Читать книгу Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading - George Park Fisher - Страница 33

THE GEOGRAPHY.—Assyria and Babylonia were geographically connected. They were inhabited by the same race, and, for the greater part of their history, were under one government. Babylonia comprised the lower basin of the Euphrates and Tigris, while Assyria included the hilly region along the upper and middle Tigris; the boundary being where the two rivers, in their long progress from their sources in the mountains of Armenia, at length approach one another at a place about three hundred and fifty miles from their outlet in the Persian Gulf. Both streams, in particular the Euphrates, annually flooded the adjacent territory, and by canals and dams were made to add to its productiveness. The shores of the Euphrates, after its descent from the plateau to the plains, were fertile beyond measure. Here the date-palm, whose juice as well as fruit were so highly prized, flourished. Even now wheat grows wild near the river's mouth.

THE EARLY INHABITANTS.—The oldest inhabitants of this region of whom we have any knowledge were the Sumerians, whose territory included both Sumer ("Shinar"), or southern Babylonia, and Akkad, or northern Babylonia. On the east were the Elamites, with Susa for their capital; to the north of these were the warlike Kassites. The Sumerians, who preceded the Semites in the occupancy of Babylonia, were of an unknown stock. They were the founders of Babylonian culture. Even by them the soil was skillfully cultivated with the help of dikes and canals. They were the inventors of the cuneiform writing. The cuneiform characters were originally pictures; but these were resolved into wedge-shaped characters of uniform appearance, the significance of which was determined by their position and local relation to one another. It is not known how long the Sumerian period lasted, nor even when it closed; the chronology of the earliest Semitic period is also very uncertain. The south-Babylonian kings Urukagina, of Shirpurla (Lagash), and Enshagkushana, of a district which included Nippur, are dated by most Assyriologists as early as 4000 B.C., or even earlier. Whether they were Sumerians, or Semites, is not certain; their inscriptions do not settle the question. It was probably not far from this time, however, that the one race supplanted the other. A Semitic people—coming either directly from the ancestral home, Arabia, or from a previous settlement in Mesopotamia, north-west of Babylonia—invaded the land and conquered the Sumerians. They planted themselves first in northern Babylonia, and then gradually extended their power over the districts on the south. The conquerors adopted the civilization of the conquered. The earliest Semitic kings all used the Sumerian dialect in their inscriptions. It was only by slow degrees that the native language was superseded by that of the new rulers. Later—before the time of Hammurabi; see below—these Semites carried their settlements northward, and became the founders of Assyria.

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE.—Berosus, a Babylonian priest, wrote a history of his country as early as 250 B.C. He was a trustworthy writer, as far as his means of knowledge went; but it is only fragments of his work that we possess, and these in inaccurate quotations, partly at second hand. Greek writers, as Ctesias, drew from Persian sources; and their narratives up to the later times of the Persian rule can not be relied on. The great source of knowledge is the rapidly increasing store of records in the cuneiform character. A vast number of inscriptions on stone and clay, representing nearly every department of literature, have been unearthed, and the material which they afford has already given us an extensive knowledge of Babylonian and Assyrian history. The site of Nineveh has been extensively excavated, and we have, therefore, especially full information as to the history and literature of Assyria. Babylonian monuments in considerable number have more recently come to light. Aside from Nineveh and Babylon, especially important excavations have been undertaken at Nifpur, Lagash (Telloh)—thus far the chief source of Sumerian material—and Susa.