chapter xiv

.

[300] _Ancient Assyria_, C.H.W. Johns, p. 11 (London, 1912).

[301] _The Tell-el-Amarna Letters_, Hugo Winckler, p. 31.

[302] "It may be worth while to note again", says Beddoe, "how often finely developed skulls are discovered in the graveyards of old monasteries, and how likely seems Galton's conjecture, that progress was arrested in the Middle Ages, because the celibacy of the clergy brought about the extinction of the best strains of blood." _The Anthropological History of Europe_, p. 161 (1912).

[303] _Census of India_, vol. I, part i, pp. 352 et seq.

[304] _Hibbert Lectures_, Professor Sayce, p. 328.

[305] _The Story of Nala_, Monier Williams, pp. 68-9 and 77.

[306] "In Ymer's flesh (the earth) the dwarfs were engendered and began to move and live.... The dwarfs had been bred in the mould of the earth, just as worms are in a dead body." _The Prose Edda_. "The gods ... took counsel whom they should make the lord of dwarfs out of Ymer's blood (the sea) and his swarthy limbs (the earth)." _The Elder Edda (Voluspa_, stanza 9).

[307] _The Story of Nala_, Monier Williams, p. 67.

[308] _Egyptian Myth and Legend_, pp. 168 _it seq._

[309] _The Burden of Isis_, Dennis, p. 24.

[310] _Babylonian Magic and Sorcery_, p. 117.

[311] _Babylonian and Assyrian Religion_, T.G. Pinches, p. l00.

[312] _The Burden of Isis_, J.T. Dennis, p. 49.

[313] _Ibid_., p. 52.

[314] _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, A. Wiedemann, p. 30.

[315] _Vedic Index_, Macdonell & Keith, vol. i, pp. 423 _et seq._

[316] _Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_, Sayce, p. 153, n. 6.

[317] _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, A. Wiedemann, p. 30.

[318] _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 95.

[319] _Babylonian and Assyrian Religion_, pp. 63 and 83.

[320] When the King of Assyria transported the Babylonians, &c., to Samaria "the men of Cuth made Nergal", _2 Kings_, xvii, 30.

[321] _Babylonian and Assyrian Religion_, p. 80.

[322] _Indian Myth and Legend_, p. 13.

[323] Derived from the Greek zōon, an animal.

[324] _The Hittites_, pp. 116, 119, 120, 272.

[325] "The sun... is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race." (_Psalm_ xix, 4 _et seq._) The marriage of the sun bridegroom with the moon bride appears to occur in Hittite mythology. In Aryo-Indian Vedic mythology the bride of the sun (Surya) is Ushas, the Dawn. The sun maiden also married the moon god. The Vedic gods ran a race and Indra and Agni were the winners. The sun was "of the nature of Agni". _Indian Myth and Legend_, pp. 14, 36, 37.

[326] Or golden.

[327] The later reference is to Assyria. There was no Assyrian kingdom when these early beliefs were developed.

[328] _Primitive Constellations_, R. Brown, jun., vol. ii, p. 1 _et seq._

[329] In India "finger counting" (Kaur guna) is associated with prayer or the repeating of mantras. The counting is performed by the thumb, which, when the hand is drawn up, touches the upper part of the third finger. The two upper "chambers" of the third finger are counted, then the two upper "chambers" of the little finger; the thumb then touches the tip of each finger from the little finger to the first; when it comes down into the upper chamber of the first finger 9 is counted. By a similar process each round of 9 on the right hand is recorded by the left up to 12; 12 X 9 = 108 repetitions of a mantra. The upper "chambers" of the fingers are the "best" or "highest" (uttama), the lower (adhama) chambers are not utilized in the prayer-counting process. When Hindus sit cross-legged at prayers, with closed eyes, the right hand is raised from the elbow in front of the body, and the thumb moves each time a mantra is repeated; the left hand lies palm upward on the left knee, and the thumb moves each time nine mantras have been counted.

[330] _Primitive Constellations_, R. Brown, jun., vol. ii, p. 61; and _Early History of Northern India,_ J.F. Hewitt, pp. 551-2.

[331] _Rigveda-Samhita,_ vol. iv (1892), p. 67.

[332] _Vedic Index_, Macdonell & Keith, vol. ii, pp. 192 _et seq._

[333] _Indian Myth and Legend_

[334] Pp. 107 _et seq._

[335] _Primitive Constellation_, R. Brown, jun., vol. i, 1. 333. A table is given showing how 120 saroi equals 360 degrees, each king being identified with a star.

