CHAPTER IV

THE WESTERN SEMITES AND THE FIRST DYNASTY OF BABYLON

 

THE rise of Babylon to a position of pre-eminence among the warring dynasties of Sumer and Akkad may be regarded as sealing the final triumph of the Semite over the Sumerian. His survival in the long racial contest was due to the reinforcements he received from men of his own stock, whereas the Sumerian population, when once settled in the country, was never afterwards renewed. The great Semitic wave, under which the Sumerian sank and finally disappeared, reached the Euphrates from the coast-lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. But the Amurru, or Western Semites, like their predecessors in Northern Babylonia, had come originally from Arabia. For it is now generally recognized that the Arabian peninsula was the first home and cradle of the Semitic peoples. Arabia, like the plains of Central Asia, was, in fact, one of the main breeding-grounds of the human race, and during the historic period we may trace four great migrations of Semitic nomad tribes, which successively broke away from the northern margin of the Arabian pasture-lands and spread over the neighbouring countries like a flood. The first great racial movement of the kind is that of which the effects were chiefly apparent in Akkad, or Northern Babylonia, where the Semites first obtained a footing when overrunning the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates. The second is distinguished from the first, as the Canaanite or Amorite, since it gave to Canaan its Semitic inhabitants; but how long an interval separated the one movement from the other it is impossible to say. The process may well have been a continuous one, with merely a change in the direction of advance; but it is convenient to distinguish them by their effects as separate movements, the semitization of Canaan following that of Babylonia, but at the same time contributing to its complete success. Of the later migrations we are not for the moment concerned, and in any case only one of them falls within the period of this history. That was the third great movement, which began in the fourteenth century and has been termed the Aramean from the kingdom it established in Syria with its capital at Damascus. The fourth, and last, took place in the seventh century of our own era, when the armies of Islam, after conquering Western Asia and Northern Africa, penetrated even to South-Western Europe. It was by far the most extensive of the four in the area it covered, and, in spite of being the last of the series, it illustrates the character and methods of the earlier movements in their initial stages, when the desert nomad, issuing in force from his own borders, came within the area of settled civilization.

It is true that great tracts of Central Arabia are today quite uninhabitable, but there is reason to believe that its present condition of aridity was not so marked in earlier periods. We have definite proof of this in the interior of Southern Arabia, where there is still a belt of comparatively fertile country between the flat coastal regions and the steep mountain range, that forms the southern boundary of the central plateau. On the coast itself there is practically no rainfall, and even on the higher slopes away from the coast it is very scanty. Here the herds of goats frequently go without water for many weeks, and they have learnt to pull up and chew the fleshy roots of a species of cactus to quench their thirst. But further still inland there is a broad belt of country, which is marvellously fertile and in a high state of cultivation. The rainfall there is regular during a portion of the year, the country is timbered, and the main mountain range, though possessing no towns of any size, is thickly dotted with strong fighting towers, which dominate the well-farmed and flourishing villages. To the north of the range, beyond the cultivation, is a belt roamed over by the desert-nomads with their typical black tents of woven goat-hair, and then comes the central desert, a region of rolling sand. But here and there the ruins of palaces and temples may still be seen rising from the sand or built on some slight eminence above its level.

At the time of the Sabaean kingdom, as early as the sixth century B.C., this region of Southern Arabia must have been far more fertile than it is at the present day. The shifting sand, under the driving pressure of the simoom, doubtless played its part in overwhelming tracts of cultivated country; but that alone cannot account for the changed conditions. The researches of Stein, Pumpelly, Huntington and others have shown the results of desiccation in Central Asia, and it is certain that a similar diminution of the rainfall has taken place in the interior of Southern Arabia. To such climatic changes, which seem, according to the latest theories, to occur in recurrent cycles, we may probably trace the great racial migrations from Central Arabia, which have given their inhabitants to so many countries of Western Asia and North Africa.

It is possible to form a very clear picture of the Semite who issued from this region, for the life of the pastoral nomad, all the world over, is the same. And even at the present day, in the hollows of the Arabian desert, there is enough deposit of moisture to allow of a sufficient growth of grass for pasture-lands, capable of supporting nomadic tribes, who move with their flocks of sheep and goats from one more favoured area to another. The life of such a nomad is forced into one mould by the conditions imposed by the desert; for the grass-land cannot support him and he must live on the milk and young of his flocks. He is purely a shepherd, carrying with him the simplest and lightest tents, tools, and weapons for his needs. The type of society is that of the patriarchal family, for each nomad tribe consists of a group of relatives; and, under the direction of their chief, not only the men of the clan, but the women and children, all take an active part in tending the flocks and in practising the simple arts of skin-curing and the weaving of hair and wool. So long as the pasture-lands can support his flocks, the nomad is content to leave the settled agriculturist beyond the desert edge in peace. Some of the semi-nomad tribes upon the margin of the cultivation may engage in barter with their more civilised neighbours, and even at times demand subsidies for leaving their crops in peace. But the bulk of the tribes would normally remain within their own area, while conditions existed which were capable of supplying the needs of their simple life. It is when the pasture lands dry up that the nomad must leave his own area or perish, and it is then that he descends upon the cultivation and proceeds to adapt himself to new conditions, should he conquer the settled races whose higher culture he himself absorbs.

While still held within the grip of the desert, there was never any prospect of his development or advance in civilization. The only great changes that have taken place in the life of the Arabian nomad have been due to the introduction of the horse and the camel. But these have merely increased his mobility, while leaving the man himself unchanged. The Arabs of the seventh century B.C., depicted in the reliefs from Nineveh as fleeing on their camels before the advance of the Assyrians, can have differed in no essential feature from their earliest predecessors, who made their way to the Euphrates valley on foot or with only the ass as a beast of burden. For, having once succeeded in domesticating his flocks and in living by their means upon the rolling steppes of pasture-land, the nomad’s needs are fully satisfied, and his ways of life survive through succeeding generations. He cannot accumulate possessions, as he must be able to carry all his goods continually with him, and his knowledge of the uneventful past is derived entirely from oral tradition. The earliest inscriptions recovered in Arabia are probably not anterior to the sixth century B.C., and they were naturally not the work of nomads, but of Semitic tribes who had forsaken their wanderings for the settled life of village and township in the more hospitable regions of the south.

 

 

ARABS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY B.C.

From a sculpture of the reign of Ashurbanipal in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum.

 

 

The Amurru, or Western Semites, to whose incursion into Babylonia the rise of Babylon itself was directly due, had long abandoned a nomadic existence, and in addition to the higher standards of the agriculturist had acquired a civilization which had been largely influenced by that of Babylonia. Thanks to the active policy of excavation, carried out during the last twenty-five years in Palestine, we are enabled to reconstruct the conditions of life which prevailed in that country from a very early period. It is, in fact, now possible to trace tiie successive stages of Canaanite civilization back to neolithic times. Rude flint implements of the palaeolithic or Older Stone Age have also been found on the surface of the plains of Palestine, where they had lain since the close of the glacial epoch. But at that time the climate and character of the Mediterranean lands were very different to their present condition; and a great break of unknown length then occurs in the cultural sequence, which separates that primaeval period from the neolithic or Later Stone Age. It is to this second era that we may trace the real beginnings of Canaanite civilization. For, from that time onwards, there is no break in the continuity of culture, and each age was the direct heir of that which preceded it.

