Babylonia Sentence Examples

In the Sumerian texts of Babylonia it was called Numma, "the Highlands," of which Elamtu or Elamu, "Elam," was the Semitic translation.

Before the rise of the First Dynasty of Babylon, however, Elam had recovered its independence, and in 2280 B.C. the Elamite king Kutur-Nakhkhunte made a raid in Babylonia and carried away from Erech the image of the goddess Nana.

One of them was defeated by Ammi-zadoq of Babylonia (c. 2100 B.C.); another would have been the Chedor-laomer (Kutur-Lagamar) of Genesis xiv.

About 1330 B.C. Khurba-tila was captured by Kuri-galzu III., the Kassite king of Babylonia, but a later prince Kidin-Khutrutas avenged his defeat, and Sutruk-Nakhkhunte (1220 B.C.) carried fire and sword through Babylonia, slew its king Zamama-sum-iddin and carried away a stela of Naram-Sin and the famous code of laws of Khammurabi from Sippara, as well as a stela of Manistusu from Akkuttum or Akkad.

In 750 B.C. Umbadara was king of Elam; Khumbanigas was his successor in 742 B.C. In 720 B.C. the latter prince met the Assyrians under Sargon at Dur-ili in Yamutbal, and though Sargon claims a victory the result was that Babylonia recovered its independence under Merodach-baladan and the Assyrian forces were driven north.

From this time forward it was against Assyria instead of Babylonia that Elam found itself compelled to exert its strength, and Elamite policy was directed towards fomenting revolt in Babylonia and assisting the Babylonians in their struggle with Assyria.

A few years later (704 B.C.) the combined forces of Elam and Babylonia were overthrown at Kis, and in the following year the Kassites were reduced to subjection.

The Elamite king was dethroned and imprisoned in 700 B.C. by his brother Khallusu, who six years later marched into Babylonia, captured the son of Sennacherib, whom his father had placed there as king, and raised a nominee of his own, Nergal-yusezib, to the throne.

His successor KudurNakhkhunte invaded Babylonia; he was repulsed, however, by Sennacherib, 34 of his cities were destroyed, and he himself fled from Madaktu to Khidalu.

Ummanigas afterwards assisted in the revolt of Babylonia under Samassum-yukin, but his nephew, a second Tammaritu, raised a rebellion against him, defeated him in battle, cut off his head and seized the crown.

Tammaritu marched to Babylonia; while there, his officer Inda-bigas made himself master of Susa and drove Tammaritu to the coast whence he fled to Assur-banipal.

Nakhkhunte, according to Scheil, was the Sun-goddess, and Lagamar, whose name enters into that of Chedorlaomer, was borrowed from Semitic Babylonia.

It received its final form in Babylonia probably in the 3rd century A.D.

For the other books, the recognized Targum on the Prophets is that ascribed to Jonathan ben Uzziel (4th century ?), which originated in Palestine, but was edited in Babylonia, so that it has the same history and linguistic character as Onkelos.

The tradition, as in the case of the Targums, was again twofold; that which had grown up in the Palestinian Schools and that of Babylonia.

While the schools of Babylonia were flourishing as the religious head of Judaism, the West, and especially Spain under Moorish rule, was becoming the home of Jewish scholarship. On the breaking of the schools many of the fugitives fled o- g up Y g?

The impulse to similar work in the West came also from Babylonia.

In the Toth century IIushiel, one of four prisoners, perhaps from Babylonia, though that is doubtful, was ransomed and settled at Kairawan, where he acquired great reputation as a Talmudist.

It was from a remote period, antedating certainly 3000 B.C., the highway of empire and of commerce between east and west, more specifically between Babylonia or Irak and Syria, and numerous empires, peoples and civilizations have left their records on its shores.

In early times irrigating canals distributed the waters over the plain, and made it one of the richest countries of the East, so that historians report three crops of wheat to have been raised in Babylonia annually.

As main arteries for this circulation of water through its system great canals, constituting in reality so many branches of the river, connected all parts of Babylonia, and formed a natural means both of defence and also of transportation from one part of the country to another.

A remarkable Babylonian tablet discovered by Dr Pinches represents Marduk, the god of light, as identified in his person with all the chief deities of Babylonia, who are evidently regarded as his varying manifestations.'

The untimely death of that monarch upon the battlefield of Megiddo (608 B.C.), followed by the inglorious reigns of the kings who succeeded him, who became puppets in turn of Egypt or of Babylonia, silenced for a while the Messianic hopes for a future king or line of kings of Davidic lineage who would rule a renovated kingdom in righteousness and peace.

Contact with Babylonia tended to stimulate the 1 Cf.

On the religion of Babylonia, Jastrow's work is the standard one.

The course leads naturally into either Palestine or Babylonia, and, following the Euphrates, northern Syria is eventually reached.

This age, with its regular maritime intercourse between the Aegean settlements, Phoenicia and the Delta, and with lines of caravans connecting Babylonia, North Syria, Arabia and Egypt, presents a remarkable picture of life and activity, in the centre of which lies Palestine, with here and there Egyptian colonies and some traces of Egyptian cults.

Abraham, it was believed, came from Harran (Carrhae), primarily from Babylonia, and Jacob re-enters from Gilead in the north-east with his Aramaean wives and concubines and their families (Benjamin excepted).

Yet another expedition in 839 would seem to 2 See for chronology, Babylonia And Assyria, §§ v.

Elaborate legal enactments codified in Babylonia by the 10th century B.C. find striking parallels in Hebrew, late Jewish (Talmudic), Syrian and Mahommedan law, or in the unwritten usages of all ages; for even where there were neither written laws nor duly instituted lawgivers, there was no lawlessness, since custom and belief were, and still are, almost inflexible.

Hebrew religious institutions can be understood from the biblical evidence studied in the light of comparative religion; and without going afield to Babylonia, Assyria or Egypt, valuable data are furnished by the cults of Phoenicia, Syria and Arabia, and these in turn can be illustrated from excavation and from modern custom.

A Chaldean prince, Nabopolassar, set himself up in Babylonia, and Assyria was compelled to invoke the aid of the Askuza.

His young son Jehoiachin surrendered after a three months' reign, with his mother and the court; they were taken away to Babylonia, together with a number of the artisan class (596).

Throughout these stormy years the prophet Jeremiah (q.v.) had realized that Judah's only hope lay in submission to Babylonia.

The scantiness of historical tradition makes a final solution impossible, but the study of these years has an important bearing on the history of the later Judaean state, which has been characteristically treated from the standpoint of exiles who returned from Babylonia and regard them selves as the kernel of " Israel."

Excavation at Nippur in Babylonia has brought to light numerous contract tablets of the 5th century B.C. with Hebrew proper names (Haggai, Hanani, Gedaliah, &c.).

A little later Tyre received as its king Merbaal (555-552) who had been fetched from Babylonia.

