Part 16 (2/2)
The campaign against Babylon was the most important one undertaken by Tukulti-Ninib, and its successful issue was the crowning point of his military career. The king relates that the great G.o.ds Ashur, Bel, and Shamash, and the G.o.ddess Ishtar, the queen of heaven and earth, marched at the head of his warriors when he set out upon the expedition. After crossing the border and penetrating into Babylonian territory he seems to have had some difficulty in forcing Bitiliashu, the Ka.s.site king who then occupied the throne of Babylon, to a decisive engagement. But by a skilful disposition of his forces he succeeded in hemming him in, so that the Babylonian army was compelled to engage in a pitched battle.
The result of the fighting was a complete victory for the a.s.syrian arms.
Many of the Babylonian warriors fell fighting, and Bitiliashu himself was captured by the a.s.syrian soldiers in the midst of the battle.
Tukulti-Ninib boasts that he trampled his lordly neck beneath his feet, and on his return to a.s.syria he carried his captive back in fetters to present him with the spoils of the campaign before Ashur, the national G.o.d of the a.s.syrians.
Before returning to a.s.syria, however, Tukulti-Ninib marched with his army throughout the length and breadth of Babylonia, and achieved the subjugation of the whole of the Sumer and Akkad. He destroyed the fortifications of Babylon to ensure that they should not again be used against himself, and all the inhabitants who did not at once submit to his decrees he put co the sword. He then appointed his own officers to rule the country and established his own system of administration, adding to his previous t.i.tle of ”King of a.s.syria,” those of ”King of Karduniash (i. e. Babylonia)” and ”King of Sumer and Akkad.” It was probably from this period that he also adopted the t.i.tle of ”King of the Poor Quarters of the World.” As a mark of the complete subjugation of their ancient foe, Tukulti-Ninib and his army carried back with them to a.s.syria not only the captive Babylonian king, but also the statue of Marduk, the national G.o.d of Babylon. This they removed from B-sagila, his sumptuous temple in Babylon, and they looted the sacred treasures from the treasure-chambers, and carried them off together with the spoil of the city.
Tukulti-Ninib no doubt left a sufficient proportion of his army in Babylon to garrison the city and support the governors and officials into whose charge he committed the administration of the land, but he himself returned to a.s.syria with the rich spoil of the campaign, and it was probably as a use for this large increase of wealth and material that he decided to found another city which should bear his own name and perpetuate it for future ages. The king records that he undertook this task at the bidding of Bel (i.e. the G.o.d Ashur), who commanded that he should found a new city and build a dwelling-place for him therein.
In accordance with the desire of Ashur and the G.o.ds, which was thus conveyed to him, the king founded the city of Kar-Tukulti-Ninib, and he erected therein temples dedicated not only to Ashur, but also to the G.o.ds Adad, and Sha-mash, and Ninib, and Nusku, and Nergal, and Imina-bi, and the G.o.ddess Ishtar. The spoils from Babylon and the temple treasures from E-sagila were doubtless used for the decoration of these temples and the adornment of their shrines, and the king endowed the temples and appointed regular offerings, which he ordained should be their property for ever. He also built a sumptuous palace for his own abode when he stayed in the city, which he constructed on a mound or terrace of earth, faced with brick, and piled high above the level of the city. Finally, he completed its fortification by the erection of a ma.s.sive wall around it, and the completion of this wall was the occasion on which his memorial tablet was inscribed.
The memorial tablet was buried and bricked up within the actual structure of the wall, in order that in future ages it might be read by those who found it, and so it might preserve his name and fame. After finis.h.i.+ng the account of his building operations in the new city and recording the completion of the city wall from its foundation to its coping stone, the king makes an appeal to any future ruler who should find it, in the following words: ”In the days that are to come, when this wall shall have grown old and shall have fallen into ruins, may a future prince repair the damaged parts thereof, and may he anoint my memorial tablet with oil, and may he offer sacrifices and restore it unto its place, and then Ashur will hearken unto his prayers. But whosoever shall destroy this wall, or shall remove my memorial tablet or my name that is inscribed thereon, or shall leave Kar-Tukulti-Ninib, the city of my dominion, desolate, or shall destroy it, may the lord Ashur overthrow his kingdom, and may he break his weapons, and may he cause his warriors to be defeated, and may he diminish his boundaries, and may he ordain that his rule shall be cut off, and on his days may he bring sorrow, and his years may he make evil, and may he blot out his name and his seed from the land!”
