Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs by Archibald Henry Sayce (animal farm read TXT) 📖

depicted as clad in this simple costume in a bas-relief found near Diarbekr. The robe is quilted, and on the King's head is a conical cap of felt. The statues of the age of Gudea also show no sign of the tunic. The development out of the kilt must belong to a later age.

The costume of the women does not appear to have differed much from that of the men. Both alike adopted the long robe. But representations of women are unfortunately rare. The Queen of Assur-bani-pal is dressed in a long, sleeveless robe, over which is a fringed frock reaching to the knees, and over this again a light cape, also fringed and embroidered with rosettes. This may, therefore, be regarded as the official dress of a grand lady in the closing days of the Assyrian empire.

Both men and women were fond of jewelry, and adorned themselves with rings, bracelets, ear-rings, and necklaces. The women also wore anklets, like many of the Oriental women of to-day. The men carried a stick in the street, and all who could afford it had a small engraved cylinder of stone attached to the wrist by a ring which passed through an orifice in the cylinder. The cylinder served the purpose of a seal, and was constantly required in business transactions. No deed was valid without the seal or mark of the contracting parties; when either of them was too poor to possess a seal, a nail-mark was impressed upon the clay of the contract tablet, and a note added stating to whom it was that the mark belonged.

The seal-cylinder was a Babylonian invention. In a land where there were no stones every pebble was of value, and the Babylonians accordingly became expert gem-cutters at a very early period. Gem-cutting, in fact, was a highly developed art among them, and the seal-cylinder of Ibni-sarru, the librarian of Sargon of Akkad, which is now in a private collection in Paris, is one of the most beautiful specimens of the art that has ever been produced. The pebble was cut in a cylindrical shape, and various figures were engraved upon it. The favorite design was that of a god or goddess to whom the owner of the seal is being introduced by a priest; sometimes the King takes the place of the deity, at other times it is the adventures of Gilgames, the hero of the great Chaldean Epic, that are represented upon the stone. The design is usually accompanied by a few lines of inscription, giving the name of the owner of the seal, as well as that of his father, and stating of what god or King he was "the servant." The seals were often kept in stock by their makers, a blank space being left for the inscription, which was to be engraved upon them as soon as they had found a purchaser. Hence it is that at times the names have never been filled in.

The style and pattern of the cylinder changed in the course of centuries, as well as the favorite materials of which it was made. Under the dynasty of Ur, which preceded that of Khammurabi, for instance, hæmatite was more especially in vogue; in the age of Nebuchadnezzar crystal became fashionable. At one period, moreover, or among the artists of a particular local school, the representation of a human sacrifice was common. Between the inscription on the cylinder, however, and the subjects engraved upon it there is seldom, if ever, any connection, except when a portrait is given of the god or King of whom the owner calls himself the servant.

A hole was drilled through the length of the cylinder, and through this a string was passed. Instead of the string a rod of metal or ivory was often employed; this was fixed in a frame of gold or bronze, and the cylinder was thus able to turn upon it. When the seal was used it was rolled over the soft clay, leaving an indelible impression behind. Among the objects found at Tello are balls of clay, which were attached to papyrus documents, like the seals of mediæval deeds, and sealed with the cylinders of the post-masters of Sargon and Naram-Sin. Above the seal comes the address, in one case to Naram-Sin, in another to the high-priest of Lagas. It is evident that a postal system had already been established between Lagas and Agade or Akkad, the capital of Sargon's empire. The impressions show that the seals must have been very beautiful specimens of workmanship. They all belonged to high officials; one to Dada, "the seer of the palace," another to the high-priest of Lagas himself.

Great attention was paid to the hair of the head and beard. But this was more especially the case among the Semites, who were a bearded race. The older Sumerian population had but little hair upon the face, and to the last the typical Babylonian was distinguished from the Assyrian by the greater absence of beard. The result was that while the Semite encouraged his hair to grow, the Sumerian shaved it except in the case of old men. Most of the Sumerian heads which have been discovered in the excavations of Tello have smooth faces and shorn heads. The figures represented on the so-called Stela of the Vultures, one of the earliest examples of Chaldean art, are without beards, and on the early seal-cylinders the gods alone, as a rule, are permitted to wear them. We are reminded of the Egyptian custom which forbade the beard except to the King and the god. The barber, in fact, occupied an important position in ancient Babylonia, and the old Sumerian code of laws enjoins that a son who denies his father shall be shorn and sold as a slave.

With the rise of Semitic supremacy, however, there is a great change. Naram-Sin, in the bas-relief of Diarbekr, wears beard and whiskers and mustache like the Assyrians of a later day, and like them also his hair is artificially curled, though to a lesser extent. The same long beard also distinguishes Khammurabi in a piece of sculpture in which he is entitled "the king of the land of the Amorites." The gods, too, now assume a mustache as well as a beard and take upon them a Semitic character.