Babylonia was politically unsettled, the representative of the Davidic dynasty had descendants; if Babylon was assured of the allegiance of Judah further acts of clemency may well have followed.

Greater weight must be laid upon the independent evidence of the prophetical writings, and the objection that Palestine could not have produced the religious fervency of Haggai or Zechariah without an initial impulse from Babylonia begs the question.

The story of this scribe (now combined with the memoirs of Nehemiah) crystallizes the new movement inaugurated after a return of exiles from Babylonia.

Thus, in any estimate of the influence of Babylonia upon the Old Testament, it is obviously necessary to ask whether certain features (a) are of true Babylonian origin, or (b) merely find parallels or analogies in its stores of literature; whether the indebtedness goes back to very early times or to the age of the Assyrian domination or to the exiles who now returned.

The Palestinian Talmud was completed in the 4th century, but the better known and more influential version was compiled in Babylonia about 500.

Babylonia had risen into supreme importance for Jewish life at about the time when the Mishnah was completed.

In 259 Odenathus, the Palmyrene adventurer whose memory has been eclipsed by that of his wife Zenobia, laid Nehardea waste for the time being, and in its neighbourhood arose the academy of Pumbedita (Pombeditha) which became a new focus for the intellectual life of Israel in Babylonia.

Mahommedan Babylonia (Persia) was the home of the gaonate, the central authority of religious Judaism, whose power transcended that of the secular exilarchate, for it influenced the synagogue far and wide, while the exilarchate was local.

The hill itself, like a Tell of Babylonia, is mainly formed of the debris of human settlements.

The Jews of Babylonia, after the fall of the first temple, were termed by Jeremiah and Ezekiel the people of the "Exile."

But this originality cannot be absolute, for, whatever may have been the relations of Babylonia and the Aryans, the latter brought civilization to India from the west, and it is not always clear whether similarity of government and institutions is the result of borrowing or of parallel development.

Some connexion between Babylonia and China is generally admitted, and all Indian alphabets seem traceable to a Semitic original borrowed in the course of commerce from the Persian Gulf.

The movements mentioned above have been the chief factors of relatively modern Asiatic history, but in early times the centre of activity and culture lay farther west, in Babylonia and Assyria.

In politics these races have been less successful in modern times, but the Semitic states of Babylonia and Assyria were once the principal centres for the development and distribution of civilization.

The earliest Sumerian records seem to be anterior to 4000 B.C. Shortly after that period Babylonia was invaded by Semites, who became the ruling race.

Assyria was an offshoot of Babylonia lying to the north-west, and apparently -colonized before the second millennium.

This is the oldest of existing states, though its authentic history does not go back much beyond 1000 B.C. It is generally admitted that there was some connexion between the ancient civilizations of China and Babylonia, but its precise nature is still uncertain.

In 588 Nebuchadrezzar carried off the Jews in captivity, but after the Persian conquest of Babylonia they were allowed to return to Palestine in 538.

Any general statement as to the debt owed by early European civilizations to western Asia would at present be premature, for though important discoveries have been made in Crete and Babylonia the best authorities are chary of positive conclusions as to the relations of Cretan civilization to Egypt and Babylonia.

Some authorities hold that Egyptian civilization came from Babylonia, and that the so-called Hamitic languages are older and less specialized members of the Semitic family.

The king had only been warned at the last moment by Tissaphernes and gathered an army in all haste; Cyrus advanced into Babylonia, before he met with an enemy.

Anu is so prominently associated with the city of Erech in southern Babylonia that there are good reasons for believing this place to have been the original seat of the Anu cult.

The summingup of divine powers manifested in the universe in a threefold division represents an outcome of speculation in the schools attached to the temples of Babylonia, but the selection of Anu, Bel and Ea for the three representatives of the three spheres recognized, is due to the importance which, for one reason or the other, the centres in which Anu, Bel and Ea were worshipped had acquired in the popular mind.

In the astral theology of Babylonia and Assyria, Anu, Bel and Ea became the three zones of the ecliptic, the northern, middle and southern zone respectively.

The agriculture of the region bordering the Tigris and Euphrates, like that of Egypt, depended largely on irrigation, and traces of ancient canals are still to be seen in Babylonia.

But beyond the fact that both Babylonia and Assyria were large producers of cereals, little is known of their husbandry.

Master of Babylonia, Seleucus at once proceeded to wrest the neighbouring provinces of Persis, Susiana and Media from the nominees of Antigonus.

A raid into Babylonia conducted in 311 by Demetrius, son of Antigonus, did not seriously check Seleucus's progress.

Philopator (reigned 187-176), consisted of Syria (now including Cilicia and Palestine), Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Nearer Iran (Media and Persis).

Epiphanes (163) he conquered Media, where he refounded the town"of Rhagae (Rai near Teheran) under the name of Arsacia; and about 141 he invaded Babylonia.

The Mandaeans are found in the marshy lands of South Babylonia (al-bataih), particularly in the neighbourhood of Basra (or Bussorah), and in Khuzistan (Disful, Shuster).

The last false prophet was M'hammad or Ahmat bar Bisbat (Mahomet), but Anosh, who remained close beside him and his immediate successors, prevented hostilities against the true believers, who claim to have had in Babylonia, under the Abbasids, four hundred places of worship. Subsequent persecutions compelled their withdrawal to `Ammara in the neighbourhood of Wasit, and ultimately to Khuzistan.

In the Gnostic basis itself it is not difficult to recognize the general features of the religion of ancient Babylonia, and thus we are brought nearer a solution of the problem as to the origin of Gnosticism in general.

The genesis of Mandaeis.m and the older gnosis from the old and elaborate BabylonioChaldaean religion is clearly seen also in the fact that the names of the old pantheon (as for example those of the planetary divinities) are retained, but their holders degraded to the position of demons - a conclusion confirmed by the fact that the Mandaeans, like the allied Ophites, Peratae and Manichaeans, certainly have their original seat in Mesopotamia and Babylonia.

Henceforward the petty states of Syria were at all times subject to one or other of the great world-empires, and were still in dispute between Babylonia and Egypt as late as Necho.

In Babylonia, from a very early period, Baal became a definite individual deity, and was identified with the planet Jupiter.

Syria in fact is beginning to take shape in our minds as perhaps the most ancient seat of civilization in the world, the common source from which Babylonia and Egypt derived those items of culture in which, in the early period, they resemble one another.

At the time of the great dynasty of Ur (c. 2400 B.C.) in Babylonia, the whole Argaeus region was occupied by these Semites, who seem to have been most kin to the Assyrians.

C. Thompson in 1918 17 and by Hall in 1919, and at El `Obeid by Hall in the latter year," have shown us that the painted ware of Susa and Musyan, discovered by de Morgan was not confined to Persia, but was the ordinary pottery of Babylonia in the prehistoric (chalcolithic) period.

