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^grta, Habglimta, and
By G. MASPERO, Honorable Doctor of Civil Laws,
and Fellow of Queen s College, Oxford ; Member of
the Institute and Professor at the College of France
Edited by A. H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
Translated by M. L. McCLURE, Member of
the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund
VOL. IV
Containing over Tivel-ve Hundred
Colored Plates and Illustrations
THE G R O L I E R S () C I E T Y
PUBLISHERS A A A LONDON
1 2
Printed by
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED
LONDON
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST CHALD^EAN EMPIRE AND THE HYK8O8 IN EGYPT
PAGE
Syria : The Part Played by it in the Ancient World Babylon and the
First Chaldzean Empire The Dominion of the HyksSs : Ahmosis . 3
CHAPTER II,
SYRIA AT THE BEGINNING OK THE EGYPTIAN CONQUEST
Nineveh and the First Cossaean Kings The Peoples of Syria, their
Towns, their Civilization, their Religion Phoenicia .... 159
CHAPTER III.
THE EIGHTEENTH THEBAN DYNASTY
Thutmosis I. and his Army Hatshopsitu and Thutmosis III. . . 305
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Musical Decoration in the Hall of the Harps, Tomb of the Kings, to the
East, Thebes (Byban el Molouk) .... Frontispiece
The enamelled gold necklace of Queen Ahhotpu in the Gizeh Museum . 3
The most northern source of the Jordan, the Nahr-el-Hasbany ... 14
The Lake of Genesareth . . . . . . . . . .15
One of the reaches of the Jordan, in the neighbourhood of Jericho . . 17
The Dead Sea and the mountains of Moab, seen from the heights of Engedi 18
Asiatic women from the tomb of Khnumhotpu ...... 23
Two Asiatics from the tomb of Khnumhotpu ...... 2-4
The ruins of Babylon seen from the South ...... 29
The Kasr seen from the South ......... 32
The Tell of Borsippa, the present Birs-Ximrud 33
The banks of the Euphrates at Zuleibeh ....... 36
An ancient Susian of Xegritic race ........ 46
Native of mixed Negritic race from Susiana ...... 47
The Tumulus of Susa, as it appeared towards the middle of the nineteenth
century ............ 48
An Elamite goddess, answering to the Chaldsean Ishtar .... 50
A Hyksos prisoner guiding the plough, at El-Kab ..... 80
Table of offerings bearing the name of Apopi Aqnunri .... 82
The Bagdad Lion, in the British Museum ....... 83
The broken statue of Khiani, in the Gizeh Museum ..... 84
The traditional oak of Abraham at Hebron . . . . 93
The Arrival of the Nomad 101
Xofritari, from the wooden statuette in the Turin Museum . . . 109
The head of Saqnunri III. 110
The small gold votive Barque of Pharaoh Kamosu, in the Gizeh Museum . 113
The walls of El-Kab seen from the tomb of Pihiri . . . . .116
A mummy factory ........... 118
vii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The ruins of the Pyramid of Qulah, near Mohammerieh . . . .119
The tombs of the princes of Nekhabit, ii. the hillside above El-Kab , . 122
A convoy of Turah quarrymen drawing stone ... . . 132
Coffin of Ahmosis in the Gizeh Museum .... . 135
Nofritari, the black-skinned goddess ..... 136
The jewels and weapons of Queen Ahhotpu I. in the Gizeh Museum . 137
The two coffins of Ahhotpu II. and Nofritari standing in the vestibule
of the old Bulak Museum . 141
Decorations on the wrappings of a mummy 142
Statue of Amenothes I. in the Turin Museum ... . 144
Stele of Amenothes I. in the Louvre . . . . . . . -146
The coffin and mummy of Amenothes I. in the Gizeh Museum . .147
Thutmosis I., from a statue in the Gizeh Museum ..... 150
Signs, arms, and instruments painted in the fifth tomb of the Kings to
the East, Thebes (Byban el Molouk) . . . . . . .155
The modern village of Zerin, in Galilee, seen from the south . . . 159
The fortress and bridge of Zalu ........ 177
The walled city of Dapur, in Galilee . . . . . . . .185
The Migdol of Ramses III. at Thebes, in the temple of Medynet-Abou . 187
The modern village of Beitin (ancient Bethel) seen from the south-west . 189
Vineyards in the neighbourhood of Hebron 191
Shechem in the middle of an amphitheatre of hills . . . . .192
The evergreen oaks between Joppa and Carmel . . 196
Acre and the fringe of reefs sheltering the ancient fort .... 197
The Tyrian ladder at Ras el-Abaid 203
The Tell of Jerabis in its present condition . . . . . .212
A Northern Syrian 213
The heads of three Amorite captives . . . . . . . .215
A Northern Syrian-Innuam . . . . . . . . .216
A caricature of the Syrian type . . . . . . . . .218
An Asiatic . . . . . . . . . . .219
Syrians dressed in the loin-cloth and double shawl 220
An Asiatic of the upper class ....... c 222
A young Syrian girl ........... 223
Lotanu women and children from the tomb of Rakhimiri .... 226
Astarte as a sphinx ........... 229
Qodshu and Rashuf on a stele in the Louvre . . . . . 231
Transjordian Dolmen .......... 235
A Cromlech in the neighboiirhood of Hasban, in the country of Moab . 238
A corner of the Phoenician wall of Arvad ... .... 249
Valley of the Adonis, seen from the ruins of Aphaka 256
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix
PAGE
The amphitheatre of Aphaka and the source of the Hahr-Ibrahim . . 257
The sculptured rocks of Hanaweh ........ 273
One of the Kafiti from the tomb of Rakhmiri ...... 282
Head of a gazelle forming the figure-head of an Egyptian galley . . 286
An Egyptian trading vessel of the first half of the XVIII. dynasty . . 288
Dagger of Ahmosis ........... 298
One of the daggers discovered at Mycenae, showing an imitation of Egyp
tian decoration ........... 299
The Temple of Luxor in its present condition, seen from the left bank of
the Nile 305
A platoon (troop) of Egyptian spearmen at Deir el-Bahari . . .311
A platoon of Egyptian archers at Deir el-Bahari . . . . .313
The Egyptian chariot preserved in the Florence Museum . . . .314
The king charging on his chariot . . . . . . . 315
An Egyptian learning to ride, from a bas-relief in the Bologna Museum . 318
The war-dance of the Timihu at Deir el-Bahari ... . 319
A column of troops on the march, chariots and infantry . . . 321
An Egyptian fortified camp, forced by the enemy . . . 322
Two companies of infantry on the march .... . 323
Scenes from military life in an Egyptian camp ... . 325
Encounter between Egyptian and Asiatic chariots .... 327
Counting of hands and prisoners brought before the king after a battle . 331
A city of modern Nubia The ancient gondola . . . 336
Arrival of an Ethiopian queen bringing tribute to the viceroy of Rush . 338
Typical Galla woman .... 339
Gold epergne representing scenes from Ethiopian life .... 341
Portrait of the Queen Ahmasi 344
Queen Mutnofrit in the Gizeh Museum
VEv
Queen Hatshopsitu in male costume .... 343
Bust of Queen Hatshopsitu .... 347
Painting in a Tomb of the Kings, Thebes . . . f 349
The amphitheatre at Deir el-Bahari, as it appeared before Naville s
excavations ox A
... oou
The northern colonnade of Hatshopsitu at Deir el-Bahari . . . .351
Head of the mummy of Thutmosis T . 353
Head of the mummy of Thutmosis II 354
The coffin of Thutmosis I. 355
The Royal Pavilion, Thebes 355
The statue of Sanmut .... 357
Hatshopsitu s obelisk at Karnak .... 358
An inhabitant of the land of Puauit . . 361
x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
A village on the bank of the river, with ladders of incense . . . 363
Prince Parihu and the Princess of Puanit ....... 365
The embarkation of the incense sycomores on board the Egyptian fleet . 366
Some of the incense trees brought from Puanit to Deir el-Bahari . . 369
Thutmosis III., from his statue in the Turin Museum .... 372
An Egyptian encampment before a besieged town ..... 378
Some of the plants and animals brought back from Puanit . . . 380
Part of the triumphal lists of Thutmosis III., on one of the Pylons of the
temple at Karnak ..... .... 381
Some of the objects carried in tribute to the Syrians ..... 384
THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
AND THE HYKSOS -IN EGYPT
SYRIA : THE PART PLAYED BY IT IN THE HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
BABYLON AND THE FIRST CIIALD.EAN EMPIRE THE DOMINION OF THE
HYKSOS : AIIMOSIS.
Syria, owing to its geographical position, condemned to be subject to neighbour
ing powers Lebanon, Anti-Lebanon, the valley of the Orontes and of the Litany,
and surrounding regions : the northern table-land, the country about Damascus,
the Mediterranean coast, the Jordan and the Dead Sea Civilization and
primitive inhabitants, Semites and Asiatics: the almost entire absence of
Egyptian influence, the predominance of that of Chaldeea.
Babylon, its ruins and its environs It extends its rule over Mesopotamia ;
its earliest dynasty and its struggle with Central ChaldseaElam, its geo
graphical position, its peoples; Kutur-NaJchunta conquers Larsam Eimsin
(Eri-Aku); Khammurabi founds the first Babylonian empire ; his victories, his
buildings, his canals The Elamites in Syria : Kudurlagamar Syria recognizes
the authority of Hammurabi and his successors.
VOL. IV.
( 2 )
TJte HyJcsos conquer Egypt at the end of the XIV th dynasty ; the founding of
Avaris Uncertainty both of ancients and moderns icith regard to the origin of
the HyJcsos: probability of their being the Khati Their kings adopt the manners
and civilization of the Egyptians : the monuments of Khiani and of Apophis I.
and II. The XV th dynasty.
Semitic incursions following the HyJcsos The migration of the Phoenicians
and the Israelites into Syria : TeraJi, Abraham and his sojourn in the land of
Canaan Isaac, Jacob, Joseph : the Israelites go down into Egypt and settle in
the land of Goshen.
Thebes revolts against the HyJcsos : popular traditions as to the origin of the
war, the romance of ApopJiis and Saqnunri The Theban princesses and the last
kings of the XVII th dynasty : Tiudqni Kamosis, Ahmosis I. The lords of El-
Kab, and the part they played during the war of independence The taking of
Avaris and the expulsion of the HyJcsos.
The reorganization of Egypt Ahmosis I. and his Nubian vmrs, the reopening
of the quarries of Tilrah Amenothes I. and his mother Nofrltari : the jewellery
of Queen Ahhotpu The wars of Amenothes I , the apotheosis of Nofritari The
accession of Thatmosis I. and the re-generation of Egypt.
a A
THE ENAMELLED GOLD NECKLACE OF QUEEN AHHOTl U IN THE GIZEH MUSEUM. 1
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST CHALD/EAN EMPIRE AND THE
HYKSOS IN EGYPT
Syria : the part played by it in the ancient world Babylon and the first
Chaldsean empire The dominion of the Hyksos : Ahmosis.
GOME countries seem destined
from their origin to become
the battle-fields of the contend
ing nations which environ them.
Into such regions, and to their
cost, neighbouring peoples come
from century to century to settle
their quarrels and bring to an
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a
photograph by Emil Brugsch-Bey. The
vignette, also by Faucher-Gudin, from a
photograph by Deveria, taken in 1864,
represents the gilded mask of the coffin
of Queen Ahhotpu I.
4 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
issue the questions of supremacy which disturb their little
corner of the world. The nations around are eager
for the possession of a country thus situated; it is
seized upon bit by bit, and in the strife dismembered and
trodden underfoot : at best the only course open to its
inhabitants is to join forces with one of its invaders, and
while helping the intruder to overcome the rest, to secure
for themselves a position of permanent servitude. Should
some unlooked-for chance relieve them from the presence
of their foreign lord, they will probably be quite incapable
of profiting by the respite which fortune puts in their way,
or of making any effectual attempt to organize themselves
in view of future attacks. They tend to become split up
into numerous rival communities, of which even the
pettiest will aim at autonomy, keeping up a perpetual
frontier war for the sake of becoming possessed of or of
retaining a glorious sovereignty over a few acres of corn
in the plains, or some wooded ravines in the mountains.
Year after year there will be scenes of bloody conflict, in
which petty armies will fight petty battles on behalf of
petty interests, but so fiercely, and with such furious
animosity, that the country will suffer from the strife as
much as, or even more than, from an invasion. There
will be no truce to their struggles until they all fall under
the sway of a foreign master, and, except in the interval
between two conquests, they will have no national
existence, their history being almost entirely merged in
that of other nations.
