TREASURES in the SAND 6 Chapter 1 Where History Began
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TREASURES IN THE SAND Chapter 1 Where History Began Let’s travel back to the beginning of history as we know it, to the cradle of civilization. The first people of which we have any knowledge occupied two main areas: the Nile River valley and delta in Egypt, and the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia. Between these two populated areas lies the land bridge of Syria and Palestine. James H. Breasted, the famous Egyptologist, described this area as a huge crescent and coined the phrase “Fertile Crescent,” a name by which it is still known. Above the crescent are rugged mountains; below it, vast stretches of desert. The Nile River runs through the heart of Egypt and forms the lower portion of this fertile crescent. Oddly, northern Egypt is called Lower Egypt, because, unlike most rivers, the Nile runs from south to north. So to go down the Nile is to go north - to Lower Egypt; and to go up the Nile is to go south - to Upper Egypt. The lower crescent gave birth to one of the first great cities - Memphis, in Lower Egypt. Mesopotamia means “between the rivers.” This upper portion of the Fertile Crescent was well watered by a vast system of canals and ditches. Canal building was a major industry - like road construction today. With ample water and sunshine, this rich land became a great center of agriculture. During the fourteenth century, however, the canal system was willfully destroyed by Jamerlane, and the fields became the desert that we see today. It is said that Egypt is the gift of the Nile. Ninety-two percent of Egypt’s population lives on 3 percent of its soil - the area watered by this mighty river. Without the Nile, there would never have been the great Egyptian civilization of antiquity. In the same way, Mesopotamia is the gift of the Tigris and the Euphrates. These two great rivers have their source far up in the central mountains of Turkey. Flowing down toward the Persian Gulf, they carry and deposit silt that has built up the land through the centuries. Without these rivers, much of the land area we see today would not even exist. For instance, in the days of Abraham, the city of Ur was situated near the Persian Gulf. Today the site is 160 miles inland. 6 TREASURES IN THE SAND At the very dawn of history, Mesopotamia was populated by the earth’s first civilized inhabitants. Most of what was ancient Mesopotamia is today in Iraq. To its earliest peoples, the area was known as “the land of Sumer,” so its civilization is known as the Sumerian civilization. It is remarkable that a century ago, we knew nothing of this civilization. No one even imagined that such a civilization existed. It had completely vanished from history and was lost for more than three thousand years. Then came the amazing discovery of the Sumerian race by archaeologists. The languages of ancient civilizations recovered The science of archaeology was born in 1798, during the days of Napoleon. In that year he invaded Egypt, taking with him 120 scholars who were instructed to search the land for whatever antiquities it might have to offer. His greatest find was the now famous Rosetta Stone. This single discovery is said to be more important for ancient history than are all the inventions of Thomas Edison for modern life. The Rosetta Stone is inscribed with three languages: Greek and two Egyptian scripts, the hieroglyphic and the demotic Egyptian, a cursive form of writing simpler than hieroglyphics. Although the Greek could be read, the Egyptian language had been dead and forgotten for two thousand years. Since the same message was inscribed in three scripts and two languages, scholars compared the Egyptian language with the Greek, and the demotic and hieroglyphic scripts were deciphered. Their decipherment made it possible to read the many mysterious inscriptions covering the vast temples and tomb chambers of Egypt. It revolutionized our knowledge of the long-lost peoples and civilizations of the land of the pharaohs. While the history of ancient Egypt was being rediscovered, something was also happening in Mesopotamia. For many long centuries, travelers had walked beneath the towering cliffs of the Behistun Rock, in present-day Iran. They had often paused to gaze at the strange reliefs carved on a great stone surface five hundred feet above their reach. Like the Rosetta Stone, the Behistun Rock, too, was inscribed in three languages - but all three had been lost. In 1835, Henry Rawlinson, a British official and a remarkable scholar, was stationed near this gigantic rock. For four years, working when he could, he produced replicas of the strange inscriptions. He did this while standing on a narrow