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A R Y S S Y I O L O G .

A P O P ULAR HAN D B O O K

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P f ss D . D . t . Sa c A. o th e R e v d . H y e ro e or b rm issi n , D edi cat ed y p e o t Wh m v ry m any ar gr at y at O xf o o e e e l o f As s yr i gy ord olo in th i a of Archa gy e r e rly a s w th e s d eolo i b t for h vin g o n ee nde ed i t i t in t r s t k m s f tak an n ell gen e e b m akin m any i y , e iv s th r y g l e el l e , e e b th e n ew and v r at th e W y e e 11 n ion s of old orld,

C opy right .

Elliott F ry .

0 H P R E F A C E .

This little work is simply a hand -book of reference for very elementary students in the important and

very fascinating study of Assyriology . There are very many intelligent people nowadays both in England

and America , who take a great interest in the past

of not history the land where only Abram , the

of to Father the Jewish Nation , is said have come from , but which is also the probable cradle of the

Human Race as recorded in the Old Testament . This book is not meant for those who are scholars

of Arc o o . hae lo r advanced in the Science gy, but for very elementary students who wish to lighten their darkness by more knowledge of the great and ancient Nations of the Tigro -Euphrates Valley than can be acquired except by wading through a host of various large volumes bearing upon the subj ect . When we remember that some seventy years ago a single small case was sufficient to hold all the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities possessed by of the British Museum , and that most the Museums 2

in other countries did not even possess as many , while others had none at all , we are filled with amazement at the wonderful change which has taken

s place in o Short a time . Now large halls and gal l eries are filled with all kinds of Archaeological evidences throwing extraordinary light on the great

o- nations of the Tigr Euphrates Valley . The Museums of Paris, Berlin , Constantinople and University of Pennsylvania have as large and valuable a c oll ec tion as our own British Museum in fact in some cases far more valuable and extensive . The Science of Assyriology i s now advancing by leaps and bounds, not only in this country but

n in also o the Continent and America . Expeditions for scientific exploration are now of frequent occur

rence and are liberally supported , not only by pri

of vate individuals , but (with the exception our

own country) with State Grants . The result of all this is that a vast amount of new knowledge regar

d of ing the history, religion , and languages the ancient nations of the near East has quite rev ol u

tioniz ed our of modern ideas m any things, and caused us to alter our views and opinions on many

points . But the Science of Assyriology is yet in its

infancy, and many things are still in the dark which more light from the East will undoubtedly

in the near future make clear . Many historical na

mes and dates are still uncertain ; many religious ideas and Doctrines still disputed by eminent P ro fes s ors in this and other cou ntries ; many readings and translations of the cuneiform texts are Open to doubt by the Decipherer and Critic . The fact that Specialists sometimes disagree about matters of detail , does not as a rule interfere in the least degree with the truth of the evidence of the sub

e is j ct under dispute . The real Scientist broad and liberal - minded and charitable in his views and opi

is nions . With Experience for his Teacher , he ever learning and is not ashamed to ow n that wisdom and knowledge are granted only to those who seek after the truth in order to show forth the honour a nd glory of God and advance the welfare and

o - happiness f man kind . The Opinions and views expressed in this book are not my own , (though I perfectly agree with most of them) but culled from the works of the best known and most reliable Authorities on the s ub

ect j , in England and other countries .

Should this little book, which I have tried to

as make as popular possible , be the least means of kindling the flame of an Archaeological Spirit in the minds of the rising generation of English

not speaking people, I shall venture to hope it has

been compiled in vain .

My best thanks are due to Mrs . Mc . Clure (of

nd . . . the Egypt exploration Fund) a Dr T G Pinches , (the well known Assyrian scholar) for their kind 4 help and sugges tions during the preparation of this

Work . At the end of this book will be found a small list of standard works on Assyriology which I have selected out of the vast number bearing on this subj ect . I venture to suggest to the beginner in this interesting study that small books like those in the series Of “ Ancient History from the Monu ” “ f ments published by S . P . C . K . and Bypaths o ” Bible Knowledge published by R . T . S . will be found most useful and better to commence with f than those o a more advanced character .

F . C . N .

Ditchling Sussex . AB R EVI ATION S USED IN THIS B OO K .

’ “ H estings Dictionary of the Bible

“ ” Encyclopaedia Biblica 4 vols .

“ British Museum Guide by Dr . Wallis

Budge .

’ “ P . N . Peters N iffur

O . T . The Old Testament .

N . T . The New Testament .

’ “ R . H . B . A . Rogers History of Babylonia and Assyria

’ “ T . D . S . Thomson s Devils and Evil Spirits

’ T . R . M . A . Thomson s Reports of the Magicians ” and Astrologers .

’ “ P . O . T . Pinches Old Testament

’ “ P . R . B . Pinches Religion of Babylon

’ “ ” Pa . S . P . Paton s Syria and Palestine .

B . M . British Museum .

’ “ S . G . L . Sayces Gifford Lectures

’ “ S . H . L . Sayces Hibbert Lectures

’ “ . lo . . of B ab S R A B . Sayces Religions Ancient y ” nia and Egypt . 6

’ “ S . H . C . M . Sayces Higher Criticism and the Mo ”

nu m ents .

’ “ S . A . C . I . Sayces Archaeology of Cuneiform Inscriptions

’ “ K . F . S . A . King s First Steps in Assyrian

’ “ of K . L . K . King s Letters Khammurabi

’ “ ” K . T . C . King s Tablets of Creation

’ “ K . A . L . King s Assyrian Language

’ “ K . B . C . King s Babylonian Chronicles

’ K . E . W . A . King s Egypt and Western Asia . A Deity whose name is represented by the

A a Aé &c . group , , Ea (Aos) The Deity known

’ or as Ya , Ya u Au (the Jah of the Hebrews) is identified wi th A a of which it was only another form .

Prof. Hommel suggests that the god Ya is also another form of Ea the primitive Deity of the Babylonian Pantheon .

’ Ya u or Jah was worshipped not only by the Hebrews , but also says Dr . Pinches, by

r the Assyrians , Babylonians, Hittites and othe

s on nations of the East in ancient times . The Aé h of or Ea was Merodac , who in the Baby lonian Mythology became “ King of the Gods ” in place of his father . Aa or Aé had many names and titles . He was the god of handi

e crafts , rivers and water, the sea and the lif therein . In the eleventh tablet of the Gilgames Series Aé containing the Story of the Flood , warns Pir - napis tim (the Chaldaean Noah) of the c o ming of the Flood and commands him to build “ a ship to save himself and family and the 8

of beasts the earth and birds of the air , and tells him what to s ay to the people who won d ered at his proceedings . See Ea , also P . O . T .

- or . ABDI KHEBA , Taba Governor of Jerusalem ,

. . 1 about B C 479 . Three Letters of his to the

“ king of Egypt were found among the Tel el ”

1 88 . Amarna Tablets in 7 . See P O . T .

. : : s on ? ABEL (Heb Habel , Bab Ablu) See Legend

’ “ ” of or Ablu Kinu s on Tammuz , the true . Abel in figurative language represented the Nomad

as or Shepherd Cain did the Agricultural .

f ABESHU . King of Babylon and grandson o H

m urabi I S t of , king of the dynasty Ba

- l - of . e ABI MILKI Tyre See Tel Amarna Tablets ,

translated by Prof. Pinches, Prof. Sayce and

others .

ABRAHAM . A collective name of a group of Ara

macan peoples Hebrews, Ishmaelites .

“ ABRAM . The Father is exalted A local Hero

“ of the region of Hebron . A Shepherd King or ” Prince of the Desert An Amorite . The immi

ration . Abu ra m u g of Abram , an historical fact

occurs as the name of an Assyrian Eponym .

B a ABSOLUTION . Babylonian Doctrine of. The 9

b lonian of y repented his sins , whether public

of or or private , either omission commission ,

and c onfress ed them to his God ; either in pri

vate or public . Penitence implies the need of

Absolution . It implies a belief in the sinfulness

of of . human nature , and the purity the Divine

See S . R . A . B .

- ABU HABBAH . The modern name of the mound

Si ara of marking the site of Sippar, the pp the

Greeks , and regarded by some as the Sephar

v aim of on canal the Bible . It is situated the

“ ” - called Nahr Malka , the royal river four miles

from the Euphrates .

“ - HAH E t o ABU S R IN . Father of w months

This is the modern Arabic name . It used to

N o a wis be called w . See Eridu .

. A adé one ACCAD Akkad , g , perhaps of the four quarters of Sippara or in its immediate neigh

b ourhood . Site of city not yet discovered , but certainly in Northern Babylonia Akkad

of “ was the Seat the first Semitic Empire . King ” of Accad and Sumer King of Upper (or

North) and Lower (or South) Babylonia . The land of Accad was originally a collection of

small states , each one being ruled by a High

priest or Viceroy (Patesi) . See Sumer . I O

ACHAEMENES . Ancestor of both Cyrus the Great,

and Darius the Great , through Cyrus the First

Aria ram nes Teis es s on and , sons of p , his , King

of Anshan .

- N IR A I R . . . ADAD I , II , III Kings of Assyria The

first King of this name was son of Arik- Deu

s él - s on - b l i ilu on of B nirai of Ashur U a l t . A memorial slab was found of this King at Shergliat recording the restoration of the Temple

of the God Asshur .

“ ADAM . Akkadian word for man (adam to

“ make , produce) from which the Adamu of

the early Semites sprung . The Adapa (son of

- Ea the Creator god of Eridu) of the Creation .

See Epic Tablets in B . M . and K . T . C .

f B a ADAPA . The name o the first man in the

l i s on of by on a n Cosmology . He was the the

of God Eridu , Ea , who had created him without

a helpmeet , and had endowed him with wisdom and knowledge but had denied to him the gift

of immortality . See Adam .

N ini t he God . ADAR p , great Assyrian of War

ADDU or Hadad of the Semitic nations in the

ext reme West of Asia . This god was worship ped by the Assyrians and Babylonians under the name of R am m anu- Rimmon

1 2

. . 2 ALEXANDER the GREAT Died B C . 3 3 in

El - . u the Palace of Babylon Now the Mound Q sr .

n of AL U , (Sumeria ) A horrible apparition half

- human , half devilish creation , a Demon that hides itself in dark caves or old ruins and fre quents the bedchambers of the weary in order

“ to rush out and pounce upon them ; Envelope ” them as with a garment . See T . D . S .

AL USHAR SHID U ru m us of , or , King Kish before

. 8 . B C . 3 00 An early Conqueror of Elam . A large number of his inscriptions have been

found at Nippur .

K dashm an- AMENOPHIS III , Letters of, to a Bel ,

f K ard u ash o n . King y , and his answers See Tel

- e l . Amarna Tablets and P . O . P

- el . AMENOPHIS IV . See Tel Amarna letters Six

B urrab urias letters to Amenophis IV from II ,

King of Babylon are at B . M . and Berlin , also

- T . ss . O . one from Asur u ballit King of A ur . See P — - 6 . . 6 1 0 AMIL MARDUK, King of Babylon B C . 5 5 Took the Hebrew exile j ehoiachin ou t of pri

s on where he had been thirtyseven years . — AM MIZAD UGGA of 2 202 2 1 8 2 . , King Babylon A Babylonian Chronological Tablet of Dynasty

M . I , dated in his reign is at B . , also fragment

of Deluge Story found dated in his reign . I 3

AMM UR AB I . See Khammurabi , King of Babylon .

AMN AN U of fo , Kingdom , with Erech r its chief

- . its ashid city Only three of kings known , Sin g

one being .

M A I . O R A The land of the Amorites .

AMORITES , Land of the , Palestine and Syria .

“ Amurru Hadad the Amorite Hadad or

Rimmon was the special God of Syria . He was

known to the Akkadians as Martu . The Pro phet Ezekiel says that “ the father of Jerusalem ” was an Amorite and its mother a Hittite .

- of AMRAPHEL Ammu rapi , King Shinar in

Genesis . See Khammurabi .

AMU , Asiatic Boomerang throwers .

of of AMULETS , Babylonian , were made knots cord ,

- or pierced shells, terra cotta bronze statuettes

or plaques, which were fastened to the arms or

worn round the neck . These were covered with odd - looking characters or incantations which were supposed to protect the wearer from per s ecuting Demons or Evil Spirits of disease or ff of su ering . These emblems superstition were

not confined to the Babylonians , but common

to all the ancient nations of the world . The belief is still current among the illiterate masses

of the modern world . I 4

AMURRU . See Amorite .

ANGELS . The conception of Angels is in every

respect genuinely Babylonian . The idea was that the Deity employs messengers to do his

service . As a Babylonian Ruler required an army of messengers to carry his commands

s o into every land , too must the Gods have

e their Angels or Messengers . These are r pre sented on the Assyrian Sculptures in human form yet withal provided with wings to allow them to convey the Divine Commands from

Heaven to Earth .

ANNALS , Babylonian (See Chronicle) .

ANSHAN . See Elam , Anzan , Susa .

of . of ANU , The God Heaven The Head the first

Sumerian Triad 4000 B . C .

o r APADANA . The great Hall f State o Throne room of Artaxerxes at Susa with one hundred

’ columns and capitals of bull s heads on which

rest huge cedar beams . There is a facsimile of it at the Louvre in the Persian Court of the

Museum . The Pylons of the Palace and walls

of the Throne - room were decorated with mag nificent glazed bricks on which animals and

of men are depicted . The frieze the Archers 1 5

is the most beautiful which is now in the

Museum of the Louvre .

APES in Assyrian Sculpture . See B M Guide .

- st I . APIL SIN . A King of the Babylonian dynasty

‘ APSU . The primeval Deep .

ARABIA . The primitive home of the Semites is

now considered to be Arabia , where there was

undoubtedly a very ancient civilization .

- E A . ARAD The Sailor . See Waters of Death , and

Epic of Gilgamesh .

of. ARALLU (or Hades) . The land In this land was “ the Mountain of the World where E n lil and the Gods were belie ved to have been

born in subterranean abodes .

“ E- Kin the house of the Mountain - land was

the oldest Sanctuary in North Babylonia .

MCE AN S AR A Hebrews .

- H N A AR AIM . ARAM , Mesopotamia The country lying between the two great rivers the E u p hra

t es and the Tigris .

ES . AR B AC See Cyaxares .

ARCHITECTURE of Babylonia and Assyria . See — . . . . . 1 2 1 . H D B Vol I , pp 77 9 1 6

- of ARIOCH Eri Aku . King Larsa (Ellasar of

- O . T . ) See Rim Sin (B . C .

“ ARK . The Babylonian and Assyrian Ship deve

“ 10 pes into Biblical Ark See Deluge Tablets .

of B b o ARMENIA . A country north Assyria ; a yl f nian Urartu , Land o Ararat .

- f Erfad . . o . ARPAD Tell , a town N W Aleppo

ARARAT . A mountain in Armenia in three peaks .

The Nizir of the Babylonian Deluge Tablets ; on which the “ ship commanded to be built by Ea of Eridu for the saving of Utu - napistim ” and his family, rested . See Noah , Flood .

AR SAMES . of of King Persia , Founder the era

2 which began in B . C . 48 . — Son 6 2 . ARTAXERXES . of Xerxes, 4 5 4 4 There of of were three Kings Persia this name .

ARTS , Industrial . See E . B .

on ARVAD . A Phoenician city , built an island ,

two miles from the mainland .

- ARYAN . (Arya the Noble) The Indo Euro pean race split into two branches in Asia

Indian and Iranian .

ARZAWA . The Hittite Kingdom in Cappadocia I 7

which had Khatti (now Boghaz Keui (or K O i) )

- for its Capital . Among the Tel el Amarna let ters is one from Tarku ndaraba the King of

Arzawa , written in the Hittite language , though

in the cuneiform characters of Babylonia .

ASARI . See Merodach — . o ASHTORETH From Babyl nian Istar Astarte .

An Amorite Deity .

“ ASNAPPER . The Great and Noble A Patron

of A t r and a bold sportsman and hunter . See

- - Assur bani pal .

or ASS . Wild , Onager, was hunted by the Kings

- of Assyria . See Bas Reliefs in B . M .

of ASHUR, (Ashir ,) Assur , City (Kala Sherghat) . The most ancient capital in Assyria on the

. 1 00 Tigris . Shalmaneser I , B C . 3 , deserted it

and built Calah , which he made the Capital

- of . Ti lath iles er . . 1 1 00 Assyria g p I , B C , brought

back the Capital to Ashur, and rebuilt it .

“ ” “ B e nefi cent ASSHUR , Ashir the , the Merciful ” l e . on (Identified in la er times with Ansar) . God The Supreme and National of Assyria . His Temple at Ashur was called E - Kharsag

ra K u rk ur . The name Ashir was originally that

of the city . 1 8

- I- of ASSUR BAN PAL (Asnapper O . T . ) King of — . . 668 6 26 Assyria B C . Son of Esarhaddon . Tablets of the Creation and Deluge - Epics were found in his library at Nineveh in 1 8 5 2 by

R assam . He was the last King of Assyria but two .

- - . f o . 8 . ASSUR NAZIR PAL King Assyria B . C 8 5

s on Tukultininib He was of I , whom he con

spired against and slew in the city of Ashur . He built a magnificent Palace and Temple at Calah on the ruins of a former one built by

Shalmaneser I . The site was excavated by Sir

Henry Layard .

ASSYRIA . The country north of Babylon and

west of the Tigris . Its early inhabitants were

“ ” out f Semites . Founders came forth o Babylon

at a very early date . Assyria was originally governed by P ates is or High - priests under its

- over lord Babylon . The word King Sarru) — 1 60 1 800 . does not appear till between 0 B C .

Ashur was the earliest Capital , Nineveh was

the next .

ASSYRIAN KINGS . There were some fifty Rulers

2 6 1 . of Assyria from about B . C . 000 to about 5

The earliest were P atesis or Viceroys ; these

were followed between 1 600 and 1 800 by Kings .

ASSYRIAN SCRIPT . The scientific decipherment

20

A TY i ' S AGES . K n of The last g Media, conquered

by Cyrus the Great, King of Anshan . He was

own given up by his soldiers .

or ASUR ASIR . See Assyria .

. of AZARIAH (Uzziah) King Judah , mentioned

in the Eponym Canon for the year B . C . 73 9

as Ti l - defeated by g ath piles er III . (Pulu of Bible) Azariah of J udah is mentioned at least

four times .

or of . BAAL , Bel Babylonians The Semitic God

- or Lord of any city or place (pl . Baalim Gods

“ ” “ ” r or of o Lords ) Bilu Baal the Lord mankind . God A Sky , whose symbol was the flaming of Sun , though the supreme Baal the Western or Arabian Semites was originally the Moon

E n- God . See lil .

“ of - BABEL . The Hebrew form Bab ili the Gate ” of God the “ Babylon of the classical wri

“ ” balbel ters . The Hebrew confound , had nothing

to do with Babel . See Babylon .

of. or B orsi a BABEL . Tower Whether Babylon pp

e e was the site of the tower is still uncertain . S

B ors i a . Babylon , pp , Ziggurat

“ - Ak BABYLONIA Shinar Chaldea . Sumer and kad The country between the Tigris on the 2 1

east and the Arabian Desert on the west , the

Persian Gulf on the south, and the high ground

rising from the alluvial level on the north . The rivers Tigris and Euphrates flow through

the length , of thc land and in early times emptied themselves by separate mouths into

the Persian Gulf, which was then about 1 3 0

miles further north than it is now, owing to

the siltage caused by the washed down soil .

Among its earliest cities were Eridu and Nippur .

See Cities of Babylonia .

BABYLONIAN intercourse with Egypt . Professor

Sayce , in his most interesting book on this

“ subject , says the Egyptian language was rela ted to the Semitic family of sp eech which on

leaving its original home in Asia, clothed itself

in Egypt with an African dress . Language can

prove little as regards race , but a great deal

as regards history . The pre - historic Egyptians mu st have been a people who came from the Semitic area of

- Asia . In fact this pre historic invasion from the East has been preserved as an historical tra of dition on the walls of the Temple Edfu .

“ ” That the Dynastic Egyptians who founded the first Monarchy in upper Egypt were im migrants from the East under the guidance of

- their patron Deity , the Horus Hawk Totem , is 2 2

now confirmed by modern discovery . The cul ” ture of the “ Dynastic Egyptians was built up on two solid foundations ; the engineering skill which made Egypt a land of Agriculture , and a system of writing which made the organi zation of government possible . These Semitic Speaking people who brought the science of irrigation and the art of writing to the banks of the Nile , came like the wheat and barley they cultivated , from the Babylonian plain . Other proofs are the early b riek buildings w in ancient Egypt . Clay as the only material for building or writing in Babylonia where there was no stone . Wherever therefore, we have the clay tablets and the seal Cylinders (Khatem) we have the evidence of Babylonian influence .

- old The button seal and the scarab , the method of dating and system of chronology, the artistic motif or palette of Nar- Buzau fonnd at Hiera k onop olis and the heraldic design on the rocks at

El - of Kab , the Sacred Dwarfs Ptah , the Shaduf

- and Saqia or water wheel , all go to prove the

intercourse of ancient Egypt with Babylonia .

There are also other curious coincidences , such as the significance of the names of Eridu

and Memphis the first Capital of united Egypt .

“ ” the former was the good city and the latter , “ the good plac e also the Sumerian Asari of

s on Eridu , the prince, the of Ea , was entitled 2 3

- be neficent one s o Mulu Dugga , the good or ,

was Osiris or Ati , the prince who was addressed

- Un N ofer . as , the Good Being Both Deities had

“ human forms and both were the God who ” raised the Dead . There are many other points of resemblance between Sumerian and primitive

s ta Egypt , such as the theologies , the seated

of D eifi cation of tues , the use copper, the the

King ; one and all going to prove the early relationship between the civilization of Baby ” “ of lonia and Egypt . (The Archaeology the

’ 9 Cuneiform Inscriptions , by Professor Sayce ,

’ “ ” P i cheS . chap . IV) . See also n Old Testament

BABYLONIA . The Religion of ancient . See Religion .

of The primitive population , See

Population .

. of . BABYLONIA Prophets , See Prophets

BABYLONIANS . Sumerians , then Semites from

Kurdistan or Arabia . They were a very mixed

race , including Kassites and Chaldaeans .

BABYLONIANS . Language of See Language . of Writing See Cuneiform .

of Manners and Customs , See

’ ” Professor Maspero s “ Struggle of the Nations

. B urial BABYLONIANS Burial Customs of the , See 24

. f o . to BABILONIA Climate May November,

S k cloudless y . November clouds gather . Decem

ber and January, heavy rain . February and

May is the best climate . On the Persian Gulf

and near , the climate is moist, and heat as

as Ho great Ceylon , as far north as Mosul . t

winds, filled with sand , sweep the country in

vast clouds, like a thick fog . This w as not the case when the canals were kept open in ancient

times . Severe cold is unknown in the greater

of part Babylonia .

’ BABYLON . Kings of, See Dr . Wallis Budge s Guide

to the Assyrian Department in British Museum .

