Mesopotamia, assyrians and chaldeans (sumerians and babylonians)
Which one is older of the two civilizations, the Babylonian or the Egyptian? This often repeated question reminds us of an equally important problem, or better equally insignificant: which library has the most books, that one of the British Museum in London or the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris? The experience he taught that the volumes were in greatest number where there were them cataloging was done more recently; and so it can be said in general of those civilizations, according to the experiences of recent decades, that the brand new excavations, undertaken on a large scale, have gradually revealed the most ancient layers of culture. In the pages written in the last years of the 19th century, Babylon could claim to have preserved the most ancient historical monuments of humanity. Afterwards, in the early years of the 20th century, the individual findings of the excavations of some English expeditions had allowed to follow the ancient Babylonian culture up to the time of Sargon I. Finally in the middle of the century it was secured, for Assyriological investigations, another quantity of ancient material with the splendid results of many other French, English, American and Italian expeditions.
As to Babylon, Telo or those of Nippur discoveries made us known the most ancient and already highly developed art of the Sumerians. Furthermore from the grandiose ruins of the temples one had a clear idea of the exercise of religious cults in the most remote antiquity, as by numerous sepulchral findings of the various methods of burial, while the decipherer was attracted by thousands of inscriptions, with a rich harvest from the time which Babylon was reunited in one great empire.
What about the Chammurabi's instructive correspondence with one of his vassals, with the priceless - Corpus Jiuris - attributed to him? King lists and countless documents private individuals completed the picture of the ancient culture of Babylon, whose particularities appear best in a run through the ruins laid so far in light, or in following the description, among others, by H. V. Hlprecht in his richly illustrated work Exploration in Bible lands during the 19 Century.
MESOPOTAMIA: THE TERRITORY
In the basin of the Euphrates and the Tigris, in this vast plain limited to west from the desert, from Mount Taurus to the north, from the mountainous plateau of Iran to the east, washed by the Persian Gulf to the south, the Chaldean and Assyrian civilizations overlapped and merged, from the union of which the civilization that was then generated by the Greeks was generated with Egypt Romans.
The Euphrates and the Tigris produced in Asia the same phenomenon as the Nile in Egypt: by creating large, thriving oases in the middle of the desert, they made expansion possible of intelligent and strong peoples.
The two Asian rivers have not however the power and regularity of the Nile: born from the dewlap of the Taurus, they first flow in the opposite direction, the Euphrates towards the west, towards the east the Tigris, and having opened a path in the gorges of the mountains they arrive at the plain and immediately become navigable. The Tigris goes straight to the sea, swollen to the east by the rivers of Media and Persia; the Euphrates makes a long turn towards the west and loses a part of its waters in the sands of the desert, of which it marks the limit with the right bank. Before reaching the Persian Gulf, the two waterways meet Today; once upon a time their mouths were distinct and formed a vast delta, so that the shores of the gulf were 150 kilometers further inland than Not today. The overflows of these rivers were capricious indeed human activity had to intervene, to regulate its course, more more frequent and busier than on the banks of the sacred Egyptian river.
Greek geographers called it Mesopotamia - the country between the two rivers - the upper part of the plain between Euphrates and the Tigris, Babylon there lower part up to the sea, Assyria the region of the upper Tigris up to the mountains of Armenia in the north and Media in the east, Susiana or Elam the region between the Tigris and the Choaspes. The climate is different; to the north in Mesopotamia, rade the rains, the excessive heat in summer, the country very fertile; in Assyria, rainy winter, violent hurricane summer, varied terrain; in the Elam, fertile the soil as much as the Babylonian.
Today nothing remains of that wonderful fertility that Herodotus inspired an enthusiastic page. "The glorious nurse of many disappeared generations she is bloodless: only in spring, in March, in April, she is beautiful, when the floods give it a pompous bloom that the winds immediately dry up. Indeed, the lower Euphrates has become pestilential."
"The rains are not frequent and the little water that falls causes sprouts the roots of the sown grains; the plants are then watered with water from the river that makes them reach maturity and it's not like in Egypt, where the Nile spreads itself across the countryside, but only by force of arms and with the help of machines irrigation is done. After all, Babylon is like Egypt it is intersected entirely by canals, of which the largest they carry real ships. The high turns southeast from the Euphrates to the Tigris, where Nineveh is located. Of all the countries we know it is without doubt, the best and most fertile in fruits of Ceres and there is no tries to make the land produce figs, vines, olive trees, but it, on the other hand, it is suitable for all sorts of grain which always yields 200 times how much has been sown and in the years in which it surpasses itself he gives three hundred times more than he has received. Leaves of wheat and barley have four fingers or more in length and, although I am not unaware of the height at which the millet stalks grow and sesame, I will not mention them, convinced that those who are not been in Babylon they could not believe what I tell you about that country. The Babylonians make no use of olive oil, but use that of sesame, and the plain is covered with palm trees, the majority of which part bears fruit and part of this fruit is eaten and part is eaten extracts wine or honey."
The position of this country had made it the -great road of the ancient world so that the Far East communicated with the Egypt and with Europe; the only one that the products of the East could bring to the Mediterranean and from here, through of the Phoenicians, to the whole world. Now the silent sands have laid out a hearse veil over the flourishing beaches, over the streets, over the populous cities.
THE INHABITANTS
For Chaldea, as for almost all other regions of the world, it is impossible to know exactly where its first inhabitants came from, and a what race they belonged to. However far modern discoveries take us go back in history, there always comes a moment when we come to visit each other faced with a dense night, before which there is necessity pause, as we have neither guide nor torch that can serve as a guide.