ledge, on the steps of a ladder, or let 7 TREASURES IN THE SAND down by ropes, often at the risk of his life. Six years of study followed and resulted in the amazing decipherment of the Old Persian and Elamite and later the Babylonian cuneiform, making it possible to read the exploits of the long-lost peoples and nations of Mesopotamia. The word cuneiform means “wedge-shaped,” which accurately describes the characters used in these ancient languages. Using this wedge-shaped writing, the Persian king, Darius I “the Great” (521-486 B.C.), had reliefs and inscriptions celebrating his victory over rebel tribes carved on the face of the Behistun Rock cliff. Bringing buried civilizations to life Rawlinson’s work led explorers to search for the ancient cities of Mesopotamia. They soon found that Mesopotamia is a vast cemetery. From a single spot, you can sometimes see as many as three great artificial mounds, known as tells, rise out of the desert landscape. The natives who pitched their tents near them or watered their camels in their shadows never knew, but beneath each of the mounds lay the remains of cities and civilizations. In this respect, Egypt is vastly different from Mesopotamia. Egypt was built with stone. Its massive stone structures of antiquity still amaze the tourists. In Mesopotamia, there was little or no stone, so the inhabitants built with clay bricks. Such buildings were easily destroyed by natural causes - floods, earthquakes, and storms of wind and rain. But most often, the cities were destroyed by war. A city defeated in war and partially destroyed was often leveled off so that another could be built over it. In this way, the mounds grew like a layer cake. As the archaeologists dig down, the layers are peeled off one after another, sometimes as many as twenty or more of them. Most of the buildings were constructed with sun-dried bricks, which easily disintegrate. The outside layer of the walls, however, would often be made of oven-baked bricks. These much more durable bricks were not used extensively because the fuel it took to bake them was limited. The world’s great cities uncovered Of particular interest to the archaeologists were the mounds in the area of Mosul, 220 miles north of Baghdad. There they hoped to find the ancient city of Nineveh. Nineveh was destroyed in 612 B.C., and with the passing of time, even the site where it had stood was forgotten. 8 TREASURES IN THE SAND In 1843, P. E. Botta, a Frenchman, began to dig at Khorsabad, fifteen miles north of Mosul. He uncovered the remains of a great Assyrian palace. Jubilantly, he sent word to Paris that Nineveh had been found. But instead, he had discovered the ancient city of Dur- Sarrukin, and the palace was that of Sargon II of the eighth century B.C. Two years later, while Botta continued his work at Khorsabad, an Englishman, Austin Henry Layard, began digging with amazing success at Nimrud, twenty-four miles south of Mosul. He uncovered parts of three fabulous palaces, and he was certain he had found Nineveh. But the site was later identified as the ancient city of Calah, one of the earliest cities mentioned in the Bible,1 built during the early period after the construction of the tower of Babel. Switching to the mound of Kuyunjik, two miles up the Tigris from Mosul, Layard came up with an even more startling result. He uncovered the great palace of Sennacherib of biblical fame.2 Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.) was the son of Sargon, and his palace was in Nineveh. The elusive lost city had been found. New light from an ancient library at Nineveh The earliest writing was on clay tablets. If the tablets were hardened in fire, they were almost indestructible - more durable than iron or brass, since metals corrode. Letters or documents would often be placed inside envelopes that were also made of clay. The envelope would carry the name of the sender and indicate the person to whom it was sent.3 Because of the high value placed on writing, the scribal schools and libraries were among the most important aspects of a palace. The most significant find at Nineveh came when the palace of Ashurbanipal (669-626 B.C.) was uncovered. It’s fantastic remains included the king’s great library, packed with twenty thousand clay tablets on almost every subject under the sun, and all were filed according to subject. Scholars were overwhelmed. A whole new world suddenly opened before them, for the king had gathered tablets from all the nations comprising his vast empire. The tablets, of all shapes and sizes, were inscribed with the now familiar wedge-shaped cuneiform characters. Many of the tablets found in Ashurbanipal’s palace at Nineveh were in the already deciphered Akkadian language and were easily read.