Sumerians, Class and Power
Sumerians, Class and Power
By 4500 BCE people archaeologists would call Ubaidians were living in towns in in Mesopotamia (Greek for "between two rivers") near where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers emptied into the Persian Gulf. The Ubaidians drained marshes. They grew wheat and barley and irrigated their crops by digging ditches to river waters. They kept farm animals. Some of them manufactured pottery. They did weaving, leather or metal work, and some were involved in trade with other societies.
By 4000 BCE to the south in Syria a society existed that had regional centers and a complex government. Here, as with the Ubaidians, people baked bread in huge ovens and manufactured fine pottery. In the year 2000 of modern times, at Tell Hamoukar, archaeologists discovered a protective city wall, and they described the place of their digging as more than a town. They described it as a city. And they found primitive hieroglyphics: markings for recording trade transactions.
It was around 4000 BCE that a people called Sumerians moved into Mesopotamia, perhaps from around the Caspian Sea. By 3800 BCE the Sumerians had supplanted the Ubaidians and Semites in southern Mesopotamia. They built better canals for irrigating crops and for transporting crops by boat to village centers. They improved their roads, over which their donkeys trod, some of their donkeys pulling wheeled carts. And the Sumerians grew in number, the increase in population the key element in creating what we call civilization -- a word derived from an ancient word for city.
At least twelve cities arose among the Sumerians. Among them were Ur, Uruk, Kish and Lagash -- Ur, for example, becoming a city of about 24,000 people. In the center of each city was a temple that housed the city's gods, and around each city were fields of grain, orchards of date palms, and land for herding. Besides planting and harvesting crops, some Sumerians hunted, fished, or raised livestock. In addition to an increase in population, civilization was also about variety, and enough food was produced to support people who worked at other occupations -- such as the priesthood, pottery making, weaving, carpentry and smithing. There were also traders, and the Sumerians developed an extensive commerce by land and sea. They built seaworthy ships, and they imported from afar items made from the wood, stone, tin and copper not found nearby.
Writing
Sumerian writing is the oldest full-fledged writing that archaeologists have discovered. The Ubaidians may have introduced the Sumerians to the rudiments of writing and recorded numerical calculation, which the Sumerians used with the rise in trade and to calculate and to keep records of supplies and goods exchanged. The Sumerians wrote arithmetic based on units of ten -- the number of fingers on both hands. Concerned about their star-gods, they mapped the stars and divided a circle into units of sixty, from which our own system of numbers, and seconds and minutes, are derived.
The Sumerians wrote poetically, describing events as the work of their gods, and they wrote to please their gods. The Sumerians wrote by pressing picture representations into wet clay with a pen, and they dried the clay to form tablets. Instead of developing their writing all at once, as one might expect with divine revelation, they developed their writing across centuries. They streamlined their pictures into symbols called ideograms, and they added symbols for spoken sounds -- phonetic letters -- forming what is called cuneiform.
Early in Sumerian civilization, eighty to ninety percent of those who farmed did so on land they considered theirs rather than communal property. Here too the Sumerians were expressing a trend that was common among others. Another individual effort was commerce, and with a growth in commerce the Sumerians had begun using money, which made individual wealth more easily measured and stored. Commerce required initiative, imagination, an ability to get along with people and luck, and, of course, some merchants were more successful than others.
Common Sumerians remained illiterate and without power, while kings, once elected by common people, became monarchs. The monarchs were viewed as agents of and responsible to the gods. It was the religious duty of their subjects to accept their rule as a part of the plan of the gods. Governments drafted common people to work on community projects, and common people were obliged to pay taxes to the government in the form of a percentage of their crops, which the city could either sell or use to feed its soldiers and others it supported.
Men Dominate Women
Physically stronger than women, men could rule women by brute force, and in societies where men were the warriors it was they who got together and made decisions for their entire society. Presumably before the time of the Sumerians, kings were chosen by the warriors, with the king as the leading warrior.
The Sumerians put the domination of men over women into law. If a husband died, the widow came under the control of her former husband's father or brother, or if she had a grown son she was put under his control. A woman in Sumer had no recourse or protection under the law. A woman's power, if she had any, was the influence of her personality within her family.
Education
Early in Sumerian civilization, schooling was associated with the priesthood and took place in temples. But this changed. Education apart from the temples arose for the children of affluent families, which these familes paid for. Most if not all students were males. The students were obliged to work hard at their studies, from sun up to sun down. Not believing in change, there was no probing into the potentials of humankind or study of the humanities. Their study was "practical." It was rote learning of complex grammar and practice at writing. Students were encouraged with praise while their inadequacies and failures were punished with lashes from a stick or cane.
War and Slavery
Sumerian kings sent men out to plunder people in hill country, and they acquired slaves. The Sumerian name for a female slave was mountain girl, and a male slave was called mountain man. The Sumerians used their slaves mainly as domestics and concubines. And they justified their slavery as would others: that their gods had given them victory over an inferior people.
As Sumerian cities grew in population and expanded, the swamps that insulated city from city disappeared. Sumerians from different cities were unable or unwilling to resolve their conflicts over land and the availability of water, and wars between cities erupted -- wars the Sumerians saw as between their gods. And the Sumerians made slaves of other Sumerians they had captured.
Akkadians
More than 7,000 years ago, the Sumerians built several independent city states and the first civilization known to man in an area within the Fertile Crescent known as Mesopotamia. As commerce expanded in Mesopotamia, important Sumerian cities emerged across the network of trade routes along the fertile Tigris and Euphrates River valleys. These growing cities attracted a diverse group of traders who traveled from Egypt to India and brought with them a variety of exotic wares and skills from their journey. The Sumerians adapted to the challenges introduced with the increased trade activity by establishing well organized cities, some of which would last for 3,000 years.
The Sumerians organized their cities meticulously. Each city state included fine public buildings, vibrant market places, diverse workshops and water systems to service the city inhabitants. Each city also had a royal palace and a ziggurat from the top of which the Sumerians would dedicate a shrine to the god of the city. The impressive ziggurats, made from sun baked clay bricks, towered over the flat river plains and were a testament to the early architectural and engineering expertise of the Sumerians. The Sumerians surrounded their public buildings with houses and cultivated their farmlands beyond the dwelling area, a practice that later civilizations would follow closely in the centuries to come.In approximately 3200 B.C., the Sumerians devised one of the earliest known writing systems called cuneiform, examples of which have survived in the form of thousands of clay tablets. Many of these clay cuneiform tablets contain records, accounts, sacred scripts and letters. The abundance of these tablets and the varied subject matter suggest that scribes and accountants held important roles in the mundane activities of Sumerian life including trade, law and religion.
