RUINS OF SACRED AND HISTORIC LANDS* Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/ruinsofsacredhisOOunse RUINS OF EGYPT T. NELSON , LON DON & EDINBURGH R UIN S OF SACRED AND HISTORIC LANDS. BABYLON. 1 NINEVEH. I PALESTINE. I EGYPT. CENTRAL AMERICA. ITALY. ETC. ETC. *‘ln many a heap the groun Heaves, as though Ruin, in a frantic mood, Had done his utmost. Here and there appears. As left to show his handy-work, not ours. An idle column, a half-buried arch, A wall of some great temple.—It was once, And long the centre of their universe.” Rogers. LONDON: T NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; AND EDINBURGH. HDCCCI.II I. / ■ ■ ■ . :-r* ax?k •3 t __ PREFACE. The study of antiquity, however cumbered by the tedious minutiae of the professed antiquary, and the extravagan¬ cies of the unbridled theorist, possesses in itself elements of attraction such as very few intelligent minds fail to appreciate. We cannot witness the death of individuals without solemn feelings of sympathy and awe; and, in like manner, we learn to contemplate, with deep emotion, the decay and extinction of mighty nations. The ruins of historic lands are often far more valua¬ ble and trustworthy memorials than the records which contemporary annalists bequeath to us. In the one case we must be content to accept of history imbued with all the prejudices of the writer, of his nation, and his age. In the other case, we are free to read and judge for ourselves, and can feel no hesitation in our conclusions as to the barbarous magnificence of Mexico or Yucatan; the splendour and luxurious pomp of Assyria and Babylon; the cultivation, the intellectual progress, and also the superstition and moral debasement of Egypt; and the high advancement, in literature and arts, of the polished Greek. But the study acquires a far deeper interest when it promises to reveal to us new truths in relation to our own historic ancestry, or to throw fresh light on the pages of sacred story, and add unexpected confirmation to the most remarkable declarations both of fulfilled and unfulfilled prophecy. Viewed in this aspect, we follow, with ifntiring zeal, the explorer of the antiquities of Jerusalem, or the excavator amid the shapeless mounds of the Assyrian plains. In such investigations the past becomes tne great text-book of the present: pregnant alike with solemn warnings, and with lessons abounding in novel truths. VI PREFACE. The interest which at ail times attaches to the memo¬ rials of mighty empires has been greatly strengthened and extended in its influence, of late years, by the re¬ searches of intelligent and enterprising travellers. This century has witnessed the re-discovery of Petra; the exploration of Babylon; the restoration from oblivion of the ruined cities and temples of central America; the recovery of the secret by which the records of Egyp¬ tian learning have been dumb for nearly two thousand years; and the exhumation of the buried evidences of Assyrian arts and historic annals, leading back to the birth-time of earth’s youngest empire. On such themes it is impossible to dwell without exciting the liveliest emotions of sympathy in every intelligent and inquiring mind. This volume is accordingly devoted to a sketch of the whole circle of explorations and discoveries extend¬ ing throughout the known world. Tt includes both a review of the earliest notices, and of the most recent dis¬ closures, relating to the traces of former arts, civilization, magnificence, and dominion, of the various kingdoms which have successively played their part on the world’s stage. Embracing, as it does, so wide and varied a field, it cannot fail to interest; and it has been no less the aim of the author, that it should also instruct the reader of its pages. The indications of prophetic warning, and the evi¬ dences of remarkable fullilment, have been carefully traced out, and applied to these demonstrations of their solemn import; nor will the thoughtful reader fail to trace, in the unwritten records which the ruins of empires disclose, a consecutive history of our race, more ample and instruc¬ tive than the ethnologist has to offer him, and f^r more calculated to elevate the mind, and impress it with the sense of how fleeting and transitory are earth’s most stable possessions. Juke, 1850. TIIE REGINNING OF EMPIRES. 11 ceptions taught to man either amid the purity and holi ness of his first state, when he held converse with God, and was ministered to by his heavenly messengers, or amid the more recent judgments of the deluge, had been of no avail. So unspiritual were his conceptions of divine or created things that he would seem to have deemed it possible to scale the heavens. This has, indeed, been re¬ garded as a mere eastern figure of speech for a very lofty tower, and it would seem to be in some degree confirmed by the choice of a site on the plain of Shinar, and not rather on some of the mountains of Asia. Yet the facility of acquiring needful materials was sufficient to retain the ambitious builders amid the fertile plains of central Asia, which we still regard with such peculiar interest as the cradle of the human race; and we are cer¬ tainly taught by the narrative of sacred history to look upon them as guilty of an act of daring presumption and impiety, to restrain and punish which their language was confounded, and their social union broken up. "What¬ ever the exact nature of their presumptuous impiety may have been, it was obviously connected with the building of the tower, and it has been assumed, with considerable probability, by various interpreters, that it was designed as an idolatrous temple for the worship of Belus. On this subject Rich remarks, in his “ Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon:” “The most extraordinary building within the city was the tower, pyramid, or sepulchre of Belus, the base of which Strabo says was a square of a stadium each side, and it was a stadium in height. The tower stood in a quadrangle of two miles and a half, which con¬ tained the temple in which divine honours were paid to the tutelar deity of Babylon, and probably also cells for the numerous establishment of priests attached to it. An additional interest attaches itself to the sepulchre of Belus, from the probability of its identity with the tower which the descendants of Noah, with Belus at ri riilTACE. The interest which at ail times attaches to the memo¬ rials of mighty empires has been greatly strengthened and extended in its influence, of late years, by the re¬ searches of intelligent and enterprising travellers. This century has witnessed the re-discovery of Petra; the exploration of Babylon; the restoration from oblivion of the ruined cities and temples of central America; the recovery of the secret by which the records of Egyp¬ tian learning have been dumb for nearly two thousand years; and the exhumation of the buried evidences of Assyrian arts and historic annals, leading back to the birth-time of earth's youngest empire. On such themes it is impossible to dwell without exciting the liveliest emotious of sympathy in every intelligent and inquiring mind. This volume is accordingly devoted to a sketch of the whole circle of explorations and discoveries extend¬ ing throughout the known world. It includes both a review of the earliest notices, and of the most recent dis¬ closures, relating to the traces of former arts, civilization, magnificence, and dominion, of the various kingdoms which have successively played their part on the world’s stage. Embracing, as it does, so wide and varied a field, it cannot fail to interest; and it has been no less the aim of the author, that it should also instruct the reader of its pages. The indications of prophetic warning, and the evi¬ dences of remarkable fulfilment, have been carefully traced out, and applied to these demonstrations of their solemn import; nor will the thoughtful reader fail to trace, iu the unwritten records which the ruins of empires disclose, a consecutive history of our race, more ample and instruc¬ tive than the ethnologist has to offer him, and f§r more calculated to elevate the mind, and impress it with the sense of how fleeting and transitory are earth’s most stable possessions. Juke, 1850 . CONTENTS PART I. —ASIA, CHAP. I.—THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES, II.—BABYLON, III. —THE DOOM OF BABYLON, IV. —NINEVEH, V.—THE RECORDS OF ASSYRIA, VL—ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY, VII.—JERUSALEM, VIII.—RUINS OF PETRA, IX.—CAVE TEMPLES OF ELFHANTA, ADJUNTA, AND F.LLOEA, 29 39 51 67 76 96 116 125 PART II.— AFRICA. CHAP. I.—EGTFT, ... II.—THE RUINS OP EGYPT, ... III.—THE PYRAMIDS, ... IV.— EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY, ... V.—IDEAS OP A FUTURE STATE, ... VI.—HISTORICAL VALUE OP EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES, 139 154 170 180 202 211 TART III.-AMERICA. CHAP. I.—THE NEW WORLD, II.—MEXICAN ARCHITECTURE, ... III.—RUINS OF YUCATAN, ... IV.—AMERICAN HIEROGLYPHIC/!, 226 248 267 287 CONTENTS. viii PART IV.-EUROPE. cnAP. i. —the temples op Greece, ... II.—POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM, ... III.—ROMAN AND ROMANO-BRITISU WARE, ... IV.—ROME, V.—BRITISH PAGAN TEMPLES* r«c« 303 323 351 303 380 t D'-riii,ltl,' ,/nil’Ki), j/n.fb "minMili1.ii xuu 'f f. Jy^ J.;/' |DynhJ)uir Mn ii-nnd.,r V ) ^Orfi« "*<4, ll’>\j>irll,.L /' &g 4 gjjv lllAiU ai(ur Sinfluni f 2<7r/lm ■ 5 j£rf«ijeJu ^iui AJLu '^Pabnyriior 7ii luil.i.il Ptthr \ 9 «* \ ' / V, . 4* °'" 1 " jU i f 1 3tm**ru- Mralj j flntfiJu ‘ &J P< H^L. IictI ' _ 8§E- J PUBLISHED Br T.NELSON LONDON i-EDINBURGH .AfeltJubfii. t/yy..,/ PUBLISHED BT T. NELSON LONDON it-EDINBURGH POTS OF SACRED AND HISTORIC LANDS. PART I.-ASIA. CHAPTER I. THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. “ Cypress and ivy, weed and wall-flower grown Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped On what were chambers, arch-crushed columns strown In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steeped In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped, Deeming it midnight:—temples, baths, or halls? Pronounce who can; for all that learning reaped From her research hath been, that these are walls— Behold the imperial mount 1 ’tis thus the mighty falls.” The distinguished author of the “Seven Lamps of Archi¬ tecture” remarks, when treating of the hold which great and beautiful structures have upon the memory, “ How cold is all history, how lifeless all imagery, compared to that which the living nation writes, and the uncorrupted marble bears ! How many pages of doubtful record might we not often spare, for a few stones left one upon an¬ other ! The ambition of the old Bubel-builders was well directed for this world. There are but two strong con¬ querors of the forgetfulness of men, Poetry and Archi¬ tecture ; and the latter in some sort includes the former, and is mightier in its reality; it is well to have, not only what men have thought and felt, but what their hands have handled, and their strength wrought, and their eyes 10 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. beheld, all the days of their life. The age of Homer is surrounded with darkness, his very personality with doubt. Not 60 that of Pericles: and the day is coming when we shall confess, that we have learned more of Qreece out of the crumbled fragments of her sculpture, than even from her sweet singers or 6 oldier historians.” It is this world-history, written in the uncorrupted marble which we propose to investigate, and it is strange, when we come to investigate with care into its records to discover how very few even of the earliest links are wanting. It is with a just, though it may be a some¬ what free interpretation, that architecture has been styled the primal art of man. We will not indeed seek to carry it so closely back to the infancy of our race, as to in¬ clude within its records either the bower of paradise, or the rude hut or cave which sheltered the banished pair, when with all the world before them,” the}' tirst experi¬ enced life's necessities, and entered on its cares, its sor¬ rows, and its toil. But passing downward for a very brief space, we come to that ambitious work of the old Babel-builders, which, more perhaps than any other of the elder works of man, commands so peculiarly the interest of these later generations. Its history is briefly and ex¬ pressly told: “The whole earth was of one language and of one speech. And it came to pass as they jour¬ neyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make bricks, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Their aim gives strange insight into the history of primitive thought, and of the low and most inadequate ideas of God, and of the uni¬ verse, men had already acquired. All the elevating con- THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 11 ceptions taught to man either amid the purity and holi ness of his first state, "when he held converse with God, and was ministered to by his heavenly messengers, or amid the more recent judgments of the deluge, had been of no avail. So unspiritual were his conceptions of divine or created things that he would seem to have deemed it possible to scale the heavens. This has, indeed, been re¬ garded as a mere eastern figure of speech for a very lofty tower, and it would seem to be in some degree confirmed by the choice of a site on the plain of Shinar, and not rather on some of the mountains of Asia. Yet the facility of acquiring needful materials was sufficient to retain the ambitious builders amid the fertile plains of central Asia, which we still regard with such peculiar interest as the cradle of the human race; and we are cer¬ tainly taught by the narrative of sacred history to look upon them as guilty of an act of daring presumption and impiety, to restrain and punish which their language was confounded, and their social union broken up. What¬ ever the exact nature of their presumptuous impiety may have been, it was obviously connected with the building of the tower, and it has been assumed, with considerable probability, by various interpreters, that it was designed as an idolatrous temple for the worship of Belus. On this subject Rich remarks, in his “ Memoir on the Ruins of Babylon “ The most extraordinary building within the city was the tower, pyramid, or sepulchre of Belus, the base of which Strabo says was a square of a stadium each side, and it was a stadium in height. The tower stood in a quadrangle of two miles and a half, w’hich con¬ tained the temple in which divine honours were paid to the tutelar deity of Babylon, and probably also cells for the numerous establishment of priests attached to it. An additional interest attaches itself to the sepulchre of Belus, from the probability of its identity with the tower which the descendants of Noah, with Belus at 12 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES,. their head, constructed in the plain of Shinar, the com¬ pletion of which was prevented in so memorable a man¬ ner. I am strongly inclined to differ from the sense in which Gen. xi. 4 , is commonly understood, and I think too much importance has been attached to the words l may reach unto heaven,' which are not in the original, whose words are d irism ‘and its top to the shies' by a metaphor common to all ages and languages, i. e. with a very elevated and conspicuous summit. This is certainly a more rational interpretation than supposing a people in their senses, even at that early period, would undertake to scale heaven by means of a building of their own construction. The intention in raising this structure might have been displeasing to the Almighty on many other accounts; such for instance as the paying of divine honours to other beings, or the counteracting of the destined dispersion of mankind. For, notwithstand¬ ing the testimony of Josephus’s Sibyl, we have no good reason for supposing that the work suffered any damage; and allowing it to have been in any considerable degree of forwardness, it could have undergone no material change at the period the building of Babel was recom¬ menced. It is therefore most probable that its appear¬ ance, and the tradition concerning it, gave those who undertook the continuation of the labour, the idea of a monument in honour of Belus; and the same motives which made them persist in adhering to the spot on which such a miracle had been wrought, would naturally enough induce them to select its principal structure for that purpose. Be this as it may, the ruins of a solid building of five hundred feet must, if any traces of the town remain, be the most remarkable object among them. Fliny, seventy years after Strabo, mentions ‘ the Temple of Jupiter Belus, the inventor of astronomy,’ as still standing; and all travellers since the time of Benjamin of Tudela, who first revived the remembrance of the TIIE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 13 ruins, whenever they fancied themselves near the site of Babylon, universally fixed upon the most conspicuous eminence to represent the tower of Belus.” The rise of the great Assyrian empire is related in a still earlier portion of the sacred narrative. Ham, the son of Noah, begat Cush, and to him was born Nimrod, who began to be a migbty one in the earth; and was called the mighty hunter before the Lord. The course of the sacred history is most brief and concise. “ The beginning of his kingdom was Babel,and Erech,and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” It was the early origi¬ nation of those great social and political unions which have ever since bound men together by more or less strong and Beneficial ties. The impression, however, which we are taught to form of the first mighty one on the earth, the powerful hunter, and the earliest sovereign among men, is not one very favourable to him as a distinguished scion of the new father of the human race. "We shall re¬ gard him more justly if we look upon him as the prema¬ ture introducer of sovereign rule and despotic sway, into the young world. The patriarch Noah set the needful example of paternal rule ; and there could be little necessity in the days of his great-grandson Nimrod, that the patri¬ archal government, so suited to a simple pastoral life, should be superseded by any premature anticipation of the social necessities of later times. The world was all before them, as it had been before our first parents. Ambition alone, and pride, and the haughty love of dominion, induced men to forsake the fertile and peaceful plains of Asia, to crowd within the narrow limits of brick-built cities. Their experience of the restraints of absolute dominion appear to have differed in no way from those of later ages. It was not seemingly from any feeling of love that men cherished the memory of the founder of Babel. It must be understood, rather as a proverbial expression of his haughty dominion, when the sacred historian 14 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. remarks: “ Wherefore it is said, Even as Nimr'od, the mighty hunter before the Lord.” His game it is obvious was not always the wild beasts of the field, and we should rather perhaps assume as the meaning of these words, “ before the Lord,” that not even the conscious¬ ness of God’s presence and oversight could restrain his excesses. The site of the chief city of earth’s first empire, was chosen in the midst of the vast plains of Shinar. The bricks were made and burned, and the city and its tower arose, the fame of which was to keep them in remem¬ brance, and preserve their social unity. “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.” When we reflect on this remarkable passage, and think of that first great effort of architectural power and skill, which thus attracted the notice of heaven by its impious ambition; it becomes a subject of curious speculation to think that it is assumed, not without considerable probability, that the ruins of that primal structure, have not yet yielded entirely to the obliterating hand of time. A new and lively interest has been excited in these primitive ruins of ancient empire, by the recent important discoveries effected by M. Botta, and our own enterprising countryman, Hr. Layard. We must not, however, confound the two great first empires of Asia. The empire of Nimrod, the begin¬ ning of whose kingdom was Babel, is altogether distinct in origin from that of Assyria. There was abundant room for both, on the vast continent of Asia, though aggressive ambition afterwards forced" them into union under one supreme despot. The sacred historian thus describes the rise of the Assyrian empire as the first offshoot from the kingdom founded by the mighty hunter: “ Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city of Rehoboth, and Calah, and Rcsen, between Nineveh and TIIE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 15 Calah; the same is a great city.” It is this very city of Calah, that Dr. Layard is believed to have exumed from the heaps beneath which it has lain intombed for so many centuries. On this subject much curious, and frequently ill-grounded speculation has been indulged. The strangely recovered Nimroud, on the banks of the Tigris, has been assumed to be Nineveh, or sought for among records of other elder cities of Asia. But Major Rawlinson, who has been the first to master the key of the cuneiform characters, impressed on the bricks, and carved on the sculptured marbles of Nimroud, has also cleared up some of the chief mysteries and errors regarding the ancient city to which tradition still attaches the name of the mighty hunter. At a recent meeting of the Royal Asiatic Society of London, Major Rawlinson laid before the members an interesting communication descriptive of his recent visit to explore the ancient ruins, from whence the Assyrian marbles have been procured, and to explain in what way the cuneiform or arrow-headed characters inscribed on them are to be read. After assuming the general familiarity with the interesting work of Dr. Lay ard, to which we shall have repeatedly to refer, Major Rawlinson proceeded to combat the popular error, which confounds Nimroud and Nineveh :—“The greater number of the inscriptions,” he remarked, “ were generally sup¬ posed to have been found at Nineveh; but the correct modern name of the place was Nimrud ; and though it was in all probability one of the group of cities to which Jonah was sent, yet it had no claim to bo considered Nineveh itself. Its ancient name, as denoted on the inscriptions, was Khala, or Sala, and it was probably the Calah mentioned in the tenth chapter of Genesis.” The real metropolitan Nineveh he conjectures to have stood on the site now occupied by that huge mound on the opposite side of the Tigris from Mosul, on the top of which is the pretended tomb of the prophet Jonah. 16 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. That mound, Major Rawlinson remarked, -was held so sacred by the Turks that they would not allow Europeans to excavate it; but he did not believe Dr. Layard would leave the country without some of its inscriptions. There were two other towns in the neighbourhood whose mo¬ dem names were Khorsabar and Konyinjuk ; and these two towns he believed were the two chief cities of the kingdom of Nineveh. The early history of that country was buried in the deepest obscurity. Even if they should be able to decipher all the inscriptions, still these would give little insight into the chronology of the period unless they could lay hold of some event which touched upon the history of other countries. They had already obtained some valuable notices of the reigns of six monarchs in succession, but any one must see that that was but a short way towards a connected history of the nine centuries to which the Assyrian empire ex¬ tended. Of the six monarchs mentioned, there was little to mark the era of their reigns; but, after being engaged in the examination of the question for many years, the conviction had been forced upon him that the date of the building of the north-west palace of Khala or Nimrud, on which palace the inscriptions relating to these monarchs had been found, was nearly coeval with the extinction of the eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, and the first establishment of the Jews in Palestine. The ear¬ liest cuneiform descriptions which he had been able to decipher, related to a king whose name he read Sardan- apalus, not the voluptuary with whose name they were so familiar, but a monarch much anterior, the builder of the north-west palace; but it did not therefore follow that he was the first king, or the builder of the city, for several other names of monarchs are incidentally mentioned, and his own father and grandfather are always spoken of as kings. He might mention a great difficulty that was thrown in the way of identifying a monarch referred TIIE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 1? to in different inscriptions, or in various parts of the same inscription, from the fact that the names were not marked by any definite phonetic sound, but rather by the sense, so that synonymes were employed to any ex¬ tent. The inscription to which he had referred began,— “ This the Palace of Sardanapalus, the humble worshipper of Assarach.” There could be no doubt that this Assar- aeh was the Nisroch mentioned in Scripture, in whose temple Sennacherib was slain. He was most probably the deified father of the tribe, the Assur of the Bible. This Assarach was styled in all the inscriptions as the king, the father, and the ruler of the gods, thus answer¬ ing to the Greek god Chronos, or Saturn, in then - Assyrio- Hellenic mythology. The inscription then went on to record the extent of the dominions of King Sardanapalus, from which it appeared that Phoenicia was not at that time subject to his sway ; but another inscription 6tated, that after passing the great desert, he received tribute from the kings of Tyre and Sidon and Accaia on the sea coast. There was another inscription, giving an account of various wars, but in so mutilated a condition that it was impossible to make out a connected narrative. He therefore passed on to another inscription, giving an account of the reign of Turamum Bahr, the son of Sar¬ danapalus. This inscription was complete, and it gave an account of an active and restless monarch, who, during a period of more than thirty years, carried on his wars and conquests on every side, quelling rebellions, plundering cities, leading princes into captivity, and slaughtering thousands in battle. These expeditions were invariably headed by the king himself, till towards the thirtieth year of his reign, when, sated with glory, and probably worn out with action, he remained at home and sent his armies to rob, plunder, and slay, under the command of his lieutenant. The whole of this long and deeply-inter¬ esting inscription, which gave much curious information