desert, traders with eye-paint, headed by the * prince of the desert/ whose name re- sembles that of the biblical Abishai (p. 305 ^.)» They are markedly Semitic, with black-pointed beards, clean lips, and bushy hair reaching to the nape of the neck. They are clad in close-fitting fringed garments with coloured decorative patterns. The men are shod with sandals, and the women wear buskins. Their arms are bow, spear, and a sort of boomerang; one of the men plays an
V, v] CONDITIONS IN SYRIA 229
elaborately-shaped lyre, and an ass carries two children in a pan- nier.
Tfee romance of Sinuhe represents a patriarchal system, organ- ized conditions, and frequent and regulated intercourse. Sinuhe must be duly conducted from tribe to tribe; and later, one .of the Amarna Letters consists of an order from some important ruler in north Syria to the kinglets of Canaan (Palestine) bidding them to hasten in safety the courier he is sending to the king of Egypt, his * brother/ Couriers journeyed to and fro, and, to judge from excavation, there seems to have been a small Egyptian colony at Gezer, even as there were Egyptians in Sinuhe's neighbourhood. The Amarna Letters give many a picture of pro- and anti-Egyptian intrigue; and the romance shows that already refugees from Egypt not only found shelter in Palestine, but could serve usefully as clever counsellors in warfare, or as diplomatic agents. Sinuhe describes himself as singing the praises of the divine-king, the Pharaoh, 'the god who has none like him, before whom no other existed,' and such ideas can be supplemented from the Amarna Letters, and were no doubt familiar among the more civilized natives (see above, p. 213). Sinuhe also counsels Ammi-anshi to be obedient, and send his name (as a token of submission) to him who had been destined to smite the bedouins and overthrow the desert-dwellers* On the other hand, travelling was never safe, and the Sallier Papyrus tells how the scribe makes his will before he enters the land terrible for its Asiatics and lions, happy if he is lucky enough to return. It is uncertain whether Babylonian was already widely used, as it was six centuries later. However, its later prevalence throughout south-west Asia must have been the result of earlier intercourse, due no doubt to the extension of Mesopotamian influence, and it was employed in Cappadocia before the twenty-first century B.C. (p. 453 j^.).
The Egyptian names for Palestine were Kharu in the south and Retenu in the north, Senusret III of the Middle Kingdom stormed Sekrnem in Retenu, possibly Shechem in central Palestine (p. 307 f<£). It is disputed whether Upper Tenu in the romance of Sinuhe l^ati"- error for Retenu, or (less probably) represents Tidanu, a district in Amor, the important land from which the Amorites of the Old Testament ultimately received their name (p. 458). There are several traces of autonomous states in Syria and north Mesopotamia; and although the northern place-names are dis- tinctly less Semitic in form than those of Palestine, there was a Semitic population differing dialectically and in certain elements of culture from that of Babylonia (pp. 420, 451 tqq^ 467
230 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
There was an early Assyrian colony in Cappadpcia, and Assyria itself was no mere mirror of Babylonian civilization. At Khana on the middle Euphrates the kings include Isharlim (a name resem- bling Israel), and Amml-ball, a compound of Ammi (like Sinuhe's patron Ammi-anshi), such as is familiar in old Arabian.
The most important political term, however, is Martu or Amor (Amurru) : it is specifically the western land, and Amor Is also the name of its deity. Sometimes the term is applied to the whole region west of the Euphrates; but later It is restricted further west, and includes the Lebanons and Damascus, as distinct from the coastland of Canaan, But it is never used consistently. A strong Ainorite chief could extend his sway, and, as was the case some centuries later, could embrace a number of subordinate principalities, and might perhaps exercise influence even as far as Babylonia. The Amorites at an early date spread their name far to the south and east, and the Babylonian city of Sippar even had an Amorite quarter, perhaps on account of the presence of an Amorite colony or of a cult of the god Amor. At all events, to- wards the close of the third millennium the Amorites prove unmis- takably threatening, and Amor is an important political state held by the Elamites under Kutur-Mabuk, and later by Hammurabi (after he had conquered the Elamites) and by one of his successors, Ammi-ditana (pp. 484, 493). Moreover, there are distinctive elements of culture (names of months, legal terms and usages), characteristic personal names, and dialectical peculiarities which are not Babylonian but have parallels in the old South Arabian inscriptions or in West Semitic (the later Canaanite, Hebrew, etc.). Many compound proper-names have the more archaic verbal form yamlik ('he reigns') Instead of imlik\ compounds of Ammi recur, and for some of these latter and also for various other names exact South Arabian parallels are found. Not to mention other peculiarities (e«g. iluna, our god, instead of -w), and certain dis- tinctive west Semitic divine names, Hammurabi himself on his monument has been thought to have a bedouin type of face.
Unfortunately we can hardly decide from the evidence whether the Amorite and related settlements are to be derived from south Arabia (the date of whose inscriptions is unknown), or from a west Semitic source. Early relations with Arabia are in any case indicated by the inscriptions (pp. 416, 431)^ But Amor holds a place in the Babylonian period which resemtles that of Aram during the Assyrian age; for Aramaeans also came to have Important political centres (though chiefly in the west), and their dialect, too, in time gradually prevailed from Babylonia and Assyria to Palestine.
V, v] THE AMORITES AND THEIR GODS 231
Moreover, about the Christian era there were tribes of the desert, who, although Arabs, were in some respects more closely related to the Aramaeans and Hebrews, and such tribes have been quite capable of forming important though short-lived dynasties (p. 184). Hence it would seem that, outside the settled culture of the Sumerians and Semites of Mesopotamia, there were tribes whom we may call cAmorite,* and who, to judge from the evidence of names, may be responsible for dynastic changes at Isin, and for the First Babylonian dynasty itself (pp. 465, 470); and perhaps also, if we may assume some sweeping movements, for the incursions into Egypt before the Xllth Dynasty already referred to (see pp. 340—344)*
Although much is at present indecisive, the main fact is the presence of a certain culture independent of Babylonia, the depth of whose influence over western Asia has often been exaggerated. There are elements of art, myth and religion among the west Semites which are hardly of Babylonian origin. Certain deities appear to be unmistakably west Semitic or Amorite; and the fact that the god Amor (Martu) is frequently mentioned in personal names of the Hammurabi dynasty would indicate the extent of Amorite influence at this, the Golden, Age of Babylonia. Amor, later known as the god of the Sutu (the nomads of the north Syrian desert), was god of war and hunting. His consort Ashirat (or Ashratum), mistress of lusty energy and joy, was a goddess of the common Ishtar-type, and is also called the bride of the King of Heaven. Amor and his consort are associated respectively with the mountain and the steppe, and the two thus cover the whole land* The name of the goddess, who in south Arabia is associated with the moon-god, corresponds to the Hebrew Asherah^ the sacred pole or tree-trunk, a well-known object of cult* The name also suggests Ashur, the patron-god of Assyria (see pp. 451, 454), and the Israelite Asher, which may be (like Gad) the name of both a tribe and its god. But since it means happiness, prosperity, or the like — as also does Gad — it is a very appropriate name for a deity, like the later Greek * Fortune' (Tir^T?); and in this case the various deities are not necessarily identical. Apart from the god Amor, the chief god of the land of Amor was the god of rain and plenty, storm and war, a type of god which prevailed throughout western Asia under many names, his * Amorite' title being Addu or Adad. He is also known as Hadad and Rammanu (cthunderer?); and he corresponds to Teshub the chief god of the Hittites, and to the Buriash of the Kassite invaders of Babylon. He was asso- ciated with the bull and the thunderbolt; and, in the familiar
232 THE SEMITES [CHAP.
Assyrian personal name Shamshi-Adad, the storm-god is joined with a solar deity who is sometimes female (in south Arabia and some Hittite groups),, and is the wife of the god of fertility* with the result that the combination forms a perfect pair in nature and in sex. The solar deity is well known in place names in Palestine (e.g. Beth-Shemesh), where it sometimes seems to have been re- garded as female.
Another western deity is Dagan, who is also widely distributed, and is honoured by Hammurabi as his * creator/ The Hebrew word means * grain/ and although the Philistine Dagon of Gaza was supposed to be a fish-god, and gods half-human, half-fish were known on the sea-coast, the god is fundamentally a food-god, whether fish or grain, even as the Phoenician Sidon seems to owe its name to a god of fishing or hunting — according to the nature of the food. That the Israelite Yahweh was originally an old Amorite deity, to be identified with the forms Ya, Yau in names of the First Babylonian Dynasty, is not impossible; and it is an interesting fact that, while the so-called Amorite names disappear with the fall of that dynasty, Ya(u) remains, presumably because the god continued to be worshipped. Indeed, the name of the Habiru (Khabiru), who now begin to be occasionally mentioned in the east, may be no other than that of the Hebrews (p, 420). For the present, all that can safely be said is that one would expect the chief god of the Hebrews to be, partly at least, of the Addu type — Yahweh was associated with nature, growth, and the steer — and although Ya(u) does not appear among the many alternative names of Addu, Addu was later the great Baal of the west, and Yahweh and Baal became interchangeable until Israelite prophets protested against the fusion.
The decline of Babylonia and the establishment of the Kassite dynasty were contemporary with sweeping movements in the west. The Hyksos invaded Egypt, and Indo-European (Iranian) and Hittite influences are subsequently found far south (Jeru- salem, etc.). And while the Kassites in the east had no creative power, but adopted Babylonian customs, in the west we shall find the kingdom of Mitanni, whose political prominence in Amor and Assyria points to the presence of a strikingly virile organiza- tion. The fact that Egypt, when she drove out the Hyksos, imme- diately instituted campaigns against Syria and the north (sixteenth century), suggests that the mysterious invaders had come thence. Certainly there has been no lack of identifications for the Hyksos; but the only inscription referring to their nationality states that they brought many of the Amu (bedouins), but were themselves
V, v] THE HYKSOS AND THEIR GODS 233
foreigners. They brought the horse and chariot, like the j^assites, and their fortification of Avaris in the eastern Delta would indicate that *»hey wished to preserve their communications with south-west Asia. Palestinian excavation has not as yet thrown light upon the problems of the Hyksos, but it supports the view that their occupa- tion of Egypt was not of very long duration (see pp. 150, 315).
Of the Hyksos kings, Khian was one of the most famous; his name is that also of a king of north Syria (Kha~ia-ni? ninth century). Salatis seems to bear the Semitic word for ruler (Hebrew shallij). An interesting name contains Anath, the Syrian goddess of war and love, and apparently the same as the Babylonian Antum, wife of Anu, god of heaven; and it combines Anath and El, just as, among the Jews of Elephantine in the fifth century B.C., the same goddess is combined with Yahweh in the name Anath-yahu. Another royal name may be interpreted as Jacob-el, which is also that of a Palestinian town taken by Thutmose III (fifteenth century), and seems to recur as a personal name in early Babylonia (Yakub- ilu, Yakubum). The name Jacob-baal is also found on a Hyksos scarab. Jacob-el would then mean *the god (El) outwits,* or, less likely, * Jacob ("he who outwits ") is God/ and it is even possible that Jacob or Jacob-el was an old divine title. The precise sig- nificance of the names must, however, be regarded as conjectural. The native name of the chief god of the Hyksos themselves is not mentioned; but he was of the Addu type, and apparently corre- sponded to the Baal of Canaan, who becomes very well known in Egypt under the Ramessids. In general, the Hyksos, whatever their true nationality, seem to have been more or less Semitized, even as in Egypt they speedily became Egyptianized; and their invasion can hardly be separated from the more extensive move- ments in which also Hittites and Indo-Europeans were involved. See further, pp. 311 sqq^ 323*
Of Syria and Palestine in this early period the biblical traditions preserve only the faintest echoes. Written from much later points of view, and incorporating traditions of very different age and interest, the records of Hebrew and Israelite origins proceed chiefly from southern Palestine, and seek to explain how the great ancestors entered the land and made their way to the south. They look back to Abram (or Abraham), the grandfather of Jacob (or Israel), who was the 'father' of the Israelite tribes, and 'brother* of Esau (or Edom). Israel thus represents a later and more re- stricted group than Abram, whose nephew Lot is the 'father* of Moab and Ammon. Both are regarded as immigrants. According to Ezekiel (chap, xvi; sixth century B.C«) Jerusalem lay in the land
234 THE SEMITES [CHAP,
of Canaan; she was of Amorite and Hlttite origin, and uncared for, until Yahweh took pity on her, a pity which she^ abfased by sinning worse than her sisters Samaria and Sodom. Similajrfy, in the genealogical notices, the Hebrews are descendants of Shem whose god was Yahweh, and they live in an alien land of Canaanite or Hamite stock (p. 185*). Abram comes from the home of his father Terah at the famous ancient city of Harran in north Meso- potamia (Gen. xii, xxiv, 4, 7), but primarily, according to some statements, from Ur (100 miles south-east of Babylon). Both cities were important centres of the cult of the moon-god Sin, and the pantheon of Harran included Sharratu ('queen'), Sin's wife, and Malkatu ('princess'), a title of Ishtar, names exactly correspond- ing to Sarah and Milcah, Abram 's wife and sister-in-law. More- over, the name Terah (or Tarh) recalls the god Tarhu, or Tarku, of the Hittite peoples; and sundry traditions associate the Hebrews with Harran and more northerly districts, and point to a move- ment from old Hittite and related areas in the north. On the other hand, not only did the Phoenicians, according to Herodotus, also claim to have come from the Persian Gulf; but I£ir, the traditional home of the Aramaeans (Amos ix, 7), was apparently near Elam, and may have been merely another name for ?TJr, the modern identification of which (el-Mukayyar, p, 398) may possibly pre- serve an echo of Kir itself. But it is difficult to distinguish between Hebrews and Aramaeans, because Abram has Aramaean relatives, and Jacob (Israel) has Aramaean wives and is actually regarded as once a nomad Aramaean (Deut. xxvi, 5). It is also noteworthy that the Moabites are called sons of Seth (Num. xxiv, 1 7, R.V. mg»), a name perhaps identical with that of the bedouin Sutu of the northern desert, who are mentioned in the Amarna Letters together with the Habiru, whose name, in turn, may be that of the Hebrews. Certainly, the stories of the Garden of Eden and of the Tower of Babel point to Babylonia; but even if Babylonia was respected as the cultural home of the west, and some tribes claimed a Babylonian origin, the traditional connexions with Harran and the north must not be ignored.
Quite another tradition (mentioned by Justin xviii, 3) associates the Phoenicians with the Dead Sea. It is thus connected with the story of the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Zoar, and other cities, which belongs to a lost cycle of tradition, fragments of which have been preserved and worked into the story of Abram and his nephew Lot (Gen. xiii, ro sqq.\ xviii jy.). Here Abram leaves Harran, peacefully enters Canaan and divides the land between Lot and himself. Lot chooses the beautiful plain of
V, v] PALESTINIAN TRADITIONS 235
Jordan, comparable only to the Garden of Eden — It \*L_S before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the formation of the Dead* Sea! The wickedness of the inhabitants is their ruin, and there is a terrible catastrophe of which the sole survivors are Lot, who had proved his kindliness, and his two married daughters. By a desperate expedient the daughters preserve mankind from extinction, and Lot, now a cave-dweller, becomes the father of Moab and Ammon. It seems that an entirely independent story of Lot, the survivor of a cataclysm as destructive as the Deluge, has been taken up into the story of Abram, whose nephew he now becomes. Primarily, Lot must have been a great ethnical ancestor; and if nothing is said of the origin of the Phoenicians in our narratives, it is presumably because they, like the Canaanites, are now regarded as alien (Gen. x, 15)* Nor is Edom supposed to exist, for Abram has yet to become the grandfather of both Jacob (Israel) and Esau (Edom). But the name of Lot or Lotan is known as that of a division of the Horites whom Esau drove out; and while these people are presumed to be troglodytes like Lot, their name is probably that of the south Palestinian Kharu mentioned on Egyptian monuments. Lot(an), too, in spite of philological difficulties, may be identified with the old Retenu.
Hence we have here traditions of an indigenous origin of cer- tain peoples (Ammon and Moab, also Phoenicians and Horites); and they are evidently so inveterate that they were preserved and adjusted to the story of Abram, Moreover, not only are the Moab- ites called sons of Seth (? the bedouin Sutu), but Seth is also the third son of the first human pair, Adam and Eve, and the head of a noteworthy list of ancestral figures. Even the worship of Yahweh begins in the time of Seth's son Enosh, and therefore long before the reputed age of Abraham (Gen. iv, 25 s$,, v). These fragments, such as they are, prove the value once attached to a now lost body of local traditions of Palestine and of the origin of the worship of Yahweh, They have been almost superseded in order to give prominence to Abraham, the grandfather of Jacob-Israel, and to the standpoint of writers who feel their entire aloofness from the alien Canaanites and Phoenicians, from their Hebrew kinsmen of Moab and Ammon, from their Aramaean cousins, and from their brethren the Edomites of the south. In such circumstances it is scarcely possible to recover from these complicated narratives the history of the earliest period.
The Phoenicians claimed a historical tradition extending over 30,000 years! The figure suggests some acquaintance with the traditional antiquity of Chaldean dynasties as related by Berosus
236 THE SEMITES • [CHAP.
(p. 1 50 sg.). Herodotus, however, was told that Tyre had been founded 2300 years previously (i.e. c. 2750); but it is impossible to substantiate this, unless, perchance, some tradition of the age of the Sargonids is involved. Efforts have been made to date the age of Abraham partly from the biblical chronology and the pre- sumed date of the Exodus (p. 163 Jf.)> and Partl7 fr?m the much- discussed account of the overthrow of four eastern kings and their armies by Abram the Hebrew and his 318 followers j^Gen. xiv). Here we are told that the kings of five cities of the plain had long been oppressed; Lot (once more a private individual) was carried off, and the scene Is the Vale of Siddim, the Dead Sea — the event is supposed to happen before the great cataclysm. Now, of the hostile kings, the first is Amraphel of Shinar, presumably Ham- murabi of Babylonia. Arloch of Ellasar, i.e. of Larsa, can hardly be identified with Eri-aku, the Sumerian form of Arad»Sin, son of Kutur-mabuk, who, moreover, was not a contemporary of Hammurabi* The Elamite Chedorlaomer has a name unknown, but of genuine form, meaning 'servant of (the goddess) Lagamal/ The name of Tidal of Goiim (* peoples, hordes ') may be the Hittite Dudkhalia, known in the thirteenth century. However, the leader of the kings is Chedorlaomer, whereas Hammurabi was no vassal of Elam, but its chief foe; and the story, which contains anachron- isms and misunderstandings, and introduces old primitive inhabi- tants of the land, aims chiefly at describing the glory and piety of the great ancestor of Israel. It also tells how Abram after his victory was blessed by Melchizedek of Salem, priest of God (El) Most High. It thus exalts the ancient priesthood of Jerusalem; for, while Jacob promises tithes to zahweh at Bethel (Gen. xxviii, 22), Abram himself is supposed to introduce the practice by giving tithes to Melchizedek at Jerusalem. See also p, 473 n» Tradition has doubtless preserved some genuine names and possible situations; but in its present form the narrative is late, and it was especially in the Persian period (c. fifth century B.C.) that Babylonians themselves were keenly interested in the early relations between Elam and their land. The names Abram and Abraham ate found in Babylonia in the First Dynasty — the latter as a small farmer — and we have seen that those of Jacob and (possibly) Israel are no less ancient, and that those of the Hebrews and perhaps Yahweh may be traced. But the names in the biblical narratives are more ancient than what is said of them; and although certain social' usages in Genesis can be illustrated from Hammurabi's code of laws, they are in no wise peculiar to that remote period and do not prove the antiquity of their context.
V, v] PAUCITY OF HISTORICAL MATERIAL 237
It has sometimes been thought that the entrance of Abram and, later, of Jacob refers in some way to two distinct ancient immigra- tion^ Again, when Abram enters Egypt and is escorted out (Gen. xii), and when Jacob likewise enters and a large company returns to Palestine (very late traditions tell of wars between Egypt and Canaan at the time), it has been conjectured that the writers are giving their view of the Hyksos invasion of Egypt and their ex- pulsion. But conjectures of this sort can hardly be disproved or proved. In any case, if they are well-founded, it is abundantly clear that the narratives themselves cannot be used, as they stand, for our history of these events.
The biblical narratives regard the Amorites as the old inhabit- ants, and as distinct from the Hebrews, of whom the Israelites are a subdivision. A relationship is felt, partly with Babylonia, partly with the semi-nomad Aramaean and related population of the desert, and partly, also, with the Aramaean and more or less Hittite districts of the more cultured Harran and the north. But the narratives hardly reflect the period of the First Babylonian Dynasty or of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom. From Mesopotamia to Crete the age was an active one; it was also one of great ethnic movements which flooded some portion at least of the Se- mitic area. Moreover, there were tendencies to supreme and universal gods (p, 323); and if one may build upon the later occur- rence of the gods Varuna and Mithra in Asia Minor (see p. 312), the noteworthy ethical character of the former — comparable only to Yahweh — is highly suggestive of the noble ideas that could pre- vail. Such Syrians as Sinuhe's father-in-law would have oppor- tunities of learning what was happening in the outside world; and, in any case, the rich world of life and thought which we shall find in Syria and Palestine. in the next period was no sudden growth. Yet, although the deities which can be traced among the western Semites at the earlier period were naturally centres of ritual and be- lief, it would be unsafe to attempt to reconstruct the period from the scanty remains. The indications in an ancient cave at Gezer of some pig-cult seem to point to the widespread worship of Tammuz and to the antiquity of what became the well-known tabooed animal. This evidence combines with indications of rude conditions and the presence of some non-Semitic stock both to warn us that as far back as the historian can go the * Semitic * area was a meeting- place of many different and conflicting elements, and to suggest that * Semitic culture ' is sometimes specifically the new formations that arose, perhaps as a compromise between the desert and the more exposed surrounding lands.
CHAPTER VI EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD
nature and range of our archaeological and historical JL material give Egypt the priority in a survey of the develop- ment of the Ancient East. The earliest period is the predynastic or prehistoric : it is called predynastic because it precedes the 1st Dynasty of Manetho's list (pp. 259 sqq.}> and prehistoric because it antedates the earliest surviving written records. The period is a discovery of the close of the nineteenth century. When the exca- vation of Nakada in 1895 ky Flinders Petrie revealed crouched burials surrounded by black-topped ware and other now familiar types of hand-made pottery, the contrast which these burials and objects presented with those previously known in Egypt sug- gested to him a *New Race/ which must have entered Egypt at some period during the early dynasties. But others pointed out that in this 'New Race' we were at last face to face with the earliest inhabitants, excluding those of the Palaeolithic Age, of the Nile valley. Since this time predynastic cemeteries have come to light in considerable numbers, and it may reasonably be said that we are as well acquainted with the material civilization of this era as with that of any other in Egyptian history, though at the same time it has to be admitted that our knowledge of its actual history amounts to practically nothing*
It will best serve the present purpose if we begin by describing the remains actually found, and then proceed to draw from them whatever conclusions are possible regarding the civilization of this remote era. And since the period is known to us mainly from Its cemeteries, we have to reverse the natural order of things, and learn all we can of the treatment of the dead before we proceed to ask what is known of the living,
I. THE EVIDENCE OF THE CEMETERIES
The typical predynastic tomb consists of a shallow pit cut in the sand or in the soft rock which usually underlies the sand. In the earliest times it is usually circular, but, later, rectangular types, often with slightly rounded edges, come into use. At the bottom of this pit lies the body in a tightly contracted position, that is to
CHAP. VI, i] PREDYNASTIC BURIAL 239
say with the knees drawn up towards the chin and the arms bent at the elbows in such a way that the hands are in front of the face. The ^mport of this position will be examined below ; for the moment we must describe the later development of the grave itself. At first it had been usual to lay the body in the centre of the tomb, which indeed was only just large enough to hold it, and to place the vases and other objects round it. Later, especially in rich graves where numerous offerings were to be made, a special step or ledge of rock was left when digging the grave, in most cases on the west side. On this ledge were placed the larger vases, while the body with its ornaments and often the smaller vases and other objects lay in the deeper part of the pit. A further develop- ment soon followed. The shelf, in order to accommodate more vases, was broadened until it threatened to occupy the whole pit to the exclusion of the body* To obviate this a recess was cut to hold the body in the side of the grave opposite to the ledge. In some cases this recess is so large as to rival in size the original pit, from which it is occasionally divided by a fence of wattle or a wall of mud brick.
The latest of the predynastic tombs sometimes have a lining of mud brick round the edges of the rectangular pit, a form which persisted into the dynastic period. Many of these tombs were probably not roofed in any way, but merely filled up to the desert level with the sand which had been taken out of them; others however were covered with a primitive roof of wood surmounted by a layer of mud. No traces of a superstructure have ever been, found.
The body was not mummified in any way, but was in many cases simply laid in the grave without any covering or protection; occasionally it was wrapped in the skin of some animal, and frequently it was covered with a reed mat. Sometimes the body was placed beneath an inverted £>ot, more rarely in a true coffin of pottery : both methods of burial seem to be confined to the later phases of the period. At Mahasna (north of Abydos) the coffin consisted of four planks placed in the position of the four sides of a box, but with neither bottom nor lid; in some cases the planks were so placed as to constitute a wooden lining to the pit rather than a true coffin for the body. The normal position for the body was on its left side. This position was used in the very large majority of the tombs in all the cemeteries known to us, with the exception of el~Arnrah (south of Abydos), where the position on the right side was normal in the earlier phases of the period.
Practically all predynastic tombs were placed with their longer
240 EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP.
axis lying local north and south, i.e. parallel to the course of the Nile at that particular point. The significance of this custom is wholly unknown, but the care with which it was observed suggests that it may have involved a religious idea of great importance. The head generally lay towards the south, but the rule was not invariable, and at Turra (south of Cairo), in particular, there were numerous exceptions. Why the body was always placed in the contracted position is uncertain. Some have suggested that it was used in order to save room in the cemeteries. Others think it was the natural position of rest or sleep, while yet others affirm that the limbs of the dead man were tightly bound up with cords in order to prevent him from doing harm to the living. But perhaps the most widely approved suggestion is that the posture is em- bryonic, i.e. that of the foetus in the womb, and symbolizes the return of the mortal to the womb of earth from which he came. It is unnecessary to discuss here the value of these speculations, we need only note that any attempt at explanation must^ reckon with the very wide distribution of this peculiar custom in early times in Europe, North Africa and nearer Asia.
Several excavators have called attention to the occurrence of predynastic tombs in which, though there was no trace of sub- sequent disturbance, the bones of the skeleton appeared to lie out of their natural order. From this fact they inferred that in certain cases the body was either cut up before burial, or else buried provisionally in some other spot and only removed to the tomb in which it was found after natural decay had allowed the skeleton to become disarticulated. Although there are parallels for these practices elsewhere, some archaeologists still totally deny their existence in Egypt. Nevertheless a dispassionate examination of the evidence suggests that it is more prudent to preserve an open mind, even though some of the cases quoted as examples of dis- memberment can be explained away. The discovery of partly dismembered bodies inside untouched linen wrappings at De- shasheh points to the practice of this custom in the early dynastic period, and it would therefore be in no way surprising to find it already obtaining in the Predynastic Age.
The body having been laid in the tomb it only remained to place around it the funerary provision. This consisted to a great extent of vases of food and drink. It is probable that the vases in which the offerings were placed were in many cases made specially for the occasion, and were not those which the deceased had been in the habit of using in his lifetime. Along with these, however, were frequently placed objects which he had actually used, and
VI, i] PREDYNASTIC SETTLEMENTS 241
which were very often worn or damaged by use. Thus with a man were buMed tools and weapons of copper, flint or stone, while a woman was equipped with her ornaments, necklaces of beads, and armlets of flint, slate or ivory, malachite to make eye-paint, and a slate palette and pebble wherewith to grind it.
Of the manner in which the predynastic people lived we can form fairly accurate conjectures from the contents of their tombs. But fortunately we can do more than this, for several sites are known on which they actually dwelt. Some of these may be described as kitchen-middens (kJKkkenma&ddinger)* They consist simply of heaps formed by the refuse of everyday life, bones, shells, pottery, worn or broken flints, etc. Several of these early settlements at Ballas, Mahasna and Abydos, have been more closely examined. All lie on the sandy edge of the desert. At Ballas there were remains of mud-brick houses. At Mahasna were dis- covered sockets in which the excavators conjecture that there must have stood poles supporting huts or tents; but the absence of more solid remains leads us to suppose that the dwellings were either of very flimsy material or, if of wood, were capable of re- moval in sections. At Abydos two large hearths were found, from five to six metres in diameter, consisting simply of heaps of wood-ash containing fragments of bone and pottery. The objects of flint and pottery found in this settlement, were, as a whole, like those of Ballas, much rougher than those drawn from the con- temporary graves, though no type found in the graves was entirely unrepresented. This makes it quite clear that the objects buried with the dead were mainly chosen from his finer and more valuable possessions. Indeed it is not altogether improbable that some of the better types of pottery were manufactured purely for funerary use.
On the edge of three of these settlements were found structures consisting each of a number of deep open-mouthed jars, about a metre in height, coming to a point below, and arranged in two parallel rows placed so close as almost to interlock. Each vase was supported beneath by a number of vertical fire-bars of clay, and the whole structure was surrounded by a low wall and roofed over, leaving the mouths of the vases free. Around and among the fire- bars were found large quantities of charred wood, and close investigation showed that the whole formed a kind of slow-com- bustion furnace designed to keep at a moderate temperature for some length of time a certain substance placed in the jars; this when analysed proved to consist of grains of wheat. Analogies from other countries and ages tend to show that these kilns were
C.A.H.X l£
242 EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP.
used for drying wheat with the purpose of increasing its keeping properties, rather than for parching it in order to facilitate grind- ing. However this may be, it shows clearly that the predysiastic people were not only agriculturalists, but that they were quite well acquainted with the problems of storing their grain.
The state of civilization to which these people had attained at the moment when their appearance is first revealed to us in the Nile valley was in many senses a high one. Some think that they were still in the neolithic stage; others, relying on unpublished evidence from the excavations at Nagc ed-Der (opposite Girgeh), believe that copper was already being gradually introduced during this period. What is certain is that long before the 1st Dynasty copper was used in considerable quantities for arms and imple- ments. Within this same period gold and silver both came into use, and in two tombs of the Middle Predynastic Period, near Medum, were found beads of hammered iron, in one case strung alternately with others of gold.
But throughout the predynastic age the substance most used for implements and weapons was not metal but flint. There was no difficulty in obtaining material, for the limestone cliffs of Egypt contain flint nodules without number, many of which are of a quality which readily lends itself to minute and accurate work- ing. It was, therefore, to be foreseen that the flint industry in Egypt would attain to a very high level, and it did in fact reach an excellence which has never been surpassed. For ordinary uses implements of a simple type were made, and no more work was, done on them than was necessary to give the desired surface and edge. But for the finer products a very different method was pursued. In order to secure a perfectly even surface from which regular flakes could be removed by pressure, the implement was first roughly shaped by coarse flaking, and the whole surface was then ground smooth. The implement now possessed all the necessary qualities except sharpness and durability of edge, which could only be produced by taking off minute flakes from the edge. The Egyptian was, however, not satisfied merely to do this, for he proceeded to remove a double series of rippling flakes from the face, and in many cases to fit the edge of the implement with minute and almost invisible teeth. The tool was then complete, except that in some cases it was fitted with an artistic handle of wood, ivory, bone or gold.
Next in importance to the making of weapons to defend himself and to hunt, and implements wherewith to pursue the occupations by which he lives, the savage ranks the preparation of vessels in
VI, i] POTTERY AND STONE VASES 243
which to cook and eat his food and store the products of his agriculture. And it is here that in Egypt a paradox meets us, for, at th« moment when he entered Egypt, the primitive potter was producing vases so admirable from the technical and artistic point of view that his successors never surpassed and seldom equalled them. He had learned to clean his clay by mixing it with water and removing the coarser particles which settled first at the bottom; knowing that a pure clay is apt to crack in the firing, he introduced into his paste a proportion of small grains of quartz or limestone; despite his ignorance of the potter's wheel he moulded his shapes so perfectly that its absence is never felt; and, last but not least, he belonged to one of those rare and happy periods when the craftsman seems incapable of an error of taste, and in con- sequence almost every form that leaves his hands is a thing of beauty. The vase once moulded he coated it with a slip of finer clay in which a quantity of powdered haematite had been mixed, and after a short drying in the sun polished its surface with a smooth pebble or a spatula of bone. There now remained only the firing. But here too experience had taught him something. Did he require the vase to retain the red haematite colour, he placed it clear of the glowing embers in the open flame; did he on the other hand wish to produce a bichrome effect, he placed it mouth downwards in the fire, whereupon that part of the surface which was covered by the ashes surrendered a portion of its oxygen and turned into the magnetic oxide of iron, which is black, while that on the exposed portion, free to draw oxygen from the air, remained in the form of the red oxide. The result was the well-known red-polished pottery with a black top. Having dis- covered a white pigment which would withstand the action of fire, the potter was further able to draw simple geometric and even naturalistic designs on his red-polished or black-topped wares, and so to produce what may be the world's first painted pottery.
But the Egyptian predynastic potter possessed a piece of know- ledge more extraordinary than any yet described. Not only had he discovered that sand when combined with potash or soda and a metallic oxide will vitrify at a certain temperature; but he had realized the possibilities of this glaze for decorative purposes; he had learned to colour it blue with a salt of copper, to make it adhere to the substance on which it was to be laid, and to produce a fire of sufficient temperature to fuse it. See pp. 320, 576.
The hardness of stone had no terrors for the predynastic crafts- man. It is true that in the earliest tombs stone vases are rare or even absent, but in the Middle Predynastic Period the drill had
1 6 — a
244 EGYPT; THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP.
already been discovered, perhaps as a direct consequence of the working of copper. Equipped with this instrument,, and dbubtless with an inexhaustible store of patience, the Egyptian fou$d no stone too hard for him to work, and indeed the diorites with their fine surfaces were among his favourites. Here again, as in the case of pottery, he arrived at astonishing accuracy and beauty of form, and his achievements in the harder stones were never sur- passed in later days.
Passing from the products to the authors of them we have next to ask what manner of man was the predynastic Egyptian. Anthropological researches carried out in Egypt during the last twenty years enable us to form a very good idea of his physical characteristics and his racial affinities. He belonged in the first place to a remarkably homogeneous and unmixed race. He was a small man5 the average stature being under 5 feet 5 inches in the case of men and 5 feet in the case of women. He was of a slender and almost effeminate build; though his limb bones possess certain characteristics (platycnemia and platymeria) commonly supposed to indicate great muscular strength. His hair was dark-brown or black, wavy or almost straight, sometimes even curly, though never woolly like that of the negro. He possessed very little facial hair, but a small pointed beard and slight moustache were generally permitted to grow.
His skull was of the long and narrow type known as dolicho- cephalic. This at once ranks him with the early neolithic peoples of the Mediterranean as opposed to the Armenoid or Alpine race, which seems to have penetrated into central Europe from Asia towards the end of the neolithic period and to branches of which the bronze age civilization of north Italy and possibly the geo- metric civilization in Greece were due (cf. pp. 34 $qq*y 65 ^^., 93, 105 sqq^ The early Egyptian skulls when viewed from above present a long angular pentagonal appearance. The face is oval and pointed^ the jaw narrow and sharp, and the nose apt to be flat, especially in the females. There is no doubt that this race formed the base of the population of Egypt far down into dynastic times, and that a strong admixture of it remains even to-day in the more isolated villages.^ As far as can be ascertained at present it remained quite uncontatninated until the end of the Predynastic Period, when it gradually became mixed with another element possessing a skull of a much broader type, an element drawn from the Armenoid branch referred to above, and known in Egypt as the Gizeh race, from the site on which its presence was first observed (cf. p. 34),
The pioneer of this anthropological work in Egypt, Elliot
VI, i] PHYSICAL TYPE AND LANGUAGE 245
Smith, insists most strongly on the homogeneity of the predynastic race up* to the beginning of the dynastic era in the cemeteries examined by him in Upper Egypt. At Tarkhan, however, which is much further down stream, between Cairo and Wasta, the measurements of the long bones of the skeletons, which 'were found to give clearer results than other parts/ have suggested to Flinders Petrie that in the second half of the Predynastic Period there was a distinct reduction in the stature of the race, which continued well into the dynastic age. This change he attributes to the rapid infiltration of a new people, the * Dynastic Race/ who were shorter than the predynastic Egyptian and, as he thought, probably came from Elam, Should anthropologists decide that the changes recorded by Petrie require the supposition of a new people to explain them, and if no similar changes in these same measurements are noticed in the cemeteries further up the Nile, we shall probably be compelled to believe that the dynastic people came in from the north, and for some time only occupied the northern portion of Upper Egypt* We shall return to the question later; see pp. 2,54, 2,63.
The language spoken by the predynastic inhabitants of Upper Egypt was in all probability the same as that used in the dynastic epoch. Unfortunately no proof of this can at present be given, but if the bulk of the population remained unaltered in type, and if the infiltration of the Armenoid element was very gradual, the assumption that no change of tongue took place is by no means hazardous. At the same time it is to be regretted that we have not a single undoubted specimen of predynastic writing. This is the more remarkable in view of the fact that in certain of the royal tombs of the 1st Dynasty we find the system of hieroglyphic writing so highly developed that it must already have been long in use, and had already acquired a cursive or hieratic script, written in ink. A slate palette of undoubted predynastic date, found at el-Amrah, has in relief two signs which might conceivably be hieroglyphs; one of these may be an early form of the cult object of Min, but the other is no known hieroglyph, and no conclusion ought to be drawn from the group. Of the early in- scribed cylinder-seals none can be definitely proved to be earlier than the rise of the 1st Dynasty, the predynastic examples showing only designs of animals and birds, with in one case a star, and in another what appears to be a building. Further, it is doubtful whether any of the slate palettes which show undoubted hiero- glyphs can be dated as predynastic. On the other hand, the crude combination of elementary true writing with pictorial representa-
246 EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP
tion so admirably illustrated by the great palette of Narmer (p. 268) warns us that if this document is a fair sample of the stage which writing had reached at this moment (beginning of tfee 1st Dynasty or just earlier), and not an archaism, very little in the way of writing is to be expected from the period which preceded it. At the same time it is singular that nothing at all has up to the present made its appearance.
Of the religion of the predynastic Egyptian we know practically nothing. Judging by the existence of a pronounced animal element in the cults of the dynastic period it may be suspected that in earlier times Egypt passed through a true totemic stage. This hypothesis is not susceptible of proof, though several facts have been observed which are fully consistent with it. Such a theory would explain, for instance, the custom of representing the king of Egypt under the form of an animal, such as a bull, a lion, a scorpion or a hawk, though it must be admitted that there are, in some cases at least, other possible explanations. On the predynastic vases with designs in red on a buff ground we find representations of boats on which are standards supporting what are generally supposed to be the cult objects of various districts. Among these are the hawk and the elephant, which, it is suggested, may have been totems of two tribes. Similarly, among the later nome-signs of Egypt, which undoubtedly have a very early origin, are several which may be totemic in origin, though we are always confronted with the difficulty that many of these birds and animals may be nothing more than hieroglyphs carrying a purely phonetic value. Finally, some writers believe that the animals which so frequently appear on the carved slate palettes, on the ivory knife-handles and combs, and on the cylinder-seals of predynastic days are totemic in origin. The precarious nature of all this evidence need hardly be pointed out, and were it not for the theriomorphic element in the later religion the suggestion could not be ventured that Egypt ever passed through a totemic stage. See also below, Chap. ix.
The distribution in the Nile valley of the * predynastic ' culture is quite clear. In the Delta it has not as yet been found; but since the earlier strata in this part of Egypt are usually unattainable owing to the rise in the water level no conclusions whatsoever can be drawn from this negative evidence. From Turra, 8 miles south of Cairo, predynastic cemeteries and settlements extend up into Nubia, being perhaps most thickly scattered north and south of Coptos and the mouth of the Wadi Hammamat. Throughout the whole of this long stretch of land the civilization seems to have been quite homogeneous up to the moment of transition to the
VI, n] DATA FOR HISTORY 247
Dynastic Period, when a distinct tendency to fall behind is ob- served ill Nubia. Whatever views we may hold as to the origin of the pj-edynastic people of Egypt — and there are some who believe that they entered Upper Egypt from the south by way of Nubia — it is at least clear that the cultural influences which produced the high civilization of the early dynasties first came into play in Egypt itself, and only gradually permeated Nubia,
IL DATA FOR HISTORY
The length and date of the Predynastic Period are matters of very great uncertainty. The terminus ad quern depends purely on the length assigned to the various dynastic periods, whether on astronomical or on other grounds, a matter which has already been discussed (pp. 168 sqq^ As regards the duration of the period it may at once be said that all attempts to estimate it by the amount of development which took place during its course are the merest guesswork, and, as such, devoid of value. Had we, as in the case of the Later Intermediate Period (between the Xllth and XVIIIth Dynasties), a dated era both before and after it with which com- parisons in rate of progress could be established, we might, if we proceeded with caution, reach a result which had some likelihood of accuracy. But as this is not the case we are helpless, and most scholars are content to believe that the period ended a few centuries before 3000 B.C. Petrie, however, has proposed to date the earliest predyttastic graves to not later than 8000 B.C., and the latest to about 5500, arguing from the similarity of certain flint implements of the Egyptian graves to those of the Magdalenian era in Europe, and also to those of the great flint-working period in Scandinavia. It is not possible to discuss in full this argument; the present writer doubts the legitimacy of comparing flints in widely distant areas, and is not prepared to push the Magda- lenian epoch down to say 7000 B.C., and that of the finest Scandinavian flints up to that date. See above, pp. 34 sq^ 36.
If, however, we cannot fix either the date or the length of the Predynastic Period we have at least a means of dating relatively within the period itself; and it was indeed a step forward in pre- dynastic research when Petrie, at Diospolis Parva, invented the now famous method of 'Sequence Dating.* The basis of this is typological. It was noticed that in certain forms of pottery vase, furnished with a wavy ridge of clay on each shoulder in place of a handle, the ridge gradually degenerated and lost its size and its form until it became nothing more than a useless line scratched on the pot. At the same time the form of these vases degenerated
EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP.
in a perfectly definite direction. This enabled them to be placed with considerable accuracy in chronological order; and; by ob- serving the forms of the other objects found with particular^types of wavy-handled vases, chronological series of these too were easily established. The whole Predynastic and Early Dynastic Period was divided into intervals numbered from 30 to 100, the series 1-29 being left blank in case still earlier graves should in future be discovered* The type series was then equated with the successive intervals of this so-called Sequence Dating,, with the result that if we find a predynastic tomb we can at once assign it to its correct position in the series. It must be clearly understood that the units of dating are not necessarily equal, and that the space from 30 to 40 might conceivably be twice or three times the length of that between 50 and 60, or vice 'versa. But despite the severe criticism which the system has met with in some quar- ters, and despite its obviously approximate character, it still re- mains a convenient and practical way of dating predynastic tombs and objects. The whole period is now generally divided into three sub-periods. Early Predynastic, Sequence Date 30 to 40; Middle Predynastic, 40 to 60; and Late Predynastic, 60 to 78, the end of which marks the rise of the 1st Dynasty.
One other consideration must not be forgotten in trying to estimate the length of the predynastic civilization, namely the date of the introduction of the Egyptian Calendar. The nature of the * Sothic cycle/ and the relation between the civil and Sothic years, have been discussed in an earlier chapter (p. 168). Now since the first season of the year is called the Inundation Season, it is manifest that the civil calendar can only have been introduced at a moment when its first day coincided with the heliacal rising of Sothis which occurs on July 1 9th of the Julian Calendar, and marks the beginning of the rise of the Nile. In other words, at a certain moment the early Egyptian, having for some time observed that the length of the year was about 365 days, definitely intro- duced a calendar with a year of this length, and for its first day naturally chose that most important of all days in Egypt, the beginning of the fertilising rise of the Nile, a day rendered the more striking because it coincided with the day of the heliacal rising of Sirius. This coincidence took place at the beginning of each Sothic period, and of the two which alone deserve considera- tion here, namely those which began in 12781 and 4241 B.C. respectively, the latter can be shown to be by far the more probable. See also p. 265.
Thus, unless there be some unsuspected flaw in the astronomical
VI, ii] EGYPTIAN CALENDAR f 249
evidence, we are faced with the conclusion that as early as 4241 B.C. the Nile valley was already inhabited by a people civilized enough to observe the risings of stars and to fix the length of the solar year within a few hours. Would it not seem, then, that attempts to shorten the Predynastic Period in such a way as to bring its terminus a quo down to 4000 B.C. or even later are misguided? To this question it may be replied that the predynastic remains which it is proposed to date in this way all come from the Nile above Cairo, whereas the calendar can be shown to have been discovered in the Delta, or at any rate not far south of it. The proof of this is very simple. Ancient authorities state that the day of the Julian Year on which the heliacal rising of Sirius was observed in Egypt was July i gth. Now astronomical considerations show that this could only be the case in or about the thirtieth degree of latitude, or, in other words, in the region of the modern Cairo. So here again we are brought face to face with the possibility that in the Delta there may have existed an earlier and more advanced pre- dynastic civilization than in Upper Egypt, of whose remains we as yet know nothing.
It may reasonably be asked what evidence we have for sup- posing that the graves of the Early Predynastic Period, assigned to Sequence Date 30—40, represent the first appearance of man in the Nile valley subsequent to palaeolithic times. Seeing that practically all Egyptian cemeteries lie on the very edge of the cultivation, may there not be earlier predynastic cemeteries, formed before the Nile mud had reached its present limits, and therefore concealed beneath the cultivation ? There is in itself no impossibility in this view, but it must be noticed that the position of the earliest tombs known to us shows that on the whole the limits of cultivation in Upper Egypt have altered but slightly in the last 5000 years at all events, and it would be somewhat unlikely that just before Sequence Date 30 some change should have occurred sufficient to overwhelm all earlier cemeteries. On the other hand, though cemetery after cemetery is discovered and fails to yield earlier material than that already known to us, we cannot assume that this will always be the case, and at any moment a fortunate discovery may take us back another stage in the life-history of the predynastic Egyptian. In this connexion the complete lack of . evidence from the Delta should be most carefully kept in mind.
In any case, it is not at all certain that we have not already a group of remains which, while they cannot be called palaeolithic, are to be attributed to a date earlier than that of the first known tombs. For many years past natives have been accustomed to
250 EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP.
collect large numbers of finely- worked flints at certain sites in the west of the Fayyum, notably at Dimeh and Kom Ashimt It does not appear that any systematic excavation has ever been carried out on these sites, but the flints are said to be found on the surface unaccompanied by any other remains, e.g. pottery. These flints Petrie proposes to connect with those of the Solutrean phase of the European Palaeolithic Age, and thus to attribute them to an age preceding that of the earliest predynastic tombs, which he would equate with the Magdalenian (see above). ^But, not to mention other difficulties, the mere fact that such flints occur in the Solutrean Period in Europe does not justify the ^belief that their date in Egypt is Solutrean, and, consequently, it is advis- able to withhold judgment on this matter until such time as the Fayyum sites shall have been properly investigated,.
Unfortunately the Egyptians have recorded practically nothing of any value with regard to the history of the Predynastic Period. There are three sources to which we can appeal, Manetho's History, the Turin Papyrus of Kings, and the Palermo Stone, together with the other fragments of the same or a similar monu- ment, lately discovered and now preserved in Cairo. Manetho, as quoted by Eusebius, records the following details with regard to the Predynastic Period: (i) A dynasty of gods, consisting of the Great Ennead of Heliopolis in the form in which it was wor- shipped at Memphis. (2) A further dynasty of gods, down to the time of Bidis, a space of 13,900 years. (This date includes both dynasties.) (3) Rule of a race of demigods, 1255 years. (4) Other kings, ruling for 1817 years. (5) After these another 30 kings from Memphis, 1790 years. (6) Ten kings from This, 350 years. (7) Kingdom of departed spirits and demigods, 5813 years, upon which follows immediately the 1st Dynasty, headed by Menes.
From the historical point of view there is little to be made of this (see p. 265). Moreover, the first two columns of the Turin Papyrus, which deal with the Predynastic Period, are in a lament- able condition. The king-list clearly began, however, with a dynasty of gods, which included Re, Geb, Osiris, Set, Horus, Thoth and Maat. Thereupon follow several totals of years, the connexion of which is lost. We then read of 1 9 rulers from Mem- phis whose years are 1 1 and some months and days, while the next line records rulers (?) in the Delta (?) whose years are over 2 100* Then, after an obscure reference to 7 women, we apparently find * Spirits' — the reading is not certain — 'Followers of Horus £3,420 plus x years/ and after this 'Total up to the Followers of Horus, 23,200 plus x years/ The next line brings us to Menes
VI, nj HISTORICAL SLATE PALETTES 251
and the 1st Dynasty. In the papyrus, as In Manetho, we have dynasties of gods,, Followers of Horus immediately preceding the 1st Dynasty, and between the two a group of rulers from Memphis. For the scanty information furnished by the Palermo Stone, the only early Egyptian annals which have survived; see p. 266 $q.
Despite the lack of definite contemporary records from the Predynastic Period it would seem that attempts were made to put on record historical events. Whatever may have been the original intention in the making and dedication of the archaic carved slate palettes there can be little doubt that some of them show us pic- torial representations of actual events. The most famous of them all is the palette of Narraer, and, whether we believe this king to be the Menes of later Egyptian tradition, or one of his immediate predecessors, it is believed by some to record an incident in the wars which ended in the subjugation of the north by the south and the unification of the Two Egypts (p. 268 j^,). To the same period has been assigned, on grounds of style, the Louvre fragment, on each side of which is a bull worrying a prostrate human figure with prominent nose, apparently curly hair, long square-cut beard, and naked except for the pudendal sheath* The two representations of walled towns on the reverse, and the standards on the obverse which end in hands holding a rope to which prisoners are attached, make it clear that the subject of these scenes was a war in which some person or tribe, who could be symbolically represented by a bull, defeated a tribe or nation whose features were as described above. A third palette, that which bears on its reverse the well- known giraffes flanking a palm-tree, has been assigned to the same period, though, if the stylistic argument is sound, one would perhaps expect it to be a little earlier. On the obverse of this we see numerous prisoners dead and alive* One is being devoured by a lion, perhaps symbolical, as was the bull; while another is being lead off by a figure — the upper part of which is unfortunately lost — clad in a long robe covered with a simple decorative pattern and ending in a fringe. The prisoners at first sight remind us of those in the last palette, for their hair is curly and they have rather square beards, in one case apparently shown as plaited. But it has been pointed out that these men are not wearing the pudendal sheath : what some writers have mistaken for this being simply an attempt on the part of the artist to depict a peculiar type of circumcision still practised by certain east African tribes. It has also been made clear that the object which is partly visible in front of the led prisoner is not, as was generally supposed, a weight hung round his neck, but a primitive hieroglyphic writing
252 EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP.
of the defeated country, though unfortunately we cannot^ identify the place.
Another fragment of a palette (now in Cairo) which is perhaps a little earlier than any of the above, tells a fairly clear story. On the obverse four horizontal registers are still left, containing respectively a row of oxen, one of asses, one of sheep, and a group of trees (identified as olive trees), together with a hieroglyphic group representing the country-name Libya. The whole quite clearly depicts the booty brought away from a successful campaign in Libya (p. 269). On the reverse are seven walled cities, one of which is being destroyed by a hawk, another by a lion, another by a scorpion, and a fourth by' two hawks on perches. The destroyers of the other three cities are lost. It is probable that in these animals we should see, not the totem animals of an invading tribe, but various symbolical representations of the king of Egypt.
Among still earlier palettes, which, to judge by their style, may with certainty be assigned to a predynastic date, two show nothing but animals and are of greater value to art than to history, while the other is quite clearly a hunting scene in which bearded men, apparently with curly hair, in which is stuck a feather, clad in pleated kilts with a wolf's (?) tail behind, and armed with bows and arrows, clubs, lassoes, spears and perhaps double axes, pursue lions and other animals.
Still more striking from the historical point of view is a carved ivory knife-handle (now in the Louvre Museum), said to have come from Gebel el-Arak in Upper Egypt, on the east bank of the Nile opposite Nagc Hamadi (south of Girgeh). The fine ripple flaking and minutely toothed edge of the knife make it clear that the implement is to be dated back into the Predynastic Period. On one side of the handle we find what is clearly a scene of warfare. In the two top registers a series of single combats are represented between men armed with maces or knives and men totally un- armed, with the exception of one, who carries a flint knife. Both groups of men are clean-shaven and naked except for the pudendal sheath. The unarmed men have a long tress of hair hanging over the left shoulder; the armed men show no such tress, though it is advisable to remember that they are invariably seen in right pro- file, and may have had a tress on the left. Below these two registers arc two rows of boats separated by a heap of slain men. The boats in the upper of the two rows are totally different from those in the lower, and one can hardly resist the inference that the two types of boat belong respectively to the two groups of warriors. On the
VI, n] HISTORICAL SLATE PALETTES ^ 253
other side of the handle is what appears to be a hunting scene. At the top a3 human figure seen In left profile is supported herald! cally by twp lions. The appearance of the human figure can only be described as totally un-Egyptian. He wears a hemispherical cap with thick rolled brim — unless this is merely the coiffure — and a tunic reaching down to below the knees. He has full side-whiskers and a thick heavy beard. Below are dogs and various other animals, and a hunter whose body has almost disappeared. Another hunter, who should balance this one on the right, has been crowded out and is to be found on the other side of the handle. He differs in no respect from the armed warriors in the scenes of combat (see below, pp. 255, 580).
None can doubt that In the series of objects here described something of the history of predynastic times Is written, yet so obscurely. In most cases, that the main result has been to puzzle us. There are, indeed, happy exceptions. One palette clearly records the result of a Libyan campaign of which we have perhaps another record in an ivory cylinder from Hieraconpolls on which Narmer, in the presence of the falcon-god and the vulture-goddess, smites a bearded people marked as Libyans. In the great Narmer palette, too, the main details and actors are fairly clear, whether or no we accept the conjecture that the defeated enemy were the Libyan inhabitants of the Harpoon nome in the north-western Delta. But of the rest of these scenes it is uncertain whether they represent mere local wars between tribe and tribe, or strife between Upper and Lower Egypt, or campaigns by kings of Upper or Lower Egypt, or both, against foreign foes. These are questions which we are hardly as yet In a position to answer. It has, however, been pointed out that in the human beings figured on these palettes we have to deal with more than one people. Thus, on the obverse of the giraffe-palette the defeated are men with curly hair, small beards and slight whiskers, coarse noses and slightly everted lips, who show a peculiar kind of circumcision. These are no true negroes, though they had obviously too much negro blood in their veins to be Egyptians and may have been Hamitic negroids* On the palette of Narmer the hair of the defeated is not curly, nor are their features negroid, yet one at least shows the same form of circumcision as the negroids just described. Both these conquered peoples have been assigned to the Hamitic -stock, from which the predynastic Egyptians were themselves derived; and the negroid features of the one group may be explained on the supposition that they were a southern branch who had absorbed much negro blood by contact with the peoples of east Africa.
254 EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP.
It must be left for the future to determine the relation between any of these three groups and the people wearing the pudendal sheath who are shown on each side of the Louvre fragmentrbeing gored by a bull, or the two peoples similarly clad on the knife handle, or the kilted hunters on the great hunting palette. Suffice it to notice that the pointed beard with slight side whisker and the pudendal sheath are both known fx*om the tombs to have been characteristic of the predynastic Egyptian. Their wearers, there- fore, must not be put down as foreigners, as they frequently are, on these grounds alone.
From what direction did predynastic man enter the Nile valley? Until quite lately two opposing theories concerning this question were in the field. According to one, predynastic Egypt was occupied by two peoples, not necessarily of different stock, and perhaps both akin to the Mediterranean race, one of whom occupied the Fayyum and the Nile valley as far south as Kawamil, near Suhag, at that time the northern limit of the known predynastic cemeteries, while the other was responsible for the predynastic remains which are found in such quantity from here southward, and which are thickest in the neighbourhood of Coptos. This second people is supposed to have entered Egypt from the east by the Wadi Hammamat, and eventually to have conquered the race which occupied the lower Nile valley, thus founding United Egypt. According to the other theory, the predynastic population of the Nile valley was a single indigenous people, akin to the Mediterranean race; towards the end of the predynastic period a new race of different type entered the country by the Wadi Hammamat, coming from Arabia by the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb and Koseir. This race is supposed to be Semitic or 'Proto-Semitic' in origin, and to have brought with it the elements of proto- Babylonian culture, which enabled it to found the Dynastic Kingdom of Egypt.
Such were the two conflicting theories on the subject, for the theory of a southern origin has long been without a champion. During recent years we have gained a better knowledge of the physical type of the earliest Egyptians; and we now know that, so far from being strongly negroid and suggestive of a con- nexion with the south, the physical type of the predynastic Egyptian differed little, if at all, from that of the great long-headed people whose various branches inhabited in neolithic times the Mediterranean basin and western Europe. Elliot Smith has gone further than this : he regards both the Semites of Arabia and the Sumerians as branches of this same race, which he calls the Brown
VI, n] ORIGINAL HOME OF EGYPTIANS 255
Race, slightly differentiated from the Egyptians and from one another ^by long residence in a different environment. He is not prepared to discuss the original home of this race, but he believes that both Egyptians and Sumerians had been settled in their respective lands many generations before the date of the first of their graves known to us. In the case of Egypt this is a point on which there is some diversity of opinion, though this need not for the moment affect our belief in a relationship between the early Egyptian and his Arabian and Sumerian neighbours if we wish to do so. It should be noticed that the evidence of language, always, however, a most precarious guide, favours a common parentage for the Egyptian and the Semite of nearer Asia. The Egyptian language in its earliest known form shows important affinities with Semitic, which some authorities consider too radical to be explained away by the hypothesis of borrowing (but see p. 187). Nor have we any reason for supposing that this was not the lan- guage used in predynastic times, during which the script, which we find in an advanced stage in the 1st Dynasty, was being slowly and painfully evolved in the Nile valley. On the other hand, the evidence of language does not confirm the belief that the Egyptian and Sumerian were of a common stock, though this is in itself no evidence against the truth of the belief. See further pp. 261—4.
Attacking the problem fi*om the side of material civilization, we may say that for many years archaeologists have called attention to features in early Egyptian civilization which have their parallels in Mesopotamia and Elam. Thus, for instance, the occurrence of the cylinder-seal at an early date in Egypt and in Mesopotamia may be more than a coincidence (see p. 263). The style of the carved palettes with animals on them is most strikingly paralleled in Mesopotamia and in the countries bordering thereon. The lion- like animals with serpent necks seen on the palette of Narmer and on two of the earlier palettes are exactly paralleled on a Chaldean cylinder in the Louvre. Again, a close connexion between the motifs of the palettes and knife-handles and those of ancient seals and cylinders from Elam has been observed, not so much in the similar types of various animals (lions, for instance), as in the general system of their grouping, partly round a certain centre, partly in continuous rows one over the other, the empty spaces sometimes being filled up with animals, sometimes with geometric or vegetable ornaments. The Gebel el-Arak knife-handle is an even more striking instance than any hitherto found. The figure of the man flanked by the two lions on the reverse might have come direct from a Mesopotamian monument, and it has been
256 EGYPT: THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD [CHAP.
suggested that the figure is an Egyptian counterpart of the Baby- lonian Gllgamesh subduing the lions. See p. 580^.
What conclusion is to be drawn from these admittedly staking analogies with the east ? While many Egyptologists still prefer to hold their hands on the subject, Petrie has argued that a civiliza- tion developed in Elam much earlier than in Egypt, that its authors, or some of them, migrated from Susa to Egypt, with a long halt at some point on the way. -They first reached Egypt early in the second prehistoric civilization, after Sequence Date 40, and continued to enter the country for some considerable time. The proof of the influx of this new element is to be seen, on this view, in the variations of the long bones of the skeletons found in graves of this period at Tarkhan, the newcomers being three or four inches shorter than the original Egyptians and temporarily shortening the stature of the country. These are the people who carved the knife-handle of Gebel el-Arak, 'the ancestors of the makers of the slate palettes, of Narmer and his people, and the founders of dynastic art/ Whatever the value of this hypothesis, here it is only necessary to repeat that Petrie's theory of the priority of the Elamite civilization is based wholly on the occurrence in its early strata of supposed Solutrean flints, similar to those of the Fayyum, which he believes to be earlier than the first predynastic graves in Egypt. The cogency of this type of argument from flint forms must, however, be regarded as doubtful in the extreme. As for the evidence of the bone measurements, the figures given by Petrie, if they can be supported by similar results from other sites, will indeed constitute a piece of evidence which must be very seriously reckoned with.
The indications which point in the direction of the east are certainly unmistakable. But it is a far call from recognizing the fact of these indications to furnishing their precise interpretation; and it is doubtful whether this can ever be done so long as the early civilization of the Delta remains a closed book to us. It must not be forgotten that certain striking parallels have been found between the cult-objects of the western Delta and those of early Crete (see pp. 174^., 591). This suggests that the affinities of this early Delta civilization were with the Mediterranean rather than with Upper Egypt (see p. 264). But even here we are still in the realm of conjecture, and it is clear that nothing but excavation can place us on a higher plane. For the present almost every new object of any importance dating from these early times in Egypt merely serves to convince us, if we are wise, of the extent of our ignorance.
CHAPTER VII
THE UNION OF EGYPT AND THE OLD KINGDOM
L THE LISTS OF KINGS: DYNASTY I
IN passing from the predynastic to the dynastic period we leave the interpretation of archaeological and legendary material, and pass from the prehistoric to the historic age of Egypt. We now for the first time have ancient records to guide us, both con- temporary and later. And it is only with the help of the later accounts that the contemporary monuments can be understood, for at first they are very difficult to comprehend, being archaic and unsettled in style and meaning. But about the time of the IVth and Vth Dynasties the nation attained its full measure of civilization, and Egyptian art and the Egyptian script assumed the form which is the framework, so to speak, on which all the later developments were fashioned. The statues and reliefs of the IVth Dynasty are as * typically Egyptian * in their own way as those of any later dynasty, but when we see the artistic representa- tions of the first three dynasties we are constantly brought up short by unexpected forms and bizarre appearances which failed to survive to later days. Under the first three dynasties Egyptian art was trying its hand ; it was only under the fourth that a state of equilibrium was reached, religious conservatism and artistic endeavour having compromised in a convention which, so far as representations of the gods were concerned, persisted till the end* Antoninus Pius is represented on an Egyptian temple in the costume of a king of the Vth Dynasty, some 3000 years earlier. This is as true of the writing as of any other form of art. It must not be forgotten that Egyptian written records were works of art: the painter and the writer were one and the same thing. By the time of the IVth Dynasty the forms and arrangement of the hieroglyphs had crystallized more or less into those that persisted until the end. Naturally we can distinguish at a glance an inscription of the Xllth Dynasty from one of the IVth, one of the XlXth from one of the Xllth, one of the Ptolemaic period from one of the XlXth. The difference in style is obvious. But a Ptolemaic antiquarian
C.A.H*!
258 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP,
could have read a IVth Dynasty inscription without much diffi- culty, whereas one of the 1st Dynasty would probably have been almost as unintelligible to him as to us. By the time of the I Vth- Vth Dynasties certain artistic conventions as to arrangement had been introduced, and they remained till the end; under the Ilnd and Illrd Dynasties the hieroglyphs are still uncertain in form., and they are cut haphazard without any particular care as to pro- portion and symmetry.
It is on this account that the divergences of the later king-lists from the royal names as we find them on the actual monuments of the early dynasties are easily explicable. The most important of these lists of royal names, those of Abydos and Sakkarah, were compiled at the beginning of the XlXth Dynasty. It would seern that about the time of king Seti I, the first monarch of the XlXth Dynasty (c. 1320 B.C.), attention had been specially drawn to the tombs of the earliest kings at Abydos. Either the king, wishing to build there his splendid temple which still stands, and to com- memorate his dead 'ancestors/ instructed his historiographers to seek out the names of the oldest kings, or, may be, a discovery of the early royal tombs moved the king to commemorate his pre- decessors by building there a temple and inscribing their names in it. The list which he caused to be put up contains among its most ancient names several which, as we shall see, are obviously misunderstandings and misreadings of the archaic hieroglyphs. When the names of the Pyramid-builders (the IVth Dynasty of Manetho) are reached, lists and contemporary monuments prac- tically agree, and we have, in the duplicate Abydos list of Seti and of Hs son Ramses II, the most important ancient authority as to the succession of the legitimate monarchs of the whole country.
The second ancient authority is the famous Turin Papyrus of Kings, which gives not only names but regnal years, and in some cases even months and days. Had it survived entire, it would have been our chief authority. It is in fragments, and much critical labour has had to be spent upon it in order to make it intelligible when, as is often the case, it gives information as to obscure or illegitimate kings not mentioned in the Abydbs list. With this it otherwise agrees, and the accuracy of both is usually confirmed by the monuments at epochs when, as in the times of the IVth— Vlth and the Xllth— Xlllth Dynasty, we possess detailed know- ledge from contemporary authorities. There is, however, a dis- crepancy as regards Pepi I (p. 291). It. is of these periods of prosperity and power that the later Egyptians like ourselves actually had most knowledge. From the style of the writing, and
VII, i] LISTS OF KINGS 259
from Its agreement with the Abydos list as to the forms of early names, \his list would also seem to date from the XlXth Dynasty.
The list of Sakkarah was set up In the tomb of a royal scribe .named Tunurei, who lived in the reign of Ramses II (c. 1300— 1234 B.C.)- It begins, not with the traditional Mena or Men! (the Menes of Herodotus and Manetho), but with the king Merbapen (Merpeba), the Miebis of Manetho, who both in Manetho and in the Abydos list is the fifth successor of Menes. This fact is of historical importance, as we shall see later. The forms of the names of the earlier kings given by Tunurei are evidently derived from a hieratic original of his own time,, such as the Turin Papyrus, For the later period this list is in itself not of much value, since, though it gives a selection of the most important royal names correctly, it turns the kings of the Middle Kingdom back- wards, making the Xlllth Dynasty succeed the Vth, and the Xlth precede the XVIIIth, The Xllth Dynasty kings are given In their correct order — but backwards.
The oldest list, that of Thutmose III (c. 1501—1447 B.C.) at Karnak, is evidently based largely upon tradition rather than formal chronicles, but it gives the names of a number of kings, known to us from monuments, that do not appear In the more reliable lists of the XlXth Dynasty. Such catalogues as these were not made for the first time under the XVIIIth and XlXth Dynasties, We know that much earlier lists existed, and not only lists but annals, inscribed upon stone stelae set up as public monuments, and we have portions of such dating from the time of the Vth Dynasty (c. 2965—2825 B.C., or in round numbers 2950-2800) in the * Palermo Stone' and other fragments of similar annal-stelae. These contained records of every regnal year back to the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, and gave the names of predynastic kings also. Had they been perfect they would have settled many disputed questions : as it Is, even in their fragmentary condition they are invaluable on account of their nearness in time to the most ancient period.
The lists of the XlXth Dynasty are undoubtedly the basis of Manetho's work. But the Ptolemaic historiographer also used continuous annals, legendary and historical, which we no longer possess. These gave him the reasons for his division of the kings into dynasties, which are not Indicated in the lists, though the Turin Papyrus especially distinguishes the monarchs of the Old Kingdom (Manetho's I—VIII Dynasties) from those of the Middle Kingdom (Manetho's IX-XVII Dynasties). The break in his-
260 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
torlcal continuity between the two Is fully recognized (see p. 298). Manetho goes further in recording the minor breaks 'between successive ruling families; and so far as we are able to chesk him from the contemporary monuments his division into dynasties is entirely justified. His authorities evidently were good. But un- happily his work has come down to us only in copies of copies; and, although the framework of the dynasties remains., most of his royal names, originally Graecized, have been so mutilated by non- Egyptian scribes, who did not understand their form, as often to be unrecognizable, and the regnal years given by him have been so corrupted as to be of little value unless confirmed by the Turin Papyrus or the monuments.
The royal names given by Herodotus and Diodorus are entirely derived from tradition, recounted to them by Egyptian priests. Sometimes they are by no means bad representatives of the real names, especially in the case of the Pyramid-builders. But the true course of history was entirely deformed by the * Father of History/ and he makes the IVth Dynasty immediately precede the XXVIth, for reasons intelligible to students of Egyptian art, for the Sa'ite period was one of archaism, which carefully imitated in its monu- ments the style of the Pyramid-builders, All other 'classical' authorities are entirely valueless.
To the skeleton supplied by Manetho even Champollion was able to fit many of the monuments then discovered, soon after his decipherment of the hieroglyphs (p. 1 1 6 j^*). But he mixed up the Xllth Dynasty with the Ethiopians of the XXVth, and J, G. Wilkinson was the first to discover the correct position of the kings of the XII th Dynasty, Lepsius merely confirmed the truth of Wilkinson's discovery. The finding of the Abydos list in 1864 (by Dumichen) settled the correct articulation of the skeleton. Since that time the work of fitting the kings, whose contemporary monuments we have, into the scheme, controlled and corrected by their own contemporary statements, has gone on until, at the beginning of the century, with the correct placing (by Steindorff) in the XHIth Dynasty of certain kings formerly supposed to belong to the Xlth, we had reached comparative certainty as far back as the end of the IHrd Dynasty, The earliest kings still remained unknown from contemporary monuments, and were generally relegated to the realm of legend, if not of fable. Then, at the turn of the century, came the discovery of the earliest royal tombs at Abydos, which in the time of the XlXth Dynasty had presumably turned the attention of the scribes of that time to the most ancient kings. Their lists and Manetho were aerain Justified
VII, i] ORIGINS OF THE EGYPTIANS 261
in the main; the contemporary monuments of many of the kings of the first three dynasties were found, giving the real forms of the names that the later list makers had often misunderstood. But for the beginning of the 1st Dynasty it is evident that the Menes legend., the story of the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, which was no doubt as well known in the time of Seti as in that of Herodotus, had to some extent confused the list-makers. Better interpretations of the Palermo Stone, new fragments of which have been recently published, and further archaeological dis- coveries, are enabling us to find our way even into the days before Menes, who though a legendary figure was no imaginary creation, since he was a real king, but in legend has attracted to himself the deeds of others who preceded and followed him,
The question of the date of Menes and the unification of the kingdom has already been treated, and it has been urged that it cannot be placed later than about 3500 B.C. (p. 171). We have also seen that during the long predynastic age the Nile-dwellers passed from the use of stone to that of metals, and developed in the Delta and in Upper Egypt the Egyptian culture, which meets us in its own peculiar and characteristic guise, with its cult of the dead, its religion, its hieroglyphs, its art, and its state-organiza- tion, albeit in an archaic and comparatively primitive stage of development. This development has been ascribed to the infiltra- tion into Egypt from Syria of an alien race (* Armenoids *), who brought to the Nile-land a higher brain-capacity than that of the native Hamitic population, and therewith developed the native prehistoric culture into the ancient Egyptian civilization which we know. See pp. 244 sy.9 254 sq.
The impulse to this movement was given before the actual unification of the kingdom and the founding of the 1st Dynasty. Until recent years it has generally been supposed that it was given by an invasion of 'Horns-Egyptians' from the south, either by way of the Wadi Hammamat (which reaches the Nile valley at Coptos, leaving the Red Sea at Koseir), or through Nubia. We certainly seem to have echoes of a conquest of Egypt from the south (and so entirely distinct from the *Armenoid* infiltration from the north) in the legends of the god Horus and his followers, assisted by the Mesentiu (usually, but very doubtfully, translated * smiths') of Edfu (the city of Horus) against the Intiu or aboriginal inhabitants of the Nile valley. The sky-god, Horus of Edfu, whose emblem was the falcon, was the oldest supreme deity of Upper Egypt, and the special protector of the royal house. He is represented in the legend as coming from Nubia with his followers
262 r EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
and his 'Mesentiu,' overthrowing the Intiu (who were the fol- lowers of his rival Set), until he finally expelled them from the Delta into Asia, much as the later Egyptians expelled the Hy ksos. Probably the legend, as we know it from Ptolemaic sources, has been contaminated by the stories of the union of the kingdom by the Horus-kings of the south (Menes) and of the expulsion of the Hyksos. The Intiu (whose name should mean 'pillar-folk') prob- ably represent the main stock of the Hamitic Nilotes, akin to the Mediterraneans and to the pre-Semitic inhabitants of Palestine, who, it may be presumed, gave to the Semites their worship of sacred trees and pillars (baetyK). These Intiu left traces of their name in Upper as well as Lower Egypt, at Dendera as well as at Heiiopolis (On). Set, 'the brother' of Horus, was originally an Upper Egyptian god (of Ombos) like him, and was only estab- lished in the Delta in later times, when the mention of him would naturally cause it to be supposed that Horus had expelled him from the Delta. Originally the legend may have been perhaps merely that of a more energetic tribe of Hamites, following the banner of the falcon, who came from the south and subdued their kinsmen, the pillar-folk of Upper Egypt. To assume, on the authority of the translation of the word Mesentiu as * smiths/ that they effected this conquest by means of their knowledge of metal, is, however, more than doubtful, as it is probable that the word has no such meaning.
The Egyptians doubtless obtained their knowledge of copper- working from Mesopotamia by way of Syria, probably through the c Armenoid' race, which must already have made its appearance in Lower Egypt long before the end of the predynastic period. The land of Magan, which is mentioned in Sumerian Babylonian inscriptions of the fourth millennium B.C. as yielding copper, if rightly identified with Sinai, would suggest that Babylonians as well as Egyptians obtained copper from that peninsula. It would seem probable that the 'Armenoids,' if they also brought copper with, them, originally obtained it from further north, the mountains of the modern Armenia, as the Mesopotamians no doubt originally did* When the Egyptians took to using copper, a nearer source of the metal was found in Sinai, and the Babylonians also utilized it, going thither by sea in ships from the Persian Gulf. *Magan* means the land of ships, the land to which ships go, and it is obvious that much heavier masses of ore could be transported in a ship's hold than on donkey-back to the head waters of the Euphrates and Tigris and thence southward on rafts*
A certain amount of Mesopotamian influence may have reached
VII, i] HAMITES AND ARMENOIDS 263
Egypt at this time, traces of which have been found in the simi- larity of Babylonian and Egyptian mace-heads (p. 582), and the cornr&on use of the cylinder-seal, and of recessed brick walls. The invention of brick itself was no doubt of independent origin in both countries, as the shapes of the early Babylonian and the Egyptian brick are quite different. The cylinder-seal seems rather exotic in Egypt, where it died out at the beginning of the XVII Ith Dynasty, whereas in Mesopotamia it remained till the end (see pp, 255, 581 sg.*). In Egypt it is first made of wood (originally a section of reed ?), and may be an independent development. But the style of building with recessed walls and the common shape of the mace- head are not so easily explained away. However, whatever influence existed was slight, and Egyptian culture was little affected by it, The characteristic writing-system of Egypt had not, so far as we can yet see, a common origin with that of Mesopotamia, nor was it influenced by it. The Mesopotamian writing-system, originally hieroglyphic, had already become simplified into a semi-cuneiform system when the Egyptian script was still an archaic picture- writing. Whether the latter owes its origin to the Hamitic Egyptians or to the invading 'Armenoids* we do not know. It makes a very sudden appearance in Upper Egypt shortly before the unification, and this points to its having been introduced from the Delta. An ultimate Syro-Mediterranean origin is possible*
There can be no doubt now that the impetus to the development of civilization was given by these Armenoids from the north; their skulls testify to the fact that their brain-capacity was greater than that of the native Hamites, their remains are found gradually percolating southward till, in the Illrd Dynasty, they are in Upper Egypt, and by the time of the Vth they are merging with the general population. We see their facial type, quite different from that of the 'Karaite Egyptians, in the statues of the great men of the court of the Pyramid-builders. They are powerful, big-boned, big-skulled people with broad faces and * mesa ti cephalic' heads, quite different from the slight, small-boned, long-headed, narrow- chinned and bird-like Arabs and Hamites; quite different again from the typical Anatolian 'Hittite,' with his big nose, retreating , chin, and'brachycephalic skull, and differing in face from the Syrian * Semite' (the 'Jewish' type), though resembling him in skull form. If, as has been conjectured, the Syrian type is the result of a fusion of * Armenoids' with the real Semitic Arab (who is first cousin of the Hamite), the Egyptian Armenoids rnust have belonged to the vanguard of the invasion, which passed on into
264 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
Egypt before it had time to mix with the Semites or the related Mediterranean-Harnitic aboriginal population of Palestine! Where these 'Armen oids" came from is uncertain, although we .might well assign to them a common origin in middle Asia with the very similar 'Alpine' type of central Europe.
However this may be, in Lower Egypt we find them as the dominant civilized aristocracy at the beginning of things, and it is by no means improbable that the ruling race of Upper Egypt, to which the unifiers of the kingdom belonged, were of 'Armenoid* origin. The invaders were originally few in number, and so they formed a ruling caste which adopted the civilization of the con- quered, and developed it. In the Delta they probably found civilization (of a primitive c Mediterranean ' type) much more ad- vanced than in the Upper country (see p. 256). What elements they contributed to the ensuing common civilization we cannot yet tell. The hieroglyphic system and all the accompanying culture that it implies may have been theirs, but was more likely * Medi- terranean/ The main stuff of the religion of Egypt, on the other hand, the characteristic animal-gods and most other of the more fundamental beliefs, must be Nilotic and belong to the Hamite indigenes. The god Osiris, however, at all events appears to be of Syrian origin, and so are the cultivation of wine and of wheat, both of which are associated with him* The Egyptian knowledge of bee-keeping and of honey was possibly also of Syrian origin, It Is significant that the ancient formal title of the king of Lower Egypt was *the Bee-man* or * Honey~man ' (byati). Certainly Palestine, 'the land of milk and honey 9 is more naturally the original home of agriculture than Egypt. But whether Osiris is
* Arm en oid' or (perhaps more probably) belongs to the * Medi- terranean* pre-Semites of Palestine we do not know.
Accordingly, we see Egypt originally inhabited by a stone-using Hamitic race, related to the surrounding Semites, Libyans, and Mediterraneans. A second wave of the same race then comes, perhaps from the south. A foreign race, metal-using, then invades from Syria. It starts the great development of culture and founds a northern kingdom in the Delta, where a primitive culture akin to that of the 'Mediterranean' Cretans and Aegean islanders probably already existed. No actual traces of such a primitive
* Mediterranean ' culture in the Delta have yet been found, but its existence Is inherently probable, and many possible Indications of It may be seen in the later religious representations peculiar to the Delta, To it may have been due the invention of the hiero- glyphic writing. At all events, kings of this invading race came
VII, i] KINGDOMS OF THE NORTH AND SOUTH 265
i
ultimately to rule the south and unite the two kingdoms under their scSptre.
W& have no means yet of estimating the duration of the period of the separate existence of the two kingdoms of the north and south, before the unification. Four centuries, perhaps, passed before this Egyptian civilization had progressed so far that the calendar was fixed, and the number of the months ordained, with the five intercalary days 'over and above the year/ It may have been in the year 4241 (or 4238) B.C* that this advance in civiliza- tion was made, as a Sothic period begins in that year. The year 2781 (or 2778) is too late, as before that time the calendar was already in full working order. Hence we must go back 1460 years, to about four or five centuries before the founding of the mon- archy, for the institution of the calendar, apparently in Lower Egypt (see pp. 168, 248 ^.). At that time no doubt the southern and northern dynasties existed, as the establishment of a calendar demands a state organization, with a royal will to direct it. And the hieroglyphic writing-system must also have existed in its beginnings.
In the forty-third century B.C., therefore, we perhaps find Egypt already divided into two civilized communities, each under its own king. These kings of Upper and of Lower Egypt are those called by Manetho the 'dead demigods* (yeKvzs oi ypi- 0€0i). This appellation points to the fact that even to the early Egyptians they were shadowy figures of legend; for there is no doubt that Manetho's authorities, like those of his brother- chronicler, Berosus in Babylonia, were ancient. Probably the Old Kingdom Egyptians already regarded them as demigods. The predynastic kings of Upper Egypt were known to the later Egyptians as the 'Followers of Horus' (Shemsu-Hor)^ meaning either that they followed the falcon-god of Upper Egypt, Horus, upon the Hieraconpolite throne, or that they followed him to war in the legendary contest with Set, which we have already noticed. Probably both meanings were understood. As the representative of the falcon-god the king of Upper Egypt bore his name on a banner in the form of a palace-front, known as the serekfa, or 'Proclaimer,1 surmounted by the figure of the falcon* This is known to us generally as his 'Horns-name,7 his name as Horus, as king, which was assumed at his accession*
The traditional centres of the two kingdoms were the cities of Sais and Buto in the Delta and those of Hieraconpolis and Edfu in the south. The memory of the original Dual State was always preserved. Neither was wholly absorbed into the other at the unification. The south conquered the north, but the north was
266 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
admitted nominally, at least, to equal dignity with the dominating south. The monarch of the united kingdom was not rking of Egypt only, but king of Upper and Lower Egypt (In$-byai conventional transcription Nst-iytf). The Insi, the king of Upper Egypt, comes first, thus marking the primacy of the Upper Egyptian conqueror over the Byati or king of the Delta; and the ordinary Egyptian word for "king* Is insi1. The king is 'lord of the two lands' — though it has been suggested that this means lord of the two Nile banks; he is lord of the Upper Egyptian Vulture (since the vulture-goddess, Nekhebet, was the deity of Hieraconpolis), and of the Lower Egyptian Uraeus (since the serpent was the emblem of Uto, the goddess of Buto in the Delta), and so on. This last title seems to have been used from earliest times. And also from the first, union of both lands under one head was marked by the wearing by the earliest kings of the 1st Dynasty of the two peculiar crowns, the red crown of Lower Egypt and the white crown of Upper Egypt, And In the middle of the dynasty, Semtl Den, who was the first king to use the title insibya^ combined the two into one crown in which the white crown was the uppermost as the senior. But the memory of the older wearers of the red crown was not proscribed. They had been the legitimate kings of the Delta, And as such they were commemorated in the official records of the kingdom,
The annals of the Old Kingdom, engraved upon stone stelae, and set up under the Vth Dynasty in various places, of which we have scattered specimens in the fragments of the 'Palermo Stone* and its congeners (see p. 259), gave lists of the pre-Menic kings of Lower as well as of Upper Egypt, each name being determined by a figure of the dead king wearing his peculiar white or red crown. The names of some of these early Delta kings are preserved: Tin, Thesh, Hsekiu, Uaznar, and others; they are primitive in form. No names of the early Hieraconpolite kings are preserved upon the extant fragments of the Vth Dynasty Annals; we know, however, that they existed thereon, from the occurrence, below a break in the stone, of the sign of the king wearing the white crown, which Is the * determinative* of a king of Uppef Egypt.
1 Professor Newberry has pointed out to the present writer that the Insi (^neset* or 'suten') was, not improbably, not the king of Upper Egypt proper, but of Middle Egypt, the portion of the Nile- valley of which Heracleopolis was the centre, immediately south of the Delta. Here was the Het-insi, 'the House of the InsiJ and it is probable that the title Insi was first adopted after the conquest of this territory by the Horus kings of the south. Very soon it meant king of Upper Egypt generally.
VII, ij THE ORIGINALS OF 'MENES' 267
*
The names of some of the pre-Menic kings of the south may have been preserved among relics discovered at Abydos, but It is probable that only two of these,, Ro and 'the Scorpion' (the cursive form of whose Horus-name was read by Petrie as *Ka'), were really kings at all. Ro, who is merely called 'the Horus Ro/ is probably a genuine pre-Menic king of the South* 'The Scorpion/ whose personal name was Ip, is called Horus and Insi (not /#j/- bya)+ He is known from monuments at Hieraconpolis which from their style must be placed immediately before those of Narmer or Narmerza, the conqueror of the north and unifier of the kingdom. The 'Scorpion* also conquered the north, and was probably the first to do so, his work being completed by Narmer, whose suc- cessor, Ahai or Aha, was the first to reign undisputed over united Egypt. The Scorpion ruled undoubtedly as far north as the apex of the Delta, as his name has been found at Turra. A short distance further south both he and Narmer appear at Tarkhan, near Kafir Ammar, between Cairo and Wasta. These kings, with Aha, are the historical originals of the legendary 'Menes/ the Mena or Meni of the Abydos list,
From a newly discovered fragment of the Palermo Stone it would seem that the personal name of the king whose Horus-name was Zer was Atoti, who in the Abydos list is the second successor of Meni. In Manetho his immediate successor, Zer (Athothis), judging by the style of his monuments, succeeded Aha. The 'Teti f of the lists who precedes Atoti, will then be Aha, and Meni will be Narmer. Thus 'the Scorpion* appears neither in the lists, nor in Manetho, who based his work on them. But he undoubtedly belongs as much to the 1st Dynasty as does Narmer. Both Narmer and Aha seem to have borne also the appellation 'Men/ *Teti* may in reality be a mere reduplication of Atoti, due to confusion in the traditional accounts, Aha being really Menes II, and Narmer Menes L In legends not only Narmer, but the Scorpion also, are . evidently included in the saga of Menes, who thus appears to be a * conflate' personage of. legend, bearing the name of the third of the great kings of the beginning of the 1st Dynasty, but including the deeds of all three. The dominating personality of the three is the first historical Menes, Narmer (c* 3500 B.C.). The later list makers were confused by the fact that in Narmer and Aha they had two claimants to the honour of being * Meni/ hence they transferred the former to a later period, reading his Horus-name, Narmer or Narmerza, as 'Buzau/ the Boethos of Manetho, who follows the lists in placing him at the beginning of his Ilnd Dynasty. Such are the conclusions to which the progress of discovery seems
268 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
to lead us; but It must be borne in mind that a new discovery may at any moment cause us to revise our statements as to these early kings1 . The chief monument of the ( Scorpion' at Hieraconpolis is » great ceremonial mace-head of stone (now at Oxford), on which are reliefs of crude vigour representing the royal hawk swooping in conquest,, and rows of miserable-looking crested birds, rekhyut (the ideograph of "mankind '), hung by their necks from standards bearing repre- sentations of the sacred animals of the south, and thus symbolizing conquest by the southerners. With this were found the famous relics of Narmer, perhaps the most remarkable monuments of archaic Egyptian art; vix* another ceremonial mace-head (now at Oxford), and the ceremonial 'palette' (at Cairo). This latter is a formal development of the slate palette, on which the primitive Egyptians mixed paint; it is constantly found in the predynastic tombs, and apparently one of the first objects to which the nascent art of the Egyptian decorator was turned* On the mace-head we see the king celebrating the 6W~festival? which has been regarded as the survival of an ancient custom (with many parallels elsewhere) of killing the king at the end of a thirty-years' reign. This custom was probably in abeyance by Narmer's time: we do not suppose the monument actually commemorates his forcible death, though he may have been deposed. Later on, it was always cele- brated by the king, dressed up as the mummy, Osiris, and not always after a thirty-years' reign; it became one of the many pompous ceremonies in which the Pharaoh had to take the leading part. On the palette we see him wearing the red crown, inspecting the headless bodies of slain northerners, attended by his vizier (zati) 'the Man/ as opposed to 'the God/ /.<?. the king) and his cup- and sandal-bearer (won-hir^ * face-opener*), while four men carry before him the standards of the gods. He, now wearing the
1 Prof. Breasted has recently argued from a fragment of the Palermo Stone that a long row of kings ruled both lands before the time of Menes and the 1st Dynasty. But it should be remembered that the figures often pre- dynastic kings wearing the double crown in these records need not necessarily mean that they were kings of Upper as well as of Lower Egypt: at that time the white crown was. Prof. Newberry maintains, originally the crown of Middle Egypt* the c Houseof the InsiJ the wearer of the White Crown, being Atfih (Aphroditopolis) not far from Cairo and the Delta. The ten kings with the double crown found by Breasted will then be pre-Menic kings, not of the whole of Egypt, but only of Lower and Middle Egypt. The Horus-hawk is the sign of the king of Upper Egypt, and it was the Horus * Scorpion * who conquered from the south to the apex of the Delta and the Horus Narmerza who conquered the Delta and became the original Menes of legend, the first unifier of the whole country.
VI I, i] NARMERZA AND AHA 269
?
white crown, also strikes with his mace a northerner, who is labelled"* * Harpoon-marsh * (the Harpoon-nome in the north- west JDelta), while the falcon of Horns holds a human head, representing a northerner, by a rope through his nose, meanwhile standing on a group of six papyrus plants that probably means 'the North,' three such plants being the simplified sign for this in the developed hieroglyphic script. Below, on one side, a bull breaks through the recess-walled encampment of a northerner, whom he tramples under foot, while three displaced bricks and the gap in the wall show the energy of his attack: in the enclosure is a tent with two poles. Below, on the other side, two northerners escape, looking back in terror, to seek 'fortress-protection/ as the hieroglyphs tell us.
Other fragments of similar monuments of this time, commemo- rating the conquest of the north, are in our museums. One in the Louvre shows the royal bull goring a northerner, while below on one side the standards of the southern gods, Anubis, Uapuaut, Thoth, Horus and Min, grasp, each with a human hand, a rope which drags some other captive whose figure is broken off. On another we see the animal-emblems of the king (?) break through with hoes into the square crenellated enclosures of towns whose names are shown by hieroglyphs, * Owl-town,* * Ghost-town, * and others of which we do not know the meaning. One is struck by the naive energy of this commemorative art, which has preserved for us a contemporary record of the founding of the Egyptian kingdom, and possibly a Libyan war (p. 252).
It has been supposed that Narmer actually met the redoubtable Naram-Sin of Babylonia in battle and was worsted by him. There is no absolute impossibility in the view, though it rests on a slender foundation (see p. 172). He undoubtedly warred against the Libyan tribes of the western Delta and his successor, Aha, - against the Nubians. Aha is supposed to have been the first to conquer the district between Silsileh and Aswan, which has always been somewhat distinct from the rest of Upper Egypt, and is now inhabited not by Egyptians but by Nubians. His successors were constantly involved in warlike operations on the newly acquired frontier of 'the land of the bow,' as the district of the First Cataract was then called. The native inhabitants appear to have been Beja tribes ('Mentiu of Sati') and people closely akin to the Upper Egyptians ('Intiu of Sati'). Nubia was then still inhabited by Hamites very nearly related to the Egyptians; the negro advance noticeable at the end of the Old Kingdom had not yet begun ; no negroes appear on the monuments of the earliest
270 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
dynasties. The modern Nubians up to as far north as Silsileh are not Egyptians or Hamltes at all, but a true negro tribe," now of course much crossed with pure Hamites like the Abadeh and Beja, and with the mixed race, Hamite, * Mediterranean/ Libyan, 'Armenoid/ Syrian-Semite and Negro of Egypt.
Both Aha and his successor Zer (or Khent) Atoti were either buried or possessed cenotaph-tombs in the necropolis of Abydos. We do not know whether these were real tombs or not, as Aha also possessed a great brick tomb at Nakada, not very far away, and on the whole this is more likely to have been his real tomb. The same is probable for Zer. The tombs of Narmer and the Scorpion are unknown. Another king who, to judge by the style of the vases, inscribed tablets, etc., found in his tomb, succeeded Zer, was also buried or possessed a cenotaph at Abydos. His Horus-name was Za (represented by the single snake hieroglyph, Za or Zet); he is the *Ata* of the lists. The name of his successor, Sernti ('Two Deserts'), was misread by the list-makers as Hsapti ('trfro Nomes'). His Horus-name was Den (or Udimu); and he was the first 'Insibya/ A queen of the time is named 'Merneit/ i.e. "beloved of Neith/ Neith was the warrior-goddess worshipped in the Delta at Sais, the '^Jet-byati* or * House of the Bee-man,9 who was the king of Lower Egypt. Aha, too, had married a princess of Sais named Neit-hotep, and both alliances with the north were no doubt politic measures, devised to secure the loyalty of the conquered Delta. They did not altogether succeed, as later on, at the beginning of the IHrd Dynasty, the southern king, Khasekhem, had to reconquer the north, after which he again married a northern princess, with the final result of the abandon- ment of Upper Egypt as the seat of royal power, and the adminis- tration of the country from Memphis. The royal house and court became northern in fact as well as by descent*
From the relics found in SemtPs tomb or cenotaph at Abydos we see already a rich and picturesque civilization, energetic and full of new ideas, both artistic and of a more practical character. Gold and ivory and valuable wood were lavishly used for small objects of art, fine vases of stone were made,, and the wine of the
frape (irp) was kept in great pottery vases stored in magazines ke those of the pithoi at Cnossus. The art of making blue glass and faience, that typically Egyptian art, had already been invented. One of the treasures from the tomb of Semti (in the British Museum) is the lid of the ivory box in which was kept his golden judgment seal: it is inscribed 'Golden Seal of Judgment of King Den/ In this tomb also, as in those of other kings of the time, were found
VII, i] THE COURT OF SEMTI 271
*
a number of small Ivory plaques, stated In their inscriptions to have been made by the king's carpenter. Each contains the offici#4 records of the events of a single year: thus on one of these (in the British Museum) we find chronicled In the naive archaic hieroglyphs of the time a river expedition to the north-land and the capture of a fortified place, the latter shown as a broken enceinte within which is its name, with the hoe outside signifying the breaking down of the wall, as on the earlier stone fragments already mentioned above (p. 269). We find on the same tablet also the statement that in this year 'the Falcon (i.e. the king) seized the abodes of the Libyans/ and the name of the viceroy of the north, Hemaka, is mentioned. This personage appears to have been the chief man of his time, and his name appears upon numbers of the high conical clay sealings of the wine-jars, which were impressed by means of cylinder-seals. All these little tablets are the records of single years of the king's life, and they, and others like them belonging to the reigns of other early kings, formed the basis of regular annals, which, at least as early as the time of the Vth Dynasty, and probably before, were carved upon stone monuments (see p. 1 66). The 'Palermo Stone* and the other fragments of similar annal-stelae are examples. In some years we find little recorded but the celebration of some festival or the founding of a temple or palace; In others details are given as to the royal warlike activity. Chroniclers then existed, official recorders, scribes, probably tax-gatherers and all the apparatus that apper- tains to a regular and settled administration.
Wealth came to the court and encouraged the work in metal, fine stones, ivory and wood of the artists who now laid the foundations of Egyptian art* Besides the artists who made the annal-tablets, there were the carvers, like the man who made the extraordinary little Ivory figure (now in the British Museum) of an early king, wearing the white crown and a strange long woven and carpet-like robe, unlike anything in later Egyptian costume but distinctly Babylonian in appearance with its fringed border (see p. 573). It is about the age of Semti and may represent that king; it shows that weaving in carpet patterns was already known. There were the 'king's jewellers/ like the man who made the wonderful little bracelets of gold and carnelian beads that once encircled the arms of Zer's queen, or the sceptre of sard and gold that belonged to a king. There were the king's barbers, like the man who made the little fringe of false curls that somebody wore who was buried in the precinct of the tomb of Zer. There were the incense-makers who compounded their 'sanctified* (snutrf)
272 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
product of myrrh and sweet-savoured gums. The royal carpenters and cabinet-makers could make furniture of elaborate type; the well-known bull's hoof motif for chair-legs already appears. In fact, to enumerate no further, Egyptian civilization, so far as the court was concerned, was already luxurious under the 1st Dynasty.
The king was no doubt the absolute lord of all. He was sur- rounded by a court of nobles and * great men/ like the vizier Hemaka; the people were ruled and judged by the king and his chiefs. When he died he was buried in a tomb which was a sort of apotheosis of the tombs of his subjects, and in the development marked by the successive royal tombs we have a good representa- tion of the general development of civilization. Whereas Aha had a brick tomb roofed with wood covered with earth, Semti's tomb was for the first time floored with granite blocks; and at the begin- ning of the Illrd Dynasty Khasekhemui's great brick-built sepulchre, also at Abydos, contains a tomb chamber wholly con- structed of hewn limestone. With it begins the development which so soon was to culminate in the Pyramids. The royal tomb was called Sa-ha-Hory *Protection-around-the~Falcon' (i.e. the king as Horus). The king's burial chamber was surrounded by a number of smaller tombs in which, apparently, were interred either the great men of his court or a number of his slaves who accompanied him to the next world.
Of priests and embalmers, who afterwards became so important, we hear nothing as yet, though later tradition had it that in Semti's time chapters of the funerary ritual, the * Chapters of Coming forth by Day* (which we call 'The Book of the Dead') were written, and books of medicine also. We can imagine the sooth- sayer and medicine-man as prominent at his court, as in other communities in a similar state of civilization. Such people, and the chiefs themselves, were the priests. The characteristic Egyptian cult of the dead, though it existed, has not yet developed into the great worship of the deity who, to many of us? summarizes most of what we know of Egyptian religion, Osiris. The dead man is not yet identified with Osiris nor have efforts to preserve the body of the * Osirian * in the next world yet resulted in the production of a mummy. From the beginning this cult of the dead was un- doubtedly a main feature of Nilotic religion. Busiris in the Delta was, presumably, already the seat of the worship of the dead god, Osiris, but we hear nothing of him in the south. The Memphite district already had no doubt its own dead god, Sekri or Socharis, 'the coffined one/ represented by a dead hawk, later identified with the other gods of the same district, Hapi the bull, and Ptah,
VII, i] THE DEAD AND MUMMIFICATION 273
who was already represented as a swathed form closely related to that of Osiris, and probably already also as a misshapen dwarf. In the so^ith we find the wolf-god of the dead, Upuaut, the 'opener of the ways/ at Siut; and at Abydos the jackal Anubis, c on his hill/ 'in the Oasis '(?), more primitive conceptions than the anthro-
gDmorphic Osiris and Ptah, and originating in the primitive gyptian's barbaric desire to placate the wolf or jackal who prowled round the desert-graves of his people at night and rooted up their bodies to devour them. A more civilized conception later on spoke of Anubis as Khentamentiu, 'the head of the Westerners/ the graves being then placed usually on the western bank of the Nile (though not always, e.g. at Naga ed-Der), and eventually these deities -were all more or less amalgamated as Osiris, with whom Khentamentiu was Identified, while Anubis and Upuaut became lesser genii at his side.
Mummification is rare before the Vlth Dynasty (p. 288) and was still not usual even under the Xllth. The human-faced coffins, which we know so well in every museum, first began under the Xllth Dynasty, as inner cases within the great rectangular wooden chests that are characteristic of that period and of former times at least as far back as the Vlth Dynasty. No doubt they are older than this; we see that they develop from smaller wooden chests, such as those in which the bodies of 1st Dynasty people were buried at Tarkhan. The great stone sarcophagi probably first began under the IVth Dynasty as imitations In stone of the wooden chests.
Semti was succeeded by Merpeba, whose personal name was Bnezib (Antjab), a king who is remarkable only from the fact that in the Memphite lists of kings he is the first to be commemorated, Menes being ignored (p, 259). This looks as If he were in reality the founder of Memphis, and as if the credit of his foundation had been transferred to the legendary Menes, or, to put it in another way, as if he were the 'Menes* who founded Memphis. Yet the town of the * White Wall7 certainly existed before his time, prob- ably in predynastic days; and Merpeba can only be allowed the credit of perhaps being the first to make it the seat of the royal government in the north. The name * Memphis' was not acquired until the time of the Vlth Dynasty.
Merpeba was followed by Semerkhet, whose personal name is written as the picture of a walking warrior armed with a stick, which may have been read Nekhti or Hui, 'the strong/ or 'the striker/ by his contemporaries, but was read by the XlXth Dynasty scribes as Shemsu ('the follower'), owing to the resemblance of the
274 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
hieroglyph for *to follow* (a 'shorthand' ideograph, ^wrongly taken to be of a warrior walking) to the archaic sign of Semerkhet's name. With him we reach a new development of Egyptian energy. Other kings before him had warred with the tribes on the frontiers; he appears to have been the first who actually invaded the mount- ain-fastnesses of Sinai, and certainly was the first to cut upon the rocks there a record of his invasion, the first of its kind, in which he is represented as striking down the chief of the Mentiu, or bedouins. He is accompanied by a smaller figure of the * chief and general of the soldiers/ who carries a bow and arrows. There are three figures of the king, in two of which he wears the White Crown while in the third he has the Red Crown. Semerkhet was succeeded by the comparatively unimportant Ka, with the personal name Sen, which was later misread by the scribes as Kebh. But the lists are now very confused. The Abydos list next names Buzau, the Boethos whom Manetho placed at the head of his Ilnd Dynasty. Buzau, however, is probably a XlXth Dynasty misreading of Narmer or Narmerza, who has been transferred from his real position. The Sakkarah list rightly ignores him, but has placed, after Kebh, Biuneter ('Souls of God'), probably the Ubienthis of Manetho (the Bienekhes of Africanus), and Ba- nentiru ('Soul of the Gods'). Not only are these names so similar as almost to be doublets, but the latter is properly the third king of the Ilnd Dynasty, the Binothris of Manetho. For from a con- temporary statue in the Cairo Museum we know that Banentiru was preceded by two monarchs, Reneb (*Re is [his] Lord*) and his predecessor, Hotepsekhemui (' Pacifying the Two Powers/ viz. Horus and Set, or perhaps the South and North). Accord- ingly, Hotepsekhemui is the historical original of Buzau, the misread Narmer of the Abydos list. As for Reneb, the Abydos and Sakkarah lists give Kakau, which no doubt was his personal name; and its meaning (ka of kas) is extremely interesting in view of the meanings of Biuneter and Banentiru.
II. DYNASTIES II-IV
The Ilnd Dynasty begins (c. 3350 B.C.) with the three kings Hotepsekhemui, Reneb Kakau and Neneter (i.e. ' possessing a god') Banentiru, Reneb is said (by Manetho) to have instituted the worship of the Apis-bull at Sakkarah, and his name, the first in Egyptian history compounded with that of the sun-god of Heliopolis, confirms this hint as to his northern sympathies or origin. His Horus-name Is Semitic or rather Mesopotamian in
VII, n] THE SECOND DYNASTY 275
form, such names as * Enlil is my lord ' being previously unknown in "Egypt. The lists next give a king Uaznes, who is strangely represented in Manetho by 'Tlas"; but since Uaznes (* green- tongue') would in late times be pronounced c Udtlas ' (* green * and * tongue' being in Coptic ouot and las respectively), the name, probably written orXas (Otlas), was misunderstood as 6 TXas. He is followed in both lists by Senedi ('Terrible'): the Sethenes of Manetho (originally Senethes) being probably due to con- fusion with the name Seth5s, so well-known in Egyptian history. The monuments, however, give us two kings, who instead of Horus-names bore Set-names, with the animal of the god Set before them instead of the falcon of Horus. They were Perenmaat and Peribsen. The first, however, also bore a Horus-name, Sekhemib. This adoption of a Set-name might naturally be taken to mean an emphasis of connexion and sympathy with Lower Egypt, since in later times Set was par excellence the god of the Delta, being identified as Sutekh with a foreign northern deity of the Addu type (see p. 323). But in these early times Set was probably not regarded as specially northern in character, since he was the patron deity of the important district of Nubit or Unbit (' Golden') in Upper Egypt, the Ombos of later days. For this reason one of the titles of the king was written later as a hawk mounted on the symbol of * gold/ which means Horus triumphing over the evil Set. Peribsen was buried, or had his cenotaph built, with those of the earlier kings of Abydos, where Senedi is un- known, as indeed he is in any contemporary monument yet dis- covered. Of the remaining kings also contemporary records do not exist* They were probably monarchs of little energy and, as their names (compounded with those of Re and Sokari) attest, lived entirely in the north.
Although this dynasty is called 'Thinite/ or Upper Egyptian, by Manetho, Reneb was evidently a northern er» The Illrd Dynasty, on the other hand, which Manetho calls Memphite, certainly began (c. 3200 B.C.) with a southerner, Khasekhem or Khasekhemui, who expressly states on his monuments that he conquered the north. He is the 'Zazai* or 'Bebi* of the lists, which are misreadings of some kind of his name. He is repre- sented in Manetho by the 'Necherophes* with whom he begins, the Illrd Dynasty, and in whose time, he says, there was a great war with the Libyans. Khasekhemui's monuments alone would indicate him, not only as a great warrior but also as the founder of a new dynasty, and we know that he was the father of Zoser, who is Manetho's second king of the dynasty, Tosorthros,
276 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP,
Khasekhemui, who carried the figure of Set above his divine name, as well as that of Horus, was probably identical with Khasekhem,, It would seem that he altered an original Horns-name Khasekhem ("Appearance of the Power') to Khasekhemui ('Ap- pearance of the Two Powers') after his conquest of the north. This conquest he commemorated by dedications of votive statues, vases, etc., at Hieraconpolis, like those of Narmer some centuries before. On one of the statues (in the Ashmolean Museum) Khasekhem claims that he took 47,209 northerners captive, and calls the year in which this took place "the year of fighting and smiting the North/ On some of the vases his personal name, Besh, is given. As Khasekhemui he seems to have consolidated his claim to the lordship of the north by marrying the princess Ne-maat-Hap ('possessing the right of Apis '), whose name shows her to have been the rightful heiress of Memphis: she became the mother of Zoser. And as Khasekhemui he was, after a reign of nineteen years, buried in a great brick tomb at Abydos, close to those of the 1st Dynasty, the tomb chamber of which was built of squared blocks of limestone, the first of its kind. According to the Palermo Stone the first temple built of hewn stone was erected in the thirteenth year of king Neneter, but this, wherever it was, has long disappeared, so that the stone tomb-chamber of Khasekhemui remains the oldest wholly stone-built building in the world, so far as we know.
His son, Zoser ("the Holy'), with the Horus name Khetneter, reigned 29 years, and was one of the most famous of early Egyp- tian kings. He built the oldest pyramid, and his architect, physician, and, as we should say, * prime minister,* was the wise Imhotep, who in later days was deified as the patron of science, the 'Imouthes' whom the Greeks identified with their Asclepius. The pyramid which Imhotep no doubt designed is that now known as the 'Step-Pyramid' of Sakkarah, in the necropolis of Memphis, which still bears the name of the northern dead-god Sokari (Socharis). This was the greatest stone building that the Egyptians had yet achieved, and it marks a great advance on the tomb-chamber of Khasekhemui. Much of the architectural pro- gress of the period that immediately followed must be set down to the brain of Imhotep, who founded a school of architects whose work reaches its zenith under the next dynasty. Zoser's pyramid was decorated within with a doorway of inlaid faience, a notable advance in a smaller art. He possessed, also, a brick masta&a-tomb (see p. 280) at Beit Khallaf, north of Abydos; but in which of these he was buried we do not know, as either his ma$taba or his
VII, n] ZOSER AND THE FIRST PYRAMID 277
•»
pyramid may have been a cenotaph. Here also Sa-nekht, his brother 9,nd successor,, had a similar brick tomb. Both these kings set up, memorial stelae in Sinai, and Zoser was probably the first conqueror of the territory south of the First Cataract, reaching as far as Maharraka, which was in Greek times known as the 'Dodekaskhoinos' (Dodecaschoenus), and was always regarded as distinct from the rest of Nubia, conquered later.
There was probably a period of confusion between the reign of Sa-nekht and those of Huni and Snefru, with which the dynasty closes. The legends or annals were evidently confused, for Manetho gives five kings with longish reigns before Sephouris, who is his equivalent for Snefru, whereas the Turin Papyrus gives only three with much shorter reigns, and the lists vary between three and four, with quite different names. Only one Is known from the monuments, Neferka (the Neferkere of one of the lists), who began a great pyramid at Zawiyet el- Aryan, north of Sakkarah, but only achieved its foundations. Neferka may be the Horus-name of Huni: it is represented by the Kerpheres of Manetho, who, however, misplaces him after Sephouris.
Soris, who begins Manetho's IVth Dynasty, may be identified with the insignificant and probably short-lived monarch named Sharu, who does not appear in the lists and of whom only one monument is known. It certainly is more probable that the name Sephouris (? Snephourls) represents Snefru: so that we may pro- visionally regard him as the last of the Illrd Dynasty, and the ephemeral Sharu, who was ignored both in the genealogies of the time and in later annals, as the first of the IVth Dynasty.
We now reach the age when the kings built themselves pyra- mids. The aristocrats of the kingdom began to construct great stone tombs which put the stone chamber of king Khasekhemui, built little more than a century before, into the shade; and on the walls of these tombs we read the genealogies of the nobles and their relations to the royal house, which have been of great use in elucidating the connexion of the successive kings with one another, and have enabled us to clothe the skeleton given by the lists with a certain amount of flesh. Thus, for instance, one of these genealogies tells us that the queen Meritiotis was 'great in the favour of king Snefru, great in the favour of king Khufu, and honoured under king Khafre'; that is to say, she was queen to both Snefru and Khufu, and reached an honoured old age as a dowager at the court of Khafre. Incidentally this shows us that the reign of 23 years assigned to Khufu by the Turin Papyrus is to be preferred to the 63 years assigned by Herodotus and Manetho.
278 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
Egypt now stepped into the position of the most highly-civilized nation of the world., for the Babylonian culture, though a near competitor was not yet really the equal of Egyptian civilisation. Egypt's kings were mighty monarchs who succeeded each other in an august array. Their names are no longer to be deciphered painfully from primitive scrawls on pots or weird symbols on mace-heads and 'palettes/ but can be read in clear hieroglyphs on the walls of the tombs of the great men of their times, as dispensers of favour to their subjects and as benefactors to the gods.
With Snefru the new age opens. We see Egypt as a firmly unified state, extending from the isthmus of Suez to Lower Nubia, with a kind of intermittent colony of miners and quarrymen in Sinai, and with its capital at the apex of the Delta, as at the present day. It is organized in a number of districts or 'nomes/ ancient divisions no doubt corresponding to the territories of predynastic tribes. There were about twenty in Upper Egypt, and, later on, the same number, more or less, existed in Lower Egypt, probably as the result of an artificial equalization devised in order to make the two lands alike in importance. In Snefru's time they were ruled by officials who still bore the title of Hik or 'chief,' but were no longer necessarily local chieftains, but royal nominees* Under the IVth Dynasty, and later, we find the title changed to that of tep-kher-neset) ' First under the King,' and to it is added that of sab, or judge. This governor is simply a royal sheriff. The cen- tralization is complete : he is directly under the king, independent of his fellows, and reports to the crown alone. Under him are a number of miscellaneous officials of all kinds. At the centre of administration, the royal court, the king rules, adored as a living god, in the midst of a numerous following of officials and nobles. Of these many belonged to old families with landed possessions, others were the descendants of royal younger sons, while others were a nobility of favour, owing its existence entirely to the king who Had ennobled some court fool or some wise man because his talents either amused or were useful to him. Thus a man of the humblest origin might, if he pleased or benefited the king, be raised to the highest place in the state. And we know that this often occurred. As a mark of his favour the king would grant gifts of land for the erection of tombs; he sometimes paid for the tombs themselves, or merely gave the burial stele. Or he would give to the living so many sta of land, often in quite different parts of the country, and would confer different governorships on the same man. Thus we find that Imten, an official of the Delta, who died in the reign of Snefru, was a veritable pluralist. Such
VII, H] NOBLES AND OFFICIALS 279
pluralists and placemen multiplied enormously under succeeding kings, aaid we even find the creation of 'Real Royal Councillors 9 (wirkliche Geheimrathe\ who seem to have been as multitudinous as their Teutonic successors: no king could possibly have con- sulted them all. These were, in fact, largely mere honorific titles and possibly did not always carry revenues with them. Marriage alliances with the family of the Pharaoh regularly took place, and a lucky noble might, by the right of his wife, even aspire to the succession to the throne.
The matriarchal system was the rule in Egypt as regards suc- cession to property, though the father could bequeath specified goods to his son. A change of dynasty usually meant, as in the case of Khasekhemui, legitimation of the new ruler by marriage with a princess of an older house, so that the blood of Re was preserved in the royal family, even if a fiction was necessary to ensure this. Respect for forms of law and the * rights of property7 was already a fixed principle of Egyptian custom. * Right* or 'Law* was deified as the goddess Maat, somewhat in Roman fashion. We possess copies, inscribed on the walls of their tombs, of the written legal testaments of nobles of this time, such as the will of the prince Nekaure, son of king Khafre, preserved in his tomb and dated in the twenty-fourth year of the king's reign. The formal gifts of lands for the living and tomb ground for the dead are chronicled in other tombs, beginning with that of Imten. The army of scribes saw to it that the written documents should rule, and the formal edict of the Head of the State as drawn up in proper form in the chancelleries was law.
The nobles were priests as well as officials: the priestly caste has not yet begun to develop. But the liturgy of the gods is beginning to take a stately form worthy of a high civilization. Temples are mentioned in the annals of the Palermo Stone as already founded under the Ilnd Dynasty, but they cannot have been of stone. Temples of stone now begin to arise. We have such buildings in the 'Temple of the Sphinx' at Gizeh and the * Osireion ' at Abydos, which must be considered to date from the Illrd or IVth Dynasty. They are without inscriptions, and are built simply of mighty stone blocks. The column, the colonnade, and the sculptured wall do not appear till the end of the IVth Dynasty.
Though the gods began to be housed in buildings of stone, the king, for all his state, did not live in a stone palace himself It is true that we are told as a remarkable fact that Zoser built himself 'a house of stone'; but this, no doubt, refers to his pyramid, the first of its kind. The dwellings of the living were, in Egypt, built
280 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
of brick or plain mud, and the royal palace was never an exception to the rule. Stone dwellings belonged only to the gods arrd to the dead, themselves reputed gods. The king was housed in ^ brick and mud palace, with a double gate, typifying the double king- dom, made gay with painted stripes and panelling, and with streamers flying from great cedar poles that stood before it, brought from the Lebanon by sea. It was no doubt surrounded by the similar but smaller palaces of the nobles, much as the palace of the Japanese Mikado, in the days when the Son of Heaven was still powerful, stood at Kyoto, surrounded by the houses of his court nobles or Kuge, The Egyptian Kuge lived similarly around their divine lord, and, further, took their places around him also in death. Wherever the Pharaoh built his tomb, his nobler subjects also built theirs, so that the royal pyramid was surrounded by a town of mastafra-tombS) so-called from their form like that of a bench (Arabic mastaba), in which the great men of the reign were laid to rest when their turn came to die, just as the royal house had been surrounded by them in life,
But whereas the royal tomb, like the temple, as yet bore no inscription (the sole exception being the door of king Zoser, already mentioned), the tombs of the nobles now began to be covered with a profusion of representations in coloured low-relief, cut in the soft local limestone of the Memphian district, depicting the daily life of the lord and of his family and retainers. These reliefs have been described so often that there is no need to take tip space in recapitulating their characteristics; suffice it that they give a complete view of the ordinary life of the time, the life of the common people as well as of the great, and it is this fact that gives them their enormous value and interest. We now see, for the first time in history, how the peasants of a great lord's domains lived and what they looked like, and we realize how such busy workers, as they appear to be, could raise the pyramids. Such representations do not greet us in the chambers of the royal pyramid. They are the fit decorations of the outer chapel, not of the actual tomb- chamber. And the pyramid was but the mighty stone barrow built over the tomb-chamber itself; the chapel, which in the case of the nobles was still combined with thq tomb (as it was in the case of the king also at least till the time of Khasekhemui), was apart from and in front of it. The nobleman had his peasants and his flocks and herds represented on the walls of his tomb because he thought that by this means some kind of sympathetic magic would be brought into play that would ensure his continuing to lead- much the same kind of life in the next world as he had in
VII, u] ' THE PYRAMIDS OF GIZEH 281
this : he was thinking of himself and his mortal earthly pleasures and duties, not of interesting posterity. The king was a god even in lifqj and absolutely one in death: he flew to rejoin the gods, and there was no need in his case of such representations. Yet it was not long before it was deemed both fitting to represent on the walls of the king's tomb-chapel important events of his reign, and necessary to secure the king's safety by powerful written spells that were cut on the walls of the tomb-chamber in the pyramid. These 'pyramid-texts' first appear under the Vth Dynasty, when religious practices appear to have undergone a good deal of modification. Seep. 330,
Snefru appears to have possessed two pyramids, not far away from one another, one at Dahshur, south of Sakkarah, and another at Medum, still further south* Both still stand, and the peculiar truncated block of the Pyramid of Medum is one of the most conspicuous objects to the west of the railway between Gizeh and Wasta, south of Cairo, "Whether these two were built with the idea of ensuring the safety of the king's funerary treasures — none but a few trusted ones knowing in which he was actually interred — we cannot telL
His great successors of the I Vth Dynasty (c. 3100—2950 B.C.), Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, went north of Sakkarah, to the desert edge opposite the modern Gizeh. There they erected the most magnificent pyramids of all, the mighty three that mark the culminating point of this type of royal grave, and have lasted as one of the Seven Wonders of the World from that day to this, and will last for thousands of years yet unborn. For the Third Pyramid of Gizeh, though so small by the side of its two sisters, is in its proportion so perfect that its lesser size Is not obtrusive, and it seems by no means unworthy to rank as a wonder alongside them. The great Pyramid is 450 feet high and is built throughout of blocks of limestone,, each weighing on the average 2-J tons; and of these it is calculated there are 2,300,000. The whole therefore weighs 5,750,000 tons. And yet its perfect building compels our admiration; its alignment is mathematically correct and often one cannot insert a pen-knife between the joints of the stone. Its builder was Khnum-Khufu or, shortly, Khufu, the Cheops of Hero-" dotus, who had a very good idea of these IVth Dynasty monarchs. The memory of Cheops had impressed itself daily on the minds of the Egyptians during three millennia, so that their tradition of him was continuous and accurate, and could be recounted to the Greek tourist even by a dragoman without serious error, And the pyramid was the one event of Khufu's life. It seems to have been
282 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
an obsession with Mm. Snefru had probably gone to Sinai; at all events he set up his monument there in the Wadi Maghaiuh : and as he was venerated in later times as a tutelary deity of the tur- quoise-mines, he would seem to have been the first to occupy the peninsula permanently as a continuous Egyptian possession. Khufu set up his monument there also in succession to Snefru, but we hear nothing of any warlike events in his reign, and we may wonder whether he really ever went there himself to smite the Mentiu, as he is depicted. A great portion of the energy of state and people must have been expended in the building of his pyramid alone, which probably continued during his entire reign of over twenty years. Khafre, a son of Khufu, built a smaller pyramid, though he apparently reigned twice as long (56 years?). Manetho calls him Souphis, like his father (in his day 'Khufu' would be pronounced 'Shufu'); and, like Herodotus, gives him a reign as long as Khufu's, no doubt by traditional confusion. Khafre did not succeed Khufu directly, another king, Rededef, who was, perhaps, an elder son, intervenes with a short reign of eight years. We know from contemporary monuments that Rededef came between Khufu and Khafre, though in Manetho Ratoises, as he is called, is placed after 'Souphis 1 1/
The statement of Herodotus that Khafre reigned 56 years (V. 3067—3011 B.C.?) is confirmed by the number of monuments of his reign, and is not contradicted by the contemporary tomb-
fsnealogies. This long reign was one of the most distinguished in gyptian history. Though we know little of its actual events, its special distinction is the fact that in the days of Khafre Egyptian art reached its first culminating point. We now finally leave the archaic age behind us, and the Egyptian sculptors, at all events, take their place among the masters of all time. A more detailed account of this first maturity of Egyptian sculpture is given in Chapter xvi. We need here only refer to the wonderful seated portrait statues of the king, cut in hard diorite, in the Cairo Museum. Probably the development of technique and power over materials that these statues show, and the realization of true portraiture that they indicate, occurred towards the end of the reign, as we see it in full vigour in the time of Menkaure. The portrait-statue of him standing with his queen, and the figures of him with the goddesses of the nomes, are amazingly vigorous and true, and may be counted among the chief treasures of ancient art. The reign of Menkaure (the Mycerinus of Herodotus and Mencheres of Manetho) lasted perhaps for over twenty years (c. 301 1— 2988 B.C. ?). It cannot have been much longer, for a certain
VII, n] MYCERINUS: END OF IVra DYNASTY 283
prince named Sekhemkere, as we learn from his tomb-inscription, was bof n in the reign of Khafre, lived through the reigns of the threejFollowing kings, and died in that of Sahure, the second king of the Vth Dynasty. Menkaure's pyramid we already know; also the splendid art of the portrait statues of himself which were found in its temple. According to Herodotus he was a very pious person; and from his monuments we can well imagine this. His
Eortraits are those of a noble but perhaps rather simple man; he icks the rugged strength of the great statues of Khafre and of an ivory statuette of Khuf u found at Abydos, the only portrait of the - builder of the Great Pyramid that we possess. According to a very old Egyptian tradition he sent his son, Hordedef, to inspect the sanctuaries of all Egypt, and the prince returned with the texts of the 3oth and 64th chapters of the Book of the Dead, which he discovered at Ekhmunu (Hermopolis Magna). The latter chapter is said in another place to have been * discovered * before, in the reign of Semti. Hordedef is commemorated elsewhere as a great wise man, and a letter of the time of the Ramessids speaks of the difficulty of comprehending his 'sayings/
Under Shepseskaf (c. 29 8 8—2 9 70 ?), a king who fell far short of the distinction of his predecessors and is hardly known to fame, there came to the fore a great noble named Ptahshepses, who was born in the reign of Menkaure, and educated among the royal chambers in the harem. He 'was more honoured before the king than any other child/ so he tells us in his funerary inscription, now in the British Museum. Shepseskaf gave him to wife his eldest daughter, Khamaat (*the goddess of Right appears'), *for his majesty desired that he should be with him more than with anyone/ Ptahshepses however did not succeed to the throne at the death of Shepseskaf; and as we know that he died in the reign of Neuserre, the sixth king of the next dynasty, and seems to have filled high office in the reigns of all Neuserre's predecessors, it is evident that he prudently effaced himself at the change of dynasty that followed either at or shortly after Shepseskaf s death. That Userkaf, the first king of the new dynasty, belonged to a family of Heliopolitan, not Memphite, origin, we shall shortly see, and it is improbable that the substitution was effected without trouble. Both the Turin Papyrus and Manetho agree that another king came between Shepseskaf (Seberkheres) and Userkaf (Ouser- kheres); and it is probable that he really existed, but was deposed or killed by Userkaf, and all mention of him suppressed. Such a damnatio memoriae seems to have been not infrequent in Egyptian annals, though it was rarely so complete as in the case
284 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
of cThamphthis/ as Manetho calls him. So the obedient Ptahshepses does not mention him, but, like the Vicar of Bray, 'whatsoever king might reign/ still he would hold his offices.
III. THE CLOSE OF THE OLD KINGDOM
The distinguishing mark of the Vth Dynasty (c. 2965—2825 B.C. ?) is its special devotion to the sun-god of On or Heliopolis, Rec. We have first seen this god regarded as the especial patron of a king under the Ilnd Dynasty, when Reneb (* Re is his lord') bore his name. The Re-worshipping tendencies that were then coming to the front in the north were probably set back by the southern reaction under Khasekhemui, and we find that Zoser (Horus Khetneter) bears simple names of the old southern type. Khufu is protected by the god Khnum. With Khafre the sun-god again comes into the royal titulary, and under Menkaure the well-known title, 'Son of the Sun/ is first used. The name of Shepseskaf (* noble is his double7) is merely a shortened form of Shepseskere (* noble is the double of Re'); the ka being the spiritual 'Double' of the living man, who was born with him and left him at death, a conception which probably arose simply from the fact of the shadow. In later times the shadow (khaibif) was also itself regarded as one of the spiritual parts of a man, distinct from the ka\ see below, p. 334 sq. 'Seberkheres' then is a form that shows Manetho's knowledge, as also does * Ouserkheres ' for Userkaf, for the full form of the name of the founder of the new dynasty was 'Userkere* (* Strong4s-his [Re's]-double').
The Heliopolitan influence steadily gained ground until after Shepseskaf's death, when the Heliopolitan noble Userkaf (who was high-priest of Re), after suppressing the legitimate successor, Thamphthis, ascended the throne. He was succeeded seven years later by his brother Sahure, and he by a third brother, Neferirikere, whose personal name was Kakau, both of whom had comparatively short reigns of ten or twelve years each. We know that they were brothers from a very interesting ancient legend, preserved in the Westcar Papyrus (date about a thousand years later, see p, 331 sq«\ which tells us how a soothsayer named Dedi prophesied to Khufu that his son should reign and his son's son, but that then the throne would pass to the eldest of three brothers, Useref, Sahre and Kakau, who in the fulness of time were to be begotten by Re in the body of Rud-dedet, wife of Reuser, priest of Re, and that Useref would be high-priest of Re. The historical origin of the legend is evident, and we have confirmation of the
VII, in] THE 'SON OF THE SUN-GOD' 285
fraternal relation of the three children of Re In their quick suc- cession f three such short reigns could not belong to three genera- tions^This is one of the most interesting of the few old Egyptian historical tales that are extant, and its agreement with fact is remark- able. It brings out completely the peculiar devotion of Userkaf and his brothers to the god Re, and gives a legendary explanation of the fact that with this dynasty the filial relation of the Pharaoh to the sun-god, already declared, was finally accepted* Henceforward he always bears the title of 'Son of the Sun/ and with the third brother the practice of the king bearing three official names, which under the Vlth Dynasty became general, first appeared.
Under the first two dynasties we have known the king usually by his Horus-name (p. 265 sg.*). His own personal name is not always known to us, but when it appears, it is beneath symbols which denote him as king of Upper and Lower Egypt (insibya) or Lord of South and North. Under the Illrd Dynasty Khasekhem places his personal name, Besh, within what looks like a signet ring with a broad bezel, but is in reality a representation of a cylinder-seal rolling over a flat piece of clay or wax. This sign for a seal is already found under Semti of the 1st Dynasty. It was held in the claw of the vulture Nekhebet, the protecting goddess of the south, and thus appears as a ring bearing his personal name in the in- scription of Khasekhem. Soon this circular ring altered its shape, lengthening in order to accommodate conveniently the signs of the royal name; and under Snefru we find it has assumed its final shape as the familiar 'cartouche' within which at first only the personal name was contained. The Horus-name was still borne till the days of the Romans, on the serekh (see p. 265). But after Zoser's time it is no longer necessary to give this name except in formal lists. Of the kings of the I Vth Dynasty and the first two of the Vth we give therefore the personal names only^to which was prefixed> after Menkaure's time, the title Sa-Re, 'Son of the Sun-god/ as well as that of insibya* Kakau was the first to use an additional name (Neferirikere) compounded with the name of the sun-god. His successors did not always do so at first. When two names were used, both are usually, but not invariably, enclosed in cartouches,, or are combined in one cartouche. Under the Xllth Dynasty the regular use of two names in separate cartouches and preceded by separate titles is fixed : the additional name assumed at accession comes first preceded by the Insibya-titl^ and the personal name follows preceded by the titles of 'Son of the Sun/ 'Lord of the Two Lands, ' etc, '
Neferirikere's brother Userkaf founded the dynasty. The sixth
286 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
ruler, *Neuserre-An, Is the next king of note, the two intervening monarchs, Shepseskere and Khaneferre, being short-lived and unimportant. These three were also probably brethren, sf>ns of Neferirikere. Neuserre reigned thirty years, and celebrated the Sed festival in his thirtieth, according to custom. Of the original three, Sahure was a warrior, and went to Sinai, where he set up his memorial stele; but otherwise he and his successor Neferirikere, and the longer-lived Neuserre, are chiefly known as the builders of the pyramids of Abusir, the excavation of which has shed much additional light upon the art and religion of the time. Sculptured reliefs now for the first time appear upon the walls of the pyramid-temples, and great red granite columns for the first time uphold its roof, fashioned in the form of papyrus- plants and lilies, opened and closed: forms which were preserved till the end In Egyptian architecture. And we now see the gods in the forms which they continued to retain : religious art has now reached its final epoch of development, henceforward the deities are always represented as they were depicted under the Vth Dynasty (see p. 574). One thing we do not see again: the special sanc- tuaries of Re that accompany these pyramids, with their truncated obelisks on mounds, their huge circular alabaster altars and basins, with runlets to catch the blood of the sacrifices, and the great boats, reproductions of the bark in which the sun crossed the heavens by day and returned to his starting-place through the underworld of the dead by night* In the inscriptions of the time the nobles specially mention themselves as priests of this sun-stone on its mound. But after the end of the Vlth Dynasty and the retransference of power to the south it disappears.
The architecture and decoration of these temples are splendid, but the pyramids themselves seemed to have suffered from com-
Srative lack of attention, as, instead of being built of solid granite Dcks throughout, like their predecessors, they have a core of rubble. There is a falling-ofF here, and in the art of the time we may perhaps see an alteration that speaks of the beginning of degen- eracy. In sculpture the rugged strength of the IVth Dynasty is much modified, and delicacy of treatment begins to take its place. The portrait-figures of the nobles, found in their tombs, are still wonderful, so far as the heads are concerned, though still not so good as those of the IVth Dynasty. There is something wanting: power is lacking; the upward impulse is already beginning to ebb. And we can see a proof of the arrest of inspiration in the fact that in these statues of the Vth Dynasty, while the heads are still great portraits, there is no development in the treatment of the
VII, m] ART AND RELIGION 287
*
rest of the body* Had the progress of the IVth Dynasty been continued, the sculptors would surely have turned their attention next to the trunk and limbs. But these are less shapely than In the preceding generation. A convention Is being established, and the characteristic Egyptian treatment of the body stereotyped at the stage of achievement reached by the sculptors of the IVth Dynasty* The evidently greater religiosity of the time, under the influence of the Heliopolitan cult, was probably the cause of the establishment of the artistic conventions. It had been impious to depict the gods in other guise than that which they had assumed under the earliest dynasties and the religious convention was now extended to the representation of ordinary mortals. The assump- tion of the throne by the high-priest of Heliopolis, secular noble though he was also, would mean a great accretion of prestige to the priestly office as such.
The Uer-maa (* Great Seer *), as the high-priest at On was called, was a noble whose sacerdotal functions were so Important as to make him quite as much priest as layman. The two high-priests of Ptah in Memphis, both of whom bore the title of Uer-khorp- hemtiu ('Great Chief of Artificers'), were now equally important from the religious point of view. And from this time we may date the beginnings of the separation of the priest from the rest of the community, though it must be remembered that this separation never went so far as has been inferred from the statements of Herodotus: even in his time they did not form a ' caste* apart, In the Indian sense, though they were an enormously influential "class.* Under the Vth Dynasty the sacerdotal subordinates of the high-priest were also laymen who at stated times officiated as the * servants of the god' (hemu-neter)^ and alongside him stood the * Treasurer of the god,' who no doubt conducted the temple- business. Priesthoods of the royal pyramid-temples were conferred on deserving subjects, and each noble himself nominated hemu-kay servants of his 'double,* to maintain the funerary offerings at his tomb; and for the maintenance of these chantry priests regular legal grants of revenues and land were made in the wills of the deceased. These foundations corresponded exactly to our mediaeval 'chantries'; like them they were intended to last for ever, and like them fell into desuetude when owing to civil turmoil or other causes the revenues which supported them came to an end* It is to these tomb-chaplains that the inception of the later pro- fessional priestly caste may perhaps be traced.
Henceforward we gradually see the tomb assuming more and more importance in the Egyptian mind, and under the next
288 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
dynasty the practice of mummification., generally very rare, becomes more usual, but is not yet general (see pp. 32*1^336). The preservation of the body itself is now considered desirable, both as the residence of the * double/ which survived invisible in the tomb, and in order to enable the dead man to live again in the underworld as he had on earth — the reason, as we have seen, for the elaborate reliefs of the tomb-chamber. In the case of ordinary persons this aim was not attained until much later. On one view, this solicitude for the ka explains the presence of the portrait- statues in the tombs. A king, like Khafre, had many statues which were set up in his temple, for offerings to be made to them as to a god. The private person of high degree had his statues placed in the serdab or walled-up hollowed space behind the stele in the tomb. They were not intended as memorials for a posterity that it was hoped would never see them, but, probably, as simulacra of the deceased in which the ka could live. To ensure this, in some tombs reserve stone heads, life-size, were provided as an alternative to full-size statues. See, for another view, p. 337.
Under the Vth Dynasty still more than under the IVth the tomb is the chief source for our knowledge of the time, and the reliefs of the vast tomb at Sakkarah of the royal secretary Ti, chief of the royal works, and priest of Neuserre's pyramid, are among the best known of the ancient representations of the life of that day.
In the reign of Dedkere Isesi (V. 2883—2855 B.C. ?), the second successor of Neuserre, lived a famous wise man named Ptahhotep, who wrote a number of proverbial sayings of which we possess a papyrus copy of the Middle Kingdom, the oldest monument of Egyptian literature extant. We also possess fragments and excerpts of much later date; for the * admonitions of Ptahhotep* were used as a school book in later days, and the Egyptian school boy of the XVII Ith and XlXth Dynasties conned the words of the ancient sage and wrote his school copies of them on the frag- ments of white limestone which corresponded to the * slate' of not many years ago. Ptahhotep, an old man, first describes the miseries of old age, *the worst of all misfortunes that can befall a man,' and then, on the principle that *it is no use being old unless you are clever/ repeats, at the order of the king and for the instruction of the crown prince, the proverbial philosophy which he had thought out during the course of his long life. It is of a naively worldly kind, inculcating proper reverence to superiors lest worse befall, and decent behaviour to inferiors lest the anger of the gods be provoked; instruction in the proper way to behave at table
VII, in] THE '•ADMONITIONS OF PTAHHOTEP* 289
follows, and a man is bidden not to look too scrutinizingly at his food,, at*all events if it is the gift of a greater than himself. Hints as to th.e proper conduct of servants in great families are provided, and the main points of etiquette pointed out. The proper way to manage a wife is fully explained : * Give her food in abundance and raiment for her back, anoint her with unguents/ Wife-beating is reproved as impolitic: 'Be not harsh in thy house, for she will be more easily moved by persuasion than by violence/ The nou^oeau riche is warned that it is not tactful for him to be too high and mighty, and the wisest man is held to be he who keeps his mouth shut. This oldest proverbial philosophy of the world is naturally of extraordinary interest as a document for the history of mental development, and the Martin Tupper of 3000 B.C. is a very human old figure with his aches and pains and his wise saws (see also below, p. 348 sq.).
Another worthy of Isesi's reign was the Chancellor Baurded, who travelled to the land of Puenet, and brought back thence a dwarf of the kind called deneg^ and was much honoured by the king therefore. These dwarfs were regarded as great curiosities and were taught to take part in the festival dances before the gods with the princesses and waiting-women of the harem, who took the role of priestesses. We hear of Baurded from the inscription of Herkhuf, who under the VI th Dynasty also went to Puenet and brought back a similar dwarf, He went by land, up the Nile and through the Sudan, and so no doubt did Baurded. Puenet (often called Punt), was probably the modern Somaliland, and a sea expedition thither was by no means out of the power of the princes of the Vth Dynasty. Great ships for the Nile were built as early as the time of the 1st and Ilnd Dynasties, and at the end of the Illrd we know that they -went to sea in the Mediterranean. Snefru sent 40 ships to Phoenicia, which came back laden with great balks of cedar from the Lebanon. And under the Vth Dynasty Sahure actually represents on the walls of his tomb-temple the sailing of a naval expedition on the waters of the Red Sea, probably to Sinai. A large ship is shown returning to Egypt with Semitic prisoners on board. But as the overland way to Puenet was no doubt open, as it was in the time of Herkhuf about a century later, Baurded probably went by land.
Neuserre, Menkauhor and Isesi are all commemorated on the rocks of Sinai, and we have an interesting record of movement further afield in a representation in the tomb of a Vth Dynasty noble named Inti at Deshasheh in Upper Egypt. This shows an attack by Egyptian warriors, no doubt commanded by Inti, on
C.A.H.I 19
290 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP,
the stockaded or walled settlements of northern foreigners, who are evidently Semites. Their villages, named 'the enemy town Nedya, the enemy town 'En-Ka, . ./ (i.e. the Spring [W#] of Ka. . . 5?)3 must be in southern Palestine. There is a vivid repre- sentation of the siege of one town : the men are breaking their bows in despair, some of the women are succouring the wounded, while others with the old men and children stand before the sheikh, who is seated on his stool, tearing his long hair with grief, and beseech him to surrender. Men are listening with anxiety on their side of the wall, just where the Egyptians are making a breach with poles under the direction of a very composed Egyptian officer who leans nonchalantly on a staff looking on. Other Egyptians are raising a scaling-ladder against the outer face of the wall, Outside a general massacre of other inhabitants is proceeding, a train of captives is being led away bound with a rope, and one, a girl, is flung over the shoulder of her captor. This was no doubt a mere raid for slaves, perhaps in revenge for some marauding attack on the Delta. We find it repeated on a larger scale in the expedition of Uni under the next dynasty (p. 293),
The successor of Isesi was Unis. Both kings are said to have had long reigns, of 28 and 30 years respectively. Unis (c. 2855— 2825 B.C.?) is remarkable only as the builder of the pyramid for himself at Sakkarah, which is the first to contain written spells and prayers for the dead king's safety in the next world (p. 330), They contain matter of very great anthropological interest. The gods are represented as being terrified at the arrival of Unis among them: 'the heavens open, and the stars tremble when this Unis comes forth as a god*; for Unis is to obtain strength by devouring the gods themselves ('the old gods shall be thy meat in the even- ing, the young gods shall be thy meat in the morning'), and he is to boil their bones to prepare his food. This is unadulterated African savagery, and is either the product of barbarous necromancers, or, more probably, a survival of very early days indeed. The reemer- gence of such types of primitive savagery was not rare in Egypt even in much later times than these. The same texts were copied in the pyramids of the kings of the Vlth Dynasty, which now followed.
The Vlth Dynasty (c* 2825—2630?) was founded by a certain Tetij whose relationship to Unis we do not know. But we see no sign of forcible revolution, as at the beginning of the Vth Dynasty. He was followed by an ephemeral Ati, who bore the second name Userkere. These two (merged by Manetho into Othoes) were merely the prelude to the energetic king Pepi I Merire, who, though he did not reign as long as his centenarian son, Pepi II,
VII, m] THE SIXTH DYNASTY 291
was otherwise a far more notable monarch, and is the central figure of the new dynasty. Manetho calls him Phios, and credits him wj.th a reign of 53 years (c. 2795—2742 B.C.?), We have contemporary monumental evidence for his forty-ninth and fiftieth year, so that the Turin Papyrus, which gives him only twenty years, is here known to be in error, a fact that should warn us against accepting the evidence of the papyrus without critical examination in any doubtful case,
Pepi must have been a very young man at his accession, and we see him represented as he was in his vigorous youth, in the magnificent bronze (?) statue of himself, accompanied by a smaller figure of his son, that was found at Hieraconpolis and is now in the Cairo Museum. It was found broken in several pieces, and has been skilfully put together. Luckily the metal had not become so severely oxidized as to make it impossible to do this. The figure of the king was originally six feet, and that of his son about three feet high. The king's head originally bore a crown, possibly of precious metal, which was no doubt stolen when the figures were broken up in ancient days. He wore otherwise only the waistcloth, which also has disappeared. He stands with left leg advanced, and a raised left hand, which originally held a staff or sceptre. The son is represented as a naked small boy: his face is extremely well preserved. Both heads were apparently cast, the rest of the bodies being put together of hammered plates of what is said to be bronze, over a wooden core. The heads have inlaid eyes of obsidian and white limestone. A similar techniqiie is known from early Babylonia, where, in 1 9 1 9 at Tell el-£Obeid, near Tell Mukayyar (c Ur of the Chaldees *), the present writer, when ex- cavating for the British Museum, discovered copper figures of lions and bulls made in the same way with bodies hammered over wood and heads cast (p. 585)* In their case, however, the heads had been filled with bitumen to strengthen them, and their eyes are of red jasper, white shell, and blue schist, inlaid and fastened to the bitumen core by copper wire. These Sumerian copper figures are some centuries older than the Pepi group1. Pepi's portrait is 1 That the Sumerian figures are copper is proved by the analysis of Dr Alexander Scott, F.R.S. That the Egyptian figures are of bronze seems doubtful (p. 585); a fresh analysis is very desirable. ^A contemporary seal- cylinder analysed by Berthelot {La CMmie au Moym dge^ i, p. 365) is of pure copper, and is proof of the general use of the unalloyed metal as late as the Vlth Dynasty. A stray exception is the famous IVth Dynasty bronze rod from Medum, found by Petrie. The first real use of bronze begins about the Xllth Dynasty, the period of the Hyksos, whose victory may hare been due to their bronze weapons (see below, pp. 311 sqq., 319, 572).
19—2
EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
that of a good-looking and intelligent young man, with broad forehead, prominent nose, full mouth and chin. That* he^ was energetic we know from the number of temples that he^ either builder rebuilt throughout Egypt. Most of the chief sanctuaries of Egypt had owed something to his building activity, though his actual work largely disappeared in the course of later rebuilding. In his day it first became the royal custom to mark the king's reign by great temple works that should at once evince his piety, glorify his reign, and perpetuate his name for all time. More than any king before him Pepi used the splendid red granite of Aswan for this work, and in his time the famous quarries began to produce the increased output that continued with intermissions to the days of the Romans.
We have several records at this time of the expeditions which were sent to procure this stone. One of the best known is that of the high official Uni, who was one of the most prominent men of Pepi's day, and was a very old man when he was sent to bring granite from the cataract in the reign of his successor. He was a contemporary of Pepi, having been born in the reign of Teti, and was probably brought up with Pepi at the court. At his accession Pepi made him rekh-neset (*king-knower') or * Companion, ? and superintendent of the royal domain, specially charging him with the oversight of the royal harem, in which he had to deal with various confidential matters, which he settled, with the vizier as his sole assessor. In a matter of the highest secrecy, however, which concerned the honour of the queen, Ixntis, against whom
* legal proceedings were Instituted in camera within the harem,' he acted as sole judge: *no chief judge and vizier at all, no prince was there, but only I alone.* He drew up the frocks-herbal in writing, with a subordinate judge to advise him on legal points.
* Never before had one of my standing heard the secret of the king's harem/
Then Pepi gave his faithful servant command of an expedition against the Herm-sha^ "those who are upon the sands/ probably the inhabitants of the half-cultivated sand-dune country of the Mediterranean coast about the modern el-Arish and Rafah or else on the Gulf of Suez. He assembled an army * of many ten thousands/ from all parts of the Egyptian realm, from the negroes of the Sudan, and the Libyans west of the Delta, as well as from the Egyptians from Aswan to Atfih. Uni in his inscription celebrates the victory of his army in seven couplets (see p, 343)* The stock- ades of the enemy are besieged, fruit trees destroyed, the dwellings put to the flames and the warriors slain in myriads. We have seen
IX, in] PYTHAGOREAN MATHEMATICS 291
After TJbtales come Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans, says Aristotle, devoted themselves to mathematics and were the first to advance that science as a study pursued for its own sake1. They made geometry a part of liberal educa- tion: their quadrivium comprised arithmetic, geometry, sphaeric (astronomy) and music. By arithmetic in this classification is meant, not the arithmetic of daily life, but the theory of numbers in themselves. We have seen (vol. iv, p. 547) that Pythagoras discovered that the musical intervals correspond to certain arith- metical ratios between lengths of string at the same tension, 2, : i giving the octave, 3 : 2, the fifth and 4 : 3 the fourth. These ratios are the same as those of 12 to 6, 8, 9 respectively, and 6:8 = 9:12, so that this proportion shows all three intervals. The principle of proportion so established became a uniform principle for all science and notably for medicine.
