Chapter I: Ancient Chaldaea (4)

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the Louvre. The
attendant standing behind the king has been obliterated, but
we see clearly the contour of his shoulder, and his hands
holding the reins. It is a large stele of close-grained
white limestone, rounded at the top, and covered with scenes
and inscriptions on both its faces. One of these faces
treats only of religious subjects. Two warlike goddesses,
crowned with plumed head-dresses and crescent-shaped horns,
are placed before a heap of weapons and various other
objects, which probably represent some of the booty
collected in the campaign. It would appear that they
accompany a tall figure of a god or king, possibly that of
the deity Ningirsu, patron of Lagash and its kings. Ningirsu
raises in one hand an ensign, of which the staff bears at
the top the royal totem, the eagle with outspread wings
laying hold by his talons of two half-lions back to back;
with the other hand he brings a, club down heavily upon a
group of prisoners, who struggle at his feet in the meshes
of a large net.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the fragment of a bas-relief in
the Louvre. This is the human sacrifice after the victory,
such as we find it in Egypt--the offering to the national
god of a tenth of the captives, who struggle in vain to
escape from fate. On the other stele the battle is at its
height. Idingiranagin, standing upright in his chariot,
which is guided by an attendant, charges the enemy at the
head of his troops, and the plain is covered with corpses
cut down by his fierce blows: a flock of vultures accompany
him, and peck at each other in their struggles over the
arms, legs, and decapitated heads of the vanquished. Victory
once secured, he retraces his steps to bestow funeral
honours upon the dead.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from the fragment of a bas-relief in
the Louvre. The bodies raised regularly in layers form an
enormous heap: priests or soldiers wearing loin-cloths mount
to its top, where they pile the offerings and the earth
which are to form the funerary mound. The sovereign,
moreover, has, in honour of the dead, consigned to execution
some of the prisoners, and deigns to kill with his own hand
one of the principal chiefs of the enemy.

The design and execution of these scenes are singularly rude; men and beasts--indeed, all the figures--have exaggerated proportions, uncouth forms, awkward positions, and an uncertain and heavy gait. The war ended in a treaty concluded with Enakalli, vicegerent of Grishban, by which Lagash obtained considerable advantages. Idingiranagin replaced the stele of Meshilim, overthrown by one of Enakalli’s predecessors, and dug a ditch from the Euphrates to the provinces of Guedln to serve henceforth as a boundary. He further levied a tribute of corn for the benefit of the goddess Nina and her consort Ningirsu, and applied the spoils of the campaign to the building of new sanctuaries for the patron-gods of his city.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief in the Louvre. Cf.
another bas-relief of the same king, p. 244; and for the
probable explanation of these pierced plaques, see p. 258 of
the present work.

His reign was, on the whole, a glorious and successful one. He conquered the mountain district of Elam, rescued Uruk and Uru, which had both fallen into the hands of the people of Gishban, organized an expedition against the town of Az and killed its vicegerent, in addition to which he burnt Arsua, and devastated the district of Mishime. He next directed an attack against Zuran, king of Udban, and, by vanquishing this Prince on the field of battle, he extended his dominion over nearly the whole of Babylonia.

The prosperity of his dynasty was subjected to numerous and strange vicissitudes. Whether it was that its resources were too feeble to stand the exigencies and strain of war for any length of time, or that intestine strife had been the chief cause of its decline, we cannot say. Its kings married many wives and became surrounded with a numerous progeny: Urnina had at least four sons. They often entrusted to their children or their sons-in-law the government of the small towns which together made up the city: these represented so many temporary fiefs, of which the holders were distinguished by the title of “vicegerents.” This dismemberment of the supreme authority in the interest of princes, who believed for the most part that they had stronger claims to the throne than its occupant, was attended with dangers to peace and to the permanence of the dynasty. The texts furnish us with evidence of the existence of at least half a dozen descendants of Akurgal--Inannatuma I., Intemena, his grandson Inannatuma II, all of whom seem to have been vigorous rulers who energetically maintained the supremacy of their city over the neighbouring estates. Inannatuma I., however, proved no match in the end against Urlamma, the vicegerent of Gishban, and lost part, at least, of the territory acquired by Idingiranagin, but his son Intemena defeated Urlamma on the banks of the Lumasirta Canal, and, having killed or deposed him, gave the vicegerency of Gishban to a certain Hi, priest of Ninab, who remained his loyal vassal to the end of his days. With his aid Intemena restored the stelae and walls which had been destroyed during the war; he also cleared out the old canals and dug new ones, the most important of which was apparently an arm of the Shatt-el-Hai, and ran from the Euphrates to the Tigris, through the very centre of the domains of Ghirsu.

