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and the nether world, while his partner was called Ê-harsag, the Lady of the Mountain. Turning to the gods of the second rank, we find that Ea had a son and a daughter: Tammuz, the Adonis of the Greeks, and Nina. The latter gave her name to Nineveh: she sprang from the sea, as Venus did, and was essentially the same goddess as Ishtar, the Aphrodite of the Greeks. In the same way Ellil had a son, who answered to Tammuz, and whose name has been variously read as Adar, Uras, and Ninip. But in the monuments to be presently described he is called Ên-Girsu; that is, the lord of the town of Girsu. The name, according to Professor Sayce, was pronounced Ingirisa. He was apparently a solar god, and is qualified as the Warrior of Ellil, and is made the father of two or three other gods. At Erech, a famous goddess, frequently mentioned in early times, was Nana, or the Lady, the direct antitype of Ishtar, or Ashtoreth. She was called the daughter of Anna, and her great temple was the temple of Eanna. En-Girsu is made the father of the gods Dun Shagana and Galalima. From this short summary of the Chaldean theogony our readers will the better understand some of the succeeding references.

The historical harvest to be gathered from M. de Sarsec's diggings is less dramatic than the later annals. The early kings were chiefly devoted to their gods, and their inscriptions for the most part contain monotonous statements about the building and restoration of temples and shrines. Not only so, but they are exceedingly difficult to read, and we are continually met by hieroglyphs among the characters whose exact meaning is problematical and doubtful: hence there are often divergent interpretations. Those who have chiefly aided in the work of decipherment, and whose results we have tried to condense, are the veteran Oppert, the late M. Amiaud, Hommel, Heuzey, and, in our own country, Sayce, Pinches, and Boscawen.

At the outset we have to confess that there are no substantial grounds for fixing the chronology of these early rulers. The official and recognized chronology of the Babylonians does not seem to have begun much before 2245 B.C., and we can only say that these remains belong to a period some time before that date. As in other countries, the beginning of history fades into a mist where we meet with heroic figures whose personality we cannot quite define. This misty land of legend seems separated from the period of recorded history by a gap in which we have little or no light. In this gap the Tartar race probably invaded and settled in the country.

When we begin again, we find ourselves in the very middle of Vol. 179.-No. 358.

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our

our story. In one respect recent discoveries seem to have altered our previous notions considerably. It has been supposed that in the earliest recorded times Lower Babylonia was divided among a number of small princes, each with his own city, and each city with its own God. This may have been the case in the earliest times, but not at the date we are dealing with. On the contrary, if we are to judge from the repeated mention by the same king of the specific names which were given to different temples and of the Gods to whom these temples were dedicated in various towns, it would appear that the earliest kings whose remains we have recovered ruled over the whole district occupied by the Chaldean race.

The whole country was referred to in the earlier inscriptions as Kingi-Ura, or Kingi Bur. This was apparently the equivalent of the later Semitic Sumir and Akkad. The phrase was used collectively for the Babylonian plain. Sumir was perhaps the Shinar of Genesis.

The earliest rulers whose remains have been found at Tell Loh, except in one instance, style themselves rulers of Sirpurra. In one instance a ruler calls himself King of Girsu. It is curious that the God to whom these earliest kings were most devoted was called Ningirsu, or, as Mr. Pinches says it ought to be read, En-Girsu, i.e. the Lord of Girsu. The situation of Girsu cannot be fixed with certainty. Possibly it occupied the site of the famous mound of Tell Id, where an inscription has been found describing the building of a temple at Girsu.

If we turn to the monuments discovered at Tell Loh, we find that in some of them the ruler is qualified with the title of lugal, which has been translated' king,' and in others with that of patesi, which has been interpreted as meaning 'lieutenant' or 'viceroy,' but which really seems to have meant 'priest,' and implies no dependence except on a God. It was at first supposed that the early rulers could be arranged in some order, as they used one style or the other. This view is now abandoned.

From these facts we are justified in concluding that the beginnings of history, as at present attainable, find the patesis or priest rulers of Girsu in authority in Lower Babylonia. We will now turn to the early king placed by Dr. Jensen at the head of his list, and whose name has been read Uru Kagina. On a baked clay barrel-shaped cylinder, with an inscription in wedge-shaped characters, he styles himself King of Girsu, and tells us he built a palace for the oracle of the god of Tintir (i.e. of Babylon, of which Tintir-meaning 'Seat of Life,' according to Mr. Pinches -was the original name). He also built a temple for the goddess Bau, who was worshipped specially at Kish, not far from Babylon.

Babylon. For the god Dun Shagana he built his temple of Akkil; for the god Ellil his temple of E Adda, probably at Niffer; and for the goddess Nina he made the canal Nina-kitum, by which the Khausser, or river of Nineveh, is perhaps meant. This shows to what an early date we may carry back the irrigation works for which Babylonia was so famous.

We have two other inscriptions of Uru Kagina, in which he styles himself King of Sirpurra, and he was possibly the first to move the capital from Girsu to that town. In these he speaks of building a temple to Ên-Girsu, and also the famous temple of Eninnu, i.e. of the number Fifty,—a cabalistic number identified with this god, as, according to Hommel, the number 60 was with the god Ellil. He also claims to have

made certain basins or reservoirs for irrigation purposes, and, according to Oppert, a tank to contain 30 measures of the fermented liquor called kas in Sumerian, the sikar of the Assyrians, and the sikhera of the Greeks.

The next ruler to whom we shall turn was probably the successor of Uru Kagina. His name has been read as Ur-Nina (i.e. the Man of the goddess Nina) by Oppert. He has left his name upon the foundation bricks and some of the earliest remains found at Tell Loh. In his inscriptions he calls himself the son of Nini galdun, and the grandson of Gursar. Neither the name of his father nor his grandfather is qualified with the title of king. He claims to have built the walls of Sirpurra and the temple of En-Girsu, to which he added zigurrati, or watchtowers. He also built a house of entertainment, in which he deposited 70 measures of grain. He further raised a temple to the goddess Nina, which may have been at Nineveh-Sayce thinks it was in Babylonia; and having brought stone from Magan, he dedicated two statues to her, and another to the goddess Gatumdug, who is elsewhere styled the mother of Sirpurra. He also claims to have built the temple of Eghud, i.e. the House of Seven Spheres, by which the famous temple of that name at Borsippa was perhaps meant. Near to this he built a tower, either an observatory or a crematorium. Attached to these temples he also erected two basins for lustration, like the seas or deeps in Solomon's temple.

Ur-Nina also tells us how he erected the palace Ibgal or Egal, and a second palace at Tintir, i.e. Babylon. He also erected a temple or palace at Girsu. A remarkable monument of this king is a broken slab figured by Hommel (p. 285), on which a bird of prey, probably an eagle, which had apparently once a lion's head, is represented with outstretched wings. One foot is on the hinder part of a lion; the other

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foot,

...

foot, Hommel suggests, was planted on the quarters of another lion, now broken off,-the two lions standing back to back. M. Amiaud has treated this as the emblem or armorial bearing of Sirpurra. From his reign we also have remaining the bas-relief already named, with friezes of figures upon it representing his family coming to do him honour. One of the figures, dressed in a royal robe and having her hair in a chignon, was probably his wife or his daughter. Her name is Lidda. The rest of them represent his seven sons, whose names are duly attached to the figures in the following order :-Akurgal, Lugal. . ., Dakurani or Akurani, Murikurta, Nunpa, . . . udbu, and Ninakuturda. Each one is qualified with the word son.' In addition to the names of his sons, we also have recorded the names of the two chamberlains who wait on the king,—namely, Sagantuk and Danita or Anita. We also have the information that one figure in the bas-relief who carries a baton on his shoulder had come from the country of Magan, and was apparently a courier or an envoy. It is clear that Ur-Nina was a powerful sovereign, commanding many resources, and able therefore to build largely and to make his influence felt widely; and Hommel has recently shown that Gishgallaki, an early name of Babylon, is named in his inscriptions.

In

The eldest son of Ur-Nina, as we have seen, was called Akurgal. No monuments date from his reign, but on one belonging to one of his sons he is called King of Sirpurra. regard to his name, it may be remarked that Kurgalla, the great mountain,' is a synonym for one of the gods. He left at least two sons. One of them was called Eannadu, of whom we have several monuments. For him the famous stele of the vultures already described was sculptured. The inscription on this stele, so far as made out, has apparently nothing to do with the carvings. On one side of one of the earlier discovered fragments, it begins with the words, I am Eannadu.' The rest of the text is very mutilated and difficult to read, and, according to Hommel, is a kind of invocation to the spirit of the Sun and the spirit of heaven, Anna, &c. Ninni, the heaven goddess, with her temple of Eanna, and En-Girsu, are also named, and there is apparently mention of the making of some statues.* On some fragments recently discovered Eannadu claims to have conquered the country of Gisbanki, translated by Oppert as The Country of the Bow.' Together with Gisbanki is named Ner-ki-an, the termination of which recalls that of the Elamitic Anshan, and supports the view that the stele records

* See Hommel, p. 288.

a victorious

a victorious campaign against the Elamites, whose country might well be called 'the land of the bow.' On this same stele occur the names of two other famous Chaldean cities, Ur and Uruk or Erech. Ur is now represented by the ruins of Mugheir, meaning 'the place of bitumen'; and Uruk or Erech, whose original form was apparently Unuk, and may represent the city of Enoch founded by Cain, is represented by the ruins of Warka. Another inscription on which Eannadu's name occurs, and which promises to be very interesting when read, has been published by M. Heuzey. Oppert has found its translation very difficult. It apparently refers to his intercourse with and conquest of foreign countries, and among others the mountains of Elam and 'the Country of the Bow' are mentioned with places whose names are provisionally read as Az, and Nikha, and Is. Hommel identifies Az with Azu, a town of the famous heroic king, called Sargina. Oppert says that the name of Erech is also mentioned on this monument (Rev. d'Ass. ii. 87). On other inscriptions in which Eannadu is mentioned he styles himself son of Akurgal and patesi of Sirpurra. On one preserved at Berlin he mentions the goddesses E-harsag and Inanna (Jensen); while on another inscription published by Heuzey he styles himself 'the choice of the Heart of the goddess Nina.' Eannadu was apparently succeeded by his brother Enanatuma, of whom M. Oppert has recently published an inscription in which he styles himself 'patesi of Sirpurra, son of Akurgal,' and tells us he had dedicated a dish of corn to the god En-Girsu.* Jensen has met with another inscription in which he is styled 'the beloved brother of Eannadu.'

Enanatuma was the father of Entéména or Entena, who has left us some remarkable monuments showing the progress of the arts in his day. First, an alabaster plaque found recently by M. de Sarsec. The inscription is thus read by M. Oppert: To En-Girsu, the valiant warrior of Ellil, Entéména, patesi of Sirpurra, son of Eannadu, patesi of Sirpurra, grandson of Ur-Nina, has constructed a basin or sea in honour of Ên-Girsu. He has made 2 kis (?) for the house of the thousand souls (?). For the God, king of the town of Gishgallaki, he has made his temple in the town of Gishgallaki (this is the early name of Babylon). For the goddess Nina, he has built the house to her who makes the dates to grow (this was possibly at Nineveh). For Ea, the king of the town of Nun (Nunki was the primitive name of Eridu, now represented by the mounds of Abu Shahrein), he has made the reservoir... bu ra. For the goddess

* Sce Comptes Rendus,' xxi. 315-6.

Ê-harsag

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