Monument dedicated to the god Kemôsh by Mesha, king of Moab (2 Kings 3:4 ff.), to record his victory over the Israelites in the days of Ahab, and the restoration of cities and other works which he undertook by command of his god. The stone, which measures 3 ft. 10 in. × 2 ft. × 14⅓ in., and contains 34 lines of inscription in the so-called Phenician character, was found at Dibân (the Biblical Dibon, Num. 21:30; 32:34, etc.), in the land of Moab, by the German, Rev. F. Klein, in 1868. Unfortunately, soon afterward it was broken in pieces by the Arabs, but about two thirds of the fragments were recovered by the Frenchman, Clermont-Ganneau, and it is possible to give a nearly complete text of the inscription from the paper impression which was taken before the stone was broken.
The basis for the decipherment of the cuneiform inscriptions, as they are called from the wedge-shaped characters, was laid by George F. Grotefend early in this century, whose system was further worked out with great ingenuity by Edward Hincks, Jules Oppert, and Sir Henry Rawlinson. These pioneers have been succeeded by a large coterie of scholars in all parts of the world, who are still busy studying the large amount of material now forthcoming for the elucidation of the past. Not merely have we learned much of the public and official events and religious ideas and customs during the period covered by the Babylonian and Assyrian Empires, but through thousands of little clay tablets that formed the legal and commercial archives deposited for safe keeping in the temples, an insight into the life of the people has been obtained, of their occupation, of their business enterprise and commercial methods, and of many phases of social life, such as the position of women and slaves, of the manner in which marriages were contracted and wills drawn up. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of the remarkable civilization that arose in the Valley of the Euphrates is the domination of the priesthood over all except the purely political interests of the people. Thus the priests, as scribes, as judges, as astronomers, as physicians, brought that civilization to its high degree of excellence, while under their guidance, likewise, the religion of the country developed from a crude nature worship to an approach to a monotheistic conception of the universe. The heir of the Babylono-Assyrian empire was Persia, which, from the days of Cyrus till the advent of Alexander, swayed the fortunes of the ancient world. In all that pertains to art and architecture, Persia remained largely dependent upon Babylonia. Extensive excavations conducted at Susa by Dieulafoy, about ten years ago, and quite recently continued by M. de Morgan, have proved most successful in revealing the general nature and interior decoration of the great royal palace at that place. In brilliant coloring of the brick tiles which, as in Babylonia, formed the common building material, the Persians passed beyond the Babylonians and Assyrians. One of the most interesting rooms in the Louvre at Paris is that devoted to the exhibition of the colored wall decorations from the palace at Susa, representing such various designs as a procession of archers and a series of lions. The columns still standing at Persepolis have long been famous; and it is here likewise that the first cuneiform inscriptions were found which, couched in Persian, Median, and Assyrian, formed the point of departure for the decipherment of cuneiform scripts.
Egyptian Researches.—The civilization of Egypt rivals in age and grandeur that of Babylonia and Assyria. Here, witnesses to the past that survived in the shape of obelisks and pyramids gave scholars in this century a good start in the work of unraveling the fascinating narrative of Egyptian history. Notwithstanding this, our present knowledge of the history is due largely to the remarkable series of excavations which have been conducted in Upper and Lower Egypt since the early decades of this century, and which continue with unabated activity at the present time. The stimulus to Egyptian research was given by Napoleon in 1798, who, when setting out upon his Egyptian expedition, added to his staff a band of scholars entrusted with the task of studying and preparing for publication the remains of antiquity. The result was a monumental work that forms the foundation of modern Egyptological studies. Another direct outcome of the expedition was the discovery of the famous Rosetta stone, in 1799, which, containing a hieroglyphic inscription accompanied by a Greek translation, served as the basis for a trustworthy system of decipherment of the ancient language of the Nile. The Frenchman, Jean François Champollion, and the Englishman, Dr. Thomas Young, share the honor of having found the key that unlocked the mystery of the hieroglyphic script. As in the case of Babylonian archæology, so here, excavations and decipherment went hand in hand. A few years after the advent of Botta at Mosul, Mariette inaugurated in Egypt a series of brilliant excavations under the auspices of the French government. About the same time the German government sent Richard Lepsius on an expedition to Egypt, which resulted in the establishment of a large Egyptian Museum at Berlin. In 1883 England entered the field through the formation of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, and since that time a large number of cities in Lower Egypt, in the Fayum district, and in Upper Egypt have been unearthed. Year after year W. Flinders Petrie, Edouard Naville, F. L. Griffith, and others have gone to Egypt and returned richly laden with material that has found its way to the Museum at Ghizeh, to the British Museum, to Boston, to New York, and to the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. The activity of the French was continued after the death of Mariette, through Gaston Maspero, E. Grebaut, J. DeMorgan and E. Amelineau, so that the mass of material at present available for Egyptologists is exceedingly large.
