The Struggle of the Nations. Egypt, Syria, and Assyria ... Edited by A. H. Sayce. Translated by M. L. McClure. With map ... and ... illustrations

Front matter

£^7AZ&izz^>^cy~ cJ2StÆ> _/" ( Gizeh Museum j Printed in Trance THE STRUGGLE OF THE NATIONS EGYPT, SYRIA, AND ASSYRIA BY G. MASPEKO HON. D.C.L. AND FELLOW OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, AND PROFESSOR AT THE COLLEGE OF FRANCE EDITED BY A. H. SAYCE PROFESSOR OF ASSYRIOLOGY, OXFORD TRANSLATED BY M. L. McCLURE MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND WITH MAP, THREE COLOURED PLATES, AND OVER 400 ILLUSTRATIONS. LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C. [published under the direction of the general literature committee.] EDITOR'S

Preface

. It is my pleasant lot to introduce to the English reader another volume of Professor Maspero's important work. It is no longer the Dawn of Civiliza tion in which we find ourselves, but the full light of an advanced culture. The nations of the ancient East are no longer each pursuing an isolated existence, and separately developing the seeds of civilization and culture on the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia and Africa have met in mortal combat. Babylonia has carried its empire to the frontiers of Egypt, and Egypt itself has been held in bondage by the Hyksos strangers from Asia. In return, Egypt has driven back the wave of invasion to the borders of Mesopotamia, has substituted an empire of its own in Syria for that of the Babylonians, and has forced the Babylonian king to treat with its Pharaoh on equal terms.

In the track of war and diplomacy have come trade and commerce ; Western Asia is covered with roads, along which the merchant and the courier travel incessantly, and the whole civilised world of the Orient is knit together in a common literary culture and common commercial interests. The age of isolation has thus been succeeded by an age of intercourse, partly military and antagonistic, partly literary and peaceful. Professor Maspero paints for us this age of intercourse, describes its rise and character, its decline and fall. For the unity of Eastern civilization was again shattered. The Hittites descended from the ranges of the Taurus upon the Egyptian province of Northern Syria, and cut off the Semites of the west from those of the east. The Israelites poured over the Jordan out of Edom and Moab, and took possession of Canaan, while Babylonia itself, for so many centuries the ruling power of the Oriental world, had to make way for its upstart rival Assyria.

The old imperial powers were exhausted and played out, and it needed time before the new forces which were to take their place could acquire sufficient strength for their work. As usual, Professor Maspero has been careful to embody in his history the a EDITOB'S PBEFACE. IV very latest discoveries and information. Notice, it will be found, has been taken even of the stda of Meneptah, disinterred last spring by Professor Petrie, on which the name of the Israelites is engraved. Other discoveries of the past year which relate to the period covered by the Dawn of Civilization must wait to be noticed until a new edition of that volume is called for. Thus, at Elephantine, I found last winter, on a granite boulder, an inscription of Khufuankh — whose sarcophagus of red granite is one of the most beautiful objects in the Gizeh Museum — which carries back the history of the island to the age of the pyramid-builders of the fourth dynasty.

The boulder was subsequently concealed under the southern side of the city-wall, and as fragments of inscribed papyrus coeval with the sixth dynasty have been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood, on one of which mention is made of " this domain " of Pepi II., it would seem that the town of Elephantine must have been founded between the period of the fourth dynasty and that of the sixth. Manetho is therefore justified in making the fifth and sixth dynasties of Elephantine origin. It is in Babylonia, however, that the most startling discoveries have been made. At Tello, M. de Sarzec has found a library of more than thirty thousand tablets, all neatly arranged, piled in order one on the other, and belonging to the age of Gudea (b.c. 2700). Many more tablets of an early date have been unearthed at Abu-Habba (Sippara) and Jokha (Isin) by Dr. Scheil, working for the Turkish government.

But the most important finds have been at Niffer, the ancient Nippur, in Northern Babylonia, where the American ex pedition has at last brought to a close its long work of systematic excavation. Here Mr. Haynes has dug down to the very foundations of the great temple of El-lil, and the chief historical results of his labours have been published by Professor Hilprecht (in The Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania, vol. i. pt. 2, 1896). About midway between the summit and the bottom of the mound, Mr. Haynes laid bare a pavement constructed of huge bricks stamped with the names of Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin. He found also the ancient wall of the city, which had been built by Naram-Sin, 13-75 metres wide. The debris of ruined buildings which lies below the pavement of Sargon is as much as 9*25 metres in depth, while that above it, the topmost stratum of which brings us down to the Christian era, is only 11 metres in height.

