Part 10 (2/2)
Samsu-iluna's new foe was no other than Iluma-ilu, the first king of the Second Dynasty, and, so far from having been regarded as Samsu-iluna's contemporary, hitherto it has been imagined that he ascended the throne of Babylon one hundred and eighteen years after Samsu-iluna's death.
The new information supplied by the chronicle thus proves two important facts: first, that the Second Dynasty, instead of immediately succeeding the First Dynasty, was partly contemporary with it; second, that during the period in which the two dynasties were contemporary they were at war with one another, the Second Dynasty gradually encroaching on the territory of the First Dynasty, until it eventually succeeded in capturing Babylon and in getting the whole of the country under its control. We also learn from the new chronicle that this Second Dynasty at first established itself in ”the Country of the Sea,” that is to say, the districts in the extreme south of Babylonia bordering on the Persian Gulf, and afterwards extended its borders northward until it gradually absorbed the whole of Babylonia. Before discussing the other facts supplied by the new chronicle, with regard to the rise and growth of the Country of the Sea, whose kings formed the so-called ”Second Dynasty,”
it will be well to refer briefly to the sources from which the information on the period to be found in the current histories is derived.
All the schemes of Babylonian chronology that have been suggested during the last twenty years have been based mainly on the great list of kings which is preserved in the British Museum. This doc.u.ment was drawn up in the Neo-Babylonian or Persian period, and when complete it gave a list of the names of all the Babylonian kings from the First Dynasty of Babylon down to the time in which it was written. The names of the kings are arranged in dynasties, and details are given as to the length of their reigns and the total number of years each dynasty lasted. The beginning of the list which gave the names of the First Dynasty is wanting, but the missing portion has been restored from a smaller doc.u.ment which gives a list of the kings of the First and Second Dynasties only. In the great list of kings the dynasties are arranged one after the other, and it was obvious that its compiler imagined that they succeeded one another in the order in which he arranged them.
But when the total number of years the dynasties lasted is learned, we obtain dates for the first dynasties in the list which are too early to agree with other chronological information supplied by the historical inscriptions. The majority of writers have accepted the figures of the list of kings and have been content to ignore the discrepancies; others have sought to reconcile the available data by ingenious emendations of the figures given by the list and the historical inscriptions, or have omitted the Second Dynasty entirely from their calculations. The new chronicle, by showing that the First and Second Dynasties were partly contemporaneous, explains the discrepancies that have hitherto proved so puzzling.
It would be out of place here to enter into a detailed discussion of Babylonian chronology, and therefore we will confine ourselves to a brief description of the sequence of events as revealed by the new chronicle. According to the list of kings, Iluma-ilu's reign was a long one, lasting for sixty years, and the new chronicle gives no indication as to the period of his reign at which active hostilities with Babylon broke out. If the war occurred in the latter portion of his reign, it would follow that he had been for many years organizing the forces of the new state he had founded in the south of Babylonia before making serious encroachments in the north; and in that case the incessant campaigns carried on by Babylon against Blam in the reigns of Hammurabi and Samsu-iluna would have afforded him the opportunity of establis.h.i.+ng a firm foothold in the Country of the Sea without the risk of Babylonian interference. If, on the other hand, it was in the earlier part of his reign that hostilities with Babylon broke out, we may suppose that, while Samsu-iluna was devoting all his energies to crush Bim-Sin, the Country of the Sea declared her independence of Babylonian control. In this case we may imagine Samsu-iluna hurrying south, on the conclusion of his Elamite campaign, to crush the newly formed state before it had had time to organize its forces for prolonged resistance.
Whichever of these alternatives eventually may prove to be correct, it is certain that Samsu-iluna took the initiative in Babylon's struggle with the Country of the Sea, and that his action was due either to her declaration of independence or to some daring act of aggression on the part of this small state which had hitherto appeared too insignificant to cause Babylon any serious trouble. The new chronicle tells us that Samsu-iluna undertook two expeditions against the Country of the Sea, both of which proved unsuccessful. In the first of these he penetrated to the very sh.o.r.es of the Persian Gulf, where a battle took place in which Samsu-iluna was defeated, and the bodies of many of the Babylonian soldiers were washed away by the sea. In the second campaign Iluma-ilu did not await Samsu-iluna's attack, but advanced to meet him, and again defeated the Babylonian army. In the reign of Abeshu', Samsu-iluna's son and successor, Iluma-ilu appears to have undertaken fresh acts of aggression against Babylon; and it was probably during one of his raids in Babylonian territory that Abeshu' attempted to crush the growing power of the Country of the Sea by the capture of its daring leader, Iluma-ilu himself. The new chronicle informs us that, with this object in view, Abeshu' dammed the river Tigris, hoping by this means to cut off Iluma-ilu and his army, but his stratagem did not succeed, and Iluma-ilu got back to his own territory in safety.
