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 Noiv Ready, Octavo, Elegant Cloth, Price is post free, 
 
 British Museum Lectures 
 
 SHEOL AND OTHER ESSAYS. 
 
 BY 
 
 WM. ST CHAD BOSCAWEN. 
 
 Will shortly appear, 
 
 X HIS MARK 
 
 In the Press, 
 
 GASTRONOMERS & GASTRONOMY 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR ALARED F. CRANLEIGH. 
 
 THE TEMPLE COMPANY, 
 
 6 Booksellers' Row, Strand, London, W.C.
 
 GlZDHUBAB (NlMEOD).
 
 The Fire God.
 
 " Jnm Wufox % Just af |^gcs 
 
 ^ SERIES OF six lecture; 
 
 If 
 
 THE HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES 
 
 OF 
 
 ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA, 
 
 1'ELIYEKED AT 
 
 THE BRITISH MUSEUM, 
 
 BY 
 
 W. St. CHAD BOSCAWEN, F.R.Hist. Soc. 
 
 LONDON : 
 THE TEMPLE COMPANY, 6 Booksellers' Row, Strand, W.C.; 
 
 AND 
 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL cS: Co. 
 
 EDINBURGH AND GLASGOW : MENZIES & CO. 
 
 1886.
 
 PRINTED B V JAMES TURNER AND COMPANY 
 
 9 LOTHIAN ROAD, 
 
 Edinburgh.
 
 
 ocf t/oMffd, 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 GlZDHUBAR (NlMROD) 
 
 The Fire God 
 
 Assyrian Idol from Khobsbad 
 Palace of Sabgon - 
 The God of Death - 
 Plan of the Temple 
 
 Frontispiece 
 Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 19 
 
 87 
 
 126 
 
 144 
 
 2107531
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 The Chaldean Temple ; its Construction and Sekvices - 1 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 The Creation Legends - - - - 29 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 The Palace - - - - - - " 65 
 
 LECTULE IV. 
 The Deluge Legend - 
 
 96 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 Chaldean Libraries - - - - - 131 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 
 The Legends of Gizdhubar ; the Epic of Chaldea - - 150
 
 lecture I. 
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE ; 
 
 Its Construction and Services. 
 
 TF we would study the history of an ancient city, we 
 must turn to its temple. The position which 
 the temple occupied in the cities of ancient times was 
 one of the highest importance. It was the germ, the 
 heart of the city, and as the city and state grew in 
 power, so the temple increased in wealth and mag- 
 nificence ; and when trouble and destruction fell upon 
 the city, so were these adversities reflected in the 
 annals, even in the very stones, of the temple itself. 
 
 The thorough explorations made by the late M. 
 Mariette of the Temple of Karnak show, when 
 Egypt was at the zenith of her power, how lavish were 
 the offerings, how vast and rich the additions which 
 the Pharaohs made to the shrine of their father, 
 Amon-Pta; while its walls form, as Dr. Brugsch fitly 
 remarks, a " history of the Theban kings." " No 
 great cathedral or abbey," says Mr. Stuart Poole, 
 " shows such a vast succession of labour, and so con- 
 tinuous a history. It is not alone a temple, but a 
 library of historic records." So when the power of 
 
 A
 
 2 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 the Thebau kings waned, and the Ethiopian and the 
 Assyrian swept over the land, we see, in the 
 paucity of inscribed records on the walls, and the 
 meacre character of the halls and shrines erected, 
 the bruising of the reed of Egypt. In like manner 
 the temple of the Jews reflects the varied phases of 
 the nation's history. Less than half a century after 
 that most grand and solemn festival, by which the 
 Hebrew King Solomon had dedicated this dwelling, 
 rich with silver and gold and precious cedar, to the 
 Lord his God, in the days when " silver was as stones 
 in Jerusalem " (1 Kings x. 27), we find the Egyptian 
 spoiler Shishak carrying away to Thebes " the trea- 
 sures of the House of the Lord " (1 Kings xiv. 25). 
 ] Rebellion and dissension had torn in twain that short- 
 lived empire, which for a time reached from the 
 Euphrates to the frontier of Egypt. Repaired by 
 succeeding kings, it is once more pillaged to furnish 
 the bribe to buy off Hazael (2 Kings xii. 18). The 
 Assyrian invasions of Sargon 1 and Sennacherib left 
 their mark on the temple (2 Kings xviii. 14, 15), and 
 its destruction was synchronous with the captivity 
 (2 Kings xxv. 8). Thus we see the history of the 
 Jewish nation reflected in the history of its temple. 
 The birth of a new city was marked in ancient times 
 by the building of a temple to the protecting god. 
 The origin of the custom is plainly to be seen in the 
 act of proprietorship in land. In the law tablet we 
 1 See Sayce, "Fresh Light from the Monuments," pp. 117-118.
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 3 
 
 read — " For the future the Judge shall cause a shrine 
 to be erected in a private demesne ; " l so in like 
 manner was the foundation of the more extended 
 and royal property marked by the erection of a 
 temple. 
 
 In Egypt, we find Memphis owing its origin to the 
 foundation of the "House of the worship of Patah," 
 and Thebes to that of Father Anion. We may, I 
 think, see a somewhat similar recognition of the 
 importance of the temple, not only to the religious, 
 but also to the secular life of the people, prompting 
 David, after the capture of the fortress of Zion from 
 the Jebusites (2 Sam. v. 6-9), to remove the ark of 
 the covenant, the Hebrew palladium, thither, and his 
 wish to build in his new capital a house of the Lord 
 (2 Sam. vii. 1). Turning now to Chaldea, we find 
 the strongest evidences of the all-important position 
 of the temple in the life and history of the city as in 
 surrounding lands. The land of Chaldea was a land 
 of temples ; each city had its central fane, " the 
 resting-place " of the patron god ; while some of the 
 more important cities, such as Babylon, Borsippa, 
 and Sippara, had many of these sacred edifices. 
 
 The following is a list of some of the most impor- 
 tant cities with their temples : — 
 
 1 Probably to hold the Kudurru or boundary stone, on which the 
 deed of proprietorship was written.
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 
 City. 
 
 Temple. 
 
 Meaning. 
 
 God. 
 
 1. 
 
 Babylon. 
 
 E. Sagilli. 
 
 House of the 
 Lofty Head. 
 
 Bel. Mero- 
 dach. 
 
 2. 
 
 Borsippa. 
 
 E. Zida. 
 
 House of Life. 
 
 Nebo. 
 
 3. 
 
 Erech. 
 
 E. Anna. 
 
 House of Heaven. 
 
 I star Nana. 
 
 4. 
 
 Sippara. 
 
 E. Parra. 
 
 House of Light. 
 
 >shamas. 
 
 5. 
 
 Ur. 
 
 E. Gir-nu-gal. 
 
 House of Sceptre. 
 
 Sin. 
 
 6. 
 
 Kutha. 
 
 E. Tig-abba. 
 
 House of Bowing 
 down of the 
 Head. 
 
 Nergal. 
 
 7. 
 
 Larsa. 
 
 E. Parra. 
 
 House of Light. 
 
 Sham as. 
 
 8. 
 
 SerguL 
 
 E. Ser-gulla. 
 
 House of the 
 Great Flame. 
 
 Fire God. 
 
 9. 
 
 Nipur. 
 
 E. En. gi. 
 
 House of Bel. 
 
 Bel. 
 
 10. 
 
 Nineveh. 
 
 Bit. Kit muri. 
 
 House of Love. 
 
 Istar. 
 
 Although we may regard the temple as a most 
 important religious structure, yet we cannot, as I 
 shall show, consider it as the first. The rude altar 
 of a few hastily gathered stones, with the Akkadian 
 and Semetic nomads, as with the Hebrew patriarchs, 
 long preceded the temple ; and it was not until the 
 nomadic life was abandoned that the temple as the 
 "House of the God" w r as built. Possibly interme- 
 diate between the two was the sacred enclosure, the 
 temenos, in which the altar stood. This seems to 
 be in some degree implied by some references in 
 ancient Akkadian hymns to the enclosure of Eridhu. 
 The importance attached to the right construction of 
 altars among the early Vedic Aryans is shown by 
 Br Hang, in a paper read before the London Con-
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 gress of Orientalists, to have originated their first 
 ideas of geometry. The construction of the Chaldean 
 temple is based essentially on that of the house — it 
 being E-Dingira, the " House of God " of the 
 Akkadians, the Bit-ilu of the Shemites. That its 
 plan and ornamentation were settled at an early 
 period, and adhered to throughout with the strictest 
 of priestly conservatism, is demonstrated by compar- 
 ing the plans of temples, which the spade of the 
 explorer has brought to light, with the original plan 
 drawn by a Chaldean architect more than forty cen- 
 turies ago. This important design is now preserved 
 in the Louvre, where it forms one of the most pre- 
 cious treasures of the Assyrian Department. In 
 1879, M. de Sarzec, the French Consul at Bussorah, 
 undertook, on behalf of the French Government, a 
 series of explorations in Southern Chaldea. Daring 
 his travels in those regions in 1875, his attention 
 had been called to a mound situated about twelve 
 miles south-east of the ruins of Warka, the site of 
 the ancient city of Uruki, the Erech of Genesis, the 
 ancient capital of Chaldea. 
 
 The explorations resulted in the recovery of a col- 
 lection of antiquities, monuments, and inscriptions, 
 which form the most valuable portion of the Assyrian 
 treasures of the Louvre. The chief edifices below the 
 ruins of Tel-Lo were a large temple and palace of 
 simple but massive construction. The only decora- 
 tion was a series of buttresses at equal distances
 
 G THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 along the walls, and double buttresses flanking the 
 doorways, similar in style to the ornamentation of 
 the buildings found at Mughier and Warka by Mr 
 Loftus, and by Mr Eassam at Aboo Hubba. In the 
 centre of the ruins was found the statue of the ruler 
 or viceroy who restored the temple, dedicating im- 
 portant gifts to it, and regulating the sacrifices and 
 offerings. This statue is a marvel of antique work, 
 such as Egypt only had hitherto produced. The 
 figure is about 4 feet high, and represents the ruler 
 Gudea, who bears the title of Viceroy of Sergulla, he 
 being an official under Urbahu, the ruler of Erech. 
 Gudea appears here in his character of chief archi- 
 tect of the temple, like Semnut, the royal architect 
 of the Egyptian Queen Hatasn, that profession being 
 in high repute in Chaldea as in Egypt. He is clad 
 in a long robe reaching to the ankles, and seated on 
 a throne without a back. The hands are folded in a 
 manner peculiar to Chaldean and Assyrian art, and 
 on the knees is a stone tablet, on which is drawn a 
 plan of the temple in which the statue was found. 
 This plan shows a building with buttressed walls and 
 doorways similar to the edifice uncovered by the 
 explorer. The date of this statue cannot be placed 
 later than B.C. 2120 ; and, judging by comparison 
 with other monuments and inscriptions, it may, with 
 a fair degree of accuracy, be placed about B.C. 2500. 
 It is evident, from the comparison of this early 
 specimen of the draughtsman's art, that Babylonian
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 7 
 
 sacred architecture became stereotyped — at least in 
 plan — at a very early period, as we find the temples 
 discovered by Mr Rassam at Aboo Hubba, at Balla- 
 wat and Nimroud, present but slight variation from 
 this ancient plan. That the construction of the 
 ancient buildings, even at the remote period of 
 twenty-five centuries before the Christian era, was a 
 matter of care and mathematical calculation, is proved 
 by this plan of the temple at Sergulla. Upon the 
 side of the tablet, near the right hand of the sacred 
 architect, is the burr or graver with which the plan 
 was supposed to be drawn, and upon the front edge 
 of the tablet is a neatly constructed and sub-divided 
 scale, which, according to the accurate measurements 
 made by Mr Flinders Petrie, gives a cubit of 20,- : ;, 
 inches, corresponding to the cubit of the old Empire 
 of Egypt. 
 
 The explorations carried out by Mr Rassam at 
 Aboo Hubba have restored to us the remains of a 
 temple, which Chaldean tradition had always regarded 
 as the most ancient in the land. According to the 
 statements of Berossus, it was in the temple of the 
 Sun god, in the city of Sippara of the Sun, the 
 Chaldean Heliopolis, that Xisuthrus, the Chaldean 
 Noah, buried the records which, by order of the god 
 Cronos, he had written of ante-deluvian times. The 
 explorations which the able explorer has carried out 
 in the mound of Aboo Hubba, situated on the Yussifieh 
 Canal, about thirty miles south-west of Baghdad, have
 
 8 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 proved that here was the site of this ancient city of 
 Sippara — the Sapharvaini of the Bible. 
 
 The citadel occupies the southern portion of the 
 eneienttf, and its highest point on the south-west face 
 was once on the banks either of the Euphrates itself, 
 or of a broad canal communicating with the river, 
 the channel of which is now marked by the Euth- 
 wanyieh Canal. The trenches excavated in the 
 mound soon struck the walls of a building, and, by 
 following the line of this wall, the outer face of a 
 large square edifice was uncovered. The portions of 
 the walls laid bare exhibited a style of architecture 
 and ornamentation similar to the buildings discovered 
 by Mr K. Loftus in the mounds at Mughier and 
 Warka, and by M. de Sarzec at Tel-Lo — the walls 
 being broken at equal distances by projecting but- 
 tresses, and decorated with ploughed pannels. 
 Trenches and shafts sunk in the interior showed 
 that within this outer rampart, which in some cases 
 was over 13 feet in thickness, there were over 100 
 chambers ranged round a central court. In the cen- 
 tral portion of the mound, an important pair of 
 chambers were found. Approached from a court- 
 yard, a doorway gave entrance into a large chamber, 
 100 feet in length, and about 35 feet in width. In 
 the centre of this chamber, the explorer found the 
 remains of a large brick altar platform, about 30 feet 
 square, upon which, from charred fragments about, 
 it was evident that the altar of burnt-offering of the
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 9 
 
 temple had stood. The axis of this chamber was 
 north-east and south-west, and at the north-east end 
 a doorway was found, leading into a smaller chamber, 
 measuring 45 feet X 35 feet. The floor of this 
 chamber was paved with a material resembling very 
 closely in composition asphalte. Guided by his former 
 researches at Ballawat and Nimroud, Mr Eassam 
 sank a shaft through this floor in search of founda- 
 tion records, which were usually buried beneath the 
 floor, and discovered by a terra cotta box contain- 
 ing three inscribed records — namely, a stone tablet 
 with a sculptured pannel, representing the worship 
 of the Sun god, and two inscribed barrel cylinders. 
 The cylinders were found to bear inscriptions of 
 Nabonidus, king of Babylon, B.C. 555, recording the 
 restoration of this temple in the year B.C. 550, and 
 the stone tablet bore a long and important record of 
 the restoration of the temple by Nabu-abla-iddina,king 
 of Babylon, whom we already know as a contem- 
 porary of Assurnazirpal and his son Shalmanesar 
 III., kings of Assyria, and whose date may be given 
 as about B.C. 852. It required but a casual examina- 
 tion of the inscriptions to ascertain the nature of the 
 edifice which the explorers had entered, as on the 
 tablet of Nabu-abla-iddina, above the figure of the 
 Sun god, is the inscription — " The statue of the Sun 
 god — the great lord — dwelling in E. Parra (the House 
 of Light), which is within the city of Sippara." An 
 examination of this pair of chambers showed them
 
 10 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 to be in very fair preservation, though all objects of 
 value had been removed, including the statue of the 
 Sun god, which had once stood in the smaller inner 
 chamber. It was most fortunate that so good an 
 example of the Babylonian temple should be thus 
 discovered, and it was soon made all the more impor- 
 tant when the inscriptions discovered in the record 
 chest furnished such conclusive evidence of the great 
 antiquity of this temple. In his cylinder inscription, 
 Xabonidus records that in his pious search for the 
 records of his ancestors, who in remote times had 
 restored this temple, he found the cylinders of 
 Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon, who had restored 
 some portions of this edifice 23C0 years before. 
 This, therefore, gives to this edifice a foundation 
 prior to the year - *> 7 -~> B.C. 
 
 Additional confirmation of this date is now afforded 
 by the repetition of the same date in a second copy 
 of the same cylinder, and also by the fact that other 
 dates of less remote antiquity in the inscription when 
 compared with the existing canon of Kings, are found 
 to be accurate. Still more important, however, is 
 the discovery, in the lower strata of the temple area, 
 of a small ovoid of pink and white marble, bearing 
 an inscription of Sargon I., the father of lS T aram-Sin, 
 which, from its archaic character, bears strong testi- 
 mony to the accuracy of this date. We may there- 
 fore note that, although this date does not confirm 
 the statement of Berossus as to the ante-deluvian
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 11 
 
 origin of the ancient city and its temple, yet it does 
 establish this great antiquity. I now pass to the 
 subject of the plan and arrangement of the temple, 
 and to explain the symbolism therein. 
 
 The temple was called by the Akkadians E-Din- 
 gira, " the House of God ; " by the Semetic Baby- 
 lonians, Bit-ilu, ' the House of God" — the Beth-el 
 of the Hebrews. Many other titles were applied to 
 it, such as " Resting-place of the God," " Dwelling of 
 the God," " Talace of the God," " High Place," &c. 
 The primary idea of all was, however, that of the 
 temple being the " 8 House of God," just as the palace 
 was " the great house ; " and it requires very little 
 inspection of the plan to see how slightly it differs 
 from the pairs of dwelling chambers which are found 
 in the court-yards of^Assyrian palaces, as at Nimroud, 
 or in the more secular parts of the temple. The 
 outer and larger chamber, in which the altar stood, 
 corresponds to the living room ; while the smaller 
 inner chamber may perhaps be compared with the 
 chamber called the inner chamber, in 2 Kings x. 2, 
 in the commoner class of house, and, as I shall show, 
 to the Harem in the palace. In the cuneiform in- 
 scriptions, and especially in the later Babylonian 
 writings of the time of Nebuchadnezzar, we find the 
 name Ekallu, " Palace " or " Great House "-—the 
 Hekal of the Hebrews often applied to the temple. 
 As, for example, in the cylinder (W.A.I., Vol. V., 
 pi. xxxiv., col. i., line 47), we find the great temple
 
 12 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 of Merodach at Babylon called " The Palace of the 
 Heavens and the Earth, the abode of Justice." 
 
 The application of this word to the temple in the 
 Assyrian inscriptions is similar to its use in a general 
 sense in the Books of Kings and the Prophets, where 
 the temple at Jerusalem is called the Hclrd- Jehovah, 
 " The Palace of Jehovah," though we do not find it 
 applied in the more special sense of the Naos, the 
 larger chamber of the temple. The cella, or inner 
 chamber, of the temple bore several names in the 
 inscriptions, all of which are of importance as throw- 
 ing light on the ideas embodied in the construction 
 of the temple> The most common name was Parakku, 
 a word of Akkadian origin, borrowed by the Semetic 
 Babylonians. This word had gone through various 
 changes of meaning. Its primary meaning, on 
 analysis of the construction of the word, was Par- 
 akku, " High Altar," and indicates the stage of 
 religious development, of which I have already 
 spoken, when the altar was the chief religious con- 
 struction. And as the altar was a sacred spot, only to 
 be approached by those who were properly qualified, 
 so at a later time we find it applied to the Harem 
 of the palace, as Sennacherib calls himself in his 
 inscription, "The first-born of the dwellers in the 
 Parrahu — that is, in the Harem." The further ap- 
 plication of the word to the Holy of Holies of the 
 temple embodies the same idea of the sacred char- 
 acter of it in relation to the house of God, as the
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 1 3 
 
 Harem was of the private house. Indeed, we may- 
 say that this word, in its various applications, has 
 undergone almost similar modifications to those of 
 the Arabic word Harem, meaning first a forbidden 
 spot, either the altar or courts of a temple or mosque, 
 and the women's quarter of a house. Two other 
 names applied to this cella, or " Holy of Holies," in 
 the Chaldean temple were Kua and Papakha. The 
 words occur in many cases together as if two closely 
 associated portions of the sacred edifice. As, for 
 example, in the India House inscription of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar (col. ii., line 40) — " In E-Sagili, the palace 
 {E. Kal) of his lordship in their beauty, the House 
 of the Oracle (Kua) and shrine (Papakha) of the 
 Lord of the gods, Merodach." And again in the same 
 inscription (col. iii., line 36) — "The beams of the 
 ceiling of the shrine of Nebo with gold I covered. 
 The cedar planks of the gate of the Oracle (Kua) I 
 covered with bright gold." Comparing these and 
 other passages, we may probably consider the Kua 
 to be the Oracle, equivalent to the Debr of the Jewish 
 temple, while Papakha was the shrine of the god. 
 The cedar wood doors, which divided the holy place 
 from the Holy of Holies in the Chaldean temple, 
 resemble the doors which Solomon made for the 
 entrance to the Oracle — " For the entering of the 
 Oracle he made doors of olive wood, and he carved 
 them with carvings of cherubim and palm trees and 
 open flowers, and overlaid them with gold" (1 Kings
 
 14 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 vi. 31-32). The writer of the Book of Chronicles, 
 however, replaces these doors by the vail (2 Chron. 
 iii. 14). The Parraku, or cella, was the most richly 
 decorated portion of the Chaldean temple, and, like 
 the Holy of Holies of the Jewish temple, was often 
 one mass of gold, silver, and precious stones. In the 
 annals of many of the Babylonian kings, we find 
 reference to their lavish decoration of this Holy of 
 Holies of the great temple of Bel Merodaeh. Gold, 
 silver, and cedar from Lebanon were used with most 
 lavish hand, but the most detailed descriptions, 
 though somewhat mutilated in the case of the former, 
 are found in the inscriptions of Assur-bani-abla and 
 Nebuchadnezzar. In a fragment of cylinder, the 
 Assyrian king thus speaks of his restoration of the 
 temple of E-Sagili : — " E-Sagili (the temple) of the 
 lord of the gods I made. I completed its decora- 
 tions. The mother Bilat, the protectoress, of Baby- 
 lon. Hea and Shamas from the midst of the temple 
 ] brought. I caused them to enter into the city of 
 Suanna (the sacred quarter of Babylon). Their noble 
 shrine I adorned with fifty talents of bronze. 1 
 
 adorned ; with bricks I finished and 
 
 enlarged upon it. 1 caused a ceiling of cedar wood 
 to be made beautiful as the stars of heaven, adorned 
 with beaten gold. Over Merodaeh, the lord of the 
 gods, I rejoiced my heart. I worshipped him, and 
 performed his will. A noble chariot the carriage of 
 Merodaeh, prince of the gods ; with silver, gold, and
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 15 
 
 precious stones I finished its work. To Merodach, 
 king of the hosts of heaven and earth, the sweeper 
 away of my enemies, a couch of accacia wood, for the 
 holy place adorned with precious stones, silver, and 
 gold, as the resting-place of Bel and Bilat— givers of 
 favour, makers of friendship, skilfully I made." Not 
 only does this extract from the inscription furnish a 
 very good idea of the magnificence of this great 
 temple, but it also mentions two objects of interest 
 which were stored in that edifice. The first is the 
 sacred chariot of the god. Merodach, as the Divine 
 warrior, as he is called here the " sweeper away of 
 enemies," the opponent of evil, would certainly have 
 his sacred chariot. In Egypt, and among the Greeks 
 and Ptomans, sacred chariots were kept in the temples. 
 In an inscription in the British Museum, mention is 
 made of " sacrificial rams for the yoke of the chariot 
 of the great Lord Merodach dwelling in E-Sagili." 
 So that there seems to have been a similar idea of 
 his chariot being drawn by rams, as that of Dionysius 
 was drawn by panthers or tigers. The sacred couch 
 here referred to is probably the same as mentioned 
 by Herodotus as one on which those wishing to con- 
 sult the oracles of Belus slept, The discovery in the 
 temple of the Sun god at Aboo Hubba of the pre- 
 cious records of the royal donors, enclosed in a sacred 
 chest, and of the foundation records of the temple at 
 Ballawat — found, too, in a chest— -affords a close re- 
 semblance to the placing of the ark, containing the
 
 16 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 most precious memorials of the Hebrew religion in 
 the oracle of the temple at Jerusalem. The exist- 
 ence of the large altar of burnt-offering in the outer 
 chamber would seem to indicate that this portion was 
 not roofed — only the cella or Parraku being roofed. 
 
 The most important object, however, in the 
 Parraku was the statue of the god in whose honour 
 the temple was erected, which was enshrined within 
 this most holy part of the temple, as the statues of 
 the divinities of Greece were within the cella. Of 
 statues which in ancient times had occupied the 
 Parraku of Chaldean temples, it is doubtful if we 
 have any authenticated example. The statues dis- 
 covered by M. de Sarzec at Tel-Lo, and by Sir Henry 
 Layard at Kileh-Shergat, and Mmroud, came from 
 temples ; but we cannot definitely state that they 
 were the images of the gods in whose honour the 
 temples were erected. Still, however, we are not 
 without information regarding such statues. The 
 inscriptions of Agu-kak-rimi, a Kassite king of 
 Babylon ruling in about the 14th century B.C., and 
 the tablet of Nabu-abla-iddina (b.c. 852), already 
 referred to, furnish most detailed and valuable infor- 
 mation regarding these sacred images. In the latter 
 inscription, we have the account of the making of 
 one of these sacred images, which the king dedicated 
 to this temple of the Sun god in the city of Sippara, 
 in gratitude of "the aid that divinity had afforded 
 him in defeating the invaders of the land. The
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 17 
 
 passages relating to this statue are as follows : — 
 " Nabu-abla-iddina, king of Babylon, for the making 
 of this statue, ordered and set his face. This 
 statue he saw, and (with) its front and back he was 
 pleased. For the making of this statue his mind 
 was set, By the wisdom of Hea, (and) by the aid of 
 the Lord of the Bright Eye, the Lord of Gold, &c, 
 of bright alabaster, the statue of the Sun god, the 
 great lord firmly he made." In the presence of Hea 
 and Merodach, the presence of the Sun god in the 
 House of Alabaster, which is on the banks of the 
 Euphrates ; its surface he cleansed, and raised to its 
 seat. The statue is represented in the bas relief, 
 upon the upper part of the tablet, as a seated figure, 
 clad in a long striped robe, and remarkable for the 
 luxuriant hair and beard. Of the statues associated 
 with temples, those from Tel-Lo and Kileh-Shergat 
 are all seated, and it is evident that, in the early stages 
 of Babylonian art, with few exceptions, and these 
 mere rude blocks, the Babylonians never attempted 
 to represent the full upright figure in the round ; still 
 less did they venture on the reproduction of the nude. 
 Two things seem to have militated seriously against 
 the attainment of beauty in these temple statues, and 
 indeed in all Assyrian art. The first was the Semetic 
 prejudice against the study and representation of the 
 nude, which M. Perrot has remarked hindered Assyrian 
 art from ever shaking off that stiff, narrow, and 
 conventional style which characterises its work.
 
 18 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 The second retarding element may be found in the 
 custom, of which ample evidence is afforded in the 
 inscriptions, of clothing the statues with robes, which 
 rendered anatomical correctness of little importance, 
 and converted these early examples of the sculptor's 
 art into a series of lay figures. In the earlier in- 
 scription of the Kassite king, which I have mentioned. 
 we have a number of the adornments of the images 
 of the gods mentioned, such as blue robes, robes 
 woven with gold, and gold " crowns of divinity " set 
 with precious stones ; and, in the inscription of 
 Nabu-abla-iddina, the king dedicates " six beautiful 
 dresses, the portion of the year," for the use of the 
 temple, in which the statue was placed. Among 
 these robes we may notice "striped robes" (Zubat 
 Seria'tu), evidently similar to the one in which the 
 statue is represented ; (Zubat DamJca Kahcibi), a 
 " beautiful starred robe," also " a robe of open work ; " 
 (Zubat Klmllanu) ; and other adornments. The 
 seated statue placed in the ancient Chaldean temples 
 was copied in slavish manner by the Assyrians, and 
 by them transmitted to the Hittite or Prehellenic 
 tribes in Asia Minor, as shown in the sculptures at 
 Eyuk and the Niobe of Mt. Sisyphus ; and, as Mr 
 Gladstone remarks, the only statue mentioned in the 
 Iliad — that of Pallas Athene — must have been a 
 seated one, as in no other way could the priestess 
 Theano have placed the p&plos of Hecuba on its 
 knees (Iliad vi., 302, 303) ; and indeed this ceremony
 
 Assyrian Idol from Khorsabad.
 
 20 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 of the Trojan women seems to indicate a similar 
 custom of adorning the gods, being in use in Homeric 
 times. 
 
 I now pass from the question of the construction 
 of the temple to that of sacrifices and ceremonies 
 which constituted its ritual, and here we find matter 
 of the highest importance to the student of Hebrew 
 and Phoenician customs. 
 
