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

by L. W. King

From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum.

The neolithic inhabitants of Canaan, whose implements of worked and polished stone mark a great advance upon the rough flints of their remote predecessors, belonged to the short, dark-skinned race which spread itself over the shores of the Mediterranean. Dwelling in rude huts, they employed for household use rough vessels of kneaded clay which they fashioned by hand and baked in the fire. They lived chiefly by the cattle and flocks they had domesticated, and, to judge by their clay spindle-whorls, they practised a simple form of weaving, and began to clothe themselves with cloth in place of skins. Over these primitive inhabitants a fresh tide of migration swept, probably in the early part of the third millennium b.c. The new-comers were Semites from Arabia, of the same stock as those nomadic hordes who had already overrun Babylonia and had established themselves in a great part of that country. After they had settled in Canaan and Syria they were known to the Babylonians as the Amurru or Amorites. They were taller and more vigorous than the neolithic Canaanites, and they seem to have brought with them a knowledge of the use of metal, acquired probably by traffic with southern Babylonia.[6] The flint arrows and knives of their enemies would have had little chance against weapons of copper and bronze. But, whether helped by their superior armament or not, they became the dominant race in Canaan. By intermarrying with their predecessors they produced the Canaanites of history, a people of Semitic speech, but with a varying admixture in their blood of the dark-skinned Mediterranean race of lower type.

Such in origin was the Canaanite branch of the Western Semites, and it may be worth while to glance for a moment at the main features of their culture as revealed by excavation in Palestine.[7] One thing stands out clearly: they revolutionized conditions of life in Canaan. The rude huts of the first settlers were superseded by houses of brick and stone, and, in place of villages, cities rose surrounded by massive walls. The city-wall of Gezer was more than thirteen feet thick and was defended by strong towers. That of Megiddo was twenty-six feet in thickness, and its foot was further protected by a slope, or glacis, of beaten earth. To secure their water-supply in time of siege, the arrangements were equally thorough. At Gezer, for example, a huge tunnel was found, hewn in the solid rock, which gave access to an abundant spring of water over ninety feet below the surface of the ground. Not only had the earlier nomad adopted the agricultural life, but he soon evolved a system of defence for his settlements, suggested by the hilly character of his new country and its ample supply of stone.[8] Not less remarkable is the light thrown by the excavations on details of Canaanite worship. The centre of each town was the high place, where huge monoliths were erected, some of them, when unearthed, still worn and polished by the kisses of their worshippers. At Gezer ten such monoliths were discovered in a row, and it is worth noting that they were erected over a sacred cave of the neolithic inhabitants, proving that the ancient sanctuary was taken over by the Semitic invaders. The religious centres inherited by the Ba'alîm, or local "Lords" of Canaanite worship, had evidently been sanctified by long tradition. In the soil beneath the high places both at Gezer and at Megiddo numbers of jars were found containing the bodies of children, and we may probably see in this fact evidence of infant-sacrifice, the survival of which into later periods is attested by Hebrew tradition. In the cultural remains of these Semitic invaders a distinct development is discernible. During the earlier period there is scarcely a trace of foreign influence, but later on we find importations from both Babylonia and Egypt.

It is but natural that southern and central Canaan should have long remained inaccessible to outside influence, and that the effects of Babylonian civilization should have been confined at first to eastern Syria and to the frontier districts scattered along the middle course of the Euphrates. Recent digging by natives so far to the north as the neighbourhood of Carchemish, for example, have revealed some remarkable traces of connexion with Babylonia at a very early period.[9] In graves at Hammam, a village on the Euphrates near the mouth of the Sajûr, cylinder-seals were found which exhibit unmistakable analogies to very early Babylonian work;[10] and the use of this form of seal at a period anterior to the First Dynasty of Babylon is in itself proof that Babylonian influence had reached the frontier of Syria by the great trade-route up the course of the Euphrates, along which the armies of Sargon of Akkad had already marched in their raid to the Mediterranean coast.[11] It is not improbable, too, that Carchemish herself sent her own products at this time to Babylon, for one class of her local pottery at any rate appears to have been valued by other races and to have formed an article of export. At the time of the later kings of the First Dynasty a special kind of large clay vessel, in use in Northern Babylonia, was known as "a Carchemisian," and was evidently manufactured at Carchemish and exported.[12] The trade was no doubt encouraged by the close relations established under Hammurabi and his successors with the West, but its existence points to the possibility of still earlier commercial intercourse, such as would explain the occurrence of archaic Babylonian cylinder-seals in early graves in the neighbourhood.

But, apart from such trade relations, there is nothing to suggest that the early culture of Carchemish and its adjacent districts had been effected to any great extent by that of Babylon, nor is there any indication that the inhabitants of the early city were Semites. Indeed, the archæological evidence is entirely in favour of the opposite view. The bronze age at Carchemish and its neighbourhood is distinguished from the preceding period by the use of metal, by different burial customs, and by new types of pottery, and must be regarded as marking the advent of a foreign people. But throughout the bronze age itself at Carchemish, from its beginning in the third millennium to its close in the eleventh century b.c., there is a uniform development.[13] There is no sudden outcrop of new types such as had marked its own beginning, and, since in its later periods it was essentially Hittite, we may assume that it was neither inaugurated nor interrupted by the Semites. Its earlier representatives, before the great Hittite migration from Anatolia, may well have been a branch of that proto-Mitannian stock, itself possibly of Anatolian origin, evidence of whose presence we shall note at Ashur before the rise of Babylon's First Dynasty.[14]

X. The Citadel Mound of Carchemish from the north-west. After Hogarth, Carchemish, Pl. 1A

Carchemish lies out of the direct road from Babylon to Northern Syria, and it is remarkable that any trace of early Babylonian influence should have been found so far to the north as the mouth of the Sajûr. It is farther down stream, after the Euphrates has turned eastward towards its junction with the Khâbûr, that we should expect to find evidence of a more striking character; and it is precisely there, along the river route from Syria to Akkad, that we have recovered definite proof, at the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon, of the existence of Amorite or West-Semitic settlements with a culture that was Babylonian in its essential features. The evidence is drawn mainly from one district, the kingdom of Khana, which lay not far from the mouth of the Khâbûr. One of the chief towns, and probably the capital of the kingdom, was Tirka, the site of which probably lay near Tell 'Ashar or Tell 'Ishar, a place situated between Dêr ez-Zôr and Sâlihîya and about four hours from the latter. The identification is certain, since an Assyrian inscription of the ninth century was found there, recording the rebuilding of the local temple which is stated in the text to have been "in Tirka."[15] From about this region three tablets have also been recovered, all dating from the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon and throwing considerable light on the character of West Semitic culture in a district within the reach of Babylonian influence.