The writing of the ancient Assyrians, the cuneiform writing, deciphered in same way as the Egyptian hieroglyphics were, shows us that there were in Mesopotamia two languages, consequently, two distinct races: Assyrian of Nineveh and the Sumerian-Akkadian of Chaldea.
There is no longer any doubt about the origin of the Assyrians: they were Semites. It is more difficult to know what race the Chaldeans belonged to, divided in ancient times into two branches: the people of Shumir and that of Accad. Having recognized an agglutinated language in Sumiro-Akkadian which presents some analogies with the Uralic-Altaic dialects, we wanted to see in the Chaldeans a people of Turanian origin. This opinion is today much contradicted.
According to the most generally accepted opinion, the Chaldeans settled in the estuary region, where they led a peaceful life, digging irrigation canals, building cities, in which governments, religions and science. Having become too numerous, they moved back towards the north, along the Tigers, and colonized the mountainous region that dominates the left bank. Thus they created Assyria (now Kurdistan). The Assyrians, inhabiting a country ruder and less fertile, they tried to live off their own resources neighbors and became a people of conquerors. The war was their main one industry. And, summarizing, it can be stated that in civilization Chaldean-Assyrian arts of war were created and developed by the Assyrians, while the arts of peace were cultivated by the Chaldeans.
HISTORY
The history of Chaldea and Assyria can be divided into four periods from 4000 to 533 BC
- 1st the first Chaldean empire, until the 14th century;
- 2nd the first Assyrian empire, until the 10th century;
- 3rd the second Assyrian empire, from 1000 years until 625 BC;
- 4th the second Chaldean empire, from 625 to 533 BC.
The characteristic difference why these divisions were established is very broad and imprecise, lies in the supremacy of one or the other of the two capitals (Babylon and Nineveh). Actually their story and their civilization were identical, as the races and languages they had to merge together very soon.
Before explaining the story as it can be deduced from the memories that kings and peoples left behind, will not be inappropriate remember the legends and traditions that have now been relegated together to all the other fables that the Greek genius was pleased with, reproducing and expanding the narratives of Ctesias, a Greek doctor, attached to the court of Artaxerxes Mnemon. Of Berosus, a Chaldean priest contemporary of Alexander, who would have written the history of Assyria according to cuneiform texts, we possess well scant fragments, cited by Eusebius and Josephus, so there is none can appreciate the value and scope.
In the early days of the legend, it appears, as in most of those concerning the peoples of Asia, a great cataclysm, a flood, which is followed by reintegration of the world by the work of divine men. Coming in more recent ages, here are the gigantic deeds of Nino, who subjugates half of Asia; here are the deeds of Semiramis, daughter of a mortal and a goddess, nourished by doves of the desert, with which the king of Bactro fell in love with her, raising her to honors of the throne. She would found Babylon, whose walls were long 360 stadia (66 km) and so wide that six chariots, one next to the other, could walk over them comfortably; it would have been built on both banks of the river two superb buildings, communicating with each other via a large passage underneath the bed of the Euphrates; it would also have founded Ecbatana; and arrived first than any other Assyrian at the sea. After her, voluptuous Sardanapalus reigned, Sennacheribbo, whom the wrath of Jehovah overthrew, proud Nebuchadnezzar, Balthazar who saw Babylon destroyed.
The excavations began in those regions by P. E. Botta, the historian's nephew of Italy Carlo Botta, in 1842, began to highlight magnificent buildings, bas-reliefs and inscriptions. Then continued by Layard, they made known to us Nineveh and the monuments of him, and a myriad of reproducing terracotta bricks, in cuneiform writing, history and events. The Grotenfelds, the Bournoufs, the Lassens, the Rawlinsons, the Opperts managed to discover the key to that language mysterious that seemed to no longer be able to say anything to human thought; for them it is possible, in its general lines, to narrate their history places as they really were.
We know about the first, Chaldean empire, or rather about the first Sumirian and Akkadian kingdoms that each city had independent leaders, priests and kings.
The first king of the united Shumir and Akkad appears to have been Hammurabi, son of Amarpal, a valiant soldier and wise politician, who raised Babylon - his native city - to the capital of the kingdom, he accomplished the grandiose one and useful work that served irrigation for many centuries, the canal king of Babylon, and left that important document of his wisdom, recently discovered, which is - unfortunately mutilated - the code known under the his name.
Sarrukinu, or Sargon the Ancient, is the first ruler of Semitic origin who came to dominate the "happy valley" of Babylon. It was ruler of Akkad and conqueror of Shumir; he built in Sippar the famous temple of the Sun, which is an inscription of Nabonid, who was its restorer - 550 years BC. Cr. - said to have been founded 3200 years before the age which was his. This same king Sarrukinu would have had it compiled in Sumiro-Akkadian works of magic and prophecy; we possess them, translated thirty centuries later by Ashurbanipal, one of the last Ninevite kings.
Among the events that took place subsequently, one of those he left behind greatest memories is the invasion of the Elamites, who came from the east of the Tigris, who transported the idols of the cities to the temples of their capital, Susa boilers. Some inscriptions tell us that, when Ashurbanipal took over of Susa, in 660 BC. Cr., the statues that he took back from the vanquished already had stayed 1600 years in foreign sanctuaries; from which one can deduce that the Elamite invasion dates back at least 2300-2400 years before ours era.
The Elamite invasion was followed by many others. Given its subdivision in small principalities, it was natural that Chaldea would become prey to the conquerors foreigners. The fact is that around the 14th century this whole region was under the children of the divine Assur.
