BABYLONIA
BABYLONIA
223
sisted for the most part of so-called brick stamps,* altlioujih ill Babel inoio considiTable inscriptions Were found, datins; especially from the period of the New Bab. empire. Meanwhile Henry Kawlin- son had deciphered the Bab. version (the so-called third form) of the trilingual Ach;emenid;ean in- scription of Persepolis. The key was found in the old I'ers. version (the so-called first form), whicli had already lieen interpreted by G. F. Grotefend (1802), Hawlinson. and Burnouf, and whicl: had been proved, by the two last named in particular, to bo in an Indo-Gerinaiilc languaite. The work of deciphering the third form (whereby also the cuneiform inscriptions of the Ninevile monuments became readable and intelligible) was cimtinued and perfected in the sixties by the talented Hincks, the lOnglishuian K. Xorris, and the Parisian scholar .Julius < Ippert. Later on, in the seventies, the excavations in Baliylonia, notably at Habel and in the surrounding country, were continued, especially by George Smith and llormuzd U;i.ssam. Ill the course of his last expedition (1880-1881) l{assam discovered the ruins of Sii)par-Agade at the modern Alni-llabba, along with the archives of the ancient temple of the sun. Moreover, by digging in Tell Ibrahim, 10 Eiig. miles E. of Babel, he was able to prove once for all that this was the site of the ancient KuUia, as Hawlinson had already conjectured.
The work of bringing to light the oldest civilisa- tion of Babylonia (Sumer. as well a-s Seniit.), leaving out of account the small beginnings of Loftus and Taylor, has been <iue especially to the Frenchman de Sarzec, and to the American rniversity of I'l-nn- sylvania (I'eters ami others, and at a later period, above all. .1. H. Haynes and the scientific director of the fund, I^rof. H. V. Ililprecht). Through their excavations at Telloh (18711-1881) and at Xiffer (1888-1890), the history and archicology of Babylonia have been enriched as they had never been before ; from c. ll.i'. oOOO we can trace continuously the civilisation of Babylonia by aid of raoiuiments and inscriptions. Instead of the cuneiform jiroper, the oldest inscriptions still use linear signs, in which it is often ijuite possible to trace clearly the figures that form the basis of the system. The Americans also discovered at .\ilTer nearly 1000 contract-tablets of the so-called Ivasslte period, who.se dates now enable us to fix with certainty the exact succession of the then reigning monarclis.
()( 'finds' outside Babylonia, we must men- tion above all the clay tablets which were dis- covered at Tel el-Amarna In Upper Egypt (see AssYIUA). Among these there are letters to the Pharaohs not only from Bab. kings, but also from a great many Pluen. and Pal. governors. The Bab. writing and language were then (c. 1400 is.c.) em|)loyed for diplomatic communications over almo.st the whole of W. Asia. The Islamites loo borrowed their mode of writing from the Baby- lonians, as at a later period the Armenians did from the Assyrians. Further, It is becoming ever more probable that even the so-called Can. or Phien. form of writing, to whicli the S. Arabian is most nearly allied, wr..s derived not from the Egyptians, but fium the Babylonians, and as early indeed a.s r. li.c :i()0(l. It is a transformation Into cursive of a number of i^ld Bab. signs, and may have originated in E. Arabia about the time lif the first N. Bab. dynasty, which wa.s of Arabian descent.
Sources for Bab. History. These are, first and fiiremosi, the inscriptions discovered in course of the excavations we have described ; but the
• The only exceptions wore Sonkereh ( Lnr.nn) nnd (he mllnrent Tel SIfr; f.)r lliore Loflin fcmnil n (freul nillnl>er of olrl Hiili. corilracltnlilets diitlni; from tlio Umo of Klinininlirabi anil Irlnku (or tlie opooh of .VbriiljiinO.
As.syr. libraries brought to light in the palaces of Nineveh have also suitplied us with a number of copies not only of the Bab. religious writings, but also of historical records. In the art. AssYlii.v we have already spoken of the so-called ' synchron- istic history ' and of the ' Bab. chronicle.' During the last two decades there have been recovered also numerous remains of Bab. libraries, esp. from the time of Nebuch. downwards, reaching as far as the Seleucid period. To these we are indebted not only for the many Bah. thiplicati-s of the remains of Bab. literature hitherto known oidy from the library of Assurbanipal, but also for not a few pa.ssages that are entirely new. Even at Tel el-Amarna, as was already remarked (p. 221'') the fragments of two ancient Bab. legends aboui the gods were found.
Apart from the innumerable contemporaneous and original monuments of Bab. kings, and the contract-tablets so iinjiortant for a knowledge of chronology and of private life, not to speak of other records of a more private character, wo have to mention as a historical source of the very first rank the great Bab. List of Kintjs. This contains the names of the kings of Baliel from the Arab dynasty down to the last native king Xabonidus (Nabu-na'id), with note of the length' of the reign of each. We have already (]>. 222") referred \o some poetically embelli.shed traditions. On the omen-lists, as they are called, and on the great astro- logical work, as important historical sources for the old Bab. era, we shall speak afterwards, when we come to deal with the history of Sargon and the so- called younger kings of Ur. Amongst extra-Bab. sources, the first rank must be a.sslgned to the OT writings (Gn, esp. chap. 14, the Blis of Kings, the Prophets, esp. .Jer, Ezk, Is 4i)-G0, and finally Ezr-Xeh). Only a secondary place belongs to the scanty notices of classical writers, whose import- ance is specially due to the fact that they have preserved for us some valuable citations from the work (unhappily lost) of the Balj. priest. Berosus. For the m^w Bab. period, and esp. fen- the tojio- graphy of Babel, a valuable authority on many points Is Herodotus, who himself visited Babel in the course of his travels. Also in .Strabo'.s geography we find .several interesting details regarding Babylonia. On the other hand, the information must be pronounced rather untrust- worthy and inexact which the extant fragments of Ctesias give us concerning Bab. History. We have already (see Assvm.v) said all that is most essential about the value of the so-called Canon of Ptolemy (2nd cent. A.l>.) for Bab. chronology. In con- junction with the so-called Bab. Chroiiicle, which runs parallel to It, and the list of kings (which unhappily is not free from gaps), whose starling- point was first accurately fixed by aid of the Canon, the latter forms the most im]iortaut source ior the