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The foundations of ancient Chaldea, were laid as early as those of Egypt. In fact they were the sister colonies of a parent state. The earliest civilized inhabitants were Sumerians. 5000 B. C. the land was full of city-states. The Sanskrit books of India, called Chaldea one of the divisions of Cusha-Dwipa, the first organized government of the world. These Sumerians were the inventors of the cuneiform system of writing, which was later adopted by their Semitic conquerors. In the later days their language was still cultivated in the ritualistic services until the time. of Alexander the Great. It is thought that this civilization originated from southern Susiana. The pictorial hieroglyphics which made the cuneiform characters were probably invented in Elam. In Babylonia however this culture underwent a rapid development. The northern division of Babylon was called Accad, comprehending Babylon, the southern Sumer, including Erech and Ur. North of Accad were the Semitic tribes which so largely made up the blood of Assyria in later days. The Babylonians were further mixed by Elamite and Cassite conquests.
What was the original race of these Sumerians, Cassites and Elamites? Recent explorations upon
these sites is giving much light upon the subject. The finds prove that the records and traditions of antiquity were in perfect accord with these new discoveries. The history of Babylonia like that of most nations begins with a myth; but we are beginning to realize that a deep significance lies beneath old myths. Ten kings appear in the primitive annals, corresponding with the ten patriarchs of the Hebrew Scriptures and the ten rulers of Egyptian chronology. Enormous cycles of years accompany their reigns, so do they in the Scriptures and the findings of geology accord. These come down to the Xisuthros of Greek tradition, our Noah. At his death colonies under the leadership of Titan (Nimrod), arrived in the plain of Sumer and essayed to build a tower that would scale the, sky. On this spot at Babylon stood the temple of Anu. Then in these early Babylonian traditions follow the names of Gilgamesh, the Melcarth of Tyre and the, Hercules of Greece, identified with the name of Nimrod of the Hebrews. The epic of the adventures of Nimrod, was preserved in the library at Erech and is identical with the twelve labors of Hercules. What significance lies under this common hero under the names of the greatest of the, demi-gods of Egypt and Greece?
This overlapping of the genealogy of antiquity shows that these heroes, Bel, Gilgamesh, Melcarth, Hercules, belonged to a common race. Belus (Nimrod), king of Chaldea serves to unite the Chaldeans with the Old Race of the Upper Nile, as does their building the temple of Anu,
another name of the original Cushite family. It was, for this reason that Greek and Armenian geographers applied the name of Ethiopia to Media, Persia, Susiana and Aria, or the entire region between the Indus and Tigris in ancient days. The records of the Hebrews connected the Chaldeans, Ethiopians and Egyptians in ties of kinship, and the findings of archaeological and philological research prove those records true. Rawlinson mentions a Cushite inscription found in Susiana, in which there is a date going back nearly to the year 3200 B. C. The language of later Babylon was Semitic but that of the earlier Chaldean monarchy was different, as can be proved by the inscriptions upon the ruins. They are distinctly Hamitic and like the Himyaritic of Southern Arabia.
All the earliest traditions of Chaldea center about Belus or Nimrod. We know that Nimrod was the son of Cush. Babylon had two elements in her population in the beginning. The northern Accadians and the southern Sumerians were both Cushites. The finds of recent explorations in the Mesopotamian valley reveal that these ancient inhabitants were black, with the cranial formation of Ethiopians. On linguistic grounds a relationship with Turanians proves untenable. The Turanian is one of the oldest races of the world. Some historians attempt to suggest that Noah might have had other sons after the deluge. We do not have to introduce other races to understand the Turanian family. They were an important branch of the Japhetic race just as Cush became
the name of an important branch of the Hamitic family. Once Turan and Cush occupied the greater part of Asia and Europe. The Turanians lived east of Lake Ural from remote antiquity. They possessed a peculiar civilization characterized by a gross Sabaenism. In them was complete want of moral development, though they had extraordinary advancement in some branches of knowledge. They were materialistic and incapable of having created the pure spiritual culture of the primitive, Chaldeans. Turanians had absolute sovereignty over a great part of Asia and Europe for fifteen hundred years.