The new chronicle does not supply us with further details of the struggle between Babylon and the Country of the Sea, but we may conclude that all similar attempts on the part of the later kings of the First Dynasty to crush or restrain the power of the new state were useless. It is probable that from this time forward the kings of the First Dynasty accepted the independence of the Country of the Sea upon their southern border as an evil which they were powerless to prevent. They must have looked back with regret to the good times the country had enjoyed under the powerful sway of Hammurabi, whose victorious arms even their ancient foes, the Blamites, had been unable to withstand. But, although the chronicle does not recount the further successes achieved by the Country of the Sea, it records a fact which undoubtedly contributed to hasten the fall of Babylon and bring the First Dynasty to an end. It tells us that in the reign of Samsu-ditana, the last king of the First Dynasty, the men of the land of Khattu (the Hitt.i.tes from Northern Syria) marched against him in order to conquer the land of Akkad; in other words, they marched down the Euphrates and invaded Northern Babylonia. The chronicle does not state how far the invasion was successful, but the appearance of a new enemy from the northwest must have divided the Babylonian forces and thus have reduced their power of resisting pressure from the Country of the Sea. Samsu-ditana may have succeeded in defeating the Hitt.i.tes and in driving them from his country; but the fact that he was the last king of the First Dynasty proves that in his reign Babylon itself fell into the hands of the king of the Country of the Sea.
The question now arises, To what race did the people of the Country of the Sea belong? Did they represent an advance-guard of the Ka.s.site tribes, who eventually succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng themselves as the Third Dynasty in Babylon? Or were they the Elamites who, when driven from Ur and Larsam, retreated southwards and maintained their independence on the sh.o.r.es of the Persian Gulf? Or did they represent some fresh wave of Semitic immigration'? That they were not Ka.s.sites is proved by the new chronicle which relates how the Country of the Sea was conquered by the Ka.s.sites, and how the dynasty founded by Iluma-ilu thus came to an end.
There is nothing to show that they were Elamites, and if the Country of the Sea had been colonized by fresh Semitic tribes, so far from opposing their kindred in Babylon, most probably they would have proved to them a source of additional strength and support. In fact, there are indications that the people of the Country of the Sea are to be referred to an older stock than the Elamites, the Semites, or the Ka.s.sites. In the dynasty of the Country of the Sea there is no doubt that we may trace the last successful struggle of the ancient Sumerians to retain possession of the land which they had held for so many centuries before the invading Semites had disputed its possession with them.
Evidence of the Sumerian origin of the kings of the Country of the Sea may be traced in the names which several of them bear. Ishkibal, Grulkishar, Peshgal-daramash, A-dara-kalama, Akur-ul-ana, and Melam-kur-kura, the names of some of them, are all good Sumerian names, and Shushs.h.i.+, the brother of Ishkibal, may also be taken as a Sumerian name. It is true that the first three kings of the dynasty, Iluma-ilu, Itti-ili-nibi, and Damki-ilishu, and the last king of the dynasty, Ea-gamil, bear Semitic Babylonian names, but there is evidence that at least one of these is merely a Semitic rendering of a Sumerian equivalent. Iluma-ilu, the founder of the dynasty, has left inscriptions in which his name is written in its correct Sumerian form as Dingir-a-an, and the fact that he and some of his successors either bore Semitic names or appear in the late list of kings with their Sumerian names translated into Babylonian form may be easily explained by supposing that the population of the Country of the Sea was mixed and that the Sumerian and Semitic tongues were to a great extent employed indiscriminately. This supposition is not inconsistent with the suggestion that the dynasty of the Country of the Sea was Sumerian, and that under it the Sumerians once more became the predominant race in Babylonia.
The new chronicle also relates how the dynasty of the Country of the Sea succ.u.mbed in its turn before the incursions of the Ka.s.sites. We know that already under the First Dynasty the Ka.s.site tribes had begun to make incursions into Babylonia, for the ninth year of Samsu-iluna was named in the date-formulae after a Ka.s.site invasion, which, as it was commemorated in this manner by the Babylonians, was probably successfully repulsed. Such invasions must have taken place from time to time during the period of supremacy attained by the Country of the Sea, and it was undoubtedly with a view to stopping such incursions--for the future that Ea-gamil--the last king of the Second Dynasty, decided to invade Elam and conquer the mountainous districts in which the Ka.s.site tribes had built their strongholds. This Elamite campaign of Ea-gamil is recorded by the new chronicle, which relates how he was defeated and driven from the country by Ulam-Buriash, the brother of Bitiliash the Ka.s.site. Ulam-Buriash did not rest content with repelling Ea-gamil's invasion of his land, but pursued him across the border and succeeded in conquering the Country of the Sea and in establis.h.i.+ng there his own administration. The gradual conquest of the whole of Babylonia by the Ka.s.sites no doubt followed the conquest of the Country of the Sea, for the chronicle relates how the process of subjugation, begun by Ulam-Buriash, was continued by his nephew Agum, and we know from the lists of kings that Ea-gamil was the last king of the dynasty founded by Iluma-ilu. In this fas.h.i.+on the Second Dynasty was brought to an end, and the Sumerian element in the mixed population of Babylonia did not again succeed in gaining control of the government of the country.