Persia (which, it must not be forgotten, may have been an importation from Babylonia and not local art at all), seems to think a northern origin as probable as any other.

Whether we should deduce from its common occurrence in Babylonia the existence of an Elamite population there in early times, later displaced by the Sumerians, we do not know.

The question how far connexion was kept up between early Egypt and Babylonia by way of the Red Sea or across the desert is a very interesting one.

The only stone building in southern Babylonia is the town wall of Eridu (Abu Shahrein), which is built of rude lumps of a local coral rag.

Equally certain is a second observation of a general character that the epic originating as the greater portion of the literature in Assur-bani-pal's collection in Babylonia is a composite product, that is to say, it consists of a number of independent stories or myths originating at different times, and united to form a continuous narrative with Gilgamesh as the central figure.

The name' is not Babylonian, and what evidence as to his origin there is points to his having come from Elam, to the east of Babylonia.

He may have belonged to the people known as the Kassites who at the beginning of the 18th century B.C. entered Babylonia from Elam, and obtained control of the Euphrates valley.

Why and how he came to be a popular hero in Babylonia cannot with our present material be determined, but the epic indicates that he came as a conqueror and established himself at Erech.

Alexander had at first trusted Persian grandees more freely in this capacity; in Babylonia, Bactria, Carmania, Susiana he had set Persian governors, till the ingrained Oriental tradition of misgovernment so declared itself that to the three latter provinces certainly Macedonians had been appointed before his death.

But now a third war began, the old associates of Antigonus, alarmed by his overgrown power, combining against him - Cassander, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, the governor of Thrace, and Seleucus, who had fled before Antigonus from his satrapy of Babylonia.

Antigonus never succeeded in reaching Macedonia, although his son Demetrius won Athens and Megara in 307 and again (304-302) wrested almost all Greece from Cassander; nor did Antigonus succeed in expelling Ptolemy from Egypt, although he led an army to its frontier in 306; and after the battle of Gaza in 312, in which Ptolemy and Seleucus defeated Demetrius, he had to see Seleucus not only recover Babylonia but bring all the eastern provinces under his authority as far as India.

Babylonia was Parthian from 129.

While recognized by a temple of her own in Nippur and honoured by rulers at various times by having votive offerings made in her honour and fortresses dedicated in her name, she, as all other goddesses in Babylonia and Assyria with the single exception of Ishtar, is overshadowed by her male consort.

They can, however, hardly be described as maps, while in age they are surpassed by several cartographical clay tablets discovered in Babylonia.

A cadastral survey for purposes of taxation was already at work in Babylonia in the age of Sargon of Akkad, 3800 B.C. In the British Museum may be seen a series of clay tablets, circular in shape and dating back to 2300 or 2100 B.C., which contain surveys of lands.

One of these depicts in a rough way lower Babylonia encircled by a " salt water river," Oceanus.

For a comparative study of the occurrence of the ark in the various deluge myths, in the present edition, see Deluge; Cosmogony; Babylonia And Assyria.

It is not likely, as many scholars have thought, that Akkad was ever used geographically as a distinctive appellation for northern Babylonia, or that the name Sumer denoted the southern part of the land, because kings who ruled only over Southern Babylonia used the double title "king of Sumer and Akkad," which was also employed by northern rulers who never established their sway farther south than Nippur, notably the great Assyrian conqueror Tiglath pileser III.

Professor McCurdy has very reasonably suggested 6 that the title "king of Sumer and Akkad" indicated merely a claim to the ancient territory and city of Akkad together with certain additional territory, but not necessarily all Babylonia, as was formerly believed.

The importance of Kutha as a religious and at one time also as a political centre led to his surviving the tendency to concentrate the various sun-cults of Babylonia in Shamash.

By the earlier Greek authors (Herodotus, Thucydides and often in Xenophon) it is rendered by i»rapxos lieutenant, governor," in the documents from Babylonia and Egypt and in Ezra and Nehemiah by pakha, " governor "; and the satrap Mazaeus of Cilicia and Syria in the time of Darius III.

It seems quite evident that the city of Assur was originally founded by Semites from Babylonia at quite an early, but as yet undetermined date.

The earliest dress of Babylonia also covered only the lower half of the body.

In old Babylonia both the arms and the whole of the right shoulder were originally uncovered, and one end of the garment was allowed to hang loose over the left arm.

In course of time various plaids or mantles are assumed, and in Babylonia the goddesses were the first to have both shoulders covered.

It appears in old Babylonia as a curved stick, and, like the club, is a distinctive symbol of god and king.

In Babylonia Naram-Sin in the guise of a god wears the pointed helmet and two great horns distinctive of the deities.3 This relationship between the gods and their human representatives is variously expressed.

About 141 he must have become master of Babylonia.

The disassociation from his local origin involved in this doctrine of the triad gave to Bel a rank independent of political changes, and we, accordingly, find Bel as a factor in the religion of Babylonia and Assyria to the latest days.

The monuments of Persepolis and the coins of the Sassanians show that the religious use of incense was as common in ancient Persia as in Babylonia and Assyria.

The preparation of pastils of incense has probably come down in a continuous tradition from ancient Egypt, Babylonia and Phoenicia.

The writers of antiquity clearly recognized this fact, speaking of the whole under the general name of Assyria, though Babylonia, as will be seen, would have been a more accurate designation.

Eastward rose the mountains of Elam, southward were the sea-marshes and the Kalda or Chaldaeans and other Aramaic tribes, while on the west the civilization of Babylonia encroached beyond the banks of the Euphrates, upon the territory of the Semitic nomads (or Suti).

The alluvial plain of Babylonia was called Edin, the Eden of Gen.

A more comprehensive name of southern Babylonia was Kengi, "the land," or Kengi Sumer, " the land of Sumer," for which Sumer alone came afterwards to be used.

Sumer has been supposed to be the original of the Biblical Shinar; but Shinar represented northern rather than southern Babylonia, and was probably the Sankhar of the Tell el-Amarna tablets (but see Sumer).

Opposed to Kengi and Sumer were Urra (Uri) and Akkad or northern Babylonia.

The rise of Sargon's empire was doubtless the cause of this extension of the name of Akkad; from henceforward, in the imperial title, Sumer and Akkad " denoted the whole of Babylonia.

After the Kassite conquest of the country, northern Babylonia came to be known as Kar-Duniyas, " the wall of the god Duniyas," from a line of fortification similar to that built by Nebuchadrezzar between Sippara and Opis, so as to defend his kingdom from attacks from the north.

The science of irrigation and engineering seems to have been first created in Babylonia, which was covered by a network of canals, all skilfully planned and regulated.

Thanks to this system of irrigation the cultivation of the soil was highly advanced in Babylonia.

Layard's discovery of the library of Assurbani-pal put the materials for reconstructing the ancient life and history of Assyria and Babylonia into the hands of scholars.