By such blessings and curses Tukulti-Ninib hoped to ensure the preservation of his name and the rebuilding of his city, should it at any time be neglected and fall into decay. Curiously enough, it was in this very city that Tukulti-Ninib met his own fate less than seven years after he had founded it. At that time one of his own sons, who bore the name of Ashur-nasir-pal, conspired against his father and stirred up the n.o.bles to revolt. The insurrection was arranged when Tukulti-Ninib was absent from his capital and staying in Kar-Tukulti-Ninib, where he was probably protected by only a small bodyguard, the bulk of his veteran warriors remaining behind in garrison at Ashur. The insurgent n.o.bles, headed by Ashur-nasir-pal, fell upon the king without warning when he was pa.s.sing through the city without any suspicion of risk from a treacherous attack. The king defended himself and sought refuge in a neighbouring house, but the conspirators surrounded the building and, having forced an entrance, slew him with the sword. Thus Tukulti-Ninib perished in the city he had built and beautified with the spoils of his campaigns, where he had looked forward to pa.s.sing a peaceful and secure old age. Of the fate of the city itself we know little except that its site is marked to-day by a few mounds which rise slightly above the level of the surrounding desert. The king's memorial tablet only has survived. For some 3,200 years it rested undisturbed in the foundations of the wall of unburnt brick, where it was buried by Tukulti-Ninib on the completion of the city wall.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 408.jpg Stone Tablet. Bearing an inscription of Tukulti-Ninib I]
King of a.s.syria, about B. C. 1275.
Thence it was removed by the hands of modern Arabs, and it is now preserved in the British Museum, where the characters of the inscription may be seen to be as sharp and uninjured as on the day when the a.s.syrian graver inscribed them by order of the king.
In the account of his first campaign, which is preserved upon the memorial tablet, it is stated that the peoples conquered by Tukulti-Ninib brought their yearly tribute to the city of Ashur. This fact is of considerable interest, for it proves that Tukulti-Ninib restored the capital of a.s.syria to the city of Ashur, removing it from Calah, whither it had been transferred by his father Shalmaneser I. The city of Calah had been founded and built by Shalmaneser I in the same way that his son Tukulti-Ninib built the city of Kar-Tukulti-Ninib, and the building of both cities is striking evidence of the rapid growth of a.s.syria and her need of expansion around fresh centres prepared for administration and defence. The s.h.i.+fting of the a.s.syrian capital to Calah by Shalmaneser I was also due to the extension of a.s.syrian power in the north, in consequence of which there was need of having the capital nearer the centre of the country so enlarged. Ashur's recovery of her old position under Tukulti-Ninib I was only a temporary check to this movement northwards, and, so long as Babylon remained a conquered province of the a.s.syrian empire, obviously the need for a capital farther north than Ashur would not have been pressing.
[Ill.u.s.tration 409.jpg THE ZIGGURAT, OR TEMPLE TOWER, OF THE a.s.sYRIAN CITY OF CALAH.]
But with Tukulti-Ninib's death Babylon regained her independence and freed herself from a.s.syrian control, and the centre of the northern kingdom was once more subject to the influences which eventually resulted in the permanent transference of her capital to Nineveh. To the comparative neglect into which Ashur and Calah consequently fell, we may probably trace the extensive remains of buildings belonging to the earlier periods of a.s.syrian history which have been recovered and still remain to be found, in the mounds that mark their sites.
