Chapter VIII: From the Beginning of Mohammedan Power to the Treaty of Verdun, (2)

Under Mehemet Ali, however, the tide turned, and the city recovered rapidly. It is now again one of the most important commercial places on the Mediterranean with a population of about three hundred and fifty thousand. The Suez Canal diverted part of its trade; but this was more than compensated by the general impetus given to Egyptian prosperity.

Of the few remaining objects of antiquity the most prominent is Pompey’s Pillar, as it is erroneously called. Of the so-called Cleopatra’s Needles--two obelisks of the sixteenth century B. C. which long stood here--one was taken to England and erected on the Thames Embankment, London, 1878; and the other, presented by the khedive to the United States, was set up at New York in 1881.

=Assuan= or =Assouan= (_äs-swän_), the ancient Syene is the southernmost city of Egypt proper, on the right bank of the Nile, and beside the first or lowest cataract. It is noted for its granite, and was the place of banishment of Juvenal, the Roman poet. Here also is the great Nile irrigation system, begun in 1898, including a dam at Assuan and another at Assiout (two hundred and fifty miles nearer Cairo). The Assuan dam, finished in 1902 was designed to raise the level of the Nile for one hundred and forty miles above the first cataract. Its total length is one and one-quarter miles, the maximum height from the foundation about one hundred and thirty feet and the total weight of masonry over one million tons.

The difference of level of the water above and below is sixty-seven feet, and navigation is provided for by a series of four locks, each two hundred and sixty feet by thirty-two feet. The dam is pierced with one hundred and eighty openings, twenty feet by six feet, capable of discharging fifteen thousand tons of water per second. The reservoir, when opened, held something over one thousand million tons of water.

In 1907 the level was raised by twenty-three feet, steps being taken to preserve (as far as is consistent with partial submersion) the ruins of the temples on the island of Philæ within the area of the dam. Barrages at Zifteh and at Esneh help to regulate the flow.

=Cairo= (_kī´rō_).--The present capital of Egypt, is situated one mile east of the Nile. It has important transit trade, and is the starting-point for tours to neighboring pyramids, the sites of Memphis and Heliopolis, and the upper Nile. Its chief suburb is Bulak. It was founded by the Fatimite caliphs about 970, and made the capital. It was taken by the Turks in 1517, was held by the French 1798-1801, and was occupied by the British in 1882. It was the scene of the massacre of the Mamelukes in 1811.

There are about four hundred Mosques, some having six minarets, and adorned with beautiful granite columns, brought from Heliopolis and Memphis. About twenty deserve notice as works of art. The largest mosque is El Azhar, at the center of the city, regarded as a University for all Islam. The next in size is that of Sultan Hasan, in the Roumeyleh square, the finest structure in modern Egypt, and extremely light and elegant. It is built in the form of a parallelogram, and has a deep frieze running round all the wall, adorned with Gothic and Arabesque sculpture.

Other noticeable Mosques are the Tomb-Mosque of Kait Bey, built about 1470, one of the finest pieces of architecture in Cairo; and the Mosque of Amra, the oldest mosque in Egypt (founded 643 A. D.), and a remarkable Mohammedan monument.

The Citadel, or fortified Palace, erected by Saladin in 1176, was the only place of defence in the city; it fell into ruin, but was thoroughly repaired by a late pasha. Formerly it included a magnificent hall, Saladin’s Hall, environed with twelve columns of granite, of prodigious height and thickness, brought from the ruins of Alexandria. These supported an open dome, under which Saladin distributed justice to his subjects.

The view embraces the city, and above thirty miles along the Nile, including the ruins of Old Cairo, site of Memphis, great Pyramids, Obelisk of Heliopolis, and Pyramids of Sakkara. The Khedive resides at the Abdin and Kubbeh Palaces.

The street scenes of Cairo are of inexhaustible interest and amusement; civilization and semi-barbarism constantly jostle, the garb of the east perpetually comparing, in the season, with the toilettes of London, Berlin and Paris; refinement and coarseness, culture and ignorance, Mohammedanism, paganism, Christianity, every tint of skin, all conceivable phases of existence, present themselves in the throng of a Cairo street.

=Gizeh= or =Ghizeh= (_gē´ze_) is situated on the Nile about three miles west-southwest of Cairo. The Gizeh group consists of the Great Pyramid, the second and third pyramids, and eight small pyramids.