[336] "Behold, his majesty the god Ra is grown old; his bones are become silver, his limbs gold, and his hair pure lapis lazuli." _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians,_ A. Wiedemann, p. 58. Ra became a destroyer after completing his reign as an earthly king.

[337] As Nin-Girau, Tammuz was associated with "sevenfold" Orion.

[338] _Babylonian and Assyrian Life_, pp. 61, 62.

[339] Herodotus (ii, 52) as quoted in _Egypt and Scythia_ (London, 1886), p. 49.

[340] _Babylonian Magic and Sorcery_, L.W. King (London, 1896), pp. 43 and 115.

[341] _Vedic Index_, Macdonell & Keith, vol. ii, p. 229.

[342] _Ibid_ vol. i, pp. 409, 410.

[343] _Ibid_ vol. i, p. 415.

[344] _Primitive Constellations_, vol. i, p. 343.

[345] _Custom and Myth_, pp. 133 _et seq._

[346] Dr. Alfred Jeremias gives very forcible reasons for believing that the ancient Babylonians were acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes. _Das Alter der Babylonischen Astronomie_ (Hinrichs, Leipzig, 1908), pp. 47 _et seq._

[347] _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria_, pp. 207 _et seq._

[348] _A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians_, p. 93.

[349] _Babylonians and Assyrians: Life and Customs_, pp. 219, 220.

[350] _Primitive Constellations_, vol. ii, pp. 147 et seq.

[351] The Aryo-Indians had a lunar year of 360 days (_Vedic Index_, ii, 158).

[352] _A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians_, p. 94.

[353] _Twelfth Night_, act ii, scene 5.

[354] _Childe Harold_, canto iii, v, 88.

[355] _Genesis_, x, 11.

[356] "A number of tablets have been found in Cappadocia of the time of the Second Dynasty of Ur which show marked affinities with Assyria. The divine name Ashir, as in early Assyrian texts, the institution of eponyms and many personal names which occur in Assyria, are so characteristic that we must assume kinship of peoples. But whether they witness to a settlement in Cappadocia from Assyria, or vice versa, is not yet clear." _Ancient Assyria_, C.H.W. Johns (Cambridge, 1912), pp. 12-13.

[357] Sumerian Ziku, apparently derived from Zi, the spiritual essence of life, the "self power" of the Universe.

[358] _Peri Archon_, cxxv.

[359] _Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 197 et seq.

[360] _Julius Caesar_, act iii, scene I.

[361] _Isaiah_, xiv, 4-14.

[362] _Eddubrott_, ii.

[363] _Religion of the Ancient Egyptians_, A. Wiedemann, pp. 289-90.

[364] _Ibid_., p. 236. Atlas was also believed to be in the west.

[365] _Primitive Constellations_, vol. ii, p. 184.

[366] _Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia,_ xxx, II.

[367] _Isaiah_, xiii, 21. For "Satyrs" the Revised Version gives the alternative translation, "or he-goats".

[368] _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 120, plate 18 and note.

[369] _Satapatha Brahmana_, translated by Professor Eggeling, part iv, 1897, p. 371. _(Sacred Books of the East_.)

[370] _Egyptian Myth and Legend_, pp. 165 et seq.

[371] _Classic Myth and Legend_, p. 105. The birds were called "Stymphalides".

[372] The so-called "shuttle" of Neith may be a thunderbolt. Scotland's archaic thunder deity is a goddess. The bow and arrows suggest a lightning goddess who was a deity of war because she was a deity of fertility.

[373] _Vedic Index_, Macdonell & Keith, vol. ii, pp. 125-6, and vol. i, 168-9.

[374] _Ezekiel_, xxxi, 3-8.

[375] _Ezekiel_, xxvii, 23, 24.

[376] _Isaiah_, xxxvii, 11.

[377] _Ibid_., x, 5, 6.

[378] A winged human figure, carrying in one hand a basket and in another a fir cone.

[379] Layard's _Nineveh_ (1856), p. 44.

[380] _Ibid_., p. 309.

[381] The fir cone was offered to Attis and Mithra. Its association with Ashur suggests that the great Assyrian deity resembled the gods of corn and trees and fertility.

[382] _Nineveh_, p. 47.

[383] _Isaiah_, xxxvii, 37-8.