The use of cosmetics must have become widely spread, and many of the small stone vases in which they were kept and which have been found on the sites of Babylonian cities were doubtless intended for the hair-dresser. The oil that was poured upon the hair made it bright and shining and it was worn long whether it grew on the head or on the face. The Babylonians had long been known as "the people of the black heads," perhaps in contrast to the fairer inhabitants of the Kurdish mountains to the north, and the black hair, frizzled and curled, was now allowed to be visible. The working classes bound it with a simple fillet; the wealthier members of society protected it with caps and tiaras. But all alike were proud of it; the days were past when a beardless race had held rule in Western Asia.


CHAPTER VI. TRADES, HOUSES, AND LAND; WAGES AND PRICES


Babylonia, as we have seen, was essentially an industrial country. In spite of its agricultural basis and the vast army of slaves with which it was filled, it was essentially a land of trades and manufactures. Its manufacturing fame was remembered into classical days. One of the rooms in the palace of Nero was hung with Babylonian tapestries, which had cost four millions of sesterces, or more than £32,000, and Cato, it is said, sold a Babylonian mantle because it was too costly and splendid for a Roman to wear. The wool of which the cloths and rugs of Babylonia were made was derived from the flocks which fed on the banks of the Euphrates, and a large body of artisans was employed in weaving it into tapestries and curtains, robes and carpets. They were woven in bright and vari-colored patterns; the figures of men and animals were depicted upon them and the bas-relief or fresco could be replaced upon the wall by a picture in tapestry. The dyes were mainly vegetable, though the kermes or cochineal-insect, out of which the precious scarlet dye was extracted, was brought from the neighborhood of the Indus. So at least Ktesias states in the age of the Persian empire; and since teak was found by Mr. Taylor among the ruins of Ur, it is probable that intercourse with the western coast of India went back to an early date. Indeed an old bilingual list of clothing gives sindhu as the name of a material which is explained to be "vegetable wool;" in this we must see the cotton which in the classical epoch was imported from the island of Tylos, in the Persian Gulf, but which, as its name declares, must have originally been "the Indian" plant.

The looms and weavers of Babylonia are, as is natural, repeatedly referred to in the contracts, many of which, moreover, relate to the sale and purchase of wool. One of them even shows us Belshazzar, the son and heir-apparent of the King Nabonidos, as a wool-merchant on a considerable scale. "The sum of 20 manehs for wool," it says, "the property of Belshazzar, the son of the king, which has been handed over to Iddin-Merodach, the son of Basa, the son of Nur-Sin, through the agency of Nebo-zabit, the servant of the house of Belshazzar, the son of the king, and the secretaries of the son of the king. In the month Adar (February) of the eleventh year (of Nabonidos) the debtor shall pay the money, 20 manehs. The house of - - the Persian and all the property of Iddin-Merodach in town and country shall be the security of Belshazzar, the son of the king, until he shall pay in full the money aforesaid. The money which shall (meanwhile) accrue upon (the wool) he shall pay as interest." Then follow the names of five witnesses and a priest, as well as the date and the place of registration. This was Babylon, and the priest, Bel-akhi-iddin, who helped to witness the deed was a brother of Nabonidos and consequently the uncle of Belshazzar.

The weight of the wool that was sold is unfortunately not stated. But considering that 20 manehs, or £180, was paid for it, there must have been a considerable amount of it. In the reign of Cambyses the amount of wool needed for the robe of the image of the Sun-goddess  was as much as 5 manehs 5 shekels in weight. Wealthy land-owners kept large flocks of sheep, chiefly for the sake of their wool. Their prices varied greatly. Thus in the fourth year of Nabonidos, 6 shekels, or 18s., were given for a sheep, while in the thirteenth year of the same King, 18 sheep fetched only 35 shekels, or less than 6s., each. In the first year of Cyrus, 6 lambs were sold for 8¼ shekels, and 5 other lambs for 7¼ shekels, while 1 sheep cost only one shekel and a quarter; in his sixth year the price of a single sheep had risen to 4 shekels (12s.). Under Cambyses we find sheep selling for 7 and 7¼ shekels apiece. In the eighth year of Nabonidos, 100 sheep were sold for 50 shekels after they had been slaughtered; it is clear, therefore, that the dead animal was considered less valuable than the living one.

On the other hand, sheep cost a good deal to feed when the grazing season was over, and they had to be fed "in the stall." A document dated in the seventh year of Cyrus states that 32 sheep