Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Taylor.
The alluvial soil upon which the Chaldæan cities were built, far from, preserving the dead body, rapidly decomposed it under the influence of heat and moisture: vaults constructed in it would soon be invaded by water in spite of masonry; paintings and sculpture would soon be eaten away by nitre, and the funereal furniture and the coffin quickly destroyed. The dwelling-house of the Chaldæan dead could not, therefore, properly be called, as those of Egypt, an “eternal house.” It was constructed of dried or burnt brick, and its form varied much from the most ancient times. Sometimes it was a great vaulted chamber, the courses forming the roof being arranged corbel-wise, and contained the remains of one or two bodies walled up within it.* At other times it consisted merely of an earthen jar, in which the corpse had been inserted in a bent-up posture, or was composed of two enormous cylindrical jars, which, when united and cemented with bitumen, formed a kind of barrel around the body. Other tombs are represented by wretched structures, sometimes oval and sometimes round in shape, placed upon a brick base and covered by a flat or domed roof. The interior was not of large dimensions, and to enter it was necessary to stoop to a creeping posture. The occupant of the smallest chambers was content to have with him his linen, his ornaments, some bronze arrowheads, and metal or clay vessels. Others contained furniture which, though not as complete as that found in Egyptian sepulchres, must have ministered to all the needs of the spirit. The body was stretched, fully clothed, upon a mat impregnated with bitumen, the head supported by a cushion or flat brick,** the arms laid across the breast, and the shroud adjusted by bands to the loins and legs. Sometimes the corpse was placed on its left side, with the legs slightly bent, and the right hand, extending over the left shoulder, was inserted into a vase, as if to convey the contents to the mouth.
* Vaulted chambers are confined chiefly to the ancient
cemeteries of Uru at Mugheir; they are rather over six to
seven feet long, with a breadth of five and a half feet. The
walls are not quite perpendicular, but are somewhat splayed
up to two-thirds of their height, where they begin to narrow
into the vaulted roof.
** The object placed under the head of the skeleton is the
dried brick mentioned in the text; the vessel to which the
hand is stretched out was of copper; the other vessels were
of earthenware, and contained water, or dates, of which the
stones were found. The small cylinders on the side were of
stone; the two large cylinders, between the copper vessel
and those of earthenware, were pieces of bamboo, of whose
use we are ignorant.
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Taylor
Clay jars and dishes, arranged around the body, contained the food and drink required for the dead man’s daily fare—his favourite wine, dates, fish, fowl, game, occasionally also a boar’s head—and even stone representations of provisions, which, like those of Egypt, were lasting substitutes for the reality. The dead man required weapons also to enable him to protect his food-store, and his lance, javelins and baton of office were placed alongside him, together with a cylinder bearing his name, which he had employed as his seal in his lifetime. Beside the body of a woman or young girl was arranged an abundance of spare ornaments, flowers, scent-bottles, combs, cosmetic pencils, and cakes of the black paste with which they were accustomed to paint the eyebrows and the edges of the eyelids.