From remote antiquity Syria was in the condition just
described, and thus destined to become subject to foreign
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SYRIA UNDER FOREIGN RULE 7
rule. Chaldzea, Egypt, Assyria, and Persia presided in
turn over its destinies, while Macedonia and the empires
of the West were only waiting their opportunity to lay
hold of it. By its position it formed a kind of meeting-
place where most of the military nations of the ancient
world were bound sooner or later to come violently into
collision. Confined between the sea and the desert, Syria
offers the only route of easy access to an army marching
northwards from Africa into Asia, and all conquerors,
whether attracted to Mesopotamia or to Egypt by the
accumulated riches on the banks of the Euphrates or the
Nile, were obliged to pass through it in order to reach
the object of their cupidity. It might, perhaps, have
escaped this fatal consequence of its position, had the
formation of the country permitted its tribes to mass
themselves together, and oppose a compact body to the
invading hosts ; but the range of mountains which forms
its backbone subdivides it into isolated districts, and by
thus restricting each tribe to a narrow existence main
tained among them a mutual antagonism. The twin
chains, the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, which divide
the country down the centre, are composed of the same
kind of calcareous rocks and sandstone, while the same
sort of reddish clay has been deposited on their slopes by
the glaciers of the same geological period. 1 Arid and bare
1 Drake remarked in the Lebanon several varieties of limestone, which
have been carefully catalogued by Blanche and Lartet. Above these strata,
which belong to the Jurassic formation, come reddish sandstone, then beds of
very hard yellowish limestone, and finally marl. The name Lebanon, in
Assyrian Libnana, would appear to signify "the white mountain;" the
THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
on the northern side, they sent out towards the south
featureless monotonous ridges, furrowed here and there
by short narrow valleys, hollowed out in places into basins
or funnel-shaped ravines, which are widened year by year
by the down-rush of torrents. These ridges, as they
proceed southwards, become clothed with verdure and
offer a more varied outline, the ravines being more thickly
wooded, and the summits less uniform in contour and
colouring. Lebanon becomes white and ice-crowned in
winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitude of
perpetual snows : the highest of them, Mount Timarun,
reaches 10,526 feet, while only three others exceed 9000. l
Anti-Lebanon is, speaking generally, 1000 or 1300 feet
lower than its neighbour : it becomes higher, however,
towards the south, where the triple peak of Mount Hermon
rises to a height of 9184 feet. The Orontes and the Litany
drain the intermediate space. The Orontes rising on the
west side of the Anti-Lebanon, near the ruins of Baalbek,
rushes northwards in such a violent manner, that the
dwellers on its banks call it the rebel Nahr el-Asi. 2 About
Amorites called the Anti-Lebanon Saniru, Shenir, according to the Assyrian
texts and the Hebrew books.
1 BURTON-DRAKE, Unexplored Syria, vol. i. p. 88, attributed to it an
altitude of 9175 English feet; others estimate it at 10,539 feet. The
mountains which exceed 3000 metres are Dahr el-Kozib, 3046 metres ; Jebel-
Miskiyah, 3080 metres ; and Jebel-Makhmal or Makrnal, 3040 metres. As
a matter of fact, these heights are not yet determined with the accuracy
desirable.
2 The Egyptians knew it in early times by the name of Aunrati, or
Araunti ; it is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions under the name of Arantu.
All are agreed in acknowledging that this name is not Semitic, and an
Aryan origin is attributed to it, but without convincing proof ; according to
THE ORONTES AND THE LITANY 9
a third of the way towards its mouth it enters a depression,
which ancient dykes help to transform into a lake ; it
flows thence, almost parallel to the sea-coast, as far as
the 36th degree of latitude. There it meets the last spurs
of the Amanos, but, failing to cut its way through them,
it turns abruptly to the west, and then to the south,
falling into the Mediterranean after having received an
increase to its volume from the waters of the Afrin. The
Litany rises a short distance from the Orontes ; it flows
at first through a wide and fertile plain, which soon con
tracts, however, and forces it into a channel between the
spurs of the Lebanon and the Galilasan hills. The water
thence makes its way between two cliffs of perpendicular
rock, the ravine being in several places so narrow that
the branches of the trees on the opposite sides interlace,
and an active man could readily leap across it. Near
Yakhmur some detached rocks appear to have been
arrested in their fall, and, leaning like flying buttresses
against the mountain face, constitute a natural bridge over
the torrent. The basins of the two rivers lie in one valley,
extending eighty leagues in length, divided by an almost
imperceptible watershed into two beds of unequal slope.
The central part of the valley is given up to marshes. It
Strabo (xvi. ii. 7, p. 750), it was originally called Typhon, and was only
styled Orontes after a certain Orontes had built the first bridge across it.
The name of Axios which it sometimes bears appears to have been given to
it by Greek colonists, in memory of a river in Macedonia. This is probably
the origin of the modern name of Asi, and the meaning, rebellious river,
which Arab tradition attaches to the latter term, probably comes from a
popular etymology which likened Axios to Asi : the identification was all
the easier since it justifies the epithet by the violence of its current.
10 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
is only towards the south that we find cornfields, vineyards,
plantations of mulberry and olive trees, spread out over
the plain, or disposed in terraces on the hillsides. Towards
the north, the alluvial deposits of the Orontes have
gradually formed a black and fertile soil, upon which grow
luxuriant crops of cereals and other produce. Coele- Syria,
after having generously nourished the Oriental empires
which had preyed upon her, became one of the granaries
of the Koinan world, under the capable rule of the
Caesars.
Syria is surrounded on all sides by countries of varying
aspect and soil. That to the north, flanked by the Amanos,
is a gloomy mountainous region, with its greatest elevation
on the seaboard : it slopes gradually towards the interior,
spreading out into chalky table-lands, dotted over with bare
and rounded hills, and seamed with tortuous valleys which
open out to the Euphrates, the Orontes, or the desert.
Vast, slightly undulating plains succeed the table-lands:
the soil is dry and stony, the streams are few in number and
contain but little water. The Sajur flows into the
Euphrates, the Afrin and the Karasu when united yield
their tribute to the Orontes, while the others for the most
part pour their waters into enclosed basins. The Khalus
of the Greeks sluggishly pursues its course southward, and
after reluctantly leaving the gardens of Aleppo, finally
loses itself on the borders of the desert in a small salt lake
full of islets : about halfway between the Khalus and the
Euphrates a second salt lake receives the Nahr ed-Dahab,
the " golden river." The climate is mild, and the
temperature tolerably uniform. The sea-breeze which
THE NORTHERN TABLE-LAND 11
rises every afternoon tempers the summer heat : the cold in
winter is never piercing, except when the south wind blows
which comes from the mountains, and the snow rarely lies
on the ground for more than twenty-four hours. It seldom
rains during the autumn and winter months, but frequent
showers fall in the early days of spring. Vegetation then
awakes again, and the soil lends itself to cultivation in the
hollows of the valleys and on the table-lands wherever
irrigation is possible. The ancients dotted these now all
but desert spaces with wells and cisterns ; they intersected
them with canals, and covered them with farms and
villages, with fortresses and populous cities. Primaeval
forests clothed the slopes of the Amanos, and pinewood
from this region was famous both at Babylon and in the
towns of Lower Chaldaea. The plains produced barley and
wheat in enormous quantities, the vine throve there, the
gardens teemed with flowers and fruit, and pistachio and
olive trees grew on every slope. The desert was always
threatening to invade the plain, and gained rapidly upon
it whenever a prolonged war disturbed cultivation, or when
the negligence of the inhabitants slackened the work of
defence : beyond the lakes and salt marshes it had obtained
a secure hold. At the present time the greater part of the
country between the Orontes and the Euphrates is nothing
but a rocky table-land, ridged with low hills and dotted over
with some impoverished oases, excepting at the foot of
Anti-Lebanon, where two rivers, fed by innumerable streams,
have served to create a garden of marvellous beauty. The
Barada, dashing from cascade to cascade, flows for some
distance through gorges before emerging on the plain :
12 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
scarcely has it reached level ground than it widens out,
divides, and forms around Damascus a miniature delta, into
which a thousand interlacing channels carry refreshment
and fertility. Below the town these streams rejoin the
river, which, after having flowed merrily along for a day s
journey, is swallowed up in a kind of elongated chasm from
whence it never again emerges. At the melting of the
snows a regular lake is formed here, whose hlue waters are
surrounded by wide grassy margins "like a sapphire set
in emeralds." This lake dries up almost completely in
summer, and is converted into swampy meadows, filled with
gigantic rushes, among which the birds build their nests,
and multiply as unmolested as in the marshes of Chaldsea.
The Awaj, unfed by any tributary, fills a second deeper
though smaller basin, while to the south two other lesser
depressions receive the waters of the Anti-Lebanon and the
Hauran. Syria is protected from the encroachments of the
desert by a continuous barrier of pools and beds of reeds :
towards the east the space reclaimed resembles a verdant
promontory thrust boldly out into an ocean of sand. The
extent of the cultivated area is limited on the west by the
narrow strip of rock and clay which forms the littoral.
From the mouth of the Litany to that of the Orontes, the
coast presents a rugged, precipitous, and inhospitable
appearance. There are no ports, and merely a few ill-
protected harbours, or narrow beaches lying under formid
able headlands. One river, the Nahr el-Kebir, which
elsewhere would not attract the traveller s attention, is
here noticeable as being the only stream whose waters flow
constantly and with tolerable regularity ; the others, the
THE COUNTRY OF DAMASCUS 13
Leon, the Adonis, 1 and the Nahr el-Kelb, 2 can scarcely even
he called torrents, heing precipitated as it were in one leap
from the Lebanon to the Mediterranean. Olives, vines, and
corn cover the maritime plain, while in ancient times the
heights were clothed with impenetrable forests of oak, pine,
larch, cypress, spruce, and cedar. The mountain range drops
in altitude towards the centre of the country and becomes
merely a line of low hills, connecting Gebel Ansarieh with
the Lebanon proper ; beyond the latter it continues without
interruption, till at length, above the narrow Phosnician coast
road, it rises in the form of an almost insurmountable wall.
Near to the termination of Coele-Syria, but separated
from it by a range of hills, there opens out on the western
slopes of Hermon a valley unlike any other in the world.
At this point the surface of the earth has been rent in pre
historic times by volcanic action, leaving a chasm which
has never since closed up. A river, unique in character
the Jordan flows down this gigantic crevasse, fertilizing
the valley formed by it from end to end. 3 Its principal
1 The Adonis of classical authors is now Nahr-Ibrahim. We have as
yet no direct evidence as to the Phoenician name of this river ; it was prob
ably identical with that of the divinity worshipped on its banks. The fact
of a river bearing the name of a god is not surprising : the Belos, in the
neighbourhood of Acre, affords us a parallel case to the Adonis.
2 The present Nahr el-Kelb is the Lykos of classical authors. The Due
de Luynes thought he recognized a corruption of the Phoenician name in
that of Alcobile, which is mentioned hereabouts in the Itinerary of the
pilgrim of Bordeaux. The order of the Itinerary does not favour this
identification, and Alcobile is probably Jebail : it is none the less probable
that the original name of the Nahr el Kelb contained from earliest times
the Phoenician equivalent of the Arab word Tcelb, " dog."
3 The Jordan is mentioned in the Egyptian texts under the name of
Yorduna : the name appears to mean the descender, the down-flowing.
14 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
source is at Tell el-Qadi, where it rises out of a basaltic
mound whose summit is crowned by the ruins of Laish. 1
The water collects in an oval rocky basin hidden by
bushes, and flows down among the brushwood to join the
Nahr el-Hasbany, which brings the waters of the upper
THE MOST NORTHERS SOURCE OF THE JORDAN, THE NAHR-EL-HASBAXY. 2
torrents to swell its stream; a little lower down it mingles
with the Banias branch, and winds for some time amidst
desolate marshy meadows before disappearing in the
thick beds of rushes bordering Lake Huleh. 3 At
1 This source is mentioned by Josephus as being that of the Little
Jordan.
2 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by the Due de Luynes.
3 Lake Huleh is called the Waters of Merom, Me-Merom, in the Book of
THE MEDITERRANEAN LITTORAL
17
this point the Jordan reaches the level of the Mediter
ranean, but instead of maintaining it, the river makes
a sudden drop on leaving the lake, cutting for itself
a deeply grooved channel. It has a fall of some 300
feet before reaching the Lake of Genesareth, where
it is only momentarily arrested, as if to gather fresh
strength for its headlong career southwards. Here and
-
ONE OF THE BEACHES
OF THE JORDAN, IN THE NEIGH
BOURHOOD OF JERICHO. 1
there it makes furious assaults on its right and left banks,
as if to escape from its bed, but the rocky escarpments
which hem it in present an insurmountable barrier to it ;
Joshua, xi. 5, 7; and Lake Sammochonitis in Josephus. The name of
Ulatha, which was given to the surrounding country, shows that the modern
word Huleh is derived from an ancient form, of which unfortunately the
original has not come down to us.
Drawn by Boudier, from several photographs brought back by
Lortet.
VOL. IV.
C
18
THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
from rapid to rapid it descends with such capricious wind
ings that it covers a course of more than 62 miles hefore
reaching the Dead Sea, nearly 1300 feet below the level
of the Mediterranean. 1 Nothing could offer more striking
contrasts than the country on either bank. On the east,
THE DEAD SEA AND THE MOUNTAINS OF MOAB, SEEN FROM THE HEIGHTS
OF ENGEDI. 2
the ground rises abruptly to a height of about 3000 feet,
resembling a natural rampart flanked with towers and
1 The exact figures are : the Lake of Huleh 7 feet above the Mediter
ranean ; the Lake of Genesareth 682 5 feet, and the Dead Sea 1292-1 feet
below the sea-level ; to the south of the Dead Sea, towards the water-parting
of the Akabah, the ground is over 720 feet higher than the level of the Red
Sea.