 It might naturally be expected that a religious 
 system, whose temples were arranged with such care 
 and attention to symbolism, would have formulated 
 a definite and elaborate sacrificial code. In this we 
 are not disappointed. The information which has 
 been acquired from the inscriptions, and especially 
 from the later discovered examples, throws great 
 light upon the system of sacrifices in Chaldea. The 
 earliest code known is one found engraved on one of 
 the tablets from Tel-Lo, dating from about 2500 B.C., 
 and it is a document of considerable interest, as it is 
 evidently pre-Semetic in character. In that inscrip- 
 tion we find only bread, fruit, wine (Sikkaru), fruits, 
 and flour forming the offerings, reminding us, in their 
 primitive character, of the sacrifices of Cain, the " tiller 
 of the soil," in contradistinction to those of Abel, the 
 " keeper of sheep." 1 No mention is made of any 
 animal victims. The two inscriptions, however, 
 
 1 This inscription has been published by Dr Jules Oppert in the 
 Transactions of the International Congress of Orientalists at Berlin, 
 and I read it as follows : — 1 Ephak of Sikkaru drink, 1 Epah of Food 
 ^Bread), -h Epah of Fruit, h Epah i if Flour. Each day is measured out.
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 21 
 
 which give us the fullest particulars of the sacrifices 
 are the tablet of Nabu-abla-iddina, from the temple 
 of the Sun god at Sippara (W. A. L, Vol. V., pi. 60), 
 and the Philips cylinder of Nebuchadnezzar (W. A. I., 
 Vol. I., pi. 65). Taking the sacrifices in order, I shall 
 treat first of the victims. These are— " The ox, 
 sheep, and rams." As we read in the Sippara tablet 
 (col. iv. 29-32)—" Victims, the offerings of the heart, of 
 great oxen, rams, fine large white sheep, he offered." 
 (col. v. 16, 17) — " Of the victims of oxen and rams 
 of the offerings." Also in the Taylor cylinder of 
 Sennacherib (W. A. L, Vol. I., pi. 37, line 60), we 
 have the following record of the sacrifices appointed 
 by Sennacherib after his victory over Merodach- 
 Baladan — " One ox, ten rams, ten omers of wine, 
 twenty omers of first-fruits, to the gods of Assyria, 
 my lords, I appointed in rotation." The Sippara 
 tablet gives the portions of the victims to be re- 
 tained by the priests, the remainder being sacrificed 
 to the gods—" The rump, the tail, the skin, and the 
 flanks, together with choice portions of the stomach 
 and intestines, were to go to the priests, leaving the 
 head and shoulders, with certain portions of fat, for 
 the sacrifices." Thus we find, as under the Levitical 
 law, a definite portion was set apart out of each 
 offering for the maintenance of the priests (Levit. 
 vii. 28-34 ; Numb, xviii. 8-19), a like provision was 
 made in the sacrificial codes of Carthage and Mar- 
 seilles. From Sippara, we learn that two classes
 
 22 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 of sacrifices familiar to us from the Hebrew ritual 
 were in use in Chaldea — " The offerings and peace- 
 offerings of the temple E-Parra of every kind." The 
 offerings we may take to be the ordinary burnt- 
 offering, as in Levit. i. 2-14, here called Karibi, literally 
 " an approachment," The peace-offering is called 
 Salma Kurubti, and corresponds to the sacrifice 
 ordered in Levit,, chap. iii. It is evident, from the 
 very emphatic expression already quoted as to the 
 sheep "offered in the temple, which I read Zrnii- 
 Magaru Damhatc Kabrutc — " Sheep pure, large, and 
 well favoured" — that the victims under the Chal- 
 dean, as under the Hebrew law, were to be without 
 blemish (Levit. i. 3, 10 ; iii. 1, 6). The heave-offer- 
 ing, which takes so prominent a part in the Hebrew 
 code, was also in use in the temples of Chaldea, as 
 we infer from two inscriptions in a religious tablet 
 (W. A. I., Vol. IV., pi. 32)—" A victim he kills, 
 raising -it in the place of his god, worshipping," 
 clearly points to the lifting up of the offering in the 
 presence of the gods. Also in the calendar inscrip- 
 tion (W. A. I., Vol. V., pi. 48), we have mention of 
 " heaving or lifting up flesh before the statues." The 
 passage I have already quoted speaks of " first- 
 fruits" (Suhqypi Rcscti) ; and among the Egibi 
 tablets from Babylon, and the contract and fiscal 
 tablets from Sippara, are large numbers of receipts 
 for the " first-fruit dues." Passing now to the meat 
 and drink offerings, the above-mentioned cylinder of
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 16 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar contains very full information on 
 these points — " The portion of the gods of E-Sagili 
 and Babylon, to each a daily portion prepared. I 
 apportioned honey, milk, beautiful butter, and bread 
 made with oil -. l honey wine, sweet syrup drink, and 
 noble wines." This extract, which is repeated with 
 some variations in the text, is full of matter of in- 
 terest. The offerings of honey, milk, and butter are 
 peculiar, as all three are excluded from the Hebrew 
 code, and honey is expressly forbidden (Levit. ii. 11). 
 The Karunuv Dispav, the " honey wine," is evidently 
 the Dibs of the Hebrews, mentioned in Genesis 
 (xliii. 11), as one of the components of the present 
 taken by the children of Jacob into Egypt for Joseph, 
 and also by Ezekiel as one of the objects imported 
 by Palestine into Tyre (Ezek. xxvii. 17). Most 
 commentators regard it as the same as the Arabic 
 Dibs and the Italian Musto Cotto. An important 
 distinction is made here between the Sikar Satu, 
 the Slicker or drink offering of the Hebrews, and 
 the grape wines, which are enumerated. Among the 
 latter, we may notice specially the wine of Khil- 
 bunu or Helbon, also mentioned by Ezekiel (Ezek. 
 xxvii. 18). These various wines and liquors formed 
 the drink offerings of Assyria, and we often see, as in 
 the lion hunt, the king pouring out libations to his 
 gods. Another offering, common alike to the Hebrew 
 
 1 Ahul Samnav— the only rendering I can suggest, Samnav being 
 the Hebrew Semen, " oil" or ' ' fat."
 
 24 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 and the Chaldean, was the sin offering, as shown "by 
 Mr Pinches in his translation of the Nabonidus 
 Chronicle. He has certainly obtained the right render- 
 ing in the phrase, " A sacrifice for sin they made," 
 though its analysis is rather difficult (Trans. Soc. 
 Bib. Arch., Vol. VII., pp. 160-162). "A sacrifice 
 for sin, they made victims in E-Sagili and E-Zida, 
 to the gods over Babylon and Borsippa, for peace he 
 gave," In the Scriptures we often see loaves of 
 bread placed before the altar of the gods, or on small 
 temporary tripod altars. But perhaps we may find 
 a closer resemblance to the tables of shew bread in 
 the series of small altars which Mr Bassam found 
 ranged on either side of the central aisle of the 
 temple of Istar at iSTimroud, one of which is now 
 exhibited in the Nimroud central saloon of the 
 British Museum. I will conclude this resume of the 
 Chaldean sacrifices by a quotation from one of the 
 sacrificial litanies (W. A. I., Vol. IV., pi. 68). I may 
 mention here that the word rendered " offering " in 
 this text is Kurban, the Hebrew Corban, " a gift " 
 (Levit. i. 2, and Matth. vii. 11). The tablet is broken 
 at the commencement : — 
 
 After him (the priest) to Nusku in like manner thus he shall 
 say— 
 
 " Oh, Nusku, renowned one, counsellor of the wisdom of tin- 
 great gods, an offering. " 
 
 Alter him (the priest) to Adar in like manner thus he shall say — 
 Oh, Adar, great lord, the strength of fortresses, an offering."
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 25 
 
 After him (the priest) to Gala in like manner he shall say— 
 " Oh, Gula, mother, begetting mankind, an offering." 
 After him (the priest) in like manner to Bilat he shall say — 
 " Oh, Bilat, renowned goddess, wife of Bel, an offering." 
 After him (the priest) in like manner to Bel he shall say — 
 " Oh, Bel, most high, establisher of laws, an offering." 
 
 Another feature in Babylonian religious services 
 is to be noticed. This is the grand processions of 
 the gods, which took place upon festivals or in time 
 of trouble. We have a reference to these processions 
 in the Chronicle tablet I have already quoted, and 
 also on a fine sculptured slab, formerly in the Museum 
 at Bristol, but now in the British Museum, where we 
 have one of these processions represented in which 
 the sods are being carried in their arks or shrines. 
 
 Of the vestments worn by the priest, we have as 
 yet little information. The representation of priests 
 fin the seals, notably those on the Egibi tablets, 
 show them with shaven heads, wearing a plain robe 
 resembling the Ephod, bound with a girdle (W. A. I., 
 Vol. V., pi. 56), as did the Jewish priests (Exod. 
 xxviii. 6-12), while the mitre may be contrasted with 
 the curious conical headdress worn by a Babylonian 
 priest in one of the sculptures representing the 
 Babylonian war of Assur-bani-abla (Assyrian Base- 
 ment, No. 91-94), where a Babylonian priest ap- 
 proaches the king. From an inscription now in the 
 Museum, we learn that the king, in his character of 
 Pontifex Maximus, wore a breast-plate adorned with
 
 26 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 twelve precious stones. The position which the 
 priests occupied in Chaldea was a very high one. 
 They stood next in precedence to the king, who was 
 himself head of their order, and in Babylonia they 
 were a veritable race of Oriental cardinals, and often 
 very severe thorns in the side of the kings. 
 
 The revenue of the priests in Chaldea, as in Egypt 
 and in India, were derived from tithes payable in 
 kind, and also from temple estates, resembling the 
 Wakif Estates, belonging to Arab mosques. In the 
 inscription of Agu-kak-rirni (W. A. I., Vol. V., pi. 
 33, col. 7), the king speaks of " A band of youths, 
 with a portion of a house, field, and garden," dedi- 
 cated to the temple of Merodach and Zirat-banit." 
 Also, in the inscription of Nabu-abal-iddina, certain 
 lands are appointed hy the king for the support of 
 the temple of the Sun god in Sippara. The youths, 
 who are called Alii ummani, literally " sons of the 
 army" — that is, those who were capable of bearing- 
 arms, formed the temple guard. In a list of guards 
 (W. A. I., Vol. V., pi. 31), we have mention made of 
 the Matzir bit Hi, " the temple guard ; " and in an 
 unpublished fragment, the guard of the great temple 
 of Assur was stated to be twenty-five men. 
 
 It was not only in its religious position that the 
 temple was so important a feature in the ancient 
 cities of Chaldea — it was also an important element 
 in the civil polity. The discovery made by Mr 
 Kassam at Aboo Hubba of some thousands of tablets,
 
 THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 27 
 
 relating to fiscal, legal, and commercial transactions, 
 show that the temple was the great record office of 
 the State, and that all documents of this character 
 were preserved by the priests. Of the careful way in 
 which such documents committed to their charge 
 were preserved, a remarkable example is again fur- 
 nished by the result of Mr Eassam's excavations. 
 On the south-east side of the large quadrangle at 
 Aboo Hubba was a smaller square, in which were a 
 series of chambers, evidently offices of the temple. 
 In one of these over thirty thousand tablets were 
 found stored. They were packed as found, and re- 
 moved to England ; and when the cases were 
 opened, it was discovered that the majority of the 
 tablets, except where accidentally displaced, were 
 arranged chronologically. Ranging, as these tablets 
 did, from B.C. 625-200, they mast have, for nearly 
 two thousand years, lain buried in the ruins, and 
 quite undisturbed. The temple was also the Court 
 of Justice, and as the Jewish Sanhedrim met in the 
 temple, so did the council (j3ov\ v ) of the "grey- 
 haired ones" meet to answer judgment in the courts 
 of the Chaldean temples. Of this custom, we have a 
 curious example in a tablet dating from about B.C. 
 2120. In this tablet we have a deed of partnership, 
 which was arranged and ratified before the Judges 
 in the temple of the Sun god, in the city of Larsa, 
 in Southern Chaldea, and in which we meet with the 
 followiDg exposition of brotherly love : —
 
 ZO THE CHALDEAN TEMPLE. 
 
 " Brother from brother should not turn away — should not be 
 angry over any matter ; a brother to his brother should 
 converse ; any thing in toto he should not possess." 
 
 Iu concluding this sketch of the Chaldean temple, 
 we may see how much light it throws on the Hebrew 
 temple and its services. Similar in construction, with 
 similar services, sacrifices, and offerings, its prayers 
 expressing the same ideas often in identical words, 
 the information thus acquired cannot be neglected 
 by those who would rightly understand the sym- 
 bolism and esoteric meaning of the Hebrew ritual. 
 It is also evident, even by such a slight study as we, 
 have been able to devote to it, how very important 
 the temple was in the ancient city and state, and 
 that, if we would seek to restore the life of those 
 long-silent men, it is to the temple that we must first 
 direct our steps.
 
 lecture II, 
 
 THE CKEATION LEGENDS. 
 
 THE position occupied by the cosinogonic legends 
 of an ancient people in their sacred literature is 
 one which is often mistaken. Instead of being the 
 earliest products of the pens of the priest scribes, 
 they are often the latest, or at the least, of a period 
 when the religious belief of the people had attained 
 some considerable degree of development. The ex- 
 amination of the series of legends, which form the 
 subject of this afternoon's lecture, shows them rather 
 to occupy the position of the literature of a period 
 in the growth of religion in Babylonia, when the 
 weird magical Animism of the Akkadians had be- 
 come influenced by and blended with the purer creed 
 of the Semetic settlers in Chaldeo, and out of this 
 fusion was growing up that great and powerful reli- 
 gious system of the Chaldean people. The sacred 
 literature of Chaldea offers many advantages to the 
 student of the origin and development of religi- 
 ous beliefs, not obtainable from the study of other 
 systems. There has been preserved to us in the 
 large series of magical litanies and incantations the 
 books of that creed of Animism, which the Akkadians 
 had brought with them from their mountain home. 
 In that creed we find traces of the child-like efforts 
 of these primitive people to solve the problems 
 of their own existence. Having, by comparison with
 
 30 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 the human body in sleep and death, arrived at the 
 theory that all being was due to the presence of 
 an indwelling spirit or power, called by them Zi — 
 " life " or " breath," which was temporarily absent in 
 sleep, but never returned in case of death, they pro- 
 ceeded to apply this theory of Animism to the world 
 of nature. The wind, the trees, clouds, the rivers, 
 streams, the sun, moon, and stars, became the abodes 
 of so many indwelling spirits, to whom all their 
 movements and actions were due. This spirit-world 
 soon became divided into two parties of good and 
 evil spirits — those who were beneficial or malevolent 
 to man, and thus the stage of dualism was reached. 
 In course of time, as man proceeded with his study 
 of the phenomena of nature, and their relation to one 
 another, the various elements became grouped — a 
 result which was only attained by long and close 
 observation. The clouds, sun, moon, and stars be- 
 came the elements, ruled by the great Spirit of 
 Heaven, as the streams, rivers, and metals formed 
 the Kingdom of the Spirit of the underworld. It 
 is evident, from the study of the inscriptions of 
 this Eeligio-Magical creed, that the purer creed of 
 the Semites from their desert home in Arabia exer- 
 cised a powerful influence in the work of simplifica- 
 tion. The ruling spirits now became gods, and the 
 pantheon was rapidly assuming order and system. A 
 second element, which exercised a powerful influence 
 in the development of the creation legends, was that
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 31 
 
 of the relationship between Light and Darkness. 
 To these ancient thinkers, Darkness was the womb 
 out of which Light came — the mother of all things. 
 Trees, flowers, animated existence of all kinds, were, 
 by the aid of Light, brought forth from the enthral- 
 ling power of Darkness. It was from this idea of 
 the great primeval night that the idea of that state 
 of chaos which existed before the work of creation 
 had begun was developed. 
 
 Of the various series of cosmogonic legends of 
 ancient religious systems, three have always been 
 prominent as the most systematic and highly deve- 
 loped — the Hebrew version as contained in the Book 
 of Genesis, the Chaldean as preserved in the writings 
 of the Greco-Chaldean historians, Berossus and Damas- 
 cius, and the Phoenician cosmogonic fragments pre- 
 served by Sanchoniatho. In each of these three Western 
 Asiatic systems, we find points in common, which, 
 if they do not indicate a common parentage, at least 
 show striking similarity of thought. The fragmen- 
 tary and late version of the Chaldean creation 
 legends, which had come down to us in the few 
 quotations from the Books of Berossus, bore a very- 
 close resemblance to the opening chapters of the 
 Mosaic Books. This resemblance is found to be 
 still more striking, now that we can compare the 
 Hebrew version with the older and original tablets 
 from which Berossus had derived his version. Ten 
 years have now elapsed since Mr George Smith, by
 
 32 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 the discovery of these important tablets, added addi- 
 tional laurels to the wreath he had already gained 
 by the discovery and decipherment of the Deluge 
 tablet. During that time, Assyriology has made 
 great and important advances. In England, such 
 students, as Professor Sayce and M. M. Pinches 
 and Budge, have brought their knowledge to bear 
 upon this important section of Assyrian literature ; 
 while, on the Continent, Schracler, Delitzsch, Oppert, 
 and Lenormant have also devoted much study to these 
 legends. The result has been that hidden meanings 
 and niceties of expression, not recognised by the 
 " too soon lost " discoverer, have been brought out, 
 and the work of comparison can now be carried out 
 with much more favourable results. Even at the 
 very commencement of our study of these inscrip- 
 tions, we are met by a small fragment of external 
 evidence, striking in its similarity to the Hebrew 
 version. The system under which the tablets are 
 arranged is by naming the series after the opening- 
 words of the first tablet of the series. The first 
 tablet, of which we possess a portion, commences 
 with the words Bwum Mis, " In the time when 
 above." And so we find Tablet V. of the series 
 numbered by the Assyrian scribes as "Tablet V. 
 Enuva Mis" deriving its name in the same manner 
 as the First Book of Moses is called in the Hebrew 
 Beresheth, or in the Greek Genesis, from its opening 
 words. Of the tablets of this series, we have now
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 33 
 
 portions of four, three of which are, strictly speaking, 
 
 creation legends — the fourth, of which we have Loth 
 
 Babylonian and Assyrian editions, being, as Mr 
 
 Budge has pointed out, a poem describing the war in 
 
 heaven. 
 
 Tablet I. 
 
 1. In the time when above the heavens were unnamed (and), 
 
 2. Below for the earth a name was not recorded. 
 
 3. The limitless abyss, the first-born, was around them. 
 
 4. The chaotic sea was the genetrice of them all. 
 
 5. Their waters were joined in one. 
 
 6. No crop had been gathered ; no flower had opened. 
 
 7. In the time when as yet none of the gods had come forth. 
 
 8. By name they were not named ; order [did not exist]. 
 
 9. The great gods were then made. 
 
 10. The gods Lakhmu and Lakhamu caused themselves to 
 
 come forth, and they spread abroad. 
 
 11. The gods Assar and Kisar [were made]. 
 
 12. They were prolonged many days. 
 
 13. The gods Ann (Bel and Hea, were born), 
 
 14. The gods Assar and Kissar. 
 
 A very casual examination of this fragment is 
 sufficient to reveal its importance, both as affording 
 a striking resemblance to the cosmogonic legends of 
 the Phoenicians and of the Hebrews. It is evident 
 that, like the Hebrew tradition, the Chaldean con- 
 tained the same idea of the existence of the earth 
 prior to the commencement of the work of creation, 
 in a state of chaos and darkness. This conception is 
 hardly so fully apparent from the rendering of the 
 opening verses of Genesis in our authorised version 
 
 B
 
 34 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 " In the beginning God created the heaven and 
 the earth : and the earth was without form and void, 
 and darkness was upon the face of the deep ; " as 
 the words tohu va bohu admit of a more definite ren- 
 dering than <; without form and void," as may be seen 
 when we compare passages in which the former word 
 occurs, and also by comparison with Assyrian in- 
 scriptions. In Deuteronomy xxxii. 10 — " He found 
 him in a desert land, and in a waste-hoivling wilder- 
 ness ;" and in Job xxvi. 7. we have two examples of 
 this word — " He stretcheth out the north over the 
 enqrty ylace ;" and in Job vi. 18, where our version 
 again requires emendation, to read — " The caravans 
 turn aside on their way ; they go into the desert and 
 perish." From the comparison of these passages, it 
 is evident that we must adopt, as a better rendering in 
 this passage, " desert " in the place of " without 
 form." Upon the second word, the Assyrian in- 
 scriptions throw some light. One of the most 
 important goddesses of the Babylonian pantheon was 
 the goddess called Balm. She was the spouse of the 
 water god Hea, aud was the goddess who presided 
 over the south of Babylonia, the region of the 
 marshes. She bore the title of the " great mother," 
 the " noble lady," the " bearing mother of 
 mankind;" and, in her ancient nature-form, she 
 was the goddess of the marshy stagnant wastes. 
 She assumes many of the attributes of the god- 
 dess mentioned in this creation tablet — Mumu
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 60 
 
 Tiamat, the Chaotic Sea, the mother of all nature. 
 We may therefore assume that the rendering of 
 the opening words of Genesis may be taken as — 
 " Then the earth was desert and waste (or marsh)." 
 If we turn to the Assyrian tablet, we see how this 
 idea is substantiated — " The waters were joined in 
 one ; no crop had been gathered, no flower had 
 opened." The word used here for gathered- 
 Kitstsura, from Katsaru, " to bind or collect " 1 — 
 gives the key to the meaning of the first word, which 
 is unfortunately an apax legoncnis. The word used 
 for flower -is the word usually employed for lily or 
 marsh plant, and so the simile is preserved. " The 
 crop had not been gathered ;" the earth was like the 
 unproductive desert, and even the marsh land had 
 not borne its typical flower, " the lily " — all was 
 desert and waste. Such was the state of nature, and 
 around all was the Absu, or " limitless sea of space." 
 It is somewhat difficult to ascertain the exact nature 
 of this very important element in the Chaldean 
 theogony. In the version of this tablet, given by 
 the Greek Neoplatonic writer, Damascius ! (Hodges 
 Cory., p. 92), we read — " The Babylonians, like the 
 rest of the barbarians, pass over in silence the one 
 priuciple of the universe, and they constitute two, 
 Taute and Apason, making Apason the husband of 
 Taute, and denominating her ' the mother of the gods.' 
 From these proceeds an only-begotten son, Moymis ; 
 
 1 From which the word Kitsrituv, " harvest," is derived.
 
 30 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 from them also is derived other progeny — Dakhe and 
 Dakhos, and again a third — Kissare and Assaros ; 
 from the last of which three others proceed — Anus, 
 Illinus, and Aus." 
 
 In both the cosmogonies of Damascius and of San- 
 
 choniatho, the place of this Absu is the first in the 
 
 work of creation. In some cases, Absu, as the 
 
 tablets show, is to be identified with the yEtherial 
 
 ocean, which circled round the world ; but in this 
 
 inscription, as well as in some of the hymns, the 
 
 priests and theologians of Chaldea have attributed a 
 
 more philosophical meaning to it. In the Syllabaries 
 
 we find the group Zu-ab explained by Absu, and an 
 
 analysis of this Akkadian compound word affords some 
 
 important light. The first element, Zu (No. 25 Sayce 
 
 Sylb.), is explained by iclu, " to know," lamadu, " to 
 
 teach," and by mucin, " knowledge," while the second, 
 
 Ab (No. 44 Sayce Sylb.), is explained by bitu, " a 
 
 house," or tiamtu, "the sea," or abu, "a cave." So 
 
 that the whole compound word may mean " the 
 
 house of knowledge " or " the sea of knowledge," and 
 
 this we find confirmed by a beautiful Assyrian lit— 
 
 any (W.A.I., vol. iv., p. lix., 34-35). We read Absu 
 
 l((bdhur bit nimiki, " May Absu, the house of wisdom, 
 
 pardon ;" and in the next line we read, Zukhi labdhur 
 
 kabu absu, " May Zukhi, the depth of the absu, 
 
 pardon," which at once may be read, " Oh, may 
 
 Zukhi, the depth of the house of wisdom, pardon." 
 
 We may then compare with this explanation of
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 37 
 
 this first-born of creation the following remark- 
 able words in Proverbs viii. 21-27, "The Lord 
 formed me in the beginning of his way, before 
 his works of old. I was formed from everlasting, 
 from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When 
 there were no depths, I was brought forth ; when 
 there were no fountains abounding in water. Before 
 the mountains were settled, before the hills were 
 brought forth. While as yet he had not made the earth, 
 or the fields, or the beginning of the dust of the 
 world. When he prepared the heavens I was there ; 
 when he set a compass on the face of the deep." 
 The comparison of these passages with the opening 
 lines of the tablet almost compel us to adopt the 
 more philosophical rendering oiabsu here as "wisdom." 
 Additional support is given to this rendering by com- 
 paring the Hebrew and Phoenician legends. The 
 first-born in the cosmogony of Sanchoniatho by the 
 union of Apason and Chaos is Desire, and we may 
 compare with this the expression in Genesis i. 2, 
 where our authorised version, as I have already said, 
 misses the beauty. "The breath or spirit of the 
 Lord brooded on the face of the waters." In the 
 above extract the deep is rendered by Whom, the 
 exact equivalent of the tiamat of the tablet. The 
 " Spirit of God," the Rualh Elohim of the Hebrew 
 writers has moreover in many places this philosophic 
 sense of Divine Wisdom, as in Exodus xxxi. 3, " Be- 
 hold I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in
 
 38 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 wisdom and understanding and in knowledge ; " and 
 the attribute of prophecy is also frequently attri- 
 buted to the Spirit, as in the case of the in- 
 spiration of Balaam (Numb. xxiv. 2), of Saul (1 
 Saml. x. 6), the messengers of Saul (1 Saml. xix. 20, 
 23), and the Messiah (Isa. xlii. 1). The comparison 
 of these passages with the Assyrian Absu — the abode 
 of knowledge — enables us to ascertain the reason 
 that led the late ISTeoplatonic philosophers to make 
 the mind or wisdom an important element in their 
 theogonies. In like manner the Chaotic sea — the 
 Mummu Tiamat of the tablet — " the bearing mother 
 of all," the Taute of Damascius, the Tisallat of 
 Ilerossus, and the bride of Apason underwent many 
 changes as the religion developed. Here she is 
 called the genetrice or "bearing mother" of all; in 
 the Cutha tablet she appears as the " mother " or 
 "nurse" (iMLsewLk). In the nature aspect of this 
 character we see the dark watery sea of all-shrouding 
 cloud which surrounded the earth — an aspect of her 
 character, which, in later times, became that of the 
 goddess Bahu, of whom I have already spoken. As 
 the serpent coils round its eggs, so this chaos-serpent 
 lay coiled round the earth, until slain by Merodach, 
 the Lord of Light, who, like Apollo, went forth to 
 slay the Python. The representations which we have 
 of this demon of Chaos show her as a woman with 
 full breasts, like the Asiatic mother-goddess repre- 
 sented in a sculpture at Carchemish — or the Istar
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 39 
 
 Nana of Babylonians and the Ephesian Diana, as 
 denoting her character of the great Mother and 
 Nurse of all. On a curious boundary-stone, dating 
 from the 12 th century before our era, we have a 
 very remarkable figure in which the serpent type 
 is preserved, the body being that of a woman, the 
 lower extremities replaced by the coiled tails of two 
 serpents, like the figures in the sculptures of the 
 Giganto-Machia at Pergamos. It was this Queen of 
 Chaos who ruled while the earth lay like the cosmic 
 egg in her coils, in the " time when as yet none of 
 the gods had come forth." 
 
