In his way the weaver was no less skilful than the embroiderer, but he could not give quite so much rein to his fancy as his fellow workmen. The shuttle was less free than the needle. In its passage through the threads of the warp it could hardly do more than trace symmetrical designs and repeat them at regular intervals. We must seek for the patterns of Chaldæo-Assyrian carpets in the sculptured thresholds of the palaces. In these the general principle never varied, but the composition changed just as it does to-day in the carpets and rugs imported from Turkey and Persia. In any case there was a border into which the softest and most delicate colours were introduced. As a rule it must have been decorated with one of those “knop and flower” ornaments originally invented by the Egyptians.[452] The space so inclosed was sometimes divided into coffer-like compartments or panels, sometimes it was filled with a single diaper pattern, as in the threshold from Khorsabad (Vol. I. Fig. 96). No figures of men or animals are to be found here. The simple and perhaps monotonous forms borrowed from the vegetable kingdom, were thoroughly well suited for stuffs destined to be stepped upon by countless feet. If, in our fancy, we clothe the patterns of the carved sills in all the charm of varied colour, we obtain a glowing surface that may be compared, at a respectful distance, with the gorgeous colour harmonies of the Mesopotamian plains, when the spring showers have clothed them in a robe of brilliant green, studded with the pure white of the marguerite, the gold of the ranunculus, and the rich satin of the purple tulip.
Fig. 259.—Detail of embroidery; from Layard.
§ 8. Commerce.
The industry whose products we have been describing presupposed an active and widely extended commerce. It made use of many things that were not to be found within its own country, and it produced so much that it could not fail to seek for profitable exchanges. “Thou [Nineveh] hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven,”[453] says the prophet Nahum; and Ezekiel calls Chaldæa “a land of traffic” and Babylon “a city of merchants.”[454]
Like Egypt, neither Chaldæa nor Assyria understood the use of money, but its absence did not affect their trade. Whether their system was one of barter, or whether they employed the precious metals in rough ingots or rings of a certain weight, weighing them in the balance for each transaction, we cannot say, but we know that the great cities of Mesopotamia had intimate business relations with the surrounding countries for many centuries, and that their merchants had ingenious methods of mobilizing their capital. It is even asserted that they made use of the bill of exchange or of something strongly resembling it.[455]
It was only at its southern extremity that Mesopotamia had a sea-board, and we have very little information as to its maritime commerce. There seems to be no doubt, however, that it held communication with India by sea. Ur, the oldest of the successive capitals of Chaldæa, was near the Persian Gulf, and its ships are often mentioned in the inscriptions.[456]
As civilization advanced those vessels must have increased in number. Isaiah speaks of the ships of the Chaldæans.[457] The regular winds of the Indian Ocean enabled a sea traffic to be carried on without danger; ships could proceed to the mouths of the Indus and return to the Persian Gulf almost to the day. That communication of some kind existed between the two countries can be proved. The zebu, or humped ox, is often represented on the Mesopotamian monuments; and that animal is indigenous in India, where its domestication dates back to the remotest antiquity. Among the half decomposed beams that have been disinterred from the ruins in Lower Chaldæa, some of teak have been recognized.[458] Now the home of that tree is in India; it is to be found neither in Chaldæa nor in any other part of Western Asia. Finally a large proportion of the ivory consumed by the artificers of Babylon and Nineveh must have come from India. The same ships may have brought African ivory from the land of the Somalis, and, as they coasted along Arabia they may have increased their cargoes with myrrh, incense, and other aromatic spices from that country.[459]
But it was in the main by land that Mesopotamia imported her raw material and exported her manufactures. There must have been continual intercourse by caravan between Assyria and the Indus valley. The route must have been by Cabul, Herat, the gates of the Caspian and Media.[460] Several passes led down to the Tigris valley from the plateau of Iran. Longer and more difficult roads brought Armenia and the Caucasus into relations with Nineveh; but, as Herodotus noticed, the rafts of inflated skins, or keleks as they are now called, could be used to float the stones and metals, the leather and the wool of the hilly regions down to the Assyrian capital and the cities of Chaldæa. Timber also would come down with the stream. Towards the west the roads that crossed the fords of the Euphrates, either at Thapsacus, or higher up, at Karkhemish, put Assyria into communication with Asia Minor by the defiles of the Taurus, and with Upper Syria and Damascus by the desert and the oasis of Tadmor. It was by this latter route that the great ports on the Syrian coast received those draperies and carpets which Ezekiel was so careful to enumerate when he pictured the commerce of Tyre. Addressing that queen of the sea whose fall made him leap for joy, he cries: “Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur and Chilmad were thy merchants. These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar among thy merchandize.”
