ARCHÆOLOGY AND THE BIBLE

A Hillside Street in Roman Jerusalem along which
Jesus and the Disciples may well have walked
(after Germer-Durand).—Frontispiece.

Green Fund Book, No. 17

ARCHÆOLOGY AND
THE BIBLE

BY
GEORGE A. BARTON, Ph. D., LL. D.
PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE AND SEMITIC LANGUAGES
IN BRYN MAWR COLLEGE; SOMETIME DIRECTOR OF THE
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH IN JERUSALEM

PART I
THE BIBLE LANDS, THEIR EXPLORATION, AND THE RESULTANT
LIGHT ON THE BIBLE AND HISTORY

PART II
TRANSLATIONS OF ANCIENT DOCUMENTS WHICH CONFIRM OR
ILLUMINATE THE BIBLE

PHILADELPHIA
AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION
1816 Chestnut Street

Copyright, 1916, by
American Sunday-School Union

All rights vested in and reserved by
American Sunday-School Union

First Edition, May, 1916.
Second Edition, June, 1917.

To
CAROLINE B. D. BARTON
Faithful Comrade in
the Campaign of Life

[Pg v]

For a hundred years or more the explorer and the excavator have been busy in many parts of the world. They have brought to light monuments and texts that have in many cases revolutionized our conceptions of history and have in other cases thrown much new light on what was previously known.

In no part of the world have these labors been more fruitful than in the lands of the Bible. In Egypt and Babylonia vistas of history have been opened to view that were undreamed of before exploration began. The same is true for that part of the history of Palestine which antedates the coming of Israel. Information has also been obtained which illumines later portions of the history, and makes the Biblical narrative seem much more vivid. It is now possible to make real to oneself the details of the life of the Biblical heroes, and to understand the problems of their world as formerly one could not do. Exploration has also brought to light many inscriptions in the various countries that confirm or illuminate the traditions, history, poetry, and prophecy of the Bible. The sands of Egypt have even yielded us some reputed new sayings of our Lord.

It is the purpose of this book to gather into one volume the most valuable information of all sorts that the excavations in Bible lands have afforded, and to put it in such form that it may be of service to the pastor and Sunday-school teacher. An attempt has been made so to present the material that one may not only have the wealth of illumination for Biblical study that exploration has produced, but also that he may possess an outline of the history of the exploration and of the countries sufficient to enable him to place each item in its proper perspective. Whether in handling so large a mass of data the writer has achieved his aim, the reader must judge. The preparation of the volume was undertaken at the request of the Board of Managers of the American Sunday-School Union, for publication under the John C. Green Income Fund,—a fund founded in 1877 “for the purpose of aiding ... in securing[Pg vi] a Sunday-school literature of the highest order of merit ... by procuring works ... germane to the objects of the Society.” The foundation requires that the manuscripts procured by the fund shall become the exclusive property of the American Sunday-School Union, and, that the selling price may be reduced, the Society is prohibited from including the cost of the manuscript in the price of the book.

This work is confined to those phases of archæology upon which light has been thrown by exploration. No attempt is made, for example, to treat the constitution of the Hebrew family, or the dress worn in ancient Palestine, for these are subjects to which exploration has contributed no new knowledge.

The texts published in Part II have, with few exceptions, been freshly translated by the writer especially for this work. This is true of all except the majority of the Egyptian texts and two Greek papyri which were not accessible in the original. Translations of these were taken from the works of well-known scholars, to each of whom credit is given in connection with the passage quoted from his work. The quotations of Palestinian place names from the inscriptions of the Egyptian kings, of which the writer has made a special study, are based on his own translations of the originals.

An archæological fact, or a text brought to light by excavation, is often of little significance apart from its interpretation, and the interpretation of such data frequently varies according to the point of view occupied by the interpreter. As stated in the foreword of Part II, it has been the writer’s aim throughout to maintain a neutral attitude on controverted points.

Not the least service that archæology has rendered has been the presentation of a new background against which the inspiration of the Biblical writers stands out in striking vividness. Often one finds traditions in Babylonia identical with those embodied in the Old Testament, but they are so narrated that no such conception of God shines through them as shines through the Biblical narrative. Babylonians and Egyptians pour out their hearts in psalms with something of the same fervor and pathos as the Hebrews, but no such vital conception of God and his oneness gives shape to their faith and brings the longed-for strength to the spirit. Egyptian sages developed a social conscience comparable in many respects with that of the Hebrew prophets, but they lacked the vital touch[Pg vii] of religious devotion which took the conceptions of the prophets out of the realm of individual speculation and made them the working ethics of a whole people. Archæology thus reinforces to the modern man with unmistakable emphasis the ancient words, “Men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).

The writer is under obligation to all his predecessors. Endeavor has been made in the footnotes to acknowledge each individual obligation. Lest any oversight may have occurred there, he would here express both his indebtedness and his gratitude to all who by their various explorations and studies have preceded him and been his teachers.

Of these, Prof. R. A. Stewart Macalister should, perhaps, be singled out for an especial word of gratitude, for in Chapters VI-XI of Part I his work of excavation has been quoted more frequently than any other. This apparent partiality is due to the fact that Gezer was excavated more completely than any other Palestinian site; that, because of its early and long-continued occupation in ancient times, it reveals a great variety of civilizations; and that, in The Excavation of Gezer, Prof. Macalister has presented the results of his work with a completeness and a degree of intelligibility that no other excavator in Palestine has approached. He has made his work a model of what such a publication should be, and has thereby made us all his debtors.

Especial thanks are due to Dr. George B. Gordon, Director of the University Museum, Philadelphia, for his kindness in furnishing an advance copy of the proof-sheets of Volume X of the Publications of the Babylonian Section of the museum, from which the material embodied in Chapter VIII of Part II was translated, and to Prof. Morris Jastrow, Jr., and Dr. Edward Chiera for the benefit of their fresh collation of the text. This was of considerable importance, since Dr. Langdon’s copy of large portions of it had been made from photographs, rather than from the original tablet. The writer is also indebted to Prof. W. R. Arnold, of Andover Theological Seminary, for helpful suggestions concerning the interpretation of a passage in the temple-papyrus from Elephantine which has hitherto baffled translators. Thanks are also due to the following authors and publishers for permission to reproduce illustrations contained in books written or published by them: The Palestine Exploration Fund, for permission relating to Warren’s Jerusalem; Bliss and Macalister’s Excavations in Palestine, 1898-1900;[Pg viii] Macalister’s Excavation of Gezer, and Peters and Thiersch’s Painted Tombs of Marissa; Rev. Prof. C. J. Ball, of Oxford, Light from the East; J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, Koldewey’s Das Wieder Erstehende Babylon; Dr. I. Benzinger and Herr Paul Siebeck, Hebräische Archäologie; Monsieur J. Gabalda, Vincent’s Jérusalem; Prof. A. T. Clay, of Yale, Light on the Old Testament from Babel; Prof. Paul Haupt, of Johns Hopkins, The Psalms in his Sacred Books of the Old Testament; Rev. J. P. Peters and G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Peters’ Nippur; Prof. C. C. Torrey, of Yale, Journal of the American Oriental Society; George H. Doran Co., Ramsay’s Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia; Dr. Mitchell Carroll, American Journal of Archæology and Art and Archæology; Rev. A. E. Breen, Diary of My Life in the Holy Land; Thomas Nelson and Sons, The Illustrated Teachers’ Bible; and to Ferris and Leach, for permission to use again a number of photographs published in the writer’s A Year’s Wandering in Bible Lands. Dr. R. E. Brünnow not only granted permission to reproduce illustrations from Brünnow and Domaszewski’s Provincia Arabia, but generously loaned the original photographs and drawings. Prof. Harold N. Fowler, Editor of the American Journal of Archæology, also kindly loaned an original photograph of the excavation at Sardis. The source of each illustration, when not the writer’s own, is indicated in the list of illustrations by mentioning the name of the author of the book or article from which it is taken.

Grateful acknowledgment should also be made to Rev. Edwin Wilbur Rice, D. D., Litt. D., Honorary Editor of the Publications of the American Sunday-School Union, who carefully read the book in manuscript and made many valuable criticisms and suggestions.

The table of contents and the chapter-headings were prepared by James McConaughy, Litt. D., Editor of the Publications of the American Sunday-School Union; the indices, by A. J. R. Schumaker, M. A., Assistant Editor. The writer is grateful to them, not only for this service, but for many helpful criticisms and courtesies while the book has been passing through the press. Valuable suggestions have also been made by Mrs. Barton, who has carefully read the proofs. Miss Bertha V. Dreisbach has given intelligent and painstaking service in preparing the manuscript for the press, and in proof-reading; Mr. V. Winfield Challenger and Miss Laura G. Leach have rendered a like valuable service in assembling and arranging the illustrations.

[Pg ix]The quotations of Scripture passages throughout are from the American Standard Revised Version.

If this volume should bring to some remote worker or secluded young person a tithe of the inspiration and joy that such a book would have brought the writer in the rural home of his boyhood, he would ask no higher reward for the labor it has cost.

George A. Barton.

Bryn Mawr, Pa.
May, 1916.

It is gratifying to know that this book has been found useful by so many students of the Bible and that a second edition is necessary. Minor errors, especially typographical, have been corrected throughout the volume. The chief feature of this edition is the addition of an Appendix, in which will be found some material that has come to light in the last year, and one or two items that were overlooked when the first edition was written.

George A. Barton.

Bryn Mawr, Pa.
June, 1917.

[Pg x]

[Pg xi]

[Pg 1]

[Pg 9]

[Pg 10]

[Pg 11]

One who would write on archæology and the Bible must at the outset define the scope of his undertaking, for the word archæology conveys different meanings to different people. Judgments also differ as to how things ancient can best serve the interests of the Biblical student. To many the word archæology calls up visions of ancient pottery, jewelry, swords, utensils, etc., which are valued as objects of curiosity simply because they are old. Others, when they think of archæology, call to mind excavations, in which the walls of ancient temples and cities are laid bare, so that we may see how men lived in other days. To such, archæology is identical with antiquarianism. A book on archæology and the Bible written from this point of view would confine itself to the way in which texts of Scripture are illustrated or illumined by antiquarian objects.

To still others the word archæology calls up ancient tablets or papyri, inscribed with hieroglyphics or some other strange characters, from which the initiated can decipher texts that prove the truth of one’s views of Scripture. According to this view, archæology is the science of ancient documents, and a book dealing with archæology and the Bible should confine itself to the discussion of documents which confirm or illustrate the Biblical text.

Those who hold either of these views of archæology will find in this book much that will accord with their expectations, but much also that will seem to them irrelevant. In Part I, Chapters IV, VI-XII deal with antiquities, their discovery, and the light which these shed upon the inspired page, for antiquarianism is a part of archæology. Portions of Part I are devoted to the discovery of inscribed objects; in Part II the reader will find a full presentation of the bearing of these upon the different parts of the Sacred Volume. Those who hold the second of the views mentioned above will not, therefore, be disappointed.

Neither of the views mentioned corresponds, however, with the limits of archæology. Archæology is “that branch of knowledge which takes cognizance of past civilizations, and investigates their[Pg 12] history in all fields, by means of the remains of art, architecture, monuments, inscriptions, literature, language, implements, customs, and all other examples which have survived.”[1] This definition is accepted by the writer of this work and has guided him in the preparation of the following pages. It has, of course, been impossible in one volume to deal adequately with the antiquities and the ancient documents and to treat fully the history of the civilizations of the Biblical countries, but an endeavor has been made to place the reader in possession of an intelligent point of view with reference to these things. As the physical structure of a country determines to a large degree the nature of its buildings, the utensils employed by its inhabitants, their writing materials, and their relations with other peoples,—as well as the way the objects were preserved from ancient to modern times,—brief descriptions of the physical features of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, the three most prominent of Biblical countries, have been introduced.

Our knowledge of the early history of Egypt and Babylonia has come almost wholly from archæological exploration; it has seemed fitting, therefore, to introduce in Part I, Chapter I, § 6, and Chapter II, § 6, brief sketches of the history of these countries. This appeared all the more necessary since the inhabitants of these two countries worked out, in advance of any other peoples, the initial problems of civilization. Palestine borrowed from them both, so that it is impossible to understand the history and archæology of Palestine apart from Egyptian and Babylonian antecedents. Whenever it is possible the reader should supplement these sketches by reference to the larger works cited in the notes.

Similarly in Part I, Chapter V, an outline of the history of Palestine from the earliest times is presented. To some this may seem unnecessary, since centuries of that history passed before the Hebrew people came to the country, but it is hoped that every reader will be glad to know the various vicissitudes through which passed the land that was chosen by God as the home of the religious leaders of the human race. This history also gives emphasis to the promise “to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and cisterns hewn out, which thou hewedst not, vineyards and olive-trees, which thou plantedst not” (Deut. 6:10, 11).

Some, too, may be surprised that the chronologies of Egypt and[Pg 13] Babylonia and Assyria should be treated as fully as they are in Part I, Chapter I, § 5, and Chapter II, § 5, but in the writer’s view this treatment was necessary and appropriate for several reasons: (1) The data on which these chronologies are built up are for the most part the fruits of archæological research. (2) They are our only means of measuring the antiquity of civilization, since the Bible itself affords no continuous system of chronology.[2] If the student of the Bible is to have any intelligent idea of what “the fulness of time” (Gal. 4:4) means, he should know what the sources of our chronology are and how they are rightly used. (3) Such a presentation seemed all the more necessary because in many books, especially those of some English Egyptologists, the materials are employed uncritically, and civilization is made to appear much older than it really is.

To accomplish all these aims the writer has adopted the following plan: In three chapters the archæology, history, and civilization of Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria, and the Hittites are briefly treated, together with the discoveries which especially interest the Biblical student. These are the three great civilizations which preceded the Israelitish. A much more detailed treatment is given to Palestine, to which Chapters IV-XIV of Part I are devoted. In the last chapter of Part I an attempt has been made to present the discoveries in Greece and Asia Minor which throw light on the New Testament. In Part II the texts, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Moabitish, Phœnician, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin, which bear on the Bible, are translated. They are arranged in the order of the Biblical books which they illuminate. Each translation is accompanied by a brief discussion in which its chief bearing on the Bible is pointed out.

In conclusion it may not be out of place to offer a word of guidance to two or three classes of readers. Those who are not interested in the history of Babylonia and Egypt, but wish simply to know what has been discovered in those countries which throws light on the Scriptures, should turn at once to Part I, Chapter I, § 7, and Chapter II, § 7, and to the translations of the various texts in Part II. A reader that is interested especially in Palestine, rather than in the ancient civilizations to which the Hebrews were indebted, should begin Part I at Chapter IV. Possibly after he has read that[Pg 14] which the Holy Land has contributed to the understanding of the Bible, he may be ready to give a little attention to such outlying peoples as the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Hittites. In that case he will turn back and read Chapters I-III.

Pastors or Sunday-school teachers who wish to employ the book as a tool by means of which to study certain texts or lessons should follow a different course. These will be able with the aid of the full index of Scripture references to turn at once to all the material bearing on the passage in question. If the use of this index does not afford all the information desired, reference should then be made to the analytical table of contents at the beginning, or to the index of subjects at the end, or to both.

It is the writer’s hope that, in addition to its use as a book of reference for the elucidation or illustration of individual texts, there may be some who will enjoy reading the whole work, and who will find, as he himself has found, that every scrap of knowledge of ancient life in Bible lands serves to make the Bible story and the lives of Biblical characters so much more real, or puts them or their words in a perspective so much more clear, that the eternal message comes with new power and can be transmitted with greater efficiency.

[Pg 15]

THE BIBLE LANDS, THEIR EXPLORATION, AND THE
RESULTANT LIGHT ON THE BIBLE AND HISTORY

[Pg 16]

[Pg 17]

ARCHÆOLOGY AND THE BIBLE

EGYPT

The Land. The Preservation of Antiquities. Egyptian Discoveries. Decipherment. Chronology. Outline of the History: The pre-dynastic period. The archaic period. The old kingdom. The first period of disintegration. The middle kingdom. Second period of disintegration. The empire period. The period of foreign dynasties. The lower empire. The Persian period. The Ptolemaic period. The Roman period. Egyptian Discoveries Which Bear on the Bible: Texts bearing on the story of Joseph. The Invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos. The El-Amarna letters. Period of the Oppression and the Exodus. Campaign of Sheshonk I. Papyri discovered at Elephantine. The palace of Hophra. The castle at Tahpanhes. The Jewish temple at Leontopolis. Papyri from Oxyrhynchus. Discoveries in Nubia.

1. The Land.—Egypt is in many ways unique among the countries of the world. One of these unique features is its form. If we omit the Delta, it has but one dimension,—length. From Cairo to the First Cataract is a distance of 583 miles, while the breadth of the valley, including the barren lands on each side of it, varies from 12½ to 31 miles. If we include Nubia to the Fourth Cataract, which the Egyptians ultimately conquered, the length is much greater, being about 1,100 miles. In Nubia the banks are much more precipitous, the valley varying from 5 to 9½ miles. The verdant portion is, however, often not more than a mile in width.

This land is flanked on each side by extensive barren deserts on which there is almost no rainfall. Egypt itself would be a part of this desert, were it not for the overflow of the Nile. This overflow is caused by the peculiar formation of this marvelous river.

The upper part of the Nile consists of two main branches, called, respectively, the White and the Blue Nile. The White Nile rises 3 degrees south of the equator, some 4,000 miles south of the Mediterranean, to the south of Lake Victoria Nyanza. This region is watered by tropical rains, which fall almost daily. This[Pg 18] steady water supply gives to the Nile its constant volume. At Khartum, 1,350 miles from the Mediterranean in a direct line, and 1,650 miles as the river winds, the White Nile is joined by the Blue Nile. This branch of the river drains a large part of Abyssinia, an upland and mountainous region which has a dry and a rainy season. In the dry season this stream dwindles almost to nothing; in the rainy season it is a turbid mountain torrent, which rushes impetuously onward, laden with loose soil from all the land which it drains. For this reason it is called the Blue, i. e., the Dark or Turbid, Nile.

At a distance of 140 miles north of the union of the two Niles the river receives its only other tributary, the Atbara, which also flows in from the eastern side. The Atbara, like the Blue Nile, is an insignificant stream except in the rainy season, when it is a torrent.

It is the variation of the water supply from the Blue Nile and Atbara which causes the overflow of the river in Egypt. At the beginning of June the river begins slowly to swell; between the 15th and the 20th of July the increase becomes very rapid; toward the end of September the water ceases to rise and remains at the same height for twenty to thirty days. In October it rises again, attaining its greatest height. It then decreases, and in January, February, and March the fields gradually dry off. This overflow prepares the soil of Egypt for cultivation, first by softening it and then by fertilizing it. It was easy, under these conditions, to develop agriculture there.

Indeed, the width of productive Egypt is determined by the lateral extent of this overflow. For the last 1,500 miles of its course the Nile receives no tributary. It plows its way through regions of desert which, but for the Nile itself, are unbroken. At six points, beginning at Khartum and ending at Assuan, the river makes its way over granite ridges, through which it has never succeeded in cutting a smooth channel. These are called the Cataracts. As civilized man discovered these from the north, that at Assuan is known as the First Cataract, and that at Khartum as the Sixth. The calendar of ancient Egypt was shaped in part by the Nile. The year was divided into three seasons of four months each. Beginning with the rise of the water about July 19th, there was the season of the inundation, which was followed by four months of winter and four months of summer.

Map of Egypt.

[Pg 19]In late geologic time all Egypt north of Cairo was a bay of the Mediterranean. In the course of the centuries the sea has been driven out by deposits of detritus brought down by the Nile. As the mud was deposited in this level region, the water continued to make its way through it here and there. Several mouths were kept open, and thus the Delta was formed. This Delta is called Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt extends from Cairo to the First Cataract; Nubia, from the First Cataract to the Sixth.

2. The Preservation of Antiquities.—Rain in Egypt is very, very rare. One might almost say that it never rains. The country lies in a latitude so far south that frost is rarely known. These two conditions have united to preserve the ruins of many ancient buildings in both Egypt and Nubia in a state of perfection which is rare in other countries. It was the custom of the ancient Egyptians to bury their dead in the dry land beyond the reach of the Nile’s overflow. Like many other peoples, they placed in the tombs of their dead many objects used by the departed in life. Further, their peculiar beliefs concerning immortality led them to mummify the bodies of the departed; i. e., they fortified them against decay. Thus archæological objects have been preserved in Egypt in an abundance and a perfection without parallel. So many of these are massive temples of stone, which, through all the ages, have stood unconcealed as silent witnesses of a past greatness, that from Cairo to the First Cataract Egypt is one great archæological museum.

3. Egyptian Discoveries.—Although many Egyptian antiquities have always been visible, they attracted little attention until modern times. Egyptian temple walls are covered with hieroglyphic writing, but the art of reading it had long been lost. Coptic, a language descended from the ancient Egyptian, was still preserved as the sacred language of the Egyptian Church, as Latin is the ecclesiastical language of Roman Catholics, but no one realized that Coptic was simply late Egyptian.

In the seventeenth century European travelers began to bring home Egyptian antiquities. In 1683 a specimen of Egyptian art was presented to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. In the eighteenth century R. Pococke (1704-1765) and F. L. Norden (1704-1742) described a number of Egyptian ruins and identified a number of the sites mentioned by classical authors. Pococke was an Englishman and Norden a Dane. Others, like the[Pg 20] explorer Bruce, who was seeking the sources of the Nile (1768-1773), participated to some extent in the work.

No systematic examination of the antiquities was made, however, until the time of Napoleon I. When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, he was accompanied by an army of eminent scholars and artists, nearly a hundred strong, and although in the settlement with England, which followed in 1802, the French were compelled to surrender their archæological treasures to Great Britain, they were permitted to publish the results of their observations and explorations. The publication of these advanced slowly, but between 1809 and 1822 the great work, consisting of one volume of introduction, three volumes of plates, and three volumes of texts, was given to the world. In these volumes the antiquities from the First Cataract to Alexandria were systematically described, and many of them were reproduced in magnificent water-color illustrations. As the nineteenth century progressed, additional discoveries were made, partly by the labors of such scientists as Lepsius and Mariette, and partly through the rifling of tombs by natives, who often sold their finds to Europeans. Since Egypt passed under English control, exploration has been fostered by the government, and English, French, German, Italian, and American explorers have taken part in it. The tombs of many of the ancient Pharaohs, the mummies of a considerable number of them, all sorts of implements and household furniture, have been discovered, as well as a great variety of historical, literary, religious, and business documents.

Within the last twenty years a series of tombs of a previously unknown type has been discovered. The bodies buried in these tombs did not lie on the back as the ordinary Egyptian mummy does, but on the side, with the knees drawn up to the chin. It was at first thought that these tombs were the work of a new race of men who had invaded Egypt at some time in the historical period, but further study indicates that they are the tombs of the early Egyptians from whom the Egyptians known to history were descended.

4. Decipherment.—One of the objects found by the French at the time of Napoleon’s expedition was the “Rosetta Stone,” so called because found at Rosetta (Ar-Rashid), a town near the mouth of the westernmost of the large branches of the Nile. This[Pg 21] stone was set up about 200 B. C. by some priests, who expressed, through the inscription which it bore, their thanks to the young king, Ptolemy V, because certain taxes formerly imposed on them had been remitted. The inscription was written in three kinds of writing—hieroglyphic Egyptian (picture-writing), demotic Egyptian (developed from picture-writing), and Greek; (see Fig. 14). It was among the objects which the English took in 1802, and had been placed in the British Museum. Although the Greek portion of the inscription could be easily read, the attempts of various scholars, through a period of twenty years, had succeeded in establishing the values of only a few characters of the Egyptian. In 1818 Jean François Champollion, a French scholar, who before this had busied himself with the study of Coptic and Egyptian geography, began the study of the Rosetta Stone. He assumed that the language of the upper registers must be an older form of the Coptic tongue. By a most painstaking comparison of the characters in the upper registers with the Coptic equivalents of the words in the lower or Greek register, he succeeded in deciphering the long-forgotten writing of ancient Egypt. He published his discovery in 1822. Thus the door to the historical and literary treasures of ancient Egypt was unlocked, and from that time to this the study of Egyptian inscriptions and documents has gone steadily forward. Many universities now maintain chairs of Egyptology. The ability to read Egyptian has opened up vistas of history of which men had hitherto no conception.

5. Chronology.—We are dependent for our main outline of Egyptian chronology upon the work of Manetho, an Egyptian priest, who lived about 250 B. C., and wrote a chronicle of his native land in the Greek language. He grouped the kings of Egypt from the time of Menes (or Mena) to the conquest of Alexander the Great (332 B. C.) into thirty-one dynasties. Manetho’s dynasties enable scholars to determine the relative order of the kings, and thus form the backbone of our chronology. Around his statements the discoveries of the excavators and explorers are grouped. Manetho’s work has not, however, come down to us. We know it only through quotations in the Chronographiai of Julius Africanus (221 A. D.) and the Chronicon of Eusebius of Cesarea (265-340 A. D.). The number of years assigned to each king, and consequently the length of time covered by the dynasties, differ in these two copies, so that, while the work of Manetho[Pg 22] forms the backbone of our chronology, it gives us no absolutely reliable chronology. It is for this reason that the chronological schemes of modern scholars have differed so widely.

Another source of chronological information is the so-called “Palermo Stone,” which is preserved in the Museum of Palermo, Sicily. This stone is a hard diorite, and is but a fragment of the original. It was inscribed about the middle of the fifth dynasty, and originally contained a list of the kings of Egypt from a time long before Mena to the middle of the fifth dynasty. Though now but a fragment, it is still of great value for the period which it covers. In addition to this, we also have the King List of Karnak, set up by Thothmes III, of the eighteenth dynasty, the King List of Abydos, inscribed by Seti I and Ramses II, of the nineteenth dynasty, and the King List of Sakkarah, inscribed by Ramses II. As these are all simply selections from the list of the predecessors of their authors, they are of secondary importance. The “Turin Papyrus” would be of value chronologically, but for its unfortunate history. This papyrus originally contained the most complete list of Egyptian kings that has come down to us, with the exception of Manetho’s chronology. It formed part of the collection of M. Drovetti, the French Consul-General in Egypt. The collection was offered to the French government in 1818, but was finally purchased by the king of Sardinia. When the collection arrived in Turin, it was found that this papyrus was broken into small fragments in the bottom of the box in which it had been shipped. The fragments were afterward (1824) examined by Champollion the younger, who discovered their true character. In 1826 another Egyptologist went to Turin and joined the fragments; but the science of Egyptology was then in its infancy, and he in his ignorance joined pieces which did not naturally belong together. For this reason it is only occasionally that the document yields us any chronological data.

The greatest aid in fixing Egyptian chronology is the “Sothic Cycle.” At an early date the Egyptians adopted a calendar which made up a year of 365 days. Their year originally began when the rapid rising of the Nile coincided with the rising of the star Sirius, called by them Sothis. These events coincided on July 19th. As their calendar made no allowance for leap year, in four years their new year began a day too soon, in eight years two days too soon, and so on. In 1,460 years (i. e., 365 × 4) their[Pg 23] New Year’s Day would make a complete circuit of the year. These periods of 1,460 years are called Sothic Cycles. Censorinus, in Chapters XVIII and XXI of his De Die Natali, written in 238 A. D., tells us that a new Sothic cycle began at some time between 140 and 144 A. D. If a new cycle began in 140 A. D., the previous one began in 1320 B. C.; the one before that, in 2780 B. C.; and the one before that,—if they had their calendar so early,—in 4240 B. C. Reisner holds that the Egyptians adopted their calendar in 2780 B. C., but Meyer and Breasted hold that it is unthinkable that they should have been without a calendar until that time, as by that date the civilization of the pyramid builders was at its height; they accordingly maintain that the Egyptian calendar was adopted in 4240 B. C.

An illustration will show how the Sothic cycle helps in determining dates. A priest in the 120th year of the twelfth dynasty wrote a letter to his subordinates, to inform them that the rising of Sothis would occur on the fifteenth day of the eighth month. As there were thirty days in each month, the year diverged at this time 225 days. This date, then, was just 900 years after the beginning of the cycle in 2780 B. C.; i. e., the letter was written in the year 1880 B. C. It proves that the twelfth dynasty began in 2000 B. C., and fixes for us all the dates of that dynasty. The calendar in the so-called Papyrus Ebers shows that in the tenth year of Amenophis I, of the eighteenth dynasty, the divergence had increased to 308 days. This must have been 1,232 years after the beginning of the cycle, which was the year 1548 B. C. Data gained from these sources are supplemented by what is called dead reckoning; i. e., by adding together all the specific dates of the length of reigns which are given in the inscriptions, and testing them by collateral references. Meyer and Breasted have worked out the chronology from these data in this way. Meyer places the accession of Mena at 3200 B. C., while Breasted places it at 3400 B. C. This difference is slight when compared with the differences in the chronologies of the older Egyptologists.

6. Outline of History.[3]—The history of Egypt, as it concerns our subject, extends over a period of five thousand years. It falls into twelve periods:

[Pg 24](1) The Pre-Dynastic Period, which we suppose extended from about 5000 B. C., or earlier, until about 3400 B. C., is the period before that covered by Manetho’s dynasties. At the beginning of this period Egypt was divided into 42 districts, which the Egyptians called spt or ḥsp, and which the Greeks afterwards called nomes. Each nome was occupied by a different tribe, which at the first lived in isolation from the other tribes. Each tribe had its god, to which an animal was sacred. This condition prevailed for so many centuries that the customs of this time became permanently fixed. The sacredness of these animals continued right down to Roman times. During this period the dead were buried on their sides with the knees drawn up to the chin; (see Fig. 8). The Egyptians of this period lived partly by hunting, partly by fishing, and partly by agriculture. From objects found in their tombs we infer that they used stone implements, wore a great many beads, made implements and combs of bone, made decorated pottery, constructed boats for use on the Nile and fitted sails to them, and each tribe had its own standard or emblem. Of course, during the centuries when Egypt was so politically divided there were many wars between nome and nome.

After some centuries, through the conquest of one nome by another, these 42 nomes were consolidated into two kingdoms. The 20 nomes of the Delta formed the kingdom of Lower Egypt; the 22 nomes, which were ranged along the Nile from Cairo to the First Cataract, formed the kingdom of Upper Egypt. The symbol of Upper Egypt was a papyrus plant; that of Lower Egypt, the bee. The crown of Upper Egypt was a kind of tall helmet; that of Lower Egypt, a diadem of openwork; (see Figs. 2, 3, and 4).

At what period this union of the nomes into two kingdoms occurred, we can only conjecture. Probably it was as early as 4200 or 4300 B. C. At all events, the two kingdoms existed separately for so long a time that their memory was ever afterward preserved. To the end of Egyptian history the kings bore the title, “king of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt.” Even in the Hebrew of the Old Testament the name for Egypt is literally “The two Egypts.” In this long pre-dynastic period the people were gradually emerging from savagery toward civilization. They were solving the initial problems of civilized life. According to Meyer and Breasted the people of Lower Egypt had progressed[Pg 25] far enough before 4200 B. C. to invent a calendar which approximately coincided with the solar year.

(2) The Archaic Period.—The history of united Egypt begins with the reign of Menes or Mena, who in some way, whether by conquest or marriage is uncertain, united the two crowns. He came from the nome of This, of which the city of Abydos, sacred to the worship of Osiris, was the chief town. He and his successors continued to administer the two parts of Egypt as separate countries. Mena founded the first dynasty, and the second dynasty seems to have been connected with his house; it was, at all events, from the nome of This. These two dynasties ruled Egypt for 420 years, from 3400 to 2980 B. C. This is known as the archaic period of Egyptian history. Men were, during this time, gradually developing the art of expressing thought by means of picture-writing. At some time during the first dynasty the Egyptians began to work the turquoise mines in the Wady Maghara in the peninsula of Sinai. The tombs of this period were low, flat houses of brick. The Arabs call them mastabas or “benches.” During the second dynasty the Egyptians began to conceive of their gods in human form. They preserved the continuity of the earlier animal and bird forms by putting the old heads on human bodies.