An easy transition from arithmetic to geometry, from numbers to geometrical magnitudes, was through figured numbers, tri- angles, squares, etc. marked out by dots. This revealed a law of formation. Three dots were placed in contiguity to one dot so as to form a square, five dots round two sides of that square gave the next square, and so on, showing that the sum of any number of terms of the series of odd numbers beginning with r is a square number; to add any odd number to the sura of all the preceding odd numbers (including i) made one square into the next larger square; hence the odd numbers were called gnomons. If the gnomon (odd number) so added is itself a square, we have two square numbers the sum of which is also a square; and from this is easily deduced the general formula (attributed to Pythagoras) for finding three numbers the squares of two of which are together equal to the square of the third. Any triangle with its sides in the ratio of three such numbers is right-angled; hence the rule is connected with the theorem of the square on the hypotenuse, the proof of which Greek tradition uniformly ascribes to Pythagoras. The comparison, again, of right-angled triangles having their sides in the ratio of integral numbers with other right-angled triangles led to the discovery of the irrational or incommensurable. Not only did the Pythagoreans discover that the ratio of the hypo- tenuse of an isosceles right-angled triangle to one of its other sides
1 The Pythagoreans expressed this idea in their motto <r^<zf6a /cal j3a/Aa aXX* ov a"%afjua, real rpiteffoXov ca figure (proposition) and a platform, not a figure and sixpence.' (Proclus3 Comm. on EucL j3 p. 84). The motto no doubt recalls the story of the pupil who was bribed to learn mathematics by the gift of a triobol for each proposition mastered.
19-2
294 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
brother,, Pepl II Neferkere, the child of the elder Pepi's old age, who was six years of age, and lived to be a hundred: old men's sons often live to a great age. His reign of 94 years (c. 2738-2644 B.C.?) is probably the longest in history.
Herkhufs inscription gives us a glimpse of this king as a child soon after his accession. Three times in Merenre's reign he had gone to the far southern land of Yemaim by way of the river or of the Oases, and after his fourth journey he returned to the court of the juvenile second Pepi bringing with him as trophy the famous deneg-&w&r£y like that brought to Isesi by Baurded (p. 2 8 9). So delighted was the little king at the coming of the deneg that he caused a special royal rescript to be indited to the explorer while he was on his way downstream, bidding him *come north- ward to court immediately and bring this dwarf with thee,' telling him to have special guards over him on his boat to prevent his falling into the water, and in his tent at night to see that no harm comes to him: 'inspect him ten times a night/ *My Majesty,' says the letter, 'desires to see this deneg more than the gifts of Sinai and of Puenet. If thou arrivest at court, the dwarf being with thee alive and well, My Majesty will do for thee a thing greater than that which was done for the chancellor of the god, Baurded, in the time of Isesi, for it is the heart's desire of My Majesty to see this dwarf. Commands have been sent to the chief of the New Towns, the Companion and High Prophet, to com- mand that you take provisions from him in every store-city and every temple, without stinting therein/ These are the actual words of the rescript, dated under the royal seal in the second year of the reign, which Herkhuf In pride set up, copied on stone outside the door of Ms tomb at Aswan. One can see the impatience of the eager child to see his new plaything, and can compare it with the slow senility and death of the aged man he became^ more than ninety years later,
The long reign of Pepi II began no doubt under splendid auspices, with energetic and Intelligent ministers, a well-filled treasury and a widespreading dominion. It ended In decay and confusion. We hear little of actual events after the first few years. The special Interest in Nubia and the Sudan, which had begun in the reign of Pepi I, was at first maintained; and the c Keeper of the Door of the South/ as the governor of the Cataract-region was named, was one of the most important magnates of the king- dom. This dignity was held under Pepi II by a chief of Aswan named Pepinekht. Another chief of Aswan named Sabni, son of Meklm, tells us that he went to Nubia to recover the body of his
VII, mj THE COMING OF THE NEGROES 295
father, who had been killed there, and brought It back safely to be embalmed and laid In his tomb. Puenet was constantly visited either Jby the land or sea route, and an official named Khnumhotep records that he went to Kush (Ethiopia) and Puenet eleven times. Ships were built at the head of the Gulf of Suez for the sea voyage, and there the caravan-leader, Enenkhet, was killed by the ^eriu- sha with the company of men he had taken *to build a ship there for Puenet/ Pepinekht avenged him and brought back his body. Herkhuf, and others also, were described as ' caravan-leaders/ and the title was regarded as a distinction. These wealth-bringers were benefactors to the state. A most lively commerce went on by way of the Nile, the Oases, or the Red Sea, with the nations of the south; gold In abundance, ebony and ostrich-feathers were poured Into Egypt, who, in return, did much to civilize the barbarians.
It will be noticed that negroes are now mentioned for the first time by the Egyptians. This naturally means that the Egyptian caravans now pushed further south than ever before; but at the same time there Is no doubt that the negroes were also themselves pushing north. In the early days, when Zoser inaugurated the Egyptian policy of domination In Nubia, there were no negroes there, the country being inhabited by a people closely akin to the Hamitic Egyptians, but unaffected by northern elements, and living In a simpler state of culture. But In Pepi's day the negroes had come well down the Nile-valley, as the skulls found In graves of the period prove. They were wedging themselves firmly In the valley, and separating the Hamitic tribes of the south from the civilized and modified Hamites of Egypt. The inscriptions give us hints of their restlessness. Herkhuf, on one of his journeys, finds the negro king of Yemaim marching by the ancient Dark el-Arba'in*, the road of the Oases, northwards on his way *to the land of Tamahu (Libya) to smite Tamahu as far as the western corner of heaven: I went forth after him to the land of Tamahu, and I pacified him/
The barbaric culture of these negro tribes Is known to us from the contents of their graves in Nubia. They had attained great excellence in pottery-making, in a style apparently imitated from that of the native Nubians, and no doubt acquired with the women who made it. That they were formidable warriors is evident enough. In the succeeding age, the time of the Xllth Dynasty, we find the negro for the first time among the inhabitants of Egypt itself, and that possibly, not merely as a hired or impressed warrior as under the Vlth Dynasty, but a settler. We can see under the Middle Kingdom, for the first time, the facial traces of negro
296 EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP.
bloocTin the representations of the Egyptians; and it may well be that there was" negro blood In the royal house, whicH was of southern origin. At the same time we find actual settlements of these Nubian negroes in Egypt. These may have^been originally captives or soldiers; but there is also the possibility that, at the end of the old kingdom, after the ^close of Pepi IPs reign, an actual negro invasion took place5 which reduced the southern half of the kingdom to chaos, and left the traces which we see. From this chaos it was only rescued, as we shall read, after long civil wars between the princes of the south and those of the north. It has also been supposed that an Asiatic invasion took place at this time (pp. 340 sg., 344)- t ^ T
A breakdown certainly delivered Egypt over to anarchy, and possibly permitted its invasion by barbarians. Its cause may be found in a centrifugal tendency, which first become noticeable to- wards the end of the Vth Dynasty, andhad made great strides during the long and weak reign of Pepi II. It is probable that the usurpa- tion of the Three Brethren had inflicted a serious blow upon the prestige of the monarchy, which had been unchallenged since the accession of Khasekhemui. Under the Vth Dynasty we seem to see the central authority of the court weakening, until, in the time of Pepi I, we find a nobility no longer exclusively attached to Memphis, while the authority of the royal sheriff in the provinces has largely passed to the local magnates, who now reside in their towns and on their estates, and are no longer necessarily buried at Sakkarah near the king but in their own territories. The title of hatfo or erpati haffo^ * hereditary prince/ now appears as the designation of the local ruler of the noine. No doubt under the Vth Dynasty many of the old royal officers had turned their temporary cures into hereditary fiefs. We have noble examples in the princes of the district of Aswan, who lived on the island of Yebu or Ibu, the later Elephantine. There were many others of like local importance. The policy of the court was now to ensure their fidelity by the conferring of great honours and titles, such as that of * Keeper of the Door of the South,' which however meant that their qxiasi-indegehiient position was still further accentuated. And when, as we know was the case during the latter part of Pepi IFs reign,, the toyal authority became weakened, there was, in default of an energetic new sovereign, no possibility of its restoration. The successors of Pepi II were entirely ephemeral, and are only interesting because one of them, Neterkere, appears, though a mail, to be the original of the Nitocris of Herodotus : Manetho accepts the identification and speaks of a queen Nitocris
VII, in] THE HERACLEOPOLITES 297
in this place. Neterkere was followed by a Menkere, and the similarity of his name to that of Menkaure led to the association of Neterkere (confused with the Saite queen's name Neitakrit, i.e. fiNitocris*) with the Third Pyramid of Gizeh1* With them the dynasty ends (c+ 2630 B.C.?),
We now reach this time of weakness and confusion, probably complicated by barbarian invasions, which we know as the First Intermediate Period: the interregnum, so to speak, between the Old and the Middle Kingdom. Shadowy and ephemeral kings continued to reign at Memphis, forming the Vllth and Vlllth Dynasties of Manetho; nevertheless, they were still recognized as kings, as we find in the case of Neferkauhor and Neferirlkere II at Abydos and Coptos respectively. Their authority was probably early abandoned in the south; and when the princes of Hininsu, or Heracleopolis in Middle Egypt, had the audacity to proclaim themselves kings, and set up a rival court in their city, the south was entirely cut off. The Turin Papyrus gives eighteen Hera- cleopolite kings, and Manetho says there were two Heracleopolite dynasties, the IXth and Xth. The first and greatest of the Hera- cleopolites, Meriebre Ekhtai, or Khati, appears as Akhthoes in Manetho, who makes him the founder of the IXth Dynasty. The ancient (Theban) lists did not, however, acknowledge the legiti- macy of the Heracleopolites2, These kings certainly controlled all the south, but apparently not Memphis, where the really legiti- mate house still continued to rule. The south at first acquiesced in the Heracleopolite rule; and we find king Uazkere, one of Ekhtai's successors, peacefully recording his decrees on a stele at Abydos. But, later on, the princely family of Epet, the later Thebes, behaved to the Heracleopolites precisely as they had be- haved to the Memphites : they set up an independent principality and usurped control of all the south. The nome of Siut remained faithful to Heracleopolis, but the whole country further south passed to Thebes, which now first appears in history. During the lifetime of three successive princes of Siut, — Ekhtai, Tefabi, and a second Ekhtai, — father, son and grandson — an intermin-
1 The genesis of the story and its combination with the tale of the Greek courtesan, Rhodopis, are discussed by the present writer in the Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. xxiv (1904), pp. 208 sqq.
2 That the Memphite dynasty still existed seems to be shown by the official illegitimacy of the Heracleopolites. The legitimate sceptre passes In the Theban lists immediately from the Memphites to the Thebans, Had the Heracleopolites ever reigned over the whole country without a concurrent dynasty at Memphis, they would have been recognized by the Thebans.
298 EGYPT; THE OLD KINGDOM [CHAP. VII, m
able civil war went on, the Tlieban attacks growing gradually stronger. Memphis perhaps plucked up courage^ and possibly attacked Heracleopolis from the rear, apparently with theielp of rebels in the city itself, The second Ekhtai tells us of the revolt, but nothing of any participation by Memphis; we can hardly suppose, however, that the Memphites took no part in the attack, The Hera- cleopolite king Merikere fled south to Siut, and was restored to his capital by Ekhtai, who sailed to Heracleopolis with an immense fleet of boats and overawed Middle Egypt into submission. The attack from the south, however, was pressed, until, finally (whether after the death of Merikere or not we do not know), Thebes broke through and overwhelmed Siut, and with it no doubt Heracleopolis also.
It was not long before Memphis and the Delta also fell before the arms of the conquering Thebans, and the 'Old Kingdom' of Egypt finally came to an end. The Turin Papyrus closes the first great period of Egyptian history at the end of what appears to be Manetho's VHIth Dynasty (the last Memphites), as it there gives a summary of the regnal years of the kings since the accession of Menes, thus marking the end of an age (see p. 170). The Heracleopolites of the IXth and Xth Dynasties accordingly belong to the 'Middle Kingdom' that now followed, though we have found it convenient to treat of them in this chapter. With the first Thebans of the Xlth Dynasty we enter the new age.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MIDDLE KINGDOM AND THE HYKSOS CONQUEST
I. DYNASTIES XI AND XII
WE do not know which of the Theban princes was the con- queror of Slut and Heracleopolis, but it was one of the two or three between Intef-o, or Iniotef-o, the first who assumed royal dignity, and Mentuhotep Nebhapetre, who ruled over the whole kingdom from north to south. A certain Meri ruled Epet (Thebes) in the time of the Vlth Dynasty; but after his time it fell under the rule of the princely house of the neighbouring town of Hermonthis. We have a record of a chief of Hermonthis in the Heracleopolite period named Intef or Iniotef (Antef); but the earliest Theban of the Hermonthite house whom we know was a certain Iniotefi (Intefi), son of Ikui, probably a near descendant of the Hermonthite Intef, who ruled the whole south under the Heracleopolite king, and 'made his two lands to live/ Then came Intef 'the great/ Intef-o (Antef-aa), who made himself king and founded the Xlth Dynasty (c. 2375-2212 B.C. ?). He adopted the royal style of 'Horus Uah-ankh ("increasing life"). Son of the Sun Intef-o/ He also called himself Insibya^ 'King of Upper and Lower Egypt' (a title to which he had no right de facto), but assumed no throne-name. In this he was copied by his two suc- cessors, and the preference of all three for the Horus-title may perhaps be due to a wish to insist upon their legitimate position as Upper Egyptian kings, ruling by the right of Horus* Intef Uah-ankh pushed his frontier beyond his own original domains as far north as the district of Akhmim (Panopolis), and made the Thinite nome (Abydos) his 'Door of the North/ thus imitating the old official description of Aswan as *the Door of the South/ The stele recording this is dated in his fiftieth year, which need not be taken to mean literally his fiftieth year as king, but to include his years as prince of Thebes before his assumption of royal dignity* Though a long-lived man, he need not have been a long-lived king; and as his proclamation of himself as king must at once have brought down upon him the enmity of Heracleopolis
300 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
and Its powerful vassal, Siut, a reign of fifty years would imply fifty years of fighting, which seems Improbable.
To him succeeded Intef II, Horns Nakhtnebtepnefer, -&nd to him Mentuhotep I, Horus Sankhibtoui, who may possibly be identical with the Mentuhotep who assumed the throne-name Nebtouire ('Lord of the Two Lands of Re'). If so, he may have been the conqueror of Siut and Heracleopolis, and adopted the throne-name to mark his overthrow of the last Heracleopolite, Merikere or an unknown successor. This is however only a sur- mise, and Nebtouire may be the successor of SankhibtouL His successors bore a throne-name in the usual way, and their Horus- name resumes its usual place in the titulary, the first of them being apparently Nebhapetre Mentuhotep II (or III). This king seems at one time to have spelt his throne-name differently (as *Nebkhrure')3 and to have borne two Horus-names, Neterhezet and Samtoui. These mean * Divine is the White Crown (of Upper Egypt)* and * Uniting the Two Lands/ and he appears to have adopted the latter in the middle of his reign, in order to com- memorate the overthrow of Memphis and the reunion of all Egypt under one sceptre, which cannot have taken place after his time, while he Mmself was undoubtedly king of all Egypt. This change has a much older precedent in the case of Khasekhemui after he had reunited the two lands (p. 276), and precedents were followed by the Egyptians. It has been usually assumed that the names point to two kings; but both the Turin Papyrus and Mane- tho agree that there were only six kings in the dynasty, and, if this is so, we must € telescope' into one, either Sankhibtoui and Nebtouire, or Neterhezet and Samtoui,
Nebhapetre's reign was long (r. 2290—2242 B.C.?), and he is the dominant figure of the dynasty. We have monuments of him from various parts of Egypt, notably from Dendera, where he rebuilt or added to the Temple of Hathor, and from Der el-Bahri, in the western necropolis of Thebes, where he excavated his tomb and built in front of it a remarkable funerary temple, excavated by the Egypt Exploration Fund in the years 1903—7, under the direction of Professor Naville and the present writer. In this tomb we see that the temple has gradually so grown and the pyramid so diminished that the pyramid has become a mere meaningless erection in the middle of the temple, the actual tomb being at the back of the whole building, deeply excavated in the rock. The coloured reliefs, fragmentary though they are, from the walls of the building have given us a new idea of the art of the time, which has since been confirmed from Dendera. Under the older kings
VIII, i] THE XIlTH DYNASTY: AMENEMHET I 301
of the Xlth Dynasty the sculptor's art, neglected in days of ruin and civl! war, appears extraordinarily barbarous in style. Beauti- fully explicate reliefs had been produced under the VI th Dynasty,, but in two or three centuries the whole tradition of the art of the Memphites had been lost in the south, and the work of the times of Uah-ankh and his successors is amazingly crude. It is still crude under Nebhapetre, but improving enormously. The name of this king's chief sculptor, Mertisen, is known; and in his funerary inscription he speaks as one excessively proud of his art, and as if it were altogether unusual to be good at it.
After a reign that certainly exceeded forty-six years, Nebhapetre was succeeded by another Mentuhotep with the throne-name Sankhkere, of whom nothing much is known beyond the fact that he sent an expedition by sea to Puenet, though he reigned about thirty years (c. 2242—2212 B.C.?). With him the Xlth Dynasty ended, after a duration of about 160 years, and, after some palace intrigue of which we do not know the details, the Xllth Dynasty began with Sehetepibre Amenemhet I (c* 2212 B.C.?),
Amenemhet I shows by his name that he was more especially devoted to Amon, the god of Epet. The Mentuhotep names of the Xlth Dynasty had shown fidelity to the original home of the family at Hermonthis (Erment), the seat of the god Mentu or Munt. We know that the family relationship of Amenemhet to the Mentuhoteps was close, though there is a break marked by the change of dynasty. He may have been descended from the Iniotefs in a younger line, and was possibly the vizier of Sankhkere, The Mentuhoteps did not particularly venerate Amon, whence it is possible that Amenemhet's immediate progenitors had speci- ally devoted themselves to Thebes. Amon,, its human-headed god, was probably a local form of the ancient and well-known god Min of Coptos, His temple was that of Karnak, called Nesut-toui} *the Thrones of the Two Lands,* and it is probable that this was already very ancient. The temple in southern Epet (Luxor) was a later foundation.
Amenemhet made this god the official chief deity of Egypt; and he was soon identified with Re, and as Amon-Re, but bearing the outer semblance of Amon only, he was made king of all the gods. A new king of the gods appeared with the new king of men, It cannot be said yet, however, that the centre of gravity of the nation has shifted to the south, to the city of Amon. For a time the later kings of the Xlth Dynasty had apparently made Thebes their capital, but those of the Xllth, Thebans though they were> found that the capital was better placed towards the north. Never-
302 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP,
thelesS, they did not restore either Heracleopolis or Memphis to
this position^, but, instead, built for their capital a fortress-city
between the two, in the neighbourhood of the modern JLisht,
which they called Itht-toui, * Controller of the Two Lands/ a
name which explains its character and function. The kings of the
Xllth Dynasty were strangers in the north. We do not know
whether Amenemhet I or his predecessor, Nebhapetre, legitimized
their position by marriage with the Memphite or the Heracle-
opolite family or with both. But the fact remained that they were
the descendants of the mere nomarch of Hermonthis and Thebes,
places entirely undistinguished in previous history, and that (possibly
owing to the invasion of the southerly nomes by Nubian and negro
barbarians after the close of the VI th Dynasty), they had become
the wardens of the south, and had then assumed the Pharaonic
dignity and enforced their claim to it by arms. They did not
attempt to hide their origin. Thebes was never ashamed of it, and
in the (otherwise very inaccurate) Karnak list of kings even the
nomarch Iniotefi is commemorated as erpati. Moreover, Senusret I
set up a statue in honour of *his father, the erpafi^ Intef-o, born
of Ikui/ This is probably the nomarch Intefi, though he is given
the peculiar name (Intef-o) of king Uah-ankh.
Comparatively plebeian origin was thus openly confessed, and a show of force seemed necessary to assure the royalty of the new house, at all events in the north, where the kings lived, in order to check instantly any attempt at revolt. Amenemhet I was no doubt the builder of Itht-touL The energy and determination he showed was maintained by his successors, especially by Senusret III (Sesostris) and Amenemhet III (Lamaris), two of the greatest rulers that not only Egypt, but even the world, has ever seen. 'Char- acter* is the distinguishing mark of these kings, and energy is evident in their contemporary portraits, which seem to show a strain of negro blood, probably derived from fierce Sudanese invaders of the south, three centuries or more before. In them the Pyramid-builders were re-born, Khufu and Khafre had come again.
The * hereditary prince* (erpati-hatio) still rules his nome as in the days of the Pepis; he is still locally almost independent of the king. But the latter no longer impotently tolerates his independ- ence and his waging of private war, but watches him cat-like from his lair at Itht-toui, ready to pounce at any sign of defiance of the royal authority. This was still precarious, and the passage from one reign to another was always dangerous. For this reason Amenemhet I inaugurated the institution of co-regency, character- istic of this dynasty, so that in his old age he might have by his
VIII, i] THE INSTRUCTIONS OF AMENEMHET 303
side a younger and vigorous fellow-king, bound to him by ties of self-interest, even if those of filial duty had no weight, who would succee^ him automatically and obviate the danger of an interreg- num and revolt of feudatories. This device is characteristic of the politic mind of the founder of the Xllth Dynasty, who bequeathed to his son a set of maxims, renowned in later days as a classic, * the Instructions of king Sehetepibre/ inculcating a hard wisdom. Above all, his successor is warned to have no friends. "Fill not thy heart with a brother, know not a friend, make not for thyself intimates wherein there is no end, harden thyself against sub- ordinates, that thou mayest be king of the earth, that thou mayest be ruler of the lands, that thou mayest increase good/ This note of * increasing good* is characteristic of this king and of his dynasty; and their claim is justified that in their time the good of the people as a whole was considered and furthered. *I was one who cultivated grain and loved Nepri the harvest-god; the Nile greeted me in every reach; none was hungry in my years, none thirsted then; men dwelt in peace through my deeds and spake concerning me/ says Amenemhet in his * Instructions/ We meet, in the mind of Amenemhet, for the first time, the conception of single-minded public duty, and the obligation of the king to benefit his subjects, which became the tradition of his descend- ants. They, following his policy, succeeded in the end in completely breaking the power of the local princes, and re-established a cen- tralized state like that of the IVth Dynasty, though of course with differences of detail, and with a higher purpose,
Amenemhet spent his life1 in visiting every part of his dominions
1 A most interesting object of his time, probably, is the lapis seal-cylinder, a bilingual, published by Pinches and Newberry, Journ. of Eg. Arch, vii, 1921, pp. 196 sqq. It contains the Babylonian name Pikin~ili, or rather Wakin-ili, and that of the Egyptian king, Sehetepibre", probably the first of the three who bore this name, Wrs. Amenemhet I. Certainly the cutting of the Egyp- tian signs is of XII th Dynasty character. The character of the cuneiform itself is inconclusive; and it cannot be maintained that, because it resembles that of Sargon of Akkadand Naram-Sin, the date of Amenemhet, and therefore of the Xllth Dynasty, should be carried back to their time. The name of the Babylonian owner is of a period not earlier than that of Hammurabi (c. 2100 B.C.), which is broadly that of the Xllth Dynasty. To date the latter (with Petrie) 1460 years before 2000 would take us to 3460 B.a, the days of the earliest Sumerian patesis, before cuneiform really existed, and long before such an inscription as that of Wakin-ili could have been cut; though, of course, it might be argued that Wakin-ili had his name inscribed on the cylinder centuries after it was made. Hence the later date for the Xllth Dynasty — not earlier than 2200 B.C. — still remains the more prob- able. See also p, 1 69.
304 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
and iri warring against the barbarians on every hand. Towards the end of his life the young king Senusret (Sesostris I),*his son, naturally took his place'in warlike expeditions; and while he ]yas ab- sent on one of these in Libya, the old king died and was buried in a pyramid at Lisht, close to Itht-touL We know of the circumstances from the Romance of Sanehat or Sinuhe, the story of a young noble who accompanied Senusret. *In the year 30, second month of the first season, on the yth day, departed the god into his horizon, the insibya Seheteplbre. He ascended to heaven, he joined the sun; the divine limbs were mingled with him that begat him. At the court was silence; the great double doors were closed, the court sat mourning, the people bowed down in silence/ On the arrival of the news of the king's death, Senusret immediately left the army ('the hawk, he flew; together with his following, not letting the army know7), In order to ensure his accession. SInuhe, how- ever, for reasons which we do not gather, but were probably con- nected with some intrigue against Senusret, of which he was cognizant or In which he had taken part, fled alone, crossed the Delta, and exiled himself till old age with a Semitic tribe. Eventu- ally he was pardoned and returned to Egypt, to be received in full state by the king, and be buried in a tomb, the royal gift, as befitted an Egyptian noble, and not in a sheepskin like an Arab. All this we learn from the story, a classic of the Xllth Dynasty, known to us from no less than twelve papyri and ostraca (see pp. 226 £f#.).
Amenemhet I had reigned thirty years (c, 2212—2182 B.C.?). Of these the last ten were shared with his son. Comparatively full as our knowledge is with regard to the history of the IVth to the VI th Dynasties, our information with regard to the Xllth is far more complete. All the lists agree with each other and with the monuments as to names; and the Turin Papyrus gives 213 years for the length of the dynasty, the monuments apparently 212. Manetho's years are not very correct, but Ms names (since the necessary emendations of his copyists* errors are easily made) are very accurate Contemporary records of dates in the years of the various reigns are frequent, and can be checked by each other in several instances owing to the habit of co-regency which was regular during the first half of the reign (see above). The Turin Papyrus allows for these co-regencies. We have now, therefore, passed from the region of guess-work Into one of documented history.
Senusret I ('Usret's Man') bore the name of Usret, a god- dess not often met with in Egyptian mythology and usuallv
VIIL i] SENUSRET I AND GREAT FEUDATORIES 305
Identified with Isis. It is the original of the cSesostris* of the Greeks. *But whereas Manetho's copyists have preserved it for Senusixt II, in the case of the first of the name some careless transcriber has confused it with the name of the much later king Sheshonk (the biblical Shishak) and gives it as 'Sesonkhosis/ His throne-name was Kheperkere. He reigned 45 years in all (c. 2192-2157 B.C.?), ten in conjunction with his father and three with his son. Seven years before his father's death he officially laid the foundation of a new and splendid temple of the Sun at Heliopolis (On), the sole remaining relic of which is his red granite obelisk still standing amid the palms of Matarieh. Its fellow fell in 1258 A.D. and has disappeared. Another monument of his is the small round-topped obelisk at Ebgig, in the Fayyum. He built extensively at Abydos and Karnak. We have a fine lime- stone relief of him from Coptos, which shows how entirely the art of Egypt had recovered from the dark age into which it had fallen after the time of the Pepis, and from which it only began to emerge in the days of Nebhapetre. The work of the time of Amenernhet I is already of extraordinary delicacy and beauty. The tomb of the nome-prince Ameni at Beni-Hasan is one of the finest in Egypt, with beautiful painted decoration showing the taste and sense of proportion characteristic of the art of the dynasty (seep. 575). From its inscriptions we learn that the king was an energetic warrior, and carried his arms into Kush, the nome of Ethiopia, which we first find mentioned under the Vlth Dynasty, and is now the usual appellation of the Nubian land. Ameni seems to have been a loyal feudatory who followed his king to war with all the forces of his nome. Stelae were set up by Amenemhet I at Korosko to record 'the overthrow of Wawat* (northern Nubia between the First and Second Cataracts), which had presumably revolted at the change of dynasty. And at Wadi Haifa Senusret I commemorated his further conquests. He presumably reoccupied southern Nubia, between the Second and Third Cataracts, which had already belonged to Pepi L
Hapzefi, prince of Siut, was Senusret's governor at Kerma (the Third Cataract)* He is well known from his great tomb at Siut, in which are inscribed his numerous benefactions and chantry- foundations. But he was never buried in this tomb. He died at Kerma, and was interred there under a great mound, in Nubian fashion, surrounded by the bodies of Nubian slaves who were killed in order to accompany him to the next world. The discovery of this gives a new idea of the relations of the Egyptians to their Nubian subjects. We see these ruled, apparently, by tyrannical
C.A.H.I 20
3c6 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
Egyptian satraps, who treated them as slaves. From the relics found in the burial of Hapzefi we perceive that a sort of colonial art had begun to arise In Nubia: Egyptian Ideas were clumsily copied and modified by the natives. From this time dates the 'Egyptianization* of the Nubians, which in far later days caused Egyptian civilization to survive there In a debased form when it was dead In Egypt itself. Mixed with the native Nubians were the negroes, who had probably overrun the country, and perhaps even penetrated Into Egypt itself during the intermediate period between the Old and Middle Kingdoms. The expeditions of the kings of the Xllth Dynasty seem chiefly to have been directed against the negroes who were recognized as formidable foes, and in the time of Senusret III seem to have pushed the Egyptians back from the Third to the Second Cataract.
Senusret I was burled in the southern pyramid of Lisht, in the Immediate vicinity of Itht-touL Ten colossal seated figures of the king In white limestone were found In a court east of the pyramid, and are now In the Cairo Museum. His successor Amenemhet II Nubkaure, reigned 35 years (c. 2150—2115 B.C.?), three years In conjunction with his father, and three with his son. Manetho calls him Ammanemes, and says he was slain by his guards. He was the least-distinguished of his dynasty; and several of the great men of his time are better known to us than he, notably Khnum- hotep, son of Neheri (prince of the nomeof Mahez, whose tomb at Bern-Hasan is one of the most interesting there), Tahutihetep of el-Bersheh, Sihathor the explorer of the Nubian gold-mines, and Khentekhtal-uer, who sailed to Puenet and returned to Koseir In peace with his ships in the king's twenty-fourth year. The gold of Nubia was now flowing in a steady stream into the royal coffers; and though we may see in this reign a falling-off from the energy of the two preceding, and possibly a revival of activity on the part of the feudatories, the accession of wealth to the court did much to secure the position of the king.
Se&ustet 11^ Khakheperre, reigned nineteen years (V, 2118- 2099 B^^thiree years with his father and possibly an unknown number of years witH his son* Like his predecessor, he does not seem to have been a warrior, arid Nut>Ia was probably peaceable during his reign. Egypt was rich and prosperous, and Its fertility and abundance were now attracting a considerable immigration of Semites from the desert into the settled land. In the tomb of Neheri's son Khnumhotep at Beni-Hasan, already mentioned, we see depicted the reception of a body of 37 Aamu (bedouins), led by a chief, Abshai, who brought with them tribute of meszamut,
VIII, ij RELATIONS WITH CRETE 307
or green antimony eye-painty the modern kohl^ which was, and still is, muclrprized by the Egyptians (see p. 228). This was in the sixth year ofjSenusret IL Relations existed with other foreigners besides the Semites. At Kahun in the ruins of the town of the workmen who built the pyramid of the king at Illahun, near the entrance to the Fayyum, have been found many fragments of the contem- porary polychrome pottery of the Minoans of Crete. This ware, known as * Kamarais ' or * Kamares * ware, from the locality of the cave on the southern slope of Mount Ida? in which a great quan- tity of it was found, is of the period commonly designated as < Middle Minoan II,* which was thus contemporary with the Xllth Dynasty (see p. 175).
We know that relations with Crete existed even earlier .than this, for the spiral design which suddenly appears on Egyptian scarabs of the time of Senusret I was of Aegean or more northern origin, and the art of glazing pottery was probably imported from Egypt into Crete earlier still. The forms of Cretan stone vases of the older * Early Minoan' period also appear often to be imitated from those made in Egypt under the Vlth Dynasty and earlier. The ships of Snefru that went to Phoenicia were no doubt soon succeeded by others that coasted round the southern shore of Asia Minor, and that the early Cretans were keen seafarers who could well cross the sea to Libya and thence coast to Egypt we know* In the time of Sankhkere, Henu, the Puenet-farer, had defeated an attack of the Haau — a name read later as 'Haunebu' and identified with the Greeks of the Delta. The pyramid-town in which the users of Cretan pottery dwelt was called <FLet-hote$- Senusret^ 'the House of the Peace of Senusret/ The excavation of it has given us the best-known example of an ancient Egyptian town, with its complex of streets and houses; and in its ruins have been found a number of hieratic papyri, containing legal and other documents of high interest. The pyramid is of brick, faced with stone, on a core of rock.
Senusret II was succeeded by his son, the great king Senusret III, Khakaure, or 'Lachares* (c. 2099—2061 B.C. ?)5 who best de- serves part of the renown attached to the name of Sesostris in later legend. Tales of the wars of the XVIIIth Dynasty kings, of Seti I, and especially of Ramses II, have combined with echoes of the days of its real original, to form the legendary figure of the 6d|i- queror Sesostris, who marched even to Bactria and India. The historical Senusret III confined his activity to Nubia "and southern Palestine*; the inscription of one of his followers, Khusebek, tells of the Nubian wars and of an expedition against a place in
3o8 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
Palestine called Sekmeni, In which a doubtful conjecture would find the biblical Shechem (p. 229).
In Nubia Senusret set up at Senineh, the ancient fortress com- manding the Second Cataract, above Wadi Haifa, an inscription couched in unprecedented phraseology, reminding us strangely of that of the proclamations said by Diodorus to have been inscribed on stelae by the legendary Sesostris to commemorate his conquests. This Is my frontier here, he says in effect: no negro shall pass north of It. *I am the king, and what I say I do/ he^adds. The successor who abandons this frontier Is no son of mine. And I have put up my statue at this my frontier 'not from any desire that ye should worship it, but that ye should fight for it! ' Sarcasm Is not usually found in an ancient Egyptian inscription. The king seems to have had no very great idea of the valour of his subjects. Evidently the negroes were troublesome in his reign, and it would seem that the king's two predecessors had abandoned the Dongola province, and that for military reasons he was compelled to establish an impassable barrier against the barbarians at the desert of the Second Cataract region, where, In later days, In spite of his pro- hibition, he was worshipped as the tutelary deity of Nubia.
The energy of this proclamation is reflected in the traits of the king's face, which we know well from several statues of him, notably those discovered in the forecourt of the temple of Neb- hapetre, at Der el-Bahri, where the king had placed them as a tribute to his great predecessor. These represent the king at different periods of his life, from youth to old age. Three are in the British Museum, and the oldest shows us a visage of fierce vigour and pride. He reigned 38 years, some of them possibly In co-regency with his father, and seems to have associated his suc- cessor with him on the throne, although so masterful a man would be hardly likely to delegate any of his authority for long. Probably he had removed all danger of feudal revolt. His power bore heavily on the great local princes, who no doubt found in him a hard task-master. The Amenis and Khnumhoteps of earlier reigns do not reappear under him. He abolished their power, and his successor was the all-powerful divine lord of all Egypt, as Khufu and Khafre had been*
He was buried In the northern brick pyramid of Dahshur, north of Lisht. Near him were Interred his queen and two of the prin- cesses of his family, whose graves have yielded to the Cairo Museum an inestimable treasure of the jeweller *s art of ..the time, in the shape of beautiful pectoral ornaments, bracelets and scarabs of gold inlaid with carnelian, jasper, lapis and green felspar, neck-
VIII, i] AMENEMHET III 309
laces of solid gold cowries,, beads of gold and amethyst, and pendant's in the shape of the claws of lions.
The great Sesostris was succeeded by the greater Amenemhet III Ne-maat-re or 'Lamaris' (V. 2061—2013 B.C,?)? one of the most remarkable monarchs of antiquity. He was the counterpart in peace of what Sesostris had been in war. His reign lasted 48 years. He associated with him in his royalty for a time a prince named Hor? with the throne-name Auibre, who seems to have died before him. Thereafter he ruled alone, the 'good god' who benefited Egypt more than any before him, except possibly the unknown early maker of the Bahr Yusef, the artificial stream that duplicates the course of the Nile and widens its cultivation for so many scores of miles in Middle Egypt. He was the regulator, rather than the creator, of Lake Moeris, now represented by the somewhat dif- ferently lying Birket el-Karun, in the Fayyum, the ' Lake Province' dedicated to the worship of the crocodile-god Sebek. The Fayyum, owing to its proximity to Itht-toui, had engaged the attention of his predecessors from the time of Amenemhet I; the third Amenemhet regulated the outflow of its waters into the Nile by constructing a barrage at Lahun, and reclaimed a large expanse of its shallow waters by means of a huge curved dike. The great building at Hawara in the Fayyum (called *the Labyrinth' by the classical authors) was built by him, and he was buried here in a pyramid. Some extraordinary statues and sphinxes of unique style, formerly attributed to the Hyksos, found at Tanis, and representing Nile- gods and possibly the king himself, were probably originally erected by him at Hawara, and later transported to Tanis by a Hyksos king. The extraordinarily rugged and original style of these monuments, if they are his, reflects the powerful mind of this king, who inherited all the vigour of the great Sesostris.
Sinai, the land of the turquoise and of copper, was much ex- ploited by him, and we have numerous records on its rocks of expeditions sent thither during his reign. In Nubia he seerns to have restored the old southern dominion in the Dongola province, which had been abandoned by Senusret III; and he built or rebuilt one of the twin brick fortresses called Defufa, at the Third Cataract (Kerma), which had been occupied as a trading outpost and point d'appui since the days of Pepi I, and where Hapzefi was buried with his native household in the time of Senusret I,
• Imposing and stable must the constitution of Egypt have appeared in his reign. In his time, as has been said, all power was centred in the monarch, and the old hereditary chiefs of the nomes had been succeeded by a bureaucracy of town-mayors,
3io EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP
corresponding to the county-sheriffs of the IVth Dynasty. Yet, as so often occurred, when the state seemed most firmly organized, collapse was near. Its stability now depended on the personality of the king: if that failed, the whole fell to pieces. This was the case now* Amenemhet III was succeeded by a nonentity, Axnenem- het IV, and he, after a reign of nine years alone, by a queen, Sebeknefrure. The latter reigned four years, and then probably married the founder of the XHIth Dynasty, Khutouire Ugafa, whose personal name shows that he was a commoner or noble of another family, who assumed the crown in the right of his wife. His quite legal accession was not acknowledged at Thebes, which set up a king of its own, no doubt a junior male member of the royal family. Several Theban monarchs reigned, Senusret IV and several Mentuhoteps. They put up their statues at Karnak, but they are not mentioned in the lists, which recognize only Khu- touire and his successors, who reigned at Itht-toui. They were devotees of Sebek, as the name Sebekhotep, characteristic of the family, shows. Egypt was once again divided.
The Turin Papyrus gives Khutouire no less than fourteen successors, all of them ephemeral, before Sebekhotep I, Sekhem- khutouire, reunited the land for a time. Two kings named Sebekemsaf then ruled Thebes alone, followed by Sebekhotep II, and the brothers Menuazre, Neferhotep and Sebekhotep III, who again controlled the whole country. These brethren appear to have been of plebeian origin, and it is evident that the royal succession was drifting into a very confused state. After their time the kingdom finally failed to reunite. At Thebes the royal house of later Intefs or Iniotefs, the most prominent of whom bore the throne-name Nubkheperre, preserved a comparatively powerful kingdom in the south; but the north was evidently the prey of civil war, until finally, in the reign of a king of the Delta whom Manetho calls Toutimaios, belonging to the XlVth or Xoite dynasty, northern Egypt was enslaved by a foreign con- queror from Asia, Salitis, the first of the Hyksos or ' shepherd- kings* (c. 1800 B.C.?)*
II THE HYKSOS
The Hyksos conquest was me greatest national disaster that ever befel the Egyptians until the Assyrian conquest a thousand years later. Its memory was never forgotten, and it left on the minds of the Egyptians an enduring hatred of the Asiatics, which transformed them, under the kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty, into
VIII, n] THE HYKSOS INVASION 311
the vengeful conquerors of Asia. Never before Bad Egyptian territory been held for centuries by foreigners. And although the rulers x>f these foreigners dressed themselves in the titles and authority of native pharaohs, they were never accepted as rightful kings. Only for a short period did they succeed in conquering Upper Egypt and ruling the whole country. Thebes made a stout fight against them at the beginning under the later Intefs; and it was at Thebes under their descendants the Sekenenres that the national revolt began which ended in their final expulsion by the founder of the XVIIIth Dynasty, Fahmases or Ahmose (Aahmes, Manetho's Amosis), an event which the great Jewish historian Josephus regarded, and justly, in the present writer's opinion, as the original of the biblical story of the Exodus (see pp. 164, 237).
The Hyksos were doubtless chiefly Semites of the northern or Syrian type, led by a royal sheikh. The name Hyksos is the Egyptian Hifcu-kkasut (pronounced in later times something like hik-shos\ 'princes of the deserts/ the usual appellation for bedouin chiefs. Abshai is so called in the tomb of Khnumhotep (p. 306). Indeed, Khayan, or Khian, the greatest of the Hyksos kings, actually has the title htk-khasut. Manetho translates the phrase as * prince of the shepherds/ by confusion with another word, s/zasu (c bedouins *), who might well be described as shepherds, since the chief occupa- tion of those Arabs who lived on the borders of Egypt was the breeding and herding of immense flocks of sheep. One sees the same thing in Mesopotamia to-day: the desert Arab, the camel and horse-breeder, despises the shepherd of the borderland of 'the sown/ It was to the horse and chariot, as well as to superior weapons, that the invaders owed their victory. Neither was known to the Egyptians before this invasion. One Egyptian word for 'horse/ htori^ really means "yoked,' and refers to the yoking of the two steeds to the chariot, another, sesemy is apparently Semitic; and of the two foreign words, for * chariot/ wererit &&& markakata> the latter is Semitic.
This great invasion can very probably be traced to that epoch- making event, the first appearance of the Indo-Europeans on the Near Eastern stage. Shortly before 2000 B.C. the Aryans seem to have descended from the Oxus-land into Media, and made their presence felt on the eastern mountain-border of the Semitic king- dom of Babylon, the realm of the great law-giver Hammurabi and his successors. They brought with them from central Asia the horse, hitherto unknown to the Babylonians, who had previously gone to war in chariots drawn by asses (see pp. 107, 501). The Egyptian, although he had multitudes of asses, had never harnessed
3i2 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
them 'to wheeled carts. Babylon was taken^ and sacked^ by the Hittites (c. B.C. 1926?), who retired after their raid, carrying with them their spoil to distant Anatolia (p. 56 1). The derelict kingdom was subsequently pounced upon by the Kassites, who swarmed over the Zagros under Gandash, and founded a dynasty (Aryan) at Babylon which lasted for six centuries (see Chap. xv). Simul- taneously, other Aryan tribes seem to have entered Mesopotamia further north; and in the region of the Khabur and Balikh the state of Mitanni was eventually set up, ruled by a royal house and aristocracy of horse-riding Kharri ( PAryans), and worshipping, as we know from cuneiform documents of the Atnarna Age, the gods Indra, Varuna, and the Nasatya twins (the Asvins). Moreover the chief god of the Kassitesis said to have been Shuriyash^ the Indian Surya (with nominative termination)., the Sun (p. 553). This fact shows that the differentiation between Indian and Iranian Aryans had not yet taken place*
It is easy to imagine the confusion caused in northern Syria, already highly civilized, by the invasion. There would be a con- siderable displacement of the native population which would react further south. Waves of dispossessed Syrians must have flowed into Palestine, followed by bands of the Kharri^ and it is highly significant that in the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty (1400 B.C.) we find in Palestine such names as Yashdata (Yazdata) and Shu- wardata (Suryadata, i.e. ( Given by the Sun': 'Heliodotos'). The congeries of nations, mingled Syrians, bedouins, and Aryans then burst the weak barrier of the * Prince's Wall * that had hitherto sufficed to defend the Delta, and overwhelmed Egypt. These people neither knew Egypt nor reverenced her gods; they burnt and destroyed the temples and enslaved the people; the echo of their impious deeds moves Manetho in his day to passion; and the Delta, especially, was so ravaged that it did not recover till the time of the XlXth Dynasty, three or four centuries later. During the period of the XVIIIth its cities are hardly ever mentioned in the inscriptions. The Theban kings alone succeeded in stemming the torrent, and for a time preserved their independence. But murder and rapine could not go on for ever, and the chiefs of the newcomers assumed Egyptian royal dignity. The Hyksos kings reigned at Avaris (probably Pelusium). Another stronghold was at the place now known as Tell el-Yehudiyeh, 'the Mound of the Jewess3^ (near Zagazig), a name that may preserve a memory of the nationality of its builders. Memphis also was one,, of their chief seats.
The Hyksos may well have owed much of their success to their
VIII, n] THE SHEPHERD-KINGS 313
bronze scimitars (pp« 319? 572)- According to Manethb, they formed'two dynasties, the XVth and XVIth. Naturally their names are ignored in the official lists. Manetho gives the names of their first kings, Salitis, Bnon, Apakhnas, Apophis, lannas, and Aseth, which have been identified with more or less success with various unplaced royal names that occur on scarabs and other relics of this period. It was probably somewhere about this time that the Theban king Intef Nubkheperre lived, who in a remarkable stela set up at Coptos tells us how he cursed root and branch 'Teti (let his name be anathema!), son of Minhotep,' who had received cthe enemy' in the temple of Coptos, 'Let him be expelled from his office in the temple: even unto his son's son and the heir of his heir let him be cast forth. Take his loaves and sacred food: let not his name be remembered in this temple, as is done to one who like him hath transgressed with regard to the Enemy of his God ! ' Evidently Teti was a priest who had received an emissary of the Hyksos or possibly had even admitted a Hyksos garrison into Coptos.
There were certainly several kings of the name Apophis, in Egyptian Apopi. The first of these was pretty certainly he who bore the significant throne-name of Neb-khepesh, ' Lord of the Scimitar/ Apopi II Ouserre, and Apppi III Okenenre, were of later date, and among the last of the Hyksos. Between the earlier group vouched for by Manetho and the later Apophis came several less distinguished kings bearing Semitic names, Yekeb-hal ('Jacob is god7), Ye|:eb-ba£al ('Jacob is lord'), cAnt-hal (:Anath is god'), and then Khian, who bore the Egyptian throne-name Seuserenre (see p. 232)* He took the unusual title of ink-idebu^ €Embracer of Territories/ and proclaimed himself as the Mk-khasut. The alabastron-lid bearing his name found at Cnossus in Crete may well be an importation of his time; the small stone lion with his throne-name from Baghdad may have been brought from Egypt at a much later date. Neither proves that his power reached Crete or Babylon, But he was undoubtedly a powerful monarch, and there is little doubt that under him Theban independence no longer existed. His successor Apopi II recorded his rule at Gebelen in Upper Egypt, south of Thebes. This king also set up great gates in the temple of Tanis in the Delta, and we have a record of the thirty-third year of his reign in the subscription of a mathematical papyrus.
A doubtful king, Setopehti Nubti, commemorated by Ramses II as having reigned 400 years before his time, will if he is a king at all, and not merely the god Set (Sutekh) himself, belong to
3i4 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
about this time (c. 1700 B.C.). There is also Osehre, who erected an obelisk at Tanis, and Apopi III, in whose time the final war broke out with Thebes that resulted in the Expulsion x>f the Hyksos. A tributary king Sekenenre I, Taa, *the great/ who bore the Egyptian royal titles, reigned at Thebes about forty years before the Expulsion, and in his reign the War of Liberation probably began. About 1615 B.C. he was succeeded by Sekenenre II, Taa, 'the twice-great/ who was shortlived, and was followed perhaps about 1605 by Sekenenre III, Taa5 'the great and vic- torious/ who was either killed in battle or assassinated (probably about 1 590)5 as we know from the appearance of his mummy, now in the Cairo Museum. The actual manner of his death and the order in which he received the blows that struck him down can be reconstituted from examination of the mummy. He married a princess named lahhotep, and by her had three sons, Kainases (Kames), Senekhtenre, and lahmases (Amosis or Ahmose), who succeeded each other in order on the throne, the last being the liberator and founder of the XVIIIth Dynasty.
At the beginning of the reign of Sekenenre III a temporary peace existed between the two powers, probably after a struggle that had resulted in the pushing forward, in the reign of Sekenenre I, of the Theban power at least as far northwards as Herinopolis. For it is in that reign that the queen lahhotep was born, and with her begins, so far as we know, the popularity of names con- nected with the moon (lalihotep, lahmases) and the moon-god Thoth (Thutmases? Thutmose or Tethmosis) in his family. It would seem probable therefore, either that the family was of Herinopolite origin, or, as is more likely, that in the reign of Sekenenre I the Thebans had captured Ekhmunu (Hermopolis Magna), and then adopted the lunar names, in honour of the liberated god^ However this may be, in the time of Sekenenre III Thebes was still tributary to the Hyksos. Contemporaneously with Sekenenre III reigned the Hyksos Apopi III; and from a papyrus wp learn that war broke out between the two owing to the pro- vocation of the Hyksos, who complained that the roaring of the hippopotami in the royal tank at Thebes disturbed his sleep at Ayaris, Since 'the white land* was tributary to him, he sent to the King of the South to request an abatement of the nuisance. Sekenenre summoned his counsellors, who knew not what to advise him to reply to the Hyksos, good or ill. He no doubt endeavoured to placate his overlord with fair words, but, Apopi was bent on war, which resulted disastrously for the Theban. In the reign of Kames we know that the Theban dominion reached
VIII, m] THE EXPULSION OF THE HYKSOS 315
only as far as Cusae, which is a long way south of Hermopolis. The wsS: is described by Manetho as a long and mighty one- It must iiave greatly resembled that waged by the original Thebans against the Heracleopolites five centuries or so before, and was no doubt carried on intermittently and with various success. Kames, however, must have again renewed it, and it is probable that he took Memphis, the capture of which is not mentioned under Amosis (lahmases), who took the war into the Delta. He captured Avaris and, after a siege of three years, Sharuhen in the Negeb of southern Palestine, where the remnant of the Hyksos had con- gregated.
We do not know the name of the last Hyksos king. From the inscription of Aahmes, a companion of the king, we know that a certain Aati invaded Egypt south of the Delta while Amosis was absent, after the taking of Sharuhen, in a punitive expedition against the Nubians. This may have been an attempt on the part of the expelled to regain their position. Amosis easily defeated him. Another enemy named Teti-an, who was then * extinguished ' (as the inscription says), was pretty certainly an Egyptian rebel. Thenceforth the land had peace, and entered into the flourish- ing period of the *New Kingdom,* reunited under the rule of Amosis and his descendants, the kings of Manetho's XVIIIth Dynasty. The accession of Amosis can be dated within a few years either way to 1580 B.C. Avaris was taken about 1578, and Sharuhen about 1575 B.C. With these historical dates our survey of the earlier period of Egyptian history closes,
III. THE INTERNAL CONDITIONS OF THE AGE
The debatable point with regard to the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, the history of which has been briefly described above, is its date: the period of time which it covered (see p. 169). We have followed in a modified form the shorter chronology which at present is accepted by the majority of Egyptologists, It is im- possible to believe that the events of the Middle Kingdom, the essential outlines of which we have given, can fill out the fifteen hundred years that are necessitated by the 'long* chronology, as - against the four or five hundred at most that the 'short* chronology demands. There is not the material to fill the longer period; ahd the differences between the early XVIIIth Dynasty and the Xllth are notjsuch as would inevitably be seen if eighteen hundred years had intervened between them instead of only four hundred* After all, four hundred years is a pretty long period of time, in which all
3i 6 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
the changes we see between the civilisations of the two periods may easily have been brought about. We hold therefore Chat the period of the Middle Kingdom, which ended certainly within a few years either way of 1580 B.C., began with the Xlth Dynasty., not earlier than about 2400, the XHth having flourished between 2212 and 2000 B.C*
Within these limits the Middle Kingdom forms a well-defined epoch of ancient Egyptian civilization. In some respects it may be regarded as marking its culmination. Remarkable as are the revelations of late years with regard to the art of the Old Kingdom, that of the XHth Dynasty still holds its place as the classic age of the sculptor, the painter, the wood-carver, and the jeweller of ancient Egypt, And the Middle Kingdom is the classical period of the Egyptian language. Its correct literary form is now fixed until the time of the Ramessids, when the current 'slang' locutions of the day were first admitted into formal inscriptions. Under the XVII Ith Dynasty official phraseology and book-talk, 'classical Egyptian,* differed from the usual speech of ordinary life much as happens to-day; the speech of the Xllth Dynasty was still used for formal purposes as that of the eighteenth century is now. But under the Xllth Dynasty the language of the inscriptions, the classical tongue, was the ordinary language of the time. It is in the inscriptions of the Middle Kingdom that we find the language in its greatest purity. So far as material civilization went, we perhaps do not see much advance upon the standard of the Old Kingdom, Under the XVIIIth Dynasty Egypt entered upon an altogether widened world, with immeasurably increased demands and hitherto unheard-of satisfactions. The Middle Kingdom was still in the same stage of development as the Old, so far as foreign relations were concerned and the broadening (and degeneration) of culture that resulted therefrom. Egypt was still, as in the days of the Pyramid-builders, self-contained. She needed nothing from others but big timber, oil and wine from Syria, for which she bartered the contents of her overflowing granaries and some of the gold which her Nubian slaves got for her. For her actual sub- sistence she raised more than all that was necessary : her imports were a few luxuries* She was self-sufficient, and needed no foreign gods, foreign wives, and foreign ways such as came to her later in the time of the conquering kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty.
Egypt in the time of the Xllth Dynasty was still a world by itself, ruled by a god in human form, as it had been in the time of the Pyramid-builders, and there was as yet no comity with other non-Egyptian, political organizations as there was in the time of
VIII, in] THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 317
the XVIIIth Dynasty, when the king of Egypt addressed the king ofTHattij of Mitanni, of Babylon, or of Assyria, as £ Monsieur men JFr&re. . .je suis de Votre Majeste le bon frere/ We may compare the pharaohs of the Xllth Dynasty, in relation to the outer world of Babylon, of Elam, or of the Hittites, the world of Hammurabi and his predecessors, with the great Chinese em- perors of the eighteenth century, with K'ang-hsi and Chien-lung, in their relation to the outer world of England, France and Holland, before the catastrophe of the wars of the nineteenth century proved to China, as the Hyksos conquest had to Egypt so many thousand years before, that there were other people in the world besides herself. We shall not therefore look for any great difference be- tween the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt so far as the general life of the people is concerned. We have seen in both ages change and evolution in local government, alternate periods of strength and weakness of the central royal power, corresponding to periods of weakness and strength of local magnates, of whom some one fortunate or more than usually energetic family may succeed in acquiring the royal authority Itself, and, as the reigning house, may eventually extinguish the local power of less successful princely families originally perhaps more important than itself. But whether the pharaoh was powerful or weak, whether dues were paid to the court or to the chief^ the life of the fellah has con- tinued practically unchanged throughout the centuries.
So far as the life of the common people Is concerned, Egypt is the most amazingly unchanging country in the world, it has changed less even than China. The life of the fellah of the Xllth or even of the IVth Dynasty is much the same as it is to-day. The change of religion to Christianity and then to Islam has altered nothing but the form of prayer : the changes of political allegiance have mattered nothing at all. The agricultural and urban classes were differentiated just as they are to-day. The 'Story of the Eloquent Peasant/ which dates from the Xllth Dynasty, tells us of the relations between the hemtiu or artizans of the towns and the sekhtiu or fellahin. Many wrongs and indignities did a certain long-suffering sekhti of the Fayyum bear from an overbearing hemti^ till at last he complained to the royal high- steward, MeruitensL On the steward's report of the matter, the king told his nobles to see how many times the sekhti would make complaint, if nothing was done. Again and again he came until finally ,30 charmed were the nobles with his importunate eloquence that the Jiemti at last got his deserts (see p. 349). The lot of the sekhtiu was hard. As now, they rarely moved their habitat, and
3s8 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP
\vere practically tied to the land, which belonged either to the king or to the great "feudatories, and after the Middle Kingdonl also to the great priest!}7 corporations. They were serfs, but not slaves. The latter were chiefly foreign war-prisoners, and it is perhaps to colonies of Nubian prisoners that we may ascribe the peculiar "pan-grave" burials, with their Nubian pottery, that occur in Egypt at this period. The Theban kings of Hyksos times seem to have lost control over Nubia, and we find the ancient trading settlement of the Defufa-fortresses, which had been founded in the reign of Pepi I, destroyed by fire in the Hyksos period, prob- ably in a negro revolt. We have seen that one of the first tasks of Ahmose after the expulsion of the Hyksos, was the restoration of Egyptian dominion in Nubia and of the commerce in gold, ostrich-feathers, and slaves which had contributed so much to the wealth of the Xllth Dynasty kings.
The forbidding of private war by Amenemhet I and his suc- cessors certainly bettered the condition of the common people, as their lot must have been miserable during the dark age of civil war that preceded the triumph of the Thebans. No doubt they were better off during the period that immediately ensued, when the land had peace; but the old local princes, who would be sym- pathetic to their own peasants and retainers, still ruled their nomes. The abolition of hereditary jurisdictions however, probably by Senusret III, and development of a local bureaucracy, probably by Amenemhet III, must, though it operated admirably in the interests of the monarch, have often borne hardly on the fellahin, who would now be exposed to the exactions of petty officials. But a new element in the state had now appeared, which rendered the change from feudalism to bureaucracy easier than otherwise it would have been. This was a real middle-class of free townsmen and small landholders, which had not existed under the Old King- dom. These people could supply the army of scribes and officials necessary for the new regime,
The supremacy of the authority of the court meant that the king V vizier 'and his myrmidons resumed a power that they had not possessed since the days of the IVth Dynasty, It paved the way for the elaborate bureaucratic state-organization which we find under the XVIIIth, with its two viziers, its independent treasurer, its royal assessors, its local courts of justice, and so forth, all ultimately under the control of the viziers, but with various checks and balances devised to prevent the danger, of too great a concentration of power in the hands of subjects. The vizier under the Xllth Dynasty was head of the civil administra-
VIII, m] THE OFFICIALS AND SOLDIERS 319
tlon of the south and north. Under him were 'the great ones of the southern Tens' (an ancient title the precise meaning of which escapes us) who supervised all records for purposes of land- measurement) taxation and corvee. The yearly obliteration of landmarks caused by the inundation necessitated then as now an enormous amount of survey and adjudicatory work. The vizier also supervised the law-courts, the six * Great Houses* and the * House of the Thirty/ and he could be High Treasurer also, a position which was never permitted under the XVIIIth Dynasty, when the vizier had no control of the public purse. The Xllth Dynasty vizier was by no means always a stationary minister, resident always at the court or capital. He was often sent out on expeditions to fetch gold or chastise Nubians, and was expected to act in a military capacity when required.
The armed force of the court was a body of regular infantry soldiers, many of them Sudanese, recruited for the king's service, and stationed at various places, chiefly no doubt at Itht-toui, in Nubia, and in Sinai, under commanders who had been brought up at the court under the royal eye. During the first half of the dynasty the local princes also had their own armed retainers, whom the king could call out on his service under the leadership of their- lords, as under the Vlth and Vllth Dynasties. But these fell into desuetude with the privileges of their masters. The chief arms were, as under the Old Kingdom, the bow (a very weak one) and arrows (with heads of flint still, or hardened wood), the broad- bladed spear, long bill, and small hatchet (usually of copper, but bronze is beginning to appear), and a short sword or dagger of bronze with a peculiar hilt of ivory let into the metal. Swords and hatchets were often inlaid with gold. Towards the end of the Middle Kingdom a new form of bronze sword, or rather scimitar (khepesK]y of peculiar kinked form, was introduced, perhaps by the Hyksos. It later became the most favourite arm. The stone- headed mace of the Old Kingdom was no longer used (p. 572,).
In connexion with weapons it may be said that the Egyptians passed from the Chalcolithic to the Copper Age about the time of the IVth Dynasty, and from the Copper Age to the fully- developed Bronze Age during the Middle Kingdom, Under the Xllth Dynasty stone was still employed for the cheapest of knives used by the fellahin for chopping up meat, etc., and for the arrow- heads which once shot off would never be recovered. Razors and fine daggers, however, were now of finely-tempered bronze, ordinary knives and weapons of copper. Horses and chariots were unknown till the Hyksos conquest (above, p. 31 1); but they
320 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
were speedily adopted by the Egyptians, and no doubt used by the Tliebans'in the war of liberation. But it can be seen that their use in Egypt must always have been hampered by the peculiarities of the terrain* Nilotic warfare was conducted on ship-board, and it was the river flotilla rather than the array of chariots that was the chief weapon of war-makers in Egypt. Not until they carried war- fare into Palestine in pursuit of the fleeing Hyksos did the Egyptians realize the full value of the chariot. It was no doubt owing to the difficulty of using their chariots in Egypt that the Hyksos did not at the first rush conquer the whole valley as far south as Nubia.
The popular idea of the Egyptians as no sailors and as afraid of the sea is entirely erroneous. The Egyptians fought well at Salamis and at Navarino: the Ptolemaic navy ruled the seas. And in the early days they sailed to Phoenicia in the time of Snefru or earlier, and to Somaliland under the Vlth Dynasty. Under the Xllth the voyages of Enenkhet and Henu were often repeated. Egyptian trading and revictualling settlements existed all along the Red Sea coast, and ships were always coasting from one to the other on the way to or from Puenet, As usual, the sailor-mind developed many a tale of the wonders of the voyage, one of which is known to us, 'the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor/ and is of this period (see p. 348)*
On land the ass formed the sole means of carrying,, and the ox of dragging transport. The camel, though it must have been known, is -never represented. It was the animal of the bedouins and was probably regarded as specially unclean. The ass was never harnessed to a cart. The wheel was not an Egyptian invention. The sledge-runner was universal as the under-carriage of man- drawn carts until the introduction of the chariot at the end of the Middle Kingdom* In all probability the cart-wheel was first in- vented by the Surnerians or the Elamites. The potter's wheel also may have come from the same source, as it does not appear in Egypt till well on in the Old Kingdom, but was evidently used much earlier in Elam. On the other hand, the Egyptian was the inventor of the art of glazing pottery. Glass, originally always blue, made from copper-frit, was an Egyptian discovery of late predynastic days.^ The blue glaze was used to coat not only the light faience of siliceous sand held together with gum or paste, but soft stone also, such as steatite, of which blue glazed scarabs, imitating lapis or turquoise, were first made towards the end of the Old Kingdom, and came into regular use in the reign of Senusret I. See^p. 576.
Artists of all kinds found ample scope for their talents in the
VIII, m] THE TOMB AND FUNERARY STATE 321
decoration of the tomb and its appurtenances. We see a notable development in the furniture of the Middle Kingdom tomb that marks^it off from the tombs of the preceding and succeeding periods. With the great wooden chests containing the body, often sealed up in a covering of cartonnage (pasted thicknesses of linen covered with stucco), painted in imitation of the human face and form, were buried innumerable wooden models of varying excel- lence of workmanship., depicting the dead man's ghostly servants engaged in field-labours, emptying sacks of corn into granaries, grinding the grain, making beer of it, stamping out the grapes to make wine, butchering animals, carrying dead wild fowl, and so on, while models of boats with sails of linen complete are always present with little wooden soldiers, Egyptians and negroes, on board with their cow-hide shields and their spears, and a deck- house in which sits a small figure of the great man himself. All these, like the wall-decorations of the larger tombs (now usually painted in tempera rather than sculptured in relief as under the Old Kingdom), had a c magical* purpose. They were intended to turn into actual servants in the next world, to carry on a life for the dead like that which he had led on earth,
We now for the first time find in the tombs, though rarely, the shauabti (#,r^£/z)~figures, or * answerers,* which in later times were the commonest accompaniment of the dead* These were supposed, as stated by the VI th chapter of the Book of the Dead, which later on was inscribed upon them, to answer 'Here am I!* whenever the dead man was called upon to do any work in the other world. They possibly represent the servants who in early days had been actually put to death in order to serve their masters beyond the grave. We know that in Nubia slaves were executed at the tomb with this object; and it is by no means certain that in the case of the burial of the king inhuman rites of this kind were not still practised during the Middle Kingdom. The priestess-princesses who were buried in the precinct of the tomb-temple of Nebhapetre at Der el-Bahri were very probably his harem-women, killed and buried with him. And the enigmatic bodies found with the big funeral boat in the tomb of Amenhotep II, under the XVIIIth Dynasty, may also have been slain royal favourites. This boat is the last known example of the custom of burying such models with the dead, which had died out by the beginning of the XVIIIth Dynasty.
The custom of mummification was as yet by no means common, bodies ^>f this period being usually found as skeletons. But the wrappings of fine linen (one of the oldest Egyptian inventions)
C.A.H.I zi
322 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
had been In use from the time of the Old Kingdom, and a special goddess, Tait, presided over their manufacture and use* To be buried in such, and to wear linen garments in life, were the mark of the civilized Egyptian, who prided himself much on the purity and cleanliness of his garments and his clean-shaven face and head, as compared with the greasy woollen or skin habiliments and the hairiness of foreigners* The wig was a concession to nature; it was worn also by women, but over their own hair. Boys, and sometimes little girls, wore three-quarters of the head shaven, while a single plaited lock hung over the right ear. This was the symbol of youth; the boy-god Harpocrates was represented with it, and the fashion never changed.
The masta&a-tomb was now given up, and the great were buried in rock-cut sepulchres opening in the sloping face of the desert- clifFs bounding the river valley. The king, however, was still buried in a pyramid, though he might, like Senusret III, have a duplicate tomb cut in the rock at Abydos, or like Nebhapetre have a dummy pyramid as a mere ornament to his tomb-chapel, the actual rock-cut tomb being in the cliff. Persons of lesser note than the feudal nobles were buried in tomb-chambers opening out of the bottom of a deep shaft.
Under the Middle Kingdom the religion of the dead was bulk- ing more and more in the Egyptian mind. Osiris, originally Syrian (pp.264, 333) now came to his kingdom. If the new god Amon-Re took command of the pantheon, the Delta god of the dead, known during the Old Kingdom only in Lower Egypt, was now para- mount among the shades. Osiris had passed from Busiris to Sakkarah in the Pyramid-period, and had become identified with the local Sokari; by the time of the Xllth Dynasty he had taken over Abydos from its original owner, the jackal Anubis, with his title of Khentamentiu. The very ancient funerary prayer (the ne$et-di-hefep formula), In which the king is besought to give the funerary, meals and everything 'good and pure' on which the dead man lives, in the presence of Anubis, is now addressed primarily to Osiris, *great god> lord of Abydos/ and the invocation of the kitig- has^become a meaningless phrase. The Busirite doctrine of the identification of the dead person, male or female, with the god, so that every dead man or woman or child became ipso facto a god, 4 the god there/ 4the Osiris N or Af/ is now in full vogue at Abydos as well as at Sakkarah; Osiris is the * universal lord' of the dead, the neb-er-xer or "Lord as far as the boundary/ and every Egyptian adores him. Abydos has become a place of common pilgrimage; all would wish to be buried there; those great ones
VIII, in] THE PRIESTHOOD 323
who cannot sleep at Abydos have stelae put up there in their honour (p. 350$. It is more than probable that this national devotion to Osiris^t Abydos was deliberately encouraged by the kings of the Xllth Dynasty in order to foster a feeling of common nationality under Upper Egyptian auspices : the worship of Osiris and that of Amon-Re would go hand in hand. But the latter was not yet the universal god of the living as Osiris was of the dead. For the religious purposes of daily life the people preferred their own local deities. But in imitation of Amon, we find the custom beginning of identifying such local divinities as Sebek with Re.
There was as yet no priestly class in the later sense, except at the necropoles, where the chantry-priests of the Old Kingdom had developed into cemetery-chaplains. The temples were now served by professional chief priests instead of nobles assuming the sacerdotal dignity, as under the Old Kingdom. But they were few in number, all the subordinate priests being laymen who per- formed priestly duties. It is not till the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty that the great priestly college of Arnon-Re at Thebes appears, which was to be imitated on a smaller scale in every temple throughout the land, so that in the days of Herodotus they had come to resemble a caste apart.
Whether this development of the XVIIIth Dynasty was native * to Egypt and Thebes, or whether it was a foreign idea, derived possibly from Syria or Anatolia, we do not know. One later de- velopment of Egyptian religion, and that a heretical one, may perhaps be due to Semitic influence: w:s. monotheism. The heno- theistic worship of a god was common enough, but monotheism, whether patent or latent, was unknown to the native religion. We see it first in Egypt as a characteristic of the Semitic ETyksos kings; Apopi III 'took Sutekh for his lord and served no other god in all the land but he/ says the chronicler of the quarrel of the two kings, Sutekh was a god of the desert edge in the region of Lake MenzalehandPelusium: he was more than half Syrian and identical with a Semitic Baal (pp. 231 sy., 275), During the Middle King- dom he seems to have become identified with the Upper Egyptian god Set of Ombos; and in later times is depicted sometimes in Syrian guise and sometimes as Set. The Hyksos worshipped him as their patron-deity; and, in consequence, Set, who was already unpopular except at Ombos, owing to the old tradition of his hostility to Horus, became anathema to the Egyptians. His enmity to Horus took in a new meaning: he became the murderer of Osiris; £is worship was proscribed. Under the XVIIIth Dynasty he never appears. But monotheistic traditions remained in the
324 EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM [CHAP.
Delta lifter the expulsion of the Hyksos, and we shall find them developing at Heliopolis, always receptive of eastern influence, until, centuries later, under Amenhotep III and IV we h^ve the monotheistic adoration of the aton or solar disk as the living mani- festation of the one god behind the sun. But to the Egyptian such monotheism was as abhorrent as ApopFs worship of Sutekh had been. The Egyptian always worshipped many gods, and when, as Is sometimes the case In religious hymns, he appears to be praising one alone, it is henotheistic praise, not monotheistic.
In religious literature the chapters of the Book of Coming Forth by Day were increasing in number, in complexity, and In unin- telligibility. But no doubt they fulfilled admirably their purpose, that of a guide to the devious ways of the next world. Sometimes at this time we find elaborate maps of the Duat or underworld painted with accompanying texts on the Inside of coffins.
Besides the literature already referred to (see further, Chap, ix) we have a more human and more Interesting memorial of the Egyptian feeling with regard to death in a poem of this time, which was said to have been inscribed in front of the relief figure of a harper 'In the tomb-chapel of king Intef, deceased/ We do not know which of the kings of this name is meant. The harper was evidently supposed to sing the song, which has been likened to the Dirge of Maneros, which, Herodotus says, was chanted while the mummy-figure was carried round the feast :
All hail to the prince,, th
, -Syjujfe his children remain for aye.
The gods of old rest In their tombs, And the mummies of men long dead; The same for both rich and poor.
The words of Imhotep I hear,
The words of Horded e£> which say: —
'What Is prosperity? tell!9
Their fences and walls are destroyed, Their houses exist no more; And no man cometh again from the tomb To tell of what passeth below.
Ye go to the place of the mourners^ To the bourne whence none return; Strengthen your hearts to forget your joys, Yet fulfil your desires while ye live.
Anoint yourselves, clothe yourselves well, Use the gifts which the gods bestow, Fulfil your desires upon earth.
VIII, in] THE PROPHECIES OF IPUWER 325
For the day will come to you all *
w When ye hear not the voices of friends, ^ When weeping avails you no more.
So feast in tranquillity now,
For none taketh his goods below to the tomb.
And none cometh thence back again!
'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!' The refrain echoes down the ages from the time of king Intef. The pathetic character of the whole Egyptian care for the dead strikes one more and more: they took such pains to secure their own and their friends' happiness in the unknown; they persuaded them- selves that they knew all about it, and wrote magic guide-books to it. But the truth came out in the Song of the Harper, Yet this pathetic solicitude for the dead is evidence of a far higher culture, of a far greater humanity in the best sense of the word, in Egypt than among the Semites, with their wretched Sheol, and their comparatively primitive burymgs, Sinuhe chose well when at the close of his life he decided that he would not be buried in a sheep- skin like a bedouin, but would return to enter his swept and garnished tomb, to receive his mummy-swathings from the hand of Tait, and sleep in his great coffin of painted wood with his boats and his models of servants about him,
The first period of the history of Ancient Egypt was brought to an end by a catastrophe which subjected the land to cruel foreign conquerors. The disaster may well have seemed to be foreshadowed in the weird prophecies of Ipuwer, which foretold dire calamities to come upon the land, the overthrow of the state, the invasion of foreigners, and the destruction of all civilization, followed by the advent of a Messianic ruler who should save Egypt from her misery (pp. 341, 345 ^.). This saviour might well have seemed to come in the persons of the Liberator and his descendants, the kings of the XVIIIth Dynasty.
CHAPTER IX
LIFE AND THOUGHT IN EGYPT UNDER THE OLD AND MIDDLE KINGDOMS
J\ CCORDING to Plato, while the love of knowledge would be jH^ chiefly attributed to his own country, people would especially connect the love of riches with the Phoenicians and the Egyptians. He was the one Greek who seems to have been unimpressed by that * wisdom of the Egyptians' which was almost a by- word in the mouths of his fellow countrymen. And the decipherment of the Egyptian texts has shown that Plato was right. 'Most scholars/ it has been said, 'would agree with the verdict that the Egyptians show no real love of truth, no desire to probe into the inner nature of things. Their minds were otherwise oriented: a highly-gifted people, exhibiting talent in almost every direction, their bent was towards material prosperity and artistic enjoyment; contemplation and thought for their own sake — necessities to the peoples of Greece and India — were alien to the temperament of the Egyp- tians/ Settled early in one of the most fertile river valleys in the world, in a land devoid, with the exception of the river itself, of any striking natural features which might stimulate the imagina- tion and encourage speculation, this people led a life which was for most of them one unchanging round of agricultural pursuits. This fact coloured all their activities and all their thought, and in particular made them perhaps the most conservative people the world has ever seen. Of practical wisdom there was no lack. The problems of land-division and tax-paying developed a noteworthy proficiency in mensuration and geometry; and though the Egyp- tians have been overrated as astronomers, they did at a very early period observe the movements of certain stars and arrive at a very accurate approximation to the length of the solar year, while their medical knowledge, though overlaid and obscured by magic, was far from inconsiderable. Yet on the speculative side there is little to place against this; of philosophy apart from religion there is literally nothing, and the nearest approaches to pure thought ate little more than attempts to reconcile conflicting religious systems. This was partly due to the concrete nature of the Egyptian methods of thought and perhaps yet more to an extreme con- servatism, which, rather than consign anything to the scrap-heap,
CHAP. IX] HISTORICAL INFLUENCES ON THOUGHT 327
would spare no pains to find some means, however fantastic, of reconciling two fundamentally incompatible beliefs. If the attempt failed 7«ery little difficulty seems to have been felt in retaining the two side by side.
It need hardly be pointed out how effectually this trait in the Egyptian temperament retarded the advance of speculation. At the same time it would be an error to suppose that Egyptian thought failed utterly to develop. Develop it certainly did, if by development be meant simply change, and not progress in a definite and upward direction. Not only can we watch this change taking place but we can to some extent lay our finger on the causes which produced it. And this will be our task in the present chapter*
The history of Egypt was in a very special sense the result of her geographical position. She lies at the African exit of the sole land bridge which unites two great continents, Asia and Africa. In early, as in later, times that portion of Asia which lies nearest to Egypt seems to have been the centre of extensive and irresistible racial movements, in consequence of which Egypt was liable to be overrun every time she failed to defend her north- eastern frontier against the invading hordes. One such invasion, which took place between the Xllth and XVIIIth Dynasties, is well known to us, and an earlier one, between the Vlth and the Xllth, is sufficiently attested by recently discovered evidence. Unfortunately the history of the Delta is almost a complete blank to us throughout. It may be that in early days a human current swept backwards and forwards over the Isthmus of Suez just as it did over the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, if we read the evidence of Hissarlik aright. Be this as it may, it is obvious that circumstances which so profoundly influenced the history of Ancient Egypt must equally deeply have affected the life and thought of her inhabitants. Indeed it is to these events perhaps that we should in the main attribute the developments which we are about to trace.
From the point of view of development we may perhaps con- veniently divide the period before us into three: the Archaic Period and Old Kingdom, the outcome, historically, of the group- ing in ever larger political combinations of the numerous inde- pendent tribes of early Egypt and their eventual unification in a single kingdom; the Earlier Intermediate Period, Vllth to Xth Dynasties, marked by the first great Asiatic invasions of the Delta; and the Middle Kingdom, XI th— Xllth Dynasties, in which we see the feudal system fully organized and at the height of its prosperity.
323 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
I. THE ARCHAIC PERIOD AND THE OLD KINGDOM
To gain an idea of the material conditions of life in Egypt at this early date we have only to look at the remains. These tell their story in a remarkably unambiguous manner, as other chapters in this volume have shown. When, however, we try to get into touch with the mind of the people and to watch its workings serious difficulties await us. The literature of the period which has come down to us consists almost entirely of a comparatively small number of historical inscriptions and a considerable body of religious texts of a most difficult type. In other words we are permitted to study the machinery of the Egyptian mind mainly in its application to the problems of death and religion. If, how- ever, we were right In affirming that it was on these subjects almost exclusively that the Egyptian exercised his speculative faculty. It is probable that our loss is less serious than might have been Imagined.
There is nothing more impressive to the student of comparative religion than the numerical strength of the Egyptian pantheon and the diversity of type shown by the deities who compose it. A large number of Egyptian gods are probably totemic in origin ; such as Thoth the ibis god, Anubls, perhaps the jackal, Sebek the crocodile, and Horus the falcon. Side by side with these we find a group of nature gods, Re the sun god. Nun the primeval ocean or chaos, Shu the god of air, and so on. A third type consists of gods almost purely human in form and attributes, such as Isis and Osiris, while yet a fourth class was made up of deified personifica- tions of abstract or semi-abstract conceptions, such as Maat the goddess of truth or justice, Sia the god of Intelligence or know- ledge and Hu the god of * commanding utterance/
It Is beyond our scope to ask to what extent the combination of deities of such various types in a single pantheon presupposes the existence in the early Egyptian population of two or more different racial elements. What it does behove us to realize is that the co- existence of gods of at any rate the first three classes goes back far into predynastic times, and that In origin each of these gods, with few if any exceptions, possessed a purely local sway. There Is good evidence that In the predynastic period Egypt was inhabited by a number of Independent tribes, each of which had its, totem animal or plant as the case might be, a figure of which, mounted on a perch, formed the standard of the tribe or clan. In historical
IX, i] LOCAL GODS 329
times the true totemic stage has passed away and we are left with the worship of a god In human form with the head of the totem animal,-^iv"hile the domestication and sacrifice of animals together with the sacredness of the whole totem species still remain to testify to the origin of the system (see pp. 246, 290).
These early tribes do not appear to have lived at peace with one another, and a study of their standards, as figured on certain predynastic vases, in conjunction with the later standards of the nomes, suggests very forcibly that the stronger among them were in the habit of absorbing their weaker neighbours. The inevitable result in such cases was that the god of the stronger became also the god of the conquered, though not necessarily to the complete exclusion of the defeated god. This process served, as the unifica- tion of Egypt slowly proceeded^ to bring into prominence a few particular deities at the expense of all the rest. Thus the falcon-god Horus, originally, it would seem, the local totem-god of Behdet in the Delta, became in predynastic times the national god of Lower Egypt, simply because the falcon tribe acquired an ascend- ancy over the other tribes of the Delta. Later still, on the unifica- tion of Upper and Lower Egypt, he became -the national god of the united country, and it was doubtless then that he was given a new home at Behdet of Upper Egypt, the modern Edfu.
Now it will readily be understood that each local deity, whether theriomorphic, animistic or purely anthropomorphic in type, was surrounded by his own peculiar complex of belief and legend. Moreover, whenever Tribe A absorbed Tribe B, it was to the interest of both conquerors and conquered that god A should not completely delete god B5 but should attempt some form of coalescence with him. And here we are face to face with the feeling which underlay all early Egyptian speculation, and which even in later times never ceased to play its part, namely the desire to bring into harmony with one another the more important of the innumerable local religious systems. Not that the local element ever disappeared. An inhabitant of Siut always prayed to Upwa- wet, the local god, perhaps a wolf-god, of Siut, though he never became in any sense a national god; even the king conformed to this and 'made his monuments * to Hathor when in Sinai and to Dedwen when in Nubia. This continual striving after harmony was thus an inevitable result of the political history of the Egyptian state. The state religion at any period was naturally that of the district pr even town from which came the ruling family for the time being, and each change of house meant the need of a fresh series of religious equations and absorptions (cf. p. 214 sy.).
330 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
Unfortunately the Egyptian texts afford us very little help for the earliest period of all. It Is not indeed until the Vth arid Vlth Dynasties that the so-called Pyramid Texts give us a glin^se into the religious beliefs of the Egyptian people., a glimpse which is satisfying despite textual difficulties and obscure allusions. These texts are inscribed on the walls of the chambers and passages of five royal pyramids at Sakkarah. The earliest, that of king Unis, dates from the Vth Dynasty; the other four belong to kings Teti, Pepi I Merire, and Pepi II of the Vlth (see p. 290). The texts at first sight appear to be an almost systemless farrago of religious matter of every kind3 introduced by a funerary ritual and a ritual of mortuary offerings. The more miscellaneous portion appears to lack arrangement almost entirely and contains fragments of myth and legend, charm, ritual and prayer jumbled together in inextricable confusion.
The texts are purely funerary in purpose, that is to say, they are Intended to be of use to the dead king in leaving this world and in entering and dwelling in the next. They were probably in part recited at his funeral, and certain portions, written originally in the first person singula^ were intended to be used by himself in the new life. They were chosen with this end in view from a religious literature which, in part at least, is very much more ancient than the pyramids themselves. The internal evidence for this is incontrovertible, and we need only instance the passages which reflect a state of affairs clearly previous to the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt, and thus doubtless earlier than the 1st Dynasty. The advantage of this from our point of view is con- siderable. Since the literature from which the texts are drawn covers so long a period of years they should show some develop- ment in religious thought. And this they do. More than this, the later of them show distinct traces of editing, and of editing on very definite lines.
It may fairly be said that the groundwork of the Pyramid Texts consists of sun-worship. The origin of this cult in Egypt is enveloped in darkness. All we know is that in very early times it centred in Heliopolis, a town not far north of the modern Cairo. Even here it was tiot the original cult, for the sun-god was identified in Heliopolis with an earlier local deity, Atum, of whose origin we know nothing, but who may just possibly have been an ichneumon totem, since in later times he is occasionally repre- sented in this form. The sun-god was also identified wittu Horus, the falcon-god of Behdet and later of all Egypt; the identification was supported by conceiving the sun as a falcon flying through
IX, i] SOLAR CULTS 331
the sky. This Idea was extremely popular, and it Is In the fdrm of Horns df the Horizon that the sun-god Is most frequently repre- sented, **ieven in early times. Yet again the sun-god may be envisaged as Khepri, the scarab beetle who symbolizes coming- into-existence, the sun's disc as It crosses the sky recalling perhaps in the popular fancy the ball of dung which the beetle rolls In front of him.
In all this we see how strong was the tendency to harmonize sun-worship with the local totemic cults. The Impression we receive is that sun-worship, and Indeed the whole cosmic system of which it Is typical, was secondary In Egypt, Imposing Itself on a substratum of totemlsm. In any case, whatever doubts there may be on this point, one thing Is clear, namely that nine-tenths of the mythology of Ancient Egypt Is cosmic in origin, and that it was grafted on to a totemic system with which it had originally no connexion. Thus to Horus, a falcon totem in origin, was attached the whole of the mass of myth which centred round the sun, while to Thoth, originally an Ibis totem In the north-eastern Delta, accrued all the legend connected with the moon.
The lengths to which Egyptian conservatism was prepared to go In this direction, rather than countenance a deletion or a mere brutal substitution, can be admirably Illustrated by the sun-myth Itself. Thus according to a widely received belief the sun-god appeared in the primeval ocean or chaos, Nun, and begat in miraculous fashion Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, his wife. These produced Geb, the earth-god, and Nut, goddess of the sky. From them sprang two sons, Osiris and Set, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Osiris married his sister Isis, and of them was born Horus, who, be it noted, is himself In one of his forms identified with the sun-god his great-great-grandfather. Such contradictions as these seem to have had no repugnance for the Egyptian mind.
Unfortunately we are unable to discern the nature of the political event, for such it undoubtedly was, which led each local cult to attempt to work the sun-god into its myth; we can only observe the amazing result and note the extreme antiquity of the process. On the other hand, the prominence of sun-worship in the JPyramid Texts is easily explained if we keep In mind their date. At the end of the IVth Dynasty a change of royal family took place. This was well known to the Egyptians of later days5 for the \Vestcar; Papyrus, dating from the Hyksos Period, preserves a story which tells how Khufu, a king of the IVth Dynasty, was told by a magician that a priestess of Re, the sun-god, had conceived
332 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
three "sons by the god himself, that they should live to be kings of the land, and that the eldest of them should be high 'priest of Heliopolis. The event alluded to is obvious and its reality is con- firmed by numerous circumstances (p. 284 sy.'). The kings of the Vth Dynasty represent a new royal family whose home was Heliopolis and whose cult was therefore that of the sun. This became the state religion; the pharaohs of this Dynasty proclaimed themselves sons of Re, built great new temples in his honour, and were laid to rest in tombs which in form were perhaps reproduc- tions of the pyramidal benben-stone sacred to the sun at Helio- polis. Hence we need not be surprised to find the Pyramid Texts dominated by solar myth and ritual.
The other element which comes to the fore in these texts is that connected with Osiris and his cycle of deities. Few are un- acquainted with Plutarch's version of the Osiris story, how the wicked Set,, anxious to be rid of his brother, made a wooden coffin in which by means of a ruse he induced Osiris to place himself. The coffin was then nailed up and cast into the sea, which bore it to land at Byblus in Syria, where an Erica tree grew up and enclosed it as it lay on the shore. The tree was felled and used as a pillar in the royal palace, where Osiris* faithful sister and wife Isis, wandering in search of her husband's body, at last found it and took the body back to Egypt. There, unfortunately, Set, while hunting by moonlight, found it and scattered the bones far and wide, whence came the innumerable relics of Osiris shown to the faithful of, later days in the temples of Egypt. Meanwhile Horus, the young son of Osiris and Isis, had been growing up in concealment from Set in the marshes of the Delta. On attaining to manhood he sought out his father's murderer, and a combat took place in which Horus lost an eye and Set was injured in still more distressing fashion.
The older sources are less explicit. According to the Pyramid Texts Set struck his brother down in Nedyt, wherever that may be, and on the British Museum Stela, No. 797, a late production, but based on documents of the Pyramid Age, ©siris is represented as having been drowned.
The earliest localization of the worship of Osiris is found at Zedu in the Delta, a town known to the Greeks as Busiris, * House of Osiris/ Here he was symbolized by a cult-object called the zed, or dad* which has been variously interpreted as a four-fold column, a tree with lopped branches, and a backbone, and wlych was ceremoniously "set up* on the last day of the fourth month of the Inundation Season of each year. Now Osiris was not the original
IX, i] NATURE OF OSIRIS 333
local god of Busiris, a position held by Anzety, a deity usually represented by a human head set on a pole, with arms wielding the cro^jk and flail, and called in the Pyramid Texts *the chief of the eastern nomes/ Whence Osiris came to Buskis we do not know: several indications have been thought to point towards Syria, and this may have a distant echo In the reference to Byblus in Plutarch's version of the myth (see p. 264).
A belief has gained almost universal currency among archae- ologists that Osiris was a god of the Nile, or more generally of fertility, or of crops, or of changing seasons and hence of resurrec- tion. Now, though it is true that in course of time Osiris became associated with these ideas, we are not in a position to say that the connexion was a genetic one. The evidence for such a belief is scanty and indecisive, and is outweighed by evidence which suggests that Osiris was either a very ancient king deified, or that he was nothing more than a personification of dead kingship. In either case, the essential fact to be grasped is that he is first and foremost a dead king. How he received the attributes of power over the processes of nature we do not know; some have suggested, and there are analogies to support the idea, that such powers were held to be inherent in early kingship, others that the connexion of the god with the river and hence with vegetation is due to the story of his death by drowning in it,
It would perhaps be overbold to assume that Osiris had been accepted as a member of the Heliopolitan cycle as early as the foundation of the calendar in 4241 B.C., merely because the god gave his name to one of the five intercalary days. But it is certain that by the time of the Pyramid Texts he and his cycle had assumed such importance that they had succeeded in very seriously modifying the beliefs of the old sun-cult as represented in the texts. How natural this was is evident when we remember that these were funerary texts collected for the use of dead kings, and that Osiris was himself a dead king, or at least a personification of dead kingship. But in order that we may fully understand the nature of the modifications produced it is necessary to enquire more closely into the beliefs of the early Egyptians concerning the next life and its relation to this.
In nothing does the unphilosophical temperament of the Egyp- tians betray itself more clearly than in their beliefs concerning the nature of human existence. A man's being seems in early times to have been regarded as manifesting itself under various aspects, of which £he most essential were the kay the ba and the ikh, which we may provisionally render by the words * character/ 4mani-
334 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
festatipn/ and * glorified state' respectively. Of less Importance were other aspects such as the shadow, the name and the body. In later times the list was increased by the ^addition j?f such appurtenances of personality as the destiny, birthplace and up- bringing*
Now it would be a mistake to characterize the ka and the &a and the ikh as 'parts' of the person, as is often done, or to believe that the Egyptian himself had perfectly sharp and distinct con- ceptions of each. The ka, represented in the hieroglyphs by a sign consisting of two arms stretched upwards, and shown^ by the manner of its early writing to have been regarded as divine, was a phase of being which, in origin, may have been possessed only by gods and kings, by the latter possibly only in so far as they were regarded as deities, and extended to private persons only in later times when a similar extension took place in the whole of the royal funerary cult. All we know is that every god, king, and man receives at his birth a ka who coexists with him during his life, and from whom it is essential that he should not be separated during his death. The precise relation between the two is difficult to grasp. The usual modern conceptions of the ka as a * double* or a * protecting genius' seem too narrow, even though in special cases these may be adequate translations of the word; and the latest tendency is to go back to the older view of the ka as the * character1 or 'individuality/ However this may be, the ka assumed a gradually increasing importance from the funerary point of view, perhaps because it was the least changeable and most stable of the various aspects*
As the ka stands for the fixed individuality, so the la represents the changeable 'incarnation' or * external manifestation/ It can assume many shapes, the most common of which is that of a human-headed bird, with human arms holding the sign of life and that of wind or breath. In funerary scenes it hovers over the dead and holds to his nostrils the vivifying signs which it carries, whence it has often been regarded as the 'soul/ In the Pyramid Texts it seems to be the great aim of the king to become a ba after his death, though the belief that the ba came into existence only at this moment is strongly contradicted by the story of the Misanthrope, who, while still alive, carries on a conversation with his ta. The origin of the ba probably lies in the totemic nature of so much of Egyptian belief, which demanded that after death a man should go to his totem. To the same origin are to be traced the ideas prevalent in the Book of the Dead as to tne dead man making his transformations into a swallow, a crocodile, a
IX, i] BELIEFS REGARDING DEATH 335
phoenix, a lotus, etc. As for theikh, usually rendered 'glorioijs one* or 'illunjinated one/ it is clearly a mode of existence after death, and the dead are often as a whole referred to as the 'glorious ones/
If we ask in what way these beliefs concerning the nature of existence were applied to the problem of death, there awaits us only one more illustration of the fact that the attitude of the Egyptian towards the phenomena of reality frequently shows a remarkable lack of attention and reflective thought. On this point he held the most inconsistent views, without apparently being in the least troubled by their incompatibility. Yet there is patent in them all a horror of physical death, a refusal to accept it as a possibility, and a determination to stave it off by every possible means. One of the commonest forms of address on grave stelae begins * O ye who love life and hate death/ and the constant refrain of the Pyramid Texts is 'King X is not dead, he is alive/
Now it must be clearly understood that the death referred to here is a physical death. For the Egyptians all existence, whether of gods or of dead or living men, presupposed physical wants. To this belief are due the whole of the temple and mortuary rituals, which with a few exceptions are identical. Even in priestly nomen- clature this fact comes to the surface. The Egyptian word for a servant is hem\ a temple priest is hem netery Servant of the god7; and a mortuary priest is hem kay * servant of the ka+* For the god in his shrine and for the dead man in his tomb the same ceremonies are performed, and the same offerings of food and drink are made in the one case as in the other. Both gods and dead must be fed in the same way as living men; and one of the chief anxieties ex- pressed by the dead in the funerary texts is lest, for want of food offered at the tomb, they should be compelled to consume their own excrement. This physical analogy between the dead and the living may be said to reach its climax of absurdity in certain tomb chapels of the Ilnd Dynasty at Sakkarah, where lavatories are provided for the use of the dead occupant. This is not speculation as to the nature of death, but mere inability to conceive of any form of existence other than that of physical life.
At the same time it was necessary to meet the obvious fact that the life of gods and dead, though regarded as physical, was in some way different from that of living men. The problem was solved by making the difference one of degree rather than of kind. Gods and dead lived in a less real manner, and hence, as a conse- quence, all service that was designed to benefit them must be carried but in a prescribed manner. This is nowhere more apparent than in the ritual which forms the introduction to the
33& EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
Pyramid Texts. This is a feast modelled on an earthly banquet with all the ceremonies attendant thereon. It begins with^a lustra- tion, symbolical of the hand-washing which preceded an ggyptian meal, "Then follow the burning of incense and the pouring of water, two rites which had for their object the restoration to the corpse of its pristine moisture and odour. Next comes an abridged form of the ceremony of 'Opening the Mouth/ performed in full on the day of the funeral, and intended to give back to the dead man the use of all his organs of sense and perception. A small preliminary meal is now served, followed by a complicated toilet, after which the deceased is ready for the banquet proper. This is technically known as 'the offering which the king gives/ probably because in origin the mortuary feasts of the great nobles were provided out of the royal purse, though this is a matter of some uncertainty.
There is hardly any room for doubt as to the nature of this ceremony. It is a purely material banquet in which the deceased is regarded as taking part in his tomb. In the case of the royal mortuary temples which adjoined the pyramid tombs of the Vth and Vlth Dynasties we have no reason for disbelieving that the offerings were actually made m some instances for many years after the death of the tomb's owner. In the case of private persons, to whom in this period the royal mortuary rites had been gradually extended, we cannot have the same assurance, though we know that even as late as the Middle Kingdom the more important nobles had their own mortuary priests (p. 287). It may well be that a few inexpensive offerings coupled with a rapid recitation of the more salient parts of the ritual often represented the priest's conception of his duties.
One fact of supreme importance emerges from all this. The dead man is looked upon as actually alive in his tomb. And in this belief lies, beyond all doubt, the origin of that strange Egyptian practice, mummification. True mummification, that is the attempt to pad out the preserved corpse in such a way as to retain its original lifelike appearance, is late in Egypt, the art only reaching its full perfection in the XXIst Dynasty. Previous to this all that had been attempted was the protection of the body against com- plete dissolution by means of the removal of most of the internal organs, the^application of preservatives, and the use of linen band- ages. Primitive mummification has been found in tombs of the Ilnd Dynasty at Sakkarah, and the wrapped arm with jewelled bracelets of 1st Dynasty type found in the tomb of Zer at Abydos carries the practice still further back.
IX, i] LIFE IN THE TOMB 337
This attempt to preserve the body from decay has ofteti been explained as due to a desire to provide a home in which the ka or some c^frher spiritual essence of the dead man might take up its abode whenever it chose to revisit the tomb. Such an explanation is based on the failure to recognize the Egyptian belief in the continued physical existence of the dead in the tomb itself. The body must be preserved simply because it is the dead man him- self. What takes part in the mortuary ceremonies and banquets is not the ka or the kay but the dead man himself, who is literally regarded as leaving the tomb-chamber below, ascending the shaft, and issuing forth through the false door into the offering-chamber. Hence the supreme importance of preserving the body. Moreover, in the present writer's opinion, there is no evidence for calling the statues found in the tomb-chapels ^-statues, or for supposing that they were placed there to provide a bodily shell in which the ka might inhere or dwell. The more probable explanation is much cruder and simpler than this, it is that the statue is designed to take the place of the deceased man in case his body should, despite all precautions, fall into decay; it was in fact an attempt to make assurance doubly sure. See also p. 288.
In all this we cannot help seeing the counsel of despair. The fact of physical death is not to be admitted. The body must if possible be preserved, and kept alive by offerings of food and drink. Should the body be overtaken by dissolution the statue will perhaps serve in its place. But this is a comfortless notion, especially for the poor. Mummification, perhaps originally a privilege of the king alone, was an expensive process and only gradually became usual for persons of moderate means in Egypt, while the provision of statues and mortuary priests was within the reach only of the *rich minority. As for the poor, they must either have lived without hope, or at the best relied on the makeshifts of * sympathetic * substitution eked out by the magical power of recited words. Above all, it should be emphasized that all these services rendered to the dead were the outcome of each man's desire to have his own future welfare amply provided for when the time came. There is no reason for supposing that there existed any cult of the dead as such, still less that the mortuary ritual was an attempt to placate the spirits of the departed and to prevent them from doing injury to the living.
Side by side with, and without prejudice to, the crude belief in a continued life in the tomb, we find other ideas prevailing accord- ing to which the dead enjoy a glorious existence in some distant sphere. Such an existence may have been at the outset the unique
C.A.H.I 22,
338 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP,
privilege of kings; it is known to us in early times mainly from the Pyramid Texts, and its conditions are such as could perhaps be satisfied by royalty alone, inasmuch as the king was in the first place the son'of Re and In the second place, when dead, identified with Osiris,
In the solar portion of the Pyramid Texts the life of the here- after is closely associated with Re, and the aim of every dead king is to reach the eastern side of the sky, there to be with the god. The difficulty is how to get there. The idea of a righteous life on earth as a passport to future happiness is at this time almost com- pletely undeveloped, and it is only rarely and incidentally that the words 'King X is righteous' appear. Frequently we read of 'the lake of Kha, whose farther shore is in the east of heaven/ which has to be crossed by him who would be with Re. The normal method of crossing this water is to be ferried over by a boatman called 'Turn-face/ who can only be cajoled into doing his office by some cunning pretext. It may even be necessary to appeal to Re himself to soften the heart of his obdurate ferryman, or even to bring the boat over in person. Sometimes the dead king crosses the lake on a pair of reed-floats of primitive type, made for him by four youths who sit on the east side of the sky. If all fails, he must take unto himself wings and fly up to heaven as a falcon or a grasshopper; or a bright ladder, perhaps the sun's slanting rays, may be let down for him from heaven or set up on earth.
All this is very primitive, and no less so are the magical charms or threats to the gods in case of non-compliance by which it is sought to force a passage heavenward for the dead monarch. Once arrived in heaven the king becomes the intimate companion of Re, whose son he already is at this period. He is variously called his scribe, his adviser, or 'the acquaintance of Re, the companion of Horus of the Horizon,' and accompanies the god in the solar barque on his journey across the sky.
In all this solarized version of the hereafter we occasionally catch a fleeting glimpse of earlier beliefs with regard to the dead; there are not infrequent references, for example, to the dead man as a star in the sky, and in two passages he is represented as having the head of the jackal- or dog-god Anubis. These, however, seem to be but reminiscences of older things and may be neglected.
In strong contrast to the solar version of life beyond the grave stands the Osirian myth. We have already seen how the early evidence is^to the effect that Osiris is either a dead king or a personification of dead kingship. In conformity with tliis the deceased king is in the Pyramid Texts actually identified with
IX, i] THE OSIRIAN HEREAFTER 339
Osiris and called 'the Osiris King X,* and as such receives all necessary funerary attention from his son Horus, who is incarnate in the laying king his successor (similarly called *the Horus King Y *), an idea afterwards extended to include private individuals. In the Pyramid Texts the dead king, as Osiris, is already ruler of the dead and Lord of Dewat (Duat), a region which was perhaps originally conceived as in the sky, but which was afterwards certainly located beneath the earth and made the home of the departed.
Gradually, however, an attempt to reconcile these two con- flicting systems took place. In the Pyramid Texts we can almost watch the process. Myths, obviously solar in origin, are fitted on to the Osirian cycle, and the Osirian hereafter is carried into the sky, the realm of Re. In some cases we actually find a passage in two forms, firstly in its original solar colouring, and secondly, but side by side with the first, in an expanded and Osirianized shape. Thus the two faiths reacted the one on the other, and, despite contradictions, both found acceptance. Side by side with these products of a gradual process we find in the Pyramid Texts instances of the crudest possible editing in favour of the Osirian myth. Thus in the offering ritual in the pyramid of Unis the words *the Osiris' have been mechanically inserted in front of the king's name whenever this occurs at the opening of a section, but the editor has been too careless to make the addition when the king's name occurs in the body of a section.
Such then is the main conflict of belief in Egypt in the Pyramid Age. But we should be wrong if we regarded this conflict as occupying an important place in the thoughts of the average man in Egypt. If the intelligence of the priests, who represented the learning of the country, never got beyond these feeble efforts to reconcile the obviously incompatible, what are we to expect from the uneducated? They doubtless believed precisely what they were told to believe, untrammelled by such formulae as £^f cannot be both B and not- 5,' and for them religion consisted in practice mainly in performing certain acts of devotion at the shrine of the local god.
Much more might be said, but the preceding paragraphs may suffice to give some idea of the workings of the Egyptian mind in dealing with the problems of life and death, and to show how far removed they were from evolving any consistent theory of the nature and meaning of things, from sheer lack of the philosophical habit of mind. It would not be fair, however, to leave the period without Reference to the one document which stands out as the sole effort made in Egypt previous to the XVIIIth Dynasty to
340 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
account In a rational and consistent manner for existence. In the British Museum,, under the number 797, Is ^a stela dated in the reign of Sliabaka, who lived about 700 B.C. Time has dealj; hardly with it, for It was once used as a nether millstone, with the result that quite two-thirds of its content is utterly obliterated* Enough remains, however, to show us that Shabaka's scribe was not lying when he claimed the document to be a copy of an ancient and worm-eaten papyrus, and that Its contents go back to the Pyramid Age, The document, which is composite. Is of Memphite origin, and is an obvious attempt to assert the claims of Ptah, the god of Memphis, to a commanding position in the Egyptian pantheon, a process with which we are already familiar. Eight forms or emanations of Ptah are said to spring from the god himself. One of these Is called 'Ptah the Great* and is described as the "heart and tongue of the Nine,* that Is, of the group formed by the original Ptah and his eight emanations. This particular form is then commented on at some length, the heart being treated as the seat of thought and the tongue as the executive member which carries out the designs of the heart. * When the eyes see or the ears hear or the nose breathes they lead it (the sensation) to the heart. This It is that causes every decision to go forth; the tongue it Is that repeats what the heart has devised.. , . In this way the kas and the qualities were made, and all that is lovely or hateful; in this way life is given to the peaceful man and death to the transgressor, in this way arise all work and all art/ And so the catalogue con- tinues. It is interesting not only as a piece of metaphysics, an attempt to explain how all things had their origin in Ptah, but also as a piece of psychology, for the analogy of the tongue and heart applied here to Ptah in itself betrays thoughtful speculation as to the nature and bodily localization of the human faculties.
II. THE EARLIER INTERMEDIATE PERIOD, Vllrn TO XTH DYNASTIES
The prosperity of Egypt seems to have met with a rude set-back at the ead of the Vltb. Dynasty, and the succeeding years up to the^end of the ,Xth Dynasty, and perhaps even later, are marked by Internal dissension and by Incursions of Asiatic peoples into the Delta. And yet to this stormy Interval are to be traced the earliest extensive examples yet known to us of Egyptian literary activity. Purely a product of its time, this literature, like the thought which inspires It, is very definitely pessimistic in tone. It coufd hardly have been otherwise. In the Delta is, It would seem, the Asiatic
IX, n] LANGUAGE AND WRITING 341
Invader. *The desert Is throughout the land/ says Ipuwef In his Admonitions, 'The nornes are laid waste; a foreign tribe from abroad^ias come to Egypt/ In Upper Egypt, at this time probably cleft into two Independent kingdoms, confosion and treachery are rampant. *The wrongdoer Is everywhere* The plague Is through- out the land. Blood is everywhere. Gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire. No craftsmen work. Nile overflows, but no one ploughs for him. Every man says *cWe know not what has hap- pened throughout the land." Men are few, women are lacking, and no children are conceived. Cattle are left to stray, and there is none to gather them together. All Is ruin/
Thus the Egyptian has been brought to muse on the mutability of human fortunes, and an Irresistible wave of pessimism sweeps through the land and gives us the world's first literature in the true sense of the term. And let It not be forgotten that the disasters of this age affected not only the living but also the dead. We have seen how necessary It was in the eyes of the Egyptian that his corpse should rest undestroyed in his tomb and should receive the due mortuary offerings. No doubt In many cases the mortuary arrangements established by the great kings and nobles of the Pyramid Age had already lapsed; the ^-priests had ceased to function, and the tomb chapels had either been destroyed by the enemy or begun to fall into decay from natural causes. Gradually It was borne In upon the Egyptian mind that even the noblest and the richest had proved powerless to protect themselves against the attacks of time and circumstances. And, If this was the case, for what could ordinary men hope? It was typical of the Egyptian temperament that, Instead of meeting the situation with a new and advanced theory of life and death, he tamely bowed to the inevitable and took refuge In a pessimistic literature.
But before we deal with this In detail we must very briefly review the earlier history of Egyptian literature. The Egyptians spoke a language of Hamitic type showing distinct affinities on the one hand with Semitic and on the other with Berber. As early as the beginning of the 1st Dynasty they were writing this language with considerable facility, having even evolved a cursive form of the script, though the specimens that have survived, mostly seal- Ings and labels, are not always completely intelligible to us. The script had originally been pictographic and had only been rendered phonetic by a wide application of the ingenious device of rebus- writing. Thus the Egyptian word for *a house* consisted of the letters p and r In that order, with a vowel between them con- cerning which we only know that it varied according to the
342 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
grammatical construction of the word. The house sign, a simple rectangle with a gap In one side to represent the door or entrance, could therefore be employed to represent the bi-consonan>al com- bination p-r in whatever word it occurred and whatever the vowel, If any, which separated the two consonants. Thus the sign offered a means of writing the verb *to go out/ whose consonantal skeleton was pry, the weak consonant y being, like the variable vowels, negligible. In this way a series of phonetic signs arose, some representing a combination of two consonants and some a combination of three. Nor was much difficulty encountered in finding by the same method signs to represent the single con- sonants. There were many words In Egyptian which, owing to the falling away or degeneration into vowel sounds of the weak consonants wyy and the soft breathing (alepK), or to other phonetic causeSj had been reduced in pronunciation to a consonant pre- ceded or followed by a vowel, and since the unstable vowel could be neglected the picture of such an object could be used as a rebus to represent the one consonant phonetically in all positions and combinations. Thus the picture of a mouth, the word for which was ro (a weak consonant having dropped off at the end) could always be used for r*
In this way the Egyptians had evolved at a very early date an almost though not quite perfect alphabet, thus escaping the cum- brous syllabary of the cuneiform script (p. 126), One of the world's greatest discoveries was beneath their eyes and yet with typical conservatism they refused to make use of it; instead of discarding all the old picture-signs as such, and all the two- and three-con- sonantal group-signs, and writing everything purely alphabetically with the uniliteral phonetic signs, they chose to keep them all. They even went further and produced a new kind of sign* In many words still written by means of their pictures it became customary to prefix, or more rarely to affix, some or all of the phonetic signs in order to make sure that the reader should recognize the picture aright. This made it less necessary to be accurate In the drawing of the pictures. Thus, in the case of the Innumerable names of birds, It was soon seen that, provided part or the whole of the phonetic spelling accompanied the picture, the Irksome and often impossible task of making the precise species of the bird recognizable and distinct was no longer needed. Even now conservatism prevented the obvious course of dropping out the bird altogether, and so a picture of what we may call argeneric bird of no particular species or of a very common species was left as an aid to the reader. Similarly, instead of drawing out the
IX, n] EARLY LITERATURE 343
figures of the various animals the scribe wrote their names^phone- tically,^adding a picture of an animal's skin. Hence arose what is known as the generic determinative, the latest development of hieroglyphic writing. Such was the elaborate and somewhat clumsy means which the Egyptians had devised for recording their deeds and their thoughts, and it is consonant with their practical genius that as early as the beginning of the dynastic period they were already writing shortened forms of the hiero- glyphic signs in ink upon wood and other materials. Long before the Middle Kingdom papyrus was in common use, and records and accounts were being kept on this material in a fully developed cursive script known as hieratic,
Of literature in the true sense of the term there is little or nothing under the Old Kingdom, The biographies of the nobles as recorded in their tombs are for the most part catalogues of titles and promotions, with occasional and only too rare stories of military prowess. The point of view is almost always purely personal, and yet there is seldom a human touch, still more seldom a literary. One exception, however, must not pass unnoticed, for it is one of our earliest examples of that strophic arrangement which appar- ently formed the basis of Egyptian literary style. It is the triumph song of Uni over the safe return of his army from a. campaign in Syria in the time of Pepi I of the VI th Dynasty (see p. 292 sq.\ It consists of seven couplets, the first line of each being identical*
This army returned in safety;
It had hacked up the land of the Sand-dwellers. This army returned in safety;
It had destroyed (?) the land of the Sand-dwellers. This army returned in safety >
It had overthrown its fortresses. This army returned in safety;
It had cut down its figs and its vines,
Now this strophic arrangement undoubtedly has its origin in old religious hymns. Considerable portions of the Pyramid Texts consist of ancient hymns arranged in couplets of two sentences parallel in form and in idea. Whether they were also parallel in metre our ignorance of Egyptian vocalization and accentuation forbids us to say, but in any case they constitute the world's earliest poetic form. The diction, terse and commonplace in many cases, rises to considerable heights of imagination in others, as for instance in the description of the commotion caused among the stars of heaven when they see the dead king Vising as a soul/ or again in the hymn to the Nile, where we read *the marshes laugh,
344 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
the batiks overflow; the divine offerings descend. Mankind is of a glad countenance and the heart of the gods rejoices.' Hege, then, in the Pyramid Texts we get a glimpse of the origins and^literary forerunners of the texts of the Earlier Intermediate Period.
Of the five important texts which clearly have their origin in this period not one has come down to us in a contemporary manu- script. The Admonitions of Ipuwer (Leiden Papyrus 344) dates from the XlXth Dynasty, though it manifestly goes back to a prototype which cannot be placed later than the Xllth Dynasty, and describes a state of things which passed with the Intermediate Period preceding this. To the same group of texts belong the British Museum writing-board, 5645, and the still more famous "Dialogue of the Man-weary-of-life with his Soul/ known to us from a Middle Kingdom Papyrus (Berlin Museum 3024). It would be difficult to prove that the original of this last actually goes back to the Intermediate Period, but its affinity with the two preceding shows that whatever the actual date of the composition it owes Its inspiration to a state of things prevailing at that time. This has of late been made still more certain by the publication in full of two new texts (Petrograd 1 1 1 6 ^and 5), the first of which contains a literary composition of a form very prevalent in Egypt, consisting of the * Teaching' given by a king, whose name is lost, to his son Merire, afterwards a king of the Heracleopolitan House of the IXth and Xth Dynasties. Our copy dates from the XVIIIth Dynasty, but there is no reason to believe that the original was not contemporary with the ruler whose 'political testament * it con- tains. It establishes beyond all possibility of doubt the fact of an Asiatic invasion at this period and throws back to this date at least the origin of the literary form, known as * Instructions ' or * Teach- ing/
The other papyrus (i 1 1 6 5) contains a document of even greater importance to us, for it is in the form of a prophecy, and clearly belongs both in date and style to the pessimistic group of texts. It relates how king Snefru, by way of seeking diversion, com- manded that some person should be brought to amuse him with 'beauteous words and choice speeches.* A certain Neferrohu appears and, on being asked to tell of * things to come/ proceeds to picture the land In a condition very similar to that described by Ipuwer in the Admonitions, *I show thee the land upside down; that happens which never happened before. Men shall take up weapons of war; the land lives in uproar. All good things have departed. Things made are as though they had never beefi made. The land Is mlnished, its rulers are multiplied. Re removes him-
IX, n] PESSIMISTIC LITERATURE 345
self from men/ Finally a saviour is foretold who shall set^ Egypt to rights and build the 'Wall of the Prince' to keep the Asiatics from invading Egypt. The reference to this wall enables us to identify this saviour with Amenemhet I, the first ruler of the Xllth Dynasty., to whose reign, unless we assume an interpolation, the original of our composition is doubtless to be dated,
But we must turn back for a moment to the "Dialogue of the Man-weary-of-life with his Soul* before we attempt to estimate the bearing and value of these texts as a whole. In this papyrus we are introduced to a man who through the buffering's of mis- fortune has been brought to a point where he seriously contem- plates escaping from life by suicide. He is represented as carrying on a dialogue with his own soul (ba^ not ikk> is the correct reading). The text is difficult and obscure, especially in the first half, the beginning of which is lost, but the final advice of the ba is clear: 'Now hearken unto me. Behold it is good for men to hearken. Follow the happy day (a common phrase for 'to enjoy oneself). Forget care/ To this advice the man replies in four strophic sections probably metrical in structure. The first depicts his sad plight on earth and consists of strophes of this type, c Behold my name stinks (?) more than the smell of fishermen on the edges (?) of the marshes when they have been a-fishing/ The second tells how evil mankind has become: *To whom shall (or *do*) I speak to-day; brothers are evil, the friends of to-day love not'; or again, *To whom shall I speak to-day; hearts are covetous, each man makes away with his fellow's goods/ Then follows a panegyric on death: 'Death is before me to-day like the convalescence of a sick man, like going forth after an illness ( ?). Death is before me to-day like the smell of myrrh, like sitting beneath the sail of the boat on a breezy day. Death is before me to-day like the longing of a man to see his home when he has spent many years in captivity/ The whole ends with a short description of the happy fate of the dead, 'They who are over yonder/
What is the inner meaning of this phase of Egyptian literature ? In the first place it is the purely physical product of the distressful days of the Intermediate Period, whether we believe that some or all of it was actually written during that time or immediately after. And in the second place it reflects, as Breasted has so rightly pointed out, the awakening of man to the moral unworthiness of society and the possibility of better things. In Petrograd u 16 £ a saviour is actually predicted, and again, in the Admonitions of Ipuwet*, although there is no prediction, the poet cannot refrain from drawing a picture of the ideal ruler of a state under the form
346 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
of the sun-god Re. This type of writing, whether definitely pre- dictive or not, is closely akin to the prophetic writings of the Hebrews, and every discussion of the latter must reckon ^ith the possibility of Egyptian models. As Breasted remarks concerning the Admonitions, "this is Messianism nearly a thousand years before its appearance among the HebrewsV Cf. pp. 216, 325.
IIL THE MIDDLE KINGDOM
With the Middle Kingdom came the restoration of prosperity in Egypt and the triumph of the feudal system. It thus gives us an admirable opportunity for observing the behaviour of the Egyptian mind and character under normal conditions. We may therefore with advantage choose this as a point at which to ask on what moral principles the Egyptian acted, and what he thought about his action,
Essentially practical in this as in all else, he gave himself up very little to ethical speculation, although, as will be seen, his mind had a considerable and very definite ethical content. He had never reached the point of distinguishing ethical from meta- physical rightness, if we may trust the evidence of his language, for the one word maat serves to translate our "truth/ 'right* and * righteousness/ This ambiguity prevents us from seizing the precise meaning of one of the most striking ceremonies in the daily temple ritual, the presentation to the god of a small figure of Maat personified as a goddess. On the other side, ethics was not very clearly distinguished speculatively from aesthetics, for there exists only one word nefer to express both morally good and aesthetically beautiful. These facts show us how undeveloped and undifferentiated was the science of ethics* But that morality was a concept full of practical meaning we know from the tomb inscriptions with their endlessly reiterated professions of piety and of charity towards mankind.
And yet in the Pyramid Texts the conception of righteous dealing as a qualification for happiness in a future life barely takes form. Here It must be remembered that, in the first place, these texts deal essentially with kings, who doubtless were regarded as outside and above the application of moral standards; and in the second place that the conception of morality may perfectly well exist to a high degree without necessarily being connected with the hope of happiness beyond the grave. Thus on the tomb-stelae of the great nobles of the Old Kingdom we find their go<5d dfceds
1 Development of Religion and Thought in jfncient Egypt (1912), p- 212.
IX, m] MORAL STANDARDS 347
recited In order to persuade the passers by their tombs to say those prayers which according to Egyptian belief could secure food and drink teethe dead. So Herkhuf says : i I was one who was excellent; beloved of his father, approved of his mother, one whom all his brethren loved. I gave bread to the hungry, clothes to the naked. I ferried across the river him who had no boat. O ye who live upon earth, who pass by this tomb in going up or down stream, and who shall say "Thousands of bread and beer for the owner of this tomb," I will give thanks (?) to you in the necropolis/ Here we have a tacit admission of the fact that all the virtues enumerated are impotent to procure for the deceased the most elementary physical needs of life in the tomb. He uses the catalogue of his good deeds merely to persuade his survivors to recite those prayers which it was believed could secure for him food and drink. But we must observe the logical consequence. Felicity in or beyond the tomb is dependent on the performance of correct rites and the pronouncing of the correct prayers by a man's fellows at his tomb. The most obvious way in which he can enlist their sympathy and services is by assuring them on his grave-stela that he acted kindly by his neighbours in his lifetime and bidding them requite it in this way. Thus good actions do indirectly help to ensure a happy hereafter. It would be rash to assume that here lay the origin of the moral sanction in Egypt, the causative connexion between piety on this earth and well-being in the next; but at least this fact must have had a place in the development of the idea.
What then was the ethical standard in earliest Egypt, for such there must have been, since actions could be distinguished as good or bad? Probably it was, as to a great extent it remained in later times, almost purely selfish. As we might say in our modern phrase, virtue *paid* on the whole. It gained the approval of a man's fellow creatures because they benefited by it. *I did that which all men approved* was perhaps the highest piece of self- commendation which a noble could inscribe upon his tomb. The idea of right as a thing commendable in itself is completely absent from Egyptian literature; and there is no word for 'duty* except in the very limited sense of the c duties * or 'functions' of a par- ticular post or office. When Ptahhotep tells us * Great is right, and endureth and prevaileth, it has not been brought to nought since the days of Osiris,* he proceeds to qualify this high moral idealism by the addition of a more worldly reflection : * It is vice that maketh away wjth wealth; never has evil brought its venture safe to land.* In plain words the Egyptians believed that virtue brought its own reward on earthy and this was their main motive for good conduct.
343 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
Whatever was felt in later days this was certainly true of early times. Nowhere is it more clearly shown than in the etkical and didactic literature of the Middle Kingdom, ^ ^
The Egyptians were formalists in literature as in all else and their writings consequently fall into clearly defined groups. The simplest of these is the romance. Of this we have two outstanding examples. The first is the 'Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor/ from a Petrograd papyrus. This, unless it contain some allegory invisible to our eyes, is simply a fairy tale. The hero goes to sea in a ship 150 cubits long by 40 wide, and is wrecked on a desert island inhabited only by a huge snake-like monster 60 cubits long. * Its beard was more than 2 cubits in length, its limbs were overlaid witK gold, and its eyebrows were of real lapis lazuli/ The snake, despite the sailor's apprehensions, deals gently and even kindly with him, and foretells his speedy deliverance, which is effected by the arrival of a ship from Egypt, on which the sailor departs loaded with gifts by his strange host. The other romance, that of Sinuhe, is more pretentious and has a historical setting (see pp. 226 syy.j 304). The inference from this and from similar evidence with regard to other works is that Egyptian literature embraced few masterpieces, but these few were very popular and provided a source for study and copy-writing for centuries.
Another of the groups into which Egyptian writings fall is of greater interest still to the modern reader. It comprises a number of didactic and moral works under the title of £ Teachings * or 'In- structions/ We have already met one such work in the c Instruc- tions of a king to his son Merire/ Others are the * Instructions of Ptahhotep/ the instructions of King Amenemhet I* and the 'Instructions of Dawef to his son/ The last of these is a later document; the second, which has survived only in several late copies (e.g. Papyrus Millingen), is closely related to the pessimistic literature dealt with above (p. 303). The * Instructions ofPtahhotep/ of which parts are preserved in a number of papyri (notably Prisse and British Museum 10,509), is perhaps the most difficult to translate of all Egyptian texts. The Instructions are represented as having been uttered by a vizier named Ptahhotep in the reign of Isesi of the Vth Dynasty. Feeling old age creeping on him the vizier craves the royal permission to set his son in his place and to give him advice on the subject of the viziership. The content of this advice may well be called 'the beginning of worldly wisdom/ Relations with one's fellow creatures both official and personal are dealt with. In the case of official relations we seem to see signs of a traditional standard of official morality. * If thou
IX, in] THE ELOQUENT PEASANT 349
be a man of trust whom one great one sends to another, bf exact in the business whereon he sends thee, execute for him his errand as he bi|ls. » » . If thou be a leader, be patient when thou hearest the speech of the suppliant* Deal not roughly with him before he has relieved his soul of that which he thought to tell thee/ The advice given on the subject of personal behaviour has lost none of its force to-day. * Be cheerful (bright of face) all the days of thy life. ... If thou find a wise man in his hour a man . . « of under- standing, as one more excellent than thyself, bend thine arms, bow thy back.* These practical maxims contain little notion of right for its own sake, and when a reason is given for a prescribed course of action it is that *it is profitable* or gains the doer *a good name* (see p. 288 J^.).
Of no less ethical interest is the * Story of the Eloquent Peasant.* A poor countryman going down into Egypt with his donkeys laden with the produce of his oasis is robbed of all by an official by means of a trick* He hastens to demand justice from the steward under whom the unjust official is serving. In such elo- quent terms does he plead his cause that the steward reports the matter to the king, who orders the case to be dragged slowly on so that more may be heard of the peasant's eloquence. This chiefly consists in Appeals to the high standard of impartial justice which is to be expected from the official class in Egypt. "For thou art the father of the orphan, the husband of the widow, the brother of the forsaken maid, the apron of the motherless. Grant that I may set thy name in this land higher than all good laws, thou leader free from covetousness, great one free from pettiness, who brings to nought the lie and causes right to be/ This is fine imagery, but our poet can fly still higher in the realm of metaphor. *Thou rudder of heaven, thou prop of earth, thott measuring tape. * . . Rudder, fall not. Prop, fall not. Measuring tape, make no error/ The peasant makes no fewer than nine appeals in this strain, and the end of the papyrus, which is torn, would seem to have recorded the granting of his suit and the punishment of the guilty official. Throughout this document, which may be regarded as a dis- quisition on official justice, we find not a word of appeal to the steward's hope of future happiness. The appeal is rather to his sense of what is expected of an official in his position. Moreover it must be confessed that we are left with the impression that the standard implied in this papyrus and in the * Instructions of Ptahhotep* was not always lived up to by officials; otherwise it is harcl to* conceive why the peasant should be represented as at such pains, not to establish the justice of his claim, which is never
350 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
disputed, but to persuade the steward to do his obvious duty (see
p. 317').
From such papyri and from the tomb inscriptions we gather that Egypt had in the Middle Kingdom a very definite code of morality both private and public. We do not however find any trace of the recognition of a categorical imperative in morals* Free-will is clearly implied throughout, and though there existed a conception of destiny (skayt) it was only reckoned responsible for the external events of a man's life, not for his reaction to them.
But what relation., if any, had these ethical beliefs and this moral code to religion; and if there existed no relation, how are we to explain so strange an anomaly? To answer this we must consider shortly the developments which had taken place in theology since the end of the Old Kingdom. The Osiris cult, once extended from dead king to dead subject, made giant strides, owing perhaps mainly to its funerary bearing, for nothing inter- ested the Egyptian more than his fate after death. The outward and visible sign of this was the localization of Osiris as funerary god at Abydos, where he took the place and title of an earlier deity 'Chief of the Westerners/ a god with a dog or jackal face, possibly, though by no means certainly, a form of Anubis. Here at Abydos in the Middle Kingdom a spot called Peker was pointed out to pilgrims as the site of the grave of Osiris. It may perhaps be identified with the low mound known as Umm el-Ka'ab, where the royal tombs of the 1st and Ilnd Dynasties lay. In the XXVIth Dynasty one of these tombs, that of king Zer, was identified with the tomb of Osiris, and, although the offering vases with which the tomb is covered do not go back beyond the XVIIIth Dynasty, the identification may be as old as the Xllth. At any rate we know from the inscription of Ikhernofret that as early as this date certain mysteries were performed at Abydos, the subject of which was the death of Osiris and his burial in Peker. From this time forward it became the wish of every pious Egyptian to make during his lifetime the pilgrimage to Abydos. Those who failed to do so were often taken there after death and certain ceremonies were performed there over their mummies. Tfee^a^t cemetery began to fill rapidly with the bodies of those anxious to be laid beside the Lord of Abydos, and with the cenotaphs and stelae ^of those to whom this was denied. C£ p. 322 sg.
This predominance of Osiris is reflected by the religious texts of the period. These consist mainly of a series of chapters or utterances written, often very carelessly, on the inside of the fine wooden coffins usual at this date* As might have been expected,
IX, in] COFFIN TEXTS 351
these texts stand midway between the Pyramid Texts on the one hand an4 the so-called Book of the Dead on the other. Many of their sections are found in the Pyramid Age; others, however, are apparently new, and contain fresh developments of belief. To realize the capacity" of the Egyptian mind for cherishing incom- patibilities it is enough to read these Coffin Texts. Let us take an example (Lacau's chapter LXXXVI) :
*The Osiris N, has risen as Re; he is on high as A turn. Hath or has anointed him; she gives him life in the West like Re every day. O Osiris, there is no god who shall make a charge against thee, there is no goddess who shall make a charge against thee on the day of reckoning characters before the Great One, Lord of the West. Thou eatest bread on the altars of Re with the great ones who are at the gates. Lo! 1 am he who opens thy way, who causes thy foes to fall; ... I have stretched out ( ?) for thee my arm upon them on this day on which thy ka and thy t>a went to rest. . . . Thou art glorious, and art a spirit, and art mightier than the gods of Upper Egypt and the North. The great ones who are In the horizon arise. The attendants of the Lord of All are glad;, . . Joyful is the heart of those who are in the horizon when they see thee coming in this thine honour which thy father Geb made for thee. . . . Thy ba rejoices in Abydos, thy corpse reigns in the desert cemetery. Glad is the heart of the Head of the Divine Hall when he sees this god, lord of those who are, ruler of those who are not. I am thy son Horus; I have given thee justification in the assembly. ... *
This is a very miracle of confusion, but it is typical. The dead man is identified with Osiris and in the same breath with Re- Atum. Moreover, though himself an Osiris, he is apparently to be tried before Osiris himself, for the 'Great One, Lord of the West' can hardly be any other. This attempt to edit earlier texts on Osirian lines is already familiar to us from the Pyramids. In the Coffin Texts, however, the editing is more frequently done by means of marginal glosses. Thus the text known later as Chapter xvn of the Book of the Dead begins as follows in the Coffin Texts;
All things were mine when I was alone; I am Re at his first rising.
(Gloss) That is, when he rises In the morning in his horizon, I am the Great One who begat himself.
(Gloss) This great god is Nun (Chaos).
*ho created his names, lord of the Divine Ennead.
(Gloss) That is Re.
352 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP
Who is not kept off from among the gods.
(Gloss) That is Horns of Letopolis. Yesterday is mine and I know to-xnorrow.
(Gloss) That Is Osiris.
Originally the purpose of the glosses was to explain difficulties, but HI the hands of the priests they served the very useful purpose of enabling new beliefs to be incorporated with old without the suppression of the latter. In this way Osiris acquires an ever increasing ascendancy in the solar myth, and the first result is that the dead man as an Osiris is granted a place in the celestial hereafter, as is abundantly clear from the passages quoted above. But just as Osiris must be taken up into the solar hereafter so., too. Re acquires a connexion with the Osirian hereafter. He becomes Lord of the Dewat or Underworld, a position hitherto occupied by Osiris. It has been remarked that the geography of the Osirian Dewat was obscure. It is now cleared up. Re sinks each evening in the western horizon and enters the realm of the Dewat over which Osiris as Head of the Westerners presides. The Dewat is thus conceived as under the earth, where Re spends the night threading its complicated halls and passages to rise next morning in the east.
Such is the theology of the Middle Kingdom as shown in the Coffin Texts. We can now answer our original question, What relation does this bear to ethics? In a Coffin Text quoted above and in. several others we meet with the phrase cthe day of reckoning characters/ but the idea does not seem to be developed very far. At the same time the view which regarded Osiris as the judge of the dead and which later crystallized out into Chapter cxxv of the Book of the Dead is already taking form. *Hail to you, lords of right, * we read, * company that is behind Osiris, ye that put the evil-doer to the sword. Behold me. I am come before you that ye may expel the evil that is in me/ It is true that almost side by side with this we find the solar passage: *The sin that was in me is put away. I have cleansed myself in those two great and mighty pools in Heracleopolis in which the offerings of mankind are cleansed for the great god who is therein/ The local god of Hera- cleopolis is Harshef, but the gloss runs: *Who is this (god)? It is Re himself/ Here Re is represented, if not as the judge, at any rate as one interested in the expulsion of sin. Indeed he had from the first been regarded as the incarnation of all goodness. Ipuwer in the Admonitions looked back to Re as the ideal just ruler, and the eloquent peasant speaks of a proverb, 'Tell the trutK and do justice,* as 'That good word which came out of the mouth of Re/
IX, in] BELIEF IN A JUDGMENT ' 353
But a change was gradually taking place. Quite early there had come into being a myth in which Osiris was arraigned by his brother Set before the Court of Re in Heliopolis, and acquitted as 'true of voice* or * justified/ a legal term used of one proved innocent in the courts. In origin the Osiris legend had little or no ethical content, and the incident of the trial marks the first con- nexion of the god with morals. The importance of this is made apparent when the funerary cult is extended from the king to the private individual. Every deceased person then becomes an Osiris and as such is 'true of voice * or * justified/ By the beginning of the Middle Kingdom this change has already taken effect, and before long the Osiris myth takes another step forward and Osiris, instead of being the person judged innocent, becomes himself the judge. But this is a stage of the myth which does not bulk at all largely in the Middle Kingdom. There we still have Re and Osiris side by side as models of goodness and justice, the former standing for the old state religion, the latter, though royal in origin, now beginning to appeal more strongly to popular belief and imagination.
Now, it is a remarkable fact that the connexion here evident between religion and ethics plays a very minor role in the profane literature and the tomb inscriptions of the Middle Kingdom. There is one notable exception, a passage in the * Instructions of a king to his son Merire/ a document to which we have already referred, and which probably dates from the Intermediate Period. It runs as follows: * As for the court who judge sinners, mark thee that they will not be lenient on that day of judging miserable (men), in the hour of performing their function. Wretched is he who is accused as one conscious (of sin?). Put not thy faith in length of years, for they behold a lifetime as an hour. A man survives after death* His deeds are laid beside him for treasure. Eternal is the existence yonder. He who has made light (?) of it is a fool. But he who has reached it without wrongdoing shall exist yonder like a god, stepping forward boldly like the lords of eternity/
This passage has to be taken seriously into account in estimating Egyptian morals; the words are spoken by a king to his son and heir, and probably date back to the IXth or Xth Dynasty. And yet it stands almost alone in its lofty conception. We search the tomb inscriptions and the didactic papyri almost in vain * for another such expression of the moral sanction, though in these, if anywKere, we might have expected to find the belief of the wise men and educated nobles of Egypt. This is a remarkable fact, and
C.A.K.X 23
354 EGYPTIAN LIFE AND THOUGHT [CHAP.
it has. a still more remarkable explanation. With his ever practical mind the Egyptian had devised a means of securing his future which, if followed out to its logical conclusion, must have^deprived morality of all its value. This means lay in the application of what was called hike, a concept which it is difficult to translate but corresponds generally to the anthropological term mana.
The Petrograd papyrus., above quoted, tells us that 'God (i.e. the sun-god) made for men spells of htke&s a weapon to ward off (evil) happenings/ And the Egyptians had not failed to make use of the gift. In the Pyramid Texts we find certain utterances which are to be used by the dead king as a means of propitiating unfavourable beings in the next world. This principle of the efficacy of certain words for certain purposes is inherent in Egyptian thought and is undoubtedly based on the conception of hike. Such an immensely important part did this play that any attempt to interpret Egyptian life and thought without making allowance for it would be worth- less. To suppose that hike was a pathological excrescence on the body of Egyptian religion, that it was, as it were, c religion gone wrong/ does not cover the facts. To the Egyptian all acts of what- soever nature came under one of two categories, ordinary acts or hike. Ordinary acts are those in which purely natural means were used. When, however, these natural means, such as prayer, re- quest, entreaty, failed to obtain the required favour from another being or thing there still remained fuke^ a form of coercion which required some special marvellous knowledge to perform. One of its commonest forms consisted in the pronouncement of a particular group of words in a particular way, often to the accompaniment of a prescribed action* On this, as will be seen later, the whole of Egyptian medicine is based.
The action of Kike was not limited to relations between men and men or between men and things. We have already seen that the Egyptian regarded men, gods, and dead as merely three species of a single genus, both gods and dead being subject to the same physical wants as men, though somehow in a less tangible sense. Now gods and dead were of course approachable by men through what we have termed natural means; but they were, like men, also amenable to that particular kind of force majeure which the Egyptians called teke> a power which, incidentally, they were by no means averse from using themselves, as Egyptian myth amply testifies. Nay more, since gods and dead were removed from direct contact with the living, what more natural than that men should come to^ regard Kike as a much more potent and certain means of persuading them than ordinary prayer or request ? If this be the
IX, m] HIKE AND MORALITY 355
case, it would explain, as nothing else seems to do, why nearly all commiirucation with gods and dead took the form of ritual, of words to be recited in a prescribed way and acts to be done in a prescribed form. In this way we avoid any antithesis between religion and hike^ and we see that any act, secular or religious, may be regarded either as purely natural or as partaking in a greater or less degree of hike. See p. 209.
If this interpretation be correct, all ritual is of the nature of hike, which is in accordance with the fact that the spells used by men for the purposes of self-protection, production, prognostic and cursing are similar in form to the ritual of the temple and the tomb, and that spells are not infrequently transferred from the purely human sphere to the religious or funerary. The significance of this belief in hike from the ethical point of view is enormous. Why trouble to follow the painful path of virtue, except insofar as purely mundane considerations made it advisable, if all could be made right with the gods by merely knowing the correct words to be said on arrival in the next world and the right way to say them? If anyone finds such a belief preposterous let him study the Coffin Texts. For instance, the Middle Kingdom edition of the section known to us later as Chapter xvii of the Book of the Dead ends as follows : * If a man says this section he shall enter into the West after he has gone up. But as for anyone who does not know this section he shall not enter in.* And be it understood, it was not necessary that he should know the section by heart, since the mere fact of its being inscribed on the inside of his coffin placed it at his command whenever he might have need of it, just as in later days it sufficed to have in one's tomb a copy on papyrus of the more essential parts of th** T3nr>lr nf
23 — *
CHAPTER X EARLY BABYLONIA AND ITS CITIES
I. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
IN turning from Egypt to Babylonia we enter the Semitic area. But its early history is Sumerian rather than Semitic, and the origin, character, and civilization of the Sumerians constitute a difficult problem which has not yet been solved. For some time past scholars have recognized that the numerous inscriptions in * Sumerian' were not some cryptographic writing of the ordinary cuneiform, but, primarily at least, a genuine and agglutinative language, entirely distinct from Semitic (p. 127). Moreover, it has been possible to recognize the presence of a people who, as regards physical type and culture, were not Semites, but had points of contact, not with the Arabian desert on the west, but with the east. The evidence, however, is as yet fragmentary, and depends upon such old sites as have been examined or excavated; but it enables us to contrast the Sumerians and the Semites, to observe the strength of the civilization of the former, and its influence upon the latter, who in time gradually gain the upper hand. The interpretation of the scattered archaeological data is of course somewhat conjectural. It is unlikely that the country was unin- habited before the Sumerians entered; moreover, throughout the whole of the Semitic area the towns were habitually recruited from the desert, and what we call * Semitic1 rarely had an absolutely pure ancestry (see p. 192 sg.). Hence, it is not easy to decide whether the growth of the Semites which we are about to follow began before our earliest records (c£ p. 371).
The name Sumer (properly Shumer) Is the late phonetic repre- sentation of the word Ki-en-gi(n), the precise meaning of which is uncertain. One interpretation, 'Land of the Reed/ refers appro- priately to the reedy marshes of the Euphrates and Tigris. But since the word also appears to be an old title of the city and district of Nippur, and can be rendered 'place of the faithful lord," the reference may be to Enlil, the earth-god. His cult at Nippur and the cult of Enki, the water-god, at Eridu, formed^ the two pillars of the old pantheon. The term Sumer is now generally applied to the southern part of Babylonia (Akkad being the north),
CHAP, X, i] THE TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES 357
but may be extended to cover all the land occupied by Sum^rians at any gwen age, including Assyria.
The great plain extending from the southern slopes of the Armenian plateau, in which rise the Tigris and Euphrates, has the shape of an elongated flat-iron about 800 miles long. The southern and more recently formed portion of the plain was the scene of the first great civilization of western Asia, from the region of Ashur (the modern Kal'at Shergat), on the middle Tigris above the 35th parallel, to the old mouths of the two rivers. This comparatively small territory, which in the fifth millennium B.C. was not more than 350 miles long, is bounded on the east by the Zagros Moun- tains and the low range of the Pushti Kuh whose foothills rise gradually from the Tigris valley at a distance varying between 60 and 100 miles from that stream. Several small rivers rise in this great western bluff of the plateau of Iran and flow south-westerly into the Tigris. The most northerly are the Greater and Little Zab; the former empties into the Tigris about 40 miles below ancient Nineveh and the latter about So miles below the Greater Zab, The Shatt el-Adhem joins the Tigris 60 miles above Baghdad. It was known to the Semites as the Radanu and to classical geo- graphers as the Physcus. The Tigris is said to have shifted east- ward from its old bed in this region, the present mouth of the Adhem being about eight miles from the old river bed.
Perhaps the most important stream which descends from the eastern highlands to the plain is the Diyala which reaches the Tigris below Baghdad, opposite the site of the city Seleucia of the Greek period. Across the sources of this river runs the ancient caravan route from the central Tigris region to the Persian city of Hamadan ma Kerind and Kermanshah. Through this pass the Sumerians probably descended into the valley of the two rivers from the highlands of Iran and central Asia* The pass was known as the 'Gate of the Zagros* and the * Median Gate/ and in a lofty crevice near this pass, beyond Kermanshah, Darius the Great placed the well-known sculptures and trilingual inscription of Behistun (see p. 125).
In ancient times the remaining rivers of western Persia which flow into the southern plain emptied into the sea below the estuary of the Tigris. The Tigris and the Euphrates reach the sea in a single large stream, the modern Shatt el- Arab. From the junction of the rivers, formed in our own era where Kurna now stands, to the sea the distance is nearly a hundred miles. East of the middle course of the Kerkhah on the western slopes of the low plateau of Susiana lay the very ancient city Susa, one of the oldest seats of
358 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP
civilization in Asia. Parallel to the Kerkhah, about 40 miles to the south, the important river Karun reaches the Shatt el-Arab below Basrah, 2 5 miles from the sea* Sumer proper, or at least the region of the great Sumerian cities whose foundations are of prehistoric date, ends with the north coast line of the sea; but the narrow plain between the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the foot- hills of Iran as far as the Strait of Hormuz was probably the first region of advanced Sumerian culture. The long coastal plain is crossed by several small streams, and here probably lay the district of Dilmun, the legendary home of the Sumerian Paradise and the beginnings of civilization. Others, however, identify that enigma- tical land with the western shore of the Gulf and the island Bahrein.
The Euphrates is a much longer and more tortuous stream than the Tigris. Its two upper streams, the Kara Su, or western Euphrates, and the Murad Su, or eastern Euphrates, cross the western and southern plateaus of Armenia andunite near the north- eastern corner of ancient Cappadocia. Here it follows a winding southerly course forming the eastern boundary of Cappadocia and of Commagene, where it finally emerges into the Syrian and Mesopotamian plains from the foothills at Samosata, ng^ miles to the sea by river. Along its upper course it is joined by two important streams. The one, the Balikh, which drains the region of Edessa and Harran (in the old Roman province of Osrhoene), flows almost parallel to the long southern reach of the Euphrates between Samosata and Thapsacus at the great bend, and joins the * Great river' below Rakka (the classical Nicephorium). About 90 miles lower down, the other, the Khabur, drains the central region of northern Mesopotamia and empties into the Euphrates near the old Roman military post Circesium.
As the Euphrates approaches the line of the Tigris the plain of Mesopotamia is only about no miles wide, and from this point it gradually contracts until, opposite Baghdad, a distance of only 20 miles separates the rivers. From Hit to the waist of the plain at Abu Habba the river has a current of only 2 J miles per hour and an average depth of 20 feet. Signs of ancient irriga- tion systems begin to appear along both rivers above the 34th parallel, for we have now reached the region of old Akkad proper and of long summer droughts. Forty-eight miles below Hit the Saklawiyeh canal leaves the Euphrates in an easterly direction, and in early Abbasid times joined the Tigris above Baghdad. Most of the canals are constructed in order to conduct the waters of the Euphrates into the Tigris. The ruins of Sippar (Abu Habba) lie inland, east of the Euphrates just south of the Royal Canal
X, 1] LOWER MESOPOTAMIA 359
(modern Nahr el-Malik), and since Slppar was situated on the 'Great River., * the stream has shifted westward at this pointsabout five miles. In the times of which we are about to write we must assume tliat the two rivers approached each other at a distance of only 12— 15* miles here; and, since the kingdom of Akkad had its capital at this point, it is probable that military reasons weighed in the selection of the site. Below Sippar another canal crosses the country, the Canal of Cuthah, so called because the old Sumerian city Gu-dn-a or Kutha received its water from this source. Cuthah,, now Tell Ibrahim, eighteen miles north-east of Babylon, owed its existence, like all other inland cities, to the irrigation system. It is in fact probably older than either Sippar or Babylon on the Euphrates.
