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The foundations of material civilization were laid in Egypt and in Babylonia, where the progress made in agriculture and the industrial arts implies a considerable body of empirical knowledge of physics and chemistry at an early date. We have Egyptian textbooks of arithmetic dating from the eighteenth and perhaps from the twelfth dynasty. We have texts dealing with the rudiments of geometry.
At a later date Babylonia itself was conquered by a foreign line of kings, and Canaan recovered its independence. But this was of no long duration. The cuneiform tablets found at Tel el-Amarna in Upper Egypt give us a vivid picture of its condition at the close of the Eighteenth dynasty. The Egyptian power was falling to pieces, and Palestine was threatened by Hittite invaders from the north.
The official religion of the state was that practiced by Cyrus and his predecessors in their native land. The essential doctrines of the religion, commonly known as Mazdeism or Zoroastrianism, presented a sharp contrast to the beliefs that still were current in Babylonia, and it was inevitable that with the influx of new ideas, the further development of Babylonian worship was cut short.
Those of his officials who had accepted “the doctrine” were regarded by Akhenaten as deserving men, and on this ground alone, Ai, called Haya in the Amarna letters, received golden honours to the full. This Haya, who was entitled “beloved royal scribe,” was probably a secretary of state, and was once sent as a special ambassador to Babylonia.
This strict goddess is not to be identified with Istar of Babylonia, although the names are alike. Istar is not a moon-goddess like Ashtoreth; in Babylonia, in fact, the moon is masculine, and the characters of the two goddesses are opposite.
Equally barbarous in style are the early seals and cylinders made in imitation of those of Babylonia. It seems at first sight impossible to believe that such grotesque and child-like beginnings should have ended in the exquisite art of the age of Thothmes III. At that period, however, Canaan already had behind it a long civilized past.
The division of the subject which thus forces itself upon us is twofold, geographical, and historical. It will be necessary to treat first of the beliefs and pantheon developed during the first two periods of Babylonian history, down to the practical conquest of Babylonia by Assyria. Then, turning to Assyria, the traits of the pantheon peculiar to Upper Mesopotamia will be set forth.
On this document the first king of the dynasty is named Gandash, with whom we may probably identify Ulam-Buriash, the Kassite conqueror of the Country of the Sea; the second king is Agum, and the third is Bitiliashi. According to the new chronicle Agum was the son of Bitiliashi, and it would be improbable that he should have ruled in Babylonia before his father.
It may be recognized in Babylonia in the third millennium B.C., and there is no improbability in the supposition that Babylonian influence was felt in Asia Minor and Eastern Europe; but, in view of the number of possibly independent centers of culture in this region in ancient times and the paucity of data, the question may be left open.
The Macedonian army, accordingly, chose Python and Arridæus as guardians, and as rulers with unlimited power over the whole of Alexander's conquests; but, though none of the Greek generals who now held Asia Minor, Syria, Babylonia, Thrace, or Egypt dared to acknowledge it to the soldiers, yet in reality the power of the guardians was limited to the little kingdom of Macedonia.
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