In these researches neither the literature nor the language of the country avail us much. If the affinities are ever traced, it will be through the architecture, and that alone; but there is every prospect of its proving sufficient for the purpose when properly explored.
It will hardly be necessary even to allude to the decipherment of the mysterious written characters of the Chaldeans. There is probably no one now living, who has followed up the course of the inquiry with anything like a proper degree of study, who has any doubt regarding the general correctness of the interpretation of the arrow-headed inscriptions. Singularly enough, the great difficulty is with regard to proper names, which as a rule were not spelt phonetically, but were made up of symbols. This is provoking, as these names afford the readiest means of comparing the monuments with our histories; and the uncertainty as to their pronunciation has induced many to fancy that the foundation of the whole system is unstable. But all this is becoming daily less and less important as the history itself is being made out from the monuments themselves. It may also be true that, when it is attempted to translate literally metaphysical or astrological treatises, there may still be differences of opinion as to the true meaning of a given passage; but plain historical narratives can be read with nearly as much certainty as a chapter of Herodotus or of Plutarch; and every day is adding to the facility with which they can be deciphered, and to the stock of materials and facts with which the readings may be checked or rectified.
From the materials already collected, combined with the chronology above sketched out, we are enabled to divide the architectural history of the Middle Asiatic countries during the period of their ancient greatness into three distinct and well-defined epochs.
1st. The ancient Babylonian or Chaldean period, ranging from B.C. 2234 to 1520, comprising the ruins at Wurka, Mugheyr, Abu Shahrein, Niffer, Kaleh Sherghat, &c. Temples, tombs, and private dwellings, all typical of a Turanian or Scythic race.
2nd. The Assyrian and second Chaldean kingdoms, founded about 1290 B.C., and extending down to the destruction of Babylon by Cyrus, 538 B.C., comprising all the buildings of Nimroud, Koyunjik, Khorsabad, and those of the second Babylon. An architecture essentially palatial, without tombs, and few temples, betokening the existence of a Semitic race.
3rd. The Persian, commencing with Cyrus, 538 B.C., and ending with Alexander, B.C. 333, comprising Pasargadæ, Susa, and Persepolis. An architecture copied from the preceding: palatial, with rock tombs and small temples. Aryan it may be, but of so strangely mixed a character that it is almost impossible to distinguish it from its sister styles. Either it seems to be that Cyrus and his descendants were of Turanian blood, governing an Aryan people, or that they were Aryan, but that there was so strong an infusion of Turanians among their subjects that they were forced to follow their fashions. Perhaps a little of both: but taking the evidence as it now stands, it seems as if the first hypothesis is that nearest the truth. These rock-cut tombs, and the splendour of their sepulchral arrangements generally, savour strongly of Scythic blood; and their gorgeous palaces, their love of art, the splendour of their state and ceremonial, all point to feelings far more prevalent among the Turanians than to anything ever found among kings or people of an Aryan race.
None of these styles, however, are perfectly pure, or distinct one from the other. The three races always inhabited the country as they do now. And as at this hour the Turkish governor issues his edicts in Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, so did Darius write the history of his reign on the rocks at Behistun in Persian, Assyrian, and the old Scythic or Median tongue. The same three races occupied the country then as they do now. But each race was supreme in the order just given, and the style of each predominated during the period of their sway, though impregnated with the feelings and peculiarities of the other two. It is this, indeed, which gives the architecture of the country in that age its peculiar value to the archæologist. The three great styles of the world are here placed in such close juxtaposition, that they can be considered as a whole, illustrating and supplementing each other, but still sufficiently distinct never to lose their most marked characteristics. The materials are still, it must be confessed, somewhat scanty to make all this clear; but every day is adding to them, and, even now, no one familiar with architectural analysis can be mistaken in recognising the leading features of the investigation.
CHAPTER II.
CHALDEAN TEMPLES.
CHRONOLOGY.