Fig. 112.
But the Assyrians waged war “terra marique,”—on the sea as well as on dry land, and in Fig. [112] (A) we have an example of one of the war-galleys used by Sennacherib in his pursuit of the Babylonian rebels across the mouth of the Persian Gulf. It is a bireme, i.e. a boat with two banks of oars; below are the oarsmen, while the warriors are stationed on an upper deck. The boat is shaped rather like a cutter in front, but the stern ends off in a sweeping upward curve, and there is a mast and cross-beam secured by yards in the fore-part of the galley. The course of the boat is steered by means of two oars worked from behind, which differ in shape from those used to propel the boat. In (B) we have another variety of this type of craft: here both ends of the boat are curved, the extremities being squared off instead of pointed as in (A), and there is moreover no mast, but in (C) we have a different kind of boat altogether; it is an open boat with only one bank of oars and there are no warriors aboard. There are only four rowers and their oars are totally different from those used in the war-galleys, the oars of the galleys resembling long shafted spades, while those here are not unlike hockey sticks. Both prow and stern are curved, the latter terminating in a horse’s head, and in the centre of the boat there is a mast. The custom of decorating the ends of a boat with an animal’s head, no doubt originated among the Phœnicians, who were the maritime people of the Oriental world. In one of the scenes on the bronze gates from Balâwât we see Shalmaneser II receiving the tribute of the ships of Tyre and Sidon (D); these ships, or rather boats, are curved at either end, while both prow and stern are figured with the heads of camels. Only two men are required to manipulate the heavily laden craft, one of whom is apparently steering, while the other is pulling the boat along with the aid of a very heavy and clumsy-looking oar. But war-galleys were not the only boats in use in the time of Sennacherib; a lighter and far smaller boat was employed for the transport of goods (E). The cargo occupies the centre of this odd little vessel, on either side of which two oarsmen are busily plying their oars. Strange to say, they appear to be pulling in opposite directions, but we must possibly attribute this anomaly to the sculptor’s ignorance of nautical affairs; the oars are quite different from those employed in the battleships, but they are exactly the same as those used on the cargo raft above (F); the raft seems to be loaded with large blocks of stone; the wooden raft by itself is clearly incapable of sustaining so heavy a weight, and the requisite buoyancy is attained by fastening inflated skins to the nether part of the raft. A kind of reed raft seems to have been used for traversing the marshy districts of Lower Mesopotamia (H), the reeds being tied together by means of osiers, and the water excluded by a covering of leather or a thick coating of bitumen. These reed crafts sometimes assume the form of flat rafts, while at other times they resemble canoes.
CHAPTER XIV—LIFE, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, LAW, RELIGION
(A) THE EARLY SUMERIAN PERIOD
1. LAWS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
THANKS to the indefatigable labours of Père Scheil and M. Thureau-Dangin, and to the admirable work of M. Genouillac on Sumerian Society, in which that scholar publishes, translates and comments on many of the early tablets from Tellô, we are able to obtain a very fair idea of the manners and customs of the Sumerians at the time of the first dynasty of Lagash.