THE DYNASTIC TABLETS AND
CHRONICLES OF THE BABYLONIANS
BY
THE EDITOR
CHRONOLOGY is
the skeleton of history, and until we can find the correct chronological
place for a historical monument it loses a large part of its value. Thanks
to the lists of the so-called eponyms, by means of whom the Assyrians dated
their years, the chronology of the Assyrian kings has long since been placed
upon a satisfactory footing as far back as the tenth century before our
era. The dates, moreover, assigned by Sennacherib to Tiglath-Pileser I.
(B.C. 1106), and Tukulti-Uras, the son of Shalmaneser I. (B.C. r 290),
as well as the lengthy genealogies with which these kings are connected,
enable us to extend Assyrian chronology back for another five hundred years,
though, of course, with only approximate accuracy.
While our knowledge of Assyrian chronology,
however, has thus been tolerably fixed for a long time past, we have had
to depend upon the vague and contradictory statements of Greek writers
for [2] our knowledge of the chronology of the older kingdom of Babylonia.
Apart from the invaluable table of kings known as Ptolemy's Canon, which
belongs to the later period of Babylonian history, and the unsatisfactory
list of dynasties excerpted from an epitomist of Bêrôssos,
our only monumental authorities for Babylonian chronology were the Assyrian
inscriptions themselves, together with a few fragments of a dynastic tablet
brought to light by Mr. George Smith and the so-called Synchronous History
of Assyria and Babylonia, of which I published a translation in the former
series of Records of the Past (vol. iii.) This" Synchronous History"
was composed by an Assyrian scribe, and consists of brief notices of the
occasions on which the kings of the two countries had entered into relation,
hostile or otherwise, with one another. Since my translation was published
in 1874, another large fragment of the tablet has been discovered, and
accordingly I purpose giving a new translation of the whole document in
a future volume of the present series. The "Synchronous History" gives.
no dates, and consequently its chronological value depends upon our knowledge
of the respective dates to which the Assyrian monarchs mentioned in it
belong.
Within the last few years a number of discoveries
due to Mr. Pinches has entirely changed our position in regard to the chronology
of the Babylonian kings. As I have already stated, Mr. Smith found among
the tablets brought from the royal library of Nineveh [3] a small fragment
which, as he perceived, contained the names and regnal years of the kings
of Babylonia, arranged in dynasties. The work to which it belonged must
accordingly have been similar to that from which Bêrôssos derived
his dynastic list of Chaldean monarchs. Mr. Smith published the fragment,
with a translation and commentary, in the Transactions of tfte Society
of Biblical Archaology, iii. 2 (1874). It is written on both sides,
and the tablet once consisted of six columns, each containing about seventy
lines. I will call it the "Third Dynastic Tablet." The next discovery was
made by Mr. Pinches six years later among the inscriptions brought from
the site of Babylon by the overseer of Mr. Hormuzd Rassam. He found among
them a small tablet of unbaked clay, quite complete and inscribed on both
sides. . It contains the names of the kings belonging to two early dynasties,
the number of years reigned by each king being added to the names in the
case of the first dynasty. The tablet seems to be a sort of schoolboy's
exercise, having been copied from some larger work in order to be committed
to memory. The Reverse has been published by Mr. Pinches in the Proceedings
of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 7th December 7th 1880, and
I will call it the" First Dynastic Tablet."
Another and more important document - the "Second
Dynastic Tablet "-was published by Mr. Pinches, with a translation and
explanation, in the [4] Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology,
6th May 1884. This is also a tablet of unbaked clay from Babylonia, and
it contains a list of the Babylonian sovereigns, arranged in dynasties,
from the first dynasty which made the city of Babylon the capital down
to the period of the Persian conquest. The number of regnal years is added
to the name of each king and the length of time each dynasty lasted is
duly recorded. The names of some of the kings are written in an abbreviated
form: this is especially the case with those belonging to the second dynasty.