Moses of Chorene, the great Armenian historian, identifies Belus, king of Babylon, with Nimrod and makes Nimrod the son of Cush. Bochart and other authorities translate the passage of the Scriptures that deals with the beginning of Nineveh to read that it was also founded by Nimrod and that he was the god Ninus of early Assyria, which in its beginning was Cushite. Moses of Chorene connects Babylonia in the closest way with Ethiopia. From the Tigris eastward the names of the country and its formations in numerous cases were in honor of Belus and Cush. Some of these names have extended down to our times as Beluchistan and Hindu Cush. The precious document Toldoth Beni Noah, said that the primitive people of Babylonia were a subdivision of the Cushite race. There is no doubt that in later ages these Ethiopians became mixed with Turanians. The art, science and culture of the earlier unmixed Chaldeans was Cushite. The
later religion became permeated with Turanian magic and the later Babylonian kingdom that was destroyed for its wickedness, was an admixture of Semitic, Arian, and Ethiopian blood.
The tendency of the modern book to make this commingling of the races extend back to earlier ages is unscientific, for all the kings whose monuments are found used the same language, professed the same religion and followed the same traditions, this proves continuity of race. It was universally attested by antiquity that from the Cushite element sprang the civilization of Chaldea. The Scriptures say that Cush begat Nimrod and that he began to be mighty upon the earth. The beginning of this kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Thus. the Bible authenticates the Cushite claim. Rawlinson says that Nimrod set up a kingdom in lower Mesopotamia that attracted the attention of surrounding nations. The people that he led probably came from the sea. Their earliest settlements were upon the coast. Ur was the primitive capital. Nimrod was king of the city where the confusion of tongues took place. The people whom Nimrod found were probably Turanians or Semites. Babylonian traditions said that they were unlettered barbarians. Cushites pushed these people back and as the traditions of the fish-god reveal, taught them the arts of civilized life. Semitic inhabitants crowded back to Nineveh, later became predominant and appeared as the fierce Assyrians.
Rawlinson decided that the ruins of Chaldea
show Cushite origin. The names of Chaldea and Ethiopia are linked in a way to render any other interpretation impossible. The great city of the earlier period was Niffer a corruption of Nimrod. The language of the ruins is radically different from the Semitic tongue of the Assyrian empire. This is the report of all investigators who have studied the ruins. Long before the day of later Babylon, the land was full of all that would make a cultivated and flourishing nation. The strength of Nimrod's character and the greatness of his achievements are remarkably indicated by a variety of testimonies, which place him among the foremost characters of the ancient world. At least as early as the time of Moses, his name had passed into proverb. He was known as the mighty hunter before the lord. In his own nation he was deified and continued down to the latest times as the chief object of worship. In Arabian tradition Nimrod played a conspicuous part. Orion in the Arabian astronomy bears his title. His name lives in the tales of the people of Chaldea today. Wherever a mound is to be seen in Babylon or the adjoining countries, the local tradition attaches to it the name of Nimrod. The most striking ruins of the upper and lower Mesopotamian valley are thus made the monuments of his glory.
Indisputable proofs of the extreme antiquity of Chaldea have been unearthed. These evidences show that under the oldest cities lie the successive foundations of still older cities, seemingly stretching back into the antediluvian world. This
substantiates the vast cycles of time included in the Babylonian chronology and the claims of the legend of the deluge upon the Babylonian tablets, which says that the survivors of the flood returned and rebuilt upon the old foundations of Babylon, which had gone down in the general destruction. Rawlinson says that the race of Nimrod passed from east Africa by way of Arabia to the valley of the Euphrates before the beginning of history. Loftus speaks of this powerful stream of colonization from the south. The emigrants were called Accadians, the Accad of Genesis. Delineations found among the ruins of Nineveh, on the walls of the palaces, prove that their were two Ethiopian types, one the ancient Cushite and another a heavy southern face having the protuberant lips, the receding forehead, broad thick nose and crisp hair of Africa. These were the native inhabitants of Susiana as well as Babylon. These were the lineaments of the inhabitants of the Upper Nile--the Old Race of Egypt. Berosus, the Manetho of Babylon, who flourished at the time of Alexander's conquests, a priest of Bel, translated the records and astronomy of his nation into Greek. His works have unfortunately perished; but we have quotations of his in other authentic writings. His history of the deluge is almost identical with the one of the cuneiform tablets. Berosus wrote a history of the Chaldeans in nine books. He gave the oldest traditions of The human race. We do not possess his works, only fragments remain in the writings of the Greek, Hebrew and Roman fathers.