THE GREAT PYRAMIDS is the tomb of the Pharaoh Khufu (Cheops), of the fourth dynasty. Its original height was four hundred and eighty-one feet (present height, four hundred and fifty-one), and the original length of the sides at the base, seven hundred and fifty-five. It is built of solid masonry in large blocks, closely fitted, with use of mortar. The exterior forms a series of steps, which were originally filled with blocks of limestone accurately cut to form a smooth slope. The entrance, originally concealed, is on the north side, forty-five feet above the base and twenty-four feet to one side of the center. The passage slants downward for three hundred and six feet; but the corridor, slanting upward to the true sepulchral chambers, soon branches off from it. A horizontal branch leads to the queen’s chamber, about eighteen feet square, in the center of the pyramid, and the slanting corridor continues in the Great Gallery, one hundred and fifty-one feet long, twenty-eight feet high, and seven feet wide, to the vestibule of the king’s chamber, which is thirty-four and one-half feet long, and seventeen feet wide, and nineteen feet high, and one hundred and forty-one feet above the base of the pyramid. It contains a plain, empty sarcophagus.

This cross-section clearly exhibits the known passages within the seven million ton monument, which for six thousand years has stood to commemorate Cheops (See page 350).]

THE SECOND PYRAMID, or pyramid of Chephren (Khafra), was originally four hundred and seventy-two feet high and seven hundred and six feet in base-measurement. It has two entrances, and interior passages and chambers similar to those of the Great Pyramid. It retains at the top, part of its smooth exterior casing.

THE THIRD PYRAMID, that of Menkaura, was two hundred and fifteen feet high, and three hundred and forty-six feet to a side at the base. The entrance-passages and sepulchral chambers are similar to those of the other pyramids. All three were built by the fourth dynasty. Temples, now ruined, stand before the eastern faces of the second and third pyramids.

SPHINX (_sfingks_).--This celebrated figure is a quarter of a mile southeast of the Great Pyramid. According to present opinion, it is older than any of the pyramids. It consists of an enormous figure of a crouching sphinx of the usual Egyptian type, hewn from the natural rock, with the flaws and cavities filled in with masonry. The body is one hundred and forty feet long; the head measures about thirty feet from the top of the forehead to the chin, and is fourteen feet wide. Except the head and shoulders, the figure has for ages generally been buried in the desert sand.

Between the paws were found an altar, a crouching lion with fragments of others, and three large inscribed tablets, one, fourteen feet high, against the Sphinx’s breast, and the two others extending from it on each side, thus forming a sort of shrine. The Sphinx was a local personification of the sun-god.

=Heliopolis= (_hē-li-op´ō-lis_) the City of the Sun, or On--the oldest, perhaps, in this land of antiquities--was a sort of sacerdotal and university town, where Herodotus sought the wisest men in Egypt. Here Plato is said to have graduated. Here also lived Potiphar, who bought Joseph the patriarch. It consisted for the most part of temples and colleges; of which nothing now remains but a few isolated mounds, and one extremely ancient Obelisk. At the village of Metariyeh is reputed to be the place where the Virgin, St. Joseph and the infant Jesus stopped, under a sycamore.

=Memphis= (_mĕm´fis_) after the fall of Thebes, became the capital of Egypt, and kept its importance till the conquest by Cambyses. It was built by Menes on the western bank of the Nile, south of Cairo. It suffered from the Hyksos, and was captured by the Assyrians and stormed by Cambyses. It continued to exist under the Roman Empire, but was gradually abandoned and ruined after the Mohammedan conquest in the seventh century A. D. The ruins of Sakkara are near it. The desert sands have overwhelmed its famous avenue of sphinxes; and the great Pyramids of Gizeh, and the colossal Sphinx, are the chief memorials of the past in its vicinity.

Although various opinions have prevailed as to their use, the Pyramids were really nothing more than the tombs of monarchs of Egypt who flourished from the first to the twelfth dynasty. With the exception of some very late pyramids in Nubia, none were constructed after the twelfth dynasty; the later kings were buried at Abydos, Thebes, and other places, in tombs of a totally different construction.