The list, it will be observed, is confined to the
dynasties which reigned in Babylon itself. No notice is taken of the kings
and dynasties who ruled in "Accad and Sumer" before Babylon became the
capital of the empire. The lost columns of the "Third Dynastic Tablet"·
show how numerous they were, and the fact is borne out by the bricks and
other monuments of early Chaldean monarchs whose names do not occur among
the successors of 'Sumu-abi. Most of the kings, indeed, whose names are
known to us in connection with the temples they built or restored belonged
to older dynasties than those which had their seat in the city of Babylon.
A considerable number of their names is to be found
in another tablet brought by Mr. Rassam from Assyria, and published by
Mr. Pinches in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology,
, 11th January 1881. A small portion of it had already been
published in W. A. I., ii, 65, and had given rise [5] to a good many false
conclusions. The object of this tablet was philological and not chronological;
in fact the writer expressly states that the names of the kings were "not
'written according to their chronological order." He merely wished to furnish
the Semitic or Assyro-Babylonian translations of the Accado-Sumerian and
Kassite names borne by so many of the early princes, and in some cases
of the mode in which the names of Semitic kings were pronounced or written
by their Accadian subjects.
Among the latter is the name of Sargon of Accad,
the ancient hero of the Semitic population of Chaldaea, who founded the
first Semitic empire in the country and established a great library in
his capital city of Agade or Accad near Sippara. The seal of his librarian,
Ibni-sarru, of very beautiful workmanship, is now in Paris, and has been
published by M. de Clercq (Collection de Clercq, pl. 5, No. 46),
while a copy of his annals, together with those of his son Naram-Sin, is
to be found in W. A. I., iv. 34. His date has been fixed by a passage in
a cylinder of Nabonidos discovered in the ruins of the temple of the Sun-god
at Sippara, and published in W. A. I., v. 64. The antiquarian zeal of Nabonidos
led him to excavate among the foundations of the temple in the hope of
finding the cylinder of Naram-Sin, who was known to have been the founder
of it, and he tells us (col. ii. 56 seq.) :-
" I sought for its old foundation-stone, and eighteen cubits
deep [6]
I dug into the ground, and the foundation-stone of Naram-Sin, the son
of Sargon,
which for 3200 years no king who had gone before me had seen,
the Sun-god, the great lord of E-Babara, the temple of the seat of
the goodness of his heart,
let me see, even me."
In the opinion, therefore, of Nabonidos, a king who
had a passion for investigating the past records of his country, Naram-Sin
reigned 3200 years before his own time, that is to say, about B.C. 3700.
Before the rise of the Semitic kingdom of Sargon
of Accad, lies that earlier Accado-Sumerian period when Babylonia was still
in the hands of a people who spoke an agglutinative language, such as those
of the modern Turks or Finns, and had originated the cuneiform system of
writing and the primitive civilisation of the Chaldean cities. Relics of
this ancient period have been discovered by M. de Sarzec in the mounds
of Tel-loh, and the Sumerian inscriptions which they bear are now being
deciphered by French scholars, more especially by M. Amiaud. M. Amiaud
has been good enough to introduce the historical documents of Babylonia
and Assyria to the readers of the present series of Records of the Past,
by his translations of these oldest memorials of human life and thought
in the valley of the Euphrates. If Sargon of Accad lived about B.C. 3800,
the kings of Telloh must have flourished as far back as the fourth millennium
before our era.
[7]
The last chronological document brought to light
during the last few years is in many respects the most important of all.
This is what has been termed "The Babylonian Chronicle" by its discoverer,
Mr. Pinches, who gave an abstract of it in the Proceedings of the Society
of Biblical Archaeology, 6th May 1884. Since then, the text has been
published with a translation and commentary by Dr. Winckler in the Zeitschrift
für Assyriologie, ii. 2, 3 (1887); it has also been translated
by Dr. Oppert. The tablet (which is marked 84. 2-11, 356) was brought from
Babylonia and is inscribed on both sides with four columns of text. It
was a copy or compilation made by a Babylonian in the reign of Darius from
older records, and must have been similar to the document from which Ptolemy's
Canon of Babylonian kings was extracted. Like the latter it starts from
the era of Nabonassar, B.C. 747.
