From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten.

Let my tongue cleave to my jaws if I do not remember thee:

If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy.

Is it possible to put in words a more soul-subduing “Home Sweet Home” than this affecting Super flumina Babylonis of the heart-broken captives of Israel? But it is only when it is sung in its beautifully rhythmic Hebrew that one can fully appreciate its depth of pathos and exceeding beauty of expression.

Our walk from Babil southward was one of rare delight and interest. It was through gardens and cultivated fields and attractive palm groves which occupied the greater part of the narrow strip of fertile land which separates the Euphrates from the great city of ruins. The methods employed in tilling the soil here are the same as those used in the days of the Jewish Captivity. There is the same primitive plow, the same process of treading out and winnowing grain, the same methods of irrigating the land as obtained when the prophets Daniel and Ezekiel were here the teachers and the consolers of their exiled countrymen.

The width of the Euphrates varies according to the season. As the rainfall in this subtropical land is rarely more than three inches a year, the river is quite shallow, except when its bed is filled by the annual flood from the mountains of Armenia. At Babylon it is rarely more than four hundred feet wide; and during the dry season its surface is considerably below its banks. For this reason the inhabitants from the earliest times have, in order to irrigate their lands, had recourse not only to canals but also to various devices for lifting water from a lower to a higher level. Among these contrivances are the dolab or chain pump, the na’ura or water wheel, and the djird, a huge leather bag, which, when filled with water is, by means of a simple machine operated by an ox, lifted the desired height and automatically emptied into the channel by which the field or garden is irrigated. The strident notes of these various water elevators and the accompanying songs of the native attendants are often the only sounds that penetrate the solemn stillness which reigns amid the venerable ruins that cover the ground from the mound of Babil on the north to the village of Djumdjuma in the southern part of Babylon.

Herodotus tells us that in his time the Euphrates divided the city into “two distinct portions.” But the present bed of the shifting river is considerably to the westward of that which existed in his day. As a result of this shifting, the western part of the city has almost completely disappeared, for nothing of it now remains on the right side of the present channel except slight vestiges of its once massive walls. The same writer also tells us that the two halves of the city were connected by a stone bridge which spanned the river near the center of the metropolis. He attributes this feat of engineering to Queen Nitocris, but, as there is no record of this queen, either in Berosus or in the Babylonian inscriptions, it is probable that Herodotus was misinformed about her existence, or that he had in mind Queen Amuita, the Median wife of Nebuchadnezzar, who is said to have suggested to her royal consort the construction of the famous hanging gardens which were long ranked among the seven wonders of the world. Diodorus,[516] however, will have it that the bridge was due to Semiramis, to whom antiquity ascribes many other of Babylon’s most notable works. But in spite of the determination of the ancient historian to give the credit of this remarkable achievement to a woman, and in spite of the denials of many modern writers that such a bridge ever existed, or that its construction was even possible in the age in which it is said to have been built, the “Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft” in 1910 actually discovered incontestable remains of the much disputed bridge and demonstrated that its construction was due not to Nitocris, or Amuita, or Semiramis, but to the renowned Nebuchadnezzar or to his father, Nabopolassar.

At the spot once occupied by the eastern bridgehead of this notable structure we found ourselves on the famous Procession Street which was long one of the most remarkable features of Babylon. This was the street along which passed the great processions of Marduk-Merodach—the tutelar deity of the Chaldean capital, and of Nabu-Nebe—his son. In this respect it served the same purpose as the magnificent Via Sacra, which extended from Athens to Eleusis and which was used by the solemn Panathenaic procession which was annually held for the celebration, in the great Elusinian temple, of the impressive mysteries of Demeter, Iacchus, and Persephone. An inscribed brick recently found informs us of the part Nebuchadnezzar had in the construction of the Sacred Way of Babylon and gives us the characteristic prayer that he addressed to his gods, which reads:

Nabu and Marduc, when you traverse these streets in joy, may benefits for me rest upon your lips; life for distant days and well being for the body.... May I attain eternal age.[517]

Passing eastwards along Procession Street we soon find ourselves between the two ruins of the great temple of Merodack and of the famous Tower of Babylon.