We have given some account of the results already achieved from the excavations carried out during the last two years at Sherghat, the site of the city of Ashur. That much remains to be done on the site of Calah, the other early capital of a.s.syria, is evident from even a cursory examination of the present condition of the mounds that mark the location of the city. These mounds are now known by the name of Nimrd and are situated on the left or eastern bank of the Tigris, a short distance above the point at which it is joined by the stream of the Upper Zab, and the great mound which still covers the remains of the ziggurat, or temple tower, can be seen from a considerable distance across the plain. During the excavations formerly carried out here for the British Museum, remains of palaces were recovered which had been built or restored by Shal-maneser I, Ashur-nasir-pal, Shalmaneser II, Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon, Esarhaddon, and Ashur-etil-ilani. After the conclusion of the diggings and the removal of many of the sculptures to England, the site was covered again with earth, in order to protect the remains of a.s.syrian buildings which were left in place. Since that time the soil has sunk and been washed away by the rains so that many of the larger sculptures are now protruding above the soil, an example of which is seen in the two winged bulls in the palace of Ashur-nasir-pal. It is improbable that the mounds of Nimrd will yield such rich results as Sherghat, but the site would probably well repay prolonged and systematic excavation.
We have hitherto summarized and described the princ.i.p.al facts, with regard to the early history of Babylonia and a.s.syria and the neighbouring countries, which have been obtained from the excavations conducted recently on the sites of ancient cities. From the actual remains of the buildings that have been unearthed we have secured information with regard to the temples and palaces of ancient rulers and the plans on which they were designed. Erom the objects of daily life and of religious use which have been recovered, such as weapons of bronze and iron, and vessels of metal, stone, and clay, it is possible for the archaeologist to draw conclusions with regard to the customs of these early peoples; while from a study of their style and workmans.h.i.+p and of such examples of their sculpture as have been brought to light, he may determine the stage of artistic development at which they had arrived. The clay tablets and stone monuments that have been recovered reveal the family life of the people, their commercial undertakings, their system of legislation and land tenure, their epistolary correspondence, and the administration under which they lived, while the royal inscriptions and foundation-memorials throw light on the religious and historical events of the period in which they were inscribed.
Information on all these points has been acquired as the result of excavation, and is based on the discoveries in the ruins of early cities which have remained buried beneath the soil for some thousands of years.
But for the history of a.s.syria and of the other nations in the north there is still another source of information to which reference must now be made.
The kings of a.s.syria were not content with recording their achievements on the walls of their buildings, on stelae set up in their palaces and temples, on their tablets of annals preserved in their archive-chambers, and on their cylinders and foundation-memorials concealed within the actual structure of the buildings themselves. They have also left records graven in the living rock, and these have never been buried, but have been exposed to wind and weather from the moment they were engraved. Records of irrigation works and military operations successfully undertaken by a.s.syrian kings remain to this day on the face of the mountains to the north and east of a.s.syria. The kings of one great mountain race that had its capital at Van borrowed from the a.s.syrians this method of recording their achievements, and, adopting the a.s.syrian character, have left numerous rock-inscriptions in their own language in the mountains of Armenia and Kurdistan. In some instances the action of rain and frost has nearly if not quite obliterated the record, and a few have been defaced by the hand of man. But as the majority are engraved in panels cut on the sheer face of the rock, and are inaccessible except by means of ropes and tackle, they have escaped mutilation. The photograph reproduced will serve to show the means that must be adopted for reaching such rock-inscriptions in order to examine or copy them.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 413.jpg WORK IN PROGRESS ON ONE OF THE ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS OF SENNACHERIB]
In The Gorge Of The River Gomel, Near Bavian.
The inscription shown in the photograph is one of those cut by Sennacherib in the gorge near Bavian, through which the river Gomel flows, and can be reached only by climbing down ropes fixed to the top of the cliff. The choice of such positions by the kings who caused the inscriptions to be engraved was dictated by the desire to render it difficult to destroy them, but it has also had the effect of delaying to some extent their copying and decipherment by modern workers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 414.jpg THE PRINc.i.p.aL ROCK SCULPTURES IN THE GORGE OF THE GOMEL]
Near Bavian In a.s.syria.
Considerable progress, however, has recently been made in identifying and copying these texts, and we may here give a short account of what has been done and of the information furnished by the inscriptions that have been examined.
Recently considerable additions have been made to our knowledge of the ancient empire of Van and of its relation to the later kings of a.s.syria by the labours of Prof Lehmann and Dr. Belck on the inscriptions which the kings of that period caused to be engraved upon the rocks among the mountains of Armenia.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 415.jpg THE ROCK AND CITADEL OF VAN.]
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