The civilization of Babylonia and Assyria

Its remains, language, history, religion, commerce, law, art, and literature

by Morris Jastrow | 1915 | 168,585 words

This work attempts to present a study of the unprecedented civilizations that flourished in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley many thousands of years ago. Spreading northward into present-day Turkey and Iran, the land known by the Greeks as Mesopotamia flourished until just before the Christian era....

It is time, however, to turn to other excavations conducted during the past thirty years at southern mounds. Early in 1889, an expedition fitted out by the University of Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Dr. John P. Peters (now of New York), began work at a large series of mounds at Niff er, the site of ancient Nippur, at which Layard, it will be recalled, [1] had made some tentative explorations. With some interruptions the excavations were continued till the summer of 1900, Dr. Peters being replaced, after 1888, by the late John H. Haynes, who was the first to demonstrate the possibility of continuing work at the mounds throughout the year and not merely during the dry season, though the hardships endured no doubt drained his vitality and hastened his early death. In 1889, the late Prof. R. F. Harper, of the University of Chicago, and Prof. H. V. Hilprecht, of the University of Pennsylvania, also accompanied the expedition as Assyriologists during the two and a half months of active work, and the latter paid another short visit to the mounds in 1900, in his capacity as Scientific Director. The chief work was in a portion of the mounds that covered the extensive temple area of ancient Nippur. A sanctuary of large proportions dedicated to Enlil, the chief deity of Nippur, was unearthed together with remains of smaller temples, shrines, store-rooms and dwellings of the priests grouped around the central sanctuary.

Attached to the temple was a large stage-tower which was thoroughly explored and yielded important results for the construction of these adjuncts to the temple proper. Dr. Peters was fortunate enough to come across remains of the temple archive during the period that he was in charge, but it was left for Haynes, in 1900, to determine the extensive character of these archives, which have yielded upwards of 20,000 tablets. Unlike the archive at Telloh, however, that at Nippur also contained a considerable number of tablets other than mere temple documents and business records. It yielded hundreds of tablets forming part of the equipment of the school attached to the temple for the education of the young priests just as was the case at Sippar. [2] The publication of this portion of the archive has only recently begun, [3] but from the specimens it is evident that the temple school contained besides syllabaries, grammatical paradigms and other divisions of the school paraphernalia, also the hymns, incantations, and ritual texts used in connection with the cult at Nippur. One should also expect to find many omen tablets in the collection.

On the other hand, it is doubtful whether any ruler of Nippur conceived the idea of collecting for the temple of Nippur the extant literature originating in the various centres of the Euphrates Valley and which would have expanded the temple archive into a real library, such as Ashurbanapal gathered in his palace at Nineveh. In addition to the discovery of tablets within the temple area, documents of a legal and business nature were found elsewhere in the mounds, so in one section which appeared to have been the residential portion of the city in the later Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods and where among other things the private business archive of one of the banking concerns of the day was unearthed. Several hundred tablets of this archive have been published by Prof. A. T. Clay (now of Yale University), whose researches have shown that the Murashu family conducted business affairs of all kinds in Nippur during the fifth century. They loaned money and farmed out lands, they acted as agents in drawing up all kinds of contracts and dealt in various commodities.

These documents showed that Nippur was still an important settlement after the fall of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty when thePersians came into control. This was also indicated by the discovery of numerous slipper-shaped coffins of the Persian period found in the upper layers, as by the remains of a Parthian fortress built on the site of the old sikkurat of Enlil, just as at Telloh. It was with the greatest difficulty and only after long and patient work done, chiefly by Haynes, that the extent and nature of the original stage-tower was determined, which had been frequently rebuilt and submitted to frequent alterations ever since its foundation at a period considerably earlier than Sargon of Akkad, whose stamped bricks were found in the ruins. Testimony to the large number of rulers who had left traces of their presence in Nippur was forthcoming in votive inscriptions which carry us down to the days of Ashurbanapal, the king of Assyria (668-626 B.C.), who was the last to undertake building operations at the tower, which consisted at that time of four — possibly five — stages, rising to a height of over 150 feet. Within the temple area, covering a large extent and surrounded by two walls, an inner and an outer one, traces of numerous shrines besides the main temple were discovered, and, in the case of some of these, the definite outlines could be determined.