- . of Goa BABYLON (Bab ili , the Gate ) Fifty miles

from Baghdad on the Euphrates . It is still

a nd unknown , when by whom founded but

. . 000 probably long before B C 4 . Possibly Babylon was a colony of Eridu as 8 od of . . . its g was a son Ea It fell in B C 5 3 , being handed over “ without battle and without f ” ighting , to Cyrus , King of Anshan , by the subj ects of “ Nabonidus the King who feared not Marduk A baked clay cylinder of Cyrus

R assa m now (found by Mr . at Babylon and in

the Brit . Museum) states that Merodach was provoked to wrath with Nabonidus for gathe ring together into Babylon the images of the 2 5

s o Gods from the local Temples , decreed the

destruction of the city , as he had before done to Nineveh on account of the spoliation of the

Babylonian Temples by Sennacherib in 689 B . C .

This is mentioned in a stela of Nabonidus .

“ ” See Nineveh . The account given by Hero

dotus C , as to the diverting of the river by y

rus, is untrustworthy . This may have happened

or Si ara at Opis on the Tigris , pp on the Nahr

Malka, where we know battles took place . At Babylon was the great “ Temple of the high ” head E - S agila with its many coloured tower

to of seven stages , with shrine on the p without

a statue , and lower down , another shrine , con

taining the great golden statue of Bel Merodach .

The height of the tower was 3 00 ft . above the

plain . The mound on which are the remains of this celebrated Temple of B el uS (which Alexander attempted to restore) is now called

’ - - Amran ibn Ali .

- - D u on . BAGHDAD . (Bag Da ) A city the Tigris

of On the authority of Dr . Peters the Ameri

can Expedition , there are two great fragments

of masonry j utting out into the river . For

nine or ten feet above the water line , these

- s consist of large hard burned brick , laid in bitumen and stamped with the stamp of N e

bu chadne zz ar - - D u , who rebuilt Bag Da which is 2 6

mentioned in old inscriptions as early as

2 B . C . 000 .

of 1 6 Ortelius Antwerp , who published in 5 9 , his “ Geographical Treasury states that cer

tain writers identified Babylon with Baghdad ,

and Nineveh with Mosul . This mistake more

or occure d of 1 th less, up to the end the 7

Century, after which the intellectual explorer

of and decipherer arose , and the great mounds Babylonia and Assyria were visited by men of

science , whose scholarship founded a new and

enlightened age of exploration .

B A hi fi GISTAN A B e st n . , see

BALAWAT . Fifteen miles from Mosul . The site

of of or the Temple the God Goddess of dreams , called Bit Makir was explored by R assam in

1 8 79 . Shalmaneser II had also a great Palace

here . The beautiful bronze gates therefrom , are

in the B . M .

. E ibi BANKERS Ancient , in Babylonia g Jacob)

of of Babylon , in the reign Cyrus the Great ;

Murashfi of and Nippur , in the time of Ar — taxerxes . . . 6 . I , and Darius II B C 4 4 45 A large number of Tablets relating to both Ban

kers have been found .

or Sm erdis s on of BARDES , Cyrus II , and brother

2 8

(B . C . the stela of the Harper, the God

- Girsu 2 2 00 . . Nin ; and later still , B C the cele b rate d stela of Hammurabi on which his code of laws is engraved , which was found recently

at Susa by De Morgan .

B u r o sso ah . n BASRA , (Busra , ) A modern city the

Euphrates , sixty miles from the Persian Gulf.

Very hot and most unhealthy .

. of . BAU The mother Ea . The Great Mother She

had been originally, merely a spirit in the

“ ” of . form a cow The Ship of Bau , is called “ the ship of the holy cow

U of 00 . on BEHIST N Rock , 7 ft high ; which , some

1 0 . ins cri 5 ft from the ground , is the celebrated p

tion of Darius the Great , written in Persian ,

N e o- t Susian and Babylonian , The King is rep e

sented as holding a rope , which is fastened

of round the necks ten Kings , whom he has im taken captive . Sir Henry Rawlinson , with ffi mense di culty , and at great personal risk, copied and took squeezes of all the inscriptions — ( 1 849 5 5 ) some of which are now in the Brit .

Mus . He also made an attempt to decipher them which was partly successful s o far as the

Persian Text was concerned ; His memoirs were published in 1 846 in the Journal of the Royal

Asiatic Society . The Rock is on the road from 2 9

s Hamadan (Ectab ana) to Baghdad . Messr King

v and Thompson of the Brit . Mus . ha e lately

on completely copied the inscriptions it, which

are bring published .

B B L or TH E son of of BELU Lord ( Ea Eridu) , “ ” the Lord of the lands called E n-lil in Sume “ B él ” rian . He is sometimes termed the older , to distinguish him from Merodach or Marduk

“ ” of Babylon the younger Bel . The spouse of

B él or the older was Beltis Beltu , which simply

“ ” meant Lady , a title which could be given

“ ” B él or to any goddess ; as Belu , Lord , could

to any god . See Baal .

of T . BEL and the Dragon (rahab) O . , and the

. of St George and the Dragon the Crusaders,

is one and the same story , originating in the

fight between Marduk and Tiamat, signifying the fight between good and evil light and

“ ” darkness . See Creation Tablets .

H on B EL IK . A river in Mesopotamia , which the

ancient city of Harran was on the upper part .

B él - - of BELSHAZZAR . ( sarra uzur) Son Nabonidus ,

and Crown Prince . Though heir to the throne

of Babylon , he is never mentioned in the Ta of blets as King . His father being fonder ar

chaeolo gy and exploration , than matters of 30

state, left the government of the Kingdom and

of command the army to him so completely, that he was King to all intent and purpose ; s o much s o that the Jewish captives regarded him as such . Daniel tells us that he made him the third ruler in the Kingdom , Belshazzar and

Nabonidus being the other two . When he is

“ called the s on of Nebuchadnezzar it not merely means that he was a “ successor of

“ ” s on or that King (like Jehu , the successor of Omri) but that he was most likely descended

- from Nebuchadnezzar, through his grand mother

N itocris , who was , according to Herodotus, a wife of Nebuchadnezzar . He was slain with his army at Opis while keeping a Festival , by Gob ryas of Gutium (not Darius the Mede) the “ Persian General , who then received the King

’ 9 dom for his master, Cyrus II King of the

Medes and Persians .

In the well - known prayer of Nabonidus to the God Sin of Ur (now in the Brit . Mus . ) the following is a translation from the cuneiform of the original baked clay cylinder “ And as for me Nabonidus , the King of Babylon , protect thou me from sinning against thine exalted god - head and grant thou me graciously

of a long life ; and in the heart Belshazzar ,

s on off- of my firstborn , the spring my loins, s et od- s o the fear of thine exalted g head , that 3 1

he may commit no s in and that he may be ” satisfied with the fulness or life See Brit .

Mus . Guide .

of BELUS , Temple , See Babylon .

of BENJAMIN , The Rabbi , Tudela , who visited

1 6 Nineveh in A . D . 1 0 and left an account

thereof.

B ER r e o- of O SSUS . A G a c Chaldean Priest the f of . 0 . o Temple Babylon B . C 3 0 The author

of is the History Chaldea , which lost and only known to us by extracts from Josephus the

Jewish Historian and some Greek authors .

- N IM D . of B IR S R O U (Tower Nimrod) See B orsippa .

P B ISMYA Adab . ( Isin) a very ancient city (now

-en- a big Tel on the Shatt nil . It is now being

excavated by Banks of the American Mission .

of BLACK OBELISK Shalmaneser II , has five tiers

of bas- reliefs and one hundred and ninety lines

of inscription . Among the Tributes of the Na

“ ” Y - - a o tions is Jehu ( a u ) son f Omri . It was found at B irs -N im rou d by Sir Henry Layard

and is now in the Brit . Mus .

of BOATS the Tigris and Euphrates , are the l K e eks . cufa , inflated skins , and rafts (kaiks)

See Cufa . 3 2

B O GHAS KEUI or KOI . The Hittite Capital in

Cappadocia (Khatti) . It was the centre from

of n which the early roads Asia Mi or, radiated

was t in all directions . This pointed ou by Pro

fessor exc Ramsay some years ago. The late a v ations there conducted j ointly by the Turks

and Germans have proved this correct . Thou

of sands clay tablets have been recovered , most of which were written in the 1 3 th Cen

tury B . C . They mostly relate to Diplomatic

matters with Babylon and Egypt .

BOOKS , Babylonian . The British Museum has a valuable series of Tablets relating to the History

and Chronology of Babylonia ; also syllabaries

or b e spelling books , grammars and lexicons ,

longing to various periods . Deeds and commer

c ial . . 2 00 documents, dating from about B C 3 , relating to sales and exchange of property are

also well represented .

- R SIP P A B arsi B irs N im roud . B O , p ( ) An ancient city

o to close t Babylon , supposed by some be the

of site of the Tower of Babel . The God Lear

ning , Nebo (Nabu) had his great Temple there

“ (E - zida the Everlasting and the “ r of Tower o Ziggurat, the Supreme house ” IS of Life , still partly standing, the remains

it . Nebuchadnezzar II, states, in a cylinder 3 3

“ found there , that he found the Temple Tower

” “ in ruins and restored it . He says it was very

high and had not been finished at the top , which was ninety feet from the plain Some

“ consider this the foundation of the confu

sion of language story . (See Tablets in

Brit .

1 8 2 . BOTTA P . E . French Consul at Mosul in 4

K u u n ik Searcher for inscriptions at Mosul , y j

and Khors abad .

K d urru . u . BOUNDARY STONES , or land marks

“ ” BOW . Land of (See Kish) .

of BRICKS were made clay, and then either dried

in the s un or burnt in the kiln . The latter preserved the brick much better than the

former . They were all stamped with the name

o f the King in whose reign they were made .

Before the stamp was invented , they were

M s . . u has engraved by hand The Brit . many,

. 2 00. M dating back to B . C 5 The Louvre u seum has bricks of Eannadu dating about

B . C . 45 00 .

BULLS , winged , were composite creatures and took

their origin in Babylon . They were believed to have the power of preventi ng the demons of 34

evil from passing the door by which they were

placed . As the Sphinx (of Gizeh , ) was the guar

‘ of s o dian the royal tombs of the dead in Egypt , the winged b ulls performed exactly the same office by guarding the entrance to an Assyrian

Palace . The Cherubim who stood at the gates of the Biblical Eden , is another example .

BUN - shaped Tablets were used more in business than

in private life . The Brit . Mus . has many of the

f - o . of time Bur Sin (B . C giving a list

Estates . A plan of the Estate is often drawn

on the Tablet as well . The series goes down

. 2 1 00 . to about B . C

BURIAL CUSTOMS in Chaldaea . Cremation seems

to have been the general practice , and the ashes were put into long urns which were pre

of m u m m ifi cation . served . There is no trace Vast com eteries have been found in Southern

Chaldaean sanctuaries , especially at Ur and

Uruk . There is a great absence of tombs in

Babylonia and Assyria . The Kings, after being

cremated , were buried in the Palace where they

lived and died , and their ashes were preserved

c of in the royal sepulchres . Many Babylonian

fins have been found at Warka , Nippur, Babel

“ ” and other places . See Article Bulls , also

P . N . ; S . R . A . B .

36

were domesticated and brought into

the Babylonians, but are seldom men except in lists of captured booty or

of s . old CANAAN . The coast region Pale tine The

. of home of the Amorites Meaning the word ,

uncertain ; probably originally a racial, rather

’ “ ” than a geographical name . See Paton s Syria .

of CANALS . The whole Babylonia , was in ancient m f days , a mass of canals the ost famous o

P alak uttu - which were the and Nahr Sharri , and - an irrigation system was carried out by many of the Rulers of the country who superintended

Eanna . . the irrigation works . du (B C 45 00) and

Khammurabi were both great canal builders , and they were sometimes used for the p ro tection of the country as in the case of Nebu chadnez zer and Nabonidus when the latter king resisted a five years siege of Babylon by Cyrus f owing to the inundation o the country .

2 2—2 1 2 CANON of Dynasty B . C . 34 7, discovered

by Dr . Pinches .

CARCHEMISH (Jarabis) A town on the west bank of of the Euphrates . A great stronghold the

1 8 6 Hittites in the North . Geo . Smith , in 7

was the first to identify the site . 3 7

CARTWRIGHT , John . An English traveller who

1 6 1 1 visited Assyria about , but he , like others ,

confused Mosul with Nineveh , and Baghdad

with Babylon .

CASE - TABLETS These are legal and com m ercial documents of the early Kings of Baby — 2 0 2 8 . on lonia , 3 0 00 The transcript the case

or f cover, often dif ers from the original Tablet

1 8 inside it . Loftus , in 54, found a large number

ifr of at Tell S and other Sites early cities .

The Brit . Mus . has a large collection of these

Tablets with their clay envelopes . There are several late Assyrian and also a few late B a

- bylonian Case Tablets .

CASSITES . See Kassites .

CHAB IR I . See Khabiri .

- . K al tamtim s ea CHALDAEA du Mat , the land) The country on the coast of the Persian

Gulf, between Arabia and Elam .

Kaldu CHALDAEANS called themselves , and were

to as Kasdim known the Hebrews , and to the

as Chald aioi . un Greeks , Their origin is still

known , but it is thought they were Semites , and came out of the heart of Arabia and settled on f first the western shores o the Persian Gulf, 3 8

and gradually pushed northward until they settled in the country north of Babylon b e

tween the Tigris and Euphrates . (See Urartu) .

HAL D IA - C Khaldia Urartu Armenia, Biblical

of Ararat . A country north Assyria .

“ of the CHEBAR . (Kabar) A canal in the land ” Chaldaeans , near Nippur .

“ CHEDORLAOMER Kudur-laghgham ar) King ” - . . la h ham r of Elam in Gen IV See Kudur g g a .

CHERUB or Guardian Angel represented by the

’ Winged bulls with a man s face . They g uarded

ee the entrance to the Assyrian Palaces . S

“ ” Angels .

. f CHRONICLES , Babylonian Fragments o Royal Lists and Chronological Tablets of Dynasties

of have been found , giving the names the Kings , of of the number years their reigns , and a of list important events in them . The Baby lonians and Assyrians (unlike the Egyptians)

gave much attention to Chronology, seeking

of to in a number ways , preserve the order of events , and construct a backbone for their

historical recollections . Many of these valuable

M s u . Tablets are in the Brit . , and record ,

of among other events, the murder Senna 3 9

ib of of Ast a es cher King Assyria ; the defeat y g ,

of King the Manda , by Cyrus ; and the capture

and spoiling of his Capital city Ecbatana ; and the taking of Babylon and the downfall of

’ Nabonidus . See King s B . C .

of . CITIES , Ancient , Babylonia Eridu , Ur , Nippur ,

B or Lagash , Babylon , Kis , Akkad , Erech ,

si a &c . pp ,

of CITIES , Ancient , Assyria . Nineveh, Ashur,

& c . Calah ,

of . CITIES , Ancient , Nimrod , as given in the O T .

“ Babel , Erech , Accad and Calneh in the land ” of Shinar . Nineveh , Rehoboth , Calah , and

Resen in Ashur .

was t. CIVILISATION in Chaldaea. very ancien There certainly was high culture and educa

00 exca tion there , as early as B . C . 45 , as the

v ations have proved . (See inscription of Ma i n s htus . u about B . C . 4000 found at Susa)

f o . CLIMATE Babylonia ( See Babylonia) .

of CODE OF LAWS Khammurabi , was found by

De Morgan at Susa . The importance of the

of - discovery this Code , cannot be over esti of mated . The analysis it is as follows Khammurabi ’ s life and reign including his 40

genealogy, nationality , the principal events of

of his reign , his letters and the extent his empire .

The social grades recognized in the Code , are

the aristocrat, the commoner and the slave .

of Class legislation is a feature the Code ,

- i including feudal land owners , profess onal men

and tradesmen . The Code gives laws for the

agriculturist, the merchant , including shipping

trade and commerce ; also laws for the Temple properties and revenues and the courts of

ecclesiastical and civil j ustice . The laws regard ing marriage and family life are very full and

explicit . There are no laws which are simply

ecclesiastical , like the Mosaic laws .

H . F or of s ee . D . . a full copy these , B Extra vol

“ ” Also Kings Egypt and Western Asia

COMMERCE , Babylonian and Assyrian , with other

of . countries . A large series Tablets in Brit on M us . prove that trade was carried with

- other Nations . Burna burias , King of Babylon ,

wrote to Amenophis IV . King of Egypt , about “ his merchants ” who were killed while trading

in Canaan . International law seems to have

of existed among the nations the East , by which they were expected to protect the cara

’ vans passing through each other s territory, and to s ee that no harm came to any of each

’ other s subj ects . 4 1

COMMERCIAL DOCUMENTS of Babylon . The

. . of Brit Mus has a large quantity these, and they all go to prove the great age of a high state of civilisation in the Tigro - Euphrates

Valley . (See B . M . G . )

. old CONCEPTION of SIN , Babylonian The Baby lonian believed that s in was the cause of suf

t b ' fe ing and calamity , and could be removed y

penitence and prayer to the offended Deity . He understood s in to include a good deal

- more than moral wrong doing . There were

as ff ritual well as moral sins , o ences against the ceremonial law as well as against the moral

and Spiritual code . (See S . R . A . B . )

or of CONES conical obj ects baked clay, terra in cotta or bronze , are partly covered with

s cri tions . . p , often in archaic characters The Brit

f r- old . . o U Mus . has some very ones , e g Bau ,

Ku d of . . 2 00 of ur Viceroy Lagash, about B C 5 ,

Mabu of B . . 2 00 g , Governor Elam about C 3 , of and Khammurabi , King of Babylon about

d u . . 2000 . Eanna B C In the Louvre are Stele of , E nt em ena Mesilim . , and other very ancient ones

en e ial CONFESSION in Babylonia . The P et nt Psalms which constitute the third division of the sacred of literature Babylonia ; were in many respects,

like the Hebrew Psalms in the O . T . Like them , 42

they express the belief that sin is the cause ff of su ering and calamity, and that it can be removed by penitence and prayer to the of

fended Deity . They were to be recited while f “ to asting, and were addressed as a rule any ” God . The following Psalm gives a good example “ The heart of my Lord is wroth May it be appeased “ May the God that I know not be pacified ! “ God O my , my sins are many

“ My transgressions are great .

“ for I sought help , and none took my hand ,

“ I wept , and none stood at my side . “ To m my God , the Merciful One , I turn y

self, I utter my prayer . “ ! O Lord , cast not away Thy servant “ Strip off my manifold transgressions as a

garment ,

“ s in Forgive my , and let me humble myself ” before Thee ! (See S . R . A . B . )

of CONSCIOUSNESS Sin , Babylonian (See ante ,

and S . R . A . B .)

c ol CONTRACTS . The Brit . Mus . , has a large lection of Tablets relating to legal and com

m ercial transactions , including deeds recording

the buying and selling of houses and lands ,

44

to an end later on by the invasion of the

Kassites .

. of COW of Ishtar Like Hathor Egypt , from the o Arabian land f Punt . Ishtar was the Goddess

of . of Love On a seal the age of Abram , is a

cow as giving milk to her calf. She appears

of of the symbol Ishtar ; and a hymn late date , G identifies the oddess with a cow . The sacred barque of Bau Istar) is called “ the Ship

of c ow the holy See Bau . Ishtar .

of . CROESUS . King Lydia Conquered by Cyrus

his the Great, who took possession of Kingdom . Croesus became the ally of Am asis King of Egypt and also Nabonidus King of Babylon

. 8 of in B C . 5 4 , when Cyrus the King Anshan was coming rapidly into power through his conquests over the Medes (See A styages ) and of acquisition of Persia . The final victory Cyrus over Croesus was at a battle in the plain before Sardes where the Lydian cavalry were unable to take part in the engagement owing to their horses taking fright at the; smell of a camel corps which Cyrus had placed in front of his

lines and refusing to charge . Croesus not bear ing to survive the downfall of his kingdom caused a funeral pyre to be erected at his

palac e on which he perished . 45

' of CREATION . The Seven Tablets , The great

or of Assyrian poem series legends, which nar rates the story of the Creation of the World

and of Man ; was termed by the Assyrians and E “ ” num a . Babylonians , elish when in the height

The poem was divided into seven sections , each

of which was inscribed upon a separate Tablet . Of the actual Tablets inscribed with portions

of of the text the Creation Series , we possess none which date from an earlier period than

the seventh century B . C . The Assyrian Tablets of this date are from the great library which

~ ~ was founded at Nineveh by Assur bani pal ,

of 668—62 6 is ob King Assyria B . C . , but it vio ns that the poem was not composed in

Assyria at that time . These Tablets are but

of of e copies older ones Babylonian origin , mad

- by the Scribes of Assur banipal for his library . The bulk of the poem as we know it from

- was . late Neo Babylonian copies , , says Mr King, probably composed at a period not later than

2 . of B . C . 000 . The late Mr George Smith , the

M us . Brit . was the first to translate these docu of ments, the nature which he had discovered

1 8 his and given to the World in 75 , through “ - of well known book, The Chaldean Account ” Genesis . The poem is divided into a number of parts

or sections , each of which is inscribed upon 46

a separate Tablet . The Tablets were distinguis r hed by numbers , and the whole se ies was

“ ” E num a- named elish when in the height , from

the opening words of the first Tablet . The long lost beginning and end of the Assyrian Tablet

. 6 of has No , recording the creation Man , at

b . of . last been found y Mr King the Brit . Mus , and agrees with the Hebrew narrative in the

of of making Man , as the culminating Act i Creation . Marduk s represented as declaring

ow to Ea, that he will create Man from his n

blood , and from bone , which he will form .

For full and recent translations of these Tablets ,

f . s ee o . . . those Prof Sayce , and Mr L W King .

CREATION of the Universe ; Babylonian conception

of the , See Creation Tablets .

t of CREATION of Man ; Babylonian accoun the,

See Creation Tablets .

CTESIPHON (Arabic Madain) The Capital of the

. . was on Parthian Empire . (Ist cent ; A D ) It

the Tigris , opposite Seleucia .

C UF . of A A round boat, made platted laths , and

then covered with pitch and bitumen . It was

propelled with one paddle worked at the side ,

like the coracle of the Severn or Dee . Also a reed

- basket, like a small coracle or bee hive . See Kufa . 47

- CUNEIFORM , or wedge shaped characters (from

cuneus, a wedge) sprung from the picture writing

ol - of the d Non Semitic race . It was the later hieratic or current form of an ancient hiero

glyphic system , first used by the early Sumerian

inhabitants of Chaldea . The original emblems were rude sketches of natural and artificial

objects . When the Semitic people adopted this

v cursi e script, they used the emblems and employed them as conventional signs for syl lables and also they sometimes used the signs

for their picture value , translating the name and adding a syllable which showed how the

sign should be used in Semitic speech . Cunei form became the international language of

diplomacy , Education and trade before and

after the Mosaic age , and was understand , read

and written by all Educated persons . The Egyptian Pharaohs wrote in the language and script of Babylon when they corresponded with their own subj ects in Canaan which was but a

dependency of Egypt after the Hyksos dynasties ; in fact Canaan was the centre and focus of Cuneiform correspondence as it was the battle ground and meeting place of the great powers i of the Eastern world . There s no reason to doubt but that the original early books of the

on O . T . were written Tablets in the cunei

form script , for we have now undoubted Evi 48

dence that the deities of Babylon were wor on shipped the high places of Palestine , and Babylonian legends and traditions were taught

’ “ ” in its schools . See Sayce s A . C . I . a most

interesting and valuable book .