[384] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia,_ pp. 129-30.

[385] An eclipse of the sun in Assyria on June 15, 763 B.C., was followed by an outbreak of civil war.

[386] _Ezekiel_, i, 4-14.

[387] _Ezekiel,_ xxiii, 1-15.

[388] As the soul of the Egyptian god was in the sun disk or sun egg.

[389] _Ezekiel,_, i, 15-28.

[390] _Ezekiel_, x, 11-5.

[391] Also called "Amrita".

[392] The _Mahabharata_ (_Adi Parva_), Sections xxxiii-iv.

[393] Another way of spelling the Turkish name which signifies "village of the pass". The deep "gh" guttural is not usually attempted by English speakers. A common rendering is "Bog-haz' Kay-ee", a slight "oo" sound being given to the "a" in "Kay"; the "z" sound is hard and hissing.

[394] _The Land of the Hittites_, J. Garstang, pp. 178 _et seq._

[395] _Ibid_., p. 173.

[396] _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, chaps. v and vi.

[397] _Daniel_, iii, 1-26.

[398] The story that Abraham hung an axe round the neck of Baal after destroying the other idols is of Jewish origin.

[399] _The Koran_, George Sale, pp. 245-6.

[400] _Isaiah_, xxx, 31-3. See also for Tophet customs _2 Kings_, xxiii, 10; _Jeremiah_, vii, 31, 32 and xix, 5-12.

[401] _1 Kings_, xvi, 18.

[402] _1 Samuel_, xxxi, 12, 13 and _1 Chronicles_, x, 11, 12.

[403] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia,_ pp. 201-2.

[404] _Babylonian and Assyrian Religion_, pp. 57-8.

[405] _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 121.

[406] _Babylonian and Assyrian Religion_, p. 86.

[407] At Carchemish a railway bridge spans the mile-wide river ferry which Assyria's soldiers were wont to cross with the aid of skin floats. The engineers have found it possible to utilize a Hittite river wall about 3000 years old--the oldest engineering structure in the world. The ferry was on the old trade route.

[408] _Deuteronomy_, xxvi, 5

[409] Pr. _u_ as _oo_.

[410] The chief cities of North Syria were prior to this period Hittite. This expansion did not change the civilization but extended the area of occupation and control.

[411] Garstang's _The Land of the Hittites,_ p. 349.

[412] "Burgh of Tukulti-Ninip."

[413] Article "Celts" in _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, eleventh ed.

[414] _The Wanderings of Peoples_, p. 41.

[415] _Crete, the Forerunner of Greece_, p. 146.

[416] Pr. Moosh´kee.

[417] "Have I not brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt and the Philistines from Caphtor (Crete)?" _Amos_, viii, 7.

[418] _A History of Civilization in Palestine_, p. 58.

[419] Pinches' translation.

[420] _I Samuel_, xiii, 19.

[421] _A History of Civilization in Palestine_, p. 54.

[422] _1 Kings_, iii, 1.

[423] _Ibid_., ix, 16.

[424] _1 Kings_, v, 1-12.

[425] _Ibid_., vii, 14 _et seq._

[426] _Ibid_., x, 22-3.

[427] _Indian Myth and Legend_, pp. 83-4.

[428] _Finn and His Warrior Band_, pp. 245 _et seq._ (London, 1911).

[429] Also rendered Ashur-na'sir-pal.

[430] _A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians_, G.S. Goodspeed, p. 197.

[431] _Discoveries at Nineveh_, Sir A.H. Layard (London, 1856), pp. 55, 56.

[432] "Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem." _Solomon's Song_, vi, 4.

[433] _2 Chronicles_, xii, 15.

[434] _1 Kings_, xiv, 1-20.

[435] _Ibid._, 21-3.

[436] _2 Chronicles_, xii, 1-12.

[437] _2 Chronicles_, xiii, 1-20.

[438] _Ibid._, xiv, 1-6.

[439] _1 Kings_, xv, 25-6.

[440] _1 Kings_, xv, 16-7.

[441] _Ibid._, 18-9.

[442] _Ibid._, 20-2.

[443] _1 Kings_, xvi, 9-10.

[444] _Ibid._, 15-8.

[445] _Ibid._, 21-2.

[446] _Micah_, vi, 16.

[447] _1 Kings_, xvi, 29-33.

[448] _Ibid._, xviii, 1-4.

[449] _1 Kings_, xx.

[450] _Ibid._, xxii, 43.