The growing populations within each city and the increase in commercial activity between the city states caused the power to shift away from the priests and by 2900 B.C., commerce became more important than religion. The internal strife that ensued pushed the rival commercial factions to fight each other for control of the Mesopotamian region. During this time, outside invaders including tribes from Persia, Arabia and Turkey also sought to lay claim to the wealth and power of the dwindling Sumerian civilization.
In 2360 B.C., Sargon of Akkad invaded Mesopotamia and established the rival city state of Akkad. Soon, the instability that plagued Sumer led to the rise of Akkad as the more dominant city state in the region, and by 2334 B.C., Sargon had created the world’s first empire. Although Sargon of Akkad ruled effectively and brought order to his people, he nevertheless did so with a cruelty and violence that ultimately lead to the downfall of his empire. With the decline of Akkad, around 2100 B.C., the city of Ur replaced it as the most prominent power in the region for nearly one hundred years until Assyria and Babylon supplanted its role in the region as the more dominant powers.
Almost fifty times in the Old Testament, we can read about a people known as the Hittites. They were major players in Jewish history, and were listed as one of the nations that the children of Israel needed to conquer when entering the Promised Land (Joshua 11:3-4). Also, King David had among his army a valiant Hittite named Uriah, who was murdered by David because the king had committed adultery with his wife, Bathsheba. Without a doubt, the Old Testament frequently mentions the Hittites as a very real group of people. But for many years in secular history and in archaeology, the Hittites were as invisible as men from Mars. No solid archaeological evidence could be found that verified the existence of the Hittites. For this reason, many people scorned the biblical record and insisted that the absence of information concerning the Hittites proved that the Bible was filled with incorrect material.
However, the year 1876 saw many people changing their minds about both the Hittites and the Bible. An archaeologist, Hugo Winckler, visited a city in Turkey named Boghaz-Köy. Upon excavating portions of the city, he found a breathtaking number of human artifacts—including five temples, many sculptures, and a fortified castle. But more important, he found a huge storeroom filled with over 10,000 clay tablets. After completing the difficult task of deciphering the tablets, it was announced to the world that the Hittites had been found. The sight at Boghaz-Köy had been the Hittite capital city, Hattusha (see Price, 1997, p. 83).
All the people who had used the absence of archaeological evidence about the Hittites to mock the Bible’s accuracy were shamefaced and silent, and another small piece of evidence was added to the ever-growing mass of facts verifying the Bible’s accuracy
The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad, dating back to the 23rd century BCE. Following the collapse of the last Sumerian "Ur-III" dynasty at the hands of the Elamites (2002 BCE traditional, 1940 BCE short), the Amorites gained control over most of Mesopotamia, where they formed a series of small kingdoms. During the first centuries of what is called the "Amorite period", the most powerful city states were Isin and Larsa, although Shamshi-Adad I came close to uniting the more northern regions around Assur and Mari. One of these Amorite dynasties was established in the city-state of Babylon, which would ultimately take over the others and form the first Babylonian empire, during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period. Almost fifty times in the Old Testament, we can read about a people known as the Hittites. They were major players in Jewish history, and were listed as one of the nations that the children of Israel needed to conquer when entering the Promised Land (Joshua 11:3-4). Also, King David had among his army a valiant Hittite named Uriah, who was murdered by David because the king had committed adultery with his wife, Bathsheba. Without a doubt, the Old Testament frequently mentions the Hittites as a very real group of people. But for many years in secular history and in archaeology, the Hittites were as invisible as men from Mars. No solid archaeological evidence could be found that verified the existence of the Hittites. For this reason, many people scorned the biblical record and insisted that the absence of information concerning the Hittites proved that the Bible was filled with incorrect material.
However, the year 1876 saw many people changing their minds about both the Hittites and the Bible. An archaeologist, Hugo Winckler, visited a city in Turkey named Boghaz-Köy. Upon excavating portions of the city, he found a breathtaking number of human artifacts—including five temples, many sculptures, and a fortified castle. But more important, he found a huge storeroom filled with over 10,000 clay tablets. After completing the difficult task of deciphering the tablets, it was announced to the world that the Hittites had been found. The sight at Boghaz-Köy had been the Hittite capital city, Hattusha (see Price, 1997, p. 83).
All the people who had used the absence of archaeological evidence about the Hittites to mock the Bible’s accuracy were shamefaced and silent, and another small piece of evidence was added to the ever-growing mass of facts verifying the Bible’s accuracy
Babylonians
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged when Hammurabi (fl. ca. 1696 – 1654 BC, short chronology) created an empire out of the territories of the former Akkadian Empire. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic language for official use, and retained the Sumerian language for religious use, which by that time was no longer a spoken language. The Akkadian and Sumerian traditions played a major role in later Babylonian culture, and the region would remain an important cultural center, even under outside rule, throughout the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age.
The earliest mention of the city of Babylon can be found in a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad, dating back to the 23rd century BCE. Following the collapse of the last Sumerian "Ur-III" dynasty at the hands of the Elamites (2002 BCE traditional, 1940 BCE short), the Amorites gained control over most of Mesopotamia, where they formed a series of small kingdoms. During the first centuries of what is called the "Amorite period", the most powerful city states were Isin and Larsa, although Shamshi-Adad I came close to uniting the more northern regions around Assur and Mari. One of these Amorite dynasties was established in the city-state of Babylon, which would ultimately take over the others and form the first Babylonian empire, during what is also called the Old Babylonian Period.Old Babylonian period
The extent of the Babylonian Empire at the start and end of Hammurabi's reign
During the third millennium BCE, there developed a very intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, to syntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium as a sprachbund.
Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language of Mesopotamia somewhere around the turn of the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BCE (the exact dating being a matter of debate. But Sumerian continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial, literary and scientific language in Mesopotamia until the first century CE.
The city of Babylon obtained domination over Mesopotamia under its sixth ruler, Hammurabi (fl. ca. 1728 – 1686 BCE (short)). He was a very efficient ruler, establishing a bureaucracy, with taxation and centralized government, and giving the region stability after turbulent times, thereby transforming it into the central power of Mesopotamia. One of the most important works of this "First Dynasty of Babylon", as it was called by the native historians, was the compilation of a code of laws. This was made by order of Hammurabi after the expulsion of the Elamites and the settlement of his kingdom. In 1901, a copy of the Code of Hammurabi was discovered on a stele by J. De Morgan and V. Scheil at Susa, where it had later been taken as plunder. That copy is now in the Louvre.
Babylonian beliefs held the king as an agent of Marduk, and the city of Babylon as a "holy city" where any legitimate ruler of Mesopotamia had to be crowned.