The hill-country has been left behind, and from the region of Sippar to the sea the soil is now deeper and entirely alluvial ; with considerable certainty we may regard this region as approximately the old shore of the Persian Gulf at the beginning of the post- glacial period. Just above Babylon the Shatt en-Nil leaves the river in a south-easterly direction to pass through nearly the whole length of central Sumer and rejoin the Euphrates 1 50 miles below, at Nasriyeh. This canal is in reality the original bed of the Euphrates, and one of its small northern branches supplied the famous city of Kish (Oheimir), eight miles east of Babylon. Further south the main canal carried water to a large number of very ancient towns, including Niffer, the ancient Nippur,
Below Babylon west of the Euphrates is the mound Delab or Delem, the ancient Dilbat. There are no great ancient cities on the present Euphrates for a hundred miles until we reach Mukay- yar (Ur) and Abu Shahrein (Eridu), both a considerable distance to the west of the river, which in early times is supposed to have reached the sea at Eridu. The reconstruction of the canal and river course of the region along the lower Euphrates presents great difficulties owing to the unknown extent of the shifting of the river. It is a notoriously fickle stream, as a comparison between the maps of Chesney (1836) and those of Kiepert (1883, 1893) proves. Two of the most ancient cities lay in this district, both of them capitals of influential dynasties, Erech (now the mound Warka) nine miles east of the present bed of the Euphrates, and Larsa or Ellasar (now Senkereh)* 1 5 miles south-east of Warka and west of the Shatt el-~Kar.
Below Nippur the Shatt en-Nil is now known as the Shatt el- Kar? From its source above Babylon to its reunion with the Eu- phrates it traverses the central plain, and once irrigated the great
360 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
Sumerian cities Isin(see p. 688, n. i)? Nippur, Larsa, Shuruppak, Ad&by and Eredbu Its banks are dotted with the mounds of un- identified cities. The Sumerians apparently depended upon the Euphrates to a great extent for their supply of water. The Shatt el-Hai taps the Tigris at Kut el-Amara and crosses the lower plain southward in a direct line to Nasriyeh, where it discharges into the Euphrates. Near Its course, and probably supplied from it, lay the foundations of Lagash (a name formerly read Shirpurla), now the mound Telloh, to the south in the central plain, and Umrna (now Yokha), on the north side of the Hai opposite Lagash. There were no old Sumerian cities on the present course of the Euphrates below Babylon.
Sumer lay north of the 3ist parallel,, and the classic region of its civilization was a comparatively narrow plain between the two rivers. No great cities were built on the plains east of the Tigris or west of the Euphrates, and it is difficult to discover how much of these adjacent lands came within their irrigation system* Their southern lands are in the latitude of Cairo and New Orleans, and their northern cities in the latitude of Cyprus and South Carolina. The isothermal charts of Sumer and the lower Mississippi valley are approximately the same. In summer the temperature reaches 126° Fahrenheit in the shade, and is ordinarily above 1 10° from June to September, In this region the thermometer usually reaches freezing-point in winter, but snow is rare below Baghdad. The prevailing winds are from the north-west throughout the year; but whatever moisture they may carry from the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in the hot season has long been precipitated in the plateaux of Asia Minor and Armenia and in the hill-country of upper Mesopotamia when the winds reach the land of Sumer. During September hot winds blow from the south, and sometimes steadily for several days. Although they render the air extremely hot and suffocating, yet the culture of the date-palm depends upon this, for the hot winds ripen the dates.
Now the Sumerian legends locate the land of Paradise, where the gods first blessed mankind with manners of civilized life, in Dilmira on the shore of the Persian Gulf, In the island Bushire the French excavator, M. Pezard, found traces of neolithic culture and tHn monochrome pottery decorated in geometrical style, characteristic of the earliest culture at Susa, Musyan, Ur and Eridu. The Arabian geographers also describe this region as fruit- ful, and one of their four lands of Paradise was located here. But the Sumerians seem to have founded settlements along tlie upper Tigris long before the land in the south was redeemed from the
X, nj THE DATE-PALM AND THE SUMERIANS 361
rivers and the climate. Thus, at Ashur, and lower down the river near Samarra, ancient Sumerian statuettes have been found. If, then/ w£ enquire what was the attraction of the southern plains, luxuriant, marshy, subject to annual droughts, there is one ob- vious reason which could have Induced men to undertake the enormous labour which Irrigation Imposed, and that was the cul- ture of the date-palm. The more hospitable and temperate plain above Baghdad does not possess the hot moist conditions of the lower Tigris and Euphrates, which are so indispensable for the fruit. Throughout the records of Sumerian and Babylonian civi- lization the date-palm surpasses all other products of the soil in Importance, and entire lexicographical texts are devoted to the names of the various kinds of the date-palm, the parts of the tree and the technical terms employed in its cultivation (cf. pp. 543 $qq^)« Fruit in hot countries has always been the staple article of human diet, and It was the date which supplied this need and made pos- sible the rapid rise of the Sumerian people. Dilmun, Itself the land of Sumerian beginnings. Is mentioned in their records as a land of the date-palm.
See further, for a general account of the country, pp. 39 sg.,
43 *?*> 494
II. THE ORIGIN OF THE SUMERIANS
Archaeological evidence points to the occupation of western Asia in prehistoric times, certainly before the chalcolithic stage, by various branches of a vigorous race which spoke agglutinating languages. They first come within the scope of archaeology at Susa In Elam, a site near the Kerkhah river, on the western slope of the Persian plateau, 80 miles east of Amara, There are neolithic stations along the slopes of the Zagros mountains where flint is abundant, Flint and obsidian gravers and borers characterize the lower strata of the culture at Susa, and are found also in the lower levels of all the oldest Sumerian cities; but none of these founda- tions show a true neolithic culture. The flint knives, scrapers, saws, borers, arrow-heads and other stone implements of Susa, Lagash, Ur, Eridu, Nippur and Umma are found mingled with rude copper implements.
The most ancient culture at Susa Is 60 metres below the present level of the plain and Is characterized by fine painted pottery. The potter's wheel had already come Into use, the clay Is finely kneaded and* turned with such skill that the walls of the vessels are mar- vellously thin and delicate. These craftsmen of the fifth millennium
362 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
invented a lustrous black paint by mixing brown haematite with an alkali salt and potassium. The same thin pottery with geo- metrical designs in lustrous black paint has now been fpund at Lagash, at Eridu, and near Ur. This early kind of elegant" pottery is ordinarily decorated with geometrical designs. Animals are stylized so that they are almost unrecognizable. The animals most commonly represented (in black line) are the serpent, goat, hunting dog, stork, turtle, and eagle with outspread wings. Human figures are rare, and not so conventionalized as those of the animals; but the geometrical line-drawn human figure does occur on the in- terior of a fine bowl from Susa, and often on the pottery of the same period at Musyan, a proto-Elamitic site 30 miles west of Susa. The ceramic of Musyan, although on the whole less perfect than that of Susa, clearly 'belongs to the same culture, and in the writer's opinion both may be dated between 4500—4000 B.C. The relation between the proto-Elamitic people and the Sumerians must be left to conjecture. When we come to the second or realistic period of Elamitic culture it will be seen that it belongs either to a branch of the Sumerian race or to a people of the same raciajl habits and customs.
The painted pottery had already become conventional befor< i 4000 in E3am and Sumer, and its origins must be much earlier. The same culture appears at Anau in Russian Turkestan at ii depth of 64 feet from the top of the mound and 24 feet belov r the present level of the plain. Here the texture of the pottery i< J also thin and delicate, and the monochrome designs are laid on the 5 polished handmade surface with lustrous black paint, violet 01* black-brown. Occasionally a colour slip is put on before the design, Some of the proto-Elamitic pottery is also handmade but here a rude wheel was already invented.
The above date is disputed;. but the writer inclines to the belief that a great prehistoric civilization spread from Central Asia to the, plateau of Iran, and to Syria and Egypt long before 4000 B.C., andi that the Sumerian people, who are a somewhat later branch of this? Central Asian people, entered Mesopotamia before 5000 B.C. The decorative art at Anau is already in a period of stiff conventionj and reveals an industry at the end of its evolution. The chevron^ zigzag line, lattice work and triangle are clear evidence of intimate relation between the decorative arts of Elam and Anau; and the similarity between the early ceramic of Susa and that of predynas-i tic Egypt is one that cannot be due to chance. I
The stratum of monochrome geometrical pottery at Siisa'had a maximum thickness of 27 feet, and the same period at Anau fills-
X, nj THE CULTURES OF ANAU AND SUSA 363
a layer of 49 feet. It seems quite obvious, therefore, that we must assign a long period to the prehistoric civilization of Central Asia an^L Elam, all of which belongs to the late stone and copper age. Above the archaic stratum at Susa lay the remains of a sterile
Eeriod which indicates the complete effacement of that fine civi- zation in Islam. After the sterile layer of 3—4 feet in thickness a new civilization arrives contemporary with the beginnings of Sumerian sculpture in lower Mesopotamia. This layer is char- acterized by an inferior type of painted pottery, less delicate and often polychrome. The old geometrical style is now superseded by an effort to portray animals and vegetation In realistic style. The animals of the archaic period remain, but the fish now appears. A tendency to use stone and alabaster becomes manifest, and instead of the goblet in clay we have fine horn-shaped vessels in stone. The cylinder-seal appears contemporaneously in Elam, Sumer and Egypt; and the influence of sculpture and glyptic in stone reacts visibly upon the decorative art of pottery much to its dis- advantage. Hieroglyphic writing, also, appears in this period in the three lands; on the connexion between them, see pp. 372, 376; and for the wider relations, see pp. 62, 80 sg.> 85—91.
We may find in the mound of Susa the best archaeological norm for tracing the rise and progress of the Sumerians. Their earliest remains begin with the late stone and early, copper age, with cylinder seals and rude sculptures in stone. The lowest strata of their culture yield little painted pottery, but plain dull red vases, whose shapes have considerable resemblance to those of the second period of Susa. These we should place at about 4000 B.C. For the shapes of both stone and clay jars in prehistoric times we are dependent largely upon designs of the contemporary cylinders and bas-reliefs; and these show a noteworthy similarity in Susa and Elam. The new civilization at Susa which appears there about 4000 B.C. seems to form part of the great Sumerian culture.
An asphalt head found in the second stratum of Susa reveals all the characteristics of Sumerian physiognomy and coiffure. A high straight nose joins the cranium without appreciable depres- sion at the bridge; the forehead is slightly receding. The axis of the eye slopes slightly downward from the inner to the outer corner, a phenomenon noticeable in many Sumerian heads. This type of eye and nose is characteristic of both Elamites and Sumerians. The Elamite face has a long beard dressed in horizontal waves and clean shaven lips. The earliest Sumerians wore full beards, in the present writer's opinion, but on archaic bas-reliefs the lips are shaven. A remarkable monument of the late archaic period (i.e.
364 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
4^oo~-3OOO B.C.) represents the Sumerian people in the transition stage. The circular pedestal of Lagash, now in the Louvre, has both types in the figures of kings and dignitaries, but the ordinary people here have shaven heads also. The earliest known example of a Sumerian sculptured in the round is the figurine of Lugal- kisalsi of Erech who has a long braided beard, and shaven lips and cheeks. The hair of the lips was first to disappear, leaving long carefully dressed hair and beards. Then the beards were aban- doned and finally also the hair of the head. Since the Semites who arrived in Sumer in the prehistoric period wore full beards, the only test of distinction in this respect is the shaven lip. The gods of Sumer generally have full beards and shaven lips, an indication that the representation of deities arose in this stage of Sumerian culture and that the pantheon is entirely Sumerian. In the writer's opinion it is therefore unnecessary to suppose that the custom represents Semitic Influence.
The primitive Sumerian dress was the sheep's fleece, and the proto-EIamitic peoples of the first period have left examples of finely woven linen. The first impulse in weaving was to imitate the sheep's fleece which they had abandoned for the woven gar- ment. The garment was at first woven with one row of long loops, and as worn by men it was secured at the waist by a band leaving the upper body bare. It was consequently known in Sumerian as gu-en-na^ gu-an-na^ * garment which leaves the shoulder bare/ and it passed into Semitic, and thence into Greek (kaunakes). The word *kaunakes* may be employed to denote the old national dress of the Sumerian and Elamitic peoples. In the evolution of its manufacture it is woven to imitate three, four and often as many as ten rows of locks which greatly resemble flounces. Women wore the kaunakes draped from the left shoulder, and this habit was also adopted by men in the Semitic period of Akkad. The kaunakes hung from the hips was the national dress of prehistoric Sumer, of Elam in the second period, and it has been found repre- sented on a gold cup discovered at Astrabad in northern Persia on the slope of the Elburz range near the south-eastern corner of the Caspian sea.
III. EARLIEST TRADITIONAL DYNASTIES
All the evidence suggests that a dolichocephalic race speaking agglutinative lang-uages descended upon Iran, Mesopotamia and the shores of the Persian Gulf probably from the then fertilS plains of central Asia before 5000 B.C. Of this race the Sumerians who
X, in] EARLY DYNASTIC LISTS 365
first occupied the upper readies of the Tigris and Euphrates were by far the most talented, and their oldest cities known to us are built by; the shores of the Tigris and the Euphrates,, and the canals which they constructed in prehistoric times. Long afterwards, when their own independent kingdoms had passed away and they were living under the rule of a Semitic dynasty at Isin and an Elamite kingdom of Larsa in the twenty-third century, their learned men constructed a vast system of chronology extending from the Flood to their own times, and their poets wrote legends of the Creation, the beginning of their civilization and the myth of prediluvian Paradise. From these long lists we can partially re- construct the earlier ages, but they cannot be utilized for history until they reach a period where they can be controlled by the inscriptions. (See the lists at the end of this volume.)
There are inconsistencies and errors even in the addition of the figures of the reigns of kings. The most important tablet is one written apparently in the fourth year of Enlil-bani, eleventh king of Isin, and composed at Nippur. This tablet and its duplicates agree in saying that eleven cities possessed at various times the seat of one or more dynasties in the long period from the Flood to and including part of the dynasty of Isin. The principal tablet reckons 134 kings from the Flood to the eleventh king of Isin (third year= 2198 B.C.) and 28,876 (+ ?) years from the Flood to the year in which the tablet was written. Another tablet gives 139 kings and 25,063 (+ ?) years. Cf. above, p. 152.
The first of the dynasties reigned at Kish (now Oheimir), situated near the old course of the Euphrates, nine miles east of Babylon. The early reigns were mythical. Thus Arpu reigns 720 years, and to Etana the shepherd who ascended to heaven is assigned 635 years. The shortest reign is 410 years and the longest 1200. Only nine names of this mythical line at Kish are fully preserved, Galumum, Zukakipu (the 'scorpion/ cf» also in Egypt, p. 267 $q.\ Arpu, Etana, Walikh, Enmenna, Melam- Kish, Barsalnunna, Meszagud. Four of these appear to be Semitic, whence it would seem that already before 5000 B.C. there were Semites among the Sumerian peoples of central Mesopotamia (later known as Akkad).
Some historical truth must certainly lie behind these semi- mythical kingdoms. At the most conservative estimate the old Semitic dynasty of Kish cannot be reduced below 45*00 B.C., and probably recedes well into the fifth millennium. On this view, then, the*earfiest kingdom of Kish is northern and Semitic, and the adop- tion of Sumerian culture suggests a long period of earlier Sumerian
366 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP,
occupation In central Mesopotamia. In historical times these semi- mythical kings receded into the realm of legend and poet&y; some of them were regarded as gods and figure as deities in the pan- theon. Of the kings of the first dynasty of Kish, Etana became the subject of a long Semitic poem, the principal episode of which is his ascension to the dwelling of Ann, the heaven god, on the back of an eagle, where he is seized with dizziness and falls to his death. This myth is referred to in the chronological Sumerian tablet, and Sumerian seals of the early archaic period represent the eagle bearing Etana upward, while his two dogs sit looking after him beside his vacant throne. But the real motif of the tale concerns Etana's search in heaven for a plant of birth-giving so that he might have an heir. The poem involves a long myth of a conflict between a serpent and an eagle, in which the eagle is defeated and on the point of death is revived by Etana. An archaic stone mortar discovered at Nippur portrays in bas-relief the conflict of the eagle, the bird of the sun-god, and the serpent, representative of the powers of darkness. The association of the cosmological battle between the eagle and the serpent with a king of a prehistoric dynasty only proves how ancient such motifs were among the Su- merians, and myth-making of this sort is the chief characteristic of this remarkable people.
The next dynasty ruled at Erech and belongs to the south. This is manifest not only from the situation of its capital, but from the Sumerian character of the names. The principal list says that five different dynasties ruled at Erech, and they include 22 kings. The sum of the years of these five Erech kingdoms is 4980 (+ ?) years, 6 months and 14 days. Meskingasher son of Utu the sun-god reigned 325 years in E-anna, which is ordinarily the name of the temple of Anu and Ishtar at Erech. His son Enmerkar built the city of Erech and ruled 420 years. Then follow three kings all of whom become prominent in later Sumerian and Babylonian re- ligion, Lugal-banda, Tammuz, and Gilgamesh. All three receive the title of deity in the list. Lugal-banda occupies a prominent position in^the religion of Erech and Sumer as the son of Enlil the earth-god of Nippur, and consort of the mother-goddess Nin-Sun mother of Gilgamesh. The tablet assigns 1200 years to his reign and gives him the title * shepherd/ Tammuz, whose name may mean 'the faithful child/ came from Khabur a suburb of Eridu and ruled at Erech 100 years* The great cult of the dying and resurrected god was presumably attached to his name because he had sacrificed his life for his people. Tammuz is called a "fisher- man * in the chronological tablet. The Rod Gil^amesh was lord of
X, ni] THE FIRST CITY-STATES 367
Kullab a quarter of Erech. This semi-human semi-divine son of the mother goddess Nin-Sun ruled 126 years and became tlie hero of a Sumerian epic, and later of the great Semitic epic of Gilgamesh, in 1 2 tablets, the masterpiece of Babylonian literature* The Semitic poem describes him as a king of Erech of the sheepfolds, who oppressed his people, wherefore the mother-goddess Aruru cre- ated a satyr Enkidu to oppress him, but the two became reconciled and together they made war against the god Khumbaba in the cedar mountains of Elam. This legendary reference to hostility between a prehistoric ruler of a southern Sumerian kingdom and Elam probably contains a hint of early relations between these peoples, A tradition at Nippur credits Gilgamesh with having built the temple of Enlil there, and his son also showed concern for that sacred city. It is probable that the two semi-mythical dynasties of Kish and Erech were really contemporary.
The next dynasty has its seat still farther south on the Euphrates at Ur and is entirely Sumerian. We now arrive at reigns which are for the most part normal. Mesannipadda ruled 80 years and his son Meskenagnunna 30 years. Then follow Elulu with 25 years and Balulu with 36 years: in all four kings at Ur whose reigns cover a period 171 years. The next dynasty ruled at Awan (later known as Awak in Kazallu) a city of unknown location but probably east of the Tigris, and certainly not far from Susa.
A long list of unknown kingdoms must now be supplied until we come, in the dynasty lists, to the northern Semitic kingdom of Akshak on the Tigris, later Up! (Upe), the Opis of Xenophon, at the mouth of the river Adheiru Between the old southern kingdoms of Ur and Awan and that of Opis we know that two kingdoms ruled again at Kishy and that they were probably Semitic* Ur was again the capital of an unknown line of four kings, who ruled 108 years.
A short dynasty of 7 years ruled at Khama%iy east of the Tigris, near Awan. A third dynasty of Kish followed. Then Erech again became the seat of a dynasty of four kings, after which Adab obtained the supremacy for 90 years. The control of the two lands then returned to the north at Maer on the middle Euphrates, where a dynasty of four (?) kings ruled from 3268—3188, Next followed the dynasty of Akshak.
If we may depend upon the figures given upon another tablet the dynasty of Akshak began about 3200 B.C. This may be re- garded as the first approximately fixed date in Sumero-Babylonian hisfbry. It is at present impossible to estimate the real value of the traditions concerning the kingdoms before that time. The tradi-
368 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
tlons indicate that both north and south Mesopotamia were at first inhabited by Surnerlans, but that from the very beginning of their historical recollections there had always been a qorthern Semite territory and a southern Sumerian territory. Old Sumer lay south of Kish and old Akkad to the north, but always with Kish in Its territory, The lists speak of the passing of the kingship from one city to another, from Kish to Erech, from Erech to Ur, and so on. If these statements be taken literally, we must assume that both north and south were always united under the rule of a single Semitic or Sumerian dynasty. The Inaccuracy of this state- ment Is, however, proved by the fact that one of the chronological tablets states that after the last kingdom of Ur the kingship passed to Isln and the scribes proceed to give the 16 kings of Isin. But we now know that the kingdom of Isin included only a few cities In northern Sumer, and that from the very year of its foundation a rival dynasty at Larsa secured control of all southern Sumer, And these tablets on which we must depend were written in the Ism period, when the scribes of course knew the situation. If such misleading information is recorded by scribes concerning their own times, their statements regarding ancient history are surely suspect.
In fact, we must often see In these ambitious titles to kingdoms nothing but the sudden rise of local dynasties. Now a city in the north? now a city in the south, owing to its own vigour and power becomes prominent and rules over its immediate neighbours: Old Sumer was never united under a central rulership until the great Semitic dynasty of Sargon founded at Akkad near Sippar reduced for the first time Sumer and Akkad to its sway (c. 2872 B.C.), On the other hand, these local dynasties as given In the lists really appear to have followed each other, so far as we can now control the lists by other documents * Assuming that none of these king- doms of the 134 kings from the Flood to the eleventh king of Isin overlap, and allowing for the mythical reigns, we could place the oldest city-states before 5000 B.C. That is a conservative esti- mate, If any confidence is to be placed in the lists of kingdoms : the discovery of geometrical thin pottery of the proto-Elamite period in the extreme south confirms this supposition and the evidence of the calendar makes the view imperative.
The first dynasty of which we have contemporary record is the Third Dynasty of Kish (about 3638-3488); like all the northern kingdoms It was probably Semitic. Mesilim may have been the conqueror to whom Kish owed Its supremacy over most of Sumer and Akkad. Six centuries later Eannatum and Entemena, kings of
X, m] THE THIRD DYNASTY OF KISH 369
Lagash, refer to a stele which Mesilim king of Kish had erected to fix the boundary between the rival southern cities Laga'sh and Umma.^A fine limestone mace-head eight inches high and _£-| inches in diameter was dedicated by him to Ningirsu, god of La- gash, to commemorate his building of the temple of that god; and the fact that it names Lugal-shagengur as patesi suggests that Lagash recognized the supremacy of Kish. This huge mace-head bears the oldest important bas-relief in Sumerian archaeology; and testifies to the cosmopolitanism of the age; see below p. 584. In the records of Lagash and Adab Mesilim calls himself king of Kish, without the postfix determinative ki city. In fact so often and so long had the dominion of the entire land belonged to the city Kish that the ideogram Kish came to mean ' universal dominion* (Se- mitic kishshatii)\ and in later times we shall find this title revived by the kings of Akkad (p. 404).
Urzaged, king of Kish, who dedicated a stone vase to the god Enlil and his consort Ninlil in Nippur, probably belongs to the Mesilim dynasty, as also Lugal-tarsi, king of 'universal dominion/ His inscription on a lapislazuli tablet says that he built the 'wall of the court' for Anu and Innini; the names of these deities seems to indicate Erech as the city in question. A glance at the map will convince the reader of the sway of Kish over all Suxner, if Lagash, Adab (modern Bismaya) and Erech belonged to their dominions* A fourth king of this dynasty, Lugal- ?-aga, 'king of universal dominion/ is named on the neck of a fine copper lance found in the lower stratum of Lagash. He too included Lagash in his do- minion, and a lion artistically engraved upon the blade indicates surprisingly good art at Kish in this early period.
Enbi-Ashdar (or Ishtar), whose name is of Semitic origin, was the last king of the Mesilim dynasty. He was defeated by the Sumerian priest-king, Enshagkushanna,, who reigned as *king of the land/ a title claimed later by Lugal-zaggisi, king of Erech. Apparently he founded a new kingdom at Erech, which was the capital of the land of the south. It was probably to the same Erech dynasty that Lugal-kigub-nidudu and Lugal-kisalsi belonged. Both bear the title king of Erech and king of Ur which indicates a dual capital, and both of them showed their respect for the ancient temple of Nippur by dedicating vases and monuments to Enlil., to whose favour the former attributes his elevation.
The dominion now passed to Adab^ north of Erech. Although a dynastic tablet knows of only one king Lugal-annimundu^ to whom il assigns 90 years, other kings are known, and it is prob- able that the scribes knew the duration of the kingdom, but could
C.A.H.I 24
370 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
find only one of its rulers, and therefore they attributed to him the wfiole period. A long building inscription of Ammi^zaduga, tenth king of the First Babylonian Dynasty, states that Lugal- annimundu was king of the four quarters and caretaker o^Nippur. This title implies that he held sway over all of western Asia, for only the kings of the great empires of Akkad and Ur employ it in later times. A fine archaic statuette of Lugal-dalu, 'king of Adab,' was excavated at Bismaya. Another king of Adab, Mebasi, is known from a vase inscription.
From the south the dominion passed to Maer far to the north, on the middle Euphrates near the mouth of the Khabur. The founder, An-Bu, has a Sumerian name, and a statuette of the last king, (?) -Babbar, who has a Sumerian name, bears a Sumerian inscription in which he claims the title 'king of Maer and great priest-king of Enlil/ by which he recognized the supreme religious authority of the earth-god of Nippur from whom all royal claims were derived. The seated figure belongs to the rude sculpture of the early period and wears a kaunakes with only one flounce. It belongs to an even earlier period than the statuettes of the old Sumerian civilization of Ashur, and may be classified with the rude figurine of Istabulat found near the important Sumerian city Akshak or Opis (p. 469). It is dedicated, however, to the sun-god (Semitic Shamash), and this may be adduced as evidence for the Semitic origin of the Maer kingdom. When this province figures again in history, in the age of the Empire of Agade, it is a Semitic stronghold*
From Maer the capital changed to Akshaky where Unzi founded a kingdom and ruled 30 years. Although the first three kings have Sumerian names, the dynasty of Unzi was probably Semitic, as the names of the other kings certainly are (Gimil-Shakhan, Ishu-el and Gimil-Sin),
Shortly before 3050 the ancient Semitic city of Kish regained supremacy and its eight rulers, according to the dynastic list, reigned 586 years, though the figures themselves amount to the more probable number of 192, One chronological tablet states that the fourth kingdom of Kish was founded by a female wine merchant Azag-Bau, who ruled 100 years. This queen * strength- ened the foundation of Kish/ and is mentioned among the legend- ary rulers * after the Flood/ Strange tales came from Kish con- cerning the founders of their dynasties, as we shall see later from the legends of Sargon. A more authentic list states that Gimil-Sm, son of Azag-Bau, was the first ruler and reigned 25 yeajfs. Azag- Bau was at all events a famous character. She is included in an
X,mJ THE FOURTH DYNASTY OF KISH 371
Assyrian list of exceptionally famous rulers of early times, and an Assyria*}, book of omens taken from birth-prodigies includes an augury made for Azag-Bau, 'who ruled the land/ and indicates that the*state would be visited by calamity. It seems obvious that Azag-Bau really was the founder of the fourth kingdom of Kish and was queen-regent during the reign of her son and for part of the reign of her grandson, Ur-Ilbaba. The period (3089—2897) assigned to the Azag-Bau dynasty of Kish saw the rapid develop- ment of Sumerian literature^ law, commerce and art; and in read- ing the history of the great city-states of the period which now follows, the reader must bear in mind that Sumer then owed alle- giance to a Semitic kingdom of Akkad.
For the early period of this Maer-Akshak-Kish domination (3268—2897) there is from Kish one interesting inscription on a stone tablet (said to have been found at Warka), which illustrates the racial conditions. It is the record of a sale of land, Archaic Sumerian measurements and legal expressions are employed,, and there is nothing Semitic in it save the name of Rabe-ihim, whose brother has the Sumerian name Zuzu, and the curious Se- mitic expression *the institution of the oath' (shikin mamttfy* The sellers are called the * eaters of the silver of the field.* The popula- tion of this Semitic capital certainly contained a large percentage of Sumerians. Although the Semite was always in the north from the very beginning of traditions, the earliest kings of the Semitic cities employed Sumerian in writing their inscriptions, and often adopted Sumerian names or types of names. The kings of the Mesilim dynasty not only write Sumerian, but a statuette from a site a few miles above Akshak of the period of Mesilim wears the national Sumerian dress and has a pure Sumerian head.
The origin of the Sumerian writing goes back far beyond this period* It began with pictures for the most obvious things, but intricate ideas were cleverly expressed; emphasis on superlatives was indicated by adding strokes to the pictographs. Thus the pic- ture for a human foot meant foot, go, stand, but the gunu form3 with additional strokes meant 'hasten, carry, foundation/ Most ingenious is the combination of signs one within the other. A wild ox is written with the picture of an ox head with the sign for moun- tain placed within, and meant 'ox of the mountain/ Weeping is expressed by writing * water ' and c eye* together. The mental effort
1 Gunu is the Sumerian grammatical terra for * superlative, great/ and the grammarians described all signs to which additidnal strokes had beep addecf as gunu-signs. Thus Huy cbird/ has a gunu-form Hu-gunu for * large bird/ jdb means c dwelling/ but Ab-gunuy. * great dwelling, city/
24-
572 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAR
nvolved in the origin of Sumerian writing, as contrasted with nore simple pictographic methods, is noteworthy. A phonetic system was evolved from these signs before 4000 B.C^ so that morels and verbal prefixes could be written as pronounced. To this ong period of Sumerian development may be assigned the evolu- ion of the complex pantheon in which every aspect of religion is idequately represented. This Sumerian linear pictographic writing leeins to have been introduced into Egypt in predynastic times see below, p. 462).
It is in the realm of religion that the relationship between Su» nerians and Semites is most instructively illustrated. Entemena >f Lagash, rival of the Azag-Bau dynasty of Kish, recognizes, as he deity of Kish, Ka-di (i.e. Izir) an earth and serpent goddess, >robably the old Sumerian local divinity of Kish. On the other land, the Sumerians refused to recognize Zamama (now known ,o have been pronounced Ilbaba), the local god of Kishu This god, in aspect of the spring sun, was identified with the Sumerian war- *od Ninurta, and consequently Bau the consort of Ninurta be- :ame the consort of Ilbaba at Kish. The cult there was organized iccording to Sumerian religion; its temple E~meten-ursag, 'house :hat befitteth the hero/ and its chief chapel E-ki$Mb-bay 'house of .he seal/ bear Sumerian names. The Sumerian priests admit the lames of the temple and chapel of Kish into their great canonical iturgies, though only as the seat of the worship of Ninurta; but :hey excluded Ilbaba from their litanies and psalms. Even under :he Semitic dynasty of Akkad, the god of Kish is completely leglected in the formation of proper names in favour of Ninurta, *nd not until the Semitic empire of Babylon does the name of Ilbaba acquire a place even in the religion of the people.
The uncompromising hostility of the old national Sumerian religion towards all things Semite, notwithstanding close political relations of more than a couple of thousand years, is perhaps the salient feature of Babylonian history. And the Semites willingly dlowed their religion and their manners to be engulfed in the great civilization of the people with whom they struggled so long for supremacy. The Assyrians, in turn, although from time to time masters of western Asia, and even Egypt, submitted to the claims D£ the Sumerian priesthood transmitted to them, and did not even venture to insert the names of their own capital and national god in the liturgies of their temples.
X,iv] THE CITY-STATES 373
IV, THE RECORDS OF THE CITY-STATES: LAGASH
Our scanty knowledge of early Sumerian history must be eked out with the scattered evidence from such cities as have been ex- cavated. Not one of the ancient royal cities has been thoroughly searched; and the lower strata of Erech and Ur, whose remains surely contain most of the history of early Sumer, have not been touched. Lagash and Nippur, which appear never to have been more than powerful city-states, have been fairly well excavated, and from their records we at least know to which kingdom they belonged at various periods. Nippur is of special importance as a national religious centre and the chief city of the old district of Sumer? a name which the Semites finally applied to all the south in distinction to their own province of Akkad in the north.
We have seen that the kings of Kish in the age of Mesilim left written records at Nippur, Lagash and Adab, which prove that these Sumerian cities belonged to a Semite kingdom in the north as early as 3650 B.C. Lagash3 marked by the modern mound Telloh, was the oldest and most important Sumerian city in the now desolate region south of the Shatt el-Hai (* valley of the serpent'). The mounds occupy a great oval running north and south, 2-J miles long and ij broad. The bed of the old canal, which rendered it a suitable site for a great city, lies just east of the mounds, and references to local canals are numerous in the earliest inscriptions. The most northerly mound rises 46 feet above the plain and marks the site of the great temple of Nin- girsu, the god of Lagash. This temple is comparatively modern> dating only from the age of Ur-Bau (c. 2700 B.C.). The mound in the centre marks the prehistoric site of Girsu, the oldest part of the city, which rises 52 feet above the plain. A short distance south-east of Girsu is the mound 33 feet high which is known as * tablet-hill,' for here the French excavators, De Sarzec and Com- mandant Cros, discovered a great magazine of temple-records dating from the times of Entemena onward (c. 3000 B.C.). Lagash was one of the Sumerian cities which ceased to be inhabited after the age of Hammurabi (c. 2100); and the mounds were deserted until the days of the Seleucid kingdom of the second century B.C.
The ancient city was surrounded by a thick wall, of which a portion together with its fortified western gate has been excavated just west of the northern temple mound. The old wall certainly includecl not only the ancient central and southern mounds, but also the northern mound where stood the later temple and temple-
374 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
tower (ziggurat). Although no construction has been found on this site earlier than Ur-Bau, a pre-Sargonic foundation probably stood here. Girsu is a Sumerian word for flood, inundation, and the prehistoric site was called Girsu(ki), Le, place of the waters which descended upon the dry land of the south by the great inland canals. The city-god was Ningirsu, 'lord of the floods/ a god of irrigation and fresh water, and a local type of the great Sumerian incarnation of animal-life and vegetation, Abu or Tammuz. As a city-god he was identified with Ninurta, son of Enlil, the earth-god of Nippur, and hence for Lagash he becomes a war-god. The appearance of Ningirsu, the god of Girsu, in religious texts is a sure test of their antiquity,
Girsu covers the remains of the oldest buildings, inscriptions, and bas-reliefs hitherto recovered in Sumer. At a depth of 12 feet below the pavement of Ur-Nina? oldest historical ruler of Lagash, whom we shall presently place at about 3100 B.C., was found a rectangular construction orientated with the corners to the points of the compass. The long sides face south-west and north-east, the ends of the rectangle face north-west and south-east. This orienta- tion is characteristic of Sumerian architecture. The dimensions of this building are 26 feet by 20 feet. The bricks employed in its construction have the so-called plano-convex or biscuit shape, a type of brick characteristic of the archaic period. The most strik- ing feature of the oldest bricks is their convex tops, due to the fact that they were moulded by the hand on a flat support. The rectangular flat brick which was made in a mould does not appear until shortly before the era of Sargon. Bricks of this type have small dimensions and average about 7 by 4^ inches. The thickness at the ends is ordinarily i^j- inches. This building at Girsu, whose walls were found intact to a height of over 9 feet, is divided into two unequal compartments by a transversal solid wall leaving a narrow chamber on the south-east end and a large chamber on the north-west. Both chambers are entered by wide doors at the ends of the building* There is no interior communication at all between these chambers. In prehistoric times the structure was surrounded on three sides by a huge terrace of brick and gyp- sum slabs to two-thirds the height of the building and the smaller chamber was filled up to the height of the terrace. Thus the larger chamber is left a deep walled room without any access at all, and the larger building of Ur-Nina above it in later times shows this same strange feature.
On a carefully built terrace above the old building Ur-Nina con- structed a similar rectangular building 38 by 30 feet* The biscuit
X, w] ENKHEGAL AND UR-N1NA OF LAGASH 375
shaped bricks of this king are larger, loj by ^f- inches, having the traditional thickness. The bricks of Ur-Nina are all markeci by a thumb impression on the convex top surface. Along the entire surface of the exterior walls, which are not preserved to an appre- ciable height, there is no entrance at all. Ur-Nina seems to have continued the idea of the secondary builders of earlier times and erected a great chamber without access from the exterior save by ladders placed on the terrace outside. Within this great rectangle he built two rooms, both with their own walls and separated from the side walls by passages. These rooms also have no doors. This extraordinary feature of the two old Sumerian buildings of Girsu leads to the conclusion that they were built as store-houses, and in fact the inscriptions of Ur-Nina and his successors found on this site frequently mention a store-house for food and liquors. Esh- girsu and E-Ningirsu are the most common names of the temple of the local god at the old site Girsu, and when this god was identi- fied with Ninurta, son of Enlil, the name was changed to E-ninnu, temple of the 'fifty,' for 'fifty' was the sacred number of the earth- god Enlil. Theological speculation with numbers is indicated by this new name, which occurs already in prehistoric times on* one of the oldest figured monuments discovered at Girsu, viz. a stone tablet of the Plumed Figure, a primitive record of a sale of land in which th¶kku or chapel of E-ninnU is mentioned* To Anu the heaven god was assigned the sacred number * sixty/ while Enlil, the earth-god, and Enki, the water-god, received the sacred num- bers 50 and 40, and the moon-god 30*
The first recorded royal name of Lagash, Enkhegal, may prob- ably be placed about the middle of the Akshak dynasty of UnzL This ruler, who assumes royal rank, cannot be placed much earlier than Ur-Nina. The tablet on which he is mentioned records purchases of large estates of land, and the tendency of the script to passj from pictograph to cuneiform appears here for the first time upon stone and reveals the influence of the style developed by writing on clay with a triangular headed stylus. The old pre- historic linear script has much resemblance to the geometrical style of representing objects. The pictograph for bird in this period has striking similarity to the bird-band decoration of Susan painted pottery of the first style, and is almost a replica of the aquatic bird on a painted vase from Lagash. The sigppL for gfain is taken directly from the geometrical grain dec$ratioft* In :£actv the old linear script as we first meet it in the age of stone writing from 3600-3200 clearly descends from the age of the first pottery of Susa. The primitive pictographs have passed
376 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
through a long period of linear stylization, precisely similar to the geometrical decoration of the first age of ceramic, and this indicates the great antiquity of writing in Sumer. Fragments of painted pottery and a painted vase of geometrical decoration were recovered in the prehistoric stratum of Girsu, There is, therefore, every reason to believe that the Sumerians already occupied these sites in the south in the age of the first Susan pottery. When we reach the historical period and the age of cylinder-seals we are in the same realistic and decadent stage of art as in Elam; but in Sumer the evolution is continuous. The writing alone suggests that the Sumerian civilization of Mesilim, Enshagkushanna and Ur-Nina has its roots in the remote age of a glorious art and that we first meet this people in a decadent stage from which, however, they were soon to recover.
The cylinder-seals appear abundantly in the period preceding Ur-Nina, contemporary with their appearance in Elam and pre- dynastic Egypt* In Elam and Sumer they are uninscribed. The most common scene of this period represents two gods seated facing each other; between them is a large jar from which they suck wine by means of a long tube. Certainly the ideas of feasting and of making offerings to the gods dominate the religious art of the very early period. Somewhat rare is the scene of a worshipper standing in prayer before a seated god; but it becomes the most common seal decoration in later times. Even in this prehistoric time we find already established the two great religious gestures of the Sumerians, the hand in front of the mouth (throwing a kiss), and the liturgical gesture of the hands folded at the waist. The festive scenes of the gods disappear in historical times, prayer and worship became prominent as their civilization advanced, and they developed that profound sense of humiliation which characterized the entire history of the Sumerian religion.
The clay-tablet for writing seems to have been invented about a century before Ur-Nina. It was destined to have a profound effect upon the literature, commerce and diplomacy not only of Sumer but of all western Asia. The credit for this revolutionary discovery ^ has been usually claimed for the Sumerians. A rival claimant is Elam, Baked clay tablets of pre-Sargonic times have been found at Susa, and they are inscribed in a cuneiform style of writing peculiar to Elam, having few connexions with the Su- merian writing. Only the method of writing the numbers seems to be the same,^and a few signs are obviously identical in the two systems. It is difficult to determine the priority. Certainly *none of the tablets yet discovered at Susa attain to the great age of the
X, iv] SHURUPPAK, ITS LEGENDS AND GODS 377
early Sumerian tablets. Both systems of writing may have origin- ated in -a common source. The Elamites were inferior *to the Sumerians in literary ability, and the barren character of their inscriptions tends to diminish any claim that might be made on their behalf.
In the prehistoric period the city Shuruppak, on the old course of the Euphrates, 50 miles north-west of Lagash, enjoyed a posi- tion of exceptional importance. The ruins are now marked by the mound Fara. The city was famous in tradition as the home of Ziudsudu, hero of the Flood story, and the Semitic version places the construction of the Ark and the details of the episode at that place. The city disappears entirely from the ancient records after the last Ur dynasty (c. 2380 B.C.). Archaeological discoveries at Shuruppak have thrown much light upon the earliest period. The oldest burials appear to have been made by wrapping the body in a reed-mat, the corpse being laid upon its right side with knees drawn forward and the right hand supporting the head. The left hand is placed near the face. The body thus interred is provided with jars of water and oil, head ornaments, cylinder-seals, copper mirrors, fish-hooks (?) and implements. This so-called embryonic position in burials is the rule with the Sumerian peoples from prehistoric times as it was In Egypt. More elaborate burials in clay coffins are found along with the mat burials. The god of Shuruppak was a local form of Enlil with the title Aradda^ Arattay meaning the 'honoured one/ 'the god of praise'; and consequently the city itself acquired the epithet Aratta. The goddess of this city was, as was to be expected, a form of Ninlil, the earth-mother of Nippur, and her local title was Sud (or Sudam)^ a word which seems to describe her as a deity of light, for the same title was applied to Aja, wife of the sun-god of Sippar. She was said to have been the daughter of Enki, the water-god of Eridu.
Shuruppak, Eridu, Larak and Sippar are the only cities men- tioned as existing before the Flood, and two of these names have the Elamite ending -ak. A few baked tablets from Shuruppak anterior to Ur-Nina have been found at Lagash and one at Nippur. Since these tablets come chiefly from Lagash it seems probable that Shuruppak actually belonged to a southern kingdom of Lagash at that time, which was not included in the dynastic list because it was contemporary with the Unzi kingdom of Ak^hak. If Shuruppak belonged to the kingdom of Lagash, so also did Umma, Erech, Larsa, and probably Ur and Eridii, and we seem bound to assume an extensive Sumerian kingdom at
378 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
Lagash for a short period before Ur-Nina. This is confirmed by the similarity of legal terms in the business documents of Lagash, Shuruppak, and Akkad. We have already noticed the ancio*it stone tablet of Kish in which the expression for seller of property occurs, a technical term characteristic of records of sales at Shuruppak, and a term still employed at Agade in the times of Manishtusu. A stone tablet from Delem (Delhim or Daillam) — the ancient Dilbat — 17 miles south of Babylon, ten miles south-east of Bor- sippa, records several sales of land and, although showing Semitic traces, has the Sumerian phraseology characteristic of the Shurup- pak tablets. A peculiarity of the legal formality of sales in the period of the Akshak kingdom of Unzi (3188—3089) is the pro- vision for a gift (nigba) to the seller in addition to the price paid. The Shuruppak tablets anterior to Ur-Nina reveal this remnant of the custom of barter. Another characteristic legal practice is the provision for a supplement to the price of a field to pay for the buildings on it. The legal language is in all cases Sumerian, and the uniformity in legal procedure in Sumer and Akkad points to a period of central control, and thus vindicates the veracity of the dynastic list which attributes to Kish the government of both provinces in the period of the patesis and kings of Lagash* In Shuruppak a primitive method had been invented of naming the years after the magistrate for each year. The year was called the pal or * change* of the current magistrate, who was probably appointed by the king.
Such were the historical and cultural conditions of the Sumer- ians and the Semites when the earliest records of Lagash enable us to begin our history proper,
Ur-Nina (<?. 3100) Is the first city-king of any Sumerian city — who has left important inscriptions concerning his reign. His father Gumdu and his grandfather Gursar were not rulers of the city. Like Enkhegal, who had reigned at no long interval before him, he assumed the title 'king of Lagash,' a claim which the rulers of Lagash in this period probably owed to the temporary weakness of the kings of Akshak. Our principal information concerning him is taken from stone tablets supported on the hands of little copper figurines of women. The body and limbs of these figurines end in a long peg planted in the unbaked bricks of the foundations of the various buildings of this king. These copper figures of jroipen with hands folded in the orthodox pose of prayer appear to have possessed 'magical' power, and their use can be traced to the
X, iv] UR-NINA, AND HIS DYNASTY, B.C. 3100 379
foundation of the prehistoric building at Girsu. In the founda- tions of this building, far below the level of Ur-NIna, De Sarzec found i& two recesses of the walls groups of these figures stuck In the unbaked bricks in a circle. With Ur-Nina began the custom of placing a little stone tablet on the head of each of these buried guardians of his buildings, and these tablets carry inscriptions concerning the pious architectural works of the king. From five of such records we learn that he built a temple to Nina, a goddess of irrigation; to Gatumdug, a local title of Bau, consort of Ningirsu, patroness of childbirth and healing; to Nin- girsu, and to the goddess Ninmar(ki). Statues of deities were sculp- tured, canals dug, reservoirs constructed and the wall of Lagash built. Wood for building was imported from the foreign land Ma- Dilmun.
The most Interesting monuments of Ur-Nina are three bas- reliefs on which he and his children are represented. They consist of two small rectangular stone tablets and one oval tablet per- forated at the middle by a round hole. In each engraving he is ac- companied by his butler Anita who reverently extends a cup to his king. To indicate his menial position Anita is drawn in small proportions. Seven sons and one daughter appear on the largest. His son and successor Akurgal occupies a prominent position on all three monuments, as also does Dudu, a musician and priest of magic who has power over the demons and heals the sick. Unlike his other children, who stand before him with hands folded at the waist, the crown prince Akurgal extends a cup to his father, and the priest Dudu folds his arms crosswise on his breast (see also
P- 584)- .
Ur-Nina reigned long and tranquilly without apparent Inter- ference from the contemporary rulers of Akshak. During his life- time Akurgal became the 'patesi' (priest-king), which would indicate a larger sphere of government for the king. On his accession Akurgal is called f king* of Lagash in the inscriptions of his son Eannatum, but his younger son Enannatum who became patesi after Eannatum, attributes to Akurgal only the title patesL Eannatum assumed the title king of Lagash and his Inscriptions refer to a long war with Kish which probably resulted iti his de- position and the elevation of his younger brother to be the governor of Lagash and the suzerain of Kish* At the end of the famous Stele of the Vultures Eannatum Is shown smiting the king of Kish In thenfac$ with a spear. A cartouche reads the name of the king of Kish as Al- (?), but the fact that it Is not mentioned in the dynastic tablet throws suspicion upon its accuracy. The Stele of
X, iv] E ANN ATOM AND ENANNATUM 381
patesi for king, a title which he had inherited from his father, Is suspicious; surely a kingdom which Included all of Sumer and Akkad would have been recognized in the dynastic list. His re- iterated statement that he restored Girsu may indicate a calamity to that city in the time of Akurgal. He speaks of having pursued to his own city Zuzu, king of Akshak : we must Infer that his province had been Invaded by the armies of the northern Semites, whom he defeated, and whose territory he occupied as far as the middle Euphrates at Maer. In this conflict, of which the war with his Sumerian rival Umma formed a part, we have sound historical evidence of the racial struggle for dominion between the north and south. His was obviously an ephemeral success, and his brother, the patesi Enannatum, failed to repress an invasion by Urlumma patesi of Umma, and seems to have been slain in the conflict. His chief minister caused to be made a mace-head en- graved with the heraldic emblem of the lion-headed eagle seizing two lions, and dedicated it to Ningirsu for the life of 'his king Enannatumma/ The mace-head also carries a standing figure of the patesi in attitude of prayer, followed by a cup-bearer and a minister with a wand. In an Inscription on a green stone mortar dedicated In the temple Eninnu he has the ambitious title * con- queror of the foreign land, ' recalling a similar phrase of Eannatum. About 30 miles north-east of Lagash there lay two cities now marked by the ruins of Surghul and el-Hibba. So numerous were the mat and kettle-shaped clay coffin burials at both sites that it was supposed that they were great cemeteries; and the traces of a disastrous fire, which seems to have destroyed both cities, left such incendiary remains that the graves were taken to prove the practice of cremation. Quantities of wheel and handmade un- painted pottery were also found at both sites. Surghul is the old city Nina, as we know from an inscription of Gudea to the goddess Nina (p. 427). *Iti Nina, her beloved city, the temple of Sirara which excels the temples of the earth he built and restored to its place and the great wall he (made)/ Sirara was apparently a sacred part of the city Nina. The more important city marked by the mounds of el-Hibba cannot be identified^ unless it be Uru-azagga. Here were found inscriptions of the conqueror Eannatum and of his successor Enannatum, The cone Inscriptions of Enannatum found at both sites contain the same inscription, *Enannatum> . patesi of Lagash, chosen by Innini, built the Ibgal; Eanna, which fills heaven and earth, he built. Then Lummatur, son of Enanna- tum patesi of Lagash, fashioned the kib and named it a house of heaven/" Since this temple and its sacred chamber, the Ibgal5
382 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
certainly stood in Lagash, we have an instance of the transport of votive .objects from the capital to dependent cities.
Entemena, great-grandson of Ur-Nina, succeeded to the patesi- ship of Lagash. In his reign the old plano-convex bricks ifre aban-, doned in favour of the oblong flat shape, formed in a mould, and the size Is slightly increased, 10 by 5^ inches. The use of clay for writing becomes much more common and the cuneiform style of writing now appears on the stone monuments also. This ruler, alone, of the great line of the family of Ur-NIna seems to have become prominent in history. A century later, when Lagash belonged to the empire of Akkad, the Sumerians of his city made sacrifices to his statue. In the time of Abi-eshu', eighth king of the First Baby- lonian Dynasty, after the Sumerian people had disappeared, a statue was erected probably at Lagash to the * divinity of the god Entemena/ Tradition has dealt kindly with him. His irrigation canals seem to have been extensive. The canal 'Lion of the Plain/ which probably ran from the old bed of the Euphrates south of Nippur to the Shatt el-Hal passing east of Umma, had formed the border between these provinces. The territory, bequeathed to his successors by the treaty of Eannatum with Umma, extended from the sea northward to Nippur, and Entemena seems to have constructed a parallel canal farther east. 'The mighty canal at the boundary of Enlil Entemena made for Ningirsu, the king whom he loved; for Ningirsu he caused it to come forth from the River of the Prince, whose name is in the foreign lands.* To him the land of Sumer probably owed the construction of the Shatt el- Hal. At the command of Enlil, Ningirsu and Nina, the goddess of irrigation, he built a canal from the Tigris to the * River of the Prince/ That feat of engineering alone entitled him to a place In history more than the victories of his predecessors. He built a wall which apparently surrounded Gu-edin. His activity In building sacred places is astonishing. Six fine door-sockets — all inscribed with his architectural works — have been recovered. Like his pre- decessor, he laboured at the reservoir of the canal Lummadimdug which supplied the holy city Nina (Surghul). He says that this great reservoir lay in the court of the temple at Girsu, and was called the 'Well of the wall of the plain, ravine of the city/ As a ruler pre-eminent in works of art his name Is perpetuated by a ^ magnificent silver vase, which he dedicated to Ningirsu for his life; and It is to be noted that he attributed his choice to Nina,^ goddess of the waters, and not to the war-like Innini, as did his two predecessors. • *
Immediately after Eannatum had conquered Umma and had
X, iv] THE REIGN OF ENTEMENA 383
erected the Stele of the Vultures, Urlumma, a pates! of Umma, seized the boundary canal and diverted its waters, invaded the territory of Lagash and burned the stele of Eannatum and the ancient stele of Mesilim. This accounts for the fragmentary con- dition of the Stele of the Vultures. Entemena records the fact that' his father fought against Umtna. He mentions no victory and goes on at once to describe his own triumph over the ancient foe of Lagash. Urlumma fled and the warriors of Lagash carried earn- age even into the city of Umma. Illi, a high-priest of an unidenti- fied city near Adab, was made patesi of Umma, and ordered to control the irrigation system so that the provinces of Lagash should be watered. The perpetual difficulty about the supply of water to the territory of Lagash, with which Umma was in a position to interfere, proves that the Euphrates, now the Shatt el- Kar, was utilized, and from this source the lands north of the Hai and south of Nippur obtained their water. The menace of hostile northern raids upon these canals which flowed southward from Nippur and Adab to Lagash determined Entemena to dig the great canal from the Tigris to the Euphrates and so to ensure water supply to the extreme south by a canal whose course could not be interfered with by northern states. The installation of a governor at Umma of his own selection and from a city subject to Lagash seems to have terminated the long period of hostility. To this period belongs the earliest known diorite monument, a record of purchase of land at Lagash by Lupad, a high official at Umma. Entemena reigned at least 19 years. We know this from two clay tablets, the earliest contracts from Lagash. They reveal a change in legal formulae since the cosmopolitan standards of the times before Ur-Nina. The old word for seller (*the eater of the silver') is abandoned, we now have the phrase fhe purchased from'; but the custom of giving supplementary payments to the seller, his relations and certain officials continues for two centuries. In an old and perhaps contemporary contract from Nippur we have the phrase, 'In the name of the king man affirmed to man that he would not complain,' and there is an oath in the name of the king, whose name is not specified. This fact proves that in pre-Sargonic times a king was recognized at Nippur, and only some king of Kish seems possible. The practice of transacting business in the presence of witnesses was common in the archaic period; but the oath in the name of the king never occurs at Lagash in pre-Sargonic times, which indicates clearly enough that this city did not recognize the reigning dynasty of Kish* A curious custom, found only in the time of Entemena, is a curse added to a
384 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
contract: "When in future days complaint be made, provided that by the complaints evil is done, slay such a one by the sword for his words/ Under his successors a new custom arose of assembling all the witnesses at the city wall, where" each of them put his right hand to the soft clay tablet; that is, they im- pressed their right thumb finger-nails or in some cases impressed their seals. This latter custom, which arose soon after Entemena, became henceforth a legal procedure in Sumerian law*
A stalagmite vase dedicated to Enlil in the temple of Nippur refers to a fountain which Entemena made there, but hardly proves that his rule included that city. Although this powerful ruler of Lagash claims only the title of patesl, he obviously controlled a great and an independent kingdom which included Adab, Umma and possibly Erech, Larsa and Ur. During his reign Dudu, high- priest of the god Ningirsu, occupied such an important position that he is mentioned in the dating of events: * At that time Dudu was high-priest of Ningirsu/ So influential was Dudu in the affairs of state that the official weights bear his name. The two oldest known stone weights bear the inscription, 'One mana, Dudu high-priest/ These form the basis of our present sources for the history of Babylonian metrology, and prove that the oldest standard mana, or so-called light mana, of about 500 grams was already fixed at 3000 B.C. Another priest evidently high in affairs of state, was Enetarzi, to whom a certain Luenna, high- priest of the goddess of Mar, wrote a letter in the fifth year of Entemena, wherein we lea*rn that Lagash had been plundered by the Elamites, whom Luenna pursued and captured.
The son of Entemena, Enannatum II, succeeded his father to the patesi-ship. He was the last of the line of Ur-Nina, whose memory was long cherished and to whose statue offerings con- tinued to be made. The family claimed as their personal god a deity whose name is written Dun and an unidentified sign. This mysterious god appears at Lagash as late as the last dynasty of Ur, and seems to have been a minor deity. Why he was adopted we know not; but the fact illustrates the old Sumerian belief that each individual was protected by a god and a goddess who were ever present about him. Seals of this period frequently reflect the belief in demons who in the guise of monsters make war against man and strive to evict his protecting god from his body. This system of beliefs seems to be the fundamental principle of Sumerian and Babylonian religion. The aim of prayer and ritual, so far as they concern the individual, is to keep the body a holy habitftiorf for the personal god of each man. And in the event of his falling into
X3ir] RISE OF THE PRIESTHOOD OF LA GASH 385
the power of the demons, and his god being expelled from his body, he resorts to intricate incantations to restore the divine rela- tion ancj^ to free himself from the devils.
Under the patesis of Lagash, the high-priests of important tem- ples attained positions second only to the rulers. Their title (shangu) was not strictly religious in a sacerdotal sense. The shangu held an administrative office by virtue of which he controlled the great temple estates and managed the secular affairs of the numerous clergy. Sacerdotal matters pertained to other ranks of the priest- hood. The high-priest of Ningirsu naturally occupied a powerful position and Enetarzi now succeeds to the patesi-ship. Since the letter addressed to him as high-priest of Ningirsu under Ente- mena (above) concerned a foreign invasion, this ecclesiastic was really the prime minister before he became patesL Only one tablet, dated in his fourth year, preserves a record of his reign. Enlitarzi, also high-priest of Ningirsu at the end of the reign of Entemena, now becomes patesi, and with his reign temple-records begin to appear in great numbers. A new class, the nubanday is now found in the state, and under each of the succeeding patesis the temple- records generally mention the chief nubanda in such manner as to indicate the date of the tablet. The temple-records of Lugal-anda and Urukagina mention offerings of the parentalia (ki-a-nag) to him, and to his contemporary Dudu, priest of Ningirsu. Sacrifices and meals to the souls of the dead were called ki-a-nag and funds were often bequeathed for their maintenance. Such offerings to the patesis and important men and women constantly recur in the temple archives after their deaths.
Enlitarzi was succeeded by his son Lugal-andanukhunga, usually called Lugal-anda, from whose patesi-ship of nine years a very large number of temple-records are preserved. He married Bara- namtarra, daughter of Ashag, a woman from whom his father had purchased an estate. His wife and Ninigidubti, wife of the patesi of Adab, exchanged valuable presents, of which there is an inter- esting record ; proof of the peaceful relations between Lagash and Adab. Other business documents refer to intercourse with Umma, and people of Umma lived at Lagash and had full religious and civil rights in the time of Lugal-anda. Clearly the policy of Entemena had secured peace with Umma for nearly half a century. Baranamtarra appears to have been a queen-regent and an exceptionally prominent figure of the period. Business records dated by the name of Eniggal, chief minister of tlugal-anda after his first year, show that this woman possessed great estates, and that she made enormous contributions to
C.A.H.I *$
386 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
the cults. Her business affairs are regarded as official^ and are discharged by ministers of the state. She was known simply as 'the woman5 and her palace was known as the * house of the woman/ Even under the succeeding patesi and king she was still known as "the woman/ Another title of this remarkable queen was &my 'the exalted or magnified one/ and even proper-names were composed with this epithet. In the temple archives of Lugal-anda and Urukagina * the woman7 or 'the exalted one' always means Baranamtarra although her name Is not mentioned.
The same prestige was enjoyed by Shagshag, queen of Uru- kagina, and tablets of the next reign mention offerings to the statues of Baranamtarra and Shagshag. A very large number of tablets mention the wives of Lugal-anda and Urukagina by cour- tesy only and as a means of indicating the reign. The temple- records give the impression that the patesi Lugal-anda and the king Urukagina were only prince consorts; at all events, documents are ordinarily dated in the name of the queen. The three patesis, Enetarzi, Enlitarzi and Lugal-anda, have left no monuments and Inscriptions, and historical statements concerning them are based upon casual notices in the temple-archives of the period. Impres- sions on lumps of clay show three seals of Lugal-anda and one of his queen Baranamtarra; the main subject of the decorations is, as usual, taken from the legend of Gilgamesh.
The seal of Eniggal, chief minister under Lugal-anda and Uru- kagina, also styles him * scribe of the house of the woman' and * scribe of the goddess Bau/ As the previous minister Subur, the chief nubanda^ had the title c scribe,* the chief ministers were secretaries of state. *The house of the woman * Is a title for the queen's palace, just as the patesi's palace was 'the house of the man * ; and in later periods at Lagash it refers to the palace of the wife of the actual patesi. For some reason Shagshag, queen of Urukagina, was called "the goddess Bau/ and her servants were called 'men of the goddess Bau,' Eniggal, therefore, owed his position to the fact that he was secretary to the queen,
^ Urukagina, who appears in the archives of Lugal-anda as a dignitary with the title ungal^ 'lord/ succeeded to the patesi-ship. Already in his first year he felt himself in a position to renounce allegiance to Kish, to -whose king Imu-Shamash he undoubtedly owed Ms appointment. He retained the title patesi for only a few months and then assumed the rank of king of Lagash. In his second year he claimed the title "King of Lagash and Sumer/ Sumer, or the city-state of Nippur, was nominally and^perliaps effectively claimed by the rulers of Lagash from Ur-Nina to Uru-
X, iv] URUKAGINA, AND HIS SOCIAL REFORMS 387
kagina, and a tablet dated in the second year of Urukagina is a list of rich offerings sent by Shagshag, the queen, to the gods Ninkiggj. and Ninazu from Lagash to Burner, that is, Nippur.
The number of business records of the temple and royal affairs from the short reign of Urukagina is enormous. The literary style of all subsequent Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian historical documents was fixed by the scribes of Entemena and Urukagina, The long inscriptions on cones and tablets, although chiefly de- voted to history, always lead up to the account of some sacred building. Only one tablet, the account of the pillage of Lagash by the conqueror Lugal-zaggisi, is entirely devoted to history. In a short reign of six years he accomplished an amazing amount of building. Besides his temples should be mentioned the recon- struction of the canal and reservoir which supplied the city Nina with water. At its mouth stood the great temple E-ninnu in Girsu, and at its outlet the temple of Nina in Sirara. A cone inscription gives the valuable information that the territory of Lagash ex- tended to the sea: at that time the shore-line lay not more than 50 miles south of the city. A small olive-shaped votive object of clay refers to the temple of Erech where Ningirsu conferred in gracious words with his consort Bau concerning the patesi. This little ob- ject indicates the attachment of the people of Lagash for the cult of the great virgin goddess Innini of Erech.
As an historical figure Urukagina is interesting chiefly for his economic reforms. 'The high-priest. . .came not into the garden of a poor mother and took not wood therefrom, gathered not tax in fruit therefrom/ Thus, the executive of the great temple-estate could no longer tax widow and orphan. Moreover, the state now provided the dead with food and drink in their graves, that their souls might successfully make the long journey to the lower world. *If to the subject of the king a fair ass be born and his overlord say <c I will buy it," when he buys it let him say to him " pay in silver as much as satisfies my heart".' * If the house of a great man joins the house of a (humble) subject of the king and the great man say to him " I will buy it,** when he buys it let him say to him "pay in silver as much as satisfies my heart and my house. . .»"* These two laws are accompanied by the proviso that if the poor men refuse to sell, the overlord or the great man shall not be angry against them. The king gave the inhabitants of Lagash freedom, he delivered them from murder and violence. The rich man Inter- fered not with the orphan and the widow. Such was the compact madfe bf the king with the god Ningirsu on behalf of his people. It contains the oldest known prototype of a code of laws and this
2,5 — z
388 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
spirit of justice in Sumer finally brought about a formal code, of Sumerian law £ve centuries later under the kings of Ur. As an official weight from his reign we have a small marble olive marked 15 shekels or a quarter of a mana.
The prosperous reign of this pious king and the power of the great city-state of Lagash came suddenly to an end at the hands of Lugal-zaggisij son of Ukush, patesi of Umma, who conquered and despoiled the city. Blood flowed in her sanctuaries and fire consumed her splendid buildings. Silver and precious stones were taken from her temples and grain from her fields. The historical tablet which records these terrible events closes with a sorrowful protest, 'The people of Umma, because they destroyed Lagash, have committed wickedness against Ningirsu. The power which came to them shall be taken away. There is no wickedness on the part of Urukagina, king of Girsu. But as to Lugal-zaggisi, the patesi of Umma, may his goddess Nidaba cause him to bear this wickedness on his shoulders/ A lamentation by Dingiraddamu for the public worship of the goddess Bau of Lagash has been preserved. A few lines will suffice to indicate its content. It became popular in later temple hymnology throughout Babylonia.
For the city, alas the treasures, my soul doth sigh.
For my city Girsu, alas the treasures, my soul doth sigh.
In holy Girsu the children are in distress.
Into the interior of the splendid shrine he pressed*
The august queen from her temple he brought forth. O lady of my city, desolated, when wilt thou return?
O Shepherd may the prayers appease thee. O afflicting Shepherd I would appease thee* O afflicting Shepherd be appeased.
O lord of lamentation by the woe of my city, by the woe of my temple be appeased !
The records of the relations of the kingdom of Lagash to adjacent cities Involve the early history of all the ancient Su- merian cities. -The two suburbs of Lagash, now the mounds of el-HIbba and Surghul, have already been taken into account. Shuruppak^ of prehistoric relations with Lagash, and Nippur, now the ruins of Fara, have also delayed the account. We have now to turn aside and notice other cities, before we resume the thread of history in the following chapter (p, 402).
X, v] UMMA AND OTHER CITIES 389
V. OTHER CITIES
Umma (Tokha)9 east of the Shatt el-Kar, was like Lagash a pre- historic Sumerian city, which owed its situation to an artificial canal which left the old course of the Euphrates below Nippur and ran south to Umma and an unidentified site Umm eI~Akrib, six miles below Umma. The English explorer, Loftus, visited Yokha in 1854. He remarked the abundance of fragments of sherds of the Sumerian period, diorite statues, bricks, flint and stone implements. The Americans, Peters and Ward, both visited the site during the course of their excavations at Nippur, and brought away a diorite door socket and a few tablets of the Ur period after a brief digging of five hours , The most accurate descript- ion of the mound is given by the German, W. Andrae, in his report of 1902—3. The ruins are of comparatively small dimen- sions, two-thirds of a mile long and reaching to a height of 47 feet. Unlike most ruins of Sumer these run nearly east to west. A terrace on the northern slope with a platform 280 feet square marks the site of the temple-tower and is made of baked bricks a foot square and 3^ inches thick, which indicates the period of Dungi (p. 437). On the central mound plano-convex bricks which characterize the period of Ur-Nina are abundant.
The name of this city is written with a curious ideograph which older Sumerian scribes render by Gish-khu^ the second part of which is identical with the second part of the ideograph for the city Akshak or Opis. The reading is Umma^ Ummi^ apparently by assimilation from Ubme. The local deity was the god Shara ('ver- dure'); the grain-goddess Nidaba also had her local cult here. The tablets of grain-accounts from its archives show that Umma was the centre of a rich agricultural district, and the goddess Nidaba was known at Umma as Ninurra, * queen of the harvest/ The cult of Umma is first mentioned on the stele of Mesilim, king of Kish in the thirty-seventh century B.C., who settled the dispute between Lagash and Umma concerning their rival claims to the district of Gu-edin (p. 380). By the command of the earth-god Enlil the gods Ningirsu and Shara arranged their boundaries; so we read in Entemena's account of this ancient treaty, for in theory the territory of the city-states belonged to the local baal(cf. p. 209),
The oldest published monument of Umma is a small stone statuette inscribed with the name of Eabzu, who perhaps lived shortly before Ur-Nina, A late post-Sargonic seal represents the heraldic emblem as a lion-headed eagle grasping two ibexes. For the later period to the time of Lugal-zaggisi the only existing
390 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
monument is a lapis lazuli tablet of Urlumma son of Enakalli. In it he claims the title of king for himself and his father, and men- tions his construction of a temple to the otherwise unkngwn god EnkigaL Of the period of Lugal-zaggisi four tablets from the state archives have been recovered which reveal a method of dating peculiar to that city. Instead of naming the governor for the year (as at Shurappak), or the ruling patesi or king (as at Lagash), at Umma the date read 'first year, I2th month/ 'fourth year, 4th month/ etc. For historical purposes this method is useless as the name of the ruler is not given, but the dates probably refer to the years of the reign of Lugal-zaggisL
A few miles west of Umma beyond the old course of the Eu- phrates lie the imposing ruins of the as yet unidentified Hamman. The outline of a ziggurat is still visible; its construction is charac- terized by layers of reeds mixed with mud between the layers of bricks.
Adab (also pronounced Udab, Usab), 25 miles south of Nippur, was supplied by a canal which branched from the Euphrates east- ward, passing through the city and feeding other regions on its way toward the Shatt el-HaL In the centre of the city the canal divides to form an island on which stood the prehistoric temple of the mother-goddess Aruru. It is known as Emakh, a name common to all the temples of the goddess of birth (Aruru, Nin- kharsag, Ninlil, Gula), The goddess herself has the title Makh (*the far-famed7) at Adab, The cult of Adab "was entirely devoted to the worship of the earth-mother. The latest rebuilders were the kings of Ur; and the bricks of Ur-Engur, Dungi and Bur-Sin are found only five feet below the top of the mound, which rises 50 feet above the plain* Only two and three feet below the platform of Ur- Engur lie the works of the kings of Akkad, which follow closely upon the rectangular grooved bricks of the Enternena period. These statements (from the reports of Banks, who excavated Adab for the University of Chicago) prove that no great interval separates the age of Sargon from that of the dynasty of Ur (see p. 392), At a depth often feet are the plano-convex bricks of the period of Ur-Nina. Ten Feet below this level lies a pavement of limestone blocks from the remote age before the invention of brick-making. At a depth of 48 feet Ba&k$ came upon abundant fragments and complete specimens of thin wheel-made pots obviously of the period of geometrical thin pottery, but unpainted. Such is the enormous age of civilization at Adab. The stage-tower or ziggurat dates from pre-Sargonic times and is one of the oldest in Sumef. In its stratum was discovered a blue stone vase decorated with designs
X, v] UiMMA, ADAB, NIPPUR 391
of a four-stage tower; and this would seem to settle tlie problem regarding the antiquity of stage-towers which were suppdsed to have originated in post-Sargonic times. These towers had only four stages in the early period, but seven from Ur-Bau onward. On the ziggurats see further, p. 398.
The most remarkable archaeological discovery made at Adab is an elegant white marble head of a Semite belonging to the archaic period, with inset eyes and grooved eyebrows. This head has a full beard, moustache and well-defined Semitic features, and has the distinction of being the oldest known representation of a Semite in Sumer, Its presence in the pre-Sargonic strata of a Su- merian city is probably explained by the fact that Adab belonged to the kingdom of Kish in the age of Ur-Nina and that it is the head of a royal official. The role of Adab in the history of Surnerian cities is obscure. In the period of the kings and patesis of Lagash it probably enjoyed a restricted independence, and like Lagash it was incorporated in the kingdom of Lugal-zaggisi. Its status under the kings of Akkad and Ur is better known; these rulers bestowed great labour upon the sacred and secular buildings, and bricks from the temple mound bear an inscription of Dungi which re- cords the construction of a reservoir for Ninkharsag. None of the numerous tablets excavated at Adab have been published. The present writer copied a few in a private collection in 1921. They were temple-records of the period of Dungi, and revealed the interesting fact that the calendar then contained month-names which, although hitherto unknown, partly agree with the names of months employed in the calendars of Ur and Umma, This points to an ancient association with Ur and Umma rather than with Nippur and Lagash (see p. 461 j<p.).
The history of every ancient Sumerian city involves its relations with Nippur, the sacred city situated on the Euphrates, in the very centre of the Sumerian lands. Here was established the national cult of the earth-god Enlil whose name means 'lord of the winds *; an epithet derived from the myth of a cave of the winds in the earth* His proper title Enkiy 'lord of the earth/ was later transferred to the third member of the trinity, the water-god of Eridu, whose cult was appropriately located at the mouth of the € Great River * (the Euphrates). These two cities owed their Im- portance in Sumer and their influence in the religions of Baby- lonia and all Western Asia almost exclusively to their two great cults and theological schools. Throughout Sumer and Akkad the rulers of all cities derived their authority from Enlil, and hence the possession of Nippur was the sacred obligation of every great
392 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
dynasty. Even the kings of Maer in the far north assumed the title 'great priest king of Enlil.' Nippur is written by an ideograph meaning 'the city of Enlil/ its chief temple, E-kur, mean^ 'house of the earth mountain3; its ziggurat has several names, Eduranki ('house of the under- world mountain '), etc., all of which connect the city, its temple and tower with cosmological ideas of the earth as a mountain in whose vast interior repose the dead. The three great deities about whom all the great Nippurian cult revolves are Enlil the earth-god, Ninlil his consort (a degraded form of Nin- tud, Aruru, Ninkharsag, the earth-mother as patroness of birth) and their son Ninurasha, god of the spring sun and war.
The prehistoric city was built on the western bank of the Eu- phrates and was grouped about the temple of the earth-god. The mound now lies on the eastern bank of the Shatt en-Nil. In the period of Ur-Nina the temple area was enlarged. A great rectan- gular terrace of plano-convex bricks was constructed extending far beyond the temple-area and affording space for the temple and tower at the southern end ; a large court north of the temple, store- houses and commodious cloisters for the priests occupied the spacious areas of the terrace. The temple itself had a wide fore- court and an inner court surrounded by thick walls, and provided with chambers for the temple archives. A clay tablet of the Kassite period, now unfortunately lost, had a drawing of this terrace-wall, its moats and buildings and gates with their names inscribed; only photographs of this, the most important architectural design which has ever been recovered from Sumer, are accessible. The temple- enclosure is orientated with its corners to the cardinal points and the tower of pre-Sargonic origin stood on the northern side of the inner court; the temple of Ekur with its chapels to various deities, occupied the area beside the tower along the eastern side. All the important rulers of Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian his- tory regarded the preservation of this temple as a religious obliga- tion. Naram-Sin and Ur-Engur, whose platforms are separated by only two feet of debris, rebuilt the temple and tower, and Ashur- banipal of Assyria in the seventh century restored the entire sanc- tuary. The temple-library and its archives were found in a mound south of the temple. The residential and commercial quarters lay west of the temple area> separated from it by a canal, now the Shatt en-Nil. Here have been found the archives of Kassite kings and of great business houses of the Neo-Babyloman and Persian periods.
In dealing with the^ history of Lagash reference has been made to its possible sovereignty over Nippur* Entemena dedicated a
X, v] NIPPUR, ISIN, LARAK 393
vase to Enlil, and Urukaglna not only claimed the hegemony of Nippur but sent great presents and sacrifices to the chapels*of two deities qf the nether-world there. No trace of its ever having been a capital of a kingdom exists. A legendary nobleman of Nippur, Lai- uralim, became in later tradition the type of a just man who endured manifold sorrows. He was the Babylonian Job, and portions of a long Semitic poem concerning his sufferings and final justification have been recovered. The earliest royal dedications to the temple Ekur are the vases of the kings of Erech, who succeeded the Mesilim kingdom at Kish (3688-3558). A patesi of Nippur, Ur- Enlil, who probably served under one of the rulers of Lagash or Kish, is known from two vases dedicated to Enlil for his life. Not later than the age of Enshagkushanna of Erech are two vases dedicated by the son (?) of Lugal-ezen to the mother-goddess, Bau or Gula, 'Queen who gives life to the dead/ for the life of his wife and children, 'that Abaranna his wife might live/ The god- dess of healing, especially worshipped at Lagash as consort of Ningirsu, seems to have been the consort of Ninurasha at Nippur. Two other vases to Nintindigga, or Gula of healing, from the period of Ur-Nina (c. 3 100) are known; from sources of the later period the cult of the goddess of healing and medicine seems to have had its centre at Nippur. Ninlil, consort of the earth-god, is only a satellite of this patroness of life, and vases were also dedicated to her for wives and children.
A great cult of Gula and Sakkut sprang up at Isin, possibly the ruins of Zibliyya, or rather of Bahriyat (see p. 688 note). Isin is of very late foundation, appearing in the inscriptions only in the last years of the Ur-Engur dynasty of Ur. But such was the power of local tradition that a cult of the type of Nippur was imposed there. Larak, the little-known city east of Nippur, also had its cult of the goddess of life, Gula, with her consort, Pabilsag, a feeble reflection of Enlil. In the traditions reported by Berosus, Opartes, father of Xisuthrus (that is, Ubar-Tutu, father of TJt-Napishtim), ninth of the mythical kings before the Flood, lived at Larankha (Larak), It was known to the later Assyrian kings as a military post, and business records of the period of Darius from Nippur state that it was situated on the old bed of the Tigris, Its cult of the god Pabilkharsag, later Pabilsag, and of Gula the goddess of healing, were recognized throughout Sumer; this we know from their incorporation in the canonical liturgies.
Less is known of the religion of the prehistoric Sumerian cities KisJi and Akshak, of the north, later occupied by the Semites. Kish (El-Oheimir), with the neighbouring ruins of Inghara (not
394 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
Tell el-Bandar), had already in the age of Mesllim a cult of Ka-Di (Isir), 'an earth goddess. The site lay near the old bed of the Euphrates and was identified by bricks bearing the stamp gf Adad- apal-idinnam, who rebuilt there the temple of Ilbaba, E-meteursag. Nebuchadrezzar restored this famous temple and its central chapel E-kishibba, and names Ilbaba and his consort Bau as the local deities of Kish. Ilbaba Is only a local title of Ninurasha, the son of Enlil of Nippur, and another consort of Gula-Bau, the mother- goddess. Kish, which was the capital of two legendary and two historical kingdoms, and whose name became synonymous with universal dominion, passed into the possession of the Sumerian kingdom of Lugal-zaggisi. Little is known of its history, and when the Semites of the north, under the great Sargon, possessed themselves of the hegemony of ail Mesopotamia they abandoned Kish and selected Agade, 40 miles northward on the Euphrates, for their capital. But royal traditions are not easily suppressed, and the city led by one Ipkhur-Kish instigated a rebellion against the mighty Naram-Sin of Agade, and made its last effort to retain the proud position of capital of Western Asia (p. 414). The works of Nebuchadrezzar bear witness to its religious importance. Its cult belongs to the pantheon of Nippur and the worship of the earth- mother, and the canonical liturgies include its god and goddess, its temple and chief chapel in the litanies to Enlil Ninurasha and their various local types.
Another deity of the Nippur pantheon, Nergal, lord of the lower world and the dead, with his consort Ninmug or Ereshkigal, queen of the lower world, had his chief cult at Cuthah, the Biblical Cuthah, perhaps to be identified (after Sir Henry Rawlinson) with the ruins of Tell Ibrahim. This mound, which lies 20 miles north of Kish and 35 miles south-east of Sippar, is two miles in circum- ference and 60 feet high. The temple of Nergal at Cuthah was named E-meslam or House of Meslam, Meslam is an epithet for the lower world and the god Nergal has also the title Meslanitaea, cHe who rises from Meslam/ referring to his solar character as god of tixe scorching summer sun. As a god of the waning summer sun he was connected with the waning moon and the new moon, and the stage-tower of CutKah bore the name E-Nannar, 'House of the New Moon/ The name Nergal is derived from Ne-unugal, 'Power of the vast -abode/ lord of the lower world where he was the judge of those that died. The cult of the terrible deities of the dead, plague and judgment, Nergal and Laz of Cuthah, belongs to the prehistoric pantheon; their titles and temple occur regularly in the canonical liturgies. The city was of no political
X, v] KISH, CUTHAH, SIPPAR 395
importance and never became the seat of a dynasty. Like Sippar, Akshak and Kish it belonged to the Semitic sphere of influence in the nqrth. The cult of its god Nergal was established in every Sumerian city and Cuthah was kept in repair by all Sumerian and Semitic rulers to the last centuries before our era.
Sippar, now the ruins of Abu Habba ('Father of Corn'), was situated in ancient times on the east bank of the Euphrates just south of the Royal Canal. The temple E-babbar or * House of the Sun/ and its stage-tower E-iluanazagga, 4 House of the threshold of the bright heaven/ occupied a terrace 1300 feet square beside the river. East of the temple-complex and separated from it by a wide avenue lay the great residential quarter, and the whole was surrounded by a wall. The exterior wall of the city forms a rect- angle 1 400 yards long and 8 60 yards wide, the long sides facing north and south. The city walls were pierced by numerous wide gates. Excavations conducted here by Rassam (1881—2), prin- cipally at the temple in the northern part of the eastern mounds and the stage-tower south of the temple, produced over 60,000 tablets, chiefly contracts, grammatical and religious texts from the neo-Babylonian period. The antiquity of the city is shown by the fact that Lugal-zaggisi (c. 2900) calls the Euphrates the River of Sippar. A canal whose name was actually pronounced * Canal of Sippar ' is said to have been dug by Ammi-zaduga (1977-1957 B.C.). t
The Sumerian name of the city (Zib-Bar-Nun) seems to have meant 'Radiant chamber of the Prince/ 'Prince7 (Nun) refers here to the water-god Enki or Ea of Eridu, and * radiant * (Bar) is one of the titles of the sun-god whose principal cult was here and whose temple was known as E-barra or E-babar. The name of the city reveals its original connexion with the sun-cult as well as its relation to^ the river of the water-god. The Semitic Shamash was identified with the Sumerian sun-god Utu or Babbar of Larsa, and his cult installed at Sippar. At Larsa the temple of the sun-god was called E-babbar and the same name was given to the new temple at Sippar. At Sippar, and apparently also at Larsa, the wife of the sun-god was known as Aja, a form of Inning as queen of heaven. But at Agade the Semites worshipped Ishtar as queen of heaven, or goddess of battle,, also named Anunit; and here her temple has a Sumerian name, E-ulmash.
Six miles north-east of Sippar lies Sippar- Yakhruru, now the mound ed-Der, *the monastery,* excavated by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge in 1891. There is good reason to suppose that this repre- sents the site of Agade. It is also possible that Sargon's famous
396 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
city was known during the first Babylonian dynasty as^Sippar- Yakhrtiru, but in later times was usually called Agade, or 'the city Akkadu/ or Sippar-Anunit. The most ancient name is Agade and the city is said to have been founded by Sargon^(p. 407). The location of the city which was to become the capital of the first great empire is important; and it is regrettable that the identifica- tion with Sippar-Yakhruru is somewhat uncertain.
All the old cities which lay in central Sumer and in the north from Lagash to Akshak were consistently attached to the worship of earth-deities. Only in the extreme south along the lower Eu- phrates are found grouped together the other great cults which complete the pantheon, the cult of Anu, the sky-god at Erech, of Babbar, the sun-god at Larsa, of Zu-en or Sin, the moon-god at Ur, and of the god of fresh water, Enki or Ea at Eridu. This re- markable religious topography can be explained only by design and not by accident.
The Sumerian word Unug, which became Uruk (the biblical Erech), seems to be a compound of Unu9 'dwelling,' and the Ela- mitic-Sumerian locative ending -ak (cf, p. 377). As the home of the cults of Anu, the father of all the gods, and of the great virgin goddess Innini, Erech, like Nippur and Eridu, was a place of the
greatest sanctity. Ninana, cthe queen of heaven,' whose name ecame Innini by phonetic decay, is a transformation of the oldest deity of the Sumerians, Geshtin the goddess of the vine, who as such is only a specific form of the prehistoric earth-goddess of Central Asia, The great virgin-goddess Innini and her mystically begotten son, Abu or Tammuz, are the most impressive figures in Sumerian theology and ritual. As a counterpart of heaven she became associated from unknown antiquity in an abstract way with Anu as Ms female principle and acquired the title Innini, 'queen of heaven/ Hence her cult was associated with that of Anu, who never was much more than an abstract figure in the pantheon. The name of the principal temple at Erech was E-anna, * house of heaven ' — it was apparently the earlier name of the city itself; but the cult of Innini or Ishtar, because of its more human appeal, usurped the position of the old god and dominated the religious interests. She was widely known as 'the Erechian god- dess/ Her cult is of course found established everywhere like that of her companion (Nintud) the goddess of birth, but Erech was her home. A grammatical text records eleven epithets of this holy city, among them Illag or ///*£, the enclosure; Antiranna^ the forest of heaven (an ordinary name of the Milky Way); ^Jlwniny the seven regions; Daiminy the seven sides; Geparimm, the seven
X5 v] ERECH, LARSA (ELLASAR) 397
dark chambers. The three last names refer to the tower, Ege- parimin> whose seven stages in accordance with the usual* belief symbolized the seven regions. Erech was also called 'the sleeping place of Anu.' Its mythical dynasty has already been noticed (P-366).
Famous from prehistoric times the city retained its prestige to the end; in the times of Strabo its great school of astronomers rivalled the astronomers of Borsippa. Uruk (Greek, Orchoe), now Warka, lay on the western bank of the old Euphrates, now the Shatt el-Kar, whose course has shifted a few miles eastward. Its outer walls, six miles in circumference, enclose a nearly circular area of about noo acres. Three great mounds and numerous smaller ones lie within the walled area. The temple E~anna and its tower stood in the eastern side of the city beside the river; its huge moat walls built by Ur-Engur are still intact. The walls of this huge structure consist of layers of bricks interrupted at intervals of four feet by a layer of reed mats, on which account the Arabs have named this mound Buwarlya ('reed mats'). The base of the tower was 200 feet square; it stood together with the temple at the western angle of a great platform built with the corners facing the cardinal points. At this mound Loftus, who excavated in 1854, uncovered a unique system of late mural decoration, a kind of mosaic made of painted cone-heads and cone-shaped pots with narrow tops and shallow cavities. These walls consist of cones or pots laid with their heads outward. To the west of the temple and separated from it by a ravine in the centre of the city lies the high mound Wuswas, which is regarded as the site of the palace of pre- Sargonic kings and also of the patesis. A great number of valuable religious texts have been recovered from the temple library; they date from a period so late as 70 B.C., and reveal in astonishing manner the interesting ideas of the priestly school of Erech, at the very beginning of our era.
Fifteen miles south-east of Erech on the western bank of the old Euphrates lie the ruins of Larsa, now the mounds of Senkereh. They are 4^ miles in circumference, and the temple-area of the central mound measured 320 by 220 feet. As the centre of the worship of the Sumerian sun-god Babbar or Utu, Larsa must be one of their oldest cities. Babbar, the son of the moon-god of Ur, was regarded as the lord of justice and divination throughout Sumer. Enannatum in his stele of victory appealed to the god of Larsa to consecrate and protect his treaty with Umma, and he sent sacrifices of oxen from Lagash for the temple E-babbar. But its political relation to Lagash and the reigning dynasties of Akshak
398 THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
and Kish in pre-Sargonic times is unknown. Being in the vicinity of the* greater city, Erech, it is reasonable to suppose that its political history coincided largely with that of the neighbouring metropolis. The name of the city is written Ud-Unu-(kt), 'City of the abode of the sun (god)/ All the prehistoric names, like Lagash, Nippur, Uruk, etc., are much more ancient than the pictographs by which they were written, and the written signs almost in- variably refer to the city-cults. The name of the city was read Za~Ra-Ar-Ma.> that is Ilrar-ma or Ilrar (Za has the value #). The Sumerian r readily passed into s> and the word became Ilasar, or, as Gen. xiv, I writes it, Ellasar. The Babylonians, at least in the late period, pronounced the name Larsa, and the name was some- times written with an ideograph which means 'Holy throne/
Ury the famous city of the moon-god, was situated 30 miles south of Erech, But before the period of Rim-Sin the Euphrates seems to have run west of Ur, reaching the sea at Eridu. Appar- ently Rim-Sin was the first to straighten the southern course of the Euphrates so as to bring the stream past Ur, leaving Eridu an inland city. When Entemena's great canal was dug from the Tigris to the Euphrates it probably reached the Great River above Ur, The river has shifted eastward six miles, and the canal, now the Shatt el-Hai, joins it at the modern town Nasriyeh. The ruins of Ur rise above the plain west of the Euphrates, twelve miles south-south- west of Nasriyeh. The ruins have been named by the Arabs MM- kayyar^ or 'the pitched/ J. E. Taylor, British Vice-Consul at Basra, excavated here in 1854. The mounds occupy a large oval whose greatest diameter from north to south is about five-eighths of a mile with a circumference of i J miles. An old canal passed along its western side, coming from the north. A ravine, the remains of an old canal, crosses the city from east to west at the southern end. At the northern end of the city stands the best preserved stage-tower of Babylonia, called E-lugal-galgasidi, * House of the lord who directs wisdom/ a reference to the moon-god Sin as lord of wisdom. The two lower stages are still in good condition, but this tower is rect- angular, not square like the other ziggurats. The corners face the cardinal points; the tiottli-east and south-west sides of the base measure 1 88 feet and the north-^west and south-east ends 133 feet. In each corner of the second storey of the tower Taylor found a barrel-cylinder of Nabonidus, the last king who repaired the sacred edifices of Ur. South-east of the tower was a large building, probably the temple of Sin; it was called 'the temple of light/ Its lower stratum is built of plano-convex bricks, which indicate a very early foundation. In a mound at the centre of the city he un~
X, v] UR3 ERIDU 399
covered numerous graves, of the * capsule' type,, of inverted tub type, and fine vaulted brick tombs. Taylor's work was very well done, but with the publication of the results of the excavations conducted at Ur by the British Museum, new and fuller light will be thrown upon the archaeology and history of this important city.
Ur and its cult of the moon-god Sin or Nannar belong to the prehistoric sites of Sumer. The city was the seat of a prehistoric dynasty of four kings who succeeded the first kingdom of Erech. A second prehistoric kingdom reigned at Ur, but we know of its existence only from the summary of the dynastic list of Nippur* Eannatum invokes the moon-god Sin to solemnize his treaty with Umma in his stele of victory and sent offerings to the temple at Ur. This victorious patesi of Lagash conquered Erech, Larsa, Ur, and probably all of these great cities belonged temporarily to that city-state. The name of the city (Shesk-Unu~kt) means 'City of the habitation of the brother/ a reference to Sin as the brother of Nergal, god of the summer-sun. Both of these deities were re- garded as sons of the earth-god Enlil of Nippur. Nannar, god of the new moon, seems to have been an aspect of the lunar-god who became an independent deity, and had his own temple, Enunmakh, at Ur, The name of the city is ordinarily read U-ri-ma, but also Uri and Uru, and in this shortened form it passed into Hebrew as Ur.
Ten to twelve miles south-west of Ur lie the ruins of Abu Shah- rein, * Father of the two moons/ commonly supposed to be the site of Eridu. This identification was first based upon the slender evi- dence of a stamp of Bur-Sin, found on bricks in the buildings of Abu Shahrein and Mukayyar. The Inscription ends, 'he built for Enki his beloved lord the Apsu.' Enki, the god of fresh water, was worshipped chiefly here and his temple was known as E-ab^u or 'House of the nether sea/ The apsu9 or sea of fresh water, on which the earth was supposed to rest and from which fountains and rivers sprang, was often represented by a great bowl or apsu in the temple courts of other cults. Ur-Nina constructed an apsu at Lagash, and Ur-Bau built a temple to Enki there. The cults of Ningirsu, a god of irrigation, and of Nina, 'queen of the waters/ and daughter of Enki, were intimately connected with the cult of the water-god of Eridu. At Lagash the sacred apsu had its own priesthood; also at Babylon, Marduk, son of Enki or Ea, and the great god of the ritual of atonement, possessed an apsu adorned with gold in his temple, Esagila.
The*early connexion of Eridu and Lagash is due to the fact that both were once practically sea-board cities. Lagash and Baby-
4oo THE CITIES OF EARLY BABYLONIA [CHAP.
Ion both possessed water-cults, offspring of the worship at Eridu, and the fact Is explicable on topographical grounds. Eridu is said to have Iain at the junction of two rivers and the siter of Abu Shahrein excellently satisfies the references to Eridu, and the identification has received universal acceptance. The report of Taylor's excavations (published in 1855) was the only source of information concerning Eridu, until R. Campbell Thompson, then Captain, conducted excavations here in 1918 under orders of the British Mesopotamian Army. He found the bricks of Bur-Sin,, al- ready uncovered by Taylor, whose inscription mentions the apsu. A few bricks of Ur-Engur are stamped with an inscription which .ends with the words ehe built the temple of Enki of Eridu/ Thompson also found a long brick stamp of Nur-Adad, eighth king of the dynasty of Larsa, which commemorates his work at Eridu, and there is now no longer any doubt that this city is Abu Shahrein.
Thompson noted quantities of fresh-water mussels in the lower strata, which prove that the city stood by a fresh-water lake. The site yielded the ordinary evidence of the late stone age, polished flints, stone hoes and baked clay sickles, and pots with small spouts. Fragments of alabaster vessels, beautifully carved, indicate a flourishing city in the historic period. The burials are almost ex- clusively early, the age being indicated by the shape of the pots in the graves. The Kassite, Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian kings do not appear to have paid any attention to Eridu, although the cult of this god was one of the most sacred and important in all periods. The city and its famous school sank into oblivion after the age of Hammurabi. The god of wisdom and philosophy, of atonement and consecration, continued to hold his place of almost supreme importance in religion, poetry and tradition. So necessary was his cult to the practice of religion that every city possessed a temple or chapel to Enki or Ea. In such circumstances, his ancient city, which probably became uninhabitable owing to the retreat of the shore-line and the diversion of the Euphrates, lost its position in the history of Babylonia without detriment to its god. See p. 555.
Eridu was never the seat of a dynasty and in fact it did not even possess a patesi under the various reigning kingdoms. One of its citizens, Adapa, a legendary sage endowed with vast intelligence by Ea, became the hero of the Eridu myth of the Fall of Man. This tale of the fisherman of Eridu who was summoned to the court of heaven for his sins and who lost eternal life by the ruse of his divine counsellor, Ea, is told in a fragmentary Semitfc p5em, the Sumerian text of which, if it ever existed, has not been found.
X3 v] ERIDU, THE MYTH OF ADAPA, ASHUR 401
The fundamental theory of this myth is that mankind lost eternal life through the jealousy of a god. Adapa, a sage of Eridu, who, in the Qraditian preserved by Berosus, was the second king of Babylonia after the Flood, and reigned 10,800 years, was said to have been initiated into all wisdom by Ea, the god of wisdom; but eternal life was withheld from him. One day, while he was fishing, the south wind blew violently and threw him into the sea. In his fury he broke the wings of the south wind which then ceased to blow. Anu, the heaven god, summoned him to the gates of heaven for punishment. But Ea in his jealousy advised him to beware of partaking of bread and water which Anu would offer him. On his arrival before Anu, Tammuz and Gishzida interceded for him and explained to Anu that Ea had revealed all wisdom to this man, and that he would be a god, did he possess eternal life. Anu offered him the bread and water of life which he refused. Thus he lost eternal life and mankind became mortal.
Throughout Sumerian religion and speculation there are two main streams of thought represented by the schools of Eridu and of Nippur. A large portion of the texts of the Nippurian school has been recovered, but the library of the temple of E-abzu has eluded the search of excavators.
The excavation of the old capital of Assyria, Ashur (Ashshur), on the upper Tigris, has proved that a Sumerian city existed here in the pre-Sargonic period. Statuettes of the period of Ur-Nina reveal pure Sumerian type. The name of the old Sumerian city may not have been Ashur, and even the god of the city, Ashir or Ashur, may belong to a later period and a foreign (MItannian) race. But names of places and cults are among the things most tenacious in the history of man and until new material disproves the conjecture it may be assumed that a northern Sumerian city, Ashur, existed from prehistoric times. Its relation to the city- states and kingdoms of Sumer and-Akkad is unknown. Not a trace of Ashur has been found in the inscriptions of the great kingdoms of Erech and Akkad which now assume the hegemony of the whole of Western Asia. Nevertheless Ashur must be in- cluded in the survey of the rise and progress of the prehistoric cities and as we descend the stream of history its power and im- portance will continue to attract attention.
Such were the city-states and cults of Mesopotamia when Lugal- zaggisi of Umma wrested the supremacy of the two lands from Kis]^ anji subdued the rival states of Sumer (£.2897); and we now enter upon a new stage in their lengthy history.
C.A.H.I
CHAPTER XI
THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH L THE RISE OF THE DYNASTY OF SARGON
brief but prosperous reign of Urukagina of Lagash came to a catastrophic end about 2 8 97 B.C., at the hands of Lugal- zagglsi (see p. 388). Fragments of white alabaster vases, which the conqueror dedicated to Enlil in Nippur, are at present our princi- pal sources for the record of the new king. He of course attributed his authority to the earth-god, 'When Enlil king of the lands had given to Lugakzaggisi the kingship of the Land (i.e. Sumer), had set him righteously before the Land, and had subdued the foreign lands to his power. . ,'; so runs a passage from his inscription. Urukagina describes him as the priest-king of Umma and his own inscription mentions his father Ukush, patesi of Umma. But he transferred his capital to Erech and assumed the title 'King of Erech and king of the Land/ 'The Land' in later inscriptions, after the term * Akkad ' had been given to the Semitic north, means the Sumerlan south only, that is, the region from a point below Kish to the sea* But in pre-Sargonic times these two ethnological divi- sions were not recognized, and up to this point the Sumerians still regarded the north as their 'Land/ In the introduction to his his- torical inscription Lugal-zaggisi recognizes various gods of Sumer as his patrons, placing at the head of the list the grain-goddess Nidaba of Umma. Then follow Anu, Enlil and Enki, or the trinity Heaven, Earth and Sea, a passage which reveals the rise of a systematic pantheon. He then claims to have been the choice of Babbar, the sun-god of Larsa, and of Sin, the moon-god of Ur, born of Nidaba and nursed by Ninkharsag, the mother-goddess of Adab. And he realized his ambitions, for he subdued the lands from the Lower Sea (Persian Gulf) to the Upper Sea (Mediterranean) along the Tigris and the Euphrates, and instituted prosperity and peace in his vast dominion. He bestowed royal favours upon the cities of Sumer: Erech, Ur, Larsa, Umma the city of his god Shara, and Nippur are specially mentioned. He erected a statue of himself in the temple of Enlil at Nippur, inscribed 'Lugal-zaggisi, lord of the province of Erech, king of the province of Ur,' followed by a long curse against anyone who should destroy the statue or erase
CHAP. XI, ij LUGAL-ZAGGISI AND SARGON 403
the inscription. The inscription is in Semitic, proof that Lugal- zaggisi had been a patesi under the Azag-Bau dynasty of *Kish, and had^been accustomed to the use of Semitic as the official language of the empire. No tablets dated in his reign have been found in any Sumerian city. He seems to have destroyed Lagash completely.
After a reign of 2 5 years Lugal-zaggisi was deposed by Sargon, who founded the empire of Agade about 2872. He was placed in fetters and taken to Nippur. The king, who had destroyed the mighty power of Kish and founded a great Sumerian empire, saw his work pass away as quickly as it was made and the Semites again were rulers of the land,
Of Sargon, founder of the Semitic dynasty at Agade, many romantic stories were current. Two chronological tablets state: *At Agade Sharru-km-lubani, a gardener and cup-bearer of Ur~Ilbaba, having been made king, ruled 55 years1/ The name means 'a legitimate king verily is created.' He was known in history as Sharrukin or Sargon? but the original name was obviously chosen in mature years to justify his claims. A legend records that his mother was a lowly woman, his father he knew not (see p. 537) ; he was born in concealment at Azupirani on the Euphrates; his mother cast him adrift on the river in a reed basket and he was discovered by Akki an irrigator, who reared him and made him a gardener; but Ishtar loved him and he became king for 55 years. According to an earlier Sumerian fragment his father was Laipum and he grew up among the cattle. It also refers to a messenger of Sargon sent to Lugal-zaggisi, who maltreated the messenger and returned a haughty reply. The inscription is so defective that the facts which attended the outbreak of war between them cannot be discovered. Lugal-zaggisi, however, seems to have sent his wife to Sargon as concubine.
So largely did Sargon and his descendant, Naram-Sin, influence the history of the period that a record of their omens was handed down in the Assyrian and Babylonian books of liver divinations. His name is especially connected with hepatoscopy, i.e. divination by means of the liver. Thus, on a great liver-omen text of the seventh century B.C. it is said: * It is a decision given to Sargon, it is favourable, in calamity there will be deliverance/ Among
1 But Ur-Ilbaba was the third king of the fourth dynasty of Kish and is assigned a reign of 80 years (according to another tablet, six years), and as five other £ing$ of Kish and the reign of Lugal-zaggisi intervene with a total of 86 years, Sargon cannot have been the king's cup-bearer* It was a posthumous cult of Ur-Ilbaba at Kish in which the young Sargon officiated*
404 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
other records, a Chronicle of early kings has been recovered which gives the events of the reigns of the six most famous rulers before Sumu-abu (2225 B.C.). It begins with Sargon. ^The king attributes his accession to the aid of Ishtar5 the Semitic goddess of Agade, identified with the Sumerian Innini, goddess of battle. His career began with the conquest of Erech. He defeated the army of Erech and a coalition of the governors of 50 cities which had rallied to the standard of Lugal-zaggisI, and he carried away the king Lugal-zaggisI a prisoner to Nippur. His son Naram-Sin speaks in praise of his father, who * destroyed Ur and gave liberty to the people of Kish/ Lugal-zaggisI had taken special pains to oppress this old capital of the Semites, and Sargon, himself attached to the priesthood of Kish, probably organized his rebellion there before he chose Agade as his capital.
The old Sumerian cities in the south refused to submit and he now Invaded the territory of Ur, defeated its army and destroyed its wall. Turning eastward he overran the territory south of the Shatt el-Hai and occupied its chief cities, E-Ninmar(ki) and La- gash, and triumphantly washed his weapons in the sea. Since he already possessed Nippur and the whole of the extreme south it is strange that Umma between Nippur and Erech still held out. This warlike city was the last of the Sumerian centres to be occupied. He now proclaimed himself king of 'the Land,' under the high tutelage of Enlil, and returned to rebuild the city of Kish, The order of the subsequent events is uncertain. By right of pos- session of Kish he assumed the title * king of universal dominion ' (p. 369). His next expedition seems to have been made against Elam and the districts east of the Tigris. He prepared to invade Elam from the south, and returned to the sea border which at that time extended north of the modern city Kurna, 'The sea in the east he crossed* — and this statement In the Chronicle (Obverse 3) Is not to be confused with the crossing to the west, mentioned In the Omens (Obv. 24). He smote the Elamites, besieged them (in Susa?), and cut off their supplies. Beside Susa, the capital, he con- quered^ other cities (Bajrakhsi, Ganni, Bunban, Gunilakha, Saba and Shirikhum), who&e kames are Elamite*
In his third year he invaded the west, which he calls the * Amor- ite Land/ He claims to have subdued the whole of the western lands and to have crossed the western sea, that is the Mediterra- nean, by which he may mean an occupation of Cyprus, From the 'land of the sea* he caused booty to be brought over^ (Ctoens, Obv, 26). Again in his eleventh year he subdued the entire west after he had finished an expedition beyond the eastern sea and
XI, i] CONQUESTS OF SARGON IN THE WEST 405
erected his statues in those lands. The Omens mention an expedi- tion to the west in Four different sections. An inscription copied from on% of his statues at Nippur has a more definite account of his western conquests. * Enlil gave unto him the upper land, Maer, Yarmuti and Ibla, as far as the cedar forests and the silver moun- tains/ The silver mountains refer to the Taurus, especially the regions near the Cilician Gates, and the discovery of silver in this range of mountains in the twenty-ninth century B.C. proves the great age of silver mining in Asia Minor. The cedar forests probably refer to the Lebanons, The land of Yarmuti occurs re- peatedly in the letters of Rib-Addi, governor of Gebal (Byblus) in the Amarna Letters and as a great storehouse of grain and food; but its situation is uncertain1.
It is disputed whether Sargon visited Cyprus (p. 587). The Omens of Sargon say definitely that he crossed the sea of the west, but the Chronicle has a confused statement: 'When he had crossed the sea in the east, in his third year the land of the west unto its end his hand captured/ Some good authorities (e.g. L, W, King) have assumed that the Omens are in error. They mention three expe- ditions to the west (Amurru), besides the one of his eleventh year, in which he went to the 'setting sun* and crossed the 'sea of the setting sun/ and the Omens add that 'he caused their booty to be brought over/ The statement is explicit. The Chronicle is either confused, or it means to say that tliere was an expedition to the west in the eleventh year of Sargon following upon an eastern in- vasion. It seems impossible to explain away the voyage of Sargon across some part of the Mediterranean, and naturally Cyprus was his first objective. Moreover, a stele of Sargon's son, Naram-Sin, has been found at Diarbekr (p. 417). Although Naram-Sin does not claim to have crossed the western sea but only to have reached Ibla and an unknown land, Armanu, yet a seal which mentions the 'Divine Naram-Sin ' was found in Cyprus by di Cesnola. The inscription, which is of the writing of the twenty-third century, reads 'Apil-Ishtar son of Ilubani servant of the god Naram-Sin'; and the type of this seal-inscription appears first in the period of the last dynasty of Ur (c. 2400 B.C.) and becomes extremely common
1 Ibla, which together with Armanu was smitten by Naram-Sin, is probably the Ibar of the geographical list of Thutmose III (so Sayce),anet possibly the classical Pieria, north of Antioch on the sea coast. In the Ibla mountains on the coast lay Urshu (the classical Rhosus, and the modern ArsusJ, whence, later, Gudea brought aromatic cedars and plantain. A tablet of the time of Bur-Sin, whose rule was recognised in this region, contains a list of offerings from citizens of Maer, Ibla and Urshu.
4o6 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP
In the age of Hammurabi. The design on the seal is pure Syro- Hittife, as used on seals of the Cappadocian tablets, a mixture of Babylonian and Hittite design. There is no specifically ^Cypriote symbolism (griffins and monsters) on this seal; and we can infer from it that Naram-Sin became a mythical hero in the Syro-Hittite region and his cult survived there for at least five centuries1.
The fame of Sargon was such that a range of mountains in the Lebanon region from which frankincense (lupanu) was obtained was named the Mountain of Sargon. Concerning his expeditions in these lands a Hittite legendary poem was written called the 'King of Battle/ of which the first tablet of the Semitic version has been recovered at el-Amarna. In this legend the opponent of Sargon seems to be Nurdaggal of the city Burshakhanda unto which the 'way was grievous/ Nurdaggal felt secure beyond his barriers : * Unto us Sargon will not come, surely the shore of the flood will prevent him. Who is the king who has come and seen our mountain?' And after Sargon captures the city of his foe, Nurdaggal says unto him: 'The soldiers of thy god have caused thee to cross (saying) "the mountains may he ascend, the river may he cross." What are the lands which can rival the city Aggata (Agade), what king can rival thee?* We are left in doubt concern- ing the movements of Sargon. Sayce interprets the passages as re- ferring to Syria, Cilicia and Cappadocia. These lands were regarded in early legend as one of the six * regions * (nagu) beyond the world- encircling sea and by reason of his distant conquest Sargon was actually supposed to have been translated to this Hyperborean land along with the hero of the Flood, Ut-napishtim. A map based upon this mythical cosmology describes those trans-oceanic re- gions inhabited by monsters where dwell also Sargon, Ut-napish- tim and Nur-Dagan. Sayce has very plausibly connected Nurdag- gal of the legend of Sargon, 'King of Battle/ with Nur-Dagan. In view of the fact that the historical legend of Sargon was prob- ably written under the influence of the old cosmology in which Asia Minor was regarded as beyond the sea, the present writer considers that it is possible to interpret the legend, as Sayce does, without seeing in it an expedition to Cyprus.
After these conquests Sargon divided his vast empire from the lower sea to the upper sea, from the rising to the setting of the sun into districts of five double hours* march each, over which he
1 The exact provenance of the seal is disputed. It is reproduced by Sayce in Transactions of Society of BtU. Archaeology > 1877, p. 44-2? an^ discussed by King, History of Sumer and jfkkad, p. 346. For the date of these Syro-HIttite seals, see Conteiiau, Revue d*jf$$yrioL XIY, 67.
XI, i] SARGON IN THE EAST, AGADE FOUNDED 407
placed the 'sons of his palace/ By these numerous delegates of his authority 'he ruled the hosts of the lands altogether/ A "severe contest with the Elamitic land and city Kazalla, whose king, Kash- tubila, revolted, now followed* "He turned Kazalla into dust and heaps of ruins; he destroyed even the resting-places of the birds/ This important city, often mentioned in later history, seems to have lain east of the Tigris in the latitude of Baghdad. Sargon 7s last expedition to the east was therefore in the latitude of his own capital, and into the province of A wan, where memories of a former kingdom still inspired the ambitions of its people.
'In his old age all the lands revolted and besieged him in Agade'; so runs the Chronicle, which adds that Sargon went out to battle and utterly overthrew their hosts. On the other hand, the Omens record a rebellion of the elders of his own land who be- sieged him in Agade. The statement of the Chronicle is probably correct, for an inscription on his statue at Nippur refers to his smiting 30 governors of rebellious cities. Northern Mesopotamia along the upper Tigris next claimed his attention. At that time the territory later known as Assyria had been occupied by Hittite- Mitanni people whose land was called in Semitic Subartu, gentilic Subaru (Greek, Sabiroi^ Sapeires^ Saspeires). The old Sumerian civilization at Ashur, where the goddess Innini-Ishtar had a temple from remote antiquity, had been overrun by these advance guards of the Hittite race, who now attacked Sargon. According to one account Sargon invaded Subartu with his hosts and anni- hilated their armies. In another the latter attacked Sargon and were grievously smitten. He carried away their spoil unto Agade.
The Omens place the founding of the city Agade soon after Sargon *s first invasion of the west. He took soil from the outer walls of Babylon and consecrated the boundaries of his new capital by tracing its outer walls with the earth of the holy city of Marduk, He made it after the model of Babylon. But according to the Chronicle this was the last act of his reign, and it adds that Marduk was angry because of this sacrilege and destroyed his people with hunger. 'They united against him and he found no rest.' These two passages contain the first reference to the famous city of Baby- lon. It is thus seen to be pre-Sargonic; the cult of its god Marduk, son of the water-deity, Enki of Eridu, was already established ac- cording to the Chronicle; but as this reference to Marduk does not occur in the Omens, we may regard that part of the records as a late Babylonian gloss. Marduk, the later god of Babylon, ap- peafs fi?st under the title Asar in the period of Gudea, and his original connexion with Babylon is doubtful, The patron deity
4o8 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
of Agade was Amal, a god identified with Marduk In an astro- nomical text. As he had also a temple in Babylon he may be the old god of Babylon transferred to Agade. Innini, or^ Anunit, goddess of Agade, had also a temple at Babylon, Accordingly both Amal and Innini seem to have been borrowed from Babylon, but we do not know why Sargon so honoured the city.
The glorious reign of Sargon closed with the entire empire in revolt. The Babylonian Chronicle pragmatically attributes his disasters to the violation of the holy city Babylon, An Omen Text preserves the same tradition : * Sargon whose troops bound him in a trench and suppressed their master in a coalition/ The misfor- tune which overtook him at the end of his career is again referred to a birth omen, *if an ewe give birth to a lion with head of a lamb, lamentation of Sargon whose universal dominion [passed away]/ Only one sculptured monument of Sargon has been re- covered; it is a large triangular monolith found at Susa; the king, according to Semitic fashion, has a long beard reaching to the waist, heavy moustaches, and his long hair is rolled into a huge chignon on the back of his neck. Sargon *s ordinary title is 'King of the city Agade/ to which is sometimes added c King of the Land' and "King of universal dominion' (see p. 369). He is also described as the fashish (Le. "elder brother r) of Anu and the priest-king of EnliL
Sargon was succeeded, as is now known, by his son Rimush, who reigned 1 5 years. Other sons were Ibarim and Amal-ishdagal. The name Rimush has been read Urumush, but the city Ri-mu-ush in an inscription of Naram-Sin and on a Drehem tablet indicates the true rendering. Rimush is closely associated in history with his successor Manishtusu by the fact that both employed the title 'king of universal dominion/ and for many years Assyriologists regarded them as kings of Kish. When he came to the throne he found Sumer and Elain in revolt, as might be expected from the close of Sargon's reign* A certain Enimazag proclaimed himself king of Ur, and already several southern cities recognized his authority* Riinttsh smote Ur and Umma, taking several thousand prisoners, and reached the shores of the lower sea. Kazalla, which had again revolted against the empite^ was subdued on his return from Sumer. Der on the Elamite border was also subdued. Al- though Sargon had conquered Elam and Barakhsi Rimush was compelled to reduce them again, Abalgamash, king of Barakhsi, between Susa and Awan, was defeated in battle and its governor, Sidgau, was captured. Rimush claims to have ruled the^Iaiicl of Elam, and in fact this warlike neoole seem reallv to have s
XI, i] REIGNS OF RIMUSH AND MANISHTUSU 409
to the kings of Agade for a long period. He assumed, the title 'smiter of Barakhsi and Elam/ and claims to have ruled tte lands from th£ Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea, and all the moun- tain lands — by which he probably means Elam, Commagene and Syria. He held the vast empire of Sargon intact and prepared a mighty heritage for the most glorious reign of the period, that of Naram-Sin.
Like Sargon, he ended his career in misfortune and Babylonian omen-books preserve traditions of his calamity. Two liver-omens preserve an evil portent of Rimush which preceded his death. They illustrate the method of divination. The lobus caudatus was like a new moon and the 'sons of the palace' rose up and slew Rimush with their seals. The top of the gall-bladder turned toward a blister on the surface of the liver and enclosed marks which re- sembled weapons, and the * servants of his house' rose up and killed him. The 'sons of the palace* in the inscriptions of Sargon and Rimush refer to the officials of Agade, and the statement that the conspirators slew the king with their seals is entirely credible, as the seals of the period are noted for their extraordinary size and beauty.
. His successor, Manishtusu, has commonly been regarded as the son of Sargon; traditions agree that his own successor, Naram-Sin, was his brother, and therefore a son of Sargon, His name, which is Semitic, probably means *Who can (uproot) his foundation?* Among the principal sources for the history of his reign are a large cruciform stone with twelve columns, chiefly concerned with the restoration of the temple and cult of the sun- god Shamash of Sippar, and a great obelisk, recording in 76 columns the details of his purchase of four estates. The latter contains the name of a witness, Sharru-kin-ili, * Sargon is my god/ The founder of the kingdom did not actually receive divine honors; but a proper name of this kind in the time of his successor proves that he was regarded as at least semi-divine by his subjects at Agade. The bust of his stone statuette has been found at Susa, where it had been dedicated by Ashshub, a patesi of Elam, to the local god Naruti. The king wears a long beard and heavy mous- taches. A high bent nose and angular cheeks reveal the Semitic character. More interesting is the long square beard which falls in horizontal waves and perpendicular streams. The beard of Naram- Sin at Diarbekr has much the same frisure, but it is pointed, .and does not fall so low on the breast. Naram-Sin wears the same pointed beard on his Stele of Victory and an early Semitic head found at Adab has a short pointed beard. On the Susa monument
4io THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
of Satgon that king wore a pointed beard, consequently the two styles are not indicative of age. Manishtusu wears no head-dress and the thick crisped hair is cut off abruptly at the neck. The eyes are inset in the old style. Two statues of Manishtusu, which had been carried away from Babylonia by Shutruk~Nakhkhunte> king of Anzan> were found at Susa by the French excavator De Morgan. One, a standing figure of the king, was taken from * Akkaddum* (Akkad is a later corruption for Agade)3 and the other was plun- dered from Ishnunuk. It is interesting to know that this king gave a statue of himself to the city Ashnunak, east of the Tigris. The original Semitic inscriptions of both statues have been cut away and replaced by one in Anzanite.
A dolerite stele engraved with bas-relief figures of Manishtusu and his son Mesalim was also recovered at Susa. It had been plundered from Babylonia by Shutruk-Nakhkhunte. This son who is known to have possessed an estate near Kish did not succeed to the throne and nothing more is known concerning him. His name recalls the famous Semitic king of former times at Kish, Me-silim, provided that the latter name has been read correctly (p. 369). Fragments of three of his statues all inscribed with the same in- scription have been recovered, two from Sippar and one from Susa. The cartouche of one statue is preserved. ' Manishtusu, king of universal dominion, has dedicated to Shamash/
Soon after Ms accession the lands which his father Sargon had left him revolted. The so-called * Cruciform. Monument * is that of some son of Sargon, and as it contains a passage identical with an inscription of Manishtusu at Nippur we may infer that Manish- tusu and not Rimush was that son1. Here he says that he divided his troops and sent part of his army to conquer Anshan (the pro- vince of Susa) and Shirikhum, whose king he brought with gifts into the presence of the sun-god at Sippar, Then follows the first great charter of endowment to E-barra, the temple of Shamash. Its regular offerings, revenues and estates were fixed. Luxurious vestments were made for Shamash and Aja, and rings of silver and gold to the weight of 30 talents of each metal were presented to the solar deities of E-barra. The standard inscription on all his monuments refers to his expedition beyond the Lower Sea in boats after he had conquered Anshan. The kings of 32 cities beyond the sea assembled against him. He smote these cities and subdued their kings even unto the silver mines. From the mountains beyond the sea he brought back stone for statues. An expedition beyond
1 For this important identification see Revue d*jfssyriologley IX, p.* 94, 12—15, and Poebel, Historical and Grammat. Texts^ iv, p, 205,
XI, i] CONTEMPORARY MONUMENTS 411
the Persian Gulf eastward Into the coast-lands south of Elam is the interpretation which is generally placed upon Babylonian refer- ences t$ invasions beyond the Lower Sea* A coalition of 32 cities in this region, as well as the mention of silver mineSj and the im- portation of diorite, prove that southern Persia was a populous and prosperous region in his time.
The most interesting Semitic monument of the early period is the great diorite obelisk on which is recorded the purchase of four large estates, at Bas in the district of Dur-Sin by the Tigris, at Baraz- sirim in the district of Klsh, at Maradda and at TImtab, east of the Tigris. The estates in each district are obtained by purchasing small properties from several owners,, to whom in each case the king gave an additional sum of money for the buildings (nig-ki-gar) and presents of jewellery and clothing for their goodwill (nig~ba)^ old legal customs which can be illustrated from more ancient sales in Sumerian and Semitic centres. The sellers are still described by the quaint expression 'eaters of the silver * (cf. p. 371). In giving tha boundaries of each estate the primitive terms for the cardinal directions are retained : North is * storm- wind/ West is 'wind from Amurru,' East is 'wind from the mountains/ and South is 'wind of the ship sailing up-stream/ A unique feature of these royal transactions is the provision made for entertaining a large number of serfs who worked on the estates, and of officials who appear to have held secular and religious offices at Agade and In the pro- vinces where the estates were located. The property purchased at Bas amounted to about 700 acres and supported 190 workmen whom 'he caused to eat/ The phrase seems to mean that the king gave them food until they were provided for, and their large num- ber reveals how Intensive was the cultivation of the soil. He also 'caused to eat* five officials of the district Dur-SIn, and 49 officials of the capital Agade. Among the officials of the province of Agade are the king's nephew, three scribes, a chief minister, governors, a priest of divination, a barber, a cup-bearer, a seer of the temple. Two sons of Surushkin, a Semite and the patesi of Umma, whose father was a high-priest, are also among the officials of the capital. A stone spindle inscribed with the name of Surushkin, patesi of Umma, has been found at Umma. Urukagina^ son of Engilsa3 patesi of Lagash, who is also among the officials at Agade, cannot of course be the famous Urukagina, king of Lagash, whose reign was terminated half-a-century before by the Invasion of Lugal- zaggisi.
The same officials of Agade receive pensions from the purchase of the estate at Kish acquired from eleven owners. Here there are
412 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
80 retainers on the estate. The king obviously endeavoured to secure the goodwill of the powerful priest-rulers of important cities by appointing their sons to office in the central province o£Akkad itself. His efforts to secure the goodwill of the two Sumerian patesis of Lagash and Umma indicate the strong position which they still occupied as centres of Sumerian military power. The city Agade had now become synonymous with the province Akkad or the Semitic region north of Sunier.
The details of the purchase of a huge property of 3300 acres at Maradda in another administrative province illustrate the same principles as above, save that the surveyors receive gifts. The officials of Maradda who receive a banquet include a judge, a priest of Lugal-maradda, god of the city., several prefects of local towns of the province and three scribes. Also ten sons of the officials are included in the king's hospitality. The retainers on the estate number 1800, of whom 600 are fed for one day and 1200 for two days. The brother of the king, Amal-ishdagal, owned an estate at Maradda and the agrigor seer of Amal-ishdagal, Bel-ibani, entertained this vast company for the king at his villa. These seers formed an important class of priests in Sumerian religion, and they were of course equally important in Akkad. The belief in the revelation of the will of the gods by various kinds of divination was so deeply rooted that it is not surprising that a prince had his own soothsayer whose wealth was sufficient to meet the demands imposed by the king*
A smaller estate purchased at Timtab east of the Tigris in the region of Kazalla supported only 94 tenants who received their temporary food from the king after the purchase. The local officials of the city as well as the entire list of officials at Agade are feasted after this sale. The list of Timtab includes shepherds, a merchant, a carpenter and two scribes. This estate like those at Bas and Kish lay, therefore, in the imperial province of Agade, This interesting monument sheds light upon the political and racial conditions of 0ie periqcl and upon the diplomacy of the king. It proves that the central province of Akkad did not include Maradda, but that Kish 'and '
IL NARAM-SIN AND THE DECLINE OF THE DYNASTY
OF SARGON
Naram-Sin, 'the beloved of the moon-god/ was the fourth king of Agade, and Babylonian tradition invariably states that fie was the son of Sargon, Since at least 22 years must be assigned to the
XI, n] REIGN OF NARAM-SIN 413
reigns of Manishtusu and Rimush, and since Sargon died in his old age, it is difficult to believe that Naram-Sin was the son of Sargon^ If we allow 22 years for his two predecessors, and assume that he was born 20 years before the death of Sargon, he could have ascended the throne at the age of 42. The Nippur dynastic list has 56 for the years of his reign, and this would give him an age of 98 years.
The inscriptions of his own period almost invariably give Naram- Sin the rank of a deity; but later chroniclers omit the sign for god before his name, as they do in the case of the names of all the historic kings of Sumer and Akkad who had been deified. The deification of Roman emperors began in the Greek provinces long before the institution reached Rome itself, and the tendency to deify, which was one of the most important aspects of Sumerian religion, harmonised with the belief in the priesthood of kings. The old patesis, or city-kings, were priests of the gods, and the title, * patesi ' of a patron deity, was retained even when they became heads of kingdoms. Three kings of the prehistoric Sumerian dy- nasty of Erech had enjoyed apotheosis. Eannatum and his suc- cessors at Lagash were hailed as children who had been nourished by the milk of the mother-goddess, and Lugal-zaggisl was said to have been the son of Nidaba, the mother-goddess of his native city, Umma, andjnpurished on the milk of the great Ninkharsag. Already, in pre-Sargonic Sumer, human kings were compared to Tammuz, the divine son of Innini, the principal type of mother-goddess. The belief in the king's divine origin is based upon his supposed miraculous birth from one of the unmarried mother-goddesses. The institution was made possible by the very ancient cult of Tammuz, the dying son of Innini. The only inscriptions of Naram- Sin *s period which neglect the divine title are one inscribed on a vase from Magan and found at Babylon — that is, near his own capital — and one written by his son Lipitili. A tablet-copy of the inscriptions on his monuments dedicated in E-kur at Nippur omits the determinative for god, but their historians habitually deprived the ancient kings of this title.
The order of events in his reign is uncertain. Limestone door- sockets from the temple of the god Lugal-maradda, built by Lipitili, patesi in Maradda, have an historical introduction which states that the building was erected in the year after Naram-Sin had defeated nine armies and had captured their three kings. These three Jdngs were brought prisoners before Enlil, even as Sargon had brought Lugal-zaggisi in chains before the same god at Nip- pur. In virtue of his vast empire Naram-Sin here assumed the
THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
title *king of the four regions/ and henceforth the title 'king of universal dominion* Is dropped^ and Kish, jealous of the new capital at Agade, organized a great coalition against him. This prob- ably explains the rejection of the title which in itself recognized the ancient prerogatives of KIsh. The four regions revolted under Ipkhur-KIsh of Kish5 and the leading cities of the coalition include the principal cities of his own land Akkad5 four cities of Elam and Erech, the greatest city of Sumer. He refers to the ingratitude of KishD who had been freed by his father Sargon from their op- pression by the king of Erech, and had now revolted against the son of their deliverer and joined their ancient foes. Apparently more than half his own Semitic province had revolted; even Sippar, a few miles from his capital and the centre of the cult of the old Semitic sun-god? was found among his enemies. Ipkhur-Kish, the chief of the coalition, assembled his armies in the fortresses of Tiwa and Urumum in the * Plain of Sin' and in the fortress of Bit-Sabadj the temple of Gula, (The temple of Gula at Babylon was named E-sabad.) The Inscription ends abruptly with the names of ten kings and gives no information concerning his vic- tory. These ten kings do not appear to have been in the coalition which raised Ipkhur-Kish to the kingship; they are rather a sum- mary of Naram-Sin's expeditions and invasions.
The list comprises (i) Puttimadal, king of Shimurru, a land west of the Zagros mountains, (2) Inmash of Namar, in the region of Samarra3 east of the Tigris. Three centuries later a Hittite- Mitannian people lived here, and 7#, 'lord/ the first syllable of the name Inmash (or Inbar), suggests the presence of a Mitannian people already. The third on the list Is Rish-Adad, king of Apirak; the conquest of which was regarded by subsequent chroniclers as the most important event in the reign of Naram-Sin. Also the Omens give this deed the first place In his career, Apirak may be identical with Abiak, a city near Timtab. Its king, Rish-Adad, as also its later patesi, Sharrubani, bear Semitic names. On the Obelisk of Manishtusu the names of most of the citizens of Timtab are Semitic. Kazalla, the Elamitic province in which lay Timtab, Apirak and Awan, had still an Elamitic king in the days of Sargon; but the names of Its citizens and patesis in the later period of Ur are mostly Semitic. Such facts are important for the racial conditions of the peoples east of the Tigris in the Zagros area in the first half of the third millennium. In the Elamite re- gions south of the Diyala are Semites who are evidently not natives but immigrants from Akkad, for whom the repeated invasibns^of the kings of Agade had prepared the way. North of the Diyala
XI, u] NARAM-SIN'S CONQUESTS 415
Hittite-Mitanni peoples seem to have occupied the hill-lands of Shimurru, and the plains of the Tigris above the Adhem, tis well as the central plain of Subartu. Here they maintained for centuries a tenacious resistance towards the Semites, who were also pushing northward along the Euphrates. In Lulubu, soon after the period of Agade, Annubanini reigned; on the stele at Seripul this king is represented in bas-relief with full beard and shaven lips standing before a well-sculptured figure of the Semitic war-goddess, Ishtan The inscription is written in Semitic, but proves that the religion of Lulubu in the twenty-seventh century was Sumerian, like that of the Semites of AkkacL The king himself, as here represented, is hardly a Semite, and it has been argued that his name and those of his wife and brother belong to the Caspian-Elamitic languages.
The fourth on the list is Migir-Dagan, king of Maer. The presence of a Semitic kingdom in the old Sumerian district of Maer in Syria on the Euphrates is another indication of Semitic power in Mesopotamia, The important deity Dagan, who appears here for the first time, seems to have been the prehistoric god of the land of Maer whose capital was Tirka, now the village clsharah on the Euphrates below the mouth of the Khabur river,
The fifth and sixth kings are Khubtakkibi of Markhashi and Dukhsusu of Mardama'm, of wliich the latter, like the former, was probably in Elam. The seventh in the list is Manium, king of Maganna(ki). The chroniclers regard the conquest of Magan as the event of second importance in the reign of Naram-Sin, and the books of omens also record the signs on the liver which led to the subjection of the 'Land Maganna/ The Chronicle states that he went to Maganna and captured Mannu-dannu, its king. A marble vase from Magan, with the inscription cNaram-Sin, king of the four regions, a vase, booty of Magan/ was carried away to Elam, and a fragment has been recovered at Susa. Naram-Sm made a statue of himself of diorite which he brought from the mountains of Magan, and dedicated to (? Shamash in Sippar); and this object was also plundered by the Elamites, and all but the feet and base mutilated. According to the fragmentary inscription he smote Magan and captured its king Mani-^^ in the year after he had defeated nine armies and bound their three kings. The full name of this king may have been, therefore, Mannu-dannu, 'Who is mighty?' Magan, a compound of the Sumerian Ma, 'ship,' was so named because its inhabitants were a sea-going people; and a text of the period of Dungi from Lagash speaks of the shipwrights of I&agan, Sumerian inscriptions consistently combine Magan with Melukhkha, which later at all events is Ethiopia, but originally
416 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
denoted Oman and the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf. The dates of Magan and Melukhkha are associated with those of Dilmun on the Persian Gulf. Magan was called the mountain of ^copper, and its famous black diorite differs geologically from Egyptian diorite. A Sumerian epic concerning the fates decreed by the war-god Ninurasha for various stones sang of the mountain Makkan as the land of dolerite. Gudea, too, mentions the timber which came from Magan, Melukhkha,, Gubin and Dilmun. Ma- gan, or Makkan, was a coast-land of the Persian Gulf, probably the modern el-Hasa, and the classical Gerra. It was a land famous also for goats, and in the Sumerian legend of Dilmun, or Epic of Paradise, the deity of Magan is called Nindulla, * queen of the flocks,' The reference to Magan as the copper mountain seems to indicate the inclusion of the Jebel Akhdar of Oman where copper is still found.
Manium of Magan was honoured by having his name given to the city Manium-(ki), which is mentioned in a temple record of the period of Dungi, four centuries after Narain-Sin. The inhabi- tants of Magan were loyal Sumerians who sent tribute to the great cults of Sumer, The land was also famous for the stone called gug (Sumerian) or samtu (Assyrian), which is supposed to be the Hebrew shoham (? onyx, beryl).
An old caravan route crosses the Arabian peninsula from Jidda via Mecca and the Jebel Shammar and reaches Babylonia in the region of Babylon. This is the historic Pilgrim route of the eastern Mohammedans to Mecca. A northern branch of this route from Yambu el-Bahr and Medina joins the main road in the Jebel Sham- mar. A Semitic kingdom^ in the age of Naram-Sin, in Hijaz and in the land of the Minaeans may reasonably be expected and the language would naturally be closely related to the Babylonian. The conquest of this region may have been made by the overland route *uia the Jebel Shammar, or more probably by the long sea voyage 'via Dilmun, Gubin and Melukhkha. Gudea speaks of bringing stones from lands distant a whole year's journey; and from the time of Naram-Sin onward the statuary and sculptured monuments of Sumer and Akkad are chiefly made from diorite of Magan. For these reasons many scholars have argued that Manium was a Semite and that Magan included Sinai and even Egypt, but the geographical survey of Sargon, which states that Melukhkha was reached after a march of 120 hours from .the reservoir of the Euphrates, fixes at once the general location of these lands. See further, pp. 171 ^., 583. °
The early years of Naram-Sin *s reign were occupied in subduing
XI, n] NARAM-SIN AND THE STELE OF VICTORY 417
nine armies with their three kings and in the invasion of Magan. The title * conquerors of nine armies/ which he assumes on th?e Susa statue and the Maradda temple inscription, probably refers to the rebellion* of Erech, Umma and Nippur, whose kings, Lugal-Anna, Arad-Enlil and Amar-Enlil, are the last of the ten (p. 414). The invasion of Magan was then undertaken after the conquest of these sea-lands. On his return from that region he found Akkad, Sumer and Elam in revolt. It is astonishing that Naram-Sin had the mili- tary resources to meet such opposition. Little of his own Akkad remained loyal to him. Certainly, Maer and the western provinces conquered for Agade by his predecessors had no interest in aiding him to suppress the rebellion. His survival must be attributed to a well-organized army trained to obedience and loyalty by his pre- decessors. Like Sargon he also invaded Syria and reached the sea. A perforated stone tablet used as a pedestal for an emblem, and a marble vase, dedicated to the temple of Lagash, were both in- scribed with the record of his victories in the far west : *The divine Naram-Sin, the mighty king of the four regions, smiter of Ar- manu and Ibla.* A standing figure of the king In bas-relief is pre- served in the mountain lands in Kurdistan at Pir Hussein, a village 20 miles north-east of Diarbekr on the Ambar Su, a branch of the Tigris. He wears the Sumerian kaunakes of the period draped from the left shoulder, and seizes the handle of a sword in his right hand in attitude of defence. The left hand, tightly pressed to the waist, holds the shaft of a sceptre. A badly damaged inscrip- tion in four columns refers to the making of the stele and utters a curse upon him who destroys it. From a phrase * he turned back the breast,* it is evident that he opposed invaders, possibly the Hittites, who were seeking to descend upon Mesopotamia from beyond the Taurus.
The most famous monument of Naram-Sin is his remarkable Stele of Victory dedicated to the sun-god in Sippar and carried away to Susa by Shutruk-Nakhkhunte. The monument is of yellow sandstone probably obtained from Kurdistan and transported to Sippar. The king in Semitic dress ascends a mountain beside one of whose peaks his conquered foes kneel in supplication. The field at the summit of the stele is occupied by eight-pointed stars with streaming rays, insignia of Ishtar the goddess of Agade and genius of war. The delicate but firm execution of each figure, the sim- plicity and strength of the composition, reveal an imperial art and prove that the sculptors of Agade were more than provincial craf?smen (see p. 584 sq^). It seems unmistakably to reveal the in- fluence of Egyptian art of the Ilnd and II Ird Dynasties. Shutruk- C.A.H.I 2
4i8 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
Nakhkhunte, justly proud of the magnificent stele ^which he had plundered from Sippar, inscribed his own Anzanite inscription on a surface which has not destroyed the figures. The^ original inscription, of which all but a few words are destroyed, told how the kings of the lands east of the Tigris in the^Zagros mountains including Lulubu assembled to oppose the divine Naram-Sin.
Naram-Sin's statue of himself in E-kur dedicated to Enlil refers to his conflict with Kharshamatki, lord of Aram and Am in the mountain Tibar, possibly identical with the land Tabal of Assyrian inscriptions and the people Tibareni of classical geography. In the Assyrian period this land, the Tubal of Bzekiel, lay considerably south of its later site on the shores of the Black Sea. The conquest of Aram and Am possibly formed part of the expedition into Kurdistan commemorated by the stele near Diarbekr, and would indicate that this energetic warrior advanced beyond the Anti- taurus in Armenia. If so, his empire may have extended from Armenia to the shores of the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, from Elam and the Zagros mountains to the Mediterranean coast. 'The four regions bowed before him in unison/ so runs a fragment of a statue; and the best evidence of the recognition of his authority throughout this great empire is the existence of the written docu- ments of the patesis — some of them his own sons — whom he ap- pointed in various cities. His son Lipitili received the province of Maradda. Another son, Nabi-Kibmash, was made patesi of Tutu- (ki), whose daughter, Lipushiaum, was a musician of the temple of Sin (at Ur). A third son, Bingalisharri, apparently did not re- ceive a province.
The kings of Agade appointed native Sumerian patesis over the old cities of the south, but they distrusted the Elamites and ap- pointed Semitic patesis to Susa. A fragmentary tablet written in Anzanite seems to be a treaty between Naram-Sin and a king of Elam. *The enemy of Naram-Sin is my enemy and the friend (?) ofNaram-Sin is my friend (?)/ is the most noteworthy phrase of this document, which follows the invocation of a long list of Elarn- ite gods and the god Amal. of Agade, The information of this important document, the oldest known Anzanite inscription, is meagre, but it confirms the submission of Elam to the empire of Agade.
Lugal-ushumgal, patesi at Lagash, seems to have exercised a marked influence upon the affairs of his city. He rose to the pre- fecture of his city from the office of a scribe, and was one of the energetic patesis who revived the culture and the art of Lagashu This city under the beneficent rule of Agade was no longer
XI, n] LAGASH AND NIPPUR UNDER NARAM-SIN 419
embarrassed by the jealousy of its neighbours and a period of glorious revival, culminating in the reign of the famous Gudea, now begins. Lugal-ushumgal showed his gratitude to the emperor by dedicating his seal to the * Divine Naram-Sin, the mighty, the god of Agade'; he also enjoyed the patronage of Shargalisharri, who kept him in office. He revived the old Lagash method of dating tablets by the year of his patesi-ship, an unusual procedure for a patesi who was supposed to adopt the official system of the empire. A number of his business records have been recovered, principally the purchase of slaves; the names of the citizens of Lagash are still almost exclusively Sumerian, but Semitic words appear in the letters and contracts of the period at Lagash. This reveals the increasing prominence of the Semite in Sumer. The state archives prove that Lagash sent heavy tribute in grain, sheep and cattle, gold and silver, salt and fish to Agade, of which the king and queen received the principal portions, Lagash was also obliged to send relays of labourers and skilled workmen to the capital. The administrative office of the affairs of state under the empire of Agade lay in the western part of the city at some distance from the old city archives. The frequent mention of Lugal-ushumgal, the patesi, in the state records of Lagash in this period shows that he administered the affairs of the province with success over a long period,
Nippur, on the other hand, does not appear to have possessed men of great administrative ability who figure largely in the his- tory of the city and the period. But the religious prestige of the city enjoyed the benefaction of the emperors, and three tablets at Lagash are dated by the formula: *In the year when the Divine Naram-Sin laid the foundations of the temple of Enlil in Nippur and of the temple of Itinini in Ninni-Ab' (south of Nippur towards Umma).
Naram-Sin 's great reputation as a builder of temples is made particularly evident by the inscriptions of the last kings of Babylon, Nebuchadrezzar and Nabonidus. Nebuchadrezzar claims to have rebuilt the temple of Maradda upon the ancient foundation of Naram-Sin, but makes no mention of his son, Lipitili, who actually built the temple for his father. Nabonidus, in his accounts of the rebuilding of E-barra, the temple of the sun-god in Sippar, says that he excavated to the foundation of Naram-Sin, who reigned 3200 years before his own work at Sippar (553). The date (3753) thus assigned to him by the royal antiquary cannot possibly be correct. His buildings at Nippur and Adab are found only a foot or two below the works of the next great restorer of Sumerian
27— z
420 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH --[CHAP.
temples, Ur-Engur, who reigned at the beginning of the twenty- fifth century; and between the dynasty of Agade and that of Ur- Engur the dynastic list gives a period of only 151 years plus an unknown dynasty at Uruk, to which 50 years may be assigned. The figures of Nabonidus for Naram-Sin are almost exactly 1000 years too high (see pp. 156, 426).
Naram-Sin was succeeded by Shargalisharri, son of Dati-Enlil. The name means 'king of all kings/ and in a dynastic list it is followed by a damaged line, which is restored by Poebel to read '[son of the] son of Nar[am~Sin].' Dati-Enlil is not mentioned at all in the inscriptions of the preceding king, who had^placed two of his sons in prefectures; but a door socket from Nippur bears a Semitic inscription of Shargalisharri, son of Dati-Enlil, the mighty, king of Agade and the dominion of Enlil, builder of the temple of Enlil. After the name of this king the same dynastic list seems to sum up the years of the first five kings and to describe them as the family of Sargon. If this view of the broken text be correct, Dati- Enlil was the son of Naram-Sin, and for some unknown cause a grandson succeeded this king, who certainly attained a very great age*
Shargalisharri reigned at least 25 years, but no historical inscriptions have been found, and the record of his reign depends chiefly upon the meagre information of seven official year-dates. In the first year Shargalisharri * smote the invasion which Elam and Zakhara instituted against Akshak and Sakli/ A Sumerian version of this date states that he smote Elam and Zakhara : the Elamites apparently revolted against Agade at the accession of all the first five kings. According to another entry he 'subdued the Amorite in Basar/ The land of Amurru in the early Sumerian and Babylonian inscriptions meant the west, and the earliest known expression for west is 'Wind from Amurru/ Amorites were em- ployed in Sumer and Akkad in the period of Agade as labourers, and the term Amurru ('Amorite') became a class-name, and a JL^ggsh tablet of this age has a list often workmen who are called *menfrom ;Ama:rru.* It would seem that western Semites had been imported i&to Sitmeir ai%d J&kkad, and even into Elam, precisely
as, later, the KEabiru ;;!^rerfe imparted in the time of Hammurabi as mercenary soldier^; Aii 'Ainotite,* in the business-records of Shargalisharri, would thus mean simply a special kind of work- man; and of the ten Amorite woirkmen at Lagash mentioned above eight are Sumerians and^ two Semites, and, their names, Uiakhi and Ishma-ili, are not specifically * Amorite/ See pp* 454
XI, n] SHARGALISHARRI. THE RISE OF GUTIUM 421
Two year-dates refer to war with Gutium — of ominous import for the civilization of Sumer and AkkacL In the highlands east of the rnidc^e Tigris, the warlike and cruel nomads of Gutium had appeared. The name of the earliest king Sharlak, and those of the later dynasty which ruled in Sumer and Akkad, cannot be de- finitely identified with any known group of languages; but later, at all events, Mitanni-Hittite names prevail in this region (cf. p. 452,). The year-dates also contain some reference to a battle at Erech, and hint at a Sumerian revolt, possibly at the king's accession.
The artistic monuments of Shargalisharri are rare. At Lagash were discovered two fragments of a magnificent stele, tomb-stone shaped, like the Stele of the Vultures. The Stele of Victory of Naram-Sin and the Lagash stele belong to the same school of art. On both the warriors of Agade wear the same short plain skirts and leather helmets,, and carry the same short swords. The vanquished foes are naked and, like the Semitic warriors, wear full beards. Some of the warriors are bowmen and carry large quivers adorned with tassels; others are spearmen and carry a long shaft to which is attached a metal point. On the Susa monument the swordsmen advance in one file and the spearmen in another, but the Lagash stele represents all ranks in the midst of carnage on a level plain. As is evident from the tonsure and the physique of the captives and suppliants, the enemies of Agade are not Sumerians. An inscribed fragment, which, however, may not belong to the same monument, refers to 1 7 villages of the province of Lagash, which seem to have been given to officials, possibly in recognition of their military support. The inscription ends with a phrase which has been rendered, *In addition to Agade, the kingdom which he had received [the patesiship of Lagash was given to Shargalisharri (?)]/ If the monument and inscription really belong to this king the present writer would interpret the words to mean that he forcibly seized the throne at Agade. This would explain why none of the sons of Naram-Sin became king. The figured monument would then represent Lagash as an ally of Shargalisharri at war with the Elamites or Guteans.
The reign of Shargalisharri is especially distinguished for the beautiful seal cylinders dedicated to him. The seal of a scribe, Ibni-sharru, dedicated to the Divine Shargalisharri, and now in the De Clercq Collection (Paris), has long been regarded as the finest engraved cylinder of antiquity. The motif consists simply of Grtlgamesh watering a buffalo from ajar which overflows in two streams representing the Tigris and Euphrates. For symmetry the
422 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
scene is doubled so that the cartouche is artistically enclosed be- tween the horns of the two buffaloes. The most common design on the seals of the period consists of a double combat, Gjlgamesh with a bull and his companion, the satyr Enkidu, with a lion. The stones most commonly employed are marble, serpentine, jasper, chalcedony, basalt, lapis lazuli, steatite and haematite.