[paragraph continues] We can no longer claim that tradition does not stand for actual happenings in the life of a race. Men once claimed that ancient Troy was a myth and that the Labyrinth of Minos was fiction; but archaeologists have unearthed the Troy of the Greek legends and the Labyrinth of Crete. Berosus mentioned Median and Arabian dynasties that ruled over Chaldea. The Medians were, Baldwin thinks, the Midianites of Arabia, for this was ages prior to the Medes of history. The Arabian dynasties were of the race of Southern Arabia for the language of the Chaldean inscriptions is the same as that of the South Arabian, called Himyaritic.
Berosus begins his story of Chaldean times with the primitive era, when a multitude of barbarous men of various tribes inhabited the Mesopotamian valley. These were very probably Turanian and Semites. The Japhethic people were not far from this first center of human life and we know that Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldeans. In the beginning Berosus said, that these men lived Eke animals without any order of government. Bel (Nimrod), god of the Chaldees and later Babylonians, saw the fruitfulness of the land. He sent to them from the sea, a fearful fish by the name of Onan. This was a ship which appeared to these barbarous people as a great fish. Its image half man and half fish is still preserved. It represents men who came to these untutored people by water. These primitive people of the Mesopotamian valley had not yet conquered the sea and this happening was
perpetuated from generation to generation as they were first impressed. Then this vessel might have had a fish shape. The early Cushite navigators used the figures of animals upon the prows of their ships. The symbol of dolphins always accompanied Bacchus, whom the ancients identified with Nimrod, the word meaning son of Cush.
The tradition continues: this animal came up at morning out of the sea and passed the day with men; but it took no nourishment and at sunset went again into the sea; where it remained for the night. This was because they were civilized people who could not subsist upon such food as these savages ate, but were fed in their own ship. The fish taught men language, science, the harvesting of seeds and fruits and rules for the boundries of lands. They gave to them the mode of building temples and cities, arts, writing, and all that pertains to the civilization of men. We learn from the Babylonian inscriptions that Anu the Babylonian god, was also the fish-god Oannes. This Anu was king of the lower world. His worship was very ancient and the chief seat was at Erech. At Nipper we find the name Tel-Anu. This fish race by the same peaceful methods had carried its civilization to Egypt of which Chaldea was but a sister state. The Anu of Upper Egypt were the only race at this early stage of the world in possession of the arts of civilization. Turanians and Semites were barbaric nomads as late as Persia and the conquests of Assyria. Turanians were still uncivilized when Christ was born.
This early tradition and the image of the fish-god,
the sea-god of the Babylonians, worshipped on down through the ages, stands for a historic happening in the life of an undeveloped and untutored people. It was an age when every unexplained wonder was seen as a god. It was the totemic emblem that is seen among so many of the African races. This ship bringing civilized people to the untaught Turanians and Semites, who introduced the arts to these aborigines, proves that civilization did not originate in Chaldea, that it did not spring from the Turanian or Semitic races, or from Egypt, but came from elsewhere. It shows that Chaldea was not the original Cushite country but that civilization must have sprung from a parent root where it had developed during the long ages. In the Chaldean inscriptions the vernacular name of Ethiopia was Mirukh, and its maritime enterprise was very distinctly recognized. This civilization brought by Cushites to Chaldea must have developed in that first common cradle of mankind that the Greeks located upon the Upper Nile.