Cremation seems in many cases to have been preferred to burial in a tomb. The funeral pile was constructed at some distance from the town, on a specially reserved area in the middle of the marshes. The body, wrapped up in coarse matting, was placed upon a heap of reeds and rushes saturated with bitumen: a brick wall, coated with moist clay, was built around this to circumscribe the action of the flames, and, the customary prayers having been recited, the pile was set on fire, masses of fresh material, together with the funerary furniture and usual viaticum, being added to the pyre. When the work of cremation was considered to be complete, the fire was extinguished, and an examination made of the residue. It frequently happened that only the most accessible and most easily destroyed parts of the body had been attacked by the flames, and that there remained a black and disfigured mass which the fire had not consumed. The previously prepared coating of mud was then made to furnish a clay covering for the body, so as to conceal the sickening spectacle from the view of the relatives and spectators. Sometimes, however, the furnace accomplished its work satisfactorily, and there was nothing to be seen at the end but greasy ashes and scraps of calcined bones. The remains were frequently left where they were, and the funeral pile became their tomb. They were, however, often collected and disposed of in a manner which varied with their more or less complete combustion. Bodies insufficiently burnt were interred in graves, or in public chapels; while the ashes of those fully cremated, together with the scraps of bones and the débris of the offerings, were placed in long urns. The heat had contorted the weapons and half melted the vessels of copper; and the deceased was thus obliged to be content with the fragments only of the things provided for him. These were, however, sufficient for the purpose, and his possessions, once put to the test of the flames, now accompanied him whither he went: water alone was lacking, but provision was made for this by the construction on the spot of cisterns to collect it. For this purpose several cylinders of pottery, some twenty inches broad, were inserted in the ground one above the other from a depth of from ten to twelve feet, and the last cylinder, reaching the level of the ground, was provided with a narrow neck, through which the rainwater or infiltrations from the river flowed into this novel cistern. Many examples of these are found in one and the same chamber,* thus giving the soul an opportunity of finding water in one or other of them. The tombs at Uruk, arranged closely together with coterminous walls, and gradually covered by the sand or by the accumulation and débris of new tombs, came at length to form an actual mound. In cities where space was less valuable, and where they were free to extend, the tombs quickly disappeared without leaving any vestiges above the surface, and it would now be necessary to turn up a great deal of rubbish before discovering their remains. The Chaldæa of to-day presents the singular aspect of a country almost without cemeteries, and one would be inclined to think that its ancient inhabitants had taken pains to hide them.** The sepulture of royal personages alone furnishes us with monuments of which we can determine the site. At Babylon these were found in the ancient palaces in which the living were no longer inclined to dwell: that of Shargina, for instance, furnished a burying-place for kings more than two thousand years after the death of its founder. The chronicles devoutly indicate the spot where each monarch, when his earthly reign was over, found a last resting-place; and where, as the subject of a ceremonial worship similar to that of Egypt, his memory was preserved from the oblivion which had overtaken most of his illustrious subjects.
* The German expedition of 1886-87 found four of these
reservoirs in a single chamber, and nine distributed in the
chambers of a house entirely devoted to the burial of the
dead.
** Various explanations have been offered to account for
this absence of tombs, Without mentioning the desperate
attempt to get rid of the difficulty by the assumption that
the dead bodies were cast into the river, Loftus thinks that
the Chaldæans and Assyrians were accustomed to send them to
some sanctuary in Southern Chaldæa, especially to Uru and
Uruk, whose vast cemeteries, he contends, would have
absorbed during the centuries the greater part of the
Euphratean population; his opinion has been adopted by some
historians, and, as far only as the later period is
concerned, by Hommel.
The dead man, or rather that part of him which survived—his “ekimmu”—dwelt in the tomb, and it was for his comfort that there were provided, at the time of sepulture or cremation, the provisions and clothing, the ornaments and weapons, of which he was considered to stand in need. Furnished with these necessities by his children and heirs, he preserved for the donors the same affection which he had felt for them in his lifetime, and gave evidence of it in every way he could, watching over their welfare, and protecting them from malign influences. If they abandoned or forgot him, he avenged himself for their neglect by returning to torment them in their homes, by letting sickness attack them, and by ruining them with his imprecations: he became thus no less hurtful than the “luminous ghost” of the Egyptians, and if he were accidentally deprived of sepulture, he would not be merely a plague to his relations, but a danger to the entire city. The dead, who were unable to earn an honest living, showed little pity to those who were in the same position as themselves: when a new-comer arrived among them without prayers, libations, or offerings, they declined to receive him, and would not give him so much as a piece of bread out of their meagre store. The spirit of the unburied dead man, having neither place of repose nor means of subsistence, wandered through the town and country, occupied with no other thought than that of attacking and robbing the living. He it was who, gliding into the house during the night, revealed himself to its inhabitants with such a frightful visage as to drive them distracted with terror. Always on the watch, no sooner does he surprise one of his victims than he falls upon him, “his head against his victim’s head, his hand against his hand, his foot against his foot.” He who has been thus attacked, whether man or beast, would undoubtedly perish if magic were not able to furnish its all-powerful defence against this deadly embrace.* This human survival, who is so forcibly represented both in his good and evil aspects, was nevertheless nothing more than a sort of vague and fluid existence—a double, in fact, analogous in appearance to that of the Egyptians.