2 Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by the Due de Luynes,
THE JORDAN AND THE RED SEA 19
bastions: behind this extends an immense table-land,
slightly undulating and intersected in all directions by the
affluents of the Jordan and the Dead Sea the Yarmuk, 1
the Jabbok, 2 and the Arnon. 3 The whole of this district
forms a little world in itself, whose inhabitants, half shep
herds, half bandits, live a life of isolation, with no ambition
to take part in general history. West of the Jordan, a
confused mass of hills rises into sight, their sparsely
covered slopes affording an impoverished soil for the
cultivation of corn, vines, and olives. One ridge Mount
Carmel detached from the principal chain near the
southern end of the Lake of Genesareth, runs obliquely
to the north-west, and finally projects into the sea. North
of this range extends Galilee, abounding in refreshing
streams and fertile fields ; while to the south, the country
falls naturally into three parallel zones the littoral, com
posed alternately of dunes and marshes an expanse of
plain, a " Shephelah," * dotted about with woods and
watered by intermittent rivers, and finally the mountains.
The region of dunes is not necessarily barren, and the
towns situated in it Gaza, Jaffa, Ashdod, and Ascalon
are surrounded hy flourishing orchards and gardens. The
plain yields plentiful harvests every year, the ground
needing no manure and very little labour. The higher
The Yarmuk does not occur in the Bible, but we meet with its name
in the Talmud, and the Greeks adopted it under the form Hieromax.
1 Gen. xxxii. 22 ; Numb. xxi. 24. The name has been Grecized under
the forms lobacchos, labacchos, lambykes. It is the present Nahr Zerqa.
Numl. xxi. 13-26; Deut. ii. 24; the present Wady Mojib.
* [Shephelah == "low country," plain (Josh. xi. 16). With the article it
means the plain along the Mediterranean from Joppa to Gaza. TB.]
20 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
ground and the hill-tops are sometimes covered with
verdure, but as they advance southwards, they become
denuded and burnt by the sun. The valleys, too, are
watered only by springs, which are dried up for the most
part during the summer, and the soil, parched by the
continuous heat, can scarcely be distinguished from the
desert. In fact, till the Sinaitic Peninsula and the frontiers
of Egypt are reached, the eye merely encounters desolate
and almost uninhabited solitudes, devastated by winter
torrents, and overshadowed by the volcanic summits of
Mount Seir. The spring rains, however, cause an early
crop of vegetation to spring up, which for a few weeks
furnishes the flocks of the nomad tribes with food.
We may summarise the physical characteristics of
Syria by saying that Nature has divided the country
into five or six regions of unequal area, isolated by rivers
and mountains, each one of which, however, is admirably
suited to become the seat of a separate independent
state. In the north, we have the country of the two
rivers the Naharaim extending from the Orontes to
the Euphrates and the Balikh, or even as far as the
Khabur: 1 in the centre, between the two ranges of the
Lebanon, lie Ccele-Syria and its two unequal neighbours,
Aram of Damascus and Phoenicia; while to the south is
the varied collection of provinces bordering the valley
1 The Naharaim of the Egyptians was first identified with Mesopotamia ;
it was located between the Orontes and the Balikh or the Euphrates by
Maspero. This opinion is now adopted by the majority of Egyptologists,
with slight differences in detail. Ed. Meyer has accurately compared the
Egyptian Naharaim with the Parapotamia of the administration of the
Seleucidse.
THE PRIMITIVE RACES OF SYRIA 21
of the Jordan. It is impossible at the present day to
assert, with any approach to accuracy, what peoples
inhabited these different regions towards the fourth
millennium before our era. Wherever excavations are
made, relics are brought to light of a very ancient semi-
civilization, in which we find stone weapons and imple
ments, besides pottery, often elegant in contour, but for
the most part coarse in texture and execution. These
remains, however, are not accompanied by any monument
of definite characteristics, and they yield no information
with regard to the origin or affinities of the tribes who
fashioned them. 1 The study of the geographical nomen
clature in use about the XVI th century B.C. reveals the
existence, at all events at that period, of several peoples
and several languages. The mountains, rivers, towns,
and fortresses in Palestine and Ccele- Syria are designated
by words of Semitic origin : it is easy to detect, even
in the hieroglyphic disguise which they bear on the
Egyptian geographical lists, names familiar to us in
Hebrew or Assyrian. But once across the Orontes,
other forms present themselves which reveal no affinities
to these languages, but are apparently connected with
1 Researches with regard to the primitive inhabitants of Syria and their
remains have not as yet been prosecuted to any extent. The caves noticed
by Hedenborg at Ant-Elias, near Tripoli, and by Botta at Nahr el-Kelb,
and at Adlun by the Due de Luynes, have been successively explored by
Lartet, Tristram, Lortet, and Dawson. The grottoes of Palestine proper, at
Bethzur, at Gilgal near Jericho, and at Tibneh, have been the subject of
keen controversy ever since their discovery. The Abbe Richard desired to
identify the flints of Gilgal and Tibneh with the stone knives used by Joshua
for the circumcision of the Israelites after the passage of the Jordan (Josh.
v. 2-9), some of which might have been buried in that hero s tomb-
22 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
one or other of the dialects of Asia Minor. 1 The tenacity
with which the place-names, once given, cling to the
soil, leads us to believe that a certain number at least
of those we know in Syria were in use there long before
they were noted down by the Egyptians, and that they
must have been heirlooms from very early peoples. As
they take a Semitic or non- Semitic form according to
their geographical position, we may conclude that the
centre and south were colonized by Semites, and the
north by the immigrant tribes from beyond the Taurus.
Facts are not wanting to support this conclusion, and
they prove that it is not so entirely arbitrary as we
might be inclined to believe. The Asiatic visitors who,
under a king of the XII th dynasty, came to offer gifts
to Khnuinhotpu, the Lord of Beni-Hasan, are completely
Semitic in type, and closely resemble the Bedouins of
the present day. Their chief Abisha bears a Semitic
name, 2 as too does the Sheikh Ammianshi, with whom
Sinuhit took refuge. 3 Ammianshi himself reigned over
the province of Kadima, a word which in Semitic denotes
the East. Finally, the only one of their gods known to
1 The non-Semitic origin of the names of a number of towns in Northern
Syria preserved in the Egyptian lists, is admitted by the majority of scholars
who have studied the question.
2 His name has been shown to be cognate with the Hebrew Abishai
(1 Sam. xxvi. 6-9 ; 2 Sam. ii. 18, 24 ; xxi. 17) and with the Chaldseo-
Assyrian Abeshukh.
3 The name Ammianshi at once recalls those of Ammisatana, Ammiza-
iugga, and perhaps Ammurabi, or Khammurabi, of one of the Babylonian
dynasties ; it contains, with the element Ammi, a final anshi. Chabas
connects it with two Hebrew words Am-nesh, which he does not
translate.
i
BETWEEN SINAI AND THE DEAD SEA 2S
us, Hadad, was a Semite deity, who presided over the
atmosphere, and whom we find later on ruling over the
destinies of Damascus. Peoples of Semitic speech and
religion must, indeed, have already occupied the greater
part of that region on the shores of the Mediterranean
which we find still in their possession many centuries
later, at the time of the Egyptian conquest.
For a time Egypt preferred not to meddle in their
ASIATIC WOJIEN FROM THE TOMB OF KHNUMHOTP0. 1
affairs. When, however, the "lords of the sands >: grew
too insolent, the Pharaoh sent a column of light troops
against them, and inflicted on them such a severe punish
ment, that the remembrance of it kept them within bounds
for years. Offenders banished from Egypt sought refuge
with the turbulent kinglets, who were in a perpetual
state of unrest between Sinai and the Dead Sea. Egyptian
sailors used to set out to traffic along the seaboard, taking
to piracy when hard pressed; Egyptian merchants were
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger. *
24 THE FIRST CHALDJEAN EMPIRE
accustomed to penetrate by easy stages into the interior.
The accounts they gave of their journeys were not re
assuring. The traveller had first to face the solitudes
which confronted him before reaching the Isthmus, and
then to avoid as best he might the attacks of the pillaging
tribes who inhabited it. Should he escape these initial
perils, the Amu an agricultural and settled people
inhabiting the fertile region would give the stranger
TWO ASIATICS FKOM THE TOMB OF KlLStjMliOPTU. 1
but a sorry reception : he would have to submit to their
demands, and the most exorbitant levies of toll did not
always preserve caravans from their attacks. 2 The country
seems to have been but thinly populated ; tracts now
denuded were then covered by large forests in which
herds of elephants still roamed, 3 and wild beasts, including
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph by Insinger.
2 The merchant who sets out for foreign lands "leaves his possessions to
his children for fear of lions and Asiatics."
3 Thutmosis III. went elephant-hunting near the Syrian town of Nil.
ABSENCE OF EGYPTIAX INFLUENCE IN SYRIA 25
lions and leopards, rendered the route through them
dangerous. The notion that Syria was a sort of preserve
for both hig and small game was so strongly implanted
in the minds of the Egyptians, that their popular literature
was full of it : the hero of their romances betook himself
there for the chase, as a prelude to meeting with the
princess whom he was destined to marry, 1 or, as in the
case of Kazarati, chief of Assur, that he might encounter
there a monstrous hyena with which to engage in combat.
These merchants adventures and explorations, as they
were not followed by any military expedition, left absolutely
no mark on the industries or manners of the primitive
natives : those of them only who were close to the
frontiers of Egypt came under her subtle charm and felt
the power of her attraction, but this slight influence
never penetrated beyond the provinces lying nearest to
the Dead Sea. The remaining populations looked rather
to Chaldsea, and received, though at a distance, the
continuous impress of the kingdoms of the Euphrates.
The tradition which attributes to Sargon of Agade, and
to his son Naramsin, the subjection of the people of the
Amanos and the Orontes, probably contains but a slight
element of truth ; but if, while awaiting further informa
tion, we hesitate to believe that the armies of these
princes ever crossed the Lebanon or landed in Cyprus,
we must yet admit the very early advent of their
civilization in those western countries which are regarded
1 As, for instance, the hero in the Story of the Predestined Prince, exiled
from Egypt with his dog, pursues his way hunting till he reaches the con
fines of Naharaim, where he is to marry the prince s daughter.
26 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
as having been under their rule. More than three
thousand years before our era, the Asiatics who figure
on the tomb of Khnumhotpu clothed themselves according
to the fashions of Uru and Lagash, and affected long
robes of striped and spotted stuffs. We may well ask
if they had also borrowed the cuneiform syllabary for
the purposes of their official correspondence, 1 and if the
professional scribe with his stylus and clay tablet was to
be found in their cities. The Babylonian courtiers were,
no doubt, more familiar visitors among them than the
Memphite nobles, while the Babylonian kings sent regularly
to Syria for statuary stone, precious metals, and the timber
required in the building of their monuments : Urbau
and Gudea, as well as their successors and contemporaries,
received large convoys of materials from the Anianos,
and if the forests of Lebanon were more rarely utilised,
it was not because their existence was unknown, but
because distance rendered their approach more difficult
and transport more costly. The Mediterranean marches
were, in their language, classed as a whole under one
denomination Martu, Amurru, 2 the West but there
The most ancient cuneiform tablets of Syrian origin are not older than
the XVI th century before our era ; they contain the official correspondence
of the native princes with the Pharaohs Amenothes III. and IV. of the
XVIII th dynasty, as will be seen later on in this volume ; they were dis
covered in the ruins of one of the palaces at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt.
2 Formerly read Akharru. Martu would be the Sumerian and Akharru
the Semitic form, Akharru meaning that which is behind. The discovery of
the Tel el-Amarna tablets threw doubt on the reading of the name Akharru :
some thought that it ought to be kept in any case ; others, with more or
less certainty, think that it should be replaced by Amuru, Amurru, the
country of the Amorites. But the question has now been settled by
DIVISIONS OF THE PROVINCES 27
were distinctive names for each of the provinces into
which they were divided. Probably even at that date
they called the north Khati, 1 and Coele- Syria, Amurru,
the land of the Amorites. The scattered references in
their writings seein to indicate frequent intercourse with
these countries, and that, too, as a matter of course
which excited no surprise among their contemporaries :
a journey from Lagash to the mountains of Tidanum and
to G-ubin, or to the Lebanon and beyond it to Byblos, 2
meant to them no voyage of discovery. Armies un
doubtedly followed the routes already frequented by
caravans and flotillas of trading boats, and the time came
when kings desired to rule as sovereigns over nations
with whom their subjects had peaceably traded. It does
not appear, however, that the ancient rulers of Lagash
ever extended their dominion so far. The governors
of the northern cities, on the other hand, showed them
selves more energetic, and inaugurated that march
Babylonian contract and law tablets of the period of Khaminurabi, in which
the name is written A-mu-ur-ri (ki). Hommel originated the idea that
Martu might be an abbreviation of Amartu, that is, Amar with the
feminine termination of nouns in the Canaanitish dialect : Martu would
thus actually signify the country of the Amorites.
1 The name of the Khati, Khatti, is found in the Book of Omens, which
is supposed to contain an extract from the annals of Sargon and Naramsin ;
as, however, the text which we possess of it is merely a copy of the time of
Assurbanipal, it is possible that the word Khati is merely the translation of
a more ancient term, perhaps Martu. "VVinckler thinks it to be included in
Lesser Armenia and the Melitene of classical authors.
2 Gubin is probably the Kupuna, Kupnu, of the Egyptians, the Byblos
of Phoenicia. Amiaud had proposed a most unlikely identification with Koptos
in Egypt. In the time of Ine-Siii, King of Ur, mention is found of Simurru,
Zimyra.