 We now come to the creation of the gods. It 
 is important here to notice that the expression 
 used of these two creations has a reflexive sense 
 — of self-creations " caused themselves to come 
 forth;" they "spread abroad." These two deities, 
 apparently male and female, are named Lakhmu 
 and Lakhamu, and we must certainly identify 
 them with the Dakhe and Dakhos of the cos- 
 mogony of Damascius. At one time I was inclined 
 to identify these creations with deifications of the 
 light, and especially of the first pure light inde- 
 pendent of sun or moon, the first work of the creator 
 (Gen. i. 3). It is more probable now, I think, that 
 that victory of the Divine Light over the power of 
 darkness is represented in the tablet of the War in 
 Heaven, which forms one of the books of this Crea- 
 tion series. 1 was then inclined to think that the
 
 40 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 struggle between the two conflicting elements was 
 embodied in the names of these gods, they meaning 
 " the stragglers," from lakham, " to fight." It seems 
 to me now that we have rather to take the names 
 as Semitic, meaning "the dividers," and that they 
 correspond to the division of nature into the terres- 
 trial and celestial kingdoms — the Heaven being the 
 firmament dividing the god-land from the Earth. 
 This identification seems to me, though not so fas- 
 cinating as my former suggestion, to be more in 
 accordance with the spirit of the text. It meets too 
 with strong support from a bilingual list of gods 
 (W. A. I., iii., pi. lxix., 14, 15), in which both these 
 divinities are given as equivalent to the god Ann 
 and his wife Anatu — the Chaldean Zeus and his 
 wife — the deifications of the Heaven. Had they 
 been deifications of the Light we should most prob- 
 ably have found them equated with the Sun god. 
 The two realms of nature are now divided by the 
 firmament ; and the next creation is that of the two 
 creatures, Sar or Assar and Kiassar or Kisar — the 
 Assor and Kissare of Damascius. These are two 
 compounds, words composed An-sar or " Heaven 
 host " and Ki-sar, " Earth host," they being the host 
 of Heaven and Earth, the spirit-forms afterwards 
 known as the Annunaki and Ilgi; and upon this we 
 have some light thrown in the expression in Gen. 
 ii. 1. — "Thus the heavens and the earth were 
 finished — all the host of them." The Annunaki or
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 41 
 
 Spirits of Heaven in many ways resemble the 
 '•' Zabaoth-lia-sliamain " of the Bible, which in many 
 places cannot mean the stars. The realm of nature 
 is now so far ready for the three great gods to take 
 possession, and we see the next step in the crea- 
 tion is that of the first trinity of the Babylonian 
 Pantheon — Ann, Ellu or Bel, and Hea, the Aims 
 Illinus and Aus or Oes of Damascius. Of these three 
 great gods little need be said ; their epithets mark 
 them as a trinity having both a natural and a philo- 
 sophical constitution. Ami is called " The Father of 
 all the Gods," " The Progenitor, who changes not 
 the decree coming forth from his mouth," " The 
 Mighty Chief," " The Supreme, the Magnificent;' 
 "The Lord of Heaven," "The Heaven." In his 
 character as a Nature-god we find him approaching 
 near to the Vedic Varuna, the Greek Ouranos ; 
 while in his religio-philosophic character, according 
 to the Neoplatonicean school, he was the type of " the 
 great father of all" — the Dyaus-pitar or Jupiter of 
 the Pantheon. The second member, Bel or Elu, is a 
 deity of great importance. His most frequent epithets 
 are — " Lord of the world," " The Lord who guards his 
 country," " Establisher of riches and wealth and 
 possessions," "Lord of the lofty place." This last 
 epithet applies to his dwelling on the " Mount of the 
 World — the Mountain of the East" — the Akkadian 
 and Assyrian Olympus. One of his most interesting 
 and important titles was that of Sadie rabu or Sahu
 
 42 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 rabu, "Most High God," which Dr. Fr. Delitzsch 
 has so well suggested may be the explanation of the 
 El Shadai, the " Most High God " of the Hebrews. 
 As a ruler and director of all, he was the Potentia of 
 the religio-philosophic triad. The last member of 
 this triad is one of the most important gods in the 
 whole pantheon. He is called the " Lord of the 
 Earth ;" he was the " Lord of the Sea," the " Lord of 
 the Absu (House of Wisdom)," the " Lord of the 
 Bright Eye (Far-seeing)," the " Lord of the noble 
 Incantation;" but he was chiefly celebrated for his 
 wisdom. In the inscriptions we find him consulted 
 by all the gods in times of trouble, as in the tablet 
 of the War against the Moon (W. A. I. iv., 5, 37, 54) 
 we read that when the god Bel saw the trouble 
 afflicting the Moon, he called to his messenger, 
 Nusku, the god of " the morning star." — " Bel to his 
 messenger, Nusku, spoke : ' My messenger, this mes- 
 sage to the Absi (House of Wisdom) take — The 
 message that the Moon God in Heaven fearfully is 
 troubled, to Hea in the Absi tell. Nusku the com- 
 mand of his Lord obeyed. To Hea, in the Absi, as a 
 swift messenger, he hastened. To Hea the Master, 
 the Supreme Ruler, the Unchangeable Lord, Nusku, 
 he command of his Lord told.' " The Deluge tablet 
 brings out more emphatically his character for wis- 
 dom. After the cataclysm we read Bel was angry 
 that some had escaped the Deluge by means of the 
 ark, and asks of his companion-god, Adar, who taught
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 43 
 
 men to build the ark ? upon which the reply is — 
 " Who, except Hea, can form a design ? Yea, Hea 
 knows all things, and he teaches (them)." We see, 
 therefore, that as " the god of metals, the god of the 
 rivers and streams," he is Pluto and Cronos of the 
 mythological triad, and the Mens of the philosophical. 
 From this small fragment we get the following table 
 of the Birth of the Gods : — 
 
 
 .2 » 
 
 B* 
 
 
 5 s 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 
 a 
 
 u 
 
 fel 
 
 d 
 
 -a 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 S 
 
 | 
 
 s 
 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 u 
 o 
 
 fi 
 
 u 
 
 ^ ! 
 
 a 
 in 
 
 
 w 
 
 « "S3 _ 
 
 J3 l° 
 
 M 
 
 ^s 
 
 — s i 
 
 8 
 
 & s 
 
 a! 00 
 
 ceo- 

 
 44 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 The examination of this fragment shows that it 
 presents a close and remarkable agreement in many 
 points with both the Phoenician and Hebrew theogonic 
 legends. With regard to the latter we may say that 
 its parallelisms are to be found in the creations of 
 the first two days (Gen. i. 1-9). 
 
 We now pass to the other tablets of the series- 
 There is no tablet corresponding to the work of the 
 third day (Gen. i. 9-13) ; but the fifth tablet of the 
 series, which corresponds to the work of the fourth 
 day in the Hebrew account (Gen. i. 14-23), is very 
 fortunately the best preserved of the series. The 
 careful way in which this tablet was drawn up, and its 
 detailed analysis of the arrangement of the heavenly 
 bodies, throws very great light upon the date and 
 character of these tablets. The text of the tablet, 
 which is published, Delitzscli-Assyriologische Leses- 
 tucke, pi. 70, is well preserved in the obverse, though 
 the reverse is unfortunately lost. 
 
 Fifth Tablet. 
 
 1. He made pleasant the dwelling places of the great gods. 
 
 2. The constellations their forms as animals he fixed. 
 
 3. The year its divisions he divided. 
 
 4. Twelve months of constellations by threes He fixed, 
 f>. From the day when the year began to its end. 
 
 (i. He determined the place of the crossing stars, and the 
 seasons their bound* ; 
 
 7. Not to make fault or error of any kind. 
 
 8. The positions of Bel and Hea, he established with his 
 
 own.
 
 THE CKEATION LEGENDS. 45 
 
 9. He opened great gates in the side of the world : 
 
 10. The bolts he made strong on the left hand and the right. 
 
 11. In the mass he made an ascent. 
 
 12. The Illuminator (Moon-god) he made to shine, to rule 
 
 the night. 
 
 13. He appointed it also to establish the night until the com- 
 
 ing forth of day. 
 
 14. Every month, without fail, by its disk he regulated. 
 
 15. In the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night 
 1G. Horns shine forth to lighten the heavens. 
 
 17. On the Seventh day a circle it approaches. 
 
 18. To divide the dawns, he appointed (it — '?) 
 
 19. When the Sun on the horizon of heaven at Thy coming. 
 
 At the first inspection of this tablet it is evident 
 •that we have before us a document of the highest 
 importance, full of remarkable agreement with the 
 Hebrew tradition, and at the same time presenting 
 us with several striking divergences. With the con- 
 fused account of the Phoenician priest it presents 
 very little agreement, and the fragment of Berossus 
 in correspondence with it being lost, our comparative 
 studies are confined to the Hebrew record. The 
 opening words of the fourth day in the Mosaic 
 account (Gen. i., 14, 15) present a contrast which 
 perhaps does not appear at first — "And God said, 
 Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, 
 to divide the day from the night, and let them be 
 for signs and for seasons and for days and years." 
 And then a little further on we read, " He made two 
 great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the 
 lesser lieht to rule the night: He made the stars
 
 46 THE CKEATION LEGENDS. 
 
 also." Here we have a distinct reversal of the 
 Assyrian order of creation. In the tablet we find 
 the stars created first, and arranged in groups for the 
 measurement of time, and the Moon,, the greater 
 light, for the measurement of the month and the 
 night, and the Sun, the lesser light, for the measure- 
 ment of the day and the year — a sequence which is 
 an exact reversal of the Hebrew one. It is in these 
 varying arrangements that we get very important 
 matter to enable us to contrast the two accounts, and 
 in some measure to approximate their relative ages. 
 It is clear that the Babylonian or Assyrian tablet 
 exhibits a more than rudimentary knowledge of the 
 science of astronomy, as we have before us in these 
 15 lines — (1) The arrangement of the constellations 
 according to the signs of the zodiac ; (2) The mark- 
 ing of the four crossing points on the great circle, 
 the solstices and equinoxes ; (3) The Lunar phases. 
 Another important point to be noticed is the promi- 
 nence given to the moon over the sun, and the par- 
 ticular details as to the calculation of the length of 
 the night. The preference which is given to the 
 moon over the sun here brings us in contact at once 
 with one of the most interesting sections of the 
 growth of religion, and the changes that a religion 
 passes through as a nation advances from one stage of 
 national life to another. In his very valuable paper 
 on the Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians 
 (Trans. Soc. Bib. Arch., vol. iii., p. 207), Professor
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 47 
 
 Sayce thus speaks of the priority of the moon over 
 the sun : " As befitted a nation of astronomers, the 
 moon was considered prior to the sun, and the 
 originator of civilisation." It is hardly in this way 
 that we can explain the priority. Turning to the 
 astronomical tablets, we gain a little insight into the 
 reason : we find that the name given to the planets 
 by the Akkadians of Lu-Bat was translated by the 
 Assyrians by Tseni, " sheep," the Hebrew tson (Tran. 
 Soc. Bib. Arch., vol. v., pp. 44 and 375;, and also by 
 bibu, literally " bright eyes," and also ailu or ailvm, 
 " bell-wethers," or leaders of the flock. In like 
 manner we find a star, which I am inclined to regard 
 as the pole-star, called " The Star of the Hock of 
 many sheep of the Spirit of Heaven;" and we meet 
 with the expression, " stars like sheep," in the 
 tablet of the War in Heaven. Turning now to the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, we lind this pastoral nomen- 
 clature employed as indicated by the phrase, "He 
 telleth the number of the stars and giveth them 
 all their names " (Psl. cxlvii. 4), but it never 
 assumes the prominence it does among other nations, 
 especially the Arabs. The description of Arab 
 thought in relation to the bright, starry, and moonlit 
 heaven is so graphic, and so explanatory of the 
 inscriptions, that it must be quoted : — " With the 
 refreshing dews of evening, not Venus only or the 
 moon, but the whole glory of the starry heavens met 
 the eye and touched the spirit of the Arabs. High
 
 48 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 above the tents and resting flocks, above the 
 nocturnal raid and waiting ambuscade, and all the 
 doings of men, the stars passed along on their glitter- 
 ing courses. They guided the Arabs on their way 
 through the desert ; certain constellations announced 
 the wished-for rain; others the wild storm, the 
 changes of season, the time for breeding in the 
 flocks. Hence to tribes of the desert especially 
 brilliant stars appeared as living spirits, as rulers 
 over nature and the fortunes of mankind." An Arab 
 poet (Al ISTabiga, iii, 2) uses the beautiful expression, 
 " A night so long . . . that I say to myself, ' It 
 has no end, and the Shepherd of the Stars will not 
 come back to day.' " In the Babylonian astronomical 
 tablets we meet with a similar pastoral tone ; indeed 
 throughout the tablets there are hardly any omens 
 relating to cities. To quote a few examples — 
 " The star on high rises to clouds, and rain it 
 points ;" " The star of the eagle is observed, the 
 cattle decrease." Such an omen as the following 
 (W.A.I., vol. iii., pi. G4) — " The moon at its appear- 
 ance with the rising sun is seen: The gods the 
 fields of the land to evil assign : Bel courage to the 
 enemy gives " — points directly to a tribal raid at a 
 time when the moon rises late in the morning, 
 leaving long dark evenings, under cover of which the 
 Bedouin could advance. In these omens we find 
 similar thoughts to those of the Arabs, and ample 
 evidence that it is to a nomadic people we owe such
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 49 
 
 an arrangement as there is in this tablet. It was 
 not, says Speigel, the sun that first attracted the 
 savage by its sight; it was the night sky with its 
 lights, in contrast to the dark earth. So the moon 
 is a friend to the nomad and shepherd : it gives 
 him bright nights to travel or dark nights for his 
 raids, whereas the sun dries up his water and 
 pasturage. The direct ascendency of the moon is 
 again indicated in a bilingual hymn (Del. Lesestucke, 
 pi. 16), where the goddess Istar, as the morning star, 
 is thus addressed by the worshipper — " Of thy father, 
 the moon god, and thy brother, the sun," making 
 the moon father of the sun. The opening lines of 
 this tablet relate to the arrangement of the stars for 
 the measurement of the year : — 
 
 1. The constellations their forms as animals he fixed. 
 
 2. The year its divisions he divided, 
 
 3. From the da}' when the year commences to its end. 
 
 4. Twelve months of constellations by threes he fixed. 
 
 5. He determined the place of the crossing stars, to the sea- 
 
 sons their bounds ; 
 (3. Not to make fault or error of any kind. 
 7 The abode of Bel and Hea he appointed with his own. 
 
 The division of the great circle into twelve divi- 
 sions, through which the sun passed in his yearly 
 journey, is proved by additional matter in the inscrip- 
 tions. In a large astronomical tablet relating to the 
 divisions of the year, we read (W.A.I., Vol. iii., pi. 
 53) — "Twelve months to each year, 360 (60x6)
 
 ."»0 THE CllEATION LEGENDS. 
 
 days in number, are recorded." Again, a few lines 
 mi, we read — "The rising and appearance of the 
 moon for the month one watches ; the balancing of 
 the stars and the moon and (their) opposition one 
 watches. For the year its months, for the months 
 their days — the tale is made complete." Also, " The 
 twelve months in full, from the beginning to the end, 
 to the measure of days fixed." In the Deluge tablet, 
 (col. iii. 30, 31) — " I looked to the regions bounding 
 the sea, to the twelve points no land." It requires 
 hut a very casual examination of the arrangement of 
 the Akkadian calendar, and the accompanying series 
 of the Twelve Legends of Gizdhubar, to see that the 
 calendar is arranged according to a zodiac of twelve 
 constellations similar to our own. For example, the 
 second month is called the month of the Propitious 
 Bull, corresponding to the sign of Taurus ; the third 
 the month of the Twins, corresponding to Gemini; 
 the eleventh the month of the Curse of Rain, corre- 
 sponding to the sign of Aquarius. According to this 
 same tablet (Rev. 8), "the beginning of the year 
 appears to have been fixed by the rising of the star 
 Feu or Dilgan, which was the patron star of Babylon 
 (W.A.I, ii. 47), though it is difficult to identify it 
 with any special star. As we learn from this fifth 
 Creation Tablet, the great circle was divided into 
 four parts of three months each, and the division 
 points were marked by the Nibiru or crossing stars 
 that marked the equinox and solstice points. There
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 51 
 
 are two reasons which lead ine to adopt this rendering. 
 In a tablet giving the names of the star of Merodach, 
 during the twelve months we find that in the month 
 Tasrituv, that is September, he is called Nibiru, and 
 this month marks the period when the sun, at the 
 autumnal equinox, passes from the one half of the 
 year to the other. The second argument is furnished 
 by an unpublished tablet (S. 1907), which gives the 
 seasons of the Babylonian year, and this fragment 
 also explains the division into positions of the three 
 great gods mentioned in line 8 of the tablet. 
 
 1st Season lost, but we can see from the fragment that it 
 extended from the 1st day of Adar (Feb.-Mar.) to the 
 30th day of Airu (Ap.-May), and was the season of 
 rain and sunshine. The latter rain of the Jewish 
 calendar. 
 
 2nd Season — " From the 1st day of Sivan (May-June) to the 
 30th day of Ab (July- Aug.), the sun is in the course 
 of Bel, the season of crops and fruits." This was the 
 wheat harvest and fruit season in Palestine. The 
 feast of first-fruits falling in Sivan. 
 
 3rd Season — " From the 1st day of Elul (Aug. -Sept.) to the 
 30th day of March esvan (Oct. -Nov.), the sun is in the 
 course of Anu, the season of rain and clouds." This 
 was the period of the former or autumnal rains in 
 Palestine. 
 
 4th Season — "From the 1st day of Kiselev (Nov. -Dec.) to 
 the 30th day of Sabadhu (Jan. -Feb.), the sun is in 
 the course of Hea, the season of storms." This was 
 the winter season of Palestine. 
 
 We may conclude from these passages that either the Nibiru 
 were the equinoxes and solstices, or the constellations 
 marking commencement of each of these four seasons.
 
 52 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 The analysis of the opening lines of the fifth tablet 
 shew very clearly that in the Chaldean, as in the 
 Hebrew cosmogony, the stars and lights were created 
 to be for signs and for seasons, and for days and 
 years. 
 
 I now pass to the creation of the moon, the greater 
 light according to the Babylonian teaching. 
 
 1. He opened great gates in the side of the world. 
 
 2. The bolts he made strong on the left hand and on the 
 
 right. 
 ;». In the mass he made an ascent. 
 
 4. The Illuminator (the Moon-god) he caused to shine, to 
 
 rule throughout the night. 
 
 5. He appointed it also, to establish the night until the 
 
 coming forth of day. 
 G. Every month, -without fail, by its disk he appointed. 
 
 7. In the beginning of the month, at the rising of the night, 
 
 8. Horns shine forth to lighten the heavens. 
 
 9. On the 7th day to a circle it approaches. 
 
 10. To divide the dawns he established (it). 
 
 11. At that time the sun on the horizon of heaven at thy 
 
 coming. 
 
 The conception in these lines that the heavenly 
 bodies made their entrance and exit from the regions 
 below the horizon through great gates is one common 
 to most ancient eastern mythologies. In the Egyptian 
 Ritual of the Dead we have the fifteen great pylons 
 of the land of Karneter guarded by genii, armed 
 with swords, through which the deceased had to 
 pass, and through which Osiris passed daily. The
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 53 
 
 description of these gates is found in ch. cxlvi. of the 
 Ritual, which bears the title of " The beginning of 
 the Gates of Aahlu, or Fields of Peace." A similar 
 idea is found to be held regarding the rising of the 
 sun by the writer of the Book of Enoch. A fuller 
 exposition of the Chaldean idea is contained in a 
 hymn to the rising Sun-god (W.A.I. iv., pi. 20, 
 No. 2) :— 
 
 1. Oh Sun-god, on the horizon of heaven thou dawnest. 
 
 2. The bolts of the bright heavens thou openest. 
 
 3. The folding doors of the heavens thou openest. 
 
 4. Oh Sun-god, to the countries thy head thou liftest up. 
 
 5. Oh Sun-god, the glory of the heavens over (all) lands 
 
 thou spreadest. 
 
 According to the Gizdhubar Legends, these great 
 gates by which the sun rose and set were guarded by 
 scorpion men, whose " heads reached to the threshold 
 of heaven, and whose footing was in the underworld." 
 "The Illuminator" is the usual title applied to the 
 Moon-god, and in a long hymn to the moon (W.A.I. , 
 vol. iv., pi. 9) we find the deity addressed as Abu 
 Nannar beluv ilii dhdbu chili Hani — "Father Illumi- 
 nator, Lord and Good God ruling the gods." This 
 name of Nannar no doubt was the origin of the myth 
 of Nannaros related by Ctesias. In the fourth and 
 fifth lines of this section of the tablet— "The Illumi- 
 nator he caused to shine, to rule throughout the night. 
 He appointed it also, to establish the night until the 
 coming forth of day " — is exactly in accordance with
 
 54 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 the Hebrew idea : " And God made two great lights 
 — the lesser light to rule the night" (Gen. i. 16). 
 The description of the phases of the moon is now 
 given ; and, as we see, it was held important in 
 Ohaldea, as in Palestine and among the Arabs, to 
 watch for the new moon, which marked the begin- 
 ning of the month. Those who have travelled among 
 these clear-eyed sons of the desert know how much 
 sooner they espy the small thin crescent than we 
 with our dull eyes. A number of reports relating to 
 this watching for the new moon are to be seen among 
 the astronomical tablets in the British Museum 
 (W.A.I., vol. iii. pi. li., Nos. 3, 4, 5 ; pi. liii., No. 3). 
 For example (li. 3) : — " A watch we observe ; on 
 the 29th day the moon we see. May Nebo and 
 Merodach to the King my Lord draw near. Report 
 of Nabu of Assur." Another longer report is of 
 interest, as showing the difficulties under which 
 the observations were often conducted (pi. li. No. 
 6):- 
 
 To the King my Lord : Thy servant, Istar-iddina-abla, 
 One of the chiefs of the Astronomers of Arbela. 
 May there be peace to the King my Lord. 
 May Nebo, Merodach, and Istar of Arbela 
 To the King my Lord approach. 
 On the 29th day a watch we kept. 
 The House of Observation was covered with cloud. 
 The Moon we did not see. 
 
 Dated month Sebadh (Jany.-Feb.), 1st day in the Eponym 
 year of Bel-Kliarran-sadua.
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 55- 
 
 The date of this tablet is fixed by the Eponym 
 (.'anon as B.C. 649, contemporary with the reign of 
 Manasseh, King of Judah. These tablets show the 
 importance that the Assyrians attached to the obser- 
 vation of the new moon. We may compare this 
 strict watch with the Hebrew customs : " In the day 
 of your gladness, and in your appointed seasons, and 
 in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with 
 the trumpets over your burnt-offerings" (Numb. x. 
 10). "Blow the trumpet in the new moon" (Ps. 
 lxxxi. 3). " New moon and sabbath " (Isa. i. 13). 
 A fuller explanation of the lunar phases is to be found 
 in an astronomical tablet (W.A.I, iii., 55, 3) : — 
 
 The Moon on its appearance, from the 1st day to the oth day, 
 
 For five days is visible. The Moon is Ann. 
 
 From the 6th day to the 10th day, for five days it is full. It 
 
 is Hea. 
 From the 11th day to the 15th day, for five days to a crown 
 
 it grows. 
 The Moon is Ami, Bel and Hea in its mass. 
 
 This tablet, we see, also gives the same division of 
 the lunar orbit as that recorded in line 8, and enables 
 us to identify Ann as the creator of the heavenly 
 bodies. In a hymn to the moon, also, we get the 
 following paragraph in praise of the bright " horns " : 
 " Oh, glowing light ! whose horns are powerful, whose 
 limbs (rays) are perfect, pure as crystal;" and the 
 beauty of its far spreading light is recorded in these
 
 ,56 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 words : " Lord, in thy divine form the remote heavens 
 and wide spreading sea thou fillest with thy rever- 
 ence." It is extremely unfortunate that the remain- 
 ing lines relating to the creation of the sun are in so 
 mutilated a condition as to render any connected 
 translation impossible. The path of the sun is 
 mentioned here by the name of Kliarran Samsi; and 
 the bright god is addressed by the epithet, most 
 frequently applied to him, of the Judge. In the 
 Michaux stones in the Louvre, and in most of the 
 boundary-stone inscriptions, we find this deity, like 
 the Greek Helios, addressed as Dian Nisi — " Judge 
 of men." In one example (W.A.I., vol. hi., pi. 42, 
 19): "Oh, Sun-god, judge of heaven and earth, his 
 face may he smite, and his bright day to darkness 
 may he turn." In other inscriptions we find this 
 idea of the sun as the all-seeing judge more strongly 
 expressed, as in the Cylinder of Tiglath-Pileser i. 
 (B.C. 1120) (W.A.I., vol. i., i.-ix. 7), the sun is called 
 " the patrol surpriser of his enemies, the scatterer of 
 the sheep (stars);" and in an unpublished hymn to 
 Gizdhubar, the solar hero, we find the phrases — " Oh 
 Gizdhubar, perfect king, judge of the spirits, exalted 
 prince, lord of mankind, patrol of the four quarters, 
 recorder of the earth, lord of the underworld. Thou 
 art a judge, and decidest like a god ; thou standest 
 upon earth holding judgment — thy judgment is not 
 reversed or thy sentence ignored ; thou rulest, thou 
 examinest, thou judgest, thou decidest and governest.
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 57 
 
 The Sun-god has put the sceptre of decision into thy 
 hand." 
 
 This character of the Judge of all is the most 
 important phase of the solar worship of Babylonia, 
 It is referred to in the few mutilated lines of this 
 creation tablet in the words dina dinu — " Judgment 
 he judges." The lines already quoted (13) — "He 
 appointed it (the moon) to establish the night, until 
 the coming forth of day," — show that in this cos- 
 mogony, as in that of the Hebrews, the sun was " to 
 rule the day" (Gen. i. 16). 
 
 The next tablet is a small fragrament forming part 
 of the Daily Telegraph collection, which, though very 
 mutilated, evidently corresponds to the work of the 
 sixth day in the Hebrew account (Gen. i. 24, 25), the 
 creation of the cattle and creeping things : — 
 
 (1.) When the gods in their assembly had made, 
 
 (2.) They made all things pleasant. 
 
 (3.) They caused to come forth living creatures. 
 
 (4.) The cattle of the field, the beasts of the field, and the 
 
 creeping things. 
 (5.) . . . . . to living creatures 
 (6.) The cattle and creeping things of the city they sent forth. 
 (7.) The assembly of creeping things and all creation, 
 (8.) . . . which in the assembly of my family. 
 (9.) the God of the Holy Eye (Hea), pairs 
 
 associated. 
 (10.) . . . The assembly of creeping things he scattered 
 
 abroad. 
 
 Fragmentary and mutilated as this tablet is, it
 
 58 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 contains much of importance, and, like the fifth 
 tablet, affords some indication of the character of the 
 people who composed the cosmogony. The expres- 
 sion " living creatures," sihiat napiste, is a near 
 equivalent of the Hebrew nephesh-khay-yah in Gen. 
 i. 24, and is used through the Assyrian sacred litera- 
 ture for the expression of animated nature. Like the 
 fifth tablet, this one was drawn up with great care. 
 We see the domestic cattle (bulu) distinguished from 
 the wild animals (umami) of the field, and the latter 
 are omitted when the animals of the city are spoken 
 of. The fuller sense of this idea of the wild beast as 
 distinct from domestic cattle is shown in the obelisk 
 inscription of Tiglath-Pileser, i. (b.c. 1120) (W.A.I, 
 i., pi. 28), where we read, " the rest of the numerous 
 animals (umami), the winged birds of the air, which, 
 among the beasts of the field, the work of his hands.'" 
 In this same text the expression is umami sa tehamte, 
 " beasts of the sea," is used to express some of the 
 marine monsters captured by the king during his 
 expedition to the shores of the Mediterranean ; so 
 that this text, although not one of the creation 
 series, serves to connect the fifth tablet and our 
 fragment, and to indicate the existence of a similar 
 account of the fifth day's creation as that found in 
 the Hebrew version (Gen. i. 20-23). The distinction 
 in the tablet between the cattle of the field or desert 
 and those of the city, the priority being given to the 
 former, bears out what I have already spoken of
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 59 
 
 regarding the origin of the legends being sought 
 among the nomadic Semites rather than the city- 
 dwelling Akkadians. It is most probable that had 
 we the remainder of this tablet we should have found 
 in it the Assyrian story of the creation of mankind. 
 The deity mentioned here under the title Nin-Eni- 
 Illute, " Lord of the bright eye," is the god Hea, and 
 it is to this " all- wise " god that the creation of man- 
 kind is attributed. In the tablet which Mr Smith 
 regarded as the Chaldean account of the fall, but 
 which Dr. Oppert has conclusively shown is a hymn 
 to the god Hea, we find the words, " Ana Padi sunu 
 ilmu avilute" " to be obedient to them (the gods) he 
 made mankind;" also, we read, likuna aima aniatu 
 su ina pi zalmat hakkadi sa ibna kata su, " May his 
 command be established in the mouth of mankind, 
 who his 1 lands have made." In the hymns we often 
 iind that Merodach, the son of Hea, who occupies a 
 position but a slight degree inferior to that of his 
 father, often assumes the divine titles and preroga- 
 tives of his father, as in the following passage from a 
 hymn : — " The incantation of life is thine, the Philtre 
 of life is thine, the Holy writing of the House of 
 Wisdom (Absu) is thine;" and then the following 
 important passage : — Avilutuv zalmat kakkadi, siknat 
 napisti mala suma naba ina mate basa, — "Mankind, 
 (even) the human race, the living creatures, all that 
 by name is called (and) in the land exists is (thine). 
 The four quarters (are thine). The angel host of
 
 60 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 heaven and earth, all that exist (are thine)" (W.A.T., 
 vol. iv., pi. xxix., No. 1, 30-44). It would appear, 
 therefore, to Hea, or to his son Merodach, or to the 
 pair conjointly, that we must attribute the creation 
 of the human race, and if this is the case, it tends to 
 support very strongly the proposition of Sir Henry 
 Rawlinson that Hea was the god of the section of the 
 Akkadians who in their religious development attained 
 nearest to Monotheism. I need hardly, now that we 
 have reached the end of our examination of these 
 tablets, show how striking in thought and expression, 
 often in identical language, is the resemblance 
 between the Assyrian and the Hebrew accounts. 
 Even that oft repeated refrain of divine satisfaction' 
 and " God saw that it was good," finds its counter- 
 part in the phrase occurring in both tablets five and 
 seven, — " Ubassim," " He made pleasant." There 
 now remains the very important, but equally difficult, 
 question of the date and relationship of these tablets 
 to the Hebrew account. And here I must ask my 
 readers to bear in mind the fact that I am treating 
 this subject from a purely Assyriological side, leaving 
 the Hebrew side to those more competent to deal 
 with it than myself. 
 
