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Rooted deep in the recesses of the past was the ancient civilisation that flourished in Mesopotamia. Some latest scholars are disposed to believe that it even preceded the civilisation of Egypt, with which it has some features in common. For this strip of territory, extending from near the Persian Gulf in the south to the mountainous country of Armenia in the north, is an alluvial plain, made and nourished by its rivers—the Tigris on the east and the Euphrates on the west. The latter is a shallow stream, except at the annual flood, when it sweeps over the low banks and innundates the flat lands. Thus the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, like the Egyptians, early learned to control the river with drains and dykes and to construct canals and systems of irrigation. And on a par with their engineering prowess became their achievements in building.

Like Egypt also, Mesopotamia came to have its upper and lower kingdoms. The former, the Biblical Padan-Aram, became associated with the history of the Assyrians; the latter, the Plain of Shinar, with that of the Chaldæans and Babylonians. It was the lower or southern part that seems to have been first occupied, by a people apparently of non-Semitic stock, whose origin is unknown. Named by different scholars Akkadians or Sumerians, they were an unwarlike race which early attained a considerable degree of civilisation. Their chief city was Babylon, whence the country derived the name of Babylonia. It is supposed that these people invented the cuneiform system of writing, which was later employed by the Babylonians and Assyrians, while its use spread to the other nations from Persia to the Mediterranean.

This wedge-shaped script was in its origin a form of pictorial or ideographic writing and developed its peculiar character from the fact that the writing was done on tables of soft clay. Pressure was needed to make the marks and accordingly the stylus came to be formed of three plane surfaces, meeting at a point like the angle of a cubic triangle. As the system grew the ideogram from merely picturing the object was used to denote the first syllable of its name and then by degrees to denote that syllable in whatever word it might occur.

The clue to the reading of the cuneiform script was discovered in 1802 by a German, Georg Friedrich Grotefind, whose work was carried farther by Christian Lassen of Bohn. Meanwhile, the Englishman, Henry Rawlinson had mastered the secret through a study of Persian cuneiform script. Thus an immense mine of knowledge was opened up to the scholars, for the kings of Babylonia and Assyria kept most extensive records, not only of their wars and personal prowess in the chase, but also of commercial transactions, while many of them epitomised the history of past periods. For example, it is from one of these records, made by Napa-haik, the last native king of Babylonia (555-538 B.C.), that we get the earliest date of the so-called Akkadians. For he caused it to be written that, while he was restoring an ancient temple at Sippar, he found among the foundations a record of Sargon I—not to be confused with the later Assyrian king of the same name—which dated back 3200 years before its discovery. Moreover, an Assyrian scribe makes this Sargon relate of himself that he was born in secret, exposed as an infant in a basket of rushes on a river, rescued and brought up by a shepherd, chosen the leader of a band in the mountains and finally became a king. It would be interesting to know the date of this record, but presumably it was after the Jews had been carried captive to Assyria.

The prosperity of this early race and its unwarlike character invited invaders. For, it is in this particular that the fortunes of Mesopotamia differed from those of Egypt. While the latter was isolated by great deserts and its people in early times were neither disturbed from the outside nor tempted to stray beyond their borders, the deserts surrounding Mesopotamia were broken up with frequent spots of fertility. On these subsisted nomad tribes of Semitic origin, which early must have looked with covetous eyes upon the superior abundance of the river-enclosed lands. Thus the non-Semitic inhabitants became involved with Semitic peoples: Chaldæans, Elamites, and Assyrians.

Fortunately it is not necessary for our purpose to attempt the difficult task of unravelling the stages of this obscure story. A few particulars will suffice.

The Chaldæans appeared in the South and established a capital at Ur of the Chaldees, extending their sway over what was called later Babylonia. But so far from crushing the original inhabitants, they seem to have assumed toward them the attitude of protectors. They were the strong men, as it were, that kept the house armed against aggression, while the peaceful occupants continued to pursue their industries and arts. Thus ensued that period distinguished as the Early Chaldæan (about 2250 to 1110 B.C.) which produced those treasures of art, especially in glazed pottery, that recent exploration has been discovering.