28 THE FIRST CHALD^EAN EMPIRE
westwards which sooner or later brought the peoples of
the Euphrates into collision with the dwellers on the
Nile : for the first Babylonian empire without doubt
comprised part if not the whole of Syria. 1
Among the most celebrated names in ancient history,
that of Babylon is perhaps the only one which still suggests
to our minds a sense of vague magnificence and undefined
dominion. Cities in other parts of the world, it is true,
have rivalled Babylon in magnificence and power : Egypt
could boast of more than one such city, and their ruins
to this day present to our gaze more monuments worthy
of admiration than Babylon ever contained in the days
of her greatest prosperity. The pyramids of Memphis and
the colossal statues of Thebes still stand erect, while the
ziggurats and the palaces of Chaldasa are but mounds of
clay crumbling into the plain ; but the Egyptian monu
ments are visible and tangible objects ; we can calculate
to within a few inches the area they cover and the eleva
tion of their summits, and the very precision with which
we can gauge their enormous size tends to limit and lessen
their effect upon us. How is it possible to give free rein
to the imagination when the subject of it is strictly limited
by exact and determined measurements ? At Babylon, on
the contrary, there is nothing remaining to check the flight
of fancy : a single hillock, scoured by the rains of centuries,
1 It is only since the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets that the
fact of the dominant influence of Chaldsea over Syria and of its conquest has
been definitely realized. It is now clear that the state of things of which the
tablets discovered in Egypt give us a picture, could only be explained by
the hypothesis of a Babylonish supremacy of long duration over the peoples
situated between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean.
THE CITY OF BABYLON
29
marks the spot where the temple of Bel stood erect in its
splendour ; another represents the hanging gardens, while
the ridges running to the right and left were once the
ramparts. The vestiges of a few buildings remain ahove
the mounds of ruhble, and as soon as the pickaxe is applied
to any spot, irregular layers of bricks, enamelled tiles, and
THE RUINS OF BABYLON SEEN FROM THE SOUTH. 1
inscribed tablets are brought to light in fine, all those
numberless objects which bear witness to the presence of
man and to his long sojourn on the spot. But these
vestiges are so mutilated and disfigured that the principal
outlines of the buildings cannot be determined with any
certainty, and afford us no data for guessing their
dimensions. He who would attempt to restore the ancient
1 Drawn by Boudier, from a drawing reproduced in Hoefer. It shows
the state of the ruins in the first half of our century, before the excavations
carried out at European instigation.
30
THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
appearance of the place would find at his disposal nothing
but vague indications, from which he might draw almost
ra^ss^-*w*i :>
>i4S3^C*viy -t .* * ~- x * "~ . , *-jT
arampart.,\,,X ^.^i -.,,:- -. . ...--*"
^^ ^V ^mJ^f ^C&
jjoi tjeoiLounnsy - v ^- ...
kreinamB of :~-~. ;".---
rbrick Vnildintf B *-S_
fe^/^v I :
wv\ \^ez^
\\ j. *^ j. _. -
PLAN OF THE KCTNS OF BABYLON. 1
any conclusion he pleased. Palaces and temples would
1 Prepared by Thuillier, from a plan reproduced in G. BAWLINSON,
Herodotus.
THE RUINS OF BABYLON 31
take a shape in his imagination on a plan which never
entered the architect s mind; the sacred towers as they
rose would be disposed in more numerous stages than they
actually possessed ; the enclosing walls would reach such
an elevation that they must have quickly fallen under
their own weight if they had ever been carried so high :
the whole restoration, accomplished without any certain
data, embodies the concept of something vast and super
human, well befitting the city of blood and tears, cursed
by the Hebrew prophets. Babylon was, however, at the
outset, but a poor town, situated on both banks of the
Euphrates, in a low-lying, flat district, intersected by
canals and liable at times to become marshy. The river
at this point runs almost directly north and south, between
two banks of black mud, the base of which it is perpetually
undermining. As long as the city existed, the vertical
thrust of the public buildings and houses kept the river
within bounds, and even since it was finally abandoned,
the masses of debris have almost everywhere had the effect
of resisting its encroachment ; towards the north, however,
the line of its ancient quays has given way and sunk
beneath the waters, while the stream, turning its course
westwards, has transferred to the eastern bank the gardens
and mounds originally on the opposite side. E-sagilla,
the temple of the lofty summit, the sanctuary of Merodach,
probably occupied the vacant space in the depression
between the Babil and the hill of the Kasr. 1 In early
9
1 The temple of Merodach, called by the Greeks the temple of Belos,
has been placed on the site called Babil by the two Rawlinsons ; and by
Oppert ; Hormuzd Ilassam and Fr. Delitzsch locate it between the hill of
32
THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
times it must have presented much the same appearance
as the sanctuaries of Central Chaldasa : a mound of crude
brick formed the substructure of the dwellings of the
priests and the household of the god, of the shops for
the offerings and for provisions, of the treasury, and of
the apartments for purification or for sacrifice, while the
whole was surmounted by a ziggurat. On other neighbour
ing platforms rose the royal palace and the temples of
lesser divinities, 1 elevated above the crowd of private
THE KASR SEEN FROM THE SOUTH. -
habitations. The houses of the people were closely built
around these stately piles, on either side of narrow lanes.
A massive wall surrounded the whole, shutting out the
view on all sides ; it even ran along the bank of the
Junjuma and the Kasr, and considers Babil to be a palace of Nebucha
drezzar.
1 As, for instance, the temple E-temenanki on the actual hill of Amran-
ibn-Ali, the temple of Shamash, and others, which there will be occasion to
mention later on in dealing with the second Chaldrean empire.
2 Drawn by Boudier, from the engraving by Thomas in Perrot-Chipiez.
THE TELL OF BORSIPPA
33
Euphrates, for fear of a surprise from that quarter, and
excluded the inhabitants from the sight of their own
river. On the right bank rose a suburb, which was
promptly fortified and enlarged, so as to become a second
Babylon, almost equalling the first in extent and popula
tion. Beyond this, on the outskirts, extended gardens
and fields, finding at length their limit at the territorial
THE TELL OF BOESIPPA, THE PRESENT BIRS-NIMRUD. 1
boundaries of two other towns, Kutha and Borsippa, whose
black outlines are visible to the east and south-west re
spectively, standing isolated above the plain. Sippara on
the north, Nippur on the south, and the mysterious Agad,
completed the circle of sovereign states which so closely
hemmed in the city of Bel. We may surmise with all
probability that the history of Babylon in early times
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after the plate published in Chesney.
VOL. IV. D
34 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
resembled in the main that of the Egyptian Thebes. It
was a small seigneury in the hands of petty princes
ceaselessly at war with petty neighbours : bloody struggles,
with alternating successes and reverses, were carried on
for centuries with no decisive results, until the day came
when some more energetic or fortunate dynasty at length
crushed its rivals, and united under one rule first all the
kingdoms of Northern and finally those of Southern
Chaldasa.
The lords of Babylon had, ordinarily, a twofold function,
religious and military, the priest at first taking precedence
of the soldier, but gradually yielding to the latter as the
town increased in power. They were merely the priestly
representatives or administrators of Babel shakannaku
Babili and their authority was not considered legitimate
until officially confirmed by the god. Each ruler was
obliged to go in state to the temple of Bel Merodach
within a year of his accession : there he had to take the
hands of the divine statue, just as a vassal would do
homage to his liege, and those only of the native sovereigns
or the foreign conquerors could legally call themselves
Kings of Babylon sharru Babili who had not only
performed this rite, but renewed it annually. 1 Sargon the
Elder had lived in Babylon, and had built himself a palace
1 The meaning of the ceremony in which the kings of Babylon " took the
hands of Bel " has been given by Winckler ; Tiele compares it very aptly
with the rite performed by the Egyptian kings at Heliopolis, for example,
when they entered alone the sanctuary of Ha, and there contemplated the
god face to face. The rite was probably repeated annually, at the time
of the Zakmuku, that is, the New Year festival.
THE EUPHRATES AND MESOPOTAMIA 35
there : heace the tradition of later times attributed to this
city the glory of having been the capital of the great
empire founded by the Akkadian dynasties. The actual
sway of Babylon, though arrested to the south by the petty
states of Lower Chaldsea, had not encountered to the north
or north-west any enemy to menace seriously its progress
in that semi-fabulous period of its history. The vast plain
extending between the Euphrates and the Tigris is as it
were a continuation of the Arabian desert, and is composed
of a grey, or in parts a whitish, soil impregnated with
selenite and common salt, and irregularly superimposed
upon a bed of gypsum, from which asphalt oozes up here
and there, forming slimy pits. Frost is of rare occurrence
in winter, and rain is infrequent at any season ; the sun
soon burns up the scanty herbage which the spring showers
have encouraged, but fleshy plants successfully resist its
heat, such as the common salsola, the salsola soda, the
pallasia, a small mimosa, and a species of very fragrant
wormwood, forming together a vari-coloured vegetation
which gives shelter to the ostrich and the wild ass, and
affords the flocks of the nomads a grateful pasturage when
the autumn has set in. The Euphrates bounds these
solitudes, but without watering them. The river flows,
as far as the eye can see, between two ranges of rock
or bare hills, at the foot of which a narrow strip of alluvial
soil supports rows of date-palms intermingled here and
there with poplars, sumachs, and willows. Wherever there
is a break in the two cliffs, or where they recede from the
river, a series of shadufs takes possession of the bank, and
every inch of the soil is brought under cultivation. The
36
THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
aspect of the country remains unchanged as far as the
embouchure of the Khabur ; but there a black alluvial soil
replaces the saliferous clay, and if only the water were
to remain on the land in sufficient quantity, the country
would be unrivalled in the world for the abundance and
THE J5.VXKS OF THE EUHIRATES AT ZULEIBEH. 1
variety of its crops. The fields, which are regularly sown
in the neighbourhood of the small towns, yield magnificent
harvests of wheat and barley : while in the prairie-land
beyond the cultivated ground the grass grows so high that
it comes up to the horses girths. In some places the
meadows are so covered with varieties of flowers, growing
in dense masses, that the effect produced is that of a
1 Drawn by Boudier, from the plate in Chesney.
KHARRANU, OR HARRAN 37
variegated carpet; dogs sent in among them in search
of game, emerge covered with red, blue, and yellow pollen.
This fragrant prairie-land is the delight of bees, which
produce excellent and abundant honey, while the vine and
olive find there a congenial soil. The population was
unequally distributed in this region. Some half-savage
tribes were accustomed to wander over the plain, dwelling
in tents, and supporting life by the chase and by the
rearing of cattle; but the bulk of the inhabitants were
concentrated around the affluents of the Euphrates and
Tigris, or at the foot of the northern mountains wherever
springs could be found, as in Assur, Singar, Nisibis, Tilli, 1
Kharranu, and in all the small fortified towns and nameless
townlets whose ruins are scattered over the tract of country
between the Khahur and the Balikh. Kharranu, or Harran,
stood, like an advance guard of Chaldsean civilization, near
the frontiers of Syria and Asia Minor. 2 To the north it
commanded the passes which opened on to the basins of
the Upper Euphrates and Tigris; it protected the roads
leading to the east and south-east in the direction of the
table-land of Iran and the Persian Gulf, and it was the
key to the route by which the commerce of Babylon
reached the countries lying around the Mediterranean.
We have no means of knowing what affinities as regards
Tilli, the only one of these towns mentioned with any certainty in the
inscriptions of the first Chaldsean empire, is the Tela of classical authors, and
probably the present Weranshaher, near the sources of the Balikh.
1 Kharranu was identified by the earlier Assyriologists with the Harran
of the Hebrews (Gen, v. 12), the Carrhaj of classical authors, and this
identification is still generally accepted.
38 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
origin or race connected it with Uru, but the same rnoon-
god presided over the destinies of both towns, and the
Sin of Harran enjoyed in very early times a renown nearly
equal to that of his namesake. He was worshipped under
the symbol of a conical stone, probably an aerolite, sur
mounted by a gilded crescent, and the ground-plan of the
town roughly described a crescent-shaped curve in honour
of its patron. His cult, even down to late times, was
connected with cruel practices ; generations after the
advent to power of the Abbasside caliphs, his faithful
worshippers continued to sacrifice to him human victims,
whose heads, prepared according to the ancient rite, were
accustomed to give oracular responses. 1 The government
of the surrounding country was in the hands of princes
who were merely vicegerents : 2 Chaldsean civilization before
the beginnings of history had more or less laid hold of
them, and made them willing subjects to the kings of
Babylon. 3
These sovereigns were probably at the outset some
what obscure personages, without much prestige, being
sometimes independent and sometimes subject to the
1 Without seeking to specify exactly which were the doctrines introduced
into Harranian religion subsequently to the Christian era, we may yet
affirm that the base of this system of faith was merely a very distorted form
of the ancient Chaldsean worship practised in the town.
2 Only one vicegerent of Mesopotamia is known at present, and he belongs
to the Assyrian epoch. His seal is preserved in the British Museum.
3 The importance of Harran in the development of the history of
first Chaldean empire was pointed out by Winckler ; but the theory accord-
in" to which this town was the capital of the kingdom, called by
Chaldean and Assyrian scribes " the kingdom of the world/ is justly <
bated by Tiele.