 

ARABS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY B.C.

From a sculpture of the reign of Ashur-bani-pal in the Nineveh Gallery of the British Museum.

 

 

The neolithic inhabitants of Canaan, whose implements of worked and polished stone mark a great advance upon the rough flints of their remote predecessors, belonged to the short, dark-skinned race which spread itself over the shores of the Mediterranean. Dwelling in rude huts, they employed for household use rough vessels of kneaded clay which they fashioned by hand and baked in the fire. They lived chiefly by the cattle and flocks they had domesticated, and, to judge by their clay spindle-whorls, they practised a simple form of weaving, and began to clothe themselves with cloth in place of skins. Over these primitive inhabitants a fresh tide of migration swept, probably in the early part of the third millennium b.c. The newcomers were Semites from Arabia, of the same stock as those nomadic hordes who had already overrun Babylonia and had established themselves in a great part of that country. After they had settled in Canaan and Syria they were known to the Babylonians as the Amurru or Amorites. They were taller and more vigorous than the neolithic Canaanites, and they seem to have brought with them a knowledge of the use of metal, acquired probably by traffic with southern Babylonia. The flint arrows and knives of their enemies would have had little chance against weapons of copper and bronze. But, whether helped by their superior armament or not, they became the dominant race in Canaan. By intermarrying with their predecessors they produced the Canaanites of history, a people of Semitic speech, but with a varying admixture in their blood of the dark-skinned Mediterranean race of lower type.

Such in origin was the Canaanite branch of the Western Semites, and it may be worthwhile to glance for a moment at the main features of their culture as revealed by excavation in Palestine. One thing stands out clearly: they revolutionized conditions of life in Canaan. The rude huts of the first settlers were superseded by houses of brick and stone, and, in place of villages, cities rose surrounded by massive walls. The city-wall of Gezer was more than thirteen feet thick and was defended by strong towers. That of Megiddo was twenty-six feet in thickness, and its foot was further protected by a slope, or glacis, of beaten earth. To secure their water-supply in time of siege, the arrangements were equally thorough. At Gezer, for example, a huge tunnel was found, hewn in the solid rock, which gave access to an abundant spring of water over ninety feet below the surface of the ground. Not only had the earlier nomad adopted the agricultural life, but he soon evolved a system of defence for his settlements, suggested by the hilly character of his new country and its ample supply of stone. Not less remarkable is the light thrown by the excavations on details of Canaanite worship. The centre of each town was the high place, where huge monoliths were erected, some of them, when unearthed, still worn and polished by the kisses of their worshippers. At Gezer ten such monoliths were discovered in a row, and it is worth noting that they were erected over a sacred cave of the neolithic inhabitants, proving that the ancient sanctuary was taken over by the Semitic invaders. The religious centres inherited by the Ba’alim, or local “Lords” of Canaanite worship, had evidently been sanctified by long tradition. In the soil beneath the high places both at Gezer and at Megiddo numbers of jars were found containing the bodies of children, and we may probably see in this fact evidence of infant-sacrifice, the survival of which into later periods is attested by Hebrew tradition. In the cultural remains of these Semitic invaders a distinct development is discernible. During the earlier period there is scarcely a trace of foreign influence, but later on we find importations from both Babylonia and Egypt.

It is but natural that southern and central Canaan should have long remained inaccessible to outside influence, and that the effects of Babylonian civilization should have been confined at first to eastern Syria and to the frontier districts scattered along the middle course of the Euphrates. Recent digging by natives so far to the north as the neighbourhood of Carchemish, for example, have revealed some remarkable traces of connexion with Babylonia at a very early period. In graves at Hammam, a village on the Euphrates near the mouth of the Sajur, cylinder-seals were found which exhibit unmistakable analogies to very early Babylonian work; and the use of this form of seal at a period anterior to the First Dynasty of Babylon is in itself proof that Babylonian influence had reached the frontier of Syria by the great trade-route up the course of the Euphrates, along which the armies of Sargon of Akkad had already marched in their raid to the Mediterranean coast. It is not improbable, too, that Carchemish herself sent her own products at this time to Babylon, for one class of her local pottery at any rate appears to have been valued other races and to have formed an article of export. At the time of the later kings of the First Dynasty a special kind of large clay vessel, in use in Northern Babylonia, was known as “a Carchemisian”, and was evidently manufactured at Carchemish and exported. The trade was no doubt encouraged by the close relations established under Hammurabi and his successors with the West, but its existence points to the possibility of still earlier commercial intercourse, such as would explain the occurrence of archaic Babylonian cylinder-seals in early graves in the neighbourhood.

But, apart from such trade relations, there is nothing to suggest that the early culture of Carchemish and its adjacent districts had been effected to any great extent by that of Babylon, nor is there any indication that the inhabitants of the early city were Semites. Indeed, the archaeological evidence is entirely in favour of the opposite view. The bronze age at Carchemish and its neighbourhood is distinguished from the preceding period by the use of metal, by different burial customs, and by new types of pottery, and must be regarded as marking the advent of a foreign people. But throughout the bronze age itself at Carchemish, from its beginning in the third millennium to its close in the eleventh century B.C., there is a uniform development. There is no sudden outcrop of new types such as had marked its own beginning, and, since in its later periods it was essentially Hittite, we may assume that it was neither inaugurated nor interrupted by the Semites. Its earlier representatives, before the great Hittite migration from Anatolia, may well have been a branch of that proto-Mitannian stock, itself possibly of Anatolian origin, evidence of whose presence we shall note at Ashur before the rise of Babylon’s First Dynasty.

Carchemish lies out of the direct road from Babylon to Northern Syria, and it is remarkable that any trace of early Babylonian influence should have been found so far to the north as the mouth of the Sajur. It is farther down stream, after the Euphrates has turned eastward towards its junction with the Khabur, that we should expect to find evidence of a more striking character; and it is precisely there, along the river route from Syria to Akkad, that we have recovered definite proof, at the time of the First Dynasty of Babylon, of the existence of Amorite or West-Semitic settlements with a culture that was Babylonian in its essential features. The evidence is drawn mainly from one district, the kingdom of Khana, which lay not far from the mouth of the Khabur. One of the chief towns, and probably the capital of the kingdom, was Tirka, the site of which probably lay near Tell ‘Ashar or Tell Tshar, a place situated between Der ez-Zor and Salihiya and about four hours from the latter. The identification is certain, since an Assyrian inscription of the ninth century was found there, recording the rebuilding of the local temple which is stated in the text to have been “in Tirka.” From about this region three tablets have also been recovered, all dating from the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon and throwing considerable light on the character of West Semitic culture in a district within the reach of Babylonian influence.