M. de Bohn tells us in Early Cushite Navigation, that the Cushite Ethiopians in primitive ages were a commercial people. It was due to their conquest of the sea that they so early covered three continents with colonies. With their ships they had in ancient days circumnavigated the globe, bequeathing maps, charts, and nautical instruments to their cousins and successors the Phoenicians, who called themselves Ethiopians. Cushite supremacy was everywhere marked by progress in the industries and science, with myths
peculiar and original to the Cushite mind. These pushed back the original inhabitants of Chaldea everywhere except in the west, which afterwards became conquering Assyria. In the long course of ages these Cushites multiplied and built up the many cities of the Mesopotamian coast. One of these cities was named Kush. The Assyrians of historic times show how much their race was intermingled with Ethiopian blood for the sculptures represent them with wool hair waved.
The oldest cities of Chaldea were Ur, Eridu, Larsa, and Erech in the neighborhood of the Persian Gulf. These waters stretching out invited them to navigation and trade with distant states. Ur was built at the mouth of the Euphrates. It is now one hundred and fifty miles inland, the Persian Gulf having retired one foot in seventy years. Think to what remote antiquity this assigns Chaldea. The great temple of the moon-god was the oldest in the country. Ra-Zeus-Ammon was considered the sun god. An earlier worship was of the moon. It was of the Soudan. The moon god was considered father of the sun god. Moon worship took precedence over sun worship; but as the Cushite colonies grew stronger the worship of Ammon took precedence. Ammon-Ra was Cush. In the earliest ages the moon was considered king over the lesser rulers. Chaldea was filled with temples of vast size dedicated to Istar and Bel, the Isis and Osiris of Egypt. Ur rose to the leadership uniting the principalities of Chaldea. The hypothesis that Babylon was ruled by an Aryan dynasty was strictly contradicted by
[paragraph continues] Berosus and the records disentombed from the ruins. "Aryans," says Lenormant, "at this stage of the world had not yet crossed the great Sargartean desert."
Chaldea could not have been Semitic for there was difference in race between Assyria and Babylonia. The northern country in later times must have been overrun and conquered by the restless tribes of Semitic Arabians that in still later days formed the Saracenic conquest. By the time of the latter Babylonian empire, Assyria had become predominantly Semitic. Diodorus Siculus spoke of Chaldea and Assyria as two separate and hostile nations distinct in every way in early times. Pliny draws a clear line between them. Classical traditions connect the primitive inhabitants of Assyria, Chaldea and Susiana, with Ethiopia. Æschylus and Herodotus regarded the Ethiopian king Memnon as the founder of Susa. At the same time he was claimed by the Ethiopians of the Upper Nile as their sovereign. Egypt claimed Pharaoh under the name of him as her ruling Pharaoh under the name of Amenhotep III, the Amenophis of the Greeks. His statute was known in Egypt as the Vocal Memnon. He perished at the Siege of Troy, after greatly distinguishing himself. Sometimes the expedition, that he led to the defense of the Trojan city is thought to have proceeded by way of Egypt from Ethiopia in Africa. There were palaces called Memnon at Susa and in Egypt. There were tribes called Memnon at Meroe. This common name thus unites me eastern and western
[paragraph continues] Ethiopians of Asia and Africa as but parts of a common empire.
The original name of Nippur was Belus, it was the capital of Chaldea during the most important part of its existence and perhaps the longest. As early as 4500 B. C. kings reigned there. Sargon of Agade flourished about 3800 B. C. He was the head of one of the Cushite-Arabian waves of conquest. He was one of the greatest in the long line of Babylonian monarchs. More than once he attacked Elam successfully. His empire extended from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. He founded the city of Babylon. His kingdom was but a portion of the ancient realm of the Cushites, now broken into segments of which the Ægean, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Babylonian and Hindu nations were the parts of what in earlier ages had been a common empire. The legends about Sargon told of his winning the favor of Isthar (Isis) common to the worship of all these nations. The next great name in the line of monarchs is Hammurabi, who reigned about 2500 B. C. and was contemporary with Abraham. He expelled the Elamites from Babylonian soil and in reward was acknowledged king of all Babylonia. Gibbon calls him more than conqueror. He was a consummate statesman as well. He organized his kingdom upon so sure a foundation that his work endured for nearly two thousand years.