B 18 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. respecting the early tribes then inhabiting these countries, as read by Major Rawlinson, supplied a continuous and singularly coherent narrative, in -which there were only two checks of any consequence : one was where the events of the third and fourth years of the monarch’s reign were hopelessly mixed up together, and which he said he could only account for by supposing that the workmen employed to make the inscription had inad¬ vertently left out a line; and the other was where, towards the end of his reign, the events of a campaign begun by the lieutenant were ascribed to the king, and which is probably to be ascribed to the vanity of the monarch, or the flattery of the scribe. It was further mentioned that the events of one of the early campaigns, productive of more than ordinary treasure, were com¬ memorated in more detail in an inscription on a colossal bull which had been found among the ruins, and which Major Rawlinson also read. Above the inscription were several epigraphs illustrative of the tribute received from different countries. He could not attempt to decipher all the articles apparently enumerated, but among them were gold and silver, horses and camels, which were termed “ beasts of the desert, with double backs.” There were also mutilated inscriptions relating to the son and grandson of this monarch; but after them it appeared that from domestic troubles and foreign conquests there was an interruption to this dynasty; and when events could be again deciphered through the inscriptions, there appeared to be such a great change in the manners and customs of the people, that Dr. Layard had thought a new race had come to inhabit the land. Major Raw¬ linson is not of that opinion, though he remarked that he was satisfied a great change must have occurred among the people. There had been an interregnum, and possibly another branch of the family came afterwards to the throne, but the later inscriptions all asserted the then TIIE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 19 reigning monarchs to be of the family of Sardanapalus. One curious fact apparent from the later inscriptions was, that a strong Scythic element had been infused into the west of Asia, and the Cymri were referred to in almost every inscription. In answer to inquiries, Major Rawlinson said, that undoubtedly the language was of a true Semitic character, closely allied to the Hebrew and Chaldee in the pronouns and prenominal affixes, but otherwise more allied to the African languages; and he had a strong impression that what were called the Semitic languages, would be found to have sprung from an African source. In these remarkably interesting investigations, we are led to follow down the history of the Assyrian Empire not only to its connection with some of the later dynas¬ ties of Egypt, but also, with a race far more interesting to us, since we trace in them the parents of European colonization, and of the first occupants of the British Isles. It, is astonishing, indeed, the sagacity with which Major Rawlinson has followed out the difficult inquiry regarding the meaning and value of the cuneiform characters. We can hardly attach too great an interest to these inscrip¬ tions when we consider the circumstances under which they have been found. From the unmistakeable records of sacred history, we learn of the founding of Babel, by Nimrod, the grandson of Ilam, and out of that went forth Ashur the builder of Nineveli and Calah, and the founder of the Assyrian Empire. These therefore with¬ out doubt are the oldest of the world’s cities, and amid the newly discovered ruins, the clayey heaps of which are believed to be the tumuli of these buried capitals, impressed bricks and cylinders, and inscribed gems and marbles, have been found, doubtless containing some of the oldest written records of man. We may well search into them, to read if possible their long treasured secrets. Who can tell what wonderful revelations they may con- 20 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. tain! It is certain that the least important fact which they may disclose must be of some value to the historian, and may add new light to the labours of the chronologist. It is not necessary to remark to the reader that the cuneiform, or arrow-headed character, was known to the students of antiquity before the, recent researches at Nimroud and Khorsabad. They had, long before, been observed stamped on the bricks of Babylon, and cut upon the marble monuments of Persepolis, as well as on rocks in Armenia, and even, under veiy rare circum¬ stances, in Egypt. The arrow-headed characters differ in every respect from the hieroglyphics used in the inscriptions of Egypt. They are purely literal, not symbolical. They are, in fact, arbitrary alphabetic signs, and on this very account it might justly be considered a much more hopeless task to attempt to recover their meaning, than to decipher the hieroglyphic records of the Egyptian temples and tombs. One of the first and most marked characteristics of the arrow-headed characters is, that they were obvi¬ ously designed for inscriptions, cut on stone or impressed in brick, and were by no means adapted for current writ¬ ing. An ingenious suggestion has been recently thrown out, by which their intimate connection with the early brick-makers of the Asiatic plains is rendered still more apparent. It is found that by taking a common square burnt brick, figures may be impressed with its comer and edge upon the unburnt clay exactly resembling a certain class of the cuneiform inscriptions. Such there¬ fore, in all probability, was the origin of these characters. The makers of bricks for building the old cities on the banks of the Tigris or Euphrates, wishing, it may be, to distinguish the bricks of particular workmen, or those destined for a special purpose, would indent their surface with the mark formed by the most ready implement, one of the burnt bricks lying around them, A change of dis- THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 21 tinctive marks being required, it may be to denote the products of different kilns, or the materials destined for several important erections carrying on at once, two, three, or more, triangular indentations with the corner of the hard brick, would abundantly answer the required end, and be followed naturally by other more compli¬ cated combinations of indented triangles and lines, as additional marks were required. Thus simply, in all pro¬ bability, originated the first Asiatic alphabet, contempo¬ raneously with some of the earliest structures of primeval cities. Through time a phonetic value would be attached to them, as to the arbitrary signs of Egyptian hiero¬ glyphics, and thus the great gift of letters was secured, by means of which records of Babylon and Nineveh are still recoverable from the mouldering rubbish over which the storms of so many centuries have swept in their deso¬ lation. Many of the inscriptions on the bricks brought from the various sites of the ancient cities of Asia, have evi¬ dently been impressed with a stamp, containing a set for¬ mula, and not infrequently bearing the name of the reign¬ ing sovereign. Hieroglyphic impressions, of similar im¬ port, and containing royal cartouches, are found on the early bricks of Egyptian pyramids or tombs. Others, however, are probably unique, and at any rate numerous 6 uch inscriptions have been copied, besides those now deposited in the public museums of London and Paris The Babylonian characters, on account of their extremely rude shape, have been frequently called nail-headed; whereas the Persepolitan, as well as those sculptured on the Nimroud marbles, have the distinct arrow-headed form. No real difference, however, seems to exist between them. It was for many centuries a subject of doubt, if not of positive disbelief, whether the Egyptians had ever at¬ tached an alphabetic value to their symbolic hiero¬ glyphics. No such doubts, however, could reasonably 22 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. be entertained in reference to the cuneiform characters. They are manifestly arbitrary alphabetic signs, the key to which being once lost, all hope of reading them would appear, to the ordinary student, at an end. This seemed further rendered certain by the absence of all distinct allusions, by either Greek or Latin winters, to the arrow-headed characters and inscriptions. Hero¬ dotus, indeed, mentions the Assyrian writing , and both Thucydides and Pliny refer to Assyrian letters ; and it has been very reasonably conjectured that all of these allusions are to the character of which w’e speak. But after all, it is only a probability; and even if the fact were established, it would throw no light on the meaning of the several Assyrian letters, by which alone the inscriptions of Nineveh and Babylon, of Nimroud and Khorsabad, can be turned to account by the historian and the archaeolo¬ gist. Sir William Ousley, who made such extensive and minute observations and researches, during his twelve years in the East, has published, in his “ Oriental Collec¬ tions,” an extract from a Mohammedan manuscript which professes to furnish a key to the alphabet of the Persepo- litan inscriptions ; but, like other alphabets contained in the same manuscript, it is a mere fiction. Niebuhr was the first to publish exact and trustworthy copies of arrow- headed inscriptions; and this led to various attempts at deciphering them; but the utmost difficulty was experi¬ enced in discovering any ascertained or probable point from whence to set out. No Eosetta Stone inscription existed, with parallel inscription or translations ; and so dubious was the whole inquiry, that it even remained open to question, if the markings impressed on the bricks, and hewn on the sculptures and rocks of Asia, were alpha¬ betical characters capable of being separated into words, and subjected to translation; or if they were not, as some maintained, mere barbarous and arbitrary signs. All ana¬ logy, however, is unquestionably in favour of their alpha- THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 23 betic character. At the commencement of the present century the inquiry was taken up by Tychsen and Miinter, two Danish antiquaries, who affirmed several propositions relating to the division of words, and their order of arrange¬ ment ; in addition to which they endeavoured to prove that a certain group of the arrow-headed characters, which they found frequently repeated, must signify “ King." It would tend to little profit to follow out the various speculative theories by which European scholars have aimed at interpreting the ancient characters found on the site of the first antediluvian city of the world. The sti¬ mulus to seek for their interpretation was great; and from the novelty of the subject, and its apparently close con¬ nexion with the primeval history of man, the investiga¬ tion was even more tempting than the hieroglyphical inscriptions of Egypt. The first attempts at tins elucida¬ tion of the Babylonian records bore a marvellous resem¬ blance to the fanciful and very profitless labours of the earlier hierologists. In 1801, Dr. Hager published his Dissertation on the Babylonian Inscriptions.” The opi¬ nion advocated by him was the not very attractive one, that the characters on the bricks were simply the brick- makers’ names. Inquiry, however, was roused by the publication of fac-similes of the inscriptions, and discus¬ sions on the interpretations thus advanced. Lichtenstein entered with zeal on the inquiry, and maintained the arrow-headed characters to be a variety of the ancient Arabic or Cufic character, still used, with slight varia¬ tions, in the empire of Marocco. By means of this very arbitrary assumption, he read, to his own satisfaction, versions of passages in the Koran. He then proceeded to form the whole into an alphabet, and to interpret Babylonian and Persepolitan inscriptions, with a facility very much akin to that of some of the earlier translators of the hieroglyphics, and to equally little purpose. Vari¬ ous writers, of great learning and research, have since 24 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. devoted themselves to this interesting inquiry. Much zeal has been displayed by intelligent travellers, and by several British ambassadors and resident agents at the Persian and Turkish courts; the latest and the most suc¬ cessful of whom is Major Rawlinson, to whose recent researches we have already referred. But the great source of general interest, and concen¬ trated devotion to the study and elucidation of the Assy¬ rian inscriptions, has been the discovery of the recent monuments of Nimroud and Khorsabad. The sculptures and inscribed marbles sent by M. Botta to Paris, and by Dr. Layard to the British Museum at London, could not fail to excite a new and lively interest in the study ot Assyrian antiquities, the results of which are already of considerable value to the historian and the archaeologist. “ Two characters,” Dr. Layard remarks, “ appear at one time to have been in use amongst the Assyrians. One, the cuneiform, or arrow-headed, as in Egypt, was probably the hieroglyphic, and principally employed for monumental records; the other, the cursive or hieratic, may have been used in documents of a private nature, or for records of public events of minor importance. The nature of the arrow-headed will be hereafter fully described. The cur¬ sive resembles the writing of the Phoenicians, Palmy¬ renes, Babylonians, and Jews; in fact, the character, which, under a few unessential modifications, was com¬ mon to th.e nations speaking cognate dialects of one lan¬ guage, variously termed the Semitic, Aramaean, or, more appropriately, Syro-Arabian. There is this great distinc¬ tion between the cuneiform and cursive,—that while the first was written from left to right, the second, after the fashion of the Hebrew and Arabic, ran from right to left. This striking difference would seem to show that the ori¬ gin of the two modes of writing was distinct. “ It would be difficult, in the present state of our know¬ ledge, to determine the period of the invention and first THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 25 use of written characters in Assyria; nor is there any evi¬ dence to prove which of the two forms, the arrow-head or the cursive, is the more ancient, or whether they were introduced at the same time. Pliny declares that it is to the Assyrians we owe the invention of letters, although some have attributed it to the Egyptians, who were said to have been instructed in the art of writing by Mercury; or to the Syrians, who, in the passage in Pliny, are evi¬ dently distinguished from the Assyrians, with whom they are, by ancient authors, very frequently confounded. Lucan ascribes their introduction to the Phoenicians, a Syrian people. On monuments and remains purely Syrian, or such as cannot be traced to a foreign people, only one form of character has been discovered, and it so closely resembles the cursive of Assyria, that there appears to be little doubt as to the identity of the origin of the two. If, therefore, the inhabitants of Syria, whether Phoeni¬ cians or others, were the inventors of letters, and those letters were such as exist upon the earliest monuments of that country, the cursive character of the Assyrians may have been as ancient as the cuneiform. However that may be, this hieratic character has not yet been found in Assyria on remains of a very early epoch, and it would seem probable that simple perpendicular and horizontal lines preceded rounded forms, being better suited to let¬ ters carved on stone tablets or rocks. At Nimroud, the cursive writing was found on part of an alabaster vase, and on fragments of pottery, taken out of the rubbish covering the ruins. On the alabaster vase it accompa¬ nied an inscription in the cuneiform character, containing the name of the Khorsabad king, to whose reign it is evi¬ dent, from several circumstances, the vase must be attri¬ buted. It has also been found on Babylonian bricks of the time of Nebuchadnezzar. “ The cuneiform, however, appears to have been the character in general use in Assyria and Babylonia, and at 2G THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. various periods in Persia, Media, and Armenia. It was not the same in all these countries; the element was the wedge, but the combination of wedges, to form a letter, differed. The cuneiform has been divided into three branches ; the Assyrian or Babylonian; the Persian; and a third, which has been named, probably with little re¬ gard to accuracy, the Median. To one of these three divisions may be referred all the forms of arrow-headed writing witli which we are acquainted; and the three together occur in the trillingual inscriptions, containing the records of the Persian monarchs of the Achsemeiiian dynasty. These inscriptions are, as it is well known, repeated three times on monuments of this period, in parallel columns or tablets, in a distinct variety of the arrow-headed character; and, as it may be presumed, in a different language. “ The investigation of the Persian branch of the cunei¬ form has now, through the labours of Rawlinson, Lassen, and others, been brought to a satisfactoiy conclusion. I presume that there are few unacquainted with the admir¬ able memoirs by Major Rawlinson upon the great inscrip¬ tion at Behistun, published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Some, however, are still inclined to look upon the results of his labours with doubt, and even to consider his translation as little more than an ingeni¬ ous fiction. That the sudden restoration of a language no longer existing in the same form, and expressed in characters previously unknown, should be regarded with considerable suspicion, is not surprising. But even a superficial examination of the ingenious reasoning of Pro¬ fessor Grotefend, which led to the first steps in the in¬ quiry, the division of words and the discovery of the names of the kings, and an acquaintance ■with the subse¬ quent discoveries of Rawlinson and other eminent philo¬ logists, must at once remove all doubt as to the general accuracy of the results to which the} 7 have arrived. There THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. 27 may undoubtedly be interpretations, and forms of con¬ struction open to criticism. They will probably be re¬ jected or amended, when more materials are afforded by the discovery of additional inscriptions, or when those we already possess have been subjected to a still more rigorous philological examination, and have been further compared with known dialects of the same primitive tongue. But as to the general correctness of the transla¬ tions of the inscriptions of Persepolis and Behistun, there cannot be a question. The materials are in every one’s hands. The inscriptions are now accessible, and they scarcely contain a word the meaning of which may not be determined by the aid of dictionaries and vocabula¬ ries of tiie Sanscrit and other early Indo-European lan¬ guages.” Some of the accidental confirmations of the accuracy of the conclusions which have been arrived at regarding the Assyrian inscriptions, are of the most interesting and satisfactory character, and none more so than those de¬ rived from the conjoint occurrence of cuneiform and hie¬ roglyphic inscriptions. In this respect it is exceedingly fortunate that the recent successful exploration of some of the most important sites of ancient Asiatic cities, has not taken place till such a mastery of the inscriptions of Egypt had been acquired, that the hieroglyphical coun¬ terparts could be converted into the means of elucidating cuneiform records. Not the least interesting of the more obvious inferences deducible from such double inscriptions, is the evidence thereby afforded of the ancient intercourse maintained between the great empires of Asia and Africa. Dr. Layard has brought from Nimroud beautiful carved ivories, not only characterized by the peculiar features of Egyptian art, but with the hieroglyphic characters, and the royal cartouch, of the Nile monuments. In 1825, Mr. Price, the Assistant-Secretary to Sir Gore Ouseley, Ambassador to the Court of Persia, published a work, entitled “ A 28 THE BEGINNING OF EMPIRES. Dissertation upon the Antiquities of Persepolis.” Seve ral cuneiform inscriptions are interpreted in it; and one of the engravings represents a scroll found in the case of an Egyptian mummy, on which both a hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscription occurs. But still more inter¬ esting examples of this nature have been noted on two Egyptian vases. The name of the king inscribed on one is found to be that of Artaxerxes; and the un¬ doubted accuracy of this interpretation is proved bv the same name having been independently read both by Major Rawlinson and Sir Gardner Wilkinson; the former arriving at it by means of the cuneiform inscription, and the latter by the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Such evidence leaves no room to doubt that the key to the interpre¬ tation of the ancient Assyrian characters has been disco¬ vered, though much remains to be done by the students both of cuneiform and hieroglyphical records, before it can be assumed that an entire mastery has been gained over these long dumb and forgotten annals of the elder world. BABYLON. 29 CHAPTER II. BABYLON. With these came they, who from the bordering flood Of old Euphrates, to the brook that parts Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names Of Baalim, and Ashtaroth; those male, These feminine. Melton . We are left in no doubt, from the records of sacred his¬ tory, as to who was the first founder of empires, or which was the earliest of the world’s cities, reared by the sub¬ jects of the mighty hunter, Nimrod. The narrative is most concise and distinct. “Nimrod began to be a mighty one in the earth; and the beginning of his king¬ dom was Babel.” This ancient city, Babel, or Babylon, occupies a most important place among the great capi¬ tals of the older Asiatic kingdoms. We learn of it in connexion with the Babylonian, the Assyrian, the Egyp¬ tian, the Persian, the Hebrew, and the Macedonian Empires. It figures in the pages of sacred history, as a mighty city influencing the fate of other nations, and becoming the instrument for the accomplishment of God’s primitive purposes on his chosen people, and when, at length, its own doom is pronounced, and it is hurled to destruction by the judgments of God, it becomes a monu¬ ment of divine wrath, to which the closing revelations of the Apocalypse refer as the fittest emblem of the most dreadful manifestations of God’s anger. 30 BABYLON. It is a subject of the liveliest interest to inquire whether the celebrated Birs Nimroud be, indeed, the ancient Temple of Belus, and the still older Tower of Babel, the first great architectural structure of the human race. Mr. Rich, to whom we owe the first accurate and trustworthy account both of the Birs Nimroud and of the whole extensive group of surround¬ ing ruins on the east bank of the Euphrates, thus de¬ scribes his impressions on obtaining sight of the remark¬ able ruin, under an exceedingly advantageous a-spect for appreciating its imposing mass, and its interesting asso¬ ciations : “ I visited the Birs under circumstances pecu¬ liarly favourable to the grandeur of its effect. The morning was at first stormy, and threatened a severe fall of rain; but as we approached the object of our journey, the heavy clouds separating discovered the Birs frowning over the plain, and presenting the appearance of a circular hill crowned by a tower with a high ridge extending along the foot of it. Its being entirely con¬ cealed from our view during the first part of our ride prevented our acquiring the gradual idea, in general so prejudicial to effect, and so particularly lamented by those who visit the Pyramids. Just as we were within the proper distance, it burst at once upon our sight in the midst of rolling masses of thick black clouds, parti¬ ally obscured by that kind of haze whose indistinctness is one great cause of sublimity, whilst a few strong catches of stormy light, thrown upon the desert in the back ground, served to give some idea of the immense extent, and dreary solitude, of the wastes in which this venerable ruin stands. “The Birs Nimroud is a mound of an oblong figure, the total circumference of which is seven hundred and sixty-two yards. At the eastern side it is cloven by a deep furrow, and is not more than fifty or sixty feet high, but at the western it rises in a conical figure to the ele- * 1IIHS MllllOUl), i BABYLON. 31 ration of one hundred and ninety-eight feet, and on its summit is a solid pile of brick thirty-seven feet high by twenty-eight in breadth, diminishing in thickness to the top, which is broken and irregular, and rent by a large fissure extending through a third of its height. It is per¬ forated by small square holes disposed in rhomboids. The fine burnt bricks of which it is built have inscrip¬ tions on them; and so admirable is the cement, which appears to be lime-mortar, that, though the layers are so close together that it is difficult to discern what sub stance is between them, it is nearly impossible to extract one of the bricks whole. The other parts of the summit of this hill are occupied by immense fragments of brick¬ work of no determinate figure, tumbled together and con verted into solid vitrified masses, as if they had under¬ gone the action of the fiercest fire or been blown up with gunpowder, the layers of the bricks being perfectly dis cernible,—a curious fact, and one for which I am utterly incapable of accounting. These, incredible as it may seem, are actually the ruins spoken of by Fere Emanuel, who takes no sort of notice of the prodigious mound on which they are elevated. “It is almost needless to observe that the whole of this mound is itself a ruin, channelled by the weather and strewed with the usual fragments, and with pieces of black stone, sand-stone, and marble. In the eastern part layers of unburnt brick are plainly to be seen, but no reeds were discernible in any part: possibly the absence of them here, when they are so generally seen under similar cir eumstances, may be an argument of the superior anti¬ quity of the ruin. In the north side may be seen traces of building exactly similar to the brick-pile. At the foot of the mound a step may be traced, scarcely elevated above the plain, exceeding in extent by several feet eacn way the true or measured base; and there is a quad¬ rangular inclosure round the whole, as at the Mujelibe, 32 BABYLON. but much more perfect and of greater dimensions. At a trifling distance from the Birs, and parallel with its eastern face, is a mound not inferior to that of the Kasr in elevation, hut much longer than it is broad. On the top of it are two Koubbes or oratories, one called Makam Ibrahim Khalil, and said to be the place where Ibrahim was thrown into the fire by order of Nimroud, who sur¬ veyed the scene from the Birs; the other, which is in ruins, Makam Saheb Zeman ; but to what part of Mehdy’s life it relates I am ignorant. In the oratories I searched in vain for the inscriptions mentioned by Niebuhr; near that of Ibrahim Khalil is a small excava¬ tion into the mound, which merits no attention; but the mound itself is curious from its position, and correspond ence with others.” Mr. Rich subsequently made the ruins of ancient Babylon the objects of a most careful and minute inves¬ tigation and to his descriptions we owe the most full and trustworthy accounts which we possess of the ruined capital of Nimrod’s Empire. He conceives the mound still remaining on the eastern side of the Birs Nimroud to have been a building of great dimensions, and most pro¬ bably a temple attached to the tower of Belus. The same form of mound has been observed, similarly situated, attached to other ruins which bear a considerable resem¬ blance to the pyramidal tower of Birs, so that it seems reasonable to conclude that these are the relics of the vast temples once devoted to the rites of that long extinct and forgotten faith. From the general appearance of the ruin, Mr. Rich infers that it was a pyramidal erection, built in several stages gradually diminishing to the sum¬ mit, and corresponding to the great pyramids of Mexico, which some ingenious theorists have conceived to furnish evidence of the early correspondence of the two races. Such speculations, however, are extremely fallacious, similarity of climate and materials will produce a corres- BABYLON. 