One of these documents records a deed of gift by which Isharlim, a king of Khana, conveys to one of his subjects a house in a village within the district of Tirka. On a second document is inscribed a similar deed of gift by which another king of the same district, Ammi-bail, the son of Shunu-rammu, bestows two plots of land on a certain Pagirum, described as “his servant,” evidently in return for faithful servic ; and, as one of the plots was in Tirka, it is probable that the deed was drawn up in that city. The third document is perhaps the most interesting of the three, since it contains a marriage-contract and is dated in the reign of a king who bears the name of Hammurabi. This last ruler has by some been confidently regarded as identical with Hammurabi of the First Dynasty of Babylon, and it has been assumed that it was drawn up at a time when Khana had been conquered and annexed by that monarch, of whose advance into that region we have independent evidence. But since the tablet appears to be the latest of the three, it is clear that Khana had been subject to Babylonian influence long before Hammurabi’s conquest. And, even if we regard Hammurabi as no more than a local king of Khana, the document has furnished us with a West-Semitic variant of Hammurabi’s name, or one that is closely parallel to it.

The remarkable fact about all these texts is that they are drawn up in the style of legal documents of the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon. But, while the terminology is much the same, it has been adapted to local conditions. The early Babylonian method of dating by events has been taken over, but the formulae are not those in use at this period in Babylonia, but are peculiar to the kingdom of Khana. Thus the first deed of gift is dated in the year when Isharlim, the king, built the great gate of the palace in the city of Kash-dakh; the second was drawn up in the year in which Ammi-bail, the king, ascended the throne in his father’s house; while the marriage-contract is dated in the year that Hammurabi, the king, opened the canal Khabur-ibal-bugash from the city of Zakku-Isharlim to the city of Zakku-Igitlim. The names of the months, too, are not those of Babylon, and we find evidence that local laws and customs were in force. Each of the deeds of gift, for example, provides that any infringement of the rights bestowed by the king is to be punished by a money-fine of ten manehs of silver, and in addition the delinquent is to undergo the quaint but doubtless very painful process of having his head tarred with hot tar. From the list of witnesses we gather that the community was already organized much on the lines of a provincial district of Babylonia. For, though we find a cultivator or farmer occupying an important position, we meet also a superintendent of the merchants, another of the bakers, a chief judge, a chief seer, and members of the priesthood. It is interesting, too, to note that the kings of khana were still great landowners, to judge from the fact that the lands conveyed in the deeds of gift were surrounded on almost every side by palace-property. At the same time the chief gods of Khana are associated with the king in the oath-formulae, since the royal property was also regarded as the property of the Ba’al, or divine “Lord” of the soil.

The two chief Baalim or “Lords” of Khana were the Sun-god and the West-Semitic deity, Dagon. The latter is constantly referred to in the documents under the Babylonian form of his name, Dagan. He stood beside Shamash on the royal seal and in the local oath-formulae, and is associated in the latter with Iturmer, who may well have been the old local god of Tirka, deposed after the invasion of the Semites. His temple in Tirka, which we know survived until the ninth century,2 was probably the chief shrine of the city, and the great part he played in the national life is attested by the constant occurrence of his title as a component part of personal names. Later evidence proves that Dagon was peculiarly the god of Ashdod, and the princely writer of two of the letters from Tell el-Amarna, who bore the name Dagan-takala, must have ruled some district of northern or central Canaan. The Khana documents prove that already at the time of the First Dynasty his cult was established on the Euphrates, and, in view of this fact, the occurrence of two early kings of the Babylonian Dynasty of Nisin with the names of Idin-Dagan and Ishme-Dagan is certainly significant. We know, too, that the original home of lshbi-Ura, the founder of the Dynasty of Nisin, was Mari, a city and district on the middle Euphrates. We may conclude, then, that the Dynasties of Nisin and Babylon, and probably that of Larsa, were products of the same great racial movement, and that, more than a century before Sumu-abum established his throne at Babylon, Western Semites had descended the Euphrates and had penetrated into the southern districts of the country.

The new-comers probably owed their speedy success in Babylonia in great part to the fact that many of the immigrant tribes had already acquired the elements of Babylonian culture. During their previous residence within the sphere of settled civilization they had adopted a way of life and a social organization which differed but little from that of the country into which they came. That they should have immigrated at all in a southeasterly direction, in preference to remaining within their own borders, was doubtless due to racial pressure to which they themselves had been subjected. Canaan was still in a ferment of unrest in consequence of the arrival of fresh nomad tribes within her settled districts, and, while many were doubtless diverted southwards towards the Egyptian border, others pressed northwards into Syria, exerting an outward pressure in their advance. That the West-Semitic invasion of Babylonia differed so essentially from that of Egypt by the Hyksos is to be explained by this fringe of civilized settlements and petty kingdoms, which formed a check upon the nomad hordes behind them and dominated such of them as succeeded in breaking through. In Egypt the damage wrought by the Semitic barbarians was remembered for generations after their expulsion, whereas in Babylonia the invaders succeeded in establishing a dynasty which gave its permanent form to Babylonian civilization.

Nisin, the city in which, as we have seen, we first obtain an indication of the presence of West-Semitic rulers, probably lay in Southern Babylonia, and we may picture the earlier immigrants as descending the course of the Euphrates until they found an opportunity of establishing themselves in the Babylonian plain. The Elamite conquest, which put an end to the dynasty of Ur, and stripped Babylonia of her eastern provinces, afforded Nisin the opportunity of claiming the hegemony. Ishbi-Ura, the founder of the new dynasty of kings, established his own family upon the throne for nearly a century, and we may probably regard his success in bringing his city to the front as due to the Semitic elements in Southern Babylonia, recently reinforced by fresh accretions from the northwest. The centralization of authority under the later kings of Ur had led to abuses in the administration, and to the revolt of the Elamite provinces; and when an invading army appeared before the capital and carried the king, whom his courtiers had deified, to captivity in Elam,3 Sumerian prestige received a blow from which it never recovered.

Shortly after lshbi-Ura had established himself in Nisin, we find another noble, who bore the Semitic name Naplanum, following his example, and founding an independent line of rulers in the neighbouring city of Larsa. But, in spite of the Semitic names borne by these two leaders and by the kings who succeeded them in their respective cities, it is clear that no great change took place in the character of the population. The commercial and administrative documents of the Nisin period closely resemble those of the Dynasty of Ur, and evidently reflect an unbroken sequence in the course of the national life. The great bulk of the southern Babylonians were still Sumerian, and we may regard the new dynasties both at Nisin and Larsa as representing a comparatively small racial aristocracy, which by organizing the national forces in resistance to the Elamites, had succeeded in imposing their own rule upon the native population. At Nisin the unbroken succession of five rulers is evidence of a settled state of affairs, and though Gimil-ilishu reigned for no more than ten years, his son and grandson, as well as his father, Ishbi-Ura, all had long reigns. At Larsa, too, we find Emisu and Samum, who succeeded Naplanum, the founder of the dynasty, each retaining the throne for more than a generation. It is probable that the Sumerians accepted their new rulers without question, and that the latter attempted to introduce no startling innovations into their system of administrative control.

Of the two contemporaneous dynasties in Southern Babylonia, there is no doubt that Nisin was the more important. Not only have we the direct evidence of the Nippur Kings’ List that it was to Nisin the hegemony passed from Ur, but what votive texts and building records have been recovered prove that its rulers extended their sway over other of the great cities of Sumer and Akkad. A fragmentary text of Idin-Dagan, the son and successor of Gimil-ilishu, found at Abu Habba, proves that Sippar acknowledged his authority, and inscribed bricks of his own son Ishme-Dagan have been found in the south at Ur.      