Hammurabi showed all the traits of Cushite genius. He cleaned out and cut out new canals and brought the system of irrigation to a high degree of efficiency. He built great embankments
to protect the land from devastating floods. Throughout Babylonia he built and adorned the temples of the gods. He codified the laws and established courts of justice everywhere. He gave personal attention to the administration of the law. Babylonians of later days looked back upon the reign of Hammurabi as the golden age of their history. About 1750 B. C. Babylon was overrun by swarms of invaders called Kasshu or Cassites, who poured down from the mountains to the north of Babylon between Elam and Media. They subdued the whole land and established a dynasty lasting, according to the chronology, for 576 years. For a long time the rulers of Babylonia bear Cassite names and a number of Cassite divinities found a place in the Babylonian pantheon. The unchanging type of the inscriptions in form of writing bear out the belief now growing that these Cassites were but a late emigration of Cushites from the western branch of the race, scattered around the Ægean Sea, who were the people of Greece in the prehistoric ages. The correspondence between these Cassite kings and the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty about 1400 B. C. and the fact that the royal houses were united by marriage again shows the Cushite relationship.
Let us examine ancient testimony to see if we can find the real origin of these Cassites. It was a race name of the original Chaldeans. Ezra V., 12, links the name Chaldean with the name Casdim. Daniel IX, 1, says that when the Babylonian army besieged Jerusalem it was the army of the
[paragraph continues] Chaldee or Casdim. Taylor thought the Babylonians and the Casdim the same people. The races moved eastward from Kedem. Bryant in his Ancient Mythology, Vol. III, p. 226, fixes Kedem in the Caucasus. This more and more seems to he the center from which the three races emigrated, or near it. Let us look into the Caucasus and see if we can find the name Casdim. There today we find lingering remnants of the Iberians (ancient Cushites of Europe). Wilford in the Asiatic Researches, Vol. VI, p. 455, says that Ptolemy called the most ancient race of the Caucasus, Cassia or Chasas. They occupied this range from its eastern limits on the Euxine Sea to the confines of Persia. They are often mentioned in the sacred books of the Hindu and their descendants still inhabiting these regions are called Cassia to this day. One Cassite king of Babylon married an Assyrian princess. Their reign came to an end about 1207 B. C.
To what race did be Casdim belong? Sanchoniathon said that their great ancestor was Chasa or Chasya who lived before the Hood and gave his name to the mountains that he seized upon. Some of the Greek legends centered about the Caucasus. This name Caucasus or Coh-Cas extended from India to the Mediterranean. The borders of Persia were inhabited by the Cassaei, there was a Mount Cassius on the border of Egypt and another in Syria. The titles of Cassius and Cassiopaeus are nearly synonymous with Jupiter, the god of Rome. The Casdim are a people mentioned in the Institutes of Menu of
[paragraph continues] India and their ancestor was Zeus-Cassius who lived before the flood. Jupiter of Rome was the Zeus of the Greeks and Zeus-Ammon or Amen-Ra of Egypt. One of the appellations of Zeus was Æthiops (Ethiopian), 1 the ancients also said that Zeus-Ammon was the Biblical Cush who ruled over the ancient Cushite Empire of Ethiopians, which in the earliest ages extended its colonies over three worlds. After he had seized the Caucasus, a considerable division of the people emigrated to Babylon, probably under Nimrod son of Cush. Thus we link the Cassites of the later emigrations with the earlier Chaldeans.