=Thebes= (_thēbz_) is the No or No Ammon of Scripture, and is situated on the Nile opposite Karnak and Luxor. It was at the height of its splendor, as capital of Egypt from about 1600 to 1100 B. C. Its vastness is shown by the existing remains, known (from the names of modern villages) as the ruins of Karnak, Luxor, etc. They consist of obelisks, sphinxes, colossal statues, temples, and tombs cut in the rock,--mighty monuments, with their countless sculptured details and inscriptions, themselves the historians of the Egyptian Empire of three thousand years ago. It was enriched by the spoils of Asia and the tributes of Ethiopia, and its fame and reputation had reached the early Greeks. At the Persian conquest in the sixth century B. C. Cambyses destroyed many of its noblest monuments.

At the present day the glory of Thebes consists in its ancient temples. Of these the best known are the El Kurna, the Rameseum and Medinet-Abu temples, founded by Seti I., Rameses II., and Rameses III. respectively. To Amenhotep III. are ascribed two temples on the west side of the city, as also the well-known temple at Luxor.

LUXOR (_luk´sor_).--The present front of the latter temple was preceded, at the end of a great dromos of sphinxes leading to Karnak, by two beautiful obelisks of red granite, one of which still remains, and the other stands in the Place de la Concorde, Paris.

Before the large double gateway of the court are two colossal seated statues. The court is surrounded by a double range of columns. Beyond, the avenue to the buildings of Amenhotep makes a sharp angle and meets the gateway of the court, which is surrounded by a double colonnade. The buildings behind the court contain a great number of chambers and an isolated sanctuary, all profusely sculptured and colored.

KARNAK (_kär´nak_).--The temple here originally founded in the twelfth dynasty, owes much of its magnificence to later kings. The Great Temple extends to a length of about twelve hundred feet from west to east, and is comparatively regular in plan. The double gateway of the great court is about three hundred and seventy feet wide; the court is colonnaded at the sides, and has an avenue of columns in the middle.

A second gateway follows, and opens on the famous hall, one hundred and seventy by three hundred and twenty-nine feet, with central avenue of twelve columns sixty-two feet high and eleven and one-half feet in diameter, and one hundred and twenty-two columns forty-two and one-half feet high at the sides. A narrow court follows, ornamented with figures and containing two obelisks.

Behind this building is another large open court, at the back of which stands the edifice of Thothmes III., an extensive building containing a large hall and many comparatively small halls and chambers.

The mural sculptures are vast in quantity, and highly interesting in character, particularly those which portray the racial characteristics of various conquered Asiatic peoples.

=Suez= (_sōō-ez´_).--A seaport of Egypt, situated at the head of the Gulf of Suez, is best known as the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It was the ancient Arsinoë and the terminus of an ancient canal built by the Egyptian king, Rameses II., between the Nile delta and the Red Sea. This, having been allowed to fill up and become disused, was reopened by Darius I. of Persia. It was once more cleared and made serviceable for the passage of boats by Arab conquerors of Egypt.

In 1841 the French diplomat Lesseps set himself to study the isthmus of Suez thoroughly, and in 1854 he managed to enlist the interest of Said Pasha, khedive of Egypt, in his scheme for connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea.

Two years later the Porte granted its permission and the Universal Company of the Maritime Suez Canal was formed, receiving important concessions from the ruler of Egypt. The work was begun in 1859, and in 1869, the canal was duly opened for vessels. Between 1885 and 1889 the canal was enlarged and improved, and altogether over one hundred million dollars were spent in its construction. The total length is one hundred miles; the width of the water-surface was at first one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet, the width at the bottom seventy-two feet, and the minimum depth twenty-six feet. At Port Said two strong breakwaters, six thousand nine hundred and forty and six thousand and twenty feet long respectively, were run out into the Mediterranean; at Suez another substantial mole was constructed.

The making of the canal was facilitated by the existence of three or four valleys or depressions (formerly lakes), which, when the water reached them, became converted into lakes. Immediately south of Port Said the canal crosses Lake Menzaleh (twenty-eight miles long); and three more--Lake Ballah, Lake Timsah (five miles long), and the Bitter Lakes (twenty-three miles) are traversed to the south of it. The highest point or elevation that was cut through does not exceed fifty feet above sea-level. At intervals of five or six miles sidings or side-basins are provided to enable vessels to pass one another. By 1890 the canal had been deepened to twenty-eight feet, and widened between Port Said and the Bitter Lakes to one hundred and forty-four feet, and from the Bitter Lakes to Suez to two hundred and thirteen feet.