The first Assyrian empire begins, in the beginnings of which the legends must be placed of Nino and Semiramis, which no Assyrian annal mentions.
The princes of this empire were difficult: it was the time when Egypt ascended triumphantly. Thutmose I came as far as Karkemish; Thutmose imposed it a tribute to the king of El-Assar, capital of Assyria; Amenhotpu The descended the course of the Tigris. But a great warrior appears, Tiglath Pilesar who manages to subjugate 42 peoples and repel the enemy invasion. Then continue the antagonism between Assyrians and Chaldeans and, after a very dark period, they appear to us the Assyrians triumphant.
Having abandoned El-Assar, the new monarchs set their headquarters in Kalah (Nimrud), where the Zab flows into the Tigris. After eight or nine generations, Ashshurnazipal adopts Nineveh as its capital.
Ashshurnazipal was not only a great conqueror, but he delighted in raising monuments, grandiose memories of his work. He has left us completely the story of his deeds: the provinces of the middle and lower Euphrates subdued, Syria, Phoenicia conquered, Egypt humble tributary, Babylon conquered. Shalmanúshshur III, who succeeded him in 860, continued the war incessant, expanding the borders of the empire. Since his successors they believed they could live only on income, the Medes and Babylonians went wild against and eclipsed for almost a century the power of Nineveh, which it then had the fortune of rising again thanks to a great sovereign.
This was Tugulti Palésharra (or Tiglat Pilesar) II, who ascended the throne in 745. The era of military triumphs and wealth began again Nineveh, which, later increased by king Shalmamîshshur V, had in Sharukin (more commonly called Sargon) military leader raised to the throne because the legitimate dynasty, the most worthy heir, had died out. He increased, with the addition of the kingdom of Israel and the Philistines, the island of Cyprus, Armenia, of a part of Media, the territory: the magnificent palace of Khorsabad, which saw the light again just over a century ago, is his work.
He was succeeded by his son Sennacherib, who reigned for 24 years (704 to 680 BC) and also engaged in continuous wars. He attacked the kings first of southern Syria, united against his power, and he succeeded (as he had failed to his predecessors) to take Tire and force it to pay taxes (701 BC); then he went against the kingdom of Judah and placed the siege of Jerusalem; but here his army was exterminated by the Angel of the Lord (as the Bible says), that is, according to interpretation which can be given to this passage, either by a terrible plague, or by some other serious misfortune, which reduced him to impossibility of fight; so he was forced to abandon the siege of Jerusalem and to return to Nineveh (700 BC). Meanwhile, a terrible revolt had broken out in Babylon, which left no opportunity to buy back unturned independence; and Sennacherib rushed to it with the fury of a barbarian and repressed it the revolt sweeping across the country like a devastating hurricane.
But he also ended his life tragically, killed by two of his sons. The the third son, however, avenged his death by killing his brothers and making himself king of Assyria, He was Asarhaddon.
Asarhaddon (680 BC) quelled further revolts that broke out places, and then brought war against I' Egypt, over which he still dominated the same Ethiopian dynasty with king Tahraka. Asarhaddon conquered it and held it for eight years, until the reorganized Tahraka succeeded to chase him away. After this Asarhaddon retreated to Babylon and abdicated in favor of his son Ashurbanipal (667 BC).
Ashurbanipal (667-626 BC) did as his predecessors: energetically repressed rebellions in the interior, and renewed war on various neighboring states and far away, enlarging the already vast empire. But in recent years of his kingdom a very large number descended into the Tigris valley from the north invasion of nomadic Scythians, who upset the whole world empire and gave so the occasion is for an intervention by the Medes, who are increasingly concerned about the excessive aggrandizement of the Assyrians, and to a new revolt of the Babylonians, obstinate in their attempts to claim their independence from them.
Meanwhile, a new empire had grown large in the East, that of the Medes. Cyaxares, their king. united with the Babylonians and the Egyptians, he destroyed Nineveh (606). Ashshurakheidin Il, son of Ashshuredililan, then reigned. The ruin of Assyrian city, which probably occurred in 625 BC., remained wrapped up in a tragic mystery: it was rapid and complete. No writer talks about it the details; only the voice of Nahum, the Jewish prophet who announces, rises to the world, exultant with ferocious hatred "O princes of Assur! Your shepherds and your guards have fallen asleep; your princes were buried While they were asleep, your people went to take refuge and to hide in the mountains and there is no person worthy of calling him to collection". "Your ruin is evident to all, your plague is deadly and all who have learned this that happened to you they applauded your misfortunes; because who Has he not felt the continued effects of your wickedness? ».
Babylon resources. For a century - from 625 to 533 BC - kept the name high Chaldean. Nabudurussur (Nebuchadnezzar), son of Nabuballussur (Nabopolassar), he was the emulator of the great Assyrian rulers, of Sarrukin, of Assurbanipal. He defeated the Egyptian king Niko (or Necho), on the Euphrates (605 BC), forcing him to return in Egypt; then, having become king in 604, he subdued Syria and attacked Judea twice: in 597, making it tributary, and in 587 subjugating it completely, destroying Jerusalem, and transporting everyone captive to Babylon the Jews who had rebelled against him. Later he also conquered the Phoenicia, taking Tire itself with a long siege (574 BC), and finally extended his dominion over a large part of Arabia.
Babylon became the wonder of the ancient world, embellished by him with gardens hanging buildings and with the Tower of Belo, which was later called the Tower of Babel; new channels were made to connect the ancient ones, navigation in the Persian Gulf had lively impulse, the Medan wall arose between the Euphrates and the Tigris.