33 pondence in the style of building among the most diverse races, and in forms so simple as the pyramids, either of Egypt or Mexico, we can detect nothing more than the most ready shape which building materials assume. Even a child supplied with his miniature toy bricks, builds pyramids in which the fanciful theorists might detect the models of Babylonian or Mexican towers. M hether we look to sacred or profane history, scarcely any relic of the former site of human habitations, royal palaces, and pagan temples, can equal in interest the ruins of ancient Babylon. Leaving those early sacred narrations of its founder, and of its first disastrous interrup¬ tion, during the building of the tower of Babel, we turn to the earliest accounts of classic historians. The exact, or piobable date of its foundation, which has been frequent subject of discussion, is now, more than ever, likely to excite renewed interest. The period usually assigned to it is about, two hundred years after the deluge; but biblical critics are now generally agreed that the system of chronological interpretation which has been hitherto applied to the arrangement of sacred history is no longer tenable. It is generally held that a much longer period must have intervened between the period of the deluge and the birth of our Saviour, from whence we date the new era of the world’s history, than that assigned by Archbishop Usher, and usually attached to our English Bibles. This consideration throws the most lively inter¬ est.upon the investigation of Babylonian and Assyrian antiquities, and make the researches of Major Rawlinson, Dr. Layard, and other archaeologists and travellers, into the inscribed records ot the Nimroud marbles and cylin¬ ders, assume a most important character. We have already referred to the remarkable and inter¬ esting discovery of a bilingual inscription on a vase pre¬ served in the treasury of St. Mark, at Venice; and which may in some sense be regarded as bearing a correspord- c 34 BABYLON. ing place in the history of Assyrian researches, to that which the more celebrated Rosetta Stone does in relation to Egyptian hierographv. This most interesting relic belongs to the period of Artaxerxes, the first, as is pre¬ sumed, who ascended the throne 465 years before Christ. Another example similar to this had been previously noted. It is on an alabaster vase preserved in the Cabinet du Roi, at Paris, and was first depicted by Count Caylus, but not very accurately, in his work on Anti¬ quities. It attracted the attention of the celebrated Champollion, who deciphered correctly the Hierogly¬ phics, which he read Kh-sch-ea-r-sclia, or Xerxes. The addition of the word or title Erpr, now believed to sig¬ nify great, he interpreted to read Irina, and supposed it to mean Iranean, or Persian. In 1844, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, the celebrated Egyptian traveller, sent home from Venice a rubbing, or fac-simile impression, of the inscription on the vase of St. Mark, which those who are curious in such matters will find engraved on the thirty- first volume of the Archseologia, plate vi. Sir Gardner reads the Hieroglyphic name, inclosed in the Egyptian cartouche Ard-kho-scha, according to the phonetic value now assigned to the hieroglyphic characters, and lie in¬ terprets the whole inscription, King Artaxerxes the Great. Immediately underneath the hieroglyphics the same is repeated in cuneiform characters, which read Ardt-kh-sh- scha, and the whole of which Major Rawlinson satis¬ factorily shows may be held to bear a similar signifi¬ cance in the dialect of the ancient kingdom of Persia. How remarkable is this discovery, and how full not only of interest but of richest promise for the future! For if the Birs Nimroud be indeed the ruins of the tower of Babel, we have in its inscribed bricks, records nearly coeval with the patriarchs of the deluge, from whence we may yet be able to deduce the lost annals of the race, and the age of the world. According to Herodotus, the BABYLON. 35 building of the great capital of the Babylonian empire was the work of several successive sovereigns, among whom he particularly distinguishes the two Queens, Semiramis and Nitocris. Semiramis, who succeeded to the throne on the death of her husband Ninus, the Assyrian king and conqueror of Babylon, selected it for her chosen residence. According to Diodorus, she enclosed it with immense brick walls of great height and thickness, extending the city over both banks of the Euphrates, and uniting them by means both of a tunnel and a bridge ; and to her the latter historian ascribes the erection of a lofty temple to the honour of the god Belus. When contrasted with these records of the world’s first empires, how mean and insignificant do the relics of our most ancient cities and kingdoms appear. We speak of the 15tli century as of a remote era, and regard the 10th and 11th centuries as separated from us by a dark and broad gulph of time. But how modern do such dates appear when we remember that the era of Semiramis is believed to have been about 2000 years prior to the com¬ mencement of our era, or nearly as many thousands of years remote from our own day, as mere centuries inter¬ vene between us and the English Tudors, and the memor¬ able historic incidents of their times. The history of Babylon, in the period succeeding the reign of Semiramis, is almost a total blank. It is not a vain hope, however, to think that it may not always remain so. Much has already been done for the recovery of Egyptian chronology. The historic data of the great empire of Africa, are being restored and arranged so as to fill up many important lacunse which were deemed irrecoverable blanks. But the same sculptures and paintings of Egypt, which furnish so many details foi the completion of the historical narrative based on the chronological data supplied by the hierogliphics and tabular series of royal cartouches, also furnish no less 36 BABYI.ON. interesting allusions to contemporary nations. Here therefore is one source of important and trustworthy information; while it encourages us to pursue the more direct search for corresponding native annals, amid the ruined heaps that lie piled along the margin of the Euphrates,—these strange but striking memorials of the truth of prophecy, and the inevitable accomplishment of God’s righteous judgments. Perhaps no city of all the ancient world ever pre¬ sented an aspect more calculated to tempt its citizens to apply to it the title since conferred on the capital of the old Roman empire, as the Eternal City. According to the statements of ancient historians, its walls measured about sixty Roman miles in their whole extent around the vast metropolis of Babylonian empire. The accuracy of statements involving belief in the existence of a single city of such enormous extent, have been frequently chal¬ lenged ; but all discussion leads to the conclusion that though they may perhaps be chargeable with some de¬ gree of exaggeration or error, there can be no question that ancient Babylon covered an extent of ground such as we can form little conception of, when judging in accordance with modern customs. The ancient eastern cities included not only pleasure grounds and hanging gardens, but even cultivated fields. The chief dangers apprehended by the occupants of a besieged city were the privations and famine consequent on a protracted siege, and one of the provisions against such dangers was the enclosure of fields within the pro¬ tected area. Herodotus states the circumference of the wall as 480 stadia; a mistake, as some writers have thought for 380 stadia; and Major Rennel estimating the stadium at 491 feet, computes the extent of the wall at 34 miles. The height and breadth of the walls have equally been subjects of dispute, this, however, all his¬ toric evidence concurs in proving, that they were of such BABYLON. 37 enormous strength and massive solidity, that we can well conceive the haughty Babylonian monarch smiling in derision at the threat of their destruction, and deeming the thought of that vast peopled capital becoming what it has so long been, desert heaps of formless rubbish, a thing as impossible as that the everlasting hills should decay and be scattered into dust by the summer breezes. Yet the doom had gone forth while the rulers of Baby¬ lon were still in the plenitude of their power, and the mighty capital seemed to bid defiance to destruction or decay. Dr. Keith thus forcibly depicts the contrast of its glory, and the fulfilment of the words of divinely in¬ spired prophets, which laid it in the dust: “Its walls which were reckoned among the wonders of the world, appeared rather like the bulwarks of nature than the workmanship of man. The temple of Belus, half a mile in circumference and a furlong in height—the hanging gar¬ dens, which, piled in successive terraces, towered as high as the walls—the embankments which restrained the Euphrates—the hundred brazen gates—and the adjoining artificial lake—all displayed many of the mightiest works of mortals concentrated in a single point. Yet, while in the plenitude of its power, and, according to the most accurate chronologers, 160 years before the foot of an enemy had entered it, the voice of prophecy pronounced the doom of the mighty and unconquered Babylon. A succession of ages brought it gradually to the dust; and the gradation of its fall is marked till it sunk at last into utter desolation. At a time when nothing but magni¬ ficence was around Babylon the great, fallen Babylon was delineated exactly as every traveller now describes its ruins; and the prophecies concerning it may be viewed connectedly from the period of their earliest to that of their latest fulfilment.” Babylon was, indeed, once “the glory of kingdoms,” and around it lay the most fertile districts, the garden of 38 BABYLON. the world, which had been chosen by God, as that where in to place the first family of mankind, but which the des¬ potism and oppression of ages Iras reduced for many cen¬ turies almost to a desert waste. Herodotus and Strabo speak of its fertile soil producing two, and even three hundred fold of com; and even after repeated conquests and desolations, the vast plains, enriched by the Eu¬ phrates and Tigris, and their tributary streams, and irri¬ gated by numerous artifical canals, the traces of which may yet be seen, continued to furnish such abundant sup¬ plies as the natives of northern and less favoured climes can hardly conceive of. Wealth abounded, luxury and sensual enjoyments were pursued as objects worthy of the highest ambition of man. Gold, silver, precious jewels, spices, silks, and every costly means of pleasure or adornment were accumulated, and the rulers of Baby¬ lon added kingdom to kingdom, until their vast domin¬ ions, extended from the Helespont to the Indian Archi¬ pelago, and embraced nearly the whole of the Asiatic continent under one sovereign ruler. Human ambition seemed to have achieved its utmost desires, and to be established beyond the reach of fate. But all was hol¬ low within. Under this splendid despotism vice and misery prevailed. The grossest forms of idolatry asso¬ ciated impure and horrible rites with the worship of their deities ; and the great mass of the people toiled in hope¬ less slavery to contribute to the unbounded desires of the few who trampled on their rights. But the doom of their mighty empire was pronounced. It was “ weighed in the balance and found wanting,” while yet the sunshine of prosperity seemed to rest upon it, and now it lies amid the crumbled ruins of its palaces and temples, a bv«- word and a mockery to the nations. THE DOOM OF BABYLON. 39 CHAPTER III. THE DOOM OF BABYLON. Struck by a thousand lightnings still ’tis there, As proud in ruin, haughty in despair. Oh! oldest fabric reared by hands of man! Built ere Art’s dawn on Europe’s shores began! Rome’s mouldering shrines, and Tadmor’s columns gray, Beside yon mass, seem things of yesterday! In breathless awe, in musing reverence, bow, ’Tis hoary Babel looms before you now! Michele. Numerous as are the records of ancient historians as to the magnificence of the Babylonish capital, and the ex¬ tent of its empire, nothing more effectually exhibits its greatness among the elder empires of the world than the large space which it occupies in the terrible de¬ nouncements of ancient prophecy. No portion of the prophecies recorded by the inspired authors of the Old Testament Scriptures, has more frequently supplied evi¬ dence and argument for their divine authority, than the remarkable and literal words in which they foretold the doom of Babylon. The prophet Isaiah delivered his remarkable denouncements fully one hundred and sixty years before the taking of Babylon, and upwards of two hundred and fifty years before Herodotus recorded the history of these events, altogether unconscious that he too was guided not only as a recorder of incidents of common history, but of evidence that should avail to remote ages in proof of the divine origin of the first of books. When Isaiah recorded, “the burden of Baby¬ lon,” which, says the prophet, “ Isaiah the sou of Amos 40 THE DOOM OF BABYLON. did see,” a century and a half had to pass, and genera¬ tions to be gathered to the dust, ere what he witnessed in vision should be talfiled. Yet he said, as of a thing that is being accomplished : “ The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumul¬ tuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered to¬ gether ; the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country from the end of heaven, even the Lord, and the weapons of his in¬ dignation, to destroy the whole land. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. It shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up; they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every man unto his own land. Every one that is found shall be thrust through, and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver, and as for gold they shall not delight in it. Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there; but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dra • gons in their pleasant palaces.” Ere these words could be accomplished God had des¬ tined Babylon to be made his servant and tool, for the punishment of others. The chosen people to whom TIIE DOOM OF BABYLON. 41 Isaiah prophesied, were themselves to be subjected to his auger, and were to be sent away captives into Baby¬ lon. The gorgeous temple of Solomon was to be spoiled. The city of David was to be desolate, and in ruins; and Babylon was to triumph for a time over the people whose prophets had foretold her coming fate. But the words of God are sure. The faithful among the captives of Judah, who hung their harps on the willows of Babylon, and wept when they remembered Zion, believed no less cer¬ tainly in the promises to their fathers, than in the threats and denouncements to their captors, and anticipated with longing hearts, the time when God would remember Zion, and build up her ruined walls. It seems not improbable that an important class of the inscriptions brought to light by Dr. Layard while exploring the palaces of Nimroud, will be proved to be contempora¬ neous with the period of the later grandeur of Babylon, when, while she rejoiced in her haughty power and luxury, the Hebrew prophet was recording her coming doom, and foretelling the fate which the Christian believer can now read for himself amid her desolate and ruined heaps. At a meeting ol the Syro-Egyptian Society of London, on the 12th of Februai-y 1850, Mr. Sharpe laid before the meet¬ ing a communication regarding Major Rawlinson’s read¬ ing of the inscriptions from Nimroud, which he character¬ ized as one of the greatest triumphs of ingenuity, and as the result of a rare union of learning, patience, sagacity, and that wise caution which is so specially needed, while the true value and force of many of the letters is still doubtful. Mr Sharpe, however, challenges some of the most important of Major Rawlinson’s historical conclu¬ sions, while attaching full reliance to his elucidation of cuneiform inscriptions. Major Bawlinson produces the names of seven or eight kings; some of these make Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt pay tribute, and carry on a long war against Ashdod. Even the name of Jerusalem, it ia 42 THE DOOM OF BABYLON*. thought possible, may be traced among the conquered cities. These eight kings may occupy about two cen¬ turies ; and Mr. Sharpe exhibited tables of chronology for Egypt, Palestine, and Assyria, from which he argued that these circumstances in history could be true of no other period of similar duration than the two centuries compre¬ hending the era of the prophet Isaiah; and that these were the kings spoken of in the Bible, whose dynasty was put down by Nabopolassar, for there was no other time in which Egypt and the Phoenician cities could have paid tribute to Assyria. It is wise that we should not too hastily assume unauthenticated evidence which may seem to confirm the prophetic writings. They stand in need of no such confirmation, though we derive a most legitimate gratification from the discovery of such evi¬ dences, and may, therefore, look forward with no slight degree of interest to the results of such intelligent re- bearch among the vast ruins of Central Asia. It is an interesting truth, proved by many concurrent evidences, that, while Providence has frequently employed heathen and idolatrous nations for the punishment of his own church and people, yet the Divine anger has always been, sooner or later, manifested against such unbelieving instruments of God’s displeasure. To those who look forward to the restoration of the Jews to their own land in these latter days, it is a subject of serious considera¬ tion whether God will not also, in like manner, judge the Gentile nations among whom the weary wanderers of Israel have so long borne their sad exile. Such thoughts may well stimulate the generous zeal of those whose hearts are now yearning after the outcasts of Judah. Little did the proud Babylonians dream that it was in his wrath God had suffered them to triumph over the kingdom of Judah, and to spoil the gorgeous temple which Solomon dedicated to his worship in so noble a strain of inspired devotion, when, standing before the altar of the one true THE DOOM OF BABYLON. 43 God, and spreading forth his hands towards heaven, he thus prayed:—“ Lord God of Israel, keep with thy ser¬ vant David ray father that thou promisedst him, saying, There shall not fail thee a man in thy sight to sit on the throne of Israel; so that thy children take heed to their way, that they walk before me as thou hast walked be¬ fore me. And now, 0 God of Israel, let thy word, I pray thee, be verified, which thou spakest unto thy servant David my father. But will God indeed dwell on the earth. Behold, the heaven, and heaven of heavens, can¬ not contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded! And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place : and hear thou in heaven thy dwelling- place ; and when thou hearest, forgive. If any man tress¬ pass against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine altar in this house: then hear thou in heaven, and do, and judge thy servants, condemning the wicked, to bring his Avay upon his head ; and justify the righteous, to give him according to his righteousness. When thy people Israel be smitten down before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess thy name, and pray, and make supplication unt« thee in this house: then hear thou in heaven, and for¬ give the sin of thy people Israel, and bring them again unto the land which thou gavest unto their fathers. More¬ over, concerning a stranger, that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name’s sake ; for they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy strong hand, and of thy stretched out arm; when he shall come and pray toward this house: hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place, and do according to all that the stranger calleth to thee for; that all people of the earth may know thy name, to fear thee, as do thy people Israel; and that they may know that this house, which I have 4' THE DOOM OF BABYLON. builded, is called by tliy name. Tf thy people go out to battle against their enemy, whithersoever thou shalt send them, and shall pray unto the Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen, and toward the house that I have built for thy name: then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, and maintain their cause. If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near; yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they were carried captives, and repent, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captives, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have committed wickedness; and so return unto thee with all their heart, and with all their soul, in the land of their enemies which led them away captive, and pray unto thee toward their land which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name: then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling-place, and maintain their cause, and forgive thy people that have sinned against thee, and give them com¬ passion before them who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them: for they be thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron, for thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth to be thine inheritance.” These were the people who, beneath the willows of Babylon, wept when they remembered Zion. How dif¬ ferent their prospects from those of their enslavers. It is as the answer to these solemn supplications at the dedi¬ cation of the first Temple, that Jeremiah thus prophecies of the fate of its spoilers :—“ It is the vengeance of the Lord: take vengeance upon her: as she hath done, do unto her. Woe unto them! for their day is come, the THE DOOM OF BABYLON. 45 time of their visitation. The voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God, the vengeance of his temple—recompense her according to her work; accord¬ ing to all that she hath done, do unto her; for she hath be$n proud against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel. I will render unto Babylon, and to all the inha¬ bitants of Chaldea, all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the Lord—the Lord God of re- compences shall surely requite.” Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, encamped against Jerusalem, with a mighty host. He besieged and took the city of David, slew the princes of Judah, and carried the vessels of the holy temple, and all the trea¬ sures of Jerusalem, with him to Babylon. The chosen men of Judah also passed into captivity; a miserable remnant of the poorest of the people were alone left to serve as vine-dressers and husbandmen, that the conquered land might yield its tribute and sustain its spoilers. It seemed for a time as if God had forgotten his promise to his servant David, and had blotted out for ever from the cities of the nations the place where he had so long “ dwelt with men ” But their prophets had foretold the fate both of Judah and of Babylon, though these words had seemed but as idle tales to their own people, and remained unheard and unknown to the luxurious idolaters of Babylon, even while they were being so strik¬ ingly fulfilled. Belshazzar, the king, made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and while he triumphed amid the splendour of his luxurious court, he commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Ne¬ buchadnezzar had taken out of the temple of Jerusalem; and he was obeyed. The vessels of the sanctuary, once sacred alone to the temple service of the one true God, were laid before the revellers of the Babylonish courr; and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines, 46 THE DOOM OF BABYLON. poured into them the wine, and drank and praised the gods of gold and silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. They had filled up the measure of their impiety, and the hour of retribution was come. In the same hour came forth the fingers of a hand, and wrote upon the walls of the palace hall the mysterious writing which one of the children of the captivity interpreted to the affrighted king. The monarch was troubled and shook with fear, and the astonished revellers could offer no assurance or comfort. The Hebrew prophet was brought into the midst of that strange scene, and the king proffered to him the vain gifts and honours which were passing from his own grasp. But the hour of Judah’s retribution was at hand, and the captive Hebrew replied with dignity, “ Let thy gilts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. 0 thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory and honour: and for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him : whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him, and he was driven from the sons of men : and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses; they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will. And thou his son, 0 Bel¬ shazzar, hast not humbled thine heart, though thou knewest all this; but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drank wine in them ; and thou hast THE DOOM OF BABYLON. 