In 1875 Lord Beaconsfield, Prime Minister of England bought for the British Government the khedive’s shares--nearly half the canal stock--for $20,500,000. They are now valued at about $150,000,000, and bring in over $5,000,000 annual revenue.

From Suez there is a tourist route to Mount Sinai, near the coast, under the range called Jebel-et-Tih past Elim, Pharaoh’s Quarries, and Rephi-dim. The Sinai District comprises Mount Horeb, the Valley of Jethro, Church of the Burning Bush, Chapel of Elijah, and other historical sites. Thence it leads to Akabah, and up the deep pass of Wady Moosa, to Mount Hor (or Petra), Zoar, and Mount Seir, Beersheba and Hebron. (See Holy Land).

This famous conqueror was one of the most enlightened of Assyrian rulers. He encouraged literature, and through his wise counsels the annals of Babylonia and Assyria, written on clay tablets, have been preserved for us in the library of his palace. From these we have learned practically all we know of Babylonian-Assyrian history and religion.]

BABYLONIA--ASSYRIA

In the very first ages of the world, Babylonia, with Egypt, led the way as the pioneers of mankind in the arts of civilization. Alphabetic writing, astronomy, history, chronology, architecture, plastic art, sculpture, navigation, agriculture, textile industry, all had their origin in one or other of these two countries.

GEOGRAPHY AND PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE REGION

The ancient kingdom of Babylonia was bounded on the east by Elam or Susiana; on the south by the Persian Gulf; on the west by the deserts of Arabia; and on the north by Assyria. It was watered by two streams, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and it was intersected by a number of canals, branching out from these great rivers, and dug in order to save the country from the effects of the annual inundations.

From the head waters of the Tigris and Euphrates to the Persian Gulf is a distance of about eight hundred miles. The land included between the two rivers divides itself naturally into two parts.

The northern one of these, Assyria, is a great plain of limestone and selenite, in area almost equal to England. The northern and western portions of this plain are broken by mountains and are of a fertile character, as is also that part of Assyria which lies east of the Tigris.

The southern of the two principal parts, Babylonia, is of alluvial character, and in ancient times was about equal in area to the combined territory of Holland and Belgium or to the southern half of Louisiana, the latter a region to which it has been likened in character. On the east of the Tigris, the Babylonian plain stretches away for a distance of some thirty to fifty miles, to the mountains of Elam. On the west it merges into the Arabian desert, twenty or thirty miles from the Euphrates, where the low hills check the overflow of the river.

EARLY DIVISIONS AND FAMOUS CITIES OF BABYLONIA

Babylonia appears to have been divided into the two large provinces of Sumer or Shinar (South Babylonia), and Accad or north Babylonia. The capital of this latter province was, like Babylon, built on both banks of the Euphrates, the larger half being called Sippara of Samas, the sungod (the modern Abu Habba), and the smaller half Accad or Agade. The latter was afterwards named “Sippara of the moon-goddess.” The greater part of Babylonia is now included in the modern Turkish province of Bagdad.

Ancient Babylonia also contained a number of other large cities and there was a succession of famous capitals: Babylon, of the Babylonian Empire, and afterwards of the Persian; Seleucia, founded by Seleucus, king of Syria, after the death of Alexander the Great; Ctesiphon, capital of the Parthian Empire; in modern times, Bagdad.

=Babylon=, on the Euphrates, is first mentioned in a tablet of 3800
B. C. From 2250 B. C. it became the capital of Babylonia and the
holy city of western Asia. The name Babylonia is the Greek form of
Babel, meaning “The Gate of the God.” Its Persian name was Babirus.
It was according to the accounts of Greek writers, the greatest city
of antiquity.

Nebuchadnezzar, who took more pride in the buildings constructed
under his auspices than in his victorious campaigns, concentrated
all his care upon the adorning and beautifying the city. To this end
he completed the fortification of the city begun by his father
Nabopolassar, consisting in a double inclosure of mighty walls which
were strengthened by two hundred and fifty towers and pierced by one
hundred gates of brass. The city itself was adorned with numerous
temples, chief among them Esagila (“the high-towering house”),
temple of the city and of the national god Merodach (Babylonian
_Marduk_) with his spouse Zirpanit. In the neighborhood of it was
the royal palace, the site of which was identified with the ruins of
Al-Kasr. Sloping toward the river were the Hanging Gardens, one of
the seven wonders, the location of which is in the northern mound of
ruins, Babel.