(3) The Old Kingdom embraces dynasties three to six, and extended from 2980 to 2475 B. C., a period of more than 500 years. During the third and fourth dynasties the power of the king was supreme and the first great culmination of Egypt’s civilization occurred. It was in this period that the pyramids developed. Zoser, the first king of the third dynasty, built as his tomb the so-called Step Pyramid; (see Fig. 7). It consists of five stages which vary from 29½ to 36 feet in height. It is not, therefore, a true pyramid. At the base it is 352 × 396 feet. Seneferu, the last king of the third dynasty, built a similar tomb, but, as he made the stages lower and more numerous, it approached more nearly the pyramidal form.

Khufu or Cheops, the founder of the fourth dynasty, improving upon the work of his predecessors, constructed the first real pyramid and the greatest of them all. The blocks with which he built were about three feet high, and he made a step with each course of stones. A covering, which has now been removed, was originally placed over the whole, thus securing a perfect pyramidal form.[Pg 26] This pyramid is now 750 (originally 768) feet on each side, and 451 (originally 482) feet high. It contains some 2,300,000 blocks of stone, each weighing on the average two and a half tons; (see Fig. 6). The stone was quarried from the Mokattam hills on the other side of the Nile, more than twelve miles away.

Khafre, the next king but one after Khufu, built the second pyramid, which is almost as high as that of Khufu, being 447½ feet, but measures on the sides but 690½ feet. Within and under the pyramids are the tomb chambers. Khafre also carved out of the native rock, not far from these two pyramids, the great Sphinx, the head of which bore a portrait of himself. From the top of the head to the pavement under the paws is 66 feet; the breadth of the face is 13 feet 8 inches, and the other parts are in proportion. Near the Sphinx stands a temple, built of polished granite, which is connected by an underground passage with the pyramid of Khafre. All these are silent but eloquent witnesses to the skill of the Egyptians of this period in stone work, and to the absolute power of the Pharaoh; (see Figs. 5 and 6).

Menkaure, the next king, constructed a smaller pyramid, the side of its base being 356½ feet and its height 204 (originally 219) feet. Either his power was less or the resources of the kingdom were becoming exhausted. Though the pyramidal form of tombs continued for several centuries, no others were ever built that approached these in size.

The fifth dynasty was founded by a priest of On. During its rule the power of the king was not so absolute, and a powerful nobility began to develop. These nobles had themselves buried in tombs of the old mastaba type, and adorned the walls with pictures of the industries which were carried on upon their country estates. One of the most famous of these is the tomb of a certain Ti, from the pictures in which much has been learned of the various industries of ancient Egypt.

By the time of the sixth dynasty a strong nobility had been developed in the different nomes, so that the monarchy was thoroughly feudal. The absolute power that the kings of the first four dynasties had exercised had passed away. During the sixth dynasty the conquest of northern Nubia was begun, an expedition was sent to the far-away land of Punt, a country far to the south. It was probably the region on both sides of the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, comprising southwestern Arabia and Somaliland. An[Pg 27] expedition was also sent over sea to Palestine, to chastise the inhabitants of the southern portion of that country for invading Egypt. The capital of Egypt during the whole of the Old Kingdom was Memphis. The city thus gained a prominence which made it ever afterward famous. In early times it had been called the White Wall, but after the sixth dynasty it was called Men-nofer, of which Memphis (Hosea 9:6) is a corruption. It is in the Old Testament more often called Noph, a corruption of the last part of the name. (See Isa. 19:13; Jer. 2:16; 44:1; 46:14, 19; Ezek. 30:13, 16.)

(4) The First Period of Disintegration covers dynasties seven to ten of Manetho’s list, a period lasting from 2475 to 2160 B. C. At the beginning of this period the powerful nobles in the different nomes seem, many of them, to have set up each a government of his own. Thus Egypt was once more resolved into many contending kingdoms. Through a cycle of 2,500 years a whole circle of political evolution had been completed. Starting with 42 chiefs or kinglets, the country had first become two kingdoms, then one kingdom. In this struggle the local nobility had been eliminated. Through nine hundred years the central monarchy was supreme, then slowly a new nobility developed, which finally overthrew the kingdom and once more made Egypt a group of weak and contending states.

During the last two hundred and fifty years of this period of darkness we gain some glimpses of a feudal monarchy which had its residence at Heracleopolis in central Egypt and controlled a good part of the land with varying degrees of success. These kings were apparently the ninth and tenth dynasties of Manetho.

(5) The Middle Kingdom.—About 2160 B. C. an eleventh dynasty arose and began to struggle for the supremacy, finally achieving it. This family belonged to the nome of Thebes, which had hitherto been of no particular importance. It now became the seat of government, and remained for 1,500 years one of the most important cities of Egypt.

About the year 2000 this dynasty was followed by the twelfth, a powerful line of kings which ruled from 2000 to 1788 B. C. This was the period of the great Middle Kingdom. The nobles were still strong, and the monarchy was thoroughly feudal in its organization. Three of these monarchs bore the name Sesostris. They raised Egypt to a high degree of prosperity and power. Trade[Pg 28] with Punt was resumed, Nubia was conquered to the Second Cataract, which was made the southern frontier of the realm, the mines of Sinai were worked, and one of the kings, Amenemhet III, built a large temple there, at a point now called Sarbut el-Khadem. This temple was explored a few years ago by Petrie.

Trade with Palestine and Syria flourished during this period. A noble of middle Egypt pictured in his tomb some of those who came to trade with him. When the pictures were first discovered, it was thought that they were the sons of Jacob, come to buy corn in Egypt; (see Fig. 1).

Sesostris III invaded Palestine before 1850 B. C. and captured a city which was apparently Shechem, though the spelling of the name is peculiar. The kings of this period were buried in tombs of pyramidal form, though the pyramids were not large. One of them built a great administration building at Hawara, which was known to the Greeks as the Labyrinth and was regarded as one of the wonders of the world.

During this and the preceding period a social conscience was developed in Egypt which found expression in a remarkable literature. Extracts from two examples of this, “The Eloquent Peasant” and “The Admonitions of Ipuwer,” are published in Part II, p. 418, ff., 421, ff.

(6) Second Period of Disintegration.—The thirteenth dynasty, which began in 1788 B. C., had not been long upon the throne, when powerful rebellions again broke up the kingdom. Petty kinglets ruled once more in many parts of the land. These kings comprise Manetho’s thirteenth and fourteenth dynasties. The land, disunited, became an easy prey to an invader. Such an invader came. For more than 3,000 years Egypt, protected by her deserts, had lived her life unmolested. The uncivilized Nubians on the south, the Lybians on the west of the Delta, and the uncivilized tribes of Sinai had been easily held in check. But now a powerful invader came from Asia with a well organized, though barbaric army. They conquered Egypt and imposed upon her two dynasties of kings, who ruled for about a hundred years, until they were driven out about 1580 B. C. These kings were Manetho’s fifteenth and sixteenth dynasties. He calls them Hyksos, which has been held to mean “Shepherd Kings,” but which probably meant “Ruler of Countries.” They have been generally believed to be Semitic, though some scholars now think they may have been of[Pg 29] Hittite origin. In any event, large numbers of Semites came to Egypt with them, and left many Semitic names in the Delta. Some of these will be discussed below. This invasion broke up Egypt’s splendid isolation and brought her into the current of world events, from which she was never afterward to free herself.

(7) The Empire Period.—At some time before 1600 B. C. a seventeenth dynasty arose at Thebes and began the struggle to expel the foreign kings. This was not accomplished until the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, Amosis I (1580-1577), achieved it. In order to secure freedom from invasion the kings of this dynasty were compelled to follow the invaders into Asia, and in time Thothmes III (1501-1447) conquered Palestine, Phœnicia, and Syria to the Euphrates, and organized it into a compact empire, which held together until about 1360. The kings of this dynasty also carried the conquest of Nubia to Napata, at the Fourth Cataract. They worked the mines of Sinai, traded with Punt, and inaugurated the “empire period,” which lasted in reality till well into the twentieth dynasty, about 1165, and which, for convenience, we count as extending to the fall of the twenty-first dynasty in 945 B. C.

The foreign conquests brought many immigrants to Egypt and also took many Egyptians for longer or shorter periods to foreign lands. Egyptian customs in dress as well as the Egyptian language changed rapidly during this time. The Asiatic conquests of Thothmes III brought Egypt into relations with Asiatic kings, and in time his successors, Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, had an interesting exchange of letters with kings of Babylon, Assyria, Mitanni, and Alashia (or Cyprus), as well as with Egyptian viceroys in Syria and Palestine. Some of these letters are translated in Part II, p. 344, ff.

Amenophis IV made the first attempt known in history to establish a monotheistic religion. Although it was unsuccessful, it produced a beautiful hymn, which is translated in Part II, p. 403, ff. The kings of this period were buried in tombs of a new type. These were excavated out of the solid rock, cut deep into the mountain-side. They were all in the famous Valley of the Tombs of the Kings back of Thebes.

The nineteenth dynasty succeeded the eighteenth about 1350 B. C. During a period of weakness between the two, the Asiatic dominions had been lost. These were in large part reconquered by Seti I and Ramses II. The last-mentioned king ruled 67 years,[Pg 30] from 1292 to 1225 B. C. He did much building in all parts of Egypt and Nubia. Among his enterprises were the cities of Pithom and Raamses in the Delta. He has long been thought to have been the Pharaoh who oppressed the Hebrews. Early in his reign he fought with the Hittites, but afterward made a treaty of peace with their king and married his daughter. The text of this treaty has been preserved. It is the earliest extant international treaty, and it contained an extradition clause, though this applied to political offenders only. (For head of Ramses, see Fig. 9.)

Merneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II, has been supposed to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. His hymn of victory over his enemies is translated in Part II, p. 311.

In the reign of Ramses III, of the twentieth dynasty (1198-1167 B. C.), the Philistines and other tribes, coming from across the sea, from Crete and Asia Minor, invaded Egypt. Repulsed by him, they invaded Palestine, where they secured a foothold. Ramses IV, his successor, was the last Pharaoh to work the mines in Sinai. By the reign of Ramses IX (1142-1123 B. C.), Egypt’s Asiatic empire was gone and her prosperity had so declined that the natives of Thebes took to robbing the tombs of kings for a living. The records of the trials of some of these have survived. In the reign of Ramses XII (1118-1090 B. C.), Wenamon made his famous expedition to Phœnicia, a part of which is narrated in Part II, p. 352, ff.

The twenty-first dynasty (1090-945 B. C.) was a line of weak monarchs, who simply held Egypt together. During their rule David built up Israel’s empire. One of them, either Siamon or Pesibkhenno II, was the Pharaoh whose daughter Solomon married. (See 1 Kings 3:1, f.; 9:16.)

(8) The Period of Foreign Dynasties (945-663 B. C.).—During the time of the twenty-first dynasty the Lybians, who for centuries had made unsuccessful attempts to invade Egypt, settled in large numbers in different parts of the country, and adopted Egyptian customs, while some of them became wealthy and powerful. In 945 B. C. one of these, named Sheshonk, founded the twenty-second dynasty. This king is the Shishak of the Bible. It was he who gave asylum to Jeroboam, when he fled from Solomon (1 Kings 11:40), and who in the days of Rehoboam invaded Palestine. (See 1 Kings 14:25-28.) The dynasty founded by Shishak lasted for two hundred years. During the first century of this time it was very flourishing. One of its kings, Osorkon II, was apparently an[Pg 31] ally of Ahab; at all events, a vase bearing Osorkon’s name was found at Samaria in Ahab’s palace. This dynasty made its capital at Bubastis in the Egyptian Delta, called Pi-beseth in Ezekiel 30:17.

During the last century of this dynasty’s rule Nubia, which had been for many centuries under Egyptian sway, gained her independence under a powerful dynasty which made Napata, at the Fourth Cataract, its capital. In 745 B. C. the twenty-second dynasty was succeeded by the twenty-third, which held a precarious existence until 718, when it was succeeded by the one king of the twenty-fourth. Egypt was during this period in great disorder, and in 712 the Nubian kings swept down from the south and conquered the country, establishing the twenty-fifth dynasty. The control thus passed from the Lybians to the Nubians. Tirhakah, the third king of this dynasty, took part in the wars against Sennacherib in Palestine. (See 2 Kings 19:9; Isa. 37:9, and Part II, p. 375, ff.) In 670 Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, invaded Egypt, defeated Tirhakah and made all the Delta as far as Memphis an Assyrian province. Some years later, when Tanut-amon, the successor of Tirhakah, endeavored to regain the Delta, Assurbanipal, of Assyria, marched up the Nile, took Thebes, that for 1,500 years had been mistress of Egypt, and during much of that time mistress of a large part of the then known world, and barbarously sacked it. This was in 661 B. C. This event made a great impression on surrounding nations. It is referred to in Nahum 3:8, where Thebes is called No-amon, or the city of the god Amon.

(9) The Lower Empire is the name given by scholars to the period of the twenty-sixth dynasty, 663-525 B. C. This dynasty was founded by Psammetik I, who became the viceroy of Egypt under Assurbanipal, of Assyria, in 663 B. C. Psammetik was descended from a native Egyptian family of the city of Sais in the western Delta, and a number of his ancestors had been prominent in the history of Egypt during the preceding century. At first he was a vassal of Assyria, but soon troubles in the eastern part of the Assyrian dominions enabled him to make Egypt independent. The Egyptians, finding themselves once more free under a native dynasty, experienced a great revival of national feeling. Everything Egyptian interested them. They looked with particular affection upon the age of the pyramid builders, who lived more than two thousand years before them. They revived old names and old titles, and emulated the art of the olden days. They manifested[Pg 32] such vigor and originality withal, that the art of the lower empire rivals that of the best periods of Egyptian history.

Necho, the son and successor of Psammetichus, endeavored, as Assyria was declining to her fall, to regain an Asiatic empire. Josiah, of Judah, who sought to thwart him, was defeated by Necho and killed at the battle of Megiddo in 608 B. C. (2 Kings 23:29). Necho afterward deposed Jehoahaz and took him captive to Egypt (2 Kings 23:34). Four years later, when Necho made a second campaign into Asia, he was defeated by Nebuchadrezzar at Charchemish on the Euphrates, and compelled to hastily retreat to Egypt, hotly pursued by the Babylonians. Jeremiah, who perhaps caught sight of the rapidly moving armies from the Judæan hills, has given a vivid account of the flight in Jeremiah 46. Jeremiah considered this event so important that he began then to commit his prophecies to writing. (See Jeremiah 36.) After this Necho devoted himself to the internal government of Egypt, though he became the patron of an enterprise for the circumnavigation of Africa, which was carried out by some Phœnicians. (See Herodotus, IV, 42.) Hophra, a later king of this dynasty (588-569 B. C.), in order to gain influence in Asia, tempted King Zedekiah to rebel against Babylon, and thus lured the little state of Judah to its destruction. During the reign of Hophra’s successor, Amosis II, Cyrus the Great founded the Persian empire, and in 525 B. C. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, overthrew the twenty-sixth dynasty, and made Egypt a Persian province.

(10) The Persian Period.—Cambyses, after conquering Egypt, attempted in vain to conquer Nubia. The Nubian monarchs at this time moved their capital from Napata, at the Fourth Cataract, to Meroe, at the Sixth Cataract. Darius (521-485 B. C.) ruled Egypt with great wisdom and tact, but under his successors there were frequent rebellions. Finally, in 406 B. C., the Egyptians actually gained their independence, which they maintained until 342 B. C. During this period three native dynasties, the twenty-eighth, the twenty-ninth, and the thirtieth, successively occupied the throne. Manetho counts the Persians as the twenty-seventh dynasty. In 342 B. C. the Persians reconquered the country and held it for ten years until it was taken by Alexander the Great. This ten years of Persian rule constitutes Manetho’s thirty-first dynasty.

(11) The Ptolemaic Period (332-31 B. C.).—For eleven years[Pg 33] Egypt formed a part of Alexander’s empire. Upon his death, in 323 B. C., it fell to the control of his general, Ptolemy Lagi, who founded a line of Ptolemies that ruled until overthrown by Augustus in 31 B. C. With the accession of the Ptolemies many Greeks settled in Egypt; Greek became one of the languages of commerce, and had a considerable influence in transforming the Egyptian language into Coptic. Until the year 198 B. C. the Ptolemies controlled Palestine. Philadelphus, the second of the line, rebuilt in the Greek style the city of Rabbah Ammon east of the Jordan, and named it Philadelphia. He, like his father, encouraged many Jews to settle in Alexandria, and, according to tradition, became the patron of the translation of the Old Testament Scriptures into Greek. At all events, the Pentateuch was translated in his time, and the translation of the other books followed. This translation is known as the “Septuagint” because of the legend that Ptolemy Philadelphus set 72 men to translate it. By the beginning of the Christian era there were so many Jews in Alexandria that it had become a second Judah.

(12) The Roman Period.—The Romans, upon conquering Egypt, disturbed in no way the internal affairs of the country. They gave it good government and fostered its internal institutions. Many old Egyptian customs persisted among the people; it is in regard to some of these that discoveries of interest to Biblical scholars have been made. From tombs and the places in the dry sands of the desert, where waste-baskets were emptied, many records have been discovered, some of which are translated in Part II, p. 432, ff., 440, ff.

Meantime, a state had developed out of the old monarchy of Nubia, described above, which was ruled by a woman, whose official title was Candace. It was an officer of hers to whom Philip preached, as described in Acts 8:27-39. Recent excavations in Nubia have recovered some of the art of these people, who became Christian in the second or third century, as well as some inscriptions of theirs in a script that is not yet deciphered.

7. Egyptian Discoveries which Bear on the Bible.

(1) Texts Bearing on the Story of Joseph.—A number of texts from the Middle Kingdom and other periods present features similar to parts of the story of Joseph and afford somewhat faint parallels to certain conceptions of the Hebrew Prophets. These are translated in Part II, p. 300, ff., and p. 418, ff.

The name of Joseph’s wife, Asenath (in Egyptian As-Neit,[Pg 34] “favorite of the goddess Neith”), occurs from the eighteenth dynasty onward. Such names as Potiphar, the master of Joseph (Gen. 39:1), and Potiphera, Joseph’s father-in-law (Gen. 41:45), in Egyptian Pedefre, “he whom the god Re gives,” as well as the name given to Joseph, Zaphenath-paneah (Gen. 41:45), in Egyptian De-pnute-ef-‘onkh, “the god speaks and he lives,” are common in Egypt from the beginning of the twenty-second dynasty, 945 B. C.

(2) The Invasion of Egypt by the Hyksos.—This took many Semites to Egypt. The very name Hyksos is held by Breasted to mean “ruler of countries.” It was probably a title by which these kings called themselves, for they evidently ruled a considerable portion of western Asia, as well as Egypt. “Ruler of countries” is just the Semitic-Babylonian and Assyrian shar-matâti, a title which Mesopotamian kings gave to themselves through much of their history. It had been employed by the Sumerians before them, being the familiar Sumerian lugal kurkurra, “king of countries.” If the Hyksos were Amorites, kinsmen of theirs had ruled in Babylonia long before their invasion of Egypt, and that these may have been Amorites is indicated by the name Jacob-her, which was borne by one of their kings. This is an Egyptian form of the Babylonian Yagub-ilu, or Jacob-el, an Amorite name found on business documents in Babylonia three or four hundred years earlier. In the time of Thothmes III this name was, Thothmes tells us, borne by a Palestinian city, to which it had apparently been given by some Amorite from Babylonia. Whether the Hyksos were Amorites or not, a number of Semitic names were given to places in Lower Egypt at the time of their occupation. Such was the name Magdol, or Migdol. The Egyptian name of Tanis was Zar, which Brugsch claims as Semitic. Thakut, an old name of Pithom, is the same as the Semitic Succoth, “booths.”

In the winter of 1905-1906 Petrie, excavating at Tell el-Ye-hudiyeh,[4] about 20 miles north of Cairo, discovered what he believes to have been one of the original encampments of the Hyksos in Egypt. This encampment consisted of a large space, averaging about 1,500 feet in each direction, surrounded by a wall of sloping sand and mud. This wall, varying from 80 to 140 feet wide at the top and from 130 to 200 feet wide at the bottom, presented on the outer side a long slope, and is quite unlike any structure of the native Egyptians. From the nature of the wall and the small[Pg 35] objects found near it, Petrie infers that it was the rampart of a people who defended themselves with bows and arrows. A cemetery of the same level yielded to the explorer a considerable amount of black pottery, not at all like pottery of native Egyptian manufacture, and a number of crude scarabs. These objects Petrie believes are products of the art of the Hyksos before they had been in Egypt long enough to adopt Egyptian civilization. In 1912 Petrie discovered a similar Hyksos camp at the site of Heliopolis, the Biblical On.

It has been held by many that Abraham, Joseph, and Jacob all went to Egypt during the reign of the Hyksos dynasty. It would be natural for Semites to enter such a country, if it were ruled by a dynasty of the same blood as themselves. Egypt has, however, furnished no positive archæological evidence of this view. The Semitic names just alluded to, which are sometimes cited as evidence of it, in reality only prove that many Semites came with the Hyksos. They make it probable, indeed, that some of the Hyksos were Semites, but give us no positive evidence concerning the patriarchs. On the other hand, nothing has been discovered in Egypt to disprove this view.

(3) The El-Amarna Letters.—In the winter of 1887-1888 a native Egyptian woman, according to one account, accidentally discovered some clay tablets in the soil at Tell el-Amarna, about 200 miles south of Cairo on the east bank of the Nile. She is said to have sold her rights in the discovery for about 50 cents. It was thus that nearly four hundred clay tablets, inscribed in the Babylonian language and characters, which opened an entirely unknown vista in the history of Palestine and the surrounding countries, were found. These were letters written to Kings Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, of the eighteenth dynasty. (See § 6 (7).) Seven of them were written by Ebed-hepa, King of Jerusalem, about 1360 B. C., and give us a glimpse of that city more than 350 years before David conquered it for Israel. Others of the letters came from other cities of Palestine and Phœnicia, and reveal to us through contemporary documents the conditions there in the patriarchal age. Some of these are translated in Part II, p. 344, ff.

(4) Period of the Oppression and the Exodus.—The statement in Exodus 1:11 that the Pharaoh who oppressed the Egyptians built the store-cities of Pithom and Raamses, indicates that this Pharaoh was Ramses II, for Naville, who excavated the site of Pithom[Pg 36] (Egyptian Pi-tum, “House of the god Tum”) in 1883, found much work of Ramses II there, including colossal statues of this king, and also found no evidence that there had been any town of importance on the site before.[5] The name of the other city, Raamses, also points to the same king, since Ramses I, the only other king of the name Egypt had known, reigned less than two years—a time insufficient for the building of a city. The Bible evidently refers, then, to Ramses II. Concerning Ramses II and his reign much is now known, as has been pointed out in § 6 (7); (see Fig. 10).

All through the nineteenth dynasty peoples from Syria were employed by the kings on public works. Among these was a people called ‘prw = Aperu or Apuri, which some have thought to be Hebrews. Whether the Hebrews are really mentioned in this way is doubted by others, for references to the ‘prw do not cease at the time the Exodus of Israel must have occurred. They were employed by Ramses IV, of the twentieth dynasty, as late as 1165 B. C.

Much has been learned from archæology about Egyptian brick-making, and it corresponds to the description of it given in Exodus. We have pictures of men at the work. No one thought of burning bricks in Egypt. The clay was moulded and dried in the sun. Straw was mixed with the clay to increase its adhesive quality. Naville says that some of the corners of some of the buildings at Pithom were actually built of bricks without straw. (See Exod. 5:7-18; and Fig. 11.)

The name Pithom continued as one of the names of this store-city or fortress until at least 250 B. C., for it is found on a pillar which Ptolemy Philadelphus set up there, but side by side with this name the place, all through its history, bore the name Thakut, which is philologically the Egyptian equivalent of the Hebrew Succoth. As this was the first station of the Hebrews when they left Egypt (Exod. 12:37; 13:20; Num. 33:5, 6), Naville holds that the Hebrews, after leaving the land of Goshen, must have passed out on the south side of the Isthmus of Suez.

Petrie believes that in the winter of 1905-1906 he discovered the city of Raamses[6] at Tell el-Retabeh, eight miles west of the site of Pithom, on the Wady Tumilat. The objects found here show that the site was occupied in the time of the Old Kingdom and onward, but as Ramses II and Ramses III both set up here statues[Pg 37] of themselves, and erected important buildings, and as the location is the only one that fulfils the conditions of the city Raamses, Petrie feels confident that this was the site. This view receives some confirmation from the title of an officer who served here under Ramses III, and who is called: “Chief archer, keeper of the granaries, keeper of the palace; chief archer, keeper of the granaries of Arabia (or Syria).”

Merneptah, who is generally supposed to have been the Pharaoh under whom the Exodus occurred, was not drowned in the Red Sea, as some have wrongly inferred from Exod. 14:23-28, but was duly buried like his predecessors. His mummy has been found and is now in the Gizeh Museum at Cairo.

Merneptah in the fifth year of his reign set up a hymn of victory on a pillar in a temple erected by his father, Ramses II. This hymn, discovered by Petrie in 1896, is famous as the only writing outside the Bible that mentions Israel by name. A part of it is translated in Part II, p. 311, where its bearing on the Exodus is discussed; (see Fig. 15).

(5) Campaign of Sheshonk I.—The record on a wall of the temple of Karnak in Egypt by Sheshonk I, the Shishak of 1 Kings 14:25, of his campaign in Palestine, confirms the statement of Kings and puts the whole campaign in a new perspective. It is treated in detail in Part II, p. 359, f.

(6) Papyri Discovered at Elephantine.—In recent years papyri discovered at Elephantine, an island in the First Cataract, reveal the existence of a Jewish colony there, which had a Jewish temple on the island. This colony was established there at some time during the twenty-sixth dynasty, and was thus one of the earliest of those Jewish settlements in foreign countries which formed the dispersion. A number of the records of these papyri, which relate the fortunes of this temple, the relations of this colony to their Egyptian neighbors and their knowledge of the law, are translated in Part II, p. 387, ff. The origin of the colony is also discussed there.

(7) The Palace of Hophra.—Hophra, of the twenty-sixth dynasty, was, as noted in § 6 (9), the king who lured Judah to her ruin. Petrie in 1907 discovered his palace at Memphis. The discovery makes Hophra seem a little more real.[7]

(8) The Castle at Tahpanhes.—We learn from Jer. 43:7, 8 and[Pg 38] 44:1 that, after the destruction of Jerusalem, Jeremiah with many other Jews fled to Tahpanhes in Egypt and established a Jewish colony there. Jeremiah, as a symbolical act, was directed to hide some stones in the cement of the tiled area of the court of Pharaoh’s house there (Jer. 43:8). Tahpanhes was the Daphne of the Greeks. It was on the site of the modern Tell Defenneh. This was in ancient times the easternmost city of the northern Delta. A hundred and fifty miles of desert stretched away to the east of it, until one came to the gardens of Gaza in Palestine. Petrie excavated Tell Defenneh in 1883-1884, and discovered the large castle there, which is probably the building in which Jeremiah buried his stones. This was the last act of Jeremiah’s life of which we have any record. He was then an old man and apparently died soon afterward, probably at Tahpanhes, certainly in Egypt.

(9) The Jewish Temple at Leontopolis.—Josephus tells us twice, once in his Antiquities of the Jews, Book XIII, Chapter III, and again in his Wars of the Jews, Book VII, Chapter X, that, when Jonathan, the Maccabee, was made high priest of the Jews, about 153 B. C., Onias, the son of Onias III, the deposed high priest, went to Egypt and obtained a grant of land and permission to build a Jewish temple. This land was in the region of the city of Bubastis, the nome where the cat goddess was sacred, and was accordingly called by the Greeks Leontopolis. There were at this time about as many Jews in Egypt as in Palestine, and doubtless Ptolemy VII thought to keep them more loyal by granting them a temple. He gave to Onias the revenues of a considerable territory for the support of the temple. Josephus tells us that Onias urged as a reason for the construction of this temple that it would be in fulfilment of the prophecy in Isa. 19:19-22. Josephus goes on to say that this temple was built as an exact reproduction of the temple at Jerusalem and that it continued to exist as a place of worship until after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, when troubles caused by Jewish zealots led the Roman government to close the temple at Leontopolis and discontinue its worship; (see Fig. 12).

The site of this temple was at Tell el-Yehudiyeh, the “Tell of the Jewess,” about 20 miles north of Cairo. This tell was excavated by Petrie in 1905-1906. He found there remains of the Jewish temple, which fully confirm the statements of Josephus. Not only the temple, but the form of the Jewish settlement, was made as far as possible a replica of the city of Jerusalem. One of the[Pg 39] most interesting discoveries was a series of ovens for the roasting of Paschal lambs. Others of a similar character were found higher up in the mound, but this first series was most numerous. Petrie infers that the temple was dedicated by a great Passover Feast, to which Jews came in large numbers from throughout Egypt;[8] (see Fig. 13).

(10) Papyri from Oxyrhynchus.—About 123 miles south of Cairo and nine miles to the west of the Nile lies the town of Behnesa, which the Greeks called Oxyrhynchus, from a sharp-nosed fish which was sacred there. Since 1897 Grenfell and Hunt, two English explorers, have been season after season exploring the rubbish heaps of the old town. The inhabitants committed the contents of their waste-baskets to the sands, and on account of the dry climate these have never decayed. Here were found the “Sayings of Jesus,” some of the documents concerning the Roman census, and some of the letters translated in Part II, pp. 432, ff., 440, ff., as well as many remains of the works of classical authors. Similar documents have been found in other parts of Egypt, but no other site has yielded as many as Oxyrhynchus.

(11) Discoveries in Nubia.—During the winter of 1908-1909 MacIver explored at Karanog in Nubia for the University of Pennsylvania. He found in a cemetery many remains of the civilization of the Christian Nubians. They still called their queen Candace (see Acts 8:27), fed her on milk, and regarded obesity as an attribute of royalty. More will be known of the Nubians of this period when the inscriptions discovered at Karanog and at Shablul, deciphered by Mr. Griffith, have been more completely studied. The explorations of the English at Meroe have afforded a connected view of the development of this Nubian civilization. They found there the remains of an early period extending from about 650-400 B. C., which was followed by about a century when the royal residence was elsewhere, a middle period from 300 to 1 B. C., during the latter part of which Hellenic influences were felt, and a late period, from 1 to 350 A. D., during which Roman forms of art penetrated the country.[9]

[Pg 40]

BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

The Land. The Preservation of Antiquities. The Discovery of Antiquities: By Benjamin of Tudela. By Rich. By Botta and Place. By Layard. By Loftus and Rawlinson. By Oppert and Rassam. By George Smith. By Sarzec. By Peters, Ward, and Haynes. By Koldeway. By Andrae. By de Morgan. By Harper and Banks. By Genouillac. The Decipherment of the Inscriptions: By Niebuhr. By Grotefend, De Sacy, and Rawlinson. Babylonian column. Babylonian-Semitic. Chronology. Outline of the History: The prehistoric period. Sumerians. The Pre-Babylonian period. “Stele of the Vultures.” The early Babylonian period. Kassites. Pashe dynasty. The early Assyrian period. The second Assyrian period. The Neo-Babylonian period. The Persian period. The Greek and Parthian periods. Discoveries which Illumine the Bible.

1. The Land.—The Mesopotamian Valley, as the great region watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers is called, in many respects resembles Egypt, although in other respects it differs strikingly from Egypt. The country is like Egypt in that it is formed by rivers; it differs from Egypt in that it has two rivers instead of one. In late geologic time the Persian Gulf extended far up toward the Mediterranean. All of what was Babylonia has been formed by detritus (silt) brought down by the Tigris and the Euphrates. The process of forming land is still going on. At the head of the Persian Gulf about seventy feet a year is still formed in this way, or a mile in about seventy-five years.