Two years later (1880-1881) Rassam was sent to Babylonia, where he discovered the site of the temple of the sun-god of Sippara at Abu-Habba, and so fixed the position of the two Sipparas or Sepharvaim.

In 1886-1887 a German expedition under Dr Koldewey explored the cemetery of El Hibba (immediately to the south of Tello), and for the first time made us acquainted with the burial customs of ancient Babylonia.

Even in the distant colony at Kara Euyuk near Kaisariyeh (Caesarea) in Cappadocia cuneiform tablets show that the Assyrian settlers used it in the 5th century B.C. In Babylonia a different system was adopted.

One of these is the so-called " Synchronous History of Assyria and Babylonia," consisting of brief notices, written by an Assyrian, of the occasions on which the kings of the two countries had entered into relation, hostile or otherwise, with one another; a second is the Babylonian Chronicle discovered by Dr Th.

The early existence of an accurate system of dating is not surprising; it was necessitated by the fact that Babylonia was a great trading community, in which it was not only needful that commercial and legal documents should be dated, but also that it should be possible to refer easily to the dates of former business transactions.

We may call the early civilization of Babylonia Sumerian.

When the Semites first entered the Edin or plain of Babylonia is uncertain, but it must have been at a remote period.

Here in Akkad the first Semitic empire was founded, Semitic conquerors or settlers spread from Sippara to Susa, Khana to the east of the Tigris was occupied by " West Semitic " tribes, and " out of " Babylonia " went forth the Assyrian."

As in Assyria, so too in the states of Babylonia the patesi or high-priest of the god preceded the king.

The god remained nominally at its head; but even this position was lost to him when Babylonia was unified under Semitic princes, and the earthly king became an incarnate god.

E-anna-du, the grandson of Ur-Nina, made himself master of the whole of southern Babylonia, including " the district of Sumer " together with the cities of Erech, Ur and Larsa (?).

E-anna-du's campaigns extended beyond the confines of Babylonia.

Here he had been rescued and brought up by " Akki the husbandman"; but the day arrived at length when his true origin became known, the crown of Babylonia was set upon his head and he entered upon a career of foreign conquest.

Four times he invaded Syria and Palestine, and spent three years in thoroughly subduing the countries of " the west," and in uniting them with Babylonia " into a single empire."

Elam and the northern part of Mesopotamia were also subjugated, and rebellions were put down both in Kazalla and in Babylonia itself.

He is even called " the god of Agade " (Akkad), reminding us of the divine honours claimed by the Pharaohs of Egypt, whose territory now adjoined that of Babylonia.

The seat of supreme power in Babylonia was shifted southwards to Isin and Ur.

It was probably Gungunu who succeeded in transferring the capital of Babylonia from Isin to Ur, but his place in the dynasty (or dynasties) is still uncertain.

After the fall of the dynasty, Babylonia passed under foreign influence.

Sumuabi (" Shem is my father "), from southern Arabia (or perhaps Canaan), made himself master of northern Babylonia, while Elamite invaders occupied the south.

The next two years were occupied in adding Larsa and Yamutbal to his dominion, and in forming Babylonia into a single monarchy, the head of which was Babylon.

Constant intercourse was kept up between Babylonia and the west, Babylonian officials and troops passing to Syria and Canaan, while " Amorite " colonists were established in Babylonia for the purposes of trade.

They were overthrown and Babylonia was conquered by Kassites or Kossaeans from the mountains of Elam, with whom Samsu-iluna had already come into conflict in his 9th year.

Under this foreign dominion, which offers a striking analogy to the contemporary rule of the Hyksos in Egypt, Babylonia lost its empire over western Asia, Syria and Palestine became independent, and the high-priests of Assur made themselves kings of Assyria.

The divine attributes with which the Semitic kings of Babylonia had been invested disappeared at the same time; the title of " god " is never given to a Kassite sovereign.

Assyria grew in power at the expense of Babylonia, and a time came when the Kassite king of Babylonia was glad to marry the daughter of Assur-yuballidh of Assyria, whose letters to Amenophis (Amon-hotep) IV.

Assur-yuballidh promptly marched into Babylonia and avenged his son-in-law, making Burna-buryas of the royal line king in his stead.

After his death, the Assyrians, who were still nominally the vassals of Babylonia, threw off neser L - g n a ll disguise, and Shalmaneser I.

Assyria had taken the place of Babylonia.

In 1107 B.C., however, he sustained a temporary defeat at the hands of Merodach-nadin-akhi (Marduknadin-akhe) of Babylonia, where the Kassite dynasty had finally succumbed to Elamite attacks and a new line of kings was on the throne.

For twelve years he successfully resisted the Assyrians; but the failure of his allies in the west to act in concert with him, and the overthrow of the Elamites, eventually compelled him to fly to his ancestral domains in the marshes of southern Babylonia.

His campaign against Hezekiah of Judah was as much a failure as his policy in Babylonia, and in his murder by his sons on the 10th of Tebet 681 B.C. both Babylonians and Jews saw the judgment of heaven.

Esar-haddon's policy was successful and Babylonia remained contentedly quiet throughout his reign.

Assur-bani-pal succeeded him as king of Assyria and its empire, while his brother, Samas-sumyukin, was made viceroy of Babylonia.

It had been drained of both wealth and fighting population; the devastated provinces of Elam and Babylonia could yield nothing with which to supply the needs of the imperial exchequer, and it was difficult to find sufficient troops even to garrison the conquered populations.

A contract has been found at Sippara, dated in the fourth year of Assur-etil-ilani, though it is possible that his rule in Babylonia was disputed by his Rab-shakeh (vizier), Assur-sum-lisir, whose accession year as king of Assyria occurs on a contract from Nippur (Niffer).

He was still reigning in Babylonia in his seventh year, as a contract dated in that year has been discovered at Erech, and an inscription of his, in which he speaks of restoring the ruined temples and their priests, couples Merodach of Babylon with Assur of Nineveh.

Babylonia, however, was again restless.

Nineveh was captured and destroyed by the Scythian army, along with those cities of northern Babylonia which had sided with Babylonia, and the Assyrian empire was at an end.

The seat of empire was now transferred to Babylonia.

Of the reign of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, however, and the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, we now have a fair amount of information.'

This is chiefly derived from a chronological tablet containing the annals of Nabonidus, which is supplemented by an inscription of Nabonidus, in which he recounts his restoration of the temple of the Moon-god at Harran, as well as by a proclamation of Cyrus issued shortly after his formal recognition as king of Babylonia.

In 538 B.C. Cyrus invaded Babylonia.

Nabonidus, in fact, had excited a strong feeling against himself by attempting to centralize the religion of Babylonia in the temple of Merodach (Marduk) at Babylon, and while he had thus alienated the local priesthoods the military party despised him on account of his antiquarian tastes.

E-Saggila, the great temple of Bel, however, still continued to be kept in repair and to be a centre of Babylonian patriotism, until at last the foundation of Seleucia diverted the population to the new capital of Babylonia and the ruins of the old city became a quarry for the builders of the new seat of government.'