In his reign the provinces were administered by patesis, usually of local origin, who paid tribute in the same manner as under his predecessor. There is no reason to suppose that he had less control over the great empire than Naram-Sin, but his Inscriptions rarely admit his divine rank. If he came to the throne by^ illegitimate means, that would have been an incentive to emphasize the claim rather than to neglect it. At all events, the institution of emperor- worship obtained only for a brief period. It was clearly not con- genial to the Semite, and that probably explains its practical aban- donment by ShargalisharrL The idea thrived best in Sumerian religion and was soon revived there in great splendour.
A liver-omen refers to the king's last misfortunes. *It is the oracle given to Sharkalisharri. It means the destruction of Akkad. The enemy will come up thy way, he will take up his journey and before our army will he not turn back.* Tradition, therefore, re- ported misfortune of him also, as it did of the end of Rimush and Sargon. The country had borne restlessly the yoke of five great kings and, at the passing of each, various provinces invariably re- volted. The records of the last of the Sargonids are scanty and there is no information concerning the foes which caused the disruption of the empire. Certainly it fell to pieces at his death, and Akkad itself retained its independence for only about 40 years.
'A short period of anarchy followed, for which the dynastic lists are unable to assign a king. In place of a name for the sixth king they write, 'who was king who was not king.' Then a certain Igigi came to the throne, only to lose it again in a few months. After him followed Imi, Nani and Elulu (or Ilulu). These four reigned only thy^ years altogether. Imi is a familiar Semitic name. Nani, Se- mittcized td J^aiinm^ is Sumerian. In the time of Manishtusu there was a Natii, a tnagi^atq;at Agade, Since he already had a son of mature years in''the^i^e161f1;lS^abis]hLtusui he certainly cannot be the king who reigned at least 70 years later. Next, Dudu reigned 0,1 years, and alabaster vases dedicated to the temple at Nippur and to that at Lagash are inscribed 'Dudu the mighty, king of Agade/ This indicates that Agade still retained the hegemony of Sumer* Dudn is a name which occurs somewhat frequently at Lagash as the name of a prominent citizen in the time of Shar-
XI, in] PERIOD OF ANARCHY 423
galisharri, and an historical inscription,, probably to be assigned to that king, mentions a Dudu, a high official of the city Ki-shi, probably Kish. It is not unlikely that this official who has a Sumerian name became king. Dudu was followed by his son Gimil-Durul, who reigned 15 years. The suzerainty of the two lands now returns to Sumer, and the dynastic list says that the kingship passed to Erech, the same ancient city which had been almost invariably chosen as the seat of Sumerian dynasties.
Five kings of Erech reigned 26 years (2675—2649). No monu- ment or tablet betrays their existence in contemporary records, and their names are known from the dynastic list only. Their rule had obviously little authority. For a period of half-a-century after Shargalisharri seals and tablets disappear almost entirely in the history of every city. This may be attributed partly to the complete breakdown of Semitic and Sumerian military power, partly to the threatening invasion of the hordes of Gutium, and partly to the fact that great cities like Erech and Ur, which certainly main^ tained some of the ancient culture, have not been excavated. Once more a dark age is illuminated by the contemporary monuments and tablets of Lagash.
III. GUTIUM AND LAGASH
The barbarians from the north now descended upon Sumer and Akkad. The Scheil dynastic-tablet ends : * The royalty was taken to the hosts of Gutium which had no king/ A Nippur list assigns 21 kings and a period of 125 years and 40 days to the kingdom of Gutium. Some of the kings have names which seem to contain Hittite elements: Arlagan (Ar\a\> to give), Saratigubisin (Sin, brother). It is evident that the two lands of lower Mesopotamia recognized the Gutium kingship whose capital probably remained at Arrapkha (perhaps Kerkuk, east of Arbela); and an inscription states that Gutium had taken the royalty of Sumer to the moun- tains. The texts of the period frequently refer to the devastation and pillage of the rich lands of Sumer and Akkad by the peoples of Gutium. Thus the statue of Anunit at Agade was carried to Arrapkha, where it remained for 2000 years until Neriglissar re- stored it to her temple. Lamentations in Sumerian and Semitic were sung in the temples in the times of these oppressors. A frag- ment from Nippur wails over the ruin of that city, and for Kesh and Adab, two centres of the cult of the earth-goddess which had be£n r^zed by Gutium. The foot of the stranger had defiled the shrines of ancient Sumer, and * Nippur by the death-dealing weapon
.24 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
ras smitten.' 'Nintud because of his deeds wept bitterly/ After nentiening the cults of the goddess of birth (Ninlil, Nintud) the iturgy takes up the woes of the cult of Innini at Erech. ^ Eann.a, ,bode of the dark chamber, the foe beheld and the priestly rites verc suspended/ Hymns of this kind usually confine their refer- nces to a single cult or deity and emphasize the ruin of those cities dbere her chief temple or chapels were. A Semitic lamentation on bis calamitous period is concerned chiefly with Innini-Ishtar. 'She f Erech weeps because her maid of honour is exiled. She of Agade reeps because her attraction is gone forth. Weep for Erech, she as met with the disgrace of shame. As for the daughter of Larak ,er face is covered with her shawl in sign of disgrace.* The hymn lentions in the same strain the cities Kharsagkalama, Khulkhud- :hul, Mash, Kesh, Dunna, Nippur and Der. In view of this clear vidence of the direful rule of Gutium for 125 years it is not sur- rising that business records and works of art almost totally dis- ppear. So detested became the name of Gutium in Sumer that it ras known as the habitation of the pest/
One of their kings, however, Lasirab, dedicated a fine stone lace-head to the temple in Sippar, where it was found. The in- :ription is written in the Semitic dialect of the period of Agade, ad mentions the gods of Gutium as well as the Sumerian Innini and ic moon-god Sin. Lasirab paid tribute to the culture of the lands rhich he had despoiled by learning their art, script and language, tid by recognizing their gods. Again, at Nippur the American xcavators found a tablet which seems to be a compilation of in- criptions copied from statues dedicated to Enlil at Nippur, ontains the name of E4rridupizir or Enridapizir, king of Gutium nd the Four Regions. He, too, became a disciple of Sumerian icliefs, and dedicated his statue to the great god from whom all oyal claims were derived. The act itself proves that he included fippur in his kingdom, and in his choice of a title he imitated faram-Sin, who had also described himself as King of the Four legions. The Nippur tablet probably relates the deeds of the ireat kings Of Gutium whose dominion must have coincided closely nth the vast empire of Agade. They administered the old pro- inces by a system of patesis, or priest-kings, and appear not to lave changed the existing administration. Under Sium, king of Jutium, the patesi of Umma was Lugal-annatum, whose inscrip- "on refers to the prosperity of Umma, * which he made rich with beralities for 35 years/
We have now to turn to the history of Lagash. Ur-Bau,*one of ic most enlightened patesis of this city, may be placed shortly
XI, m] LAGASH UNDER GUTEAN KINGS. UR-BAU 425
after Shargalisharri, for he still employed the same huge brick- moulds of the size adopted by Naram-Sin. He built or rebuilt a great temple of Ningirsu on the terrace north of Girsu at Lagash. It was adorned with most remarkable statues of the two great patesis, Ur-Bau and Gudea. A diorite statue of Ur-Bau has been recovered. The figure is now decapitated, the body is abnormally squat and heavy, and in execution distinctly inferior to those of Gudea, The patesi is represented standing with hands clasped in liturgical pose, wearing the long shawl draped gracefully from the left shoulder. An inscription on it commemo- rates his construction of the temple E-ninnu. In Girsu he built a temple to the mother-goddess Ninkharsag of Kesh, one to the water-god, Enki of Eridu; one to Geshtin-anna, a title of the old virgin mother-goddess Innini of Erech, and one to Tammuz, her son and consort. In the neighbouring city, Uru-kug, 'Holy City/ he built a temple to Bau, goddess of healing and consort of Nin- girsu* In the temple-mound the excavator, De Sarzec, recovered a bronze figurine of a god attached to a pillar in kneeling position with hands firmly placed at the top of the post as though in the act of planting the pointed end firmly in the ground. It is a new type of the old copper figurines of pre-Sargonic times, a post with the body of a female deity with a stone tablet on her head (p. 378 sqC). It was enclosed in a clay vessel with the customary stone tablet on which was inscribed the record of Ur-Bau's pious works for the gods. This curious talisman represents the god of the city himself protecting the boundaries of his land, and reminds us of the Roman deity Terminus.
Ur-Bau had more than local and contemporary fame, for in the times of Samsu-iluna (twenty-first century) a street at Erech was named after him* His are the first inscriptions which mention Ninagal, a variant of Ninegal, a form of Ereshkigal, goddess of the lower world; and he claims to have been her son. His two sons-in- law became patesis after him; they lived in a period when there was no strong central government, for they use their own year-dates, which would not have been permitted under the great kings of Agade. Nammakhni, who had married his daughter, Ningandu, seems to have been an important ruler. He was grandson of Ka- Azag, the patesi who probably preceded TJr-Bau, His mother, Ninkagina, dedicated a statuette of herself to the goddess Bau for the life of her son and patesi. The wife of Urgar, a patesi, and another son-in-law of Ur-Bau, likewise dedicated a statuette of hersfelf Tor the life of her husband. Nammakhm's monuments are many; they include a fine large circular dish of veined onyx dedi-
426 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
cated to Ningirsu by his wife; a marble mace^dedicated to a god, Dunskaggana, and another dedicated to Urizi, god of the harem. Although Nammakhni was one of the immediate successors of Ur-Bau he no longer made use of the huge cubit moulds (17 inches square) of the Agade period which had been adopted by Ur-Bau. The size introduced by him is a little more than a foot square, the mould subsequently employed by Gudea, and by the great builders of the last dynasty of Ur. From this we may infer that Ur-Bau lived shortly after Shargalisharri and that Gudea belongs to a period not far removed from Ur-Bau. This in itself shows the impossibility of inserting a long period between the dynasty Ur-Engur and the kingdom of Agade (cf. p. 419 ^.)-
IV. THE KINGDOM OF GUDEA OF LAGASH
Sumerian literature is at present associated with the name of Gudea more than with that of any other ruler in the history of ancient Babylonia. This remarkable man came to the patesi-ship in the most troubled period of the history of Sumer. His date is somewhat uncertain,, but he lived in all probability under the rule of the kings of Gutium, who, however, are not mentioned in the archives of his reign. From the style of the writing and the names of the months it would seem that he reigned shortly after the period of Agade. But although the numerous monumental inscriptions of Gudea are written in old classical Sumerian, many of the inhabi- tants of Lagash have Semitic names, and Semitic phrases appear in the temple records. The majority of the people, the priesthood and the ruling classes are still Sumerian, but their decline before the aggressive Semite of Akkad is now apparent, and the popula- tion of Lagash has become cosmopolitan. Placed by circumstances in a position where his activity was confined to literature and architecture, Gudea exercised a profound influence iipon the re- ligion of Sumer. Not as a temporal ruler, but as the apostle of classical literature and the mysteries of the gods, did he obtain posthumous deification. In the days of the Sumerian revival, when the empire of Ur was recognized throughout Western Asia, he was one of the rulers of the past who was remembered as a divine man. A record from Unima in the time of Ibi-Sin mentions offer- ings to Gudea, where he is mentioned with the deified kings of Ur, The divine Gudea, patesi, received libations of wine and meal at the feast of the new moon ^t Lagash, and it is probable that his cult was recognized in all the Sumerian cities and that Jiis *5oul was supposed to reside in one of the stars.
XI, iv] GUDEA'S WORK AT LAGASH 427
His year-dates point to his interest in the temples and their cults. His most ambitious undertaking was a complete »recon- structioi^ and enlargement of the temple of Enlnnu on the northern mound where his predecessor, Ur~Bau? had already laboured. Concerning this work Gudea caused to be written two fine hollow clay cylinders; they are now styled Cylinders A and B, and carry 30 and 24 columns respectively. They comprise a long religious poem on the origin of the temple plan, the sacred chapels, em- blems, and the attributes of the gods. Cylinder A begins with the * Dream of Gudea,* in which he describes his dream, and tells how Nina the goddess of oracles interpreted it to mean that Ningirsu had appeared to him as a mighty man with the storm-bird at his side, the hurricane at his feet, and had ordered him to build Eninnu. And the maiden who had appeared to him holding a tablet of the stars was Nidaba, goddess of numbers and writing. Other figures and signs of the dream are explained to him by the goddess Nina, whose cult was located at the city Nina (see p. 381). Mention is also made of the voyage to Sirara in Nina(ki) to con- sult the oracle of the water-goddess Nina* After the interpretation of his dream Gudea performed ceremonial acts of lustration and liturgies in Eninnu. After a prayer to Ningirsu he again fell asleep and his god appeared to him in his dreams, commanding him to rebuild the temple, * whose name shall call together the lands from the boundaries of heaven, even Magan and Melukhkha shall it bring up from their mountains/ The god then gives instructions concerning the chapels and sacred emblems of Eninnu.
In preparation for his construction the patesi cleansed Lagash of all evil and injustice. Evil wizards were expelled from the city. Heaps of fragrant woods were burned on the altars. Prayers were made by day and petitions by night. In the province and in the city, 'where the tumult of man is/ he levied taxes. The Elamites and the inhabitants of Magan and Melukhkha brought timber, From the * cedar mountains/ where he claims none had penetrated before him, he brought cedar. The 'cedar mountains* were the Amanus range between Syria and Cilicia, and more than two cen- turies previously Sargon had claimed to have reached the * cedar forests' (p. 405). He speaks of obtaining juniper wood and various kinds of cedars and plantain from this region. In one of his statu- ary inscriptions he says that he obtained these at the Ursu and the Ibla mountains, that is Rhosus and the Pieria range north of Antioch. Gypsum and asphalt were brought by ship from Madga. TtTe Madga mountains lay in the province of the city Rimash, whence he obtained copper, and both are probably to be located
428 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
in the foothills of the Zagros range along the Diyala. Gold was obtained from Melukhkha in a mountain which he calls Khakhu. His silver came from * the mountains/ probably the * silver mount- ains' mentioned by Sargon, namely the Taurus. Melukhkha supplied porphyry, and Tidanu, 'the Amorite mountain' (pre- sumably Anti-Lebanon), supplied marble. In Cylinder A this mountain range is designated as the 'marble mountain/ The same ceremonial preparations are told in abbreviated form on a diorite statue, usually designated Statue B, which he placed in the newly- built temple of Ningirsu. According to this version he brought boxwood from Syria also. These timbers obtained in the far west by the shores of the Mediterranean were made into rafts, upon which the marble and other stones of Syria and Cilicia were floated down the Euphrates to Sumer. In B Gudea mentions also the mountain Umanum in Menua, and Basalla, the Amorite mount- ain whence he obtained stone. B also records Gudea's conquest of Anshan in Elam.
The zeal of Gudea was partly inspired by the magnificent temple constructed at Nippur by the kings of Agade; the hall of statues of these kings in E-kur had especially excited his ad- miration, and one of his principal objects was to adorn Eninnu with a hall of statuary. * A temple with sculptured designs had no patesi built for the god Ningirsu, but I built and wrote my name thereon/ Twelve diorite statues of Gudea have been re- covered; most of them are decapitated. He successfully imitated the hall of E~kur, wherein stood the diorite statues of Sargon, Manishtusu, Ttimush and Naram-SIn. E-kur was also adorned with sculptured monuments of the exploits of the kings of Agade, and Gudea rivalled these with fine bas-reliefs which he placed in the central court of Eninnu.
The most important statue is a life-size seated figure of Gudea with a long inscription in nine columns engraved on the back, hips and lower part of the vestment. On the knees of the patesi lies a rectangular stone tablet on which is traced the ground-plan of the temple, its gates> crenellated towers and false pillars. The outer edge carries a carpenter'^ rule or m^suring stick. The rule is sub- divided by lines into' 1 6 digits, there being 30 digits in the Sumerian cubit; between the first and last lines it contains only a little more than half a cubit, and measures 264-5 millimetres or about lof inches, the cubit being 1 9| inches, or approximately 20 inches. The bricks of Gudea, whose moulds were first introduced by Nam- makhni, measure ordinarily 330 millimetres or 20 digits/fhaf is, two-thirds of a cubit in Sumerian terms. This is the brick-mould
XI, iv] THE STATUES OF GUDEA 429
adopted by all subsequent builders, and is found In the construc- tions of Nebuchadrezzar, one of the last kings of Babyloia. The Sumerians had two cubits, the larger of a little less than 20 inches (30 digits), and a smaller cubit, the modern foot, of about 1 2|- inches (20 digits). The huge bricks introduced by the kings of Agade were a little less than the large cubit, and were occasionally em- ployed in Assyria, and also by Nebuchadrezzar. The rule on the lap of two of Gudea's statues has enabled Assyriologists to define the Sumerian digit (16-5 millimetres, say, three-quarters inch), and consequently their system of measurement. At the right side of the tablet on Statue B is a metal graver or chisel, shaped like a modern awl with bent handle. The figure is robed in an elegant fringed shawl (which replaced the old kaunakes]^ draped gracefully from the left shoulder, and brought closely under the right arm to be fastened together at the right breast.
All Sumerian statues were given mystical names, and the in- scription of Statue B describes how it was called: *To my king I have built his statue, may life be my reward.' When the temple was finished this statue was installed and a great holiday pro- claimed to the people of Lagash. For seven days old customs were abolished* maid became like her mistress, and servant walked beside his master. The whole temple was purged. In the interest of justice, like Urukagina before him (p. 387), Gudea applied the laws of Nina and Ningirsu. *The rich man did the orphan no evil, the rich man oppressed not the widow. As for the house without a son, its daughter entered as its heir/ Then the patesi expresses the hope that this statue may be present at the parentalia or libations to his soul when he is dead, and in fact the temple-archives of a century later mention offerings of sheep, meal and oil for the soul of Gudea. The inscription then terminates with a long curse upon him who interferes with his temple or damages the text in any way,
Gudea is referred to as a king in an epic which was composed not more than two centuries after his death:
I am lord; thou art made fit for my heroic arm.
The king who will bequeath his name to life of far-off days.
Who will fashion a statue for eternal days,
In Eninnu, the temple which is filled with festivity,
At the place of the mortuary libations . , . fittingly may he set thee.
A similar statue of almost the same dimensions and in the same pose is Statue F. It is perhaps the finest example of Sumerian sculpture. The head is missing. An inscription commemorates the bufldirlg of the temple of Gatumdug in the 'Holy City.' In the construction of Eninnu itself, Gudea employed two different stamps
430 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
for his bricks, recording In nearly identical terms the building of EniniHi. In the north-eastern part of the central mound of Girsu the excavators found a building with two huge brick piljars two metres distant from each other. Each pillar consists of four columns ; a layer is made by laying eight triangular bricks around a small circular brick centre-piece, the next layer in the column consists of one large circular brick and the third layer repeats the triangle brick layer by making the triangles shorter and encasing them in semicircular bricks. The space between the four columns is filled in by four bricks cut with straight backs, semicircular faces to fit the columns and angular ends to join each other. These bricks bear an inscription which refers to the building of Eninnu and the placing of an aga of cedar therein. The pillars cannot possibly belong to the great temple of the northern mound, and the only explanation seems to be that the inscription does not refer to the pillars at all., but to a part of Eninnu. The aga is said to have been made of cedar and to have been a council chamber, dedicated to the goddess Bau, wherein stood a ship and a bull-image. Eninnu contained another aga,, the Ku-Lal at the 'Gate of Battle/ where stood a sculptured figure of a god in the act of slaying a seven- headed ram. Gatumdug, 'the beneficent bearer of milk/ is a local title of the mother-goddess, Bau, patroness of healing and child- birth, a married type of Nintud and consort of Ningirsu. Gudea often speaks of having been borne by this goddess, * Mother of Lagash.' Since Statue F commemorates the building of the temple of Gatumdug a&d was found in the Parthian palace on the great temple-mound the supposition is that it was carried there from the temple of Bau, which probably stood in the north-eastern part of Girsu, A fine marble lion's head, almost natural size, is inscribed in memory of the construction of the temple of Gatumdug in the 'Holy City:
A diminutive statue in green diorite (3 feet 4 inches high with- out the pedestal) represents the patesi standing. It is designated Statue A, and is the most successful ensemble of the statuary of Telloh. The monument was placed in the temple of Ninkharsag in Girsu, and its name was *The goddess who in heaven and earth ^3e3ees fates, goddess Nintud, mother of the gods, hath lengthened the life of Gudea builder of her temple.* Nintud or Ninkharsag, therefore, retained her identity as an unmarried type at Lagash beside^Bau, the consort of the city-god. This monument certainly stood in a temple on the old site, although it was found in the great court of the Parthian palace. * *
Statue C states that Gudea brought diorite from Magan, and
XI, iv] THE STATUES OF GUDEA 431
made this statue to which he gave the name: 'May the life of Gudea builder of the temple, be prolonged/ The statue wa« then placed in Eanna which was also the name of Innini's temple in Erech. ft was however found in the great court of the Parthian palace.
The so-called Colossal Statue (Statue D) represents the patesi sitting on a low bench and is remarkable for the vigour of its design and its immense proportions. Its inscription mentions the construction of a ship for the goddess Bau — equipped with images of sailors and placed in the temple of Ningirsu. Its name was: 'The king whose sturdy strength the foreign land bears not — even Ningirsu — has decreed for Gudea the builder of the temple a good fate/ This inscription is particularly valuable for its refer- ence to the sea voyage to Magan and Melukhkha. It is obvious that long sea voyages along the Arabian peninsula were common already in the first half of the third millennium (see p. 416).
Statue E relates how Gudea built E-silsirsir ('the aisle7),, the temple of Bau in the Holy City, where stood also the temple of Gatumdug celebrated by Statue P. Both statues probably refer to the same temple, only different epithets of the mother-goddess consort of Ningirsu are used. Bau had also a chapel in the great temple of Ningirsu called Silsirnr^ where Gudea placed an image of Kuli-anna (Aquarius). In her temple he constructed a great throne, and in her court he placed a relief of a lyre called 'Queen of the wide heaven and the earth/ He then fixed the offerings of the festival of Bau which fell upon New Year's day (the winter solstice?). The principal feature of this festival was the mystical marriage of Ningirsu and Bau, a 'sympathetic' ceremony repeated yearly at the season of the rebirth of nature. The god chosen by Gudea for his personal deity was Ningishzida, a form of Tammuz, and he too was installed in the temple of Bau. The diorite for Statue E was brought from Magan, and after it was sculptured the patesi named it, * My lady establisher of the gift of the breath of life, the gift of life for. . . days has made (?)/ He explicitly says that he placed the statue in the temple of Bau* But it was found in the central court of the Parthian palace built on the ruins of Eninnu.
The only complete figure of Gudea is a small squat statue only 1 8 inches high (designated Statue I), It represents a seated figure? the head was found by De Sarzec many years before the trunk, and Heuzey restored the figure at the Louvre. The king is clean- shaven &nd wears a turban; for his features we have only another head which (Heuzey believes) belongs to Statue G. It is an ad-
432 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP.
mirable representation of a refined and talented man, combining firmness and determination with total absence of anything sug- gestive of sensuousness. Statue I commemorates the construction of the temple of Ningishzida, Gudea's personal god. Tins edifice stood in Girsu and it is the only statue which the Parthians did not carry away to their palace from the temples in the old part of the city,
At least three statues (B, D and K) of Gudea adorned the temple of Ningirsu, which, however, was not favoured with similar monu- ments of emperors, as had been done for Nippur by the kings of Agade. At the great gate of Eninnu he placed a sculptured lion and a stele which was almost certainly sculptured with bas-reliefs. In the fore-court he placed a stele of Lugal-zaggisi which he had found In a chapel of the older temple. Sculptured steles were placed in various chapels of the great building and *the temple of Ningirsu did Gudea cause to arise like the sun among the stars; like a mountain of lapis lazuli built he it/ In the great court of Ningirsu, where stood the statue of the god, he placed images of the patrons of various aspects of civilization and religion; Galalim, patron of justice, the son of Ningirsu, stood there to guard the throne and uphold the weak and humiliate the evil; Dunshagga, son of Ningirsu, presided over the rituals of purification by water; Luggl-kurdub, genius of war, holding the seven-headed battle mace, and his comrade, Kurshu-(?), with the terrible weapon, 'storm of battle' (sharur\ stood beside Ningirsu. Lugal-sisa, his counsellor, was the divine intercessor for men before the mighty god of Eninnu. There were, also Uri-zi*, keeper of the harem, Ensignum, who tended the asses and di^oye jhe chariot, Eulilum, the shepherd of his kids. Further there were the tiiusician, singer, inspector, guardian and the god who looked after the building of houses and fortresses. Such is the briefest account of the almost in- credible labour spent by this patesi on behalf of his city and his gods,
It is interesting to observe that new styles appear in women's dress, A marble figurine of the wife of Gudea, dedicated to a deity ^&r tk^lifcbf ,Gttdea, preserves a curious innovation in the method oFSiapingl^e^fti^ged^shawL Draped from the left shoulder across the backslid taxtfer tfo.rigjit arm the shawl is brought upward to -be caugM at tllef left &^t^t%B4^oy^ai:d over the first fold. On a female figurine to the goddess Ninegal for the life of Gudea appears the new and elegant attire of Sumerian women which re- placed the kaunakes in flowing folds worn by women in the transi- tion period after the fleece-like kaunakes had disappeared. Her attire is thus described by Heuzey : 'Fastened at first traiftsvef-sely across the breast and under the arms the ends atv* ot^oo-*^ ,,~. —
XI, iv] CONTEMPORARY ART AND LITERATUP.E 433
the back and brought forward over the shoulders to fall in parallel folds upon the breasts.' A sculptured steatite vase dedicated by Gudea tc^his own god Ningishzida, holds the same leading position in stone vase decoration that the silver vase of Entemena does in metal work. The designs on each reflect the minds and aspirations of the two periods. If the engraved figures of the warlike Entemena had suggested the vigour of a race in aggressive movement and the splendid force of youth, the bas-reliefs of Gudea's vase may be said to reflect the passing of materialism and the quest of power, and the triumph of mysticism and ritualism.
The seals of the period of Gudea abandon the scenes from the legend of Gilgamesh, which form almost the only subject of seal decoration under the kings of Agade* The large thick seals of the preceding period are replaced by cylinders of smaller size. Gudea again reveals the tendency of his period by adopting a re- ligious scene as the principal subject for seals. His preference for the ways of the ancients led him to restore the old processional scene which depicts the owner of the seal led into the presence of a god by his own personal god or goddess. Thus, Gudea's own seal represents him led before a god by his own god Ningishzida. He is depicted as a clean-shaven Sumerian, and the head is almost identical with the one supposed to belong to Statue G. Behind him stands the interceding figure of the mother-goddess. Of great archaeological interest is the seal of Abba, a scribe, who dedicated it to Gudea (now in the Morgan Collection of New York City). Abba has the full beard of a Semite and Semitic features. His dress is also totally un-Surnenan, but the religious scene is strictly Sumerian, and he has the Sumerian devotional attitude. Here was a Semite, a scribe at the court of the most conservative and devout of Sumerian rulers, and he worships a Sumerian god and recites Sumerian prayers. It is a most striking testimony to the power and attractiveness of Sumerian culture* The seal of a Sumerian scribe, Lugalme, is dedicated to Gudea; it has the same processional scene and interceding goddess. Gudea had created a new epoch in litera- ture and art, and the new sentiment was profound.
In view of his many works we may no doubt assign 40 years to his patesi-ship. He certainly lived under the kingdom of Gutium; but the business archives of his reign make no reference at ;all to tribute paid to the kings of this foreign dynasty. His son Ur- Ningirsu succeeded to the patesi-ship of Lagash; but nothing Is. known of his history.
As for the other great cities apart from Lagash there is a blahk. From the days of Shargalisharri to the founding of the dynasty of
C.A.H.I 28
434 THE DYNASTIES OF AKKAD AND LAGASH [CHAP. XI, iv
Ur darkness fell upon Agade, Sippar, Kish and Babylon; Erech, Ur and Erldu yield at present no records from that period of anarchy and terrible oppression of the barbarians from^Gutium. It is not likely that excavations will discover an Ur-Bau or a Gudea who maintained the civilization of Sumer in those ancient cities. Certainly Nippur and Umma felt the heavy hands of cruel op- pressors, and it is safe to surmise that most of the cities of Sumer and Akkad possess in that period equally little history,
The dynasty of Gutium was overthrown by UtukhegaL He proclaimed himself king of Erech and revolted against Gutium, *the dragon of the mountain, enemy of the gods/ Here for the first time the word Sumer occurs as a generic term for the whole of the South Land. Sumer, the old name of the province of Nippur, received this wider distinction because Enlil had become more than ever a national god to whom even foreign kings attri- buted the gift of imperial power* The great revival of Sumerian political power was now at hand and Utukhegal, the leader of Erech, expelled the northern barbarians from Sumer and Akkad. Their last king, Tirigan, or Terikhan, bears a name which like several of the other names of this people may be of Hittite connexion. Utukhegal proclaimed to the people of Erech that Enlil had sent him to destroy the Guteans, who had filled Sumer with sorrow, who had torn husband from wife and parents from children. The people of Erech marched forth from their city be- hind their champion as one man. He arranged them in battle order. Tirigan sent unto him a message by two of his captains Ur-Ninazu, a Sumerian, and Nabi-Enlil, a Semite. In this selec tion of two officers, representing the two great races of Sumer antd Akkad, we may see the conciliatory policy of the later kings "cj Gutium. But Erech was not to be reconciled. In the combat Tiri- gan fled abandoned by his own troops and was made prisoner by the people of the village Dubrum. He was brought before Utu- khegal, at whose feet he crouched and the conqueror placed his foot upon his neck. The fame of this victory was such that the name of Tirigan became synonymous with military disaster and it passed into the Otaen-books as an evil oracle. 'Tirigan the king who fled in the midst of his troops/
The Vth Dynasty of Erech, founded by Utukhegal, is kiiown to have contained three kings, and the writer would assign to this, the only chronological lacuna in the dynastic tablets, the provisional term of 50 years (p. 441 sy.). The history of Sutner and Akkad is entirely unknown in the period after Utukhegal, until thfe ap- pearance of Ur-Engur and the founding of the last dynasty of Ur,
CHAPTER XII THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL: THE EMPIRE OF UR
L UR-ENGUR AND DUNGI
^IT^HE real champion of Sumer and Akkad, the organizer of its Ji most brilliant period, was Ur-Engur1. His name indicates that he was the devotee of an otherwise unknown goddess, Gur or Engur (perhaps Id). How peace was restored and the whole of western Asia subdued are related in a long panegyric found at Nippur* It refers to his military exploits as follows. * Those whom he plundered followed with him in tears ... in a place which had been unknown his ships were known/ Kish, the ancient Semitic rival of Sumer, rebelled against 'the Land' and was conquered. The foreign lands brought presents. But there is no definite state- ment concerning his conquests east and west, although a year-date at Lagash refers to the year when Ur-Engur traversed Mesopo- tamia from the Upper Lands to the Lower Lands. The history of the kings of Ur is derived almost exclusively from the records of Sumerian cities which belonged to his kingdom, and at none of these was he recognized as a god. But at his own capital arose the cult of the god Ur-Engur, and a tablet containing two hymns in his honour calls him the merciful lord who brought prosperity to Ur, the shepherd of Ur, who ruled also in far-away lands which paid heavy tribute to the capital. He was son of the mother-god- dess Ninsun, and the Moon-god of Ur selected him to rule the dark-headed peoples; * Wickedness tarried not before him/ and he seems to have been the founder of the Sumerian code of laws. In the course of his eighteen years' reign he was busily engaged in restoring the ancient temples, which renders the paucity of tab- lets during his reign all the more striking. His son became high- priest of Innini at Erech, and it is certain that this ancient rival city prospered under his care. Besides his work at .Nippur, Lagash, Adab, Larsa, Eridu and Umma, he built the wall of Ur; and the hymn to Ur-Engur from Nippur alludes further to the rebuilding of the royal palace. Brick-stamps found at Mukayyar refer only to
the current reading of the name which should probably be transcribed Ur-Id or Ur-Lammu. (Now to be read Ur-Nammu.)
436 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
the temple of Nannar,, god of the new moon, and his inscriptions give 'only the name of the tower E-temen-m-il> * Temple whose foundation supporteth splendour/ Liturgical texts of tjjis period refer to the great temple of the moon-god as E~gishshirgal, * house of light/ and its central chapel where stood the statue of Sin or Nannar bore the name E-nitendug. Nabonidus refers to Ur-Engur as the builder of the stage-tower, but he writes its name E-lugal~ malgasidi^ 'temple of the king who orders counsel/ and still another name for it was E-shuganuluL
The hymn to the deified Ur-Engur refers to his palace as the house of Ur wherein was accumulated the wealth of the foreign land. The throne-room of Ur-Engur was named "The mercy of Sin, great lord/ and its gate, *Thy god is a great god/ There the divine Ur-Engur god of heaven and earth sat as counsellor, and the Nippur hymn has also much to say concerning the royal palace, which is referred to even more frequently in the inscrip- tions of his successors. The palace of the kings of Ur remains to be excavated; its ruins conceal the treasures accumulated by the kings of Sumer's greatest empire, and if the indications obtained from the texts of the period may be trusted, they made this build- ing the chief object of their care.
A clay cone from Lagash states that he dug a canal for his god Nannar, son of Enlil, after he had finished the temple of Enlil at Nippur, and he adjures his successors to care for the abode of Nannar, Since the cult of the moon-god was prominent at Nippur also, it may be inferred that the king refers to a temple of Nannar in Nippur. The Lagash inscription contains the striking phrase: cBy the laws of righteousness of Shamash forever I established justice*; and the hymn in his cult at Ur speaks of the proverb: *Th.e righteousness of Ur-Engur, a treasure, was a saying/ Similar references to the promulgation of a Sumerian law-code are found in the inscriptions of Dungi.
Although Ur~Engur's deification had not been authoritatively recognized beyond the capital it is probable that he was generally regarded as a deity. A posthumous cult of Ur-Engur was certainly known at Lagash, for a tablet from the archives of that city carries a record of six gur (say 1 8 bushels) of dates made for a festival and for the regular offerings to Ur-Engur. A similar record from Lagash, dated in the reign of Gimil-Sin, refers to offerings for the festival of the reigning monarch and the fixed offerings of Ur-Engur, and a tablet from the temple-archives of Umma in the same reign refers to sacrifices made to the thrones of Ur-Engur, Dungi and Bur-Sin, the predecessors of
XII, i] UR-ENGUR AND DUNGI 437
Gimil-Sin. Here lie alone is deprived of the divine title but he received posthumous worship throughout Sumer.
Ur~Ei£gur adopted the title * King of Ur, king of Sumer and Akkad/ which was claimed by his son Dungi up to his forty- > second year. Dungi ascended the throne of Ur in '245 6 and ruled for the exceptionally long period of fifty-eight years. The date- formulae for all the years of his reign are known with the excep- tion of the second to the twelfth years. In tablets from every Su- merian city of the period except Ur this king appears without the divine title in the early years of his reign. There is definite evidence of his apotheosis before the twelfth year; and in the seventeenth year the seventh month in the old calendar of Lagash appears re- named in honour of the festival of the divine Dungi. At Umma it was the name of the tenth month which was changed to make place for the new cult of the reigning king. A tablet from Lagash bears the date: 'Year when the high-priest of the cult of the god Dungi was installed and elected/ At Nippur documents dated by the official formulae of the kingdom of Ur do not exist at all before the thirty-fifth year of Dungi. The tablets of accounts from Umma reveal the same situation : business revives, the temples again re- ceive revenues as in the days of the kings of Agade, but not until Dungi had occupied the throne of Sumer and Akkad for nearly forty years. In a list of the provincial governors of the period the following order is given : Girsu (/,<?. old capital of Lagash), Umma, Babylon, Maradda, Adab, Shuruppak, Kazallu. These seven cities may be regarded as the most important seats of provincial gov- ernors; and there is no trace of a revival at any of them before the fortieth year of Dungi, with the remarkable exception of Lagash, which does not appear to have suffered such total extinction of culture under the kings of Gutium. But other cities arose to pro- minence in the reign of Dungi and became seats of patesis, viz. A-pi-ak-(ki), identical with the Awak(kf) of the period of Naram- Sin, and the ancient Awan-ki near Susa, which is mentioned in the fifty-sixth year of Dungi as a contributor to the sacrifices of the cults of Nippur. Under his successors Bur-Sin and Ibi-Sin, this Elamite city has a Semitic governor by name Sharrumbani.
The emperors of Ur surpassed their predecessors in their rever- ence for Nippur. So great were the revenues in grain, fruit, live stock and various offerings that a receiving-house was built on the Euphrates below Nippur, now the ruins of Drehem. Arab diggers have found many hundred tablets from temple archives, and nearly ever/ collection in Europe, America and the British Empire pos- sesses some of these records. The law of the empire imposed
438 THE .SUKfERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
regular tribute upon king and all governors to the cults of Nippur, and fhese tablets form in reality one of the principal sources for the history of the period. The records show that, beside^the prin- cipal temple of E-kur, and Its chapels of Enlil and Ninlil, there stood in this city temples to the divine emperor, to the gods Ninazu, Ningishzida, Lugal-banda, Enki, Ainurru or Iminer, Nannar, Tamrmiz, Sharnash, and the goddesses Gula, Nana, In- nini, Nlnsun, Annumt, and many others. In fact, the pantheon of Nippur Includes every important deity. It is of oyurse probable that many of these were provided for by chapels In the temple. A magnificent seal dedicated to the god of the new moon, Nusku, for the life of the divine Dungi by Ur-an-bad (?), the patesi of Nippur, reflects credit upon the school of engravers there. The design is unusual, depicting Dungi himself pouring a libation Into a tall jar from which protrude two lotus buds. Beside the star stands Nusku, clad In the kaunakes and horned headdress (a sign of deity), and behind the emperor his goddess, Ninsun, stands in pose of supplication for her royal son.
Anshan, capital of one of the Elamite provinces south of Susa, submitted to the kings of Ur, and one of its patesis married the daughter of Dungi. But this alliance did not prevent the Immedi- ate revolt of Anshan only four years later, and the city was devas- tated by the king. Two governors of Anshan with Semitic names are known, and they may be placed with some certainty before the devastation of that province in his forty-fourth year. It was the reviving power of the Elamite states which finally overthrew the 'empire of Ur, and these provinces were troublesome throughout the long reign of Dungi. Another daughter of the king became queen of Markhashl, a new name for the old Elamite province Barakhsu, near Awan (Awak). Kazallu and Der, provinces in this region, appear to have recognized the authority of Ur early in the reign of Dungi and to have given no further trouble. In his eight- eenth year the serpent-goddess Isir was restored to her temple In yB^^au.pv^iit which was used for the promulgation of the official a&te^ In the period of turmoil preceding
the dynasty of .tJry ,3pit, ; seat ",ojfl the cult of the Elamite god Ash- nunnak and hls^ consort Isliv haH been the capital of a small pro- vince. Its governor Anumufabil (a Semitic name) claims to nave smitten Anshan, Elam, Barakhsu and the Elamite state Simash, Kazallu Is powerful but loyal. The Installation of the thunder-god, Numushda, In his temple at Kazallu is commemorated in the official date of the twentieth year of Dungi. All the naitfes of the known patesis and citizens of Kazallu (Ibni-ili, etc.), and of a later
XII, i] CONQUESTS EAST OF THE TIGRIS 4.39
king of Kazallu (Muti-abal), suggest that in the period of Ur the population was chiefly Semitic. ^
The conquest of other provinces in this reign, Gankhar, Simuru and Kharshi, was accomplished in the years 34—37 of his reign. These tribes of the western water-shed of the Zagros mountains continued to be restless and disloyal, Gankhar had to be reduced again in his forty-first year, Simuru revolted immediately and was reduced again in his thirty-sixth year, and a third time in his forty-third year. Simuru must have been in constant turmoil, for the date of his fifty-fourth year refers to the destruction of both Simuru and Lulubu for the ninth time. Lulubu, the powerful Elamite (?) tribe, whose prominence two centuries earlier in that region has already been emphasized, seems to have been con- quered by Dungi in the little-known earlier period of his reign. Like Simuru it was in persistent revolt, but the subjection of those lands for the ninth time was effective, and there is no further men- tion of trouble in this region under the kings of Ur. A variant of the date of the fifty-eighth year refers to a campaign in which Kharshi, Kimash and Khumurti and their lands were destroyed in one day1. In the later years of the kingdom of Ur a good portion of the region east of the Tigris, including Gankhar, was included in the patesi-ship of Lagash, Like Kazallu, Gankhar proclaimed it- self an independent kingdom in the age of turmoil which followed the fall of Ur; and a fine seal, in the style of the late Ur and Isin period, represents Masiam-Ishtar, a subject of the divine Kishari, king of Gankhar, in prayer before a seated figure of this king. The names suggest a Semitic ruling-class. Another tribe in this region was Urbillum, conquered in the fifty-fourth year. Bur-Sin, the successor of Dungi, was compelled to subdue Urbillum again five years later, and since Ashur, the old Assyrian capital, recognized Bur-Sin as king it seems certain that Dungi in his campaigns against Lulubu, Kimash, Simuru and Urbillum also attached the whole region of old Assyria to his empire.
A bas-relief from this region represents a king, perhaps Ham- murabi, smiting a bearded enemy with a Sumerian axe and a spear, while the reverse represents the king of Arrapkha in chains before him. The inscription indicates that the scene represents the con- quest of Arrapkha, ancient Gutium? south of the Lower Zab. After crossing the Lower Zab this king conquered TabrI (the classical Tapurra) and Urbel (Urbillum). Arrapkha and Tabra do not seem to have been known in the period of tJr, and the Semitic
1 From an unpublished tablet in the Museum of Toledo, Ohio, U.S.A.
440 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
inscription also indicates a later date. Its statement that Ramman, the t^under-god? was the national god of Arrapkha gains signi- ficance when associated with the fact that the god of Kazallu was also the thunder-god. The tribes in these lands appear to have worshipped this same deity under various names. See p. 490 sq. The only lands east of the Tigris and north of Elam which were raised to the dignity of political provinces under a patesi were Kazallu and Kimash, both of which may be located south of the Diyala. They had been thoroughly Semiticized already under the rule of the earlier Sargonids of Agade. Also the names of three patesls at Susa of the Ur period (Zarig, Belizarig and Urkium) are all Semitic. It is possible that the powerful ruler of Susa, Gimil- Shushinak, belonged to the time of Ur-Engur, or even to the Gutium period. Dungi built a temple to the god Shushinak at Susa before he was deified, and a fine marble mace-head engraved with two lions in procession was dedicated to the god Nineriamugub for the life of Dungi at Susa by Urniglnmu, an official of the 'Sea.' The inscriptions themselves are Sumerian, although the numerous monuments of Gimil-Shushinak are composed in Semitic and he himself bears a Semitic name. It may not be venturesome to suppose that he was a Semite, for the rulers of Agade not in- frequently sent Semitic governors to Susa. In the age of the empire of Agade Semitic had become the official language of Susa and this tradition was continued by Gimil-Shushinak. He usually de- scribes himself as a patesi and the son of Shimbi-ishkhuk. A stele which commemorates his subjection of the 'four regions* (sic) calls him the king of Zawan. A fragmentary statue of this ruler found at Susa names him patesi of Susa and governor of Elam, a title which recurs on his other monuments. The inscription on his statue declares that he was forced into war with Kimash and Khur- tim (Khumurti of the Dungi texts); and he subdued not only these but a great number of now unknown cities in this region. A fine statue of a seated goddess robed in the kaunakes of the Gudea period carried a fragmentary inscription of Gimil-Shushinak and an archaic inscription in the old Elamite script of the period before Ur-Nina. Fragments of statuettes with his Semitic inscriptions and an old Elamite version have been found at Susa. Two statu- ettes of the patesi himself, both of which remain unpublished, are described by Scheil. He wears the fringed robe characteristic of Sumerian dress from Gudea onward and has a full beard. A large stele with a five-column inscription preserves a record of his pious works and dedications in the temple of his god Shushinak. "The pantheon of Gimil-Shushinak is a melange of Elamitic and Sumerian
XII, ii] RELATIONS WITH ELAM 441
deities. Besides his own native gods, Shushinak, Al(?)attegir~ raban, Al- . . . Shugu, lie appeals to the Sumerian deities^ Enlil, Enkij Innini, Ninkharsag and Sin. The Semitic sun-god, Shamash, appears regularly in his imprecations,, and a deity Naride, Nariti, as well as Nati, all perhaps Elamite.
But Susa yielded to the dynasty of Ur without a struggle. There are no traces of wars with Susa in the records of Ur-Engur and Dungi. Accustomed to the beneficent rule of a Mesopotamian kingdom in the age of Sargon, and disciples of the fine civilization of Sumer since the dawn of history, Susa welcomed the Sumerian renaissance after the blight of the occupation of Gutium. Anshan also became a leading province, and two of its patesis, Liburn and Shalabu, have Semitic names. Records from Lagash contain entries by the government's accountants of food, oil and supplies for the king's ambassadors (sukkalu) coming from or returning to that province. The Elamite provinces of Adamdun and Sabrnn appear to have been important administrative provinces and both received the distinction of patesi-ships in the last years of Dungi. Sabum occurs frequently in the official transactions of the empire; four of its patesis have Semitic names, Abum-ilum, Shelibum, Abunami-sharri and Gimil-Sin-bani; and it was finally included in the patesi-ship of Lagash.
II. . LAGASH AND OTHER CITIES OF THE EMPIRE
The history of the province of Lagash under the kings of Ur is better known than that of the capital itself. The temple and royal archives of the period excavated at Telloh provide quantities of business records whose numbers are now to be counted in thou- sands. In the early years of his reign Dungi built a temple to the goddess Nina at Lagash. His inscriptions, which celebrate the recon- struction of the great city temple of Ningirsu, refer to him as the god Dungi. A diorite wig, dedicated to Nina, his protecting genius, by Bau-ninam, for the life of the divine Dungi, is clearly to be assigned to Lagash. Here Bau-ninam, the high-priest of Nina, calls himself the sacrificial priest of Ur-Ningirsu, beloved priest of the goddess Nina. The importance of this statement for chronology is considerable. If Ur-Ningirsu, son of Gudea, was still alive, not as patesi, but as priest, we must shorten the time between (iiidea and Dungi : we can hardly allow more than four or five yeafs for Utukhegal and the dynasty at Erech between Gutium and Ur- Engur r Ur-Engur must have founded Ur almost immediately after Utukhegal had expelled the Gutium rulers, and the present
442 THE SUMERJAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP
writer's estimate of 50 years between the kingdoms of Gutium and o£ Ur must be cancelled. On the other hand, the present writer holds that this Ur-Ningirsu was the subject of a posthumous cult just as his father, Gudea, was the subject of cult-worship in the Ur period. See p. 434 (foot).
Umma? also the seat of a patesi, retained its importance under DungL It is somewhat characteristic of the seals of Umma to en- grave a lion on the side of the throne of a deity, who is probably the vegetation-god, Shara; on one seal he carries a standard sup- porting a lion. The throne of a seated goddess is often adorned with a lion also, this figure is probably Nidaba, the grain-goddess. The history of Umma in this period is associated principally with the name of the patesi Ur-Negun, who was appointed not later than the forty-third year. He held office continuously (apart from a brief spell when Akalla filled the post) until the sixth year of Bur-Sin. The twenty-two years of his patesi-ship is the longest of its kind in the records of any city under the rule of Ur.
The sacred city, Eridu, still survived and was the seat of a viceroy. A Babylonian Chronicle states that Dungi cared greatly for Eridu on the shore of the sea, a statement confirmed by an inscribed stone tablet which commemorates his construction of the temple of EnkL But it suffered serious reverses. Nur-Immer, or Nur-Adad (2197—2181), king of Larsa, who reigned nearly two centuries later, states that Eridu had been destroyed. He caused the income of Eridu to be given regularly, and commanded that tlie city be rebuilt. The holy abode (E-apsu) which Enki loved he built, and he restored to their place the eternal cult utensils and ritual decora- tions of the temple. Moreover, his predecessor, Bur-Sin, king of Isin (2235—2213), who ceased to reign only a few years before Nun-Immer, claims that he also restored the holy * designs/ or temple-vessels and sacred objects of Eridu. The ancient city of the water-god Enki was still in good preservation under the kings of Ur; its temples and cults remained in use as late as Hammurabi.
Dtingi built the temple (E-Keshdu) of Ninkharsag, the mother- goddess of Adab, in the early years of his reigii. The .brick stamp employed by IBur-Sin, at feridu, Sippar ajti'd ^dab, ""is, curiously enough, only a"dttpSxc^^ in the temple of
Enlil at Nippur. _" 'V'"11
For the conditions of the cults at Nippur in this period the information to be gathered from the prolific ruins of Drehem is satisfactory. These archives contain the official accounts of the sacrifices at various feasts to the gods of the Nippur panthfton'and the deified kings of Ur. The excavations at Nippur have yielded
XII, IT] _ THE SUMERIAN LITURGIES 443
a large number of the hymns sung in the public services, and especially in the cults of the god-emperors? Dungi, Bur-Sin and Gimil-Sin. Many Sumerian hymns sung in the cult of the dying god Tammuz and his sister Ishtar, as the service was conducted there, have been recovered. To the Nippurian school of liturgists in this age Sumer and the Babylonian and Assyrian peoples owed the elaborate daily services of the most formal and musically intricate religion of antiquity. The entire development of liturgical literature can be traced in the remains of the temple- library of Nippur. A good number of the early services, which consisted of only one hymn, usually a lamentation on some specific calamity or upon the ordinary troubles of mankind, were still in use at Nippur. These were accompanied by a drum, flute or lyre. Next, several old songs with a common theme were combined, and finally the composite type of liturgical service was evolved. In the final product of the schools of music throughout Suraer, the melodies are rewritten to develope a theme and to introduce cer- tain important doctrines. The Nippurian school of liturgists were more conservative than those of other great centres and were slower to give up the old melodies, which consisted of one song only. They acted as learned compilers and revisers of the hymn- books produced in other schools.
Perhaps the most profound idea that pervades the liturgies of Nippur is the view which they set forth concerning the mother- goddess. Gula-Bau-Ninkharsag, the earth-mother worshipped in all cities, but principally at Adab, Kesh and Lagash, is constantly appealed to in these doleful breviaries as the sorrowful mother to whom also the woes of humanity bring grief, and who is the steadfast suppliant of mankind before the angry gods. Of equal importance is the idea of the Word of Wrath which is introduced into all the daily liturgies and is sometimes the subject of entire * prayer-services. According to the Nippurian school sin causes the gods to send.affiiction upon mankind by means of their 'Word/ which is spoken and sent forth as an angry spirit to visit the habita- tions. The lamentations of the long prayer-books are chiefly con- cerned with the deeds of the wrathful word of one of the gods. Perhaps the most dreary part of each breviary is the litany which always occupies the penultimate position, the recessional to , the flute coming last. This litany is made up of a refrain placed, after the titles of all the important deities of the pantheon and/ has been described by the present writer as the Titular Litany. By means of the Titular Litany, which is always the same in each breviary — with the exception of the refrain, which must be .unique in each — the pantheon has been reconstructed*
3.44 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
The principal cults of Nippur, which were supported through- out all«the cities of the empire, were those of Enlil and his consort Ninlil, EnliFs sons, Ninurta, the war-god., Sin, Nannar and€Nusku, the moon-gods, and Babbar, the sun-god, the various married types of the earth-mother, Ninkharsag of Adab, Nintud of Kesh, Bau of Ism, Ninsun and Innini of Erech. The two other gods at the head of the trinity, Anu of Erech and Enki of Eridu, received much attention, Nippur, as the prehistoric seat of the worship of the earth-mother, creatress of man and his intercessor in life and death, became the national shrine of Sumer and of all converts to the Sumerian religion. As such, its appeal to the religious senti- ments of Semites in Mesopotamia and Elam was equally strong. Sacrifices came to her temples from the cities of Akkad and Elam, and from Maer5 the centre of the west Semitic converts on the middle Euphrates. In religion, speculation, music and literature the position of Nippur in this and the succeeding epoch of Isin and Larsa was pre-eminent and unchallenged.
The province of Nippur sent its share of the taxes to the cults of its own city. The cities Erech and Larsa appear to have belonged to the administrative district of the capital, They were not the seats of patesis under the kings of Ur. Dungi repaired Eanna, the temple of Innini at Erech, in the first years of his reign, and Bur-Sin, who mentions her new name (Ninsianna), as goddess of Si-an-na (the planet Venus), also worked at the restoration of her temple* The archives of Drehem make frequent reference to sacrifices supplied to Erech for the feasts of the new moon and the full moon, and for services of song in the rituals of libations for the souls of the dead. The king himself sent fat lambs for the sacrifices to Innini in Erech. The northern Semitic type of Innini, Anunnit, the war-goddess, had a temple at Erech where she received offer- Ings from the national supplies at Drehem; Gimil-Sin built her temple there and this deified king claimed her as his own wife.
The complete silence of the business-records of Drehem, Lag- ash, Umma and Nippur concerning Larsa is at present inexplic- able. This was the city which was soon to succeed Ur itself in the hegemony of southern Sumer,, and as the centre of the cult of Babbar, the sun-god, It should be mentioned in contemporary literature. Layatd found the stamped bricks of the temple E-bab- bar restored by Ur-Engur at Senkereh; and that is the only in- formation at present available for the history of this great city under the kings of Ur. A Nippur liturgical hymn of the period includes Ur and Larsa among the sacred places visited by the wfatfa* of Enlil. But the canonical prayer-books always connect the sun-god with Sippar and not with Larsa, It is evident that the canonical
XII, n] THE PRINCIPAL CULTS 445
hymns of Sumer were completed under the Influence of the school of Nippur in the period which succeeded the kingdom 4>f Ur. Nippur during the greater part of this literary era belonged to Isin and the rival dynasty reigned at Larsa. Consequently the old Sumerian cult of the sun-god was expunged, although the other temples and gods of the kingdom of Larsa were retained. Thus the Semitic sun-god of Sippar completely displaced the older Babbar of Sumer in the sacred songs of the Babylonian church.
The history of the capital itself is perhaps the least known or any great city in the empire. A pearl tablet, taken to Susa in later times among other plunder from Ur, has an inscription of Dungi which refers to its dedication to Ningal, consort of the moon-god Sin. The inscription is noteworthy for the title which is given to the *God Dungi, god of the Land/ The ever-increasing emphasis now placed upon the divinity of the rulers of Ur is manifest. His successor, Bur-Sin, proclaimed himself to be the sun-god of the Land. Dungi twice refers to the dedication of a statue of the moon-
fod Nannar in a city Karzidda, probably a quarter of Ur itself. ur-Sin has left two inscriptions which refer to a sacred room of the temple of Nannar in Karzidda. Before his time this temple did not possess a gig-kisal^ 'secluded court/ but Bur-Sin built one and placed therein his god Nannar, The archives of the depot of sacrifices for Nippur usually attribute the incoming taxes and gifts from Ur to the relays of the king*
The great cult of the moon-god of Ur hardly received adequate recognition in the canonical liturgies of Babylonia, because Ur came under the sway of Larsa when these breviaries were being completed at Nippur. Of the older liturgical hymns of the temple services in Ur during the period of her affluence under Dungi and his successors two at least have survived* Both belong to the temple library of Nippur, and their note of gladness relieves the sombre monotony of the official liturgies of the later period ;
O holy crescent light of heaven, who is of itself created,
Father Nannar, lord of Ur,
Father Nannar, lord of Ekishshirgal,
»••*»** ***
When in the boat that in heaven ascendeth, thou art glorious,
Hail thou that in the majesty of a king daily risest, hail! Hail son of Enlil, in the Land he is ruler, lord Ashimur* In my city of the lifting of the eyes, the home of his own abode, which is the
fulness of luxury, Whose design is like Shuruppak.
446 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
The moon-god is usually referred to under the title Nannar by the theologians of Sumer, and this is the ordinary title in the titular litanies of the prayer-books.
The patesi-ships assigned to Akkad were those of Babylon, Kish, Cuthah and Maradda. An unidentified city. Push, which seems to belong to Akkad also received a patesi-ship. Its cult is unknown and the name appears only in this period. All of these cities contributed sacrifices regularly to Nippur; but Cuthah and Its cult of the god of the lower world Nergal, were especially favoured by the king of Ur. This ancient city never lost its tradi- tions as a centre of Sumerian culture, and both of the patesis of Cuthah whose names are known, Namzitarra and Gudea, seem to have been Sumerians* Dungi rebuilt the temple E-kishibba and its stage-tower in Cuthah. The favourite title of the chthonian god of Cuthah in the liturgies and inscriptions is Meslamtaea (p. 394). Under this title he was worshipped everywhere in Babylonia and Assyria, Dungi's attachment to this deity is reflected in the in- scription of an elegant seal from Lagash dedicated to Meslamtaea for his life by Kilulla, an official. The engraving on the seal is almost unique in the period, for the man has the attitude assumed in the early period, when the suppliant saluted the deity by throw- ing a kiss,, and the deity stands with right hand outstretched holding a flail with three knotted cords and in the left hand a short sword. This bearded deity with horned tiara is surely the terrible judge of those who die and come before the god of the nether world* The loyal owner named his seal * May my king in his ex- cellent wisdom live/
At Babylon, which began to attain prominence under the kings of Ur, Arshikh has the distinction of being the first important historical personage. He seems to have been patesi from the fifty- third to the fifty-sixth years of Dungi and again during the reign of Bur-Sin. The Babylonian Chronicle says of Dungi : * Evil he sought after and the treasures of E-sagila and Babylon he brought forth as spoil, the god Bel (Marduk) brought evil upon him and caused his dogs ;to eat his corpse/ The tendency of the Chronicle to record evil of kings who had violated Babylon has already been noted in the case of Sargon (p. 407), At all events, the humiliation of Babylon at the hands of Dungi may explain the fact that the records of the Ur period are silent concerning Arshikh during the last two years of this reign.
There is no evidence that the kings of Ur did anything for the city and its cult, or had the slightest premonition of its Jfutore fame. Its god, Asaru, or Asaruludug, a water-deity, was borrowed
XII, ni] CONDITIONS IN AKKAD 447
from Eridu after the Ur dynasty, and in the liturgies of the Isin period only this title and Enbilulu, an old Eridu title., a^e ever admitted. Its gods and temples are not mentioned at all in the time of the last Ur dynasty, and it had no claim to figure in the canonical prayer-book of Sumer by its status as the seat of a pre- historic god. Babylon and its god Marduk were forced upon the liturgists of Nippur and Sumer because of its subsequent political power in the times of the kings of Isin. The theologians of Babylon revised the old myth of creation in which Ninurasha, son of Enlil, a god of the spring-sun, battled with the dragon of chaos, and Asaru replaced Ninurasha in this legend. As such Asaru, a god of lustration and atonement, son of the water-god of Eridu, became perforce a sun-god and the writers devised the new name amarudu> * youth of the sun/ The Semites, in borrowing Sumerian words compounded of the elements, usually attached the ending ku and the word became Amaruduku^ Marduk, in popular speech. This new title is never admitted by the Sumerian hymnologists, although they were compelled to admit him into the pantheon, a concession which was not made to Agade, to Ashur, or to Nineveh.
III. THE EASTERN PROVINCES
Ashnunak (or Ashnunnak, Ishnunuk), east of the Tigris on the river Uknu, modern Kerkhah, is first mentioned in the records of Dungi, who appointed a patesi, Kallamu, to that province. Both Kallamu and his successor, Ituria, have Semitic names. Shutruk- Nakhkhunte, king of Anzan and Susa, found a statue of Manish- tusu at Ashnunak, and carried it away to Susa, which indicates that the kings of Agade knew the province under the same name. Its old Sumerian deity was Umunbanda, a type of earth-god known at Erech as Lugal-banda. Umunbanda, Enbanda or Lugal-banda, and his consort, Ninsun, are both forms of Ninurasha, the son of Enlil and Gula the mother-goddess, and both may have been trans- ferred to Erech from Ashnunak. Lugal-banda was originally an ancient king of Erech who had been deified, and he was probably then confused with Umunbanda, after which Ninsun was also brought to Erech. There may have been some historic circum- stance which connected Erech and its legendary king Gilgaiiiesh with Ashnunak and Elam (cf. p. 366). Another title of the god of Ashnunak is Tishpak, an Elamite type of Ninurasha. Both Ash- nurrak^and Der occur in all periods from Dungi to the Persian period for the same province or parts of the same province. The
44-8 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
Elamlte god Tishpak was also the god of Der and the two places appear to interchange freely.
Esb-nun-(kf)i the original Sumerian name, means * house of the prince/ that is, home of the cult of the water-god Enki, ahd Bad- an-(kt)*> the ideograph for Der, means 'wall of the heaven-god Ami.' This province, east of the Tigris, was the seat of a prehis- toric Sumerian civilization at whose two chief cities, Der and Ash- nunak, were established the cults of the heaven-god Ann and the water-god Enki. Der was also the seat of a cult of the earth-god- dess Ban, called c Queen of Der/ Here, too, was the prehistoric home of Ka-Di, a bi-sexual ophidian deity; and the scribes call the serpent-god (Jiru) of Der5 both lord of life, and queen of life. Ka-Di is in fact a prehistoric title of the later Tammuz, and his name, Izir, seems to refer to the ophidian character of the prehistoric vegetation-deities : mother-earth and the bi-sexual child who dies and is resurrected yearly. Der is one of the halting places of Su- merian emigration from central Asia and its cults retained the character of their great antiquity. Innini, the special type of virgin earth-goddess, sister of Izir or Tammuz, also had her cult here* But the centre of Sumerian civilization shifted southward to the fertile valley of the Two Rivers. Anu and his daughter, Innini, took up their abode in the great city of Erech, and Izir, the dying
fod, under the more popular name of a dead king, Tammuz, had ere his principal cult. The old relation of Erech to Eshnunak and Der manifests itself especially in the liturgies in frequent passages. Another deity of the oldest Sumerian pantheon is Sakkut of Der, the prototype of Ninurasha. The Elamite Tishpak was identi- fied with him. The temple of the heaven-god at Der was called Dimgal-kalama, 'Bar of the Land/ and here Anu, father of the gods, undoubtedly maintained his position as the principal deity, whereas at Erech he was completely overshadowed by the worship of Innini. The Sumerians increasingly emphasized the cults of the mother-goddesses, especially of the virgin-type Innini, and the history of Ashminak and Der both secular and religious is of supreme importance, for in this province the older Sumerian stage . of religious belief persisted. Anu usually has the title * Great Anu * at Der, and his temple was served by a great priesthood, even in the daysof Ashurbanipal. Esarhaddon restored the city and temple for the god Anu, the queen of Der, the serpent-god (ftrti), the god- dess Kurunitu, Sakkut, the god of Bube, and the god Mar-biti. In the days of the Gutium invasion and subsequent humiliation of Sumer and Akkad the goddess of Der was carried away tcf the land of the conqueror, and a Semitic poem rehearses the lannenta-
XII, m] EARLY DEITIES OF THE EAST 449
tions of the various local mother-goddesses of the two lands (p, 424). To judge from the date of his nineteenth year Dungi restored to his city the god Izir, who, like Bau, had probably been taken to Gutium.
Both Der and Ashnunak were situated in a province which from the period of Hammurabi was called Yamutbal or Emutbal. Ham- murabi ordered his governor, Sin-idinnam, to restore the goddesses of Emutbal, and in another letter he directed that the hierodules and harlots of Emutbal be brought to Babylon (p. 488), The Baby- lonian king certainly referred to the Sumerian mother-goddesses of Der and Ashnunak, and to the sacred women in the service of the cult of Innini there. Certain indigenous languages of this region in the Assyrian period have a word which recurs in place-names, kingi^ apparently in the sense of 'land, country/ Emutbal itself is called in Sumerian ktngi-sag- FIy 'Land of the six heads.* Kingi^ however, is the original of the later word Sumer, and may perhaps mean the land simply; and the word seems to make it certain that this lan- guage, which survives in such sporadic instances in the highlands east of the Tigris, is a survival from the prehistoric period of the migrations of the Sumerians. Emutbal, a late (Elamite?) name for one of the oldest Sumerian halting places, was designated by the Sumerian ideogram for * seven/ a mystic number given also to Erech and the sacred city of Kesh in Sumer. There can be no doubt concerning the sentiment of the Sumerians towards their old home-lands east of the Tigris; and their primitive serpent-cult lingered there, whereas it disappeared when it proceeded to Erech. Erech was the traditional capital of Sumer, and its historic con- nection with Ashnunak, Der, and Emutbal is explained by the fact that its chief cults of Anu, Innini and Tammuz are precisely those of the city of their former habitation,
A Sumerian inscription of the period of Gutium records how some patesi or governor had rebuilt Der and its temple. Beside the patesis of Ashnunak, whose names are found in the archives of Drehem, on tablets from the reigns of Dungi, Bur-Sin and Gimil-Sin, there is a seal-inscription concerning Ur»Ningishzida, the patesi of Ashnunak, dedicated to him by his son, Girra-bani. His brick-stamp has a Semitic inscription, c Ur-Ningishzida, be- loved of the god Tishpak, patesi of Ashnunak/ The scene on the cylinder belongs undeniably to the Ur period. It is unique in that it combines two styles of the Ur period. First, the worshipper is represented standing with hands folded at the waist, the new style, and Behind this figure another worshipper is brought forward by a deity who grasps his left hand while he salutes with the right,
450 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
the old processional style which is not later than the Ur period. One ©f the figures represents the owner, Girra-bani, and the other is his father Ur-Ningishzida, to whom the seal is dedicated.
The population of this region, at all events of the parts of Emutbal near the Tigris, was largely Semitic from the period of Agade onward, but in culture and religion Sumerian. In the period of Rim-Sin of Larsa, the daughter of Billama, patesi of Ashnunak, married Dan-rukhuratir, viceroy of Susa. In the period of turmoil after the fall of Ur, Ibik-Adad proclaimed himself king of Ash- nunak, and of course assumed the title of god, for king- worship was then in vogue. His son Dadum succeeded to the throne, also as a god., A seal of Khabde-Adad, servant of the god Ibik-Adad, in the glyptic style of the Hammurabi period is now in the British Museum.
Shuruppak and Kisurra probably constituted the administrative area immediately north of the central province, and its patesi was located at Shuruppak. The names of two of its viceroys who served under Bur-Sin and Gimil-Sin are known from contemporary records, but these afford no information concerning the cult of the mother-goddess of Shuruppak and its god Aradda. The name of its chief temple appears to have been E-sagtena or E-sagdana,
The temple of Nin-ezen-la, founded by Dungi, was probably that of Sag-pa-Kab-Du, Sagpaega (or Ursagpae), possibly near Umma, Zabshali, whose patesi married a daughter of a king of Ur, was certainly an Elamite province. Documents from Susa in the period of the Susan patesi Adda-Pakshu, contemporary of the founder of the first Babylonian dynasty, mention the city Zapzali. Dungi, in fact, allied himself to two districts of Elam (Anshan and Markhashi) by marrying his daughters to their patesis. The year-date which refers to a similar alliance with Zabshali is * Year when Tukin-khatti-migri-sha daughter of the king and the patesi of Zabshali married/ It occurs several times, but the king in ques- tion cannot be determined: Ibi-Sin, the last king of the dynasty of Ur is most probable, for Zabshali was in revolt against Gimil-Sin, who devastated the place in his sixth year. The name of the princess is Semitic: 'She has secured the sceptre of her favourite/ a name not likely to have been chosen by Dungi, who made no concessions to the growing power of the Semites.
XII, iv] SUMERIAN EXTENSIONS 451
IV. THE NORTHERN AND WESTERN EXTENSION
»
Dungi doubtless extended his empire northward to include all northern *Mesopotamia, and westward to the sea to include Syria , and Cappadocia. A fine carnelian seal was found in the vicinity of Arbela in Gutrum with the inscription: *To Ninlil, his lady, the divine Dungi, the mighty man, king of Ur, king of Sumer and Akkad, has dedicated it for his life/ The question as to whether this seal was found in its original place is important. Arbela is near Ashur, the old Sumerian settlement of the north, and the capital of early Assyria. Its goddess was Ninlil, who became the consort of the god Ashur there. Little is known of the history of the Su- merian occupation of Ashur. In the early Assyrian period it had a temple to Enlil named B-amkurkurra, * Temple of the wild ox of the lands'; and the probability is that Enlil and Ninlil of Ashur were imported from Ashur to Nippur. The older patron deity of this city was the god A-shir, corrupted into Ashur and Ashshur. The deity occurs in the name of an early patesi of Ashur, Kate- Ashir, about a century after the Ur period; and at Tuz-khurmatij on the Aksu, a brick stamp of Pukhiya son of Asirim and king of Khurshitu of about this time has been found. This Semitic prince it will be noticed, claimed for himself a royal status, and it is difficult to understand why the early viceroys of Ashur previous to the establishment of Babylonian authority in the time of Hammurabi did not make the same pretensions. At all events, the god Ashir was unknown to the Sumerian priests, although Ur-Engur or Dungi certainly conquered his city. A date of the Ur period reads: 'Year when for the second time the land of Ashur was destroyed/ It had no patesi apparently, and it may be assumed that Ur-Engur and Dungi placed it under the patesi-ship of Kl- mash or some other district in that region. Zariku, a Semite, was governor under Bur-Sin, and he built the temple of Nin-egal, 1 Lady of the great house/ His title shakkanak was that of a local political office subordinate to the patesis (cf. p. 51 1)»
The old Sumerian civilization of Ashur had already disappeared in the time of Sargon. A fine statuette of one of its early Sumerian rulers has been recovered from the period when the beard was still worn, the Hps, cheeks and head being clean shaven. The monument proves two things most important for the solution of the problem of origins. The incomplete tonsure belongs to the age of early Elamitic culture and long before the earliest sculpture of Sum^r. l?he weaving of the kaunakes reveals a higher state of civi- lization in the north than that of Sumer two or three centuries
39— z
452 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
later. Seals from the same strata are pre-Sargonic; and this,, com- bined with the fact that the old earth-god Enlil and his consort, Nin-lil, probably migrated to Nippur from Ashur, only,, indicates that Ashur in reality duplicates the history of Ashnunnak and Der. They are halting-places of the prehistoric Sumerian migration, ~ and Nippur received from Ashur its gods, even as Erech had re- ceived hers from Der. But was its old Sumerian name Ashir(ki) corrupted to Ashshuru, already in the time of Dungi ? The name is of course taken from that of the god Ashir about whom the Sumerian texts of all periods are silent. His name is sometimes written A-usar^ but A~shir, if Sumerian, should mean a deity of light, a form of the sun-god, and A-u$ar may refer to a god of dreams. At all events we find the Cappadocian proper-name Ashir- Shamshi, that is, Ashir is my sun-god. However, the origin of the patronymic deity of the future capital of Assyria is a complete mystery. No temple-archives of the city under the empires of Agade and Ur 'have been found, and it certainly did not pay tribute to the cults of Nippur*
In the age of Sargon the extensive district between the rivers north of Agade was called Subir or Subartu, but in the records of Ur it appears as Sua(k£)y Su(kt} or Su+ Its population was Hittite or Mitannian (p. 407). Men from Su are repeatedly mentioned in the archives of Drehem and the name of one, Niushanam, is known. The Assyrian grammarians frequently enter words of Su or Subir in their vocabularies. For example, one vocabulary states that the *Su* words for child, son, are -pitku and nibru\ now, a Hittite word for son is pitga. The * Su* word for door is khSraliy and for bed it is namaltum* The names of the war-god Ninurta in cSu* are Zizanu, Rabisguzu and Lakharatil. Gutium was likewise shortened to *Gu* and the grammarians occasionally enter words from *Gu.* *Su* and *Gu* would be the Shoa and Koa mentioned by Ezekiel (xxiiL 23) with the Babylonians, Assyrians, and others, , An administrative record from Umma speaks of rations for camp-followers from Ibla, Urshu and Kimash; the rations are* wine from the land Bilak. Ibla and Urshu have already figured in the geography of the empire of Agade and in the inscriptions of Gudea in northern Syria on the sea-coast (p. 405), and Bilak is probably identical with the classical Bilechas, the name of the river on which were situated Harran and Edessa. The Semites of Akkad were already firmly established among the peoples of the middle and upper Tigris long before the age of Dungi, and they were most probably the founders of the Semitic state at Ashur. The older Mitanni element reasserted itself toward the end of the
XII, iv] DUNGPS WESTERN PROVINCES 453
Ur period, and Assyrian tradition speaks of two early Mitann! rulers at Ashur, who may be Assigned to the age of Ibi~Sin, Ushpia and Kikig. (see p. 469). A great many Mitanni names appear in the archives of Drehem in the reigns of Dungi and his successors, *and men with Mitanni names are found, not only as contributors to the national Sumerian cult of Nippur, but also in the capacity of civil servants in Sumer.
Cappadocia was doubtless conquered and attached to the em- pire of Ur by Ur-Engur or Dungi. In the valley of the Halys, north-east of Caesarea, at Kara-Euyuk, several hundred cuneiform tablets, mostly letters and contracts of the periods of Ur, Isin and the first Babylonian dynasties, have been found. The people learned Sumerian business methods and juridical procedure, the use of the cylinder seal, and the so-called "case-tablet/ In the case-tablet, the clay tablet on which a contract or letter has been written, is en- closed in a thin clay envelope upon which is copied the inscription on the inner tablet. Witnesses, buyers and sellers, or officials, then impressed their seals on the envelope. By this method the con- tracting parties secured duplicate copies. The custom came into vogue about the time of Dungi in Sunier and at once spread throughout the empire. A Cappaddcian contract concerning a loan of money in form of a case-tablet has several seal impressions. The document is witnessed by a Sumerian scribe, who used the following seal: cTo the divine Ibi-Sin, mighty king, king of Ur, king of the four regions. Ur-Lugal-banda the scribe, son of Ur- nigingar thy servant.* Some Sumerian, learned in Sumero-Baby- lonian legal methods., had been brought to this Semitic colony in the most remote part of the empire. It has been suggested that the scribe employed this. old seal of the reign of the last king of Ur in the age of Hammurabi two centuries later. But the evidence for the antiquity of this Cappadocian colony cannot be thus explained away. Many of the seals of Cappadocia are engraved with Sumerian religious scenes combined with local religious motif s^ and a consider- able percentage of them may be definitely dated in the Ur dynasty. One of the most common scenes is that where the worshipper is conducted into the presence of a seated deity by his protecting divinity, who leads him by the left hand while he salutes the deity by throwing a kiss with the right hand. This motif IB characteristic of the age from Gudea to Dungi, and disappears after the kings of Ur; and the seal of the scribe dedicated to Ibi-Sin only com- pletes the evidence of the glyptics. Capp^iocia was clearly under the inHu<?nce of the empire of Ur, and it may be that the exploits of the great founder of the dynasty rivalled those of Sargon the
454 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
ancient. Many seals belong also to the later Ur period and the dynasty of Isin, and a few are engraved in the style of the first dynasty of Babylon. The Semitic colony in this region, ^rhich was soon to become the centre of Hittite power, thrived for at least three centuries.
The dialect employed in these Cappadocian tablets is funda- mentally Babylonian-Semitic, as found in contracts and letters of the Hammurabi period. The technical legal terms are mostly those of Babylonia and the grammar is essentially Babylonian. On the other hand, the dialect employed here reveals at once west Se- mitic ('Amorite') influence, and a people who had difficulty in pronouncing some Akkadian consonants. The emphatic sounds £, £> f are represented by the simple sounds, k or gy z and /. The surds t and p almost invariably become the sonants d and by and there is a tendency to discard all closed syllables. For example, the Semite of Cappadocia may write bit house, bi-i~e-it^ *he pur- chased* i-sha-um not i-sham\ and in general the cuneiform script which they borrowed from Sumer was adapted to their peculiar pronunciation. These Semites of Cappadocia were doubtless under Hittite influence, as their defective pronunciation of Semitic words seems to be explained by Hittite phonetics. Many of these pecu- liarities recur in the Semitic dialect as spoken and written by the Hittites at Boghaz Keui in later times. The contracts of Kara Euyuk mention two Hittite cities, Ganish and Barush, and an official is called the garum xakhir rabu Khatim^ * Inferior and chief prefect of the Hittites/ On the other hand, the names of men and women are Semitic, and principally west Semitic (or Amorite) with a prominent admixture of Assyrian names, a few are Babylonian and Sumerian. It is not possible to detect with certainty a single Hittite personal name in the lists yet published. Caution must be exercised in the discussion of this important problem, for the ma- jority of the Cappadocian tablets remain unpublished and Hittite names are to be expected.
The Amorite god Adad is prominent In the composition of names; but specifically west Semitic words (like adunu^ lord) are rare. The god of Ashur is common, and is written Ashir, as in the early period of the Ur dynasty, and also Ashur. That is, the same form of the word occurs here as in its native land. But the most important evidence for the direct influence of the city-state Ashur upon this remote Semitic colony is supplied by the month-names. They are identical with the old Assyrian month-names and have nothing in common with the Semitic month-names of Atkkad. In fact the Cappadocian tablets afford earlier records of the Assyrian
XII, iv] THE CAPPADOCIAN SEMITES 455
months than the Assyrian sources. The name of the sixth month is * month of the lady of the great house.' Now, Ninegal was an old Sumerian goddess of the lower world whose name was translated into Semitic by Belit-ekallim; her cult was popular at Ashur and . among the Hittites of the later period. A temple was built to her at Ashur for the life of Bur-Sin and it may be assumed that her cult was older there than in Cappadocia. The weight of evidence, however, seems to favour a Cappadocian origin of the Assyrian month-names, but it can hardly be maintained that the god Ashur came from that region.
The Cappadocians went their own way in the method of dating documents, writing the date in the body of the contract, giving the month and the name of the limmu (see p. 147 sq^ For example, a loan of money is dated in the month Kuzallu in the limmu of Ashur-imeti the sailor. The name of some prominent citizen is given to each year, though none of them seem to have held high office as did the eponyms of Assyria. This method of dating is commonly regarded as characteristically Assyrian, but the system was in use in Cappadocia at least before 2000, and may be as old as the Ur period there. Here again the Assyrian appears to be the borrower. The Cappadocian week of five days has not been dis- covered in Assyria, If it may b^ assumed that the week of five days was unknown at Ashur, it follows, of course, that the Cappa- docian colony could hardly have come from there. The five-day week might have been borrowed from the Hittites, but this cannot be proved.
The Cappadocian colony consisted largely of traders, merchants of gold and silver and of garments manufactured there* The most probable view is that a branch of the western Semites (*Amorites*), attracted by the mines of Anatolia, founded a colony beyond the Taurus about the time of Dungi, and that after the Ur period recognized more or less the authority of the viceroys of Ashur, Influences between the growing power of Ashur and the Cappa- docians were mutual. But the ethnological conditions of the lands of Subartu and Amor in the time of the empire of Ur are still a dimly lighted gallery of Ancient History, and it is regrettable that the origin of the future kingdoms of Assyria cannot be more pre- cisely described (cf. pp. 229 sqq^ 468 sqq^.
The Semitic penetration of Subartu, in which Ashur lay, from the age of Sargon onward, renders it a natural assumption that Ashur was colonized by the Semitic Akkadians about 2900 B.C. BurthiS Semitic colony, which displaced the Sumerian there, came into more intimate contact with the western Semites; Hittite in-
456 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
fluence also went no little way In increasing the difference between them and their ancestors in the south, both in language and tem- perament. But the greater number of the deities in Cappadocia were Sumerian, as is to be expected. The western Semites on the frontiers of the empires of Akkad and Ur borrowed their culture from Sumer and Akkad, and came into contact with a northern exponent of this civilization at Ashur. Semite and Hittite vied as eager apostles of the religion, law and literature of Sumter and Akkad. The old deities of Sumer, Sin (written Zu-in^ Su-in)*> Ea, Enlil, Ami, Ashdar (Ishtar), Nana and Ninsubur appear fre- quently among the proper names. The goddess Ishkhara, who first appears in the Sumerian pantheon at the end of the Ur period, occurs in Cappadocian names and frequently in the oaths of the treaties of later Hittite kings. It is possible that she is a Hittite deity of fountains and canals; the Sumerians identified her with Nina, the irrigation goddess. The fact that her name is omitted from the liturgies throws doubt upon her Sumerian origin.
V. THE DECLINE OF SUMERIAN POWER
Such was the empire founded by Ur-Engur and consolidated by Dungi. In virtue of his wide dominion Dungi changed his title about the forty-second year of his reign, and henceforth described himself as ' King of Ur, king of the four regions/ The empire had been roughly divided into four lands, Sumer and Akkad, Elam, Subartu and Axnurru. The long and -prosperous reign of Dungi inspired a religious movement of emperor-worship throughout Sumer and Akkad, Temples were built to the god Dungi, or chapels provided for him in the great city-temples. A large temple record from Lagash dated in the fifty-seventh year preserves the income and expenses of the estate of the temple of the divine pungL Even more intensive became the adoration of the god- king after his death, and a business record of Lagash mentions landa belonging to the temples of the gods Bur-Sin (his son), i'ligishzida, the latter being the local type of the dying '; '' '
The deified tings had this in common with Tammuz, that they suffered the fate of death. They were therefore more or less identi- fied with the dying son of mother-earth; they triumphed not over death as he did, but were translated to the stars. In Dungi the people supposed that a champion had arisen to restore the Paradise among men which had existed before the Flood, and had b^erflost through the transgression of an ancient king, the divine Tagtug-.
XII, v] * INFLUENCE OF DUNGI AND BUR-SIN 457
The theologians of Nippur wrote a long epic poem concerning the lost Paradise and the Fall of Man from his pre-dlluvian s^ate of happiness, and for the cult of Dungl they also wrote hymns in- spired by faith in him as the son of the earth-mother Ninsun of Erech, sent to restore the age of peace and happiness. His conquests In far-away lands are also mentioned In his liturgies:
One that walks in a foreign land by a route stretching far away thou art? A hastening governor^ traversing his plains by the highways thou art.
Divine Dungi3 conqueror of foreign lands, establisher of the Land of Sumer, Hero who in heaven and earth no rival hast.
The hyxnns to Dungl emphasize his love of justice and institu- tion of laws. *He that tirelessly causes anarchy to depart art thou.' The names of men reflect the new religion: 'Dung! Is the plant of life/ 'Dungi the breath of life has given.* An estate was named "Dung! Is the breath of life of the Land/ A seated deity usually beardless,, and with low round hat, extending a cup to an adorant, now appears on seals. The new deity represents the deified emperors of the period,
Bur-Sin, son of Dungi, succeeded to the throne (2398 B.C.) and reigned eight years, receiving divine honours from the date of his accession. His name ('youth of the moon-god*) is a Semitic translation of a good Sumerian type, and the fact reflects the in- creasing influence of the Semites. It is indeed incredible to suppose that the Sumerian empire of Ur was founded and held together for even a short period by the military power of the older race. The desolation of the Gutium period had shown that the welfare of Sumer and Akkad depended upon co-operation, and the real military power of Ur-Engur and Dungl was probably founded upon *the Semitic element. The Sumerian tenure of power was founded largely upon prestige of ancient culture and religion, ac- knowledged by Elam as well as Akkad, The only parts of the empire which caused trouble in the reign of Bur-Sin were those of the ever turbulent peoples of the Zagros table-lands, Urbillum revolted and was suppressed In the first year, Shashra and Khu- khunurl in the same quarter had to be reconquered in the fifth and seventh years. Shashru together with Shurudkhum had been subdued in his third year, an event not mentioned In the date-lists* A variant of the date-formula for the seventh year describes mote fully the campaign of the sixth year. * Bur-Sin the king, Nebrabe- lak, Nieshru with their lands and Khukhunuri he destroyed/ He has feft^an inscription In which it is stated that he placed a statue of himself in a chapel at Ur. Many seals of his reign have the
458 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
usual dedication to tlie deified emperor and in all his inscriptions he retains the later title of Dungi, * King of Ur, king of the four regions/ His cult flourished long after him. A tablet from JDrehem includes sacrifices to him in the great temple of Enlil where he had a chapel, but the people of Lagash provided a special temple for the god Bur-Sin. He even passed into the official pantheon of later times as a minor deity in the court of the moon-god Sin, and his consort, Ningal. The hymns of his cult have been lost, with the exception of a long hymn to the war-god on the accession of his son Gimil-Sin. He was succeeded by his son, Migir-Sin, or rather Gimil-Sin (a Semitic rendering of the Sumerian Shu-Sin).
The cult of Gimil-Sin was added to those of Dungi and Bur-Sin as a matter of course. Their feasts seem to have been appointed to coincide with phases of the moon, and we now find feasts of the * houses (or stations) of the moon/ This is probably due to the influence of the worship of their patron deity, for Sin was the god of Ur. A list from Nippur contains nine year-dates, and in fact there are nine formulae for the years of Gimil-Sin's reign on documents. Disturbances in his reign are again confined to the area east of the middle Tigris. Simanum revolted in the second year and Zabshali in the sixth year. In his third year he built a wall known as the "Wall of Amurru/ or the Amorite Wall, usually translated as the Western Wall. Inscriptions from Umma which commemorate the construction of the temple of the god Shara, E-shaggipadda, have the interesting chronological detail, * When he built the Amorite Wall "Murik-Tidnira" and restored the Amorite route of Madanu/ Murlk-Tidnim means 'Wall which keeps Tidnu at a distance,' and Tidnu (or Tidanu) has been identified with the Anti-Lebanon mountain region. The Assyrian geographers employ it for the west as a synonym of Amorite. The location of this wall is unknown. The name recalls the old Median wall north of Sippar between the rivers, built to restrain an in- vasion from the north. At all events the name suggests that the Amorites now threatened Sumer and Akkad.
Gimil-Sin was obviously losing control of the restless lands of his far-flung frontiers, for in his second year he transferred several eastern patesi-ships and governorships to Arad-Nannar, patesi of Lagash, The door-sockets of the temple built by this patesi for the cult of the divine Gimil-Sin at Lagash are inscribed with the titles of Arad-Nannar. He was patesi of Lagash, high-priest of Enki, prefect of Uzargarshana and of Bo-fri-shu-e^ patesi of Sabum and the land of Gutebum, prefect of Timat-Enlil, patesi ofth<? city of Gimil-Sin, prefect of Urbillum, patesi of Khamasi and Gankhar,
XII, y] REIGNS OF GIMIL-SIN AND IBI-SIN 459
prefect of Ishar, prefect of the people of Su(bartu) and the land of Karda(ka) in the Zagros mountains (the original homeft of the Kurds)% References to Independent patesis at Sabum, Khamasi and Gankhar in business documents cease after the second year of Gimil-Sin, a fact which confirms the claims of Arad-Nannar's inscription. The ancient Sumerian city of Lagash was entrusted with the administration of the most unstable part of the empire. Even Subartu, or Subir(ki), including the rising state of Ashur, was attached to its patesi-ship. A series of law-suits at Lagash is dated in the third year of Gimil-Sin and in the patesi-ship of Arad- Nannar. He probably retained the office and administered the vast province for the kings of Ur until their authority ceased to be recognized beyond Sumer and Akkad early in the reign of Ibi-Sin. Gimil-Sin, at all events, still retained the allegiance of the province of Susa, for a brick stamped with a Semitic inscription testifies to his building activity there. At the capital the patesi Lugal-magurri built a temple for the 'God Gimil-Sin/ beloved of Enlil, who had chosen him as the king of Ur and of the four regions; but this patesi of Ur has the ominous title 'master of the defences,' another sign of the feeling of insecurity which overshadowed the kingdom. Ibi-Sin, son of Gimil-Sin, reigned twenty-five years. He re- ceived divine honours from Hs subjects in Sumer, but his pro- vinces fell away rapidly early in his reign, and even his own land became unsettled. A year-date refers to his conquest of Simurum in a quarter which never ceased to rebel against the kings of Sumer and Akkad. At Lagash, Umma, Nippur and Drehem business documents cease abruptly in the early part of his reign. Arad- Nannar, the defender of the kingdom on the eastern border-states, continued to be the strongest supporter of the tottering empire. A Lagash tablet dated in his first year bears records of gifts made by the king to children of a weaver and the gift was conveyed by the patesi himself. The tablet bears the impressions of a fine seal which Arad^Nannar dedicated to the 'Divine Ibi-Sin, mighty man, king of Ur, king of the four regions/ The patesi is engraved standing with hands folded at the waist, holding a sceptre, and adoring the seated figure of the god-king. A seal of Enim-Nannar-zid, high-priest of Enlil at Nippur, is dedicated to his master the 'Divine Ibi-Sin/ These and two other seals of a scribe and a minister at Lagash are the only monuments of this unfortunate king, A fine impression of a seal, presented by the Divine Ibi-Sin to Sag-Nannar-zu, priest of Enlil, has been recently found on a Nippur tablet in Philadelphia. Ibi-Sin is represented seated on a throne, arrayed in the long kaunakes\ he
460 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
is beardless and wears the low head-dress of the period. The engraver has succeeded in making a real portrait of the deified emperor, a handsome man in the prime of life with unusually defined Sumerian features.
A lamentation on the end of the last of the Sumerian kingdoms has been found at Nippur:
When they overthrew, when order they destroyed.
Then like a deluge all things together he (i.e. the Elamite) consumed
Whereunto, O Sumer! did they change thee?
The sacred dynasty from the temple they exiled,
The city they demolished, the temple they demolished,
The rulership of the Land they seized.
Its gaze unto another land they fixed.
By the commands of Enlil order was destroyed.
By the Storm-Spirit of Anu hastening over the lands it was seized away.
Enlil directed his eyes toward a strange Land.
The divine Ibi-Sin unto Elam [was taken]*
The downfall of Ibi-Sin was a catastrophe which echoed down the ages. In Omen literature his name was associated with dis- aster and the overthrow of dynasties. An astrological text contains the following portent: * If the constellation Gan-skudulin its rising has its face set toward the west and looks towards the face of heaven and no wind blows, there will be hunger, the dynasty will suffer the destruction of Ibi-Sin, king of Ur, who went in fetters unto Anshan; they shall weep and perish/ A liver-omen speaks of the destruction which befel Ibi-Sin, the king of Ur, and his name became synonymous with disaster. See further p. 471 $qq.
With Ibi-Sin the political history of the Sumerian people is closed. The multifarious records of the period show that the race was in rapid decline. But the history of religion and culture in the historically complex situation which followed is dominated by Sumerian influence. The liturgists of the great temples continued quietly to develop their breviaries. The poets and theologians were left in undisturbed possession of their theories of providence and of origins and of their rudimentary metaphysics. It is difficult to define the workof the best Sumerian writers of the Ur period, for learning pursued its way under the kings of Isin and Larsa without any noticeable dislocation* The most profound religious move- ment of the period, the identification of the kings with the vegeta- tion-god who dies yearly with the withering flowers and the parched rivers, has been described; but the full religious conse- quences of the king-worship did not develop until the Isin perfod, when the god-men may be said to become real Saviours in a
XII, v] SUMERIAN LAW AND CALENDAR 461
theological sense as well as in popular belief, divine intercessors for men in the stately prayers of their temple worship. «
Thejirst systematic Sumerian law codes date from this period. Of the old code three tablets have been found, two from Nippur and one from Warka. Altogether about 25 laws of this redaction are known, and they prove that the code is the result of a long history of legal decisions which in due time became laws. Sumerian law is in fact a redaction of judgments handed down for litigants. A large number of these law-suits, called at Lagash, ditilla^ 'judg- ment completed,* is now known. At Nippur the term for a decision at a court of law was didibba, 'judgment taught/ Hammurabi's great code was modelled upon the code of Dungi and his succes- sors. The general impression obtained from the portion of the Sumerian code now recovered is that it is more primitive and not so well thought out as the later Semitic code. But Sumerian justice is often tempered with mercy and is more humane than the Spartan legislation of the Semites. The difference in the legal spirit is specially noticeable in comparing the laws on adultery in the two codes. In Sumer, if a wife is taken in adultery, she is not even divorced; but the husband may marry a second wife, and the first wife loses her position. But by Semitic law she and the co-respondent are slain.
The history of the Sumerian calendar is most obscure. Each city had its own names for the months (cf, p. 391), the months being lunar and adjusted to the solar year by intercalating a month every three or four years as necessity arose. There was no rule about month-intercalation. At Lagash In the early period each month seems to have had two or three names. Many of the months are named froip festivals, such as * Month of the feast of eating millet* (a festival of the goddess Nina). Several names owe their origin to agriculture : the month of harvesting grain, the month of sheep- shearing, the month of raising the water-wheels — all are ancient. More interesting is the appearance of two new feasts in the calen- " dars of Lagash and Nippur, called, respectively, the Month of the festival of Tammuz, and the Month of the mission of Innini. These are the names of the sixth month and refer to the wailings for the dying god Tammuz, or the journey of his sister, Innini, to the lower world to find her lost brother. In the old Sumerian myth the young god was regarded as the brother of the virgiii- goddess, but the Semitic myth made him the son of the earth- mother. The two views were confused from the Sargonic period on^arfl, and consequently the texts speak of Tammuz inconsist- ently as the brother or son of Innini-Ishtar. The Lagash calendar
4&2 THE SUMERIAN REVIVAL AT UR [CHAP.
in the Ur period was much, the same as under the kings of Agade, and ittmay be assumed that the Nippur calendar remained sub- stantially unaltered. At Nippur under the kings of Ur th^re were two official calendars, the old Nippurian and the royal calendar of the capital, called "Secondary Nippurian' in the present writer's lists. The Lagash, Ur, and Umma calendars all make room for the month of the festival of the reigning deified king — the tenth month at Umma but the seventh at Lagash and Ur. The month of grain harvest is usually the last in the year, but sometimes it is the first. The true Nippurian calendar and that of Umma have a month called * Month of placing the brick in the mould/ or the month of brick-making. The month of the festival of Tarnmuz at Umma is the last in the year, the harvest month being first. After the fall of Ur the old Nippur calendar prevailed and was adopted by the Semites, at least in writing the names, and as such it became the official calendar of Babylonia and Assyria. The business documents at Larsa under the dynasty established there adopted the Nip- purian names. There seems little doubt that from the period of Agade onward the first month began soon after the equinox. But the problem of the old Sumerian calendar remains unsolved. Much evidence suggests that it began in midwinter, and that the second half of the year was brought into relation with the rising of Sinus, which gave an astral setting for the resurrection of Tammuz and the return of Innini from the lower world. These calendars are all strictly lunar, but for business purposes the month is reckoned at 30 days, and for calculating wages three months would be 90 days. The writing of a history of Sumer and Akkad involves the task of reconstructing the course of events from tablets relating to a period of some 2500 years. And often the sources are deficient, the statements are obscure and the present knowledge of Sumerian too incomplete. All these facts must be taken into consideration by the reader* Moreover, it is not easy to disentangle the inter- woven influences of Sumerians and Semites. In the opinion of the present writer the entry of the Sumerians into Mesopotamia and Egypt heralded the dawn of civilization in the ancient world, and with their decline and disappearance the most talented and humane of early peoples became extinct. Their presence in pre~ dynastic Egypt is attested by the cylinder-seal, linear pictographic writing (which survived as magical symbols on early Egyptian pottery), and various motifs in predynastic art, such as the struggle of a hero with lions, animals vis-A-vis separated by a tree or other object, interlaced necks of serpent-headed monsters, and 'Others, Certain fundamental similarities between Sumerian and Egyptian
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CHAPTER XIII ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON
L THE POWER OF THE SEMITES
decay of Sumerian power can be attributed to two JL causes. In the first place the climatic conditions of southern Babylonia must have had a baneful effect on the earliest immi- grants who came in from the east, probably from a more temperate zone. The low flat river-vales, merging into the lagoons and swamps of the tidal waters where the Tigris and Euphrates meet the sea, are alternately burnt and frozen with the varying tem- perature of summer and winter. If eastern Turkestan did cradle the Sumerian forerunners, it was a harsher foster-mother which brought them to adolescence. The Sumerian died out where the Semite throve and perpetuated his stock; he never penetrated into Arabia, preferring to invade the highlands of Susa, when his good fortune gave him control over the Elamite, rather than the flat deserts. The Semite, on the other hand, clinging to his torrid zone, rarely sought the mountains, although it is true that some small colony of Assyrians is found in Cappadocia, Indeed, it may well be that the Sumerian birth-rate was affected by the harsh climate*
A second factor in the elimination of the Sumerians was political. The vestiges of the art of this people at Ashur (Kalaat Sherghat) and Istabulat, between Mosul and Baghdad, point to their occupation of the middle Tigris at an early stage of their history; yet when we meet them in southern Babylonia in the third millennium, it is clear that they have gradually been thrust further and further south down the river. In point of fact there was such pressure upon them from north to south, be it Semite, be it Mitanriian, that they had been forced down like fish in a trawl, almost like Eannatum's captives in his net (p. 584), into a cul-de-sac. The Elamite mountains on the east, the Persian Gulf on the south, and the deserts of the west and south-west formed the net, and the encroaching Semite gradually closed its mouth* There was no hope of any new wave of immigration of th^iroown stock swelling the Sumerian population now, and they died out.
CHAP. XIII, i] THE SEMITIC EXPANSION 465
The Semite could draw new blood from the successive migrating floods from the west, but there was no such opening for similar hordes of Suxnerians.
Rather more than four thousand years ago, therefore, the danger-zone for the Sumerians shifted from the Elamite hills to the middle Euphrates, the northern limit of the date-palm. The political horizon was full of menace on all sides, and to appreciate this properly it is for us to weigh the conditions with which Ur had to deal, both at home in the Euphrates-Tigris delta of Babylonia, and then abroad, where its enemies were ever ready to sweep down on its fertile vales.
The chief cities of Babylonia to the north of Ur were beginning to show what seems to have been a fresh infiltration of Semites down the Euphrates. Isin and Larsa, which were so soon to be alternately supreme, closely to be followed and eclipsed by Babylon, were becoming powerful city-states. Erech had at times its own king during the Larsa-Isin period, one of whom, Sin- iribam, about 2167, *s perhaps the king of Larsa of the same name (2175—4), and another, Warad-nene (V. 2141), commanded the allied forces of Isin and Babylon against Larsa, Sippar rises to greater importance in Semitic than in Sumerian times owing to its proximity to Babylon; and we find its districts, suburbs or dependencies, whatever they be, coming into prominence: Sippar- Yakhruru, Sippar-Aruru (with its gods Khumkhummu, perhaps a form of Tammuz, and Shukamuna and Shumalia, the two latter, at least, being Kassite), also Sippar-Edina and Sippar-Atnnanu, the latter of some importance as an official quarter, if we can infer anything from the existence of its skakkanakku-govemor* The temple of Sippar, devoted to sun-worship, always included shrines to other gods in the time of Nabonidus, and from this temple doubtless came the large collections of cuneiform tablets now in the British Museum and Constantinople. Sippar also about the time of the beginning of the Isin-Larsa period had its own governor or ruler, although he probably was only semi-inde- pendent. Contemporary with Sumu-abum of Babylon (£.2225—12) was a Naram-Sin; probably immediately after him came Immera and then Bunu-takhtun41a about the time of Sumu-la-ilum (<:. 2211—2176 B.C.), the former paying homage in some form to Sharnash, and digging the Ashukhu canal. A fourth* Ilu-ma-Ua (not to be confused with the king of the sea-coast of the same name), was a contemporary of Sumu-la-ilum.
Kisll, during the dynasty of Ur, was under the rule of patesis; but a little later we find on the throne an independent ruler:, C.A.H.I 30
466 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
Ashduni-erim, who reigned some little time before the 1st Dynasty of Babylon, perhaps about 2250 B.C. His first eight years were not happy, for a vendetta with a neighbouring foe had reduced his 'army' to three hundred men. In the end, however, by the help of his gods Zamama and Ishtar, who humbled the enemy in forty days, he triumphed. The building of the encircling wall of the city was due to him. We again find semi-independent kings on the throne contemporary with the rise of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon (c. 2225 B.C.), The west Semitic element shows strongly in their names : Manatia (in the thirteenth year of Sumu-abum, c. 2212)5 Sumu-ditana (preceding Yapium), Yapium (contem- porary with the sixth year of Sumu-la-ilurn, c. 2205). The position of a fourth, Khalium, is a little doubtful; but a contract of Sumu- la-ilu's date mentions one Khaliyaum, son of Yapium, as an owner of land in Kushsharatim, who must surely be the same, and hence he must have succeeded Yapium. The gods of Kish, other than Zamama (to whom Ashduni-erim and Yapium both paid respect) and Ishtar, are now showing west Semitic names, Akhima* (or Ama, which looks almost like the base of the modern name of the city, Oheimir), Amal, Apua and Apu(y)atum» From Dilbat come contracts of the period between Sumu4a- ilum and Ammi-zaduga containing names of persons and gods, Abi-ili, Abum-wakar, Ibi-Dagan, Ibi~Ilabrat, indicating the strength of the west Semitic influence. Urash and Lagamal are the chief deities, but the west Semitic Dagan also holds high place. But Dilbat can also boast Mitanni influence, for in Ammi- zaduga's time (c. 1977—57 B.C») there* occurs such a name as Teshshup-'ri, 'Teshub hath given/ Bashaish-Dagan (if the modern Drehem has been rightly identified), admirably suited as a grazing land near the Afej marches, supplied cattle to the great temple of Enlil at Nippur, some three miles to the north, during the time of the dynasty of Ur. These supplies, sent even to distant places like Erech, Eridu and A-kha-ki (Shubaru ?), were drawn from all parts of the kingdom ruled by Ur, districts so far distant as "Ashnunnak on the east included — the chief contracting parties being the kings and their patesis. The accounts kept by the scribes show that during the time of the dynasty of Ur the population was already infused with the growing Semitic element. The time was everywhere ripe for the Semitic rulers to assert themselves.
Extending our view from the home-states to more distant powers we can mark how external politics brought about the downfall of the Sumerians* The adjacent lands included, according to the astrological schools of the seventh century in Assyriaj four
XIII, i] PRESSURE FROM AMURRU 467
broad groups, Amurru or Amor, Akkad, Subartu and Elam, but since Akkad represents northern Babylonia, it must f$r our purpose be eliminated and we have really only three out of these quarters to consider, Amurru, the western land, Subartu repre- senting Assyria and the district of Mitanni, and Elam.
Amurru, here the middle Euphrates, partly included the district called Khana (Khani) and Maer (Mari) round about the Khabur river. Here along the river dwelt a large Semitic population, which was cramped for space towards the waterless south-west by nature, and shut in on the upper waters of the river by Carchemish, and on the lower by Sumer. Carchemish, the great mound of Jerabis, abuts on the Euphrates east of Aleppo, and lies in the heart of a district which bears palaeolithic gravels. -Neolithic man occupied the site in early time; then followed users of copper, and then the bronze-age men who buried their dead in tombs roughly made of untrimmed limestone slabs, each containing numerous drinking vessels of clay shaped like a modern champagne-glass. A third influx, perhaps of the early Hittites who were now pressing down from Anatolia, ejected these occupants during the third millen- nium, or at least before 1750 B.C.; and it is the former who are in occupation of this part of north Syria, as far down as Tell Ahmar (Til-Barsip), who would oppose any Semitic thrust northward* Therefore, for the Semite who lived in the middle Euphrates in the third millennium, there were only two lands into which he could expand, Assyria to the north-east, and Sumer to the south-east down the river. Exactly at what period Assyria was colonized by Semites we do not know, but by Hammurabi's time it had long been Semitic and had already (about 2400 B.C.) an offshoot in Cappadocia using Assyrian customs, gods, and a dialect of Assyro-Babylonian.
The most easy and natural line of expansion for the Semites of the middle Euphrates was, therefore, down the Euphrates. They had formed their settlements round the Khabur and near Der ez- Zor (particularly Tell Ashar, probably the ancient Tirka), although they were barely civilized and unable to write, until they could borrow cuneiform from Babylonia. We find them writing their business documents perhaps from about Hammurabi's time on, at all events in the time of Kashtiliash I (?), a Kassite king (r. 1 708— 1687 B.C.); and from these contracts we learn the names of two of their native kings, Isharlim (son of Idin-kakka) and Ammi-ba'il (son of Shunu'-rammu), who were of about the period of the 1st Dyifasty. But they owed alternate allegiance frequently to Babylon or Assyria. Khammurapikh is quoted on one tablet (p. 493), and
30 — %
468 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAI
he may be the famous Hammurabi, but the Kassite element i the name of the canal ('Khabur-ibal-bugash') which Is mentione< is against this. When the Kassites conquered Babylon thiey per haps became its masters, and then it is that we find Kashtiliash quoted on a contract-tablet from here. But Shamshi-Adad (?the second, c. 1716—1687) built a temple to Dagan in Tirka, so that Assyria must have been overlord then. About the same time a new king of Assyria,, Tukulti-Mer (c. 1 650 ?)3 the son of Ilu-Sha-Ba (king of Khana), whose seal was found in Ashur, called himself * king of Khana.' Later Agum-kak-rime brought back from Khani the images of Marduk and §arpanit.
This then was the danger-zone for Sumer at the end of the Illrd Dynasty of Ur. The Semites, as we have said, had been steadily penetrating Babylonia; indeed, true west Semitic names are apparent in the literature as far back as the time of Manishtusu (c. 2800 B.C.). Gimil-Sin of Ur (c. 2390 B.C.), one of the last kings of the dynasty, had seen the danger, and, to stem a hostile advance, had built a wall astride north-west Babylonia called Murik-Tidnim^ 'the Tidnu Bar'; and Tidnu is a synonym for Amor in the cunei- form vocabularies (see p. 458).
1 Ashnunnak and the still more powerful Elam lay on the east. The Inscriptions which we have from the former district show that the inhabitants were Influenced by Semite and Sumerlan in their speech. The rulers call themselves patesis^ "the delight of Ishtar,' but Tishpak was the national god, and Innina, 'the wife of Uru-Anna,* was also worshipped. Elam was ready to attack all and sundry in Mesopotamia, whether Sumerlan or Semite. A mixed population, consisting from early times of a white-skinned race who may have been akin to the Scyths^ and a negrito people, with a subsequent addition o£ Semites, occupied these highlands, and from prehistoric times had either maintained a sturdy footing in southern Babylonia, or made repeated attempts to re-establish their claim there down to a late period,
To the north of Babylonia was the young giant Assyria, as yet still in his cradle. It was represented by Subartu in the astrological texts, a word which in the time of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon definitely represents a country; and yet in, spite of its immense empire in later times, we know very little of its origins. The radius of Its Influence is short5 If we consider how small the group of the four great cities is: for Ashur (Kalaat Sherghat), Nineveh (Kuyunjik), Kalakh (NImrud) and Arbela (Erbil) are a bare two days* ride from one another. The earliest traces of man at Nineveh are obsidian flakes and knives such as the late Dr L. W. King and
XIII, i] EARLY ASSYRIA 469
the present writer found in the excavations of 1903—05. Perhaps coeval with these are the few fragments of pottery paintefi with geometric patterns in black, which indicate that the prehistoric ware which came from the east passed by here. Similar pottery at Susa and Eridu may be dated to the fourth millennium B.C. Next, there are vague indications in historic times that the Sumerians were in possession of Assyria, for at Ashur in a low stratum was discovered the head of a Sumerian statue. At Istabulat, further to the south, eight miles from Samarra, the i4th Sikh Regiment, in digging trenches during the Great War came on a fairly well- made Sumerian figure which is now in the Ashmolean Museum. We must therefore suppose that the Sumerians had entered Babylonia by way of the more northern land of Assyria which they had first occupied* See pp, 361, 451 $q.
The names of the first kings of Assyria, Ushpia and Kikia (c* 2500 B.C*), have been assumed to be Mitannian (p* 452 jy.). The Mitanni spread to northern Syria round Edessa and Harran, and their name is evidently preserved in Greek writers in the form Matieni, a people who inhabited south-west Media, Atropatene, and the Halys districts. The latter fact coincides well with the view that the Mitanni were akin racially to the Hittites. From what we know of their language (written in cuneiform, c. 1400) the Mitanni people borrowed the Semitic words for 'gold' (khurasu becoming khiarukhkha)^ 'ivory/ 'clay tablet/ 'scribe,' 'statue'; and this suggests that they came from a land which produced neither gold nor elephants, and that the Semites were in occupation of the elephant country of north Syria before their arrival. For philological purposes the following list of native words, as represented in cuneiform, is interesting : ar 'to give,' khash 'to hear,' khishukh *to grieve/ ^zj^ cto send/ pir 'to know,* tan 'to make/ ammati 'ancestor/ at~ta-i (?) 'father/ ela 'sister/ shala * daughter/ sheni 'brother/ tisha 'heart/ umini 'land/ Their language does not appear to have been Indo- European; but we find about the fifteenth century that an Indo- European dynasty was ruling them (the names of their kings show this), and about this period Aryan god-names appear in the cuneiform documents (see p. 3 1 a).
With the disappearance of Ushpia and Kikia from the throne the names of Assyrian kings are definitely Semitic. The presumed Mitanni names which appear in Babylonia at the end of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon show, however, that stray migrants were still to be round in the Tigris valley. These two earliest kings left their mark in the records of the land: Ushpia, according to
470 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
Shalmaneser and Esarhaddon, was the founder of the temple of E-kharsag-kurkura (a Sumerian name), and KIkia, according to Ashlr~rim-mshe-shu, the first builder of the city-wall of Ashur. After an uncertain Interval we meet the Semitic Zariku at Ashur, dedicating an Inscription to the goddess Belat-ekallim for the life of his lord Bur-Sin, "the mighty, the king of Ur and king of the four quarters of the world' (c. 2400 B.C.). We can thus say that Assyria about 2400 B.C. was tributary to the Sumerians of Baby- lonia* Of other Assyrian kings,, Ilushuma, the founder of the Temple of Ishtar in Ashur, was, as we know from the Chronicle1, 'King of Assyria/ and was contemporary of the king of Babylon, Su-a-bu, who is the same as the Sumu-abum whom we know, c. 22 25* B.C. This allows about 175 years between Zariku and Ilushuma. Of the Intervening kings we know little.
In passing from Assyria proper two outlying districts demand attention, Kara-Euyuk in Cappadocia, where an Assyrian colony had settled in early times In the north-west, and Kerkuk, three or four days' ride to the south-east of Mosul. Kara-Euyuk, almost, If not quite, within the Hittite country, marks the home of a little off-shoot from Assyria. We can definitely date it to the twenty- fourth century B.C., from the seal of a scribe on a tablet (see pp. 453 sqq^. As for Kerkuk, now an old and large mound, set amid fair fruit-gardens, its ancient inhabitants were a primitive folk who used cuneiform about the same time as the Cappadocian emigrants, for their letters take the same form. They used the talent of silver and gold, as well as the manay while their names naturally trend towards a form in final -ia (Akkuia, Shukriya, Zuzula, etc.), and they invoked Adad and Shamashu Their primitive penalty of smiting a wrongdoer on the mouth with a copper bar, in addition to fining him, is on a par with the 'Amorite* pitch-cap in Its severity (p, £17).
Accordingly, as regards the political conditions, Semite in the north and Sumerian in the south are now on the threshold of the final straggle for mastery*
it THE DYNASTY OF ISIN
Ibi-SIn, the last king of the dynasty of Ur, can hardly have been slow to see that, caught between Elam and Amurru, Sumer would suffer badly. He turned to meet his north-western foe, the Semitic hordes, and neither the rampart built 5y Gimil-Sin nor his own
1 B.M. No. 26,472, L. W. King, Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Krngs, n, 3 sqq,
XIII, n] THE OVERTHROW OF IBI-SIN 471
Sumerian warriors could stay the sturdy invaders. The very con- tracts of Drehem mark the lull before the storm; for, hitherto numerous, they suddenly come to an end in an ominous manner after the beginning of his reign. The last year of Ibi-Sin is a definite landmark in the history of Mesopotamia, for it heralds the end of Sumerian hopes of hegemony.
It was the young king of Maer (Mari), Ishbi-Girra, vigorous with thirty-two years of reign yet before him, who joined hands with Elam and swept down about 23^7 B.C. upon Ur, gathering adherents doubtless from the Semitic occupants of the northern cities, whose friendly presence allowed him to penetrate so far unchallenged. A hint in the annals of the Assyrian king Ashur- banipal, "written in the seventh century, shows who was prob- ably the king of Elam at this time. He states that in one of his campaigns in Elam,, he recaptured the statue of the goddess Nana of Erech, which, says he, had been carried off by Kutur- nakhkhunte, the Blamite, sixteen hundred and thirty-five years previously, and this gives us the date for the Elamite's devastation of Akkad about 2282 B.C. (see p. 155). If we were to connect the year 2282 with some event coinciding with our present dating we should find it agreeing more nearly with the overthrow of the end of Ibi-Sin's line by Ur-Ninurta and 'the Amurru*; and it is a question of probabilities, therefore, whether we should assign Kutur-nakhkhunte's raid to the fall of Ur in 2357 B.C., or to the less important episode of Ur-Ninurta in 2263. As will be seen3 however, Ur-Ninurta calls himself 'lord of Erech/ and there is a presumption therefore, that if Ur-Ninurta were a Sumerian, as he well may have been, he would hardly assent to his ally carrying away the goddess of Erech. Moreover, we are definitely told in texts relating to the fall of the Ur dynasty that Ibi-Sin was carried off in captivity to Elam, which is strong evidence in favour of this being the date of Kutur-nakhkhunte's rape of Nana.
Ibi-Sin met the foe and failed; he was captured and taken as a prisoner to Elam. The debacle was complete, and so terrible was it that for hundreds of years the record of the event survived in the Chaldean Books of Fate. The gods had spoken with no uncertain voice; the stars in their courses had warned the priest- hood whose comment on a heavenly omen still survives, recording it as connected with Ibi-Sin by name. Nay, some rumour of a monstrous birth had spread abroad (such as appears in the later times of the Graeco-Persian wars), that a sheep brought forth an ox ^ith. two tails, and this the augurs handed down to posterity as marking the omen of Ishbi-Girra, 'who had no rival/ The
472 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
Omen of Ibi-Sin, so a f liver-observation" showed, was synonymous with, calamity; Sumer was dead, and curt is the entry of the ancient chronicler of four thousand years ago: "As form Ur, its reign (?) was overthrown: Isin took its kingdom; Ishbi-Girra, the man of Mari, devastated the land as far as Ur; Ibi-Sin, King of Ur, went in fetters to Elam and wept and fell.* (See above, p. 459 $§r.)
Bitter was the lamentation in the temples, and the priests of Ur and their choirs bewailed the fate of the land to the accom- paniment of votive drums, of twanging harps and shrilling pipes. It was Nannar, the patron deity, they had worshipped so readily and so long, who had allowed this catastrophe to overwhelm the city; he failed the inhabitants of Ur in their hour of need, as another text says:
(Then) on the city he sent a spirit of wrath, and the city Wailed; (yea), upon the city of craftsmen did Nannar, the father, Send it, so that the people lamented.
The chants redoubled in sorrow for the rape of Ishtar, torn from her shrine in Erech; they were couched as though she herself were the mournful singer, and there can be little doubt that they were shrilled by her temple- worn en :
Me the foe hath ravished, yea, with hands tmwashen, Me his hands have ravished, me in exile driven, (Yea), his hands have ravished, made me die of terror, Oh, but I am wretched, nought of reverence hath he ! Stripped me of my robes and clothed therein his consort, Tore my jewels from me, therewith decked his daughter5 (Now) I tread his courts — my very person sought he In the shrines — (alas) the day, when to go forth feared I.
He pursued me in my temple, (Oh) he made me quake with terror,
There within my walls; (and) like a dove that fluttereth perch I
On a rafter, like a flitting owlet in a cavern hidden,
Birdlike from my shrine he chased me — me, a queen ! — yet he did chase me
From my city like a bird — (and) sighing Tar behind, behind me,
Is my temple! — I, a queen- — (and yet) my dwelling is far distant,
Isin's walls are far behind me, (yea) too, is my temple Gal-makh.*
Hear the lamentation over the looted temple of Irmini, Queen of E-anna : How long or ever the ruined fane unto its place be restored?
*
Unto a foreign land the fair wife was ravished — (so also) Unto the foreign land the fair child was ravished — (the temple), Uncelebrated its festivals splendid, its rituals solemn Cease from the shrine.
XIII, n] 'CHEDORLAOMER' AND GENESIS XIV 473
There is a curious reference In the legend of Girra, the plague- god, to an attack on Babylon, when a governor despatches his army, wjth the words
*Men, In that city whither I despatch you.
Oh, have no fear of [troops (?)J nor dread of men,
Slay indiscriminate both great and small.
Spare no one, (neither) babe (nor) sucking child.
And ravish Babel's hoarded treasuries.*
So the army sets forth and enters the city, and fights with the defenders. Girra, the plague-god takes part: *like water in a sluice, didst make the city-squares run with their blood/ Herein Ishtar, too, is angry against Erech, and assembles the enemy against it, Although it is in part a mythological text about Girra, the Plague- god, there are persistent suggestions throughout that it refers to actual events1. It is curious, too, that Ishbi-Girra's name should be compounded with the name of this god to whom the myth is dedicated. Ishbi-Girra thus becomes the father of the new dynasty at Isin in 2357 B*e. Equally fortunate at the same date was the Semite Naplanum at Larsa, the city which was to be the counter- poise to Isin in the struggle for the rule over Babylonia. Whence Naplanum came we do not know, but he is a western Semite from his name, and he founded a new line of kings.
Thus after the overthrow of the Surnerians at Ur the two dominant states in Babylonia were the Semitic settlements of Isin and Larsa. None were to threaten real opposition to their power until the rise of the 1st Dynasty at Babylon in 2,2,2,5 B-c-> anc^ we may divide the period from 2357 to the time of Hammurabi into five sections. The First is from 2357 to 2263, when the two lines of kings remained on their respectiv^thrones and maintained perfect harmony between the two states. In the Second, 2263 to 2214,
1 Here, too, we must include the cuneiform text which was previously considered to contain references to the kings mentioned in Genesis xiv, Dr Pinches, as far back as 1895, identified with considerable ingenuity the names Eri-A.KU, Ku-dur-ku-ku-rnal, 'king of E-la-.»./ and Tu-ud- khul-a, cson of Gax. . .,' with Arioch, Chedorlaomer and TidaL Dr King, however, pointed out that no Chedorlaomer was known apart from the biblical account, and the theory of Jeremias, that Ku-dur«ku~ku-mal is
S-obably to be read Kudur-nakhu-te ( ?), is the most satisfactory at present, ut it is worth remembering that kuku is part of the Elamite name Lankuku, and may appear in another, Kuk-Kirpiash, both historical persons of im- portance. W"e cannot, however, dismiss the possibility of the Elamites having raided Syria, because, as King pointed out, Kutur-Mabuk called himself adda ('father') of Martu, the middle Euphrates. See further, p. 484.
474 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
Sumer made a bid again for the rule, and persistent quarrels broke the peace. The year 2214 marked the beginning of the Third Section lasting until 2167; the 1st Dynasty of Babylon was then rising, and the rulers at Isin again had Semitic names, although a few years later its dynasty was again to be changed. Elam was to . challenge Larsa, and finally, in 2 1 67, under Kutur-mabuk, to esta- blish itself there in southern Babylonia. The Fourth Section, 2 1 67— 21265 culminated in the final overthrow of Isin by the Elamite stock in Larsa, and the Fifth with the merging of Larsa and its conquests into the Babylonian empire under Hammurabi (2123— 2081),
The First Section, then, opened with the two parallel lines of Isin and Larsa on their respective thrones in amicable relation. Isin showed a succession of heirs after Ishbi-Girra — Gimil-ilishu, Idin-Dagan, Ishme-Dagan and Lipit-Ishtar — while Larsa showed as contemporaries of these, Emisum, Samum and Zabaia. The Isin names are more easily comparable with those of Semitic Baby- Ionia (save in their use of the national god Dagan) than with those of the middle Euphrates valley: the Larsa names appear, on the other hand, to be west Semitic. These kings in their two lines were content to build their temples, maintain the divine worship, and gradually adopt the native custom of emperor-worship. The very founder of the dynasty of Isin saw to it that the sutummu ( ? store- house) of the temple of Ninlil, E~kurra-igi-galla, was founded or restored, apparently a part of the Tummal, a quarter of Nippur.
GimiHlishu, the next king, reigned ten years (2325—2316). Idin-Dagan, his son (2315—2295), seems to have extended the power of Isin over Sippar and Nippur., for in the ruins of the former was discovered a hymn to this monarch. His son, Ishme- Dagan (2294—2275), went still further, using the vaunting title 'King of Sumer and Akkad,* adding it to that of Isin, and in- cluding in his sway Nippur, Ur, Eridu, Erech and Isin.
Some faint echo reaches us of the less martial side of their character. Deeply religious like all Semites, they seem to have striven after something more than mere conquest, as is indicated by a liturgy of the cult of Ishme-Dagan, describing the sun-god:
That the rich man do not whatsoever be his desire. That one man to another do nought disgraceful. Wickedness and hostility he destroyed, Justice he instituted.
The hymn praises Babbar, the sun-god, 'the son whom Ningal bore/ and still more curiously identifies Ishrne-Dagan as TsfrniTiuz, husband of Innini (Ishtar): Irmini, queen of heaven and earth,
XIII., n] SUMERIANS AGAIN AT ISIN 475
*as her beloved spouse hath chosen me/ The pantheon In this hymn Includes Enkl, Ninki, En-til and NIn-uI, the Anunnaki, and himself, for he has now been deified: "Divine Ishme-D'agan, son of Dagan art them/ The assimilation to Tammuz Is well in » accord with the creed of mortal kings becoming gods after death, for Tammuz, the god of earthly vegetation, descends to the under- world like an ordinary human being, albeit he does so each year. A festival song to Ishtar for the entry of the king Ishme-Dagan into E-anna bears out his claim to be king of Erech, where the temple to Ishtar bore this name:
O Lady, whose largesse doth fill the land. . „ „ Thy guardian Ishme-Dagan to thee corneth.
With Lipit-Ishtar, the next king (2274—2264), the son either of Ishme-Dagan or of Idin-Dagan, we find that the central shrine of Babylon was within the jurisdiction of Isin» Again comes the echo of this seeking for righteousness in a hymn to this king: 'If thou (O Lipit-Ishtar) dost righteousness In Sumer and Akkad, then will the land prosper/ Ur, too, with Its shrine to the moon, was now definitely bound by religious ties to I sin, for Enannatum, the brother of Lipit-Ishtar, had become high-priest of the great temple. He ministered to Sin beneath the towering four-sided ziggurrat, which still thrusts Its brick peak to heaven like a mountain top, shimmering in the heat-haze as a beacon to guide caravans over the flat deserts and reedy margins of the swamps, visible even at far Eridu itself. It was a wealthy temple, and so rich was this priest Enannatum, so powerful, and so mindful of the ancient friendship with Larsa and his kinship to the inhabitants, that he rebuilt as an act of grace the splendid temple of the sun at Larsa for the salvation In this world of him- self and of Gungunum, the new king of Larsa* Not only did Lipit-Ish tar's brother act thus diplomatically, but his son was made * high-priest of Ninsunzi, high-priest of Nin- ...(?) at Ur/ and was not replaced until 2252, doubtless after his death. Relations between the two cities were never more cordial, and yet the upheaval which appears to be essential in these eastern states at periodic intervals was at hand.
With the end of Lipit-Ishtar's reign at Isin, almost within a year of the rebuilding of the temple at Larsa, begins the Second Section of this period, 2263 to 2214. Lipit-Ishtar's family did not inherit the kingdom : two kings of a different race, father and*sofi, Ur-Ninurta, son of Ishkur (2263—2236) and Bur-Sin (2235—2215), uncompromisingly Sumerian in name, occupied the
476 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
throne of I sin. More than this,, after the first-named king came to the throne, he claimed to be king of the four quarters of the world, and king of Isin, Sumer and Akkad., lord of Erecjb, and In some way the benefactor of Nippur, Ur and Eridu. The mention of the place-names Erech, Ur and Eridu shows how all TJr~. Ninurta's interests lay in the south; Indeed, Erech is so rarely mentioned at this period that we might have assumed It to have struggled back to independence, as It did under Warad-Nene subsequently. It is conceivable that Ur-NInurta was a Sumerian king of Erech, and we might presume that he absorbed Ur and the religious foundation of Eridu and attempted to re-establish the old Sumerian domination. He marched against the Su tribes, who had been subject to Lagash In the time of Arad-Nannar; and as the Su are probably the Suti, who were closely connected with Erech to the west of Babylonia, it Is likely that Erech was his home. That he should have raided Zabshali on the east was probably one of the usual royal diversions; it can hardly have any reference to the relations formed by the marriage of one of the daughters of a king of Ur with the patesi of this land (p. 509).
A strange entry among the dates of Lipit-Ishtar's reign — 'the year when the Amurru drove out Liplt-Ishtar' — can refer only to the end of his rule; but how are the Amurru to be connected with an obvious Sumerian like Ur-Ninurta? Did the scribe make a mistake in calling the enemy Amurru — or is one to believe that the Amurru would drive out their own kin ? Or, presuming that such was the fact, did Amurru make an alliance with Sumer against the dominant race at Isin ? It may be that, just as Kutur- Mabuk, king of Elam in the time of Abil-Sin (2,161—44), called himself adda (c father*) of Amurru, perhaps his predecessor also may have claimed some similar connexion.
Lipit-Ishtar's rule came to an end in 2264, and, with the arrival of these presumed Sumerians in Ism, although this was only a brief outbreak of the old fire, the friendship of Larsa towards Isin vanished, and throughout this interval the two cities glared at each other with brooding suspicion which burst out from time to time in raids and razzias. Yet the very offspring of Ur- Ninurta, Bur-Sin, who built up the wall of Isin against his foes, could not resist the Semitic influence, for he appears to have called his two sons by Semitic names, Iter~pl-sha and Girra-imitti, and after these two had come to the throne In Isin, the succession was disputed by Semites.
The king of Larsa, Gungunum (c. 2264-38), before challenging the usurpers had first to deal with the hostility of Bashimi (prob-
XIII, n] AN AMORITE RAID, GUNGUNUM'S WARS 477
ably the same as Basime, not far from Sippar, Lagash and Cuthah, which in Manishtusu's time was ruled by a patesi). Two years later he ^defeated Anshan, and from that date (2260) onwards until 2246 there was a peaceful interval,
We are in great debt to one Sin-uselll, a scribe of Hammurabi *s period, for our knowledge of the history of Babylonia from Gungunum onwards almost to his own date. Doubtless with the intention of commemorating the great year of Hammurabi's victory over the enemies arrayed against Babylonia, he set himself to copy out a list of the events which happened to Larsa after which the years were named. He completed his document as he tells us with an amusingly precious pomposity 'on the morning of the fourteenth of Tebet* of the great year, doubtless congratu- lating himself that his work kept him indoors on that wintry day, and that it was not his duty to make muddy dams or to clear canals.
Towards the end of fourteen peaceful years earned by Gun- gunum*s victory over his foe, rumours of war were again in the air. Gungunum shows us his preparation by building a fort for his troops in 2246, and in the following two years he put a great gate and a city-wall in order. It is to this year doubtless that we must refer the building of the great wall of Larsa, called *the Sun-god is the spoiler of hostile lands,' a direct challenge to his foe. It is possible that in 2243 he attacked a strong city of Isin called Dunnum (which is known also by the Sumerian name Sag-anntia); but death — probably a violent one, since it is actually recorded — ended his dreams of conquering Isin. Again the clash of the two opposing forces of Larsa and Isin came in 2229 in the reign of Abi-sarl of Larsa: what happened is uncertain, but it is quite probable that there was no result at all. The Arabs of the present day regard a razzia as a bloody massacre if a man Is killed; and from the top of the stout walls of unburnt brick Sumerian could laugh at Semite. The Babylonian does not seem to have had the ferocious qualities of the later Assyrian who doubtless intermarried with the wild highlanders of the Kurdish hills.
These intertribal bickerings represent the military exploits of the two states from 2264 to 2226. Campaigning was not really to the taste of these Babylonian kings, for the crops occupied their time in the late spring and early summer, the summer was far too hot for war until October, and winter was bleak,. wet aid muddy. They much preferred an ostentatious piety, a due devotion to t|^e temples and gods; if any fighting had to be done, unless it were a war of extermination or self-defence, it ought only to be in the nature of a raid, an opportunity snatched after the harvest,
478 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
when labourers were no longer wanted in the fields, or between the date-picking at the end of summer and the first rains.
The records are full of evidence of the royal worship. Almost the first deed of Gungunum was to dedicate to the Sun-temple of Larsa two copper palm-trees (such as are represented at an earlier .- period on a Telloh plaque), and, a few years later, a great copper statue. In his sixth year (2259) the high-priest of this temple was chosen by omens, and three years later was elevated to his full functions : it was the custom to elect thus to this office after the death of each priest, as we may infer from the fact that no similar installation at the Sun-temple took place again until 2228. Gungunum displayed no less solicitude for the minor shrines, now dedicating a statue of copper and another of silver to the temple of the moon, now building the Temple of Ishtar (in Larsa) or of Lugal-kiburna, now repairing the sacred store-house attached to the moon-temple. The same pious duties were per- formed by his successor Abi-sarl, who formally presented the old silver statue, which had been begun by Gungunum, to the temple of the moon, and another of cornelian and lapis lazuli (2230).
Like other rulers, the kings of Larsa occupied themselves with increasing the fertility of their lands, because thereby the treasuries were filled. In a country like Mesopotamia the sun which can scorch the waterless soil to dust will bring all seeds to maturity with speed, if only water be led through the fields by canals. A Babylonian town of this period, like those of the present day, would be set either on a river bank or along a broad canal in a forest of date palms, amid which would grow pomegranates, grapes> and figs. Beyond the date-orchards would lie the fields of wheat and barley, spreading probably for five or six miles outwards from the larger cities as they do to-day at Nasriyeh, The harvest depends first on the rains for its growth, and then, for its gathering, on the people who are as dependent as the crops on water; the vegetables and the dates, the cattle and the asses all draw their life from the rivers or canals: the mud-brick houses with palm-wood rafters and doors, and the reed huts, all take their origin in water, and demand no niggard supply. Away from the rivers, canals are essential: the security which a large settled vigorous population provides, the wealth borne to the king by taxation, the priestly dues and offerings to the gods which bring to the city the divine protection, all are drawn from water. It is these canals which disperse the river-waters over the lanQ. in the dry season that man may increase and multiply% as was well
XIII, n] THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON 479
known by the Semitic kings in Babylonia., now more dependent on artificial water-channels than their ancestors had been higher up the Euphrates, where tributaries and a better rainfall* took their place. Gungunum of Larsa from his fifteenth year onwards ,(2250) excavated vigorously, first the Anipada canal, then that called Imgur-Sin two years later, and then three more during his last ten years. Abi-sarl dug the Anipada canal again in his fourth year, and two more, all in eleven years, and this continuous canal digging was regularly recorded.
With the year 2226 Sumu-ilum came to the throne of Larsa, and the following year Babylon entered the political arena with the birth of its 1st Dynasty under Sumu-aburn (2225—2212). Instead of a duel between Larsa and Isin, the contest developed into a triangular fight with Babylon as the third participant. Larsa during this period challenged Kazallu twice; Sumu-ilum, its king, first laid waste Akus (a district where Adad was wor- shipped) and fought Kazallu in 2223, Kazallu may be the same as the Kazalla which revolted against Sargon of Agade, when Kashtubila was its king. As it is mentioned between Marad and Ulmash it may have formed part of the dominion of Ur. There is a stray date-formula, which may be attributed to some year of the Larsa dynasty, which describes how an unknown king made (statues of) Numushda (known as far back as Manishtusu's time as a god), Namrat and Lugal-Awak, and brought them into Kazallu. The last are written with the single wedge denoting a person as well as the sign for god, and it may be that they represent the names of two dead kings of Kazallu. The second is probably Semitic, and when we reach 2194 B.C. the name of its king, Yakhzir-ilu, is that of a Semite, which the earlier king Kashtubila certainly was not.
Four years later (2219) Sumu-ilum added to the Larsa do- minion the town of Ka-ida, which from its* name, *the mouth of the Rivers, * may have been at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris (near Nasriyeh). It is a little-known town, and the presumed position is so near Larsa that this would not appear to have been a heroic exploit. By 2219 B.C. the real interest of the political relations was centring further north round Sumu-abum, the first king of Babylon. Before Sumu-abum's time Babylon probably owed fealty to some city-state, since it was governed by a patesi (in Dungi's time by name Arshikh), and the office of patesi, as we shall see later, had by now sunk far beneath its early impcfttaftce (p. 509).
With the end of the reign of Bur-Sin at Ism in 2215 pur
480 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
Third Section begins with the advance to power of Babylon and extends to the capture of Larsa by Elam in 2 1 67. Like all western Semites Sumu-abum of Babylon was hardly a fighter, anjd was far more anxious about his gardens for his gods, his temples for Ninsinna and his cedar-wood doors for Nannar. Yet it was a. period of unrest which called for deeds of warlike action, for the Assyrian babe in the north, who was to develop into a giant, was now stirring.
As for Kish, the neighbour of Babylon, there can be little doubt that it was to Babylon's advantage to be on good terms with it, and Sumu-abum, alert to the threat of his cousins in the north and the hostility of Kazallu on the east, honoured Kish, as a good diplomatist should, with an offering which took the form of a crown to the temple of Anu. It is perhaps because of these very pourparlers that Larsa grew fearful of its old ally Kish, for in 2216 the two states fell out and fought, but we do not know why, nor what happened. Two years later a new king, Iter-pl-sha, the son of Bur-Sin (2214—2210), came to the throne of Isin, of which place little can be said at this period* The same year saw trouble between Babylon and Kazallu which, ever irreconcilable and hostile equally to Larsa or Babylon, was now to be 'laid waste' by Sumu-abum.
Sumu-abum of Babylon was followed by Sumu-la-ilum (2211— 2176), while Sumu-ilum was still the latter's contemporary at Larsa. The hostility between Babylon and Larsa now became more pronounced, although the Babylonian king's reign began peaceably enough with the digging of the Shamash-khegallu canal. The third and fourth years are dated by the slaying of a certain otherwise unknown Khalambu, But the gathering clouds were now big on the political horizon, and uneasiness was clearly shown by the building, in Sumu-la-ilu's fifth year, of a great protecting wall for*Babylon, an essential to any city in these flat lands. So great was the undertaking that the next year was also dated by this event.
Meanwhile, a new ruler, Girra-Imitti, brother of Iter-pi-sha, had come to the throne of Isin (2209—2203). He 'restored Nippur to its place/ presumably attaching it to his rule* It is very probable that Nippur was tossed from Isin to Larsa and back again, inasmuch as many tablets of the Larsa dynasty period were found there by the American expedition. Larsa had done little since Sumu-ilum 's fight with Kish in 2216, except to dig the Euphrates and act piously towards the temple of*N£nnar; she had fought with Kazallu in 2205, but thenceforth Sumu-ilum
XIII, n] THE FORTUNES OF LARSA AND ISIN 481
of Larsa had no more interest in fighting. He ceased to reign about 2198, having reckoned his last seven years by the civil and peaceful^ episode of the investiture of the high-priest of ISfannar in his duties.
Sumu-la-ilum of Babylon had a brief interval of ease during which he rebuilt the temple of Adad and dug a canal called by his name. Then Kish, his near neighbour and ally, finding perhaps that its encounter with Larsa in 2216 had serious consequences, which the friendship of Babylon was not practical enough to stay, became impatient, so that Babylon turned upon and * devastated ' her in 2199. So complete a political ^olte-face of Babylon as to march against its erstwhile friend Kish was a marked epoch to Sumu-la-ilum,, and for four years afterwards the yearly date was reckoned from the Kish expedition. But he was to have his hands full enough presently.
The throne of Larsa went to Nur-Adad, who for sixteen years (2197—2182) had, as far as we know, an uneventful reign. At home he offered a golden throne to Shamash, and invested the high-priest of the god with due authority; he built the temple of E-nunmakh of Nannar and Ningal in Ur, and, as the present writer found in the British Museum diggings at Eridu in 1918., he carried on a small restoration of the ziggurat of Enki's temple there. It may be that this piety towards cities in the extreme south, particularly Eridu, whose glory was departing, shows the trend of his thoughts: Larsa might easily become untenable if Kazallu repeated its thrusts. We are allowed to infer what we please from his sudden gratitude to this moribund city sacred to Enki, a compliment such as no Semite had ever shown it; indeed, it had received no builder's homage since the time when Bur-Sin of Ur faced its ziggurat with bricks.
But there was good cause for Nur-Adad of Larsa to be afraid. With the change of dynasties in the east the political friendships change : for where the clan-feeling is strong, the personal element of a ruler is a powerful factor for peace or war. The kingly family at Isin about 2202, five years before Nur-A dad's accession, had come to an end in a curious way, and the cuneiform chronicles agree closely, as L. W. King pointed out, with the story of Beleous and Beletaras related by the Greek historian Agathias (sixth century A,D.), on the authority of Bion and Alexander Polyhistor. Now, according to the Babylonian Chronicle, 'Girra- imitti, the king, set Enlil-ibni, the gardener, on his throne as a substitijfte (?), (and) placed the crown of his sovereignty upon his head'; Girra-imitti then died, and Enlil-ibni was established on C-A.H.I 31
482 ISIN, LARS A AND BABYLON [CHAP.
the throne. We also know from a king-list that a king whose namer begins with the first part of a sign which may be 'Enlil/ reigned for six months after Girra-imitti (the ninth king of Isin) before Enlil-ibni came to the throne, and it ^may be that the Chronicle has omitted him. None the less, if his name be * Enlil , (i.e. Bel). . .,' we may, despite the discrepancy, see some agree- ment with the story as told by Agathias, where Beleous, the son of Derketadas, is said to have been displaced by a certain man Beletaras, a gardener, who, having gained the throne in an un- expected manner, established his own race upon the throne. Beletaras must, of course, be Enlil-ibni, whose name would be read by late translators as Bel-ibni. Beleous may equally represent the tenth name of the king-list, Bel (Enlil) . . . , and if so, we may possibly see in Derketadas some corruption of Girra-imitti.
In this way was the dynasty displaced at Isin in 2202. An ingenuous date explains that Enlil-bani ' disclosed light to all the land and the people of the sons of Isin" — doubtless a clear exposition of his title to the throne. Elsewhere was turmoil on the political horizon. Kazallu was threatening Babylon; and Sumu-la~ilum, in 21 94, in expectation of trouble, drove out Yakhzir- ilu, the Semitic ruler of Kazallu. Next year, in order that Kish might be well aware that he had revoked any previous goodwill shown by dedicating a crown to its god Anu, Sumu-la-ilum pulled down the temple walls of that same god, and in 2192 he de- molished the ramparts of Kazallu and fought its inhabitants, finally killing Yakhzir-ilu himself in 2187. Sumu-la-ilum spent his declining years in making images for Ishtar and Nana, in building walls, in digging out the canal called by his name, and in killing two recalcitrant chiefs.
It is never safe to say that peace reigned in Babylonia for any long period. New contract-tablets appear from time to time dated in a year in which some campaign hitherto unknown has taken place. At Larsa Nur-Adad's uneventful reign was replaced by that of his son Sin-idinnam (2181—76), the benefactor of Ur, and king of Larsa, Sumer and Akkad, who prided himself on his restoration of the temple of Shamash, his clearing out of part of the Tigris bed, his building-works at Dur-gurgurri (Tell Sifr) and the wall of Mashkan-shabra (probably near Adab), which doubtless helped him to ensure * peace to his people' and be ca shepherd of justice/ Yet he must needs fight Elam, who was in alliance with Zambia., the king who succeeded Enlil-bani at Isin, in 2177. Zambia lived on, but Sin-idinnam was replacecTby*Sin- iribam at Larsa in 2175, and it may be that Sin-idinnam was
XIII, n] EL AM DEFEATS LARS A 483
killed; in the same year Sumu-la-i]um was succeeded at Babylon by Zabium or Zabum (2175—62). €
But thys chronicles tell us little at this juncture of Sin-iribam of Larsa (2175—4); however, there is a weight of one talent, which ^Is described as coming from his palace. As for his contemporary, the king of Isin, who came to the throne in 2 1 74, we do not even know the name, or that of his successor, although Langdon thinks it may be Ur-azag (2169—6). At Larsa Sin-ikishatn, who succeeded Sin-iribam (2173—69), paid his usual devotion to the gods, dedicating eleven statues to the great temple of the sun-god, parading the riches of his country by making many of his votive images of gold. It was a foolish display for which the country paid dearly, for his successor Silli-Adad was deposed by the Elamite conquerors within the year of his accession (2168). The Semites of Larsa had lost their vigour; Elam was spoiling their temples and sitting on their throne, and Babylon in the first flush or its youth was presently to overthrow Larsa and its usurping dynasty, and oust the Semitic ruler from Isin.
The year 2167 culminated in the success of Elam over Larsa; this marks our Fourth Section, which ends in 2126 with the final overthrow of Isin by the Elamitic stock in Larsa. In Sin-idinnam's time Ur had belonged to Larsa but a bare ten years before this date; it passed in this brief interval into Elamite hands. The southern cities Ur, Eridu, and their district, had been Elamite in prehistoric times, having probably owed their foundation to Susian migrants, and it was therefore no strange thing that they should turn Elamite on slight provocation. It was Kutur-mabuk, the son of Simti-Shilkhak, obviously an Elamite, who burst in on the decadent king of Larsa, Silli-Adad about 2167 B.C.; there must have been a tremendous Elamite incursion, for we find Kutur-mabuk's son, Warad-Sin, on the throne of Larsa in 2167, whence Silli-Adad had been deposed. Elam had at last succeeded in capturing Larsa,
This success was probably not due to her own efforts alone, but in alliance with Isin and Babylon; such is the inference which may be drawn from the trifling evidence which we have. That Babylon was swayed in some measure by Elam at this juncture is shown by the dating of Zabum' s twelfth year (2 1 64), when the wall of Kazallu was destroyed; it does not say by whom, but the reference must surely be to the latter part of Kutur-mabuk's exploit, when he * avenged* E-Babbara (the temple of the Sun in Larsa), destroyed the army of Ka^allu and Mutiabal in Larsa and Emutba], and beat down the walls of Kazallu. If so, it is
484 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
significant that the record of this event is adopted by Zabum as a date. But Ism also has left some trace of her friendship or alliance with Babylon, for the new king of Isin, Sin-magir (2 1 65- 55), who called himself king of Sumer and Akkad, dedicated a cone to the temple of E-patutila in Babylon, claiming thereby < some act of devotion to Enlil. While his father doubtless con- tinued to rule in Elam, Warad-Sin, although in nominal control of Larsa during his father's lifetime, would almost appear to have made Ur his royal city. Kutur-mabuk tells us that he dedicated E-nunmakh to the moon-god in Ur, on behalf of his son, whose Semitic name Warad-Sin, 'the servant of the moon-god/ points perhaps also to diplomatic necessity. Warad-Sin's pious works indicate Ur as the object of his homage, for during his reign he built the lofty platform of the temple of Nannar, brought into the shrine two golden thrones, and restored E-nunmakh, while his sister En-an-e-ul was invested as the high-priestess of the moon in Ur. His one building for defence was the great rampart of Ur itself.