47 praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Then was the part of the band sent from Him ; and this writing was written. And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL ; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PEKES; thy kingdom is di¬ vided, and given to the Medes and Persians. Then com manded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with scarlet, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made a pro¬ clamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain. And Darius the Median took the kingdom.” The reader is probably familiar with the strange device by which the Babylonian capital was first taken by Cyrus. “ The walls of Babylon,” says Dr. Keith, “ were incomparably the loftiest and strongest ever built by man. They were constructed of such stupen¬ dous size and strength, on very purpose that' no possibility might exist of Babylon ever being taken. And, if ever confidence in bulwarks could have been misplaced, it was when the citizens and soldiery of Babylon, who feared to encounter their enemies in the field,—in perfect assurance of their safety, and beyond the reach of Parthian arrow, scoffed, from the summit of their impregnable walls, at the hosts which encompassed them. But though the proud boast of a city so defended, and which had never been taken—that it would stand for ever ,—seemed scarcely presumptuous; yet, subsequently to the delivery of the prophecies concerning it, Babylon was not only repeat¬ edly taken, but was never once besieged in vain.” Walls, indeed, are a vain defence even against human valour, and how much less against divine judgments. 48 THF. DOOM OF BABYLON. and the hosts appointed to victory. After long tarrying with his mighty army arround the leaguered walls of Babylon, it was suggested to the besiegers to divert the course of the Euphrates; and through the channel of its dry bed they entered into the midst of the city, while its rulers, amid their profane orgies, were boasting of its im¬ pregnable walls. A traitor superseded the necessity for this laborious device when it again fell before another con¬ queror, and its glory passed away as an imperial city. Thenceforth it had to pay the tribute it had so long exacted, and to endure the humiliation thus strikingly foretold: “ Come down and sit in the dust, 0 virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground, there is no throne, 0 daughter of the Chaldeans.” It was not, in¬ deed, by one conquest that this earliest seat of empire was laid utterly waste. Though the spoiler had become the prey, yet her glory and wealth tempted the con¬ queror to reserve to her some rank and honour. Thus was Babylon sustained, only to experience repeated reverses and humiliations. Alexander marched against it, and Babylon exchanged the Persian for the Macedo¬ nian yoke. Seleucus, one of the successors of the Ma¬ cedonian conqueror, built the city of Seleuca in its neighbourhood, and thereby rapidly hastened its decay. Antegonus, Demetrius, and Antiochus the Great, all successively became its conquerors. The Parthians spoil¬ ed it once more, and Phrahates, their king, delegated his authority to a licentious favourite, who degraded it still lower by oppression and spoliation. “ there is no throne, 0 daughter of the Chaldeans,” exclaims the prophet, fore¬ telling her utter degradation, and the enslavement of her inhabitants. “ Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones and grind meal.” And now the desolate heaps and pools that stand along the reedy banks of the Euphrates are a monument in our own day of the truth of prophecy. Every word spoken THE DOOM OF BABYLON. 49 against Babylon lias been, and is now being, literally fulfilled. The glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chal¬ dees’ excellency, is as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. The wild beasts of the desert prowl about its heaps. It is made a possession for the bittern and pools of water. It is literally swept with the besom of destruction. Modern research, however, will doubtless now recover from its desolate ruins much that will add to our know¬ ledge of its former grandeur, and help to illustrate the greatness of its fall. In the course of one of Major Raw- linson’s valuable communications to the Royal Asiatic Society, on the Assyrian inscriptions and antiquities, he described some very interesting observations already noted by him in reference to Babylonia, and noticed eight or nine of its kings whose names were found upon different monuments; but he added, that in the present state of our knowledge, it was impossible to classify these mon- archs, or even to identify any kings but Nebuchadnezzar, and his father, Nebopolasser. He observed, that through¬ out Babylonia Proper, even at Borsippa, which was evi¬ dently one of the oldest sites in the country, the only name which he had found upon the bricks was that of Nebuchadnezzar, or rather Ncibochodrossor. This king appeared to have formed some hundreds of towns around Babylon, rebuilding the old cities and founding new ones. Further to the south, however, at Niffer, at Warka or Orchoe, (Ur of the Chaldees), at Umgheir, and Umwa- weis, there are magnificent ruins belonging to other royal lines ; and it is probable that if bricks from all these sites w ere collated, something definite might be made out with regard to the Babylonian and Chaldean chronology. Major Rawlinson drew especial attention to the stand¬ ard inscription of Nebuchadnezzar, the best and most per¬ fect copy of which is engraved on a slab preserved in the India House. This, he said, is a sort of hieratic statisti- D 50 THE DOOM OF BABYLON. cal charter. He did not pretend to be able to read and interpret it throughout; but he had, he observed, found in it a detail of all the temples built by the king in the different towns and cities of Babylonia, together with the names of the particular gods and goddesses to whom the temples were dedicated, and a variety of matter regarding the support of the shrines, and the ceremonial and sacri¬ ficial worship performed in them, which it is exceedingly difficult to render with any approach to literal certainty with the present imperfect knowledge of the language. Major Rawlinson further stated, that the name of Babel was never used until the time of Nebuchadnezzar; and he protested, therefore, against the possibility of the title being found in an Egyptian inscription of Thothmes III., as has been maintained by other intelligent archseologists. The ancient name of Babylonia, he conceives, was Sen- arch, the Shinar of Scripture, and 2euaa£ of Histiseus. In more recent times, it was termed Babeleh , or more frequently Athreh, a title which he considers to be identi¬ cal with the Otri of Pliny. Thus do we find, on every hand, the researches of modern science and learning throwing new light on those ancient Scriptures, which the infidel, in his pride of learning, has sought in vain to decry; while history is being extended and amplified in many departments where its imperfect and meagre re¬ cords had seemed to be closed without hope or possibi¬ lity of addition. NINEVEH. 51 CHAPTER ID. NINEVEH. The tents are all silent, the banners alone. The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblo.m: And the widows of Ashur are loud in tlieir -veil. And tbe idols are broke in the temple of Baal: And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword. Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lon!. Btros. The interest which hangs around the history of Nineveh, and the ancient empire of Assyria, has been greatly heightened during recent years by the extensive and successful investigations of the long-buried ruins of some of the chief Assyrian cities. This we chiefly owe to the indefatigable zeal and enterprise of our fellow countryman. Dr. Layard, and to M. Botta, a native of France, each of whom have secured for their own country most valuable and magnificent monuments of ancient Assyrian luxury and art. Wandering amid the vast plains of Asia, and and seeking not in vain, the hospitality of the wild Arab’s hut, Dr. Layard had happily rendered himself familiar with eastern life and manners, and had been unconsciously educating himself for his important task, as the restorer of long buried annals of the elder world, when he at length bent his course towards the seat of some of its first cities. “ I had traversed,” says he, “ Asia Minor and Syria, visiting the ancient seats of civilization, and the spots which re¬ ligion has made holy. I now felt an irresistible desire to penetrate to the regions beyond the Euphrates, to which 52 NINEVEH. history and tradition point as the birthplace of the wis¬ dom of the West. Most travellers, after a journey through the usually frequented parts of the East, have the same longing to cross the great river, and to explore those lands which are separated on the map from the confines of Syria by a vast blank stretching from Aleppo to the banks of the Tigris. A deep mystery hangs over Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldsea. With these names are linked great nations and great cities dimly shadowed forth in history; mighty ruins in the midst of deserts, defying, by their very desolation and lack of definite form, the de¬ scription of the traveller; the remnants of mighty races still roving over the land ; the fulfilling and fulfilment of prophecies; the plains to which the Jew and the Gentile alike look as the cradle of their race. After a journey in Syria the thoughts naturally turn eastward; and with¬ out treading on the remains of Nineveh and Babylon our pilgrimage is incomplete. “ As we journeyed thither we rested for the night at the small Arab village of Hammum Ali, around which are still the vestiges of an ancient city. From the summit of an artificial eminence we looked down upon a broad plain, separated from us by the river. A line of lofty mounds bounded it to the east, and one of a pyramidical form rose high above the rest. Beyond it could be faintly traced the waters of the Zab. Its position rendered its identification easy. This was the pyramid which Xeno¬ phon had described, and near which the ten thousand had encamped : the ruins around it were those which the Greek general saw twenty-two centuries before, and which were even then the remains of an ancient city. Although Xenophon had confounded a name, spoken by a strange race, with one familiar to a Greek ear, and had called the place Larissa, tradition still points to the origin of the city, and. by attributing its foundation to Nimroud, whose name the ruins now bear, connect it with one of the MXLVF.TT. 53 first settlements of the human race.” Dr. Bayard believed these lofty mounds to be none other than the ruined heaps of the great city to which the prophet Jonah bare the message of God's threatened wrath. We have already referred to the opinion of another distinguished eastern traveller, Major Rawlinson, on this subject. He conceives the name still traditionally attach¬ ed to it to be its original designation, and points to another tuinnlar heap in the same vast plain, through which the river Tigris rolls its watere, as the true site of Nineveh. The tenacity of popular tradition is often wonderful. There, too, is preserved the name of the prophet Jonah, still associated with the presumed scene of his succes- ful ministrations. It will be a remarkable example of the endurance of local tradition, if it shall be found that the latter is indeed the great capital of the empire which Assur founded when he went forth from the land of Shinar. The magnificent monuments, and, perh;ul with commotion. The Cadi made this a n-w occcasion for throwing impediments in the way of Dr. Layard, and the explorations were for some time arrested. By judicious management, however, these ob¬ stacles were overcome, and it was from the chambers of 62 NINEVEH. this palace that many of the most interesting Bas-reliefs and inscriptions now in the British Museum, were brought. The latter were made the subject of special investigation by Major Rawlinson, in his communications to the Royal Asiatic Society. A brief account was given by him of Sardanapalus, the builder of the north-west palace, and the earliest Assyrian king—as far as we yet know—whose inscriptions have come down to us. He was shown by nim to be the warlike Sardanapalus, whose tomb was described by Amyntas at the gate of the Assyrian capi¬ tal, and whom Callisthenes took care to distinguish from the better known voluptuary of historical romance. Por¬ tions of the dedicatory inscription, which is repeated above a hundred times upon his palace, were also read and ex¬ plained. The gods whom he worshipped—Assarac and Beltis, the shining Bar, Ani, and Dagon, were duly enume¬ rated; and he read a special note on the subject of As¬ sarac, the head of the Assyrian Pantheon, showing him to be the same as the Biblical Nisroch, and comparing him with the Chronos of the Greeks. A list was also given of the provinces tributary to Assyria at the period of the building of this palace by Sardanapalus, comprising many districts of Syria and Asia Minor, the country upon the Tigris, Armenia, the lands watered by the two Zabs, and the lower regions, as far as the shores of the Persian Gulf. After some further observations on the extent and power of Assyria under Sardanapalus, Major Rawlinson proceeded to investigate the annals of Temen-bar IL, who had commemorated his wars upon the singularly inter¬ esting black obelisk, now in the British Museum, upon the two large bulls in the centre palace of Nimrud, and also upon the sitting figure discovered at Kileh Shergat. The obelisk inscription commences, according to his read¬ ing, with an invocation to the Assyrian gods, among whom the following names can be identified with some XTNKVEH. 63 certainty:—Assarac, Ani, Nit, Artank, Beltis, Shemir, Bar; and perhaps also Aramun and Horus, Nebe, Tal and Set. Temen-bar then records his genealogy, naming his father, Sardanapalus, and his grandfather, Alti-bar; and afterwards goes on to chronicle his wars, describing the events of each regnal year with great exactness, and at the same time with remarkable simplicity. These wars appear to be directed against all the nations conter¬ minous with Assyria. In Syria Proper the chief anta¬ gonists of the king are Hem-ithra and Ar-hulena, the rulers of Atesh (which Major Rawlinson considers to be Hems or Emessa), and Hamath, who appear to have been confederated with the Sheta and the twelve tribes of the upper and lower country. These Sheta (or Khetta, according to the usual orthography at Khorsabad), were, Major Rawlinson observes, undoubtedly the same as the Khita of Egyptian history. They appear to have been a large tribe, holding the entire country between the Sy¬ rian desert and the Mediterranean; and he conceives it most probable that the Hittites of Scripture were either an offshoot from, or a fragment of, the same nation. On one occasion, while the king was in this country of Atesh, or Hems, among the tribes of the Sheta, he appears to have received the tribute of Tyre, Sidon, and Gebal. This has been already referred to, and it shows how precise and minute are these elements of ancient history, relating to periods of which not the slightest knowledge has existed for ages. The expeditions of the king, whether directed against Syria Proper, Asia Minor, or Upper Armenia, are usu¬ ally prefaced in the inscriptions with the phrase—“ I crossed the Euphrates.” In the ninth year of this king’s reign, he led an expe¬ dition to the southward, to the land of Shinar, or Baby¬ lonia, raising altars to the gods in the cities of Shinar and Berrippa, and subsequently pursuing his march as far as G4 NINEVEH. the land of the Chaldees who dwelt upon the sea-coast. On two occasions, in his sixteenth and twenty fourth years, the king led his armies to the eastward, crossing the lower Zab, and ascending the range of Zagros. He re¬ counts his movements in this direction against the Arians (the Arii of Herodotus), the Persians, the Medes, and the Armenian's of Kharkhar. On two other occasions he sent his general, Tetarassar, to wage war upon the same na¬ tions, and among the conquests of this chief is found the land of Minni, which was undoubtedly, Major Rawlinson conceives, the country of that name associated by the prophet Jeremiah with Ararat and Askchenaz, in his de¬ nunciations against Babylon, and appears to be the pro¬ vince of which Van was the capital, as the local title of the sovereigns recorded at that place very nearly coi’res- ponds with the Assyrian orthography of Minnie. After following the record through the whole series of the thirty-one years of Temen-bar’s reign, Major Rawlinson remarks on the epigraphs attached to the figures sculp¬ tured on the obelisk. These he explains as describing the tribute brought in from different lands to the Assy¬ rian king. The rave animals, about which so much curi¬ osity has been excited—that is, the two-humped camel, the elephant, the wild bull, the unicorn, the antelope, the monkeys, and the baboons—appear among the tribute of a country named Misr, which there are grounds for sup¬ posing may be the same as Egypt, in as much as the sculptures of Kliorsabad prove that Misr adjoined Syria, and as a name pronounced in the same manner, though written with a different initial character, is used at Per- sepolis and Behistun for the Persian Mudrdya. The only animals specifically mentioned in the epigraphs are horses and camels, the latter being called, “ beasts of the desert with the double back;” and Major Rawlinson remarks, that if Misr should ultimately prove to designate Egypt, it will be necessary to suppose that those animals had NINEVEH. 65 been imported into the country, as curiosities from India. Major Rawlinson thinks that all the inscriptions of Assyria yet discovered, whether found at Niraroud. Khorsa’oad. or at Koyunjik, belonged to that line of kings known in history as the dynasty of Ninos and Semiramis. He does not believe that we have hitherto found any memorials of the lower dynasty, or of those kings men¬ tioned in Scripture as contemporary with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah; and he added that he almost ex¬ pected, if such memorials should come to light, Assyria would be found during the period in question, to have been in dependence on the lords paramount of Media. Since Dr. Layard’s valuable work, entitled “ Nineveh and its Remains,” was published, several very valuable additional sculptures and inscribed slabs have been brought to this country, and presented by him to Sir John Guest, whose seat, Canford Manor, they now adorn in a manner, the interest of which may be estimated from the following description of some of the principal marbles:— The sculptures consist of ten bas-reliefs, and are of two distinct characters. Five of them are from Birs Nimroud, end in a very perfect state ; the other five from Koyunjik are much smaller in size, and have suffered more from the lapse of time. Some of the Canford marbles differ, but in minute particulars, from those engraved in the “ Monu¬ ments of Nineveh.” One of them is a colossal head with a pointed helmet, which has three clasping horns, and is ornamented with what has been described as a fleur-de-lis. The eardrop is in the form of a Maltese cross. Another is a Nisroch, or eagle-headed divinity, of colos¬ sal size. It i3 very similar to that given In the “ Monu¬ ments of Nineveh.” The chief points in which the sculp¬ ture and the plates differ are these:—The Canford bas- relief ha3 a rosette on both bracelets, and has also armlets E 66 NINEVEH. above the elbow, which are not in the plates. These arm lets are formed of a simple band, the ends of which do nol unite, but pass beyond each other on the outside of the arm. In the sculpture also there are only two dagger Viilts, both of which are plain, whereas in the plates there are three, one of which has an animal’s head for the handle. The divinity bears, as usual, one of the square pendant vessels in his hand, already familiar to us from the marbles deposited in the British Museum. A third consists of two gigantic forms—that of a winged priest and his attendant. The former resembles the Nis roch, with the exception of the head being human, with stiffly curled beard and hair. His head-dress is formed of the homed cap, and his ear ornamented with a plain drop. He carries the fir-cone in his uplifted right hand, and in his left the square vessel or basket, which is orna¬ mented on its side with a representation of two worship¬ pers on each side of the cone bearing the tree of life. Above this is a winged circle, supposed to be the emblem of the Triune deity. But the indefatigable explorer is again at the scene of his former most interesting and romantic exploits, and already announces equally remarkable, if not still more valuable discoveries, than any that have yet been made. From time to time news reaches us of the pro¬ gress of Dr. Layard’s labours. By letters, dated from Nimroud, on the 7th January 1850, we learn that he has pursued his researches in the old Nimroud palace, and has cleared an entrance into a chamber wherein he has dis¬ covered an extraordinary and most interesting collection of relics, including domestic utensils, personal ornaments, and weapons of war. Among these are specified a re¬ markable assortment of Assyrian antiquities, including shields, swords, paterae, bowls, and cauldrons, crowns, and other distinguished features of state decorations, and per¬ sonal ornaments in mother-of-pearl, ivory, &c. The eu- THE KkCOKDS UP ASSYRIA. 0? graving* and embossed decorations on these are described u exceedingly beautiful and elaborate, while their cor¬ respondence with the details and mythic representations, on the sculptures already sent home, leave no room to doubt that they are contemporaneous productions. The\ include hunting scenes, personal encounters with lions, armed warriors on foot and in their chariots, Ac. At Koyunjik, Dr. 1 .1 yard has also successfully begun a series of excavations, and has already uncovered a range of sculp¬ tured slabs, singularly interesting from their containing representations, ra bas-relief, of the process of building these very palaces and mounds, which now, after the lapse of so many centuries, are being explored and studied bv natives of the far north, whose island home, when these sculptures were hewn, and these palaces built, was in all probability a tangled forest, and savage jungle waste, where the wild boar and the wolf alone disputed posses sion. CHAPTER V. THE RECORDS OK ASSYRIA. TV ancient worlds their mysteries yield. The Chaldean sores' secrets are nnseaie.1. The history of old time, that seem'd undone. Proves in the last of days but yet be iron; And prophecy awaits the child of time. To *iv« fresh beauty to ita truths sublime. Baowxa, The great interest which attaches to the recent discoveries in Assyria cannot fail to be kept alive by the activity with which the explorers of its ancient remains, both at home and abroad, are pursuing their researches. While 68 THE RECORDS OF ASSYRIA. Dr. Layard is labouring, amid bis wild Arab hords, to secure the long hidden treasures of Assyrian art, Major Rawlinson continues to attract attention to the study of these new elements of ancient history, by his ingenious and elaborate deductions. The universal interest felt in these inquiries was proved by the audience which as¬ sembled at the rooms of the Royal Asiatic Society, to hear the communications of Major Rawlinson on the Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions. The chair was occupied by His Royal Highness, Prince Albert, and among the auditors were noted the Chevalier Bunsen; Mr. Hallam ; Sir R. Murchison; Mr. Hamilton, and other distinguished scholars and men of science. Many of Major Rawlinson's deductions from the cunei¬ form inscriptions furnish entirely new elements for filling up the long intervals which have heretofore remained a total blank in early Asiatic history. In the course of his remarks, he explained the process, to which we have al¬ ready referred, by which the inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria have been rendered legible. There are in Persia a vast number of cuneiform inscriptions of the Achsemenian kings, tri-lingual, and tri-literal; that is, composed in three different languages, and expressed by three different alphabets. These languages are Persian, Scythic, and Babylonian, agreeing with the three great lingual families into which the empire of Cyrus and Da¬ rius was divided. The Persian inscriptions are com¬ paratively easy, being written in a language closely allied to the Sanscrit; and the alphabet being suffi¬ ciently regular. They were accordingly first studied, and by dint of a careful analysis, have been completely deciphered. The next step was to apply the alphabetical key thus acquired to the Babylonian transcripts. A list of about eighty proper names was soon obtained, of which the ap¬ proximate pronunciation was known from their Persian the record? of assvki rg correspondent; and from these name, an alphaho, w,. drawn np, giving the value of abont one hundred Babvl, - ^ . anicte ”* A. diligent collation of inscriptions has lun 1 e D ' lmber 0f kno ~" «o about on hi the r t TJ- ’* and tWh ' M,lj0r IUw|inson observed. ** lhe As ^" In its nature and structure, the Assyrian alphabet a > y” “ nJ “” b,ed r rk * •* » tST>«i» origin. It “E*^LfT*P* u '’ P*ri'r Pl.om.ic; .nd the phn mne portion » fonlv .vlUbic. „d p, n l T ^ hc otmo nnto the render th«. if,hi, inferen'ce be confimed. Zr. " r r V hien S l rP hic teenrd, of Kcvp, ,11 “1.0.1 llul the phonetic ,v„em wan e„. syllabic, as had been sometimes stated. There is no doubt, an extensive syllabarium. and the literal cha¬ racters. moreover, require a vowel sound, either to pre- cede or follow the consonant; but such vowel sound, in hlL ; observed, is rarely uniform; and he prefers, therefore, distinguishing the literal signs as ™ d com P Iementa1 ’ lea^ng the vowels t 0 he sup. p led according to the requirements of the language Nonjhonetic signs, he conceives, were used as determin *1* 68 ’ “ the ^»nner. though not to the same extent in Egy ptiau; While the names of the gods were nsuallv rapreseiKel. either by arbitrary monograms, or. perhaps, dommant letter of the name. Some characters. A * D9ed 10 ei P re ' a a Stable. J, u0 . m,Mat md in thAt *- vl] *ble; other, are -mployed to represent two entirely dissimilar alphabet,- m-u powers, very great confusion and uncertainty prevail- ng ,n consequence. He also drew attention to the fact *1 alnZLSr* ^ VOr7 marked P° ver, y of th e eleroen- ^UlplMbcticl powers; the want of distinction between he hard and the soft pronunciation of the consonant! • 70 TIIE RECORDS OF ASSYRIA. the mutation of the liquids and other phonetic powers, not strictly homogeneous ; and the extensive employment of homophones : and he endeavoured to illustrate all these obscurities of alphabetic expression, by suggesting that, as the Assyrian system of writing was borrowed from that of Egypt, so each cuneiform sign must have been originally supposed to represent a natural object, and the phonetic power of the sign may have been in some cases the complete name of the object, and in others, the domi¬ nant sound in the name, whether initial, medial, or final. Thus minute are the inferences already deduced from the observations made in this early stage of the inquiry. The reader does not need to be informed that Major Rawlinson’s observations are to a great extent indepen¬ dent of, and even prior to, the labours of Dr. Layard. During his long official residence in the neighbourhood of Behistun, he had abundant opportunities of carrying on investigations on the remaining antiquities and inscrip¬ tions of Assyria, nor did he overlook the probability of such hid treasures being recoverable, as have since so amply repaid the labours of Dr. Layard. Several very remarkable sculptures were recovered by him in the same way, and have been brought safely home to this country. But besides these, the Major employed himself in se¬ curing fac-similies of cuneiform inscriptions, by a process, the simplicity and utility of which can hardly fail to in¬ terest the reader; and may even be applied by him with great effect to similar purposes at home. A piece of stout paper is taken and thoroughly soaked in water until it is quite soft and pulpy. It is then laid on the face of the inscription, or piece of incised sculpture, and pressed into all the lines and crevices by means of a long haired brush, or any similar convenient apparatus. It is generally ne¬ cessary to add one, two, or even more sheets of paper above the first, after preparing them by a similar process, THE RECORDS Or ASSYRIA. 