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As a matter of fact, "civilization" never remains long in the same spot. It is always going somewhere but it does not always
move westward by any means. Sometimes its course points
towards the east or the south. Often it zigzags across the map.
But it keeps moving. After two or three hundred years,
civilization seems to say, "Well, I have been keeping company with these particular people long enough," and it packs its
books and its science and its art and its music, and wanders
forth in search of new domains. But no one knows whither it is
bound, and that is what makes life so interesting.
In the case of
Egypt, the
center of
civilization
moved
northward and
southward,
along the banks
of the Nile. First
of all, as I told
you, people
from all over
Africa and
western Asia
moved into the
valley and
settled down.
Thereupon they
formed small
villages and
townships and
accepted the
rule of a
Commander-in-
Chief, who was
called Pharaoh,
and who had his
capital in
Memphis, in the
lower part of
Egypt.
After a couple of
thousand years, the rulers of this ancient house became too
weak to maintain themselves. A new family from the town of
Thebes, 350 miles towards the south in Upper Egypt, tried to
make itself master of the entire valley. In the year 2400 B.C.
they succeeded. As rulers of both Upper and Lower Egypt, they
set forth to conquer the rest of the world. They marched
towards the sources of the Nile (which they never reached) and
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conquered black Ethiopia. Next they crossed the desert of Sinai
and invaded Syria where they made their name feared by the
Babylonians and Assyrians. The possession of these outlying
districts assured the safety of Egypt and they could set to work
to turn the valley into a happy home, for as many of the people
as could find room there. They built many new dikes and dams
and a vast reservoir in the desert which they filled with water
from the Nile to be kept and used in case of a prolonged
drought. They encouraged people to devote themselves to the
study of mathematics and astronomy so that they might
determine the time when the floods of the Nile were to be
expected. Since for this purpose it was necessary to have a
handy method by which time could be measured, they
established the year of 365 days, which they divided into twelve
months.
Contrary to the old tradition which made the Egyptians keep
away from all things foreign, they allowed the exchange of
Egyptian merchandise for goods which had been carried to their
harbors from elsewhere.
They traded with the Greeks of Crete and with the Arabs of
western Asia and they got spices from the Indies and they
imported gold and silk from China.
But all human institutions are subject to certain definite laws of progress and decline and a State or a dynasty is no exception.
After four hundred years of prosperity, these mighty kings
showed signs of growing tired. Rather than ride a camel at the
head of their army, the rulers of the great Egyptian Empire
stayed within the gates of their palace and listened to the
music of the harp or the flute.
One day there came rumors to the town of Thebes that wild
tribes of horsemen had been pillaging along the frontiers. An
army was sent to drive them away. This army moved into the
desert. To the last man it was killed by the fierce Arabs, who
now marched towards the Nile, bringing their flocks of sheep
and their household goods.
Another army was told to stop their progress. The battle was
disastrous for the Egyptians and the valley of the Nile was open
to the invaders.
They rode fleet horses and they used bows and arrows. Within a
short time they had made themselves master of the entire
country. For five centuries they ruled the land of Egypt. They
removed the old capital to the Delta of the Nile.
They oppressed the Egyptian peasants.
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They treated the men cruelly and they killed the children and
they were rude to the ancient gods. They did not like to live in
the cities but stayed with their flocks in the open fields and
therefore they were called the Hyksos, which means the
Shepherd Kings.
At last their rule grew unbearable.
A noble family from the city of Thebes placed itself at the head
of a national revolution against the foreign usurpers. It was a
desperate fight but the Egyptians won. The Hyksos were driven
out of the country, and they went back to the desert whence
they had come. The experience had been a warning to the
Egyptian people. Their five hundred years of foreign slavery had
been a terrible experience. Such a thing must never happen
again. The frontier of the fatherland must be made so strong
that no one dare to attack the holy soil.