The main temple, known as E-kur, or "mountain house", was the special sanctuary of Enlil, whom the Sumerians, as it would appear, brought with them from their mountain homes. Nippur became, as early at least as 3000 B.C., the chief religious centre of Sumerian settlements, which carried with it the undisputed position of Enlil as the head of the pantheon. We have seen that Nippur, like Telloh, continued to be a stronghold in Persian days. The coming of the Greeks made no change in its status, as Greek inscriptions and Greek figurines attest ; and when finally Nippur was abandoned as a settlement of the living, its old time sanctity made it a favorite place of burial. Hundreds of clay bowls, containing magical inscriptions in Aramaic and Syriac as a protection of the dead against evil demons, and dating from about the sixth century of our era were found in graves [4] of the uppermost layers in certain sections of the mound as a proof that Nippur continued to be a sacred necropolis for Jews and Christians many centuries after it had ceased to be occupied and at a time when all traces and even the recollection of its one-time grandeur had disappeared. [5]

PLATE XV

Fig. 1, Coffins of the later period found at Nippur

Fig. 2, Incantation bowls with aramaic inscriptions (Nippur)

Through the work of Peters and Haynes, [6] scholars were enabled for the first time to obtain a more definite view of the religious architecture of early Babylonia, which was closely followed in Assyria, though with some modifications. The temple proper was divided into two courts, an outer and an inner one. In the outer one stood the altar to which the sacrifices were brought. [7] It was here that the people assembled, while the inner court leading to the holy of holies, in which the statue of the deity stood, was accessible to the priests only. Attached to the temple, either behind it or to one side was the stage-tower, the stories of which, as already pointed out, varied from two to seven stages, one set upon the other, and each succeeding stage being somewhat smaller until the top was reached.

Mention should be made of the large number of votive inscriptions found in the Nippur mounds, which, by nature of the historical data contained in them, added much to our knowledge of political events and conditions in the third millennium B.C., and revealed the names of rulers of whom nothing or little was known ere this. [8] Thus many fragments of stone vases were found which, upon being pieced together, furnished a large inscription of Lugalzaggisi (c. 2675 B.C.), the king of Erech or Uruk, who extended his dominions until he could lay claim to the title also of King of Sumer, and who tells us in the inscription accompanying his votive offerings of his various campaigns and conquests.

In the lowest strata of the mounds a large number of vases and jars some of them of unusually large size were found, and among other interesting discoveries, a series of drain pipes laid in vaulted tunnels showed that at an early period a system for drainage had been devised. The monuments unearthed up to the present at Nippur are not as numerous as those found by de Sarzec and Cros at Telloh, but include such interesting specimens as a large votive tablet of Ur-Enlil (c. 3000 B.C.), showing the ruler in the act of offering a libation to Enlil. The great antiquity of the plaque, perforated in the centre so that it could be fastened to a wajl, is proved not merely by the characters used in the inscription but by the representation of the ruler in a naked state before his god. The lower part of the tablet shows a goat and a sheep followed by two attendants who are presumably leading the animals, as sacrifices, into the presence of the god. [9]

Another expedition fitted out by an American institution conducted excavations for some months in 1903-1904, at Bismya, with Dr. E. J. Banks as director, who was acting for the University of Chicago. In some respects this work of Dr. Banks was the most remarkable of the many undertakings at the mounds, both because of the rich results obtained in a comparatively short time and because of the conditions under which these results were obtained. Bismya lies in the very heart of the desert region of southern Babylonia, difficult of access owing to the desperate character of the Arab tribes in the vicinity.