THE FIRST BABYLOXIAN DYNASTY 39
rulers of neighbouring states, among others to those of
Agade. In later times, when Babylon had attained to
universal power, and it was desired to furnish her kings
with a continuous history, the names of these earlier rulers
were sought out, and added to those of such foreign princes
as had from time to time enjoyed the sovereignty over them
thus forming an interminable list which for materials
and authenticity would well compare with that of the
Thinite Pharaohs. This list has come down to us in
complete, and its remains do not permit of our determin
ing the exact order of reigns, or the status of the
individuals who composed it. We find in it, in the
period immediately subsequent to the Deluge, mention
of mythical heroes, followed by names which are still
semi-legendary, such as Sargon the Elder ; the princes
of the series were, however, for the most part real beings,
whose memories had been preserved by tradition, or whose
monuments were still existing in certain localities. To
wards the end of the XXV th century before our era,
however, a dynasty rose into power of which all the
members come within the range of history. 1 The first
1 This dynasty, which is known to us in its entirety by the two lists of
G. Smith and by Pinches, was legitimately composed of only eleven kings,
and was known as the Babylonian dynasty, although Sayce suspects it to be
of Arabian origin. It is composed as follows :
I. SuMDABlM . 15 2416-2401
II. SuMULAlLU . 35 2401-2366
III. ZABUM 14 2366-2352
VI. KHAMMURABI. 55 2304-2249
VII. SAMSU!LUNA . 35 2249-2214
VIII. ABESHUKH . 25 2214-2189
IX. AMMISATAXA . 25 2189-2164
[Jmmerw]
IV. ABILSIN . . 18 2352-2334 ! X. AMMIZADTJGGA 21 2164-2143
V. SIXMUBALLIT . 30 2334-2304 XL SAMSUSATANA . 31 2143-2112
The dates of this dynasty are not fixed with entire certainty. Hommel
40 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
of them, Sumuabim, has left us some contracts bearing
the dates of one or other of the fifteen years of his reign,
and documents of public or private interest abound in
proportion as we follow down the line of his successors.
Sumulailu, who reigned after him, was only distantly
related to his predecessor ; but from Sumulailu to Sam-
shusatana the kingly power was transmitted from father
to son without a break for nine generations, if we may
credit the testimony of the official lists. 1 Contemporary
records, however, prove that the course of affairs did not
always run so smoothly. They betray the existence of
at least one usurper Immeru who, even if he did not
assume the royal titles, enjoyed the supreme power for
several years between the reigns of Zabu and Abilsin.
The lives of these rulers closely resembled those of their
contemporaries of Southern Chaldaea. They dredged the
ancient canals, or constructed new ones; they restored
the walls of their fortresses, or built fresh strongholds on
believes that the order of the dynasties has been reversed, and that the first
upon the lists we possess was historically the second ; he thus places the
Babylonian dynasty between 2035 and 1731 B.C. His opinion has not been
generally adopted, but every Assyriologist dealing with this period proposes
a different date for the reigns in this dynasty ; to take only one characteristic
example, Khammurabi is placed by Oppert in the year 2394-2339, by
Delitzsch-Miirdter in 2287-2232, by Winckler in 2264-2210, and by Peiser
in 2139-2084, and by Carl Niebuhr in 2081-2026.
1 Simulailu, also written Samu-la-ilu, whom Mr. Pinches has found in a
contract tablet associated with Pungunila as king, was not the son of
Sumuabim, since the lists do not mention him as such ; he must, however,
have been connected with some sort of relationship, or by marriage, with his
predecessor, since both are placed in the same dynasty. A few contracts of
Sumulailu are given by Meissner. Samsuiluna calls him " my forefather
(d-gula-mu), the fifth king before me."
KINGS ANTERIOR TO KHAMMURABI 41
the frontier ; l they religiously kept the festivals of the
divinities belonging to their terrestrial domain, to whom
they annually rendered solemn homage. They repaired
the temples as a matter of course, and enriched them
according to their means ; we even know that Zabu, the
third in order of the line of sovereigns, occupied himself
in building the sanctuary Eulbar of Anunit, in Sippara.
There is evidence that they possessed the small neighbour
ing kingdoms of Kishu, Sippara, and Kuta, and that they
had consolidated them into a single state, of which Babylon
was the capital. To the south their possessions touched
upon those of the kings of Uru, but the frontier was con
stantly shifting, so that at one time an important city such
as Nippur belonged to them, while at another it fell under
the dominion of the southern provinces. Perpetual war was
waged in the narrow borderland which separated the two
rival states, resulting apparently in the balance of power
being kept tolerably equal between them under the
immediate successors of Sumuabim 2 - -the obscure Sumu-
lailu, Zabum, the usurper Immeru, Abilsin and Sinmuballit
until the reign of Khammurabi (the son of Sinmuballit),
who finally made it incline to his side. 3 The struggle in
1 Sumulailu had built six such large strongholds of brick, which were
repaired by Samsuiluna five generations later. A contract of Sinmuballit is
dated the year in which he built the great wall of a strong place, the name
of which is unfortunately illegible on the fragment which we possess.
2 None of these facts are as yet historically proved : we may, however,
conjecture with some probability what was the general state of things, when
we remember that the first kings of Babylon were contemporaries of the last
independent sovereigns of Southern Chaldsea.
3 The name of this prince has been read in several ways Hammurabi,
Khammurabi, by the earlier Assyriologists, subsequently Hamoiuragash,
42 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
which he was engaged, and which, after many vicissitudes,
he brought to a successful issue, was the more decisive,
since he had to contend against a skilful and energetic
adversary who had considerable forces at his disposal.
Kirnsin 1 was, in reality, of Elamite race, and as he held
the province of Yarnutbal in appanage, he was enabled to
muster, in addition to his Chaldaaan battalions, the army
of foreigners who had conquered the maritime regions at
the mouth of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
It was not the first time that Elam had audaciously
Khammuragash, as being of Elamite or Cosssean extraction : the reading
Khammurabi is at present the prevailing one. The bilingual list published
by Pinches makes Khammurabi an equivalent of the Semitic names Kimta-
rapashtum. Hence Halevy concluded that Khammurabi was a series of
ideograms, and that Kimtarapashtum was the true reading of the name ;
his proposal, partially admitted by Hommel, furnishes us with a mixed
reading of Khammurapaltu, Amraphel. [Hommel is now convinced of the
identity of the Amraphel of Gen. xiv. 1 with Khammurabi. TK.] Sayce,
moreover, adopts the reading Khammurabi, and assigns to him an Arabian
origin. The part played by this prince was pointed out at an early date by
Menant. Recent discoveries have shown the important share which he had
in developing the Chaldasan empii*e, and have, increased his reputation with
Assyriologists.
1 The name of this king has been the theme of heated discussions : it
was at first pronounced Aradsin, Ardusin, or Zikarsin ; it is now read in
several different ways Rimsin, or Eriaku, Riaku, Rimagu. Others have
made a distinction between the two forms, and have made out of them the
names of two different kings. They are all variants of the same name. I
have adopted the form Rimsin, which is preferred by a few Assyriologists.
[The tablets recently discovered by Mr. Pinches, referring to Kudur-lagamar
and Tudkhula, which he has published in a Paper read before the Victoria
Institute, Jan. 20, 1896, have shown that the true reading is Eri-Aku. The
Elamite name Eri-Aku, " servant of the moon-god," was changed by some
of his subjects into the Babylonian Rim-Sin, " Have mercy, O Moon-god ! "
just as Abesukh, the Hebrew Absihu a (" the father of welfare ") was trans
formed into the Babylonian Ebisum ("the actor"). ED.]
THE CLIMATE AND RIVERS OF ELAM 43
interfered in the affairs of her neighbours. In fabulous
times, one of her mythical kings Khumbaba the Ferocious
had oppressed Uruk, and Gilgames with all his valour
was barely able to deliver the town. Sargon the Elder
is credited with having subdued Elam ; the kings and
vicegerents of Lagash, as well as those of Uru and Larsam,
had measured forces with Anshan, but with no decisive
issue. From time to time they obtained an advantage,
and we find recorded in the annals victories gained by
Gudea, Ine-sin, or Bursin, but to be followed only by
fresh reverses ; at the close of such campaigns, and in
order to seal the ensuing peace, a princess of Susa would
be sent as a bride to one of the Chaldean cities, or a
Chaldean lady of royal birth would enter the harem of
a king of Anshan. Elam was protected along the course
of the Tigris and on the shores of the Nar-Marratum by
a wide marshy region, impassable except at a few fixed
and easily defended places. The alluvial plain extending
behind the marshes was as rich and fertile as that of
Chaldaea. Wheat and barley ordinarily yielded an hundred
and at times two hundredfold ; the towns were surrounded
by a shadeless belt of palms ; the almond, fig, acacia,
poplar, and willow extended in narrow belts along the
rivers edge. The climate closely resembles that of
Chaldsea : if the midday heat in summer is more pitiless,
it is at least tempered by more frequent east winds. The
ground, however, soon begins to rise, ascending gradually
towards the north-east. The distant and uniform line of
mountain-peaks grows loftier on the approach of the
traveller, and the hills begin to appear one behind another,
44 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
clothed halfway up with thick forests, but bare on their
summits, or scantily covered with meagre vegetation.
They comprise, in fact, six or seven parallel ranges,
resembling natural ramparts piled up between the country
of the Tigris and the table-land of Iran. The intervening
valleys were formerly lakes, having had for the most
part no communication with each other and no outlet
into the sea. In the course of centuries they had dried
up, leaving a thick deposit of mud in the hollows of their
ancient beds, from which sprang luxurious and abundant
harvests. The rivers the Uknu, 1 the Ididi, 2 and the
Ulai 3 which water this region are, on reaching more
level ground, connected by canals, and are constantly
shifting their beds in. the light soil of the Susian plain :
they soon attain a width equal to that of the Euphrates,
but after a short time lose half their volume in swamps,
and empty themselves at the present day into the Shatt-
el-Arab. They flowed formerly into that part of the
Persian Gulf which extended as far as Kornah, and "the
sea thus formed the southern frontier of the kingdom.
From earliest times this country was inhabited by
three distinct peoples, whose descendants may still be
1 The Uknu is the Kerkhah of the present day, the Choaspes of the
Greeks.
2 The Ididi was at first identified with the ancient Pasitigris, which
.scholars then desired to distinguish from the Eulseos : it is now known to be
the arm of the Karun which runs to Dizful, the Koprates of classical times,
which has sometimes been confounded with the Eulaeos.
3 The Ulai, mentioned in the Hebrew texts (Dan. viii. 2, 16), the Eulseos
of classical writers, also called Pasitigris. It is the Karun of the present
day, until its confluence with the Shaur, and subsequently the Shaur itself,
which waters the foot of the Susian hills.
MAP OF CHALD^A AXD ELAM
45
distinguished at the present day, and although they have
dwindled in numbers and become mixed with elements of
more recent origin, the resemblance to their forefathers is
CHALDJtA, ELAM,
ASSYRIA.
MAP OF CHALDJEA AN D ELAM.
still very remarkable. There were, in the first place, the
short and robust people of well-knit figure, with brown
46
THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
skins, black hair and eyes, who belonged to that negritic
race which inhabited a considerable part of Asia in pre
historic times. 1 These prevailed in the lowlands and the
valleys, where the warm,
AX ANCIENT SUSIAN OF NEGRITIC RACE. 3
damp climate favoured
their development ; but
they also spread into the
mountain region, and
had pushed their out
posts as far as the first
slopes of the Iranian
table-land. They there
came into contact with
a white-skinned people
of medium height, who
were probably allied to
the nations of Northern
and Central Asia to
the Scythians, for in
stance, if it is permissi
ble to use a vague
term employed by the
Ancients. 2 Semites of
1 The connection of the negroid type of Susians with the negritic races
of India and Oceania, has been proved, in the course of M. Dieulafoy s
expedition to the Susian plains and the ancient provinces of Elam.
2 This last-mentioned people is, by some authors, for reasons which, so
far, can hardly be considered conclusive, connected with the so-called
Sumerian race, which we find settled in Chaldaea. They are said to have
been the first to employ horses and chariots in warfare.
3 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief of Sargon II. in the Louvre.
THE PEOPLES AND THE CITIES OF ELAM
47
the same stock as those of Chaldaea pushed forward as far as
the east bank of the Tigris, and settling mainly among the
marshes led a precarious life by
fishing and pillaging. 1 The
country of the plain was called
Anzan, or Ansh&n, 2 and the
mountain region Num-
ma, or Ilamma, " the
high lands : these
two names were sub
sequently used to de
note the whole country,
S t
1 From the earliest times we
meet beyond the Tigris with
vi iU C T> -l c NATIVE OF MIXED NEGUITIC RACE FROM
names like that of Durilu, a fact
,, . , , SUSIANA. 3
which proves the existence or races
speaking a Semitic dialect in the countries under the suzerainty of the King of
Elam : in the last days of the Chaldaean empire they had assumed such impor
tance that the Hebrews made out Elam to be one of the sons of Shem(6?en.x.22).
2 Anzan, Anshan, and, by assimilation of the nasal with the sibilant,
Ashsban. This name has already been mentioned in the inscriptions of the
kings and vicegerents of Lagash and in the Book of Prophecies of the ancient
Chaldsean astronomers ; it also occurs in the royal preamble of Cyrus and
his ancestors, who like him were styled " kings of Anshan." It had been
applied to the whole country of Elam, and afterwards to Persia. Some are
of opinion that it was the name of a part of Elam, viz. that inhabited by
the Turanian Medes who spoke the second language of the Achaemenian
inscriptions, the eastern half, bounded by the Tigris and the Persian Gulf,
consisting of a flat and swampy land. These differences of opinion gave rise
to a heated controversy ; it is now, however, pretty generally admitted that
Anzan- Anshan was really the plain of Elam, from the mountains to the sea,
and one set of authorities affirms that the word Anzan may have meant
" plain" in the language of the country, while others hesitate as yet to pro
nounce definitely on this point.