Both the Tigris and the Euphrates rise in the mountainous regions of Armenia, on opposite sides of the same range of mountains. The melting of the snows on these mountains gives both rivers, like the Nile, a period of overflow. As the source of the Tigris is on the south side of the mountains, it begins to rise first. Its rise begins about the first of March, its overflow is at its height in May, and the water recedes in June or July. The Euphrates begins to rise about the middle of March, continues to rise until June, and does not recede to its ordinary level until September. The soil thus formed is of rich materials, and the retreating flood leaves it each year well watered and softened for agriculture. Here, as in Egypt, one of the earliest civilizations of the world developed. [Pg 41]It was quite independent of that in Egypt, and consequently differed from the Egyptian in many respects. Unlike Egypt, Babylonia had a rainy season; nevertheless she was mainly dependent upon the overflow of the rivers for her irrigation and her fertility. As she possessed two rivers, her breadth was greater than that of Egypt, but she lacked the contiguity of protecting deserts, such as Egypt possessed. All through her history her fertile plains attracted the mountain dwellers of the East and the peoples of the West. Subject to frequent invasion by these, Babylonia had no long peaceful development such as Egypt enjoyed before the Hyksos invasion. From before the beginning of written history race mingled with race in this great valley, invasions were frequent, and the construction of permanent empires difficult.

The breadth of the Mesopotamian Valley affected also the building materials and the character of the art. Stone was much more difficult to obtain than in Egypt. Clay only was abundant. All buildings were consequently of brick. These structures were far less enduring than those in Egypt; their upper parts have disintegrated and buried the lower portions. Babylonian ruins are accordingly all under ground. The abundant clay was also used by the Babylonians as writing material. When baked, it proved far more enduring than the Egyptian papyrus. Thus, notwithstanding the general similarities which the Mesopotamian Valley presents to Egypt, its differences profoundly affected Babylonian history and Babylonian art.

2. The Preservation of Antiquities.—Babylonian cities were usually built on terraces of brick. The walls of the cities and their buildings were constructed of the same material. Refuse from the houses in these towns was always thrown out into the streets, so that, as the centuries passed, the streets were gradually elevated. The walls of the brick houses gradually became unstable in the lapse of time, and as the houses were repaired they were brought up to the level of the street. Consequently even in peaceful times the mounds on which the cities were built gradually grew higher. Most of these cities were at various times destroyed in warfare. Sometimes all the houses would be partially demolished and the site would be for a time practically uninhabited. When at length the place was repeopled, the top of the mound would be smoothed off and taken as the base of a new city. In this way through the many centuries of Babylonian history the sites of her[Pg 42] cities have become great mounds. When these cities finally fell into ruin, the clay of the upper part of the walls gradually disintegrated in the weather and formed a coating of earth over the whole, which preserved the foundations of the walls both of cities and houses, as well as the inscribed clay, stone tablets, and the works of art buried underneath.

Connected with each Babylonian and Assyrian temple was a kind of staged tower, shaped in a general way like the stepped pyramid of Zoser at Sakkarah in Egypt. The Babylonians called these towers Ziggurats. As the bricks of these towers decayed, they formed in connection with the city mound a kind of hillock or peak, which varied in accordance with the height of the tower. The ruin of the Ziggurat at Birs Nimrûd, the ancient Borsippa, is one of the most imposing to be seen in ancient Babylonia; it was long thought to be the original of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:9). It thus came about that no ancient temple of Babylonia, like some of those in Egypt, has remained above ground. Explorers have had to dig to discover antiquities; (see Fig. 22).

3. The Discovery of Antiquities: By Benjamin of Tudela.—The first man from western Europe who traveled through Babylonia and Assyria and noted their ruins was a Jew, Benjamin of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre. Leaving home about 1160 A. D., he traveled through Palestine, crossed the desert by way of Tadmor, visited Mosul opposite ancient Nineveh, and went southward to the site of Babylon. He also saw the ruin of Birs Nimrûd, and believed it to be the Tower of Babel. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries many other travelers visited the Mesopotamian Valley and described what they saw. Some of these, toward the close of the eighteenth century, described curious inscriptions which they had seen there on bricks. This information led the British East India Company in 1797 to instruct its resident at Bussorah, in southern Babylonia, to try to secure some of these inscriptions. This he did, and early in 1801 the first case of inscribed bricks arrived at the East India House in London, where they are still preserved.

By Rich.—Early in the nineteenth century Claude James Rich became resident of the East India Company at Bagdad. In his travels through the region he visited the mounds of Hillah (Babylon), Kouyunjik (Nineveh), and others, where he made some slight excavations, and found many inscriptions. The smaller ones he[Pg 43] added to his collection, but many of them were of too monumental a character to be removed. Through these efforts a wide-spread interest was aroused.

By Botta and Place.—In 1842 the French government created a vice-consulate at Mosul, opposite the site of ancient Nineveh, and appointed to the position Paul Emil Botta, who had served as French consul at Alexandria in Egypt. Botta’s mission was made in part archæological. In December, 1842, Botta began digging in the mound of Kouyunjik, the site of ancient Nineveh. Here he worked for three months. As he found only a few inscribed bricks and the fragments of some bas-reliefs, he became discouraged, and changed the field of his operations to a mound called Khorsabad, situated about fourteen miles to the northeast of Kouyunjik. Here he discovered a palace filled with interesting inscribed bas-reliefs made of alabaster, as well as a city about a mile in circumference. Under the corners of the palace and under the city gates were many inscribed cylinders of clay. This proved to be the palace and city built by Sargon, King of Assyria (722-705 B. C.), as his new capital. He named it Dur-Sharrukin, or Sargonsburgh. His name had so entirely disappeared from ancient literature that only one reference to him has survived, that in Isaiah 20:1, but here was his palace arising from the dust together with abundant annals of his reign. (See Part II, p. 369, ff.)

Botta and his successor, Victor Place, excavated intermittently at Khorsabad for ten years, uncovering the palace and making a plan of it, excavating the city walls and gates, studying the drainage of the ancient town, and fully describing the whole. Although a part of the antiquities found were lost in the Tigris by the wreck of a raft on which they were being floated down the river, a large collection reached France, where they are preserved in the Louvre.

By Layard.—The success of Botta fired the enthusiasm of Austen Henry Layard, a young Englishman of Huguenot descent, who began to excavate in 1845 at Nimrûd, a mound further down the Tigris than Mosul, and the site of the Biblical Calah (Gen. 10:11). His money was at first furnished by a few friends, but as he soon discovered a royal palace there similar to the one Botta had unearthed at Khorsabad, the trustees of the British Museum commissioned him to excavate for them. He thus continued the work intermittently until 1849. During this time he spent most of his energy upon the mound of Kouyunjik, where he discovered[Pg 44] another royal palace. This palace proved to be the work of Sennacherib, the son of Sargon (named in 2 Kings 18:13; Isa. 36), who built the one at Khorsabad, while the palace at Calah was, in its final form, the work of Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib. (See 2 Kings 19:37.) The palace at Nineveh had in turn been repaired by Esarhaddon’s son, Assurbanipal.

By Loftus and Rawlinson.—As these excavations progressed, others were stimulated to make minor explorations. Thus in 1850 William Kennett Loftus carried on small excavations at the mound of Warka, the site of the Biblical Erech (Gen. 10:10), in southern Babylonia, from which he recovered important antiquities. From 1851-1855 the oversight of English excavations was entrusted to Sir Henry C. Rawlinson, the British consul-general at Bagdad. Under his direction J. E. Taylor, British vice-consul at Bassorah, made an excavation at the mound of Mugheir, the site of Ur of the Chaldees, where he unearthed important inscriptions. At the same time Loftus was traveling about Babylonia collecting antiquities.

By Oppert and Rassam.—In 1852 a French expedition under the direction of Jules Oppert reached Babylonia. Oppert made important excavations at Hillah, the site of the city of Babylon, and at Birs Nimrûd, the ancient Borsippa. In 1852 Hormuzd Rassam, who had been one of Layard’s helpers, continued under Rawlinson’s direction the excavation at Nineveh. This work continued until 1854; Rassam had the good fortune to find, in a part of the mound previously untouched, still another palace. This was the palace of Assurbanipal, the last of Assyria’s great kings, who ruled from 668 to 626 B. C., and who collected here a great library. This library Rassam discovered, and as it contained every variety of Babylonian and Assyrian literature, including dictionaries and grammatical exercises, it was one of the most important archæological discoveries ever made. During the last part of the time Rassam was succeeded by Loftus. Finally, in the autumn of 1854, Rawlinson himself undertook an excavation at Birs Nimrûd, and unearthed some important inscriptions of Nebuchadrezzar II, King of Babylon, 604-562 B. C. (See 2 Kings 24, 25.)

After this the interest in excavation waned for a time, while scholars were busy reading the tablets already found.

By George Smith.—In December, 1872, George Smith, an employee of the British Museum, announced that among the tablets[Pg 45] from Nineveh he had found an account of the flood which closely resembled that in the Bible. This aroused so much interest that the proprietors of the London Daily Telegraph contributed money to send George Smith to Assyria to explore further the mounds there. George Smith thus led two expeditions of exploration, one in 1873 and the other in 1874. He extended the trenches of his predecessors at Nineveh and discovered many more important inscriptions. In 1876 he was on his way to Mesopotamia for the third time, when he died of fever at Aleppo. The British Museum immediately secured the services of Rassam again, who during that year and 1877 extended the work at Kouyunjik (Nineveh) and also found a palace of Shalmaneser III, King of Assyria, 860-824 B. C., at a mound called Balawat, situated to the east of Kouyunjik.

By Sarzec.—Meantime, the interest of France was again aroused, and in 1877 her consul at Bassorah, Ernest de Sarzec, began the excavation of Telloh, a mound in southern Babylonia, which turned out to be the site of Shirpurla or Lagash, one of the oldest and most important of the ancient cities of Babylonia. Work was carried on at intervals here by Sarzec until his death in 1901, and has since been continued by Gaston Cros. The results have not received the popular acclaim accorded to the discoveries of Botta and Layard, but scientifically they are far more important. Some of the oldest examples of Babylonian art have been discovered, as well as many thousands of tablets. One room alone contained an archive of business documents estimated at thirty thousand. Much of our knowledge of the history of early Babylonia is derived from material found at Telloh.

By Peters, Ward, and Haynes.—In 1884 America began to take an interest in Babylonian exploration. This was due largely to the initiative of Dr. John P. Peters, then Professor of Hebrew in the University of Pennsylvania, now Rector of St. Michael’s Church, New York. Through his efforts Miss Catherine L. Wolfe, of New York, contributed the money to defray the expenses of an expedition to Babylonia for a preliminary survey. This expedition was led by Dr. William Hayes Ward, Editor of the New York Independent. It spent the winter of 1884-1885 in Mesopotamia, made many observations of the various mounds, and collected some archæological material. Dr. Peters continued his efforts, and as a result a fund was raised in Philadelphia to defray[Pg 46] the expenses of an excavation in the interest of the University of Pennsylvania. This expedition set out in 1888 under the direction of Dr. Peters. The site chosen for the exploration was Nuffar, about sixty miles to the southeast of Babylon. The work was continued for two seasons under the direct control of Dr. Peters. After an interruption of three years the work was resumed under the general direction of Dr. Peters, with Dr. John H. Haynes as Field Director. Dr. Haynes, in the most self-sacrificing and heroic manner, continued the work both summer and winter until February, 1896, laying bare many of the features of the ancient city of Nippur, which had occupied the site, and discovering many inscribed tablets. While this work was in progress Prof. Herman V. Hilprecht became nominal head of the expedition on account of the removal of Dr. Peters to New York. A fourth expedition under the guidance of Dr. Haynes began work at Nuffar (Nippur) in February, 1899, and worked until March, 1900. During this work Dr. Haynes discovered a large archive of tablets, the exact number of which is variously estimated. The find was similar to that made by Sarzec at Telloh; (see Figs. 16 and 17).

Nuffar, the ancient Nippur, was one of the oldest centers of Babylonian civilization, and the work of the Americans there is, for our knowledge of the history of ancient Babylonia, next in importance to that done by the French at Telloh. A large number of the tablets discovered at Nippur are now in the University Museum in Philadelphia. Meantime, the Turkish government had undertaken on its own account an excavation at Abu Haba, the site of the ancient Sippar in northern Babylonia. The direction of the work was committed to the oversight of the French Assyriologist Père Scheil, and the work was carried on in the early part of the year 1894. Much interesting material was brought to light.

By Koldewey.—Also during this decade a new Society, the Orient-Gesellschaft, had been formed in Berlin for the purpose of excavation. This Society began in 1899 the excavation of the great mound which covered the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon. The work was committed to the direction of Dr. Robert Koldewey, who has carried it steadily forward until the present time. Koldewey has laid bare at Babylon a number of the great works of King Nebuchadrezzar—the magnificent walls with which he surrounded Babylon, and the palace and temples with which he adorned it. As the work at Babylon has progressed, Koldewey has made a[Pg 47] number of minor excavations in smaller mounds of Babylonia. During the season of 1912-1913 Dr. Julius Jordan undertook, under Dr. Koldewey’s general direction, an excavation at Warka, the Biblical Erech, where Loftus had dug sixty years before. A part of the great temple of Ishtar has been uncovered by Dr. Jordan, together with a portion of the city wall and many houses. Many tablets have also been found, some of them having been written as late as the Seleucid and Parthian periods, 312-50 B. C.; (see Fig. 18).

By Andrae.—While the excavation at Babylon has been in progress, the Orient-Gesellschaft has also conducted another at Kalah-Sherghat, on the Tigris, in ancient Assyria. This is the site of the city of Ashur, from which the country of Assyria took its name. (Cf. Gen. 10:10, 11.) The work has been under the direction of Dr. Andrae and has been in progress from 1902 to the present time. Temples and palaces have been uncovered, and inscriptions from every period of Assyrian history have been found. The latest reports of the work at Ashur tell of the discovery of objects which connect the founding of the city with immigrants from Lagash in southern Babylonia.

By de Morgan.—In 1900 a French expedition began the excavation of Susa, in ancient Elam, the Shushan of the Bible. (See Neh. 1:1; Esther 1:2, etc., and Dan. 8:2.) This work was under the direction of J. de Morgan. While Susa is not in Babylonia, the excavations here added greatly to our knowledge of Babylonian history and life, for during the first two seasons of the excavation, two inscribed stone pillars were discovered, which the ancient Elamites had at some time taken as trophies of war from the Babylonians. One of these was an inscription of Manishtusu, King of Kish, who ruled about 2700 B. C., and the other the pillar which contained the laws of Hammurapi, the most important single document relating to Babylonian life that is known to us. (See Part II, Chapter XIII.)

By Harper and Banks.—During the year 1903-1904 the University of Chicago sent an expedition to Babylonia. The expenses were borne by a contribution from John D. Rockefeller. The late Prof. Robert Harper was Scientific Director of the expedition, and Dr. Edgar J. Banks, Field Director. The work was conducted at the mound of Bismya, which proved to be the site of the ancient city of Adab, one of the oldest Babylonian cities, which seems not to have been occupied since about 2600 B. C. Many[Pg 48] interesting finds were made, including a statue of a king, Lugaldaudu, and many tablets. Friction with the Turkish government brought the expedition to an untimely close, and owing to the same cause the tablets discovered are hoarded at Constantinople and have not been given to the world.

By Genouillac.—During the early part of the year 1914 a French expedition, under the direction of H. de Genouillac, excavated at Ukhaimir, the site of ancient Kish. They have discovered the great Ziggurat of the temple of Zamama, the god of Kish, and are said to have made other important finds, but the details are not yet published.

4. The Decipherment of the Inscriptions.—The task of learning to read the inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria was much more difficult than the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, for no such simple key as the Rosetta Stone was at hand. The key that finally unlocked the mystery came not from Babylonia, but from Persepolis in Persia. When Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 538 B. C. the Persians had not developed a system of writing. They accordingly adapted to their language the characters of the Babylonian script. The Babylonian script had begun, like the Egyptian hieroglyphs, as a system of picture-writing, in which each picture represented an idea. These had gone through a long development, in which the original picture-forms had been supplanted by conventional characters derived therefrom. In making these characters on clay, one end of a line was always wider than the other, hence the characters are called “wedge-shaped” or “cuneiform.” In the course of the ages the Babylonians had come to use the characters to express both syllables and whole words, and a scribe might mingle these uses of a sign at will in writing a composition. Many of the signs might also express any one of several syllables. In adapting this complicated system, the Persians had the wisdom to simplify it. They selected or constructed a character for each sound, making a real alphabet. Three of the Persian kings, Darius (521-485), Xerxes (456-465), and Artaxerxes II (405-359), wrote their inscriptions in three languages,—Babylonian, Elamite, and Persian,—employing wedge-shaped scripts for all of them.

By Niebuhr.—In the ruins of the great palace of the Persian kings at Persepolis many of these inscriptions in three languages were preserved. These ruins attracted the notice of many travelers[Pg 49] from the time that Odoric, a monk, saw them in 1320 A. D., and a number of travelers had made copies of some of them and brought them back to Europe. The inscriptions were a great puzzle. After Alexander the Great (331-323 B. C.) Persia had been subject to foreign powers until 220 A. D., when the Sassanian dynasty (220-641 A. D.) made Persia again an independent kingdom. In the revival of Persian letters that occurred in Sassanian times, a form of the Phœnician alphabet was used, because the old characters of these inscriptions had been forgotten. In 1765 Carsten Niebuhr, a Dane, visited Persepolis and made accurate copies of a large number of these inscriptions. The first correct reading of any of these inscriptions was done from Niebuhr’s copies; (see Fig. 20).

By Grotefend, de Sacy, and Rawlinson.—A number of scholars had studied Niebuhr’s copies, but the first to read any of them correctly was Georg Friedrich Grotefend, a German scholar. He began with the assumption that the three groups of lines in the inscriptions contained respectively three languages, and that the first of these was the Persian of Cyrus and his successors. In the years 1787-1791 Sylvestre de Sacy, a French Oriental scholar, had studied and in part expounded some Sassanian alphabetic inscriptions from Persia, which had also long attracted the notice of scholars. These Sassanian inscriptions were many of them cast in the same mould. They ran thus:

Grotefend had these inscriptions before him, and compared this formula with the inscriptions from Persepolis. He noted that as often as the formula contained the word “king” the inscriptions from Persepolis contained the same group of signs, and that as often as it had “of kings,” they reproduced the group with a different ending. He therefore rightly concluded that these signs were the old Persian spelling of the Persian word for “king” with its genitive plural. Taking from the Sassanian inscriptions the word for king, he proceeded to parcel out its sounds among the characters with which the word was spelled in the Persepolis inscriptions. He also found a king, who was the son of a man not a king. This, he rightly held, could be none other than Darius, the son of Hystaspes. Apportioning the proper groups of signs among the sounds of these names, he obtained still further alphabetical values. Thus a[Pg 50] beginning was made. Grotefend was, however, unable to carry the work far, and in the years that followed Eugène Burnouf, Christian Lassen, Isidore Lowenstern, Henry C. Rawlinson, and Edward Hincks all made contributions to the subject. The honor of having first correctly read and interpreted a long inscription belongs to Rawlinson. Rawlinson was a young army officer, who as a boy had been in India, where he learned Persian and several of the dialects of India. In 1833 he was sent to Persia with other British officers to assist in the reorganization of the Persian army. Here his attention was attracted by the great Persian inscriptions in the mountains near Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, and in the intervals of military duties he copied and studied several of them. He was, in the early stages of his work, quite unaware of the work done by Grotefend and others, but hit independently upon the method followed by Grotefend. Owing to the fact that the inscriptions on which Rawlinson worked were longer than those accessible to Grotefend, and also contained more proper names, Rawlinson attained greater success than any of his predecessors. He did not publish his results, however, until he had become thoroughly familiar with all that others had done. It was not until 1846 that he published a full interpretation of the Persian column of the great Behistun[10] inscription of Darius I.

Babylonian Column.—This successful achievement related, however, only to the Persian column. The mysteries of the Babylonian column had not yet been solved. This task, as will be evident from the complicated nature of the writing mentioned above, was a much more difficult one. The decipherment of the Persian had, however, taught the sound of many cuneiform signs. These sounds were carried over to the Babylonian column as a nucleus of information. Excavations were all the time also bringing new material to light, and a comparison of inscriptions, in many of which the same words were written in different ways, sometimes ideographically and sometimes syllabically, helped on the general stock of knowledge. Rawlinson, Hincks, Jules Oppert, and Fox Talbot were the men who at this stage of the work were still wrestling with the problem. Again Rawlinson was the man to achieve the first distinguished success. In 1851 he published one hundred and twelve lines of the Babylonian portion of the Behistun inscription with transliteration and translation, and accompanied the whole with[Pg 51] copious notes in which the principles of the grammar were set forth. A list of the signs and their values was also added. From that day to this the study has steadily gone forward.

Babylonian-Semitic.—The work of Rawlinson and his co-laborers proved that the language of the ancient Babylonians was a Semitic language, closely akin to Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Ethiopic. Within the next few years after he had found the key to the cuneiform writing, Rawlinson announced that the inscriptions from Babylonia contained material in another and very different language. The researches of later years have fully confirmed this, and scholars call this language Sumerian. The people who spoke it were the inventors of many elements in the civilization of early Babylonia, and for many centuries at the dawn of history divided the country with the Semites.

5. Chronology.—The materials for constructing the chronology of Babylonian and Assyrian history are as follows:

(1) Claudius Ptolemy, an Egyptian astronomer who flourished in the second century A. D., made a list of the kings of Egypt, Persia, and Babylonia back to the accession of the Babylonian king, Nabonassar, in 747 B. C. This list was compiled as an astronomical aid, and is very accurate.

(2) The Assyrian kings kept lists of years and of principal events, to which scholars have given the name “Eponym Lists,” because each year was named after the king or some officer. Tablets containing these lists have been recovered on which we can still read the chronology from 893 to 666 B. C. This list accordingly overlaps the list or “canon” of Ptolemy. Some of these Assyrian kings were also kings of Babylon, and where the lists overlap they agree. One of these lists mentions an eclipse which occurred at Nineveh in the month Sivan (May-June), 763 B. C. This eclipse has been calculated and verified by modern astronomers, so that the chronology covered by these lists rests upon a secure scientific basis.

(3) For dates in Assyrian history anterior to 893 B. C. we have to depend upon incidental notices in the inscriptions. Thus Sennacherib, whose date is fixed by the Eponym Lists as 705-681 B. C., relates that during his reign he recovered from Babylon the images of two gods that had been taken as booty by Marduknadinakhi, King of Babylon, from Tiglath-pileser, King of Assyria, 418 years before Sennacherib brought them back. It follows from this that[Pg 52] Tiglath-pileser I of Assyria and Marduknadinakhi of Babylon were ruling from about 1120 to 1100 B. C.

We also have a long inscription from the Tiglath-pileser mentioned here, who relates that in his reign he restored a temple, which had been built by Shamshi-Adad, ruler of Assyria, son of Ishmi-Dagan, ruler of Assyria, 641 years before the time of Ashur-dan, King of Assyria. Ashur-dan had, he tells us, pulled the temple down and it had lain in ruins 60 years until he (Tiglath-pileser) rebuilt it. By adding these numbers we reach 1819 or 1820 B. C. as the accession of Shamshi-Adad.

Again Sennacherib found at Babylon a seal which bore the following inscription:

“Tukulti-Ninib, king of the world, son of Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, conqueror of the land of Chaldæa. Whoever changes the writing of my name, may Ashur and Adad destroy his name. This seal was presented by the land of Assyria to the land of Akkad” (Babylonia).

To this Sennacherib added the following inscription:

“I, Sennacherib, after 600 years conquered Babylon, and from its treasures brought it out and took it.”

We learn from this that Tukulti-Ninib was ruling in Assyria from about 1300 to 1290 B. C.

Andrae has recently (1914) published an inscription of Tukulti-Ninib in which he states that he repaired a temple which had been built by his ancestor, Ilu-shumma, King of Assyria, 720 years before. Ilu-shumma was, accordingly, ruling in Assyria about 2020 to 2010 B. C.

(4) Among the tablets in the British Museum are two so-called “dynastic tablets” which contain lists of the kings of Babylon from the time that Babylon became the leading city of the country to its capture by the Persians. The kings are divided into eight dynasties, the length of the reign of each king was originally given, and at the end of each dynasty a statement was given of the number of kings in that dynasty and the total length of their reigns. These tablets are unfortunately much broken, so that they afford us little help after the year 1000 B. C. We learn from them, however, that Marduknadinakhi, the king mentioned by Sennacherib as ruling about 1100 B. C., belonged to the fourth Babylonian dynasty, and, if we add together the years given for the previous[Pg 53] dynasties, we are taken back nearly to the year 2400 B. C. for the accession of the first dynasty of Babylon. Evidence has, however, come to light in recent years which proves that the first and second of these dynasties overlapped, one ruling in the north while the other ruled in the south. A reliable chronology cannot, therefore, be obtained by adding these numbers together. In order to correct them recourse must be had to other evidence.

(5) Franz Xaver Kugler, who is both an astronomer and an Assyriologist, has recently shown that an astronomical tablet which was published as long ago as 1870, and which notes for a series of years when Venus was the evening and when the morning star, contains a date formula which fixes its compilation in the reign of Ammi-zadugga, the tenth of the eleven kings of the first dynasty of Babylon. From mathematical calculations of the position of the planet Venus, Kugler is accordingly able to fix the accession year of Ammi-zadugga as either 2040, 1976, or 1857 B. C. As the first of these dates is too early, and the third is, in the judgment of most scholars, too late, it follows that his accession year was in 1976. From the lengths of the reigns of the various kings of this dynasty as given in the dynastic tablets, it follows that the first dynasty of Babylon began its rule in 2206 B. C.

(6) Under Adad-nirari III, King of Assyria (810-782 B. C.), a so-called synchronistic history of Assyria and Babylonia was compiled. It covered about 600 years, beginning with a treaty of peace between Karaindash, King of Babylon, and Ashur-rim-nishishu, King of Assyria. It aids in filling gaps left by breaks in other lists.

(7) A chronological tablet in the Babylonian collection of Yale University contains a list of the kings of Larsa. This city was conquered by Hammurapi, of the first dynasty of Babylon, in the 31st year of his reign. The tablet, therefore, counts Hammurapi one of the kings of Larsa, ascribing to him twelve years of rule. The tablet was apparently compiled in the twelfth year of Samsuiluna, Hammurapi’s successor, to whom twelve years are also ascribed. It gives the total length of the dynasty of Larsa as 289 years. That dynasty, accordingly, began its rule in 2358 B. C.

(8) In a chronological list of the kings of Ur and Nisin on a tablet in the University Museum, Philadelphia,[11] it is stated that the[Pg 54] kings of Ur ruled 117 years and the kings of Nisin 225 years and 6 months. A tablet has now been discovered which shows that the dynasty of Nisin was not overthrown until 2117 or 2116 B. C. Its 225 years, therefore, were all parallel to the time of the dynasty of Larsa. As the dynasty of Nisin rose upon the ruins of the kingdom of Ur, the dates of the kingdom of Ur are, therefore, fixed as 2458-2341 B. C.

(9) A chronological tablet published by Scheil in the Comptes rendus of the French Academy for 1911 gives a list of five early dynasties of Babylonia: a dynasty of Opis, one of Kish, one of Agade, and two of Erech.

(10) A group of chronological tablets in the University Museum in Philadelphia,[12] which assign several dynasties to each of several well-known Babylonian cities, ascribe to their kings incredibly long reigns. One of these is translated in Part II, Chapter IV.

(11) Fragments of a work of Berossos, a Babylonian priest who lived after the time of Alexander the Great, contain a list of Babylonian kings. He based his work on such tablets as those in the University Museum. His statements abound accordingly in incredible numbers.

From these tablets it appears that the dynasty of Ur was preceded by the dynasty of Gutium, which ruled for 159 years; the dynasty of Gutium was preceded by a dynasty of Erech for 26 years; that, by a dynasty of Agade for 197 years; that, by one king of Erech, Lugalzaggisi, who ruled 25 years; he was apparently preceded by a dynasty of Kish for 106 years; that, by a dynasty of Opis for 99 years. These figures take us back to 3070 B. C., though the arrangement for the time before Lugalzaggisi is in part conjectural. Four dynasties of what are known to have been historical kings existed before this time, so that we are led to place the beginning of the historical period in Babylonia about 3200 B. C. or earlier.

(12) Nabuna’id, King of Babylon, 555-538 B. C., states that he found, in repairing the temple at Sippar (Agade), the temple-platform of Naram-Sin, son of Sargon, which no one had seen for 3,200 years. As he made this statement about 550 B. C., it was long supposed that this fixed the date of Naram-Sin as 3750 B. C., and that of his father, Sargon, at about 3800 B. C. These dates[Pg 55] will be found in many of the older books, but they are incredible. They would, if true, leave long gaps in the history that we have no information to fill. Since it has been clearly proved that the dynasties overlapped, it seems that Nabuna’id reached his date by adding together the totals of dynasties, some of which were contemporary. It now seems probable that he placed Naram-Sin about 1,100 years too early.

The sources here enumerated afford us a tolerably accurate chronology back to about 2450 B. C. All dates earlier than this have to be estimated by combining statements of early dynastic tablets with archæological and palæographic considerations.

6. Outline of the History.—The history of Babylonia and Assyria falls into eight different periods. Our information is not yet sufficiently complete to enable us to write the history of any one of them, but we can discern in outline a most fascinating course of events.

(1) The Prehistoric Period, or the period before the rise of written history, during which we can ascertain from various inferences the general course of events. This period must have begun about 4500 or 5000 B. C. and lasted down to about 3200 B. C. The Semites from Arabia[13] were the first to pour into the fertile valley of Mesopotamia. They came up from the south, establishing the city of Eridu on the shore of the Persian Gulf, then the cities of Ur, Erech, Lagash, Nippur, etc. They carried with them the culture of the palm-tree, and learned to raise grain in the alluvial soil of the rivers, but they had no system of writing. The early cities of Babylonia were the fortified residences of different tribes, which were frequently at war with one another. One city would subjugate its neighbors for a time and establish a small empire. As long as it continued to rule, a certain degree of homage was paid to its god by all the cities over which it ruled. In prehistoric times there were kingdoms of this sort ruled at one time by Eridu, at another by Erech, and at another by Nippur, for Ea, the god of Eridu, Anu, the god of Erech, and Enlil or Bel, god of Nippur, were ever after worshiped as the supreme gods of Babylonia.

Sumerians.—At some time before the dawn of history a people whom we call Sumerians moved into Babylonia from the East.[Pg 56] These people spoke a language which possesses some features in common with Finnish and Turkish. They were neither Aryans nor Semites. The Semites wore thick hair and long beards; the Sumerians shaved both their heads and faces. These Sumerians overran southern Babylonia as far north as Nippur and in this region became the ruling race. They grafted the worship of their own gods upon the worship of the deities of the cities which they conquered, but the Semitic elements of these local deities persisted even in Sumerian thought. It thus came about that the bald and beardless Sumerians picture their gods with hair and beards. After settling in Babylonia, the Sumerians developed a system of writing. It was at first hieroglyphic, like the Egyptian system. Afterward the Semites, who still retained the supremacy in the cities of Kish and Agade in the north, and who had probably been reinforced there by fresh migrations from Arabia, adapted this system of writing to their own language. As clay was the usual writing material and it was difficult to make good pictures on it, the pictographic form of the writing was soon lost. The pictures degenerated into those conventional symbols which are today known as the “cuneiform” characters.

(2) The Pre-Babylonian Period of the history includes the period from about 3200 B. C. down to the rise of the city of Babylon, about 2100 B. C. This period, like the preceding, was a time of successive city kingdoms. One city would establish an empire for a while, then another, having become more powerful, would take the leadership. When first our written records enable us to trace the course of events, Lagash in the south and Kish in the north were the rival cities. Lagash was ruled by a king, Enkhegal. A little later Meselim, King of Kish, conquered all of southern Babylonia, including Lagash. After Meselim had passed away, Ur-Nina founded a new dynasty at Lagash and gained his independence. Ur-Nina’s grandson, Eannatum, raised the power of Lagash to its greatest height, conquering all the cities of Babylonia, even Kish. The Elamites were always invading the fertile plains of Babylonia, so Eannatum ascended the eastern mountains and subjugated Elam.

“Stele of the Vultures.”—He celebrated his victories by the erection of one of the most remarkable monuments which the ancient world produced, the so-called “stele of the vultures.” From the pictures on the monument we learn that the soldiers of Lagash,[Pg 57] about 2950 B. C., waged their battles in a solid phalanx protected by shields. The Greeks were formerly supposed to have invented this form of attack, but were anticipated by 2,500 years; (see Fig. 19).

