Memphis, the "beautiful abode," the "City of the White Wall," is said to have been founded by the legendary Menés, who in order to build it diverted the stream of the Nile by means of a great dyke constructed near the modern village of Koshêsh, south of the village of Mitrahêna, which marks the central point of the ancient metropolis of Northern Egypt. It may be that the city was founded by Aha or Narmer, the historical originals of Mena or Menés; but we have another theory with regard to its foundation, that it was originally built by King Merpeba Atjab, whose tomb was also discovered at Abydos near those of Aha and Narmer. Merpeba is the oldest king whose name is absolutely identified with one occurring in the XIXth Dynasty king-lists and in Manetho. He is certainly the "Merbap" or "Merbepa" ("Merbapen") of the lists and the Miebis of Manetho. In both the lists and in Manetho he stands fifth in order from Mena, and he was therefore the sixth king of the Ist Dynasty. The lists, Manetho, and the small monuments in his own tomb agree in making him the immediate successor of Semti Den (Ousaphaïs), and from the style of these latter it is evident that he comes after Tja, Tjer, Narmer, and Aha. That is to say, the contemporary evidence makes him the fifth king from Aha, the first original of "Menés."

Now after the piety of Seti I had led him to erect a great temple at Abydos in memory of the ancient kings, whose sepulchres had probably been brought to light shortly before, and to compile and set up in the temple a list of his predecessors, a certain pious snobbery or snobbish piety impelled a worthy named Tunure, who lived at Memphis, to put up in his own tomb at Sakkâra a tablet of kings like the royal one at Abydos. If Osiris-Khentamenti at Abydos had his tablet of kings, so should Osiris-Seker at Sakkâra. But Tunure does not begin his list with Mena; his initial king is Merpeba. For him Merpeba was the first monarch to be commemorated at Sakkâra. Does not this look very much as if the strictly historical Merpeba, not the rather legendary and confused Mena, was regarded as the first Memphite king? It may well be that it was in the reign of Merpeba, not in that of Aha or Narmer, that Memphis was founded.

The XIXth Dynasty lists of course say nothing about Mena or Merpeba having founded Memphis; they only give the names of the kings, nothing more. The earliest authority for the ascription of Memphis to "Menés", is Herodotus, who was followed in this ascription, as in many other matters, by Manetho; but it must be remembered that Manetho was writing for the edification of a Greek king (Ptolemy Philadelphus) and his Greek court at Alexandria, and had therefore to evince a respect for the great Greek classic which he may not always have really felt. Herodotus is not, of course, accused of any wilful misstatement in this or in any other matter in which his accuracy is suspected. He merely wrote down what he was told by the Egyptians themselves, and Merpeba was sufficiently near in time to Aha to be easily confounded with him by the scribes of the Persian period, who no doubt ascribed everything to "Mena" that was done by the kings of the Ist and IId Dynasties. Therefore it may be considered quite probable that the "Menés" who founded Memphis was Merpeba, the fifth or sixth king of the Ist Dynasty, whom Tunure, a thousand years before the time of Herodotus and his informants, placed at the head of the Memphite "List of Sakkâra."

The reconquest of the North by Khâsekhemui doubtless led to a further strengthening of Memphis; and it is quite possible that the deeds of this king also contributed to make up the sum total of those ascribed to the Herodotean and Manethonian Menés.

It may be that a town of the Northerners existed here before the time of the Southern Conquest, for Phtah, the local god of Memphis, has a very marked character of his own, quite different from that of Khen-tamenti, the Osiris of Abydos. He is always represented as a little bow-legged hydrocephalous dwarf very like the Phoenician Kabeiroi. It may be that here is another connection between the Northern Egyptians and the Semites. The name "Phtah," the "Opener," is definitely Semitic. We may then regard the dwarf Phtah as originally a non-Egyptian god of the Northerners, probably Semitic in origin, and his town also as antedating the conquest. But it evidently was to the Southerners that Memphis owed its importance and its eventual promotion to the position of capital of the united kingdom. Then the dwarf Phtah saw himself rivalled by another Phtah of Southern Egyptian origin, who had been installed at Memphis by the Southerners. This Phtah was a sort of modified edition of Osiris, in mummy-form and holding crook and whip, but with a refined edition of the Kabeiric head of the indigenous Phtah. The actual god of "the White Wall" was undoubtedly confused vith the dead god of the necropolis, whose name was Seker or Sekri (Sokari), "the Coffined." The original form of this deity was a mummied hawk upon a coffin, and it is very probable that he was imported from the South, like the second Phtah, at the time of the conquest, when the great Northern necropolis began to grow up as a duplicate of that at Abydos. Later on we find Seker confused with the ancient dwarf-god, and it is the latter who was afterwards chiefly revered as Phtah-Socharis-Osiris, the protector of the necropolis, the mummied Phtah being the generally recognized ruler of the City of the White Wall.

It is from the name of Seker that the modern Sak-kâra takes its title. Sakkâra marks the central point of the great Memphite necropolis, as it is the nearest point of the western desert to Memphis. Northwards the necropolis extended to Griza and Abu Roâsh, southwards, to Daslmr; even the nécropoles of Lisht and Mêdûm may be regarded as appanages of Sakkâra. At Sakkâra itself Tjeser of the IIId Dynasty had a pyramid, which, as we have seen, was probably not his real tomb (which was the great mastaba at Bêt Khallâf), but a secondary or sham tomb corresponding to the "tombs" of the earliest kings at Umm el-Ga'ab in the necropolis of Abydos. Many later kings, however, especially of the Vith Dynasty, were actually buried at Sakkâra. Their tombs have all been thoroughly described by their discoverer, Prof. Maspero, in his history. The last king of the Hid Dynasty, Snefru, was buried away down south at Mêdûm, in splendid isolation, but he may also have had a second pyramid at Sakkâra or Abu Roash.

The kings of the IVth Dynasty were the greatest of the pyramid builders, and to them belong the huge edifices of Griza. The Vth Dynasty favoured Abusîr, between Cîza and Sakkâra; the Vith, as we have said, preferred Sakkâra itself. With them the end of the Old Kingdom and of Memphite dominion was reached; the sceptre fell from the hands of the Memphite kings and was taken up by the princes of Herakleopolis (Ahnasyet el-Medina, near Béni Suêf, south of the Eayyûm) and Thebes. Where the Herakleopolite kings were buried we do not know; probably somewhere in the local necropolis of the Gebel es-Sedment, between Ahnasya and the Fayyûm. The first Thebans (the XIth Dynasty) were certainly buried at Thebes, but when the Herakleopolites had finally disappeared, and all Egypt was again united under one strong sceptre, the Theban kings seem to have been drawn northwards. They removed to the seat of the dominion of those whom they had supplanted, and they settled in the neighbourhood of Herakleopolis, near the fertile province of the Fayyûm, and between it and Memphis. Here, in the royal fortress-palace of Itht-taui, "Controlling the Two Lands," the kings of the XIIth Dynasty lived, and they were buried in the nécropoles of Dashûr, Lisht, and Illahun (Hawara), in pyramids like those of the old Memphite kings. These facts, of the situation of Itht-taui, of their burial in the southern an ex of the old necropolis of Memphis, and of the fori of their tombs (the true Upper Egyptian and Thebian form was a rock-cut gallery and chamber driven deep into the hill), show how solicitous were the Amenemhats and Senusrets of the suffrages of Lower Egypt, how anxious they were to conciliate the ancient royal pride of Memphis.

Where the kings of the XIIIth Dynasty and the Hyksos or "Shepherds" were buried, we do not know. The kings of the restored Theban empire were all interred at Thebes. There are, in fact, no known royal sepulchres between the Fayyûm and Abydos. The great kings were mostly buried in the neighbourhood of Memphis, Abydos, and Thebes. The sepulchres of the "Middle Empire"—the XIth to XIIIth Dynasties—in the neighbourhood of the Fayyûm may fairly be grouped with those of the same period at Dashûr, which belongs to the necropolis of Memphis, since it is only a mile or two south of Sakkâra.

It is chiefly with regard to the sepulchres of the kings that the most momentous discoveries of recent years have been made at Thebes, and at Sakkâra, Abusîr, Dashûr, and Lisht, as at Abydos. For this reason we deal in succession with the finds in the nécropoles of Abydos, Memphis, and Thebes respectively. And with the sepulchres of the "Old Kingdom," in the Memphite necropolis proper, we have naturally grouped those of the "Middle Kingdom" at Dashûr, Lisht, Illahun, and Hawara.

Some of these modern discoveries have been commented on and illustrated by Prof. Maspero in his great history. But the discoveries that have been made since this publication have been very important,—those at Abusîr, indeed, of first-rate importance, though not so momentous as those of the tombs of the Ist and IId Dynasties at Abydos, already described. At Abu Roash and at Gîza, at the northern end of the Memphite necropolis, several expeditions have had considerable success, notably those of the American Dr. Reisner, assisted by Mr. Mace, who excavated the royal tombs at Umm el-Ga'ab for Prof. Petrie, those of the German Drs. Steindorff and Borchardt,—the latter working for the Beutsch-Orient Gesellschaft,—and those of other American excavators. Until the full publication of the results of these excavations appears, very little can be said about them. Many mastaba-tombs have, it is understood, been found, with interesting remains. Nothing of great historical importance seems to have been discovered, however. It is otherwise when we come to the discoveries of Messrs. Borchardt and Schâfer at Abusîr, south of Gîza and north of Sakkâra. At this place results of first-rate historical importance have been attained.

The main group of pyramids at Abusir consists of the tombs of the kings Sahurà, Neferarikarâ, and Ne-user-Râ, of the Vth Dynasty. The pyramids themselves are smaller than those of Gîza, but larger than those of Sakkâra. In general appearance and effect they resemble those of Gîza, but they are not so imposing, as the desert here is low. Those of Gîza, Sakkâra, and Dashûr owe much of their impressiveness to the fact that they are placed at some height above the cultivated land. The excavation and planning of these pyramids were carried out by Messrs. Borchardt and Schâfer at the expense of Baron von Bissing, the well-known Egyptologist of Munich, and of the Deutsch-Orient Gesell-schaft of Berlin. The antiquities found have been divided between the museums of Berlin and Cairo.

One of the most noteworthy discoveries was that of the funerary temple of Ne-user-Râ, which stood at the base of his pyramid. The plan is interesting, and the granite lotus-bud columns found are the most ancient yet discovered in Egypt. Much of the paving and the wainscoting of the walls was of fine black marble, beautifully polished. An interesting find was a basin and drain with lion's-head mouth, to carry away the blood of the sacrifices. Some sculptures in relief were discovered, including a gigantic representation of the king and the goddess Isis, which shows that in the early days of the Vth Dynasty the king and the gods were already depicted in exactly the same costume as they wore in the days of the Ramses and the Ptolemies. The hieratic art of Egypt had, in fact, now taken on itself the final outward appearance which it retained to the very end. There is no more of the archaism and absence of conventionality, which marks the art of the earliest dynasties.

We can trace by successive steps the swift development of Egyptian art from the rude archaism of the Ist Dynasty to its final consummation under the Vth, when the conventions became fixed. In the time of Khäsekhemui, at the beginning of the IId Dynasty, the archaic character of the art has already begun to wear off. Under the same dynasty we still have styles of unconventional naïveté, such as the famous Statue "No. 1" of the Cairo Museum, bearing the names of Kings Hetepahaui, Neb-râ, and Neneter. But with the IVth Dynasty we no longer look for unconventionality. Prof. Petrie discovered at Abydos a small ivory statuette of Khufu or Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Gîza. The portrait is a good one and carefully executed. It was not till the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, indeed, that the Egyptians ceased to portray their kings as they really were, and gave them a purely conventional type of face. This convention, against which the heretical King Amenhetep IV (Akhunaten) rebelled, in order to have himself portrayed in all his real ungainliness and ugliness, did not exist till long after the time of the IVth and Vth Dynasties.

100.jpg Statue No. 1 of the Cairo Museum, About 3900 B.C.

The kings of the XIIth Dynasty especially were most careful that their statues should be accurate portraits; indeed, the portraits of Usertsen (Senusret) III vary from a young face to an old one, showing that the king was faithfully depicted at different periods of his life.

But the general conventions of dress and deportment were finally fixed under the Vth Dynasty. After this time we no longer have such absolutely faithful and original presentments as the other little ivory statuette found by Prof. Petrie at Abydos (now in the British Museum), which shows us an aged monarch of the Ist Dynasty. It is obvious that the features are absolutely true to life, and the figure wears an unconventionally party-coloured and bordered robe of a kind which kings of a later day may have worn in actual life, but which they would assuredly never be depicted as wearing by the artists of their day. To the end of Egyptian history, the kings, even the Roman emperors, were represented on the monuments clothed in the official costume of their ancestors of the IVth and Vth Dynasties, in the same manner as we see Khufu wearing his robe in the little figure from Abydos, and Ne-user-Rà on the great relief from Abusîr. There are one or two exceptions, such as the representations of the original genius Akhunaten at Tell el-Amarna and the beautiful statue of Ramses II at Turin, in which we see these kings wearing the real costume of their time, but such exceptions are very rare.

The art of Abusîr is therefore of great interest, since it marks the end of the development of the priestly art. Secular art might develop as it liked, though the crystallizing influence of the ecclesiastical canon is always evident here also. But henceforward it was an impiety, which only an Akhunaten could commit, to depict a king or a god on the walls of a temple otherwise (except so far as, the portrait was concerned) than as he had been depicted in the time of the Vth Dynasty.

Other buildings have been excavated by the Germans at Abusîr, notably the usual town of mastaba-tombs belonging to the chief dignitaries of the reign, which is always found at the foot of a royal pyramid of this period. Another building of the highest interest, belonging to the same age, was also excavated, and its true character was determined. This is a building at a place called er-Rîgha or Abû Ghuraib, "Father of Crows," between Abusîr and Gîza. It was formerly supposed to be a pyramid, but the German excavations have shown that it is really a temple of the Sun-god Râ of Heliopolis, specially venerated by the kings of the Vth Dynasty, who were of Heliopolitan origin. The great pyramid-builders of the IVth Dynasty seem to have been the last true Memphites. At the end of the reign of Shepseskaf, the last monarch of the dynasty, the sceptre passed to a Heliopolitan family. The following VIth Dynasty may again have been Memphite, but this is uncertain. The capital continued to be Memphis, and from the beginning of the Hid Dynasty to the end of the Old Kingdom and the rise of Herakle-opolis and Thebes, Memphis remained the chief city of Egypt.

The Heliopolitans were naturally the servants of the Sun-god above all other gods, and they were the first to call themselves "Sons of the Sun," a title retained by the Pharaohs throughout all subsequent history. It was Ne-user-Râ who built the Sun-temple of Abu Ghuraib, on the edge of the desert, north of his pyramid and those of his two immediate predecessors at Abusir. As now laid bare by the excavations of 1900, it is seen to consist of an artificial mound, with a great court in front to the eastward. On the mound was erected a truncated obelisk, the stone emblem of the Sun-god. The worshippers in the court below looked towards the Sun's stone erected upon its mound in the west, the quarter of the sun's setting; for the Sun-god of Heliopolis was primarily the setting sun, Tum-Râ, not Râ Harmachis, the rising sun, whose emblem is the Great Sphinx at Gîza, which looks towards the east. The sacred emblem of the Heliopolitan Sun-god reminds us forcibly of the Semitic bethels or baetyli, the sacred stones of Palestine, and may give yet another hint of the Semitic origin of the Heliopolitan cult. In the court of the temple is a huge circular altar of fine alabaster, several feet across, on which slain oxen were offered to the Sun, and behind this, at the eastern end of the court, are six great basins of the same stone, over which the beasts were slain, with drains running out of them by which their blood was carried away. This temple is a most interesting monument of the civilization of the "Old Kingdom" at the time of the Vth Dynasty.

At Sakkâra itself, which lies a short distance south of Abusir, no new royal tombs have, as has been said, been discovered of late years. But a great deal of work has been done among the private mastaba-tombs by the officers of the Service des Antiquités, which reserves to itself the right of excavation here and at Dashûr. The mastaba of the sage and writer Kagernna (or rather Gemnika, "I-have-found-a-ghost," which sounds very like an American Indian appellation) is very fine. "I-have-found-a-ghost" lived in the reign of the king Tatkarâ Assa, the "Tancheres" of Manetho, and he wrote maxims like his great contemporary Phtahhetep ("Offered to Phtah"), who was also buried at Sakkâra. The officials of the Service des Antiquités who cleaned the tomb unluckily misread his name Ka-bi-n (an impossible form which could only mean, literally translated, "Ghost-soul-of" or "Ghost-soul-to-me"), and they have placed it in this form over the entrance to his tomb. This mastaba, like those, already known, of Mereruka (sometimes misnamed "Mera") and the famous Ti, both also at Sakkâra, contains a large number of chambers, ornamented with reliefs. In the vicinity M. Grébaut, then Director of the Service of Antiquities, discovered a very interesting Street of Tombs, a regular Via Sacra, with rows of tombs of the dignitaries of the VIth Dynasty on either side of it. They are generally very much like one another; the workmanship of the reliefs is fine, and the portrait of the owner of the tomb is always in evidence.

Several of the smaller mastabas have lately been disposed of to the various museums, as they are liable to damage if they remain where they stand; moreover, they are not of great value to the Museum of Cairo, but are of considerable value to various museums which do not already possess complete specimens of this class of tombs. A fine one, belonging to the chief Uerarina, is now exhibited in the Assyrian Basement of the British Museum; another is in the Museum of Leyden; a third at Berlin, and so on. Most of these are simple tombs of one chamber. In the centre of the rear wall we always see the stele or gravestone proper, built into the fabric of the tomb. Before this stood the low table of offerings with a bowl for oblations, and on either side a tall incense-altar. From the altar the divine smoke (senetr) arose when the hen-ka, or priest of the ghost (literally, "Ghost's Servant"), performed his duty of venerating the spirits of the deceased, while the Kher-heb, or cantor, enveloped in the mystic folds of the leopard-skin and with bronze incense-burner in hand, sang the holy litanies and spells which should propitiate the ghost and enable him to win his way to ultimate perfection in the next world.

The stele is always in the form of a door with pyloni-form cornice. On either side is a figure of the deceased, and at the sides are carved prayers to Anubis, and at a later date to Osiris, who are implored to give the funerary meats and "everything good and pure on which the god there (as the dead man in the tomb has been constituted) lives;" often we find that the biography and list of honorary titles and dignities of the deceased have been added.

Sakkâra was used as a place of burial in the latest as well as in the earliest time. The Egyptians of the XXVIth Dynasty, wearied of the long decadence and devastating wars which had followed the glorious epoch of the conquering Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth Dynasties, turned for a new and refreshing inspiration to the works of the most ancient kings, when Egypt was a simple self-contained country, holding no intercourse with outside lands, bearing no outside burdens for the sake of pomp and glory, and knowing nothing of the decay and decadence which follows in the train of earthly power and grandeur. They deliberately turned their backs on the worn-out and discredited imperial trappings of the Thothmes and Ramses, and they took the supposed primitive simplicity of the Snefrus, the Khufus, and the Ne-user-Râs for a model and ensampler to their lives. It was an age of conscious and intended archaism, and in pursuit of the archaistic ideal the Mem-phites of the Saïte age had themselves buried in the ancient necropolis of Sakkâra, side by side with their ancestors of the time of the Vth and VIth Dynasties. Several of these tombs have lately been discovered and opened, and fitted with modern improvements. One or two of them, of the Persian period, have wells (leading to the sepulchral chamber) of enormous depth, down which the modern tourist is enabled to descend by a spiral iron staircase. The Serapeum itself is lit with electricity, and in the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes nothing disturbs the silence but the steady thumping pulsation of the dynamo-engine which lights the ancient sepulchres of the Pharaohs. Thus do modern ideas and inventions help us to see and so to understand better the works of ancient Egypt. But it is perhaps a little too much like the Yankee at the Court of King Arthur. The interiors of the later tombs are often decorated with reliefs which imitate those of the early period, but with a kind of delicate grace which at once marks them for what they are, so that it is impossible to confound them with the genuine ancient originals from which they were adapted.

