Because the land of Chaldea was so accessible, and offered advantages so superior to surrounding countries—plentiful water and a fertile soil,—it became a veritable bee-hive of humanity. When the Semites first came thither, they were a fierce, warlike people; but soon, under new conditions, they became peace-loving, as the Turanians before them had been. Shortly they were unable to hold the valley against new tribes that unceasingly swarmed into the country.
Prior to 2000 B.C. Ashur had been settled probably in part at least, by emigrants from the south who may have united with other Semites from North Mesopotamia and in time they founded the state of Assyria. Somewhat later, the ancestors of the Hebrews, according to one of the O. T. traditions, departed from the land of Chaldea for Harran in Mesopotamia, and later entered Canaan, on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Each of these little bands founded states which developed such peculiar characteristics, that after the lapse of a few ages, it would scarcely have occurred to an observer that the ancestry, early environment, and traditions of all had been the same.
It was not strange, then, that the Hebrews of later time, trying to account for the diversity of languages and nations, made this swarming valley the site of the scattering of the tribes and the confusion of tongues.
Those who remained in Chaldea became a peaceful farming people, caring not at all for war. The Assyrians, while of the same stock, developed very differently. There were several reasons for this. First, their country was less accessible than Chaldea, whose shore was washed by the Persian Gulf, and so it suffered less from invasions, and was allowed to keep a more purely Semitic civilization. Again, having gone out from Chaldea before they became devoted to peaceful pursuits, the Assyrians retained and fostered their original warlike dispositions. The more temperate climate of Assyria was more invigorating and produced men of greater endurance than did the kingdom to the south.
Both Chaldea and Assyria alike, developed small states, each led by a city in which had been built a temple sacred to some local deity. Each community was presided over by one who combined the duties of king and priest.
Such was the condition of affairs when the first written records, more or less complete, bring some degree of certainty and less conjecture into the development of these nations. And here we arrive at the beginning of Mesopotamian history, properly so-called.
A JAR-SHAPED COFFIN OF CLAY.
[1] Ragozin: Chaldea.
[2] This is a late popular etymology. Babel means "the gate of God," and has no connection with the Hebrew verb balal "to confound."