accepting the new disclosures. The acknowledged difficul ties in the way of discovering the phonetic values of the cuneiform characters; the frequent changes by the same author in the reading of the same inscriptions; the want of agreement between different interpreters; and the illusion to which the enthusiastic explorer so easily becomes the victim —giving examples of the operation of that mental law whereby the wish becomes father to the thought, — these and kindred reflections warn us not to accept, in every case, the recent alleged discoveries with a too unquestioning confidence. Yet we have rational grounds for the conviction that something is made certain by the cuneiform decipherers. Whoever reads what they have written will feel that they are honest that their interpretations are meant to be reliable. Further, the new interpretations are, in at least a few instances, sustained by corresponding statements in authors who lived when the cuneiform character was in use. Perhaps most satisfactory of all is the fact of agreement between contemporary cuneiform tablets in Assyria and hieroglyphic inscriptions in Egypt, as independently interpreted. It weighs with us, that, saying nothing of the Hebrew chronology in which scholars are fast losing confidence, the sequence of events, as given in the Hebrew Scriptures, very generally accords with the deciphered readings of the Assyrian monuments.

The case, then, seems to stands thus:- the probabilities in favor of the authenticity of the cuneiform interpretations, as compared with the possibilities against these interpretations, warrant us in giving them at least a provisional acceptance to receive them as authentic until fresh discoveries shall compel us to substitute other interpretations, should the sequel impose such a necessity upon us.

Proceeding now to give some of the results reached by Sir Henry Rawlinson (of course, we cannot give here the processes by which he reaches these results), a brief statement of the historic signification of the term Chaldæan, takes us to the root of whatever may be deemed historical pertaining to the ancient Asiatic empires. We have seen that most of the former antiquarians understood by the word Chaldæan, the recognition of a particular race in Babylonia distinct from Babylonians - which race immigrated, at some

indefinite period, from the Armenian mountains: and which, through superior culture and skill, gradually rose to importance; and finally, on the downfall of Assyria in about B. C. 747 (though possibly more than a century later) attained political ascendency in Babylon, founding the dynasty of which the greatest monarch was Nebuchadnezzar. The facts as now discovered, chiefly by philological means, both expose and explain the falsity of these beliefs. One of the tribes which inhabited Babylonia from the earliest time was the Akkad, of which tribe, or race, the Chaldæans were a branch. As the originators of science and learning-particularly the science of astronomy- the primitive Chaldæan or Akkad language became the learned language, the repository of the literature of Babylon; hence it was the fixed language of a class—" was in fact the language of science in the East as the Latin was in Europe during the middle ages4. The term Chaldæan, thus at first the name of a branch of the primitive race in Babylonia, became more particularly, in Nebuchadnezzar's time, the distinctive name of a learned class. The mistake was natural to confound this learned class with a supposed distinct and peculiarly learned race. The notion that this supposed race came from Armenia is attributable to the fact, that the Assyrian kings, in the period of Assyrian conquests in Babylonia, colonized portions of Armenia with captive Babylonians or Chaldæans. There was an immigration of Chaldæans, but involuntary, and not from, but into, Armenia. The real fact is, that the term in question has a geographical5 application; Chaldeæa being the special name of the southern portion of the territory known by the general name of Babylonia. The Chaldæans were the people inhabiting this special portion of territory from the earliest known period.

With regard to the relative antiquity of Assyria and of Babylonia, the inscriptions, as Rawlinson reads them, completely set aside the old chronology. This chronology, as one party understood it, attributes both Nineveh and Babylon, and, by consequence, both Assyria and Babylonia to the same person that is, to Nimrod, giving them an

4 See Sir Henry Rawlinson's very interesting note to Herodotus, Book I., Chapter 185, pp. 247, 248. Of course, our references to Herrodotus are, in every case, to Rawlinson's edition.

See Appendix to the same book, Essay IX. Section 9, p. 464.

antiquity of about B. C. 2200; or, as another party understood it, attributes Babylon to Nimrod, and Nineveh to Nimrod's son Ninus. This date, however, if applied not to the city of Babylon, but to the first empire in Babylonia, is substantially confirmed by Berosus, whose exact date for such an empire is B. C. 2234; also by Callisthenes, who exactly agrees with Berosus; and also by the inscriptions in the region of ancient Chaldæa; but the notion which connected the origin of Assyria with that of Babylonia or which separated them by a period of less than a century, is not only without proof, but against all probability. Rawlinson speaks with great confidence on this point. The first seat of government," he assures us, "was fixed in Lower Chaldæa, and Nineveh did not rise to metropolitan consequence till long afterwards."