‘ r CUSH . The Kash o Kesh of Egyptian monu

K asshu ments, who were Nubians , the of Assy

w as rian inscriptions , whose home in the moun

tains on the East side of the Tigris . Also writ

K as K os or Kus . ten , , ,

- Kutha G . UTHA Now , Tell Ibrahim ( ) A city in of North Babylonia , great importance before

. Its od the rise of the new Capital chief g , was God of i Nergal (the War, Death and D sease)

was E -shidlam whose Temple called . The Sama

t on of itans, the fall the Kingdom of Israel ,

were deported here by Sargon .

“ THAEAN - of s o CU legend Creation called , is

really a story of an old Babylonian King .

Arb ces f . CYAXAR ES . ( a ) King o Media He first invaded Assyria in the reign of Assur-bani -pal on and seems to have captured Calah . Later in the reign of Sin -Shar- ishkun he besieged Nineveh and took it without the help of the

“ ” Babylonians . The Oracle Concerning Nineveh as given by D iodorus Sicu lus relates the legend 49

“ that the city could not be taken until the ” river became its enemy . This then took place owing to a very high flood on the Tigris which washed away a large part of the city walls

thereby giving access to the enemy . The King

of believing this to be the fulfilment the oracle , burnt himself alive in his palace with his chil dren and wives and Nineveh was taken and

Assyria no longer existed .

CYLINDERS are barrel - shaped obj ects made of

- of kiln dried clay, there are a great number

these in the Brit . Mus . , the most important and interesting bei ng those of Nabonidus and

Cyrus II . (See B . M . G . )

Y v a CYPRUS . (Ass : a n n . Heb :Kittim) This island was perhaps invaded by Sargon of Accad It is mentioned also in the inscriptions — of Sargon of Assyria ( 72 2 705 ) and his s on

Sennacherib .

CYRUS . (Kurush in Babylonian and Kores in Hebrew) The second King of Anshan of that

name . He was a lineal descendant of Achae of menes , King Persia, and by conquest, became

of or King the Manda , Medes , and after the

Ars am es of os death of King Persia , took p session of the throne to the exclusion of Hystas

s ub pes , the rightful heir , whom he put in a 5 0

of ordinate position . A cylinder Cyrus II in

“ . t the Brit Mus . ells us that Merodach sought out a righteous Prince and a man after his ” own heart , whom he might take by the hand .

“ to He commanded Cyrus to go Babylon , and like a friend and ally, marched by his side , and without battle and without fighting, made of him to enter into his city Babylon , and ” delivered Nabonidus the King into his hands . The Babylonian chronicle for the seventeenth year of Nabonidus also gives a full account of

“ of a the conquest B bylon by Cyrus, without

! fighting .

“ On another cylinder , Cyrus tells us that he of was the Great King , the King Babylon , and

s on of Kam b ses the y , the King of the city of d Anshan , and the gran son of Cyrus the King

of - of the city Anshan , and the great grandson of Teis es of p , the King of Anshan , the ancient ” seed r oyal . In the O . T . we have an account of in II Chronicles , and Ezra ; his election to the throne of Babylon ; and he is mentioned

“ ” also by Isaiah as the Anointed of the Lord ,

“ ’ and the Lord s Shepherd , who should per ” form all his pleasure .

’ There is no doubt that Cyrus care for the

for restoration . of neglected worships, and the return of the inhabitants of certain cities, to their former habitations , aroused the Jewish

5 2

s tor of Gods and mankind . Her name mean “ ” the mistress of the Earth .

DARIUS the Great King of the Medes and Per

s on H stas of sians of y p es . The Genealogy

D ara av ush Darius ( y ) was by his command , cut

of upon the Rock Behistun . It states that he

“ s on of H s tas es who s on was the y p , was the

Arsam es was of Ariara m nes of , who the son ,

s on of Teis es who was the p , who was the son ” f “ o . Achaemenes He adds, there are eight of who my race have been Kings before me , I am ” the ninth . In a double line , we have been Kings .

As re- we now know, Cyrus the Great , united

H stas Anshan and Persia , to the exclusion of y

pes, thereby proving the truth of this state

ment . The account given by Herodotus , of his i h election as King s incorrect . After the deat

of . 2 1 Cambyses II , in B C . 5 , Darius defeated

of Bardes and . a number other pretenders and

is mounted the throne of Persia . H reign was

his one of tolerance in religion . He says on

“ inscription at Behistun , that he restored the

of temples the gods, which Gomates the Magian , the pseudo - Bardes or Sm erdis had destroyed ;

- and that twenty three countries owned his sway .

. 86 After an active reign , he died in B . C 4

was N aks h-i-R and buried at ustam , in a magni

fi cent rock tomb . 5 3

- DATE Palm From the products of this tree , the

peasantry were able almost to support life .

“ DAY (i) of Bel A very ancient series of docu on ments Astrology, dating it is said , from 8 of . . 00 . s the time Sargon , B C 3 These Tablet

- were found in the royal library at Nineveh . — 668 62 6 . added to by Assurbanipal B . C .

of . . . DEATH . Babylonian origin , See P R B

DECIPHERERS , Early, The most important were

Grotesfend B urnouf , , Hincks, Lassen , Rawlinson ,

O ert . is De Saulcy , pp , Sayce , Schrader E (who the Father of Assyriology in Germany) Lenor

mant, Halevy (of Paris) and others .

as DEIFICATION of Kings . As far back can be

traced in the history o f Semitic religion ; its fundamental conception is always the same

the gods are human , and Kings are divine . In O

the Older Sumerian Epoch , we look in vain

for the D eifi cation of man ; but as soon as the Semitic element became paramount in Baby of lonia , the King became a god . Sargon Akkad ,

s on a - the first Semitic King , and his Nar m Sin , were explicitly deified and the latter even ad dressed as “ the God of Akkad and the title ” of “ God , is assumed by the Semitic succes

sors of Sargon , to whatever city or Dynasty 54

they belonged . Even the Sumerian Princes in of Southern Babylonia , followed the example

their Semitic Suzerains ; and Gudea the Priest

of his own king Lagas , built Temples to god

for his head , where centuries, cult continued

to be observed ; and sacrifices and offerings to o be made t him .

a DELUGE TABLETS . The earliest fr gment known ,

Scheil a t Si ara was found by pp , of the date ,

. . 2 1 0 . about B C 7 Those found by Smith , in ’ - - of Assur bani pal s Library at Nineveh , are

666 as about B . C . and docketed being copies

of older ones . There seems to have been originally more

than one version of the story ; which must

have been of great antiquity in Babylonia .

B erossus us , the Chaldaean Historian , has left his account of the story which agrees with the

Tablets ; and its parallelism with the account

o T . f the Deluge in the O . , is very striking

and startling . (See S . R . A . B . )

u on DEMON , The Babylonian (gall ) as depicted

’ the monuments , is a monster with a man s

body ; but with the head of a beast with horns,

and feet with immense talons .

- of DE MORGAN M . Jacques . Delegate General o Antiquities in Persia, acc mpanied by Father 5 5

cheil - ex lo V . S , the well known Assyriologist , p

of 1 8 red and excavated the ruins Susa, in 97,

and the work is still going on . The results up

to the present time , are most satisfactory and the obj ects found are very varied and all most

valuable , and highly interesting . Many Chaldaean sculptures imported into Susa by the victorious

Elamites , have been found ; amongst the most valuable of which are the stele of Khammurabi

on which his code of laws is engraved ; the

of N arém - K u durru triumphal stela Sin , and the

of Mili aksi - Maruttas of p , and Nazi , Kings

Babylon .

HAR R KIN I s e Khorsaba DER S U e d .

DEUKALION . The Greek Noah . See Flood Story .

DEVILS and Evil Spirits of Babylon . The Eastern Races have always believed in demons from

the earliest times . The Semitic Babylonians, took over the learning and beliefs of their

Sumerian predecessors . They recognised three of distinct classes evil spirits . First came the

disembodied human soul , which could find no

s o rest , and wandered up and down the face

of the earth ; secondly , the gruesome spirits ,

which were half human and half demon ; and

thirdly, the fiends and devils who were of the

same nature as the Gods , who rode on the 5 6

noxious winds or brought storms and pesti

of - lence . The Demon the South west wind

off which came the Arabian Desert, was the

cause of much trouble and sickness ; besides

storms, tempest , and floods in Southern Chal

dea . See the carved slab of this Demon in

the Brit . Mus . (See also T . D . S . )

D IO D O R US SICU L US . An historian who lived

“ B . C . 44 . He was a Sicilian . His Universal ” History was in forty books . It was supposed to be a history of the world from the Creation

6 . . to B . C . 0 Only fifteen books now remain

of DISK . The winged disk was the symbol Asshur,

‘ the National God of Assyria .

D IYAIA . This river runs into the Tigris above

Babylon .

DOOR SOCKETS (early) are in the Brit . Mus . and

of Entem ena the Louvre , , Sargon of Akkad ,

- - U r of &c . Naram Sin , Gur Ur ,

DRAGON , Babylonian The approach to the Palace

of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon , through the

- l s Ishtar gate , adorned with a relief in enamel

of a of . led bricks , the Gre t Dragon Babel This fabulous beast is represented with a long double

tongued head , a long scaly body and tail like 5 7

a serpent ; but it also at the same time , possesses

- the fore legs of the panther, while its hind legs

are armed with immense talons ; and in addi

on tion , it carries long straight horns its head , f and a scorpion sting at the end o the tail . See

“ ” D li z sh of . Babel and Bible by Prof. e t Berlin

D RAGON MYTH . In the Creation Story, Tiamat generally represented as a dragon a creature

’ with a beast s body , covered with fish scales,

’ - a serpent s head with horns on it , big bat like

’ wings, large bird s claws, and a tail like a

out to fan arose of Chaos , and gave battle

of the Gods . Marduk the God Light , fought e with this terrible adversary , and hew d it in

18 pieces . On an ancient slab , he shown as

standing on the dragon , (rahab) and on another,

striking him with thunderbolts . See the Epic

of Creation , also T . D . S .

of r- of zu d . U DUNGI Son bau , An early King f o . . 2 00 dynasty Ur, about B C 5 , which included

Elam within the limits of the Empire . See ” “ of De Morgans History Persia .

ro DURA The Mound . Plains of Dura, mean p bably an extensive open space near some for

tifications , like the site of Duwan , a mound

ert east of Babylon , where Prof. O pp found the

base of a large statue . 5 8

D R - M ut i U ILU . ab l was an early Governor of

this city .

D fJR - SHAR R KIN K s U . See hor abad .

DYNASTIES of Ur, Isin and Larsa preceeded the

first Babylonian Dynasty . See K . E . W . A .

to DYNASTIES Babylonian , The dates assigned the first three Babylonian Dynasties differ con~

siderabl y with Assyriologists like Sayce ,

x D elitzsh Hau t . Winckler, Maspero , , p and King

See K . B . C .

Ae Aos D am ascius n (or ) The of . The Chaldea

“ od of . of G Culture Of Eridu . The Creator the ” ” “ of Gods and Mankind , The God the Ocean ” “ The Lord of Heaven and Earth “ The God f ” “ ” o the Abyss The Lord of the World . (Enki

“ of Sumerians) The Father of Merodach . The Potter or Moulder of Gods and Man ” as

r ssus was Ptah of Memphis . B e o tells us that

’ Oannes, a creature with a man s head and

’ his feet, but covered with a fish s body over

of own body and the back part the head , lived ,

in the Persian Gulf, but landed every day to

lture teach mankind building and agrieu 81 0. Such a creature is depicted on the bas - reliefs now brought from Nineveh , and in the Brit .

60

dum u EDOM THE RED LAND . The U of the

el - Tel Amarna Tablet 64 in the Brit . Mus .

Idumaea . The country south O f the Dead Sea

o Ak - t abah . the Gulf of , including Mount Seir

EGIB I l né Jacob) and Co. Bankers and Money e of ders Babylon in the time of Cyrus II .

EGYPT Babylonian Misir) was invaded by Senna — cherib of . . 688 680 . , King Assyria, between B C

“ On a cylinder in the Brit . Mus . , he says, The charioteers and the sons of the King of the Musu raa (Egyptians) my hands captured alive ” of in the midst of the battle . The legend the field mice eating the gut on the bows and of quivers , thereby giving the King Egypt

(Tirhakah) the victory over his enemy, is given

by Herodotus .

“ E~KUR The House of the Mountain The

of Temple of Bel at Nippur . The house the

“ ” God En- of hostworld w as lil , the Lord the g ,

the oldest in Northern Babylonia , and accord

“ ing to Prof. Sayce , it represented that under ground world which was the home of En-lil

a nd - his ghosts and this under ground world ,

was conceived of as a mountain . The cunei

“ ” form character which signifies country , also “ ” signifies mountain , and the hieroglyphic pic

out f is ture o which it developed, the picture 6 1

of a mountain range . The land in which it

was first drawn and stereotyped in writing,

must it would seem , have been a mountainous

one , like the land in which the subterranean

En- realm of lil was regarded as a lofty hill .

In other words, the Sumerians must have been the inhabitants of a mountainous country b e fore they settled in the plain of Babylonia and laid the foundations of the Temple E- Kur at Nippur

“ ELAM N umki the high land The country

on of the east the Tigris, which occupied the

of western slopes the Luristan Mountains, and

the fertile plain between them and the Tigris .

Susa was its Capital . The Astrological Tablets assert that Naram - Sin the Son of Sargon King

. 8 0 . of Akkad (B C . 3 0 ) conquered Elam

of of ELAM Kings , The names some thirty Kings are now known through the explorations of De

his of Morgan , at Susa . See History Elam and

explorations at Susa .

ELAMITE The , invasion of Babylon by Kudur of i . 2 2 8 N ankhund was about B . C 0. The date

’ Kudur- L agam ar s raid depends upon that of

- N abo i . 2 1 0. Khammu rabi which n dos places B C . 0

k ELATH Now A abah. 62

of . ELDRED John , A Merchant London Visited

1 8 Babylon in 5 3 , and left an account of it .

ELEPHANTS were known in Northern Syria in the time of Tiglath-pileser I

now S enkereh. ELLASAR See Larsa .

- EL A . MAD M See Ctesiphon .

“ f r ENKI . Sumerian o Lord of the Land

“ EN - LIL of Mul - lil the Lord of the Ghost or Spirit world Sometimes represented as the

“ God His of his Storm Temple , and centre

w ere ‘ at worship, Nippur . He became a Semitic

“ Baal , and man himself became the Son of his ” Go - d . Bel Merodach of Babylon took the place of E n- lil and became the Supreme B él or Baal of f Semitic faith and the Father o Gods and Man .

E N - of . . 00 . SHAG Lord Kengi , about B C 45

EN TEME N A f Eannadu of Shir ula . o Son , King p

about B . C . 45 00 . The Brit . Mus . has several

door sockets and cones , bearing his name , and the Louvre Museum has cones and a splendid

Silver vase bearing his name .

'

ENVELOPES Clay, for Tablets . See Tablets .

EPICS , Chaldean , or Legends of the Creation , Flood , 63

& c . They are contained in a large number of

. . Geo. of . . Tablets Mr Smith , the Brit Mus , was the first to recognise some of these inte resting and valuable fragments as belonging to

of of a series Tablets , giving an account the

of Creation and the Flood . The literary epics

Babylonia, seem to have been numerous . The

Brit . Mus . possesses a good many fragments . They belong for the most part to the same

of period , the age national revival , which began with the reign of Khammurabi and continued

for . several centuries after his death . Prof Sayce ,

Sinli iu nnini thinks it possible that g , the author of of the Great Epic Gilgames , was a contem

orar p y of Abraham . The Epic was but the final stage in the literary developement of the

tales and myths of which it is composed ; older

or of poems parts poems, having been incor

orated of p into it , and the elements which it of consists, being multiform and various origins .

See S . R . A . B . also K . B . C .

EPONYM CANON . Contains a consecutive list

of ffi of the Eponyms (that is , the o cial title a

of man high rank , who held office in Assyria

one for year , and whose name was used to

date all documents, executed during his period

8 666 . of office) from B . C . 9 3 to These impor

tant documents , relate to the chronology and 64

of the history Assyria , and chief events which

took place dnring the year of office . By fixing “ one of the date of the events mentioned , the date of every Eponym i n the series will be

. s un known An eclipse of the , we are told ,

the took place in the Eponym of Sagali , in

month of June ; and recent astronomical cal

cu lations c on , prove that such was the ase

1 . . 6 was June 5 th B C 7 3 , and that it visible at Nineveh !

ERAN . See Iran .

- - ERI AKU or Rim Sin . King of Larsa , about B . C . ” 2 “ 3 00 . The Arioch King of Ellasar of O . T .

of ERECH , Uruk , A very ancient city Central

Babylonia . The Creation Tablets, tell us that

s on it was built by Merodach, the of Ea , and

“ s a or others y, it was called Erech Uruk the ” - Sheep cote , and was ruled over by Gilgames .

IS i In the O . T . it g ven as one of the cities of r Shinar, built by Nimrod . Its mode n name

is .Warka .

“ ERIDU (Eri - dugga the good city The most

i is ane ent city in Chaldea, situated on the on west side of the Euphrates , the Arabian

plateau . In ancient days, it was a seaport , and

s o . . 000 may have continued till about B C 5 , 5 5

now but not later , it is over one hundred and

twenty miles from the Persian Gulf, which ,

since the time of Alexander the Great , (B . C . 3 3 2) is proved to have silted up at the rate

of one hundred feet per year . This siltage alone ,

old would make it over six thousand years . In

the Creation Tablets , the account is as follows

“ E - Sa ila was In that day Eridu was made , g con

E -s a ila L u al-D u- structed , g which the God g azaga ” founded within the Abyss . This, says Dr . Pin

“ ches shows with little or no doubt , that the

Eridu then referred to , was not the earthly

of city of that name , but a city conceived as lying within the Abyss This Eridu was “ the ” blessed city or Paradise , wherein was the tree f of . o life Ea , the father Merodach , was the

chief god of Eridu . The foundations of his

his c Temple were found by Taylor, during a

1 8 0 sual explorations in 5 , since when , no work has been done on this ancient and most impor

of tant site , therefore the early history Eridu

of P atesi is still unknown . We hear s or High

- priests of Eridu who would have been vice roys of the supreme King of Sumer like Gudea

to of Lagas . The mound used be known by

of N awawis the name , but now by the name of

- rein Abu Shah .

- M . ER I H . B 2 0 . S U A High Priest of Asshur, about C . 00 66

“ E-SAGIL A the Temple of the high head in

of its n the City Babylon . It had origi al home at Eridu and was founded by the God L ugal

- - D u . of azaga Bel Merodach , the God the Temple

was son of of the Ea Eridu , and built Babylon

- (see Creation Story) . The stage tower of this Temple is considered by many to be the Tower

of Babel . This Temple was known in later days,

of as the Temple Belus , and is now the ruin ’ o - - s ee mound f Amran ibn Ali . ( Babylon)

- - i ESARHADDON Assur akha idd na . King of — 68 1 668 . Assyria B . C . He succeeded to the throne after the murder of his father Senna

cherib , and was crowned at Haran , in the Temple

“ ” o . os of the Moon G d Sin The Brit . Mus . p

of sesses many inscribed cylinders this King, of giving lists his conquests, and building

Operations .

ESAU i Esa of the west Semites .

“ of ETANA and the Eagle The story , is a moral on the presumption of man to attempt to be

as a God . See Etana Tablets in Brit . Mus . ,

also Adam .

“ ” “ . P urattu EUPHRATES ( , from Pur water ) the ” on n life of the land . This river rises the orth o side of the mountains f Armenia . It rises in

68

1 8 was 1 8 20 . . ( 74 ) nothing done until , when C J

Rich , really commenced digging in the mounds .

was He followed by Botta, and Sir Henry

1 8 R assa m Layard (in 45 ) Rawlinson , Taylor , ,

Loftus, Geo . Smith , Peters and Haynes , Hil

Kaldowe precht, De Morgan , y, Clay , Banks

& c on . and the work is still going , though far too slowly for the all important results of system

“ ” atic exploration in the cradle of humanity .

E - B ors i a ZIDA the Everlasting Temple) in pp ,

“ ” the second Babylon . Its Temple tower was

“ ” called the supreme house of life . Nebu or Nabo the God of Learning was the God

of the Temple . Nebuchadnezzar II restored this great Temple - Tower as well as others some think this was the Tower of Babel and

- not the Temple Tower of Babylon .

th FALL OF MAN LEGEND . Not only do e legends of the Babylonians seem to imply that they had an account of the Fall similar to

is a c lind er that of the Hebrews , but there also y

seal in the Brit . Mus . , representing a man and

woman , both clothed , sitting under a palm tree

. has his the bearing fruit The man on head , of horned hat, emblematic Divinity , and behind

on its is a the woman , standing erect tail ,

to to serpent appearing be speaking her . Dr . 69

Pinches gives the date of this seal as being

2 2 about from B . C . 700 to 000 .

FASTS , Babylonian and Assyrian . In times of danger

and distress, fasts were specially ordained , both

in Babylonia and Assyria . When Esarhaddon ,

of his N or King Assyria , was hard pressed by

thern enemies , he ordered prayers to be made and ceremonies to be performed to the Sun

for one God , lasting hundred days and nights .

is In a penitential psalm , the penitent made “ s a of to y Instead food , I eat bitter tears ,

of - instead palm wine , I drink the waters of

misery . Food I have not eaten , weeping is my

nourishment , water I have not drunk, tears ” are my drink . See S . R . A . B .

FEDDAN , The was about one acre and a ninth ,

which a gan . The estimated yield of corn

was s ix 8 land , gur 4 bushels per feddan) ,

of M anishtus u u The Obelisk , found at S sa proves

“ this . It says that eight bushels of corn could be ” purchased for a silver Shekel ! See Boscawen .

“ F ERTILITY of Babylonia . Herodotus tells us that of all the countries we know, there is none that

s o is fruitful in grain , which commonly yields

two hundredfold , and sometimes three He

“ says the fruitfulness of Babylon , must seem incredible to those who have not visited the 70

an country Modern travellers, like Rich d

“ is Chesney ; say the soil extremely fertile , of producing great quantities rice , oats , and

of ff is not now grain di erent kinds, though it cultivated to above half the degree of which

it is capable . It was a land of vegetables , also , of d and fruit trees , great variety that yielde

abundantly .

in F ESTIVALS , Chaldean The New Year began

of of e the old days Gudea Lagas , in the middl

of of October ; but in the time Khammurabi ,

of ff of in March . In consequence the di erence

the climate in North and South Babylonia ,

of the Festival the New Year, might comme morate the beginning or the end of the agri

cultural year . At Lagas, it was Bau to whom

the Festival of the New Year was sacred ; at

Babylon , it was Merodach .

of t Before the time Khammurabi , the grea

own sanctuaries , had each its calendar, but he imposed a fixed and uniform calendar upon

of the all the sanctuaries Babylonia . Besides

of was Festivals the Spring and Autumn , there

a third , which took place in June , and marked the drying up of the soil and disappearance

of the crops and vegetables of the Spring . These three great agricultural festivals were

as D eifica supplemented by others , such the 7 1

n of or tio a new King, the building restoration

or of of a sanctuary, the dedication a statue .

of A characteristic the Babylonian festival , seems to be the temporary freedom granted

to the slave . When Gudea consecrated the

of In urisa Temple g at Lagas , he tells us how

“ he had remitted penalties , and given pre

” “ sents . During seven days no service was

exacted . The female slave , was made the equal

of her mistress , the male slave , was made the

of equal his master, the chief and his subj ect

have been made equal in my city . All that is ” evil I removed from this Temple . See S . R . A . B .