 The first point to be noticed is the marked differ- 
 ence between the Creation Tablets and the generality 
 of Assyrian tablets. The majority of the religious 
 tablets, litanies, hymns, prayers, etc., found in the 
 Assyrian royal library at Nineveh, are admittedly
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 61 
 
 copies from older documents in the temple libraries 
 of Chaldea, and> each bears a colophon or docket on 
 the reverse, stating it to be Kima labri sit, "like its 
 old copy." We find the docket upon all the tablets 
 of the Gizdhubar Legends, including the Deluge 
 Tablet'; upon the Dibbara Legends, and upon the 
 bilingual Akkadian and Assyrian hymns, etc. There 
 are, however, a certain class of tablets which do not 
 bear this statement, such as the very beautiful series 
 of Assyrian prayers (W. A. I., vol. iv., pi. 58, 59, 6^!, 
 04), and examination of these tablets shows them to 
 be distinctly Semitic in character, thought, similies, 
 and language. They may be here and there in- 
 ilnenced by Akkadianisms, but they are essentially 
 different from the magical hymns and formulae. In 
 like manner we find the Creation Tablets omit this 
 colophon. This would seem at first to mark them of 
 a date as late as B.C. 650, the time when the library 
 at Nineveh was founded by Assurbanipal. This can- 
 not be admitted in the face of further evidence from 
 beneath the dust of ages. Among the fragments of 
 tablets obtained by Mr Eassam and others from the 
 excavations in the Birs Nimroud, the site of the 
 ancient temple of Nebo, the god of learning, are 
 some duplicate copies of the Creation Tablets, por- 
 tions of the fifth, and also a large tablet of the series 
 relating to the War in Heaven. At the same time 
 duplicates of other texts, grammatical tablets, and 
 the Deluge Tablet, in the library of Nineveh, have
 
 02 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 been obtained from the excavations at Birs Nimroud 
 and Aboo Hubba. The character of the writing and 
 the arrangement of the texts, as well as the his- 
 torical impossibility — the library at Nineveh prob- 
 ably being in ruins at the time when the tablets 
 were written, in the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and 
 Nabonidus (b.c. 604-555) — would militate seriously 
 against the Babylonian version being copied from 
 the Assyrian. We must therefore conclude that 
 copies were in the Babylonian libraries prior to B.C. 
 GGO, and it was from these that the later copies, as 
 well possibly as the Assyrian versions, were made. 
 The advanced knowledge of astronomy exhibited in 
 the fifth tablet brings us in close contact with the 
 astronomical tablets. It is evident from the definite 
 and accurate description of the comet of about the 
 year 1120 B.C. given in the tablets (W. A. I., iii., 
 52, 1) that as early as the 12th century Baylonian 
 astronomy was in a very high state of development. 
 The writers of the tablets attribute the compilation 
 of the important series of astronomical tablets en- 
 titled " The Book of the Illumination of Bel," to 
 Sargon of Akkad, whose date is now fixed as B.C. 
 3750. This may be only a mythical story ; but if 
 the tablet of the Wars of Sargon and Naram-Sin 
 (W. A. I, vol. iv., pi. 34) is, as it appears to be, a 
 genuine copy of a Babylonian document, there is 
 more proof of its truth than at first appears. By the
 
 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 63 
 
 arrangement of the Gizdhubar legends according to 
 the signs of the Zodiac, and the Equinoxial Festivals 
 in the Sacrificial Tablet from Aboo Hubba, it ap- 
 pears that the seasons, the equinoxes, etc., had been 
 observed and used as time measurers as early as b.c. 
 2400. I have already pointed out that the promi- 
 nence given to the moon and stars in the fifth, 
 and the distinction made in the seventh between the 
 animals of the plain and town, marks the influence 
 of the nomadic life upon the thoughts of the com- 
 pilers of these tablets. We may now turn to a very 
 remarkable series of tablets dating in the reign of 
 Khammurabi, whose date Mr Pinches has established 
 as B.C. 2120. In these tablets we get a series of 
 proper names of a remarkable character, such as 
 Abil, Kainuv, Ismi-ilu, which resemble the Hebrew 
 Abel, Cain, and Ishmael ; but also we have such 
 names as Ilu bani, " God has made," Ana-pani-ilu, 
 " To the face of God," Ilu iddina, " God has given," 
 while many hundreds of names occur in which the 
 name of the Moon-god is the most prominent ele- 
 ment. The evidence to be deduced from these tab- 
 lets is, that as early as the twenty-second century 
 before the Christian era there were living in the 
 neighbourhood of Ur and Larsa the Ellassar of Gen. 
 xiv., 1. — a population speaking a language akin to 
 that of the Hebrews, worshipping an abstract deity, 
 the Ilu El of the Hebrews, the Allah of the Arabs,
 
 G4 THE CREATION LEGENDS. 
 
 and in their pantheon placing the Moon-god in the 
 foremost place. May not these ancestors, and pos- 
 sibly companions, of Abraham, have known at least 
 the elements of these traditions of the Beginnings 
 of all things ?
 
 lecture Hi. 
 
 " ASSYEIAN PALACES." 
 
 TF in the older motherland of Chaldea it is to the 
 temple we turn for the memorials of some ancient 
 city, in Assyria, the northern kingdom of Mesopotamia, 
 it is in the palaces of the great king that we must look 
 for the records which are to restore to us the memor- 
 ials of the long buried past. It may be, as M. Perrot 
 has suggested, that the lords of the younger empire, 
 in throwing off the yoke of the southern motherland, 
 had released themselves from the power and traditions 
 of that religious caste which held so strong rule in 
 Chaldea, Be this as it may, the explorations in the 
 mounds of debris which form the graves of the cities 
 of Assur, have shown that beneath these vast tumuli 
 there lie buried the palaces of the kings of Assyria ; 
 and where temples have been found, they are subor- 
 dinate to the larger royal residence. Both scriptural 
 and monumental evidence are at one in proving 
 Assyria to have been a colony and dependency upon 
 the land of Chaldea, which in about the nineteenth 
 c
 
 GG ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 century before the Christian era became sufficiently 
 strong to throw off the yoke of the home country, and 
 rule as independent. This independence was not 
 acquired immediately. For a time the rulers still 
 bore the title of patesi or "viceroy," but in the course 
 of time they assumed the title of king. An additional 
 proof of the Chaldean origin of the cities of Assyria, 
 which, like Chaldea, began its history with a tetrapolis 
 of Assur, Nineveh, Calah, and Eesen, is that, with the 
 exception of the last of these, the names do not admit 
 of explanation by Semetic etymology. The account 
 given in the book of Genesis (ch. x. 11), in its revised 
 reading, should be, " Out of that land he (Nimrod) 
 went forth into Assyria, and builded Nineveh, the 
 same is the city of streets, and Calah, and Resell 
 between Calah and Nineveh, the same is a great city." 
 The accuracy of the passage when contrasted with the 
 evidence of the monuments is very remarkable, for it 
 is evident that the writer o*f these words must have 
 had some knowledge of the distinctive features of two 
 at least of the cities. In speaking of the great city 
 of Nineveh as the city of streets or broadways, he 
 alludes to the most important feature of the topography 
 of the Assyrian capital. The Assyrian kings Esar- 
 haddon and his son Assurbanipal both make mention 
 of the "broadways" or streets of Nineveh in which 
 they made their captives walk in procession. In the 
 account of his Zidonian war Esarhaddon says (W.A.I., 
 vol. i., col. i. 49-53): "The heads of Sanduarri and
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 67 
 
 Abdi-milkuti upon the necks of their great men I 
 hung, and together with musicians, male and female, 
 through the streets (ribit) of Nineveh T made to pass." 
 In like manner the prophet Nahum — (ch. ii. 4), " The 
 chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall justle one 
 another in the broadways " — seems to have known of 
 this important feature in Ninevite topography. Also, 
 in speaking of the city of Calah, the writer uses the 
 expression, "the same is a great city," a phrase which 
 is an almost exact translation of the ancient name of 
 the city ; the Hebrew Calah being only another form 
 of the Assyrian Kalkhu — the Akkadian Kal-khi, 
 "strong city." The city of Eesen is mentioned in 
 the Bavian inscription of Sennacherib as a town 
 adjacent to Nineveh. The writer of this passage, 
 describing the rise of Assyria, makes no mention of 
 the city of Assur, the metropolis of the northern 
 kingdom ; but in the name given to the district 
 colonised he implies its 'existence. This name of the 
 most ancient city of the empire, the ruins of which 
 are marked by the lofty mound of Kileh Shergat on 
 the west bank of the Tigris, near the mouth of the 
 lower Zab, is again of non-Semetic origin. On the 
 older bricks the name occurs as Ausar — that is, " the 
 city on the water's bank " — and from a bilingual tablet 
 in the Museum we know that the name Ninua 
 was a Semitic form of the Akkadian Ni-Na-Ki, 
 " his resting place." The relative positions of these 
 three cities, Assur, Calah, and Nineveh, situated as
 
 68 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 they were at important places on the banks of the 
 Tigris, lead us to attribute their origin, in the first 
 place, to stations on one of the military and commer- 
 cial roads leading northward. This premiss seems 
 to meet with support from an ancient Akkadian 
 name of the city of Assur, which was Pal-bi-ki, " the 
 place of his crossing," as it was in the neighbourhood 
 of this city that one of the roads from Babylonia 
 crossed over to the east bank of the Tigris. Assur 
 being the most ancient city of Assyria, its earliest 
 kings bearing the titles of Patesi Ausar, as in an 
 inscription of Samsi-Bimmanu on one of the bricks 
 from Kileli Shergat, which reads, " Samsi-Ram- 
 manu patesi Ausar abil Igur-KapJcapu bani Bit 
 Ausar — " Samsi-Eammanu, son of Igur-Kapkapu, 
 builder of the temple of Ausar" (W.A.I., vol. i., pi. 
 vi. 1); it was very natural that the proud Assyrians 
 should seek to find a divine origin for its foundation. 
 Fragments of this interesting legend are found in a 
 tablet marked K. 3445, which most Assyriologists 
 have hitherto included in the creation series. After 
 describing the god Assur as desirous of creating an 
 abode on earth, the tablet states that that dwelling- 
 place was "the land which thy hands have made, 
 the city Pal-bi-ki thou hast called its name." 
 The history of the Assyrian empire, like that of the 
 sister kingdom of Egypt, divides itself into three well- 
 defined periods : (1) The early empire, from about 
 B.C. 1900-1050; (2) the middle empire, from B.C. 891-
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 69 
 
 722 ; and (3) the late empire, the period of the 
 Sargonide dynasty, from B.C. 721-625. Each of these 
 periods is also identified with a special capital, and it 
 is besides incidentally important that as the empire 
 increased in power the capital was removed further 
 and further north along the Tigris. The early empire 
 had for its capital the city of Assur, the middle that 
 of Calah, and the later that of Nineveh ; and it is in 
 the palaces of these cities that we must look for the 
 records of these ancient cities. Of the capital of the 
 early empire we know comparatively little — the 
 isolated nature of the ruins of Kileh Shergat which 
 mark its site, combined with the extreme solidity of 
 the vast mass of debris forming its acropolis, have 
 rendered excavations on the site extremely difficult. 
 That there was a palace here we know, for Tiglath- 
 Pileser I. (b.c. 1120) records the repairs he executed 
 on its walls ; but little can be gleaned as to its con- 
 struction. When, however, we come to study the 
 royal residences of the middle and later empire, ample 
 material is accessible to us. In the mound of Nimroud 
 situated at the junction of the Tigris with the upper 
 Zab, and on the east bank of the river, remains of no 
 less than four or five palaces have been found. The 
 most ancient appears to have been one built in the 
 14th century, B.C., by a king named Shalmanesar I. 
 Of this we have no architectural details ; only a few 
 bricks remain to prove its existence. The next most 
 important edifice was the palace situated at the north-
 
 70 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 west end of the mound, near to the lofty stage tower 
 which crowned the south end of the acropolis, which 
 was built by Assur-nazir-abla (b.c. 885-860). Most 
 of the sculptures from this palace and from the temple 
 adjoining are now exhibited in the Nimroud gallery 
 of the British Museum. The south-west palace was 
 the work of Shalmanesar III., the contemporary of 
 Aliah and Jehu. Between these two edifices, in about 
 B.C. 740, Tiglath-Pileser II. built himself a royal 
 residence, which is known as the central palace. 
 Sargon, prior to the building of his own splendid 
 palace at Dur Sargina, the ruins of which are marked 
 by the mound of Khorsabad, restored portions of the 
 north-west palace at Calah ; and Esarhaddon, late in 
 his reign, commenced building a palace, using chiefly 
 materials which he had taken from the other and 
 older buildings on the mound. The mound of 
 Koyunjik, opposite the town of Mosul, which marks 
 the acropolis of Nineveh, has furnished remains of 
 the palaces of the later empire. This mound is about 
 a mile and a-half in circumference, and rises to a 
 height of about 40 feet above the level of the enceinte 
 of the city. The explorations on this site by Sir 
 Henry Layard, Mr Hormuzd Eassam, and Mr George 
 Smith, have afforded evidence of the existence of at 
 least four palaces. The first was an edifice dating as 
 early as the 14th century, which was repaired by 
 Shalmanesar I., and by Assur-ris-issi (B.C. 1150) and 
 his son Tiglath-Pileser I. (b.c. 1120). This ancient
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 71 
 
 palace was probably occupied by the kings of the 
 middle empire until the erection of the palaces at 
 Calah. Sennacherib (B.C. 705) was the first, however, 
 to erect a royal residence on the mound worthy of 
 Assyria's kings, and the palace situated at the south- 
 east end of the mound, which he built early in his 
 reign, is an edifice exhibiting, both in architecture 
 and ornamentation, a considerable advance on the 
 style of the buildings of the kings of the middle 
 empire. Later in his reign this same king built a 
 palace to the south of the large acropolis, on the spot 
 now marked by the mound of Nebby Yunus. The 
 palace, though every effort has been made by Mr 
 Kassaru to commence the work, still awaits explora- 
 tion. The south-east palace was occupied for a few 
 years by Assur-bani-pal (B.C. 668), who, after his 
 brilliant victories in Egypt and other lands, built for 
 himself a royal abode at the north-west end of the 
 mound; and it is from this palace that the finest 
 remains of Assyrian art have come, and which now 
 adorn the galleries of the British Museum. The 
 sculptures from the palace of Sennacherib are now 
 exhibited in the Koyunjik gallery of the Museum, and 
 those from the palace of Assurbanipal in the basement 
 room. One other palace remains, and this, fortunately, 
 the largest and most thoroughly explored, and it- 
 will furnish us with the most ample material for 
 our study of the construction and ornamentation of 
 the palaces of the kings of Assyria.
 
 72 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 In the year B.C. 722 Sargo-n, the tartan, or com- 
 mander-in-chief, revolted against his master, Shal- 
 manesar IV., and made himself king. At that time, 
 as I have already stated, the capital and royal resi- 
 dence was in Calah. Fearing, no doubt, the revolt 
 of the Assyrians, who, like all oriental nations, 
 required but little cause to rise in rebellion and 
 sweep a despot from his throne, the usurper deter- 
 mined to build for himself a new palace or palace- 
 city, which, by its isolated position and strong 
 fortifications, should afford him shelter from any 
 sudden outburst of popular feeling. He selected a 
 spot about nine miles north-east of Nineveh, and 
 there built a palace- city, an oriental Versailles, 
 which he called Dur-Sargina— " Fort Sargon," — the 
 site of which was marked by the mound and village 
 of Khorsabad. It is from the ruins of this edifice 
 that the splendid collection of Assyrian sculptures 
 which adorn the galleries of the Louvre have come ; 
 and it is by means of the thorough and systematic 
 exploration, and the lavish publication of the results 
 of those works upon this site by the French Govern- 
 ment that we gain an insight, such as was little 
 dreamt would ever be afforded us, into the palace of 
 an Assyrian king. The work of the French explorers 
 commenced on this site in 1843 with some slight 
 private excavations on the part of M. Botta, the 
 French consul at Mosul, and so much interest was 
 excited bv the discoveries, that almost uninter-
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 73 
 
 ruptedly from that time until 1855 the work was ' 
 continued by the French. Not only was the work of 
 exploration carried on, but competent artists and 
 architects were employed to draw the sculptures and 
 plan the buildings unearthed, and the results of their 
 labours were made public in those splendid works, 
 the Monuments de Ninive of M. Botta, and Ninive 
 et L'Assyrie of M. Place, all of which were printed 
 at government expense. 
 
 In selecting the palace at Khorsabad as the typical 
 example in our study of Assyrian palaces in general, 
 we have a considerable advantage. In the first place, 
 we are dealing with a palace the work of which is all 
 of one period, and therefore no difficulties arise as to 
 the .relative dates of certain portions of the work. In 
 the study, again, of the architecture and plan of the 
 edifice, we have, as M. Perrot has remarked, a great 
 advantage, as in the construction of the royal residence 
 of Sargon the architect was unfettered by any arrange- 
 ments as to older edifices upon the spot, and was 
 enabled, upon a perfectly new and unencumbered 
 site, to work out to the fullest extent that plan which 
 he had designed. Sargon came to the throne in the 
 year B.C. 722, and died in B.C. 705, his reign lasting 
 therefore seventeen years. From the examination of 
 the ruins at Korsabad it is evident that this suburban 
 palace must have been commenced early in his reign, 
 if not immediately after his succession. If we 
 estimate that twelve years were occupied in the
 
 74 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 construction of this palace, we are astonished at the 
 stupendous character of the undertaking. The most 
 prominent feature which distinguishes the royal 
 residences of Assyria and Chaldea from those of 
 Egypt, is the large artificial mound upon which they 
 are raised above the level of the surrounding plain. 
 This construction, which forms a sub-basement or 
 pedestal, raises the edifices from 30 to 50 feet above 
 the level of the surrounding plain. It has been 
 customary among some archaeologists to regard this 
 mode of building, together with the extensive 
 employment of brick in lieu of stone, as a blind 
 copying on the part of the Assyrians of the style of 
 Chaldea. To this I must dissent; the reason seeming 
 to me to be easily explained on local grounds. The 
 majority of Assyrian palaces — Khorsabad being no 
 exception, for it is near the bank of the Khorsu — are 
 built near to the river and on low ground, and it 
 was necessary, both for protection from the Hoods 
 and from the attacks of the enemy, to raise the 
 edifices above the level of the surrounding plain. 
 Some idea of the enormous labour employed in the 
 construction of the raised platform alone on which 
 the palace at Khorsabad is built, can be gained when 
 its dimensions are stated. The mound is in the state 
 of a letter T — the stem being somewhat smaller 
 than the cross bar, and projecting a short distance 
 beyond the line of the city ramparts. The palace 
 mound has an area altogether of 25 acres — an area
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. i ■> 
 
 about six times the size of Trafalgar Square. This 
 vast platform is raised -fb' feet above the level of the 
 plain. It should be remembered that the whole of the 
 mass is of artificial construction, being composed of 
 sun-dried bricks, faced with kiln-burnt bricks and 
 stone, every fragment of which had to be carried to 
 its place by manual labour. To estimate in some 
 measure the amount of labour, we may remember 
 that the law courts, a block of buildings about one- 
 fourth of the palace at Khorsabad, and standing on 
 no such solid artificial foundation, and in the con- 
 struction .of which the builders were aided by every 
 kind of mechanical appliance, occupied ten years in 
 construction, while, as we know from the tablets, this 
 Assyrian palace did not take so long a time. An 
 examination of the plan of this edifice shows that the 
 architect was guided in his plan by those conditions 
 of oriental life which were the same twenty-six 
 centuries ago in Nineveh as at the present day, and 
 the eye at once divides the complex edifice into the 
 three component elements of an eastern house. On 
 one side we have the royal kingly apartments 
 proper, corresponding to the Seraglio of the houses of 
 India, Persia, and Turkey ; adjacent to this was the 
 women's quarter, the Harem ; and the third portion, 
 consisting of the stables, offices, and servants' 
 quarters, corresponding to the Khan. 
 
 As Mr Perrot remarks, the method adopted by the 
 architect in the arrangements of the three component
 
 7b ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 parts of the palace is most simple. The whole build- 
 ing is arranged on the rectangular block system, each 
 department being a separate block. These groups of 
 chambers, each with a central courtyard, are so 
 arranged as to touch each other at the angle, or by the 
 length of side ; but they never penetrate into each 
 other, and never command one another. The ex- 
 cavated portions of the Sennacherib palace at the 
 south-east end of the Koyunjik mound reveal the 
 same arrangement of plan, as do also the chambers 
 in the north-west palace at ^Nimroud. In Babylonia 
 we find a similar system of ground-plan in use in the 
 great temple at Aboo Hubba, where the sacred and 
 secular portions of the temple are arranged in 
 separate quadrangles, all grouped round a central 
 courtyard. Of the external portions of these Assyrian 
 palaces the most important features were the great 
 entrance gateways. The principal entrance to the 
 palace at Khorsabad seems to have been at H ; 
 and, guided by the remains in this quarter, Mr 
 Thomas, in his restoration, has placed here an 
 inclined roadway leading into the plain. It will be 
 observed that this entrance opens directly into the 
 seraglio or royal quarter. A second entrance was on 
 the south-west face, and gave admission to court A. 
 This must have been one of the most magnificent 
 of Eoyal gateways. The gateway was 26 feet wide, 
 and flanked on the outside by six pairs of huge 
 winged bulls, and two gigantic figures of the great
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 77 
 
 Chaldean-Assyrian hero Gizclhubar. Some idea of 
 the constant flow of people, soldiers, servants, and 
 others, as well as the royal personages who entered 
 by this lordly portal, is to be gained by the fact that 
 the pavement was found to be polished and worn by 
 the tread of many feet. Entering the courtyard A 
 by this doorway, we cross to the other side, and enter 
 the royal apartments. It consists of a block of 
 buildings 206 feet broad bv 336 feet long, and con- 
 tains ten courtyards and sixty chambers. An exam- 
 ination of this section of the building enables us to 
 divide this department into two parts — the state 
 rooms, where grand receptions similar to the durbars 
 of India were held, and which constituted the 
 salamlik or reception rooms ; and the private rooms 
 of the king. The state rooms are grouped together 
 round courts IJKL, and all are richly decorated 
 with sculptures. The heart of this section is formed 
 by court I, from which six doorways lead into the 
 various chambers. This court is one of the most 
 splendid portions of the palace. Four of the six 
 doorways are flanked by huge winged bulls, and the 
 walls are decorated with semi-columns of brickwork, 
 which has been richly coloured, and along the top 
 ran a cornice of painted brickwork, while a rich 
 decorative design, in blue and yellow brickwork, ran 
 uver each of the arched doorways. The suggestion 
 made by M. Perrot, that on state occasions this court 
 was shaded with coloured awnings, and carpeted with
 
 78 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 rich stuffs, and thus converted into a splendid recep- 
 tion room, is very probable. How glorious must the 
 scene have been here some twenty-six centuries ago, 
 where now all is silent as the grave. What a 
 mingling of nations, what a babel of tongues must 
 have greeted the eye and ear on entering this court 
 on the day when "Sargon, the king of nations, 
 received the homage of his people." Swarthy, hardy 
 soldiers, bronzed by long campaigns in Syria or the 
 Egyptian frontier ; proud, haughty Babylonian priests, 
 still nurturing deep down in their hearts their schemes 
 for the restoration of Merodach-baladan, the popular 
 prince of the Chaldeans ; Chaldeans from the marshes 
 where the Tigris and Euphrates entered the sea, still 
 retaining the sharp olive eyes, and high cheek bones 
 of the Akkadian, stood side by side with their 
 Elamite and Kassite cousins. Jews from Jerusalem, 
 Samaritans from Samaria, rich merchant princes from 
 Tyre and Sidun, and fair-haired Greeks from the 
 distant western i^les of Yatnan or Cyprus, stood in 
 picturesque groups awaiting the coming of Assyria's 
 king. The long corridor, with its six doorways, each 
 flanked by winged bulls, must have presented a 
 magnificent architectural vista when lit with the rays 
 of the eastern sun, the monutony of light being broken 
 here and there by rich coloured awnings, which 
 tinged the sculptured walls. Leaving the central 
 court I by the doorway No. 2, we enter the private 
 apartments of the king, which though not so richly
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 79 
 
 decorated as the state rooms, are nevertheless orna- 
 mented in a delicate style with painted bricks and 
 stucco work. The chambers grouped round M 1 , M 2 , 
 NOP form this section of the royal quarters. Here 
 we find the living rooms and sleeping chamber of the 
 king, the latter with a guard room leading into it, 
 for then, as now, " uneasy lay the head that wore a 
 crown ;" while the other chambers were the dwellings 
 of the chief officers and personal attendants of the 
 king — his scribe or recorder, the abrakku or "lord 
 chancellor," his priest-augur, astronomers, sword, 
 bow, and dagger-bearers, his charioteer, and many 
 other officials ; and looking at the extent of this 
 portion, covering over 6000 square yards, we see how 
 large must have been the royal personnel. Ctesias 
 states that 15,000 officials and domestics were accom- 
 modated in the nalace of the kin^ of Persia. Looking 
 at the number of chambers here, and remembering 
 the little that meets the requirements of Indian and 
 Turkish servants of oriental potentates, we may well 
 imagine that the estimate of the Greek writer was 
 not so very exhorbitant. We now come to the large 
 group of chambers round court T, and a mere exam- 
 ination of the plan shows that the architect has 
 exercised very considerable ingenuity in the arrange- 
 ment of his chambers. In the first place, it is to be 
 noticed that there is no external entrance into this 
 block, there being only two gateways, and both of 
 these communicate with the central court A, and are
 
 80 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 of peculiar construction. The first entrance at 
 gateway M leads into a square chamber, evidently a 
 guard chamber, and from this a passage at right 
 angles gives entrance into the courtyard ; so by this 
 arrangement it is impossible for those on the more 
 public part of the palace to see into this section, or 
 for those within to see outward. The second entrance 
 is protected by double guard-rooms, which lead into 
 a large courtyard (No. 1). From this court, on the 
 right hand, another doorway leads into a quadrangle 
 (No. 2). The court is evidently the central feature 
 of this edifice. From the way in which the court- 
 yards and chambers of this block are arranged, and 
 their careful seclusion from the other parts of the 
 palace, it is evident that this block is the harem 
 quarter of the palace ; and this conjecture is confirmed 
 by an inscription found within its precincts, in which 
 the king " prays the gods to render fruitful the royal 
 alliances." The harem in the Assyrian palaces had 
 two names — the first, that which we find applied to 
 the harem palace built by Assurbanipal at Nineveh 
 was Bit-Eiduti, — ''the house of offspring;" the 
 other, the same as that applied to the holy of holies 
 of the temple, Parakku — " the forbidden part," " the 
 most sacred part." As 1 have already remarked, 
 there was a great resemblance between the changes 
 which this word underwent in the Assyrian inscrip- 
 tions and those varied meanings applied to the 
 Arabic word haram. The central courtyard (No. 2)
 
 ASSYKIAN PALACES. 81 
 
 was the most richly decorated part of the palace. 
 The three principal doors were flanked by collossal 
 sculptures, and by tall standards of bronze, decorated 
 with palm -leaf fans. Before leaving this court, 
 there are three important chambers to be noticed. It 
 will be observed that at three of the angles of the 
 square are chambers (D 1 , D 2 , L 3 ) similar in plan. 
 The rooms are long and narrow. About one third of 
 the chamber from the far end is occupied by a raised 
 platform or dais, 2 feet above the rest of the room, 
 and approached by five brick steps, and in the centre 
 of the end wall there is an arched alcove, to which 
 this dais leads. This recess is about 3 feet deep, 
 and the back is ornamented by lines of ornamental 
 brickwork. In this alcove is a broad ottoman or 
 divan about 9 feet long and 3 feet wide. The 
 chamber is ornamented by a friese of coloured and 
 painted bricks running round the walls and over the 
 arch of this recess. It requires but a slight inspection 
 to see that these chambers were three bed chambers. 
 The beds of the Assyrians were probably like those 
 of the Turks and Arabs, quilted mattresses, which 
 were spread out on divans, such as we have here, or 
 on the floor, as the Assyrian ersu, bed, is derived, 
 as Dr Delitzsch (Heb. and Assyr., p. 47) has shown, 
 from the root eresu, which is a synonym of rapadu, 
 " to spread out," as the Arab word for these beds, 
 Jirash, is from farsh, "to spread a carpet;" the 
 words rabitsu and niailu being applied rather to the
 
 82 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 couches, such as are figured on the monuments 
 (B.M., A.B., No. 121). These chambers, of which there 
 are three, one corresponding to each of the queen's 
 establishments within the harem quarter (A B C), are 
 no doubt the same as the king's house referred to in 
 the book of Esther (ch. ii. 13) ; while the expression, 
 " before the court of the women's house " (ch. ii. 11), 
 is no doubt amply explained by the'guarded position 
 of the outer harem court. Mordecai would therefore 
 have had to remain in the outer and central court, 
 and be obliged to obtain his information regarding 
 Esther from the eunuch guard. It is plainly to be 
 seen that the harem quarter consisted of three distinct 
 establishments (A B C), all similar in construction, 
 though one is somewhat larger than the others, and 
 was, no doubt, the residence of that important per- 
 sonage, the first wife. The construction of these 
 establishments is very simple, and each is a complete 
 and separate house. Taking the larger one as an 
 example, we have first a paved courtyard, E, in 
 which a body-guard of eunuchs was stationed. The 
 central chamber, F, was the living room, in which 
 the queen spent her time in company with her maids 
 and attendants, retiring at night to the sleeping 
 chamber, G, in which we see a similar alcove bed as 
 in the royal bed-chambers (D 1 , D 2 , D 3 ). The small 
 side chamber, H, was the waiting-room in which 
 the servants remained, to be within easy call of their 
 mistress. The long narrow court or passages in A and
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 83 
 
 B are probably either corridors for exercise, or, as I 
 am more inclined to think, gardens such as we see 
 figured in one of the sculptures from Koyunjik (B.M., 
 A.B., Xo. 121). In his arrangement of these estab- 
 lishments it is evident that the royal architect has 
 been mindful so to isolate each of the residences as 
 to prevent any quarrels or deeds of vengeance such 
 as polygamous oriental life often affords examples. 
 The chambers on the bar of the first courtyard are, 
 no doubt, as shown by the explorations, the offices cf 
 the harem quarter. Here were found traces of ovens, 
 large amphorse which once held wine, and bronze 
 pots, &c, of the cooking establishment. It is evident 
 that in this section of the palace we have the royal 
 residence of the three queens of Sargon, with their 
 attendant women. 
 