Other kings and vicegerents of doubtful sequence were followed lastly by Urbau and his son Gudea. These were all piously devoted to Ningirsu in general, and in particular to the patron of their choice from among the divinities of the country--Papsukal, Dunziranna, and Ninagal. They restored and enriched the temples of these gods: they dedicated to them statues or oblation vases for the welfare of themselves and their families. It would seem, if we are to trust the accounts which they give of themselves, that their lives were passed in profound peace, without other care than that of fulfilling their duties to heaven and its ministers. Their actual condition, if we could examine it, would doubtless appear less agreeable and especially less equable; revolutions in the palace would not be wanting, nor struggles with the other peoples of Chaldaea, with Susiana and even more distant nations. When Agade rose into power in Northern Babylonia, they fell under its rule, and one of them, Lugal-ushum-gal, acknowledged himself a dependant of Sargon. On the decline of Agade, and when that city was superseded by Uru in the hegemony of Babylonia proper, the vicegerents of Lagash were transferred with the other great towns to the jurisdiction of Uru, and flourished under the supremacy of the new dynasty.

Grudea, son of Urbau, who, if not the most powerful of its princes, is at least the sovereign of whom we possess the greatest number of monuments, captured the town of Anshan in Elam, and this is probably not the only campaign in which he took part, for he speaks of his success in an incidental manner, and as if he were in a hurry to pass to more interesting subjects.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a stone in the Louvre.

That which seemed to him important in his reign, and which especially called forth the recognition of posterity, was the number of his pious foundations, distinguished as they were by beauty and magnificence. The gods themselves had inspired him in his devout undertakings, and had even revealed to him the plans which he was to carry out. An old man of venerable aspect appeared to him in a vision, and commanded him to build a temple: as he did not know with whom he had to do, Nina his mother informed him that it was his brother, the god Ningirsu. This having been made clear, a young woman furnished with style and writing tablet was presented to him--Nisaba, the sister of Nina; she made a drawing in his presence, and put before him the complete model of a building. He set to work on it _con amore_, and sent for materials to the most distant countries--to Magan, Amanus, the Lebanon, and into the mountains which separate the valley of the Upper Tigris from that of the Euphrates.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin

The sanctuaries which he decorated, and of which he felt so proud, are to-day mere heaps of bricks, now returned to their original clay; but many of the objects which he placed in them, and especially the statues, have traversed the centuries without serious damage before finding a resting-place in the Louvre. The sculptors of Lagash, after the time of Idingi-ranagin, had been instructed in a good school, and had learned their business. Their bas-reliefs are not so good as those of Naramsin; the execution of them is not so refined, the drawing less delicate, and the modelling of the parts not so well thought out. A good illustration of their work is the fragment of a square stele which represents a scene of offering or sacrifice. We see in the lower part of the picture a female singer, who is accompanied by a musician, playing on a lyre ornamented with the head of an ox, and a bull in the act of walking. In the upper part an individual advances, clad in a fringed mantle, and bearing in his right hand a kind of round paten, and in his left a short staff. An acolyte follows him, his arms brought up to his breast, while another individual marks, by clapping his hands, the rhythm of the ode which a singer like the one below is reciting. The fragment is much abraded, and its details, not being clearly exhibited, have rather to be guessed at; but the defaced aspect which time has produced is of some service to it, since it conceals in some respect the rudeness of its workmanship. The statues, on the other hand, bear evidence of a precision of chiselling and a skill beyond question. Not that there are no faults to be found in the work. They are squat, thick, and heavy in form, and seem oppressed by the weight of the woollen covering with which the Chaldeans enveloped themselves; when viewed closely, they excite at once the wonder and repulsion of an eye accustomed to the delicate grace, and at times somewhat slender form, which usually characterized the good statues of the ancient and middle empire of Egypt. But when we have got over the effect of first impressions, we can but admire the audacity with which the artists attacked their material. This is of hard dolerite, offering great resistance to the tool--harder, perhaps, than the diorite out of which the Memphite sculptor had to cut his Khephren: they succeeded in mastering it, and in handling it as freely as if it were a block of limestone or marble.