FIRST DYNASTY of Babylon . This began about

. 2 200 . of w as B C . The first King this Dynasty

- Sumu abu , who was a Semite ; and this purely Semitic Dynasty lasted for about three hundred

not of years . These Kings of Babylon were

Babylonian origin , but Semites from the land

the Amorites . (Amurru) There were eleven Kings in this Dynasty ending with Samsu

Titana . It is now considered certain that the

First and Second Dynasties over- lapped each

2 00 other for about years . The second Dynasty was first established in the “ Country of the Sea on the shores of the Persian Gulf and it

is thought by some never reigned in Babylon . The Kassite or Third Dynasty is considered 72

to have partly overlapped or followed imme diately after the First Dynasty of Babylon but the arrangement of the chronology is still un

x O ert certain and e perts like pp , Sayce , Winckler , ff Delitzsch , Haupt , Maspero and King di er as ” t o “ matters of detail . The King List gives a list of the following s ix Kings of the Third

Gandash B itiliashi Babylonian Dynasty , Agum , ,

s hshi A -D u - - - - - U U r z i . , me tash , and gur mash

FISH . The rivers swarmed with fish . The barbel and carp grew to a large size and were highly

of esteemed . Eels and other kinds fish were

found in great abundance .

f . o . F LOOD STORY . Mr . Geo Smith the Brit

s Mus . wa the first to detect the nature of the

of of series Tablets giving the story the Flood ,

as known to the Babylonians and Assyrians .

IS or The legend contained in one chapter,

of book, consisting twelve similar divisions ,

of the first line the series , beginning with the

“ who s aw words , He the world , the legend ” AS (or history) of Gilgames . we learn in the

of or course the narrative , Gilgames was Lord

“ ” King of Uruk Supuri or Erech the walled .

See Epics . Gilgames . Noah .

of FOUNDATION CEREMONIES . The Kings Babylonia and Assyria were by virtue of their 73

ffi royal o ce , also High Priests ; and had from

time to time , to perform religious functions in

the Temples of the Gods . Amongst others was the ceremony of laying the foundation stone

- of the Temple tower , which , as being the

of . Shrine the God , was the holiest place On

- - . M us . a stone stela in the Brit Assur bani pal , — . . 668 6 2 6 King of Assyria , B C , is represented

in his capacity of High Priest . He is robed in

a long cassock, with a mitre on his head . His

two hands are raised above his head , and in

- them , he bears a basket, like a bee hive , in which are the offerings and inscribed cylin

s der , which he will place in the four corners

of the foundation of the Ziggurat . He will then cover them with a sealed stone to make

o them secure from robbery . Many f the foun

dation deposits are in the Brit . Mus . and are

of . the greatest interest The Archaeologist,

us Nabonidus , tells he found the foundation

of - s on of cylinder Naram Sin , the the great

800 Sargon , who reigned about 3 years before

him ; and for which his predecessor, Nebu

chad nez za r had searched in vain . It is from this baked clay cylinder that we know the

“ of - date Sargon of Akkad . See Naram Sin

“ ” Nabonidus .

- nd . of 2 of . 2 00 . GAMIL SIN King Dynasty Ur B . C 4 74

Th . h e Brit Mus . as many door sockets and bricks f o this King .

-GI- GAN DA field measures . The land surveyor,

or ffi who o cial measured the land with a cord .

GAN p adanu) A land measure of an acre and : a ninth . Arabic feddan .

b GAN EDEN Garden of delight . A region e tween the Tigris and Euphrates some 2 5 miles of north Babylon , formally known for its won

d e rful fertility in ancient times . The Shatt eu - Nil and other canals pass through this once prosperous locality which in now an utterly

barren desert .

GARDEN of EDEN . In the Babylonian inscriptions, ” called ”the holy grove of Eridu in which

grew the sacred palm (or vine) or tree of life ;

guarded by winged genii .

of ou t GARDENS Hanging, Babylon , were laid

of on on a platform masonry arches , the water

being brought up by machinery .

of . GATES , Bronze , Shalmaneser II from the Temple

at Balawat . They are in the Brit . Mus . There

on are Thirteen bands them , each band giving

some special scene in the life of the King .

76

or eleventh chapter book of a legend , consisting of of . twelve similar divisions ; the first line the

“ series, begi nning with the words , He who saw

of the world , the legend Gilgames The large

of 1 8 2— R assa m number Tablets found in 7 3 by ,

and Geo . Smith , late of the Brit . Mus . , in the of ruins the Royal Library at Nineveh , were

of ol copies d originals from other Libraries . Assur- bani- pal caused his scribes to visit all

of the ancient cities his day, and make copies

of all rare and important works for him . Among

00 r of the pies, were a numbe Tablets (many

much broken , but now mostly adjusted and made complete) relating to “ the Creation of the World and “ the Flood This collection ” is now known as “ the Gilgames Series of

h - -unnini w ich Sin liqi was the author, about

f . B . C . 2 00 o 3 , and the place origin was Erech

See K . T . C . also K . B . C .

f IR . or G SU , Now, Tell Id An ancient name a

division of Lagash . Ningirsu was the divine

Lord of its Temple . See Telloh .

GISD B AR . . U , Izdubar See Gilgamish

GISH-BAN and GISH - KHU mentioned often in

early Tablets are compound ideographs . They have been confounded together by some Assy

ri lo is s . o g t but are really , says Prof Sayce , two 77

one . . distinct characters , reading Upe (i e Opis)

khu . ok h the other probably U (i e . J a ) .

of - Ush was Patesi Gish Ban , being mentioned

E m a f nte e n B . o C . 00 . on the cone , about 45 The site has not yet been identified but pro bably is not far north of Telloh on the west

el - bank of the Shatt Hai .

- GIS KIN tree trunk . The Sumerian for the Sacred

Tree in the sacred grove of Eridu . Taylor found two brick pillars set up before the gate of the

city of Eridu , which perhaps represented the

- o tree gods who guarded the gate f Heaven .

GIZ- UKHA (Iskha) mentioned in the stela of the

Vultures in the Louvre and Brit . Mus .

. . 1 88 2 GLASER E Dr , who since has made four

j ourneys to Arabia , and brought a large number

of inscriptions from there, which seem to prove , that the whole series of inscriptions called

Minea n , must be placed before the Sabean .

GO B R YAS of Gutium or Ugba ru (I) a General in the Army of Cyrus the Great who entered

. 2 o Babylon without a struggle See Opis . ( ) Als of a General Darius , and often confused with

the former .

n GOD . The Sumeria term is Dimmer (from Dim 78

“ to create Divine or Superhuman ; called ilu

’ '

. i i . o i (pl lan ) by the Semites (Hebrew, El, El h m) The ideograph by which it is symbolised is an

- eight rayed star . See S . R . A . B .

GODS of the Babylonians and Assyrians . There

of of were Gods a city, Nature , National and

Household Gods (Heb . Teraphim) . The chief Divinities were Anu the sky) Ea water) Marduk ( 2 the Mediator between man and God)

N a nner Bel the Lord), Sin and the Moon) a Samas the Sun) , Dagon , Rimmon , or Had d

h 2 (of the air) . Is tar ( love) , Nebo learning) ,

F or o Nergal Hades) . fuller information n “ s ee this subj ect, The Religion of Babylonia ” and Assyria by Dr . Pinches . Also S . R . A . B .

who out GOMATES . The Median Magician , gave

was or Sm erdis son of that he Bardes, , the Cyrus the Great who had been murdered by

his a dvan brother, Cambyses II , and who took

of his to tage absence in Egypt, usurp the

throne ; which he held till defeated by Darius

the Great .

“ GOYIM . Heb . Nations Gutium , the country

of . north Babylon in Kurdistan See Tidal , also

Gutium .

r . GOZAN . A P ovince in Mesopotamia 79

GR O TEF EN D of G . F . A native Hanover, born

1 775 . In 1 802 his attention was drawn to the

inscriptions from Persepolis , and he at once

s et himself to work upon them . He knew

of nothing Oriental languages , but he had a of ffi passion for the unravelling di cult questions .

F or his first attempts at decipherment, he

old i C chose two of the Persian nscriptions , opied

N eibuhr 1 6 by in 7 5 , and laid them side by

side , and carefully examined them . He came to the conclusion that a certain word in both

“ ” of m ca nt . them King , and he was right He “ ” “ next made out the word Darius , then Hysta

” “ ” s o . so spes , then Xerxes , and on Having far

succeeded in deciphering this much ; the rest

was but a matter of time . Decipherers arose

one of after another from all parts Europe , and now the long forgotten language of the

- Tigro Euphrates Valley , like the long lost langu

of age the Nile Valley, can be both read and

understood by endless scholars, in this and

was other countries . As the Rosetta stone the key by which the hieroglyphics of Ancient

s o ins cri Egypt were deciphered , the trilingual p

‘

. B ehistii n tions of Persepolis Hamadan and ,

of were to the cuneiform Babylonia .

GUB AR US (Gob ryas) Governor of the district or of of . country Gutium , and a General Cyrus II 80

and who became also Governor of Babylon

under the Persian King .

- or of Shir urla GUDEA , Priest King Patesi p about

. . 2 8 . B C 00 He was a great Tower builder. There are some splendid Sitting statues of him

in the Louvre ; and the Brit . Mus . possesses

- many gate sockets and bricks of his reign .

Sarzec His Palace was excavated by De , and of the Museum at the Louvre , contains many

his statues .

GUR (Heb . Kor) Eight bushels . A corn measure .

. s a GUTIUM Some y , a district in North Baby

s lonia ; others ay Media . Prof. Sayce says Kur

distan .

P GYGES (Gugu , in Assyrian) King of Lydia ( Gog

- i- of O . He was cursed by Assur ban pal ,

of . King Assyria , for not submitting to him

The God Asshur , is reported to have appeared

to Gyges in a dream , exhorting him to submit to Assur- bani - pal and to invoke his name in

order to succeed in conquering his enemies .

Following this advice , he succeeded in con

of G quering the people omer, and as an Ally of Assyria , sent the spoil of victory to the

His s n King . o who succeeded him as King of

L uddu ? Lydia , ( Biblical Lud) renewed the 8 1

Assyrian alliance and reminded Assur- bani - pal of his former curse on his father and begging

“ to to the King be gracious him his servant, who was wishful to bear his yoke

ha b or s . C a HABOR A river in Gozan ) , by which the Samaritan captives were carried by Sargon f o . Assyria See O . T .

= - HADAD Addu , was the same as Rimmon Ram

manu . He was the Syrian Supreme God ; in

of . Assyria, the God the Air

of HADES , Babylonian idea , The Hades of the

Babylonians, was an underground place of ” “ of no darkness and gloom , the land return

“ ” and the pit of the Tablets . The world beyond

of the grave , was a place unspeakable dreariness .

“ It resembled the Hebrew Sheol Silan , the hollow place underneath the earth ”) and the name is believed to have been borrowed from

Babylonia . Over its gloomy portals, was written

“ ” hO e Abandon p all ye that enter here . Death

meant the extinction of light and hope . The

old Egyptian , looked forward to the next life

“ ” in the fields of Alu ; not s o the Babylonian ;

con to him , this life was everything, and he

te m lated p the future with dread . See S . R . A . B .

-Khalakhkha HALAH , near Haran . Mentioned as 6 8 2

one of of the places where Sargon Assyria ,

c arried the captive Samaritans . See O . T .

H AMADAN , See Ecbatana .

H s ee i AMMURABI (or Khammurabi , which ) K ng

of Babylon , was a great soldier and conqueror,

and also , as his numerous letters and inscriptions

’ “ prove , an able administrator . See King s Let ” t ers &c of Hammurabi

“ His Code of Laws is written on a block

of diorite , seven feet three inches high ; with twenty- eight columns on one side with two

thousand five hundred lines of inscriptions , and

on one the other side , sixteen columns, with

t one of housand , hundred , and fourteen lines

inscriptions , with five more erased . The King

is represented , as receiving the laws from

who Samas the Sun God , sits on his throne on a mountain -top and gives him a stylus

with which to write them down . (See H . D . B .

extra vol . )

f . 2 2 HANGING GARDENS o Babylon See p . 9 in

Vol . 1 of H . D . B .

- HARAN Kharran (road town) . A very ancient city

on in Mesopotamia, the trade route from east of of to west . It was the centre the worship

- the Moon God Sin , like Ur in South Babylonia,

84

of the Phoenician Alphabet , was written in

cuneiform characters . In the Aramaic papyri ,

lately found at Assuan , the Jews are called

“ ” “ ” indifferently Jews and Arameans and thei r

“ Court of law known as the Tribunal of the ” Hebrews .

As early as the time of the Assyrian Empire ,

the Semitic countries , west of the Euphrates ,

“ had come to be known as Ebir - nari beyond ” the river , and it is therefore very possible

(says Prof. Sayce) that their inhabitants were

of grouped together, under the general name “ Hebrews ”

e HEBREW MYTHOLOGY , Babylonian influenc

on. See Myths .

of HERBERT Sir Thomas , Made an examination

of 1 6 8 the ruins Persepolis in 3 , and wrote an account of it which proved to be very inac

curate .

a HERODOTUS . Born at Halicarnassus in Cari th about the middle of the 5 Century B . C . He lived in Samas for some time and travelled

as largely . He represents himself having been in Babylon and talked with the Priests there

is f a but it rather doubtful if this be act , or

m of of s literary fiction . The re ains Ctesias Cnidu in Caria (a contemporary of Xenophon circa 8 5

B . C . 400) which are preserved in the writings

of of Photius , Patriarch Constantinople in the

th . 9 Century A D . are probably more impor tant than the writings of Herodotus with whose

statements , he is frequently at variance . Cte

sias lived seventeen years at the Persian court ,

and wrote in the Ionic dialect a great Work ,

compiled from Oriental sources , on the History

- of Persia in twenty three books . The first Six of which contained the History of the Assy of rian Monarchs , down to the foundation the

Kingdom of Persia .

HEZEKIAH . Attacked by Sennacherib , who tells

“ us in his inscriptions , that he shut him up ” his of in city Jerusalem, like a bird in a cage .

“ ” Khaza iau to q , had to pay a large tribute

the King, which he sent to him at Lachish . This interesting clay cylinder of Sennacherib

is in the Brit . Mus .

o of . HILLAH . The Mound f the site Babylon

See Babil .

H IL P E HT of of R C Dr . One the Heads the Ame

rican Explorers at Nippur ; and Editor of many

on valuable works Assyriology .

HINCKS Revd . Edward . An Irish Clergyman . One of the first and most advanced decipherers of 86

the ancient Persian and Assyrian inscriptions . It was in 1 846 that his first memoir was p u

blished anonymously, and read before the Royal

Irish Academy . He was also one of the pioneers of Egyptian decipherment .

of HIT Is) A town the Euphrates, long cele

brated for its inexhaustible Springs of bitumen ;

for - and boat building .

of of E HITTITES . (Khatta Assyrians , Kheta gyp tians) See Hastings ’ s “ Dictionary of the Bible”

’ “ vol . of Extra , also Prof. Sayce s Story a for ” gotten Empire . Prof. Sayce , has for the last

- the twenty six years , held the Opinion that

r w o Hittite ace as f Cappadocian origin . The

was treeless plateau of Central Asia Minor ,

their first cradle and home ; they called them

Kaseans . was selves Kas , or Their Capital Khatti or Khattu ( now Boghaz Keui or KO i)

of Hal s on h north the y , but they extended bot sides the Taurus Mountains and at an early

date had planted themselves in Northern Syria .

r In the 1 2 th Century B . C . there were fou

x lo Hittite Kingdoms in the North . The late e p rations at Boghaz Keui or KO i Pteria) in

. was Cappadocia , have proved that Prof Sayce

right .

- In the correspondence between Ebed Kheba, 87

of Go the King Jerusalem , and the Egyptian

v rnm ent 1 . C . e in the 5 th Century B , we learn that some K as eans had found their way to

- of the Jerusalem , and become the body guard

King . Besides these , there were other Hittites

of who in the neighbourhood Jerusalem , were really enemies of the King and threatened

- Jerusalem itself. These , Ebed Kheba calls Kha

biri or Confederates , who sold their military services to the highest bidder and carved out Principalities for themselves in the south of m Canaan . The O . T , tells us that Abraha had commercial dealings with Ephron the Hittite (or son of Heth) about the parcel of ground of at Hebron in which was the cave Machpelah .

HITTITE LANGUAGE . The language is Mongolic

like the Akkadian or Kassite . The Hittite hiero

glyphs never developed into a cursive script . The Babylonian cuneiform was borrowed by them as it w as by the Canaanites or Egyp

tians . A large number of cuneiform Tablets (numbering many thousands) of the Tel el

1 th Amarna period ( 5 Century B . C . ) have been

found at Boghaz Keui by Prof. Winckler of

Berlin ; giving a mass of valuable information

of which not only will be historical interest , but also will materially aid in deciphering the

Hittite Script . One of the most important of 88

the Diplomatic communications as yet deci phered is a version in the Babylonian language of the well known treaty between Ramses II

- and Kattu shili the Hittite King . All the Tablets

found by Prof. Winckler at Boghaz K O e are written in the cuneiform characters of Baby

lonia . Some are written in the Babylonian language and others in the Hittite and per

of haps other languages the near East . Mons . Chantre also has found Hittite Tablets at Kara

Eyuk in Cappadocia ; and others have been

found at Carchemish and Hamath . Many Hit tite sculptures on rocks in Asia Minor are still

in situ .

HORSE , wild . Common in Chaldaea , and was often

hunted . It was also domesticated .

H UNTING . The lion , urus , horse , onager, and elephant were often hunted by the Babylonian

and Assyrian Kings, as a favourite pastime .

See the slabs and cylinder seals in the Brit . Mus .

Hakshas u HYKSOS ( Bedouin) Nomads , Asiatics

(Amu) . They were most likely Semites , speaking

- a language of the West Semitic type . They came

of from Canaan and their conquest Egypt, made

of of it a Dependency Canaan , hence they fixed

s o their head quarters in Northern Egypt, as

to easily keep up communication with Asia . 89

They seem to have made a raid on Egypt

. 2 1 about B C . 00 but did not establish them

selves till about one hundred years later . The whole duration of the foreign dominion of the

Hyksos and their descendants was , says Prof.

1 1 . Flinders Petrie , 5 years They were then expelled from the Thebaid by Aahm es and driven into Tanis which they were soon after

forced to leave and retreat into Syria , from

which country they had originally come . The Jews were a late branch of the Semitic

Hyksos migration , who drifted down in later

times from Haran to Judea . (See Prof. Flinders Petrie ’ s “ Sinai ” and “ Hyksos and Israelite

HYMNS Babylonian . These were composed at dif ferent periods of time and written in different

- - languages Sumerian and Semitic Babylonian . They were addressed to the God or Gods of

the sanctuary in whose service they were used . Many of the hymns were employed as incan

ta tions , and were therefore considered sacred . Extracts from the following Hymns to ( 1 ) the

- of 2 - of B a Moon God Ur, ( ) to Bel Merodach ” b l on “ y , ( 3) to any God , will shew this

“ 1 - f ( ) Father, long suf ering and full of forgiveness ,

“ Whose hand upholds the life of all mankind . “ In Heaven who is supreme ?

“ Thou alone , Thou art supreme . 90

who ? On earth , is supreme

“ Thou alone , Thou art supreme ( 2) On N e w Years Eve at the Festival held in the Temple of Bel- Merodach at Babylon the priest was ordered to go down to the Euphrates and bring up some of its water in his hand and enter into the presence of Bel and there

of of recite a long hymn in praise the God , which the following was the final prayer : “ w E She mercy to thy city of Babylon , to

Saggil thy Temple incline thy face ; grant the prayers of thy people the sons of Babylon ( 3) The following is an extract from a long peni ” “ o te ntial psalm which is addressed t any God .

“ of . The heart my lord is wroth , may it be appeased ! May the God whom I know not be appeased ! May the God I know and the God I know not be appeased !

O Lord my sins are many, my transgressions are great !

no The sin that I sinned I knew t .

The transgressions I committed I knew not . The Lord in the wrath of his heart has t e

garded me , God has visited me in the anger

of his heart .

' took m I sought for help and none y hand ,

I wept and none stood at my side . I cried aloud and there was none that heard me !

9 2

M us INSCRIPTIONS , Important, in Brit .

e The Black Ob lisk .

The Creation , and Flood Tablets .

Memorial Tablet of Eannad u .

r Ti lath Bricks of Gudea , Me odach , Baladan I , g

iles er p , Shalmaneser II , Sargon II , Sennacherib ,

Nebuchadnezzar II .

e of Boundary Ston s Nebuchadnezzar I , Meli

c shikhu, & .

f - o U r . Cones Bau , Gudea and others

- Cylinder seals .

B abylonian Chronicles .

- Babylonian Spelling books .

el - Tel Amarna Tablets . d Cylin ers of Nabonidus, Cyrus, Sennacherib,

&c Esarhaddon , .

- of E annadu Mace heads Sargon I , , Manish

’

&c . . tusu , See Dr Wallis Budge s very interesting

“ ” and valuable Guide to B . M .

IRAK . A district in North Babylonia .

r IRAN o Eran . The district between the Euphrates

and the Ganges .

or E r ian of IRANIANS an s . A branch the Aryans , i liv ng in Iran .

IRRIGATION of Babylon . In ancient days, the

whole country between the Tigris and Euphrates, 9 3

was a of network canals , which carried the

of to waters these rivers on the land . Break waters and sluice gates controlled the rise and

fall of the yearly inundations , thereby making h ’ t is great valley the then world s granary . This system is now a vast ruin and the country a

desert .

IS . See Hit .

ISH ME- of . 2 00 . DAGAN , King Isin B . C about 4 i Some bricks are stamped with h s name .

ISHME - of DAGON , A patesi Asshur about B . C .

1 8 40 .

S -B ab lo ISHTAR , (Sumerian) Istar of the emitic y m God nia s Hathor of the Egyptians) . The

of . dess Love , and was the same as Ashtoreth She was venerated at Nineveh also at Erech

along with Ann. See the Flood Story ; Also

S . R . A . B .

of a ISHTAR, Gate , Mentioned in the Great Indi

House Inscription , and was in the Procession

of to of Street Marduk , which led the Palace

was Nebuchadnezzar . The gate adorned with

on enamelled bricks, which remu and immense

serpents, standing erect, were depicted . The

of recovery this Ishtar Gate , in Splendid pre 94

has servation , been achieved by the late German

Excavations on the site of Babylon .

of . . . . ISHTAR , Descent , into Hades See S R A B .

I . of SIN (Karrak) A Semitic Kingdom Babylonia . of It was followed by the dynasty Larsa . An early Dynastic Tablet gives a list of 1 6 Kings and proves that the Kingdom of Isin succeeded

’ Hil r s that of Ur . See Prof. p echt lately p u

lishe d b Chronological Tablets from Nippur . The site of the ancient city has not yet been

B s m . discovered . y ya)

Ass ro- B ab l o ISRAEL , Origin of, The probable y y

“ ” was - = nian form Sar ili Prince of God .