3 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph furnished by Marcel
Dieulafoy.
48 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
and Ilamma has survived in the Hebrew word Elam. 1
Susa, the most important and flourishing town in the
kingdom, was situated between the Ulal and the Ididi,
some twenty-five or thirty miles from the nearest of the
mountain ranges. Its fortress and palace were raised
THE TUMULUS OF SUSA, AS IT APPEARED TOWARDS THE MIDDLE OF THE
XIX th CENTURY. 2
upon the slopes of a mound which overlooked the surround
ing country : 3 at its base, to the eastward, stretched the
1 The meaning of " Numma," "Ilamma," " Ilamtu," in the group of
words used to indicate Elam, had been recognised even by the earliest
Assyriologists ; the name originally referred to the hilly country on the
north and east of Susa. To the Hebrews, Elam was one of the sons of Shem
(Gen. x. 22). The Greek form of the name is Elymais, and some of the
classical geographers were well enough acquainted with the meaning of the
word to be able to distinguish the region to which it referred from Susiana
proper.
2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, after a plate in Chesney.
3 Susa, in the language of the country, was called Shushun ; this name
was transliterated into Chaldseo- Assyrian, by Shushan, Shushi.
THE LANGUAGE AND THE GODS OF EL AM 49
town, with its houses of sun-dried bricks. 1 Further up the
course of the Uknu, lay the following cities : Madaktu,
the Badaca of classical authors, 2 rivalling Susa in strength
and importance; Naditu,* Til-Khumba, 4 Dur-Undash, 5
Khaidalu. 6 all large walled towns, most of which assumed
the title of royal cities. Elam in reality constituted a
kind of feudal empire, composed of several tribes the
Habardip, the Khushshi, the Umliyash, the people of
Yanmtbal and of Yatbur 7 all independent of each other,
but often united under the authority of one sovereign, who
as a rule chose Susa as the seat of government. The
1 Strabo tells us, on the authority of Polycletus, that the town had no
walls in the time of Alexander, and extended over a space two hundred
stadia in length ; in the VII th century B c. it was enclosed by walls with
bastions, which are shown on a bas-relief of Assurbanipal, but it was sur
rounded by unfortified suburbs.
2 Madaktu, Mataktu, the Badaka of Diodorus, situated on the Eulseos,
between Susa and Ecbatana, has been placed by Rawlinson near the
bifurcation of the Kerkhah, either at Paipul or near Aiwan-i-Kherkah, where
there are some rather important and ancient ruins ; Eillerbeck prefers to
put it at the mouth of the valley of Zal-fer, on the site at present occupied
by the citadel of Kala-i-Riza.
3 Naditu is identified by Finzi with the village of Natanzah, near Ispa
han ; it ought rather to be looked for in the neighbourhood of Sarna.
4 Til-Khumba, the Mound of Khumba, so named after one of the principal
Elamite gods, was, perhaps, situated among the ruins of Budbar, towards
the confluence of the Ab-i-Kirind and Kerkhah, or possibly higher up in the
mountain, in the vicinity of Asmanabad.
5 Dur-Undash, Dur-Undasi, has been identified, without absolutely
conclusive reason, with the fortress of Kala-i-Dis on the Disful-Rud.
6 Khaidalu, Khidalu, is perhaps the present fortress of Dis-Malkan.
7 The countries of Yatbur and Yamutbal extended into the plain between
the marshes of the Tigris and the mountain ; the town of Durilu was near
the Yamutbal region, if not in that country itself. Umliyash lay between
the Uknu and the Tigris.
VOL. IV. E
50
THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
language is not represented by any idioms now spoken, and
its affinities with the Sumerian which some writers have
attempted to establish, are too
uncertain to make it safe to base
any theory upon them. 1 The little
that we know of Elamite religion
reveals to us a mysterious world,
full of strange names and vague
forms. Over their hierarchy there
presided a deity who was called
Shushinak (the
Susian), Dimesh or
Samesh, Dagbag, As-
siga, Adaene, and
possibly Khumba and
Umman, whom the
Chaldaeans identified
1 A great part of the
Husian inscriptions have
been collected by Fr.
Lenormant. An attempt
has been made to identify
the language in which
AN ELAMITE GODDESS, ANSWERING TO THE
CHALDEAN ISI1TAK. 3
they are written with the Sumero-accadian, and authorities now generally
agree in considering the Archsemenian inscriptions of the second type as
representative of its modern form. Hommel connects it with Georgian, and
includes it in a great linguistic family, which comprises, besides these two
idioms, the Hittite, the Cappadocian, the Armenian of the Van inscriptions,
and the Cossjean. Oppert claims to have discovered on a tablet in the
British Museum a list of words belonging to one of the idioms (probably
Semitic) of Susiana, which differs alike from the Suso-Medic and the
Assyrian.
2 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in Layard.
THE ELAMITE RELIGIOX 51
with their god Ninip ; his statue was concealed in a
sanctuary inaccessible to the profane, but it was dragged
from thence by Assurbanipal of Nineveh in the VII th
century B.C. 1 This deity was associated with six others of
the first rank, who were divided into two triads Shumudu,
Lagamaru, Partikira ; Ammankasibar, Uduran, and Sapak :
of these names, the least repellent, Ammankasibar, may
possibly be the Memnon of the Greeks. The dwelling of
these divinities was near Susa, in the depths of a sacred
forest to which the priests and kings alone had access :
their images were brought out on certain days to receive
solemn homage, and were afterwards carried back to their
shrine accompanied by a devout and reverent multitude.
These deities received a tenth of the spoil after any
successful campaign the offerings comprising statues of
the enemies gods, valuable vases, ingots of gold and silver,
furniture, and stuffs. The Elamite armies were .well
organized, and under a skilful general became irresistible.
In other respects the Elamites closely resembled the
Chaldaeans, pursuing the same industries and having the
same agricultural and commercial instincts. In the absence
of any bas-reliefs and inscriptions peculiar to this people,
we may glean from the monuments of Lagash and
1 ShnshinaJc is an adjective derived from the name of the town of Susa.
The real name of the god was probably kept secret and rarely uttered. The
names which appear by the side of Shushinak in the text published by H.
Rawlinson, as equivalents of the Babylonian Ninip, perhaps represent different
deities ; we may well ask whether the deity may not be the Khumba,
Umma, Umman, who recurs so frequently in the names of men and places,
and who has hitherto never been met with alone in any formula or dedica
tory tablet.
52 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
Babylon a fair idea of the extent of their civilization in its
earliest stages.
The cities of the Euphrates, therefore, could have been
sensible of but little change, when the chances of war
transferred them from the rule of their native princes to
that of an Elamite. The struggle once over, and the
resulting evils repaired as far as practicable, the people of
these towns resumed their usual ways, hardly conscious
of the presence of their foreign ruler. The victors, for
their part, became assimilated so rapidly with the vanquished,
that at the close of a generation or so the conquering
dynasty was regarded as a legitimate and national one,
loyally attached to the traditions and religion of its adopted
country. In the year 2285 B.C., towards the close of the
reign of Nurramman, or in the earlier part of that of
Siniddinam, a King of Elam, by name Kudur-nakhunta,
triumphantly marched through Chaldasa from end to end,
devastating the country and sparing neither town nor
temple : Uruk lost its statue of Nana, which was carried
off as a trophy and placed in the sanctuary of Susa. The
inhabitants long mourned the detention of their goddess,
and a hymn of lamentation, probably composed for the
occasion by one of their priests, kept the remembrance of
the disaster fresh in their memories. " Until when, oh
lady, shall the impious enemy ravage the country! In
thy queen-city, Uruk, the destruction is accomplished,
in Eulbar, the temple of thy oracle, blood has flowed like
water, upon the whole of thy lands has he poured out
flame, and it is spread abroad like smoke. Oh, lady, verily
it is hard for me to bend under the yoke of misfortune !-
KUDUBrNAKHUNTA TRIUMPHANT 53
Oh, lady, thou hast wrapped me about, thou hast plunged
ine, in sorrow ! The impious mighty one has broken me
in pieces like a reed, and I know not what to resolve,
I trust not in myself, like a bed of reeds I sigh day and
night ! I, thy servant, I bow myself before thee ! It
would appear that the whole of Chaldaea, including Babylon
itself, was forced to acknowledge the supremacy of the
invader ; 1 a Susian empire thus absorbed Chaldaea, reducing
its states to feudal provinces, and its princes to humble
vassals. Kudur-nakhunta having departed, the people of
Larsa exerted themselves to the utmost to repair the harm
that he had done, and they succeeded but too well, since
their very prosperity was the cause only a short time after
of the outburst of another storm. Siniddinam, perhaps,
desired to shake off the Elamite yoke. Simtishilkhak, one
of the successors of Kudur-nakhunta, had conceded the
principality of Yamutbal as a fief to Kudur-mabug, one of
his sons. Kudur-mabug appears to have been a conqueror
of no mean ability, for he claims, in his inscriptions, the
possession of the whole of Syria. 2 He obtained a victory
1 The submission of Babylon is evident from the title Adda Martu,
" sovereign of the West," assumed by several of the Elamite princes (cf. p.
65 of the present work) : in order to extend his authority beyond the
Euphrates, it was necessary for the King of Elam to be Urst of all master of
Babylon. In the early days of Assyriology it was supposed that this period
of Elamite supremacy coincided with the Median dynasty of Berosus.
2 His preamble contains the titles adda Martu, " prince of Syria ; " addct
lamutbal, "prince of Yamutbal." The word adda seems properly to mean
"father," and the literal translation of the full title would probably be
"father of Syria," "father of Yamutbal," whence the secondary meanings
" master, lord, prince," which have been provisionally accepted by most
Assyriologists. Tiele, and Winckler after him, have suggested that Martu
54 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
over Siniddinam, and having dethroned him, placed the
administration of the kingdom in the hands of his own
son Eimsin. This prince, who was at first a feudatory,
afterwards associated in the government with his father,
and finally sole monarch after the latter s death, married
a princess of Chaldsean blood, and by this means legiti
matized his usurpation in the eyes of his subjects. His
domain, which lay on both sides of the Tigris and of the
Euphrates, comprised, besides the principality of Yamutbal,
all the towns dependent on Sumer and Accad Uru, Larsa,
Uruk, and Nippur, He acquitted himself as a good
sovereign in the sight of gods and men : he repaired the
brickwork in the temple of Nannar at Uru ; he embellished
the temple of Shamash at Larsa, and caused two statues
of copper to be cast in honour of the god ; he also rebuilt
Lagash and Girsu. The city of Uruk had been left a heap
of ruins after the withdrawal of Kudur-nakhunta : he set
about the work of restoration, constructed a sanctuary to
Papsukal, raised the ziggurat of Nana, and consecrated
to the goddess an entire set of temple furniture to replace
that carried off by the Elamites. He won the adhesion of
the priests by piously augmenting their revenues, and
throughout his reign displayed remarkable energy. Docu
ments exist which attribute to him the reduction of Durilu,
on the borders of Elam and the Chaldcean states ; others
contain discreet allusions to a perverse enemy who dis
turbed his peace in the north, and whom he successfully
is here equivalent to Yamutbal, and that it was merely used to indicate the
western part of Elam ; Winckler afterwards rejected this hypothesis, and
has come round to the general opinion.
RIMSIN AND KHAMMURABI 55
repulsed. He drove Sinrnuballit out of Ishin, and this
victory so forcibly impressed his contemporaries, that they
made it the starting-point of a new semi-official era ;
twenty-eight years after the event, private contracts still
continued to be dated by reference to the taking of Ishin.
Sinmuballit s son, Khammurabi, was more fortunate. Eim-
sin vainly appealed for help against him to his relative and
suzerain Kudur-lagamar, who had succeeded Simtishilkhak
at Susa. Rimsin was defeated, and disappeared from the
scene of action, leaving no trace behind him, though we
may infer that he took refuge in his fief of Yamutbal.
The conquest by Khammurabi was by no means achieved
at one blow, the enemy offering an obstinate resistance.
He was forced to destroy several fortresses, the inhabitants
of which had either risen against him or had refused to do
him homage, among them being those of Melr 1 and Malgu.
When the last revolt had been put down, all the countries
speaking the language of Chaldsa and sharing its civiliza
tion were finally united into a single kingdom, of which
Khammurabi proclaimed himself the head. Other princes
who had preceded him had enjoyed the same opportunities,
but their efforts had never been successful in establishing
an empire of any duration ; the various elements had been
bound together for a moment, merely to be dispersed again
after a short interval. The work of Khammurabi, on the
contrary, was placed on a solid foundation, and remained
1 Mairu, Meir, has been identified with Shurippak but it is, rather, the
town of Mar, now Tell-Id. A and Lagamal, the Elamite Lagainar, were
worshipped tbere. It was the seat of a linen manufacture, and possessed
large shipping.
56 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
unimpaired under his successors. Not only did he hold
sway without a rival in the south as in the north, but the
titles indicating the rights he had acquired over Sumer and
Accad were inserted in his Protocol after those denoting
his hereditary possessions, the city of Bel and the four
houses of the world. Khammurabi s victory marks the
close of those long centuries of gradual evolution during
which the peoples of the Lower Euphrates passed from
division to unity. Before his reign there had been as
many states as cities, and as many dynasties as there were
states ; after him there was but one kingdom under one
line of kings.