Assyria and Babylonia contrasted.

Babylonia was a land of merchants and agriculturists; Assyria was an organized camp. The Assyrian dynasties were founded Dynasty of Isin of I i kings for 1324 years.

The people were soldiers and little else; even the sailor belonged to Babylonia.

There was little in Assyrian literature that was .original, and education, which was general in Babylonia, was in the northern kingdom confined for the most part to a single class.

In Babylonia it was of very old standing.

Among the other legends of Babylonia may be mentioned those of Namtar, the plague-demon, of Urra, the pestilence, of Etanna and of Zu.

Astronomy was of old standing in Babylonia, and the standard work on the subject, written from an astrological point of view, which was translated into Greek by Berossus, was believed to go back to the age of Sargon of Akkad.

The culture of Assyria, and still more of Babylonia, was essentially literary; we miss in it the artistic spirit of Egypt or Greece.

In Babylonia the abundance of clay and want of stone led to the employment of brick; the Babylonian temples are massive but shapeless structures of crude brick, supported by buttresses, the rain being carried off by drains, one of which at Ur was of lead.

Assyria in this, as in other matters, the servile pupil of Babylonia, built its palaces and temples of brick, though stone was the natural building material of the country, even preserving the brick platform, so necessary in the marshy soil of Babylonia, but little needed in the north.

In Babylonia, in place of the basrelief we have the figure in the round, the earliest examples being the statues from Tello which are realistic but somewhat clumsy.

The want of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious and led to a high perfection in the art of gem-cutting.

Copper, too, was worked with skill; indeed, it is possible that Babylonia was the original home of copper-working, which spread westward with the civilization to which it belonged.

The ceramic history of Babylonia and Assyria has unfortunately not yet been traced; at Susa alone has the care demanded by the modern methods of archaeology been as yet expended on examining and separating the pottery found in the excavations, and Susa is not Babylonia.

The scribes, on the other hand, formed a more important class in Assyria than in Babylonia.

Babylonia on the shores of the Persian Gulf; that its kings were contemporaneous with the later kings of Dynasty I.

Now the capture of the city of Isin by Rim-Sin, which took place in the seventeenth year of Sin-muballit, the father of Khammurabi, foamed an epoch for dating tablets in certain parts of Babylonia," and it is probable that we may identify the fall of the Dynasty of Isin with this capture of the city.

A peculiar difficulty arises in the case of the god of storms, who, written IM, was generally known in Babylonia as Ramman, " the thunderer," whereas in Assyria he also had the designation Adad.

In 1887 he published, from notes taken at the time, a record of his first journey to the East, entitled Early Adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia.

In Babylonia he built or restored the canals.

It was certainly known in Babylonia in the latter part of the 4th century, 2 and not improbably much later.

Many attempts have been made to trace the West Semitic Yahu back to Babylonia.

Such a theory must be mythical in form, and, after gods have arisen, is likely to be a theogony (0E6s, god) as well as a cosmogony (Babylonia, Egypt, Phoenicia, Polynesia).

Terah is said to have come from Ur of the Chaldees, usually identified with Mukayyar in south Babylonia.

This great ancestral figure came, it was said, from Ur in Babylonia and Haran and thence to Canaan.

Berossus, a priest of Belus living at Babylon in the 3rd century B.C., added to his historical account of Babylonia chronological list of its kings, which he claimed to have compiled from genuine archives preserved in the temple.

In the history of Babylonia, the fixed point from which time was reckoned was the era of Nabonassar, 747 B.C. Among the Greeks the reckoning was by Olympiads, the point of departure being the year in which Coroebus was victor in the Olympic Games, 776 B.C. The Roman chronology started from the foundation of the city, the year of which, however, was variously given by different authors.

The particular tablets in question date only from about the 7th century B.C., but it is agreed among Assyriologists that they are copies of older texts current in Babylonia for many centuries before, and it is obvious that the compilers of Genesis had access to the Babylonian stories.

These letters came to the king from almost every part of western Asia, including Palestine and Phoenicia, Babylonia and Asia Minor.

The excavations in the other larger mound resulted in the discovery of the remains of buildings containing objects of all sorts in bronze and stone, dating from the earliest Sumerian period onward, and enabling us to trace the art history of Babylonia to a date some hundreds of years before the time of Gudea.

The objects found at Tello are the most valuable art treasures up to this time discovered in Babylonia.

The origin of the story has not been found in Babylonia.

Raba founded a new school at Mahuza, which eventually became so long as Raba lived the only academy in Babylonia (Persia).

His wisdom excelled that of Egypt and of the children of the East; by the latter may be meant Babylonia, or more probably the Arabs, renowned through all ages for their shrewdness.

The special god of this city was Ea, god of the sea and of wisdom, and the prominence given to this god in the incantation literature of Babylonia and Assyria suggests not only that many of our magical texts are to be traced ultimately to the temple of Ea at Eridu, but that this side of the Babylonian religion had its origin in that place.

In Babylonia, however, he continued to be known as Pulu.

The next year Tiglath-Pileser entered Babylonia, but it was not until 729 B.C. that the Chaldaean prince Ukin-zer (Chinzirus) was driven from Babylon and Tiglath-Pileser acknowledged as its legitimate ruler.

The investigations which have been carried on in recent years by King, Tallquist and Zimmern, as well as by Briinnow and Craig, on the magic and ritual of Babylonia and Assyria have been fruitful of results.

The question, however, remains to be settled how far the officials and their functions, which in the much more highly developed civilization of Babylonia came to be differentiated and specialized, can be strictly included under the functions of priesthood.

Also compare Jastrow's Religion of Babylonia (1898), ch.

Babylonia had already been conquered as far as the marshes of the Chaldaeans in the south, and the Babylonian king put to death.

The exact dates of events in Hebrew history can be determined only when the figures given in the Old Testament can be checked and, if necessary, corrected by the contemporary monuments of Assyria and Babylonia, or (as in the post-exilic period) by the knowledge which we independently possess of the chronology of the Persian kings.

Many monuments and inscriptions of other kings in Babylonia, between 4000 and 2000 B.C., are also known.

Palestinian origin, although the main redaction was made in Babylonia.'

Johns (Interpreter, April 1 9 06, "The Prophets of Babylonia") thinks that longer discourses moral, and predictive, fully equal to those of the Hebrew prophets, existed in Babylonia as early as the 3rd millennium B.C. but were curtailed into the brief sentences of the omen tablets.

A theory that Jeremiah was similarly influenced from Babylonia might seem more plausible, though equally baseless.

Evidence seems to favour the view that Ramman was the name current in Babylonia, whereas Adad was more common in Assyria.

On the other hand the cult of a specific storm-god in ancient Babylonia is vouched for by the occurrence of the sign Im - the "Sumerian" or ideographic writing for Adad-Ramman - as an element in proper names of the old Babylonian period.