 Although the palace of Assurbanipal, on the north 
 end of the Koyunjik mound, is called by him the 
 " Harem palace," it exhibits no such arrangement as 
 that of Sargon at Khorsabad. But it must be remem- 
 bered that in the English excavations but little 
 attention has been paid to archaeological and archi- 
 tectural details as in the French works, and therefore 
 in the majority of cases we are quite dependent for 
 our plans, &c, upon an explorer who has had no 
 technical training. In this latter place less than 
 twenty chambers have been explored, and at Khor- 
 sabad over 300 have been laid open, carefully planned, 
 and every detail likely to throw light upon their use
 
 84 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 noted do \vd. It is to be hoped that some day the 
 English excavations in Assyria and Babylonia will 
 have that thorough character both in work and 
 necessary appliances which has made the work of 
 Dr Schliemann at Hissarlik, and of Professor Curtius 
 and his assistants, so successful in restoring to us 
 the life of byegone times. 
 
 The third section of the palaces, that devoted to 
 the stores, the quarters of the royal guards, the 
 stables of the horses, camels, and other animals, was 
 situated on the south-west and north-west sides of 
 the great quadrangle of the palace (General Plan). 
 
 In his annals Sargon thus speaks of his palace, 
 and especially of this section, the bit nizirte or " store 
 house," or bit kamuti or " treasure house " : — " This 
 palace contains gold, silver, vases of gold and silver, 
 precious stones, copper and iron — the product of rich 
 mines, blue and purple stuff, woven cloth and cotton, 
 amber, ivory, pearls, sandal ebony, horses from Egypt, 
 oxen, donkeys, mules, camels," &c. Of this section 
 of the palace also Esarhaddon, in his cylinder, speaks 
 thus : — " On the left hand of the building (S.E.), in 
 the first month, all the war-horses, mules, asses, 
 camels, arms, furniture of war, all the army, the spoil 
 of my enemies, yearly a regular sum I appointed to 
 be (placed) within it" (W.A.I., vol i., pi. 47, col. vi., 
 lines 46-51). The palace built by Sargon, when 
 compared with those of the middle Assyrian empire 
 at Nimroud, exhibits several new departures in
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 85 
 
 architecture. The arrangement of the rooms, the 
 isolation of the harem, and the offices, show that the 
 art of planning edifices, which I noticed in my 
 previous lecture on the temple had attained con- 
 siderable perfection at a very early period, had now 
 reached a still higher stage of development. Indeed 
 the palace of Khorsabad, as exhibited to us in the 
 plan prepared by the French explorers, is the 'only 
 edifice that admits of systematic study. In his 
 inscription, Sargon states that his palace was built 
 Bit khilanni ina tansil (tamsil) heJcal mat khatti — 
 " A strong house in the style of a Syrian palace" I built. 
 In the inscription known as the Paves des Portes 
 (Botta, pi. 8) the king thus speaks of his palace : — 
 
 1. At the foot of the mountain of Muzri (the hills to north- 
 east), over against the city of Nineveh, 
 
 ■1. In the desire of my heart a city I made, and Dur Sargina 
 I proclaimed its name. 
 
 3. A palace of ivory, of strong wood and serviceable woods — 
 
 tamansh, cedar, Cyprus and fir, samli and butni, 
 
 4. For the dwelling-place of my majesty, within it I made. 
 
 5. Assur the great lord, and the gods inhabiting Assyria, 
 
 within them I invoked. 
 
 6. Victims, noble sacrifices, before them I offered. 
 
 7. Of the kings of the four quarters Avho to the yoke of my 
 
 lordship had submitted, 
 
 8. From the prefects of my land, with the wise men, scribes, 
 
 and princes, 
 
 9. The officers and scribes, their rich offerings I received. 
 10. Within it I caused them to dwell, and I established joy. 
 
 The next palace we have to consider is that of 
 Assurbanipal, on the north end of the Koyunjik
 
 SQ ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 mound, which was discovered by Mr Hormuzd 
 Kassam in 1854. This palace must have been built 
 about B.C. 650 — about sixty or seventy years after 
 the palace of Khorsabad. It is impossible to apply 
 the detailed treatment to this palace which we have 
 given to that of Sargon, but from an art point of 
 view this edifice is more important. Entering by the 
 western portal, a porch 25 feet wide, we at once meet 
 with an innovation in Assyrian architecture. The 
 wide expanse of doorway is broken by two columns, 
 which have hitherto found no place in Assyrian 
 architecture. This portal gives entrance into a large 
 hall or vestibule (55 feet by 20 feet), and immediately 
 opposite the doorway is a large guard- chamber, with 
 an inner chamber for the captain of the guard. 
 Turning to the right, we enter a small hall, and 
 passing through this we come to a long inclined 
 passage leading up to the level of the palace platform. 
 This passage has been lined with sculptures repre- 
 senting the grooms leading horses, and the attendants 
 bringing game, fruits, &c, as offerings to the palace 
 — stone counterparts of the living who day by day 
 in the byegone past ascended this entrance to the 
 abode of royalty. At the distance of 175 feet 
 this corridor turns to the right, and leads up to 
 a large hall, the doorway of which is also sub- 
 divided by columns. A doorway on the right 
 leads into an open courtyard (54 x 43). Crossing 
 this courtyard we enter a long narrow gallery
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 87 
 
 Palace of Sar^on.
 
 88 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 (112 x 38), the walls of which were lined with 
 sculptures, and with plain marble slabs awaiting 
 the sculptor's chisel. The sculptures found here, 
 some of which are now in the British Museum (B.M., 
 A.B., 91-4), are found to be illustrative of the wars 
 of Assurbanipal against his brother Samas-suma-ukin, 
 the Saulmugines of the canon of Plotemy. A door- 
 way on the right leads into a second chamber (60 X 
 21), which is lined with sculptures representing a 
 campaign against an Arab tribe, mounted on camels 
 and living in tents. This is evidently the ninth 
 campaign of this king's reign against Vaiteh or 
 Watieh, king of the Arabs, whose kingdom was 
 situated in the region of the ISTedj, to the south-west 
 of Babylon. From this chamber we ■ pass into the 
 great central court, which, according to Mr Bassam's 
 test excavations, measured 155 feet in length, by 125 
 feet in breadth. Crossing to the north-west side of 
 the courtyard, we enter by a broad portico (43 feet), 
 broken in like manner to the western entrance by 
 columns, an outer hall (70 X 22), leading into another 
 broad corridor. Passing through this hall we enter 
 a small square room (20 x 20), two sides of which are 
 pannelled with sculptured slabs representing the wars 
 of Assurbanipal against the Elamites. The majority 
 of these sculptures, in good preservation, have been 
 removed to the British Museum (B.M., A.B., No. 
 54-62). 
 
 Leaving this part of the palace, we return to the
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 89 
 
 end of the ascending passage, and find facing us a 
 long narrow gallery, lined on either side with the 
 finest examples of Assyrian art. This gallery (12 x 
 57) is decorated with a series of sculptures illustrative 
 of the exploits of the king in the hunting field. 
 
 We have now completed the tour of the chief rooms 
 of this explored portion of the royal palace, and one 
 or two important variations from the structure and 
 decoration of the palace of S argon at Khorsabad are 
 to be noticed. In the first place, several of the 
 rooms are larger than those at Khorsabad, and the 
 arrangement with regard to each other is by no 
 means so systematic, there being no trace of that 
 series of complete blocks which made the former so 
 perfect a plan. As an example of this, I may point 
 to the almost complete seclusion of the Susianian 
 room, and the manifest variation of the plan from 
 those of the palaces of Sennacherib, Sargon, or the 
 kings of the middle empire. A still more striking- 
 innovation is the introduction of columns in the 
 principal doorways. As this palace was erected 
 shortly after the king's victorious campaigns in 
 Egypt, which culminated in the capture of Thebes 
 and Memphis, the introduction of these columned 
 portals may be due to foreign influence. In the 
 account of his spoliation of Thebes, the Assyrian king- 
 states that he brought from there " two great obelisks 
 of polished granite, of which their weight was 2500 
 talents. Standing before the gate of a temple, from
 
 90 ASSYEIAN PALACES. 
 
 their position I removed them, and to Assyria 
 conducted them " (Cylinder, Rm. i., col. ii., 41-43). 
 These objects were evidently strange to the Assyrian 
 king, as he applies to them the name temien, or 
 "foundation-stones," a word also applied to the 
 boundary-stones or land-marks to which the king no 
 doubt compared them. There must have been very 
 great difficulty in transporting these objects so far, 
 their weight being a little over ninety-one tons. 
 Some idea of the manual labour which the Assyrians 
 could command is to be gained from the sculptures 
 in the Koyunjik room representing the building of 
 Sennacherib's palace, but what must the work have 
 been of conveying these great monoliths from the 
 Syrian coast overland to Nineveh ! 
 
 The palace of Assurbanipal was commenced on the 
 15th day of the month Iyar (April-May), in the 
 Eponym year of Assur-danin-ani, the prefect of 
 Akkad; that would be, according to the Eponym 
 canon, the year B.C. 640. In the construction of 
 the palace the king employed the captives and spoil 
 taken of the Elamite cities, and the captive Arabs 
 and their kings captured in his Arab wars. This 
 would place the building of this palace as late as B.C. 
 650 at least, and account in a great measure for the 
 unfinished state of several of the chambers and 
 corridors. Just as the palace of Sargon at Khorsabad 
 had exceeded all former palaces in the completeness 
 of its plan, so did this new palace, the last of
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 91 
 
 Assyria's royal residences, excel all former palaces 
 in the beauty of its sculptured decorations. The 
 stiff conventional work of the middle empire, such as 
 adorned the palaces of Assurnazirpal and Shalmanesar 
 in the city of Calah, had now given place to a more 
 finished style, and the wars and ceremonies of the 
 <?reat king were represented in a series of stone tableaux 
 of the highest artistic merit. This improvement first 
 makes itself apparent in the sculptures from the 
 palace of Sennacherib on the south-east extremity of 
 the Koyunjik mound, which represent the Syrian 
 wars, including the siege of Lachish, and the wars 
 in Babylonia against Merodach-baladan ; although 
 perhaps an earlier phase of this development may be 
 seen in the close attention to detail exhibited in the 
 bronze reliefs from the temple at Ballawat. In 
 the historical sculptures from the palace of Assur- 
 nazir-pal (B.C. 885), in the Kimroud gallery of the 
 British Museum (No. 7, 18), we see a series of 
 representations of the wars of this king, the march of 
 the army, the crossing of rivers, the encampment, the 
 siege and surrender of cities ; all these incidents are 
 depicted in a regular machine-like manner; no 
 attempt is made to indicate the locality of the cities 
 or campaigns, nor is any attempt made to distinguish 
 the nations against whom the Assyrians are fighting. 
 In the bronze gates from Ballawat we see the first 
 attempts to render these sculptured tableaux really 
 illustrative of the annals of the king. The nature of
 
 92 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 the material emplo} r ed did not admit of any very 
 great accuracy ; but we can see that one city is 
 distinct from another, and special local features, such 
 as the spot where the king's statue was carved on the 
 shores of Lake Van, or at the head waters of the 
 Subnat, the modern Tebbeneh Su, are represented in 
 a much more accurate manner. Some distinction, 
 too, is made between the various races against whom 
 the king is fighting, as between the people of Uradhi 
 or Ararat, and the Hittites and Babylonians. In 
 the sculptures of the time of Sennacherib and his 
 successors, this idea of rendering the works a series 
 of folio plates to illustrate the campaigns described 
 on the cylinders and tablets, and to make them as 
 accurate in local and ethnic features as possible, is 
 carried to a very advanced stage. In the wars 
 against Merodach-baladan we have the thick marshes 
 of tall reeds which formed the lower portion of the 
 Tigro-Euphrates delta, the modern Afadj, the land of 
 Gumbulu or Guzummani of the inscriptions. The 
 population then bade defiance to the Assyrians, as 
 at the present time the half-bred Arabs of this 
 district do to the Turkish pashas of Bagdad, in their 
 reed islands, darting from one to the other in boats 
 and rafts. In these sculptures we see the artist 
 must have studied and endeavoured to reproduce 
 the local features of the region. The Babylonian 
 supporters of Merodach-baladan are here represented 
 as hiding in the islands, or escaping from the Assyrian
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 93 
 
 soldiers in boats and rafts. On the banks of the rivers, 
 on the more solid ground, are groves of palm trees ; 
 the whole being an excellent illustration of the 
 flight of the Babylonian prince, thus described by 
 Sennacherib : — " In the beginning of my reign I 
 accomplished the overthrow of Merodach-baladan, 
 king of Ganduniyas, with the armies of Elam, within 
 the neighbourhood of the city of Kisu (Hymer). 1 n 
 the midst of that battle he forsook his camp, he fled 
 alone, to the country of Guzummani he fled. Among 
 the marshes and pools he descended, and his life thus 
 he saved. I also took the road after him, to the 
 country of Guzummani, my fighting men to the midst 
 of the pools and marshes I urged, and five days they 
 moved about rapidly, but his hiding-place was 
 not seen" (Bellin's Cylinder, 6, 7, and 11). The 
 Babylonians, represented in these sculptures (B.M., 
 K.G., No. 4-8), are distinct in type from the Assyrian 
 soldiers — shorter in statue, with close curly hair, and 
 small e3 7 es, and high cheek bones, as if retaining the 
 type of their Akkadian ancestors. So in like manner 
 in slabs representing campaigns in Palestine (B.M., 
 A.B., 21-32 ;\B.M., K.G., 20-26) is the Jewish, Arab, 
 or Negro face clearly to be distinguished from the 
 Assyrian. Not only has the artist endeavoured to be 
 accurate in details, but he has introduced some 
 incidents into his tableau, such as fishermen on rafts 
 or skins angling in the river, women giving water to 
 their children, or groups of people flying from the
 
 94 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 
 
 enemy, with their household goods on carts — all of 
 these tending to give a far more realistic character to 
 these sculptures than was the case with the work of 
 the artists of the 8th and 9th centuries before our 
 era. 
 
 These sculptures so accurately represent the vari- 
 ous types of people with whom the Assyrians came 
 in contact, that they are of the highest value for the 
 study of the ethnology of Western Asia. Accurate 
 as the Assyrians were in the representation of these 
 foreign nations, they seem to have been strangely con- 
 servative in regard to themselves. From the earliest 
 time down to this period of Assyrian art there is no 
 attempt at portraiture — the same type of face, some- 
 times with a beard, sometimes beardless, is given 
 indiscriminately to their figures — the differences 
 which exist between one face and another during all 
 this time being due only to the slight modification of 
 style which took place. 
 
 Although Assyrian art was so stereotyped in regard 
 to portraiture, it attained a very high perfection in 
 other branches, notably in the representation of 
 animal life ; and the highest developement is ex- 
 hibited in the sculptures from the lion hunt room. 
 So fine are these sculptures, so free from the conven- 
 tionalties which had hitherto fettered Assyrian art, 
 that some German critics have gone so far as to 
 suggest that Grecian artists were employed on them. 
 Such a competent authority, however, as Mr Poynter,
 
 ASSYRIAN PALACES. 95 
 
 B.A., very effectively combats this idea by calling- 
 attention to the very primitive condition of the 
 arts in Greece during the middle of the seventh 
 century before the Christian era. These sculptures, 
 which now adorn the Assyrian basement of the 
 British Museum, prove that the artists must have 
 studied with close attention the habits of the lion, 
 wild ass, and gazelle, and endeavoured to reproduce 
 them with the utmost fidelity. I may mention such 
 striking examples as the paralysed lion shot through 
 the spine, or a still more perfectly finished group of 
 a lion and lioness, in which the latter is crouching 
 with cat-like playfulness at his feet. 
 
 AVe have now seen how these sculptured tableaux, 
 ranged line after line along the walls of the halls of 
 the royal palaces, formed large plates illustrative of 
 the history of the reigns of the kings whose abodes 
 they adorned. 
 
 In this brief account of the royal palaces of 
 Assyria, we learn how little is the change in Oriental 
 life during a long range of centuries. The same 
 groups of state rooms, the secluded and richly 
 decorated harem, and the accommodation for hosts 
 of servants and soldiers, constitute the residence of 
 an eastern sultan or pasha at the present time, as 
 they did twenty-five centuries ago the abode of the 
 lords of Assyria.
 
 hectxne m, 
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 TN entering upon the study of this remarkable 
 inscription, we are bringing our cuneiform records 
 into more direct comparison with Biblical and other 
 ancient writings than was the case when the Creation 
 legends were under consideration. The Deluge 
 legend, in one form or another, is one of the most 
 universal of traditions. Among ancient civilisations 
 we find it in the Chinese legend of Fah-he, who 
 escaped with his wife, three sons, and daughters, 
 from the universal cataclysm. It forms an episode 
 in the Incarnations of Vishnu, and even the new 
 world has the ancient Astec traditions of this great 
 visitation of divine wrath. In dealing with the 
 manifold traditions which have come from all parts 
 of the world — Europe, Asia, America ; Africa alone 
 being exempt,— and from many of the islands of 
 Polynesia, considerable care has to be exercised, as 
 many of the traditions are found so strikingly to 
 resemble the Hebrew account as rather to prejudice
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 07 
 
 their evidence. As an example of one of these, I 
 may quote a tradition from Borneo : — " There was a 
 great inundation, when the ancestors of the human 
 family of the Chinese, Malays, and Dyaks apparently 
 dwelt together. The three had to swim for their 
 lives, and all came to land safely." This tradition, 
 together with very striking ones of the Tower of 
 Babel, which in Dyak legend is replaced by a big 
 ladder, and others, are found in a paper by Mr 
 Alexander Mackenzie Cameron, and are quoted as 
 striking confirmations of the Hebrew account (Trans. 
 Soc. Bib. Arch., vol. ii., p. 264-5). This is one among 
 many traditions which have come to us from the 
 East, and which are often to be obtained, furnished 
 with miraculous resemblances to the Genesis legend, 
 if the natives are but slightly prompted. I do not 
 therefore, in this lecture, propose to enter a compari- 
 son between these legends aud the Chaldean account, 
 as contained in the Deluge Tablet. There are, how- 
 ever, among Oriental traditions of this great cataclysm, 
 three which stand out as pre-eminently ancient. The 
 Hebrew accounts in Genesis (chaps, vi.-xi. 8), the 
 versions of the Chaldean tradition preserved in the 
 writings of the Greco-Chaldean historian Berosus, 
 and to these we may now add the more ancient 
 version of the original Chaldean inscription from 
 which Berosus at least derived his account. The 
 story of the discovery of this important inscription, 
 which took place about twelve years ago, by the late 
 
 D
 
 98 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 Mr George Smith, is well known, but it requires 
 recapitulation, in order that at the outset of our study 
 of this important document we may clearly under- 
 stand the position this legend holds in the mass of 
 Chaldean literature. The very direct references in 
 the Scriptures (Gen. x. 8-10 ; Micah v. 6) to Nimrod 
 as the great hero of Chaldea, as well as the numerous 
 legends of Hebrew, Arab, and Greek writers, always 
 lead the decipherers to hope that some day there 
 would be revealed, from beneath the dust of centuries 
 the legends which the Chaldeans themselves had of 
 this ancestor of their nation. In 1872 Mr Smith found 
 a number of a series of tablets which related to a 
 hero, who was a mighty-one on earth, bearing the 
 title of "the warrior, perfect in strength," and dis- 
 tinguishing himself in war and in the hunting-field. 
 It was evident, from the descriptions of this hero's 
 great deeds, that he was the same person as 
 that powerful giant god so often represented in the 
 Assyrian sculptures at Khorsabad, and on the 
 engraved cylinder seals. Other fragments of these 
 tablets having been obtained from the East, it was 
 found that the series of tablets when complete con- 
 sisted of twelve tablet-books, each one corresponding 
 to one of the twelve deeds or labours of this Chaldean 
 Hercules. The hero of this cycle of poems is called 
 Gizdhubar, a name which is of non-Semitic — probably 
 Akkadian — origin, and means the "mass of fire." 
 The epithets applied to him are nearly all solar, as
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 99 
 
 iii a hymn addressed to the hero (S. 1877) he is 
 called "Gizdhubar the king, perfect in strength, the 
 judge of the spirits, the exalted prince, the chief of 
 mankind, the watchman of the four quarters, the 
 glory of the earth, the lord of the underworld." All 
 these epithets are applied to the Sun god in other 
 hymns, so that, guided by these facts and by the 
 character of the legends preserved, Sir Henry 
 Eawlinson was able to point out the solar character 
 of the Epic of Chaldea, It is evident, as I shall show 
 in a subsequent lecture, that the stories in this cycle 
 of legends were arranged according to the sun's 
 passage through the signs of the Zodiac. It had long- 
 been recognised that the Akkadian calendar was so 
 arranged, many of the months bearing names which 
 pointed to the signs most distinctly. As I treat of 
 this subject more fully in a subsequent lecture, I may 
 only quote these most striking examples. The second 
 tablet contains the story of the half bull-like com- 
 panion of the hero, who companions him in all his 
 labours, as the centaur Chiron attended Hercules. 
 It corresponds to the second month, called "the 
 month of the directing bull," and the Zodiac sign of 
 Taurus. For the third month we have a story of 
 two twin sisters, Samkhat and Kharimat, who entice 
 this centaur-like companion to come to the court of 
 Gizdhubar, corresponding to the sign of Gemini. For 
 the sixth month, called the "month of message of 
 Istar," we have the sixth tablet, containing the stories
 
 100 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 of the love proposals of the goddess to the hero, and 
 in agreement with the sign of Virgo. Lastly, we 
 find the eleventh tablet, which, according to this 
 arrangement should correspond to the " month of the 
 curse of rain," and to the sign of Aquarius, has 
 woven into its columns the story of the deluge. It 
 is therefore clear that the tale of the preservation of 
 the Chaldean sage — whose name in the tablet is 
 Samas-napisti, "the Sun of Life," or "the Living 
 Sun," the Xisuthrus of Berosus, the Noah of the 
 Hebrew tradition — is here brought into the epic as 
 an episode to keep it in harmony with the zodiacal 
 arrangement. We have therefore recovered with the 
 decipherment of this series of legends the originals of 
 many of the traditions of Nimrod, but also a far older 
 legend embodied in the epic, the story of the deluge. 
 From the preceding tablet, the tenth, we learn that 
 the hero, sick and afflicted, being covered with leprosy 
 and deprived of his hair, wherein, like the Hebrew 
 Samson, lay his strength, is journeying to learn the 
 secret of immortality. This secret, " the hidden thing 
 of the gods " as it is here called, can only be revealed 
 by the ancient sage Samas-napisti, who has been 
 translated by the gods to dwell as one of themselves 
 in immortality on an island near the mouth of the 
 Tigris and Euphrates. To this remote spot he is 
 guided by the Chaldean Charon, a mythic personage 
 named Nis-Hea, "the Man of Hea"— that is, the 
 servant of the water god, of whom I have already
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 101 
 
 spoken in my lecture on the Creation Tablets, who 
 pilots him across the river and waters of death to this 
 land where the translated sage lives. Having reached 
 the place, the hero speaks to the Chaldean Noah and 
 lays before him the object of his visit. " Gizdhubar 
 to him, even Samas-napisti the remote, spake : I am 
 burdened with a decree. The cure thou repeatest not 
 to me, even thou — the rest of thy heart from making- 
 tribulation .... to thee I am come up. What hast 
 thou laid hold of in the assembly of the gods where 
 thou art placed ?" The translated sage then proceeds 
 " to relate the story of his preservation," and the next 
 173 lines are occupied with an account of the delu'ge 
 and the translation of Samas-napisti. There arc 
 many indications that this story is much older 
 than the complete epic of Gizdhubar; and even in 
 the tablets the commencement of the story is care- 
 fully lined off from the rest of the inscription. 
 Before passing to the comparative analysis of this 
 inscription, we may refer to one or two facts bearing 
 on this historical character which the Chaldeans 
 have attached to the deluge. One of the strongest 
 pieces of evidence is to be found in the tablet of 
 royal names (W. A.I. , vol. v., pi. 47), where the impor- 
 tant gloss appears — " These are the kings ruling after 
 the deluge (abubi), who according to their relative 
 order wrote not." In like manner the story of the 
 preservation of Sargon, of Agadhe or Akkad, in an 
 ark of bulrushes on the Euphrates, and his elevation
 
 102 
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 to the throne, may be a transference of the deluge 
 tradition to this hero of the Semites, whose remote 
 antiquity .(3750 B.C.) might cause him to become 
 tinged with a mythic glamour. The deluge formed 
 the rubicon between the mythic period and the 
 heroic and polyarchal age, separating the reigns of 
 local kind's from the far distant age of the ten ante- 
 deluvian patriarchs. The patriarchs are thus named 
 by Berosus, and the length of their reigns given. 
 They may be compared with the ante-diluvian 
 patriarchs of Genesis — 
 
 1. Alorus. K) Sar. 
 
 2. Alaparos 3 
 
 3. Amillaros 13 
 
 4. Aninienon 12 
 
 5. Amelagaros....l8 
 
 6. Davos 10 
 
 7. Euedoranchosl8 
 
 8. Amempsinos 10 
 
 9. Obartus 8 
 
 10. Xisuthrus 18 
 
 Adam. 
 
 Seth. 
 
 Enos. 
 
 Cainan. 
 
 Mahalalel. 
 
 Jared. 
 
 Enoch. 
 
 Methuselah. 
 
 Lamech. 
 
 Noah. 
 
 120 = 432,000 year?. 
 
 The genealogy of the hero of the Deluge is given 
 in the tablet (col. i. 20) — " Oh, man of the city of
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 103 
 
 Surippak, son of Ubarratutis." This latter is Obartes 
 or Otiartes of Berosus, who was king of Larancha, 
 according to the Greek text, but which M. Lenormant 
 has shown was a corruption of Sorippak (La Langue 
 Primitive, p. 342). The name Xisuthrus, which 
 Berosus gives to the Chaldean Noah, may be a cor- 
 ruption of the epithets Adra Khasis, " Beverent and 
 Holy," applied to the hero in col. i. 45, and in col. iv. 
 22 ; but it is hardly possible — the more likely solu- 
 tion being that it is a Hellenicised form of Zi-Susru, 
 " the Spirit of the Founder," and perhaps such an 
 etymology may explain the translation of Xisuthrus, 
 recorded by Berosus — " They remaining within (the 
 ark), finding their companions, did not return, quitted 
 the vessel with many lamentations, calling con- 
 tinually on the name of Xisuthrus. Him they saw 
 no more ; but they could distinguish his voice in the 
 air, and hear him admonish them to pay due regard 
 to religion." The city of Surrippak, of which Samas 
 Napisti or Xisuthrus was king, is called " the Ship 
 City" (W. A. I., ii. 46, 1), and the Lord of the city 
 was the god Hea — the god of rivers, seas, and ships 
 — who takes so prominent a part in this legend in 
 protecting the sage. He is here called " the Lord of 
 Ships— Hea, the Lord of Surippak " (W. A. I., ii. 
 60, 21). The city was an ancient one long prior to 
 the time of the king Khammurabi, B.C. 2120, who 
 records its capture. It was probably situated below 
 Ur and Erech, the modern Mughier, and Warka, and
 
 104 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 near the mouth of the Euphrates, which , in ancient 
 times, as late as the reign of Sennacherib, entered the 
 Persian Gulf by a separate mouth from the Tigris 
 — the name of the father of the Chaldean Noah, 
 Ubara-Tutu — the name being explained in the 
 syllabaries and bilingual tablets as Ubarra = Kiclinu- 
 " Servant " (W. A. I., ii., pi. 3, No 254) ; and the god 
 Tutu is given in the bilingual list of royal names as 
 the synonym of Marduk or Merodach (W. A. I, v 
 42, 18). In a bilingual tablet (K. 2107), the god 
 Tutu is called Muallad Hi Muddis Hi — " the generator 
 and restorer of the gods" — in which character he 
 may be identified with Merodach as the god of the 
 dawn and twilight. In this relationship Samas- 
 Napisti, " the Living Sun," would be the child of the 
 " Servant of the Dawns," as this name means — rising 
 each day at his message, and setting each day by his 
 decree. 
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE TABLET. 
 COL. I. 
 
 The first eight lines of the inscription are introduc- 
 tory matter, being a conversation between Grizdhubar 
 and Samas-Napisti — the Chaldean Noah. 
 
 Samas-Napisti then commences to relate the story 
 of his preservation from the " great flood." 
 
