DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61301#0069
CHALD^O-ASS YRIA.
45
subject. Egypt took us back four thousand years before
Christ. From 4000 B.C.-3000 B.C. we remember that the
dynasties of the Memphite kings reigned, the builders of
pyramids, the contemporaries of the Lady Nefert. Just
at the end of this period, when the Memphites were sink-
ing into obscurity and Thebes had not yet fairly up-
reared her head, we may fancy that the fish-god Oannes
swam to land at the mouth of the Euphrates and the
dawn of civilization began—not with Babylon, she was
too far up the river, but with a small group of cities on
the east bank of the river in the old kingdom of Elam ;
then it seems on the west, the country of Chaldaea
proper. All the north country of Mesopotamia, the
land between the rivers, was still savage and unknown.
In this country, at the river’s mouth, were Erech and
Ur and Nippur, the old cities of the Bible. In the fat,
alluvial plain they must have speedily waxed strong; it
was this people of the plain who, in their pride, sought
to touch heaven with the topmost tower of Babel. We
shall see when we speak of Assyrian art how much its
course was governed by traditions inherited from these
Chaldaeans of the south. Of the history of the eastern
bank of the river we know almost nothing; her civili-
zation, we gather, was closely analogous to that of the
kindred countries, and her political life persisted after
Nineveh had fallen. But her art has perished ; she is
but a secondary and to us a shadowy Chaldaea. What
45
subject. Egypt took us back four thousand years before
Christ. From 4000 B.C.-3000 B.C. we remember that the
dynasties of the Memphite kings reigned, the builders of
pyramids, the contemporaries of the Lady Nefert. Just
at the end of this period, when the Memphites were sink-
ing into obscurity and Thebes had not yet fairly up-
reared her head, we may fancy that the fish-god Oannes
swam to land at the mouth of the Euphrates and the
dawn of civilization began—not with Babylon, she was
too far up the river, but with a small group of cities on
the east bank of the river in the old kingdom of Elam ;
then it seems on the west, the country of Chaldaea
proper. All the north country of Mesopotamia, the
land between the rivers, was still savage and unknown.
In this country, at the river’s mouth, were Erech and
Ur and Nippur, the old cities of the Bible. In the fat,
alluvial plain they must have speedily waxed strong; it
was this people of the plain who, in their pride, sought
to touch heaven with the topmost tower of Babel. We
shall see when we speak of Assyrian art how much its
course was governed by traditions inherited from these
Chaldaeans of the south. Of the history of the eastern
bank of the river we know almost nothing; her civili-
zation, we gather, was closely analogous to that of the
kindred countries, and her political life persisted after
Nineveh had fallen. But her art has perished ; she is
but a secondary and to us a shadowy Chaldaea. What