THE TOWER OF BABEL, which is supposed to be the temple of Nebo in
Borsippa, not far from Babylon, represents the most imposing ruin of
Babylonia. It is termed in the inscriptions _Ezida_ (“the eternal
house”), an ancient sanctuary of Nebo, and was restored with great
splendor by Nebuchadnezzar. It represents in its construction a sort
of pyramid built in seven stages, whence it is sometimes called
“temple of the seven spheres of heaven and earth,” and it is assumed
that the narrative of the “Tower of Babel” which the builders
intended to carry up to heaven, was connected with this temple.

In the conquest of Cyrus, 538 B. C., the city of Babylon was spared.
Darius Hystaspis razed its walls and towers. Xerxes (486-465 B. C.)
despoiled the temples of their golden statues and treasures.
Alexander the Great wished to restore the city, but was prevented by
his early death. The decay of Babylon was hastened by the foundation
in its neighborhood of Selencia, 300 B. C., which was built from the
ruins of Babylon. The last who calls himself in an inscription “King
of Babylon” was Antiochus the Great (223-187 B. C.)

EARLY HISTORY RIVALS THAT OF EGYPT

It is now evident, from the monuments and inscriptions which have been obtained from the traditionally oldest cities, that the civilization of the ancient people of Babylonia has an antiquity rivaling that of ancient Egypt. The American discoveries at Nippur in 1888-90 carry back Babylonian civilization to about 7000 B. C.

The early struggles for supremacy among the city states seem to have been confined to the lower valley of the Tigris and Euphrates; but about 4000 B. C. a mighty conqueror, Lugalzaggisi of Uruk, made expeditions to the Mediterranean and to the mountains at the north of Mesopotamia. He styled himself “King of Uruk,” “King of the Totality.”

Very early, however, a Semitic invasion must have taken place, for the date of two Semitic kings, namely, Sargon I. and Naram-Sin, of Accad, is placed, according to the testimony of the later Babylonians themselves, at about B. C. 3800 and 3750 respectively. Gudea, the priest-king, and a famous builder, was the chief ruler about 2800 B. C.

GREAT PERIOD OF HAMMURABI

About B. C. 2250 Hammurabi sat upon the throne of Babylon, the name of which now first appears in cuneiform records, although it may have been founded centuries before. This great monarch, Hammurabi, has left records of his enlightened efforts for the agricultural development of the land, and a great law code, cut in the enduring rock, which carries our knowledge of the history of law back a thousand years before the age of Moses. As yet no inscription has been discovered giving the details of his wars; but it is evident that he destroyed the Elamite power in Babylonia, and his assumption of the ancient titles “King of Sumer and Accad,” “King of the Four Quarters of the World,” seems to indicate that his power extended far. In Larsa and Sippar he erected temples to the sun-god, and at Babylon and Borsippa he enlarged those already standing. His great canal running down through the heart of Babylonia made the bordering territory fertile; and the granary built at Babylon stored the increased crops of grain. It may be that Lugalzaggisi and Sargon I. exceeded Hammurabi in the extent of their sway, but Hammurabi made Babylon the center of culture for southwestern Asia during millenniums.

After him we know little of the history until Burnaburiash, a Hassite king who was on the throne about 1400 B. C., exchanged letters with Amenhotep III. of Egypt as recorded in the Tel-el-Amarna Letters.

About 1250 B. C. Babylonia was conquered by Assyria, and, though it soon regained its independence and was again ruled by native kings, it remained a politically subordinate power, and was repeatedly conquered by its more powerful neighbor, until the fall of Nineveh, consequently we must now consider Assyria, as the successor of the _first_ Babylonian Empire, and go back a little into its history up to the time of Tiglath Pileser I., the conqueror of old Babylon.

This model of the famous “tower that reached to Heaven” was constructed by Sir Henry Rawlinson after years of study and exploration. The drawing, by O. Schulz, is now in the United States National Museum at Washington, D. C.]