To propitiate them, no people invented and held amulets in such honor, talismans, filters, fateful syllables, as much as the Chaldeans.
These geniuses were perpetually at war with each other: everyone attests to this figurative monuments that show us them in continuous combat. Who wanted to escape to a genius, it was necessary to invoke, to dispel him, a more powerful genius than the one who tried to harm him. Another characteristic sign is this of the dualistic conception of nature, of the eternal struggle of light against darkness, of good against evil; and this is the concept that dominated even later within the religions that revived the ancient ones Chaldean beliefs.
the Assyrian cults, which were somewhat different from those of Ur, of Sippar, of Babylon, had a more cruel character, with barbaric sacrifices, even of human victims, while among the Babylonians they tried to honor divinity by penetrating the secrets of nature and of every god. The only one sacrifice here that seems to have pleased the gods was that of chastity: Herodotus describes the voluptuous practices that were carried out in the temple of the goddess Mylitta, where every woman had to offer, at least once in her life of her her beauty of her to the goddess in absolute sacrifice. Not only that, but every sanctuary had his sacred prostitutes, with whom the god, according to the priests, he loved to entertain himself from time to time.
The characteristic shape of the temples is explained by a particular conception Chaldean. Towards the northeast, "the father of the districts", they turned their gaze: there they imagined the sojourn of the gods, a future home of every great and good man, «a land with silver sky and soil producing crops without work" where "the mountain of Bel, who touches the skies with his double head, like a mighty irritated buffalo, from which the horns shine like a ray of sunshine, like a star." The sacred mountain was reproduced in the Assyrian-Babylonian temples, with the Zibburat. "Mountain peak", a kind of pyramid with three or five or seven floors: 3, 5, 7 were sacred numbers: the first represented the triad divine, Na, the sky, Ea, the earth, Mul-ge, the lord of subterranean things; the second, the five planets; the third, the seven stars of the sky.
Despite superstitions and materialistic excesses, the people of Mesopotamia they had a deep and conscious faith. In their hymns to the fire, to the sun, to the wind, rivers, in their invocations there is a loftiness of feelings which was reached by a few peoples.
WRITING: LITERATURE
There are therefore two languages in numerous Mesopotamian documents made known the Sumiro-Akkadian, spoken and written by the first Chaldeans, of Kushite lexicon and Turanian syntax, and Assyrian, a purely language Semitic which ended up triumphing over the ancient language. In fact, the only one library of Ashurbanipal, in the palace of Koyangik in Nineveh, which he provided enough clay tablets to form a pile of one hundred cubic meters - approximately 500 volumes of 500 pages - features very few in the Sumirian language.
Both Assyrian and Sumerian writing was in cuneiform, shaped characters of nails or wedges, arranged horizontally, vertically or in the form of spear iron. It seems that this singular shape is due to the writing instrument and to matter. The stylus, of which many ivory specimens have been found, it ended in a triangular end, pressing which on the clay the characteristic claviform line resulted.
Cuneiform signs form a phonetic script, representing however not syllables, but elementary sounds: truly, in addition to the signs they represented these simple sounds, there were monograms of convention that they did not have phonetic value, but they meant a name, a special word and prefixes determinates, especially capital letters, which, when placed before proper names, were useful to show that the following word designated a god, a king, a man, a city, a people, a woman, an animal, a metal.
The 300 or more signs of the Mesopotamian writings still have no date everything had a definitive indisputable interpretation, yes that reading of those texts proceeds slowly.
The prisms and clay cylinders that narrate the deeds that the kings wanted are unique remember to posterity, burying them in the foundations of the great buildings they built; but the private documents are even more singular. They were traced on blocks of clay that had the shape of our soaps toiletries. To avoid all the disputes that could arise later - mostly it concerns contracts - those who drafted them they then wrapped those writings in a new light layer of arpilla, on which they wrote a duplicate of the text, submitting everything again when cooked.
Of very ancient Babylonian literature, given the limited knowledge that exists it has a Sumiro-Akkadian feel to it, one can only speak by reputation. From quotes of the ancients we can infer that there must have been not only scientific works, historical, religious, but even compositions of pure imagination, fables, legends.
Something more precise is known about the Assyrians: the majority of the books we possess consists of grammars, lexicons, collections of homonyms, polyphonic words and etymologies. They took great care of purity and the stability of their language, not only that, but they also studied carefully the old Chaldean language. We are left with dictionaries, exercise books and of themes that were undoubtedly used to learn the classical language.
The chronologies are numerous, and the correspondences of the kings with are frequent their messengers to war or peace, with scientists charged with collecting astronomical observations. Not rare, but unfortunately mutilated, are the tablets that they contain fantastic stories. Among these, full of high poetry and important for the history of myths the descent into Hell of the goddess Ishtar, the goddess of love, which goes to snatch from the bowels of the world, from the rapacious hands of the goddess of earth Antar, the beloved son Tammuz. The story proceeds quickly with observations, sometimes graceful, sometimes profound, which offer very lively interest.
This is how the beginning of the poem sounds:
"Towards the region from which he has not returned, towards the house of corruption has turned Ishtar's mind upon her; towards the abode that has a way of entry, but not an exit, towards a road on which one moves forward, but not backwards, towards the abode from which the light of the sun is excluded, where hunger is satisfied with dust and mud, where the light is never seen, where the shadows of the dead dwell in the darkness, equipped with wings like birds. Dust has accumulated on the door jamb and lock."