Although this dynasty furnished several other rulers, the leadership of all Babylonia was lost after the death of Eannatum. It passed first to Opis and then again to Kish. Lagash continued to flourish, however, during 200 years, while these cities were the overlords of its rulers. Its wars had made it rich, and all the arts flourished there. Our best specimens of terra-cotta and stone work come from this period of this city. Under Entemena, the successor of Eannatum, a silver vase of exquisite workmanship and ornamentation was made; (see Fig. 21). After a century or more of wealth and luxury, during which priests and officials became corrupt, a new king, Urkagina, seized the throne and endeavored to reform the administration. Naturally, his reforms were unpopular with the priesthood and the army, and, though popular with the people, he unintentionally weakened the defensive power of his country.

At this juncture a new ruler named Lugalzaggisi arose in the city of Umma, who ultimately overthrew Lagash and became king of all Babylonia. He made Erech his capital. This was about 2800 B. C. Lugalzaggisi claims to have overrun the country from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. If so, and there is no good reason to doubt his claim, Babylonia and the Palestinian coast-lands were under him brought together for the first time.

After Lugalzaggisi the city of Agade came to the fore. Its great King Sargon about 2775 B. C. founded a dynasty which ruled for nearly two hundred years. The kings of this line were Semitic and resided sometimes at Agade and sometimes at Kish. Sargon conquered Syria and a later chronicle says that he crossed the western sea. As a seal of this dynasty was found in Cyprus, it is possibly true. Naram-Sin, one of the most famous kings of this line, conquered the country of Magan, which some believe to be the peninsula of Sinai, but which others hold was situated in eastern Arabia.

About the time of this dynasty, or a little before, King Lugaldaudu flourished at Adab, the modern Bismya, where Dr. Banks found his statue. In this same general period a king named Anubanini ruled in a city to the northward, called Lulubi.

Perhaps it was under the later kings of this dynasty of Agade, or[Pg 58] under a dynasty of Erech which held sway for a brief period after them, that Gudea flourished at Lagash. This ruler does not claim to be a king, but his city enjoyed great prosperity under him, and he rebuilt it in fine style. He seems to have been on peaceful terms with much of the world, and brought for his structures stone from Magan, cedar wood from Amanus on the Mediterranean coast, and copper from Lebanon. After this time the land was overrun by hordes from Gutium, a region to the northeast beyond the Tigris. They established a dynasty which lasted for 125 (or 159) years.

In 2458 B. C. a dynasty arose in the city of Ur, situated far to the south. These kings were Sumerians and under them a great Sumerian revival occurred. By this time northern Babylonia was called Akkad, from the city of Agade, and southern Babylonia was called Sumir, from a corruption of the name of one of the quarters of Lagash. These kings combined with the title “king of Ur” the title “king of Sumir and Akkad.” Sumir is the Biblical “Shinar” (Gen. 10:10; 11:2, etc.).

Dungi, the second king of this dynasty of Ur, reigned 58 years and established a wide empire, which included Elam and the city of Susa. He established a system of government posts to aid the royal officers of army and state in the performance of their duties.

Upon the fall of the dynasty of Ur, the dominion of Babylonia was divided between two cities, Nisin and Larsa, each of which furnished a dynasty which flourished for more than two and a quarter centuries. Naturally, these kings were continually struggling with each other for the supremacy, and sometimes one city was the more powerful, sometimes the other. The Elamites, who during the whole period had occasionally swooped down into the Mesopotamian Valley, overran Larsa and furnished the last two kings of its dynasty,—Arad-Sin and Rim-Sin. These kings have each been thought by different scholars to be the Arioch of Gen. 14:1. (See Part II, Chapter IX.)

About 2210 B. C. a dynasty of rulers was founded in the city of Babylon that was destined to bring a new era into the history of the country. After a struggle of more than a century Hammurapi, the sixth king of this line, broke the power of Larsa and made Babylon the leading city of the country. Nisin had previously fallen. With the rise of Babylon another period of the life of the country was ended.

The above sketch calls attention to a few only of the more[Pg 59] prominent features and cities of Babylonia. There were many others which participated in her life during the millennium of the pre-Babylonian period. The recovery of more inscriptions will no doubt make this statement more true even than we now dream. Each of these contributed its mite to the progress of civilization in this melting-pot of races in this far-off time.

(3) The Early Babylonian Period began with the reign of Hammurapi and continued till about 1050 B. C. It includes the rule of the first four dynasties of Babylon. The period began gloriously under Hammurapi, who conquered all of Babylonia, and extended his sway also to the Mediterranean. He was as great as an administrator as he was as a conqueror; he codified the laws of Babylonia and inscribed them on a stone pillar, which was set up in the temple of Marduk in Babylon. These laws have been recovered, and are one of the most valuable archæological discoveries of modern times. (See Part II, Chapter XIII.)

Soon after the death of Hammurapi, a revolt occurred under one Ilumailu, who established in the region near the Persian Gulf a dynasty known as the “dynasty of the sea lands,” which was afterward called the second dynasty of Babylon. Down to 1924 B. C. the two dynasties divided the country between them. In that year Babylonia was invaded by the Hittites, who came from the northwest, and the first dynasty of Babylon was overthrown. The Hittites appear to have ruled the country for a short time, when they were driven out by the “dynasty of the sea lands,” which, so far as we know, controlled the country for the next hundred and fifty years.

Kassites.—About 1750 B. C., or shortly before, Babylonia was once more invaded by a race of barbarians from the east of the Tigris, called Kassites or Cossæans. They captured Babylon and founded the third dynasty of Babylon, which ruled for 576 years. The kings of this dynasty gradually absorbed Babylonian culture. Soon after 1700 B. C. they expelled the kings of the sea lands from the south and ruled the whole country.

Assyria, which under the first dynasty had been a Babylonian colony, gained her independence before 1400 B. C., so that after that the independent histories of the two lands run on parallel lines. During the long period of Kassite rule, Babylon experienced many vicissitudes. Assyria was at times friendly and at times hostile. In the reign of Kurigalzu, Elam was successfully invaded[Pg 60] and spoil formerly taken by the kings of Elam was brought back to Babylonia. Kadashman-turgu and Burnaburiash, kings of this dynasty, carried on friendly correspondence with Amenophis III and Amenophis IV, kings of Egypt, 1400-1350 B. C.

Pashe Dynasty.—About 1175 B. C. the Kassite dynasty was superseded by the Pashe dynasty, which ruled the country for more than a hundred and thirty years. The greatest king of this time was Nebuchadrezzar I, who reigned about 1150 B. C. He emulated with considerable success the career of his great predecessor, Hammurapi. After the fall of the fourth dynasty, the country was divided and fell a prey to the Elamites, who overran it about 1050. For the following 450 years Babylonia, though often independent, was of little political importance.

(4) The Early Assyrian Period.—Assyria’s empire grew out of the domination of the city of Ashur, as that of Rome grew out of the domination of the city of Rome. Ashur and Nineveh had been founded by colonists from Lagash about 3000 or 2800 B. C. This is shown by archæological remains found at Ashur, and by the name of Nineveh. We can first trace the names of Assyria’s rulers shortly before the year 2000 B. C. They do not call themselves kings, and were, perhaps, then subject to Babylon.

About 1430 B. C. we learn that Assyria had become an independent kingdom. Her king at that time, Ashur-rim-nishishu, was a contemporary of Karaindash, King of Babylon. Ashur-uballit about 1370-1343 was a contemporary of Burnaburiash, King of Babylon, and shared in the correspondence with Egyptian kings contained in the El-Amarna letters. Shalmaneser I about 1300 B. C. conquered the region to the west of Assyria extending across the Euphrates in the direction of the Mediterranean. Ashur-nasirpal, a later king (884-860 B. C.), says that Shalmaneser “made” the city of Calah[14] as a new capital for his country. His son, Tukulti-Ninib I, turned his arms to the southward and conquered Babylon, which he held for seven years. After him Assyria’s power declined for a time, but was revived by Tiglath-pileser I, who carried Assyria’s conquests again across the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea and northward to the region of Lake Van. After the reign of Tiglath-pileser I, Assyria’s power rapidly declined again, and the first period of Assyria’s history was closed. Our sources almost fail us for a hundred years or more.

[Pg 61](5) The Second Assyrian Period.—Assyria slowly emerged from the obscurity into which she had fallen after the death of Tiglathpileser I. The progress went forward through the reigns of eleven different kings. Finally, in the reign of Ashur-nasirpal II, 884-860 B. C., a period of foreign conquest was once more inaugurated. This monarch again carried the conquests of his country northward and also to the Mediterranean. (See Part II, p. 360.) Under him Assyria became the best fighting machine in the ancient world—a machine that was run with ruthless cruelty over all conquered peoples. This king set his successors the example of flaying and impaling numbers of conquered peoples, and of boasting of such deeds in his chronicles. Probably such deeds were not now committed for the first time, but so far as we know they had not been so gloated over.

Ashur-nasirpal’s successor, Shalmaneser III, 868-824 B. C., made, besides campaigns into Armenia and elsewhere, six campaigns against the lands of Syria and Palestine. On his first campaign in 854 he was met at Qarqar by a confederation of kings, among whom were Ahab of Israel and Ben-Hadad of Damascus. (See Part II, p. 360, ff.) On his fourth campaign in 842 B. C. Jehu, who had in that year usurped the throne of Israel, hastened to make his peace with Shalmaneser by giving him a heavy tribute. Thus Assyria gained a right to claim Israel as a vassal state. (See Part II, p. 362, f.)

The next two kings, Shamshi-Adad IV and Adad-nirari IV, controlled Assyria until 783 B. C., and maintained her power. The last-mentioned king made three expeditions into the West, and claims to have received tribute not only from Israel but from Philistia and Edom, but no details of his campaigns have survived.

After 783 the power of Assyria declined again, and the decline lasted until 745, when the reigning dynasty was overthrown, and an able general, whose name was apparently Pul, gained the throne (cf. 2 Kings 15:19), and took the great name of Tiglath-pileser. He reigned as the fourth king of that name. Tiglath-pileser IV was great both as a warrior and as a statesman. He broke for the time being the power of the kingdom of Urartu in Armenia, conquered parts of Media on the east, and also annexed Babylon to Assyria. Babylon during this later Assyrian period had usually been permitted to retain a king of her own, though the kingdom was of little political importance as compared with Assyria.[Pg 62] Tiglath-pileser made his power dominant in Babylonia at the beginning of his reign, and during the last two years of his life actually reigned there as king. The Babylonian scribes did not recognize his high-sounding name of Tiglath-pileser, but still called him Pul.

In the first year of his reign Tiglath-pileser IV inaugurated a new policy with reference to conquered peoples. This was the policy of transporting to a distant part of his empire the wealthy and influential members of a conquered nation, and of putting similar exiles from other lands in their place. Individuals so transported would be unable longer to foment rebellion against him. It was a brutal policy, but it was a measure designed to build up a permanent empire.

Tiglath-pileser made four expeditions to the west, though the first two touched northern Phœnicia only. In 739, when he made his appearance in Palestine, Menahem, King of Israel, hastened to pay him tribute (2 Kings 15:19). Four years later, however, after Pekah had usurped the throne of Israel, that king formed an alliance with Rezin of Damascus for the purpose of throwing off the Assyrian yoke, and tried to force Ahaz of Judah to join in the enterprise. (See Isa. 7:1, f.) This, Ahaz, supported by the prophet Isaiah, refused to do. In 733-732 Tiglath-pileser came again into the West, overran the territory of the kingdom of Israel, deported the chief inhabitants of Galilee to distant parts of his dominions (2 Kings 15:29, 30), and replaced Pekah, who had been killed, by King Hoshea, who ruled over a greatly diminished territory and upon whom a heavy Assyrian tribute was imposed. Tiglath-pileser then turned eastward and conquered Damascus, which his predecessors since the days of Shalmaneser III had been vainly trying to capture. While the Assyrian monarch was at Damascus, King Ahaz of Judah went thither and became his vassal. (See 2 Kings 16:10, f.) Thus Judah also passed under the Assyrian yoke. (See Part II, p. 366.)

Tiglath-pileser IV was succeeded by Shalmaneser V, 727-722 B. C., and soon after the death of Tiglath-pileser, Hoshea of Israel was persuaded to join several petty rulers of Philistia and Egypt in rebelling against Assyria. In 725 an Assyrian army overran Hoshea’s territory, and laid siege to Samaria. The military position of Samaria and its strong walls made it almost impregnable, and the siege dragged on for three years (2 Kings 17:5). Before the city fell, another king had ascended the throne of Assyria.[Pg 63] He was a usurper, a general, who took the great name of Sargon, and who ruled from 722 to 705 B. C. Samaria succumbed in Sargon’s first year and 27,290 of its inhabitants were deported. The discontent of the west was not at once quieted. Other states remained in rebellion and an Assyrian army finally defeated them at Raphia, southwest of Gaza, in 719 B. C. Sargon then turned his arms in other directions, fighting at various times with the kingdom of Urartu in Armenia, overcoming Carchemish, a Hittite kingdom on the Euphrates in 717 (see Isa. 10:9), and making an expedition into Arabia in 715. In 711 Ashdod revolted and Sargon’s Tartan or chief officer came to put the rebellion down (Isa. 20:1).

At the beginning of Sargon’s reign his arms had been defeated in Babylonia, and Merodachbaladan, a Chaldæan (see 2 Kings 20:12), seized the throne of Babylon and held it from 721 to 709. Then he was defeated and Sargon took over the control of Babylonia. Merodachbaladan, however, escaped to the marsh lands at the head of the Persian Gulf, and survived to make trouble later. In 705 Sargon died and was succeeded by his son, Sennacherib, who ruled from 705 to 681 B. C. At the beginning of his reign troubles broke out in Babylonia, which cannot here be followed in detail. They lasted for years, and none of Sennacherib’s measures gave the country permanent peace. At last Sennacherib became so incensed that he destroyed Babylon. Her buildings were burned and battered down, her walls overthrown, and the Euphrates turned through canals into the land on which she had stood, to make it a marsh. One incident in the series of events which led up to this sad climax was the reappearance in 702 of Merodachbaladan, who seized the throne of Babylon and tried to stir up a rebellion against Assyria. He even sent letters to Hezekiah, King of Judah. (See 2 Kings 20:12.) At the beginning of Sennacherib’s reign a number of the petty kings of Philistia had withheld their tribute. Into this revolt Hezekiah, King of Judah, had been drawn. Busied with other wars, Sennacherib was unable to quell this rebellion until the year 701. In that year his army met the forces of the confederated kingdoms at Elteke in the valley of Aijalon and overcame them. Sennacherib then proceeded to Lachish, where he received the submission of the neighboring kinglets. From Lachish he sent a messenger who summoned Hezekiah of Judah to submit (cf. Isa. 36, 37). Hezekiah obeyed the summons and[Pg 64] paid a heavy tribute. Space does not permit us to speak of the wars of Sennacherib against Elam and other countries.

It would seem that after Tirhakah ascended the throne of Egypt in 688 B. C., he persuaded the kingdoms of Palestine to rebel. The Assyrian came west again and threatened to invade Egypt and to destroy Jerusalem. Isaiah then predicted that Jerusalem would be delivered (Isa. 31:5), a prediction which was fulfilled. Sennacherib’s army was attacked by bubonic plague and was compelled to retire.[15]

Sennacherib was assassinated in 681 and was succeeded by his son, Esarhaddon, who ruled till 668. Esarhaddon rebuilt Babylon, which his father had destroyed, and two years before his death conquered all of Lower Egypt and made it an Assyrian province. During his reign a great horde of Scythians poured into Asia through the Caucasus region from southern Russia. The Assyrian army prevented Assyria from being overwhelmed by this horde. The stream of invaders was divided, one part flowing east to Media, the other part westward to Asia Minor.

Esarhaddon’s son and successor, Ashurbanipal, ruled from 668 to 626. His reign was the Augustan age of Assyria. At the beginning he was called upon to put down a rebellion in Egypt, and as trouble there recurred several times, trouble which was fomented by emissaries from Thebes and Nubia, he finally in 661 pushed up the Nile and conquered Thebes and gave it over to plunder. (See Nahum 3:8.) Space does not permit us to follow Ashurbanipal’s wars. About the middle of his reign his brother, Shamash-shumukin, who was ruling Babylon, rebelled along with many other vassals, and although the rebels were finally put down, the seeds of the decay of Assyria’s power were sown. Manasseh, King of Judah, as long as he lived was a faithful vassal of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. (Cf. 2 Kings 19:37; 2 Chron. 33.)

The great work of Ashurbanipal was the collection of his library at Nineveh. He sent to all the old temples of Babylonia and had copies made of their incantations, hymns, and epics. These, together with chronicles, medical tablets, dictionaries, etc., he collected in his palace, where they were found by Layard and Rassam, and form the basis of our knowledge of the Assyrian and Babylonian language, literature, and history. With the death of Ashurbanipal,[Pg 65] the last Assyrian period had really closed. Though the kingdom continued for twenty years more, they were but the years of a lingering death.

(6) The Neo-Babylonian Period.—In 625, the year after Ashurbanipal’s death, Nabopolassar, the viceroy of Babylon, who appears to have been a Chaldæan,[16] gained his independence, and established the Neo-Babylonian, or Chaldæan empire. Nabopolassar himself reigned till 604 B. C. During his reign the power of the city of Babylon gradually extended over all southern Babylonia, and up the Euphrates to Carchemish. During these years Assyria was gradually diminishing in territory. As Assyria had declined, Media, which had long been in greater or less degree subject to Assyria, had become free, and Median kings had little by little gained control of the country toward Assyria. Nabopolassar finally made an alliance with the Median king, and together they overthrew Nineveh in 606 B. C.

In 604 Necho of Egypt marched with an army to the Euphrates, and Nabopolassar sent his son, Nebuchadrezzar II, to meet him. Nebuchadrezzar defeated Necho at the battle of Carchemish, and hotly pursued him toward Egypt. (See Jer. 46.) The pursuit was, however, interrupted by the death of Nabopolassar, and the recall of Nebuchadrezzar to Babylon to be crowned as king. The defeat of Necho had made Judah a Babylonian vassal-state. Nebuchadrezzar ruled until 562 B. C., and raised Babylon to a height of power which rivaled that attained under the great Hammurapi. He also rebuilt the city in great magnificence. The palaces, temples, and walls of this period, unearthed by Koldewey, were most magnificent structures. Owing to rebellions, first of Jehoiakim and then of Zedekiah, kings of Judah, Nebuchadrezzar twice besieged Jerusalem, once in 597, and again in 586 B. C., on both occasions capturing the city. In 586 he destroyed it. (2 Kings 24, 25.) Following the Assyrian practice, which had prevailed since Tiglath-pileser IV, he transported considerable numbers of the more influential people of the city each time he took it. These were settled in Babylonia. One colony of them was stationed near Nippur. Among those who were transported in 597 was a young priest, who afterward became the prophet Ezekiel. The colony with which he came was settled by the Khubur canal near Nippur. (See Ezek.[Pg 66] 1:1.) The young king, Jehoiachin, who was also taken captive at that time, remained in confinement during the rest of Nebuchadrezzar’s reign. He was only released by Amil-Marduk, Nebuchadrezzar’s son, who succeeded his father and reigned two years. (See 2 Kings 25:27-30.)

After Nebuchadrezzar the kingdom of Babylon rapidly declined through four reigns. Meantime, Cyrus, who in 553 had overthrown the kingdom of Media and erected the kingdom of Persia on its ruins, had been gradually extending his realm to the Ægean Sea on the west, and to the borders of India on the east. In 538 B. C. Cyrus captured Babylon and overthrew Nabuna’id.

(7) The Persian Period lasted from 538 to 331 B. C. During this time Babylonia was but a province of the Persian empire, though the Persian kings made it one of their capitals. Cyrus reversed the policy of transportation, which had been practised by the Assyrians and Babylonians for two hundred years, and permitted subject peoples to return to their lands and restore their institutions and worship. He sought to attach them to his government by gratitude instead of fear. It was owing to this policy that the Jewish state was once more established with Jerusalem as its capital, though still a Persian colony. Cambyses extended Persian power to Egypt in 525, and Darius I, 521-485 B. C., extended it to India and into Europe. Under Darius the temple at Jerusalem was rebuilt and the Jews there tried unsuccessfully to regain their independence. This they attempted once more under Artaxerxes III about 350 B. C., but his general, Bagoses, put down their rebellion with great severity. During the Persian period life in Babylonia went on as before. The old gods were worshiped, the old culture was continued, the same language was used, and many business documents written in it have come down to us. The earlier Persian kings employed it for their inscriptions, and in a short time the Persians made from it an alphabet of their own.

(8) The Greek and Parthian Periods.—Alexander the Great overthrew Darius III, the last of the Persian kings, in 331 B. C., when Assyria and Babylonia passed under the sway of the Macedonian. When Alexander returned from his conquest of hither India in 325 B. C., he planned to extend his empire westward to the Atlantic Ocean, and to make Babylon its capital. Plans for the enlargement and beautifying of the city, so as to make it a worthy capital for such an empire, were under way when Alexander suddenly[Pg 67] died in June, 323 B. C. In the final division of the world among Alexander’s successors, Babylonia fell to Seleucus, together with all the territory from the Mediterranean to the borders of India. As Seleucus desired a capital on the Mediterranean, so as to watch more successfully the movements of his rivals, he built Antioch on the Orontes and made it his residence. Babylon was, however, made the capital of the eastern half of the empire, and the king’s son, as viceroy, made it his residence.

Soon after 260 B. C. Bactria and Parthia, in the eastern part of the empire of the Seleucidæ, gained their independence. In course of time Parthia absorbed Bactria and became an empire, which lasted till 230 A. D. About 150 B. C. the Parthians conquered Babylonia, which remained with little interruption under their sway till the establishment of the Sassanian kingdom of the Persians in 220 A. D. Babylonia was under the control of this last dynasty until the coming of the Mohammedans in the year 637 A. D. The old culture of the Babylonians, their religion, language, and writing were maintained well down toward the Christian era. Copies of old Sumerian hymns have been found in Babylonia which bear dates as late as 81 B. C., and business documents in Semitic are numerous.[17]

7. Discoveries Which Illumine the Bible.—Discoveries in Babylonia and Assyria which illumine the Biblical narratives are numerous. The sites of many cities, such as Ur of the Chaldees, Erech, Babylon, Ashur, Nineveh, and Calah, have been excavated. The number of documents which have come to light which in one way or another have a bearing on the Bible is too numerous to mention here. An effort has been made in Part II to translate examples of most of them. Indeed, the greater part of the material in Part II was recovered by excavations in these countries.

To Babylonia and to Egypt mankind owes the working out of the initial problems of civilization, the processes of agriculture, the making of bricks, the working of stone, the manufacture and use of the ordinary implements of life, the development of elementary mathematics and astronomy, etc. These problems were by slow processes independently worked out in each country through long ages. The higher spiritual concepts which have now become the heritage of man neither Babylonia nor Egypt was fitted to contribute. These came through the agency of other peoples.

[Pg 68]

THE HITTITES

A Forgotten Empire. Hittite Monuments: Sendjirli. Boghaz Koi. Other recent excavations. Hittite Decipherment: Sayce’s early work. Peiser. Jensen. Conder. Sayce’s later work. Thompson. Delitzsch. Hittite History: First appearance. Hyksos possibly Hittites. The Mitanni. Kingdom of “Hittite City.” Carchemish. Samal and Yadi. Hamath.

1. A Forgotten Empire.—Among the peoples who are said to have been in Palestine in the Patriarchal age are the Hittites (Gen. 23:10; 26:34, etc.). They are mentioned most often in the list of peoples whom the Israelites drove out of the country when they conquered it: “the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite,” and the man is still living who first suspected that anything more than this could be known of them. This man was Prof. Sayce, of Oxford. In the inscriptions of the Egyptian kings of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties there is frequent mention of a people called Kheta. In the inscriptions of Assyrian kings there is also frequent mention of a people called Kha-at-tu. Slowly, too, during the nineteenth century rock-carvings, often accompanied by inscriptions in a peculiar hieroglyph, were found scattered through northern Syria and Asia Minor. The figures of gods and men on these carvings usually wore caps of a peculiarly pointed type and shoes turned far up at the toe. In 1876 it dawned upon Prof. Sayce that these were all references to the Biblical Hittites. He proceeded to elaborate this view in two articles published in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology, Vols. V and VII.

About the same time the Rev. William Wright independently started the same idea, and gave it expression in his book, The Empire of the Hittites, 1884, 2d ed., 1885. At this period it was impossible to discern more than that there had been a widely scattered Hittite civilization, which might have been an empire.

2. Hittite Monuments.—This civilization, it was seen, had left its monuments at Hamath in Syria, at Carchemish on the Euphrates, at various points in ancient Cappadocia, Lycaonia, and Phrygia,[Pg 69] as well as near Smyrna in Asia Minor and on the Lydian mountains to the west of Sardis. In 1891 Prof. W. Max Müller, of Philadelphia, reached the conclusion from a study of the Egyptian inscriptions that the Hittites had come into Syria from the northwest, and that their main strength was in Asia Minor. Among the letters found at El-Amarna in Egypt in 1887-1888 were some from Dushratta, a king of Mitanni. A study of these made it clear that the Mitanni inhabited the region on both sides of the Euphrates north of Carchemish, and that they were of the same stock as the Hittites. Our sources of information indicate that the territory of the Mitanni lay east of the Euphrates, but scattered monuments of the Hittite type are found on the west of that river.

(1) Sendjirli.—From 1888 to 1891 a German expedition excavated at Sendjirli, near the head-waters of the Kara Su in northern Syria, and brought to light most interesting remains of a civilization that was fundamentally Hittite. Inscriptions found here dated in the reigns of Tiglath-pileser IV and Esarhaddon were in Aramaic. By this time there had been an influx of Aramæans, but the art shows that Hittites held the place at an earlier time, and there is reason to believe that one of the kings mentioned here had, about 850 B. C., joined in a Hittite federation.

(2) Boghaz Koi.—Among the monuments known to Prof. Sayce at the beginning of his brilliant studies of the Hittites, were some from Boghaz Koi, in Asia Minor. Different travelers had noted that here must have been a somewhat extensive city, adorned with several large buildings, all of which were ornamented with carvings of the peculiar Hittite type. In 1906 the late Prof. Winckler, of Berlin, excavating here in connection with the authorities of the Turkish Museum at Constantinople, discovered an archive of clay tablets inscribed in Babylonian characters. A group of similar tablets from Cappadocia had been previously purchased by the British Museum. Winckler’s discovery was important because he found some of the tablets inscribed in Hittite written in cuneiform characters. Of those written in the Babylonian language, one contained a copy of the great treaty between Hattusil, a Hittite king, and Ramses II of Egypt. There were also tablets containing Sumerian and Semitic equivalents of Hittite words. Owing to the long illness of Winckler which followed these discoveries, an illness that terminated in death, the results of this discovery are only now being given to the world.

[Pg 70]In 1907 Winckler and Puchstein, in conjunction with Makridy Bey of the Turkish Museum, made a thorough examination of the remains of walls and buildings at Boghaz Koi. The results have since been published in a handsome volume entitled Boghaskoi, die Bauwerke, Leipzig, 1912; (see Figs. 23 and 25).

(3) Other Recent Excavations.—An American expedition consisting of Drs. Olmstead, Charles, and Wrench, of Cornell University, explored in Asia Minor in 1907-1908. The members of this expedition collated all the known monuments of the Hittites, but so far only their collation of the inscriptions has been published.

The Institute of Archæology of the University of Liverpool has also sent one or more expeditions to explore the Hittite country. In 1910 they excavated to some extent at Sakje-Geuze, not far from Sendjirli, but their results are not yet published.

Since 1911 the trustees of the British Museum have had an excavation in progress at the site of ancient Carchemish on the Euphrates. Here most important Hittite remains have been discovered, though again the details of the work have not been given to the public. The expedition has also made some minor excavations at several points in the neighborhood, and find that Hittite remains are numerous in that region. In addition to these places, Hittite remains have been observed at Yaila, Marash, Giaour-Kalesi, Karaburna, Kizil Dagh, Fraktin, Ivriz, Kara-Bel, Mount Sypilus, Tashji, Asarjik, Bulghar-Maden, Gurun, and Kara Dagh. One who will look up these places on a map of modern Turkey will see that Hittite monuments are distributed from near the shores of the Ægean Sea to the Euphrates at Carchemish and to Hamath in Syria. (For addition to this section, see Appendix.)

3. Hittite Decipherment.

(1) Sayce’s Early Work.—Prof. Sayce, whose insight first grasped the significance of the Hittite monuments, was also the first to attempt the solution of the riddle which the inscriptions present. In 1880 he thought he had found a key to the writing, such as the Rosetta Stone had been to Egyptian, in the so-called “Boss of Tarkondemos”; (see Fig. 26). This “boss” consisted of a round silver plate, in form like half an orange, which must have covered the knob of a staff or dagger. This had been described by Dr. A. D. Mordtmann, in the Journal of the German Oriental Society in 1872. The original was then in the possession of Alexander Jovanoff, a numismatist of Constantinople, who had obtained it at[Pg 71] Smyrna. The “boss” bore in its center a figure of the peculiar Hittite form, flanked on both sides by writing in the Hittite characters, while around the whole was an inscription in the cuneiform writing of Assyria. From this Sayce tentatively determined the values of a number of Hittite signs. The results were, however, attended with considerable uncertainty, since the Assyrian characters were capable of being read in more than one way. Using the key thus obtained, Sayce enlarged his list of supposed sign-values and in 1884 and 1885 published as known the values of thirty-two Hittite signs. In the years that followed Ball and Menant took up the discussion of the Hittite signs, but with no decisive result.

In 1889 Winckler and Abel published in one of the volumes of the Royal Museum at Berlin the first instalment of the text of the El-Amarna letters, in which there were two from Dushratta, King of Mitanni, in the native language of that country, though written in Babylonian characters. In the following year, 1890, Profs. Jensen, Brünnow, and Sayce all published in the Zeitschrift für Assyriologie studies of this language, Sayce even venturing a translation of a part of the text. Each of these scholars had worked independently of the others, but none of them seems to have suspected that the language had anything to do with Hittite.

(2) Peiser.—In 1892 Dr. Peiser, then of Breslau University, published his book on the Hittite inscriptions, in which he essayed another method of decipherment. Layard had found four Hittite seals in the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh. Peiser inferred that these must be seals of four Hittite kings mentioned in the inscriptions of that time, and proceeded to assign each seal to the name of a known Hittite king, and interpret the signs on the seal by the name of that king as spelled out in the cuneiform characters of the Assyrian inscriptions. Having obtained in this way tentative values for several signs, he proceeded by inference to guess at other signs, and so tentatively read some inscriptions.

(3) Jensen.—Prof. Jensen, of Marburg, wrote in that same year an unfavorable review of Peiser’s work. When reading the proofs of his review he added a postscript to say that he believed he had himself discovered the key to Hittite. Two years later, 1894, he published in the Journal of the German Oriental Society his method of solving the problem. Jensen’s starting-point was gained from inscriptions from Jerabis, the site of ancient Carchemish,[Pg 72] Hamath, and other places. He inferred that a certain sign was the determinative for city, and that the names preceding this sign were names of places. Gaining in this way some values for signs, he read the names of some kings. He found that these names had nominatives ending in s and accusative cases ending in m; he accordingly leaped to the conclusion that the Hittite language was a member of the Indo-European group of languages, as this is the only known group of tongues in which this phenomenon occurs. This inference later research has in part confirmed. Jensen, however, went further and endeavored to show that the Hittites were the ancestors of the Armenians of later time. This theory led to the publication in 1898 of his book, Hittiter und Armenier. Of the correctness of this view he has not been able to convince other scholars. By this time Jensen and others had begun to see that the Mitannians and the Hittites were kindred peoples and worshiped the same gods. It is now recognized that Jensen correctly ascertained the value of some signs, though many of his guesses, like those of his predecessors, have proved incorrect.