 Line 9 Let me reveal to thee, Oh ! Gizdhubar, the story of 
 my preservation 
 10 And the hidden thing of the gods let me tell to thee
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 105 
 
 11 The city of Surippak, which thou hnowest is placed 
 
 on the Euphrates 
 
 12 That city was very ancient (when) the gods within it 
 
 13 [Were not honored, I only was] the servant of the 
 
 great gods 
 
 14 Their father Ami their king ; their 
 
 15 Counsellor the warrior Bel ; their 
 
 16 Throne-bearer the god Adar, and 
 
 17 The god Hea, the Lord of the underworld 
 
 18 Repeated their decree 
 
 19 I this destiny hearing (as) he said to me 
 
 20 Oh ! Man of Surippak, son of Ubarratutu 
 
 21 Destroy the house and build a ship 
 
 22 For I will destroy the seed and the life 
 
 23 Cause them to go up into the ship all seed that hath 
 
 life 
 24-25 The ship which thou shalt make— cubits its length in 
 measure 
 
 26 — cubits the contents of its breadth and height 
 
 27 above the deep roof it over 
 
 28 I understood, and said to Hea, my Lord 
 
 29 The building of the ship which thou commandedest 
 
 30 If it be made by me 
 
 31 Then will laugh at me, the children of the people, 
 
 and the old men 
 
 32 Hea opened his mouth and spake to me, his servant 
 
 33 If they laugh at thee, thou shalt say to them 
 
 34 Every one who has turned from me 
 
 35 Shall be punished, for the protection of the gods is 
 
 over me 
 36 
 
 37 I will judge my judgment upon all above and below 
 
 38 Close not the ship 
 
 39 Until the season, when I shall send thee word 
 
 (saying) 
 
 40 " Enter the ship and close the door "
 
 106 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 41 In the interior of it, thy grain, thy furniture, thy 
 
 goods 
 
 42 Thy wealth, thy man-servants and maid-servants, and 
 
 thy young men 
 
 43 The cattle of the field and the animals of the field 
 
 As many as I would preserve 
 
 44 I will send to thee, (then) make firm thy door 
 
 45 The Reverent and Holy One opened his mouth and 
 
 spake to Hea, his Lord 
 
 46 No one has made such a ship 
 
 47 on the ground (to hold all things) 
 
 48 [The form of] the ship let me see 
 
 49 And on the ground I will make the ship which thou 
 
 commandest 
 
 Col. II 
 
 Line 2 On the fifth day two sides were raised 
 
 3 In its enclosure (hull) fourteen ribs 
 
 4 Also fourteen they numbered above 
 
 5 I placed its roof and enclosed it 
 
 6 Sixthly I made it firm, seventhly I divided its 
 
 passages 
 
 7 Eightly its interior I examined 
 
 8 Openings to the waters I stopped 
 
 9 I searched for cracks and the wanting parts I fixed 
 
 10 Three sari of bitumen I poured over the outside 
 
 11 Three sari of bitumen I poured over the interior 
 
 12 Three sari of men bearers who carried chests on 
 
 their heads 
 
 13 1 kept a saros of chests for my people to eat 
 
 14 Two sari of chests I divided among the boatmen 
 
 15 To the gods I caused oxen to be scarified 
 
 16 I appointed the portions for each day 
 
 17 and wine 
 
 18 I gathered like the waters of the river
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 107 
 
 19 And food as th e dust of the earth 
 
 20 In receptacles my hand placed 
 
 21 With the help of the Sun god, the ship was completed 
 
 22 All was made strong and — 
 
 23 And above and below the tackling was fixed 
 
 24 Then of my possessions I took two-thirds 
 
 25 All I had of silver I gathered together 
 
 26 All I had of gold I gathered together 
 
 27 All I had of the seed of life I gathered together the 
 
 whole 
 
 28 I caused them all to go up into the ship. All my 
 
 men-servants and maid-servants 
 
 29 The cattle of the field and the beast of the field and 
 
 the young men, all of them, I caused to go up 
 
 30 The season the Sun god had fixed, and (of which) he 
 
 spake saying 
 
 31 " I will cause it to rain from heaven heavily " 
 
 32 " Enter into the midst of the ship and close thy door " 
 
 33 (That) season fixed came round (of which) 
 
 3-4 He spake saying ; " I will cause it to rain from 
 heaven heavily " 
 
 35 Of that day when I reached the twilight 
 
 36 The day which I had watched for with fear 
 
 37 I entered into my ship and closed my door 
 
 38 That I might close my ship to Bazur Sadai-rabu 
 
 39 The boatman, the great-house, I gave with all its 
 
 goods 
 
 40 Then rose the wate 1 : of dawn at daylight 
 
 41 Like a black cloud on the horizon of heaven 
 
 42 The thunder god in the midst of it thundered 
 
 43 Nebo and the Wind god march in front 
 
 44 The throne bearers (storm clouds) go o'er mountain 
 
 and plain 
 
 45 The Pestilence god brings with him affliction 
 
 46 The War god goes in front and casts down 
 
 47 The angels of earth carry the destruction
 
 108 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 48 In their glory they swept through the land 
 
 49 The deluge of the Rain god reaches to heaven 
 
 50 The darkened earth to waste is turned 
 
 Col. III. 
 Line 1 The surface of the earth like fire they sweep 
 
 2 They destroyed all life from the face of the earth 
 
 3 To battle against men they brought the deluge 
 
 4 Brother saw not brother, men knew one another 
 
 5 Even in heaven the gods feared the flood 
 
 6 And sought refuge, they ascended to the heaven of 
 
 Ann 
 
 7 The gods like dogs in kennels lay in heaps 
 
 8 Then cried I star .like a mother 
 
 9 And the great goddess does utter her speech 
 
 10 All things to clay are turned 
 
 11 And the evil which I proclaimed in the presence of 
 
 the gods 
 
 12 As I anuounced in the presence of the gods, is that 
 
 evil 
 
 13 As I announced to evil are devoted all my people 
 
 14 And though I the mother have begotten my people 
 
 15 Yet like the spawn of fishes they fill the sea 
 
 16 Then the gods were weeping with her concerning the 
 
 spirits 
 
 17 The gods on the throne were seated weeping 
 
 18 Covered were their lips because of the coming evil 
 
 19 Six days and nights 
 
 20 The wind, the deluge and the storm go on sweeping 
 
 away 
 
 21 The seventh day when it approached the rain sub- 
 
 sided, and the great deluge 
 
 22 Which had assailed like a host 
 
 23 Was appeased. The sea began to dry and the wind 
 
 and flood ended 
 
 24 I watched the sea making a tossing
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 109 
 
 25 And the whole of mankind had turned to clay 
 
 26 Like reeds the corpses floated 
 
 27 I opened the window and the light struck on my face 
 
 28 I was sad at heart, I sat down, I wept 
 
 29 Over my face flowed my tears 
 
 30 I looked at the regions bounding the sea 
 
 31 To the 12 points no land (was seen) 
 
 32 To the country of Nizir floated the ship 
 
 33 The mountain of Nizir stopped the ship and to pass 
 
 o'er it was not able 
 
 34 The first day, the second day the M. Nizir the same 
 
 35 The third day and fourth day the M. Nizir the same 
 
 36 The fifth and sixth day the M. Nizir the same 
 
 37 On the seventh day in the course of it 
 
 38 I sent forth a dove, it left. The dove went and 
 
 turned 
 
 39 A resting place it saw not, it returned back 
 
 40 I sent forth a swallow, it left and turned and 
 
 4 L A. resting place it could not see, and it returned back 
 Ai I sent forth a raven and it left 
 
 43 The raven went and the corpses (carrion) which were 
 on the water it saw 
 
 41 it did eat— it floated and was carried away— it 
 
 returned not 
 
 45 L sent the (animals) forth to the four winds (of 
 
 heaven) I sacrificed a sacrifice 
 
 46 I built the altar on the peak of the mountain 
 
 47 Adgur jars by sevens 1 placed 
 
 48 Below them I spread reeds, pine wood and spices 
 
 49 The gods smelled the odour. The gods smelled the 
 
 sweet odour 
 
 50 The gods like flies over the master the sacrifice 
 
 gathered 
 
 51 Then from afar the great goddess in her approach 
 
 52 liaised up the great zones which Ann had created as 
 
 his glory
 
 110 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 Col. IV. 
 
 Line 1 Those days I had thought of and never may I forget 
 them 
 
 2 May the gods come to my altar ; 
 
 3 May Bel not come to my altar 
 
 4 Since he did not reflect and made a deluge 
 
 5 And consigned my people to the deep 
 (5 When thereupon Bel in his approach 
 
 7 Saw the ship stopped. His heart was filled with 
 
 anger upon gods and spirits 
 
 8 Let none come forth alive. Let no man escape the 
 
 deep 
 
 9 Adar opened his mouth and spake, he says to the 
 
 warrior Bel 
 
 10 Whosoever except Hea can make a design 
 
 11 Even Hea knows and all things he teaches 
 
 12 Hea opened his mouth and spake, he says to the 
 
 warrior Bel 
 13-14 Oh ! thou counsellor of the gods, why, why didst 
 thou reflect and didst make a deluge 
 
 15 Let the doer of sin bear his sin and let the trans- 
 
 gressor bear his transgression 
 
 16 May the just prince not be cut off, may the faithful 
 
 not perish 
 IT Instead of making a deluge, may lions increase and 
 men be decreased 
 
 18 Instead of making a deluge, may jackals increase 
 
 and men be decreased 
 
 19 Instead of making a deluge, may famine happen and 
 
 men be wasted 
 
 20 Instead of making a deluge, may pestilence increase 
 
 and men decrease 
 
 21 I did not reveal the hidden thing of the gods 
 
 22 To the Reverent and Holy One a dream I sent him 
 
 and the hidden thin" he heard
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. Ill 
 
 23 When Bel had reflect on his counsel he went up into 
 
 the midst of the ship 
 
 24 He took my hand and raised me up 
 
 25 He caused me to rise up and placed my wife by my 
 
 side 
 
 26 He turned himself to us and established himself to 
 
 us in a covenant 
 
 27 Hitherto Samas-Napisti has been a mortal man 
 
 28 Even now Samas-Napisti and his wife are raised up 
 
 and borne away as gods 
 
 29 Then shall dwell Samas-Napisti in a remote place at 
 
 the mouth of the rivers 
 
 30 They took us, and in a remote place at the mouth of 
 
 the rivers they seated us 
 
 At the commencement of the tablet we have an 
 account of the council of the gods over the wicked- 
 ness of the people, especially those of the city of 
 Xisuthrus. The words here furnish an almost direct 
 parallel to the Hebrew, omitting, of course, the 
 polytheistic elements of the Chaldean version : " That 
 city was very ancient, when the gods within it (were 
 not honoured) ; I only was the servant of the great 
 gods " — to which we may compare the following 
 passages : " But Noah found grace in the eyes of the 
 Lord. And Noah was a just man, and perfect in his 
 generations, and Noah walked with God " (Gen. vi. 
 8, 9). And both the Hebrew and Chaldean accounts 
 are in agreement as to the cataclysm being a punish- 
 ment for sin. There are other records among the 
 Assyrian inscriptions of punishments sent upon men 
 by the gods, and in every case the infliction seems to
 
 112 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 be by decision of a council of the gods. In the 
 legend of Atarpi, where drought famine is the 
 punishment, the gods decide to punish men; so in 
 the Dibbara legends, where pestilence is the instru- 
 ment of divine wrath, is there a council of the gods. 
 In this Olympian congress we find the members of 
 the great Chaldean trinity, Ann, Bel, and Hea, taking 
 part. Aim, " the Father," the Dyaus-pitar or Jupiter, 
 being at the head. It is Bel, the lord of mundane 
 affairs, who seems to be the offended one among the 
 gods, and it is against him that the people had 
 sinned. He is here called Malik Sunu, "their 
 counsellor," and advises that the punishment shall 
 be by a terrible deluge — and " the seed and the life " 
 were all to be destroyed; "let none escape the deep 
 — all were consigned to the deep." Hea, the third 
 member of the triad, "the lord of wisdom," whe 
 appears here as Hermes, the herald of the gods, acts 
 as the saviour of the few just persons among the 
 sinners. Sir Henry Rawlinson has suggested, and 
 with very good reasons, that there was in Chaldea a 
 sect who worshipped Hea as their supreme god, and 
 who approached very near to a monotheistic creed. 
 From the prominence given to this god in the Deluge 
 Tablet, it would seem as if this was a document of 
 that school of Chaldean thought. Hea was, as I 
 have shown, the Lord of Surippak, the city of Samas- 
 Napisti, or Xisuthrus, who always addresses him as 
 " Hea, my Lord " (Col. i. 28-15), and from whom he
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 113 
 
 receives instructions in building the ark or ship 
 (Col. i. 21 49). The mediatorial office he assumes 
 with the enraged god Bel (Col. iv., 12-22) would 
 mark him as the special protector of this people. 
 The instructions which Hea gives as to the building 
 of the vessel in which Samas-Napisti is to be saved 
 are most precise, and are very important in the con- 
 sideration of the relation of that story to those of the 
 Hebrews. The vessel to be built was a ship elapu, 
 provided with " hull with fourteen ribs on either 
 side," " a roof," by which here I suspect the deck is 
 meant as closing in the hull ; this latter portion being 
 divided into sections. " I divided its passages " 
 (Sukut), literally " streets," and the whole covered 
 without and within with a coat of bitumen, and pro- 
 vided with ropes or tackling above and below. This 
 points clearly to a ship of some size, and to a know- 
 ledge of ship-building. That ship-building was known 
 in Chaldea at an early time is shown by the refer- 
 ence to ships in some of the most ancient hymns, 
 especially in a difficult tablet (W. A. I. iv. 25, col. i.) ; 
 and a legendary fragment, which Mr George Smith 
 at one time included in the Gizdhubar series (K. 
 3200), speaks of ships coming up the Euphrates as far 
 as Erech, the modern Warka — that is about 120 miles 
 above Kurna, where the rivers now join. But we are 
 not confined merely to legendary evidence, for in the 
 inscription of Gudea, found at Tello on the Shat el 
 Hie, this king, who reigned at least as early as B.C. 
 2500, speaks of sending ships from the Persian
 
 114 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 Gulf to the land of Magan, which is now almost 
 universally identified by A ssyriologists as the Sinaitic 
 peninsula, to obtain the stones, diorite, and porphyry 
 for his royal statues. Ships from the Red Sea also 
 came to Chaldea, as the ships of Magan are mentioned 
 in a list of vessels. An important bilingual tablet 
 (W. A. I. i., ii., 62, No. 2) gives the names of several 
 kinds of ships and their various parts. We have 
 " the ship " and vessels carrying as much tonnage as 
 60 or 90 gur. We have also the " ferry boat," called 
 ■nili tree or "the crossing boat." and the makhirtuv or 
 " market boat ;" also the names of many parts ot the 
 ship. The keel is called " the foundation of the 
 ship," the deck " the ground of the ship," the bow 
 and stern " the horns of the ship," and the ribs " the 
 sides." There was a deck-house also, which explains 
 the passage in this Deluge tablet : " To Buzur-sadai- 
 rabu, the boatmen, the great house (eJcal) I gave 
 with all its goods." As this ship exceeded all others 
 in size, so its deck-house was a palace to all other 
 deck-houses. The prow of the ship was called " the 
 eye " or face of the ship, reminding us of the Chinese 
 custom of painting eyes on the prow of the junks. 
 In this tablet we have a list of the sacred arks or 
 barges of the gods, and that of Hea is called " the 
 ship of the lord ruler of the Absi ;" while that of his 
 wife Bahu, whom I have already referred to in the 
 lecture on the Creation legends, is called " the ship 
 of the noble lady;" that of the moon "the ship of 
 light," while that of his consort, the evening star, is
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 115 
 
 called "the ship of the lesser light;" that of 
 Merodach "the oracle ship," and of Bel "the ship of 
 the world." From these inscriptions, many of which 
 are either in or accompanied by the Akkadian 
 versions of the texts, we see that the ancient inhabit- 
 ants of Chaldea had attained some considerable 
 knowledge of ship-building at a very remote period, 
 and therefore gave to their Deluge legend a more 
 nautical character than did the Hebrews. The word 
 used in our authorised version, ark, is simply the 
 rendering of the word tebah, a box or chest. The 
 same word is applied to the basket in which Moses 
 was exposed on the Nile (En. ii. 3), which the LXX 
 renders by kibotos, and the Vulgate by Area. The 
 ark of Noah was to be built of gopher wood, and, like 
 that of Xisuthrus, to be coated with pitch without 
 and within. It was also to have a roof — the reading 
 of our version (Gen. vi. 1 6) being better amended to 
 " a roof," according to Ewald and Schultze, — also 
 doors and windows ; but there is nothing in the 
 description which can identify the construction 
 described as a ship. 
 
 We come now to the provisioning of the ark, 
 which in the Chaldean account is much more detailed 
 than in the Hebrew. In the Book of Genesis we 
 have two versions of this — the first usually called the 
 Elohistic (Gen. vi. 18-2): "Thou shalt come into the 
 ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' 
 wives. And of every living thing of all tiesh, two of
 
 116 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep tJiem 
 alive ; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after 
 their kind, of cattle after their kind, and of every 
 creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of 
 every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 
 And take thou unto thee all food that is eaten, and 
 thou shalt gather it unto thee ; and it shall be for 
 thee and for them. Thus did Noah, according to all 
 that God (Elohim) had commanded him to do." In 
 the next chapter (vii. 2-3) the instructions are 
 repeated, but the selected animals are to be only 
 those of the clean kind, and these are to be selected 
 by sevens. The phraseology of the first account 
 recalls to our minds the words of the seventh creation 
 fragment, in which the cattle and creeping things are 
 so emphatically specified, and resembles the tablet 
 more clearly than the second : " Enter into the ship, 
 and close the door. In the interior of it, thy grain, 
 thy furniture, thy goods, thy wealth, thy man-servants 
 and maid-servants, thy young men, the cattle of the 
 field and animals of the field, as many as I would 
 preserve I will send to thee " (Col. i. 40-44). Here no 
 distinction is made as to clean or unclean animals — 
 the latter no doubt being intended for the sacrifice on 
 the mountain of release. 
 
 We now come to the important period of the actual 
 cataclysm — " The season which the sun god had fixed 
 came round." This, as I shall show, seems to indi- 
 cate that the festival occurred, or was supposed to
 
 CH&.LDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 117 
 
 occur, at the season of one of the solar festivals. And 
 at that time the storm burst forth. 
 
 " Then rose the water of dawn at daylight, 
 Like a dark cloud on the horizon of heaven ; 
 The Thunder god in the midst of it thundered — 
 Nebo and the Wind god march in front ; 
 The throne bearers go o'er mountain and plain ; 
 The Pestilence god brings with him affliction ; 
 The War god goes in front and casts down ; 
 The Angels of Earth carry the destruction ; 
 In their glory they sweep through the laud ; 
 The deluge of the Rain god reaches to heaven ; 
 The darkened earth to waste is turned ; 
 The surface of the earth like fire they sweep — 
 They destroy all life from the face of the earth." 
 
 This poetic description of the terrible destruction 
 that swept inland is a most graphic account of one 
 of those terrible storms, such as that when the sur- 
 veying ship Tigris was lost on the Euphrates, or such 
 a storm as is described by Mr George Smith : — " On 
 the 29th March, we fortunately got a change of 
 horses. Soon after sunset the sky was covered with 
 black clouds, so that it was difficult to find the tracks, 
 and the thunderstorm came on. The thunder seemed 
 as if it dashed itself against a range of mountains on 
 our right, and then rolled back across the vast plain 
 over which we were riding, while every now and 
 then a vivid flash of lightning illuminated the whole 
 scene, only to make the darkness more intense." 
 We are not dependent upon modern travellers for
 
 118 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 the descriptions of these terrible storms. Senna- 
 cherib in his Elamite war was stopped by the terrible 
 storms in the month Tebit. As he says — " The 
 advance I ordered in the month Tebit (December 
 and January), a terrible storm arose, and heaven and 
 earth it flooded, Rain upon rains, and snow the 
 channels filled." In like manner we find a record of 
 terrible storms in the month Sebat in the annals of 
 Esarhaddon (Budge, Hist. Esarhad., p. 23, line 14) — 
 " Snow storming in the month Sebat came ; the 
 mighty darkness I feared not." I have quoted these 
 historical records of storms occurring during the 
 winter months as indicating the delnge season, and 
 the reason why the Deluge is assigned to the 
 eleventh tablet of the Gizdhubar legend, and equated 
 with the month Sebat — the month of the Curse of 
 I£ain of the Akkadian calendar. 
 
 The rains of winter commence with the month 
 Dhebit or Thebit — a name meaning, as Dr F. 
 Delitzsch shows (Assy, and Heb., p. 16), the month 
 of " sinking in water." Its Akkadian name was Id- 
 Abba- Uddu, which may be rendered " the coming 
 forth of the Sea or Deluge ; " while the next month 
 is, as we have seen, called Sebadh, or the month of 
 Destruction. This would seem to place the com- 
 mencement of the Deluge at about the period of the 
 winter solstice. In support of this idea, too, we 
 find the Eegent of the month Tebit is " Itimman, the 
 smiter of heaven and earth." The tablet of the
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 119 
 
 seasons, which I have already referred to, makes the 
 season extending from 1st day of Kislen to the 30th 
 day of Sebat — the period when the sun is in the 
 orbit of Hea and the season of storms, using the 
 same word as is used by Sennacherib and Esar- 
 hacldon. There is very little indication in the tablet 
 as to the duration of the Deluge, but it seems to me 
 to be based on a solar and climatological calculation. 
 In order that we may understand that this description 
 of the storm and deluge is not modern, on account of 
 its poetic and graphic character, I quote the following 
 from an ancient Akkadian hymn (W. A. I., IV., 
 19, 1) :- 
 
 1. The tempest from the midst of space has (gone forth), 
 
 2. The fate from the midst of heaven proceeds ; 
 
 3. It sweeps the earth like grass — 
 
 4. To the four winds its tenor spreads like fire. 
 
 5. The men of the fields it causes affliction in their bodies ; 
 
 <>. In the city and country it causes destruction to small and 
 great ; 
 
 7. Strong one and servant bewail it. 
 
 8. In the heavens and earth like a waterspout it pours down ; 
 
 9. To the holy place of their god, they hasten and cry (aloud). 
 
 It is evident that both the Hebrew accounts and 
 the Assyrian differ as to the duration of the Deluge ; 
 yet all agree in its terrible character, and the 
 universal destruction it brought with it. At the end 
 of seven days, this wild and fearful tempest began to 
 assuage. The Samas-Napisti opened the window of 
 the ship, and wept, and was sad at heart at the ter-
 
 120 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 rible destruction around him. We have next a 
 curious reference, which points to the astronomical 
 or solar character of the legend — " I looked at the 
 regions bounding the sea ; to the twelve points there 
 was no land ; " which clearly indicates, as I have 
 already stated, the knowledge of the Zodiac. We 
 now come to the resting of the ark — " To the country 
 of Nizir floated the ship ; the mountain of Nizir 
 stopped (held) the ship, to pass over ; it was not able 
 (col. iii. 32-3) ; and for seven days the ark remained 
 stranded." Now, where was this region of Nizir, and 
 what relation did it bear to the Biblical Ararat ? 
 Upon this subject Professor Sayce has thrown much 
 important light in his paper on the " Cuneiform In- 
 scriptions of Lake Van " (Journal E. A. S., vol. xiv., 
 N.S., pt. 3). According to Biblical account, the ark 
 rested upon one of the mountains of Ararat, and " a 
 wide spread Eastern tradition " makes it Jebel Gudi. 
 This Gudi is the same as the Guti or Kuti of the in- 
 scriptions, and the "goim" or nations of the 
 Hebrews. The position of this district is accurately 
 fixed by the itineraries in the inscriptions of 
 Assurnazirpal (b.c. 886). This king states that, after 
 leaving Kalzu, near Arbela, he marched to the town 
 of Bairti and the land of Nizir. This fixes the dis- 
 trict in the land of Pamir, a little south of Mt. 
 Eowandiz, the highest peak, and suggests that 
 Eowandiz was the spot where the Babylonian tradi- 
 tion made the ark rest. This mountain of Nizir is
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 121 
 
 the same as " the mountain of the East," the 
 Olympus of the Akkadians. We know, from an 
 astronomical tablet, that the east of the Akkadians 
 was really the north-east. The east, we are told, is 
 the land of Su-edina and Guti — that is, the moun- 
 tains already referred to, and the lowland between 
 them and the Tigris. We are also told that behind 
 are Su-edina and Guti, thus pointing to this region of 
 Kuti as the home from whence the people came, and 
 the land they left behind them in their migration ; 
 thus it derived the name of " the mountain of the 
 nations," and is evidently referred to by Isaiah (xiv. 
 13), where the king of Babylon is described as boast- 
 ing that he " will ascend into heaven, and exalt his 
 throne above the stars of the gods," and " will sit on 
 the mountain of the assembly of the gods in the 
 extremities of the north " — a position which points 
 to this region near Eowandiz. It was therefore in 
 this region that the Chaldeans placed the resting 
 place of the ark. The tablet here again presents a 
 difference from the Hebrew story, along with its 
 agreement in general, as it also does with the versions 
 of Berosus. The tablet says — " On the seventh day, 
 in the course of it, I sent forth a dove ; it went and 
 turned ; a resting place it saw not ; it returned back. 
 I sent forth a swallow ; it left and turned ; a resting 
 place it could not see, and it returned back. I sent 
 forth a raven, and it left. The raven went, and the 
 corpses which were on the water it saw. It did eat,
 
 122 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 it floated, and was carried away ; it returned not " 
 Berosus states that the first time the birds were sent 
 forth they returned. After an interval of some days, 
 he sent them forth a second time, and they returned 
 with their feet tinged with mud. On the third trial 
 they returned no more. In the tablet, we notice there 
 is no omen taken from the birds, as in Berosus, by 
 the mud on their feet ; but the account of Berosus, 
 the tablet, and the Hebrew version are in agreement 
 in the birds being the raven and the dove, and in 
 the non-return of the former after being sent forth. 
 " He sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, 
 until the waters were dried up from off the earth " 
 (Gen. viii. 7). The choice of the swallow is foreign 
 to both Berosus and the Hebrew writer. The origin 
 of its selection is, however, shown in its Akkadian 
 name Sim-Khu, " the bird of fate " — omens, no doubt, 
 being derived from its flight. 
 
 We now come to the sacrifice of thanksgiv- 
 ing. The altar, we are informed, is built on the 
 ziggurat, or peak of a mountain. The use of this 
 word is peculiar and important. We find the word 
 applied in the inscriptions to the lofty stage towers, 
 such as the great tower of E-Saggili, or that of 
 Khorsabad ; and it was no doubt this ancient custom 
 of mountain sacrifices which led to the erection of 
 these lofty edifices on the plains of Chaldea. The altar 
 was laid with reeds, pine, and spices ; and now we 
 have a curious phrase—" The gods smelled the odour ;
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 123 
 
 the gods smelled the sweet savour ; the gods gathered 
 over the master of the sacrifice like flies ; " which 
 accords so closely with the Hebrew version — " And 
 the Lord smelled the sweet savour " (Gen. vii. 21). 
 This sweet sacrifice to which the gods gathered like 
 flies was followed by the appearance of the rainbow 
 — " Then from afar the great goddess in her approach 
 raised up the zones which Ann had created as his 
 glory." The goddess here appears in a very similar 
 character to the Homeric Iris (Gladstone Primer 
 Homer, p. 81). The setting the bow in the clouds, 
 which is here identified as the bow of Ami, the god 
 of heaven, has its counterpart in the Hebrew version 
 — " And God said, I do set my bow in the clouds ; it 
 shall be for a token of a covenant between me and 
 the earth" (Gen. ix. 13). The rainbow in the Chal- 
 dean Tablet does not appear in any way as a pledge 
 of a covenant between the gods and men ; it is evi- 
 dently here the bow of Istar, the daughter of Ann, 
 who bears the title of " archeress of the gods," and 
 who is often represented as carrying the sacred bow 
 of Ana, which found its representative in nature in 
 the rainbow. So far in our study of this tablet, we 
 have had a close agreement in the sequence of events 
 between the tablet and the Bible. The announce- 
 ment of the Deluge as a punishment for sin, the 
 order to build the ark or ship, the provisioning, the 
 embarkation of men and animals, the period of the 
 cataclysm, the stoppage on a mountain, the sacrifice
 
 12-4 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 of thanksgiving, all follow in the same order in both 
 accounts, though, as I have shown, varied in details. 
 We now come to marked differences. The first is 
 in the establishment of the covenant with man that 
 there should be no more deluges. I have already 
 pointed out that it is to Bel, the lord of the earth, 
 that the counsel to destroy all living things by a 
 deluge is due ; and so he is not present as the sacri- 
 fice of thanksgiving. But as he draws near to this 
 high peak of the mountain of the gods, he sees the 
 failure of his design in the ship resting on the peak 
 — " His heart was filled with anger with gods and 
 spirits. Let no man come forth alive ; let no man 
 escape the deep." In this idea of universal destruc- 
 tion, he has been defeated by the god who is the pro- 
 tector of Samas-Napisti, his family and city — " the 
 god Hea, who knows all things ; " and it is this god 
 who acts as the mediator. Instead of a deluge, in 
 future wild animals, lions, and jackals, or pestilence 
 and famine, are to be the chastisers of mankind. 
 Here we see that dread trinity of vengeance against 
 which man has ever had to struggle — the warfare 
 between men and the brute creation at first, fol- 
 lowed by the warfare of men — famine and pesti- 
 lence. So also in the Bible do we meet with this 
 trinity, as — " I will consume them by the sword 
 and by the famine and by the pestilence " (Jer. xiv. 
 12 ; xxvii. 13). So also is David given the choice of 
 the famine, sword, or pestilence (2 Sam. xxiv. 15).
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 125 
 
 Both the lion and the jackal were emblems of the 
 cod of death. The iackal was called AJehu, " the evil 
 (animal)." The Lik-Barra, or " evil dog " of the Akka- 
 dians, is the same as the word rendered " Okhim," 
 " doleful creatures," in Isaiah xiii. 21, and was in 
 ancient times, as at the present day, no doubt the 
 inhabitant of grave-yards. There was found at 
 Khorsabad a small statue of the god of death, repre- 
 sented with the head of a jackal.* The lion was the 
 emblem of the god of war and of death — the " Ne- 
 Uru-Gal," " the lord of the great city," " the city of 
 the dead" — Sualu or Sheol. He was lord over the 
 great city of Kuti ur Kuthah (2 Kings xvii. 24-30), 
 which was called by the Akkadians the city Tig- 
 Abba, or " the city of the bowing down of the head," 
 it being one of the great necropoli of Chaldea. The 
 lions at the entrance to the royal palaces and temples 
 were dedicated to him. After this mediation of Hea, 
 the decision of the gods is revealed to the sage in a 
 dream — " To Samas-Napisti a dream they sent, and 
 the decision of the gods he heard " (col. iv. 22). 
 Upon this decision never to destroy the earth again 
 by a deluge, Bel, who had in the anger of his heart 
 poured forth this destruction upon men, enters into 
 the ship to meet Samas-Napisti and his wife — " He 
 took my hand and raised me up ; he bade me rise, and 
 united my wife to my side. He turned himself to 
 us, and bound himself by a covenant to us, and 
 blessed us" (col. iv. 2-1-26). The phrase Izzaz 
 
 * See next page.
 