Riding from Sakkâra southwards to Dashûr, we pass on the way the gigantic stone mastaba known as the Mastabat el-Fara'ûn, "Pharaoh's Bench." This was considered to be the tomb of the Vth Dynasty king, Unas, until his pyramid was found by Prof. Maspero at Sakkâra. From its form it might be thought to belong to a monarch of the Hid Dynasty, but the great size of the stone blocks of which it is built seems to point rather to the XIIth. All attempts to penetrate its secret by actual excavation have been unavailing.

Further south across the desert we see from the Mastabat el-Fara'ûn four distinct pyramids, symmetrically arranged in two lines, two in each line. The two to the right are great stone erections of the usual type, like those of Gîza and Abusîr, and the southernmost of them has a peculiar broken-backed appearance, due to the alteration of the angle of inclination of its sides during construction. Further, it is covered almost to the ground by the original casing of polished white limestone blocks, so that it gives a very good idea of the original appearance of the other pyramids, which have lost their casing. These two pyramids very probably belong to kings of the Hid Dynasty, as does the Step-Pyramid of Sakkâra. They strongly resemble the Gîza type, and the northernmost of the two looks very like an understudy of the Great Pyramid. It seems to mark the step in the development of the royal pyramid which was immediately followed by the Great Pyramid. But no excavations have yet proved the accuracy of this view. Both pyramids have been entered, but nothing has been found in them. It is very probable that one of them is the second pyramid of Snefru.

The other two pyramids, those nearest the cultivation, are of very different appearance. They are half-ruined, they are black in colour, and their whole effect is quite different from that of the stone pyramids. For they are built of brick, not of stone. They are pyramids, it is true, but of a different material and of a different date from those which we have been describing. They are built above the sepulchres of kings of the XIIth Dynasty, the Theban house which transferred its residence northwards to the neighbourhood of the ancient Northern capital. We have, in fact, reached the end of the Old Kingdom at Sakkâra; at Dashûr begin the sepulchres of the Middle Kingdom. Pyramids are still built, but they are not always of stone; brick is used, usually with stone in the interior. The general effect of these brick pyramids, when new, must have been indistinguishable from that of the stone ones, and even now, when it has become half-ruined, such a great brick pyramid as that of Usertsen (Senusret) III at Dashûr is not without impressiveness. After all, there is no reason why a brick building should be less admirable than a stone one. And in its own way the construction of such colossal masses of bricks as the two eastern pyramids of Dashûr must have been as arduous, even as difficult, as that of building a moderate-sized stone pyramid. The photograph of the brick pyramids of Dashûr on this page shows well the great size of these masses of brickwork, which are as impressive as any of the great brick structures of Babylonia and Assyria.

109.jpg Exterior of the Southern Brick Pyramid Of Dashur

     XIITH DYNASTY. Excavated by M. de Morgan, 1895. This is the
     secondary tomb of Amenemhat III; about 2200 B.C.

The XIIth Dynasty use of brick for the royal tombs was a return to the custom of earlier days, for from the time of Aha to that Tjeser, from the 1st Dynasty to the Hid, brick had been used for the building of the royal mastaba-tombs, out of which the pyramids had developed.

At this point, where we take leave of the great pyramids of the Old Kingdom, we may notice the latest theory as to the building of these monuments, which has of late years been enunciated by Dr. Borchardt, and is now generally accepted. The great Prussian explorer Lepsius, when he examined the pyramids in the 'forties, came to the conclusion that each king, when he ascended the throne, planned a small pyramid for himself. This was built in a few years' time, and if his reign were short, or if he were unable to enlarge the pyramid for other reasons, it sufficed for his tomb. If, however, his reign seemed likely to be one of some length, after the first plan was completed he enlarged his pyramid by building another and a larger one around it and over it. Then again, when this addition was finished, and the king still reigned and was in possession of great resources, yet another coating, so to speak, was put on to the pyramid, and so on till colossal structures like the First and Second Pyramid of Giza, which, we know, belonged to kings who were unusually long-lived, were completed. And finally the aged monarch died, and was buried in the huge tomb which his long life and his great power had enabled him to erect. This view appeared eminently reasonable at the time, and it seemed almost as though we ought to be able to tell whether a king had reigned long or not by the size of his pyramid, and even to obtain a rough idea of the length of his reign by counting the successive coats or accretions which it had received, much as we tell the age of a tree by the rings in its bole. A pyramid seemed to have been constructed something after the manner of an onion or a Chinese puzzle-box.

111.jpg the Pyramids of Giza During The Inundation.

Prof. Pétrie, however, who examined the Griza pyramids in 1881, and carefully measured them all up and finally settled their trigonometrical relation, came to the conclusion that Lepsius's theory was entirely erroneous, and that every pyramid was built and now stands as it was originally planned. Dr.Borchardt, however, who is an architect by profession, has examined the pyramids again, and has come to the conclusion that Prof. Pétrie's statement is not correct, and that there is an element of truth in Lepsius's hypothesis. He has shown that several of the pyramids, notably the First and Second at Giza, show unmistakable signs of a modified, altered, and enlarged plan; in fact, long-lived kings like Khufu seem to have added considerably to their pyramids and even to have entirely remodelled them on a larger scale. This has certainly been the case with the Great Pyramid. We can, then, accept Lepsius's theory as modified by Dr. Borchardt.

Another interesting point has arisen in connection with the Great Pyramid. Considerable difference of opinion has always existed between Egyptologists and the professors of European archaeology with regard to the antiquity of the knowledge of iron in Egypt. The majority of the Egyptologists have always maintained, on the authority of the inscriptions, that iron was known to the ancient Egyptians from the earliest period. They argued that the word for a certain metal in old Egyptian was the same as the Coptic word for "iron." They stated that in the most ancient religious texts the Egyptians spoke of the firmament of heaven as made of this metal, and they came to the conclusion that it was because this metal was blue in colour, the hue of iron or steel; and they further pointed out that some of the weapons in the tomb-paintings were painted blue and others red, some being of iron, that is to say, others of copper or bronze. Finally they brought forward as incontrovertible evidence an actual fragment of worked iron, which had been found between two of the inner blocks, down one of the air-shafts, in the Great Pyramid. Here was an actual piece of iron of the time of the IVth Dynasty, about 3500 B.C.

This conclusion was never accepted by the students of the development of the use of metal in prehistoric Europe, when they came to know of it. No doubt their incredulity was partly due to want of appreciation of the Egyptological evidence, partly to disinclination to accept a conclusion which did not at all agree with the knowledge they had derived from their own study of prehistoric Europe. In Southern Europe it was quite certain that iron did not come into use till about 1000 B.C.; in Central Europe, where the discoveries at Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut exhibit the transition from the Age of Bronze to that of Iron, about 800 B.C. The exclusively Iron Age culture of La Tène cannot be dated earlier than the eighth century, if as early as that. How then was it possible that, if iron had been known to the Egyptians as early as 3500 B.C., its knowledge should not have been communicated to the Europeans until over two thousand years later? No; iron could not have been really known to the Egyptians much before 1000 B.C. and the Egyptological evidence was all wrong. This line of argument was taken by the distinguished Swedish archaeologist, Prof. Oscar Montelius, of Upsala, whose previous experience in dealing with the antiquities of Northern Europe, great as it was, was hardly sufficient to enable him to pronounce with authority on a point affecting far-away African Egypt. And when dealing with Greek prehistoric antiquities Prof. Montelius's views have hardly met with that ready agreement which all acknowledge to be his due when he is giving us the results of his ripe knowledge of Northern antiquities. He has, in fact, forgotten, as most "prehistoric" archaeologists do forget, that the antiquities of Scandinavia, Greece, Egypt, the Semites, the bronze-workers of Benin, the miners of Zimbabwe, and the Ohio mound-builders are not to be treated all together as a whole, and that hard and fast lines of development cannot be laid down for them, based on the experience of Scandinavia.

We may perhaps trace this misleading habit of thought to the influence of the professors of natural science over the students of Stone Age and Bronze Age antiquities. Because nature moves by steady progression and develops on even lines—nihil facit per sal-tum—it seems to have been assumed that the works of man's hands have developed in the same way, in a regular and even scheme all over the world. On this supposition it would be impossible for the great discovery of the use of iron to have been known in Egypt as early as 3500 B.C. for this knowledge to have remained dormant there for two thousand years, and then to have been suddenly communicated about 1000 B.C. to Greece, spreading with lightning-like rapidity over Europe and displacing the use of bronze everywhere. Yet, as a matter of fact, the work of man does develop in exactly this haphazard way, by fits and starts and sudden leaps of progress after millennia of stagnation. Throwsback to barbarism are just as frequent. The analogy of natural evolution is completely inapplicable and misleading.

Prof. Montelius, however, following the "evolutionary" line of thought, believed that because iron was not known in Europe till about 1000 B.C. it could not have been known in Egypt much earlier; and in an important article which appeared in the Swedish ethnological journal Ymer in 1883, entitled Bronsaldrn i Egypten ("The Bronze Age in Egypt"), he essayed to prove the contrary arguments of the Egyptologists wrong. His main points were that the colour of the weapons in the frescoes was of no importance, as it was purely conventional and arbitrary, and that the evidence of the piece of iron from the Great Pyramid was insufficiently authenticated, and therefore valueless, in the absence of other definite archaeological evidence in the shape of iron of supposed early date. To this article the Swedish Egyptologist, Dr. Piehl, replied in the same periodical, in an article entitled Bronsaldem i Egypten, in which he traversed Prof. Montelius's conclusions from the Egyptological point of view, and adduced other instances of the use of iron in Egypt, all, it is true, later than the time of the IVth Dynasty. But this protest received little notice, owing to the fact that it remained buried in a Swedish periodical, while Prof. Montelius's original article was translated into French, and so became well-known.

For the time Prof. Montelius's conclusions were generally accepted, and when the discoveries of the prehistoric antiquities were made by M. de Morgan, it seemed more probable than ever that Egypt had gone through a regular progressive development from the Age of Stone through those of copper and bronze to that of iron, which was reached about 1100 or 1000 B.C. The evidence of the iron fragment from the Great Pyramid was put on one side, in spite of the circumstantial account of its discovery which had been given by its finders. Even Prof. Pétrie, who in 1881 had accepted the pyramid fragment as undoubtedly contemporary with that building, and had gone so far as to adduce additional evidence for its authenticity, gave way, and accepted Montelius's view, which held its own until in 1902 it was directly controverted by a discovery of Prof. Pétrie at Abydos. This discovery consisted of an undoubted fragment of iron found in conjunction with bronze tools of VIth Dynasty date; and it settled the matter.* The VIth Dynasty date of this piece of iron, which was more probably worked than not (since it was buried with tools), was held to be undoubted by its discoverer and by everybody else, and, if this were undoubted, the IVth Dynasty date of the Great Pyramid fragment was also fully established. The discoverers of the earlier fragment had no doubt whatever as to its being contemporary with the pyramid, and were supported in this by Prof. Pétrie in 1881. Therefore it is now known to be the fact that iron was used by the Egyptians as early as 3500 B.C.**

     * See H. R. Hall's note on "The Early Use of Iron in Egypt,"
     in Man (the organ of the Anthropological Society of
     London), iii (1903), No. 86.

     ** Prof. Montelius objected to these conclusions in a review
     of the British Museum "Guide to the Antiquities of the
     Bronze Age," which was published in Man, 1005 (Jan.), No 7.
     For an answer to these objections, see Hall, ibid., No. 40.

It would thus appear that though the Egyptians cannot be said to have used iron generally and so to have entered the "Iron Age" before about 1300 B.C. (reign of Ramses II), yet iron was well known to them and had been used more than occasionally by them for tools and building purposes as early as the time of the IVth Dynasty, about 3500 B.C. Certainly dated examples of its use occur under the IVth, VIth, and XIIIth Dynasties. Why this knowledge was not communicated to Europe before about 1000 B.C. we cannot say, nor are Egyptologists called upon to find the reason. So the Great Pyramid has played an interesting part in the settlement of a very important question.

It was supposed by Prof. Pétrie that the piece of iron from the Great Pyramid had been part of some arrangement employed for raising the stones into position. Herodotus speaks of the machines, which were used to raise the stones, as made of little pieces of wood. The generally accepted explanation of his meaning used to be that a small crane or similar wooden machine was used for hoisting the stone by means of pulley and rope; but M. Legrain, the director of the works of restoration in the Great Temple of Karnak, has explained it differently. Among the "foundation deposits" of the XVIIIth Dynasty at Dêr el-Bahari and elsewhere, beside the little plaques with the king's name and the model hoes and vases, was usually found an enigmatic wooden object like a small cradle, with two sides made of semicircular pieces of wood, joined along the curved portion by round wooden bars. M. Legrain has now explained this as a model of the machine used to raise heavy stones from tier to tier of a pyramid or other building, and illustrations of the method of its use may be found in Choisy's Art de Bâtir chez les anciens Egyptiens. There is little doubt that this primitive machine is that to which Herodotus refers as having been used in the erection of the pyramids.

The later historian, Diodorus, also tells us that great mounds or ramps of earth were used as well, and that the stones were dragged up these to the requisite height. There is no doubt that this statement also is correct. We know that the Egyptians did build in this very way, and the system has been revived by M. Legrain for his work at Karnak, where still exist the remains of the actual mounds and ramps by which the great western pylon was erected in Ptolemaïc times. Work carried on in this way is slow and expensive, but it is eminently suited to the country and understood by the people. If they wish to put a great stone architrave weighing many tons across the top of two columns, they do not hoist it up into position; they rear a great ramp or embankment of earth against the two pillars, half-burying them in the process, then drag the architrave up the ramp by means of ropes and men, and put it into position. Then the ramp is cleared away. This is the ancient system which is now followed at Karnak, and it is the system by which, with the further aid of the wooden machines, the Great Pyramid and its compeers were erected in the days of the IVth Dynasty. Plus cela change, plus c'est la même chose.

The brick pyramids of the XIIth Dynasty were erected in the same way, for the Egyptians had no knowledge of the modern combination of wooden scaffolding and ladders. There was originally a small stone pyramid of the same dynasty at Dashûr, half-way between the two brick ones, but this has now almost disappeared. It belonged to the king Amenemhat II, while the others belonged, the northern to Usertsen (Sen-usret) III, the southern to Amenemhat III. Both these latter monarchs had other tombs elsewhere, Usertsen a great rock-cut gallery and chamber in the cliff at Abydos, Amenemhat a pyramid not very far to the south, at Hawara, close to the Fayyûm. It is uncertain whether the Hawara pyramid or that of Dashûr was the real burial-place of the king, as at neither place is his name found alone. At Hawara it is found in conjunction with that of his daughter, the queen-regnant Se-bekneferurâ (Skemiophris), at Dashûr with that of a king Auabrâ Hor, who was buried in a small tomb near that of the king, and adjoining the tombs of the king's children. Who King Hor was we do not quite know. His name is not given in the lists, and was unknown until M. de Morgan's discoveries at Dashûr. It is most probable that he was a prince who was given royal honours during the lifetime of Amenemhat III, whom he predeceased.* In the beautiful wooden statue of him found in his tomb, which is now in the Cairo Museum, he is represented as quite a youth. Amenemhat III was certainly succeeded by Amenemhat IV, and it is impossible to intercalate Hor between them.

     * See below, p. 121. Possibly he was a son of Amenemhat III.

The identification of the owners of the three western pyramids of Dashûr is due to M. de Morgan and his assistants, Messrs. Legrain and Jéquier, who excavated them from 1894 till 1896. The northern pyramid, that of Usertsen (Senusret) III, is not so well preserved as the southern. It is more worn away, and does not present so imposing an appearance. In both pyramids the outer casing of white stone has entirely disappeared, leaving only the bare black bricks. Each stood in the midst of a great necropolis of dignitaries of the period, as was usually the case. Many of the mastabas were excavated by M. de Morgan. Some are of older periods than the XIIth Dynasty, one belonging to a priest of King Snefru, Aha-f-ka ("Ghost-fighter"), who bore the additional titles of "director of prophets and general of infantry." There were pluralists even in those days. And the distinction between the privy councillor (Geheimrat) and real privy councillor (Wirk-licher-Greheimrat) was quite familiar; for we find it actually made, many an old Egyptian officially priding himself in his tomb on having been a real privy councillor! The Egyptian bureaucracy was already ancient and had its survivals and its anomalies even as early as the time of the pyramid-builders.

In front of the pyramid of Usertsen (Senusret) III at one time stood the usual funerary temple, but it has been totally destroyed. By the side of the pyramid were buried some of the princesses of the royal family, in a series of tombs opening out of a subterranean gallery, and in this gallery were found the wonderful jewels of the princesses Sit-hathor and Merit, which are among the greatest treasures of the Cairo Museum. Those who have not seen them can obtain a perfect idea of their appearance from the beautiful water-colour paintings of them by M. Legrain, which are published in M. de Morgan's work on the "Fouilles à Dahchour" (Vienna, 1895). Altogether one hundred and seven objects were recovered, consisting of all kinds of jewelry in gold and coloured stones. Among the most beautiful are the great "pectorals," or breast-ornaments, in the shape of pylons, with the names of Usertsen II, Usertsen III, and Amenemhat III; the names are surrounded by hawks standing on the sign for gold, gryphons, figures of the king striking down enemies, etc., all in cloisonné work, with beautiful stones such as lapis lazuli, green felspar, and carnelian taking the place of coloured enamels. The massive chains of golden beads and cowries are also very remarkable. These treasures had been buried in boxes in the floor of the subterranean gallery, and had luckily escaped the notice of plunderers, and so by a fortunate chance have survived to tell us what the Egyptian jewellers could do in the days of the XIIth Dynasty. Here also were found two great Nile barges, full-sized boats, with their oars and other gear complete. They also may be seen in the Museum of Cairo. It can only be supposed that they had served as the biers of the royal mummies, and had been brought up in state on sledges. The actual royal chamber was not found, although a subterranean gallery was driven beneath the centre of the pyramid.

The southern brick pyramid was constructed in the same way as the northern one. At the side of it were also found the tombs of members of the royal house, including that of the king Hor, already mentioned, with its interesting contents. The remains of the mummy of this ephemeral monarch, known only from his tomb, were also found. The entrails of the king were placed in the usual "canopic jars," which were sealed with the seal of Amenemhat III; it is thus that we know that Hor died before him. In many of the inscriptions of this king, on his coffin and stelo, a peculiarly affected manner of writing the hieroglyphs is found,—the birds are without their legs, the snake has no tail, the bee no head. Birds are found without their legs in other inscriptions of this period; it was a temporary fashion and soon discarded.

