Buried Cities and Bible Countries

by George St. Clair

The religion of the Assyrians was derived from Babylonia, and remained very similar to that of the latter country. Both countries worshipped the same deities, but the Assyrians made some changes in the system, especially in introducing the worship of Assur. Assur was worshipped as “king of the gods,” “father of the gods,” “the deity who created himself.” Among the other principal gods of the Assyrians were Nebo, the god of writing; Merodach, or Bel, a companion deity to Nebo; Shamas, the Sun-god, and Sin, the Moon-god; Ishtar, corresponding to Venus; Nergal and Ninip, gods of hunting; Vul, the storm god, Anu, king of heaven, and Hea, the lord of the under world.

The government of Assyria was monarchical, and the power of the king was absolute, though in practice his rule was tempered by the advice of counsellors. The commander-in-chief of the army was called the Tartan, and here was also a high officer called the Rabshakeh (2 Kings xviii. 17). Judges decided cases in the gate of the temple or the palace, and there was an appeal from them to the governor or king. The priests were a privileged class; they lived on the revenues of the temples and the offerings of worshippers. The Assyrian months were lunar, and the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th days were Sabbaths of rest: extra work and even missions of mercy were forbidden, certain foods were not to be eaten, and the king was not to ride in his chariot. The laws of the country resembled in many respects those of Israel: a father was supreme in his household, and a husband had the power of divorcing his wife. Slavery was in vogue, and whole families were sometimes sold together. Various trades were practised, including weaving, dyeing, manufacture of iron goods, copper, and bronze goods, sculpture, and building, &c. But the most remarkable feature of Assyrian civilisation was their literature and libraries of clay tablets, and it is to these that we owe most of our present knowledge of this great people.

Before the days of Moses there was friendly intercourse, as we have seen, between Mesopotamia and Egypt. In later ages Assyria and Egypt were frequently at war with one another. The hostile armies were obliged to march through Palestine; and it became very difficult for the kings of Israel and Judah to look on with equanimity and preserve a strictly neutral attitude. Yet if they favoured one of the great powers they of course gave umbrage to the other; besides which, Assyria, in the days of its power, could hardly brook to leave any small kingdom independent. At length Samaria was conquered, and its inhabitants deported, by Shalmaneser or by Sargon; and afterwards Judea also, by Nebuchadnezzar.

Speaking of the captivity of Israel in Babylonia as a providential event, a great German writer, Lessing, says,—“When the child, by dint of blows and caresses had come to years of understanding, the father sent it at once into foreign countries, and here it recognised at once the good which in its father’s house it had possessed but not been conscious of.”[50] Again he says,—“The child, sent abroad, saw other children, who knew more, who lived more becomingly, and asked itself in confusion, why do I not know that too? why do I not live so too? ought I not to have been taught and admonished of all this in my father’s house?”

It is because of this sojourn abroad of the Jews, and the influence of other nations upon them, that the exploration of these eastern countries is a matter of such importance to Bible students. In Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt we get into by-paths of Bible history, and the old records when unearthed, read sometimes like new chapters of the Bible.

The land of Mesopotamia, not inaptly called a graveyard of empires and nations, is now neglected and desolate, under Turkish misrule. “The monotony of the landscape would be unbroken” (says Zénaïde A. Ragozin) “but for certain elevations and hillocks of strange and varied shapes, which dot the plain in every direction; some are high and conical or pyramidal in form, others are quite extensive and rather flat on the summit, others again long and low, and all curiously unconnected with each other or with any ridge of hills. This is doubly striking in Lower Mesopotamia or Babylonia, proverbial for its excessive flatness. The few permanent villages, composed of mud-huts or plaited reed-cabins, are generally built on these eminences; but others are used as burying-grounds, and a mosque, the Mohammedan house of prayer, sometimes rises on one or the other. The substance of these mounds being rather soft and yielding, their sides are still furrowed in many places with ravines, worn by the rushing streams of rain-water. The rubbish washed away lies scattered on the plain, and is seen to contain fragments of bricks and pottery, sometimes inscribed with arrow-headed characters; in the ravines themselves are laid bare whole sides of walls of brickwork and pieces of sculptured stone.”

The Arabs never thought of exploring these curious heaps. Their law forbids them to represent the human form either in painting or sculpture, lest it should lead the ignorant into idolatry. They are superstitious, and look on relics of ancient statuary with suspicion amounting to fear, and connect them with magic and witchcraft. It is therefore with awe not devoid of horror that they tell travellers of underground passages in the mounds, haunted not only by wild beasts, but by evil spirits, strange figures having been dimly perceived in the crevices. Better instructed foreigners have long ago assumed that within these mounds must be entombed whatever ruins and relics may be preserved of the great cities of yore.

The first European whose love of learning was strong enough to make him disregard difficulty and expense, and use the pick-axe upon these mounds, was an Englishman named Rich. This was in 1820: but Mr Rich was not very successful, and it was literally true that up to 1842, “a case 3 feet square enclosed all that remained, not only of the great city Nineveh, but of Babylon itself.” In 1842 M. Botta, a French Consul stationed at Mosul on the Tigris, began to dig, and after fruitless labour at the mound of Kouyunjik, opposite Mosul, was directed by a native to Khorsabad, and there, on cutting a trench, entered a hall lined all round with sculptured slabs, representing battles, sieges, and similar events. A new and wonderful world was suddenly opened, and he walked as in a dream. The discovery created an immense sensation in Europe, and the spirit of research and enterprise was effectually aroused.