Khammurabi s long reign of fifty-five years has hitherto
yielded us but a small number of monuments seals, heads
of sceptres, alabaster vases, and pompous inscriptions,
scarcely any of them being of historical interest. He was
famous for the number of his campaigns, no details of
which, however, have come to light, but the dedication of
one of his statues celebrates his good fortune on the battle
field. " Bel has lent thee sovereign majesty : thou, what
awaitest thou? Sin has lent thee royalty: thou, what
awaitest thou ? Ninip has lent thee his supreme weapon :
thou, what awaitest thou? The goddess of light, Ishtar,
has lent thee the shock of arms and the fray : thou, what
awaitest thou ? Shamash and Eamman are thy vaiiets :
thou, what awaitest thou ? It is Khammurabi, the king,
the powerful chieftain who cuts the enemies in pieces, -
the whirlwind of battle who overthrows the country of
the rebels who stays combats, who crushes rebellions,
who destroys the stubborn like images of clay, who
THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF KHAMMURABI
57
overcomes the obstacles of inaccessible mountains." The
majority of these expeditions were, no doubt, consequent
on the victory which destroyed the power of Eimsin. It
would not have sufficed merely to drive back the Elamites
beyond the Tigris ; it was necessary to strike a blow within
their own territory to avoid a recurrence of hostilities,
which might have endangered the still recent work of
conquest. Here, again, Khammurabi seerns to have met
with his habitual success. Ashnunak was a border district,
and shared the fate of all the
provinces on the eastern bank
of the Tigris, being held
sometimes by Elam and
sometimes by ChaldaBa ;
properly speaking, it was
a country of Semitic speech,
and was governed by viceroys
owning allegiance, now to Baby
lon, now to Susa. 1 Khammurabi
seized this province, and per
manently secured its frontier
by building along the river a line of fortresses sur
rounded by earthworks. Following the example of his
predecessors, he set himself to restore and enrich the
f
1 Pognon discovered inscriptions of four of the vicegerents of Ashnunak,
which he assigns, with some hesitation, to the time of Khammurabi, rather
than to that of the kings of Telloh. Three of these names are Semitic,
the fourth Sumerian ; the language of the inscriptions bears a resemblance
to the Semitic dialect of Chaldaea.
1 Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a rapid sketch made at the British
Museum.
HEAD OF A SCEPTRE IN T COPPER,
HEARING THE NAME OF KHAM
MURABI. 2
58 THE FIRST CHALD^EAX EMPIRE
temples. The house of Zamama and Niuni, at Kish, was
out of repair, and the ziggurat threatened to fall ; he pulled
it down and rebuilt it, carrying it to such a height that
its summit " reached the heavens." Merodach had
delegated to him the government of the faithful, and
had raised him to the rank of supreme ruler over the
whole of Chaldaea. At Babylon, close to the great lake
which served as a reservoir for the overflow of the
Euphrates, the king restored the sanctuary of Esagilla,
the dimensions of which did not appear to him to be
proportionate to the growing importance of the city. He
completed this divine dwelling with great joy and delight,
he raised the summit to the firmament," and then en
throned Merodach and his spouse, Zarpanit, within it,
amid great festivities. He provided for the ever-recurring
requirements of the national religion by frequent gifts;
the tradition has come down to us of the granary for
wheat which he built at Babylon, the sight of which
alone rejoiced the heart of the god. While surrounding
Sippar with a great wall and a fosse, to protect its earthly
inhabitants, he did not forget Shamash and Malkatu, the
celestial patrons of the town. He enlarged in their honour
the mysterious Ebarra, the sacred seat of their worship,
and "that which no king from the earliest times had
known how to build for his divine master, that did he
generously for Shamash his master. He restored Ezida,
the eternal dwelling of Merodach, at Borsippa; Eturka-
lamma, the temple of Anu, Ninni, and Nana, the suzerains
of Kish ; and also Ezikalamma, the house of the goddess
Ninna, in the village of Zarilab. In the southern
THE SYSTEM OF CANALIZATION 59
provinces, but recently added to the crown, at Larsa,
Uruk, and Uru, lie displayed similar activity. He had,
doubtless, a political as well as a religious motive in all
he did ; for if he succeeded in winning the allegiance of
the priests by the prodigality of his pious gifts, he could
count on their gratitude in securing
for him the people s obedience,
and thus prevent the outbreak
of a revolt. He had, indeed,
before him a difficult task in
attempting to allay the ills which
had been growing during centuries
of civil discord and foreign conquest.
The irrigation of the country de
manded constant attention, and from
earliest times its sovereigns had di
rected the work with real solicitude
but owing to the breaking up of the country
into small states, their respective resources
could not be combined in such general FRAGMENT OF A
CLAY SEAL OF
operations as were needed for controlling the KimmuKAm. 1
inundations and effectually remedying the
excess or the scarcity of water. Khammurabi witnessed
the damage done to the whole province of Umliyash by
one of those terrible floods which still sometimes ravage
the regions of the Lower Tigris, 2 and possibly it may have
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a photograph published by Hilprecht.
2 Contracts dated the year of an inundation which laid waste Umliyash ;
cf. in our own time, the inundation of April 10, 1831, which in a single night
destroyed half the city of Bagdad, and in which fifteen thousand persons lost
their lives either by drowning or by the collapse of their houses.
60 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
been to prevent the recurrence of such a disaster that he
undertook the work of canalization. He was the first that
we know of who attempted to organize and reduce to a
single system the complicated network of ditches and
channels which intersected the territory belonging to the
great cities between Babylon and the sea. Already, more
than half a century previously, Siniddinam had enlarged
the canal on which Larsa was situated, while Kimsin
had provided an outlet for the " Eiver of the Gods into
the Persian Gulf : l by the junction of the two a navigable
channel was formed between the Euphrates and the
marshes, and an outlet was thus made for the surplus
waters of the inundation. Khammurabi informs us how
Anu and Bel, having confided to him the government of
Sumer and Accad, and having placed in his hands the
reins of power, he dug the Nar-Khammurabi, the source
of wealth to the people, which brings abundance of water
to the country of Sumir and Accad. "I turned both
its banks into cultivated ground, I heaped up mounds of
grain and I furnished perpetual water for the people of
Sumir and Accad. The country of Sumer and Accad,
I gathered together its nations who were scattered, I
gave them pasture and drink, I ruled over them in riches
and abundance, I caused them to inhabit a peaceful
dwelling-place. Then it was that Khammurabi, the
powerful king, the favourite of the great gods, I myself,
according to the prodigious strength with which Merodach
1 Contract dated " the year the Tigris, river of the gods, was canalized
down to the sea" ; i.e. as far as the point to which the sea then penetrated
in the environs of Kornah.
THE SYSTEM OF CANALIZATION 61
had endued me, I constructed a high fortress, upon mounds
of earth ; its summit rises to the height of the mountains,
at the head of the Nar-Khammurabi, the source of wealth
to the people. This fortress I called Dur-Sinmuballit-abim-
ualidiya, the Fortress of Sinmuballit, the father who begat
me, so that the name of Sinmuballit, the father who begat
me, may endure in the habitations of the world." This
canal of Khammurabi ran from a little south of Babylon,
joining those of Siniddinam and Kimsin, and probably
cutting the alluvial plain in its entire length. 1 It drained
the stagnant marshes on either side along its course, and
by its fertilising effects, the dwellers on its banks were
enabled to reap full harvests from the lands which pre
viously had been useless for purposes of cultivation. A
ditch of minor importance pierced the isthmus which
separates the Tigris and the Euphrates in the neighbour
hood of Sippar. 2 Khammurabi did not rest contented with
these ; a system of secondary canals doubtless completed
the whole scheme of irrigation which he had planned after
the achievement of his conquest, and his successors had
merely to keep up his work in order to ensure an unrivalled
prosperity to the empire.
1 Delattre is of opinion that the canal dug by Khammurabi is the
Arakhtu of later epochs which began at Babylon and extended as far as the
Larsa canal. It must therefore be approximately identified with the Shatt-
en-Nil of the present day, which joins Shatt-el-Kaher, the canal of Sinid
dinam.
2 The canal which Khammurabi caused to be dug or dredged may be the
Nar-Malka, or " royal canal," which ran from the Tigris to the Euphrates,
passing Sippar on the way. The digging of this canal is mentioned in a
contract.
62 THE FIEST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
Their efforts in this direction were not unsuccessful.
Samsuiluna, the son of Khammurabi, added to the existing
system two or three fresh canals, one at least of which still
bore his name nearly fifteen centuries later ; it is mentioned
in the documents of the second Assyrian empire in the
time of Assurbanipal, and it is possible that traces of it
may still be found at the present day. Abieshukh, 1
Ammisatana, 2 Ammizadugga, 3 and Samsusatana, 4 all either
continued to elaborate the network planned by their
ancestors, or applied themselves to the better distribution
of the overflow in those districts where cultivation was
still open to improvement. We should know nothing of
these kings had not the scribes of those times been in the
habit of dating the contracts of private individuals by
reference to important national events. They appear
to have chosen by preference incidents in the religious life
of the country; as, for instance, the restoration of a
1 Abishukh (the Hebrew Abishua) is the form of the name which we
find in contemporary contracts. The official lists contain the variant Ebishu,
Ebishum.
2 Ammiditana is only a possible reading : others prefer Ammisatana.
The Nar- Ammisatana is mentioned in a Sippar contract. Another contract
is dated " the year in which Ammisatana, the king, repaired the canal of
Samsuiluna."
3 This was, at first, read Ammididugga. Ammizadugga is mentioned in
the date of a contract as having executed certain works of what nature it
is not easy to say on the banks of the Tigris ; another contract is dated
" the year in which Ammizadugga, the king, by supreme command of Sha-
mash, his master, [dug] the Ndr-Ammizadugga-nuMus-nisJii (canal of Ammiza
dugga), prosperity of men." In the Minsean inscriptions of Southern Arabia
the name is found under the form of Ammi-Zaduq.
4 Sometimes erroneously read Samdiusatana ; but, as a matter of fact,
we have contracts of that time, in which a royal name is plainly written as
Samsusatana.
LAST KIXGS OP THE BABYLOXIAX DYXASTY 03
temple, the annual enthronisation of one of the great
divinities, such as Shamash, Merodach, Ishtar, or Nana, as
the eponymous god of the current year, the celebration
of a solemn festival, or the consecration of a statue ; while
a few scattered allusions to works of fortification show that
meanwhile the defence of the country was jealously
watched over. 1 These sovereigns appear to have enjoyed
long reigns, the shortest extending over a period of five
and twenty years ; and when at length the death of any
king occurred, he was immediately replaced by his son, the
notaries acts and the judicial documents which have come
down to us betraying no confusion or abnormal delay in
the course of affairs. We may, therefore, conclude that
the last century and a half of the dynasty was a period
of peace and of material prosperity. Chaldsea was thus
enabled to fully reap the advantage of being united under
the rule of one individual. It is quite possible that those
cities Uru, Larsa, Ishin, Uruk, and Nippur which had
played so important a part in the preceding centuries,
suffered from the loss of their prestige, and from the blow
dealt to their traditional pretensions. Up to this time
they had claimed the privilege of controlling the
history of their country, and they had bravely striven
among themselves for the supremacy over the southern
1 Samsuiluna repaired the five fortresses which his ancestor Sumulailu
had built. Contract dated " the year in which Ammisatana, the king, built
Dur-Ammisatana, near the Sin river," and " the year in which Ammisatana,
the king, gave its name to Dur-Iskunsin, near the canal of Ammisatana."
Contract dated " the year in which the King Ammisatana repaired Dur-
Iskunsin." Contract dated the year in which Samsuiluna caused "the wall
of Uru and Uruk " to be built.
64 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
states ; but the revolutions which, had raised each in
turn to the zenith of power, had never exalted any
one of them to such an eminence as to deprive its
rivals of all hope of supplanting it and of enjoying the
highest place. The rise of Babylon destroyed the last
chance which any of them had of ever becoming the
capital; the new city was so favourably situated, and
possessed so much wealth and so many soldiers, while its
kings displayed such tenacious energy, that its neighbours
were forced to bow before it and resign themselves to the
subordinate position of leading provincial towns. They
gave a loyal obedience to the officers sent them from the
north, and sank gradually into obscurity, the loss of their
political supremacy being somewhat compensated for by
the religious respect in which they were always held. Their
ancient divinities Nana, Sin, Anu, and Ea were adopted,
if we may use the term, by the Babylonians, who claimed
the protection of these gods as fully as they did that of
Merodach or of Nebo, and prided themselves on amply
supplying all their needs. As the inhabitants of Babylon
had considerable resources at their disposal, their appeal
to these deities might be regarded as productive of more
substantial results than the appeal of a merely local
kinglet. The increase of the national wealth and the
concentration, under one head, of armies hitherto owning
several chiefs, enabled the rulers, not of Babylon or Larsa
alone, but of the whole of Chaldsea, to offer an invincible
resistance to foreign enemies, and to establish their
dominion in countries where their ancestors had enjoyed
merely a precarious sovereignty. Hostilities never
THE ELAMITES IX SYRIA 65
completely ceased between Elam and Babylon; if
arrested for a time, tbey broke out again in some frontier
disturbance, at times speedily suppressed, but at others
entailing violent consequences and ending in a regular war.