RUINS OF PHILÆ, OR PHARAOH’S BED, ON AN ISLAND IN THE NILE.
The cities of Memphis and Thebes have naturally come in for a large share of these excavations. Through the texts discovered within the pyramids at Thebes and the surrounding district, the history of the early dynasties was for the first time revealed. At Balas and Nagadah, a short distance to the north of Memphis, the excavations have brought us face to face with the indigenous population of the Nile that maintained its primitive customs long after those who founded the real Egyptian Empire had established themselves in the country. In the district of the Fayum, notably around Arsinoe, at Hawara, Illahun, and Gurob, traces of early foreign influence—Phœnician and Greek—were discovered, while in Lower Egypt the towns of Naukratis and Tanis represent extensive Greek settlements made in Egypt as early, at least, as the seventh century B. C. Through the magnificent illustrations in the tombs of Beni-Hassan, which have recently been carefully copied by English artists, almost all phases of ancient Egyptian life have been revealed. Though dating from the eleventh and twelfth dynasties, the picture that they afford applies to earlier and later periods as well. Thus, through the work done in all parts of the ancient empire, the links uniting the earliest period to the sway of the Ptolomies and the invasion of the Romans have been determined. Wonderful chapters, replete with interest, have been added to the history of mankind, and though much remains to be done, we are much nearer to a solution than ever before of that most important problem as to the origin of the mysterious Egyptian culture. We know for a certainty that when the Egyptians came to the region of the Nile, they found a fertile district populated by a people, or by groups of people, that had already made some progress on the road to civilization, though not yet knowing the use of metals. The Asiatic origin of the Egyptians is regarded as clearly established by so eminent an archæologist as M. DeMorgan, though it is likely that his views will be somewhat modified by further research. The infusion of Greek ideas, we now know, begins at a much earlier age than was formerly supposed, so that it becomes less of a surprise to find, even before the advent of Alexander, considerable portions of Egypt absorbed by foreign settlers.
A noteworthy feature of archæological work in Egypt during the past decade has been the discovery of a vast amount of papyri containing long lost portions of Greek literature. The famous work of Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens and the poems of Bacchylides may be mentioned as the most notable among these discoveries, and the sources from whence these treasures have come seem still far from being exhausted.
Greek Ruins.—The mention of Greek literature leads one naturally to speak of the work done in this century in that land which stands so much nearer to us and to modern culture in general than either Babylonia or Egypt. While, thanks to the activity and industry of Greek and Roman historians, the records of the inspiring history of the Greek states during their most glorious epoch are well preserved, the earlier periods were enveloped in doubt and obscurity, while of the remains of Greece, of her beautiful temples and her famous works of art, comparatively few vestiges remained above the soil.