(4) Conder.—In 1898 Lieut.-Col. C. R. Conder published The Hittites and Their Language, a work in which he presented still another decipherment of the inscriptions. Conder’s decipherment was based on a comparison of the Hittite characters with the Sumerian pictographs on the one hand and the syllabary which was used by Greeks in Cyprus, Caria, and Lydia on the other. He assumed that if a picture had in Sumerian a certain syllabic value, and if the Cypriotic syllabary presented a character somewhat resembling it which had a similar value, the Hittite character which most closely resembled these must have the same value, since the Hittites lived between the two peoples who used the other syllabaries. This system of decipherment has attracted no adherents because it is based on a fallacious inference. It does not follow because a nation lives between two other nations, that its institutions are kindred to those of its neighbors. One could not explain writings of the Indian tribes of Arizona, for example, by comparing them with books printed in English in St. Louis and in Spanish in Los Angeles! In 1899 Messerschmidt, who was collecting in one body all the known Hittite inscriptions for publication, published a study of the language of Mitanni,[18] which advanced our knowledge of the language of the letters of Dushratta.[Pg 73] Messerschmidt’s later publication of the Hittite inscriptions[19] made it far easier for scholars to study the subject.

(5) Sayce’s Later Work.—Stimulated by Jensen’s efforts, Prof. Sayce returned to the study of Hittite in 1903, and published in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology of that year (Vol. XXV) a new decipherment. He followed Jensen’s method, accepting a number of Jensen’s readings as proved, and with the originality and daring that characterize so much of his work, launched many new readings. Some of these have commended themselves to his successors.

In 1909 Ferdinand Bork returned to the problem of the language of Mitanni, and published a pretty complete decipherment of the Mitannian tablets in the El-Amarna letters. In 1911 Dr. B. B. Charles, the philologist of the Cornell expedition to Asia Minor, published as Part II of Volume I of Travels and Studies in the Nearer East, which is to embody the results of the Cornell expedition, his collation of the Hittite inscriptions. This publication added some new texts to those previously known. In 1912 Prof. Clay, of Yale, rendered the subject of Hittiteology a distinct service by including in his volume of Personal Names from Cuneiform Inscriptions of the Cassite Period a list of Hittite and Mitannian proper names, and a list of the nominal and verbal elements which enter into the composition of such names.

(6) Thompson.—The latest attempt on a large scale to unravel the mystery of the Hittite inscriptions is that of R. Campbell Thompson, “A New Decipherment of the Hittite Hieroglyphs,” published in Archæologia, second series, Vol. XIV, Oxford, 1913. Mr. Thompson was a member of the British expedition which excavated Carchemish, and gained the idea which gave him the starting-point for his decipherment from an inscription excavated by that expedition. This inscription contained many proper names, and, after passing it and looking at it every day for a long time, it occurred to Mr. Thompson that a certain elaborate sign which frequently occurred in it might be a part of the name of the Hittite King Sangar, who is frequently mentioned by Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmeneser III of Assyria. In seeking proof for this Mr. Thompson was led into a study of the texts which resulted in a new interpretation of the Hittite signs. His work is logical at every point, he makes no inference without first examining all the occurrences[Pg 74] in the known texts of the group of signs in question, and he tests his inferences wherever possible by the known results of a study of Mitannian and cuneiform Hittite. It is too soon to pronounce a final verdict, but it looks as though Thompson had materially advanced the decipherment of Hittite.

(7) Delitzsch.—After the death of Prof. Winckler, the cuneiform tablets which he had discovered at Boghaz Koi were turned over to Ernst Weidner for publication. That publication is soon to appear, but Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch, under whose general direction Weidner is working, published in May, 1914, a study based on twenty-six fragments of lexicographical texts which are to appear in Weidner’s work. These texts defined Hittite words in Sumerian and in Assyrian. Although the texts are very fragmentary, Prof. Delitzsch has been able to gain in this way a vocabulary of about 165 Hittite words, the meanings of most of which are known, and to ascertain some facts about the grammar of Hittite.

We are, it would seem, just on the eve of a complete mastery of the secrets of the Hittite inscriptions. The more our knowledge of the Hittites grows, the less simple seems the problem of their racial affinities. Some features of their speech clearly resemble features of the Indo-European family of languages, but other features would seem to denote Tartar affinities. In a number of instances the influence of the Assyrian language can clearly be traced. The same confusion presents itself when we study the pictures of Hittites as they appear in Egyptian reliefs. Two distinct types of face are there portrayed. One type has high cheek bones, oblique eyes, and wears a pigtail, like the peoples of Mongolia and China; the other has a clean-cut head and face which resemble somewhat the early Greeks. These may well have been Aryans. That there was a strain in the Hittite composition that came from Turkestan or that came through that country is also indicated by the fact that the Hittites were the first of the peoples of western Asia to use the horse. Evidence of the use of the horse as a domestic animal by the people of Turkestan at an early date was brought to light by the excavations of Prof. Pumpelly[20] in that land, so that the presence of horses among the Hittites naturally suggests some connection with that region. Among the Hittite allies Semitic Amorites are also pictured. These have receding foreheads and projecting beards.

[Pg 75]4. Hittite History.

(1) First Appearance.—The earliest reference to the Hittites which we have in any written record occurs in a Babylonian chronicle, which states that “against Shamsu-ditana the men of the country Khattu marched.”[21] Shamsu-ditana was the last king of the first dynasty of Babylon. His reign terminated in 1924 B. C. Khattu land, as will appear further on, was the name later given to the Hittite settlement in Cappadocia. One would naturally suppose that the name would have the same significance here, but of this we cannot be certain. The tablet on which this chronicle was written was inscribed in the Persian or late Babylonian period, but there is evidence that it was copied from an earlier original. If its statement is true, the Hittites had made their appearance in history and were prepared to mingle in that mêlée of the races which occurred when the first dynasty of Babylon was overthrown. Nothing is said in the chronicle as to the location of the land of Khattu, but there can be no doubt that the Hittites approached Babylonia from the northwest. Their seat must have been in the region where we later find the Hittites, or Mitanni. At what period the Hittites came into this region we can only conjecture. The excavations at Sakje-Geuze reveal a civilization there extending back to about 3000 B. C., which resembled that found at Susa in Elam belonging to the same period. This civilization may not have been Hittite in its beginnings. Mr. Woolley, a member of the British expedition which has excavated at Carchemish, in a study of the objects found in tombs at Carchemish and at other places near by, thinks it possible that the coming of the Hittites is marked by a transition period in the art—a period the termination of which he marks by the date of the fall of the first dynasty of Babylon. It may well be that Indo-Europeans followed by Mongols came about 2100 or 2000 into this region, or that the Mongols were there earlier and that the Indo-Europeans then came. In the resultant civilization it would seem, from the information that we have, that there was a mingling of the two races; (see Fig. 24).

(2) Hyksos Possibly Hittites.—Since the Hittites were able to help overthrow the first dynasty of Babylon, some scholars have recognized the possibility that those invaders of Egypt who established the dynasties called Hyksos may have been Hittites, or may have been led by Hittites. There is much evidence that many[Pg 76] Semites entered Egypt at that time, but as Syria and Palestine were peopled with Semites earlier than this, such an invasion would naturally have had many Semites among its camp followers, if not in its armies, even if the leaders were Hittites. At present, however, this is but a possibility. Some slight evidence in favor of the possibility may be found in the name of the king of Jerusalem who was a vassal of Amenophis IV, and who wrote the letters from Jerusalem which are in the El-Amarna collection. (See Part II, p. 345, ff.) His name was Abdi-Hepa, and Hepa was a Hittite and Mitannian deity. Abdi-Hepa had grown up a trusted subject of the Egyptians. His ancestors must, therefore, have been in Palestine for some time. A settlement of Hittites there in the Hyksos days would account for this. The twenty-third chapter of Genesis represents the city of Hebron as in the possession of the Hittites when Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah as a place of burial for his dead, and, though many scholars regard Genesis 23, which gives this account, as a late composition, its representation would receive some confirmation from archæology, if the Hyksos were Hittites.

There is a possibility that the Hittites were in southern Palestine earlier than this. Brugsch[22] thought that he found in an inscription in the Louvre, written by an officer of Amenemhet I, King of Egypt, 2000-1970 B. C., a statement that this officer had destroyed the palaces of the Hittites near the Egyptian frontier of Palestine. This reading is still defended by Prof. Sayce,[23] though other Egyptologists, such as W. Max Müller[24] and Breasted,[25] claim that the word that was thought to be Hittites is not a proper name, but a common noun meaning nomads. The text of the passage is uncertain, and no important inference can in any case be made from it.

During the period when we obtain glimpses of the history of the Hittites, they were never united in one empire. Different kingdoms flourished here and there, such as that of the Mitanni in Mesopotamia, the Hittites at Boghaz Koi, the kingdoms of Carchemish, of Hamath, and Tyana. These flourished at different times all the way from 1400 to 700 B. C., and there were doubtless other kingdoms also, for the Hittite sculptures near Smyrna and[Pg 77] Manissia cannot have been made by any of these, unless possibly the great Hittite kingdom at Boghaz Koi may once have extended its power to the Ægean.

(3) The Mitanni.—The earliest of these kingdoms which we can trace is that of the Mitanni. When Thothmes III of Egypt extended his conquests to the Euphrates in 1468 B. C., he came into contact with the Mitanni. The king of the country is not named, but it was claimed that her chiefs hid themselves in caves.[26] There is some reason for believing that their chief city was at Haran[27] in Mesopotamia, the city where Abraham sojourned for a time (Gen. 11:31; 12:4). If this be true, it gives a new meaning to Ezek. 16:3: “The Amorite was thy father and thy mother was a Hittite.” Thothmes evidently touched the kingdom of Mitanni on its western border. He did not penetrate its heart or overcome its king. Although he took tribute, he does not tell us the name of the king of the Mitanni whose armies he fought.

Half a century later the king of the Mitanni was Artatama I. He was a contemporary of Thothmes IV of Egypt, who ruled 1420-1411 B. C. Perhaps it was their mutual fear of the rising power of the Hittite kingdom at Boghaz Koi that led Artatama and Thothmes IV to form an alliance. At all events, such an alliance was made, and Thothmes married a daughter of Artatama, though Artatama’s grandson says that the Egyptian king sent his request for her hand seven times before Artatama yielded to his solicitations. Artatama I was succeeded by Shutarna I, whose reign overlapped a part of that of Amenophis III of Egypt, 1411-1375 B. C. Among the queens of Amenophis III was a daughter of Shutarna I. Before the reign of Amenophis III had ended Shutarna I had been succeeded by Dushratta, who continued the friendly relations with Egypt. Dushratta’s reign also overlapped in part that of Amenophis IV of Egypt, 1375-1357 B. C., and Dushratta wrote several letters to both of these Egyptian kings. It is from these letters that we gain most of our information about Mitanni.

Meanwhile the great kingdom of the Hittites at Boghaz Koi had entered upon its era of expansion under Subbiluliuma, who pushed his conquests first eastward and then southward. Dushratta feared to meet the Hittite in battle and retired to the eastward, allowing much of his country to be overrun. This land Subbiluliuma gave[Pg 78] to one of his allies, and Dushratta was murdered soon afterward by his son, Sutatarra, who usurped the crown. Soon after this the Assyrians invaded the lands of the Mitanni from the east, and the land, already distracted by its internal divisions, was thrown into a worse confusion. At this juncture Subbiluliuma crossed the Euphrates again and entered Mitannian territory. He was accompanied by settlers who brought cattle, sheep, and horses to remain in the country. Advised by an oracle, he deposed Sutatarra and placed upon the throne Mattiuaza, a son of Dushratta, who had been heir-apparent and who had fled when his father was murdered. To Mattiuaza Subbiluliuma gave his daughter in marriage, and Mitanni became a vassal state of the Hittite realm. After this our sources tell us no more of its history.

Near the Mitanni were the Harri, who were probably of the same race, for in the time of Subbiluliuma they were ruled first by Artatama II, a brother of Dushratta, and then by Sutarna II. This state also became a part of Subbiluliuma’s kingdom.

(4) Kingdom of “Hittite City.”—The wave of migration from the northeast which brought the Mitanni into upper Mesopotamia had swept on westward into Cappadocia, where the greatest Hittite state afterward developed. The monuments erected by the Hittites were nearly all of a religious character. In the earlier time they wrote few historical inscriptions. Such inscriptions as we have in Hittite hieroglyphs seem to come from the later periods and to record alliances. It is probable that in the development of the Hittite state in Cappadocia first one city and then another had the upper hand. The Hittite monuments at Eyuk are of a more primitive character than those at Boghaz Koi, and it is natural to suppose that a Hittite state flourished here before the rise of the one at Boghaz Koi. Be that as it may, the most powerful Hittite monarchy of which we know arose at Boghaz Koi, which they called “Hittite City.” This monarchy emerged about 1400 B. C. Its first king was Hattusil I, of whom we know no more than that he was the founder of the great dynasty which ruled from the “Hittite City” for two hundred years.

The king who laid the foundations of the greatness of this dynasty was Subbiluliuma, the next king, whose conquests over the Mitanni and Harri we have already traced. He conquered also a number of neighboring states, and compelled them to sign with him treaties of alliance which made them his vassals. Chronicles of these events[Pg 79] were discovered by Winckler among the clay tablets found at Boghaz Koi. Subbiluliuma also turned his armies southward and conquered Syria down to the confines of Palestine. These conquests were in progress when some of the El-Amarna letters, written to Amenophis IV of Egypt and translated in Part II, p. 344, ff., were written. Here he pursued the same policy that he had pursued in Mesopotamia, and compelled the conquered countries to enter into treaties with him, which subjugated them to his will. Among the kings so treated was the Amorite King Aziru, who at that time ruled Amorites living in the southern part of the valley between the Lebanon mountain ranges and in the region afterward occupied by the tribe of Asher. They also held some of the southern Phœnician cities. This represents the most southerly extension of Subbiluliuma’s power.

Whether Subbiluliuma also extended his conquests to the west of Asia Minor, we have no means of knowing. Some scholars suppose that he had done so before he began the conquest of Mitanni. Certain it is that Hittite rock sculptures of gigantic size exist in the mountains near Smyrna and Manissia, to the west of Sardis. These sculptures represent the great Hittite goddess. Near Smyrna there are also the remains of great buildings. We know of no Hittite monarch who would be so likely to have carried Hittite power to these parts as Subbiluliuma. If he did so, possibly in later time the Hittites here became independent. At all events, some centuries later they were known to Ionian Greeks in this region, for Homer’s Odyssey, Book XI, line 521, records the tradition that some Hittites were killed with Eurypylos.

When Subbiluliuma died he was succeeded by his son, Arandas, whose occupation of the throne was brief, and who seems to have been without effective power. After a short time he was replaced by his brother, Mursil, who appears to have enjoyed a long reign. Subbiluliuma, called by the Egyptians Seplel, was reigning when Amenophis IV of Egypt came to the throne in 1375 B. C., for he sent an embassy to congratulate him, and Mursil appears to have reigned until after the year 1320 B. C. The two reigns, therefore, covered more than half a century. The first years of Mursil’s reign were apparently passed in peace, but soon after 1320 Shalmeneser I invaded the countries in the eastern part of the Hittite confederacy, conquering all the territory east of the Euphrates, and a considerable territory to the west of that river. Meantime, Mursil[Pg 80] had renewed the treaty with the Amorites of Syria, whose king at this time was Abbi-Teshub, or Abi-Adda. Ere long, however, trouble arose for him on his southern border. Seti I of Egypt came to the throne in 1313 B. C., and began a series of vigorous campaigns for the conquest of Palestine. In time he came face to face with the Hittite power in Syria.

At this juncture Mursil died and was succeeded by his son, Mutallu, who soon met Seti I in battle and convinced that monarch that it was unwise to attempt to extend Egypt’s empire in Asia to the Euphrates, as Thothmes III had done. Owing to internal troubles in Assyria the eastern border of the Hittite realm was left undisturbed for a considerable time, during which Mutallu could devote himself to other matters. In 1292 B. C. Ramses II succeeded Seti I as king of Egypt and soon began vigorously to push Egyptian conquests into northern Syria. Mutallu recognized the importance of the struggle and collected a large army from all his allies. These forces were drawn from all parts of Asia Minor; even the countries of the extreme west contributed their quota. Aleppo and states in that region also contributed their share. A great battle was fought at Kadesh on the Orontes in 1287 B. C., in which Mutallu, by surprising his foe, disorganized a part of the Egyptian forces and endangered the life of Ramses himself. By the opportune arrival of reinforcements the Egyptians escaped entire defeat, so that the result was a drawn battle.

The battle had, however, cost the Hittites much. The slaughter of their forces had been enormous. Among the slain were many chieftains, including the king of Aleppo. The Amorites at once threw off their allegiance to the Hittites, and many of the other troops mutinied. Mutallu was assassinated. He was succeeded by Hattusil II, the Khetasar of the Egyptian inscriptions.

Assyria had become weak, so that Hattusil was no longer pressed upon his eastern border. After a little he reduced the Amorites once more to submission, and compelled them to take back their king, Put-akhi, whom they had driven out at the time of their rebellion against Mutallu. He gave Put-akhi a Hittite princess for a wife. Later, about 1271 B. C., Hattusil concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Ramses II of Egypt. The treaty which guaranteed this alliance has come down to us, and is the first international treaty the details of which are known to us. (See Chapter I, p. 30.)

[Pg 81]Hattusil II must have enjoyed a long reign, but we do not know the date of his death. He had two successors, Dudkhalia and Arnuanta, whose reigns are known to us, and who continued the sway of the dynasty down to about 1200 B. C. They were respectively the son and grandson of Hattusil II. An edict of Dudkhalia concerning the vassal states has survived, in which the name of Eni-Teshub, King of Carchemish, appears. Carchemish would seem to have been the chief of the allied states. Of Arnuanta we have no details, though two fragments of royal edicts and a seal of his have come down to us. He was called “the great king, the son of Dudkhalia.” After him our sources fail, and the story ends in darkness. We know, however, that the days of the power of this dynasty were over. Egyptian sources tell us that tribes from western Asia Minor and from beyond the sea swept over Cilicia and northern Syria soon after the year 1200 B. C., and there was then no Hittite power there to restrain them.

(5) Carchemish.—Of the other Hittite kingdoms far less is known. Carchemish, which, as we have just seen, played an important part in the federation of the great Hittite power, continued its existence for several centuries. In the time of Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmeneser III the kingdom of Carchemish entered into alliance with these kings and preserved its existence by becoming their vassal. Judging from the meager reports hitherto published of the British excavation at Carchemish, this was a flourishing period in the history of the city. A hundred years later, in the reign of Sargon, Pisiris, who was then king of Carchemish, defied the Assyrian, who brought the kingdom to an end in 717 B. C. (Cf. Isa. 10:9.)

(6) Samal and Yadi.—When the Aramæans swept westward about 1300 B. C. they apparently dislodged the Hittites from a number of their sites and occupied their country. Among the places so occupied was the site of Sendjirli mentioned above. All the carvings found among its architectural remains reveal the influence of Hittite art, but the inscriptions found there are in Aramaic. These inscriptions show that there were in that region two petty kingdoms named, respectively, Samal and Yadi. The names of several kings of these monarchies who ruled between 850 and 730 B. C. have been recovered. They are all Aramæan.

(7) Hamath.—Farther to the south, at Hamath on the Orontes, a Hittite kingdom existed in the time of David. Its king was then called Toi or Tou, who made an alliance with David (2 Sam. 8:9, f;[Pg 82] 1 Chron. 18:9, f.). This kingdom was probably the outgrowth of the earlier occupation of the Orontes valley, three hundred years before, by the Hittites of the great empire. It continued until the time of Ahab. Its king was then Irhulina, who along with Ahab, Ben-Hadad of Damascus, and several other kings made an alliance to resist the encroachments of Shalmaneser III of Assyria in 854 B. C. (See Part II, p. 360, ff.) Irhulina caused several inscriptions to be made on stone, which survived at Hamath until our time. According to Mr. Thompson’s interpretation of them they are all records of his various alliances. By the next century, however, the Aramæans had captured Hamath, for in the reigns of Tiglath-pileser IV (745-727) and of Sargon (722-705 B. C.) the names of its kings were Semitic. These names were, respectively, Enu-ilu and Yau-bidi, or Ilu-bidi.

We gain glimpses also of a number of other Hittite states. There was, for example, the state of Kummukh, which lay to the west of the Euphrates, and another in western Cilicia, that had its center at Tyana, the modern Bor. These states appear to have reached their zenith after the fall of the great Hittite dynasty which had its capital at Boghaz Koi. Doubtless as time goes on we shall learn of the existence of many other small Hittite kingdoms which flourished at one time or another. At some time, either when the Hyksos were making their way into Egypt or when Subbiluliuma was pushing southward into Syria, the Hittites mentioned in the Old Testament must have made some small settlements in Palestine. Here the Hebrews came into contact with them. They were really an unimportant outlying fringe of the great Hittite people, but they had the good fortune to have their names preserved in the most immortal literature in the world, the Bible, and so their memory was ever kept alive, while that of their more illustrious kinsmen was utterly forgotten. It is only archæological research that has restored something of the original perspective.

[Pg 83]

PALESTINE AND ITS EXPLORATION

The Land: Rainfall. Early Exploration: Place names. Early American Explorations: Robinson and Smith. Lynch. American exploration societies. Palestine Exploration Fund: Warren’s excavations at Jerusalem. The survey of Palestine. Exploration of Lachish. Bliss’s excavation at Jerusalem. Excavation at Azekah. At Tell es-Safi (Gath?). Tell el-Judeideh. At Marash (Moresheth-Gath). Gezer. Beth-shemesh. Exploring the Wilderness of Zin. The German Palestine Society: Guthe’s excavation at Jerusalem. Megiddo. Taanach. Capernaum. Jericho. The American School at Jerusalem. Samaria. Parker’s Excavations at Jerusalem. Latest Excavations.

1. The Land.—Palestine is a very different land from either Egypt or Mesopotamia. They are made by the irrigation of rivers. Palestine is fertilized by rain from heaven. In them the scenery is monotonous; they are river valleys each of which was once in part an arm of the sea, but now filled up by the gradual deposit of mud. Palestine was formed in one of the greatest geological upheavals the earth ever experienced. This was nothing less than a great rift in the earth’s crust extending from the Lebanon mountains to the Indian Ocean. The strata on the west side of this rift slipped downward past those on its east side for a mile or more. Those on the west were bent at different points in this long course in different ways, but the result of the rift itself was to form the Jordan valley and the bed of the Dead Sea, the valley which runs from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akaba, and that deep rift between Asia and Africa which forms the Red Sea itself.

In Palestine the strata on the west of this rift bent up into two parallel ridges, to the west of which a narrow plain of varying width, ancient Philistia, rises from the sea. To the east of this rift the land remained at approximately its old level. The various ridges of the country are, on account of the birth-pangs of their origin, intersected with valleys innumerable, so that in no country of the world can such variety of scenery and climate be found within such narrow limits.

Rainfall.—This land, with all its variety of form, is redeemed from the desert by the moisture which the west winds drive in[Pg 84] from the Mediterranean Sea. These winds in the winter months bring clouds, which, when they come into contact with the colder air over the elevated hills, deposit their moisture in rain. The Jordan valley is so warm that little rain falls upon it, but it drains the water from the rainfall on both sides of it. Just so far back as the clouds reach before their moisture is exhausted, just so far the fertile land extends; beyond that is the Arabian Desert. When the rainfall during a winter is good, bountiful crops are raised the following season; when it is scant, the harvest fails and famine follows. In Egypt and Babylonia a man could water his garden by kicking a hole in a dyke; they were lands which were watered “with thy foot” (Deut. 11:10); Palestine was dependent on heaven for its life, and we cannot doubt that this fact was one of the instruments for the training of the Israelites for their great religious mission. In a land of such variety—a land in which for nine months in the year snow-capped Hermon may be seen from many an elevated point and from the whole stretch of the tropical Jordan valley, where oleanders are blooming and mustard seeds are growing into trees—it was possible to think of God in a way that was at least more difficult in Egypt or in Mesopotamia.

Here in this marvelous land, which formed a bridge between the two oldest civilizations of the world, the men lived to whom God committed the task of writing most of the Bible. This was the earthly home of the Son of God.

Even before the Hebrews came into it, many had crossed this bridge and some had paused long upon it. Living here they had left the remains of their homes, their cities, and their civilizations. Archæology is now recovering these. After the time of Christ various races and civilizations continued to pass over the bridge. Their remains buried those left by earlier men. The story of the recovery of these earlier remains is, accordingly, not only of great interest, but often of great value to the reader of the Bible.

2. Early Exploration.—The misfortunes which overtook Judæa in the years 70 and 132-135 A. D., in consequence of the Jewish rebellions against Rome, led to the paganizing of Jerusalem and the expulsion of the Jews from Judæa. At this period Christianity was a struggling and a persecuted religion, too busy working its way to take an active interest in the land of its birth. When Constantine early in the fourth century made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, all this was changed. Both Constantine and[Pg 85] his mother, Helena, took the deepest interest in identifying the holy places in Jerusalem, and a stream of pilgrims began at once to visit the land. The earliest of these to leave us an account of his travels was a pilgrim from Bordeaux who visited Palestine in 333 A. D. As he was anxious to see the principal places hallowed by the bodily presence of Christ and the heroes of Scripture, he visited places in different parts of the country. He was followed by many others. The stream has been almost continuous down to the present time. As the aim of these travelers was devotional and they possessed little scholarly training or critical faculty, their works are of secondary value to the modern student. They did, however, prevent that loss of knowledge of the country to which Babylonia was subjected for so many centuries.

Place Names.—At the very beginning of this period Eusebius of Cæsarea, a contemporary of Constantine, compiled a list of the place names of Palestine which are mentioned in the Bible. The names were arranged in alphabetical order, the events for which the places are celebrated were given, in many instances identifications with places existing in the fourth century were proposed, and the distances from other well-known places mentioned. In the next century this work was translated into Latin by Jerome, who lived many years at Bethlehem and traveled extensively in Palestine, and who died in 420 A. D. It is called the Onomasticon.

3. Early American Explorations.—As the reader approaches modern times he finds the works of some of the pilgrims assuming a more scientific character. To some extent, too, these works were supplemented by those of travelers like Châteaubriand,[28] Burckhardt,[29] and Lamartine.[30]

(1) Robinson and Smith.—The scientific study of the localities and antiquities of Palestine was, however, begun by an American, the late Prof. Edward Robinson, of Union Seminary, New York. Robinson was fully equipped with Biblical knowledge, and was thoroughly familiar with Josephus and other works bearing on his subject. He possessed the critical faculty in a high degree, and combined with it a keen constructive faculty. In 1838 and again in 1852 he traveled through Palestine with Eli Smith, a missionary. They were equipped with compass, telescope, thermometer, and[Pg 86] measuring tape. His knowledge of history enabled Robinson to look beneath many traditions. With keen penetration he discerned under the guise of many a modern Arabic name the form of a Biblical original, and accomplished more for the scientific study of Biblical Palestine than any of his predecessors. As he traveled he also noted and briefly described such remains of antiquity as could be seen above ground. The results of Robinson’s first journey were embodied in his Biblical Researches, New York, 1841. In the second edition, London, 1856, the results of the second journey were embodied, and the number of volumes increased to three. The impetus given to the exploration of Palestine by the labors of Robinson was continued by Tobler, Guérin, Renan, and many others.[31]

(2) Lynch.—Meantime, another American, Lieut. W. F. Lynch, of the United States Navy, rendered an important service by the exploration in 1848 of the Dead Sea. In April and May of that year about three weeks were spent in exploring that body of water. Lieut. Lynch was accompanied by Dr. Anderson, a geologist. The party traversed the sea back and forth in two metal boats that had been launched on the Sea of Galilee and floated down the Jordan. The fact that the Jordan valley is lower than the level of the sea had never been recognized until 1837, and, until the visit of Lynch and Anderson, the depth of the depression was only a matter of conjecture. By this expedition it was scientifically determined that the surface of the Dead Sea is 1,300 feet lower than that of the Mediterranean.[32]

(3) American Exploration Societies.—The work of American exploration was later continued by the American Exploration Society, founded in 1870. Under its auspices, Rev. John A. Paine, of Tarrytown, New York, visited the Holy Land. One of the results of his visit was the identification of Pisgah.[33]

Later an American Palestine Exploration Society was organized. This Society employed Mr. Rudolph Meyer, an engineer, to make a map of Palestine, and from 1875 to 1877 also employed Rev. Selah Merrill, who afterward was for many years the U. S. Consul at[Pg 87] Jerusalem, as explorer. Dr. Merrill gathered much archæological information, especially in the country east of the Jordan.[34]

4. Palestine Exploration Fund.—As a result of the interest engendered by the work of Robinson, Lynch, and others, the Palestine Exploration Fund was organized in London in 1865. By this act a permanent body was created to foster continuously the exploration of the Holy Land, and to rescue the work from the fitful activities of individual enterprise. Such enterprise could supplement the work of the Fund, but could no longer hope to compete with it.

Within six months from the organization of the Palestine Exploration Fund its first expedition was sent out. This was led by Capt., now Gen. Sir Charles Warren, who had just completed a survey of Jerusalem as part of a plan for bringing water into the city. The chief object of this expedition, which was in the field from December, 1865, to May, 1866, was to indicate spots for future excavation. It made a series of sketch maps of the country on the scale of one inch to the mile, studied some synagogues in Galilee noted by Robinson, but not fully described by him, and laid bare on Mount Gerizim the remains of a church built on a rough platform which may once have supported the Samaritan temple.

(1) Warren’s Excavations at Jerusalem.—A second expedition under Lieut.-Col., now Sir Charles Warren, made considerable excavations on the temple-hill at Jerusalem. He sank a remarkable series of shafts to the bottom of the walls enclosing the temple area, and proved that in places these walls rest on foundations from 80 to 125 feet below the present surface. He laid bare solid masonry, which bore what are apparently Phœnician quarry-marks and which he believed to go back to the time of Solomon. On the west side of the temple enclosure he found 80 feet below the present surface the ruins of a bridge, which Robinson had conjectured crossed the Tyropœon Valley from the temple enclosure at this point from an arch, the base of which is still visible outside of the temple wall.[35] Among many other discoveries made by Warren were a part of the ancient city wall south of the temple area and an underground passage leading up from the ancient spring of Gihon,[Pg 88] which was probably the “gutter” (R. V., “watercourse”) of 2 Sam. 5:8.

(2) The Survey of Palestine.—After this the Palestine Exploration Fund undertook a survey of Palestine, the object of which was to make a complete and authoritative map of the country on the scale of one inch to a mile, and also a description of all archæological remains of antiquity which were above ground. The work was undertaken in 1871 and the survey of western Palestine was completed in 1878. Owing to an outbreak of cholera, the work was interrupted from 1874 to 1877. Among those who took part in it were Capt. C. R. Conder (now Lieut.-Col.), who was in charge of the work from 1872 to 1874, and Capt. Kitchener (now Lord Kitchener). The great map was published in 1880, and covers an area of 6,000 square miles, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan and from the Egyptian desert to a point near Tyre. The completion of this map was a monumental accomplishment, and must form the basis for all similar work. The archæological remains noted on the map are described in three volumes of Memoirs, also published by the Exploration Fund.

In 1881 Capt. Conder was sent out to make a similar survey of the country east of the Jordan. He endeavored to work under the old permit from the Turkish government, but to this the Turks objected. After working for ten weeks, during which he surveyed about 500 square miles of territory, he was compelled to desist. The results of his work, however, fill a stout volume entitled The Survey of Eastern Palestine, London, 1889. The work undertaken by Conder has since been carried on by other agencies. Dr. Gottlieb Schumacher, an engineer residing at Haifa, who was employed in surveying the railway to Mecca, has published authoritative volumes on the region to the east of the Sea of Galilee.[36] On a larger scale is the work of Brünnow and Domaszewsky on the Roman province of Arabia,[37] a work which includes ancient Edom as far as Petra. The last-mentioned remarkable city has been described also in two excellent volumes by Gustaf H. Dalman, Director of the German Evangelical Institute in Jerusalem.[38]

In 1873-1874 the Palestine Exploration Fund entrusted an archæological mission of a general nature to the French scholar, Clermont-Ganneau,[Pg 89] who several years before had been French Consul at Jerusalem. Clermont-Ganneau was embarrassed by the failure of the Turkish government to grant him a firman, but made numerous archæological discoveries in the country between Jaffa and Jerusalem. These were published by the Fund in two large volumes,[39] although they did not appear until 1896 and 1899, respectively.