Alone and unaided Banks proceeded to Bismya, organized his corps of workmen and began his excavations on Christmas Day, 1903. He kept up the work until well into May of the following year, when the excessive heat and the wretched sanitary conditions forced an abandonment till fall. Proceeding as methodically as the difficult circumstances could allow, he soon determined that Bismya covered the remains of an ancient city that was abandoned long before the Babylonian empire came to an end. A little below the surface, remains of ancient buildings came to view, and it soon became evident also that the city had been destroyed by an invasion. Banks traced the outlines of the royal palace, of the temple and its stage-tower, and uncovered a large portion of the residential district. The palace fronting on the canal contained a large number of rooms grouped around a central court, and Banks ascertained that the same general plan was followed in the case of the private houses, only that the number of rooms was of course much smaller, and that the palace probably contained, besides the large court, a second one around which the apartments reserved for the harem were distributed. Vertical drains leading down to the foundations were found in several rooms, suggesting their use as bath rooms and indicative of at least some attempts at sanitation in very early days. Pottery of various shapes, animals modelled in clay, suggesting their use as toys, statuettes of deities serving as household gods, and several hundred tablets were among the finds of the palace, but far richer were the objects discovered in the temple area.

Chief among these were remains of various statues of stone, revealing a high order of work in the modelling of the face and in the arrangement of the garments. One of these statues, though found in several pieces, could be almost entirely restored, and constitutes one of the most valuable specimens of the art of early Babylonia. It proved to be that of an ancient ruler whose name is probably to be read Lugal-daudu (Plate XXIV, Fig. 1) and the inscription on the right arm of the statue also revealed the name of the temple as E-sar, and that of the city as Adab. Most of the heads found show the ordinary Sumerian type, with shaven head, but there was one with distinctly Semitic features with a full beard, proving that at an early period the population consisted of the two elements which we encounter everywhere in the remains of the ancient cities of the Euphrates region. Sinking a shaft some fifty feet through the mound down to the pure sand of the desert level, Banks was able to determine that below the temple, erected on a platform of plano-convex bricks there was an older structure.

Inscribed bricks and vases found at the higher level furnished the names of Dungi and Ur-Engur, of the Ur dynasty (c. 2450 B.C.), and of Sargon and Naram-Sin, of Akkad, belonging to c. 2650 B.C. For the older temple we may thus go back to at least 3000 B.C. and perhaps to a still earlier date. On a fragment of a blue-stone vase found in the temple, a drawing occurs of a stage-tower which is of inestimable value in illustrating the ancient shape of these adjuncts to the temple proper. The drawing shows four stories or stages of receding size, one placed on the other, and we may conclude that four stories represented the number in the case of the zikkurat in ancient Adab.

PLATE XVI

Fig. 1 (left), Statue of the Goddess Ninlil (found at Bismya)
Fig. 2 (right-top), Design on an inscribed boat-shaped vase (Bismya)
Fig. 3 (right-bottom), Design on an inlaid vase (Bismya)

Numerous inscribed vases, placed as votive offerings in the temple, confirmed E-sar as the name of the sacred edifice and that it was sacred to the goddess Nin-kharsag, "the lady of the mountain". Statuettes of the goddess seated on a throne were discovered, and also a statue of white stone, which enables us to see at closer range the features given by the Babylonians to the divine patron of the place, who seems to be identical with Ninlil, the consort of Enlil, of Nippur, and whose cult may have been transferred from the latter place. Banks was also fortunate enough to come across hundreds of fragments of vases of almost every conceivable shape and of such various materials as onyx, porphyry, sandstone, limestone and alabaster. Many of them contained inscriptions and curious designs, such as dragons, religious processions, deities in a boat, and so forth. Numerous objects of ivory and mother-of-pearl fishes, cats, rosettes partly to be regarded as votive offerings and partly merely ornaments alternated with inscribed copper tablets, copper spikes terminating in little lions, engraved marble slabs and fragments of splendidly moulded alabaster cows.