Other stories, such as the Evils of the Seven Spirits, are much less interesting of evil, the Sin of the god Zu, who turned against Belo, the Deeds of Cubara, the god of the plague, the tales of the horse, the ox, the fox, the eagle, etc.
Perhaps the rhythmic phrase was also known and real verses were composed: many of the heroic tales have the appearance of true epic poems; of ardent lyricism the hymns in honor of the gods, which we want to reproduce, have their imprint a very inspired fragment
"Lord, dispeller of darkness, let him penetrate the darkness; Good God who lifts up those who lie in abjection and supports the weak; - The great gods direct their gazes towards your light; - The spirits of the abyss they gaze avidly at your face; - Like a boyfriend, you rest full of joy and adornment of beauty; - Reach the boundaries of the with your splendor sky; - You are the banner of this vast land; - O God, the men who the inhabitants contemplate you from afar and rejoice".
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
Modern research, the meticulous study of the remains of ancient civilization Chaldean-Assyrian, the interpretation of the texts, if they showed us a people intelligent and greedy for knowledge, persevering in his scrutinizing investigations of natural phenomena, have not yet been able to confirm us in the opinion of the wisdom and knowledge of the old Chaldean priests. We meet faced with a mass of laborious observations, never animated by any general law.
The famous sciences of Chaldea and Assyria can be summarized in a few notions of astronomy and mathematics and in an immense jumble of astrology, of magic and fabulous conceptions of the origin of things.
Astronomy was born in Chaldea, almost every city had it next door at the palaces of the kings, an observatory; and the temples themselves, with the four corners facing the cardinal points, perhaps served as an observatory, where day for astronomers continuously recorded what was happening in the sky, calculating the latitude of the stars at the zenith of Elam. Thus they they could notice the return of the lunar eclipses in the same order and at same dates for periods of 223 moons; furthermore, they were able to distinguish from the stars fixes the planets visible to the naked eye, Ea (Saturn), Bel (Jupiter), Nergal (Mars), Istar (Venus), Naba (Mercury); finally, they grouped into constellations the fixed stars.
Those ancients knew the solar year of 365 and a half days, but in common use it was instead the year of twelve lunations, which completed at fixed times with the addition of an intercalary month. Their most intense concern was to research the relationships between the appearance of the stars and events of life and thus predict the fate of men and empires: of their chimeras impregnated not only the Greeks and Romans, but the Arabs themselves, through which those fables returned to us in a new light. Dials solar, gnomons, hourglasses were the instruments used by the Assyrians to measure time; they had a twenty-four hour day, the hour of 60 minutes, the minute of 60 seconds. It seems that to measure the height of stars had an astrolabe and knew the properties of lenses.
More remarkable were their mathematical knowledge: the system decimal, duodecimal, sexagesimal, which has a divisible base of 60 for 10 and for 12, they invented them. Their is the division of the circle in 360 degrees, degree in 60 minutes and sexagesimal divisions subsequent ones, which we still use today. Their system of measurements was derived, like ours, from a typical unit of length, the empan (27 mm.); the squares of the multiples and submultiples gave the surface measurements.
The tablets also show us attempts at botanical classifications, mineralogical and zoological: plants and minerals are classified according to the criterion of resemblances and their uses; the animals are divided into families: that of the large carnivores, in which the lion and the dog; that of herbivores (the ox and the goat); that of insects, classified according to the environment in which they live.
THE ARTS
The first excavations in the territory of ancient Assyria were undertaken in 1841 by P. E. Botta, opposite Mosul, on the very soil of Nineveh, and continued in the village of Khorsabad, 20 km. to the north, they were then terminated by V. Place. The results were excellent. A built city was discovered by Sargon, the destroyer of Samaria. A little later H. Layard (1842-1843) explored in the village of Calaat-Sherghat, 9 km south of Mosul, the remains of a palace built by a king of Assyria called Tuklatpal-Asar I, a namesake of the adversary of the kings of Judah and Israel, who reigned approximately 386 years before the latter. Layard later discovered, in the ruins of ancient Calach, the remains of the palaces of a dynasty of Assyrian kings which followed one another over a long period of years. Finally he continued in the same soil as Nineveh the excavations interrupted by Botta e discovered the ruins of the palaces of the kings of Nineveh of Sargon's dynasty.
After such great discoveries the excavations were continued in various places by Rassam, Smith and by German and American missions, which brought equally valuable items contingent on the history of Assyria. All these explorations have led monuments of all kinds come to light: buildings of which each brick bears the name and titles of the sovereigns who built them, and whose walls are loaded of sculptures and inscriptions in cuneiform character; then steles, statues, figurines, engraved stones and a large quantity of clay tablets (coctiles laterculi) from the ancient libraries of Assyria, of which Pliny speaks of.
Reading these documents has allowed us to reconstruct a large part of the history of that vast empire, which disappeared so long ago. The kings of the period of Assyrian civilization and prosperity, beyond as great conquerors, they were also great builders. Ashurbanipal he was also a man of letters and a protector of the arts. You owe it to him if you are found the entire collection of clay tablets, the fragments of which were were gathered in his palace in Koniundijk. He had had you transcribe the old religious texts (Smith in his history of Ashurbanipal brought together such texts). In the ruins of the palaces of Koniundijk, as in those of Khorsabad and Nimrud, one can get the idea of the wonderful constructions erected for three centuries by the Assyrian monarchs. The sandy nature of the soil and the lack of it of stone caused the need to arise in the spirit of that people create it. The clay, reddened by the fire, became hard as rock and was this is how ceramics was born. In Chaldea the construction was more accurate, at least in certain eras and in certain buildings; indeed Chaldea can be considered as the true cradle of civilization and art, for having been the link between Egypt and Greece.