In all their inscriptions, too, the kings of Nisin lay claim to the rule of Sumer and Akkad, while Ishme-Dagan and his son Libit-Ishtar adopt further descriptive titles implying beneficent activities on their part in the cities of Nippur, Ur, Erech and Eridu. The recently published inscriptions of Libit-Ishtar, which were recovered during the American excavations at Nippur, prove that in his reign the central city and shrine of Babylonia were under Nisin’s active control. But he was the last king in the direct line from Ishbi-Ura, and it is probable that the break in the succession may be connected with a temporary depression in the fortunes of the city; for we shortly have evidence of an increase in the power of Larsa, in consequence of which the city of Ur acknowledged her suserainty in place of that of Nisin. At the time of Libit-Ishtar’s death Zabaia was reigning at Larsa, but after three years the latter was succeeded by Gungunum, who not only bore the titles of king of Larsa and of Ur, but laid claim to the rule of Sumer and Akkad.

At any rate, one member of the old dynastic family of Nisin acknowledged these new claims. Enannatum, Libit-Ishtar’s brother, was at this time chief priest of the Moon-temple in Ur, and on cones discovered at Mukayyar he commemorates the rebuilding of the Sun-temple at Larsa for the preservation of his own life and that of Gungunum. It is possible that when Ur-Ninib secured the throne of Nisin, the surviving members of Ishbi-Ura’s family fled from the city to its rival, and that Enannatum, one of the most powerful of their number, and possibly the direct heir to his brother’s throne, was installed by Gungunum in the high-priestly office at Ur. It would be tempting to connect Libit-Ishtar’s fall with a fresh incursion of West-Semitic tribes, who, recking little of any racial connexion with themselves on the part of the reigning family at Nisin, may have attacked the city with some success until defeated and driven off by Ur-Ninib. We now know that Ur-Ninib conducted a successful campaign against the Su tribes on the west of Babylonia,2 and in support of the suggestion it would be possible to cite the much discussed date-formula upon a tablet in the British Museum, which was drawn up in “ the year in which the Amurru drove out Libit-Ishtar.” But since the Libit-Ishtar of the formula has no title, it is also possible to identify him with a provincial governor, probably of Sippar, who bore the name of Libit-Ishtar, and seems to be referred to on other documents inscribed in the reign of Apil-Sin, the grandfather of Hammurabi. The date assigned to the invasion on the second alternative would correspond to another period of unrest at Nisin, which followed the long reign of Enlil-bani, so that on either alternative we may conjecture that the city of Nisin was affected for a time by a new incursion of Amorites.

Whether the fall of Libit-Ishtar may be traced to such a cause or not, we now know that it was during the reigns of Ur-Ninib and Gungunum, at. Nisin and at Larsa respectively, that a West-Semitic Dynasty was established at Babylon. Northern Babylonia now fell under the political control of the invaders, and it is significant of the new direction of their advance that the only conflict connected in later tradition with the name of Sumu-abum, the founder of Babylon’s independent line of rulers, was not with either of the dominant cities in Sumer, but with Assyria in the far north. On a late chronicle it is recorded that Ilu-shûma, King of Assyria, marched against Su-abu, or Sumu-abum, and though the result of the encounter is not related, we may assume that his motive in making the attack was to check encroachments of the invaders towards the north and drive them southward into Babylonia. Ilu-shûma’s own name is purely Semitic, and since the Amorite god Dagan enters into the composition of a name borne by more than one early Assyrian ruler, we may assume that Assyria received her Semitic population at about this period as another offshoot of the Amorite migration.

This assumption does not rest entirely on evidence supplied by the royal names, but finds indirect confirmation in recent archaeological research. The excavations on the site of Ashur, the earliest Assyrian capital, tend to show that the first settlements in that country, of which we have recovered traces, were made by a people closely akin to the Sumerians of Southern Babylonia. It was in the course of work upon a temple dedicated to Ishtar, the national goddess of Assyria, that remains were found of very early periods of occupation. Below the foundation of the later building a still older temple was found, also dedicated to that goddess.

Incidentally this building has an interest of its own, for it proved to be the earliest temple yet discovered in Assyria, dating, as it probably does, from the close of the third millennium B.C. Still deeper excavation, below the level of this primitive Assyrian shrine, revealed a stratum in which were several examples of rude sculpture, apparently representing, not Semites, but the early non-Semitic inhabitants of Southern Babylonia.

The extremely archaic character of the work is well illustrated by a head, possibly that of a female figure, in which the inlaying of the eyes recalls a familiar practice in early work from Babylonia. But the most striking evidence was furnished by heads of male figures, which, if offered for sale without a knowledge of their provenance, would undoubtedly have been accepted as coming from Tello or Bismaya, the sites of the early Sumerian cities of Lagash and Adab. The racial type presented by the heads appears to be purely Sumerian, and, though one figure at least is bearded, the Sumerian practice of shaving the head was evidently in vogue. In other limestone figures, of which the bodies have been preserved, the treatmen of the garments corresponds precisely to that in archaic Sumerian sculpture. The figures wear the same rough woollen garments, and the conventionalized treatment of the separate flocks of wool is identical in both sets of examples. The evidence is not yet fully published, but, so far as it is available, it suggests that the Sumerians, whose presence has hitherto been traced only upon sites in Southern Babylonia, were also at a very early period in occupation of Assyria.

The violent termination of their settlement at Ashur is attested by an abundance of charred remains, which separate the Sumerian stratum from that immediately above it. Had we no evidence to the contrary, it might have been assumed that their successors were of the same stock as those early Semitic invaders who dominated Northern Babylonia early in the third millennium B.C., and pushed eastward across the Tigris into Gutium. But it is recognized that the founders of the historic city of Ashur, records of whose achievements have been recovered in the early building-inscriptions, bear names which are quite un- Semitic in character. There is a good deal to be said for regarding Ushpia, or Aushpia, the traditional founder of the great temple of the god Ashir, and Kikia, the earliest builder of the city’s wall, as representing the first arrival of the Mitannian race, which in the fourteenth century played, under new leadership, so dominant a part in the politics of Western Asia. Not only have their names a Mitannian sound, but we have undoubted evidence of the worship of the Mitannian and Hittite god Teshub as early as the period of the First Dynasty of Babylon; and the fact that the Mitannian name, which incorporates that of the deity, is borne by a witness on a Babylonian contract, suggests that he came of a civilized and settled race.

It is true that the name Mitanni is not met with at this period, but the geographical term Subartu is, and in luter tradition was regarded as having ranked with Akkad, Elam and Amurru as one of the four quarters of the ancient civilized world.

 

 

EXAMPLES OF ARCHAIC SCULPTURE FROM ASHUR AND TELLO, EXHIBITING THE SAME CONVENTION IN THE TREATMENT OF WOOLLEN GARMENTS.

The seated statuette (Fig, 37) is from Ashur, and the treatment of the garment is precisely similar to that in early Tello work (Figs. 38 and 39).