It will be noticed that the account of the earliest Ka.s.site rulers of Babylonia which is given by the new chronicle does not exactly tally with the names of the kings of the Third Dynasty as found upon the list of kings. On this doc.u.ment the first king of the dynasty is named Gandash, with whom we may probably identify Ulam-Buriash, the Ka.s.site conqueror of the Country of the Sea; the second king is Agum, and the third is Bitilias.h.i.+. According to the new chronicle Agum was the son of Bitilias.h.i.+, and it would be improbable that he should have ruled in Babylonia before his father. But this difficulty is removed by supposing that the two names were transposed by some copyist. The different names a.s.signed to the founder of the Ka.s.site dynasty may be due to the existence of variant traditions, or Ulam-Buriash may have a.s.sumed another name on his conquest of Babylonia, a practice which was usual with the later kings of a.s.syria when they occupied the Babylonian throne.
The information supplied by the new chronicle with regard to the relations of the first three dynasties to one another is of the greatest possible interest to the student of early Babylonian history. We see that the Semitic empire founded at Babylon by Sumu-abu, and consolidated by Hammurabi, was not established on so firm a basis as has. .h.i.therto been believed. The later kings of the dynasty, after Elam had been conquered, had to defend their empire from encroachments on the south, and they eventually succ.u.mbed before the onslaught of the Sumerian element, which still remained in the population of Babylonia and had rallied in the Country of the Sea. This dynasty in its turn succ.u.mbed before the invasion of the Ka.s.sites from the mountains in the western districts of Elam, and, although the city of Babylon retained her position as the capital of the country throughout these changes of government, she was the capital of rulers of different races, who successively fought for and obtained the control of the fertile plains of Mesopotamia.
It is probable that the Ka.s.site kings of the Third Dynasty exercised authority not only over Babylonia but also over the greater part of Elam, for a number of inscriptions of Ka.s.site kings of Babylonia have been found by M. de Morgan at Susa. These inscriptions consist of grants of land written on roughly shaped stone stelae, a cla.s.s which the Babylonians themselves called _kudurru_, while they have been frequently referred to by modern writers as ”boundary-stones.” This latter term is not very happily chosen, for it suggests that the actual monuments themselves were set up on the limits of a field or estate to mark its boundary. It is true that the inscription on a kudurru enumerates the exact position and size of the estate with which it is concerned, but the kudurru was never actually used to mark the boundary. It was preserved as a t.i.tle-deed, in the house of the owner of the estate or possibly in the temple of his G.o.d, and formed his charter or t.i.tle-deed to which he could appeal in case of any dispute arising as to his right of owners.h.i.+p. One of the kudurrus found by M. de Morgan records the grant of a number of estates near Babylon by n.a.z.imaruttash, a king of the Third or Ka.s.site Dynasty, to the G.o.d Marduk, that is to say they were a.s.signed by the king to the service of E-sagila, the great temple of Marduk at Babylon.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 256.jpg A KUDURRU OR ”BOUNDARY-STONE.”]
Inscribed with a text of n.a.z.imaruttash, a king of the Third or Ka.s.site Dynasty, conferring certain estates near Babylon on the temple of Marduk and on a certain man named Kashakti- Shugab. The photograph is reproduced from M. de Morgan's Delegation en Perse, Mem., t. ii, pi, 18.
All the crops and produce from the land were granted for the supply of the temple, which was to enjoy the property without the payment of any tax or tribute. The text also records the gift of considerable tracts of land in the same district to a private individual named Kashakti-Shugab, who was to enjoy a similar freedom from taxation so far as the lands bestowed upon him were concerned.
This freedom from taxation is specially enacted by the doc.u.ment in the words: ”Whensoever in the days that are to come the ruler of the country, or one of the governors, or directors, or wardens of these districts, shall make any claim with regard to these estates, or shall attempt to impose the payment of a t.i.the or tax upon them, may all the great G.o.ds whose names are commemorated, or whose arms are portrayed, or whose dwelling-places are represented, on this stone, curse him with an evil curse and blot out his name!”