The Babylonians, like their predecessors, engaged in regular trade with city-states to the west; with Babylonian officials or troops sometimes passing to Syria and Canaan, and Amorite merchants operating throughout Mesopotamia. The Babylonian monarchy's western connections remained strong for quite some time. An Amorite named Abi-ramu or Abram was the father of a witness to a deed dated to the reign of Hammurabi's grandfather; Ammi-Ditana, great-grandson of Hammurabi, still titled himself "king of the land of the Amorites". Ammi-Ditana's father and son also bore Canaanite names: Abi-Eshuh and Ammisaduqa
The armies of Babylonia were well-disciplined, and conquered the city-states of Isin, Eshnunna, Uruk, and the kingdom of Mari. But Mesopotamia had no natural, defendable boundaries, making it vulnerable to attack. Trade and culture thrived for around 150 years, until the reign of the 15th king of the first dynasty, Samsu-Ditana, son of Ammisaduqa. He was overthrown following the "sack of Babylon" by the Hittite king Mursili I, and Babylonia was turned over to the Kassites, with whom Samsu-iluna had already come into conflict in his 6th year.The sack of Babylon and ancient Near East chronology
The date of the sack of Babylon by the Hittite king Mursilis I is considered crucial to the various calculations of the early chronology of the ancient Near East, since both a solar and a lunar eclipse are said to have occurred in the month of Sivan that year, according to ancient records.
The fall of Babylon is taken as a fixed point in the discussion of the chronology of the ancient Near East. Suggestions for its precise date vary by as much as 150 years, corresponding to the uncertainty regarding the length of the "Dark Age" of the ensuing Bronze Age collapse, resulting in the shift of the entire Bronze Age chronology of Mesopotamia with regard to the chronology of Ancient Egypt. Possible dates for the sack of Babylon are:
§ ultra-short chronology: 1499 BCE
§ short chronology: 1531 BCE
§ middle chronology: 1595 BCE
§ long chronology: 1651 BCE
Kassite period
The Kassite dynasty was founded by Kandis or Gandash of Mari. The Kassites renamed Babylon "Kar-Duniash", and their rule lasted for 576 years. This foreign dominion offers a striking analogy to the roughly contemporary rule of the Hyksos in ancient. Babylonia having lost its empire over western Asia, the high-priests of Ashur made themselves kings of Assyria. Most divine attributes ascribed to the Semitic kings of Babylonia disappeared at this time; the title of God was never given to a Kassite sovereign. However, Babylon continued to be the capital of the kingdom and the 'holy' city of western Asia, where the priests were all-powerful, and the only place where the right to inheritance of the old Babylonian empire could be conferred.
Despite the loss of territory, and evident reduction in literacy and culture, the Kassite dynasty was the longest-lived dynasty of Babylon, lasting until 1155 BCE (short), when Babylon was conquered by Shutruk-Nahhunte of Elam, and re-conquered a few years later by Nebuchadrezzar I, part of the larger Bronze Age collapse.
Early Iron Age
In the Early Iron Age, from 1125 to 732 BCE, Babylon was again ruled by native dynasties, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar I of Isin (Dynasty IV).
Dynasty IX begins with Nabonassar, whose rule (from 748 BCE) heads Ptolemy's Canon of Kings.
In 729 BCE, Babylon was conquered into the Neo-Assyrian Empire Tiglath-Pileser III and remained under Assyrian rule for a century, until the 620s BCE revolt of Nabopolassar.
Neo-Babylonian Empire (Chaldean Era)
The Middle East, c. 600 BCE, is showing extent of Chaldean rule.
Through the centuries of Assyrian domination, Babylonia enjoyed a prominent status, or revolted at the slightest indication that it did not. The Assyrians always managed to restore Babylonian loyalty, however, whether through granting of increased privileges, or militarily. That finally changed in 627 BCE with the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Assurbanipal, and Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar the Chaldean the following year. With help from the Medes, Nineveh was sacked in 612 BCE, and the seat of empire was again transferred to Babylonia.
Nabopolassar was followed by his son Nebuchadnezzar II, whose reign of 43 years made Babylon once more the mistress of the civilized world, including the conquering of Phoenicia in 585 BCE Only a small fragment of his annals has been discovered, relating to his invasion of Egypt in 567 BCE, and referring to "Phut of the Ionians".
Of the reign of the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus (Nabu-na'id), and the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus, there is a fair amount of information available. This is chiefly derived from a chronological tablet containing the annals of Nabonidus, supplemented by another inscription of Nabonidus where he recounts his restoration of the temple of the Moon-god at Harran; as well as by a proclamation of Cyrus issued shortly after his formal recognition as king of Babylonia. It was in the sixth year of Nabonidus (549 BCE) that Cyrus, the Achaemenid Persian "king of Anshan" in Elam, revolted against his suzerain Astyages, "king of the Manda" or Medes, at Ecbatana. Astyages' army betrayed him to his enemy, and Cyrus established himself at Ecbatana, thus putting an end to the empire of the Medes. Three years later Cyrus had become king of all Persia, and was engaged in a campaign in northern Mesopotamia. Meanwhile, Nabonidus had established a camp in the desert, near the southern frontier of his kingdom, leaving his son Belshazzar (Belsharutsur) in command of the army.
In 539 BCE Cyrus invaded Babylonia. A battle was fought at Opis in the month of June, where the Babylonians were defeated; and immediately afterwards Sippara surrendered to the invader. Nabonidus fled to Babylon, where he was pursued by Gobryas, and on the 16th day of Tammuz, two days after the capture of Sippara, "the soldiers of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting." Nabonidus was dragged from his hiding-place, where the services continued without interruption. Cyrus did not arrive until the 3rd of Marchesvan (October), Gobryas having acted for him in his absence. Gobryas was now made governor of the province of Babylon, and a few days afterwards the son of Nabonidus died. A public mourning followed, lasting six days, and Cambyses accompanied the corpse to the tomb.
Cyrus now claimed to be the legitimate successor of the ancient Babylonian kings and the avenger of Bel-Marduk who was assumed to be wrathful at the impiety of Nabonidus in removing the images of the local gods from their ancestral shrines to his capital Babylon. Nabonidus, in fact, had excited a strong feeling against himself by attempting to centralize the religion of Babylonia in the temple of Merodach (Marduk) at Babylon, and while he had thus alienated the local priesthoods, the military party despised him on account of his antiquarian tastes. He seemed to have left the defense of his kingdom to others, occupying himself with the more congenial work of excavating the foundation records of the temples and determining the dates of their builders.
Persian Babylonia
Babylonia was absorbed into the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BC.
A year before Cyrus' death, in 529 BC, he elevated his son Cambyses II in the government, making him king of Babylon, while he reserved for himself the fuller title of "king of the (other) provinces" of the empire. It was only when Darius Hystaspis acquired the Persian throne and ruled it as a representative of the Zoroastrian religion that the old tradition was broken and the claim of Babylon to confer legitimacy on the rulers of western Asia ceased to be acknowledged.