In the astrological and omen texts, which incorporate very early traditions, the references to Shubartu are interpreted as applying to Assyria, but the term evidently had an earlier connotation before the rise of Assyria to power. It may well have included the North-Mesopotamian region known afterwards as the land of Mitanni, whose rulers are found in temporary occupation of Nineveh, as their predecessors may have established themselves at Ashur. But, however that may be, it is clear that the historic city of Ashur was not in its origin either a Sumerian or a Semitic foundation. Its later racial character must date from the period of the Western Semites, whose amalgamation with an alien and probably Anatolian strain, which they found there, may account in part for the warlike and brutal character of the Assyrians of history, so striking a contrast to that of the milder and more commercial Semites who settled in the lower Euphrates valley. As in Babylonia, the language and to a great extent the features of the Semite eventually predominated; and the other element in the composition of the race survived only in an increased ferocity of temperament.

This was the people of whose attack on Sumu-abum, the founder of Babylon’s greatness, later ages preserved the tradition. No conflict with Assyria is commemorated in Sumu-abum’s date-formulae, and it is possible that it took place before he secured his throne in Babylon, and built the great fortification-wall of the city with which he inaugurated his reign. When once he was settled there and had placed the town in a state of defence, he began to extend his influence over neighbouring cities in Akkad. Kibalbarru, which he fortified with a city-wall in his third year, was probably in the immediate neighbourhood of Babylon, and we know that Dilbat, the fortification of which was completed in his ninth year, lay only about seventeen miles south of the capital. The five years which separated these two efforts at expansion were uneventful from the point of view of political achievement, for the only noteworthy episodes recorded were the building of a temple to the goddess Nin-Sinna and another to Nannar, the Moon-god, in which he afterwards set up a great cedar door. It may be that the conflict with Assyria should be set in this interval; but we should then have expected some sort of reference to the successful repulse of the enemy, and it is preferable to place it before his first year of rule.

       His success in the encounter with Assyria may well have afforded this West-Semitic chieftain the opportunity of fortifying one of the great towns of Akkad, and of establishing himself there as its protector against the danger of aggression from the north ; and there is no doubt that Babylon had long had some sort of local governor, the traditions of whose office he inherited. Since we have references to E-sagila in the time of the Dynasties of Akkad and of Ur, the former rulers of Babylon were probably no more than the chief priests of Marduk’s sanctuary. That Sumu-abum should have changed the office to that of king, and that his successor should have succeeded in establishing a dynasty that endured for nearly three centuries, is evidence of the unabated energy of the new settlers. Even the later members of the dynasty retained their original West Semitic character, and this fact, coupled with the speedy control of other cities than Babylon, suggests that the Western Semites had now arrived in far greater numbers than during their earlier migration farther down the Euphrates.

It is possible to trace the gradual growth of Babylon’s influence in Akkad under her new rulers, and the stages by which she threw out her control over an increasing area of territory. At Dilbat, for example, she had no difficulties from the very first, and during almost the whole period of the First Dynasty the government of the city was scarcely distinguishable from that of Babylon. The god Urash and the goddess Lagamal were the patron deities of Dilbat, around whose cult the life of the city centred; and there was a local secular administration. But the latter was completely subordinate to the capital, and no effort was made, nor apparently was one required, to retain a semblance of local independence. The treatment of Sippar, on the other hand, was rather different. Here Sumu-abum appears to have recognized the local ruler as his vassal; and, as a further concession to its semi-independent state, he allowed the town the privilege of continuing to use its own date-formulae, derived from local events. Oaths, it is true, had to be taken in the king of Babylon’s name and in that of the great Sun-god of Sippar; but the city could arrange and use its own system of time-reckoning without reference to the capital’s affairs. Perhaps the most interesting example of Babylon’s early system of provincial government is that presented by the city of Kish, for we can there trace the gradual extension of her control from a limited suzerainty to complete annexation.

Kish lay far nearer to Babylon than Dilbat, but it had a more illustrious past to inspire it than the other city. It had played a great part in the earlier history of Sumer and Akkad, and at the time of the West Semitic occupation of Babylon it was still governed by independent kings. We have recovered an inscription of one such ruler, Ashduni-erim, who may well have been Sumu-abum’s contemporary, for the record reflects a state of affairs such as would have been caused by a hostile invasion and gradual conquest of the country. Although Ashduni-erim lays claim only to the kingdom of Kish, he speaks in grandiloquent terms of the invasion, relating how the four quarters of the world revolted against him. For eight years he fought against the enemy, so that in the eighth year his army was reduced to three hundred men. But the city-god Zamama and Ishtar, his consort, then came to his succour and brought him supplies of food. With this encouragement he marched out for a whole day, and then for forty days he placed the enemy’s land under contribution; and he closes his inscription rather abruptly by recording that lie rebuilt the wall of Kish. The clay cone was probably a foundation-record, which he buried within the structure of the city-wall.

Ashduni-erim does not refer to his enemy by name, but it is to be noted that the hostile territory lay within a day’s march of Kish, a description that surely points to Babylon. The eight years of conflict fit in admirably with the suggestion, for we know that it was in Sumu-abum’s tenth year, exactly eight years after his occupation of Kibalbarru, that his suzerainty was acknowledged in Kish. Sumu-abum named that year of his reign after his dedication of a crown to the god Anu of Kish, and we may conjecture that Ashduni-erim, weakened by the long conflict which he describes, came to terms with his stronger neighbour and accepted the position of a vassal. Having given guarantees for his fidelity, he would have received Sumu-abum in Kish, where the latter as the suzerain of the city performed the dedication he commemorated in his date-formula for that year. This would fully explain the guarded terms in which Ashduni-erim refers to the enemy in his inscription, the rebuilding of the city-wall having, on this supposition, been undertaken with Babylon’s consent.

That Kish was accorded the position of a vassal state is certain, for, among contract-tablets recovered from the city, several were drawn up in the reign of Manana, who was Sumu-abum’s vassal. In these documents the oath is taken in Manana’s name, but they are dated by the formula for Sumu-abum’s thirteenth year, commemorating his capture of Kazallu. The importance of the latter event may be held to explain the use of the suzerain’s own formula, for other documents in Manana’s reign are dated by local events, proving that at Kish, as at Sippar, a vassal city of Babylon was allowed the privilege of retaining its own system of time-reckoning. If we are right in regarding Ashduni-erim as Sumu-abum’s contemporary, it is clear that he must have been succeeded by Manana within three years of his capitulation to Babylon. During the next few years the throne of Kish was occupied by at least three rulers in quick succession, Sumu-ditana, Iawium, and Khalium, for we know that by the thirteenth year of Sumu-la-ilum, who succeeded Sumu-abum on the throne of Babylon, the city of Kish had revolted and had been finally annexed.

 

HAMMURABI RECEIVING HIS LAWS FROM THE SUN-GOD.

 

The conquest of Kazallu, which Sumu-abum carried out in the last year but one of his reign, was the most important of Babylon’s early victories, for it marked an extension of her influence beyond the limits of Akkad. The city appears to have lain to the east of the Tigris, and the two most powerful empires in the past history of Babylonia had each come into active conflict with it during the early years of their existence. Its conquest by Akkad was regarded in Babylonian tradition as the most notable achievement of Sargon’s reign  and at a later period Dungi of Ur, after capturing the Elamite border city of Der, had extended his empire to the north or east by including Kazallu within its borders.2Sumu-abum’s conquest was probably little more than a successful raid, for in the reign of Sumu-la-ilum Kazallu in its turn attacked Babylon, and, by fully occupying her energies, delayed her southward expansion for some years.