How far his father maintained control is not easy to say. He called himself adda or * father* of the west land, and was so far catholic as to dedicate a cone to Nergal and build the temple E-mete~Girra for his life and that of his son. It is certainly peculiar that during Warad-Sin *s reign over Larsa a king of Erech should be named Sin-iribam, the same as that of a previous king of Larsa (c. 2175—74) only a few years before Warad-Sin. It may be that they are one and the same king.
Kutur-mabuk probably died during his son's reign, for a statue of him was devoted to the temple of Babbar in Larsa, We may take it that, though Ur was in the eyes of Warad-Sin a more defensible capital, Larsa was still in high repute. The king shows the extent of his rule by his religious devotion to Ishtar of Khallab, and his inclusion of Nippur, Eridu and Lagash in his domain. In fact, under Elam, possibly with Isin and Babylon as sub- servient allies, there was a temporary recrudescence of Larsa as a power* Everything was working up to a climax: the three king- doms, Larsa, Isin and Babylon, are being welded into one by force of circumstances.
With the advent of Rim-Sin, the brother of Warad-Sin, to the throne of Larsa in 2155 began the final phase, the disappearance of Isin and Larsa. Rim-Sin undoubtedly inherited Ur with Larsa, as was only natural. He was able to dedicate four copper figures of Kutur-mabuk to the temple of the moon in his third year, and build a shrine to Enki in Ur in his ninth. For the first thirteen
XIII, n] RIM-SIN'S SUCCESSES AGAINST ISIN 485
or fourteen years of his reign Rim-Sin lived at peace, consolidating his position and making himself popular* Besides his piety towards Larsa agd Ur, he extended his favours to Adab, Zart>ilum, Mashgan-shabra, Ishkun-Shamash (a city on the bank of the » Euphrates), and Ishkun-Nergal, fortifying the two latter; but it is most striking that his beneficiaries did not include Ism, Erech or Babylon.
Isin under Damik-ilishu (2154), son of Sin-magir (21 6^—5 5), was preparing for the storm. He, the last king of Isin who was to see the end of her pride, was at one with Babylon, where he built a temple to Shamash; his rule was acknowledged at Nippur; and at some date in his reign, perhaps before the storm burst, he built the wall of Isin, called Damik-ilishu-migir-Ninurta. Erech, under the king Warad-nene, was friendly, and along with Erech, which lay on the desert borders, might be reckoned from time to time the ephemeral support of the bedouin Suti, doubtless, like the modern representatives, an uncertain factor and certainly untrustworthy allies in a defeat. Isin and Babylon under the leadership of Warad-nene, with his following of wild bedouins, and the small city of Rapikum, allied themselves against Larsa and Ur under Rim-Sin. This Rapikum can hardly be the Rapikum mentioned by Tukulti-Ninurta, three days' march north of Sippar, and in all probability there was another of the name. In fact, it seems to have been reasonably near Larsa, to judge from a Larsa letter in which the writer reminds the addressee of the latter's promise to give him ten shekels when he went to Rapikum: *Five days hence I shall be en route to Rapikum: I send herewith Shamash-rabi to thee: send the ten shekels of silver.*
The result does not appear to be in doubt. Rim-Sin speaks of his success with pride, and for many years continued to capture city after city, Sin-muballit of Babylon (2143—24) discreetly makes no mention of anything of the kind, and there is as yet no trace of the battle recorded in Damik-ilishu*s chronicles. Larsa in 2141 had won an indubitable victory.
From now onwards Rim-Sin continued a policy of * nibbling, setting himself to swallow up the towns round his enemies piece- meal. First it was Ka-ida, 'the mouth of the rivers* (which had been absorbed by the Larsa king Sumu-ilum in 2219 *n£° t&e Larsa empire, but had evidently reverted to the foe), then Nazarum, both in 2140. The two cities may have lain near the modern Nasriyeh, and nothing but the certainty that Nasriyeh takes its namS frbm Nasir Pasha who built it not so many years ago, would prevent its identification with Nazarum. Next, in 2138, it was Imgur-Gibil and Zibnatum; then in 2137 Bit-Gimil-Sin and
486 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
Uzarpara, and in 2136 Kisurra and Durum; and finally, In 2134, having thus swept away the outliers, he took the very stronghold of Erech itself. The Isin coalition was hard hit, for by 2 1^30 Larsa had invaded the lands of Isin and captured the city of Damik-ilishu, its king. But Babylon then came to the aid of its old ally Ism, and delivered battle to the 'army of Ur' (or * Larsa* as the duplicates have it) in 2130,, and in 2127 it would appear that Babylon recaptured Isin. Rim-Sin leaves out all mention of this, thus tacitly admitting a temporary set-back; in one of his letters to a commander called Nuria, which refers to a defeat, he upbraids him. for not having sent the barges necessary for the troops. Ten had apparently been wanted but they did not arrive and the result was disastrous; whether they were for carrying men up-river, or supplying them with provisions we do not, of course, know; but Rim-Sin is definite in fixing the blame: *Thy life be for the soldiers who were killed: and as for those soldiers who are left, fill up (the rations) to twenty ka of grain each (?).'
Whether we should assign this letter to this or some later year of Rim-Sin is doubtful; but it is an admirable illustration of what happens in Irak when transport is limited, as anyone who went through the earlier stages of the recent campaign up the Tigris will remember.
In expectation of some further set-back Rim-Sin fortified Zarbilum in 2127. He then continued his 'nibbling,' capturing Dunnum, the strong city of Isin in 2126, although he allowed its people to dwell there. Finally in 2125 he succeeded in his great effort. Isin fell to him, and so triumphant was Rim-Sin over it that he dated the remaining thirty-one years of his reign by it. The people of Isin were scattered until Hammurabi's time (as the great king says), and it was not until his reign that they were reassembled; it was Rim-Sin's crowning achievement, and he was well satisfied. One of his inscriptions from Lagash, doubtless late in his reign, dedicated to the god Nin-shubur, defines his empire as including Nippur, Eridu, Ur, Lagash, Larsa, 'Sumer and Akkad,' and Uruk. We know very little of his private life: he wedded Si. . , Innina, the daughter of (W)arad-Nannar and also a daughter of Sin-Magir (king of Isin ?) named Rim-Sin-shala- bashtashu, and one of his daughters was named Lirish-gamlum. His sister En~an-e-ul has already been mentioned.
Thus ends the .Fourth Section. Old Sin-muballit of Babylon, whose reign is reckoned by one chronicle at twenty years, and by the * Kings' List' at thirty, sat on the throne supine and p5w£rless before the sweeping victories of Rim-Sin , But his son Ham- murabi was of a different stamp.
XIII, ni] HAMMURABI'S ACCESSION 487
III. HAMMURABI
Hammurabi succeeded to the throne of Babylon (2 123— 208 i), young, vigorous, and a genius full of fire, destined to be both a law-giver and a fighter, a man who would have made an admirable Governor-general of modern Irak. His reign of forty- three years marks our Fifth Section during which the Babylonian empire was consolidated.
There is a cryptic entry in the date-lists for Hammurabi's first action which is variously translated 'when he put order (or righteousness) in his land7 or 'he and his prefects put order in the land/ It may perhaps indicate reforms, but it is equally probable that it shows a state of unrest after Rim-Sin's victories. He began by building certain minor fortifications and finally, when his plans were ready, swept down on Erech and Isin and captured them both from Rim-Sin in 2117. Four years later he recaptured Rapikum, taking Shalibi in addition, and thereby stripped Rim- Sin of almost all his conquests. Rapikum was, as will be remem- bered, one of the allies under Erech; a variant in the date-lists attributes the capture to Ibik-Ishtar.
This introduction of Ibik-Ishtar (obviously the same as the king of IVtalgi of that name) as an ally of Hammurabi into the annals points to an interesting sequence of events. Hammurabi, as he has related in the prologue to the Code, had befriended Malgi in a time of misfortune, about 2114 B.C., a year or so previously, and this was Ibik-Ishtar's way of showing his grati- tude. Malgi was a district which some have thought to have been situated near the sea; it was served by a Royal Canal in the time of Meli-Shipak II (about the thirteenth century). Its gods were Ea and Damkina, which certainly point to a connexion with water. But in his thirty-fifth year (2089) Hammurabi destroyed the walls of Mari and Malgi, and hence we must locate Malgi not far from the middle Euphrates near Mari, Since also we know that its king was named Ibik-Ishtar, we are justified on these two
f rounds in seeking Malgi near the west Semitic districts of the uphrates1.
1 If we might place Malgi so far south as the watery district south-west of Babylon, represented to-day by the Bahr en-Nejef and Bahr Shinafiyah (presuming, of course, that these sheets of water existed in those days), we might identify Shalibi with the modern TTell Shelaba, near the latter lake. A Shelibi is known in Kassite times as supplying Nippur and Dur-Kurigalzu, but It is* not necessarily the same, nor is it easy to believe that either Shalibi or Shelibi is Zelebiyah up the Euphrates.
488 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
For the first twenty-nine years of his reign Hammurabi was content with these exploits. He spent much of his time in making thrones for Nannar, Sarpanit, Ishtar of Babylon, and qf Kibal- sabati, Nabu and Adad, and statues of Ishtar and Shala, and of himself; he built Bad-Laz, Bad-igi-kharshagga, restored the temples of Enlil (and dedicated a mace to the god in Babylon) and of Adad, also in Babylon (called E-namfche)* He also fortified Sippar and Bazu.
In his thirtieth year (2094) he met the troops of Elam, who were apparently in alliance with Rim-Sin, Emutbalum and Ashnunnak; and in the next year he raided Emutbalum, captured Rim-Sin himself, and in the year following, Ashnunnak and Emutbalum* At this thrust the dynasty of Larsa crashed to the ground; the very temples of Emutbalum re-echoed with the trampling of Hammurabi's soldiery who were carrying off its goddesses. The king*s official letters about them are still extant, written to his minister Sin-idinnam : 'To Sin-idinnam speak, thus Hammurabi : the goddesses of Emutbal, which are assigned unto thee? the troops under the command of Inukhsamar will deliver unto thee. When they reach thee, detail some of the men who are with thee to settle the goddesses in their dwellings.' Another, which appears to be later, refers to the removal of these goddesses to Babylon, where Hammurabi himself would be able to refresh his memory and gloat on the triumphs over his foes by the sight of them. He informs Sin-idinnam that he will send two officers to take charge of the transport of these goddesses, and that Sin-idinnam is to embark them in a boat in a fitting shrine that they may come to Babylon with a train of temple-women in attendance. He is to provide for offerings for the goddesses and food for the ministrants on the way, and to arrange for men to tow the boat up river — just as they do to-day — and attach a picked escort to the boats. See above, p. 449.
The campaign is recorded in the Chronicle with the words 'Hammurabi, king of Babylon, summoned his forces and inarched against Rim-Sin, king of Ur. Hisjband captured the cities of Ur and Larsa and he carried off their possessions into Babylon/ Tablets from Nippur, Tell Sifr and TTokha show that Rim-Sin ruled over these cities up to the thirtieth year after the capture of Isin (2096), but those of the first two places named represent him in control of Nippur and Tell Sifr from his thirty-first year onward,
So proud was Hammurabi of his prowess in throwing offrthe enemy voke that hvmns were written in his
XIII, m] HAMMURABI'S WORKS 489
Enlil thee hath power given. Whom dost thou await? Enzu thee hath headship given, Whom dost thou await? Ninurta thee hath fierce glaive given, Whom dost thou await?* Ish&r thee hath battle given. Whom dost thou await?
It may be that the curious refrain 'Wliom dost thou await ?* referred to some allies who were supine and dilatory — the gods help th.ee> Hammurabi, why wait for other friends?
For all time he his mighty strength hath shown^
The mighty warrior, Hammurabi, king,
Who smote the foe, a very storm in battle.
Sweeping the lands of foemen, bringing war to nought^
Giving rebellion surcease, (and) destroying,
Like doll(s) of clay, malignants, hath laid open
The steeps of the impenetrable hills.
The last line shows that the reference Is to the mountains of the eastern barrier, Elam: there are no other mountains to be con- sidered so seriously.
Freed from the Elamlte Incubus Hammurabi had little further to distract his attention from home. He took care, however, In 2089 to render Marl and Malgi innocuous by destroying their walls. He dug an enormous canal In 2091 called 'Hammurabi the abundance of the people/ and boasts of his energies: 'When Anu and Enlil gave (me) the lands of Sumer and Akkad to rule, (and) they entrusted their sceptre to me, I dug the canal Ham- murabi-nukhush-nishi which bringeth copious water to the lands of Sumer and Akkad. Its banks on both sides I turned Into glebe, I heaped up piles of grain, (and) I provided unfailing water for the lands of Sumer and Akkad/ (One may see great piles of grain to this day on the banks of a canal, covered over with reed mats for protection.) 'The scattered people of Sumer and Akkad,* so he goes on, * I gathered, with pasturage and watering I provided them; I pastured them with plenty and abundance, (and) settled them in peaceful dwellings*' He then built a wall or fortress at its head, calling it after his father 'Dur-Sin-muballit-the-father-who- begat-me/
In the next year (2090) he restored the great temple of E-tur- kalama in honour of Anu, Innana and Naraa. He has left an inscription of his building of the shrine of Ninni of Khallab, *the lady whose splendour covereth heaven and earth/ because she entrusted him with the sway of his empire. Indeed, he wrought many pious works for the temples during his later years, restoring E-iri£te*ursag of Zamama and Innina at Kish in 2088 and E-meslam of Nergal at Cuthah in 2084. There were only two
490 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
military exploits during the later years of his reign. The first appears to have been a foray to the north against Turukku, Kakmu and Sube in 2087. This incursion, which was ma^de partly against Kakmu, appears to have been undertaken to punish an unprovoked attack. It shows that Assyria was then subservient to « Babylonia.
At the time when we left it (c. 2225), Assyria was still dependent on Babylon (p. 470). Its king, Ilu-shuma, was followed by his son Irishum, who has bequeathed to us actual relics of himself in the form of three inscriptions in which he calls himself patesi of Ashir, He was the first builder of the temple of Enlil, E-am- kurkura, and perhaps also of the temple of Adad in Ashur, where he also renewed the old shrine E-kharsag-kurkura. His successor (as King long ago suggested) was Ikunum, who built a temple to Ereshkigal in Ashur and restored the city wall. He was followed by Sharru-kin I, who renewed the Ishtar-temple of Ilu-shuma, and by this time (c. 2200), as we have already seen, the presence of Semitic Assyrians as far -afield as Cappadocia is certain. Then coine Puxur-Ashir II and Rim-Sin, the latter probably Rim-Sin of Larsa, and if this is true, Assyria was still (or again) under the rule of Babylonian kings. It may even be the case that the expansion towards Cappadocia was due to this pressure, for this dependence appears to have continued under Shamshi- Adad, a contemporary of Hammurabi, whose name is mentioned with Shamshi-Adad on a tablet of Hammurabi's tenth year. Here it should be added that the father of one Shamshi-Adad is given as Enlil-kabi, who was at one time identified with Be~el~~ ta-bi on a contract of the first year of Sin-muballit, but this has been given up. If we may trust Esarhaddon, it was his 'ancestor,' Enlil-ibni (Enlil-bani), the son of Adasi, who has now been found in the lists, who was 'the founder of the Assyrian kingdom* (c. 2050), On the other hand, Adad-nirari IV refers his pedigree to Enlil-kapkapi, 'the king of former times, my predecessor, the forerunner of the rule of Sulili* (= Sumu-la-ilu).
Returning to Hammurabi's attacks in the north, we may note that the first of the places named, Turukku, is also mentioned by the Assyrian king Adad-nirari I (c. 1330), who calls himself the conqueror of the lands of Turuki and Nigimti, to their entire extent, with all (their) rulers, mountains and highlands; and he goes on to say that he overcame the Kuti, Akhlame and Suti. Turuki thus tallies roughly with our idea of the country in which Hammurabi's small war was fought. Kakmu occurs in an Inscrip- tion of Sargon of Assyria (722-705 B.C.) in a passage following
XIII, m] THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NORTH 491
his exploits in Ararat: *(I) who changed the sites of the cities of Papa, Lalukni, Sukkia, Bala, Abitikna, which had plotted against the land^of Kakmu/ *
By the good fortune which sometimes falls to the student., , a letter probably telling the origin of a similar expedition is extant. It is a despatch from Marduk-nasir to Ili-awelim~rabi, the writer being at one time, as we know from the letters of Abeshu*, a high official, probably the governor, of Sippar. *To Ili-awelim-rabi speak, thus Marduk-nasir : Marduk-nishu hath spoken to me thus: thus he (speaketh): "(Some) men of Kakmu and Arrabkhu have attacked the houses of the gardeners under my hand: when these men had attacked their houses, they (the gardeners) brought away their goods and are (now) dwelling in Babylon/' Nowdo I send you my letter. Drive out the men of Kakmu and Arrabkhu from the houses of these gardeners/ Arrabkhu (Arrapachitis) lies to the east or north-east of Assyria, and this fact settles the position of Kakmu. It is clear that some unfortunate husbandmen had been raided by Kurds, or their ancient equivalent, and, failing to defend themselves, had brought away such portable property as they might, and had taken the long journey to Babylon, which would ordinarily take about a fortnight, by kelek (skin-raft) and road. Doubtless the local ruler in the Assyrian capital was useless, or declined to listen to them, so that they elected to prefer their complaint to the king of Babylon direct. Evidently their cause was heard and the prestige of Babylon was maintained even in such a remote district; the force employed was obviously a local one, as Ili- awelim-rabi is told to carry out the business himself without the expectation of aid from the south.
What is very possibly a monument of Hammurabi's campaign has already been described (p. 439). It must be remembered that Hammurabi was in firm occupation of Assyria at this time, and he would have little difficulty in obtaining a base here for an expedition to the north, where he might assemble a force and collect his supplies and animals. Assyria was occupied by picked Babylonian troops, as is clear from one of his letters to Sin- idinnam, governor of Larsa: 'Two hundred and forty men of the Royal Guard under Nannar-iddina of the force at thy disposal, who have left the land of Ashur and Shitullum ... let them set out and let their force take up billets with the troops of Ibni- Martu. These troops shall not delay: send them speedily that the/ xrfty complete the march.' Hammurabi, in the prologue to his Code, shows also by his beneficence to E-mishrnish, the
492 ISIN, LARSA AND BABYLON [CHAP.
temple of Ishtar of Nineveh, how closely bound Babylonia was to Assyria.
THb year after this raid into the north of Assyria > (2 08 6), Ashnunnak on the east of Babylonia suffered from a heavy flood. Such is not infrequently the case to-day, east of the present Tigris; there are large lakes between the river and the mountains, which are liable to rise with an increase of winter rain or melting snow. That his expedition to the north was concerned in this is hardly likely; he might have been able to divert some of the Tigris waters, as Abeshu* tried to do some years later, but if he did, he would probably have boasted of it. The explanation most likely is the ordinary one : that the Tigris of this period was not large enough to carry off the spring floods, and that the freshets over- flowed. The eastern flank of Babylonia was thus for a time secure and Hammurabi in the next year conquered the whole of the hostile lands *up to Subartu/
During the last four years of his reign he dug another canal, Tishit-Enlil, the canal of Sippar, and built the wall of Rapikum (near Erech and Larsa), which he thus definitely included in his empire. On the Tigris bank he built Kar-Shamash, * whereof the summit he made high like a mountain5; and, still dissatisfied with Sippar, he again increased its wall, and wrote its story in both Sumerian and Semitic: 'The top of the wall of Sippar/ says he, *I raised with earth like to a great mountain (and) set it about with a swamp : I digged the Euphrates unto Sippar and set up a wall of safety for it**
Such were his activities as a soldier and pious ruler. Great though his deeds may have been as they are set out above, they pale before his wonderful creation, the Code of Laws, one of the most important documents in the history of the human race. That he was not the inventor of these laws, numbering some two hundred and eighty-five, is now well known, for Sumerian originals exist (see pp. 435 sq*y 461); but it was his genius which codified them and published them abroad in his empire. Even down to the seventh century B,C, it was studied apparently under the name of "The Judgments of Righteousness which Hammurabi, the great King, set up/ This was the Code wherewith the land was governed, and it shows the laws of Babylonia of this period to have been in advance of those of Assyria at a much later time.
The Code, as we have it, consists of a block of black diorite found in the French excavations at Susa by De Morgan in 1901. It had been carried off from Babylonia by some Elamfee Con- queror in a raid, and he has erasecLgye of its columns, doubtless
XIII, in] HAMMURABI'S EMPIRE 493
with the Intention of inscribing his own name there. On the obverse is a picture of Hammurabi receiving the laws from the Sun-god,; and a prologue sets forth the king's exploits, a!nd is followed by the laws themselves with the penalties attaching * thereto (see below, pp. 516—521).
Great was his pride in his empire, as shown in the summary of his life in the prologue. Even a district of Cappadocia was partly populated by Assyrian emigrants, and Assyria was so far under his control that its ruler was a mere patesi or local governor; and even fifty years later outraged inhabitants would journey from Arrapachitis to Babylon, presumably in order to lay their plaint before the king himself. Indeed, it was no new conquest of the north from Babylon, for, already, Naram-Sin appears to have set up a stele near the modern Diarbekr (p. 417). Hammurabi was actively a benefactor of the temples and cities of Babylon, Borsippa, Kish, Cuthah, Sippar, Dilbat, Nippur and Duranki, Lagash, Adab, Larsa, Erech, Khallab, Isin, Ur, Eridu, Kesh and Mashgan-shabra, and even Nineveh. He carried his arms west- wards far up into the Euphrates districts of Man, where the people worshipped Dagan; and in one of the inscriptions of his period he is called 'King of Amurru/ the west land. That his occupation of the Euphrates was no mere invention is suggested by the 'marriage-lines' of two wedded folk in that district which still exist in the form of a clay-tablet dated in the year 'when Khammurapikh, the king, opened the canal Khabur4bal~bugash from the city Zakku-Isharlim to the city Zakku-Igitlim.' The mention of the name Khabur shows the provenance of the tablet: it is one from the Khabur district on the middle Euphrates, with -a local dating of its own. The final word bugashy the distinctive Kassite word for 'god/ in the name of the Canal is curious, and for this reason there is a doubt about the date of this tablet; It may be remembered that a tablet dated in the reign of Kashtiliash, probably the Kassite king of 1 708—1687, is extant (see p. 467),
We know the name of one daughter of Hammurabi, Ilu- matisha, who appears as 'the daughter of the King' on a tablet of his thirty-seventh year, which is sufficient evidence that it is he who is her father.
With the last five kings of the dynasty new movements were afoot: the Hnd Dynasty of Babylon, or, as it is now called, the 1st Dynasty of the Sea-Country, rose, and the Kassites made their first foray against Babylonia, which was to lead to their final conquest (Chap, xv).
B
CHAPTER XIV THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI
L THE COUNTRY
ETWEEN the Persian Gulf and Baghdad the two great
rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, water what once was
ancient Babylonia. The physical characteristics have been de- scribed above (Chap, x, pp. 356 jjy.). The general features of the country in the second millennium B.C. were the same as they are to-day; a few of the wild beasts have died out, and with British occupation came the railways and the aeroplane — but, after all, these last are but easy potentialities of the Jinn with their magic carpets, and are hardly worth an Arab's curiosity.
Four thousand years ago a traveller frora the Persian Gulf working his way up the river valleys from the sea to Assyria trusted to the vaguest ideas of geography* His guide would have told him that the sea of which the Persian Gulf formed part was a broad circular canal of which the bed continued round behind the Persian mountains and the Caucasus, "where the sun is not seen/ enclosing all Babylonia and Assyria. Such at any rate is the impression gained from the ancient clay map which some geo- grapher has left us; it may be that hazy traditions of the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, and Red Sea had been woven together and are thus preserved in an ingenious theory that these were all connected with each other forming a belt of ! water about the land. Certainly two-thirds of this theory is correct; it is the explanation of that part of the country only, between the Black Sea and the Caspian, and thence southwards through Persia, which is at fault. His information of the lands which lie about Babylonia and Assyria would have been far more accurate, for merchants and soldiers had pushed far afield, and their knowledge could be supplemented locally. Distances would be reckoned in time by double hours and not by mileage, and in the settled districts travelling from town to town would be com- paratively easy; among the unsettled tribes where control was uncertain, doubtless it would be necessary to attach a man from the clan not only as a guide but as a protection, the usual* way of traversing such places*
CHAP. XIV, i] COMMUNICATIONS IN BABYLONIA 495
A letter of Hammurabi to Sin-idinnam in Larsa, demanding a statement of accounts from the overseers of temple-cattle (especially the shepherd of the flocks of the great temple of Shamash), shows the rate of speed which was expected. 'Thou ^shalt despatch them unto Babylon that they may render their accounts. See' that they travel by night and by day, and reach Babylon within two days/ The distance is more than a hundred miles as the crow flies; and it is considerably more by water, which is the way they would probably travel if they were to journey night and day: their boat would be towed, poled and probably helped by sails, but it would be good going to do even a hundred miles upstream in two days and a night, and they would probably have taken another night on the way in addition. That it was safe for a boy with valuables to travel in the neighbourhood of Kish to Dilbat in the period of Ammi-zaduga, is clear from a dated letter. There is, however, nothing unusual in this, as none would be likely to stop a boy of the people on the road unless war were raging. 'Either send a goat (?) for an offering, or the money. I did not see you in Kish* Do not send (back) the boy empty-handed. (Seal) Ibni-Marduk, the scribe, servant of Nabu. Month Elul, gth day, the year when Ammi-zaduga the King, (built) Dur-Ammi-zaduga/
The traveller, after his galley had reached the head of the Persian Gulf, would leave the salt sea and cross the enormous shallow khors^ or swampy lakes, often of bitter water, and still subject far inland to the tides, where a man must dig a hole at the edge to find sweet water for drinking. If he were fortunate, his sea-going vessel would find a channel deep enough to carry her pver these lagoons to the joint mouth of the Gharraf and Euphrates near where stands the modern Nasriyeh, doubtless the neighbour of the ancient Dur-Ammi-zaduga* Thence the usual mode of trans- port was by boat and barge on rivers or canals. Marduk-nasir, the successor and probably the son of Sin-idinnam, an official of Sippar in the time of Abeshu', sent word to Nabi-Shamash to forward certain goods which had been left behind in Kar-Shamash, the city on the Tigris, girt with the high wall, founded by Hammurabi: 'put them in a boat and .let them come to me in Sippar/ One Sani writes to his two friends Dan-ilu and Inbi-Sin: * About the boat of which ye spake: a boat is going to my lord(s), I send you a letter; return me answer to my letter; let the boat return to its owner at your convenience/
Balrg&s were reckoned by their burthen or carrying capacity in £W-measures : the syllabaries show that the size ranged from five,
496 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
ten, fifteen or twenty ^gw up to sixty gur* According to a letter of Hammurabi, a ship of seventy-five gur burthen would carry ninety men ('from round about Ur'), who would amount to six tons dead weight, demanding seating space for at lea'st ninety square yards or, say, a ship of 45 feet length with 18 feet beam,^ without reckoning space for crew, tackle and "food. The present writer noticed a bumy or seagoing vessel at Basrah, with a length over all of 50 feet, and 18 feet beam, with a freeboard when unloaded of five feet, which must have been just such another, save that the ship of seventy-five gur was probably a mahailah for river work only, and would be shallower with less freeboard. It takes from three to six men looped to the towing rope, to drag a mahailah of this size upstream. To-day the water transport is curiously varied. Down the Euphrates from Birejik to Felujah they use a flat-bottomed boat called shakhtur^ and below Felujah ply the rough boats made at Hit, while on the lowest reaches the sailing barge or wherry known as the mahailah is found. On the Tigris, from Diarbekr to Baghdad, the descent is made on skin rafts, which rarely go below the latter city; at Baghdad begins the 'kuffah* (gufak\ or coracle, which will be found almost as low as Filaifilah; and below, between Filaifilah and Basrah, the people use the little skiff-like helium.
The great southern lake, now known as the Khor Hammar between the sea and the river mouths, is girt with flat land" fringed with high reed beds: little islands rise sporadically out of the water, barely lifting their heads above the high tide, and when they do, support the reed huts and families of a few marsh* dwellers of a low type, who, as jesting stories say, are almost web-footed. Perhaps even in these days the great city of Eridu lay on the fringe of this lake — 'sea' the Babylonians always called- it — and the mariner's galley might tie up near the Quay of the New Moon, like some more modern Adapa, the hero of Eridu of the Babylonian saga, who broke the wings of the south wind in revenge for the squall which upset his scow as he was fishing (p. 401). The shoreland is marked by low level banks of dull sepia, fringed always with reeds, withered to dull brown in the winter, save where some plantation of palm trees near a town along a canal marks civilization. Round about this lake lies the sea-land where in the next few hundred years a dynasty is to arise, replacing the less vigorous dregs of the first.
In prehistoric times there had been great settlements to south and west of these lakes by the same people who had <»cc*apied Elam after their migration thither from the east* Here on the
XIV, 1] SHIPS AND HOUSES 497
Euphrates flats they had made their dwelling, built the founda- tions of many cities — Ur, Eridu, the modern Tell el-Lahm and others — ^ploughed the fields with hoes of chipped stone, reaped their crops with sickles of baked clay, and rubbed the corn with - stone mullers; shot birds with stone arrow-heads and clay sling- bolts, caught fish with nets, and even with reed traps where the tide helped them, and ate the freshwater mussels; learnt to rub dow& obsidian into delicate pins, burnt clay pots in the fire, painted them in a hundred ingenious designs, and built their houses of unburnt bricks and reeds. Then as the Sumerians invaded the land from the north, these settlers died out or were absorbed in the conquering race: Ur, Eridu and the rest had become Sumerian cities by the third millennium B.C., and at the time of which we speak, about 2 zoo B.C., the Semite in his turn was ousting the Sumerian.
The invention of burnt bricks had long made a difference in the appearance of the cities, and the Sumerians, with a remi* niscence perhaps of their mountains in the east, had added lofty pyramid-like towers to the temples, which now stood up promi- nently as landmarks across the dead levels. Brick buildings were, however, only for the temples and palaces, the houses of the richer folk and officials; the poorer people used the reeds, as they still do, for houses and boats. In the earlier times about 3000 B.C., when red burnt bricks were coming into fashion, the Sumerians moulded them flat on one side and convex on the other, with a thumb impression lengthwise to grip the bitumen which they used for mortar (and even these may not be the earliest type); by the middle of the third millennium these had gone out of use, and flat bricks took their place. But as fuel was scarce these must have -been expensive to bake, and it is for this reason probably that foundations and city walls were made of adobe. The reed huts and boats of the poor folk go back to the most distant period of all : to this day they are to be seen on the Tigris^ as far up as the reed beds themselves extend, beyond Kut el-Amara, but not much farther. Such a hut did Uta-Napishtim, the Babylonian Noah, occupy, when his patron Enki, the god of wisdom, being privy to the intention of the gods to drown mankind in a flood, came to warn him. But "as he drew nigh to the village the god felt qualms about divulging the secrets of heaven to a mortal, and so, not daring to tell his friend directly, came to the reed hut in which he knew Uta-Napishtim was dwelling, and revealed the project "to the wall and not the man: * Reed-hut, Reed-hut, Wall, Wall, O Reed-hut hear, O Wall understand/ and by such C.A.H.I 32
498 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
casuistry was the Babylonian Noah saved. To-day these huts are built on a framework like a tunnel made of a succession of long arched bundles of reeds. The bundles of reeds are tightly bound into sheaves, as thick as a man's leg or thicker, prolonged to unlimited length by lapping the ends of one bundle firmly within the end of another. These great fasces are then set on one end in the earth, arched over, and the other end is then also buried; the walls are formed by similar bundles bound cross-wise horizontally to this framework, and over the upper part as a roof are spread mats of split reeds. Or the hut may be made more simply with upright reeds for the walls, and a screen of palm branches to mask the doorway.
Rafts are made of great thick cylinders of reed bundles in tiers, the whole float bearing at least three people; the present writer has seen one on the Tigris towed downstream carrying a man, two women, a child and a calf, and herein is to be sought the explanation of the directions to Uta-Napishtim, when the Flood is threatened, that he is to pull down his house and build a boat. There are few materials In a mud-brick hut wherefrom a boat may be built, but it is altogether another matter in the case of a good reed-hut, for the whole material can be turned into a raft, which thus must have been the original Noah's Ark. The marsh- Arab of to-day is quite accustomed to pull down his cabin and transfer it (by boat, be it said) to another place. • Skiffs are made of three bundles lashed together, tapering towards the prow, and more than a man's height long, and even floats to sustain a man swimming are made of reed bundles, where in the more northern districts an inflated skin would be used. In the fields you may see little watchers' platforms made on four reed columns, as high as a man, raised far enough above the flat to see an hour or two's journey away. In the distance are visible moving objects like a T, the top cross-piece sloping backwards: these are the women bringing in sheaves of reeds or fueL
Such were the boats our traveller would have met on his journey across the lakes. Here at Eridu or Ur he must leave his sea-going vessel and go up one of the ancient arms of the Euphrates (the modern Shatt el-Kar for choice), or the Tigris, perhaps by the present Gharraf channel, in a shallower boat. If it was the same as a modern mahailahy the large sailing barge, a favouring wind would help him upstream, but more probably his men must tow him: thus did Hammurabi order the statues of the goddesses of Emutbal to be brought to Babylon,'* hauled upstream by *men to pull the ropes* (sab? ska did asMm). Other-
XIV, i] BOATS, DATE-PALMS 499
wise, if he travel by land it must be by ass, or more rarely, camel, for the horse did not come into use until the Kassites invaded the land. The traveller is now entering the populous districts of middle Sumer; Eridu and Ur are only the southern outliers, and , the former of these, as the marshes dried and the canals failed, ceased to be a town of importance, receiving honour only, because of the antiquity of its shrine to Enki. Ur was different; the Euphrates washed its flanks, and it rose to such importance that there was no room on the mound itself for the traders and husband- men who flocked to live in safety within its walls. Northwards for a mile beyond its two-mile perimeter they have left great traces of their dwellings, the bricks with which they built, the stones which they used to grind their corn. Its great ziggurat of burnt brick pierced the sky, frowning over the splendid temple to the moon-god for which the city was so famous: kings1 daughters were priestesses here, even down to the time of the antiquary-king Nabonidus who loved to preserve old customs. Round about the city extended the green corn-fields, and near its canals were the groves of palm-trees. Dates, corn, flocks, herds and fish were the staple commodities and it may be that in the southern districts the fish and dates held highest place, just as is shown to-day when the Arab women embroider their little purses with palm-branches and fishes.
Amid the palm-trunks grew the fruit-trees as they do to-day, A Babylonian cylinder-seal of early workmanship shows the date- pickers plucking the dates from the lower kinds of palm trees, and represents two other kinds of trees growing in the plantation. Ammianus Marcellinus, in his account of the Roman legions under Julian in the fourth century A.D., tells the same story of palms interspersed with vines and a kind of apple. Nowadays you may find growing amid the palms, grapes and figs with their fruit forming or ripening in May and offered in the markets in June, the scarlet flower of the pomegranate in late April with the fruit ripe in July, and mulberries ripe in April. Of other fruits in southern Babylonia the melon stands easily first, and is in the markets in June and continues until the end of October. Apples are frequently to be found in the bazaar (both in January and June), walnuts and lemons in January. Oranges are poor at Basrah, but rival the melon at Baghdad in early summer, and orchards of apricots drop their yellow fruit in May to the north of Baghdad; vegetables are unlimited; the purple bedinjan or egg- plant^ d*e most satisfactory substitute for the potato, is to be had for the greater part of the year.
500 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
A cuneiform list of more than sixty different kinds of vegetables grown in the royal Babylonian gardens of Merodach-Baladan has survived. The palace-gardener grew very much the same kind of plants as the modern inhabitants of Basrah: garlic* onions, mint, beans, cardamoms, leeks, pennyroyal, lettuce, dill, saffron, coriander, hyssop, thyme of two kinds, mangold, turnip, radish, lucerne, assafoetida, cucumber and colocynth, are among the plants which can be easily identified. Of cereals ancient Babylonia possessed the following: emmer spelt (zizti), which gave its name to the month Sebat; kunashu (the KvXXyj arris of Herodctus ii, 77; Egyptian, k-l-sh-f) and bututtu^ a form of spelt in the Kassite period (Egyptian, bdi)\ corn, barley, wheat and sesame, Berosus speaks also of barley, ochrys, palms, and apples growing wild; and Pliny of wheat which, after being cut twice, still provided good fodder for sheep.
He who would travel by river had little need to fear wild beasts or robbers, save perhaps in rare cases when a bakshish might be taken by some upstart occupant of a river bank from boats going through his domain. But the wayfarer by the more desolate roads feared other terrors besides lack of food and water. Lions had abounded in the thickets in ancient times and the goddess Ishtar had reckoned one of them her lover; thus does Gilgamesh taunt her with her past amours when she proposed marriage to him ;
Thou did'st love also a lion in all the full strength of (his) vigour, Yet thou didst dig for him seven and seven pits.
Gilgamesh and Engidu together slew lions in the hey-day of their youth, but after Engidu died Gilgamesh set forth ^on his travels alone, and the dread of the lonely road presented itself vividly to the hero;
I will get hence on the road, to the presence of Uta-napishtim?
The wise, the son of Ubara-tutu, I'll speed my departure,
An't -were in darkness that I should arrive at the gates of the mountains,
And meet with lions, and terror fall on me, I'll lift my face (skyward)
To offer my prayers to the Moon-god.
Panthers, jackals and foxes were common, yet the letters and contracts tell us so little of them, that we can see how well the shepherds knew how to look after their flocks. In the hills were the ibex, on the plains gazelles and wild asses, and in the thickets, wild boar; the wild ox is already rare.
Of domestic animals the ass was the chief beast of burden, probably a descendant of the wild ass, the same species which roamed the plains even in Xenophon's time. In the later Baby- lonian empire, after Assyria had fallen, it was still customary for
XIV, ij ANIMALS AND BIRDS 501
men to ride donkeys. cNow/ says a writer of this date, 'since I am coming without an ass, give the ass to Samas-etir that it may carry him, an4 the deposits be brought.' The horse did not come into common use until it was introduced by the Kassites (see p. 311), * Its Sumerian name, 'the ass from the east/ shows whence it came, and that the Sumerians knew of it; although actually the earliest reference to it is on a tablet of Hammurabi's period. The camel also^was a beast which was introduced fairly late, as its name * the ass from the sea-lands/ implies; and as the Babylonian-Semitic name for it is gammalu^ it probably came in with the Suti-bedouins via Erech. It is not often mentioned in contracts or letters, and the probability is that the Arabs kept their own carrying-trade in the desert as a monopoly, rarely showing their beasts in the towns, and that camel-caravans (such as ply to-day between Baghdad and Mosul), either were not common, or were distinct from the ordinary methods of travel used by the Babylonians, That camels were not led into the cities is not unusual, as their drivers prefer to park them outside. The other domestic animals were the black buffalo, the ox, the black goat, and both brown and white sheep. The present writer also found the skeleton of Bos celticus (identified by Mr W. P. Pycraft, F.Z.S.) at the base of the ziggurat at Eridu, some fifteen to nineteen feet below the surface, where it had evidently been buried as a sacrifice about Bur-Sin *s time (c. 2400 B.C.). Of smaller domestic animals the temples contained dogs which were specially fed, and there were, of course, the ordinary fowls of the farmyard. As for the larger kinds of birds, the shells of ostrich eggs have been found at Babylon and Bahrein; the bustard is still to be seen, and there are birds of prey, innumer- able waterfowl and wading-birds, sandgrouse, partridges, bee- eaters and so on.
If our traveller had gone up the Gharraf there is little doubt that he would have seen exactly the same kind of country as lies about the present bed of the Tigris, He might, as to-day, meet with gulls in Baghdad, even in Mosul in the winter, and terns, as high up the Euphrates as Carchemish, in spring. As one ascends the Shatt el-Arab and the Tigris, the low river-banks become higher and steeper; the river itself, six hundred yards wide at Basrah, narrows sometimes to seventy, but is usually from one to two hundred yards. From Basrah up to Kurnah the bank is fringed with palm-groves, willows and reeds: sometimes an island, as at Gurmat Ali, offers good pasture, but behind the leafy- barrier *bf the margin lies the flat desert, stretching as far as eye can see> desolate and flat* The fields sown with maize, which is/
502 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
ten feet high In November, are sometimes marked with walls three feet high; green grass, visible in November, extends in a belt two hundred yards in depth along the banks, if cultivation has not destroyed it; beyond this is flat desert, relieved only by a rare and low mound, or reed village. On the mud selvage are the. reed fish traps, as far up as the tide affects the stream. Above Kurnah the palm-groves cease for a space, and nought is to be seen save level desert with grass now green, now brown.
The reed villages are built on the river-edge, and with them are occasional tents of black hair. On the mat roofs of the Iruts dry the cakes of cow-dung fiiel; the cattle and sheep graze in the stubble fields, hens and dogs pick up what livelihood they can in the village itself. The Arab women wear bright colours, red or even green, often with rings in their right nostrils, more rarely in the left, and with silver bangles on their arms. Boys either wear their hair close-cropped (probably shaven), but sometimes they let it fall in two long plaits, or leave it until they are shock- headed, when the shaving process begins again. Sometimes one passes a mud fort built rectangular with towers fourteen feet high at the corners. Towards Amarah, the first large town above Basrah, the gardens are irrigated with the chird or waterwheel turned by a horse, and are girt about with mud walls, protected against thieves by a layer of camel-thorn laid on top. These chirds are found as far up the Tigris as Mosul, and on the lower Euphrates; but on the middle Euphrates with its high sheer banks they disappear, their places being taken by a great water- wheel which turns by the current, lifting the water from the stream by a succession of little pots tied to its circumference which empty themselves into a trough as they reach the top. Skin waterlifts pulled by an animal going up and down a ramp are to be found near Basrah and Baghdad; the shadufy or swipe, exists at Basrah also, just as it is shown on an Assyrian bas-relief.
In the neighbourhood of Amarah the Persian mountains of the frontier first come into view in the east, perhaps the most striking sight in the whole of Mesopotamia, calling to mind the cuneiform sign which means both * mountain' and *the east.' They are of limestone, towering in great mass, and form a tremendous barrier against the dwellers in the plain. Snow descends upon them in December, when their summits are crowned with a white mantle. Above Samarra the country begins to undulate, and the river is less navigable. One now comes to Assyria proper with its cities, Ashur, Kalakh and Nineveh all abutting on the river. The* date •palm ceases to flourish naturally about Tuz Khurmati, although
XIV, n] BABYLON 503
stray palms grow even as high as Mosul. The hills of Jebd Hamrin break the levels to the south of Ashur, and above these round IV^osul He the red undulating ploughlands, like the English west country. Above Mosul the mountains begin.
Up the Euphrates the same law of latitude for the date palm holds good, for it flourishes as high as Anah, but no higher. Here in old times were the red-brown lands of Mari and Sukhi, rourid the Khabur mouth, and here, long after our period, Shamash-rish-u§ur planted palm groves and boasted of his intro- duction of the bee. Round about Carchemish, a little higher, where each year spring two crops, wheat and licorice, lay the southern confines of the Hittite lands, settled by immigrants from Anatolia, leaving their magnificent mountains for the dusty limestone foothills of Jerabls. The Amanus mountains, which provided wood for boats then, just as they do now, and the Cilician limestone ranges clad with flowers of all hues in June, mark roughly the barrier between Hittite and Semite, These are the lands our traveller would see.
II. BABYLON
Babylon, the Gate of God, or, as a text from Ashur describes it, 'a date of Dilmun, whereof the fruit alone is sweet,* became the capital of this land under Semitic rule. We know far more of its appearance when Nebuchadrezzar was on the throne than at this early period, and we must skip fifteen hundred years or so, and look at it as it was in the sixth century B.C. The foundations of the great buildings go back into the distance of ages; the temples and palaces visible now are more modern. The earliest accessible times are those of the first Babylonian kings, but there is evidence of prehistoric occupation from the neolithic imple- ments. Cf. p. 407 sq+
As the traveller drew nearer the great city he was guided by the immense tower of E~temen-ana-ki, 'the Foundation Stone of heaven and earth, ' its eight stages, if we may believe Herodotus, showing clear in the sunlight. Round this * brazen-doored sanc- tuary of Zeus Belus/ as the Greek called Bel-Marduk, arose a myth of a presumptuous people who would build their tower to touch the sky, and of Yahweh who came down to see the city and the tower, and confounded their speech and scattered them abroad lest they should succeed in their object. * Therefore is the name bf it called Babel/ says the Hebrew writer, * because Yahweh did there confound the language of all the earth/ So are
504 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
Scale of Yards.
250 500 760 1000
\] .
ENAHK1 F BABEL)" O *-i
(TEMPLE OF MAJJBTJKJ
BABYLON its ancient buildings in 1020.
XIV, n] NEBUCHADREZZAR'S BUILDINGS 505
myths built up; for Babel means 'Gate of God' and lias nothing to do with the Hebrew word fralal 'to confound/ Yet, not to mention^ the psychological interest of the story (see p. 225}, it is noteworthy that an echo of part of the legend appears in the very - cuneiform legends themselves : it was Marduk who commanded Nabopolassar 'to lay the foundation (of the Tower of Babylon) . . . firm on the bosom of the Underworld, while its top should stre'cth heavenwards/
The great towered encircling walls of Babylon rise sheer from the plain, in their outer bastion 3-3 metres thick, fronted by a deep fosse; behind this bastion lies a wall of burnt brick, 7-8 metres thick, and at an interval of about twelve metres another wall of crudf brick, 7 metres thick. The space between the two walls is filled with rubble so that a road leads along the top of the walls broad enougk for a four-horse chariot, as also do the classical travellers aver. To the north-east the frontage is 4*4 kilometres long, and not quite half that length on the south-eastern side. The circuit of the city was about eighteen kilometres; Herodotus says eighty-six and Ctesias sixty-five, but the German excavator Koldewey thinks they may have mistaken the full circumference for one side.
The great king Nebuchadrezzar, fearing attack from the eastern side where the Euphrates does not shield the wall, had set himself to secure the city: 'That no assault should reach Imgur-Bel, the wall of Babylon, I did what no earlier king had done; for 4000 ells of land on the side of Babylon, so far removed that [no assault] should penetrate, I caused a massive wall to be built on the eastern side of Babylon/ He dug its moat, built a scarp with bitumen and bricks, and made a wall as high as a mountain, made gates of cedar and copper, surrounded it with deep lagoons, piled high an embankment of earth, and made quay-walls of burnt brick. Within this encircling wall lay three main groups of stately buildings. Far to the north is what to-day is called Babil; between Babil and the ziggurat is the Kasr; and just at the southern foot of the ziggurat is the mound of Amran* All round about these palaces on the flat were the flat-roofed, yellow houses snuggled close in streets, especially in the modern Merkes, and to the north-east of the ziggurat, where some richer house was set, a few stray palms or fruit trees rose. As a broad ribbon on the west, with a heavy fringe of palms, flowed the Euphrates, at this period washing the flanks of the Kasr; beyond this Vele the fields of wheat, and palm groves marking a water- course, until the eye met brown desert or some far city with its
506 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
holy pinnacle striking the heavens, like Kish due east, or even Cuthah, visible at a clear time of day, or the zlggurat of Nabu of E-zida at Borsippa, nine miles to the south-west. ^
The clustered buildings of Babil to the north are, as they stand now, 22 metres above the plain, and cover an area of 250 metres. Arab brick-robbers, rummaging at random in this later age, scattering the noble buildings of Nebuchadrezzar who has stamped the bricks with his name, have destroyed what must have i>een his palace, which he seems to have named * May-Nebuchadrezzar- live-may-he-grow-old-as-the-restorer-of-E-sagila/ Little is known of it from excavation. It is the Kasr, the main imposing palace- mound, between it and Amran, which affords our greatest know- ledge of Babylon palaces of this period. The Kasr, six hundred yards to the north of the ziggurat, in the sixth century bore the great architectural triumphs of Nebuchadrezzar, who completed the works of his father, Nabopolassar. Later on the Greeks called it the Acropolis, the Romans the Arx or citadel; to-day the work which has been laid bare and stands in massive yellow walls is almost all by Nebuchadrezzar.
As one ascends the Kasr from the north-east corner, one meets • * •>
the broad road which leads to the magnificent Gates of Ishtar. It was made by Nebuchadrezzar almost like a sacred way, over which his god Marduk might pass to the temple of E-sagila, south of the ziggurat. Beneath, it was laid on firm foundations of bricks covered with asphalt, and then a surface made of a flagged pavement of limestone and red breccia. Time was when this pro- cessional road was flanked by high protecting walls which guarded the approach to the Gate of Ishtar, between long avenues of lions on the walls picked out in low relief with brilliant enamelling; lions to left and right, a hundred and twenty snarling monsters to frighten away all evil from the city. The bricks are burnt bricks, mortared with asphalt and mud, or asphalt and reed straw. Only in his latest buildings did Nebuchadrezzar use lime for mortar; Nabonidus, still later, used asphalt, following the ancient mode, and the Persians, Greeks and Parthians used merely mud. The great Gates of Ishtar confront the traveller, beetling high above him, when he passes the last lion. This is a double gateway of massive burnt brick, two doorways set close together, formed into one block by short connecting walls, the one behind the other, even now twelve metres high and covered with nine rows of alternate dragons and bulls in relief on the bricks. Once through these monstrous portals, the traveller stands on a high op£n Space before the eastern front of the southern citadel of the mound,
XIV, n] THE CITADELS AND HOUSES 507
which now lies to the right hand. On the left hand is E-makh, the temple of the goddess Ninmakh, the great lady, of mud bricks cover ecUwith. white plaster, so that to all appearances it was like white marble in the sun. Like other buildings in the east, it con- sists of chambers round a rectangular court which lies open to the sky: in front of the entrance is perhaps what was a small altar of mud bricks.
On the right is the southern citadel, a far more splendid build- ing. Originally a palace of Nabopolassar, it had been preserved by* Nebuchadrezzar as his dwelling-place while the eastern part was being built, and it contains no less than four great courtyards, round which were scores of chambers. Its wall, high and studded with towers? abutted on the procession-way; its principal court was splendidly adorned with enamelled tiles.
On the western side of this southern citadel ran the historic wall of Imgur-Bel, running along the edge. It had been built by Nabopolassar, and Nebuchadrezzar describes his own additions: * After Nabopolassar, my father, my begetter, made Imgur-Bel the great wall of Babylon, I, the fervent suppliant, worshipper of the lord of lords, dug its fosses and raised its banks of asphalt and baked bricks mountains high. O Mardiik, great lord, behold the costly work of my hands with satisfaction, may'st thou be my helper, my support; grant (me) the gift of long life/
The centre of the mound holds the principal citadel, due to a second scheme of Nebuchadrezzar, Here was another of his palaces, built with bright yellow bricks, cemented with fine white lime mortar, and here and there a layer of matting or reeds. On the walls were large reliefs of a beautiful blue paste; the flooring was made of paving stones of white and mottled sandstone, and in the courts limestone and black basalt. At the entrance stood gigantic basalt lions; here, td^was found the large basalt group of the lion trampling on a prostrate man — perhaps of allegorical significance.
Leaving the central mound, the way south-eastwards leads to the populous quarter now known as Merkes, where the burghers of Babylon had their homes. The upper remains to-day show Parthian houses, thin walls of mud brick or brick rubble; below these lie the houses of the citizens of the glorious period of Nebuchadrezzar, the houses closely crowded in? but with never a window looking on the street, the narrow streets like any eastern town to-day, their walls stoutly built of mud and brick, good bricK tFieir flooring, and the water-supply obtained from numerous circular wells. Earlier, in the late Kassite period (1400—1300 B.C.),
508 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
the city was less thickly populated, for, though the walls are as stoutly built, the houses stand at wider intervals. Still earlier, unde/ Hammurabi, the walls are of mud-brick on a foundation of burnt brick. A little to the north of Merkes lay a small temple to Ishtar*
The splendid ziggurat, E-temen-ana-ki, the Tower of Babel, lies in an almost square enclosure, the east side being 409 metres long. Most of the buildings are of crude brick; round the tower are the mansions of the priests, girt about with walls whereof the even lines are broken with high gates and a thousand towers. Here w£re the treasuries with immense temple-wealth, the guest chambers innumerable for strangers visiting the shrine, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian kings, anxious to record their names in distant Babylon, like any traveller of any age who can write, restored part of the great fane.
To the south of the Tower, 2, 1 metres below the surface of what is now the mound of Amran,lay the great temple of Marduk, E-sagila. The name is not mentioned in the oldest inscriptions of the south, but when Dungi invaded Babylon he looted the temple. Later, it was rebuilt by Zabum and Agum II, the latter restoring the statue of Marduk carried off in some ancient raid. The temple was almost square, the frontage being 85 and 79 metres on the west and north sides; within is a court 37 X 31 metres, and on the west side of this was the principal shrine, that of the tutelary deity Marduk. On the north of the court lay also a little shrine to Ea, who in Greek times was identified with Serapis. The two Assyrian kings again carried on restorations here, and the temple was open until at least the Seleucid period, as may be seen from the small objects found in the excavations.
Five hundred yards to the south-east is a small rectangular temple (called *Z' by Koldewey), made of mud-brick. A short distance to its east lies E-patutila, the shrine of Ninurta, built principally by Nabopolassar*
IIL GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY
The government of the country changed greatly after the early Sumerian kings of the third millennium, as must naturally happen when the control of the land is becoming centralized. In the very early period the exact relation in meaning of the two words lugaly 'king/ and patesi, * prince-priest,* is quite uncertain: Ur-nina (c. 3100 B.C.) calls himself king of Lagash, but Eannafum (£. 3000 B.C.) takes the title patesi of Lagash. As time goes on, and
XIV, m] THE PATESI 509
we reach the period of the Dynasty of Ur about the middle of the third millennium, we can be more definite; the patesi from being the chief secular and religious ruler of a city-state »drops to a position of dependence on the overlord, who is now holding ., the reins of control of the nucleus of an empire in his hands. He has sunk to the minor position of a local governor, natural enough as the stronger states absorbed the weaker. Babylonia by now was^no longer divided into just so many states as there were mounds, but had reached the time when city-states were being amalgamated into groups, each under its own king, when Ur held the hegemony of a greater part of the lower plain between the two rivers. The patesi remained in control of his township, but it was as a minor official.
The tablets from Drehem show how numerous these patesis were in the time of the Dynasty of Ur, We know of more than forty districts or townships controlled by them; and in fact almost complete lists of patesis can be made from Umma, Nippur and Lagash from the thirty-fifth year of Dungi until the third of Ibi-Sin. There were many places in Elam under the local control of patesis at this period, as was only natural, since many of the kings of Ur at this time were overlords of Susa and Elam. Of Kazallu we know the names of four (Zarik, Kallarnu, Gimll- mama, Abillasha); and on a tablet from Susa we find Zarikim taking office in the presence of ten witnesses, several of whom are obviously Semites. Although the power of the patesis declines, even in the time of the Dynasty of Ur they had the right of legal decision; they were, however, compelled to pay taxes, and might be transferred from one district to another. One of their duties was to take charge of sheep sent in for the temple or for the king. They were, as a rule, appointed to the office, and did not inherit it — although there is one exception; and they found it advan- tageous to be mindful of the sacrifices to the gods. They might be absent from their posts for a time, probably while on official missions, their places being taken by temporary deputies; for instance, at Umma two are named for the fifty-seventh year of Dungi, and for the fifth year of Bur-Sin. Provisions, consisting usually of food, beer and oil, were supplied both for the journey out and back. From references to kings* daughters at this period it would appear that patesis married them; *the daughter of the king* marries the patesi of Zabshali, *the daughter of the king* marries the patesi of Anshan. Ni . . . midaku, another king's daughter, was actually elevated to the rule of the principality of Markhashi; but in the two former instances there is equally the
510 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
possibility that they became the patesis, rather than that they married them.
With the advent of the Semitic kings of the Isin and Larsa dynasties in 2357 the office of patesi was shorn of much of its splendour, and although it continued to exist, the mayor of provincial towns (called raManu} was soon to become a more powerful personality, Hammurabi was not a king with whom decentralization would be popular; he could not grant his ^sub- ordinates a full measure of power, except in minor cases. More- over., although meticulously careful of religious matters, he seems to have brooked no challenge from the priests in the matter of control, for we find the old priestly courts disappearing in his reign. Hence may have arisen the reason that the office of patesi, with its priestly reminiscences, as well as its Sumerian origin in its disfavour^ fell rapidly from power. The word patesi now represents an officer who takes his orders not directly from the king, but from some official between him and the king. Thus Hammurabi says to Sin-idinnam: 'I wrote to thee that Sin-ilu the patesi who was under Taribatum, whom thou didst assign to riduti (officers of the levy), should be restored as a patesi to the control of Taribatum/ The office is a long way from the king by now. Apparently the governor of Larsa thought he could make a patesi into a ridu or officer of the levy, but Sin-ilu must have appealed directly to Hammurabi, availing himself of a privilege as popular with the toadying underling as with the condescending monarch. Such an officer might beg the king to allow him to exchange his district: Apil-Martu, the son of Mini-Martu, a patesi who takes orders from Enubi-Mard.uk, appeals through Sin-idinnam to Hammurabi that he may serve another chief, and the king assents, providing that the new chief, by name Nabium- malik, gives a patesi to Enubi-Marduk in exchange, Elam relin- quished the patesi soon after Dungi's reign, replacing the office by that of the sukkal, an indication of Kutur-nakhkhunte's con- quest of Babylonia.
The judicial procedure in the time of the Dynasty of Ur appears to have been carried out by a mashkim (Semitic rabim}^ who is found present in all trials. Men of this class were not,
were many of them. Before them were decided all kinds of important cases, particularly of sales. Sometimes the mashkim appealed to the Galu-enim-ma^ a semi-official person wh»se*r61e is not clear. Finally, in cases which the mashkim was not capable
XIV, m] , THE COURTS 511
of deciding, professional judges were added, called Sa-Kud^ of whom there might be from two to four. The decisions of even these latter might be challenged and an appeal lodged against them.
In the period of the 1st Dynasty the administration of Babylon and some of the other large towns (such as Sippar-Amnanu) appears to have been in the hands of the skakkanakku, governor/ Indeed, the shakkanakku of Babylon became such an institution that it is usual to find later kings such as Sargon calling themselves by tthis title rather than sharruy 'king.' During the Dynasty of Ur at least a dozen towns or districts have such an officer, but the number appears to have been reduced as time went on. Most of the towns of Babylonia were under a rabianu^ 'mayor/ Both shakkanakku and rabianu could preside over courts, the one in Babylon and the other in the Inferior courts of Babylon and the provincial towns.
Justice was maintained by a series of courts with a final appeal to the king. But in Hammurabi's time we have still to make the distinction between a priestly and a civil jurisdiction. Under previous kings the priests had the right of judicial decision, and it is only during the 1st Dynasty that we find civil courts with secular judges in full power. Under Hammurabi's rule both the priestly and civil jurisdiction held good, but the ecclesiastical courts were obviously being ousted, and we can see the trans- formation at work, the civil judges replacing the priests. The alteration was perhaps due to a change in the character of the kingdom: the king does not now represent himself as a god, like Naram-Sin and Dungi, for instance, but calls himself merely 'the favourite of the gods' and their representative. The Sumerian deification of royalty, especially after death, was however continued under the 1st Dynasty, even down to the time of Ammi-zaduga.
There were at least two civil courts prepared to try cases: a, lower court, under a raManu in the provincial towns, which dis- posed of cases in which no appeal was brought, and a high court of appeal at Babylon, consisting apparently of the * king's judges/ over which the shakkanakku may have presided* Our knowledge, however, does not allow us to speak of these courts with any certainty. Beginning with the lower court, we may consider It fairly certain that the mayor (raMamt) was the magistrate charged with the maintenance of order in provincial towns. One Nan&ar- manse writes about a field with which Sin-ishmeanni, the raManu of Kfeh,*»and Gimil-Marduk, his successor to the office, had been concerned. Ibi-Sin addresses a letter to the raManum and shibuti
512 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
(elders) of Bulum. If robbery were committed within his town, it was the duty of the rabianu to arrest the malefactors; if he failed, then he and the town were liable to make good the loss of any property stolen. This is still the usual custom in the east.
The rabianu at the time of the 1st Dynasty was president of an« assembly of old men or notables, a practice which went on into the Neo-Babylonian period. These elders, whose name is synonymous with * witnesses/ may have formed the < assembly' before ^hom (so the Code of Hammurabi lays down) a man was scourged or a prevaricating judge expelled. Ibi-Sin of Ur addresses a letter to the rabianu and shibuti of Bulum, which shows that the Semites inherited the court from the Dynasty of Ur. The shibuti) who appear in the contracts as official witnesses, are doubtless the same as those mentioned in this court. The addressee of letters addressed by name 'Unto X, the Kar-Sippar, and the Judges of Sippar* by Sarnsu-iluna and Abeshu*, was probably the rabianu of the town. In a record of a trial of Hammurabi's period we find judgment given by the rabianu of Sippar, by name Isharlim, along with the Kar-Sippar. It is uncertain whether this court of Kar- Sipparj cthe wall of Sippar,* is to be kept distinct from the Judges of Sippar, on the grounds that the address quoted above always makes the distinction. We have probably also to reckon with a court of similar or equal powers in the provinces, consisting of 'the judges/ with whom the rabianu might sit.
The court of appeal at Babylon appears to have been the next in order for a dissatisfied litigant. The difficulty arises at once in defining this or other courts, as the legal decisions are rather vague In their references to *the Judges of Babylon/ We know, however, that the high governor of Babylon (shakkanakku) could preside over a court, which consisted in one case of six persons, among whom were a judge, a prefect (ska-tarn), and a mashkim (see above), a definite survival from Sumerian times. In another court the governor's council consisted of a rabianu and ten others. This, then, was the position of the high governor in law, though, whether he was regularly president of the court of appeal at Babylon we cannot be sure. For instance, in a re-trial of a case about an estate in which a priestess of the sun-god (at Sippar) was concerned, the phrasing used makes it impossible for us to determine much about the court; the case was tried before the judges of Babylon and Sippar, and, except that this clearly indicates a court of appeal, we cannot glean much of the details of it. It must of course be remembered that Babylon*hsid its ordinary district court, inferior to the court of appeal. In a case
XIV, ra] LEGAL PROCEDURE 513
which was tried at Babylon, the parties concerned, being dis- satisfied with the ordinary tribunal, consisting of four judge§ and two othe* members, appealed to the higher court, consisting of five judges of whom four had already appeared in the lower; finally, being still dissatisfied, they appealed to the king himself. This right of personal appeal was maintained to its utmost during the 1st Dynasty. It was a survival of the old personal element of Semitic nomad conditions, the summary procedure of the sheikh, and the king was active in seeing personally that justice was done.
Instances of royal interest in legal matters, appeals and re-trials, are common. The king Abeshu* writes to * Sin-idinnam, the Kar- Sippar, and the Judges of Sippar* about two men whose plaint against an elder brother had been pending for two years in the Sippar court, but they had been unable to obtain redress against him. The king directs that this elder brother should be sent to Babylon with the witnesses 4 in order that their case may be con- cluded'; he probably guessed that the real cause of the delay was that the elder brother had probably no case, and had bribed the judges. Bribery, although it can hardly have been as common as it was more recently, did, of course, occur. Hammurabi writes to Sin-idinnam about an alleged case in Dur-gurgurri* A man named Shumman-la-ilu had made a report direct to the king about a bribe; the very man who had taken it, and a witness to the act had been brought before him. The king gave orders that official cognizance should be taken of the matter : ' and if bribery (really) have taken place, set there a seal upon the money or upon that which was offered as the bribe, and cause it to be brought to me. Send also the man who took the bribe, and the witness who hath knowledge of these matters, whom Shumman-la-ilu shall point out to thee.*
The actual procedure in the courts appears to have been for the parties at law to settle on a day, and then appear in court, be it the local temple or the traditional *Gate/ where the judges first *saw the pleas/ the plaintiff pleading first and then his opponent, with the deeds relating to the case in front of them. Witnesses were sworn by the local god and the king, and any tampering with witnesses was penalized by the Code, Hammurabi himself was well aware of the worthlessness of evidence after the witnesses had discussed the case together, and in one of his letters gives explicit orders for the separate despatch of men concerned in a trial: ^but when thou shalt send them, thou shalt not send them together, but each man thou shalt send by himself/ In a criminal
C.A.H.I 33
514 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP,
case a man was given six months grace by the Code in order to produce his witnesses.
The judges then pronounced their decision. They r»ight also give orders for direct action, as in the case of the restoration of a dowry, where the judges of Babylon wrote to Mukhaddu (whcr appears to have been a seer in Samsu-ditana's time) thus: 'Con- cerning the suit of Ilushu-ibishu and Mattatum, we announce (our) judgment to them, according to the law of our lonfi (the king) : Whatever dowry there may be, which Mattatum had given her daughter and had brought into the house of Ilushu~ibi§hu, we have decided to restore to Mattatum. We will send down a constable (?) with her: let them hand over to Mattatum every- thing in good condition which they shall find there/
We do not know if judges received any remuneration, but they belonged to the highest class of officials, and if they revoked their own decisions were liable to be publicly deposed (v)1.
Records of criminal cases are rare, but one exists in which suspicion of theft has fallen on the servants of a dead man, which has already been mentioned. It appears that one Ibgatum was killed, and after his death, which was not duly notified by these servants to the son and heir, certain of his furniture was found to be missing from the house. The servants were prosecuted, but the judges of Babylon considered that there was no proof of guilt ; yet at the same time they agreed to test the defendants on oath and invited them to swear in the Gate of Nungal that first they recognized their omission in not notifying death, and secondly they had stolen nothing. For obvious reasons they declined, and a new trial took place again at Babylon which again failed. The prosecutors then addressed the king direct; one affirms before a god that his father was killed and he was not informed, but he does not venture now to accuse the defendants directly of theft, Had he done so he would have incurred a risk of a breach of the first section of the Hammurabi Code: cif a man accuses another, and has not proved him guilty, the accuser is liable to death/ Unfortunately we do not know how the case ended.
Leaving the* administrative and judicial heads and going to the active agents who controlled the state labour, we find two officials coming into prominence both in the Code and in the letters of the period, the rid saU and the btfiru* The former is the officer in charge of a levy, for whatever purposes it may be used, and the latter a kind of warrant officer. They obeyed the bidding of the
1 Numerals in brackets refer to sections of the Code of Hammurabi*
XIV, m] THE LEVY 515
king, to go on his errands when ordered; and they might not, on a maximum penalty of death, send a substitute. The natural inference from this is that cowardice would be the normal reason for shirking the duty in person. Even without this indication we "can be certain that both were liable to military service, as the Code lays down the procedure for their ransom if they were taken prisoner; if they could not afford to pay the enemy for their release, the temple of their native town must provide,, or, in the last resort, the state. This makes it clear that they received con- sidferable benefits and perquisites from the state, and owed fealty to it. Service abroad might keep them long absent from home, and a son might act in the stead of either, and in such a case was to enjoy the benefice which appears to be their right, except that a third part was deducted for the wife of the absent husband with which she might bring up the children. This benefice or feoff was in land, garden, house, sheep, cattle and a salary, directly ascribed to the king as benefactor, and normally, if the officer were at home and neglected it, he ran the risk of forfeiting it.
There is, in fact, a letter from Samsu-iluna in existence which appears to relate to the relinquishing of such a benefice. The king writes to Marduk-nasir and the administrators of the (royal) domain of Imgur-Ishtar about one Ibni-Adad, who is under the authority of Belanum, who held and subsequently relinquished an estate in Imgur-Ishtar: '[Now in place of the tenure] which he has relinquished [another has been granted to him in Dur-Sum]u~ la-il, tenure of Ibni-Adad, which [he has relinquished]. Give them to Wall, the Elamite, who is under the authority of Belanum, the Gal~M.artu. Furthermore, write afresh on a tablet the designa- tion of the field, land, and boundaries of the field which you shall give : let me have the old one, send it to me : let a sealed document be delivered to him/ Now we fortunately possess the sequel to this letter, the instructions from Marduk-nasir to Sin-gamil and Ninurta-mushalim about this estate. *A letter has arrived from my lord (the king) that this field is to be given to Wall the Elamite, who is under the atithority of Belanum, the Gal-Martu. I have sealed (it) and am sending it on to you.' The estate of Ibni-Adad is to be given to Wall. 'As for the designation of the field, land, and boundaries of the field which you shall give, let me havedts : ancient (one), and send it to me, that I may (send) it to my lord. Let a sealed document be delivered to him.* '" ~ '', '
It appears that the levy might bp called 6ut for liiilttary service, **or might even be taken locally for repairing temporary damage to the canals of their own city. In the press-gang or levy
516 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
It was no protection In Hammurabi's time for a man to be on the staff of a patesi, for twice at least did the king write to Sin-idinnam, telling him to arrest, in one case, two men, and, in another, four men who were under the control of a patesi. But the persons of the patesis themselves, although liable to taxes, were in a measure* sacrosanct as regards transference against their will to another department. The old religious side of their profession still appears as a reminiscence in one of Hammurabi's letters which mentions a priest of Aminit who is also a patesi of Anunit. •
We have little knowledge of the police-system that was in vogue in Hammurabi's time, but certain inferences may be drawn from a letter sent by Etil-pi-Marduk to Shumma-Anum : ' Idin-Ishtar, the Chief of Police (fa-khat sha sab-ma ssar-a-tim) hath thus spoken : "Etirum of the police of my house hath deserted and is (now) living in Dilbat with Shumma-Anum, the shepherd. I have sent to arrest this Etirum, but Shumma-Anum, the shepherd, hath not surrendered this Etirum to the man whom I sent to arrest him,"' We cannot say definitely whether the police were under the control of one head or whether each city had its own system, but Idin-Ishtar would hardly have arrested a deserter in "Dilbat on his own initiative if there had been a different police control in that city; the correct method in such a case would have been for him to write to the chief of the Dilbat police to arrest his man. If, however, Idin-Ishtar were supreme chief of police in Baby- lonia, he might reasonably send an officer direct to Shumma- Anum*s house to effect his purpose.
The Code of Hammurabi allows us to speak with no little accuracy of the laws of Babylonia and the penalties attached for their breach. What strikes the reader at first sight is the severity of the punishments, as being contrary to the opinions which the thousands of contracts and letters of this period naturally induce. These, the most human documents which survive, do not necessarily breathe the ferocity involved in their quotations from the ancient laws threatening the dire penalties which will overtake either party who shall break the contracts; they quote, but they do tiot compel conviction that they are always in earnest.
The fact is most probable that these ancient laws, preserved by a naturally conservative race who adopted them from their Sumerian inventors, were never repealed: the antiquated and severe penalties doubtless put into force in early times, merely represented to the 1st Dynasty the maximum penalties which the state could inflict. The Semites of Hammurabi's period were
XIV, m] CAPITAL OFFENCES 517
neither modern savages nor Europeans of a couple of centuries ago. It is true that the penalty laid down in a contract of this period ffom the middle Euphrates (doubtless not far froln the neighbourhood of Hit, the bitumen city) is that the delinquent > shall have his head smeared with hot tar; it might be as cruel as the pitch-cap once used in Ireland, but it might not be more uncomfortable than tar-and-feathering. The particular penalties inflicted by the Code, which appear to be out of all proportion to the offence, are death by fire for a temple votary who opens a be^r-shop or even enters one, death by drowning for a beer-seller for some malpractice in selling beer, and impalement for a wife who procures her husband's death. It must be doubted whether such penalties had not fallen into desuetude by the time Ham- murabi set up his Code. Besides these penalties a tablet of the period of Shagarakti-Shuriash shows that imprisonment was a form of punishment.
The Code lays down the death-penalty, in some cases specifying the method, for the following crimes (the number in brackets refers to the section) : — Rape (cxxx). Brigandage, burglary and theft in various forms (ix sqq^ xxi $q.\ in the case of a governor xxxiv); especially of goods from palace or temple, including the receiver (vi), and (in the case of a man who is too poor to pay compensation) of animals or a boat belonging to temple or palace (in this case it may be compounded by richer folk, vm). A thief stealing from a burning house was to be burnt (xxv). Stealing the son of a man (amelu> xrv). Adultery with a daughter-in-law (the man to be drowned, CLV). Incest with a mother (both to be burned, CLVII). Adultery of a married woman (cxxix) (both to be drowned, unless the husband save his wife, or the king his servant: cf. also cxxxm). A flagrantly careless and uneconomical wife (to be drowned, CXLIII). A wife causing her husband's death, in order to marry another (to be impaled or crucified, cun). A Sal-Me- priestess, or ^W»-^tf-priestess, not living in a cloister, opening a wine-shop, or even entering one (to be burnt, ex). Harbouring (or helping to escape) runaway slaves of the palace, or of a mush- kinu (xv sq.) xix). In the old Sumerian law it is laid down that if a man harbour a slave 'during a month, he shall give slave for slave, or failing that, twenty-five silver shekels/ Cowardice in the face of the enemy and neglect of duty by certain officials (xxvr, xxxiu). A builder who builds a house which falls and causes the death of the owner (ccxxix); or in the case of its killing the son of the owner, the ftuiider's son is to be put to death (ccxxx). If the son of & mush- kinu on whom a distraint has been levied, be taken in distraint
518 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
and die from hunger or blows in the house of the distrainer, the son of the distrainer is to be put to death (cxvi). If a man strike the daughter of an amelu when she is pregnant, so thatrshe die, his daughter shall be put to death (ccx). Malpractices in selling beer (the proprietress of the tavern to be drowned, cvm). Har- bouring outlaws in a tavern (the proprietress liable, cix). Bringing a false accusation, sorcery, etc. (i sq^. Wrongfully accusing wit- nesses of perjury in a capital charge (in). Purchase, or receipt as deposit, of goods belonging to a man from either his son or his slave without witnesses or bonds (vn). Failing to brfcig witnesses in an accusation of theft (xi).
Trial by ordeal existed, when a man was accused of sorcery, or a woman accused of adultery without sufficient evidence (n, cxxxn). In both cases the accused were to leap into the river, their innocence being established if they came out alive. Many of the minor penalties are based on the principle of the lex talionis-^ if a man strikes his father, his hands are to be cut ofF(cxcv); if he knock out the eye of an amelu or break his Kmbj the same shall be done to him (cxcvi sq^\ the tooth of an equal demands the same retaliation (cc). Cutting out the tongue, putting out an eye, or cutting off a nurse's breasts come under the same head (cxcn ^.), A man might be scourged with sixty strokes of an ox-hide whip for striking a superior (ecu); he might be banished from the city for incest with a daughter (CLIV). False accusation of adultery against a wife or j?Vi"^-^^-priestess was punished by marking or branding the forehead of the accuser (cxxvn).
The law laid down the fees for surgeons, veterinary surgeons, the wages of builders, brickmakers, tailors, stonemasons, car- penters, boatmen, ox-drivers, herdsmen, shepherds, or labourers, and the hire of oxen and asses (ccxxvm sg.). The unfortunate surgeon who made a mistake in his treatment was liable to severe penalties.
,„ Fines were a common form of penalty. Restitution threefold was exacted for cheating a principal (cvi), five-fold for loss or theft by carrier (cxn), six-fold for defrauding an agent (cvu), ten-fold for th^eft from temple or palace by a mushktnu (the lower orders), and thirty-fold by an amelu or gentleman (viu).
With this mention of the social castes in Babylonia it is well to turn aside to see how sharply divided the aristocracy, the middle classes, and the slaves were.
Throughout Babylonia by Hammurabi's time the population, owing to various invasions, was a mixed one. In the earlier times the Elamites had descended on southern Babylonia, only to be
XIV, m] SOCIAL CASTES 519
subjugated by the Sumerians who were o£ an entirely different race* These and the Semites represent the three chief types. There must also have been some small infiltration of Kassitea and possibly **even of Hittites, although perhaps this is anticipating. ,At all events, the Code makes provision for three orders or classes of individuals — the amelu or noble, the mushkinu or plebeian, and the slave. The amelu formed the predominant class, and Dr Johns thought that they came from the conquering race of Semites, the word in the Tell el-Amarna letters (c* 14.00) being still us@d as an official title* The mushkinu is more difficult; it is a word which ultimately reached Europe, the French being mesquin* But in southern Arabia the corresponding word means, according to Snouck Hurgronje, those who are neither descendants of the Prophet, nor nobles related to the family of the Prophet, nor secular nobles. They are labourers, workmen, merchants, school-masters, courtiers, beggars; they have not the right to carry arms; no organization; they are entirely under the dominion of the nobles. According to the Hammurabi Code the mushkinu is inferior to the amelu but better off than the slave.
In these two classes, it is curious to see that the punishments were more severe on the amelu 'patrician' than on the mushkinu^ difference of race or, perhaps, noMesse oblige may have been at the base of it. The mushkinu was punished in a less primitive and ferocious manner than the amelu, frequently being simply fined; where the noble was dealt with eye for eye and tooth for tooth, the plebeian was merely mulcted in damages. This certainly suggests that a very sharp line was drawn between the two classes, indi- cating a difference of race. The mushkinu was in no wise a slave; he might hold slaves and goods, he seems to have been liable to conscription, and in Sippar he had his own particular quarter, the Mushkinutu. But he differed from the amelu in that he was not of the governing classes* Amelu^ in fact, came in time to be used as meaning simply a respectable person.
Among the higher professional ranks we must reckon the learned pursuits of scribe, physician, and priest, and the upper government. The son of Ur«negun, a patesi of Umma, follows the profession of letters; so does a son of Ne. « .fan, patesi of Cuthah, about the end of the Illrd Dynasty of TJr. Even the son of Gudea himself, Lugal-shi-dup, and Lugal-ushumgal, the patesi of Lagash, call themselves scribes. The office was not a priestly one; it was a profession by itself, and when a record of a contract was «ie«essary, the scribe wrote the whole of the document him- self, including witnesses* names. Doubtless the lower orders of
520 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
the profession sat about the streets as they do to this day, with style and blank clay tablet or lump of moist clay, ready to write letters home for the ignorant and homesick sojourners.
Women were not debarred from carrying on professions or trades, and even that of scribe is not omitted in their various* callings. They might act as witnesses to a deed or rent property. As a rule, however, we usually find women attached to the temple, and as kings' daughters certainly as early as the 1st Dynasty clown to the time of Nabonidus could be priestesses, we may take it that the profession ranked very high in Babylonian society. Social custom, allowed women great independence; even as early as the 1st Dynasty Babylonian law recognized in the free woman a broad capacity in legal matters. We are not certain whether marriage altered her status. The husband and wife together would make contracts, e.g. in the purchase of a slave; and in eleven out of sixteen purchase-tablets from Sippar, of the 1st Dynasty (pub- lished by G. S, Duncan, 1914), women are buyers, and in six they are sellers. Particularly noticeable is the freedom with which rich priestesses conduct their own monetary affairs; their capacity for business, as will be discussed further on, appears to have been great.
The institution of slavery dates back to the earliest time. Even on the stele of Manishtusu (c» 2800 B.C.) we find a slave-girl who is worth thirteen shekels, while nine other slaves, male and female, are reckoned for one-third of a mana each* (A mina or mana weighed approximately 500 grains; it contained 60 shekels and was -$>$• of a talent*) According to the Code (xvi— xvni), it is clear that the slave was personally the property of his owner; he might not run away (which he did occasionally), it was illegal to harbour him if a fugitive, and a reward was fixed for his recapture. A slave was subject to the 'levy' for forced labour (xvi); he might be sold, or pledged for debt (cxvm), and in theory his property belonged to his owner (c£ CLXXVI), but on the other hand, it was his master's duty to pay the doctor's fees if he were sick (ccxrx, ccxxnr). There appears to have been less of the stigma attaching to a slave than we are accustomed to associate with the word, for he might marry a free* woman, and in that case the children were free (CLXXV jy.); the slave and his free wife might acquire property, half of which would fall to the wife and children after his death (CLXXVI). In just the same way children borne by a slave-woman to her master were free after his death, and the mother after the death of her master would go free (CLXX $q.}. The slave was^ma-rked (ccxxvi j<p.)3 but how we are not able to say for certain; the prob-
XIV, m] SLAVERY 521
ability is that it was by branding or tattooing. In later times the slave wore a little clay docket attached to his person like a soldier's identification disk.
Captives taken in battle became slaves. For instance, in the ,time of the Kassite king Burna-Buriash, a man called 'Elamite' is said to be worth ten shekels of gold; on a tablet of the time of Abeshu' a slave-girl from Subartu (north of Babylonia) is men- tiongi; in Ammi-ditana's time a slave-girl named Ina-Eulmash- banat, from the town of Ursum (presumably a foreign place), wsss worth actually fifty-one shekels of silver. There was a wide variation in the value of a slave; in Ammi-di tana's reign a man- slave reached the high price of ninety shekels, while we find a woman fetching so little as 3J- shekels under Samsu-iluna.
A significant law enacts that any ameluy * patrician/ who steals the babe of another amelu shall be put to death (xiv). Native Babylonians might be made slaves if they transgressed certain laws* A worthless wife became a slave in her own house if her husband took another wife (cxLi)3 or an adopted son might be sold if he repudiated his parents1. Again, a maid whom a Sal-Me gave to her husband in order that she might bear him children, might be sold into slavery if she did not have offspring; and, if children were born by her and she arrogated to herself equal status with her mistress, she rendered herself liable to be reckoned again among the maidservants (CXLVI sf.).
Slaves, as ever, ran away from their masters, A certain Warad- Bunene, in the time of Ammi-ditana, whose master had sold him into the land of Ashnunnak for ij manas of silver, had served there for five years, and then ran away home to Babylon. Here two officials, Sin-mushallim and Marduk-lamassashu, found him and, on the grounds that he had ceased to be a slave, made him liable for military service. But Warad-Bunene, like many another and more modern inhabitant of Babylon, declared that he would not serve as a soldier, as he was going to carry on the service of his father's house. This was allowed him; and so long as he should live, he was permitted to carry on the business of his father's house with his brothers unchallenged. Ingenuous indeed is the promise made by a slave in the presence of witnesses in the second year of Ibi-Sin that he will not escape. On the other hand, we find gifts made to slaves by royalty: * Kukka-nasher, the mighty vizier, the vizier of Elam, lord of Shimash. . . son of the sister of Silkhakha, has shown favour to Shukshu and Makhisi of the town of Khiatnman, slaves,' and presented them with a piece of land* 1 This is according to the contracts, but is not in the Code*
522 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
Leaving the subject of the different social castes we can now treat of the ordinary life of the individual.
IV. PRIVATE LIFE
Marriage was for life, and a contract was an essential; the Code is explicit on the point that a woman is not a wife unless she has her * bonds * (rikistu) or 'marriage lines* (cxxviu). There is no proof of any ceremony other than the legal contract before wit- nesses : the tablet which some years ago was thought to contain a wedding-service is merely a practice tablet with quotations first from the Gilgamesh epic, where Istar proposes marriage, and afterwards from an incantation tablet against demons. Nor do we know whether love-matches were common, whether the oriental 'middling-gossip* aided the lovers as a go-between, or how much the young couple saw of each other before the ceremony.
The suitor came to the father of his intended bride bearing a bride-gift (terkhatu]^ the relic of the old purchase-money. The conventional amount, to be returned on divorce, was one mana of silver for a patrician (cxxxix) and one-third of that amount for a plebeian (CXL); actually ten shekels was paid in one case in Ham- murabi's time. The father of the bride was expected to give her a dowry, and she would bring a trousseau with her (cf, below, p. 546). Dr Johns thinks that men married while they were young and living at home; certainly, the Code contemplates the bride being brought to live in the father-in-law's house. The curious passage in tlie Legend of Gilgamesh, where the hero taunts Ishtar with her past loves, seems to have some bearing on this:
Thou didst love Ishullanu, gardener he of thy sire.
Faithfully bringing thee blossoms (?) (and) each day he brightened thy platter, So that thine eye fell upon him, and (straightway thus) didst address him: .* Ishullanu of mine, come, let us (now) taste of thy manhood.*
So she goes on: and Ishullanu answers jfrer:
* Bethink thee, what dost thou ask me,
Ne'er have I eaten of aught (unless) my mother hath baked it, What I should eat would be bread of shame and adultery.*
There is, it must be admitted, a difficulty in translating the crabbed line, the last but one.
The law is definite in the case of breach of promise, when the suitor has already made advances to the family of his prospective bride. If he changes his mind 'about the lady (having •looked upon another woman/ as the Code says, CLIX), her father is
XIV, iv] MATRIMONY 523
entitled to retain the purchase-price which the suitor has already paid. If, on the other hand, the lady's father, after the negotiations are complete, refuses to give the suitor his daughter, he mu^t pay him double the amount which he has received (CLX). Again, if ^everything is ready for the marriage, but the father of the bride hearkens to slander against the bridegroom and repudiates the bargain, he is to pay back twice the amount as before, 'and the slanderer shall not have his wife' (CLXI).
It was usual to have only one chief wife, but additions were frequently made to the harem. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the mourner is addressed as one who is so fearful of the dead that he dare not make himself conspicuous.
Thou darest not set shoe to thy foot, not let echo the earth (with thy footfall), Nor kiss the wife whom thou lovest, nor beat the wife whom thou hatest.
In the case of a lasting illness the man might marry another wife, but he would have to provide for the first one (CXLVIII). Such a second wife held full legal position, and her children were legiti- mate. But he might take a concubine or second wife (JShu-Ge-tum) with inferior status. A man in Sin-muballit*s time took two sisters to wife at once, Taram-Saggil and Iltani, but there was no doubt about the precedence. It is laid down in the deed of marriage that Iltani is to wash the feet of her sister, and to carry her stool to the temple of her god. There is a penalty against the unfortun- ate Iltani if she should rebel against her inferior status, for if she say to Taram-Saggil 'thou art not my sister," or if she should say to her husband 'thou art not my husband/ they shall throw her into the river. In another case, one Akhuni pays a terkhatu to the father of a girl named Ishtar-ummi; he already has a wife Kadimatum, and if the new wife should annoy Kadimatum, the latter may sell her into slavery.
The position of the slave-girl as concubine was entirely different from that of the wife. She was not a wife, and her children were not free, unless the father declared them to be legitimate, in which case they were on the same footing as the legitimate children with right to inherit. For instance Mar-irsitim took Atkal-ana-belti, a slave-girl, to wife. If she should ever be un- faithful, a mark was to be set on her and she was to be sold.. Whatever she possessed at the time of the contract and whatever she should possess in future, belonged to Mar-irsitim. Agaifi," in Hammurabi's time, a girl, Shamash-nuri, was bought from heir father ky a man Bunene-abi and a woman Belissunu to be a wife to Bunene-abi and a slave to Belissunu, If she should say to the
524 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP,
latter 'thou art not my mistress' she was to be marked and sold. In another case (in Sumu~la41um's time) the daughter of a woman appears to have been bound in some way to her mother. *Ana- Aya-uzni is the daughter of Salimatum. Salimatum has " cleansed " her, and has given her to Belshunu, son of Nemelum, in marriage.* Ana-Aya-uzni is free: no one can make any claim against Ana- Aya-uznL* The rite or ceremony of 'cleansing* implies apparently that all rights over the girl have been given up; it is the jasual phrase for freeing a slave-girl. One Dushuptum ('honey-sweet') manumits her maid, 'her forehead she has cleansed/ A woman dedicates her daughter to the goddess Ishtar: *Amat-Ishtar is the daughter of Kunutum; Kunutum, her mother, has given her to Ishtar: she is clean/ i.e. is clear of obligations.
According to the Code divorce was a simple matter for the man, but far more serious and difficult for the wife. A man might repudiate his wife, nominally on payment of a douceur; but in a stipulated case in Hammurabi's time, if the husband repudiated his wife, he was compelled to leave her the house and go out empty-handed. The woman was in an entirely different position. Regarded as a possession and a chattel, for her to repudiate her husband, presumably by adultery, rendered her liable to death by drowning, or by being thrown from a tower. The husband, however, might divorce her for folly and carelessness in the household management; he merely said *I divorce her* and need pay nothing. Should he not do so, doubtless, of course, after the case had been legally proved, the foolish wife would, if the man took another wife, be in the position of a slave in the house (CXLI). Ill-treatment on the part of the husband resulting in dislike and hatred for him on the part of the wife, was sufficient grounds for a woman to take her dowry back and return to her father's house, always presuming that her conduct had been above reproach (CXLII). If, however, it were found that she had been indiscreet in the past and (presumably) had alleged her husband's treatment as a cause for her leaving him, she incurred the risk of drowning (CXLIIJ). At the same time, when Enlil-idzu, the priesff married" Ama-sukkal, the penalties for divorce on her side were not heavy. * Enlil-idzu, priest of Enlil, son of Lugal-azida, has taken Ama- sukka!, daughter of Ninurta-mansi to wife. Nineteen shekels of silver Ama-sukkal has brought to Enlil-idzu, as his wife. In future, if Enlil-idzu says to Ama-sukkal, his wife, "Thou art not my wife'* he shall return the nineteen shekels of silver and in addition, pay half a mana as her divorce-money. If Ama»-s-®kkal says to Enlil-idzu, her husband, "Thou art not my husband"
XIV, iv] ADULTERY 525
she shall forfeit the nineteen shekels of silver and in addition, pay half a mana of silver. In mutual agreement they have both sworn by the i^ime of the king/
A side-light Is thrown on the slave-raiding razzias — they are ^nothing more — of enemy neighbours. If a woman's husband was captured by a foe, she was bound to remain faithful to her absent husband if he had provided for her; and if she went off with anotker man she was treated as an adulteress and incurred death (cxxxin). But if the maintenance left behind for her by her husband at the wars was not enough, she was allowed to marry again if he was captured, and she might bear the new husband children (cxxxiv jy.). If however the prisoner escaped from the hands of the enemy, and returned, the woman was obliged to return to him, although the children of her new family remained with their rightful father (cxxxv). As a concrete instance we may cite the following divorce. In the time of Sin-muballit, Shamash-rabi, gives his wife a bill of divorcement : * Shamash-rabi has divorced Naramtum . . . she has received back her dowry. If any one marries Naramtum, Shamash-rabi will raise no claim/
The Code punished adultery with drowning, but it had to be flagrant and not merely suspected (cxxix, cxxxi). The private contracts of marriage also indicate death by drowning for adultery, but sometimes, as an alternative, declare that the woman shall be thrown from a high tower. But a husband might forgive his wife on this count, or the king himself intervene to save the adulterer who was his servant (cxxix). Section cxxxn of the Code provides, as we have already seen, an ancient ordeal for a woman suspected of adultery.
The rights of a father, and in a less degree, of a mother over the children, appear to be despotic* A man could treat his child like a slave as a chattel to be pledged for debts, to work off the debt for three years, but in this he had the same rights even over a wife (cxvn). Daughters were at their father's disposal for marriage, and he was expected, though not bound, to provide them with a dowry : he might dedicate them to a temple, also with a dowry, .which bears the vivid suggestion that they were married to the god (CLXXVIII sqq^). In the old Sumerian code the father had a perfect right to disinherit his son with the words 'Thou art not my son/ Hammurabi limited this absolute power, making a legal process necessary with good reasons for the act (CLXVJII). In the old laws a child who repudiated his father met with stern treatment, which degraded him to the status of a slave, and he might also be branded. The mother in early times held much the
526 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
same rights as the father: her undutiful son was branded and expelled from house and city, although he was not sold as a slave. In this older laws she could thus disinherit her son, a Bright for which the Code of Hammurabi gives no authority.
Children were frequently adopted into Babylonian families, and the reason appears often to be that the parents, having married off their own children, feared to have none to look after them in their old age. The relationship was the same as tha£ of a son born in matrimony; the deed expressly stated the responsi- bilities of the new son and the inheritance he might expect. For an adopted child to repudiate his new parents was regarded as unspeakably base, and he could be sold into slavery. This fear of destitution in old age is apparent in a wedding contract of the time of Zabum, where a mother, doubtless in this case a widow, gives her daughter in marriage in a marriage-deed. 'Innabatum hath given Akhkhu-ayabi her daughter, in marriage to Zukaliya, If Zukaliya leaves her, he will pay her one mana of silver; if Akhkhu-ayabi takes a dislike to him, they shall throw her from a tower. So long as Innabatum lives, Akhkhu-ayabi shall support her, (but) after the death of Innabatum no one shall have any claim on Akhkhu-ayabi/ Indeed when a woman grew old she would anticipate her bequests to her children in return for main- tenance. In the reign of Bur-Sin (of Isin) Nin-me-dugga bequeaths a house and maid to her daughter Nin-dingir-azag-mu^ in return for which, during the mother's lifetime, the daughter was to give her mother ^-£W> 5 ka of food yearly (gur = 300 ka\ later 1 80 ka).
After the death of a father a division of property among the children (and the widow) followed. The sons inherited equally, and there was no right of primogeniture as in Israel, although a father might bequeath a special legacy to a favourite (CLXV), The daughter who had already a dowry is excluded from a share in the inheritance; otherwise her brothers portioned her off(cLxxxin ^.). There are special .clauses about daughters who have become ^priestesses ^(CLX^VIII ^f-)- Th,e widow inherited the same share 111 of the ^ property f^^&^^of/^G^c^l^en9 as well as her original marriage po^c^;.^ on in the home until
she died, being thus head of the family, I£> however, she wished to marry again, she might choose for herself without having to be given in marriage, and she could take with her her original dowry; but she must leave behind any settlement from her husband. There was a lien even on her dowry, because if she bore children to her new husband, they and her former children skarSd it equally after her death (CLXXII sgj. The Code is elaborate in
XIV, iv] PROPERTY 527
regard to the inheritance of children by different wives, concubines and maidservants.
If a roan's wife died childless, the husband was bound to return
to her family the dowry she had brought with her, but he could
* deduct the value of the terkhatu -which he had paid to her father,
if it had not already been returned to him as was due (CLXIII sq^
The business of selling a piece of property was conducted on definite and traditional lines. The clay tablet of the contract was written out by the scribe on an ancient model, constantly in SiAnerian or, at any rate, full of Sumerian words, which gradually dropped out in the time of the 1st Dynasty, although the usage can be traced down to the time of the Kassites. The transaction was witnessed by several people, male or female, whose names were attached by the scribe, and the sealmgs were made by rolling on the clay the carven stone cylinders possessed by all who could afford them. The contracting parties would swear by the local gods and the king by name, that no claim would be made either by themselves or their heirs against the new purchaser in regard to the property. For instance, at Sippar, in Sumu-abum's time, Shamash and the king are invoked, at Dilbat it is Urash and the king. After the time of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon the practice of recording a formal oath began to die out and various devices were used as a substitute, e.g. the impression of finger-nails or seals, and above all the pronunciation of an additional malediction or benediction. In Kassite times at Nippur the gods invoked in addition to the king were Enlil, Ninurta and Nusku.
Babylonian law distinguished between real and personal property. If in certain circumstances an adopted child is disin- herited the Code allows him a third of the share of a son in the father's goods, but no share in the fields, gardens, or house (cxci). Pasture-land, on the other hand, as Dr Johns pointed out, was not owned, and if this applies to desert land, after the spring rains, which is the usual grazing ground for the cattle near villages, this is explicable* Grazing land represents * common * land probably, and Dr Johns' suggestion that to have brought it under cultivation was originally enough to establish a title to it is probably the correct one. Land was not uncommonly let out on the metayer system, the landlord providing draught cattle and seed, and the harvest obtained by some one else's labour paying his. share of the profit (XLIII sg., ccuii)* But fields might also be let at a fixed rent, usually payable in kind; the tenancy was generally for three year$ (Suv). Houses were commonly leased on a yearly tenancy, the average rent having been calculated to be one shekel yearly. The
528 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP,
cost of repairs fell on the tenant; he usually paid down some part of the rent as earnest-money, and until this was done he was not allowed to make alterations.
The custom of giving a bakshish in addition to the arranged price was in vogue even from earlier times (p. 528). In the Semitic document of Manishtusu (c* 2800 B.C.) not only is a price paid, but a present is given to the seller; in a contract of Abeshu's time, one-sixth of a shekel is thrown in as sibika, or additional bakshish^ to the proper price of six shekels for a slave.
Loans, as is natural in a country where the population is largSly agricultural and coined money does not exist, are frequently in kind to be repaid in kind. The period at which expenses were highest was or course the harvest when labour was dear and very often difficult to obtain; and adventurous spirits from neighbour- ing countries, like the Kassites, would come in for work on the harvest, just as well-paid excavations on ancient mounds or modern railways will draw them. It is common to find loans made, especially by the temples, in anticipation of the harvest, either for labour in sowing and particularly in reaping. The date for the return of the money is constantly given as 'the day of the harvest.' The harvest was given as an excuse for absence or delay; Ham- murabi complains to Sin-idinnam that he has already written to him about sending one Sheb-Sin, *a scribe of the merchants/ whose duties appear to have been those of a revenue-collector, but that he had not appeared, 'Thou dost reply "The scribes of the merchants say * Since it is now the time of harvest, we will come after the harvest is over'.1* After this fashion spake they unto thee? and thou didst write (of it). Behold, the harvest is now over/
Men constantly went into partnership, especially when they were speculating in corn-sowing. For instance, six people join in renting a field near the village of Tukhamu amid khilbi (wood ?) and siri (desert) to sow it with corn and share the results after the harvest. When the partnership terminated it was usual to go to the temple, particularly the door of the temple, to complete the division of assets.
From this rapid survey of the government and the laws we may turn to the literature and religion.
XIV, v] THE TEMPLES 529
V. RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS
It need hardly be said that every town of any eminence 4iad a temple to its tutelary or patron deity. In Babylonia, during the . 1st Dynasty of Babylon, with thre rise of the city of Hammurabi the power of Marduk, his great god, was correspondingly pro- moted until he attained a position in the pantheon from which only^shur thrust him. But, although Hammurabi might consider him as peculiarly his patron god, the popular view of the local powers of the different gods was far too strong to allow Marduk the hegemony over the pantheon. However devoutly Marduk might be worshipped in his temple of E-sagil in Babylon, in Larsa or Sippar it would be the sun-god Shamash in his own temple E-Babbara, and in Erech the mother-goddess Innini, or Ishtar, in her shrine E-anna, The moon-god Nannar had his temple E-gishshir-gal in Ur, Enlil his temple E-kur in Nippur, Nabu his temple E-zida in Borsippa; there was no end to them.
But although each city recognized its own patron god, it was by no means so exclusive as to eliminate the worship of other gods within its precincts. In this the Babylonians were catholic and open-minded: they recognized the existence of an Olympus made up of many deities, the result doubtless of a growth which had been going on for hundreds of years, an amalgamation of different local tribal gods. In Lagash, the city protected by Ningirsu, long before our period Eannatum had built a temple E-anna to Innini, which was burnt in a raid by the troops of TJmma in the time of Urukagina. In Babylon where Marduk was supreme, was a temple to Adad called E-namkhe; in Sippar., the city sacred to the sun, was E-ulmash to Anunit. It was open to any ruler to found temples to gods other than the special guardian gods in any city, and equally open to anyone to build a private chapel of his own. In the time of Sumu-ilum a certain Nur-ilishu, son of Enlil-nada, built a temple to his god Lugal and goddess Shullat (neither of them well known), and gave the land for that purpose. He installed Puzur-Shamash as priest, and signed a deed promising not to raise any claim against the priests in future.
The gods of the old Sumerian Olympus, such as could be easily identified by the Semites with their own deities, were retained under Semitic names; Babbar, Nannar, Innini and Enlil become Shamash, Sin, Ishtar and BeL The sun-god Shamash (sometimes in the form Samsu in names, as in Arabia), worshipped at Siypar and Larsa, is as much a Semitic god as Babbar was Sumerian; the moon-gpd Sin, worshipped at Harran and called
C.A.H.I 34
530 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
Sahar In Syria, can easily take the place of Nannar or Enzu at Ur, Innini Is the mother-goddess and as such is the same as Ishtalr, whose name Is repeated in the west as Astarte (the biblical Ashtoreth), and in Arabia as a male Athtar. She is to be found in various forms in the near east, frequently as a naked female figure- offering her breasts; there is a large sculpture of her at Carchemish, full face in relief, and probably the broken statue of a goddess dedicated by Assur-bel-kala, which was found at Nineveh and is now in the British Museum, was the same. This last must undoubtedly have marked the position of E-mashmash, T:he temple of Ishtar; it was found by Hormuzd Rassam at Kuyunjik behind Sennacherib's palace, near where his inscriptions would lead us to locate it. The name of Bel, 'the lord/ represents the familiar baal of the western Semites, and the worship of this specific god in the form Bel, Bil, Belos, appears to have spread from Babylon into the western lands, rather than eastwards to Mesopotamia from Syria.
Enki was originally the god of the earth and then, by association with rivers, was worshipped as a god of the water by the Semites, becoming Ea. Nlnurta (Nlnib), about whose name is still much doubt, was, as lord of Girsu (Telloh), at least as old, as Eannatum. The great god of the west appears to have been Hadad, Adad, Addu, Ramman, the god of storms, wind and rain; he came into Babylonia with the western Semites as Martu (Amurru), the god of the west (see pp. 2,31, 454)* The minor gods are well nigh innumerable, and among these must be counted the different forms which many of the major gods assume, or rather perhaps, the various identifications of local gods and goddesses with some chief deity. Hammurabi speaks of Anu, Enlil, Ninlil, Enkl, Babbar, Enzu and Im, but these are followed by Zamama, Ninni (Istar) and Ne-unu-gal (Nergal), who form a third triad, and Nintud and Ninkarrak, both forms of the mother-goddess, Zamama and Ne-unu-gal are both forms of Ninurta (Ninib), who is also identified with Ningirsu of Lagash. Dagan appears to be exclusively west Semitic. Ashur or Ashir, the national god of Assyria from whom the country took its name, appears before Hammurabi's time, and may represent an earlier form, An-Shar, which appears in the Babylonian Creation Legend; but he never took rank in Babylon, at least in the form Ashur.
The temple was closely bound up with the daily life of the people. Deities were very human in their ways, for they were merely men and women gifted with tremendous powers, ^hcf their foibles and emotions were exactly the same. The dwellers in
XIV, v] RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 531
Mesopotamia lived In close relationship with them; the gods would dine with them at a sacrificial feast, feeding on beeves and sheep, ti^e first-fruits of plants and grain, beer and wine;* they would intermarry with their women, and of their union demi-gods would be born (cf. also Gen. vi, *i sqq^. The temple represented a concrete bond between men and gods, as the house of the god who lived among his people: they fed him and provided him with his earthly needs, they invoked him with prayers and hymns to their aid in time of trouble, and it was for him to help them to figftt their battles against man and nature in this world. With the next world, that misty and ill-defined Hades whither the poor soul, reft of mortality, went, the city-god had no concern, for he could no more exceed his province in the unseen spheres than a king could transgress a neighbour's boundary, or a man of one tribe trespass at free will in the domain of another. Hades had its peculiar god, Nergal, who does not rank among the nobles of the pantheon; he holds an almost inferior position among them, and sometimes appears to be subservient to Ereshkigal or Allatu, his wife, the queen of the underworld, although it is true one city, Cuthah, regarded him as its patron. In this world it was the city- or family-god who would help you in your daily life; in the next, unless some powerful god who could raise the dead restored you to life, you must needs depend on your children and descendants to give you your food after death, for no one else would tend you or provide you with comfort and it was not the province of a god to help you. There was no Heaven, or Valhalla, or Happy Hunting Grounds in the Semitic or Sumerian beliefs; no relation with the high gods, to see them face to face (cf. Num. xiv, 14); man was buried in the earth and in some mysterious way his spirit would live amid dust and mud in a ghostly town of seven walls, each with its gate, under the earth. If he was not buried, so much the w<5rse for him and other human beings, for he must prowl about the sewers and gutters for food, and malignantly attack wayfarers to make them feed him (see p. 549). The gods were not concerned with him; when an offering is dedicated to the gods, it is always for the life and good health of the worshipper, not with any view to a future state. Dungi, in his hymn to Enlil and Ninlil, prays for years of plenty, not for a heavenly abode.
The temple, then, with its statue representing the^god, stood for the outward sign of human relations with the divine powers. It was a great state-institution to which the king, as head of the state, 'MdVoted his labours, and not infrequently, also, dedicated his daughters. Disestablishment was not one of the bogies to be
34-
532 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
feared or desired by the priestly mind; and we have no knowledge of heresies which might reduce the temple-offerings and threaten a diminution of the ecclesiastical shadow. The cult of^the gods in a land of extreme heat, great floods, cold wind-blasts and tre- mendous storms, where nature shows little of her more beneficent side, was ingrained in the people; if these beings must be placated by offerings to lend an ear to the tribulations of the city or the private woes of worshippers, by all means let us bring in our tithes, our cattle and goats, that we may be thus aided. When the foe sweeps down on our towns and we cower and treititle behind the solid walls of brick, it will be well to jog their memories, lest even their temples be looted like the houses of the lowest of us. There are many psalms extant, as has already been shown, telling of the chants and genuflexions, the rites and ceremonies, which were performed in the temples, when terror had smitten the rich priesthood and their adherents.
The library of the great king of Assyria has provided a poetical description of Erech, when the foe ringed it about for three years, and despite all its piety in the past towards its goddess, Ishtar paid no heed to Its appeal :
The boatman sank his craft In the river, and, bitterly weeping [What] will become of me? (cried); [while she who sojld wine in the city Shattered her amphora; asses their foals [deniedj (and) the buffaloes Hated their calves, the people like cattle lowed, (while) the maidens Mourned like doves. The gods turned to Hies in Erech the strong-walled Swarming in alley-ways, (while) the winged bull(s) turned to mice, thus
escaping1
Out by the gutters (?); for three years the foe sat down before Erech, Locked were the gates, and were set barricades, while Ishtar stood heedless, (Callous) of the enemy, so that Bel speaking, cried unto Ishtar, The Queen. . , .
The feeling of the poet is that the guardian goddess of Erech did nothing to help her worshippers.
But besides the services for his public benefits, the private individual's prayers were heard. Gilgamesh, in his expectation of dangers on his long journey, comforts himself by saying that if he meets with lions he will lift up his face to the moon-god in prayer. Less mythical people, down to a late period, also besought the prayers of others when they were travelling in far lands. A letter from^ man Iddina-apli to his lady, Kudashu, written about the sixth— fifth century B.C., tells her of his journey; *For my own part, I am well, by the grace of the gods, as also are all tl^o^e who
1 Lit. cthe winged bull of Erech the strong-walled,"
XIV5 v] THE TEMPLE 533
are with me., . . I have been travelling to the land of Panlragana (?) since the month Siwan; pray (therefore) to Bel and Bellt on my behalf/ Another about the same date writes to his wife: 'Be not remiss in the housework, but be careful : pray to the gods on my •behalf, and speedily let me have news of thee by the hands of some traveller/ The gods would thus be as responsive to prayers offered by the individual as by the state. Ea was not alone in his thought for his -protege, Uta-napishtim, when he warned him of the flood to come.
^The temple stood on the main city-mound, frequently, in Sumerlan times, In the north-west area. The stranger who entered the town would have no difficulty in recognizing the tower of the principal fane, rising high over the flat-roofed houses and even above the palace. It was an Immense mass, often in stages, square, and with a stairway up the outside. The core was of adobe, the facing a veneer of burnt brick; it raised its head far above the desert-surface, a landmark in the waste, and a pinnacle from which the watchers In peace could mark the exact phases of the moon as he rose from the level circle of the earth, and his correspondence with the sun that thereby they might decide the length of the month, and in war the sentinels could descry the masses of men crawling towards them at eye-range.
Close to the temple-tower was built the temple itself. Like all buildings in the east, temples have at least one main court (often with a well) round which, are the chambers, for a court Is an essential for ventilation and shade In a hot country. Little more than mere ground-plans now, marked out by the ruined walls, in their pristine glory they must have presented an Imposing appearance, their solid towered walls reflecting the fierce sunlight or offering kindly shade. Within were the sacred shrines, the holy of holies, and near were the living rooms for the priesthood, and cells for the numerous pilgrims who visited the temple.
Liturgical services originated among the Sumerlans (see p, 443). To the temple were attached many musicians and singers, who formed choirs to play on lyres, drums, tambourines, reed-pipes, cymbals and perhaps bag-pipes, and chant In unison. There runs a persistent melancholy note through the psalms and liturgies: now it would be the annual mourning for Tammuz, sought by his bride Innini, when the grass had withered from the earth and the flower had faded ; now for a ravished statue of a god carried off in some raid. Babylonia is a land not of laughter but of gloom and cf serious meditation; every evil demon which can attack man lives there, the sun scorches and kills, the frost bites, the thunder-
534 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
storms are terrible in their assault, and flies, mosquitoes and scorpions add to the trials of man.
Tfee temple was the great monetary centre or bank of the community. It was the temple which attracted foreign invaders by its coffers of gold and silvery and in times of emergency they< were open to the king of the land, of Palestine, as of Babylonia; Asa, Ahaz and Hezekiah of Judah were all indebted to the temple treasury during their lifetime. In the period of the 1st Dynasty the Babylonian temple was of high political and religious im- portance. It was ready to lend money or arrange loans in seed to prospective cultivators. A man in the 1st Dynasty period records his loan of 5^- shekels from the god Shamash in Sippar, agreeing to pay it back at harvest with interest. Another, borrowing ten gur of grain from a priestess of Shamash, promises to pay at the rate of I pi, 40 $a for each gur at harvest time.
From Drehem, the great cattle-centre for the temple of Enlil at Nippur, have come numerous accounts of temple gifts, made during the latter period of the Illrd Dynasty of Ur. Cattle and sheep were driven across to Nippur for the different feast-days, and careful receipts kept; the very temple-dogs are shown to have received their barley-porridge and milk. The temples possessed large properties in land, and amassed riches in three ways: by tolls or dues, by revenues from the lease of property, and by income from cattle-breeding. It would appear that cities and towns were assessed and paid taxes to the temples according to their capacity; and, as usual, the collectors or others managed to absorb some of these during their duties, Hammurabi was wide awake to this peculation, and his spies were active. * Sheb-Sin, the scribe of the merchants,* says the king to Sin-idinnam, 'hath reported to me saying, Enubi-Marduk hath laid hands on the moneys for the temple of Blt-il-kittim (probably a name for the temple of the sun-god), which are due from the city of Dur-gurgurri and the Tigris district; and that Gimil-Marduk hath laid hands on the moneys for the temple of Bit-il-kittim, which are due from the city of Rakhabu and from the region round about that city, and he hath not [paid] the full amount. But the palace hath exacted the full sum from me/ Dur-gurgurri was the city of the metal- workers, probably Tell Sifr; Rakhabu was near Larsa. Enubi- Marduk was a man of position with at least one patesi under him, but he is. in danger of being put in ward, for a peremptory letter from the king to Sin-idinnam demands his presence: *I wrote unto thee, bidding thee send Enubi-Marduk into my presence. Wherefore, then, hast thou not sent him ? When thou shalt behold
XIV, v] THE STAFF OF THE TEMPLE 535
this tablet, thou shalt send Bnubi-Marduk to my presence. . . . Look to it that he travel day and night, and that he arrive speedily/
The s|afF of a temple naturally varied with its size, but with an eminently practical people, like the Babylonians, it would include -»all the attendants necessary for tke temporal welfare of the priests and their families. On a document of Hammurabi's time we find mentioned among the staff, doubtless of a temple, a priest, three brewers, two musicians, one boatman and one shepherd* A list of salaries in the temple of Tashmitum, the wife of Nabu, doubt- less in Babylon, drawn up in the reign of Ammi-ditana, shows that there were three main classes attached to the temple; the first, two priests (one of Marduk) and their families and the female secretary, each receiving twenty-four ka of grain for a period of time; the second, minor officials and their families, each receiving twelve £<#; and finally the lower officials and servants, such as the fisherman, whose salaries vary down to as low as three ka,
In the great temple of Shamash, the sun-god, at Sippar, the number of priests was of course larger than those of a minor shrine like that of Tashmitum, and there were also priestesses* Among the witnesses to a deed in Sin-muballit's time are two, or perhaps three, Shamash-priests, and one priestess. Among the lower orders we find in the 1st Dynasty contracts the pasMshu (the 'anointing-priest'), the temple superintendent (Pa-J£), the brewer, the porter, the servant who cleans the court, and the purshumu for both the temple of Martu and the temple of Ku-su. The office of * anointing-priest' was not without its perquisites, for it was regarded as sufficiently lucrative to be sold. Another class of priest was the xammaru^ or 'chanter,' probably not of a high order, for we find on a tablet of Hammurabi's period the mention of two * anointing-priests* and four 'chanters/ They presumably corresponded to the choir; and modern experience suggests that they must have sung most unpleasantly and con- tinuously through their noses, something in the manner of a bag-pipe.
The seers (&aru\ who must have been attached to the temples, belonged to an important class. Ammi-ditana writes to three officers a long letter about corn for the city of Shagga and ends with instructions for the baruti seers: *And let the seers who are in (your) presence divine the future (and) then do thou send this corn to Shagga with favourable omens/ Their office was not so sacrosanct that they could avoid arrest; Hammurabi never left thatln^doubt as his letters show. In the ritual texts copied at a later period (seventh century), doubtless from much earlier
36 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
riginals, a special baru, known as the 'king's seer/ is mentioned. The seers were connected with, or even perhaps in some measure !nde£, the rabi-xikatum^ a letter in one case being addressed to im and the seers * dwelling in Sippar-Yakhrurum * by Ammi- aduga. Properly the rabi-'zikatf-m is a president of a council, a >osition often held by the rabianu* Here may be added pro- -sslonal scribes or interpreters who, as a class, appear to have prung up about this period, called 'Amurru-secretaries.7 They ?ere probably used as interpreters for the language of the western >emites. *
Besides the servants more nearly attached to the shrine there /ere the shepherds of the flocks and herds belonging to the smple. The number was large, for we find Hammurabi summon- ig through Sin-idinnam forty-seven shepherds by name to appear Before him to render an account of their stewardship. At this >eriod the shepherd had to give a receipt for sheep, ewes, ewe- imbs, new-born lambs, etc., and if he should lose any, he had, :ke Jacob, to bear the loss of it (Gen. xxxi, 39).
The priestesses and temple women form several distinct and nteresting classes. The entu^ or 'bride of the god/ was, as the .ame (Nin~An) implies, of the highest caste in the land* Kutur- vlabuk dedicated his daughter En-an-e-ul, sister of Rim-Sin, as ntu to the temple in Ur; so also, a long time after, Nabonidus, ver ready to maintain old traditions, did the same with his daughter, and doubtless they both ranked as high-priestesses. /Vhen Annabu, the daughter of Ammi-zaduga, was inaugurated nto her new position in the temple of Ishtar of Babylon (whether >y initiation or promotion) there was no little ceremony, although t cannot be said that the offering of four lambs on this occasion howed too generous a bounty. In the Code (ex) it is laid down hat no natitu or entu who is not living in the gagum (* cloister*) hall open a wine shop or enter one, under penalty of being mrned alive. In other words, both had to maintain the prestige >f their class. It is not certain that the entu married; her name mplies that she was a divine bride, a wife to the patron god of he city, and the Code lays down that a false accusation against icr chastity is on a par with a similar accusation against the wife >f an amelu. But in this clause (cxxvn) there is no mention of the ?^/-JM>, and this throws some light on the latter. There appears to >e great probability that the mother of Sargon, in the Babylonian cgend, who is described as enitu (~= entu ?), was a Nin-An ("divine >ride*); Sargon 'knew not his father/ which is in keeping* aC any ate with the matrimonial status of the Sal-~Me*
XIV, v] THE PRIESTESSES 537
We know more of the natitu (Sal-Me) than of the entu> and with the former must probably be connected the simple Sal used to express ^priestess.' We find very few Instances of Nin-An, but several of the Sal-Me\ and princesses were included In the classes ^Nin-An and SaL There seem tc? have been many Sal-Me priest- esses : two of Marduk are mentioned on the same tablet, and five priestesses of Shamash on another of the date of Hammurabi. Theij constantly carry on business In the contract tablets, and moreover the 'cloister/ g^gumy was capable of holding several at on'fe time.
But what is indicative of their functions is, first, that throughout the contract literature, although the Sal-Me have children, these children are never ascribed to a father in the ordinary way; where the child of a Sal-Me is mentioned, the mother's name only Is given. Moreover, a father in dedicating his daughter to the temple (whether Nin~An^ Sal-Me or •zikrum] gave her a dowry (CLXXVIII .sy.). These two facts show at once that Iltani, the daughter of Abeshu', who was a Sal Shamash, *a woman of Shamash,* was there In the temple in order to represent the god's harem* This throws a light on the 'wife of the god' (Nin-Aft)\ that just as men have one chief wife and may have other Inferior wives and con- cubines, so also may their gods (cf. the case of Yahweh at Elephantine, p. 204 above). The Nin-An rarely occurs in the contract tablets and the probability is that there was only one to each temple and that she was the chief wife of the god. Although we do not find direct evidence that she bore children, surely as the chief wife of the god it is still more probable than in the case of the Sal-Me that she should bear a child of whom the god was the putative father. That Is how demi-gods are born; and that is probably what Sargon claimed (p. 403). The Nin-An is the lawful wife of the god, and as such takes her place along with the lawful wife in cxxvii; and stress should be laid on the fact that the Code does not take notice of the finger of scorn pointed at the concubine or slave-girl, either of god or man.
A Sal-Me priestess might marry a man, but, curiously enough, she was not expected to bear him children, but was supposed to give a maid to her husband for that purpose. All this Is laid down in CXLIV— vn of the Code; If a man marry a priestess and she grants him a maid who bears him children, then he is not allowed a concubine; if she does not, then he may take a concubine. This shows that the Sal-Me is not really mated to man, and again bears out sh» contention that the children were nominally the god's family. If the maid given to the man bears children and becomes
538 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
overbearing towards her mistress, then she may be sold as a slave. The parallel of Hagar (Gen. xvi) has often been adduced in this instance. r
We are told the dowry of a priestess of Marduk who married the son of a priest of Ishtar: two maids, six gold shekels for ear-* rings, one shekel of gold for her nose-ring, and other ornaments and various clothes; one ox, two cows, thirty sheep; two grind- stones, a bed and five chairs, and so on. Priestesses had ^reat scope and capacity for trade. They were very rich, owning houses and lands, in which they trafficked both with the outer world sftid their own cloistered sisters, and the contract literature is full of their negotiations. The Sal-Me priestess of Shamash, as a rule, lived in the gagum> or convent, which Scheil actually discovered near the Temple of the Sun at Sippar, consisting of pretty little private houses. Similarly the entu (Nin-An} lived in a section of the Ur temple called E-gipar5 which dates back at least to Bur-Sin of Ur,
The class of the xikru or temple-harlot is more difficult. In the Code we find her mentioned after the entu and the natitu (j$al-M.e)\ but the xikru, in contrast to the other classes, is not mentioned in religious literature. There is no bar to her having children. Another word for the sacred harlot is 'zermashitu* She was of a class superior to the kadishtu, as is seen from a tablet of Ammi-ditana's reign, whereon one Liwir-Ishtar, who marries Warad-Shamash, is both a priestess of Marduk and a xermashitu. There was no objection to a man marrying a ^ermashitu^ and indeed in Ammi-ditana's time Zermashhu is a proper name. But there is no such honour extended to the profession of kadishtu, which is perfectly clear, A contract of Hammurabi's time describes certain property in Sippar as 'near the house of the daughter of I din-Sin, the xermashitu> near the temple of Eshkharra, facing the town-square/ That the lady owned the house signifies nothing; and we should certainly not be justified in supposing for this reason that she was carrying on a prostitute's trade then, for it was quite usual for women to own houses. The position of the house, however, allows us to consider that she was well-to-do. A homily on behaviour describes three classes of these women: 4 Wed not a kharimtu — her husband is the wind; (nor) an Ishtaritu., who is named for a god; (nor) a %ermashitu whose. . . (Kt-Kaf) are many; she will not lift thee up in thy trouble.*
The kadishtu is different, and there is no record of her marriage. Her name implies *the sacred woman,' but the meaning- of the word is ambiguous (sec p. 199). It is the same as the fcedeshah of
XIV, v] THE TEMPLE-WOMEN 539
Deuteronomy xxiii, 17 (18); there is no doubt how she earns her living from a deed of adoption of the time of Rim-Sin, Shalur- tum adopts Awirtum the daughter of Khupatum, paying if shekels lor her upbringing. Awirtum is to be made into a hiero- , dule (kadishtu) to support her now mother, Shalurtum. If this girl should repudiate her new mother she can be sold; if Shalurtum repudiates Awirtum, she is to pay ten shekels of silver.
It% was the custom among Babylonian ladies, and even poor women, to give out their babes to be suckled by the kadis htu-cl&$<$ of* temple- worn en. In Hammurabi's time Zukhuntum, the wife of Anum-klnum, gave her child to the kadishtu Iltani to suckle, but she was unable to provide Iltani's fee for suckling the child for three years. For this reason Zukhuntum said: 'Take the child, it shall be thine.* Iltani has then to pay three shekels of silver to Zukhuntum. There is another case of a mother delivering over her little daughter to such, a hierodule in the time of Samsu-iluna : *Yabliyatum has surrendered Alanitum, her daughter, to Zami- dum, the hierodule (kadishtu or Isktaritu) of the god Adad, the daughter of Ashkur( ?)-Adad, as her daughter. Pay for suckling for three years Yabliyatum? her mother has received. For ever. If Alanitutn says to her mother Zamidum "Thou art not my mother,*' they shall mark her and sell her/ But the feadishtu was not necessarily the only class of foster-mothers, for we find a priestess of Shamash giving her son as foster-child to a married couple. Here again no father's name is mentioned.
At the same time, although there appears to be no question that the -xermashitu and kadishtu were sacred harlots, a dis- tinction is drawn between them and the kixreti, the shamkhati and kharimati of the worship of Ishtar at Erech, which are names applied to the licentious ministrants of this goddess. They appear to be different in some way from the kadishtu and xermashitu^ but how cannot exactly be said. The temple-girls of Ishtar at Erech are thus described in the Legend of Girra :
Of Erech, home of Anu and of Ishtar,
The town of harlots, strumpets and hetaerae,
Whose (hire) men pay Ishtar^ and they yield their hands.
It refers to the licentious worship of the goddess of love, such as the Greek writers have described. The words used are entirely different from the xermashitu and kadishtu of the Code and con- tracts. In the Legend of Gilgamesh one of the shamkhati is selected by tke Shunter from the temple of Erech to seduce Engidu, Here there is no religious background, and subsequently the woman
540 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP
cleaves to him, at any rate so far as to take Engldu back to her city, where we lose sight of her*
VI. ORDINARY LIFE, DEATH, LITERATURE
*5
Turning to another side of Babylonian life we may begin with the army, although at this period little of it is known. We have few pictorial records of troops such as are to be found in profusion In the palace-sculptures of the later Assyrian kings, or even on the reliefs of the earlier Sumerian rulers; nor are the references to details in the texts common. The 'levy' (ridu} represented the method by which men were obtained for the army (p. 514). In Samsu-iluna's time a case Is recorded of one Anatum, a Ka~Bar, son of Kanishitum, 'who to. . . of the soldiers had been given,* and who is given back by the king's exercise of his prerogative to two men as Ka-Bar. Throughout the yearly datings of the Semitic kings of Isin, Larsa, and Babylon of this time we find infinitely more attention paid to the worship of the gods than to the army. The consecration of a high-priest Is recorded in them, but never the promotion of a general, and contlnttally temple-gifts are mentioned, but never anything which shows that the king took an interest in providing his troops with weapons. One of Ham- murabi's letters does, however, speak of the despatch of troops, '2,40 men of the King's guard/ together with *the troops of Ibm-Martu*; another orders the sending of outfits (clothes and headbands), oil, etc., *for the men under the command of Imgur- Enlil and Adad-irshu/ Yet another to Sin-idinnatn instructs him to take ninety men from the troops round about Ur and embark them on a ship of seventy-five gur burthen. There is an Interesting point about those troops of Ur: they would seem to have retained their old weapon, the bow, even In Sumerian times (which they certainly had In the Elamltlc period), for in the twenty-eighth year of Dungl the men of Ur were enrolled as long-bow archers. Barbed stone arrowheads were actually found by the present writer at Erldu. In Hammurabi's time the weapons included axes and spears.
Corn-rations were issued, but whether they reached the men as flour, or whether they were expected to crush the corn them- selves, we do not know. A ration receipt is extant, dated in the reign of Zabhim, for 300 gur of corn as the levied contribution *fbr the maintenance of troops (ridu] under the orders of Kuk- simut/ who from his name appears to be an Elamlte — a p^ig^iant example of a mercenary officer. But the levy, of course, was for
XIV, vi] THE CROPS 541
public works as well as the army. In Sin-muballit's time we hear of five-sixths of a mana of silver, part of one rnana of silver, which ^as paid by Imlik-Sin for 'fifty hired men who* were engaged for the King's Road/ Hammurabi sends Gimillum to » Larsa with a letter to Sin-idinn^m with instructions that he is to take over the workmen of Larsa and set them to work under the overseer who is going with him. The king elsewhere writes to Sin-i^linnam that he is sending him three hundred and sixty labourers., one hundred and eighty of whom are to serve with the L^rsa workmen, and the same number with the men of Rakhabu. Canals, of course, demand persistent care, and it is for these that the corvee was chiefly wanted. These are made so that the water is above the surrounding level and irrigation machines are not necessary. Every canal bears in its waters the alluvial mud from the Euphrates in flood, and thus brings about its own destruction; in time It becomes cheaper to dig a new canal than to clear out this old one. Sin-idinnam was ordered by his king to call out the men who held land on the banks of the Damanum Canal near Larsa In order to clear out the channel within the month. He was again commanded to clear out one of the Erech canals which was so blocked 'that (boats) cannot enter the city'; the men at his disposal were to finish the work within three days. Again, a letter was written by Apil-iluka to *my lord/ probably Hammurabi, concerning the clearing of the Ningirsu- Khegallu Canal. Since its channel had become choked Ham- murabi had given orders for it to be re-dug, but owing to a dispute with the village of Khalbl, situated on its bank, the work was not carried out. Sin-idinnam (evidently here the well-known official of Larsa) had refused to listen to Apil-iluka*s complaints, and the latter therefore protests directly to Hammurabi.
The crops, which appear to have been mainly spelt and barley, were as a rule a private speculation. In primitive times the ground was broken with stone hoes; the earliest representation of the plough which we have is on a seal of the fourteenth century, of the time of Nazl-Maruttash, Here a yoke of humped oxen draws a primitive plough, which one man guides, a second man drives the oxen, and the third has the bag of grain which he is sowing through a tube in the plough. From a contract of the same period we learn of an accident which once stopped the sowing of a field : * Iklsha-Enlil, the son of Khashma-Kharba, received from Belanu, the son of Ibba-amel-uballit an ox for ploughing: It broke its feg* whereupon Belanu thus spake to Ikisha-Enlil, " Bring (me) (another) ox that I may plant (my) field, (for) thou shalt not
542 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
make me miss my sowing/' Ikisha-Enlil thus spake to Belanu, " I will give thee an ox in the month Ab." (But) Ikisha-Enlil did not give frhe ox to Belanu in Ab : therefore Ikisha-Enlil shp.ll make good the crop of the field to Belanu/ It was customary then, as at the present time, to allow shdfep to nibble the early shoots of' green corn, but the Code lays down that it must be done by arrangement with the owner of the crops (LVII sf.).
The next operation was the reaping. Scheil says that in ^894 when he left Sippar on the 2oth of April not an ear of corn had been harvested, but that at Bartelle (near Mosul) on the i3thrbf May it had already been reaped. The barley ripens a little later. When L. W. King and the present writer left Mosul for Bisitun in April, 1904, the fields had not been touched and were still green; when we returned in June the crops had been garnered and the sledges were breaking up the straw for horse-fodder. At Nasriyeh the crops were growing high towards the end of March, 1918. In very early times in the south, especially at Eridu, men, women and children turned out to reap the crops with sickles made of baked clay. Doubtless also flint sickles were used, several sharp flakes being arranged in a haft to form one continuous edge; then followed the use of copper, but it was probably too valuable to be in general use for reaping hooks, although an example from Elam does exist.
The value of corn varied. A shekel in Manishtusu's time (c. 2800 B.C.) would buy one gur, twice as much under Shamshi- Adad II (c. 1880—60), and three times as much under Sin-gashid (c. 2000). The harvest, of course, attracted labourers from afar, and the farmer would hire extra hands for garnering his crop. As a rule the man was hired for the harvest, and was free directly afterwards; but his term might be reckoned at one month, half-a- year, or even a whole year. Reapers reckoned to earn anything from half-a-shekel to two shekels, but very frequently the wages were paid in corn. The master of a slave would let out his man for hire, or even parents their children, the wages then being paid to the master or parents. In the time of Hammurabi, for instance, we find a slave-girl hired out for harvest: 'Taraitum the daughter of Iza-iluraa, has hired a slave-girl, Aya-Lamazi, from Nish-Ini- shu the Sal (priestess) of the sun, the daughter of Idin-Dagan, for one month and three days, the time of the harvest/ In this case the hirer promises to pay for her hire, one gur of corn, in the gate of the gagum-cloistzr, which rather points to it being similar to a convent into which strangers were not admitted. ** c The amount of corn necessary for a man in full work appears
XIV, vi] FOOD 543
to have been 2 f %a daily, judging by the hire paid by Lu-Ninsianna for the man Idin-Ishtar. The daily feed of barley for domestic animals j^as reckoned during the Kassite period on the following scale : horse, 5 ka (a modern Anatolian horse eats about fourteen * double handfuls of barley and ^ quarter of a sack of chopped straw); ox, 2|- ka\ dove (doubtless in the temple of Ishtar), -^ ka\ fowl, -J or ^g- ka* We may therefore take it that a man was allowed abou£ half as much grain as a horse* In order to make the daily bread the corn was first pounded between two stones, the lower w<frn concave from much rubbing, about a foot in length and half as much in breadth, and the upper a rounded stone held in the hand. The process of bread making appears to be described in the Epic of Gilgamesh, when Uta~napishtimTs wife sends the hero away with a parting viaticum:
First was collected his meal, next ground, (and then) thirdly 'twas moistened, Fourthly she kneaded its dough, and fifthly she added its leaven, Sixthly 'twas cooked.
The bread ovens, found by Dr H. R. Hall in his excavations at Mukayyar, probably belonged to this period. They appear to be of the same kind as those in use in Basrah at the present day. These consist of a small dome of bricks heated from within by a wood fire, and when the interior is thoroughly hot the dough is thrown as a flat pancake through a hole against the inside wall to which it adheres while it is baking. Many of the people, especially the nomads, all in fact who baked bread for themselves without an oven, ate the akal tumri or 'bread of the ashes,' just as the bedouins cook it themselves in the desert to this day. Dates mixed with meal were an ancient food in this country; mutta^uy a sweet food of sesame (as well as spelt), with which we may compare the modern sweetmeat of sesame, kalawa^ to be bought in Mesopo- tamia, appears in neo-Babylonian times. Gilgamesh, when on his travels, carried with him ufuntu^ which must be flour such as a bedouin would take with him on a journey where no quern or millstone was available.
The next important food was the date (see p, 361). As early as 2800 B.C. Manishtusu offered a special kind to his gods, and large date-orchards must therefore have existed. The trees to-day are planted in groves at five yards interval, and live for seventy- years* Artificial fertilization was practised at an early time, just as it is to-day, although how old a custom it is is uncertain; Scheil infers from a tablet of Gimil-Sin's time that it goes back to this date. It is portrayed on the sculptures of Ashur-nasir-pal (ninth
544 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
century B.C.), where two divine figures are frequently shown fructifying a conventional palm with the male spathe, and by a metathesis of ideas such a figure stands in the same attitude over the king himself. Strabo tells how the inhabitants made from dates a kind of bread, wine, vinegar, honey and cakes3 while ther stones were used for charcoal, or for pounding up with cattle fodder. The * honey7 is of course the Arab dibs^ which may be seen in the making near Basrah, in a large trough built of /nud, and plastered also with mud, about 10 by 8 feet in area, with walls 3 feet high from the ground and I foot thick with a little flight of steps leading up at one corner outside. The floor slopes down towards an orifice in the wall and in this floor are seven grooves also leading to this opening. The dates are put into this receptacle after picking in late September or early October, and by the second week in October the di'&Mreacle will be seen to begin to ooze through the orifice into a vessel. By the third or fourth week the trough has been emptied, but still will smell of date-juice. 'Dibs itself is merely the modern form of a word familiar in both Hebrew (debhasK) and Assyrian (dishpti)*
The species of dates were numerous, and the syllabaries mention the special kinds, Dilmunite, Maganite, Melukhkhite, etc.; the merchants to-day can give the traveller a list of forty-seven kinds, grown for the most part in the Baghdad or Basrah vilayets. The fruit hangs green on the palm in July, and about the third week of that month turns yellow; by the end of August some may be seen already picked and spread out on roofs to ripen prematurely, but the usual time for stripping the trees is part of September and October, and most of the harvest is finished by the first week of the latter month. During the 1st Dynasty the month of Markheswan (October-November) was the period fixed to pay a quantity of dates. The trimming of the trees by cutting off the lower branches is nowadays carried on at the same time as or a little before the harvest, and these fronds are then bound up into bundles by a bened (or bandu), a pliant supple shoot cut from the base of the palm. The branches are allowed to season and are used like osiers, for making the frails for carrying grapes, and for bedsteads; the thick triangular bases of the branches (called karaff) are dried and used for fuel. Like the harvesters in ancient Babylonia^ date-pickers are attracted in September from the neighbouring villages to Basrah, where they camp in the orchards.
During the Great War a date-palm was worth rougMy an English pound, while in Hammurabi's time the indemnification
XIV, vi] METALS 545
for cutting one down was half-a-mana of silver. The less usefu? trees are cut down to use for rafters and single-log bridges across canals, ^lie very top of the palm-trunk can be cut into slices and eaten, having the crisp consistency of celery.
• Of other forms of diet the countless sacrifices at the temple altars show that flesh was easily obtainable. Fish was doubtless cheaper than meat; there is a delightful little picture, of an early date, g>f Gilgamesh returning home in triumph carrying a fish and a tortoise, such as would be tabu at the present day. Beer of many kiifds was made from corn, and a wine or arrack from dates; the gods themselves, when their hearts were overcome with the terror of Tiamat, did not disdain to cheer themselves with wine, so that their spirits were exalted.
Wool from the flocks was a source of revenue, both for the temple and the palace. Apil-ilishu writes to his son: *now I send Ili-erish to thee : give (him) twenty maiias of good wool as my temple-gift/ Five letters of the time of Ammi-zaduga announce that a sheep-shearing will take place in the Bit-akltim, the time of the year being the month Shebat or early Adar, Le* in the early spring. The value of wool varied. In the time of Manishtusu four manas were worth one shekel, and later, under Sin-gashid, three times the amount was obtainable for that sum; under Shamshi- Adad II a shekel would buy as much as fifteen manas.
Coinage, of course, did not exist and the method of payment was by manas and shekels of silver weighed out. Gold was used for temple-offerings and in payment, but was much rarer in business than silver, which doubtless came from the mines of Bulgar Maden in Asia Minor. Copper was found in considerable quantities in Elam, whence doubtless it was exported to Mesopo- tamia. The industry of copper working was carried on, particularly at Umma, about the time of Dungi and Bur-Sin, although this can hardly have been the place where a knowledge of metallurgy developed. Dur-gurgurri, near Larsa, was another town where the clangour of coppersmiths at work could be heard continually. The relative value of the three metals appears to show that gold decreased in value by about one-third between the Agade-period and Hammurabi. We find the following ratios :
Agade period Gold 1920 : Silver 240 ; Copper I
Hammurabi Gold 1440 : Silver 240
Sin-gashid Silver 240 : Copper f
Offerings in copper were, of course, made to the temples. Zarik,
patesi of Susa, sent a wonderful cow of copper inlaid with silver
C.A.K.I 35
546 THE GOLDEN .AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
to Ur, in the time of Bur-Sin or Gimil-Sin, Two-thirds of a mana was paid in the fourth year of Hammurabi for the restoration of a cojSper vessel for the temple of Shamash. c.
A private letter of the period of the 1st Dynasty shows that the inevitable * copper pot' was Fn use. It may be either the water- pot which the women still carry on their shoulders for fetching water, or else one for cooking: *To Baba say: thus Munawirum. May Shamash and Marduk keep thee in good health for- ever. I am sending Lumur-sha-Marduk; give (him) a copper pot. I am sending thee the money for the copper pot. I am out of health: since thou lovest me truly, send the copper pot/ It is an indica- tion that a copper bazaar existed only in the towns, as of course happens to this day. Lead came probably also from the mines in Anatolia; a Cappadocian tablet of the end of the third millennium mentions as much as fifteen manas.
The question of the introduction of bronze is a difficult one, as analysis of objects found has not always been carried out, and objects have been loosely called * copper' or * bronze' according to fancy. Certainly the objects found by the present writer at Eridu and by Dr Hall at Obeid all point to a use of copper with- out alloy even in late Sumerian times (see also pp. 291, 585 sq^
The difficulty of translation prevents our giving a full inventory of a good middle-class household at this period. Duluktu, the daughter of Ashkudu and Taram-Sagil, is given a well-furnished house with garden, and also clothes for herself, so that she may set up on her own account. Probably we have here a dowry : the lady further receives a slave-girl as waiting maid, a shekel's weight of gold for her wrist-bangle or finger-rings, and another shekel for her ear-rings; ten head-bands (it is a hot country and she probably used much oil on her hair), two laptasi-dresses (or cloths), two fringed skirts (?), and a leather girdle (?), two grinding stones, another girdle ( ?), four copper spoons ( ?), one shade (parasol ?), seven chairs and so on. A bed is also mentioned in other inventories.
The pottery of the Sumerians was plain and simple; they never continued the beautiful designs painted in black, either geometric or decorative, which the Elamites knew so well how to produce. Seals show that they had the large hubb or water-pot on a stand, which allowed the water to filter through to a smaller pot, and such would be in every household. Water-pots were of cream- coloured turned or unturned clay, made frequently with a spout at the shoulder; plates and bowls were made of the saxsierplain material, but sometimes turned, in the case of cups, to a most
XIV, vi] A LOVE-LETTER 547
delicate thinness. Of Semitic pottery of this period we can say little, but probably it was similar to that of the Sumerians, as there wo^ild be little need to change. At this period there *is no doubt that little clay figures of the mother goddess were in common use, and in these innumerable %iodels, which are so frequent, we must see the equivalent of the modern Arab woman's piece of rag hung up near a saint's tomb^ the prayer for a child. On the art, s^e further, pp. 577 sqq.
Still more than the contract tablets the private letters give us th^ daily life of the people. One, from a son apparently away from home, seems to refer to some family bickering, his mother having made home unpleasant for him: 'To Beya speak: thus Ibni-Martu, thy son. May Shamash and Marduk give thee life for my sake. Thou hast grieved me and brought great distress of mind on my head. Since I may not return to the company of my brothers, I will no (longer) call myself by the name of my father's house. Thou hast done wrong (or thou hast done [it] me) seeing that the father (whom) I have I may not [see again ?]. Now I am [sending] Birda. . .unto thee, (and) with him is. . . (?) that he may bring the cloak (and) come (back again). If thou art not willing (to send) the cloak, send (me) the money which I have despatched to thee for the dress. I sent thee its pattern (tzu-kka-as-say for su-kha-ar-sha its diminutive)/ The letter ends with a request that the messenger be returned.
Even a love letter from Sippar Is extant, dating back to the 1st Dynasty: 'To Bibiya say: thus Gimil-Marduk. May Shamash and Marduk give thee health for ever for my sake. I have sent (to ask) after thy health; let me know how thou art, I have arrived in Babylon, and see thee not; I am very sad. Send news of thy coming, that I may be cheered; in the month of Markheswan thou shalt come. Mayst thou live for ever for my sake/ Evidently it reached the lady Bibiya (whose name is doubtless parent of the oriental bibi^ 'lady') in Sippar whither it had been sent from Babylon. Now, we have already found Sheb-Sin denouncing one Gimil-Marduk to Hammurabi for appropriating the moneys for temple-dues from the city Rakhabu (p. 534). Only the desire to avoid conclusions drawn from what may be mere coincidences prevents us from connecting the incidents — but did Gimil- Marduk find the lady exacting and expensive?
Finally, the burial customs of this period may be briefly noticed. The Sumerian in burying his dead chose a high place if he could : that is, an old mound if possible, in the same way as does the bedouin of the present day. His word for a grave was
35—2
548 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
^ 'great earth/ and one of Ms kings, Eannatum3 has left us a picture of the burial of warriors after his battle with Umma. An OK was sacrificed, as was found at Eridu, where the Jung had made his offering, now fifteen feet below the surface (p. 501). The dead were collected In row^ head to foot, and naked as they- lay, covered with a mound of earth. This was about 3000 B.C. At the end of the third millennium (if the burials near the surface at Eridu are really late Sumerian), the dead were buried wjlthout coffin and probably unwrapped, with a spouted pot for water placed near them, with one or two rough upturned bowls* or1 goblets. This class of spouted pot was also found at Shuruppak; it is exactly the same as those represented on the old seals. With the advent of the Semites an alteration becomes gradually apparent. Koldewey found at Babylon that the lowest levels of the time of the first Babylonian kings contained bodies lying simply in the earth, or rolled in reed mats, or roughly surrounded by mud bricks. The bodies were always laid out at full length. The present writer found a body buried in the mound of Ur about a foot below the surface, apparently the skeleton of a girl, with a silver-copper ring on each arm and a nose-ring possibly of silver* The body had evidently been huddled up, the total length of the burial was less than two feet; it lay on its left side with the head pointing approximately to the east. Not far from the mouth was a water- pot, and upturned on or near the legs was a basin. There had been some cloth with it, and the whole, pots and all, had been wrapped in a reed mat. Cuneiform tablets were found at a depth of two feet in a 'throw-out* at a stone's throw distance, probably of the period of the Illrd Dynasty of Ur, so that the presumption is that this mat burial was about the same period, and Koldewey's mat burials at Babylon will coincide in date or, not unlikely, may be earlier.