In a portion of the mounds not far from the temple, several thousand clay tablets with inscriptions of the oldest period were unearthed which presumably formed part of the temple archives. Lastly, the excavations also threw further light on the ancient mode of burial in Babylonia. Vaulted brick tombs having the appearance of small houses, on an average six feet long and three feet high, were built to receive the dead, who were placed on the floor, while along the back wall a series of clay pots of various sizes were arranged. Beads and copper rings and seal cylinders were also found in the graves, showing that the dead were buried with their ornaments, while some of the pots may have contained food. Banks remarks that these little houses of the dead dating, as tablets found in the mound proved, from the Hammurapi period, i.e., c. 2000 B.C., were not unlike the mounds built over graves in modern Mesopotamia. A large number of these vaulted tombs were found in close proximity to one another, indicating that a portion of the ancient city had been set aside as a cemetery.

In his account [10] he gives some specimens of the historical material unearthed by him. Even these few specimens furnish names of rulers hitherto unknown, and we may therefore look forward to a considerable enrichment of our knowledge of the earliest history of the Euphrates Valley with the more complete publication of the rich finds made by him.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Above, p. 24. The more accurate native form is Nuffar.

[2]:

Several volumes of lists of proper names from the Temple School are in preparation by Dr. Edward Chiera, and a volume of Letters from the Archives by Prof. Arthur Ungnad.

[3]:

A volume of mathematical exercise tablets was published by Prof. Hilprecht in 1906, a number of hymns and prayers, by Dr. D. W. Myhrman and by Dr. Hugo Radau, and three volumes of miscellaneous Grammatical and Historical Texts from Nippur, by Dr. Arno Poebel, in 1914.

[4]:

See Prof. J. A. Montgomery's valuable publication of the portion of the collection that came to the University of Pennsylvania, under the title of Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur (Philadelphia, 1913).

[5]:

To this day southern Babylonia is a favorite burial place for Mohammedans who bring the bodies of their relatives from a long distance to lie in the sacred cities of Kerbela and Nedjef, associated with the deeds and martyrdom of the two sons of Ali. It is a question worth investigating, whether the sanctity of such places as Kerbela and Nedjef may not revert to the ancient Babylonian period, in which case the Mohammedan traditions in regard to these places may simply be the adaptation of the pre-Islamic sanctity to later conditions. In a private communication, Prof. Noldeke (June 13, 1913) calls my attention to the fact that a village by the name of Nineveh in southern Babylonia is frequently mentioned in Arabic literature (Yakut and Tabari) an indication of the continuance of Babylonian and Assyrian traditions far into the Islamic period.

[6]:

Great credit is also due to Mr. C. S. Fisher, now associated with Harvard University and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, who accompanied the expedition in 1899-1900 as architect and through whom many of the architectural problems suggested by the mounds were solved. In a large publication, Nippur, unfortunately not yet completed, Mr. Fisher has set forth the results of his careful and important investigations.

[7]:

See Chapter VII and the temple plan there given.

[8]:

Published by H. V. Hilprecht in Vol. I, Parts 1 and 2, of the Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania and in Poebel's volumes above, p. 46, note 60, referred to.

[9]:

A detailed account of the work during 1888-1890 was given by Dr. Peters in his work, Nippur (2 vols., New York, 1890), and an account of the entire series of excavations from 1888-1900 by Prof. H. V. Hilprecht in Explorations in Bible Lands, pp. 289-568, though this account is unfortunately marred by belittling of Peters' and Haynes' work, and by some statements which give one an erroneous impression, both of the conditions under which finds were made and of the finds themselves. The publication of texts found at Nippur has proceeded steadily since 1891. Apart from the volumes above (p. 46 and p. 49), instanced, Prof. Clay has issued seven volumes of business and legal documents from the Cassite, neo-Babylonian and Persian periods, Drs. H. Ranke, A. Poebel and D. W. Myhrman, similar documents of the First Dynasty of Babylon and of the Ur dynasty, and Dr. H. Radau a selection of official reports and administrative documents, and a monograph on fragments of a Ninib myth found among the tablets of the literary section of the temple archive. See Plate XLHI, Fig. 2, for the native tablet of Ur-Enlil.

[10]:

Bismya or the Lost City of Adab (New York, 1912).

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