Immediately after Darius seized Persia, Babylonia briefly recovered its independence under Nidinta-Bel, who took the name of Nebuchadnezzar, and reigned from October 522 BC to August 520 BC, when Darius took the city by storm. A few years later, probably 514 BC, Babylon again revolted under Arakha; on this occasion, after its capture by the Persians, the walls were partly destroyed. E-Saggila, the great temple of Bel, however, still continued to be kept in repair and to be a center of Babylonian religious feelings.
It has long been maintained that the foundation of Seleucia diverted the population to the new capital of Babylonia, and that the ruins of the old city became a quarry for the builders of the new seat of government, but the recent publication of the Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Period has shown that urban life was still very much the same well into the Parthian age.
The name of the satrapy was changed to Asuristan in the Sassanid period. Excepting brief interludes of Roman conquest (Assyria, Roman Mesopotamia; AD 116 to 118), and a longer period of Hellenistic rule (the Seleucid Empire, 330 to 250 BC), Mesopotamia remained under Persian control until the Islamic conquest in the 630s AD.
Babylonian culture
Bronze Age to Early Iron Age culture of Mesopotamia is often summarized as "Assyro-Babylonian" because of the close cultural interdependence of the two political centers.
Old Babylonian
Art and Architecture
In Babylonia, an abundance of clay, and lack of stone, led to greater use of mudbrick; Babylonian temples are massive structures of crude brick, supported by buttresses, the rain being carried off by drains. One such drain at Ur was made of lead. The use of brick led to the early development of the pilaster and column, and of frescoes and enameled tiles. The walls were brilliantly colored, and sometimes plated with zinc or gold, as well as with tiles. Painted terra-cotta cones for torches were also embedded in the plaster.
In Babylonia, in place of the bas-relief, there is greater use of three-dimensional figures in the round — the earliest examples being the Statues that are realistic if somewhat clumsy. The paucity of stone in Babylonia made every pebble precious, and led to a high perfection in the art of gem-cutting.
Astronomy
Tablets dating back to the Old Babylonian period document the application of mathematics to the variation in the length of daylight over a solar year. Centuries of Babylonian observations of celestial phenomena are recorded in the series of cuneiform tablets known as the 'Enūma Anu Enlil'. The oldest significant astronomical text that we possess is Tablet 63 of 'Enūma Anu Enlil', the Venus tablet of Ammi-saduqa, which lists the first and last visible risings of Venus over a period of about 21 years and is the earliest evidence that the phenomena of a planet were recognized as periodic. The oldest rectangular astrolabe dates back to Babylonia ca. 1100 BCE. The MUL.APIN, contains catalogues of stars and constellations as well as schemes for predicting heliacal risings and the settings of the planets, lengths of daylight measured by a water-clock, gnomon, shadows, and intercalations. The Babylonian GU text arranges stars in 'strings' that lie along declination circles and thus measure right-ascensions or time-intervals, and also employs the stars of the zenith, which are also separated by given right-ascensional differences.[4]
The oldest Babylonian texts on medicine date back to the First Babylonian Dynasty in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. The most extensive Babylonian medical text, however, is the Diagnostic Handbook written by the physician Esagil-kin-apli of Borsippa, during the reign of the Babylonian king Adad-apla-iddina (1069-1046 BCE)
Along with contemporary ancient Egyptian medicine, the Babylonians introduced the concepts of diagnosis, prognosis, physical examination, and prescriptions. In addition, the Diagnostic Handbook introduced the methods of therapy and aetiology and the use of empiricism, logic and rationality in diagnosis, prognosis and therapy. The text contains a list of medical symptoms and often detailed empirical observations along with logical rules used in combining observed symptoms on the body of a patient with its diagnosis and prognosis.
Literature
There were libraries in most towns and temples; an old Sumerian proverb averred that "he who would excel in the school of the scribes must rise with the dawn." Women as well as men learned to read and write and in Semitic times, this involved knowledge of the extinct Sumerian, and a complicated and extensive syllabary.
A considerable amount of Babylonian literature was translated from Sumerian originals, and the language of religion and law long continued to be the old agglutinative language of Sumer. Vocabularies, grammars, and interlinear translations were compiled for the use of students, as well as commentaries on the older texts and explanations of obscure words and phrases. The characters of the syllabary were all arranged and named, and elaborate lists of them were drawn up.
There are many Babylonian literary works whose titles have come down to us. One of the most famous of these was the Epic of Gilgamesh, in twelve books, translated from the original Sumerian by a certain Sin-liqi-unninni, and arranged upon an astronomical principle. Each division contains the story of a single adventure in the career of Gilgamesh. The whole story is a composite product, and it is probable that some of the stories are artificially attached to the central figure.
Neo-Babylonian
The brief resurgence of a "Babylonian" identity in the 7th to 6th centuries BC was accompanied with a number of important cultural developments.
Astronomy
Among the sciences, astronomy and astrology occupied a conspicuous place in Babylonian society. Astronomy was of old standing in Babylonia. The zodiac was a Babylonian invention of great antiquity; and eclipses of the sun and moon could be foretold. There are dozens of cuneiform records of original Mesopotamian eclipse observations
Babylonian astronomy was the basis for much of what was done in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy, in classical Indian astronomy, in Sassanian, Byzantine and Syrian astronomy, in medieval Islamic astronomy, and in Central Asian and Western European astronomy Neo-Babylonian astronomy can thus be considered the direct predecessor of much of ancient Greek mathematics and astronomy, which in turn is the historical predecessor of the European (Western) scientific revolution
During the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, Babylonian astronomers developed a new approach to astronomy. They began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science and some scholars have thus referred to this new approach as the first scientific revolution. This new approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy.
In Seleucid and Parthian times, the astronomical reports were of a thoroughly scientific character; how much earlier their advanced knowledge and methods were developed is uncertain. The Babylonian development of methods for predicting the motions of the planets is considered to be a major episode in the history of astronomy.
The only Babylonian astronomer known to have supported a heliocentric model of planetary motion was Seleucus of Seleucia (b. 190 BCE) Seleucus is known from the writings of Plutarch. He supported the heliocentric theory where the Earth rotated around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun. According to Plutarch, Seleucus even proved the heliocentric system, but it is not known what arguments he used.
