A History of Babylon, from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Persian Conquest

by L. W. King

The observations from which the omens were derived consist of dates for the heliacal rising and setting of the planet Venus. The date was observed at which the planet was first visible in the east, the date of her disappearance was noted, and the duration of her period of invisibility; similar dates were then observed of her first appearance in the west as the Evening Star, followed as before by the dates of her disappearance and her period of invisibility. The taking of such observations does not, of course, imply any elaborate astronomical knowledge on the part of the early Babylonians. This beautiful planet must have been the first, after the moon, to attract systematic observation, and thanks to her nearly circular orbit, no water-clock nor instrument for measuring angles was required. The astrologers of the period would naturally watch for the planet's first appearance in the glimmer of the dawn, that they might read therefrom the will of the great goddess with whom she was identified. They would note her gradual ascension, decline and disappearance, and then count the days of her absence until she reappeared at sunset and repeated her movements of ascension and decline. Such dates, with the resulting fortunes of the country, form the observations noted in the text that was drawn up in Ammi-zaduga's reign.

It will be obvious that the periodic return of the same appearance of the planet Venus would not in itself have supplied us with sufficient means for determining the period of the observations. But we obtain additional data if we employ our information with the further object of ascertaining the relative positions of the sun and moon. On the one hand the heliacal risings and settings of Venus are naturally bound up in a fixed relationship of Venus to the sun; on the other hand the series of dates by the days of the month furnishes us with the relative position of the moon with regard to the sun on the days cited. Without the second criterion, the first would be of very little use. But, taken together, the combination of the sun, Venus and the moon are of the greatest value for fixing the position of the group of years, covered by the observations, within any given period of a hundred years or more. Now if we eliminate the Second Dynasty altogether from the Babylonian Kings' List, it is certain that Ammi-zaduga's reign could not have fallen much later than 1800 b.c.; on the other hand, in view of the ascertained minimum of overlapping of the First Dynasty by the Second, it is equally certain that it could not have fallen earlier than 2060 b.c. The period of his reign must thus be sought within the interval between these dates. But, in order to be on the safe side, Dr. Kugler extended both the limits of the period to be examined; he conducted his researches within the period from 2080 to 1740 b.c. He began by taking two observations for the sixth year of Ammi-zaduga, which gave the dates for the heliacal setting of Venus in the west and her rising in the east, and, by using the days of the month to ascertain the relative positions of the moon, he found that throughout the whole course of his period this particular combination took place three times.[52] He then proceeded to examine in the same way the rest of the observations, with their dates, as supplied by the two tablets, and, by working them out in detail for the central one of his three possible periods, he obtained confirmation of his view that the observations did cover a consecutive period of twenty-one years. In order to obtain independent proof of the correctness of his figures, he proceeded to examine the dates upon contemporary legal documents, which could be brought into direct or indirect relation to the time of harvest. These dates, according to his interpretation of the calendar, offered a means of controlling his results, since he was able to show that a higher or lower estimate tended to throw out the time of harvest from the month of Nisan, which was peculiarly the harvest month.

It must be admitted that the last part of the demonstration stands in a different category to the first; it does not share the simplicity of the astronomical problem. It formed, indeed, merely an additional method of testing the interpretation of the astronomical evidence, and the dates resulting from the latter were obtained in complete independence of the farming-out contracts of the period. Taking, then, the three alternative dates, there can be no doubt, if we accept the figure of the Kings' List for the Second Dynasty as approximately accurate, that the central of the three periods is the only one possible for Ammi-zaduga's reign; for either of the other two would imply too high or too low a date for the Third Dynasty of the Kings' List. We may thus accept the date of 1977 b.c. as that of Ammi-zaduga's accession, and we thereby obtain a fixed point for working out the chronology of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and, consequently, of the partly contemporaneous Dynasties of Larsa and of Nîsin, and of the still earlier Dynasty of Ur. Incidentally it assists in fixing within comparatively narrow limits the period of the Kassite conquest and of the following dynasties of Babylon.[53] Starting from this figure as a basis, and making use of the information already discussed, it would follow that the Dynasty of Nîsin was founded in the year 2339 b.c., that of Larsa only four years later in 2335 b.c., and the First Dynasty of Babylon after a further interval of a hundred and ten years in 2225 b.c.[54]

It will have been seen that the suggested system of chronology has been settled in complete independence of the chronological notices to earlier rulers which have come down to us in the inscriptions of some of the later Assyrian and Babylonian kings. Hitherto these have furnished the principal starting points, on which reliance has been placed to date the earlier periods in the history of Babylon. In the present case it will be pertinent to examine them afresh and ascertain how far they harmonize with a scheme which has been evolved without their help. If they are found to accord very well with the new system, we may legitimately see in such an agreement additional grounds for believing we are on the right track. Without pinning one's faith too slavishly to any calculation by a native Babylonian scribe, the possibility of harmonizing such references at least removes a number of difficulties, which it has always been necessary either to ignore or to explain away.

Perhaps the chronological notice which has given rise to most discussion is the one in which Nabonidus refers to the period of Hammurabi's reign. On one of his foundation-cylinders Nabonidus states that Hammurabi rebuilt E-babbar, the temple of the Sun-god in Larsa, seven hundred years before Burna-Buriash.[55] At a time when it was not realized that the First and Second Dynasties of the Kings' List were partly contemporaneous, the majority of writers were content to ignore the apparent inconsistency between the figures of the Kings' List and this statement of Nabonidus. Others attempted to get over the difficulty by emending the figures in the List and by other ingenious suggestions; for it was felt that to leave a discrepancy of this sort without explanation pointed to a possibility of error in any scheme necessitating such a course.[56] We will see, then, how far the estimate of Nabonidus accords with the date assigned to Hammurabi under our scheme. From the Tell el-Amarna letters we know that Burna-Buriash was the contemporary of Amen-hetep IV., to whose accession most historians of Egypt now agree to assign a date in the early part of the fourteenth century b.c.[57] We may take 1480 b.c. as representing approximately the date which, according to the majority of the schemes of Egyptian chronology, may be assigned to Amen-hetep IV.'s accession. And by adding seven hundred years to this date we obtain, according to the testimony of Nabonidus, a date for Hammurabi of about 2080 b.c. According to our scheme the last year of Hammurabi's reign fell in 2081 b.c., and, since the seven hundred years of Nabonidus is obviously a round number, its general agreement with the scheme is remarkably close.[58]

The chronological notice of Nabonidus thus serves to confirm, so far as its evidence goes, the general accuracy of the date assigned to the First Dynasty. In the case of the Second Dynasty we obtain an equally striking confirmation, when we examine the only available reference to the period of one of its kings which is found in the record of a later ruler. The passage in question occurs upon a boundary-stone preserved in the University Museum of Pennsylvania, referring to events which took place in the fourth year of Enlil-nadin-apli.[59] In the text engraved upon the stone it is stated that 696 years separated Gulkishar (the sixth king of the Second Dynasty) from Nebuchadnezzar, who is of course to be identified with Nebuchadnezzar I., the immediate predecessor of Enlil-nadin-apli upon the throne of Babylon. Now we know from the "Synchronistic History" that Nebuchadnezzar I. was the contemporary of Ashur-rêsh-ishi, the father of Tiglath-pileser I., and if we can establish independently the date of the latter's accession, we obtain approximate dates for Nebuchadnezzar and consequently for Gulkishar.

In his inscription on the rock at Bavian Sennacherib tells us that 418 years elapsed between the defeat of Tiglath-pileser I. by Marduk-nadin-akhê and his own conquest of Babylon in 689 b.c.[60] Tiglath-pileser was therefore reigning in 1107 b.c., and we know from his Cylinder-inscription that this year was not among the first five of his reign; on this evidence the beginning of his reign has been assigned approximately to 1120 b.c. Nebuchadnezzar I., the contemporary of Tiglath-pileser's father, may thus have come to the throne at about 1140 b.c.; and, by adding the 696 years to this date, we obtain an approximate date of 1836 b.c. as falling within the reign of Gulkishar of the Second Dynasty. This date supports the figures of the Kings' List, according to which Gulkishar would have been reigning from about 1876 to 1822 b.c. But it should be noted that the period of 696 years upon the boundary-stone, though it has an appearance of great accuracy, was probably derived from a round number; for the stone refers to events which took place in Enlil-nadin-apli's fourth year, and the number 696 may have been based upon the estimate that seven hundred years separated Enlil-nadin-apli's reign from that of Gulkishar. It is thus probable that the reference should not be regarded as more than a rough indication of the belief that a portion of Gulkishar's reign fell within the second half of the nineteenth century. But, even on this lower estimate of the figure's accuracy, its agreement with our scheme is equally striking.

One other chronological reference remains to be examined, and that is the record of Ashur-bani-pal, who, when describing his capture of Susa in about 647 b.c., relates that he recovered the image of the goddess Nanâ, which the Elamite Kudur-Nankhundi had carried off from Erech sixteen hundred and thirty-five years before.[61] This figure would assign to Kudur-Nankhundi's invasion an approximate date of 2282 b.c. As we possess no other reference to, nor record of, an early Elamite king of this name, there is no question of harmonizing this figure with other chronological records bearing on his reign. All that we can do is to ascertain whether, according to our chronological scheme, the date 2282 b.c. falls within a period during which an Elamite king would have been likely to invade Southern Babylonia and raid the city of Erech. Tested in this way, Ashur-bani-pal's figure harmonizes well enough with the chronology, for Kudur-Nankhundi would have invaded Babylonia fifty-seven years after a very similar Elamite invasion which brought the Dynasty of Ur to an end, and gave Nîsin her opportunity of securing the hegemony.[62] That Elam continued to be a menace to Babylonia is sufficiently proved by Kudur-Mabuk's invasion, which resulted in placing his son Warad-Sin upon the throne of Larsa in 2143 b.c. It will be noted that Ashur-bani-pal's figure places Kudur-Nankhundi's raid on Erech in the period between the two most notable Elamite invasions of early Babylonia, of which we have independent evidence.

Another advantage of the suggested chronological scheme is that it enables us to clear up some of the problems presented by the dynasties of Berossus, at least so far as concerns the historical period in his system of chronology. In a later historian of Babylon we should naturally expect to find that period beginning with the first dynasty of rulers in the capital; but hitherto the available evidence did not seem to suggest a date that could be reconciled with his system. It may be worth while to point out that the date assigned under the new scheme for the rise of the First Dynasty of Babylon coincides approximately with that deduced for the beginning of the historical period in Berossus. Five of the historical dynasties of Berossus, following his first dynasty of eighty-six kings who ruled for 34,090 years after the Deluge,[63] are preserved only in the Armenian version of the Chronicles of Eusebius[64] and are the following:—

Dynasty II., 8 Median usurpers, ruling 224 years;[65]
Dynasty III., 11 kings, the length of their rule wanting;[66]
Dynasty IV., 49 Chaldean kings, ruling 458 years;
Dynasty V., 9 Arab kings, ruling for 245 years;
Dynasty VI., 45 kings, ruling for 526 years.