 The God op Death.
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 127 
 
 (Inzar), ana M-ri-in-ni — "He was fixed to our 
 bond " — may be compared with, " Bebold, I will 
 establish my covenant (beroth) with you" (Gen. 
 ix. 11), where almost the same word is used; while 
 the Divine blessing comes earlier in the chapter — 
 " And God blessed Noah and his sons." After this 
 we come to a very marked divergence from the 
 Hebrew narrative in the translation of Samas-Napisti. 
 Here there seems to have become woven into the 
 Chaldean legend, which has hitherto so closely fol- 
 lowed the Hebrew, an earlier incident — the transla- 
 tion of Enoch (Gen. v. 24). In the Bible the same 
 epithet, " One who walked with God," is applied to 
 both Noah and Enoch, and may resemble the 
 words in the tablet — " I only was the servant of 
 the great gods" (col. i. 13). In the accounts 
 given by Berosus, we have a similar story of the 
 translation ; but in that of Eusebius, the gods 
 seem to have removed the sage to heaven, as we 
 read — " Him they saw no more, but they could 
 distinguish his voice in the air ; " but in that of 
 Abydeuus, it is simply stated that " the gods trans- 
 lated him from among men." Here the legend of 
 the Deluge ends, the remainder of the tablet being 
 occupied by the account of the cure of the disease of 
 Gizdhubar, and his return to Uruk or Erech, his 
 capital city. 
 
 With regard to the names of the translated sage 
 (Samas-Napisti, Xisuthrus, and Noah) in the three
 
 1 28 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 accounts under consideration, something may be said. 
 The first of these means " the Sun of Life," or the 
 " Living Sun," and the reason of its adoption seems 
 to me to be a climatological one. From the time of 
 the autumnal equinox until past the winter solstice, 
 the sun is weak and powerless in the regions of 
 winter. Thus as in Phcenicia we have the legend of 
 the dead Tammuz, so in the weak and dying solar 
 hero Gizdhubar we have a similar idea embodied. 
 The sun is not dead, but comes forth again and begins 
 gradually to assert its power in the month Nisan of 
 the Semites, the month of " the beginning or coming 
 forth" (Del., Ass., and Hebr., p. 15). This month 
 was called by the Akkadians 10. Par-Ziggar, the 
 month of the " altar of the mountain ; " and we know 
 the word " Ziggurat," a mountain peak, is used to 
 express the position of the altar built on coming out 
 of the ark (Col. iii. 46). This group is also explained 
 as " the dwellers at the holy altar " (W. A. I. ii., 35- 
 55). These facts seem to point to the altar from 
 which the month derived its name being connected 
 with the altar built by Sanias-Napisti. If this is the 
 case, then we may regard the name Samas-Napisti as 
 the Sun-god preserved through the deluge of winter, 
 and coming forth in the spring time like Noah from 
 the ark. The tablet of divine regents of the months 
 make Ami and Bel the rulers of this month, and we 
 have seen what a prominent part the latter takes in 
 the sacrifice and covenant. In the tablet a very
 
 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 129 
 
 important epithet is applied to Samas-Napisti — he is 
 always called Riiku, "the remote" or far distant, 
 implying his translation. With regard to the name 
 Xisuthrus, it appears to me, as I have already 
 suggested, to be a Greek form of the ancient name of 
 Anu Zi-Susru, " Spirit of the Founder," and belongs 
 to the time when Anu absorbed so many of the 
 epithets of the other gods, as is shown by the tablet 
 in which all the chief persons in the Creation legends 
 are regarded as manifestations of the great father of 
 the gods. 
 
 The age of the legend is difficult to ascertain, but 
 of its antiquity there can be no doubt. The close 
 resemblance of many of the passages to the Akkadian 
 hymns, and the fact that in some copies the scribe, 
 who has made his version from older copies, has 
 inserted the archaic characters where he has not 
 known their modern equivalents, would carry the 
 tablet certainly back to the third millenium before 
 our era. Like all legends, it shows evidence of 
 growth from a simpler original — the narrative in 
 some places being confused by the improper blending 
 of the versions. It differs from the Hebrew account 
 in its polytheism, but that polytheism is not so 
 strongly asserted as first appears — the high, almost 
 supreme, position given to Hea, as I have remarked, 
 causing it to differ from many other Babylonian 
 legends. In regard to its age I can say nothing 
 definite, but I feel certain that the account, perhaps
 
 130 CHALDEAN DELUGE LEGEND. 
 
 in a slightly different form, was current in Clialdea as 
 early as B.C. 2120 — about the time when Abraham 
 left Chaldea. In this lecture I have not entered 
 upon any criticism of the Hebrew narrative ; that 
 work I leave to others far more competent than 
 myself ; my chief object has been to place before those 
 who wish to employ these records of the past the 
 means of applying them to Biblical criticism.
 
 lecture tf. 
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 TVEROSUS, the Chaldean historian, resorts to an 
 ingenious literary fiction to preserve the con- 
 tinuity of narrative in his "History of Chaldea," 
 which he claims to have based on documentary 
 evidence, extending back over a period of twenty 
 myriads of years. The deluge, which forms the con- 
 cluding episode in the first book, and his account of 
 which is, as I have shown, based upon the copies of 
 the story of Samas-Napisti stored in the libraries of 
 Chaldea, causes no rupture in the long series of 
 records to which he claims to have had access ; for 
 by the ingenious device of making Xisuthrus an 
 author and historian, he is able to carry his series 
 of records beyond the dividing streams of the deluge. 
 Xisuthrus was, according to Berosus, instructed by 
 the god Cronos, whom we can identify with Hea of 
 the tablet, before the deluge, to write a history of 
 " the beginning, progress, and end of all things up to 
 that time, and to deposit these records in Sippar
 
 132 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 of the Sun, where in after time they would be found 
 by the survivors, and form the first chapters of 
 Chaldean history." But even this primitive sire of 
 the Chaldeans, the pious Xisuthrus, cannot lay claim 
 to be the founder of Babylonian literature ; for the 
 earliest chapters of his historical work were trans- 
 mitted to him by a still more remote author, 
 Annedotos-Oannes, called Musaros, to whom Berosus 
 attributes the writings of the Chaldean Book of 
 Origins. In claiming for the national literature so 
 vast an age, and carrying its records back thus far into 
 the azure of the past, Berosus affords us a strong proof 
 of his being a member of the scribe caste. To these 
 ancient Chaldean gens de lettres their profession was 
 all things ; its history was the history of the world ; in 
 the time when there was no literature there was no 
 world. They could find no better description of 
 chaos than the time when " in those days no record 
 was written." Berosus, in carrying back his autho- 
 rities to so remote a period, is but acting up to the 
 traditions of his order, who saw in the Musaros- 
 Oannes, who rose from the sea to teach men the 
 rudiments of civilisation, arts, and letters, the founder 
 of their caste. 
 
 The account which Berosus gives of this mysterious 
 founder of the scribe caste is : — " In the beginning 
 there were in Babylon a great number of men of 
 various races, who had colonised Chaldea. They 
 lived without laws, after the manner of animals.
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 13:! 
 
 But in the first year there appeared coming out of the 
 Erythrian Sea (Persian Gulf), on the coast where it 
 borders Babylonia, an animal endowed with reason, 
 named Oannes. He had all the body of a fish, but 
 below the head of the fish another head, which was 
 that of a man, also the feet of a man, which came out 
 of its fish's tail. He had a human voice, and its 
 image is preserved to this day. This animal passed 
 the day time among men, taking no nourishment. It 
 taught them use of letters, of sciences, and of arts of 
 every kind, the rules for the foundation of towns and 
 the building of temples, the principles of laws and 
 geometry, the sowing of seeds and the harvest; in 
 one word, it gave to men all that conduced to the 
 enjoyment of life. Since that time nothing ex- 
 cellent has been invented. At the time of sunset 
 this monster Oannes threw itself into the sea, and 
 passed the night beneath the waves, for it was 
 amphibious. He wrote a book upon the beginning 
 of all things, and of civilisation, which he left to 
 mankind." (Berosus Frag, i., Edit. Lenonnant.j 
 Helladice quotes the same story, and calls the com- 
 posite being Oes ; while another writer, Hyginus, 
 calls him Euahanes. It is evident, M. Lenormant 
 remarks, that this latter name is more correct than 
 Oannes, for it points to one of the Akkadian names 
 of Hea Hea — Khan, " Hea the fish," — and must be 
 identified with the fish- headed god so often repre- 
 sented on the sculptures from Nimroud (B. M , N. G ,
 
 134 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 No. 29), and clay figures have been found at Nimroud 
 and Khorsabad, as well as numerous representations 
 on seals and gems. We have already seen how Hea 
 has the titles of " he who knows all things," " the 
 god of wisdom," and his abode was in the Absie or 
 mysterious deep, the house of wisdom. It was 
 therefore to Hea, the Oannes of Berosus, that the 
 Babylonian scribes traced their origin. The god Hea 
 had other descendants beside his mediatorial son 
 Merodach, the chief being — 
 
 HEA-DAVKIXA. 
 
 MERODACH. ZIRAT-PANIT. 
 
 XEBO. TASMITUV. 
 
 The titles which Nebo assumes are those which 
 show that he had taken very much the place of his 
 grandfather Hea as the god of learning. In a tablet 
 which gives his numerous titles (W. A. I. ii., 60, No. 
 2), we find him called " the son of Merodach," " the 
 first-born lord," "the binder of all," "the maker of 
 oracles," " the maker of writings on written tablets," 
 " the wise god," " the lord of illustrious knowledge,'' 
 " the clearer-up of difficulties," " the enlarger of the 
 ears or mind," " the maker of inscriptions." All 
 these titles mark him as the Hermes of Chaldea.
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 135 
 
 His name, Nabti, means the Prophet, and he is 
 associated with a goddess, Tasmituv, " the Hearer," a 
 relationship which reminds us very much of that of 
 master and pupil. 
 
 There is a bilingual hymn to this god in Akkadian 
 and Assyrian, which brings before us the position of 
 the divinity in Chaldea ( W. A. I. iv., 20, No. 3) :— 
 
 Oh Lord, by thy wisdom, a wisdom unequalled. 
 
 Nebo, by thy wisdom, a wisdom unequalled. 
 
 By thy temple of E-Zida, a temple unequalled. 
 
 By thy city of Borsippa, a city unequalled. 
 
 By thy held of Babylonia, a field unequalled. 
 
 By thy weapon . . . which from its mouth death pours not 
 
 forth, 
 Blood is not shed. 
 Thy command, as heaven is unchangeable, in heaven thou 
 
 art supreme. 
 
 The temple of E-Zida, the house of knowledge, was 
 the shrine of this great god in the city of Borsippa, 
 the site of which is now marked by the ruins of the 
 Birs Nirnmd. This was the great centre of Baby- 
 lonian learning, the alma mater of the scribe caste. 
 
 I now pass to what may be called the historical 
 evidence of the remote antiquity of the scribe caste. 
 Turning to our oldest inscription of which the date 
 is fixed by indisputable facts, we are met at once 
 with evidence of the great antiquity of writing and 
 ■writers in Chaldea. The inscriptions of Sargon of 
 Agadhe or Akkad, and Naram Sin, are now known
 
 130 
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 by the twice repeated statement in two cylinders 
 of Nabonidus to date from B.C. 3750. These two 
 inscriptions read thus — 
 
 Transcription. 
 
 No. T. 
 
 1. Sar-Ga-Ni. 
 
 2. Sar Lukli. 
 
 3. A-Ga-De. 
 
 4. A-na. 
 
 a. II Samas Ki (Sipar). 
 (). In. Ud Kip-nun-ki. 
 7. A-mu-ra. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 1. Na-Ra-Am Dp. Eu-Zu 
 
 (Sin). 
 
 2. Sar. 
 
 3. Ki-Ib-Ra-Tim. 
 
 4. Ar-Ba-Ini. 
 
 5. Sar. 
 
 6. A-pi-Ra-Ak. 
 
 7. Ma-Gan (Ki). 
 
 The first of these inscriptions reads — " Sargon, 
 the good king of Agadhe (Akkad) ; to the Sun god, 
 within Sippara, I looked." 
 
 The second — " Naram Sin, king of the four quar- 
 ters ; the lands of Apirak and Magan." 
 
 Both these documents are written, not in the most 
 ancient language of Chaldea, but in a language which 
 will at once be recognised as good Semetic, akin to 
 Hebrew. The words Arbaim, " four ; " Sar, " king ; " 
 Naram, " beloved ; " Kiprat, " border ; " Amuru, " I 
 looked," all find their analogy in the Hebrew lexicon.
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 137 
 
 But we must remember that it is more universally 
 admitted by all Assyrian scholars that the cuneiform 
 mode of writing with its compiled syllabary, with 
 ideographs, polyphones, &c, and its texts reading 
 from left to right, could not be the invention of a 
 Semetic people. M. Eenan, a master of Semetic 
 paleography and learning, who at one time could not 
 understand this abnormal character of the Assyrian 
 inscriptions, now writes : — " No one in the present 
 day can doubt that this Turanian civilisation pos- 
 sessed, and most probably created, the writing called 
 cuneiform." Yet here, at the remote period of thirty- 
 eight centuries before the Christian era, we are 
 brought face to face with a remarkable problem. 
 This writing, once pictorial, as both Mr Houghton 
 and myself have shown, has passed through the 
 ideographic into the phonetic stage, and become 
 borrowed and adapted to the requirements of a lan- 
 guage of a totally different family and genus. In- 
 deed, Berosus, considering how slowly these changes 
 took place when there was but little civilising fric- 
 tion, had more grounds for his statement than we 
 imagined. With all this retrospective enlargement 
 of the use of writing, we get a similar expansion of 
 the tradition and history of these scribe castes, and 
 even at this time we find them in existence and in 
 power. In the collection of M. le Clerc of Paris is a 
 seal, which bears the inscription — " Sar-Ga-Ni, Sar 
 Lukh, Agadhe, Ibni-Sarru, Dip-Sar Ardusu ? " — "To
 
 138 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 Sargon, the good ? king of Akkad, Ibni-Sarru, the 
 
 scribe, his servant." This inscription, written in 
 very archaic characters, is the oldest charter we at 
 present have of the antiquity of the scribes of 
 Chaldea. Another seal, which belongs to a little 
 later date than this, is to be seen in the British 
 Museum, and bears on it the inscription of " Debu, 
 the recorder of the king . . . the scribe, his 
 servant" (Figured in Tomkin's Life of Abraham, pi. 
 3). In the sister Empire of Egypt, the scribes were 
 a caste of great antiquity, and holding high rank in 
 the community ; and the description by Dr Brugsch 
 of this class may assist us in an arrangement of the 
 scribes of Babylonia. " Of a more peaceful charac- 
 ter," he says, " was the much-praised office of Hir 
 Shesta" which means " teacher of the secret," for they 
 possessed all the hidden wisdom of those times. 
 Those learned in the secrets of the heavens looked 
 upwards, and explained the ever-changing courses of 
 the stars. This class find their counterpart in the 
 numerous Lu-Aba, or "men of the month;" the 
 " astronomers " of Chaldea, as Professor Sayce sug- 
 gests, while the former class are represented by the 
 officials who bear the titles of " He who opens the 
 eyes," the instructor (,W. A. I., v. 13, 13), and others 
 also who are called " Abgallu," counsellors, wise 
 men, and perhaps the lawyer is represented by the 
 official called Bel tcriti, "lord of laws," mentioned 
 in the same tablet. The ordinary scribes bore
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 139 
 
 the titles or name of " Sapri," scribes, or Dip-Sar ? 
 " the tablet writer." There were other officials of 
 this class — the librarian, who had charge of the 
 tablets ; and the man who had charge of the papyri. 
 There were scribes attached to each law court and 
 temple, and many hundreds of their names are found 
 attached to the legal, commercial, and fiscal docu- 
 ments. We may conclude, therefore, that the scribe 
 caste was a large and an ancient one in Chaldea. 
 I may notice that there must have been attached to 
 the Assyrian Court during the time of the Sargonides 
 a body of scribes, who had attained a very high skill 
 in caligraphy. The writing of some of the tablets 
 and cylinders is so minute and so perfect as to be 
 nearly equal to fine engraver's work. I may quote, 
 as examples of this work, the fragments of a cylinder 
 of Sargon II. (b.c. 721), recording the expedition 
 against Ashdod ; in the Daily Telegraph collection, 
 also two tablets of a mythological character (K.G. 
 case B), which are even finer and more minute 
 work. It was this caste of brothers of the style who 
 year by year, century by century, went labouring on, 
 building up that grand temple of culture, the learn- 
 ing and wisdom of Chaldea, that glorious product of 
 the combined mental efforts of the plodding, inven- 
 tive Akkadian mind, and the receptive, poetic, and 
 progressive mind of the Semite, which has done more 
 for Western learning than we can estimate. All this 
 learning has for more than 6000 years lain buried
 
 140 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 beneath the desert sands; now opens it the treasure 
 houses of its hidden secrets to the eyes of astonished 
 posterity. There is an ancient Arab saying which 
 seems to place vividly before us one lesson of this 
 resurrection of the writings cf the past. It says : — 
 " There is no writer that shall not perish, but what 
 his hand has written shall endure. Write nothing 
 therefore but what will please thee when thou shalt 
 see it on day of resurrection." Little did the Chal- 
 dean scribe, who long years ago wrote on the plastic 
 clay the glory of his king or the scandal of the 
 bazaar, think that tens of centuries after, in a far- 
 distant isle of the setting sun, his words would be 
 read with eager interest by his fellow-men. 
 
 With so powerful a caste of scribes, there must 
 naturally have been a large number of libraries. 
 Indeed, every temple had its library, but of the chief 
 libraries a few only are known to us. The chief library 
 of all Babylonia was that of the temple of Nebo at 
 Borsippa. It was from this library that Assurbanipal 
 took many of the inscriptions which he placed in 
 his new public library at Nineveh, and the Ninivite 
 library was named after its Babylonian prototype. 
 There was also a library in the temple at Sippara 
 dedicated to the Sun god. There must have been a 
 library containing a number of astronomical tablets 
 here, as the library of Sargon of Agadhe or Akkad 
 was placed here ; and it was to him the great work 
 on astronomy in seventy tablet books was attributed.
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 141 
 
 In Kute or Kutha, the site of which is marked by 
 the mound of Tel Ibrahim, was a library, and, 
 judging from the Cutha Creation Tablet, it seems 
 to have been a very ancient one, and taught 
 somewhat differently on religious matters from 
 other libraries. Ur and Erech had libraries, and 
 at Larsa, the modern Senkereh, the Ellassar of 
 Gen. xiv. 1, there were mathematicians, some of 
 whose works are preserved to us. In the exami- 
 nation of so vast a library of learning as these 
 tablets form, embracing every section of literature, it 
 is difficult to know where to commence. As, how- 
 ever, these mathematical and geographical tablets 
 are among the oldest tablets of the series, I will briefly 
 describe them. The most important are two lists of 
 square and cube roots and a tablet of measures. 
 These important documents were found at Larsa. 
 The text is published in W. A. I,, vol. iv., pi. 40. 
 The table of square roots gives the roots and squares 
 from 1-60, and that of cubes from 1-32. The scale 
 adopted is that of units of 1-10, 60-600, 3600— the 
 60 being called the susu or sos ; 600 the neru or 
 naros ; and 3600 the sar or sarros ; and, with this 
 sexigesimal scale, most complicated problems could 
 be worked. For example, to express the square of 
 50, the scribe wrote what at first looked like 1.41.40, 
 really representing 60x41+40 = 2500; and in the 
 higher numbers, as, for example, the cube of 32 = 
 9.6.8 = 9 x 60 2 +6 X 60 + 8 = 32,768, the cube of 32.
 
 L42 
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 1.40 
 2. 1 
 
 3.45 
 50. 4 
 58. 1 
 
 1.... 
 
 Square Roots. 
 
 1 xG0+ 4)= G4, the square of 8. 
 
 2x60 + 1)= 121, 
 
 3x60+45)= 225, 
 56x60+ 4) = 3364, 
 58x60+ 1) = 3481, 
 60x60) =3600, 
 
 >> >) 
 
 11. 
 
 )) )» 
 
 15. 
 
 » » 
 
 58. 
 
 )1 1) 
 
 59. 
 
 5> }) 
 
 60. 
 
 Cube Table. 
 
 1. 4 (1 x G0+ 4)= G4, the cube of 4. 
 
 2. 5 (2x00+ 5) = 125, „ „ 5. 
 3.36 (3x60 + 36) = 216, „ „ 6. 
 
 With the longer figures the third element of the 
 scale comes in — 
 
 1. 8.16 (1x3600+ 8xGO + 16)=4096=:tk cufec of 16 
 1.21.53 (1x3600 + 21 x 60 + 53)=4913= „ 17 
 8.16.31 (8x3600 + 16x60 + 31) = 29791= „ 31 
 9. 6. 8 (9x3600+ 6x60+ 8) = S2768 = „ 32 
 
 This system may seem a little strange and cum- 
 brous to us at first sight, but it is surprising how 
 exactly it coincides with our every day numeration. 
 Thus we write 61, which really stands for 6 x 10 + 1 
 = 61 ; or we write the cube of 31 as 29791, which is 
 really 29 X 10 3 + 7 X 10 2 + 9 x 10^1, as the Baby- 
 lonian is 8x60 2 +16x60 1 + 31. In like manner we 
 learn that in their expression of fractions they 
 employed their scale of 60 as we employ ours of 10
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 143 
 
 in decimals. Thus we write 1.5 = 1£ = 1/0, they 
 wrote l aa =H$ = l£. So 1£ = 1 M or 1M, 11=1^, 
 l*r=l Aa =lt§- J the unit of 60 being the understood 
 denominator as we use 10 in decimals. This same 
 scale furnished their divisions of the measures of 
 length, as in the table of measures given by the late 
 Dy Lepius of Berlin, in his work, entitled, " Die 
 Babylonische-Assyrischen Liingenmasse, Berlin, 1877, 
 from which I have derived most of this information. 
 Here we find — 
 
 5 Uban (fingers) = 1 Kat (Hand). 
 
 6 Kat 
 
 = 1 Ammat or cubit, 
 
 6 Ammat 
 
 = 1 Kan (Reed). 
 
 120 Kan 
 
 = 1 Susu. 
 
 30 Susu 
 
 = 1 Kaspu. 
 
 In like manner we find the great circle of the 
 heavens, the yearly round of the sun, divided into 
 00 X 6, or 360 days. That they applied their mathe- 
 matical skill to mensuration and surveying is shown 
 in the carefully-drawn plan from Tel Lo, already 
 referred to (Lect. I.), and a still more elaborate 
 example is now in the British Museum, which repre- 
 sents the survey of a Babylonian estate, in which 
 every dimension of each plot of land is figured as 
 carefully as a modern survey, and the names of 
 adjacent properties or boundaries given.* 
 
 Chaldeahas always been regarded as the birthplace 
 
 * See next page.
 
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 f ^mr^^ Tf ffiS5» 
 
 jfc 6-cU f 
 
 : ? A 
 
 V 00 
 
 39 
 
 5.^ 
 
 ^° 
 
 cl fc 
 
 
 
 ^^f/T^ 
 
 39- C ii C 
 
 0- 
 
 <« 
 
 :TTT 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 4r h 
 
 WHY 
 
 3 If Glr b 4..^ 
 
 -4<W W= 
 
 -<<H$ 
 
 £77Y- 
 
 38 Clr fc 18 U 
 
 ii. J, 
 
 A * 
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 3 4.clA4.-u u *- 
 
 38 Clr b . OlVp 
 
 D V 
 
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 Y-<<K W ^ TT "- 
 9 5 - cL-t 
 
 ^K<^? £YYY^ (8M 
 
 '% 
 
 "'i. 
 
 ^m^W^ 

 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 145 
 
 of astronomy, so much so, that the word Chaldean 
 has become almost a synonym for an astronomer or 
 astrologer. Some of the writers among the classics 
 ascribe a fabulous antiquity to Chaldean astronomy. 
 According to Epigenes, these observations had been 
 carried back 720,000 years. Berosus says 470,000. 
 The Babylonians themselves attributed the codifica- 
 tion of all astronomical knowledge, and its embodi- 
 ment in a work, entitled Namar Beli, " The Illumi- 
 nation of Bel " to Sargon of Akkad, whose reign we 
 see has to be placed at B.C. 3750 to 3800. There is 
 a long inscription, an Assyrian copy of a Babylonian 
 tablet, of this king's reign, describing his campaigns 
 in Syria, Elam, &c, and each expedition is preceded 
 by the omen which foretold its results. I quote a 
 few extracts from it (W. A. I. iv., 34, 1):—" At the 
 time when the moon in its whole mass and the 
 under part is full, and above a clear sky, and behind 
 makes it large and bright. Sargon, according to this 
 omen, to the land of Martu (Syria) marched, the 
 land of Martu he swept, and the four quarters his 
 hand captured." 
 
 " When the moon is like a cloud, and the orb a 
 horn has not, on the right of the orb opposition is 
 made, and on the left against it the seven confront." 
 Sargon upon this omen — The inhabitants of his 
 land, all of it, revolted against him, and in Akkad 
 enclosed him. Sargon came forth, their bodies he 
 smote, and their destruction he accomplished." These 
 divinations, by the way, and such consulting of the
 
 14G CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 omens Ezekiel (xxi. 21, 22) refers to in the words — 
 " For the king of Babylon standeth at the parting 
 of the way, at the head of two ways ; he hath 
 made bright (or shaken) his arrows, he consulted the 
 images (teraphim), he looked in the liver," were 
 common occurrences before and during campaigns. 
 Of this we have historical evidence of great interest. 
 In about the year 1130 B.C., a prince named Nebu- 
 chadnezzar seized the throne of Babylon after a 
 period of anarchy. During his reign a comet 
 appeared, which is thus described by a Babylonian 
 astronomer (W. A. I. iii., 52, 1): — 
 
 1 . The star rose, its rays were bright as the cUy. 
 
 2. With its rays like a creeping thing, a scorpion, a tail it 
 
 forms. 
 :!. The observation of the eyes was favourable, 
 
 4. Pleasing the lord of this house, and all the land. 
 
 5. At that time when even a lord there was not in all the 
 
 land, 
 
 6. Rebellion, sin, defection there was. A strong one is 
 
 exalted 
 
 7. the master of that house, and that king 
 
 8. By right is established. Obedience and peace in the 
 
 land are. 
 
 9. These things from the (Star), 
 
 10. The great star from the northern orbit 
 
 11. To the southern orbit. 
 
 12. In its extent like a creeping thing, a scorpion, a tail. 
 
 13. It makes turning (upwards) 
 
 14. In its position, in the abode 
 
 15. Of Bel it tills.
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 147 
 
 1G. This is, according to the tablet, 
 
 17. When Xeb'uchadnezzar, the king, on the land of Elam 
 seized. 
 
 As this tablet comes from the royal library at 
 Nineveh, and was transcribed by order of Assur- 
 banipal, who reigned B.C. G04, it cannot be the 
 Nebuchadnezzar the Great. Of this Elamite cam- 
 paign we have historical record upon the stone 
 memorial of this expedition, which is now exhibited 
 in the Nimroud gallery of the British Museum. On it 
 Scorpion-saggitarius representing this comet is carved. 
 Later still we meet with a curious example of the 
 influence of astrology on the kings of Assyria. In 
 the year B.C. 673, when Esarhaddon was starting on 
 his Egyptian campain, the following event is recorded 
 in a tablet of the astronomical library (K. 2701): — 
 
 1. The god Assur, in a dream, to the father of the king my 
 
 lord, the just prince 
 
 2. The king, the lord of kings, the heart of hearts (grandson) 
 
 of the just prince 
 
 3. Thou shalt restore the wisdom of the house of wisdom 
 
 (Absie), and all the people 
 
 4. When the father of the king my lord to the land of 
 
 Egypt went, 
 
 5. Into the grooves of Kharran, the dwelling of the god of the 
 
 cedar tree, he went. 
 
 6. The moon over the corn fields stood, having two crowns 
 
 on his head (with a double halo round it), 
 
 7. While Kusku (Evening Star) stood at his side. The 
 
 father of the king my lord entered, and
 
 148 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES. 
 
 8. The crown on his (Assurbani pal's) head he placed, and the 
 
 government of the countries he gave him. 
 
 9. And when the road Egypt he took, the blessing of the 
 
 countries followed him. 
 
