[653] It was in attacking these Khita that Ramses II. (Sesostris) left his three ‘columns’ or tablets on the rocks near the Nahr el-Kalb of Bayrut (chap. ix.). Six Assyrian inscriptions were also known there, bearing the names of Assur-ris-ilîm, Tiglath-pileser, Assurnazirpal, Shalmanesar, Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon. No epigraphs were found on the north side of the river, where an ancient aqueduct, overgrown with luxuriant verdure, turns a mill. About three years ago, however, the proprietor, when making a new channel, broke away part of the rock, and a fragment bearing cuneiforms attracted the attention of Dr. Hartmann, Chancellor of the German Consulate. No other steps were taken till October 10, 1881, when M. Julius Loytved, Danish Vice-Consul for Bayrut, bared the face of the cliff and discovered five cuneiform inscriptions, one containing 45 lines. They seem to have been hastily cut, as they follow the shape of the rock whose surface has not been dressed. According to Professor Sayce, they are Babylonian, not Assyrian.
[654] Or Asshur, ‘the Arbiter of the Gods,’ represented by the winged disc of Egypt.
[655] Nineveh, destroyed by the Medes (Manda or Madu) and Persians in b.c. 583, had thus a life of 1,617 years, assuming its origin at the middle term, b.c. 2200.
[656] Brugsch, vol. i. chap. xvi., shows that Seshonk (Shishak) and other Pharaohs of the Twenty-first Dynasty were Assyrians who ruled ‘Mat Muz-ur,’ the people of Egypt.
[657] The great scholar derives from Egypt the Cuneiform Syllabarium, which was originally pictorial:—drawing everywhere preceded writing. The astronomy of Mesopotamia is Egyptian (the unit of measure being the ell of 0·525 mètre); and the architecture, that prime creation of the human mind, shows by temples, temple-towers, tombs, and especially pyramids (e.g. that at Birs Namrud), an imperfect imitation of the Nile Valley. Herodotus attributes to Babylon the discovery of the Pole, the Sun-dial, and the twelve hours of day, all well known to ancient Egypt. The ‘Sabbaths’ are Assyrian.
[658] The Athenæum, July 24, 1880.
[659] That the Assyrians had books appears plainly from the inscriptions: ‘In the night-time bind round the sick man’s head a sentence taken from a good book’ (a soporific!). Parchment was most probably the first material (Trans. of Soc. Bib. Archæology, vols. ii. 55, and iii. 432); and the language proves that the papyrus-scroll (Duppu-ga-zu) was known.
[660] We find in Assyria the wild goat standing upon a capital, now the arms of Istria. The same appears at Palmyra (Prof. Socin’s Collection). The winged bulls probably suggested, like the Egyptian Cherubs, our angels’ wings. These motors should now be forbidden in statuary by Act of Parliament; or the artist should be compelled to supply the pinions with the muscles necessary for working them. I need hardly say that the required development would convert the human dorsum to the appearance of the two-humped camel. The late Gustave Doré’s admirable illustrations of Dante (Purgat. xix. 51) sin greatly in this way.
[661] A goddess in alabaster has in each hand a lotus flower, which she holds against her breasts. This is characteristic of old Egypt, which derived the plant from the Equatorial African Lake-region. The same figure again wears a large Egyptian wig, the hair falling in ringlets upon the shoulders.
[662] The Soma, a weed in India (Asclepias gigantea), is a derivation from Homa. The Persea, or Egyptian Tree of Life, was probably the Balanitis Ægyptiaca.