71 And when the whole dries, it furnishes not only an exact reversed fac-simile, as perfectly trustworthy for reference as the original, but, if the paper be impregnated with a strong sire, it will even suffice, in many cases, for a mould from which permanent casta may be taken. Under the warm sun of Assyria the process is extremely rapid ; bnt even in oar own climate, on a dry and sunny day, the same plan may be made available for taking fac-similie* of runic sculptures, incised slabs, or bas-reliefs. Paper casts ot many Babylonian inscriptions, which had been taken in this manner, by Major Rawlinaon, were sus¬ pended round the walls of the Asiatic Society’s Rooms in illustration of his observations; and among them was a cast of the Babylonian translation of the great Behistun inscription—this cast being as valuable. Major Rawlinson remarked, t c cuneiform decipherment as was the Rosetta ytone for the interpretation of the hieroglyphic writing of Egypt. On this point, however, it must be noted that some actual progress had been made by Grotefend and others, in deciphering cuneiform writing prior to tho discovery of the Behistun inscription, so that though it may be fully as valuable to the Assyrian student, as the Rosetta Stone proved to Young and ChampoUion, it does not possess the peculiar interest of the former; nor. in deed, even of the vases of Paris and St. Marc's. From this Behistun document, from a complete copy of the Babylonian inscription at N*ak«h-i-Rostum, which Major Rawlinson also fortunately secured, and from the many published copies of the tri-lingual tablets, a vocabulary has now been formed of more than two hundred Babylonian words, of which the sounds are known approximately, and the meaning certainly. Furnished with this basis of inter¬ pretation, and instructed as to the general grammatical structure of the language, Major Rawlinson has carefully gone through the whole of the materials available to re- #e * rch - He has diligently compared and analyzed the 72 THE RECORDS OF ASSYRIA. inscriptions of Assyria, of Babylonia, of Armenia, of Su- sianna, and of Elymais; not merely extracting the his¬ torical and geographical information of value which such inscriptions contain, but anatomizing the sentences, col¬ lating similar phrases wherever they occurred, and sub¬ mitting the whole mass to a thorough examination, both philological and mechanical. The labour involved in such a process can only be very partially comprehended by most readers. The result has been that the vocabulary is now increased to about five hundred standard words, and a sufficient knowledge has been obtained of the language to enable Major Rawlinson to interpret the historical inscriptions pretty closely, and to ascertain the general purport of records of various ages and on very diverse subjects. He, however, warned his audience, at the meeting of the Asiatic Society, against running away with the idea that the science of Assyrian decipherment was exhausted, and that nothing now re¬ mained to be done but to read the inscriptions and reap the fruits of our knowledge. He observed, that in the alphabetical branch of the subject there is still much to be verified—much, perhaps, to be discovered; whilst the vocabulary of five hundred words, which is at present the only manual of interpretation, does not contain a tenth part of the vocables used in the inscriptions of Assyria and Ba¬ bylonia. He likewise drew attention to the fact, that “ although fifty years had elapsed since the Rosetta Stone was first discovered, and its value recognised as a partial key to the hieroglyphs, during which period many of the most powerful intellects of modern Europe had de¬ voted themselves to the study of Egyptian ; nevertheless that study, as a distinct branch of philology, has hardly yet passed through its preliminary stage of cultivation.” “ How then,” he justly asked, “ could it be expected that in studying Assyrian, with an alphabet scarcely less diffi¬ cult, and a language far more so than the Egyptian—with THE RECORDS op ASSYRIA. 73 no Plutarch to dissect the Pantheon, and to supply the names of the gods—no Maoetho or Eratosthenes to clas¬ sify the dynasties, and tarnish the means of identifying the kings—how could it be supposed, with all the difficul¬ ties that beset, and none of the facilities that assist hiero¬ glyphic students, two or three individuals were to accom • plish, ;n a couple of years, more than all Europe had been able to effect in half a century V After an ingenious analysis of the grammatical pecnli- anties discoverable in the Assyrian language. Major Raw. bnson enumerated a list of about thirty of the commonest verhal roots, comparing them with their correspondents in the cognate languages, and remarking that those example* proved the Assyrian and Babylonian languages to be in a more primitive state than any other Semitic tongue open to our research; in as mnch as the roots were almost universally free from that subsidiary augment which m Hebrew, Anun*an, and Arabic had caused the tri- Kteral to be usually regarded as the true base, and the ht-lheml as the defective one. After citing a number of nouns and adjectives, all closely resembling Weil¬ ls 0 ''™ forms in Hebrew and Arabic; he resumed the historical inquiry, part of which has already been con¬ sidered in a former chapter. One of the most inter¬ esting points commented on by him was the question which has been raised with regard to the idcmilication of the Kborsabad kings, and which is of paramount impor¬ tance to Assyrian chronology. It has been affirmed that the kings who built the palace of Koyunjik, and the south¬ west palace at Nimrod, were the Biblical Sennacherib and ewhaddon; and if this were the case, of course the Khorsabad kin?, who was the father of the builder of Koyunjik. would be the Shalmaneser, or Sargon of Holy Writ. Major Rawlinson does not pretend to state autho¬ ritatively that these identideations are, or are not, true; he contented himself with giving the arguments for and 74 THE RECORDS OF ASSYRIA. against, leaving others to draw their own decisions. In favour of the identification of the Khorsabad king with Shalmaneser or Sargon, there was, he remarked, firstly, the title of Sarghun attaching to the city as late as the Arab conquest; whilst the city is especially said in the inscriptions to be named after the king who built it. Secondly, the presumed synchronism of the king with Bocchoris, king of Egypt, who was the immediate prede¬ cessor of Sabacon, or So, this latter monarch being the party with whom Hoshea, the contemporary of Shalman¬ eser, formed an alliance. Thirdly, the remarkable ac¬ cordance of the inscription on the Cyprus Stone in the Royal Museum of Berlin, with Menander’s account of the assistance rendered by Shalmaneser to the islanders in their contest with Phoenicia. With regard to the identification of the Kovunjik king with Sennacherib, Major Rawlinson noticed the reduction of Babylon, and the conquest of Sidon; and showed that the tablet at the Nahr-el Kelb might be very plausibly supposed to record the great expedition against Phoenicia and Egypt, described by Josephus. In respect to the third king of the line, the most inter¬ esting point worth mentioning, is that the two first ele¬ ments of the name are to be read Assaradon, which is almost the same as the Biblical Esarhadden. Against the identifications, Major Rawlinson noticed the entire difference of the nomenclature, the ordinary forms of these kings’ names on the monuments being, one, Arko-tsena; two, Beladonim-sha; and, three, Assar-adon- assar; and the improbability—if the kings in question were the Biblical line—of such well-known appellations as Shalmanesser and Sennacherib never being employed, the latter name in particular having been preserved by Herodotus and the Chaldee historians, as well as in Scrip¬ tures. He also observed that there are many cuneiform records TUE RECORDS OF ASSYRIA. 75 of Assyrian kings posterior to the builders of Khorsabad and Koyunjik; and these kings were evidently not less celebrated warriors than their predecessors. If then the Koyunjik line were really Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Esar-haddon, who, it might justly be asked, were the latter monarchs ? Major Rawlinson finds from the inscriptions that the south-west Palace at Nimrud has not been built, as usu¬ ally supposed, by the son of the builder of Koyunjik; but that it owed its origin to some monarch of an entirely dif¬ ferent line, who was so reckless of the ancient Assyrian glories that, in erecting his new edifice, he destroyed the elaborate annals of the builder of Khorsabad engraven on the slabs of the centre palace. This different line, he thinks, must represent the second or lower dynasty of Assyria, in which case it will be necessary to assign all the other monuments to the upper and original line. He has also noted other circumstances which he con¬ ceives to render impossible the identification of the builder of Khorsabad with Shalmaneser, or the builder of Koyunjik with Sennacherib. We shall examine, however, still further, in the suc¬ ceeding chapter, the chronological system of Assyrian history which has been already deduced from the partial, and necessarily extremely imperfect study of the newly deciphered annals of nations that perished before the dawn of the Roman power, or the rise of the civilization and arts of Greece. 7G ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. CHAPTER VI. ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY, Time moveth not! our being 'tis that moves i And we, swift gliding down life’s rapid stream, Dream of swift ages, and revolving years, Ordained to chronicle our passing days. Whitk. The utter oblivion into which the history of the capita] and kingdom of Nineveh has fallen, is one of the many singular evidences of the literal fulfilment of prophecy. The earliest profane historians furnish only the most scanty and meager records of some late struggles of this ancient Asiatic kingdom, and we are indebted for the re¬ cord of its greatest magnificence and grandeur to the same sacred annals of prophecy which foretold its doom and irretrievable overthrow. Dr. Keith remarks :—“The utter and perpetual destruction and desolation of Nineveh were foretold : ‘ The Lord will make an utter end of the place thereof. Affliction shall not rise up the second time. She is empty, and void, and waste. The Lord will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness. How has she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in !’ In the second century. Lucian, a native of a city on the banks of the Euphrates, ASSYRIAN- CHRONOLOGY. 77 testified thAt Nineveh was utterly perished,—that there was no vestige of it remaining.—and that none could tell where once it was situate. This testimony of Lucian, and the lapse of many age*, during which the place was not known where it stood, render it at least somewhat doubtful whether the remains of an ancient city, opposite to Mosul, which have been described as such by travel* lers ’ be indeed those of ancient Nineveh. The name however, was attached to the spot by the inhabitants of the conn try in the beginning of the seventh centurv. The battle of Nineveh decided the fate of Chosroes. Its locality is thus described by Gibbon:—‘The Romans boldly advanced from the Araxes to the Tigris, and the timid prudence of Rhazates was content to follow them by forced marches through a desolate countrv, till he re¬ ceived a peremptory mandate to risk the fate'of Per«ia in a decisive battle. Eastward of the Tigris, at the end of the bridge of Mosul, the great Nineveh had formerly been erected: the city, and even the mins of the city, had long since disappeared: the vacant space afforded a spacious field for the operation of the two armies.’ The creat city had become * the field’ of Nineveh. An utter rain had been made of it at once; affliction did not rise up a second time. 1 One thing is sufficiently obvious to the most careless observer.’ says Rich, who was himself i most careful observer, ‘which is, the equality of a~e of ill these vestiges. Whether they belonged to Nineveh jr some, other city, is another question, and one not so asily determined; but that they are all of the same age ind character does not admit of a doubt.’ 1 Potterv. and ■fher Babylonian fragments’—‘ fragments of cuneiform inscriptions on stone, similar in every respect to those rot at Babylon,’ are found in the mounds that constitute he rains. In contrasting the then existing great and in- reasmg population, and the accumulating wealth of the >roud inhabitants of the mighty Nineveh, with the utter 78 ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. ruin that awaited it.—the word of God, (before whom all the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers), by Nahum, was—‘ Make thyself many as the canker-worm, make thyself many as the locusts. Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the canker- worm spoileth and fleeth away. Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers which camp in the hedges in the cold day; but when the sun riseth, they flee away; and their place is not known where they are,’ or were. Whether these words imply that even the site of Nineveh would in future ages be uncer¬ tain or unknown, or as they rather seem to intimate, that every vestige of the palaces of its monarchs, of the great¬ ness of its nobles, and of the wealth of its numerous mer¬ chants, would wholly disappear; the truth of the prediction cannot be invalidated under either interpretation. The avowed ignorance respecting Nineveh, and the oblivion which passed over it, for many an age, conjoined with the meagreness of evidence to identify it still, prove that the place was long unknown where it stood, and that even now it can scarcely with certainty be determined. And, if the only spot that bears its name, or that can be said to be the place where it was, be indeed the site of one of the most extensive of cities on which the sun ever shone, and which continued for many centuries to be the capital of Assyria,—the ‘ principal mounds,’ few in num¬ ber, in many places overgrown with grass, ‘ resemble the mounds left by intrenchments and fortifications of ancient Eoman camps,’ and the appearances of other mounds and ruins, less marked than even these, extending for ten miles, and widely spread, and seeming to be ‘ the wreck of former buildings,’ show that Nineveh is left without one monument of royalty, without any token or memorial of its ancient splendour and magnificence; and so entirely are the very vestiges of the city in many places swept away, that of a large space which the plough has passed ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. 79 over for ages, it is said, 1 what part was covered by anci¬ ent Nineveh it is nearly now impossible to ascertain.’ ‘The country,’ ‘this uneven country,’ are epithets de¬ scriptive of its supposed site. ‘ In such a country it is not easy to say what are ruins and what are not; what is art converted by the lapse of ages into a semblance of nature, and what is merely nature broken by the hand of time into ruins approaching in their appearance those of art.’ Of the merchants, that were multiplied above the stars of heaven—of the crowned and of the captains of the great Nineveh, it may be said, that they were as the great grasshoppers, which, camping in the hedges in a cold day, flee away on the rising of the sun, and their place is not known where they were. Neither from the low grounds, covered with bushes of tamarisk, where it is not cultivated, nor from the high country completely covered with pebbles, could it be known where the nobles of Nineveh were.” Thus comprehensive is the testimony of Volney, an avowed intidel, to the like effect:—“The name of Nineveh, seems to be threatened with the same oblivion which has overtaken its greatness.” The pious author of the Evidences of Prophecy, taking his ideas of the disclosures of recent investigations amid the ruins of Assyria, from the first impressions formed on the arrival of the fruits of M. Botta’s explorations, at their Parisian destination, concludes that in these ex¬ humed sculptures and inscriptions, we look once more upon the palaces of Nineveh, of which the prophet ex¬ claims, “ their place is not known where they are." This however, we have already shown, has been proved by more recent investigations to be an erroneous conclu¬ sion. The palaces of Nineveh still lie beneath their heaps, though it is not improbable that from these also may soon be drawn forth evidences of the glory, and the errible fall of that mighty city, which once experienced so singularly the long-suffering mercy of God. 80 ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. Leaving, however, for the present the sacrecf records of the Assyrian metropolis, we return to the valuable chronological system which has already been deduced from Dr. Layard’s and Major Eawlinson’s recent investi¬ gations. In the valuable communications which the latter laid before successive meetings of the Eoyal Asiatic Society, he showed from Herodotus, and other authorities, the probability 7 of the Assyrian monarchy dating from the commencement of the thirteenth century before the Christian era; and he proposed, accordingly, to place the six kings recorded at Nimrud from about B.c. 1250 to about B.c. 1100. The wars described upon the beau¬ tiful inscribed obelisk, now in the British Museum, dur¬ ing which the Assyrian arms certainly penetrated to the confines of Egypt, thus fall in with the latter part of the 20th dynasty, when Egypt was suffering under great de¬ pression. A vast number of geopraphical coincidences seem to corroborate this chronology. An interval of perhaps seventy years appears to have occurred between the grandson of the king, whose deeds are recorded on the obelisk, and the builder of Khorsabad ; the reign of the latter is thus placed in about b.c. 1030, at a period when Pe-hur, the fifth king of the 21st dynasty, was reigning in Egypt. The Koyunjik king is believed by Major Eawlinson to be contemporary with Solomon; and his son, Asser-adon-asser, with Eeheboam and Sheshonk of Egypt; while he supposes we have yet to identify the monuments of the Assyrian kings, who contracted alli¬ ances with the 22nd dynasty of Egypt, as well as those familiar to us from Scripture history. We thus see that the fields of study and of discovery are both alike only opening upon us, and neither the his¬ torian, nor the interpreter of prophecy must be in too great haste to rush to conclusions, which future disclo¬ sures may very* speedily compel him to abandon. It ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. 81 need not surprise us if we find the Jews occupying as little share of the Assyrian, as of the Egyptian records It was no part of the scheme of providence, that his chosen people should rival in splendour, or extent of con¬ quests, the Gentile nations around them. Under Solo¬ mon alone did the Hebrew nation rise to a position of worldly power and grandeur, which enabled it to deal on equal terms with Tyre and Egypt. But that glory was short-lived, and proved only a prelude to dismemberment and intestine war. Major Rawlinson conceives that the Jews were always classed by the Assyrians with the Khetta, or Hittites, who were the dominant race in Pales¬ tine. He showed in the course of his communications to the Asiatic Society, the probability of Jerusalem being mentioned as a city of the Khetta; and stated that it was even possible the children of Israel might be represented in the earlier inscriptions by the “ twelve tribes of the upper and lower country,” who were always associated with the Hiuites in the notices of the wars of Assyria against Hamath and Atesh. Here, therefore we have a most valuable field of investigation for the students of Assyrian antiquities, in relation to their bearing on the elucidation of Scripture history. Amongst numerous subjects of great interest, to which the same ingenious Asiatic scholar referred, he parti¬ cularly drew attention to the various notices of Misr, or Egypt, translating the passages which referred to that country verbatim, and explaining that the city R£-bek, which was always spoken of as the chief place in the country, was the Biblical On, the Greek Heliopolis, the name being formed of Bd, the sun, and bek, (Coptic bald) a city, in the same manner as Baal-bek, or the city of the sun ; and here it may be noted that it is questionable, if Bel or Baal, should so much be regarded as the name of a special object of idolatrous worship, as an epithet for gods in general, of the male sex. That this is no new F 82 ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. idea, is shown by the passage already introduced, at the head of a former chapter, from the Paradise Lost:—- “With those came they, who from the bordering flood Of old Euphrates, to the brook that parts Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names Of Baalim, and Ashtarotli; those male, These feminine.” It is manifestly as a term generally applying to ido¬ latry that the prophet Ilosea speaks of, Israel’s services to Baal, and the days of Baalim. This opinion has been recently revived with much ability, by Mr. Ackerman, a distinguished English archaeologist. It is possible, how¬ ever, that the term should rather be understood as syno¬ nymous with the Latin Jupiter, or chief of the gods, which came, in a certain sense to be very generally ap¬ plied, as Jove still is occasionally in a frivolous or pro¬ fane sense, as an abstract term for the Deity. On this subject Dr. Layard remarks, in reference to a curious symbol of the Deity of frequent occurrence on the Assy¬ rian sculptures: ‘‘This well-known symbol constantly occurs on the walls of Persepolis, and on Persian monu¬ ments of the Achsemenian dynasty, as that of the supreme divinity. It is also seen in the bas-reliefs of Pterium, and furnishes additional evidence in support ot the Assyrian or Persian origin of those rock-sculptures, and of the Assyrian influence on Asia Minor. “We may conclude from the prominent position always given to this figure in the Nimroud sculptures, and from its occurrence on Persian monuments as the representa¬ tion of Ormuzd, that it was also the type of the supreme deity amongst the Assyrians. It will require a more thorough knowledge of the contents of the inscriptions than we at present possess, to determine the name by which the divinity was known. It may be conjectured, however, that it was Baal, or some modification of a name which was that of the great god amongst nearly all na- •sno.nmi id ji, ukuiu ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. 