In the earlier part of his reign Sumu-la-ilum appears to have devoted himself to consolidating the position his predecessor had secured and to improving the internal resources of his kingdom. The Shamash-khegallum Canal, which he cut immediately on his accession, lay probably in the neighbourhood of Sippar; and later on he further improved the country’s system of irrigation by a second canal to which he gave his own name. The policy he thus inaugurated was energetically maintained by his successors, and much of Babylon’s wealth and prosperity under her early kings may be traced to the care they lavished on increasing the area of land under cultivation. Sumu-la-ilum also rebuilt the great fortification-wall of his capital, but during his first twelve years he records only one military expedition. It was in his thirteenth year that the revolt and reconquest of Kish put an end to this period of peaceful development.

The importance attached by Babylon to the suppression of this revolt is attested by the fact that for five years it formed an era for the dating of documents, which was only discontinued when the city of kazallu, under the leadership of Iakhzir-ilum, administered a fresh shock to the growing kingdom by an invasion of Babylonian territory. Iakhzir-ilum appears to have secured the co-operation of Kish by inciting it once more to rebellion, for in the following year Babylon destroyed the wall of Anu in that city; and, after reestablishing her authority there, she devoted her next campaign to carrying the war into the enemy’s country. That the subsequent conquest of Kazallu and the defeat of its army failed to afford a fresh subject for a nascent era in the chronology is to be explained by the incompleteness of the victory ; for Iakhzir-ilum escaped the fate which overtook his city, and it was only after five years of continued resistance that he was finally defeated and slain.

After disposing of this source of danger from beyond the Tigris, Sumu-la-ilum continued his predecessor’s policy of annexation within the limits of Akkad. In his twenty-seventh year he commemorates the destruction and rebuilding of the wall of Cuthah, suggesting that the city had up to that time maintained its independence and now only yielded it to force of arms. It is significant that in the same year he records that he treated the wall of the god Zakar in a similar fashion, for Dur-Zakar was one of the defences of Nippur, and lay either within the city-area or in its immediate neighbourhood. That year thus appears to mark Babylon’s first bid for the rule of Sumer as well as of Akkad, for the possession of the central city was regarded as carrying with it the right of suzerainty over the whole country. It is noteworthy, too, that this success appears to correspond to a period of great unrest at Nisin in Southern Babylonia.

During the preceding period of forty years the southern cities had continued to rule within their home territory without interference from Babylon. In spite of Sumu-abum’s increasing influence in Northern Babylonia, Ur-Ninib of Nisin had claimed the control of Akkad in virtue of his possession of Nippur, though his authority cannot have been recognized much farther to the north. Like the earlier king of Nisin, Ishme-Dagan, he styled himself in addition Lord of Erech and patron of Nippur, Ur and Eridu, and so did his son Bur-Sin II, who succeeded his father after the latter’s long reign of twenty-eight years. Of the group of southern cities Larsa alone continued to boast a line of independent rulers, the throne having passed from Gungunum successively to Abi-sare and Sumu-ilum; and in the latter’s reign it would seem that Larsa for a time even ousted Nisin from the hegemony in Sumer. For we have recovered at Tello the votive figure of a dog, which a certain priest of Lagash named Abba-dugga dedicated to a goddess on his behalf, and in the inscription he refers to Sumu-ilum as King of Ur, proving that the city had passed from the control of Nisin to that of Larsa. The goddess, to whom the dedication was made, was Nin-Nisin, “the Lady of Nisin”, a fact suggestive of the further possibility that Nisin itself may have acknowledged Sumu-ilum for a time. It may be noted that in the list of Nisin kings one name is missing after those of Iter-pisha and Ura-imitti, who followed Bur-Sin on the throne in quick succession. According to later tradition Ura-imitti had named his gardener, Enlil-bani, to succeed him, and in the list the missing ruler is recorded to have reigned in Nisin for six months before Enlil-bani’s accession. It is perhaps just possible that we should restore his name as that of Sumu-ilum of Larsa, who may have taken advantage of the internal troubles of Nisin, not only to annex Ur, but to place himself for a few months upon the rival throne, until driven out by Enlil-bani. However that may be, it is certain that Larsa profited by the unrest at Nisin, and we may perhaps also connect with it Babylon’s successful incursion in the south.

There is no doubt that Sumu-la-ilum was the real founder of Babylon’s greatness as a military power. We have the testimony of his later descendant Samsu-iluna to the strategic importance of the fortresses he built to protect his country’s extended frontier; and, though Dur-Zakar of Nippur is the only one the position of which can be approximately identified, we may assume that the majority of these lay along the east and the south sides of Akkad, where the greatest danger of invasion was to be anticipated. It does not seem that Nippur itself passed at this time under more than a temporary control by Babylon, and we may assume that, after his successful raid, Sumu-la-ilum was content to remain -within the limits of Akkad, which he strengthened with his line of forts. In his later years he occupied the city of Barzi, and conducted some further military operations, details of which we have not recovered; but those were the last efforts on Babylon’s part for more than a generation.

The pause in expansion gave Babylon the opportunity of husbanding her resources, after the first effort of conquest had been rendered permanent in its effect by Sumu-la-ilum. His two immediate successors, Zabum and Apil-Sin, occupied themselves with the internal administration of their kingdom and confined their military activities to keeping the frontier intact. Zabum indeed records a successful attack on kazallu, no doubt necessitated by renewed aggression on that city’s part; but his other most notable achievements were the fortification of Kar-Shamash, and the construction of a canal or reservoir. Equally uneventful was the reign of Apil-Sin, for though Dur-muti, the wall of which he rebuilt, may have been acquired as the result of conquest, he too was mainly occupied with the consolidation and improvement of the territory already won. He strengthened the walls of Barzi and Babylon, cut two canals, and rebuilt some of the great temples. As a result of her peaceful development during this period the country was rendered capable of a still greater struggle, which was to free Sumer and Akkad from a foreign domination, and, by overcoming the invader, was to place Babylon for a time at the head of a more powerful and united empire than had yet been seen on the banks of the Euphrates.

The country’s new foe was her old rival Elam, who more than once before had by successful invasion affected the course of Babylonian affairs. But on this occasion she did more than raid, harry, and return : she annexed the city of Larsa, and by using it as a centre of control, attempted to extend her influence over the whole of Sumer and Akkad. It was at the close of Apil-Sin’s reign at Babylon that kudur-Mabuk, the ruler of Western Elam, known at this period as the land of Emutbal, invaded Southern Babylonia and, after deposing Sili-Adad of Larsa, installed his own son Warad-Sin upon the throne. It is a testimony to the greatness of this achievement, that Larsa had for some time enjoyed over Nisin the position of leading city in Sumer. Nur-Adad, the successor of Sumu-ilum, had retained control of the neighbouring city of Ur, and, though Enlil-bani of Nisin had continued to lay claim to be King of Sumer and Akkad, this proud title was wrested from Zambia or his successor by Sin-idinnam, Nur-Adad’s son. Sin-idinnam, indeed, on bricks from Mukayyar in the British Museum makes a reference to the military achievements by which he had won the position for his city. In the text his object is to record the rebuilding of the Moon-god’s temple in Ur, but he relates that he carried out this work after he had made the foundation of the throne of Larsa secure and had smitten the whole of his enemies with the sword. It is probable that his three successors on the throne, who reigned for less than ten years between them, failed to maintain his level of achievement, and that Sin-magir recovered the hegemony for Nisin. But Ur, no doubt, remained under Larsas administration, and it was no mean nor inferior city that kudur-Mabuk seized and occupied.