Incidentally, this curse ill.u.s.trates one of the most striking characteristics of the kudurrus, or ”boundary-stones,” viz. the carved figures of G.o.ds and representations of their emblems, which all of them bare in addition to the texts inscribed upon them. At one time it was thought that these symbols were to be connected with the signs of the zodiac and various constellations and stars, and it was suggested that they might have been intended to represent the relative positions of the heavenly bodies at the time the doc.u.ment was drawn up. But this text of n.a.z.imaruttash and other similar doc.u.ments that have recently been discovered prove that the presence of the figures and emblems of the G.o.ds upon the stones is to be explained on another and far more simple theory. They were placed there as guardians of the property to which the kudurru referred, and it was believed that the carving of their figures or emblems upon the stone would ensure their intervention in case of any attempted infringement of the rights and privileges which it was the object of the doc.u.ment to commemorate and preserve. A photographic reproduction of one side of the kudurru of n.a.z.i-maruttash is shown in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration. There will be seen a representation of Gula or Bau, the mother of the G.o.ds, who is portrayed as seated on her throne and wearing the four-horned head-dress and a long robe that reaches to her feet. In the field are emblems of the Sun-G.o.d, the Moon-G.o.d, Ishtar, and other deities, and the representation of divine emblems and dwelling-places is continued on another face of the stone round the corner towards which Grula is looking. The other two faces of the doc.u.ment are taken up with the inscription.
An interesting note is appended to the text inscribed upon the stone, beginning under the throne and feet of Marduk and continuing under the emblems of the G.o.ds upon the other side. This note relates the history of the doc.u.ment in the following words: ”In those days Kashakti-Shugab, the son of Nusku-na'id, inscribed (this doc.u.ment) upon a memorial of clay, and he set it before his G.o.d. But in the reign of Marduk-aplu-iddina, king of hosts, the son of Melis.h.i.+khu, King of Babylon, the wall fell upon this memorial and crushed it.
Shu-khuli-Shugab, the son of Nibis.h.i.+ku, wrote a copy of the ancient text upon a new stone stele, and he set it (before the G.o.d).” It will be seen, therefore, that this actual stone that has been recovered was not the doc.u.ment drawn up in the reign of n.a.z.imaruttash, but a copy made under Marduk-aplu-iddina, a later king of the Third Dynasty. The original deed was drawn up to preserve the rights of Kashakti-Shugab, who shared the grant of land with the temple of Marduk. His share was less than half that of the temple, but, as both were situated in the same district, he was careful to enumerate and describe the temple's share, to prevent any encroachment on his rights by the Babylonian priests.
It is probable that such grants of land were made to private individuals in return for special services which they had rendered to the king. Thus a broken kudurru among M. de Morgan's finds records the confirmation of a man's claims to certain property by Biti-liash II, the claims being based on a grant made to the man's ancestor by Kurigalzu for services rendered to the king during his war with a.s.syria. One of the finest specimens of this cla.s.s of charters or t.i.tle-deeds has been found at Susa, dating from the reign of Melis.h.i.+khu, a king of the Third Dynasty.
The doc.u.ment in question records a grant of certain property in the district of Bit-Pir-Shad-rab, near the cities Agade and Dr-Kurigalzu, made by Melis.h.i.+khu to Marduk-aplu-iddina, his son, who succeeded him upon the throne of Babylon. The text first gives details with regard to the size and situation of the estates included in the grant of land, and it states the names of the high officials who were entrusted with the duty of measuring them. The remainder of the text defines and secures the privileges granted to Marduk-aplu-iddina together with the land, and, as it throws considerable light upon the system of land tenure at the period, an extract from it may here be translated:
”To prevent the encroachment on his land,” the inscription runs, ”thus hath he (i.e. the king) established his (Marduk-aplu-iddina's) charter.
On his land taxes and t.i.thes shall they not impose; ditches, limits, and boundaries shall they not displace; there shall be no plots, stratagems, or claims (with regard to his possession); for forced labour or public work for the prevention of floods, for the maintenance and repair of the royal ca.n.a.l under the protection of the towns of Bit-Sikkamidu and Damik-Adad, among the gangs levied in the towns of the district of Nina-Agade, they shall not call out the people of his estate; they are not liable to forced labour on the sluices of the royal ca.n.a.l, nor are they liable for building dams, nor for closing the ca.n.a.l, nor for digging out the bed thereof.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: 260.jpg KUOTTRRU, OR ”BOUNDARY-STONE.”]
Inscribed with a text of Melis.h.i.+khu, one of the kings of the Third or Ka.s.site Dynasty of Babylon, recording a grant of certain property to Marduk-aplu-iddina, his son The photograph is reproduced from M. de Morgan's Delegation en Perse, Mem., t. ii, pi. 24.
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