83 tions speaking cognate dialects of the Semitic or Syro- Arabian language. According to a custom existing from time immemorial in the East, the name of the supremo deity was introduced into the names of men. This cus¬ tom prevailed from the banks of the Tigris to the Phceni- cian colonies beyond the pillars of Hercules; and we recognise in the Sardanapalus of the Assyrians, and the Hannibal of the Carthaginians, the identity of the origin of the religious system of two nations, as'widely distinct in the time of their existence, as in their geographical position. To the Jews the same name was familiar, and was applied very generally to the gods of the surrounding nations. Even under its various orthographical modifr cations, there can be no difficulty in detecting it. “ From this Baal came the Belus of the Greeks who ' was confounded with their own Zeus, or Jupiter. ’ But whether he was really the father of the founder of the ! empire, or was himself its fotmder, as some have asserted, and then came to be considered, after the fashion of the’ Greek theology, its principal deity, there may be good reason to doubt.” ° Returning, however, from this digression, Major Raw- Lnson further remarked, that he thought there were two distinct divisions of Egypt, commonly mentioned at Khorsabad, one Misr, (or, perhaps, Mitsur,) which seemed to be lower Egypt, and which was ruled over by Bi-arhu. possibly the Pe-hur of the hieroglyphs: and the other Misoc, or higher Egypt, governed by a king whose name was written Me-ta, which he thought might possibly though hardly probably, be a contraction of Menophtha. He suggested that these two divisions may represent the upper and lower country of the hieroglyphs, and that it was in consequence of the great similarity of the names that the Hebrews employed a single dual form, Misraim. At any rate, the country of Misek, which plavs so very conspicuous a part in the annals of Khorsa'bad, must 84 ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. have been contiguous to Misr , or lower Egypt, for the king Me-ta appears sometimes to have resided in Rar beh, or Heliopolis; and the two geographical names, moreover, are always associated. It should also be re¬ membered, in connexion with this, that the names Me- nophtha and Pehur follow each other in the hieroglyphic lists of the 21st dynasty. The remarkably interesting ivory relics discovered by Dr. Layard at Nineveh, had already furnished evidences of the early intercourse of Assyria with Egypt, and of their familiarity with the phonetic hieroglyphics of Egypt. Dr. Layard remarks, in reference to the ivory inscribed with a royal cartouch, “ Important facts in our inquiry may be connected with the assertion of Diodorus, that ou the taking of Nineveh by the Medes, under Arbaces, the city was destroyed; or with the usual historical account of the death of Sardanapalus, about 876 or 868 years before Christ. “The north-west palace, if already in ruins or buried, must have been partly uncovered, perhaps excavated fot materials, in the time of the Khorsabad king; because there was in one of the chambers, as I have already men¬ tioned, an inscription commencing with his name, cut above the usual standard inscription. It has every ap¬ pearance of having been placed there to commemorate the re-opening, discovery, or re-occupation of the build¬ ing. Moreover, the vases bearing the name of this king, and found in the rubbish above the chambers, must be of the same period. The ivory ornaments I conjecture to be contemporaneous with the vases, and so also most of the small objects found in the edifice. And if this fact be established, we may obtain important chronological data; for if the name in the cartouche could be satisfactorily deciphered, and identified with that of any Egyptian king, or with that of any Assyrian king whose place in history can be determined, we should be able at once to decide ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. W) the period of the reign of the Khorsabad king and hi* successors. u As the name cannot yet be determined. Mr. Birch, in a memoir read before the Koval Society of Literature, iia* endeavoured to fix the age of the ivories by 4 their artistic style, by philological peculiarities, and by the political relations between Egypt and Assyria.’ He well observes, that the style is not purely Egyptian, although it shows very close imitation of Egyptian workmanship, and this must strike any one who examines these fragments. The solar disc and plumes surmounting the cartouche, appear to have been first used in the time of the eighteenth dy¬ nasty, in the reign of Thothmes IU., and are found above the names of kings as late as the Persian occupation of Egypt. The head attire of the king bears some resem¬ blance to that of Amenophis III. at Karnak, and the kheppr, or helmet, also appears at the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty; the absence of peaked sandals, and the masses of locks of side hair, may possibly have been the fashion of the twenty-second dynasty. “ As to the evidence afforded by the philological con¬ struction, and the employment of certain letters, all the symbols, except one, appear to have been in use from the earliest period in Egypt; the exceptional symbol, the u. was introduced generally in the time of the eighteenth dynasty. Mr. Birch concludes, that the time of the twenty-second dynasty would well suit the cartouche, if stress may be laid upon certain philological peculiarities. “ TVe have next the evidence of political intercourse be¬ tween the two countries, as showing at what period it is likely that by trade or otherwise, articles of Egyptian manufacture may have been carried into Assyria, or Egyptian workmen may have sought employment in the Assyrian cities. It has already been shown that from the commencement of the eighteenth dynasty a close in¬ tercourse had already commenced,—chietly, it would ap- 86 ASSYRIAN CFIRONOI.OGY pear, by conquest: as the monuments of that period fre¬ quently allude to the subjugation of the countries on the borders of the Euphrates. But it is about the time of the twenty-first dynasty of Tanite kings, that the relations between the two countries seem to have been most fully established, and that more than a common connexion had sprung up between them. Mr. Birch has discovered, and pointed out, the remarkable evidence afforded by the names of male and female members of this and the follow¬ ing dynasty, which are evidently of Semitic, and even of Assyrian, origin. Those of many of the kings of the twenty-second or Bubastite dynasty, are the most re¬ markable instances. We have Sheshank, his sons Sha- pud and Osorchon, Nirnrot, the son of Osorchon II., Takilutha or Takellothis, Nimrot, the son of Takellothis II., and the names of queens, Lekamat or Rekamat, Karmam or Kalmim, daughter of the Prince Nimroud and Tatepor. The two first, Sheshank and Shapud, and the names of the queens, Mr. Birch shows, are not refer¬ able to Egyptian roots, but follow the analogy of Assy¬ rian names. Osorchon he identifies with the Assyrian Sargon, Nimrot with Nimrod, and Takilutha with Tiglath; a word which enters into the composition of the name of the Assyrian monarch, Tiglath Pileser. “ It is highly probable, therefore, that at this period, the reign of the twenty-second dynasty, very intimate rela¬ tions existed between Egypt and the countries to the north-east of it. Solomon had manned a daughter of an Egyptian monarch, and Jeroboam fled to the court of king Shishak. The same alliances, therefore, may have been formed between the most powerful monarchs of the time —those of Assyria and Egypt. The two countries appear then to have been at peace, and in friendly communica¬ tion ; for we have no notice in the Bible of wars between the Assyrians and Egyptians at this period, nor does Nabaraina appear amongst the numerous conquests of AUSTRIAN CTIROXOLOGT. Shishak. As their battle-ground would prohablv hav«* been some part of Syria, and the troops of one of the two nations would hare marched through the Jewish terri¬ tories, some record of the event would hare been pre¬ served by the sacred writers. The monuments of this dynasty do not contain any notice of triumphs and con¬ quest to the east of the Euphrates. During this period «f intimate alliance, the Assyrian monarch* may have adopted Effyptian names or prenomens, or may have employed Egyptian artists to record their names and titles in the sacred characters of Egypt. It is even pos¬ sible that this connexion may account for the appear¬ ance of Egyptian names in the lists of Assyrian kings. Thus the evidence afforded by the artistic style of the ! cartouches, and by their philological peculiarities, as well as by the principal period of political and commercial in¬ tercourse between the two people, appears to coincide, and ' points to the twenty-second dynasty, or 980 n. c., as the most probable period of the ivories. At the same time it must be observed that there is no argument against their | being attributed to the eighteenth dynastv." At beat, I these speculations must still partake much of conjecture; but we see in them many indications of approximation to the tmth, and may confidently anticipate the most valu¬ able results when sufficient time has been allowed to mature these recondite studies, and bring into one consis¬ tent wh le the results of diverse speculations such as those of Major Rawlinson, Dr. Layard, and Mr. Birch. Leaving then the consideration of relations of Assyria with Egypt. Major Rawlinson next proceeded to invest! gife the traces of intercourse with other nations. In noticing the campaign against Senacte, a city of TTwemria contiguous to Ashdod, or Azotns, he obsened tnat, after the place was taken, the Assyrian king gave it to Metheti of Athenni; and suggested that, as the city ° Senacte was stated in another passage to be in the 88 ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. hands of the Yavana, or Ionians, this Metheti of Athenni, might possibly be Melanthus of Athens, or, at any rate, some Athenian leader, subsequent to the immigration of the Ionic families, who, being in command of a fleet on the coast of Phoenicia, had rendered assistance to the king of Assyria in bringing the sea-ports under subjection. He then proceeded to describe all the campaigns of the Assyrian monarch in succession, furnishing much illustra¬ tion from the ancient and modern geography of the coun¬ tries between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. Upwards of one thousand names of countries, tribes, and cities, occur in these inscriptions, so that, when the re¬ cords are completely and determinately made out, a most invaluable tableau will be furnished of the political geo¬ graphy of Western Asia ten centuries before the Chris¬ tian era. Before closing his notice of the Khorsabad inscriptions, he explained some former observations, to which we have already referred in an earlier chapter, in regard to the introduction of a strong Scythic element at this period into the population of Central and Western Asia. He showed that the Sacse or Scyths, were always named Tsimri, by the Babylonians and Assyrians; and that, under the reign of the Khorsabad king, these Tsimri were to be found in almost every province of the empire con¬ stituting, in fact, as it would seem, the militia of the kingdom. Major Rawlinson further observed that he considered the Tsimri, Sacse, or Scyths, to represent the nomade ti-ibes generally, in contradistinction to the fixed peasantry and without reference to nationality, including, in fact, in their ranks, Celts, Slavonians, and Teutons, as well as all grades of the Tartar family, from the primitive type of the Fin and Magyar, to the later developed Mon¬ golian and Turk; and he added that the Zimin of J«re- rniah, associated with the Elamites and Medes, referred in all probability to the same tribes. The prophet says •' ASSYRIAN CnROXOLOGT. 89 * Then took I the cap at the Lords hand. and made all the ration* to drink, onto whom the Lord had sent me. ’ Then follows a remarkable enumeration of Judah. Egypt, Edom, Tyre, all the kings 0 f Arabia, and all the kings 0 f the mingled people that dwell in the desert; and nil th* bnyt of Zimri, and all the king, of Elam, and all ih* king* of the Med**, Much, a* wc have already said, remains to be done he- fore we can folly avail onrselvea of these important ob¬ servation* and discoveries; bat it cannot but dll the mind ot the pioos student of Scripture prophecy with the deep¬ est interest, to dnd the truths of its ancient revelations brooght thus to the test of unex|>ected historical dis¬ closures. He knows well that The Boor op Truth hAs nothing to fear in the comparison, while mnch is to be hoped for from the elucidation of many of its partiallv I understood truths, for the more perfect understanding of | which we cannot doubt but that Providence ha* reserved •uch important disclosures to our own day, a* other dis¬ coveries an i fulfillments of prophecy are reserved for later ages. At a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of London, on March 7th, 1850, Major Rawlinson exhibited the ori¬ ginal rubbing on paper of the celebrated inscriptions of >ariu* at Behistitn, and gave an interesting account of the difficulties he had to overcome in obtaining them, especially the Babylonian inscription, which was lituated’ in what even the mountain hunters consider to be an in¬ accessible spot on the rock, but which was reached hy he danng of a Tartar boy. This lan is an achievement, “ he r * marked ' of greatest importance for science, nasmuch as the Babylonian inscription alone furnishes he key to the interpretation of the language of the others, nd it is now in a condition that threatens its entire de¬ traction within probably not more than two or three gO ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. Maior Rawlinson, in concluding Ins interesting com- munitions to the Royal Asiatic S° ci ety, remarked^ “ Nations whom we have hitherto viewed through the d m medium of myth or of tradition, now take their defimte places in history; but before we can affiliate these na¬ tions on any sure ethnographical grounds; before> we can trace their progress to civilization, or their relapse into barbarism ; before we estimate the social phases through which they have passed; before we can fix their chrono¬ logy identify their monarchs, or even individualize each king’s career, mud, patient labour must be encouoterea much ingenuity must be exercised, much cate:mus bestowed on collateral as well as intrinsic exdencc and, above all, instead of the fragmentary materials which are at present alone open to our research, we must have co - secutive monumental data, extending at least rus 1 Before leaving the subject of ancient Nineveh with he inscriptions and monuments of art gathered . 1 ruins of great cities which once owned it as them ^ or disputed with it the rights and honours of the Assj nan metropolis, we are enabled, by recent communications from the East, to glance at some of the re^nt laboms Dr. Layard since his return to Nimroud, and fo ant cipa , in some degree, the important discoveries winch^wdlhjre- after be rendered available as the history and the evidences of the complete fulftlment fte r pbccic S recorded in Holy Writ. The Mowing umutiue is derived from a letter sent home by Mr sSri Erskine Eolland, late of the 69th is now at Nimroud with Dr. Layard, assisting endeavours to bring to light the Udder, antiquarian trea¬ sures of Assyria. The enterprising to”™ contend with many difficulties, owing to the limited W niary resources at his disposal, and to these refers, expressing his fears that the French antiquum ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. 91 -rnt recently despatched, with mach larger fund* (£30,000, it is stated}, will materially encroach on the harvest of antiquities which would fail to the lot of the English nation were Dr. Layard possessed of more ample means:— The first two or three days at Mcssul I spent in ex- amining the excavations at Koyunjik, where fresh slabs are being every day brought to light. Two new colossal hulls and two colossal figures were discovered while I was there, at the entrance of the city gates; and the pa\e- ment at the gateway, marked with ruts by chariot wheels, »as also uncovered. I left my wife under Mrs. Rasaam's care, and accompanied Layard a day's journey to the vil¬ lages of Daarshekah and Bamyaneh, and to the Mound ot Khorsabad. We took greyhounds with us. and had a day’s hunting, catching seven antelopes. After our re¬ turn. Dr. Layard. Charlotte, and I, and our servants, em¬ barked on a raft, and floated down the Tigris in seven honrs to this little village of Ximroud, close to the large mound, which was the first excavated, sending our bag¬ gage and horses by land. W c have since been residing tn his house here; it is, in fact, little more than a mud hut; but he has put in glass windows, a table, and some wCm, and made it as comfortable as circumstances will (idinit. Layard has placed a party of the workmen under my control, and allowed me to dig where I please. I am •inking wells in all directions, and am not without hopes y< discovering subterranean chambers, which I am con- unced must eiist. In one place considerably below the evel of any of the hitherto discovered monuments, a brick ren between two walls of brick has been uncovered; it - a puzzle to us all. Another great discovery is an im- ense stone wall of most solid masonry inside the brick yramid. The workmen are labouring to force an en- ance into it; but their progress is necessarily very slow, ot exceeding a foot or two in a day. But the greatest 92 ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY. discovery yet made since the earth was first turned, re¬ mains to be told. I will give it you in due order. “ January 3, 1850.—On the 28th of December, Lav ard and I, with our attendants and two or three Arab Sheikhs, started off to pay a visit to the Tai, on the other side of the Zab. We were the first Europeans who had ever visited that country. Three hours’ gallop¬ ing from Nimroud brought us to the banks of the stream, which is as rapid and broad as the Tigris, and nearly as deep, but here, being divided into four branches, is ford¬ able. With some difficulty we swam our horses across it, getting, of course, very wet in the operation. Our visit here has a threefold object,—first, to explore the mound of Abou Sheeta, which appears to contain a buried city; secondly, to make friends between two rival chiefs of the Tai; and, thirdly, to promote a reconciliation be¬ tween them and their implacable enemies, the Jibours, which will much faciliate Layard’s future operations. Our first visit was to the camp of the Hawar, who is con¬ sidered by all the Arabs, even by those of the great African desert, to be the highest born and noblest among them. He is probably the man of most ancient descent in the world, reckoning his genealogy far above the time of Abraham. He is supported in his pretensions to the chieftainship by the noblest of the tribe, while his rival, Feras, is supported by the Turks and the greater number of the Tai. His brother, the handsomest man I have ever seen, came out to meet us with a hundred horsemen, most of whom had come to our village to plunder the other day. They galloped madly about the plain, brandishing their lcng spears, shouting their war cry, and escorted us in great state to the camp of the Sheikh, where he stood to receive us. I never saw so noble or dignified a figure: he is eminently handsome, though advanced in years and suffering from ill-health. In stature he is gigantic—six feet four or five, at least, and erect as a pine tree. His ASSYRIA* chronoloot. 93 tent was a spacious one, a load for three camel*. with the women's tents on the one aide and that of the horses on the other, all under the same covering. Mats and cushions were spread on the door of the tent, on which the Hawar, Layard. and I sat. as did his brother, his uncle, and others of the magnates of the tribe, while the rest stood in a semicircle at the door. A noble hunting- hawk stood on his perch in the centre. We partook of spiced coffee, discussed the business on which we came, and dined in the tent on a capital stew of mutton, pump¬ kins, rice, and sour milk. After we had partaken, the rest of the tribe made their repast, a certain number sit¬ ting down together, each man rising when he was saiislied, and a sort of master of the ceremonies calling out the name of the man who was to succeed him. There was no bustle or indecorum. After dinner they all said their prayers, lie had set on our tents, which, by the wav. got very wet crossing the river, and w e pitched them riote to that of the Sheikh. The next day the encamp¬ ment changed its quarters. I have seldom seen a more picturesque sight. The Sheikh's tent was struck first, and the long procession of laden camels, horsemen, donkevs, and cattle, stretched as far as the eye could reach. I calculated that there were about two thousand persons with their camels, horses, and cattle. We paid our visit to Feras. the rival Sheikh, taking with us the brother of the Hawar. M e were well received, though not with the same dignified courtesy. While we were away the work¬ men had opened a trench, by Layard's direction, to show my wife a certain slab which he had buried; in doing so they uncovered three copper cauldrons of immense size, and some huge dishes of metal. Layard carefully re¬ moved the earth from one cauldron, which was partially filled with it, and discovered an immense variety of ivorv ornaments, an iron axe-head, and innumerable other ar- ucles, which, for the present, I must forbear to mention. 94 ASSYRIAN CHRONOLOGY'. having promised secrecy. Layard removed as many as he could and covered the rest with earth. It is by far the most important discovery that has yet been made. He has placed them under my charge, and given me the direction of the workmen, as he is obliged to go to Mossul to make preparations for the removal of the two finest colossal lions that have yet been discovered, which will, I trust, be on their way to England in a month or two. After that we shall cross the Zab with our tents, encamp there, and pass our time alternately in hunting and digging in the mound. You can have no idea of the difficulties Layard has to contend with, or the energy, talent, perseverance, and shrewdness with which he sur¬ mounts them, or the exquisite tact and good humour with which he manages the different people he has to deal with. In the first place he has nothing but conjecture to guide him in his researches ; it is literally groping in the dark, and all sorts of buried treasures may lie within his reach, while, from the very small amount of funds placed at his disposal, he is unable to make anything like a proper search, and contents himself with sinking trenches almost at hazard as it were. “ January 6.—Yesterday we removed more than thirty metal vases, bowls, and saucers, most beautifully embossed and engraved, some shields and swords, of which the handles remain alone, the iron blades being decomposed, and a small marble vase. The cups and bowls and other ornaments are of some unknown alloy of metals, but they are all so encrusted with decomposed and crystallized copper, and so fragile that they cannot be handled with¬ out great danger, and Dr. Layard is sending them home in the state in which he found them, without attempting to remove the rust. I spent eight hours yesterday scratching them out of the clay with my hands, as the operation was too delicate to allow even a knife to be used. My wife was employed the whole night in packing Austria* curoxologt. 95 ^ e m - T DOW consramUte th« British nation in ing poBieMtd of an entirely unique collection, the value of which is inestimable. The ornaments and sculpture* «i the rases denote a very advanced stage of civilization -Not the least cnnous of the discoreries are several hun .to ZSZ?"* m fon " »~Mm ~ Bat still more remarkable disclosures are since an noonced by Dr. Layard himself. Letters hare been re ceired from him giving intelligence of new and important discoveries in the Nimroud mound. He ha* made fresh »nd extensive excavations in part* of the eminence not yet explored, and the result ha* been the finding of what U beheved to be the throne upon which the Asavrian mor>- «oIen IT' ! ^ t J° US * n ' 1 *« 0 ’ “* i" s^te. in the p£d U^. Wh °^r ned h “P- •"> now being ex- plored. It is composed of metal and of ivory, the metal being nchly wrought and the ivory beautifully carved It ^ems that the throne was separated from the state apart- " *! by means ot a large curtain, the rings by which it was drawn and undrawn having been preserved. No hu- manmnains have come to light, and evervthing indicate* be«tl rU H , °? °V| he bj fire - Th * ,hr0n « »**• been partially lused by the heat; but it i* thought it cm . *0 rem»rk*tle » relic of ancient art and royal pomp. These can be regarded a* only the first fruits of the hArvest, and while it must be owned that the British .government has more important duties to perform with ;; I T JT 6 9eafCh for *"7™ sculptures m mounds of Koyunjik and Nimroud, it will be a just U should r ^ et ' l T r 40 CIp€d,tion haa be<™ ««nt out, * ^ U CnppIed ’ or r ^ d *red fruitless, from an ilL iuogea economy. 96 JERUSALEM. CHAPTER vn. JERUSALEM. It. ages past all glorious was the land, And lovely were thy borders, Palestine The heavens were wont to shed their influence bland On all those mountains and those vales of tnlne, But there survives a tinge of glory yet O’er all thy pastures and thy heights of green, Which, though the lustre of thy day hath set, Tells of the joy and splendour that hath been. Nicholas. Around the capital of Judah lingers an interest which the associations of no other scene can parallel. Amid the hills and valleys of the ancient land which the seed of Abraham inherited, the perverse and accursed seed of Canaan established their footing almost immediately after the abated flood had restored the world to the human race. The promised inheritors of the favoured land sojourned in Egypt for four hundred years, until the iniquity of the Amorites was full, and they were doomed to be extirpated, like the inhabitants of tbe plain, whose ranker crime had first ripened them for judgment. There, at the appoint¬ ed time, entered the wanderers born in the wilderness, through the dried-up bed of the Jordan, into the inheri¬ tance of their fathers. Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Rome, and other younger cities, claim indeed the world’s notice by the large field they occupy, in some respects, in its elder history. Excepting during Solomon’s glorious reign, Judah claims no part among the mighty nations of the earth, but she stands apart with a lasting glory, compared JERC5.Al.FJI. 97 with which all the associations of the “ Eternal Citv" sink into otter insignificance The feelings with which we look upon thia remark¬ able land haTe been expressed somewhat in these terms. Abstracting our thoughts from all the considerations of supernatural agency which are suggested by the inspired narrative, we still feel compelled to acknowledge that the course ot events which constitutes the history of ancient Palestine lias no parallel in any other part of the world. Filing our eye on the small district of Judah, we call to mind that, eighteen hundred years ago. there dwelt in that little region a singular people, differing from all the rest of mankind in the very important circumstance of not being idolaters. Looking around upon every other coun¬ try ot the earth at the same era, we discover superstitions of the most hateful and degrading kind darkening all the prospects of man, and corrupting his moral nature in its ' ery source. Some of these nations are seen to be far advanced in many intellectual accomplishments, yet, being ' nable to shake off the tremendous load of error by which they are pressed down, are equally irregular and caprici¬ ous in the exercise of their reason and in the application of fieir affections. Yet this little spot called Palestine is seen to be despised and scorned by those proud king¬ doms, whose wise men will not imagine that any specula tion or tenet, arising from so ignoble a quarter, ought to have the slightest influence upon their belief, or could in xny way affect the general character of their social insti¬ tutions. But, behold, while we yet muse over this in- I reresting scene, a Teacher springs up among this people, —hunself not less contemned by his countrymen than hey were by the warlike Romans and the philosophic Greeks, whose doctrines, notwithstanding, continued to r»m ground on every hand, till at last the proud monu- nents of pagan superstition, consecrated by the worship f a thousand years, and supported by the authority of O 98 JERUSALEM. the most powerful monarchies in the world, fall one after another, at the teaching of his disciples, and before the prevailing efficacy of the new faith. A little stone be¬ comes a mountain, and fills the whole earth. Judea swells in its dimensions till it covers half of the globe, carrying captivity captive, not by force of arms, but by the progress of opinion and the power of truth. All the nations of Europe in successive ages,—Greek, Roman, Barbarian,—glory in the name of the humble Galilean; armies, greater than those which Babylon, in the pride of her ambition, led forth to conquest, are seen swarming into Asia, with the sole view of ejecting the maintainers of another creed, and getting possession of his supposed sepulchre. The effects, too, produced on society, exceed all cal¬ culation. It is vain that we attempt to compare them to revolutions which have changed for a time the face of nations, or given a new dynasty to ancient empires. The impression made by such events soon passes away. The present condition of the world is not greatly different from what it might have been, though Alexander had never been born, and Julius Caesar had perished in his cradle. But the occurrences that enter into the history of Palestine possess an influence on human affairs which lias no other limits than the existence of the species. The greatest nations upon earth trace their happiness and civilization to the benign principles and lofty sanc¬ tions of the faith to which it gave birth. Science, free¬ dom, and security, attend its progress among all conditions of men; raising the low, befriending the unfortunate, giving strength to justice, and breaking the rod of the oppressor. Nor is the subject of less interest to the pious Chris¬ tian, who confines his thoughts to the momentous tacts which illustrate the early annals of his religion. His affections are bound to Palestine by the strongest associ- JERUSALEM. PD I ations; and every portion of its varied territory, its moun¬ tains, its lakes,—and even its deserts,—are consecrated in liis eyes as the scene of some mighty occurrence. His fancy clothes with qualities almost celestial that holy ! l*nd, “ Otct whose Knt w»;knl those blessed feet. Which eighteen hwxtrrd j e**n ifo were tuUl'J For our sdraatsae on the bluer cross." These momentous associations serve to conceal from ns j the astonishing history of this most remarkable city, even since old Hebrew rites were brought to a close, and the ! sceptre finally departed from Judah. Yet what other city in the world can compare with it even in the later vicissitudes of its history; its siege by Titus; its rebuild¬ ing by the Romans; the attempted rebuilding of its temple, and the wondrous arrest of the impious attempt. The ware of the Saracens, Crusaders, and Mahomedans; the pilgrimages of medieval superstition, of Hebrew piety, and of Mahometant zeal, have all marked it out as the most remarkable of cities even in those later centuries of the world’s history which belong to the Christian era. The facilities of modem civilization have removed nearly every difficulty which once made pilgrimage to i Jerusalem so formidable. Travellers can, in a few weeks, explore the whole of the antiquities of Syria and Pala¬ tine, and return to publish the narrative of their travels i for the succeeding season's readers. Yet while such facilities have destroyed the novelty and lessened the ro¬ mance of what was once a sacred pilgrimage, supposed to secure to him who accomplished it eternal rewards, while it gave to him special favour and distinction in the eyes of his less daring or less fortunate contemporaries: i yet the destruction of the novelty of a visit to Jerusalem lias in no degree impaired the wondrous interest whicti still clings to the hallowed scenes- liuw memorable are the associations which rise to the 100 JERUSALEM. mind of the Christian at the very name of Jerusalem. Within its walls David, the psalmist, the sweet singer of Israel, composed the songs still sung in every Christian land. There Solomon built and dedicated that first temple, within whose holy place the Most High conde¬ scended to manifest his presence. There Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and nearly all the prophets and mighty men of Old Testament history dwelt, triumphed, or suffered. There, at length, in the fulness of time, the angel of God appeared to the high priest, Zecharias, and announced to him that he should have a son, who should be the fore¬ runner of our Great High Priest, the long-expected Messiah. Within its temple the Holy Child first mani¬ fested his divine wisdom, disputing with the doctors. Within its streets his most mighty acts were performed; and in an upper chamber there that solemn sacramental rite was instituted, which Christians of every succeeding age have practised in obedience to his commandment, and in remembrance of his dying love; and, finally, Jerusalem is the city over which Jesus wept, as he ex¬ claimed, “ 0 Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” But not less distinguished in her overthrow than in all other respects is the glorious but doomed city of Zion, in that her destruction was the type and prefigure- ment of the final close of our world’s being, when these elements shall melt with fervent heat. “ In patience possess your souls,” said Christ, addressing his disciples, and forewarning them of the approaching fulfilment of ancient prophecy, “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that, the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains ; and let them which are in the midst of JERUSALEM. 101 it depart out: and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away cap¬ tive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your re¬ demption draweth nigh.” All that is here foretold of the Jewish capital literally came to pass, and all that was forewarned of its people is being still accomplished. The time of the Gentiles is not yet fulfilled, and mount Zion, once i: beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth,” is still trodden down of the Gentiles, after nearly eighteen hundred years have passed over its fallen palaces and walls, whose stones are still dear to the outcast Hebrew. Immortalized by revolutions more various and destruc¬ tive than have occurred in any other city of the world, Jerusalem claims a sad pre-eminence in suffering, as once she did in glory. Seventeen times has it been sacked and partially destroyed. It has been the field of the most, brilliant exploits of the Jewish, Roman, and Sara¬ cen armies, and has been moistened by the blood of our ancestors during the romantic ages of the Crusades. “ During the reign of Nero, the Jews having revolted, 102 JERUSALEM. the city was invested by Titus, and having desperately sustained the most remarkable siege in history, from the 14th of April to the 2d of September, in the year A. D. 71, it was taken, and, together with the temple, plundered and burnt. The Jews, after having courageously de¬ fended the third and second walls, fell back upon the fortress Antonia which commanded the temple. Torn into factions among themselves, they fought madly against each other, whilst the Romans burned and laid waste the outer and lower cities of Bezetha and Acra; but Titus, after great labour, having brought the war-engines to bear upon this fortress, the Jews were ultimately driven back upon the temple itself. The principal tower having fallen, the northern portico of the temple was left de¬ fenceless. Titus, commanding in person, was anxious to save it, but, on the seventh day after the Romans had taken possession of Antonia, the outer portico having caught fire, the temple itself, together with the magnifi¬ cent porticos by which it was surrounded, was totally de¬ stroyed. Being the Feast of the Passover, the city was crowded with people, and Josephus, who was present, relates that six hundred thousand perished of famine, one million by the sword, and ninety-seven thousand were sent away prisoners. The young, with the women, were sold for slaves, and thirty might be bought for a piece of silver.” One of our most eminent painters, Mr. David Roberts, has recently chosen the scene of the conflagration of Je¬ rusalem as the subject of a large and most magnificent picture. The Roman legions encompass the doomed city; and already the overwhelming conflagration rages within its walls, lurid clouds overhang the temple and palaces of Zion, and the spectator seems, as he gazes on the advancing flames, to hear, as for the last time, the Touching woi'ds: “ Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark well her bulwarks, consider her palaces.” Few more interest- JERUSALEM. 103 ins or remarkable pictures have been produced by a living artist. Dr. Keith, in pointing out the exact fulfilment of every tittle of ancient prophecy in this awful overthrow, after referring to the horrors of the famished wretches withir. the walls—too horrible to read—thus depicts this final scene :—“ Sixty thousand Roman soldiers unremittingly besieged them ; they encompassed Jerusalem with a wall, and hemmed them in on every side; they brought down their high and fenced walls to the ground; they slaugh¬ tered the slaughterers, they spared not the people; they burned the temple in defiance of the commands, the threats, and the resistance of their general. With it the last hope of all the Jews was extinguished. They raised, at the sight, an universal but an expiring cry of sorrow and despair. Ten thousand were there slain, and six thousand victims were enveloped in its blaze. The whole city, full of the famished dying, and of the murdered dead, presented no picture but that of despair, no scene but of horror. The aqueducts and the city sewers were crowded as the last refuge of the hopeless. Two thousand were found dead there, and many were dragged from thence and slain. The Roman soldiers put all indiscriminately to death, and ceased not till they became faint and weary and overpowered with the work of destruction. But they only sheathed the sword to light the torch. They set fire to the city in various places. The flames spread everywhere, and were checked but for a moment by th6 red streamlets in every street. Jerusalem became heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. Within the circuit of a few miles, in the space of five months,—foes and famine, pillage and pestilence, within,—a triple wall around, and besieged every moment from without,—eleven hundred thousand human beings perished, though the tale of each of them was a tragedy. Wa3 there ever so concentrated a mass of misery ? Could 104 JERUSALEM. any prophecy be more faithfully and awfully fulfilled: The prospect of his own crucifixion, when Jesus was on his way to Calvary, was not more clearly before him, and seemed to affect him less, than the fate of Jerusalem. How full of tenderness, and fraught with truth, was the sympathetic response of the condoling sufferer to the wailings and lamentations of the women who followed him, when he turned unto them and beheld the city, which some of them might yet see wrapt in flames and drenched in blood, and said, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in which they will say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.’ ” Babylon, Nineveh, and the mighty cities of Assyria, are all buried under their heaps, but Jerusalem lives on, reserved for other and brighter days. She, too, it may be, holds buried treasures that shall yet be disinterred, to add new evidence to all that has been already yielded, though “ Titus commanded the whole city and temple to be razed from the foundation. The soldiers were not then disobedient to their general. Avarice combined with duty and with resentment: the altar, the temple, the walls, and the city, were overthrown from the base, in search of the treasures which the Jews, beset on every hand by plunderers, had concealed and buried during the siege. Three towers and the remnant of a wall alone stood, the monument and memorial of Jerusalem; and the city was afterwards ploughed over by Terentius Ru¬ fus.” The Roman ploughshare tore up the very foundations of the temple, leaving no longer one stone upon another, and the triumphal arch of Titus, erected at Rome in com¬ memoration of the destruction of Jerusalem, still stands in evidence of the captured spoils of the last temple, wherein the desire of all nations had appeared, making JERUSALEM. 105 the glory of the latter house greater than the former Sculptured on this memorial of the triumph of Titus, are still seen the Roman soldiers, bearing on their shoulders the seven-branched candlestick, and the holy vessels ot the temple. Yet much may, and indeed must, have escaped the search of the Roman treasure-seekers, for Jerusalem was made heaps, even as Babylon and Nineveh. Rome, a younger city than Palestine’s ancient capital, bears abundant evidence of the changes wrought on a city set upon hills in the lapse of ages, the ancient re¬ mains which now exist, have mostly been dug out far beneath the ruins of her modem dwellings; and even since the expulsion of the present pope from the Roman capital, and its occupation by the soldiers of France, some very remarkable discoveries have been made. But great as the vicissitudes have been to which Rome has been ex¬ posed at different periods, they can never stand compari¬ son with those of Jerusalem. The Romans, the Saracens, the Christian Crusaders, and the Turks, have each rebuilt a city of their own on the ancient site, in heedlessness or wilful contempt of all the work of their predecessors; and if, amid the vicissitudes of Roman history such a total change has taken place on the topography of the seven- hilled city, how vain must it be to imagine that the modem Turkish capital of Syria retains unaltered, after a lapse of eighteen centuries, features which characterized it in the day3 of the Redeemer. But a complete confirmation of these observations has recently been recorded. Amid the earnest and increasing interest felt in the ancient land of Palestine, the chosen people to whom it belonged of old have not been forgot¬ ten by the Christians of Britain. Missionaries have of late years returned to Jerusalem, bearing the message of glad tidings which once went, forth from thence to the Gentiles; and during the visit of Mr. Bonar and Mr. M‘Cheyne, two clergymen of the Church of Scotland, sent 106 JERUSALEM. to Jerusalem on a mission of inquiry in 1839, one of the novelties which struck them in that strange city, was rows of camels following one another, carrying stones into the town from a quarry a few miles to the north of Jeru¬ salem, and designed for materials wherewith to build a Hebrew Christian church. In a letter of Mr. Nicolay- son, the English missionary to the Jews of Palestine, published in the Jewish Intelligence for April 1840, he describes the protracted excavations made in digging for a foundation for the new church. They laid bare heap after heap of the debris of ancient buildings, and it was not till they had dug upwards of fifty feet under the modern surface of Jerusalem that they reached the an¬ cient foundations on which the city of Judah was built. The Rev. Mr. Bonar, who was there while these excava¬ tions were in progress, remarks: “ In seeking a solid foundation they had dug down about forty feet, and had not yet come to rock. They laid bare heap after heap of rubbish and ancient stones. It is a remarkable fact, which cannot but strike the traveller, that not only on mount Zion, but in many parts of the city, the modern town is really built on the rubbish of the old. The heaps of ancient Jerusalem are still remaining; indu¬ rated masses of stones and rubbish forty and fifty feet deep in many places. Truly the prophets spoke with a divine accuracy when they said, ‘Jerusalem shall be¬ come heaps.’ ‘I will make Jerusalem heaps.’ And if so, shall not the future restoration foretold by the same lips be equally literal and full ?' ‘ The city shall be builded upon her own heap.’ The fact that these heaps of ruins are of so great depth, suggested to us a literal interpreta¬ tion of the words of Jeremiah, ‘ Her gates are sunk into the ground.’ The ancient gates mentioned by Nehemiah are no longer to be found, and it is quite possible that several of them may be literally buried below the feet of the inquiring traveller.” ?' JERUSALEM. 107 TYho shall say what interesting memorials may yet be brought to light from beneath the foundations of modern Jerusalem? A lively sympathy is experienced by every intelligent mind in the researches of Dr. Layard and Major Rawlinson among buried palaces and temples of Assyria, but how would the heart thrill with emotions of deepest interest and high anticipation, if it were possible to conduct such researches on the site of the Tempie, or amid the vast accumulations of debris that now fill up the ancient valleys once intervening between the heights on which Jerusalem stood! But even now, the intelligent traveller can discover remains which appear undoubtedly to belong to the city, against which Titus led the aveng¬ ing legions of Rome. Dr. Robinson, the distinguished American traveller, furnishes in his “ Biblical Researches in Palestine,” a most interesting and minute account of the topography of Jerusalem and its environs, compar¬ ing and contrasting them with the features of the ancient city, as described by Josephus. He thus describes the result of his investigation of the walls of the modern city adjoining the site of the Great Mosque, which has always been held, both by Jew and Gentile, to occupy the site of Solomon’s Temple:—“The lower part of this wall in seve¬ ral places is composed of very large hewn stones, which at once strike the eye of the beholder as ancient; as being at least as old as the time of Herod, if not of Solomon. The upper part of the wall is every where obviously modem ; as is the whole wall in many places. The Golden Gate, which once led out from the area of the mosque upon this side, is now walled up. Near the north-east comer of this area, towards St. Stephen’s Gate, we measured one of the large stones in the wall, and found it twenty-four feet long, by six feet broad and three feet high. Just north of the same gate is a small tank or reservoir on the outside; and within the gate, on the left hand, is the very large and deep reservoir, to which the name of Bethesdais commonly 108 JERUSALEM. given, though probably without good reason. It is en¬ tirely dry; and large trees grow at the bottom, the tops of which do not reach the level of the street. North of this, a little to the right of the street, is the dilapidated church of St. Anne, over the grotto which is shown as the birthplace of the Virgin. The church has pointed arches; and was obviously the work of the crusaders. We now returned home along the Via Dolorosa, in which monkish tradition has brought together the scenes of all the events, historical or legendary, connected with the crucifixion. Along this way, they say, our Saviour bore his cross. Here one may see, if he pleases, the place where the Saviour, fainting under his burden, leaned against the wall of a house; and the impression of his shoulder remains unto this day. Near by are also pointed out the houses of the rich man and Lazarus in the parable. To judge from present appearances, the beggar was quite as well lodged as his opulent neighbour. But enough of these absurdities!” It is not, indeed, from the monkish traditions, attaching spurious and childish associations to its localities, that the intelligent mind is likely to derive pleasure or interest from a visit to Jerusalem. These are rather felt to be like the hackneyed and foolish tales of some ignorant cice¬ rone, which mar the pleasure with which we gaze on an ancient palace, or tread the dim aisles of a venerable cathedral. But when we know not only that the ground is the site of the ancient city, in which our Saviour’s mighty mission was accomplished, but can discover that it still retains, from amid the wrecks of its former gran¬ deur, relics of that very Jerusalem over which he wept, we feel that scarce another spot on earth can have the same power over the thoughtful mind. Resuming the 1 subject in a subsequent portion of his interesting Re searches, Dr. Robinson remarks :—“ Allusion has already been made to the immense size of the stones, which com- JERUSALEM. 1C9 pose in part the external walls of the enclosure of the mosque. The upper part of these walls is obviously of modem origin; but to the most casual observer it cannot be less obvious, that these huge blocks which appear only in portions of the lower part, are to be referred to an ear¬ ner date. The appearance of the walls in almost every part seems to indicate that they have been built upon ancient foundations; as if an ancient and far more massive wall had been thrown down, and in later times a new one erected upon its remains. Hence the line between these lower antique portions and the modern ones above them is very irregular, though it is also very distinct. The former, in some parts, are much higher than in others: I and occasionally the breaches in them are filled out with I later patchwork. Sometimes, too, the whole wall is mo- j dem. It is not, however, the great size of these stones alone which arrests the attention of the beholder, but the i manner in which they are hewn gives them also a peculiar character. In common parlance they are said to be bevel- I led; which here means, that after the whole face has first been hewn and squared, a narrow strip along the edges is cut down a quarter or half an inch lower than the rest of the surface. When these bevelled stones are laid up in a wall, the face of it of course exhibits lines or grooves formed by these depressed edges at their junction, mark¬ ing more distinctly the elevation of the different courses, | as well as the length of the stones of which they are com¬ posed. The face of the wall has then the appearance of many panels. The smaller stones in other parts of the walls are frequently bevelled in like manner; except that in these, only the bevel or strip along the edge is cut smooth, while the remainder of the surface is merely broken off or rough-hewn. In the upper parts of the ' wall, which are obviously the most modern, the stones are small and are not bevelled. At the first view of these walls. I was led to the persuasion, that the lower portions 110 JERUSALEM. Lad belonged to the ancient temple; and every subse¬ quent visit only served to strengthen this conviction. The size of the stones and the heterogeneous character ot the walls, render it a matter beyond all doubt, that the former were never laid in their present places by the Ma¬ hometans ; and the peculiar form in which they are hewn does not properly belong, so far as I know either to Sara¬ cenic or to Roman architecture. Indeed, every thing seems to point to a Jewish orign; and a discovery whic we made in the course of our. examination reduces this hypothesis to an absolute certainty. « During our first visit to the south-west corner of the area of the mosque occupying the site of the temp e, we observed several of the large stones jutting out from the western wall, which at first sight seemed to be the effect of a bursting of the wall from some mighty shock or earth¬ quake. We paid little regard to this at the moment, oui attention being engrossed by other objects; but on men¬ tioning the fact not long after in a circle of our friends, found that they also had noticed it; and the remark w incidentally dropped, that the stones had the appearance of having once belonged to a large arch Atthisiema a train of thought flashed upon my mind, which I bardly dared to follow out, until I had again repaired to the spot, in order to satisfy myself with my own eyes, as to th truth or falsehood of the suggestion. I found it even ■ The courses of these immense stones, which seeme first to have sprung out from their places in t e wa i consequence of some enormous violence, occupy never¬ theless their original position; their externa su ac hewn to a regular curve; and being fitted one upon a other, they form the commencement or foot of an im¬ mense arch, which once sprung out from this western wall in a direction towards Mount Zion, across the Valley ot the Tyropceon. This arch could only have helnnged the Bridge, which, according to Josephus, led fr JERUSALEM. Itl part of the temple to the Xystus on Zion; and it proves incontestibly the antiquity of that portion of the wall front which it springs. The traces of this arch are too distinct and definite to be mistaken. Its southern side is thirrv- nine English feet distant from the south-west comer of the area, and the arch itself measures fifty-one feet along the wall. Three courses of its stones still remain; of which one is five feet four inches thick, and the others not much less. One of the stones is twenty feet six inches long; another twenty-four feet six inches; and the rest in like proportion. The part of the curve or arc which remains is of course but a fragment; but of this fragment the chord measures twelve feet six inches; the sine eleven teet ten inches; and the cosine three feet ten inches. The distance from this point across the valley to the pre¬ cipitous natural rock of Zion, we measured as exactly as the intervening field of prickly pear would permit, and found it to be 350 feet, or about 116 yards. This gives the proximate length of the ancient bridge. We sought carefully along the brow of Zion for traces of its western termination, but without success. That quarter is now covered with mean houses and filth; and an examination can be carried on only in the midst of disgusting sights and smells. The existence of these remains of the ancient bridge seems to remove all doubt as to the identity of this part of the enclosure of the mosque with that of the an¬ cient temple. How they can have remained for so many ages unseen or unnoticed by any writer or traveller, is a problem which I would not undertake fully to solve. One cause has probably been the general oblivion, or want of knowledge, that any such bridge ever existed. It is men¬ tioned by no writer but Josephus; and even by him only incidentally, though in five different places. The bridge was doubtless broken down in the general destruction of the city; and was in later ages forgotten by the Christian population, among whom the writings of Josephus were 112 JERUSALEM. little known. For a like reason, we may suppose its le- mains to have escaped the notice of the crusaders and the pilgrims of the following centuries. Another cause which has operated in the case of later travellers, is probably the fact, that the spot is approached only through narrow and crooked lanes, in a part of the city whither their mo¬ nastic guides did not care to accompany them; and which they themselves could not well, nor perhaps safely, ex¬ plore alone.” Dr. Eobinson conceives that some of these remains of Jewish antiquity not only belong to the period of our Saviour’s earthly pilgrimage, but that they are not im¬ probably the work of Solomon,—the massive walls, “ im¬ moveable for all time,” which the Jewish king built as the foundations, on which the stones of the temple were laid. The modern Jew, who still clings, as his fathers did, to the stones and to the very dust of Jerusalem, have long regarded this portion of the walls as specially associated with its ancient glory. The Eev. Mr. Bonar, the Scottish missionary, who visited Palestine subsequently to the re¬ searches of Dr. Eobinson, thus describes a scene which he witnessed, when proceeding to examine these ancient remains, on which the speculations of the intelligent American traveller have conferred such lively interest:— “ Towards evening, we visited that part of the old temple wall to which the Jews are allowed to go that they may pray and weep over the glory that is departed. It is a part of the western enclosure of the Haram, and the access to it is by narrow and lonely streets. The Jew who was our guide, on approaching the massy stones, took off his shoes and kissed the wall. Every Friday evening, when the Jewish Sabbath begins, some Jews maybe found here deeply engaged in prayer; for they believe that prayer still goes up with most acceptance before God, when breathed through the crevices of. that building of which Jehovah said, 1 Mine eyes and my heart shall be there JERUSALEM. 