The chronicle is written from a Babylonian point
of view, and must therefore be checked by contemporaneous Assyrian inscriptions.
What they describe as Assyrian successes are sometimes passed over altogether
or represented as Babylonian victories. The Assyrian kings Tiglath-Pileser
III and Shalmaneser IV are not acknowledged under the names they had adopted
from two of the most illustrious monarchs of the first Assyrian empire,
but under their original names of Pul and Ulula; Sargon, on the other hand,
whose name was that of [8] the favourite hero of Babylonian legend, is
known by the same name in the Chronicle as he is on the monuments of Assyria.
At the same time the Chronicle helps us in correcting the inaccuracies
of the Assyrian accounts, where, for example, Suzub represents both Nergal-yusezib
and Musezib-Merodach. In fact, it confirms the judgment, already expressed
by Assyriologists, that Sennacherib is the least trustworthy of the royal
historians of Assyria.
We are at present ignorant of the precise way in
which the Babylonians reckoned their chronology. In Assyria the years were
named after certain officers, ordinarily known as eponyms, who were changed
each year, and as most of the institutions of Assyria were derived from
Babylonia it is very probable that the system of counting time by the names
of the eponyms was also of Babylonian invention. How far we can trust the
dates assigned to the kings of the earlier dynasties is open to question.
The length of reign assigned to the kings of the dynasties of the sea and
of Bit-Bazi in the Second and Third Dynastic Tablets do not agree, while
the number of regnal years given to the several kings of the first dynasty
of Babylon not only plays on the same ciphers but is suspiciously long.
On the other hand, the contract-tablets belonging to the time of Khammuragas
imply that his reign was not a short one.
There is evidence in a later part of the dynastic
lists that at least one name has been omitted. Dr. Winckler has published
(in the Zeitschrift für [9] Assyriologie, ii. 3) the
commencement of an inscription from Babylonia (marked 83.1-18) belonging
to a certain king of Babylon, who calls himself Kuri-galzu the son of Kara-Urus.
Dr. Winckler shows that this must be Kuri-galzu II, and that his name ought
to occur in the list between those of Kara- Urus and Rimmon-nadin-suma.
It is quite possible that other reigns have fallen out in other parts of
the lists.
The lacuna in the Second Dynastic Tablet between
the beginning of the eighth dynasty and the commencement of the reign of
Nabonassar unfortunately prevents us from determining with certainty the
date assigned by the compiler of it to 'Sumu-abi. But there are two synchronisms
between Babylonian and Assyrian history which may serve to remedy the defect.
According to Sennacherib, Merodach-nadin-akhe defeated Tiglath-Pileser
I, 418 years before his own conquest of Babylon, that is to say, in B.C.
1106, while the "Synchronous History" makes Assur-bilkala, the son of Tiglath-
Pileser I, the contemporary of Merodach-sapik-kullat, and Assur-dan the
great-grandfather of Tiglath-Pileser I, the contemporary of Zamama-nadin-suma,
the father of Assurdan being contemporaneous with Rimmon - [sumanatsir
?]. If Mercdach-nadin-akhe is the ninth king of the dynasty of Isin, the
date of Zarnarna-nadin-suma will be B.C. 1160, agreeing very well with
the period to which the end of the reign of Assur-dan should be assigned.
In this case Sagasalti-buryas, who flourished 800 years before Nabonidos,
will not [10] be identical with the Saga-sal[tiyas] of the dynastic list.
The reign of Khammuragas will have commenced B.C. 2282, the first dynasty
of Babylon establishing its power there in B.C. 2394.
We learn from the inscriptions of Khammuragas that
he was the first of his dynasty to rule over the whole of Babylonia. A
rival dynasty had previously reigned at Karrak in the south, while the
Elamites had invaded portions of the country and probably held them in
subjection. Assur-bani-pal states, that the Elamite king Kudur - Nankhundi
had carried away the image of the goddess Nana from Babylonia 1635 years
before his own time, or about B.C. 2285, and contract-tablets refer to
the conquest of "the lord of Elam and King Rim-Agu" of Kanak by Khammuragas.