The Elamite had seen his opportunity in the continual conflicts which were taking place between the two rival cities of Sumer. In their contest for the hegemony Larsa had proved herself successful for a time, but she was still the weaker city and doubtless more exposed to attack from across the Tigris. Hence her selection by Kudur-Mabuk as a basis for his attempt on the country as a whole. He himself retained his position in Elam as the Adda of Emutbal; but he installed his two sons, Warad-Sin and Rim-Sin, successively upon the throne of Larsa, and encouraged them to attack Nisin and to lay claim to the rule of Sumer and Akkad. But the success which attended their efforts soon brought Babylon upon the scene, and we have the curious spectacle of a three-cornered contest, in which Nisin is at war with Elam, while Babylon is at war in turn with both. That Sin-muballit, the son of Apil-Sin, did not combine with Nisin to expel the invader from Babylonian soil, may have played at first into the hands of the Elamites. But it is not to be forgotten that the Western Semites of Babylon were still a conquering aristocracy, and their sympathies were far from being involved in the fate of any part of Sumer. Both Elam and Babylon must have foreseen that the capture of Nisin would prove a decisive advantage to the victor, and each was content to see her weakened in the hope of ultimate success. When Rim-Sin actually proved the victor in the long struggle, and Larsa under his aegis inherited the traditions as well as the material resources of the Nisin Dynasty, the three-cornered contest was reduced to a duel between Babylon and a more powerful Larsa. Then for a generation there ensued a fierce struggle between the two invading races, Elam and the Western Semites, for the possession of the country ; and the fact that Hammurabi, Sin-muballit’s son, should have emerged victorious, was a justification in full of his father’s policy of avoiding any alliance with the south. The Western Semites proved themselves in the end strong enough to overcome the conqueror of Nisin, and thereby they were left in undisputed possession of the whole of Babylonia.

It is possible, with the help of the date-formulas and votive inscriptions of the period, to follow in outline the main features of this remarkable struggle. At first kudur-Mabuk’s footing in Sumer was confined to the city of Larsa, though even then he laid claim to the title Adda of Amurru, a reference to be explained perhaps by the suggested Amorite origin of the Larsa and Nisin dynasties, and reflecting a claim to the suzerainty of the land from which his northern foes at any rate boasted their origin. Warad-Sin, on ascending the throne, assumed merely the title King of Larsa, but we soon find him becoming the patron of Ur, and building a great fortification-wall in that city. He then extended his authority to the south and east, Eridu, Lagash, and Girsu all falling before his arms or submitting to his suzerainty. During this period Babylon remained aloof in the north, and Sin-muballit is occupied with cutting canals and fortifying cities, some of which he perhaps occupied for the first time. It was only in his fourteenth year, after Warad-Sin had been succeeded at Larsa by his brother Rim-Sin, that we have evidence of Babylon taking an active part in opposing Elamite pretensions.

In that year Sin-muballit records that he slew the army of Ur with the sword, and, since we know that Ur was at this time a vassal-city of Larsa, it is clear that the army referred to was one of those under Rim-Sin’s command. Three years later he transferred his attention from Larsa to Nisin, then under the control of Damik-ilishu, the son and successor of Sin-magir. On that occasion Sin-muballit commemorates his conquest of Nisin, but it must have been little more than a victory in the field, for Damik-ilishu lost neither his city nor his independence. In the last year of his reign we find Sin-muballit fighting on the other front, and claiming to have slain the army of Larsa with the sword. It is clear that in these last seven years of his reign Babylon proved herself capable of checking any encroachments to the north on the part of Larsa and the Elamites, and, by a continuance of the policy of fortifying her vassal-cities, she paved the way for a more vigorous offensive on the part of Hammurabi, Sin-muballit’s son and successor. Meanwhile the unfortunate city of Nisin was between two fires, though for a few years longer Damik-ilishu succeeded in beating off both his opponents.

The military successes of Hammurabi fall within two clearly defined periods, the first during the five years which followed his sixth year of rule at Babylon, and a second period, of ten years’ duration, beginning with the thirteenth of his reign. On his accession he appears to have inaugurated the reforms in the internal administration of the country, which culminated towards the close of his life in the promulgation of his famous Code of Laws; for he commemorated his second year as that in which he established righteousness in the land. The following years were uneventful, the most important royal acts being the installation of the chief priest in Kashbaran, the building of a wall for the Gagum, or great Cloister of Sippar, and of a temple to Nannar in Babylon. But with his seventh year we find his first reference to a military campaign in a claim to the capture of Erech and Nisin. This temporary success against Damik-ilishu of Nisin was doubtless a menace to the plans of Kim-Sin at Larsa, and it would appear that Kudur-Mabuk came to the assistance of his son by threatening Babylon’s eastern border. At any rate Hammurabi records a conflict with the land of Emutbal in his eighth year, and, though the attack appears to have been successfully repulsed with a gain of territory to Babylon, the diversion was successful.. Rim-Sin took advantage of the respite thus secured to renew his attack with increased vigour upon Nisin, and in the following year, the seventeenth of his own reign, the famous city fell, and Larsa under her Elamite ruler secured the hegemony in the whole of Central and Southern Babylonia.

Rim-Sin’s victory must have been a severe blow to Babylon, and it would seem that she made no attempt at first to recover her position in the south, since Hammurabi occupied himself with a raid on Malgum in the west and with the capture of the cities of Rabikum and Shalibi. But these were the last successes during his first military period, and for nineteen years afterwards Babylon achieved nothing of a similar nature to commemorate in her date-formulae. For the most part the years are named after the dedication of statues and the building and enrichment of temples. One canal was cut, and the process of fortification went on, Sippar especially being put in a thorough state of defence. But the negative evidence supplied by the formula? for this period suggests that it was one in which Babylon completely failed in any attempt she may have made to hinder the growth of Larsa’s power in the south.

In addition to his capital, Rim-Sin had inherited from his brother the control of the southern group of cities, Ur, Erech, Girsu and Lagash, all of which lay to the east of Larsa and nearer to the coast; and it was probably before his conquest of Nisin that he took Erech from Damik-ilishu, who had been attacked there by Hammurabi two years before. For in more than one of his inscriptions Rim-Sin refers to the time when Anu, Enlil and Enki, the great gods, had given the fair city of Erech into his hands. We also know that he took Kisurra, rebuilt the wall of Zabilum, and extended his authority over Kesh, whose goddess Ninmakh, he relates, gave him the kingship over the whole country. The most notable result of his conquest of Nisin was the possession of Nippur, which now passed to him and regularized his earlier claim to the rule of Sumer and Akkad. Thereafter he describes himself as the exalted Prince of Nippur, or as the shepherd of the whole land of Nippur; and we possess an interesting confirmation of his recognition there in a clay cone inscribed with a dedication for the prolongation of his life by a private citizen, a certain Ninib-gamil.