However this name may have originally been pronounced, so much is certain, - that through Aramaic influences in Babylonia and Assyria he was identified with the storm-god of the western Semites, and a trace of this influence is to be seen in the designation Amurru, also given to this god in the religious literature of Babylonia, which as an early name for Palestine and Syria describes the god as belonging to the Amorite district.

The process of assimilation did not proceed so far in Babylonia and Assyria, but Shamash and Adad became in combination the gods of oracles and of divination in general.

Babylonia had this unit nearly as early as Egypt.

Buildings in Assyria and Babylonia show 20.5 to 20.6.

It originated in Babylonia as the foot of that system (24), in accordance with the sexary system applied to the early decimal division of the cubit.

The great standard of Babylonia became the parent of several other systems; and itself and its derivatives became more widely spread than any other standard.

More likely then the 147 and 129 units originated independently in Egypt and Babylonia.

There was a quarter or suburb of the old Babylonian city of Lagash whose name was written in the same way; this may possibly have been the home of those settlers from Babylonia who gave its name to the Assyrian city.

As the father connected himself at a later period with the confession of the Moghtasilah, or "Baptists," in southern Babylonia, the son also was brought up in the religious doctrines and exercises of this sect.

The extracts containing the Babylonian cosmology, the list of the antediluvian kings of Babylonia, and the Chaldaean story of the Deluge, have been shown by the decipherment of the cuneiform texts to have faithfully reproduced the native legends; we may, therefore, conclude that the rest of the History was equally trustworthy.

From other sources we obtain no information whatever about Phraortes; but the data of the Assyrian inscriptions prove that Assur-banipal (see Babylonia And Assyria), at least during the greater part of his reign, maintained the Assyrian supremacy in Western Asia, and that in 645 he conquered Susa.

The name was not distinctive enough from the point of view of Babylonia, which belonged to the same water system.

It appears to have denoted the territory above Babylonia stretching from Anshan in the southeast north-westwards, across the Tigris-Euphrates district, indefinitely towards Asia Minor.

It would thus include the country lying between Babylonia on the south and the Armenian Taurus highlands on the north, the maritime Syrian district on the west, and Assyria proper on the east.

In the tract defined, physical changes unconnected with civilization have been slight as compared with those in Babylonia; the two great rivers, having cut themselves deep channels, could not shift their courses far.

Functionally, Mesopotamia is the domain that lies between Babylonia and the related trans-Tigris districts on the one hand, and the west Asian districts of Maritime Syria and Asia Minor on the other.

Excavation in Mesopotamia may in time cast some light on the questions whether the Semites really reached Babylonia by way of Mesopotamia,' when, and whom they found there, and whether they partly settled there by the way.

Mitanni was one of the great powers, alongside of Egypt and Babylonia, able to send to Egypt the Ninevite 'Ishtar; and at this time as much as at any Ungnad, Beitr.

It is improbable that cuneiform and the Babylonion language continued to be used in Mesopotamia during the Hellenistic period, as it did in Babylonia, where it was certainly written as late as the last century B.C.;1 and may have been a learned language till the second Christian century.

The tablets which reveal this state of affairs are written in the language and script of Babylonia, and thus show indirectly the extent to which Babylonian culture had penetrated Palestine and Phoenicia; at the same time they illustrate the closeness of the relations between the Canaanite towns and the dominant power of Egypt.

The wider extension of the use of Amurru by the Babylonians and Assyrians is complicated by the fact that it was even applied to a district in the neighbourhood of Babylonia.

It was formerly thought that Shumer was employed especially to denote the south of Babylonia, while Akkad was used only of the north, but this view is no longer regarded as tenable.

It is more probable that the expression Shumer designated the whole of Babylonia in much the same manner as did Akkad, and that the two words "Shumer and Akkad " were used together as a comprehensive term.

That Shumer actually did mean all Babylonia appears evident from the biblical use of Shinar=Shumer to describe the district which contained the four chief Babylonian cities, viz.

Furthermore, the fact that the Syriac Sen'ar = Shinar was later used to denote the region about Bagdad (northern Babylonia) does not necessarily prove that Shinar-Shumer meant only northern Babylonia, because, when the term Sen'ar was applied to the Bagdad district the great southern Babylonian civilization had long been forgotten and " Babylonia " really meant only what we now know as northern Babylonia.

The form imgir (imgur), however, as a place-name for Babylonia is uncertain.

For many centuries Assur and the surrounding district, which came accordingly to be called the land of Assur (Assyria), were governed by high-priests under the suzerainty of Babylonia.

Accordingly, in 1867, Smith was appointed assistant in the Assyriology department, and the earliest of his successes was the discovery of two inscriptions, one fixing the date of the total eclipse of the sun in the month Sivan in May 763 B.C., and the other the date of an invasion of Babylonia by the Elamites in 2280 B.C. In 1871 he published Annals of Assur-bani-pal, transliterated and translated, and communicated to the newlyfounded Society of Biblical Archaeology a paper on "The Early History of Babylonia," and an account of his decipherment of the Cypriote inscriptions.

A list is given (fragmentary) of other Greek cities in Babylonia and beyond from which similar decrees had come.

Soon after 130 Babylonia too was conquered by the Parthian, and Mesopotamia before 88.

In Babylonia, also, in Susiana and Mesopotamia, Hellenism had been established in a system of cities for 200 years before the coming of the Parthian.

It superseded Babylon as the industrial focus of Babylonia and counted some 600,000 inhabitants (plebs urbana) according to Pliny, N.H.

It is enough then here to observe that Iran and Babylonia do, as a matter of fact, continually yield the explorer objects of workmanship either Greek or influenced by Greek models, belonging to the age after Alexander, and that we may hence infer at any rate such an influence of Hellenism upon the tastes of the richer classes as would create a demand for these things.

A myth (preserved by Berosus) records that Oannes (Hea) the fish-god came up from that part of the Erythraean Sea which borders on Babylonia, to teach the inhabitants of that country letters and sciences and arts of every kind.

It was the site of a famous temple, E-Nannar, "house of Nannar," and the chief seat in Babylonia of the worship of the moon-god, Nannar, later known as Sin.

While the cult of the other great gods and goddesses of Babylonia was transferred to Assyria, the worship of Assur so overshadowed that of the rest as to give the impression of a decided tendency towards the absorption of all divine powers by the one god.

Even during the period that the Assyrian monarchs exercised complete sway over the south, they rested their claims to the control of Babylonia on the approval of Marduk, and they or their representatives never failed to perform the ceremony of "taking the hand" of Marduk, which was the formal method of assuming the throne in Babylonia.