In the ruin known under the name of Babil, which represents one of the main monuments of ancient Babylon, blocks of fired clay are held together from the silt, which was used to manufacture it. Elsewhere, as at Birs Nimrud, vi it is a kind of lime, which makes the union of materials more tenacious It's a kind of bitumen. Genesis, telling the construction of the tower of Babel, says: The clay served them as stone and the bitumen as cement. The vault in Assyrian buildings was built partly for roofing certain sides of the building itself. He who observed this truth was l'Handin, designer for Botta's works. Thomas, collaborator of Place, took up the same idea with good results. In fact, blocks were found curvilinear, covered with stucco and frescoes, which must have decorated the vaults themselves.
The same method was then followed by the Byzantines and this has a great expression in the palace of Sarbistan. Many fragments found in Khorsabad already had led Place to guess that the Assyrians applied bronze in leaves on doors; but it is a recent discovery that removes all doubts and has showed how art had ended up taking advantage of a simple precaution defensive.
In 1878, Hormuzd Ranam (who had been Layard's companion), commissioned to make excavations on behalf of the British Museum, collected at Balavat 15 miles from Moosul, of the metal plates decorated with bas-reliefs, where the name of was read Salmanasar II (895-825). The doors had a very showy luxury in Assyria. The brightest colors were used for decoration. They were also remarkable the historiated obelisks, of which there are various examples in the British Museum. Splendid then were the winged bulls, which are up to five meters high and which they served as tutelary deities at the entrance to the palaces. In the building in Sargon there were twenty-six pairs of winged bulls and in Koniundjik one On one façade alone there were ten such colossi.
In Nineveh, sculpture is not dispersed, as in Memphis and Thebes, Egypt is widespread. It always occupies the same place. The figures are as if stuck in wall plinths. Their feet touch the ground. It was calculated that in Sargon's palace, the carved slabs, placed in succession, would have a total length of approximately two kilometers. A large portion was therefore assigned to sculpture in all buildings. The beliefs of Egypt, found in Chaldea, offered various themes to sculpture. The demons, the monsters were subjected favorites. Art, proceeding from realistic principles, was pleased to reunite animal and man in strange, fantastic recompositions. They also found each other various examples of mural painting. It was usually the upper part of the internal walls of the buildings, which was decorated with a brilliant enamel painting.
The vases in Assyria were all fired and had various shapes. The British Museum has many examples of worked clays similar to ceramics Egyptian. Glass, already manufactured in Egypt, was also used in Chaldea, and metallurgy appears to be used on a large scale in all uses of life. As for the furniture, it is known that they were elegant and precious due to their carvings and value of timber. The prophet Nahum, in cursing Nineveh, mentioning the spoils of the winners, he says:
"Kidnapped the gold and silver: the riches of Nineveh are infinite, its precious vases and furniture are priceless."
The oriental tradition of vases has continued to the present day among the Arab peoples, and we know that the manufacture of the splendid cups metals originated in ancient Mesopotamia: then the Phoenicians, who imitated everything, they naturalized and spread those industries.
No less valuable were the weapons, which Rawlison and Layard have described in their works. Axes and damascene swords made the Assyrians famous in this art of luxury, and today Damascus still preserves the glorious tradition. Even toilet and everyday objects were adorned with art Chaldean, and beautiful examples of such objects are collected in the Louvre. We have splendid samples of Assyrian goldsmithery which they give us an idea of Assyrian luxury. The fabrics in Assyria were very carefully crafted, given the pomposity of dress, and they were certainly admirable for their variety of the color and the elegance of the design.
In Assyria the tomb is silent and anonymous. You do not have a single registration funerary, which dates back to the times when the two kingdoms of Mesopotamia belonged to each other. Burials have been found in Nimrud, Koniundijk, Khursabad and the surrounding area of Messul, but it is proven, from their position that they are later than ruins of Assyrian palaces. Ranam and Luftus found graves with bones: but not belonging to the period of Assyrian-Chaldean power. Which they did the Assyrians dead? Layard, worrying about the problem, explored without it results the Mosul region, promising rewards to anyone who found a grave for him Assyrian. But nothing was found: neither Place, nor Hurmuzd Ranam after him they found something. Only in one stele was a theme found funerary. But funerary scenes are never found on battle bas-reliefs. It seems that Assyrian pride did not admit that the warriors could fall and die. Loftus wanted to give an explanation since Chaldea was full of tombs, perhaps all the dead were transported there as if to a holy land. With all this the Chaldean tomb offers nothing important from the point of view of art.
BABYLON
Of all the Chaldean-Assyrian cities, the most important is that which lasted the longest was Babylon. Founded, according to some writers ancient, from Semiramis, according to Herodotus from queen Nitocris, the City from the hundred gates began to have splendor under Hamurabi, and acquired a predominance over the Assyrian empire that was to last until the time of the Arabs. He survived all the sieges and plundering of the kings of Nineveh. Nebuchadnezzar made it the largest city in Asia. The Persians, and more later the Greeks respected it. It spread its brilliance over the world for centuries of a civilization refined to the point of corruption.