A new Theban king, called Tethmosis, invaded Asia and never
stopped until he reached the plains of Mesopotamia. He
watered his oxen in the river Euphrates, and Babylon and
Nineveh trembled at the mention of his name. Wherever he
went, he built strong fortresses, which were connected by
excellent roads. Tethmosis, having built a barrier against future invasions, went home and died. But his daughter, Hatshepsut,
continued his good work. She rebuilt the temples which the
Hyksos had destroyed and she founded a strong state in which
soldiers and merchants worked together for a common purpose
and which was called the New Empire, and lasted from 1600 to
1300 B.C.
Military nations, however, never last very long. The larger the
empire, the more men are needed for its defense and the more
men there are in the army, the fewer can stay at home to work
the farms and attend to the demands of trade. Within a few
years, the Egyptian state had become top-heavy and the army,
which was meant to be a bulwark against foreign invasion,
dragged the country into ruin from sheer lack of both men and
money.
Without interruption, wild people from Asia were attacking
those strong walls behind which Egypt was hoarding the riches
of the entire civilized world.
At first the Egyptian garrisons could hold their own.
One day, however, in distant Mesopotamia, there arose a new
military empire which was called Assyria. It cared for neither art nor science, but it could fight. The Assyrians marched against
the Egyptians and defeated them in battle. For more than
twenty years they ruled the land of the Nile. To Egypt this
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meant the beginning of the end.
A few times, for short periods, the people managed to regain
their independence. But they were an old race, and they were
worn out by centuries of hard work.
The time had come for them to disappear from the stage of
history and surrender their leadership as the most civilized
people of the world. Greek merchants were swarming down upon
the cities at the mouth of the Nile.
A new capital was built at Sais, near the mouth of the Nile, and
Egypt became a purely commercial state, the half-way house for
the trade between western Asia and eastern Europe.
After the Greeks came the Persians, who conquered all of
northern Africa.
Two centuries later, Alexander the Great turned the ancient land
of the Pharaoh? into a Greek province. When he died, one of his
generals, Ptolemy by name, established himself as the
independent king of a new Egyptian state.
The Ptolemy family continued to rule for two hundred years.
In the year 30 B.C., Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemys, killed
herself, rather than become a prisoner of the victorious Roman
general, Octavianus.
That was the end.
Egypt became part of the Roman Empire and her life as an
independent state ceased for all time.
MESOPOTAMIA, THE COUNTRY
BETWEEN THE RIVERS
I am going to take you to the top of the highest pyramid.
It is a good deal of a climb.
The casing of fine stones which in the beginning covered the
rough granite blocks which were used to construct this artificial mountain, has long since worn off or has been stolen to help
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build new Roman cities. A goat would have a fine time scaling
this strange peak. But with the help of a few Arab boys, we can
get to the top after a few hours of hard work, and there we can
rest and look far into the next chapter of the history of the
human race.
Way, way off, in the distance, far beyond the yellow sands of
the vast desert, through which the old Nile had cut herself a
way to the sea, you will (if you have the eyes of a hawk), see
something shimmering and green.
It is a valley situated between two big rivers.
It is the most interesting spot of the ancient map.
It is the Paradise of the Old Testament.
It is the old land of mystery and wonder which the Greeks called
Mesopotamia.
The word "Mesos" means "middle" or "in between" and
"potomos" is the Greek expression for river. (Just think of the Hippopotamus, the horse or "hippos" that lives in the rivers.) Mesopotamia, therefore, meant a stretch of land "between the rivers." The two rivers in this case were the Euphrates which the Babylonians called the "Purattu" and the Tigris, which the Babylonians called the "Diklat." You will see them both upon the map. They begin their course amidst the snows of the
northern mountains of Armenia and slowly they flow through the
southern plain until they reach the muddy banks of the Persian
Gulf. But before they have lost themselves amidst the waves of
this branch of the Indian Ocean, they have performed a great
and useful task.
They have turned an otherwise arid and dry region into the only
fertile spot of western Asia.
That fact will explain to you why Mesopotamia was so very
popular with the inhabitants of the northern mountains and the
southern desert.
It is a well-known fact that all living beings like to be
comfortable. When it rains, the cat hastens to a place of
shelter.
When it is cold, the dog finds a spot in front of the stove. When a certain part of the sea becomes more salty than it has been
before (or less, for that matter) myriads of little fishes swim
hastily to another part of the wide ocean. As for the birds, a
great many of them move from one place to another regularly
once a year. When the cold weather sets in, the geese depart,
and when the first swallow returns, we know that summer is
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about to smile upon us.