With the fall of Assyria the rule of Assur also comes to an end, whereas it is significant that the cult of the gods of Babylonia - more particularly of Marduksurvives for several centuries the loss of political independence through Cyrus' capture of Babylonia in 539 B.C. The name of Assur's temple at Assur, represented by the mounds of Kaleh Sherghat, was known as E-khar-sag-gal-kur-kurra, i.e.

Thus Palestine lay at the gate of Arabia and Egypt, and at the tail end of a number of small states stretching up into Asia Minor; it was encircled by the famous ancient civilizations of Babylonia,.

At all events during the last centuries of the third millennium B.C., remarkable for the high state of civilization in Babylonia, Egypt and Crete, Palestine shares in the active life and intercourse of the age; and while its fertile fields are visited by Egypt, Babylonia (under Gimil-Sin, Gudea and Sargon) claims some supremacy over the west as far as the Mediterranean.

Apart from rather disconnected details which belong properly to the history of Babylonia and Egypt, it is not until about the 16th century B.C. that Palestine appears in the clear light of history, and henceforth its course can be traced with some sort of continuity.

However profound the influence of Babylonia may have been, excavation has discovered comparatively few specific traces of it.

Judah itself was next involved in an anti-Assyrian league (with Edom, Moab and Philistia), but apparently submitted in time; nevertheless a decade later (70r), after the change of dynasty in Assyria, it participated in a great but unsuccessful effort from Phoenicia to Philistia to shake off the yoke, and suffered disastrously.3 With the crushing blows upon Syria and Samaria the centre of interest moves southwards and the history is influenced by Assyria's rival Babylonia (under Marduk-baladan and his successors), by north Arabia and by Egypt.

After a career of success he captured Babylonia (553) and forthwith claimed, in his famous inscription, the submission of Amor.

Amid internal and external difficulties Nehemiah proceeds to repair religious and social abuses, and there is an important return of exiles from Babylonia.

There is indeed a development, but it is none the less noteworthy that the post-exilic priestly ritual preserves in the worship of the universal and only God Yahweh, Develop- rites, practices and ideas which can be understood only in the light of other nature-religions, especially that of Babylonia, with which there are striking parallels.'

Specific influence on the part of Babylonia is not excluded; but the absence of striking points of agreement in other portions of the Old Testament may not be due to anything else than the particular character of the circles to which they belonged.

Moreover, among the Jewish families settled in the 5th century B.C. in Egypt (Elephantine) and Babylonia (Nippur), the Babylonian-Assyrian principles are in vogue, and the presumption that they were not unfamiliar in Palestine is strengthened further by the otherwise unaccountable appearance of Babylonian-Assyrian elements later in the Talmudic law.

Historical material after 586 is scanty in the extreme, and, apart from the records of Nehemiah and a few other passages, the interest lies in the religious history of the communities and reformers who returned from Babylonia.

In both Babylonia and Egypt it was an age of revival, but there was no longer any vitality in the old soil.

Ptolemy marched triumphantly into the heart of the Seleucid realm, as far at any rate as Babylonia, and received the formal submission of the provinces of Iran, while his fleets in the Aegean recovered what his father had lost upon the seaboard, and made fresh conquests as far as Thrace.

The development of the religion of Babylonia, so far as it can be traced with the material at hand, follows closely along the lines of the periods to be distinguished in the history of the Euphrates valley.

There are some reasons for believing that the oldest seat, and possibly the original seat, of the Anu cult was in Erech, as it is there where the Ishtar cult that subsequently spread throughout Babylonia and Assyria took its rise.

The system represents a harmonious combination of two factors, one of popular origin, the other the outcome of speculation in the schools attached to the temples of Babylonia.

It left its trace in incantations, omens and hymns, and it gave birth to astronomy, which was assiduously cultivated because a knowledge of the heavens was the very foundation of the system of belief unfolded by the priests of Babylonia and Assyria.

It is significant that in the royal collection of cuneiform literature made by King Assur-bani-pal of Assyria (668-626 B.C.) and deposited in his palace at Nineveh, the omen collections connected with the astral theology of Babylonia and Assyria form the largest class.

In another division of the religious literature of Babylonia which is largely represented in Assur-bani-pal's collection - the myths and legends - tales which originally symbolized the change of seasons, or in which historical occurrences are overcast with more or less copious admixture of legend and myth, were transferred to the heavens, and so it happens that creation myths, and the accounts of wanderings and adventures of heroes of the past, are referred to movements among the planets and stars as well as to occurrences or supposed occurrences on earth.

On the ethical side, the religion of Babylonia more particularly, and to a less extent that of Assyria, advances to noticeable conceptions of the qualities associated with the gods and goddesses and of the duties imposed on man.

The impetus to the purification of the old Semite religion to which the Hebrews for a long time clung in common with their fellows - the various branches of nomadic Arabs - was largely furnished by the remarkable civilization unfolded in the Euphrates valley and in many of the traditions, myths and legends embodied in the Old Testament; traces of direct borrowing from Babylonia may be discerned, while the indirect influences in the domain of the prophetical books, as also in the Psalms and in the so-called "Wisdom Literature," are even more noteworthy.

On the religious literature of Babylonia and Assyria, see also chapters xv.

One stratum is marked by painted pottery of good make, similar to that found in a corresponding stratum in Susa, and resembling the early pottery of the Aegean region more closely than any later pottery found in Babylonia.

After the middle of the 12th century follows another long period of comparative neglect, but with the conquest of Babylonia by the Assyrian Sargon, at the close of the 8th century B.C., we meet again with building inscriptions, and under Assur-bani-pal, about the middle of the 7th century, we find E-kur restored with a splendour greater than ever before, the ziggurat of that period being 190 ft.

For it strikingly illustrates the fact that the temple of En-lil, like that of the Sun-god at Sippar and the other great temples in Babylonia, possessed a body of mythological and religious texts, which formed subjects for study and comment among the priestly scribes.

The temple of E-kur thus formed no exception to the rule that the great temples of Babylonia were centres of literary, as well as of religious, activity.

In a short time they had taken from the Aryans all the principal old Semitic lands - Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria and Babylonia.

The kingdoms of Ghassan and Hira, advanced posts hitherto, now became the headquarters of the Arabs; the new empire had its centres on the one hand at Damascus, on the other hand at Kufa and Basra, the two newly-founded cities in the region of old Babylonia.

Here the Assyrian record ends somewhat abruptly, for, in the meanwhile, Babylonia had again revolted (700 B.C.) and Sennacherib's presence was urgently needed nearer home.

Politically it came into special prominence at the time of the Elamite conquest, when it was made the centre of Elamite dominion in Babylonia, perhaps as a special check upon the neighbouring Erech, which had played a prominent part in the resistance to the Elamites.

In Babylonia, however, learning still flourished, and with Rab Ashi (352-427) the arranging of the present framework of the Gemara may have been taken in hand.

The " canonical " Mishnah and Gemara were now the objects of study, and the scattered Jews appealed to the central bodies of Judaism in Babylonia for information and guidance.

But it is uncertain how far the doctrines of Judaism were influenced by Christianity, and it is even disputed whether the Talmud and Midrashim may be used to estimate Jewish thought 1 There are many details in the Talmud which cannot be dated; if some are obviously contemporary, others find parallels in Ancient Babylonia, for example in the code of Hammurabi.

But whereas Assyria takes the first place in the classical accounts to the exclusion of Babylonia, the decipherment of the inscriptions has proved that the converse was really the case, and that, with the exception of some seven or eight centuries, Assyria might be described as a province or dependency of Babylon.

Not only was Babylonia the mother country, as the tenth chapter of Genesis explicitly states, but the religion and culture, the literature and the characters in which it was contained, the arts and the sciences of the Assyrians were derived from their southern neighbours.

Colebrooke, began to make known the treasures of Sanskrit literature, which the great scholars of Germany and France proceeded to develop. In Egypt the discovery of the Rosetta stone placed the key to the hieroglyphics within Western reach; and the decipherment of the cuneiform character enabled the patient scholars of Europe to recover the clues to the contents of the ancient libraries of Babylonia and Assyria.

The mysterious fish-man Oannes,who taught the primitive inhabitants of Babylonia, according to Alexander Polyhistor, has been identified with Ea, god of the deep, the source of wisdom, culture and social order.

At its foot passes the great road which leads from Babylonia (Bagdad) to the highlands of Media (Ecbatana, Hamadan).

The variation may have been one of local use, either in Judea or in Babylonia; or the author may have had some fanciful reason for the transposition, such as, for example, that Pe following Samech (mo) might suggest the word nmo, " Wail ye!

A similar position was attained by Seleucusthe only one of the diadochi, who had not divorced his Persian wife, Apamain Babylonia, which he governed from 319 to 316 and regained in the autumn of 312.

This was followed by a series of other foundations in Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Susiana (EIam).

In the west he conquered Media, and thence subdued Babylonia.

Antiochus pressed successfully on, and once more recovered Babylonia, but in 129 was defeated in Media and fell in a desperate struggle.

There were indeed vassal states on every hand, but the actual possessions of the kingsthe provinces governed by their satrapsconsisted of a rather narrow strip of land, stretching from the Euphrates and north Babylonia through southern Media and Parthia as far as Arachosia (north-west Afghanistan), and following the course of the great trade-route which from time immemorial had carried the traffic between the west of Asia and India.

In the south of Babylonia, in the district of Mesene (the modern Maisan), after the fall of Antiochus Sidetes (129 s.c.), an Arabian prince, Hyspaosines or Spasines (in a cuneiform inscription of 127, on a clay tablet dated after this year, he is called Aspasine) founded a kingdom which existed till the rise of the Sassanian Empire.

In pursuance of this plan he reduced Armenia, Mesopotamia and Babylonia to the position of imperial provinces.

That Babylonia permanently remained a Sassanian province was due merely to the geographical conditions and to the political situation of the Roman Empire, not to the strength of the Persians.

Babylonia and Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Rome alike contribute to our inheritance of letters.

Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Boston, 1898); see also BABYLON, BABEL.

He had been publicly nominated king of Assyria (on the 12th of Iyyar) by his father Esar-haddon, some time before the latter's death, Babylonia being assigned to his twinbrother Samas-sum-yukin, in the hope of gratifying the national feeling of the Babylonians.

See Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, Religion of Ancient Babylonia, p. 129.

In Babylonia, moreover, discontent was arising, and finally Samas-sum-yukin put himself at the head of the national party and declared war upon his brother.

The great library of Nineveh was to a considerable extent his creation, and scribes were kept constantly employed in it copying the older tablets of Babylonia, though unfortunately their patron's tastes inclined rather to omens and astrology than to subjects of more modern interest.

Whether Kandalanu (Kineladanos), who became viceroy of Babylonia after the suppression of the revolt, was Assur-bani-pal under another name, or a different personage, is still doubtful (see Sardanapalus).

In 312 Ptolemy, with Seleucus, the fugitive satrap of Babylonia, invaded Palestine and beat Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, in the great battle of Gaza.

The objects excavated by Place, together with the objects found by Fresnel's expedition in Babylonia and a part of the results of Rawlinson's excavations at Nineveh, were unfortunately lost in the Tigris, on transport from Bagdad to Basra.

On the clay stoppers of wine jars of the remote age which goes by the name of the pre-dynastic period, and which preceded the historic period of the first Pharaohs, there are seal impressions which must have been produced from matrices, like those of Babylonia and Assyria, of the cylinder type, the impress of the design having been repeated as the cylinder was rolled along the surface of the moist clay.

The expressions "Chaldaea r" and "Chaldaeans" are frequently used in the Old Testament as equivalents for "Babylonia" and "Babylonians."

When subsequently the Babylonian language went out of use and Aramaic took its place, the latter tongue was wrongly termed "Chaldee" by Jerome, because it was the only language known to him used in Babylonia.

Friedrich Delitzsch derived the name "Chaldaean" = Kasdim from the non-Semitic Kassites who held the supremacy over practically all Babylonia during an extended period (c. 1783-1200 B.C.).

It is reasonable to conjecture that southern Babylonia, the home of the old culture, supplied Babylon and other important cities with priests, who from their descent were correctly called "Chaldaeans."

Antigonus again claimed authority over the whole of Asia, seized the treasures at Susa, and entered Babylonia, of which Seleucus was governor.

There has also to be considered whether the text of the poetical passages has not often become corrupt, not only from ordinary causes but through the misunderstanding and misreading of north Arabian names on the part of late scribes and editors, the danger to Judah from north Arabia being (it is held) not less in pre-exilic times than the danger from Assyria and Babylonia, so that references to north Arabia are only to be expected.

It was long thought, for example, that Aramaic was the vernacular of Babylonia and was consequently employed as the language of the parts relating to that country.

The prominence given to Edom, and the fact that Chaldea is not mentioned at all, make it probable that the passage was not written in Babylonia.

After the overthrow of Babylonia by the Persians, Cyrus gave the Jews permission to return to their native land (537 B.C.), and more then forty thousand are said to have availed themselves of the privilege.

The tablets dated from his reign in Babylonia go down to the end of his eighth year, i.e.

After the days of Khammurabi, the cult of Marduk eclipses that of Bel (q.v.), and although during the five centuries of Cassite control in Babylonia (c.1750-1200B.C.), Nippur and the cult of the older Bel enjoy a period of renaissance, when the reaction ensued it marked the definite and permanent triumph of Marduk over Bel until the end of the Babylonian empire.

So far as one can speak of a monotheistic tendency in Babylonia it connects itself with this conception that was gradually crystallized in regard to the old solar deity of Babylon.

But in justice to this scholar we may notice that from the first he looked for light to Babylonia, and that many other critics now take up the same I Kautzsch, Old Testament Literature (1898), p. 130.