Let us look at the country directly north of Babylonia. Assyria until late ages was simply a province of Babylonia, and another proof that all these possessions were Cushite lay in the fact that all these northern towns had Accadian names. Accad was one of the primitive divisions under Nimrod. Many authorities translate Genesis X, 2, to read, "Out of that land, he (Nimrod) went forth into Assur or Assyria, and builded Nineveh." This is the proper translation of the passage and not that "Asher went forth and builded Ninevah," the connection is broken and destroyed by the latter mode of rendering. Asher a son of Shem being inserted among the descendants of Ham, and an event of his history narrated before his birth, first mentioned in verse 22. Mic. V, 6, calls Assyria, the land of Nimrod. Diod. Sic. II, 1., calls the founder of the kingdom Ninus.
In the unearthed remains we find the language of the records of the early kingdom the old Hamitic language of the Chaldeans. In later ages it became merely the language of the priests and scholars. The language of olden times changed to the Arabic of encroaching Semitic peoples. That on the ruins has the same origin as Hebrew; yet only in the time of Ashurbanipal were translations made in vernacular. These things prove that Assyria was colonized from Chaldea. The oldest bricks are stamped with Babylonian characters.
These inscriptions show that the northern country was only a province of Babylonia from which country she received her governors. Assyria had no chronology of her own until 1400 B. C. and no certainly established date until 930 B. C. Her line of rulers intermarried with the ruling families of Babylon. We see the title Bel one of the gods of the lower kingdom added to the Assyrian line of kingly names. On the, Assyrian inscriptions we read "Bel-Lush" and very early "Bel-Kepi." This name was in the Chaldean titles. Some have thought Belus to have been Jupiter, others that Belus was Nimrod, or Hercules. In both countries the external forms of worship were alike. The special god Ashur was unknown in the south. He must have been a name of the Hamitic line or one of the Semitic line of conquerors. No temple was ever built in his honor. We find the worship of Anu and Vul coincident with the founding of the empire. The moon-god Sin stood at the head of the deities of
[paragraph continues] Assyria. He was connected with the beginnings of life. As in Chaldea, this divinity outranked the sun-god Shames. These earlier inhabitants of Assyria had descended from the mountains north of Elam from whence the Casdim came. The chief Assyrian towns were built by them. These people were very different from the later Assyrian race.
The Assyrian monuments were full of the pride and conceit of half savage conquerors. They boasted of their deeds and belittled other nations. They were nothing in original culture. The Assyrians at the time of their conquests were great in invention of engines of war and in the organizing, equipping and training of armies. About 1300 B. C. we find Tig-lath-Adar signing himself as the conqueror of Babylon. Another king was Bel-Kudur, his line was unbroken until 1070.B. C. He carried on destructive wars against Babylon.
1000 B. C, they had extended themselves into Syria, this was in the time of David and Solomon. The armies of Tiglath Pileser I, 1130 B. C. had swept eastward and westward. He conquered many nations just emerging from barbarism. We find him restoring the temple of Anu out of the spoils of conquest. His relations with Babylon were at first friendly. Finally the southern country was invaded. He met feeble resistance but returning they were pursued by Merodach Iddin, the gods of Ashur were captured and carried to Babylon where they remained for four hundred years. Up to the year 889 B. C. there was a break in the records. 883 there was a renewal
of vigor. 770 B. C. Pul made his appearance on the borders of Israel. Under Shalmaneser they reached their most flourishing point. Israel allying herself to Egypt refused to pay tribute. 720 B. C. the Assyrian king transported the inhabitants of Samaria to Mesopotamia, Assyria and Media.
Sargon the next king undertook the conquest of Egypt. These hosts were withdrawn from Egypt. Under his successor Media became independent, Babylon attempted to break away. Assyria was weakening and Nineveh fell under the combined armies of Media and Babylon. The ruins of Nineveh and three other distinct cities so near as to have been mistaken for one city, covered an oblong space 18 miles by 12 miles. This was ten times the area of London. Diodorus Siculus said that the suburbs of these places were so near that the whole region seemed one vast city. Xenophon said that the walls were 150 feet high and fifty feet thick so that three chariots could ride abreast on the top of the wall. The city was guarded by a moat which in one place was 200 feet broad and of great depth. Thirty miles from Nineveh was Nimrud (Nimrod). It covered an area of 1000 acres one half the extent of Nineveh. Xenophon said that these walls were one hundred feet high and twenty-five feet thick. The prostration and final weakness of Assyria sprang from the Scythic scourge, the monstrous brood from the north that swept like a disastrous flood over the southern civilizations. Attracted by the accumulated treasures and luxury
of Assyria they sucked her very life's blood, that was already infested by luxury and license. It was left to the hardier Persians to deliver civilization.