Mathematics
Babylonian mathematical texts are plentiful and well edited. In respect of time they fall in two distinct groups: one from the Babylonian period (1830-1531 BCE), the other mainly Seleucid from the last three or four centuries B.C. In respect of content there is scarcely any difference between the two groups of texts. Thus Babylonian mathematics remained stale in character and content, with very little progress or innovation, for nearly two millennia. Babylonian system of mathematics was sexagesimal, or a base 60 numeral system (see: Babylonian numerals). From this we derive the modern day usage of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, and 360 (60 x 6) degrees in a circle. The Babylonians were able to make great advances in mathematics for two reasons. First, the number 60 has many divisors (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30), making calculations easier. Additionally, unlike the Egyptians and Romans, the Babylonians had a true place-value system, where digits written in the left column represented larger values (much as in our base-ten system: 734 = 7×100 + 3×10 + 4×1). Among the Babylonians' mathematical accomplishments was the determination of the square root of two correctly to seven places (YBC 7289 clay tablet). They also demonstrated knowledge of the Pythagorean Theorem well before Pythagoras, as evidenced by this tablet translated by Dennis Ramsey and dating to ca. 1900 BCE:
4 is the length and 5 is the diagonal. What is the breadth? Its size is not known. 4 times 4 is 16. And 5 times 5 is 25. You take 16 from 25 and there remain 9. What times what shall I take in order to get 9? 3 times 3 is 9. 3 is the breadth.
The ner of 600 and the sar of 3600 were formed from the unit of 60, corresponding with a degree of the equator. Tablets of squares and cubes, calculated from 1 to 60, have been found at Senkera, and a people acquainted with the sun-dial, the clepsydra, the lever and the pulley, must have had no mean knowledge of mechanics. A crystal lens, turned on the lathe, was discovered by Austen Henry Layard at Nimrud along with glass vases bearing the name of Sargon; this could explain the excessive minuteness of some of the writing on the Assyrian tablets, and a lens may also have been used in the observation of the heavens.
Philosophy
The origins of Babylonian philosophy can be traced back to early Mesopotamian wisdom literature, which embodied certain philosophies of life, particularly ethics, in the forms of dialectic, dialogs, epic poetry, folklore, hymns, lyrics, prose, and proverbs. Babylonian reasoning and rationality developed beyond empirical observation.
It is possible that Babylonian philosophy had an influence on Greek, particularly Hellenistic philosophy. The Babylonian text Dialog of Pessimism contains similarities to the agonistic thought of the sophists, the Heraclitean doctrine of contrasts, and the dialogs of Plato, as well as a precursor to the maieutic Socratic method of Socrates The Milesian philosopher Thales is also known to have studied philosophy in Mesopotamia.
Legacy
Babylonia, and particularly its capital city Babylon, have long held a place in Abrahamic religions as a symbol of excess and dissolute power. Many references are made to Babylon in the Bible, both literally and allegorically. The mentions in the Tanakh tend to be historical or prophetic, while New Testament references are more likely figurative, or cryptic references possibly to pagan Rome, or some other archetype. The legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Tower of Babel are seen as symbols of luxurious and arrogant power respectively. A main festival for Babylonians was the Mishtkaru Buylshu, used to ward off evil spirits. Many Babylonians, mostly males, attended this festival at a young age. At this festival, priests would kill, or sacrifice, an animal, usually an ox, in order to make the gods happy. In return, the gods would give permission to the people at the festival to each obtain an amulet that would protect them for the rest of their lives.
Assyrians
Ancient Assyrians were inhabitants of one the world's earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia, which began to emerge around 3500 B . C . The Assyrians invented the world's first written language and the 360-degree circle, established Hammurabi's code of law, and are credited with many other military, artistic, and architectural achievements. For 300 years Assyrians controlled the entire Fertile Crescent, from the Persian Gulf to Egypt. In 612 B . C ., however, Assyria's capital, Nineveh, was besieged and destroyed by a coalition of Medes, Scythians, and Chaldeans, decimating the previously powerful Assyrian Empire.
Modern Assyrians claim descent from the inhabitants of the ancient Assyrian Empire, and linguistic evidence seems to support that contention. Different dialects have developed from ancient Aramaic, a language used within the Assyrian Empire. The modern language is sometimes called Assyrian, but some scholars reserve the terms "Assyrian" and "Babylonian" for the cuneiform writing of the ancient empire. The modern language, then, is generally referred to as "neo-Aramaic," "Chaldean," or "Syriac" and is considered to be 75 percent pure (i.e., ancient) Aramaic. The ancient and modern Assyrian languages belong to the Semitic Language Family. The survival of Syriac as a spoken language is an important indication that the Assyrians have been a cohesive, endogamous group for more than two thousand years.
Religion is an important factor in the identification and description of both ancient and modern Assyrians. Modern Assyrians refer to themselves as "Surayi," which can be translated as either "Assyrian" or "Syrian." Assyrians may be further divided into Assyrian Nestorians and Assyrian Jacobites, some of whom prefer to be called Syrian Aramaeans. In their homelands, the Nestorians are considered the easterners and the Jacobites the westerners. The distinctions between the two are based primarily on religious differences. The term "Nestorian" derives from Nestorius, who was the patriarch of Constantinople from A . D . 428 to 431. Nestorius was condemned for heresy; he and his followers fled from Syria to Persia, where they practiced their distinctive religion for fifteen centuries. The Jacobites are named for Jacobus Baradeus, who was also considered heretical at the Council of Chalcedon in A . D . 451; his followers have kept their faith for as long as the Nestorians.
The ancient split between the Church of the East (Nestorians) and the Church of Antioch (Jacobites), and between these two and the rest of Christianity, has continued to the present. The picture was further complicated when, beginning in the sixteenth century, Christian missionaries from various denominations made their way to the Middle East to convert the indigenous Christians. Their limited success led to a variety of Christian denominations and patriarchs in the Middle East. Some Nestorians have continued to support the Church of the East; others, known as "Chaldeans," converted to Roman Catholicism. Most Jacobites remained with the Church of Antioch, but those who converted to Catholicism are called Syrian Catholics. All four of these groups support a church hierarchy or patriarchy in the homeland.
Geography has also played an important role in the history and culture of the Assyrians, especially Nestorian Assyrians. The geographic heart of Assyria was traditionally located in the north Tigris highlands, north of Babylon and south of Armenia. In classical times, Persia and Byzantium boxed in the mountain Assyrians. Later, they found themselves between Turks and Persians, Kurds and Arabs. After the rise of Islam, the Assyrians were the target of converging Sunni forces from the south and the north and Shiite forces from the east. For security and collective well-being, they took refuge in the rocky Hakkâri Mountains, which served as a natural military fortress.
The Assyrians, or their Nestorian descendants, lived in small villages along the Great Zab River and in the Sapna Valley of northern Iraq, as well as near the shore of Lake Urmia in western Iran until the twentieth century. They survived as a group in this compact, relatively contiguous area for more than 1,500 years. Unfortunately, this area had the great disadvantage of lying within the boundaries of three different states—Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.
Within this environment, the Nestorian Assyrians' subsistence stemmed from irrigation agriculture. Crops included wheat, barley, millet, melons, lentils, and other vegetables. A few sheep, goats, donkeys, and water buffalo were also raised. The staple foods consisted of cereals, vegetables, and milk products. Meat was rarely eaten.
