Drawn by Boudier, from the plate in Chesney.
The fields, which are regularly sown in the neighbourhood of the small towns, yield magnificent harvests of wheat and barley: while in the prairie-land beyond the cultivated ground the grass grows so high that it comes up to the horses’ girths. In some places the meadows are so covered with varieties of flowers, growing in dense masses, that the effect produced is that of a variegated carpet; dogs sent in among them in search of game, emerge covered with red, blue, and yellow pollen. This fragrant prairie-land is the delight of bees, which produce excellent and abundant honey, while the vine and olive find there a congenial soil. The population was unequally distributed in this region. Some half-savage tribes were accustomed to wander over the plain, dwelling in tents, and supporting life by the chase and by the rearing of cattle; but the bulk of the inhabitants were concentrated around the affluents of the Euphrates and Tigris, or at the foot of the northern mountains wherever springs could be found, as in Assur, Singar, Nisibis, Tilli,* Kharranu, and in all the small fortified towns and nameless townlets whose ruins are scattered over the tract of country between the Khabur and the Balikh. Kharranu, or Harran, stood, like an advance guard of Chaldæan civilization, near the frontiers of Syria and Asia Minor.** To the north it commanded the passes which opened on to the basins of the Upper Euphrates and Tigris; it protected the roads leading to the east and south-east in the direction of the table-land of Iran and the Persian Gulf, and it was the key to the route by which the commerce of Babylon reached the countries lying around the Mediterranean. We have no means of knowing what affinities as regards origin or race connected it with Uru, but the same moon-god presided over the destinies of both towns, and the Sin of Harran enjoyed in very early times a renown nearly equal to that of his namesake.
* Tilli, the only one of these towns mentioned with any
certainty in the inscriptions of the first Chaldæan empire,
is the Tela of classical authors, and probably the present
Werânshaher, near the sources of the Balikh.
** Kharranu was identified by the earlier Assyriologists
with the Harran of the Hebrews (Gen. v. 12), the Carrhse
of classical authors, and this identification is still
generally accepted.
He was worshipped under the symbol of a conical stone, probably an aerolite, surmounted by a gilded crescent, and the ground-plan of the town roughly described a crescent-shaped curve in honour of its patron. His cult, even down to late times, was connected with cruel practices; generations after the advent to power of the Abbasside caliphs, his faithful worshippers continued to sacrifice to him human victims, whose heads, prepared according to the ancient rite, were accustomed to give oracular responses.* The government of the surrounding country was in the hands of princes who were merely vicegerents:** Chaldæan civilization before the beginnings of history had more or less laid hold of them, and made them willing subjects to the kings of Babylon.***
* Without seeking to specify exactly which were the
doctrines introduced into Harranian religion subsequently to
the Christian era, we may yet affirm that the base of this
system of faith was merely a very distorted form of the
ancient Chaldæan worship practised in the town.
** Only one vicegerent of Mesopotamia is known at present,
and he belongs to the Assyrian epoch. His seal is preserved
in the British Museum.
*** The importance of Harran in the development of the
history of the first Chaldæan empire was pointed out by
Winckler; but the theory according to which this town was
the capital of the kingdom, called by the Chaldæan and
Assyrian scribes “the kingdom of the world,” is justly
combated by Tiele.
These sovereigns were probably at the outset somewhat obscure personages, without much prestige, being sometimes independent and sometimes subject to the rulers of neighbouring states, among others to those of Agadê. In later times, when Babylon had attained to universal power, and it was desired to furnish her kings with a continuous history, the names of these earlier rulers were sought out, and added to those of such foreign princes as had from time to time enjoyed the sovereignty over them—thus forming an interminable list which for materials and authenticity would well compare with that of the Thinite Pharaohs. This list has come down to us incomplete, and its remains do not permit of our determining the exact order of reigns, or the status of the individuals who composed it. We find in it, in the period immediately subsequent to the Deluge, mention of mythical heroes, followed by names which are still semi-legendary, such as Sargon the Elder; the princes of the series were, however, for the most part real beings, whose memories had been preserved by tradition, or whose monuments were still existing in certain localities. Towards the end of the XXVth century before our era, however, a dynasty rose into power of which all the members come within the range of history.*
* This dynasty, which is known to us in its entirety by the
two lists of G. Smith and by Pinches, was legitimately
composed of only eleven kings, and was known as the
Babylonian dynasty, although Sayce suspects it to be of
Arabian origin. It is composed as follows:—