Man is no exception to this rule. He likes the warm stove much
better than the cold wind. Whenever he has the choice between
a good dinner and a crust of bread, he prefers the dinner. He
will live in the desert or in the snow of the arctic zone if it is absolutely necessary. But offer him a more agreeable place of
residence and he will accept without a moment's hesitation.
This desire to improve his condition, which really means a
desire to make life more comfortable and less wearisome, has
been a very good thing for the progress of the world.
It has driven the white people of Europe to the ends of the
earth.
It has populated the mountains and the plains of our own
country.
It has made many millions of men travel ceaselessly from east
to west and from south to north until they have found the
climate and the living conditions which suit them best.
In the western part of Asia this instinct which compels living
beings to seek the greatest amount of comfort possible with the
smallest expenditure of labor forced both the inhabitants of the
cold and inhospitable mountains and the people of the parched
desert to look for a new dwelling place in the happy valley of
Mesopotamia.
It caused them to fight for the sole possession of this Paradise
upon Earth.
It forced them to exercise their highest power of inventiveness
and their noblest courage to defend their homes and farms and
their wives and children against the newcomers, who century
after century were attracted by the fame of this pleasant spot.
This constant rivalry was the cause of an everlasting struggle
between the old and established tribes and the others who
clamored for their share of the soil.
Those who were weak and those who did not have a great deal
of energy had little chance of success.
Only the most intelligent and the bravest survived. That will
explain to you why Mesopotamia became the home of a strong
race of men, capable of creating that state of civilization which was to be of such enormous benefit to all later generations.
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THE SUMERIAN NAIL WRITERS
In the year 1472, a short time before Columbus discovered
America, a certain Venetian, by the name of Josaphat Barbaro,
traveling through Persia, crossed the hills near Shiraz and saw
something which puzzled him. The hills of Shiraz were covered
with old temples which had been cut into the rock of the
mountainside. The ancient worshippers had disappeared
centuries before and the temples were in a state of great decay.
But clearly visible upon their walls, Barbara noticed long
legends written in a curious script which looked like a series of scratches made by a sharp nail.
When he returned he mentioned his discovery to his fellow-
townsmen, but just then the Turks were threatening Europe
with an invasion and people were too busy to bother about a
new and unknown alphabet, somewhere in the heart of western
Asia. The Persian inscriptions therefore were promptly forgotten.
Two and a half centuries later, a noble young Roman by the
name of Pietro della Valle visited the same hillsides of Shiraz
which Barbaro had passed two hundred years before. He, too,
was puzzled by the strange inscriptions on the ruins and being a
painstaking young fellow, he copied them carefully and sent his
report together with some remarks about the trip to a friend of
his, Doctor Schipano, who practiced medicine in Naples and who
besides took an interest in matters of learning.
Schipano copied the funny little figures and brought them to the
attention of other scientific men. Unfortunately Europe was
again occupied with other matters.
The terrible wars between the Protestants and Catholics had
broken out and people were busily killing those who disagreed
with them upon certain points of a religious nature.
Another century was to pass before the study of the wedge-
shaped inscriptions could be taken up seriously.
The eighteenth century--a delightful age for people of an active
and curious mind--loved scientific puzzles. Therefore when King
Frederick V of Denmark asked for men of learning to join an
expedition which he was going to send to western Asia, he
found no end of volunteers. His expedition, which left
Copenhagen in 1761, lasted six years. During this period all of
the members died except one, by the name of Karsten Niebuhr,
who had begun life as a German peasant and could stand
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greater hardships than the professors who had spent their days
amidst the stuffy books of their libraries.
This Niebuhr, who was a surveyor by profession, was a young
man who deserves our admiration.
He continued his voyage all alone until he reached the ruins of
Persepolis where he spent a month copying every inscription
that was to be found upon the walls of the ruined palaces and
temples.
After his return to Denmark he published his discoveries for the
benefit of the scientific world and seriously tried to read some
meaning into his own texts.
He was not successful.