The extended patriarchal family was the primary social and ecomomic unit of the Nestorian Assyrians. Tribal formations sometimes led to internal conflicts, but the constant threat of outside attacks led to internal cohesion and group solidarity. Nestorian Assyrians did not intermarry with other Christians, and intermarriage with Muslims was, generally speaking, not even an option.
Women in ancient Assyria may have received greater status or dignity than their counterparts in other Middle Eastern cultures have since then. In the mid-twentieth century Nestorian women were treated almost as equals with men. For example, most women were considered companions to their husbands and, as such, participated in social gatherings. In Iraq, Assyrian Christian women were often more literate than Muslim men. The patriarchal tradition, however, assured that male predominance in husband-wife relations was the norm.
Because of many factors, including the massacres of 1918 (by Turks and Kurds) and 1933 (by Iraqi Arabs and Kurds), constant battles with the Kurds, forced migrations, forced participation in Iraqi wars, assimilation and "Arabization" into majority cultures, and emigration out of their traditional homeland, the population of the Assyrians in their traditional homeland has dwindled considerably. Additionally, confusion over the terms "Assyrian," "Chaldean," "Nestorian," and "Jacobite"—as well as a lack of consensus over which groups of people they designate—makes counting the Assyrians even more difficult. One estimate of the number of Chaldean Catholic Assyrians in Iraq is 750,000, or 4 percent of the population (1991). From available census counts, there are about 10,000 Assyrians in Syria (interpolated from Grimes 1988), 77,375 in Iraq (1986), 40,000 in Iran (1982), 25,000 in Turkey (1981), and 15,000 in the former Soviet Union (1979). It is estimated that there are also 150,000 Assyrians in the United States (Ishaya and Naby 1980); some Assyrian leaders believe there are about one million Assyrians scattered throughout the world.
In Iraq, the extent to which Assyrians are surviving or accommodating to Arabization attempts is not clear. Outside the Middle East, particularly in the United States, Assyrian group life continues to reflect ancient religious as well as relatively new political divisions. For example, the Syrian Aramaeans of New Jersey are Jacobites, but they prefer to call themselves Syrian rather than Assyrian in order to avoid political implications with which they disagree. Further, some Assyrians are in favor of the establishment of an Assyrian homeland, and some are not.
Within the United States, there may be a collective revitalization taking place. There are two major Assyrian centers in the United States—one in Chicago, the other in California. Preserving ethnic ties and cultivating social relations have become important goals for these Assyrian communities. There is a concerted effort by Assyrians outside of Iraq to maintain their self-determination, and some Assyrians still hope for their own territory.
The Chaldeans
After the fall of Assyrian power in Mesopotamia, the last great group of Semitic peoples dominated the area. Suffering mightily under the Assyrians, the city of Babylon finally rose up against its hated enemy, the city of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, and burned it to the ground.
While the Median kingdom controlled the highland region, the Chaldeans,
with their capital at Babylon, were masters of the Fertile Crescent.
Nebuchadnezzar, becoming king of the Chaldeans in 604 B.C., raised Babylonia
to another epoch of brilliance after more than a thousand years of eclipse. By
defeating the Egyptians in Syria, Nebuchadnezzar ended their hopes of
re-creating their empire. As we have seen he destroyed Jerusalem in
586 B.C. and carried thousands of Jews captive to Babylonia.
Nebuchadnezzar reconstructed Babylon, making it the largest and most
Impressive city of its day. The tremendous city walls were wide enough at the
Top to have rows of small houses on either side. In the center of Babylon ran
The famous Procession Street, which passed through the Ishtar Gate. This arch,
Which was adorned with brilliant tile animals, is the best remaining example
Of Babylonian architecture. The immense palace of Nebuchadnezzar towered
terrace upon terrace, each resplendent with masses of ferns, flowers, and
trees. These roof gardens, the famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon, were so
beautiful that they were regarded by the Greeks as one of the seven wonders of
the ancient world.
Nebuchadnezzar also rebuilt the great temple-tower or ziggurat, the
Biblical "Tower of Babel," which the Greek historian Herodotus viewed a
century later and described as
a tower of solid masonry, a furlong [220 yards]
in length and breadth, upon which was raised a second
tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight.
The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which
winds round all the towers. ^28
Nebuchadnezzar was the last great Mesopotamian ruler, and Chaldean power
quickly crumbled after his death in 562 B.C. The Chaldean priests - whose
interest in astrology so greatly added to the fund of Babylonian astronomical
knowledge that the word "Chaldean" came to mean astronomer - continually
undermined the monarchy. Finally, in 539 B.C., they opened the gates of
Babylon to Cyrus the Persian, thus fulfilling Daniel's message of doom upon
the notorious Belshazzar, the last Chaldean ruler: "You have been weighed in
the balances and found wanting" (Dan. 5:27).
The Persians
Until the sixth century BC, they were a people shrouded in mystery. Living in the area east of the Mesopotamian region, the Persians were a disparate group of Indo-European tribes, some nomadic, some settled, that were developing their own culture and religion unique from that of the great cities to their west. Sometimes history is about ideas, and nothing more clearly emphasizes this aspect of history than the sudden eruption of Persians on to the world stage, or at least the world stage as it centered on Mesopotamia. For the sudden rise of Persian power not only over Mesopotamia, but over the entire known world, has its center of gravity in a new set of ideas constellating around a new religion. For the Persians would become the largest and most powerful empire ever known in human history up until that point. By 486 BC, the Persians would control all of Mesopotamia and, in fact, all of the world from Macedon northeast of Greece to Egypt, from Palestine and the Arabian peninsula across Mesopotamia and all the way to India.
The Persians throughout their history, such as we know it, lived peacefully in the region just north of the Persian Gulf (modern day Iran). For the most part, they were left unbothered by the epic power struggles broiling to the west in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. They were Indo-European peoples who spoke a language similar to Sanskrit and who worshipped gods very similar to the gods of the Vedic period in India. Life was hard in the region they controlled; the coastline afforded no harbors and the eastern region was mountainous. Only a few interior valleys supported the peoples; in part because of the geography, the Persians never really united into a single peoples but rather served as disparate vassal states to the Medes, who, from their capital at Ecbatana, controlled the area east of the Tigris river.
Eschatology
In this state, somewhere around 650 BC, a new religion suddenly took hold. While we know little or nothing about the Persians in this period, we know the man who invented this new religion. Called Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek), his new religion and new gods captivated the spiritual and social imagination of the Persians. In its roughest outlines, Zoroastrianism is a dualistic religion; in Zarathustra's cosmos, the universe was under the control of two contrary gods, Ahura-Mazda, the creating god who is full of light and good, and Ahriman, the god of dark and evil. These two evenly matched gods are in an epic struggle over creation; at the end of time, Ahura-Mazda and his forces will emerge victorious. All of creation, all gods, all religions, and all of human history and experience can be understood as part of this struggle between light and dark, good and evil. Zoroastrianism, however, is a manifestly eschatological religion; meaning and value in this world is oriented towards the end of history and the final defeat of Ahriman and all those gods, humans, and other animate forces arrayed on the dark side of creation.