And just as this older civilisation was respected by the warlike Chaldæans, so also it was borrowed and imitated by the warlike Assyrians who gradually gathered power in upper or northern Mesopotamia. They founded a city and called it Assur, after their national god, in whose honour they erected a temple in 1820 B.C. This is the first definite date of this people, based on the authority of King Tiglath-Pileser (about 1120-1100 B.C.), who relates that, while restoring the temple, he found the ancient record of its founding. It is significant of the general attitude of the Assyrians toward the civilisation of Babylonia that they also borrowed the latter’s national god, Marduk. The first extensive records of the Assyrians are derived from the “library” of this Tiglath-Pileser, found among the ruins of Assur. They describe his wars and hunting expeditions and how he killed with his own hands ten elephants and nine hundred and twenty lions. This monarch, by the capture of Babylon, brought to a conclusion the rivalry that had existed since the fifteenth century B.C. between Assyria and the Chaldæan-Babylonian kingdom. We may date from his reign, namely about 1110 B.C. the supremacy of the Assyrian Empire which lasted until 606 B.C.

Meanwhile, the city of Nineveh, now marked by the mounds of Koyunjik and Nebi Yanus had been in existence as early as 1816 B.C. A palace was erected there by Shalmaneser I (1330 B.C.) and at some date unknown a temple to Ishtar. She was the goddess of Love and War and in her voluptuous aspect corresponds to Ashtoreth or Astarte of the Syro-Phœnicians. This cult characterised her shrine at Nineveh, while in her warlike aspect she was worshipped at Arbela.

For a time the prestige of Nineveh waned, as Assurnazar-pal (885 B.C.) and Shalmaneser II erected palaces at Nimroud, the ancient Calah. The latter monarch was the first, so far as known, to come in conflict with Israel. He conquered Ahab and exacted tribute from Jehu.

With Tiglath-Pileser III (also called Pul by the Hebrews) who carried a portion of Northern Israel into captivity (2 Kings xv), began the period of Assyria’s greatest glory. The last dynasty commences with Sargon (722-705 B.C.) who built himself the famous palace at Khorsabad. He conquered Samaria and carried the whole of northern Israel into captivity, replacing them with men “from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Ava and from Hamath and from Sepharvaim” (2 Kings, xvii, 24). This allusion to Babylon is significant. It points to Sargon’s policy of reducing the rival power of the city, which was destroyed by his son and successor, Sennacherib. It was the latter who “came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them,” afterward suffering the loss of his army in the siege of Jerusalem, as chronicled in 2 Kings, xviii, xix; though this disaster is not mentioned in the cuneiform records. He revived the grandeur of Nineveh, which was added to by his son Esarhaddon (680-668 B.C.). This monarch’s reign represented the high-water mark of Assyrian supremacy. Among his exploits was the conquest of Egypt, whereby he added to his titles that of “King of Kings of Lower and Upper Egypt and Ethiopia.” He was also a great builder, restoring Babylon and erecting for himself a superb palace at Nineveh, the materials for which were supplied by twenty-two subject kings.

Under his son Asurbanipal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks (668-626 B.C.), the last of the Sargon Dynasty, Assyrian prosperity reached its culmination. Being, as he said, “endowed with attentive ears,” Asurbanipal was inclined to the study of “all inscribed tablets” and caused the collecting and re-editing of the whole cuneiform literature then in existence. A great part of his “library” has been recovered from the ruins of Koyunjik and is now in the British Museum.

In the year following this monarch’s death Nabopolassar (625-604 B.C.) who seems to have been the Assyrian vice-roy of Babylonia, entered into alliance with the Medes and through their help destroyed the supremacy of the Assyrians and became the first king of the New Babylonian Empire.