 It is evident that this accidental aspect of the 
 moon was construed by the court party into the 
 means of forcing the king to settle the government of 
 the country before leaving on a perilous expedition 
 into Egypt. The opening lines of this tablet are 
 very remarkable, as they seem to throw light upon 
 the king's great work of founding a public library at 
 Nineveh for the instruction of the people: "Thou 
 shalt restore the wisdom of the house of wisdom, and 
 all the people. . . ." It is unfortunate that the last 
 few lines are lost. In the colophon attached to the 
 tablets in the royal library we read that the king 
 invokes Nebo and Tasmituv, who have opened his 
 eyes and enlarged his ears (mind) to all the wisdom 
 of the tablets which he has had copied and explained, 
 that is translated, and placed in his palace for the 
 instruction of his people. This library, a large 
 portion of the contents of which are now in the 
 British Museum, was one of the most remarkable 
 institutions in the world. Founded, as we know, 
 from a purely political motive, it preserved to us 
 learning, and wisdom, and records of remote history 
 which might have been for ever lost had it not been 
 for the enterprise of Assurbanipal. The loss of the 
 Alexandrian library is often bemoaned by Western
 
 CHALDEAN LIBRARIES 149 
 
 scholars, but here in the terra cotta tablets of the 
 library of Assurbanipal we have the editio 'prima of 
 many of the choicest treasures of the Egyptian 
 library. Every branch of literature finds a place on 
 its shelves, and it is arranged in a manner so syste- 
 matic and complete that it might well form an 
 example to the curators of many a European library. 
 Consisting of at least 100,000 tablet-books, we can 
 see from the numbering and sectional arrangement 
 there would be far less difficulty for the student to 
 obtain his terra cotta tome in the Bibliotheque 
 Nationale d'Assyrie than in many a modern public- 
 library.
 
 hzctute m, 
 
 THE LEGENDS OF G1ZDHUBAR 
 
 The Epic of Chaldea. 
 
 HPHE discovery and decipherment of the Chaldean 
 Deluge Legend, some twelve years ago, opened 
 up an entirely new section of Assyrian literature. 
 The patient researches of the small band of Assyrio- 
 logists had gathered fragment by fragment, like the 
 tessera? of some shattered mosaic, from the oblivion 
 which for centuries had shrouded it, and from in- 
 scriptions, which for centuries had been silent, the 
 story of Assyria's kings. They had given to the 
 world's history a retrospective enlargement, far be- 
 yond the expectations of the most ardent student of 
 antiquity. Although the annals of the life and times, 
 and the record of those deeds of war and conquest, 
 which had emblassoned the names of Sargon, Sen- 
 nacherib, and Assurbanipal, the Sardanapalus of the 
 Greeks, on the roll of history, had now been restored 
 to the student, there was a large section of the cunei-
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDIIUBAU. 151 
 
 form literature untouched. The great library of 
 Nineveh, which had been rescued from beneath the 
 dust of ages by Sir Henry Layard and his able lieu- 
 tenant, Mr Hormuzd Eassam, was not merely a 
 chamber of royal records. Its contents had a far 
 larger range, embracing, as we now know, almost 
 every branch of literature. During the twelve years 
 which have elapsed since Mr George Smith startled 
 the world by his discovery, the treasure-house which 
 he opened has been very zealously searched by ardent 
 students, and the result has been the revealing to a 
 learning and wisdom, equalled, but not surpassed, by 
 any nation of antiquity, except perhaps the Celestial 
 Empire, to whose literature, in many respects, it 
 affords a striking resemblance. 
 
 I now pass to the system and arrangement of this 
 ancient and long-buried library, which has yielded 
 us such valuable records of the long bygone past. 
 The key to the arrangement, and the extensive and 
 varied character of the library, is afforded by the 
 colophon attached to each tablet, which resembles in 
 some respect our dedication and title-pages. The 
 most frequent one reads as^follows : — " The palace of 
 Assur-bani-abla, king of nations, king of Assyria, of 
 whom Nebo and Tasmituv have enlarged his ears 
 and enlightened his eyes to the wealth of the tablets, 
 of which the kings going before him (his ancestors), 
 their writing had not reverenced. The wisdom of 
 Nebo. . . . All there was on the tablets I wrote,
 
 152 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 
 
 I studied, I explained, and, for the instruction of my 
 people, within my palace I placed." The existence 
 of a series of instruction tablets, such as the sylla- 
 baries, and the important series of bilingual tablets in 
 parallel columns, classified as the series Ana itti su, 
 "to be with him," literally "handbooks," indicate 
 the educational character of the library. In the 
 same manner the statement hi pi duppi u tamadi 
 labruti mahhruti Assuriu Ahkadi — " According to 
 the tablets and ancient teaching side by side of Assur 
 and Akkad ;" and sometimes we find — " According to 
 the ancient tablets and papyri side by side of Assur, 
 Sumir, and Akkad " (W. A. I., III., 52, 2). In the 
 case of the former, it evidently applies to the bilin- 
 gual tablets, in which the languages of Assyrian and 
 Akkad, or North Babylonia, are placed side by side ; 
 and, in the latter, to the trilingual tablets, in which 
 the versions of the languages of Assyria, Akkad, and 
 Sumir, the Shinar of the Hebrews, or South Baby- 
 lonia, are placed together, as in the lexographical 
 tablet printed in W. A. I., vol. IV., pi. 11-12. These 
 statements, together with the often-repeated phrase, 
 Kima labri su, like its old copy, attached to the 
 majority of tablets — the Gizdhubar legends included 
 — show, as we know from history, that the library of 
 Assurbanipal was the product of a royal library com- 
 mission appointed about B.C. 660 to copy all the most 
 important tablets in the libraries of Chaldea, and to 
 place them in the library at iNineveh — the objec
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 153 
 
 being to stay the intercourse between the Babylonian 
 priests and the youths of Assyria, which had caused so 
 much trouble during the rebellions of Merodach, 
 Baladan, and Samas-suma-ukin. 
 
 It has been necessary for me thus to preface my 
 paper with this outline of the origin and system of 
 the royal library at Nineveh, in order that we may 
 better ascertain the position of the Gizdhubar poem 
 in the literature of Assyria. I will now pass to the 
 subject of classification of the tablet books adopted 
 by the Assyrian scribes. The system resembled in 
 some respects that adopted by the Hebrew scribes in 
 the naming the books by their first words, as Genesis, 
 Exodus, and Leviticus are called respectively n^soa 
 (Bereshith), TYiDp (Shcmoth), and fcOp»_1 (Wayyihra) — 
 these being the opening words of each. In like 
 manner, we find the Assyrian and Babylonian scribes 
 cataloguing the majority of their tablet books accord- 
 ing to the first words of their first tablet. Thus the 
 first creation tablet commences with the words 
 Enuva Elis — "In the time when as yet on high." 
 So we find the Fifth Tablet, which contains an 
 account of the creation of the heavenly bodies, 
 classified as " Tablet V." — Enuva Elis. That is, the 
 Fifth Tablet of the series commencing with those 
 words. The magical tablets are catalogued under the 
 heading Atal limnuti — "evil spirits" — being the 
 opening words of the First Tablet. The Penitential 
 Psalms under the words Salmu arka — " future peace."
 
 154 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAlt. 
 
 At the end of the Deluge Tablet is the following- 
 colophon or docket : — 
 
 I. First Line of Xesct Tablet op the Series. 
 The Tambukku in the house of the was left. 
 
 II. Number of Tablet in Series. 
 Eleventh Tablet (of series)— "He who the fountain had 
 seen. The story of Gizdhubar. 
 
 III. Statement of Copying from Older Documents. 
 Like its old copy, written and made clear. 
 
 The general title of the series may from this be 
 taken to be Zikar Gizdhubar, " the story of Gizdhu- 
 bar" — zikar being the construct case of zilcaru, a 
 record or memorial from zaharu to record the Hebrew 
 -on " to remember, to bring to mind." There are 
 portions of two other sets of these stories — one fairly 
 complete, the other only mentioned by name. The 
 first of these is called Zikar Dibbara—" the story of 
 the Pestilence god," and relates to a terrible plague 
 sent as divine punishment on the land of Babylonia 
 by the offended gods. Of the story we have frag- 
 ments of those tablets out of a series of seven. In 
 the fable of the ox and the horse, mention is made 
 of the " story of Istar, a legend," as yet lost to us, 
 though, as I shall show, referred to in the Sixth 
 Tablet of the Gizdhubar story. Sir Henry Eawlin- 
 son was, I believe, the first to point out the solar 
 character of the Epic, and to show that its twelve
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAB. 155 
 
 books were arranged according to the sun's journey 
 through the twelve signs of the zodiac. More frag- 
 ments of the Epic itself, and tablets relating to it, 
 having been brought to light, his conjecture has been 
 amply confirmed. It has long been known that the 
 majority of the signs of the zodiac are represented by 
 the names of the Akkadian months, and that even 
 where the names themselves do not agree, there is 
 other evidence forthcoming, such as the character of 
 the divine regent of the month, or the name of the 
 ruling star, which agrees with the zodiacal sign. 
 The following general statements as to the arranging 
 of the twelve constellations may be quoted as 
 examples. In the Fifth Creation Tablet (lines 1- 
 
 1. He made pleasant the dwelling-places of the great gods. 
 
 2. The constellations, their forms as animals he fixed. 
 
 3. The year its divisions he divided. 
 
 4. Twelve months of constellations by threes he fixed. 
 
 5. From the day by which the year commences to its end. 
 (5. He determined the position of the crossing stars, and 
 
 fixed their bounds. 
 7. Not to make fault or error of any kind. 
 
 Also in an astronomical tablet (W. A. I., vol. III., 
 pi.), we read — "Twelve months to each year, 360 
 days (60 x 6) in number as recorded." And again in 
 the Deluge Tablet (Col. iii. 30-31)—" I looked to the 
 regions bounding the sea. To the twelve points no 
 land I saw." In addition to these very distinct 
 allusions to the division of the <zreat circle into
 
 156 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 
 
 twelve parts, we have the fact that nearly all the 
 emblems of the constellations of the zodiac are found 
 on the monuments, especially the seals and boundary 
 stones. The text of all known fragments of the Epic 
 have been published in facsimile in Delitzsch- 
 Assyriologisch-Bibliothzk by Dr Paul Haupt of 
 Leipzic ; and he has, I believe, written a discurtative 
 upon the Epic, but this I have not had the advantage 
 of seeing. 
 
 In the accompanying table, I have arranged the 
 months with the signs of the zodiac, the divine 
 regents, and the name given to Merodach, the star 
 of Babylon — the morning star referred to in Isaiah 
 xiv. 12. I think it will be at once seen how much 
 evidence there is of zodaical arrangement both of the 
 calendar and the books of the Epic. 
 
 It will be observed that I differ somewhat in my 
 arrangement of the tablets from Mr Smith, but it 
 must be remembered that we have only the number 
 dockets attached to Tablets III., VI, X., XL, XII.— 
 all other fragments having to be arranged according 
 to incident. The numbered tablets, however, all fall 
 well into their places under signs corresponding to 
 their stories. An examination of the text of the 
 tablets that the Epic is a collection of national stories 
 woven together, and all centred round " Gizdhubar, 
 the perfect in strength " — Dp. Gizdhubar. Gitmalu. 1 
 
 Not Bicvalu, as read by Mr Smith, but a derivative from 
 f/amalu — " perfect. "
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDIIUBAK. 157 
 
 Emuki. The Achilles of this Chaldean Iliad, who 
 was ruler of Uruki, the Erech of Genesis (x. 10). 
 This city throughout the legends is called Uruk-Su 
 Buri — "Erech, the beautiful or blessed" — a phrase 
 which calls very forcibly to mind the "golden troy" 
 of Homer. The fact that some of the stories are 
 woven together by a very slender thread is quite 
 apparent when the text comes to be examined, and 
 there is no more glaring example than that of the 
 Deluge Tablet, which is clearly interpolated whole- 
 sale into the text of Tablet XL, and its commence- 
 ment timed off. This was done in order to obtain a 
 legend corresponding to the sign of Aquarius, and to 
 the month of the " curse of rain " of the Akkadians, 
 the month Sebadhu, or " destruction " of the Semites. 
 Again, in the Sixth Tablet, we have a number of 
 small stories of the loves of Istar, evidently older 
 than the Epic, woven into the speech of Gizdhubar. 
 Of the First Tablet we have no trace, nor do we "am 
 any indication of its contents. The fragment Mr 
 Smith placed as the commencement of the Epic, if it 
 belongs at all to the poem, certainly does not come 
 in this place. Of the second book, we have some 
 fragments ; and from the continuation of the story 
 in the third, we are able to gather a fair knowledge 
 of the nature of its contents. As corresponding to 
 the sign of Taurus, and the month of the Protecting 
 Bull, it relates to the mysterious satyr or centaur, 
 the companion of the hero so often represented on
 
 158 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 
 
 the Babylonian cylinder seals. Gizdlmbar has a 
 dream that the stars of heaven are falling upon him, 
 and, like Nebuchadnezzar, we can find no one to 
 explain the hidden meaning to him. He is, how- 
 ever, told by his huntsman, Zaidu, of a very wise 
 creature who dwells in the marshes, three days' 
 journey from Erech. The introduction of this per- 
 sonage, Za-Ai-Du — "the hunter" (Heb. TTC and 
 T»v) into the story, brings before us very forcibly the 
 T¥ "132 — " mighty hunter " — of Genesis x. 9. The 
 strange being whom this companion of the hero is 
 despatched to bring to the court is one of the most 
 interesting characters in the Epic. He is called 
 Hea-Bani — " he whom Hea has made." This mys- 
 terious creature is represented on the gems as half a 
 man and half a bull. He has the body, face, and 
 arms of a man, and the horns, legs, hoofs, and tail of 
 a bull. Though in form rather resembling the 
 satyrs, and in fondness for and association with the 
 cattle the rustic deity Pan, yet in his companionship 
 with Gizdhubar and his strange death, he approaches 
 nearer the centaur Chiron, who was the companion 
 of Heracles. By his name he was the son of Hea, 
 whom Berosus identifies as Cronos, as Chiron was 
 the son of Cronos. Like Chiron, he was celebrated 
 for his wisdom, and acted as the counsellor of the 
 hero, interpreting his dreams, and enabling him to 
 overcome the enemies who attacked him. Chiron 
 met his death at the hand of Heracles, one of whose
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 159 
 
 poisoned arrows struck him, and, though immortal, 
 would not live any longer, and gave his immortality 
 to Prometheus. On this last statement I shall have 
 something rather important to say later on. Zeus 
 made Chiron among the stars a Saggitarius. Here 
 a^ain we have a striking echo of the Chaldean 
 legend in the Erech story. According to the arrange- 
 ment of tablets, the death of Hea-bani takes place 
 under the sign of Saggitarius, and is the result of 
 some fatal accident daring the combat between 
 Gizdhubar and Khumbaba. Like the centaurs be- 
 fore his call to the court of Gizdhubar, Hea-bani led 
 a wild and savage life. It is said on the tablets 
 " that he consorted with the wild beasts. With the 
 gazalles he took his food by night, and consorted 
 with the cattle by day, and rejoiced his heart with 
 the creeping things of the waters." Dean Stanley 
 made the very wise remark, in one of his lectures on 
 the Jewish Church, that Nebuchadnezzar the Great 
 became with the Chaldeans and later Jews a second 
 Nimrod. Have we here, then, the origin of the story 
 of Nebuchadnezzar's madness ? 
 
 The third book of the Epic corresponds to the 
 months of the Twins, the sign of Gemini ; and we 
 have the appropriate story of the twin sisters 
 Samkhat and Kharimat, the beautiful females, who 
 are sent to entice Hea-bani to Erech. These two 
 creatures are the handmaids of Istar, the goddess of 
 Erech. Their names indicate them to be personifica-
 
 1G0 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 
 
 tions of pleasure and lust. As Dp. Sani-kha-a-ti is 
 derived from the root nob, and corresponds to the 
 Hebrew nrpp, joy or pleasure ; and her companion, 
 Kha-ri-ina-ti, from the root Din, means the " de- 
 votee," and is equivalent in meaning to the Hebrew 
 ntjnp, " the womeu consecrated to the temple of 
 Venus," who are also called Kadistuv in the inscrip- 
 tions. To the persuasive words of the one, and the 
 loving actions of the other, the sage, like St Anthony, 
 yields, and the tablet says — " At the words of her 
 mouth, his wisdom fled away." He consented to 
 come to the court of Gizdhubar at Erech. In order 
 to test the struggle of the hero, he brings with him 
 the Mirdarm, which Mr Houghton thinks to be a 
 tiger, but which, I expect, is another name for the 
 lion, and forms possibly the subject of the fifth story, 
 corresponding to the sign Leo. Mr Smith, who 
 never could be brought to see the mythological 
 character of Gizdhubar, and always regarded him as 
 a king of Babylon, and was still more stubborn on 
 the subject of the arrangement according] to the 
 zodiac, made his fourth and fifth books of the Epic 
 to contain an account of the war between Gizdhubar 
 and the Elamite giant Khumbaba, who is called " the 
 strong one who dwells in the dark land of the pine 
 tree," and " whose weapon was the tempest, which 
 he poured forth from Ids mouth, and he took in his 
 hand the Pierce, at which all men quake." It is 
 evident to me that these fragments do not come in
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 1G1 
 
 here, but rather under the month, "the cloudy 
 month," of the Akkadians — the month Kisleu, or 
 " the giant " of the Semites, and sign of Saggitarius. 
 It was the month of November, the month of the 
 months of thunder, storms, and rain. And Khum- 
 baba, whose name appears to mean " the maker of 
 darkness," poured forth storm from his mouth, and 
 was armed with piercers, at which all men quake. 
 We may safely therefore identify this mythic by the 
 storm and thundercloud, armed with the lightning, 
 which came sweeping from the mountains of the 
 East, the land of Elam, over the plains. Khumbaba 
 being called an Elamite, here indicates that, at the 
 time when this Epic was compiled, the old nature 
 myths were becoming Ethnic myths, and the war in 
 heaven becoming the national wars of Babylon 
 aaainst her neighbours. We have several traces of 
 this in the Hebrew writing, such as Shamgar, who 
 slew 600 Philistines with an oxgoad ; Gideon, the 
 hewer-down ; and most of all in the Hebrew 
 Heracles Samson, whose deeds have many parallels 
 in the story of Gizdhubar. Another fact that seems 
 to support this transposition is, that the regent of the 
 month is " Nergal, the War god," and who is called 
 " the mighty hero of the gods ; " and Merodach, as 
 the star of Babylon, is called Alam, "the shadow," 
 as if referring to the clouds. I shall not therefore, 
 in the face of the mutilated condition of the frag- 
 ments, attempt to restore in any way the fourth and 
 F
 
 162 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAK. 
 
 fifth books. Iii the month Elul or Ulul of the 
 Semites — the "monthly message of the goddess" of 
 the Akkadians, corresponding to our August — the 
 sun had reached the zenith of his power — a time 
 when in Palestine the heat is intense. So now we 
 find Gizdhubar at the zenith of his power when he 
 attracts the eyes of the lustful queen of heaven, the 
 goddess I star ; so in the Sixth Tablet corresponding 
 to the sign of Virgo, we have the story of the pro- 
 posal of Istar to Gizdhubar. This tablet is fortu- 
 nately in very good preservation, so one can give 
 some fuller details showing the construction of the 
 Epic. The hero having put on his crown, the goddess 
 thus addressed him : — 
 
 (For the favour of Gizdhubar, the Princess Istar lifted up 
 
 her eyes) : — 
 " Kiss me, Gizdhubar, that 1 may marry thee ; 
 Thy word to me as a bond place also 1 
 Thou, then, shalt husband me, and I then will wife thee ; 
 Thou shalt ride in a chariot of crystal and gold, 
 Of which the body is silver, and splendid its pole. 
 Thou shalt yoke daily, daily strong mules. 
 To our house in its fragrance the cedar spreads 
 To our house at thy entiance. 
 The Euphrates shall kiss thy feet. 
 
 (They shall place) below thee all kings, lords, and princes. 
 Gifts from mountain and plain they shall bring thee as taxes. 
 (Thy herds), and flocks of many sheep shall bring forth twins. 
 The race, thy mules shall be swift. 
 (Bearing) thee in thy , may they be strong and 
 
 not weak. 
 And, in the yoke, equals they have not."
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAE. 163 
 
 The value of this passage consists in the idea it gives 
 of the position of the ancient chieftain, almost 
 Homeric in character, his income being derived from 
 dues and taxes. There is a bilingual hymn, Assyrian 
 and Akkadian, which gives almost the same words as 
 this, showing how there were royal titles in kind on 
 all objects. Honey and milk flow in the land. The 
 mountain brings tribute, the plain brings tribute, the 
 fruit-garden brings tribute to the princely king of the 
 land, who has on his right hand the sun, on his left 
 hand the moon (W/A. I., vol. IV., pi. IS, No. 3). The 
 hero knows, however, the danger of yielding to the 
 love charms of this fickle queen, and tells her that 
 corpses and carrion, disease, and famine form the 
 emblems of her divinity and the insignia of her 
 royalty. He then relates to her with bitter sarcasm 
 her former amours, and here we have preserved a 
 series of minor legends which the compiler of the 
 poem has woven into the Epic. The first referred to 
 is Tarnmuz Adonis. " For Tammuz (Adonis) thy 
 husband, who year by year bewails his enchantment." 
 The association of Tammuz, or Dunuzi, as he is called, 
 the deification of the young summer sun, is brought 
 on in several other passages in the inscriptions. In 
 one hymn (W. A. I, IV, pi. xxvii., No. 1) we read— 
 " The princely Lord Tammuz, the husband of Istar." 
 The epithet here, ueuv bcliv (princely lord), reminds 
 us of the Phoenician title Aclonai, " the lord." The 
 celebration of the annual festival of the marriage of
 
 164 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAfi. 
 
 Istar and Tammuz, and the mourning for Tammuz, 
 took place at the summer solstice, and was one of the 
 great festivals of the year, it having spread to Phoe- 
 nicia, where the celebration took place in the beauti- 
 ful glen of Aphaca, "the place of weeping," the 
 modern Af ka in the Lebanon ; to Phrygia, where it 
 assumed the form of the mourning for Atys ; and it 
 was one of the forms of idolatry practised in Jeru- 
 salem in the time of Ezekiel, where women wept for 
 Tammuz in the north gate of Jerusalem, turning to 
 that evil point where the cold boar's tusk of winter 
 had slain the beloyed youth. The colophon or rubric 
 attached to that beautiful legend of the descent of 
 Istar into the underworld, one of the most poetic of 
 the Assyrian inscriptions, throws considerable light 
 on the ceremonial of this festival. Here we find 
 Tammuz called " the youthlul husband " of Istar and 
 " my only brother," and the figures of the god and 
 goddess were adorned with robes and jewels and 
 placed on a bier, followed by a crowd of weeping- 
 men and women. The hero Gizdhubar now proceeds 
 to enumerate the other loves of the goddess. 
 
 Thou dost love Allal the eagle, 
 
 Thou didst smite him and break his wings. 
 
 He stood in the forest and begged for wings. 
 
 Thou didst love a lion full of strength ; 
 
 Seven times seven thou didst wound him. 
 
 Thou didst love the horse glorious in war ; 
 
 He bowed down . . . thou didst afflict him. 
 
 Seven times without ceasing thou didst afflict him. 
 
 To his mother Sillili, weeping, thou didst afflict him.
 
 THE LEGEND OF G1ZDHUBAR. 165 
 
 Ta these animal loves of the goddess we have 
 probably stories based on the animals sacred to her. 
 As goddess of war and the chase, both the horse and 
 the lion would be sacred to her. In the story of the 
 horse perhaps we have a reference to the story of the 
 horse in the fable of the ox and the horse, of which I 
 have spoken. We now come to human lovers. 
 
 Thou didst love the shepherd Tabulu, 
 
 Whom continually thou didst desire offerings. 
 
 Each day he offered libations and victims. 
 
 Thou didst strike him, and to a jackal thou didst turn 
 
 him. 
 The people of his own village drove him out ; 
 His dogs tore him to pieces. 
 
 Thou didst love also Isullanu, the tiller of the soil, 
 Who constantly his garden stuff brought thee. 
 Each day he made bright thy dishes. 
 In thy . . . thou didst bind him. 
 My Isullanu, thy gathering we will eat, 
 And wisely enjoy the goodness of thy pot herbs. 
 Isullanu said to thee, 
 As for me, why dost thou desire me ? 
 Oh, mother ! without thou cookest 1 will not eat. 
 
 Thou heardest these things. 
 
 Thou didst strike him, and into a pillar thou didst turn 
 
 him. 
 Thou didst place him in the midst of a desert. 
 And moreover many things I could add. 
 And as for me, if thou lovest me, T like unto these will 
 
 become.
 
 166 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 
 
 Here we have the goddess in the character of en- 
 chantress and mistress of witchcrafts, like Circe and 
 Hecate. In this portion of the legend she exactly 
 corresponds to the epithets applied to her, as the 
 goddess of Nineveh, by the Hebrew prophet Nahum : 
 " Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the 
 well-favoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts" 
 (Nahum iii. 4). The goddess Hecate, it will be re- 
 membered, had a threefold character, sometimes being 
 identified with Silene, in which she would correspond 
 to Istar, as the goddess of the crescent moon ; with 
 Artemis, as the goddess of hunting, she would corre- 
 spond to Istar, the archeress of the gods ; and with 
 Persephone, in which she may be compared to Istar 
 descending into the underworld. In this tablet we 
 have an early version of the Legend of Actaeon, which 
 is strangely similar to that of Tabulu disowned by his 
 own dogs; and the story of Isullanu resembles rather 
 that of Circe. It is also interesting to notice here 
 the manner in which Tabulu, the shepherd, and Isul- 
 lanu, the tiller of the soil, are placed in opposition to 
 one another, as we find Cain and Abel in the Hebrew 
 legend of civilisation. The old feud between the 
 herdsman and the agriculturist so common in 
 ancient mythologies in the myths of civilisation pre- 
 sents itself here. Enraged at his reply, the goddess 
 flees to heaven to the presence of her father Anu — 
 the Chaldean Zeus — and her mother Anunitus, and 
 there relates how Gizdhubar had scorned her, and
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDIIUBAE. 167 
 
 begs for their divine aid in obtaining vengeance on 
 the hero. To assist her, a winged bull, called the 
 Bull of Heaven, is created, and sent to earth. Giz- 
 dhubar, however, aided by Hea-bani, slays the bull and 
 enters in triumph into Erech. The goddess and her 
 maids who fight against the hero remind us of Om- 
 phale and her amazons, or Cybele and the Corybantes. 
 The goddess here appears in her character of Bilat 
 tahhazi, lady of battle, or sometimes " lady of war and 
 conflict." This episode must be placed under the 
 seventh month. 
 
 The eighth book is one of particular interest, as we 
 have here a very close agreement between the Chal- 
 dean legends and those of the Grecian Heracles. 
 These tablets relate to the wanderings of Gizdhubar 
 in the desert to the west of Babylonia until he comes 
 to a garden where the trees are covered with jewels 
 as fruit. In this garden live two women, Siduri and 
 Sabilu, with whom the hero converses. The region is 
 guarded by two scorpion-men, of whom the inscrip- 
 tion says, " Their crown was the threshold of heaven, 
 and their footing in the underworld, and whose face 
 burned with terribleness, and whose presence was 
 death." It was their duty to guard the rising and 
 setting sun. Here, then, we have a very striking 
 parallel to the story of the journey of Heracles to the 
 garden of the Hesperides. The women correspond to 
 the Hesperides, while the scorpion-men are the repre- 
 sentatives of Atlas, who assisted the hero to gather
 
 168 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAK. 
 
 the apples. It is curious to note that one of the 
 most favourite subjects of the Cypriote seal-engravers 
 was the representation of this garden of the West. 
 The scorpion-men here mentioned enable us to place 
 this legend in its proper place under the sign of 
 Scorpio. 
 
 Turning now to the calendar we find Kisleu. The 
 sun has passed the summer solstice and the autumn 
 equinox, and is now waning in power. As I have 
 already said, under the month Kisleu I should place 
 the story of the combat with Khumbaba to correspond 
 to the month of clouds, the giant and the sign of 
 Sagittarius. During the combat with Khumbaba the 
 faithful companion of Gizdhubar, Hea-bani, the satyr, 
 was slain. For we find the tenth tablet opening with 
 the lamentations of the hero over his beloved com- 
 panion — " Gizdhubar for Hea-bani his friend wept 
 bitterly and lay on the ground." The bitter lamenta- 
 tions of the hero in the twelfth book lead me to 
 think that in some measure, like Heracles, he was 
 contributory to his companion's death. The hero is 
 now afflicted with the terrible disease of leprosy, 
 loses his hair and wanes in power, and yearns to 
 know the secret of immortality. This he is told is 
 only known to the translated sage Shamas-napistc, 
 the sun of life, who had survived the Deluge, and 
 had been taken away to dwell in an island at the 
 mouths of the Tigris and Euphrates. This idea of 
 the sick and weakened sun is common to many
 
 THE LEGEND OF GIZDHUBAR. 169 
 
 mythologies. We have a parallel to it in the illness 
 of Heracles produced by the poisoned robe of Nessus ; 
 also in the loss of strength by Samson when shorn of 
 his hair. To find his way to the Chaldean Noah ho 
 has to take a guide, the Chaldean Charon, Nis He<c, 
 " the man of Hea," the boatman, who will pilot him 
 to the resting-place of the translated sage. The god 
 Hea was the god of the rivers and seas, and one of 
 his titles was " the god of the boatmen." This por- 
 tion corresponds to the month Tabet, or rainy month 
 of the calendar, — The month of " the going forth on 
 the sea " of the Akkadian calendar. They journey to 
 the island ; and in the eleventh tablet, corresponding 
 to the month of much rain and the month of destruc- 
 tion and the sign of Aquarius, we have the Deluge 
 legend woven into the Epic.
 
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