With the notion of the nearly co-equal antiquity of Assyria and Babylonia, was associated another that of the political union of the two under an Assyrian name or supremacy. This notion, so far as the point of supremacy is concerned, the inscriptions exactly reverse. There was indeed at first-that is, B. C. 2234, taking the precise date given by Berosus-one empire; its seat was Chaldæa; and its ruling dynasty was Chaldæan. From this seat, the Chaldæan empire gradually extended towards the north. It was about three centuries, however, before the empire had advanced sufficiently north-had been extended over enough of the general Babylonian territory-to exchange the ial character of a Chaldæan, for the more comprehensive character of a Babylonian, supremacy; and it was full seven centuries more that is, ten centuries later than the origin of the Chaldæan empire - before the growth of the empire had got so far north as to embrace so much of the Assyrian territory, as to make an Assyrian supremacy even possible.

spec

A remarkable inscription, technically known as the "Bavarian Inscription," made by the Assyrian Sennacherib, in connection with a record made by TiglathPileser, an Assyrian king, throws great light upon the relative periods of the Babylonian and the Assyrian empires, and also gives us a fixed date-a most important item -in Assyrian history. Sennacherib tells that in his tenth year he recovered certain gods which had been carried to

Babylon, on the defeat of Tiglath-Pileser by a Babylonian army, 418 years previously. Tiglath-Pileser records that he "rebuilt a temple in the city of Asshur (an Assyrian city) which had been taken down sixty years previously, after it had lasted 641 years from the date of its foundation by Shamas-iva, son of Ismi-dagon." The tenth year of Sennacherib was B.C. 692. To this, add the 418 years previously-the date of Tiglath-Pileser's defeat, conjecturally ten years for the interval between this defeat and the rebuilding of the temple, sixty years previously for the demolition of the temple, 641 years for the duration of the temple, and conjecturally forty years for the two generations of Ismi-dagon and his son; and for a total we have B. C. 1861 for Ismidagon's accession as king of Babylon. Further, the brick legends in Lower Chaldæa reveal at least twenty other kings in the same dynastic list with Ismi-dagon, some coming before, and some after, this monarch. Of those coming before the date B. C. 1861, there are enough to carry, by reasonable conjecture, the antiquity of Chaldæa as far back as B. C. 2234, the date given by Berosus for the origin of the Chaldæan dynasty. Berosus is thus sustained by Herodotus, by Callisthenes, both of which authors apparently had good grounds for their chronological statements, and by the above computation of the figures given by the Bavarian Inscription, and by Tiglath-Pileser's record-in which figures the conjectured elements are so slight as not to affect the practical value of the result. We are therefore, in the present state of our knowledge, under obligations to accept about the year B. C. 2234 as the date of the founding in Chaldæa of the first empire in Western Asia.

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A third notion involved in the former chronology in connection with that of the co-antiquity and political unity of Babylonia and Assyria, may be considered in this connection. We refer to the belief based upon the authority of Ctesias, that the first Assyria had a duration of twelve or

6 We must all along keep in mind that there were two empires, or at least two dynasties, in ancient Assyria. When, therefore, Herodotus assigns 520 years, Berosus 526 years, and Ctesias 1306 years for the duration of Assyria, they all mean the duration of the first dynasty or empire-they never include in this period of duration the second much shorter dynasty or empire, embracing not far from two centuries.

thirteen centuries-to be precise, 1306 years. Now it is more than probable, and nearly all schemes of chronology substantially agree, that the first dynasty of the Assyrian empire came to an end about B. C. 747 (at which time Babylon established a qualified independence the date being technically known as the "era of Nabonassar "); and that the second and last dynasty closed with the destruction of Nineveh in B. C. 625. If, then, we add the 747 years to the 1306 years, we have the date B. C. 2053 for the commencement of the Assyrian kingdom. Now against this scheme we have the positive testimony of Berosus and Herodotus, confirmed by the strong negative testimony, that the ruins brought to light do not recognize the existence, at this early date, of a city, even, north of the territory embraced in Lower Chaldæa. The first seat of empire was Hur or Ur, (the modern Mugheir, and probably the same referred to in Gen. xi. 31); and the site of this city is not far north of the Persian Gulf-in the southern part not simply of the general territory of Babylonia, but the special territory of Chaldæa. In the order of time, follow other Chaldæan cities, among which are Erech (the modern Warka) and Larsa (the modern Senkereh)-the advance being steadily towards the north. The city first namedas in Babylonia, north of Chaldæa proper, is Niffer, which name occurs in the titles of Ismidagon-an indication of the growing importance of Babylonia during the Ismi-dagon epoch of the Chaldæan supremacy. Whether the building of Babylon preceded or succeeded that of Niffer, does not yet appear; it is only probable that both cities were in existence as early as the fixed date B. C. 1861. It is exceedingly improbable that either city had metropolitan importance much earlier than this date.

The most noticeable fact in this connection, is the failure to discover a single legend recognizing the existence of any city or district in Assyria up to the time of Ismi-dagon. There is, at most, a simple notice, on what is called the "Kileh-Shergat Cylinder," of the building of a temple in Asshur (the modern Kileh-Shergat) by a son of Ismidagon. This record is indeed conclusive that Assyria was coming into notice; but it is extremely probable that during the whole period of the Chaldæan dynasty-a period of about