But this does not astonish us when we understand the
difficulties which he was obliged to solve.
When Champollion tackled the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics he
was able to make his studies from little pictures.
The writing of Persepolis did not show any pictures at all.
They consisted of v-shaped figures that were repeated endlessly
and suggested nothing at all to the European eye.
Nowadays, when the puzzle has been solved we know that the
original script of the Sumerians had been a picture-language,
quite as much as that of the Egyptians.
But whereas the Egyptians at a very early date had discovered
the papyrus plant and had been able to paint their images upon
a smooth surface, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia had been
forced to carve their words into the hard rock of a mountain side or into a soft brick of clay.
Driven by necessity they had gradually simplified the original
pictures until they devised a system of more than five hundred
different letter-combinations which were necessary for their
needs.
Let me give you a few examples. In the beginning, a star, when
drawn with a nail into a brick looked as follows.
But after a time the star shape was discarded as being too
cumbersome and the figure was given this shape.
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"star," and the
picture was
simplified in this
way
which
made it still
more of a
puzzle.
In the same way
an ox changed
from
into
A fish changed
from
into
The sun,
which was
originally a plain
circle, became
and if we
were using the
Sumerian script
today we would
make an
look like this
You will understand how difficult it was to guess at the meaning
of these figures but the patient labors of a German
schoolmaster by the name of Grotefend was at last rewarded
and thirty years after the first publication of Niebuhr's texts and three centuries after the first discovery of the wedge-formed
pictures, four letters had been deciphered.
These four letters were the D, the A, the R and the Sh.
They formed the name of Darheush the King, whom we call
Darius.
Then occurred one of those events which were only possible in
those happy days before the telegraph-wire and the mail-
steamer had turned the entire world into one large city.
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While patient European professors were burning the midnight
candles in their attempt to solve the new Asiatic mystery,
young Henry Rawlinson was serving his time as a cadet of the
British East Indian Company.
He used his spare hours to learn Persian and when the Shah of
Persia asked the English government for the loan of a few
officers to train his native army, Rawlinson was ordered to go to Teheran. He travelled all over Persia and one day he happened
to visit the village of Behistun. The Persians called it Bagistana which means the "dwellingplace of the Gods."
Centuries before the main road from Mesopotamia to Iran (the
early home of the Persians) had run through this village and the
Persian King Darius had used the steep walls of the high cliffs
to tell all the world what a great man he was.
High above the roadside he had engraved an account of his
glorious deeds.
The inscription had been made in the Persian language, in
Babylonian and in the dialect of the city of Susa. To make the
story plain to those who could not read at all, a fine piece of
sculpture had been added showing the King of Persia placing his
triumphant foot upon the body of Gaumata, the usurper who
had tried to steal the throne away from the legitimate rulers.
For good measure a dozen followers of Gaumata had been
added. They stood in the background. Their hands were tied and
they were to be executed in a few moments.
The picture and the three texts were several hundred feet above
the road but Rawlinson scaled the walls of the rock at great
danger to life and limb and copied the entire text.
His discovery was of the greatest importance. The Rock of
Behistun became as famous as the Stone of Rosetta and
Rawlinson shared the honors of deciphering the old nail-writing
with Grotefend.
Although they had never seen each other or heard each other's
names, the German schoolmaster and the British officer worked
together for a common purpose as all good scientific men
should do.
Their copies of the old text were reprinted in every land and by
the middle of the nineteenth century, the cuneiform language
(so called because the letters were wedge-shaped and "cuneus"
is the Latin name for wedge) had given up its secrets. Another
human mystery had been solved.
But about the people who had invented this clever way of
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writing, we have never been able to learn very much.
They were a white race and they were called the Sumerians.
They lived in a land which we call Shomer and which they
themselves called Kengi, which means the "country of the
reeds" and which shows us that they had dwelt among the
marshy parts of the Mesopotamian valley. Originally the
Sumerians had been mountaineers, but the fertile fields had
tempted them away from the hills. But while they had left their
ancient homes amidst the peaks of western Asia they had not
given up their old habits and one of these is of particular
interest to us.
Living amidst the peaks of western Asia, they had worshipped