In the winter of 1883-1884, a complete geological survey was made of the valley of the Dead Sea and the region to the south (Wady el-Arabah) by Prof. Edward Hull, who afterward published a volume on the subject.[40] Hull was accompanied by Major Kitchener, who made a complete triangulation of the district lying between Mount Sinai and the Wady el-Arabah.

(3) Exploration of Lachish.—In 1890 the Exploration Fund entered upon a new phase of work or, rather, resumed one that had been interrupted for twenty years,—that of excavation. The services of Prof. Petrie, the Egyptian explorer, were secured and the attempt to wrest from the soil of Palestine some of the buried secrets of the past was renewed. The site chosen was Tell el-Hesy, where stood in ancient times the city of Lachish (Josh. 10:3; 2 Kings 14:19; 18:14, etc.). This mound rose about 120 feet above the bed of an intermittent stream. About 60 feet of this height consisted of accumulated débris of the ancient city. The water in the course of centuries had so exposed some of the potsherds that Petrie was confident before he began digging that rich discoveries awaited him. He worked here only about six weeks, running trenches into different parts of the mound, but he found and classified such a variety of pottery that he felt confident that he had unearthed a city which had been occupied from a time anterior to the Hebrew conquest of Canaan down to about 350 B. C.[41]

In 1892 the work was continued under the direction of Dr. Frederick J. Bliss, who cut away a considerable section from the northeast corner of the mound, and found the stratified remains of eight different cities, one above the other.[42] In the third of these cities from the bottom a cuneiform tablet was found, which mentions one of the men who figure in the letters found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. This tablet would indicate that this third city was flourishing during the period 1400-1350 B. C.[Pg 90] The two cities below this must, accordingly, belong to an earlier period. Bliss supposed that the first city was built about 1700 B. C. Above the remains of the third city was a bed of ashes of some thickness, which shows, in Petrie’s opinion, that after the destruction of this city the mound was used for a period of perhaps fifty years as a place for burning alkali. Near the top of the débris of the fourth city a glazed seal was found similar to those made in Egypt in the time of the twenty-second dynasty (945-745 B. C.). This city, then, belonged to the early part of the kingdom of Judah. In the seventh and eighth cities pottery of polished red and black types was found. This class of pottery is of Greek origin, dating from 550-350 B. C. These occupations of the mound must, then, be of that period. The fifth and sixth cities would, accordingly, fall between 750 and 550 B. C. This excavation thus shows how the stratification of the mounds of Palestine reveals the march of the peoples across the country; (see Fig. 28).

(4) Bliss’s Excavation at Jerusalem.—From 1894 to 1897 Dr. Bliss was engaged in excavations at Jerusalem.[43] Here he devoted his attention to an endeavor to recover the line of the ancient wall on the south side of the city. This he did, following it from “Maudsley’s Scarp”[44] at the northwest corner of the westernmost of the two hills on which Jerusalem is situated across the slope to the eastward and then across the Tyropœon Valley. This was the wall rebuilt by Nehemiah on lines then already old (Neh. 3-6). It was destroyed by Titus in the year 70 A. D., and afterward rebuilt by the Empress Eudoxia in the fifth century A. D.

(5) Excavation at Azekah.—From 1898 to 1900 Dr. Bliss excavated for the Fund at several sites in the Biblical Shephelah,[45] the low hills which formed the border-land between ancient Judæa and Philistia. The work began at Tell Zakariya, the Biblical Azekah, situated above the lower part of the Vale of Elah. Azekah was fortified by King Rehoboam (2 Chron. 11:5-10). Here an important citadel or fortress was uncovered. While the masonry of the top part was similar to that of Herodian buildings at Jerusalem, the pottery found about the foundations indicated that the beginnings of the structure go back to early Israelitish times. It may well be one of Jeroboam’s fortresses. Underneath it were[Pg 91] remains from late pre-Israelitish times. It appears that the hill was occupied as the site of a city only shortly before the Hebrew conquest. The fortress was not, however, built at the time of this earliest occupation.

(6) At Tell es-Safi (Gath?).—Next the excavation was transferred to Tell es-Safi, which was situated on the south side of the ancient Vale of Elah at the point where it sweeps into the Philistine plain, and which was thought to be the site of the Biblical Gath (Josh. 11:22; 1 Sam. 5:8; 17:4; 2 Kings 12:17). Here in 1144 A. D. the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem established by the Crusaders built a fortress, which they called Blanche-Garde, as an outpost against Ashkelon. It was hoped that the excavation of Dr. Bliss would determine whether or not this was really the site of Gath, but owing to the occupation of the tell by a Mohammedan cemetery and a wely, or sacred building, this was not possible. The outline of the city walls was, however, traced, the foundations of Blanche-Garde examined, and here and there trenches were sunk to the rock. These trenches revealed in the various strata pottery and objects, first, of the period of the Crusaders; secondly, of the Seleucid period (312-65 B. C.); thirdly, of the Jewish period, 700-350 B. C., and two pre-Israelite strata. The mound had, then, been occupied from about 1700 B. C. to the Seleucid times, and again in the period of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The most interesting discovery at Tell es-Safi was that of an old pre-Israelitish high place, which contained three pillars such as are denounced in Deuteronomy. (See Deut. 7:5; 12:3, etc.) At the time of this discovery no similar discovery had been made. The foundations of this high place were near the bottom of the last pre-Israelite stratum, so that it was clearly constructed by the Amorites, or Canaanites, or whoever occupied this city before the Hebrews arrived.

(7) Tell el-Judeideh.—The excavations next moved to Tell el-Judeideh, a mound some distance to the south of Tell Zakariya. Here they traced the outlines of the city wall, found the remains of a Roman villa, and sunk a number of shafts to the rock. From the pottery found in these shafts they inferred that the mound had been occupied in the earliest period, but deserted for a considerable time before the Hebrew conquest. It was then reoccupied in the latter part of the Judæan monarchy, and was finally fortified in the Seleucid or Roman period. It seems to have been deserted[Pg 92] soon after the Roman period. It is not known what was the ancient name of the city that stood there.

(8) At Marash (Moresheth-Gath).—The last mound excavated in this region was Tell Sandahanna, situated a mile to the south of Beit Jibrin. The mound takes its name from a church of St. Anne, the ruins of which may still be seen near by. It occupies the site of the city of Marissa of the Seleucid period, and of the older Jewish Marash. It is probably the site of Moresheth-Gath, the home of the prophet Micah. (See Micah 1:14.) Here considerable portions of the Seleucid stratum of the mound were excavated, and a smaller portion of the Jewish stratum. The Jewish stratum rested directly on the rock; the site seems, therefore, not to have been inhabited in pre-Israelite times.

(9) Gezer.—The next undertaking of the Palestine Exploration Fund was the excavation of Gezer. This work was entrusted to the direction of R. A. Stewart Macalister, who had been Dr. Bliss’s assistant from 1898 to 1900 and who is now Professor of Celtic in the University of Dublin. Work was begun on Tell el-Jazar, about six miles southeast of the town of Ramleh, which Clermont Ganneau[46] had, in June, 1902, identified as the site of Gezer. (Josh. 10:33; Judges 1:27; 2 Sam. 5:25.) It continued, with such interruptions as winter weather and an outbreak of cholera made necessary, until August, 1905. It was renewed in the spring of 1907 and carried on until early in 1909. During this time more than half of the mound was excavated. No other mound in Palestine has been so fully explored. Naturally, therefore, Gezer has furnished us with more archæological information than any other excavation; (see Fig. 30).

The results of this excavation convinced Mr. Macalister that the classification of the strata adopted by the excavators of Lachish and the mounds of the Shephelah was capable of improvement. He found that Gezer had been occupied at first by a non-Semitic people, remains of whose bones indicate that they were about 5 feet 6 inches high, who lived in caves, and whose implements were wholly of stone. He estimated that these people probably occupied the site from about 3000 to 2500 B. C. About 2500 B. C. a Semitic race, probably Amorite, took possession of the city and occupied it to the end of the Hebrew monarchy.

Four periods could be traced in the Semitic occupation, each[Pg 93] represented by differences in walls, implements, and objects used. The first Semitic period ended with the fall of the twelfth Egyptian dynasty, about 1800 B. C. In this stratum scarabs of the period of the Egyptian “middle kingdom” were found. The second Semitic stratum continued until about the end of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, about 1350 B. C. The third Semitic stratum lasted till the establishment of the Hebrew monarchy, about 1000 B. C.; the fourth was contemporaneous with the Hebrew kingdoms, 1000-586 B. C. The mound was again occupied in the Hellenistic or Maccabæan period.[47] After the Maccabæan turmoils the inhabitants seem to have deserted the tell. Under the modern village of Abu Shusheh, on the southwest slope of the mound, a Roman mosaic has been found, but nothing from Roman times was discovered on the mound itself. There were likewise no remains from the period of the Crusaders.

In the course of this excavation many important discoveries were made. Many of these will be mentioned in subsequent chapters. We need only mention here an old Semitic high place, which had its beginnings in the first Semitic stratum before 1800 B. C., and was used down to the end of the fourth Semitic or Hebrew stratum, about 600 B. C. It began with two “pillars,” but others were added as time passed until there were ten in all.[48] In the third Semitic stratum (i. e., the one preceding the Hebrew occupation) a building was found which Mr. Macalister thought might have been a temple. In the middle of its largest hall were some stones which looked as though they might have supported wooden pillars, which, in turn, probably supported the roof. Mr. Macalister thought this was a structure similar to that which Samson pulled down at Gaza[49] (Judges 16:23-30).

One of the most important discoveries was a rock-cut tunnel leading down through the heart of the rock to a spring in a cave 94 feet below the surface of the rock and 120 feet below the level of the present surface of the ground.[50] This was to enable the people of the city to obtain water in time of siege. It was used for some 500 years and was apparently closed up about 1300-1200 B. C. Its beginnings go back accordingly to the first Semitic period. A[Pg 94] palace of the Maccabæan time, apparently built by Simon the Maccabee, 143-135 B. C., was also discovered.[51] (Cf. 1 Macc. 14:34.)

Various walls were discovered, which at different times encircled the city. The most massive of these was apparently constructed during the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, and continued to be the city wall down to the Babylonian Exile. At some time after its construction towers had been inserted in the wall. These towers were shown to be a later insertion by the fact that their stones touched the stones of the wall on each side, but were not interlocked with them. Mr. Macalister thinks that these towers may have been inserted by Solomon when he fortified the city (1 Kings 9:15-19). At some later time the weakness of such a tower had become apparent, and a bastion had been built around it.[52] The excavation at Gezer was fruitful in many directions. Other aspects of it will be taken up in future chapters in connection with other topics.

(10) Beth-shemesh.—The next task undertaken by the Palestine Exploration Fund was the exploration of Ain Shems, the Biblical Beth-shemesh. (See Josh. 15:10; 2 Kings 14:8-14, etc.) Ain Shems, like Gezer, is situated in what was in Biblical times the Shephelah. It is near the station of Der Aban on the railway from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Excavations were carried on at this point in 1911 and 1912 under the direction of Dr. Duncan Mackenzie, who had had ten years’ experience on the staff of Sir Arthur Evans, the explorer of Crete. At the bottom of the mound the remains of a very early settlement were discovered.[53] Above this the ruins of a once prosperous city, which was for that time large, were found. It was surrounded by strong walls and one of its rugged gates was discovered on the south. In the upper strata of this city imitations of Cretan pottery were found. As it is probable that the Philistines came from Crete, or were intimately associated with people who were under Cretan influence, this pottery is doubtless Philistine. The city which was encircled by this wall had passed through two periods of history. The original wall was built before the domination of Palestine by Egypt. As this domination began about 1500 B. C., the earlier fortress of Beth-shemesh belongs to that period. The second period belongs in its earlier[Pg 95] strata to the age of the El-Amarna letters, in which the city is called Beth-Ninib. The upper period of it belongs, as has been noted, to the Philistine period.

This city was destroyed by a siege which resulted in the burning of the city—a burning which left quite a bed of ashes. Dr. Mackenzie thought that this was the siege by which the Israelites gained possession of Beth-shemesh. The city was occupied by the Hebrews apparently until the invasion of Palestine by Sennacherib, King of Assyria, in 701 B. C. At all events, it was in the possession of Judah in the days of King Amaziah (2 Kings 14:8-14). Corresponding to this, Israelitish pottery was found in the stratum above the ashes. Dr. Mackenzie is of the opinion that during this Hebrew period the city was without a wall. Apparently after the time of Sennacherib the site was abandoned for several centuries, for next above the Israelitish stratum the remains of a monastery of the Byzantine period (325-636 A. D.) were found. This monastery apparently was not begun until just at the close of the Byzantine period, for it appears that it was not finished at the time of the Mohammedan conquest.

(11) Exploring the Wilderness of Zin.—The most recent service of the Palestine Exploration Fund was the sending of two explorers, C. Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence, in the winter of 1913-14, to explore the wilderness to the south of Palestine. The results of their work have been published in the Fund’s Annual, Vol. III, under the title The Wilderness of Zin. The explorers identified a considerable part of the “Darb es-Shur,” or the “way of Shur” (Gen. 16:7, etc.). It was the caravan road from Palestine to Egypt. They also adduce strong evidence against the identification of Ain Kades with Kadesh-Barnea (Num. 32:8, etc.), and think that Kossima, which lies nearer to the Egyptian road and is surrounded by much more verdure, may have been Kadesh-Barnea. The identification of Ain Kades with Kadesh-Barnea was made by the late Dr. Henry Clay Trumbull, after a very brief visit to the spot, and it has been accepted by many others.

Between 325 and 636 A. D. extensive settlements and cities of considerable size existed in this wilderness. This was one of the facts that led Ellsworth Huntington to believe that the rainfall in Palestine was much greater at that time. With this view Woolley and Lawrence take issue. They say that where the old wells have been kept open, the water still rises as high as ever it did. They[Pg 96] hold that the cities mentioned were possible because of the great energy and skill of the people of that time in sinking wells.

5. The German Palestine Society.—While the work of the Palestine Exploration Fund, which has been outlined in detail, was going on, other countries were aroused to similar activities. In 1877 a similar Society, the Deutscher Palästina-Verein, was organized to foster the collection of information about the land of the Bible. Accurate scientific research in all branches of knowledge relating to Palestine was contemplated, and the co-operation of travelers and of the German colonies in Palestine was invited. In 1878 this Society began the publication of a journal[54] which has become a repository of information about the Holy Land.

(1) Guthe’s Excavation at Jerusalem.—In 1880 Prof. Guthe excavated at various points on Ophel at Jerusalem, and followed the line of the ancient wall along the east side of the city of David.[55]

(2) Megiddo.—In 1903 this German Society undertook the excavation of Tell el-Mutesellim, the site of the Biblical Megiddo[56] (Josh. 12:21; 2 Kings 23:29, etc.). This work was entrusted to the direction of Dr. Gottlieb Schumacher, of Haifa. Work was begun on the 7th of February, 1903, and continued at intervals until the 30th of November, 1905. In the lowest stratum of the mound Dr. Schumacher found traces of a settlement the houses of which were constructed of mud-bricks. Over the ruins of these a second series of houses had been built of stone. In the same stratum some tombs were found containing skeletons, some pottery of early forms, a bronze knife, and some scarabs set in gold. The walls of the city were in part built of brick. The settlements represented by this stratum antedated 2000 B. C.

In the next stratum a large structure, probably a palace, was found, which had been occupied through the periods represented by the stratum in which its foundations were laid and the stratum next above it. The building was of stone and was large. In one part of it was a “pillar” apparently used for worship. Various types of pottery, knives of flint and bronze, many stone household utensils, an Astarte figure, and some scarabs of the period of the twelfth Egyptian dynasty were found. This stratum, then, belonged to the period 2000-1800 B. C.

[Pg 97]Next above this stratum was one in which types of painted pottery similar to that of the Philistines came to light. In the fifth stratum from the bottom a palace of the Hebrew period was discovered. In this palace a seal was found bearing a lion and the inscription “belonging to Shema, the servant of Jeroboam.” It is impossible to tell whether the Jeroboam who was Shema’s master was Jeroboam I or Jeroboam II. In this same stratum a temple was found containing three “pillars”; (see Fig. 27).

In another part of the mound in a sixth stratum, which seemed to be late Hebrew, three “pillars” were found in an open space near the south gate, a stone religious emblem, and a decorated incense-burner. Elsewhere this sixth stratum yielded a blacksmith’s shop. In a seventh stratum, just under the soil, remains of the Greek period were found, among which was an Athenian coin. This was the last occupation of the tell, and was pre-Christian. At the beginning of the Roman period the town was moved from the high land of the mound down nearer the water supply. On the slope of the hill a native-rock altar was found which had been used in prehistoric times.

(3) Taanach.—In 1899 Prof. Ernst Sellin, of Vienna, visited Palestine and became so deeply interested in its exploration that he induced several Austrian scientific bodies and individuals to contribute a fund for the purpose. The result was an excavation of Tell Taanek, the Biblical Taanach (Josh. 12:21; Judges 5:19), conducted by Sellin in 1902 and 1903. Sellin did not excavate the mound in a systematic way and his results are not very clearly presented in his book.[57] He traced in several places four strata in the tell. An early stratum had its beginnings, he thought, as early as 2500 B. C. This stratum represented probably an occupation of more than a thousand years. In its later parts the remains of a large palace were found, and in a cave underneath it four cuneiform tablets, written in the script of the El-Amarna period. Originally there were more tablets in the archive, but it had been rifled in ancient times. Above this was a stratum in which pottery of the Cypriote and Philistine type was found. Next above this was a Hebrew stratum, which seems to have lasted, judging by objects found in it, down to the time of Psammetik I of Egypt, 663-609 B. C. In this stratum the remains of a high place with its “pillars” were found, as well as a terra-cotta incense-altar of wonderful[Pg 98] construction. Above this there were in places a few remains from the Seleucid period, including some pottery, and at the top of the mound some remains of an Arabic settlement. This last seems to have been established here about the time of the Crusaders. Sellin thinks Taanach was destroyed by the Scythian invasion, about 625 B. C., that in the Seleucid period the main settlement here was not on the mound, and that it was then unoccupied until the time of the Crusaders.

(4) Capernaum.—The Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, which was carrying on excavations in Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria, undertook the investigation of the remains of ancient synagogues in Galilee and the Jaulan. Among these they excavated the ruins of the synagogue at Tell Hum on the Sea of Galilee,[58] the probable site of Capernaum. Here they found the remains of a once beautiful synagogue which was probably built in the fourth century A. D. Beneath it is the floor of a still older building. This last is probably the synagogue in which so many of the incidents of the ministry of Christ in Capernaum took place, the one built by a Roman centurion. (See Luke 7:5 and Fig. 32.)

(5) Jericho.—This same Society undertook, in the years 1907-1909, the excavation of Jericho; (see Fig. 29). The work was entrusted to the direction of Prof. Sellin, of Vienna. The digging occupied about three weeks in the spring of 1907, and about three months of the early part of each of the years 1908 and 1909.[59] At the bottom of the mound traces of a prehistoric occupation of the site were uncovered, but as these were under the foundations of a Canaanitish fortress, which were not demolished, nothing further was ascertained about them. Above this prehistoric city were the remains of an Amorite or Canaanite city. A jar handle found in the lower half of this Canaanite stratum was stamped with a scarab of the time of the twelfth Egyptian dynasty, which indicates that this occupation goes back to about 2000 B. C. The walls of this early city were traced on all sides of the tell except the east. On this side, where the Ain es-Sultan is (otherwise called Elisha’s Fountain, from the incident of 2 Kings 2:19-22), the wall had entirely disappeared. This early city was small. The whole of it could have been put into the Colosseum at Rome. All early Palestinian cities were, however, small. In the city was a[Pg 99] citadel with a double wall. Each wall represented a different period of history. Both were built of brick, as were the houses of the time. The outer wall was between four and five feet thick and appeared to be the older; the inner one was about ten feet thick. They were joined here and there by transverse walls; (see Fig. 37). The city had been burned apparently about 1300-1200 B. C., perhaps at the time of the Hebrew conquest.

Above the ruins of this pre-Israelitish city were the remains of the Hebrew town. The earliest of these remains seems to date from the ninth century B. C.; (see 1 Kings 16:34), as it was rebuilt in the days of Ahab; (see Fig. 34). The Israelites, in Sellin’s judgment, made the city considerably larger than it had been in the earlier time. A wall, which he believed to be the wall of the Hebrew period, was found on all sides except the east, considerably outside the older wall. Père Vincent, of the French École Biblique at Jerusalem, believes this wall to have been built in the Canaanite period also, but his reasons do not seem convincing. On the eastern edge of the Israelitish stratum the remains of a large stone building were found. Sellin thinks this may be the palace and fortress built by Hiel in the time of Ahab (1 Kings 16:34). This Israelitish city seems to have flourished only about two hundred years. It was probably destroyed in the time of Sennacherib, about 700 B. C. Sellin thought he found traces of another rebuilding which must soon have followed the destruction, but this Jericho was also destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar in 586 B. C. At some time after the Babylonian Exile the city was rebuilt and flourished until destroyed by Vespasian in 70 A. D. It was rebuilt after 325 A. D. and continued until destroyed by the invasion of the Persian King Chosroes II, in 614 A. D. Some slight settlements have existed on the mound in Moslem times, but the Jericho of today is more than a mile distant.

6. The American School at Jerusalem.—In the year 1900 the American School of Oriental Research in Palestine was opened at Jerusalem under the ægis of the Archæological Institute of America. It is one of the purposes of this school, when its funds will permit, to carry on excavations as well as explorations. Hitherto it has not had money sufficient to enable it to undertake extensive excavations. In addition to the investigation of many matters not strictly archæological, the School has conducted a number of minor explorations. When the present writer was Director, 1902-1903, he cleared the[Pg 100] so-called Tomb of the Judges and found the ruins of a caravansary of the Crusading period near the Damascus Gate. Under L. B. Paton, 1903-1904, an excavation was made on the supposed line of the “Third Wall” of Jerusalem. Under Nathaniel Schmidt, 1904-1905, the Dead Sea was explored and some discoveries made in the Valley of the Arnon and the Wady Suweil.[60] Under D. G. Lyon, 1906-1907, some pre-Israelitish pottery was recovered from tombs of Samieh east of Et-Taiyibeh.[61] Under W. J. Moulton, 1912-1913, some painted tombs of the Seleucid time were explored at Beit Jibrin.

7. Samaria.—Although the American School at Jerusalem has not yet been able to undertake extensive excavations, through the generosity of Mr. Jacob Schiff, of New York, Harvard University was able to excavate at Sebastiyeh, the site of ancient Samaria, during parts of three seasons—1908, 1909, and 1910. During the first season the work was under the direction of Prof. D. G. Lyon; during 1909 and 1910, under the direction of Prof. G. A. Reisner, who has had large experience in such work in Egypt, and who, in addition to many archæological triumphs there, has solved the riddle of the Sphinx. At Samaria[62] a large palace was found built upon the native rock. This is believed to be the remains of the palace of Omri (1 Kings 16:24). Above this were the ruins of a larger palace, the wall of which was faced with white marble. This is believed to have been the palace of Ahab, who is said to have built an “ivory house” (1 Kings 22:39). In a building on a level with this palace a considerable number of inscribed potsherds were found. They were receipts for wine and oil stored there. At the western edge of the hill the old city gate was uncovered. It had been rebuilt at different times. The foundations were clearly laid in the Israelitish period. On these now rests a superstructure of Herodian workmanship. Above the ruins of the Hebrew city were the remains of a city built by the Assyrians. (See 2 Kings 17:24-34.) This was inferred by the character of the building materials employed, and by the fragment of a clay tablet found there. Still above this were remains of a city of the Seleucid time—the city destroyed by John Hyrcanus[63] in[Pg 101] 109 B. C. Still above this were remains of the temple built by Herod the Great, when he rebuilt Samaria and named it Sebaste, the Greek for Augusta, in honor of the Emperor Augustus. This temple had been repaired in the third century A. D.

8. Parker’s Excavations at Jerusalem.—In the years 1909, 1910, and 1911 an English expedition under Capt., the Hon. Montague Parker, a retired officer of the British army, made extensive explorations upon Ophel, the slope of the eastern hill south of the present city walls at Jerusalem. Parker was not an archæologist and the motive for the exploration is not yet disclosed. The party is said to have been abundantly supplied with money, and to have come to Palestine in a private yacht, which was anchored off Jaffa while they were at work. In 1911 the hostility of the Moslems became so excited by the rumor that they had attempted to excavate under the Mosque of Omar that the expedition came to an abrupt close, and the explorers escaped on their yacht. Through the descriptions of two residents of Jerusalem, Prof. Hughes Vincent[64] and Dr. E. W. G. Masterman,[65] we have some knowledge of the value of Parker’s work. He cleared the silt out of the Siloam tunnel so as to reveal its real depth, which seems to have been between five and six feet. It had been so silted up that it appeared to be only about half that depth. He also explored more fully the caves about Ain Sitti Miriam (the Biblical Gihon, 1 Kings 1:33), which had been partially explored by Sir Charles Warren, so that the nature and probable use of these are now known much better. More will be said of this in a future chapter.

9. Latest Excavations.—Within the last few years the Assumptionist Fathers have been excavating on a tract of land purchased by them on the eastern slope of the western hill to the south of the present city wall. They believe that they have discovered the house of Caiaphas, to which Christ was led in the course of his trial (Matt. 26:57; John 18:24). Possibly they have found the house which, after the time of Constantine, was pointed out to Christian pilgrims as that of Caiaphas. However this may be, they have unearthed several streets of Roman and Jewish Jerusalem, and are keeping them uncovered. These streets, like the ruins of Pompeii, disclose pavements and house-foundations that[Pg 102] may go back to the time of Christ. Here, possibly, one may look upon pavements which his feet actually trod.[66]

In 1914 some excavations were made on Ophel at Jerusalem under the direction of Capt. Weil for a Jewish organization, and at the mound Balata, near Nablous, the Biblical Shechem, by the Germans. The work at Balata was under the direction of Prof. Sellin. Both are said to have made discoveries. At Balata it is said that the city gate of ancient Shechem was uncovered. Nothing has, however, been published concerning these, and the great war of 1914 brought all such work to a stop. The preparation of foundations of a new Jewish hospital near the Dung Gate has laid bare the aqueducts which conveyed the water from “Solomon’s Pools” into the city.[67]

In this account only the principal explorations have been mentioned. In all parts of Palestine, and especially at Jerusalem, important archæological discoveries are frequently made when people are digging to lay the foundations of buildings, to construct a cistern, or for other purposes. Other important discoveries, as, for instance, the rock-cut high place at Petra,[68] and the painted tombs at Beit Jibrin,[69] have been made by people traveling through the land. Many discoveries made in this way are recorded in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, the Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins, and the Revue biblique. Lack of space forbids the attempt to chronicle these.[70]

[Pg 103]

OUTLINE OF PALESTINE’S ARCHÆOLOGICAL HISTORY

The Early Stone Age. The Late Stone Age. The Amorites. The Canaanites. Egyptian Domination: Thothmes III. Palestine in the El-Amarna Letters. Seti I. Ramses II. Merneptah. Ramses III. The Philistines. The Hebrews. Philistine Civilization. The Hebrew Kingdoms. The Exile and After: The Samaritans. Alexander the Great and his successors. The Maccabees. The Asmonæans. The Coming of Rome: The Herods. The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D. Later History.

1. The Early Stone Age.—Palestine appears to have been inhabited at a very remote period. Scholars divide the races of prehistoric men, who used stone implements, into two classes—Palæolithic and Neolithic. Palæolithic men did not shape their stone implements. If they chanced to find a stone shaped like an axe, they used it as such; if they found a long, thin one with a sharp edge, they used it for a knife. Neolithic man had learned to shape his stone tools. He could make knives for himself out of flint and form other tools from stone. The earliest inhabitants of Palestine belonged to the palæolithic period. Unshaped stone implements have been found in many parts of the country. They have been picked up in the maritime plain, in still larger numbers on the elevated land south of Jerusalem, and again to the south of Amman, the Biblical Rabbah Ammon, on the east of the Jordan. The Assumptionist Fathers of Notre Dame de France at Jerusalem have a fine collection of flint implements in their Museum.

These palæolithic men lived in caves in which they left traces of their occupation. Several of these caves in Phœnicia have been explored by Père Zumoffen, of the Catholic University of St. Joseph, Beirut.[71] It has been estimated that these cave-dwellers may have been in Palestine as early as 10,000 B. C.

2. The Late Stone Age.—Of neolithic men in Palestine much more is known. This knowledge comes in part from the numerous cromlechs, menhirs, dolmens, and “gilgals” which are scattered[Pg 104] over eastern Palestine. A cromlech is a heap of stones roughly resembling a pyramid;[72] a menhir is a group of unhewn stones so set in the earth as to stand upright like columns;[73] a dolmen consists of a large unhewn stone which rests on two others which separate it from the earth;[74] and a “gilgal” is a group of menhirs set in a circle.[73] These monuments are the remains of men of the stone age who dwelt here before the dawn of history. They were probably erected by some of those peoples whom the Hebrews called Rephaim[75] or “shades”—people who, having lived long before, were dead at the time of the Hebrew occupation.

Similar monuments of the stone age have been found in Japan, India, Persia, the Caucasus, the Crimea, Bulgaria; also in Tripoli,[76] Tunis, Algeria, Morocco, Malta, southern Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, the Belearic Isles, Spain, Portugal, France, the British Isles, Scandinavia, and the German shores of the Baltic. Some scholars hold that all these monuments were made by one race of men, who migrated from country to country. As the monuments are not found at very great distances from the sea, the migrations are supposed to have followed the sea coasts.[77] Others scout the idea of a migration over such long distances at such an early epoch of the world’s history, and believe that the fashion of making such monuments was adopted from people to people by imitation. Be this as it may, these monuments seem to have been in Egypt and Palestine before the Semites and Hamites developed into the Egyptians, Amorites, and Hebrews, for they were adopted by them as the “pillars” which are so often denounced in the Old Testament, and in Egypt were gradually shaped and prolonged into the obelisks.

Of the men of this stone age the excavations have furnished us with some further information. At Gezer the native rock below all the cities was found to contain caves,[78] some natural and some artificial, which had formed the dwellings of men of the stone age. They, like men today, were lazy. If one found a cave that would protect him from heat, cold, and rain, he would occupy it and save[Pg 105] himself the trouble of making one. But there were not enough caves to go around, so some of the men of ancient Gezer cut caves for themselves out of the soft limestone rock. It must have been a difficult task with the stone implements at their disposal, but they accomplished it, sometimes cutting stairs by which to descend into them. One such cave seems to have been used by them as a temple. In it were found a quantity of pig bones, which were apparently the remains of their sacrifices. If they offered the pig in sacrifice, they were certainly not Semitic, for Semites abhorred swine. These early men sometimes adorned the sides of their dwellings by scratching pictures on the walls. Several pictures of cattle were found. One cow seemed to have knobs on her horns to keep her from goring! One drawing represented a stag that was being killed with a bow and arrow.[79] These early men burned their dead, and one of the caves in the eastern end of the hill was used as their crematory. Steps in the rock led down to its entrance. The cave itself was 31 feet long, 24 feet 6 inches wide, and the height varied from 2 to 5 feet. Near one end a hole had been cut to the upper air to act as a flue. Below this the fires that burned their dead had been kindled; cinders and charred bones of these far-off men were found as grim tokens of their funeral rites. Shortly after these bones were found the anatomist, Prof. Alexander Macalister, of Cambridge University, father of the excavator, visited the camp at Gezer and made a study of the bones. He found that they represented a non-Semitic race. The peculiar modifications of the bones caused by the squatting so universally practised by Semites were absent. The men whose bones these were could not have been more than 5 feet 6 inches in height, and many of the women must have been as short as 5 feet 3 inches. A pottery head found in one of the caves, which may be a rude portrait of the type of face seen in Gezer in this period, has a sloping forehead, which afforded little brain-space, and a prominent lower jaw. These people used flint knives, crushed their grain in hollow stones with rounded stones, employed a variety of stone implements, and made pottery of a rude type, which will be described in a later chapter.