The surface of the breast and back, the muscular development of the shoulders and arms, the details of the hands and feet, all the nude portions, are treated at once with a boldness and attention to minutiae rarely met with in similar works. The pose is lacking in variety; the individual, whether male or female, is sometimes represented standing and sometimes sitting on a low seat, the legs brought together, the bust rising squarely from the hips, the hands crossed upon the breast, in a posture of submission or respectful adoration. The mantle passes over the left shoulder, leaving the right free, and is fastened on the right breast, the drapery displaying awkward and inartistic folds: the latter widens in the form of a funnel from top to bottom, being bell-shaped around the lower part of the body, and barely leaves the ankles exposed.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Heuzey-Sarzec.

All the large statues to be seen at the Louvre have lost their heads; fortunately we possess a few separate heads. Some are completely shaven, others wear a kind of turban affording shade to the forehead and eyes; among them all we see the same qualities and defects which we find in the bodies: a hardness of expression, heaviness, absence of vivacity, and yet withal a vigour of reproduction and an accurate knowledge of human anatomy. These are instances of what could be accomplished in a city of secondary rank; better things were doubtless produced in the great cities, such as Uru and Babylon. Chaldaean art, as we are able to catch a glimpse of it in the monuments of Lagash, had neither the litheness, nor animation, nor elegance of the Egyptian, but it was nevertheless not lacking in force, breadth, and originality. Urningirsu succeeded his father Gudea, to be followed rapidly by several successive vicegerents, ending, it would appear, in Gala-lama. Their inscriptions are short and insignificant, and show that they did not enjoy the same resources or the same favour which enabled Gudea to reign gloriously. The prosperity of Lagash decreased steadily under their administration, and they were all the humble vassals of the King of Uru, Dungi, son of Urbau; a fact which tends to make us regard Urbau as having been the suzerain upon whom Gudea himself was dependent. Uru, the only city among those of Lower Chaldaea which stands on the right bank of the Euphrates, was a small but strong place, and favourably situated for becoming one of the commercial and industrial centres in these distant ages. The Wady Eummein, not far distant, brought to it the riches of Central and Southern Arabia, gold, precious stones, gums, and odoriferous resins for the exigencies of worship. Another route, marked out by wells, traversed the desert to the land of the semi-fabulous Mashu, and from thence perhaps penetrated as far as Southern Syria and the Sinaitic Peninsula--Magan and Milukhkha on the shores of the Red Sea: this was not the easiest but it was the most direct route for those bound for Africa, and products of Egypt were no doubt carried along it in order to reach in the shortest time the markets of Uru. The Euphrates now runs nearly five miles to the north of the town, but from the regions bordering the Black Sea.

In ancient times it was not so distant, but passed almost by its gates. The cedars, cypresses, and pines of Amamis and the Lebanon,the limestones, marbles, and hard stones of Upper Syria, were brought down to it by boat; and probably also metals--iron, copper and lead.