The next later burials at Babylon are similar to those which the present writer found at Tell el-Lahm, double-urn interments, two pottery vessels with mouths joined together lying horizon- tally. At Tell el-Lahm such burials had included pots and plates of plain wheel-turned ware. Among the graves of this class at Babylon were a few brick-built subterranean chambers with barrel-shaped vaulting, doubtless similar to those found by Taylor at Ur (p, 398 j^.). We have to assign these to the period early In the 1st Dynasty or even a little before, rather than later. Similar double-urn burials were found at Nippur and assigned (by Peters) to Hammurabi's period or rather before. So a?Jso at Telloh where the careful records of Cros show that these double-
XIV, vi] THE BURIALS 549
urn burials are subsequent to Bur-Sin, as he found a brick of that king below them.
The next class of interment is entirely different. Kol^.ewey found a different class of burials above the stratum in which these * double-urns were contained at j metres above his zero line, and he puts them at ( Nebuchadrezzar and earlier/ which, however, seems far too late. Peters, who found the same at Nippur, assigns thereto 2000 B.C., and onward to the close of the Persian period, The coffin in this case is a clay sarcophagus rather like a small bs&h-tub, round at one end and square at the other, the length rarely more than a metre. The present writer found them at Tell el-Lahm above the double-urn burials, and is also inclined to assign them to an earlier date than Koldewey, One at Sippar (i m. x *47 cm. x -50 cm. high) contained a legal document of the date of Hammurabi. There were none of this type actually in the mound at Eridu, although they were to be found on the neighbouring flat. It is worth noticing that an unoccupied mound is the obvious place for burials, for not only does it provide a well-marked cemetery and is itself a funeral monument, but it has also a sacrosanct character. That numerous interments could be made in an ancient mound while it was still inhabited is hardly possible, and this is therefore always a point to consider before deciding the questions either of the date or of burial in the house walls. Cf. further, pp. 377, 381.
In the views about the next world and spirits we may take it that there was little difference in what people believed either under Hammurabi, or later under Ashurbanipal. All the theories about the Hades under the earth and the soul which obtained in the seventh century doubtless held good in the twenty-first century B,C. The dead were buried with food and water so that the descendants might not be plagued with the ghost who would otherwise prowl about the earth seeking to assuage its hunger with any offal, or attacking men so that it might be appeased by offerings. If the body was unburied the spirit roamed as an uneasy ghost, until it was given a resting-place in the earth; similarly a mother who died in child-birth, like the Indian chure^ came back for her child; many are the ghosts who return. Normally the spirit whose body was duly buried remained in the earth, inhabiting a gloomy abode — "the Land of No Return* — presided over by a goddess, Ereshkigal, the wife of Nergal (see p* 53 1)»
Of the Semitic literature of Hammurabi's period other than buskiass documents unfortunately comparatively little survives, but this little is gradually increasing* For instance, there is the
550 THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI [CHAP.
long poem of Agushaya which not only from Its style,, but its actual epilogue, is to be referred to Hammurabi's age:
The King who repeateth this song, (As) proof of thy power, thy glory, Hammurabi who singeth (?) this song. So long as he liveth, thy glory.
It is written on a clay tablet in eight columns, in the short lines which the authors of this period affected. The recent identi- fication of the Second Tablet of the Legend of Gilgamesh, in the Nippur Collection in the University of Pennsylvania, dating*- to the same period approximately, renders it impossible to lay down any hard and fast distinction between the literature of this time and of the later Babylonian empire. Indeed, it is doubtful how much of the great Epics and Legends are Semitic at all, many certainly being mere translations or adaptations from the Su- merian. A fragmentary legend of Gilgamesh, for instance, actually occurs in Sumerian on a Nippur tablet, although it cannot be identified with any known part of the Semitic version. Conse- quently, we may hope in time to find the earlier versions from which Ashurbanipal's copies were made: to describe his Royal Library at Kuyunjik and its contents would be out of place in the present volume. The immense quantity of * interlinear' texts (i.e. texts written in Sumerian with each line translated into Assyrian) shows how largely the Assyrian king was indebted to the Sumerians for his literature. We may, therefore, defer a fuller description of the Babylonian literature until we reach the Later Babylonian Period, The actual occurrences of early editions (that is, of the Hammurabi period) of the Legends are, as was men- tioned above, very rare, and can be more conveniently discussed with the rest of the material which for the most part is written on clay tablets of the first millennium B.C.
The old legends include, first, the great Epic of Gilgamesh, the semi-legendary king of Erech, in twelve tablets, describing his tyrannical rule over Erech which is to be abolished by the divine creature Engidu. In the end Engidu becomes his friend and seeks adventures with him. Then the goddess Ishtar falls in love with Gilgamesh, only to be spurned by him, and the two heroes slay a monstrous bull which her father, Anu, had created for their undoing. Presently Engidu dies, and Gilgamesh, in his terror of dying also, sets forth on a long journey to Uta-napishtim, the Babylonian Noah, to whom the gods had given eternal life: if anyone can advise Gilgamesh it will be he. Ultimately, cafter many adventures, Gilgamesh reaches the sage, who tells him the
XIV, vi] MYTHS AND LEGENDS 551
story of the Flood, and recommends him to dive into the sea for a life-giving plant, This he does, but on his journey home a snake snatches it out of his hand, and he is left again to face the common lot, See also pp. 366 ty, 497, *
, Next in importance we must p^ce the Seven Tablets of Creation in which the fight of Bel and the Dragon (Tiamat) is related, ending in her death and the subsequent ordering of the cosmos, These are the two chief legends, but there are many others: of Zu, Sie storm-bird, and how he stole the Tablets of Destiny; of Aiapa, a hero of Eridu, who cozened the dwellers in heaven (p, 401); of Etana, who, like Ganymede, was borne up into the sky by an eagle (p, 366), Ishtar, the faithful spouse of Tammuz, descends to the Underworld in search of him, like Orpheus his Eurydice, and Hell, the city of Seven Gates, wherein the dead enter naked, is pictured with no mean pen (cf, p, 461), Almost within the realm of history we might count the story of Girra, the plague-god, with its political import (p, 473); and the curious legend called after the king of Cuthah, with its battles wherein men with birds' bodies and faces take part,
CHAPXER XV
THE KASSITE CONQUEST I. THE END OF THE FIRST BABYLONIAN DYNASTY
1
"AMMURABI was succeeded by Ms son Samsu-iluna In
fc 2080, and the politics of Babylonia entered on a new phase.
A second dynasty, overlapping the first, arose, the so-called 'Dynasty of the Sea-Country/ which was to challenge the ruling power and presently survive it. Contemporary with these a new foe threatened the eastern boundary, the Kassites, a powerful tribe, inhabiting the fringe of the Persian mountains, whose first foray was made in Samsu-iluna's reign (p. 554).
The caravans of the merchants plying up the mountain roads eastwards into the Zagros, the stray wanderers whose business or pleasure took them into the hills, and even perhaps the luckless prisoners who had been captured by Elamltes in their many forays into Babylonia, all told the same tales, in the rugged lime- stone fastnesses, of the wealth of golden grain in the Mesopo- tamian valleys below, and how men might enrich themselves in these lands. Such tales early reached the nearest mountain people, the Kashshi, whom classical writers called Kossaioi (and probably also the Kissiofy a wild tribe of freebootmg barbarians, inhabiting the slopes north or north-west of Elam, and numbering, according to Strabo, 13,000 bows. Their name possibly survives in the modern Khuzistan. They were as little to hold or bind as the modern Lurs; in later tines Alexander conquered them, but after his death they regained their independence. Strabo says that they fought alongside the Elamites against the Susians and Baby- lonians; the Persian kings never subdued them, but purchased peace by paying them tribute. Sennacherib describes them as equally unsubmissive to his fathers: * Through the high mountain forests, a rough country, I rode on horseback, and hauled my chariot up with ropes. The steepest places I climbed on foot like a wild ox/ They had begun to stray down into the harvest fields of Babylonia as early as the time of Hammurabi.
The Babylonian lexicographers, whose broad view of ^pr#ign languages as well as of their own native tongue led them to make
CHAP. XV, i] THE KASSITE LANGUAGE 553
extensive dictionaries of all kinds — Sumerian, Hittite, Kassite and so forth — have left us a tablet which gives the Babylonian translation of twenty-one kings* names, chiefly Kassxtes, Jrings who 'lived after the flood, but not arranged in consecutive order,7 &s the text says: *
Hamnmrabi = kimta-rapasktum Meli-Khali = amet-Gula
Ammi-zaduga = kimttun-kettum Meli-Shumu ~ amel-Skukamuna
Kur-galzu « re- i-i-bi(kasfi)-shi-i Meli-Shibarru — amel-Shimalia
Sirama$h-Shipak= lidan-Marduk Meli-Sakh — amel-Shamash
Ulam-Buriash « lidan-bel-matati Nimgirabl ~ eteru
Na?i-Maruttash = sil-Nlnurta NImglrabi-Sakh «= eteru-\8ha9nas£\
Meli-Shipak = amel-Marduk Nlmglrabl-Buiiasli — ete\ru-bel-mataii\
Burna-Buriash = kidin-\bel-mat5\ti (?) KadisiLman-Buriasli = tukul\ti-bel-matatz\
Kadasliman- Kadishman-Sakh = tuku]\ti-ShamasK\
Enlii = tukuhi-Bel Nazi-SHpak == \si!-Mar£\nk
Ulam-KIiarbe = lidan-Bel Nazi-Buriasli = [sil-beQ-matsti
Many of these are well-known names. Nimgirabi, not yet known as a king in the lists, is the name of a weaver (Nimgirabu); but the name Nimgi-shar-ilani rather throws doubt on the trans- lation given above, just as the translation for Buriash does not seem entirely satisfactory. The vocabulary can be amplified from the lexicographical tablets which give the Assyrian equivalents of Kassite words:
bashkku *god* nu (or kur)~/a eking*
dakask 'star* mali *man*
dagegi 'heaven' tneli 'slave'
Uttlu 'heaven' kukla 'slave'
mirlyask 'earth* barkhu 'head'
turukhna 'wind' khameru ^o
ian&i *Hng" sari&u *foot*
Their gods were Kashshu (who probably gave his name to the tribe); Kharbe(Bel); Kamulla(Ea); Sakh and Shuriyash(Shamash); Shipak (Marduk); Ubriash, or Buriash, and Khud (or Khulakh)- kha (both Adad); Tur or Shugab (Nergal); Khala (Gula), Shimalia (Shibarru^ who was *the lady of the bright mountains, who dwells upon the summits/ and Shukamuna (Nergal-Nusku), Gidar or Maruttash (Ninurta) has been compared to the Sanskrit deity Marut, a deity of wind and storms; Shuriyash, the sun-god, to the Indian Surya, the Greek Helios; Buriash to Boreas; and the word bugash to the Slav bogu and the Phrygian bagaios^ 'god/
But, although the gods can be compared to Indo-European deities, it cannot be said that the ordinary words quoted above are similar to those of the Indo-European tongues. It will be seen that ^eyeral words have two renderings, a possible indication of an amalgamation of two languages : it may be that, from the great
554 THE fCASSITE CONQUEST [CHAP.
difference between the kings' names and the native vocabulary we should Infer that the ruling caste was of a different stock froinrthe native Kassites. After all, this was usual; Semites ruled Sumerians, Kassites ruled Semites, Macedonians ruled Babylonians, and so forth*
The Kassite harvesters were but the forerunners of a serious incursion; they were the spies who, however unintentionally, spied out the land and bore home, doubtless not without exaggeration, the tales of Babylonian wealth. It is the old story of the successive trader, missionary, and warship. r
Yet for his first eight years Samsu-iluna on the throne of Babylon had little to do except dig two canals and dedicate gifts to Nannar, Marduk and Shamash. His offering to the great temple of the sun in his sixth year appears to have been of a statue of the king praying, and figures of lions, such as Hall found in the British Museum excavations at 'Obeid near Ur: fearsome copper creatures, life-size, doubtless arranged in an avenue, in pairs facing each other, to protect the approach. We can easily imagine the portly priests performing their evolutions and ceremonies of dedication, and chanting the Sumerian hymn which was actually used for the occasion. First the statue was addressed, and then the king was praised, and finally the lions were hymned :
Thou whose presentment radiant beameth on all living creatures,
(Yea), from his bounty is plenty brought forth 5 because of his statue
Effulgent, prosperity (now) is attained. . . .
Samsu-iluna, thy champion, the country enriching,
I am the strong prince devoted; (and) watchful care do I foster.
He for the rule of the land with benignant fate hath been destined.
Lions as guardian spirits he gave (?), making awful their fierceness,
So to reduce (?) the wicked to fealty; (so) hath Innini
With a firm hand set in place; (and) on their left hath been stablished
Sarnsu-iluna.
The Kassite mountaineers of Pusht-i-Kuh, the white-capped mountains visible from the Tigris banks above Amarah, swept down on the land in 2072 B»C. It must have been a rude contrast, the genuflexions of the fat Babylonian priests and the wild and sudden onslaught of hardy and handsome mountaineers. Some of the Kassites, no doubt, went back to their eyries with as much loot as they could pick up from the village-dwellers nearest the hills, but they came again, and with telling effect. As will be seen a little further on, Babylon lost control in the south in 2071 or
This was the first indication of the coming rule of the Kassites.
XV, ij THE KINGS OF THE SEA-COUNTRY 555
For the moment there was a more pressing enemy even than the Kassites nearer at hand, destined to found a new line of kings contemporaneous with the 1st Dynasty of Babylon, known &s the 1st Dynasty of Sea-Country Kings. (See p. 153 foot.) , The ' Sea-Country' has always been a vague term. In the early days of Assyriology the description of Eridu In the Chronicle ('Dungi, the son of Ur-Engur, cared greatly for the city of Eridu, which was on the shore of the sea '), was understood to mean* that the Persian Gulf washed the flanks of the mound of A feu Shahrein. Subsequently this Idea was given up in favour of the more probable one that the *sea' (tamtu) was the great Hammar Lake, the wide marshland and shallow lagoon now spread between Nasriyeh and Basrah, and expansive enough in ancient days to reach Eridu. This was settled finally by the excavations which the present writer carried on there for the British Museum in 1918, the quantities of fresh-water mussels in contrast to the extreme rarity of sea-shells in the strata showing that the sea could not have been intended. It may be added that the proper definition of the salt tidal waters here is Nar Ivlarratu, 'the bitter river.' How far the new Sea-dynasty corresponds ethnologically to the modern marsh Arabs we cannot say; we have to note the entire absence of monuments of this dynasty, and it would appear that, though vigorous, the kings were ignorant and inartistic. As a tablet from Nippur is dated in the first year of Iluina-ilu, the first king of the Sea-land dynasty, we can see how very far north from the marshes this new rule extended in its inception; and consequently we are entitled to place the vague * Sea-land* north of the great Hammar Lake and not south or south-east of it on the actual sea. It is even possible that we are to see a reminiscence of the name in the word Tehoma found on some maps for the district near Bismaya, which lies about thirty miles south-east from Nippur. The great creation legend of Babylon, of Tiamat, the restless sea-dragon, may have taken its origin in the fanciful minds of the primitive settlers from the tidal rise and fall of the lakes near the coast. At all events the modern Arab of Basrah is said to believe that earth- quakes are caused by the 'buffalo of the Jinn7 moving about under the earth. That the * Sea-land' is not an evanescent term is clear from its reappearance in a Kassite letter, and, still more cogently, in another Dynasty of the Sea-land in the eleventh century,
Our foremost indication of this Sea-land Dynasty is found in the Chro*iicle, which, although broken at this point, says that there was war and the 'sea' was filled with corpses; that ' Samsu-iluna
556 THE KASSITE CONQUEST [CHAP.
again . . . Iluma-ilu advanced and the defeat of the troops accom- plished/ The next paragraph shows that the successor of Samsu- iluna: Abeshu', failed equally to conquer Iluma-ilu, although he dammed the Tigris to do it. The * damming of the Tigris' is a trick which the Arabs are still rfond of attempting, in order to, discommode the enemy by flooding large districts. The names of the kings of the Sea-country show fairly definitely that part at any rate were Semitic; some of the rest seem to be Sumerian. Their dates can be only approximately determined; but we may assign the beginning of this dynasty to c. 2070. After die first ten years of Samsu-iluna's reign the contract tablets from Tell Sifr near Larsa, hitherto so plentiful, cease abruptly; some upheaval in the south of Babylonia must have occurred about 2071 or 2070 B.C., which would aptly coincide with the Kassite raid, when, doubtless, the Sea-country kings were not slow to snatch some advantage. Further, tablets found so far north as Nippur, dated in the * first7 year of Iluma-ilu (that is, in the first year of his rule over that city), show that Nippur, at any rate, was included in Iluma-ilu's dominion. Moreover, the latest tablet of the 1st Dynasty from Nippur is dated in the twenty-ninth year of Samsu-iluna; in other words Nippur fell to Iluma-ilu about 2052. This clearly indicates the gradual onslaught of the Sea- country forces, working their way up methodically through the cities of the south northwards, and with this in mind we can follow the yearly events of Samsu-iluna's reign which provide us with the details leading to the catastrophe.
The Kassite raid of 2072 B.C. was followed by five years of disorder in the land, due to the invasion of these mountaineers, which either post hoc or Crofter hoc resulted in revolution. East and south, Idamaraz, Emutbal, Uruk and Isin banded together in 2071, apparently under an upstart Rim-Sin II of Larsa, and broke away from their fealty. We get a glimpse of what went on from a private letter, doubtless to be assigned to this period: one Ilu-ikisham complains in disgust to his agent of 'the robbery by the people of Idamaraz of a wooden tamlu*\ he was probably lucky to get off so lightly. Samsu-iluna sent an expedition against the four malcontents; Rim-Sin, as Larsa says, was unable to repulse his enemies, and according to the Chronicle, was either captured or burnt alive in his palace. The Babylonian king, awake to future dangers from the south, would take no risks, and in 2070 destroyed the magnificent walls of Ur and Uruk, a tremendous undertaking, which would draw heavily on^local labour. Indeed, subsequently he must have pulled down part at
XV5 ij THE ADVANCE OF THE SEA-COUNTRY 557
least of the ramparts of Isin and Emutbal, for he restored them In his fifteenth and seventeenth years.
Revolution broke out again in 2069. Samsu-iluna was «quite justified in describing the unrest as a second revolt, as he does, for Babylonia had long been an •empire under one control. The Babylonian king could with difficulty suppress it during the next two years; he was able to reduce only Kisurra and Sabura by 2068., and ij was not until 2067 that he could subjugate 'the usurper who had drawn the Akkadians to rebellion.3 If we may regard Rifn-Sin II as an ephemeral usurper who died about 207 I, it is quite probable that the new revolutionary who followed him was Iluma-ilu, also a Semite of the same district, soon to become the founder of the Sea-country line, and our date, 2071, fits aptly to allow of this identification.
Although Samsu-iluna boasted that he * subdued* him, the destruction in 2070 of the walls of two cities, Ur and Uruk, so close to Larsa, shows that Babylon had definitely relinquished her hold on them after the first emeute. Much more precise is the evidence of Samsu-iluna?s withdrawal to a still more distant frontier line in the years 2066—45 when he rebuilt the city-walls of Isin and Emutbal, and increased the ramparts of Sippar, the latter doubtless being in anticipation of a raid from the Semites of the -middle Euphrates — which actually occurred a few years later, in 2045. The year 2061 again brought revolt, and Samsu- iluna was forced to leave his temples and the dedication of their thrones to subdue it. In 2058 ...sha'na and Zarkhanum are mentioned (conceivably as attacked), and in 2057 he was receding still further north, nervously rebuilding the wall of Kish, the city so close to Babylon, and heightening the wall of Enlil at Nippur which Sin-muballit, his grandfather, had repaired.
He has left an inscription in which terror stares out, hid behind a mask of vaunting complacency. In a Sumerian and Semitic bilingual record he relates how, by his own power and wisdom, he restored Dur~An-Za-Kar of Nippur, and the obsolete fortresses of Dur-padda, Dur-lagaba, Dur-yabugani, Dur-Gula-duru and Dur-u§i~ana-Girra, * which Sumu-la-ilu, my might-y father, the fifth father of my father, had built/ all in the space of two months. Nothing could show the panic and perturbation of Samsu-iluna's mind in this anxious period more clearly than the frantic haste with which he rebuilt these old disused fortresses on the home- front, which had formed the old frontier of a century and a half before,* when Sumu-la-ilum was only just beginning to lay the foundations of the empire. The line must have lain perilously
558 THE KASSITE CONQUEST [CHAP.
near Babylon, for Sumu-la-ilum's radius of control was very short; he had busied himself with building the walls of his capital city, and so important were they that he dated two years by the work. The foe whom Sumu-la-ilum feared occupied the neighbouring city of Kish; now, in Samsu-ilur&'s time, the enemy had come to* Nippur, very near the capital, and that is why the king, chased northwards from one frontier to another, rebuilt these old forts. The exact year is unknown, but it must have been about thq. time when Iluma-ilu was pressing sore on his heels.
What has Samsu-ihina's own date-list to say of all this? The king must have been in Babylon, watching the advance of the foe, with fort after fort surrendering or going over to the enemy; and now was the time for his patron-god, whom he had worshipped with such zeal, to aid him. The king sought an oracle of Enlil, and the event marked this year and the two following; the real events are cloaked behind these dates. Iluma-ilu pushed up to Nippur by 2050 and the inhabitants were already dating their business, their leases and accounts, in his name instead of their liege-lord. Well might Samsu-iluna hide his shame behind the oracle of Enlil. We have no record that Iluma-ilu reached Babylon, but the reign of Samsu-iluna ends in trouble: in 2048 it is the city of Saggara- turn, in 2046 Amal and Arkum. To clinch the disaster in 2045 Amurru, the west land, doubtless in sympathetic movements with the people of the Sea-land, attacked the Babylonian king, and possibly carried off the images which Agum II later on recovered (c. 1561—1537, p. 562). In the next year (2044) *AkkacT — a term by this time almost forgotten, save in the conventional title 'King of Sumer and Akkad* — rebelled. Samsu-iluna's reign ended with the new dynasty threatening him close at home; his last year records that he renovated the unsparing battle-mace of Ninurta, truly a significant entry when the foe was at his gates. Thus was the Dynasty of the Sea-land firmly planted astride the domain of ancient Sumer.
Samsu-iluna was succeeded by Abeshu*, his son, who reigned for either twenty-five or twenty-eight years. For practical purposes we may accept the latter, and date him 2042—15 B.C. He came to the throne at a most inauspicious moment when Iluma-ilu had firmly occupied a large slice of his kingdom and was not to be dis- possessed. With ingenious purpose the Babylonian king attempted to dam up the Tigris so as to swamp the invaders in Nippur, a proceeding at first sight feasible; for the whole district between Nippur and Kut was liable to inundation, and this is dcwfetless what he tried to bring about. 'Abishi/ says the Chronicle, 'the
XV, i] ARTIFICIAL FLOODS AS A BARRIER 559
son of Samsu-iluna, to conquer Iluma-IIu tu[rned his attention], and set his mind to dam the Tigris: he dammed the Tigris but could no| [catch] Huma-ilu.* The incident is recorded also in his date-list; the project was too ambitious, and failed. As a rule, ^even if floods wash the flanks <3f a mound, they would not be more than shallow floods, and could not last long.
There is still extant a letter from Abeshu* to * Sin-idinnam, Kar-^ppar, and the Judges of Sippar/ which if it does not refer to the annual spate of the Euphrates, may allude to this artificial overflow from the Tigris. It is true that the Euphrates is men- tioned at the end, and Sippar is prominent; but the flood is clearly abnormal, for the workmen have been prevented from completing little more than a third of their usual annual work. The possibility, therefore, of its referring to the historic incident should not be dismissed. * Concerning the matter about which you wrote unto me, saying, "Of the dam on the Irnina canal, one hundred and twenty #^~measures . „ . [have been built] each year; we have built forty-four #x&-measures, (and) now the flood hath come, and the Irnina canal hath reached the (top?) wall of the dam." Let what you have sent to me be sent to the provincial authorities who live in Sippar.7 The broken remainder suggests that certain other men in Sippar shall arrange for the strengthening of the dam. Whatever flood may be described in the above letter, it is clear that Sin-idinnam was then at Sippar. In Hammurabi's time Sin-idinnam was, it would seem, a kind of viceroy in the south, at Larsa, and there are numerous letters addressed by the great king to him. But now, with the threatened advent of the Dynasty of the Sea-land during Samsu-iluna's thirty-eight years, we find Sin-idinnam at a far more northerly post. It is only natural that with the defection of Larsa early in the reign of Samsu-iluna, the viceroy should remove to a safer place,
A Sin-idinnam reappears as Gal-Marmy which might conceiv- ably mean * Chief of Amurru1 if it were not that a certain tablet (V. A. Th. 842/43) gives one Nidnat-Sin, the title Gal an Marzu, which makes it appear to mean * Chief-(priest) of the god Martu/ But there is an interesting letter from two men, one of whom is probably a wild bedouin, to the wife of Sin-idinnam: *Unto Akhatim, wife of Sin-idinnam, the Gal-Martu, thus Tabbi-Wadi and Mar-Shamash, thy servants. The Gal-Martu hath sent us unto thee, (for) palaces are strange to us (and) he took us to a palace/ The letter goes on to ask that they be allowed to depart, but it i% written in a curious dialect, such as might be dictated by a man with an Arab name> Tabbi-Wadi ('Good is Wadd') — it
560 THE KASSITE CONQUEST [CHAP.
reappears in a contract of Hammurabi's time — who was not at home in palaces. At all events, even if Sin-idinnam were not controlling part of Amurru from Sippar, it is certain that during part of the reigns of Samsu-iluna and Abeshu', he removed from Larsa to that city. In the time of Abeshu* he was growing an old- man, and we find that after his retirement or death, he was followed by Mardiik-nasir (perhaps his son), and in turn he, too, was replaced by his son.
None of the date-formulae of Abeshu', of which about ten are extant, show any military prowess, although he is ablerto perform some pious and diplomatic act in the temple of Nannar, E-gishshir-gal, which can hardly be the great temple of Ur? but must be a smaller shrine nearer home.
From now on, until the Hittites arrive, the two kingdoms, Babylon and the Sea-land, existed side by side. Sometimes there was a flicker of the old fire, as when Ammi-zaduga * broke the oppression of the land* in 1967, and, we may suppose, recon- quered some of his ancestors* dominion, for in the next year he built a fort at the * mouth of the Euphrates/ His predecessor, Ammi-ditana (2014—1978), in his last year 'destroyed the wall of Durum which Damki-ilishu built/ which at least shows that the Babylonians were biting back some of their own. Ammi- ditana also vanquished an unknown enemy, Arakhab (or Ara- khaun), a lu-mada in 1997. Otherwise the sphere of activity of the kings of Babylon is woefully narrowed; they made a brave show with their gifts to the temples of Babylon, Kish, Borsippa and Sippar, but the glory had departed.
At the wedding of Elmeshu ('Sapphira/ or some such precious stone), who may be the daughter of Ammi-ditana, the terkhatuy or present to the bride's family, was only four shekels, a singularly small amount for a king's daughter. She married Ibku-Anunitum, the bridegroom's parents in this case paying the terkhatu to the bride's brother and sister. We know not who he was, except that he was a Semite, and that the name is also that of a judge in Ammi-zaduga's time. Her sister, Zirtum, on the order of her brother, Shumum-libshi, gave her away, and the only protection which the bride had, beyond the ordinary laws of the land, is the fine of half a mana which her husband is to pay if he repudiates her. If the name of her father on the tablet is certain, and he is indeed the king, we might see here a trenchant criticism of Babylonian royalty. It is perhaps the same Elmeshu who is men- tioned in two letters. One found at Larsa is from §iru (possibly a 'pet name' of Zirtum), praying her; *do thou a sisterly act thus.
XV, ij THE HITTITE RAID 561
for we were brought up together since we were little.* Then follows a curious phrase which, as it stands, means * since thou hast acquired a god* (ishtu Ham tarshT)\ words which would have little meaning, unless we suppose that she had married one of the *royal blood who might eventuallyHbecome king and then be deified.
The last kings of the dynasty were far more attached to their temples than to the camp. They multiplied their gifts in gold and silver, to their gods, they dedicated emblems, statues, thrones, maces, solar disks; sometimes they built towns or digged canals called after their own names. But they were unwarlike and mere shadows of their great predecessor Hammurabi, and our know- ledge of them decreases as the dynasty draws near its end. Ammi- zaduga (1977—57) has left us an Omen-text, and it was in his reign that a date-list (known now as *B?) was compiled.
It was owing to this weakness that the Hatti^ 'Hittites/ suddenly appeared in Babylonia in a raid down the Euphrates, and were able to invade the land with impunity in the reign of the last king, Samsu-ditana (1956— 26). Tiie Chronicle describes the invasion with the words: *In the time of Shamash-ditana Hattu came to Akkad' (c, 1926). The new Hittite tablets from Boghaz Keui, as translated by Hrozny, show that, later on, in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries, Hittites were raiding from Aleppo to Carchemish and Tagarama (the biblical Togarmah); and consequently we have good reason to infer that the first expedition of 1926 was based directly on the Hittite capital in Anatolia, and was not merely a raid from the Syrian Hittites round Carchemish. A later Hittite expedition (of Murshilish I) took place in the latter part of the Kassite period, and may account partly for the numerous treaties which the Babylonian kings made with Assyria. There was certainly a close relationship between the Kassite and the Hittite capital in the fourteenth century, for we find horses (called AnsJiu Kur-ray the proper Babylonian word) mentioned in a Hittite historical text of about this period, describ- ing what happened in the reign of Murshilish II (towards the end of the fourteenth century), and the introduction of the horse, at all events in Babylonia, was certainly due to the Kassites.
This Hittite raid on Samsu-ditana down the Euphrates marks the end of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon. Samsu-ditana might call to his aid 'the great forces of Shamash and Marduk,* but nothing could stay the fast-flowing sands of his dynasty. He was prepared to meet his enemy only when he could look at him from the basti$n« of his city walls : so much perhaps one may glean from the following letter from him to Sippar: * Concerning what ye
C.A.H.I S^
5&2 THE KASSITE CONQUEST [CHAP.
wrote to me, saying, "The corn which is in Sippar-Ya'rurum — it is not right that it be left on the land to the mercy of the enemy troops; let the king our lord command that order be s.ent to us that the Shamash-gate be opened, and then this corn can be brought into the town/' This i£ what you sent. As soon as they- have finished the corn, which is the town-crops, open the Shamash- gate5 and then until they have finished (bringing in) the corn which is the town-crops, seat the judges (i.e. in the gate), ajid let them not be negligent about guarding the gate!' If this letter is to be ascribed to the time of the Hittite raid, the reference^ to Sippar shows that the enemy certainly appears to be from the north rather than the south. It is clear that the harvesters went almost in fear of their lives in bringing in the grain from the adjacent fields, for the city-gate, now closed, could only be opened when the wisest and most responsible burghers of the town were acting as sentinels.
Later, the Kassite king Agum II (c. 1561-1537) brought back to Babylon from Khani (the old Khana on the middle Euphrates) the images of Marduk and Sarpanit to E-sagila. It is uncertain whether they had been carried off by the Hittites, or by the men of Amurru, who were the more usual inhabitants of Khana, in Samsu-iluna's reign (perhaps 2045, see pp. 468, 558). Samsu-iluna made two thrones in gold for Marduk and Sarpanit in 2062, and had also made statues of gold for certain gods in 2075; doubtless this was why they were carried off as booty. His successor, Abeshu', in one of his date-formulae, records the making of statues of Marduk and Sarpanit, and the probability is that he was replacing the ravished deities.
To this period L, W, King has ascribed the reigns of the three kings of Erech,, Anam, Sin-gashid and Sin-gamiL To these we must add Arad-shagshag (?). Anam, the son of Bel-shemea, re- built the wall of Erech, ascribing the original building to the great king of the city, Gilgamesh, It had been destroyed in 2070 by Samsu-iluna and we must put the date of Anam's restoration within the next hundred years. It is probable that *Anam-gish- dubba, son of Bel-shemea' is the same person; he rebuilt the temple of Nergal, 'king of U^arpara/ for the life of Sin-gamil, king of Erech, in which case Sin-gamil was probably his pre- decessor. Sin-gashid, who calls himself son of Ninsun, thus identifying himself with the line of Gilgamesh, rebuilt E-anna, the ancient shrine of Anu and Ishtar in Erech; and on a clay nail, which, he dedicates 'to Lugal-banda, his god, and Nlneuft, his mother' (thus emphasizing his connexion with the pedigree of
XV, ii] THE KASSITE CONQUEST 563
Gilgamesh), lie calls himself 'king of Erech, king of Amnanu/ and. describes his building of E-kankal after E-anna had been finished^ He quotes in this inscription the current markcUprice of commodities : a shekel of silver would buy 3 gur of corn, 1 2 *mana of wool, 10 mana of coppet or 30 %a of vegetable oil. Corn was thus three times as cheap as in Manishtusu's time some seven or eight centuries earlier.
"WJth the end of the 1st Dynasty of Babylon in Samsu-ditana's reign (c. 1926 B.C.) we reach the beginning of an obscure period. A? ail events, Babylon drops from her high estate : the kings of the Sea-country, of whom we know little more than their names,, are in power until the time of Ea-Gamil, c. 1711—03 B.C. We meet a stray reference to one of the kings, Gul-Kishar, c. 1877—23, as 'king of the Sea-country' on a boundary stone of the twelfth century, made by Enlil-nadin-apli of the Ilnd Dynasty of Ism, who says that he lived six hundred and ninety-six years before Nebuchadrezzar I (see p. 154).
II. THE KASSITE DYNASTY
Towards the end of their dynasty the Semites lost their strength. As we have seen, the Kassites had been peacefully penetrating the laitd, and were now to control Babylonia for nearly six centuries. Out of the thirty-six kings, which is the number the royal list gives for the Kassite occupation, lasting 576 years 9 months, we now know the names of thirty-five.
About 1746 B.C. Gandash, or Gaddash, or, as he calls himself in his own semi-illiterate (Sumerian) inscriptions, cGande/ was the first chief of the Kassites to conquer Babylon. A neo-Baby- lonian copy of one of his inscriptions commemorates his restora- tion of the temple of Enlil, which was probably damaged f in the conquest of Babylon,' as the text itself appears to say. Two inferences are clear: the first is that Babylon fell to the Kassites under his leadership, and the second that he did what every wise conqueror of these lands has done — he placated the gods, or, what is far more important, the hierarchy. His door-sockets in Nippur, stolen from dead kings, and miserably inscribed with his dedication to Enlil, not even in his own language, show that he also added Nippur to his rule. Safely on the throne for sixteen years, the barbarian king imitated his predecessors of another race, and called himself 'king of the Four Regions, king of Sum<ftr«.nd Akkad, king of Babylon/
What little we know of the fall of the Sea-country dynasty is
36— z
5&4 THE KASSITE CONQUEST [CHAP.
drawn from scattered sources. The Kassites held the reins of power round about Babylon, but the kings of the Sea-country were -not prepared to relinquish their dominion without a^struggie. The next king, Agum I, *the former, his son' (c. 1730—09)5 was followed by Kashtiliash (c. 1708—1687), the son of Burna- Burariash and brother of Ula-Buriash, who does not appear to have ruled in Mesopotamia, He was on the throne when Ea-gamil, the last king of the Sea-country, made a last desperate thrqw for the destruction of the invader, and set out against Elam as the easier way of embarrassing the Kassites than by a direct attack against northern Mesopotamia. Ea-gamil was met by Ula(m)- Buriash, who promptly put him to flight, pursued him and con- quered part of his Sea-lands, which he brought under his control. Thus the Sea-land dynasty ended in 1703, The very mace-head which he dedicated to one of the gods in Babylon shows how proud he was to call himself 'King of the Sea-land/ and from his inscription we may infer that he adopted the worship of the local gods, Ami, Enlil, Ea, Marduk and Ninmakh. Kashtiliash appears to have extended his rule north-westwards as well as south, for we find one of the West Semitic tablets from the middle Euphrates district dated in his name (see p. 467).
There is another small flicker in the Sea-lands. Agum I, or perhaps II (1561—37), captured the capital city DurJEa (or Enlil) and razed to the ground E-malga-uruna, the temple to Ea (or Enlil). But the Sea-land kings have come to an end in 1 703 with Ea-gamil, and there follows a little-known period in which either by force of arms or diplomacy, Agum II recovered the statues of Marduk and Sarpanit from Khani (p. 562). He calls himself 'King of Kashshu and Akkad, king of the broad lands of Babylon, who settled many people in Ashnunnak, king of Padan and Alman (probably the modern Holwan) : king of the land of Guti/ Here, too, must be included the second Hittite expedition under Murshilish I, mentioned above (p. 561), with which event we may break off until the better-known period beginning with Burna-Buriash,
Our knowledge of the Kassites, considering that they ruled the land for nearly six centuries, is very small. There are a fair number of letters and contracts of the latter part of the period, and we can glean a very little from the boundary-stones. Much of our knowledge of the political forces of the middle of the second millennium is drawn from external sources such as the Boghaz Keui Hittite tablets, the Amarna tablets, and the Egyptian^irf^crip- tions. We know little of the government which they introduced
XV, ii] INTERNAL CONDITIONS 565
Into Babylon after their conquest, and even after Burna-Buriash I (V. 1461—36) the material Is very scanty for building up a sketch of their rule. The king still maintained the old Babylonian^ right of final decision in legal cases,, for we find one of them writing *about a legal matter to Amel-Niarduk, who may well have been the same as the * governor* (Gu-En-Na) of Nippur of this name in the time of Shagarakti-Shuriash, who reigned about 1262—50. His instructions to his officer are that a man who had slandered another Is to be sent into the royal presence.
^During the later Kassite period (£, fourteenth—twelfth centuries) we get a glimmering of the administration. The land appears to have been divided into pakhati or districts, each under a £<?/, or 'lord/ and among the highest, if not the highest of city officials we find the Gu-En-Na of Nippur mentioned., under whom, as is to be expected, was a large staff of clerks. Dur-Kuri-galzu, the other large city, has Its Gu-En-Nay while the smaller villages., such as Rakanu and Bit-KIdlnni, were controlled by a kha^anu (an *agha' as he would probably be called to-day), whose duty included the registration for taxation, since he Is found in charge of several * herdsmen* (nakidt)* The skakkanakku still existed; at all events the Kassite kings, who are the principal administrators of the temple of Enlil at Nippur, are known by the title of Shakkanak Enlily and we find the word in use down to the last Babylonian dynasty, to the time of Nebuchadrezzar. Indeed, It Is conceivable that the word Gu-En-Na Is Its equivalent, and that shu-ku, given as Its value, stood for $hakkana-ku\ In support of this are the indica- tions that Nippur was a royal residence, if not the capital city. The old patesi is also found, but with woefully decreased powers*
The excavations of Nippur have brought to light many docu- ments from the archives of the temple of Enlil for the period from Burna-Buriash II to Kashtiliash III (c. 1395 to 1242 B.C.). These are the records of the receipt of taxes or rent from outlying districts round Nippur; and although they properly belong to the later Kassite period and not to this chapter, they doubtless represent the result of the diplomatic piety of earlier Kassite kings, such as Agum II. These documents consist of account tablets of the taxes paid In to the temple in corn, sesame, oil, dates, flour and livestock, the payment of salaries, and the com- mercial transactions carried on. Throughout these records there is very little West Semitic influence; but Elam and Khanigalbit are both definitely represented among the foreigners,
Aftar the taxes had been collected they were either brought to Nippur or were deposited temporarily in the storehouses of the
566 THE KASSITE CONQUEST [CHAP.
chief town of the district. During the reign of Nazi- Mar uttash (<:. 1319—1294) an official named Innannu figures prominently in thp temple business. He receives taxes and makes Disburse-- in ents5 and pays the salaries of the temple-brewer (rikku) and miller (Ka-Zid-Da)\ and the pay of these two men, with that of the priest, is higher than that of the ordinary temple-craftsmen.
By the time of the later rulers the worship became practically that of the Babylonian deities, for the names Sin, Shamash, Adad, Marduk, Enlil, Ninurta, Nusku, Ishtar, Belit, Nergal, Gula and Ea are constantly mentioned; but at the same time a Kassite g6d- name reappears as late as Artaxerxes I in a slave's name, Na'id- Shi-i-pak, so that although the man may be a true Kassite prisoner, the god Shipak still existed, even if only over the border, Enlil has his msak&u-priest at Nippur, and doubtless the 'ka/u-prie$t of Akkad/ and the karu-seer, who occur in the kudurrus, or inscribed boundary-stones, were attached to his temple. A skangu-priest of Belit is also mentioned.
The contract-tablets which cover the same period, Burna- Buriash II—Kashtiliash III (V. 1395—1242), represent the daily business life as the banking firm of Nabu-sharrakh knew it, the business carried on being loans and money-dealings of all kinds. The mention of the ox, sheep, horse, ass, sheep-wool, skins, stuffs, gold, silver, copper, bronze and lead, but not iron, indicates their possessions. The mana at this time was 475 grammes, to judge from a weight: 'three manas fixed, of Dayan (?)-Marduk, priest of Kish,' perhaps the same as the priest of Enlil in the time of Adad-shum-iddin. Slavery continued, and from a sale in the fifteenth century we find two men, one of whom is called the 'Elamite* (see p. 521), sold for ten shekels of gold each, and five women for seven shekels each. But more interesting still is the sale 'of a child of Karduniyash ' in the reign of Burna-Bxiriash II, a native child of the land.
Under the Kassite kings we find a new system of land-tenure coining into fashion. The old system, with national boundary- stones, such as we see in the cone of Entemena, and temple gate- sockets, is giving way in face of a policy of private ownership. The Kassite kudurru-texts, although not the original title-deeds, record and confirm the royal grants of land, such as a conqueror and his descendants would make to meritorious officials. They had their origin under this Kassite dynasty, and their peculiarity is that by curse and sculptured emblem they invoke the gods to protect private rights. There is no evidence of such a practice under Hammurabi, and, to go back still further, the obelisk of
XV5 u] RELIGION AND ART 567
Manishtusu, recording the early purchase of land in northern Babylonia, lacks such imprecations or symbols. The earlier kudurru-inscriptions during the Kassite period represent a stage of transition from the old custom to the new.
^ Little remains of Kassite aj#. According to Koldewey and Peters, the Kassites were able to glaze their pottery., and Peters describes some highly ornamental axe-heads found at Nippur, of a material identified as glass, one of which is inscribed with the name of Nazi-Maruttash. There are a few kudurru-stonss, and sc*me cylinder-seals, but otherwise there is little artistic effort extant. A kudurru earlier than Kurigalzu, with the first inscription rubbed down and a new one superimposed,, has retained its astronomical symbols, but it cannot be said that they show more than a fair standard of art; the seated goddess is distinctly remi- niscent of Sumerian style. Again, two stones of Meli-Shipak are equally poor: the god Adad, bearded and wearing a flounced robe and high head-dress,, is portrayed with negroid lips, as though some early artist from Elara had represented the local negrito type.
The Kassite cylinder-seals show a considerable change from those of the preceding periods. The Kassite reverence for literary effort, which showed itself in the building of schools attached to the temple of Enlil at Nippur, and in their adoption of the writing and language of the Semites of this time, appears also in the seals which are particularly noticeable. The length of the inscription which may sometimes extend over seven or eight lines is quite different from the short inscriptions of earlier seals. In the time of Sargon I, the large cylinder prevailed, 3—4 cm. in length and two-thirds as thick; then, after Gudea, the cylinder was reduced in length, being seldom more than 3 cm., the thickness being generally half the length. With the Kassites came a reversion to the earlier length, generally 3 or 4 cm., but with a thickness of 1-5—2 cm. Few of the cylinders are of special artistic merit. Hayes Ward points out that a new variety of symbols is coming in: the sphinx, the winged disk, the Greek cross, and various forms of birds and animals, some of which appear to be due to Egyptian influence. At the same time there are many emblems on the kudurrus which need not necessarily be traced to foreign influence, such as the centaur, the scorpion-man or the dragons, for the earlier seals prove the existence in art of winged animals and bird-men, while the scorpion-men are to be found in the legend of Gilgamesh. The figures with strange twisted legs may have had their origin in the twisted double snake of Lagash,
568 THE KASSITE CONQUEST [CHAP.
Obviously it is not easy to assign a date to the migration of Semitic words into Greek., but such a process may certainly have started by the time of the Kassites. Kassite intercourse with Syria and Egypt had the effect of spreading Mesopotamfan ideas to the Mediterranean emporia $.nd shipping harbours, whence r they were transferred by Phoenician traders westwards, It is enough merely to mention the similarities of sound between so many Greek words and their Semitic equivalents for metals, weights and measures, musical instruments, and even wine.The division of the year into twelve months, the week of seven days, and the double-hour are all Babylonian. But the two greatest benefits which the Kassites introduced into Babylonia were the horse, and their simple method of dating by the numbering of the year of the reign.
To sum up what can be said of them, they were undoubtedly popular with the older inhabitants, or they could never have held control over the country for six centuries. Their custom of con- ferring grants of land on meritorious persons doubtless quickened the gratitude of recipients, who thus became powerful person- alities, even if they had not been so before. They were quick to see the advantage of writing, and they took over the local script and the two languages, Sumerian and Semitic-Babylonian, re- linquishing their own. It was perhaps the march of events ffwhich forced them to a wide diplomacy rather than any native bent in that direction.
Meanwhile, Assyria, during the period when the Kassite kings were absorbing Babylonia, and the Hittites were making their second raid on Babylon, is hidden in a darkness as yet impene- trable. We know, however, that Sharnshi-Adad II (c. 1716—1687, or, much less probably, III) restored the temple of Ashur, E-kharsag-kurkura, and the temple of Enlil; but, what is of far greater importance, he has left us the oldest long inscription in Assyrian, and his exploits, as he tells them, show that the Assyrian empire was in the course of foundation. *I received/ says he, * tribute from the kings of Tukrish and the king of the Upper Land in my city Ashur. My great names and my stele I set up in the land of Laban on the shore of the Great Sea/ The Upper Land must mean the mountainous country to the north, beyond Jezlrah, perhaps even as far as Lake Van; the Great Sea can hardly be other than the Mediterranean, where it was not un- common for Assyrian kings to set up their inscriptions in later times. We have already mentioned an item in the tariff whighuthis inscription gives as current during this reign (p. 545),
XV, n] PRELUDE TO THE < AMARNA ' AGE 569
Again, it is probably Shamshi-Adad II who built a temple to Dagan in Tirka, the capital of Khana, on the middle Euphrates, another to Ereshkigal in Ashur, and the famous shrine of Ishtar
f t »
of Nineveh, We know little of his successor Ishme-Dagan II, or pf Shamshi-Adad III, save that* the latter built the Anu-Adad temple in Ashur, Then follows a long period of which we know little more than the names of the kings, until we reach the fifteenth century,
Th'e eight hundred years which these last three chapters describe have seen the gradual development of Babylonia as a political factor in the Near East, The Semites, prolific and ener- getic, have absorbed the Sumerian; in their turn these Semites have yielded temporarily to the mountaineer Kassites from the East whose westward thrust is now to be felt, probably as far as Cappadocia and Egypt, The stage is set for the great period of the fifteenth century, when Babylonian, Hittite, and Egyptian kings are to make alternate peace and war with each other, and when, in the ' Amarna Age,' we shall reach a cosmopolitan age of unprecedented intercourse and energy throughout south-west Asia, the Levant and Egypt,
CHAPTER XVI
THE ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA
I. EGYPTIAN ART
SOME account of the prehistoric art of Egypt has already been given In the chapter devoted to predynastic Egypt, The history of archaic Egypt is and can be little more than the history of the development of its art as revealed to us by excavations. We see in studying the results how art first arose in the Nile valley in neolithic times, in the wonderfully delicate and accurate knapping of the knives of chert and flint that were the weapons of the primitive Egyptians, in the red and black polished pottery, made with the hand, that was the oldest Egyptian ceramic, in the ivory combs with figures of birds or the heads of bearded men carved upon them, and the slate palettes (for the grinding of paint) in the shapes of fish, tortoises, birds or hippopotami that form the beginnings of Egyptian sculpture, and in the stone vases that foretoken the later triumphs of the Egyptian artist in dealing with fine and beautiful stones. We see pottery developing from the earliest stages of polished red and black without decora- tion and the more elaborately decorated styles of red or black with geometric decoration, either incised and filled with white gypsum or in white paint, to the even more peculiarly characteristic style of an unpolished buff ware on which are painted in red barbaric designs of boats, with men and women, antelopes, and ostriches, besides geometrical patterns of wavy lines, triangles, and checker-patterns. Contemporary with these pots are the remarkable clay figures of women, usually steatopygous and decorated with geometric patterns of the same kind as those on the pots; they presumably represent mourners.
Further we see a type of pot with a wavy handle developing into a perfectly straight-sided vase, with the wavy handle repre- sented by a rope-pattern round its neck, that became fashionable shortly before the time of the 1st Dynasty, and was commonly imitated in stone. Then, its base splaying outwards and its top developing a thick flat lip, it became the typical unguentyvgse of the Vlth Dynasty, usually made of aragomte, so well known in
CHAP. XVI, i] PREDYNASTIC ART 571
our museums. We see stone forms imitated in pottery: the char- acteristic heavy stone bowls with horizontal tubular handles, made of |ed breccia or black and white diorite or of other beautiful stones, being copied in the buff ware and the markings of the ^tone being rudely imitated in '•the red colour as helical coils. These coils have no relation whatever to true spiral designs, which were unknown to early Egyptian art, and do not appear in E^ypt till after the time of the Vlth Dynasty, and then suddenly and without prefatory development. They are evidently art* importation from the foreign art of Crete and the Aegean, where the spiral was a native motif which we can trace from its earliest development upward.
The carved slate palettes developed into the extraordinary ceremonial objects of great size that are characteristic of the end of the predynastic and beginning of the dynastic age; the finest examples being the great palettes of Narmerza that have already been described (p. 268). With these objects and the equally remarkable ceremonial mace-heads of the same time, Egyptian relief sculpture may fairly be regarded as having passed from the barbaric stage into the domain of real art. We may note also, in the round, the stone lions and falcons of the Berens Collection, which are of the age of the Scorpion and Narmerza, and the lion and hawk from Coptos and the extraordinary gigantic figures of the god Min from the same place (in the Ashmolean Museum) which last are more ancient, and are probably among the oldest examples of Egyptian sculpture in the round.
For the making of these works of art the Egyptian sculptor was already employing metal tools. Long before the dynastic age copper began to be used in Egypt, coming probably, as we have seen, from Syria, possibly with the new intrusive 'Armenoid* population that gradually filtered through the Nile-valley from north to south (p. 26 1 •$<?.). We have seen no reason yet to credit the theory that the invention of metal-working was effected in Egypt: and it seems possible that the Babylonians were acquainted with the use of metal before the Egyptians.
In Egypt metal did not come into universal use until centuries after its first appearance. The wonderful chipping and extra- ordinary serration of the neolithic flint knives disappeared owijig to the greater ease of obtaining a sharp edge on the new copper knives, but the flint knife itself remained. The Egyptians of the late predynastic and early dynastic periods belonged to the chalco- Kthio* age of hitman development, and did not really enter the Bronze Age till the time of the Pyramid-builders, if then, as even during the Middle Kingdom stone was still used for the
572 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA [CHAP.
commonest tools, as slaughtering knives, and for arrowheads. Metal was still too valuable to be wasted on a weapon that did not remain in the hands of the warrior. Not until the ^XVIIIth Dynasty did the Egyptians finally abandon the use of stone for these purposes. Bronze was of coarse unknown to the predynastic* Egyptians, and copper continued to be used for making vases, statues, etc., till the end of the Old Kingdom (see pp. 291, 585); bronxe was known now, but rare. Weapons, too, were usually of copper up till the end of the Old Kingdom, and still so even under the Xllth Dynasty, so far as the ordinary felfeh levies were concerned: finely-tempered bronze, now coming into use (p. 319) being no doubt reserved for the swords and axes of their masters. Under this dynasty very fine and beautiful weapons were produced by the bronze-smiths. The sword (or rather large dagger) of the time, which had developed slowly from the copper dagger of predynastic times, was often finely worked, and its ivory pommel of characteristic and curious shape was well cut and fitted. The copper axehead of the Old Kingdom was of a very simple and primitive form: under the Middle Kingdom it developed into the well-known bronze hatchet shape, of which the blade, at the end of our period, was often a mere frame for a flat group in open metal work of the king hunting or slaying an enemy, or of lions and bulls fighting, and so on. Such axes were* surely mere weapons of parade, and can hardly have been of much use in actual fighting unless unusually finely tempered* The curved scimitar or khepeshy so characteristic of Egyptian war-scenes in later days, was not yet introduced from Asia, to which land, too, the peculiar beak-shaped war-pickaxe, also well-known later, owed its origin : both were introduced by the Hyksos.
Whence the Egyptians obtained tin for the alloy of bronze we do not know; antimony they got nearer home. A fact unexpected and long disputed, but nevertheless a fact, is that iron was not only known to, but actually used, by the oldest Egyptians, though apparently not for the purpose of making weapons. The most ancient iron weapon from Egypt is a halbert of 1200 B.C., though an iron spearhead as early as 2000 B.C. (?) comes from Nubia. Hammered iron beads have been found in a predynastic grave (p. 242), and finds at Gizeh and Abydos show that small sheets or pieces of iron were used in a worked form under the IVth and Vlth Dynasties. Evidently the metal was not at all common in early times, when it is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts as * Heavenly Metal' (the Coptic benipe, 'iron'), which looks* as if it were first obtained by the Egyptians from aerolites. Haematite was well known in the predynastic period, and this probably was
XVI, i] ARCHAIC ART 573
a source of Iron. Later It no doubt came from the southern Sudan. Lead was well known to the Sumerians and probably to the Egyptians also, since silver was known to them from early t;imes, and both lead and silver probably came to both countries from the same source in Asia Minor^Gold was commonly used from the predynastic period; being in fact probably the metal first used by man. In the early dynastic age the goldsmiths had attained a remarkable pitch of excellence in their craft. Electrum was also in use at an early period, and was much in favour under the Xllth Dynasty, the golden age of the Egyptian jewellers and goldsmiths.
The political developments of the early dynastic period and the great increase of material culture that characterized it gave a great impetus to the evolution of Egyptian art, which in about three centuries passed from primitive childishness to its full adult stature, and then remained fixed in its essentials for three millennia. We find proof of great power among the archaic artists of the 1st Dynasty, naive though their work may sometimes be. Nothing finer of its kind has ever been produced by any art than the wonderful little ivory figure of a king, from one of the royal tombs at Abydos, which is preserved in the British Museum (No. 37,996, exhibited in the Sixth Egyptian Room). It is in small art of tids kind that we find the Egyptian artist is already showing his mastery. He is the architechnites^ pre-eminently the best art- craftsman of the world: his training, to be handed down from generation to generation through the millennia, is now bearing its first fruits. And when, as in the case of this figure, he is a real artist as well as craftsman, he is already hard to beat.
Let us, again, take the little crouching lions in ivory, which are characteristic of a few decades earlier than this royal figure (Brit. Mus. Nos. 35,529 and 52,920; and Mrs J. BL Rea's collection). Their treatment is much more archaic; artistic power had been advancing by swift strides. The conventional Egyptian lion has not yet arrived : he will not arrive till the time of the Vth or Vlth Dynasty. These grinning little lions, like their larger con- geners in stone mentioned above, are of a tradition that was not to survive: later on, calm majesty was preferred to active ferocity. The Babylonian always preferred active ferocity in a lion, who for him had to have grinning teeth and glaring eyeballs, as also for the Egyptian at first. Here we find probably a point of early contact between the two arts. In Egypt traditions of conventionalism grew up smd finally crystallized about the time of the Vth Dynasty, when not only lions, but also the kings and gods are depicted in
574 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA [CHAP.
relief on the walls of the temples as they appear thenceforward till the death of Egyptian religion and culture (see p. 286).
The hieroglyphic writing naturally had to become cojavention- alized early., if it was to be generally used. Under the first two dynasties we often find strange Signs, of meaning unknown to usj and familiar hieroglyphic birds and beasts appear in unfamiliar guise and posture. The tradition did not become fixed before the Illrd Dynasty. And no doubt the fact of the fixation of the pipture- writing contributed not a little to that of the bigger pictures. The Egyptian never wholly dissociated writing from painting, ancT if the little pictures of words were fixed In shape, why not repre- sentations of things on the large scale, or even in the round? Nevertheless there was always room for the exercise of individual judgment in the use of the conventionalization; fashion might affect it to some extent, and with the lapse of time modifications of course crept in.
The tradition of portraiture that we have already seen in the archaic period was always continued. On one view, it was necessary for religious reasons. The dead man would more certainly live again in the underworld if his portrait-statue were like him. In the face, that is ; the trunk, the hands and the feet did not matter, they were wholly conventional. So the Egyptians throughout their art- history were the greatest masters of portraiture of the ancient world. The Babylonian and Assyrian artists made no attempt to produce real portraits of their sitters. Even in the best period of Sumerian art (in the time of Gudea) it can hardly be maintained that they did so. Religion did not require it, and there was no need to give the statue of a dedicator of a temple his real physiognomy in life. Under the Pyramid-kings we find Egyptian portraiture already true and faithful to individual character. The famous statues of Khafre and Menkaure at Cairo are great examples, and there are many such portraits of lesser men of the time in our museums. At the end of the period a degenerative process set in, though the copper (?) statues of Pepi and his son (p. 291) are evidently good portraits* But with the restoration of stable political conditions tinder the Xlth Dynasty, the old mastery reasserted itself, and we have in the royal portraiture of this time work even superior to that of the Pyramid-builders.
Portraits like the relief of Senusret I from Coptos, the statues of Senusret III from Deir el-Bahri depicting the king at different periods of his life, and the several heads of Amenemhet III ( notably the obsidian head* formerlv in the nossessinn of tke^Rev.
XVI, i] THE FIXING OF STYLE 575
material), are among the most remarkable" achievements of the Egyptian sculptor. But at this time actual portraiture is not so characteristic of the statues of noblemen or officials, and seems to be more or less restricted to royal personages, at any rate, on Che large scale; though we do possess some statuettes, such as that of a royal official in red quartzite in the British Museum (No. 24,385), and some beautiful little wooden portrait figures buried in tombs with the models of boats, animals, groups of workmen, etc., characteristic of the interments of this period. TBese models were intended to turn into actual retainers and so forth in the next world. They are, of course, often extremely crude, and hardly worthy of the name of art; but others are good, and the rectangular coffins of the Middle Kingdom with their great eyes and bands of inscription without, and their weird maps of the underworld for the guidance of the dead within, are usually very fine.
Religious reasons of the same kind dictated the elaborate and beautiful decoration of the tombs of this epoch. In this case it was the tomb of the noble rather than that of the king that was decorated. It was normally not the actual tomb-chamber that was ornamented with reliefs and painted scenes, but the outer chambers for the offerings. In the case of the king, who was buried in a great pyramid, these chambers were represented by his funerary temple, which had been decorated as early as the Vth Dynasty. The elaborate reliefs on the walls of the tomb of Ti, a noble of that dynasty, have already been mentioned (p. 288) : the practice began in the case of private nobles of Ti's rank, under the preceding dynasty. Under the Vlth we have the tombs at Meir, under the Xllth those at el-Bersheh and Beni-Hasan (p. 306), where the fami- lies of the Amenis and Khnumhoteps were buried in the splendid cliff-tombs whos6 beautiful decoration is one of the most charac- teristic works of the dynasty. The groups of wrestlers with which the walls of the outer hall of the tomb of Ameni are painted are especially remarkable for their truth and freedom, having quite a * Greek feeling/ The wall-painting of this tomb and that of Khmimhotep are the best Middle Kingdom examples of the Egyptian art of painting in distemper, as opposed to the Cretan manner of painting in true fresco. A thing to be noted is the remarkable range of the Egyptian painter's palette at this time (c. 2000 B.C.): he already disposes of most of the colours of the rainbow, whereas the Babylonian painter does not seem to have deveteped much sense of colour till later times. The marvellous accuracy with which the finer of these tomb-paintings were
576 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA [CHAP,
executed in the darkness of Egyptian tombs is a matter for wonder and speculation.
Under the Xllth Dynasty Egyptian art reached its Apogee of delicacy, taste and proportion. Nothing more beautiful in its own genre was ever produced in Egypt than the jewellery of gold and cloisonne stones, carnelian, lapis, felspar and amethyst, which has been found in the pyramids of kings of this dynasty at Dahshur and Lahun. Hardly anything more beautiful of its kind has ever been produced anywhere. And the same feeling for combinations of beautiful colours and textures, for proportion and appropriice- ness of decoration, characterizes all the art of this particular period, both great and small. Great art existed as we know from the works of Senusret III and Amenemhet III, and it was a time of great ideas. But in artistic matters the dynasty is preeminently associated in our minds with the most beautiful small art, the art of the jeweller, of the faience-maker, of the carpenter in rare and beautiful woods, of the clever carver in ivory and the cutter and glazer of the scarabs where beautiful spiral designs were derived from the art of the most artistic people of the ancient world, the Aegeans. This * small art' of the Xllth Dynasty is interesting when compared with the cruder small art of the archaic age of the 1st and Ilnd Dynasties. There was the same love of making pretty things in gold and finely-coloured stones and ivory and beautiful wood. The small art of the Xllth Dynasty shows what a millen- nium of the tradition started by the archaic craftsmen could produce. It marks the highest upward swing of the pendulum: henceforward the small arts decline and do not find a real lasting arrest of degeneracy even under the XVIIIth Dynasty and the Sa'ites.
The art of the potter alone never developed in Egypt as it did in contemporary and later Greece, or as it did in other and uncon- nected fields of civilization, such as Mexico. Egyptian pottery was remarkable for its own unaided charms in the predynastic age only. Thereafter it degenerated, and was always crude and poor when not embellished by the art of the glazer. It was the application of glaze to pottery that made the famous Egyptian faience, the ancestor of the glazed wares of Persia, China, and the modern world. By glaze, of course, is meant real glass, not the varnish which in the case of Greek pottery often wrongly goes by the name of * glaze/ Glass was perhaps the most characteristic of Egyptian inventions. We find it already in predynastic times (p. 2,43), when glazed pottery beads were already made. By frhc time of the 1st Dynasty the typical Egyptian blue faience had already
XVI, n] SMALL ART 577
evolved : in order to lighten the fabric the ordinary brown pottery was not used as the base of the glaze., but an extraordinarily light composition, often little more than sand held together by gum, and lightly fired. On this material was laid a pale-blue glaze which was imitated by the Sai'tes in later days in accordance with the archaizing artistic tendencies of that age. Under the Xllth Dynasty was invented the beautiful deep-blue glaze which we find probably .in its most delicate colour and texture under that dynasty, though the blue is not so brilliant as it was to be under the^XVTIIth, OB so deep as under the XXIst Dynasty.
A black haematite glaze was also employed as early as the 1st Dynasty; but the various colours characteristic of the end of the XVIIIth and the XlXth-XXth Dynasties had not yet been evolved, even under the Xllth, The blue glaze was used not only for faience, but, under the Xllth Dynasty, also to cover stone, such as the soft steatite commonly used in the manufacture of scarabs at this time, or the hard white quartzite. The blue-glazed quartzite produced an extraordinarily delicate effect of colour. Pure glass, usually blue, and generally opaque, was used for spherical beads, etc* The varicoloured vases which were produced in opaque glass from the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty onward had not yet been invented.
The invention of glass had passed from Egypt, the land of its origin, to the cities of the Aegean before the end of the Old Kingdom, but probably was not generally adopted in western Asia before the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, when we also apparently find glazed pottery in Assyria.
II. INTERRELATIONS WITH BABYLONIA
In Palestine, midway between the two great centres of civiliza- tion, we see little at this early period that can be dignified with the name of art or even civilization. Megalithic walls, crude and uninteresting pottery: there is nothing else. Northern Syria, on the other hand, the bridge between the lands of the Nile and of the Euphrates, the probable source from which the cultures of the two lands derived many common characteristics, may prove to be of all lands one of the most interesting to the historian of human culture.
Like the Egyptians, we first find the Babylonians living at the end of the pure neolithic and the beginning of the chalcolithic age. T?hp excavations at Abu Shahrein (the ancient Eridu) ajid Tell el-'bbeid, or Tell el-Ma'abed, near Ur in southern Babvlonia,
C.A.H.I 37
578 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA [CHAP.
have shown that the primitive Babylonian made knives and arrowheads of flint and chert, obsidian and rock-crystal, of much smaller size and with none of the marvellous technique of the predynastic Egyptian flint-knapper, though some of his tiny crystal flakes are very delicately knapped off. In Babylonia th^ true celt (usually of coarse jasper) was also used, which is rare in Egypt. Later on an ovoid mace-head identical in form with the early Egyptian (see p. 263) was used, and this stone weapon continued to be employed till a much later date.
Copper appears early, but whether the use of rbronze is oMer in Babylonia or in Egypt we do not know. At all events, in the older Sumerian period copper is still used for works of art like the lions of el-Obeid (see pp. 291, 585), and apparently for tools and weapons as well, no well authenticated example of bronze being known. Though copper may have been used by the Sumerians before the Egyptians, it would seem not improbable that bronze was first invented in Syria or further north, and that the Baby- lonians derived their knowledge of it from the north-west.
As in Egypt, pottery degenerated from the prehistoric standard. The pottery of the Sumerians of the earliest historic period of Babylonia is coarse, clumsy stuff compared with the really beautiful vases of the prehistoric epoch, which are far superior to the contemporary Egyptian pottery of the predynastic age, ex- cellent as was the latter. Indeed the prehistoric Elamite pottery, found at Susa and Tepe Musyan by de Morgan, is among the finest ever made by man. This ware is the fine flower of a ceramic widely distributed in the Near East. It is found in Asia Minor and Turkestan as much as in the countries of the Persian Gulf. In Babylonia it has been found chiefly at Abu Shahrein, at el-Obeid near Ur, at Ur itself, and at Telloh, in littoral Persia at Bushire, and up country at Susa and Musyan. The ware from Bushire is absolutely the same as that from Shahrein and Ur. The finest conies from the Elamite sites. Some of it is amazingly thin and delicate, and the clay is often beautifully levigated, and of the finest texture. Often however it is thick and coarse, and of a greenish-drab hue, whereas the finer ware is light drab in colour. The decoration is usually carried out in a lustrous black paint said to be made by mixing haematite with an alkali salt and po- tassium. In Elam and at Obeid red is also found. This decoration, is generally geometrical in character, consisting of cross-hatchings, zigzags, wavy lines, frame-designs, checkers, lozenges, chevrons, * Maltese' crosses, 'comb' and 'fern-leaf7 patterns, and sp/orth, and, when animals or human beings appear, they are geometrized
XVI, n] PREHISTORIC POTTERY 579
and stylized almost out of all resemblance to living forms. Rows of birds are a common motive. Bucrania even occur. A scorpion and a frog come from Shahrein. This very remarkable pottery does not seem to have been generally made with the wheel. At Shahrein and el-Obeid there is »o good evidence for the use of the true wheel. It would seem that the pottery belongs chiefly to the epoch when the wheel was just being invented, and the potter was beginning to give his pot a twist or twirl in the shaping which later was to develop into the true art and mystery of the wheel. At*Susa and M»usyan, it is maintained, the wheel was known, so that it may have been invented there and the invention thence spread to Babylonia and Syria, and eventually to Egypt. Wheel- made pottery does not appear in Egypt till the time of the IVth Dynasty, and it is highly probable therefore that the potter's wheel was not an Egyptian invention, but came from the other culture-land at the end of the Persian Gulf, where, as a matter of fact, the epoch-making invention of the cart-wheel was also prob- ably made, and whence it reached Egypt, but not till the end of our period, at the time of the Hyksos invasion.
Some of the bowl fragments and pithos-rims from Shahrein and el-Obeid show unequivocal evidence of being imitations of stone originals, just as in prehistoric Egypt we find imitation of ston& vases in pottery. And these Babylonian pots of stone technique show extraordinary resemblance in profile to the fine Egyptian stone bowls of the archaic period. So remarkable is the resemblance, indeed, that it may point to imitation of actual importations from Egypt. As far as time goes, we may suppose a more or less rough contemporaneity, though the exact chrono- logical position of this early ceramic is by no means fixed. We can only say that it must be well prior to 3000 B.C., which may be regarded as the central date of the succeeding early Sumerian culture. The discoverer of the Susian pottery, de Morgan, believes in far older dates for his finds, basing his view on stratification. And the similar, undoubtedly closely related, pottery from Anau in Turkestan, was dated by its finder, Pumpelly, to an improbable antiquity. The present writer sees no reason to date any of it earlier than the fifth millennium B.C., and in Asia Minor it is probably much later. Its original foyer may well have been Elam, where one would expect to find both the oldest and the finest examples of it, as seems to be the case. See also p. 86.
Its original discoverer, de Morgan, was also the discoverer of the ^true historical position of the predynastic pottery of Egypt; and certain superficial resemblances to the decoration of
37— »
580 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA [CHAP.
one of the types (and that the least common) of predynastic Egyptian pottery has led him to credit an ultimate connexion of the two ceramics., or even a common origin for both. But there is little real similarity, beyond an occasional use in Egypt of the Rahmensrily or frame and crisscross ornament, here usually in white on the polished red ground of the vase. The characteristic polished red ware of Egypt, with or without decoration, does not occur in Babylonia, nor do the hard-baked, almost vitrified, greenish-drab of Babylonia, or the finely levigated light-coloured paste of Elam, with their brilliant black or red decoration, oc£ur in Egypt, White-painted ware is unknown in Babylonia, where also there is nothing whatever to compare with the red or buff decoration of the predynastic Egyptian 'boat-vases* with their boats, trees, animals and human figures. This particular Egyptian style too is not truly geometric, the geometric ornament being used sparingly only as an adjunct to the main design (which is free on the field of the vase); whereas the Asiatic style is really geometric, even the birds, etc., being geometrized. One might concede that the Egyptian geometric designs came from Asia, but in view of the total dissimilarity of fabric it does not seem necessary to do so. Such a connexion would of course be by no means impossible; but one cannot yet see sufficient evidence for it. On the other hand, the resemblance of some of the Babylonian bowl-shapes to the stone Egyptian vases of the early period has already been pointed out; and here we do seem to see a possible connexion.
The weird monsters of the ceremonial * palettes ' of Narmerza and his time, which did not survive in Egyptian art, have a Babylonian look (see p» 255'). The remarkable carved hippopotamus-tooth handle of a finely-worked flint knife of predynastic type, found in the Gebel el-Arak, is an interesting proof of contact between early Egyptian and Babylonian artistic ideas (see p. 252). Both pair of combatants shown on one side of it wear the pudendal sheath characteristic of the predynastic Egyptians. The boats, allowing for the necessary differences in representation in relief carving and in flat painting, are remarkably like the well-known boats of the red-on-buff predynastic pottery. They are evidently the same. On the other side are fighting animals of the desert, carved in what would ordinarily be regarded as a not unusual style of the end of the predynastic period as we see it on the carved slate palettes and other objects. But above them is a remarkable group of a man whose feet are eagle's talons, who wears a long^rpbe of Stimerian cut, has a full beard, and on whose head is a turban of
XVI, n] THE KNIFE-HANDLE FROM EL-ARAK 581
a type known In Babylonia, struggling with two lions which lie holds out at arms' length. This is a god, it is evident, but he is not an Egyptian god, and the group is distinctly Babylonian in character. The figures on the other side have also been claimed to be foreign, and specifically Elamite. There is a superficial resemblance in the style of the relief carving to that of the stele of Naram-Sin (if we can so compare small things with great), but it is Certainly only superficial. The genius or god on the other side is indubitably Babylonian in character; but he is not a Baby- lonian god, no Such personage being known to Babylonian icono- graphy. He is the deity of a non-Egyptian, presumably Semitic people, under strong Babylonian influence (or that of a people, Elamite or Syrian, from whom the Sumerians derived the idea of the antithetical group if they did not invent it themselves), so that they imagined their gods in Babylonish fashion. Such a people, of Beja stock, may well have lived on the western shore of the Red Sea, and have served as a channel for Mesopotamian influence coming by sea (see below). An early Egyptian carver, knowing this lion-throttling god of the desert and coast dwellers, repre- sented him on the knife-handle that showed the wild beasts of the desert, and fighting between Egyptians and the desert people perhaps; he was an appropriate figure for the subject and he was not to be regarded lightly by those who ventured into the desert: a foreign god was none the less a god. Such eclecticism is not impossible in the early art of Egypt, though it is strange to meet with this absolutely un-Egyptian figure on an object in other respects Egyptian. From the point of view of chronology it would be interesting to note how well advanced in style the figure of the god is, were it not that this is due to the Egyptian carver, and says nothing as to the precise style of Babylonian originals of the time. This object has been discussed at length, as it is one of the most important objects of ancient art that has recently been dis- covered, and is specially important as throwing light on the question of the early connexion of Egyptian and Babylonian art. The resemblance of the seal-cylinder in both countries has long been discussed (pp. 255, 263), and opinion is still divided on the question whether we are to assign its appearance in Egypt to a Babylonian source or to regard it as an independent appearance in the two lands. Somewhat in favour of the second hypothesis is the fact that the earliest Egyptian cylinder-seals appear to have been of wood, and probably first made of bits of reed, carved, whereas the Smnerian seals were stone, and of a different shape, like a concave-sided reel, the Egyptian cylinders being straight-sided,
582 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA [CHAP.
as the Babylonian became later. But the fact that the cylinder remained always In use In Babylonia whereas in Egypt It eventu- ally ;was abandoned is something In favour of its being a native Babylonian peculiarity and an exotic in Egypt, of Babylonian origin. A common origin elsewhere, as in north Syria, Is not inr* possible, but seems unlikely, as the typical Syrian seal-form is conical.
The absolute identity In shape of the early dynastic Egyptian and the old Babylonian mace-heads (p. 263) makes it impossible to suppose independence of origin for them : either both are of Egypt- ian or Babylonian origin, or both originated in a common centre, probably Syria, which is more and more taking shape In our minds as the possible seat of an early culture that inspired both Egypt and Mesopotamia In certain respects. It is to be noted too that in both countries, in the archaic period, large ceremonial mace- heads were made and ornamented with carving in relief (p. 584).
Bricks and brick-building, however, were certainly of inde- pendent origin in the Nile and Euphrates valleys: the total difference of the forms of the earliest bricks in the two lands is sufficient to show this, the Egyptian being straight-sided, the Sumerian plano-convex. Except in the simplest form of brick- built house, the architecture of the two countries was not alike. Only in the earliest period, as is to be expected, does one find a coincidence of Egyptian and Babylonian architecture in large buildings, in the shape of the similar use in both countries of the recessed panel or alcove in brickwork, to decorate either the out- side or inside of house-walls. This architectonic ornament (often miscalled * crenellation ') is characteristic only of the archaic period in Egypt, being used then for tomb and fortress walls, and hence looks like another early Importation from the east (p. 263).
Egypt, besides her clay for brick-making, possessed handy quarries of all kinds of stone, that Babylonia lacked. So we find a predominantly stone architecture growing up there under the earliest dynasties, suddenly developing with astonishing speed after the time of Imhotep, the architect minister of King Zoser (Illrd Dynasty), and then within a century producing one of the wonders of the world, the Great Pyramid. The story of the develop- ment of Egyptian stone architecture from the 1st to the IVth Dynasty Is extraordinarily interesting, and it can be traced with considerable accuracy (see pp, 276 ^y.).
In Babylonia kings and patesis were always trying to get hold of masses of hard stone for their works, but rarely could* obtain more than sufficient to make statues of. They had to go so far
XVI, n] THE BABYLONIAN DEMAND FOR STONE 583
afield, to Sinai, even possibly to Egypt itself or rather its eastern desert, which was probably included in the Magan of the cuneiform inscriptions (p. 172), The Egyptian alabaster, or rather aragonite, which they used, certainly came from the Nilotic eastern desert, ^where the Egyptians quarried it, oot from Sinai, where the rocks are
g-anitic and volcanic, and there is not likely to be any aragonite. olerite and diorite may have come from the eastern desert or from Sinai. After all, ships could no doubt even then sail down the Persian Gulf round the Arabian peninsula and pass into the RSd Sea, so that expeditions could be sent from Lagash or Ur to the harbours of Nechesia or, further north, of Sauu (the modern Koseir), to quarry and fetch stone. We need not doubt the possibility of this when we consider that under .the Pyramid- builders the Egyptians sent large ships to Phoenicia to fetch cedar from the Lebanon, and, later, regular naval expeditions passed out into the Indian Ocean to Somaliland to fetch incense and rare woods, strange beasts and gold (see p. 295). The great blocks of diorite, of granite, and of basalt in its prismatic pillar- form, which still lie about on the mounds of Abu Shahrein, are trophies of Magan or of some land on the road to Magan, though the basalt may have come down the Euphrates from the volcanic deposits of Kurdistan, They were brought to Eridu by an ancient ruler, probably by the devout Bur-Sin, or possibly by an older king or patesi, to be used to decorate the sanctuary of Apsu, and never so used, we do not know why. Eridu itself had stone walls and bastions, a remarkable phenomenon in Babylonia. They are rude piles enough, made of shapeless masses of coarse- grained whitish gypsum-rock, which, unlike the hard stones, could be got in the desert, not so very far away. When one stands on the top of the worn-down and eroded zlggurat of Enki one sees shimmering in the mirage the low gypsum ridge that formed the shore of the ancient lake on which Eridu stood,
Other cities that had no stone near by, even of the inferior quality of that of Eridu, had to be content with brick walls, as it was an impossibility to bring good limestone all the way from Egypt for wall-building. Incidentally, the fact that no real Egyptian limestone or syenite has been found used in Babylonia is an argument against any commerce in stone with the Nile-valley itself, or with the west coast of the Red Sea south of the latitude of Berenike. The Babylonian sailors, if they came round from the Persian Gulf, knew only of quarries well up the Red Sea coas^ ^The finest Babylonian statues of diorite and dolerite are those of the age of Gudea, which are chefs-d'tfuvre of their kind.
584 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA [CHAP.
but not equal to Egyptian sculpture in the matter of portraiture. They are the culminating point of a development which began well before the age of Ur-Nina. To this earlier time, when sculpture in the round began, belong the archaic figures from el-Obeid and from Adab (Bismaya). Relief sculpture began about the sarn@ period. Later on we have the small stone tablets that are decorated in relief with rude figures of the king, Ur-Nina3 in company with the crown-prince, Akurgal, and other members of his family (p. 379). These were found at Telloh by de Sarzec and are in the Louvre. To a somewhat earlier period belongs a great st<^ne ceremonial rnace-head, dedicated by Lugal-shag-engur, patesi of Lagash under Mesilim of Kish (p. 369). On it is shown in relief Imgig, the lion-headed eagle cognizance of Lagash, emblem of the god Ningirsu, and round it is a decorative panel of lions, each attacking the hindquarters of the other. A smaller mace-head with the representation of Imgig is in the British Museum. Com- parison is obvious between the great ceremonial mace-heads of this kind and the precisely similar and roughly contemporary ceremonial mace-heads of exactly the same kind that are the chief monuments of the early Egyptian kings, 'the Scorpion* and Narmerza, and were found at Hieraconpolis (see p. 268). Here we can hardly fail to see evidence of direct connexion.
III. BABYLONIAN ART
The chef-d* ceuvre of Babylonian relief-sculpture in the early time is admittedly the famous * Stele of the Vultures' (see p. 379), which, so far as can be judged from its extant fragments, was a great memorial-stone, set up by Eannatum, king of Lagash, to commemorate his victory over the people of Umma, whom we see on it netted by the king, and devoured by vultures. The remark- able representation of the king leading his warriors to battle in serried phalanx is well-known. The tradition of this kind of monument was carried on in the stele of Sargon I, found at Susa, where, besides the king and his officials, and the captives in nets, we see the vultures devouring the slain.
The finest existing monument of early Babylonian art is prob- ably the yellow sandstone stele of Naram-Sin commemorating his victory over the tribes of the Zagros (p. 417), on which we see him in his horned helmet ascending a mountain to receive the submission of the tribal chieftains, who had combined under one Lulubu against him. His warriors ascend the tree-clad ^slopes below him. The figures of the king and of his warriors are
XVI, ra] THE COPPER LIONS OF EL-'OBEID 585
extraordinarily dignified and fine, the treatment of the whole scene is remarkably naturalistic; and in this stele we have a relic of Babyjonian art undoubtedly fit to rank with the best that Egypt or Crete can produce. The remains of a victory stele of ^Shargali-Sharri, his successor, found at Lagash, show reliefs of similar style and equal artistic value.
Of the time of Gudea we have a remarkable relief with liturgical and processional scenes, including the figure of a musician who plays upon a great harp, the foremost pillar of which rests upon tKfe back of a small figure of a bull. And we also have an example in small art of stone carving in the mythological relief of a steatite vase of Gudea's, on which we see an * heraldic' group of a double- serpent caduceus between two gryphons rampant* Generally speaking, in the more refined, though less powerful, art of Gudea's time, religion, and not war, takes the foremost place (cf. p. 433).
The Sumerians, especially in early days, were expert at carving on the hard white shells of various large molluscs that are found in the Persian Gulf, Mother-of-pearl also attracted their attention as a material, and about the time of the older patesis of Lagash It was used at el-Obeid with red and black stone in triangular tesserae for the mosaic decoration of pillars.
Just as the Egyptians often endeavoured to impart life to their statues by inlaying the eyes with materials which could imitate their appearance, so the Sumerians also represented the eye by means of inlay of shell or mother-of-pearl, especially in the case of metal works of art. The finest examples of this tech- nique are the eyes of the fragmentary copper lion-heads inlaid in red jasper, white shell, and blue schist, discovered by the writer at el-Obeid in 1919, These lion-heads? which are earlier than the period of Ur-Nina, are very remarkable products of early metal working, as they are apparently not hammered, but cast, the heads being afterwards filled up with bitumen and clay, with the idea, probably, of giving the cast greater solidity. The casting was not always successful, so that the masks are often misshapen* But to cast at all in pure copper, which is the material of which these heads are made (there is no trace of alloy), was an achievement. The somewhat later Egyptian figures of king Pepi I and his son (pp. 291, 574)5 are said (though one may doubt the fact) to be of bronze, not copper. In their case the heads also seem to be cast, which in bronze would be easier of achievement. The bodies in both cases are made of hammered plates of metal, fastened with nails$ in the case of the Sumerian lions over a wooden block or ame* Their eyes are inlaid in much the same way as those of the
586 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA [CHAP.
Babylonian figures, and In both works of art we see two parallel civilizations working abreast at about the same level of accom- plishpient in similar arts, and assuredly not without Direct or indirect connexion. Another remarkable work in metal from el-Obeid Is the relief, eight feet fong by three feet six inches high^ in copper (unhappily much disintegrated) of Imgig holding two stags. This might be regarded as a sign of a dominance of Lagash over Ur at the time." ^
Interesting also are the little votive figures, placed in the foundations of buildings, at Lagash and elsewheire from an age preceding Ur-Nina to that of Gudea : they are all of copper, never of bronze (pp. 378 sq^ 425). Some fine copper animal-heads from Lagash are in the Louvre, where is also the splendid silver vase of Entemena, with its incised designs of Imgig the cognizance of Lagash, and its copper stand. Silver at this time was a more valuable metal than gold, in Egypt at any rate, where the search for Nubian gold had been systematized, whereas the mining of silver in the mountains of Asia Minor can hardly yet have been largely developed. To the Babylonian gold must always have been more valuable than to the Egyptian, from whom he obtained some of It. It was often used in Babylonia, but never with the Egyptian profusion.
The carving of the cylinder-seal attracted much attention from the early Babylonian artists, and some of the carved seals of the time of Sargon are of extraordinary vigour and beauty in design. The reel-form of many of the cylinders of this age seems to have enabled the engraver to obtain bolder results than the straight- sided seal (like the Egyptian) which was more usual. Conical seals, which apparently were ultimately of Syrian origin, were the only other sphragistic form popular at this time. The Egyptian scarab was never adopted, nor were its spiral designs ever imitated by the Babylonian seal-graver.
The Babylonian was apparently never a painter. The pictures in distemper that illustrate the walls of Egyptian tombs, the fresco-paintings that adorned those of Cretan palaces, were not Imitated by him, Possibly his sense of colour was never so developed as was that of his colleagues of Egypt and Crete: Mesopotamia is a drab land, dull, featureless, and, for the greater part of the year, colourless. Blue and green seem to have been colours unknown to the oldest Sumerians, who apparently used only the crude and primitive black, white and red. The unburnt brick walls of the Sumerian houses at Abu Shahrein were cp^rered with a thick stucco, often painted with horizontal bands of black,
XVI, m] BABYLONIA AND THE WEST 587
white and red, sometimes with white and red alone. So far as we know this is the nearest approach the early Babylonians made to the art £>f wall-painting. In historical times they did not^ paint their pottery either before firing, as the prehistoric Babylonians did, or after it, as a mere surfece decoration, as the Egyptians did: it is difficult to conceive of a ceramic more dull and less interesting than the later Babylonian. The same white-drab ware, in the same types, seems to persist from century to century. It is possible that, when archaeological excavations are carried on systematically in Babylonia, and the results recorded in detail as they are in Egypt and Greece, we shall be able to see greater diversity in Babylonian pottery and to trace lines of development in it that are at present invisible to us. Hitherto the attention of excavators has been so largely directed towards cuneiform tablets that the general archaeology of Mesopotamia has been neglected.
The signs of connexion between the cultures of Mesopotamia and of Egypt that we can see in the early days do not persist later. After the early Sumerian period few traces of any indebted- ness of the one to the other are visible. It was otherwise in the case of Egypt and Greece, as we know* And we are now beginning to see that there was in early times some connexion between the Babylonian and the Greek Bronze Age civilizations. The Semites lived no secluded life (see p. 191). In late Sumerian days there were north Semites, with Sumerian culture and art, in Anatolia as far west as the Halys, possibly dispossessed of eastern Anatolia by the invading Hittites at the beginning of the second millennium B.C. (p. 561). We may see in the Minoan glyptic, for one thing, distinct traces of the influence of Sumerian, rather than of Egyptian, art. With Sumerian^fivilization established so near Greece as the Halys, it is as probable that this influence reached Greece overland through Asia Minor as that it came by sea, though Greek ships no doubt visited the Syrian coast as they visited Egypt in quite early days,
We cannot yet talk of any Babylonian hegemony or conquest extending by sea from the coast of Syria (by Sargon or any other early Mesopotamian ruler) to Crete and the Aegean, hardly even to Cyprus, where the supposed invasion by Sargon is highly problematic, resting on insecure evidence (see p. 405). Winckler's theory of a conquest of Crete by Sargon, to which the Minoans owed the inception of their civilization, is not yet substantiated; though the indebtedness of Minoan to Babylonian (as to Egypt-
)^ai;t is evident in certain restricted fields.
In the second millennium B.C. we find in Cyprus (and in Egypt
588 ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLON* A [CHAP. XVI, m
also) traces of a mixed art of Syro-Babylonian origin with Minoan features which we may perhaps ascribe to Cilicia. Here was probably the point of contact between the Minoan an,d Baby- lonian civilizations. Further west, in the mountains of Caria and Lycia, we may surmise as early as the third millennium a peculiar «• independent culture and art: the famous 'Phaestus' disk is the unique example of it. It would not seem to owe anything to Babylonian, and little to Minoan, influence; but it is impossible to dogmatize on the point. It can however well be imagined that in Lycia a peculiar culture might well maintain indefinitely fts independence of the surrounding civilizations, and form a rock parting the waves of Babylonian-Minoan connexion, which would pass by land to the north and by sea along the coast to the south of it. Of Hittite art one can say nothing as yet, for, so far as we know, at the beginning of the second millennium it was not yet evolved, and the Hittites themselves had probably not long been in Anatolia,
In these northern lands at this time we are in a realm of hypothesis and conjecture, very different from the atmosphere of certainty and knowledge which characterizes our study of Egypt- ian art of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Of Babylonian art we have less certain information, hence in this chapter the greater detail with which it has been treated,, in comparison with that of
Egypt
The complexity and mass of detail in our rich knowledge of Egyptian art, which has already a large literature, make it impossible to do more than give a very slight sketch of its development, Sumerian art is a more newly opened realm of artistic knowledge; and not so much has been written on it. The
gDssible or impossible connexions between it and the art of gypt and Minoan Greece, the possible origin of many ideas common to all three in a primitive form of civilization in north Syria, the remarkable early appearance of culture and art in Elam, and the possible confluence of a Syrian and an Elamitic stream of culture in Babylonia resulting in the formation of Sumero-Babylotiian art, are matters of the highest interest, which in the years to come will doubtless be intensively studied by many workers, with the result of greatly increasing our know- ledge of the beginnings of the world's civilization in the Near -East.
CHAPTER XVII
c»
EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION1
^ j| ^>HR history of man In the Aegean area begins in the Neo- ji lithic Period, for up to the present no remains of the Palaeo- lithic Age have? been discovered (see pp, 92 $q^ 103 sqq^ Even of the Neolithic Period little has been found, and it must always be remembered in reading a history such as the following, which is in the main based on archaeological evidence, that every statement is to be regarded not as absolutely, but only as relatively true. Archaeologists naturally disagree, and for obvious reasons their discoveries are to a great extent fortuitous and not systematic or final. The scarcity of neolithic remains is of course due to insuffi- cient exploration. Up to the present we have discoveries from Crete, central and southern Greece, Thessaly, Macedonia and Thrace; and indeed for the north of Greece the evidence is fuller than for the south, which was the first home of civilization in the Aegean area. On the other hand, remains of the Bronze Age are compara- tively plentiful, especially in the south; and it is in this stage of civilization that the period dealt with here falls. For the sake of simplicity it will be better to take the Aegean area district by dis- trict and describe the progress of civilization in each in turn, in- dicating in every case as occasion arises the relationship between the various regions, namely: Crete, the Cyclades, the Peloponnese and south-eastern Greece, Thessaly and lastly Macedonia and Thrace. As will be seen below, the boundaries of these regions are not always constant, and they were naturally liable to change as the tide of civilization flowed and ebbed, though the general trend of the current was always from south to north.
L CRETE
It is impossible in the present state of our knowledge to say when the Neolithic Age in Crete began or even when it ended* The principal remains of this period have been found at Cnossus5
1 In this chapter the adjectives Mlnoan* Cycladic and Helladic are used to distinguish the archaeological finds in Crete, the Cyclades^and Continental Greece* See also Chap, iv? § 4, on the chronological problems* and for general remarks, see pp. 92 sqq.
590 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATIQN [CHAP.
though traces of the same period of culture have also been found in the Messara, at Phaestus, and in the extreme east of the island. The bulk of the remains consists of plentiful fragments of broken pottery found in the strata underlying the palace at tnossus, where, in spite of some disturbance to the stratification caused by; the levelling and terracing necessitated by the building of the palace, the general succession of the neolithic culture is clear. The pottery shows, indeed, a progressive improvement both in fabric and in decoration, but there is nothing to indicate how quickly or how slowly this took place, flie pottery ^is coarse, of unrefined clay, thick, hand-made and hand-polished, and does not seem to have been baked in a kiln. The earlier ware Is undecorated, but by degrees it became the custom to decorate the vases with incised patterns of a simple geometric character. Later, the incised lines coupled with pointille designs are filled with powdered gypsum and in some specimens a variation in the polished surface is made by rippling. The designs themselves tend also to become less casual and the fabric of the vases is better. No habitations undoubtedly belonging to this period have yet been found; and the pottery mentioned, together with rude statuettes in polished clay of steatopygous squatting females, bone pins and awls, and the inevitable stone axes and similar implements com- plete our picture of Cretan neolithic culture, though the presence of querns seems to indicate some knowledge of agriculture. Foun- dations of a rude rectangular hut which contained bone imple- ments, stone axes and much rude pottery similar to the neolithic have been found near Palaikastro in the extreme east. But the presence of a few flakes of obsidian makes one doubt whether this is really a neolithic hut, for the obsidian, which must have been imported by sea from Melos, makes one inclined to place the hut early in the Bronze Age, since it is not yet known whether the neolithic people practised overseas navigation. Otherwise no neo- lithic buildings have been found, though the sites of hearths have been recognized and inhabited caves explored.
The end of the Neolithic Period and the transition to the Bronze Age is put conjecturally about the middle of the fourth millen- nium B.C. It Is probable that complete certainty as to this will never be attained^ for it Is unlikely that the change from the Neo- lithic to the Bronze Age was cataclysmic; it was rather slow and gradual, and so archaeologists speak, according to their Individual opinions, of a Sub-Neolithic or of a Chalcolithic Age as marking the transition from the true Neolithic to the Bronze Age. „
With the Bronze Age begins the Minoan civilization, as it Is
XVII, i] EARLY MINOAN AGE 59
called, which, flourished right to the end of the age in central and eastern Crete; but, curiously enough, except for some relics be- longing to its latest phases, no traces of Minoan culture have so far been found in west Crete. Although in the Early Minoan .Period Cnossus itself was inhabited., it does not seem to have been so important as Phaestus and the adjoining regions of the fertile Messara plain or even the bays and islands of the Seteia peninsula. The difference between the new age and the preceding is ex- pressed in the pottery by better manufacture, by the use of a glaze psSnt for the costing and the decoration of the better vases coupled with improved methods of baking them, perhaps in some primitive kind of kiln. At the beginning the Cretans do not seem to have advanced much beyond this and, of course, the discovery of metal — copper at first and probably also gold; though to these two it was not long before lead and silver were added. One of the impulses, which promoted the active development of civilization in Crete, came from Egypt. Egyptian influence begins in Proto-Dynastic times, which must overlap Early Minoan L Later on, in Early Minoan II, so intense does the Egyptian element become, that it is possible there may even have been established in Crete a colony from Egypt, which was then under the rule of the Vlth Dynasty as far as we can tell. Perhaps the disturbances, which occurred at the beginning of the 1st and at the downfall of the Vth Dynasty, may have driven away considerable bodies of people who sought peace and fortune in Crete, which was perhaps inhabited by a kindred race. Or we may imagine adventurous Cretan sailors steering southward — or possibly driven out of their course by some sudden fierce gale — and discovering the marvels of the Nile valley. Thus either through accident or adventure came the impulse to a civilization such as Crete has never since enjoyed. From this sprang the great Minoan and Mycenaean civilization, from the ashes of which there rose Phoenix-like in the first millennium B.C. the brilliance of Hellas, which was in its turn the forerunner of European culture.
The people of this age lived in houses, small it is true, but rectangular buildings collected into villages, while some houses had several rooms and more than one storey. They employed for their daily use pottery which, though primitive in execution^ is often enough graceful in design. Simple geometric patterns were drawn with the glaze paint on the surface of the pots, which was now^prepared by a wash of fine thin clay to receive paint. Some vessels were covered all over with the brown glaze paint and given
592 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATIQN [CHAP.
a pleasing mottled effect by some process in the baking. On others again,, though covered all over with a blackish glaze paint, patterns were drawn in white, and thus arose the two styles of light on dark and clark on light, which alternated as rivals till the close of the Bronze Age in Crete. The Cretans also made and used really, beautiful vases of stone — a common feature in early dynastic Egypt — of all colours, carefully selected and skilfully cut into graceful shapes and well polished. The profusion of stone vases found in the ossuary tholoi of the Messara and in the cist^and chamber graves of east Crete shows us that the Cretans of tMs time were not merely skilled craftsmen, but already rich in the material objects that form human wealth. Besides vases we find short leaf-shaped daggers, axes, small knives, pincers and other instruments of bronze or rather impure copper, obsidian knives and similar implements of domestic or warlike use. Most striking is the number of gold ornaments from these tombs; they consist of armlets, diadems, little leaf-shaped or floral pendants and other ornaments, beads of crystal, amethyst and agate, and similar jewel- lery. The strongest proof of Egyptian contact, apart from the stone bowls and palettes, lies in the ivory conoid seals. Ivory itself must have been Imported into Crete, most probably from Africa, the nearest land where the elephant is native. In addition, the very shapes of the seals — many of which are in the form of apes, ewater- fowl and bulls — and also the designs on them of a meander or spiraliform type, as well as various animals realistically rendered, present the closest analogies to a class of Egyptian seals that first make their appearance under the Vlth Dynasty. An ostrich egg from Palaikastro, scarabs and faience beads from the Messara and Gournia confirm these indications of Egyptian influence, while a silver cylinder from Mochlos suggests an indirect connexion with Mesopotamia, doubtless by trade.
Two pieces of amber from the Messara, on the other hand, point to trade with Sicily or with the north, and the evidence of obsidian for frequent intercourse with the Cyclades is confirmed by the finding of Cycladic marble figurines at several sites* Foreign trade seems to have been very active then, to judge by the finds, as well as by the number of early Minoan townships on the islands and harbours of east Crete. Tombs of many different types occur, from" simple rock shelters to big stone-built tholoi\ and there seems to have been no fixed type, for cist graves, burials in terra-cotta coffins (larnakes) and large rectangular chamber tombs are also found. There is no sign of cremation and a noteworthy feature is the practice of using- the tombs, whether rude rock shelters or
XVII, i] MIDDLE MINOAN AGE 593
elaborate stone-built tholoi^ as ossuaries or charnel houses where whole villages or families continuously laid their dead over a long period of^years.
Thus, as far as the present evidence goes, a settled culture of an advanced type was rapidly evolving in east and central Crete, not only at Cnossus, or among the havens and islands of the Seteia peninsula, but especially in the Messara plain, one of the most fertile parts of the island, the western end of which opens out towards the Libyan Sea as though Inviting intercourse with Egypt. Indeed the Cretans of those days seem to have been much given to seafaring and foreign trade as shown by the finds themselves, and further by the presence of flourishing settlements on water- less islands like Pseira,
With the advent of the next period, the Middle Minoan Age, civilization was already well established in Crete, and before the end of the period, about 1600 B.C., we find the Minoan culture dominant in the southern Aegean, The earlier part of this period, Middle Minoan I and II, may be considered as contemporaneous with the end of the Xlth and with the Xllth Dynasty, for at Abydos a polychrome vase of this period, of typical Middle Minoan II style, was found in a tomb dated to one of the later reigns of that dynasty. On the other hand, at Cnossus, an alabastor lid bearing the cartouche of the Hyksos king, Khian (p. 311) has been unearthed in a stratum assigned to the Second Middle Minoan Period, If, then, the Xllth Dynasty reigned about 2200—2000 B.C., the beginning of the Middle Minoan Age would fall not earlier than 2200 B.C., and its end seems to coincide with the renaissance marked by the accession to power of the XVIIIth Dynasty shortly after 1600 B.C. Within these chronological limits the progress of Crete was rapid, and the Minoan civilization attained Its first climax. But before 1600 B.C. there was some interruption, probably political, for we find that palaces and towns were ruined, only to rise again almost immedi- ately to an even greater splendour and power which reach their zenith in the early part of the succeeding Late Minoan Period,
In the Middle Minoan Age Cnossus comes to the front as one of the two great centres of power in Crete; Phaestus is the other. At both these sites were built great palaces, which presumably were the homes of powerful kings. It is, of course, impossible to tell whether Cnossus and Phaestus were rivals, or the Windsor and Balmoral of a Cretan potentate. It is perhaps more reasonable to suppose that they were separate seats of power, since at a slightly later date we find built at Hagia Triada near Phaestus a royal C.A.H.I 38
594 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION [CHAP.
villa, which may have played Versailles to its Louvre. The relations between these two great seats of power in central Crete, one on the north coast and one on the south, towards the flourishing trading towns on the harbours of the Seteia peninsula and the Gulf of Mirabello, cannot of course be determined. But since in the east of the island, up to the present, no establishments as big or as wealthy as the palaces of central Crete have been discovered, one is inclined to assume that the towns in the east were subordinate to or at least allied with their more powerful neighbours. Cnossus and Phaestus may have been the Athens and Sparta of the time; and the o filer towns of Crete may, like most states of fifth-century Hellas, have been divided between two political alliances. The elaborate char- acter of the civilization, and the size and luxury of the palaces, seem to indicate that some form of political system must have already been in practice. Further, the pictographic writing, which in this period is developed from the signs of the Early Minoan Age, to- gether with the use of complicated signets, seems to imply an officialdom of an oriental type.
The pictographic script appears fully developed in seal impres- sions of the First Middle Minoan Period, and from this a linear script is evolved before the end of the age. The script is em- ployed on clay labels and tablets. The tablets were kept in wooden chests and sealed with seal stones bearing either religious and similar representations, or else groups of pictographs. One especi- ally fine seal shows the portrait of a Cretan dynast along with that of a young prince, which perhaps implies the association of a son on the throne with his father. The origin of the script is not yet known, but it certainly seems to go back to the Early Minoan Period, It has analogies with the Egyptian and Cypriot scripts; and a famous disk found at Phaestus with impressed signs made by movable types is thought to show connexions with Lycia or some adjoining region. At all events the Phaestus disk does not -represent the Cretan script, but some allied style. The presence of this clay document in Crete indicates the existence of a kind of correspondence. A Minoan post-office would not be in the least surprising, since the elaborate use of inventories and controls, tithes and reckonings dealing with vases, weapons, horses and chariots, ingots of copper and grain gives a glimpse of the Cnossus palace archives, and the numerical system illustrated on them sug- gests the complications of Minoan finance.
It seems likely that the Cretan dynasts owed their position and power on the one hand to their double authority as priests and kings, and on the other hand to successful trade* We have already
XVII, i] PALACES OF CNOSSUS AND PHAESTUS 595
spoken of the connexions between Egypt and Crete at this time, and this archaeological contact is probably the result of trade in which Crete would have exchanged her wine, oil and pyrple. To the north again we know from archaeological evidence that Crete was at this time paramount in the Cyclades, and so strong is the evidence that it must be held to reflect some form of con- quest,, colonization or overlordship. There were also similar though far Beaker connexions with the mainland of Greece. The im- portance of the harbours, bays and islands of east Crete can be easily imagined^ as they would form natural ports of call or refuge for the argosies of Cnossus on their way to and from the Nile.
Owing to the destruction and rebuilding they underwent at the end of this period we cannot say much about the architectural details of the palaces. Cnossus is In this respect in worse case than Phaestus, though a great deal can be made out of the remains of the extensive Middle Minoan magazines of Phaestus, and the general disposition of the walls that can be identified as belonging to the earlier palaces, leads us to believe that in general arrangement they illustrate what has well been called 'agglutinative architecture.' There is a central court, and around lie groups of chambers and buildings erected for different pur- poses : magazines, public offices, shrines, domestic quarters, bath- rooms nand workshops. These various groups need not have been built simultaneously nor even in accordance with a uniform plan; the main idea is a central court, and around were built the various blocks of apartments as need arose. The subsequent union of separate insulae into a palace according to a regular plan pro- duces the appearance of a magnificent labyrinth. It is not possible to say much about the technical character of the architecture, though in all probability it was similar to Cretan architecture of the Late Minoan Period, only more primitive. Many of the stones used were large and well cut; although the material was often gypsum, a soft stone, and in any case stone seems to have been reserved for the lower courses of the walls, timber and crude brick being principally employed for the upper storeys.
Within, the palaces were elaborately decorated : examples may be seen in the fresco paintings which adorned the walls. From Cnossus we have a charmingly naturalistic representation of a boy gathering saffron. The period, however, like all prehistoric periods, is best illustrated by its pottery, which invariably reflects the culture and spirit of the day. Throughout Middle Minoan times-, except as regards certain classes of more domestic ware, the light on dark principle is supreme. This culminates about 2000
38— a
596 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION [CHAP.
B.C. with the most beautiful polychrome vases of an egg-shell fabric which often imitate metallic forms. The patterns are drawn in whitg on a ground of black glaze paint, and details ai^l refine- ments are added in yellow, cherry red, and deep red* The patterns lose the earlier geometric character and become curvilinear designs- of an intricate type, and floral and other naturalistic motives are very commonly introduced. Barbotine or prickle decoration was much in vogue to vary the effect, and in the effort to imitate metal in the finer class of ware the vases are bent and crinkled to give the appearance of wrought metal; for instance, r. silver vase^of this period from Gournia can be claimed as the prototype of a clay specimen from the same site. The artistic quality of the designs — which is very high — and the technical delicacy and excellence of this pottery — the potter's wheel was brought into use during this period — not only place the art very high, but also compel us to rate equally highly the civilization of which it was the product,
In minor arts, such as gem cutting, for which towards the end of the age hard stones were often used, the same skill and aesthetic craftsmanship are manifest. The gems with pictographic designs are cut with a sureness and feeling that cannot be paralleled else- where at so early a date. There was an equal advance in metal working, though for obvious reasons but few specimens of this age have yet been found : the silver cup of Gournia is an exception. The metal types can, however, be largely reconstructed from the ceramic imitations, and are also reflected in the earlier vases in gold and silver from the shaft graves at Mycenae. The swords, or rather long daggers, are a development of the short leaf-shaped examples of the preceding epoch, and are naturally much more workmanlike. Of sculpture or modelling we have no remains ex- cept painted terra-cotta figurines from the rustic hill-sanctuary at Petsophas in east Crete; and these are of less interest as works of art than as models showing the costume of the day. The men wear nothing but a loin-cloth with an apron over it, a dagger or knife fastened round the waist and hide boots. The women wear a much more elaborate costume, consisting of a high peaked cap or bonnet and a frock held in at the waist by a sash. The skirt is very full and round, but the bodice, though it has a high peaked collar at the back of the neck, is cut very low in front so as to leave the breasts exposed.
In addition to the methods of burial practised in the Early Minoan Period we find that in the Middle Period it was ;a ^com- mon practice to inter the dead in large jars. The bodies were
XVII, i] MIDDLE MINOAN CIVILIZATION 597
apparently trussed up and thrust head foremost into the jars which were then placed in the earth upside down, so that the deceased should Always be head uppermost. Details of Middle Minoan funeral customs are still lacking as no cemetery of the time has yet been found,, and this is a subject on which further informa- tion would be very important.
This is a brief description of the culture of the period, which we may some day be able to fill out when the excavation of a Middle Minoan site unencumbered with later buildings shall sup- pry us with tha necessary evidence. All the sites so far excavated., Cnossus, Phaestus, Gournia, Palaikastro, Pseira, Mochlos, Tylissos and many others, underwent the same catastrophe or change before the end of the period, with the result that the Middle Minoan remains have in every case been partially swept away or overlaid by later constructions. The causes of the ruin that overtook Cnos- sus, Phaestus, and the other towns and cities not so long before 1600 B.C. are unknown. It hardly seems to have been due to foreign invasion or conquest, because in the following Late Minoan Age the influence of Crete in the southern Aegean is still supreme. Also, all the towns known were unfortified, so far as we can tell, a circumstance which seems to imply that, protected in their island home by a powerful fleet, the Cretans felt secure from overseas enemies. It is more likely to have been due to civil war or some similar internal convulsion1, not unlike the disturbances which mark the transition from one dynasty to another in Egypt. Perhaps in the earlier part of the Middle Minoan Period the chief seat of power had lain at Phaestus in the south, and the overthrow of the palaces and towns came to pass in the troubles that arose from internal strife and ended with the transference of the seat of power else- where, probably to Cnossus in the north. This might account for the fact that Cretan objects of the ensuing Late Minoan Period are scarce in Egypt, although men of Keftiu bearing tribute in the shape of cups of precious materials appear in the frescoes on the walls of the tombs of Senmut and Rekhmire. On the other hand, the new period that opens about 1600 B.C., towards the close of the Third Middle Period, marks the beginning of a far stronger and wider Cretan suzerainty over south-eastern Greece and the adjacent islands. Do the signs of destruction that are so apparent on Cretan sites just at this time mark not merely a change in the internal affairs of Crete, such as those already suggested, a new dynasty
1 Sir Arthur Evans has now suggested that it was due to a great earth- quake Taused by the disastrous eruption at Thera which occurred at this very time; see below p» 603.
598 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATIPN [CHAP.
and a new capital, but also a change in the orientation of the ex- ternal relations of the central power of the island., a new foreign policy, directed rather towards the nearer Greece than the more distant Egypt?
Whatever may have been ther- causes for this change^ which i$. visible both in the ruin and rebuilding of the palaces, and in the decoration of the pottery, it seems fairly certain that there was no long break. The development of the pottery continues and the palaces were almost at once rebuilt. The civilization of this, the latter part of the Third Middle Minoan Period, js really the fcre- ginning of the Late Minoan Period, but as it falls before 1 600 B.C« we cannot omit to mention it here. It is the more noticeable that the beginning of the new era in Crete corresponds so well with the renaissance in Egypt at the beginning of the XVIIIth Dynasty. The two great palaces in Crete, at Phaestus and Cnossus^ were reconstructed. Both the later palace at Phaestus, the ruins of which are the most striking feature of the site, and large parts (especially the original plan of the domestic quarters) of the later palace at Cnossus, the House of the Labyrinth, date from this same time.
The principal relics belonging to this period are the cult and other objects belonging to the temple repositories at Cnossus, among which the most remarkable are faience figurines and plaques. The art of making faience was learnt from Egypt, but it was thoroughly domiciled in Crete, where it developed amazingly. Moulds for making figures in this material have actually been found, and the figurines themselves are in design and technique typically Minoan and not Egyptian. The most surprising figurines are those of the Snake Goddess and her votaries, which display a fine sense of modelling and a keen eye for detail, and are rendered with a charming simplicity and freshness. Naturally they are of a * primi- tive' character artistically, for the artist who made them had not a long tradition behind him; but the directness and daintiness of the statuettes disarm criticism. More artistic are the marvellous representations of fruit and flowers which show an observation of nature and a delight in it which cannot be paralleled in any other early art in Europe. The same naturalistic character is to be noticed in the flying fish and shells and other marine objects, and this is the keynote of Minoan art. From an aesthetic point of view the finest of all these faience objects are the plaques which represent cows or wild goats suckling their young, which are treated with a delicacy and sympathy worthy of the most advanced forms qfart. These temple repositories also introduce us to what was appa-
XVII, n] THE CYCLADES 599
rently the principal cult of the Minoan religion, the worship of the Great Mother,, a nature goddess in the fullest sense, call her Rhea, Cybele, or what you will. Her great symbol is the double axe — it is noteworthy that Hesychius gives Kvprfkis (Cybelis) as a synonym for TreXeKvs (axe) — and she was rthe mother of the Cretan Zeus3 from whom Minos traced his race and authority. Details of her cult are naturally wanting, though grottoes, such as the Dictaean and Kamares caves, or hill tops, like those of Petsophas or Juk- tas, seem to have been favourite places for shrines. What other ciMts there we£p we cannot yet tell with any certainty, but some animals, doves and bulls, for instance, were held sacred, and ani- conic worship of pillars or columns was also practised.
How much more of the relics and ruins found in Crete can be assigned to this same date at the very end of the Middle Minoan Period is a matter of doubt; although nearly all the town sites ex- cavated, Gournia, Palaikastro, Pseira, Mochlos, Zakro and Tylis- sos, seem to have begun a new era of prosperity just before the beginning of the Late Minoan Age, which will be described and discussed in the next volume*
II. THE CYCLADES
In tjie Cyclades nothing of the Neolithic Age has as yet beei\ found, so that we do not know whether the Bronze Age civiliza- tion developed naturally from the neolithic, as seems to have been the case in Crete, or whether the coming of the Bronze Age in these islands meant the introduction of some new racial element, as was apparently the case in central Greece (Boeotia, Phocis and Corinthia). It is obvious that in the Cyclades one could not expect so high or so full a civilization as in Crete, which is a large and fertile island, while the Cyclades are small, being merely the moun- tain tops of a primeval land now submerged in the Aegean. But they are also fertile, and have a mild and temperate climate, and where there is sufficient soil, they produce in plenty all that primitive man needs* Further they possess considerable natural resources; nearly all the islands, but especially Paros and Naxos, are rich in marble, which was much used by the islanders in early times for fashioning bowls, palettes and small figurines*
Melos is very rich in obsidian, which was of great importance in early days before the discovery of copper and bronze, and even after the first use of metal. Melos is the only place in the Aegean area^ as far as we know, where obsidian is found, and in prehistoric times ^the trade in it was very considerable. We find Melian
ooo EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATIpN [CHAP.
obsidian all over the Aegean., Crete, Thessaly, the Asia Minor littoral and the mainland of Greece. Flint, a stone which is com- paratively rare in southern Greece — at least flint of good quality — is lalso to be found in Melos3 and this was of course anr addition to the wealth of the island. Some of the islands, too, are rich 113, minerals, for instance Siphnos and Seriphos, and there seems little doubt that these natural products, coupled with the favour- able position of the Cyclades as stepping stones on the immemorial trade-route between Crete and the mainland of Greece, as well as on that between the two sides of the Aegean, contributed not' a little to their early rise in civilization,
In the Cyclades the basis for the history of their civilization from the beginning of the Bronze Age is provided by the excava- tion of a series of successive settlements at Phylakopi on the north coast of Melos, aided by contemporary finds in the cemeteries and villages of Amorgos, Paros, Naxos, Syros and other islands, and the remains found under the lava in Thera. The earliest remains are not associated with the ruins of huts or houses; although the dead were laid in carefully constructed cist tombs built of slabs, in which the bodies were buried in the usual contracted attitude, accompanied by figurines, bowls and palettes in marble and stone, clay vases ornamented with elaborate incised designs, small leaf- shaped bronze knives, and miscellaneous articles in gold an4 some- times silver.
But before the end of the Early Cycladic Period (which is ap- proximately synchronous with the Early Minoan) houses or huts of a permanent form were built, and the earliest settlement at Phylakopi shows that the people lived in villages. The elaborate incised designs of spirals on some of the pottery and the introduc- tion of a glaze paint imply a considerable advance in culture by means of experiment and discovery. Lead, too, was known, and models of boats in this metal, together with representations of similar boats on a particular class of vases, indicate that naviga- tion was common. Indeed, the short distances that separate the islands from one another must have encouraged and invited navi- gation and hastened the invention of suitable means of crossing the narrow seas. Timber also was probably more plentiful then, and very soon there must have been communication with Crete and the mainland of Greece, since the Melian obsidian is found throughout these regions, which it can only have reached by crossing the sea. The obsidian trade in itself is the greatest argu- ment for assuming and believing that even in the beginniijg of the Bronze Age navigation, trade and other intercourse existed
XVII, n] DEARLY CYCLADIC CULTURE 601
between the peoples round the Aegean. Also, when we consider for a moment the character of the material objects left by the in- habitant^ of Crete in the early Bronze Age, the Cyclades and the south-eastern part of the mainland, we are at once struck by their .similarity. The people who made them must have belonged to the same race.
Here arises the problem. Did the Bronze Age population of the Cyclades evolve naturally from the indigenous neolithic inhabit- ants as in Crete, or was it a branch of the race that lived in Crete afld had made^its adventurous way across the seas and colonized the islands ? This is a question we cannot yet answer, because we know nothing of what preceded the Bronze Age in the islands. All we can say is that, so far as archaeological evidence goes — and it is very strong — it seems clear that in the Bronze Age the Cy- clades and Crete were inhabited by parallel branches of the same race. In view, too, of the seaborne intercourse to which reference has just been made, it will be obvious that in early times the stronger branch would soon dominate the weaker, and this is what came to pass. Before the end of the next period, the Middle Cy- cladic Period, the influence of Crete seems to have been practically supreme in the islands, although, as we shall see, there are clear traces of a connexion with the mainland. Not only does the con- nexion* with Crete rest on the evidence of the obsidian trade, but in Crete some broken vases similar to, if not identical with, Melian have been found, to say nothing of the Cycladic marble figurines imported into Crete, which have been mentioned above. Melos itself towards the end of the Early Cycladic Period produced a class of pottery decorated with designs in white on a dark ground, a technique clearly inspired by the Early Minoan III wares of Crete.
Most remarkable are the flat marble figurines, which with their long heads and curiously flattened limbs impress every one who sees them. Some are exceedingly primitive, being but the simplest fiddle-shaped pieces of marble roughly fashioned into a semblance of the human figure. The majority, however, are better modelled, and nearly all represent women. Details were probably rendered by paint, but there is in many of them a distinct attempt at modelling. There are even one or two of very advanced style, and these are male; one, a man standing playing a double flute, another, a man seated and playing a kind of harp — this latter is the most ambitious and in spite of the complications of the subject is fairly successful. Primitive though it is, the pottery of the Early Cycladic Period shows a distinct promise of much better things.
602 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION [CHAP.
The decoration Is not very good, except for the Intricate and elegant incised designs of spirals on some vases, among which fish qjid boats are introduced. The noticeable thing about these spiral designs is that as a rule they are not incised, but impressed by means of stamps of clay orrwood — possibly the first use of movable types for doing any kind of printing.
With the advent of the Middle Cycladic Age we find consider- able progress. The so-called second city at Phylakopi, which dates from this period, is more extensive. It has larger houses whicii are more solidly built, and the settlement was enclosed by a strofig fortification wall, whereas the earlier town seems to have been open and undefended. The very existence of this wall implies a less simple civilization, for It shows that the inhabitants apprehended danger, not of course from wild animals, but from their fellow men. In some other islands there are somewhat similar fortifica- tions, but their exact date cannot yet be ascertained. The culture of this period is as yet not well illustrated, as no untouched tombs belonging to It have been discovered, but there are many plundered shaft and chamber tombs at Phylakopi, and we have to depend on the finds from the excavations in Melos, Paros and Thera. We have, for instance, no example of bronze work of this age, nor indeed of any metal work. The pottery, however, especially that from Phylakopi is most illuminating. At this time, apparently with de- liberate intention, the glaze paint of the early period was aban- doned in favour of a matt paint, and the pottery was ornamented with simple geometric designs in this medium. Curvilinear ele- ments become gradually more and more prominent, and here we can trace the influence of Crete.
Towards the end of the Middle Cycladic Period not only do the designs evince a strong naturalistic tendency which rapidly increases, and freely represent animals and flowers, but Middle Minoan pottery of the best style is found imported into Melos. Further, some of the Melian vases show an attempt to imitate in the local technique the effect of the Cretan polychrome patterns on a black ground. This trade was reciprocal, as Melian vases be- longing to the Third Middle Cycladic Period were found in the temple repositories at Cnossus. On the other hand, we find a similar connection between Melos and the mainland of Greece. This Is best shown by the presence in the island of the fine wheel- made pottery called Minyan Ware, which is characteristic of the Middle Helladic Period, although its origin is still a mystery. There are also imitations of this made in Melos and other jisjands in a rather thick red burnished ware, some samples of which have
XVI I, HI] RELATIONS OF CYCLADES WITH CRETE 603
been found imported Into Crete. It Is possible., too, that, when In due time we know more about the Middle Cycladic and Middle Helladiq matt-painted wares, we shall be able to distinguish, Hel- ladic Importations Into the Cyclades and wee versa.
Still, In spite of this fairly cloSe connexion with the mainland, the Cyclades were even more intimate with Crete. It Is even pos- sible that before the end of the Middle Cycladic Period; about i6op B.C., Crete exercised some kind of political suzerainty over the islands, and this may have been the beginning of the Cretan tKalassocracy recorded In tradition. Yet another proof of this is the employment in Melos of a script similar to and probably derived from the Cretan. The identity of the signs in use may even indicate the existence of a common language in Crete and Melos at least. For, not only In Melos do we find that the Cretan element is strong, but In Thera some vases, which seem to be actual imports from Crete, were found in the ruins of the houses destroyed by the great eruption, the date of which may be fixed on archaeological grounds about 1600 B.C., because all the pottery from these houses dates from the end of the Middle Cycladic and beginning of the Late Cycladic Period. But, whatever the form which Cretan influence actually took In the Cyclades^ there seems little doubt that the Minoan element was responsible for raising the standard of civilization in the islands, though we must not forget that the presence of Minyan ware, and still more of Hella- dic vases similar to those of the Sixth Shaft Grave at Mycenae, shows that the mainland of Greece was stirring and thus preparing the way for its ultimate supremacy as the successor of Crete in the Third Late Helladic Period. This may have been part of the move- ment which first brought Mycenae to the front and set on its throne the dynasts who were buried in the shaft graves,
III. THE HELLADIC CIVILIZATION
Southern and central Greece go together, more for the sake of convenience than for geographical or cultural reasons. In the Peloponnese except at Corinth no remains of the Neolithic Age have yet been found1. The neolithic pottery found in Corinthia is not at present sufficiently clear in Its stratification or in Its relations to the wares of the early Bronze Age (Early Helladic pottery), but we do know that it corresponds to the first three periods approxi-
1 Since this was written, neolithic pottery of the northern type has been founc? in Arcadia and in the Pelargikon at Athens. This would support the first possibility here suggested.
604 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION [CHAP.
mately of the prehistoric period in central and northern Greece (Thessaly). A cache of celts found in Arcadia in a coarse vase is the <?nly other definite sign of anything neolithic, thpugh we should not omit some painted pottery — in all probability neo- lithic— found in a cave in Leucas, the kinship of which cannot yet be determined. We are met then with the question : Was there a uniform neolithic culture all over northern,, central and southern Greece, or does Corinth mark the southernmost limit of th<^neo~ lithic folk of the north? If the first alternative is right, we shall have to assume that the authors of the culture of t&e Early Hefia- dic Period at the beginning of the Bronze Age were not directly descended from the neolithic folk, but were intruders who came either from Crete or from the Cyclades to judge by archaeological analogies.
In central Greece (Boeotia and Phocis) the case is different. Here at all the principal sites so far excavated the lowest and earliest strata are of the First and Second Periods of the northern or Thessalian culture, and underlie strata of typical Early Helladic pottery. There are also, from one or two places, distinct traces of wares belonging to the Third Thessalian Period, The evidence here goes to show that the Early Helladic people of the young Bronze Age overran an earlier race, who belonged to the northern sphere of civilization. The contrast between the two groups of pottery is so strong, that one can only believe that they were made by different races. This being so, we must assume that the new- comers of the Early Helladic Age, who seem certainly to have been closely akin to the Early Cycladic and Early Minoan peoples, subdued and settled all the region from the Isthmus of Corinth at least as far as Othrys. Traces of the neolithic folk have not yet been reported from Attica or Euboea; but such will doubtless he found before long (see p. 603 #.), because these two provinces fall geographically and naturally info the central Greek area. Were it possible now to determine whether the Early Helladic people of the Peloponnese were indigenous or intrusive, it would go some way towards solving the problem of early Greek ethnology. As it is, we begin the history of the Peloponnese with the Bronze Age, apart from Corinthia as already remarked. This Early Helladic culture has so far been found only in Argolis, Laconia and Cor- inthia, although, as exploration extends, it will probably be found in other districts of the peninsula as well.
At first, the pottery of the. Early Helladic Period, with which the Bronze Age begins, is rather coarse, hand-made and proHshed ware3 occasionally decorated with unpretentious incised patterns,
XVII, in] ., EARLY HELLADIC AGE 605
not unlike the simpler designs of the Early Cycladic vases. Soon a glaze paint varying in colour from chestnut red to black comes into use^Some vases are covered all over with this medium, while others are ornamented in it with ordinary geometric patterns, which seem to increase in complexity with advancing years; but our knowledge is not yet full enough to enable us to fix the proper development of Early Helladic pottery. Parallel, apparently, with the more elaborate geometric ware comes a variety with patterns in wiiite on a ground of black glaze paint. This is perhaps due to the influence ofethe light on dark ware of the Third Early Minoan Period. It is noticeable, however, that up to the present the earlier phases of Early Helladic pottery have not been found in Boeotia and Phocis, and that the ware with dark on light geometric designs is not common : on the contrary the light on dark ware, which is rare in the Peloponnese, is comparatively common in central Greece. These may be merely local differences due to fortuitous circumstances, such as either the quality of the clay in the various regions, or the taste and fashion of the people who made and used the pottery. On the other hand, they may reflect the conditions under which the Early Helladic people settled in these districts. At all events, it seems fairly certain that their occupation of central Greece occurred later than that of the Peloponnese, because pottery as primitive as that found in Argolis and Corinthia has not yet come to light in central Greece, though some early tombs of this age have been excavated near Chalcis, which have yielded vases closely akin to the Early Helladic and Cycladic wares.
Too little has yet been unearthed of this period to give us more details about the life and culture of the people. We know, how- ever, that before the end of the Early Helladic Period they were living in hamlets composed of rectangular houses, not so very small in some cases, and built of crude brick on a low stone foun- dation. They had flat roofs, and a corner seems to have been re- served as a store room where grain and other produce could be kept in tall round-bodied jars (pithof) of good fabric. Their tombs so far as known were small rock-cut chambers approached by a short vertical shaft and so far have yielded only pottery. Bronze is rare, but a short leaf-shaped dagger and bronze pins together with a clay seal that resembles Early Minoan types, indicate that this civilization was not so unlike its kin in the Cyclades and Crete. In short, the culture of the Early Helladic people seems to have readied for its time a comparatively high standard, and there are signs that we may find that it was even higher than we now
606 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION [CHAP.
imagine. Some types of the pottery,, especially certain elaborate vases from Tiryns, the house-plans, and in particular a curious circular building at TIryns point at least in this direction, while some authorities assert that several of the vase forms are derived from metallic prototypes, whlcl? would indicate a much freer us§ of metal than we have any warrant for at present, Tiryns was an important place at this time, and Mycenae too was inhabited, while all over Argolis and Corlnthia there were numerous village settlements. In central Greece one of the richest sites is the mound near Hagia Marina In Phocis, though there are r$any more sitCs, Chalia opposite Chalcis, Orchomenus, Drachmani, Lianokladi and others of less importance.
How or when the Early Helladic Period ended we cannot yet tell. At some sites, Korakou near Lechaeum, Lianokladi, and Orcho- menus, there Is a sharp line between the strata containing Early Helladic wares and the Middle Helladic strata characterized by the presence of matt-painted pottery and 'Minyan7 ware. Else- where, as at Tiryns, the transition from this to the Middle Hella- dic Period seems to have been gradual. This point, however, must be settled by later excavations, though there are reasons for be- lieving that, just as in the Cyclades the Early Cycladic wares with glaze paint give way by degrees to those decorated with matt paint, so too on the mainland the kindred Early HelladicJfabrics with geometric patterns In glaze paint may have slowly developed Into a form of matt-painted ware. At all events, so far as we can judge, the Early Helladic Period came to an end at a time roughly parallel with the First Middle Minoan and Middle Cycladic Periods. For this reason, then, the Middle Helladic Age can only be subdivided as yet Into two phases, a Middle Helladic I and a Middle Helladic II, which are parallel with Middle Minoan II and IIL
There is certainly a marked difference to be observed between the Early and the Middle Helladic Periods. At the beginning of the latter there are two characteristic varieties of pottery : the one has a rather porous buff or yellow-green clay decorated with geo- metric patterns in matt-black paint, which, as in the Cyclades, ¥-adually grows more curvilinear as the influence of Crete spreads, his type of ^pottery ranges ^over central Greece, Attica, Megaris, Argolis, Corinthia and Aegina and has been found in Laconia. It Is, as remarked above, the mainland equivalent of the Middle Cycladic fabrics. The other typical ware is that called *Minyan/ not from any racial associations, but because Schliemaqpu first found it at Orchomenus, the city of the MInyae. It is a fine
XVII, in] . MINYAN WARE 607
wheel-made ware of well refined, grey clay with a very smooth polished surface, which is curiously soapy to the touch. In particular the shapes of the vases most distinctly recall metallic forms., and the most typical is a wide-spreading goblet with a .,sharp rim on a tall ringed stem. The origin of this ware, which is excellent in fabric, is at present a mystery, although it has been found over a wide area. It occurs commonly in south- eastern Greece from Thessaly to Argolis, is known in the Cy- clades, has been reported from Leucas, Aetolia and Macedonia, aiid is well known at Troy, though in strata dating to a period later than its first appearance on the mainland. In Crete, however, no Minyan ware has yet been found, although very many Middle Minoan deposits have been excavated at Cnossus, Phaestus and elsewhere. Accordingly, we can only conclude that there was no direct communication between Crete and the mainland during the great period of grey Minyan ware, which falls in the first phase of the Middle Helladic Age corresponding to Middle Minoan II. It is usually assumed that the presence of Minyan .ware indicates the intrusion of an extraneous racial element into the mainland of Greece, This is not yet certain, but it seems likely, since, in the various districts where Minyan ware occurs, we find also local varieties or imitations. Even so, it does not seem that genuine Minyan ware was all made at one centre and thence exported to other regions; but it is true that when the origin of Minyan ware is determined, we shall have made a great advance towards the solution of the ethnological problems of early Greece.
The matt-painted ware may possibly, as stated above, represent the old indigenous tradition evolving on the same lines as in the* Cyclades. If Minyati ware reflects the invasion of some other people, then that alone might account for the absence of relations between Crete and the mainland in Middle Helladic L At all events, in Middle Helladic II the influence of Crete definitely begins on the mainland and almost immediately becomes very strong* Under Cretan inspiration Minyan ware begins to change its appearance and from grey turns to yellow, the first stage in its transformation into late Mycenaean pottery, as will be made clear when we come to the history of the Late Helladic Period. At the same time in the Peloponnese we find in the local light on dark wares an evident attempt to render the Middle Minoan technique with mainland mediums. It was this strong Cretan impulse acting on the Helladic or mainland elements, as represented especially by Muiyan ware and its makers, that ultimately gave rise to the civilization of the mainland in Mycenaean or Late Helladic times.
608 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION [CHAP.
Just before the end of Middle Helladic II, not long before 1600 B.C., a powerful dynasty began to reign at Mycenae, the first princes of which are probably to be recognized in the Sbjth Shaft Grave and in all likelihood in the first interments in the Fourth Shaft Grave*
Details of the civilization of the Middle Helladic Age are scanty, because, although many tombs of the period have been found, it seems not to have been the custom to bury much jjear with the dead. Small, thin, bronze arrowheads, small beads of glass or crystal, small bronze rings and other unimportant objects give little idea of the culture of the time. The gold cup, bronze spearheads, swords and other contents of the Sixth Shaft Grave at Mycenae do not enlighten us much, because it is impossible to separate the Helladic from the Minoan objects and some authori- ties hold that the culture of the Shaft Graves is entirely Minoan. There is one curious weapon in the Sixth Grave of a halberd type, which is not Minoan and may therefore be Helladic, as the 'shoe' spearhead from the Fourth Grave certainly is. In contrast to this the finds at Orchomenus show that agriculture was prac- tised, for in one house there have been found wheat, barley, pease, beans and even grape seeds. The houses are not yet sufficiently well known, although what appear to be rectangular house foun- dations have been discovered. A very characteristic type^ which also 'belongs to this age, is that of a long narrow house with one end rounded off so as to form a kind of apse. Apsidal houses of this type have been found at Tiryns, Korakou, Olympia and Thermum, and (in rather a different context) in Thessaly, so that "we cannot dogmatize on this point.
All the signs, however, show that it was at the end of the Second Middle Helladic Period just about 1600 B.C. that the first great advance in civilization in the Peloponnese, central Greece and immediately adjacent districts was made. This progress was caused by the influence exercised by Crete on the people of the mainland, though what form it actually took is another question. It is possible that Cretan colonies were established at some sites, Mycenae, Tiryns, Corinth, Orchomenus, Thebes; or we might believe that the influence was exercised, not by colonization or conquest, but by peaceful penetration, trade, settlement, travel and the like. The difference between these two views may be summed up in the question, 'Was the dynasty which now arose at Mycenae Helladic or Minoan?' So full and so far reaching is the influence of Crete at this time that we may assume /<*r the present a Cretan domination of the regions mentioned in much
XVII, iv] EAR|vY THESSALIAN CIVILIZATION 609
the same way in which the Franks held the Morea after the Fourth Crusade, or the Dukes of Normandy England. In any case it is clear that about 1600 B.C. what may be called a Mino-Helladic culture was predominant in continental Greece from Othrys to the Saronic Gulf, in the Peloponnese/^jtid along the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth. This may not have been one kingdom; in fact it is more likely it comprised several; but they must have been united by a common culture and by the necessity, if the theory just expressed is right, of holding their own in a foreign land*
9
">
IV. THE THESSALIAN CIVILIZATION
In north-eastern Greece — Thessaly and Phocis and perhaps Boeotla — history begins with the Neolithic Age, of which very plentiful remains have been found. In the plains of these regions mounds composed of the accumulated debris of successive pre- historic settlements are abundant, and, though the settlements cannot have been big, their very number implies a fairly large population. On the other hand, there seems to have been a forest belt in the hills and around the edges of the plains, which limited the area available for human habitation. The date of the earliest settlements is of course not known, but even at the very beginning we findrthe neolithic culture well developed. The whole prehistoric period in this area down to the opening of the Iron Age is divided into four periods, of which the first two are neolithic, the third probably the transition to the Bronze Age, and the fourth the full Bronze Age.
The permanent characteristic feature of the First Period is a good, hand-made and polished ware with rather original designs in red on a white ground. This type of pottery extends all over the area mentioned, and there are many local varieties, but the essen- tial character of the ware remains constant. Slightly older than this, but also contemporary with it, is a fine, plain, red ware usually of excellent fabric and thin and well polished. The makers of this pottery inhabited huts of crude brick; but before the end of the First Period rectangular small houses with walls of crude brick resting on a low stone foundation, with internal buttresses to sup- port the beams of the flat roof and with partitions of wattle and daub, were being constructed. In addition to the pottery the con- tents of the houses include stone implements of all kinds — well made for the most part — axes, hammers and chisels, bone pins and awls^apd knives of Melian obsidian, the only sign of outside in- fluence. There are also terra-cotta statuettes^ usually female and
c A.H.I
610 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATIpN [CHAP.
rather primitive and steatopygous in type, but nevertheless they show even in their rudeness an observation of the human form. Carbonized grains have been found in some settlements, and with themr are the bones of numerous animals, oxen, sheep, 'cleer and swine, showing that these people lived a pastoral and agricultural life, and also hunted the deer and wild boars which must have abounded In the forests. The culture of the First Period seems to have been uniform all over this area from Corinth to the Haliacmon.
The Second Period is not so uniform, becausg in the district between Othrys and Corinth the Early Helladic people seem to have made their influence felt before the end of the period and to have begun to overrun the country at that time. This probably occurred towards the end of the Second Period, which, unlike the First, was apparently not a long one, because pottery of the Third Period, which overlaps to some slight extent that of the Second, has been found in the southern district mentioned. We may therefore suppose that the Early Helladic people appeared on the scene at the date just suggested. Again, since we do not know whether the first intrusion of the Early Helladic people is coin- cident with the beginning of the Bronze Age or not, we cannot yet assign any date to this event, beyond conjecturing that it oc- curred not earlier than the middle, and not later than the* end of the third millennium B.C. In the southern part of the area and in western Thessaly the pottery of the Second Period is distinctly derived from that of the First Period, and is decorated in black or brown with simple geometric patterns on a red or buff ground. On the other hand, in eastern Thessaly a new kind of pottery makes its appearance, which, although painted with the same mediums as the other ware just mentioned, is ornamented with complicated geometrical designs including spirals. A further variety of this has patterns in three colours, brown-black, orange- red and white. The designs here represented link on to a large group of early pottery which ranges over Macedonia and Thrace and even seems to have affinities with the Dacian group composed of finds from Roumania and adjoining regions.
Apart from the changes in the pottery, the culture seems to have remained the same generally as that of the First Period. It is, however, probable that the pottery with spiral designs marks the southward thrust of a new racial factor from the Macedonian area. In any case the nearest kindred of the people of the First and Second Periods in the north are to be sought, not in the glands, Crete or elsewhere in the south, but in Macedonia, Thrace* Moesia
XVII, iv] SECOND AND THIRD THESSALIAN POTTERY 61 1
and Dacia. If this people should also prove to have Inhabited the Peloponnese in neolithic times, it would then appear that the be- ginning of civilization in Greece was brought from Crete and the south early in the Bronze Age by an intruding bronze-using people, ;who subdued the indigenous neolithic folk and established the Early Helladic culture. The evolution of this in continental Greece was interrupted by the appearance of yet another racial factor in the makers of Minyan ware, but the Cretan influence was too strong, and before long all the elements on the mainland united it? the Late Helladic Age to produce the Mycenaean civilization. Which of the component elements spoke Greek — for it seems highly probable that Greek was spoken on the mainland long before the age described by Homer — remains a problem, for the solution of which we must await further discoveries, especially the reading of the Minoan script.
The Third Period in Thessaly marks a decline, as the pottery is coarse and poorly made and painted decoration is scarce. A de- generation of this kind is often contemporaneous with the intro- duction of metal, and it has frequently been remarked that an ad- vance in mechanical or technical methods involves a decline in the spontaneous artistic expression of folk in a primitive state of cul- ture. Pottery is now decorated with very simple geometric designs in whitre on a polished black or brown-black ground. Some varieties especially in east Thessaly are ornamented with incised patterns, and here, as we might expect, the spiral again occurs. There are also vases of poor fabric, but painted or rather crusted with a dusty white or pink paint, not a satisfactory method, though here too the spiral appears. More interesting are the terra-cotta statuettes which are either shapeless figures of clay with little resemblance to the human figure, or rude bodies of clay with stone heads, on which the features were painted, inserted in them* Some stone figurines have come to light which are less rough and ready than these acrolithic figures. Few actual traces of bronze have been found. But we have a house of this period which yielded pottery, figurines with stone heads, implements of stone, bone and horn, carbonized grain and figs. Its plan is rectangular with a rounded end, but little can be deduced from one isolated house. Though there is no sign of a sudden break between the Second and Third Periods, yet the great change in the pottery that took place then, coupled with the introduction and use of metal, makes one suspect that yet another racial element pushed into the northern area<a]jout that time* The Third Period like the Second does not seem to have been a very long one; it was succeeded by a Fourth
39—*
612 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATIQN [CHAP.
Period which extended to the end of the Late Helladic Period. So, while the Third Period is contemporary with part of the Early Helladic Period, the Fourth most likely covers the time occupied by the Middle and Late Helladic Periods. The pottery of the Fourth Period is of very little interest, being principally coarse^ plain ware, very roughly made and badly baked. It has no charac- teristics which call for mention here, as a discussion of the Fourth Period will be more in place when we come to deal with times after 1600 B,C,
As regards the prehistoric age in Macedonia ^.nd Thrace V?e are still in a sphere of pure speculation. Many prehistoric sites are known in these provinces, but so little systematic excavation has been done and even that little not fully made accessible, that it would be foolish to try to set out now the sequence and develop- ment of the various stages of their civilization. In Macedonia proper, and also in the Philippi district, much prehistoric pottery has been found, which belongs generically to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, but the attribution of any kind of ware to a particular period is decided so far by its appearance and not by stratification or the other attendant circumstances of its discovery. Some of the Macedonian wares have a very strong resemblance to the pottery of the Second Thessalian Period, especially that group which is most at home in east and north-east Thessaly. On the other- hand, many of the Macedonian wares, both painted and incised, are closely allied to the culture of countries still further north, east Thrace, Moesia andDacia, The prehistoric culture, then, of Mace- donia and Thrace, while it shows on the one hand strong con- nexions with that of Thessaly, on the other hand is closely akin to that of Moesia and Dacia. Till, however, scientific archaeological exploration in these regions can give us by means of a proper ob- servation of the successive strata a clear sequence of its pottery and its other relics, we cannot attempt to synchronize it with any of the Thessalian periods, or bring it into any direct relation with the history of Aegean civilization. The contact, too, of eastern Thrace with the culture of Troy and north-western Asia Minor is similarly a matter on which only fresh and systematic excavation can throw light.
As regards Troy, it is in Asia Minor, and its history therefore belongs to that country and not to the Aegean area; but, though it is in the main naturally connected with Phrygia and the ad- joining provinces, so little exploration has been done there, that Troy cannot yet be fitted into the scheme of the ancient fcisMiory of Asia Minor. On the other side, its culture shows clear con-
XVII, iv] FIR4T AND SECOND CITIES OF TROY 613
nexions with Thrace and Hungary and so the history of the site may be briefly considered here. On the hill of Hissarlik, which is a short distance to the east of the entrance to the Dardanelles, and consequently in a commanding position to control"* trade „ passing up and down or across1* the straits, the remains of nine successive cities have been unearthed. Of these the first five con- cern us now; as the sixth, which is the earliest that can be dated, is contemporary with the later phases of Mycenaean civilization, and is the material representative of the Homeric Troy, The ffrst city seern^ to have been enclosed by a ring wall, but the ruins of this and of the houses within it are too slender to allow any comparison with other sites. The house walls had foundations of small stones with upper structures of crude brick. The pottery is rude and hand-made, and the settlement does not seem to have been very rich materially or much advanced in civilization. Stone weapons have been found, and since some of them are bored and there are traces of copper, it is probable that the town should be dated to the beginning of the Bronze Age or to the transition between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. It may be placed approximately in the first half of the third millennium B.C.
With the second city, which like all subsequent cities on this site is built on the ruins of its immediate predecessor, the case is far different. This was at first hailed as the Homeric Troy and its ruins and culture have been closely studied. It was strongly fortified with a well-planned system of massive walls, gates and towers, composed of thick masses of crude brick resting on solid stone foundations. The gateways are paved and carefully laid out, and constructed with graded ramps leading through them as though for wheeled traffic. In the centre of the city or more properly citadel, for it seems to have been the fortified residence of the chief and his entourage, while the plebs lived outside the walls, there are the ruins of houses similarly built of crude brick and timber on stone bases. These which are of a 'megaron' type and lay within a courtyard approached through a propylon, were probably the home of the ruler of the city. This is the earliest appearance of what is known as the 'megaron* type of house and antedates the Homeric house by several centuries. It is an open question whether the inhabitants of the mainland of 'Greece derived from an Asiatic source the 'megaron* plan, which we find later in a developed form in the palaces of Mycenae and Tiryns. This is for the present mere speculation, but is interesting in viei? of the legend of the Asiatic origin of the house of Pelops. At all events the second city of Troy was large and wealthy. The
'6 14 EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION [CHAP.
many hoards of gold, silver and bronze vessels, ornaments and weapons are sufficient evidence for this. The gold diadems., pins and earrings and cups betray great proficiency in fine metal work, while"the number of silver jars is remarkable and perhaps indicates that the kings of Troy owned mines. The same applies to bronze,, and metal working must have been extensively practised, for, apart from the quantity of metal found, many moulds for casting bronze were discovered. The excellent workmanship of some decorated stone axes shows good craftsmanship in harder material. The pottery, on the other hand, thoiigh well m^ade, shows ifb sign of the potter's wheel and Is rather rough. Within these limitations the vases are good and many of the shapes are interest- ing, especially the anthropomorphic vases with their curious owl- like faces. This city had a comparatively long existence and prob- ably perished about the beginning of the second millennium B.C. It was followed by three successive settlements, which were small, poor and unimportant, and seem to have been merely degenerate descendants of the great second city, and far inferior In wealth and power. The second city, which had trade or cultural connexions not only with the hinterland of Asia Minor, but also with the Danubian region, must have been for its time one of the wealthiest states bordering on the Aegean. How much influence it exercised within the Aegean area itself we cannot say. -There are hints that it had trade with the Cyclades, and even with Cyprus, and perhaps too with Egypt, The exploration of eastern Thrace and of the northern Aegean islands, such as Lemnos, when it comes, will throw light on these points and help us to see the first five cities at Troy in their proper perspective. Now our con- ception of the second city is that of a flourishing state, whose power lay rather in commerce or the control of commerce, particularly the metal trade, owing to its favourable geographical situation, and who consequently attained at a comparatively early date great material prosperity.