His son, Nebuchadnezzar, or Nebuchadrezzar, conquered Jerusalem and carried its inhabitants captive to Babylon. To him this city owed its final magnificence. Occupying both banks of the Euphrates, it was now surrounded by two fortified walls, the outer one being fifty-five miles in circumference, with a height of 340 feet and a thickness of 85. It was further protected by 250 towers and pierced with a hundred gates of brass. Numerous temples adorned the city, the grandest being that of the national god, Marduk (Merodach). Near this was the royal palace, now represented by the ruins of Al Gasr, “the Castle.” Sloping down from it to the river were the terraced gardens laid out by the king for the pleasure of his Median wife, Amytis. They are better known as the hanging gardens of Semiramis, from the Greek account that attributed various Oriental wonders to this mythical queen. Nebuchadnezzar also restored the temple of Nebo in a suburb of Babylon, now called Borsippa. This famous shrine was constructed in the form of a stepped-pyramid and from its seven terraces was called “The Temple of the Seven Spheres of Heaven and Earth.” Included in Assyrian temples was frequently a tower, and the one belonging to this temple of Nebo is assumed to have been associated with the story of the “Tower of Babel” (Genesis xi).

Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son, Nabonidus, whose eldest son, Belshazzar, was co-regent with him and governor of South Babylon. This is the cuneiform record, which varies from that of Daniel (Chapter v), who makes Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar and last king of Babylonia. In 538 B.C. Cyrus the Great took Babylon by storm and the country passed under the Persian rule. Darius I razed the fortified walls and Xerxes stripped the temples of their golden images and treasure. The city fell into decay, until in 300 B.C. much of it was demolished to provide material for building the neighbouring city of Seleucia. By the time of Pliny (23-72 A.D.) the once proud city was a place of desolation.

While the Assyrians and Babylonians were religious peoples, their temples were insignificant, as compared with those of the Egyptians nor have they left any tombs of architectural importance. Their religion was of an eminently practical kind, devoted to securing benefits in this world and concerned little with a future life. Thus their gods were representative of natural phenomena or of their own pursuits: gods of the sun, moon, the heavens, earth (Bel), weather; of water and canals, the chase, war, invention of writing and literature; and unfriendly gods of pestilence and fire.

As may be seen in their sculptures, they valued the qualities of energy and physical prowess. Their kings are not represented, like those of Egypt, as of slim, svelte figure, or wrapped in monumental composure. They are giants of exaggerated muscular development, engaged in conflict with wild beasts of corresponding strength. They were mighty captains of war and in times of peace, mighty hunters and builders.

While Assyria borrowed its culture from Babylonia, the character of the two nations was very different. Babylonia was a country of merchants and agriculturists; Assyria, an organised camp. The latter’s dynasties were founded by successful generals; while in Babylonia it was always a priest whom a revolution raised to the throne and the king remained to the last a priest under the control of a powerful hierarchy. The Assyrian King, on the contrary, was an autocratic general, supported in earlier times by a feudal nobility and, from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III, by an elaborate bureaucracy. In each country there was a large body of slaves.

In Assyria education was confined to the ruling class; whereas in Babylonia every one, women as well as men, learned to read and write. Most of the Babylonian cities and temples had their libraries and the genius of the people displayed itself most characteristically in literature. Among works which have been discovered, whole or in fragments, were the “Epic of Gilgamesh,” consisting of twelve books each of which recounts an adventure in the hero’s career; another epic, that of the Creation, and the “Legend of Adapa,” the first man. In astronomy and astrology the Chaldæans and Babylonians from early times were adepts; observatories being attached to the temples from which reports were regularly submitted to the King. They were also skilled in mathematics and mechanics. For example, a glass lens, turned on a lathe, was discovered by Layard at Nimroud, among the remains of glass vases which bear the name of Sargon.

While the Chaldæans in time had become mingled with the Babylonians, so that the latter name was used to designate both peoples, the term Chaldæan came to be used in a special sense. The “Wisdom of the Chaldæans” continued to be recognised, and it was probably to the pure race of Chaldæans that the priests, “astrologers” and “magicians” belonged. And their distinction as wise men even survived the overthrow of Babylon. In all likelihood they were Chaldæans, those “Wise men from the East,” who saw and interpreted the star and followed it to Bethlehem.