No document furnishes us with any detailed account of these
outbreaks, but it would appear that the balance of power
was maintained on the whole with tolerable regularity,
both kingdoms at the close of each generation finding
themselves in much the same position as they had occupied
at its commencement. The two empires were separated
from south to north by the sea and the Tigris, the frontier
leaving the river near the present village of Arnara and
running in the direction of the mountains. Durilu
probably fell ordinarily under Chaldean jurisdiction.
Umliyash was included in the original domain of Kham-
murabi, and there is no reason to believe that it was
evacuated by his descendants. There is every probability
that they possessed the plain east of the Tigris, comprising
Nineveh and Arbela, and that the majority of the civilized
peoples scattered over the lower slopes of the Kurdish
mountains rendered them homage. They kept the Meso-
potamian table-land under their suzerainty, and we may
affirm, without exaggeration, that their power extended
northwards as far as Mount Masios, and westwards to the
middle course of the Euphrates.
At what period the Chaldaaans first crossed that river
is as yet unknown. Many of their rulers in their inscrip
tions claim the title of suzerains over Syria, and we have
no evidence for denying their pretensions. Kudur-mabug
proclaims himself "adda" of Martu, Lord of the countries
VOL. IV F
66 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
of the West, and we are in the possession of several facts
which suggest the idea of a great Elamite empire, with
a dominion extending for some period over Western Asia,
the existence of which was vaguely hinted at by the
Greeks, who attributed its glory to the fabulous Memnon. 1
Contemporary records are still wanting which might show
whether Kudur-mabug inherited these distant possessions
from one of his predecessors such as Kudur-nakhunta, for
instance or whether he won them himself at the point of
the sword ; but a fragment of an old chronicle, inserted in
the Hebrew Scriptures, speaks distinctly of another Elamite,
who made war in person almost up to the Egyptian
frontier. 2 This is the Kudur-lagamar (Chedorlaomer)
1 We know that to Herodotus (v. 55) Susa was the city of Memnon, and
that Strabo attributes its foundation to Tithonus, father of Memnon
According to Oppert, the word Memnon is the equivalent of the Susian
Umman-anin, "the house of the king t " Weissbach declares that " anin " does
not mean king, and contradicts Oppert s view, though he does not venture
to suggest a new explanation of the name.
2 Gen. xiv. From the outset Assyriologists have never doubted the
historical accuracy of this chapter, and they have connected the facts which
it contains with those which seem to be revealed by the Assyrian monuments.
The two Rawlinsons intercalate Kudur-lagamar between Kudur-nakhunta
and Kudur-mabug, and Oppert places him about the same period. Fr.
Lenormant regards him as one of the successors of Kudur-mabug, possibly
his immediate successor. G. Smith does not hesitate to declare positively
that the Kudur-mabug and Kudur-nakhunta of the inscriptions are one and
the same with the Kudur-lagamar (Chedor-laomer) of the Bible. Finally,
Schrader, while he repudiates Smith s view, agrees in the main fact with the
other Assyriologists. On the other hand, the majority of modern Biblical
critics have absolutely refused to credit the story in Genesis. Sayce thinks
that the Bible story rests on an historic basis, and his view is strongly con
firmed by Pinches discovery of a Chaldasan document which mentions Kudur-
lagamar and two of his allies. The Hebrew historiographer reproduced an
authentic fact from the chronicles of Babylon, and connected it with ono of
KUDUR-LAGAMAR 67
who helped Eiinsiu against Khammurabi, but was
unable to prevent his overthrow. In the thirteenth year
of his reign over the East, the cities of the Dead Sea-
Sodom, Gomorrah, Adamah, Zeboim, and Bela revolted
against him : he immediately convoked his great vassals,
Amraphel of Chaldaaa, Arioch of Ellasar, 1 Tida lo the Guti,
and marched with them to the confines of his dominions.
Tradition has invested many of the tribes then inhabiting
Southern Syria with semi-mythical names and attributes.
They are represented as being giants Rephaim ; men of
prodigious strength Zuzim ; as having a buzzing and
indistinct manner of speech Zamzummim ; as formidable
monsters 2 Emim or Anakini, before whom other nations
appeared as grasshoppers ; 3 as the Horirn who were
encamped on the confines of the Sinaitic desert, and as
the Amalekites who ranged over the mountains to the
west of the Dead Sea. Kudur-lagamar defeated them one
the events in the life of Abraham. The very late date generally assigned to
Gen. xiv. in no way diminishes the intrinsic probability of the facts narrated
by the Chaldsean document which is preserved to us in the pages of the
Hebrew book.
1 Ellasar has been identified with Larsa since the researches of Rawlin-
son and Norris ; the Goim, over whom Tidal was king, with the Guti.
2 Sayce considers Zuzim and Zamzummim to be two readings of the
same word Zamzum, written in cuneiform characters on the original docu
ment. The sounds represented, in the Hebrew alphabet, by the letters HI
and w, are expressed in the Chaldeean syllabary by the same character, and
a Hebrew or Babylonian scribe, who had no other means of telling the true
pronunciation of a race-name mentioned in the story of this campaign, would
have been quite as much at a loss as any modern scholar to say whether he
ought to transcribe the word as Z-m-z-m or as Z-w-z-w ; some scribes read it
Zuzim, others preferred Zamzummim.
3 Numb. xiii. 33.
08 THE FIRST CHALD^EAX EMPIRE
after another the Rephaini near to Ashtaroth-Karnaini,
the Zuzim near Ham, 1 the Einim at Shaveh-Kiriathaim,
and the Horim on the spurs of Mount Seir as far as El-
Paran ; then retracing his footsteps, he entered the
country of the Amalekites by way of En-mishpat, and
pillaged the Amorites of Hazazon-Tamar. In the mean
time, the kings of the five towns had concentrated their
troops in the vale of Siddim, and were there resolutely
awaiting Kudur-lagamar. They were, however, completely
routed, some of the fugitives being swallowed up in the
pits of bitumen with which the soil abounded, while others
with difficulty reached the mountains. Kudur-lagamar
sacked Sodom and Gomorrah, re-established his dominion
on all sides, and returned laden with booty, Hebrew tradi
tion adding that he was overtaken near the sources of the
Jordan by the patriarch Abraham. 2
1 In Deut. ii. 20 it is stated that the Zamzummim lived in the country
of Ammon. Sayce points out that we often find the variant Am for the
character usually read Ham or Kham the name Khammurabi, for instance,
is often found written Ammurabi ; the Ham in the narrative of Genesis
would, therefore, be identical with the land of Ammon in Deuteronomy,
and the difference between the spelling of the two would be due to the fact
that the document reproduced in the XIV th chapter of Genesis had been
originally copied from a cuneiform tablet in which the name of the place was
expressed by the sign Ham-Am.
2 An attempt has been made to identify the three vassals of Kudur-
lagamar with kings mentioned on the Chaldsean monuments. Tidcal, or, if
we adopt the Septuagint variant, Thorgal, has been considered by some as
the bearer of a Sumerian name, Turgal = "great chief," "great son," while
others put him on one side as not having been a Babylonian ; Pinches,
Sayce, and Hommel identify him with Tudkhula, an ally of Kudur-lagamar
against Khammurabi. Schrader was the first to suggest that Amraphel was
really Khammurabi, and emended the Amraphel of the biblical text into
Amraphi or Amrabi, in order to support this identification. Halevy, while
KHAMMURABI AND HIS SUCCESSORS 69
After his victory over Kudur-lagamar, Khammurabi
assumed the title of King of Martu, 1 which we find still
home by Ammisatana sixty years later. 2 We see repeated
here almost exactly what took place in Ethiopia at the
time of its conquest by Egypt : merchants had prepared
the way for military occupation, and the civilization of
Babylon had taken hold on the people long before its
kings had become sufficiently powerful to claim them as
vassals. The empire may be said to have been virtually
established from the day when the states of the Middle
and Lower Euphrates formed, but one kingdom in the
hands of a single ruler. We must not, however, imagine
it to have been a compact territory, divided into provinces
under military occupation, ruled by a uniform code of laws
and statutes, and administered throughout by functionaries
of various grades, who received their orders from Babylon
or Stisa, according as the chances of war favoured the
ascendency of Chaldsea or Elam. It was in reality a
motley assemblage of tribes and principalities, whose sole
bond of union was subjection to a common yoke. They
were under obligation to pay tribute, and furnish military
contingents and show other external marks of obedience,
on the whole accepting this theory, derives the name from the pronunciation
Kimtarapashtum or Kimtarapaltum, which he attributes to the name
generally read Khammurabi, and in this he is partly supported by Hommel,
who reads " Khammurapaltu."
1 It is, indeed, the sole title which he attributes to himself on a stone
tablet now in the British Museum,
: In an inscription by this prince, copied probably about the time of
Xabonidus by the scribe Belushallim, he is called " king of the vast land of
Martu."
70 THE FIRST CHALDEAN EMPIRE
but their particular constitution, customs, and religion
were alike respected : they had to purchase, at the cost
of a periodical ransom, the right to live in their own
country after their own fashion, and the head of the
empire forbore all interference in their affairs, except in
cases where the internecine quarrels and dissensions
threatened the security of his suzerainty. Their sub
ordination lasted as best it could, sometimes for a year
or for ten years, at the end of which period they would
neglect the obligations of their vassalage, or openly refuse
to fulfil them : a revolt would then break out at one point
or another, and it was necessary to suppress it without
delay to prevent the bad example from spreading far and
wide. The empire was maintained by perpetual re-con
quests, and its extent varied with the energy shown by
its chiefs, or with the resources which were for the moment
available.
Separated from the confines of the empire by only a
narrow isthmus, Egypt loomed on the horizon, and
appeared to beckon to her rival. Her natural fertility,
the industry of her inhabitants, the stores of gold and
perfumes which she received from the heart of Ethiopia,
were well known by the passage to and fro of her caravans,
and the recollection of her treasures must have frequently
provoked the envy of Asiatic courts. Egypt had, however,
strangely declined from her former greatness, and the
line of princes who governed her had little in common
with the Pharaohs who had rendered her name so formid
able under the XII tb dynasty. She was now under the
rule of the Xoites, whose influence was probably confined
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THE HYKSOS INVASION 71
to the Delta, and extended merely in name over the Said
and Nubia. The feudal lords, ever ready to reassert their
independence as soon as the central power waned, shared
between them the possession of the Nile valley below
Memphis : the princes of Thebes, who were probably
descendants of Usirtasen, owned the largest fiefdom, and
though some slight scruple may have prevented them
from donning the pschent or placing their names within
a cartouche, they assumed notwithstanding the plenitude
of royal power. A favourable opportunity was therefore
offered to an invader, and the Chaldeans might have
attacked with impunity a people thus divided among them
selves. 1 They stopped short, however, at the southern
frontier of Syria, or if they pushed further forward, it was
without any important result : distance from head-quarters,
or possibly reiterated attacks of the Elamites, prevented
them from placing in the field an adequate force for such
a momentous undertaking. What they had not dared to
venture, others more audacious were to accomplish. At
this juncture, so runs the Egyptian record, " there came
to us a king named Timaios. "Under this king, then, I
know not wherefore, the god caused to blow upon us a
baleful wind, and in the face of all probability bands from
the East, people of ignoble race, came upon us unawares,
attacked the country, and subdued it easily and without
fighting." It is possible that they owed this rapid victory
to the presence in their armies of a factor hitherto
1 The theory that the divisions of Egypt, under the XIV th dynasty,
and the discords between its feudatory princes, were one of the main causes
of the success of the Shepherds, is now admitted to be correct.
72 THE HYKSOS IN EGYPT
unknown to the African the war- chariot and before the
horse and his driver the Egyptians gave way in a body. 1
The invaders appeared as a cloud of locusts on the banks
of the Nile. Towns and temples were alike pillaged, burnt,
and ruined; they massacred all they could of the male
population, reduced to slavery those of the women and
children whose lives they spared, and then proclaimed as
king Salatis, one of their chiefs. 2 He established a
semblance of regular government, chose Memphis as his
capital, and imposed a tax upon the vanquished. Two
perils, however, immediately threatened the security of
his triumph : in the south the Theban lords, taking matters
into their own hands after the downfall of the Xoites,
refused the oath of allegiance to Salatis, and organized an
obstinate resistance ; 3 in the north he had to take measures
1 The horse was unknown, or at any rate had not been employed in
Egypt prior to the invasion ; we find it, however, in general use immediately
after the expulsion of the Shepherds, see the tomb of Pihiri. Moreover, all
historians agree in admitting that it was introduced into the country under
the rule of the Shepherds. The use of the war-chariot in Chaldsea at an
epoch prior to the Hyksos invasion, is proved by a fragment of the Vulture
Stele ; it is therefore, natural to suppose that the Hyksos used the chariot
in war, and that the rapidity of their conquest was due to it.
2 The name Salatis (var. Saites) seems to be derived from a Semitic
word, SHALtT = " the chief," " the governor ; " this was the title which Joseph
received when Pharaoh gave him authority over the whole of Egypt (Gen.
xli. 43). Salatis may not, therefore, have been the real name of the first
Hyksos king, but his title, which the Egyptians misunderstood, and from
which they evolved a proper name : Uhlemann has, indeed, deduced from
this that Manetho, being familiar with the passage referring to Joseph, had
forged the name of Salatis. Ebers imagined that he could decipher the
Egyptian form of this prince s name on the Colossus of Tell-Mokdam, where
Naville has since read with certainty the name of a Pharaoh of the XIII th
and XIV th dynasties, Nahsiri.
3 The text of Manetho speaks of taxes which he imposed on the high
THE ENTRENCHED CAMP AT AVARIS
to protec 