I R - of S AEL , Pre Mosaic Religion , See H . D . B .

v o . 6 1 2 . extra l p .

I of SRAELITES . In the reign Shalmaneser II,

’

. 8 S er ilaa . about B C . 54. is written for Israelites

’ “ ” . a book See Dr Pinches The Old Testament ,

full of interesting and instructive matter .

I ZDUBAR . See Gilgamesh .

JACOB . This name occurs many times in the Tablets of the period of the first dynasty of

of Babylon under the forms Yakubu , Yakubi , “ has su as . s meaning, Dr Pinches explain he p ” ’ of Ya Kub planted . The longer form the word

96

JEWS in Babylonia and Assyria . Sargon King of

n 2 2 0 Assyria carried i to captivity, 7 9 Israelites

out of Samaria , into Mesopotamia , and Nebu

chadnezz ar II carried the Judaeans into Babylon , where they remained captives until released 8 by Cyrus the Great . (B . C . 5 3 to

O KHAH Ukhu - J , , (Gish Khu) A very ancient city

in Babylonia .

f . t JONAH Tomb o the Prophet . Nebi Yunas a

Nineveh .

of JO SEPH . The word appears in the Tablets

n Yasu the First Babylo ian Dynasty, as p

“ ” “ He hath added and Yasup -ilu God hath added ”

JOSEPHUS . The Jewish Historian , who lived in

the Century A . D . He quotes from Hero d otus and B erossu s many events which are reported to have taken place in the histories

of B abylonl a and Assyria .

ods hu KADESH . On the river Orontes . (Q ) A great

- stronghold of the Hittites in South west Syria .

Carchemish was their northern stronghold .

KALA SHERGHAT . See Ashur . 97

KAL D U Chaldeans . See p . 37 .

KALNE . A city of Nimrod , in Shinar Nippur.

KAMB YSES I and II . See Cambyses .

A of KAR N . This river rises in the mountains

Elam and empties itself in the Persian gulf.

KAS . The Hittite Kingdom in Cappadocia .

KASSITES (Assyrian K ashshu) Kossaeans .

A mountain race , east of the Tigris and north

of Elam . They invaded Babylonia about B . C .

1 8 6 00 and ruled for 5 7 years .

KASSU the Cossaeans .

KELEK . A raft made with inflated skins and

reeds ; used on the Tigris and Euphrates , and also on the near coast of the Persian Gulf

was where the water shallow .

KENGI or KINGI . This was the old name of a ” of “ district Babylonia , probably the Sumer

of the Babylonian inscriptions . The name in the Akkadian language signified “ the country” ” “ of The O . T . land Shinar where the early “ Eastern emigrants settled in “ the plain ” was

Kengi . 9 8

KE R KHA . This river rises in the high ground in Elam and runs into the Tigris south of

s . Susu , near which place it pas es

KER PORTER Sir Robert , Visited Persepolis and

1 8 1 8 of inscri Babylon in , and made copies p

of tions . He also published a book his sket

ches , giving pictures of mounds , ruined walls,

and inscribed bricks . His book excited the

t e wonder and enthusiasm of the day, and kindled zeal in the pursuit of Oriental learning and for systematic exploration in the recovery of the ancient civilisation of the Tigro -Euphra

tes Valley .

“ el - KHABIRI . Confederates The Tel Amarna

now . Tablets, have p roved who these were

“ They were not Hebrews as was supposed ,

of who but bands Hittite Condottieri , sold their

military service to the highest bidder, and carved out for themselves Principalities in the

of . south Canaan The Egyptian Government , found them useful in escorting and protecting the trading caravans to Asia Minor and the

Taurus region, and as long as their leaders professed the mselves the devoted servants of

the Pharaoh , they were allowed to do pretty

much as they liked . See S . A . C . I .

of KHABUR . The name a canal at Nippur, often

1 00

was son is his portrait . He succeeded by his

- iluna who Samsu , followed closely in the foot

of his . steps great father . See K B . C .

KHARRAN . (See Haran) road , was a Sume

rian word borrowed by the Semites .

of KHATTI Syria, Cappadocia the land the

Hittites .

in KHETA Hittites . They occur in Egyptian

s cri tions p as early as Amenophis I , who died

. 1 2 B C . 4 3 . They made a treaty with Rameses II ,

who was at war with them . Pentaur recorded

the expedition into Syria , and the conquest of

the Hittites , in his celebrated heroic poem depicted upon the wall of the Temple of Abu

Simbel . On the Monolith , found by Prof. Flinders

m s on s uc Petrie at Qur eh , Meneptah , the and

“ of CGreat is cessor Rameses the , says Kheta at peace

’ r- h rrukini K HO R SAB AD D fi S a Sargon s Castle .

i n a A city Assyria , where Sargon II had

has splendid Palace , which been excavated by

Botta and Place .

f KHO SR . A river running through the city o

Nineveh .

of . . KINGS Babylonia . See Brit Museum Guide I O I

of . Mu s . KINGS Assyria See Brit . Guide .

. 6 1 KINGS of Elam See p . .

KINGS of Early Babylonian States . There are some

- of twenty eight names Kings , known before circa

. . 2 2 00 B C , when the First Babylonian Dynasty

- began . Uru Kagina was King of Shirp urla about

. . 00 of B C 45 , as a fragment an inscribed ala

baster vessel shows . All the Tablets at this age

; - and later, are inscribed in archaic line Baby

lonian characters which are semi - pictorial and

belong to the Sumerian and other non - Semitic

inhabitants of the country, from very early times .

. . . C . See Brit Mus . Guide, also K B

KING LISTS . In the Brit . Mus . there are Tablets giving the names of the Kings who ruled in

“ ” Babylonia . The are grouped under A and

“ ” B , both lists are early, but without date ; perhaps in the reign of Ammi - Zadugga about

. 2 2 B C . 00 . Then there are the Chronicles in

the reigns of Nabonidus and Darius the Great,

which give much information .

. O heim ar . of KISH, Kes , Kis El ) The Kingdom

Kish was a very old one in B abylon1a . A cone

“ of Ente M esilim m ena 00 . , mentions (45 B . C ) , ”

. of King of Kish The Kings Kish , claimed the 1 02

“ title of Nin - Marad Lord of Marad Manish tusu was also a very early Semitic King of of the city Kish .

KOLDEWEY , Dr . The Head of the German Ex

1 ploration at Babylon 905 .

N KO SSCEA S . Wild mountaineers who ski rted the of eastern frontiers Babylonia .

K KO UYUN JI . See Nineveh .

“ KUD UR L ACHGHAMAR of , King Elam men

tione d of in late Tablets the Persian period , giving accounts of the events which passed between the first and thirty - fi rst years of the

reign of Khammurabi or Amraphel ; and sup

posed to refer to Chedorlaomer . The Professor

of Assyriology at Oxford , has from the first,

held this opinion . The Tablets were referred to at the Congress of Orientalists held at

1 8 Geneva in 94, and no publicly expressed obj ection as to the possible identification with

Chedorlaomer was made . See Chedorlaomer .

“ - B of God KUDUR MA UG. the Minister the ” his Mabug ) An Elamite . He was called by “ son - f of of , Eri Aku the ather the land the

. 2000. Amorites He lived about B . C

1 04

to anyone who should cause this ‘ stela or ‘ land ” mark of “ raised stone to be taken away

“ s iti i from its original po t on in the field . May

the Great Gods cast upon him looks of wrath ,

may they destroy his strength , may they ex ” terminate his race . Everywhere in the ancient East the sacred character of property was

believed in , and the possession of the soil was

always firmly secured by religion .

. of KUFA A city, west the Euphrates and south

of Babylon , where the Caliphs lived . Old Arabic

K ufi c is called .

KUFA, or Cufa . A boat of the Tigris and Euphrates,

also a basket made of reeds . These kufas were only used on the rivers and canals not on

. the s ea ; k eleks were used on the near and

shallow coasts of the Persian Gulf ; but it was the long large rowing boats with curved stem and stem which made the voyages to foreign

ports, and they only hugged the shore and did

s not venture far out to ea . Ur is stated to have had such boats and pictures of them are found

A . B . incised on some ancient cylinders . See R . H .

KUTHA . of , now Tel Ibrahim A city Northern

- of Babylonia . A Priest city great importance

before the rise of the city of Babylon . Its chief

God was Nergal , whose Temple was called 1 0 5

E - - shid lam . It was one of the exile homes of

the Israelites after the fall of Samaria , and the Northern Kingdom of Israel by Sargon the

of 2 . King Assyria about B . C . 7 0

K Y N IK . U U J The modern name for Nineveh . The

mounds are 9 000 ft . in circumference . The site

1 8 2 was first explored by Botta in 4 , and Sir

Henry Layard succeeded him in the work .

R as s am 1 8 , in 5 3 discovered here the great

- - Library of Assur bani pal with its , numerous

Tablets, among which were the Creation and

Flood Epics .

- L akis u el H es . b e LACHISH ( ) Now , Tel y A city

tween Jerusalem , and the coast of the Medi

s terranean Sea . The city wa besieged by Sen

na cherib . , King of Assyria , and fell in B C .

2 3 8 . There is a large Sculpture in the Brit .

in Mus . representing Sennacherib sitting state

before Lachish , receiving the prisoners and Spoil

of the city . The Tell was excavated lately , by

Prof. Flinders Petrie and Dr . Bliss ; the latter

one . of whom , found in it cuneiform Tablet

- L UGAL KIG B N ID UD U . of U King Ur, about

8 . B . C . 3 00

- L AL Z . . UG AGGISI . of King Erech , about B C

000 . 4 . His Kingdom was from the Persian Gulf, 1 06

to the Western Sea the Mediterranean . Many

of inscribed vases his , have been found at Nip

pur, by the American explorers . These prove him to have reigned shortly before Sargon I

(about B . C . 3 800) He was we know a con temporary of Uruk agina King of an early Baby

. . n lonian State about B C 45 00 . He was the so

of Ukush of Gishk w of Patesi hu . He as King Erech (Warka) and his title of “ King of the World seems to imply that he was victorious

in many battles, but his kingdom seems to

have been of short duration .

LAGASH of the Babylonian inscriptions Shir

Si rr f r u a . o purla, p , now Telloh Gudea, Patesi

8 of Lagas (B . C . 2 00) gives minute details the foundation of the Temple of Nin -Sugir at Sir

purra, where statues and small teraphim figures

of - God Bel , Ea and the Fire have lately been

discovered . Some thirty thousand Tablets have

Sir u rra been found at p , dated in the reigns of

nd of 2 . . the Kings the Dynasty of Ur, B C — 2 00 2 00 . . 5 3 , these are mostly in the Brit Mus ;

the rest at the Louvre , the New Imperial Otto

man Museum at Constantinople, and in the new and splendid Museum of the University

B unsha ed of Pennsylvania . (See Tablets and p

Tablets) .

“ LAND OF THE BOW in Middle Babylonia .

1 08

It was one of the two centres of the worship '

of - God the Sun Samas (the other being Sippar),

“ and his Temple E - babbarra the divinely ” brilliant house with its seven -staged tower E - dfir- ana (or Bet- dfir- ili) was one of the most of beautiful in the country . The dynasty Larsa

was the third and last independent kingdom . Its rulers claimed the title of “ King of Sumer ” and Akkad , as Ur and Isin had done .

“ . of LAWS See p . 99 also Code Khammurabi

. . v ol . H D B . Extra

of LAYARD , Sir Henry A . One the first and most

interesting explorers in Babylonia and Assyria . His work b egan in 1 845 and continued for

“ His many years . most interesting books , Nine veh and its remains ” and “ Discoveries in the ” ru ins of Nineveh and Babylon read like a

romance . Most of the magnificent specimens

of . Assyrian Art, found by him are in the Brit

- Mus . ; among them is the great human faced

r sphinx , declared by the A abs , when disco

“ ~ v to b e N im rod vered at Nine eh, and

still the wonder and admiration of thousands .

LEGENDS , Babylonian . Although no early copies of the text of the Creation Series have been

. not yet found , this is the case with other

Babylonian . legends . 1 09

el - Among the Tel Amarna Tablets , which

1 . C . date from the 5 th Century B , fragments

of copies of two Babylonian legends were found ; the one containing the story of Nergal and

E resh Ki al g , and the other inscribed with a part of the legend of Adapa and the South

. of Wind In Babylonia also, fragments legends

. . 2 1 00 2 200 dating about B C and , have been

s o- discovered . Among these are the called

uthaean C legend of Creation , and a new ver

sion of the Deluge Story ; also five new frag ments of the early Semitic legend of the Etana

myth assigned to a period before B . C. 2 200. “ The evidence furnished by recently disco

of vered Tablets , with regard to the date Baby

lonian legends in general , may be applied to the date of the Creation legends See King ’ s

“ ” Creation Tablets .

L EN O R MAN T F ra ngois A ' F rench Decipherer who

wrote a Sumerian Grammar in 1 873 . Up to

no this time , one had studied and translated

th or e Accadian Sumerian texts , with the ex

i n ce t o . 1 8 0 p of Prof Sayce , who in 7 , published

of a small inscription Dungi , thereby making

a distinct advance in the study of Sumerian . L enorm ant was also the first to discover the sacred literature of Babylonia and its three

fold divisions . I I O

‘ ir L ilitu LIL (Lil , , Ardat Lili) A night Spirit , a male ” “ of or female ghost . The Lilith the Jewish

“ - Rabbis, and the Jinn of the Arabs to day .

“ . d o LIONS Big g in Assyrian . There were two

t one varie ies ; without a mane , and the other,

W one ith of black thick hair . They were very common in Babylonia and Assyria in early

days, and were hunted by the Kings, and shot

as of with bow and arrows, the slabs Assur

- — i 668 6 26 . ban pal of Assyria (B . C . ) prove

Mu s . of The Brit . has a long series these sculp

tired slabs, representing lion hunts . See Guide .

. . 1 8 0 LOFTUS , W K Excavated in 5 , Warka (Erech)

N iffur of and visited , Ur and a number lesser

sites never before visited by Europeans .

of Khu rdistan . L URISTAN . A district north

- of MACE HEADS . The Brit . Mus . , has several these

of E annad u objects , dating back to the age ,

. . f . 8 00 o . 00 B C 45 , Sargon Akkad B C 3 , Manish

. . c e f 000 & . us o tusu, B C 3 , The these obj ects

is still unknown . They were inscribed in the

Sumerian language, and dedicated to some god ,

or recorded the dedication of a Temple . They

o were generally made of marble r limestone .

MAFK a of e the l nd the Malachit that is, o the Peninsula f Sinai . The Turquoise Mines

I I Z

of k and f high ran position , and their o fice was

hereditary . Their words were regarded with

reverence and awe by the King and his subj ects .

of They observed the position certain stars,

sun . the moon and , in order to cast horoscopes

of . The Magi , or Wise Men , the N T . were

“ as reported saying, We have seen His star in ” the East . They also interpreted dreams and derived omens from the m ovements of birds

and animals, and from eclipses and earthquakes .

Magic was divided into two heads ; Black and

White ; either spoken or written . There were

“ was charms and incantations, and what called

“ ” “ the power of the Name and the power of ” “ of the Book . See The Reports the Magicians ”

& c . . . Mus . by Mr R C Thompson of the Brit .

MAGICIANS Astrologers, Soothsayers .

of MANDA Nomads Kurdistan , Medes who con quered Ni neveh and threatened Babylon in the

time of Nabonidus .

- r M a nishtu - MAN ISHTU SU (o irba) , a very early

King of Kish or Kis and Lord of Marad . An Obelisk of his has lately been found by De

is of - Morgan at Susa . It a text some sixty nine

was columns written in Semitic Babylonian . He

contemporary with Urukagina . 1 1 3

MAPS Babylonian . The Brit . Mus . has an ancient

Tablet on which is a Map of the World , showing

the ocean surrounding the world , and marking

the position of Babylon on the Euphrates ; the

mountains at the source of the river ; the country

of Assyria ; the district of Bit- Ia kinu in Southern

Babylonia ; and the swamps at the mouth of the Euphrates :also another map inscribed with

of a part of the city Babylon , and marking the

of - position of the great gate the Sun god .

Lately , a very early inscription has been found

which is stated to be copied in the N e o- Baby

“ ” lonian age from an ancient document , con taining a description of the World with an accompanying map as it was known to an early

Babylonian tourist , who probably lived about

. . 2 000 . the age of Khammurabi , about B C

- Tel . MARAD . Now Ide A city of Kish , mentioned

i - on the Obelisk of Man shtu s u . The Kings of

“ - Marad , claimed the title of Nin Marad Lord of Marad ”

- MARTU . Sumaro Akkadian equivalent of Amurru

of Amorite . The land the Amorites was the

land in the west , Syria . f G. o MASPERO , Dr . , Professeur Assyriology at

of the College France , and author of many

in standard works on Babylonia and Egypt , cluding a “ Guide to the Cairo museum ” of 8 1 1 4

which he is the Head and Chief as well as of

the Department of Antiquities in Egypt .

M daa . of MEDES Manda a Nomads Kurdistan .

MEDIA . The country east of the Tigris . Its ancient

capital was Ecbatana . See Herodotus .

MEDIATION , Doctrine of. This idea of mediation

s in like the consciousness of , the conception

of of repentance , and the exercise priestly

absolution , must all be traced to Babylonia , where they were essential features of Babylonian

. t religion On the earlies seals , the Priest is represented as acting as a mediator between

the worshipper and his God ; and it is only through the priest that the layman can approach the Deity and be led into the presence of the

God . The Magician of ancient days, was the V : predecessor of the Priest , who became the ice

D eifi ed or f gerent of the God . The King Ponti f,

of took the place the God on earth , and there

fore as his adopted son and representative ,

’ acted in the God s place . See S . R . A . B .

“ MEDITERRANEAN , The , was called the Sea of ” the Setting Sun .

- - MELI SEKHU , The Father of Merodach Baladan .

of w as An inscription his found at Susa , dating

1 00 . about B . C . 4

1 1 6

and annihilator of Tiamat , the Spi rit of Evil

“ (Satan , the

A small representation of Marduk, which was

found by the German Expedition , at Babylon ,

shows the god clad in maj estic glory , with

mighty arm , and large eye and ear symbolic

of his sagacity . At his feet, is the vanquished

’ of Dragon (Tiamat) the primeval ocean . The

of Procession Street Marduk , was also found paved with large Slabs of stone on each of which was inscribed a prayer of N ebu cha d

“ nez zar 0 , concluding with the words, Lord ” Marduk , grant long life .

- See the Bas reliefs in the Brit . Mus . of Marduk

“ and Tiamat (from Nineveh) . See Bel and the ” — B . . . . P . O . T . Dragon , also Nebo ; also S R A

’ “ . D elitzs ch A . s K . E . W . , and Prof Babel and

1 . Bible p . 5 and notes

- MERODACH BALADAN . There were three Kings

of the First Babylonian Empire of this name .

- M ESIL IM . of Ma nis ht s u u . e Son , King of Kish Ther

“ ” Mes li is a macehead of his in the Brit . Mus . a m

is mentioned on the Obelisk of Manishtu - su as

“ ” s o his n .

of M ETALS . Silver and C opper are spoken in

or the early inscriptions . Magan Sinai , supplied

Milukha or s both , while Midian had its store

of alluvial gold . 1 1 7

METTAN I the river lands . The upper part of

- the Tigro Euphrates Valley , first known through the Tel el - Amarna Tablets of Tushratta King

of Mitani . This kingdom originally included the whole of the Steppe of Mesopotamia including

Nineveh , and the district called by the Assy rians “ Musri as well as a part of Cappadocia

as far as the Taurus . Harran was probably the

capital of the Kingdom .

M IN EAN KINGDOM was in South Arabia in B . C .

’ “ 2 000 . See Dr . Edward Glaser s History and ” Geography of Arabia published in 1 890 at

Berlin .

i MOABITE STONE or Mesha inscr ption , disco

1 868 . vered by Klein , at Dibon in

MONGOL . There was an early Mongolian civili i zat on o . t . 000 . in Southern Chaldea, prior B C 4

MONOTHEISM in Babylonia . In any treatment of

of - the religious beliefs the Semitic Babylonians , O f says Mr . King, the existence the Sumerians in cannot be ignored , for they profoundly flu nced the faith of the Semitic invaders before

whose onslaught the Empire fell . The reli gious beliefs of the Babylonians cannot be rightly understood unless at the outset this

foreign influence is duly recognized . Prof. Sayce 1 1 8 has shown that the tendency to Monotheism

B ab l o existed in Babylonia , and could the y niams have blotted out the past history of their country which prevented the rise of any

a thing like Monotheism , it might h ve ended

of ne o in the worship but o G d . But it was impossible to break with the past and the past was bound up with Polytheism , and with the

of existence great cities , each with its separate god and sanctuary , and the minor divinities who revolved round them . As it was , the language of the later inscriptions sometimes approaches very nearly that of the Mono

of theistic . For example the prayer Nebu chad nez z ar to Merodach ; and many early prayers to the Moon - god of Ur who is called “ Supreme in heaven and earth , omnipotent and Creator ” of all things .

Dr . Pinches has also shown that the chief divinities of the Babylonian pantheon are re

of d e ri solved into forms Merodach , and by p ving them of their attributes and power tended to reduce them into mere angel - ministers of a

“ God . Supreme He says , It will probably not be thought too venturesome to say that the

2 Monotheism of Abram (about B . C . 000) was possibly the result of the religious trend of

” “ ” “ his . thought in time See Articles Sin , Mero ”

B ...... dach . Also S . R . A . , K B C and P R B

6 (4 4 Seven hundred and thirty Tablets ,

were found in the Bank by Dr . Haynes . M URU . A city in South Babylonia (Addu) which

of of was the original seat the worship Hadad .

The site is still unknown .

MUSEUMS . The most important for Babylonian : and Assyrian Treasures , are the British

Museum ; The Louvre in Paris ; The Berlin

Museum ; The Imperial Ottoman Museum at

Constantinople ; The Museum at the Univer

s it of y Pennsylvania .

- MUSRI was the land to the north west of Syria,

“ ” M et a ni . beyond the Euphrates . See t

“ MYTHS , Babylonian and Assyrian . Religion has ” its Mythology, as well as its Theology , says

“ Prof. Sayce , and sometimes the Mythology has a good deal to do with moulding or even

creating its Theology . The Myths of Babylonia were intimately connected with the worship of

its gods . They embody religious beliefs and

practices ; they contain allusions to local cults ;

and above all , they not infrequently reflect the ” popular conception of the Divine . The literary

epics of ancient Babylonia , are but the final stage in the literary development of the tales

and myths of which they are composed . 1 2 1

of The Brit . Mus . has a large collection Mythological Tablets from the Royal Library

at Nineveh ; including the story of the Eagle ,

- the Serpent and the Sun god , and the Etana

of Z u legend , the legends the Gods , Ura the

- Plague God , the Fox and the Sun god , the

&c . Story of Gilgamesh ,

See S . G . L . Also Encyclopaedia Biblica , vol . 3 .

. on MYTHOLOGY Babylonian influence Hebrew , The Hebrew narratives of the Creation were

ultimately derived from Babylonia , and were not inherited independently by the Babylonians

s o and Hebrew from a com m n Semitic Ancestor .

The local Babylonian colouring of the stories , and the great age to which their existence can

to be traced , extending back the time of the Sumerian inhabitants of Mesopotamia are con

clu siv e evidence against the second alternative .

l of Creation legends, simi ar to those Babylonia ,

had existed among the Hebrews , for centuries

before the Exile . The many points of identity between the Hebrew and Babylonian versions

of the Creation , prove the early period at which the borrowing from Babylonian sources must have taken place and the striking difference between the Biblical and the known Babylonian

versions of the legends, prove that the Exilic

- and post Exilic Jews, must have found ready 1 2 2

f to their hands , ancient Hebrew versions o the

stories , and that the changes they introduced ,

must in the main , have been confined to details of arrangement and to omissions necessitated by their own more spiritual conceptions and

beliefs . See P . O . T . and S . A . C . T .

N AB O N N ID US N arbonidos - -id , or (Nabu na Nabu — of 8 . is glorious) King Babylon B . C . 5 5 5 5 3 He was a great Antiquary and restorer of

Temples, but a bad Ruler . He left the charge

of his kingdom and command of his Army ,

almost entirely to his son Belshazzar . Many

inscriptions of the reign of this King exist , and

we are able says Dr . Pinches to gain

from them , an excellent idea of the state of

the country , and the historical events of this

of important period . The name and position

Chro his father IS uncertain . The Babylonian

nicle in the sixth year of his reign , gives us an account of the Operations of A styages King of

of the Manda (Medes) , against Cyrus King

Anshan , and its disastrous results ; for he was

made prisoner , Ecbatana sacked , and the spoil

brought to Anshan . In a cylinder inscription , N ab onnid us tells us how he was unable to

out of carry the instructions his god , Merodach, revealed to him in a dream to restore the

Temple of Sin at Harran , owing to the strength

1 24

restoration of the Temple of the Sun - god Sha

i i mah , and the nscr ptions of Sargon I and

- s on Naram Sin his , Kings of Babylon (about

. of B C . found in the foundations the

Temple of E - barbar ra at Agade and the in scription of Naram - Sin the original Founder of

of - od the Temple the Sun g at Sippar, which he tells us “ had not been seen for 3 200 years thereby giving u s some correct idea of the of I date Sargon . of Akkad . By neglecting to perform the ceremonies and Temple p roc es

of sions the gods for some years , he fell into

- disfavour with the Priest hood , and by their w influence with the people as well , hich in

time led to his downfall , and the end of native

rule in Babylonia .

1 The Babylonian Chronicles for his 7th year ,

give a full account of the revolt at Akkad ,

Sippar, and Babylon , and how Cyrus entered ” “ N ab onnid us the Capital without fighting . , fled

B orsi a to pp , but afterwards yielded to Cyrus ,

who gave him Carmania to dwell in , and there

he died .

N AB O P O L ASSAR (N abfi- abla- usur) P robably a Chal

of of dian general the last King Assyria , Assur

bani - pal ; and first King of the last Babylonian

C axares of Dynasty . He, with y King Media ,

60 . was invaded Assyria in B . C . 9 He father 1 2 5

one of Nebuchadnezzar II , and was of the grea

in test Kings who had ruled Babylon . He was

Chaldia n the Founder of the new Empire .

- A . s o NAR M SIN The n of Sargon of Accad . He

“ ” . 0 . of reigned about B . C 3 75 A stela Victory bearing an inscription of Naram - Sin has lately

been found at Susa by M . De Morgan , besides other inscriptions now in the Museum of the m Louvre , which prove that he made any mili

one tary expeditions , including against Magan (the Sinaitic peninsula) where he defeated the

Lord of that region . His successor to the King dom of Accad was B inga ni his s on) who

w a s also a Semite , but Sumer remained Sume D rian , and there were probably Sumerian y

nasties again after the Sargon Dynasty, ruling

both Akkad and Sumer . The West Semitic Dynasty beginning with Sumu - abi was preceded by the Semitic Dynasty of Isin with sixteen

2 2 - D Kings for 5 5 years , and the Sumerian y nasty of Ur with five Kings for 1 1 7 years

2 making together 34 5 years , but the gap between this and B ingani is still unfilled further ex

plorations will no doubt supply the missing links .

’ The date of Naram - Sin s reign is proved by

of the cylinder Nabonidus in Brit . Mus . See

Sargon and Nabonidus .

N AHAR AIM N aharaina , (Mitanni) A district in 1 2 6

Eu hra Northern Babylonia , between the rivers p ” “ of tes and Tigris, the Musri Assyrians

Mesopotamia ; the Aram - N aha ra im of the H e

N aharina of brews , the the Egyptians , and ” also the Khattina “ the Hittite land of the

Assyrians .

- NAHR MALKA royal river . A canal between

the Tigris and Euphrates .

- NAHR SHARRI . A famous canal in Babylonia

connecting the Tigris with the Euphrates .

- NANNAR . The name of the Moon god of Ur,

and who was known at Haran , by the name

“ ” - of Sin . The cult of the Moon god was one

of the most popular in Babylonia . He was a male Deity and had the chief seat of his wor

“ ship at Uru , the Biblical Ur of the Chaldees

of The Mountain of Sinai , and the Desert Sin , of both bear his name . The spouse Sin or

“ ” - of Nannar, was Nim Uruwa the Lady Ur .

is He thought to be identical with Anu , as

“ ” “ ” “ he is called Great Anu , the Lord , the

” “ Prince of the Gods , who in Heaven alone ” “ n is supreme He was also Father Nan ar ,

“ ” of “ - Lord Ur , Lord of the Temple Gis nu ” ” “ gala , Lord of the shining crown . He is

“ also said to be the mighty steer, whose horns

are strong, whose limbs are perfect, who is

1 2 8 his pride ; and there is hardly a Temple in Babylonia where bricks have not been found

s o bearing the stamp of Nebuchadnezzar, the n

N ab O olassa r . . . 6 1 of p He died B C 5 , leaving

- his crown to his son Evil Merodach . Nothing has yet been discovered in the many documents of his reign which have been found , regarding

r his dreams , the golden calf which he is e

s et of ported to have up in the plains Dura , or his sudden illness . His inscriptions and tablets , show him to have been a man of considerable strength of mind and one who was pious , and

“ an intense lover of his city and country . His

“ ” prayers , addressed to Merodach THE God ) rise , says Prof. Sayce , almost to the height of a passionate faith in the absolute goodness and ” mercy of God . The following is an extract :“ 0 from them Merodach my lord , the Wise one of the Gods , thou art from everlasting, lord of all that exists . I the Prince who obeys

rk thee am the wo of thy hands , thou hast created me and hast entrusted to me the sovereignty over multitudes of men ; as my own dear life do I love the height of thy court ; among all mankind have I not built a city of the earth fairer than thy city of Babylon ? Let me love thy supreme lordship , let the fear of thy Divinity exist in my heart and give what seemeth good unto thee , since thou maintain 1 29

“ - est my life See S . R . A . B . also India House ” Inscription .

God NERGAL . The of Death , War, and Disease .

He was worshipped at Cuthah .

. of NIEBUHR, C Visited the ruins Persepolis in

1 6 of 7 5 and copied a large number inscriptions .

1 6 In 7 5 , he also visited Hillah , which he iden ifi d t e with the city of Babylon . He also visited

the mounds near the Tigris Opposite Mosul ,

and identified the site of Nineveh .

- of NIMROD Nin Marad . Lord Marad) . The O . T .

“ s on of Cush Thought by some to be the

same as Bel Merodach , the word coming through

the old form of Marad . This identification is confirmed by the curious fact revealed in the of Epic , that Gilgames was a native Marad ,

of and thus in the Opinion some Assyriologists ,

to we have an additional proof, tending con

. s a firm his identity with Nimrod But others y,

he had nothing to do with Gilgames . The

“ ” mighty hunting before the Lord , refers to the

fight between Merodach and Tiamat , the great

e Dragon of Chaos and disorder, whom he n w trapped , conquered , and sle ; thereby winning

the throne of the Kingdom of Heaven , and laying the Universe under an everlasting debt

to him . See P . O . T . 1 30

N IMR O UD N im rfid Calah) twenty miles south

of . Nineveh Explored by Layard . See Calah .

NINA or Ninni Ishtar) The Goddess of the

of E - - Temple mish mish at Nineveh . Also a

city in South Babylonia .

now Kou u n ik NINEVEH . Nina , Ninus , ( y j ) , a very ancient city which became the great Capital

o of Assyria . It is not known by whom r when

it was founded , but it was in existence at least

. 000 . 60 or 606 B . C 3 It fell in 7 , when it was

or taken by the Manda Medes , and in B . C .

0 1 4 was forgotten , when Xenophon encamped of under the shadow its ruins , and knew not — ! what they were Botta, the French Consul at

1 8 2 Mosul in 4 , was the first to begin excava

tions at Nineveh ; and Layard succeeded him

1 8 his R assam in 45 and active assistant , in

1 8 of 5 3 , discovered the Library Nineveh, with i ts multitude of clay Tablets .

of The destruction Nineveh, and downfall of

the Assyrian Empire , was, according to a Stela of N abonnidus ( now at Constantinople) wrought by the vengeance of Merodach the God of

on of of Babylon , account the besieging his

. D iodorus Siculus city by Sennacherib , relates

was to that there a legend , (according an oracle) that Nineveh could not be ta ken until the river

1 3 2

N iffur N ufar NIPPUR, , Calneh) A very ancient and important city in Northern Babylonia and

of the oldest centre the God Bel , the remains of whose Temple (E-Kur) has been found and

of explored by Drs . Peters and Haynes the of University Pennsylvania Expedition . Thou

of to 2 000 sands Tablets , anterior have been

found and are being deciphered by Prof. Hil

. othc r precht and Dr Clay, and American scho

’ “ ” . u lars See Dr . Peters Nipp r .

N ISR O CK Asshur the great God of the As

syrians . See Ashir .

f N IT CR IS . o O A Queen Babylon , mentioned by

H r s of 11 e odO tti and also in Tablets Cyrus .

N abonnid us She was perhaps, the mother of ,

not and of Egyptian descent . She is to be confound e d with the Queen N ita k ert of the

Sixth Egyptian Dynasty (3 347 B . C . ) mentioned

in the Turin Papyrus and Manetho .

ow o a diz . n N ITSAR . Nizir (n R w n ) The mountai

- on in North east Assyria, which , according to

was the Deluge Tablets, the Ark grounded . It in the country called L ul ubi or L uluwi by the

Assyrians, and Lulu in the Vannic inscriptions , which is made the equivalent of the Assyrian

t e . . Urartu , h Hebrew Ararat See Ararat I 3 S

of . . of re re NOAH the O T history the Flood , is p

the -N a istim sented in Babylonian Epic , by Utu p

or Xis uthros of (Deukalion the Greeks) . He was

of a worshipper of Ea Yau Jah) Eridu , and his faithfulness to the worship of the old

of Deity was repaid by Ea , warning him the

coming flood and thus saving his life . There

are two cylinder seals in the Brit . Mus . which are supposed to represent the Chaldaean Noah

Xisuthr s . in the Ark . See o also B . M Guide .

- B ed aw NOMADS Wanderers , Shepherds , like the y

“ of - of or N om ads = the to day . Land Nod

“ ’ ” Desert or No mans land .

N O WAWIS -shahrein , now Abu , both Arabic names

for Eridu . On the Eastern edge of the Arabian

o Desert n the west Side of the Euphrates . See

Eridu .

fish- who out of OANNES . The god Ea, came the

Persian Gulf. See Ea .

of Shalm aneze r . OBELISK Black, II in the Brit

Mus . See Jehu .

A D 1 20 . . ODORIC . A Wandering Friar, who in 3

visited Persia and Persepolis . He has been called

“ ” out of the first voice in the dark , because

“ ” “ the dark ages , he saw that light from the

o East must come by knowledge f the past , 1 34

which could only be got by education and free

dom of thought .

OFFERINGS Babylonian . See Sacrifice .

OMENS . The Babylonians predicted events from

the Moon , Sun , Stars , Clouds , Storms, Earth

quakes, Eclipses , Births, and many things in

Nature . Among the Tablets found in the Royal li

brar of - - y Assur bani pal at Nineveh , were many series of documents which relate exclusively to

the Astrology of the ancient Babylonians ; who

m odifi catlons in turn had borrowed it with ,

i . from the Sumer an Among these , was the series

‘ “ ” which was of commonly called the Day Bel , said to have been written in the time of Sargon I

(B . C . The profession of deducing omens of from daily events , reached to a pitch great

importance in the last Assyrian Empire . The of Heads the Astrological profession , were men of high rank and position and their office was

hereditary . Under the chief Astrologer were a

number of officials . The reports of the Meso

potamian Astrologers, prove , says Mr . R . C .

n Thompso , that the writers deduced omens from all the celestial bodies known to them ; but it is clear that the Moon was the chief s ource from which omens were derived the

1 36

to to be floated down the river Bassorah . Owing ” to “ sheer carelessness and mismanagement the

of rafts were overturned , and the whole the col

’ of O ert l lections pp (and also P aces , from Khor

sabad) were lost in the river .

ORIGIN of DEATH . The Babylonian legend of ” “ Adapa and his j ourney to the sky and that of “ Etana and the Eagle are attempts to

of explain the existence Death . They are like ,

and yet unlike, the O . T . story . Adapa the son

of the Creator Ea (of Eridu) , was endowed by

him with wisdom and knowledge ; but the gift

of immortality had been denied him . Anu the

God of ff the Sky, o ered him the food and

of water life , but Adapa refused it by the

a of comm nd Ea , so remained mortal , and it was never in his power a gain to eat of the

tree of life ; but for his refusal of the food of

immortality, Ea bestowed upon him dominion

and power, and he became the father of man

kind . See S . G . L .

ORNAMENTS and JEWELLERY . Necklaces made

of gold or precious stones were common . The Kings are often found wearing one in the form

of a Maltese cross , which , like the Egyptian

of . Ank , was the symbol life Seals and finger

or rings , often inscribed engraved with the

of figures beasts, birds , reptiles , palm branches , I S7

and a number of mystic symbols bracelets

of and chains gold were worn , and girdles of of bronze and other metals . Charms made gold ,

silver and other metals , were commonly worn

by all classes of the peopl e .

. n ORONTES A river in Norther Syria , mentioned

- - . 8 6 in B C . 7 by Assur bani pal King of Assyria ,

and many other Kings .

’ Wild (Re em Ur us) It is depicted in bas relief at thc:gates of Ishtar (in the ruins of

Babylon) , through which the Procession Street w of Marduk led . These ild beasts were often

not of hunted by the Kings, only Babylonia ,

but also Egypt, when they came north on an

. old expedition They were , in days very com

mon , like the onager , but both are now almost

extinct .

PALACES of the Kings of Babylonia and Assyria

Khors ab a d have been found at , Telloh , Baby

lon and Nineveh .

PALESTINE . Syria and the Sinaitic Peninsula , were Babylonian Provinces in the time of Sargon

f . f o . 800 . o Akkad , B C 3 The name Palestine is due to a late Greek extension of the mean

ing of Philistia , and applies to the eastern Mediterranean Coast from the Herm on south 1 3 8

’ “ wards . See Patons Early History of Syria ” and Palestine .

L w PA M . This tree as very common in Chaldaea and produced almost everything required by

for the people food and clothing .

PANTHEON Babylonian and Assyrian . See H . D . B .

extra vol .

P ASAR GAD CE (now Meshed - i- Murgab) Cyrus the Great had a Palace there and was buried in a

monumental tomb near by .

P ardés u of God PARADISE . , the domain the

Esu or of . ) A garden Fertile tract land , Eden ” “ Holy Grove of Eridu

PARSU Persia .

- PARTHIAN or First Grze co Persian Empire . It

was Cti lasted four hundred years . Its Capital

on siphon , the Tigris .

E - PAT SI, Priest Kings or Governors (Issaku Chief) Vassal- Kings of small states in Babylonia before

of the time Khammurabi , who united the whole

country under one Capital Babylon .

old . PEHLEVI . A dialect of the Persian language The Pehlevi inscriptions are written in a script

1 40

PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS are cut on the rocks of Mount Elwe nd near Hamadan and the Rock

of Behistun and other places .

of . 11 PERSIAN KINGS Babylon Cyrus , was the

. 8 . first and began his reign in B C . 5 3 He was

w s on 11 who follo ed by his Cambyses , was

succeeded by his kinsman Darius, followed by

s on . his Xerxes, and grandson Artaxerxes

. of PERSEPOLIS The Capital ancient Persia, (Parsua) captured and partly destroyed by Alexander of the Great . A large number inscri ptions have

been found there during the last hundred years .

They generally are in three languages , namely

- N eo . in Persian , Susian , and Babylonian Rich , who visited the site in 1 8 2 1 gives a graphic

account of the ruins . The Louvre Museum is rich in Persian texts of Darius and Xerxes from

Persepolis .

P . of PETERS , Revd . Dr . . , New York , was the J — Director of the 1 888 1 897 Expedition to Nip

“ ” pur ; and the author of Nippur , a most inte

resting book on the work .

PIR- N AP ISTIM (the Chaldaean Noah) This name Ut has been read in various ways ; , or Utu

napistim appears to be the most probable . 1 4 1

. t PLACE VICTOR , A French architec , of great

1 8 2 skill , and Consul at Mosul about 5 .

- PLAGUE GOD . Tablets inscribed with legends

concerning this Babylonian god , are in the

M us . of Brit . All the ravages disease were b e

lie v - ed to be his handy work . Some of the Tablets have holes bored in them for a cord to pass through and allow them to be hung up at the entrance of a house to keep off the

plague .

POETRY . There are many examples : such as the Acrostic Psalms of Babylon and the Peni

te ntial of to Litanies Chaldaea , the Hymn Nebo ,

of the Hymn from Ur, the Hymn Khammu

’

i & c . rab , the Epics of Gilgames , See Sayce s “ Gifford Lectures ”

of . w as POPULATION , The Primitive , Babylon It

called Akkadian by Hincks ; Sumerian by O p

pert . They spoke an agglutinative language , of similar to that the Turks, Finns , and Japa

nese , and were the founders of Babylonian

- Civilization in the Tigro Euphrates Valley .

POSTAL SERVICE . This probably was originated

by Sargon of Akkad (B . C . and in the s of early day the First Babylonian Dynasty ,

there was a regular system , and letters were 1 4 2

probably carried from city to city by “ Mes ” s en ers of g , and a special service swift runners was no doubt established for bearing the royal

and to letters despatches from one place another .

to PRAYERS . We have handed down us some

“ Babylonian prayers, such as a prayer to any ” God prayer of Nebuchadnezzar II ; prayer of

“ N abonnid us ; and the beautiful Evening prayer ” to Bel . See Hymns .

- PRIEST KINGS Patesi . The Temples were served

of . by an army priests At the head , came the Patesi or High Priest who in the days of Baby

lonian History performed the functions of a King . But the Patesi was essentially the Vicegerent

of the God . The God delegated his powers to

to him and allowed him exercise them on earth .

was of It the doctrine priestly mediation , carried

to its logical conclusion . Only through the priest

could the Deity be approached , and in the of absence the Deity, the High Priest took his

place . At Babylon , the divine rights were con ferred by an act of adoption the Vicegerent of “ Bel , by taking the hand and becoming

s on of God exer the the , acquired the right to

his cise sovereignty over men . From the outset , the Babylonian monarchy was essentially theo

cratic ; the King was simply the High Priest of in a new form . But with the rise Semitic

1 44

of of o an interpreter the will Heaven , and ne

or of who counselled foretold the destinies men . ” The “ Holy of Holies in the great Temple of

Babylon , where Bel THE Lord) uttered his ” was “ oracles , known as the house of prophecy .

See S . R . A . B .

PROPHETS College of. We are told that it was

“ ” by order of the College of Prophets (is ipp uti) that Assur- bani -pal purified the shrines of B a

b lon of y after the capture the city , in order that its “ wrathful gods and angry goddesses” should be “ appeased by prayers and penitential psalms and that the daily sacrifices in the

ff . Temples , might be o ered once more See

S . R . A . B .

of PROPHETESSES . The employment women in

wa s the Temple services , peculiarly character

istic of . was Babylonia It a woman only, who was privileged to enter the secret shrine of

- Bel Merodach at Babylon . Unmarried women o were consecrated , not only to Istar, but als

- od to the Sun g , and like the priests , formed a

corporate community . In the lower world of Hades the home of the Black Art there

were said to be female , as well as male , sooth

sayers .

’ ” - f il er 111. o PUL P filu Tiglath P es King Assyria, 1 45

. 2 . o B C . 7 9 How it was that this King g t the — of P filu . . name , says Dr Pinches is not known

The name only occurs in Babylonian documents . It may have been his official name in Babylon or it may have been his original name or it may have been given him by the compiler of the Babylonian Canon of Kings as a scornful expression as the word may be read either

“ ” bfilu or pfilu and means the wild animal

E H Q UD S Kadish on the river Orontes . A city

of the Hittites, frequently mentioned in the

wars of the Egyptian Kings .

QUE Eastern Cilicia . This district in mentioned

in the Wars of Sargon 11 King of Assyria .

- RAB SARIS . An Assyrian Court Dignitary or ffi Military o cer .

- HAKEH ffi RAB S . An Assyrian Military o cer , who

probably acted as interpreter to the Army .

- R N IR AR I 1. . . 1 0 . AMMAN , King of Assyria , B C 3 5

R ASSAM HO R MUZ D . of old , A descendant the

’ L a ard s Chaldeans, and Sir Henry y chief lieu

8 2 K u tenant . In 1 5 he began to excavate at

un ik y j , under Sir Henry Rawlinson , where he found the Palace and Record Chamber of Assur

- of bani pal , in which were hundreds Tablets ;

1 0 1 46

of and amongst them , the Epics the Creation

w s and Deluge . He a also the finder of the cylinder-inscriptions of N abonnid us at Abu Habbah ; and elsewhere an inscription accom o panying a portrait f Khammurabi .

1 8 1 0 1 8 RAWLINSON Sir Henry, Born , and in 3 3 f went to Persia , with other British o ficers , to

reorganize the Persian Army . It was while

his was engaged in this work, that attention drawn to the inscriptions on the rocks of Mount

Elwend h at Hamadan , which he copied wit

1 8 his a great care in 3 5 , and began work as

of on decipherer cuneiform , and as time went ,

n His became o e of the m ost successful . grea

test, and most valuable work, was the copying

of of on k the great inscription Darius , the Roc

of B ehistfin 1 8 1 8 s , in the years 3 5 and 3 7 . Thi was a task of immense difficulty and actual

of to risk his life owing its position , but he not only overcame it s o as to take copies of

a s all the inscriptions, but also to t ke squeeze

1 8 6 of the whole lot . In 4 , he published his ” “ Memoirs on the Ancient Persian Inscriptions and so attained an imperishable fame in Oriental

u o . research . See Behist n , Hincks , Cuneif rm

REEDS in Babylonia grew to an immense height

h ' h y the canals and rivers, and were filled wit

1 48

form it altogether . The Sumerian element in

the population was never extirpated , and pro bably remained comparatively little affected by ffi the Semitic o cial influence . For a full account

’ of “ ff this subj ect, see Prof. Sayce s Gi ord Lec

” ’ “ u ineh s t res delivered in 1 902 ; Dr . P e Reli

” ’ gion of Babylonia and Assyria , and Mr . King s

“ Mus . (of Brit . ) Babylonian Religion also the

of . . . article in the extra vol . H D B

of RESEN . One the cities of Nimrod in Assur, f mentioned in the O . T . but o which nothing

r is known fo certain .

RESURRECTION . Babylonian and Assyrian Belief of in a The horizon the Babylonians was ,

speaking generally, bounded by death . Their

on thoughts were fixed this world , not like the

— u m m m i Egyptians o the next . No trace of u

“ fi cation is found in Babylonia , though a corpse ” on being anointed for death , is met with a old Tablet ; and the Babylonian hymns, describe ” “ “ who Asari , or Merodach as the God raises ” the dead to life . Cremation seems to have

been the usual practice . Theories about the

future , regarding an invisible world and a second

life , had no interest to the practical character

of . re the Babylonians The small clay cone ,

cently acquired by the Brit . Mus . seems to be 1 49

to . an exception this The inscription , entreats that “ whosoever shall find the coffin in which

the cone is enclosed , may leave it in its place and do it no inj ury and concludes with this

“ blessing on the finder May his name con

inue t to be blessed in the world above , and

w his in the world belo , may departed spirit ” drink clear water . See S . R . A . B .

1 8 . RICH , C . J . Born 7 7 He had an extraordinary gift for language which he loved to cultivate

k of of and ma e the most in life . At the age

- twenty four, he was appointed the President of

the East India Company, at Baghdad , and in 1 8 1 1 made his first visit to the ruins of ancient

Babylon , and at once there was awakened in

him a new passion , which grew year by year . He s et to work with pick and Spade on the m ounds of Babylon , and published his report

1 8 20 thereof. Then in he visited the great of mounds Nineveh , and the following year

went to Persepolis . All the inscriptions he had

secured came to London , and he has the honour of being the first collector of Antiquities for

. . . 1 8 8 the Brit Mus (if not for Europe) In 4 , a

case three feet square , enclosed all that was then known of Assyria and Babylonia ! N ow

’ see Dr . Wallis Budge s Guide to the B abylo nian and Assyrian Antiquities l ! 1 5 0

God of . i RIMMON Hadad , the Air He s iden tified with Merodach as “ Rimmon is Merodach

” “ of flo - rain . In the od story it is stated Rimmon ” thundered in the midst of it a dark cloud

R IM - SIN . An Elamite Ruler of the dynasty of Larsa in the time of Khammurabi and Sam

s uil una s on who his , defeated him and over ” threw his “ Kingdom of Sumer and Akkad and

st firmly establishe d the I Babylonian dynasty .

of RITUAL the Babylonians and Assyrians . There are many points of similarity between the Baby of lonian ritual and arrangements the Temple ,

and that which existed among the Israelites . F or a full and interesting account of this sub

’ “ ” ect s ee ff . j , Prof. Sayce s Gi ord Lectures

RIVERS of Babylonia . Four rivers originally, the

K ar fin K erkha Tigris , Euphrates , and , flowed

of . into the Persian Gulf. See the seals Ea The Babylonian river which went out of Eden and

was which parted and became four heads , the ” of “ Gulf Persia , known then as the salt river

into which four rivers from the North ran .

of ROADS Chaldaea The , were the rivers and canals , on which all the ancient cities and towns were

situated , and were the means of social and

commercial intercourse throughout the Empire .

1 5 2

the Babylonians. There was no Sabbath on

of its the first day the month , place was taken

’ - ff o by free will o erings t the Moon . See Sayce s “ Religion of the Babylonian

SAB ITU . who A Princess helped Gilgamesh . See Epic .

“ SACRED BOOKS of Babylonia and Assyria . It

was . . L enorm ant , says Prof Sayce , Mons who first discovered this sacred literature and drew attention to it and characterised its several

has divisions . Every organized religion its sacred

books . They bind a religion to its past . In

matters of controversy ; appeal can be made

to them as the ultimate authority . Babylonia

ffi s o possessed an organized o cial religion , had

its ff sacred books . They di ered essentially from

e of the sacr d books ancient Egypt , which were intended for the guidance of the disembodied

soul in its j ourney through the other world .

The old Egyptian lived for the future life ,

rather than for the present ; the interest and

on cares of the Babylonian , the contrary, were

centred in this present life . The other world ,

of . was for him , a land shadow and darkness It was in this world that he was rewarded or

so punished for his deeds , what he needed from

his sacred books, was guidance in this world ,

not in the world beyond the grave . I S3

of The sacred books Babylonia, fall into three classes

s o- or First . The called Magical text Incan

r was ta ions , the obj ect of which to preserve

the faithful from disease and mischief ; to ward off death and to defeat the arts of the witch

and sorcerer .

Second . Hymns to the Gods .

Third . Penitential Psalm s .

of In the older incantations , the gods the ffi o cial cult are absent , and their place is taken by the spirits ( z i) or ghosts (lil) of early Sume

rian belief. The oldest incantations which have

come down to us , are considered to have been

its composed at Eridu , in the days of Sume

rian animism . Magic, which in ancient times of had taken the place religion , was in later

of times , taken under the protection the State ,

and became part of its religious system . See

S . R . A . B .

SACRED CHARACTERS of the numbers three

. 1 6 1 8 . and seven . See pp 3 ; 7

SACRIFICE , Babylonian . In the Eleventh Tablet

of of the Gilgames series, containing the story

the Flood ; we read that U t- N apiétim (the

“ ” Babylonian Noah) on coming out of the ship

after the subsidence of the waters ; poured out 1 54 a libati on and made an offering to the Deity on the peak of the mountain (Nizir) and “ the gods smelled a savour, the gods smelled a sweet savour , the gods gathered like flies over ” of the sacrifice . Babylonian sacrifices were : many kinds Human , domestic animals , first

&c . fruits, incense ,

of Human sacrifices, and especially infants and the fi rs t-born of man were in the early days of Babylonian history (as in all ancient religious systems of the old world) included among the sacrifices deemed acceptable to Heaven .

Prof. Sayce long ago asserted this and the evidence of Archaeology has proved that he was right . The Stela of the Vultures of the time of

E -anna u - r ur d Priest King of Shi p la (B . C . 5 000) represents to u s a sort of wicker-work cage filled with captives who are waiting to be put to death by the mace of the King . And in Egypt and Palestine recent excavations have also abundantly proved this . In the former country foundation -sacrifices have been dis

on old covered Temple sites, and in the latter country human remains have been found under the walls of Gezer and Taanach . At the former ” site under the ! High Place were discovered a cemetery of infants buried in jars . In later times, human sacrifices ceased to be practised

1 5 6

been found at Nippur and elsewhere . They include bricks, door sockets , and cylinders . His s on - , Naram Sin , who added Elam to his already

u large kingdom , succeeded him . The Brit . M s .

’ has of inclu inscribed obj ects Sargon s reign , ding the i mportant Astrological Tablet relating of to events therein . The early date B . C . 3 800 as stated by Nabonidus the last King of B a bylon an d clever antiquary to be the correct one aceor ding to the foundation deposits of the Temple of E-Babbara at Sippar which he himself found and read , is believed by many to one be the right . They base their Opinions on the fact that other dates given by him are proved from other sources to be correct ,

“ ” for ( Khammurabi instance , who is now known

to B . 2 00 have lived about C . 0 ) others dispute

of this , and arguments for the reduction Sar ’ gon s date are brought forward ; but the emi

. Mus . nent Assyriologist Mr . King of the Brit says in his most valuable and highly interesting ” new book “ Egypt and Western Asia (page 1 86)

“ We may accept the date (3 800) given by Nabonidus for Sargon and his s on Naram - Sin as approximately accurate, and this is the Opini on of the maj ority of writers on early Babylonian ” History . The quotation referred to is found in an inscription of Nabonidus on a large barrel I S7

cylinder which was found with others at Sip para in 1 88 1 by R ass am and is now in the “ of Brit . Mus . It reads the foundation stone Naram - Sin which no King before me had found

2 00 for 3 years , (this) Shamash the Great Lord ” of E - barra showed to me The recent explorations at Niffer fully cor

roborate the early date of Sargon of Akkad . Sumerian Rulers of States before Sargon of Akkad are as yet not known s o far as their

u s names and number have come down to , but there were possibly Ki ngs (as Opposed to

ates is the P ) of Lagas and Kis . L ugal - Zaz z esi and probably Al usarsid were

- pre Sargonic , and some others of doubtful date . Sargon of Akkad who was the s on of Itti - Bel claimed to be of royal family and so to have

inherited the Kingdom by right . It is quite possible there was an historical foundation of

- some sort for the birth legend . See S . A . C . I .

of A ss ria 2 2 — S ARGON . King y (7 705 ) He formerly was Tartan in the Assyrian Army (the Ark eanos

of Ptolemy) . He seems to have been of a very to overbearing nature, and have been con

ti uall n y at war with his neighbours . He was

one of probably assassinated by his soldiers .

R ZEC . 1 8 S A , E de , excavated Telloh in 77, in a 1 5 8

very systematic way and his results were good

in consequence .

or Graeco- SASSANIAN Second Persian Empire , — . . 2 2 6 1 from A D 7 4 .

’

. . of SAYCE , The Revd . Dr A . H Queen s College

. f Oxford Professor o Assyriology at Oxford .

- a The well known Oriental Schol r, and author

of s cien many highly interesting, popular, and tifi c works on the History and Language of

old is the Nations of the near East . He one of

“ the original founders of the Biblical Archaeo ” logical Society , and is an active member of

many learned societies in England and abroad .

- to SCAPE GOAT . The Babylonian prayed Mero dach that his sins might be carried away by

a bird or fish ; and the ritual of the Temple ordered that a goat (sikk u) was to be driven into the desert s o that it might carry away with it the sins and sickness of those w ho let

it loose . See 0 . T . Azazel .

As s rio of . SCHIEL Father V . Paris An eminent y

logist ; more especially known for his decipher of ment the inscriptions found at Susa .

- SCHOOL BOOKS of Ancient Babylonia . A quan

- s tity of copy books , pelling books , and arith

metic books with complete multiplication tables ;

1 60

ning of the second dynasty . There were eleven of 68 Kings this Dynasty which lasted 3 years , beginning with Ilum a- ilu who was contempo ra neou s with Samsu -iluna the s on of Hammu

- E a . rabi , and ending with gamil See K . C . B . K . “ ” Also First Dynasty .

sab ru SEER, (Babylonian ) was distinct from the

“ ” who was Prophet , the speaker who declared

of or the will the gods, the fate that was

decreed for man . The Seer, through visions

futu re x m ade and trances, revealed the , known

to him .

on SELEUCIA was a city the Tigris , founded by

of Seleucus , the favourite General Alexander

of the Great, and who became the ruler the Eastern Empire known as the “ Seleucid era ”

. . 1 2 in B C 3 , which lasted a hundred and fifty

el eucidm . years . The S were Syrians

- SEMIRAMIS Assyrian Sum m u ramat) . The Queen of Ninus the alleged founder of Nineveh as men

tiO ned by D iodorus and Herodotus . She is thought by some to be the Queen of some

King of the first Babylonian Dynasty . See

- S um m u ramat .

of SEMITES . The original home this great race ,

was , it is thought, Northern Arabia , probably 1 6 1

not far from the lower Euphrates . They were

c of of ertainly nomadic origin , and the first all the Semitics to form fixed settlements were

the Babylonians . It is in Northern Babylonia of that the Semite is first heard , with cer

tainty . Sargon of Akkad was the first Semitic

Ruler . The Sabaeans, Minaeans , Assyrians, Ara

m aeans s , Canaanites , Hebrews and Abyssinian ,

b e were all Semites by descent . The Semites

liev ed in a God , in whose image , man had

or been created . They worshipped the Baalim Lords who were like the men whom they pro tected and whose creators they were believed

to be . See Sayce A . C . I .

S EMITIC LANGUAGE . The Parent Semitic lan it guage says Prof. Sayce , is lost , but must have stood to the Semitic languages as Latin

stands to the Roman languages . The primitive

- Semites were illiterate, Semitic Babylonian

cuneiform was borrowed from the Sumerians .

K E . S EN ER H . See Larsa

f — . o 8 1 . S ENNACHERIB King Assyria B . C . 705 6

was Son of Sargon . His first campaign to Baby

lon , which he entered , and seized all the trea

- sures of Merodach baladan . He made expedi

- K ass fi tions also to the mountain land of the , and other tribes including the Khatti of Northern

I I 1 62

Syria . He tells us how he removed Sidqaia Zedekiah) King of the city of Isqalluna (Askelon) and brought him to the land of

no subm 1ss w Assur , because he was t e to his

z i yoke . Ha aq au (Hezekiah) of the land of the Y au daa ews) who had also not submitted to

U rsalim m u his yoke, he shut up in his city of , (Jerusalem) like a caged -bird and caused him to pay a heavy tribute in gold and silver . Sennacherib seems to have besieged Jerusa lem and Lachish twice , as the accounts given

B eross us r by , Herodotus , and Josephus , appea f to two of to re er campaigns . The story the

fi eld - ff t mice given by Herodotus , di ers from tha

B erossus who given by as quoted by Josephus,

“ n says , God sent a pestilential distemper upo

’ one Sennacherib s army, whereby hundred and ei ht five one g y thousand , were destroyed in ” night .

Besides these expeditions to Palestine , Sen nacherib also invaded Elam and Egypt . He was assassinated by one of his sons in the

68 . year B . C . 0 of The Brit . Mus . has a series sculptures ,

of describing the siege, assault , and capture

Lachish , by Sennacherib ; and also a clay Tablet inscribed with a chronicle or list of the prin cipal events which took place in Babyloni a 668 h and Assyria , between B . C . 744 and ; whic

1 64

SHAKKAN AK Governor or Viceroy a title

taken by Sargon of Assyria .

1 . SHALMANESER King of Assyria . Builder of

. 1 00 . the city of Calah B C . 3

11 86 —8 2 of SHALMANESER ( 0 5 ) King Assyria .

The first to come in contact with the Israelites .

Mus . On the Black Obelisk in the Brit . we read ” “ of “ that Jehu , King Israel and Hazael , King ” of Syria (Damascus) paid him tribute .

SHALMANESER IV . King of Assyria , attacks

Samaria, and is mentioned by the Prophet Hosea

in the O . T .

- . His SHAMASH , Samas (Semitic) the Sun god great

is Temple was at Sippar . He identified with Merodach as the God of Truth or Righteous

a ness , and appears in the Flood story, as p of pointing the time its coming. The Brit . Mus .

re re has a Tablet, sculptured with a scene p senting the worship of the Sun - god in the Temple of Sippar and inscribed with a record of the restoration of the Temple by N abfi- pal

idinna of . . 8 0. , King Babylon about B C 7 This Tablet was probably a copy from a relief of a

very much older period . It was protected by

two coverings of clay and a baked clay box . 1 6 5

’ or Sharha nu SHARUHEN , . A town in South Canaan .

See Hyksos .

- or - SHASU Plunderers Bedouin , Open country

dwellers . The word is a corruption of the Arab

“ ” ba dwi word derived from the substantive ,

“ ” badu , open country . The land of the Shasu is mentioned on the

Egyptian monuments .

- - - EN . SHATT NIL A canal in mid Babylonia .

SHEM . The name given in the O . T . as the ancestor

of the Semitic race . The word in Hebrew means

“ a nd Ass rio- name in y Babylonian , Sumu also ” “ o means name . The first ruler f the first Babylonian Dynasty was called Sumu - abi which means “ Shem is my father ”

SHEPHERD Nomad .

SHERGHAT . See Ashur .

SHERLEY Anthony visited Babylon and Nineveh

1 in 5 99 .

. . S un ir SHINAR in O T Sumer, g Kengi)

Sumerian . The southern part of Babylonia .

SHIR P U R L A of Sumerians Lagash of Semites

Telloh of Arabs . An ancient city in southern

Babylonia . Excavations were begun here by the 1 66

French under M . de Sarz ec and continued by

Capt . Gaston Cros . Thousands of clay Tablets inscribed in Archaic characters and in the

u . E annadu S merian language have been found ,

E nannadu Entem ena , and were early patesis of

S ir urla h p . Gudea was the most famous of the

later Viceroys .

= of SUMER the southern part Babylonia . Akkad

is the northern part .

H TR K N akhinta of S U U . , King Susa

r r SIBE o So (S abako o Sabaku of O . T .) King by

anticipation really Tartan of Egyptian Army .

C . SILVER tariff introduced in Babylonia before B .

- 45 00 . See Tablet of Manishtu su as quoted by Boscawen in “ The First of Empires

- od SIN or Nannar, the Semitic Moon g of Ur and of of Haran . He was a late personification Ea Eridu who is identified with the Yah of the

’

or . O . T . through ya ya u See p . 7 .

SINAI Mount of the God Sin (the Moon -god) of

Chaldaea .

l of. . 1 SIN , Baby onian Confession See p 4 ante , also

’ “ ” Sayce s Gifford Lectures .

- f B . 2 0 . ID IN . o . C 0 SIN N AM An early King Larsa , 3 M s . See his bricks in the Brit . u

1 68

“ are numerous and do not present much variety being nearly all written in accordance with

the usual legal forms . Slaves were hired also not only from their

masters and themselves , but also from their

fathers, mothers , brothers, and whoever else

of . For might have charge them the trade ,

of m as value, rights and duties slaves to their

of ters See Code Khammurabi , translated

of . by Mr . King the Brit Mus .

SMER D IS or Bardes (B arzia of Babylonians) A s on of Cyrus 11 and brother of K am byses 11 who caused him to be privately put to death

his before departure to Egypt, which country

2 a he conquered in 5 7 . During his absence

was a d Median , who called Gomates, taking vantage of the dissatisfaction which prevailed in Babylon gave out that he was Bardes the

s on of K amb ses Cyrus , (whom y had murdered)

and mounted the throne , which the pretender retained possession of for a very short time

s s s being defeated by Darius s on of Hy ta pe .

Geo. of . exca SMITH the Brit . Mus A successful vator at Nineveh in 1 876 and the first to dis cover the nature of the Creation and Flood

“ His Tablets in the Brit Mus . Chaldaean

Account of Genesis was published in 1 875 . 1 69

SOCKETS , Door . See Door sockets .

SOUL The , according to the Babylonians was called Eki “ ” m m u that which is snatched away .

SPIRITS Evil of Babylonia . These were indeed legion ! The ancient Babylonian moved in a world peopled by demons and spirits whom he could not s ee but whose influence at any

moment might cause him misfortune , sickness

of or death . Many these spirits were actively hostile to man and waged an incessant war

fare against him . These beings were conceived

to be of hideous and repulsive appearance , often uniting in strange combination of bodies

and limbs of various birds and beasts . See the marble head of the Demon of the South - west

Wind and other figures in the Brit . Mus . See

T . D . S .

SQUEEZE is an impression taken by means of specially prepared paper wetted and then beaten

into the characters with a brush . Sir Henry

’ Rawlinson s original squeezes of the B ehis tfin M Inscription are in the Brit . us .

STATUES Babylonian and Assyrian . See B . M . G .

In the Louvre . See Guide to the Museum .

. N ew at Berlin See Guide to Museum . 1 70

the . Eannadu STELE in Brit Mus . (vultures) . Assur

- as &c bani pal High Priest .

t m STELE in the Louvre . En e ena Sargon Ur- nina Melleches u ( 1 Naram

of Manistus Sin Hammurabi Obelisk u, and the greater part of the Stela of “ the Vul

” “ ” tures of E annad u and the Stela of Victory

of N arém - Sin .

STONE was brought from Arabia and the Lebanon for building the great Temples in Babylonia

as there was none in the country . In Assyria

it was plentiful .

descri STORM at the coming of the Flood . For the p

of see of Gil a tion this, the eleventh Tablet g

mes series containing the story of the Flood .

- S un ir Su r of . . SUMER, Sumar , g , Nin g (Shinar O T ) was the old name of the Sumerians for the district

of as Southern Babylonia , Akkad was for the

Northern district .

SUMERIANS Mongols or Tartars) were an immi grant people inhabiting the southern part of

- the Tigro Euphrates Valley . They resembled

the Bak tribes , and Chinese . Their country was

Sun ir. known originally as Sumer, g It was the f o . Shinar the O T . The ancient Sumerians had

1 7 2

with much valuable information with regards to the details of Sumerian Worship and the

of of organization the Temples Babylonia . There can be but little doubt that the later Semitic beliefs and practices were based upon

. For the Sumerian instance the belief in spirits , of the ceremony purification , the consultation

of Omens, the belief in myths , such as the of seven heroes , the Dragon the Deep and the

God who slew the Dragon , are all to be found

’ “ in the Sumerian texts . See King s Western Asia”

- MM R AMAT . of R am m anu N irari 111 SU U Queen , — of 8 1 2 8 . is King Assyria B . C . 7 3 She thought to be the Semiramis of the Greek and Roman

wr1ters .

SUMU -AB I or Samsu-abu Shem is my father) The first known King of the First Dynasty of

2 200 Babylon about B . C . and to which Kham

m urabi belonged . Their rule lasted about three

hundred years .

S UN GIR . A District in South Babylonia . See Sumer .

“ - SUN GOD . See Shamash , Utu

“ SUR P U TABLETS “ Consuming Fever a

s collection of nine sacred book . See I 7 3

f . . . SUSA . An ancient city o Elam (O T Shushan) Excavated by De Morgan who found the remains

one of six settlements in hundred and four feet , and the remains of three cities with four feet

between each . A vast number of most interesting and valuable obj ects have been found there and

of are now in the Museum the Louvre . See

on De Morgans books Excavations at Susa , or

’ “ ” B abelons Manual of O riental Antiquity

SUSIAN SCRIPT is in Cuneiform , like the Baby

lonian .

SYMBOLS of Royalty . The Babylonian Kings were always represented as holding a disk and bar in the right hand which IS supposed to be

’

or . symbolic of the Sun s orbit , Eternity In

Egypt the Ankh took its place .

one ffi of SYNCELLUS , that is who held the o ce ff Su ragan . The Babylonian King Lists compiled by him were written by a Byzantine Chrono grapher who is known under the name of Syn

cell us .

SYNCHRONISTIC History of Babylonia and As

s yria . This is , as the name implies , a history

of events happening at the same time . It refers to a list of the various friendly and hostile relations between Babylonia and Assyria from 1 74

the earliest times down to the reign of Adad

N irari 111 — of . . 8 1 1 8 . , King Assyria B C 7 3 The original document made in Assyria has

co perished , but a py of it was made for the

of - - 66 — library Assur bani pal (B . C . 8 6 26) by

ow some of his scholars . This copy is n in the

Brit . Mus . It was found at Nineveh . See H . D . B .

n SYRIA (Babylonia Suri) . North Mesopotamia,

Armenia and Taurus Mountains . At the period when Khammurabi and other Western Semitic Kings occupied the throne of Northern Baby

2 1 lonia (circa B . C . 00) Syria was an acknow ledged portion of the Empire and was for more than two thousand years more or less attached

to Babylonia .

SYRIANS R utennu of the Egyptian monuments .

on TABLETS . Over e hundred and sixty thousand have bee n found in Babylonia and are now in

the Museums of Europe and America . They

of as we made kiln dried clay and a rule ,

covered on all sides with cuneiform . Some are large and some small and of all shapes and

appearances . The small holes in the larger Tablets were made to allow the steam to escape o during the process of baking . The backs f the

Tablets were generally rounded . Some had cases i or envelopes to protect the m . The earl est kind

1 76

1 8 5 0 . He was sent by Sir Henry Rawlinson to excavate at Mugheir (Ur) and Abu - Shahrein ( Eridu) two of the most ancient and interesting

sites in Southern Babylonia . Little was done by him and nothing of importance has been

done since .

T EISP ES . Son of of Achaemenes King Persia . He conquered Anshan and at his death divided his two kingdoms between his two sons

1 Ariaram nes Cyrus had Anshan , and had Persia . His grandson Arsam es was grandfather of Darius

the Great .

- K u ha . TEL IBRAHIM . See t

- D E . TEL I . See Marad

- on o TEL EL AMARNA . The site the Nile f the city where Khu -a naten (Amen -hotep IV) re

moved to from Thebes . In 1 887 the Record Office was found and about three hundred and twenty letters and dispatches from the neigh

bourin of g Kings Babylon , Assyria , Mitanni , i &c . . Hittite , came to light They are nscribed on Tablets in cuneiform characters and throw

a great deal of light on the history of the time . of They are now in the Museums London ,

Berlin , Paris and Cairo . I 77

TELLOH . The modern Arabic name for the an cient Sumerian city of S hirpurla (the Lagash

of w as the Semites) in South Babylonia . It

arz ec excavated by De S in. 1 88 2 .

N ab onnidus . TEMA . A favourite residence of It w as probably an insignificant place in Baby

1 2 2 . lonia, but the Site is still unknown . See p .

of TEMPLES . What the Temples Babylonia were

like , we can now know to a certain extent . Not only from the accounts given us by Hero d otus but by the excavations at Nippur and a cuneiform Tablet (once at Constantinople but now supposed to be lost !) which described the Great Temple of Bel - Merodach (E - Sagila)

at Babylon . The Temple was first entered

or through the great outer court, then came

the platform of the original Temple, the sides,

and not the corners of which , faced the four c ardinal points and which possessed four gates of each in the centre a side . In it was the

z or on iggurat seven staged tower, the seventh or last stage of which was the Chamber of the of God . It contained no image the Deity , only

a couch of gold , and a golden table for the

N o shewbread . image of the God was there , but in the chapels and shrines which stood at

he t foot of the tower , images were numerous . The Temple of Merodach was a double building

1 2 1 78

with a court between the two wings . In the recesses of the inner Sanctuary was the Holy

of its of Go Holies with golden image the d . Here too was the golden table of shewbread (one dozen cakes unleavened) and the mercy

seat . In the great court which was Open to

s k of the y, was the great Altar Sacrifice with large vases for the purposes of ablution by the

“ ” of s ea or of side it , as well as a basin water which was made of bron ze or stone and was at times supported on the backs of twelve oxen and at others with a frieze of female figures who poured water from the vases in

i . to the r ( outstretched hands At the entrance two the Great Court, isolated columns flanked

the gateway . The Babylonian Temple closely

w i resembled the Je ish , and both had their orig n

F or in the Theology of Eridu . further parti

’ “ ” “ ul rs s e ff c a e Prof. Sayce s Hibbert and Gi ord ” Lectures .

“ TERAH (Tarakhu Gazel the totem of the Moon god Sin of The reputed father of

Abram .

THIRD BABYLONIAN DYNASTY . Kassites

1 t 1 1 . There were 3 6 Kings from B . C . 700 o 00

“ ” ’ “ B . C . See First dynasty also Mr . King s Baby lonian Chronicles

1 80

Tudhula of . . . TIDAL , son Gazza In the O T

of oz m King G y (nations) . Nothing is known

for certain regarding him .

TIGL ATH -P IL E E of S R . There were four Kings

w as Assyria of this name . The fourth one called

“ ” Pul in the O . T . The first one was a great soldier and leaves us a history of his campaigns and conquests as well as his pedigree on a

fine stela in the Brit . Mus . which came from

K ouyunj ik .

H eddek el of TIGRIS , the the Sumerians, which with the Euphrates is said to have been created

and named by Merodach of Eridu . On an early

is Babylonian Seal , he depicted as pouring some

times four rivers , sometimes only the Tigris and Euphrates from a vase that he holds in

v his hands . The ri er rises in the Mountains of Armenia on the southern slopes and is in flood

from March till May when it is highest .

TITHES Babylonian , Babylonia was the inventor

of tithe . It became a marked characteristic of w Babylonian religious life . It as paid by all

classes . Even the King and his heir were not

exempt from it . A tithe of all that the land produced was claimed by the gods and was rigourously exacted for the support of the

Temples and Priests . 1 8 1

or TOTEMS . All ancient nations had totems em n bl em s to represe t each tribe or clan . The

gods also had their totems . In the Babylonian

n Tablets, Samas was k own by the Sun , Sin

810. by the Moon , Even individuals had their o totems . One was kn wn as the lion , another “ ” &c . the raven , The totem or coat of arms of the city of S ungir is on the Stela of the Vultures formerly set up in the Temple of Nin

- S un ir Ea nnad u . . 000. g by the Priest King, B C 5

TOWER OF BABEL . See Babylon .

is TOWER BUILDERS . The first on record Uru

of Shir urla Sun ir kagina King p , whose city was g

. . 00. in South Babylonia , about B C 45 Then

Su n ir Ur- comes about the same time in g , Nina

who s o , he tells us, brought timber all the way from Magan for the building of his Tem

- . Shir urla Ur of ples Gudea of p and Gur Ur ,

of Sargon Akkad , Nebuchadnezzar and Nabon

nidus were all great Temple builders , and as

its no Temple was without its tower , follows

they built them also .

TOWERS , Temple See Ziggurat .

TRADES . All kinds were common in ancient Chal

d aea ~ , the Barbers , Weavers , Millers , Smiths , and Money- lenders being mentioned in the

Tablets . 1 82

TRAVELLERS, Early, in Chaldaea were Benjamin

of 1 1 60 1 8 Tudela in , John Eldred in 5 3 , Anthony

1 1 6 1 1 . Shirley in 599 , and John Cartwright in

In ancient days we know that Xenophon (B . C . 400) and Isadore of Charax early in the first

- century A . D . visited the Tigro Euphrates

Valley .

TREE OF KNOWLEDGE of the Babylonians was

of the sacred tree of the Garden Eridu , the of cedar tree beloved the gods, which was the

of of domain the Lord Knowledge , the God of “ Ea , the Lord Eden , the hidden place of heaven and earth This plant or tree was

“ called Kisk anu and was used by the gods

t o work a miracle of healing . When a duly qualified person wished to make use of this

of f s ui plant to perform the healing a suf erer , ” table “ Words of Power were to be recited and appropriate ceremonies were to be per

w as formed , before the plant itself used as a

’ “ B a remedy . See Thompson s Evil Spirits of ” byl on

TREE OF LIFE , The , was like a vine (some say

“ ” for a palm) . The Babylonian word wine means ” “ for drink of life , and the word vine means ” “ tree of the drink of life . We know that the Babylonians made wine from the palm as well

1 84

In the Tel el - Amarna letters there are four from this King in one of which he tells Ame n0 phis 111 that he had slain the King of the

. Mu S ee . s Khatti (Hittites) Brit . Guide .

“ UPPER SEA the Mediterranean . Also called the ” Western Sea . The Pers ian Gulf was called the “ the Eastern s ea

or now or (Uru Eri the City) Muqayyar,

of one Mugheir, an ancient city Sumer, hundred and forty miles south - east of Babylon and about

- of five hundred and sixty miles south east Haran . ! The Semitic Ir was borrowed from the Sume

rian Eri . It is situated on the west bank of the Euphrates five miles north of Eridu on the h Arabian plateau and looked towards t e west . It is thought to have been originally a colony

o f Nippur . Five of its early Kings are now

s r known . With the Jews it was known a U

“ ” Kasdim or Ur of the Chaldees and was con s id e re d by them to be the home of their Ancestor

was his Terah and his son Abram . It in days

for . 2 1 00 (about B C . ) an important place the worship of the Moon -god (who was a s on of

- E as was . n lil the God of Nippur) , Haran At Ur, ” “ ” “ he was called Sin and at Haran N annaru . “ His Temple at Ur was called E - hul-hul :the ” N a onnid us Temple of great j oy . b restored this 1 85

'

old Temple , and tells us that he found the records which Assur-bani-pal had placed there

according to custom . Taylor did a little dig

1 8 no ging at Ur in 43 , but systematic work has yet been done there though it is one of the oldest and most interesting sites in the

country . The second dynasty of Ur was found ed by Ur- E ngu r who broke the power of the Semitic rulers who had inherited the f of Empire o Sargon of Akkad . The Kings this dynasty of Ur claimed the ti tle of “ King of ” Sumer and Akkad and ruled not only North d and South Babylonia but also Elam . The y nasty lasted for 1 1 7 years and was ruled by

five Kings . It was succeeded by the dynasty

on . 2 . of Isin . See note p 00

Urastu Chaldia . URARTU ( ) Armenia , , and Ararat

The country lying to the North of Assyria .

- f UR BAU . Governor o an early Babylonian State

“ ” . 2 0 . . about B C . 5 0 See his Cone in the Brit

Mus . He was a great Temple builder and restorer .

- is UR EN GUR . of . . 2 800 . King Ur, B C There a

cylinder seal i n the Brit . Mus . representing the King being led into the presence of Sin the

- Moon god . See B . M . Guide .

- is of Shir urla . . 000 . UR NINA . King p B C 4 He 1 86

represented on a Tablet now in the Louvre,

on bearing his head the Kufa , indicating his ffi o ce as sacrificing Priest at a Temple Festival .

S arzec M. De discovered the pri mitive terrace

i r of Sh r p u la built by him .

- f hir la R . o S ur . . 2 U NINGIRSU King p B C 5 00.

B ab lo URUK Erech (Warka) , a very ancient y of nian city . In a version the Creation Story found by R assa m at Sippar the name appears :

“ ” Erech had not been built .

IN A UR UKAG . King of an early Babylonian State

00. s on of En ilsa about B . C . 45 He was the g ,

h r rl of patesi of S i pu a . An inscription his was found at Telloh by De S arzec which records

the destruction of the city .

L IM . to el UR USA , Jerusalem According the Tel Amarna Tablets there was a Governor of Jeru salem called Abdi - Khiba nine hundred years

- o after the age of M elchize d eck . Ebed Kheba r

- as Abdi Taba his name is sometimes read ,

to s uzeram of writes his , the reigning King

“ not Egypt, that it was his Father or his ” s et - Mother who had him in Uru Salim as King ,

” “ “ or but the Mighty King . The hand ( arm) of the Mighty King hath set me in the house

1 88

‘ and of VOYAGES Trade Routes Antiquity . See

Commerce .

“ of of VULTURES , Stela the The greater part

is now this at the Louvre , the rest in the Brit .

. Eannad u of Mus It was written by , King Shir

. of purla about B C . 5 000. It was by means

this stela that Prof. Sayce discovered the proof

that human sacrifices were offered to the gods .

’ S arz . ee It was found by M De at Tello , the

ancient Shirpurla .

WALLS OF BABYLON . Nebuchadnezzar built great embankments and walls in and around Babylon and the great triple wall built by him

is described by Herodotus . In the Louvre there is a bas -relief of the siege of a fortress with

M as - us . b triple walls ; also in the Brit . a relief

supposed to depict the triple wall of Babylon .

- See India House Slab .

WARKA . See Erech .

Mum m u Tiawatu WATER . The fi rSt Creator .

the s ea ; out of which arose the great gods

Lahmu and Lahamu , Ansar and Kisar and their

“ ” s on Anu the God of Heaven

WEAPONS , Chaldaean . The Brit . Mus . has many of specimens these , including bronze helmets 1 89

belonging to di fferent periods bronze cove

of or rings leather wicker shields , bows and

arrows , spears and swords .

. 2 . WEIGHTS . Standard fixed in B . C 400 See

Revenue Tablets in Brit . Mus .

WHEAT . Indigenous to Babylonia . Herodotus says that he had been told that two or three hundred fold was often produced in the valley

o f the Euphrates .

of WINE was made form the date the palm tree .

’ n Xenophon s opinion of it was ot complimentary .

“ ” He considered it sweet and heady . See his

Anabasis .

or WRITING . The cuneiform wedged shape writing took the place of the archaic picture writing

passing through the age (at about B . C . 5 000) of what is called the semi -pictorial or line

Babylonian . The Brit . Mus . has several speci

of of mens this writing, dating in the reigns

Akur al E anna du E nte m ena G g , , and , overnors

S hir u rla . 00. . . of . . A p about B , C 45 See K F S ,

L . . . L . . . L . . . K . A . , S G , S H , P O T .

XENOPHON encamped under the shadow of the

ruins of Nineveh in B . C . 400 and knew not

that it was so , thereby proving how speedily 1 90

i the once great city was forgotten . H s des cription of the taking of Babylon by Cyrus is

inaccurate .

= of s on XERXES Ahasuerus, King Persia and of

“ ” Darius the Great . The name Ahasuerus is a ” corruption of a Persian word meaning “ a King which originally came from the Sanscrit script

of the Aryan family of languages .

XI HR of . SUT O S . The Hero the Deluge story

The storm raged seven days and nights . Man

his and works were swept away , but the Ark

or Ship survived with its living freight . When of the waters the Flood abated , the ship grounded upon the lofty peak of Nizir and

Xis uthros after seven days , sent forth a dove

s ee to if the earth were dry . But the dove

to fro went and and returned . Next he sent forth a swallow which also returned and lastly a raven which waded and croaked and did not

r . now retu n The waters being abated , the door of the Ark was opened and the animals de ” “ of parted towards the four quarters the earth . Then Xis uthr os offered a sacrifice on the summit

of of the mountain , setting beside it vases

smoking incense ranged seven by seven . The gods smelt the sweet savour of the offering and ” “ ff gathered like flies above the o erer , while

1 9 2

“ YAU - IL U Jah is God This name is found in

2000 Tablets dating about B . C . , together with numerous references to ilu as the name for the

One Great God .

k h o a . YO CKA Ukhu . See J

ZAB , Upper and Lower . Rivers in Armenia . They

are often mentioned in the cuneiform Tablets .

ZEND and Pehlevi are cognate dialects to the old

Persian language . It was through the knowledge of these dialects that Sir Henry Rawlinson was

ehi fin enabled to decipher the B st inscriptions .

on ZENOBIA . A city the Euphrates, built and

of named after the famous Queen Palmyra . Its

is H libub is no a w . modern name , it in ruins

Ka or Egyptian , double) Sumerian for life Zi spirit . Every obj ect in Nature had its . The

Heaven , the Earth , the sea , storm , lightning,

“ ” &c . Z i earthquake , wind , rocks, trees , wells , of was denoted by the picture a flowering reed . The human Zi was the imperishable part of

his Ekim m u . man living soul , In the oldest

- re re period of Babylonia, an eight rayed star p

“ ” sented the ideograph that denoted a God . The Z i or spirit was localised in the star which

of so was the symbol the Divine , the Spirit of I 9 3

the star became “ the Z i of the God See

5 . R . A . B . and P . R . B .

ZIGGURAT ( r :lofty peak or top peak of a moun

tain) . The Ziggurat suggests that the early buil ders in Chaldaea were originally from a moun tainous country where they worshipped the Deity

on the mountain tops as being nearest the s ky .

Babylonia being a flat country, they built their Temples high above the plain to get as near

heaven as they could . These towers are found

in all Babylonian and Assyrian Temples . The Ziggurat of the Temple goes back to the days when the gods were still gods of the

was m mountains . The tower a mimic represe tation of the E - Kur or mountain of the earth “ itself where En- lil the God of the great moun ” tain had his seat . The earliest type of Ziggurat had only three stories with a chapel on the

summit with an altar before the door, access to which was by a straight external staircase on each terrace ; examples of which have been

found at Ur, Eridu , and Uruk . of The second type Ziggurat, found in Nor

thern Babylonia , had seven stories all of equal

one height, connected by or two lateral stair on m cases , having the su mit the shrine of the od g . This type belonged to the age of Astro

theology, to the time when the Moon , and

I 3 I 94

Sun and host of Heaven became Divine and

e of received the homag mankind . The seven stories were dedicated to the seven planets

and painted in different colours . Examples are

B orsi a seen at Erech , pp , Nippur, Babylon , Lagas

and other explored sites . The 3 nd dynasty Step Pyramids at Sakkara and Médfim were a kind of Ziggurat and are thought to prove a distinct connexion with

the . . ancient Egypt and East See S R . A . B .

R ED A o of L akisu L ackish Z IM , f the city ) There were two persons of this name mentioned in the Tel el - Amarna letters one who was hostile to the King (Amenophis IV) and chief of the city of Sidon the other was on the King ’ s

- el . side . See Tel Amarna Tablets

- f ZIMRI ER AMMA . An o ficial stationed at Din

“ . 2 1 to to Sin about B . C 5 0, writes his father ” send him food as he has nothing he can eat !

See Tel el- Amarna Tablets

O f to ZODIAC . The origin the Zodiac is traced

the Chaldaeans . The twelve constellations were

combined into a Zodiac whose twelve signs , transmitted to the Greeks and modified by

ou r them , may still be read on Astronomi

cal charts . ’ “ F or full account s ee Prof. Maspero s Dawn of Civilisation ”

1 96

OLL OWIN G STAN D A D wo s 11 WTH OTHE S 1111111 1 1111 F R nx m . ( I R ) CON SULTED AN D 1 0 1111 1 0 11011 01 THIS PRESEN T , 1

WORK 1s 111111113e 1011 1111011 1 1 1111 3 11. 1111011111 11011

“ B AB EL O N . , E Manual of Oriental Antiquity

BALL , C . J . Light from the East . “ . . . of BOSCAWEN , W St C The First Empires

“ ” The Bible and the Monuments .

' “ . of . BUDGE , Dr Wallis ( Brit . Mus ) Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities in the ” British Museum . N “ DE MORGA , J History and Travel in Persia “ ” History of Excavations in Elam .

“ DRIVER , Prof. D . D . Introduction to the Old ” “ of Testament . The Book Genesis D EL ITZSH “ , Prof. F . Babel and Bible Edited

by Prof. C . H . W . Johns . “ ENCYCLOPAEDIA BIBLICA Edited by Prof.

Cheyne . 4 Vols .

“ of . HASTINGS, Dr . J . Dictionary the Bible 5 vols “ ” HOGARTH , D . G . Authority and Archaeology . HIL P R E HT “ C . , Dr H . V Recent Researches in ” Bible Lands .

’ B ohn s HERODOTUS . Translated by Carey in

Classical Library . I 97

“ ZEY é . of n HEU , L on Catalogue the Chaldaea ” Antiquities in the Museum of the Louvre .

“ ’ HOMMEL , Prof. Ancient Hebrew Tradition

“ HARPER, H . A . The Bible and Modern Discovery

“ JOHNS , C . H . W . Prof. Babylonian and Assyrian

Law & c . “ M us o . . . f KING, L W (of Brit . ) Letters Khammu

” “ ” “ of . rabi . The Seven Tablets Creation Baby

” “ ” “ lonian Religion . Assyrian Language . First

” “ Steps in Assyrian . Records of the Reign of

” “ k l i- Ta u t Ninib I . Chronicles concerning early

” “ ” Babylonian Kings . Egypt and Western Asia

“

L . AYARD , Sir Henry A Nineveh and its Remains “ f of . o MASPERO , Prof. ( Egypt and Paris) Dawn

” “ ” Civilisation The Struggle Of the Nations . ” “ “ A n The Passing of the Empires . Histoire

’ cienne des Peuples de l O rient

“ PETRIE , Prof. Flinders . Researches in Sinai

“ ” Hyksos and Israelite Cities . ” “ 2 PETERS , Dr . J . P . Nippur . vols . “ of PINCHES , Prof. T . G . Religion Babylonia and ” “ of Assyria . The Old Testament in the light the ” Historical Records of Assyria and Babylonia .

“ PATON , Dr . L . B The Early History of Syria and Palestine

“ RAMSAY , Prof. Historical Geography of Asia

9 , Minor “ Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia

REIMER , Georg . Catalogue of the Chaldaean Anti i i u t es 1 0 . q in the Royal Museum Berlin , 9 7 1 98

“ . . . of ROGERS, Prof R W History Babylonia and ” 2 Assyria . vols . S “ AYCE , Prof. A . H . (of Oxford Intro ” to “ duction Genesis in Temple Bible . Records

” “ of the -l the Past . Higher Criticism and Monu

” “ ” “ ments . Patriarchal Palestine . Religion of ” “ ff Ancient Babylonia and Egypt . Gi ord Lec ” ” “ “ of tures . Hibbert Lectures . The Archaeology ” “ hi ” the Cuneiform Inscriptions . R nd Lectures .

“ ” ’ “ The near East in Harm sworth s History of

” “ ” the World , Babylonians and Assyrians

“ his T . . OMKINS, H C Abraham and Times

“ THOMPSON , R . C . (of Brit . The Devils ” and Evil Spirits of Babylonia “ Reports of the Magicians and Astrologers of Nineveh and

” “ ” Babylon . La te Babylonian Letters .

of of Note . Any the above books and many others a like nature can always be procured from of Messrs . Luzac the Oriental Publishers Great

Russell St . London W . C . The Society for Promoti ng Christian Knowl edge (London and Brighton) also publish many books most useful to the young student in

Assyriology . The Series of Handbooks in S emitics edited of by Professor J . A . Craig the University f of Michigan , will be found very use ul and

interesting . F C N .

200

for e m ant read meant .

- ; . . is n Ine Sin This , says Prof Pinches , ow

“ ” read Ibi - Sin n for hega read began .

for N isrock read Nisroch . Pul the Biblical Tiglath-pileser is now th regarded as the IV of the name . !Prof.

Pinches! .

Mr . Horm und R ass am was a brother of Charles R assa m who was British Vice

‘ of consul at Mosul , both of whom were immense help to Sir Henry Layard in

‘ his excavations in Babylonia and Assyria .

To all appearance , says Prof. Pinches ,

“ ” Lagas was also used by the Sumerians . Most of the names of Babylonian cities seem to have been Sumerian : Tindir

Girs u S uri ake (Babylon) , Ur , , pp , Adab ,

E N un é B orsi a ridu , p , Nippur, pp , Cuthah,

and others .

Ur . The Babylonians seem to have had

dynasties from a very early period . We know there were at least two dynasties

s t . I . . 800 of Ur The began before B C 3 ,

how n ot but long it lasted is yet known .

u d z 2 . The dynasty began about B . C . 5 00 L ugal -kigub - nidud u the first known king or Patesi of the I st dynasty lived

about 3 800 . 2 0 1

The first king of the second dynasty of Ur was U r-E ngur who was succeeded

s on . by his Dungi It is highly probable , says Prof. Pinches , there were other of 8 dynasties Ur between B . C . 3 00 and

2 B . C . 5 00 ; but at the present time this gap is a blank . Further research will no doubt either fill it or explain mat ters . We now know the Elamites made

or a successful campaign in about B . C . 2 2 80 and from that date Ur became a stronghold of the Elamites until the time of who f Khammurabi , de eated their army and ove rthrew their king Rim - Sin and added the land of Em utbal (western district of Elam) to his dominions .

- r-E r U r Gur read U ngu .