Babylon owed its great destinies and its duration to the excellence of its geographical position. It stood at a point in the lower course of the Euphrates, in the heart of the most fertile country that existed at the time. That river there it communicated with the Persian Gulf and Syria. The populous center also reigned over the great trade road that ran from Central Europe and from Asia Minor to the Indies, and on the roads to Egypt, Armenia and Persia. All the international trade of the ancient world passed within its walls. When he had gained supremacy over the Assyrian empire, the political power came to increase its greatness, and its wealth, due to wars and to the sciences, it no longer had limits.
The labor of the prisoners of war served to make Babylon the Queen of Asia. The Greeks spoke of that city very highly admiration. The place on which Babylon arose has been one for many centuries huge pile of ruins from which the tireless work of archaeologists it has unearthed impressive remains. Temples, citadels, palaces, bastions, monuments, cemeteries, libraries and other priceless treasures, which lay buried for thousands and thousands of years, they came to light; and the modern world was amazed in front of this recalled millenary civilization, of which ours fathers had no idea.
The professor. Maspero, Dr. Hilprech, Dr. Delitsch, Dr Budge, the Dr. Pinches, Rawlison, Loftus, Spet, Rogers, etc., who explored the ruins of the magnificent city, brought to light colossal testimonies of excellence of Babylonian architectural art.
(today with aerial photos, and with the help of computers they have been reconstructed cities down to the smallest details).
The most surprising mass of the remains is the one located in the south-west of Hillah, consisting of an embankment (648 m in circumference) shaped oblong, split in the eastern part, while in the western part it raise a conical figure, 60 meters high, with a solid mass of bricks on top, perforated by small openings, arranged in rhomboids, and adorned with inscriptions. Here and there, hills and small valleys appear: they are groups of houses and squares, but the explorers still wonder in vain where the fire originated who destroyed the effeminate Sardanapalus, where the base of the Tower of Babel, where the palace of Semiramis. The barbicans and pillars, generally of brick, they were part of the Babylonian buildings. For embellishment, they painted themselves tiles and bricks of beautiful quality, imprinted with cuneiform characters, sometimes also linked with iron and lead, such as in the bridge over the Euphrates. The Babylonians did not know about hydraulic caissons and they didn't have the idea of the arch, which they replaced in the upper parts of the doors, with beams or otherwise. It was decorated with animals in relief, portraits, statues, etc., and instead of columns, piles were used. Among the ruins, which they occupy an immense expanse of land, you can recognize the temple of Baal, which, with its eight terraces, rises to a height of 600 feet, surpassing also the highest pyramids of Egypt, and to which Strabo gives a circumference of 2600 feet. Nebuchanezar's palace, which had a vast perimeter, is no more than an immense hill of rubble. Of the gardens called Semiramis, which were built in the form of an amphitheatre, and which rose up, similar to terraces, with steps supported by galleries, only a few remains of complete architectural forms are found: the surfaces of the walls are all covered with alabaster tablets, with representative reliefs subjects from the life of kings and the upper part shows an ornamentation of bricks painted in different colors. In the entrance there are two statues colossal, guardians of the gates, having a bull's body, with two large ones wings, and a man's head, adorned with a tiara. These buildings rose above terraces and had a very simple plan: they consisted of a large internal open-air courtyard. square in shape and surrounded by long rooms parallel. Interesting fragments of Babylonian antiquities are found in the British Museum in London.
TRADE AND INDUSTRIES
The geographical position of Mesopotamia was the main reason for the great development of trade in this region. It was
"the largest artery of the known world, full of trading posts and warehouses, which it ended, at both ends, at the two ends of the maritime trade of ancient Babylon and Tyre".
Babylon gave Tire Ophir pearls, gold, ivory, ebony Ethiopia, the perfumes, the precious stones, the shawls of the India, the superb carpets, the embroidery, the rich furniture that she herself manufactured, and received fabrics from them Egyptian vessels, bronze vases, iron from Cyprus, purple, oils, wools and, above all, money, piles of gold, to satiate her desires, always greedy for voluptuousness.
The contracts were drawn up with great care and with meticulousness no different from the Egyptian ones, duly signed with the seals of seven witnesses, in addition to those of the contracting parties. We find that the legal interest could rise up to 25 percent.
Agriculture was very flourishing due to the great richness of the rivers and canals and for the sweetness of the soil: that was the most important product of palm trees, but the harvest of corn, wheat, of millet; Assyria also produced (then, before desertification) large quantity of wines.
No people are known to have worked iron and steel before the Chaldeans and of the Assyrians: they fashioned swords, spears, mail and helmets admirable for their solidity and elegance, and humble but even more useful tools, such as plowshares, axes, sickles, pickaxes, hooks, hinges, etc. Also the other branches of metallurgy flourished there: gold and silver were used without alloys, in beaten sheets, and cast in different shapes; bronze is found cast in statues, in vases, in plates, in boilers.
The glyptics are extremely advanced: such is the finesse of the workmanship reliefs carved in very hard stones - carnelian, onyx, agate, sardonyx - which many had to assume were performed with the lens. This branch of art must, so to speak, have taken on a character industrial, given the Assyrian custom of each having his own seal, which he used as a signature, applying it to the soft clay, where it was edicts or contracts were written.
The working of clay into bricks was another important industry in that country without stone: they were dried in the sun or cooked in the furnace, colored differently with metal oxides. In the factories those were needed for the internal walls and these for the main walls: it was concrete the mud mixed with straw and bitumen so abundant on the banks of the Euphrates.
The ceramics, the ivory furniture, jewels and especially fabrics and carpets other very fine industrial art products which spread the name Mesopotamian and refined the barbaric taste.
