RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Babylonia
at the modern Abu-Habba. The Hebrew dual
form Sepharvaim has by some been referred to
this city. The displacement of Ishtar
ii. Akkad of Akkad by Anunit goes well with and Sippar. the hypothesis of the oneness of Akkad and Sippar, and equally concordant is the long continuance in importance of Sippar and the utter loss of Akkad as a city. Akkad had no great claims to importance outside of its eminence politically under Sargon; and its political eminence was utterly lost when Babylon assumed the leadership in Babylonia. On the other hand, Sippar always had claims to importance on account of its deity Shamash, and this importance would easily permit it to assimilate and absorb its less important neighbor. Thus Sippar lived on, its temple of Shamash, E-barra, " House of Brilliance," and its temple of Anunit, E-ulbar, securing its fame.
Babylon bore also the name Tin-tir, " Seat of Life." In Gen. x, 10 it is named as one of the four cities of Shinar. The description which has been current in Christendom goes back to the narrative of Herodotus (i, 178-179; transl. in Rogers, History of Babylonia and Assyria, i, 389-391, where is given also the India House inscription of Nebuchadrezzar describing the defenses he added to the city). According to Herodotus, Babylon was a great square fifty-four miles in circuit, enclosed by a moat of running water and by a rampart 300 feet in height and seventy-five broad. Ctesias gives only forty-one miles for the circuit. The mounds called by modern Arabs Jumjuna, Amran, Kassr, and Babil are recognized as covering parts of the old city. The origin of Babylon as a city is unknown, as it does not appear in history till just before the time of Hammurabi,
12. Bab- 2250 B.C., and it then figures as his ylon. capital. The prowess of that king elevated it to the supreme political position, which it maintained till Persian times. From Hammurabi's days " king of Babylon " was one of the proudest titles of the monarchs of Western Asia. Though destroyed by Sennacherib Babylon was restored by Esarhaddon in a style of still greater magnificence, but it was Nebuchadrezzar who elevated it to its pinnacle of greatness. It was he who completed its two great walls, the outer Nimitti-Bel, " Dwelling of Bel," and its inner, Imgur-Bel, " Bel is Gracious," and dug the moat of which Herodotus tells. He finished the two great streets, which he elevated and paved. The walls enclosed spaces not occupied by dwellings, asserted to be large enough to raise crops ample to support the inhabitants during a siege, making Babylon, with its great external defenses, impregnable against a foe on the outside. Its great temple for Marduk, E-sagila, " House of the Lofty Head," and its ziggurat E-temenanaki, seven stages in height, are described by the proud builder and beautifier of them. The temple was a compound of sanctuaries, the principal one, of course, Bel's, containing the splendid statue by taking the hands of which year by year the kings of Babylon confirmed their right to the title. Nebuchadrezzar's palace was also there, built new from the founda- I.— 26
tions. Hardly less famous than walls and temples and palace were the great gateways, closed by massive bronze-covered doors guarded by huge colossi. And another temple or z ggurat, E-kur, " Mountain House " was also located in the city. This king might well have exclaimed: " Is not this great Babylon which I have built for the royal dwelling-place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?" (Dan. iv, 30; cf. D. W McGee, Zur Topographie Babylons auf Grund der Urkunden N abopolassars und Nebukadnezars, in Beitrage zur Assyriologie, hi, 524-560.) Borsippa, the modern Birs Nimrud, is of importance only as the suburb of Babylon and the home of Nebo, the prophet-god of the country. There are some signs that its origin antedated that of Babylon, as for instance the fact that on his yearly visit to Marduk Nebo was accom-
13. Bor- panied by Marduk part way on the sippa. return journey, and this is interpreted as an indication of a former
precedence which was abolished when Marduk became supreme. This is corroborated by the relationship assigned to Nebo as the son of Marduk, a fiction of late date. The famous temDle of the place was named E-zida, " Established House," sacred to Nebo. The temple of the Seven Spheres of Heaven and Earth was also located there.
Bit-Yakin was a city in the extreme south, the capital of the Kaldu before they
14. Bit- became masters of Babylonia. It Yakin. had been the home of Merodach-
Baladan, and belonged to the kingdom of the Sea Lands.
V. The People, Language, and Culture: Careful discrimination with respect to periods must be made in describing the population. The fertility and the wealth and culture existent in the country made it the natural focus of efforts at subjugation. Different races came in and settled in the land, but the old population was able to assimilate the new elements which made the region their home. The Babylonians of later periods were consequently a people of very mixed origin. The earliest inhabitants were a non-Semitic race, almost
certainly Mongolian, using an agglu-
1. The Ear- tinative language which differed in
liest Inhab- its vocabulary, its root forms, and
itants Mon- its grammar from the Semitic type
golian. (see below, §§ 3-5). This earliest
population, dating back to the beginning of the fifth pre-Christian millennium, is shown by statues from Telloh now in the Louvre to have been short of stature and thick set, brachycephalic, with high cheek bones, flat face, broad nose, and almond-shaped eyes, and to have been either beardless or to have had the head and face shaven. Other statues of the same period seem to represent a mixed race with the characteristics just noted somewhat toned down. With these is to be contrasted the type shown in later reliefs and statues, a dolycephalic race, typically slender, with aquiline features, and hair and beard that were long and wavy.
Upon the earlier Sumerians, as the Mongolic people is named, before 4000 B.C., came in the
Babylonia