Thus, in the Aegean area about 1600 B.C. we find that, in the south, Crete was all powerful with Cnossus, in all probability, the seat of the central or strongest dynasty in the island. This Cretan power was supreme in the Cyclades, which may have formed part of a Cretan island kingdom. On the mainland of Greece a strong dynasty had recently established itself at Mycenae, and the Pelo- ponnesus and central Greece were advancing rapidly in civiliza- tion under the influence exercised by Crete on the makers of Minyan ware, who seem to have been of vigorous stock and- over- laid the Early Helladic people. Central Greece perhaps possessed
MAP iz
MAP TO ILLUSTRATE EARLY AEGEAN CULTURE
XVII, iv] PREDOMINANCE OF CITE
in Orchomenus, or Thebes, a seat of power which at first counter- balanced Mycenae, since it was apparently not until the culmina- tion of the Late Helladic Period that it fell under the power of MycenkNorthofOthrysthefolkoftheThessalianFourthPeriod, although of a lower aesthetic standard than their predecessors
$ u i
of the Neolithic Age, were still living in a state of comparative barbarism in spite of some trade connexions both southwards and northwards, The condition of Macedonia and Thrace at this time we So not yet know, The great outstanding fact is that Crete, then ft the beginning of the second climax of its Bronze Age civiliza- tion, was so superior in all arts and crafts, that her domination of her neighbours was a foregone conclusion, He would have been a bold man, who had then ventured to prophesy that before the end of the Bronze Age the newly founded stronghold of Mycenae would eclipse the power and riches of Cnossus,
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Abh. Abhandlungen.
Abh. K.M. Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes.
A.J.A. American Journal of Archaeology.
A.J.Ph. American Journal of Philology.
A.J.SSlr. American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures.
A.§.A.E. Annales du Service des antiquites de 1'IJgypte.
Ath. Mitt. Mitheilungen des deutschen arch. Inst, Athenische Abtheilung.
B. z. Ass. Beitrage zur Assyriologie und semitischen Sprachwissenschaft.
B.C.H. Bulletin de Correspondance hellenique.
B.I.C. Bulletin de 1'Institut frangais d'archeologie orientale au Caire.
Bay. S.B. Sitzungsberichte d. bayerischen Akad. d. Wissenschaften.
Berl. S.B. Sitzungsberichte d. preuss. Akad. d. Wissenschaften zu Berlin.
Biblica Biblica. Commentarii editi a Pontificio Institute Biblico, Rome*
B.S.A. Annual of the British School at Athens.
B.S.R. Papers of the British School at Rome.
Bull. d. I. Bullettino dell' Institute.
C.I.G. Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum.
C.I.L. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum.
CJ.S* Corpus Inscriptionum Semidcarum*
CJ. Classical Journal.
C.£). Classical Quarterly.
C.R. Classical Review.
C.R. Ac. Inscr. Comptes rendus de F Academic des Inscriptions.
D.B. Dictionary of the Bible (J. Hastings, Edinburgh, 1898).
E.Bi. Encyclopaedia Biblica.
E.Brit. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Ed. XL
E.H.R. English Historical Review.
E.R.E. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics.
Exp. T. Expository Times.
F.H.G. C. Mtiller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum*
G.G.A. Gattingsche Gelehrte Anzeigen.
Geogr. Z. Geographische Zeitschrift.
Head H.N. Head, Historia Numorutn, 2nd Ed. 1912.
Herm- Hermes*
I.G.F. Indogermanische Forschungen.
J.A. Journal Asiatique.
.A.O.S* Journal of the American Oriental Society
J.B.S- Journal of Biblical Studies.
J.D.AJ. Jahrbuch des deutschen archaologischen Instituts.
J.E.A. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology,
J.H.S. Journal of Hellenic Studies.
J. Man. E.O.S. Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society.
J.R.A.I. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
J.R.A.S. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
J.R.S. % Journal of Roman Studies.
J.S.O.R. Journal of the Society of Oriental Research.
618 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS^
Klio Klio (Beitrage zur alten Geschichte).
Liv, A. A. Liverpool Annals of Archaeology.
M.B.B A. Monatsbericlit der Berliner Akademie.
M.D.p.G, Mittheilungen der deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft.
M.D.P.V. Mittheilnngen des deutschen Palastinavereins.
M.V.A.G. Mittlieilungen der vordcrasiatischen Gesellschaft.
Mon. d. I. Monument! Antichi delf Institute.
NJ. Kl. Alt Neue Jahrbiicher ftir das klassische Altertum.
N.J.P. Neue Jahrbucher fur Philologie.
N.SA. Notizie degli Scavi di Antichita (Atti d. r. Accad. dei Lincei).
Num. Chr. Numismatic Chronicle.
Num. Z. Numismatische Zeitschrift.
(XL.Z. Orientalische Literaturzeitung.
P.E.F. Palestine Exploration Fund.
PhiL Philologus.
P.S.BA. Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.
P.W. Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopadie der klassSschen Altertumswis-
senschaft,
Up, ttpaKTUtd.
Q.S. Quarterly Statement(s),
Rec. Trav. Recueil de Travaux relatifs a la philologie et a Farchdologie
tienne et assyrienne.
Rev. A. Revue archtologique.
Rev. Ass. Revue d'Assyriologie.
Rev. Bib. Revue biblique Internationale,
Rev. Eg. Revue ^gyptologique.
Rev, E.G. Revue des Etudes grecques.
Rev. H. Revue hlstorique.
Rev. N. Revue numismatique.
Rh. Mus. Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie,
Riv. FiL Rivista di Filologia.
Riv. N.O. Rivista nuova orientale.
Rom. Mitth. Mittheilungen des deutschen arch. Inst, Romische Abtheilung,
R.V. Revised Version.
R.V. mg. Revised Version margin.
S.B. Sitzungsberichte.
Syria. Syria: Revue d'art oriental et d'arch&logle,
T.S.BA. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology.
W.Z.K.M* Wiener Zeitschrift ftir die Kunde des Morgenlandes,
Wien S.B. Sitzungsberichte d» Akad. d. Wissenschaften in Wien,
Wien St. Wiener Studien.
ZA. Zeitschrift far Assyriologie.
Z. Aeg. Zeitschrift ftir aegyptisclie Sprache und Altertamskunde.
ZA.T.W, Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft.
Z.D.M.G. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft.
Z.D.P.V. Zeitschrift des deutschea Palastina-Vereins.
Z.E. Zeitschrift ftir Ethnologie.
Z.G. f. E. Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft ftir Erdkunde.
Z.N. Zeitschrift ftir Numismatifc,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES
* These bibliographies do not aim at completeness. They include modern and standard works, and in particular books utilized in the writing of the chapters. Many technical monographs, especially in journals, are omitted, but the works that are registered below will put the reader on their track.
Special works dealing with the history posterior to the period with which this volume deals (viz. to 1 580 B.C., the rise of the New Egyptian kingdom) are naturally held over for the latf r volumes.
In the literature of the earlier period there is often considerable overlapping; this has been to some extent avoided by the use of subdivisions and cross-references.
For some general information on the bibliographical, cartographical and other literature, see p. 630.
Books in English and French are, unless otherwise specified, published at London and at Paris respectively.
CHAPTERS I AND II
PRIMITIVE MAN IN GEOLOGICAL TIME. NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE CULTURES
In thls*abbreviated list publications of earlier date than 1900 are not included unless they are still standard authorities. They, together with the more recent literature not mentioned below, will be found in the bibliographies of the handbooks.
i. DEVELOPMENT OF PRESENT SEA-BASINS AND LAND-MASSES
Chamberlain, T* C,» and R* D* Salisbury. Geology* New York, 1906. Geilcie, Sir A. Textbook of Geology. 4th edn. 1903. Lapparent, A. de. Traite" de Geologic. 5th edn. 1906. Martonne, E. de. Geographic physique. 1908.
Suess, E. Das Antlitz der Erde, 1885 sgg* TransL The Face of the Earth. 5 vok Oxford, 1904-9*
2* GEOGRAPHY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN AND NEARER EAST
Hogarth, D. G, The Near East. Oxford, 1905.
Philippson, A. Das Mittelmeergebiet Leipzig, 1904.
3. HISTORY OF CLIMATE
Brooks, C. E. P. The Evolution of Climate in North-west Europe. Quart. Journ.
Roy. Meteor. Soc.? XLIV (1918), XLVII (1921). Briickner, E. Klima-schwankungen seit 1780. Vienna, 1890. Geer, Baron G. de. A Geochronology of the last twelve thousand years. Berichte
des internal Geologen-Kongresses. Stockholm, 1910. See also the series of
nJeiHoirs in the same volume entitled Die Veranderungen des Klimas seit dem
Maximum der letzteix Eiszeit*
620 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Geikie, J. Tundras and Steppes of Prehistoric Europe. Smithson. Report. Washing- ton, 1897-8.
Huntington, E. Tlie Pulse of Asia. 1907. r Palestine and its Transformations. 1911.
Civilization and Climate. New York, 1915.
Matthew, W. D. Climate and EvoluticSL Ann. N.Y. Acad. ScL, xxiv (191 5). o Menzel, H. Geologisclie Entwickelungsgeschichte der alteren Postglacialzeit.
Z.E., XLVI, 1914. Nehring, A. Tundren und Steppen der Jetzt- und Vorzeit. Berlin, 1 890.
4. DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS
Candolle, A. de. Geographic botanique raisonne'e. 1855.
Griesbach, A. Vegetation der Erde. French transl. by P. de Tchihalche£ 1875.
Hardy, M. E. The Geography of Plants. Oxford, 1920.
Lyddeker, L. 1C. Geographical History of Mammals. Cambridge, 1896.
Osborn, H. F. The Age of Mammals in Europe, Asia and North America, New
York, 1910. Schimper, A. F. W. Plant Geography (transl. by W. R. Fisher). Oxford, 1903.
5. ETOJLUTION OF MAN, AND EARLIEST HUMAN REMAINS
Boule, M. Les hommes fossiles. 1921.
Duckworth, W. L, H. Prehistoric Man. Cambridge, 1912. Hoernes, M. Natur- und Urgeschichte des Menschen. Vienna, 1909. Hrdlicka, A. The most ancient Skeletal Remains of Man. Smithson. Report. Wash- ington, 1913,
Jones, F. Wood. Arboreal Man. 1916. Keith, Sir A. The Antiquity of Man. 1915. Obermaier, H» Der Mensch der Vorzeit. Munich, 1912.
El Hombre f6sil. Madrid, 1912.
Ranke, J. Der Mensch. 2nd edn. Leipzig, 1900.
[See also general handbooks under Section 7 below.]
6. THE ICE AGE
[See also Section 7 below.]
Geikie, J. The Great Ice Age. ist edn, 1894. 3rd edn, 1904.
The Antiquity of Man in Europe, Edinburgh, 1914.
Penck, A., and E. Bruckner. Die Alpen im Eiszeitalter. 3 vols. Leipzig, 1901—9* Wright, W. B. The Quaternary Ice Age. 1914*
7. PALAEOLITHIC MAN
Breuil, 1'Abbe H. Les Subdivisions du Paleolithique sup^rieur et leur signification. Comptes Rendus d. Congr. Internal. Anthrop. et Arch, pr^hist. Geneva, 1912.
Burkitt, M. C. Prehistory. Cambridge, 1921, (Mainly palaeolithic; useful biblio- graphy; pp. 322 Sff.)
D6chelette, J. Manuel d*Arch^o!ogie pr^historique, i, 1908.
Geikie, J. The Antiquity of Man in Europe. Edinburgh, 1914.
Hoernes, M. Der diluviale Mensch in Europa. Braunschweig, 1903.
CHAPTERS I AND II 621
Macalister, R. A. S. A Textbook of European Archaeology i. Cambridge, 1921. Mullet, S. Urgeschichte Europas. Strassburg, 1905. (Also Eng. and Fr. transl
1907.)
Osborn, H.JF. Men of the Old Stone Age. 2nd edn. New York, 1918. Reinach, S. Repertoire de 1'Art quaternaire. 1913. (His Alluvions et Cavernes
[1889] is still useful.)
Schmidt, R. R. Die diluviale Vorzeit Deutschlands. Stuttgart, 1912. Sollas, W. J. Ancient Hunters. London. 2nd edn. 1915.
TRANSITION FROM PALAEOLITHIC TO NEOLITHIC
Evaks, Sir A. J. Ne^ Archaeological Lights on the Origin of Civilization in Europe.
Proc. Brit. Assoc. Advanc. of Science. Newcastle, 1916. Macalister, R. A. S. Textbook i (above), Ch. x, 'The Mesolithic Period.9 Morgan, J. de, L. Capitan, and Boudy. Les stations pr^historiques du Sud tunisien.
Rev. £cole d'Anthropologie, xx, 1910. Obermaier, H. El Hombre fdsil. Madrid, 1912. Piette, E. Papers on Le Maz d'Azil cave. L'AnthropoIogie, n, 1891; vi, 1895; vn,
1896.
- - L'Art pendant PAge du Renne, 1907.
Sarauw, G. F. L. Trouvaille... datant de la periode de 1'hiatus. Comptes Rendus du Congr. Pr^hist. de France. Perigueux, 1905.
- Maglemose. Praehistorische Zeitschrift, in, 1911; vi, 1914.
Schmidt, R. R. Die spatpalaolithischen Bestattungen der Ofnet. Mannus, i. Ergan- zungsband, 1910, pp. 56 sgg.
9. CLASSIFICATION OF THE WHITE RACES
Blumenbach, J. F. Anthropological Treatises (1793—1828). Eng. transl. by Marx
and Flour ens. 1865. Bogdanof, A. P. Quelle est la race la plus ancienne de la Russie centrale ? Comptes
Rendus Congr. Int. d'Anthrop., i. Moscow, 1893. Deniker, J. Races of Man. 1900. Fleure? H. J. Some early neanthropic types in Europe and their modern repre-
sentatives. J.R.A.L, L, 1920. Huxley, T. H. Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature, 1863.
- On the geographical distribution of the chief modifications of Mankind. J. Ethnol. Soc* London. N.S., n, pp. 404—12.
Keith, Sir A. The Bronze Age Invaders of Britain. J.R.A.L, XLV, 1915.
Lapouge, G. V. de. L'Aryen. 1899.
Luschan, F. von. Beziehung zwischen der Alpinen-Bevolkerung und den Vor-
derasiaten, Korr.-bL d. deutschen Ges. f. Anthr., XLIV, 1915. Myres, J. L. The Alpine Races in Europe. Geogr. Journal, Dec. 1906. Peake, H. J. E. The Finns. J.R.A.I., XLIX, 1919^ Quatrefages, A. de. Crania ethnica (with E. T. Hamy, Eng. transl.). 1882.
- Hommes fossiles et hommes sauvages. 1 8 84.
Ripley, W. Z. Races of Europe. 1900. (Full bibliography.)
Schliz, A. Beitrage zur prahistorischen Ethnologic. Prahist. Zeit, IY, 1912.
- Vorstufen der nordisch-europaischen Schadelbildung. Archiv f, Anthr., XLI, 1914.
Sergi, ^r^The Mediterranean Race. 1901.
622 BIBLIOGRAPHY
10. EXISTING RACES OF MAN; THEIR DISTRIBUTION AND RESPONSE TO PHYSICAL CONDITIONS
Chalijdopoulos, L. Landschafts-, Wirtschafts-, GeseUschafts-Kulturtypffn. Leipzig,
1906.
Demolin, E. Comment la Route cree leHtype social. 1905. Keane, A. H. Man, past and present. Cambridge, 1 899. (Revised by A. C. Haddon,
1920.) Ratzel, F. Anthropogeographie. Stuttgart, i, 1882; 2nd edn, 1899; n, 1891.
History of Mankind. 3 vols. 1896—8. ^
Semple, E. C. Influence of Geographic Environment. 1911. (Essentially a synopsis
of Ratzel's work.) Teggart, F. J. Processes of History. New York, 1920.
ii. NEOLITHIC CULTURE IN GENERAL
Buschan, G. Vorgeschichtliche Botanik. Breslau, 1895. D<!chelette, J. Manuel d'Archeqlogie pr^historique, i. 1908. Hahn, E. Die Entstehung der Pflug-Kultur. Berlin, 1909.
Hoernes, M. Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst in Europa. 2nd edn. Vienna, 1915.
Kultur der Urzeit, i. Leipzig, 1912.
Hoops, J. Waldbaume und Kulturpflanzen im gerrnanischen Alterthum* Strassburg,
1905.
Reinhardt, L. Die Erde und die Kultur. 4 vols. Munich, 1912 sqq. Schuchhardt, C. Das technische Element in den Anfangen der Kunst. Prah. Zeit., i. Tyler, J. M. The New Stone Age in Northern Europe. 1921.
(a) ALPINE LAKE-DWELLINGS
Boelsche, W. Der Mensch der Pfahlbauzeit. 8th edn. Stuttgart, 1911. Heierli, J. Urgeschichte der Schweiz. Zurich, 1901.
Munro, R. Lake-dwellings of Europe. 1 890. (Full bibliography to date of publica- tion.)
(ff) DANUBIAN CULTURE
Hoernes, M. Die neolithische Keramik in Oesterreich. Z.E., xxxv (1903).
Die neolithische Station von Butmir. Vienna, 1895.
Vassits, M. Trojan Problems (in Serbian). Belgrade, 1906,
Verworn, M. Kulturkreis der Bandkeramifc. Praehistorische Zeitschrift, n. Wosinsky, M. Die inkrustierte Keramik. Berlin, 1904.
(r) TRIPOLJE CULTURE
Schmidt, H. Ausgrabungen in Kukuteni, Rumanien. Z.E., XLHI, 1911. Volkow, Th. L'lndustrie premyc^nienne des stations ndolithiques de FUkraine. L'Anthropologie, xm, 1902.
(</) ANAU, SUSA AND MUSYAN
Morgan, J. de. Memoires de la Delegation Fra^aise en Perse, i (1900: Susa);
viii (1906: Moussian). Pumpelly, R., H. Schmidt, and others. Explorations in Turkestan (Anau).^O.rnegie
last., PubL No. 73. Washington, 1904.
CHAPTERS I AND II 623
(<?) ASIA MINOR, STRIA AND CYPRUS
Morgan, J. de. Les premieres Civilisations. Paris, 1909. Myres, J. I3. The Early Pot-fabrics of Asia Minor. J.R.A.I., xxxin (1903). ,
Catalogue of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus. New York,
1914.
Schmidt, H. Troja — Mykene — Ungarn. Z.E., xxxvi, 1904.
Vincent, H. Canaan. Paris, 1907.
Woolley, C. L. Asia Minor, Syria, and the Aegean. Liv. A.A., ix (1922).
Zumq^Fen, G. La Ph&ucie avant les Pheniciens. Beyrout, 1900.
(/) EGYPT [See also Bibliography to Chapters vi— ix.]
Breasted, J. H. The Origins of Civilization. Scientific Monthly. 1919-20. Morgan, J. de, Recherches sur les Origines de Ffigypte, 2 vols. 1896-7. Petrie, W. M. F. Prehistoric Egypt. 1920.
Prehistoric Egyptian Pottery. 1921. (Summarizing previous memoirs since
Bullas and Nagada. 1895.)
Reisner, G. A. The Early Cemeteries of Naga-ed-Der. University of California Publ. 1908.
Report of the Archaeological Survey of Nubia. Cairo, 1907—8*
(g) MEDITERRANEAN REGION
Blegen, C. W. Korakou (prehistoric site near Corinth). Cambridge, U.S.A., 1922.
Bosch Gimpera, P. Prehistoria Catalana. Barcelona, 1919. Also, appendix to Spanish transl. of A. Schulten, Hispania. Barcelona, 1920,
Dussaud, R. Civilisations pre'helle'mques. 2nd edn. 1914. See p. 627.
Evans, Sir A. J. Scripta Minoa, i. Oxford, 1910.
The Palace of Minos at Knossos^ i. 1921. (Superseding previous excavation- reports since 1901.)
Leeds, E. T. The Dolmens and Megalithic Tombs of Spain and Portugal. Archaeo- logia, LXX (1920).
Problems in Megalithic Architecture. Liverpool A.A., ix, 1922.
Mayr, A. Die Insel Malta ini Altertume. Munich, 1909. Montelius, O. Civilisation primitive en Italic, Stockholm, 1895 s$$. Peet, T. E. The Stone and Bronze Ages in Italy. Oxford, 1909. Schmidt, H. Vorgeschichte Spaniens. Z*E., XLV, 1913.
Wace, A. J. B., and M. S. Thompson. Prehistoric Thessaly. Cambridge, 1912.
(/&) ATLANTIC SEABOARD AND NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE
Abercromby, Hon. J. A Study of the Bronze Age Pottery of Great Britain and
Ireland. 1912. Goetze, A. Emtheilung der neolithischen Periode in Mitteleuropa. Korr.-bL d.
deutschen Ges. f. Anthr., xxxi, 1900.
Klassen, K. Die Volker Europas rur jungeren Steinzeit. Stuttgart, 1912. Montelius, O. Orient und Europa. Stockholm, 1899. Miillei* S. Nordische Altertumskunde. Strassburg, 1897. Peet, T. E. Rude Stone Monuments and their Builders. 1912.
624 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Schliz,A, Das steinzeitliche Dorf GrossgartacL Stuttgart, 1901,
Der schnurkeramische Kulturkreis. Z.E., xxxvm, 1906, p. 312.
Steinzeitliche Bestattungsformen in S.W. Deutschland. Korr.-bl. d. deutschen
Ges. £ Anthrop,, xxxn, 1901, A
Schucnhardt, C, West Europa als Kulturkreis. S.B. L Preuss, AL Wiss, (Phil-hisl
KL), xxxvn, 1913, «i
Wilke, G. Siidwesteuropaische Megalithkultur, Mannusbibliothek, VIL WiirzburgJ
1912*
12. EARLY COPPER AND BRONZE
Coffey, G, The Bronze Age in Ireland. Dublin, 1903,
D&helette, J. Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, n. 1910.
Gowland, W, The Metals in Antiquity. J.RAL, XLII, 1912. r
Hoernes, M. Kulturder Urzeit, n. Leipzig, 1912.
Much, M. Die Kupferzeit in Europa. Vienna, 1886,
Siret, H, and L. Les premiers Sges du metal dans le Sud-est de FEspagne* Antwerp,
13. EARLY IRON AGE
Aigner,A. Hallstatt. Munich, 1911.
Bertrand, A., and S. ReinacL Les Celtes dans les values du Po et du Danube,
, Dechelette, J. Manuel d'Archeologie prehistorique, m. 1913.
Grenier,A. Bologna villanovienne. 1912.
Hoernes, M. Kulturder Urzeit, in. Leipzig, 1912.
- Die Hallstatt-periode. CR. Assoc. fran^aise pour 1'av. des sciences* 1905,
Holmes, T. Rice, Ancient Britain, 1907.
Ridgeway, Sir W, Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse, Gpbridge,
1905,
Sacken, E, von. Das Graberfeld von Hallstatt. Vienna, 1868. Seger, H, Entstehung der Leichenverbrennung. Korr,-bl, d, deutschen Ges* L
Anthr,, ILI, 1910.
TiO CHAPTERS I AND II, III 625
CHAPTER III EXPLORATION AND EXCAVATION
i. THE RELATION OF ARCHAEOLOGY TO HISTORY
Hilprecht, H. V. Explorations in Bible Lands during the XlXth Century. Edinburgh, 1903. (Tne best general account of archaeological work in the regions with which Chapter in is concerned, although an undue proportion of the space is Assigned to the exploration of the Mesopotamia!! countries, and some personal controversies have been allowed to intrude.)
Hogarth, D. G. Authority and Archaeology., Sacred and Profane. Essays on the relation of Monuments to biblical and classical literature, by S. R. Driver, E. A. Gardner, F. LL Griffith, F. Havergill, A. C. Headlam, and D. G. Hogarth. 1 899.
Petrie, W. M. F. Methods and Aims in Archaeology. 1894.
Valle, Pietro della. Viaggi...descritti da lui in lettere familiari: La Persia. Rome, 1658.
2. EGYPT
(a) SURFACE EXPLORATION
Catalogue General des Antiquite*s du Musee de Caire. Description de 1'lSgypte, ou recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont 6t£
faites en llgypte pendant 1'ezpedition de Farmee francaise. 36 vols. Paris,
AcacJ&niie francaise, 1809—13.
Egypt Exploration Society. Archaeological Survey Memoirs. (Various years.) Lepsius, C. R* Denkmaler aus Aegypten und Aethiopen. 1849—59. Ministry of Finance, Egypt: Archaeological Survey of Nubia reports. (Various
years.)
Norden, F. L. Voyage d'lSgypte et de Nubie. Copenhagen, 1755. Rosellini, I. Monument! storichi delF Egltto e della Nubia. 10 vols. Florence,
183 2—40,
(£) DECIPHERMENT
Budge, Sir E. A. Wallis. The Mummy. Cambridge, 1883. At pp. 112 sy$. is a very convenient summary, with references, of the statements of ancient authors regarding Egyptian Hieroglyphs : and at pp. 1 24 sqq . a full history of the decipherment, with a fair statement of the merits of the various claimants.
Hartleben, H. Champollion, sein Leben und sein Werk. 1906.
Lettres de Champollion. 1909. See H. R. Hall. J.E.A,, n (1915), pp.
76 /^.; and The Times Literary Supplement, March 2, 1922.
(c) EXCAVATION
* See the successive volumes of publications of the Egypt Exploration Society, Egypt Research Account, British School of Archaeology in Egypt, Society for Biblical Archaeology, Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, Annals of Archaeology and Anthro- pology (Liverpool University). The first-named society published an annual summary of work done in all departments of Egyptology during the year.
King,*L* W., and H* R. Hall. Egypt and Western Asia In the Light of Recent Discoveries. *Q°7» C*A.H.I 4°
626 BIBLIOGRAPHY
The works of A. E. Marietta are described in his reports, chief of which are Le Sera- peum de Memphis, 1857; Denderah, 5 vols. folio, 1873; Abydos, 1870-80; Karnak, 1875; Deir el-Bahari, 1877.
Maspejo, Sir Gaston. Les inscriptions des pyramides de Saqqarah. 189^..
Les momies royales de Deir el-Bahari. 1889.
Petrie, W. M. F. Ten years' Digging inffiEgypt: 1881—91. 1892. See also below., on Chap. vi.
3. MESOPOTAMIA (a) SURFACE EXPLORATION
Hilprecht, op. cit. (see above), gives particulars about the early Explorers, with full bibliographical details.
(<£) DECIPHERMENT
Booth, A. J. The Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform In- scriptions. 1902.
Delitzsch, F. Die Entstehung des altesten Schriftssystems. Leipzig, 1897.
Fossey, C. Manuel d'Assyriologie, i. Explorations et fouilles; dechiffrement des cunelformes, origine et histoire de l'e"criture, 1904.
King, L. W, Assyrian Language; easy lessons in the Cuneiform Inscriptions. 1901. (The book contains a chapter on the decipherment of the characters, with pictures of the Hamadan and Behistun inscriptions and transcripts of the relevant parts of the legends. The early essays in decipherment are for the greater part published in the J.R.A.S.: references will be found in King's book. Interesting photographs of the Behistun inscription in R. Campbell Thompson, A Pilgrim's Scrip. 1915.)
Rawlinson, George. A Memoir of Major-General Sir Henry Creswicke RsTwlinson. 1898,
(<r) EXCAVATION
The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania. See below, p. 649. Birch, S., and T. G. Pinches. The Bronze Ornaments of the Palace Gates of
Balawat. 1881.
Botta, P. E. Monuments de Ninive. 5 vols. 1849—50. King, L. W. Reliefs from the gates of Shalmaneser. 191$. King and Hall. Op. cit. (2, c, above). Layard, Sir A. H. The Monuments of Nineveh. 1849. 2nd Series, 1853.
Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon. 1853.
Nineveh and its Remains. 1867,
Nineveh and Babylon. 1 867.
Morgan, J. de. Delegation en Perse: Memoires. 1900— Rassam, Hornxuzd* Asshur and the Land of Nimrod. 1897* Sarzec, de, and Heuzey. D<£couvertes en Chalde'e. 1884.
Une ville royale Chald^enne. 1900.
See also the P.S.B.A., Rev. Ass., Z.A., and below, on Chapters x—xv.
4. SYRIA AND FALESTINK
Berizinger, J., in Hilprecht, op. cit. (i, above).
Bliss, F. J. The Development of Palestine Explor<x.a^A. j.yv^. ^vjivca «. very com- pkte summary of exploration work down to the end of the nineteenth Century, with bibliographical references. The names of the explorers mentioned in the
TO CHAPTER III 627
text are a sufficient guide to their works, except Costigan and Molyneux, who left no record. These can be supplemented by the volumes of the P.E.F.'s Quarterly Statement, the Rev. Bib., and the Z.D.P.V.) Rohricht, % Bibliotheca Geographical Palaestinae. Berlin, 1890. Thomsen, P. Die^Palastina-Literatur: eine Internationale Bibliographic (Leipzig, ^ 1908, 1911), is indispensable, containing complete bibliographies, publications,
maps, reviews, etc., of this region, classified according to subject-matter. For Arabia see F. Hommel, in Hilprecht, op. cit.y and D. G. Hogarth, The Penetration of Arabia. 1904. See^also below, on Chap. v.
5. THE HITTITE EMPIRE
In addition to the literature mentioned in the text (p. 135), consult many papers published from time to time in the P.S.B.A.
Cowley, A. E. The Hittites. 1920.
Messerschmidt, L. Corpus inscriptiormm Hittiticarum. Berlin, 1900. Thompson, R. C. A new decipherment of the Hittite hieroglyphs. Oxford, 1913. Woolley, C. L., E. T. Lawrence, and D. G. Hogarth. Carchemish, report on the excavations at D j era bis . 1 9 1 4, 1 9 2 1 .
6. THE AEGEAN EMPIRE
The numerous works of Schliernann are summarised conveniently in Karl Schuchhardt, Schliemann's Excavations (Eng. transl., 1891).
The current reports of the excavation of Cnossus, published yearly in the Annual of the British School of Athens, are now being superseded by Sir Arthur Evans' authoritative work, The Palace of Minos at Knossos (vol. i, 1922). See also his Scripta Minoa for the written documents of Crete.
Burrows, R. M. The Discoveries in Crete. 1907.
Dussaud, R. Les civilisations pr<§helleniques dans le bassin de la mer ege"e (1914);
a very fully illustrated summary of archaeological work in this region. Hall, H. R. Aegean Archaeology, an introduction to trie Archaeology of Prehistoric
Greece. 1913.
Lagrange, M.-J. La Crete ancienne. 1908. Wace, A. J. B,, and C. W. Blegen. The Pre-Myceaean Pottery of the Mainland.
B.S.A., xxn, pp. 175 /ff. See also below, on Chap. xvn»
7, CYPRUS
Baedeker. Palestine, ed. Benzinger, pp. 393 sqq. 1912.
Cobham, C. D. An Attempt at a Bibliography of Cyprus. Cambridge, 1908.
Dussaud, R. Op. cit. (6, above).
Murray, A, S. Excavations in Cyprus. 1900.
Myres, J. L., and M. H. Ohnefalsch-Richter. A catalogue of the Cyprus Museum,
with a chronicle of the excavations undertaken since the British, occupation.
Oxford, 1899. Obermimrner, E. Die Insel Cypern, eine Landeskunde auf historischer Grundlage.
Munich, 1903. OhnefaJscK-Richter, M. H. Kypros, the Bible, and Homer. 1893.
40—2
628 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER IV CHRONOLOGY
i. GENERAL
Brandes, H. Abhandlungen zur Geschichte des Orients im Alterthum. 1874. Cory, L P. Ancient Fragments. 2nd edn. 1832. (Collection of old classical
material.) r-
Glnzel, F. K. Handbuch d. mathemat. u. technisch. Clironologie. Leipzig, 1906. Ideler, C. I. Handbuch d. matliemat. u. technisch. Chronologic, i, n. Berlin,
182 5-6 ; reprinted, 1883.
Macdonald, J. C. Chronologies and Calendars. 1897. Neteler, B. Zusammenhang der alttestamentlichen Zeitrechnung, mit der Pro-
fangeschichte. Berlin, 1879—86. Winckler, H. Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, pp. 3 16-36. Berlin, 1903.
2. BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
Driver, S. R. The Book of Genesis. 7th edn, pp. iv sf.y xvii sqq . 1909.
King, L. W- E.Brit., art. Babylonia and Assyria; Sec. vm, Chronological Systems.
Chronicles concerning early Babylonian Kings. 1907.
Langdon, S. The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt and the Similarities in
their Culture. J.E.A., vn (1921), pp. 133—53. Lehmann-Haupt, C. F. Berossos* Chronologic und die keilinschriftlichen Neufunde,
mit Beitragen von W. Del Neyro. Klio, xvi (1920), pp. 172—86; 242—301. Meyer, E. Geschichte des Altertums. 3rd edn. Berlin, 1913, i, 2, § 318 (a good
summary). n
Rogers, R. W. Cuneiform Parallels to the O.T. New York, 1912. Rost, P. Untersuchungen zur altorient. Geschichte. M.V.A.G. (1897), 2. Schrader, E. See below, p. 634. Schroeder, O. O.L.Z., 1921, pp. 19 sq. (On fragments of a new limmu list which
goes back before 893 B.C.) Thureau-Dangm, F. Rev. Ass., 1918, i* See also Langdon *s review, A.J.S.L., xxxv,
pp. 224-9. Weidner, E. F. Studien zur assyr.-babyl. Chronologic, M.V.A.G. (1915, 1921).
M.D.O.G., No. 58 (1917). Consult also Olmstead in AJ.S.L. (1922), pp.
225-8. See also below, p. 647.
3. THE OLD TESTAMENT
Bosse, A. Die chronologischea Systeme im Alten Testament und bei Josephus.
M.V.A.G. (1908), n.
Bpusset, D. W. Z.A.T.W., xx, pp. 136 sqq.
Fischer, O. Z.A.T.W., xxxi (1911), pp. 241-55; xxxiv (1914), pp. 45-53. Greelman, H. Introd. to the Old Test., pp. 333-53. New York, 1917. Jacob, B. Der Pentateuch; exegetisch-kritische Forschungen. Leipzig, 1905. Mahler, E. Biblische Chronol. und Zeitrechnung der Hebraer. Vienna, 1 8 87.
Handbuch d. jiidischen Chronol. Leipzig, 1916.
Smith, W. R. Prophets of Israel. 2nd edn, pp. 145 sqq^ 415 jy^. 1902.
The articles by E. L. Curtis (Hastings' D.B.), S. R. Driver (EJBrit^wl. in, 865 /ff .), and K. Marti (E.BL) give full bibliographical details.
TO CHAPTER IV 629
4. EGYPT
Borchardt, L. Der zweite Papyrusfund v. Kahun u, die zeitliclie Festlegung des
mitddten Reiches. Z. Aeg., 1899, pp. 89 sgy.
- Die Annalen u. die zeitliche Festleg^ng d. alien Reiclies. Berlin, 1917. (See 1 Feet's criticisms, J.EA, 1920, p. 149.) Breasted, J. H. Ancient Records of Egypt, i, pp. 26-72, Chicago, 1906. Gardiner, A. H. Mesore as first month of the Egyptian Year. Z. Aeg., 1907, pp,
Griffith, F. LI. E.Brit., art. Egypt, Chronology, vol. ix, pp. 77-80.
JfyH, H. R. Ancient Hist of the Near East, jth edn (1920), pp. 15 tqj.
Langdon, S. See aVove, 2.
Legge, F. Rec. Trav., 1909, p, 106. (On Heliacal risings of Sothis: criticism of
current views.)
Mard7 K. E.Bi,, art. Chronology, §§ 18-22. Meyer, E, Aegypt. Chronol Abh. of the Berlin Academy, 1904,
- Nachtrage zur ag. Chronol. Berlin, 1907.
- GescL Alt, i, ii, 3rd edn, §§159 ^f,
Nicklin, T. The Origin of the Egyptian Year. C.R., 1900, pp. 146-8. (An im-
portant contribution, of which insufficient notice has been taken.) Peet, T. E, The Antiquity of Egyptian Civilization. J.E.A., 1922, p. 5, Petrie, W, M. F. Historical Studies, 1911.
5* PREHISTORIC GREECE
Blegen, C W, Korakou, Boston and New York, 1921.
Childe, V, G. Date and Origin of Minyan Ware. J,H,S., ixxv (1915).
Dussaud, R. Civilisations prehelleniques. 2nd edn. 1914.
Evans, A. P. Scripta Minoa. Vol. i. Oxford, 1909.
- The Palace of Minos- Vol. i. London, 1921. Fimmen, D, Kretisch-mykenische Kultur. Leipzig, 1921. Hall, H. R. Aegean Archaeology. 1915.
Karo, C. Art. Krete in P.W.
Petrie, W. M. F, Illahun, lahun, and Gurob. 1891.
- ? Tell el-Amarna* London, 1894*
Wace, A. J. B., and M. S.Thompson. Prehistoric Thessaly. Cambridge, 1912.
630 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER V
THE SEMITES
r
i. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bibliotheca Orientals, 1876—83. Continued as the Orientalisclie Bibliographic, Berlin, 1887- .
Current literature is registered or summarized in the Archiv fur ReligionsT/issen- schait (occasional surveys), Jewish Quarterly Review, Rev. des Etudes Juives, Theologische Jahresbericht, Theolog, Literaturblatt, Theolog. JLit, Zeitung; inlhe A.J.S.L., J.E.A., J.R.A.S., O.L.Z., ZA., Z.Aeg., Z.A.T.W., Z.D.M.G., and in other journals devoted to Semitic and Oriental studies (see p. 617 jy.). For literature on Palestinian subjects in particular consult Thomsen (p. 627, above),
2. ENCYCLOPAEDIAS, SERIES, ETC.
Dictionary of the Bible (Hastings); E.Bi. (Cheyne and Black); E.Brit., nth edn; E.R.E.; P.W.; the Encyc. of Islam; the Jewish Encyclopaedia; Realencyklopadie fur Protest. Theologie und Kirche, 3rd edn. Among series may be noticed: Der Alte Orient (Leipzig, 1899— ; some are translated in The Ancient East, 1901— ); the M.VA.G., and other publications of Oriental Societies, of the Oriental Faculty of universities (Columbia, Yale, etc.), of the Oriental Congresses, and of the Oriental Sections of Congresses of Religion, and of History. Much valuable material will often be found in * Presentation Volumes,* e.g. to Baudissin, E. G. Browne, Budde, Harper, Hilprecht, Hommel, Kittel, Noldeke, Ridgeway, Wellhausen, etc.
3. GEOGRAPHY, MAPS
Baedeker. Palestine and Syria, ed. Benzinger. 1912.
Euting, J. Tagbuch einer Reise in Inner-Arabien. Leiden, 1896,
Glaser, E. Skizze der Gesch. und Geogr. Arabiens. Berlin, 1890,
Guthe, H. Bibelatlas. Leipzig, 1911.
Hogarth, D. G. The Nearer East. 1902.
Huntington, Elsworth. Palestine and its Transformation. 1911.
Oppenheim, Max von. Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf durch den HaurSn,
die Syrische Wtiste und Mesopotamien,, Berlin, 1 899. Palestine Pocket Guide-Books, Ed. H. Pirie-Gordon, 1918—19. Philby/H. St J. B. The Heart of Arabia. 1922. Robinson, Edward. Biblical Researches in Palestine. 1 867. Sachau, E. Reise in Syrien und Mesopotamien. Leipzig, 1883. Smith, Sir George Adam. The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. 1900.
and J. G. Bartholomew. Atlas of the Hist. Geog, of the Holy Land. 1915.
Sprenger, A. Die alte Geographic Arabiens. Bern, 1875. Sykes, M. Maps in Geog. "Journ., xxx, p. 356; xxxiv, p. 120.
Useful maps will also be found in the historical and other works of Clay (p. 634),, Hilprecht (p. 625), Jastrow (p. 650), L. W. King (pp. 647, 650), SchifFer (Die Aramaer. Leipzig, 1911), and others.
For maps of Palestine see also the publications of the P.E.F.; Fischer, Z.D.P.V., 33 (1910), pp. 188 jff .; Fischer, Guthe and Dalman, *&,, 36 (1913), pp. 136 sqq.9 21 1 s?$.; and the general critical remarks on Palestinian cartography by S. R. Driver (Books of Samuel, 2nd edn, Preface, p. x; Introd., p. xcv sq . Oxford, 19*"? 5% and C. F. Burney (Book of Judges, pp. 498 sf$. 1918),
TO CHAPTER V 631*
For Persia in particular see E. G. Browne, Year among the Persians (1893), also J.R.A.S., Oct. 1902. For Egypt, the maps of the Egypt Exploration Society (see Knight, p. 634, and J.E.A., v, 1918, p. 244), also those in Breasted (p. 637), and Hilprecht (p. 625).
Elaborate maps with complete index and names are given in the E.Bi. (Some of
them reproduced in this volume) ; see afeo Flernrnings' Karte fur d. tiirkische In-
neressengebiet (ed. Kettler, Berlin) and Der Orient (Velhagen. und Kksing, Leipzig).
Of classical maps Kiepert's Atlas Antiquus and the atlas in Dent's Everyman's Library may be named.
4. LANGUAGES
Jkockelmann, K. Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der semit. Sprachen.
Berlin, 1908?
Hommel, F. Die semitischen Volker und Sprachen. Leip2ig, 1883. Konig, E. Historisch-kritisch. Lehrgebaude der Hebraischen Sprache. 3 vols.
Leipzig, 1881-97.
Stilistik, Rhetorik, Poetik in Bezug auf die bibL Litteratur. Leipzig, 1900.
Hebraisch und Semitisch, Prolegomena und Grundlinien einer Geschichte
der semitischen Sprachen. Berlin, 1901. Noldeke, T. Article Semites in E.Brit.
Beitr. zur semit. Sprachwissenschaft. 2 vols. Strassburg, 1904, 1910.
Renan, E. Histoire g£nerale et Systeme compare des Langues semitiques, i. 4th
edn. Paris, 1863. Strack, H. Einleitung in das alte Test, § 93. Munich, 1906. (Contains a bibliog.
of earlier works.) Wright, William. Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages.
Cambridge, 1890. Zimmern, H. Vergleich. Gramm. d. semit. Sprachen. Berlin, 1898.
On the question of the relationship between the Semitic and the Hamitic (Egyptian, etc.) languages, see F. Mtiller, Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, vol. in; A. Erman, Z.D.M.G., 46 (1892), pp. 92-129, and S.B. of the Berlin Academy, 1900, p. 350 jy.; W. M. Mfiller, E.Brit., vol. xn, p. 894; F. LI. Griffith, *£., ix» p. 60; and W. F. Allbright, A.J.S.L., xxxiv (1918). See also C. Meinhof, Introd. to the Study of African Languages, pp. 152 sqq., 1915 (also his other works).
For the theory of an ultimate connection between Sumerian and Semitic see C. T. Ball, in the Hilprecht Anniversary Volume (1909), and Burney, Judges, p. Ivii. On the relations between Semitic and Indo-European languages see also the various editions of Gesenius* Hebrew Grammar (Germ, and Eng.).
5. LITERATURE
Die Kultur der Gegenwart (ed. Hinneberg, Leipzig-Berlin), i, 7 (1906), contains sketches of Egyptian and Semitic literatures: Egyptian (Erman), Babylonian- Assyrian (Bezold), Israelite (Gunkel), Aramaic (Noldeke), Ethiopic (id.), Arab (de Goeje).
Die Litteraturen des Ostens. Leipzig. Includes Israel (Budde, 1906) and Arabia
(Brockelmann, 1901). Among special works that call for mention here are:
Brockelmann, K. Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, Weimar, 1898-1902.
Duval, R. La Literature syriaque. 1 899.
Nicholson, R. A. A Literary History of the Arabs. 1907.
Webei^ O. Die Literatur der Babylonier und Assyrier. 1907.
Wright, W. (ed. N. McLean). Short History of Syriac Literature. 1894.
632 BIBLIOGRAPHY
6. ARCHAEOLOGY AND EPIGRAPHY
A. ]. A. Periodical archaeological discussions: Oriental section. Barton, G. A. Archaeology and the Bible. Philadelphia, 1916. Benzitfger, I. Hebraische Archaeologie. 2nd edn. Tlibingen, 1907, (See rev. by
K. Vincent, Rev. Bib., 1908, pp. 4^6-25.)
Briinnow, R. E., and A. von Dornaszewski. Die Provincia Arabia. Strassburg, 1904^ Clermont-Ganneau, C. fitudes d'arche'ologie orientale. 2 vols. 1880, 1897.
Recueil d'Archeologie Orientale. 1888- .
Cook, A. B. Zeus, a Study in Ancient Religion, i. Cambridge, 1914.
Cooke, G. A. A Text-Book of North Semitic Inscriptions, Moabite, HeSrew,
Phoenician, Aramaic, Nabataean, Palmyrene, Jewish. Oxford, 1903. ^
Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum. Paris, 1 88 r— . ff
Driver, S. R. Modern Research as illustrating the Bible. Schweich Lectures. 1909. Dussaud, R., and F. Macler. Voyage arcLSologique au Safa et dans le Djebel ed-Druz.
1901. Gressmann, Hugo (with A. Ungnad and H. Ranke). Altorientalische Texte und
Bilder zum Alten Testament. Tubingen, 1909. Handcock, P. S. P. Mesopotamian Archaeology. 1912.
The Archaeology of the Holy Land. 1916.
Hogarth, D. G. Hlttite Seals, with particular reference to the Ashmolean Collection.
Oxford, 1920.
Jastrow, M. Bildermappe zur Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens. Giessen, 1912. Lidzbarski, M. Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik. Weimar, 1898. (With
an exhaustive bibliography.)
Ephemeris fiir Semitische Epigraphik, i— . Giessen, 1902—
Macalister, R. A. S. The Excavation of Gezer, 1902—5, and 1907-9. London,
1912.
Musil, Alois. Arabia Petraea. Vienna, 1907. Ohnefalsch-Richter, M. H. Kypros, the Bible and Homer. 1893. Syria: Revue d'art oriental et d'arche'ologie. 1920— , Thomsen, P. Kompendium der palastinischen Altertumskunde. Tubingen, 1913.
(Contains full bibliographical information.) Vincent, Hugues. Canaan d'apres 1'exploration r<§cente. 1907. Ward, W. H. The origin of the worship of Yahwe. A.J.S.L., xxv (1909), pp.
175-87.
The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia. Washington, 1910*
Weber, Otto. Altorientalische-Siegelbilder. Berlin, 1920.
7. RELIGION, LIFE AND THOUGHT
Baethgen, F. Beitrage zur semit Religionsgeschichte. Berlin, 1888.
Barton, G. A. Sketch of Semitic Origins, Social and Religious. New York, 1902.
Baudissin, W. W., Graf von. Studien zur semit. Religionsgeschichte. Leipzig, 1876.
Adonis und Esmun. Leipzig, 1911. (With the review by Lagrange, Rev,
Bib., 1912, pp. 117-27.)
Burckhardt, J. L. Notes on the Bedouins and Wahdbys. 1830. Chwolsobn, D, Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus. St Petersburg, 1856.
Die semitischen Volker, Versuch einer Charakteristik. Berlin, 1872.
Cook, S. A. The Religion of Ancient Palestine in the Second Millennium B.C. 1908, Curtiss, S. I. Primitive Semitic Religion To-day. 1902.
Doughty, Charles M. Travels in Arabia Deserta. Cambridge, 1888. (With jjitro- duction by T. E. Lawrence. 1921.) *
TO CHAPTER V 633
Farnell, L.^R. Greece and Babylon. A Comparative Sketch of Mesopotamia!!,
Anatolian and Hellenic Religions. Edinburgh, 1911. Frazer, Sir J. G. Adonis, Attis and Osiris, Studies in the History of Oriental Religion
(Part IV of The Golden Bough). 3rd edn. 1914.
Foli3ore in the Old Testament. 1918.
Goldziher, I. Muhammedanische Studieis Halle, 1889. 2 Vorlesungen fiber den Islam. Heidelberg, 1910.
Gressmann, Hugo. Die Ursprung der israelitischen-jiidischen Eschatologie.
Gottingen, 1905.
Hartmann, M. Die arab. Frage. Der Islamische Orient, n. Leipzig, 1909. Hehii, J. Die biblische und die babylonische Gottesidee. Leipzig, 1913. Border, J. G. v. Vom Geist der ebraischen Poesie. 3rd edn. Leipzig, 1825, Jacob, G. Altarab^Beduinenleben. 2nd edn, 1897, Jastrow, M. Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens. Giessen, 1905—12.
Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria. 1911.
Jaussen, A. Coutumes des Arabes au Pays de Moab. 1908.
Jereinias, A. The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East. 1911. 3rd edn. Germ. Leipzig, 1916.
Handbuch d. altorient. Geisteskultur. Leipzig, 1913.
Jerernias, C. Die Yergottlichung der babylon.-assyr. Konige. Der alte Orient, x, 3-4.
Leipzig, 1914- Jeremias, F. Semitische Volker in Vorderasien. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch
d. Relig.gesch., i, 246-383. Tubingen, 1907. Konig, E. Stilistik, Rhetorik, Poetik in Bezug auf die biblische Litteratur. Leipzig,
1902. Kremer, A. v. Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams. Leipzig, 1 864,
Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen. Vienna, 1875—7.
Lagrange, M.-J. Etudes sur les religions s^mitiques. 1905.
Landers<3orfer, P. S. Die Bibel und die stidarabische Altertumsforschung. Milnster
i. W., 1910.
Lane, E. W. An account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians. Macdonald, D. B. The Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and
Constitutional Theory. 1903.
Moore, G. F. History of Religions, 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1914, 1920. Nielsen, Ditlef. Der drei-einige Gott, i. Copenhagen^ 1922. (Many Semitic
bibliographical references. Rich in old South Arabian material.) Noldeke, T. Some characteristics of the Semitic Race, Sketches from Eastern History.
1892.
Reviews in Z.D.M.G., XL, 148-87; xw, 707-265 ;mi, 470-87.
O'teary, De Lacy. Arabic Thought and its Place in History. 1922.
Orelli, Konrad v* Allgemeine Religionsgeschichte- Vol. i. 2nd edn. Bonn, 1911. Schaeffer, H. The Social Legislation of the Primitive Semites. New Haven, 1915- Smith, Sir George Adam. The Early Poetry of Israel in Its Physical and Social
Origins. Schweich Lectures, 1910. 1912. Smith, William Robertson. Lectures on the Religion of the Semites. 2nd edn. 1894,
- Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia. 2nd edn. 1903.
— Lectures and Essays, ed. J. S. Black and G. ChrystaL 1912. Weber, Max. DieWirtschaftsethikderWeltreligionen: Dasantike Judentutn, Archiv
ftlr Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vols, XLIV, XLVI. (Important.) Wellhausen, J. Reste arabischen Heidentums. 2nd edn. Berlin, 1897.
634 BIBLIOGRAPHY
8. MISCELLANEOUS WORKS
Bohl, F. Kanaanaer und Hebraer. Leipzig, 1911.
Burney, C. F. Book of Judges. 1918. (pp. Iv— cxviii. Survey and discussion of the
external evidence.) Clay, A. T. Amurru, the home of the Northern Semites. Philadelphia, 1905.
- - The Empire of the Amorites. New Haven, 1919. Dussaud, R. Les Arabes en Syrie avant FIslam. 1907.
- Les civilisations prehelleniques dans le bassin de la Mer fige'e. 1910. Gardiner, A, H. The Story of Sinuhe. Rec. Trav., 1910-14. Paris, 1916.
- and A. E. Cowley. The Egyptian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet and the Origin of the Semitic Alphabet. J.E.A., HI, Jan. 1916.
Hogarth, D. G. Authority and Archaeology. See p. 625.
Hornmel, F. Ancient Hebrew Tradition, as illustrated by the monuments. 1897.
- Grundriss der Geogr. u. Gesch. d. alten Orients. Munich, 1904. Jastrow, M. The Civilization of Babylonia and Assyria. Philadelphia, 1915. Karge, P. Rephaim: die vorgeschicht. ELultur Palastinas und Phoniziens. Paderborn,
1918. Khaldun, Ibn. Prolegomena to general history. Notes et Extraits des Manuscrits
de la Biblioth&que Impdriale, Paris. Vols. xvi— xxi, 1863—5—8. See also R.
Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, pp. 157—71. Edinburgh, 1893. Knight, G. A. Nile and Jordan. 1921. (Full general bibliography on the history
and antiquities of Egypt and Syria.) Kultur der Gegenwart (ed. Hinneberg), n, ii, i (191 1), chapters on ancient oriental
government and administration by Wenger and Hartmann. Le Strange, Guy. Palestine under the Moslems. 1890. Miicke, C. Vom Euphrat zum Tiber. Untersuchungen zur alten Geschichte.
Leipzig, 1899. Muller, W. M» Asien und Europa nach alt-agyptischen Denkmalern. Leipzig,
Noldeke, T. Ueber die Arnalekiter und einigs Nachbarvolker der Israeliten.
Gottingen, 1864. Rhodokanakis, N. Die Bodenwirtschaft im alten Siidarabien. Separatabzug aus dem
Anzeiger d. phil.-hist. IClasse d, kais. Akad. d. Wissensch. Vienna, 1916, No.
26; also S.B. kais. Akad. Vienna, 177, 2; 185, 3 and 194, 2 (1919). Schrader, E. Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament. 2nd edn. 1883. Trans-
lated by O. C. Whitehouse, Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament.
1885-8. See also Winckler. Seligmann, C. Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
Journal of the Royal Anthropol. Inst., xxm, 1913. Smith, Sir George Adam. Art. Trade and Commerce. E,BL
- Jerusalem. 1907.
Wellhausen, J, Medina vor dem Islam. Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, iv. Berlin, 1889. Winckler, H. Altorientalische Forschungen. Berlin, 1893—1906.
- Der alte Orient und die Geschichtsforschung. M-V.A.G-, 1906.
- Religionsgeschichtler und geschichtlicher Orient: Eine Prtifung der Voraus^ setzungen der 'relig.-gesch/ Betrachtung des Alten Testaments und der Well- hausen'schen Schule. Leipzig, 1906. (Of Winckler Js numerous writings [for which see M.V.A.G., 1915, i] this contains the best account of his general position.)
- and H. Zimmern. Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament. 1903. (The * third edition' of Schrader, an entirely new book; the most suggestive of^ofDdern works, but to be used with discrimination.)
TO CHAPTER V 63?
9, HISTORY
Breasted, J. H, Ancient Times: A History of die Early World, Boston, U.S.A.,
1914. Hall, H. R. The Ancient History of the Near East, From the earliest times to the
battle of Salamis. jthedn, 1920, * 'Helmholt's World History. Svols. 1901-7, Introductory essay by Viscount Bryce,
Vol. i, chapters on anthropogeography (F. Ratzel); Prehistoric times (J.Me),
etc. Vol. in, Ancient Nearer Asia, by H, Winckler; Egypt, by C. Niebuhr. Kitt^l, R. Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Vol. i, Palastina in der Urzeit. Das
Werden des Volkes. 4th edn. Gotha, 1921. (Good account of archaeological * and other evidence.) McCurdy, J, F, ''History, Prophecy and the Monuments, jrd edn. New York,
Maspero, Sir Gaston, The Passing of the Empires: 850 B.C.-330 B.C. 1900. — - Histoire andenne des peuples de 1'Orient, 6th edn. 1904.
— The Dawn of Civilization: Egypt and Chaldaea, jth edn. 1910,
— The Struggle of the Nations, 2nd edn, 1910,
Meyer, Ed, Geschichte des Altertums, Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913, Vol. i, part i: Einleitung, Elemente der Anthropologie. 2nd edn. 1907. Part n: die altesten geschichtlichen Volker und Kulturen bis zum sechzehnten Jahrhundert, edn. Stuttgart and Berlin, 1913. (Especially § 330-58: Die Semiten.)
Myres,], L The Dawn of History, 1918.
Paton, L. B, Early History of Syria and Palestine. New York, 1901.
Winckler, H, Auszug aus der vorderasiatischen Geschichte, Leipzig, 1905.
636 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER VI1 EGYPT: THE PR^YNASTIC PERIOD
i. BOOKS
Ayrton, E. R., and W. L. S. Loat. Predynastic Cemetery at El-Mahasna. 1911.
Garstang? J. Mahasna and Bet Khallaf. 1903.
Junker, Hermann, Bericht tiber die Grabungen der Kais. Akad. d. Wiss. in Wien
auf dem Friedhof in Turah, Winter 1909-10. Vienna, 1912. Meyer, Eduard. Aegyptische Chronologic. See p. 628, above. *" Morgan, J. de. Recherches sur les origines de TJfSgypte: i. L'age de la pierre et les
metaux, 1896; 2, Ethnographic prehistorique, etTombeau Royale de Negadah,
1897. Petrie, W. M. F. Diospolis Parva. 1901.
Tarlfhan I and Memphis V. 1913.
Tarkhan II. 1914.
Mackay and Wainwrigkt. The Labyrinth, Gerzeh and Mazgliuneh. 1912.
and J. E, £hiibell. Naqada and Balks. 1896.
Randall-Maclver, D., and A. C Mace. El-Amrah and Abydos. 1902.
Reisner, G. A. The Early Dynastic Cemeteries of Naga~ed-Der. Univ. of California
Public. Eg. ArchaeoL Leipzig, 1908.
and others. The Archaeological Survey of Nubia. Reports for 1907—8,
1908—9, 1909—10. Government Press, Cairo. (Contains Nubian predynastic material.)
Schafer, H. Ein Bruchsttzck altagyptischer Konigsannalen. Berlin, 190^. (Best
publication of the Palermo Stone.)
Sethe, K. Beitrage zur altesten Geschichte Aegyptens. Leipzig, 1905. Smith, G, Elliot. The Ancient Egyptians and their influence on the civilization of
Europe, 1911. (Contains anthropological data.)
a. EXTRACTS FROM PERIODICALS
B£nedite, Georges, Le couteau de Gebel el-cArak. Monuments Piot, xxn, 1916.
Une nouvelle palette en schiste. Monuments Piot, x, pp. 105—22,
The Carnarvon Ivory. J.E.A., T, pp. r sqq^ 225 sqq*
Capart, J. Les origines de la civilisation ^gyptienne. Bulletin de la Socie"te* d'An-
thropologie de Bruxelles, xxxin, 1914. Gauthier, H. Q>uatre nouveaux fragments de la Pierre de Palerme. Le Mus^e
figyptien. Cairo, 1915. Newberry, P, E. The Petty Kingdom of the Harpoon. Liv. A.A., i, pp. 17 /ff-
Two Cults of the Old Kingdom. /^., pp. 24 $qq+
A Bird Cult of the Old Kingdom. Op. rit*9 n, pp. 49 $qq«
Some Cults of Prehistoric Egypt. Op. cit*9 v, pp. 132 sqq.
Peet, T. E. Antiquity of Egyptian Civilization. J.E.A., vni, pp. 5-12. Petrie. The Stone Age in Egypt Ancient Egypt, 1915, pp. 59 sq$.y 122 $qq«
Egypt and Mesopotamia. Op. cit*y 1917, pp. 26 s$$.
Seligmann, C. G. Ethnic Relationship of the vanquished represented on certain Proto-Dynastic Egyptian Palettes. Liv. A.A., vn, pp. 43 sqq.
1 For the literature on Egypt, see especially the surveys in J.E.A., Rev. Ass., 2J? and above, p. 625 (2).
TO CHAPTERS VI, VII 637
CHAPTER VII
EGYPT: THE OLD KINGDOM
i. BOOKS (in addition to several cited in the bibliography to Chapter vi)1
(#) GENERAL
Bissii!g, F. W. Geschichte Aegyptens In Umriss. Berlin, 1904. Breasted, J. EL History of Egypt. 1906; 2nd edn 1909.
A History o^the Ancient Egyptians. New York, 1908, 1920.
Budge, Sir E. A. W. History of Egypt, i. 1901.
History of the Egyptian People. 1914.
Griffith, F. LI. Article Egypt. E.Brit.
Hall, H. R. The Ancient History of the Near East. 5th edn. 1920. Chs, in, iv. King, L. W., and H. R. Hall. Egypt and Western Asia in the light of recent dis- coveries. 1907.
Meyer, E. Geschichte des Altertums, i, 2, §§ 206—74. Newberry, P. E., and J. Garstang. Short History of Egypt. 1904. Petrie, W. M. F. History of Egypt, i. 5th edn. 1904. Wiedemann, A. Das alte Aegypten. Heidelberg, 1920.
(^) SOURCES
*Breasted, J. H. Ancient Records of Egypt, i-v. Chicago, 1906-7.
*Budge, Sir E. A. W. The Book of the Kings of Egypt, i. 1908.
*Burchardt, M., and Pieper, M. Handb. der ag. Konigsnamen. Leipzig, 1912.
Daressy, G. La Pierre de Palerme. Bull. Jnst. Fr. Cairo, 1915.
*Gardiner, A. H., and T. E. Peet. Inscriptions of Sinai, i. 1917.
Gauthier, H. Mus6e £gyptien, in (1915), p. 29. (New fragments of Palermo
Stone.)
* Livre des Rois, i. Me*m. Inst. Fr. Caire, vol. xvn, 1907,
Griffith, F. LI. Inscriptions of Siut and D£r Rifeh. 1889.
Maspero, G. Les Inscriptions des Pyramides de Saqqarah. 1894.
*Paton, 3D. Early Egyptian Records of Travel, i. Princeton, 1915.
Petrie, W. M. F. New Portion of the Annals. Anc. Eg. Ins,, 1916, p. 114.
Rouge, E. de. Recherches sur les Monuments des six premieres Dynasties. 1866.
Schafer, H. Bruchstuck altag. Annaleru Abh. K. P. Akad. Berlin, 1902.
Sethe, K. Die altesten geschichtiichen Denkmaler iiber die Aegypter. Z. Aeg., 1 897,
pp. I jy.
Urkunden des alten Reichs. Leipzig, 1903—5,
Die altagyptischen Pyramidentexte, Leipzig, 1908—10.
*Weill, A. Recueil des inscriptions ^gyptiennes du Sinai. 1904.
D^crets royaur de FAncien Empire. 1912. (C£ Sethe and Gardiner,
G.G.A., 1912, p. 705.)
(V) ARCHAEOLOGICAL
Bissing, Fr. W. Frh. v. Das RVHeiligtum des Ne-woser-Re. Leipzig, 1905.
and A. E. Weigall. Die Mastaba des Gemnikai. Berlin, 1905.
Blackrnan, A. M. The Rock-Tombs of Meir. 1914- .
1 ^hS works to which an asterisk is prefixed also cover the period of the Middle Kingdom. See bibliography to Chap. vin.
638 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Borchardt, L. Grabdenkmal des Konigs Ne-user~Re. Leipzig, 1907.
Grabdenkmal des Konigs Sahure. Leipzig, 1910.
Grabdenkmal des Konigs Neferirkere. Leipzig, 1909.
Klio, ix and xi (1909 and 1911). (On Reisner's excavations of lyTenkaure's
teinple at Gizeh.)
Davies, N. de G. Ptahhetep and AkhethCtep. 1900.
Rock-Tombs of Sheikh Said. 1901.
Deir-el-Gebrawi. 1902.
Garstangj,}. Mahasna and B£t Khallaf. 1902.
Tombs of the Third Dynasty. 1904.
Holscher, U. Grabdenkmal des Konigs Chephren. Leipzig, 1912. Junker, H. Ausgrabungen bei Turra, etc. Denkschr. der Kais. Akad. "Wiss., 50. Vienna, 1912, 1913.
The Austrian Excavations, 1914. J.E.A., 1914, p. 250.
Morgan, J. de. Recherches sur les origines de l']§gypte. 1909. Murray, M. A. Saqqara Mastabas, i. 1905.
*Peet, T. E. Early Relations of Egypt and Asia. Journ. Man. E.O.S., 1914,
pp. 27-48. 1915. Petrie, W. M. F. Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh. 1885.
Medum. 1892.
* Koptos. 1896.
Deshasheh. 1898.
* Dendereh. 1900.
Royal Tombs of the Earliest Dynasties. 1900—1.
Abydos. 1902—4.
Researches in Sinai. 1906.
Gizeh and Rifeh. 1907.
Meydoum and Memphis. 1910.
Tarkhan, i and n. 1913—14.
Heliopolis, Kafr Ammar, and Shurafa. 1915.
Quibell, JL E. El-Kab. 1898.
and F. W. Green. Hierakonpolis, i, 1900; n, 1902.
Reisner, G. A. Boston Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin, Nov. 1913; April, 1915. (Excavations at Gizeh.)
and C. S. Fisher* Report for 1911-13, Ann. Serv.; xxn, p. 227.
Sayce, A. H. P.S.B.A., xxi, p. 108, on Sharu (IVth Dyn.); cfl Green, /^., xxv,
p. 215. Schafer, H. Ausgrabungen in Abusir. Berlin, 1908.
Eia Bruchsttick altag. Konigsannalen (Palermo Stone). Leipzig, 1902.
Steindorft G* Das Grab des Ti. Leipzig, 1913.
(^/) MISCELLANEOUS
Albright, W. F. Magan, Meluhha, and the Synchronism between Menes and Narim-
Sin. J,EA., vn, 1921, pp. 80 $%q.
Bissing, F, W, Versuch einer neuen Erklarung des Ka'i. Bay. S.B. Munich, iqn** Daressy, G. Un Vase du Roi Khati. Annales du Service, 1911, p. 47. *Erman,, A, Life in Ancient Egypt. See below, p. 644. Hall, H. R. Nitokris-Rhodopis. J.H.S., xxiv, 1904, pp. 208 sqq. * Discoveries in Crete and their Relation to the History of Egypt and Palestine.
P.S.B.A., xxxi, 1909, pp. 135 - - — I Ua"
King Demd-ab-Taui Uatjkara. P.S.B.A., 1912, p. 290.
J&juier, H. Le Papyrus Prisse. 1911.
TO CHAPTER VII
Lacau, P. Rec. Trav., xxiv, p. 90.
Langdon, 8. See p. 628.
Legge, F. The Titles of the Thinite Kings. P.S.B.A., 1908, pp. 86 /#,
Meyer, E.^Aegypten zur Zeit der Pyramidenerbauer. 1908.
Moret, A. Serdab et Maison du Ka. Z. Aeg., 1915.
L'Administration locale sous I'AndeJ Empire. C.R. Ac. Inscr., 1916.
- — Chartes d'Immunite dans 1'Ancien Empire. J.A.8., 1916 sy. (Cf. H. E,
Winlock, Bull. Metr. Mus., New York, 1919, pp. 144 sy.) Mtiller, W. M. Asien und Europa nach altagypt. Denkmalern. Leipzig, 1893. Navilje,E. Mythe d'Horus. 1870.
Newberry, P. To what Race did the Founders of Sais belong? P.S.B.A., mm, » 1906.
— and G. A. \famwright. Udimu and the Palermo Stone. Anc. Eg., 1914, p. 148.
— The Petty Kingdom of the Harpoon. Lir. A.A., i,
— Egyptian Nome Ensigns. Anc. Eg., 1914, p. 5.
Peet, T. E. Early Egyptian Influence in the Mediterranean. B.S.A., xvn, 1910-1 1, Petrie, W. M. F. The Metals in Egypt. Anc. Eg., 1915, p. 12. Schweinfurth, H. Entdeckung des wilden Urweizeas im Palastina. Ann. Serv,5 vn. Sethe, K. Die angebl. Schmiede des Horus. Z. Aeg., 1918. — • Dodekaschoinos: Untersuchnngen. Leipzig, 1901.
— Imhotep; Untersuchungen zur Gesch. Aegyptens. 1902, Beitrage zur alterea Gesch. Aegyptens. 1905.
Die altagyptischen Pyramidentexte. 1908-10.
• Zuraltag. Sage vom Sonnenauge: Untersuchungen, v, 3. 1912.
— Das Wort fur Konig von Oberagypten, Z. Aeg., 191 1, p. 5. (Cf. also A. M. Blackman and A. H. Gardiner, Rec. Trav., 1916, p. 69
Smith, Q. Elliot. Egyptian Mummies. J.E.A., 1914, p. 189.
— The Ancient Egyptians. 1911.
Thomas, N, W, What is the Ka? J.E.A., 1920, p. 265.
640 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER VIII EGYPT: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM1
(#) GENERAL General Histories and sources as in bibliograpli7 of Ch. viz.
(^) SOURCES
Gardiner, A. H. New Literary Works (Instructions of a Herakleopolite king), J.EA., 1914, pp. 20 sff.
Tlie Defeat of the Hyksos. J.E.A., 1916, pp. 95 sff.
Griffith, F. LI. Instructions of Amenemhet. Z. Aeg., 1896, pp. 35 s$f.
Gunn, B., and A. H. Gardiner. The Expulsion of the Hyksos. J.E.A., 1918, pp.
36 Sff.
Hall, H. R. Anc. Hist. Near East (1920); pp. 142-4 (Xlth Dyn.); 148-9 (Xllth Dyn.); 165—7 (Xlllth Dyn.); 212—26 (Hyksos period); 403—9 (the Hyksos and the Exodus).
Hieroglyphic Texts in British Museum, n— vi. 1912—22.
Krebs, F. De Chnemothis Nomarchi Inscriptione, Berlin, 1890. Maspero, G. La XIIe Dynastie de Man6thon. Rec. Trav., 1906, p. 8* Meyer, E. Nachtrage zur ag. Chronologic. 1907.
Newberry, P. G. The Parentage of Queen Aahhetep. P.S.B.A., 1912, p. 285.
Peet, T. E. The Stele of Sebek-khu. 1914.
Pieper, M. KLonige zwischen d. M. und N. Reich. Berlin, 1904.
Reisner, G. F. Outline of Anc. Hist, of the Sudan. Sudan Notes and Records. 1918.
SteindorfF, G. Die Konige Mentuhotep u. Antef. Z. Aeg., 1895, pp. 72 sqq.
Weill, A. Monuments, etc,, entre la fin de la XIIeDyn. et la restauration Thdbaine. J.A.S., 1914, 1915, 1917. (Valuable for material; theories and conclusions generally open to criticism. Cf. Pieper, O.L.Z., 1922, No. 3.)
(c) MISCELLANEOUS HISTORICAL
Blackman, A. M. A reference to Sesostris Ill's Syrian Campaign. J.EA., 1915,
P- 13-
Daressy, G. Un Poignard du temps des Rois-Pasteurs. Ann, Serv., 1906, p. 115. Evans, Sir A, J. The Palace of Minos, i. 192*, (Relations with Greece.) Gardiner, A. H- An ancient list of fortresses of Nubia. J.E.A., 1916, pp. 184 sgg.
The Delta Residence of the Ramessides. J.E.A., 1918, pp. 127 sqq.
The Tomb of an Egyptian Official. J.E.A., 1917, p. 28.
Gol&iischefF, W. Amenemha III et les sphinx de San. Ree. Trav., 1893, p. 131. Hall, H. R. The Relation of Aegean with Egyptian Art. J.E.A., 1914, pp, no,
(Relations with Greece.) Junker, H. The First Appearance of Negroes in History. J.E.A., 1921, p, 12.
(Theory needs confirmation.) Lange, H. O. Inschriften des Gaufursten Intf von Hermonthis. S.B. Berlin, 1914,
pp. 991 Sff.
1 See footnote on p. 637.
P-7-
TO CHAPTER VIII 641
Maspero, Sir G. Conte d'Apopi et de Soknounri. fitud. fig., 1881.
Meyer, E. Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstamme. Halle, 1906. (Relations with Palestine.)
Petrie, W.JVL F. Historical Studies. 1911.
Pinches, T., and P. E. Newberry. A Cylinder Seal in the Carnarvon Collection. J.E.A., 1921, p. 196. *"*
tkyce, A. H. The Date of the Middle Empire. Anc. Eg., 1921, p. 102. (Incon- clusive.)
Sethe, K. Sesostris: Untersuchungen. 1900.
" • altesten Geschichte des ag. Seeverkehrs mit Byblos, etc. Z. Aeg., 1908,
(</) ARCHAEOLOGY
Boeser, P. A. Beschreibung der ag. Sammlung des Museums in Leiden, n, in. 1909,
1910.
Brunton, G. Lahun I. 1921.
Carnarvon, Lord, and H. Carter. Five Years' Explorations at Thebes. 1912. Clarke, Somers. Ancient Egyptian Frontier Fortresses. J.E.A., 1916, pp. 155 sqq. Daressy, G. La Chapelle de Mentouhotep III a Denderah. Ann. Serv., 1917,
p. 326.
Davies, N. de G., and A. H. Gardiner. The Tomb of Antefoker. 1920. Engelbach, R. Riqqeh. 1915.
Firth, C. M. Archaeological Survey of Nubia. Reports, especially 1907—8, 1909—10, Gardiner, A. H. The Egyptian Origin of the Semitic Alphabet. J.EA., 1916, p. r. Garstang, J. Egyptian Funerary Customs. 1907. (Excavations at Beni Hasan.) Griffith, F. LI. The Oxford Excavations in Nubia. Liv. A.A., 1921, p. 65. Junker, y. Grabungen von Kubanieh-Nord. Denkschr. Ak. Wiss. Wien, 1920. Lythgoe, A. M. Discoveries at Lisht. Anc. Eg., 1915, p. 145. Mace, A* C. Excavations at Lisht. Bull. Metr. Mus. N.Y., Oct. 1914. and H. E. Winlock. Egyptian Expedition, 1920-1. Bull. Metr. Mus. N.Y.,
Nov. 1921.
The Tomb of Senebtisi. New York, 1916.
Morgan, J. de, Legrain, and J<§quier. Fouilles de Dahchour. 1895, 1903. Myres, J. L. Herodotus and the Egyptian Labyrinth. Liv. A.A., 1910, p. 134. Naville, E. Bubastis. 1891.
H. R. Hall, and others. The Xlth Dynasty Temple, Deir el-baharL 1907—13.
Newberry, P. E., and others, Beni Hasan. 1893.
El Bersheh. 1894.
Petrie, W. M. F. Illahun, Kahun, and Gurob, 1890.
Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara. 1890,
Hyksos and Israelite Cities. 1906.
and others. Abydos, i— in. 1902—4.
and G. A. Wamwright. The Labyrinth, Gerzeh, and Mazghuneh. 1912.
Randall- Maciver, D.? and C. L. Woolley. Buhen. Philadelphia, 1911. Reiner, G. Excavations at Kerma. Z. Aeg-, 1914, pp. 34, 40.
The Tomb of Hepzefa. J.E.A, 1918, p. 36.
Boston Mus. Bull., April, 1914; Dec. 1915. (Reports.)
Schafer, H. Grab- u. Denksteine des mittleren Reichs. Cairo Mus. Catalogue,
1902.
SteindorfF, G. Grabfunden des mittleren Reichs. Berlin, 1896-1901. Winlod* H. E. The Theban Necropolis in the Middle Kingdom. AJ.SX., Oct.
1915; cf. Anc. Eg., 1916, p. 82.
C.A.H. i 41
642 BIBLIOGRAPHY
(s) LITERARY, RELIGIOUS, AND OTHER MISCELLANEA
Bodge, Sir E. A, W. Literature of the Ancient Egyptians, 1914,
— Rhind Papyrus, 1898.
Eisenlok, A, Ein mathematisches Handbuchder alten Aegypter, Leipzig, 1877,
(Rhind Papyrus,) Erman, A. Handbook to Egyptian Religion, (Transl, A. 8, Griffith, 1907.)
— Gesprach ernes Lebensmiiden mit seiner Seek. Berlin, 1896,
— Harden des Papyrus Westcar, Berlin, 1890,
— Makworte eines agyptischen Propheten. 8.B, Berlin, 1919, p. 804, Gardiner, A. H, Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage. Leipzig, 1909.
— Erzahlung des Sinuk Leipzig, 1909.
— Notes on the Story of Sinuk. 1916,
— New Literary Work ].E A, 1914, pp. 20 s^. (See also Vogelsang, F.) Maspero, G, Contes Populates. 1889.
Mercer, S. A. Religious and Moral Ideas in Egypt. Milwaukee, 1919. Peet, T. E, A Mortuary Contract of theXIth Dyn. Liv. A A, 1916, Petrie, W. M, F, Funereal Figures, Anc. Eg., 1916, p. 151,
— Egyptian Tales, (With F. LL Griffith.)
Schafer, H. Die Mysterien des Osiris in Abydos, Untersuchungen. Leipzig, 1904. Schmidt, V. Levende og Djlden i det gamle Egypten, Copenhagen, 1919. Spiegelberg, W. Aeg. Randglossen zum Alten Testament. Strassburg, 1904. Vogelsang, F, Kommentar zu den Klagen des Bauern. Untersuchungen, Leipzig,
and A. H. Gardiner, Die Klagen des Bauern. Berlin, 1908, Weigall, A. E, P. The Treasury of Ancient Egypt. 1911.
TO CHAPTERS VIII, IX 643
CHAPTER IX
LIFE AND THOUGHT IN EGYPT UNDER THE OLD AND MIDDLE KINGDOMS
A. SOURCES i. CONTEMPORARY
(a) PAPYRI
Hieratische Papyrus aus den KSniglichen Museen 211 Berlin. (Important literary and
religious texts, annotated editions of which are in most cases enumerated below.) Erman, A. Gesprach eines Lebensmtiden mit seiner Seele. Abh. d. KgL Preuss.
Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, 1896. . - Ein Denkmal memphitischer Theologie. S.B. d. KgL Preuss. Akad. d.
Wiss., 1909.
Hymn en an das Diadem der Pharaonen. !&., 1911.
Gardiner, A. H. Notes on the Story of Sinuhe. 1916.
Vogelsang, F. Kommentar zu den Klagen des Bauern. Leipzig, 1913.
Gol&iischeiF, W. Les Papyrus hieratiques de rErmitage Imperial a St Petersbourg.
191^. Facsimiles of three important papyri commented on in the four works
next cited :
D£vaud, E. Le Conte du Naufrage". Rec, Trav., xxxvm, 1919, pp. 188 $qqr Erman. Die Geschichte des Schiifbrlichigen. Z. Aeg., XLIII, 1906. Gardiner, A. H. Notes on the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor. Op. cit^ XLV, 1908.
New Literary Works from Ancient Egypt. J.E.A., i, 1914.
The Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage. Pap. Leiden 344 recto. Leipzig9
1909. (Erman, Die Mahnworte eines agyptischen Propheten [S.B. Berlin, 1919], contains a somewhat different interpretation of the same papyrus.)
D6vaud, E. Les Maximes de Ptahhotep. Freiburg, 1916.
Griffith, F. LI. The Millingen Papyrus. Teaching of Amenemhat. Z. Aeg., xxxiv, 1897.
Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob. 1898.
(£) STONE
Lacau, P. Textes Religieux. Rec. Trav.? xxvi, 1907— . (CofHn Texts of the
Middle Kingdom, c£ also the next three works*)
Btta£kman, A. M. Some Middle Kingdom Religious Texts. Z. Aeg., sxvn, 1910. • — — • Some chapters of the *Totenbuch' and other texts on a Middle Kingdom
Coffin. Op. tit*, XLIX, 1912. Grapow, H. Religi5se Urkunden. Abt. r of the Urkunden des agypt. Altertums,
1915, Schafer, H. Die Mysterien des Osiris in Abydos. Leipzig, 1904. (The stela of
IJib^rnofret)
Sethe, K* Die altagyptischen Pyramidentexte. Leipzig, 1908 and 1922.
«*
41 2
644 BIBLIOGRAPHY
r 2. LATER SOURCES
Herodotus. Book n.
Wiedemann. Herodot's zweites Buch mit sachlichen Erlauterungen. Leipzig, 1890. Comlhentary on Herodotus by W. W. How and J. Wells. Oxford, 1912. Herodote et la Religion del'l5gypte: Cfrmparaison des donnees d'H^rodote avec les
donnees £gyptiennes. C. Sourdille. Paris, 1910. *
Plutarch. De Iside et Osiride, ed. Parthey, Berlin, 1850*
B. MODERN WORKS «*
i. GENERAL ^
f
Breasted, J. H. Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. 1912.
(The first general work on this subject to make adequate use of the Pyramid
and Coffin Texts.) Davies, N. de G., and A. H. Gardiner. The Tomb of Amenemhet. 1915. (Contains
the most modern and best discussions of the meaning of the various ceremonies
of the funerary cult.) Erman, A. Aegypten. 1887. Also an excellent English translation under the title Life
in Ancient Egypt. 1 894. Still unsurpassed as a treatment of Egyptian life from
every point of view. (New edition by Ranke, 1922- .)
Die Aegyptische Religion. 2nd edn. 1909. (Eng. by A. S. Griffith, 1907.)
Frazer, Sir J. G. The Golden Bough: Adonis, Attis, Osiris. 3rd edn. 1914. Gardiner, A. EL Art. Egypt: Ancient Religion. E.Brit.
Maspero, G. Etudes de Mythologie et de Religion. 1893. Miiller, W. Max. The Mythology of all races (Egyptian), Boston, U.S.A., 1918. Stein dor ff, G. Religion of the Ancient Egyptians. New York, 1905. Wiedemann, A. Die Religion der alten Agypter. Mtoster i. W., 1890. Eng. transl.
1897. Wilkinson, T- G. Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians. 1837-41.
(Though in part out of date still contains much that is useful if used with
caution.)
2. SPECIAL
Blackman, A. M. The significance of Incense and Libations in Funerary and Temple Ritual. Z. Aeg., L, 1912.
Libations to the Dead in Modern Nubia and Ancient Egypt* J.E.A., in,
I9l6, pp. 3r Sff.
The Ka-house and the Serdab. Il>., pp. 250 s$f.
The Sequence of the Episodes in the Egyptian Daily Temple Liturgy.
Journal of the Manchester and Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1918-19.
Gardiner, A. H. Review of Frazer's Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Contains new and im- portant material for the study of the Osiris cult J.E.A., n, 191 5, pp. 121 Jff,
Hastings' Dictionary of Religion and Ethics. A large number of articles deal with Egyptian religious and ethical questions. Many of these constitute by far the best contributions yet made to the subjects with which they respectively
Steindorff, G. Der Ka und die Grabstatuen, Z. Aeg., XLVIII. See also p. 642.
TO CHAPTERS IX, X— XII 645
CHAPTERS X-XII*
EARLY HISTORY OF SUMER AND AKKAD
i. GEOGRAPHY AND EXCAVATION
Chesney, F. R. Thg Expedition for the Surve7 of the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris.
1850,
Layard, A. H. Nineveh and Babylon. 1853.
Taylor, J. E. Notes on the Ruins of Mugeyer. J.R.A.S., 1855, pp. 260 sgg.9 414 sqq. - Notes on Abu Shahrein and Tel el-Lahm. /<£., pp. 409 sqq . Loftus, W. K. Travels and Researches in Chaldaea and Susiana. 1857. Hilprecht, H. V. Explorations in Bible Lands. Edinburgh, 1903. (A r&ume' of
explorations in Babylonia, with a detailed account of the excavations at Nippur.) The records of the earlier travels of Claudius James Rich, J. S. Buckingham, Sir
Robert Ker Porter, G. Bailie Fraser, James Felix Jones, as also the work of
Botta, Place, G. Smith and others, are described in Hilprecht and C. F. Fossey
(p. 625 sq.9 above).
Andrae, W, M.D.O.G., xvi sy. (Excavations at Umma [J6kha] and Abu Hatab.) Budge, Sir E. A. W. By Nile and Tigris. 1920. Fisher, Clarence S. Excavations at Nippur. Berlin, 1 907.
Koldewe^, Robert. M.D.O.G., xv, pp. 9 s$f. (Excavations at Shuruppak [Fara].) Peters, J. F. Nippur. New York, 1897.
Zehnpfund, R. Babylonian in semen wichtigsten Ruinenstatten. Der alte Orient, xi. Leipzig, 1910.
2. ARCHAEOLOGY
Banks, E. J. Bismya, or the Lost City of Adab. New York, 1912.
Hall, H. R. Excavations at Ur, Eridu and El-'Obeid. Proceedings of the Society
of Antiquaries, 1919, pp- 22—44.
Handcock, P. S» P. Mesopotamian Archaeology. 1912.
Heuzey and Thureau-Dangin. Restitution mate*rielle dela Stele de Vautours. 1909. Koldewey, Robert. Die altbabylonischen Graber in Surghul und El-Hibba. Z.A.,
n, pp. 403 /ff .
Langdon, S. Sumeriarx Origins and Racial Characteristics. Archaeologia, vol. LXX. Meissner, Bruno. Babylonien und Assyrien. Heidelberg, 1920. (Especially for
Archaeology.)
Meyer, E. Sumerier und Semiten in Babylonien. S.B. Berlin, 1906. -JtetovtzefF, M. The Sumerian Treasure of Astrabad. J.E.A., vi, pp. 4—27. Sayce, A. H. Archaeology of the Cuneiform Inscriptions. 1907. Thompson, R. C. The British Museum Excavations at Abu Shahrain in Meso-
potamia in 1918. Archaeologia, LXX, pp. 101 s$f. «
Besides the literature to Chaps, x-xv see the bibliography in F. Delitzsch, Assyrian (1889), and O. Weber, Die Literatur der Babylonier und Assyrier. Leipzig,
1907.
646 BIBLIOGRAPHY
3. TEXTS
The great collection by Rawlinson (The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia, cited as IR— VR) Is continued as Cuneiform Tests in the British Museum. For Schratler?s and other series (f.g. Vorderasiatische Bibliothek, the Yale Orfental Series, and the texts collected by the Pennsylv^-iian Expedition) see below and p. 649. A popular selection of translations is given by R. F. Harper, Ass. and Bab. Literature, New York, 1901.
Allotte de la Fuye. Documents Pr&argoniques. 1908—20.
Barton, G. A. Sumerian Business and Administrative Documents from the Earliest
Times to the Dynasty of Agade. Philadelphia, 1915. Boissier, Alfred. Inscription de Naram-Sin. Rev. Ass., xvi, pp. 157-64. Clay, A. T. Miscellaneous Inscriptions. New Haven, 1915. e Contenau, G. L'Histoire £conomique d'Umma. 1915. Delaporte, Louis. Inventaire des Tablettes de Tello. Vol. iv. 1912. Genouillac, H. de. Tablettes Sum6riennes Archai'ques. 1909.
Teztes juridiques de 1'jSpoque d'Ur. Rev. Ass., vm, pp. I $q%.
La Trouvaille de Drehem. 1911.
Inventaire des Tablettes de Tello. Vols. n (1911), in (1912), v (1921).
Hussey, M. I. Sumerian Tablets in the Harvard Semitic Museum. Parts i and n.
Cambridge, U.S.A., 1912, 1914.
King, L. W. The Cruciform Monument of Manishtesu. Rev. Ass., ix, pp. 91 sqq. Langdon, S. The Archives of Drehem. Paris, 1911.
The Sumerian Law Code. J.RA.S., 1920, pp. 489 sqq.
Lau, R. J. Old Babylonian Temple Records. New York, 1906. Legrain, Leon. Le Temps des Rois d'Ur. 1912.
Nies, J. B., and C. E. Keiser. Historical, Religious and Economic Texts. New
Haven, 1920. Nikolsld, M. Documents de la plus ancienne e*poque chalde*enne. Moscow, 1908.
(Russian.)
Documents of Economic Accounts of Ancient Chaldea. Period of Agade and
Ur, Moscow, 1915.
Pelagaud, F, Textes juridiques de la Seconde Dynastic d'Our. Babyloniaca, in, pp.
8 1 sqq.
Pinches, T. G. The Amherst Tablets. 1908. (Chiefly period of Ur.) Poebel, A. Historical Texts. Philadelphia, 1914. Radau, H. Early Babylonian History. New York, 1900* Thureau-Dangin, F. Recueil de Tablettes Chald£ennes. 1903.
Die sumerischen und akkadischen Konigsmschriften. Vorderasiat. BibL, i, i-
Leipzig, 1907.
Inventaire des Tablettes de Tello. 1910.
njDJtvj.vijc.iN JL
4. GRAMMAR AND
Amiaud et Mechineau. Tableau compare' des Ventures babylonienne et assyrienne.
1887.
Barton, G. A. The Origin and Development of Babylonian Writing. Leipzig, 197*3!" DeHtzsch, F. Grundzuge der sumerischen Grammatik. Leipzig, 1914. Langdon, S. Sumerian Grammar and Chrestomathy. Paris, 191 1. Poebel, A. Sumerische Studien. M.V.A.G., 1921, i. Scheil, V, Recueil de Signes archai'ques. 1897.
Thureau-Dangin, F. Recherches sur Forigine de l*£crlture cune~iforrne. Ungnad, A, Materialien zur altakkadischen Sprache. M.V.A.G., 191 5, n*
TO CHAPTERS X— XII 647
5. CHRONOLOGY
Clay, A. T. The Antiquity of Babylonian Civilisation. J.A.O.S., XLI (1921),
pp. 24.1-63.
•Gadd, C. j. The Early Dynasties of Sumer and Akkad. 1921. Keiser, C. E. Patesis of the Ur Dynasty. (New Haven, 1919. Langdon, S. The Dynasties of Sumer and Akkad. Expository Times, xxxii, pp.
4.10 $qq.
Poebel, A. Historical Texts. Philadelphia, 1914. Scheil, Vincent. Les plus anciennes Dynasties connues de Sumer-Accad. C.R. Ac.
*Inscr. Paris, 1911. TShureau-Dangin, F. La chronologic des Dynasties de Sumer et d'Accad. Rev.
Ass., 1918, i.*
See above, p. 628; also the articles by Albright and Langdon on the relations between early Egypt and Babylonia cited below.
6. HISTORIES
Christian, V. Akkader und Siidaraber als altere Semitenschichte. Anthropos, xiv—
xv (1919-20)^729-39.
Contenau, G. La Civilisation assyro-babylonienne. 1922. Craig, J. A. History of Babylonia and Assyria. New York, 1899. Goodspeed, G. S. A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians. New York, 1902. King, L. W. A History of Sumer and Akkad. 1910. Olmstead, A. T. The Political Development of Early Babylonia. A.J.S.L., xxxnr,
pp. 283-321.
Rogers, R, W. A History of Babylonia and Assyria. New York, 1915. Weidner, E. F. Der Zug Sargons von Akkad nacH Kleinasien : die altesten geschichtL
Be^iehungeu zwischen Babylonien u. PJatti. Boghazkoi-Studien, vi. Leipzig,
1922. (New discussion of Sargon*s expeditions in the west.) Winckler, H. Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens. Leipzig, 1892. See further below, p. 650.
On the early relations between Egypt and Sumer, see in particular: Adametz, L. Herkunft und Wanderungen der Harnitea. Osten u. Orient, ist ser.
vol. ii. Vienna, 1920.
Albright, W. F. Menes and Naram-Sin. J.E A., vi. Heuzey, L. Les Antiqnite"s chald^ennes. 1902. King, L. W. A Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Collections: British Museum.
1908, Langdon, S. The Early Chronology of Sumer and Egypt, and Similarities of their
Culture. J.E.A., vii, pp. 133—53-
7. RELIGION
Deimel, A. Pantheon Babylonicum. Rome, 1914,
Jastrow, M. Die Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens. Giessen, 1905—12. r juangdon, S. Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms. Paris, 1900.
Babylonian Liturgies. Paris, 1913.
Tammuz and Ishtar. Oxford, 1914.
Sumerian Liturgical Texts. Philadelphia, 1917.*
Three New Hymns in the Cults of Deified Kings. P,S.B.A., 1918.
Poeme sum&rien du Paradls. Paris, 1919. Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms. Philadelphia, 1919.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Langdon, S. The Religious Interpretation of Bab7lonian Seals. Kev. Ass., xvi, pp,
, „. .
Babylonian Magic. Scientia, xv, pp. 222 jyf. Paffrath, T. Zur Gotterlehre in den altbab. lonigsmschriften. Paderborn, 1913. Radau,»H. Sumerian Hymns and Prayers to the God Nin-ib. ' Philadelptiia, 1911.
— Sumerian Hymns and Prayers to lie God Tammuz. Philadelphia, 1913. Schollmeyer, A. Sumer. bab. Hymnen und Gebete an Shamash. Paderborn, 1917.' Witzel, M. Die Drachenkampfer Nin-ib. Fulda, 1920.
See also the articles in Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, on Baby- lonian Religion by Langdon, Pinches, and Zimmern, See also below, p. 650.
8, CAPPADOCIAN TEXTS, ETC,
Chantre, E. Mission en Cappadoce. 1898. Contenau, G, Trentetablettes cappadociennes. 1919. Delitzsch, F. Beitrage zur EntzifFerung und Erklarung der kappadokischen Keilschrifttafeln. Liepzig, 1893.
— Abh. Konig. Sachs. Gesells. Wissensch,, xiv, 4. Leipzig, 1893. GolenischeiF, W. Vingt-quatre tablettes cappadociennes. Saint-P&ersbourg, 1891, Peiser, F. Sogenannte bppadokische Urhnden. Keilinschr. Bibliothek, iv, pp.
50-7,1896. Pinches, T. G. The Cappadocian Tablets belonging to the Liverpool Institute of
Archaeology. Liv. A.A., i, 1908, Sayce, A. H. Cuneiform Tablets of Kappadocia. P.S.B.A., 1883.
— The Cappadocian Cuneiform Tablets. Babyloniaca, vols. n, pp. I j^.; iv, pp. 65^., i82^._
' — Kara Euyuk. Op. tit., 1910, IT,
Smith, Sidney.. Cuneiform Texts from Cappadocian Tablets, Parti. London^ 1921.
Thureau-Dangin, F. La date des tablettes cappadociennes. Rev. Ass., vui, 1911,
TO CHAPTERS X— XII, XIII
CHAPTER XIII
DYNASTIES OF ISIN, 2ARSA, AND BABYLON A
i. GENERAL WORKS ON BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA: TEXTS*
CJay, A. T. Miscellaneous Inscriptions in the Yale Babylonian Collection, No. 28.
Daiches, S. Altbab^ Rechtsurkunden. Leipzig, 1903.
Hilprecht, H. V. Mathematical., Metrological and Chronological Tablets. Penn-
sylvania Babylonian Expedition, Series A, xx, i, Philadelphia, 1906. King, L. W. Chronicles concerning early Babylonian Kings. 1907. Landersdorfer, S. Altbab. Privatbriefe. Paderborn, 1908. Lutz, H. F. Early Babylonian Letters. Yale Or. Series, n. New Haven, 1917.
- Selected Sumerian and Babylonian Texts. Univ. of Pennsylvania. Babylon Section, i, No. 2. Philadelphia, 1919,
Poebel, A. Babylonian Legal and Business Documents. Pennsylvania Babylonian
Expedition, Series A, vi, 2. Philadelphia, 1909. Ranke, H. Babylonian Legal and Business Documents. Pennsylvania Babylonian
Expedition, Series A, vi, i. Philadelphia, 1906. Scheil, V. Textes dlamites-s&mitiques: Delegation en Perse. Vols. 2, 4, 6, 10, 14.
1900. Schorr, M. Altbab. Rechtsurkunden. Vienna, 1907.
• - Urkunden des altbab. Zivil- und Prozessrechts. Leipzig, 1913. Schradei^ E. Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek. 5 vols. Berlin, 1889-96. Torczyner, H. Altbab. Tempelrechnungen. Denkschr. d. K. Akad, d. Wiss.
Vienna. Vol. iv9 2,
2. TEXTS FROM CAPPADOCIA, DILBAT., DREHEM^ ETC. For the Cappadocian texts see above, p. 648, 8. Ungnad, A. Urkunden aus Dilbat. B. z. Ass., vi, 5.
Genouillac, H. de. La trouvaille de Dreliem. 1911.
Langdon, S. Tablets from the Archives of Drehem. Paris, 1911.
Nies, J. B. Ur Dynasty Tablets from Tello and Drehem. Leipzig, 1920.
Chiera, E. Legal and Administrative Documents from Nippur. Univ. Penns.,
vin, i. Philadelphia, 1914. Clay, A. T. Documents from the Temfle Archives of Nippur. Univ. Penns., n, 2.
Philadelphia, 1912.
Friedrich, T. Altbab. Urkunden aus Sippar. B. z. Ass., v, pp. 412 $qq* eilj V. Une Saison de Fouilles k Sippar. Cairo, 1902.
Grice, E. M. Records of Ur and Larsa. Yale Or. Series, v. New Haven, 1919- Keiser, C E. Selected Documents of the Ur Dynasty. Yale Or. Series, iv. New
Haven, 1919. - Patesis of the Ur Dynasty. Yale Or* Series, Researches, iv, 2. New Haven,
1 See also above, p. 646,
650 BIBLIOGRAPHY
3. EXCAVATIONS Andrae, W. Der Anu-Adad Tempel in Assur. Leipzig, 1909.
Die Festungswerke von Assur. Leipzig, 1913.
Cros, €r. Mission francaise de Chaldee: nouvelles fouilles de Tello.
Koldewey, R. (Translated by Agnes Johns.) The Excavations at Babylon. 1914.
Morgan, J. de. Delegation en Perse. 1900 sqq.
Peters, J, P. Das Ischtar-Tor in Babylon. M.D.O.G., 1918.
Nippur. New York and London, 1897—8.
Thompson, R. C. The British Museum Excavations at Abu Shahrain in Meso- potamia in 1918. Archaeologia, LXX, pp. 101 j-ff.
B
1. HISTORY
Hall, H. JR. The Ancient History of the Near East. 5th edn. 1920. Johns, C. H. W. Ancient Babylonia. Cambridge, 1913. King, L. W. History of Babylon . 1915.
Olmstead, A. T. The Babylonian Empire. A.J.S.L., xxxv, pp. 65—100. Rogers, R. W. History of Babylonia and Assyria. 6th edn. New York, 1915. See also p* 647, above, and, for the works of Maspero and Meyer, p. 635.
2. RELIGION Dhorme, P. La Religion assyro-babylonienne. 1910.
Ebeling, E. Quellen zur Kenntniss d. bab. Relig. M.V.A.G., 1918, i and n* Fortsch, W. Relig.-gesch. Untersuchungen zu den altesten babylon. Inschriften
M.V.A.G., 1914, i.
Hussey, M. I. Some Sumerian-Babylonian Hymns. A.J.S.L., xxm, No. 2. Jastrow, M. Religious beliefs in Bab. and Ass., 1911. Leipzig, 1905—12* Jensen, P. Die Kosmologie der Babylonier. Strassburg, 1890. King, L. W. The Legends of Babylonia and Egypt. The Schweich Lectures. 1918. Ungnad, A. Die Religion der Babylonier u. Assyrier. Jena, 1921. Zimmern, H. Beitrage zur Kenntnis der babylon. Religion. Leipzig, 1901. See also above, p. 647 s%*
3. MISCELLANEOUS
Delitzsch, F. Handel und "Wandel in Altbabylonien. Stuttgart, 1910.
Grice, E. M. Chronology of the Larsa Dynasty. Yale Or. Series, iv, i. New
Haven, 1919. Huber, E. Die Personennamen in den Keilschrifturkunden aus der Zeit der Konige
von Ur und Nisin. Leipzig, 1907.
Meissner, B. Babylonien und Assyrien. Heidelberg, 1920. Ranke, H. Early Babylonian Personal Names* Penns, Bab. Erp., Series A, vr, i.
Philadelphia, 1906. Schneider, A. Die Aiifange der Kulturwirtschaft: die Sumerische Tempelstadt.
Essen, 1920. Schwenzer, W* Zum altbabyL Wirtschaitsleben. M.V.A.G., 1914, in; also
O.L.Z., 1920 and 1921. Thompson, R. Campbell. Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh
and Babylonia, 1900.
The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, 1903.
Weidner, E. F. Beitr. z. babylon. Astronomie. B. z. Ass., vm, 4. Leipzig, 1911.
TO CHAPTERS XIII, XIV
CHAPTER XIV THE GOLDEN AGE OF HAMMURABI*
i. SOURCES
Harper, R. F. Code of Hammurabi. 1904. (Text, transliteration, translation,
indexes, etc*)
King, L. W. The Letters and Inscriptions of Hammurabi. 1900* Scheil, V. Memoires de la Delegation en Perse. Vol. iv. 1902. Thureau-Dangin, F, Lettres de 1'fipoque de la premiere Dynastic babylonienne,
Hilprecht Anniv, Volume. Leipzig, 1909. Ungnad, A. Babylonian Letters of the Hammurabi Period. Univ. Penns., vn.
Philadelphia, 1915. (Other collections, Leipzig, 1914; Berlin, 1919.)
2. SPECIAL WORKS
Cook, £ A. The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi* 1903.
Cuq, E. Articles on jurisdiction in Rev. Ass., 1910, pp. 65 s$q.\ 1911, pp. 179 syy.
Johns, C H. W. Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters* Edinburgh,
1904. The Relations between the Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew
Peoples (Schweich Lectures, 1912)* 1914. (pp. 65-91; a full survey of the
bibliography.)
Kohler, J., F. E, Peiser, and A. Ungnad* Hammurabi's Gesetze, Leipzig, 1904. Lindl, E. Das Priester- und Beamtentum der altbab* Kontratte; ein Beitrag zur
altbab. Kulturgeschichte. Paderborn, 1913. Pelagaud, F. Article on Jurisdiction at the time of the Dynasty of Ur, Babyloniaca,
III, pp. 83 Sff.
Walther, A. Das altbabylonische Gerichtswesen. Leipzig. Semit Studien, vi, 1917, 1 For the very large literature on the Code of Hammurabi, see Johns (above).
652 BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHAPTER XV THE KASSITE CONQUEST
Clay, A* T. Personal names from the Cassite Period. Yale Or. Series, i. New Haven, 1912.
Delitzsch, Fr, Die Sprache der Kossaer, Leipzig, 1904.
King, L. W. Babylonian Boundary Stones* 1912.
Meyer, E. Geschichte des Altertums* jrdedn. §455*7.
Olmstead, A, T. Kashshites, Assyrians and the balance of power. AJ.S,L.f xxxvi, pp. 120-53,
Radau, H. Letters to Cassite Kings. Penns. Bab, Eip,, Series A, xxxvi, L Phila- delphia, 1908.
Steinmeteer, F. X. Ueber den Grundbesitz in Bab* zur Kassitenzeit. Der Alte Orient, xix* Leipzig, 1919.
Ungnad, A. Zu den assyrischen Konigen. OX.Z., 1921, p. 15 jy,
Ward, W, H» The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia. Washington, 1910,
TO CHAPTERS XV, XVI
CHAPTER XVI THE ART OF EARLY EGYPT AND BABYLONIA
i. BOOKS
Mssing, Fr. W., Frh. v. Einfuhrung in die Gesch. der ag. Kunst. Berlin, 1908.
Anteil der &g. Kunst am Kunstleben der Volker. Munich, 1912.
Aegypt. Bronze- u. Kupfer-£guren des Mitd. Reichs, Ath. Mitt., 1913, pp.
239 sqq.
Denkmaler ag. Skulptur. Munich, 1914.
Boeser, P. A. Beschreibung d. ag. Sammlung des Museums in Leiden, i (Alt.
Reich), n, in (Mittl. R.). 1905—10. Brunton, G. Lahun I. 1920.
Budge, Sir E. A. W. Eg. Sculptures in the British Museum. 1913. Capart, J. Recueil de Monuments egyptiens. Brussels, 1902—3.
Les Debuts de FArt en figypte. Brussels, 1904. TransL Primitive Art in
Egypt. 1905.
Une Rue de Tombeaux k Sakkarah. Brussels, 1907,
L'Art egyptien. Brussels, 1910.
Les Monuments dits Hycsos. Brussels, 1914.
Lemons sur 1'Art egyptien. Brussels, 1920.
Ennan^A, Life in Ancient Egypt. 1894.
Evans, §ir A. J. The Palace of Minos, i. Oxford, 1921, (For Eg. connections.) Fechheimer, H. Die Plastik der Aegypter. Die Kunst des Ostens, in. Berlin, 1921. Hall, H. R. Catalogue of Collection of Scarabs In the British Museum, i. 1913.
(See also Naville and Newberry, below.) Maspero, Sir G. Art in Egypt: Ars Una Series. 19120
Studies in Egyptian Art. 1913.
Manual of Egyptian Archaeology. 1914.
Morgan, J. de, G. Legrain, and L. Jequier. Fouilles a Dahchour. 1895, 1903. — — M. P^zard, E. Pottier, and others. M6moires de la Mission archeologique
en. Perse. 1900 sqq. Naville, E., H. R. Hall, and others. Xlth Dynasty Temple at Deir el-Bahari.
1907-13. Newberry, P. Scarabs. 1908.
and H. R. Hall. Catalogue of the Burlington Club Exhibition of Egyptian
Art. 1921.
Perrot, G., and C. Chipiez. History of Art in Ancient Egypt 1883. Petrie, W. M. F. Egyptian Decorative Art. 1895.
Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty. 1900, (And other archaeological publica- tions passim?)
Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt. 1909.
Scarabs. Univ. Coll. Loud. Coll. 1917-
Prisse D'Avennes, H. Hist, de TArt <§gyptienne. 1879.
£>uibell, J. E. Archaic Objects, i. Cat, ge*n. des Antiq. e*g. Mus. Caire. Cairo, 1905. * — w-^and F. W. Green. Hierakonpolis, 1900, 1902. Sarzec, J. de. D^couvertes en Chalde*e. 1884-1912.
,654' BIBLIOGRAPHY
Schafer, H, Aegyptische Goldschmiedearbeiten. Berlin, 1910.
Fen agyptischer Kunst...eine Einffihrung in die Betrachtung agypt. Kunst-
werke. Leipzig, 1919. 2nd edn 1922.
Spiegelberg, W. Gesch. der ag. KunsL Leipzig, 1903.
Wallisr H. Egyptian Ceramic Art 1898, 1900.
Ward, W. H. Seal-Cylinders of Western Asia* Washington, 1910.
2. SEPARATE ARTICLES
Benedite, G, The Carnarvon Ivory, J.EA, 1918, pp. i, 225.
Le Couteau de Gebel el-'Arak. Mem. Fondation Eugene Piot, 1916.
Bissing, F, W., Fr. v. Reliefs vom Sonnen-heiligtum des Rathures. S.B, kf AK
Wiss. Munich, 1914, Capart, J. Les Palettes en Schiste. Rev, Quest. Scient, 1908*
Remarks on the Sheikh el-Beled. J.E.A., 1920, p. 225.
Daressy, G. Chapelle de Mentouhotep III a Denderah. Ann. Serv., 1917, p, 226, Gardiner, A. H. Anew masterpiece of Egyptian Sculpture. J.E.A., 1917, p. i. Golenischeff, W. Amenemha III et les Sphinz de SSn. Rec. Trav., 1893, p. 131. Hall, H. R. E Jrit., art. Ceramics (Egypt).
Relation of Aegean with Egyptian Art, J.E.A., 1914, pp. no, 197.
The British Museum Excavations in S. Babylonia. Proc. Soc* Antiquaries,
Dec. 1919.
Junker, H. The Austrian Excavations, 1914. J.E.A., 1914, p. 250. Legge, F. The Carved Slates from Hieraconpolis, P.S.B.A., 1900, pp. 125 sf$. Lythgoe, A. M. The Treasure of Lahun, etc, Bull. Metr, Mus, N.Y., Dec. 1919;
Dec. 1920,
Mace, A. C. Op. «"/., July, 1920. Petrie, W. M. F. Discoveries at HeraWeopolis, Anc. Eg., 1921, p. 69,
Egypt and Mesopotamia- Anc. Eg», 1917, p. 26.
Ricketts, C. Head of Amenemmes III in obsidian, from the Macgregor Collection. J.E.A., 1917, p. 71.
• Head in serpentine of Amenemmes III. J.E.A., 1917, p* 211.
Schafer, H* Einiges iiber d. Entstehung der ag. Kunst Z. Aeg., 1915.
Sethe, K. Copper "Works of Art of the oldest period of Egyptian history. J.EA,
1914, p. 233.
Spiegelberg, W. Darstellung des Alters in der alteren ag, Kuust. Z. Aeg., 1918. Winlock, H. E. Bull. Metrop. Mus. New York, Dec. 1920.
See also the various volumes of the Catalogue of the Cairo Museum.
For further literature, especially on the interrelations between Egypt and South- west Asia, see the bibliographies on Chapters vi, vn, x and XYIL
Typical illustrations will also be found in the following works, among others; Hall (p. 635, above), Jastrow (p. 634), Nielsen (p, 633), and the list on pp. 632^,645.
TO CHAPTERS XVI, XVII '655*
CHAPTER XVII EARLY AEGEAN CIVILIZATION
Blegen, C. W. Korakou. Boston and New York, 1921,
Bulle, H. Orchomenos I. AbL Bavarian Academy, xxiv, 23 1907.
Burrows, R. The Discoveries in Crete* 2nd edn. 1908
Childe, V. G. Date and Origin of Minyan Ware. J.H.S., xxxv, 1915.
Dussaud, R. Civilisations pr<£helleniques, 2nd edn* 1914,
Evans, A. J, Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult. J.H.S., xxi, 1901.
Scripta Minoa. Vol. i, Oxford, 1909.
Palace of Minos. Vol. i. 1921*
Fimmen, D. Die KretisclMnykenische Kultur. Leipzig and Berlin, 1921.
Forsdyke, E. J. The Pottery called Minyan Ware. JJH.S., xxxiv, 1914.
Halbherr, Pernier, and others. Article on Phaestus, etc. Mon. Ant., 211 sjf.
Hall, E. M. Sphoungaras. Philadelphia, 1912.
Hall, KT. R, Aegean Archaeology. 1915.
Hawes, C. H. and H. Boyd. Gournii. Philadelphia, 1912.
Karo, Gr. Art, Kreta in P.W.
Maraghiannis. Antiquites cr&oises. Candia, 1912 syg.
Rodenwaldt, G, Tiryns. Die Ergebnisse der Ausgrabungen des L d. a. Institute.
Vol n. Athens, 1912. Seager, R. B. Excavations in the island of Pseira. Philadelphia, 1910.
Explorations in the island of Mochlos. Boston and New York, 1912.
• The Cemetery of Pachyammos. 1916.
Smith, C, and others. Excavations at Phylalcopi. 1904.
Wace, A. J. B», and C. W. Blegen, Pre-Mycenaean Pottery of the Mainland. B.S.A., xxii.
and M, S. Thompson. Prehistoric Thessaly. Cambridge, 1912.
Woolley, C, L. Asia Minor, Syria and the Aegean. Liv. AA., ix, 1922, pp. 41-56,
L SYNCHRONISTIC TABLE1
1C,
0\
en 0 0
H
H
n
u
45°°
First SotlilcCjcleliegi: Dual Worn in eiistence
ReMons between Egjpt, Sjria and
3500
335° 3200
At.
Age of Mariner (?=Menes)
5618 B.C.)
t/ »/ /
Helkdic I begins)
Semitic tjpe of names (p, 274 if) !TWI)jwi/)(soiitlierii) Zoser builds 'step-pframid' of
of Abial (earliest approxi- mately fixed date, 3200 B&, in 8n-
Mednm
3100
Age of tkee Great Pjramids of Gizeh
woo
(3 loo B.C.)
FourtliDjnastf of Kisli (30893,0.) Eannatoik of Lagash overthrows KisL His Stele of Vultures
OJ 0 0 0
*5b
SYNCHRONISTIC TABLE: c. 2900— r. 2600 B.C. 657
MD
d,
3 BL
in Th
'§)
S,
PH O U
•g
I
lcolithic ly Hellad
Ea
t
f
I
1
2
S O
S.s
h
5^ O ^
0 < cd
a
1
AH
U
m
00
« ^» '—< .«^>^.^
de with Nubi ure northward
S
cet o
s g,
*> y*
•ni
gs^ls 5.3-3 w
a1*l
6|s-s
W to i
|
oo" |
||||
|
0 O o t~*» |
O O |
M ?>• oo t*» |
§ |
8 |
|
CN oo |
00 |
NO |
||
|
(S> W |
(M |
C* M |
(SI |
M |
|
O |
C.A.H I
|
1C, |
Egypt |
Babylonia, Assyria |
— . — . ~ ^ Aegean, Cyprus, etc, » |
|
2JOO |
[UslipiaandKiiia(Mitannian,?)!dngs |
||
|
of Assy rial |
CO |
||
|
Dynasty of Ur |
2 |
||
|
kmm toW, under Mngur |
H 0 |
||
|
(aiitkor of Snmeriankw code), 2474 |
ffi |
||
|
B,C,, and Dungi (24566,0.) |
|||
|
Conquest of lam, Amor, etc, |
vurruvvu* uwwuw iv uiupg w H |
||
|
Ur(i) S |
|||
|
2|00 |
MIDDLE KINGDOM |
(7) J |
|
|
llmtk Lyusij (Tlelii), 2375- |
Bur-Sin (2398 B.C.) |
(Early Helladic III) H |
|
|
2212 B,C,(p. 169 Jf) |
Zarilu, Hng of Assyria, tributary to |
^ |
|
|
SUM |
J |
||
|
Bronze Age |
Giniil-Sin builds wall of Amor (2387 |
i^ |
|
|
B,C.) |
3J |
||
|
FalofdynastyofUriattacledbyAmor |
?! |
||
|
Mbi-girra, Hng of Isin (2357 B,C,), |
MV&lwlWns ^ |
||
|
Rivalry of Isin and Larsa |
t> |
||
|
2JOO |
0 o |
||
|
Mapetre (2290-22(2 B,C.) |
lipit-iskar of Isin (2274-2264 B.C.), |
c/ |
|
|
driven out by Amor (p. 476). Brief |
1 |
||
|
Sumerian revival |
tf |
||
|
IWPJH |
Gungunum of Larsa (2264-22388,0,) |
0 0 |
|
|
2200 |
Amenefflkt I (2212-2182 B,C.) |
fin/DjM^/BABYM |
p |
|
Renascence of Art |
8umu-a|uin (2225 B,C.) |
||
|
Nubia Egyptianized |
Sumu-la-Ium (221 1-2176 B.C.) |
Bronze Age (First Period) in Cyprus |
|
|
Prominence of god Amon |
Destruction of Ki |
beans |
|
|
Siet I (2192-21478,0.) |
Elamite invasion |
u |
2100
2000
Senrot II (2118-20998,0.) Beni-fa tombs (p,22§) Senwt III (209972060,0,) far in Palestine
Aaenemliet IH (2061-4013 B,C.)
Kiitor-mabiikWofAflior Fall of Larsa (21678,0.) Rim-Sir^ Elaniite ruler of Larsa (2155- 2094 B,C.)
Conquers Erecli (2131 B,C.) and Isin (212$ B,C.)
Erecli and Isin (2117 B.C.); defeats 1(209(8,0,) and Win; becomes nor; extends i rule over Assyria (20871,0,); code (r, 2090 B,C,] B,C.)
Eevolt of Isin, etc, (2071-20^,0,) first Dytafy ^/SEA-COUNTRY Ilnniailii(207o- B.C.)
Dninailii tales Nippor(f, 2052 B,C,)
Samsu-ditana (1956-1926 B,C.) Etlite raid on Alhd (19268,0.)
Kassites under Gandasli Ionia (i7{6B,c.)
t iiddleHeladic) (Bronze Age in Tkssaly)
225)
(Troy; Second City destroyed, see
0 « V 0
H
0
w ? w
H
00 0 0
hi b
Cessation of direct intercourse of Crete
o
Ol
vD
>66o SYNCHRONISTIC TABLE: c. 1800 — c. ^200 B.C.
|
CO l-£j |
||
|
?* !! |
||
|
£?* ^ I |
||
|
u. |
§ "A J |
|
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u> |
g f*O t^ |
|
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o *u cl |
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04 |
Jj;|r £ 1 '& |
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^ .H CO ^ .H Vw ^ .H E^ |
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^ 'r^J V^X ^ "-CJ 0 ^ r^ ^ |
|
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^»«j <u^ctfc« ^s*-5* u «cs prj CXJQ <o I^H o e« ^ I-^ fc^ |
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^ffi ^^ffiy-g§ffi Q ^B 8^££2^£ ^s ^ J 2 ^u3 s^ ^ Jj ^ ^ tU PQ Kq C>Q K«5 ^ cB |
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S3 rS V 8? ^ Is- S ^ ° ^3 *^ ^* |
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i>^ oa o M P ..PN JQ jrj oo ^ «J O O |
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'Sb J^ ^1 £ ^o |
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1 na S sJ« i i^ ^c8 Jl^gfo 0^ ^ ^| »43^c(X.O^H >-, C 53 Htl, *5 *i«4l l=*l If, |^*| ||fM |J3 |
I 3 |
|
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80 o o o o o o o |
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|
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Er "S iT 2" S? |
2_ |
LIST OF EGYPTIAN KINGS
WE
SELECT LIST OF EGYPTIAN KINGS 'OF THE' OLD AND MIDDLE KINGDOMS, c. 3500—1580 s.c.1
Predynastic Kings of Predynastic Kings of
Lower Egypt Upper Egypt
Tin Thesh Hsekiu Uaznar
FIRST DYNASTY: c. 3500—3350 (?) B.C. Historical Traditional Manetho
* Scorpion' |
Narmerza > Meni Menes
Aha Men J
Za Ata Kenkenes
Den (? Udimu) Semti Hsapti Ousaphais
Enezib Merpeba Merbap Miebis
Semerkhet Nekht Shemsu Semempses
Ka Sen Kebh Bienekhes
SECOND DYNASTY: c. 3350—3190 (?) B.C. Historical Traditional Manetho
Hotepsekhemui Buzau Boethos
Reneb Kakau Kaiekhos
Neneter Banentlru Binotbris Sekhemib Perenmaat)
TT n
Peribscn " UaznaS
Senedl Senedi Sethenes
Khaires
Neferkere NepherkherSs
Neferkesokari Sesokhris
Huzefa Kheneres
1 All the dates in this list must be regarded as provisional, and as followed by a query; see above, pp. 16*5-73, and Chaps, vir sq. It should be observed that they differ slightly from those of Breasted and the German School in the earlier dates assigned to the 3CIth— Xlfcl* Dynasties, and consequently to all that precede (pp. 169, 315). For fuller details see H, R. Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East ', pp. 17 sqq.9 120, 126, 134^^., 148.
LIST OF EGYPTIAN KINGS
THIRD DYNASTY: c. 3190-3100 (?) B.C.
Historical
Zoser Sanekht
Neferka Snefru
Traditional ZaZai%[Bebi] Zoser
Nebka
Zoserteti
Sezes Neferkere
Snefru
Manetho Necher5phes
Tosorthros /Tyreis H Mesochris I Soyphis
Tosertasis
Aches
Kerpheres
(/.^.""JSTepherkeres)
S[n]gphouris
Historical
Sharu (?)
Khufu
Rededef
Khafre
Menkaure
Shepseskaf
FOURTH DYNASTY: c. 3100-2965 (?) B.C.
Manetho Herodotus and Diodorus
31 00-3 09 8 3098-3075 3075—3067 3067—3011 3011—2988
2988—2970 2970-2965
Sons
Souphis
Ratoises
Souphis
Mencheres
(Bicheris)
Sebercheres
Thamphthis
Cheops
Chephren, Chaforyes Mykerinos
FIFTH DYNASTY; c. 2965-2825 (?) B.C.
Historical Userkaf Sahure
Neferirikere Kakau Neferefre Shepseskere Khaneferre Neuserre An Menkauhor Dedkere Isesi Unis
2965—2958 2958—2946 2946—2936 2936—2929 2929—2925 2925—2891 2891—2883 2883-2855 2855-2825
Manetho Ousercheres Sephres Nepherclieres SisirSs Cheres Rathoures Mencheres Tancheres Onnos
SIXTH DYNASTY: c. 2825—2631 (?) B.C.
UserkereAti} Merire Pepi I Merenre Mehtimsaf I Neferkere Pepi II Merenre Mehtimsaf II
'
2825-2795
2795-2742 2742—2738 2738—2644 2644—2643
Othoes
Phios
Methesouphis PhiSps Menthesouphis
SEVENTH AND EIGHTH DYNASTIES (Traditional and Manethonian)
TIST: DYNASTIES III— XIV 663-
NINTH AND TENTH DYNASTIES (HeraHeopolite) : c. 2500—2300 (?) B.C.
(Chief Kings) Historical Manetho
Meriebre Ekhtai I (Khati) - Akhthoes
Uohkere Ekhtai II
Uazkere
Merikere
ELEVENTH DYNASTY (Theban): c. 2375-2212 (?) B.C.
Iniotef-fo (Intef-4 o) I (Her Uah-ankh) 2375
Iniotef (Intef ) II (Hor Nakhtnebtepnefer) Mentuhotep I (Hor Sankhibtoui)) Nebtouife Mentuhotep II j
Mentuhotep III Sankhkere Mentuhotep IV 2242—2212
TWELFTH DYNASTY (Tlieban): c. 2212—2000 (?) B.C. Monti men ts, etc. Manetho
Sehetepibre Amenemhet I 221 2—2 182 Ammenemes
(Co-reg.)
Kheperkere Senusret I 2192—2147 SesonkKosis
(Co-reg.)
Nubkaure Amenemhet II 2150—2 115 ArnmenemSs
(Co-reg.)
Khakheperre Senusret II 2115-2099 Sesostrls
Khakaure Senusret III 2099-2061 Lakhares
Nematftre Amenemhet III 2061—2013 Ammeres (Lamaris)
(luibre Hor; co-reg, ?)
Maatkhrure Amenemhet IV 2013-2004 Ammenemes
Sebeknefrure 2004—2000 Skemiophris
THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH DYNASTIES (Chief Kings)
Khotouire Ugafa (Northern) c. 2000 (?) Sekhemkere Amenemhetsenbef Sankhibtouire Ameni-Intef- Amenemhet Sneferibre Senusret IV (Theban) Sekhemrekhutaui Sebekhotep I Sekhemuazkaure Sebekemsaf I \ Sekhemresesheditaui Sebekemsaf II I (Theban) Sekhemneferkhaure Upuautemsaf J Smenkhkere Mermeshau (Northern) JVIenuazre
Sekhemresnaztaui Sebekhotep II "j Mersekhemre Neferhotep I c. 1900 (?)
Elhaneferre Sebekhotep III J Merneferre Ai I ELhahetepre Sebekhotep IV Khaankhre Sebekhotep V Sekheinreherhrimaat Intef-£o III } Sekhemreupmaat Intef-'o IV I (Theban) Nubfcheperre Intef V, c. 1750 (?) j Nenaaatenkhare Khenzer j>Tehesi
,66i EGYPTIAN KINGS, DYNASTIES XV-XVII
1
FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH DYNASTIES (Jfyte): C. l8oO (.?)-i;8o B.C.
Monuments
Semlen 'Ant-kl
Seldianre?=sYekbbaal Meraserre Yekebhal Maa-ab-re Pepi
<ieDioiepe$nreApopiI Seuserenre Klian NetareII?«Uazed {0-user-Re Apopi II '0-seh-Re 'Olenenre Apopi III
Manetho
Probable
identifications
Salitis
Bnon
'Apata
ApopHs
Jannas (Staan, Siaan)
Assis (Asejh)
SEVENTEENTH DYNASTY (Theban): c. 1635-1580 B.C.
Selenenre I Tau-'o Seienenre II Tau-Vo Sekenenre III Tau-Vbn Uazkheperre Kamose Senekltenre
1635-1615 r 61 5-160; 16,05-1 59 1 1591-1581 1581-1580
II!
LIST OF KINGS AND PATESIS OF SUMER AND AKKAD1
1C,
Years (accorlnj to tie lists)
ID, etc.
w
0
w
Cj
pa(Scorpioii)
780+
720
611 500
1200
Abot 5 naies missing
1 See Langk, Tke Early Ctonology of Sow and Egypt/ Jli} ra (ijzi)?
" " ~rf j of Male based upon Poel '
andNo,^Cok'i,n,"TlieiistOJiNo,2
names of tie k Dynasty of Kisli are partialy preserved on PoeW, No, j, Oby, i.
d
D
VVV ^HA*tWVM^ WiiVMT-i-l ^ (?,/ y'^ tf ' 1 ' ' ** * '''* J
! The k Dynasty of Hi ad tk 1st Dynasty of Erech are bud upon Poekl, tiktnal d Grm&d to, No. 2, Obt, Cols. I
kTke ^
|
Dynasty |
Date approximate 1C. |
Years (according to the lists) |
ContemDorarypatesisof 2) i J i g\ |
|
|
Lagash |
Kish, etc, |
|||
|
(2)FkHofEKcl(S— ) |
fcJOOOJ?) |
|||
|
Mesiingasher |
m |
|||
|
Emerson Lugalbda |
420 1200 |
|||
|
Tamiiz •lug^affl A Milt -1 fi3ftlA6 miQQlflO |
100 126 |
en c |
||
|
aUUuL I IldJllCo Hilablilg Total atat 8 Hugs |
w |
|||
|
(i) First dynasty of UrUSuierian) W/ i i \ ' |
M2l6 |
So |
> |
|
|
Mesannipsdds Mesknagniinna |
Ow 3° |
0 |
||
|
RoUii |
25 |
> |
||
|
jjaiuiu Total^Kngs |
Total 171 |
B |
||
|
(4) Dynasty of Awan2(Suodan)(?) |
t«J |
D |
||
|
IMUI |
||||
|
IMHI |
||||
|
Total 3 lings |
Total j$6(f) |
|||
|
1 The k Dynasty of Dr is based upon PoeH ^ No, 2, Ok, ill, and the Legrain tablet, Ob?, I (1« Jmd, Philadelphia, 1920, [1, 175-80; seej^vn, 142, «,$), , ^2 The names of the Aw an dynasty have been given by Poebel, No, ij Obv, m, IQ jjy,, but only the name i«-0 remains, The number l^names in this dynasty is obtained from the summary on Poebel, No, a, Rev, n, iko, The number $m in the summary is t i ' »i i i |
reduced to ico in le above scbme,
|
(jJSecoaddplyofUr^Suiiierian) |
<>W |
|||
|
HUM |
||||
|
• mil |
||||
|
TotaJ|(>) (6) Second dynasty of Kah1 (Semitic) |
^ |
Total 108 (?) |
||
|
Mini |
||||
|
HUM TdaljKopp) |
Total 3792 (sic] read 192 (?) |
0 W |
||
|
(fj DynastjofIkmaa3(Snmerkn) |
Ci pK |
en i, |
||
|
Total I Meim Urzaged |
,, |
7 Tobl 1 |
Lugalskgengor |
n Utii2...(patesiofEsli) ^ 6 \r / 0 Ninfalsi(Adal)) § "U Ur-Enil (Nippur) V 1 |
|
Lugakarsi Legal.., aga |
PI w |
|||
|
Enbi-AsMat |
CO CO |
|||
|
Total^ |
Total i$o(?) |
' |
1 Tie length of this djaasty is ascertained from tie sunmiary in PoeH, No, 2, Rev, n, r H j, where the total of the three Ur dynasties is gi?en u 395 years, The 1st and Illrd Ur Dynasties are given as iyi +117 years, leavi ng 10! for the Ilnd Dynasty, The total number of kings appears to be either 13 or 14, and the number in the 1st and Illrd Dynasties is 4+ j leaving 4 or j names for the Ilnd Dynasty, ^
1 The only information concerning this dynasty is preserved on the Legrain tablet, Obv, li, where the total number of kings is either $ or 5, more likely 6 in the photograph, The length of the dynasty is there given as 3792, (The number jfioo is written in Sumerian with a single sign,)
3 Based upon the Legrain tablet, Obv, n, and Poebel, No, 2, Rev, CoL xi end,
in each is approximately determined by subtracting the known dynasties from the summaries at the end of Poebel, No, 2, The names are supplied ® J from the inscriptions, and the order is based upon later references to Enbi-Ashdar and Enshagbshanna, ^
|
Dynasty |
Date approximate B,C, |
Years (according to tie lists) |
Contemporary patesis of |
|
|
Lagash |
^ |
|||
|
(9) Second dynasty of Erech (Sumerian) |
q|88 |
|||
|
Enskghsknna |
||||
|
Lugal-Hgub-nidudu |
||||
|
Lugal-IisaH |
||||
|
HIM* Total| |
Total 130 (?) |
|||
|
(10) Dynasty of Adab1 Liigahnntondii (LngaHalu) (Mebasi) Totalj |
9° Total 90 |
|||
|
(njDynastfofMaer^Sunierian) An-Ba |
f, 3268 |
jo |
||
|
•4 son |
||||
|
(12) AlsM(Opis)2 (Semitic) Unzi |
,,„ |
So |
Storuppai magistrates; Enttegal (ling at |
|
|
Undahfe |
12 |
agas) |
||
|
Urur |
6 |
Patesis of Umma |
||
|
Gimil'Skikn |
20 |
Eafeu |
||
|
Isk-el Gimil-Sin - Total 6% |
1 Total 99 |
Ur-Nina (ting), c. 3100 |
Ul
a
o
1 Based upon the Legrain tablet, Obv, III,
2 Here begins the Schell dynastic tablet whose obverse contains a complete list of the kings of Akskk, the IVth Dynasty of Kish, and lie Illrd Dynastt^f Erech, The summary at the end of the Akskk dynasty is preserved on the Leurain tablet, Obv, IV,
|
(13) Fourth dynasty of Kish1 (Semitic) |
ft 3089 |
AhrpU 3050, son |
IM |
|
|
Eannattna, son |
Enaiajlf |
|||
|
Enannatuml,brotlier |
Urlumma 111! |
|||
|
Azag-Baii (queen and queen-regent for |
< |
26(1) |
Entemena,son |
I1U |
|
-[?] years) |
||||
|
t, j / / Gkil$n, son |
25 |
|||
|
Ur-laba,»n |
80 |
EnannatumlljSon |
IM |
|
|
Zimudar |
3° |
Enetarzi |
||
|
Uziwadar,son |
6 |
Enlitarzi, 5 years |
||
|
Etouti |
ii |
Lugalanda?9,son |
^ |
|
|
Imu-Skmasli |
ii |
Uraiagina (%),() |
Ltigakaggisi?son 2 |
|
|
Nanija |
j |
y uy ' w H |
||
|
Total 8 lings |
Total 102 (?) |
|||
|
7 \ / |
en |
|||
|
(14) Third dynasty of Erect (Sumerian) lugakaggisi |
u89y |
2J |
M 'i |
|
|
(15) Dynasty of Agade2 (Semitic) |
f, 2872 |
X JO |
||
|
Sargon |
55 |
1 |
||
|
KmnslijSon |
Engilsa |
{ |
||
|
Manistesu, son |
7 |
Ur-E |
Sunishiln u |
|
|
Naram-Sin |
56 |
Lugakskmgal |
Lu-okra $ |
|
|
Skrkikri, son |
25 |
Ugme |
M |
|
|
£Wk was ikwk was not ling?' |
Urmama |
tt |
||
|
y u IBB 1 |
P |
|||
|
ao 111 |
j |
Gimikama |
||
|
Nani |
||||
|
Dudu |
21 |
la-azag |
||
|
Gimil%Ul |
15 |
Ur-Bau, t< 2700 |
||
|
Total u kings |
Total 197 |
1 Tiis list is partialy preserved on th L^iak tablet^ Obv, iv,
2 Tie Agade dynasty is completely preserved on the Legrain tablet, Re?,
. as now restored; the ScMl tablet. Ok ij-Rey, o; and
Poebd,No,3,Iter,m
|
Dpastj * |
Date approximate B,C, |
Yeats (according to tie its) |
Contemporary patesis of |
|
|
Lagash |
Umma |
|||
|
(ifijFoHidynastjofErecI^Siimerian) Urnigin 1 iToioi? inn vlcleflli Dull |
£.2675 |
6 |
Urgar Nammalthni |
|
|
W<k |
6 |
Ur-Nran |
||
|
Migir-ili Ur-Mte Total jigs |
6 Total 26 |
Ur-Bato(J) |
||
|
(ipjnastjofGitai2(Hittite!) Mia |
«,S|, |
5 |
||
|
Ingista T 1 1 |
7 |
|||
|
larlagasa MUM |
J« |
|||
|
...da |
||||
|
Skm |
Lugalannatuni |
|||
|
W Lasirab |
||||
|
(J) Erridupizir (f) Arlagan |
(UM |
Nammalki |
||
|
WSara%bisin(?) |
Ur-Ningirso |
Galu-Babbar |
||
|
Tiriian |
||||
|
Total 21 Hngs |
!' |
Total 125 |
Based upon tie Sdeil tabletj Rev, io-d, and Poebd, No, 4, Obr, r,
d
g w
d
1045
|
(i8)!ildjnast]'ofErecli(Siiinerb) Uniuhflw] |
UJH |
|||
|
LUAUCjitti (Space on Legrain tablet for about two |
||||
|
names) |
0 |
|||
|
Total 3 % |
Total ;o(?) |
|||
|
(seepHjj, |
||||
|
(i^TiddjnastjofUr^Sumerian) Dr-Engtir i\ * |
i* |
18 rq |
Urabk |
H |
|
Unngij son |
5° |
1 n^Tol |
M |
|
|
mil* >11"1 OAn |
A |
XJuAd/idl Ur-lama |
en |
|
|
DurOillj SOIi |
9 |
'Ala |
||
|
Gimil-Sin,5on |
8 |
lUr-lania(reappo^) |
w |
|
|
Ibi-Sin^on |
25 |
s |
||
|
Total jigs |
Total 117 |
(23S7) |
I |
|
|
1 Based upon PoeW,No4 MM, ^ |
||||
|
M Uj |
||||
|
tt h |
IV
KINGS OF ISIN, LARSA, BABYLON, ETC,1
Ian
w
dia-Dagai
te)
N
Lipit-Mtar, son or
Ur-Nimrti(2i6j)
Samu(in) (2308)
Zabaia(22?j)
Babylonia
Assyria
Elam
Kutur-naMhinte
re-
sumedson
Esk,ete,
Em Mid-aim
H 03 H
I
en
W
0
['
Puzur-Asil SUi-aUiu(m),son
imate merely, They depend primarily upon the approximate dates of Shalmaneser and other Assyriaii kings of centuries, upon their references to earlk kings, and upon references to kings as contemporaneous, In other cases, sggested, the position of kings (;,j, of Assyria) is conjectural, See further above, pp, ip4? and Chaps, nil and iy, st year of Ammkaduga (viz, ijjyj-based on Eabylonian observations of Venus4 h^e accepted; but Weidner 1515 and i jzi) makes it ity and this discrepancy affects al the early dates,
|
Bur-Sin, son (223 5) |
|||||
|
Somu-Iu(in)(2226) |
|||||
|
p »> |
FIRST BABYLONIAN |
||||
|
r ? |
DlNOT(2225-J, |
||||
|
H |
Sufliu-abu(m) |
Du-skma |
|||
|
(2225) |
Silklk (Siniti- |
||||
|
Iter-ptsk)Son(22i() |
SliilaP |
||||
|
1 |
Simiu4a-ik(in) |
Irisk(m)I,son |
|||
|
(2211) |
|||||
|
Girra-imitti, hoik |
Ikn(ni), son |
Mama (t, 2212) K V ; H H> |
|||
|
(2209) |
\ / |
? 0 |
|||
|
JWmn L |
|||||
|
EflliL (2202) |
Skrn-iin I, son |
N w |
|||
|
Ml-bani (2201) |
(f, 2200) |
(A 1 |
|||
|
Nur-Adad(2i97) |
KAZALLU. I |
||||
|
Sin-idinna(m), son |
Puzur-Asliirll |
Yathir-ilu(2i9(. - 2187) S |
|||
|
i 7InT i |
U |
||||
|
Zambia (2177) |
Sin-iribu(m)(2i75) |
Zab(i)o(m),M |
0» |
||
|
f ,,„,, (2174) |
(2175) |
0 |
|||
|
? Unas (2169) |
8in-iKsk(in)(2i73) |
t |
|||
|
SI-Adad(2i68) |
ERECH, |
||||
|
• |
ffaiad4(2i6]f), |
Kutur-Mabiii |
Siniriba(in) (con- |
||
|
sonofKntiir- Maboi |
(ui67) |
temp, Warad-Sin) |
|||
|
Sin»ngir(2i()5) |
Ailii-Asi |
||||
|
* w |
M-Sin, son (2161) |
||||
|
Sim-Sin I, hoik |
Wn(ofLarsa) |
o» |
|||
|
H |
w. |
|
Isin |
Lam |
Babylonia |
Assyria |
Elara |
Erett |
|
Difflnftlj SOB (2151-212$) |
$in-imiballit,$on |
Irisk(m)II |
|||
|
N |
TTT 1 / |
||||
|
warad-nene (con- |
|||||
|
Hamiura!)i,soD |
temp, Rim-Sin) |
||||
|
H |
|||||
|
Skmslii-Adadl |
|||||
|
(fiwngf, 2113?) |
|||||
|
, |
Iske%n I, son |
||||
|
(2080) ' |
|||||
|
Sim-Sin II (2071) |
|||||
|
FIRST Draffl OP |
(p, 556) |
||||
|
TfilSlA-COWTRy |
|||||
|
(t. 2070-1703). |
|||||
|
Biima-ilii ({, 2070) |
Ma |
,,,-asMat |
|||
|
Abdi', son (2042) |
|||||
|
Ammi-ditaia^ra |
|||||
|
(2014) |
|||||
|
M-ii-nil)i(joio) |
|||||
|
AinMa%$on |
Rimiisi |
ym i» flail |
|||
|
(1977) |
|||||
|
,) |
Anam |
||||
|
!)amli-ik(i955) |
Saiiisii^difanaj son |
Sin-gasliid |
|||
|
(1956-1926) |
Siii|amil |
SJ
H
W
>
w
H! p
o
H fl
|
Adas! |
(^rad-skgskg |
||||
|
Sr\ |
Enlil-y,sffl |
||||
|
talrjSJ})1 |
Sk-ma-Adadl |
||||
|
Peslgal-ckraniasli, |
Gid-Sin |
||||
|
sonofGullisk |
Zimzai |
||||
|
(1822) Jt J 11 |
Ma |
||||
|
A-darwlaina,son |
|||||
|
(1772) |
KASSITE DYNASTY |
||||
|
r'ftt'' |
K |
||||
|
VldlKldMl ^i/^vj |
H |
||||
|
Atar (Ihr)4ana |
li-Nini |
? |
|||
|
(T7W) |
Sk-ma-Adad II |
0 |
|||
|
Agumli son (1730) |
Iriskmlll |
i? |
|||
|
MelamWura |
f* |
||||
|
(1718) |
H |
||||
|
Sliamslii-Adadll |
u |
||||
|
Ea aid ii |
w |
^ |
|||
|
1703) |
MiasH(i7o8) |
H |
|||
|
UMi(i^) |
Iske-Daganll, |
GO |
|||
|
son (1686) |
NJ |
||||
|
Abirattasli (1678?) |
Skraslii-Adad III, |
P |
|||
|
son (1661) |
P |
||||
|
KasliasHI Tazzi-gurumasli |
w |
||||
|
(l00j Knarba-uMpai |
Pozur-Asiir III |
||||
|
(1611) (T fAOl |
(i6nj |
||||
|
* S^^) |
Nur-ili (1561- |
||||
|
^5J7) |
'51?) |
— , S) |
1 According to new Askr texts aaotk king Jm is to be inserted ke,
GENERAL INDEX
In this index the more correct translitf ration of names has often been indicated. Attention is drawn to the remarks in the Preface, and below, on the letters Ay D9 etc., where also remarks are made upon other systems of transliteratioiT apart from that adopted here. The forms in brackets are technical transliterations (*.£. Aahhotep), alternative spellings (e.g. Aahmes, Ikhnaton), other forms (e.g. Ati) or identifications (e.g. Abu IJabba). ***
The alphabetical arrangement ignores such prefixes as Gulf, Mt, Tell (* mound J)r Wadi (* torrent/ * valley') and the Arabic article (el-). In references to the maps nearer specification is given in the case of Nos. vu, vm, and ix (e.g* A 5); for the rest, the Latitude north or the Longitude east has sometimes been indicated as a further help (e.g. 41 N.? or 25 E., in this order).
A. In transliterations the spiritus knls is generally omitted; but * (which in Greek is transliterated by Ji) represents the characteristic and important Semitic (and Egyptian) guttural *ain (JJ). The Arabic vowel a (fatha) is frequently pronounced ey as in the article el- for #/-. (Note that before dentals, sibilants and /, zz, r, this / is assimilated to the following consonant.) el is used for the Arabic diphthong ai*
Aahhotep (Icah-hotep), 314
Aahmes (Ahmose, Amosis, lahmases), 170,
311, 314 sq., date, 660 Abba^seal of, 433 Abbasid Caliphs, 192, 358 Abdul-Malik, 212 Abcshu* (or Abi-eshu*), king of Babylon,
*54> 382, 512 *3-9 $*i> 537> 556? 558~56c>>
562, date, 674 — an official, 491 Abijam, 159 Abil-Sin, £73 Abimilki, of Tyre, 177 Abirattash, date, 675 Abi-sarl, 478 sq.9 date, 6yz Abishai, 228 ; see Abshai Ab-nub-mes-wazet-user, 1 75 Abraham (Abram), x867 190, 198, 204,
207, 224 sq., 233 ^.; era of, 145, 157 sq.,
163 sqq.$ and Hammurabi, 154, 236; and
Lot, 234 sq.
