The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-21
Babylonian Discoveries.

During the last few years the WorK of archaeological exploration in Baby lonia has been almost entirely confined to the labors of the American expeds- ton, who have been engaged for seve- ral years in the systematic exploration of the great mound of Nlffer, in cen tral Babylonia, the site Of the ancient city of Nipur, and to the partially re- sumed work of M. de Sarzec at Tello, the ancient Lagash. The discoveries made by these explorers have been of great importance, but they chiefly re- lated to the earliest days of the Chal- dean empire, as far back as four thou sand years before the Christian era. Important as these discoveries are, as furnishing us with the material by which to study the dawn of civilization in Chaldea, there has always been a desire that we should obtain some in scribed records, possibly historical in scriptions, of the period of the New Babylonian empire (B. c. 606-53S), es- pecially of the reigns of Nebuchadnez- gar II. and Nabonidus. With the ex- ception of the Babylonian chronicle of the reign of the latter monarch and a few historical notices in his cylinder inscriptions, we have but little indica-
 ton of the existence of historical rec-
 ords. A discovery of the greatest inl-
 portance has just been made by Fath-
 CT Scheil, who has for some time been
 exploring in Babylonia. In the Mujel- [ ibeh mound, one of the principal heaps of ruins in the enciente of Babylon, he
 has discovered a long inscription of Nabonidus, the last of the Babylonian kings (B. c. -538), which contains
 mass of historical and other data which will be of greatest value to stu
 dents of this important period of Baby lonian history. The monument in question is a small stella of diorite, the upper part of which is broken, in- scribed with eleven columns of writing, and which appears to have been erect ed early in the kings reign. It resem-
 bles in some measure the celebrated India House inscription of Nebuchad- nezzar, but is much more full of his- torical matter. Its value may be esti-
 mated when it is stated that it con- tains a record of the war of revenge conducted by the Babylonians and their Mandian allies against Assyria, for the destruction of the city by Sen nacherib, in B. c. 69S; an account of
 the election and coronation of Naboni- dus in E. c. 555, and the wonderful dream in which Nebuchadnezzar ap- Epeared to him; as we'll as an account of the restoration of the temple of the
 Moon god at Kharran, accompanied by a chronological record which enables
 us to fix the date of the so-called Scythian invasian. There is also a valuable reference to the murder of
 Sennacherib by his son in Tebet, B. c. 681.
 It will be seen, therefore, that we have thus recovered from the ruins of Babylon a most valuable record. The inscription opens with very graphical
 recital of the terrible sack of the holy city of Babylon in B. c. 69S: "Over all | this land an evil curse from his heart
 he uttered; mercy he showed not; to
 Babylon he came, he desecrated the temples, poured out the dust, erased the sculptures, and broke off the ser
 vice" Still more important is the
 statement that he took the hand of the Prince Merodach and caused him to enter into the midst of the city of Assur," where, we are told he "estab- lished his seat for twenty-on years"
 After that time he returned, as the in
 soription says. 'The King of Assyria,
 who by the power of Merodach the
 overthrow of the land had accom-
 plished, the son t%e offspring of his
 body with the sword thrust him ! through" The return of the statue of
 the god to it's temple in Babylon was
 probably the work of Esarhaddon,
 who in B. c. 677 was doing all he could
 to conciliate the Babylonians. The
 murder of Sennacherib seems to have
 caused great satisfaction in Chaldea,
 for it is mentioned also in the Babylo- njan chronicle. The second column l contains an account of the terrible re- venge exacted by the Babylonians some years after, when, assisted by the King of the Urmanda, or so-called | Medes, the Barbarians, they ravaged the whole of the south of Assyria. It
 is remarkable how Biblical is the phra-
 seology Of this passage: He (Mero-
 dach) granted him an ally and found him a companion the King of the Ur- uanda, who had no equal; he caused
 him to obey his word and to march to
 his aid. From high and low Qandl, from right and left, like a flood he
 swept, restoring satisfaction to Baby l lon." "Tukte, King of the Manda, not l fearing, caused to be thrown down the
 shrines of all the gods of Assyria and
 the cities on the frontier of Akkad and
 came not to his aid. He full l filled like deluge the word of Nero
 dach, who to princedom had called him, he lifted not his hand he comple-
 ted the curse of all the gods-he rested
 not upon his bed in sleep" It is unfor-
 tunate that the name of the Babyloni-
 an king who had for his ally Tukte the l Mandian is lost, but it was probably Nabupalassar. This seems confirmed 1 by q statement in another portion of
 the inscription, where we are told that | fifty-four years prior to commence
 ment of the reign of Nabonidus, in B.
 c. 6C9. There is no reference to Nine veh, the campaign being confined to l Assur and South Assyria, and it seems evident that this inscription does not describe the destruction of Nineveh.- ! T opTnr Ti,,aac