In the tomb of a princess named Nubhetep, near at hand, were found more jewels of the same style as those of Sit-hathor and Merit. The pyramid itself contained the usual passages and chambers, which were reached with much difficulty and considerable tunnelling by M. de Morgan. In fact, the search for the royal death-chambers lasted from December 5, 1894, till March 17, 1895, when the excavators' gallery finally struck one of the ancient passages, which were found to be unusually extensive, contrasting in this respect with the northern pyramid. The royal tomb-chamber had, of course, been emptied of what it contained. It must be remembered that, in any case, it is probable that the king was not actually buried here, but in the pyramid of Hawara.

The pyramid of Amenemhat II, which lies between the two brick pyramids, was built entirely of stone. Nothing of it remains above ground, but the investigation of the subterranean portions showed that it was remarkable for the massiveness of its stones and the care with which the masonry was executed. The same characteristics are found in the dependent tombs of the princesses Ha and Khnumet, in which more jewelry was found. This splendid stonework is characteristic of the Middle Kingdom; we find it also in the temple of Mentuhetep III at Thebes.

Some distance south of Dashûr is Mêdûm, where the pyramid of Sneferu reigns in solitude, and beyond this again is Lisht, where in the years 1894-6 MM. Gautier and Jéquier excavated the pyramid of Usertsen (Sen-usret) I. The most remarkable find was a cache of the seated statues of the king in white limestone, in absolutely perfect condition. They were found lying on their sides, just as they had been hidden. Six figures of the king in the form of Osiris, with the face painted red, were also found. Such figures seem to have been regularly set up in front of a royal sepulchre; several were found in front of the funerary temple of Mentu-hetep III, Thebes, which we shall describe later. A fine altar of gray granite, with representations in relief of the nomes bringing offerings, was also recovered. The pyramid of Lisht itself is not built of bricks, like those of Dashûr, but of stone. It was not, however, erected in so solid a fashion as those of earlier days at Gîza or Abusîr, and nothing is left of it now but a heap of débris. The XIIth Dynasty architects built walls of magnificent masonry, as we have seen, and there is no doubt that the stone casing of their pyramids was originally very fine, but the interior is of brick or rubble; the wonderful system of building employed by kings of the IVth Dynasty at Giza was not practised.

South of Lisht is Illahun, and at the entrance to the province of the Fayyûm, and west of this, nearer the Fayyûm, is Hawara, where Prof. Petrie excavated the pyramids of Usertsen (Senusret) II and Amenem-hat III. His discoveries have already been described by Prof. Maspero in his history, so that it will suffice here merely to compare them with the results of M. de Morgan's later work at Dashûr and that of MM. Gautier and Jéquier at Lisht, to note recent conclusions in connection with them, and to describe the newest discoveries in the same region.

Both pyramids are of brick, lined with stone, like those of Dashûr, with some differences of internal construction, since stone walls exist in the interior. The central chambers and passages leading to them were discovered; and in both cases the passages are peculiarly complex, with dumb chambers, great stone portcullises, etc., in order to mislead and block the way to possible plunderers. The extraordinary sepulchral chamber of the Hawara pyramid, which, though it is over twenty-two feet long by ten feet wide over all, is hewn out of one solid block of hard yellow quartzite, gives some idea of the remarkable facility of dealing with huge stones and the love of utilizing them which is especially characteristic of the XIIth Dynasty. The pyramid of Hawara was provided with a funerary temple the like of which had never been known in Egypt before and was never known afterwards. It was a huge building far larger than the pyramid itself, and built of fine limestone and crystalline white quartzite, in a style eminently characteristic of the XIIth Dynasty. In actual superficies this temple covered an extent of ground within which the temples of Karnak, Luxor, and the Ramesseum, at Thebes, could have stood, but has now almost entirely disappeared, having been used as a quarry for two thousand years. In Roman times this destroying process had already begun, but even then the building was still magnificent, and had been noted with wonder by all the Greek visitors to Egypt from the time of Herodotus downwards. Even before his day it had received the name of the "Labyrinth," on account of its supposed resemblance to the original labyrinth in Crete.

That the Hawara temple was the Egyptian labyrinth was pointed out by Lepsius in the 'forties of the last century. Within the last two or three years attention has again been drawn to it by Mr. Arthur Evans's discovery of the Cretan labyrinth itself in the shape of the Minoan or early Mycenæan palace of Knossos, near Candia in Crete. It is impossible to enter here into all the arguments by which it has been proved that the Knossian palace is the veritable labyrinth of the Minotaur legend, nor would it be strictly germane to our subject were we to do so; but it may suffice to say here that the word has been proved to be of Greek-or rather of pre-Hellenic-origin, and would mean in Karian "Place of the Double-Axe," like La-braunda in Karia, where Zeus was depicted with a double axe (labrys) in his hand. The non-Aryan, "Asianic," group of languages, to which certainly Lycian and probably Karian belong, has been shown by the German philologer Kretschmer to have spread over Greece into Italy in the period before the Aryan Greeks entered Hellas, and to have left undoubted traces of its presence in Greek place-names and in the Greek language itself. Before the true Hellenes reached Crete, an Asianic dialect must have been spoken there, and to this language the word "labyrinth" must originally have belonged. The classical labyrinth was "in the Knossian territory." The palace of Knossos was emphatically the chief seat of the worship of a god whose emblem was the double-axe; it was the Knossian "Place of the Double-Axe," the Cretan "Labyrinth."

It used to be supposed that the Cretan labyrinth had taken its name from the Egyptian one, and the, word itself was supposed to be of Egyptian origin. An Egyptian etymology was found for it as "Ro-pi-ro-henet," "Temple-mouth-canal," which might be interpreted, with some violence to Egyptian construction, as "The temple at the mouth of the canal," i.e. the Bahr Yusuf, which enters the Fayyûm at Hawara. But unluckily this word would have been pronounced by the natives of the vicinity as "Elphilahune," which is not very much like "Ro-pi-ro-henet" is, in fact, a mere figment of the philological imagination, and cannot be proved ever to have existed. The element Ro-henet, "canal-mouth" (according to the local pronunciation of the Fayyûm and Middle Egypt, called La-hunè), is genuine; it is the origin of the modern Illahun (el-Lahun), which is situated at the "canal-mouth." However, now that we know that the word labyrinth can be explained satisfactorily with the help of Karian, as evidently of Greek (pre-Aryan) origin, and as evidently the original name of the Knossian labyrinth, it is obvious that there is no need to seek a far-fetched explanation of the word in Egypt, and to suppose that the Greeks called the Cretan labyrinth after the Egyptian one.

The contrary is evidently the case. Greek visitors to Egypt found a resemblance between the great Egyptian building, with its numerous halls and corridors, vast in extent, and the Knossian palace. Even if very little of the latter was visible in the classical period, as seems possible, yet the site seems always to have been kept holy and free from later building till Roman times, and we know that the tradition of the mazy halls and corridors of the labyrinth was always clear, and was evidently based on a vivid reminiscence. Actually, one of the most prominent characteristics of the Knossian palace is its mazy and labyrinthine system of passages and chambers. The parallel between the two buildings, which originally caused the Greek visitors to give the pyramid-temple of Hawara the name of "labyrinth," has been traced still further. The white limestone walls and the shining portals of "Parian marble," described by Strabo as characteristic of the Egyptian labyrinth, have been compared with the shining white selenite or gypsum used at Knossos, and certain general resemblances between the Greek architecture of the Minoan age and the almost contemporary Egyptian architecture of the XIIth Dynasty have been pointed out.* Such resemblances may go to swell the amount of evidence already known, which tells us that there was a close connection between Egyptian and Minoan art and civilization, established at least as early as 2500 B.C.

     * See H. R. Hall, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 1905 (Pt.
     ii). The Temple of the Sphinx at Gîza may also be compared
     with those of Hawara and Knossos. It seems most probable
     that the Temple of the Sphinx is a XIIth Dynasty building.

For it must be remembered that within the last few years we have learned from the excavations in Crete a new chapter of ancient history, which, it might almost seem, shows us Greece and Egypt in regular communication from nearly the beginnings of Egyptian history. As the excavations which have told us this were carried on in Crete, not in Egypt, to describe them does not lie within the scope of this book, though a short sketch of their results, so far as they affect Egyptian history in later days, is given in Chapter VII. Here it may suffice to say that, as far as the early period is concerned, Egypt and Crete were certainly in communication in the time of the XIIth Dynasty, and quite possibly in that of the VIth or still earlier. We have IIId Dynasty Egyptian vases from Knossos, which were certainly not imported in later days, for no ancient nation had antiquarian tastes till the time of the Saïtes in Egypt and of the Romans still later. In fact, this communication seems to go so far back in time that we are gradually being led to perceive the possibility that the Minoan culture of Greece was in its origin an offshoot from that of primeval Egypt, probably in early Neolithic times. That is to say, the Neolithic Greeks and Neolithic Egyptians were both members of the same "Mediterranean" stock, which quite possibly may have had its origin in Africa, and a portion of which may have crossed the sea to Europe in very early times, taking with it the seeds of culture which in Egypt developed in the Egyptian way, in Greece in the Greek way. Actual communication and connection may not have been maintained at first, and probably they were not. Prof. Petrie thinks otherwise, and would see in the boats painted on the predynastic Egyptian vases (see Chapter I) the identical galleys by which, in late Neolithic times, commerce between Crete and Egypt was carried on across the Mediterranean. It is certain, however, that these boats are ordinary little river craft, the usual Nile felûkas and gyassas of the time; they are depicted together with emblems of the desert and cultivated land,-ostriches, antelopes, hills, and palm-trees,-and the thoroughly inland and Upper Egyptian character of the whole design springs to the eye. There can be no doubt whatever that the predynastic boats were not seagoing galleys.

It was probably not till the time of the pyramid-builders that connection between the Greek Mediterraneans and the Nilotes was re-established. Thence-forward it increased, and in the time of the XIIth Dynasty, when the labyrinth of Amenemhat III was built, there seems to have been some kind of more or less regular communication between the two countries.

It is certain that artistic ideas were exchanged between them at this period. How communication was carried on we do not know, but it was probably rather by way of Cyprus and the Syrian coast than directly across the open sea. We shall revert to this point when we come to describe the connection between Crete and Egypt in the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty, when Cretan ambassadors visited the Egyptian court and were depicted in tomb paintings at Thebes. Between the time of the XIIth Dynasty and that of the XVIIIth this connection seems to have been very considerably strengthened; for at Knossos have been found an Egyptian statuette of an Egyptian named Abnub, who from his name must have lived about the end of the XIIIth Dynasty, and the top of an alabastron with the royal name of Khian, one of the Hyksos kings.

Quite close to Hawara, at Illahun, in the ruins of the town which was built by Usertsen's workmen when they were building his pyramid, Prof. Petrie found fragments of pottery of types which we now know well from excavations in Crete and Cyprus, though they were then unknown. They are fragments of the polychrome Cretan ware called, after the name of the place where it was first found in Crete, Kamares ware, and of a black ware ornamented with small punctures, which are often filled up with white. This latter ware has been found elsewhere associated with XIIIth Dynasty antiquities. The former is known to belong in Crete to the "early Minoan" period, long anterior to the "late Minoan" or "Palace" period, which was contemporary with the Egyptian XVIIIth Dynasty. We have here another interesting proof of a connection between XIIth Dynasty Egypt and early Minoan Crete. The later connection, under the XVIIIth and following dynasties, is also illustrated in the same reign by Prof. Petrie's finds of late Mycenaean objects and foreign graves at Medinet Gurob.*

     * One man who was buried here bore the name An-Tursha,
     "Pillar of the Tursha." The Tursha were a people of the
     Mediterranean, possibly Tylissians of Crete.

These excavations at Hawara, Illahun, Kahun, and Gurob were carried out in the years 1887-9. Since then Prof. Petrie and his co-workers have revisited the same district, and Gurob has been re-examined (in 1904) by Messrs. Loat and Ayrton, who discovered there a shrine devoted to the worship of fish. This work was carried on at the same time as Prof. Petrie's main excavation for the Egypt Exploration Fund at Annas, or Ahnas-yet el-Medina, the site of the ancient Henensu, the Herakleopolis of the Greeks. Prof. Naville had excavated there for the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1892, but had not completely cleared the temple. This work was now taken up by Prof. Petrie, who laid the whole building bare. It is dedicated to Hershefi, the local deity of Herakleopolis. This god, who was called Ar-saphes by the Greeks, and identified with Herakles, was in fact a form of Horus with the head of a ram; his name means "Terrible-Face." The greater part of the temple dates to the time of the XIXth Dynasty, and nothing of the early period is left. We know, however, that the Middle Kingdom was the flourishing period of the city of Hershefi. For a comparatively brief period, between the age of Memphite hegemony and that of Theban dominion, Herakleopolis was the capital city of Egypt. The kings of the IXth and Xth Dynasties were Herakleopolites, though we know little of them. One, Kheti, is said to have been a great tyrant. Another, Nebkaurâ, is known only as a figure in the "Legend of the Eloquent Peasant," a classical story much in vogue in later days. Another, Merikarâ, is a more real personage, for we have contemporary records of his days in the inscriptions of the tombs at Asyût, from which we see that the princes of Thebes were already wearing down the Northerners, in spite of the resistance of the adherents of Herakleopolis, among whom the most valiant were the chiefs of Asyût. The civil war eventuated in favour of Thebes, and the Theban XIth Dynasty assumed the double crown. The sceptre passed from Memphis and the North, and Thebes enters upon the scene of Egyptian history.

With this event the Nile-land also entered upon a new era of development. The metropolis of the kingdom was once more shifted to the South, and, although the kings of the XIIth Dynasty actually resided in the North, their Theban origin was never forgotten, and Thebes was regarded as the chief city of the country. The XIth Dynasty kings actually reigned at Thebes, and there the later kings of the XIIIth Dynasty retired after the conquest of the Hyksos. The fact that with Thebes were associated all the heroic traditions of the struggle against the Hyksos ensured the final stability of the capital there when the hated Semites were finally driven out, and the national kingdom was re-established in its full extent from north to south. But for occasional intervals, as when Akhunaten held his court at Tell el-Amarna and Ramses II at Tanis, Thebes remained the national capital for six hundred years, till the time of the XXIId Dynasty.

Another great change which differentiates the Middle Kingdom (XIth-XIIIth Dynasties) from the Old Kingdom was caused by Egypt's coming into contact with other outside nations at this period. During the whole history of the Old Kingdom, Egyptian relations with the outer world had been nil. We have some inkling of occasional connection with the Mediterranean peoples, the Ha-nebu or Northerners; we have accounts of wars with the people of Sinai and other Bedawin and negroes; and expeditions were also sent to the land of Punt (Somaliland) by way of the Upper Nile. But we have not the slightest hint of any connection with, or even knowledge of, the great nations of the Euphrates valley or the peoples of Palestine. The Babylonian king Narâm-Sin invaded the Sinaitic peninsula (the land of Magan) as early as 3750 b. c, about the time of the IIId Egyptian Dynasty. The great King Tjeser, of that dynasty, also invaded Sinai, and so did Snefru, the last king of the dynasty. But we have no hint of any collision between Babylonians and Egyptians at that time, nor do either of them betray the slightest knowledge of one another's existence. It can hardly be that the two civilized peoples of the world in those days were really absolutely ignorant of each other, but we have no trace of any connection between them, other than the possible one before the founding of the Egyptian monarchy.

This early connection, however, is very problematical. We have seen that there seems to be in early Egyptian civilization an element ultimately of Babylonian origin, and that there are two theories as to how it reached Egypt. One supposes that it was brought by a Semitic people of Arab affinities (represented by the modern Grallas), who crossed the Straits of Bab el-Man-deb and reached Egypt either by way of the Wadi Hammamat or by the Upper Nile. The other would bring it across the Isthmus of Suez to the Delta, where, at Heliopolis, there certainly seems to have been a settlement of a Semitic type of very ancient culture. In both cases we should have Semites bringing Babylonian culture to Egypt. This, as we may remind the reader, was not itself of Semitic origin, but was a development due to a non-Semitic people, the Sumerians as they are called, who, so far as we know, were the aboriginal inhabitants of Babylonia. The Sumerian language was of agglutinative type, radically distinct both from the pure Semitic idioms and from Egyptian. The Babylonian elements of culture which the early Semitic invaders brought with them to Egypt were, then, ultimately of Sumerian origin. Sumerian civilization had profoundly influenced the Semitic tribes for centuries before the Semitic conquest of Babylonia, and when the Sumerians became more and more a conquered race, finally amalgamating with their conquerors and losing their racial and linguistic individuality, they were conquered by an alien race but not by an alien culture. For the culture of the Semites was Sumerian, the Semitic races owing their civilization to the Sumerians. That is as much as to say that a great deal of what we call Semitic culture is fundamentally non-Semitic.

In the earliest days, then, Egypt received elements of Sumerian culture through a Semitic medium, which introduced Semitic elements into the language of the people, and a Semitic racial strain. It is possible. that both theories as to the routes of these primeval conquerors are true, and that two waves of Semites entered the Nile valley towards the close of the Neolithic period, one by way of the Upper Nile or Wadi Hammamat, the other by way of Heliopolis.

After the reconsolidation of the Egyptian people, with perhaps an autocratic class of Semitic origin and a populace of indigenous Nilotic race, we have no trace of further connection with the far-away centre of Semitic culture in Babylonia till the time of the Theban hegemony. Under the XIIth Dynasty we see Egyptians in friendly relations with the Bedawin of Idumsea and Southern Palestine. Thus Sanehat, the younger son of Amenemhat I, when the death of his royal father was announced, fled from the new king Usertsen (Senusret) into Palestine, and there married the daughter of the chief Ammuanshi and became a Syrian chief himself, only finally returning to Egypt as an old man on the assurance of the royal pardon and favour. We have in the reign of Usertsen (Senusret) II the famous visit of the Arab chief Abisha (Abêshu') with his following to the court of Khnumhetep, the prince of the Oryx nome in Middle Egypt, as we see it depicted on the walls of Khnumhetep's tomb at Beni Hasan. We see Usertsen (Senusret) III invading Palestine to chastise the land of Sekmem and the vile Syrians.*

     * We know of this campaign from the interesting historical
     stele of the general Sebek-khu (who took part in it), which
     was found during Mr. Garstang's excavations at Abydos, not
     previously referred to above. They were carried out in 1900,
     and resulted in the complete clearance of a part of the
     great cemetery which had been created during the XIIth
     Dynasty. The group of objects from the tombs of this
     cemetery, and those of XVIIIth Dynasty tombs also found, is
     especially valuable as showing the styles of objects in use
     at these two periods (see Garstang, el-Ardbah, 1901).