A large number of contract-tablets, indeed, belong not only to the reigns
of Kharnrnuragas and his son Samsu-iluna, but also to the reign of Rim-Agu,
who seems to have been master of the greater part of Chaldaea before his
overthrow by the king of Babylon. George Smith was probably right in identifying
him with the son of the Elamite prince Kudur-Mabug, who ruled at Larsa
and claimed the imperial title of "king of Sumer and Accad."
The rise of the empire of Khammuragas brought with
it a revival of learning and literature such as had marked the rise of
the empire of Sargon. The calendar appears to have been reformed at this
period, and the great native work on astronomy and astrology put into the
shape in which it has come down to us. The reign thus formed an era somewhat
similar to that of Nabonassar, and it is therefore curious to see how closely
the date I have assigned to it corresponds with that arrived at by von
Gutschmidt from classical sources for the beginning of the Babylonian epoch.
If the Latin translation can be trusted (Simplicius ad Arist. de Caelo,
503 A), the astronomical observations sent by Kallisthenes from Babylon
to Aristotle in B.C. 331 reached back for 1903 years (i.e. to B.C.
2234). Bêrôssos the Chaldean historian, according to Pliny
(N.H. vii. 57), stated that these observations commenced
at Babylon 490 years before the Greek era of Phoroneus, and consequently
in B.C. 2243. According to Stephanos of Byzantium, Babylon was built 1002
years before the date (given by Hellanikos) for the siege of Troy (B.C.
1229), which would bring us to B.C. 2231, while Ktesias, according to George
Syncellus, made the reign of Belos or Bel-Merodach last for fifty-five
years from B.C. 2286 to 2231. The fifty-five years of Belos agree with
the fifty-five of Khammuragas.
I add here the Canon of Babylonian kings given by
Ptolemy in the Almagest.
| |
|
B.C. |
| 1. |
Nabonassar (Nabu-natsir), 14 years |
747 |
| 2. |
Nadios (Nadinu), 2 years |
733 |
|
3.
|
Khinziras and Poras (Yukin-zira and Pul), 5 years |
731 |
|
4.
|
Iloulaios or Yougaios1 (Ulula), 5 years |
726 |
|
5.
|
Mardokempados (Merodach-baladan), 12 years |
721 |
|
6.
|
Arkeanos (Sargon), 5 years |
709 |
|
7.
|
Interregnum for 2 years2 |
704 |
|
8.
|
Belibos (Bel-ebus),3 3 years |
702 |
|
9.
|
Aparanadios4 (Assur-nadin-suma),
6 years |
700 |
|
10.
|
Regebelos (Nergal-yusezib), I year. |
694 |
|
11.
|
Mesesimordakos (Musezib-Merodach), 4 years. |
693 |
|
12.
|
Interregnum for 8 years |
689 |
|
13.
|
Asaridinos (Esar-haddon), 13 years |
681 |
|
14.
|
Saosdoukhinos (Saul-suma-yukin), 20 years |
668 |
|
15.
|
Kineladanos (Kandalanu), 22 years |
648 |
|
16.
|
Nabopolassaros (Nabu-pal-utsur), 21 years |
626 |
|
17.
|
Nabokolassaros (N ebuchadnezzar), 43 years |
605 |
|
18.
|
Ilauaroudamos (Avil-Merodach), 2 years. |
562 |
|
19.
|
Nerigasolasaros (Nergal-sarra-utsur), 4 years |
5605 |
|
20.
|
Nabonadios (Nabu-nahid), 17 years |
556 |
1Yougaios, if it is not due to a corruption
of the text, may represent the name of Yagina, the father of Merodach-baladan.
2Filled up according to Alexander Polyhistor
by the brother of Sennacherib, by Hagisa or Akises for thirty days, and
by Merodach-baladan for six months.
3Called Elibos by Alexander Polyhistor.
4Assordanios according to Alexander Polyhistor.
5Josephus (from Berossos) here inserts Laborosoarkhodos,
the infant son of N eriglissor, for three months.