[451] _2 Chronicles_, xviii, 1-2.

[452] _1 Kings_, xxii and _2 Chronicles_, xviii.

[453] _1 Kings_, xxii, 48-9.

[454] _1 Kings_, viii.

[455] _2 Kings_, ix and _2 Chronicles_, xxii.

[456] _2 Kings_, viii, 1-15.

[457] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia_, pp. 337 _et seq._

[458] _2 Kings_, x, 32-3.

[459] _Ibid._, 1-31.

[460] _2 Kings_, xi, 1-3.

[461] _2 Chronicles_, xxii, 10-12.

[462] _2 Chronicles_, xxiii, 1-17.

[463] _2 Kings_, xiii, 1-5.

[464] _The Land of the Hittites_, J. Garstang, p. 354.

[465] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia,_ T.G. Pinches, p. 343.

[466] _Nat. Hist_., v, 19 and _Strabo_ xvi, 1-27.

[467] _The Mahabharata: Adi Parva_, sections lxxi and lxxii (Roy's translation), pp. 213 216, and _Indian Myth and Legend_, pp. 157 _et seq._

[468] That is, without ceremony but with consent.

[469] _The Golden Bough_ (_The Scapegoat_), pp. 369 _et seq._, (3rd edition). Perhaps the mythic Semiramis and legends connected were in existence long before the historic Sammu-rammat, though the two got mixed up.

[470] _Herodotus_, i, 184.

[471] _De dea Syria_, 9-14.

[472] _Strabo_, xvi, 1, 2.

[473] _Diodorus Siculus_, ii, 3.

[474] _Herodotus_, i, 105.

[475] _Diodorus Siculus_, ii, 4.

[476] _De dea Syria_, 14.

[477] This little bird allied to the woodpecker twists its neck strangely when alarmed. It may have symbolized the coquettishness of fair maidens. As love goddesses were "Fates", however, the wryneck may have been connected with the belief that the perpetrator of a murder, or a death spell, could be detected when he approached his victim's corpse. If there was no wound to "bleed afresh", the "death thraw" (the contortions of death) might indicate who the criminal was. In a Scottish ballad regarding a lady, who was murdered by her lover, the verse occurs:

[478] Langdon's _Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms_, pp. 133, 135.

[479] Introduction to Lane's _Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians._

[480] Tammuz is referred to in a Sumerian psalm as "him of the dovelike voice, yea, dovelike". He may have had a dove form. Angus, the Celtic god of spring, love, and fertility, had a swan form; he also had his seasonal period of sleep like Tammuz.

[481] Campbell's _Superstitions of the Scottish Highlands_, p. 288.

[482] _Indian Myth and Legend_, p. 95.

[483] _Ibid_., pp. 329-30.

[484] _Crete, the Forerunner of Greece_, C.H. and H.B. Hawes, p. 139

[485] _The Discoveries in Crete_, pp. 137-8.

[486] _Religion of the Semites_, p. 294.

[487] _Egyptian Myth and Legend_, p. 59.

[488] Including the goose, one of the forms of the harvest goddess.

[489] _Brand's Popular Antiquities_, vol. ii, 230-1 and vol. iii, 232 (1899 ed.).

[490] _Ibid_., vol. iii, 217. The myrtle was used for love charms.

[491] _The Golden Bough_ (_Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_), vol. ii, p. 293 (3rd ed.).

[492] _Herodotus_, ii, 69, 71, and 77.

[493] _Brand's Popular Antiquities_, vol. iii, p. 227.

[494] Cited by Professor Burrows in _The Discoveries in Crete_, p. 134.

[495] Like the Egyptian Horus, Nebo had many phases: he was connected with the sun and moon, the planet Mercury, water and crops; he was young and yet old--a mystical god.

[496] _Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria_, pp. 94 _et seq._

[497] _Babylonian Magic and Sorcery_, L.W. King, pp. 6-7 and 26-7.

[498] _2 Kings_, xiii, 3.

[499] _2 Kings_, xiii, 14-25.

[500] _3 Kings_, xiii, 5, 6.

[501] The masses of the Urartian folk appear to have been of Hatti stock--"broad heads", like their descendants, the modern Armenians.

[502] It is uncertain whether this city or Kullani in north Syria it the Biblical Calno. _Isaiah_, x, 9.

[503] _2 Kings_, xv, 19 and 29; _2 Chronicles_, xxviii, 20.