The Shatt-el-Hai, moreover, poured its waters into the Euphrates almost opposite the city, and opened up to it commercial relations with the Upper and Middle Tigris. And this was not all; whilst some of its boatmen used its canals and rivers as highways, another section made their way to the waters of the Persian Gulf and traded with the ports on its coast. Eridu, the only city which could have barred their access to the sea, was a town given up to religion, and existed only for its temples and its gods. It was not long before it fell under the influence of its powerful neighbour, becoming the first port of call for vessels proceeding up the Euphrates.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a sketch by Chesney.

In the time of the Greeks and Romans the Chaldaeans were accustomed to navigate the Tigris either in round flat-bottomed boats, of little draught--“kufas,” in fact--or on rafts placed upon inflated skins, exactly similar in appearance and construction to the “keleks” of our own day. These keleks were as much at home on the sea as upon the river, and they may still be found in the Persian Gulf engaged in the coasting trade. Doubtless many of these were included among the vessels of Uru mentioned in the texts, but there were also among the latter those long large rowing-boats with curved stem and stern, Egyptian in their appearance, which are to be found roughly incised on some ancient cylinders. These primitive fleets were not disposed to risk the navigation of the open sea. They preferred to proceed slowly along the shore, hugging it in all cases, except when it was necessary to reach some group of neighbouring islands; many days of navigation were thus required to make a passage which one of our smallest sail-boats would effect in a few hours, and at the end of their longest voyages they were not very distant from their point of departure. It would be a great mistake to suppose them capable of sailing round Arabia and of fetching blocks of stone by sea from the Sinaitic Peninsula; such an expedition, which would have been dangerous even for Greek or Roman Galleys, would have been simply impossible for them. If they ever crossed the Strait of Ormuzd, it was an exceptional thing, their ordinary voyages being confined within the limits of the gulf. The merchants of Uru were accustomed to visit regularly the island of Dilmun, the land of Magan, the countries of Milukhkha and Gubin; from these places they brought cargoes of diorite for their sculptors, building-timber for their architects, perfumes and metals transported from Yemen by land, and possibly pearls from the Bahrein Islands. They encountered serious rivalry from the sailors of Dilmun and Magan, whose maritime tribes were then as now accustomed to scour the seas. The risk was great for those who set out on such expeditions, perhaps never to return, but the profit was considerable.

Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from a bas-relief from “Kouyunjik”
(Layard, _The Monuments of Nineveh_, 2nd series, pi. 13; cf.
Place, _Ninive et l’Assyrie_, pl. 43, No. 1.)

Uru, enriched by its commerce, was soon in a position to subjugate the petty neighbouring states--Uruk, Larsam, Lagash, and Nipur. Its territory formed a fairly extended sovereignty, whose lords entitled themselves kings of Shumir and Akkad, and ruled over all Southern Chaldaea for many centuries.

