(10) Papyri from Oxyrhynchus.—About 123 miles south of Cairo and nine miles to the west of the Nile lies the town of Behnesa, which the Greeks called Oxyrhynchus, from a sharp-nosed fish which was sacred there. Since 1897 Grenfell and Hunt, two English explorers, have been season after season exploring the rubbish heaps of the old town. The inhabitants committed the contents of their waste-baskets to the sands, and on account of the dry climate these have never decayed. Here were found the “Sayings of Jesus,” some of the documents concerning the Roman census, and some of the letters translated in Part II, pp. [432], ff., [440], ff., as well as many remains of the works of classical authors. Similar documents have been found in other parts of Egypt, but no other site has yielded as many as Oxyrhynchus.
(11) Discoveries in Nubia.—During the winter of 1908-1909 MacIver explored at Karanog in Nubia for the University of Pennsylvania. He found in a cemetery many remains of the civilization of the Christian Nubians. They still called their queen Candace (see Acts 8:27), fed her on milk, and regarded obesity as an attribute of royalty. More will be known of the Nubians of this period when the inscriptions discovered at Karanog and at Shablul, deciphered by Mr. Griffith, have been more completely studied. The explorations of the English at Meroe have afforded a connected view of the development of this Nubian civilization. They found there the remains of an early period extending from about 650-400 B. C., which was followed by about a century when the royal residence was elsewhere, a middle period from 300 to 1 B. C., during the latter part of which Hellenic influences were felt, and a late period, from 1 to 350 A. D., during which Roman forms of art penetrated the country.[9]
CHAPTER II
BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
The Land. The Preservation of Antiquities. The Discovery of Antiquities: By Benjamin of Tudela. By Rich. By Botta and Place. By Layard. By Loftus and Rawlinson. By Oppert and Rassam. By George Smith. By Sarzec. By Peters, Ward, and Haynes. By Koldeway. By Andrae. By de Morgan. By Harper and Banks. By Genouillac. The Decipherment of the Inscriptions: By Niebuhr. By Grotefend, De Sacy, and Rawlinson. Babylonian column. Babylonian-Semitic. Chronology. Outline of the History: The prehistoric period. Sumerians. The Pre-Babylonian period. “Stele of the Vultures.” The early Babylonian period. Kassites. Pashe dynasty. The early Assyrian period. The second Assyrian period. The Neo-Babylonian period. The Persian period. The Greek and Parthian periods. Discoveries which Illumine the Bible.
1. The Land.—The Mesopotamian Valley, as the great region watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers is called, in many respects resembles Egypt, although in other respects it differs strikingly from Egypt. The country is like Egypt in that it is formed by rivers; it differs from Egypt in that it has two rivers instead of one. In late geologic time the Persian Gulf extended far up toward the Mediterranean. All of what was Babylonia has been formed by detritus (silt) brought down by the Tigris and the Euphrates. The process of forming land is still going on. At the head of the Persian Gulf about seventy feet a year is still formed in this way, or a mile in about seventy-five years.
Both the Tigris and the Euphrates rise in the mountainous regions of Armenia, on opposite sides of the same range of mountains. The melting of the snows on these mountains gives both rivers, like the Nile, a period of overflow. As the source of the Tigris is on the south side of the mountains, it begins to rise first. Its rise begins about the first of March, its overflow is at its height in May, and the water recedes in June or July. The Euphrates begins to rise about the middle of March, continues to rise until June, and does not recede to its ordinary level until September. The soil thus formed is of rich materials, and the retreating flood leaves it each year well watered and softened for agriculture. Here, as in Egypt, one of the earliest civilizations of the world developed. It was quite independent of that in Egypt, and consequently differed from the Egyptian in many respects. Unlike Egypt, Babylonia had a rainy season; nevertheless she was mainly dependent upon the overflow of the rivers for her irrigation and her fertility. As she possessed two rivers, her breadth was greater than that of Egypt, but she lacked the contiguity of protecting deserts, such as Egypt possessed. All through her history her fertile plains attracted the mountain dwellers of the East and the peoples of the West. Subject to frequent invasion by these, Babylonia had no long peaceful development such as Egypt enjoyed before the Hyksos invasion. From before the beginning of written history race mingled with race in this great valley, invasions were frequent, and the construction of permanent empires difficult.
