ASSYRIOLOGY. Assyriology may be defined as that department of study and in vestigation which embraces within its realm the country, people, languages, literature and his tory of ancient Mesopotamia, Babylonia and so much of adjoining countries as shared in the life of the Semitic valley-peoples prior to 538 Lc. The term is often popularly employed to cover a study of those languages written in the cuneiform script, or their immediate ante cedents, the linear and picture methods of writing, current in primeval times in this great river valley. Such a delimitation of our theme would include a study of early Babylonia, As syria, somewhat of Elam and somewhat of later Persia, and slightly of the Greek period. As syriology, therefore, deals with an antiquity which was centred in the great Babylonian Val ley, and embodied in the cuneiform languages.
Age.— This is a comparatively new de partment of research. It has been built up upon the basis of the discoveries of antiquities which have been made during the last three quarters of a century in the countries tributary to the Persian Gulf. The tentacles of this de partment reach out into every phase of ancient Oriental life and knowledge, and require of the modern investigator a comparatively com prehensive understanding of the complexities of that primitive life. This department includes in its sphere some of the most important of all branches of ancient lore. Among these we note especially Semitic philology, general archeology, architecture, sculpture, history, legend, so-called science, and religion. Assyriology has already taken its place as one of the great departments of human knowledge and research. The results of its investigations must now be reckoned with in any estimate of early Semitic legends, tradi tions or history. Its importance to the student of the Old Testament is assuming greater pro portions with each old site overturned by the spade of the excavator. The great museums of Europe and America count among their chief treasures the magnificent colossi, bas-reliefs, slabs, statues and tablets that belong to the department of Assyriology.
The oldest of the governments represented in Assyriology is that centred in the Babylonian Valley. Its earliest known mention at the beginning of the last century was that found in Genesis x, 10, where the beginning of the kingdom of Nimrod is said to have been Babel (Hebrew, 53s) probably the city of Babylon, the land of Shinar" (Hebrew, •Iptit ), a name for lower Babylonia. In post exilic times the country was designated Chal dea, or of the Chaldeansp (Hebrew, OrttlfD ), Ezek. i, 3. Classical writers named this country after Babylon, that metropolitan city of their day, Babylonia, and this name has been attached to it down to the present time.
The next great country covered by Assyri ology is Assyria. The Hebrews called it (Gen. x, 11) Asshur ( ), either the name of a personage, of a city or of a country, probably the last. The translators of the Septuagint called it aacovp and wurvpios, while Josephus, a couple of centuries later, refers to it as AcrervPia• The Arammans named it Athur, or Athuriya, the Persians Arthur& The territory covered by an cient Babylonia was delimited on the west by the Arabian Desert, on the south by the Persian Gulf and Arabian Desert, on the east by Elamite territory backed up by the Zagros Mountains, and on the north by the uplands of Assyria. Assyria proper, in its primitive period, was delimited on the east by the mountains of Kur distan, on the north by those of Armenia, on the south by Babylonia, with an ever-shifting boundary line, and on the west by the western limits of the Tigris Valley and plain. In a word, Assyria was anciently seated in the upper Tigris Valley, in possession of several great city centres.
These two important countries were thus largely guarded by nature from foes on the south and southwest, but were always open to the intrigues of invaders from the east, north or northwest. The historical records of these lands confirm this statement.