Several of these kings, the Lugalkigubnidudu and the Lugalkisalsi, of whom some monuments have been preserved to us, seem to have extended their influence beyond these limits prior to the time of Sargon the Elder; and we can date the earliest of them with tolerable probability. Urbau reigned some time about 2900 B.C. He was an energetic builder, and material traces of his activity are to be found everywhere throughout the country. The temple of the Sun at Larsam, the temple of Nina in Uruk, and the temples of Inlilla and Ninlilla in Nipur were indebted to him for their origin or restoration: he decorated or repaired all structures which were not of his own erection: in Uru itself the sanctuary of the moon-god owes its foundation to him, and the fortifications of the city were his work. Dungi, his son, was an indefatigable bricklayer, like his father: he completed the sanctuary of the moon-god, and constructed buildings in Uruk, Lagash, and Kutha. There is no indication in the inscriptions of his having been engaged in any civil struggle or in war with a foreign nation; we should make a serious mistake, however, if we concluded from this silence that peace was not disturbed in his time. The tie which bound together the petty states of which Uru was composed was of the slightest. The sovereign could barely claim as his own more than the capital and the district surrounding it; the other cities recognized his authority, paid him tribute, did homage to him in religious matters, and doubtless rendered him military service also, but each one of them nevertheless maintained its particular constitution and obeyed its hereditary lords. These lords, it is true, lost their title of king, which now belonged exclusively to their suzerain, and each one had to be content in his district with the simple designation of “vicegerent;” but having once fulfilled their feudal obligations, they had absolute power over their ancient domains, and were able to transmit to their progeny the inheritance they had received from their fathers. Gudea probably, and most certainly his successors, ruled in this way over Lagash, as a fief depending on the crown of Uru. After the manner of the Egyptian barons, the vassals of the kings of Chaldaea submitted to the control of their suzerain without resenting his authority as long as they felt the curbing influence of a strong hand: but on the least sign of feebleness in their master they reasserted themselves, and endeavoured to recover their independence. A reign of any length was sure to be disturbed by rebellions sometimes difficult to repress: if we are ignorant of any such, it is owing to the fact that inscriptions hitherto discovered are found upon objects upon which an account of a battle would hardly find a fitting place, such as bricks from a temple, votive cones or cylinders of terra-cotta, amulets or private seals. We are still in ignorance as to Dungi’s successors, and the number of years during which this first dynasty was able to prolong its existence. We can but guess that its empire broke up by disintegration after a period of no long duration. Its cities for the most part became emancipated, and their rulers proclaimed themselves kings once more. We see that the kingdom of Amnanu, for instance, was established on the left bank of the Euphrates, with Uruk as its capital, and that three successive sovereigns at least--of whom Singashid seems to have been the most active--were able to hold their own there. Uru had still, however, sufficient prestige and wealth to make it the actual metropolis of the entire country. No one could become the legitimate lord of Shumir and Accad before he had been solemnly enthroned in the temple at Uru. For many centuries every ambitious kinglet in turn contended for its possession and made it his residence. The first of these, about 2500 B.C., were the lords of Nishin, Libitanunit, Gamiladar, Inedin, Bursin I., and Ismidagan: afterwards, about 2400 B.C., Gungunum of Nipur made himself master of it. The descendants of Gungunum, amongst others Bursin II., Gimilsin, Inesin, reigned gloriously for a few years. Their records show that they conquered not only a part of Elam, but part of Syria. They were dispossessed in their turn by a family belonging to Larsam, whose two chief representatives, as far as we know, were Nurramman and his son Sinidinnam (about 2300 B.C.). Naturally enough, Sinidinnam was a builder or repairer of temples, but he added to such work the clearing of the Shatt-el-Hai and the excavation of a new canal giving a more direct communication between the Shatt and the Tigris, and in thus controlling the water-system of the country became worthy of being considered one of the benefactors of Chaldaea.

We have here the mere dust of history, rather than history itself: here an isolated individual makes his appearance in the record of his name, to vanish when we attempt to lay hold of him; there, the stem of a dynasty which breaks abruptly off, pompous preambles, devout formulas, dedications of objects or buildings, here and there the account of some battle, or the indication of some foreign country with which relations of friendship or commerce were maintained--these are the scanty materials out of which to construct a connected narrative. Egypt has not much more to offer us in regard to many of her Pharaohs, but we have in her case at least the ascertained framework of her dynasties, in which each fact and each new name falls eventually, and after some uncertainty, into its proper place. The main outlines of the picture are drawn with sufficient exactitude to require no readjustment, the groups are for the most part in their fitting positions, the blank spaces or positions not properly occupied are gradually restricted, and filled in from day to day; the expected moment is in sight when, the arrangement of the whole being accomplished, it will be necessary only to fill in the details. In the case of Chaldaea the framework itself is wanting, and expedients must be resorted to in order to classify the elements entering into its composition. Naramsin is in his proper place, or nearly so; but as for Gudea, what interval separates him from Naramsin, and at what distance from Gudea are we to place the kings of Uru? The beginnings of Chaldaea have merely a provisional history: the facts in it are certain, but the connection of the facts with one another is too often a matter of speculation. The arrangement which is put forward at present can be regarded only as probable, but it would be difficult to propose a better until the excavations have furnished us with fresh material; it must be accepted merely as an attempt, without pledging to it our confidence on the one hand, or regarding it with scepticism on the other.