CHALMEA, oR CIHIALDEA. The Hebrew word is rendered in the A. V. both • : Chaldea ( Jer. 1. to ; Ezek. xi. 24) and Chaldeans ( Job i. 17 ; Is. xxiii. 13). It is a plural noun, and signifies primarily Chaldcans.' But as the country was called Jer. xxv. 12), the same signification came to be given elliptically to in= (Jer. li. 24 ; Ezek. xvi. 29). In the Septuagint the rendering is almost as arbitrary as in the English. Thus it is XaA.Sala in Jer. 1. 10 ; brifeis in Job i. 17 ; but usually XaMaibt. The word Casdim is only found in the Hebrew Scrip tures. All the Greek authors have XaXaciia and XaMaIot. The word in the ancient cuneiform in scriptions is Kaldai (Rawlinson's Herodolus, i. 665, note).
The term Casdim, as the name of a country, is not employed with uniformity of signification in the Bible. It generally means Babylonia ( Jer. xxiv. 5 ; 1i. 24) ; sometimes it is applied to a still wider dis trict, including the whole of Mesopotamia and the regions to which the Casdim tribes had spread (Ezek. i. 3). There caa be little doubt, however, that originally the name was confined to a small province colonized by the remarkable and enter prising tribe of the Casdim. The position and general boundaries of this province we have now sufficient data to define; to a consideration of these data and a description of that province this article is confined. Chaldma is deserving of the attention of every student of biblical literature, because it was not only the native country of the great Hebrew patriarch, but it was, in all probability, the original source and centre of literature and science.
The first notice of Clialda is in Gen. xi. 28, where it is said that Haran died in the land of his nativity, in Ur of Casdim.' Here the word Casdim evidently means a definite territory, taking its name from those who dwelt in it. From the tenth chapter of Genesis we learn that the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and A ccad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.' This land is now generally acknowledged to be the great marshy plain extending on both banks of the Euphrates from Babylon southward to the Tigris. In this region the remains of great cities have been dis covered and explored. Many inscribed bricks, cylinders, and fragments of pottery have been found ; and from these, combined with the notices of ancient historians and native traditions, Sir Henry Rawlin son and other Assyrian scholars have been able to identify the sites of the principal cities mentioned in Genesis. The old cities of the great eastern empire are now represented by huge mounds of rubbish, which rise like islands out of the vast plains, and which contain, buried within and be neath them, the most precious relics of ancient monumental literature. On the right bank of the Euphrates, opposite the mouth of the western arm of the Tigris, are the mounds of 11Ingayer, which mark the site of Ur (Rawlinson's Herodolus, i. 447). Ancient Chaldwa therefore lay, in part at least, along the right bank of the Euphrates. But the inscriptions discovered at Warka and other places shew that Ur, which appears to have been a terri tory as well as a city (comp. Gen. xi. 28), extended across the Euphrates (Loftus, Chal. and Susian. p. 162). Hence Chaldma must have included the extreme southern portion of Mesopotamia. The same view is taken by ancient geographers, who supply still farther information, which the monu ments of Assyria now enable us fully to understand.
Ptolemy (v. 20) places Chaldma in the south-wes tern part of Babylonia, bordering on the Arabian desert. Pliny notices the Chaldmans in several places, distinguishing between Chaldaa proper and the Babylonian empire, which was afterwards called Chaldwa. He calls Babylon the capital of the nations of Chaldma ' (Hist. Nat., vi. 3o), and then he designates the marsh at the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris Locus (vi. 31). He calls Orchenus (the Erech of Genesis and modern Warka) a chief seat of Chaldcean learning, and he says that below the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris you have the Chaldmans dwelling on the left side of the river' (vi. 32). Strabo's testimony is to the same effect. He refers to a tribe of Chal dmans who lived beside the Arabians on the shores of the Persian Gulf; inhabiting a section of Baby lonia (to-7' eat spi3X6v TC TWV XaN.Satcov Kat xcipa 1-C7r Bal3tAcePias eiceivcov olKovuipn, K. T. X. xvi.) Combining these notices, we are enabled to locate Chaldma proper around and below the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, and to distinguish it, besides, from Babylonia. It was bounded on the west by the Arabian desert, on the south by the Persian Gulf, on the east by Susiana and the Tigris, and on the north by Babylonia. Probably a line drawn across Mesopotamia, through the ruins of Niffer, might mark its northern boundary. The whole region is flat and marshy. It was formerly intersected by numerous canals, into which the waters of the Euphrates were turned, for the pur poses of irrigation, by dams and embankments. The canals are now neglected, the channel of the river is choked up with mud, and the waters spread far and wide over the low plain. Great numbers of bare, scorched mounds rise up at intervals, like little islands, marking the sites of the old cities of Chaldma. Among these the mounds of Niffer, Warka, and Mugayer are the largest. Recent excavations have shewn that the Chaldmans were as skilful in architecture as they were in arms and literature. The engraved gems and cylinders also bear witness to their proficiency in the fine arts. The country was not only intersected by navigable canals, but by good roads, which connected the leading towns, and extended to neighbouring coun tries. All is now changed. The once fertile plain has become a wilderness. It is not difficult to account for the rapid decay. The canals which supplied water for irrigation were the sources of life and fertility to the country. When these were neglected, they were soon choked up, the waters ceased to flow, a burning sun parched the soil, and corn fields, gardens, and groves of palms soon dis appeared. Now the waters which once gave rich ness and beauty to the country, converts a large section of it into pestilential marshes, and dense jungles and cane-brakes, where the lion, the pan ther, and the wild boar find a fitting abode. A few Arab tribes still reside here, but they are wild and lawless, and scarcely more intelligent or human than the buffaloes which they tend. Most inte resting and instructive descriptions of ancient Chal dma, with historical notices, will be found in Loftus' Chaldoa and Susiana, Layard's Nineveh and Baby lon, and the papers communicated by Sir Henry Rawlinson to the Royal Geographical and Asiatic Societies.