That Rim-Sin’s rule in Sumer was attended by great prosperity throughout the country as a whole, is attested by the numerous commercial documents which have been recovered both at Nippur and Larsa and are dated in the era of his capture of Nisin. There is also evidence that he devoted himself to improving the system of irrigation and of transport by water. He canalized a section in the lower course of the Euphrates, and dug the Tigris to the sea, no doubt removing from its main channel an accumulation of silt, which not only hindered traffic but increased the danger of flood and the growth of the swamp-area. He also cut the Mashtabba Canal, and others at Nippur and on the Khabilu river. It would seem that, in spite of his Elamite extraction and the intimate relations he continued to maintain with his father Kudur-Mabuk, he completely identified himself with the country of his adoption; for in the course of his long life he married twice, and both his wives, to judge from their fathers’ names, were of Semitic descent.

It was not until nearly a generation had passed, after Rim-Sin’s capture of Nisin, that Hammurabi made any headway against the Elamite domination, which for so long had arrested any increase in the power of Babylon. But his success, when it came, was complete and enduring. In his thirtieth year he records that he defeated the army of Elam, and in the next campaign he followed up this victory by invading the land of Emutbal, inflicting a final defeat on the Elamites, and capturing and annexing Larsa. Rim-Sin himself appears to have survived for many years, and to have given further trouble to Babylon in the reign of Hammurabi’s son, Samsu-iluna. And the evidence seems to show that for a few years at least he was accorded the position of vassal ruler at Larsa. On this supposition Hammurabi, after his conquest of Sumer, would have treated the old capital in the same way that Sumu-abum treated Kish. But it would seem that after a time Larsa must have been deprived of many of its privileges, including that of continuing its own era of time-reckoning; and Hammurabi’s letters to Sin-idinnam, his local representative, give no hint of any divided rule. We may perhaps assume that Rim-Sin’s subsequent revolt was due to resentment at this treatment, and that in Samsu-iluna’s reign he seized a favourable opportunity to make one more bid for independent rule in Babylonia.

The defeat of Rim-Sin, and the annexation of Sumer to Babylon, freed Hammurabi for the task of extending his empire on its other three sides. During these later years he twice made successful raids in the Elamite country of Tupliash or Ashnunnak, and on the west he destroyed the walls of Mari and Malgtim, defeated the armies of Turukkum, kagmum and Subartu, and in his thirty-ninth year he records that he destroyed all his enemies that dwelt beside Subartu. It is probable that he includes Assyria under the geographical term Subartu, for both Ashur and Nineveh were subject to his rule; and one of his letters proves that his occupation of Assyria was of a permanent character, and that his authority was maintained by garrisons of Babylonian troops. Hammurabi tells us too, in the Prologue to his Code of Laws, that he subjugated “the settlements on the Euphrates,” implying the conquest of such local West-Semitic kingdoms as that of Khana. On the west we may therefore regard the area of his military activities as extending to the borders of Syria. Up to the close of his reign he continued to improve the defences of his country, for he devoted his last two years to rebuilding the great fortification of Kar-Shamash on the Tigris and the wall of Rabikum on the Euphrates, and he once again strengthened the city wall of Sippar. His building-inscriptions also bear witness to his increased activity in the reconstruction of temples during his closing years.

An estimate of the extent of Hammurabi’s empire may be formed from the very exhaustive record of his activities which he himself drew up as the Prologue to his Code. He there enumerates the great cities of his kingdom and the benefits he has conferred upon each one of them. The list of cities is not drawn up with any administrative object, but from a purely religious standpoint, a recital of his treatment of each city being followed by a reference to what he has done for its temple and its city-god. Hence the majority of the cities are not arranged on a geographical basis, but in accordance with their relative rank as centres of religious cult. Nippur naturally heads the list, and its possession at this time by Babylon had, as we shall see, far-reaching effects upon the development of the mythology and religious system of the country. Next in order comes Eridu, in virtue of the great age and sanctity of its local oracle. Babylon, as the capital, comes third, and then the great centres of Moon- and Sun-worship, followed by the other great cities and shrines of Sumer and Akkad, the king characterizing the benefits he has bestowed on each. The list includes some of his western conquests and ends with Ashur and Nineveh. It is significant of the racial character of his dynasty that Hammurabi should here ascribe his victories on the middle Euphrates to “the strength of Dagan, his creator”, proving that, like his ancestors before him, he continued to be proud of his West-Semitic descent.

In view of the closer relations which had now been established between Babylonia and the West, it may be interesting to recall that an echo from these troubled times found its way into the early traditions of the Hebrews, and has been preserved in the Book of Genesis. It is there related that Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goiim or the “nations”, acting as members of a confederation, invaded Eastern Palestine to subdue the revolted tribes of that district. Chedorlaomer is represented as the head of the confederation, and though we know of no Elamite ruler of that name, we have seen that Elam at about this period had exercised control over a great part of Southern and Central Babylonia, and that its Babylonian capital was the city of Larsa, with which the Ellasar of the Hebrew tradition is certainly to be identified. Moreover, kudur-Mabuk, the historical founder of the Elamite domination in Babylonia, did lay claim to the title of Adda or ruler of the Amorites. Amraphel of Shinar may well be Hammurabi of Babylon himself, though, so far from acknowledging the suzerainty of the Elamites, he was their principal antagonist and brought their domination to an end. Tidal is a purely Hittite name, and it is significant that the close of Hammurabi’s powerful dynasty was, as we shall see presently, hastened by an invasion of Hittite tribes. Thus all the great nations which are mentioned in this passage in Genesis were actually on the stage of history at this time, and, though we have as yet found no trace in secular sources of such a confederation under the leadership of Elam, the Hebrew record represents a state of affairs in Western Asia which was not impossible during the earlier half of Hammurabi’s reign.

While Sumu-la-ilum may have laid the foundations of Babylon’s military power, Hammurabi was the real founder of her greatness. To his military achievements he added a genius for administrative detail, and his letters and despatches, which have been recovered, reveal him as in active control of even subordinate officials stationed in distant cities of his empire. That he should have superintended matters of public importance is what might be naturally expected; but we also see him investigating quite trivial complaints and disputes among the humbler classes of his subjects, and often sending back a case for retrial or for further report. In fact, Hammurabi’s fame will always rest on his achievements as a law-giver, and on the great legal code which he drew up for use throughout his empire. It is true that this elaborate system of laws, which deal in detail with every class of the population from the noble to the slave, was not the creative work of Hammurabi himself. Like all other ancient legal codes it was governed strictly by precedent, and where it did not incorporate earlier collections of laws, it was based on careful consideration of established custom. Hammurabi’s great achievement was the codification of this mass of legal enactments and the rigid enforcement of the provisions of the resulting code throughout the whole territory of Babylonia. Its provisions reflect the king’s own enthusiasm, of which his letters give independent proof, in the cause of the humbler and the more oppressed classes of his subjects. Numerous legal and commercial documents also attest the manner in which its provisions were carried out, and we have evidence that the legislative system so established remained in practical force during subsequent periods. It may be well, then, to pause at the age of Hammurabi, in order to ascertain the main features of early Babylonian civilization, and to estimate its influence on the country’s later development.

 

 

CHAPTER V