We may form some idea from this of the enormous age to which the history of Babylonian culture and writing reaches back. In fact, Professor Hilprecht quotes with approval Mr. Haynes's words : " We must cease to apply the adjective 'earliest' to the time of Sargon, or to any age or epoch within a EDITORS PBEFACE. V thousand years of his advanced civilization." " The golden age of Babylonian history seems to include the reign of Sargon and of Ur-Gur." Many of the inscriptions which belong to this remote age of human culture have been published by Professor Hilprecht. Among them is a long inscription, in 1S2 lines, engraved on multitudes of large stone vases presented to the temple of El-lil by a certain Lugal-zaggisi. Lugal-zaggisi was the son of Ukus, the patesi or high priest of the " Land of the Bow," as Mesopotamia, with its Bedawin inhabitants, was called.

He not only conquered Babylonia, then known as Kengi, " the land of canals and reeds," but founded an empire which extended from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. This was centuries before Sargon of Akkad followed in his footsteps. Erech became the capital of Lugal-zaggisi's empire, and doubtless received at this time its Sumerian title of " the city " par excellence. For a long while previously there had been war between Babylonia and the "Land of the Bow," whose rulers seem to have established themselves in the city of Kis. At one time we find the Babylonian prince En-sag(sag)-ana capturing Kis aud its king; at another time it is a king of Kis who makes offerings to the god of Nippur, in gratitude for his victories. To this period belongs the famous " Stela of the Vultures " found at Tello, on whicli is depicted the victory of E-dingir-ana-gin, the King of Lagas (Tello), over the Semitic hordes of the Land of the Bow.

It may be noted that the recent discoveries have shown how correct Professor Maspero has been in assigning the kiDgs of Lagas to a period earlier than that of Sargon of Akkad. Professor Hilprecht would place E-dingir-ana-gin after Lugal-zaggisi, and see in the Stela of the Vultures a monument of the revenge taken by the Sumerian rulers of Lagas for the conquest of the country by the inhabitants of the north. But it is equally possible that it marks the successful reaction of Chaldæa against the power established by Lugal-zaggisi. However this may be, the dynasty of Lagas (to which Professor Hilprecht has lately added a new king, En-Khegal) reigned in peace for some time, and belonged to the same age as the first dynasty of Ur. This was founded by a certain Lugal-kigub nidudu, whose inscriptions have been found at Niffer.

The dynasty which arose at Ur in later days (cir. B.C. 2700), under Ur-Gur and Dungi, which has hitherto been known as " the first dynasty of Ur," is thus dethroned from its position, and becomes the second. The succeeding dynasty, which also made Ur its capital, and whose kings, Ine-Sin, Pur-Sin II., and Gimil-Sin, were the immediate predecessors of the first dynasty of Babylon (to which Khammurabi belonged), must henceforth be termed the third. Among the latest acquisitions from Tello are the seals of the patesi, EDITORS

PREFACE.

. VI Lugal-usumgal, which finally remove all doubt as to the identity of " Sargani, king of the city," with the famous Sargon of Akkad. The historical accuracy of Sargon's annals, moreover, have been fully vindicated. Not only have the American excavators found the contemporary monuments of him and his son Naram-Sin, but also tablets dated in the years of his campaigns against " the land of the Amorites." In short, Sargon of Akkad, so lately spoken of as " a half-mythical" personage, has now emerged into the full glare of authentic history. That the native chronologists had sufficient material for reconstructing the past history of their country, is also now clear. The early Babylonian contract-tablets are dated by events which officially distinguished the several years of a king's reign, and tablets have been discovered compiled at the close of a reign which give year by year the events which thus characterised them.

One of these tablets, for example, from the excavations at Niffer, begins with the words: (1) "The year when Pur-Sin (II.) becomes king. (2) The year when Pur-Sin the king conquers Urbillum," and ends with "the year when Gimil-Sin becomes King of Ur, and conquers the land of Zabsali" in the Lebanon. Of special interest to the biblical student are the discoveries made by Mr. Pinches among some of the Babylonian tablets which have recently been acquired by the British Museum. Four of them relate to no less a personage than Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, " King of Elam," as well as to Eri-Aku or Arioch, King of Larsa, and his son Dur-makh-ilani ; to Tudghula or Tid'al, the son of Gazza[ni], and to their war against Babylon in the time of Khammu[rabi]. In one of the texts the question is asked, " Who is the son of a king's daughter who has sat on the throne of royalty ?

Dur-makh-ilani, the son of Eri-Aku, the son of the lady Kur . . . has sat on the throne of royalty," from which it may perhaps be inferred that Eri-Aku was the son of Kudur- Laghghamar's daughter ; and in another we read, " Who is Kudur-Laghghamar, the doer of mischief? He has gathered together the Umman Manda, has devastated the land of Bel (Babylonia), aud [has marched] at their side." The Umman Manda were the " Barbarian Hordes " of the Kurdish mountains, on the northern frontier of Elam, and the name corresponds with that of the Goyyim or " nations " in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. We here see Kudur-Laghghamar acting as their suzerain lord. Unfortunately, all four tablets are in a shockingly broken condition, and it is therefore difficult to discover in them a continuous sense, or to determine their precise nature.

They have, however, just been supplemented by further discoveries made by Dr. Scheil at Constantinople. Among the tablets preserved there, he has EDITOR'S

PREFACE.

. VII found letters from Khammurabi to his vassal Sin-idinnam of Larsa, from which we learn that Sin-idinnam had been dethroned by the Elamites Kudur-Mabug and Eri-Aku, and had fled for refuge to the court of Khammurabi at Babylon. In the war which subsequently broke out between Khammurabi and Kudur- Laghghamar, the King of Elam (who, it would seem, exercised suzerainty over Babylonia for seven years), Sin-idinnam gave material assistance to tlie Babylonian monarch, and Khammurabi accordingly bestowed presents upon him as a "recompense for his valour on the day of the overthrow of Kudur- Laghghamar." I must not conclude this Preface without referring to a fine scarab — found in the rubbish-mounds of the ancient city of Kom Ombos, in Upper Egypt — which bears upon it the name of Sutkhu-Apopi.

It shows us that the author of the story of the Expulsion of the Hyksos, in calling the king Ra-Apopi, merely, like an orthodox Egyptian, substituted the name of the god of Heliopolis for that of the foreign deity. Equally interesting are the scarabs brought to light by Professor Flinders Petrie, on which a hitherto unknown Ya'aqob-hal or Jacob-el receives the titles of a Pharaoh. A. H. SAYCE. TRANSLATOR'S

PREFACE.

. In presenting to the public Professor Maspero's latest volume, the " Premieres Melees des Peuplps," in its English form, I have little to add to the words I prefixed to the first volume of the series. I have in the present, as in the previous work, preserved Professor Maspero's spelling of the Egyptian proper names, inserting in the Index the forms in general use among English Egyptologists. With regard to such Syrian personal and place names as occur in the Bible, I have followed, the spelling of the Revised Version; though here, as in the Assyrian portion of the work, the forms represented on the monuments, whether cuneiform texts, Tel el-Amarna tablets, or Egyptian hieroglyphs, are also given. While this translation was passing through the press, fresh discoveries were made which have thrown further light upon a few points dealt with in the text, and in these cases the Editor or Translator has ventured to add such short notes as seemed needful.

As an example of these, I may call attention to the notes on p. 29, in which Professor Hommel's unhesitating identification of Khammurabi with the Amraphel of Genesis xiv. 1 is given, and also the true reading of Rim-Sin as determined by Mr. Pinches. I have not referred in the notes to Professor Hommel's letter in the Academy of October 17th last, dealing with the word " Arpachshad," which he considers to be an Egypticised form of the territorial name " Ur Kasdim," or " Ur of the Chaldees." This important elucidation of an ethnological term occurring in Genesis x., in a passage ascribed by recent critics ta the time of the Exile, will doubtless receive the consideration it merits. M. L. McCLURE. London, November 14, 1896. BOfiDER OF THE FUNERAL PALL OF QUEEN ISIMKHOBIU CONTENTS