Babylonian influence is deeply imprinted on the Mosaic laws. The institution of the Sabbath went back to the Sumerian days of Chaldæa; the name itself was of Babylonian origin. The great festivals of Israel find their counterparts on the banks of the Euphrates. Even the year of Jubilee was a Babylonian institution, and Gudea, the priest-king of Lagas, tells us that when he kept it the slave became "for seven days the equal of his master." It was only the form and application of the old institutions that were changed in the Levitical legislation. They were adapted to the needs of Israel, and associated with the events of its history. But in themselves they were all of Babylonian descent.
There is yet one more lesson to be learnt from the revelations of the monuments. They have made it clear that civilisation in the East is immensely old. As far back as we can go we find there all the elements of culture; man has already invented a system of writing, and has made some progress in art. It is true that by the side of all this civilisation there were still races living in the lowest barbarism of the Stone Age, just as there were Tasmanians who employed stone weapons of palaeolithic shape less than sixty years ago; but between the civilised man of the Babylonian plain and the barbarians around him there existed the same gulf that exists to-day between the European and the savage. The history of the ancient East contains no record of the development of culture out of savagery. It tells us, indeed, of degeneracy and decay, but it knows of no period when civilisation began. So far as archaeology can teach us, the builders of the Babylonian cities, the inventors of the cuneiform characters, had behind them no barbarous past.
[APPENDICES]
I
EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY
Egypt was originally divided into several independent principalities. Eventually these became the kingdoms of Northern (or Lower), and Southern (or Upper) Egypt. Among the kings of Northern Egypt were (1) Pu, (2) Ska, (3) Katfu (?), (4) Tau, (5) Thesh, (6) Nenau (?), and (7) Mekhâ; among the kings of Southern Egypt was Besh.
The two kingdoms were united by Men or Meni (Menes), king of This, who builds Memphis and founds the First dynasty of the united monarchy.
DYNASTY I.
(THINITE).