The most notable of these were the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, with their works of art, that stood on the Acropolis, and it is precisely here that some of the most remarkable archæological discoveries of the century were made. The Parthenon dates from that glorious period in the history of Athens which follows in the wake of disasters in the fifth century, when the Persians entered the city and laid waste its beauties. The earlier Athens, which reached its zenith in the days of Pisistratus, has been brought to light through the excavations conducted by the Greeks themselves. In 1882 a systematic excavation of the Acropolis, under the auspices of the Greek Archæological Society, was begun. The foundations of the ancient Temple of Athena that stood close to the modern Parthenon were discovered, and numerous works of art, statues, fragments, pediments, bases and vases, dating from the earlier period, by means of which we are enabled to trace the development of Athenian sculpture from the rough beginnings to the perfection that it reached in the days of Phidias. The style of these earlier works differs totally from that which we had hitherto been accustomed to regard as the type of Athenian art, and yet even the rudest of the earlier statues possess already some of that charm which is so strongly felt in the works of the later period. Most remarkable, perhaps, among the remains of the earlier Athenians are a large series of figures that appear to have been set up in rows within the Temple of Athena. It is through these figures, dating from various periods, that we are best able to trace the evolution of Greek art. They are unquestionably votive offerings, the gift of faithful followers of Athena, and, while intended probably as representations of the goddess herself, but little care was taken to give the goddess those accompaniments in dress and ornament which are never absent in the best specimens of the later period. As a result of these excavations on the Acropolis, aided by the investigations of numerous scholars, among whom Ernst Curtius and William Doerpfeld merit special mention, the entire plan of the little sacred city that stood on the Acropolis can now be traced in detail. The construction of the beautiful Propylæa by Mnesicles, of which remains are still to be seen, has been determined, and various temples to Athena, worshiped under the different guises that she assumed, have been discovered. The place where the great bronze statue of Athena, one of the master works of Phidias, stood, has been fixed, and through the inscriptions found on the Acropolis, numerous problems of Greek history have been solved. Every one knows the story of the Elgin marbles that once formed the decoration of the friezes of the Parthenon, and which in the early part of this century were brought to London by Lord Elgin. That act, though frequently denounced as a piece of vandalism, has probably done more to arouse an interest in Greek archæology throughout Europe than anything else. Even the indignation which Lord Elgin’s act provoked has served a good purpose, not only in leading Greece to take better care of her great treasures, but in inducing scholars of England, France, Germany, and the United States to establish, in Athens, architectural schools where young archæologists may be trained, and where expeditions can be organized for the systematic investigation of the numerous cities of ancient Greece and the surrounding islands. The most important work done through these schools is the excavation of Olympia by the Germans, and of Delos and of Delphi by the French, while only some degrees less noticeable is the work done by a zealous Greek, M. Carpanos, at Dodona, by the Greek Society at Eleusis, Epidaurus, and Tanagra, and by the American School at Eretria and at Argos. At Olympia the discovery of the great Temple to Zeus, the grand theatre in which the famous games took place, the numerous shrines erected in honor of various deities that belong to the court of Zeus, and of hundreds of votive inscriptions commemorating the victors in the games, have enabled scholars to restore for us the ancient glories of the place, and to trace the history of the sacred city through its period of glory to its decline and fall. The master work of antiquity, the golden statue of Zeus made by Phidias, is, alas! forever lost, but it was at Olympia that the Germans found the wonderful statue of Hermes by Praxiteles, a find that in itself was worth the million marks spent by the German government as a tribute to ancient Greece. At Delos and Delphi, the careful work done by the French has added to our material for tracing the course of Greek religion. Next to Olympia there is, perhaps, no place in ancient Greece which had such a strange hold upon the people as the seat of the great oracle at the foot of Mount Parnassus. The work at Delphi is still progressing, but enough has been found to justify the great reputation of this religious centre in ancient times. We can now traverse once again the sacred way leading past numerous buildings to the great shrine of Apollo, and to the cave from which the Pythian priestess obtained her inspiration. Fewer works of art have been discovered here than in Olympia, though perhaps the soil still harbors treasures which the coming years may reveal.
The worship of Demeter and the nature of the Eleusinian mysteries are much clearer since the successful excavations that were conducted at Eleusis. Tanagra is of interest because of the clay figurines, the manufacture of which was one of the specialties of ancient Bœotia. Those figures, prepared partly from religious motives, partly as a tribute to the dead, are valuable as illustrations of popular customs. Great credit is due to the American school for the thorough manner in which excavations have been conducted by it, and while the results are not as striking as in some other places, so fundamental a problem as the arrangement of the Greek theatre, which has been engaging the attention of archæologists for the past decade, has been brought nearer to its solution through excavations at Eretria. At Argos a head of Hera was discovered, which is now famous as one of the best specimens of the Polycletan school.