113 perpetually.’ This custom they have maintained for cen turies, realizing the prophetic words of Jeremiah, ‘Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.’ AVe counted teu courses of those massy stones oue above another. One of them measured fifteen feet long by three broad; another was eight feet square ; others farther south were twenty-four feet long. 1 hey are bevelled like the immense stones of the mosque at Hebron, and are of a very white limestone resembling marble. Some of them are worn smooth with the tears and kisses of the men of Israel. Above the large stones the wall is built up with others smaller and more irregular, and is evidently of a modem date, affording a complete contrast to the ancient building below. Later in the evening, Mr. M'Chevne went to visit the same spot, guided by Mr. George Dalton. On the way, they passed the houses where the lepers live all together, to the east of the Zion Gate within the walls. A little farther on, the heaps of rubbish on Mount Zion, surmounted by prickly pear, were so great, that at one point they stood higher than the city wall. The view of Mount Olivet from this point is very beautiful. The dome of the mosque El Ak>a appeared to be torn and decayed in some places, and even that of the Mosque of Omar seemed far from being splen¬ did. Going along by the ancient valley of the Tyropoeon, and passing the gate called by the monks the Dung Gate, now shut up, Mr. Dalton pointed out in the wall of the Haram, near the south-west comer, the singular traces of an ancient arch, which Professor Eobinson had discovered to be the remains of the bridge from the temple to Mount Zion, mentioned frequently by Josephus, and remarkable as a work of the highest antiquity. The stones in the temple wall that form the spring of this ancient bridge are of enormous size. This interesting discovery goes to prove H 114 JERUSALEM. that the large bevelled stones, which form the foundation of the present enclosure of the Haram in so many parts, are really the work of Jewish hands, and the remains of the outer wall of the temple of Solomon. Neither is this conclusion in the least contradictory to the prophecy of our Lord. ‘ There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down,’ for these dreadful words were spoken in reference to the temple itself, which was ‘adorned with goodly stones and giftsand they have been fearfully fulfilled to the very letter, for the Mosque of Omar, entirely a Moslem building, stands upon the rock of Moriah, probably on the very spot where the temple stood. The Jewish place of wailing is a little to the north of this ancient bridge. Here they found a young Jew sitting on the ground. His turban, of a grey¬ ish colour peculiar to the Jews here, shaded a pale and thoughtful countenance. His prayer-book was open be¬ fore him, and he seemed deeply engaged. Mr. Dalton acting as interpreter, he was asked what it was he was reading. He showed the book, and it happened to be the 22cl Psalm. Struck by this providence, Mr. M'Cheyne read aloud till he came to the 16th verse, ‘ They pierced my hands and my feetand then asked, ‘ Of whom speak- eth the prophet this?’ The Jew answered, ‘Of David and all his afflictions.’ 1 But David’s hands and feet were not pierced !’ The Jew shook his head. The true inter¬ pretation was then pointed out to him, that David was a prophet, and wrote these things of Immanuel, who died for the remission of the sins of many. He made the sign with the lip which Easterns make to show that they de¬ spise what you are saying. ‘ Well, then, do you know the way of forgiveness of which David speaks in the 32d Psalm?’ The Jew shook'his head again. For here is the grand error of the Jewish mind, ‘ The way of peace they have not known.’ ” Such then is the modern Jew, and the desolate city to JERUSALEM. 115 vhiek he still clings with such blind yet heart-felt sorrow. What it shall be, who shall say? The restoration of Judah to her own land appears to be most distinctly fore¬ told in the same sacred page, where we read the records of prophecy which have been so wondrously fulfilled in the doom of Jerusalem. The time to favour Zion shall yet come. The city of David shall resume her ancient glory, and Palestine once more be a land flowing with milk and honey. “ 0 happy once in Ileaven's peculiar love. Delight of men below, and saints above! Though, Salem, now the spoileT's ruffian hand Has loosed his hell-hounds o'er thy wasted land; Though weak, and whelm'd beneath the storms of fate. Thy honse is left nnto thee desolate; Yet shall thon risebut not by war restored, Kotbnilt in murder,—planted by the sword: Tes, Salem, thon shait rise: thy Father's aid Shall heal the wound his chastening hand has made; Shall judge the proud oppressor's ruthless sway And burst his bonds, and cast his cords away. Then on your tops shall deathless verdure spring— Break forth, ye mountains, and ye valleys, sing! Xo more your thirsty rocks shall frown forlorn. The unbeliever's jest, the heathen's scorn; The sultry sands shall ten-fold harvests yield. And a new Eden deck the thorny field. Even now, perchance, wide waving o'er the land. That mighty angel lifts bis golden wand, Courts the bright vision of descending power. Tells every gate, and measures every tower; And chides the tardy seals that yet detain The Lion, Jndali, from his destined reign." It is painful to think that the oppression and unjust exactions of Mohammedan tyranny are even now the chief impediment to the restoration of the once favoured land, as a scene of happiness and plenty. Yet situated as Jeru¬ salem is upon the summit of the lofty table land, which slopes thence, with successive intervening ranges of hills, towards the coast, it is obviously more adapted for the capital of a peculiar and isolated people like the ancient 116 RUINS OF PETRA. Hebrew commonwealth, than as the centre of great com¬ mercial traffic, for which the enterprise of the modern Jew seems so peculiarly adapted. The site of Jerusalem was evidently divinely chosen, with a view to the peculiar constitution of the Hebrew polity. Had it been situated on the coast of the Levant it would have become a great maritime city under Solomon, when the fleets of Tyre brought the wealth of the world to enrich the temple and the palace which he built. It would have been alike ex¬ posed to greater temptations in peace and to greater dangers in war. If Israel is to be restored as a temporal kingdom, and to retain, as she doubtless will, the ancient city of David as her capital, this circumstance alone will exercise a considerable influence in modifying the national characteristics of the restored race. How marvellous would it be to see Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, all yielding up their thousands of despised wanderers and outcasts, to return in triumph and re-possess the promised land! CHAPTER VIII. RUINS OF PETRA. Rough as the hand of Esau is the site Of Edom’s capital, yet fair her towers, Though strange, as is the glance of eastern maid's Unsunned perfections, garnered jealously Within the harem's ward,—apt simile For that strange valley, with its rock-hewen piles. Anon. The ruins of Petra, the rock-built city, the capital of Idumea or Edom, differ entirely from those of any ancient capital we have yet noted, and stand unique among the RUINS or PETRA. 117 remarkable ruins of the old world. This celebrated city is believed to have been founded by the descendants of Esau, who settled among the mountains of Seir. Fetm was very advantageously situated for commanding a large share of the commercial wealth which continually circii lated between Syria and the trading cities on the Red Sea. We learn from sacred history that the Edomites were a powerful people fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, and even the wealth of Babylonia contributed to her splendour, by means of the laden caravans which passed and repassed, by the way of the Desert, to its capital. Saul conquered Edom, and compelled Petra to become tributary to the Jews. It recovered its liberty but was again subjected to Hebrew supremacy the seed of Esau, the elder, being thereby made to serve the descendants of Jacob, and with the rest ot the Jewish kingdom it was at length subjected to the Roman sway. After the time of Hadrian, no further traces of the name of Petra can be discovered in ancient historians. The once magnificent capital of Edom, on which the Roman arts had engrafted new beauties, appears to have gradually sunk into insig¬ nificance and obscurity. The destruction of the Assyrian empire, the degradation of Egypt, and the desolation of Palestine, would all contribute to its ruin. Utterly aban¬ doned in its strange “ cleft in the rock,” history preserves no further record of its fate ; and it would now be vain to inquire at what time the last of its inhabitants forsook it, and left its palaces for dens to the wild beasts of the desert. From the third century, when Origen refers to Idumea as a country that had ceased to exist, to the year 1812, when the indefatigable English traveller, Burck- hardt, rediscovered it, it had remained unvisited, save perchance by some wandering Arab, for fully fourteen hundred years. Michell has pictured the remarkable aspects which its strange vestiges still present, in his “Ruins of Many 118 RUINS OF PETRA. Lauds.” Hewn as its dwellings, tempjes, and tombs are, out of the living rock, Time’s effacing fingers have left but slight traces of the long centuries in which it has been abandoned to his will, when compared with the ravages wrought on more fragile structures of human builders. Pillars have fallen, and yet the friezes they seemed to support remain ; cornices have giveii way, while the super¬ incumbent pediments and entablatures stand. All seems a strange and wonderful contradiction of the ordinary cha¬ racteristics of human art. “ On leaving the ravine, Petra bursts on the traveller in all its desolate beauty. Its site forms a natural amphitheatre, about two miles and a half in circumference, a few openings appearing here and there between the lofty hills. Some of the buildings, or rather excavations, exhibit a freshness of hue, and a delicacy of ornament, which nothing but a very dry climate, and their protected situation, could have succeeded in preserving. ‘ The sides of the mountains,’ says Irby, ‘ covered with an endless variety of excavated tombs and private dwell¬ ings, presented the most singular scene we ever be¬ held.’ ” It is thus Michell pictures the first prospect of this wonderful relic of ancient grandeur :— “ The dell is passed; the moonbeams, soft and white. Pour on the scene—now forward cast thy sight ; Sudden and strange, as 'twere enchanted ground, A fair and spacious area spreads around : Pillar and arch, defying Time’s rude shock, Gleam on each side, upstarting from the rock : The ancient way shows polished pavements yet. Where Pleasure tripped, and Traffic's children met. But ah 1 no more, to merry pipe and song, Through those ravines shall wind the vintage throng. Or caravans bring store that Commerce loves, From Ind’s gemmed hills, and Saba's spicy groves. Down by yon stream unnumbered dwellings trace, Each hollowed from the mountain’s marble face. Halls, and long corridors, and banquet-rooms, Where music rang, and maidens swung perfumes; r.nxs OF PETRA. 119 For store and lord alike ore Impulse felt True sons of Esau, still in rocks they dwelt. See yonder shrine, with fricie snJUNTA AND ELLORA. 135 language of their sacred books, and descanting on it in the vernacular language; their principal hearers on these occasions being women, who sit with their hands clasped, their feet under them, and small lighted tapers burning before them.” “ The stone hemisphere, then, probably served the pur¬ pose of a pulpit. It rests on a pedestal, somewhat larger than the hemisphere, surmounted by a square block, in shape resembling the capital of a pillar. In Ellora the figure of the deity, of gigantic dimensions, is placed on a seat in front of this hemisphere of stone; but in this cave it is omitted. In the gallery, or passage behind the pillars, are fresco paintings of Buddha and his attending supporters, with chcncrees in their hands. The thick¬ ness of the stucco is about a quarter of an inch. The colours are very vivid, consisting of brown, light red, blue, and white: the red predominates. The colouring is softened down, the execution is bold, and the pencil handled freely; and some knowledge of perspective is shown. The figures are two feet and a half or three feet in height. The obliterating and sacrilegious hand of the Portuguese has not exercised itself in defacing with pious rage these caves ; nor are any of those mutilations visible here which are so common in the excavations which the Portuguese converted into places of worship. That these excavations served for the retirement of some monastic society, does not, I think, admit a doubt. Adjoining the large caves are several cells with stone bed-places, which, in all probability, were the abodes of the devotees : and in many there are springs of clear water. The other caves which I visited are all flat-roofed, and generally in excellent preservation. The fetid smell, however, arising from numerous bats (vesper!ilio noctula) which flew about our faces a3 we entered, rendered a continuance inside, for any length of time, very disagree¬ able. I saw only one cave with two stories or tiers of 136 CAVE TEMPLES OF ELEPHANTA. excavated rock. In it the steps from the lower apart¬ ments to the upper had been destroyed by the Bheebs. With our pistols cocked we ascended by the branch of a tree to the upper range of chambers ; and found, in the middle of one of the floors, the remains of a recent lire, with large foot marks around it. In a comer was the entire skeleton of a man. On the floors of many of the lower caves I observed prints of the feet of tigers, jackals, bears, monkies, peacocks, &c.; these were impressed upon the dust, formed by the plaster of the fresco paint¬ ings which had fallen from the ceilings. “ The paintings in many of the caves represent highly interesting and spirited delineations of hunting scenes, battles, &c. The elephants and horses are particularly well drawn. On the latter two men are often seen mounted. Earn and cock-fights I observed in one of the excavations. The spears are peculiar, having three knobs near the head; and there was an instrument re¬ sembling a lyre with three strings. I observed some¬ thing like a zodiac; but not at all resembling the cele¬ brated one of Dendera. The pillars, in most of the caves, resemble the cushion-capitaled ones of Elephanta. In one I saw a pair of fluted pilasters : and fluting is supposed to have originated in Greece, to prevent the spears from slipping off the columns. “After making a few hasty sketches of the lower caves, and the most interesting objects in them, I con¬ sumed some time in unavailing attempts to reach some apparently well-preserved caves higher up on the hill. We clambered up on our hands and knees, till stopped by a precipice; and not having ropes, we were unable to reach the caves from above: we therefore gave up the attempt in despair, and after we had partaken of a slight repast, and a cliilum had been smoked in one of the best lighted and finest excavations, we returned to the horses, and rode back to the town of Adjunta. • ADJUNTA AND ELLORA. 137 ** Though it was but a rapid and unsatisfactory- glance (unsatisfactory in as much as my time was limited, from ■7 hare being nearly expired) that I had of these im¬ perishable monuments of antiquity, yet I was highly de¬ lighted with my excursion; and although many are the caverr.ed temples which I have explored, and many which I wish to revisit, yet to none would I sooner return than to those of Adjunta. Several of them I was unable to examine; but the paintings alone, in such as I had an opportunity of examining, would render them much more interesting to those who might desire to become ac¬ quainted with the appearance of the ancient inhabitants of Hindustan, than the grotesque, though beautifully sculptured deities of Ellora.” The difficulties in the way of a careful investigation of these remarkable remains have prevented them receiving the notice which has been extended to Elephanto, Ellora^ and others of the more celebrated cave temples. Those of Ellora are situated near the ancient city of Deognir md the modern Dowlatabad. A lofty hill is cut out into a range of temples, and its surface covered with varied sculpture and ornaments. “The first view,” says Mr, Erskinc, “ ot this desolate religious city is grand and •triking, hut melancholy. The number and magnificence of the subterranean temples, the extent and loftiness of some, the endless diversity of sculpture in others, the va¬ riety of curious foliage, of minute tracery, highly wrought pillars, rich mythological designs, sacred shrines, and colossal statues, astonish but distract the mind. The empire, whose pride they must have been, has passed away, and left not a memorial behind it.” When we consider the vast extent of British empire in India, and the very partial exploration of some of its great central districts, it seems not improbable that rock temples ■nd other remarkable remains may yet be brought to “ght, not less interesting than those of Adjunta. The 138 CAVE TEMPLES OF ELEPHANTA, &C. wonders, indeed, of ancient Asia are yet but partially re¬ vealed. While we write, her long buried and forgotten ruins are being explored, and, for centuries to come, it seems probable that fresh discoveries shall continue to be made, serving as new revelations of elder history and fresh confirmation of the fulfilment of prophecy and the truth of Scripture. EGYPT. 139 PART II.-AFRICA. CHAPTER I. EGYPT. Time's gnomons rising on the banks of Nile, Unchanging while he flies, serene and grand. Amid surrounding ruins: ’mid the works Of man unparalleled; 'mid God's, how small! Beside His Alps, the pigmy works of ants, The mole-hills of a mole! The records of sacred history establish the priority ot the kingdoms and cities of Babel and Assur among the earliest of earth’s recorded empires. History, however, preserves to U3 a far more ample narrative of the early annah of Egypt than of either of the first Asiatic empires, while the vast pyramids and imperishable monuments along the valley of the Nile have preserved records of ancient times, which are now being decyphered and trans¬ lated, and converted into new materials of history. It may naturally excite surprise that the remotest evi¬ dences of civilization should be discovered on the African 140 EGYPT. continent. All writers, however, -who have investigated the subject, agree in assigning a Semitic origin to the ancient Egyptians. Their features, their language, and many of their peculiarities, clearly point to their com¬ plete affinity with the Asiatic rather than with the Afri¬ can Negro race. The formation of the skulls of mummies found in the catacombs no less distinctly exhibit the characteristics of the Caucasian variety, which so remark¬ ably contrasts with all the cranial developments of the true African race. We are left to conjecture in assign¬ ing that remote period during the infancy of nations, when the first Asiatic colony settled on the banks of the Nile. It is sufficient, however, to know that, from the ascertained dates of its early history, there can be no doubt Egypt was one of the first countries brought under a fixed social and political system, and where an associ¬ ated community successfully pursued the arts of civiliza¬ tion. It has even been suggested that Egypt may have owed its origin to a detachment from the Noaick race, peaceably departing from the first home of the post¬ diluvian race, or wandering by chance into the fertile valley of the Nile, prior to the ambitious plans of the Babel builders in the plain of Shinar, and the violent dis¬ persion of the human race, amid the astonishing confusion of tongues. But the most remarkable features of ancient Egypt are its vast and durable monuments, pertaining to periods, the earliest dates of which are still subject to uncertainty and discussion. As a civilized people there seems every reason for regarding the claim of the Egyptians to priority as well founded. The elaborate and learned researches <;f Major Kawlinson and others into the Assyrian antiquities, it has been seen from the relations of previous chapters, tend, as yet, in no degree to establish any priority ot Asiatic over African civilization; nor has such a view been thought in any way inimical to the description of Egypt. 141 tl>» sacred narrative, by the ablest Biblical critics No n»t»on,- ny« Dr. Keith. “ whether of ancient or modern tones, has ever erected such great and durable monu¬ ments. K bile the vestiges of other ancient monarchies can hardly be found amidst the mouldering ruins of their cities, those artificial mountains, visible at the distance of thirty miles, the pyramids of Egypt. withont a record of their date, have withstood, unimpaired, all the ravages of time. The dynasty of Egypt takes precedence, in anti- qmty. of every other. No country ever produce*! so long a eatab le of kings. The learning of the Egyptians was proverbial. The number of their cities, and the popula¬ tion ot their country, as recorded by ancient historians, almost surpass credibility. Natnre and art united in "■denng it a mos* fertile region. It was called the granary gf the world.” ■Were u not that long familiarity with the monuments •f Egypt has prevented their astonishing magnificence and durability from being felt to their full extent by most ■en.it wonld be regarded a« a subject of never lessening •wwer, that, along the banks of the African Nile, and •and the barren sands still stand the enduring monu¬ ments of the world’s earliest civilization. It would al¬ most seem M if - the locality wherein civilization and arts. «d a written language, should be first developed, had been specially chosen as that wherein i a fruits would Mgem endure; while as if to cany* out still further the mrne preconceived design, the vast plains of Egvpt tempted the builders to the erection of such enduring Pyramids and hnge monolithic temples as no natives of a mil country would ever attempt. Itut it is the inscrip- ** the Egyptian monuments which form the real *>nrre 0 f their interest and value. There, amid the «r*nge scenery of the Nile valley, still stand the temples ■nd palace* of an empire whose native dynasty had passed away. w|,i] e the banks of the Tiber bore only their 142 EGYPT. marshy reeds; and yet we can now read on their columns and obelisks the records of their earliest dynasties, back even to that remote era where truth and fable seem to mingle, and the philosophic historian turns in doubt from the written records of a founder whose era seems to pre¬ cede that of our earth. We have considered, in the previous chapters, the re¬ markably interesting investigations now making by some of our ablest scholars, into the records of ancient Assy¬ rian empire, as contained in the remarkable cuneiform in¬ scriptions of Babylon, Nineveh, Koyunjik, Nimroud, and other ancient seats of Asiatic empire. But it was the arduous and successful investigations of Young, Champol- lion, and other European scholars, into the hieroglyphic records on the Egyptian monuments which paved the way for these latter discoveries, and rendered them compara¬ tively easy. The mystery which for so many ages had hung over the engraven records of Egypt had indeed sufficed to clothe them with an exaggerated value. It was believed that the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the Egyptian monu¬ ments included a complete record of all early science, nor was it doubted by many that they embodied numerous truths long lost to the world. Could the secret of their characters be recovered, it was anticipated that they would be foimd to contain a summary of the most impor¬ tant mysteries of nature, and the rudiments of knowledge partially indicated in the most valued heirlooms of Grecian and Roman learning. The Christian looked to find in their records new illustrations of the sacred writings and fresh proofs of their truth; while the sceptic was not without a secret hope that the evidences of a civilization far older and more complete than the Mosaic history al¬ lows, and of a mythology and philosophic creed embody¬ ing doctrines hitherto believed to be of comparatively recent origin, and of direct Divine annunciation, would enable him to combat, with new weapons, the advocates egtpt. 14.3 oftruth. The use made, especially by some modem tTench philosophers, of recent discoveries sufficiently justifies the Utter conclusion; and the well knowli ©pinions of the whole body of French sarans who ac- eompacietl Napoleon to Egypt, amply accorded with such ▼lews. A pleasant anecdote is told in connexion with the novel onion ot a philosophic and military expedition which •et saO together from France for the ancient seat of Egyp - tkn civilization and learning. “ When the First Consul ^ *•*■■■■»■ on his Egyptian expedition, earned with him a cohort of savans, who ultimately * d good service in many ways. Among them, howevCT, might be expected at that era, were not a few philoso- fMn of the V oltaire-Diderot school. Napoleon, for his own ins truction and amusement on shipboard, encouraged