It is not possible to underestimate how Zoroastrianism changed the Persian world and its sense of its own community. If the world and human history could be understood as an epic struggle between good and evil, a struggle whose ultimate trajectory is the establishment of good throughout the universe and the defeat of evil, then one's own role, as an enlightened people, in the world becomes vastly different. This political role in the world was put together by Cyrus, called The Great.
Cyrus was a first in human history, for he was the first to conceive of an idea that would forever fire the political and social imaginations of the people touched by the Persians. That idea? Conquer the world.
Up until Cyrus, no culture or individual had ever really thought this one up. Territorial conquests, like monarchical power, were justified on religious grounds, but these religious grounds never gave rise to the notion that one's religious duty was to conquer the whole of the world as you knew it.
In 559 BC, Cyrus became the chief of an obscure Persian tribe in the south of Persia. A devoted Zoroastrianism, he believed that his religious duty was to bring about the eschatological promises of Zoroastrianism through active warfare. If the universe was an epic struggle between the forces of Ahura-Mazda and the forces of evil, Cyrus his job as personally bringing about the victory of his god. As an extension of this, Cyrus would bring Zoroastrianism to all the peoples he conquered; he would not force them to become Zoroastrian, though. For Zoroastrianism recognized that all the gods worshipped by other peoples were really gods; some were underlings of Ahura-Mazda and some were servants of Ahriman. Cyrus saw as his mission the tearing down of religions for evil gods and the shoring up of religions of gods allied with Ahura-Mazda.
By 554 BC, Cyrus had conquered all of Persia and defeated the Medes for control of the region. He soon conquered Lydia in Asia Minor, Babylon in 539 BC and, by the time he died in 529 BC, he had conquered a vast territory—in fact, he probably was the greatest conqueror in human history.
The Persian Wars
So in 490 BC, the Persians launched an expedition against Athens. They were met, however, by Miltiades, who had been an outstanding soldier in the Persian army but ran for his life when he angered Darius. Unlike other Athenians, he knew the Persian army and he knew its tactics. The two armies, with the Athenians led by Miltiades, met at Marathon in Attica and the Athenians roundly defeated the invading army. This battle, the battle of Marathon (490 BC), is perhaps the single most important battle in Greek history. Had the Athenians lost, the Persians would have installed Persian government and culture as the norm in Greece long before the classical period in Greek history. All subsequent culture influenced by the Greeks would have been Persian culture.
Only a decade later, Xerxes I, the successor to Darius I, was driven out of Europe completely by the Greeks. Over the next few years, all of the Greek cities in Asia Minor would become independent and Athens, which had led the fight against the Persians, would become the dominant political force in the Greek world. The Persian empire, however, hung on for another century and a half, surviving numerous revolts and succession problems. In 340 BC, Alexander the Great set out to conquer the Persians in his own punitive expedition. Even though the ruler of Persia, ironically named Darius II, had a much superior force, Alexader manage to win battle after battle against the Persians until, in 331 BC, he crossed the Euphrates into Mesopotamia. In 330 BC he entered Babylon after Darius II had fled (eventually to be assassinated) and the infinitely long history of Mesopotamia folded into a new history, that of the Hellenistic period and the Greek and later Roman domination of the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
The Phoenicians
- More than 2,500 years ago Phoenician mariners sailed to Mediterranean and southwestern European ports. The Phoenicians were the great merchants of ancient times. They sold rich treasures from many lands.
- These Phoenicians (the Canaanites, or Sidonians, of the Bible) were Semitic people. Their country was a narrow strip of the Syrian coast, about 160 miles (260 kilometers) long and 20 miles (32 kilometers) wide. The area now comprises Lebanon and parts of Syria and Israel. Their territory was so small that the Phoenicians were forced to turn to the sea for a living. They became the most skillful shipbuilders and navigators of their time. They worked the silver mines of Spain, passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, and founded the city of Cadiz on the southern coast of Spain. They sailed to the British Isles for tin and may have ventured around southern Africa. They founded many colonies, the greatest being Carthage.
- The Phoenicians began to develop as a seafaring, manufacturing, and trading nation when the Cretans--the first masters of the Mediterranean--were overthrown by the Greeks (see Aegean Civilization). Not only did they take the fine wares of the Eastern nations to the Western barbarians, but they also became skilled in making such wares themselves--especially metalwork, glass, and cloth. From a snail, the murex, they obtained a crimson dye called Tyrian purple. This was so costly that only kings and wealthy nobles could afford garments dyed with it.
- Perhaps the most significant contribution of the Phoenicians was a syllabic writing, developed in about 1000 BC at Byblos. From this city's name come the Greek word biblia (books) and the English word Bible. This form of writing was spread by the Phoenicians in their travels and influenced the Aramaic and Greek alphabets
- There were two great cities of Phoenicia--Sidon, the center of the glass industry, and Tyre, the center of the purple-dye industry. In the middle of the 10th century BC, Tyre assumed the leadership of all Phoenicia. Friendly relations were established with the Hebrews, and King Solomon sent to King Hiram of Tyre not only for materials but also for skilled workmen to build the temple.
- The Phoenicians supplied the great Persian fleets with which Darius and Xerxes attacked Greece. Usually they submitted readily to foreign conquerors and paid tribute. In return they were allowed to pursue their commercial enterprises as they liked. Alexander the Great took Tyre in 332 BC, after one of the greatest sieges of history. In 64 BC Phoenicia came under the control of the Romans.
- The chief divinities of the Phoenician religion were the god Baal and the goddess Astarte, or Ashtoreth. In times of great distress human sacrifices were offered to the god Moloch.
- Today the small island on which Tyre once stood is connected with the mainland by a broad tongue of land. It grew out of the causeway built during Alexander's siege. The town is called Sur in Arabic.
- The Phoenicians of the Iron Age (first millennium B.C.) descended from the original Canaanites who dwelt in the region during the earlier Bronze Age (3000-1200 H.C.), despite classical tradition to the contrary. There is archaeological evidence for a continuous cultural tradition from the Bronze to the Iron Age (1200 -333 s.c.) at the cities of Tyre and Z araphath. In the Amarna age (fourteenth century B.C.) many letters to Egypt emanated from King Rib-Addi of Byblos, King Abi-Milki of Tyre, and King Zimrida of Sidon, and in other New Kingdom Egyptian texts there are references to the cities of Beirut Sidon, Zaraphath, Ushu, Tyre, and Byblos. Additionally there is a thirteenth-century B.C. letter from the king of Tyre to Ugarit, and a Ugaritic inscription has turned up at Zaraphath. Despite these facts showing that the coastal cities were occupied without interruption or change in population, the term "Phoenician" is now normally applied to them in the Iron Age (beginning about the twelfth century B.C.) onward when the traits that characterize Phoenician culture evolved: long-distance seafaring, trade and colonization, and distinctive elements of their material culture, language, and script.