The arm of Egypt was growing longer, and its weight was being felt in regions where it had previously been entirely unknown. Eventually the collision came. Egypt collided with an Asiatic power, and got the worst of the encounter. So much the worse that the Theban monarchy of the Middle Kingdom was overthrown, and Northern Egypt was actually conquered by the Asiatic foreigners and ruled by a foreign house for several centuries. Who these conquering Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, were no recent discovery has told us. An old idea was that they were Mongols. It was supposed that the remarkable faces of the sphinxes of Tanis, now in the Cairo Museum, which bore the names of Hyksos kings, were of Mongolian type, as also those of two colossal royal heads discovered by M. Naville at Bubastis. But M. Golénischeff has now shown that these heads are really those of XIIth Dynasty kings, and not of Hyksos at all. Messrs. Newberry and Garstang have lately endeavoured to show that this type was foreign, and probably connected with that of the Kheta, or Hittites, of Northern Syria, who came into prominence as enemies of Egypt at a later period. They think that the type was introduced into the Egyptian royal family by Nefret, the queen of Usertsen (Senusret) II, whom they suppose to have been a Hittite princess. At the same time they think it probable that the type was also that of the Hyksos, whom they consider to have been practically Hittites. They therefore revive the theory of de Cara, which connects the Hyksos with the Hittites and these with the Pelasgi and Tyrseni.

This is a very interesting theory, which, when carried out to its logical conclusion, would connect the Hyksos and Hittites racially with the pre-Hellenic "Minoan" Mycenseans of Greece, as well as with the Etruscans of Italy. But there is little of certainty in it. It is by no means impossible that we may eventually come to know that the Hittites (Kheta, the Khatte of the Assyrians) and other tribes of Asia Minor were racially akin to the "Minoans" of Greece, but the connection between the Hyksos and the Hittites is to seek. The countenances of the Kheta on the Egyptian monuments of Ramses II's time have an angular cast, and so have those of the Tanis sphinxes, of Queen Nefret, of the Bubastis statues, and the statues of Usertsen (Senusret) III and Amenemhat III. We might then suppose, with Messrs. Newberry and Garstang, that Nefret was a Kheta princess, who gave her peculiar racial traits to her son Usertsen (Senusret) III and his son Amenem-hat, were it not far more probable that the resemblance between this peculiar XIIth Dynasty type and the Kheta face is purely fortuitous.

There is really no reason to suppose that the type of face presented by Nefret, Usertsen, and Amenemhat is not purely Egyptian. It may be seen in many a modern fellah, and the truth probably is that the sculptors have in the case of these rulers very faithfully and carefully depicted their portraits, and that their faces happen to have been of a rather hard and forbidding type. But, if we grant the contention of Messrs. Newberry and Garstang for the moment, where is the connection between these XIIth Dynasty kings and the Hyksos? All the Tanite monuments with this peculiar facial type which would be considered Hyksos are certainly of the XIIth Dynasty. The only statue of a Hyksos king, which was undoubtedly originally made for him and is not one of the XIIth Dynasty usurped, is the small one of Khian at Cairo, discovered by M. Naville at Bubastis, and this has no head. So that we have not the slightest idea of what a Hyksos looked like. Moreover, the evidence of the Hyksos names which are known to us points in quite a different direction. The Kheta, or Hittites, were certainly not Semites, yet the Hyksos names are definitely Semitic. In fact it is most probable that the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, were, as the classical authorities say they were, and as their name (hiku-semut or hihu-shasu,) "princes of the deserts" or ("princes of the Bedawîn") also testifies, purely and simply Arabs.

Now it is not a little curious that almost at the same time that a nomad Arab race conquered Lower Egypt and settled in it as rulers (just as 'Amr and the followers of Islam did over two thousand years later), another Arab race may have imposed its rule upon Babylonia. Yet this may have been the case; for the First Dynasty of Babylon, to which the famous Hammurabi belonged, was very probably of Arab origin, to judge by the forms of some of the royal names. It is by no means impossible that there was some connection between these two conquests, and that both Babylonia and Egypt fell, in the period before the year 2000 B.C. before some great migratory movement from Arabia, which overran Babylonia, Palestine, and even the Egyptian Delta.

In this manner Egypt and Babylonia may have been brought together in common subjection to the Arab. We do not know whether any regular communication between Egypt, under Semitic rule, and Babylonia was now established; but we do know that during the Hyksos period there were considerable relations between Egypt and over-sea Crete, and relations with Mesopotamia may possibly have been established. At any rate, when the war of liberation, which was directed by the princes of Thebes, was finally brought to a successful conclusion and the Arabs were expelled, we find the Egyptians a much changed nation. They had adopted for war the use of horse and chariot, which they learnt from their Semitic conquerors, whose victory was in all probability largely gained by their use, and, generally speaking, they had become much more like the Western Asiatic nations. Egypt was no longer isolated, for she had been forcibly brought into contact with the foreign world, and had learned much. She was no longer self-contained within her own borders. If the Semites could conquer her, so could she conquer the Semites. Armed with horse and chariot, the Egyptians went forth to battle, and their revenge was complete. All Palestine and Syria were Egyptian domains for five hundred years after the conquest by Thothmes I and III, and Ashur and Babel sent tribute to the Pharaoh of Egypt.

The reaction came, and Egypt was thrown prostrate beneath the feet of Assyria; but her claim to dominion over the Western Asiatics was never abandoned, and was revived in all its pomp by Ptolemy Euergetes, who brought back in triumph to Egypt the images of the gods which had been removed by Assyrians and Babylonians centuries before. This claim was never allowed by the Asiatics, it is true, and their kings wrote to the proudest Pharaoh as to an absolute equal. Even the King of Cyprus calls the King of Egypt his brother. But Palestine was admitted to be an Egyptian possession, and the Phoenicians were always energetic supporters of the Egyptian régime against the lawless Bedawîn tribes, who were constantly intriguing with the Kheta or Hittite power to the north against Egypt.

The existence of this extra-Egyptian imperial possession meant that the eyes of the Egyptians were now permanently turned in the direction of Western Asia, with which they were henceforth in constant and intimate communication. The first Theban period and the Hyksos invasion, therefore, mark a turning-point in Egyptian history, at which we may fitly leave it for a time in order to turn our attention to those peoples of Western Asia with whom the Egyptians had now come into permanent contact.

Just as new discoveries have been made in Egypt, which have modified our previous conception of her history, so also have the excavators of the ancient sites in the Mesopotamian valley made, during the last few years, far-reaching discoveries, which have enabled us to add to and revise much of our knowledge of the history of Babylonia and Assyria. In Palestine and the Sinaitic peninsula also the spade has been used with effect, but a detailed account of work in Sinai and Palestine falls within the limits of a description of Biblical discoveries rather than of this book. The following chapters will therefore deal chiefly with modern discoveries which have told us new facts with regard to the history of the ancient Sumerians themselves, and of the Babylonians, Elamites, Kassites, and Assyrians, the inheritors of the ancient Sumerian civilization, which was older than that of Egypt, and which, as we have seen, probably contributed somewhat to its formation. These were the two primal civilizations of the ancient world. For two thousand years each marched upon a solitary road, without meeting the other. Eventually the two roads converged. We have hitherto dealt with the road of the Egyptians; we now describe that of the Mesopotamians, up to the point of convergence.

CHAPTER IV—RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN WESTERN ASIA
AND THE DAWN OF CHALDÆAN HISTORY

In the preceding pages it has been shown how recent excavations in Egypt have revealed an entirely new chapter in the history of that country, and how, in consequence, our theories with regard to the origin of Egyptian civilization have been entirely remodelled. Excavations have been and are being carried out in Mesopotamia and the adjacent countries with no less enthusiasm and energy than in Egypt itself, and, although it cannot be said that they have resulted in any sweeping modification of our conceptions with regard to the origin and kinship of the early races of Western Asia, yet they have lately added considerably to our knowledge of the ancient history of the countries in that region of the world. This is particularly the case in respect of the Sumerians, who, so far as we know at present, were the earliest inhabitants of the fertile plains of Mesopotamia. The beginnings of this ancient people stretch back into the remote past, and their origin is still shrouded in the mists of antiquity. When first we come across them they have already attained a high level of civilization. They have built temples and palaces and houses of burnt and unburnt brick, and they have reduced their system of agriculture to a science, intersecting their country with canals for purposes of irrigation and to ensure a good supply of water to their cities. Their sculpture and pottery furnish abundant evidence that they have already attained a comparatively high level in the practice of the arts, and finally they have evolved a complicated system of writing which originally had its origin in picture-characters, but afterwards had been developed along phonetic lines. To have attained to this pitch of culture argues long periods of previous development, and we must conclude that they had been settled in Southern Babylonia many centuries before the period to which we must assign the earliest of their remains at present discovered.

That this people were not indigenous to Babylonia is highly probable, but we have little data by which to determine the region from which they originally came. Prom the fact that they built their ziggurats, or temple towers, of huge masses of unburnt brick which rose high above the surrounding plain, and that their ideal was to make each "like a mountain," it has been argued that they were a mountain race, and the home from which they sprang has been sought in Central Asia. Other scholars have detected signs of their origin in their language and system of writing, and, from the fact that they spoke an agglutinative tongue and at the earliest period arranged the characters of their script in vertical lines like the Chinese, it has been urged that they were of Mongol extraction. Though a case may be made out for this hypothesis, it would be rash to dogmatize for or against it, and it is wiser to await the discovery of further material on which a more certain decision may be based. But whatever their origin, it is certain that the Sumerians exercised an extraordinary influence on all races with which, either directly or indirectly, they came in contact. The ancient inhabitants of Elam at a very early period adopted in principle their method of writing, and afterwards, living in isolation in the mountainous districts of Persia, developed it on lines of their own. [* See Chap. V, and note.] On their invasion of Babylonia the Semites fell absolutely under Sumerian influence, and, although they eventually conquered and absorbed the Sumerians, their civilization remained Sumerian to the core. Moreover, by means of the Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia Sumerian culture continued to exert its influence on other and more distant races. We have already seen how a Babylonian element probably enters into Egyptian civilization through Semitic infiltration across the Straits of Bab el-Mandeb or by way of the Isthmus of Suez, and it was Sumerian culture which these Semites brought with them. In like manner, through the Semitic Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Kassites, and the inhabitants of Palestine and Syria, and of some parts of Asia Minor, Armenia, and Kurdistan, all in turn experienced indirectly the influence of Sumerian civilization and continued in a greater or less degree to reproduce elements of this early culture.

It will be seen that the influence of the Sumerians furnishes us with a key to much that would otherwise prove puzzling in the history of the early races of Western Asia. It is therefore all the more striking to recall the fact that but a few years ago the very existence of this ancient people was called in question. At that time the excavations in Mesopotamia had not revealed many traces of the race itself, and its previous existence had been mainly inferred from a number of Sumerian compositions inscribed upon Assyrian tablets found in the library of Ashur-bani-pal at Nineveh. These compositions were furnished with Assyrian translations upon the tablets on which they were inscribed, and it was correctly argued by the late Sir Henry Rawlinson, the late M. Oppert, Prof. Schrader, Prof. Sayce, and other scholars that they were written in the language of the earlier inhabitants of the country whom the Semitic Babylonians had displaced. But M. Halévy started a theory to the effect that Sumerian was not a language at all, in the proper sense of the term, but was a cabalistic method of writing invented by the Semitic Babylonian priests.

147.jpg List of Archaic Cuneiform Signs.

     Drawn up by an Assyrian scribe to assist him in his studies
     of early texts. Photograph by Messrs. Mansell & Co.

The argument on which the upholders of this theory mainly relied was that many of the phonetic values of the Sumerian signs were obviously derived from Semitic equivalents, and they hastily jumped to the conclusion that the whole language was similarly derived from Semitic Babylonian, and was, in fact, a purely arbitrary invention of the Babylonian priests. This theory ignored all questions of inherent probability, and did not attempt to explain why the Babylonian priests should have troubled themselves to make such an invention and afterwards have stultified themselves by carefully appending Assyrian translations to the majority of the Sumerian compositions which they copied out. Moreover, the nature of these compositions is not such as we should expect to find recorded in a cabalistic method of writing. They contain no secret lore of the Babylonian priests, but are merely hymns and prayers and religious compositions similar to those employed by the Babylonians and Assyrians themselves.

But in spite of its inherent improbabilities, M. Halévy succeeded in making many converts to his theory, including Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch and a number of the younger school of German Assyriologists. More conservative scholars, such as Sir Henry Rawlinson, M. Oppert, and Prof. Schrader, stoutly opposed the theory, maintaining that Sumerian was a real language and had been spoken by an earlier race whom the Semitic Babylonians had conquered; and they explained the resemblance of some of the Sumerian values to Semitic roots by supposing that Sumerian had not been suddenly superseded by the language of the Semitic invaders of Babylonia, but that the two tongues had been spoken for long periods side by side and that each had been strongly influenced by the other. This very probable and sane explanation has been fully corroborated by subsequent excavations, particularly those that were carried out at Telloh in Southern Babylonia by the late M. de Sarzec. In these mounds, which mark the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Shirpurla, were found thousands of clay tablets inscribed in archaic characters and in the Sumerian language, proving that it had actually been the language of the early inhabitants of Babylonia; while the examples of their art and the representations of their form and features, which were also afforded by the diggings at Telloh, proved once for all that the Sumerians were a race of strongly marked characteristics and could not be ascribed to a Semitic stock.

The system of writing invented by the ancient Sumerians was adopted by the Semitic Babylonians, who modified it to suit their own language. Moreover, the archaic forms of the characters, many of which under the Sumerians still retained resemblances to the pictures of objects from which they were descended, were considerably changed. The lines, of which they were originally composed, gave way to wedges, and the number of the wedges of which each sign consisted was gradually diminished, so that in the time of the Assyrians and the later Babylonians many of the characters bore small resemblance to the ancient Sumerian forms from which they had been derived. The reading of Sumerian and early Babylonian inscriptions by the late Assyrian scribes was therefore an accomplishment only to be acquired as the result of long study, and it is interesting to note that as an assistance to the reading of these early texts the scribes compiled lists of archaic signs. Sometimes opposite each archaic character they drew a picture of the object from which they imagined it was derived. This fact is significant as proving that the Assyrian scribes recognized the pictorial origin of cuneiform writing, but the pictures they drew opposite the signs are rather fanciful, and it cannot be said that their guesses were very successful. That we are able to criticize the theories of the Assyrians as to the origin and forms of the early characters is in the main due to M. de Sarzec's labours, from whose excavations many thousands of inscriptions of the Sumerians have been recovered.

The main results of M. de Sarzec's diggings at Telloh have already been described by M. Maspero in his history, and therefore we need not go over them again, but will here confine ourselves to the results which have been obtained from recent excavations at Telloh and at other sites in Western Asia. With the death of M. de Sarzec, which occurred in his sixty-fifth year, on May 31, 1901, the wonderfully successful series of excavations which he had carried out at Telloh was brought to an end. In consequence it was feared at the time that the French diggings on this site might be interrupted for a considerable period. Such an event would have been regretted by all those who are interested in the early history of the East, for, in spite of the treasures found by M. de Sarzec in the course of his various campaigns, it was obvious that the site was far from being exhausted, and that the tells as yet unexplored contained inscriptions and antiquities extending back to the very earliest periods of Sumerian history.

150.jpg Fragment of a List Of Archaic Cuneiform Signs.

     Opposite each the scribe has drawn a picture of the object
     from which he imagined it was derived. Photograph by Messrs.
     Mansell & Co.

The announcement which was made in 1902, that the French government had appointed Capt. Gaston Cros as the late M. de Sarzec's successor, was therefore received with general satisfaction. The fact that Capt. Cros had already successfully carried out several difficult topographical missions in the region of the Sahara was a sufficient guarantee that the new diggings would be conducted on a systematic and exhaustive scale.

The new director of the French mission in Chaldæa arrived at Telloh in January, 1903, and one of his first acts was to shift the site of the mission's settlement from the bank of the Shatt el-Hai, where it had always been established in the time of M. de Sarzec, to the mounds where the actual digging took place. The Shatt el-Hai had been previously chosen as the site of the settlement to ensure a constant supply of water, and as it was more easily protected against attack by night. But the fact that it was an hour's ride from the diggings caused an unnecessary loss of time, and rendered the strict supervision of the diggers a matter of considerable difficulty. During the first season's work rough huts of reeds, surrounded by a wall of earth and a ditch, served the new expedition for its encampment among the mounds of Telloh, but last year these makeshift arrangements were superseded by a regular house built out of the burnt bricks which are found in abundance on the site. A reservoir has also been built, and caravans of asses bring water in skins from the Shatt el-Hai to keep it filled with a constant supply of water, while the excellent relations which Capt. Cros has established with the Karagul Arabs, who occupy Telloh and its neighbourhood, have proved to be the best kind of protection for the mission engaged in scientific work upon the site.

The group of mounds and hillocks, known as Telloh, which marks the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Shirpurla, is easily distinguished from the flat surrounding desert. The mounds extend in a rough oval formation running north and south, about two and a half miles long and one and a quarter broad. In the early spring, when the desert is covered with a light green verdure, the ruins are clearly marked out as a yellow spot in the surrounding green, for vegetation does not grow upon them. In the centre of this oval, which approximately marks the limits of the ancient city and its suburbs, are four large tells or mounds running, roughly, north and south, their sides descending steeply on the east, but with their western slopes rising by easier undulations from the plain. These four principal tells are known as the "Palace Tell," the "Tell of the Fruit-house," the "Tell of the Tablets," and the "Great Tell," and, rising as they do in the centre of the site, they mark the position of the temples and the other principal buildings of the city.

An indication of the richness of the site in antiquities was afforded to the new mission before it had started regular excavation and while it was yet engaged in levelling its encampment and surrounding it with a wall and ditch. The spot selected for the camp was a small mound to the south of the site of Telloh, and here, in the course of preparing the site for the encampment and digging the ditch, objects were found at a depth of less than a foot beneath the surface of the soil. These included daggers, copper vases, seal-cylinders, rings of lapis and cornelian, and pottery. M. de Sarzec had carried out his latest diggings in the Tell of the Tablets, and here Capt. Cros continued the excavations and came upon the remains of buildings and recovered numerous objects, dating principally from the period of Gudea and the kings of Ur. The finds included small terra-cotta figures, a boundary-stone of Gamil-Sin, and a new statue of Gudea, to which we will refer again presently.

In the Tell of the Fruit-house M. de Sarzec had already discovered numbers of monuments dating from the earlier periods of Sumerian history before the conquest and consolidation of Babylonia under Sargon of Agade, and had excavated a primitive terrace built by the early king Ur-Ninâ. Both on and around this large mound Capt. Cros cut an extensive series of trenches, and in digging to the north of the mound he found a number of objects, including an alabaster tablet of Ente-mena which had been blackened by fire. At the foot of the tell he found a copper helmet like those represented on the famous Stele of Vultures discovered by M. de Sarzec, and among the tablets here recovered was one with an inscription of the time of Urukagina, which records the complete destruction of the city of Shirpurla during his reign, and will be described in greater detail later on in this chapter. On the mound itself a considerable area was uncovered with remains of buildings still in place, the use of which appears to have been of an industrial character. They included flights of steps, canals with raised banks, and basins for storing water. Not far off are the previously discovered wells of Bannadu, so that it is legitimate to suppose that Capt. Cros has here come upon part of the works which were erected at a very early period of Sumerian history for the distribution of water to this portion of the city.

     An early Semitic king of the city of Kish in Babylonia. The
     photograph is taken from M. de Morgan's Delegation en Perse,
     M'em., t. i, pi. ix.

