The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1: Chaldaea: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.Rawlinson, George
History
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1: Chaldaea: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
The remaining monarchs, who are on strong grounds of probability,
etymological and other, assigned to this dynasty are Saga-raktiyas, the
founder of a Temple of the male and female Sun at Sippara, Ammidi-kaga,
Simbar-sikhu, Kharbisikhu, Ulam-puriyas, Nazi-urdas, Mili-sikhu, and
Kara-kharbi. Nothing is known at present of the position which any of
these monarchs held in the dynasty, or of their relationship to the kings
previously mentioned, or to each other. Most of them are known to us
simply from their occurrence in a biliugual list of kings, together with
Khammu-rabi, Kurri-galzu, and Purna-puriyas. The list in question
appears not to be chronological.
Modern research has thus supplied us with memorials (or at any rate with
the names) of some thirty kings, who ruled in the country properly termed
Chaldaea at a very remote date. Their antiquity is evidenced by the
character of their buildings and of their inscriptions, which are
unmistakably rude and archaic. It is further indicated by the fact that
they are the builders of certainly the most ancient edifices whereof the
country contains any trace. The probable connection of two of them with
the only king known previously from good authority to have reigned in the
country during the primitive ages confirms the conclusion drawn from the
appearance of the remains themselves; which is further strengthened by
the monumental dates assigned to two of them, which place them
respectively in the twenty-third and the nineteenth century before our
era. That the kings belong to one series, and (speaking broadly) to one
time, is evidenced by the similarity of the titles which they use, by
their uninterrupted worship of the same gods, and by the general
resemblance of the language and mode of writing which they employ.
That the time to which they belong is anterior to the rise of Assyria
to greatness appears from the synchronism of the later monarchs of the
Chaldaean with the earliest of the Assyrian list, as well as from the
fact that the names borne by the Babylonian kings after Assyria became
the leading power in the country are not only different, but of a
different type. If it be objected that the number of thirty kings is
insufficient for the space over which they have in our scheme been
spread, we may answer that it has never been, supposed by any one that
the twenty-nine or thirty kings, of whom distinct mention has been made
in the foregoing account, are a complete list of all the Chaldaean
sovereigns. On the contrary, it is plain that they are a very incomplete
list, like that which Herodotus gives of the kings of Egypt, or that
which the later Romans possessed of their early monarchs. The monuments
themselves present indications of several other names of kings, belonging
evidently to the same series, which are too obscure or too illegible for
transliteration. And there may, of course, have been many others of whom
no traces remain, or of whom none have been as yet found.
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