The later religious beliefs of the Assyrians seemed to have but little influence upon their conduct. They broke their treaties with impunity. The spirituality of the old religion had flown, they had become materialists, even in their prayers. They sought favor of the gods by costly gifts. They sacrificed and spent seasons in times of calamity in religious fasting in which they made the beasts take part. They looked upon religion as politic and businesslike, and seemed to be but imitators of the southern race from whom the foundations of their earlier life had been laid. In science and literature they but copied and edited the contents of the Chaldean libraries. Had the Semitic race with which in later days they seemed so much intermingled been the race that gave civilization to the Mesopotamian lands, they would have been above imitation. Assyria had stone in abundance but down to the end of her dominion she used brick in slavish pattern after her neighbor at the south who did not have stone. The Babylonians were innately religious. Rich temples were devoted to the gods. In Assyria the temples were but mere annexes to the palaces and not like the earlier ones to Anu and Bel. Babylonia gave extreme attention to burial. Assyria had no tombs. The vast necropolis: at Erech astonishes us with its
innumerable graves. The potters of Babylon were largely employed in making clay coffins.
The Assyrians excelled as manufacturers; and foundationally had the blood of the old race. Conquest brought to them the skilled artisans of many nations. These were the producers of very much of her skilled wares. Ridpath (Vol. I, p. 199) names vases, jars, dishes and bottles of glass, bronzes, ornaments of ivory and pearl, engraved gems and broaches; rings and bells, musical instruments--cornets, flutes, harps--and implements of the house and field such were the products of Nineveh. Whatsoever the ancient soldier bore in beating down the enemy, in besieging his town, in leading him captive from the battle, or in warding off his thrusts and blows, were produced in inexhaustible stores. In their architectural skill and mechanical genius we see the old Cushite race, it was not from the Arab in these early ages of Semitic strain to whom we can look for any development. The Saracen of a thousand years later was still a rude wanderer, saving as here in the Mesopotamian lands he had intermingled with the original inhabitants of Assyria; and when the Saracen made his sweeping conquests westward it was only to carry the precious seeds of the civilization of India, Babylonia and Egypt. Their leaders and teachers were the Cushite Arabians of the Hamitic race. India has not perished, she has the records proving these things to be true.
We must decide that Semitic infusion helped Assyria to be a race of military pursuits. The
blood of the Bedouin showed in their fierceness. The southern and all purely Cushite nations were ones of peaceful pursuits. The men of the north were hook-nosed, larger framed, and delighted in blood and gore. Like the later Saracens they were perfect fighting machines. The ancient historian tells us that they transported and dispersed conquered nations with unimaginable sufferings. Frightful tortures were their deliberate policy. They exulted in transcribing the details of their fiendish deeds of cruelty. In the Chaldean we see the statute of the Ægean races and their genius. The southern race was shrewd, earnest. industrious, creative and humane. The Assyrian and Babylonian empires at their zenith represented all the difference of distinctive races. The rule of Assyria though extended, was very short compared to the length of the Cushite empire. Her strength was wasted by constant wars. She had waged most of them to crush her commercial rivals. After twenty years of subjection Egypt broke away. Twenty more and Babylon followed. Assyrian conquests were but an orgy of frightfulness, where they flayed alive, buried alive in living pyramids, others they impaled on stakes. They utterly destroyed rich cities, depopulated vast districts, in contrast to the Babylonians who spread the arts of civilization to prosperous and widely extended colonies.
175:1 Eustathius, Schol. in Homerum.