Language.—Known to be Semitic from the remains of it in the Arrow-headed inscriptions of Nimrúd, Khorsabad, &c., deciphered by Major Rawlinson.
Original Pagan Pantheon.—Nisroc (Assarac), Belti, Bar, Ani, Dagon, Bel, Nebo, &c.
BABYLONIANS.
So far as they were Semitic what applies to the Assyrians applies to the Babylonians also; the differences between them being matters of history and archæology rather than strict ethnology.
Among the first if not first builders of cities, among the first if not the first organizers of empires, the inhabitants of both the Lower Tigris and the Lower Euphrates, were one of the earliest influences in civilization, much in the way of Art; more, however, in the way of politics and commerce than either intellectually or morally. It is not, however, for the sake of enlarging upon these points that the notice of the Babylonians detains us.
Gesenius has given reasons for considering the Chaldees to have been other than a Semitic population: thus either disconnecting the Babylonians from them, or else both from the Phœnicians and Hebrews.
Without giving an opinion on the fact, I satisfy myself with indicating its bearings.
The Chaldees (Khasdim), if not Semitic, were either Persian Kurds or Armenians, from the highlands of the Upper Tigris; and if so, their language was Iranian, their religion Fire-worship, and their affiliation with the Iapetidæ.
As far as we may venture to distribute the outward exponents of civilizational development amongst the Semitic nations, the first application of weights and measures seems to have been Babylonian, just as the paramount achievement of alphabetic writing is apparently the work of the—