The city of Gezer in this cave-dwelling period was surrounded by a unique wall or rampart.[80] This consisted of a stone wall about 6 feet high and 2 feet thick, on the outer side of which was a[Pg 106] rampart of packed earth about 6 feet 6 inches at the base and sloping toward the top. This bank of earth was protected by a covering of small stones about 8 inches in depth. This rampart never could have been of much value in warfare, and was, perhaps, meant as a protection against incursions of wild animals.

In the hillsides around Gezer there are many caves which were probably human habitations during this period, but as they have been open during many centuries, traces of their early occupation have long since been destroyed. At Beit Jibrin, six or eight hours to the south of Gezer, there are also many caves in the rock, numbers of which are artificial. At various periods these have been employed as residences. It is altogether probable that the use of some of them goes back to the time of the cave-dwellers of Gezer.

Mr. Macalister has suggested a connection between these cave-dwellers of Gezer and the Biblical Horites,[81] since Horite means “cave-dweller.” In the Bible the Horites are said to have dwelt to the east of the Jordan, and more especially in Edom (Gen. 14:6; 36:20, 21, 29; Deut. 2:12, 22). It seems probable that the reason why the Bible places them all beyond Jordan is that the cave-dwellers had disappeared from western Palestine centuries before the Hebrews came, while to the east of the Jordan they lingered on until displaced by those who were more nearly contemporary with the Hebrews. On the west of the Jordan megalithic monuments were probably once numerous, since traces of them still survive in Galilee and Judæa,[82] but later divergent civilizations have removed most of them. In the time of Amos one of these “gilgals” was used by the Hebrews as a place of worship, of which the prophet did not approve.[83]

It seems probable that there was a settlement of these cave-dwellers at Jerusalem. The excavations of Capt. Parker brought to light an extensive system of caves around the Virgin’s Fountain, Ain Sitti Miriam, as the Arabs call it, which is the Biblical Gihon.[84] These caves are far below the present surface of the ground. It was found, too, that there would be no spring at this point at all, if some early men had not walled up the natural channel in the rock down which the water originally ran. These men, judging by the fragments of pottery and the depth of the débris, belonged[Pg 107] to about the same period as the cave-dwellers of Gezer. They apparently settled at this point because of the water, and one of the caves may have been a sanctuary to their god. A new vista is thus added to the history of that city, which was later the scene of so much Biblical life.

From various archæological considerations Mr. Macalister estimated that the diminutive cave-dwelling men lived at Gezer for about 500 years, from 3000 to 2500 B. C., when they were displaced by a Semitic people.

3. The Amorites.—We are accustomed to call this Semitic people Amorites, and it is probable that this is right. About 2800 B. C., under a great king named Sargon,[85] a city of Babylonia called Uru, or Amurru,[86] and Agade conquered all of Babylonia. The dynasty founded by Sargon was Semitic and ruled Babylonia for 197 years.[87] Even before Sargon conquered Babylonia, Lugalzaggisi, King of Erech, had penetrated to the Mediterranean coast. Sargon and two of his successors, Naram-Sin and Shargali-sharri, carried their conquests to the Mediterranean lands. A seal of the last-mentioned king was found in Cyprus. It is probable that the coming of the Amorites began in the north with the conquests of these kings. To the east of the Lebanon the Princeton expedition found stone structures similar to Babylonian Ziggurats, which they attribute to the Amorites, and hold to indicate the prevalence of Babylonian influence in this region. It is probable that the Amorites slowly worked southward, occupying different cities as they went. Mr. Macalister’s estimate that they reached Gezer about 2500 B. C. is not, therefore, unreasonable, though they may have arrived there a century earlier than that. This was the beginning of that long intercourse with Babylonia which resulted in the employment of the Babylonian language and script for the purpose of expressing written thought in Palestine long after the Egyptians had conquered the country. This intercourse was the more natural because the Semites who came to Palestine were of the same race as those who were dominant in Babylonia.

Meantime, the Egyptians had begun to take notice of Palestine. Uni, an officer of Pepi I of the sixth Egyptian dynasty, relates that he crossed the sea in ships to the back of the height of the ridge[Pg 108] north of the “sand-dwellers” and punished the inhabitants.[88] This refers to the coast of Palestine in the neighborhood of the Philistine cities or Gezer. The time was between 2600 and 2570 B. C. Egypt was at this time only anxious to make her own borders secure; she had no desire to occupy this Asiatic land.

Again, between 2300 and 2200 B. C., a fresh migration of Semites, apparently also of the Amorite branch, invaded Babylonia and in time made the city of Babylon the head of a great empire. This race furnished the first dynasty of Babylon, which ruled from 2210 to 1924 B. C. Its greatest king, Hammurapi,[89] who gave to Babylonia a code of laws in the vernacular language,[90] conquered the “west land,” which means the Mediterranean coast. It was probably under his successor, Shamsu-iluna, but certainly under one of the kings of this period, that a man in Sippar, in leasing a wagon for a year, stipulated that it should not be driven to the Mediterranean coast, because, apparently, travel between that coast and northern Babylonia was so frequent.[91] In this same period there lived in Babylonia an Abraham, the records of some of whose business documents have come down to us.[92] We also find there men who bore the names Yagubilu (Jacobel) and Yashubilu (Josephel), and one who was called simply Yagub, or Jacob. Palestinian evidence from a later time leads us to believe that men bearing all these names migrated during this period to Palestine and gave their names to cities which they either built or occupied.[93]

Egyptians also came to Palestine during this period. The tale of Sinuhe[94] relates the adventures of a man who fled to Palestine in the year 1970 B. C., and who reached the land of Kedem, or the East, which apparently lay to the east of the Jordan.[95] It is referred to several times in the old Testament. (See Gen. 29:1; Judges 6:3, 33; 7:12; 8:10; Job 1:3, etc.) Sinuhe there entered the service of an Amorite chieftain, Ammienshi, married his eldest daughter, became ruler of a portion of his land, and lived there for many years. He finally returned to Egypt and wrote an account of his adventures. This region was also called by Sinuhe[Pg 109] and other Egyptians Upper Retenu, a name which they also applied to all the higher parts of Syria and Palestine. Retenu is philologically equivalent to Lotan (Gen. 36:20, 22, 29; 1 Chron. 1:38, 39) and Lot (Gen. 11:27; 12:4, etc.). When Sinuhe arrived in Kedem he found other Egyptians already there. Ammienshi was well acquainted with Egyptians. There was apparently considerable trade with Egypt at this time. Men from Palestine often went there for this purpose. Such traders are pictured on an Egyptian tomb of this period. Trade with Egypt is also shown to have existed by the discovery of Egyptian scarabs of the time of the Middle Kingdom in the excavation of Gezer, Jericho, Taanach, and Megiddo. As Egypt was nearer and commerce with it easier, its art affected the art of Palestine during this period more than did the art of Babylon, although the people were akin to the Babylonians. In the reign of Sesostris III, 1887-1849 B. C., the Egyptian king sent an expedition into Palestine, and captured a place, called in Egyptian Sekmem, which is thought by some to be a misspelling of Shechem.[96] This expedition probably stimulated Egyptian influence in the country, though the Egyptians established no permanent control over the land at this time.

When the Amorites occupied Palestinian cities they at once erected fortifications. The inmost of the three walls of Gezer is their work. It was a wall about 13 feet in thickness, in which were towers 41 feet long and 24 feet thick and about 90 feet apart. It contained at least two gates.[97] At Megiddo the city was surrounded by a wall, parts of which were made of brick,[98] while at Jericho the older of the walls of the central citadel dates from this time.[99]

4. The Canaanites.—Between 1800 and 1750 B. C. a migration occurred which greatly disturbed all western Asia. There moved into Babylonia from the east a people called Kassites. They conquered Babylonia and established a dynasty which reigned for 576 years.[100] Coincident with this movement into Babylonia there was a migration across the whole of Asia to the westward, which caused an invasion of Egypt and the establishment of the Hyksos dynasties there.[101] As pointed out previously,[102] it is possible that[Pg 110] this movement, in so far as the leadership of the invasion of Egypt was concerned, was Hittite. In any event, however, many Semites were involved in it, as the Semitic names in the Egyptian Delta at this time prove. It is customary to assume that it was in connection with this migration that the Canaanites came into Palestine. This cannot, in the present state of our knowledge, be clearly proved, but such evidence as we have points in this direction. There began at this time a new period of culture at Gezer, which is quite distinguishable from that which had preceded. This indicates the coming of new influences. Moreover, there was apparently an augmentation of the population of Palestine at this time. New cities were founded at Tell el-Hesy and Tell es-Safi,[103] and elsewhere. We thus feel sure that there was an increase of population and, when next our written sources reveal to us the location of the nations, the Canaanites were dwelling in Phœnicia. The Egyptian scribes of a later time called the entire western part of Syria and Palestine “The Canaan.”[104] Probably, therefore, the Canaanites settled along the sea coast. We, therefore, infer that they came into this region at this time. With the coming of an increased population, the Amorites appear to have been in part subjugated and absorbed, and in part forced into narrower limits. A powerful group of them maintained their integrity in the region afterward occupied by the tribe of Asher and in the valley between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains, where they afterward formed a kingdom. Another group of them survived to the east of the Jordan, where they maintained a kingdom until overthrown by the Hebrews. (See Num. 21 and Deut. 1-3.)

After the coming of the Canaanites our information concerning the history of Palestine fails us for nearly three hundred years. All that we know of the history of the country is what can be inferred from the accumulated débris of the “second Semitic” strata of the different mounds that have been excavated. During these centuries Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos, whose course was run, and under the great eighteenth dynasty the Hyksos were expelled, chased into Asia, and the conquest of Asia undertaken.

5. Egyptian Domination.—Ahmose I, 1580-1557 B. C., besieged Sharuhen (Josh. 19:6) in southern Palestine for six years and captured it, while both Amenophis I and Thothmes I between 1557[Pg 111] and 1501 B. C. made raids through Palestine and Syria to the Euphrates. Of their deeds in Palestine no records have survived.

(1) Thothmes III.—It is not until the reign of Thothmes III that detailed information begins. Between 1478 and 1447 B. C. this king made no less than seventeen expeditions into Palestine, Phœnicia, and Syria. At the beginning of his reign this country was dotted with petty kingdoms; before its close he had so thoroughly amalgamated it with Egypt that it remained an integral part of the Egyptian dominion for 100 years. Before his death Thothmes inscribed on the walls of the temple of Amon at Thebes a list of the places in Asia which he had conquered. Many of these were in Palestine and in Syria, and we learn in this way what towns were already places of importance a century or two before the Hebrew conquest. Among places that are mentioned in the Old Testament he names[105] Kedesh (Josh. 19:37), Megiddo, Lebonah (Judges 21:19), Addar (Josh. 15:3), two different cities named Abel; see Judges 7:22 (which mentions one situated in the Jordan valley), and 2 Sam. 20:14 (which refers to one near Dan), Damascus, Hammath[106] (Josh. 19:35), situated on the Sea of Galilee (where there are still hot springs), Beeroth (Josh. 9:17), Sharon, Tob (Judges 11:3, 5), Kanah (Josh. 19:28), Ashtaroth (Deut. 1:4; Josh. 9:20), Makkedah (Josh. 15:41), Laish (Judges 18:7, 18), Hazor (Josh. 11:1; Judges 4:2), Chinneroth (Josh. 11:2), Shunem (Josh. 19:18; 1 Sam. 28:41; 2 Kings 4:8), Achshaph (Josh. 11:1), Taanach, Ibleam (Josh. 17:11; Judges 1:27), Ijon (1 Kings 15:20), Accho, Anaharath (Josh. 19:19), Ophra (Judges 6:11), Joppa, Gath, Lod (Neh. 7:37) or Lydda (Acts 9:32), Ono (1 Chron. 8:12), Aphik (1 Sam. 4:1), Migdol, Ephes-dammim (1 Sam. 17:1), Rakkath (Josh. 19:35), Gerar (Gen. 20:1, etc.), Rabbith (Josh. 19:20), Namaah (Josh. 15:41), Rehob (Josh. 19:28), Edrei (Deut. 1:4; Josh. 12:4), Daiban (Neh. 11:25), Bethshean (Josh. 17:11), Beth-anoth (Josh. 15:59), Helkath (Josh. 19:25), Geba (Josh. 18:24), Zererah (Judges 7:22), and Zephath (Judges 1:17). In addition to these towns which are mentioned in the Bible, the list of Thothmes III contains many other names which we cannot yet identify. Among these are the names of two cities, Josephel and Jacobel, which are discussed in[Pg 112] Part II, p. 300. These names, as already noted, are the same as the names of two Babylonian Amorites of the time of the first dynasty. It seems probable that two important Amorites had migrated to Palestine and had either founded new cities, or had been men of such consequence that their names were attached to cities previously in existence. A parallel to this is found in the name of Abu Gosh. He was a sheik of the nineteenth century, but his name displaced the name of the village previously called Karyet el-Ineb, between Jaffa and Jerusalem, and it is now called Abu Gosh. Conjectures differ as to the part of Palestine in which the cities Jacobel and Josephel were situated. We have in reality no certain clue as to this.

It is probable also that something similar had occurred in the case of Abraham. It has been pointed out previously that Abraham is known to have been a Babylonian name at the time of the first Babylonian dynasty. The Biblical records tell of the coming of Abraham from Mesopotamia (Gen. 11:31-12:5), and the inscriptions of Sheshonk, the Biblical Shishak, tell us some centuries later of the existence of a place, apparently in southern Judah, called “The Field of Abram.” See Part II, p. 360.

(2) Palestine in the El-Amarna Letters.—During the 100 years of Egyptian supremacy in Palestine which Thothmes III inaugurated, the fortifications of certain strategic cities were greatly strengthened. At Gezer, for example, an entirely new wall was built. This was the “outer” wall of Mr. Macalister’s classification, a substantial structure fourteen feet wide, which completely encircled the city. This massive wall remained the city’s defence down to the Babylonian Exile.

From the El-Amarna letters we gain another glimpse of Palestine about a hundred years after the death of Thothmes III. The Biblical cities which are mentioned in these letters are Accho (Judges 1:31), Ashkelon, Arvad (Ezek. 27:8), Aroer (Num. 32:34), Ashtaroth (Deut. 1:4, etc.), Gebal (Ezek. 27:9), Gezer (Josh. 10:33, 1 Kings 9:15, etc.), Gath, Gaza, Jerusalem, Joppa, Keilah (1 Sam. 23:1), Lachish (Josh. 10:3, etc.), Megiddo, Sidon, Tyre, Shechem, Sharon, Taanach, and Zorah (Judges 13:2). One city, called in these letters Beth-Ninib, is, in all probability, Bethshemesh (Josh. 15:10, etc.). Many other towns are mentioned in the letters, but as they are not mentioned in the Bible they are not enumerated here. These letters were written just as[Pg 113] the Egyptian dominion in Asia was breaking up, owing to the fact that King Amenophis IV was much more deeply interested in religious reform than in politics.[107] The disintegration of the empire produced great disorder. The power which Egypt had exerted in the past made the Asiatics still fear to come out openly against her, but the correspondence shows that several petty states were plotting against one another, frequently encroaching upon one another, and yet all the time professing to be loyal to Egypt. The largest number of these states were in the north in Phœnicia. The principal states were the city kingdoms of Gebal, Beirut, Tyre, Jerusalem, and the Amorites.[108] Jerusalem at this time ruled a considerable territory,[109] but its history will be discussed connectedly in a future chapter.[110] The kings of the Amorites during this period were Ebed-Ashera and Aziru. While these small kingdoms of Palestine and Phœnicia were contending with one another, and the king of Egypt was giving no attention to them, the land was invaded from the north by the Hittites under the great King Subbiluliuma,[111] who gradually conquered the Amorites and the Orontes Valley. It was at the same time invaded from the east by the Habiri, who were probably the Hebrews.[112]

With this movement of peoples there came into the west a third wave of Semitic migration, the Aramæan. We hear nothing of the Aramaic-speaking peoples in earlier time, but about 1300 B. C. they are mentioned by both Shalmaneser I, of Assyria, and Ramses II, of Egypt, as though they were in Syria and Palestine. In later time they formed the basis of the population from the east of the Euphrates to the Mediterranean coast and southward to Damascus. In Deut. 26:5 Israelites are told to say “A wandering Aramæan was my father” (R. V., margin). The reference seems to be to Jacob, though possibly Abraham is intended. In either case, it shows that the Hebrews recognized that there was an Aramæan strain in their ancestry. Perhaps the Habiri were Aramæans, or were allied with Aramæans.

At all events, in the struggles that ensued, little by little all allegiance to Egypt was thrown off by the Palestinians. Letters[Pg 114] to Egypt ceased to be written, our sources fail us, and for more than forty years we can only conjecture what was happening in Palestine.

(3) Seti I.—With the accession of Seti I of the nineteenth Egyptian dynasty, who ruled from 1313 to 1292 B. C., some knowledge of events in Palestine begins once more to come to us. Seti in his first year entered Asia, captured an unnamed walled town on the border of the desert, pushed northward and took the towns in the Plain of Jezreel, crossed the Jordan and conquered cities in the Hauran, where he set up a pillar, discovered there a few years since by Principal George Adam Smith; he then turned west and conquered a city on the slopes of the Lebanon mountains.[113] This campaign regained for Egypt all of Palestine and southern Phœnicia. In his third year Seti was again in Asia. On this campaign he overthrew the kingdom of the Amorites in northern Galilee. They occupied the city of Kedesh in Naphtali (Josh. 19:37). This city Seti besieged and took.

(4) Ramses II.—Thus at the beginning of the reign of Ramses II, who ruled from 1292-1225 B. C., all Palestine was subject to Egypt. The practical defeat of Ramses by the Hittites at Kadesh on the Orontes in his fifth year, however, caused all Palestine to revolt, and Ramses was compelled to undertake the reconquest of the land. This he accomplished between his fifth and eighth years, beginning with the Philistine cities and overrunning the whole country to the Hauran, where he set up a pillar, as his father had previously done.[114] So far as we know, Palestine remained quietly under the rule of Ramses during the remainder of his long reign.

Ramses II, like Thothmes III, left on record a long list of cities conquered by him in Asia. Of these the following are Palestinian towns mentioned in the Bible:[115] Hammath (Josh. 19:35), Beth-shean (Josh. 17:11), Beth-anath (Josh. 19:38), and Hadasha (Josh. 15:37). Pella, a town in the Jordan valley not mentioned in the Bible, also occurs in his list, and there is also a possible mention of Jacobel in a corrupted form.

(5) Merneptah.—After the accession of Merneptah, the successor of Ramses II, a rebellion broke out. This was about 1223 B. C. [Pg 115] Merneptah put down the rebellion, but in the struggle caused by it, he was compelled to reduce Gezer by siege. It was on this campaign that he came into contact with Israel and defeated her.[116] Some think the Israelites whom he mentioned were those who more than a century and a quarter before had been battling against Jerusalem; others, that they were those who had just escaped from Egypt.

The reign of Merneptah was followed by some years of unstable government in Egypt, but this does not appear to have been a sufficiently long period for great changes to occur in Palestine. Order was restored in Egypt by Setnakht about 1200 B. C., and his son and successor, Ramses III, 1198-1167 B. C., reasserted his sovereignty over Palestine and Phœnicia.

(6) Ramses III.—Ramses III found himself confronted with a peculiar situation. The Egyptian Delta and the coasts of Palestine were invaded by hordes of people from over the sea. As early as the reign of Ramses II the Egyptians had employed men from the island of Sardinia as mercenaries; there must then have been intercourse with distant islands across the sea.

6. The Philistines.—Now, however, hordes of Sicilians, Danaoi, Peleset (Philistines), Thekel, and many other tribes came from over the sea. These tribes came in part from islands, such as Sicily and Crete, and in part from the coasts of Asia Minor. Ramses III was compelled to fight with them, both in the Delta and in Phœnicia. On the walls of his temple at Medinet Habu he has left us pictures of the Philistines. A remarkable inscribed disc was found a few years since at Phæstos in Crete. It is printed with a sort of movable type, and each character is a pictograph or hieroglyph. Prof. Macalister has shown that it is, in all probability, a contract tablet.[117] When the tablet was first published Eduard Meyer pointed out[118] that a frequently recurring sign, which is apparently the determinative for “man” or “person,” has the same sort of upstanding hair as the Philistines pictured by Ramses III on the walls of Medinet Habu. This tablet, accordingly, was written by Philistines or their near kindred. In this view there is general agreement among scholars. Amos declared that the Lord brought the Philistines[Pg 116] from Caphtor (Amos 9:7). If this disc was written in Crete, it would follow that Caphtor was Crete. It is thought possible by some that the disc was written in Asia Minor, whence it was carried to Crete; in that case Caphtor would be a name for Asia Minor.[119] At all events, this inscription makes it clear that the Philistines came from over the sea, and that their point of departure was either Crete or Asia Minor. Ramses III reveals to us through his inscriptions the Philistines in the act of migrating into Palestine. With them were the Thekel, who afterward were absorbed by the Philistines; (see Figs. 36 and 38).

In his struggle with these tribes Ramses III was compelled to carry the war into Asia, where he overcame and defeated them. In commemoration of this event he has left a list of places which he conquered in Asia. Most of them, so far as they can be identified, were further north than Palestine, but the following are names of places mentioned in the Bible:[120] Seir (Gen. 14:6, etc.), Caineh (Amos 6:2), or Calno (Isa. 10:9), Tyre, Carchemish, Beth-Dagon (Josh. 15:41), Kir-Bezek, probably the same as Bezek (Judges 1:5), Hadashah (Josh. 15:37), Ardon (1 Chron. 2:18), Beer (cf. Num. 21:16), Senir (Deut. 3:9), Zobebah (1 Chron. 4:8), Gether (Gen. 10:23), and Ar (Num. 21:15; Isa. 15:1, etc.).

After Ramses III the Egyptian empire became too weak to interfere in Palestinian affairs. In the chronology followed by many scholars today it was about this time that the Hebrews completed their conquest of the country and the age of the Judges began.

7. The Hebrews.—On their way into Palestine the Hebrews, as already noted, invaded and conquered a kingdom of the Amorites which lay to the east of the Jordan and had its capital at Heshbon. (See Num. 21:21 and Deut. 1:4, etc.). This kingdom was a survival of the ancient Amorite occupation of the land. The Amorites composing it had not been absorbed or displaced by more recent pre-Hebrew invaders.

It is stated in Judges 1:27-36 that there were a number of cities from which the Israelites did not, at the time of their conquest, drive out the inhabitants. The principal excavations in Palestine have had to do with cities which were not conquered by Hebrews at this time—Taanach, Megiddo, and Gezer. We are told in Josh.[Pg 117] 10:33 that when Horam, King of Gezer, came to the aid of the king of Lachish, Joshua “smote him and his people till he left none remaining.” As nothing is said of the capture of Gezer, this must refer only to the force which went to the aid of Lachish. This view is confirmed by the fact that in the time of David, Gezer was in the hands of the Philistines. (See 1 Chron. 20:4.) Gezer did not come into the hands of the Hebrews until the time of Solomon, when Solomon’s Egyptian father-in-law conquered it and gave it to him. Mr. Macalister found evidence that at about this time there was a considerable increase of the population of Gezer, which seems to confirm the statement of Judges 1:29 that Canaanites and Israelites dwelt together there. This evidence consisted in the crowding together of houses, so that, as many new ones were built, they became smaller. New houses also encroached upon the land of the “high place.”[121] There was evidently an increase of the population such as an influx of Hebrews would account for. Evidence of Hebrew conquest seems also to have come to light in the capture and burning of Jericho[122] and Bethshemesh,[123] which the excavations have revealed.

8. Philistine Civilization.—The next source of information which archæology furnishes us concerning Palestine is the report of Wenamon, translated in Part II, p. 352, ff. Wenamon visited Dor and Gebal about 1100 B. C. He found a king of the Thekel established in Dor, so that the Philistines were probably by this time established in the whole maritime plain.

With the coming of the Philistines into Palestine, new influences were introduced into the country. These are most apparent in the pottery that has come down to us. (See Chapter VIII.) The Philistines, whether they came from Crete or from the coasts of the Ægean Sea, had been influenced by those higher forms of art which were in later times developed into the superb Greek forms. Just at the time when history tells us the Philistines came into Palestine, we begin to find in its mounds the remains of a more ornate pottery.

9. The Hebrew Kingdoms.—As the Philistines filled the maritime plain, and began to push into the hill country, the Israelites formed a kingdom by which to oppose them. The kingdom of Saul accomplished little, but that of David, which began about 1000 B. C., overcame the Philistines and all other peoples adjacent to the[Pg 118] Hebrews and established an Israelitish empire.[124] This was possible because just at that time both Egypt and Assyria were weak. Before the end of the reign of Solomon this empire began to disintegrate (1 Kings 11:14-25), and at his death, about 937 B. C., it faded entirely away and the kingdom was divided into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The history of these kingdoms is given in outline in the Bible and is probably familiar to every reader of this book.

These kingdoms, frequently at war with each other, were first invaded by Sheshonk (Shishak) of Egypt (1 Kings 14:25), who made them his vassals (see Part II, p. 359, f.), and in later centuries were made subject to Assyria. Israel suffered this fate first in 842 B. C., and Judah in 732. On account of her rebellions, the kingdom of Israel was overthrown by Assyria in the year 722 B. C. After Assyria became weak, Judah was made subject to Egypt in 608 B. C., but passed under the sway of Babylon in the year 604. Because she repeatedly rebelled against Babylon, the prominent Judæans were carried captive partly in 597 B. C. and partly in 586, and in the year last mentioned Jerusalem was overthrown and its temple destroyed.

Excavations have brought to light much evidence as to the houses, high places, and the mode of life of this time,[125] as well as evidence of how Shishak fought against Rehoboam, Shalmaneser III against Ahab and Jehu, Tiglath-pileser IV against Menahem and Pekah, Shalmaneser V and Sargon against Hoshea, and Sennacherib against Judah. It has also told us much about Nebuchadrezzar.[126]

10. The Exile and After.—The Babylonian Exile was brought by Cyrus to a possible end in 538 B. C. This is also illuminated by that which exploration has brought to light.[127] The temple was rebuilt through the efforts of Haggai and Zechariah during the years 520-517 B. C. In 444 B. C. Nehemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, as related in Neh. 1-7. Thus under the Persian empire Judah was re-established. It consisted of a little country around Jerusalem; it was poor and weak, but was aided by money sent from Babylonia by Jews who were still resident there.

(1) The Samaritans.—In the neighborhood of Samaria was a people who were descended in part from Hebrews whom Sargon did not carry away and in part from the Gentiles whom he brought in. These people worshiped Jehovah. (See 2 Kings 17:24-34.)[Pg 119] When the little Jewish state had been re-established at Jerusalem, they wished to participate in Jewish worship and to be recognized as good Jews. Since they were not of pure Hebrew descent, the Jews would not permit this, so they at last desisted, built a temple to Jehovah on Mount Gerizim (see John 4:20), and became a large and flourishing sect.[128] They based their worship on the Pentateuch, and were so much like the Jews that there was constant friction between them. This friction is reflected in Luke 9:51-54, John 4:9, and in many passages of the Talmud. It was this sect that occupied Samaria in the time of Christ and made it in his day a distinct division of the country.

(2) Alexander the Great and His Successors.—In 332 B. C. Palestine passed from Persian rule to that of Alexander the Great. After his death in 323 it came under the rule of his general, Ptolemy Lagi, who ultimately became king of Egypt. Later, 220-198 B. C., there was a struggle for the possession of Palestine between the descendants of Ptolemy and the house of Seleucus, another general of Alexander, who had established a kingdom with its capital at Antioch. During these wars the Jews suffered greatly. Finally the Seleucid king won, and Palestine passed definitely under the control of Syria. With the coming of Alexander new cultural influences had entered Palestine from the Hellenic world, and down to 168 B. C. such influences were eagerly welcomed by a portion of the Jews.

(3) The Maccabees.—In that year, however, Antiochus IV undertook to forcibly Hellenize the Jews and to blot out their religion. This the more faithful Jews resented, and a great revolt ensued. This revolt had as its first successful general Judas, son of Mattathias, who, because of his victories, was surnamed makkab, or the Hammer; it is, therefore, known as the Maccabæan revolt. With varying fortunes the struggle dragged on for 25 years.[129] It finally succeeded because of civil wars in Syria. On account of these each faction favored the Jews, and Syria became continually weaker. In 143 B. C. the Jews once more achieved their independence under Simon, brother of Judas, whom they ordained should be Prince and High Priest forever.[130]

[Pg 120](4) The Asmonæans.—The attaining of independence was accompanied by a great wave of racial and religious enthusiasm. Not since the days of Ahaz, in 733 B. C., had Judah been free of foreign domination. At the beginning of the reign of Simon, it was still but a small territory around Jerusalem. Hebron and all to the south of it was in the hands of the Edomites, who three centuries before had been driven out of Edom by the Nabathæans Simon began to enlarge their territory. He won Gezer and Joppa. John Hyrcanus, his son and successor, 135-105 B. C., conquered the Edomites, and compelled them to become Jews; he also conquered and destroyed Samaria in 109 B. C. He began the conquest of Galilee. His son, Aristobulus I 105-104 B. C., assumed the title of king. A regal dynasty was thus founded, which is known as the Asmonæan or Hasmonæan dynasty, i. e., the “Simonites” or descendants of Simon.

Alexander Jannæus, 104-79 B. C., completed the conquest of Galilee and the region to the east of the Jordan, and extended the bounds of the kingdom of the Asmonæans to practically the same limits as those of the kingdom of David. The Galileans were also Judaized, as the Edomites had been. This period of Jewish prosperity continued to 69 B. C. Through it all, in spite of the religious zeal of the Jews, Hellenic influences made themselves felt in many aspects of the country’s life.

11. The Coming of Rome.—On the death of Queen Alexandra in 69 B. C., her sons, John Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, both aspired to the supreme power, and till 63 B. C. civil war ensued. In 65 B. C. the Romans had terminated the independence of Syria and made it a Roman province. In 63 B. C. both the Jewish brothers appealed to Pompey, who had come to Damascus. Aristobulus, however, acted treacherously, and Pompey marched upon Jerusalem and took it by siege. Jewish independence was thus forever lost, and Palestine passed under the yoke of Rome. Down to 37 B. C. the country experienced many vicissitudes, as the struggles of the Roman triumvirs were reflected in it. These vicissitudes culminated in the year 40 B. C., when Orodes I, King of Parthia, captured Jerusalem and placed Antigonus, a son of Aristobulus II, on the throne. Antigonus was king and a vassal of Parthia for three years.

(1) The Herods.—In 37 B. C. Herod the Great, whose father had served under the Romans, by the aid of a Roman army[Pg 121] furnished him by Mark Antony, drove Antigonous out and began his notable reign. Herod was a man of great energy, an Edomite by descent, whose ancestors had become Jews by compulsion. While professedly a Jew, he was deeply enamored of the Græco-Roman culture. He wrung taxes from the people in order to beautify Palestine with cities and temples built on Hellenic models. He rebuilt, among other undertakings, the Jewish temple at Jerusalem and the city of Samaria. This last he named Sebaste, the Greek for Augusta, naming it in honor of the Emperor Augustus. He built a heathen temple there, surrounded the city with a colonnaded street, many of the columns of which are still standing, and otherwise adorned it. He built for himself a palace at Jericho, and another on the top of a hill to the southeast of Bethlehem, today called Gebel Fureidis; (see Figs. 31 and 39).

Upon his death, in 4 B. C., his kingdom was divided, Archelaus receiving Judah and Samaria; Antipas, Galilee and Peræa, and Philip, Iturea and Trachonitis. None of his sons was permitted by the Romans to be called king, but all bore the title of “tetrarch.” The rule of Archelaus proved so unbearable that in 6 A. D. Augustus banished him to Gaul and placed Judæa and Samaria under Procurators, who were responsible to the Proconsuls of the province of Syria. Pontius Pilate was the fifth of these Procurators. After the death of Herod Antipas in 39 A. D., the Emperor Caligula made Herod Agrippa I, a grandson of Herod the Great, king of the dominions over which that monarch had ruled. Agrippa assumed control in 41 and ruled till his death in 44 A. D. His death is described in Acts 12:23. After his death the whole country was governed by Procurators.