In the Palace Tell Capt. Cros has sunk a series of deep shafts to determine precisely the relations which the buildings of Ur-Bau and Gudea, found already on this part of the site, bear to each other, and to the building of Adad-nadin-akhê, which had been erected there at a much later period. Prom this slight sketch of the work carried out during the last two years at Telloh it will have been seen that the Prench mission in Chaldæa is at present engaged in excavations of a most important character, which are being conducted in a regular and scientific manner. As the area of the excavations marks the site of the chief city of the Sumerians, the diggings there have yielded and are yielding material of the greatest interest and value for the reconstruction of the early history of Chaldæa. After briefly describing the character and results of other recent excavations in Mesopotamia and the neighbouring lands, we will return to the discoveries at Telloh and sketch the new information they supply on the history of the earliest inhabitants of the country.

Another French mission that is carrying out work of the very greatest interest to the student of early Babylonian history is that which is excavating at Susa in Persia, under the direction of M. J. de Morgan, whose work on the prehistoric and early dynastic sites in Egypt has already been described. M. de Morgan's first season's digging at Susa was carried out in the years 1897-8, and the success with which he met from the very first, when cutting trenches in the mound which marks the acropolis of the ancient city, has led him to concentrate his main efforts in this part of the ruins ever since. Provisional trenches cut in the part of the ruins called "the Royal City," and in others of the mounds at Susa, indicate that many remains may eventually be found there dating from the period of the Achæmenian Kings of Persia. But it is in the mound of the acropolis at Susa that M. de Morgan has found monuments of the greatest historical interest and value, not only in the history of ancient Elam, but also in that of the earliest rulers of Chaldæa.

In the diggings carried out during the first season's work on the site, an obelisk was found inscribed on four sides with a long text of some sixty-nine columns, written in Semitic Babylonian by the orders of Manishtusu, a very early Semitic king of the city of Kish in Babylonia.[* See illustration.] The text records the purchase by the King of Kish of immense tracts of land situated at Kish and in its neighbourhood, and its length is explained by the fact that it enumerates full details of the size and position of each estate, and the numbers and some of the names of the dwellers on the estates who were engaged in their cultivation. After details have been given of a number of estates situated in the same neighbourhood, a summary is appended referring to the whole neighbourhood, and the fact is recorded that the district dealt with in the preceding catalogue and summary had been duly acquired by purchase by Manishtusu, King of Kish. The long text upon the obelisk is entirely taken up with details of the purchase of the territory, and therefore its subject has not any great historical value. Mention is made in it of two personages, one of whom may possibly be identified with a Babylonian ruler whose name is known from other sources. If the proposed identification t should prove to be correct, it would enable us to assign a more precise date to Manishtusu than has hitherto been possible. One of the personages in question was a certain Urukagina, the son of Engilsa, patesi of Shirpurla, and it has been suggested that he is the same Urukagina who is known to have occupied the throne of Shirpurla, though this identification would bring Manishtusu down somewhat later than is probable from the general character of his inscriptions. The other personage mentioned in the text is the son of Manishtusu, named Mesalim, and there is more to be said for the identification of this prince with Mesilim, the early King of Kish, who reigned at a period anterior to that of Eannadu, patesi of Shirpurla.

The mere fact of so large and important an obelisk, inscribed with a Semitic text by an early Babylonian king, being found at Susa was an indication that other monuments of even greater interest might be forthcoming from the same spot; and this impression was intensified when a stele of victory was found bearing an inscription of Naram-Sin, the early Semitic King of Agade, who reigned about 3750 B.C. One face of this stele is sculptured with a representation of the king conquering his enemies in a mountainous country. [* See illustration.] The king himself wears a helmet adorned with the horns of a bull, and he carries his battle-axe and his bow and an arrow. He is nearly at the summit of a high mountain, and up its steep sides, along paths through the trees which clothe the mountain, climb his allies and warriors bearing standards and weapons. The king's enemies are represented suing for mercy as they turn to fly before him. One grasps a broken spear, while another, crouching before the king, has been smitten in the throat by an arrow from the king's bow. On the plain surface of the stele above the king's head may be seen traces of an inscription of Narâm-Sin engraved in three columns in the archaic characters of his period. From the few signs of the text that remain, we gather that Narâm-Sin had conducted a campaign with the assistance of certain allied princes, including the Princes of Sidur, Saluni, and Lulubi, and it is not improbable that they are to be identified with the warriors represented on the stele as climbing the mountain behind Narâm-Sin.

In reference to this most interesting stele of Narâm-Sin we may here mention another inscription of this king, found quite recently at Susa and published only this year, which throws additional light on Narâm-Sin's allies and on the empire which he and his father Sargon founded. The new inscription was engraved on the base of a diorite statue, which had been broken to pieces so that only the base with a portion of the text remained. From this inscription we learn that Narâm-Sin was the head of a confederation of nine chief allies, or vassal princes, and waged war on his enemies with their assistance. Among these nine allies of course the Princes of Sidur, Saluni, and Lulubi are to be included. The new text further records that Narâm-Sin made an expedition against Magan (the Sinaitic peninsula), and defeated Manium, the lord of that region, and that he cut blocks of stone in the mountains there and transported them to his city of Agade, where from one of them he made the statue on the base of which the text was inscribed. It was already known from the so-called "Omens of Sargon and Narâm-Sin" (a text inscribed on a clay tablet from Ashur-bani-pal's library at Nineveh which associates the deeds of these two early rulers with certain augural phenomena) that Narâm-Sin had made an expedition to Sinai in the course of his reign and had conquered the king of the country. The new text gives contemporary confirmation of this assertion and furnishes us with additional information with regard to the name of the conquered ruler of Sinai and other details of the campaign.

That monuments of such great interest to the early history of Chaldæa should have been found at Susa in Persia was sufficiently startling, but an easy explanation was at first forthcoming from the fact that Narâm-Sin's stele of victory had been used by the later Elamite king, Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, for an inscription of his own; this he had engraved in seven long lines along the great cone in front of Narâm-Sin, which is probably intended to represent the peak of the mountain. From the fact that it had been used in this way by Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, it seemed permissible to infer that it had been captured in the course of a campaign and brought to Susa as a trophy of war. But we shall see later on that the existence of early Babylonian inscriptions and monuments in the mound of the acropolis at Susa is not to be explained in this way, but was due to the wide extension of both Sumerian and Semitic influence throughout Western Asia from the very earliest periods. This subject will be treated more fully in the chapter dealing with the early history of Blam.

The upper surface of the tell of the acropolis at Susa for a depth of nearly two metres contains remains of the buildings and antiquities of the Achæmenian kings and others of both later and earlier dates. In these upper strata of the mound are found remains of the Arab, Sassanian, Parthian, Seleucian, and Persian periods, mixed indiscriminately with one another and with Elamite objects and materials of all ages, from that of the earliest patesis down to that of the Susian kings of the seventh century B.C.

     The most northern of the mounds which now mark the site of
     the ancient city of Babylon; used for centuries as a quarry
     for building materials.

The reason of this mixture of the remains of many races and periods is that the later builders on the mound made use of the earlier building materials which they found preserved within it. Along the skirts of the mound may still be seen the foundations of the wall which formed the principal defence of the acropolis in the time of Xerxes, and in many places not only are the foundations preserved but large pieces of the wall itself still rise above the surface of the soil.

160a-text.jpg Text for 'Stele of Victory'

     Stele of Narâm-Sin, an early Semitic King of Agade in
     Babylonia, who reigned about B. C. 3750. From the photograph
     by Messrs. Mansell & Co.

The plan of the wall is quite irregular, following the contours of the mound, and, though it is probable that the wall was strengthened and defended at intervals by towers, no trace of these now remains. The wall is very thick and built of unburnt bricks, and the system of fortification seems to have been extremely simple at this period.

161.jpg Roughly Hewn Sculpture of a Lion Standing over A
Fallen Man, Found at Babylon.

     The group probably represents Babylon or the Babylonian king
     triumphing over the country's enemies. The Arabs regard the
     figure as an evil spirit, and it is pitted with the marks of
     bullets shot at it. They also smear it with filth when they
     can do so unobserved; in the photograph some newly smeared
     filth may be seen adhering to the side of the lion.

The earlier citadel or fortress of the city of Susa was built at the top of the mound and must have been a more formidable stronghold than that of the Achæmenian kings, for, besides its walls, it had the additional protection of the steep slopes of the mound.

Below the depth of two metres from the surface of the mound are found strata in which Elamite objects and materials are, no longer mixed with the remains of later ages, but here the latest Elamite remains are found mingled with objects and materials dating from the earliest periods of Elam's history. The use of un-burnt bricks as the principal material for buildings erected on the mound in all ages has been another cause of this mixture of materials, for it has little power of resistance to water, and a considerable rain-storm will wash away large portions of the surface and cause the remains of different strata to be mixed indiscriminately with one another. In proportion as the trenches were cut deeper into the mound the strata which were laid bare showed remains of earlier ages than those in the upper layers, though here also remains of different periods are considerably mixed. The only building that has hitherto been discovered at Susa by M. de Morgan, the ground plan of which was in a comparatively good state of preservation, was a small temple of the god Shu-shinak, and this owed its preservation to the fact that it was not built of unburnt brick, but was largely composed of burnt brick and plaques and tiles of enamelled terra-cotta.

But although the diggings of M. de Morgan at Susa have so far afforded little information on the subject of Elamite architecture, the separate objects found have enabled us to gain considerable knowledge of the artistic achievements of the race during the different periods of its existence. Moreover, the stelæ and stone records that have been recovered present a wealth of material for the study of the long history of Elam and of the kings who ruled in Babylonia during the earliest ages.

163.jpg General View of the Excavations on The Kasr At
Babylon.

     Showing the depth in the mound to which the diggings are
     carried.

The most famous of M. de Morgan's recent finds is the long code of laws drawn up by Hammurabi, the greatest king of the First Dynasty of Babylon.* This was engraved upon a huge block of black diorite, and was found in the tell of the acropolis in the winter of 1901-2. This document in itself has entirely revolutionized current theories as to the growth and origin of the principal ancient legal codes. It proves that Babylonia was the fountainhead from which many later races borrowed portions of their legislative systems. Moreover, the subjects dealt with in this code of laws embrace most of the different classes of the Babylonian people, and it regulates their duties and their relations to one another in their ordinary occupations and pursuits. It therefore throws much light upon early Babylonian life and customs, and we shall return to it in the chapter dealing with these subjects.

     * It will be noted that the Babylonian dynasties are
     referred to throughout this volume as "First Dynasty,"
     "Second Dynasty," "Third Dynasty," etc. They are thus
     distinguished from the Egyptian dynasties, the order of
     which is indicated by Roman numerals, e.g. "Ist Dynasty,"
     "IId Dynasty," "IIId Dynasty."

The American excavators at Nippur, under the direction of Mr. Haynes, have done much in the past to increase our knowledge of Sumerian and early Babylonian history, but the work has not been continued in recent years, and, unfortunately, little progress has been made in the publication of the material already accumulated. In fact, the leadership in American excavation has passed from the University of Pennsylvania to that of Chicago. This progressive university has sent out an expedition, under the general direction of Prof. R. F. Harper (with Dr. E. J. Banks as director of excavations), which is doing excellent work at Bismya, and, although it is too early yet to expect detailed accounts of their achievements, it is clear that they have already met with considerable success. One of their recent finds consists of a white marble statue of an early Sumerian king named Daudu, which was set up in the temple of E-shar in the city of Udnun, of which he was ruler. From its archaic style of workmanship it may be placed in the earliest period of Sumerian history, and may be regarded as an earnest of what may be expected to follow from the future labours of Prof. Harper's expedition.

165.jpg Within the Palace of Nebuchadnezzar II.

At Fâra and at Abû Hatab in Babylonia, the Deutsch-Orient Gesellschaft, under Dr. Koldewey's direction, has excavated Sumerian and Babylonian remains of the early period. At the former site they unearthed the remains of many private houses and found some Sumerian tablets of accounts and commercial documents, but little of historical interest; and an inscription, which seems to have come from Abu Hatab, probably proves that the Sumerian name of the city whose site it marks was Kishurra. But the main centre of German activity in Babylonia is the city of Babylon itself, where for the last seven years Dr. Koldewey has conducted excavations, unearthing the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar II on the mound termed the Kasr, identifying the temple of E-sagila under the mound called Tell Amran ibn-Ali, tracing the course of the sacred way between E-sagila and the palace-mound, and excavating temples dedicated to the goddess Ninmakh and the god Ninib.

166.jpg Excavations in the Temple Op Ninib at Babylon.

     In the middle distance may be seen the metal trucks running
     on light rails which are employed on the work for the
     removal of the débris from the diggings.

Dr. Andrae, Dr. Koldewey's assistant, has also completed the excavation of the temple dedicated to Nabû at Birs Nimrud. On the principal mound at this spot, which marks the site of the ancient city of Borsippa, traces of the ziggurat, or temple tower, may still be seen rising from the soil, the temple of Nabû lying at a lower level below the steep slope of the mound, which is mainly made up of débris from the ziggurat. Dr. Andrae has recently left Babylonia for Assyria, where his excavations at Sher-ghat, the site of the ancient Assyrian city of Ashur, are confidently expected to throw considerable light on the early history of that country and the customs of the people, and already he has made numerous finds of considerable interest.

167.jpg the Principal Mound of Birs Nimrud, Which Marks
The Site Of the Ancient City Of Borsippa.

Since the early spring of 1903 excavations have been conducted at Kuyunjik, the site of the city of Nineveh, by Messrs. L. W. King and R. C. Thompson on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum, and have resulted in the discovery of many early remains in the lower strata of the mound, in addition to the finding of new portions of the two palaces already known and partly excavated, the identification of a third palace, and the finding of an ancient temple dedicated to Nabû, whose existence had already been inferred from a study of the Assyrian inscriptions.* All these diggings at Babylon, at Ashur, and at Nineveh throw more light upon the history of the country during the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, and will be referred to later in the volume.

     * It may be noted that excavations are also being actively
     carried on in Palestine at the present time. Mr. Macalister
     has for some years been working for the Palestine
     Exploration Fund at Gezer; Dr. Schumacher is digging at
     Megiddo for the German Palestine Society; and Prof. Sellin
     is at present excavating at Taanach (Ta'annak) and will
     shortly start work at Dothan. Good work on remains of later
     historical periods is also being carried on under the
     auspices of the Deutsch-Orient Gesellschaft at Ba'albek and
     in Galilee. It would be tempting to include here a summary
     of the very interesting results that have recently been
     achieved in this fruitful field of archaeological research,
     for it is true that these excavations may strictly be said
     to bear on the history of a portion of Western Asia. But the
     problems which they raise would more naturally be discussed
     in a work dealing with recent excavation and research in
     relation to the Bible, and to have summarized them
     adequately would have increased the size of the present
     volume considerably beyond its natural limits. They have
     therefore not been included within the scope of the present
     work.

168.jpg the Principal Mound at Shekghat, Which Marks The
Site of Ashuk, the Ancient Capital Of The Assyrians.

Meanwhile, we will return to the diggings described at the beginning of this chapter, as affording new information concerning the earliest periods of Chaldæan history.

A most interesting inscription has recently been discovered by Capt. Cros at Telloh, which throws considerable light on the rivalry which existed between the cities of Shirpurla and Gishkhu, and at the same time furnishes valuable material for settling the chronology of the earliest rulers whose inscriptions have been found at Mppur and their relations to contemporary rulers in Shirpurla.

169.jpg the Mound of Kuyunjik, Which Formed One Of The
Palace Mounds of the Ancient Assyrian City Of Nineveh.

The cities of Gishkhu and Shirpurla were probably situated not far from one another, and their rivalry is typical of the history of the early city-states of Babylonia. The site of the latter city, as has already been said, is marked by the mounds of Telloh on the east bank of the Shatt el-Hai, the natural stream joining the Tigris and Euphrates, which has been improved and canalized by the dwellers in Southern Babylonia from the earliest period.

170.jpg Winged Bull in the Palace of Sennacherib On
Kuyunjik, the Principal Mound Marking The Site of Nineveh.

The site of Gishkhu may be set with considerable probability not far to the north of Telloh on the opposite bank of the Shatt el-Hai. These two cities, situated so close to one another, exercised considerable political influence, and though less is known of Gishkhu than of the more famous Babylonian cities such as Ur, Brech, and Larsam, her proximity to Shirpurla gave her an importance which she might not otherwise have possessed. The earliest knowledge we possess of the relations existing between Gishkhu and Shirpurla refers to the reign of Mesilim, King of Kish, the period of whose rule may be provisionally set before that of Sargon of Agade, i.e, about 4000 B.C.

At this period there was rivalry between the two cities, in consequence of which Mesilim, King of Kish, was called in as arbitrator. A record of the treaty of delimitation that was drawn up on this occasion has been preserved upon the recently discovered cone of Entemena. This document tells us that at the command of the god Enlil, described as "the king of the countries," Ningirsu, the chief god of Shirpurla, and the god of Gishkhu decided to draw up a line of division between their respective territories, and that Mesilim, King of Kish, acting under the direction of his own god Kadi, marked out the frontier and set up a stele between the two territories to commemorate the fixing of the boundary.

This policy of fixing the boundary by arbitration seems to have been successful, and to have secured peace between Shirpurla and Gishkhu for some generations. But after a period which cannot be accurately determined a certain patesi of Gishkhu, named Ush, was filled with ambition to extend his territory at the expense of Shirpurla. He therefore removed the stele which Mesilim had set up, and, invading the plain of Shirpurla, succeeded in conquering and holding a district named Gu-edin. But Ush's successful raid was not of any permanent benefit to his city, for he was in his turn defeated by the forces of Shirpurla, and his successor upon the throne, a patesi named Enakalli, abandoned a policy of aggression, and concluded with Eannadu, patesi of Shirpurla, a solemn treaty concerning the boundary between their realms, the text of which has been preserved to us upon the famous Stele of Vultures in the Louvre.*

     * A fragment of this stele is also preserved in the British
     Museum. It is published in Cuneiform Texts in the British
     Museum, Pt. vii.

According to this treaty Gu-edin was restored to Shirpurla, and a deep ditch was dug between the two territories which should permanently indicate the line of demarcation. The stele of Mesilim was restored to its place, and a second stele was inscribed and set up as a memorial of the new treaty. Enakalli did not negotiate the treaty on equal terms with Eannadu, for he only secured its ratification by consenting to pay heavy tribute in grain for the supply of the great temples of Nin-girsu and Ninâ in Shirpurla. It would appear that under Eannadu the power and influence of Shirpurla were extended over the whole of Southern Babylonia, and reached even to the borders of Elam. At any rate, it is clear that during his lifetime the city of Gishkhu was content to remain in a state of subjection to its more powerful neighbour. But it was always ready to seize any opportunity of asserting itself and of attempting to regain its independence.

172.jpg Clay Memorial-tablet of Eannadu.

     The characters of the inscription well illustrate the
     pictorial origin of the Sumerian system of writing.
     Photograph by Messrs. Mansell & Co.

Accordingly, after Eannadu's death the men of Gishkhu again took the offensive. At this time Urlumma, the son and successor of Enakalli, was on the throne of Gishkhu, and he organized the forces of the city and led them out to battle. His first act was to destroy the frontier ditches named after Ningirsu and Ninâ, the principal god and goddess of Shirpurla, which Eannadu, the powerful foe of Gishkhu, had caused to be dug. He then tore down the stele on which the terms of Eannadu's treaty had been engraved and broke it into pieces by casting it into the fire, and the shrines which Eannadu had built near the frontier, and had consecrated to the gods of Shirpurla, he razed to the ground. But again Shirpurla in the end proved too strong for Gishkhu. The ruler in Shirpurla at this time was Enannadu, who had succeeded his brother Eannadu upon the throne. He marched out to meet the invading forces of the men of Gishkhu, and a battle was fought in the territory of Shirpurla. According to one account, the forces of Shirpurla were victorious, while on the cone of Ente-mena no mention is made of the issue of the combat. The result may not have been decisive, but Enannadu's action at least checked Urlumma's encroachments for the time.

It would appear that the death of the reigning patesi in Shirpurla was always the signal for an attack upon that city by the men of Gishkhu. They may have hoped that the new ruler would prove a less successful leader than the last, or that the accession of a new monarch might give rise to internal dissensions in the city which would weaken Shirpurla's power of resisting a sudden attack. As Eannadu's death had encouraged Urlumma to lead out the men of Gishkhu, so the death of Enannadu seemed to him a good opportunity to make another bid for victory. But this time the result of the battle was not indecisive. Entemena had succeeded his father Enannadu, and he led out to victory the forces of Shir-purla. The battle was fought near the canal Lumma-girnun-ta, and when the men of Gishkhu were put to flight they left sixty of their fellows lying dead upon the banks of the canal. Entemena tells us that the bones of these warriors were left to bleach in the open plain, but he seems to have buried those of the men of Gishkhu who fell in the pursuit, for he records that in five separate places he piled up burial-mounds in which the bodies of the slain were interred. Entemena was not content with merely inflicting a defeat upon the army of Gishkhu and driving it back within its own borders, for he followed up his initial advantage and captured the capital itself. He deposed and imprisoned Urlumma, and chose one of his own adherents to rule as patesi of Gishkhu in his stead. The man he appointed for this high office was named Hi, and he had up to that time been priest in Ninâb. Entemena summoned him to his presence, and, after marching in a triumphal procession from Girsu in the neighbourhood of Shirpurla to the conquered city, proceeded to invest him with the office of patesi of Gishkhu.

Entemena also repaired the frontier ditches named after Ningirsu and Ninâ, which had been employed for purposes of irrigation as well as for marking the frontier; and he gave instructions to Hi to employ the men dwelling in the district of Karkar on this work, as a punishment for the active part they had taken in the recent raid into the territory of Shirpurla. Entemena also restored and extended the system of canals in the region between the Tigris and the Euphrates, lining one of the principal channels with stone.

     Socket Bearing An Inscription Of Entemena, A Powerful
     Patesi, Or Viceroy, Of Shirpurla. In the photograph the
     gate-socket is resting on its side so as to show the
     inscription, but when in use it was set flat upon the ground
     and partly buried below the level of the pavement of the
     building in which it was used. It was fixed at the side of a
     gateway and the pivot of the heavy gate revolved in the
     shallow hole or depression in its centre. As stone is not
     found in the alluvial soil of Babylonia, the blocks for
     gate-sockets had to be brought from great distances and they
     were consequently highly prized. The kings and patesis who
     used them in their buildings generally had their names and
     titles engraved upon them, and they thus form a valuable
     class of inscriptions for the study of the early history.
     Photograph by Messrs. Man-sell & Co.

He thus added greatly to the wealth of Shirpurla by increasing the area of territory under cultivation, and he continued to exercise authority in Gishkhu by means of officers appointed by himself. A record of his victory over Gishkhu was inscribed by Entemena upon a number of clay cones, that the fame of it might be preserved in future days to the honour of Ningirsu and the goddess Ninâ. He ends this record with a prayer for the preservation of the frontier. If ever in time to come the men of Gishkhu should break out across the frontier-ditch of Ningirsu, or the frontier-ditch of Ninâ, in order to seize or lay waste the lands of Shirpurla, whether they be men of the city of Gishkhu itself or men of the mountains, he prays that Enlil may destroy them and that Ningirsu may lay his curse upon them; and if ever the warriors of his own city should be called upon to defend it, he prays that they may be full of courage and ardour for their task.

The greater part of this information with regard to the struggles between Gishkhu and Shirpurla, between the period of Mesilim, King of Kish, and that of Entemena, is supplied by the inscription of the latter ruler which has been found written around a small cone of clay. There is little doubt that the text was also engraved by the orders of Entemena upon a stone stele which was set up, like those of Mesilim and Eannadu, upon the frontier. Other copies of the inscription were probably engraved and erected in the cities of Gishkhu and Shirpurla, and to ensure the preservation of the record Entemena probably had numerous copies of it made upon small cones of clay which were preserved and possibly buried in the structure of the temples of Shirpurla. Entemena's foresight in this matter has been justified by results, for, while his great memorials of stone have perished, the preservation of one of his small cones has sufficed to make known to later ages his own and his forefathers' prowess in their continual contests with their ancient rival Gishkhu.

After the reign of Entemena we have little information with regard to the relations between Gishkhu and Shirpurla, though it is probable that the effects of his decisive victory continued to exercise a moderating influence on Gishkhu's desire for expansion and secured a period of peaceful development for Shirpurla without the continual fear of encroachments on the part of her turbulent neighbour. We may assume that this period of tranquillity continued during the reigns of Enannadu II, Enlitarzi, and Lugal-anda, but, when in the reign of Urukagina the men of Gishkhu once more emerge from their temporary obscurity, they appear as the authors of deeds of rapine and bloodshed committed on a scale that was rare even in that primitive age.

In the earlier stages of their rivalry Gishkhu had always been defeated, or at any rate checked, in her actual conflicts with Shirpurla. When taking the aggressive the men of Gishkhu seem generally to have confined themselves to the seizure of territory, such as the district of Gu-edin, which was situated on the western bank of the Shaft el-Hai and divided from their own lands only by the frontier-ditch. If they ever actually crossed the Shaft el-Hai and raided the lands on its eastern bank, they never ventured to attack the city of Shirpurla itself. And, although their raids were attended with some success in their initial stages, the ruling patesis of Shirpurla were always strong enough to check them; and on most occasions they carried the war into the territory of Gishkhu, with the result that they readjusted the boundary on their own terms. But it would appear that all these primitive Chalæan cities were subject to alternate periods of expansion and defeat, and Shirpurla was not an exception to the rule. It was probably not due so much to Urukagina's personal qualities or defects as a leader that Shirpurla suffered the greatest reverse in her history during his reign, but rather to Gishkhu's gradual increase in power at a time when Shirpurla herself remained inactive, possibly lulled into a false sense of security by the memory of her victories in the past. Whatever may have been the cause of Gishkhu's final triumph, it is certain that it took place in Urukagina's reign, and that for many years afterwards the hegemony of Southern Babylonia remained in her hands, while Shirpurla for a long period passed completely out of existence as an independent or semi-independent state.

The evidence of the catastrophe that befell Shirpurla at this period is furnished by a small clay tablet recently found at Telloh during Captain Cros's excavations on that site. The document on which the facts in question are recorded had no official character, and in all probability it had not been stored in any library or record chamber. The actual spot at Telloh where it was found was to the north of the mound in which the most ancient buildings have been recovered, and at the depth of two metres below the surface. No other tablets appear to have been found near it, but that fact in itself would not be sufficient evidence on which to base any theory as to its not having originally formed part of the archives of the city. Its unofficial character is attested by the form of the tablet and the manner in which the information upon it is arranged. In shape there is little to distinguish the document from the tablets of accounts inscribed in the reign of Urukagina, great numbers of which have been found recently at Telloh. Roughly square in shape, its edges are slightly convex, and the text is inscribed in a series of narrow columns upon both the obverse and the reverse. The text itself is not a carefully arranged composition, such as are the votive and historical inscriptions of early Sumerian rulers. It consists of a series of short sentences enumerating briefly and without detail the separate deeds of violence and sacrilege performed by the men of Gishkhu after their capture of the city. It is little more than a catalogue or list of the shrines and temples destroyed during the sack of the city, or defiled by the blood of the men of Shirpurla who were slain therein. No mention is made in the list of the palace of the Urukagina, or of any secular building, or of the dwellings of the citizens themselves. There is little doubt that these also were despoiled and destroyed by the victorious enemy, but the writer of the tablet is not concerned for the moment with the fate of his city or his fellow citizens. He appears to be overcome with the thought of the deeds of sacrilege committed against his gods; his mind is entirely taken up with the magnitude of the insult offered to the god Ningirsu, the city-god of Shirpurla. His bare enumeration of the deeds of sacrilege and violence loses little by its brevity, and, when he has ended the list of his accusations against the men of Gishkhu, he curses the goddess to whose influence he attributes their success.

No composition at all like this document has yet been recovered, and as it is not very long we may here give a translation of the text. It will be seen that the writer plunges at once into the subject of his charges against the men of Gishkhu. No historical résumé prefaces his accusations, and he gives no hint of the circumstances that have rendered their delivery possible. The temples of his city have been profaned and destroyed, and his indignation finds vent in a mere enumeration of their titles. To his mind the facts need no comment, for to him it is barely conceivable that such sacred places of ancient worship should have been defiled. He launches his indictment against Gishkhu in the following terms: "The men of Gishkhu have set fire to the temple of E-ki [... ], they have set fire to Antashura, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have shed blood in the palace of Tirash, they have shed blood in Abzubanda, they have shed blood in the shrine of Enlil and in the shrine of the Sun-god, they have shed blood in Akhush, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have shed blood in the Gikana of the sacred grove of the goddess Ninmakh, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have shed blood in Baga, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have shed blood in Abzu-ega, they have set fire to the temple of Gatumdug, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom, and have destroyed her statue! They have set fire to the.... of the temple E-anna of the goddess Ninni, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom, and have destroyed her statue! They have shed blood in Shapada, and they have carried away the silver and precious stones therefrom! They have.... in Khenda, they have shed blood in the temple of Nindar in the town of Kiab, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have set fire to the temple of Dumuzi-abzu in the town of Kinunir, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have set fire to the temple of Lugaluru, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have shed blood in E-engura, the temple of the goddess Ninâ, and they have carried away the silver and the precious stones therefrom! They have shed blood in Sag..., the temple of Amageshtin, and the silver and the precious stones of Amageshtin have they carried away! They have removed the grain from Ginarbaniru, the field of the god Ningirsu, so much of it as was under cultivation! The men of Gishkhu, by the despoiling of Shirpurla, have committed a transgression against the god Ningirsu! The power that is come unto them, from them shall be taken away! Of transgression on the part of Urukagina, King of Girsu, there is none. As for Lugalzaggisi, patesi of Gishkhu, may his goddess Ni-daba bear on her head (the weight of) this transgression!"

Such is the account, which has come down to us from the rough tablet of some unknown scribe, of the greatest misfortune experienced by Shirpurla during the long course of her history. Many of the great temples mentioned in the text as among those which were burnt down and despoiled of their treasures are referred to more than once in the votive and historical inscriptions of earlier rulers of Shirpurla, who occupied the throne before the ill-fated Urukagina. The names of some of them, too, are to be found in the texts of the later pate-sis of that city, so that it may be concluded that in course of time they were rebuilt and restored to their former splendour. But there is no doubt that the despoiling and partial destruction of Shirpurla in the reign of Urukagina had a lasting effect upon the fortunes of that city, and effectively curtailed her influence among the greater cities of Southern Babylonia.

We may now turn our attention to the leader of the men of Gishkhu, under whose direction they achieved their final triumph over their ancient, and for long years more powerful, rival Shirpurla. The writer of our tablet mentions his name in the closing words of his text when he curses him and his goddess for the destruction and sacrilege that they have wrought. "As for Lugalzaggisi," he says, "patesi of Gishkhu, may his goddess Nidaba bear on her head (the weight of ) this transgression!" Now the name of Lugalzaggisi has been found upon a number of fragments of vases made of white calcite stalagmite which were discovered by Mr. Haynes during his excavations at Nippur. All the vases were engraved with the same inscription, so that it was possible by piecing the fragments of text together to obtain a more or less complete copy of the records which were originally engraved upon each of them. From these records we learned for the first time, not only the name of Lugalzaggisi, but the fact that he founded a powerful coalition of cities in Babylonia at what was obviously a very early period in the history of the country. In the text he describes himself as "King of Erech, king of the world, the priest of Ana, the hero of Nidaba, the son of Ukush, patesi of Gishkhu, the hero of Nidaba, the man who was favourably regarded by the sure eye of the King of the Lands (i.e. the god Enlil), the great patesi of Enlil, unto whom understanding was granted by Enki, the chosen of the Sun-god, the exalted minister of Enzu, endowed with strength by the Sun-god, the worshipper of Ninni, the son who was conceived by Nidaba, who was nourished by Ninkharsag with the milk of life, the attendant of Umu, priestess of Erech, the servant who was trained by Ninâgidkhadu, the mistress of Erech, the great minister of the gods." Lugalzaggisi then goes on to describe the extent of his dominion, and he says: "When the god Enlil, the lord of the countries, bestowed upon Lugalzaggisi the kingdom of the world, and granted unto him success in the sight of the world, when he filled the lands with his power, and conquered them from the rising of the sun unto the setting of the same, at that time he made straight his path from the Lower Sea of the Tigris and Euphrates unto the Upper Sea, and he granted him dominion over all from the rising of the sun unto the setting of the same, so that he caused the lands to dwell in peace."

Now when first the text of this inscription was published there existed only vague indications of the date to be assigned to Lugalzaggisi and the kingdom that he founded. It was clear from the titles which he bore, that, though Gishkhu was his native place, he had extended his authority far beyond that city and had chosen Erech as his capital. Moreover, he claimed an empire extending from "the Lower Sea of the Tigris and Euphrates unto the Upper Sea." There is no doubt that the Lower Sea here mentioned is the Persian Gulf, and it has been suggested that the Upper Sea may be taken to be the Mediterranean, though it may possibly have been Lake Van or Lake Urmi. But whichever of these views might be adopted, it was clear that Lugalzaggisi was a great conqueror, and had achieved the right to assume the high-sounding title of lugal halama, "king of the world." In these circumstances it was of the first importance for the study of primitive Chaldæan history and chronology to ascertain approximately the period at which Lugalzaggisi reigned.

The evidence on which such a question could be provisionally settled was of the vaguest and most uncertain character, but such as it was it had to suffice, in the absence of more reliable data. In settling all problems connected with early Chaldæan chronology, the starting-point was, and in fact still is, the period of Sargon I, King of Agade, inasmuch as the date of his reign is settled, according to the reckoning of the scribes of Nabonidus, as about 3800 B.C. It is true that this date has been called in question, and ingenious suggestions for amending it have been made by some writers, while others have rejected it altogether, holding that it merely represented a guess on the part of the late Babylonians and could be safely ignored in the chronological schemes which they brought forward. But nearly every fresh discovery made in the last few years has tended to confirm some point in the traditions current among the later Babylonians with regard to the earlier history of their country. Consequently, reliance may be placed with increased confidence on the truth of such traditions as a whole, and we may continue to accept those statements which yet await confirmation from documents more nearly contemporary with the early period to which they refer. It is true that such a date as that assigned by Nabonidus to Sargon is not to be regarded as absolutely fixed, for Nabonidus is obviously speaking in round numbers, and we may allow for some minor inaccuracies in the calculations of his scribes. But it is certain that the later Babylonian priests and scribes had a wealth of historical material at their disposal which has not come down to us. We may therefore accept the date given by Nabonidus for Sargon of Agade and his son Narâm-Sin as approximately accurate, and this is also the opinion of the majority of writers on early Babylonian history.

The diggings at Nippur furnished indications that certain inscriptions found on that site and written in a very archaic form of script were to be assigned to a period earlier than that of Sargon. One class of evidence was obtained from a careful study of the different levels at which the inscriptions and the remains of buildings were found. At a comparatively deep level in the mound inscriptions of Sargon himself were recovered, along with bricks stamped with the name of Narâm-Sin, his son. It was, therefore, a reasonable conclusion roughly to date the particular stratum in which these objects were found to the period of the empire established by Sargon, with its centre at Agade. Later on excavations were carried to a lower level, and remains of buildings were discovered which appeared to belong to a still earlier period of civilization. An altar was found standing in a small enclosure surrounded by a kind of curb. Near by were two immense clay vases which appeared to have been placed on a ramp or inclined plane leading up to the altar, and remains were also found of a massive brick building in which was an arch of brick. No inscriptions were actually found at this level, but in the upper level assigned to Sargon were a number of texts which might very probably be assigned to the pre-Sargonic period. None of these were complete, and they had the appearance of having been intentionally broken into small fragments. There was therefore something to be said for the theory that they might have been inscribed by the builders of the construction in the lowest levels of the mound, and that they were destroyed and scattered by some conqueror who had laid their city in ruins.

But all such evidence derived from noting the levels at which inscriptions are found is in its nature extremely uncertain and liable to many different interpretations, especially if the strata show signs of having been disturbed. Where a pavement or building is still intact, with the inscribed bricks of the builder remaining in their original positions, conclusions may be confidently drawn with regard to the age of the building and its relative antiquity to the strata above and below it. But the strata in the lowest levels at Nippur, as we have seen, were not in this condition, and such evidence as they furnished could only be accepted if confirmed by independent data. Such confirmation was to be found by examination of the early inscriptions themselves.

It has been remarked that most of them were broken into small pieces, as though by some invader of the country; but this was not the case with certain gate-sockets and great blocks of diorite which were too hard and big to be easily broken. Moreover, any conqueror of a city would be unlikely to spend time and labour in destroying materials which might be usefully employed in the construction of other buildings which he himself might erect. Stone could not be obtained in the alluvial plains of Babylonia and had to be quarried in the mountains and brought great distances.

     Socket Bearing An Inscription of Uk-Engur, An Early King
     of The City Of Ur. Photograph by Messrs. Mansell & Co.

From any building of his predecessors which he razed to the ground, an invader would therefore remove the gate-sockets and blocks of stone for his own use, supposing he contemplated building on the site. If he left the city in ruins and returned to his own country, some subsequent king, when clearing the ruined site for building operations, might come across the stones, and he would not leave them buried, but would use them for his own construction. And this is what actually did happen in the case of some of the building materials of one of these early kings, from the lower strata of Nippur. Certain of the blocks which bore the name of Lugalkigubnidudu had been used again by Sargon, King of Agade, who engraved his own name upon them without obliterating the name of the former king.

It followed that Lugalkigubnidudu belonged to the pre-Sargonic period, and, although the same conclusive evidence was not forthcoming in the case of Lugalzag-gisi, he also without much hesitation was set in this early period, mainly on the strength of the archaic forms of the characters employed in his inscriptions. In fact, they were held to be so archaic that, not only was he said to have reigned before Sargon of Agade, but he was set in the very earliest period of Chaldæan history, and his empire was supposed to have been contemporaneous with the very earliest rulers of Shirpurla. The new inscription found by Captain Cros will cause this opinion to be considerably modified. While it corroborates the view that Lugalzaggisi is to be set in the pre-Sargonic period, it proves that he lived and reigned very shortly before him. As we have already seen, he was the contemporary of Urukagina, who belongs to the middle period of the history of Shirpurla. Lugalzaggisi's capture and sack of the city of Shirpurla was only one of a number of conquests which he achieved. His father Ukush had been merely patesi of the city of Gish-khu, but he himself was not content with the restricted sphere of authority which such a position implied, and he eventually succeeded in enforcing his authority over the greater part of Babylonia. From the fact that he styles himself King of Erech, we may conclude that he removed his capital from Ukush to that city, after having probably secured its submission by force of arms. In fact, his title of "king of the world" can only have been won as the result of many victories, and Captain Cros's tablet gives us a glimpse of the methods by which he managed to secure himself against the competition of any rival. The capture of Shirpurla must have been one of his earliest achievements, for its proximity to Gish-khu rendered its reduction a necessary prelude to any more extensive plan of conquest. But the kingdom which Lugalzaggisi founded cannot have endured long.

Under Sargon of Agade, the Semites gained the upper hand in Babylonia, and Erech, Grishkhu, and Shirpurla, as well as the other ancient cities in the land, fell in turn under his domination and formed part of the extensive empire which he ruled.

Concerning the later rulers of city-states of Babylonia which succeeded the disruption of the empire founded by Sargon of Agade and consolidated by Narâm-Sin, his son, the excavations have little to tell us which has not already been made use of by Prof. Maspero in his history of this period.*

     * The tablets found at Telloh by the late M. de Sarzec, and
     published during his lifetime, fall into two main classes,
     which date from different periods in early Chaldæan
     history. The great majority belong to the period when the
     city of Ur held pre-eminence among the cities of Southern
     Babylonia, and they are dated in the reigns of Dungi, Bur-
     Sin, Gamil-Sin, and Ine-Sin. The other and smaller
     collection belongs to the earlier period of Sargon and
     Narâm-Sin; while many of the tablets found in M. de Sarzec's
     last diggings, which were published after his death, are to
     be set in the great gap between these two periods. Some of
     those recently discovered, which belong to the period of
     Dungi, contain memoranda concerning the supply of food for
     the maintenance of officials stopping at Shirpurla in the
     course of journeys in Babylonia and Elam, and they throw an
     interesting light on the close and constant communication
     which took place at this time between the great cities of
     Mesopotamia and the neighbouring countries.

     The most famous of the later patesis, or viceroys, of
     Shirpurla, the Sumerian city in Southern Babylonia now
     marked by the mounds of Telloh. Photograph by Messrs.
     Mansell & Co.

Ur, Isin, and,Larsam succeeded one another in the position of leading city in Babylonia, holding Mppur, Eridu, Erech, Shirpurla, and the other chief cities in a condition of semi-dependence upon themselves. We may note that the true reading of the name of the founder of the dynasty of Ur has now been ascertained from a syllabary to be Ur-Engur; and an unpublished chronicle in the British Museum relates that his son Dungi cared greatly for the city of Eridu, but sacked Babylon and carried off its spoil, together with the treasures from E-sagila, the great temple of Marduk. Such episodes must have been common at this period when each city was striving for hegemony. Meanwhile, Shirpurla remained the centre of Sumerian influence in Babylonia, and her patesis were content to owe allegiance to so powerful a ruler as Dungi, King of Ur, while at all times exercising complete authority within their own jurisdiction.

During the most recent diggings that have been carried out at Telloh a find of considerable value to the history of Sumerian art has been made. The find is also of great general interest, since it enables us to identify a portrait of Gudea, the most famous of the later Sumerian patesis. In the course of excavating the Tell of Tablets Captain Cros found a little seated statue made of diorite. It was not found in place, but upside down, and appeared to have been thrown with other débris scattered in that portion of the mound. On lifting it from the trench it was seen that the head of the statue was broken off, as is the case with all the other statues of Gudea found at Telloh. The statue bore an inscription of Gudea, carefully executed and well preserved, but it was smaller than other statues of the same ruler that had been already recovered, and the absence of the head thus robbed it of any extraordinary interest. On its arrival at the Louvre, M. Léon Heuzey was struck by its general resemblance to a Sumerian head of diorite formerly discovered by M. de Sarzec at Telloh, which has been preserved in the Louvre for many years. On applying the head to the newly found statue, it was found to fit it exactly, and to complete the monument, and we are thus enabled to identify the features of Gudea. Prom a photographic reproduction of this statue, it is seen that the head is larger than it should be, in proportion to the body, a characteristic which is also apparent in a small Sumerian statue preserved in the British Museum.

192.jpg Tablet Inscribed in Sumerian With Details of A
Survey of Certain Property.

     Probably situated in the neighbourhood of Telloh. The
     circular shape is very unusual, and appears to have been
     used only for survey-tablets. Photograph by Messrs. Mansell
     & Co.

Gudea caused many statues of himself to be made out of the hard diorite which he brought for that purpose from the Sinaitic peninsula, and from the inscriptions preserved upon them it is possible to ascertain the buildings in which they were originally placed. Thus one of the statues previously found was set up in the temple of Ninkharsag, two others in E-ninnû, the temple of the god Ningirsu, three more in the temple of the goddess Bau, one in E-anna, the temple of the goddess Ninni, and another in the temple of Gatumdug. The newly found statue of the king was made to be set up in the temple erected by Gudea at Girsu in honour of the god Ningishzida, as is recorded in the inscription engraved on the front of the king's robe, which reads as follows:

"In the day when the god Ningirsu, the strong warrior of Enlil, granted unto the god Ningishzida, the son of Ninâzu, the beloved of the gods, (the guardianship of) the foundation of the city and of the hills and valleys, on that day Gudea, patesi of Shirpurla, the just man who loveth his god, who for his master Ningirsu hath constructed his temple E-ninnu, called the shining Imgig, and his temple E-pa, the temple of-the seven zones of heaven, and for the goddess Ninâ, the queen, his lady, hath constructed the temple Sirara-shum, which riseth higher than (all) the temples in the world, and hath constructed their temples for the great gods of Lagash, built for his god Ningishzida his temple in Girsu. Whosoever shall proclaim the god Ningirsu as his god, even as I proclaim him, may he do no harm unto the temple of my god! May he proclaim the name of this temple! May that man be my friend, and may he proclaim my name! Gudea hath made the statue, and 'Unto - Gudea - the - builder - of - the - temple - hath life-been-given hath he called its name, and he hath brought it into the temple."

The long name which Gudea gave to the statue, "Unto - Gudea - the - builder - of - the - temple - hath - life-been-given," is characteristic of the practice of the Sumerian patesis, who always gave long and symbolical names to statues, stelae, and sacred objects dedicated and set up in their temples. The occasion on which the temple was built, and this statue erected within it, seems to have been the investiture of the god Ningishzida with special and peculiar powers, and it possibly inaugurated his introduction into the pantheon of Shirpurla. Ningishzida is called in the inscription the son of Ninazu, who was the husband of the Queen of the Underworld.

In one of his aspects he was therefore probably a god of the underworld himself, and it is in this character that he was appointed by Ningirsu as guardian of the city's foundations. But "the hills and valleys" (i.e. the open country) were also put under his jurisdiction, so that in another aspect he was a god of vegetation. It is therefore not improbable that, like the god Dumuzi, or Tammuz, he was supposed to descend into the underworld in winter, ascending to the surface of the earth with the earliest green shoots of vegetation in the spring.*

     * Cf. Thureau-Dangin, Rev. d'Assyr., vol. vi. (1904), p. 24.

A most valuable contribution has recently been made to our knowledge of Sumerian religion and of the light in which these early rulers regarded the cult and worship of their gods, by the complete interpretation of the long texts inscribed upon the famous cylinders of Gudea, the patesi of Shirpurla, which have been preserved for many years in the Louvre. These two great cylinders of baked clay were discovered by the late M. de Sarzec so long ago as the year 1877, during the first period of his diggings at Telloh, and, although the general nature of their contents has long been recognized, no complete translation of the texts inscribed upon them had been published until a few months ago. M. Thureau-Dangin, who has made the early Sumerian texts his special study, has devoted himself to their interpretation for some years past, and he has just issued the first part of his monograph upon them. In view of the importance of the texts and of the light they throw upon the religious beliefs and practices of the early Sumerians, a somewhat detailed account of their contents may here be given.

The occasion on which the cylinders were made was the rebuilding by Gudea of E-ninnû, the great temple of the god Ningirsu, in the city of Shirpurla. The two cylinders supplement one another, one of them having been inscribed while the work of construction was still in progress, the other after the completion of the temple, when the god Ningirsu had been installed within his shrine with due pomp and ceremony. It would appear that Southern Babylonia had been suffering from a prolonged drought, and that the water in the rivers and canals had fallen, so that the crops had suffered and the country was threatened with famine. Gudea was at a loss to know by what means he might restore prosperity to his country, when one night he had a dream, and it was in consequence of this dream that he eventually erected one of the most sumptuously appointed of Sumerian temples. By this means he secured the return of Ningirsu's favour and that of the other gods, and his country once more enjoyed the blessings of peace and prosperity.

In the opening words of the first of his cylinders Gudea describes how the great gods themselves took counsel and decreed that he should build the temple of E-ninnû and thereby restore to his city the supply of water it had formerly enjoyed. He records that on the day on which the destinies were fixed in heaven and upon earth, Enlil, the chief of the gods, and Ningirsu, the city-god of Shirpurla, held converse. And Enlil, turning to Ningirsu, said: "In my city that which is fitting is not done. The stream doth not rise. The stream of Enlil doth not rise. The high waters shine not, neither do they show their splendour. The stream of Enlil bringeth not good water like the Tigris. Let the King (i.e. Ningirsu) therefore proclaim the temple. Let the decrees of the temple E-ninnû be made illustrious in heaven and upon earth!" The great gods did not communicate their orders directly to Gudea, but conveyed their wishes to him by means of a dream. And while the patesi slept a vision of the night came to him, and he beheld a man whose stature was so great that it equalled the heavens and the earth. And by the crown he wore upon his head Gudea knew that the figure must be a god. And by his side was the divine eagle, the emblem of Shirpurla, and his feet rested upon the whirlwind, and a lion was crouching upon his right hand and upon his left. And the figure spoke to the patesi, but he did not understand the meaning of the words. Then it seemed to Gudea that the sun rose from the earth and he beheld a woman holding in her hand a pure reed, and she carried also a tablet on which was a star of the heavens, and she seemed to take counsel with herself. And while Gudea was gazing he seemed to see a second man who was like a warrior; and he carried a slab of lapis lazuli and on it he drew out the plan of a temple. And before the patesi himself it seemed that a fair cushion was placed, and upon the cushion was set a mould, and within the mould was a brick, the brick of destiny. And on the right hand the patesi beheld an ass which lay upon the ground.

Such was the dream which Gudea beheld in a vision of the night, and he was troubled because he could not interpret it. So he decided to go to the goddess Ninâ, who could divine all mysteries of the gods, and beseech her to tell him the meaning of the vision. But before applying to the goddess for her help, he thought it best to secure the mediation of the god Ningirsu and the goddess Gatumdug, in order that they should use their influence with Ninâ to induce her to reveal the interpretation of the dream. So the patesi set out to the temple of Ningirsu, and, having offered a sacrifice and poured out fresh water, he prayed to the god that his sister, Ninâ, the child of Eridu, might be prevailed upon to give him help. And the god hearkened to his prayer. Then Gudea made offerings, and before the sleeping-chamber of the goddess Gatumdug he offered a sacrifice and poured out fresh water. And he prayed to the goddess, calling her his queen and the child of the pure heaven, who gave life to the countries and befriended and preserved the people or the man on whom she looked with favour.

"I have no mother," cried Gudea, "but thou art my mother! I have no father, but thou art a father to me!" And the goddess Gatumdug gave ear to the patesi's prayer. Thus encouraged by her favour and that of Ningirsu, Gudea set out for the temple of the goddess Ninâ.

On his arrival at the temple, the patesi offered a sacrifice and poured out fresh water, as he had already done when approaching the presence of Ningirsu and Gatumdug. And he prayed to Ninâ, as the goddess who divines the secrets of the gods, beseeching her to interpret the vision that had been sent to him; and he then recounted to her the details of his dream. When the patesi had finished his story, the goddess addressed him and told him that she would explain the meaning of his dream to him. And this was the interpretation of the dream. The man whose stature was so great that it equalled the heavens and the earth, whose head was that of a god, at whose side was the divine eagle, whose feet rested on the whirlwind, while a lion couched on his right hand and on his left, was her brother, the god Ningirsu. And the words which he uttered were an order to the patesi that he should build the temple E-ninnû. And the sun which rose from the earth before the patesi was the god Ningishzida, for like the sun he goes forth from the earth. And the maiden who held a pure reed in her hand, and carried the tablet with the star, was her sister, the goddess Nidaba: the star was the pure star of the temple's construction, which she proclaimed. And the second man, who was like a warrior and carried the slab of lapis lazuli, was the god Nindub, and the plan of the temple which he drew was the plan of E-ninnû. And the brick which rested in its mould upon the cushion was the sacred brick of E-ninnû. And as for the ass which lay upon the ground, that, the goddess said, was the patesi himself.

Having interpreted the meaning of the dream, the goddess Ninâ proceeded to give Gudea instruction as to how he should go to work to build the temple. She told him first of all to go to his treasure-house and bring forth his treasures from their sealed cases, and out of these to make certain offerings which he was to place near the god Ningirsu, in the temple in which he was dwelling at that time. The offerings were to consist of a chariot, adorned with pure metal and precious stones; bright arrows in a quiver; the weapon of the god, his sacred emblem, on which Gudea was to inscribe his own name; and finally a lyre, the music of which was wont to soothe the god when he took counsel with himself. Ninâ added that if the patesi carried out her instructions and made the offerings she had specified, Ningirsu would reveal to him the plan on which the temple was to be built, and would also bless him. Gudea bowed himself down in token of his submission to the commands of the goddess, and proceeded to execute them forthwith. He brought out his treasures, and from the precious woods and metals which he possessed his craftsmen fashioned the objects he was to present, and he set them in Ningirsu's temple near to the god. He worked day and night, and, having prepared a suitable spot in the precincts of the temple at the place of judgment, he spread out upon it as offerings a fat sheep and a kid and the skin of a young female kid. Then he built a fire of cypress and cedar and other aromatic woods, to make a sweet savour, and, entering the inner chamber of the temple, he offered a prayer to Ningirsu. He said that he wished to build the temple, but he had received no sign that this was the will of the god, and he prayed for a sign.

While he prayed the patesi was stretched out upon the ground, and the god, standing near his head, then answered him. He said that he who should build his temple was none other than Gudea, and that he would give him the sign for which he asked. But first he described the plan on which the temple was to be built, naming its various shrines and chambers and describing the manner in which they were to be fashioned and adorned. And the god promised that when Gudea should build the temple, the land would once more enjoy abundance, for Ningirsu would send a wind which should proclaim to the heavens the return of the waters. And on that day the waters would fall from the heavens, the water in the ditches and canals would rise, and water would gush out from the dry clefts in the ground. And the great fields would once more produce their crops, and oil would be poured out plenteously in Sumer[sp.] and wool would again be weighed in great abundance. In that day the god would go to the mountain where dwelt the whirlwind, and he would himself direct the wind which should give the land the breath of life. Gudea must therefore work day and night at the task of building the temple. One company of men was to relieve another at its toil, and during the night the men were to kindle lights so that the plain should be as bright as day. Thus the builders would build continuously. Men were also to be sent to the mountains to cut down cedars and pines and other trees and bring their trunks to the city, while masons were to go to the mountains and were to cut and transport huge blocks of stone to be used in the construction of the temple. Finally the god gave Gudea the sign for which he asked. The sign was that he should feel his side touched as by a flame, and thereby he should know that he was the man chosen by Ningirsu to carry out his commands.

Gudea bowed his head in submission, and his first act was to consult the omens, and the omens were favourable. He then proceeded to purify the city by special rites, so that the mother when angered did not chide her son, and the master did not strike his servant's head, and the mistress, though provoked by her handmaid, did not smite her face. And Gudea drove all the evil wizards and sorcerers from the city, and he purified and sanctified the city completely. Then he kindled a great fire of cedar and other aromatic woods, to make a sweet savour for the gods, and prayers were offered day and night; and the patesi addressed a prayer to the Anun-naki, or Spirits of the Earth, who dwelt in Shirpurla, and assigned a place to them in the temple. Then, having completed his purification of the city itself, he consecrated its immediate surroundings. Thus he consecrated the district of Gu-edin, whence the revenues of Ningirsu were derived, and the lands of the goddess Ninâ with their populous villages. And he consecrated the wild and savage bulls which no man could turn aside, and the cedars which were sacred to Ningirsu, and the cattle of the plains. And he consecrated the armed men, and the famous warriors, and the warriors of the Sun-god. And the emblems of the god Ningirsu, and of the two great goddesses, Ninâ and Ninni, he installed before them in their shrines.

Then Gudea sent far and wide to fetch materials for the construction of the temple. And the Elamite came from Elani, and men of Susa came from Susa, and men brought wood from the mountains of Sinai and Melukh-kha. And into the mountain of cedars, where no man before had penetrated, the patesi cut a road, and he brought cedars and beams of other precious woods in great quantities to the city. And he also made a road into the mountain where stone was quarried, into places where no man before had penetrated. And he carried great blocks of stone down from the mountain and loaded them into barges and brought them to the city. And the barges brought bitumen and plaster, and they were loaded as though they were carrying grain, and all manner of great things were brought to the city. Copper ore was brought from the mountain of copper in the land of Kimash, and gold was brought in powder from the mountains, and silver was brought from the mountains and porphyry from the land of Melukhkha, and marble from the mountain of marble. And the patesi installed goldsmiths and silversmiths, who wrought in these precious metals, for the adornment of the temple; and he brought smiths who worked in copper and lead, who were priests of Nin-tu-kalama. In his search for fitting materials for the building of the temple, Gudea journeyed from the lower country to the upper country, and from the upper country to the lower country he returned.

The only other materials now wanting for the construction of the temple were the sun-dried bricks of clay, of which the temple platform and the structure of the temple itself were in the main composed. Their manufacture was now inaugurated by a symbolical ceremony carried out by the patesi in person. At dawn he performed an ablution with the fitting rites that accompanied it, and when the day was more advanced he slew a bull and a kid as sacrifices, and he then entered the temple of Ningirsu, where he prostrated himself. And he took the sacred mould and the fair cushion on which it rested in the temple, and he poured a libation into the mould. Afterwards, having made offerings of honey and butter, and having burnt incense, he placed the cushion and the mould upon his head and carried it to the appointed place. There he placed clay in the mould, shaping it into a brick, and he left the brick in its mould within the temple. And last of all he sprinkled oil of cedar-wood around.

The next day at dawn Gudea broke the mould and set the brick in the sun. And the Sun-god was rejoiced at the brick that he had fashioned. And Gudea took the brick and raised it on high towards the heavens, and he carried the brick to his people. In this way the patesi inaugurated the manufacture of the sun-dried bricks for the temple, the sacred brick which he had made being the symbol and pattern of the innumerable bricks to be used in its construction. He then marked out the plan of the temple, and the text states that he devoted himself to the building of the temple like a young man who has begun building a house and allows no pleasure to interfere with his task. And he chose out skilled workmen and employed them on the building, and he was filled with joy. The gods, too, are stated to have helped with the building, for Enki fixed the temennu of the temple, and the goddess Ninâ looked after its oracles, and Gatumdug, the mother of Shir-purla, fashioned bricks for it morning and evening, while the goddess Bau sprinkled aromatic oil of cedar-wood. Gudea himself laid its foundations, and as he did so he blessed the temple seven times, comparing it to the sacred brick, to the holy libation-vase, to the divine eagle of Shirpurla, to a terrible couching panther, to the beautiful heavens, to the day of offerings, and to the morning light which brightens the land. He caused the temple to rise towards heaven like a mountain, or like a cedar growing in the desert. He built it of bricks of Sumer, and the timbers which he set in place were as strong as the dragon of the deep.

While he was engaged on the building Gudea took counsel of the god Enki, and he built a fountain for the gods, where they might drink. With the great stones which he had brought and fashioned he built a reservoir and a basin for the temple. And seven of the great stones he set up as stelæ, and he gave them favourable names. The text then recounts the various parts and shrines of the temple, and it describes their splendours in similes drawn from the heavens and the earth and the abyss, or deep, beneath the earth. The temple itself is described as, being like the crescent of the new moon, or like the sun in the midst of the stars, or like a mountain of lapis lazuli, or like a mountain of shining marble. Parts of it are said to have been terrible and strong as a savage bull, or a lion, or the antelope of the abyss, or the monster Lakhamu who dwells in the abyss, or the sacred leopard that inspires terror. One of the doors of the temple was guarded by a figure of the hero who slew the monster with six heads, and at another door was a good dragon, and at another a lion; opposite the city were set figures of the seven heroes, and facing the rising sun was fixed the emblem of the Sun-god. Figures of other heroes and favourable monsters were set up as guardians of other portions of the temple. The fastenings of the main entrance were decorated with dragons shooting out their tongues, and the bolt of the great door was fashioned like a raging hound.

After this description of the construction and adornment of the temple the text goes on to narrate how Gudea arranged for its material endowment. He stalled oxen and sheep, for sacrifice and feasting, in the outhouses and pens within the temple precincts, and he heaped up grain in its granaries. Its storehouses he filled with spices so that they were like the Tigris when its waters are in flood, and in its treasure-chambers he piled up precious stones, and silver, and lead in abundance. Within the temple precincts he planted a sacred garden which was like a mountain covered with vines; and on the terrace he built a great reservoir, or tank, lined with lead, in addition to the great stone reservoir within the temple itself. He constructed a special dwelling-place for the sacred doves, and among the flowers of the temple garden and under the shade of the great trees the birds of heaven flew about unmolested.

The first of the two great cylinders of Gudea ends at this point in the description of the temple, and it is evident that its text was composed while the work of building was still in progress. Moreover, the writing of the cylinder was finished before the actual work of building the temple was completed, for the last column of the text concludes with a prayer to Ningirsu to make it glorious during the progress of the work, the prayer ending with the words, "O Ningirsu, glorify it! Glorify the temple of Ningirsu during its construction!" The text of the second of the two great cylinders is shorter than that of the first, consisting of twenty-four instead of thirty columns of writing, and it was composed and written after the temple was completed. Like the first of the cylinders, it concludes with a prayer to Ningirsu on behalf of the temple, ending with the similar refrain, "O Ningirsu, glorify it! Glorify the temple of Ningirsu after its construction!" The first cylinder, as we have seen, records how it came about that Gudea decided to rebuild the temple E-ninnû in honour of Ningirsu. It describes how, when the land was suffering from drought and famine, Gudea had a dream, how Ninâ interpreted the dream to mean that he must rebuild the temple, and how Ningirsu himself promised that this act of piety would restore abundance and prosperity to the land. Its text ends with the long description of the sumptuous manner in which the patesi carried out the work, the most striking points of which we have just summarized. The narrative of the second cylinder begins at the moment when the building of the temple was finished, and when all was ready for the great god Nin-girsu to be installed therein, and its text is taken up with a description of the ceremonies and rites with which this solemn function was carried out. It presents us with a picture, drawn from life, of the worship and cult of the ancient Sumerians in actual operation. In view of its importance from the point of view of the study and comparison of the Sumerian and Babylonian religious systems, its contents also may be summarized. We will afterwards discuss briefly the information furnished by both the cylinders on the Sumerian origin of many of the religious beliefs and practices which were current among the later Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria.

When Gudea had finished building the new temple of E-ninnû, and had completed the decoration and adornment of its shrines, and had planted its gardens and stocked its treasure-chambers and storehouses, he applied himself to the preliminary ceremonies and religious preparations which necessarily preceded the actual function of transferring the statue of the god Ningirsu from his old temple to his new one. Gudea's first act was to install the Anunnaki, or Spirits of the Earth, in the new temple, and when he had done this, and had supplied additional sheep for their sacrifices and food in abundance for their offerings, he prayed to them to give him their assistance and to pronounce a prayer at his side when he should lead Ningirsu into his new dwelling-place. The text then describes how Gudea went to the old temple of Ningirsu, accompanied by his protecting spirits who walked before him and behind him. Into the old temple he carried sumptuous offerings, and when he had set them before the god, he addressed him in prayer and said: "O my King, Ningirsu! O Lord, who curbest the raging waters! O Lord, whose word surpasseth all others! O Son of Enlil, O warrior, what commands shall I faithfully carry out? O Ningirsu, I have built thy temple, and with joy would I lead thee therein, and my goddess Bau would install at thy side." We are told that the god accepted Gudea's prayer, and thereby he gave his consent to be removed from the old temple of E-ninnû to his new one which bore the same name.

But the ceremony of the god's removal was not carried out at once, for the due time had not arrived. The year ended, and the new year came, and then "the month of the temple" began. The third day of the month was that appointed for the installation of Ningirsu. Gudea meanwhile had sprinkled the ground with oil, and set out offerings of honey and butter and wine, and grain mixed with milk, and dates, and food untouched by fire, to serve as food for the gods; and the gods themselves had assisted in the preparations for the reception of Ningirsu. The god Asaru made ready the temple itself, and Ninmada performed the ceremony of purification. The god Enki issued oracles, and the god Nindub, the supreme priest of Eridu, brought incense. Ninâ performed chants within the temple, and brought black sheep and holy cows to its folds and stalls. This record of the help given by the other gods we may interpret as meaning that the priests attached to the other great Sumerian temples took part in the preparation of the new temple, and added their offerings to the temple stores. To many of the gods, also, special shrines within the temple were assigned.

When the purification of E-ninnû was completed and the way between the old temple and the new made ready, all the inhabitants of the city prostrated themselves on the ground. "The city," says Gudea, "was like the mother of a sick man who prepareth a potion for him, or like the cattle of the plain which lie down together, or like the fierce lion, the master of the plain, when he coucheth." During the day and the night before the ceremony of removal, prayers and supplications were uttered, and at the first light of dawn on the appointed day the god Ningirsu went into his new temple "like a whirlwind," the goddess Bau entering at his side "like the sun rising over Shirpurla." She entered beside his couch, like a faithful wife, whose cares are for her own household, and she dwelt beside his ear and bestowed abundance upon Shirpurla.

As the day began to brighten and the sun rose, Gudea set out as offerings in the temple a fat ox and a fat sheep, and he brought a vase of lead and filled it with wine, which he poured out as a libation, and he performed incantations. Then, having duly established Ningirsu and Bau in the chief shrine, he turned his attention to the lesser gods and installed them in their appointed places in the temple, where they would be always ready to assist Ningirsu in the temple ceremonies and in the issue of his decrees for the welfare of the city and its inhabitants. Thus he established the god Galalim, the son of Ningirsu, in a chosen spot in the great court in front of the temple, where, under the orders of his father, he should direct the just and curb the evil-doer; he would also by his presence strengthen and preserve the temple, while his special duty was to guard the throne of destiny and, on behalf of Ningirsu, to place the sceptre in the hands of the reigning patesi. Near to Ningirsu and under his orders Gudea also established the god Dunshaga, whose function it was to sanctify the temple and to look after its libations and offerings, and to see to the due performance of the ceremonies of ablution. This god would offer water to Ningirsu with a pure hand, he would pour out libations of wine and strong drink, and would tend the oxen, sheep, kids, and other offerings which were brought to the temple night and day. To the god Lugalkurdub, who was also installed in the temple, was assigned the privilege of holding in his hand the mace with the seven heads, and it was his duty to open the door of the Gate of Combat. He guarded the sacred weapons of Ningirsu and destroyed the countries of his enemies. He was Ningirsu's chief leader in battle, and another god with lesser powers was associated with him as his second leader.

Ningirsu's counsellor was the god Lugalsisa, and he also had his appointed place in E-ninnû. It was his duty to receive the prayers of Shirpurla and render them propitious; he superintended and blessed Ningirsu's journey when he visited Eridu or returned from that city, and he made special intercessions for the life of Gudea. The minister of Ningirsu's harîm was the god Shakanshabar, and he was installed near to Nin-girsu that he might issue his commands, both great and small. The keeper of the harîm was the god Urizu, and it was his duty to purify the water and sanctify the grain, and he tended Ningirsu's sleeping-chamber and saw that all was arranged therein as was fitting. The driver of Ningirsu's chariot was the god Ensignun; it was his duty to keep the sacred chariot as bright as the stars of heaven, and morning and evening to tend and feed Ningirsu's sacred ass, called Ug-kash, and the ass of Eridu. The shepherd of Ningirsu's kids was the god Enlulim, and he tended the sacred she-goat who suckled the kids, and he guarded her so that the serpent should not steal her milk. This god also looked after the oil and the strong drink of E-ninnû, and saw that its store increased.

Ningirsu's beloved musician was the god Ushum-gabkalama, and he was installed in E-ninnû that he might take his flute and fill the temple court with joy. It was his privilege to play to Ningirsu as he listened in his harîm, and to render the life of the god pleasant in E-ninnû. Ningirsu's singer was the god Lugaligi-khusham, and he had his appointed place in E-ninnû, for he could appease the heart and soften anger; he could stop the tears which flowed from weeping eyes, and could lessen sorrow in the sighing heart. Gudea also installed in E-ninnû the seven twin-daughters of the goddess Bau, all virgins, whom Ningirsu had begotten. Their names were Zarzaru, Impaë, Urenuntaëa, Khegir-nuna, Kheshaga, Gurmu, and Zarmu. Gudea installed them near their father that they might offer favourable prayers.

The cultivator of the district of Gu-edin was the god Gishbare, and he was installed in the temple that he might cause the great fields to be fertile, and might make the wheat glisten in Gu-edin, the plain assigned to Ningirsu for his revenues. It was this god's duty also to tend the machines for irrigation, and to raise the water into the canals and ditches of Shirpurla, and thus to keep the city's granaries well filled. The god Kal was the guardian of the fishing in Gu-edin, and his chief duty was to place fish in the sacred pools. The steward of Gu-edin was the god Dimgalabzu, whose duty it was to keep the plain in good order, so that the birds might abound there and the beasts might raise their young in peace; he also guarded the special privilege, which the plain enjoyed, of freedom from any tax levied upon the increase of the cattle pastured there. Last of all Gudea installed in E-ninnû the god Lugalenurua-zagakam, who looked after the construction of houses in the city and the building of fortresses upon the city wall; in the temple it was his privilege to raise on high a battle-axe made of cedar.

All these lesser deities, having close relations to the god Ningirsu, were installed by Gudea in his temple in close proximity to him, that they might be always ready to perform their special functions. But the greater deities also had their share in the inauguration of the temple, and of these Gudea specially mentions Ana, Enlil, Ninkharsag, Enki, and Enzu, who all assisted in rendering the temple's lot propitious. For at least three of the greater gods (Ana, Enlil, and the goddess Nin-makh) Gudea erected shrines near one another and probably within the temple's precincts, and, as the passage which records this fact is broken, it is possible that the missing portion of the text recorded the building of shrines to other deities. In any case, it is clear that the composer of the text represents all the great gods as beholding the erection and inauguration of Ningirsu's new temple with favour.

After the account of the installation of Ningirsu, and his spouse Bau, and his attendant deities, the text records the sumptuous offerings which Gudea placed within Ningirsu's shrine. These included another chariot drawn by an ass, a seven-headed battle-axe, a sword with nine emblems, a bow with terrible arrows and a quiver decorated with wild beasts and dragons shooting out their tongues, and a bed which was set within the god's sleeping-chamber. On the couch in the shrine the goddess Bau reclined beside her lord Ningirsu, and ate of the great victims which were sacrificed in their honour.

When the ceremony of installation had been successfully performed, Gudea rested, and for seven days he feasted with his people. During this time the maid was the equal of her mistress, and master and servant consorted together as friends. The powerful and the humble man lay down side by side, and in place of evil speech only propitious words were heard. The rich man did not wrong the orphan and the strong man did not oppress the widow. The laws of Ninâ and Ningirsu were observed, justice was bright in the sunlight, and the Sun-god trampled iniquity under foot. The building of the temple also restored material prosperity to the land, for the canals became full of water and fish swarmed in the pools, the granaries were filled with grain and the flocks and herds brought forth their increase. The city of Shirpurla was satiated with abundance.

Such is a summary of the account which Gudea has left us of his rebuilding of the temple E-ninnû, of the reasons which led him to undertake the work, and of the results which followed its completion. It has often been said that the inscriptions of the ancient Sumerians are without much intrinsic value, that they mainly consist of dull votive formulæ, and that for general interest the best of them cannot be compared with the later inscriptions of the Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia. This reproach, for which until recently there was considerable justification, has been finally removed by the working out of the texts upon Gudea's cylinders. For picturesque narrative, for wealth of detail, and for striking similes, it would be hard to find their superior in Babylonian and Assyrian literature. They are, in fact, very remarkable compositions, and in themselves justify the claim that the Sumerians were possessed of a literature in the proper sense of the term.

But that is not their only value, for they give a vivid picture of ancient Sumerian life and of the ideals and aims which actuated the people and their rulers. The Sumerians were essentially an unmilitary race. That they could maintain a stubborn fight for their territory is proved by the prolonged struggle maintained by Shirpurla against her rival Gishkhu, but neither ruler nor people was inflamed by love of conquest for its own sake. They were settled in a rich and fertile country, which supplied their own wants in abundance, and they were content to lead a peaceful life therein, engaged in agricultural and industrial pursuits, and devoted wholly to the worship of their gods. Gudea's inscriptions enable us to realize with what fervour they carried out the rebuilding of a temple, and how the whole resources of the nation were devoted to the successful completion of the work. It is true that the rebuilding of E-ninnû was undertaken in a critical period when the land was threatened with famine, and the peculiar magnificence with which the work was carried out may be partly explained as due to the belief that such devotion would ensure a return of material prosperity. But the existence of such a belief is in itself an index to the people's character, and we may take it that the record faithfully represents the relations of the Sumerians to their gods, and the important place which worship and ritual occupied in the national life.

Moreover, the inscriptions of Gudea furnish much valuable information with regard to the details of Sumerian worship and the elaborate organization of the temples. From them we can reconstruct a picture of one of these immense buildings, with its numerous shrines and courts, surrounded by sacred gardens and raising its ziggurat, or temple tower, high above the surrounding city. Within its dark chambers were the mysterious figures of the gods, and what little light could enter would have been reflected in the tanks of sacred water sunk to the level of the pavement. The air within the shrines must have been heavy with the smell of incense and of aromatic woods, while the deep silence would have been broken only by the chanting of the priests and the feet of those that bore offerings. Outside in the sunlight cedars and other rare trees cast a pleasant shade, and birds flew about among the flowers and bushes in the outer courts and on the garden terraces. The area covered by the temple buildings must have been enormous, for they included the dwellings of the priests, stables and pens for the cattle, sheep, and kids employed for sacrifice, and treasure-chambers and storehouses and granaries for the produce from the temple lands.

We also get much information with regard to the nature of the offerings and the character of the ceremonies which were performed. We may mention as of peculiar interest Gudea's symbolical rite which preceded the making of the sun-dried bricks, and the ceremony of the installation of Ningirsu in the presence of the prostrate city. The texts also throw an interesting light on the truly Oriental manner in which, when approaching one deity for help, the cooperation and assistance of other deities were first secured. Thus Gudea solicited the intercession of Ningirsu and Gatumdug before applying to the goddess Ninâ to interpret his dream. The extremely human character of the gods themselves is also well illustrated. Thus we gather from the texts that Ningirsu's temple was arranged like the palace of a Sumerian ruler and that he was surrounded by gods who took the place of the attendants and ministers of his human counterpart. His son was installed in a place of honour and shared with him the responsibility of government. Another god was his personal attendant and cupbearer, who offered him fair water and looked after the ablutions. Two more were his generals, who secured his country against the attacks of foes. Another was his counsellor, who received and presented petitions from his subjects and superintended his journeys. Another was the head of his harîm, a position of great trust and responsibility, while a keeper of the harîm looked after the practical details. Another god was the driver of his chariot, and it is interesting to note that the chariot was drawn by an ass, for horses were not introduced into Western Asia until a much later period. Other gods performed the functions of head shepherd, chief musician, chief singer, head cultivator and inspector of irrigation, inspector of the fishing, land steward, and architect. His household also included his wife and his seven virgin daughters. In addition to the account of the various functions performed by these lesser deities, the texts also furnish valuable facts with regard to the characters and attributes of the greater gods and goddesses, such as the attributes of Ningirsu himself, and the character of Ninâ as the goddess who divined and interpreted the secrets of the gods.

But perhaps the most interesting conclusions to be drawn from the texts relate to the influence exerted by the ancient Sumerians upon Semitic beliefs and practices. It has, of course, long been recognized that the later Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria drew most of their culture from the Sumerians, whom they displaced and absorbed. Their system of writing, the general structure of their temples, the ritual of their worship, the majority of their religious compositions, and many of their gods themselves are to be traced to a Sumerian origin, and much of the information obtained from the cylinders of Gudea merely confirms or illustrates the conclusions already deduced from other sources. As instances we may mention the belief in spirits, which is illustrated by the importance attached to the placating of the Anunnaki, or Spirits of the Earth, to whom a special place and special offerings were assigned in E-ninnû. The Sumerian origin of ceremonies of purification is confirmed by Gudea's purification of the city before beginning the building of the temple, and again before the transference of the god from his old temple to the new one. The consultation of omens, which was so marked a feature of Babylonian and Assyrian life, is seen in actual operation under the Sumerians; for, even after Gudea had received direct instructions from Ningirsu to begin building his temple, he did not proceed to carry them out until he had consulted the omens and found that they were favourable. Moreover, the references to mythological beings, such as the seven heroes, the dragon of the deep, and the god who slew the dragon, confirm the opinion that the creation legends and other mythological compositions of the Babylonians were derived by them from Sumerian sources. But there are two incidents in the narrative which are on a rather different plane and are more startling in their novelty. One is the story of Gudea's dream, and the other the sign which he sought from his god. The former is distinctly apocalyptic in character, and both may be parallelled in what is regarded as purely Semitic literature. That such conceptions existed among the Sumerians is a most interesting fact, and although the theory of independent origin is possible, their existence may well have influenced later Semitic beliefs.

PART 13B.

Previous Part

Main Index

Next Part

HISTORY OF EGYPT

CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT DISCOVERY

BY L. W. KING and H. R. HALL

Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum Containing over 1200 colored plates and illustrations. Copyright 1906

Contents (Part 13b)

List of Illustrations

CHAPTER III—MEMPHIS AND THE PYRAMIDS

CHAPTER IV—RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN WESTERN ASIA AND THE DAWN OF CHALDÆAN HISTORY

CHALDEA, SYRIA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA
IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT DISCOVERY

Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities, British Museum
Containing over 1200 colored plates and illustrations.

Copyright 1906

CHAPTER IV—RECENT EXCAVATIONS IN WESTERN ASIA
AND THE DAWN OF CHALDÆAN HISTORY