[504] _2 Kings_, xviii, 34 and xix, 13.

[505] _2 Kings_, xiv, 1-14.

[506] _2 Kings_, xv, 1-14.

[507] _2 Kings_, xv, 19, 20.

[508] _2 Kings_, xv, 25.

[509] _Amos_, v.

[510] _Amos_, i.

[511] _2 Kings_, xvi, 5.

[512] _Isaiah_, vii, 3-7.

[513] _2 Kings_, xv, 3.

[514] _Isaiah_, vii, 18.

[515] Kir was probably on the borders of Elam.

[516] _2 Kings_, xvi, 7-9.

[517] _2 Kings_, xv, 29, 30.

[518] _2 Kings_, xvi, 10.

[519] In the Hebrew text this monarch is called Sua, Seveh, and So, says Maspero. The Assyrian texts refer to him as Sebek, Shibahi, Shabè, &c. He has been identified with Pharaoh Shabaka of the Twenty-fifth Egyptian Dynasty; that monarch may have been a petty king before he founded his Dynasty. Another theory is that he was Seve, king of Mutsri, and still another that he was a petty king of an Egyptian state in the Delta and not Shabaka.

[520] _2 Kings_, xvii, 3-5.

[521] _Isaiah_, xx, 1.

[522] _2 Kings_, xvii, 6.

[523] _2 Kings_, xvii, 16-41.

[524] The people carried away would not be the whole of the inhabitants--only, one would suppose, the more important personages, enough to make up the number 27,290 given above.

[525] _Passing of the Empires_, pp. 200-1.

[526] Those who, like Breasted, identify "Piru of Mutsri" with "Pharaoh of Egypt" adopt the view that Bocchoris of Sais paid tribute to Sargon. Piru, however, is subsequently referred to with two Arabian kings as tribute payers to Sargon apparently after Lower Egypt had come under the sway of Shabaka, the first king of the Ethiopian or Twenty-fifth Dynasty.

[527] _Isaiah_, xx, 2-5.

[528] Commander-in-chief.

[529] _Isaiah_, xx, 1.

[530] _The Old Testament in the Light of the Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia,_ T.G. Pinches, p. 372.

[531] _Isaiah_, xxxvii, 9.

[532] _Isaiah_, xxix, 1, 2.

[533] _2 Chronicles_, xxxii, 9-17.

[534] _2 Kings_, xix, 6, 7.

[535] _2 Kings_, xix, 35, 36.

[536] Smith-Sayce, _History of Sennacherib_, pp. 132-5.

[537] _A History of Sumer and Akkad_, p. 37.

[538] _Isaiah_, xxxvii, 8-13.

[539] _2 Kings_, xxi, 3-7.

[540] _2 Kings_, xxi, 16.

[541] _Hebrews_, xi, 36, 37.

[542] _2 Chronicles_, xxxiii, 11-3. It may be that Manasseh was taken to Babylon during Ashur-bani-pal's reign. See next chapter.

[543] Pronounce _g_ as in _gem_.

[544] _Nahum_, i, ii, and iii.

[545] _Isaiah_, xlvi, 1; xlvii, 1-15.

[546] _Nahum_, iii, 2, 3; ii, 3.

[547] Goodspeed's _A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians_, p. 348.

[548] _Nahum_, iii, 8-11.

[549] Ptolemy's Kineladanus.

[550] _Ezra_, iv, 10.

[551] _Nahum_, iii and ii.

[552] 2 _Kings_, xxiii, 29.

[553] _Ibid._, 33-5.

[554] Nebuchadrezzar is more correct than Nebuchadnezzar.

[555] _2 Kings_, xxiv, 7.

[556] _2 Chronicles_, xxxvi, 6.

[557] _2 Kings_, xxiv, 1.

[558] _2 Kings_, xxiv, 8-15.

[559] _Jeremiah_, lii, 3.

[560] _Jeremiah_, lii, 4-11.

[561] _The Laminations of Jeremiah_, i, 1-7.

[562] _Jeremiah_, lii, 31-4.

[563] _Daniel_, v, I et seq.

[564] _Psalms_, cxxxvii, 1-6.

[565] _Ezra_, i, 1-3.

[566] _Herodotus_, i, 183; _Strabo_, xvi, 1, 5; and _Arrian_, vii, 17.

[567] _Strabo_, xvi, 1-5.

[568] _Isaiah_, xxiiv, 11-4.