The Chaldeans of Babylonia, with their magnificent robes, riding
on high-spirited horses, and wearing high tiaras, as described by
Ezekiel,122 are therefore, for Renan, not Shemites, hut a branch of
the ruling race of Assyria; which, according to him, was Arian.
As to the names of the kings: Tiglath-Pilesar, Sennacherib, Sargon, <
JEvil-Merodach, Markodempal, &c.—they are contrary to the fundamental
laws of the Syro-Arabic languages, and cannot he reduced to
Shemitic roots. But again, most of the towns and rivers in Assyria
and Babylonia have Shemitic names; whence he infers that the
hulk of the population in Mesopotamia must have been Shemitic,
hut subject to a conquering race of Arians, which formed a military
aristocracy and a religious caste, both summed up in the person of
the absolute idng.
We cannot but admit the force of Renan’s reasoning; and his conclusion
about the two nationalities in Assyria and Babylonia123 (that
is to say, about the Shemitic character of the bulk of the people with
a ruling race of Iranians), is supported by the Shemitic and bilingual
‘inscriptions on some Assyrian monuments already noticed. This
view of a mixed population inhabiting Mesopotamia, sufficiently explains
the semi-Shemitic peculiarities of the languages of the cuneiform
inscriptions on the monuments of Nineveh and Babylon: and
the reasoning of the learned author of “ the Genesis of the Earth
and of Man,” leads to the same result when he observes,#-“ a mixed
language obtaining in one country indicates a mixture of races; and
the grammar of that language, by its being unmixed or mixed, is an
index to the number and power of one race in comparison with the
other at the period of the formation of the mixed language.”124 According
to this rule, the Assyrian aud Babylonian, instead of forming
the “ transition between ante-historical and historical Shemitism,”
must he considered as the result of the mixture of Shemitic and
Arian elements, at any rate not anterior to historical Shemitism.
The monuments of art discovered in Assyria and Babylonia lead to
the same conclusion, v iz : that the ruling classes were Arian, since all
the sculptures connected with cuneiform inscriptions hear the same
Arian character at Nineveh as well as at Persepolis. In fact, the
civilization and the fundamental ideas about political government
and provincial administration are identical among all the nations
making use of the cuneiform character, though we must admit dif-
122 Chapter XXIII.
123 G e se n iu s had, long before Kenan, insisted upon the northern .origin of the Chaldeans
as a conquering raoe in Babylonia, different from the bulk of the population.
124 Edited by R. S t e w a r t P o o l e , Edinburgh, 1856, p. 155:— compare Types of Mankind,
1854, voce “ Elam,” pp. 533-4.
ferent degrees of development. The Babylonian inscriptions ajbound
with ideographic groups reminding us of the hieroglyphics of Egypt,
whilst the Arians of Persia borrowed the phonetic system from the
Shemites, hut retained the form of the wedge. As to their artistic
capacities, the Assyrians occupy the highest rank, in some of the bas-
reliefs of Sardanapalus second only to the Greeks. Some of the Per-
sepolitan seals are likewise of a high, chaste, and sober style of art,
peculiarly charming by the introduction of picturesque folds into the
heavy Assyrian garments. The Babylonians, with whom the Shemitic
element always preponderated, were little artistic; inscriptions
were more copious with them than reliefs, and their sculptures are
without exception rude in execution, and monotonous in conception.
It is difficult to speak about the origin or the early history of
Assyrian art. The earliest mention of the empire occurs in the
hieroglyphic annals of T h u tm o s i s HE, the great conquering Pharaoh
of the XVIIth dynasty, about the seventeenth century, b . c . , who
caused his victories to be recorded on a slab deciphered by Mr.
Birch.125 "We hear of the defeat of the king of Naharaina (Mesopotamia)
; or of the chief of Saenkar, (Shinar) bringing as tribute blue-
stone of Babilu, (lapis-lazuli from Babylon). Under A m e n o p h is HI,
we find Asuru, Naharaina and Saenkar, again among the conquered
countries.12^ And, as corroborative of the truth of the hieroglyphical
records, Egyptian scarabs with the engraved names of these two
kings have been found in various parts of Mesopotamia,127 At a
somewhat later period, under the XXth dynasty of the R am e s s id e s ,
the chief of Bakhtan128 offers his daughter to R am e s s e s XIV, who
marries her; and soon after, about the time when the Ark of the
Covenant was taken from the Israelites by the Philistines, sent the
Ark of the Egyptian God, K h o n s , from Thebes to Bashan, as a remedy
to his sister-in-law, who was possessed by an evil spirit.129 The
intercourse between Egypt and Mesopotamia became soon still more
close and intimate.130 We find Pharaoh P ih em , the head of the XXIst
dynasty, journeying on a friendly visit to Mesopotamia:131 moreover,
his successors and their descendants,—to judge by their names,—
125 Bi r c h , The Annals of Thotmes III, vol. v. of the Transactions of the Roy, Soc.
Liter. —-New series, p. 116.
126 Lep s iu s , Denkmäler III. Bl. 88.
127 L a ya r d , Nineveh and Babylon, p. 2 8 1 : — Types of Mankind, p. 133, fig. 32.
128 Egyptologists identify Bakhtan with the scriptural Bashan “ in upper Mesopotamia,”
as they call it, though it is rather bold to call Mesopotamia the country bordering on the
tribe of Manasseh. — In consequence, some favor Ecbatana.
129 B ir c h , Transactions R. Soc. Lit. IV. p. 16 & f.
180 Lepsiu s, Denkmäler III, Bl. 2 4 9 .
181 B ir c h , Transactions R. Soc. Lit. 1848, p. 1 6 4 & f .