INSTITUTIONS, CUSTOMS AND CUSTOMS
Although the public and private life of Nineveh and Babylon has ended by conforming to the same type, notable differences can be noticed, determined partly by topographical conditions and historical characteristics, starts from ethnic movements.
The Babylonians were one of the great maritime peoples of antiquity; distant India, rich in gold and perfumes, saw them; Ethiopia saw them, inexhaustible of ivory and wood and precious metals. The Assyrians did not get tired never in possession of the seas, but masters of Tire and Chaldea they exploited them with the Phoenician ships, with the Babylonian ships, the advantages. Babylon excelled for wisdom, natural in her race; Nineveh for the brutal violence of its Semitic temperament: it had an almost always theocratic regime, this was organized as an absolute monarchy. The Assyrian king was the leader of the religion; as well as the arbiter of civil military affairs; representative of the god Ashur and pontiff, in his name he commanded the armies, and moved to conquest of the world; in his name he dictated the laws. Only the prime minister and the chief of the eunuchs could speak to him. In Chaldea the king instead it was influenced by the priestly caste of the famous Magi, who they mysteriously transmitted the legacy of ancient knowledge.
The armies were very numerous, armed with the most advanced weapons of the time, but always ready for rebellions and not very disciplined: they confirmed of heavy infantry mounted on war chariots and consisting of cavalry, and they were both excellent in the art of sieges, supplied as they were of catapults, of powerful rams.
Diodorus narrates:
"For the safety of the empire and, in order to keep his subjects in obedience, the king raised annually a certain number of soldiers (a real conscription) the leaders of which they were chosen for each province; he gathered the troops outside the city and he gave every nation a governor devoted to him; at the end of the year he took his leave the soldiers and raised new ones in equal numbers. By this means he held all his subjects in respect and with the presence of soldiers, camped in the open air, he pointed to the troublemakers and the rebels for repression always ready. The annual renewal of the troops also had effect that leaders and soldiers were fired before they learned to know each other mutually, because a long stay in the camps gives to the leaders the experience of war and often leads them to revolt and conspire against their sovereign."
His memories of his private life are even scarcer. We can though deduce from the stories of Greek historians - the monuments being silent - that habits must have been very refined since ancient times. Those Assyrian kings, killers of lions, executioners of peoples, those impassive scribes who record the number of heads and hands severed from the vanquished, those soldiers who impale, nail the prisoners on the field (no other people have us left such ferociously accurate bas-reliefs) they delighted in the luxury and pleasures.
The kings and priests dressed in long, sumptuous robes, embroidered with gold, and grave of fringes; they wore a kind of tiara on their heads and had sandals on their feet, from sandal to knee-high boot. Common clothing consisted of a long linen tunic, over which another wool one was layered and a kind of cloak: the custom of the humble was to go barefoot and head uncovered. The hairstyle of the hair and beard was very accurate: from the shepherd to the king, everyone wore their hair, naturally frizzy, ringed and arranged with such symmetry as to suggest that they used iron. From the bas-relief women have left us only ugly and graceless images, dressed in very loose pleated dresses that do not reveal the lines of the body: it will be useful to assume that the artist lacked skill to reproduce them rather than their gracefulness. Necklaces, bracelets, bracelets, pendants were not only used by females, especially in spring Babylon.
For a long time, at least, the Assyrians seem to have remained monogamous, while polygamy was in great use among the Babylonians. Marriage contracts they were done in a very curious way that Herodotus tells us.
"Every year those who had daughters to marry took them to a specific place; there they were arranged in order of beauty and subsequently auctioned by an auctioneer, starting with the most beautiful. The highest bidder of those who had rushed to witness that event took her away that she had purchased. The ugly ones were instead put up for auction, with bonuses a given portion of the sum obtained from the sale of the beauties, for a price vile."
Herodotus narrates again:
"Every woman born in the country is obliged once in her life to go to the temple of Venus to give herself to a stranger... She follows the first person who throws money at her and is not allowed to, to refuse anyone. Then, when she was free from what she owed to the goddess by giving herself to a stranger, she returns among her. After that whatever be it the sum of her that is offered to her it is not possible to seduce her. Here too bad ones had the worst; they were years and years in the temple, since no one wanted to help them fulfill their vow. It was this one a curious form of monasticism, parallel to prostitution."
Very curious and singular is another custom that exists as well reported by the Greek historian.
"Since those people didn't have doctors Mesopotamians, when someone fell ill they were transported to the public hospital square. Whoever passed by had the obligation to ask him what ailment he had and to suggest remedies that he himself had used or that he knew from others have been used in similar cases."
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE Assyrians and the Egyptians
In ancient times, war was, more than trade, the form normal of relations between different peoples. The Nile civilization e that of the Euphrates came into contact and interpenetrated as a result of a long series of wars which we have already mentioned. These can be divided into three periods.
In the first, the small kingdoms of the middle Euphrates underwent suzerainty of the conquering pharaohs of the XVIII dynasty. Later, they became the kings of Nineveh were powerful, the frightened Egyptians pushed their own against them allies of Syria and Israel. These were defeated, and indeed the fall of Damascus and Samaria decided Sabacon, pharaoh of Napata, to intervene personally. But his army, as we have seen, was put to flight at Raphia by Sargon (VIII century BC), and the successors of this king entered Egypt, took Thebes and defeated the Ethiopians.
After the destruction of Nineveh, the Delta pharaohs resumed their offensive in Asia. Niko invaded Palestine and Syria. But Nebuchadnezzar defeated him at Karkemish and Egypt lost all influence in Asia. Then, the two rival states were conquered by the Persians and underwent the domination of Cambyses.
