The archæology of the cuneiform inscriptions

by A. H. Sayce

We now have monumental testimony that such domination there actually was. As far back as B.C. 3800, Sargon of Akkad had founded a Semitic empire which had its centre in Babylon, and which stretched across Asia to the shores of the Mediterranean. We learn from his annals that three campaigns were needed to subdue “the land of the Amorites,” as Syria and Palestine were called, and that at last, after three years of warfare, all the coast-lands of “the sea of the setting sun” acknowledged his sway. He set up an image of himself on the Syrian coast in commemoration of his victories, and moulded his conquests “into one” great empire. His son and successor, Naram-Sin, extended his conquests into the Sinaitic peninsula, and a seal-cylinder, on which he is adored as a god, has been found in Cyprus. But Sargon was a patron of literature as well as a conqueror; his court was filled with learned men, and one of the standard works of Babylonian literature is said to have been compiled during his reign. The extension of Babylonian rule, therefore, to Western Asia meant the extension of Babylonian civilization, an integral part of which was its script.

VIEW OF THE TEMPLE OF UR IN ITS PRESENT STATE, ACCORDING TO LOFTUS.

Here, then, is an explanation of the archæological fact that the graves of the copper and early bronze age in Cyprus, which mark the beginning of civilization in the country, contain numerous seal-cylinders made in imitation of those of Babylonia.[118] Examples of the seal-cylinders from which they were copied have also been discovered there. Among them is the cylinder on which Naram-Sin is adored as a god, another is an extremely fine specimen of the style that was current in the age of Sargon of Akkad.[119] Along with the seal-cylinder it is probable that the clay tablet was also introduced to the people of the West. Though the clay tablets found by Dr. Evans and others in Krete may not go back to so remote a date, the linear Kretan characters belong to the same system of writing as the Cypriote syllabary, and an inscription in the letters of this syllabary on a seal-cylinder from the early copper-age cemetery of Paraskevi near Nikosia has recently been published by myself.[120] We may infer that the prototypes of the tablets of Knossos or Phæstos once existed in Cyprus and Syria, though in the damp climate of the Mediterranean the unbaked clay of which they were made has long since returned to its original dust.

A few centuries after the age of Sargon of Akkad we find Gudea, a Sumerian prince in Southern Babylonia, bringing limestone from “the land of the Amorites,” blocks of alabaster from the Lebanon, and beams of cedar from Mount Amanus, for his buildings in the city of Lagas. Gold-dust and acacia wood were at the same time imported from the “salt” desert which lay between Palestine and Egypt, and stones from the mountains of the Taurus, to the north-east of the Gulf of Antioch, were floated down the Euphrates on rafts.[121] At a later date we hear of the kings of the Babylonian dynasty which had its capital at Ur, conducting military expeditions to the district of the Lebanon.

About B.C. 2100 Northern Babylonia was occupied by a dynasty of kings, whose names show that they belonged to the Western division of the Semitic family. The language of Canaan—better known to us as Hebrew—and that of Southern and North-eastern Arabia, were at the time substantially one and the same, and as the same deities were worshipped and the same ancestors were claimed throughout this portion of the Semitic world, Assyriologists are not agreed as to whether the dynasty in question should be regarded as coming from Canaan or from Southern Arabia. The Babylonians themselves called the names Amorite, so it is possible that they would have pronounced the kings to have been Amorite also. The point, however, is of little moment; the fact remains that Northern Babylonia passed under the rule of sovereigns who belonged to the Western and not to the Babylonian branch of the Semitic race, and who made Babylon their capital. The contract tablets and other legal documents of this period show that Babylonia was at the time full of Amorite, that is Canaanite, settlers, most of whom had come there for the sake of trade. At Sippara there was a district called “the field of the Amorites,” over which, therefore, they must have had full legal rights. Indeed, it would seem that in the eyes of the law the Amorite settlers were on a complete footing of equality with the natives of the country.

This fact, so little in harmony with our ordinary idea of the exclusiveness of the ancient East, is largely explained by the further fact that Canaan and Syria were now acknowledged portions of the Babylonian Empire. When Babylonia was conquered by the Elamites, and the West Semitic king of Babylon allowed to retain his crown as an Elamite vassal, his claim to rule over “the land of the Amorites” passed naturally to his suzerain. Accordingly we find Chedor-laomer of Elam in the Book of Genesis marching to Canaan to put down a local rebellion there, while Eri-Aku, or Arioch, of Larsa, at the same date describes an Elamite prince as “governor of the land of the Amorites.” When Khammu-rabi, or Amraphel, the king of Babylon, at last succeeded in shaking off the Elamite yoke and making himself monarch of a free and united Babylonia, “the land of the Amorites” followed the fortunes of Babylonia as a matter of course. On a monument discovered at Diarbekir, in Northern Mesopotamia, the only title taken by the Babylonian sovereign is that of “king of the land of the Amorites.” And the same title is borne by one at least of his successors in the dynasty.

For more than two thousand years, therefore, Western Asia was more or less closely attached to Babylonia. At times it was as much a part of the dominions of the Babylonian king as the cities of Babylonia itself, and it is consequently not surprising that it should have become thoroughly interpenetrated with Babylonian culture. There was an excellent postal service connecting Canaan with Babylonia which went back to the days of Naram-Sin, and some of the clay bullæ which served as stamps for the official correspondence at that period are now in the Museum of the Louvre.[122] On the other hand, a clay docket has been found in the Lebanon, dated in the reign of the son of Khammu-rabi, which contains one of the notices sent by the Babylonian Government to its officials at the beginning of each year, in order that they might know what was its official title and date.[123]

When this close connection between Babylonia and its Syrian provinces was broken off we do not as yet know. Perhaps it did not take place until the conquest of Babylonia by a horde of half-civilized mountaineers from Elam about B.C. 1800. At any rate, from this time forward, though the influence of Babylonian culture continued, Babylonian rule in the West was at an end. From the Tel el-Amarna correspondence we learn that the Babylonian Government was still inclined to intrigue in Palestine; the memories of its ancient empire were not altogether obliterated, and just as the English sovereigns called themselves kings of France long after they had ceased to possess an inch of French ground, so the Babylonian kings doubtless persuaded themselves that they were still by right the rulers of Canaan.

The wild mountaineers from the Kossæan highlands who had conquered Babylon soon passed under the spell of Babylonian culture, and became themselves Babylonian in habits, if not in name. They founded a dynasty which lasted for five hundred and seventy-six years and nine months. It is a curious coincidence that Egypt also was governed about the same time by foreign conquerors, whose primitive wildness had been tamed by the influences of Egyptian civilization, which they had adopted as the Kossæan mountaineers adopted that of Babylonia, and whose rule also lasted for more than five hundred years. The Hyksos who conquered Egypt have been convincingly shown by recent discoveries to have been Semites, speaking a language of the West Semitic type.[124] They came from Canaan, and their conquest of Egypt made of it a dependency of Canaan. Hence they fixed their head-quarters in the northern part of their Egyptian territories, where they could easily keep up communication with Asia.