Abshai, 228, 306 sq.9 311 Abu, 374, 3965 see Tammuz Abu Habba (Sippar), Map XI (F 4), 358,
395
Abu Shahrein, Map XI (H 5), 129 sq,9 $77 SW*> 5^3? 586? see also Eridu
Abusir (Abu Sir, Map vur (D 2)), pyra- mids of, 286, 657
Abydenus, on Babylonian chronology, 151
Abydos, Map vm (D 6), 121 sq., 239, 241, 573 j king-lists, 258 sqq.$ pre-Menic relics, 2675 Minoan parallels, 175; necro- polisj 270; temple of Osiris, 279, 322 sq,, 350; Senusret Fs buildings, 305; tomb of Zer, 336
Achaeans, 108, 1845 in Cyprus, 177^.5 in Egypt, 177
*Acheulian* palaeolithic implements, 32, 46^.5 South Africa, 46; Sp^n, 94; influence on Soiutrean, 51, 53
Adab (Udab, Usab), Map x (32 N.), 360, 373? 39° s<J-9 402, 4°9> 4^3^ 44^ sty 493; dynasty of, 367, 369, 668; buildings of Naram-Sin, 4195 of Ur-Engur, 435, 437; art, 584
Adad (Addu), 155, 231 sqq,, 275, 454, 470, 479^., 488, 490, 529^., 553, 566^.5 see also Hadad, Rammanu
Adad-nirari I, 490
— II, 149, 153
— IV, 490
Adam, 164, 1985 and Seth, 235
Adana, 43
Adapa, myth of, 400 sq.y 496, 551
A-dara-kalania, date, 675
Adasi, 675
Addu; see Adad
Ad6n (*lords), 209
Addn&yi 185 «.
Adriatic Sea, geological formation, 6 sq^g,
375 glacial crisis, 42, 455 Neanderthal
man, 47
Ad wan, tribe, 190 Aegean culture, Malta and Sicily, 97^.5
westward exploration, 105 j art, in Egypt,
57i? 5?6; early Aegean civilization, Chs.
in, vi; iv, iv; and xvn (tassinh *">
INDEX
Aegean Sea, geological formation, 4, 7—105 glacial crisis, 42.5 Pontic and Mediter- ranean systems, 12; Archipelago, culture of, 59
Afium-ljjarahissar, 42
Africa, early palaeolithic remains, 46, 48 sq.> 655 Semitic immigrations, 191 sq.$ see Egypt
.frican broad-headed man, 60 ; flint tech- nique, 53; flora and fauna, n sqq.9 17? 26, 30, 39, 46,, 58, 685 negroid type, at "jtVlentone, 49
.fter-life, Semitic and Sumerian beliefs, 53 1> 5495 cf. 202
^gade, Map XI fF 4), 155^., 37°* 378? 394, 403 ^., 407, 434 J§ probable site, 395 S9*> stele of Naram-Sin, 417, 584 $q.9 money-values, 545$ dynasty of, 669
Agathias, a Babylonian source, 481 sq.
Agriculture, Nile valley, 35^.5 neolithic development, 68 sq>\ Palestine9 2645 in- fluence upon ideas, 206 sqq*
Agum I, 564, date, 675
— II, 562, 565, date, 660, 675
Ahab, date of, 159^.7 166; overthrow by Jehu, 215
*Ah*ai, *Ah*a, 267, 2695 tomb of, 273
Ahaz, date of, i6iy 166
Ahmose; see Aahmes
Aja, 395, 410
*Ajcaba, gulf of, Maps vir (J8 3), vin
(G 3*4)> 39
Akaiuasha, the, 177
Akhenaten; see Ikhnaton
Akhi-Ashir, date, 673
Akhima.* (Ama), 466
Akhthoes, 297
Akkad, Map xi (G 4), 41, 356, 358 sq.y 371, 390, Ch. xi, 446 sq.y 453, 456? 467* 5585 language, 186^.5 Semites in, 3655 Sargon, 3685 use of term, 402; Elamite invasion, 471; Hittite invasion, 561; Kassite conquest, 563 sg.
Akshak (Upi, Upe, Opis), 367* 37^ 37^? 381, 393 sq.9 396 j dynasty of, 668
Akurgal, 379, 381, 584, 669
Akur~ul-ana, date, 675
Alashia (? Cyprus, Cilicia), 143
Alaska, 24
Alexander the Great, 43, 150 ^.3 basis of success, 217
Alexander Polyhistor, 151
Alexander* sarcophagus from Sidon, 134
Alexandretta, Map XI (C 2), 39
Algeria, 36, 46, 48 sq.$ neolithic cultures, 96sq.
Alia, 671
Allatu, 531
Alm^jpia, neolithic culture, 955 copper- working-, 10 ;
Alorus, 150 sq.
Alphabet, Semitic, 1895 Egyptian, 2025 see Writing *
Alpine causeway, 16 sq.y r°5> Europe, neolithic culture, 71—751 flora, in Crete, 59; forests, neolithic age, 67^,5 lake- dwellings, 52, 71-75? 995 man, neolithic culture, 57-65 j race, 29, 47, 244; ranges, 7>.*3> *9> 25; zone, climate, $7 sq.
Altai range, 7? 10, 14 sqiy ziy 23 sq*
Altamira, Solutrean remains, 515 cave drawings, 94
Amal, 408, 418, 466; city, 558
el-'Amaraa, Tell, Map vui (C 5), 121, 152; frescoes, 176; Mycenaean vases at, 176 sq,
Arnarna Age, 143, 152 sq.9 177, 226, 229, 312, 568 .ra.
Amarna Tablets, a poem, 406; letters, 133, 229, 519, 564; from Cyprus (?), 143; Jerusalem, 2235 mention of the Sutu, 234, 405
Arnaziah, date of, i6r, 166
Amber, 105, 592
amelu, 517—521, 536
Amen-em-het I, 167, 226, 301 sq.y 303, 305, 318, 345," date, 658
— II, 167, 306, date, 663
— Ill, 302, 309, 318, 574, 576.,-date, 659, 663
— IV, 310, date, 663 Amenhotep I, 170, 173
— IT, 321
— Ill, 164, 168, 173, 324
— IV, 153 sq.9 164, 167, 3245 see Ikhnaton Ameni, 305, 575
America, palaeolithic culture, 655 (North),
polished implements, 63 sq. Arnharic language, 187 Amil-Marduk, 162 Ammi-anshi, 227/229 Ammi-bail, 230
Ammi-ditana, 2.30, 521? 535, 560, date, 674 Ammi-zaduga, 154, 370, 395, 466, 495,
511, 536, 560^., date, 674 Ammon, 193, 233, 235 Amon, god of Thebes, 301; and R'e", 301,
322 sq.
Amor (Amurru), god, 229 sqq., 438, 530 Amor, Amorite(s), 186, 193, 229 sqq., 237,
416, 431, 455 ^ 4^7> 47^5 47^? 493?
558x^.5 Sargon's expeditions, 404^.;
wall of, 458, 468; eA. secretaries,* 536;
'workman,* 4205 language, 188, 230,
4545 see Martw
Amorgos, Map xii (36^ N,}, 93 el~cAmra, 239, 245 Amraphel; see Hammurabi Ana, gulf of, 40 Anahita, 208 Anam7 562, 674 Anath, 233, 313 Anath-yahu, 233
INDEX
Anau, human remains, 62; domestication of anirpals, 69; and Alpine lake-dwellers, 72; third culture, So, 87, 91; fusion of pottery types, 80; and Tripolje, 81; and Ancyjus period In Baltic area, 865 neo- lithic culture, 85-89; * Kurgan' sites, 86 sqq,\ child-burial, 87 sq.$ earth -graves, no; duration of culture, 1815 and Susa, 362 sq.$ pottery, 579 An-Bu, 370, 668 Ancylus shells, 54, 86 Andalusia, 95 sq. * Angara* continent, 5, 8; races, 21;
Mongoloid types, 24 Anjelu-Ruju, 92, 104 Annals, early, 218 Anshan, 438, 450, 477 *Ant-haI, 313, 664 Anthropoids, u
Anthropomorphism, Semitic, 203; Egyp- tian (Osiris), 273, 328 sq. Anti-Lebanon, 458 Antiochus I, Soter, 150 'Antjab, 273 Antoninus Pius, 257 An turn, 233
Anu, god of heaven, 233, 366, 375, 396, 444, 448^., 456, 489, 530, 562, 5645 and Adad, temple at Ashur, 155, 569; and Adapa, 401 sq.$ temple at Erech, 366, 3695 and Sargon, 408 Anubis, 269, 273, 322, 328, 338, 350 Anun(n)it, 395, 408, 423, 438, 444, 529;
see Innana Anunnaki, the, 475 Anzanite inscriptions, 418 Amety, 333 Apakhnas, 313 Apennines, and Atlas range,* 7, 9, 12,
1 6 sq.y 19; lake-dwellers of, 74 Apis; see H*api Apollodorus, 178 Apopl (Apophis), I and II, 313 — Ill, 313 sq., 323, 664 Apua, 466 Apu(y)atum, 466 Arab, meaning of term, 182 Arabia (Map vn), geological formation, 7, 9—11, 16, 25, 39 jy.j primitive man, 28, 37-40, 46, 62$ Chellean Implements, 44; domestication, of animals, 69; and Sahara, 94; inscriptions, 133 sq«$ origin of Islam, 181; possible home of Semitic race, 182, 192^.; trade-routes, 183, 191; (to Sumer), 416, 43 1 ; see Magan, Melukhkha "Arabian Nights,' 216 Arabic language, 186, 188, 194^.5 loan- words from Persian, 187; influence on African languages, 187; influence of Aramaic, 188; influence of Greeks, Persians^ and Jews, 190
Aradda, 450
Arad-shagshag (?), 562, 675
Arad-Sin, 236
ei-Arak; see Gebel el-Arak
Aramaeans, 133 JY?., 182, 1851^ 188 sq.9 194^., 216, 234; and Amorites, 230 sq.9 237; and Hebrews, 190, 193, 234
Ararat, Map xr (E i), 40, 61
Arbela, Map XI (F 2), 451, 468
Archaeology, and primitive man, i sq.$ value of pottery in dating, 70, 114, 247^.; and History, relation of> i sq,, 66-70, 112 sqq. 5 chronology of prehistoric^ Greece, 173 sq.; see Ch. in (passim)
Architecture, megalithir burial-chambers, 95 sqg.$ cist-graves, 102; Mycenaean shaft-graves, 137; Semitic, 228; Egypt, temples of stone, 279; Sumerian, 373 sqq^ see also Babylon, Bricks, Burial, Pyra- mids, Ziggurat
Arctic flora and fauna, 12 sq., 17, 26, 46, 58; culture, 1 02
Ardennes, geological formation, 6, 95 neo- lithic culture, 76, 99
Argos, Map xn (37^ N.), and the *Achae- ans,* 108
Arkalochori, Early Minoan vases, 175
Armageddon, 183
Armenia, Map xi (E i), prehistoric, 42-44, 59; Naram-Sin, 418
Armenoid broad-headed sub-type, 29, 6 1 sq.$ language, 1 86; southern Af a bians, 190; in Egypt, 244^., 261 sqq., 571
Arpu, 665
Arrapkha (? Kerkuk), 423 sq*9 439
Arshlkh, 446, 479
Art* palaeolithic, rock-engravings, Nile valley, 31; flint-chipping and flaking, Nile valley, 34, 63; do., Mousterian, 47; do,, Aurignacian, 505 do,, rare In forest region, 63; do., at Anau, 87; domestic arts, Nile valley, 35; do,, Aurignacian, 50; ornaments, 355 paint, 35; drawings and sculptures of female figure, 49; Aurignacian engravings, carvings, paint- ings, 50; Azilian painted symbols, 50; Solutrean drawings, 51; cave drawings, Spain, 94; grinding, 64, 68, 72; flints, overlap of palaeolithic and neolithic,
.
— neolithic, abstract quality, 67; female figure, drawings and sculptures, 67; clay figures at Anau, 88; near -Eastern, $L\ 'ideal type,' 91
— Semite, exotic, 134, 203; attitude In artistic method, 220
— Egyptian, development in dynastic period, 257, 271 sq.9 301, 305, 316; tomb- reliefs, 280, 2,$% sqq., 3201^.5 portr^tore, 282^., 286^., 574jr£.; pyramid-reliefs, 286; statue of Pepifp 29 x^,; jewellery,
INDEX
308 sq., 576; archaic, 573; conventional- ism, 573 sq.
Art, Sumerian, earliest, 361 sqq., 577^^.; Kassite, 5675 shell-carving and inlaid work, 585
— painraig, Egyptian, range of, $7$sq.; distemper, 575; Cretan, fresco, 595 sq.-f gem-cutting, 596; Minoan naturalism, 598, 602
— see Aegean, Archaeology, Architecture, Metal-work, Minoan Bronze Age, Pot- tery, Sculpture; see also Chs. vr, XVI
Artaxerxes I, 162 sq., 166 ^ururu, 367, 390, 392
Aryans, invaders ^f India, in; of Baby- lonia and Mesopotamia, 311 sq., 469
Asa, no, 1 60
Asar, Asaru, 407, 446 sq. j see Marduk
Asclepius, 276
Aseth, 313
Ashdod, 157; taken by Sargon, 161
Ashduni-erim, date, 672
Asher, 231
Ashe'rah, 231; see also Ashirat
A-shir, 451
Ashirat, Ashratum, 231
Ashkelon, Map x (B 5), 132
Ashman (n)ak, city, 447, 449, 466, 468, 488, 492, 564; god, 438
Ashtart (Astarte), Ashtoreth, 208, 530; see Ishtar
Ashur ^(Ashhur, properly Ashshur ; also Ashir), god, 203, 210, 231, 401, 451 sq., 454 sq., 530 et passim
— land of, Maps X, XI (F 2), 357, 455, 459; city, Map xi (F 3), 401, 407, 439, 4515 temple, 152-155, 490, 502 j Su- merians, 360, 370, 464, 469
Ashur-bani-pal, 128, 149, 155, 392, 448; annals, 218, 471 ; and Babel, 508; library,
55°
Ashur-dan, 149, 153, 155
Ashur-nasir-pal, 127, 543
Ashur-uballit, 153, date, 167
Asia, geological formation, 6-8; primitive man, 24^.; neolithic, 34, 39, 59, 68, 83
Asia Minor, geological formation, 6 sq., 17, 42^.5 *Armenoids,* 29, 61 sq., 77 sq.$ lake-dwelling culture, 71-75; 'band*- pottery, 775 copper and bronze traffic, 104^.5 * tumulus '-folk, 1075 cremation, no; influence on Semites, 1945 silver- Amines, 405, 573, 586
Asses, used by Babylonians, 107, 311, 500^.5 by Egyptians, 311 sq., 320
Assyria, Maps vir, xr, 182, 185, 467-470, 490, 502, 568; surveys of, 123? Assyrian language, 125, 1^6 sq.; use of iron, 109; chronology, 147—156; limmu-lists, 148 ,ff^.; and Babylonia, synchronous chro- nicles of, 149 ,T£,^ Tiglath-pileser I, 152$
art, 1915 Surnerian religion, 3725 Cappa- docian influences, 4^4 sq.
Astronomy, neolithic beginnings, 675 Mesopotamian, 147-156, 201 j HezekiaVs sign, 1615 Egyptian, 167 sqq., 247, 1 326
Aswan, Map vrn (E 8), ri6 sq.9 2,92 sg., 296 ; tomb of Herkhuf, 294
Ata; see Za
Atnh (Aphroditopolis), Map vm (D 3), 268 «., 292
Athaliah, 158, 161
Athens, Map xn (24 E.), neolithic pottery, 603 n*
Athtar, 530; see Ishtar
Ati (Userkere, Usr-ka-Re'), 290
Atlantic Ocean, geological formation, 5 sq.y 9, 12, 455 influence on climate, 165 forest extension, 55, 68, 76; megalithic culture, 98^.
Atlas range, geological formation, 7, 9, 16 sq^ 25; neolithic culture, 62, 68 sq.
Atoti, Athothis, 267, 270
Atum, 330, 351
Aurignac, palaeolithic remains, 47
'Aurignacian ' (late palaeolithic) man, 30, 36, 765 description, 47-50, 58; in High- land Zone, 62, 64, 71 sq.$ art, 675 in Spain, 94
Australian aboriginal type, 48, 65
Austria, Bronze Age, 105
Auvergne, geological formation, 75 neo- lithic man, 61, 99
Avaris (Pelusium), fortified by Hyksos,
233> 312? 314 Awan, dynasty, 367, 6665 province, 407,
437 sq. Axe, 590
Azag-Bau, 370 sq.9 380, 402, 669 Azariah (XJzziah), 162 Azekah, 132 Azil; Azilian (palaeolithic) culture, 50, 62,
64, sq., 71, 76; lake-dwellers, 725 spiral
ornament, 97
Ba, the, 333 sq.7 345, 351
Ba*al, meaning, 207-210, 389; =Yahweh, 215, 2325 =Sutekh, 257, 323; =Bel, 530; in Phoenicia, 216
Bab bar, 380, 395 sq., 402, 444 sq., 474, 484, 529 sq.
Babel, 128 sq.9 225, 234, 503, 505, 5085 see Babylon
Bab el~Mandeb, 254
Babylon, Map VII (C 2), for plan, see 5045 122 sq.y 359, 399, 434, 437, 446 sq.t Chs. xm, xv j excavations, 122x^.3 pre- historic, 407; Kassite dynasty, 107, 312, 563-5695 capture by Persians, 1665 re- ligious centre, 215; Hittite raid, 312, 561 sq.$ legend of Girra, 4735 Ham-
68o'
INDEX
plan and features,
murabi, 487-4935 503-508
Babylonia, Map vn (C 2), list of kings, 665 sqq.', Table of chief events, 656 sqq. ; see also Assyria, Semites, Sumerians; geological formation, 41 ; Surnerian art, 85; language, 1255 chronology, 147-156; First Dynasty, 165; Elamite campaigns, 4715 Semitic origin, 182; language, 186- 188; temples and commerce, 201; nature of kingship, 214; Amorites, 231, 458, 466; Abram (Abraham), 236; its earliest cities, Ch. X; topography, 494—503; fruits, 499; cereals, 500; animals and birds, 500 sq. ; government and society, 508—521; courts and legal procedure, 510-514; private life, 522-528; religious institutions, 529-540 ; ordinary life, 540- 545 ; metals and money, 545 sq. ; burial customs, 547-549; literature, 549-551; art, interrelations with Egypt, 577-588; and the Aegean, 143, 597; Bronze Age, 587
Baghdad, Maps viz (C 2), XI (G 4), 40 sq., 122, 357 sq., 496, 501; Ahbasid Caliphs, 192; Persian influence on Semites* 203; Khian, 175, 313
Baha-ullah, 219
fa'tru, 514—516
bakshish, 528
Balaam, 217
Balikh, the, Map xr (D 2), 358
— legendary king, 665
Balkan peninsula, geological formation, 6 sq., 45 j regional (neolithic) culture, 74, 76, 82 $q.$ copper and bronze traffic, 105; * tumulus* -folk, 107
Ballas., Map vrn (E 7), 241
Baltic area, late palaeolithic, 545 amber- traffic, 79, 104; close of Ice Age, 86
Balulu, 367, 666
Banenliru, Binothris (Neneter), 274, 66 1
Baranamtarra, 385 sq.
Barbotine, 596
Barley, Highland Zone, 6r, 72 ; W. Europe, 63 .r^.; Anau, 87; origin of cultivation, 915 Babylonia, 500, 541 $q.$ at Orcho- menus, 608
Barsamunna, 665
Bashan, geology, 37
Basketry, 69, 925 earthenware substitutes, 66, 73; * beaker *~folk, 100
Basrah, Maps vil (C a), XI (H 5), 129, Ch. XIV, I
Bau, 372, 379, 386, 388, 393^., 425, 430 sq., 443 sq., 448 sq.
Baurded, 289, 294
Bavaria, neolithic culture, 62, 64 sq., 71
'Beaker '-folk, 98, 100-105
Bedouins, the term, 182; representative of Semitic thought, 186; speech, 188-1905
conditions of life, 194; religious attitude, 197, 205, 222; in Romance of Sinuhe, zzj sq.$ in Sinai, 2745 and the camel, 501; bread-making, 543; burial customs, 547 sq.
Beer-sheba, Map XI (B 5), 133 Behistun, Map xi (H 3), 125 sq., 357 Beit Khallaf (north of Abydos, Map vin), „ *76 sq. *
Bel, 150, 446, 529 sq., 553 ; and the Dragon,
551; see Marduk Belat (Belit)-ekallim, 455, 470 Belgium, late palaeolithic culture^ 53;
neolithic, 65, 73, 78 Belit, 566
Bel-kabi, 155; to be read Enlil-kabi Beni-Hasan, Map vin (C 5), 228, 305
575
Beni Mesaid, 190
Berosus, 150—152, 162, 164 sq., 219, 235 sq., 265, 393, 500
el-Bersheh, Map VIII (C 5), 306, 575
Bes, 204
Beth-shemesh, 132
Beulah (be^aWi), 207
Bible, and chronology, Ch. IV, O.X., chronology, 146, 156-166; and Berosus, 152; psychology of Q.T, as literature, 195; O.T., religious value, 197; O.T\ and Mohammed, 1985 (XT. and nature of kingship, 213-216; O.T. and history, 218; historical method, 220; Joshua — Kings, the * Former Prophets/ 222; O.T. the oldest history-writing extant, 222 sq.\ influence on modern conception of history, 2255 see Israel
Bidis, 250
Biiak (Bilechas), 452
Biuneter (Bienekhes), 274
Black Forest, geological formation, 75 neolithic culture, 76
Black Sea, geological formation, 7, 42, 45; extension (neolithic), 83
Blumenbach's * Caucasian* type, 219
Bnon, 313
Bogdanof's 'long-headed* theory, 29
Boghaz Keui, excavations at, 126, 135, 152,
454? 56l> 5^4 Bohemia, geological formation, 6 sq., 45;
neolithic cultures, 48, 51 sq., 74, 76, 78,
99, 101 sq.-9 Tripolje culture, 82, 99, 101;
* bell-beaker* folk, 101; * tumulus *~foik,
107
Bologna, 106
'Book of the Dead/ 072, 283, 321, 351 Borsippa, Map xi (G 4), 397, 493, 506 Bos celticus, at Eridu, 501 Bosnia, neolithic cultures, 74, 78^., 815
Hallstatt swords, 106
Brazil, prehistoric analogies with Eurof <r 48 Breach of promise in Babylonia, -522 sq.
INDEX
Bread-making, in Babylonia, 543 Breasted, J. H., and palaeolithic man in Nile valley, 3 1, 86 $ Egyptian chronology,
173
Brescia, bronze culture, 100, 105
Bricks, 3^4, 382, 582
Britain, geological formation, 5 sq.9 9, 15, I9> 45? 555 neolithic types and cultures, 28 .r^., 48, 73«f<7-5 flora of, relation to Spanish, 68; megaliths, 98; * bell- beakers,' 100; 'round -barrow' folk, 102; ^iallstatt culture, 106; cremation, no
Brittany, megaliths, 98; * bell-beakers,' 100
^Broad-headed* man, distribution, 59 sq., 62, 64 sq.} 71 sq^> 76; seafarers, 72, 104; cremation, 73 ;" band '-pottery, 77^.5 Susa and Anau, So, 85x^7.5 Danubian area, 10 1 ; English and kindred stocks, 102
Broken Hill skull, n, 185 and 'African* fauna, 26
Bronze, invention of, 578
Bronze Age cultures, 103-109 ; Minoan, 62 ; Italy, lake -dwellers, 74; at Anau, 88; Aegean, 93, Ch. XVII; Minoan Crete, 935 'Arrnenoid* or Alpine race, $$sqq.96$sqq^ 93, 10$ sqq.9 periods in Crete, 139; in Thessaly, 141; Hellenic mainland, 142, 244; Greece, 178^.; Hyksos, 29172., 311 sg»$ weapons in Egypt, 319, 572
BrOnn, late palaeolithic remains, 51
Buda-Pesth, * bell-beakers/ 100 sq.
bugask^gz, 553
Bulgaria, neolithic culture, 76; Xripolje culture, 81; * tumulus' -folk, 82
Burial, predynastic Egypt, 35 sqq., 69, 238 sy.t palaeolithic, 46, 51, 65; tomb- pottery, 71; Alpine lake-dwellers, 735 trans- Carpathian tumuli, SI-T^.J Eura- sian steppe, 83 sq.$ of children at Anau, 87; megalithic, 95 -*<?•; cist-graves, 1025 earthen graves, 105; Hallstatt, 110^.5 Sumerian, 377, 381; Ur, 398; Baby- lonian customs, 547-5495 see Mummifi- cation 5 Cretan tholoi, 592^. ; shaft-graves, 596, 608; see Cremation
Buriash, 231, 553
Burna-Buriash J, 521,
Bux-sagale, eponymate of, 149
Bur-Sin, of "Ur, 390, 399 sq.9 405 n,, Ch, Xir
passim, 470, 583, date, 658, 671 — of Isin, 475 sq.9 date, 673 B*isiris (Zedu), Map viir (D 2), 272, 322,
332 sq. Butmir, lake-dwellings, 745 JDamibian
culture, 78
Buto, Map vni (C i), 265- sq, Buzau (Boethos), 267, 274, 661 Byblus, Map xi (B 3), ^191; Amarna
Jstflbrs, 223, 405; and Sinuhe, 226^.5
and Osiris, 332 .
C. In proper names c has been generally used here to represent the Greek /c. It is retained in such familiar spellings as Gush (contrast Kassite). Ch (which is used in French for sh) is soft in Persian (ch in church), but hard in Semitic names (e.g. Chedorlaomer),
Cain and Abel, a typical feud, 66, 206 Cairo, Map viir (D 2), 240, 245 sq. Caledonia, 5 sq. Calendar, Egyptian, 333, date, 6565 Su-
merian, 461 sq.$ see Sothic, Year Camel, the, 501
* Campignian. ' (late palaeolithic) culture,
53? 55> 63~65
Canaan, 184^,, 217, 224; language., 186- 1885 script, 189; invasion of, 193 j traders, 206
Canary Islands, neolithic man, 59
Cappadocia, Map XI (B i), horse-breeding, 107^.5 limynu-lists, 149, 455; Baby- lonian language in, 229, 453 sq. ; Assyrian colony, 191, 230, 467, 490; Sumerian culture, 451 sq., 453—456; Hammurabi, 493^ lead, 546
*Capsian* culture, 36, 52 sq*$ in Spain, 94
Carcassonne, 99
Carchemish, Map XI (D 2), 135, 162, 166, 467, 501, 503
Carpathians, the, geological formation, 7, 10, 19, 42, 45, 52; forests (neolithic), 67 sq.t 75 sq.., 78, So; * Danubian" pottery, 78
Carthage, Semitic colony, 1915 nature of conquest, 195
* Case-tablets/ 453
Caspian Sea, Map XI (I i), southern, geo- logical formation, 7, 44, 52 j late palaeo- lithic, 84
Cassibile, 10^
Castelluceio, 97
Caucasus, the, geological foimation, 6 sq., 10, 18, 425 neolithic man, 46, 59, 62
Caves, W. Europe, 45—47; art, 50; Spain and southern France, 53; palaeolithic culture, 65, 69
*Cevenole* (neolithic) man, 29, 62, 99
Chalcolithic Age, in Egypt and Babylonia, 577; in the Aegean, 590
Chaldean, chronology, 150 sq.$ priests, 191, 222
Chalybes, no
Champollion, 116 sg*y 120, 260
Chancelade, late palaeolithic cave, 54
Chariot, the, in Egypt, 319 sq.
Chedorlaomer, 236, 473 «.
*Chellean* implements, 31 ,*<?., 36, 44, 46^.5 S. Africa, 46,* Spain, 94
Cheops, 281, date, 656; see also Khufu
682'
INDEX
China, and Christianity, 191 Christianity, Semitic origin, 181, 183; a Jewish sect, 198, 223; Jewish and Syrian traders, 1915 idea of world-history, 158 Chronology, Ch. ivj Kassite service to, 568 ;
see tfee tables, 656 sqq. ^
Cilicia, Map xr (62), 39^.? 186; mixed *
art, 588
CIrcesium, Map XI (E 3), 358 Claudius Ptolemaeus, 149 Clay-cylinders, 221 Clothes, 46 sq*
Cnossus, Map xn (inset), Ch. xvxi; pre- Minoan debris, %6 ; neolithic settlement, 98; excavations at, 138 sqq,\ and pre- historic Greece, 173 sqq.$ and Egypt (Middle Minoan period), 1755 Hyksos relic, 3135 early Aegean civilization, Ch. XVII
Cogul, rock-shelters, 94. sq. Combe Capelle, 47
Commagene, Map XI (C 2), iron, 109 Como, lake-dwellings, 74 Constance, palaeolithic negroid remains, 49 Copper-working, earliest objects, 795 origin of, 89—91; Spain, S.E., 103 j and silver, 104; Cyprus, 143 5 in predynastic Egypt, 242-244, 262, 291, 572; Sinai, 3095 Cop- per Age in Egypt, 319, 585; in Sumer, 369, 578, 5865 Girsu figurines, 378 /y.j Magan (qw.), 416; Zagros, 428; Carche- mish, 467, 542, 545 ^.5 Crete, 591 Coptic, modern, 119 Coptos, Maps vii (B 3), viir (E 7), 38, 254,
261, 297, 301, 305, 571, 574 Corinth, Map xn (38 N.), Thessalian pottery, 180; neolithic pottery, 60 3* 608 Corsica, megaliths, 96
Creation, biblical chronology, 157 sq.9 1645 reckoning of Jews and Greeks, 1585 variant accounts, 218; New Creation, 224; Babylonian legend of, 551 Cremation, neolithic Palestine, 39; broad- headed races, 735 lake-dwellers, 73; Tripolje and Anau, 81, no sq. Creneuation, 582
Crete, Map xn (inset), geological forma- tion, 8 .$•<?. 5 Alpine flora, 595 broad- headed type, 625 neolithic culture, 77, 91-93, 103 (see also Minoan Bronze Age) $ norse imported, 108; iron, 1095 Bronze Age in, t%6 sqq.$ influence on Semites, 194, 237; and prehistoric Greece, 173 sq.$ and Egypt, 174^., 571, 589~599> ^a~ mares ware in Fayyum, 3075 Helladic colonies, 608 Crimea, megaliths, 96 * Cro-Magnon* (late palaeolithic) man, 30,
47, 49 Ctesias, 219, 222, 505
Cllilt-ilr^ in rifw-Viiisl-nrTr- -9- Ki<st-nrir»n1 r\t*~
finition, 3, 49; forest, 55x9.; neolithic, 57-102; Bronze Age, 103-111 Cuneiform, 115, 123 sqq., 189, 356, 3755 see
Amarna Ta^^*"81 rT'ar»narlr»r'ia "Mifnnrii
Writing
Cush, 185
Cuthah (Kutha), Map xr (G 4), 359, 394 sq.9 412, 446, 489, 493, 506, 531
Cybele, 599
Cyclades, Map xn (37 N.)? pottery, etc., 77, 91, 93; and Crete, 592, 5955 early, civili- zation, 599—^03; and Troy, 614; jS^e- historic Greece, 1 76 sq. 5 see Minoan Bron 2 Age
Cylinder-seals, earliest, *Syria, 91, 245 •?<?., in Egypt and Babylonia, 255, 263, 271, 285, 581^.5 of copper, 29172.5 bilingual (Egyp to-Baby Ionian), 303 «.; of Shargalisharri, 421 sq.$ of Cappadocia, 453; of Bur-Sin, 457 sq.$ Kassite, 567; in Egypt and Babylonia, 363, 376, 439, 450^., 499, 5815 Syrian, 582, 586; Crete, 592
Cyprus, geological formation, 9, 16; pot- tery types, 34, 77, 89; * broad-headed' man, 625 and Anau, 88; iirst culture? 90; leaf-shaped sword, 109; iron, 109 j^.; periods of civilization, 142^^.5 Amarna letters from (?), 143; and prehistoric Egypt, 1763 Achaean colonies in, 177^.5 and Sargon, 404,^,, 587; and Naram- Siia, 405 *
Cyrus, 162^., 166, 216
Z>. The emphatic d represents the Arabic dad (u-»)- d& (rarely in use for the soft Hebrew *l) represents the Arabic dhal (3).
Dacota, system of * naming* the year, 147 Dagan, 2325 of Gaza (Dagon), 232; in
Mesopotamia, 4x5, 466? 468, 474 sq^
493? 53Q> 5% Dahshur, Map vrn (D 3), pyramids, i2x,
"281, 308, 576 Damascus, Map vn (B 2)^, Ice Age, 43 ;
antiquity of, 184; and Smuhe, 227 Damik-ilishu, date, 674 Damki-ilishu, date, 674 Danxkina, 487 Danauna, 177 Danubian area, 10, 45, 735 neolithic man,
52, 555 elephants, 585 lake-dwellers, 7*5;
and Italy, 74; neolithic culture, 75-805
modified by megalithic, 99; Tripolje, 8 1 ;
* bell-beaker* folk, ior^ Spanish halberds,
104; burial, 105; Hallstatt, 106 Darius, Hystaspes, 125, 162 sq,9 357, 393 Date-palm, rites and beliefs, 207, 341,
543^-5 w- Sumer, 360^., 499,
INDEX
Dati-Enlil, 420
David, 158, 160, 163 jy., r66; and Bath- she ba? 212 sq. 5 historical treatment, 220; and Goliath, 227^.
Dawef, Instructions of, 348
Dead, disposal of; see Burial
Dead Sea, Phoenician tradition, 234^,5
i^Lot and Abraham, 235 sq.
liecapolis, 190, 203
Dedkere (Ded-ka-Re*) Isesi, 288-290, 294, date, 657, 662
Defhfa, 309, 318
Deluge, the, tablet, 129, 150, 152, 157^,,
^164^., 184; Babylonian and biblical accounts contra^ed, 200; variant ac- counts, 218; place in biblical scheme, 2255 Sumerian records, 365, 377, 456 sq.$ Babylonian legend, 497^., 551
"Demotic,* 117, 120
Den $ see Semti
Dendera, Map vnr (E 6), 262; Nebha- petre, 300
Denmark, late palaeolithic man, 53; g-eo- Jogy, 54; Maglemose, 545 lake-dwellers, 73 j megaliths, 985 'round-barrow* folk, 102; horse-owners, 108
Der, 438, 447 sq., 449
el-Der, gulf, 40
Der el-Bahn, Map VIII (E 7), 121 sq., 300, 308, 321, 574
Desert life, influence on Semite develop™ ment,«i 941^.; oases, 206
Deshasha, Map vnr (C 4), 240 5 tomb of Inti, 289 sg.
Deucalion, 184
Dewatj see Duat
'Dialogue of a Man with his Soul,* 345
Diarbekr, Map XI (E 2), 40, 43, 405, 409, 417 sq.y 493; transport, 496
Diet, and form of human jaw, 59 sq., 64
Dilbat, 359, 378, 466, 493, 495
Dilmun, Map Zl (I 6), 358, 360 sq., 379, 416, 503, 544
Dimeh (Dimu), Map viii (C 3), 250
Dinaric system, geological development, 6-8, 19, 25, 42, 765 * broad-headed* man, 29, 62
Diodorus, 167, 178, 260
Diospolis Parva, Map vm (E 6), 247
Diyala, Map XX (G 3), 39 sq.9 357, 414, 428, 440
Dnieper, painted pottery culture, 8o~&2
Dwg, late palaeolithic, 53; at Anau, 87
Domestication, in Nile valley, 355 among primitive Semites, 38; of horses, 51; of grasses (wheat, barley, etc.), 615 neolithic, 66, 69, 75-sy-j 84; at Anau, 87
Dordogne, primitive man, 36, 47 ^.5 *La Madeleine' caves, 50
DrjRadian negroid survivals, 27^.5 ? at Anau, 87
Drehem, 437, 442, 444, 449, 452 sg.9 458 sg.9
471, 534; site, 466; patesi-ship, 510 Driver, S. R., O.T, chronology, i&$ sg. Druzes, the, 212 Duat, 324, 339, 352 Oudkhalia, 236; see Tidal Dudu, 379, 384^., 422^., 669 Dumichen's discovery of Abydos lists, 260 Dungi, *$ssg.9 389 sq.9 435-441, Ch. xn,
508, 510 sq.y 531, 671, date, 658 Dunshaggana, 426
Ea, 395^., 400 sg., 456, 487, 530, 533,
553> 564^ 566;=Serapis, 508 Eabzu, 663
Ea-gamil, 563 sq.9 date, 675 Eannatum, 368 sq., 413, 464, 508, 529, 5485
his Stele of Vultures, 379^., 584, date,
656, 669 ; see Mesilim
Earthenware, neolithic, 66 ; lake-dwellers, 73 Earthquake, mentioned by Amos, 1575 at
Thera, 59772., 603 East AngHa, pre-glacial man, 18, 45 Eber ('ebher) and 'Hebrew,* 185 sg.9 190 Eclipse, of sun, 1495 Hezekiah*s sign, 161 Eden, Garden of, 234 sg, Edfu, Map vm (E 8), 121, z6i, 265, 329 Edom, 184, 193, 2335 and Judah, 216 Egypt; see Map viiij synchronistic table,
656 sqa.-y select list of kings, 66 1 sqq*
— neolithic types and culture, 27, 35 sq., 48; pottery and implements, 34, 45, 63, 72, 77, 895 invaders from Palestine and Syria, 34, 62; nomads, 52; domestication of animals, 69 j copper- working, 90 sq. ; bronze, 103; use of the horse, 107x^.5 wars with Hittites, 1085 leaf-shaped sword, 1095 iron, a precious metal, 1095 surface-exploration in, 116 sq.$ decipher- ment, 1 17^.5 excavation, 120 sqq.$ chronology, 146, 166—173, 3°3 w*> 3I55 Tell el-Amarna ($.<&.), 152; synchronism with ^ Jews, 157, 163 sq.y 222, 3115 Israelites in, 163, 191; Papyrus of kings, 1675 synchronism with Mesopotamian history, 167^.5 language, and Semitic, 187; conquest by Mohammedans, 1925 influence on Semites, 194; first alphabet, 202; functions of the Pharaoh, 214^., 229, 2665 financial ability of Jews, 216; relations with Syria, 226, 290, 2935 Amorite (?) incursions, 231, 340^^.
— Predynastic period, Ch. VI (see also 34, 38, 44); evidence of cemeteries, 238-2475 pottery and stone vases, 243 sq,9 362 ; data for history, 247-256; Petrie*s 'sequence dating,* 247-250; slate palettes, 251—2535 original home of Egyptians, 254-256 (see also 187, 261 sqq.)
— Union of Egypt and the Old Kingdom, Ch* vn 5 lists of kings, Dynasty I, 257-
624
INDEX
274, 6615 unification of kingdom, 261 sq.9 32 9 .$•£.$ Menes, 267^^.5 Semti, 270^.5 natufe of kingship, 272; the Dead and mummi£cation, 272,^.5 Dynasties II- IV, 274-284., 66 r sq.\ Zoser and the first pyramid, 276^.; close of ^the Old King-^ dom, 284—298 ; art and religion, 286 sqq., sea-power, 289; Sixth Dynasty, 290-297, 662; coming of the negroes, 295.^.; Asiatic invasion, 296, 340 sq., 344 Sgypt; Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos Conquest, Ch. viirj Dynasties XI and XII, 299-310, 6635 Arnenemhet, 302^.5 Senusret, 305 sq.9 relations with Crete, 3075 Sesostris and Arnenemhet III, 308 sqq. ; the Hyksos, 310-315, 6645 see also Hyksos ; internal conditions of the age, 315-3255 life of the people, 317^.5 officials and soldiers, 318 sqq.; sea-power, 320, 3485 the tomb and funerary state, 321^.5 cult of Osiris, 322^.5 priest- hood, 323
— Life and Thought in Egypt under Old and Middle Kingdoms, Ch. IX $ solar cults, 330 ,r£.; Osiris legends, 332^.; beliefs regarding death, 335-3405 lan- guage and writing, 341 sqq. (see also 119); early literature, 343 -fr^.j the Middle Kingdom, 346—355; moral standards, 347x^.5 ethics and religion, 350-355; coffin texts, 351 sq*$ art, 570— 577 j relations with Babylonia, 577-584, and Crete, 591
— Exploration. Society, 121
(Hermopolis Magna), Map vm
^khtai I ; see Meriebre
— IX, 297 sq.y date, 663
£1 (or Al), the Arabic article, is ignored in
the alphabetical arrangement; see A?
Amarna, Obeid, etc, £1, 207—209, 236; in personal and place
names, 2105 see also Ilu £Iah, king, 159 £lam, Map xi (H 4), script, 123; Semitic
origin, 185, 191 sq.\ and *Amor," 230;
Hammurabi, 230; Chedorlaomer, 236;
invasion of Egypt, 245 sq.*> 518 ; neolithic
remains at Susa, 361, 363, 376; Sargon,
404, 408^9,5 Naram-Sin, 415, 418;
deities, 447 sq*, 456 sq. ; prehistoric pot-
tery, 578 sq.$ see Ashnunnak Slba, copper ores, 104 slbe, river, neolithic, 76; 'round-barrow*
folk, 1 02
Elephant, the, in Syria, 43 ; neolithic, 51, 58 Elephantine, Map viil (E 8), 122, 126,
2045 Anath-yahu, 233; princes of, 296 iullasar, 398; see Larsa Dlmuti, 6 6> 9
Eloquent Peasant, Story of the,' 349 Llulu, 367, 666, 669
Emisum, date, 672
Emutbal, 449 j"^., 483, 488, 556 sq.
Enakalli, 669
Enannatum, 379, 381, 397, 399, 669
— II, 3?4
— of Isin, 475 Enbi-Ashdar, 369, 667 Enbilulu, 447 Enetarzi, 384^^., 669 'Enezib, 273, 66 r Enfida, megaliths, 96 Engilsa, £69
Engur (Gur), 435
Eniggal, 385 sq.
Enkhegal, 375? 378, 66S
Enid, 356, 375, 377, 391, 395^., 399^-5
Chs. x-xni; 497^., 530, 583 Enkidu, Engidu, 367, 4.22, 500 Enkigal, 390 Enlil, 208, 275, 356, 366, 369^9., 375,
391^., 399, 402, 405, 434, 452, 527;
Chs. x-xiv
Enlil-bani, 365, 482, 490, date, 673 Enlil-kabi, 155 (for Bel-kabi), 490 Enlil-kapkapu, 672 Enlil-nadin-apK, 154, 563 Enlil-nasir, date, 675 Enlitarzi, 385^., 669 Enmenuiina, 665 Enmerkar, 666 Enoch, 220
Enosh and Yah well-worship, 198,^35 Eiishagkushanna, 369, 376, 393? 668 Entemena, 368^., 372^5-., 380, 382^.,
3^7? 39*> 398? 433? 566? 586? 669
En-ul, 475
Enzu, 489, 530 sq.
Eoliths, u, 31, 36, 45
Eratosthenes, 178
Erech (Uruk),Map XI (G 5), 128, 359, 373, 393, 402, 404, 423, 444, 447 sy*9 449> 472 sq., 532, 562 sq. j dynasties of, 366 sq., 434, 465, 657, 666, 668^.5 name, 396; astronomers of, 397; capture by Larsa, 486; by Hammurabi, 487
Ereshkigal, 394, 425, 490, 531, 549, 569
Eri-aku (=Arad-Sin,), 236, 473 n.
Eridu, Map xi (H 5), 356, 359^., 39*» 396, 398 sq.9 442, 481, 501, 577; neolithic remains, 361, 400; pottery, 362, 377; myth of Adapa, 400 sq., 496 sq. ; stone arrowheads, 540; harvest, 542; burials at, 548; site, 555
Enshu, i £4
Erridupizir, 670
Erzerum, 40
Esarhaddon, 154^., 448; and Babel, 508
Esau (Usoos), 206, 233, 235
Eshmun, temple of, 133
Eshmun-Ashtart, 208
Eshrnunazar, 133
INDEX
'685*
Esparto, and ' beaker '-folk, 100 Essenes, the, 212 Este, metal- work, 106 Etana, 365 sq.9 551, 665 Ethbaal, 160
Etruria, cfSpper ores, 104; metal-work, 106 Euphrates, Map xr (D 2, F 4), geological i formation, 40 sq.9 42, 44 j red-ware 2 culture on the upper, 89; Chesney's
survey, 122^7., 356-361, 383, 421, 4285
Sumerian decline, 464 j Amurru, 467;
transport, 4965 water-wheels, 5025 at
Babylon, 505 ?iurafrican flora and fauna, 12, 265 geo-
logical formation^ 12, 15 sq.y 19; palaeo-
lithic man, 36 sq., 615 neolithic, 55,
64, 69 Eurasian 'Flatland/ 15, 62; and Sarmatian
sea-basin, 83; * red-ochre* surface graves,
83^ European peninsula, geological formation,
3-185 45-52; N.W., subsidence, 53; S.E.,
forest, 75; N., c bell-beakers,' 1005 Hall-
statt, first general culture, 106-111: Eusebius, 145 sq.y 150^., 165, 178, 250 Evans, Sir Arthur, in Crete, 138, 597 Evil-Merodach, 162 Exile of Jews, 157, 159; its length, 163 sq.$
return, i66j modification of Judaism, 221 Exodus, 157? 159, 163 j^., i66y 236, 3115
variant accounts, 219 $q* Eyuk, I^uyuk; see Kara Euyuk Ezra, 162, 1 6 6, 212; and Mosaism, 221
F. See P.
Faience, 270, 276, 320, 576^., 598
*Fall* of Man, 457
Fayyum (or Faiyum, Fayum), Map vru
(C^s), the, 121, 250, 254, 256, 309;
Middle Minoan remains in, 307 Fenni, the, 55 Finns, ancestry, 54 Fishing, late palaeolithic, 35 •*"#** $ 2, sq.$
lake-dwellings, 72 'Flatlands,' pre-glacial, N. (Eurasian), 15,
17;
15,
W.
515 S. (Eurafrican),
(Saharan), 16, 25 Flax, 72
Fle"nu, late palaeolithic remains, 53 Fleure, on palaeolithic survivals in Wales,
3°
Flgod, the, 129, 5515 see Deluge Forests, 15, 20, 24, 27, 55-57? ^7 ^-? 74* 83 France, caves, 45 sq.? 53, 71^.5 neolithic
cultures, 47 sg.y 52 sq.y 62, 71 sq.\ lake-
villages, 73; * bell-beakers/ 1005 Hall-
statt culture, 106 Furfooz, neolithic deposits, 65 FutfcA life, Egyptian ideas of, 346-355;
among the Semites, 202, 531
G occurs in Egyptian- Arabic for the j (.j,) used elsewhere (e.g. Gebel=^Jebel},
gk (rarely in use for the soft Hebrew J) represents the hard Arabic g&ay (c,7
resembling the French, r grasseye"), for which g is used in some systems.
Gad (god and people), 210, 231
Gafsa, palaeolithic remains, 36, 52
Galicia? neolithic cultures, 76, 80—82, 102, 107
Galu-Babbar, 670
Galumum, 665
Gandash (Gaddash), 563, date, 659, 675
Garonne, the river, palaeolithic remains, 47 j neolithic, 68
Gath (?), excavations of, 132
Gatumdug, 429 sq^ 431
Geb, 250, 331
Gebel el-*Arak (south of Girgeh, Map viri D 6), 252, 255 sq.t 580 sq.
Genealogies, representing political divi- sions, etc., 157, 184 j^., 234^^.
Genesis, Book of, and geology, 4; chrono- logy? *57» and Hesiod, 184^.5 Israelite standpoint, 186; historical value of, 225; see Babel, Cain and Abel, Flood, Hammurabi
Georgia, lake-dwellings,. 745 megaliths, 96 sq.
Gerba, 104
Germany, northern, megalithic culture, 98 sq.9 104; Hallstatt culture, 106; horse- owners, 1 08
Geshtin, 396
Geshtin-anna, 425
Gezer, 2.2,8 sq.', cremation, no; High Place of, 132^.5 pig-cult, 237
Ghadames, oasis of, 36
Ghassanids, the, 190, 193 j Greek influence, 203
Ghats, the, 37
Gibraltar, 36, 58
Gidar, 553
Gideon, 163, 211
Gilgamesh, 204, 256, 366, 386, 421 sq,, 433,
447* 5°°> 52^ S3>* 53 2* 539? 543? 545?
550, 562 sq., 567, 666 Gimil-Durul, 423, 669 Gimil-ilishu, 474, date, 672 Gimil-mama, 669 Gimil-Shakhan, 370^ 668 Gimil-Shushinak, 440 Gimil-Sin, of Ur, 436, 443 sq., 449 sq.y
458 sq., 468, date, 658, 671
— of Akshafc, 370, 668
— of Kish, 669
Girga, Girgeh, Map VIII (D 6), 242, 252 Girra, 473, 539, 551
686T
INDEX
Girra-Imittij date, 673
Girsu, 373 sq.f 37s ty, 3%* s<2*
Gishzid&, 401
Gizeh, Giza, Map vm (D 3), 34, 244; Temple of Sphinx at, 121, 2795 pyramids of, £Si sq.
Gizil-Sin, 675
Glass, 243, 576 sq.
Glastonbury, lake-villages, 74
God, Semite conception of, 196^.; Ju- daism and Mohammed, 198 j see Baal, El, Yahweh
Gold, in predynastic Egypt, 242, in Baby- lonia, 586
Gomorrah, 234 sq.
'Gondwana/ 5, 9
Gournia^ Map xri (inset), 139 sq.y 59#
Gozo (Gigantea), 92 j megaliths, 96
Granada, copper ores, 103
Greece, Bronze Age, civilization, 34 sqq., 6$sqq., 93, 105^., 244; periods, 142; iron, no; prehistoric chronology, 173- 1 80 ; Egyptian records, 1 74^7. ; intercourse with Semites, 5685 Bronze Age, 587
Greek eponymous chronology, 1485 in- fluence on Semitic thought, 202 sq.
Greenland, geological formation, 6, 15; African flora, 12
Crenelle, neolithic deposits, 65
'Grimaldi* negroids, 37, 49
Gudea, 129, 171 sq., 405 n.9 425, 426-433, 441X0., 583, 6575 statues, 428-4325 cylinder-seals, 5675 relief, 585, date, 670
Gu-edin, 380, 389
Guipuzcoa, 48
Gula, 390, 393 sq.9 414, 438, 443, 447, 553, 566
Gulkishar, 154, 156, 563, date, 675
Gungunum, 476 sq.9 478 sq,, date, 658, 672
Gurob, Mycenaean vases at, 177
Gutium, 421, 434, 439, 441, 448 sq., 452, 457, dynasty of, 670
H. As distinct from the ordinary hard breathing (H)> Hebrew has a gut- tural represented by kh or, in familiar names, by h (hence more correctly dis- tinguished as K) • Arabic has a softer and a harder variety, represented by h («~)
and k or kh (*-). There is no hard
breathing in Assyrian-Babylonian, and k (#.g. Habiru, Hammurabi) represents k (strictly the harder fe or kfi}. To avoid complicated transliterations h has been added to k, /, and / (which see) to ex- press the soft consonants k&9 $h and thy although these spellings might stand for
the two consonants k (s, /) and k (the hard breathing), and the doubled forms (e.g. Ashshur) are ungraceful.
Haau, 307
Habiru (Khabiru), = ? Hebrews (y.*^.), 232, 234, 420
Hadad, god, z%T.$see also Adad, Rammanir
Hagar,a 538 r
Haggai, 162
Hagia Triada, Map xn (inset), Late Minoan remains, 139^., 176, 593
Hajiar-Kim, 92
Haifa; see Esparto
wS.di Haifa, 305, 307 ^
Hallstatt culture, 106—1115 iron, 109x5-.; burial and cremation, no sq.
Hal-Tarshien, 92
Halys, river, Map xr (B i), 42, 469; Su~ merian culture, 453
Ham, son of Noah, 185
Hamadan, Map xi (I 3), inscriptions, 124
Hamath, Map XI (C 3), Hittite inscriptions at, 135
'Hamitic* stock, 385 language, 187; mixed races, 28, 187, 255, 261
wadi Hammamat (Map vin, E, F 7), 246, 254, 261
Hamrnan, 390
Hammar, 496, 555
$ammurabi, 91, 303 n.9 439, 449, 467, 477, 487-493; chronology, 147 sq., i$r, 154- 156, 163, 165, 225; conquest of Elamitcs and of *Amor," 230, 493; ?a bedouin, 230; contemporary gods, *Amor?* 231; and Dagan, 2325 H. =Amraphel of Shl- nar, 2365 « ? Khammurapikh, 467, 493; general conditions of his age, Ch. XIV; attitude to priesthood, 510 ; "money- values, 545; date and summary, 659, 674
Hammurabi's Code, code discovered, 1305 legal code, psychology of, 196; poly- theism of, 199; personal vengeance re- stricted, 211; secularizing- tendency, 222; social usages, 236; origin of code, 461; contents, 512-528
Hanover, Hallstatt swords, 106
ysapi, 272-274
H'ap-zef], 305, 309
Harmhab, 168
Harpocrates, 322
Ktarran, Map xi (D 2), 234, 237
Harri, the; see Kharri
Harshef, 352
Hathor, 122, 226, 351; temple at Dendera, 300; Sinai, 329
Hatshepsut, 176
Hawara, Map viu (€3), 309
Hebrews, language, 125, 133, 18 6,^188; Semitic race, 182; ancestry, 185 sq.'f^old script, 189; invader^ 1935 chronology,
INDEX
-68?
158^.; literature, 195^.3 poetry, 196; = Habiru, Khabiru, 2325-2345 in Harran, 234$ Aramaeans, 234; Amorites, 237, 420
Hebron, Map viir (H i), 157
Heidelberg, 45
Heliopolif* (On), Map viri (D 2), 262, 284^., 287, 3055 sun-worship, 330^.5 judgment of Osiris, 353
.-Jelladic culture, periods, 142$ region, 174, 176 sq.\ civilization, 602, 603—609
Hellen, 184
Hellespont, the, a river, 59; neolithic forest, 75; Danubian culture, 795 * tumulus *- . folk, 82
Hemaka, 271 sq.
hemtiu, 317*3., 34y
Hepatoscopy, 201, 403, 409
Heracleopolis (Hininsu), Map viri (C 3), 297> 299, 302, 352
Herkhuf (Hr-Khu-f), 289, 293-295, 347
Hermonthis (Erment), Map virr (E 7), 299, 302
Herodotus, 119; on Scythia, 4; Asia Minor, 42; lake-dwellings, 74; Thracian funerals, 1 1 1 ; on Egyptian buildings, 116, 121$ Assyrian empire, 151 sq.$ Egyptian chronology, 167, 178; Susa and Sardes, 185; and Ctesias, 219; origin, of Phoenicians, 234; founding of Tyre, 23 6 j Menes, 259; Egyptian historv> 2605 Cheops, 281; Mycerinus, 282 j Nitocjis, 296; dirge of Maneros, 324; KvXXrjo-rts, 500; Babylon, 503, 505
Hesiod, use of genealogies, 184
Hetepsekhernui, 274
Heth, 184 sqq.
Het-hotep-Senusret, 307
Hezekiah, 158 sq., 161, 166
Hieraconpolis, Map vui (E 7), 2,53, 265— 268, 2765 Pepi I, 291, 584
Hieratic script, 1st Dynasty tombs, 245; development, 343
Hieroglyphs, 35, 118; 1st Dynasty, 2455 origin, 263^.5 development, 342^,, 363, 372, 3765 conventionalized, 574; see Writing
Highland Zone, geological formation, 8, 14^., 17, 28; primitive cultures, 34, 37, 47, 57-65, 85-89
Hijaz, the, 184; Naram-Sin, 416
&j&e\ 354^,; cf, mana, 209
Himalayan range, geological formation, 6-8, 21 sqg.; 'Arctic* fauna, 12
Hmdu-Kush, geological formation, 6y 8 sq*,
19, 44, 605 primitive races, 21 Hiram, 160
Hissarlik, Schliemann at, 136^., 6135 ^rBt
city, 89, 613; second city, 79 .$•£., 82, 90,
97, 613; Anau, 885 bronze, 103, 105$
ajj^feer, 1055 (sixth city) iron, 109 sq.
History and Archaeology, relation of.
Semite treatment of, 217-2255 see Genealogies
lit, Map xi (F 4), 40 s%., 44, 358? 496
iittites, 184-186, 417, 423, 4525 H. and Semites, 192; wars with Egyptians and Phrygians, 1085 empire, 1355 writing, 144; cuneiform tablets, 152; Teshub, god, 231; H. and Jerusalem, 233^.5 physical characteristics, 263; capture of Babylon, 312, 5615 H. in Assyria, 407; in Cappadocia, 454-4565 Carchemish, 467, 469, 503, 519; in Babylonia, 561 sq., 568
Hntimentiu, 273
Homer, 173 sq~\ *Achaeans,* 1085 iron, no; cremation, 1115 the Troy of, 613
Hordedef (Hor-ded-f), 283, 324
Horeb, Mt, 190
Horites, 235; see ELharu
Hormuz Strait, Map VII (D 3), 37
Horse, the, and Man, 225 primitive Semites, 38; Solutre, 51 5 Eurasian steppe, 84; first systematic use, 106—108 ; Hyksos* invasion of Egypt, 311, 319^.5 Aryan invaders of Mesopotamia, 312, 499, 501, 561, 568
Horus, festival, 1665 * Romance of Sinuhe,* 228, 250 jy.j sHorus-Egyptians,* 261 sq.$ "Horns-names/ 265, 285; Horus-Kings, 266 »., 276, 339, 351 jv?.$ origin of H., 328 j-^.j *of the Horizon,' 331, 3385 and Set, 332
Hoshea, 1 60 sq.
Hotepsekhemui, 274, 66 1
Hriu-sh*a, 292 sq.y 295
Hsapti, 270, 66 1
Hsekiu, 266, 66 1
Hu, 328
Hungary, early palaeolithic remains, 46 sq.\ neolithic remains, 51, 585 lake-dwellings, 74; parkland, 76; * round-barrow* folk, 102; Hallstatt swords, 1065 horse- breeding, 107 sq.
Huni, 277
Huxley's theory of the "white* races, 29
Huzefa, 66 r
Hyksos invasion of Egypt, 150, 156, 166, 169, 232 sq.y 262; supposed reference in the O.T., 163 sq.y 23 7 j later traditions, 157, 2225 northern origin, 232 ^.5 occu- pation of Egypt, 169^., 173, 233, 3155 their history, 311 sqq.y 3235 remains at Cnossus, 175; use of bronze by, 291 «., 311 sq.9 319, 5725 list of kings, 313, 664
/. In the spelling of Arabic words i and e are often, interchanged (e.g. Hejaz, Hijaz).
Fahmases, 311
lannas, 313
INDEX
larlagash, 670
Iberian peninsula, 62, 68 sq.
Ibi-Sin, 437, 450, 453, 459 sq.9 469, 471 sq.9 510 sqq., 671
Ibla, 405, 417, 452> Gudea, 427
Ibn K&aldun, theory of history, 223 sq, \
Ibriz, 135
Idin-Dagan, 474, date, 672
Igigi? 669
Ikh, the, 333 sq.9 345
Ikhnaton (for Akhenaten, Khuenaten, etc.), 121, 153, 167$ accession, 173; religion, 168, 199, 214, 216$ palace, 176
Ikui, 299, 302
Ikunum, date, 673
Ilbaba (for Zaniama), 372, 394, 466, 489
Illahun, el-Lahun (in Fayyum, Map vm), pyramid, 307
Iltani, 537
Ilu, 2 1 1 ; see also El
Iiuma~ilu, 154, 555~559> date, 659, 674
IIu~shuma, 1545 470, 490, date? 673
Im, god, 530
Imbia, 670
Imhotep (I-m-htp, Greek Imouthcs), 276, 324, 582
Irni, 669
Implements, palaeolithic, Chellean, 44, 46; Mousterian and Acheulian, 465 Aurig-- nacian, special types, 50 j Solutrean missile weapons, 51; transverse edge (Campig- nian), 63 j grinding, 64
— neolithic, new outlook, 6$sq.9 use of wood (axe and bow), 655 war-weapons, 67, iQ%sqq.$ Alpine lake-dwellings, 72; flat edges, 735 Danubian adze, 76 sq.-y Anau, first and second cultures, 875 Spanish halberd, 1045 Hallstatt swords, 1 06
— transitional, Sumerian, 361, 400, 496^.5 Egyptian, metal, 572.; Cretan, metal, 592
— See also Mace-heads, War Imten, 2-78 sq.
Imtis, 2,92
Imu-Shamash, 386, 669
India, peninsular, and Arabia, 375 I. Ocean, 43 ; trade-routes, 183, 1915 mega- liths, 975 Aryan irruption, 107; crema- tion, in
Indo-African flora and fauna, 9 sq.9 43
Indo-Europeans, and Semitic languages, I87> 195-r^.j influences on Semites, 194; descent into Media, 3115 and Mitanni, 469 j deities^ 553; see India, Mithra, Varuna
Indra, 312
Ingishu, 670
Iniotefi (Intefi), 299, 302, date, 663
Iniotef-*o, 299, 3015 royal house, 310, date, 663
Innana, the deity, 4895 Innina, 468, 489; Innini, 369, 380, 387, 395^., 413* 424^-, 438, 444, 448, 472, 474, 529 sq.j 533 ; and Sargon, 404, 407 sq.9 mouth 01, 461 sq.
Innannu, an official, 566
Intef II, 300; Theban kings of soutlv 310^.5 Nubkheperre, 313, 324 f
Insi9 z66 sq.
Intef- *o, 299, 302
Inti, tomb of, 226, 289 sq.
Intiu (pillar-folk), 261 sq,
Ip, 267; see also * Scorpion, the*
Ipuwer (Ipu-u6r), 325,^341, 344^., 352
Iran, 357; geological formation, 6 sq.9 10 sq., 37, 42^.; Chellean implements, 445 domesticated animals, 695 invasion from Central Asia, 3 64 sq. ; influence on Semites, 194; on religion of Israel, 198
Ireland, primitive races, 48, 68, 73 sq.$ megaliths, 98; "bell- beakers,* 1005 Spanish halberds, 1045 Hallstatt culture, 1 06; leaf-shaped swords, 109
Iris, river, 42
Irishum I, date, 673
— II, date, 675
Iron, at Anau, 88; close of Bronze Age, 109 sq»$ precious metal, 1095 in pre- dynastic Egypt, 242$ time of Ramses III,
5.7*
Irrigation, Nile valley (palaeolitl^c), 355 in Semite culture, 2175 Babylonian methods, 502; canals, 5415 see also 382 sq.9
39*
Isaac, of Antioch, 204 Isani Magoula, early Greek pottery, 180 Isharlim, 230
Ishbi-Girra, 471-474, date, 658, 672 Ishkhara, 456 Ishkibal, date, 675 Ishme-Dagan, 155
— of Isin, 474 sq.9 date, 672 . — of Assyria I, date, 474 II, 569, date, 675
Ishtar, 208, 231, 395^.", 424, 443, 456^ 461, 466, 470, 472, 474, 488 sq>9 492, 529^., 530, 562, 566; and jargon, 403 .$"<?., 415; stele of Naram-Sin, 417; gates of, at Babylon, 506$ I. and Gilga- mesh, 522, 550; at Erech, 539; and Tarn muz, 5515 of Nineveh, 5695 see Ashirat, Ashtart, Atbtar
Ishtar- Chemosh, 208
Ishu-el, 370, 668
Isin, Map xi (G 5)1, 360, 393, 444, 493, 556^.; dynasty, 152, 155^, 3#5> 3$%> 465, 470—486, 672 sqq.9 capture of, as an
1 Now probably to be identified with Bahriyat, about 17 m. south of Nippur Langdon; see jf.R,J.$., 1922, p. 431).
INDEX
era, 148, 4865 occupied by Amorites?, 2315 capture by Larsa, "486; by Ham- murabi, 487
Isir; see Ka-di
Isis, 305,^528, 331 sq.
Islam, Semitic origin, 181, classical Arabic,
1 88 sq.$ a nomad movement, 1905 in-
•^ fluence of desert life, 194; characteristics,
* 200 sq., 212; its rise, 233
Israel, chronological methods, 157^^.5 Aramaean wars, 159^.5 in Egypt, 1635 Reparation from Judah, 166, 21 5 ^.5 I. and Christianity, 183; Yahweh, 185, 213; language, 186; influence of dsssrt life, 194; non-Sejmtic religious influences, 198; characteristics, -212. sqq.\ as traders, 191, 216; as historians, zzzsgq.} rela- tion to Samaritans, 2165 and Amorhes, 237; see Bible, Hebrews, Jacob
Istabulat, 370, 464, 469
Italy, primitive races, 34 sqq., 74, 2445 south, neolithic remains, 92, 104; "bell- beakers,* 1005 copper culture, 101 sq.^ metal traffic, 104 sq. ; iron finger-rings, 109; cremation, no sq.
Iter-pf-sha, date, 673
Ithobal, 1 60
Itht-tpui, 302, 304, 306, 309 sq~
Itti-ili-nibi, date, 674
/, In biblical names and in German transliterations y corresponds to English y; there is no j in Hebrew. In Egypt the Arabic/ (-*,) still retains its original
hard sound g (so e.g. gsbel^ mountain3).
Jabal, 206
Jacob (Ya'akobh), 164, 190; and Esau, 206; and L-aban, 207; in Israelite history, 224, 2335 an Aramaean, 2345 and Abraham, 235
Jacob-baal, on Hyksos scarab, 233
Jacob-el (otherwise read as Jacob-her), Hyksos king, 2335 town of Palestine, 233; see Yekeb-ba'al, Yekeb-hal
Jafnites, 190
Japheth, 184^., 216^*
Jastrow's chronology, 156
Java, Trinil brain-case, 18
Jehoiachin, 162, 166
Jehoiakim, 162
Jeiioshaphat, 159
Jehovah, 185/2.; see Yahweh
Jehu, 158, i6q, 166; and Ahab, 215
Jerabis, Map XI (D 2) j see Carchemish
Tericho, 132, 228
Jeroboam I, 158, 160, 172
— y, 161 sq.f 166
Jerl&y, cave, 46
Jerusalem, Maps vi^(B 2), vin (H i), South
C.A.H. I
Wall, 1325 Herod's Temple, 1335 date of fall, 1585 Hezekiah's defence, 1615 siege by Nebuchadrezzar II, 162, r66^ wealth due to trade, 183, 1915 a religious centre, 2155 Amarna letters, 2235 Indo-Euro- pean and Hittite influences, 232^9.5 and Ezekiel, 233 sq.$ and Melchizedek, 236
Jokhaj see Umma
Joktan, 185^.
Jordan valley, geological formation, n, 395 and Arabia, 38 sq.
Joseph, 163 sq.
Josephus, 150, 157, 1 60, 162 sq., 311
Josiah, date, 166
Jubilees, Book of, 18^, 219
Judah, chronology of kings, 158 ^.5 fall of king-dom, 161 sq.$ relations with Israel, i66a 213, 215^.; queen-mothers of, 207
Judaism, 181, 198, 201, 221; and Moham- medanism, 198
Julian calendar, 168; see Sothic
Julius Africanxis, 145, 165
Jura forest, 76, 78
Justin, on the Phoenicians, 234
K. For the emphatic k (Jj, p), as
distinct from the ordinary k (*5), 3)>
some systems prefer q. kk Is used to
avoid the special form k (strictly ff),
except in names which are more or less
familiar.
Ka, the, 333 sq., 351
&z, Babylonian measure, 535 et -passim
Ka (Kebh, Sen), king, 274, 66 1
Ka-azag, 669
Kadashnian-turgu, 167
Ka-di of Der (Isir, Izir), 208, 372, 394, 438,
448 sq. Kahun (in Fayyum, Map vm), papyrus,
1 68; Middle Minoan remains at, 175,
307
Kakau, 274, 284 sq+f 66 1 Kakrnu, 490 sq.
Kakovatos, Map xu (37^- N.), 139 Kalakh, Map XI (F 2), 468, 502 Ka mares (Kamarais), Map XII (inset), ware,
140, 307 Kamase (Ka-mases, Kames), 314^., date,
664
Kamulla, 553 Kara Euyuk, mines, Semitic colony, 191*
4705 cuneiform tablets, 453 sq. Karkar, 160, 166 Karnak, Map Vin (E 7), 259, 305; temple
of Amon, 3013 king-list, 302 Karun delta, 39 Kashshl, 552; see Kassites KashshG, 553, 564
44
6go
INDEX
Kashtiilash I, 467 sq,9 493, 564, date, 675 — II, date, 675
Kashtubila, 407, 479
Kasr of Babylon, the, ^06
KassitSs, 392, 468, 510, 528, Ch. XV ;\ dynasty, 1075 chronology, 148, 152 sq.9 1565 Semitization? 186, 192; gods, 231, 312, 553; see Kashshu; K. and the horse (<7.<t>.), 499 j land-tenure, 566 sq.; art, 567; dates, 675
baunates, 364, 370, 417, 429, 438, 440, 451,
459
Kawamil (near Suhag, Map viil (D 6)), 254 Kazalla, 407 sq.9 414, 437, 440, 479 sq.9 482;
patesis of, 510
Kedme = Kedem, *the East,' 227 Keftiu, 176, 597
Keith's theory of broad-headed types, 30 Kent's Cavern, 58 Kerbela, Map IT (44 E.), 41 Kerkhah (Ashnunak), Map XI (I 4, 5), 39,
357, 361, 447
Kerkuk, 423, 470; see Arrapkha Kesh, 423 sqq., 443 fq.9 449, 493 Khaankre Sebekhotep, 663 Khabiruj see Habiru Khabur • river, Map XI (F 2, 3), 40, 358,
370, 415, 467, 493, 503 Khafrc (Kh*af-R*6), 277, 279, 281 sq.9 284,
288, 574; date, 662 Khahetepre Sebekhotep IV, 663 Kka-ta~m? 2335 see Khian Kh*a-kau-Rs", 307 [Chakheperre, 306^., date, 663; see Sen-
usret II EChala, 553
IChamaat (Kh*a-Ma*at), 283 Khamazi, Khalium, 6735 dynasty of, 367,
667
Khamniurapikh, 467, 4935 see Hammurabi Khana, Klhani, 230, 562, 564, 569 Khaneferre (Ktf a-nfr»Re')y 286, date, 662 Kharba-Shlpak, date, 675 Kharbe, 553 Kharri, the, 312 Kharn (southern Palestine}, 235 Kh'asekhem (Besh), 270, 275 x^., 285, 66% KVasekhemui, 272, 275 sq.9 280, 284, 296,
300, 662 - KhaKanUy 565 KhenerSs, 66 1 Khentamentlu, 322^ Khentekhtai-uer, 306 Kheperkere (Khpr-ka-Re')3 305, date, 663 5
see Senusret I Khepri, 331
Khian (or Khayan), 233, 3115 cartouche at Cnossus, 175, 593; lion at Baghdad,
*75» 3i3
Khnum, 204, 284
Khnum-hotep, 306, 311
Khorsabad, Map xr (F 2), 127
Khud (or Khulakh)-Klia, 553
Khufu, 277? 281^.; portrait of, 2835^.5 in Westcar Papyrus, 331 sq.9 d^te, 662
Khumbaba, 367
Khunikhummu, 465
Khu-toui-Re*, 310, 663 J
Ki, value of the Bab. -Ass. sign placed fafte?r names of lands, or of peoples called after a city, 398 etc.
Kibal-sabati, 488
Kikia, 453, 469 sq., 658, date, 672
King, t. W., excavations, 130, 46?^ chronology, 156
Kingship, Semite coun-c^Jons of, 207^^.5 divine, 213-216; Sumex-ian, 413, 422? in the Romance of Sinuhe, 229; Egyptian ( ?) totem-representation of, 246 5 * Horus- name,* 265^.; Osiris, 333 $q.9 338; Gudea, 4265 Ur-Engur, 435 sq.$ Dungi, 437; King-worship, 450, 456-459; Su- nierian theology, 460 sq. 5 month of divine king, 462; change in character of Babylonian, 511
Kir, 234; ? = Ur (q.v.)
Kish, Map xi (G 4), 380, 386, 412, 414, 434^., 446, 464 sq., 480, 489, 493, 506, 557 s$~y Sumerian tradition, 152; meaning of name, 3 695 water- supply, 3 59; dynasties °£ 3^5? 3^7^ 4%> 665 5 ^sts? 667> 672 sqq.$ third dynasty of, 367 sq., 66 j$ fourth dynasty of, 370^., 669; religion, 393^.5 K. and Sargon, 404, 412
Kishari, 439
Kitchener of Khartum, Lord, 131
* Kitchen-middens,' 53 sqq-} polished imple- ments, 635 Danish, 64; Portuguese, 955 predynastic Egyptian, 241 sq.
Knives, *Aurignacian,* 50; *SoIutrean,* 51; primitive Egyptian, 242, 570
Kom Ashrm (in the Fay yum, Map vni), 250
Kopet Dagh, 80
Koptos; see Coptos
Koran, the, 209, 219, 2245 *n classical Arabic, 188; as literature, 196; why written, 217
Koseir (Ku^r), Map vnr (G 6), 38, 254, 261, 306, 583
Krain, horsemen of, 108
Krapina, 'Neanderthal* remains, 47, 58
Kudda, 670
Kudur-Enlil, 153
Kudur-Mabuk; see Kutur-Mabuk
'Kurgan,* 81, 84; cf, Tumulus-folk, 83
Kurnah, Map ix (47 J E.), 501
Kurunitu, 448
Ku-su, 535
Kut eKAmara, Map IX (32^- N.), 36^, 497
Kutur-Mabuk, 330, 236, 473 «,, 474,^76, 483 *?•* 536» 659, daj;e, 673
INDEX
Kutur-nakhkhunte, 155, 471, 510, date,
672 •
Kuyunjik, Map XI (F 2), excavations at,
Laban, z€j La chares, 307
Lachish, 132 sq., 2265 iron weapons, 1095 ^Petrie's sequence-dating-, 114 Ladoga swamp -settle men ts, 54 Lagamal, 236, 466
LafRash,. Map xr (H 5), 129, 149, 171, 364, 369, 373-3^8, 390, 399 sq., Ch. xr,
435> 44i~447? 45s •*•£** 493* 567> 585 ^-5
site, 360; neolith^ remains, 361; pottery,
3625 rise of priesthood, 385^.5 patesis,
667 sqq.
Lagoa Santa, prehistoric skulls, 48 el-Xakrn, Tell, Map ix (31 N.), burials,
548^.
Lahun, Map vni (CD 3), 309, 576 Laibach, lake-dwellings, 74 Lake-cjw^ings* Alpine, 52, 72-75; crema-
tion, 73, 8 r, 101, iioj Danubian culture,
78; Anau, 87; Rhine, 99 Lakhmids, the, 193? 203 Laluralim, 393 Landshut, 105
Lang^don's chronology, 1565 see 66$ sqq. Lapps, ancestry of, 54 Larak, 393, 424 Larnakes^ 592 Larsa, Map xr (05), 147, 155, 236, 359 sq.9
3%> 377* 395 *&•> 4<=>2> 435? 444 -^ 4^5?
493 j calendar, 4625 dynasty, 368, Ch,
xiri, 672^^.5 Sun-temple at, 4785 cap-
ture by Elam, 483 Lasirab, 424, 670 Laugerie Basse, 47, 71 sq. 'Lauren tian* continent, 5 sq.\ Arctic fauna,
12; submergence, 12, 15 Laws, codes of, in Sumer, 387 $q.} 435 j^.;
contrast with Semitic spirit, 461; see
Hammurabi's Code Layard, Sir H,, 127 sq- Laz, 394 Lead, 546, 5735 in Crete, 5915 in the
Cyclades, 600 Lebanon range, geological formation, tr,
37, 42 JV?.; Sargon, 405^.; Gudea,
427 sq.$ cedar^for Egypt, 583 *Lemurian* peninsula, 5, 8 Lep^us, survey of Egypt by, 116^.,
120 sq»
I^ettland, * kitchen-middens," 54 sq. Levant, the, primitive man, 37 Levites, 211 sq. Lianokladi, Map xn (zs E,), pottery, 180,
606 Libyat*4i; neolithic culture, 36; and
Egypt, 252 sq., z6<^£ and Crete, 307
Lila-irtash, 672
Limmu-llstSf 148-156, 167, 172.5 and Hebrew chronology, 158 ; i
^.
Lion, 584
^LipaH islands, Aegean trade, 105 Lipitili, 413, 418 sq. Lipit-Ishtar, 474 sqq.9 date, 658, 672 Lisht, Map vni (D^), 302, 304, 306 Liturgies, Sumerian, 443 sq,, 447, 533 $q, "Long-headed* folk in Britain, 102 Lot, 2.33; and Abraham, 234^. Lot (an), and Ketenu, 235 sq. Lud, 185 lugal> 508
I'u§al? god? $29 Lugal-? aga, 369, 667 Lugal-anda, 385, 669 Lugal-annatum, 670 Lugal-annimundu, 369, 668 Lugal-banda, 366, 438, 447, 562, 666 Lugal -dalu, 370, 668 Lugal-kiburna, 478 Lugal-kigub-nidudu, 369, 66S Lugal-kisalsi, 364, 668 Lugal-shagengur, 369, 584, 667 Lugal-tarsi, 369, 667 Lugal-ushumgal, 418 sq.> 519, 669 Lugal-zaggisi, 226, 369, 387^., 390, 394
sq., 401 sqq.f 413, 432, date, 657, 669 Lukazal, 671 Lulla, 675
Lulubu, 415, 439, 584 Lu-Shara, 669 Luxor, Map viti (E 7), 301 Lydia, 185, 191
IVIa'at, goddess, 250, 279, 328, 346 5 meaning^
346
Maatkhrure, date, 663; see Amenemhet IV Maccabees, revivers of Judaism, 198 Macedonia, Map xii, 585 lake-dwellings, 74; Danubian pottery, 78$ Xripolje culture, 815 Hallstatt swords, 106; and Thessalian culture, 6105 prehistoric age, 612
Mace-heads? 558, 564, 571, 578, 582, 584$ Egyptian and Babylonian, 262x7., 582 j, at Hieraconpolis, 268; superseded, 3195 of Mesilim, 369, 584; -of Nammakhni, 426
Macon, neolithic deposits, 51, 92 La Madeleine, * Aurignacian * remains, 50 Maer (Mari), 367, 370, 380, 392, 405, 415,
444, 467, 4715 dynasty of, 668 Magan, ijxsq., 262, 427, 430^,, 544,
5835 conquered by Naram-Sin, 415 sq. Magdalenian palaeolithic culture, 50, 52, 54, 65, 67, 835 lake-dwellers, 725 in Spain, 94; Petrie's analogy with pre- dynastic Egyptian flints, 247
44 — a
INDEX
Maggiore, lake-dwellings, 74
wadi Mfigharah, Map vrn (F 3, 4), 282
Maglemose swamp-settlement, 54 ^/.
mahailah) 496, 498
Mahasna (north of Abydos, Map vni (D 6))^
239, 241 Mahdi, 216 M*ahez, 306 Main river, 76 Malatia, Map XI (D i), 40 Malay flora and fauna, n, 26; negroid
races, 21; S, African and Tasmanian
analogies, 27 Malgi, 487, 489 Malkatu, 234 Malta, neolithic art, 49, 78; and Hissarlik,
80, 97; neolithic sites, 92; megaliths, 96;
painted pottery, 97 Malvern, pre-glacial, 6 Mammoth, Caspian shore, 445 W. Europe,
46
mana^ 209; cf* hike, 354 sg. Manana, date, 673 Maneros, dirge of, 324 Manetho, 119, 165, 167, 169, 238, 2,50^5-.,
258, 259 sgq.9 265* Chs. vii and vm
(passim), 66 r sqq. Manishtusu, 408 sqq*> 669; his stele, 130,
414, 520, 5675 statue, 428, 4475 his age,
468, 542, 545, 563 Manium (Mannu-dannu), 171; ? =Menes,
172; conquest by Naram-Sin, 415 sq* Maradda, 411 sq.9 417 sqq., 437, 446 Mar-biti, 448 Marduk, god, 399, 468, 505 sq.9 508, 529,
535? 553* 562, 564, 566; and Sargon,
407 sq."t at Babylon, 446 sq. Marduk-nadin-akhe, 152, 156 Marne valley, late palaeolithic settlements,
53
Marseilles, Aegean trade, 105 Martu, god and land, 230,- land, 4735 god,
530, 535 j Gal-MartUy 5595 see also Amor Maruttash, 553
mashkim (rabiju), powers of, 5 10 sqq* Maspero, excavations in Egypt, 121 Matera, 92, 97 Matriarchal system, 279
* Meal-eaters* (&/Spes- oX^qoraQy 6r Mebasi, 370, 668
Mecca, Map vii (B 3), 191
Media (Elam), Map xi (I 3), geological
• formation, 9 Jy., 39^^.5 chronology, 150 sq.
Medina, Map Vii (B 3), 191
Mediterranean, geological formation, 5 sqq.9 9 sq,, 14, 1 6, 42, 57; Atlantic fauna, 125 types of vegetation, 20 ; Syrian causeway, 39; agriculture, 68; eastern, culture, 92^.5 western, culture, 94-99; "bell- beaker* culture, 102; trade-routes,
race, and culture, in Egypt, 263 sq.9 402; Kassite agency, 568
Medum, Map vin (D 3), 242, 291 n.
Megalithic burial, 95-995 'bell-beaker* folk, 102 ^
Megiddo, 132, 228; battlefield, 1*53
Melam-Kish, 665
Melam-kurkura, date, 675
Melanesian shell-adzes, 77
Melchizedek, 216, 236
Meleager of Decapolis, 203
Melos, Map xn (364 N.)» 93? ^39? T9°? 599-603, 609
Melukhkha (=? Ethiopia), 172, 4iC, 427^,431,544 ^
Memphis, Maps vii (B 3), vm (D 3), Lepsius at, 116, 120^.5 Serapeum, 121, 250 sq.$ seat of royal power, 270; peculiar deities, 272 sq.$ VTIth and Vlllth Dy- nasties, 297^., 300^^.5 Hyksos centre, 312; taken from them, 315; Ptah, 340
Menahem, 160, 166
Menander of Ephesus, 1 60 »
Mendip hills, pre-glacial, 6, 9
Menes, 156, 171 sg., 303 «., 165, 170 sqq.9 250 sg.y (Mena, Meni), 259, 261; a com- posite personage, 267, 273$ date, 656; see Narrner
Menkauhor, 289, date, 662
Menkaure, Mencheres (Mn-kau-Re*), 281 sqq.9 297, 574, date, 662
Menkere (Mn-ka-Re*), 297, date^»662
Menophres, epoch of, 168, 170, 173
Meiipehre, 168
Men tone, palaeolithic deposits, 27, 49
Mentu (Munt), 301
Mentuhotep I, 299 sq.9 date, 663
- — II (or III), 300^., date, 663; Theban kings, 3105 see also Nebhapctre
Menuazre, 310, 663
Merenre, 293? date, 662,
Meriebre, 297, date, 663
Merikerc (Mri-ka-RS*), 298, 300, date, 663
Merire, 344, 348, 353; see also Pepi
Meritiotis, 277
Merneit, 270
Merneptah, 177, 213; * Israel stele,1 121
Merneterre Ai, 663
Merodach-baladan, 161; gardens of, 500
Merpeba, Merbapen, 259, 273, 66 1
lyiesannipadda, 367, 666
Mesentiu9 261 sq.
Mesilim, boundary-stele of, 369, 37*r373? 376, 379 sq., 383, 389, 410, 584, 667
Meskenagnunna, 367, 666
Meskingasher, 666
Meslamtaea, 394, 446
Mesopotamia, Map x, common use of the term, 1825 geological formation- n, 13 •*"<?*> 37> 39 s$3-9 nomads, 52; agnc%lture, 68 j donxestication^of animals, 69 j Solu-
INDEX
trean Implements, 835 exploration, 122 sg.-9 decipherment, 123 sqq.$ excavation, 127^.5 chronology, 146, 147—156; synchronisms with Egypt, 167^.5 Semitij^ races, 182, sq.$ Arab intrusion, 192^.5 relations with Syria, 226, 229, 237, 402, 404 sg., 417, 577^.5 parallels in early Egyptian civilization, 255^.; copper-working, 2625 Aryan invasion, 312; invasion from Central Asia, 364; Sumerian culture, 462 sq.\ intercourse %ith Egypt, 581, 5835 see Assyria, Babylonia
fvlessara, Early Minoan remains, 174^.; early Aegean ciwlization, 590 sqq*
Messiah, 216, 224, 325, 346
Meszagud, 665
Metal-work, and pottery sequences, 79, 905 at Anau, 875 western Europe, 104 sq.^ metal-casting, 291, 585$ Hyksos, 3195 earliest Egyptian, 571 sq.-y Troy, 6i$sq.$ see also Aegean, Cyprus, Minoan
Meyel^ Eduard, chronology of Mesopo- tamian history, 1565 of Egyptian, 173
Miebis, 259
Migir-ili, 670
Milcahj see Malkatu
Millet, 61, 725 origin of cultivation, 91
Min, 245, 269, 301, 571
Minaean inscriptions, 134; language, 186, 188; culture, 2215 and Naram-Sin, 416
Minoan bronze Age, 62, 78, 93, 103^(7.5 Crete and the Cyclades, 139 sqq.9 174 sqq., Ch. xvir
Minoan Periods:
Early: remains in Crete and Egypt,
174^.$ forms copied from Egyptian
ware, 307
Middle: Aegean intercourse with Italy,
105^7.5 between Crete and Egypt, 175 sq.,
307; see 593 sqq.
Late: Aegean settlements m Italy and
Sicily, 106; Hallstatt, 1065 intercourse
between Crete and Egypt, 176 sq«
— Sea-power, 1915 influence of Sumerian art, 587; the term *Mmoan/ -589/2.5 script, 611
Minos, 1385 in Thucydides, 178; origin,
599
Minyan ware, 602 sq., 606 sg., 611, 614
Mirabello, Gulf of, 594
Missile weapons, late palaeolithic, 51
MitBnni (Matieni), Map XI (D 2), 192; in Amor and Assyria, 2325 in Mesopo- tamia, 312, 401, 407, 414 sq., 421, 452 sq., 466? language, 469
Mithra, 208, 237, 312
Mizraim, 185
Mnaid^a, 92
Moa$ megaliths, 96; race, 182; language, 186; Adwan (nomads), 190; invaders,
193; historical inscriptions v^e Moabite Stone, q.v.), 22*3; Lot, the father of M,, 233> 235; 'sons of Seth/ 234
Moabite Stone, 132 sq.9 cf. 223
Mo chlos, Map xii (inset), Early Minoan remains, 174, 592, 597, 599
Moeris, Lake, Map virr (C 3), 116, 121, 309
Mohammed (Muhammad), doctrines, 1985 conception of Allah, 200 sq.$ M.*s head- ship, and community, nature of, 211, 217 ; the Caliphs, 2155 traditions of the Prophet, 219; adaptation of Jewish or Christian tradition, 221
Mohammedans, era, 145; language, 1885 missionaries, 191; in Persia, 192, 198
Mongoloid races, home and expansion of, 21-25; pre-glacial, 30; and Europe, 48, 543 60; in Semitic lands, 192
Monotheism, Semitic, 198 sq.$ contrast with Ikhnaton's, 1995 Semitic, in Egypt, 323 sq.
Month, 227
Moravia, Danubian culture, 785 Tripolje culture, 82, 99, ior; 'bell-beaker* folk, to i ; composite type of man, ior sq.
Morella, rock-shelters, 94
Morocco, 'Capsian' culture, 52; Semites in, 191
Moses, 163, 2205 and Arabia, Israel's debt to, 190; and Judaism, 1985 personal vengeance, restriction of, 211; nature of headship, 211, 2175 and post-exilic Judaism, 221; parallel with story of Sinuhe, 227
MSsul, Map XI (F 2), 39, 43, 122, 127^ 494-503, 542
Moussian, 815 see Musyan
* Mousterian ' palaeolithic culture^ 37, 39, 46^.5 * Aurignacian * type, contrast, 49 sqq.-^ African flint technique, 53, 755 disposal of dead, 67; in Spain, 94
Mugem, broad-headed population, 95
el-Mukayyar, Tell, (Ur), Map zi (G 5), 129, 234, 359, 4355 described, 398 ^.5 copper figures, 291, 5855 bread-ovens,
543 Mummification, 287 sq., 293, 321 sq.9 336;
origin of, 336 sq. Murcia, copper ores, 103 Murshilish I, 561, 564; II, 561 mushkinu, 517 sqq. Musyan, 81, 360, 362, 578 sq. Mycenae, Map xii (37!- N,), 140, 142;
Schliemann at, 137, 173*5 intercourse with
Egypt, 174 sq*$ Egyptian objects at, 176;
House of Pelops, 1 79 j shaft-graves, 596,
603, 606 sqq., 6 1 1, 613 sqq. Mycerinus; see Menkaure
Nabataeans, Map xr (C 5), 193; inscriptions,
134.
-'94
INDEX
Nabonassar, 149 sq.
NabonHus (Nabur-na'id), 153 sq.9 156,
171 sq.9 398, 419 sq., 499, 506, 536 Nabopolassar, 162, $0$ sqq. Nabu>488, 506., 529 Nabu-na'id; see Nabonidus Nag-* (Naga) ed-Der (opposite Girgeh,
Map vm, D 6), 242, 273 Nag* HammadL, 252 Nakada, Map vin (E 7), 121, 238, 270 Narnmakhni, 435 sq., 670 Nana, 438, 456, 471, 489 Nani, 669 Nanija, 669 Nannar, 436, 438, 444^., 472, 480^.,
484, 488, 529^.5 see also Sin Naplanu, date, 672 Napoleon in Egypt, x*6 sq. Nararn-Sin, i$$sq,, 171 sq., 269, 30372.,
392, 394, 403 sq.9 412-420, 511, 657, 669;
Stele of Victory, 130, 417^., 581, 5845
as temple-builder, 419^.; statue, 428,
493
Naride (Nariti, Nati), 441
N'armer (N'armerza), 220, 251 sq.9 255, 267 sqq.9 274, 574, 584; palette of, 245 sq.9 268, 571, 580, 656, 661; see Menes
Naruti, 409
Nasatya twins (Asvins), 312
Nasiriyeh, 478 sq.9 485, 495, 542, 555
'Nation' defined, 3
'Nature* defined, 35 and Man, 2 sq.9 21; Semitic conception of, x.$6 sqq*$ nature- gods, in Egypt, 328 sq.
Naxos, Map xn (26 E), 599
Nazl-Maruttash, 566 sq.
" Neandertlial* type in glacial Europe, 22, 46 sqq, y in Arabia, 3 7 j Highland Zone, 58 5 not *Aurignacian,' 58
Nebhapetre, 170, 173, 299 -W-? 3°5> 3°^, 321 sq., date, 658, 6^3; see Mentuhotep
Neb-khepesh, 313, 664
Nebkhrure, 300, date, 663
Nebtouire, 306, date, 663
Nebuchadrezzar (the correct form, cf. Jerenz* xxi. 2, Josephus, etc.) I, 153, 156
— II, 129, 151, 1^6, 394 j and Necho, 162; death, 162, 394* buildings at Babylon, 503-508$ Nippur, 419, 429
Necho,' i6z Neferhotep, 310, 663
Neferirikere (Nfr-iri-ka-Re*, Kakau), 284 sqq.9 date, 662
— II, 297
Neferka (Ncferkere), 277, 66 r sq. Neferkauhor, 297 Neferkere; see Pepi II Neferkesokari, 66 1 Negro culture in Nubia, 295 sq. Negroid races, 21, 265 variations,, 275 Mentone, palaeolithic deposits, 27; Dra-
vidian survivals, 27^.; pre-glacial, 30; Riviera caves, 37, 49; 'Aurignacian* type, contrast, 485 Schaffhausen, 49
Nehemiah, 166, 201
Nehesi, 663 ^r^
Neitakrit ( = Nitocris% 297; see Neterkere
Neith, 270
Neit-hotep, 270
Nejd, oases, 41
Nekaure, 279
Nekhebet, 266, 285
Nekhti (Hui), 273
Nekhtnebtepnefer, 300
Nemaatenkhare Khenzer, 663
Ne-maat-re, 309, date^ 663; see Amen- emhet III
Ne-ma*at-hap, 276
Neneter, 274, 66 1
Neolithic culture, Egypt, 35; age, Ch. ri; characteristics, 65-715 Alpine Europe, 7 1-75 5 Danube basin, 75-805 Tripolje culture, Soj-y^.; North-eastern steppe, Szsqq.} Anau and Susa, 85-89; Nearer East, Red-ware culture, 89 sqq.} E. Medi- terranean, 92/^.5 W. Mediterranean, 94-99 j c beaker* -folk, 100x^.5 coming of bronze, 103x^7.; Hallstatt, 106—1115 domestication, 66
Nephthys, 331
Nepri, 303
Nergal, 394, 399, 446, 484, 489, 530, 531,
549> 553. S66 *
Neriglissar, 423
Neterhezet, 300
Neterkere (Neter-ka-Rg*? Nitocris), 296 sq., date 662
Ne-unu-gal, 394, 530
Neuaerre, 283, 288 sq.
Neuserre-An, 285 sq.
Nicephoriura, Map xi (D 3), 358
Nxdaba, 38^^., 402, 413, 427, 442
Nile valley, Map vrn, geological features, ii sqq.9 25, 315 pre-glacial implements, 185 climate, 19, 31 sqq.9 45; (palaeolithic) and W, Europe, 36; migration from Arab-ia, 3%sq.} 'Mousterian* man, 46; 'Solutrean* analogy, 52, 835 agriculture, 68, 72 j pottery, 69; see Chs» vi— vm passim*
Nimrod? 185
Nimrud, Map xi (F a), excavations at, 127
Nina (Surghul), 379 sq., 399$ city, Map xi (H^, Zerghul), 380^., 3885 goddess, 427, 441, 456, 461
Ninana, 3965 see also Innini
Ninazu, 387, 438
NincluIIa, 416
Ninegal (Ninagal), 425, 432, 451, 455
Nmeriamugub, 440 ^
Nineveh, Map vn (C 2), 122 sq.9 129^149, 151, 468, 492 sq.9 5^2, 569
INDEX
Nmgal, 445, 458, 474, 48 r
Nmgn-su, 208, 373^., 379. 3^5? 388^.,
399, 425 sq.9 529, 5845 and Gudea, 427-
43*7 44i
Ningisljiida, 431 sq., 433, 438, 456 Ninkarrak, 530 Ninkharsag, 390^., 402, 413, 425, 430
441 sqq. Ninki, 475 ^inkigal, 387 Ninkisalsi, 667 Ninlil, 208, 369, 377, 390, 392 sq.9 424,
438, 444, 451 sq.9 474, 530 sq, Ninmakh, 507, 564 Ninmar(ki), 379 Ninmug, 394 Ninni (Istar), 489, 530 Nin si anna, 444 Ninsinna, 480
Ninsubur (Nin-shubur), 456, 486 Nin-Sun, 366, 435, 438, 444, 447, 457, 562 Niu*"nzi, 475 Niri idigga, 393
Ninrud, 392, 396, 424, 430, 444, 530 Nin-ul, 475
NinurSsha, 392 sq., 4x6, 447 sq. Ninurra, 389 Ninurta (Ninib), 372, 374, 444, 452, 489,
508, 527, 530, 553, 558, 566 Ninus, legendary founder of Nineveh
(?.*/.)> I5I
Nippvft, Map xi (G 4), 128 /£., 156,
35$, 365? 3S9? 391 •*??•» 40*> 4 434? 45IJ?-> 457* 488,493? 534> 5565 water supply, 359 j neolithic remains, 36 1 5 and Naram-Sin, 419$ Ur-Engur» 4355 liturgies, 442 sqq. ; and Ibi-Sin, 459 j calendars, 4625 burials at, 548; under Kassites, 565
Nisinj ses Isin
Noau, 184x^.5 2005 inventor of wine, 206
Nomads, 525 northern Arabians (Semites), 182 j tribes, continuity of, 190; Israel and Mam, 1905 tribal loyalty, 1955 organization, 197; Ibn Khaldun's theory of development, 2231^.5 the Sutu, 2315 invaders of Sumer and Akkad, 42 1 5 survival of personal appeal, 513; bread- making, 543
* Nordic* type, 29 sg.$ neolithic ancestors, 98; in Alpine lakeland, 995 broad- headed type, 102 ..Koricum, iron-working centre, no
North Sea, late palaeolithic, 54
Nubia, megaliths, 965 Lepsius' survey, ri6 sq,$ culture derived from Egypt, »475 relations with Egypt, 292 sq.f 305 sq.> 318; local gods, 329$ gold, 586
NuVkau-Re*, 306, date, 663; see Axnen- ^mhftt II
Nubkheperre, 310* 313, 663
Nubti, r66
Numushda, 4385*479
Nun, 328, 331, 351
Nur-Adad (or Nur-Immer), 400, 442,
481 sq., date, 673 Nur-Dag-an, 406 Nurdaggal, 406 Nur-ilij date, 675 Nusku, 438^ 444, 527, 553, 566 Nut, 331 'Nut-eaters* (^cikav^dyoi aj/Spes), 61, 64
O. See U. el-6Obeid, Tell, copper figures at, 291, 546,
554» 577 sqq., 585 sq. Obsidian, 174, 590, 592, 599 Oder, neolithic culture, 76 Ofnet, *Cevenole" type, 6z; Asillan de-
posit, 64^., 71; Solutrean folk, 83 Oheimir, Map ix (3^^ N.), 3655 see Kish "OkenenrSS 313, 664 el-*Ola, South Semitic colony, 184 Old Testament 5 ses Bible Olympia, 608 Olympiad, the first, 145 Oman, Gulf of, Map vn (D 3), 182;
geological formation, 7, 16 Omayyad Caliphs, 184 Opis, Map xi (G 3)5 see Akshak Orchomenus, Map XII (38^ N.), 180, 606,
608, 6155 Schliernann at, 137, i4z Ormuz; see Hormuz 'Osehre", 314, 664 Osiris, 250, 32*.^., 3^S, 331 jy., 35° s9-y
tomb, izzj origin, 264; S'^-festiyal, 2685
origins, 272, sg.$ temple at Abydos, 279 Osorkon, 160 Othniel, 163 Othoes, 2.90
Otlas, 275, 6615 see Uaznes Ouserkheres = Userkere, 284; see also
Userkaf
*Ouserre, 313? 664. Oxus, 44
P. The Semitic^ becomesyin Arabic; ph9 or fy Is sometimes used to represent the soft Hebrew £).
Pabilkharsag, 393
Pabilsag, 393
Pacific shell-hoes, analogy with neolithic Europe, 63$ megaliths, 97
Palaeolithic Man in South and East, 31-41 ; implements, 34, 465 older palaeolithic types, 46 sq* 5 culture rare in Highland Zone, 63; contrast with neolithic, 65; lack of pottery, 69, 92 sq., 103 sqq.9 589
Palaikastro, Map xr (inset), 139, 597, 5995 early Aegean pottery, 590
INDEX
Palermo Stele, 167, 250 sq., 2,66 sq., 259, 276
Palestine, "Map XI, palaeolithic man, 37 sqy. 5 first neolithic culture, 39 j do. post-glacial, 431 lions, 58; and Highland Zone, 59; south? painted ware, 89; iron, 109; cre- mation, no; P. Exploration Fund, 130 sq.:, excavations, 132 *qq>} synchronism with Egypt, 157; Judaism and Christi- anity, 1815 Egyptian Kharu, 229; and Retenu, 2355 agriculture, 264; see Syria
Palettes, slate, in tombs of Egypt, 245 sqq,, 251 sq.$ of Narnier (q.is.)? 2.4.5 sq.$ Early Minoan and Early Cycladic parallels,
*75> 57°-^., 58o» 592-
Palmyra, Map vu (B 2), 43 5 oasis and com- mercial state, 184, 191
Pamirs, 60 sq.
Papyri, 189, 218, 221, 351 sqq*, 443 •W-? 4475 Berlin, 3445 Millmgen, 3485 Petro- grad, 344; Prisse, 348, Sallier, 229; Westcar, 284, 331 sq.$ see Turin
Paradise, 365; Surnerian legend, 456 sq.
Marmor Parium, and prehistoric Greek chronology, ijfsq.
Parnassus, types of vegetation, 20
Paros, Map XII (25 E.), 599 sq., 602
Patesi, office of, 479, 509, 516 $ lists, 665 sqq.
Pausanias, 178
Pelkah, 160
Pekahiah, 160
Peker, 350
Peleg, 185 sq.
Peloponnese, prehistoric, 174, 176 sq.
Pepi (Phios, Merire) I, 167, 171, 226, 258, 290^., 3°9? 3l8? 33°, 343? 574* 585> date, 657
— (Neferkere) II, 290, 293 sqq., 330, date, 657
Peribsen, 275, 66 i
Pernma'at, 275
Persepolis, 115, 123 sq.
Persian Gulf, Map vu (D 3), geological formation, 13 sq.j 43 sq.-9 primitive man, 37, 59, 6 1 sq.
Persians — Old Persian script, 1235 Zend, 124; empire, 183, cf» 1525 loan-words in Arabic, 187; and Aramaic, 188; in- fluenced by Islam, 192; influence on Semitic thought, 202 jy.; influence on Ctesias, 222 Peshgal-daramash, 675 Petra, Map vn (B 2), 130 Petrie, Flinders, work in Palestine, 114; at Nakada, 2385 Tarkhan, 245; 'Dynastic Kace,* 245; * sequence-dating-,* 247 sqq.
Phaestus, Map xii (inset), 176, 593 sqq.9 597 jy.; Late Minoan remains, 1395 early Aegean, civilisation, 590^.5 the P. disk, 588, 594
Philae, Map vrn (E 8), 1 18
Philistines (Egypt Pnlesati), 132; Semitic language adopted, 186; influence on Semites, 192; Dagon=Dagan, 232; invasion of Egypt by, 177 sq.
Phoenicia, Map XI, palaeolithic^ irnple- v ments, 375 and the Cretans, 178; 'Semitic race, 1825 and Canaan, 184 sq.$ language, 1865 script, 189; colonies, 190 sq.,t Ezekiel and Tyre, 1915 hunter Usoos* (Esau), 206; origin, 234
Phrygian tumulus-folk, 82; horse-breeding, 107^.5 and Hittites, 1085 Assyrian aru
Phulus; see Pul
Phylakopi, 139^.5 Cretan ware at, 179; excavations, 600. 602
Pile-dwellings; see Lake -dwellings
Pikdown skull, 45 sq.
Pins, bone, 590
Pithecanthropus, n
Pi thai y 605
Plato, on the 'wisdom of the Egyptians.* 1-2.6
Pliny, on Babylonian cereals, 500
Plough, Nile- valley prototype (palaeo- lithic), 35
Plutarch, on the Osiris-legend, 332 sq.
Plynlimmon, and primitive man, 36, 48 sq.
Po valley, post-glacial, 445 lake-dwellings, 745 end of Herremare* culture, 108
Poland, primitive remains, 45, 51
Polytheism, Semitic, 198 sq.
Pon tic- Caspian basin, geological formation, 5, 10, 12, 14, i8j neolithic, 595 late palaeolithic, 84
Portugal, early palaeolithic, 46, 48 sq.$ late palaeolithic, 53 ; neolithic, 94 sqq.
Posen, Hallstatt swords, 106
Potter's Wheel 5 see Wheel
Pottery, Anau, third culture, 885 'Libyan, 925 Aegean (neolithic), 93; cf. also 103 sqq.y 139 sqq.9 174 sqq.9 and Chap, xvn; * be 11 -beaker * type, 100; chronological value of pottery, 69 sqq*, 113^,, 131, 139, 175,247x^.5 connexion between Egyptian and Minoan, 175^.5 between Cycladic and Minoan, 1795 Egyptian blue glazed, 243? 270, 320, 576 sq.j Sumerian, 546 sj*9 578 sqq.*, Kassite, 567
— 'Band -pottery,* 775 Tripolje, 81
— Earliest, Nile valley, 3 3 5 origins (general) of fabric and design, 53 , 6 6, 7 3 , 8 6, 8 9, i oo
— 'Geometrical* painted ware, 815 * First Si eel,* 97; Ukrainian, 105, no; SumeriaiS; , 361 sq., 368, 5805 Adab, 3905 Nineveh, 469; Cretan neolithic, 590; Thessalian, 610 sq.
— Spiral decoration, neolithic, 785 in Malta, 97 j trade with northern Europe, 105; Early Minoan II, 140; Second Thessalian, 141, 6xosq.$ Cretan-Eg}^- txan, 307, 571, 5765 Cretan seals, 592 j
INDEX
Cycladlc, 600, 6025 sse Wheel, Crete,
Egypt
Prasias, Lake, lake-dwellings, 74 Predmost, 'Aurignacian ' man, 48; 'Solu-
trean* remains, 51 Priest, position, 209, 2 135 in Egypt, 272$
a separate class, 287 sq.\ tomb-chaplains,
287, 323, 335 sq.9 341 j Sumerian, 385 sq.;
seers, 413, 535 sq.9 priestly courts, 5105
temple-staffs, 535-540 Priestesses in Babylonia, 536 *!*roto-Seniitic* race, 254 Prussia, East, Halls tatt swords, 106 *Psammetichus I, 173 Ptah, 272 sq. ; hig^rpriests of, 287; Shabaka-
stela, 340
Ptahhotep, proverbs of, 288 sq., 347 sq., 657 Ptafc-shepses, 283 Ptolernaeus, Claudius, 149 Ptolemy Epiphanes, 117 sq. Ptolemy's Canon of Kings, 149 Puenet; see Punt Pul {tTiglath-pileser), 151 Pulo di Molfetta, 92, 104 Punt (Puenet), expeditions to, 301^ 306,
320
Puzur-Ashir, date, 672, 675 Pyramids, 272, 58 2 5 * Step-Pyramid * at Sak-
karah, 2765 at Zawiyet-el-Aryan, 2775
at Abusir, 2-86 sq.$ at Usht, 304, 306; at
Illahun, 307; Het-tiotep~Senusret, 3075
at Dahshur. 308; origin of form, 332 Pyramid Texts, 119, 121, 172, 281, 290,
33Q^ 343 J?7 351 J?'j 57^
Pyrenees, geological formation, 7, 17, 19, 45; Azil, cave, 50; limit of Solutrean remains, 515 forests, neolithic, 68
Pyrgus, Early Minoan vases, 175
Q. Employed in some systems to represent the emphatic k (J?, p), the
Phoenician (or North Semitic) form of which is its palaeographic ancestor.
* Quaternary/ term criticized, 6j European glaciation, 30
rabianu, 510 fq,9 536 Rain-charms, rain-makers, 213 Ramman(u), 231, 440, 490 .?<?., 530; see
also Adad ^JgLamses I (Menpehre), 168, 170, 173
— II, 157, 164, i66sq.9 ifzsg,, 213,
258 sq., 307 1 — III, 1645 Mycenaean vases in tomb of,
177; style of inscriptions, 222; use of
iron, 572 Rawlgison, Sir Henry, decipherment of
dlheiform, 124, 126 Re*, 213, 250,
Dynasty, 204^.5 and Amon, 301;
origin; 3285 a»d solar cult, 33^^.5 and
kingship, 338, 346 Rechabites, 212; and Ahab, 215 ..Red Sea, Map vin, geological formation, * 71^., u, 13, 25; primitive man, 375
trade-routeSj Map vn, 183; Egyptian
(Vltli Dynasty) trade, 295$ Naram-SIn,
418
Rededef (Ratoises), 282, date, 662 Rehoboam, 158, 160, 172 sq. Reindeer, domesticated, 24; W. Europe,
46, 52
Rekhniire, tomb of, 176, 597 Religion, Greek and Semitic, contrast,
196^.5 Semitic and Egyptian con-
trasted, 202, 3255 and compared, 346;
uniqueness in Semitic history, 197-205;
'the Word,* Babylonian conception,
202 sq., 443 5 totemic stage in Egypt,
246; see Egypt, Semites, and the several
gods
Remedello 'bell-beakers," 100 Re*neb (Kakau), 274^., 284, 661 Retenu, 229, 235 Re'user, 284 Rhine, geological formation, 10, 12, 45,
555 lake-dwellers, 73; Danubian culture,
78; megalithic culture, 99; "round-
barrow" folk, 102 Rhodes, Map xn (36 N.), 109 Rhodope, 42
Rhone valley, neolithic settlements, 92 rid sabiy ridUj 514 sqq., 540 sq. Rim-Sin I, 155, 398, 450, 484-488, 536,
date, 659, 673
— II (of Larsa), 556 sq.9 date, 674 Rimush, 408 sq., 669, date, 6745 statue, 428 Riviera, palaeolithic caves, 28, 37 Ro, 266, 66 1 Roknia, megaliths, 96 Rome, foundation of, 145 Rosetta, Map Viii (C i), the R. Stone,
Roumania, lowlands, 76; Tripolje culture,
81
Russia, north-eastern steppe culture, 82 sqq. Ruth, 207
S. s represents the hard Semitic sibilant (^^ •£). For / (^, ^) is here used sky although this could also repre- sent /-M. The clumsy doubling of sh (e.g. Kashshites) is sometimes ignored (e.g- Ashur); some prefer to write ssh (Asshur). Sabaeans, 185; language, 134, 186, zSS;
culture, 221 Sabitu, 264
INDEX
* Sacred, the,* idea of, 199? 211
Sadi, 674 f
Saharan desert, neolithic cultures, 28, 47,
49? 53> 68> 94» 97? *°o
Satiure (Sahu~Rel), 226, 284, 286, 289, r date/^a "
Sais, Map vin (C 2), 265 .$•</., 270
Sakh, 553
Sakjegeuzi, 89
Sakkarah, Map vnr (D 3), 3225 cemeteries, 1215 Egyptian king-lists* 258 sq.y Apis- worship, 2745 pyramids, 276^., 281, 2905 tomb of Ti at, 288; Pyramid Texts, 330 fq.
Sakkut, 393, 448
Saklawiyeh canal, 358
Salatis, Salitis, Hyksos king, 233, 310, 313
Sallier Papyrus, 229
Samaria, 132 sq.y 1605 date of fall, 161, 166; enmity with Jews, 216; Samaritan script, 189
Samarra, Map XI (F 3), 40, 361, 414, 469,
*02 Sammuramatj see Serairamis
Samsu-ditana, 514, 561, 563, date, 659, 674
Samsu-iluna, 154, 425, 512, 515, 521, 552., 554-560, 562, date, 659, 674
Sanitoui, 300
Sarnu, date, 672
Sanehat (Sa-nht) ; see Sinuhe
Sa-nekht, 277, 662
Sangarius, 423 tumuli, 82
Sankhibtoui (Seankh~ib-toui), 3005 see Mentuhotep I
Sankhibtouire Ameni-Intef-Amenemhet, 663
Sankhkere (S'ankh-ka-Re'), 301, 307, date, 663
Sanusis, the, 212
Sarah, at Harran, 234
Saratigubisin, 670
Sardanapalus, 151
Sardes, post-road to Susa, 185
Sardinia, *Aurignacians man, 48; neolithic vases, 92; megaliths, 96 j 'bell-beakers," 100; 'broad-headed' type, 104; Aegean trade, 105, 1605 Philistia, 161
Sargon of Agade, 148, 394, 420, date, 150, 155 sq., 303 n~, 390, 657, 669; unifier of Burner, 368; rise of dynasty of, 402-412, 403-4085 parentage, 403, 413, 53619,$ statue, 428; and Babylon, 407, 4465 cylinder-seals, 567, 584, 586 sg.
Sargon II, 127, 148, 160 sq., 171 sq.y ^15 sq.
Sarrnatian basin, geological formation, 9 sq.9 14, 19, 43 sq.y 57; and Highland Zone, 59 sq.$ climatic influence on Eurasia, 83; the horse, 107
Sarpanit, 468, 488, 562, 564
Saul, 163, 166; versions of his accession, 2,055 and Dayid, a 13, zzo
Savoy, neolithic human type, 61
Scandinavia, geological formation, 5 sq.y 15, 19, 54; *Solutrean* (earliest) remains, 52, 83, 102; megaliths, 98; * round-barrow* folk, 102; Hallstatt swords, 106; simi- larity of predynastic Egyptian flints (Petrie), 247
Schaffhausen, pygmy type (early neolithic), 27, 49
Schleswig, Hallstatt swords, 106
Schliemann, at Mycenae, 136^., 173; at Orchomenus, 606
* Scorpion, the,* king of Egypt, 267 sq. 584, 6615 king of Babylonia, 365, 665
Scotland, late palaeolithic man, 53; lake- dwellings, 73
Sculpture, Sumerian: KLhorsabad, Nimrud, IZ7; Kuyunjik, 127 sq.9 Telloh,- 129; Susa, 130; development, 364, 370, 451 sq.9 583 sq.$ * Stele of the Vultures,* 379, 584; 'Stele of Victory,* 417; Gudea statues, 428 sqq. ; Egyptian, 282, Ch. XVI
Sea-Country (or Land), Dynasty 0^153, 560, 563^.5 list, 67^ sq.
Seal-cylinders 5 see Cylinder-seals
Sebek (god), 309; =Rgc, 323; origin, 328
Sebekemsaf (SbJk-m-sa-f), 310, 663
Sebekhotep (l-III), 310, 663
Sebeknefrure (Sbk-nfru-Re*), 310, date, 663
SeberkherSs ( = Shepseskere), 2845 see also Shepseskaf
•S'^-festival, 268, 286
Se^etepibre, 301, date, 6635 'Instructions of, 303
Seine, * round-barrow* folk, 102
Sckenenre (Taa) I-III, 311, 314, 664
Sekhemib, 275, 66 1
Sckhemkere Amenemhetsenbef, 663
Sekhenikhutouire, 310
Sekhemreherhrimaat Intef*o III, 663
Sekhemrekhutaui Sebekhotep I, 663
Sekhemresesheditaui Sebekemsaf II, 663
Sekhemreupmaat Intef *o IV, 663
Sckhernuazkaure Sebekemsaf I, 663
sekhtiu, 3i7^-T 349
Sekmem; see Shechem
Seleucia (on Tigris), Maps VII (C 2), xi
,
Seleucidae, 145; beginning of era, 151
Semerkhet, 273 sq,9 66 1
Semirarnis, 151
Semites j cf. Maps vrr and 3CI (inset) * — People, Language and Movement^ 193:
religions — Judaism, Christianity, Islam, xSi ,*y.; connotation of term, 182 j (cf. 263 physical characteristics) area of occupa- tion, 182 (see 38^.); Arabs, northern and southern, 182$ 'Eastern*^ and 4 Western" Semites, i8z^.; Syria **and Palestine, place in history, 183 fq,9 Syria
INDEX
contrasted with Palestipe, 183^,5 oases, as seats of power, 184; the "sons' of Noah and of Shem, 184^5^.5 languages, tri~ literal, x%6sqg.$ contrasted with Indo- Euj^pean and Harnitic languages, 187 (cf. 341)5 alphabets, 189, 191; persistence of Semite characteristics, 189.^-5 ex- pansion and colonization, 190 sqq., 587; see Cappadocia; ? Arabian home, 193 (cf. no); definition of term, 1935 S. and Sumerians, 152, 171, 357, 464^5-. et passim
smites; Temperament and Thought, 194- 205: conditioning factors, 194; general characteristics** 195 sqq.$ psychology of languages, 195^9.5 ideas of deity, 199; monotheism, 198 sg.$ fear and gloom, 200 sq. (cf. 325); religion and the arts, 2,0 1 sq.$ tribal character of gods, 204; arrested development of Semites, 205
— Social and Political Development, 206— 21*7:
lites as traders, 2065 property and ownership, 207^.5 bisexual deities, 208; ideas of divine power, 209; attitude to law and to authority, 210^.5 change from desert to settled life — the king, 212 sqq.$ divine kingship — fiction of con- tinuity, 2 1 5 ,f^.
— Treatment of History, 217-225: history tribal, 2175 the Past — religious ancf didactic treatment, 218; search for continuity, 219^.5 Semite historians, 222 sqq.
— Syria and Palestine, 225—237: romance of Sinuhe, 226 sqq>; the Amor- ites, 229 sqq., 2375 the Hyksos and their gods, 232 sq. (cf. $11 sg., 323)5 biblical traditions, 233-237
— See Arabia, Religion, Sumerians, Syria Semti (Den), 266, 283, 285, 66ij tomb and
seal, 270 sqq.$ court of, 271 sq.
Senedi, 2755 66 1
Senekhtenre, 314
Senkereh, Map xi (G 5), 444
Sennacherib, 128, 152/5'., 166, 2165 inva- sion of Judah, 161$ and Kassites, 552
Senusret (Sesostris) I, 167, zz6 sq», 302, 304 sqq., 348, 574> date, 658, 663
— II, Khakheperre, 175, 305, 306^., date, 659,663
— Ill, Khakaure, Lachares, 168 sq.y 229, 302, 306, 318, 322, 574, 576, date, 659, 663
— IV, 310, 663
Serabit el-Khadim (Sarbut el-Kha4im), Map vnr (F 3), Egyptian mines, 189 5 temple to Hathor, 226
Sgfcpis, 508
Sfsostris, 305, 307; see Senusret
Set, 250, 262, 265* 323 j Set-names,
= Sutekh, 3135 origin, 331 sq,$ judge of
Osiris, 353 I Seth, 234^.5 see Sutu Seti I, 133, 258, 261, 307 Set-*o-pehti (Nuba), 313^. Seuserre (S-usr-Ke')3 313; see Khian Shabai, 675 Shabaka, 340
Shagarakti-Shuriash, 153, 517, 565 Shagshag, 386
shakkanak (£#), 451? 465, 511, 565 Shala, 488 Shalim-akhu, 672 Shalmaneser I, 127, 154, 156; and Ramses
II, 167, date, 660
— HI, 153
— IV, 153, 1 60
Shamash, bisexual, 2085 sun-god, 370, 395, 409 sy.9 436, 438, 441, 470, 481 sq.9 529,
534^ 553 Shamshi-Adad, the name, 208, 231 sq.
— I, 154 sq., 490, date, 674
— II, 468, 542, 545, 568 sq.9 date, 675
— Ill, 569, date, 675 Shara, 389, 402, 442, 458 Shargalisharri, 419^/7., 433, 6695 stele,
421, 585 -9 seal-cylinders, 421 sq.y date, 657 Shar-ma-Adad I and II, 675 Sharratu = Sarah, 234 Sharru-kin, date, 673 Sharu (Soris), 277 Sharuhen, 315
Shatt el-1 Arab, Map xi (H 5), 39, 357, 501 Shatt el-Hai, Map xi (±14-5), 360, 373,
38*2, 390, 398, 404 Shatt el-Kar, Map IX (32 N.)» 359? 3§3? 389,
Shatt en-Nil, Map xi (G 5), 359, 392
skauabti figures, 321
Shechem, 2155 =Eg. Sekmem? 229, 307.57.
Shem, and the S(h)emites, 1841^$'., 190^.
Shemsu, 66 1
Shepseskaf, 283 sq,, date, 662
Shepseskere (Shepses-ka-Re'), 286
Sheshonk; see Shishak
shibuti-f 511 sq.
Shiites, 215 sq.
Shimurru, 414 sq,
Shi-Ninua, 675
Shipak, 553, 566
'Shipwrecked Sailor, Story of,' 320, 348
Shirikhum, 404, 410
Shirpurla, Map XI (H 5), 1295 see Lagash
Shishak (Sheshonk), 160, 172 sq*, 305
Shu, 328, 331
Shugab> 553
Shu^amuna, 465, 553
Shullat, 529
Shumalia (Shibarru), 465, 553
Shuriyash, 553
Shuruppak, Map rx (31^ N.), 149, 377*?.,
INDEX
384^., 390, 437, 45Pj graves, 548; magistrates of, 668 sg. fr
Shush inaK, 440 sq.
Shushshi, date, 675
Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, 410, 417 sq., 447
Sia, 328*
Siberia, glacial crisis, human occupation, 48 sq.; palaeolithic culture, 65; forests, neolithic expansion, 67 sq.
Sicily, pre-glacial? 16; introduction of cereals (tradition), 69; Hissarlik, culture- date, So, 97; neolithic pottery, 925 'bell- beakers* (western), 100; Aegean swords, 1 06 j trade with Crete, 592.
Sidon, Map XI (B 4), 133 sq., 185; origin of name, 232
Siebenburgen, painted-pottery culture, So sq.
Sihathor (Sa-Hc-Hor), 306
Silesia, Tripolje culture, 82, 101; Danubian culture, 99
Silkhakhna, 673
Silli-Adad, date, 673
Siloam, tunnel inscription, 133
Silver, in predynastic Egypt, 242; in S.Persia, 411; in the Taurus, 428; in Egypt and Babylon, 586
Sin, moon-god, 234, 396, 398 sq., 402, 424, 436, 441, 444 sq., 456, 458, 475; 5*9
Sinai, Map vm (F 3-4), palaeolithic imple- ments, 37, miners* inscriptions at, 117; political and commercial importance, 184; ? origin of Semitic alphabet, 189; influence on Israel, 190; mee ting-place of Egyptian and Semite, 226; copper for Egypt and Babylonia, 262; relations with Egypt, 274, 277, 282, 286; Sesostris, 309; local gods, 329; stone for Babylon,
583
Sin-gamil, 562, 674 Sin-pishid, 542, 545, 562, 674 Sin-idinnam, 495, 510, 513, 516, 528, 534,
536, 540 sq., 559 sq., date, 673 Sm-ikisha, date, 673 Sm-iribam, 673 Sin-iribu, date, 673 Sin-magir, date, 673
Sin-muballit, 155, 485 sg.y 557, date, 674 Sinuhe (Sanehat), Romance of, 2.26 sqg*,
237* 3°4> 3^5? 34-8; biblical parallels,
2,2,7 sq. Sippar, Map XI (F 4), 128; temple, 153,
35s *<?•> 3689 395> 4°9> 4*7> 434? 444 ^-> 465, 492; Amorite quarter,. 230; mush- kintt, 5195 temple of Shamash, 5355 clay sarcophagus, 549 Sippar- Yakhruru, 395, 465, 562 Sirius, heliacal risings of, 167 sqq., 248 sq.9
265$ Surnerian calendar, 462 Siat, Map vin (D 5), 273. 297^9.5 tomb of Hapzefi at, 305^.5 local gocl oft 329
Sivas, 43
Smenkhkere Mermeshau, 663
Smith, Elliot, on the Semites, etc., 254
— George, Assyrian discoveries, 129
* Sneferibre; see Senusret IV ^
* Snefru (S^phouris), 226, 277^., 282, 285,
3445 sea-trade, 289, 307, 320, date,
656
Sodom, tradition, 234 sq. Sokari (Sekri, Socharis), 272 sq., 275;
pyramid, 276, 322 Solomon, 190, 220, date, 160, 164, 166; hf£
temple, 157, 159, 1635 gnomic sayings,
202
*Solutrean* palaeolithic cwlture, 47, 50 sqq., 63 ; earliest Scandinavian man, 52 (cf. 83) 5 burial, 81 n.\ implements, Mesopotamia and Nile valley, 83; Spain, 94; Fayyum flints (Petrie), 250
Somalis, 'Aurignacian' type, 48
Somme, river, palaeolithic, 45 sq., 53
Sothic cycle, 151; instituted, 168, lyzsq., 248 sq., 2.65, 656; see also Calendar /T
Sothis, i68j see above
Spain, geological formation, 16 sq., 45 sq., 94; neolithic culture-types, 48 sq.y 52 sq., 60, 68, 725 E. Mediterranean culture, 92, 94x^.5 * beaker '-folk, J.QO sqq. ; copper- working, 1035 Hallstatt swords, 106, 109
Sparta, Map sir (37 N.)
Spata, Map xir (24 E.)
'Spectator, the,' his archaeological in- quiries, 115
Spiennes, late palaeolithic remains, 53
Spinning and weaving at Anau, 87
Stcatopygy, of negroids in Central Africa, 275 statuettes, late palaeolithic and neo- lithic, 495 not exclusively negroid, 49; *Aurignacian* art, 50 j predynastic Egyp- tian art, 570; pottery at Cnossus, 5905 Thessallan pottery, 610
Stele of Shargllisharri (q.<u.)
— of Victory, 130, 417 j^.; see Naram- Sin
— of Vultures; see Eannatum, Mesillm Stentinello, 92, 97
Stone, use in Babylonia, 583
Strabo, 397, 544, 552
* Strandlo opera/ 27, 53
Styriaii horsemen, 108
Subartu (Subir), 229 sqq., 452, 455 sq.y 467 sqq.
Sfihagv Map vin (D 6), 254
Suidas, 178
Sumer (Shumer) and Sumerians, Map xi (H 5), cf. Maps IX, X; see generaltv, Chs. x-xn, 464 sqq., 476; and Zagros, 415 art m Babylonia, 85; chronology, 148 5 king- lists, 1525 Kish and Ur, 1525 Babylc^nia, 171; language, 127, 187; script, 189, 3^1$ exchange of culture ipith Semites, 192,
INDEX
198; polytheism, 198^5 deification of kings, 222, date, 2255 topography,, 356— 361 (cf. 39*7., 43 -^ 494 -W) 5 con- trast with Semites, 127, 356 sq. (cf. 519); origjg, 361 sqq., 469, 497; cylinder-seals, „ 363," 376; religious connexion with Semites, 371 sq.$ protecting gods, 3 84 ,?<?.; empire of Ur, 435-463; Ur-Engur and Dungi, 435-441; liturgies and principal cults, 441—447; eastern provinces, 447 $qq.$ northern and western extension, k 451—456, 469; decline, 456-463; causes, 464^.; code of laws, 435^-, 4615 in Cappadocia, 453 sqq-$ calendars, 391, 461 sq.$ in ^"edynastic Egypt, 462; pottery, 578; influence on Minoan art,
587 Sumu-abu(m), 154, 404, 465, 470, 479 $q.9
date, 658, 673 Sumu-ditana, 673 Sumu-ilum? 479, 485, date, 672 Sumu-la-iium, 480 sqq., 557 sq.9 date, 658,
<^3
Sunnis, the, 216
Sun-worship in Egypt, 330 sq.
Surghul, Map XI (H 5) ; see Nina
Surushkm, 669
Surya ( = Shuriyash), 312, 553
Susa7 Map vn (C 2), neolithic implements, 51^.; broad-headed man, So, Sgsgq.; culture, 85-89; burial, no; first exca- vat&n, 130; Semites, 1855 site, 357^.5 material culture, 360^^., 375J"<7-; and Sargon, 404, 410; statue of Naram-Sin, 417; and Ur, 441; Hammurabi's code, 492 sq.-7 prehistoric pottery, 375, 578 sq.
Sutekh, 213, 275, 313, 323 jg.; see Set
Sutu, the, 231; ?=Seth, 234^.
Swamp -culture, late palaeolithic, N.W. Europe, 53 sqq*$ modern Finns and Lapps, 54; N.E. Europe, 55
Sweden, late palaeolithic, 545 southern megaliths, 98
Switzerland, neolithic culture, 57
Swords, 106, 109, 572, 596; see War
~yria, neolithic culture-types, 34, 36, 38, 43, 46; agriculture, 68; North, lake- dwellings, 74; * band-pottery,* 775 analo- gies with Anau, 88 ; North, painted ware, 89; copper-working, 90 ^.5 North, horse-breeding, 107^.; iron, 109; ex- ploration, 1 30 sq. ; excavation, 132 sqq» ; 1 Syriac, 186; Aramaean inscriptions, 189; spread of Christianity and Islam, 191; Semite 'invasion,* 193 ; Syriac literature, 195; North, historical inscriptions, 223; relations with Mesopotamia and Egypt, 226; autonomous Semitic states, 229; Dynasty of Sargon, 402—412; Naram- >Sin, 4175 Gudea, 427; Dungi, 451; bronze inventec^ 578; place in art, 588
Syrian causeway, 16 sq.> 33^., 183; primitive marj, 39; neolithic culture, 59
T. The hard Semitic / is represented by i (Jb, SD). t& represents the ordinary aspirated th (in some systems /^)? al- though it could also stand for / -f h» Xaanach, 134, 228 Tabnith, 133 Tabra (Tapurra), 439 Tacitus, 55 Tagtug, 456 Tatiutihetep, 306 Tait, 322, 325 Taki, 674 *Talayots,* 96 Tammuz, 202, 237, 366, 374, 396, 401,
4I3? 4^5* 43*> 43^, 443> 44^ sq*9 456? 465, 474, 533, 551 5 bisexual (and Ishtar), 208; mythical king, 666; month of, 461 sq.
Tanis (=Zoan), Map vm (D 2), age of 1575 statues, etc,, at, 309; Hyksos relics, 3*3 -r?-
Taranto, 'terremare* settlement, 74
Tardenoise, late palaeolithic remains, 525 fiaked flints, 72
Tarentum, Aegean settlement, 106
Tar^u (Tarku), Hittite god, 234; cf. Terah
Tarim basin, 7
Tarkhan, 245, 256, 267, 273
Tashmiturn, 535
Tasmanians, analogy with Mousterians, 50
Taunus, 76
Taurus, mt., Map si (B 2), geological for- mation, 6 sqq.9 19, 25, 42; causeway for migrations, 165 limit of Semite occu- pation, 193; Sargon, 405; Gudea, 4285 Amorites, 455
Taylor, J. E., excavations, 129, 398 sq.
Tazzi-gurumash, date, 675
Tefnut, 331
Telloh, Map XI (H 5), 129 sq*
Temple-harlot, 538
Temple of Jerusalem, 157, 159? 162 sq.9 166; wealth due to trade, 183, 206; religious centre, 215
Temples, Mesopotamian, and calculation of time, 147; as centres of commerce, Jewish and Babylonian, 201, 534; store- houses of records, 157, 221; as state- institutions, 531-540
Terab* 234; see Tarhu
Terra-del-fuego, 53
*Terremare* villages, 74, 78; end of culture, 108; cremation, no sq.
Tertiary period, 6 sqq*9 n> 13
Tes (Thesh), z66, 661
Teshub, 231
INDEX
Tethmosis, 314 «,
•Tethys,* 4-f??.? 9? xi -^ t 6
Teti, 290,^292, 330, date, 6 >2.
Teti-"an, 315
Thames, 45, 102
Thampfithis, 284, date, 66z
Thebes (Egyptian), Maps vn (B 3), VIII (E 7), 121 sq.$ XVIXIth Dynasty frescoes, 176, 297^.; Xlth Dynasty, 298^.; Xlllth Dynasty, 3105 priestly college,
323
Theodorus of the Decapolis, 203
Theon of Alexandria, 168
Thera, Map XII (36 N.)j eruption at, 597, 600, 602 sq.
Thesh; see Tes
Thessaly, * Bosnian" pottery, 785 Tripolje culture, 8 1 sq.$ horse-breeding-, 1075 cremation, inj periods of Bronze Ag-e in, 141; prehistoric period, 174; com- parative isolation of, 1805 Thessalian civilization, 609—6 1 5
This, Map VIII (D 6), 250
tholoii 592
Thompson, K. Campbell, chronology of Mesopotamian history, 156, 67215^.5 excavations, 135, 469
Thoth, 350, 269, 3145 origin, 328, 331
Thothmes; see Thutmose
Thrace, Map xn (41 N.), 'tumulus* -folk, 82; meg-aliths, 96; horse -breeding-, 107 /£.; cremation, 1115 prehistoric age, 612; and Troy, 613
Thucydides and Minos, 178
Thuringia, 'round-barrow* folk, roa
Thutmose (Thut-mases), the name, 314; III, 170, 173, 233, date, 660; Late Minoan remains in Egypt, 176, 259, 314
Ti (Vth Dynasty), tomb of, 288, 575
Tiarnat, 545, 551, 555
Tibar (? Tabal), Map XI (C i), 418
Tibet, geological formation, 7 sq*
Tidal of Goiim, 236, 473 n.
Tidami (Tidnu), 458, 468
Tiglath-pileser I, cylinder of, 126, 152, 154/^.5 name adopted by usurpers,
15^. Ill, 151,
— Ill, 151, 156, 160 sq*, 166
Tigris and primitive man, Map xi (F ; H 4), 39x^.5 Chesney's survey, 122^.5 Sumerian decline, 464; floods, 492; transport, 496, 4985 water-wheels, 502$ T. as defence, 556, 558 sq.$ see also 43 sq.y 356-361, 383, 421, 452
Tlh, desert of, Map VIII (D 3), 131
Tirhakah, 161
Tirigan (Terikhan), 434
Tiryns, Schliemann at, 137; Late Minoan remains, 176, 606, 608, 613
Tishpak, 447 sq., 449, 468
Tin, 266, 66 r
Tiy, queen, tomjb of, 1225 scarab ofj at
Mycenae, ij6$'m Cyprus, 176 Tombs; see Burial Tosorthrosj see S^oser
- Totemic origin of Egyptian gods,w328 sq.\ \ survivals, 246, 2^905 the ba, 334^, Toutimaios, 310
Transcaucasia, domesticated animals, 69 Trinii brain-case, 18 Tripoli, *Capsiaii' culture, 525 "senams,
965 Gerba, 104 Tripolje culture, 80 sqq. j analogies wirf
Anau, 815 broken up, 1075 cremation
no sq. Troy, Map xrr (26 E.), easiest Bronze Age,
62; date of fill 1, 157, 177^.; 'Minyan*
ware, 6075 and Thrace, 612 sqq»$ see also
Hissarlik
Tubal (country) ; see Tibar Tubal-Cain, 206 Tukulti-Ninib; see beloiv Tukulti-Ninurta, 153 sq. Tumulus-folk, 81 tq.9 84^., 91, 98, /*3i;
*bell-beaker" folk, 1025 in Central
Europe, 105, 107 Tunisia, rock-tombs, 975 broad-headed
folk, 104 Tunurei, 259
Tur> 553
Tura, Map VIII (D 3), 240, 246, 267
Turin Papyrus of Kings, 167, iyosq.y 250,
258 sq.; Chs. vn and VIII passim r Turks and Islam, 192 Tyre, Map vn (B 2), foundation, 157;
sea-power, place in Semitic history, 1915
Herodotus, 236 Tyrrhenia, pre-glacial, 6 sq*
U. In Arabic names the vowel (damma) is popularly represented by o, e.g, Koran (Kur?an)> Mohammed (Muhammad). The Latin -us has generally been used here for the Greek -w, and -u for the Greek -ou.
Ua^i-*ankh, 299, 301 sq.
Uapuaut, 269, 273
Uazed, 664
Uazkere (Uaz-ka-Re1*), 297, date, 66$
Uazkheperre, 6645 see Kaniose
Uazn'ar, z66, 66 1
Uaznes (Uaznas), 275, 66 1
Ubar(a)-Tutu (Opartes), 393, 500
Ubienthis, 274
Ubriash, 553
Ugme, 669
Ukraine, 45, 76; * painted -ware* people,
105; cremation, no Ukush, 669 Ula(m)~Bxmaah, 564
INDEX
Urr.^ia (opposite La%ash, Map xi, H 5), 380 j^., 385, 389 .r<7£. (age also 461^.), 402, 412, 424, 434, 442 j site, 3605 neo- lithic remains, 361; Ur-Engur, 435? 437; and Bur-Sin, 459; calendar, 46^5 copper, 545 j^tele of the Vultures, 5845 list of patesis, 668 sqq.
Umm-el-ka*ab (Abydos, Map vm), 350 ^Umunbanda, 447 * Wndalulu, 668
Uni, 292 sq.^ triumph song1 of, 343
l*ais, 290, 330, 339, date, 657, 662
Unzi, 370, 375, 377*3., 668 ^[Johkere Ekhtai II, date, 6635 see Ekhtai
Upwawet, 329
Ur, Map xi (G 5^, 129, 359 sq.9 373, 396, 402, 408, 423, 434, 44.V?-» 47*> 497> 499, 5485 Sumerian tradition, 152; home of Abraham, 2345 r=Kir, 2345 neolithic remains, 361; dynasties of, 155^., 367 sq.9 390^., 548; lists, 666^.$ empke of Ur, Ch. xii, code of laws, 388 ; site^ 398" jy. ; and Cappadocia, 453^.5 caflndar, 4625 walls destroyed, 556
Urabba, 671
Uraeus, 266
Ural range, geological formation, 10, 15, 19, 25, 83
Urash, 466
Ur-azag, date, 673
Ur~Babbar, 670
Ur-Bau, 373-^ 39 *> 399» 424 *<&-* ^ate» 657> 069
Ur-E, 669
Ur-Engur, 148, 156, 390, 392, 397, 400, 419 jy., 4a6, 435-W» 44° ^-? 45^^ 453? 457, date 658, 671
Ur-Enlil, 667
Urgar, 670
Urgigir, 670
Ur-Ilbaba, 371, 403, 669
Urizi, 426, 432
Ur-lama, 671
Urlumma, 381, 383, 390, 669
Urmama, 669
Urnigin, 670
Ur-Nina, 374^., 38^» 3&9 *3*> 399^-' 440, 509^ 584 sq.y date, 656, 668
Ur-Ningirsu, 441 sq., 670 *
Ur-NImim, 670
Ur-Ninurta, 471, 475^., date, 672
Uru-kup-ga (? el-Hibba), 380^., 425
Urukagma, 385^., 393, 4°^ 4^9? 5^9> n%657, 669; reforms, 387^.
Urur, 668
Urzaged, 369, 667
Userkaf (Usr-ka-f, Ouserkhergs), 283, 285, date, 662
Userkere, date, 662
Usertlfeenj see Senusret
ushebti figures ^ St.9
Ushpia, 154, 45|, 470; date, 6$$, 672" Usret, 304 sq. j ^
Ussher's chronology of Old Xestaoient,
146, 158, 165 sg. *Ut (Uta)-Napishtim (Xisuthrus), 39^3, 406,
497^,, 500, 533, 543, 550 Uto, goddess, 266 Utu, sun-deity, 366, 395, 397 Utug, 667
Utukhegal, 434, 441, 657, 671 Uziwadar, 669 Uzziah, fate of, 166
Valle, Pietro della, 115
Vaphio cup, and Egyptian frescoes, 176
Varuna, god, 237; and Yah web, 237; in
Mesopotamia, 312 Victory, Stele of; see Stele Villafrati, 92 Vosges, geological formation, 75 effect on
neolithic culture, 76, 78, 99 Vultures, Stele of 5 see Eannatum-i Mesilim
W. For the Semitic w the English. Bible uses v (e.g. Jehovah).
Wahhabites, 212
War, neolithic implements, 66 sq. \ Hall- statt swords, 108 sqq. ; swords of Greeks and Romans, 109; of Hyksos, 313, 319; of Egyptians, 572 5 see Chariot
Warad»nene, 674
Warad-Sin> 484, date, 673
Warlagaba, 670
Wasta (south of Cairo, Map VITI), 245, 267
Water-wheel, 461, 502
Weser, river, * round-barrow' folk, 102
Wheat, Highland Zone, 61, 725 W. Europe, 68 sq.'f Anau, 87; origin of cultivation, 91; drying-kilns in pre- dynastic Egypt, 241 sq.$ in Babylonia, 500, 503, 541 -*y#«5 at Orchomenus, 608
Wheel, potter's, 320, 579, 596; in third culture of Anau, 883 at Susa, 3615 Middle Minoan Period, 596, 602; 'Minyan* ware, 606 sq.
Winds in Babylonia, how named, 411
Woman, a cave-dweller, 46; *Aurignacian,* 50, 675 pot-makers, 715 and children, status amongst Semites, 207x^.5 social status in Babylon, 520 s<j[q*\ see Priestesses
*Word, The/ in Babylonian, 202 sq^ 443
Writing, Early Minoan, 140; Cypriote, 144; Semitic, 189 j Sumerian, pictographs, 371 sq.9 376; do. in Egypt, 341 sq.y 372, 4625 transition to cuneiform, 263, 3755 clay-tablet for, 376^.5 Cretan picto- graphs, 594; see Alphabet, Hieroglyphs
Xisuthrusj see Ut-Napishtim
INDEX
Ya, the land, 227
Ya, Yau, the god, ? = YaLT«veh, 232
Yahgans, the, a palaeolithic analogy, 53
Yahweh, 185 sq., 209, 213, 215; beginning- of wrship, 198, 235; imageiess worship, r 2035 in Elephantine, 204$ ?Amorite origin, 232; and Baal, Interchangeable, 2325 Anath-yahu, 2335 and Jerusalem, 2345 Jacob at Bethel, 2365 and Varuna, 2375 and Babel, 503
Yakhzir-ilu, date, 673
Yakub-ilu, Yakubum, 233
Yapium, date, 673
Yarmuti, 405
Yaua (=Jehu), 160
Year, the, 147 $qq.$ Assyrian and Hebrew, 1605 Sumerian, 461 j^.j see Calendar
Yekeb-ba'al. 313, 664
Yekeb-hal, 313, 6645 see Jacob-el
Yemen (south-west Arabia, Map vii), 133 sqf> 182$ nomad Jafnites, 190
Yokha; see Umma
Yortan Keui, tombs, 89
Z. % is used to represent the emphatic Arabic $z2 (J^)> for which other systems have tz>y or g, z being sometimes used for sad (u^)> ^or which / is here used; see 5. For the Semitic z Egyptian has sounds represented by / or ;.
Za, Zet (Ata)? 270, 66 r
Zab rivers, Map XI (F a-3, G 3), 357, 439
Zabaia, date, 672
Zabium (Zabum), 483, 508, date, 673
Zagros ranges, Map xi (G 3), 19, 39^., 43 sq., 107, 312, 357; and itfi^hland Zone, 59 5 the horse acquired, 106 sy.t 501 5 neolithic stations, 361; Naram-Sin's con- quests, 414, 5845 Gudea, 428; Dungv 439; Bur-Sin, 457
Zamama (read Ilbaba), 372, 530
Zamama-shum-iddm, 153
Zambia, date, 673
Zariku, 470, 658, date, 672
Zawiyet el-Aryan (south of Memphis, Map vin), 277 ^
Zenjirli, inscriptions, Map xi (C 2), 133
Zer, 2705 tomb of, 336, 3505 see also Atoti
Zerah, 160
Zeus, Cretan connexions, 599
Ziggurat, 374, 390^., 3985 at Babylon, 505, 508
Zimudar, 669
Zimzai, 675
Zoan, Map vin (Da), 157
Zoar, in biblical tradition, 234 sq,
Zoser (Khetneter, Tosorthros), 275 sgq.9 2,79*3., 284^., 295, 582, dale, 656, 662
Zu-en, of Ur, 396
Zukakipu, 665; see Scorpion
Zuzu, 381
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY w, LEWIS, M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS