The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. Morris Jastrow

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СКАЧАТЬ target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_ae49b0da-1805-506b-bfbc-2c945911100e">[8] An instructive instance is furnished by the mention of a mystic personage, "Homoroka," which now turns out to be—as Professor J. H. Wright has shown—a corruption of Marduk. (See Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, x. 71–74.)

[9] The excavations are still being continued, thanks to the generosity of some public-spirited citizens of Philadelphia.

[10] The parties concerned rolled their cylinders over the clay tablet recording a legal or commercial transaction.

[11] Besides those at Persepolis, a large tri-lingual inscription was found at Behistun, near the city of Kirmenshah, in Persia, which, containing some ninety proper names, enabled Sir Henry Rawlinson definitely to establish a basis for the decipherment of the Mesopotamian inscriptions.

[12] The best account is to be found in Hommel's Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, pp. 58–134. A briefer statement was furnished by Professor Fr. Delitzsch in his supplements to the German translation of George Smith's Chaldaean Genesis (Chaldäische Genesis, pp. 257–262). A tolerably satisfactory account in English is furnished by B. T. A. Evetts in his work, New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land, pp. 79–129. For a full account of the excavations and the decipherment, together with a summary of results and specimens of the various branches of the Babylonian-Assyrian literature, the reader may be referred to Kaulen's Assyrien und Babylonien nach den neuesten Entdeckungen (5th edition).

[13] The most recent investigations show it to have been a 'Turanian' language. See Weissbach, Achämeniden Inschriften sweiter Art, Leipzig, 1893.

[14] Besides Delitzsch, however, there are others, as Pognon, Jäger, Guyard, McCurdy and Brinton, who side with Halévy.

[15] See now Dr. Brinton's paper, "The Protohistoric Ethnography of Western Asia" (Proceed. Amer. Philos. Soc., 1895), especially pp. 18–22.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.

       Table of Contents

I.

       Table of Contents

      The Babylonians and Assyrians with whom we are concerned in this volume dwelt in the region embraced by the Euphrates and the Tigris—the Babylonians in the south, or the Euphrates Valley, the Assyrians to the northeast, in the region extending from the Tigris into the Kurdish Mountain districts; while the northwestern part of Mesopotamia—the northern half of the Euphrates district—was the seat of various empires that were alternately the rivals and the subjects of either Babylonia or Assyria.

      The entire length of Babylonia was about 300 miles; the greatest breadth about 125 miles. The entire surface area was some 23,000 square miles, or about the size of West Virginia. The area of Assyria, with a length of 350 miles and a breadth varying from 170 to 300 miles, covered 75,000 square miles, which would make it somewhat smaller than the state of Nebraska. In the strict sense, the term Mesopotamia should be limited to the territory lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris above their junction, in the neighborhood of Baghdad, and extending northwards to the confines of the Taurus range; while the district to the south of Baghdad, and reaching to the Persian Gulf, may more properly be spoken of as the Euphrates Valley; and a third division is represented by the territory to the east of the Tigris, from Baghdad, and up to the Kurdish Mountains; but while this distinction is one that may be justly maintained, in view of the different character that the southern valley presents from the northern plain, it has become so customary, in popular parlance, to think of the entire territory along and between the Euphrates and Tigris as one country, that the term Mesopotamia in this broad sense may be retained, with the division suggested by George Rawlinson, into Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. The two streams, as they form the salient traits of the region, are the factors that condition the character of the inhabitants and the culture that once flourished there. The Euphrates, or, to give the more correct pronunciation, Purat, signifies the 'river' par excellence. It is a quiet stream, flowing along in majestic dignity almost from its two sources, in the Armenian mountains, not far from the town of Erzerum, until it is joined by the Tigris in the extreme south. As the Shatt-el Arab, i.e., Arabic River, the two reach the Persian Gulf. Receiving many tributaries as long as it remains in the mountains, it flows first in a westerly direction, as though making direct for the Mediterranean Sea, then, veering suddenly to the southeast, it receives but few tributaries after it once passes through the Taurus range into the plain—on the right side, only the Sadschur, on the left the Balichus and the Khabur. From this point on for the remaining distance of 800 miles, so far from receiving fresh accessions, it loses in quantity through the marsh beds that form on both sides. When it reaches the alluvial soil of Babylonia proper, its current and also its depth are considerably diminished through the numerous canals that form an outlet for its waters. Of its entire length, 1780 miles, it is navigable only for a small distance, cataracts forming a hindrance in its northern course and sandbanks in the south. In consequence, it never became at any time an important avenue for commerce, and besides rafts, which could be floated down to a certain distance, the only means of communication ever used were wicker baskets coated within and without with bitumen, or some form of a primitive ferry for passing from one shore to another.

      An entirely different stream is the Tigris—a corrupted form of 'Idiklat.' It is only 1146 miles in length, and is marked, as the native name indicates, by the 'swiftness' of its flow. Starting, like the Euphrates, in the rugged regions of Armenia, it continues its course through mountain clefts for a longer period, and joined at frequent intervals by tributaries, both before it merges into the plain and after doing so, the volume of its waters is steadily increased. Even when it approaches the alluvial soil of the south, it does not lose its character until well advanced in its course to the gulf. Advancing towards the Euphrates and again receding from it, it at last joins the latter at Korna, and together they pour their waters through the Persian Gulf into the great ocean. It is navigable from Diabekr in the north, for its entire length. Large rafts may be floated down from Mosul to Baghdad and Basra, and even small steamers have ascended as far north as Nimrud. The Tigris, then, in contrast to the Euphrates, is the avenue of commerce for Mesopotamia, forming the connecting bond between it and the rest of the ancient world—Egypt, India, and the lands of the Mediterranean. Owing, however, to the imperfect character of the means of transportation in ancient and, for that matter, in modern times, the voyage up the stream was impracticable. The rafts, resting on inflated bags of goat or sheep skin, can make no headway against the rapid stream, and so, upon reaching Baghdad or Basra, they are broken up, and the bags sent back by the shore route to the north.

      The contrast presented by the two rivers is paralleled by the traits distinguishing Upper from Lower Mesopotamia. Shut off to the north and northeast by the Armenian range, to the northwest by the Taurus, Upper Mesopotamia retains, for a considerable extent, and especially on the eastern side, a rugged aspect. The Kurdish mountains run close to the Tigris' bed for some distance below Mosul, while СКАЧАТЬ