- The Phoenicians, whose lands corresponds to present-day Lebanon and coastal parts of Israel and Syria, probably arrived in the region in about 3000 B.C. They established commercial and religious connections were established with Egypt after about 2613 BC and continued until the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom and the invasion of Phoenicia by the Amorites (c. 2200 BC).
- Other groups invading and periodically controlling Phoenicia included the Hyksos (18th century BC), the Egyptians of the New Kingdom (16th century BC), and the Hittites (14th century BC). Seti I (1290-79 BC) of the New Kingdom reconquered most of Phoenicia, but Ramses III (1187-56 BC) lost it to invaders from Asia Minor and Europe. The roster of Phoenician cities changed during the near millennium-long period beginning in 1200 B.C., reflecting the waxing and waning of their individual fortunes and the impinging historical events of the Near East. At the beginning of the Iron Age, as part of the invasion of the Sea Peoples (groups from the Greek islands, especially Crete), the Philistines occupied the coastal area south of Mt. Carmel, including Dor, Ashdod, Ashkelon, and Gaza. By the eighth century B.C., however, the material culture of the Phoenicians extended southward, and Sidon controlled Dor and Joppa during the Persian period (539-333 B.C). The Achaemenians, an Iranian dynasty under the leadership of Cyrus II, conquered the area in 538 B.C. Sidon became a principal coastal city of this empire. The history of Tyre and Sidon is intertwined (indeed they were only twenty-two miles [35 km.] apart). Classical tradition suggests that Sidon was the more powerful at first but by the tenth century B.C. Tyre dominated. Tyre's kings ruled a stretch of the coast that included Sidon and often they were referred to as kings of the Sidonians (1 Kings 16:31).
- There were no major Phoenician cities north of Arvad, but Phoenician influence extended into Cilicia in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C. Obscurity surrounds the emergence of Phoenician culture during the twelfth and eleventh centuries B.C. In a foray, the Assyrian king Tiglathpileser I (1114-1076 B.C.) sojourned at Arvad and received tribute from Byblos and Sidon, and there are archaeological data from Tyre and Zaraphath for this period. The Egyptian Tale of Wenamun, dating to the mid-eleventh century B.C., graphically portrays the decline of Egyptian prestige and power in the Levant. This was due in part to the invasions of the Sea Peoples and the general disruptions of Late Bronze Age cultures throughout the eastern Mediterranean, with the collapse of Mycenaean and Hittite cultures and the destruction of city-states in the Levant. Trade was severely affected. In the aftermath of the disruptions and the power vacuum a new order emerged in which flourishing Phoenician settlements replaced such destroyed centers as Ugarit on the coast of northern Syria. Instead of the Levant being the recipient of Aegean wares, Phoenician cities began exporting goods and services.
- In the 10th century B.C. the city state of Tyre rose to hegemony among Phoenician states and founded colonies throughout the Mediterranean region. During the same time, Tyre strengthened its influence over the northern kingdom of Israel. Phoenician influence is also to be seen in the region of Cilicia at Zinjirli where King Kilamuwa, probably Aramaean in origin, chose the Phoenician language and script for a long inscription at the front of his palace. Other Phoenician inscriptions come from the same region in the following centuries Azitiwada marked the rebuilding of his city with bilingual inscriptions in Phoenician and hieroglyphic Hittite at Karatepe. The strong Phoenician influence in Cilicia may be due to trading activities in a network including Urartu, the northern rival of Assyria in the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.
- The pace of Assyrian activity in Phoenicia quickened in the ninth century B.C. when Ashurnasirpal II, Shalmaneser III, and Adadnirari III exacted tribute and taxes from Sidon, Tyre, and other Phoenician cities. Assyria was gradually extending its control over the Levant. As a result of the far-reaching reorganization of the Assyrian Empire by Tiglathpileser III (744-727 B.C.), the nature of the impact on Phoenicia changed from one of occasional demands by raiding armies to incorporation as vassals into the empire. Many cities lost their autonomy altogether and became part of Assyrian provinces administered by governors; for example, an Assyrian province of Simyra was established by Tiglathpileser III.
- During Sennacherib's reign (705-681 B.C.) he crushed a serious revolt by coastal cities in 701 B.C. and forced Luli (Elulaeus), king of Tyre, to flee to Cyprus where he died. Later Sidon revolted against the Assyrian ruler Esarhaddon (681-669 B C.) who in 676 B.C. sacked and destroyed it and in its place built a governor's residence, called Kar-Esarhaddon, for a new Assyrian province. He also made a treaty with Baal, king of Tyre. Ashurbanipal (668-627 B.C.) laid siege to Tyre and Nebuchadnezzar besieged it for thirteen years (586-573 B.C.; Ezek. 26-28: 19).
- Sidon reemerged as the dominant city of Phoenicia in the Persian period (539-333 B.C.) and led a Phoenician contingent in the Persian wars of the early fifth century B.C., helping bridge the Hellespont and fighting at Salamis.
- Herodotus and Phoenician history
by Nina Jidejian
by Nina Jidejian
- Everyone, at some time or another, has read about the Greek and Persian wars fought during the sixth to fourth centuries B.C. What he perhaps does not know is that the Phoenicians played an important role in this great historical drama.
- The reason is simple.
- Persia is not a sea power and is land locked in Asia Minor and on the East Mediterranean coast with a formidable array of soldiers from many nations.
- The Phoenicians, on the other hand, have the fleets, the navigators, the seamen and the "know-how". Guided by the stars they sail at night over dark, dangerous, uncharted waters, guided only by the stars. An arrangement is therefore reached with the kings of the Phoenician cities to furnish a fleet to the Persians provided they are not bothered by them at home.
- Soon after Greece is invaded by Xerxes, the Persian "King of Kings". Bloody battles on land and sea follow. Sporadic fighting spreads to the Greek islands and Cyprus.
- Then in 333 B.C. Alexander the Great at the head of his Macedonian phalanxes crosses the Hellespont in pursuit of Darius Codamannus, the Persian king, thus bringing the war into Asia. City after city go over to him.
- Alexander's conquest of the East ushurs in the Hellenistic Age. With the spread of Greek culture and ideas, a new political and social order arises and travels to the farther reaches of his empire contributing to fashion the course of the modern world in which we live.