(2) The Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A. D.—Roman rule was always distasteful to the Jews, and as the years passed they became more and more restive. These smouldering fires broke into the flame of open rebellion in the year 66 A. D., and after four years of terrible warfare Jerusalem was captured and destroyed in 70 A. D. The temple, also razed to the ground, has never been rebuilt. The country about Jerusalem was peopled by some of the poorer of the peasantry, and the tenth Roman legion remained in the city for a long time to keep order in that region.

12. Later History.—In 132 A. D., in the reign of Hadrian, a man called Bar Chocaba, or the “Son of the Star,” came forward, claiming to be the Messiah, and headed a Jewish revolt. So fiercely did[Pg 122] the Jews fight that the insurrection was not quelled by Rome until 135 A. D. When it was finally put down, Hadrian determined to blot the name of Jerusalem from the map. He rebuilt Jerusalem, making it a Roman colony, named it Ælia Capitolina, and built a temple to Jupiter on the spot where the temple of Jehovah had formerly stood. No Jew was permitted to come near the city. Jerusalem as built by Hadrian continued until the time of Constantine, and the form thus imposed upon it lasted much longer.

When Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire, both he and his mother began to take an interest in the Holy City and the Holy Land. Other Christians followed them. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built, and the temple of Jupiter built by Hadrian was turned into a Christian church. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land began, and monasteries, churches, and bishoprics in time sprang up over all the country. Thus for three hundred years the influences which were felt in Palestine emanated from Byzantium or Constantinople. In 615 A. D. the land was overrun by Chosroes II of Persia, who captured Jerusalem and destroyed many of its churches. The Persians held it until 628, when the Byzantine kings regained it. The control of Jerusalem by the Christians was, however, of short duration, for in 636 Palestine was captured by the Mohammedans, and with the exception of 89 years has ever since been under Mohammedan control.[131] During these long centuries the country was ruled by the Caliphs of Medina, Damascus, and Bagdad; by the Buvide Sultans, the Fatimite Caliphs of Egypt, and the Seljuk Turks. The cruelties inflicted by these last rulers upon Christians led to the Crusades, the first of which established the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem,[132] which continued from 1099 to 1188 A. D. This kingdom, organized on the feudal basis then existing in western Europe, extended over all of Palestine and Syria, including Antioch, and for nearly half the time, Edessa beyond the Euphrates. Its existence marks an epoch in the archæology of the country.

Since the fall of this Latin kingdom, Palestine has remained under Moslem control. First the Eyyubide Sultans of Egypt, then the Mamelukes of that same land held sway. In 1517 the Ottoman Turks captured it, and have since inflicted their misrule upon it. What fortunes the great war now raging may bring to this land of sacred associations, we await with intense interest.

[Pg 123]

THE CITIES OF PALESTINE

Their Sites. The Walls. The Stone Work. Houses. Palaces: At Taanach. At Samaria. At Jericho. At Megiddo. Foundation Sacrifices. City Gates. Water Supply: Springs. Underground tunnels. Reservoirs.

1. Their Sites.—The cities of Palestine were usually built on hills. These elevations, surmounted as they were by walls, created a natural means of defence from attack; (see Fig. 33). Even more important than an elevated situation was a water supply, hence all Palestinian cities of importance are near springs. The necessity of being near a spring led, in some cases, to the erection of a city on a level plain. This was the case with Jericho; the only mound at its site is that created by the city itself.

The hills on which the cities were erected varied in height. That at Megiddo rose to a height of but 45 to 90 feet above the surrounding land, but even this elevation was a great protection from the simple methods of attack known to ancient warfare. The hill Ophel, the site of Jebusite Jerusalem, rises today from 60 to 150 feet above the valley of the Kidron, and in ancient times that valley was from 20 to 50 feet deeper than it is now. The same hill was separated from the land on the west by a valley the bed of which in ancient times was from 50 to 100 feet below the top of the hill. The hill on which Samaria was situated rose some 300 feet above the surrounding valley on all sides except the east, and when fortified presented such an impregnable front that it took even an Assyrian army three years to capture it. (2 Kings 17:5.) In the Seleucid and Roman periods, when some cities expanded in size, the hilltops were sometimes abandoned and they spread out over the plain. This was the case with Gerasa and Philadelphia (Rabbah Ammon).[133] But “a city set on a hill” (Matt. 5:14) was a common feature of the Palestinian landscape.

2. The Walls.—The walls by which the cities were surrounded varied according to the advancement of the different periods, and[Pg 124] according to the importance of the place. As has already been pointed out in Chapter V, the first wall at Gezer was but 6 feet high and 2 feet thick, and had a sloping bank of earth packed against it on the outside. This bank was 6 feet 6 inches thick at the base and was covered with a facing of stone. In the Amorite period a wall 13 feet thick was erected at Gezer, in which towers were constructed about every 90 feet. These towers were 24 × 41 feet. Their height is, of course, unknown. This wall was probably built about 2500 B. C. and formed the defense of the city for a thousand years. By that time the tops of the houses probably protruded above the wall, and the population had increased so that more space was needed. This wall was, accordingly, replaced by another built outside of it. Much of the material of which the old wall was constructed went into the new wall, which was approximately 14 feet thick and contained occasional towers. At some time a part of this wall had been destroyed, and then rebuilt. Probably at the time of this rebuilding, additional towers had been inserted at different points. The stones of these towers touched those of the wall without being articulated with them. It has been conjectured[134] that these towers were a part of the repairs made by King Solomon after the town had been captured by his Egyptian father-in-law and presented to Solomon. (See 1 Kings 9:16, 17.) Still later an attempt was made to strengthen the weakness caused by the unclosed seam between the towers and the wall by constructing around the towers rude bastions. (See Figs. 40, 46.) Mr. Macalister conjectures that this was done by the Syrian General Bacchides when he hastily fortified Gezer and occupied it in 160 B. C.[135] (1 Macc. 9:52.)

At Lachish, Petrie found massive city walls, though he did not describe them in detail.[136] At Taanach, Sellin found a strong city wall, but did not attempt to trace it about the tell.[137] Schumacher devoted considerable attention to the city walls of Megiddo, a part of which were built of bricks.[138] At Tell es-Safi (Gath?) the outlines of the city walls were traced, as they were at Tell el-Judeideh.[139] At Samaria a part of the Roman wall of the time of Herod was found; lower down in the mound remains of a Babylonian wall (see 2 Kings[Pg 125] 17:24), beneath which the excavators recognized the Hebrew wall.[140] City walls were found, too, at Bethshemesh,[141] but of especial interest to the student of the Bible are the walls of Jericho. Here, as at Megiddo, the walls were constructed in part of brick. They had an average thickness of 13 feet. The Canaanitish wall was traced around three sides of the mound. It was strengthened by occasional towers.[142] On the east, next to the spring, they had entirely disappeared. This must not be pressed into a confirmation of Josh. 6:20, that the walls fell down flat, for the later Israelitish wall has disappeared on that side of the mound also. Later, when in the days of Ahab the Israelites rebuilt the city (1 Kings 16:34), they did not place the wall on the old line, but enclosed a considerably larger space. This wall was constructed partly of bricks, but mostly of stone.[143] The walls of Jerusalem will be treated in Chapter XIII. At the northwest corner of the Canaanitish wall was a tower enclosed by two brick walls; the outer wall was a little more than 4 feet thick; the inner, about 10 feet.

3. The Stone Work.—The kind of stones used in city walls varied with the circumstances and the degree of civilization. The walls of the stone age were naturally made of small undressed stones. The Amorites began the use of cut stone. Their blocks are often fairly smooth and regular. The Amorite wall of Gezer was made of more regular stones than the wall of the Egyptian period.[144] In the Israelitish and Jewish periods a stone with an embossed edge was often used. It is found in the wall of Nehemiah, excavated by Bliss,—a wall made of stones that some pre-exilic king had used before,—and appears also in the structures of Herod the Great. In the structures of Constantine and later Byzantine builders, this type of stone is replaced by a stone with a perfectly smooth surface—much more smooth than anything found in the early walls. This type of stone work continued through the crusading period; (see Figs. 253, 254.) While these types can be traced, their use was not altogether regular.[145]

The areas of Palestinian cities in the early time were very small. All of Canaanite Jericho could be put in the Colosseum at Rome![Pg 126] Megiddo, one of the largest of these early cities, was built on a mound that contained only about eleven acres, and Jebusite Jerusalem was built on a ridge that in ancient times contained not less than nine or more than thirteen acres.

4. Houses.—Within these small areas the houses were crowded together, as in the modern native villages of Palestine, separated only by narrow, crooked lanes. One may see in Hebron or in some parts of Jerusalem similar conditions to this day. There was no drainage; refuse was thrown into the streets. The cities were ill-smelling places. The wonder is that the mortality was not greater. The houses in the central, elevated portion of Palestine were usually of stone, though at Gezer, Jericho, and places in the lower-lying portions of the country they were sometimes of brick. The walls of the stone houses were constructed of rough stones of a great variety of sizes, from small pebbles to large boulders. Mortar and cement were never used. The stones were set in mud. They were not dressed except with a hammer in the roughest way. The joints between them were wide and irregular. Into the crevices serpents and scorpions might crawl. It was of such a house that Amos says, “a man ... leaned his hand on the wall and a serpent bit him”; (5:19). The bricks were rarely burned; they were simply sun-dried, and had no more cohesion than the earth in which they were embedded. The houses generally had no floor except the earth, which was smoothed off and packed hard. Sometimes this was varied by mixing lime with the mud and letting it harden, and sometimes floors of cobblestones or stone chippings mixed with lime were found. In the Roman period mosaic floors, made by embedding small smoothly cut squares of stone in the earth, were introduced. By employing stones of different colors the mosaics were often worked into beautiful patterns; (see Figs. 35, 42, 43, 44, 47, and 48). Sometimes pictures of birds and animals were formed in the floors.

The doorways were usually simply an opening made by the vertical sides left in the masonry. In the later time they were sometimes lined with standing stones. The doors themselves have long since disappeared, but there is evidence that, like many houses still to be seen in Palestine, they were made fast to a post, the lower end of which was set in a hollow or perforated stone. When the door swung the whole post turned in this stone. Some of these stones were found. In a few houses at Gezer enclosures of stones on end[Pg 127] were sometimes found in the middle or the corners of dwelling houses. Perhaps these were hearths.[146] Some houses built after the time of Alexander the Great had a kind of piazza running along the side. The remains of the pillars which supported the roofs of these were discovered. Beginning with the Hellenistic period, some of the better houses had baths. (On doors, see Figs. 49, 50.)

5. Palaces.—In the excavation of different sites the outlines of several larger buildings or palaces were uncovered. A few of these are of interest to the student of the Bible.

(1) At Taanach.—In the northeast of the mound at Taanach[147] the remains of a building about 75 × 77 feet were found. It was in existence in the fourteenth century before Christ. This building contained several rooms, as the plan will make clear; (see Fig. 45). The remains of the wall still showed one layer of hewn stones, some of which were very large. In a vault underneath the building four cuneiform tablets were found. They had been placed there for safety in time of siege, and these four tablets had been overlooked when the rest of the archive was rifled. These tablets proved to be letters written at the same time as those found at El-Amarna.[148] The building was the palace of a Canaanite king.

(2) At Samaria.—Of especial interest to the student of the Bible are the palaces of the Hebrew period. At Samaria Reisner discovered massive walls, which were probably the remains of the palaces of Omri and Ahab. That of Omri was built of large stones and rested on the native rock. As Omri was the founder of the city (1 Kings 16:24), there can be little doubt that this was his palace. An enlargement of this consisted of walls the construction of which was finer. They were faced with white marble. In this palace an alabaster vase was found, inscribed with the name of Osorkon II, King of Egypt, who was a contemporary of King Ahab. This is, therefore, believed to be the palace of Ahab—perhaps the “house of ivory” which Ahab built (1 Kings 22:39). As the volume on the excavation at Samaria is not yet published, it is impossible to give detailed plans of these buildings. The accompanying picture (Fig. 52) shows some of their walls.

(3) At Jericho.—Another building of this period, which the excavators believed might have been built by Hiel, the rebuilder of [Pg 128]Jericho, in the days of Ahab (1 Kings 16:34), was uncovered by Sellin. It is the most pretentious building of the Hebrew time at Jericho and may well have been the residence of the governor of the place. It consisted of a number of large rooms, and was throughout constructed of fairly large but irregular stones; (see Fig. 51).

(4) At Megiddo.—Another residence of an Israelitish governor was found at Megiddo. This was a large, irregular building, constructed around a courtyard. Some of the work was of dressed stones of considerable size, in every way superior to the stone-work of the earlier buildings of that city. In this palace a seal of a man named Shema was found, which bore the inscription, “Belonging to Shema, the servant of Jeroboam.” We do not know whether this man served under Jeroboam I or Jeroboam II. The fine character of the stone-work leads one to think the reign of Jeroboam II the more probable date; (see Figs. 53 and 27).

One more palace should be noticed, that of Simon the Maccabee (143-135 B. C.), at Gezer. This palace is clearly of the Hellenistic type, and was identified as the dwelling-place that Simon built for himself (1 Macc. 13:48), by the discovery of an ancient curse against Simon’s palace scrawled in Greek on a block of stone. This building was constructed of rather finely cut stone, was of irregular shape (see Figs. 54, 55), had an imposing gate which admitted into a courtyard, and was supplied with a good system of drainage.

6. Foundation Sacrifices.—When a house was built it was customary to consecrate it by a sacrifice. In early times in Palestine this was often a human sacrifice. In Gezer the skeleton of a woman was found built into the walls of a house. Numerous skeletons of children were also found under the corners of houses. Such sacrificial offerings were more often made under the corners of buildings, since the corners were considered sacred. In Babylonia and Egypt the sacrifice was accompanied with the burial under the corner-stone of inscriptions and other deposits, though in Egypt, as in Palestine, the deposit was not always under the corners.[149] Similar sacrifices were found at Taanach[150] and Megiddo.[151] These sacrifices illustrate, some think, 1 Kings 16:34, where Hiel[Pg 129] laid the foundation of Jericho with the loss of his first-born, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son; (see Fig. 56).

7. City Gates.—The city gate was in Palestine an important part of the town. Gateways were constructed in different ways at different times. At Gezer the northern gate consisted of a protruding tower, into which one entered at the side, then turned a right angle to gain entrance to the city; (see Fig. 58). Gates of this type are still common in the East. The passageway in this gate at Gezer was 40 feet wide.[152] The southern gate of Gezer consisted simply of a straight passageway, 42 feet long and 9 feet wide, between two brick towers; (see Fig. 61). Often, as in the case of the gate found at Bethshemesh (Fig. 59), there were rooms on each side of the passageway through the tower. One with still more space within its tower was uncovered at Megiddo; (Fig. 57).

The city gates usually remained at the same points in the wall through the successive reconstructions of the city. Thus at Samaria the remains of round Herodian towers which flanked the gateway were found resting on larger square bases of the Seleucid period, beneath which the outline of the earlier Israelitish towers was still visible; (see Figs. 65, 66).

The form of these gates illuminates many Biblical passages. Lot sat in the gate of Sodom (Gen. 19:1). Joab took Abner aside in the gate to speak to him (2 Sam. 3:27). The gate was the place of conference for the elders of a city (Gen. 34:20). To be praised in the “gates,” where the city’s affairs were settled (Prov. 31:31), was to have desired fame.

8. Water Supply.

(1) Springs.—The water supply of Palestinian cities came in part from the never-failing springs near which they were built. This supply was, however, seldom sufficient, so that from the early days cisterns were built to catch the water of the rainy season and conserve it for use during the summer months. These cisterns were often excavated in the solid rock, but sometimes were simple pits in the earth, over the bottom of which a coating of lime or cement had been spread.

(2) Underground Tunnels.—In time of war, when a city might be shut up for years, cities were often compelled to yield for want of water. This was especially the case if the spring lay outside the city walls. In several Palestinian cities means were taken to[Pg 130] secure access to a spring without exposing oneself to the enemy outside the wall. One of the greatest of these undertakings was discovered at Gezer. This was a tunnel cut in the solid rock, which was entered by a long flight of rock-cut steps. At the entrance the rock formed an imposing archway 23 feet high and 13 feet 10 inches broad. These dimensions were maintained throughout about two-thirds of the length of the tunnel. The whole passage was about 130 feet long. The last third of it had to be cut through a much harder rock, where the work was much more difficult, and its workmanship was here not so good as above. The tunnel also became appreciably smaller. The passage terminated in a large cave, in the bottom of which was a spring, and was evidently constructed to enable the inhabitants to reach a water supply in time of siege. The floor of the cave is 94 feet 6 inches below the level of the rock surface under the ancient city. The whole tunnel is a remarkable piece of engineering for an early people; (see Figs. 60 and 62).

The earth with which the mouth of the tunnel was closed contained objects which belonged to the time 1450-1250 B. C. The steps in the passageway had been before this deeply worn by many feet—so deeply worn that Mr. Macalister estimated that they must have been in use for 500 years. For these reasons he supposes that this water-passage was excavated about 2000 B. C. or soon after that date. It had ceased to be used before the Israelites conquered the place.

A similar underground tunnel leading to a spring has been found at El-Gib, Gibeon, (Fig. 63), and one made in Jebusite times also existed at Jerusalem. It is mentioned in 2 Sam. 5:8, and will be described in connection with Jerusalem (p. 188). At Rabbah Ammon an underground passage connected the old city situated on the hill with a large cistern which was roofed over so as to be concealed. To this cistern in time of siege the inhabitants could go through the passage and obtain water. It was this cistern[153] which Joab had captured (2 Sam. 12:27) when he sent to David to come and take the city. Antiochus III of Syria in the same way compelled the city to surrender in the year 218 B. C.,[154] and Herod the Great did the same thing before 30 B. C.[155]

(3) Reservoirs.—Among the sources of water supply for the cities[Pg 131] of Palestine the so-called Pools of Solomon to the south of Bethlehem are unique. They consist of three reservoirs, partly rock-cut and in part constructed of walls of masonry, in the Wady Artas, about a mile and a half to the southwest of Bethlehem. The highest of these pools is 127 yards long and 76 yards wide, and 25 feet deep at its lower end. The central pool is 141 yards long, from 53 to 83 yards wide, and 38 feet deep. The lowest and finest of the three is 194 yards long, 49 to 69 yards wide, and 48 feet at its deepest part. In these reservoirs water from neighboring springs was collected and stored. Two aqueducts at different times conveyed it to Jerusalem as it was needed. These aqueducts are now known respectively as the Low Level Aqueduct and the High Level Aqueduct. The High Level Aqueduct appears to be the older. In recent years the Low Level Aqueduct has been repaired, so that these “pools” still contribute to the water supply of Jerusalem.

There is no evidence that Solomon built these. His name has been attached to them solely on account of Eccl. 2:6: “I made me pools of water.” The whole structure of these and their aqueducts seems rather to be Greek or Roman work; (see Fig. 64).

Evidence for the dates is not conclusive,[156] but there is some probability that the pools were constructed by John Hyrcanus I, 135-105 B. C., who made the High Level Aqueduct, and that the Low Level Aqueduct was constructed by Herod the Great. This is much longer than the High Level Aqueduct, as it makes a detour toward Gebel Fureidis, where Herod constructed a palace, to which he conveyed water. This Low Level Aqueduct is probably the one afterward repaired by Pontius Pilate.[157]

[Pg 132]

ROADS AND AGRICULTURE

Roads: Early paths. Roman roads. Agriculture: Granaries. Hoes and plows. Sickles. Threshing. Winnowing. Grinding. Mortars. Fruits. Vineyards and wine-vats. Olive-presses. The agricultural calendar. Domestic animals. Bees. Birds. Hens.

1. Roads.—From the time cities were established in Palestine there was more or less communication between them. Probably in a small way commerce was carried on among some of them, but no effort was made to construct roads, in the modern sense of the term, until the Roman period.

(1) Early Paths.—Before that time all traveling was done on foot or on the backs of donkeys and camels, and for such travel a simple foot-path, made by continuous use, was all that was considered necessary. The roads constructed by the Romans have long since fallen into a state of utter disrepair, so that, with the exception of two or three roads that have been built in recent years, the simple, rough foot-paths that have existed from time immemorial still suffice for Palestinian travel. These paths are often exceedingly rough. They were never surveyed and never repaired. They were simply devoted to public use by immemorial custom. If a landowner wished to raise grain in a field through which one of these paths ran, he plowed up to the very edge of the narrow path and put in his seed. There were neither fences nor ditches to separate the road from the field. Fields traversed by such roads are still very common in Palestine. It was along such a road that Jesus and the disciples were traveling when they plucked the ears of wheat on the Sabbath (Matt. 12:1; Mark 2:23; Luke 6:1). It was such a road to which Jesus alluded in the Parable of the Sower: “Some seed fell by the wayside” (Matt. 13:4; Mark 4:4; Luke 8:5). A rough path is shown in Fig. 67.

(2) Roman Roads.—After Palestine passed under the sway of Rome in 63 B. C. a system of roads was built to connect the most important places. We have no definite information about these[Pg 133] from a source earlier than the Onomasticon of Eusebius,[158] which was compiled before 340 A. D., but in all probability those on the west of the Jordan were constructed before the time of Christ. There were three main roads in this part of Palestine.[159] One ran down the sea-coast. Starting at Sidon, it passed southward through Tyre, Sarepta (Zarephath, 1 Kings 17:10; Luke 4:26), Ptolemais (Accho), Dor, Cæsarea, Joppa, Lydda, Azotus (Ashdod), and Askelon to Gaza. A branch road ran eastward from Tyre over the hills of Galilee through Kedesh in Naphtali (Josh. 12:22; 20:7; Judges 4:6), to Cæsarea Philippi (Matt. 16:13; Mark 8:27), which was near the ancient Dan (Judges 18:29).

From Cæsarea, on the sea-coast south of Dor, another branch road ran southeastward through the valley of Aijalon up to the site of Gibeah of Saul (1 Sam. 10:26; 11:4, etc.), where it joined the road along the central ridge of the country; (see Fig. 68).

Starting from Damascus another road ran southward to Hyppos, one of the cities of the Decapolis, which lay southeast of the Sea of Galilee,[160] crossed the Jordan on a bridge below the Sea of Galilee (shown in Fig. 289), passed through Scythopolis, the Beth-shean of the Old Testament (Josh. 17:11; 1 Sam. 31:10), through Sychar (John 4:5), then southward along the central ridge of the country, through Bethel and Ramah to Jerusalem. South of Jerusalem it was continued to Bethlehem and Hebron. Four miles north of Jerusalem it was joined by the road from Cæsarea, so that travelers from the coast and from the north entered Jerusalem over the same road. One can in many places still trace the lines of Roman paving-stones which mark their courses. Thus the juncture of the two roads just mentioned is still visible, and one may stand on the hillside and feel sure that he is looking at the very way over which Paul was taken to Cæsarea by the Roman soldiers the night after his arrest in Jerusalem (Acts 23:23, 24).

From Scythopolis (Beth-shean) another road ran southward through the Jordan valley to Jericho. This was probably continued to Jerusalem. From Sebaste (Samaria) another road ran northwestward through Dothan (Gen. 37:17; 2 Kings 6:13), to Taanach, Megiddo, and the coast.

After Trajan overthrew the kingdom of the Nabathæans, in 106[Pg 134] A. D., he built a road on the east of the Jordan, southward from Damascus to the Red Sea. The Roman government kept these roads in good order. They marked the distances by milestones, some of which have survived to modern times; (Figs. 69, 71).

2. Agriculture was the chief occupation of the inhabitants of Palestine. The cities were throughout its history simply the walled residences of farmers. Such trade as developed at different periods was always subordinate to agricultural pursuits. We cannot expect exploration to furnish us with a complete view of ancient Palestinian agriculture, but such glimpses as it does afford us are most illuminating.

(1) Granaries.—In the excavation of Gezer[161] it was found that granaries formed an important class of buildings. Some of these were connected with private houses and evidently belonged to individuals, but some of them were so large and so much grain was found in them that it was rightly held that they must have been public granaries. Some of these buildings had been destroyed by fire, and the charred grain, retaining its original shape, was easily recognized. Most of the granaries were circular structures, such as are seen today dotting the fields of the maritime plain of Palestine. They varied greatly in size. One was but 2 feet 8 inches in diameter; another was 4 feet 9 inches across and 6 feet 9 inches deep. One granary from the second Semitic stratum (1700-1350 B. C.) was connected with a house, and contained several kinds of grain, each stored in a separate chamber; (Figs. 70, 72).

From such receptacles wheat, barley, oats, and beans were recovered, as well as three varieties of vetch, one of which was probably the “lentils” of Gen. 25:34; 2 Sam. 17:28; 23:11; and Ezek. 4:9. Barley is often mentioned in the Bible; the wheat is usually there called “corn.” Piles of straw and chaff, such as the modern Palestinians call tibn, were also found.

(2). Hoes and Plows.—Naturally, the implements with which the grain was cultivated have nearly all perished. In the first place the ground had to be broken and prepared to receive the seed. Remains of two different kinds of hoes were found at Gezer, though the preparation of a sufficiently large area of ground to bear grain to support cities cannot have been made with such instruments; (see Fig. 73). From an early time the plow, which is frequently mentioned in the Bible (see, for example, 1 Kings 19:19),[Pg 135] was in use in Palestine. A number of plowshares were found at Megiddo in the ruins of a blacksmith’s shop, and a diamond-shaped iron ring, from Gezer, may have been used to attach oxen to a plow, and the points of several ox-goads were found. The ox-goad consisted, as it does today, of a long stick into the end of which a sharp iron point was fixed. It is alluded to in Acts 26:14. As this goad was used in driving the oxen in plowing, it indicates that plows were used. These plows were probably similar to those used at the time in Egypt; (see Figs. 76, 77).

(3) Sickles.—When the grain was ripe it was reaped with a sickle (Deut. 16:9; Jer. 50:16; Joel 3:13). In the earlier periods these were of flint; later they were made of bronze, and iron. Sickles of metal are, however, rarely found. They were expensive, while flint was abundant and cheap. Flint sickle-teeth were numerous, therefore, in all periods. The earliest sickles were flints set in an animal’s jaw-bone, or in a curved piece of wood similar to the Egyptian sickle shown in Figs. 74, 75.

(4) Threshing.—After the grain was cut it was taken to the threshing-floor to be threshed. These floors were often a comparatively level portion of rock which formed a part of a high place or sanctuary. Such was the threshing-floor of Araunah, the Jebusite, in 2 Sam. 24:18. It took several days to complete a threshing, and as no one would think of stealing from a sacred place, the whole community was protected by doing the threshing in its precincts. Sometimes the cattle were driven about over the grain, as in ancient Egypt (see Fig. 79), and as is done in modern Palestine still; (see Fig. 78). This is the kind of threshing contemplated in Deut. 25:4. At other times a kind of sledge drawn by cattle was driven about over the grain. Ornan (Araunah) was threshing with such an instrument (1 Chron. 21:23; 2 Sam. 24:22), and allusion is made to one in Isa. 41:15; (see Fig. 80).

(5) Winnowing.—The grain was winnowed or cleansed of chaff by being thrown up, as in Fig. 79. As it fell the wind blew the chaff away. It is this process that John the Baptist used as an illustration of the purging work of Christ (Matt. 3:12; Luke 3:17).

(6) Grinding.—When the grain was cut, threshed, and winnowed, there were no mills to which it could be taken for grinding. This process had to be done in each home, and the labor of doing it fell to the women of the household. (See Exod. 11:5; Matt.[Pg 136] 24:41.) Grain was reduced to flour either by rubbing or by pounding. The process of rubbing or grinding was accomplished either by a flat saddle-shaped stone over which another was rubbed (see Figs. 81, 84), or by crushing between two stones, the top one of which was revolved somewhat as a modern millstone (Fig. 82). It required two women, as Jesus said, to grind at such a mill—one to feed it, while the other manipulated the rubbing stone. Such stones were made of hard igneous rock procured from the region east of the Sea of Galilee, and are called “querns.” In the different periods of the history of Palestine they varied in size and shape, becoming round in the Seleucid period (323-63 B. C.). The upper stone was apparently rotated by twisting the wrist. It could be thus turned half-way round and then back again. No round millstones, with the topmost of the pair perforated, as in the modern millstone, were found before the Arabic period, 637 A. D. Pictures of modern Syrian women turning this perforated type of millstone do not, therefore, really illustrate, as is often assumed, the women of the Bible as they ground at the mill.

Probably the millstone which crushed the head of Abimelech at Thebez (Judges 9:53) was the upper stone of a “saddle quern.” The importance of these millstones is recognized in Deut. 24:6, which prohibits the taking of a mill or the upper millstone of a poor man as security, on the ground that that was the same as taking a man’s life as security. The lower millstone was always made of the harder stone. Because of this and of the grinding and pounding to which it was subjected it became a symbol of firmness (Job 41:24).

(7) Mortars.—Apparently the grain was also frequently crushed by pounding it with a pestle in a mortar. So many of these made of stone were found at Gezer that it is thought that these may have been used more often than the millstones; (see Fig. 83).

(8) Fruits.—In the course of the excavation of Gezer dried figs, grapes, pomegranates, and olives were found. All of these are mentioned in the Bible, as, for example, in Cant. 2:13; Rev. 6:13; Gen. 40:11; Num. 13:23; Micah 6:15. In one trench what appeared to be a pile of charred pistachio nuts was found. Acorns, terebinth, and apricot seeds were also discovered.[162] Of these fruits, those which left the most archæological evidence of their existence[Pg 137] are just those that are most frequently mentioned in the Bible,—the grape and the olive.

(9) Vineyards and Wine-vats.—The grape is often alluded to in the Bible, and directions are given as to how one may conduct himself in a vineyard (Deut. 23:24) and as to how thoroughly one might glean his vines (Lev. 25:5). The most complete description of a vineyard is in Isa. 5:1-8. The one feature of that description that would survive for an archæologist to discover is the wine-vat. These vats were often cut in the solid rock, and many of them have been found, both in excavating and in traveling over the country. The vats for pressing grapes and other fruits may be distinguished from olive-presses because they lack all arrangements for mechanical pressing. The grapes were trodden with the feet, and as the juice was pressed out it ran down into a deeper portion of the vat. Some of these vats are surrounded by “cup-marks” or hollow places cut in the stone in order to hold pointed-bottomed jars upright. Sometimes the cup-marks are connected with the main vat by tiny channels, through which any of the grape-juice that might drain from the outside of the jar, after the jar had been dipped in the vat, might run back; (see Fig. 87).

(10) Olive-presses.—Similarly, olive-presses are very numerous in Palestine. Presses were found in the stratum of the cave-dwellers of Gezer. The olive industry is, accordingly, very old. Olive-presses comprised, in addition to the vat, an upright stone with a large hole in it. In this hole a beam was inserted. This beam rested on the olives which were to be pressed, extending far beyond the receptacle containing the olives, and weights were hung on the end farthest from the stone; (see Fig. 88). Palestine in ancient times, as now, was covered with olive orchards, many of which had oil-presses. Such an orchard was called a “garden.” The Garden of Gethsemane, the scene of one of the most sacred incidents of the life of Christ (Matt. 26:36; Mark 14:32), was an olive orchard and took its name from the oil-press. Gethsemane means “oil-press.” Wine-vats and oil-presses were of various types, but into their forms there is not space to enter here[163]; (see Figs. 85, 86).

The prominent place held by wine and oil among the agricultural[Pg 138] products of the country is indicated by the receipts for the storage of various quantities of these articles which were found at Samaria.

(11) The Agricultural Calendar.—In the books of the old Testament the names applied to the months are, for the most part, names derived from Babylonia, but it appears that at Gezer they had a series of names for the months based on their agricultural year. In the stratum which contained remains from the time of the Hebrew monarchy, 1000-550 B. C., an inscription was found which, though the end was broken away, contained the following names for the months: